Judge (policy Debate) - Mutual Preference Judging

Mutual Preference Judging

Mutual Preference Judging (MPJ) is a practice adopted at some high school and most college policy debate tournaments. MPJ has each debate team rank each judge in the judging pool, and then assigns judges to rounds such that each team likes the assigned judges equally and prefers them as much as possible. MPJ has been criticized by some in the debate community who feel that it rewards niche styles of debating removes the competitive incentive to adapt one's speech to a diverse range of audiences. Others feel that it is necessary because the immense cleavage in the debate community between what arguments are and are not considered legitimate prevents certain judges from being impartial in "clash of civilization debates". Others have even voiced concerns that MPJ reduces the number of rounds judged by women and minority judges, although there is no definitive evidence supporting this assertion. A common complaint even among those who generally support MPJ is that it results in the "balkanization" of the debate community, producing ideological and stylistic enclaves rather than encouraging moderation and adaptation. Ageism is another frequent complaint, since many believe that MPJ appears to favor younger over older critics (although, again, there is no empirical data concerning this).

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Famous quotes containing the words mutual, preference and/or judging:

    Louise Bryant: I’m sorry if you don’t believe in mutual independence and free love and respect.
    Eugene O’Neill: Don’t give me a lot of parlor socialism that you learned in the village. If you were mine, I wouldn’t share you with anybody or anything. It would be just you and me. You’d be at the center of it all. You know it would feel a lot more like love than being left alone with your work.
    Warren Beatty (b. 1937)

    He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging. He ceases not to be free, though the desire of some convenience to be had there absolutely determines his preference, and makes him stay in his prison.
    John Locke (1632–1704)

    One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.
    —G.C. (Georg Christoph)