Tabroom.com

CMHS Spring Practice

2019 — Shreveport, LA/US

Debate Judge Paradigm List

All Paradigms: Show Hide

Cameron Abrams Airline HS

Last changed on Wed July 20, 2022 at 3:36 PM CDT

TL;DR

I'm currently a senior at Rhodes College and I was a policy debater at Airline High School for four years. I have been largely removed from the debate community for a while so pardon any lapse in more nuanced concepts. Ultimately Run whatever you are most comfortable with running, that'll make debates so much more worthwhile for everyone involved. Although spreading traditionally wouldn't be an issue I would make clarity a top priority, if not the top priority, when debating virtually.

Contact Information (put me in the email chain)

cabrams461@gmail.com

K Affs / Kritiks:

K debates are interesting to watch and I feel that the literature base behind critiques is something that everyone (including myself) should be more well-versed in. That being said, it is imperative that you have enough of a grasp on the literature underpinning your K to effectively convey your argument. It's pretty much a guarantee that you are more familiar with your kritik than I am as a judge so just be sure that you communicate to me what my role is as the judge.

Framework:

Two important things about framework that I have learned from trial and error 1.) Make sure that all of your framework arguments are contextualized to the debate that you are currently having. 2.) Although framework is extremely important, don't think that spending all of your time on framework will warrant a W. Granted, a team dropping FW or mishandling it will drastically decrease their chances of winning, don't under-cover their arguments to focus on your framework. Say what needs to be said and move on. Make sure to stress what my role as the judge should be during the round or I will default to the role of a policymaker.

Speaker Points:

A 27 or a 28 is pretty standard. Speed, if done well, is fine but never emphasize speed over clarity. Remain aware of the people that occupy the debate space including your judge(s) and opponents. Particularly aggressive and or offensive behavior will lower your speaks drastically if it becomes a recurrent issue. (as a sidenote don't drown out your partner's cx. Open cross is fine so long as the person that is asking/answering the question is being given time to ask/answer their questions)

Cole Allen Caddo Middle Magnet

Last changed on Sat March 16, 2019 at 9:24 AM CDT

Hello fellow debate enthusiasts, you probably don't have a lot of time to read this, so I'll get straight to the point. I debated four years of CX debate at Caddo Magnet High in Shreveport, Louisiana (which really means I debated in Texas). I participated in the Harvard Round Robin and got a bid by getting to quarters of Harvard my senior year (2014-2015). I work at the UTNIF Debate camp held at UT Austin during the summer. I am currently in my senior year of college at Louisiana Tech University, where I am majoring in chemistry. As for gender, I am non-binary, specifically agender. Any pronouns are fine with me and you may take your pick of Cole or Juliet.

If you came here to see if you could run your weird and unique argument, the answer is yes, specifically I am fine with any word PIC ("the" PIC included) conditionality theory (my favorite), and many many other weird/sketchy K (and policy) arguments.

Short Version
I have debated everything from politics to the craziest K. I was a 2N for 3 years. Freshman year and sophomore year politics was my jam. Junior year anthro was my jam. Senior year as a 2A, Nietzsche Chaos aff I cut was my jam. Long story short, you do you, and I will do me. I am a tabula rasa- blank slate- I will do my best to only vote on things said in the round. All arguments are still arguments so at least answer them. I WILL VOTE ON ANYTHING.

Long Version

Top Level:
Tabula rasa- anything goes (within reason), debate is a game so play it, tech over truth (in most cases- you wont win that the sky is red or the ocean is orange, but you may win a link if the other team allows you to frame/explain their arguments in such a way that you get the link, even if it is just not true). Clarity over speed. Differentiate between tags and the body of the card. Signpost effectively because a happy judge means more speaker points. NEVER be rude to your opponents or your speaker points will get nuked (especially if you attempt to argue offensive arguments such as sexism or racism good). Keep everything professional and be sportsmanlike. Open C-X is cool as long as one partner doesn't dominate. For paperless, I don't count flashing as prep, but be reasonable and don't steal prep. Stick to the line-by-line instead of huge overviews for better clash. I'll try to keep my biases to a minimum and will basically evaluate the round as I am told (policymaker, academic, etc.). ALSO, bonus speaker points if you make funny references (or references to some of my favorite shows- i.e. Steven Universe, South Park, Adventure Time, Rick and Morty). A little humor never hurt anyone, but don't be disrespectful.

Case:
I love a good case debate with lots of clash. I think case is undervalued a lot these days and usually is underdeveloped. A hugely mitigated case can win you the round. I'm okay with generic impact defense and internal-link take-outs, but never forget analytics. Always point out logical fallacies or exaggerations made by the opponent. Not just for case either; this can apply to other off-case arguments, too.

Disads:
I love disads, but the internal link is where most disads fall apart. True links and true impacts are better than probable (or really, improbable) impacts, but the truth of anything is up for debate, as it should be. Always answer turns the case argument, because they can be damning. Bonus points for case-specific disads.

Counterplans:
Counterplans are awesome, but I'm willing to give the aff some leeway on theory for abusive counterplans like word PICs and process counterplans. On severance and intrinsic perms, I default to rejecting the argument and not the team (if theory is brought up). Again, case-specificity is amazing and will impress me.

Kritiks:
I can follow most critiques pretty well. That being said, don't expect me to do alt work for you. Alt work is the most important thing. Do all your tricky tricky K tricks but explain and impact them. K affs are fine too, but get ready for them framework debates. Please do not mispronounce your author the K is based around (Nietzsche for one).

Theory/Topicality:
Don't be blippy on theory. Slow down. If you don't, I can't flow and that means I may miss a crucial argument. You will get an extra speaker point for actually understanding theory and not reading blocks, but engaging in the warrants of education, fairness, predictability args, etc. RVI's are probably a waste of time. Potential abuse is a voter because its about competing visions of debate, but in-round abuse is also pretty persuasive. Don't just say reasonability - I don't know what it means to be reasonable.

Performance:
I haven't seen much performative debate, but as long as you follow relatively the same guidelines as for everything else (well-warranted explanations and lots of clash) there won't be any problems.

Obviously, I probably forgot something, so if this doesn't answer your questions, you can always ask me during the round :)

Emmitt Antwine Airline HS

Last changed on Sun January 31, 2021 at 3:36 PM CDT

Hello, my name is Emmitt Antwine. I have done Policy Debate for 3 years and Lincoln-Douglas for a year in High School and I currently on the Louisiana Tech IPDA (International Public Debate Association) Team which is drastically different from policy and LD. I am a semi-lay/experience judge if you wanted to know. Below you will see my paradigms, please read carefully.

IPDA

Read the Link of the IPDA Constitution

HIGH SCHOOL POLICY DEBATE

1. My paradigms are simple: KNOW WHAT YOUR READING!

2. Prep time: If it becomes a problem, then you will either flow by ear instead of computer. Judge has discretion.

3. CX: For Novice, it open.

For Advanced, it up to my discretion.

Don't take over partner CX time.

Be polite and civil, no yelling!

4. Last two speeches, I always need voters.

Affirmative:

I love impact farming in the 1AC. I like being told how to judge a round.

Having 1 strong advantage is better than having 2 or 3 weak advantage. QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

Impact Calculus has to be build up in round not just thrown in.

Negative:

1. DA: Need to develop them, tell it like a story then read your cards to convince me, Impact Calculus needs to be comparable within the 1st negative speech and the last negative speech. This helps shape the narrative of the round. I HATE nuclear war impact they are unrealistic to me, that does not mean I will not vote for it. It takes a lot of effort to persuade any judge.

2. K: If you know the K then read it but if not I will vote you down for arguments you do not fully understand. If it is cap K or any popular K I am fine but you have to explain these arguments like I am in 5th grade. Try to connect Alternative to your round and society.

3. CP: I love CP, but many teams do not prep for perms well. If you read theory arguments make then connect to me personally, if not it is a waste of time.

4. T: I hate T's. I will vote for T but it has to truly be a violation, not a time waster for the other team. The Aff could have never answer the T and win because the Neg did not fully explain the harms of their topicality.

5. Status quo: This is a good argument teams should use. It good pair with a DA. Status Quo is good and explain it.

Lincoln Douglas

1. My paradigms are simple: KNOW WHAT YOUR READING!

2. I don't mind policy in LD but do go too far with it.

3. Always have voters at the end.

chloe brown Airline HS

Austin Kiihnl Caddo Magnet HS

Last changed on Thu February 8, 2024 at 8:23 AM EDT

Caddo Magnet ‘21

Kentucky '25

I want to be on the email chain, austinkiihnl@gmail.com.

Conflicts

Caddo Magnet

Niles North

Top Level

The most important thing I have to say is that I will do my absolute best to judge every debate in the least interventionist way possible, besides a few non-negotiables I'll list below. I will vote on an argument that I profoundly disagree with if I think that it was won. However, evidence quality influences technical debating and I value good evidence highly, even though I don't usually read a ton of cards in high school debates because I don't feel like I need to.

I've found that even though I have a ton of opinions about what I think debate should look like, those preferences pretty much entirely go away when judging. I don't care much at all about what arguments debaters are making and really only care about how it's debated. I've been in a lot of debates and have seen many people go for many different arguments, so I should be able to understand yours. However, I will say that I have a fairly strong preference for organized, and technical debating, and not debating in this way will probably make it harder than you'd like for me to give a satisfying decision.

I'll do my best to default to as few things as possible and adapt to the debate at hand. If you want me to view the debate a certain way, tell me how I should so I don't have to substitute my preferences for your debating.

Inequality Topic

I judged a lot of debates on the topic as a lab leader in a Michigan Classic lab this summer, so I have a basic understanding of what the topic looks like, but I'm not super involved in researching the high school topic, so you may want to unpack some particularly technical topic concepts/acronyms.

General Thoughts

I think of debate as a game, which filters a lot of these thoughts, but you can easily win that debate is not a game or is more than just a game. (Almost) everything is debatable.

It's generally better to make bold choices and only go for a few pieces of offense in the final rebuttals to explain them well than to go for a lot of things and not explain them as thoroughly.

I default to evaluating arguments probabilistically. That goes away if questioned.

Line by line is good.

Judge instruction is good.

Justify new arguments. Just because another team says you don't get new arguments doesn't mean it's true, especially if they're reading cards on an argument you dropped.

If you're going for a K of reps, you probably need case defense unless it was grossly mishandled. I see going for reps links while not answering the case as a bit like a link turn with no UQ. If you disagree, explain why and you'll be all good.

It'll help you to start the debate on judge kick early.

Good for T arguments with good evidence. I generally prefer predictability over debatability, but that's not absolute and shouldn't affect how I evaluate debates.

Good for competition debates. Send perm texts if it's anything besides do both, do the CP, or some variation of the plan and certain planks.

Good for politics. Read a lot of cards.

Good for impact turns and theory. Not because I think the arguments are true, I just think of them like any other argument and a lot of teams are bad at answering them. I don't really see why going for theory if you're winning is more "cowardly" than going for other arguments that you're winning that are technical TKOs, but that doesn't mean it's always or even often the best strategy.

Good for Ks that are impact turns/solvency takeouts to the case. Good for Ks that have alts that solve the case and links that are DAs to the plan. Probably best for Ks that are just Framework and say the aff shouldn't get to weigh the plan.

Good for extinction outweighs vs. the K. Also fine for the perm and link turns.

Good for clash and fairness. Fine for other impacts to FW. Good for a counter-interp or impact turn strategy against FW, just make sure you pick one.

Generally don't love K affs that identify truisms and say that's a reason to vote for them. Pointing out bad things does nothing for you if you don't have a means of solving them. Of course, you can also get unique offense based on what the neg says, but you need to explain what voting aff does, whether it changes debate practices, rejects unethical ones in just this debate, forwards a desirable political strategy, etc.

Fairly bad for frivolous theory arguments when they aren't based on resolutional language. For example, if the 2AC drops ASPEC, the neg often didn't have enough of an argument to extend it in the 2NC without making new arguments, so the 1AR gets to justify new arguments too. That doesn't mean I won't vote on bad theory arguments (I have), or that new 1AR arguments are automatically justified, but it does mean that I have a pretty high bar for winning them.

Bad for analogizing T to actual violence (genocide, drone strikes, etc.). That's not to say that you can't problematize reading T, but arguments comparing it to literal violence are wildly unpersuasive.

I think role of the ballot arguments are usually pretty silly.

Not the biggest fan of many soft left affs. I think lots of aff framing arguments are kinda silly but so are lots of other arguments, so I don’t actually care too much. I obviously prefer aff-specific framing arguments but if generic, I prefer risk assessment (existential risks overestimated, probability outweighs, conjunctive fallacy, butterfly effect, etc.) type aff framing arguments instead of "X comes first," "extinction is non-unique," and asserting that a DA is low risk without actual defense, but that seems to be out of vogue.

If you're going to say that plan text in a vacuum, functional and/or textual competition, utilitarianism, probability first, etc. are bad, you need to provide an alternative to those things. Otherwise, it's the equivalent of reading offense against a T interp when you don't have a counter-interp to solve any offense. The fact that those things have problems doesn't necessarily mean that alternatives are better.

I judge this a little bit and there's not much that I have to say about it specifically. All of the stuff above applies equally to LD. I've only ever debated in policy and usually only judge policy so I'm probably best for you if you just act like this is a one-person policy debate.

Never really had a debate where "value criterions" became important, but if you're gonna do that, just explain why offense in favor of yours outweighs offense in favor of theirs and you'll be fine.

Not a fan of frivolous theory arguments.

I've only judged this a few times. It would probably also help you to act like this was a policy debate because of my lack of familiarity with PF specifically. Really, you just need to win that your offense outweighs your opponent's.

Please don't paraphrase articles when first reading them. That's bordering on an academic integrity violation. Just read what your cards actually say, then you can obviously explain and paraphrase them in later speeches.

Non-negotiables

Both teams get 8 minutes for constructives, 5 minutes for rebuttals, and however many minutes of prep time the tournament invitation says/everyone in the round agrees to. I won't flow anything you say after the timer goes off.

CX is binding.

There is one winner and one loser.

I will flow both teams unless requested not to. If you request me not to flow and the other team would like me to, then I just won't flow you, which will almost certainly end up worse for you and make the debate harder for me to decide.

I won't vote on anything that did not occur in the round/I didn't see (personal attacks, prefs, disclosure, etc.). I think a judge's role is to determine who won the debate at hand, not who is a better person outside of it, and there's often no way to verify out-of-round claims. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I will assist you in going to tab/whoever you'd feel most comfortable with so they can create a solution, but I don't view that as something that the judge should decide a debate upon, especially for high schoolers.

If a team initiates an ethics challenge, the debate stops and if it's found to be legitimate, the offending team will lose and will get the lowest speaks I can give. If it's not found to be legitimate, the team that initiated the challenge will lose.

It'll be hard to offend me but don't say any slurs or engage in harmful behavior against anyone else in the debate including racism, sexism, homophobia, intentionally misgendering someone, etc. I see pretty much all arguments as fair game but when that becomes personally harmful for other people in the debate, or is something indefensible like racism good, then it's crossed a line. I've thankfully never seen something like this happen in a debate that I've been in but it'd be naive to act like it's never happened. The line for what is and is not personally harmful to someone is obviously arbitrary but that applies to almost all things in debate, so I think it's fair to say that it's also up to the judge's discretion to determine when the line has been crossed.

Misc

I'm pretty expressive but I try not to be. I don't want to influence how the debate plays out but if I'm confused, think an argument is funny, or think an argument is bad, I might unintentionally show it.

I'll boost your speaks if you're reading a substantial number of cards that you cut if they're good. I've been seeing a lot of old, bad cards in docs that could very easily be replaced in an afternoon, so I'll reward people that I see putting in the work. I'll be ecstatic if most of your cards, especially in the 1AC and 1NC, are from 2021 or newer.

I've noticed lots of debaters being pretty quiet when they're speaking which has made it hard to understand and flow. It seems like a result of online debate, so I'll cut some slack, but it's generally better to be too loud than too quiet.

Call me Austin, not "judge."

I like when people are funny. Lighten up the debate and make some (good) jokes if that's your thing.

Feel free to post-round. You won't offend me.

Kasi McCartney Hire 8 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 9, 2024 at 1:42 PM CDT

Current Debate Coach at Caddo Magnet HS

LHSSL Executive Secretary

email: Kasi.mccartney@gmail.com

Please show up on time. Have email chains, stands and other needs set up before the start time of the round.

I generally look to the fastest and easiest way to resolve the debate. In order to win you should make clear impact calculus throughout the debate and provide a specific path for round resolution in the 2NR/2AR. First tell me how you win the round, then tell me why even if I buy into some of the other team's arguments you should still win. This is how you win my ballot.

I default to a policy maker framework. I will vote for non-policy strategies but they MUST present a clean structure for their impacts. I prefer the affirmative to have a plan text. I do not consider myself an activist or that my role is to balance forces within the debate community.

Identity Politics - You should probably not pref me. You MUST have a link to the aff or specific in round actions for me to vote on this. I understand and sympathize with the issues in round, but this is not my preferred argument. It will take a lot of convincing to get me to vote on a strategy that is outside the resolutional bounds. I ultimately believe that traditional forms of debate have value.

Theory – I think theory is definitely a voting issue, but there needs to be some form of in round abuse for me to truly buy that it is a reason alone to reject one team or the other. I do not think that simply kicking a CP in block is a time skew that is truly worth voting against a neg team unless there are other circumstances. I don't like CP's with lots of planks. I think that it makes the debate too messy.

Case - I must say I have a hard time being persuaded that the negative has enough weight on their side to win with only case defense and a DA. What can I say, I'm a product of the late 90's. I much prefer to have a CP/K in there to give the flexibility, especially with a topic that allows for affirmatives to have heavy military impacts. Please be careful and make sure that if you takea case only route that you attack each advantage with offense and have a very very weighty DA on your side.

Kritiks- Not my bread and butter, although I do understand their strategic benefit, having come from an underfunded public school. It is my preference that K’s have a clear order and structure. I will vote on the K if you win that your impacts outweigh the impacts of the plan and that there is a true need for action, but I would not be the judge to introduce an extremely loose and unstructured argument to. I understand and buy into threat construction and realism claims, but in the end, I much prefer a well executed CP and politics debate to a poorly executed critical strategy. You will need to a have link specific to the plan. Links based off of the SQ will not be enough for me.

Framework - I default to the framework that the aff can weight the impacts of their plan versus the impacts of the neg.

Impacts – I believe that impact analysis is at the heart of a judging decision. You are an advocate for your arguments and as such you should provide insight and analysis as to why your specific impacts are the greatest in the round, how they should be evaluated by the judge and how they change the evaluation of the impacts to the other team’s case. Without this assessment I feel like you leave too much wiggle room for the judge to pick their personal preference of impact.

T - normally I like T. I default to competing interpretations. I think CX checks for ASPEC. I dont buy RVI's. I like for there to be a robust discussion of specific ground loss and the impact that it would have on debate as a whole.

Speaker points- Speed can be an advantage in the round and should be encouraged, but always with the intent of being clear first. My ability to clearly understand your arguments is crucial to getting them evaluated at the end of the round. The ability to provide analytics and analysis in the round will get you much further with me. As far as CX is concerned, I simply ask that the person who is supposed to be asking/answering the questions, gets the first shot at speaking. If they ask for help that’s perfectly fine, but don’t overwhelm your partner’s ability to conduct their own cx. Baseline speaks for me is 28.5 and you move up or down from there. I hardly ever give above a 29.5

Palmer Miley Caddo Magnet HS

Dain Ross Caddo Magnet HS

Cortez Walters Caddo Magnet HS None

Jacob ryan Wilson Caddo Magnet HS None

Login to Tabroom

CMHS Spring Practice

2019 — Shreveport, LA/US

Debate Judge Paradigm List

Judges