Judge Philosophies for the 2014 Chicago Debate Championship

At the Chicago Debate Championship, the CDL will be collecting judge philosophies, detailing the approach individuals employ to judge debates. Judge philosophies can be instructional and educationally useful for teams in their preparations for a tournament. They can also be useful “heuristics” for judges themselves, as they ask judges to reflect on their own thinking about competitive academic debate.

The judge philosophy form asks several brief questions about the kind of debate the judge prefers; debaters can then use this information to tailor their style and arguments to what the approach to competitive academic debate that their judges actually have. If we view judges as educator proxies, judge philosophies ask judges to reflect on their debate pedagogy.

As it did last year, the Chicago Debate League requests that judges at the Chicago Debate Championship complete and submit a judge philosophy form. We are collecting judge philosophy forms on a voluntary basis — there is no penaltyfor those who choose not to complete the form. All judge philosophies will be complied and posted on the CDL website the week of the 2013 Chicago Debate Championship.

Judge philosophy submissions should be sent to Christine (christinehorst@resources.chicagodebates.org) by 5:00pm on March 21st.