Lincoln-Douglas Coach at Walt Whitman High School. Competed in both Lincoln-Douglas and Policy Debate in high school and two years of College Policy Debate at Binghamton University.

Add me to the email chain: Siraofla@gmail.com

TOC 2024 Paradigm.

Background: I have spent considerable time judging and researching the military presence topic so I'm confident I will understand most arguments related to the topic.

I'm a good clash judge and a great judge for K v K debates. You have better judge options for everything else, but I am somebody who will evaluate almost anything.

My subjective feelings and opinions.

I'm not opposed to voting on any particular argument, as long as you don't do anything illegal.

I will REALLY appreciate a well debated T debate, especially at the TOC. I think T vs policy AFFs can be an excellent strategy and I think creative 1AR's to topicality are an amazing demonstration of work and well thought out topic research.

New AFF's are good, especially at the TOC. I do not not think you have to disclose if you are breaking new. [THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DROP ARGUMENTS]

In the past, I have been WAY TOO lenient with negative teams, and I'm doing my best to correct for that. I will not be giving any negative ballots to a 2NR filled with tagline extensions (unless the AFF is worse).

I think framework debates in Policy vs K rounds are usually very badly debated. Framework refers to any set of arguments that provide instructions about how to understand other arguments. At some level, ALL weighing arguments are framework arguments.

Enthymemes in debate are a big problem.

I think the AFF gets a permutation.

I do not default judge kick. I can be easily persuaded that judge kick is bad by the 2AR.

Consult counterplans should have a solvency advocate.

Pics are sometimes some of the best research and sometimes the worst.

29.5+ = deep elim contender. 29+ = You should make it to elims.

How to get my ballot.

1. Tell me what the ballot does. IDC what the round is about, judge instruction and ballot framing is ALWAYS important. The first question I ask myself is always, what does it mean to vote aff/neg?

2. Quality > Quantity. One good argument can beat out 10 bad ones.

3. Be better - this is a competition, don't lose.

About Me

I attended and debated for Rutgers University-Newark (c/o 2021). I’ve ran both policy and K affs.

Coach @ Ridge HS in Basking Ridge, NJ.

Influences In Debate

David Asafu – Adjaye (he actually got me interested in college policy, but don’t tell him this), and of course, the debate coaching staff @ RU-N: Willie Johnson, Carlos Astacio, Devane Murphy, Christopher Kozak and Elijah Smith.

The Basics

Yes, I wish to be on the email chain!

saied.beckford@rutgers.edu

COLLEGE POLICY: I skimmed through the topic paper and ADA/ Wake will be my first time judging this season. Do with this information what you wish.

GENERAL: If you are spreading and it’s not clear, I will yell clear. If I have to do that too many times in a round, it sucks to be you buddy because I will just stop flowing and evaluate the debate based on what I can remember. Zoom through your cards, but when doing analytics and line by line, take it back a bit. After all, I can only evaluate what I catch on my flow. UPDATE FOR ONLINE DEBATES: GO ABOUT 70% OF YOUR NORMAL SPEED. IF YOU ARE NOT CLEAR EVEN AT 70%, DON'T SPREAD.

In general, I like K’s (particularly those surrounding Afro-Pess and Queer Theory). However, I like to see them executed in at least a decent manner. Therefore, if you know these are not your forte, do not read them just because I am judging. One recent pet peeve of mine is people just asserting links without having them contextualized to the aff and well explained. Please don't be that person. You will see me looking at both you and my flow with a confused face trying to figure out what's happening. Additionally, do not tell me that perms cannot happen in a method v. method debate without a warrant.

I live for performance debates.

I like to be entertained, and I like to laugh. Hence, if you can do either, it will be reflected in your speaker points. However, if you can’t do this, fear not. You obviously will get the running average provided you do the work for the running average. While I am a flow centric judge, be it known that debate is just as much about delivery as it is about content.

The bare minimum for a link chain for a DA is insufficient 99% of the time for me. I need a story with a good scenario for how the link causes the impact. Describe to me how everything happens. Please extrapolate! Give your arguments depth! It would behoove you to employ some impact calculus and comparison here.

Save the friv theory, bring on those spicy framework and T debates. Please be well structured on the flow if you are going this route. Additionally, be warned, fairness is not a voter 98% of the times in my book. It is an internal link to something. Note however, though I am all for T and framework debates, I also like to see aff engagement. Obviously these are all on a case by case basis. T USFG is not spicy. I will vote on it, but it is not spicy.

For CPs, if they're abusive, they are. As long as they are competitive and have net benefits, we're good.

On theory, at a certain point in the debate, I get tired of hearing you read your coach's coach's block extensions. Could we please replace that with some impact weighing?

Do not assume I know anything when judging you. I am literally in the room to take notes and tell who I think is the winner based on who gives the better articulation as to why their option is better. Therefore, if you assume I know something, and I don’t … kinda sucks to be you buddy.

I’m all for new things! Debating is all about contesting competing ideas and strategies.

I feel as though it should be needless to say, but: do not run any bigoted arguments. However, I’m well aware that I can’t stop you. Just please be prepared to pick up a zero in your speaking points, and depending on how egregious your bigotry is, I just might drop you. Literally!

Another thing: please do not run anthropocentrism in front of me. It’s something I hated as a debater, and it is definitely something I hate as a judge. Should you choose to be risky, please be prepared for the consequences. (Update: voted on it once - purely a flow decision)

For My LD'ers

It is often times difficult to evaluate between esoteric philosophies. I often find that people don't do enough work to establish any metric of evaluation for these kinds of debates. Consequently, I am weary for pulling the trigger for one side as opposed to the other. If you think you can, then by all means, read it!

Yale Update: Tricks are for kids.You might be one, but I am not.

I'm gonna have to pass on the RVIs too. I've never seen a more annoying line of argumentation.

In general, give me judge instructions.

On average, tech > truth --- however, I throw this principle out when people start doing or saying bigoted things.

Den (She/They)

Email:
• For chain, please use crossxnight@gmail.com
• For personal inquiries, contact at dnisecarmna@gmail.com

Background:
• Community Coach @Kelly College Prep (Chicago, IL)
• 4 years of High School Policy Debate experience
• Judging Nat Circuit & UDL Tournaments since '19

Topic Comment(s)

Round Counter: 76

4/4 -- Let's have some fun. Except if you run the Death K. Then perish. Joking aside, run anything you deem fit. This is cities, you should never give your opponents mercy because best believe I never got any. ????

Overview:

I'm experienced with both lay/circuit styles of policy debate. Nevertheless, I default towards a tech over truth style of judging unless said otherwise in-round. In terms of judging preferences, I have none. As evidenced by my judging record, I'm primarily preffed by k-oriented teams. I have judged k v k rounds. I have judged k v fw rounds. k v heg good. Judging these rounds have led me to think of debate in a broader capacity. Despite set preferences, I'm capable of being in back of the room judging stock issues debate.

Overall, I'll do my best to judge rounds fairly. I wholeheartedly appreciate the opportunity to judge. It allows me to better educate myself and teach my students on topic trends and/or strategy innovation.

Chicago/UDL: To answer a common question I get... I judge a multitude number of debates (~40) a year. The debaters I've coached win top speakers & break at locals. My proudest achievement is one of my debaters winning the City Championships! Therefore, I'm confident I'm qualified to judge your round. If you ever have any questions about your rounds, please CC: your coach and reach me at dcarmona16@cps.edu since I'm a school district employee.

What I enjoy:

Disadvantages-- Specific links to affirmatives recommended but generics are fine as long as it's still applicable. In terms of the politics disadvantage, evidence recency takes priority. However, how politicians act > what politicians verbally express. Uniqueness overwhelms the Link is a strong argument.

Kritiks-- Always have specific links to the affirmative. Links predicated off the topic itself doesn't lead to any meaningful educational debate specific to the case being ran. However, that doesn't mean I won't vote for Links of omission if the opposing team fails to answer them. If your strategy entails going for the links as impact turns to the affirmative, tell me explicitly to judge kick the alternative. If the negative has to win that the plan is a bad idea, don't let the alternative weigh the kritik down.

Counterplans-- CP debate is pretty awesome. Multiplank Counterplans are good. Planks that are supported by 1AC authors are even better. I don't have a disdain towards process counterplans. If your counterplan is not carded/supported by evidence in the 1NC, those rounds shape to be an uphill battle for the negative.

Topicality-- For the negative to win Topicality, they must [1] provide a model that best adheres to the topic, [2] exclaim why the affirmative fails to meet that model, [3] flesh out why the negative's model of debate is preferable, [4] evaluating the flow through competing interpretations is best. For the affirmative to beat Topicality, they must [1] explain why they meet the negative's model and/or [2] provide a counter-model that's better for the topic, which leads to [3] more educational and fair debates moving forward. [4] Frame the debate through reasonability.

T-USFG-- Prefer the debate to be framed similar to topicality (better model of debate). However, teams going for the impact turn(s) are welcome to do so. Affirmative teams running an advocacy statement tend to go for "the negative's model of debate is inherently worse, therefore by default the judge should vote for the affirmative's model". Definitely, the best approach when 1ACs are built to counter FW by embedding claims on the game of debate and how to best approach the topic. However, I have seen my fair share of critical affirmative's that.. could be read on any other topic. Negative teams, emphasize switch side debate. Provide TVA(s) under your model of debate. Explain the affirmative's burden and the negative's role in this game. Convince me that the negative should be the one reading all these different theory of powers against teams defending a policy. If they break structural rules such as going over speech time, call it out. Procedural fairness leads to better education. Don't rely too heavily on portable skills, I typically buy claims that people rarely become policymakers after this activity.. I'm a graphic designer for reference.

***If your arguments are descriptive in its explicit/graphic content, please provide a trigger warning pre-round. Let's avoid going to tab at all costs and/or having a procedural ran on you. I will stop the round if the other team deems the environment as uncomfortable.

Hall of Famers---

Rats: Kelly Lin, Lisa Gao, Ramon Rodriguez

Learned From: Armando Camargo, Juan Chavez, Jocelyn Aguirre, Leobardo Ramos, Scott Dodsworth

Hello, I'd prefer to remain anonymous but I would like to contribute. If that's a disqualifying issue then it's no problem but I figured the tournament might need some help.

T/L

I think debate is a game but if there are structural problems with the game they can be pointed out and discussed. I am best at evaluating policy debates but I can evaluate more kritikal debates as well. I've read a lot of different K literature and am pretty well versed in it save for Bataille. Basically, if you want to run a specific strat, go for it. I'm a pretty flexible judge ideologically and will attempt to evaluate what is put in front of me and nothing more. However, like every judge, it's impossible for me to be tabula rasa and I have predispositions I should inform you of. I don't hold to these however. I want to see debaters that adjust to the debate more than they do the judge. This is a competitive activity first, not a solely performative activity a la forensics. You should win because you're a good debater, not because you gave me a better intellectual handjob than your opponent.

K Affs

See above. My philosophy on these isn't actually that complicated. My beef with K affs is that they either defend nothing, their offense isn't tied to debating, or both. I'd prefer if you defend spillover but if there's a disadvantage to policy debates on this topic that you think outweighs topicality, go for it. Generally though I lean toward T being good but I have no problem evaluating these debates. I'm inherently turned off by performative hostility for reasons I don't feel comfortable disclosing here.

Ks

I like well-developed, clear link stories that clash with the affirmative and turn the case. You won't have to explain your theory of power to me so much as you have to explain how it applies to the affirmative specifically. I'm not a huge fan of critical debaters who attempt to garner non-unique links to the affirmative but I'm not gonna throw them out either. If that's your strat, go for it. Another thing is that if you can find a way the action of the plan triggers your impact you will be immensely far ahead. That's my favorite part about kritik debates if the debaters set it up correctly. It will also mean the aff will be much harder pressed to win impacts outweigh once you have a case turn and a big impact the aff directly contributes to. I understand that's not a lot of kritikal debates, so if you plan on going for the K you don't need to do this and I've no problem with evaluating a "plainer" (for lack of a better term atm) K debate.

Please don't read Fem IR in front of me. That's all I ask.

Side note: I generally get lost in super long overviews during the 2NC. Make it easy for me to follow along - help me help you. Do your explanations on the LBL. Also, if I don't know what your alt does and you haven't kicked it, you're probably going to lose.

T

I think T-LPR and T-Tasoff are both really stupid, but since they are meta I will treat them as well as any other judge. Although I enjoy T debates, I think almost all of them on this topic are just excuses not to engage in the affirmative. I think Tasoff limits out too many affs while allowing really stupid ones. I'm persuaded by both reasonability and competing interpretations so the debating will have to be done there. Don't assume I default to either one. I'll decide based on the work the aff and neg do during the debate which one is more important.

CP

Conditionality is necessary for the negative to test the affirmative - I'm hard pressed to find a 2AC that was hurt by a bunch of conditional advocacies. This doesn't mean I hate theory debates - I don't - but the affirmative needs to do a good job explaining why they were hurt in this debate by conditionality. I'm more prone to agree with extremes because there is an aspect to which reading a bunch of CPs and Ks and then spending 8 minutes on one in the 2NC basically starts the debate after the 2AC.

Please, please have solvency advocates for your planks. I don't care if you the individual debater thinks UNCLOS will solve international law. Find a piece of evidence that says that. This is a competitive research activity. You the individual debater does not have the education or experience to just make shit up out of thin air. There's a reason you can't even vote yet. I lean heavily toward affs that go for solvency advocate theory as reason to reject the team and I will almost always default to rejecting the argument at worst. This topic I've noticed tons of adv CPs pop up without advocates and it's really frustrating to watch the negative do warrant analysis on cards while the aff goes "generic solvency deficit" and the negative spins it however they want because there's no stable basis to hold them to. I'll end my rant on that here.

PICs, int'l fiat, 50 state fiat, process CPs are all up my alley and theoretically fair in my opinion.

If no one says anything, I'm gonna judge kick the CP and evaluate the DA if the negative loses the CP but wins the DA. The disadvantage is still a reason the aff is bad, and if it outweighs the affirmative then as a policymaker there's no reason I should do the aff if it's worse than the status quo. Just because someone introduced a counterplan to solve it and it turns out it actually doesn't solve it doesn't make the DA suddenly untrue.

DA

Don't be afraid to sit teams down on a DA/Case 2NR. These are easier wins than most 2Ns think. Have the balls to go for these and put the onus on your raw skills. That said, there are 3 critical components you need to do, especially on immigration, to make it as easy as possible to win my ballot. First and most important is impact calc. MAKE TIME TO DO IT. Do comparative analysis about why the consequences of the DA are worse than the status quo and outweigh the affirmative's positive changes to the status quo. This strat is the biggest brain and is highly persuasive. Second, don't forget to turn the case even if the other guys have solid impact defense, a case turn functions similarly to a counterplan in my risk calc in that if you win the case turn, even a low risk of the DA's impact means the disad outweighs. Third, go to case. Make the 2AR's life hard. If the 2AR has to spend time explaining the affirmative, that's less time telling me about how stupid the disadvantage is. I'm also 100% comfortable with voting negative on presumption. Do not be afraid to go for that in front of me.

My threshold for understanding how a DA functions is pretty low. There's an astonishing amount of judges who get easily confused by internal link chains. This isn't high theory, so the storytelling burden shouldn't be that high when accessing your impact. Your case turn storytelling, however, matters. Internal links don't confuse me and case turns don't either. This doesn't mean you get to be lazy about your analysis.

I'm predisposed to extinction first and consequentialism.

Affirmative

Highly technical argumentation is good. Judges often feel too much social pressure to reward 2As for making good analytic arguments in the 2AC. The "normal means is that the house doesn't meet again until after midterms" should have nerfed every midterms 2NR ever. Not even super techy, but a solid example I think. Don't be afraid to be smart while also reading your block of cards.

None of the advantage CPs solve your aff - make solvency deficits and please always perm the cp even if you know it's dumb.

See solvency advocate rant above. Applies just as much here. Don't be scared of T interp debates.

Do impact calc. Your aff almost always solves the DA. If it's a soft left aff I'm already questioning your strategic capabilities with you reading one in the first place but obviously go for framing.

Random stuff

Prep stealing: obviously I can't see you, but practice not doing it. Honestly though, little prep stealing here and there is really not a big deal because everyone does it and if you say you don't you're a liar.

Don't clip cards. Big duh. I will drop you if I notice it.

Pronouns - call me whatever. You'll never see me IRL so don't worry about misgendering or anything. Whether it's "she" or "big dumb jackass" I've probably earned whatever you're calling me so dw about it. Let me know what you want me to call you though so we can get that record set quick. I'd rather not hurt anyone. Help me help you.

Debated for 4 years at Moore High School, and going into my third year of college debate at the University of Oklahoma.

Do whatever. It's come to this point where my paradigm is too many words and has no bearing on how I evaluate rounds. I'll give you a detailed 'roadmap' if you prefer.

My pronouns are they/them.

The following things below were written in March at 3 AM. This'll probably be confusing for you as it is for me, so defer to the words I said above.

Speed: I'm cool with it... given that clarity is always better than speed. This being said, you should emphasize certain words in your taglines and analytics to not only give you ethos, but establish certain things I should look for in your arguments. This being said, I would much rather you slow down on your taglines and distinguish them from your cards. Train effect for bonus speaks.

Kritiks: I've spent most of my debate career reading these arguments in a one-off style. Specificity is key especially to Affirmatives. Quote-pulling would be my favorite, as long as they are contextualized in your speeches before the 2NR. I've read a lot of literature whether it be cards, articles, or books, but that doesn't mean I know all of the nuances even in my best studies. I think the best strategy regardless is to win the framework debate on either team.

K AFFs: Do it. You certainly should have justifications for your method, such as reasons they're good or whether your scholarship is key for debate, the round, or even external forces. Topic ties would be better, especially to hedge back against framework teams. That being said, use case as offense.

Framework: Framework is the best example that contests two models of debate. Each team should have reasons or net-benefits as to why these models are better. What makes framework even more convincing as a strategy is to also have a Topical Version of the Affirmative (please give a plan text)... bonus if there's a solvency advocate. Otherwise win reasons as to why your model creates the best way to adjudicate fairness and/or education or why institutions like the USFG are good.

Dis-Advantages: I think generally as a negative strategy you should have a specific and/or contextual link strategy to the affirmative. That being said, general links will probably not suffice, unless the link goes conceded. Disads are most certainly the best offensive policy strategy to outweigh the advantages of the affirmative so please do the dying art: impact calculus.

Counterplans: Counterplans are pretty cool. You should always have a net-benefit (internal and/or external) so it gives me an offensive reason that I should vote Negative. Otherwise, it gives me more of a chance to vote Affirmative either on the permutation or solvency alone. I would much rather prefer functional competitiveness on a counterplan only because I have to evaluate policy options.

Topicality: I believe the same thing goes for topicality debates: why is your interpretation a better model of debate? How does(n't) it explode or over-limit? Do I default to competing interpretations or reasonability? This is definitely a debate more about tech than truth.

Tech > truth in most instances.

I will NOT ever vote for racism/sexism/transmisogyny/ableism/etc. You'll either lose the debate round or all of your speaks... or most likely both.

Strake Jesuit Class of 2020

Fordham 2024

Email - hatfieldwyatt@gmail.com

Debate is a game, first and foremost.

I qualified for the TOC Junior and Senior years and came into contact with virtually every type of argument

Summary of my debate style - I just enjoyed the activity while reading all types of arguments with my own spin on them. I think debate is often boring with debaters just reading blocks and not being innovative.

Please note that I have strong opinions on what debate should be, but I will not believe them automatically every round they have to be won just like any other argument. Tech>truth no exceptions.

Triggers - French Revolution and Freemasonry

I am not a fan of identity-based arguments. Please don't run arguments that are only valid based on your or your opponent's identity.

Speaks -

How to get good speaks 29-29.5

• be entertaining either with good music, good jokes etc
• making arguments that I like or agree with; this includes Catholicism and Monarchism.
• Style
• Reference something from Scooby-Doo

How to get 30

• Define the 4 Marian Dogmas
• Explain Unam Sanctam
• Explain who you think the greatest monarch is and why
• Explain who you think the greatest Saint is and why
• Recite the our father or hail mary in latin

How to get low speaks

- Having bad strategy choice

-being really rude or mean

- Swearing or cursing, try to keep it professional and respectful, please

Styles of Debate -

I will vote on all of them if I see your winning them

Tricks - 1

Larp - 2

Phil - 1

K - 3

Theory - 1

K performance - 5

0. tl;dr - read this before rounds

"takes his job seriously, but not himself." i judge an extremely large volume of debates every year. these days, it's mostly an even mix of very dense disad, case, and counterplan debates and the more technical side of K debates, but in years past i would likely have best been described as a professional clash judge. i get substantially fewer performance debates and LD "phil" rounds, so i lack comparative experience in those areas, but i am still probably better for them than an average judge, and i enjoy them when executed well. i read policy strategies in high school and the K in college, so i enjoy judging both and am loyal to voting for neither. i evaluate debates as offense/defense, but risk calculus still matters a lot to me and i am (semi-)willing to pull the trigger on zero risk. i try to be very flow-centric and value "technical" execution and direct refutation above "truth", but i don't think that means bad arguments aren't still bad. i don't flow off the doc, so you can go as fast as you want but i will be unforgiving of low clarity. while i did most of our aff writing in college, i am, at my core, a die-hard 2N. that probably tells you more useful info about my debate views than anything else in this paradigm, but you can scroll down to the specifics section regarding arguments in the round you're expecting to have - most of the meat of this paradigm is here for doing prefs. i'm very expressive, but probably overall a bit grumpy for reasons unrelated to you. Wheaton's law is axiomatic, so please be kind, and show me you're having fun. please don't call me "judge", "Mr.", or "sir" - patrick, pat, fox, or p.fox are fine. "act like you've been here."

I. operating procedure + non-negotiables

1. he/him/his - you should not misgender people.

2. pleaselearntoflow@gmail.com -

a. I strongly prefer email chains. Please have the doc sent before start time. If the round starts at 2:00, I expect the 1AC email at 1:58 so we can start at start time. Every minute the chain is late after start time is -0.1 speaks for the 1A – things are getting ridiculous. You should avoid any risk of any of this by just setting up the email chain when you do disclosure at the pairing. Format subject lines for email chains as "Tournament Round - Aff Entry vs Neg Entry" (e.g: "NDT 2019 Octos - Wake EF vs Bing AY").

b. Prep ends when the doc is sent. It is 2023, you should know how to compile and send a speech document efficiently, stop stealing prep. If you are having difficulty, I suggest Verbatim drills. No, that is not a joke.

3. I flow on my laptop. I have hearing damage in my left ear, so ideally I am positioned to the right of whoever is speaking. I sometimes get sensory overload issues, so I may close my eyes/put my head down/stare off into the distance during speeches - I promise I'm not sleeping or zoned out, and even if not looking at my screen, I will definitely still be flowing.

4. i will make minimal eye contact during any given debate, and will likely have a resting grumpy face, so don’t worry much about those specific things. That said, I'm comically expressive. It's not on purpose, and I've tried to stop it with no luck - I just have a truly terrible poker face. I shake my head and scowl at nonsense, I grin and nod when I think you're doing the right thing, I shrug when I am lukewarm on an argument, I cock my head and raise my eyebrows if I am confused, and I chuckle if you make reference to any of these reactions in the speech (which I am fine with).

5. the safety of students is my utmost concern above the content of any debate. crossing this line is the only way you can legitimately piss me off. Avoid it. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, etc. will not be tolerated under any circumstances, and I am more willing to act on this on my own accord than most judges you have had (i.e: I have submitted a ballot mid-1AR before due to egregious misconduct). You should not attempt to toe this line.

6. entirely uninterested in adjudicating the character of minors i don't know. there are channels for these issues and mechanisms to resolve them, but debates and ballots are not among them. if you have genuine concerns about safety regarding the person you are debating, i am happy to be an advocate for you and get you in touch with the appropriate tournament tab staff to resolve the issue. if you genuinely feel this way, please take me up on this offer - just let me know discreetly via email, messenger, etc. keep in mind, as an employee of a state institution, i am a mandatory reporter.

- people seem to think they're smart in saying that this means "you can't vote on disclosure" - this is false for two reasons: a. i can vote on anything i want, and b. round starts at the pairing, not just the 1AC.

II. core principles

1. debate is a competitive activity centered around research and persuasion, one winner and loser, no outside participation, nothing worse than PG13, the usual.

2. debated for Kealing, Jack C Hays, and University of Houston. if i were to describe my career with a word, it would be "unremarkable". if i get five words, i'd add "irrelevant to this paradigm". i coach HS policy at Dulles, HSLD at a few different places, and help out Houston. former coaches include J.D. Sanford, Richard Garner, Rob Glass, James Allan, and Michael Wimsatt. favorite judges included Alex McVey, DML, Devane Murphy, Scott Harris, Kris Wright, and David Kilpatrick. colleagues (and former students) i likely align with include Eric Schwerdtfeger, David Bernstein, Ali Abdulla, Sean Wallace, Luna Schultz, Avery Wilson. of all these people, i align particularly closely with Garner, Bernstein, Abdulla, and Avery.

3. i think the ethos of judging is best distilled by Yao Yao: "I believe judging debates is a privilege, not a paycheck". That means I will not be half-flowing speeches while texting friends, I will not be checking Twitter or spacing out during CX, I will not "rep out", and I will not rush my decision to get back to my own team faster. The most important factor in my own growth as a debater and the most helpful info as a coach has always been well-thought judge feedback, and I think – especially during and post-eDebate – the attention span and work ethic of the average judge has massively declined. I refuse to contribute to what I find to be an alarming trend in many people shirking their responsibility to the community to adjudicate even "boring" or "low-level" debates to the best of their ability. I fundamentally believe no debate is any less or more important than any other, so expect me to judge NCX R1 as if it was TOC finals. i judge a lot - in for ~100 debates a season - for three reasons: a. I think judging is a skill, and requires practice to maintain, b. judging makes me better at coaching and strategically benefits my students, and c. I love debate. some judges seem to have lost the zeal by now, but i still get excited about novel critical affs, interesting disads and turn case arguments, and dense competition debates. I am at a tournament almost every weekend, so I am reasonably aware of community norms and have decent experience with the techne of judging. Just focus on executing, and don't be afraid to take risks.

4. i get my core ideology for judging from Richard Garner: "I try to evaluate the round via the concepts the debaters in the round deploy (immanent construction) and I try to check my personal beliefs at the door (impersonality). These principles structure all other positions herein." "non-interventionist" is silly, because intervention is inevitable. everyone has a different threshold on "too new", "unpredictable cross-applications", "good evidence", because we all resolve implicit questions differently due to prior knowledge and personal affinities. if debaters instruct us to resolve those questions explicitly, it saves me the effort of doing my own evaluations, which means less work for me, which is indicative of better debating by you. I care much less about ideological alignment than a consistent threshold of quality at the level of form (clear claim, sufficient warrant, complete implication). overall, i try to be a good judge for any research-heavy strategy, and I think the best rounds are small, vertically dense debates over a stable controversy. i have voted on "killing all white people good", heg good, "Kant's humanist ethics solves all of racism", death good, the Tetlock counterplan, and condo bad (twice, wholly dropped). each of these arguments is worse than the last, but i voted on all of them. take this as you will.

5. even with the above, probably not a true blank slate – I would consider myself a worse judge than average for theory arguments as reasons to drop the debater, "tricks", counterplans that fiat actors not used by the 1AC or lack germane net benefits, "clash" impacts, the "ballot PIK", the politics disad, condo bad, "RVIs", and “1% risk of extinction”, and much better for skills impacts and fairness, critical affirmatives that counterdefine words, “uniqueness controls the link”, counterplanning in/out of offense and general “negative terrorism”, presumption against critical affs, framework arguments that “delete the plan”, and extra-topical plans. I tend to have a high threshold for a warrant, a low threshold to punish bad-faith practices, and I value quality evidence highly. This is not exhaustive, and may indicate my inclinations to reward or penalize with speaker points. However, if any of these views kick in during my decision, the debating at play was either very lacking or absolutely perfect. Short of a few very baseline things (offense/defense, flowing, decision times, Toulmin model, etc), any of these predispositions can be reversed. if i were coaching someone to win in front of me, my principal advice would be to be as explicit about how I should piece the debate together as humanly possible, so as to minimize the risk of any of my predispositions coming into play.

III. topic thoughts

this section is under construction - you can check back after policy camp!

IV. specifics

1. disads + case

a. evidence: this applies to everything, but putting it in this section since it's first and i'm grumpy about it. generally agree with Dallas Perkins: “if you can’t find a single sentence from your author that states the thesis of your argument, you may have difficulty selling it to me.” how i conclude on the quality of evidence relates to its production (authors, methodologies), its context (specificity, recency), and it's presentation (spin, highlighting/cutting). lots of old heads are signaling concerns about the third lately, which i enthusiastically co-sign - i am unsure why debater getting faster than ever correlates to cards being highlighted to say less, not more, but i would like it to stop. also agree very much with David Bernstein: “Intuitive and well reasoned analytics are frequently better uses of your time than reading a low quality card. I would prefer to reward debaters that demonstrate full understanding of their positions and think through the logical implications of arguments rather than rewarding the team that happens to have a card on some random issue.” generally think that lots of advantages, disads, and counterplans lose to 10 seconds internal link and solvency takeouts, but teams are too scared to make arguments without cards. i think this is due to the assumption that all cards are of sufficient quality to meet the standard of "evidence" - i think many (possibly most, these days) do not. I try to restrain my natural ev hack tendencies, but will take any opportunity given to exercise them - this means that while i will reward good and punish bad evidence, the onus is on the debaters to tell me what lens i should read cards through to make that happen.

b. most of what i judge these days and read in high school lives here. “turns case/disad” usually path to victory. dense engagement with internal links and close readings of evidence usually path to “turns case/disad”. ideally, these args are carded, but maybe not necessary if straightforward. good debating is comparative here, i.e: impact calc isn't "yes/no impact" but "higher/lower risk bc..." - anything else is fundamentally inconsistent with the basis of offense/defense.

c. uq probably controls link, but care less about this in the abstract and more when debated relative to specific scenarios – large enough link might overwhelm small uq (econ disad), but maybe uq/link are just yes no (agenda politics).

d. straight turning the case likely all-time favorite thing to judge. uniqueness good, might not be necessary with sufficiently comparative evidence.

e. politics disad legitimacy negatively correlates to stupidness of arg. agenda or court capital kinda dumb but probably allowed, but rider disad = total non-starter. can conceivably vote aff on intrinsicness/theory vs agenda politics, but unsure theory is worth effort vs just beating them, they're bad args. teams should include args in 2ACs to elections about the fact that American voters are often dumber than rocks.

f. inserting rehighlighting fine for “concludes neg”, “concedes thumpers”, etc, but offensive/new arguments should probably be read aloud. debaters likely need to put ink on this for me to disregard insertions of the latter kind, but particularly egregious instances may warrant intervention on my part. i think a lot of old heads' gripes with this practice is that debaters tend to not actually debate rehighlightings as evidence and explain what they mean, they just use them as a "gotcha" and never implicate it, which encourages laziness. don't do this.

2. counterplans

a. comfortable. i think about these debates for fun the most. state of counterplan (and plan) texts + solvency advocates is an atrocity. this should implicate more debates than it does. my favorite debates to judge are likely old-school advantage counterplan debates, but i am not a priori bad for process/competition strategies.

b. most modern process counterplans have large disconnects between solvency and impact evidence for the net benefit and, if thought about for all of three seconds, are patently insane ideas that would likely collapse basic principles of government and be perceived as such by anyone watching (this is a subtweet of uncooperative federalism - all 50 states immediately ending all cooperation with the fed over a super niche issue would set the economy, our alliances, legal precedent, and basically everything else on fire). both of these issues should be the primary basis of 2AC deficits and defense.

c. competition is fully yes/no, because it's a procedural question. other than that, offense/defense - 2N/ARs should frame my ballot in terms of the impact to the risk of a deficit vs the risk of a net benefit. i care a lot about arguments like sufficiency framing, uniqueness, and try-or-die here.

d. more 2ARs should go for perm shields link/counterplan links to net benefit. most counterplans are kind of stupid and fiat more sweeping things than solvency advocates actually assume (i.e: states, concon). teams seem to be scared of having these debates absent evidence, but shouldn't be.

e. “do both” and “do counterplan” are not arguments, they are taglines. if said with no further analysis, they will be evaluated as such. permutations other than "do both" or "do counterplan" require precise texts (inserting it in the doc is fine, but function should be explained fully during the speech).

f. functional competition is good, important in real-world decisions, and i am comfortable with these debates. textual competition bad, largely irrelevant, and has never made sense to me. positional competition induces feelings in me too dark and evil to name here. "normal means" is just the most likely process by which the mandate of the plan brings about its effects. quality of evidence for both definitions and normal means determines ability to win counterplan competition/legitimacy.

g. unsure why debaters seem to think "certainty" or "immediacy" are key to neg ground/legitimate basis for competition, when zero neg literature ever assumes either because that's not how real world policy works. also unsure why the mandate of the plan being immediate/certain means the effects must also be. more aff teams should point both these things out in competition debates.

h. default no judge kick. can be compelled to do so, but have yet to judge a single debate in my many years where me kicking the counterplan has helped the negative. probably more worth it to just actually pick a 2NR and either go all in on the counterplan or case.

3. kritik

a. familiar (understatement). most of what i coach and read in college lives here. best advice for neg debaters is for the love of god, delete your overview. just start on the line by line, your speeches will be so much better. best advice for aff debaters is use the aff more, and probably read fewer cards. i care substantially less about a2 afropessimism card #9 compared to evidence or explanations about how 1AC internal links interact with/disprove the K. while i personally agree with the K's politics more of the time, in my heart and soul i think about debate like a policy 2N - in my mind, the best versions of these debates play out as aggressive, detailed disagreements about the value of the aff backed by lots of cards. as such, i tend to vote neg when the K team precludes the 2AR on "case o/w" through some combination of framework, turning the case, detailed alternative debating, and having a real impact, and i vote aff when the policy team has robustly defended their aff and internal links as both a counterexample to and offense against the K through some combination of framework, impact or link turns, serious objections to the alternative, and impact comparison. the less that one side does this (i.e: the fiat K, brute forcing heg with the card dump and nothing else, etc) the more i start thinking about voting the other way.

b. framework debating often frustratingly shallow. often unsure what win conditions are under neg models of debate or how winning it actually changes how i evaluate the round. often unsure what terminal to aff offense is and how it interacts with neg args about scholarship. refuse to do the “middle ground” thing if nobody tells me to, though, and generally think you’re better off just saying “delete the plan” or “plan focus” anyways. compromise is cowardly in these debates.

c. K 2NRs tend to be too wide and not deep. extend fewer arguments, do more analysis and answer more aff args. link/impact turns case is good, but framework or alt solves case might make it unnecessary, so why do all three?

d. aff teams link turn and impact turn in the 2AC and pretend it’s coherent. Neg teams should punish this more. aff teams should defend what their aff is equipped to defend and not pretend it can or will do anything else. permutations are overrated. Case outweighs + deficit + framework usually easier and better. most perms are just do both wearing different silly hats and glasses. perm double bind stupid argument.

e. “extinction first” can be a great asset, but it’s not the end all be all, and most teams forget that even if extinction isn’t automatically first, their impact is still probably bad. similarly, care less about “extinction focus bad” than “the way the aff deploys extinction in their scenario is bad bc”. “alt can’t solve case” is usually true, but not relevant if they win turns case/K o/w. “alt can’t solve links/impacts” is much more interesting and persuasive. Root cause args are often stupid.

4. critical affirmatives/framework

ADDENDUM - February '24: i find myself voting affirmative in framework debates more often than i used to. i am not worse for framework - i still think debates are likely on-balance better when the aff is constrained by a plan (despite my reputation for thinking otherwise), so i suspect this is due to two reasons: a. neg teams are getting sloppier at actually line-by-lining or responding to aff arguments (bad), while aff teams are getting more technical and comparative (good), and b. neg teams are not answering case or extending an external impact, they're just rambling about "clash" and have no offense beyond a vague turns case arg without uniqueness. I suspect this is caused by teams being so terrified by the word "subjectivity" that they are unwilling to actually say "yes, debate changes you, and we think the way our model changes you is good and outweighs the aff's offense". this is both unstrategic and cowardly, and the 2AC is going to say that stuff anyways, even if you try to dodge the link.

So, I think there are two solutions to this problem:

1. Make neg teams read real impacts again. Big skills impacts with cards are valuable because they are always external to the case and usually much larger, and give you access to the same genre of turns case arguments as "clash", but also let you have something that outweighs the aff.
   
2. Debate case more. Neg teams need to directly answer 1AC thesis arguments about things like affect/desire/ontology/scholarship/etc to preclude the 2AR from (smartly) weaponizing conceded thesis args as uniqueness/solvency for their offense.
   

if you extended the econ disad against the econ aff, but forgot to extend a uniqueness argument or answer aff internal links, you would not be surprised when you lost. Unsure why people are surprised in this context when it's the exact same issue.tl;dr - "clash" is stupid, read a real skills impact, preferably with cards. rant end.

a. good for both sides of clash debates, but i have judged (too) many, so lots of things about them annoy me. on balance, i am inclined to think debate is a game, and like any game it's benefits and incentives are inevitably structured to reward playing for keeps, but it should probably be worth playing for more than it's own sake, and can be played in more than one way. i am not a priori bad for planless affs, but i think a model of debate that doesn't force some constraints on aff creativity and some degree of side-switching seems to lack both competitive viability and intellectual interest.full disclosure: i am likely to give lower speaks in framework debates than other debates of similar quality, due to constant déjà vu robbing any joy from the content. speaks go back up when debaters stay organized and do deep engagement instead of just dueling with blocks.

b. neg teams historically win my ballot in framework debates more because they tend to do more judge instruction and stay organized.aff pet peeves are 1ACs that say and do nothing, very amenable to presumption. aff teams also tend to grandstand too much in rebuttals and not give organized speeches - don't do that. neg pet peeves are taking begged questions as self-evident, usually makes link to aff offense better. neg teams tend to not contextualize arguments to 1AC theories and also forget to explain an impact - do that stuff. i think both 2N/ARs would be better served doing more work with the language of impact calculus, i.e: "turns case/turns framework", "outweighs", "uniqueness controls direction of offense", etc - teams are generally okay at warranting their impact but bad at implicating it.

c. debates are cleaner the earlier the neg picks one single impact and sits on it. "clash" is kind of fake and never amounts to more than a case turn, skills arguments are criminally underrated, and nobody seems to explain fairness particularly well. ssd and tva are often overprioritized over smarter defense to aff args, but also underutilized as offensive arguments in their own right - i actually think the most interesting part of debate is the way being aff or neg on a given topic force you to apply research and theories to the specifics of a topical advocacy or a link argument, and tend to think models that don't make debaters do these things end up robbing debate of most of it's intellectual rigor.

d. people forget K affs are affs. this means normal arguments about functional competition probably apply to silly PICs ("frame subtraction"), and also means solvency and impact debates are fair game. if evenly debated, i think turning the case is likely always harder to answer and more interesting to judge than framework, given that the aff has way more practice. seems weird we all agree topicality against every policy aff would be an insane neg prep regimen, even if it's occasionally strategic, but we do this for K affs. the 2N in me truly thinks there's always a best answer to every aff, and while sometimes that answer is indeed topicality, it's not nearly the answer as often as round reports would lead you to believe.

e. idk why the neg gets counterplans if the aff doesn’t read a plan. if the basis of neg fiat is that counterplans present an opportunity cost, the only non-arbitrary actor the negative gets to fiat is the aff one, which means if the aff doesn’t fiat government policy, seems weird we think the neg gets to just because. makes more sense to read “policy engagement good, k2 check populism/’cede the political’/etc” as a disad or alternative argument vs these affs.

f. i would very much like to judge more critical affs with plans. i think most neg teams are much worse at justifying utilitarianism and liberal policy-making than they should be, and would consider myself to be extremely good for teams that contest extinction first, consequentialism, and the like. a team that executed this well in front of me would get speaker points bordering on stupidly high.

g. K v K debates live and die by the quality of negative link args and net benefits for the permutation. i always went for the cap K in these debates in college because i found most 2ACs to it to be sloppy and easily answered by a robust knowledge of marxism and history, and think this also applies to most other Ks you can read in these debates, but lots of these debates suck because 2Ns explain links and alternatives badly, which lets the 2AR get away with murder. lots of these rounds collapse into who can shout "root cause" louder, but i usually care much more about impact calculus and the direction of turns case and solvency (and these args are usually much truer anyways). 2A/NC framework arguments are usually missing and missed in these debates. i definitely live on the more technical side of K debate, but i'm not anti-performance-y stuff at all, and enjoy those debates a lot when i get them.

5. topicality

a. better than average for it, most likely. evidence matters a lot – i would say inasmuch as i am an "ev hack", it's most likely to matter in these debates. in the absence of good evidence on either side (most debates these days), i will likely lean affirmative, but few things are of such beauty as sniping an aff on a well-carded T violation that has clearly been thought through. predictability and topic controversies matter much more to me than limits as an intrinsic good, which makes me worse but gettable for args about "its", "in", etc, and probably bad for args solely about grammar.

b. lots of negative evidence is abhorrent in terms of actually establishing a violation (i.e: intent to exclude), lots of aff evidence is trash at actually defining things how the aff claims (i.e: intent to include). reubttals should make this matter more, either to make we-meets/violations more compelling or magnify links to precision/limits.

c. PTIV is possibly not the greatest model, but alternatives are usually badly explained in ways that devolve into positional competition which is godless.

d. violations are yes/no, and so we meets do not require external offense or defense. other than that, offense/defense means i value impact calculus and comparative analysis (caselists, etc) highly. reasonability is a question of the aff interpretation, and not just the specific 1AC. it can be extremely powerful and very viable, but has to be framed offensively beyond just "you get politics, we promise".

6. theory

a. generally, very neg leaning, but neg teams need to answer warranted arguments. very good for “negative terrorism”. condo good most likely my strongest personal conviction, followed by RVIs being nonsense. fine for counterplanning out of straight turns, fine for lots of kickable planks, don’t care about “performative contradictions”, anything is a "PIC" or can "result in the aff", etc. “infinite prep time + only neg burden is rejoinder + arbitrary” is mostly unbeatable vs these flavor of objections.

b. counterpoint is that i'm also great for affirmative counter-terror. big fan of intrinsic perms and theory against suspect counterplans, etc. reasonability is powerful when framed offensively. if evenly debated, i will likely never conclude the states counterplan (or any counterplan that fiats a different actor) is legitimate (but also likely not a reason to reject the team). neg theory args usually amount to pure laziness and are solved by “make 2Ns work for it”.

c. restating for emphasis: condo good, RVIs bad. unless truly and wholly conceded when properly warranted at first introduction, consider these arguments unworkable with me. Most 2ACs are blips that lack warrants, which often makes it moot when conceded anyways.

d. would be very interested to see theory arguments impacted out beyond drop the arg/debater. if states counterplan fiats uniformity, might be reasonable to say aff should get to fiat out of circumvention args about sub-federal actors. if aff fiats through an enforcement question, neg might get to fiat out of related deficits, etc. nobody's done this yet, but seems very worth exploring.

7. LD things

a. better than you'd think for phil, but likely not your best pref. hand-holding is likely required for anything more complicated than kant, but i vote for these positions more often than you’d expect and am familiar with them in a non-debate context. the blippier and less cohesive the framework, the more likely you are to lose me. i am barely old enough to remember when phil and tricks debate weren't synonymous, and miss it. i actually think phil affs are insanely strategic against lots of Ks, so these interactions interest me the most.

b. lots of policy judges tend to cop out and use modesty or other things by default to avoid having to actually judge phil debates - i promise to not do this, as i think it encourages debaters to just be bad at answering phil. that being said, i'm bad for truth testing - it's never made sense to me, offense/defense is kind of just fundamental to how i was taught debate and these arguments contradict a few fundamental assumptions i have about how debate works. it is likely difficult to get me to vote solely on skep, permissibility, etc. as these just kind of seem like purely defensive arguments.

c. bad pref for tricks. consider this both a plea and a warning.

V. misc

- If I want a card doc, I'll ask, usually for the relevant cards by name. Otherwise, assume I'm good.

- COVID things: I am vaccinated and boosted, and I take COVID tests before traveling to any given tournament. Put on masks if asked. I will have extra. not negotiable conduct.

- CX is a speech, my favorite part of the debate when done well, and a lost art. i flow it (albeit not as closely), its probably binding, and it impacts evaluation of the debate and speaker points. one debater from each team should be the primary speaker in each CX - some interjections, elaborations, or clarifications are obviously fine, but while excessive tag teaming will not be disallowed, it may impact speaks and perception negatively.

- flowing is good, and "flow clarification" is not a timeslot in the debate - questions such as "did you read X card/arg in the doc" are for CX. If you ask this and you haven't started a timer for it yet, i will start one for you. if you ask "can you send a doc without all the cards you didn't read", the other team does not have to do that, because that is not what a marked doc is. if you answer arguments that were not read, but were in the doc, you are getting a 27.5.

- Ethics challenges/cheating – this one is longer because people seem to care more about this these days. I have a high bar for voting on it. I do not think power-tagging evidence, cutting an article that concludes the other way later on, etc. are voting issues - you should simply say "this card is bad/concludes neg" as an argument. If you are making the accusation that your opponent has fabricated, miscut, or improperly cited evidence, I will evaluate it with the presumption of good-faith error by the accused. I do not think skipping portions of tags or analytics counts as clipping. Those things are not evidence, so I do not know why they require being held to the standard of evidence ethics. If you are accusing the other team of clipping the highlighted text of evidence, you need a recording to prove it - I will never notice this myself because I will not have docs open during speeches, and I think that if the debate comes down to this debaters have a right to some proof. I will also apply the same standard of good-faith error. This means barring something particularly egregious as to reasonably suggest the criminal negligence if not malicious intent, I will probably err towards not punishing debaters, as I think anything else incentivizes cheap shot wins on dead links in citations, leaving out the last word of a paragraph that was OCR'd badly, or skipping two words in a card on accident. If you read any of these things as a theory argument, I will not flow it, and I will ask after the speech if you are staking the debate on it - if not, I will happily inform your opponent they do not need to answer it. I am open to being asked if I consider certain accusations to meet the threshold of ending the debate on it - my answers will not be negotiable, but they will be honest. I am also willing (I would actually encourage it) to entertain debaters negotiating proportional responses to violations outside of me ending the debate, as I think my role as educator ideally precedes my role as a referee - I'd much rather we all agree to scratch a card that can't be accessed online anymore or that was accidentally clipped than just not have a debate. Otherwise, the party found to be at fault (either the guilty or an incorrect accuser) will receive a loss and the lowest speaks allowed. The other party will get a win and a 28.5/6. All of this goes out the window if the tabroom tells me to do a different thing than what I've outlined above, as their authority obviously supersedes mine.

- speaks are largely arbitrary, but I try to start at 28.4 for a team I'd expect to go 3-3, and i try and keep it relative to the tournament pool. below 28 and I think you are in the wrong division, below 27.5 and you have likely done something bad in a moral sense. I tend to reward quality evidence and good argument choice, well-organized speeches, smart strategic choices, and debating with character. I tend to penalize unnecessary meanness, bad arguments and cowardice, and sloppy debating. i am, at my core, white trash, so i tend to enjoy some friendly trash talk more than the average judge - i stop enjoying it when it strays from the topic of debate and/or becomes overly mean spirited. Not a big believer in low-point wins - if the 2NR makes a dumb decision, but the 2AR doesn't capitalize on it, the 2AR is probably dumber for fumbling a bag. I will not "disclose speaks".

- i tend to give long RFDs because i think most decisions have a tendency to hand-wave details and i'd rather be thorough. that said, there's a point of diminishing returns and i usually overshoot it. will not be offended if you just pack up and dip while i'm yapping. i welcome post-round questions

Good luck, thanks for letting me judge, and see you in round!

- pat

Brett Boelkens

Background

LD/Parliamentary Debate Coach - Cogito Debate — (2021-Present)

LD Brief Publisher - Kankee Briefs — (2019-Present)

Varsity Policy Debater — UNLV (2019-2021)

Varsity Policy/LD Debater — NWCTA (2017-2019)

TLDR

-Put me (brettboelkens@gmail.com) on the email chain (yes, even if its LD)

-Not a good K hack judge - I don’t know as much lit and think framework args are true. I won't not vote for a K, BUT don't be mad if I miss something or think aff centric rejoinder is cool

-Line by line muy importante. Keep speeches organized if at all possible and try to clean it up if you can.

-Tech > truth - I try to not intervene unless someone is intentionally excluding someone from the debate space

-Signpost please

-I will yell “CLEAR” on Zoom if you’re unclear. If I can’t understand you, I won’t be blamed for less the suburb flows.

-Theory on any issue is okay, BUT slow down and give extra pen time theory. This includes more policy oriented arguments like ptx theory, but not LD trix like permissibility or NIBS.

-None of my preferences are hard rules and are just what I am biased towards. I will vote on any issue if need be

-Inserting rehighlighted ev is cool

-Write prep down on Zoom chat

-Tell me if I need extra paper for say an long K overview

-Creativity in quality arguments is rewarded

-Quote I stole from Gomez:

I will not give up my ballot to someone else. I will not evaluate arguments about actions taken when I was not in the room or from previous rounds. I will not vote for arguments about debaters as people. I will always evaluate the debate based on the arguments made during the round and which team did the better debating. Teams asking me not to flow or wanting to play video games, or any other thing that is not debate are advised to strike me. If it is unclear what "is not debate" means, strike me.

-I'm chill and don't care if you need a second for tech issues or to take care of something

-Quote I stole from Danban that is somehow now relevant, “ [I] won't vote for any argument that promotes sedition.”

-If you have any questions about my paradigm / RFD, please email me or just ask in person.

Disadvantages

-I’m pro ptx DA gang though to be honest 99% of them are made up and don’t make sense

-Recency for ev helps. For example, please update your July econ UQ answers you cut at camp

-Utilize DA turns case and link turns case arguments more

Counterplans

-I usually err neg on CP theory since borderline abusive fiat debates can be fun

-Its probably best to functional and textual competition

-I think CP's with internal net benefits are neato

-Intrinsic and severance perms are more acceptable if the CP isn't as theoretically legitimate

-I’m cool if you tell me to judge kick the CP, but the 2AR can object if they want to

Kritiks

-Wouldn't suggest running them in front of me

-Ks should have specific links to the aff

-Links of omission aren’t a thing

-I like more consequence centric K debate (i.e. cap good/bad) as opposed to high theory Baudy quackery

Theory / T

-Hot take - most T args are rubbish except T-FMWK.

- Current thoughts on common theory issues

-Competing interpretations good and most affs T should be read against aren’t reasonable

-Functional limits args aren’t convincing if the plan is able to spike out of common DA's

-Condo good

-PICS good

-International fiat good

-Consult Process CP bad

-Perfcon not necessarily bad, but does likely justify severing representations

-PIKS bad

-Word PIKS bad

-RVIs bad

-Disclosure good, but probably not good enough to be something worthwhile voting on

-Caselists and specific explanations of what can / cannot be read under a certain interp are helpful

CX Specific Notes

-I think T-Substantial gets a bad rap - its likely necessary against most fringe affs unless you’re going for the topic K or disad, or very contrived CPs (not that there’s anything wrong with that

-I default to util = trutil and think teams running structural violence affs still need to answer disads regardless of the framework debate

LD Specific Notes

-I don't care if it's a lay debate or not, set up an email chain.

-Separate theory under/overview jazz from solvency and/or framework arguments

-Nailbomb affs are bad - theoretical spikes aren’t super justified

-Same with chunks analytical paragraphs that suck to flow - separate args please

-Since LD is weird, I’m cool with new theory args at any point in the debate if it is justified (e.g. judge kick the CP or the 2NR reexplaining the K as a PIK). Otherwise, try to introduce almost all theory arguments to the 1AC, 1NC, and 1AR

-I know a lot about whatever the current topic may be even though I do CX - you don't need to over explain stuff and can be somewhat fast and loose when explaining certain topic specific knowledge

-If you're second flight, I'm down if you come in and watch first flight. Otherwise, please be there when first flight ends, and know who your opponent is in case I don't know where they are.

-quote from Alderete I liked “LAWs Specific* References to The Terminator will be considered empirical evidence. References to The Matrix will not, because that is fiction.”

he/him, appleton east ‘19, wisconsin ‘23

matthewrmoorhead@gmail.com

wsdt update -

i am excited to judge your debates, please just do the following:

a. read my paradigm and please ask me questions if you have any - i would much rather be transparent than leave you with concerns over your strategy

b. share the evidence you will be reading to your opponent and myself before your speech starts - evidence quality matters and your opponents have a right to analyze the evidence you read

c. do impact calculus - rounds without good argument interaction require me to intervene which is always bad, the more work you do to write my decision for me = the better your decision will be

d. be nice, enjoy yourself, treat everyone with respect, and focus on improving every round instead - ballots aren't everything and you should take every round as a new opportunity to learn something new, take notes afterwards and ask questions about my decision if anything is unclear

paradigm proper -

1. tl;dr - not formally involved in debate anymore but judging is a privilege and i am plenty qualified to judge your round, i care about good debating and really nothing else, don't worry too much about tailoring towards my ideology from when i was a debater/coach

2. background - did ld and dabbled in policy at appleton east in wisconsin, i broke at the toc in 2019, led 3 summer labs, and have coached state champions and toc qualifiers - my main experience is with policy-style debate and kritiks, but i have extensive experience coaching, debating, and judging every style of debate at national and local levels

3. hard and fast rules - strike me if you don't disclose/flash your evidence or i will rigorously tank speaks, an arguments' risk starts at 0% and goes up based on the quality of it's warrant, evidence quality matters so i will read cards you reference in the 2nr/2ar, yes judge kicks but tell me to, won't vote for stuff i can't explain back to you which means winning arguments require a ballot implication, arguments that demonstrate your work put into debate are always better than cheap shots you grabbed from backfiles or had your coach explain to you pre-round

4. for high speaks - my avg range is 28.2-29.4, biggest boosts for ending the debate early/speeding things up and being casual/personable - have fun, make jokes, be technical, and write my rfd