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2023 — Johns Creek, GA/US

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Matt Cekanor Hire

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 6:02 AM CDT

Experience-This will be my fifth year as the head coach at Northview High School. Before moving to Georgia, I coached for 7 years at Marquette High in Milwaukee, WI.

Yes, add me to the email chain. My email is mcekanordebate@gmail.com

*As I have gained more coaching and judging experience, I find that I highly value teams who respect their opponents who might not have the same experience as them. This includes watching how you come across in CX, prep time, and your general comportment towards your opponent. In some local circuits, circuit-style policy debate is dwindling and we all have a responsibility to be respectful of the experience of everyone trying to be involved in policy debate.*

I recommend that you go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles before the debate rather than before a speech.

LD Folks please read the addendum at the end of my paradigm.

Meta-Level Strike Sheet Concerns

1. Debates are rarely won or lost on technical concessions or truth claims alone. In other words, I think the “tech vs. truth” distinction is a little silly. Technical concessions make it more complicated to win a debate, but rarely do they make wins impossible. Keeping your arguments closer to “truer” forms of an argument make it easier to overcome technical concessions because your arguments are easier to identify, and they’re more explicitly supported by your evidence (or at least should be). That being said, using truth alone as a metric of which of y’all to pick up incentivizes intervention and is not how I will evaluate the debate.

2. Evidence quality matters a bunch to me- it’s evidence that you have spent time and effort on your positions, it’s a way to determine the relative truth level of your claims, and it helps overcome some of the time constraints of the activity in a way that allows you to raise the level of complexity of your position in a shorter amount of time. I will read your evidence throughout the debate, especially if it is on a position with which I’m less familiar. I won’t vote on evidence comparison claims unless it becomes a question of the debate raised by either team, but I will think about how your evidence could have been used more effectively by the end of the debate. I enjoy rewarding teams for evidence quality.

3. Every debate could benefit from more comparative work particularly in terms of the relative quality of arguments/the interactions between arguments by the end of the round. Teams should ask "Why?", such as "If I win this argument, WHY is this important?", "If I lose this argument WHY does this matter?". Strategically explaining the implications of winning or losing an argument is the difference between being a middle of the road team and a team advancing to elims.

4. Some expectations for what should be present in arguments that seem to have disappeared in the last few years-

-For me to vote on a single argument, it must have a claim, warrant, impact, and impact comparison.

-A DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link and impact argument is presented.Too many teams are getting away with 2 card DA shells in the 1NC and then reading uniqueness walls in the block. I will generally allow for new 1AR answers.

Similarly, CP's should have a solvency advocate read in the 1NC. I'll be flexible on allowing 1AR arguments in a world where the aff makes an argument about the lack of a solvency advocate.

-Yes, terminal defense exists, however, I do not think that teams take enough advantage of this kind of argument in front of me. I will not always evaluate the round through a lens of offense-defense, but you still need to make arguments as to why I shouldn’t by at least explaining why your argument functions as terminal defense. Again this plays into evidence questions and the relative impacts of arguments claims made above.

Specifics

Case-Debates are won or lost in the case debate. By this, I mean that proving whether or not the aff successfully accesses all, some or none of the case advantages has implications on every flow of the debate and should be a fundamental question of most 2NRs and 2ARs. I think that blocks that are heavy in case defense or impact turns are incredibly advantageous for the neg because they enable you to win any CP (by proving the case defense as a response to the solvency deficit), K (see below) or DA (pretty obvious). I'm also more likely than others to write a presumption ballot or vote neg on inherency arguments. If the status quo solves your aff or you're not a big enough divergence, then you probably need to reconsider your approach to the topic.

Most affs can be divided into two categories: affs with a lot of impacts but poor internal links and affs with very solid internal links but questionable impacts. Acknowledging in which of these two categories the aff you are debating falls should shape how you approach the case debate. I find myself growing increasingly disappointed by negative teams that do not test weak affirmatives. Where's your internal link defense?? I also miss judging impact turn debates, but don't think that spark or wipeout are persuasive arguments. A high level de-dev debate or heg debate, on the other hand, love it.

DA-DAs are questions of probability. Your job as the aff team when debating a DA is to use your defensive arguments to question the probability of the internal links to the DA. Affirmative teams should take more advantage of terminal defense against disads. I'll probably also have a lower threshold for your theory arguments on the disad. Likewise, the neg should use turns case arguments as a reason why your DA calls into question the probability of the aff's internal links. Don't usually find "____ controls the direction of the link" arguments very persuasive. You need to warrant out that claim more if you're going to go for it. Make more rollback-style turns case arguments or more creative turns case arguments to lower the threshold for winning the debate on the disad alone.

CP-CP debates are about the relative weight of a solvency deficit versus the relative weight of the net benefit. The team that is more comparative when discussing the solvency level of these debates usually wins the debate. While, when it is a focus of the debate, I tend to err affirmative on questions of counterplan competiton, I have grown to be more persuaded by a well-executed counterplan strategy even if the counterplan is a process counterplan. The best counterplans have a solvency advocate who is, at least, specific to the topic, and, best, specific to the affirmative. I do not default to judge kicking the counterplan and will be easily persuaded by an affirmative argument about why I should not default to that kind of in-round conditionality. Not a huge fan of the NGA CP and I've voted three out of four times on intrinsic permutations against this counterplan so just be warned. Aff teams should take advantage of presumption arguments against the CP.

K-Used to have a bunch of thoughts spammed here that weren't too easy to navigate pre-round. I've left that section at the bottom of the paradigm for the historical record, but here's the cleaned up version:

What does the ballot do? What is the ballot absolutely incapable of doing? What does the ballot justify? No matter if you are on the aff or the neg, defending the topic or not, these are the kinds of questions that you need to answer by the end of the debate. As so much of K debating has become framework debates on the aff and the neg, I often find myself with a lot of floating pieces of offense that are not attached to a clear explanation of what a vote in either direction can/can't do.

T-Sitting through a bunch of framework debates has made me a better judge for topicality than I used to be. Comparative impact calculus alongside the use of strategic defensive arguments will make it easier for me to vote in a particular direction. Certain interps have a stronger internal link to limits claims and certain affs have better arguments for overlimiting. Being specific about what kind of offense you access, how it comes first, and the relative strength of your internal links in these debates will make it more likely that you win my ballot. I’m not a huge fan of tickytacky topicality claims but, if there’s substantial contestation in the literature, these can be good debates.

Theory- I debated on a team that engaged in a lot of theory debates in high school. There were multiple tournaments where most of our debates boiled down to theory questions, so I would like to think that I am a good judge for theory debates. I think that teams forget that theory debates are structured like a disadvantage. Again, comparative impact calculus is important to win my ballots in these debates. I will say that I tend to err aff on most theory questions. For example, I think that it is probably problematic for there to be more than one conditional advocacy in a round (and that it is equally problematic for your counter interpretation to be dispositionality) and I think that counterplans that compete off of certainty are bad for education and unfair to the aff. The biggest killer in a theory debate is when you just read down your blocks and don’t make specific claims. Debate like your

Notes for the Blue Key RR/Other LD Judging Obligations

Biggest shift for me in judging LD debates is the following: No tricks or intuitively false arguments. I'll vote on dropped arguments, but those arguments need a claim, data, warrant and an impact for me to vote on them. If I can't explain the argument back to you and the implications of that argument on the rest of the debate, I'm not voting for you.

I guess this wasn't clear enough the first time around- I don't flow off the document and your walls of framework and theory analytics are really hard to flow when you don't put any breaks in between them.

Similarly, phil debates are always difficult for me to analyze. I tend to think affirmative's should defend implementation particularly when the resolution specifies an actor. Outside of my general desire to see some debates about implementation, I don't have any kind of background in the phil literature bases and so will have a harder time picturing the implications of you winning specific arguments. If you want me to understand how your argumets interact, you will have to do a lot of explanation.

Theory debates- Yes, I said that I enjoy theory debates in my paradigm above and that is largely still true, but CX theory debates are a lot less technical than LD debates. I also think there are a lot of silly theory arguments in LD and I tend to have a higher threshold for those sorts of arguments. I also don't have much of a reference for norm setting in LD or what the norms actually are. Take that into account if you choose to go for theory and probably don't because I won't award you with high enough speaks for your liking.

K debates- Yes, I enjoy K debates but I tend to think that their LD variant is very shallow. You need to do more specific work in linking to the affirmative and developing the implications of your theory of power claims. While I enjoy good LD debates on the K, I always feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify a ballot in either direction. This is magnified by the limited amount of time that you have to develop your positions.

Old K Paradigm (2020-2022)

After y’all saw the school that I coach, I’m sure this is where you scrolled to first which is fair enough given how long it takes to fill out pref sheets. I will say, if you told me 10 years ago when I began coaching that I’d be coaching a team that primarily reads the K on the aff and on the neg, I probably would have found that absurd because that wasn’t my entry point into the activity so keep that in mind as you work with some of the thoughts below. That being said, I’ve now coached the K at a high level for the past two years which means that I have some semblance of a feeling for a good K debate. If the K is not something that you traditionally go for, you’re better off going for what you’re best at.

The best debates on the K are debates over the explanatory power of the negative’s theory of power relative to the affirmative’s specific example of liberalism, realism, etc. Put another way, the best K debaters are familiar enough with their theory of power AND the affirmative’s specific impact scenarios that they use their theory to explain the dangers of the aff. By the end of the 2NR I should have a very clear idea of what the affirmative does and how your theory explains why doing the affirmative won’t resolve the aff’s impacts or results in a bad thing. This does not necessarily mean that you need to have links to the affirmative’s mechanism (that’s probably a bit high of a research burden), but your link explanations need to be specific to the aff and should be bolstered by specific quotes from 1AC evidence or CX. The specificity of your link explanation should be sufficient to overcome questions of link-uniqueness or I’ll be comfortable voting on “your links only link to the status quo.”

On the flipside, aff teams need to explain why their contingency or specific example of policy action cannot be explained by the negative’s theory of power or that, even if some aspects can be, that the specificity of the aff’s claims justifies voting aff anyway because there’s some offense against the alternative or to the FW ballot. Affirmative teams that use the specificity of the affirmative to generate offense or push back against general link claims will win more debates than those that just default to generic “extinction is irreversible” ballots.

Case Page when going for the K- My biggest pet peeve with the current meta on the K is the role of the case page. Neither the affirmative nor the negative take enough advantage of this page to really stretch out their opponents on this question. For the negative, you need to be challenging the affirmative’s internal links with defense that can bolster some of your thesis level claims. Remember, you are trying to DISPROVE the affirmative’s contingent/specific policy which means that the more specificity you have the better off you will be. This means that just throwing your generic K links onto the case page probably isn’t the move. 9/10 the alternative doesn’t resolve them and you don’t have an explanation of how voting neg resolves the offense. K teams so frequently let policy affs get away with some really poor evidence quality and weak internal links. Please help the community and deter policy teams from reading one bad internal link to their heg aff against your [INSERT THEORY HERE] K. On that note, policy teams, why are you removing your best internal links when debating the K? Your generic framework cards are giving the neg more things to impact turn and your explanation of the internal link level of the aff is lowered when you do that. Read your normal aff against the K and just square up.

Framework debates (with the K on the neg) For better or worse, so much of contemporary K debate is resolved in the framework debate. The contemporary dependence on framework ballots means a couple of things:

1.) Both teams need to do more work here- treat this like a DA and a CP. Compare the relative strength of internal link claims and impact out the terminal impacts. Why does procedural fairness matter? What is the terminal impact to clash? How do we access your skills claims? What does/does not the ballot resolve? To what extent does the ballot resolve those things? The team that usually answers more of these questions usually wins these debates. K teams need to do more to push back against “ballot can solve procedural fairness” claims and aff teams need to do more than just “schools, family, culture, etc.” outweigh subject formation. Many of you all spend more time at debate tournaments or doing debate work than you do at school or doing schoolwork.

2.) I do think it’s possible for the aff to win education claims, but you need to do more comparative impact calculus. What does scenario planning do for subject formation that is more ethical than whatever the impact scenario is to the K? If you can’t explain your education claims at that level, just go for fairness and explain why the ballot can resolve it.

3.) Risk of the link- Explain what winning framework does for how much of a risk of a link that I need to justify a ballot either way. Usually, neg teams will want to say that winning framework means they get a very narrow risk of a link to outweigh. I don’t usually like defaulting to this but affirmative teams very rarely push back on this risk calculus in a world where they lose framework. If you don’t win that you can weigh the aff against the K, aff teams need to think about how they can use their scenarios as offense against the educational claims of the K. This can be done as answers to the link arguments as well, though you’ll probably need to win more pieces of defense elsewhere on the flow to make this viable.

Do I go for the alternative?

I don’t think that you need to go for the alternative if you have a solid enough framework push in the 2NR. However, few things to keep in mind here:

1.) I won’t judge kick the alternative for you unless you explicitly tell me to do it and include a theoretical justification for why that’s possible.

2.) The framework debate should include some arguments about how voting negative resolves the links- i.e. what is the kind of ethical subject position endorsed on the framework page that pushes us towards research projects that avoid the links to the critique? How does this position resolve those links?

3.) Depending on the alternative and the framework interpretation, some of your disads to the alternative will still link to the framework ballot. Smart teams will cross apply these arguments and explain why that complicates voting negative.

K affs (Generic)

Yes, I’m comfortable evaluating debates involving the K on the aff and think that I’ve reached a point where I’m pretty good for either side of this debate. Affirmative teams need to justify an affirmative ballot that beats presumption, especially if you’re defending status quo movements as examples of the aff’s method. Both teams benefit from clarifying early in the round whether or not the affirmative team spills up, whether or not in-round performances specific to this debate resolve any of the affirmative offense, and whatever the accumulation of ballots does or does not do for the aff. Affirmative teams that are not the Louisville project often get away with way too much by just reading a DSRB card and claiming their ballots function the same way. Aff teams should differentiate their ballot claims and negatives should make arguments about the aff’s homogenizing ballot claims. All that being said, like I discussed above, these debates are won and lost on the case page like any other debate. As the K becomes more normalized and standardized to a few specific schools of thought, I have a harder and harder time separating the case and framework pages on generic “we couldn’t truth test your arguments” because I think that shifts a bit too strongly to the negative. That said, I can be persuaded to separate the two if there’s decent time spent in the final rebuttals on this question.

Framework vs. the K Aff

Framework debates are best when both teams spend time comparing the realities of debate in the status quo and the idealized form of debate proposed in model v. model rounds. In that light, both teams need to be thinking about what proposing framework in a status quo where the K is probably going to stick around means for those teams that currently read the K and for those teams that prefer to directly engage the resolution. In a world where the affirmative defends the counter interpretation, the affirmative should have an explanation of what happens when team don’t read an affirmative that meets their model. Most of the counter interpretations are arbitrary or equivalent to “no counter interpretation”, but an interp being arbitrary is just defense that you can still outweigh depending on the offense you’re winning.

In impact turn debates, both teams need to be much clearer about the terminal impacts to their offense while providing an explanation as to why voting in either direction resolves them. After sitting in so many of these debates, I tend to think that the ballot doesn’t do much for either team but that means that teams who have a better explanation of what it means to win the ballot will usually pick up my decision. You can’t just assert that voting negative resolves procedural fairness without warranting that out just like you can’t assert that the aff resolves all forms of violence in debate through a single debate. Both teams need to grapple with how the competitive incentives for debate establish offense for either side. The competitive incentive to read the K is strong and might counteract some of the aff’s access to offense, but the competitive incentives towards framework also have their same issues. Neither sides hands are clean on that question and those that are willing to admit it are usually better off. I have a hard time setting aside clash as an external impact due to the fact that I’m just not sure what the terminal impact is. I like teams that go for clash and think that it usually is an important part of negative strategy vs. the K, but I think this strategy is best when the clash warrants are explained as internal link turns to the aff’s education claims. Some of this has to due with the competitive incentives arguments that I’ve explained above. Both teams need to do more work explaining whether or not fairness or education claims come first. It’s introductory-level impact analysis I find lacking in many of these debates.

Other things to think about-

1.) These debates are at their worst when either team is dependent on blocks. Framework teams should be particularly cautious about this because they’ve had less of these debates over the course of the season, however, K teams are just as bad at just reading their blocks through the 1AR. I will try to draw a clean line between the 1AR and the 2AR and will hold a pretty strict one in debates where the 1AR is just screaming through blocks. Live debating contextualized to this round far outweighs robots with pre-written everything.

2.) I have a hard time pulling the trigger on arguments with “quitting the activity” as a terminal impact. Any evidence on either side of this question is usually anecdotal and that’s not enough to justify a ballot in either direction. There are also a bunch of alternative causes to numbers decline like the lack of coaches, the increased technical rigor of high-level policy debate, budgets, the pandemic, etc. that I think thump most of these impacts for either side. More often than not, the people that are going to stick with debate are already here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to the kinds of harms to the activity/teams as teams on either side of the clash question learn to coexist.

K vs. K Debates (Overview)

I’ll be perfectly honest, unless this is a K vs. Cap debate, these are the debates that I’m least comfortable evaluating because I feel like they end up being some of the messiest and “gooiest” debates possible. That being said, I think that high level K vs. K debates can be some of the most interesting to evaluate if both teams have a clear understanding of the distinctions between their positions, are able to base their theoretical distinctions in specific, grounded examples that demonstrate potential tradeoffs between each position, and can demonstrate mutual exclusivity outside of the artificial boundary of “no permutations in a method debate.” At their best, these debates require teams to meet a high research burden which is something that I like to reward so if your strat is specific or you can explain it in a nuanced way, go for it. That said, I’m not the greatest for teams whose generic position in these debates are to read “post-truth”/pomo arguments against identity positions and I feel uncomfortable resolving competing ontology claims in debates around identity unless they are specific and grounded. I feel like most debates are too time constrained to meaningfully resolve these positions. Similarly, teams that read framework should be cautious about reading conditional critiques with ontology claims- i.e. conditional pessimism with framework. I’m persuaded by theoretical arguments about conditional ontology claims regarding social death and cross apps to framework in these debates.

I won’t default to “no perms in a methods debate”, though I am sympathetic to the theoretical arguments about why affs not grounded in the resolution are too shifty if they are allowed to defend the permutation. What gets me in these debates is that I think that the affirmative will make the “test of competition”-style permutation arguments anyway like “no link” or the aff is a disad/prereq to the alt regardless of whether or not there’s a permutation. I can’t just magically wave a theory wand here and make those kinds of distinctions go away. It lowers the burden way too much for the negative and creates shallow debates. Let’s have a fleshed out theory argument and you can persuade me otherwise. The aff still needs to win access to the permutation, but if you lose the theory argument still make the same kinds of arguments if you had the permutation. Just do the defensive work to thump the links.

Cap vs. K- I get the strategic utility of these debates, but this debate is becoming pretty stale for me. Teams that go for state-good style capitalism arguments need to explain the process of organization, accountability measures, the kind of party leadership, etc. Aff teams should generate offense off of these questions. Teams that defend Dean should have to defend psychoanalysis answers. Teams that defend Escalante should have specific historical examples of dual power working or not in 1917 or in post-Bolshevik organization elsewhere. Aff teams should force Dean teams to defend psycho and force Escalante teams to defend historical examples of dual power. State crackdown arguments should be specific. I fear that state crackdown arguments will apply to both the alternative and the aff and the team that does a better job describing the comparative risk of crackdown ends up winning my argument. Either team should make more of a push about what it means to shift our research practices towards or away from communist organizing. There are so many debates where we have come to the conclusion that the arguments we make in debate don’t spill out or up and, yet, I find debates where we are talking about politically organizing communist parties are still stuck in some universe where we are doing the actual organizing in a debate round. Tell me what a step towards the party means for our research praxis or provide disads to shifting the resource praxis. All the thoughts on the permutation debate are above. I’m less likely to say no permutation in these debates because there is plenty of clash in the literature between, at least, anti-capitalism and postcapitalism that there can be a robust debate even if you don’t have specifics. That being said, the more you can make ground your theory in specific examples the better off you’ll be.

Samyak Chatterjee Hire

Alyssa Chen Hire

Last changed on Tue May 21, 2024 at 1:59 PM EDT

add me to the email chain- alyssacdebate@gmail.com

Please call me "Queen of Sheba" instead of "judge"

tech > truth. that being said i am not a fan of dumping 4+ of blippy and unwarranted contentions that are being spread at the speed of light. if you do, however, decide to dump that on me, please send a speech doc. i'm not a huge fan of flowing off docs but i will if you want me to.

i vote off of the contents of a round, there are too many judges who give an rfd to the scope of "i didn't like your case" which is really stupid because it massively tanks the educational and regular value of prep that went into that round which often ends up being a screw. in other words, i will never intervene because interventionists are bad.

note- i mostly will give oral rfd, it's simpler than typing everything out. That being said, feel free to record my rfd and all its amazing pearls of wisdom because i likely won't type it all out on tab.

Singposting makes me very happy. pls pls signpost, otherwise there will likely be content that i did not flow because i didn't know where to flow it that you think should have won you the round.

i won't vote for a turn that isn't implicated or weighed.

feel free to skip grand cross for a minute of prep.

time your own prep. also stop asking me to take prep just do it pls.

defense is never sticky. extend it, always.

General

win the weighing debate to win the ballot, but win your case first. second rebuttal is expected to frontline all turn, preferably collapse or at least drop a contention. if you can frontline your entire case in second rebuttal efficeintly, expect high speaks. I have a high threshold for extensions- i will not to any work for you, you need to cleanly extend the uniqueness, link and impact of any offense you want me to evaluate- otherwise it makes it hard for me to do so. implicate and clearly flesh out all turns. collapse in summary- otherwise it makes the round super messy.

Weighing

meta weigh for the love of god please it makes everything easier, meaning compare the weighing and actually interact with their weighing and your own weighing, don't just spew off fancy mechanisms and buzzwords to me because i will have no idea how to evaluate it.
start weighing in summary, or rebuttal if you really want to
please call your opps out if any probability weighing just ends up being new defense, which it does most of the time

Ev Ethics

im generally a little skeptical of paraphrasing but if you can provide me with cut card as long as it fits my flow then we're good.

Any card called for must be fully cut, meaning not googled mid round and then pasted with a URL as the citation.

Serius ev ethic violations- ie unhighlighting the word "not" or atrocious highlighting that skews ev, card clipping, or just total bsing ev will result in highly tanked speaks. If the violation goes above and beyond, an L is a real possibility.

any card called for must also be provided within 1 min, otherwise the opposing team can take prep, excluding potential tech issues

theory

before you read this know that if you're reading shells on novices or teams who clearly don't know what's happening just to grab a W, the L is a big and real possibility, also please shape shells around actual violations of real rules and actual abuses. I am highly opposed to friv theory and i think it's stupid because it does nothing to actually set good norms. Otherwise:

i def lean towards disclo good and slightly towards para bad, but it isn't impossible to win my ballot. pretty neutral on other shells.
that being said i also an way less experienced in theory rounds in compared to substance so flesh out and articulate things really clearly for me
pls direct me throughout the theory debate
i dont have a preference on rvi's
justify your voters

K's

run to your discretion- i'm less familiar with k's but get the general idea. if you do run one, and i look confused, it's because i am. I will try my best to evaluate k's but don't trust me to do so. i'm generally not a fan of k's read in PF so think carefully before you read one.

feel free to postround me, i think its educational but do not expect my decision to change

Speaks

I'll almost always give above 28 as long as you don't completely screw up. order me bubble tea +1, guess my order right and order me bubble tea +1.5

Any questions, ask before round.

Other paradigms I agree with- Patrick Smith, Olivia Tye

Lay Paradigm

Hello

I have 24 years of experience in dolphin communications and interpersonal molecular forces.

I am best persuaded by sound logic and compelling, crystallized evidence and statistics.

Please time your speeches.

Jianni Cheng Hire

Xiwen Deng Hire

Shelby Echols Hire None

Alex Etingof Hire None

Katherine Forero-Rodriguez Hire None

Samantha Forero-Rodriguez Hire None

Guliana Freitas Hire

Jayson Ty Gonzalez Hire

Ishaan Gupta Hire

Zachary Hall Hire None

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Savanna Kaufmann Hire None

Ananya Kommuri Hire

Last changed on Sat February 3, 2024 at 3:54 AM EDT

Hi! My name is Ananya Kommuri and I'm a varsity debater at IBA. I usually give generous speaks, and the only things that will tank your speaks are …

1: Spreading: please read at a clear speed. I am okay with you reading fast unless you are stuttering on your own words - that's not okay.

2: Be respectful: If you are sexist, racist, or homophobic you WILL get below a 26 (Yes, that is possible). Also be respectful to your opponents guys - otherwise you just look annoying.

3: Crossfire: Please don't scream over each other - let the other person talk. Don't cut them off unless they've been talking for a long time. (Anything above 20 or 30 seconds)

I would like to be included in the email chain for sharing cards - you don't even have to ask me. My email is: ananyakommuri@gmail.com

Ways to win a debate:

Weighing: please, please, PLEASE weigh in summary and final focus. This is probably the MOST important thing in a debate - if you don't tell me why your impact matters more than the other person's, than I really don't care about your argument and you're more likely to lose the round. Do NOT give me an hypothetical impact like nuclear war without sufficient evidence and sufficient weighing. Also, COMPARATIVE WEIGHING. Don't tell me you weigh on magnitude because you affect more people and then move onto something else - EXPLAIN your weighing. I would rather you explain your weighing instead of saying three random weighing mechanisms and not explaining it at all.

Frontline: I don't think this happens much in Novice, but if you frontline in second rebuttal and first summary I will be more impressed. If you have no idea what that is, don't worry about it.

Collapsing: This is not as important, because it doesn't happen much in Novice. Just tell me the biggest reason I should vote for you - one argument that you think is the most important. It's easier for me to vote as judge instead of trying to see which of your contentions is more important than the other. Again, not as important as weighing. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.

Lastly, PLEASE SIGNPOST. I have NO IDEA what you're talking about if you move all over the place. Tell me what part of their argument you're responding too - it makes flowing as judge SO MUCH EASIER.

Caren Lee Hire

Harrison Shaun Lee Hire

Cameron Liles Hire None

Hughes Liu Hire

Neha Narute Hire None

Keva Nimgaonkar Hire

Last changed on Sat February 3, 2024 at 4:27 AM EDT

My email is iheartbooks137@gmail.com. Please add me to the email chain.

I am not currently debating, but I have done policy debate for the past 2 years and I have decent topic knowledge for this year. I also have experience judging rookie & novice policy, as well as novice, JV, & varsity public forum.

Top Level: I am open to most arguments, impact calc is key, truth over tech, do line by line, be nice

What to do:

The most important thing in debating for me is DON’T DROP ARGUMENTS because it’s hard to flow.
If you want to go for a specific argument, make sure to extend it all the way into the last speech so that I can clearly outline arguments on the flow. If you don’t, that is considered dropping. And if the other team points it out, I may vote on that, so be careful.
Always provide a roadmap so that I can line up the flows in order.
In general, introduce new arguments in the 1AC and 1NC, then respond to answers in the 2AC and 2NC, extend and explain in the 1NR and 1AR, and then finally do impact calc, framework, summarizing, etc. in the 2NR and 2AR. Again, I’d like to emphasize extending and explaining.
If you’re going to run any Theory argument, it must be well explained throughout the entirety of the debate that you are extending it for. If you are neg, you should spend about 5 minutes of the 2NC or even the entire 1NR on theory arguments (such as condo, framework, etc).
Send speech docs as quickly as possible. I understand if you're taking prep time, but if there are some unexpected tech issues, try to get that resolved immediately.
Speak as clearly as possible for you.
Be nice to everybody. It doesn't matter if the other team is your sworn enemy or if your partner did something wrong. You should treat every person in the room with respect. If you fail to do so, expect low speaker points.

Argument specifics:

DA: Make sure that the uniqueness still applies for Politics DAs and that your DA actually links to the aff (the more specific, the better).
CP: HAVE A NET BENEFIT! I can’t stress this enough, you MUST have either an external net benefit like a DA or an internal one (it may be embedded within the counterplan text or in a separate card). If you’re unsure whether there’s an INB, it's better to read a DA that fits and kick it later rather than having to defend a CP with no NB. Also, decide on the status of the CP with your partner (condo, dispo or unconditional).
K: I am most definitely not a K debater. I dislike running them, going against them, or deciding on them. That being said, if you extend the K well and answer EVERYTHING, especially on framework, then I don’t necessarily mind voting on it. I will also allow essentially any K that you want to run, as long as your coach is okay with it. K affs are a whole other topic and I don’t like those either. However, if you’re going to run one, remember the rules for answering both the K stuff (like framework, alt fails, condo, etc.) and regular case defense/offense.
T: Make sure you have both a clear violation (I strongly suggest that you have carded evidence for this, but it can technically just be an analytic) and standards for your topicality arg. Also, try not to run more than 3 Ts because at that point, you’re just trying to create a time skew for the aff. I may decide not to vote on topicality just because of that.
Affs: Don’t drop solvency, and answer/extend the aff using a line-by-line (LBL) strategy. Try to have 2 or 3 advantages with a couple of impacts for each. Generally, try to have less impacts (maybe three max) and more internal links (really double down on these). For the 2AC specifically, short extensions of the 1AC cards are all that are necessary.
Case negs: These MUST be aff-specific. That means actually reading through the cards and checking whether they respond to the aff, and creating analytics for arguments that don’t have carded responses.

Things to know:

If you want to introduce a claim about recent events that negates something the other side has said, with or without evidence, that is fine. However, it must be either generally common knowledge or at least able to be easily Googled.
I like voting on CPs, DAs and impact-based arguments.
I LOVE a good impact calc debate, and I enjoy seeing clash.
Truth over tech (for the most part), clarity over speed, quality over quantity of arguments
I WILL NOT tolerate any type of discrimination whatsoever. In addition, there are a few arguments I am unwilling to listen to, including but not limited to: sexism good, racism good, genocide good, and rape good. If you are considering reading one of those arguments, don’t.
If my RFD doesn’t make sense or something isn’t explained clearly, I will do my best to clarify.
You can call me Judge or Keva. My pronouns are she/her.
Please don’t hold any hard feelings about the results. The point of debating in tournaments is to improve your speaking and debating skills, and it’s impossible to do that if you win all the time. In my experience, the rounds I’ve lost are the ones where I’ve learned the most.

Speaker point scale (for rookie/novice)

Below 27.0: Being blatantly rude, aggressive, or showing any "ism" (being sexist, racist, etc.) on purpose and outside the scope of debate arguments
27.0 to 28.4: Good foundation but additional prep is probably needed
28.5 to 29.0: Solid but you still have room for improvement (average range)
29.1 to 29.4: Great debating, keep up the good work
29.5 to 29.9: Really smart debating, amazing job
30: Literally perfect, nothing could be better (I have never given a 30 and don't plan on doing so)

If you get me a caramel frappuccino before the round, I'll bump speaks by 0.4.

If you tell me a good joke (it actually has to be funny), I'll increase speaks by 0.2.

Good luck!

Tiffany Obasohan Hire None

Jihyo Park Hire None

Niva Patel Hire None

Sneha Ramineni Hire

Charles Sanderson Hire

Last changed on Thu April 11, 2024 at 5:02 PM EDT

Add me to the chain: ctsanderson10@gmail.com

PF blurb

I currently coach PF at Ivy Bridge Academy, where a lot of my work revolves around evidence production. Therefore, I'm fairly familiar in both the topic and the general conventions of public forum debate. That being said, my background in policy debate means that sometimes understand these debates very differently than many lay judges might. Thus:

Tech>Truth
Speed is good, so long as you are clear
Document sharing is good so long as both teams agree to it
Evidence ethics violations are a voter.

1. I flow on multiple sheets of paper, one for each of your contentions. Therefore, I find off-time roadmaps to be incredibly important but often, unfortunately, lacking. Please structure your off-time road map by contention to help me be the best judge that I can.

2. Please make sure that you time your speeches, even if I'm also already timing them. Double-timing is a great competitive norm and helps make debates more fair!

3. I prioritize argumentative nuance over your speaking ability. I believe that debates are ultimately decided by debaters who are able to 'write my ballot' through solid impact calculus (weighing) and in-depth case analysis (explaining your contentions and why I should vote on them).

4. Extend your evidence! Extend their warrants! Compare evidence and don't be afraid of argumentative clash. Debaters are only as good as their evidence and the way that they use it!

T/L -- Policy

Experience --

4 years of policy debate at Chattahoochee high school. Qualled to the TOC on the NATO topic. I genuinely love this activity and (most of) the people in it. I'm currently a 2A/2N, but have debated as every position for a prolonged amount of time.

About Me --

Hey-O! I'm Charles and I love debate.

----Influences: Kevin Bancroft, Astrid Clough, Jordan Keller, Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz (I sing his praise), and Sarah Lundeen. (UWG debate supremacy)

First and foremost, I want this to be a space for you. I genuinely believe that my job as a judge is twofold. The first is to deliver fair, well-thought, educational decisions and feedback. The second is to ensure that this is a debate that you can participate in. If you, at any time, feel unsafe in a round that I am present in, I will fight tooth and nail for you. In a community that is increasingly divided by and has traditionally been defined by oppression, my tolerance for violence is nonexistent. Don't be an abuser. Don't reproduce the violence that has become intrinsic to so many aspects of this activity and community. Don't be the problem. Don't be the reason the queer kid quits. I ask that you, as a debater, actively work to make this space one that can be genuinely valuable for everyone, not just your Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V, straight, white, MBA policy bro. To the queer kids, the trans kids, the people of color, the disabled kids, the kid who carries unspeakable violence with them every day, I will protect you.

Strike me if you were involved (were the aggressor) in a Title IX violation at camp. Do not ever speak to me.

I am a disabled debater. I have ADHD, PTSD, PNES (seizure disorder), a slew of mental health problems, and some other stuff that I'd rather not get into. I may ask for certain accommodations, this does not mean that I cannot judge your round, just that I need you to help me so that I can help you.

I'll be the first to say it, I'm a hack for the K. There is very little that I spend more of my time thinking about. If you're a novice and want to try out kritikal arguments, I'm your judge. However, if the K isn't your thing, don't sweat it. I'll still vote on your disad about how the plan trades off with the ability of the USFG to sell Ukraine papayas, which could cause Bosnian instability that spills over into intergalactic rubber-duckie warfare. Or your PIC. Or your 5-minute T 2NR (although I'll never forgive you for it if its bad). Tech>Truth. First and foremost, I am a blank slate when casting my ballot. Most of the time...

I will not vote on arguments that I find morally repugnant. That means --

White debaters reading Afro-Pess

Malthus

Genocide good

Racism good

Eugenics good

Obviously racist/sexist/queerphobic arguments

Trigger Warnings Bad

8 OFF or higher

Roko's

Spark/Death Good is the exception here, as I feel that they have genuine value as things to be debated.

Novice O/V --

If its packet debate, dw about it. Read your args. Have fun. Try to learn. Losing doesn't mean you're stupid and winning doesn't mean you're debate-jesus.

If it isn't packet debate, dw about it. Explore the wider world of argumentation. Read whatever you want. Have fun. Try to learn. Reading my paradigm is probably a bit more important here. Losing doesn't mean you're stupid and winning doesn't mean you're debate-jesus.

General Thoughts --

I think that...

Debate is good as an activity, but is not intrinsically valuable. Debate is as good or bad as those who participate in the activity make it. Make of that what you will.
Tech>Truth is the best "default" position for a judge to take.
Clarity>Speed, any time. I don't care how fast you are. Your ability to do spreading drills for 5 hours every day does not affect your actual ability to debate outside of being able to say more. One good, clear argument is worth an infinite amount of speedy bad ones. I'm fine with speed, but only go as fast as you are clear. If your strat is solely reliant upon out-speeding the other team while being atrociously unclear, then you are bad at debate. Its a skill issue.
Judge instruction is incredibly valuable for teams that want to really win rounds, not to just beat the other team. There's a difference.
Case debate is a lost art.
Fairness is an internal link.
Condo/broader theory debates are really only valuable insofar as both teams get off their blocks. If one of your impacts/reasons you think that I should prefer your model in a theory debate is education, then reading noncontextual blocks straight down is not only silly, but is also a performative doubleturn. My thoughts on whether condo is good or bad don't matter here. Tell me how to think about it in your round.
"Reject the arg, not the team" is not an escape rope that I will give you. Tell me why.
You should tell me what your favorite song is. I'll surprise you with good speaks for reading my paradigm.
Big schools saying "_____ hurts small schools!!!" is absurd and is almost never an argument that will be won in front of me. Lookin' at you, MBA.
Well-thought-out author indicts that are supported by good warranting and actually have a tangible impact will not only make me very happy, but will drastically boost your speaker points. I will not object to them becoming a voter.
Clipping is a L+25. I have a threshold for how this is decided. I will not disclose it unless it becomes an issue.
"Lying 2A" strats will suffer in front of me. If you have to resort to this, it's a skill issue.
Shouting at your partner is ridiculous and, if severe enough, will earn you the worst speaks that I can give you.
CX and rebuttles will set the basis for your speaks.
Reading paradigms is probably a good idea.
Cowardice is bad.

Judging Philosophy --

I'm a blank slate unless told otherwise. My role is whatever you can win it is. The clearer the ROTJ is, the more likely that you are to win it. If not given a specific role of the judge, I will default to serving as an abstract, 4th dimensional entity, observing and weighing all aspects of every argument that makes it into the final 2 speeches to construct my decision.

To quote Jordan Keller, "...I want to see debaters who play with the bounds of the activity, so do what makes you the most satisfied: play your music, I'll dance with you... as long as you can pull it off. I am a depressed, tired, and impatient [high school] student - make me laugh."

Argument Specific --

Aff (Policy)

I'll hear it. High-quality evidence is something policy teams have struggled with SO MUCH recently. Same thing with powertagging. You should consider the fact that your solvency advocate and solvency evidence are literally the lifeblood of your affirmative. If you can convince me that you can solve for the harms that you present, you will be in a very strong position in these debates. Judge instruction is a powerful, often underutilized tool in these debates. Policy hacks, take a page out of your K debater friends' playbooks and start telling me how to think. God knows, I've barely figured it out on my own in the first place.

Aff (Kritikal)

I LOVE YOUR (good.) IDENTITY KAFF. These are the debates that I am the most familiar with. Don't get it twisted though, my standard for kritikal affirmatives is high. I am familiar with a wide range of lit bases and there's a good chance that I've read yours. If I haven't, I've probably read the literature that your authors based their works on. If I'm not familiar with it at all, GREAT!! I LOVE learning about new forms of critical literature. I feel that there is real, genuine ground for these affirmatives in debate and I think that they can provide real, genuine change for those both in and outside of the activity.

However...

Reading a Kaff, identity-based or not, is not an auto-aff ballot. Framework is a metric that you are required to beat. A good kaff is a kaff that pushes this activity and the people in it to change for the better. If you can't convince me that your kaff can do that, good luck.

T (Policy)

Objectively speaking, T is a spectacular argument with more utility than most other off-case positions in debate. However, T is often horrifically underutilized by negative teams when debating against policy affirmatives to the extent that I often find myself questioning why its even in the 1NC. This has led me to have an icky taste in my mouth when it comes to topicality. Affs, believe it or not, are bad. Affs, believe it or not, are very frequently not topical. When debating as the negative, understand that my opinions about this argument are situated on the very furthest ends of the spectrum from each other. Either you will debate T beautifully and meaningfully and I will reward you, or you will text-to-speech bot straight down the same recycled topicality blocks from 3 years ago, then kick it in the block, and I will be very sad. Do not put T in the 1NC unless you are prepared for 5 minutes of T in the 2NR. I am tired of wasting flow paper on T arguments that get conceded in the 1NR. If this is your current strategy, its a skill issue. Be better.

T - USFG

FW walks a fine line between two extremes. T - USFG has its roots in exclusion. It is important to recognize this for both the kritikal teams that are responding to it and the negative teams who are reading it. However, by no means do I think that T - USFG is evil. I think that it can be used in evil, exclusionary ways, and when it is, then affirmatives should utterly crush it in front of me. I also think that T - USFG is one of the best arguments which exists within debate for testing things like the ability of the aff to shape subjectivities, to alter the state of the academy, and to ensure that relevant, transformative kaffs are able to succeed in shaping the debate space. In contrast, ridiculous, abusive, or otherwise non-transformative kaffs will be filtered out by consistently losing to FW. How this argument is used in your round will decide how I view it. Better yet, don't make me decide at all, just tell me! Judge instruction, people!

DA -

I have literally no opinion on these and literally have only seen 2 good ones all year. mfw no disad ground outside of IPol.

CP -

Oh god. Ok, well lets start with this one. The CP and I have a love-hate relationship. As in, I love to debate the PIC but hate how massively abusive they often are. But who knows, maybe that's why I love it in the first place? Anyways, my unhealthy love-life aside, I feel like aff teams let the neg get away with way too much here. Vice versa, I think that neg teams lack so much ground on this topic, that there's maybe some room here for abuse as a form of counterbalancing. I lean aff on theory and neg on content. Thus, I feel that I'm fairly neutral here due to that fact. Reading 4 conditional counterplans is probably a bad idea in front of me.

K -

(Much of this can be C/A'ed to the KAFF section)

At this point, this is my life. For better or for worse, practically every thought or action that I engage in anymore draws some connection back to K debate. (Yes, believe me, it's just as depressing as it sounds.) I WILL know what you're talking about. I WILL read all of the cards read on this flow. If "judge adaption" is something that your coaches tell you that you need to get better at, you will read a kritik in front of me, and it will make me smile when you do. Because this is the kind of debate that I enjoy the most, (KvK, Policy v K), I plan to invest a bit more time getting into the meat and substance of what a good K debate should look like.

Links

Benefit from being specific to the aff, not just the res (we have kaffs for that, silly)
Are disads unless proven otherwise
Should occupy a large section of the block if you plan to go for the K in the 2NR
Should have good warrants
Should tell me a story about what you think the world looks like
Should probably not be cut from the anarchist library
Are offense against FW

Impacts

Should be resolvable by the alternative
Don't have to be existential to outweigh the impacts of the plan, you just have to be good with the K
Should not have a mile-long K tag

Alternatives

SHOULD NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE KICKED IN FRONT OF ME OR SO HELP YOU GOD
Probably shouldn't be fiated

Outside of subpoint 1., my opinions here are much more elaborate.

What does your alt advocate for? If you can't tell me in clear terms, good luck.

If you advocate for some form of anarchism, you will need to overcome a very high threshold for victory. Do this by giving me a clear line of material praxis for overcoming the state, a coherent theory of power, as well as specific indicts to the state itself. Anarchist theories of power are extremely weak, immature, and genuinely just silly 99% of the time. Ultimately, if your K relies on reverting to anarchism to solve for your impacts, then it's definitely utopian and also most certainly could not solve for your impacts in the real world.

Speaker Points --

Guide Scale

0-27.4 -- You messed up big-time. Never do whatever I told you not to do again.

27.5-27.8 -- You had a rough round. If this is you, I would seriously think about the feedback that I gave. Ask questions. It doesn't mean you should quit the activity, but it does mean that you need to go back and do some work with your coaches.

27.9 -- You had a just-below-bare-minimum round. You're getting there though. Numbers like these are ones that will come up with practice. Believe me, mine did.

28.0-28.2 -- You did decently, perhaps not to my standard, but its not something to cry in the back seat of the car about. You showed up, read blocks straight down, had a probably sub-par cross, and probably just had an average debate.

28.3-28.4 -- You had a debate. This is true neutral for me. 60% of debaters that I see will fall in this range. You probably aren't going to get a speaker award at this tournament, but you've got potential, and I definitely think you should stick to it. I look forward to seeing you progress.

28.5-28.7 -- You did pretty good. I see a world where you could possibly get a middle-range speaker ranking at this tournament. I think you could probably move on to break-rounds. All in all, good job. Ask questions. The answers that you'll get will determine between a 28.7 or a 29 in your next round. Save my email, hit me up, keep in contact with me after the tournament. Go eat some chocolate or something. I assume that all debaters who read my paradigm will be in this section or above.

28.8 -- You had a solid round. I'm impressed. I think you'll probably be in the top 12 speakers at this tournament. You should definitely be proud of yourself. Shoot for that 29 next round though, there's probably one or two mistakes that you made that locked you out of that upper tier.

28.9-29 -- You did GREAT. If you got a 28.9, its probably because your partner got the 29 and the tournament didn't let me give you both the same speaks. Very very solid job here. I think that you probably know your stuff. I think that you've probably got really solid skills as a young debater. I think that if you were to quit, the community would genuinely lose someone who could advance or shape it. I think you'll probably be in the top 7-10 speakers at this tournament. Good stuff!

29.1-29.3 -- You knocked my socks off. You have changed my standards for novice debate forever and I will never forget your round. Spectacular. I think that you'll probably be in the top 6 speakers at this tournament.

29.4 or higher -- You have probably done something amazing. I've never seen it in action. If you do it, I'll update my paradigm and just, like, write a description of you and your round or something. If you get a 29.4 or higher from me, I genuinely think that you should be winning both top speaker as well as the tournament.

Boosters

+0.1 for any of the following

Beating me to the round room
Bringing me caffeine
Kindness to your fellow debaters
Good post/pre-round banter
Asking for each other's pronouns

Ava Santos Hire None

Ben Schultz Hire

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 11:16 AM EDT

Debated 4 years Marquette University HS (2001-2004)

Assistant Coach – Marquette University HS (2005-2010)

Head Coach – Marquette University HS (2011-2012)

Assistant Coach – Johns Creek HS (2012-2014)

Head Coach – Johns Creek HS (2014-Current)

Yes, put me on the chain: bencharlesschultz@gmail.com

No, I don’t want a card doc.

Its been a long time since I updated this – this weekend I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned that I have "made it clear I wasn’t interested in voting for the K”. Since I actually love voting for the K, I figured that I had been doing a pretty bad job of getting my truth out there. I’m not sure anyone reads these religiously, or that any paradigm could ever combat word of mouth (good or bad), but when I read through what I had it was clear I needed an update (more so than for the criticism misconception than for the fact that my old paradigm said I thought conditionality was bad – yeesh, not sure what I was thinking when I wrote THAT….)

Four top top shelf things that can effect the entire debate for you, with the most important at the top:

11) Before I’m a debate judge, I’m a teacher and a mandatory reporter. I say this because for years I’ve been more preferred as a critical judge, and I’ve gotten a lot of clash rounds, many of which include personal narratives, some of which contain personal narratives of abuse. If such a narrative is read, I’ll stop the round and bring in the tournament director and they will figure out the way forward.

22) I won’t decide the debate on anything that has happened outside of the round, no matter the quality of evidence entered into the debate space about those events. The round starts when the 1AC begins.

33) If you are going to the bathroom before your speech in the earlier speeches (constructives through 1nr, generally) just make sure the doc is sent before you go. Later speeches where there's no doc if you have prep time I can run that, or I'll take off .4 speaks and allow you to go (probably a weird thing, I know, but I just think its stealing prep even though you don't get to take flows or anything, just that ability to settle yourself and think on the positions is huge)

44) No you definitely cannot use extra cross-ex time as prep, that’s not a thing.

55) Finally, some fun. I’m a firm believer in flowing and I don’t see enough people doing it. Since I do think it makes you a better debater, I want to incentivize it. So if you do flow the round, feel free to show me your flows at the end of the debate, and I’ll award up to an extra .3 points for good flows. I reserve the right not to give any points (and if I get shown too many garbage flows maybe I’ll start taking away points for bad ones just so people don’t show me horrible flows, though I’m assuming that won’t happen much), but if you’ve got the round flowed and want to earn extra points, please do! By the way you can’t just show one good flow on, lets say, the argument you were going to take in the 2nc/2nr – I need to see the round mostly taken down to give extra points

Top Shelf:

This is stuff that I think you probably want to know if you’re seeing me in the back

· I am liable probably more than most judges to yell “clear” during speeches – I won’t do it SUPER early in speeches because I think it takes a little while for debaters to settle into their natural speed, and a lot of times I think adrenaline makes people try and go faster and be a little less clear at the start of their speeches than they are later. So I wait a bit, but I will yell it. If it doesn’t get better I’ll yell one more time, then whatever happens is on you in terms of arguments I don’t get and speaker points you don’t get. I’m not going to stop flowing (or at least, I never have before), but I also am not yelling clear frivolously – if I can’t understand you I can’t flow you.

· I don’t flow with the doc open. Generally, I don’t open the doc until later in the round – 2nc prep is pretty generally when I start reading, and I try to only read cards that either are already at the center of the debate, or cards that I can tell based on what happens through the 2ac and the block will become the choke points of the round. The truth of the debate for me is on the flow, and what is said by the debaters, not what is said in their evidence and then not emphasized in the speeches, and I don’t want to let one team reading significantly better evidence than the other on questions that don’t arise in the debate influence the way I see the round in any way, and opening the doc open is more likely than not to predispose me towards one team than another, in addition to, if I’m reading as you go, I’m less likely to dock you points for being comically unclear than if the only way I can get down what I get down is to hear you say it.

Argumentative Stuff

Listen at the end of the day, I will vote for anything. But these are arguments that I have a built in preference against. Please do not change up your entire strategy for me. But if the crux of your strategy is either of these things know that 1 – I probably shouldn’t be at the top of your pref card, and 2 – you can absolutely win, but a tie is more likely to go to the other side. I try and keep an open mind as much as possible (heck I’ve voted for death good multiple times! Though that is an arg that may have more relevance as you approach 15 full years as a public school DoD….) but these args don’t do it for me. I’ll try and give a short explanation of why.

1. I’m not a good judge for theory, most specifically cheap shots, but also stuff seen as more “serious” like conditionality. Its been a long long time since anyone has gone for theory in front of me – the nature of the rounds that I get means there’s not usually a ton of negative positions – which is good because I’m not very sympathetic to it. I generally think that the negative offense, both from the standpoint of fairness and education, is pretty weak in all but the most egregious rounds when it comes to basic stuff like conditionality. Other counterplan theory like no solvency advocate, no international fiat, etc I’m pretty sympathetic to reject the argument not the team. In general, if you’re looking at something like conditionality where the link is linear and each instance increases the possibility of fairness/education impacts, for me you’ve got to be probably very near to, or even within, double digits for me to think the possible harm is insurmountable in round. This has come up before so I want to be really clear here – if its dropped, GO FOR IT, whether alone or (preferably) as an extension in a final rebuttal followed by substance. I for sure will vote for it in a varsity round (in novice rounds, depending on the rest of the round, I may or may not vote on it). Again – this is a bias against an argument that will probably effect the decision in very close rounds.

2. Psychoanalysis based critical literature – I like the criticism, as I mentioned above, just because I think the cards are more fun to read and more likely to make me think about things in a new way than a piece of counterplan solvency or a politics internal link card or whatever. But I have an aversion to psychoanalysis based stuff. The tech vs truth paragraph sums up my feelings on arguments that seem really stupid. Generally when I see critical literature I think there’s at least some truth to it, especially link evidence. But

3. Cheap Shots – same as above – just in general not true, and at variance with what its fun to see in a debate round. There’s nothing better than good smart back and forth with good evidence on both sides. Cheap shots (I’m thinking of truly random stuff like Ontology Spec, Timecube – stuff like that) obviously are none of those things.

4. Finally this one isn’t a hard and fast thing I’m necessarily bad for, but something I’ve noticed over the years that I think teams should know that will effect their argumentative choices in round – I tend to find I’m less good than a lot of judges for fairness as a standalone impact to T-USFG. I feel like even though its never changed that critical teams will contend that they impact turn fairness, or will at least discuss why the specific type of education they provide (or their critique of the type of education debate in the past has provided), it has become more in vogue for judges to kind of set aside that and put sort of a silo around the fairness impact of the topicality debate and look at that in a vacuum. I’ve just never been good at doing that, or understanding why that happens – I’m a pretty good judge still for framework, I think, but youre less likely to win if you go for a fairness impact only on topicality and expect that to carry the day

Specific Round Types:

K Affs vs Framework

Clash rounds are the rounds I’ve gotten by far the most in the last 5-8 years or so, and generally I like them a lot and they consistently keep me interested. For a long time during the first generation of critical affirmatives that critique debate/the resolution I was a pretty reliable vote for the affirmative. Since the negative side of the no plan debate has caught up, I’ve been much more evenly split, and in general I like hearing a good framework press on a critical aff and adjudicating those rounds. I think I like clash rounds because they have what I would consider the perfect balance between amount of evidence (and specificity of evidence) and amount of analysis of said evidence. I think a good clash round is preferable than almost any round because there’s usually good clash on the evidentiary issues and there’s still a decent amount of ev read, but from the block on its usually pure debate with minimal card dumpage. Aside from the preference discussed above for topicality based framework presses to engage the fairness claims of the affirmative more, I do think that I’m more apt than others to vote negative on presumption, or barring that, to conclude that the affirmative just gets no risk of its advantages (shoutout Juliette Salah!). One other warning for affirmatives – one of the advantages that the K affords is that the evidence is usually sufficiently general that cards which are explained one way (or meant to be used one way) earlier in the round can become exactly what the negative doesn’t need/cant have them be in the 2ar. I think in general judges, especially younger judges, are a little biased against holding the line against arguments that are clearly new or cards that are explained in a clearly different way than they were originally explained. Now that I’m old, I have no such hang ups, and so more than a lot of other judges I’ve seen I’m willing to say “this argument that is in the 2ar attached to (X) evidence is not what was in the 1ar, and so it is disallowed”. (As an aside, I think the WORST thing that has happened to, and can happen to, no plan teams is an overreliance on 1ar blocks. I would encourage any teams that have long 1ar blocks to toss them in the trash – if you need to keep some explanations of card warrants close, please do, but ditch the prewritten blocks, commit yourself to the flow, and listen to the flow of the round, and the actual words of the block. The teams that have the most issue with shifting argumentation between the 1ar and the 2ar are the teams that are so obsessed with winning the prep time battle in the final 2 rebuttals that they become over dependent on blocks and aren’t remotely responsive to the nuance of a 13 minute block that is these days more and more frequently 13 minutes of framework in some way shape or form)

K vs K

Seems like its more likely these days to see clash rounds for me, and next up would be policy rounds. I’d actually like to see more K v K rounds (though considering that every K team needs to face framework enough that they know exactly how to debate it, and its probably more likely/easier to win a clash round than a K v K round on the negative, it may be more strategic to just go for framework on the neg if you don’t defend the USFG on the aff), and I’d especially love to see more well-argued race v high theory rounds. Obviously contextualization of very general evidence that likely isn’t going to be totally on point is the name of the game in these rounds, as well as starting storytelling early for both sides – I’d venture to say the team that can start telling the simple, coherent story (using evidence that can generally be a tad prolix so the degree of difficulty for this is high) early will be the team that generally will get the ballot. The same advice about heavy block use, especially being blocked out into the 1ar, given above counts here as well.

Policy v policy Rounds

I love them. A good specific policy round is a thing of beauty. Even a non-specific counterplan/DA round with a good strong block is always great. As the season goes on its comparatively less likely, just based on the rounds I usually get, that I’ll know about specific terminology, especially deeply nuanced counterplan terminology. I honestly believe good debaters, no matter their argumentative preference or what side of the (mostly spurious) right/left divide in debate you’re on, are good CASE debaters. If you are negative and you really want to back up the speaker point Brinks truck, a 5+ minute case press is probably the easiest way to make that happen.

Individual argument preferences

I’ll give two numbers here – THE LEFT ONE about how good I think I am for an argument based on how often I actually have to adjudicate it, and THE RIGHT ONE will be how much I personally enjoy an argument. Again – I’ll vote for anything you say. But more information about a judge is good, and you may as well know exactly what I enjoy hearing before you decide where to rank me. 1 being the highest, 10 being the lowest.

T (classic) --------------------------------------- 5/4

T (USFG/Framework) ------------------------ 1/1

DA ------------------------------------------------ 3/2

CP ------------------------------------------------- 4/2

Criticism ----------------------------------------- 1/2

Policy Aff --------------------------------------- 2/2

K Aff ---------------------------------------------- 1/3

Theory ------------------------------------------- 8/9

Cheap Shots ------------------------------------ 10/10

Post Round:

I feel like I’ve gotten more requests lately to listen to redos people send me. I’m happy to do that and give commentary if folks want – considering I saw the original speech and know the context behind it, it only makes sense that I would know best whether the redo fixes the deficiencies of the original. Shoot me an email and I’m happy to help out!

Any other questions – just ask!

Brent Shi AIS

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Joshua StPeter Hire

Last changed on Wed May 22, 2024 at 2:02 PM EDT

Call me "jsp" or "Josh"

joshuasp.debate@gmail.com

<3 ATL

Recent Coaching/Debating Affiliations:

Coaching: Ivy Bridge Academy, Thomas Kelly College Prep

Debating: Western Kentucky University (2024-present), Georgia State University (2021-2024), Sequoyah High School (2017-2021)

Artificial Intelligence Rule: I will automatically vote against you if you are caught using AI or chat gpt as speech material in round (Do not quote bard, bing, etc.). Debate is an activity for skill building, a win does not change your life but the skills you gain do change you. This is hard to enforce, but email chains are more important to me because of this. If it is suspected I will get tabroom involved and have them request to check search history. Only exeption is performative reasons to use it.

Bottom line: I am a 3rd year out debater doing policy, I did 4 years of LD in high school and I have been coaching PF at Ivy Bridge Academy. I can follow jargon from across those 3 events. Whatever you are doing will likely not be new to me in all honesty. Some people call me a tabula rasa judge even though I think the phrase tabula rasa is a conservative debate dogwhistle (I spend a lot of my time thinking about why we do what we do in debate, I think this makes me decent at judging method debates).

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Quick Prefs: (LD)

1- K, Plan, DA's

2 - Theory, Pomo

3 - Phil/CP's

4- Tricks

Strike- Out of round violations, frivolous arguments

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Translation for PF Debaters: this means I am a "tech judge". Speed is fine and prog is cool. Just don't be a jerk, be a sensible person.

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I have given myself 5 things to say about how I evaluate debates, no more, no less:

1. I need pen time, i flow on paper and by ear

2. I will not vote for arguments that had no warrant/signaling. Such as ur fiat K's that ngl was not even in the block

3. It must have been in your final speech for me to vote for you on it (including extending case vs T)

4. I evaluate impact level first usually unless told otherwise (whether its education or nuke war, etc)

5. My ballot will likely be determined off who i have to do the least work for, i do not usually vote on presumption

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Evidence shenanigans:

this is the only stuff that will change how I vote directly, everything else is flexible.

Put me on the email chain, i do like to read evidence because no one compares the evidence themselves. I prefer ev to be send before speeches and in cut cards. Your speaks are capped below 29.5 if there is no doc and below 28 if when you send evidence there is not evidence in cut card format. Paraphrasing is fine if you have cut cards to go along with it AND you send them out BEFORE. I make exceptions to this if you are part of a small program which has no way knowing how to cut cards and this is in novice.

If you send your case as a google doc, copying perms needs to be on. This is because I need to create a stable copy of your evidence, anything that you can edit without sending a new doc risks being problematic (ie changing highlighting mid round or adding ev and claiming to have read it). Strike me if how I deal with ev ethics is a problem.

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More Ranting

Every form of debate is full of brain rot and I genuinely care about voting for people who are capable of thinking of why they do the norms they partake, not only does it make you a better debater but also a better person. Idc what it is or how it got there, just get to the finish line. Any arg is a voting issue if made to be that way. I only vote on complete arguments. Stock args are very strategic in front of me because I am not better for random arguments but for good arguments you can defend well. The frontlines and weighing wins you the round, not the constructive.

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Speaker Points

Be clear, pen time gets speaker points.

Cross-examination/Crossfire heavily influences speaks. Do you use it

Strategic collapses that make my life easier are appreciated

Clear signalling/signposting helps

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Soham Verma Hire

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:02 PM EDT

sohamverma03@gmail.com - add me to the email chain pls

Tech>truth - Front lining is also a must. These are key to winning debates and I vote for arguments that are clashed. If something is dropped by both teams I don't make my decision based on it.

If you drop a case that still has turn on it and the other team extends it, IT COUNTS AS OFFENSE. It's technically reverting their point toward them therefore it is an offense and is a valid point to argue for. If you flesh out a turn well you can very likely win the debate because of it. Impact weighing is key and for me to evaluate it you must relate to any of the weighing mechanisms. Most teams just talk about their impact but I need you to compare it for me... so like saying why their impact is bad. If a team frontlines a response and the other team does not respond to the frontline I will count that response as dropped. please collapse flesh out warrants well.

Policy

Your speech should probably follow along the border of this:

1AC - Aff reads plan and advantage.100% just reading the evidence

1NC - Reads DA's and advantage answer.- 95% evidence, 5% analytics. Some people include analytics on cases or mention things that were said in cross-ex (CX)

2AC - Extends 1AC to explain why 1NC case defense is wrong & reads answers to DA's - case is all extensions NO CARDS unless absolutely necessary, answers to DA's are 95% cards, 5% analytics that you think of or come from CX

2NC/1NR - Extend DA's and advantage answers --- 50/50 cards and extensions you want to extend 1NC cards and then support them with more evidence

1AR - Re-extends what was said in the 2AC on the case & choose the strongest arguments to go for on the DAs (Can't go for everything b/c 1AR is 5 minutes vs Neg block which is 13 minutes) - -- 80% extensions, may need a card here or there for new things read in the block

2NR - Makes final decision on what the neg is going to go for. For example, if reading 2 DAs, 2N has to choose 1 to all in on. Do impact calc on the DA vs the advantages - 100% ANALYTICS AND EXTENSIONS

2AR - Makes final decision on what the aff is going to go for. Only extend 1 advantage and do impact calc on the ADV VS DA - 100% ANALYTICS AND EXTENSIONS

Just make sure to clash a lot and win dropped args and ill end up voting for u

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