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John Edie Holiday Debates Hosted by The Blake School

2023 — Minneapolis, MN/US

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Spencer Anderson McElligott Edina High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Sun February 25, 2024 at 2:51 PM CDT

Coach at Edina 22-24

NDT/CEDA debater at Iowa 23-??, (formerly Minnesota 21-23), HS Policy debater at Edina (2016-21).

he/him

Yes, I want to be on the chain - umnakdebate [at] gmail [dot] com

There's no record of me on the wiki from 2021-23 due to some of the stuff going on last year with fascists on tabroom. That said, if you're interested in reading trans/queer stuff, email me or find me at a tournament and I can send you lit recs, affs I've read in the past, and/or good youtube videos of high quality debates in this corner of the library.

If you are debating in front of me and feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or have another need, please let me know at some point and I will do my best to support you and meet your needs in that moment!

I also usually carry things like Advil, masks and bandaids at tournaments, especially when coaching - if you need anything, come find me.

TL;DR - Prefs

When judging high school, I see my primary role as that of an educator. I take seriously the responsibility that comes with being entrusted with someone else's students. Making the activity accessible for minoritized students matters very much to me. I therefore aim to give decision and comments in line with this.

I have all the technical debate knowledge necessary to judge the arguments you read. However, I am less familiar with policy-style arguments because I have been a one-off K + K aff debater for around five-six years now, both in high school and college debate.

I judge mostly clash and KvK debates, but I coach teams who read arguments across the debate spectrum and have enough experience to understand the meta and function of policy-style arguments.

General - Preround

Speaks challenge:

Specific extensions: if you, at some point during a debate, identify a card, extend it by quoting a line from the card that contains a warrant for why the claim the card is making is true, and explain how that warrant interacts with the answer that the other team has made to your argument and why I should prefer your warrant, I will give you +0.2 speaks.
Final rebuttal overviews: if the first thing out of your mouth in the 2NR or 2AR makes a good-faith attempt to fill in the following sentence template by identifying why you win the debate, **regardless of if you actually win the debate**, I will give you +0.2 speaks. "We win the debate because [X argument] [OUTWEIGHS or TURNS THEIR OFFENSE or whatever else applies]. Their best argument is [Y argument], but even if they win that, we still win because [explanation]."

Speaks anti-challenge:
Current high school debate has a block reliance problem. Obviously the 2AC and 2NC/1NR are speeches that are conducive to reading lots of blocks - that's totally fine! I understand that blocks are useful tools that have strategic applicability!

That said, I can also tell when blocks have no applicability to the debate at hand and are a substitution for reactive and critical thinking. If you are simply reading from a backfile at the expense of reactive and critical thinking, with no contextualization to the debate, particularly in final rebuttals, this saddens me, and will impact your speaks.

Argumentative choices:

I will try my very best to vote on the arguments made on the flow, as all good judges do. Adapt at your own risk, which is to say, probably don't. I'd rather see you do what you do best than see you try to run a K without knowing how.

I'd like to think that the Ks I am most well-read on tend to be material and have real-world applications and conclusions. Examples and counterexamples are helpful in these debates and often carry a lot of weight when done well - I will reward good examples with good speaks! I find that pomo-type lit bases are less intuitive for me to understand, which means that examples and thorough, logical explanations can be more important if that's your jam.

I am increasingly disturbed by non-black debaters with non-black coaches reading afropessimism as a core strategy. This issue is probably too complex to adequately express in a paradigm. One thing that I can convey clearly: I am even more disturbed by non-black debaters with non-black coaches reading afropessimism as a timeskew or throwaway. If you do this in front of me, you will get a 25 and I will initiate a discussion about why that is a tokenizing and harmful practice.

Speed/Clarity:

Current high school debate has a spreading clarity problem. I flow by ear, and if I can't hear you, I will clear you three times, and then I will put my hands in the air to signal that I am not flowing because I cannot hear you.

Judge instruction:

Always good. I will flow and follow uncontested judge instruction, which includes sentences like "all we have to win is X", "we don't have to win that X", "start evaluating the debate with X", "prioritize empirics", etc. It would behoove you to flow and answer the judge instruction your opponents make if you think their instruction bodes poorly for you winning the debate.

Sneaky behavior:

I've noticed a trend where debaters are worried to be straight-up because they believe there is a competitive edge to being sneaky. A non-exhaustive list of what this might look like --

reading a bunch of offcase that you can't explain in CX for "timeskew"
procrastinating on giving an order to not reveal your strategic choices for a few extra seconds
not opensourcing (when there isn't a good reason - think, personal content in a performance)
lying or changing up disclosure of past 2NRs to trick the other team into thinking you'll read something that you have no intention of reading.

This does not make for good and high quality debates. Please do what you can to make the community better - in other words, do not do this.

Some of these things - misdisclosure in particular - come across as mean; it's hurtful to feel like another team is running circles around you and laughing at you while they do it.

Finally, sneaky behavior does not go unnoticed by judges. It makes it seem like you're unconfident that you will win the debate and need every possible, which lends itself to low speaks.

The speaks boost over the course of a tournament will do much more in helping you clear than whatever tiny advantage you get from the other team being slightly more unprepared.

Evidence ethics:

Evidence ethics challenges are round-ending - if you initiate one, I will ask if you intend to stake the debate on it. If you say yes, I will use either the tournament rules (if they outline a process), or NSDA guidelines (if tournament rules do not outline a process) to adjudicate the challenge. If you say no, I'll strike the argument and the debate can continue as normal.

Policy Minnesota Locals (Not national-circuit tournaments):

Speaks Incentives:

I'm so glad you're reading my paradigm! Yay! If you let me know that you've read my paradigm at some point before the debate starts, and remind me to do so, I will give you +0.5 speaker points.

If you are from a school who does not currently have a wiki, and you want help setting one up, I will help you set it up after my RFD and give you a 30 for posting cites for the round on it. If your coaches don't want you to do this, I will default to their veto, but in general, I think that disclosure will help improve the quality of and continue to build the well-being of local debate!

Independently, if you are from a school who does currently have a wiki, I will give you +0.5 speaker points for posting cites - you should tell me this after the debate is done, because I will otherwise very likely forget.

Debate Content:

When you extend cards to respond to the other team's cards or analytics, you don't have to remember what the author's name is - "1AC 4" is sufficient to tell me which one it was - but you most certainly do have to... actually extend it, by explaining the arguments that it makes and the warrants. I have noticed a trend where debaters will say things like "they say no solvency, but we do solve - extend all of our solvency cards, moving on". Please don't do this, because I will not grant you work that you didn't do over work that the other team did.

Primarily National Circuit Debaters at Locals:

If you are typically a national circuit debater, but you are using local circuit tournaments as a time to "meme" or mess around, this will make me very sad. I fundamentally believe that strengthening quality of debate on the local circuit can set the conditions for a better national circuit with lots of teams from MN competing at high levels. Please contribute to this if you can by respecting local debate. Happy to chat about my thoughts after rounds or at tournaments, because I think that I had a lack of understanding of this concept when I was debating in HS!

LD:

K - 1

LARP - 1

Phil/Tricks/Theory - pref me at your own risk, I guess?

I led lab at NSD philly last summer. I dabble in coaching national-circuit LD.

Nevertheless, while I'm confident in my ability to adjudicate anything that would appear in a policy debate according to community norms, I fear that my decisions in phil or tricks rounds may not follow convention simply because I have no understanding of what convention for those styles is.

If I'm judging you and that's your jam, go for it, but heavy judge instruction and a bit more explanation than normal will go far in making sure that my decision lines up with your intentions on the flow.

Go read the section on debate's clarity problem. For some reason, this is particularly bad in LD. If I cannot understand the words coming out of your mouth, I cannot flow them, and thus they will not make it into my decision, which nobody wants.

If you read critical disabilities studies, awesome. I'm here for it. On the other hand, if you read that absurdly offensive Mollow aff... I guess, please reach out for lit recommendations?? Just don't read that aff in front of me or anyone else. If you don't know what this means, it doesn't apply to you.

Finally, when you disclose an aff as "new", that means that every single card in the affirmative has literally never been read by you, teammates, or prepgroupmates before. Things that "new" does not mean:

this aff has not been read on this topic, but has otherwise been read by me or teammates/prepgroupmates on other topics
this aff has one new card, but has otherwise been read by me in the past (ever)
this aff has new tags or new highlighting, but has otherwise been read by me in the past (ever)
this aff has been read by others who have access to the same files like teammates/prepgroupmates (ever), even if I have never read it.

The practice of disclosing "new" gives large schools and people with the privilege of hiring private coaching or joining prep groups an even larger advantage.

Therefore, if I am judging a round where the aff was disclosed as "new" and I am given proof of that it, as well as proof that the aff is not truly new but instead one of the four categories above, I will give the aff team a 25 regardless of who wins the debate.

PF:

Like LD, I have very limited experience judging PF.

Because I come from a policy background, I will evaluate the debate on the flow, so dropped args = true. Like with LD, I have non-existent knowledge about community norms for judging events that aren't policy.

Send your cards.

I will boost speaks for teams who send their evidence to the email chain before giving your speech without the opponent asking.

For teams who do not send their evidence to the email chain before the speech starts, if the opponent points it out and also sends their own cards to the chain before giving their speeches, I will take speaks away from the non-card-sending team and give them to the card-sending team.

Independent from the above, I will not stand for educational dishonesty (blatant misrepresentation of evidence, et cetera). If this becomes an issue in the debate, the team who committed the violation will receive an L and lowest possible speaks - don't test me on this. If it doesn't come up in the debate, but I notice that it has happened on my own, I don't feel comfortable throwing away the flow of the round, but I will still give that team the lowest possible speaks and take any other action that I deem necessary given the context of the round.

Shree Awsare North Broward Preparatory School 2 rounds

Last changed on Wed April 24, 2024 at 8:59 AM EDT

//shree

I am a social studies & math teacher who is no longer involved in full-time argument coaching. I am judging this tournament because my wife, a mentor, or a former student asked me to.

I previously served as a DOD at the high school level and as a hired gun for college debate programs. During this time, I had the privilege of working with Baker Award recipients, TOC champions in CX, a NFA champion in LD, and multiple NDT First-Round teams; I was very much ‘in the cards.’ Debate used to be everything to me, and I fancied myself as a ‘lifer.’ I held the naïve view that this activity was the pinnacle of critical thinking and unequivocally produced the best and brightest scholars compared to any other curricular or extracurricular pursuit.

My perspective has shifted since I’ve reduced my competitive involvement with the community. Debate has provided me with some incredible mentors, colleagues, and friends that I would trade for nothing. However, several of the practices prevalent in modern debate risk making the activity an academically unserious echo chamber. Many in the community have traded in flowing for rehearsing scripts, critical thinking for virtue signaling, adjudication for idol worship, and research for empty posturing. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t guilty of adopting or teaching some of the trendy practices that are rapidly devolving the activity, but I am no longer willing to keep up the charade that what we do here is pedagogically sound.

This ‘get off my lawn’ ethos colors some of my idiosyncrasies if you have me in the back of the room. Here are guidelines to maximize your speaker points and win percentage:

1 – Flow. Number arguments. Answer arguments in the order that they were presented. Minimize overviews.

2 – Actually research. Most of you don’t, and it shows. Know what you are talking about and be able to use the vocabulary of your opponents. Weave theory with examples. Read a book. Being confidently clueless or dodgy in CX is annoying, not compelling.

3 – Please try. Read cards from this year when possible; be on the cutting edge. Say new and interesting things, even if they’re about old or core concepts. Adapt your arguments to make them more ‘you.’ Reading cards from before 2020 or regurgitating my old blocks will bore me.

4 – Emphasize clarity. This applies to both your thoughts and speaking. When I return, my topic knowledge will be superficial, and I will be out of practice with listening to the fastest speakers. Easy-to-transcribe soundbytes, emphasis in sentences, and pen time is a must. I cannot transcribe bots who shotgun 3-word arguments at 400wpm nor wannabe philosopher-activists who speak in delirious, winding paragraphs.

5 – Beautify your speech docs. Inconsistent, poor formatting is an eyesore. So is word salad highlighting without the semblance of sentence structure.

6 – No dumpster fires. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy. I find unnecessarily escalating CX, heckling opponents, zoom insults, authenticity tests, and screenshot insertions uncompelling. I neither have the resources nor interest in launching an investigation about outside behavior, coach indiscretions, or pref sheets.

7 – Don’t proliferate trivial voting issues. I will evaluate a well-evidenced topicality violation; conditionality can be a VI; in-round harassment and slurs are not trivial. However, I have a higher threshold than most with regards to voting issues surrounding an author’s twitter beef, poorly warranted specification arguments, trigger warnings, and abominations I classify as ‘LD tricks.’ If you are on the fence about whether your procedural or gateway issue is trivial, it probably is; unless it’s been dropped in multiple speeches, my preferred remedy is to reject the argument, not the team. Depending on how deranged it is, I may just ignore it completely. I strongly prefer substantive debates.

8 – Be well rounded. The divide between ‘policy,’ ‘critical,’ and ‘performance’ debate is artificial. Pick options that are strategic and specific to the arguments your opponents are reading.

9 – Not everything is a ‘DA.’ Topicality standards are not ‘DAs.’ Critique links are not ‘DAs’ and the alternative is not a ‘CP.’ A disadvantage requires, at a minimum, uniqueness, a link, and an impact. Describing your arguments as ‘DAs’ when they are not will do you a disservice, both in terms of your strategy and your speaker points.

10 – I’m old. I won’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. Good debaters can give bad speeches, and the reverse can also be true. Rep has no correlation to the speaker points you will receive. 28.5 is average. 29 is solid. 29.5 is exceptional. 30 means you’ve restored my belief in the pedagogical value of policy debate.

Sohan Bellam Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Aasiyah Bhaiji Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 19, 2024 at 9:40 AM CDT

UPDATE FOR TOC 2024

a.bhaijidebate(at)gmail.com

gbsdebatelovesdocs(at)gmail.com

**please add both emails to the chain!**

Aasiyah (ah-see-yuh) Bhaiji (by-jee)

any pronouns (pls don't call me judge)

Debated for GBS 2016-2019, qualified to the TOC my third year and was awarded the JW Patterson Fellowship as a member of the graduating class of 2020. I do not debate in college.

I’ve judged around 30 debates on the fiscal redistribution topic. Most of my work related to debate is with Chicago Debates, where I help to build and maintain programs.

SHORT VERSION

"Do your thing, so long as you enjoy the thing you do. My favorite debates to watch are between debaters who demonstrate a nuanced understanding of their literature bases and seem to enjoy the scholarship they choose to engage in...I think judging is a privilege."-Maddie Pieropan.

I flow as much as my fingers will allow me. Slow down on the important parts and always remember clarity should be prioritized over speed.

LONG VERSION

Debate as an activity loses all value when debaters do not consider that there has to be a reason why a team deserves the ballot. I try my hardest to stick to my flow and rely heavily on judge instruction as to how I will write my ballot. YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO CONNECT THE DOTS FOR YOU.

I appreciate debaters who are passionate, excited, and well-prepared. The best debaters I’ve witnessed throughout the years have been the ones who show kindness and respect towards their partners and opponents. I am not a fan of teams that openly mock, belittle, and disrespect the people they are debating.

Clarity is key and seems to be a lost art. I mostly flow by ear and will not catch what you are saying if you blast through your analytics. Please slow down and do not start at 100% speed at the top of your speech.

Planless Affirmatives

I like planless affirmatives, but you absolutely need to defend the choices and explanations you give in early cross-exes. I need to know what your version of debate looks like, and I am finding that most teams aren’t willing to defend a solid interpretation, which makes it hard for me to vote for them.

Please stick to an interpretation once you’ve read it. Clash debates with affs that are centered around the resolution are fun, and I find myself in the back of those debates most of the time.

CPs

I do not default to judge kick; you have to give me instructions. What does it mean to sufficiently frame something? I am so serious. I have been asking this question for what seems like forever now.

I miss advantage counterplans, and I am a less-than-ideal judge for Process CPs (I'm not saying I won’t vote for them, it might do you well to spend a couple more seconds on process cps good in the block).

Solvency advocates are good but not always necessary.

DAs

Zero risk of the DA is super real; sometimes you might not even need a card for it!

DAs as case turns will inevitably end up on the same flow, so please just tell me where to flow things earlier on in the debate.

Biiig fan of 'em.

“Kritiks that rely entirely on winning through framework tricks are miserable. If I am not skeptical of the aff's ability to solve their internal links or the alt's ability to solve them, then I am unlikely to vote negative.”-AJ Byrne

If you cannot explain your alternative using a vocabulary a 7th grader can understand, you are likely using language and debate jargon that I find counterintuitive and, quite frankly, boring.

Why are we putting this as the first off? I will most likely miss the interpretation if you are speeding through it.

Fairness is an internal link, clash is good and I personally think that more teams should be going for portable skills.

I am not good for “our interpretation is better for small schools”.

Other things:

If I could implement the no more than 5 off rule, I would.Obviously against new affirmatives, the circumstances are different, but I firmly believe that everything in the 1NC should be a viable option for the 2NR.
DISCLOSURE IS GOOD!I will try my hardest to be in the room for when it happens and I am not afraid to check teams wikis to see their disclosure practices. If you post round docs and show before I give you my decision, you will be rewarded.
I am super expressive, and you will be able to tell if I am vibing with whatever you are saying. I do have a very prominent RBF. Don’t take it personally; it means I am trying to get everything down.
Fine with tag-team but have found myself becoming frustrated when one debater from a team dominates all of cx. I do think that all debaters should speak at some point during cross-ex.
CX as prep is only justified when there is a new aff or if you are maverick.
The 1AC should be sent out at the scheduled round start time, the only exception is if the tournament is behind schedule and Tab has alerted everyone of the timing change.

More things I have thought about in regards to debate but aren’t wholly necessary to pre-round prep.

There is a difference between speaking up and yelling, I do not do well with debaters talking over their partners.
STOP HIDING ASPEC ON YOUR FLOWS, say it with your CHEST.
I LOVE good case debating, and I get sad when the block treats it as an afterthought.
I had no idea teams gained the ability to remember every single thing their opponent said. FLOW! PLEASE!
Why are we reading the tier 3 argument against planless affirmatives.... let's start using our critical thinking skills
Rehighlighting evidence is a lost art. Bring it back for 2024
Clipping is bad, don't do it. I will clear you twice, and after that, I will stop flowing. If there is a recording of you clipping, it's an auto loss and a talk with your coach
I flow straight down (primarily because of sloppy line-by-line); the more organized your speeches are, the happier I am.
DRINK WATER
I do not care if you put a single card in the body of the email chain.
Have fun and let the games begin!

Jack Booth The Bronx High School Of Science 7 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 9:51 AM EDT

Short Version:
-yes email chain: nyu.bs.debate@gmail.com

-if you would like to contact me about something else, the best way to reach me is: bootj093@newschool.edu - please do not use this email for chains I would like to avoid cluttering it every weekend which is why I have a separate one for them

-debated in high school @ Mill Valley (local policy circuit in Kansas) and college @ NYU (CEDA-NDT) for 7 years total - mostly policy arguments in high school, mix of high theory and policy in college

-head LD/policy debate coach at Bronx Science and assistant policy coach at The New School, former assistant for Blue Valley West, Mill Valley, and Mamaroneck

-spin > evidence quality, unless the evidence is completely inconsistent with the spin

-tech > truth as long as the tech has a claim, warrant, and impact

-great for impact turns

-t-framework impacts ranked: topic education > skills > clash/arg refinement > scenario planning > fun > literally any other reason why debate is good > fairness

-I updated the t-fw part of my paradigm recently (under policy, 12/4/23) - if you are anticipating having a framework debate in front of me on either side, I would appreciate it if you skimmed it at least

-don't like to judge kick but if you give me reasons to I might

-personally think condo has gone way too far in recent years and more people should go for it, but I don't presume one way or the other for theory questions

-all kinds of theory, including topicality, framework, and/or "role of the ballot" arguments are about ideal models of debate

-most of the rounds I judge are clash debates, but I've been in policy v policy and k v k both as a debater and judge so I'm down for anything

-for high school policy 23-24: I actually used to work for the Social Security Administration (only for about 7-8 months) and I have two immediate family members who currently work there - so I have a decent amount of prior knowledge about how the agency works internally, processes benefits, the technology it uses, etc. - but not necessarily policy proposals for social security reform

Long Version:

Overview: Debate is for the debaters so do your thing and I'll do my best to provide a fair decision despite any preferences or experiences that I have. I have had the opportunity to judge and participate in debates of several different formats, circuits, and styles in my short career. What I've found is that all forms of debate are valuable in some way, though often for different reasons, whether it be policy, critical, performance, LD, PF, local circuit, national circuit, public debates, etc. Feel free to adapt arguments, but please don't change your style of debate for me. I want to see what you are prepared for, practiced in, and passionate about. Please have fun! Debating is fun for you I hope!

Speaking and Presentation: I don't care about how you look, how you're dressed, how fast or in what manner you speak, where you sit, whether you stand, etc. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable and will help you be the best debater you can be. My one preference for positioning is that you face me during speeches. It makes it easier to hear and also I like to look up a lot while flowing on my laptop. For some panel situations, this can be harder, just try your best and don't worry about it too much.

Speed - I do not like to follow along in the speech doc while you are giving your speech. I like to read cards in prep time, when they are referenced in cx, and while making my decision. I will use it as a backup during a speech if I have to. This is a particular problem in LD, that has been exacerbated by two years of online debate. I expect to be able to hear every word in your speech, yes including the text of cards. I expect to be able to flow tags, analytics, theory interps, or anything else that is not the interior text of a card. This means you can go faster in the text of a card, this does mean you should be unclear while reading the text of a card. This also means you should go slower for things that are not that. This is because even if I can hear and understand something you are saying, that does not necessarily mean that my fingers can move fast enough to get it onto my flow. When you are reading analytics or theory args, you are generally making warranted arguments much faster than if you were reading a card. Therefore, you need to slow down so I can get those warrants on my flow.

Clarity - I'm bad at yelling clear. I try to do it when things are particularly egregious but honestly, I feel bad about throwing a debater off their game in the middle of a speech. I think you can clear or slow your opponent if you are comfortable with it - but not excessively to avoid interruption please - max 2-3 times a speech. If you are unclear with tags or analytics in an earlier speech, I will try to let you know immediately after the speech is over. If you do it in a rebuttal, you are 100% at fault because I know you can do it clearly, but are choosing not to. Focus on efficiency, not speed.

Logistical Stuff: I would like the round to run as on-time as possible. Docs should be ready to be sent when you end prep time. Orders/roadmaps should be given quickly and not changed several times. Marking docs can happen outside of prep time, but it should entail only marking where cards were cut. I would prefer that, at the varsity level, CX or prep time is taken to ask if something was not read or which arguments were read. I think it’s your responsibility to listen to your opponent’s speech to determine what was said and what wasn’t. I don’t take prep or speech time for tech issues - the clock can stop if necessary. Use the bathroom, fill up your water bottle as needed - tournaments generally give plenty of time for a round and so long as the debaters are not taking excessive time to do other things like send docs, I find that these sorts of things aren’t what truly makes the round run behind.

Email chain or speech drop is fine for docs, which should be shared before a speech. I really prefer Word documents if possible, but don't stress about changing your format if you can't figure it out. Unless there is an accommodation request, not officially or anything just an ask before the round, I don't think analytics need to be sent. Advocacy texts, theory interps, and shells should be sent. Cards are sent for the purposes of ethics and examining more closely the research of your opponent. Too many of you have stopped listening to your opponents entirely and I think the rising norm of sending every single word you plan on saying is a big part of it. It also makes you worse debaters because in the instances where your opponent decides to look up from their laptop and make a spontaneous argument, many of you just miss it entirely.

Stop stealing prep time. When prep time is called by either side, you should not be talking to your partner, typing excessively on your computer, or writing things down. My opinion on “flex prep,” or asking questions during prep time, is that you can ask for clarifications, but your opponent doesn’t have to answer more typical cx questions if they don’t want to (it is also time that they are entitled to use to focus on prep), and I don’t consider the answers in prep to have the same weight as in cx. Prep time is not a speech, and I dislike it when a second ultra-pointed cx begins in prep time because you think it makes your opponent look worse. It doesn’t - it makes you look worse.

Speaker Points: I try to adjust based on the strength of the tournament pool/division, but my accuracy can vary depending on how many rounds in the tournament I've already judged.

29.5+ You are one of the top three speakers in the tournament and should be in finals.

29.1-29.4 You are a great speaker who should be in late elims of the tournament.

28.7-29 You are a good speaker who should probably break.

28.4-28.6 You're doing well, but need some more improvement to be prepared for elims.

28-28.3 You need significant improvement before I think you can debate effectively in elims.

<28 You have done something incredibly offensive or committed an ethics violation, which I will detail in written comments and speak with you about in oral feedback.

The three things that affect speaker points the most are speaking clearly/efficiently, cross-x, and making effective choices in the final rebuttals.

If you win the debate without reading from a laptop in the 2NR/2AR your floor for speaks is a 29.

For Policy:

T-Framework: The fw debates I like the most are about the advantages and disadvantages of having debates over a fiated policy implementation of the topic. I would prefer if your interpretation/violation was phrased in terms of what the affirmative should do/have done - I think this trend of crafting an interpretation around negative burdens is silly - i.e. "negatives should not be burdened with the rejoinder of untopical affirmatives." I'm not usually a big fan of neg interpretations that only limit out certain parts of the topic - strategically, they usually seem to just link back to neg offense about limits and predictability absent a more critical strategy. I think of framework through an offense/defense paradigm and in terms of models of debate. My opinion is that you all spend dozens or hundreds of hours doing research, redos, practice, and debates - you should be prepared to defend that the research you do, the debates you have, and how you have those debates are good.

1. Topic-specific arguments are best - i.e. is it a good or bad thing that we are having rounds talking about fiscal redistribution, nuclear weapons, resource extraction, or military presence? How can that prepare people to take what they learn in debate outside of the activity? Why is topic-specific education valuable or harmful in a world of disinformation, an uninformed American public, escalating global crises, climate change, etc.? Don't be silly and read an extinction impact or anything though.

2. Arguments about debate in general are also great - I'm down for a "debate about debate" - the reason that I as a coach and judge invest tons of time into this activity is because I think it is pedagogically valuable - but what that value should look like, what is best to take from it, is in my opinion the crux of framework debates. Should debate be a competitive space or not? What are the implications of imagining a world where government policy gets passed? What should fiat look like or should it be used at all?

I can be convinced that debate should die given better debating from that side. But honestly, this is not my personal belief - the decline of policy debate in terms of participation at the college and high school level makes me very sad actually. I can also be convinced that debate is God's gift to earth and is absolutely perfect, even though I also believe that there are many problems with the activity. There is also a huge sliding scale between these two options.

3. Major defensive arguments and turns are good - technical stuff about framework like ssd, tvas, relative solvency of counter-interps, turns case and turns the disad arguments, uniqueness claims about the current trends of debate, claims about the history of debate, does it shape subjectivity or not - are all things that I think are worth talking about and can be used to make "try or die" or presumption arguments - though they should not be the focal point of your offense. I like when tvas are carded solvency advocates and/or full plan texts.

4. I do not like judging debates about procedural fairness:

A) They are usually very boring. On every topic, the same pre-written blocks, read at each other without any original thought over and over. I dislike other arguments for this reason too - ultra-generic kritiks and process cps - but even with those, they often get topic or aff-specific contextualizations in the block. This does not usually happen with fairness.

B) I often find fairness very unimportant on its own relative to the other key issues of framework - meaning I don't usually think it is offense. I find a lot of these debates to end up pretty tautological - "fairness is an impact because debate is a game and games should have rules or else they'd be unfair," etc. Many teams in front of me will win that fairness is necessary to preserve the game, but never take the next step of explaining to me why preserving the game is good. In that scenario, what "impact" am I really voting on? Even if the other team agrees that the game of debate is good (which a lot of k affs contest anyway), you still have to quantify or qualify how important that is for me to reasonably compare it to the aff's offense - saying "well we all must care about fairness because we're here, they make strategic arguments, etc." - is not sufficient to do that. I usually agree that competitive incentives mean people care about fairness somewhat. But how much and why is that important? I get an answer with nearly every other argument in debate, but hardly ever with fairness. I think a threshold for if something is an impact is that it's weighable.

C) Despite this, fairness can be impacted out into something tangible or I can be convinced that "tangibility" and consequences are not how I should make my decision. My hints are Nebel and Glówczewski.

5. Everyone needs to compare their impacts alongside other defensive claims in the debate and tell me why I should vote for them. Like traditional T, it's an offense/defense, disad/counterplan, model of debate thing for me. For some reason, impact comparison just seems to disappear from debaters' repertoire when debating framework, which is really frustrating for me.

Kritiks: Both sides of these debates often involve a lot of people reading overviews at each other, especially in high school, which can make it hard to evaluate at the end of the round. Have a clear link story and a reason why the alternative resolves those links. Absent an alt, have a framework as to why your impacts matter/why you still win the round. Impacts are negative effects of the status quo, the alternative resolves the status quo, and the links are reasons why the aff prevents the alternative from happening. Perms are a test of the strength of the link. Framework, ROB, and ROJ arguments operate on the same level to me and I think they are responsive to each other. My feelings on impacts here are similar to t-fw.

I still study some French high theory authors in grad school, but from a historical perspective. In my last couple years of college debate I read Baudrillard and DnG-style arguments a lot, some psychoanalysis as well - earlier than that my tastes were a little more questionable and I liked Foucault, Zizek, and Nietzsche a lot, though I more often went for policy arguments - I gave a lot of fw+extinction outweighs 2ARs. A lot of the debates I find most interesting include critical ir or critical security studies arguments. I have also coached many other kinds of kritiks, including all of the above sans Zizek as well as a lot of debaters going for arguments about anti-blackness or feminism. Set col stuff I don't know the theory as well tbh.

Affirmatives: I think all affs should have a clear impact story with a good solvency advocate explaining why the aff resolves the links to those impacts. I really enjoy affs that are creative and outside of what a lot of people are reading, but are still grounded in the resolution. If you can find a clever interpretation of the topic or policy idea that the community hasn't thought of yet, I'll probably bump your speaks a bit.

Disads: Love 'em. Impact framing is very important in debates without a neg advocacy. Turns cases/turns the da is usually much better than timeframe/probability/magnitude. Between two improbable extinction impacts, I default to using timeframe a lot of the time. A lot of disads (especially politics) have pretty bad ev/internal link chains, so try to wow me with 1 good card that you explain well in rebuttals rather than spitting out 10 bad ones. 0 risk of a disad is absolutely a thing, but hard to prove, like presumption.

Counterplans: They should have solvency advocates and a clear story for competition. Exploit generic link chains in affs. My favorites are advantage cps, specific pics, and recuttings of 1AC solvency ev. I like process cps when they are specific to the topic or have good solvency advocates. I will vote on other ones still, but theory and perm do the cp debates may be harder for you. I think some process cps are even very pedagogically valuable and can be highly persuasive with up-to-date, well-cut evidence - consult Japan on relevant topics for instance. But these arguments can potentially be turned by clash and depth over breadth. And neg flex in general can be a very strong argument in policy. I won't judge kick unless you tell me to in the 2NR, and preferably it should have some kind of justification.

Topicality: I default to competing interps and thinking of interps as models of debate. Be clear about what your interp includes and excludes and why that is a good thing. I view topicality like a disad most of the time, and vote for whoever's vision of the topic is best. I find arguments about limits and the effect that interpretations have on research to be the most convincing. I like topicality debates quite a bit.

Theory: Slow down, slow down, slow down. Like T, I think of theory through models of debate and default to competing interps- you should have an interpretation to make your life a little easier if you want to extend it - if you don't, I will assume the most extreme one (i.e. no pics, no condo, etc.). If you don't have a counter-interp in response to a theory argument, you are in a bad position. If your interpretation uses debate jargon like pics, "process" cps, and the like - you should tell me what you mean by those terms at least in rebuttal. Can pics be out of any word said, anything in the plan, anything defended in the solvency advocate or in cx, any concept advocated for, etc.? I think there is often too much confusion over what is meant to be a process cp. The interpretation I like best for "process" is "counterplans that result in the entirety of the plan." I like condo bad arguments, especially against super abusive 1ncs, but the neg gets a ton of time in the block to answer it, so it can be really hard to give a good enough 1ar on it without devoting a lot of time as well - so if you are going to go for it in the 2ar, you need to expand on it and cover block responses in the 1ar. Warrant out reject the argument vs. reject the team.

For LD:

Prefs Shortcut:

1 - LARP, High Theory Ks

2 - Other Ks, Topicality

3 - Phil, Theory that isn't condo or pics bad

4/5/strike - Trad, Tricks

My disclaimer is I try to keep an open mind for any debate - you should always use the arguments/style that you are most prepared with and practiced in. You all seem to really like these shortcuts, so I caved and made one - but these are not necessarily reflective of my like or dislike for any particular argument, instead more of my experience with different kinds, meaning some probably require more explanation for me to "get it." I love when I do though - I'm always happy to learn new things in debate!

Phil Debates: Something I am fairly unfamiliar with, but I've been learning more about over the past 6 months (02/23). I have read, voted for, and coached many things to the contrary, but if you want to know what I truly believe, I basically think most things collapse into some version of consequentialist utilitarianism. If you are to convince me that I should not be a consequentialist, then I need clear instructions for how I should evaluate offense. Utilitarianism I'm used to being a little more skeptical of from k debates, but other criticisms of util from say analytic philosophy I will probably be unfamiliar with.

Trad Debate: By far what I am least familiar with. I don't coach this style and never competed in anything like LD trad debate - I did traditional/lay policy debate a bit in high school - but that is based on something called "stock issues" which is a completely different set of standards than LD's value/value criterion. I struggle in these debates because for me, like "stock issues" do in policy, these terms seem to restrictively categorize arguments and actually do more to obscure their meaning than reveal it. In the trad debates I've seen (not many, to be fair), tons of time was dedicated to clarifying minutiae and defining words that either everyone ended up agreeing on or that didn't factor into the way that I would make my decision. I don't inherently dislike LD trad debate at all, it honestly just makes things more difficult for me to understand because of how I've been trained in policy debate for 11 years. I try my best, but I feel that I have to sort through trad "jargon" to really get at what you all think is important. I would prefer if you compared relative impacts directly rather than told me one is better than the other 100% of the time.

Plans/DAs/CPs: See the part in my policy paradigm. Plans/CP texts should be clearly written and are generally better when in the language of a specific solvency advocate. I think the NC should be a little more developed for DAs than in policy - policy can have some missing internal links because they get the block to make new arguments, but you do not get new args in the NR that are unresponsive to the 1AR - make sure you are making complete arguments that you can extend.

Kritiks: Some stuff in my policy paradigm is probably useful. Look there for K-affs vs. T-fw. I'm most familiar with so-called "high theory" but I have also debated against, judged, and coached many other kinds of kritiks. Like with DAs/CPs, stuff that would generally be later in the debate for policy should be included in the NC, like ROBs/fw args. Kritiks to me are usually consequentialist, they just care about different kinds of consequences - i.e. the consequences of discourse, research practices, and other impacts more proximate than extinction.

ROB/ROJs: In my mind, this is a kind of theory debate. The way I see this deployed in LD most of the time is as a combination of two arguments. First, what we would call in policy "framework" (not what you call fw in LD) - an argument about which "level" I should evaluate the debate on. "Pre-fiat" and "post-fiat" are the terms that you all like to use a lot, but it doesn't necessarily have to be confined to this. I could be convinced for instance that research practices should come before discourse or something else. The second part is generally an impact framing argument - not only that reps should come first, but that a certain kind of reps should be prioritized - i.e. ROB is to vote for whoever best centers a certain kind of knowledge. These are related, but also have separate warrants and implications for the round, so I consider them separately most of the time. I very often can in fact conclude that reps must come first, but that your opponent’s reps are better because of some impact framing argument that they are making elsewhere. Also, ROB and ROJ are indistinct from one another to me, and I don’t see the point in reading both of them in the same debate.

Topicality: You can see some thoughts in the policy sections as well if you're having that kind of T debate about a plan. I personally think some resolutions in LD justify plans and some don't. But I can be convinced that having plans or not having plans is good for debate, which is what is important for me in deciding these debates. The things I care about here are education and fairness, generally more education stuff than fairness. Topicality interpretations are models of the topic that affirmatives should follow to produce the best debates possible. I view T like a DA and vote for whichever model produces the best theoretical version of debate. I care about "pragmatics" - "semantics" matter to me only insofar as they have a pragmatic impact - i.e. topic/definitional precision is important because it means our research is closer to real-world scholarship on the topic. Jurisdiction is a vacuous non-starter. Nebel stuff is kind of interesting, but I generally find it easier just to make an argument about limits. Reasonability is something I almost never vote on - to be “reasonable” I think you have to either meet your opponent’s interp or have a better one.

RVIs: The vast majority of the time these are unnecessary when you all go for them. If you win your theory or topicality interp is better than your opponent's, then you will most likely win the debate, because the opposing team will not have enough offense on substance. I'm less inclined to believe topicality is an RVI. I think it’s an aff burden to prove they are topical and the neg getting to test that is generally a good thing. Other theory makes more sense as an RVI. Sometimes when a negative debater is going for both theory and substance in the NR, the RVI can be more justifiable to go for in the 2AR because of the unique time differences of LD. If they make the decision to fully commit to theory in the NR, however, the RVI is unnecessary - not that I'm ideologically opposed to it, it just doesn't get you anything extra for winning the debate - 5 seconds of "they dropped substance" is easier and the warrants for your c/i's standards are generally much better than the ones for the RVI.

Disclosure Theory: This is not a section that I would ever have to write for policy. I find it unfortunate that I have to write it for LD. Disclosure is good because it allows schools access to knowledge of what their opponents are reading, which in pre-disclosure days was restricted to larger programs that could afford to send scouts to rounds. It also leads to better debates where the participants are more well-prepared. What I would like to happen for disclosure in general is this:
1) previously read arguments on the topic are disclosed to at least the level of cites on the opencaselist wiki,
2) a good faith effort is made by the aff to disclose any arguments including the advocacy/plan, fw, and cards that they plan on reading in the AC that they've read before once the pairing comes out,
3) a good faith effort is made by the neg to disclose any previously read positions, tied to NC arguments on their wiki, that they've gone for in the NR on the current topic (and previous if asked) once they receive disclosure from the aff,
4) all the cites disclosed are accurate and not misrepresentations of what is read,
5) nobody reads disclosure theory!!

This is basically the situation in college policy, but it seems we still have a ways to go for LD. In a few rare instances I've encountered misdisclosure, even teams saying things like "well it doesn't matter that we didn't read the scenario we said we were going to read because they're a k team and it wasn't really going to change their argument anyways." More intentional things like this, or bad disclosure from debaters and programs that really should know better, I don't mind voting on. I really don't like however when disclosure is used to punish debaters for a lack of knowledge or because it is a norm they are not used to. You have to understand, my roots are as a lay debater who didn't know what the wiki was and didn't disclose for a single round in high school. For my first two years, I debated exclusively on paper and physically handed pages to my opponent while debating after reading them to share evidence. For a couple years after that, we "flashed" evidence to each other by tossing around a usb drive - tournaments didn't provide public wifi. I've been in way more non-lay debates since then and have spent much more time doing "progressive" debate than I ever did lay debate, but I'm very sympathetic still to these kinds of debaters.

Especially if a good-faith attempt is made, interps that are excluding debaters based on a few minutes of a violation, a round report from several tournaments ago, or other petty things make me sad to judge. My threshold for reasonability in these debates will be much lower. Having some empathy and clearly communicating with your opponent what you want from them is a much better strategy for achieving better disclosure practices in the community than reading theory as a punitive measure. If you want something for disclosure, ask for it, or you have no standing. Also, if you read a disclosure interp that you yourself do not meet, you have no standing. Open source theory and disclosure of new affs are more debatable than other kinds of disclosure arguments, and like with T and other theory I will vote for whichever interp I determine is better for debate.

Other Theory: I really liked theory when I did policy debate, but that theory is also different from a lot of LD theory. What that means is I mainly know cp theory - condo, pics, process cps, perm competition (i.e. textual vs. functional, perm do the cp), severance/intrinsicness, and other things of that nature. You can see some of my thoughts on these arguments in the policy section. I've also had some experience with spec arguments. Like T, I view theory similarly to a da debate. Interpretations are models of debate that I endorse which describe ideally what all other debates should look like. I almost always view things through competing interps. Like with T, in order to win reasonability I think you need to have a pretty solid I/meet argument. Not having a counter-interp the speech after the interp is introduced is a major mistake that can cost you the round. I decide theory debates by determining which interp produces a model of debate that is "best." I default to primarily caring about education - i.e. depth vs. breadth, argument quality, research quality, etc. but I can be convinced that fairness is a controlling factor for some of these things or should come first. I find myself pretty unconvinced by arguments that I should care about things like NSDA rules, jurisdiction, some quirk of the tournament invitation language, etc.

Tricks: I think I've officially judged one "tricks" round now, and I've been trying to learn as much as I can while coaching my squad. I enjoyed it, though I can't say I understood everything that was happening. I engaged in some amount of trickery in policy debate - paradoxes, wipeout, process cps, kicking out of the aff, obscure theory args, etc. However, what was always key to winning these kinds of debates was having invested time in research, blocks, a2s - the same as I would for any other argument. I need to be able to understand what your reason is for obtaining my ballot. If you want to spread out arguments in the NC, that's fine and expected, but I still expect you to collapse in the NR and explain in depth why I should vote for you. I won't evaluate new arguments in the NR that are not directly responsive to the 1AR. The reason one-line voting issues in the NC don't generally work with me in the back is that they do not have enough warrants to make a convincing NR speech.

eliza Buckner Little Rock Central 7 rounds

Conor Cameron Solorio Academy High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 1:09 PM CDT

Conor Cameron
ccameron3@cps.edu
he/him/his
Coach, Solorio, 2012 - present

TLDR: Better for CP / DA / impact turn debates

I'll do my best to evaluate arguments as made. When the way I make sense of a debate differs from the way debaters make sense of a debate, here seem to be some common sources of the disparity:

1) I'm pretty ingrained in the offense defense model. This means that even if the NB is dumb, if the aff cannot generate a solvency deficit against the CP, and the aff has no offense against the DA, I am highly likely to vote negative.

Some notes: a) I do not think a solvency deficit needs to be carded; b) more difficult, but I could envision voting on analytic offense against a DA, c) I'm willing to vote on zero risk of the DA, but we'd both benefit from you taking a moment to explain why the offense-defense model is inapplicable in the debate at hand

2) I still think I have a relatively high bar for voting negative on topicality; however, I've tried to begin evaluating this debate more from an offense-defense perspective. In my mind, this means that if the affirmative does not meet the negative's interpretation, and does not have its own counterinterpretation, it is essentially arguing that any affirmative is topical and is conceding a 100% link to the limits disadvantage. I'm highly likely to vote negative in such a debate.

General argument notes:
3) I'm probably more sympathetic to cheaty process counterplans than most.

4) While I may complain, I do vote on the standard canon of negative kritiks. Things like cap, security, standard topic kritiks, etc. are fine. Extra explanation (examples, stories, analogies, etc.) is always appreciated, all the more so the further from my comfort zone you venture.

5) FW vs K Affs: I lean negative. However, I judge few of these debates. Both teams would benefit from accepting that I know very little here, slowing down, speaking clearly, and over-explaining (depth, not repetition) things you assume most judges know.

Other notes
6) I judge because:
a) I still really enjoy debate.
b) Judging is an opportunity to continue to develop my understanding of debate.
c) I am covering my students' judge commitment so that they too can benefit from this activity.

7) Quick reference
Policy---X------------------------------------------K

Tech-----------------------------X-----------------Truth

Read no cards-------X----------------------------Read all the cards

Conditionality good--X----------------------------Conditionality bad

States CP good----X------------------------------States CP bad

Politics DA is a thing-----X------------------------Politics DA not a thing

UQ matters most----------------------X----------Link matters most

Limits----------------------------------X------------Aff ground

Presumption---------------------------------X-----Never votes on presumption

Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev

CX about impacts----------------------------X----CX about links and solvency

Andy Charrier St. Francis HS 2 rounds

Allie Chase Greenhill School 3 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:57 PM CDT

Associate Director of Debate @ Greenhill

Still helping KU in my free time

Please add me to the email chain: a.rae.chase@gmail.com

I love debate and I will do my absolute best to make a decision that makes sense and give a helpful RFD.

Topicality

Competing interpretations are easier to evaluate than reasonability. You need to explain to me how we determine what is reasonable if you are going for reasonability.

Having said that if your intep is so obscure that there isn't a logical CI to it, perhaps it is not a good interpretation.

T debates this year (water topic) have gotten too impact heavy for their own good. I've judged a number of rounds with long overviews about how hard it is to be negative that never get to explaining what affirmatives would be topical under their interp or why the aff interp links to a limits DA and that's hard for me because I think much more about the latter when I think about topicality.

T-USFG/FW

Affirmatives should be about the topic. I will be fairly sympathetic to topicality arguments if I do not know what the aff means re: the topic after the 1AC.

I think teams are meming a bit on both sides of this debate. Phrases like "third and fourth level testing" and "rev v rev debates are better" are kind of meaningless absent robust explanation. Fairness is an impact that I will vote on. Like any other impact, it needs to be explained and compared to the other team's impact. I have also voted on arguments about ethics, education, and pedagogy. I will try my best to decide who wins an impact and which impact matters more based on the debate that happens.

I do not think the neg has to win a TVA to win topicality; it can be helpful if it happens to make a lot of sense but a forced TVA is generally a waste of time.

If the aff is going for an impact turn about debate, it would be helpful to have a CI that solves that impact.

DA’s

I would love to see you go for a disad and case in the 2NR. I do not find it persuasive when an affirmative team's only answer to a DA is impact framing. Impact framing can be important but it is one of a number of arguments that should be made.

I am aware the DA's aren't all great lately. I don't think that's a reason to give up on them. It just means you need a CP or really good case arguments.

K's

I really enjoy an old-fashioned k vs the aff debate. I think there are lots of interesting nuances available for the neg and the aff in this type of debate. Here are some specific thoughts that might be helpful when constructing your strategy:

1. Links of omission are not links. Links of “commission” will take a lot of explaining.

2. Debating the case matters unless there is a compelling framework argument for why I should not evaluate the case.

3. If you are reading a critique that pulls from a variety of literature bases, make sure I understand how they all tie to together. I am persuaded by aff arguments about how it's very difficult to answer the foundation of multiple bodies of critical literature because they often have different ontological, epistemological, psychoanalytic, etc assumptions. Also, how does one alt solve all of that??

4. Aff v. K: I have noticed affirmative teams saying "it's bad to die twice" on k's and I have no idea what that means. Aff framework arguments tend to be a statement that is said in the 2AC and repeated in the 1AR and 2AR - if you want fw to influence how I vote, you need to do more than this. Explain how it implicates how I assess the link and/or alternative solvency.

5. When ontology is relevant - I feel like these debates have devolved into lists of things (both sides do this) and that's tough because what if the things on the list don't resonate?

CP's

Generic counterplans are necessary and good. I think specific counterplans are even better. Counterplans that read evidence from the 1AC or an aff author - excellent! I don't have patience for overly convoluted counterplans supported by barely highlighted ev.

I do not subscribe to (often camp-driven) groupthink about which cp's "definitely solve" which aff's. I strongly disagree with this approach to debate and will think through the arguments on both sides of the debate because that is what debate is about.

Solvency deficits are a thing and will be accounted for and weighed along with the risk of a DA, the size of the DA impact, the size of the solvency deficit, and other relevant factors. If you are fiating through solvency deficits you should come prepared with a theoretical justification for that.

Other notes!

Some people think it is auto-true that politics disads and certain cp's are terrible for debate. I don't agree with that. I think there are benefits/drawbacks to most arguments. This matters for framework debates. A plan-less aff saying "their model results in politics DA's which is obviously the worst" will not persuade absent a warrant for that claim.

Love a good case debate. It's super under-utilized. I think it's really impressive when a 2N knows more about the aff evidence than the aff does.

Please don't be nasty to each other; don't be surprised if I interrupt you if you are.

I don't flow the 1AC and 1NC because I am reading your evidence. I have to do this because if I don't I won't get to read the evidence before decision time in a close debate.

If the debate is happening later than 9PM you might consider slowing down and avoiding especially complicated arguments.

If you make a frivolous or convoluted ethics challenge in a debate that I judge I will ask you to move on and be annoyed for the rest of the round. Legitimate ethics challenges exist and should/will be taken seriously but ethics challenges are not something we should play fast and loose with.

For debating online:

-If you think clarity could even possibly be an issue, slow down a ton. More than ever clarity and quality are more important than quantity.

-If my camera is off, I am not there, I am not flowing your speech, I probably can't even hear you. If you give the 1AR and I'm not there, there is not a whole lot I can do for you.

Clara Conry Minneapolis South 3 rounds

Matt Conway Berkeley Preparatory School 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon February 19, 2024 at 10:38 AM EDT

jmu '25

affiliations: berkeley prep (2022-), solon and saint ignatius (2021-22)

mconcon4@gmail.com

bprep-debate@googlegroups.com

tl;dr

tech>truth

I primarily run policy arguments and coach critical ones.

will vote on 0 risk

I have found that aff teams are just not sufficiently extending solvency to any of their advantages, internal links, etc., thus the I find myself having a lower threshold for neg offense

speed is fine (I will only "clear" you once and then ill flow what I can)

call me matty or matt not judge (he/him)

don't be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

clipping = auto L and 0

unlikely to vote on things that happened outside of the round

K Affs/FW

I think K affs should have some relation to the topic and am less persuaded by debate bad arguments. you don't need a c/I to win. I am persuaded by both fairness and clash. the easiest way to my ballot is establishing external offense vs internal link turns and do real impact comparison. presumption isn't gone for as much as it probably should. contextualizing the links to how they specifically destroy the ability of the alt to happen will help you out a lot. don't assume I know any of your lit.

you can win without an alt, however I prefer if you generate UQ from somewhere else rather then going for the k as a linear disad. I think teams spend way to much time on fw, in almost every case the aff gets to weigh the 1ac and the neg gets reps links.

CPs

I like well thought out advantage cps. affs don't utilize their 1ac enough when answering cps. condo is good, multi-plank condo is good. pretty much all other theory is probably a reason to reject the arg.

DAs

The politics DA was most of my high school career. I enjoy complex stories with clear internal link turns to the aff or some form of cirvumvention/a solvency take out. teams who explain how the direction of x shapes the direction of y are much more likely to win a close debate. I will probably not read you ev during the debate, but if the final rebuttals include a DA, please send a card doc.

default to competing interps but its not hard to get me to vote on reasonability. the simpler the definition/the clearer the violation the better.

misc

organization/signposting is important

I enjoy impacts turns/traps/double binds etc.

have fun

Matt Davis St. Croix Prep 7 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 26, 2024 at 11:50 AM CDT

Name: Matt Davis

Affiliation: St. Croix Prep, Stillwater, MN

Email: mdavis@stcroixprep.org

Years Coaching: 11

Years Judging: twenty-four

School Strikes: St. Croix Prep

Rounds judged this year (insert any year here): usually between 80-100

***Include me on the email chain (LD, CX)

Background:
I debated for St. Francis High School, in Minnesota, from 1989 to 1993, during which time I debated two years of CX and two years of LD. I also debated four years of CEDA debate, debating for various schools. I have been the Director of Speech and Debate at St. Croix Prep in Stillwater, Minnesota since 2013, and I have coached LD, CX, WSD, PF, BQ and all speech categories. I also teach ninth grade Ancient World Literature at St. Croix Prep.

Overall Philosophy:
I believe that competitive debate is an educational space that should allow students to explore the relationships of different arguments and/or philosophical ideas. I also believe that competitive debate is an exercise in effective rhetoric (ethos, pathos, logos). With all this in mind, I love debates that involve teams that know their position in the debate and are passionate about their arguments. If one team in a debate shows that they care more about their arguments than another team, this definitely can have an impact on how I evaluate the round. I typically evaluate each team’s use of evidence, reasoning, and passion to further their arguments and clash with their opponent’s arguments, hence my previous mention of the role of the effective use of ethos, pathos, and logos. Most importantly: Be consistent, tell a good story, and explain your arguments in the context of what has happened up to that point in the debate. Teams that just read pre-written rebuttal speeches that don't contextualize their arguments don't usually do very well in front of me.

LD/CX Evidence:
First of all, evidence is only one part of a debate. Debaters should remember that there are other aspects of debate as well, such as claims and impact analysis. If you are simply extending an author’s name in order to extend an argument, you still need to extend the claim and warrant, or I am not voting on it. I will look at evidence after the round if the evidence becomes a controversial issue in the debate, or if one team is leaning heavily on a piece of evidence for their win. With this in mind, I don’t think that enough debaters go after their opponents’ sources. However, if it is clear that the source is biased or should clearly not be considered a reliable source, I would encourage debaters to make this an issue. Also, I am not a big fan of reading more evidence in the rebuttals. Sure, there may be a necessary card or two that can be effective in the first rebuttal for each team, but I would suggest using what you already have read in constructed speeches to respond as often as possible. I often find that a 1AR that can use the evidence from the two affirmative constructive speeches should have done enough to "find a way out" of the negative block (if it wasn't in the AC speeches, then its probably too late in CX debate).

Speed:
Short Version: Be clear and intentional on your tags and author names; you can go faster on your evidence, but I should still be able to understand you. I prefer passion and intensity to speed. Most of my debaters are traditional LD debaters, so I'm not a big fan of circuit speed. Will I flow it if you are slowing for tags and authors? Sure. Will I like it, probably not s'much. In this regard, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SIGNPOST. If you just go on-case and dump a bunch of stuff on the flow, I won't do your work for you.

Long Version: Many of today’s debaters (at least circuit debaters) are not doing much that is different than what has been done in the speed category over the last twenty years. However, I do have some preferences in this regard. When you are speaking at 250+ wpm, I have difficulty distinguishing what you want me to flow versus extraneous evidence text or extemporized explanations, which invariably leads to miscommunications later on in the extension debate. One request that I have to resolve this issue is that debaters speak more articulate and “slower” in their presentation of their signposting, their claims, and their citations. This really shouldn't slow down the overall presentation of the speech by much, but it should make the presentation of those “flow-able” points more intentional. Additionally, I will not shout "clear" or "slower" if you aren't articulating your signposts, tags, and cites. An optimal speed is probably around 200-250 on average for me if you at least slow down for these three areas.

Persuasion:
As previously mentioned, evidence is only one aspect of rhetoric, and the best debaters know how to balance ethos (evidence), pathos (passion/emotion), and logos (logic/reasoning). Additionally, I feel that the most persuasive debaters are those that can do the line-by-line debating but also move the debate to the bigger picture as well.

Preferences:
While I believe, as previously stated, that competitive debate is an educational space that should allow students to explore the relationships between different arguments and/or philosophical ideas, I do feel that there should be some topical awareness in a debate. With that in mind, I would suggest that any critical affirmative arguments should be accompanied with a thoughtful explanation of why I should entertain a debate that is not related to the topic as worded in the resolution, or explain why their critical affirmative should be considered in the context of the resolution; otherwise, I feel like this is a tough area for me to validate. I would say that my favorite debates are debates that are actually directly tied to the topic and manage to address the underlying issues inherent in the topic through a strong philosophical or political debate (I do enjoy critical affs that are actually topical). However, this doesn't mean that I am partial to these arguments. I will entertain any argument, as long as the debater provides solid and supported rationale for its use in the round and its connection to the topic or the opponent’s arguments.

Cross-Examination:

I really enjoy a great cross examination, especially because it allows debaters to really show their skills when it comes to the interactive part of debate. I think that cross examination is a place that really allows the most prepared debaters to shine. Because of this, I usually determine how I am going to assign speaker points based on a debater's performance in cross-ex. So, please don't ask if you can use the rest of CX as prep. That will always be a big "No."

I am okay with tag-team cross-examination in policy debate to a degree, but I hate it when one debater is clearly the puppet and their partner is the puppet master. This becomes obvious if one debater has no clue how to answer questions posed about what they just read in the speech. That being said, I would encourage you to use tag-team cross-ex as an emergency cord, not as something that should be used frequently.

The Ballot:
Just because a debater says that an argument is a voting issue does not make it so. To make an argument into a voting issue, a debater needs to provide warrant for its impact as a voting issue. Each debater should be able to provide decision calculus that makes my job very easy for me (which, ironically, if done well by both sides, may make my job even harder). I am someone who typically votes with their flow, which makes a debater’s speed adaptability and articulation key components in my ability to make a decision in their favor. Additionally, as previously mentioned, I will take a debater’s persuasive style and passion for their arguments into account. I would say that these areas help make my decisions when the debate is very close. Lastly, as far as the “role of the ballot” is concerned, I will leave that up to the debaters to decide. If there is no “role of the ballot” argument made in the debate, I will do my best to intuit this role from your arguments and voting issues.

Policy Notes:
As has been mentioned previously, I am accepting of most arguments, as long as the debaters are able to explain the rationale behind running such an argument and the impact that the argument has on the debate. I love direct clash, since I believe that this shows a team’s level of preparedness, especially in policy debate, but I also love good critical discussions as well. Overall, I would say that the biggest issue for me is speed. Please, please, please, at the very least, make your signposting, claims, and cites audibly clear and slower than the rest of your speech. I believe this also offers you the opportunity to add emphasis to these points as well, and in so doing show the passion you have for your arguments.

LD Notes:
For me, everything in Lincoln-Douglas debate should come back to the framework debate (value/criteria). However, if a debater decides to run a policy affirmative (or counterplans, disadvantages, and kritiks on the negative), then I will decide the debate accordingly. However, just because you have a plan doesn't mean that the framework debate is automatically a Utilitarianism debate. If the opposing side reads a value and criteria and makes the debate about how we are to evaluate arguments (value/criteria), then you need to be ready for this debate, since (as previously stated) this is my predisposition in LD debate. A debater could win all of their contention level arguments and still lose a debate if they cannot prove that their method for evaluating the arguments should be preferred over their opponent's method. I think that some of the best LD debaters are those that can attack criteria with supporting evidence, or they can prove how they can perm their opponent’s criteria. Ultimately, I will vote on the voting issues presented in the debate (or impact calculus if the debate becomes a Util debate), but I will consider the criteria debate first and last when making any decision. That being said, I will entertain "nontraditional" affirmatives and negative positions in a debate (Topicality, Kritiks, Theory, etc), but you need to explain its relevance to the topic and/or arguments that have already been presented in the debate.

How I vote: I want debaters to tell me why I should vote for their position over their opponent's position. If you just barf a bunch of arguments onto the flow and don't explain how I should evaluate them against what your opponents have said, then I probably won't be too keen on buying in to your "story." I'm not a fan of judge intervention, so don't leave me too much room to make my own decision.

NEW STUFF***Kritikal Arguments Continued(CX/LD):

As mentioned before, I enjoy a well-run kritikal argument on either side of a topic; however, with this in mind, I have a few significant points I would like to discuss.

First, I believe that a kritik only holds its value when maintaining all primary parts as a cohesive whole (link, impact, alternative, and alternative solvency). That being said, if you try to extend the front half of a kritik as a non-unique disad, I will be unlikely to vote for it. There is some room for methodology to become a singular issue, especially in KvK debates, but I haven't seen those as often.

Second, I dislike impact turns on kritiks, and these usually come across to me as supercharged links to the kritik. That being said, I would strongly suggest you avoid trying to impact turn a kritik. Link debates and alternative debates are much more persuasive.

Third, a good alternative is a necessary part of the debate, but it can hinge on what you are trying to accomplish in the debate. If you are trying to affect change in the debate space with the hope of spillover, then your alternative should reflect this specifically. If you are trying to play the hypothetical game that the policymaking affirmative is playing, then play that game but be prepared to explain specific steps to the world of the alternative and what that world will look like.

Fourth, I am most familiar with the following Ks: Cap, SetCol, Biopower, Ableism, Death Cult, Anthro, MIC, PIC, IR, Borders. However, if you can explain the kritik to me in more cogent terms, I am willing to entertain other kritiks.

Fifth, if you are running a kritik, try to slow down a little. I don't like to feel like my brain is melting.

Prep Time:Please don't steal prep by taking extra time to assemble the doc, attach the doc, and send the doc. I will run prep until the speech doc is received by me.

ONLINE: To keep these things running smoothly, I won't disclose at the end of the round.

THEORY: DIsclosure theory in LD is a non-starter for me. Be better. I am a small school coach, so I know the argument. I just don't like it. I firmly believe that disclosure norms are net worse for small schools.

Blake Deng Johns Creek High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 14, 2024 at 12:31 PM EDT

Procedural Stuff

Call me Blake or BD instead of Judge, I don't like feeling old

Email chain: blako925@gmail.com

Please also add: jchsdebatedocs@gmail.com

Add both emails, title the chain Tournament Rd # Your Team vs. Other Team ex) Harvard Round 4 Johns Creek XY vs. Northview AM.

1AC should be sent at round start or if I'm late (sorry in advance), as soon as I walk in the room

If you go to the bathroom or fill your waterbottle before your own speech, I'll dock 1 speaker point

Stealing prep = heavily docked speaks. If you want to engage your partner in small talk, just speak normally so everyone knows you're not stealing prep, don't whisper. Eyes should not be wandering on your laptop and hands should not be typing/writing. You can be on your phone.

Clipping is auto-loss and I assign lowest possible speaks. Ethics violation claims = round stoppage, I will decide round on the spot using provided evidence of said violation

Topic Knowledge

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE.

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I debated in high school, didn’t debate in college, have never worked at any camp. I currently work an office job. Any and all acronyms should be explained to me. Specific solvency mechanisms should be explained to me. Tricky process CPs should be explained to me. Many K jargon words that I have heard such as ressentiment, fugitivity, or subjectivity should be explained to me.

Spreading

I WRITE SLOW AND MY HAND CRAMPS EASILY. PLEASE SLOW DOWN DURING REBUTTALS

My ears have become un-attuned to debate spreading. Please go 50% speed at the start of your speech before ramping up. I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it. If you are in novice this probably doesn't apply to you.

While judges must do their best to flow debates and adjudicate in an objective matter that rewards the better debater, there is a certain level of debater responsibility to spread at a reasonable speed and clear manner. Judge adaptation is an inevitable skill debaters must learn.

In front of me, adaption should be spreading speed. If you are saying words faster than how fast I can move my pen, I will say SLOW DOWN. If you do not comply, it is your prerogative, and you can roll the dice on whether or not I will write your argument down. I get that your current speed may be OK with NDT finalists or coaches with 20+ years of experience, but I am not those people. Adapt or lose.

No Plan Text & Framework

I am OK with any affirmative whether it be policy, critical, or performance. The problem is that the 2AC often has huge case overviews that are sped through that do not explain to me very well what the aff harms are and how the advocacy statement (or whatever mechanism) solves them. Furthermore, here are some facts about my experience in framework:

I was the 1N in high school, so I never had to take framework other than reading the 1NC shell since my partner took in the 2NC and 2NR.
I can count the number of times I debated plan-less affs on one hand.
As of me updating this paradigm on 01/28/2023 I have judged roughly 15 framework rounds (maybe less).

All the above make framework functionally a coin toss for either side. My understanding of framework is predicated off of what standards you access and if the terminal impacts to those standards prove if your model of debate is better for the world. If you win impact turns against the neg FW interpretation, then you don't need a C/I, but you have to win that the debate is about potential ballot solvency or some other evaluation method. If the neg wins that the round is about proving a better model of debate, then an inherent lack of a C/I means I vote for the better interp no matter how terrible it is. The comparison in my mind is that a teacher asked to choose the better essay submitted by two students must choose Student A if Student B doesn't turn in anything no matter how terrible or offensive Student A's essay is.

Tech vs. Truth

I used to like arguments such as “F & G in federal government aren't capitalized T” or “Period at the end of the plan text or the sentence keeps going T” b/c I felt like these arguments were objectively true. As I continue to judge I think I have moved into a state where I will allow pretty much any argument no matter how much “truth” there is backing it especially since some truth arguments such as the aforementioned ones are pretty troll themselves. There is still my job to provide a safe space for the activity which means I am obligated to vote down morally offensive arguments such as racism good or sexism good. However, I am now more inclined to vote on things like “Warming isn’t real” or “The Earth is flat” with enough warrants. After all, who am I to say that status quo warming isn’t just attributable to heating and cooling cycles of the Earth, and that all satellite imagery of the Earth is faked and that strong gravitational pulls cause us to be redirected back onto flat Earth when we attempt to circle the “globe”. If these arguments are so terrible and untrue, then it really shouldn’t take much effort to disprove them.

Reading Evidence

I err on the side of intervening as little as possible, so I don’t read usually read evidence. Don't ask me for a doc or send me anything afterwards. The only time I ever look at ev is if I am prompted to do so during speech time.

This will reward teams that do the better technical debating on dropped/poorly answered scenarios even if they are substantiated by terrible evidence. So if you read a poorly written federalism DA that has no real uniqueness or even specific link to the aff, but is dropped and extended competently, yes, I will vote for without even glancing at your ev.

That being said, this will also reward teams that realize your ADV/DA/Whatever ev is terrible and point it out. If your T interp is from No Quals Alex, blog writer for ChristianMingle.com, and the other team points it out, you're probably not winning the bigger internal link to legal precision.

Case

I love case debate. Negatives who actually read all of the aff evidence in order to create a heavy case press with rehighlightings, indicts, CX applications, and well backed UQ/Link/Impact frontlines are always refreshing watch. Do this well in front of me and you will for sure be rewarded.

By the 2AR I should know what exactly the plan does and how it can solve the advantages. This obviously doesn't have to be a major component of the 1AR given time constraint, but I think there should at least some explanation in the 2AR. If I don't have at least some idea of what the plan text does and what it does to access the 1AC impacts, then I honestly have no problem voting on presumption that doing nothing is better than doing the aff.

Disads

Similar to above, I think that DA's have to be fully explained with uniqueness, link, and impact. Absent any of these things I will often have serious doubts regarding the cohesive stance that the DA is taking.

Topicality

Don't make debate meta-arguments like "Peninsula XY read this at Glenbrooks so obviously its core of the topic" or "every camp put out this aff so it's predictable". These types of arguments mean nothing to me since I don't know any teams, any camp activities, any tournaments, any coaches, performance of teams at X tournament, etc.

One small annoyance I have at teams that debate in front of me is that they don't debate T like a DA. You need to win what standards you access, how they link into your terminal impacts like education or fairness, and why your chosen impact outweighs the opposing teams.

Counterplan

I have no inherent bias against any counterplan. If a CP has a mechanism that is potentially abusive (international fiat, 50 state fiat, PICs bad) then I just see this as offense for the aff, not an inherent reason why the team or CP should immediately be voted down.

I heavily detest this new meta of "perm shotgunning" at the top of each CP in the 2AC. It is basically unflowable. See "Spreading" above. Do this and I will unironically give you a 28 maximum. Spread the perms between cards or other longer analytical arguments. That or actually include substance behind the perm such as an explanation of the function of the permutation, how it dodges the net benefit, if it has any additional NB, etc.

I think 2NR explanation of what exactly the CP does is important. A good 2N will explain why their CP accesses the internal links or solvency mechanisms of the 1AC, or if you don't, why the CP is able to access the advantages better than the original 1AC methods. Absent that I am highly skeptical of broad "CP solves 100% of case" claims and the aff should punish with specific solvency deficits.

A problem I have been seeing is that affirmatives will read solvency deficits against CP's but not impacting the solvency deficits vs. the net benefit. If the CP doesn't solve ADV 1 then you need to win that ADV 1 outweighs the net benefit.

Judge kick is not my default mindset, neg has say I have to judge kick and also justify why this is OK.

Kritiks

I don't know any K literature other than maybe some security or capitalism stuff. I feel a lot of K overviews include fancy schmancy words that mean nothing to me. If you're gonna go for a K with some nuance, then you're going to need to spend the effort explaining it to me like I am 10 years old.

Theory

If the neg reads more than 1 CP + 1 K you should consider pulling the trigger on conditionality.

I default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told.

Define dispositionality for me if this is going to be part of the interp.

Extra Points

To promote flowing, you can show me your flows at the end of a round and earn up to 1.0 speaker points if they are good. To discourage everyone bombarding me with flows, you can also lose up to a full speaker point if your flows suck.

Jack Ding Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed November 8, 2023 at 8:14 AM EDT

Strath Haven '20 Northwestern '24

I debated in high school, but I don't debate in college.

Updated for the 2023-2024 topic: Blake will be the first time I judge this topic. I haven't done any topic research prior, and I'm pretty far removed from the activity now. I'll try my best though.

General:

- Add me to the chain jding67@gmail.com also add mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

- If you're fully open source on the wiki (every card you read in your debates), tell me after the round for +0.3 speaks.

- Tech > Truth, but arguments need to be coherent and complete (claim, warrant, impact)

- Do what you do best. I was primarily on the policy-side of things when I debated, but have a good amount of experience debating the K. Take that as you will, but I'm pretty open to everything.

- Please read re-highlightings and not just insert.

- Jake Lee is my role model in debate. I may be washed and disconnected, but his passion for the activity, community, and education is very admirable. I'm with him on the idea that debate should be fun and enjoyable, so please have fun!

DA:

- Love them, but of course, there are quality disads and silly ones.

- Link debating and comparative analysis puts a smile on my face.

- I was a 1N that gave a lot of 1NRs on politics.

CP:

- Also love a good counterplan. Having good solvency evidence or mechanism explanation is important for me.

- Process counterplans get a little less love.

- Most theory, besides Condo, are reasons to reject the arg. Debate it out though.

Case Turns:

- Fine with me.

Topicality:

- Not going to lie, it's a personal weakness of mine. Probably not the best judge for these debates.

- Will probably default to competing interps. Prefer limit args.

K Affs:

- Creative, strategic, AFFs that have something to say about the resolution are preferred.

- My partner and I used to go for fairness as an impact on T-USFG

- Again, pretty open to hearing whatever arg wise. Just explain everything coherently. Obviously, don't be offensive.

Ks vs. Policy Affs:

- Links to the plan and turns case are definitely favored, but not necessarily required.

- Framework and alternative debating are both important for me. FW dictates how I evaluate the arguments.

- I've seen a lot of different areas of scholarship introduced in debate, but don't assume I know what you're talking about as well as you may.

Ansel Erol Westwood 7 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 7:28 AM CDT

FYO from Edina HSPF, CS @ Georgia Tech

Put me on the chain -- erol.ansel@gmail.com

Background: Debater for Edina (team codes: Edina EJ, EB) and qualified to the TOC twice. Techy LARP debater, hardly read theory -- yes, an extinction scenario spammer. But hey it worked against strake dy, blake tp, and plano mz so can't complain. Academically -- pretty thorough understanding of economics, statistics, and math; little background in foreign policy or critical literature.

Unconditionally, Tech > Truth.

General Perspective on Strategy (all formats):

A quote stolen from Archan Sen: "Cowardice is good and all the good debaters maximize it. Go for dropped aspec and minimize clash. The point of debate isn't to showcase your bravery and flex about how you made unstrategic decisions by deciding to clash with your opponents." Make rounds clean. Rounds with unnecessary clash tend to be as hard to evaluate as rounds with no clash.

Policy Debate (Scroll for PF)

Prefs: I am not an experienced judge and have NO CLUE what the topic is. Pref me at your own peril -- in order of my preference of the types of rounds I want to see: Policy v. Policy > Policy v. K, or Theory >> K v K > Tricks. And if by some chance you're reading this paradigm and you have me, please win by a large margin. I don't care how you do it. TL;DR: Tech > Truth, prefer LARP line-by-line debates but am okay at progressive rounds.

Generally, do whatever you want; my judging preferences aren't strong enough to override who did the better debating (but nonetheless adapting to me is certainly strategic). Be nice in round, have decent evidence ethics, and maintain efficiency and clarity in the line-by-line.

I concur with my former coach Charlie Jackson in that I will vote for winning arguments even if I don't understand them. Chances are, I won't understand a lot of what you say. I don't know your topic; I have not debated your format ever, I do not know your jargon and when in doubt, over-explain rather than under-explain, especially for non-policy args - I expect warrants for XYZ being a round-ending theoretical or critical argument.'

Arguments: I'm most experienced with standard policy stuff. There is no risk in going for DAs or CPs in front of me as long as you are comfortable defending their theoretical legitimacy. By default, all positions are theoretically legitimate (i.e. okay unless proven otherwise); I don't know enough about your format norms to have predispositions regarding conditionality or PICs or anything really. I'm happy to hear impact turns and framework arguments, though will probably assume act utilitarianism. I strongly prefer argument engagement especially in the context of Kritiks. They are much more effective when they are aff-specific, directly diminish aff-solvency, and have tangible alts. K Affs are great when executed well - in general held to a higher standard than policy affs. Theory - defaults: DTA, text > spirit, c/i, no RVIs. Nothing is frivolous if you win it. Theory should be read in the speech immediately following the violation. Topicality - read specific definitions, a variety of warrants are persuasive to me.

I think it is helpful to contextualize my evaluation process: For each argument relevant to the round, I will determine the extent to which a team has won the argument. I will then establish a prioritization or chaining of arguments - (a DAG or POSET for mathematically inclined folks) - and then vote for the argument that precedes others (roots the graph). If there are two or more potential winning arguments from opposing sides with no comparison, this means that the debaters have failed. In such a scenario, I will vote for the side that has a winning out with the least amount of intervention from me, or presume (happy to entertain presumption warrants).

I will reward kind debaters who have fun, make sound strategic decisions, and execute well with higher speaks. I appreciate it when later speeches are given off-flow. Please do not go for arguments with the intention of 'tricking' your opponents (and most probably tricking me as a consequence). It's also a mega-flex if you can debate pretty slow and still win cleanly.

Feel free to ask any questions about my decision post-round, post-ballot-submission.

Public Forum:

PF rounds tend to suck, so make my life easy. Public Forum debate is a game and here are the rules of the game:

(1) - All arguments must be made explicitly in speeches within the allotted speech times to be considered.

(2) - New offensive arguments are acceptable in constructive and rebuttal but not later. New defensive arguments can be made any time as long as they are directly responding to a new argument made in the previous speech (backlining, frontlining). New weighing is acceptable whenever with the caveat that I have much higher standards for 2nd final weighing if it is new. Defense is not probability weighing, and I can tell the difference.

(3) - Arguments are conceded if they are not responded to in the following speech, with the exception of second constructive not needing to respond to first constructive. Conceded arguments are truths for the rest of the round. If both sides make conflicting concessions than the debate may be resolved later.

(4) - Any argument (policy, theory/T, K/FW, CP/DA) is fine to make as long as it is not violent or abusive. All arguments are fine to read by default. Respond with theory if you have a problem with an argument made.

(5) - Arguments must be extended in every back-half speech after they are made to be considered in round. Final should mirror summary for the most part.

(6) - At the end of the round, the winner is the team who has won the highest priority argument in the round.

(7) - Evidence ethics: call your opponent out if they do something not OK in the form of a formal evidence challenge. If I notice something fishy I will tank speaks but I won't change the ballot. Paraphrasing is okay if you don't lose to theory.

Here are my preferences

(1) - Go fast and send me a speech doc. Winning by spreading your opponent out is not something that I mind at all, it makes it really easy to judge when one side has a conceded extinction scenario going into summary.

(2) - After you have an easy path to the ballot, slow down a bit.

(3) - Weigh often and weigh well. I will presume 1st (or whatever is warranted) if you don't and you probably don't want that. Weighing is equally as important as defense.

(4) - Speaking pretty will not make up for poor argumentation. If I can understand it, that's good enough.

(5) - Speaker points start at 28.5 and go up and down based on strategic decisions/errors; I won't give below a 27 unless you did something worse than throwing the round.

(6) - Read my policy paradigm if you're going to read progressive arguments.

Justin Flynn Brookfield East 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 1:51 PM CDT

Short Version

I have ten+ years of debate experience and will buy any argument, as long as it is well structured and fair. I am known to be a very progressive judge in Wisconsin, however on Nat circuit level it might be better to treat me as a Flay judge. I do love a good traditional debate, but do like progressive debate. Most importantly have fun in a round!

Long version

Event Preferences

PF: Tech>truth within reason.

speed>collapsing: Share a doc and go for everything, yes even if that means spreading. I generally HATE time suck contentions, like don't waste my time flowing something you know you are going to drop. Provide more education to the round by running quality arguments, or end your speech early.

full case>paraphrasing: In general the more you can take the good file sharing habits of LD and CX and use them, the quick and better the round will go.

LD: LARP (Policy-style arguments i.e. Plans, CPs, Disads, Topicality) > Trad/Phil (Standard LD case) > Ks/Performance > Theory > Tricks> Disclosure Theory

CX Neg: Disads>T>Specs>CP>K>Theory > Tricks> Disclosure Theory

CX Aff: traditional cases>aff Ks>Disclosure Theory

Thoughts on certain topics

Framework: Please tell me how the framework contextualizes your offense / defense in relation to the ballot and/or the round. I require framework to also contextualize how your opponents arguments are implicated by your Framework arguments.

Argument Resolution: I reward debaters who clearly articulate and provide reasons why their warrants, impacts, sources are stronger in this round – Impact calc and voters are great ways to do this. Debaters who provide well warranted arguments on the flow that are developed early and throughout the debate get both high speaks from me and my ballot.

Theory: I vote on well developed procedurals, I do not vote on blipped shells that blow up later in the debate so have voters and standards don’t just give me an interp and violation - this isn't to say don't run T in front of me but rather that you need to provide me a well developed justification for why to prefer your side. Focus on impacts through a education/fairness filter will be the easiest way to my ballot on this issue. I do hate it when teams use theory as a time suck.

K debate: I have read and actively coach a lot of critical debate but you should not however assume I know the literature base you will be pulling from, feel free to ask prior to the start of the round about my familiarity. The more specific your argument is to the round or issue at hand then the easier route you will have to my ballot. I usually am not a fan of Perm because it can make the debate muddy. I do love conditionality debate.

Tricks: If is one thing you should not run with me, it is tricks, I like a clean and fair Debate.

Disadvantages: Disads are my favorite off case argument. I evaluate Disads first on the risk of intrinsic link to the AFF before questions of uniqueness and the way this implicates the affirmative, this isn't to say questions of uniqueness don't implicate the link but questions of link comes first and then are determined to be strengthened / weakened by the uniqueness. - Work done on the impact level to have strong warrants as well as good weighing are an easy way to my ballot.

Counter Plan: My second favorite off case argument to see. Make sure they are mutually exclusive and AFF can’t perm. Also I hate Perm debate usually on CP because it is either an easy win or waste of my time. I think overall Cp play well with Disads and are a easy way for NEG to win my ballot.

Speed: I am perfectly fine with speed usually I will only yell clear once and it is because you are not speaking clearly.DO NOT SPREAD ANALYTICS WITHOUT A DOC.

Flashing: Add me to the email chain, my RFD will be better if you do.

justinflynn190@gmail.com

Jordan Frese Washburn HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 7:55 AM CDT

she/her

please add jfrese016@gmail.com to the email chain

I am a coach at Washburn Highschool where I have been working since 2021.

I debater for a total of 6 years before I decided to stop debating. 4 were in high school at Glenbrook South and 2 at the University of Minnesota. I have qualified for the TOC once and the NDT twice

updated for Blake

TLDR

I don't really have much to say in this paradigm I have previously had long paradigms that explained my view of each argument, but, I dont think that provided anything useful because the way you debate is a stylistic choice and I don't think judges should have a preference on what styles they vote for. It is my job as a judge to evaluate the flow and vote for which ever team I think wins the round. I will vote for any argument (excluding arguments that make the debate space harmful as I won't ignore my role is as an educator).

Ks--i really like these they are useful education that should be discussed in the debate space. I will vote on framework because I think the debate about framework is a useful conversation to have (how should our engagement with debate operate is a useful question and one that I really like).

Policy--this is the style i debated. i really like these I don't know if there is much more to say. I mean DAs, Ts, CPs, Turns, all are good.

Condo--I think that condo is fine but Ill vote for condo bad even against 1 condo if you win it.

If u want to read my full views of debate they are here

My experience is one mainly as debating policy, however, my more recent experience coaching have left me more focused on critical arguments, mainly the cap k and set col while also adding in a role as an educator inside of the space. I don't think that it should be up to the judges to determine the stylistic decisions they vote on it should be the argumentation. That said I won't vote for arguments that make the debate space harmful.

Kritiks

I typically think of kritiks as coming in a couple forms. One that focuses a criticism on the framework of debate or one that focuses more on an alternative. These are both very strong and I understand the strategic choice of keeping routes open, but, by the end of the debate I think that having the time to spend constructing a specific route is more sucessful than trying to keep all options open. It is much more persuasive if all the arguments you chose to go for use a similar foundation. This is extremely useful because if you spent so much time winning framework it will make certain case arguments, certain links better.

If you are debating against a kritik what helped me was trying to identify the route the neg's k takes and having a plan for each of these avenues. I think it really depends on the aff, but there are a few strategies against Ks. By strategies I mean what is the focus of the 2ar win on, because you should still have everything covered as much as it needs to.

-Perm, no-link--it is important to have a net benefit to the perm which can be alt fails, cede the ptx, the advantage, ect.

-Framework, extinction outweighs, alt fails--it is important to think through the implication of you winning framework. There are some Ks where they will just lose while other Ks have strong alts and impacts.

CPs

I am a fan of CPs. I don’t really have any leaning way I believe. I think theory typically isn’t the best strategy not because I won’t vote on it but unless the CP is really cheating then it typically is just easier for the neg to defend theory.

This is where I spent a lot of my time in debate doing coming up with cps.

DAs

I love DAs. The bad ones the good ones whatever da you want. I feel like this isn’t controversial.

I am a very good judge for T if you are ready on the tech level. I will peetty easially pull the trigger on less viable T violations if you are just ahead. I really like the focus being put on the implications of how debate would work.

This is also where I spent most of my time debating

Izak Gallini-Matyas Minneapolis South 2 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 4:00 PM EDT

He/Him

Minneapolis South/Occasional judging for Minnesota

My email is izakgm [at] gmail.com, add me to the email chain before the round, please and thank you.

Good debating overwhelms anything else on here. I've coached and judged teams of all styles. I will try my best to evaluate the round on your terms and not my own.

do whatever you gotta do for your internet quality. I'd like camera on but if you can't, you can't, and I won't hold it against you and you don't need to explain to me.

IN PERSON DEBATE IS BACK and its time to shed our eDebate norms like "not saying the words that are in the card text while we spread". I will most certainly let you know I'm not getting it. Teams that spread clearly: I see you, I hear you, I honor you, and I am here with you!

How I judge - big picture > minutia.

I appreciate explicit impact comparison, judge instruction, and when the 2nr/2ar starts in a place that helps me resolve the rest of the debate. I don't mean "they dropped my role of the ballot!!!!!!". If you say "extinction outweighs" but don't tell me what it outweighs, I'll just assume you mean its important since you haven't made a comparative claim.

I'm flow centered, but not a fan of cheap shots or punishing small mistakes. I'm not a perfect flow. In fact I am certainly one of the worst flowers on the circuit and yet I use my flow to decide the round. If you want me to evaluate your argument its on you to make sure I write it down. Late breaking and unforeseeable arguments may justify new responses. I do have 2n sympathyTM and will check the 2ar against arguments that weren't in the 1ar. 2nr line drawing or instruction remains helpful.

I think in terms of risks, including zero risk and presumption. Offense/defense works well a lot of the time, but I'm not a cultist. If internal links are missing and the other team points it out without reply, I'm not giving you 1% just for fun.

I think I used to be harder on the 1ar and 2nr. Now I give a bit more leeway if there was sufficient explanation earlier in the debate. I pay close attention to and often flow cross-x if its going somewhere.

I read less evidence than many judges at the end of the round. If your superior evidence quality is not explained, I might miss it. I will not reconstruct the round through the docs afterwards. I won't read along unless I suspect clipping. If you deliver the text of your evidence incomprehensibly fast I will not read the text of it later to figure out what you said. Again, the burden of communication is on you.

I love strategic concessions and rehighlightings. If you are right and you read it in the speech, I will prioritize your analysis. It makes sense to insert things like charts. If its "a stake the round on it" kind of issue, please do not insert a rehighlighting, I need you read it. If its just an FYI about a tertiary issue... go off I guess.

I'm expressive and might intervene vocally to move you off a stale cx direction or motion to move on if you are repeating yourself in the speech. It will be pretty obvious in person if I have stopped flowing because I don't understand what you are saying. My resting face is rather stern, don't take it personally. I'm probably still vibing with you.

FW v K aff - Yes, I will vote either way. It comes down to links and impacts like any other debate and the best teams in these rounds have offense and defense.

Neg teams: I'll be honest, if you say debate is a game more than twice my eyes start to glaze over. Fairness can be an impact but it usually feels like a small one. By this I mean if the aff wins any impact at all it will be more important to me than fairness. If that's your approach you'll need to be playing great defense (lots of ways to do this) or really filtering out aff offense somehow. I say this and yet I think fairness/clash is by far the most strategic version of this argument. Y'all think I didn't notice you just ctrl-f'd your fairness blocks with clash? Ignoring the questions posed by the aff or repeatedly mischaracterizing the aff's claims will likely result in an aff ballot.

Aff teams: I'm open to whatever approach you want to take. I'm personally more interested in strategies built around a counter interpretation even if its not an intuitive (or predictable) one, will vote for impact turns alone and in many cases that is more strategic. Just FYI, I do not know what the symbolic economy is, so if you are the first one to explain it to me then kudos. I think I just learned what a psychoanalytic drive is last month but I still might not understand it. If the TVA is something I'm thinking about during my decision time, even if you dropped it, then you've written or explained your aff poorly. If your model doesn't explain a role for negation, or your aff is so uncontroversial that it doesn't hold up to a basic inherency push, I can see myself voting neg easily.

Ks on the neg - Love these debates. Explanation is vital on both sides. Aff teams that explain their internal links and solvency have the most success against ks in front of me. Aff framework arguments that exclude kritiks entirely will be a tough sell. If the alt is cheating, you can point that out tho ;) I've yet to hear a persuasive explanation for judge choice - I will only vote on benefits of your plan that you explain. Neg teams do well with strong links that implicate the case. You don't always need an alt in the 2nr, but you might be better off defending an imperfect alt instead of just the squo, especially if the 2ar is on to you. Perms are a valuable tool but 90% of aff wins would be on case outweighs whether the perm was present or not.

Policy stuff - Yes. I like internal link and solvency presses. Impact defense can make sense, but "x doesn't cause extinction" might not get your there if the other team has a nuanced impact comparison. I have a loose attachment to the "link first" camp until you tell me otherwise. My time in Minnesota has left me with a love for impact turns, don't care how dumb it seems. If you can't beat stupid... I don't know what to tell you.

I struggled with Judge Kick for a while. I've come around. I still enjoy strategic and narrow 2nrs (i.e. not making me do this). If you explicitly (saying "squo is always an option" in 1nc cx counts) flag this as an option by the end of the block I'm game. I am open to affs that ask me to stick the 2nr to the cp.

Complicated Perm texts can be explained and inserted - they should be written out fully and sent for all to see. Counterplan texts that you don't want to read fully.... No thank you. Be more creative with how its written.

Things it might be helpful to know about me/carrots+sticks/hot takes inspired by OTT

i understand why no one does this but if the aff team took a stance on something (like an actual explanation of how they solve not solely hedging against agent cps) and the neg fiats through a solvency deficit based in literature and the aff went for theory I might be more likely to vote aff than most. This obviously goes out the window if the aff says the phrase "for the purpose of counterplan competition" at any point in cx.
some bonus speaker points (maybe .2?) if your neg strategy (policy or k) hinges on tech and not nato. Feels like there is room for das/impact turns in this area and I would like to see them.
If your wiki is sparse your points are capped at 28.5 - its JV behavior, you get JV points.
If you can't answer basic CX questions about a position you are asking for an L 27. If you think the round is over and you stop your rebuttal VERY early because you have already won (invoke a TKO correctly), the baseline for your points is 29.5.
I'm lukewarm for plan text in a vacuum. "Only non-arbitrary" blah blah blzh both teams should just debate about what the aff does. I will require some extra convincing before the 2ar and will heavily protect the 2nr here.
truly random defaults that have come up more than once in rounds that I want on the record: perms are tests of competition so I will jettison them if they would hurt the aff. you can implicitly answer a "ballot pic" by trying to win the round.

If you still have questions, please feel free to email or ask me before the round!

Old water topic thoughts archive

- Glad I didn't judge enough on this topic to have thoughts. We only heard extinction affs all year because of the bizcon da? Now that's what I call cowardice. Excited for NATO!

Old CJR thoughts archive

- learning about the criminal justice system is nice. If you teach me something about the topic (yes critical knowledge is part of the topic get over yourself) over the course of the debate, boost to your points. If your aff is about cyberattacks strike me, I simply don't care. If your aff is about cyberattacks and you debate the internal link level well enough to convince me that you were actually talking about criminal justice reform,

- i have some professional experience working on police reform. I live in Minneapolis and South high is blocks from where the 3rd precinct burned. My personal belief is ACAB. I feel familiar with many of the practical arguments for and against abolition, so I have a high threshold for link debating. aff teams, feel free to go for "abolition bad" instead of the perm...

- I'd love to be a judge that fully resolved framing first before substance. Unfortunately the quality of debating here is often such that I have to resolve some substance to figure out what to do.

Drew Gartner Iowa City High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 9:00 AM EDT

email chain/email for comments: drewgartner1@gmail.com

Debate background:

Iowa City High: '11-'15
University of Iowa: '15

Coaching: Iowa City High '15-'18. '21- present

Important disclaimer: I have done nearly 0 research on this topic, and will likely not understand your acronyms without explanation. Please do not assume that I have a shared knowledge of the topic, and take time to explain things.

Important Disclaimer Addendum: My comfortability with full mega-speed has lowered, especially in the realm of analytics. I would like your analytics to be slower, so I can really get it all down. Taking a few year break from debate really impacted my full spread comprehension.

I debated Policy all through high school and did some college policy as well. I mainly work with novices, now. Topic specific acronyms, let me know what they mean I won't know. Don't start your speeches full speed, start at 80% and work up to full speed.

I think most debates can/should be decided without reading evidence. This means it is the debaters' burden to tell me what the evidence says, and the implication of the evidence. This also means that I reward story telling/writing my ballot. I have no sympathy for debaters who ask about "well, what about this evidence that says x" after I give a decision. I will not be embarrassed to vote against an argument that I feel i do not understand. It is your job to tell me about that evidence and why it matters, not my job to read it and implicate it on the debate.

General Philosophy: I come from a team where our primary focus was "traditional policy debate" meaning we liked to read heg, environment affs, et.c. Our main neg strat was the DA and a CP, and that is the type of debate I prefer. I did do a lot of cap debating, and a fair amount of security debating, too. My knowledge of critical theory is very limited and I probably require a huge amount of work on the more "out there" ks to vote for you. That being said, I do believe a dropped argument is a true argument. I will vote on dropped arguments if they are dropped and explained. As a caveat, debaters tend to have bad flows and claim everything was dropped, when the reality is that they probably did not. Please do not use the term "functionally conceded" in front of me, that term makes no sense. Either they have dropped something or they have not.

Specifics:

Disadvantages- Probably my favorite part of debate is the top level interactions with case and good DA O/Ws and Case O/Ws and turns debates. These are probably where the majority of my decision calculus comes from. Obviously, you need to win risk/chance of your disadvantage being true, but good impact calc and turns debates are very convincing.

Counter Plans- there tend to be a lot of cheating counter plans, and as a 2a I am probably sympathetic to reasonable theory arguments and perm do the counterplan. That being said, most counter plan theory should be a reason to reject the argument, it will be extremely difficult to win that it should be a reason to reject the team

Ks- like I said above, i am mostly versed in cap and security. If you want to read too much beyond basic Ks, I am most likely not your type of judge. Floating PIKs are probably bad, don't let the negative get away with them.

"non traditional debate/ performance"- also not very versed in it. I am more than likely not the type of judge for this, but i will not reject any arguments out right. I am pretty sympathetic to FW arguments. However, if you are a "non traditional team" and you get stuck with me as a judge, don't lose faith, I can be persuaded. I enjoy critical affirmatives that actually engage the topic, not just reject debate outright, and plan texts are preferable.

T- I don't know much about this topic, so all the topic specifics should be slower and well explained. I think that most debaters try to go too fast in their final rebuttals on T, which leads to a lot of judgement calls. To remedy this, go slower in your final rebuttal, and you will be rewarded.

Theory- Most things are reasons to reject the argument not the team. I will probably not vote on dropped perm theory, even if you claimed it was a reason to reject the team.

Speech Docs/ Email chains

I would prefer if all debates were done with email chain. Please add me to the email chain at drewgartner1@gmail.com
I can tell when you are wasting time and/or stealing prep. DON'T. it's annoying, wastes everybody's time, and will undoubtedly lose you speaker points. technical issues do happen, yes, but they should be resolved quickly and efficiently. I would prefer every speech to start as nearly as immediately after prep or CX as possible. We don't want to be the last round done.

Speaker Points

It's very easy to impress me, using technical skill and clarity.
I am okay with speed, but will yell clear once or twice before the speaks begin to get docked. Nobody likes kids who are fast but incoherent, going slower is in your best interest.
Being nice/reducing all hostility is very preferable. If you have made it this far and are still reading, I will likely increase speaker points if you work "jambalaya of awesomeness" into one of your speeches, especially if you are original and make me laugh rather than just saying it to say it. I have a relatively low threshold for docking speaks due to hostility. Being assertive and being aggressive are much different, know the difference. I probably will not say anything if you are being overly rude/rude at all, but it will significantly hurt your speaker points, but will not affect the decision calculus.

Flynn Gray St. Francis HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun November 19, 2023 at 2:20 PM EDT

Hey y’all, my name is Flynn Gray and my pronouns are he/him. I debated for Eagan High School 2018-2022. Now I'm a student at American University and compete on the model UN team.

Logistics:

Please put me on the email chain, my email is flynnfgraydebate@gmail.com

I'm okay with speed, but I wasn't the fastest debater and generally preferred slightly slower rounds. But personal preferences aside, I can keep up if you're spreading. I have some team members that could rival Eminem for their words per minute, however if you’re going to go fast in front of me, just know I’m holding you to high standards on your clarity and emphasis. SLOW DOWN ON ANALYTICS - THEY ARE NOT TAGS.

You should be flowing. please, please, PLEASE, flow.

Yes, tag team cross is fine. As long as you’re not taking over your partners cross completely, I’m cool with it. Not cool with arguing with each-other over an answer in cross though.

Speaker Points:

For the 2021-2022 topic (and heck even the 2022-2023 topic (and also the 2023-2024 topic!)) - if you make some sort of claim on how the harms in your affirmative or negative positions affect mermaids you’ll get +0.1 speaks. I love mermaids, they’re cool, and you’ll be cool too if you mention them

If you’re racist, homophobic, transphobic, or sexist, you know the drill: I will give you the lowest number of speaker points I possibly can.

2022-2023 Updates:

I study Turkish and Turkish politics for one of my classes so know that I feel confident in being able to judge a more in depth round on that. I've done some background research on the topic so even though I haven't debated on the topic I know a fair amount.

Onto the Juicy Stuff:

I, probably like so many others, would like to think I'm tabula rasa. However in reality, I'm most likely definitely not. So here's what you need to know to debate in front of me...

First off, you do you! (Cheesy but needed to be said). Debate is better when you go for arguments you know you can win on, not ones you think you can win on in front of me. I'd rather see a debater run something they're confident in than one who's making blind guesses on my personal preferences. Despite whatever caveats you think I have, if you know you can win on a k-aff for example, I’d rather you run that than be uncomfortable trying to conform to Debate’s and my perceived expectations of what you should be running. I will do my best to judge the debate on your work, your words, and your arguments. I will try not to intervene or rearrange the flow, and I will try to make sure my decision will display that. I want to do right by you.

Kritiks:

I’m cool if you read kritiks, have fun, go for it, I like listening to kritikal literature butwhen I say I can understand kritikal literature I mean more basic kritiks such as a biopower k, queer k, setcol k or cap k. Anything beyond that especially in the realm of psychoanalysis may push my background knowledge, so if you find yourself reading a k in front of me you better be able to explain the thesis of the k and all of the parts in your own terms (that means not a bunch of big words that only make sense if you wrote the article). I want well developed links that are contextualized to the affirmative, either carded and analytical ones. You can read what you want in front of me, but I want you to use real word terms and words that are accessible to everyone. I won’t vote on something I don’t understand, if you’re going to run a k, put in the work to make it easy for me to vote on.
I'm honestly not the most experienced judge for a k-aff, I don't have a paradigm on how to judge them so make it easy and not super technical for me to vote you up on it.

Topicality:

I'm a sucker for a good T debate, and that's what I ran mostly in high school. I don't have any strong feelings on where the violation is derived from, and I think debates where one team is arguing plantext in a vaccum and the other is arguing that it can come from anywhere in the aff are interesting and I'm always down to watch more of those. I think education/portable skills is an under utilized impact to topicality that I weigh on par with a fairness or a clash impact for example. Caselists are always a good idea (even if they're kinda bull). And just saying “voter for fairness and education” is not an argument. Provide some warrants and examples of WHY fairness matters, WHY in round impacts matter more than debating the impacts post plan.

Condo:

I'm probably less okay with conditionality than any judge on the circuit and probably align more with some traditional thoughts here. I think more than three condo starts to push it and I'm down to vote on conditionality. I don't want to vote on condo and most likely won't vote on condo if you can't prove why the existence of three counter plans is different than three disadvantages, and if you can't prove some sort of in round abuse.

DA's:

DA debating is a skill that I think is hard to do and impressive when done. Crafting a unique DA to the affirmative will help you out, and me out when trying to understand the story of the round. If you need to run your generic DA's, do so with specific links, and if it's not carded but well explained and intuitive it's still going on my flow don't worry (although aff, point out if their link isn't carded, that always helps you). In my view, debate over the DA comes down most critically to uniqueness and the internal link. Warranted out uniqueness and internal link debating is one of my favorite things to flow and I'd rather you shave off a few seconds on impact work or link work or from some other part of the debate and put it there.

CP's:

Counter plans are not something I have any feelings towards debating or judging, but I think process cp theory and international fiat are totally available options to run against these. I don't have much to say here, I think this might be a spot where I get more tabula rasa.

Case:

Case debate beyond reading generic impact defense is so often forgotten about, and in front of me is a good attempt for a negative ballot. I can and will vote on no chance of the aff solving, or an impact turn to the aff/a DA on case, or that the aff is non inherent.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

- if there's an issue with cites, you're not going to get my ballot off of calling it UNTIL the other team/the team "in violation" has time to explain their side of the story

- I'm not a good judge for a heg debate (unless you're pronouncing heg like egg) but if you're running it I'll do my best to keep up

- perm do both and perm do each are the same thing and I have yet to receive an explanation on why they are not

If you made it this far, good luck and have fun!! It's gonna be a great debate :)

Joyce Harduvel Kenwood Academy 7 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 9, 2024 at 6:01 AM CDT

Former UC Lab debater and current Kenwood Academy coach (16-present)

jharduvel [at] cps [dot] edu

The most important things that you can do to get my ballot are:

Strategic overviews that explain how to resolve the key issue(s) of the debate
Comparative warrant analysis
Well-impacted arguments throughout

I strongly prefer to resolve the debate based on the flow rather than by reading your evidence and believe that you should do that explanatory work for me.

I will vote on whatever arguments that you wish to make. I'm more familiar with critical literature so if you're planning for a tech-y policy debate, be ready to explain your arguments thoroughly and do some storytelling in your overview.

Slow down enough on analytics that they are clearly flowable. I believe that there is a threshold you need to meet for me to vote for any given argument. Blippy extensions are going to give me significant pause and even if something is conceded, I need more than "They dropped condo and it's a voting issue for fairness and education!" to vote on it.

Topicality and theory: These debates should include clash, comparative analysis, and impacts just like any other part of the debate.

Kritiks: I prefer when debaters are specific on the link and alternative debates, and when they go for arguments like the K turns case or is a DA to case instead of vague impacts.

Counterplans: I am sympathetic to aff theory arguments against PICs, consult CPs, and process CPs. On the permutation debate, I tend to lean neg and assume risk of a link to the net benefit (unless I am told otherwise, of course).

Speaker Points: I reward line-by-line, comparative impact calculus, clash, creative argumentation, explanation of warrants, and smart analytics. I will deduct speaker points for oppressive language or arguments, rudeness, being purposefully evasive in cross-ex, excessive interruptions of your partner, and ethical violations. Clipping cards or refusing to provide the other team with access to your cards are serious violations, and I will deduct speaker points accordingly whether the other team points these issues out or not.

Elliot Harvanko Lakeville North High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 1, 2024 at 11:46 AM CDT

Pre-round paradigm

Hello! I am good with pretty much any argument as long as it is developed as an actual argument. I much much much prefer clash to avoiding argumentation. Something isnt an argument just because you say it is, it has to actually be an argument. and dont read tricks please :)))))

Prefs paradigm

Please put me on the email - Harvanko11@gmail.com - but I probably wont be reading ev during the debate I enjoy all types of debates as long as they are done well, I will try my best to be tab and adapt to whatever style of debate you are used to rather than having y'all poorly adapting to what i am used to. I am fine with most things as long as you take your opponent seriously. go at like 70% of top speed. I obviously do have opinions on things as everyone does so the rest of this will be trying to be transparent about what those are. None of this is set in stone and I will try my best to rid myself of any ideological bias during the round.

For quick prefs i hate you if u read tricks and will happily evaluate everything else

POLICY AFFS

I enjoy all of them from the most stock aff on a topic to an in-depth process aff as long as they are debated well and I am given a clear story of the advantages/what the aff does to solve them.

K AFFS

Go for it, I would much prefer if the aff had *some* relationship to the topic either being "in the direction" or telling me why I shouldn't like the topic (and more importantly why that means I should vote aff) and I do not really like an aff that is just something that can be entirely recycled every topic. With the framework debate I probably err towards a well thought out counter interp than just straight impact turning everything but both can be viable and winning strategies.

PHIL POSITIONS

I have at least some experience in most philosophies. I have a hard time believing that all the philosophies that y'all claim don't care about consequences actually don't care about them (kant is an obvious exception). With a policy against a phil debate, I would prefer having some spin as to why your offense is relevant under their framework than just going all in on their framework being wrong or yours being normatively true but either can be a winning strategy.

COUNTERPLANS

I really enjoy a good counterplan so long as I know both how it competes and what the net benefit is (competition from net benefits is competition enough but there can be more). I really really enjoy process counterplan debates as long as I understand its distinction from the aff.

Counterplan theory is pretty much the only theory that I am wholeheartedly for. I come from LD originally and have moved into policy so my thoughts on condo aren't really clear yet, for LD I can be easily convinced of either side.

DISADVANTAGES

I don't really have any strong opinions about disads. I would like a lot of impact and turns case analysis if the disad is the only thing in the 2nr. I don't think I would be comfortable voting on a disad if the aff has a comparable impact without some level of solvency push by the negative.

THE CRITICISM

I think they are usually pretty good arguments but I feel as though they are often times assumed to come prior for no particular reason and I wont just arbitrarily do that for you. I need a substantial amount of explanation for me to feel comfortable voting on denser theories like afropessimism, baudrillard, lacan etc.

THEORY

I can get behind most theory debates as long is there is actual abuse. I know I know, reasonability is arbitrary but I think there are affs that clearly are not abusive. I think that fairness is a good internal link but not an impact in and of itself (and I imagine that that will be hard, but not impossible, to convince me of). I actually find myself hating judging theory debates nowadays because they are usually way to fast for me, so with that, I would prefer if you slowed down quite a bit if you're going to be making hella quick analytic args (this is generally true but especially true for theory debates). I really don't like disclosure in most cases unless the aff has been broken but isnt disclosed online and isnt disclosed in person before the round.

TOPICALITY

Go for it, I am predisposed to think that t isn't an RVI but can potentially be swayed otherwise. The more contextualized definitions are to the topic the more I like them. I think t can be incredibly persuasive against k affs as well (not as a framework position but actually going for t)

TRICKS

dont read them please :)

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

- CX is binding but I probably wont write anything down unless you explicitly direct me to in the moment.

- Speaks start at around a 28.5 and I look to go up or down from there based on strategy, efficiency (not time efficiency but if you are too repetitive on an argument), and clarity.

- Please ask me questions before the round if you are unsure of anything!!!!!

- I welcome you all to post round me, we are all in debate for a reason and i love to argue

Margaret Hecht Westminster 2 rounds

Kevin Hirn Univ Of Chicago Lab School 7 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 13, 2024 at 5:09 AM EDT

Email: khirn10@gmail.com --- of course I want to be on the chain

Program Manager and Debate Coach, University of Michigan

Head Debate Coach, University of Chicago Lab Schools

Previously a coach at Whitney Young High School (2010-20), Caddo Magnet (2020-21), Walter Payton (2018, 2021-23)

Last updated: April, 2024 (new FR thoughts in the Topicality section, random updates throughout)

Philosophy: I attempt to judge rounds with the minimum amount of intervention required to answer the question, "Who has done the better debating?", using whatever rubrics for evaluating that question that debaters set up.

I work in debate full-time. I attend a billion tournaments and judge a ton of debates, lead a seven week lab every summer, talk about debate virtually every day, and research fairly extensively. As a result, I'm familiar with the policy and critical literature bases on both the college nuclear forces topic and the HS fiscal redistribution topic. For fiscal redistribution, I gave the topic lecture for the Michigan debate camp and I wrote both the Topicality and Job Guarantee Aff/Neg files for their starter pack

I’ve coached my teams to deploy a diverse array of argument types and styles. Currently, I coach teams that primarily read policy arguments. But I was also the primary argument coach for Michigan KM from 2014-16. I’ve coached many successful teams in both high school and college that primarily read arguments influenced by "high theory", postmodernist thought, and/or critical race literature. I'm always excited to see debaters deploy new or innovative strategies across the argumentative spectrum.

Impact turns have a special place in my heart. There are few venues in academia or life where you will be as encouraged to challenge conventional wisdom as you are in policy debate, so please take this rare opportunity to persuasively defend the most counter-intuitive positions conceivable. I enjoy judging debaters with a sense of humor, and I hope to reward teams who make their debates fun and exciting (through engaging personalities and argument selection).

My philosophy is very long. I make no apology for it. In fact, I wish most philosophies were longer and more substantive, and I still believe mine to be insufficiently comprehensive. Frequently, judges espouse a series of predictable platitudes, but I have no idea why they believe whatever it is they've said (which can frequently leave me confused, frustrated, and little closer to understanding how debaters could better persuade them). I attempt to counter this practice with detailed disclosure of the various predispositions, biases, and judgment canons that may be outcome-determinative for how I decide your debate. Maybe you don't want to know all of those, but nobody's making you read this paradigm. Having the option to know as many of those as possible for any given judge seems preferable to having only the options of surprise and speculation.

What follows is a series of thoughts that mediate my process for making decisions, both in general and in specific contexts likely to emerge in debates. I've tried to be as honest as possible, and I frequently update my philosophy to reflect perceived trends in my judging. That being said, self-disclosure is inevitably incomplete or misleading; if you're curious about whether or not I'd be good for you, feel free to look at my voting record or email me a specific question (reach me via email, although you may want to try in person because I'm not the greatest with quick responses).

0) Online debate

Online debate is a depressing travesty, although it's plainly much better than the alternative of no debate at all. I miss tournaments intensely and can't wait until this era is over and we can attend tournaments in-person once again. Do your best not to remind us constantly of what we're missing: please keep your camera on throughout the whole debate unless you have a pressing and genuine technical reason not to. I don't have meaningful preferences beyond that. Feel free to record me---IMO all debates should be public and free to record by all parties, especially in college.

1) Tech v. Truth

I attempt to be an extremely "technical" judge, although I am not sure that everyone means what everyone else means when they describe debating or judging as "technical." Here's what I mean by that: outside of card text, I attempt to flow every argument that every speaker expresses in a speech. Even in extremely quick debates, I generally achieve this goal or come close to it. In some cases, like when very fast debaters debate at max speed in a final rebuttal, it may be virtually impossible for me to to organize all of the words said by the rebuttalist into the argumentative structure they were intending. But overall I feel very confident in my flow: I will take Casey Harrigan up on his flowing gauntlet/challenge any day (he might be able to take me if we were both restricted to paper, but on our computers, it's a wrap).

In addition, being "technical" means that I line up arguments on my flow, and expect debaters to, in general, organize their speeches by answering the other team's arguments in the order they were presented. All other things being equal, I will prioritize an argument presented such that it maximizes clear and direct engagement with its counter-argument over an argument that floats in space unmoored to an adversarial argument structure.

I do have one caveat that pertains to what I'll term "standalone" voting issues. I'm not likely to decide an entire debate based on standalone issues explained or extended in five seconds or less. For example, If you have a standard on conditionality that asserts "also, men with curly unkempt hair are underrepresented in debate, vote neg to incentivize our participation," and the 1ar drops it, you're not going to win the debate on that argument (although you will win my sympathies, fellow comb dissident). I'm willing to vote on basically anything that's well-developed, but if your strategy relies on tricking the other team into dropping random nonsense unrelated to the rest of the debate entirely, I'm not really about that. This caveat only pertains to standalone arguments that are dropped once: if you've dropped a standalone voting issue presented as such in two speeches, you've lost all my sympathies to your claim to a ballot.

In most debates, so many arguments are made that obvious cross-applications ensure precious few allegedly "dropped" arguments really are accurately described as such. Dropped arguments most frequently win debates in the form of little subpoints making granular distinctions on important arguments that both final rebuttals exert time and energy trying to win. Further murkiness emerges when one realizes that all thresholds for what constitutes a "warrant" (and subsequently an "argument") are somewhat arbitrary and interventionist. Hence the mantra: Dropped arguments are true, but they're only as true as the dropped argument. "Argument" means claim, warrant, and implication. "Severance is a voting issue" lacks a warrant. "Severance is a voting issue - neg ground" also arguably lacks a warrant, since it hasn't been explained how or why severance destroys negative ground or why neg ground is worth caring about.

That might sound interventionist, but consider: we would clearly assess the statement "Severance is a voting issue -- purple sideways" as a claim lacking a warrant. So why does "severence is a voting issue - neg ground" constitute a warranted claim? Some people would say that the former is valid but not sound while the latter is neither valid nor sound, but both fail a formal test of validity. In my assessment, any distinction is somewhat interventionist. In the interest of minimizing intervention, here is what that means for your debating: If the 1ar drops a blippy theory argument and the 2nr explains it further, the 2nr is likely making new arguments... which then justifies 2ar answers to those arguments. In general, justify why you get to say what you're saying, and you'll probably be in good shape. By the 2nr or 2ar, I would much rather that you acknowledge previously dropped arguments and suggest reasonable workaround solutions than continue to pretend they don't exist or lie about previous answers.

Arguments aren't presumptively offensive or too stupid to require an answer. Genocide good, OSPEC, rocks are people, etc. are all terribly stupid, but if you can't explain why they're wrong, you don't deserve to win. If an argument is really stupid or really bad, don't complain about how wrong they are. After all, if the argument's as bad as you say it is, it should be easy. And if you can't deconstruct a stupid argument, either 1) the argument may not be as stupid as you say it is, or 2) it may be worthwhile for you to develop a more efficient and effective way of responding to that argument.

If both sides seem to assume that an impact is desirable/undesirable, and frame their rebuttals exclusively toward avoiding/causing that impact, I will work under that assumption. If a team read a 1AC saying that they had several ways their plan caused extinction, and the 1NC responded with solvency defense and alternative ways the plan prevented extincton, I would vote neg if I thought the plan was more likely to avoid extinction than cause it.

I'll read and evaluate Team A's rehighlightings of evidence "inserted" into the debate if Team B doesn't object to it, but when debated evenly this practice seems indefensible. An important part of debate is choosing how to use your valuable speech time, which entails selecting which pieces of your opponent's ev most clearly bolster your position(s).

2) General Philosophical Disposition

It is somewhat easy to persuade me that life is good, suffering is bad, and we should care about the consequences of our political strategies and advocacies. I would prefer that arguments to the contrary be grounded in specific articulations of alternative models of decision-making, not generalities, rhetoric, or metaphor. It's hard to convince me that extinction = nbd, and arguments like "the hypothetical consequences of your advocacy matter, and they would likely produce more suffering than our advocacy" are far more persuasive than "take a leap of faith" or "roll the dice" or "burn it down", because I can at least know what I'd be aligning myself with and why.

Important clarification: pragmatism is not synonymous with policymaking. On the contrary, one may argue that there is a more pragmatic way to frame judge decision-making in debates than traditional policymaking paradigms. Perhaps assessing debates about the outcome of hypothetical policies is useless, or worse, dangerous. Regardless of how you debate or what you debate about, you should be willing and able to mount a strong defense of why you're doing those things (which perhaps requires some thought about the overall purpose of this activity).

The brilliance and joy of policy debate is most found in its intellectual freedom. What makes it so unlike other venues in academia is that, in theory, debaters are free to argue for unpopular, overlooked, or scorned positions and ill-considered points of view. Conversely, they will be required to defend EVERY component of your argument, even ones that would be taken for granted in most other settings. Just so there's no confusion here: all arguments are on the table for me. Any line drawn on argumentative content is obviously arbitrary and is likely unpredictable, especially for judges whose philosophies aren't as long as mine! But more importantly, drawing that line does profound disservice to debaters by instructing them not to bother thinking about how to defend a position. If you can't defend the desirability of avoiding your advantage's extinction impact against a wipeout or "death good" position, why are you trying to persuade me to vote for a policy to save the human race? Groupthink and collective prejudices against creative ideas or disruptive thoughts are an ubiquitous feature of human societies, but that makes it all the more important to encourage free speech and free thought in one of the few institutions where overcoming those biases is possible.

3) Topicality and Specification

Overall, I'm a decent judge for the neg, provided that they have solid evidence supporting their interpretation.

Limits are probably desirable in the abstract, but if your interpretation is composed of contrived stupidity, it will be hard to convince me that affs should have predicted it. Conversely, affs that are debating solid topicality evidence without well-researched evidence of their own are gonna have a bad time. Naturally, of these issues are up for debate, but I think it's relatively easy to win that research/literature guides preparation, and the chips frequently fall into place for the team accessing that argument.

Competing interpretations is potentially less subjective and arbitrary than a reasonability standard, although reasonability isn't as meaningless as many believe. Reasonability seems to be modeled after the "reasonable doubt" burden required to prove guilt in a criminal case (as opposed to the "preponderence of evidence" standard used in civil cases, which seems similar to competing interps as a model). Reasonability basically is the same as saying "to win the debate, the neg needs to win an 80% risk of their DA instead of a 50% risk." The percentages are arbitrary, but what makes determining that a disad's risk is higher or lower than the risk of an aff advantage (i.e. the model used to decide the majority of debates) any less arbitrary or subjective? It's all ballpark estimation determined by how persuaded judges were by competing presentations of analysis and evidence. With reasonability-style arguments, aff teams can certainly win that they don't need to meet the best of all possible interpretations of the topic, and instead that they should win if their plan meets an interpretation capable of providing a sufficient baseline of neg ground/research parity/quality debate. Describing what threshold of desirability their interpretation should meet, and then describing why that threshold is a better model for deciding topicality debates, is typically necessary to make this argument persuasive.

Answering "plan text in a vacuum" requires presenting an alternative standard by which to interpret the meaning and scope of the words in the plan. Such seems so self-evident that it seems banal to include it in a paradigm, but I have seen many debates this year in which teams did not grasp this fact. If the neg doesn't establish some method for determining what the plan means, voting against "the plan text in a vacuum defines the words in the plan" is indistinguishable from voting for "the eighty-third unhighlighted word in the fifth 1ac preempt defines the words in the plan." I do think setting some limiting standard is potentially quite defensible, especially in debates where large swaths of the 1ac would be completely irrelevent if the aff's plan were to meet the neg's interp. For example: if an aff with a court advantage and a USFG agent says their plan meets "enact = Congress only", the neg could say "interpret the words USFG in the plan to include the Courts when context dictates it---even if 'USFG' doesn't always mean "Courts," you should assume it does for debates in which one or more contentions/advantages are both impertinent and insoluable absent a plan that advocates judicial action." But you will likely need to be both explicit and reasonable about the standard you use if you are to successfully counter charges of infinite regress/arbitrariness.

For Fiscal Redistribution:

I'm probably more open to subsets than most judges if the weight of predictable evidence supports it. The neg is maybe slightly favored in a perfect debate, but I think there is better aff evidence to be read. I generally think the topic is extremely overlimited. Both the JG and BI are poorly supported by the literature, and there are not a panoply of viable SS affs.

Social Security and programs created by the Social Security Act are not same thing. The best evidence I've seen clearly excludes welfare and health programs, although expanding SS enables affs to morph the program into almost anything topically (good luck with a "SS-key" warrant vs the PIC, though). SSI is debateable, though admittedly not an extreme limits explosion.

Topicality arguments excluding plans with court actors are weaker than each of the above arguments. Still tenable.

Topicality arguments excluding cutting programs to fund plans are reasonable edge cases. I can see the evidence or balance of debating going either way on this question.

Evenly debated, "T-Must Include Taxes" is unwinnable for the negative. Perhaps you will convince me otherwise, but keep in mind I did quite a bit of research on this subject before camps even started,so if you think you have a credible case then you're likely in need of new evidence. I really dislike being dogmatic on something like this. I began the summer trying todevelop a case for why affs must tax, but I ran into a basic logical problem and have not seen evidence that establishes the bare minimum of a topicality interpretation. Consider the definition of "net worth." Let's assume that all the definitions of net worth state it means "(financial assets like savings, real estate, and investments) - (debts and liabilities)." "T-FR must include tax" is the logical equivalent of "well, because net worth means assets AND liabilities, cashing a giant check doesn't increase your net worth because you don't ALSO decrease your debts owed elsewhere." For this to be a topicality argument, you'd need to find a card that says "Individual policy interventions aren't fiscal redistribution if they merely adjust spending without tax policy." Such a card likely doesn't exist, because it's self-evidently nonsense.

Of course, I'll certainly evaluate arguments on this subject as fairly as possible, and if you technically out-execute the opposing team, I'll vote against them remorselessly. But you should know my opinion regardless.

4) Risk Assessment

In front of me, teams would be well-served to explain their impact scenarios less in terms of brinks, and more in terms of probabilistic truth claims. When pressed with robust case defense, "Our aff is the only potential solution to a US-China war that's coming in a few months, which is the only scenario for a nuclear war that causes extinction" is far less winnable than "our aff meaningfully improves the East Asian security environment through building trust between the two great military powers in the region, which statistically decreases the propensity for inevitable miscalculations or standoffs to escalate to armed conflict." It may not be as fun, but that framing can allow you to generate persuasive solvency deficits that aren't grounded in empty rhetoric and cliche, or to persuasively defeat typical alt cause arguments, etc. Given that you decrease the initial "risk" (i.e. probability times magnitude) of your impact with this framing, this approach obviously requires winning substantial defense against whatever DA the neg goes for, but when most DA's have outlandishly silly brink arguments themselves, this shouldn't be too taxing.

There are times where investing lots of time in impact calculus is worthwhile (for example, if winning your impact means that none of the aff's impact claims reach extinction, or that any of the actors in the aff's miscalc/brinkmanship scenarios will be deterred from escalating a crisis to nuclear use). Most of the time, however, teams waste precious minutes of their final rebuttal on mediocre impact calculus. The cult of "turns case" has much to do with this. It's worth remembering that accessing an extinction impact is far more important than whether or not your extinction impact happens three months faster than theirs (particularly when both sides' warrant for their timeframe claim is baseless conjecture and ad hoc assertion), and that, in most cases, you need to win the substance of your DA/advantage to win that it turns the case.

Incidentally, phrasing arguments more moderately and conditionally is helpful for every argument genre: "all predictions fail" is not persuasive; "some specific type of prediction relying on their model of IR forecasting has little to no practical utility" can be. The only person who's VTL is killed when I hear someone say "there is no value to life in the world of the plan" is mine.

At least for me, try-or-die is extremely intuitive based on argument selection (i.e. if the neg spots the aff that "extinction is inevitable if the judge votes neg, even if it's questionable whether or not the aff solves it", rationalizing an aff ballot becomes rather alluring and shockingly persuasive). You should combat this innate intuition by ensuring that you either have impact defense of some sort (anything from DA solves the case to a counterplan/alt solves the case argument to status quo checks resolve the terminal impact to actual impact defense can work) or by investing time in arguing against try-or-die decision-making.

5) Counterplans

Counterplan theory/competition debating is a lost art. Affirmatives let negative teams get away with murder. Investing time in theory is daunting... it requires answering lots of blippy arguments with substance and depth and speaking clearly, and probably more slowly than you're used to. But, if you invest time, effort, and thought in a well-grounded theoretical objection, I'll be a receptive critic.

The best theory interpretations are clear, elegant, and minimally arbitrary. Here are some examples of args that I would not anticipate many contemporary 2N's defeating:

--counterplans should be policies. Perhaps executive orders, perhaps guidence memos, perhaps lower court decisions, perhaps Congressional resolutions. But this would exclude such travesties as "The Executive Branch should always take international law into account when making their decisions. Such is closer to a counterplan that says "The Executive Branch should make good decisions forever" than it is to a useful policy recommendation. It's relatively easy for CPs to be written in a way that meets this design constraint, but that makes it all the easier to dispose of the CPs that don't.

--counterplans should not be able to fiat both the federal government and additional actors outside of the federal government. It's utopian enough to fiat that Courts, the President, and Congress all act in concert in perpetuity on a given subject. It's absurd to fiat additional actors as well.

There are other theoretical objections that I might take more seriously than other judges, although I recognize them as arguments on which reasonable minds may disagree. For example, I am somewhat partial to the argument that solvency advocates for counterplans should have a level of specificity that matches the aff. I feel like that standard would reward aff specificity and incentivize debates that reflect the literature base, while punishing affs that are contrived nonsense by making them debate contrived process nonsense. This certainly seems debateable, and in truth if I had to pick a side, I'd certainly go neg, but it seems like a relatively workable debate relative to alternatives.

Competition debates are a particularly lost art. Generally, I prefer competition debates to theoretical ones, although I think both are basically normative questions (i.e. the whole point of either is to design an ideal, minimally arbitrary model to produce the debates we most desire). I'm not a great judge for counterplans that compete off of certainty or immediacy based on "should"/"resolved" definitions. I'm somewhat easily persuaded that these interpretations lower the bar for how difficult it is to win a negative ballot to an undesirable degree. That being said, affs lose these debates all the time by failing to counter-define words or dropping stupid tricks, so make sure you invest the time you need in these debates to win them.

"CPs should be textually and functionally competitive" seems to me like a logical and defensible standard. Some don't realize that if CPs must be both functionally and textually competitive, permutations may be either. I like the "textual/functional" model of competition BECAUSE it incentives creative counterplan and permutation construction, and because it requires careful text-writing.

That being said, "functional-only" is a very defensible model as well, and I think the arguments to prefer it over functional/textual hinge on the implication of the word being defined. If you say that "should is immediate" or "resolved is certain," you've introduced a model of competition that makes "delay a couple weeks" or "consult anyone re: plan" competitive. If your CP competes in a way that introduces fewer CPs (e.g. "job guarantees are admininstered by the states", or "NFUs mean no-first-use under any circumstance/possibility"), I think the neg's odds of winning are fairly likely.

Offense-defense is intuitive to me, and so teams should always be advised to have offense even if their defense is very strong. If the aff says that the counterplan links to the net benefit but doesn't advance a solvency deficit or disadvantage to the CP, and the neg argues that the counterplan at least links less, I am not very likely to vote affirmative absent strong affirmative framing on this question (often the judge is left to their own devices on this question, or only given instruction in the 2AR, which is admittedly better than never but still often too late). At the end of the day I must reconcile these opposing claims, and if it's closely contested and at least somewhat logical, it's very difficult to win 100% of an argument. Even if I think the aff is generally correct, in a world where I have literally any iota of doubt surrounding the aff position or am even remotely persuaded by the the negative's position, why would I remotely risk triggering the net benefit for the aff instead of just opting for the guaranteed safe choice of the counterplan?

Offense, in this context, can come in multiple flavors: you can argue that the affirmative or perm is less likely to link to the net benefit than the counterplan, for example. You can also argue that the risk of a net benefit below a certain threshold is indistinguishable from statistical noise, and that the judge should reject to affirm a difference between the two options because it would encourage undesirable research practices and general decision-making. Perhaps you can advance an analytic solvency deficit somewhat supported by one logical conjecture, and if you are generally winning the argument, have the risk of the impact to that outweigh the unique risk of aff triggering the DA relative to the counterplan. But absent any offensive argument of any sort, the aff is facing an uphill battle. I have voted on "CP links to politics before" but generally that only happens if there is a severe flaw in negative execution (i.e. the neg drops it), a significant skill discrepancy between teams, or a truly ill-conceived counterplan.

I'm a somewhat easy sell on conditionality good (at least 1 CP / 1 K is defensible), but I've probably voted aff slightly more frequently than not in conditionality debates. That's partly because of selection bias (affs go for it when they're winning it), but mainly because neg teams have gotten very sloppy in their defenses of conditionality, particularly in the 2NR. That being said, I've been growing more and more amenable to "conditionality bad" arguments over time.

However, large advantage counterplans with multiple planks, all of which can be kicked, are fairly difficult to defend. Negative teams can fiat as many policies as it takes to solve whatever problems the aff has sought to tackle. It is unreasonable to the point of stupidity to expect the aff to contrive solvency deficits: the plan would literally have to be the only idea in the history of thought capable of solving a given problem. Every additional proposal introduced in the 1nc (in order to increase the chance of solving) can only be discouraged through the potential cost of a disad being read against it. In the old days, this is why counterplan files were hundreds of pages long and had answers to a wide variety of disads. But if you can kick the plank, what incentive does the aff have to even bother researching if the CP is a good idea? If they read a 2AC add-on, the neg gets as many no-risk 2NC counterplans to add to the fray as well (of course, they can also add unrelated 2nc counterplans for fun and profit). If you think you can defend the merit of that strategy vs. a "1 condo cp / 1 condo k" interp, your creative acumen may be too advanced for interscholastic debate; consider more challenging puzzles in emerging fields, as they urgently need your input.

I don't think I'm "biased" against infinite conditionality; if you think you have the answers and technical acuity to defend infinite conditionality against the above argumentation, I'd happily vote for you.

I don't default to the status quo unless you explicitly flag it at some point during the debate (the cross-x or the 2nc is sufficient if the aff never contests it). I don't know why affs ask this question every cross-x and then never make a theory argument about it. It only hurts you, because it lets the neg get away with something they otherwise wouldn't have.

All that said, I don't have terribly strong convictions about any of these issues, and any theoretical predisposition is easily overcame by outdebating another team on the subject at hand.

6) Politics

Most theoretical objections to (and much sanctimonious indignation toward) the politics disadvantage have never made sense to me. Fiat is a convention about what it should be appropriate to assume for the sake of discussion, but there's no "logical" or "true" interpretation of what fiat descriptively means. It would be ludicrously unrealistic for basically any 1ac plan to pass immediately, with no prior discussion, in the contemporary political world. Any form of argument in which we imagine the consequences of passage is a fictive constraint on process argumentation. As a result, any normative justification for including the political process within the contours of permissible argument is a rational justification for a model of fiat that involves the politics DA (and a DA to a model of fiat that doesn't). Political salience is the reason most good ideas don't become policy, and it seems illogical for the negative to be robbed of this ground. The politics DA, then, represents the most pressing political cost caused by doing the plan in the contemporary political environment, which seems like a very reasonable for affs to have to defend against.

Obviously many politics DAs are contrived nonsense (especially during political periods during which there is no clear, top-level presidential priority). However, the reason that these DAs are bad isn't because they're theoretically illegitimate, and politics theory's blippiness and general underdevelopment further aggravate me (see the tech vs truth section).

Finally, re: intrinsicness, I don't understand why the judge should be the USFG. I typically assume the judge is just me, deciding which policy/proposal is the most desirable. I don't have control over the federal government, and no single entity does or ever will (barring that rights malthus transition). Maybe I'm missing something. If you think I am, feel free to try and be the first to show me the light...

7) Framework/Non-Traditional Affs

Despite some of the arguments I've read and coached, I'm sympathetic to the framework argument and fairness concerns. I don't think that topicality arguments are presumptively violent, and I think it's generally rather reasonable (and often strategic) to question the aff's relationship to the resolution. Although framework is probably always the best option, I would generally also enjoy seeing a well-executed substantive strategy if one's available. This is simply because I have literally judged hundreds of framework debates and it has gotten mildly repetitive, to say the least (just scroll down if you think that I'm being remotely hyperbolic). But please don't sacrifice your likelihood of winning the debate.

My voting record on framework is relatively even. In nearly every debate, I voted for the team I assessed as demonstrating superior technical debating in the final rebuttals.

I typically think winning unique offense, in the rare scenario where a team invests substantial time in poking defensive holes in the other team's standards, is difficult for both sides in a framework debate. I think affs should think more about their answers to "switch side solves your offense" and "sufficient neg engagement key to meaningfully test the aff", while neg's should generally work harder to prepare persuasive and consistent impact explanations. The argument that "debate doesn't shape subjectivity" takes out clash/education offense, for example, is a reasonable and even threatening one.

I'm typically more persuaded by affirmative teams that answer framework by saying that the skills/methods inculcated by the 1ac produce more effective/ethical interactions with institutions than by teams that argue "all institutions are bad."

Fairness is an impact, though like any impact its magnitude and meaning is subject to debate. Like any abstract value, it can be difficult explain beyond a certain point, and it can't be proven or disproven via observation or testing. In other words, it's sometimes hard to answer the question "why is fairness good?" for the same reason it's hard to answer the question "why is justice good?" Nonetheless, it's pretty easy to persuade me that I should care about fairness in a debate context, given that everyone relies on essential fairness expectations in order to participate in the activity, such as expecting that I flow and give their arguments a fair hearing rather than voting against them because I don't like their choice in clothing.

But as soon as neg teams start introducing additional standards to their framework argument that raise education concerns, they have said that the choice of framework has both fairness and education implications, and if it could change our educational experience, could the choice of framework change our social or intellectual experience in debate in other ways as well? Maybe not (I certainly think it's easy to win that an individual round's decision certainly couldn't be expected to) but if you said your FW is key to education it's easy to see how those kinds of questions come into play and now can potentially militate against fairness concerns.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to question the desirability of the activity: we should all ideally be self-reflexive and be able to articulate why it is we participate in the activities on which we choose to dedicate our time. Nearly everybody in the world does utterly indefensible things from time to time, and many people (billions of them, probably) make completely indefensible decisions all the time. The reason why these arguments can be unpersuasive is typically because saying that debate is bad may just link to the team saying "debate bad" because they're, you know... debating, and no credible solvency mechanism for altering the activity has been presented.

So, I am a good judge for the fairness approach. It's not without its risk: a small risk of a large-magnitude impact to the ballot (e.g. solving an instance of racism in this round) could easily outweigh. But strong defense to the ballot can make it difficult for affs to overcome.

Still, it's nice to hear a defense of debate if you choose to go that route as well. I do like FWs that emphasize the benefits of the particular fairness norms established by a topicality interpretation ("models" debates). These can be enjoyable to watch, and some debaters are very good at this approach. In the aggregate, however, this route tends to be more difficult than the 'fairness' strategy.

If you're looking for an external impact, there are two impacts to framework that I have consistently found more persuasive than others, and they're related to why I value the debate activity. First, "switch-side debate good" (forcing people to defend things they don't believe is the only vehicle for truly shattering dogmatic ideological predispositions and fostering a skeptical worldview capable of ensuring that its participants, over time, develop more ethical and effective ideas than they otherwise would). Second, "agonism" (making debaters defend stuff that the other side is prepared to attack rewards debaters for pursuing clash; running from engagement by lecturing the neg and judge on a random topic of your choosing is a cowardly flight from battle; instead, the affirmative team with a strong will to power should actively strive to beat the best, most well-prepared negative teams from the biggest schools on their terms, which in turn provides the ultimate triumph; the life-affirming worldview facilitated by this disposition is ultimately necessary for personal fulfillment, and also provides a more effective strategy with which to confront the inevitable hardships of life).

Many aff "impact turns" to topicality are often rendered incoherent when met with gentle pushback. It's difficult to say "predictability bad" if you have a model of debate that makes debate more predictable from the perspective of the affirmative team. Exclusion and judgment are inevitable structural components of any debate activity that I can conceive of: any DA excludes affs that link to it and don't have an advantage that outweighs it. The act of reading that DA can be understood as judging the debaters who proposed that aff as too dull to think of a better idea. Both teams are bound to say the other is wrong and only one can win. Many aff teams may protest that their impact turns are much more sophisticated than this, and are more specific to some element of the topicality/FW structure that wouldn't apply to other types of debate arguments. Whatever explanation you have for why that above sentence true should be emphasized throughout the debate if you want your impact turns or DA's to T to be persuasive. In other words, set up your explanation of impact turns/disads to T in a way that makes clear why they are specific to something about T and wouldn't apply to basic structural requirements of debate from the outset of the debate.

I'm a fairly good judge for the capitalism kritik against K affs. Among my most prized possessions are signed copies of Jodi Dean books that I received as a gift from my debaters. Capitalism is persuasive for two reasons, both of which can be defeated, and both of which can be applied to other kritiks. First, having solutions (even ones that seem impractical or radical) entails position-taking, with clear political objectives and blueprints, and I often find myself more persuaded by a presentation of macro-political problems when coupled with corresponding presentation of macro-political solutions. Communism, or another alternative to capitalism, frequently ends up being the only solution of that type in the room. Second, analytic salience: The materialist and class interest theories often relatively more explanatory power for oppression than any other individual factor because they entail a robust and logically consistent analysis of the incentives behind various actors committing various actions over time. I'm certainly not unwinnable for the aff in these debates, particularly if they strongly press the alt's feasibility and explain what they are able to solve in the context of the neg's turns case arguments, and I obviously will try my hardest to avoid letting any predisposition overwhelm my assessment of the debating.

8) Kritiks (vs policy affs)

I'm okay for 'old-school' kritik's (security/cap/etc), but I'm also okay for the aff. When I vote for kritiks, most of my RFD's look like one of the following:

1) The neg has won that the implementation of the plan is undesirable relative to the status quo;

2) The neg has explicitly argued (and won) that the framework of the debate should be something other than "weigh the plan vs squo/alt" and won within that framework.

If you don't do either of those things while going for a kritik, I am likely to be persuaded by traditional aff presses (case outweighs, try-or-die, perm double-bind, alt fails etc). Further, despite sympathies for and familiarity with much poststructural thought, I'm nevertheless quite easily persuaded to use utilitarian cost-benefit analysis to make difficult decisions, and I have usually found alternative methods of making decisions lacking and counter-intuitive by comparison.

Kritik alternatives typically make no sense. They often have no way to meaningfully compete with the plan, frequently because of a scale problem. Either they are comparing what one person/a small group should do to what the government should do, or what massive and sweeping international movements should do vs what a government should do. Both comparisons seem like futile exercises for reasons I hope are glaringly obvious.

There are theory arguments that affs could introduce against alternatives that exploit common design flaws in critical arguments. "Vague alts" is not really one of them (ironically because the argument itself is too vague). Some examples: "Alternatives should have texts; otherwise the alternative could shift into an unpredictable series of actions throughout the debate we can't develop reasonable responses against." "Alternatives should have actors; otherwise there is no difference between this and fiating 'everyone should be really nice to each other'." Permutations are easy to justify: the plan would have to be the best idea in the history of thought if all the neg had to do was think of something better.

Most kritik frameworks presented to respond to plan focus are not really even frameworks, but a series of vague assertions that the 2N is hoping that the judge will interpret in a way that's favorable for them (because they certainly don't know exactly what they're arguing for). Many judges continually interpret these confusing framework debates by settling on some middle-ground compromise that neither team actually presented. I prefer to choose between options that debaters actually present.

My ideal critical arguments would negate the aff. For example, against a heg aff, I could be persuaded by security K alts that advocate for a strategy of unilateral miltary withdrawal. Perhaps the permutation severs rhetoric and argumentation in the 1ac that, while not in the plan text, is both central enough to their advocacy and important enough (from a pedagogical perspective) that we should have the opportunity to focus the debate around the geopolitical position taken by the 1ac. The only implication to to a "framework" argument like this would be that, assuming the neg wins a link to something beyond the plan text, the judge should reject, on severence grounds, permutations against alts that actually make radical proposals. In the old days, this was called philosophical competition. How else could we have genuine debates about how to change society or grand strategy? There are good aff defenses of the plan focus model from a fairness and education perspective with which to respond to this, but this very much seems like a debate worth having.

All this might sound pretty harsh for neg's, but affs should be warned that I think I'm more willing than most judges to abandon policymaking paradigms based on technical debating. If the negative successfully presents and defends an alternative model of decisionmaking, I will decide the debate from within it. The ballot is clay; mold it for me and I'll do whatever you win I should.

9) Kritiks (vs K affs)

Anything goes!

Seriously, I don't have strong presuppositions about what "new debate" is supposed to look like. For the most part, I'm happy to see any strategy that's well researched or well thought-out. Try something new! Even if it doesn't work out, it may lead to something that can radically innovate debate.

Most permutation/framework debates are really asking the question: "Is the part of the aff that the neg disagreed with important enough to decide an entire debate about?" (this is true in CP competition debates too, for what it's worth). Much of the substantive debating elsewhere subsequently determines the outcome of these sub-debates far more than debaters seem to assume.

Role of the ballot/judge claims are obviously somewhat self-serving, but in debates in which they're well-explained (or repeatedly dropped), they can be useful guidelines for crafting a reasonable decision (especially when the ballot theorizes a reasonable way for both teams to win if they successfully defend core thesis positions).

Yes, I am one of those people who reads critical theory for fun, although I also read about domestic politics, theoretical and applied IR, and economics for fun. Yes, I am a huge nerd, but who's the nerd that that just read the end of a far-too-long judge philosophy in preparation for a debate tournament? Thought so.

10) Procedural Norms

Evidence ethics, card clipping, and other cheating accusations supercede the debate at hand and ask for judge intervention to protect debaters from egregious violations of shared norms. Those challenges are win/loss, yes/no referendums that end the debate. If you levy an accusation, the round will be determined based on whether or not I find in your favor. If I can't establish a violation of sufficient magnitude was more likely than not, I will immediately vote against the accusing team. If left to my own discretion, I would tend not to find the following acts egregious enough to merit a loss on cheating grounds: mis-typing the date for a card, omitting a sentence that doesn't drastically undermine the card accidentally. The following acts clearly meet the bar for cheating: clipping/cross-reading multiple cards, fabricating evidence. Everything in between is hard to predict out of context. I would err on the side of caution, and not ending the round.

'Ad hominem' attacks, ethical appeals to out-of-round behavior, and the like: I differ from some judges in that, being committed to minimal intervention, I will technically assess these. I find it almost trivially obvious that introducing these creates a perverse incentive to stockpile bad-faith accusations and turns debate into a toxic sludgefest, and would caution that these are likely not a particularly strategic approach in front of me.

11) Addendum: Random Thoughts from Random Topics

In the spirit of Bill Batterman, I thought to myself: How could I make this philosophy even longer and less useable than it already was? So instead of deleting topic-relevent material from previous years that no longer really fit into the above sections, I decided to archive all of that at the bottom of the paradigm if I still agreed with what I said. Bad takes were thrown into the memory hole.

Topicality on NATO emerging tech: Security cooperation almost certainly involves the DOD. Even if new forms of security cooperation could theoretically exclude the DOD, there's not a lot of definitional support and minimal normative justification for that interpretation. Most of the important definition debates resolve substantive issues about what DA and impact turn links are granted and what counterplans are competitive rather than creating useful T definitions. Creative use of 'substantially = in the main' or 'increase = pre-existing' could elevate completely unworkable definitions into ones that are viable at the fringes.

Topicality on Legal Personhood: Conferring rights and/or duties doesn't presumptively confer legal personhood. Don't get me wrong: with evidence and normative definition debating, it very well may, but it doesn't seem like something to be taken for granted. There is a case for "US = federal only" but it's very weak. Overall this is a very weak topic for T args.

Topicality on water: There aren't very many good limiting devices on this topic. Obviously the states CP is an excellent functional limit; "protection requires regulation" is useful as well, at least insofar as it establishes competition for counterplans that avoid regulations (e.g. incentives). Beyond that, the neg is in a rough spot.

I am more open to "US water resources include oceans" than most judges; see the compiled evidence set I released in the Michigan camp file MPAs Aff 2 (should be available via openevidence). After you read that and the sum total of all neg cards released/read thus far, the reasoning for why I believe this should be self-evident. Ironically, I don't think there are very many good oceans affs (this isn't a development topic, it's a protection topic). This further hinders the neg from persuasively going for the this T argument, but if you want to really exploit this belief, you'll find writing a strategic aff is tougher than you may imagine.

Topicality on antitrust: Was adding 'core' to this topic a mistake? I can see either side of this playing out at Northwestern: while affs that haven't thought about the variants of the 'core' or 'antitrust' pics are setting themselves up for failure, I think the aff has such an expansive range of options that they should be fine. There aren't a ton of generic T threats on this topic. There are some iterations of subsets that seem viable, if not truly threatening, and there there is a meaningful debate on whether or not the aff can fiat court action. The latter is an important question that both evidence and normative desirability will play a role in determining. Beyond that, I don't think there's much of a limit on this topic.

ESR debates on the executive powers topic: I think the best theory arguments against ESR are probably just solvency advocate arguments. Seems like a tough sell to tell the neg there’s no executive CP at all. I've heard varied definitions of “object fiat” over the years: fiating an actor that's a direct object/recipient of the plan/resolution; fiating an enduring negative action (i.e. The President should not use designated trade authority, The US should not retaliate to terrorist attacks with nukes etc); fiating an actor whose behavior is affected by a 1ac internal link chain. But none of these definitions seem particularly clear nor any of these objections particularly persuasive.

States CP on the education and health insurance topics: States-and-politics debates are not the most meaningful reflection of the topic literature, especially given that the nature of 50 state fiat distorts the arguments of most state action advocates, and they can be stale (although honestly anything that isn't a K debate will not feel stale to me these days). But I'm sympathetic to the neg on these questions, especially if they have good solvency evidence. There are a slew of policy analysts that have recommended as-uniform-as-possible state action in the wake of federal dysfunction. With a Trump administration and a Republican Congress, is the prospect of uniform state action on an education or healthcare policy really that much more unrealistic than a massive liberal policy? There are literally dozens of uniform policies that have been independently adopted by all or nearly all states. I'm open to counter-arguments, but they should all be as contextualized to the specific evidence and counter-interpretation presented by the negative as they would be in a topicality debate (the same goes for the neg in terms of answering aff theory pushes). It's hard to defend a states CP without meaningful evidentiary support against general aff predictability pushes, but if the evidence is there, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to require affs to debate it. Additionally, there does seem to be a persuasive case for the limiting condition that a "federal-key warrant" places on affirmatives.

Topicality on executive power: This topic is so strangely worded and verbose that it is difficult to win almost any topicality argument against strong affirmative answers, as powerful as the limits case may be. ESR makes being aff hard enough that I’m not sure how necessary the negative needs assistance in limiting down the scope of viable affs, but I suppose we shall see as the year moves forward. I’m certainly open to voting on topicality violations that are supported by quality evidence. “Restrictions in the area of” = all of that area (despite the fact that two of the areas have “all or nearly all” in their wordings, which would seem to imply the other three are NOT “all or nearly all”) does not seem to meet that standard.

Topicality on immigration: This is one of the best topics for neg teams trying to go for topicality in a long time... maybe since alternative energy in 2008-9. “Legal immigration” clearly means LPR – affs will have a tough time winning otherwise against competent negative teams. I can’t get over my feeling that the “Passel and Fix” / “Murphy 91” “humanitarian” violations that exclude refugee, asylums, etc, are somewhat arbitrary, but the evidence is extremely good for the negative (probably slightly better than it is for the affirmative, but it’s close), and the limits case for excluding these affs is extremely persuasive. Affs debating this argument in front of me should make their case that legal immigration includes asylum, refugees, etc by reading similarly high-quality evidence that says as much.

Topicality on arms sales: T - subs is persuasive if your argument is that "substantially" has to mean something, and the most reasonable assessment of what it should mean is the lowest contextual bound that either team can discover and use as a bulwark for guiding their preparation. If the aff can't produce a reasonably well-sourced card that says substantially = X amount of arms sales that their plan can feasibly meet, I think neg teams can win that it's more arbitrary to assume that substantially is in the topic for literally no reason than it is to assume the lowest plausible reading of what substantially could mean (especially given that every definition of substantially as a higher quantity would lead one to agree that substantially is at least as large as that lowest reading). If the aff can, however, produce this card, it will take a 2N's most stalwart defense of any one particular interpretation to push back against the most basic and intuitive accusations of arbitrariness/goalpost-shifting.

T - reduce seems conceptually fraught in almost every iteration. Every Saudi aff conditions its cessation of arms sales on the continued existence of Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi military was so inept that the Houthis suddenly not only won the war against Saleh but actually captured Saudi Arabia and annexed it as part of a new Houthi Empire, the plan would not prevent the US from selling all sorts of exciting PGMs to Saudi Arabia's new Houthi overlords. Other than hard capping the overall quantity of arms sales and saying every aff that doesn't do that isn't topical, (which incidentally is not in any plausible reading a clearly forwarded interpretation of the topic in that poorly-written Pearson chapter), it's not clear to me what the distinction is between affs that condition and affs that don't are for the purposes of T - Reduce

Topicality on CJR: T - enact is persuasive. The ev is close, but in an evenly debated and closely contested round where both sides read all of the evidence I've seen this year, I'd be worried if I were aff. The debateability case is strong for the neg, given how unlimited the topic is, but there's a case to be made that courts affs aren't so bad and that ESR/politics is a strong enough generic to counter both agents.

Other T arguments are, generally speaking, uphill battles. Unless a plan text is extremely poorly written, most "T-Criminal" arguments are likely solvency takeouts, though depending on advantage construction they may be extremely strong and relevant solvency takeouts. Most (well, all) subsets arguments, regardless of which word they define, have no real answer to "we make some new rule apply throughout the entire area, e.g. all police are prohibitied from enforcing XYZ criminal law." Admittedly, there are better and worse variations for all of these violations. For example, Title 18 is a decent way to set up "T - criminal justice excludes civil / decrim" types of interpretations, despite the fact it's surprisingly easy for affs to win they meet it. And of course, aff teams often screw these up answering bad and mediocre T args in ways that make them completely viable. But none of these would be my preferred strategy, unless of course you're deploying new cards or improved arguments at the TOC. If that's the case, nicely done! If you think your evidence is objectively better than the aff cards, and that you can win the plan clearly violates a cogent interpretation, topicality is always a reasonable option in front of me.

Topicality on space cooperation: Topicality is making a big comeback in college policy debates this year. Kiinda overdue. But also kinda surprising because the T evidence isn't that high quality relative to its outsized presence in 2NRs, but hey, we all make choices.

STM T debates have been underwhelming in my assessment. T - No ADR... well at least is a valid argument consisting of a clear interp and a clear violation. It goes downhill from there. It's by no means unwinnable, but not a great bet in an evenly matched ebate. But you can't even say that for most of the other STM interps I've seen so far. Interps that are like "STM are these 9 things" are not only silly, they frequently have no clear way of clearly excluding their hypothesized limits explosion... or the plan. And I get it - STM affs are the worst (and we're only at the tip of the iceberg for zany STM aff prolif). Because STM proposals are confusing, different advocates use the terms in wildly different ways, the proposals are all in the direction of uniqueness and are difficult to distinguish from similar policy structures presently in place, and the area lacks comprehensive neg ground outside of "screw those satellites, let em crash," STM affs producing annoying debates (which is why so many teams read STM). But find better and clearer T interps if you want to turn those complaints about topical affs into topicality arguments that exclude those affs. And I encourage you to do so quickly, as I will be the first to shamelessly steal them for my teams.

Ironically, the area of the topic that produces what seem to me the best debates (in terms of varied, high-quality, and evenly-matched argumentation) probably has the single highest-quality T angle for the neg to deploy against it. And that T angle just so happens to exclude nearly every arms control aff actually being ran. In my assessment, both the interp that "arms control = quantitative limit" and the interp that "arms control = militaries just like chilling with each other, hanging out, doing some casual TCBMs" are plausible readings of the resolution. The best aff predictability argument is clearly that arms control definitions established before the space age have some obvious difficulties remaining relevant in space. But it seems plausible that that's a reason the resolution should have been written differently, not that it should be read in an alternate way. That being said, the limits case seems weaker than usual for the neg (though not terrible) and in terms of defending an interp likely to result in high-quality debates, the aff has a better set of ground arguments at their disposal than usual.

Trump-era politics DAs: Most political capital DAs are self-evidently nonsense in the Trump era. We no longer have a president that expends or exerts political capital as described by any of the canonical sources that theorized that term. Affs should be better at laundry listing thumpers and examples that empirically prove Trump's ability to shamelessly lie about whatever the aff does or why he supports the aff and have a conservative media environment that tirelessly promotes that lie as the new truth, but it's not hard to argue this point well. Sometimes, when there's an agenda (even if that agenda is just impeachment), focus links can be persuasive. I actually like the internal agency politics DA's more than others do, because they do seem to better analyze the present political situation. Our political agenda at the national level does seem driven at least as much by personality-driven palace intrigue as anything else; if we're going to assess the political consequences of our proposed policies, that seems as good a proxy for what's likely to happen as anything else.

Charlie Huang Rosemount Sr High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 7, 2024 at 1:05 PM CDT

Background and Contact Information

I debated policy for Rosemount High School from 2016 to 2020 and have been judging since 2020. I completed my undergraduate studies in economics and political science at Columbia University. I have less experience debating and judging Lincoln–Douglas (see Lincoln–Douglas section at the bottom).

Please include huangdebate@gmail.com on the email chain.

For any questions, speech document requests, or other communications, please email huang.charles.j@gmail.com. I am also happy to answer your questions in the room. This is your chance to clarify my views on things not mentioned here that may affect the round, so please ask if there's any uncertainty.

Debate should be an inclusive, accessible, meaningful, educational, and enjoyable activity for all. I encourage you to do your part to make that possible. If there's anything I can do to help make that happen, either before or during the round, please let me know.

Please do not make reference to any of my laptop stickers.

Judging Approach

I am a technical judge: I seek to decide the round based on the arguments presented and extended through the final rebuttals and the technical execution thereof. I try not to let personal predispositions, especially those concerning argument types, interfere with my decisions. Technical execution of argumentation matters generally matters more than truth, though I do value logical soundness and high-quality evidence.

When deciding rounds, I identify what the key questions on the macro level are and then attempt to resolve them by looking to key controversies on the micro level. I look to what's said in the final rebuttals to frame the key questions and subsequently who prevails on the key controversies. At every step, I try to exercise restraint when possible, but poor argumentation, poor execution, and/or illogical arguments make it harder for me to do so. To prevent me from having to decide a round based on my own contrived analysis, you should provide judge instruction in your last rebuttal and engage in clash with your opponents on the warrant level. I will turn to default assumptions only if there is not even a hint of in-round controversy over it. The barrier for overcoming default assumptions is claiming otherwise and beating any relevant contestation, which is a lower bar than having to convince or persuade me otherwise.

Positions and Strategies

– I am just as happy to evaluate a kritikal affirmative as a policy affirmative. I won't automatically vote on framework, don’t hold kritikal affirmatives to an abnormally high standard, and don’t think they’re inherently cheating. I enjoy judging both K v. K and K v. Framework rounds. Whether fairness is an impact, whether debate is a game, etc. comes down to who wins that part of the debate. My record in rounds with kritikal affirmatives is pretty even.

– If what I ran as a debater is important to for you to know:

– On the affirmative, I ran “big stick” and “soft left” affirmatives with plans and frequently made theory the 2AR.
– On the negative, I went for kritiks, topicality/framework, and counterplans/disadvantages each about a third of the time.

– I seem far more willing to vote on topicality, theory, procedurals, and plan flaws than most judges. I often think teams forgo an easy ballot in their favor by not extending theory into their last rebuttal.

– If the other team straight up drops any topicality or theory argument that you have previously indicated is a voting issue, simply saying "they dropped X; that's a voter," is usually sufficient to warrant a quick and easy ballot in your favor.
– If the other team has woefully undercovered or misanswered a topicality or theory argument, you probably don't need to spend much time here either and expect to win. Even though it's often advisable to spend either zero or five minutes of your final rebuttal on topicality or theory, if you are contemplating going for such arguments in your last rebuttal but worried I won’t buy your topicality or theory, consider spending enough time on it to potentially win if I agree with your assessment that it's been undercovered or misanswered (probably about 30–60 seconds) while still leaving time to cover substantive positions.
– How well you justify your interpretation—not what I agree with or think is sensible—matters: I am just as happy to vote for zero conditional advocacies as I am to vote for 10 conditional advocacies.
– It’s pretty hard for me to flow when you speed through your blocks. This is true for both blippy points and super long paragraphs. It’s also hard to evaluate a bunch of blippy standards from both sides without comparative analysis. You will benefit from reading blocks slower, not just rereading your standards as extensions, doing line by line, analyzing the specific round, and impacting out your points.
– Some default assumptions I have: (1) jurisdiction is a sufficient reason to vote on topicality; (2) topicality debates can be about which team defends a more “true” interpretation of the resolution and need not center around which interpretation makes for a “better” topic; (3) reasonability is about the reasonability of an interpretation, not the reasonability of the plan/purported abuse; (4) I focus on what interpretations justify over any claims of in-round abuse; (5) I will default to judge-kick losing counterplans; (6) almost all theory violations can be reasons to reject the team

– I appreciate a risky, unconventional, or tricky strategy. I think such an approach is often your best bet when you’re quite behind on the flow entering your last rebuttal.

– If you can effectively use a bit of math to support your arguments, that’s great. Don’t worry at all if math isn’t up your alley though of course.

– Positions and actions that disrupt the very fabric of argumentative and personal decency clearly cannot be accepted. This includes variants of "trigger warnings bad." Expect to lose if you say insensitive things or engage in insensitive conduct that make others in the room feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

Substantive Things You Should Do

– Providing judge instruction on how to decide the round is perhaps the easiest way to increase your chances of winning in front of me. This is usually most effective in an overview in your final rebuttal.

– Comparatively analyzing warrants is the best way to increase your chances of winning, though it’s harder. In reasonably close debates, my RFDs almost always eventually come down to which team better analyzed and explained their warrants, in comparison to the other team's, on a key controversy that a key question hinges on.

– When reading kritikal arguments, you should explain your thesis and theory clearly. I should have a clear understanding of your position to vote for it, and do not assume I have extensive knowledge of your theory or literature beyond exposure from debate. I also think debaters are expecting judges to fill in too many argumentative gaps. I decline to do so. You should impact out important substantive controversies on the flow such as ontology.

– Focusing on and developing a few key points on each flow by the end of the round will almost always help you. Impacting out your key points is especially important in the final rebuttals.

Stylistic In-Round Things You Should Do

– You should slow down a fair bit when when making analytics, reading or extending theory, and explaining dense kritikal theory. I may call “clear” or “slow” if I feel I am getting an inadequate flow of your speech, but you should also watch me to make sure I’m following.

– You should send pre-written analytics, especially if you intend to speed through them. I don't have a perfect flow, so if you omit pre-written analytics from the speech document hoping the other team will miss some on their flow, chances are I will also miss some on my flow.

– On each flow, try to do line by line or organize your points (e.g. framework debate, link debate, impact debate, perm debate), especially if the other team has poorly organized their work on that flow.

– The later we are in the debate and the deeper we are on a key controversy, the more useful it will be for you to label your line by line responses with subpoints. A list of subpoints is far more flowable than a paragraph.

– Don't ask for marked copies unless you actually think you're going to use it somehow toward your strategy or invoke it in your speeches. You’re certainly entitled to ask for marked copies regardless though. Marked copies need not omit cards not read.

– When referring to me in a speech, you can just say "you" (e.g. “you should vote negative on presumption”). If you are talking to me outside of a speech, feel free to call me Charlie or Charles. There is never a reason to call me "judge" in the second person.

– Avoid unnecessary abbreviations, especially when it forms a nonsense word (like "squo" or an attempt at pronouncing "xap" in cross-applications).

Out-of-Round Things You Should Do

– Be nice, respectful, and friendly to everyone; avoid being unnecessarily aggressive.

– Have fun, perhaps even be funny or throw in a joke or two.

– Start on time and minimize non-prep, non-speech time.

– Please do not label off-case in the document without a name (e.g. "1-OFF, 2-OFF, ..." or "OFF, OFF, ..." or "1, 2, ..." or "DA, CP, K, T")—doing so will result in lowered speaker points. Instead, you should give and use names for your positions (e.g. "Elections DA, States CP, Neoliberalism K, T-fiscal redistribution"). Expect bonus speaker points for exceptionally well-named off-case positions.

– Tag-team cross-examination is fine unless you physically tag your partner.

– Please time yourselves. I don’t flow anything said after time expires. I will not keep time unless required to by tournament rules.

Rare Things That Impress Me When Done Well

– Giving your final rebuttals off your flow, without reading off your laptop

– Ending a final rebuttal super early when you have enough to win

– Demonstrating strong familiarity with your and your opponents' evidence

– Explaining complex kritikal theory or counterplan mechanisms well such that a lay person could understand

– On theory and topicality: clashing on the warrants, contextualizing arguments to the round, improvising your arguments, and not relying on blocks

– Using common sense to help beat blatantly untrue arguments

– On the fiscal redistribution topic, demonstrating a strong grasp of economic concepts

Evidence and Extensions

– My decisions tend to focus on what is said in the final rebuttals, which means evidence quality usually doesn’t factor in too much. That said, I value evidence quality. If you want evidence quality to be an issue, make it an issue, and I’ll evaluate it if needed.

– Evidence quality first and foremost is a matter of whether the evidence supports the claim you’re making. Far too much evidence fails on this front. Evidence often does not come close to supporting what debaters try to use their evidence for in the context of a round, but often the other team fails to use that to their advantage. I think indicting evidence simply based on the fact that it doesn’t say what debaters want it to say is a vastly underutilized tool.

– Reading multiple cards that say the same thing is almost always an inefficient use of your time. Extending evidence and comparing warrants is more beneficial. I only flow tags when you read evidence, which means the warrants don’t get on my flow unless/until you put it on my flow in later speeches.

– I almost never read evidence after the round unless there is controversy in the final rebuttals over what a piece of evidence says or does not say. If you want me to read evidence, instruct me to in your final rebuttal and impact out the evidence.

– I think good analytics can overcome subpar evidence and logical unsoundness. Having not actively coached or debated for a few years, I think common sense and basic knowledge (e.g. about government, economics, world affairs) is often an underutilized tool to beat absurd positions concocted by low-quality evidence.

– Extensions of evidence generally should include (1) the claim and/or the author, and (2) the warrants. If there's contestation on a point, evidence comparison, especially on the warrant level, will be important. The less work the other team does to answer something, the less work you need to do extending it; for example, if the other team doesn’t answer a flow, you don’t need to extend every card. Overviews can be useful, but you should probably still extend key parts (especially on kritiks). I am not inclined to give much weight to tagline and shadow extensions.

– Re-highlightings of evidence should be read in a speech—they can't just be "inserted." You don’t have to read or describe in detail a graph, data table, or image you’re inserting, but I think it’s usually helpful to mention what the takeaway should be.

Watching Me

I may call “clear” or “slow” if it’s egregiously hard to flow your speech, but you should also watch me to make sure I’m following what you’re saying and flowing.

Aside from that, it may be beneficial to note my physical expressions, but you probably should not let them dictate your strategy. Here are generally what my physical expressions indicate, but I can’t promise one of these might not signify something else:

– If you see that I am not flowing, that may mean you're being redundant and/or not adding anything new onto my flow.

– If you see my hands out, palms up, giving a confused, shrugging gesture, that may mean I'm struggling to flow your speech.

– If you see me flowing from the speech document, that may mean you should read tags and/or analytics slower.

– If you see me nodding my head, it usually means I understand the point you're making, think you're making a responsive point, think you’re making a true argument, or agree with your commentary (e.g. they dropped a particular card). It doesn’t necessarily mean you should go for that argument or focus the round on it.

– If you see me shaking my head, it usually means I think your point is illogical, irrelevant, or otherwise non-responsive, that I disagree with your commentary, or that I think the argument you're making is weak (but again, I'll focus my evaluation on what's said in the debate, not how truthful I think your arguments are). If this is happening while I’m not flowing, it likely means I’m not following your speech.

– If you see me squinting, perhaps with a tilt or angling of the head, it probably means I'm confused by what you're saying or why you're saying it.

– If you see me laughing (and you didn't make a joke), I'm probably laughing at an absurdity in the other team's argument that you're pointing out.

Important Point

Especially if you are sick with COVID-19 symptoms or have recent known or suspected exposure to SARS-CoV-2, please wear a mask.

Please do not make reference to any of my laptop stickers.

Lincoln–Douglas

As mentioned, I have some experience debating and judging Lincoln–Douglas. Ultimately, I want you to feel comfortable debating the way you are used to and the way you want to. I will do my best to fairly adjudicate the round that is debated in front of me, so I hope you do not feel a need to over-adapt to my policy background. I think I'll be able to follow along just fine.

My overarching judging philosophy for Lincoln–Douglas is similar to that for policy: evaluate the claims presented to me based on the quality of argumentation and technical execution, seeking to limit how any potential personal predispositions on what the debate should look like or what arguments align with my personal views affect the round. The "key questions on the macro level" will probably relate to theory or framework in most rounds. Unless instructed otherwise (and with compelling reason), I will considering pre-fiat/procedural arguments (theory, topicality) before post-fiat/substantive arguments. As for framework, I don't think you need to dwell on it too much if that of both sides is similar. I think "even if" statements are particularly useful in the context of explaining why you win the round even if you lose the framework. Impact calculus is helpful to avoid an RFD that surprisingly concludes one debater wins under the other debater's framework.

A lot of what I have above for policy applies to Lincoln–Douglas too, especially the importance of explanation and comparative analysis of warrants; dropped arguments are true; I am more willing than most to vote on dropped voting issues; I focus heavily on the final rebuttals (crystallization is good), especially judge instruction (i.e. voters/voting issues); how well you argue your theory interpretation matters more than how much I agree with your theory interpretation; and everything in the "How to Win the Round" section.

That said, I realize Lincoln–Douglas is different from policy. I will try to be sensitive to the norms of Lincoln–Douglas debate, but I am likely more open than most judges to features of "circuit debate" such as kritiks, disadvantages, and counterplans. I do not have the expectation that affirmatives will have plans but am certainly open to plan-based affirmatives. I suspect I may be more amenable to "tricks" since I do not yet have a good sense of what a trick is and may see what you know to be a trick as a clever argument. If an argument gets on my flow, it should get on your flow; if it's on your flow, you should answer it.

After reading the paradigms of many other LD judges, here are some other things I didn't think I needed to include but might be useful for you to know:

– You should provide orders before your speeches and signpost throughout your speeches.

– I focus on the flow and less so on delivery. That said, your speaking needs to be clear and audible. Persuasive delivery can marginally benefit your speaker points.

– Speed is certainly fine, but attempting to rely on a drastic disparity among your and the other debater's speed is frowned upon and unlikely to win you the round. I am just as happy to judge a round with both debaters spreading as one with both debaters speaking at a conversational speed.

– I do not care on which side you sit or whether you sit or stand.

– Just take however much prep time you need and report how much time is remaining after you're done. Unless you don't have a timing device, don't expect me to tell you when you've used a certain amount of time for prep.

– You are welcome to ask questions to the other debater during your prep time. You can take prep time to let the other debater finish responding to a question. You can also take prep time to finish responding to a question asked to you. Cross-examination cannot be substituted for additional prep time.

– I am less familiar with the norms around disclosure in Lincoln–Douglas, so I may be more of a wild card on disclosure theory debates. For either side in a disclosure theory debate, you're going to have to be super explicit about vague concepts like pre-tournament preparation or research burdens and contextualize it to how you practically prepare for tournaments and rounds. Otherwise, my RFD is probably going to sound more arbitrary and contrived than you would like it to be.

– I am thus far unconvinced of the usefulness of underviews, but I will certainly still flow and evaluate underviews like anything else in a speech.

– For theory or topicality, I understand a complete argument to include an interpretation, a violation, standards, and independent voting issue claim (or "reason to reject the argument" point). As generous as I am with theory, I will be far less inclined to vote on what I see as an incomplete theory argument.

– I understand reasonability to be about whether an interpretation is reasonable, not whether the purported violation is reasonable. Feel free to define your reasonability arguments like the latter.

– Here are some terms I found in other judges' paradigms specific to Lincoln–Douglas that I do not know the contextual meaning of well (even after googling them): tricks, LARP, phil, normsetting/norming, permissibility, spike, high theory, frivolous theory (what's the bright line?). If you use terms like these in a speech, please clarify what you understand them to mean. I don't think this means I can't competently judge a round involving any of these, just that I don't know the meaning of the terms themselves.

– Please do not attempt to shake my hand.

– As long as doing so will not delay the tournament, I will disclose my decision, explain my RFD, and answer any questions you may have for me. I will not disclose speaker points before the tournament releases final results.

– If you have additional questions on how I approach judging Lincoln–Douglas (and how it may differ from how I approach judging policy), I am more than happy to answer them before your round.

Pranay Ippagunta Northview High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Thu April 18, 2024 at 11:53 PM EDT

Pranay Ippagunta

Northview AI, IS

presumptionflipsneg@gmail.com

Thoughts

addendum before TOC: I am extremely bad for teams that rely on mainly ethos and are averse to LBL

Top

1—Tech over truth to its logical extent. Debate is not about solely the truth level of your arguments but

your ability to substantially defeat the other team’s claims with your technical ability.

2—I valued agnostic judging when I was a debater so I will do my best to replicate that when I judge you.

My favorite judges when I debated in high school: Kevin Hirn, Kevin Sun, and Gio.

3—When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped

but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If

you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get

closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will

be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis

definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my

predispositions from the debate."- Matt Cekanor

4—Biggest influences: Matt Cekanor, Arnav Kashyap, Kevin Hirn, Giorgio Rabbini, Rafael Pierry, Josh

Harrington, David McDermott, Conner Shih.

Deciding Rounds

"I will follow something resembling the following structure to make my decision:
A List the- arguments extended into the 2NR and the 2AR

B) Ask myself what, as per the 2NR and 2AR, winning these arguments will get for either the affirmative

or the negative. The answer to this question will sometimes be “absolutely nothing” at which point I will

strike these arguments off my flow.

C) Trace whether these points of disagreement were present previously in the debate. This will only

include substantive argumentation but will not include framing devices introduced in the 2NR and the

2AR."

D) Compare the negative and affirmative’s central issues by asking myself if losing a certain argument

for a certain team will still allow for that team to win the debate.” – Vikas Burugu

Framework

Update: I'm getting increasingly good for fairness. Lowers the burden on the negative team to win case

defense. I hold the line from the 1AR to the 2AR. When 2NCs extend fairness, 1AR drops most tricks like

fairness paradox, ballot PIC, subpoints on debate doesn't impact subjectivites. Very good for holding the

line.

Old:

1. No preference on what impact you go for. Some impacts require more case debating than others. For

example, if going for fairness, you need to spend more time winning the ballot portion of your offense

and defense against the other team’s theory of how debate operates. If going for clash, you need to

spend more time winning how your model over a year’s worth of debates can solve their offense and

spend more time with defense to the affirmative.

2. I have spent a large part of my high school career thinking about arguments for the negative and the

affirmative in these debates. To put it into perspective, almost 90% of my debates over a given season

are framework debates, on the neg and the aff. For a large amount of framework debates, the better-

practiced team always wins.
3. Use defense to your advantage. Nebulous claims of inserting the affirmative can be read on the

negative with no specific internal link or impact debating will largely not factor in my decision. However,

there are fantastic ways to use defense like switch side debate and the TVA. "Most 2NRs assert TVA and

SSD with no connection to the rest of the arguments. The 2NC and 2NR should spend time applying their

impact filters to specific parts of aff offense. This can be made most effective by explaining your switch

side argument on the impact turn you believe it resolves the best."- Arnav Kashyap

4. Very specific TVA’s can work against very specific types of framework arguments. If the affirmative

has forwarded a critique of debating the topic then TVA’s can mitigate the affirmative’s DAs. However, if

the affirmative team has forwarded an impact turn to the imposition of framework in the round, they

are less useful.

A)Finding a middle ground

While this approach will be significantly harder to assemble / formulate, it gives affirmative teams the

ability to impact turn both the content of debate’s that would occur under the negative’s interpretation

AND the reading of framework with significantly less drawbacks than the impact turn approach. It will,

however, require affirmative’s to wade through the traditional components of a topicality debate and

will be subject to good negative teams closely scrutinizing affirmative counterinterpretations. An

important question that not enough negative teams ask is how the aff’s counter-interpretation solves

their impact turns. “Aff odds of winning are substantially higher if you persuade me that the negative

can debate the aff over the course of a season with a relatively even win-percentage. Advance impact-

turns boldly, but do not forget defense” – Rafael Pierry.

B) Impact turning topicality

"This argument is only particularly persuasive if you win an argument aside from competing

interpretations for how a debate should be evaluated. Unless your argument is debate bad, I will

struggle to find a way to vote for no topic at all against a competent negative team. However, if you do

win an argument that reduces the question of my ballot to an individual debate, the impact-turn only

approach becomes much more viable. Aff offense here should focus on why the 1NC’s reading of

framework is violent."- Arnav Kashyap.

6. Often times when starting out, 2AR's go for too much in the 2AR. If you are impact turning T, go for

one DA's and do sufficient impact comparison. Your 2AR should answer the questions of how T is particularly violent or links to your theory of power and most importantly HOW MY BALLOT CAN

RESOLVE THOSE THINGS. Your impact only matters as much as its scope of solvency. You must also do

risk comparison. Most neg framework teams are better at this. The way the aff loses these debates is

when there's a DA with substantive impact turn and there's a negative impact that is explained less but

is paired with substantively more internal link work and solvency comparison.

If going for a CI, focus on one impact turn and focus on how the CI solves it and how the DA links to their

interp. Think of it like CP, your CI should include some aspects of their interpretation but avoids the risk

of your DAs.

Misc: live list

1--- Saying you're "X" identity position really loud does not constitute an argument.\

2---What is up with people saying impact turns to topicality means people will weaponize "title 9"

violations against framework tf.

K v Policy AFF

Ks do not disprove the desirability of plan action, those are DAs

I am finding this trend of the middle ground framework interpretation increasingly difficult to

comprehend. If the aff gets the plan, it is an auto aff win, if the neg wins framework, it’s usually a

negative win. Ks that go for links to the plan even with case turns are unstrategic because usually there’s

an uncontested affirmative. After reading this if you are like okay, we’ll read impact defense to, then

why are you even going for the K at that point, read a DA.

As you can tell, I will start my decision in these rounds on framework.

2ARs that don’t pick between clash and fairness and go for both usually fail
K v K Debates
1. Technical Debating is often lost in these debates but this necessarily happens due to the nature of K v

K debates as theory of power debating is often the most important part. That being said, vague link

debating will mitigate you winning your theory of power. 2. You need to pick something and defend it.

The neg team will ask about the affirmative in 1AC CX, that explanation should stay consistent

throughout the round. Lack of a consistent explanation will lower my threshold for buying a risk of a link

and higher the burden for you to win the permutation.

3. Use links to implicate solvency. Often times its hard to make a K aff stick to in round or out of round

solvency. Use links in the 2NC and 2NR to mitigate parts of both so even if the 2AR consolidates to one,

you still have defensive arguments.

4. "This might sound terrible for the neg, but if the neg does not refute aff shifts with specific link

explanation, I’m likely quite a good judge for the aff. Kritikal affirmatives have easy angles to exploit vs

substantive negative strategies. Neg teams are often awful at contesting the aff, so applying your theory

and solvency explanation to different pages effectively should be an easy route to victory."- Arnav. K affs

have built in theory of power and solvency that's inherently offensive. I'll be grumpy if you jettison the

aff but will not if you provide extrapolated offensive explanations in the 2AR using your affirmative and

pieces of offense that they dropped. 2AR's that do this will be rewarded with higher speaks.

Nolan Johnson Edina High School 7 rounds

Kyle A Joseph Hire 7 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 8:22 PM CDT

1. Conflicts [as of 10/04/2020]

No Univ of Chicago Lab
No Iowa City

2. Short Version

tech over truth
strong analytics/analysis can beat carded evidence
prioritize your impacts
have fun!

3. Pandemic Social Distancing Related Technology Notes

Please slow down 5-10%. Emphasize your warrants. Without a microphone stem, your quality fluctuates. Keep in mind that I still flow on paper.
Please get explicit visual or audio confirmation from everyone in the debate before beginning your speech. I may use a thumbs up to indicate I am ready.
If my camera is off, unless I explicitly have told you otherwise, assume I'm not at the computer.
If the current speaker has significant tech problems, I'll try to interrupt your speech and mark the last argument and timestamp.

4. Some Detail

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but have not really had the time. My hope is that I end up judging better debates as a result of this updated philosophy. I am now changing to a more linear philosophy, it is my hope that you read this in its entirety before choosing where to place me on the pref sheet. I debated for four years at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the south Chicago suburbs from 2007-2011. During that time I debated, Sub-Saharan Africa, Alternative Energy, Social services and substantial reductions in Military presence.

Nearing a decade ago, during would would have been the h.s. space topic. I started at the University of Northern Iowa, Where I debated NDT/CEDA Middle East/North Africa while judging a few debate rounds across the midwest. After my freshman year I transferred to the University of Iowa, where I started coaching at Iowa City High School. This year, I will continue to coach the City High Debate team.

Framing, Issue choice and impact calculus are in my opinion the most important aspects of argumentation, and you should make sure they are components in your speeches. Late rebuttals that lack this analysis are severely.

I preference tech over truth. Your in round performance is far more important to me, as it is what I hear. I greatly attempt to preference the speaking portion of the debate. Increasingly, I've found that my reading evidence is not necessarily an aspect of close debates, but rather results from poor argument explanation and clarification. The majority of 'close rounds' that I've judged fall into the category of closeness by lack of explanation. In some limited instances, I may call for evidence in order to satisfy my intellectual fascination with the activity. Anything other than that--which I will usually express during the RFD--probably falls upon inadequate explanation and should be treated as such.

I feel my role as a judge is split evenly between policymaker and 'referee' in that when called to resolve an issue of fairness. I will prioritize that first. Addressing inequities in side balance, ability to prepare and generate offense is something may at times find slightly more important than substance. In short, I consider myself a good judge for theory, THAT BEING SAID, rarely do I find theory debates resolved in a manner that satisfies my liking - I feel theoretical arguments should be challenged tantamount to their substance based counterparts. Simply reading the block isn't enough. Though I was a 2A[≈ High power LED current, peak 2.7 A] in high school I have since found myself sliding towards the negative on theoretical questions. I can be convinced, however, to limit the scope of negative offense quite easily, so long as the arguments are well explained and adjudicated.

I consider reasonability better than competing interpretations, with the caveat that I will vote on the best interpretation presented. But topicality questions shouldn't be a major concern if the team has answered.

I have a long and complicated relationship with the K. I have a level of familiarity with the mainstream literature, so go ahead and read Capitalism or Neolib. Less familiar arguments will require more depth/better explanation.

Sheryl Kaczmarek Lexington HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:31 PM EDT

Sheryl Kaczmarek Lexington High School -- SherylKaz@gmail.com

General Thoughts

I expect debaters to treat one another, their judges and any observers, with respect. If you plan to accuse your opponent(s) of being intellectually dishonest or of cheating, please be prepared to stake the round on that claim. Accusations of that sort are round ending claims for me, one way or the other. I believe debate is an oral and aural experience, which means that while I want to be included on the email chain, I will NOT be reading along with you, and I will not give you credit for arguments I cannot hear/understand, especially if you do not change your speaking after I shout clearer or louder, even in the virtual world. I take the flow very seriously and prior to the pandemic judged a lot, across the disciplines, but I still need ALL debaters to explain their arguments because I don't "know" the tiniest details for every topic in every event. I am pretty open-minded about arguments, but I will NOT vote for arguments that are racist, sexist or in any other way biased against a group based on gender identity, religion or any other characteristic. Additionally, I will NOT vote for suicide/self harm alternatives. None of those are things I can endorse as a long time high school teacher and decent human.

Policy Paradigm

The Resolution -- I would prefer that debaters actually address the resolution, but I do vote for non-resolutional, non-topical or critical affirmatives fairly often. That is because it is up to the debaters in the round to resolve the issue of whether the affirmative ought to be endorsing the resolution, or not, and I will vote based on which side makes the better arguments on that question, in the context of the rest of the round.

Framework -- I often find that these debates get messy fast. Debaters make too many arguments and fail to answer the arguments of the opposition directly. I would prefer more clash, and fewer arguments overall. While I don't think framework arguments are as interesting as some other arguments in debate, I will vote for the team that best promotes their vision of debate, or look at the rest of the arguments in the round through that lens.

Links -- I would really like to know what the affirmative has done to cause the impacts referenced in a Disad, and I think there has to be something the affirmative does (or thinks) which triggers a Kritik. I don't care how big the impact/implication is if the affirmative does not cause it in the first place.

Solvency -- I expect actual solvency advocates for both plans and counterplans. If you are going to have multi-plank plans or counterplans, make sure you have solvency advocates for those combinations of actions, and even if you are advocating a single action, I still expect some source that suggests this action as a solution for the problems you have identified with the Status Quo, or with the Affirmative.

Evidence -- I expect your evidence to be highlighted consistent with the intent of your authors, and I expect your tags to make claims that you will prove with the parts you read from your evidence. Highlighting random words which would be incoherent if read slowly annoys me and pretending your cards include warrants for the claims you make (when they do not) is more than annoying. If your tag says "causes extinction," the text of of the part of the card you read needs to say extinction will be the result. Misrepresenting your evidence is a huge issue for me. More often then not, when I read cards after a round, it is because I fear misrepresentation.

New Arguments/Very Complicated Arguments -- Please do not expect me to do any work for you on arguments I do not understand. I judge based on the flow and if I do not understand what I have written down, or cannot make enough sense of it to write it down, I will not be able to vote for it. If you don't have the time to explain a complicated argument to me, and to link it to the opposition, you might want to try a different strategy.

Old/Traditional Arguments -- I have been judging long enough that I have a full range of experiences with inherency, case specific disads, theoretical arguments against politics disads and many other arguments from policy debate's past, and I also understand the stock issues and traditional policy-making. If you really want to confuse your opponents, and amuse me, you'll kick it old school as opposed to going post-modern.

LD Paradigm

The Resolution -- The thing that originally attracted me to LD was that debaters actually addressed the whole resolution. These days, that happens far less often in LD than it used to. I like hearing the resolution debated, but I also vote for non-resolutional, non-topical or critical affirmatives fairly often in LD. That is because I believe it is up to the debaters in the round to resolve the issue of whether the affirmative ought to be endorsing the resolution, or not, and I will vote based on which side makes the better arguments on that question.

Framework -- I think LDers are better at framework debates than policy debaters, as a general rule, but I have noticed a trend to lazy framework debates in LD in recent years. How often should debaters recycle Winter and Leighton, for example, before looking for something new? If you want to stake the round on the framework you can, or you can allow it to be the lens through which I will look at the rest of the arguments.

Policy Arguments in LD -- I understand all of the policy arguments that have migrated to LD quite well, and I remember when many of them were first developed in Policy. The biggest mistake LDers make with policy arguments -- Counterplans, Perm Theory, Topicality, Disads, Solvency, etc. -- is making the assumption that your particular interpretation of any of those arguments is the same as mine. Don't do that! If you don't explain something, I have no choice but to default to my understanding of that thing. For example, if you say, "Perm do Both," with no other words, I will interpret that to mean, "let's see if it is possible to do the Aff Plan and the Neg Counterplan at the same time, and if it is, the Counterplan goes away." If you mean something different, you need to tell me. That is true for all judges, but especially true for someone with over 40 years of policy experience. I try to keep what I think out of the round, but absent your thoughts, I have no choice but to use my own.

Evidence -- I expect your evidence to be highlighted consistent with the intent of your authors, and I expect your tags to make claims that you will prove with the parts you read from your evidence. Highlighting random words which would be incoherent if read slowly annoys me and pretending your cards include warrants for the claims you make (when they do not) is more than annoying. If your tag says "causes extinction," the text of of the part if the card you read really needs to say extinction will be the result. Misrepresenting your evidence is a huge issue for me. More often then not, when I read cards in a round, it is because I fear misrepresentation.

New Arguments/Very Complicated Arguments -- Please do not expect me to do any work for you on arguments I do not understand. I judge based on the flow and if I do not understand what I have written down, or cannot understand enough to write it down, I won't vote for it. If you don't think you have the time to explain some complicated philosophical position to me, and to link it to the opposition, you should try a different strategy.

Traditional Arguments -- I would still be pleased to listen to cases with a Value Premise and a Criterion. I probably prefer traditional arguments to new arguments that are not explained.

Theory -- Theory arguments are not magical, and theory arguments which are not fully explained, as they are being presented, are unlikely to be persuasive, particularly if presented in a paragraph, or three word blips, since there is no way of knowing which ones I won't hear or write down, and no one can write down all of the arguments when each only merits a tiny handful of words. I also don't like theory arguments that are crafted for one particular debate, or theory arguments that lack even a tangential link to debate or the current topic. If it is not an argument that can be used in multiple debates (like topicality, conditionality, etc) then it probably ought not be run in front of me. New 1AR theory is risky, because the NR typically has more than enough time to answer it. I dislike disclosure theory arguments because I can't know what was done or said before a round, and because I don't think I ought to be voting on things that happened before the AC begins. All of that being said, I will vote on theory, even new 1AR theory, or disclosure theory, if a debater WINS that argument, but it does not make me smile.

PF Paradigm

The Resolution -- PFers should debate the resolution. It would be best if the Final Focus on each side attempted to guide me to either endorse or reject the resolution.

Framework -- Frameworks are OK in PF, although not required, but given the time limits, please keep your framework simple and focused, should you use one.

Policy or LD Behaviors/Arguments in PF -- I personally believe each form of debate ought to be its own thing. I DO NOT want you to talk quickly in PF, just because I also judge LD and Policy, and I really don't want to see theory arguments, plans, counterplans or kritiks in PF. I will definitely flow, and will judge the debate based on the flow, but I want PF to be PF. That being said, I will not automatically vote against a team that brings Policy/LD arguments/stylistic approaches into PF. It is still a debate and the opposition needs to answer the arguments that are presented in order to win my ballot, even if they are arguments I don't want to see in PF.

Paraphrasing -- I have a HUGE problem with inaccurate paraphrasing. I expect debaters to be able to IMMEDIATELY access the text of the cards they have paraphrased -- there should be NO NEED for an off time search for the article, or for the exact place in the article where an argument was made. Making a claim based on a 150 page article is NOT paraphrasing -- that is summarizing (and is not allowed). If you can't instantly point to the place your evidence came from, I am virtually certain NOT to consider that evidence in my decision.

Evidence -- If you are using evidence, I expect your evidence to be highlighted consistent with the intent of your authors, and I expect your tags to make claims that you will prove with the parts you read from your evidence. Pretending your cards include warrants (when they do not) is unacceptable. If your tag says "causes extinction," the text of of the part you card you read MUST say extinction will happen. Misrepresenting your evidence is a huge issue for me. More often then not, when I read cards in a round, it is because I fear misrepresentation.

Theory -- This has begun to be a thing in PF in some places, especially with respect to disclosure theory, and I am not a fan. As previously noted, I want PF to be PF. While I do think that PFers can be too secretive (Policy and LD both started that way), I don't think PFers ought to be expending their very limited time in rounds talking about whether they ought to have disclosed their case to their opponents before the round. Like everything else I would prefer were not true, I can see myself voting on theory in PF because I do vote based on the flow, but I'd prefer you debate the case in front of you, instead of inventing new arguments you don't really have time to discuss.

Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz Johns Creek High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Thu April 18, 2024 at 10:24 AM EDT

Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz – He/They

Chattahoochee ’23 – Wenatchee Independent KK – UWG ’27

Email chain – esh5.atl.debate@gmail.com

213 Rounds debated, 67 Judged, 2X TOC Qual, 1X NDT Qual

Affiliations – Chattahoochee, Johns Creek, Brookfield East SM, Alpharetta

“K debaters cheat, Policy debaters lie. If you believe both, you should pref me highly. If you believe one of the two, you should pref me in the middle percentile. If you don’t believe either, go do PF” – Josh Harrington

_____

No one in debate should have to interact with their abuser. If a round is unsafe, please let me know before the round, I will go to tabroom and fight for whatever potential solution I can. This is something that should be taken up with tabroom, your coach, etc. and is not something I would want to have to adjudicate in the middle of a round. If you are someone who treats others like trash, is implicated negatively in a title IX investigation, etc., I should be at the very bottom of your pref sheet.

_____

Most important notes

Clarity is massive for me. I have a memory loss disorder along with minor hearing problems. This does not mean that I am unable to hear or process the spreading of any given round, but that your persuasive ability majorly goes down when I have to spend more of my time processing figuring our what you’re saying rather than focusing on the quality of your arguments and instruction. I don’t care how fast you’re going; I care how clear you are when going at that speed.

Highlighting in debate right now is maybe one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. Your evidence should still be highlighted to be, generally, grammatically correct and highlighted warrants.

Everything about basic decency that you’ve seen in every other paradigm I believe in. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is unacceptable and will be given a L25, likely combined with an incredibly serious email to your coach.

Evidence ethics – clipping, miscites, cards cut with sentences omitted, cards cut that don’t begin and end at the start and end of paragraphs, changes to words in a card altering the meaning of the evidence are also an L25.

Also, I think highlighting words from the name of the article or book is ridiculous. Don't highlight cites...

_____

Arguments –

I wholeheartedly believe that I’m good for any argument. My high-school career included a lot of policy debates and even more K debates. My senior year, I exclusively went for disability on the affirmative, and our negative strategy included anything from conditions counterplans to kritiks to impact turns. I was both the 2A and 2N for four years. My college career has just started, but I primarily read queerness on the AFF when 2Aing and on the NEG when 2Ning, but when I was the 1A read a policy aff and when I was the 1N extended almost exclusively topicality or a PIK.

The only major threshold for evaluating if an argument should be read in front of me is if you’re willing to go for it, I dislike throw-away strategies.

Wipeout, spark, death good, whatever are all fine positions. I believe there is a difference between a post-fiat argument that centers around death being good, and a real world threat of violence (i.e., telling a debater to inflict harm upon themselves, threatening harm upon someone, etc.).

Specific arguments –

Disadvantages – I love seeing creative disadvantages or just ones that are articulated very well. My main issue with DA debates nowadays is I tend to see ones where, by the 2NR, many parts of the debate feel incredibly isolated rather than a cohesive story that I can sit down and say I understand. Debaters that are able to clearly articulate and define the link debate beyond just shallow extensions do much better in front of me when they fit that link explanation into the broader story of the AFF/DA.

Counterplans – Some of my favorite debates when the counterplan actually competes. I went for conditions and pics a lot of the time my senior year (probably at least 1/2 of my 2NRs), the sorts of debates for counterplans that I dislike are ones that get incredibly muddled in solvency/impact questions, ESPECIALLY if your evidence is not specific and you’re trying to write a plan text around generic evidence to make it work. I am not the world’s best judge for intense counterplan competition debates, but don’t let that deter you from going for what you want. I think delay is a silly cp.

Topicality – I honestly went through most of high-school HATING topicality debates but have now grown incredibly fond of them. As of my freshman year in college, topicality usually makes up nearly two-thirds of my 1NRs. What I think deters most debaters is a numbers game for interpretations, but I genuinely believe that an incredibly high quality interpretation is far better than a ton of short cards that barely say anything. Give me a solid caselist and view of what would happen for debate under the AFF’s counter-interpretation and do in depth evidence comparison and warrant comparison, because a LOT of topicality debates seem to lack these. Storytelling is so critical and underrated in T debates, I want to clearly imagine the world of the interp/counter interp.

Kritiks – My bread and butter, went for Ks a ton throughout all of high school. I’m familiar with most branches of literature, my weak spots are Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari and Derrida, but I am very well versed in nearly every other branch of lit. I think kritiks probably need aff-specific links (at least articulated/contextualized in the 2NC) and have no particular thought on if I should weigh the consequences of the plan or not. I hold Kritik debates to a much higher standard, because I know what a good K debate should look like and expect you to produce a good K debate.

Kritik Affirmatives – Love them, ran them exclusively both my senior year of H.S. and (as of writing this) freshman year of college. However, I am incredibly skeptical of most K-AFF’s ability to solve their impacts or solve/do anything at all. I am a judge who is completely willing to vote on a 5 minutes of presumption 2NR, because often times these AFFs don’t have a topic link, don’t do anything, etc. My favorite affirmatives are ones that defend actual material strategies, methods, etc. or at least are able to have a position that I feel is sufficient to beat back on SSD/TVA and presumption. I am not going to do the work for you. Last note – most of your authors probably hate each other and I think a lot of affirmatives fail to reconcile that, if you’re going to be reading an affirmative in front of me, the evidence/narrative should be cohesive. I like anything from more traditional K-AFFs to poetry to songs to completely uncarded ones, but understand I have a reasonably high threshold for solvency. For the negative, I love a well-executed KvK debate and will reward a high-quality one, but I am similarly amenable to framework.

Framework – Go for it, I don’t really care what impact you go for. I hate seeing teams over-rely on generic blocks and miss the actual content of AFF offense, so if you want to go for framework, I expect to see you spend time engaging the affirmative’s arguments, actually responding to the content of them, etc. Otherwise, you can see me checking out on something like a counter interp + risk of a DA more easily than I’d like to. I am very skeptical of a lot of KAFF's offense versus framework, you should maximize that.

__________

Miscellaneous

I am a small-school debater who handled running their program since 2021. If you need any help with your own, reach out to me.

Favs -

Kelly Lin, Allison Lee, Charles Sanderson, Patrick Fox, Avery Wilson, Srikar Satish, Sophia Dal Pra, Rose Larson, Astrid Clough, Jordan Keller, Robin Forsyth, Ash Koh, Geoff and Sarah Lundeen, Lauren Ivey, Kevin Bancroft, Grey Parfenoff, Blaine Montford, Austin Davis

Aaron Kim Univ Of Chicago Lab School 4 rounds

Brian Klarman North Broward Preparatory School 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 11:25 AM EDT

Judge Philosophy

Conflicts: UGA, Emory University, and North Broward

Email: Brianklarmandebate@gmail.com - Yes, put me on the thread. No, I won't open all of the docs during the round and will likely ask for a doc of cards I find relevant at the end.

2024 Updates:

I am not a fully time debate coach. I am working with the UGA & North Broward debate teams part time.

I am someone who believes tech > truth. However, I do not look at cards during debates, so if your arguments are not clear by explanation/flowable tags/very clearly read card text, they are not "tech" that is on my flow. My favorite debates involve strategy (think: creative "cross applications," argument that are "good because the other teams can't read their best answers," etc). I enjoy a good theory debate (conditionality, solvency advocate, perms, politics theory arguments, etc.) and I would prefer that debates have some depth by the end of the negative block.

College - Assume I know things about the topic, but have not cut cards on it in the past year. I have had conversations with debaters/coaches and am very familiar with nuclear strategy. My knowledge of the college topic extends to knowing: assurance, deterrence, IR Ks, military process CPs*, and anything that would have been read on the past college exec power/military presence/alliance topics. I have written many iterations of both ICBMs and NFU affs & negs.

*If you are going for a T argument or process CP, keep in mind that I could not tell you the wording of the resolution off of the top of my head, so any arguments related to grammatical construction of the resolution might require you explaining with another sentence or going a bit slower. I am under the impression that the topic is pretty small and the negative ground is pretty good, so make sure to impact your limits (or "functional limits")/ground arguments

High School - I have had very little interaction with the current topic. I cut a number of cards on UBI in the past, but I know very little about the other parts of the topic. I did not teach at a debate camp. I have judged a handful of rounds and they were almost all on capitalism or race Ks. I am under the impression that the "core" negative arguments are some combination of States, Politics, "Redistribution" PICs, and Ks about the economy; I assume that the "core" affirmative arguments are all related to the economy and inequality.

2021 Post-NDT Updates:

(1) "X Outweighs Y" - If the 2NR/2AR does not start with some version of this (or include this elsewhere), I will almost certainly vote the other way. I don't super care how you say it, but if you are unwilling to say that the impact you will win is more important than the impact the other team will win, things aren't going well.

(2) T & Theory - I seem to like them more than everyone else I judge with. Go for conditionality bad! I don't necessarily think it is true but never seem to hear 2NC or 2NR blocks that have great offense or impact calc. After judging on a slew of panels, I realize that I am more likely to be into technical theory & T arguments then others. I also tend to expect complete arguments in the 1NC/2AC/2NC (theory needs warrants, T needs the necessary defense and offense).

(3) Tech > Truth - I feel like I have said this a number of times, but I realized that I think this more than others (or at least more than people that I judge with). A "bad" disad has high risk until/unless answers are made. This also has made me amenable to voting on some not great disads vs. planless affs just on the basis of 2ACs lacking necessary defense.

(4) T vs. Planless affs - I have found that I tend to vote affirmative when something is conceded or answered completely incorrectly. I tend to vote negative when the negative goes for a limits/fairness impact and responds to every argument on the line by line. I tend to find myself confused about the relevance of all arguments that the content of the resolution is either good or bad. I feel like I find my voting record to be like 50/50, but I haven't done the math.

(5) Decision making process - I tend to read less cards then others who I judge with. Not because I am against reading cards, but because I only read evidence to resolve questions in a debate. If you want me to read cards (which you likely do), make them relevant.

(6) Points - At the NDT, my points were about .1-.2 below everyone else on every panel. I plan on upping my points by .1-.2. That said, I don't give great points.

2020-2021 Updates - Online Judging: Judging online is difficult - a few implications:

(1) Ask if I am in the room / paying attention before you start speaking. Non-negotiable. "Brian, are you ready?" or "Klarman, are you here?" or anything that requires me to respond. I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

(2) Clarity matters more - I don't usually follow along in the doc and I am unlikely to read cards from both teams if one team is significantly clearer. On a related note, organization and numbering can help a lot with clarity because it tells me what arguments to expect.

(3) Technology skills matter - Emails should be sent out on time. If you are taking "no prep" for the 2AC, 1NR, etc. I assume that means the doc is sent and we are ready to go. I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time and makes concentration harder.

(4) Interesting arguments help keep attention and boosts points - I am really trying to flow and get everything down. I flow CX. I line up arguments. I am more aggressive than most about the flow. That being said, staring at the computer for the 3rd or 4th round of the day is very difficult. I will do my best. I find flowing very important because it lets the debaters do the debating instead of me deciding what I like. That said, online it is taking me a little more energy to focus. I've found when I hear arguments that I either haven't judged before, things I haven't blocked out, or even a new explanation, I tend to think the debate is more interesting which helps points & engagement. I really do love debate, so if you are excited, I will be too. On the other side, if this is the 9th time i am hearing the same school read the same block (and this could be Politics, T, Fairness bad, Deterrence or a K) with no emphasis at the same tournament, its hard to focus.

(5) Internet issues - they happen, I get it. They might happen to you, they might happen to me. I've heard best practice is to have some backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules, follow those. Otherwise I will likely just ask tab what to do if this happens. I'm open to other ideas of how to deal with it. Please please please have one (or all) debaters look to make sure the judge hasn't gotten booted from the room.

2020-2021 Updates - Other:

(1) Points - I think my points average around 28.5. I usually don't go under 28 unless something has gone wrong. If you get a 29.3 or 29.4 that is very good. I'm willing to go above that, but mostly when I hear something and am like "wow, that was memorable. I am going to try to tell people who I coach/teach in lab/judge to do things like this in the future."

(2) I often decide debates by (1) determining what I need to decide (2) looking through my flow for if it is resolved and then (3) reading cards if necessary. I'm unlikely to read a card (for the decision) to figure out something that the debaters never made clear. That said, I am happy to talk about some card or look through your evidence to give advice after the debate if you want - I tend to think debate is collaborative and we should all make each other better.

(3) I miss theory debates - this is the thing I have thought the most about, this is how I debated, and I just think its fun. I don't like "pointless" theory, but if you can convince me that something is the debate in the literature and predictable - from process CPs to T arguments to even spec arguments - I'm happy to hear it. That said, if you make your theory argument intentionally blippy ("ASPEC, they didnt, its a voter") I won't care.

I also left my old paradigm up here, but I think it mostly says: I did more "DA/CP/T" stuff than "K" stuff, I am familiar with "K" literature about race/gender/biopower/cultural studies, I like specific strategies, good case debating always impresses me, and I am very particular about the flow.

Old Stuff:

Preferences: I don't really care about what argument you make. I tend to think bad arguments will lose. The debate things I think about the most are counterplans and topicality arguments. That being said, I cut everything and coach everything. I feel like I mostly judge K debates where no one agrees about anything at this point. In those, I generally am familiar with that set of arguments (I am completing my MA in cultural studies, focusing on questions of race & gender) but not how to fit them into a debate. I tend to be very comfortable with how DAs, CPs, T arguments, and case fit into debate, but I tend to do weird research so I might not know what all the technical stuff of the CP is. That also means that the purpose of a K argument (or answer to the purpose) might require more explanation than the purpose of another argument. The things I think you actually need to know about me are below. I tried to lay out what I do in most debates while they are happening and afterwords and be as honest as possible.

Flowing: I will try to flow every argument in the debate. I expect that debaters will be doing the same thing. I could not possibly care less what the speech doc says or if you are "skipping a card" in the doc (that being said, I would like to be on the chain because I like glancing at cards after debates & trying to learn more about the topic/have informed discussions after the debates; also if you are doing some super annoying thing in the doc just to mess with the other team, I will likely be upset at you when I realize that in the post round/give points). When I flow speeches that set up argument structure (1nc on case, 2ac on off case), I will attempt to number the speech and will give higher speaker points to 1ns and 2as who set up that structure themselves (as well as be able to better understand their arguments; the 1nc that makes 4 analytics in a row without numbering is basically unflowable which means when the 2ac drops something I won't care). In subsequent speeches, I will go by the order of those numbers and will attempt to find what you are answering before I flow what you say. This means that if the 2nc starts on 2ac 4, I will mostly likely miss the first few arguments trying to figure out where to flow it (unless they say "2ac 4 - X - here's our answer" which would just be easily flowable but I might be confused about why the 2nc started on 2ac 4). If the 2nc starts on 2ac 1, I will not have an issue flowing. If the negative block (or 1ar) decides that the order is irrelevant, I am likely to be very grumpy; it is hard to vote on technical concessions or other things if the flow gets ruined and it makes it hard to tell a 1ar "you dropped X" when the block does not answer 2ac arguments. In addition to initial numbering, I will be able to better understand later speeches if you give me some idea (probably by number or argument) where the thing you are extending is on my flow. If you would like to only extend an impact turn or thumper or some no internal link argument in the 1ar that is 2ac 9 on my flow but don't tell me that you are starting at 2ac 9, it is going to take me a minute to find it on my flow. If, however, the 1ar goes to a flow and says "2ac 9 - they dropped X - here's what it is and why it matters" I will be able to immediately find it on my flow (it is easier to find numbers than exact arguments on a flow).

CX: I love CX. It is maybe my favorite "speech." I often try to flow it or take some notes at the least. That means you should pick words carefully in CX. I will especially try to write down anything about the advocacy and frameworks for evaluating debates (meaning metrics for thinking about things, which is not always how debate uses the word). CX can be fun even when teams get heated, but when CX is just people yelling at people and it is clear that people are more upset than enjoying things, I tend to lose interest. I like when people answering questions are honest, explain things, etc. I sometimes have the docs open and if we are having a fight about some card, I will look at it. I am not yet entirely comfortable with this, but if I miss the answer to a question, I may re-ask for the answer after the timer (I will do this with things like status or clarification, I don't think I will with other things yet but I might). I am also not comfortable interrupting CX to say things, but if someone is intentionally saying something that isn't true to answer clarification questions or refusing to answer clarification questions I may do so. If I make any definitive judgement about these things, I will try to update my philosophy again.

Look at me: I do not have a good poker face. I'd recommend looking for expression or other gestures. When I cannot flow people, I tend to look very confused. Same when an argument is bad. When I think an argument has already been explained and/or you are saying things that aren't arguments, I tend to sit there with my pen on my paper waiting for you to say something that needs to be flowed.

How I make a decision: At the end of the debate, I try to figure out what arguments are going to decide the debate (there tend to be 1-3), parse those out, and figure out what happens from there. It is generally better if debaters tell me what those things will be either on the line by line or in an overview (this is the only reason I could really imagine having an overview unless it is to explain some super complicated thing). I tend to think the best speeches are the ones that both identify these key points, explain why they win and then what happens if they win those key things. If there is no discussion of key points (either implicit or explicit), it is highly possible that I will try to find a few points that are key and then explain my decision from there (I determined this argument was probably the most important, here's how I evaluated it, here's why it deals with lots of other stuff). Any decision like that just makes me grumpy, especially because it always ends with the judge CX forever about why I decided this way and my answer tends to be "I didn't know how else to decide"

Speaker points: I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I understand this entire speaker point thing. I think my points might be a bit low. I don't plan on just raising them; if you need higher points I get that I might not be the judge for you. At the moment, I don't think that raising points just to raise them is a great idea because it eliminates a lot of range and variation in points that I think signal improvement for debaters and help communicate about the debate. I might revisit this later on if people want. I don't really know what an "average" speech looks like. If I had to try and articulate some made-up scale, it would probably look something like this: if the speech you gave was the best it could have been and/or basically won you the debate, its in the 29.3+ space. If the speech kept things going and helped a bit but not as much as it could, its in the 28.7+ range. If the speech was fine but didn't have much value value, I tend to think its in the 28.2+ range. If the speech wasn't good and didn't help much, it in the 27.5+ area. If the speech is bad, we are in the like 27 or even 26.8+ range. I don't think I've given many points lower than 27 and if I did, something must have gone very wrong. I tend to find most speeches between that 28-29 range. I think I average in the low 28s but I don't really know or care. Only a few speeches have just crushed the debate for me. I tend to have a lot of issue judging debates when I feel that all the speeches were about 28.2s or something and I have to give people different points. I think my default is to make the thing I think the top end or top middle (so if it was 28.2, maybe i'd give 28.3-28 to everyone). That being said, I think I am more willing to use high range in points based on speeches. I am also happy to add points for well used CX, good numbering, clarity of cards and highlighting (like if I can understand all the warrants in the evidence while you are reading), partners who work well together and make each other look good (I think basically every bold move in debate could be characterized by the 2nr/2ar as a big mistake or a big efficiency gain; if you can convince me that the 1ar under-covering the DA was to trick them to go for it, I will likely think the 1ar choice was smart and hence deserves better points, same with other speeches), etc. If people have a better way of doing speaker points, I am happy to talk about it.

Do not: Clip cards, lie, use something out of context, or do anything else unethical. These will result in loss of speaker points or loss of rounds.

Gabriel Koo Georgetown Day School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 10, 2024 at 4:35 AM EDT

Background:

Director of Debate at Georgetown Day School.

Please add me to the email chain - georgetowndaydebate@gmail.com .

For questions or other emails - gkoo@gds.org .

I do not share speech documents from rounds I have judged. Please reach out to the teams who debated.

Big Picture:

Read what you want. Have fun. I know you all put a lot time into this activity, so I am excited to hear what you all bring!

Policy Debate

Things I like:

2AR and 2NRs that tell me a story. I want to know why I am voting the way I am. I think debaters who take a step back, paint me the key points of clash, and explain why those points resolve for their win fare better than debaters who think every line by line argument is supposed to be stitched together to make the ballot.
Warrants. A debater who can explain and impact a mediocre piece of evidence will fare much better than a fantastic card with no in-round explanation. What I want to avoid is reconstructing your argument based off my interpretation of a piece of evidence. I don't open speech docs to follow along, and I don't read evidence unless its contested in the round or pivotal to a point of clash.
Simplicity. I am more impressed with a debater that can simplify a complex concept. Not overcomplicating your jargon (especially K's) is better for your speaker points.
Topicality (against policy Aff's). This fiscal redistribution topic seems quite large so the better you represent your vision of the topic the better this will go for you. Please don't list out random Aff's without explaining them as a case list because I am not very knowledgeable on what they are.
Case debates. I think a lot of cases have very incredulous internal links to their impacts. I think terminal defense can exist and then presumption stays with the Neg. I'm waiting for the day someone goes 8 minutes of case in the 1NC. That'd be fantastic, and if done well would be the first 30 I'd give. Just please do case debates.
Advantage CP's and case turns. Process CP's are fine as well, but I much prefer a well researched debate on internal links than a debate about what the definition of "resolved" "the" and "should"" are. Don't get me wrong though, I am still impressed by well thought out CP competition.
Debates, if both teams are ready to go, that start early. I also don't think speeches have to be full length, if you accomplished what you had to in your speech then you can end early. Novice debaters, this does not apply to you. Novices should try to fill up their speech time for the practice.
Varsity debaters being nice to novices and not purposefully outspreading them or going for dropped arguments.
Final rebuttals being given from the flow without a computer.

Things:

K Affirmatives and Framework/T. I'm familiar and coached teams in a wide variety of strategies. Make your neg strategy whatever you're good at. Advice for the Aff: Answer all FW tricks so you have access to your case. Use your case as offense against the Neg's interpretation. You're probably not going to win that you do not link to the limits DA at least a little, so you should spend more time turning the Neg's version of limits in the context of your vision of debate and how the community has evolved. I believe well developed counter-interpretations and explanations how they resolve for the Neg's standards is the best defense you can play. Advice for the Neg: Read all the turns and solves case arguments. Soft left framework arguments never really work out in my opinion because it mitigates your own offense. Just go for limits and impact that out. Generally the winning 2NR is able to compartmentalize the case from the rest of the debate with some FW trick (TVA, SSD, presumption, etc.) and then outweigh on a standard. If you aren't using your standards to turn the case, or playing defense on the case flow, then you are probably not going to win.
Role of the Ballot. I don't know why role of the ballot/judge arguments are distinct arguments from impact calculus or framework. It seems to me the reason the judge's role should change is always justified by the impacts in the round or the framework of the round. I'm pretty convinced by "who did the better debating." But that better debating may convince me that I should judge in a certain way. Hence why I think impact calculus or framework arguments are implicit ROB/ROJ arguments.
Tech vs. truth. I'd probably say I am tech over truth. But truth makes it much easier for an argument to be technically won. For example, a dropped permutation is a dropped permutation. I will vote on that in an instant. But an illogical permutation can be answered very quickly and called out that there was no explanation for how the permutation works. Also the weaker the argument, the more likely it can be answered by cross applications and extrapolations from established arguments.
Kritiks. I find that K turns case, specific case links, or generic case defense arguments are very important. Without them I feel it is easy for the Aff to win case outweighs and/or FW that debates become "you link, you lose." I think the best K debaters also have the best case negs or case links. In my opinion, I think K debaters get fixated on trying to get to extinction that they forget that real policies are rejected for moral objections that are much more grounded. For example, I don't need the security kritik to lead to endless war when you can provide evidence about how the security politics in Eastern Europe has eroded the rights and quality of life of people living there. This coupled with good case defense about the Aff's sensational plan is in my opinion more convincing.

Things I like less:

Stealing prep. Prep time ends when the email is sent or the flash drive is removed. If you read extra cards during your speech, sending that over before cross-ex is also prep time. I'm a stickler for efficient rounds, dead time between speeches is my biggest pet peeve. When prep time is over, you should not be typing/writing or talking to your partner. If you want to talk to your partner about non-debate related topics, you should do so loud enough so that the other team can also tell you are not stealing prep. You cannot use remaining cross-ex time as prep.
Debaters saying "skip that next card" or announcing to the other team that you did not read xyz cards. It is the other team's job to flow.
Open cross. In my opinion it just hurts your prep time. There are obvious exceptions when partners beneficially tag team. But generally if you interrupt your partner in cross-ex or answer a question for them and especially ask a question for them, there better be a good reason for it because you should be prepping for your next speech
2NC K coverage that has a 6 min overview and reads paragraphs on the links, impacts, and alt that could have been extended on the line by line.
2NC T/FW coverage that has a 6 min overview and reads extensions on your standards when that could have been extended on the line by line.
10 off. That should be punished with conditionality or straight turning an argument. I think going for conditionality is not done enough by Affirmative teams.
Debaters whispering to their partner after their 2A/NR "that was terrible". Be confident or at least pretend. If you don't think you won the debate, why should I try convincing myself that you did?
Card clipping is any misrepresentation of what was read in a speech including not marking properly, skipping lines, or not marking at all. Intent does not matter. A team may call a violation only with audio or video proof, and I will stop the round there to evaluate if an ethics violation has happened. If a team does not have audio or video proof they should not call an ethics violation. However, I listen to the text of the cards. If I suspect a debater is clipping cards, I will start following along in the document to confirm. If a tournament has specific rules or procedures regarding ethics violations, you may assume that their interpretations override mine.

PF Debate:

Second rebuttal must frontline, you can't wait till the second summary.
If it takes you more than 1 minute to send a card, I will automatically strike it from my flow. This includes when I call for a card. I will also disregard evidence if all there is a website link. Cards must be properly cut and cited with the relevant continuous paragraphs. Cards without full paragraph text, a link, a title, author name, and date are not cards.
You are only obligated to send over evidence. Analytics do not need to be sent, the other team should be flowing.
Asking questions about cards or arguments made on the flow is prep time or crossfire time.
If it isn't in the summary, it's new in the final focus.
Kritiks in PF, go for it! Beware though that I'm used to CX and may not be hip on how PF debaters may run Kritiks.

Kevin Kuswa Berkeley Preparatory School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 6:44 AM EDT

Quick 2022 update--CX is important, use it fully. Examples make a big difference, but you have to compare your examples to theirs and show why yours are better. Quality of evidence matters--debate the strengths of your evidence vs. theirs. Finally, all the comments in a majority of paradigms about tech vs. truth are somewhat absurd. Tech can determine truth and vice-versa: they are not opposed or mutually exclusive and they can be each others' best tools. Want to emphasize your tech? Great--defend it. Want to emphasize your truths? Great--but compare them. Most of all, get into it! We are here for a bit of time together, let's make the most of it.

Updated 2020...just a small note: have fun and make the most of it! Being enthusiastic goes a long way.

Updated 2019. Coaching at Berkeley Prep in Tampa. Nothing massive has changed except I give slightly higher points across the board to match inflation. Keep in mind, I am still pleased to hear qualification debates and deep examples win rounds. I know you all work hard so I will too. Any argument preference or style is fine with me: good debate is good debate. Email: kevindkuswa at gmail dot com.

Updated 2017. Currently coaching for Berkeley Prep in Tampa. Been judging a lot on the China topic, enjoying it. Could emphasize just about everything in the comments below, but wanted to especially highlight my thirst for good evidence qualification debates...

_____________________________ (previous paradigm)

Summary: Quality over quantity, be specific, use examples, debate about evidence.

I think debate is an incredibly special and valuable activity despite being deeply flawed and even dangerous in some ways. If you are interested in more conversations about debate or a certain decision (you could also use this to add me to an email chain for the round if there is one), contact me at kevindkuswa at gmail dot com. It is a privilege to be judging you—I know it takes a lot of time, effort, and commitment to participate in debate. At a minimum you are here and devoting your weekend to the activity—you add in travel time, research, practice and all the other aspects of preparation and you really are expressing some dedication.

So, the first issue is filling out your preference sheets. I’m usually more preferred by the kritikal or non-traditional crowd, but I would encourage other teams to think about giving me a try. I work hard to be as fair as possible in every debate, I strive to vote on well-explained arguments as articulated in the round, and my ballots have been quite balanced in close rounds on indicative ideological issues. I’m not affiliated with a particular debate team right now and may be able to judge at the NDT, so give me a try early on and then go from there.

The second issue is at the tournament—you have me as a judge and are looking for some suggestions that might help in the round. In addition to a list of things I’m about to give you, it’s good that you are taking the time to read this statement. We are about to spend over an hour talking to and with each other—you might as well try to get some insight from a document that has been written for this purpose.

1. Have some energy, care about the debate. This goes without saying for most, but enthusiasm is contagious and we’ve all put in some work to get to the debate. Most of you will probably speak as fast as you possibly can and spend a majority of your time reading things from a computer screen (which is fine—that can be done efficiently and even beautifully), but it is also possible to make equally or more compelling arguments in other ways in a five or ten minute speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVq5mugw_Y).

2. Examples win debates. Well-developed examples are necessary to make the abstract concrete, they show an understanding of the issues in the round, and they tend to control our understandings of how particular changes will play out. Good examples take many forms and might include all sorts of elements (paraphrasing, citing, narrating, quantifying, conditioning, countering, embedding, extending, etc.), but the best examples are easily applicable, supported by references and other experiences, and used to frame specific portions of the debate. I’m not sure this will be very helpful because it’s so broad, but at the very least you should be able to answer the question, “What are your examples?” For example, refer to Carville’s commencement speech to Tulane graduates in 2008…he offers the example of Abe Lincoln to make the point that “failure is the oxygen of success” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMiSKPpyvMk.

3. Argument comparison wins debate. Get in there and compare evidence—debate the non-highlighted portion of cards (or the cryptic nature of their highlighting). Debate the warrants and compare them in terms of application, rationale, depth, etc. The trinity of impact, plausibility, and verge analysis doesn’t hurt, especially if those variables are weighed against one another. It’s nice to hear good explanations that follow phrases like “Even if…,” “On balance…,” or “In the context of…” I know that evidence comparison is being done at an extremely high level, but I also fear that one of the effects of paperless debate might be a tilt toward competing speech documents that feature less direct evidence comparison. Prove me wrong.

4. Debates about the relative validity of sources win rounds. Where is the evidence on both sides coming from and why are those sources better or worse? Qualification debates can make a big difference, especially because these arguments are surprisingly rare. It’s also shocking that more evidence is not used to indict other sources and effectively remove an entire card (or even argument) from consideration. The more good qualification arguments you can make, the better. Until this kind of argument is more common, I am thirsty enough for source comparisons (in many ways, this is what debate is about—evidence comparison), that I’ll add a few decimal points when it happens. I do not know exactly where my points are relative to other judges, but I would say I am along a spectrum where 27.4 is pretty good but not far from average, 27.7 is good and really contributing to the debate, 28 is very good and above average, 28.5 is outstanding and belongs in elims, and 29.1 or above is excellent for that division—could contend for one of the best speeches at the tournament.

5. All debates can still be won in 2AR. For all the speakers, that’s a corollary of the “Be gritty” mantra. Persevere, take risks and defend your choices

(https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit). The ballot is not based on record at previous tournaments, gpa, school ranking, or number of coaches.

6. Do not be afraid to go for a little more than usual in the 2NR—it might even help you avoid being repetitive. It is certainly possible to be too greedy, leaving a bloated strategy that can’t stand up to a good 2AR, but I usually think this speech leaves too much on the table.

7. Beginning in the 1AR, brand new arguments should only be in reference to new arguments in the previous speech. Admittedly this is a fuzzy line and it is up to the teams to point out brand new arguments as well as the implications. The reason I’ve decided to include a point on this is because in some cases a 2AR has been so new that I have had to serve as the filter. That is rare and involves more than just a new example or a new paraphrasing (and more than a new response to a new argument in the 2NR).

8. Very good arguments can be made without evidence being introduced in card form, but I do like good cards that are as specific and warranted as possible. Use the evidence you do introduce and do as much direct quoting of key words and phrases to enhance your evidence comparison and the validity of your argument overall.

9. CX matters. This probably deserves its own philosophy, but it is worth repeating that CX is a very important time for exposing flaws in arguments, for setting yourself up for the rebuttals, for going over strengths and weaknesses in arguments, and for generating direct clash. I do not have numbers for this or a clear definition of what it means to “win CX,” but I get the sense that the team that “wins” the four questioning periods often wins the debate.

10. I lean toward “reciprocity” arguments over “punish them because…” arguments. This is a very loose observation and there are many exceptions, but my sympathies connect more to arguments about how certain theoretical moves made by your opponent open up more avenues for you (remember to spell out what those avenues look like and how they benefit you). If there are places to make arguments about how you have been disadvantaged or harmed by your opponent’s positions (and there certainly are), those discussions are most compelling when contextualized, linked to larger issues in the debate, and fully justified.

Overall, enjoy yourself—remember to learn things when you can and that competition is usually better as a means than as an ends.

And, finally, the third big issue is post-round. Usually I will not call for many cards—it will help your cause to point out which cards are most significant in the rebuttals (and explain why). I will try to provide a few suggestions for future rounds if there is enough time. Feel free to ask questions as well. In terms of a long-term request, I have two favors to ask. First, give back to the activity when you can. Judging high school debates and helping local programs is the way the community sustains itself and grows—every little bit helps. Whether you realize it or not, you are a very qualified judge for all the debate events at high school tournaments. Second, consider going into teaching. If you enjoy debate at all, then bringing some of the skills of advocacy, the passion of thinking hard about issues, or the ability to apply strategy to argumentation, might make teaching a great calling for you and for your future students (https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_emdin_teach_teachers_how_to_create_magic note: debaters are definitely part of academia, but represent a group than can engage in Emdin’s terms). There are lots of good paths to pursue, but teaching is one where debaters excel and often find fulfilling. Best of luck along the ways.

Jack Lassiter Berkeley Preparatory School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 9, 2024 at 6:35 PM CDT

Berkeley Prep Assistant Coach - 2017 - Present

10+ years experience in national circuit policy @ Damien HS, Baylor University and other institutions

Email: Jack.Lassiter4@gmail.com

I will evaluate offense and defense to make my decision unless you tell me to do otherwise.

Framework

I have an appreciation for framework debates, especially when the internal link work is thorough and done on the top of your kritik/topicality violation before it is applied to pivotal questions on the flow that you resolve through comparative arguments. On framework, I personally gravitate towards arguments concerning the strategic, critical, or pedagogical utility of the activity - I am readily persuaded to vote for an interpretation of the activity's purpose, role, or import in almost any direction [any position I encounter that I find untenable and/or unwinnable will be promptly included in the updates below]

The Kritik

I have almost no rigid expectations with regard to the K. I spent a great deal of my time competing reading Security, Queer Theory, and Psychoanalysis arguments. The bodies of literature that I am most familiar with in terms of critical thought are rhetorical theory (emphasizing materialism) and semiotics. I have studied and debated the work of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze, to that extent I would say I have an operative understanding and relative familiarity with a number of concepts that both thinkers are concerned with.

Topicality:

I think that by virtue of evaluating a topicality flow I almost have to view interpretations in terms of competition. I can't really explain reasonability to myself in any persuasive way, if that changes there will surely be an update about it - this is also not to say nobody could convince me to vote for reasonability, only that I will not default in that direction without prompt.

Counterplans:

Theory debates can be great - I reward strategic decisions that embed an explanation of the argument's contingent and applied importance to the activity when going for a theory argument on a counterplan.

I believe that permutations often prompt crucial methodological and theoretical reflection in debate - structurally competitive arguments are usually generative of the most sound strategic and methodological prescriptions.

Updates:

Judging for Berkeley Prep - Meadows 2020

I have judged enough framework debates at this point in the topic to feel prompted to clarify my approach to judging framework v. K aff rounds. I believe that there are strong warrants and supporting arguments justifying procedural fairness but that these arguments still need to be explicitly drawn out in debates and applied as internal link or impact claims attached to an interpretation or defense of debate as a model, activity, or whatever else you want to articulate debate as. In the plainest terms, I'm saying that internal link chains need to be fully explained, weighed, and resolved to decisively win a framework debate. The flipside of this disposition applies to kritikal affs as well. It needs to be clear how your K Aff interacts with models and methods for structuring debate. It is generally insufficient to just say "the aff impacts are a reason to vote for us on framework" - the internal links of the aff need to be situated and applied to the debate space to justify Role of the Ballot or Role of the Judge arguments if you believe that your theory or critique should implicate how I evaluate or weigh arguments on the framework flow or any other portion of the debate.

As with my evaluation of all other arguments, on framework a dropped claim is insufficient to warrant my ballot on its own. Conceded arguments need to be weighed by you, the debater. Tell me what the implications of a dropped argument are, how it filters or conditions other aspects of the flow, and make it a reason for decision.

Judging for Damien Debate - Berkeley (CA) 2016

In judging I am necessarily making comparisons. Making this process easier by developing or controlling the structure of comparisons and distinctions on my flow is the best advice I could give to anyone trying to make me vote for an argument.

I don't feel like it is really possible to fully prevent myself from intervening in a decision if neither team is resolving questions about how I should be evaluating or weighing arguments. I believe this can be decisively important in the following contexts: The impact level of framework debates, The impact level of any debate really, The method debate in a K v K round, The link debate... The list goes on. But, identifying particular points of clash and then seeing how they are resolved is almost always my approach to determining how I will vote, so doing that work explicitly in the round will almost always benefit you.

If you have any questions about my experience, argumentative preferences, or RFD's feel free to ask me at any time in person or via email.

Kieran Patrick Lawless Hire 7 rounds

Last changed on Thu April 11, 2024 at 8:57 AM CDT

Debated at Georgetown University (2020-2024 (NDT Quarterfinalist 2023, Octafinalist 2024, First Round 2023, 2024)

Debated at Walter Payton College Prep 2016-2020

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

Top level:

I've judged a single tournament in the past three years, but I've been debating all of college. I research and cut cards constantly, so I'm well equipped to grasp any debate minutia. I have a pretty good understanding of economics, but I have no clue what social security does or the differences between tax schemes. Please err against assuming I know how these mechanisms work.

I want to note that for everything outside the "Non-negotiables" section is up for debate. Given debaters can never resolve every issue in the debate, the following describes how I evaluate rounds when left to my own devices. Any predispositions are easily overcome by judge instruction.

Feel free to ask me any Qs about debating in college/at Georgetown!

Non-Negotiables:

Speech times, speech orders, everyone only speaking for one constructive/rebuttal.

I will not vote on any accusations about what happened outside of the round (that includes disclosure theory).

An argument has a claim and warrant. "Climate change is existential" is not an argument, it is an assertion. "Climate change is existential - higher temperatures destroy food security, cause mass displacement, or conflict" is. Basically, for something to be dropped, I should be able to explain why something is true to the other team in the RFD. Please don't make me intervene to say you didn't make complete arguments.

Any debating that makes your opponents unsafe is an auto L.

Asking for 30s caps speaks at 25.

Ethics violations stop the round. I err against voting on these, so if you're going to say this make sure the violation is really bad and actually modified the nature of the debate. I cannot emphasize enough how much I don't want to vote on this.

Re-highlighted evidence MUST be read. However if both teams decide to just insert things, I will grumpily evaluate it.

Card docs cannot include analytics, unless they are perm/cp texts.

I've noticed a bad trend where judges let debaters get away with murder on clarity because they send analytics. I am not going to have my laptop open during speeches, so make sure you are debating like a human and not a spreading robot.

Evaluating Debates

Assuming no one has made any arguments about how I should evaluate my debates, my default is that I am evaluating whether the actor of the resolution should do the action of the resolution based on the consequences of that action. Affs can absolutely be justified through different ethical frames (deontology, rule utilitarianism, etc), but I default to consequentialism.

Under this frame, I evaluate just magnitude*probability of the positions in the round. My default is that future lives do probably matter, so I think extinction is a very large impact. Timeframe acts a tie breaker if magnitudes/probabilities are similar. The onus is on soft-left affs to propose a different way of evaluating impacts, and I am receptive to those, I just don't default to it.

Case

Please explain acronyms. Fine for whatever. Would prefer if you erred against impacts like "X thing solves numerous existential laundry lists" as I think the other team can just flag there's no warrant any of the things listed are problems.

Soft left affs are fine. Center debating on logical flaws with negative off-case positions and please answer the whole "extinction is infinite" argument. Getting rid of that makes it pretty easy to win the soft left aff outweighs some bad politics DA.

Plans should mean things.

I'm pretty good for the aff against extra-T if you specified a mechanism/process which the plan happened. Obviously the neg can PIC out of that, but I think it's legit for the aff to do.

More on the limits side, as a 2A I think even on the smallest topics there is always new things to be said. Pretty good for the aff on limits debates if they emphasize the danger of PICs.

I know little about any given topic, so examples of what the debates under your model look like, what ground and core generics exist for the neg and how that has built in link uniqueness is huge.

Perfectly debated, reasonability is pretty good, but can easily be persuaded by competing interpretations. Don't explain reasonability as "never vote on T" that's not what it is.

Some judges have a disdain for T as opposed to other types of policy arguments, I do not.

Not a fan of plan text in a vacuum, you should know what your plan does.

Counterplans

Pretty aff leaning on questions of competition. Textual competition is nonsense, text only gets meaning by the function of the counterplan. Theory can be a reason to reject the argument but is almost never a reason to reject a team (except for Condo and even there I think there is a good neg argument for just "stick us with all the CPs").

Counterplans must actually do policies not ideas. Text: "The United States should fund AI innovation" is meaningless and aff teams should point that out (neg teams should do so as well when plan texts are that vague).

Better than most for states/international fiat bad.

Very neg leaning on infinite condo. Neg ground/logic are good in front of me. Idea testing is not. A certain number of condo C/Is don't make much sense, except for maybe one condo. However, 2NC counterplans probably justify 1AR add ons.

If I remember I will judge kick. But please remind me because I might forget.

Critiques

While I am both not well versed in critical literature, and find Ks to be unfair for the affirmative to respond to, I've been voting for critiques pretty frequently. This often stems from the aff dropping neg offense on framework that obviates the plan. Aff teams need to make sure they're actually flowing and not just reading pre-scripted 1AR framework blocks.

Framework can't be a "wash" I will decide for one teams interpretation over the other.

If you're going to ignore the aff, you better spend a lot of time on framework as if you lose that I don't see a good chance you win any other part of the flow.

Perms vs Ks can't be intrinsic or severance. The alt is not a CP. If you want the K to be treated like a CP, you will probably lose to the perm.

Fairness is the best aff impact on framework IMO. I find a lot of Ks of util deployed to be tautological.

Debate does not make people good or bad. Arguments read do not make people good or bad. I am super unpersuaded that if everyone read the cap K every round on the neg we'd all be a bunch of marxists.

K Affs

I'm terrible for K affs, but I do respect the flow.

I find almost every argument K affs make on framework counterintuitive, so if you have me in the back make sure you are explaining your concepts well.

Fairness is the best impact, but I'll vote on any impact. After 8 years of debate, I've found everyone has their own ways of explaining why fairness matters. For me its complaining about the things I do to win, for others its comparing debate to other types of sports, and for others its using big academic words to describe fairness. The point is: I am very very inclined to think fairness is an intrinsic good, but I often see teams lose to K affs because they just never explain an impact to it.

If you're aff in these debates, I'm best if you actually counter-define words and defend that read of the topic. Often times that means you have to actually answer DAs, so most teams don't do that. I don't care that you conceded the link to the heg DA if you didn't defend the resolution. Impact calc is your best way out in front of me.

I have never judged a KvK debate. I don't know why the aff gets perms.

DAs

More open to well debated intrinsicness than most judges. Politics/Riders are fine, the aff should have to defend their process.

Please if you are defending politics DAs tell me a story. Who does Biden have to convince with his PC? Why are they persuadable? Why does the plan make that impossible?

Every time I judge the econ DA, I've seen teams basically talk past each other. Both have args why the aff would be good/bad for the economy but they never interact with their opponents. To win these debates in front of me, its really important to have evidence or at least a story, on why your link/link turn is more true. Maybe its because wage-price spirals can theoretically go on forever, where an increase in aggregate supply from a jobs guarantee is finite. I don't know, so you have to tell me.

Speaks

Top 1-10 speaker at the tournament: 29.4-30

Top 11-20 speaker: 29.4-29.1

Clearing but no speaker award: 29.1-28.7

Not clearing, but positive or even record: 28.7-28.5

Below positive record: 28.5-27.5

Other

I care about evidence often more than other judges. If I feel like many issues have become unresolved, I often times use team's evidence as a way to help guide my decision. This may make my RFDs somewhat less based on the debating done, but I only resort to this if the 2NR/2AR did not give me enough to render a competent decision for them.

Good for impact turns. I think those are some of the most fun debates I've been a part of. That includes Spark/Wipeout. Not good for these turns if they turn interpersonal, which they really shouldn't do.

Pretty bad for 1NC CPs without solvency advocates. "CP: The 50 states should do the plan," is not a complete argument. The 1AR basically gets all new answers if you extend it. If you explain, even analytically, why the CP competes/solves the 1AR gets much less leeway for new args.

99% of the time 2NRs/2ARs should chose one line of offense. This isn't a preference. I don't care if there are 7 DAs in the 2NR, your speech will probably just be worse than if you chose one.

Cards written by debaters either about debate or while they were debaters are no better than you making the argument yourself.

I really don't mind being asked questions about my decisions, especially at the TOC. Everyone has worked hard to get here and deserve a thoroughly defended decision. Feel free to follow up after as well.

I am so bad for cheap shots like sneaking ASPEC or new affs bad somewhere in the doc. If its well warranted when said yeah I'll grumpily vote on it, but if its a blip I have such a low bar for aff cross applications and answers.

Tuyen Le Hire 7 rounds

Last changed on Fri May 10, 2024 at 11:31 PM CDT

Email chain/questions: tuyendebate@gmail.com

Additionally, please add the following emails depending on your event:

PF: sevenlakespf@googlegroups.com

LD: sevenlakesld@googlegroups.com

CX: sevenlakescx@googlegroups.com

Pfers: Round should start at start time, that means first word should be spoken at start time. I will dock your speaks by .2 for every minute past start time that the first constructive has not been sent.

__________________________________________________

Background/Important info:

University of Houston (Policy debate '21 -'23), BCHS (LD ‘19-‘21), debate coach at Seven Lakes HS (‘23-Current)

Political science major with a focus in international relations/political theory and a philosophy minor.

***I will not vote on anything that happened outside of round - If you are about to debate someone that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable please sort this out with TAB before round rather than making it an in-round voting issue.

I apologize in advance for the horrific typos that may be in your ballot. I tend to quickly jot my thoughts down as to not keep tab/debaters waiting too long. I usually fix ballots after rounds, but the deeper we get into elims the less time I have. My ballot is usually just my oral rfd, but if you have any questions just send me an email.

_________________________________________________

GENERAL (for all debates):

Policy/Cap > Security/Set Col/Phil > Identity Ks > Tricks/LD Theory

^^^ Based on my level of experience with specific args - For the most part, you can run what you want and I will vote on anything, but your burden of explanation increases the further you move down the list above. That being said I would suggest that you do not over adapt. You are more likely to win running an argument you’re good at and know well.

Tech > truth in most cases - I think my role as a judge is to be an impartial arbiter and evaluate the debate skills of the debaters. For the most part, a dropped argument is a true argument. However, when arguments are equally contested, prior knowledge will inevitably lower the burden of proof for arguments that are more true.

I think almost everything is debatable, will vote on almost anything with a warrant and impact

Will evaluate the round exactly how you tell me to - The more weighing you do and the more judge instruction you give the less likely I’ll have to intervene to make a decision. If you do neither of these things do not be upset when I have to arbitrarily decide how to evaluate the round.

I will vote off the flow - I don't care how good your evidence is if you don't debate it well. I only flow the things said in your speech, but I will still follow along on the doc to check for clipping. (Horrendous clipping is an auto L)

Time yourself and your opponents

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Specific Args:

My paradigm for LD, CX, PF are combined below. Read what applies and skip what doesn’t. If it is not here, assume I have no specific thoughts about it and that it is up for you to debate.

K --- I have and will vote on any K that is debated well, HOWEVER:

I prefer Ks that critique structures over identity Ks. Two reasons:

1. Unfamiliar with the lit bases - I am often unsure of what the alt to these Ks do. I have no idea what death drive, black ontology, etc means as an alt, however, I have voted on all of them before. I am just less familiar with these literature bases and am better for Ks like cap and security.

2. In round violence- I think that the way some debaters run K args introduces new violence into the round that wasn't previously there. This makes me sad because I think K lit is interesting and great, but it’s implementation in debate has pushed me towards policy args. An articulation that is just an ad hom is a losing one.

Ks on the AFF: All of the reasons above make me quite receptive to FW against K AFFs. Specifically, if you read a K AFF but cannot provide a reason for why your arguments should be negated then I am more likely to be convinced by FW.

Ks on the NEG: I like clash rounds and I am much more likely to vote for a K on the neg than a K on the AFF. Specifically if you run Ks like cap like a cp+da or security like a case turn. Ks which are able to interact with the aff on the fiat-consequences level have a much higher chance of getting my ballot than Ks that garner offensive from proximate violence impacts.

CP --- I default to judge kick if there’s no offense on the CP. Creative and niche CPs that actually solve are cool.

DA —- I'll evaluate them in the order of Impact > Link > Uniqueness when no other offense is present. I tend to default to evaluating the round like a policy maker. I can vote on risk of a link if it is contextualized to weighing, but I think it’s also possible to zero the link in rare instances.

Theory—- My threshold for voting on theory is slightly higher than for other args,

The greater the time constraints in the debate event the more I err towards the team defending against theory since that minimizes the need for judge intervention. In CX, theory is fine since there is enough time to develop arguments and thus I tend to view theory in CX as a legit strategic tool. In PF theory makes me want to cry.

Disclosure: I do not want to see your laptop screen after the speech. If you have screenshots/evidence of non disclosure you should put it in the doc. Things said/shown to me during the speeches are the only things I will evaluate.

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Extra notes for specific events:

PF ---

Your best bet with me for PF is to run traditional or policy arguments.

If you send all the cards you are going to read before your speech and don't paraphrase I will boost your speaks and give you at least a 28.

You must start the prep timer if you want to ask a question outside of CX period.

I will judge the round like a policy maker under and offense defense paradigm unless you tell me otherwise. If there is no offense in the final focus you will probably lose.

Weighing - I notice that in most PF rounds, weighing doesn’t end up playing a large part in my decision making process despite the fact that the impact is the first place I look to when evaluating the round. This is because PFers tend to weigh in a vacuum- ie they do not tell me why, for example, I should prefer time frame over magnitude. They also do not contextualize the weighing to the amount of the impact that is actually accessed.

K: You can run it if you think you can explain it to me in 4 minutes but that is doubtful.

Defense is not sticky: I will only evaluate things that get extended throughout the debate all the way into the last speech.

Second rebuttal must extend case but I do not require you to give an overview - responding to lbl is considered an extension i.e. answer the no link is extending your link but you must also extend arguments dropped by the other team if you want me to evaluate them at the end of the round. I will not extend args for you just because they are dropped.

LD ---

I ran phil and did mostly traditional LD in high school because my program was small, but I have done policy debate in college and have been judging on the circuit long enough for you to treat me like a regular tech judge. The only thing my high school experience affects is my familiarity with LD theory and tricks. - I will judge these rounds based on my knowledge of theory in policy.

I judge phil like an LDer and everything else like a policy debater. As in, I tend to switch back and forth between LD being about truth testing vs competing worlds depending on the content of the round. In a policy v phil round you should explicitly tell me how you want me to evaluate the round.

Phil: yes <3 love it but only when it is substantial. I think debates like Kant v Util are fun. I have a pretty good background for all the very basic and generic phils (Kant, Hobbes, any other enlightenment philosopher, etc.)

Theory/Tricks: I might be unfamiliar with some args you make. This means my capabilities to flow your 32 point analytical 1NC shell decreases.

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Spreading: I don’t care how fast you go if you're clear, but if I don't hear you it's your fault. I will say clear if I cannot understand you.

Speaks --- I'll start at 28 and move up or down from there.

Speaks + : make good strategic decisions, are funny, creative, show good understanding of the topic/args, are efficient, organized. I reward the most speaks to debaters who are kind and make debate an enjoyable and welcoming space

Speaks - : Make personal attacks, are unorganized, don’t clash, waste time/steal prep

Jake Lee Mamaroneck High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu May 2, 2024 at 10:28 AM EDT

Jake Lee (He/Him)

Math Teacher and Director of Debate at Mamaroneck High School

My Email for the Chain: jakemlee@umich.edu

HS Debaters ALSO add: mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

In-Depth Judging Record: View this Speadsheet

-
Top Level:

**Before the start of every round: I want every person in the room to go around and state your name, pronouns and one fun fact about yourself. You all are way too stressed out before rounds and having this little icebreaker before the start of rounds promotes a safe, friendly space. It helps create a community in debate, and the teacher in me enjoys the idea of promoting community building.

I evaluate arguments on a Tech over Truth basis. A dropped argument is a true argument on the flow. However, the word "conceded" does not mean you get to skirt by with laziness on the flow.

The only time tech over truth will not matter is on Death Good (Ligotti style), Racism Good, Sexism Good, etc. Reading these arguments at your own expense will lead to an inevitable L and 25's immediately. As an educator, it is my responsibility to make debate a safe space for everyone.

Schools I judge the most: Lexington (45), Berkeley Prep (43), GDS (40), GBN (26), Calvert Hall (21), New Trier (20), Bronx Science (19), MBA (16)

Giving the final speeches (2NR/2AR) off the flow (ie paper) will boost speaker points!!!! Shows great ethos in round.

The State of Flowing:
The state of flowing and line by line is very concerning. You all should be flowing the SPEECH, NOT the SPEECH DOC. The amount of times the 2AC has answered a skipped offcase or a couple of skipped cards on case because you just did not listen is concerning. Same with the other speeches in the debate where a team is answering something that was not said at all because "iT wAs iN tHe DoC"!! Same thing with people just claiming everyone is dropping everything.

No requesting "can you take out the cards that you did not read" before CX or speeches. If you ask, I'm going to run YOUR prep time and the other team can stall as long as they want because you decided not to flow. I don't care if they purposely run your time to ZERO, you didn't FLOW! You all have the document in front of you. That is a privilege debaters about 15 years ago did not have. If I can flow the speech without looking at the doc, you can to.

Consider the Following:

1) Implicate Arguments:

Judge Instruction is pretty non-existent in 90% of debates. As a math person, I really care about how things are concluded. What implicating your argument is pretty much equivalent to showing your work to me on a test. Telling me how to vote prevents major judge intervention from me. Clash, compare, articulate, explain arguments and tell me how they relate to you winning the debate round. Arguments without warrants depreciate in value compared to arguments with warrants are appreciated.

Nothing frustrates me more when teams say their arguments but do not tell me how to evaluate them. If I cannot figure out what I am supposed to do with your argument at the end, I am pretty much going to ignore it or not evaluate it. It is pretty consuming to try to sort out a wad of arguments that have no value to them. It is equivalent as to you telling me that this shape is a rectangle, and you cannot tell me why it is a rectangle without the proof/work. Do not bank on me trying to figure out what you are trying to tell me if you do not provide judge instruction, otherwise your arguments get bogged down.

If a team reads an argument that is considered "trolling", you have every right to troll back at them.

It feels really ironic that teams who have "framing contentions" do not do any framing at all. Both AFF and NEG are at fault for just reading cards and not "framing" anything. The spamming of Util Outweighs or Deontology First does nothing to help me evaluate the round.

2) Theory:

Please just stop reading pre-written blocks in these debates. Do Line-by-Line as you would normally do on any other flow.

Conditionality is probably good. I have voted both ways when it comes down to conditionality. Impact calculus and counter-interpretation debating does matter. New AFFs justify condo and perf con.

Hiding ASPEC/Other Theory arguments is Cowardly. If you do it and go for it because the other team dropped it, I will probably still vote for you; but it will end being a low point win. The 2N will take the hit the most for hiding it. You have to read ASPEC/other theory arguments on it's OWN flow to avoid this consequence. Do you want to be known as the ASPEC hider? If I don't catch it on my flow because you hid it, YOU do not get to complain about me missing it. If I know you hid it, I might end up not flowing it. Don't care.

3) Framework:

In these debates, both in K AFF and K rounds, are often quite frustrating to resolve at the end of the day. To win Framework on either the AFF or NEG, you need to do impact calculus! Most debates tend to stagnate and never expand on their impacts.

The other thing that annoys me that teams do not do is explaining their interpretation of debate. Both sides just breeze through this when this actually matters to me a lot as to why you resolve your own offense and why they link to your own offense. Debating and refuting each other's interpretations matters a lot and gets you a lot farther in the debate.

Hey Jake, is Fairness an impact? Yes. I think Fairness is an internal impact that can produce a plethora of external impacts. Hence, I tend to think Fairness is more of an internal link. I prefer clash style impacts over fairness impacts, but fairness can be a powerful impact set up for a lot of framework offense if executed correctly. However, I am not the person debating, and if you make frame Fairness as an external on the flow, I will treat it as an impact on the flow. It is your job to implicate it. Yes, I have voted on Fairness being an impact in the past. Walter Payton SW, LFS MR, Peninsula LL, and UC Lab ES are a few teams that I have voted on fairness for.

I prefer the AFF to have a counter-interpretation most of the time than just going for the impact turn strategy. Counter-interpretations help me get a perspective as to what I should think about debate and how I should come to the conclusion about debate. Most teams fail to provide also any UQ framing about debate.

TVAs are a great tool. A lot of NEG teams fail to understand the purpose of a TVA. A TVA does not need to solve the AFF. If the NEG can prove there is a TVA that can resolve a lot of offense from the AFF, the NEG is in a good spot. The AFF's best shot at beating TVAs is proving how silly sometimes these TVAs are. I am also shocked how AFF teams just let the NEG get away with blatantly untopical TVAs. There are so many times where I am just shocked that I end up voting for a TVA that just sounds very UNTOPICAL under the NEG's definitions.

Switch Side Debate is an under utilized argument that helps with most NEG teams. AFF teams can easily combat this by stating an AFF key warrant, which goes back to my thoughts about the counter-interpretation always being present in the 2AR.

Limits DA is OP. I just find it the most persuasive reason to Fairness because in all honestly, debate would be broken if there is no limit.

Here are the following arguments I just find unpersuasive from both sides on Framework:

"They flipped NEG into a K AFF" - don't care, the 2N can lie all they want as to why they flipped neg. the 2N can say because my 2A is tired so we flipped NEG, and I am fine with it

"They flipped AFF with a K AFF, they are embracing competition" - don't care, same as above, the AFF can just lie and be like my 2N is tired so we flipped AFF

"The TVA does not Solve the AFF 100%" - no it does not have to, see the TVA section above

"You read 4+ offcase in the 1NC so you had ground" - 90% of the 1NC is hot garbage so it is not good ground

"We could only read T in the 1NC, so we have no ground" - have you tried at least reading the Cap K or the Heg/Cap Good DA?

"More People have quit debate because of K AFFs" - I do not think this is true, I think this is an unfalsifiable claim

"Perm Do their interpretation and our counter-interpretation" - You can't perm T, it is not an advocacy

4) Counterplans:

I am always down for a counterplan debate. I did find the NATO topic last year a bit annoying with the amount of process CPs that came out of it, so let's try to avoid it this year since there are decent non-process CPs on this topic. Counterplans should be both "textually and functionally" competitive is the immoveable standard that I will stake in counterplan debates.

Not only this forces better counterplans writing, but better permutation writing. Limited intrinsic perms really are go-to strategy against counterplans such as Consult NATO or the Lopez CP when they really have no intrinsic purpose to the topic. But a very good counterplan that destroys the intrinsic perm is very much a power move. I am easily persuaded that the "other issues" perm should be abolished since it limits out NEG ground a ton. Debating out words, phrases, and reasons behind it will go a long way. Should/Resolved debates are pretty meh, but they have stuck with me for a long time given my time debating against GBN and hearing Forslund's thoughts about counterplan competition theory.

Permutation Do Both seems lost in most process CP debates. I sometime think that you can just do both. That places the burden a lot of the NEG to really explain any inherent trade-off between doing the plan and the counterplan, especially with garbage internal net benefits.

Permutations are not advocacies and DO NOT have to be topical.

**Hot Take on Text-Only Counterplans: If the NEG team just reads a counterplan text in the 1NC and nothing else, the AFF can just say Perm Do Both and move on. Here's why: a) there is no claim of solvency established after the text. The Counterplan text explains what you are doing, not how it solves and b) you have not established the threshold of competition. Jimin Park and I had an interesting conversation about this.

5) Disadvantages:

Huge fan of disadvantages. However, this is a sliding scale. There are some DAs that are pretty heat, ie. Assurance DA on Alliances Topic, Econ DA on Health Insurance Topic, Russia Fill-In DA on Arms Sales topic. Then, there are some DAs that are absolute garbage, ie. Federalism DA on Education topic, DoD Trade-Off on the NATO topic.

Much prefer you focus on the link level of the DA. This is where a lot of DA debates are either won or lost. A lot of debaters really fail to explain or attack the link. I see the common tactic against DAs is just impact defense, when again link level debating helps. AFFs should link turn DAs when they have the opportunity. Straight turning stuff has become a lost art.

Politics DAs: Okay, I will admit these DAs are non-sensical. However, I love a good politics DA debate. It was my most common 2NR in high school. That being said, the politics DA is probably the hardest DA to both execute and answer. There are a ton of moving parts to it, that a lot of debaters end up getting lost in the sauce and just make this debate about who likes/hates the plan. Defenses of PC theory, UQ warrants, takes outs of the bill all have large implications on the DA. Winner's Win theory is a great debate to listen if the AFF decides to put offense against the DA. Rider DAs are bad (sorry Voss).

6) Critiques:

Framework for me dictates how I evaluate the round. Both teams should have a comprehensive interpretation of what debates should look like and how I should evaluate it. Both teams should also impact out why their model of debate is better than their opponents. This is where a lot of debates just fall flat. AFF team says fairness and clash. NEG team says that's capitalist/anti-black and that's it. Lack of impact calculus just frustrates me a lot. Why should I have to "weigh the plan" or "prefer representations first prior to weighing the plan". Bronx Science BD was the only team that really impacted out framework and provided a clear lane for judges to evaluate rounds.

I prefer if the critique had links about the plan/topic rather than representations of the AFF's impacts. That is a preference, not a mandate. A lot of good executions of the link debate utilize re-highlightings and implicating the reason for a link. AFF's can easily combat this by just defending their threats are real. I am pretty good for AFF teams that just that their impact is true OR their AFF is just a good idea.

Extinction is First is a default for me, unless there is another Utilitarian thought process that is presented and articulated well to me to think otherwise.

If you say the K is unconditional, and you kick the alt, you cheated!!!! If the NEG team does this, AFF call them out and it does not need to be much, but explain why what they did is bad! The K is not unconditional, the advocacy is. You kicking breaks the rules of uncondo. It is the same logic of a Process CP being uncondo, and then the team kicks the CP part and going for the internal net benefit. That is not how unconditionality works

7) Topicality:

I am probably not the best judge for topicality debates.

I will default to competing interpretations majority of the time.

What matters to me is counter-interpretation debating, and how you explain to me your view of the topic is better for debate. A lot debates end up messy for me to evaluate because there is no impacting out why limits outweighs ground or AFF ground better than NEG ground. I will always will try to figure out which topic is best for both the AFF and NEG.

Much prefer limits over ground, unless there is a clear linkage between the AFF's interpretation decking NEG ground.

8) Case Debating:

Love a good case debate. Both sides will profit well from a good case debate. Making smart internal link/solvency takes outs really provide the NEG a lot of leverage. If going for a counterplan, still having case defense to the advantage that you think the CP solves the least forces me to drop you twice as I have to decide the CP doesn’t solve AND that the case impact outweighs your net-benefit. That seems like a pretty good spot to be in for NEG since I can judge kick the CP and weigh the net benefit. What most high school debaters end up doing is just spamming impact defense. Much prefer internal link/solvency take outs.

Majority of the time, a lot of 1ACs are hyperinflated, illogical and run into a ton of problems. If you tell me you cannot find an illogical flaw in an internal link chain that says, "plan's biofuel research promotes ag research, ag research promotes GMOs, GMOs help solve food shortage in Ukraine, lack of food in Ukraine causes NATO intervention, NATO scares Russia, NATO-Russia war goes nuclear", I will be shocked.

9) Ethics Violations:

Clipping: a team misrepresents how much evidence they have read in a debate, such as improperly highlighting their evidence, “clipping cards” (the team says they read more than they actually did by clipping a card short of the indicated end), or “cross reading” (the team skips words or sentences in the middle of the text but indicates that they read all the highlighted words).

Any altering of the author's original text such as deleting/adding/re-arranging words/phrases/paragraphs is also deemed a fabrication of evidence. Proof of fraud is necessary.

Any ethics violation challenge, the other team must present evidence. Whoever wins the challenge gets the win and max speaker points. Whoever loses the challenge gets the lost and lowest speaker points possible (probably a 25).

Alyssa V Lucas-Bolin Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 16, 2024 at 10:51 AM CDT

Top shelf:

Pronouns are she/her

Just call me Alyssa or ALB - do not call me judge and dear debate Lord do not call me ma'am.

email chains: gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

questions etc: alucasbolin@glenbrook225.org. If you are a student from another school emailing me please copy an adult coach on the email (just a good safety norm.)

Director of Debate at GBS since 2019, and assistant coach at GBS for a year before that. Prior to that I had taken a few years off of debate but coached at Notre Dame, University of North Texas, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and USC. I only mention this because I've coached debate in a variety of geographical locations with a variety of different argument perspectives. I hope this information helps avoid you "pigeon-holling" me into a Glenbrooks cyborg or whatever the community perception is. If you do this anyway, you'll find yourself either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised at the end of the debate.

People always ask about my own debate career - the answer is "meh - not bad, not great." I was one of those debaters who qualified to the TOC (once) and the NDT (three times) but was in no way shape or form going to clear at either of those tournaments. This has made me a much better coach because I spend a ton of time thinking about how I can help my own debaters and the people I judge go from good to great. I try to always make sure it's about you and not about me, but I use my own experience to fuel my passion for the activity. Never in my Wildest Dreams (Lauren Ivey) would I kill it in my own debate career but I think I'm pretty okay at giving you feedback to help you kill it in yours.

Brownie points for having as many T Swift, cat, and/or Heartstopper references as possible. To be clear - the reward here is making me smile. I will not actually bump your speaker points or anything because I don't play that way.

Hot takes:

I love debate more than anything else in the world. If you show that YOU love debate more than anything else in the world that is going to go way way way farther than any preference of mine.

Favorite args in order of favoriteness (not so you make these args - just trying to give you a sense of me as a judge)

Politics DAs - I am still waiting for someone to do a one off strategy where it's just politics and the case. Be that person.
Well-executed case debate that features internal link and solvency presses in addition to impact D
Kritiks with SPECIFICITY TO THE AFF (either in analysis or evidence or - gasp - both)
Wonky debates about competition
Very weird impact turns, straight turns, etc

*I am not a great judge for condo - my teams go for it, I know I know, but it does not come from me. I'll vote on it - I just have a high threshold.

*I am a huge switch-side debate person - I really hate the community trend towards only reading arguments that fit in politically correct norms. If you have an evil argument Bring. It. On. I am personally progressive but that has absolutely nothing to do with how I judge debates. The obvious exception to this is attacking people's identity or safety. But if you're packing an absurd impact turn or read a politics da about a piece of legislation that is objectively terrible that you can prove is good, etc, I will be deeply amused.

*I literally have "2a" tattooed on my foot. 2ar terrorism is one of the most wonderful things in debate - make big bold choices if the foundation is there in the 1ar.

*My teams do everything - some are hard right policy teams and some are ... not that. I tend to think that debaters debate best when they find their own brand of debate and let their personalities shine through.

* No roboting through the round. Think. Make risky moves. Let's get weird.

*Style: Don’t be a jerk for the sake of it, but you shouldn’t feel pressure to be sugary sweet if you’re not - expectations of civility, politeness, etc tend to fall on noncis dudes and BIPOC disproportionately. Therefore a little attitude is fine with me. It’s a competition. I'm a woman who directs a major debate program and co-directs one of the biggest tournaments - I understand the need to be assertive and hold your ground.

*Clarity is very important to me. So is pen time.

*Technical debating, line by line, etc are important to me. If you flow off the doc I am not the judge for you.

*Zero risk is a thing. Love me some smart defensive arguments against silly arguments. GIVE JUDGE DIRECTION - challenge normal conceptions of risk.

*If you're making new args late in the debate you're likely to have to justify them to me. That doesn't mean don't do it, it just means defend your actions. THE 1AR IS NOT A CONSTRUCTIVE.

*You do you, but I find that I am slightly more confident in my judging if you include your analytics in the doc. I solemnly swear I am flowing by ear, but just being able to process information both visually and through listening helps my mental processing a bit.

*The one exception to the above is that if you read a new 1ac on paper I am 100% in favor - I truly enjoy watching people freak out when they have to deal with paper debate since I had the not-so-lovely experience of transitioning to paperless mid college debate career.

*EXPLAIN YOUR ACRONYMS - especially in a t debate.

Other random hot takes:

Wipeout - trash takes itself out every single time (me)

Impact turning Ks old school style - it's a love story, baby just say yes (me)

Baudrillard - I forgot that you existed (me)

No cp solvency advocate- now we've got bad blood (Aayan)

More than 6 or 7 off - You're On Your Own Kid (Aayan)

Things that are sexist/homophobic/racist etc - I Know Places where that is tolerated but I will not let rounds I judge be one of them (Aayan)

You must Speak Now (Lauren Ivey/me) in your own cross ex - like obvi tag teaming is sometimes fine but I hate when one partner does ALL of the cx in any given debate.

Heavy stuff:

*No touching.

*I am not the right judge for call outs of specific debate community members

*I am a mandatory reporter. Keep that in mind if you are reading any type of personal narrative etc in a debate. A mandatory reporter just means that if you tell me something about experiencing violence etc that I have to tell the authorities.

*I care about you and your debate but I am not your debate mommy. I am going to give you direct feedback after the debate. I won't be cruel but I'm also not a sugarcoater. It takes some people off guard because they may be expecting me to coddle them. It's just not my personality - I deeply care about your debate career and want you to do your best. I also am just very passionate about arguments. If you're feeling like I'm being a little intense just Shake It Off (Lauren Ivey.)

*Clipping = zero points and a hot L. Clarity to the point of non-comprehension that causes a clipping challenge constitutes clipping.

*I am more than fine with you post rounding as long as you keep it respectful. I would genuinely prefer you understand my decision than walk out frustrated because that doesn't help you win the next time. Bring it on (within reason). I'm back in the ring baby.

Let's have a throwdown!!! If you're reading this before a round I am excited to see what you have to offer. YAY DEBATE!!!

Cayden Mayer St. Paul Central 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 24, 2024 at 1:57 AM CDT

Central '19-'23

Currently coaching for Central

Hi! I’m Cayden, I use they/them pronouns, please use them! I’m generally quite a neutral judge however I think that making debate an inclusive and fun space outweighs all else.

I have bad hearing so please speak extra loud and if it’s online, make sure your mic is clear!

My email is cayd3nhock3y12@gmail.com, stpaulcentralcxdebate@gmail.com if there's an email chain I’d like to be on it for ease of everything. add

This note comes before anything in this paradigm and its at the top for a reason: Please just run whatever you feel best running. I would rather have you run something I’m generally not partial to well than something I like badly. The best debates come from people running what they know best, so do that!

MS/Nov notes-

What I said above about having fun in debates applies even more here, I coached MS and currently coach novice and truly just want it to be a positive experience for everyone involved!
Read a plan text! If you are going for a CP or K, read the CP text or alternative!
At the end of the day, my role in debate is to help you learn and grow, I am more than happy to answer any questions before or after the round, please feel free to email me if you think of questions after the tournament is over!!!

Some notes:

Pls no death good args in front of me. Also if your args have TW/CW let me know before the round starts please, not before the speech.

Judge Instruction-I think debate has lost a lot of what I think is one of the most important pieces which is the story of arguments. I am down for the tech level, but you are much more likely to get my vote with good judge instruction and consistently explaining the story of your args and how they shake out by the end of the round.

Spreading- Clarity comes first. I will be on the speech doc for the ease of things however I will not flow off the speech doc. If I cannot understand your tag, date, and author I will flow it as an analytic. I firmly believe that policy debate would be a far better activity without spreading, that isn’t to say I see no purpose in spreading, I absolutely understand it, but I do think it is bad for our education. If you are reading this and worried I won't be able to understand you, just slow down on your tags a little bit for me and we are good, I can flow you I pinky promise. I will also call clear three times for each person after that, if I can't understand you I won't flow it.

In round non debate stuff: I debated online for a year+ so trust me, I fully understand that “normal” policy debate ethos has gone out of the window, that being said, I would prefer if you do whatever you can so I can hear/understand you better as my hearing is not great. I also will not tolerate being explicitly rude in round. I was a very assertive debater myself so I’m not saying don’t be assertive, but don’t just be flat out rude, especially during cross. You will be getting your speaks docked. As stated earlier, debate should be fun and inclusive and I think that this is an important part of it.

Tech v Truth- Not gonna lie, unsure who is like a true truth>tech judge these days. I'm securely tech>truth, only spot that I think is a little bit closer towards truth is on bad IL chains on DAs. I also weigh arguments as new the first time they have a warrant, analytic or ev.

T- I am down for T however my standards on T impacts are higher than the avergae natcir and lower than localcir. I default to models but am also more likely to happily pull the trigger on in round abuse.

Ks- I ran Ks on both sides and love them over most policy arguments however I’m not going to try and claim to understand your complex literature I just have not read. If you are able to explain your K literature well to me I would love to see you run your K, however if you can’t, I’m not going to try and do the work for you. I also probably buy most no link args over bad link args BUT I do tend to give alt solvency a fair bit of leniency. I am down for you link you lose good or bad debates, down for most K args, not a fan of baudy or psycho but I'll judge em fairly I just won't be the happiest camper.

PTX DAs- I kinda hate them but I totally get that they are a very legit strat especially on the topic, but please be able to defend why PC is real.

CPs- Go for it. I ran a lot of these and see they have a place, that being said I’m also very open to hearing arguments against that. I think that on perm theory I’m pretty deadset neutral but I default to test of competition (idk any judges who don't anymore). I can also be convinced that X type of CPs are bad for debate if given good education and fairness arguments.

K Affs- I ran one, go crazy, love a good planless debate, love a good framework debate. Some of my favorite rounds have been performance style but also some of my least favorite have been bad K affs. I am probably not your best judge for a fairness bad round. Also, I have only ever heard one good death of debate argument and I think nearly all of the rest are not worth it in front of me.

FWK- I go through this first if its present and it will never be a "wash" for me. I default to a policy maker but also ran basically every fw under the sun so I am happy to be convinced otherwise. Please slow down on this once you get to the rebuttals and I love techy cross applications of other flows to fw.

Condo!- I go into each round deadset neutral on condo. I've seen teams win condo v a 1 off conditional advocacy and teams win v condo running 10+ conditional advocacies. I probably am truly deadset neutral on my own opinions around the 6 condo advocacies line, slightly more likely to vote aff once you hit the 10 off mark. All of this can be 100% changed by the round in front of me (obviously) just know these are the mental lines I think I have.

Theory in general- I am sad to say I feel like I need to add this because of Central. I will vote on most theory args, I defualt to condo good but that can be easily changed in round. I also think in round abuse args are always going to be the strongest but models of debate is fine too. At the end of the day though, just because I will vote on it doesn't make me happy to and your speaks will reflect that.

Also, unless the tournament rulebook specifies disclosure, please don't run disclosure theory in front of me, I believe that if you can win on disclosure theory, you can win on something else.

David McDermott Glenbrook South High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 24, 2024 at 2:31 PM EDT

please add to the email chain:

gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

djmcdermott2@gmail.com

HS Debate: 18-22 (4 years) -- Walter Payton WM

College Debate: 23 (1 year) -- Michigan MS

Top

Judging record is more informative than judging opinions.

How I Decide Rounds

I go through parts of the debate in this order, and stop at one if it is sufficient for me to not need to go further.

1. The flow.

This aspect is all tech, no truth. As far as I can tell, I am easily among the most tech-oriented debaters/judges in debate right now. I imagine I'd pull the trigger on a small technical concession much more readily than many other judges. Similarly, I think there are probably far more low point wins than are actually given out. The flow is where my analysis will end for almost all crushes and many debates that are semi-close but not that that close. I have switched to flowing on computer because back-to-back analytics were unflowable for me on paper. I still have no qualms voting you down on an argument I didn't flow in a speech because you were spreading through blocks even if it truly had been there, but hopefully flowing on computer will make this less of an issue.

2. Evidence

Mixture of tech and truth (truer args have better ev, but better card cutters/researchers will put out better ev). I get to this level of analysis in two circumstances: either a) I'm told to read cards or evidence quality is centered in the debate or b) despite not being told to read ev, the flow is too close to vote on alone. This is where most good, close debates will end.

3. Minor Intervention

Tech guided by truth. If I still can't comfortably decide a round based on ev and flow, I'll do things like give more weight to evidence quality despite not being told to by the debaters, look for potential cross-apps, or try to find something like that to decide a round without having to fully insert my opinion. This is where most bad debates without enough judge instruction will end.

4. Major Intervention

All truth. This is where bad debates with no clash and no judge instruction will end.

Biases

I hope to use the above steps consistently irregardless of what args are in front of me, and I think judges who are ideologically predisposed for or against a certain argument or style are annoying. I hope these biases won't affect my decisions, but the way someone has debated/coached will inevitably affect their judging in some way, so following is a list of biases based on how I've debated:

1. Policy bias. I'm almost certainly better for the K than you think (especially Ks on the NEG), and certainly better for it than my debating record would suggest; cross-apply all the tech first stuff here -- more than happy to vote on some small conceded disad to a NEG framework model if competently extended. This bias is mainly limited to thinking about these debates differently from how primarily K debaters would since I've almost always been on the policy side of policy v K debates.

2. 2N bias. This is small and to be honest could help the AFF more than it helps the NEG because I'm somewhat lenient for 1ARs in terms of if I count an extension to be an argument. I think structural AFF side bias (first and last speech) is probably true in theory but tech determines if I think that's true when judging. Overall I don't expect this to affect my judging very much. Probably one of the most 50/50 judges on condo. Default to judge kick.

3. "Small School" bias. For the most part I think people complaining about being from a "small school" would be better off spending the time they spend talking about it cutting cards, and if you do that you'll be just as competitive as your peer from a big school. However, the one area where I think there is truly a difference in schools is that I think a sizeable majority of judges are likely to (obviously subconsciously) factor school's/team's rep into their decision in close debates. I hate this and have a bit of a chip on my shoulder because of it. If debate rounds could be judged blindly I'd be all for it. I obviously won't hack for "small schools" or against "big schools," but when I was doing prefs late in my career I frequently wondered if a judge who would be good for me in most debates might be bad for me in those few key debates where I was hitting a team with more rep. I am not one of those judges.

4. Good argument bias. This is maybe too obvious to warrant saying. I'll vote on tricks and dropped ASPEC or whatever (all the flow first stuff applies for annoying args as well) but obviously in a close debate find it easier to vote for an argument with good ev, deep defenses, well-explained warrants, etc., and will likely award higher speaks in those kinds of debates.

Stuff I Frequently Wondered About Judges

-- What framework impact? --

I almost always went for fairness and consider it the most strategic, however I know I was considerably worse going for non-fairness impacts when I tried to adapt to judges, so I would just do whatever you like best.

-- Can I go for the K/K AFF? --

Yes.

-- How many condo? --

Don't care. If you lose condo you'll lose and if you win condo you'll win, the amount you read probably won't end up mattering past a good 2A contextualizing their interp to the round.

-- Do advantage counterplans need solvency advocates? --

Don't care.

-- 1NC construction/do they care about a ton of off? --

Don't care. Do whatever.

-- Insert rehighlightings? --

Fine.

-- Plan text in a vacuum? --

Fine.

-- Is going for theory hopeless? --

No.

-- If they drop condo or aspec or it's a crush etc do I have to fill the whole 2NR/2AR? --

No.

Speaks

Mean speaks is 28.5, standard deviation is .4, so two-thirds of debaters will be from 28.1-28.9, 95% will be from 27.7 to 29.3, and essentially all will be from 27.3 to 29.7.

Chad Meadows Hire 7 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 2:52 PM CDT

Chad Meadows (he/him)

chadwickmeadows@gmail.com

If you have interest in college debate, and would be interested in hearing about very expansive scholarship opportunities please contact me. Our program competes in two policy formats and travels to at least 4 tournaments a semester. Most of our nationally competitive students have close to zero cost of attendance because of debate specific financial support.

Debate Experience

College: I’ve been the head argument coach and/or Director of Debate for Western Kentucky University for a little over a decade. WKU primarily competes in NFA-LD, a shorter policy format. This season (2023) we are adding CEDA/NDT tournaments to our schedule.

High School: I’ve been an Assistant Coach, and primarily judge, for the Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia for several years. In this capacity I’ve judged at high school tournaments in both Policy Debate and Public Forum.

Argument Experience/Preferences

I feel comfortable evaluating the range of debates in modern policy debate (no plan affirmatives, policy, and kritik) though I am the most confident in policy rounds. My research interests tend toward more political science/international affairs/economics, though I’ve become well read in some critical areas in tandem with my students’ interests (anti-blackness/afropessimism in particular) in addition I have some cursory knowledge of the standard kritik arguments in debate, but no one would mistake me for a philosophy enthusiast. On the nuclear weapons topic, almost all of my research has been on the policy side.

I have few preferences with regard to content, but view some argumentative trends with skepticism: Counterplans that result in the plan (consult and many process counterplans), Agent counterplans, voting negative any procedural concern that isn’t topicality, reject the team counterplan theory that isn’t conditionality, some versions of politics DAs that rely on defining the process of fiat, arguments that rely on voting against the representations of the affirmative without voting against the result of the plan.

I feel very uncomfortable evaluating events that have happened outside of the debate round, especially in the CEDA/NDT community where I have limited knowledge of the context regarding community trends.

I have little experience evaluating debates with some strategies that would only be acceptable in a 2-person policy debate context - 2ac add-ons, 2nc counterplanning, 2ac intrinsicness tests on DA, etc. I’m not opposed to these strategies, and understand their strategic purpose, but I have limited exposure.

Decision Process

I tend to read more cards following the debate than most. That’s both because I’m curious, and I tend to find that debaters are informing their discussion given the evidence cited in the round, and I understand their arguments better having read the cards myself.

I give less credibility to arguments that appear unsupported by academic literature, even if the in round execution on those arguments is solid. I certainly support creativity and am open to a wide variety of arguments, but my natural disposition sides with excellent debate on arguments that are well represented in the topic literature.

To decide challenging debates I generally use two strategies: 1) write a decision for both sides and determine which reflects the in-round debating as opposed to my own intuition, and 2) list the relevant meta-issues in the round (realism vs liberal internationalism, debate is a game vs. debate should spill out, etc.) and list the supporting arguments each side highlighted for each argument and attempt to make sense of who debated the best on the issues that appear to matter most for resolving the decision.

I try to explain why I sided with the winner on each important issue, and go through each argument extended in the final rebuttal for the losing team and explain why I wasn’t persuaded by that argument.

Public Forum

Baseline expectations: introduce evidence using directly quoted sections of articles not paraphrasing, disclose arguments you plan to read in debates.

Argument preferences: no hard and fast rules, but I prefer debates that most closely resemble the academic and professional controversy posed by the topic. Debate about debate, while important in many contexts, is not the argument I'm most interested in adjudicating.

Style preferences: Argumentation not speaking style will make up the bulk of my decision making and feedback, my reflections on debate are informed by detailed note taking of the speeches, speeches should focus their time on clashing with their opponents' arguments.

tom mickelson St. Paul Central 4 rounds

Henry Mitchell Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Brendon Morris Lexington HS 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 2:19 AM EDT

Hey, please add me to the email chain crownmonthly@gmail.com.If you really don't want to read this I'm tech > truth, Warranted Card Extension > Card Spam and really only dislike hearing meme arguments which are not intended to win the round.

PF and LD specific stuff at the bottom. All the argument specific stuff still applies to both activities.

How to win in front of me:
Explain to me why I should vote for you and don't make me do work. I've noticed that I take "the path of least resistance" when voting; this means 9/10 I will make the decision that requires no work from me. You can do this by signposting and roadmapping so that my flow stays as clean as possible. You can also do this by actually flowing the other team and not just their speech doc. Too often debaters will scream for 5 minutes about a dropped perm when the other team answered it with analytics and those were not flown. Please don't be this team.

Online Debate Update

If you know you have connection/tech problems, then please record your speeches so that if you disconnect or experience poor internet the speech does not need to be stopped. Also please go a bit slower than your max speed on analytics because between mic quality and internet quality it can be tough to hear+flow everything if you go the same speed as cards on analytics.

Argumentation...

Theory/Topicality:

By default theory and topicality are voters and come aprior unless there is no offense on the flow. Should be clear what the interpretation, violation, voter, and impact are. I generally love theory debates but like with any judge you have to dedicate the time into it if you would like to win. Lastly you don't need to prove in round abuse to win but it REALLY helps and you probably won't win unless you can do this.

Framework:

I feel framework should be argued in almost any debate as I will not do work for a team. Unless the debate is policy aff v da+cp then you should probably be reading framework. I default to utilitarianism and will view myself as a policy maker unless told otherwise. This is not to say I lean toward these arguments (in fact I think util is weak and policy maker framing is weaker than that) but unless I explicitly hear "interpretation", "role of the judge", or "role of the ballot," I have to default to something. Now here I would like to note that Theory, Topicality, and Framework all interact with each other and you as the debater should see these interactions and use them to win. Please view these flows wholistically.

DA/CP:

I am comfortable voting on these as I believe every judge is but I beg you (unless it's a politics debate) please do not just read more cards but explain why you're authors disprove thier's. Not much else to say here besides impact calc please.

I am a philosophy and political science major graduate so please read whatever you would like as far as literature goes; I have probably read it or debated it at some point so seriously don't be afraid. Now my openness also leaves you with a burden of really understanding the argument you are reading. Please leave the cards and explain the thought process, while I have voted on poorly run K's before those teams never do get high speaker points.

K Affs:

Look above for maybe a bit more, but I will always be open to voting and have voted on K affs of all kinds. I tend to think the neg has a difficult time winning policy framework against K affs for two reasons; first they debate framework/topicality most every round and will be better versed, and second framework/topicality tends to get turned rather heavily and costs teams rounds. With that said I have voted on framework/topicality it just tends to be the only argument the neg goes for in these cases.

Perms:

Perms are a test of competition unless I am told otherwise and 3+ perms is probably abusive but that's for theory.

Judge Intervention:

So I will only intervene if the 2AR makes new arguments I will ignore them as there is no 3NR. Ethics and evidence violations should be handled by tab or tournament procedures.

Speaks:

What gets you good speaks:
- Making it easier for me to flow
- Demonstrate that you are flowing by ear and not off the doc.
- Making things interesting
- Clear spreading
- Productive CX

What hurts your speaks:
- Wasting CX, Speech or Prep Time
- Showing up later than check-in time (I would even vote on a well run theory argument - timeless is important)
- Being really boring
- Being rude

PF Specific

I am much more lenient about dropped arguments than in any other form of debate. Rebuttals should acknowledge each link chain if they want to have answers in the summary. By the end of summary no new arguments should made. 1st and 2nd crossfire are binding speeches, but grand crossfire cannot be used to make new arguments. *these are just my defaults and in round you can argue to have me evaluate differently
If you want me to vote on theory I need a Voting Issue and Impact - also probably best you spend the full of Final Focus on it.
Make clear in final focus which authors have made the arguments you expect me to vote on - not necessary, but will help you win more rounds in front of me.
In out-rounds where you have me and 2 lay judges on the panel I understand you will adapt down. To still be able to judge fairly I will resolve disputes still being had in final focus and assume impacts exist even where there are only internal links if both teams are debating like the impacts exist.
Please share all evidence you plan to read in a speech with me your opponents before you give the speech. I understand it is not the norm in PF, but teams who do this will receive bonus speaker points from me for reading this far and making my life easier.

LD Specific

2AR should extend anything from the 1AR that they want me to vote on. I will try and make decisions using only the content extended into or made in the NR and 2AR.
Don't just read theory because you think I want to hear it. Do read theory because your opponent has done or could do something that triggers in round abuse.
Dropped arguments are true arguments, but my flow dictates what true means for my ballot - say things more than once if you think they could win/lose you the round if they are not flown.

Quick Bio

I did 3 years of policy debate in the RI Urban Debate League. Been judging since 2014. As a debater I typically ran policy affs and went for K's on the neg (Cap and Nietzsche mostly) but I also really enjoyed splitting the block CP/DA for the 2NC and K/Case for the 1NR. Despite all of this I had to have gone for theory in 40% of my rounds, mostly condo bad.

Matt Munday Westminster 2 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 26, 2024 at 5:15 PM EDT

Please add me to the email chain: mwmunday@gmail.com

Affiliations and History

Director of Debate at Westminster. Debated in college between 2008 and 2012. Actively coaching high school debate since 2008.

Debate Views

I am not the kind of judge who will read every card at the end of the debate. Claims that are highly contested, evidence that is flagged, and other important considerations will of course get my attention. Debaters should do the debating. Quality evidence is still important though. If the opposing team's cards are garbage, it is your responsibility to let that be known. Before reading my preferences about certain arguments, keep in mind that it is in your best interest to do what you do best. My thoughts on arguments are general predispositions and not necessarily absolute.

T – Topicality is important. The affirmative should have a relationship to the topic. How one goes about defending the topic is somewhat open to interpretation. However, my predisposition still leans towards the thought that engaging the topic is a good and productive end. I find myself in Framework debates being persuaded by the team that best articulates why their limit on the topic allows for a season's worth of debate with competitively equitable outcomes for both the aff and the neg.

Disads/Case Debate – While offense is necessary, defense is frequently undervalued. I am willing to assign 0% risk to something if a sufficient defensive argument is made.

Counterplans – Conditionality is generally fine. Functional competition seems more relevant than textual competition. If the affirmative is asked about the specific agent of their plan, they should answer the question. I increasingly think the affirmative allows the negative to get away with questionable uses of negative fiat. Actual solvency advocates and counterplan mechanisms that pass the rational policy option assumption matter to me.

Kritiks – I teach history and economics and I studied public policy and political economy during my doctoral education. This background inherently influences my filter for evaluating K debates. Nonetheless, I do think these are strategic arguments. I evaluate framework in these debates as a sequencing question regarding my resolution of impact claims. Effective permutation debating by the aff is an undervalued strategy.

Theory – A quality theory argument should have a developed warrant/impact. “Reject the argument, not the team” resolves most theory arguments except for conditionality. Clarity benefits both teams when engaging in the substance of theory debates.

Speaker Points

(Scale - Adjective - Description)

29.6-30 - The Best - Everything you could ask for as a judge and more. (Top 5 speaker award)

29-29.5 - Very, Very good - Did everything you could expect as a judge very, very well.

28.6-28.9 - Very Good - Did very well as a whole, couple moments of brilliance, but not brilliant throughout.

28.3-28.5 - Good - Better than average. Did most things well. Couple moments of brilliance combined with errors.

28-28.2 - OK - Basic skills, abilities, and expectations met. But, some errors along the way. Very little to separate themselves from others. Clearly prepared, just not clearly ahead of others.

Below 28 - OK, but major errors - Tried hard, but lack some basic skills or didn’t pay close enough attention.

Teddy Munson Hire 7 rounds

Kat Northrop Baltimore City College 4 rounds

Kate Nozal Highland Park HS 4 rounds

Reece Peters Eagan High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 8, 2024 at 9:43 AM CDT

Judging Paradigm:

Reece Peters (he/him)

Email:

reecepeters1@gmail.com

Experience:

I debated at Eagan High School for four years, three of which being on the Policy Debate team. I've also debated Public Forum and Big Questions. Although not debating there, I'm a college graduate from the University of Washington with a varied range of interests including Philosophy, Mathematics, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Political Science.

I've been a debate coach at Eagan High School for the better part of the last two years and have around three years of formal policy debate judging experience across all range of skill levels.

Tag Team:

Yes, it's fine but be respectful of your partner. Speaks will suffer if you are the only one talking.

Default Philosophy:

I default to the principle that debate is a game meant to improve the education and public speaking of its participants, but I am open to a wide variety of differing interpretations of the activity. Without the presence of super-ceding frameworks, I default to a humanitarian-utilitarian policy maker.

I will not make arguments for you that aren't on the flow. If you want me to think something, you have to say it in round- "tech over truth."

Argument Preferences:

No specific argument by default will be rejected by me. If you can argue it, I want to hear it.

Topicality- Topicality is certainly a stock issue, but it's up the neg to show why a non-topical aff is bad (even if the violation is blatant or conceded.) This is still true in the context of K affs which don't defend a topical advocacy- however- if a sufficient enough job is done, I do tend to err neg in these rounds.

K- Though I have a modest background in cutting, running, and judging Kritiks, I've never had the greatest relationship with hyper dense or esoteric K-theory (Think Deleuze-esque). If you are going to run these types of arguments, be prepared to give clear and compelling rebuttals which tell the story of the K.

Theory- I have a really hard time voting for a theory position that doesn't take at least a significant portion of the last two speeches (significant determined by the context of the round). In round abuse is key for the most convincing ballots.

Condo- I like condo bad arguments more than most judges, but don't expect reasoning which boils down to "I'm overwhelmed" to secure the win.

Performance- no issue with it!

Presentation Preferences:

Speed is totally fine with me, but I find my ability to flow comes best when it is clear. I love it when tags are slowed down, and analytics especially need a clearer (often slower) explanation compared to card text. Even card text should be slowed down if you want me to note a specific internal warrant.

In general, abide by the rule that if you want me to pay specific attention to something, or vote on something later in the round, you're going to win more if you emphasize it.

In the same vein, I hate purposefully obfuscated arguments for the purposes of confusing the other team. To get a gist of my brightline, removing position names in the doc is fine -- changing position names to be less standard is iffy -- answering clarifying cross-ex questions with purposefully confusing jargon or tautologies, is not (and yes, I notice.) That's all to say- don't read hidden A-spec in front of me.

Quick life hack: looking at me while giving your speech will give you a ton of information about how it's being received (am I thinking, flowing, nodding, confused-looking, typing, time-concerned etc.) This can be utilized to your advantage as I am quite expressive.

Behavior Preferences:

If I were to emphasize any of these categories the most, it would be this one. Please please please make the debate space an inclusive, empathetic, and (dare I say) fun activity for all participants. Belittling, mocking, or name-calling your opposition is not an effective rhetorical tactic, and you'll often find it has the opposite effect on the round results.

Maddie Pieropan Berkeley Preparatory School 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 8, 2024 at 8:05 AM CDT

Maddie or Mads, not "judge"

any pronouns

maddiepieropandebate@gmail.com

Background/Affiliations: BVSW 2020, current KU debater; Coaching at the Berkeley preparatory school

TLDR: Do your thing, so long as you enjoy the thing you do. My favorite debates to watch are between debaters who demonstrate a nuanced understanding of their literature bases and seem to enjoy the scholarship they choose to engage in. Research should be a fun tool for you to explore new and interesting concepts, and debating is the manifestation of your process and progress in exploring new literature bases. The below paradigm is extremely long and in-depth--since I am largely in the back of clash debates, I feel the need to explain exactly how I decide debates so as to avoid confusion. I judge a ton of debates and I think judging is a privilege.

Prep Notes:

(1) I am very close to adopting Tim Ellis' prep practices. I've seen a major increase in people taking way too much time in between prep, CX, sending docs, etc---I will try and be as sympathetic as I can, but my patience is growing thin.

(2) "marked copy" does not mean "remove the cards you didn't read." you do not have to do that, and you should not ask your opponents to do that. If you must, that's prep (note: prep and not cx time). This is majorly pissing me off recently. (special thank you to holland bald for the wording)

Clipping: If an ethics challenge is forwarded, the debate will end and I will determine its validity with a loss and lowest speaks. If an ethics challenge is not forwarded but I believe clipping happened anyway, I will also give a loss and lowest speaks, but allow the debate to continue. Clipping includes being unreasonably unclear while spreading the text of a piece of evidence--I am willing to clear you three times before doing this.

Most important:

First --- I think most people would characterize me as a “clash” judge, which I’m okay with. I’m down for a good policy throwdown, but I’m best in terms of feedback for K v Policy, Framework, and K v K debates (and they’re the debates I enjoy judging the most). My voting record is pretty even.

Second --- I very passionately situate myself as an educator in debate. What I mean is I place quite a bit of value on my role as an educator, not in how I decide debates necessarily, but rather how I give decisions. I have previously held that I will put in as much effort into judging you as you do debating, but I have since realized that I tend to put in maximum effort into judging debates and give substantive feedback. I flow debates very carefully and care deeply about the post-round commentary and feedback I give, so be prepared for the RFD rants I have grown to enjoy.

Given that, I think the pedagogical value of this activity is tremendous and believe it should be acknowledged as such. If I deem that you have engaged in a practice that harms the community (read: don’t be racist, transphobic, misogynistic, or otherwise), I will not hesitate to dock your speaks, contact tournament directors and/or coaches, or simply end the round early as I deem necessary.

Third (this is important) --- Because I think debate is necessarily educational, I encourage debaters to be intentional in making arguments. Including arguments for the sake of including them is asinine and largely frustrating.

T-USFG/Framework

Things that matter to me:

1. Competing interpretations are more important to me than most others. This isn't true of all kritikal AFFs, but if the AFF is a critique of research practices, pedagogy, or orientations towards either, I am generally of the opinion that your angle vs framework should be one that posits a new model of engaging the activity/research that resolves your offense. The threshold to win an impact turn vs framework when reading an AFF about research practices tends to be difficult because it requires winning a threshold of contingent solvency that I don't think is usually achievable, or at the very least are typically poorly explained.

2. Both teams should identify what 2AC offense is intrinsic to the AFF vs the C/I, there are plenty of debates I watch in which the 2AR goes for a C/I that doesn't solve their impact turn to T, which is not persuasive. Negative teams should be taking advantage of poorly written C/I's.

3. Debate can certainly be characterized as a game, but I think it is better described as a competitive research activity--intuitively, debate is not yahtzee. Debate is a game is impact framing, not an impact.

4. Internal links matter more to me than others and I find this portion of the debate regularly is underdebated. That said, internal links and impacts are not interchangeable, your 2NR explanation should reflect that.

5. I have found myself giving many RFDs this year that are extremely frustrating because 2NR's and 2AR's alike are refusing to go for both offense and defense. Both teams need to extend an impact, do impact calcand impact comparison, and resolve residual pieces of offense with existing defense. If you do this, my life will be easier and your speaker points will be higher.

On the negative ---

----Clash is very persuasive – particularly:

1. Predictability > other internal links alone: Predictable clash is good and guided by resolutional wording. We rely on the resolution as a pre-season and pre-tournament research guide that allows us to determine what is and is not included in research areas under the resolution.

2. Contextualize it to the topic. Why is clash over the resolution good—what pedagogical, transformative, or reflexive potential does it have? I prefer these defenses of research to be personalized and about debate as opposed to spill-up arguments about enacting change – i.e. how does clash over the resolution change the ways we engage with the controversy surrounding the resolution rhetorically, educationally, and politically. These don't necessarily have to be "NATO good" but "studying NATO good" or something.

3. Turns case arguments are your friend, especially against AFFs that criticize debates research. Comparative internal link debating and impact calc are super important here --- contextualizing clash as a pre-requisite to actualizing the telos of the AFF, i.e. the epistemic shift the 1AC attempts to resolve.

----Fairness:

1. Good for this now. That being said, I often am hearing 2NR fairness explanations that end up being roundabout ways to get to a clash terminal, if this is the way you explain fairness, you would be better suited to simply go for clash in front of me.

2. Even when going for fairness, you need to answer AFF offense against your model of debate/content of research you mandate. Saying “debate is a game” and T is a “procedural question” doesn’t mean you are shielded from AFF offense against the content/research produced as a consequence of “fairness”

3. Its an impact, but one that is typically poorly explained.

TVA/SSD: My apparent “hot take” is that I think there are few scenarios in which it is strategic and beneficial to include both a topical version of the AFF and switch side in the 2NR. Usually, there is a blatant reason why either one solves the AFF, and you should pick that in the 2NR. The TVA and switch side are not ‘you drop it you lose,’ but impact defense, use it that way, and flag which piece of offense you think it is responsive against.

On the affirmative---

1AC Construction:

1. Be intentional: I want to emphasize this for those who read kritikal affirmatives. The 1AC should be a complete and cohesive argument in some capacity, I am not particular about the form through which this is conveyed (i.e. performance or scholarship or both), but I think many kritikal affirmatives lack an argumentative telos that is largely frustrating. The AFF should not be an 8 minute framework pre-empt, just as you should avoid including evidence that is not useful to you as offense. (this is a similar frustration to that I hold of policy AFF’s with K-pre empts and framing contentions)

2. You don’t need an advocacy statement, but if you do not have one, I should know what your argument is prior to CX of the 1AC.

C/I:

1. Prior to writing the AFF, you should decide if your angle vs fwk relies on offense that is intrinsic to the speech act of the 1AC or your counter-interpretation as a model of debate/research. You should make this distinction clear in the 2AC and establishes a threshold of what solvency mechanisms you have to win in order to access your framework offense.

2. Contextualize the C/I to the 1NC’s offense, anything the C/I doesn’t solve you should impact turn.

Misc:

I appreciate those who show me that they understand the academic context of the 1AC beyond the evidence included --- that includes history, examples, references to authors, etc.
If you are reading from a literature base from which you are unfamiliar with,I will know and I won't be happy. I do not care if you have skimmed the cards, if you cannot answer questions that your literature base has foundational answers to, I will be reluctant to give you speaks higher than 28.5
1AR/2AR consistency is important --- you should be using similar language to explain your offense
Please defend things. Stop trying to avoid talking about the AFF, if you’ve read your lit base and are confident in your level of explanation, I don’t see a reason why you should be responding to every 1AC CX question with a variation of “we don’t do that,” especially when you clearly do.
ROB/ROJ arguments are very helpful for 2AR packaging and framing, you should use them
2-3 well developed, carded DA’s to FW > shotgunning 8 DA’s that say the same thing
2AR impact turn strategies need defense

Policy v K:

Misc:

1. I usually think AFFs get to weigh consequences/impacts, but you get links to discourse/rhetoric/scholarship, this is easily changed with good framework debating.

2. Framework probably matters to me a lot more than most. I think about debate a lot through its mechanics, not necessarily only through its content. I start here in most debates, unless told otherwise.

On the neg:

----The 2NR should always extend framework as a framing argument for how I evaluate consequences, otherwise you’ll likely take the L to a 2AR that moralizes about extinction. Explain what winning the framework means in context of the permutation/evaluating link arguments, I need contextualization and instruction of what you think framework does for you.

----You don’t need to extend 10 trillion link arguments, 1-2 is fine, impact them out and include link alone turns case arguments and specific contextualizations to the AFF---1AC lines or references to AFF speeches are rewarded.

----If you’re not going to the case debate, tell me why it doesn’t matter - I have been voting on extinction outweighsa lot recently

----I don’t think you need an alternative, but you do need to either win framework or links should have external offense and you should have substantial case defense

----Theories of power/structural claims mean nothing in a vacuum – you have to apply them where they matter and tell me what it means to win your theory of power

----I judge a lot of these debates and find that so many 2NR's overstretch themselves here. The 2NR should not be a condensed version of the 2NC, rather, you should make strategic decisions about whether to go for an alternative OR framework heavy strategy depending on the 1AR's decision

On the AFF:

----Like I said, framework matters a lot more to me, and you should use it to your advantage. The most persuasive way to articulate FW on the AFF in front of me is in the context of competition. Most framework debates devolve into weighing the AFF vs not weighing the AFF, which is always messy. Instead, contextualize your offense to how competition gets established and how that implicates link generation/alt solvency.

----The 2AC permutation explanation should contextualize the permutation to all of the links, explaining how you resolve it

----“Extinction outweighs” is not a defense of extinction rhetoric. You have to defend your research/scholarship by defending its academic/pedagogical value, because most of the time they are not critiquing securitization/extinction rhetoric in a vacuum, but rather the aff’s use of extinction rhetoric in an academic space for whatever reason.

----Asserting that something is a link of omission does not a link of omission make, this 2AC line is often a cop out for answering link arguments.

----Your FWK interpretation shouldn’t be “you don’t get K’s,” I’m far more persuaded by predictable clash style arguments like I explained above. That said, I think predictability and competition based framework offense is incredibly persuasive if you explain why it matters. Framework should always be in the 2AR, competition based offense makes winning a permutation a lot easier as well.

----If the K makes a structural claim or theory of power, you should read defense to it but also offer an alternate theory that explains [the thing]

----I’m not a fan of the 1AC structure that’s like [4 card advantage] [17 K pre-empts], nor am I a fan of the 2AC card dump vs 1 off strategies --- you should be thinking about how your aff interacts with the K and contextualizing 1AC evidence/scholarship vs the K

----I have judged a few debates now where the 2AC reads a link turn and an impact turn to the K. Please refrain from double-turning yourself.

K v K:

----If you have an advocacy statement, I generally agree that you get permutations, but I can be convinced otherwise

----I will be very impressed if you exemplify knowledge of how your literature base interacts with the other literature base your debating, most of the time scholars engage with one another by name and discuss their theories co-constitutively, and if you have read those theorizations and can explain them well I will be very happy.

----Comparative debating about structural claims/theories of power is really important here

Separate note about settler colonialism because I find myself in the back of these debates often:

----I agree almost whole-heartedly with Josh Michael’s paradigm here

----I have found that some people attempt to overadapt and go for settler colonialism in front of me, for whatever reason. If you aren’t familiar with the literature base and read this just for the sake of it, don't. That said, if this is a literature base that you are wanting to become more familiar with, I am more than willing to offer feedback, resources, and any other advice that might be helpful for you to continue exploring!

----I usually think that settler colonialism debates should be one-off debates, most importantly because I feel that it’s difficult to make a well-developed settler colonialism shell that is 3 cards

----GBTL/Material Decol > everything else

----Paperson doesn’t say legalism good.

----“Ontology framing bad” doesn’t disprove the structural claim of settler colonialism.

----You should be reading indigenous scholars. Geez.

In the unlikely event that you find yourself in a policy throwdown with me in the back:

Theory

----SLOW DOWN – I need to catch interps

----neg leaning, dispo is the only thing that solves your offense.

----Random procedurals are a waste of time and ruin speaks.

CP’s

----like these debates. good for PICS, bad for process. Competition debates that depend on legal intricacies are difficult for me to decide.

----Solvency deficits need impacts

----default judge kick

----stop getting to internal net benefits with 30 seconds left in the block.

DA’s

----the more specific your link ev is the better.

----turns case matters more to me than others, i think. tiebreaker in close debates will usually come down to this for me.

----I judge too many debates where the 2NR just doesn't extend an internal link, do that.

----fine for most t debates, bad for t debates that are particularly couched in legal distinctions.

----precision and predictability > debatability

----have judged a few of these debates recently that came down to insufficient violation ev---making this part of the debate clear to me makes deciding the rest of the debate a lot more clear.

Closing rants and pet peeves:

----Don’t use language/jargon that isn’t found in your literature base. Academic diction isn’t something you can mix and match to apply to your argument unless the evidence you're reading uses that particular language. If your evidence doesn’t use “communities of care,” “ontology,” or “social death,” don’t describe things as that.

----“Lengthy” overviews are the bane of my existence. I cannot remember the last time I gave a K 2NC with an overview, everything you do there can be done on the line by line. When I say lengthy I mean literally anything more than 25 seconds.

----I'll doc your speaks by .2 if you give a stand-up 1AR.

----(ONLINE SPECIFIC) Be respectful of everyone’s time. I am sympathetic to tech issues, but please make sure you aren’t having to send 3 different documents because you forgot to hit reply all, someone isn’t on the email chain, or you attached the wrong document.

----I hate the CX line of questioning that's like "if we win x,y,z does that mean we win the debate?" most of the time you're just asking "if we win the debate do we win the debate" and it gets you nowhere

----If you seem like you’re genuinely enjoying the activity, being respectful, and not taking things too seriously, chances are I’ll reward you with high speaks. My favorite debates to judge are those in which debaters are having fun!

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll try and respond as soon as I can!

Gregory Quick Eagan High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Sat May 4, 2024 at 1:56 PM CDT

Gregory Quick: ggquick@gmail.com | He/They

TLDR:Debate should be about having fun and learning. Debate what you want but nothing matters to me until you explain why it should.

Round Framing:

"My ideal round is one where both teams are cordial and having fun. I think too often we attach our self-worth to the activity. My favorite thing about debate is the people I've met along the way. I hope that the trophies and placements at the end of the tournaments don't hurt our ability to appreciate the genius of ourselves and the people next to us. If any part of my paradigm limits your ability to enjoy the round, please let me know." - Melekh Akintola

My Weird Judge Things:

Tag Team Cross Ex means you have to tag your teammate in. I think it increases camaraderie and decreases teammates fighting for speaking in CX. To not do this will subtract -.5 pts from both teammate's scores.
Both teams can agree to do a 'Challenge Round' where I will not backfill using the documents to fill in holes in your speech and depend entirely on your clarity of communication to flow. Both teams will receive a +1 pts to their scores for doing this.
If you ask for a marked copy of the opponent's speech before CX, and DO NOT reference it throughout the rest of the debate I will be sad. This should not discourage you from asking, but instead I hope it forces you to consider what they didn't read. You should make it obvious why what they didn't read mattered, and prevent them from getting away with reading ~1/3 of the words. Sometimes it won't matter, sometimes it will. If you attempt to explain I won't decrease speaks, but if no attempt is made I will hit you with a -.2.
Banter is allowed/encouraged, we are all humans (I hope), and being able to make me relate to you is a key networking skill that is underdeveloped post-Covid. When you are meeting debaters and judges from across the country, finding common ground or small jokes before speeches is a good way to build rapport. Do not be disrespectful to anyone but yourself. If you cannot have non-elicitory small talk then it would be better to focus on the round and being respectful.

Speaker Point Scale: (What does the # speaker points actually mean):

25 - I physically cringed at something you said. Not sure I've given this out.

26 - I don't want you to do something you did in the round again. IE: bad organization, giving up large amounts of speaking time, being rude to the other team.

27 - You are a decent speaker, but you can improve on your persuasiveness. You need to make The Point of your speech more apparent, and specifically highlight why you believe that I should vote for you.

28 - I think you clearly explained to me your position and were a good participant in the round. You have some areas to improve on to become the best debater you can be, such as; signposting within arguments, fully warranting out your arguments, and explaining how the the points you are winning affect the rest of the flow and round.

29 - Great debating, might have missed some of my specific requests or I believe that there are some areas that you could improve in to make your speech smoother, more efficient, or make some better arguments.

30 - Fantastic debating, hitting major points with clarity and efficiency, requires meeting best practices listed below. I attempt to limit awarding 29.7+ to 1 debater/team in a tournament.

Best Practices:

Explain the warrants behind the tag when you extend them.
Use prep time until you have clicked save. If it takes >1m to attach and send the email, you should count that as prep time.
Look at the judge during your speech, and face them during CX.
Say "Next!" between cards.
Also, number your arguments and use your opponents' argument's number when replying in Line-By-Line. (You should still explain what arg you are referencing ie: "They say the economy is strong, our williams 1922 card shows that the economy is really weak in the horse market!!!"
I think you should send analytics to the other team in your doc. If it is typed it for your speech and you are reading it then you should give it to the opposing team. Also means you should probably fill in the "[Insert Specific]" portions of your varsity's block. To do so will give you a +.5.

Why? See the conclusion in https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1044670.pdf.

De-escalating CX when it gets very heated, but still pushing the opponent on key points of the debate. It is key to use CX to develop common ground assumptions that your evidence makes different conclusions on and REFERENCING those answers in the next speech.
Be a good person outside of the competitive debate round, don't be a gremlin.

I will use these best practices as benchmarks for evaluating your speech and your speaker points. This is a non-inclusive list, but these are areas that I think most of the debaters can specifically improve on when I judge.

Debater Experience:

I debated policy debate for 4 years at Eagan High School in Minnesota and also debated 4 years in NFA-LD at UNL, and dabbled in NDT-CEDA. I was mostly a CP+DA debater, a functional limit of parts of the NFA-LD circuit, but I've gone for plenty of K's and ran a K Aff with some success.

What do you view your role as the judge in the debate?

I think that my role as a judge is to evaluate the round. In the history of judging I find evaluator/policymaker/educator/games playing to be some of the best philosophical roles of the judge. Most teams don't explain how the Judge's perspective affects how I should evaluate the impacts, which would be really good analysis to make.

Overall Practices:

- Don't take excessive time to email the documents, if emails are taking forever just make it obvious you aren't stealing prep.

- I will say clear a few times during your speech if I am not able to understand your words, but I don't want to keep interrupting you. That means it is up to you to make sure that I'm flowing your arguments, especially in the rebuttals. I will put my pen in the air to communicate that I am not following your speech, so you should take a step back and re-evaluate what you are saying.

- I will read important evidence the debaters point out to read after the round, but I will read the article as a whole and not just read your highlighting of it. I will not use the unhighlighted portions for your benefit, only to your detriment. If you want parts of the card to be evaluated, you should read them. When specifying that I should read a card of the opponent's, you explain what I'm specifically looking for if you want me to understand the request.

Predispositions:

Topicality:

Topical affirmatives are probably good, but see more details on untopical affs below. I like a good T flow but most debates don't access the level of depth to fully explain their interpretation of affirmative/negative ground. Compare standards, and analyze which interpretation/definition has the best access to the standards that both teams put forward.

You need to explain what im voting for, most people are shallow with their explanations. I will reward unique & comprehensible standards/criteria with +.5 pts. (Non-unique: Ground, Limits, etc.)

I default to competing interpretations, but that can be changed based on the arguments in the round.

Theory:

I do like non-abusive theoretical arguments that actually explain what debate practices should, or should not, exist. Being specific on your interpretation, violation, how you are measuring 'good' practices, and explain how meeting your 'good practice' would make debate better.

Increasing the amount of different theories perceptually decreases the persuasiveness of each theory.

Untopical Affirmative Rounds:

I find that this can be some of the most interesting rounds as it immediately gets to underlying reasons that debate is good. This is winnable by both sides, but you must outline the specific reasons that you think I should vote for you (Aff or Neg) at the end of the debate. I will be voting for teams that paint the best vision of what my vote does or what I'm voting for.

I ran Anthropocene Horror at a couple of NDT-CEDA tournaments I went to, and have even voted for a violin K aff that was beautiful. I will not be the preferred judge for K affs, as I will not be as well versed in the specific literature, but am open to new education and perspectives brought into this key space.

In these rounds, I will default to as tabula rosa as I can be, but unless teams fill in the entire line of reasoning from coming into the round to receiving the ballot, judge intervention is inevitable. My tabula rosa means that I am an empty computer that speaks English poorly, has access to Google to fact-check general knowledge and statistics, and may have a heart.

CP's:

I was mainly a CP+DA debater myself, so I have gone for quite a lot of different CPs.

In most CP rounds, it is crucial to compare your solvency vs the risk of the link. It is also beneficial to explain even if statements and explain the internal links to solving each impact.

Competition Theory is underutilized by the affirmative. Explaining your vision of what competition means and why certain actions are not a trade-off with the affirmative is an interesting argument that I have not heard much.

I find multiple plank counter plans ugly, especially when they are massive (literally >3 planks). I have not seen theory on this, but I imagine a well-run theory on conditional planks in a CP bad would probably be pretty persuasive in front of me.

DA's:

Fully explaining the story of the DA should happen in every negative speech it is extended. Re-reading tags and author names is not "explaining the story".

Reading cards straight down on the DA without including them in your explanation is gross.

Both teams should deal with the timeframe of the impacts of the DA versus the timeframe of the Aff. Lots of affirmatives solve the impacts of the DA even without a link turn. This analysis is mostly analytics but deals with the realities from cards both teams.

Other Random Thoughts (as if this isn't long enough):

Even if statements are your friend.

If you cannot defend underlying assumptions about debate. Like; why is debate good or what is debate for, don't expect to win theory or topicality arguments. Put real thought into your arguments.

I don’t consider myself an interventionist, but I won’t support your 5-minute 2NR from a 1-card 1NC Offcase when it's barely extended and forgotten in the 1NR. Applies to Ks, CPs, DAs, and Theory. Affirmatives get the same treatment when the 2AR goes for the 1-sentence 2AC arg, or the 2AR goes hard on the :10s condo bad.

Emphasize key arguments, and do good evidence comparison throughout the debate. Qualifications are important and you should back up your author's claims.

Argument Structure (For Extensions):

When extending your arguments, make sure that you fully explain:

Topicality: Definition (Interpretation of Topicality), Violation, Standards, Voters.

The A2 K Aff version of Framework/Gamework should be similar but more robust.

Disadvantages: Uniqueness (Inherency in MN Novice Packet????), Link, Internal Link, and Impact

Aff's Advantages: Status quo, Impact, Solvency

Kritik's: Link, Impact, Alt

Counter-Plan's: Your Counter Plan text, Solvency for Aff's impacts.

Ben Schultz Johns Creek High School 3 rounds

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!

Archan Sen Glenbrook South High School 7 rounds

Last changed on Wed April 17, 2024 at 7:29 PM CDT

Overview

-archan.debate@gmail.com---add me to the chain.

-Tech over everything. Debate is a game and you should maximize your chances of winning. Judges who say "I'll vote on anything except [xyz]" don't understand what tech over truth means.

-Many decisions I've witnessed have been atrocious. Judges don't vote for args they like even though it was a technical crush, they rep out based on coaches poll rankings, or just don't evaluate the tech because they ideologically agree with one side. I will try my hardest to not do any of those things.

-CX is often the most interesting part of the debate. Show resolve and stand your ground. If you defended something in your speech, defend the logical implications in cross. One of my biggest pet peeves is when teams try to weasel out of the hard cx questions.

-Innovation is good---if you have something that is genuinely new to debate, I will be very happy to listen to it.

-Neg terror is good. My most fun 2ACs were always against 10+ off. Aff teams should win theory or counter-terror (straight turn the DAs, read stuff that can be cross applied across the flows and don't cross apply till the 1AR, and impact turn everything). Chaotic debates are the best debates.

-The point of debate isn't to maximize clash nor to avoid cowardice. It's to win. Go for dropped aspec, don't send analytics, and generally anything that increases your chances of getting the ballot. I will award strategic decisions more than your attempt to showcase your bravery by flexing about how you made the unstrategic decision to take your opponent up on what they're good at.

-If you win a try-or-die claim, I will pretty much always vote for you---if we're guaranteed to go extinct in one world, I'd always choose a different world.

-Inserting rehighlightings is good and should be done more---it lowers the barrier to entry for ev comparison and deters bad evidence.

-There is no substantive argument that's off limits: death good, hidden aspec, and spark are all fair game.

-Rep means nothing to me. A lot of my prefs as a small school debater my junior and senior year were preffing around judges who we thought would vote for whichever team had more clout as debaters. I will not care about how many bids you have, where you are on the coaches poll, or what school you go to.

-Read more impact turns.

-Ad homs are logical fallacies that don't win ballots.

Hot takes

Most paradigms are the exact same and don't give any insights into how to debate in front of them. Judges who don't have any controversial debate opinions haven't thought about debate enough. Here's a (non-extensive) list of mine:

-Plan text in a vacuum is true. Judges who simultaneously hate positional competition and PTIAV don't understand competition. Both PTIAV and competition describe how to determine the mandates of the aff. Any counter-interp to PTIAV is equivalent to positional competition and justifies competition off of that. Eg, if you think that a better standard is cross-ex explanations of the plan, then that's logically identical to having an interp that CPs can compete off of cross-ex.

-How "generic" an argument is has no implication for how well it rejoins the 1AC. No clue why people have a moral panic over seeing the NGA CP.

-Soft left affs should be the norm. If deployed right, the security K should deter all extinction affs because it's right that all of the 1ACs impacts are fake. If aff teams were able to debate framing contentions properly and judges didn't hack for extinction outweighs, the aff win percentages would skyrocket. There's a reason that no one takes debate cases seriously irl, and people just need to be able to import that logic into debate.

-If you're allowed to kick parts of CPs, then that means that every CP text is functionally infinite condo as you can kick any individual letter or permutation of letters.

-Textual competition is terrible. If the norm, I think it would collapse debate. The distinction between only being able to permute words vs being able to permute letters seems to be an arbitrary line drawn to make it work in the aff's favor. But, taken to the logical extent, it would be that you could literally permute any combination of letters or punctuation to make any sentence. Especially because the aff gets to choose the plan and jam as many characters in it as possible, this seems like it would be very hard to beat. The best answer I heard was PICs deter, but under a model of textual + functional, the majority of the PICs wouldn't be functionally competitive, but the ones that are could be read either way, so I don't get how this is defense. With that being said, it was around 50% of my 2ARs against process CPs, so it obviously can be defended in a debate.

-Affs need to be immediate. If they don't, then it makes it impossible to ever be neg. The aff team will always get out of DAs by delaying the plan (the answer that's like normal means = immediate is [a] an assertion with no ev backing it up and [b] taken out if the aff chooses to say that it isn't immediate in the plan). That seems like a big-ish issue, but I think that the bigger issue is that it makes any CP unviable. Teams can always say "perm do the CP and the plan in 100 years". That solves every net benefit ever because they're all based on the squo for uniqueness. It's definitely not intrinsic since the perm just specs the timeframe of the aff (similar to how they can go for PDCP against the courts aff by 'speccing' that the aff is the courts). It would destroy all neg ground.

-Most theory interps should be impossible to win. Nearly all of them don't have a clear interp (what is a 'process CP'?), get rid of all CPs (every CP necessarily has to PIC out of something to beat PDCP), or don't exclude anything (no CP 'results in the aff,' proven by competition args). Neg teams that exploit this will have a very easy time beating theory in front of me.

-There are so many things in LD that would eviscerate the best policy teams. If there was a team that ever got good at phil or tricks, most policy people would not know how to respond.

K-Affs

-Very good for K teams that realize that Ks are a technical tool that is strategic because it has so many good tricks, very bad for for K teams that try to ethos their way out of technical concessions.

-Impact turns > counter-interps. Your counter-interp will always be contrived and incoherent when held up at scrutiny. Middle ground strategies are just harder to thread the needle on. It probably also links to your exclusion DA.

-Ambivalent between fairness and clash---go for whatever you're more comfortable with/what's going better for you in the round.

-Reading T is no different than other forms of engagement vs K affs. It is not "psychic violence".

-Read more stuff vs K affs---word PICs against un-underlined portions of the 1AC or impact turns to stuff like warming are all fair game.

-Go for presumption. When teams choose to give up fiat, they require winning that voting aff does something. It doesn't.

-I think that I'm more lenient on neg teams for links to DAs. If one of your cards says your method does something, impact turns to that definitely link as it disproves that the endpoint of your research practice as a desirable goal.

Ks on the neg

-Neg framework interps should moot the plan. Trying to debate the K like it's a CP means that it'll lose to the perm double-bind. If the aff gets to weigh their plan, extinction will almost always outweigh.

-Framework is never "a wash". It's a theory debate that has two discrete choices---not a continuous spectrum that the judge can arbitrarily chose their default ideological predisposition from.

-Philosophical competition is a worse version of positional competition (you not only get links off of what the 1AC says, but now the vibes that it gives off too?), but teams mess up on it. No counter-interp to philosophical competition = impossible to go for the perm.

-Use more K tricks. I'm very good for it.

-Defend your method---if the 1AC says that Russia is a threat, then defend that Russia is a threat.

-Beating 'extinction outweighs' relies on you winning an alternative to util (or winning fw to moot the impact).

-More teams should go for theory against alts---most are nonsense and fiat way more than should be allowed.

-If the alt is material, it mostly always has some great DAs to go for. Going for heg good vs basically any material alt is almost always a viable strat.

Soft left affs

-They're good. See "hot takes" section.

-Two types of framing interps that are good:

---Discounted util: defend that consequences matter, but the way that we calculate them should be different in some way that discounts the impact. Eg, probability * ln(impact). Of course, this has some problems, but it's a much better starting point than "probability first".

---Alternatives to util: preferably something that says something like consequences are irrelevant combined with a boatload of "consequences fail" cards.

-Most framing contentions are atrocious. These are some args that are almost uniformly awful in debates:

---Probability first: a 75% risk of a paper cut doesn't outweigh a 74% risk of being tortured.

---Cognitive bias: a helpful tiebreaker, but it's not an interp. Also you open yourself up to cognitive bias claims going in the other direction.

---Conjunctive fallacy: doesn't assume debate where dropped args are true, so the diminishing effect, while true irl, is useless for debate.

---Don't evaluate future lives: might be true (probably not though), but largely irrelevant as if they win their interp, 7 billion * 1% will still outweigh.

---Util is racist/sexist/ableist: it still requires you to have a counter-interp for framing. Even if you win that util is the worst thing in the world, if I don't have some other heuristic to evaluate impacts, then I have to use util because it's the only one introduced in the round.

-PTIAV is good. See "hot takes" section.

-Good for T debates. Read more cards, indict your opponent's ev, and win the tech.

-Reasonability seems pretty bad. The only net benefit is substance crowd-out, but that's impact turned by just winning that T debates are good (which, I'm pretty easily persuaded is true). It seems to be arbitrary (at what threshold is an interp reasonable?) and the culmination of all reasonable interps seems pretty unreasonable. Despite this, the main answer seems to be "judge intervention," which honestly is probably inevitable.

-Debatability and predictability are often talked about in a vacuum, separated from the actual context of the debate. Everyone agrees that a definition that isn't predictable at all or one that would destroy our ability to debate would be worse than a middle ground that is fairly predictable or fairly debatable. As such, I think teams should spend like time arguing about whether predictability or debatability outweigh, and spend that time explaining how their opponents interp isn't predictable or debatable.

-Tech > truth means that I'll vote on weird interps. Especially if there's some sort of technical mistake (dropping one interp in an interp spam, debatability outweighs predictability, or that overlimiting is good), you should go for it.

CPs

-I've gone for every flavor of bad CPs available: Space Elevators, Future Gens, Consult [x] country. It's very winnable in front of me, but aff teams that know what they're doing will have no problem in easily defeating most of them on competition.

-Saying the words "sufficiency framing" in every 2NC/2NR overview doesn't really convince me of anything.

-All theory and competition debates are models debates. Make sure that you are defending your model, not whatever happened in this round.

-Every CP is a PIC, and they all have a process. Make your theory interp precise.

-I'm very good for condo debates---on both sides. Condo is about the practice, not the number of condo you read in the round---number interps are inevitably arbitrary and devolve to infinite anyways. It's probably the only theoretical reason to reject the team. The only neg impact is neg flex---I don't know why people go for anything other than that in the 2NR.

-Uniqueness matter a LOT in theory debates. Both sides generally agree on the direction of the link (ie, everyone agrees that a world without condo would be harder for the neg), but you need to win uniqueness to make it be a DA against your opponents interp. Obviously there's the generic debate stuff like first/last speech, infinite prep, or 13-5 block skew, but topic specific analysis almost always trumps those. Engage and interact with your opponents warrants for uniqueness, don't just read your generic block back at them.

-Do more work for the debatability DA for definitions.

-Analytical CPs are good. If its obvious how they solve the aff, no explanation is needed. If it's complicated, then you should explain it, preferably in the 1NC.

-Fiating in DAs is underrated and more teams should do it.

DAs

-Politics is a good DA, I'm not sure why everyone seems to hate it. It's a negative consequence of the plan that's probably real for most affs.

-Good for fake DAs that rely on artificial competition. Fiat in more offense.

-I debated on three topics where there was no link uniqueness (Water, CJR, and NATO). Thumpers are extremely useful. If a neg team can't tell you why the link would be triggered by the plan but nothing else that already happened, it's probably a losing DA.

-Uniqueness CPs and CPing out of future thumpers is pretty much always legit in the 1NC, and debatably legit in the 2NC.

-Both sides should read more evidence on what normal means is on most process DAs. Ie, if you're aff facing a resource tradeoff DA, reading ev that normal means is increased congressional funding is often a good argument.

-I think turns case is often overhyped. It depends on the neg winning the uniqueness and link, which the aff team is rebutting anyways.

Impact Turns

-Go crazy. I'm good for anything you have.

-Sustainability is often more important than both sides give it credit for---it frames functionally everything else in the debate.

-Fiat out of aff scenarios!! I will give high speaks for smart CPs---most external aff impacts vs impact turns are very easy to have an analytic CP that solves it.

-S-risks outweigh X-risks. While it's often helpful to have a card for this, I'll automatically assume it absent impact calc from either side and make it a side constraint to avoid a small risk of any S-risk, similar to how judges would evaluate a 1% risk of extinction over anything else even without explicit impact calc.

-Big pet peeve of mine is saying something is "unethical" without engaging the substance of the argument. In most impact turn debates, both sides agree that util is how you frame ethics. So, if the neg is saying that extinction would net increase utility, saying "wipeout is unethical" isn't an argument unless you win that it's worse (in which case, you don't need to say that argument, because you would've won anyways).

-Update your cards---especially for less common impact turns, everyone reads super old cards---don't do that.

-Spark: go for better args. Nuclear winter is obvi made up and is solved by the bunkers CP. Nuclear tornadoes/Saarg (who is actually batshit btw) is empirically denied and taken out by a CP that spaces nuclear attacks out. UV is better, but people in the poles would probably survive. But, civilizational collapse would eliminate all tech, making us vulnerable to all disasters and elimination potential for beneficial AI and space col. Those are S-risks that def outweigh any neg scenario (which, to be fair, are almost always worse than aff scenarios).

-Wipeout: win positive V2L, alien contact won't cause extinction, MCE solves animal suffering, and some random future tech won't condemn us all to infinite torture. These are all very intuitive and true arguments. In evenly matched debates, the aff would always win. However, due to prep disparities (people who are planning to go for wipeout will spend more time prepping it out than an average aff team), these debates are not often evenly matched.

LD Stuff

I've never debated in LD, but I've now coached/judged one LD tournament and was extremely close to the LDers at my school and talked to them about LD specific things. I will be completely lost in phil rounds, but I think that I'll be decently competent in tricks rounds and good in theory rounds. Your best bet is gonna be to go for policy-like stuff though, I'll have the most familiarity with it.

However, with that being said, the neg side bias seems pretty massive in LD and I'll probably be sympathetic to aff teams that try to use tricks or cheaty args to try to compensate for that.

Prefs shortcut:

1 - policy v policy, policy v k, k v policy, theory

2 -

3 - tricks

4 - k v k

5/s - phil

-This topic is insane for mechanism CPs---I would highly recommend reading them in front of me.

-Idk if this is true, but I heard that LDers don't go for fairness on framework often---I think that's a mistake and that fairness is probably the best impact.

-Nebel T is low key kinda true.

-Tricks---I'll evaluate them, and I feel like I'll be better than most policy judges as I went for pretty tricky stuff, but I think that I'll still be worse for you than most judges. I feel like I'll also be more lenient on newer args bc I'm used to a format where there's a lot of time to recover if you mess up. I'll be fine for tricks like truth testing, presumption and permissibility, paradoxes, and calc indicts. Probably not so much for things like evaluate after X speech.

-Theory---I'll be pretty decent for you---I'll eliminate most of my biases, and for some stuff (like yes/no 1AR theory), I won't have any biases in the first place. Look at the CP section above for more advice.

-RVIs on T are probably bad? I'll be more amenable to them than I am in policy rounds bc ik it's a norm here, but I probably wouldn't recommend going for one.

-Phil---I'm gonna be fully lost. It's probably in your best interest to avoid these debates. I know basic stuff like util and deontology. I'm obviously open to hearing other stuff, but won't know it at all, which means that your burden of explaining what it is is gonna be way higher. I'm pretty biased to util though.

-Debate in front of me like you were debating in front of Sam Anderson or Aerin Engelstad

Umar Shaikh Berkeley Preparatory School 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed March 6, 2024 at 7:21 AM PDT

Umar Shaikh

Debated at James Logan High School (RS) - 4 bids - Qualled to the TOC twice

Debating at UC Davis (lmk if you wanna talk college debate)

Currently Coaching: Berk Prep

Email Chain: umardebate@gmail.com

Tech>Truth

--TLDR--

You do you, anything and I mean anything goes, when I say tech over truth I mean it, if you can debate/explain it I'll vote on it.

Judge Instruction: Can't emphasize its importance enough, good judge instruction in the 2ar/2nr will always be rewarded with high speaks and likely the ballot. Simplify the round for me and write the ballot for me.

I read the K my whole high school career and am reading it in college if that matters to you

--Specifics--

Ks - absolutely love them. There’s so much space to get creative and generate unique arguments. I’ve gone for arguments ranging from set col to Bataille. Strong link debating with a cohesive strategy and good judge framing will always take you a long way. I love examples. Please don’t just read your blocks. I am a huge sucker for unique and specific examples on the link and ontology debate. Most of my frustration with k teams comes from a lack of specificity and contextualization to affs. If you’re giving the same 2nr vs 3 different affs something should probably change.

Policy Affs vs Ks- I’m persuaded by the more “generic” arguments people make vs the k. Specifically heg good, fairness/clash on FW, ontology/psychoanalysis wrong, extinction o/w’s etc. Policy teams often have excellent cards on these arguments but struggle to utilize them past the 2ac, make the neg teams life hard.

K affs- love them and read them all of high school. I probably have a higher threshold for teams saying that t in of itself is violent. That’s not to say I won’t vote on it if explained well. If you want my ballot all you need is a strong impact turn to the topic/their model of debate and that you either preserve some form of debate through the counter interp or have a substantive reason for why debate is bad. Honestly, when it's done correctly I think the counter interp is a pretty good argument, it is defensive but having some semblance of what debates look like under your model can soak up a lot of the limits stuff teams go for. That said, having a bad counter-interp will probably link to the limits stuff they're going for, just depends on how you debate it.

Neg vs K affs- my 2nr's vs k affs have almost exclusively been going for topicality. That being said, I’ve been in my fair share of k v k rounds mostly reading the cap k, Afro pess, or set col vs teams. Go for fairness. Neg terror is good, spam those off and dare them to go for condo lol.

DA’s/CP’s- I read my fair share of DA’s and CP’s at NSDA Nationals and State but my experience with them ends there. For reference, those rounds were at about half the speed of a normal round. I’m probably not the best for super techy high-level rounds but I can keep up with you. This is not to dissuade you from reading these arguments in front of me, it’s to be transparent and let you know that you might need to over-explain some things for me to keep up. I think of DAs pretty similarly to the k, strong links and impact calc are the way to go. For counterplans I’m working on understanding competition better but as of now, I’m going to be lost. Having a good solvency advocate and explanation will likely get you my ballot.

Theory- Not too familiar but if you explain it I'll vote on it

--Misc.--

At the end of the day debate is a game like no other and I want you to have fun. Cracking a joke or two will probably get you higher speaks but these should never be at the expense of anyone else. Treat others how you wanna be treated and let’s make this a positive and educational environment.

Zahir Shaikh Greenhill School 4 rounds

Tyler Snelling Hire 7 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 12, 2024 at 12:25 PM CDT

* Minor note before Blake

I've done essentially no research on the 2023-2024 high school topic. While I've debated or coached on topics relevant to this area, I might not recognize very specific acronyms and am generally unaware of how people have approached questions related to the limits/broad meaning of this topic for T debates.

*Briefly updated before 2022 season

Debaters should have the ability to argue about what the terms of the debate are and how that relates to my decision. I prefer judging debates where the competitors are invested in their arguments, whatever those might be.

It is very rare in the debates I’ve judged that one team loses every argument on the flow. Consequently, it often seems going for a few less arguments improves the quality of the debating for both sides. Most debates tend to be decided in terms of how well either team characterizes each other’s options and framing what matters. At the top of your final rebuttal, please clearly prioritize how I should evaluate the debate. I love when debaters give me a roadmap of what's going to happen and then make it happen.

E-debate/Paperless:

Prep time only goes until you’re done prepping your speech, which means email time doesn't count against you. Please always include me on your email chain. Sometimes in cross-x when people are asking questions about evidence, I like to be able to look at the cards as well.

I'm pretty sympathetic that the transition to online debate is hard for many people and not the same as doing it in person. I'll try to do my best to make sure the rounds go smoothly.

I am better at flowing if I can maintain eye-contact with the person speaking. If you need to have your camera off for connection issues / personal reasons, I totally understand.

Speaker Points:

I spend most of my time at the end of the debate trying to decide who won and what I would have needed from the other team to win the debate or general commentary about the debate. While I’m filling out the ballot, I spend a few seconds trying to decide speaker points. I don’t have a static starting point for assigning or categorizing speakers, but try to decide how well the speakers used / responded during cross-x, whether a decision made by one of the speakers uniquely helped improve/hurt the teams chances of winning and how well the speakers brought together the debate in their final rebuttals.

I take notes during cross-x and enjoy when debaters get strategic concessions that are used in their speeches.

Argument related comments:

- Counterplans generally require a solvency advocate. This can be aff evidence or neg evidence.

- Critiques may not need to have an alternative to be competitive with the aff, but I will not judge kick an alt (or counterplan) for you unless the framing in the 2NR justifies that option.

- I often find it insufficient to read a hodgepodge of cards or arguments that “critique the squo” and call it an affirmative. Good affs have compelling methods, approaches to the space, or defenses of the resolution.

- In all debates but especially K aff verse K debates, links need impacts / clear internal links. The negative can win a link and still lose the debate if it’s unclear why that link “matters”.

- Competing methodologies is too often left as a buzz phrase that does not establish why the aff should not have a permutation. Similarly, asserting there is a permutation that is advantageous, does not explain why I should allow the aff to access that option. In either case, having a bit of depth goes a long way to win whether the aff should or should not have a perm.

In-round Accessibility

Part of my responsibility as the judge is to make the debate accessible. If there is something I can do to help with that – please let me know. If you don’t feel like disclosing then you’re welcome to email me (address above).

Pet Peeves:

1- Clipping cards is punishable with a loss and 0 speaker points. I do not feel that I need a debater to initiate a clipping challenge, as an educator I feel I have a responsibility to monitor against cheating.

2- I value very highly the safety for ALL competitors to engage in this activity, so please be considerate of others. Making arguments with sexist, racist, ableist, and other exclusionary language can be especially harmful for people in the activity.

3- Please make sure you ask your opponents what pronouns they use. Misgendering is a serious issue.

4- Stealing prep time

5- Reading conditional arguments that clearly and unquestionably contradict

6- Repeating that an argument was conceded- especially if it clearly was not

7- Asking cross-x questions that go nowhere in developing the strategy or understanding of the debate.

8- Don’t be disrespectful to the people who host tournaments.

Brief Bio

I studied philosophy and sociology as an undergraduate, communication at UNLV for an MA, and now communication at U-Iowa for a PhD.

3 years of debate at Millard South High School

4 years of debate at Concordia College – Moorhead

2 years coaching at University of Nevada- Las Vegas

5 years as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Iowa and 2nd year as the Debate Coach at Iowa

Marie Stebbings St. Paul Central 7 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 9:04 PM CDT

add me to the chain: mariestebbings@gmail.com

last updated: 12/18/2023 (deleting outdated sections, reorganizing, expanding ethics)

background: minneapolis south ‘19 (toc, primarily ran kritikal arguments), light coaching for minneapolis south in ‘19-20. i judge a few national & udl tournaments every year.

online debate: 20% slower please! if my camera is off i’m not there.

tldr: you do you; i will be happiest judging whatever you find exciting/strategic and have spent quality team researching. tech > truth insofar as i try to stifle any lingering debate biases and give an objective decision based on the flow. i won’t write a ballot on an argument that wasn’t made in-round and i try not to impose my opinion on what is true, with the exception of violent/oppressive arguments*. i mostly judge clash debates and my voting record is pretty even.

below are some notes on evaluation rules i abide by & guidelines on how to explain arguments, win, & earn high speaks

general: arguments need a claim, warrant, and impact to be evaluated. i will always follow the ‘ballot of least resistance’ and make the laziest decision possible; tell me what my rfd should say. instructing me on what you believe the key issues are, how you believe arguments interact with each other, and engaging in comparative analysis will help you tremendously.

evidence comparison: i skim evidence throughout the debate. i won’t incorporate my thoughts on your evidence quality into my rfd unless it’s necessary to resolve an argument, but i think a certain degree of judge intervention is necessary in debates over evidence quality to maintain reasonable debate (ex. you can't blatantly lie about what a card says if the other team points out you're lying). i enjoy judging well-researched rounds and think debaters who spend time finding good evidence should be rewarded.

speaker points: ~28.6 is average, ~29.3+ is deserving of a speaker award. being clear, knowing your evidence, making strategic decisions, hard-hitting cx questions/answers -> high speaks. obviously not flowing the debate -> low speaks. if i catch you clipping (repeatedly skipping ~three or more words in cards), i will drop your speaker points regardless of whether the other team points it out.

please flow: i will think you’re silly if you ask for a doc with unread cards deleted unless the prior speech was egregiously skipping around, i will think you’re silly if you respond to an unread or dropped off case, i will think you’re losing the round if you don’t respond to substantive analytics or follow a line-by-line structure.

cx: is binding and i usually flow it.

framework: debates over counter-interps/models make intuitive sense to me. i’m not opposed to 2ars that solely go for impact turns to framework but you should invest hefty amounts of time in framing my decision.

t: i really appreciate model comparisons (caselists, lost/gained neg ground, etc.). please define what reasonability means if you go for it. i never have a ton of topic knowledge & will need extra explanation for acronyms and topic norms.

kritiks: tech > truth means i won’t create my own arbitrary framework interpretation. the more specific your analysis is to the opposing team’s arguments, the better chance you have of winning. aff teams could generally improve their link answers, and neg teams could generally improve their alt solvency.

cp theory: i default to judge kicking cps if asked. the more obviously abusive your counterplans are, the harder it’s going to be for me to suppress a gut-check reaction to cp theory.

das: specific/quality ev > recent ev (explain why the date matters) > quantity of ev.

case: i love case debates that dig into the ev and point out logical holes/inconsistencies in the aff’s ev and internal link chains.

theory: please don’t spread at max speed through your theory blocks. i find counter-interps helpful for framing the majority of theory debates.

misc: re-highlighted ev must be read, not inserted. sending exact text for perms, theory interps/violations, and/or framework interps is a good practice. strict on 1ar-2ar consistency, will give some leeway if the 2nr had new arguments/warrants. no new 2ar cross-applications across different flows.

be nice to new debaters: in clearly asymmetrical debates (ex. a team with 5 bids vs a team at their first varsity tournament), taking the time to slow down and 'over-explain' your arguments so all the debaters can engage with the round is a much more persuasive strategy for high speaker points than outspreading and out-jargoning your less experienced opponents.

*ethics: facilitating an environment where debaters are reasonably protected from immediate hazards to their wellbeing overrides my commitment to attempting to be a neutral arbitrator. i reserve the right to auto L with the lowest speaks possible if a debater’s in-round words or actions are oppressive or threaten anyone’s safety. however, i prefer to avoid using the ballot as a punitive instrument and assume fixable ignorance (not intentional violence) on ‘gray area’ issues.

while i strongly empathize with frustration over the community’s seeming inability to address intra-debate violence, including the continued presence of individuals who are oppressive or harm others, i refuse to adjudicate out-of-round grievances in a competitive context. if desired, i will assist any debater in talking to a tournament administrator, ombudsperson, or coach instead.

good luck, have fun! feel free to email me with any questions.

Marshall Steele St. Paul Central 2 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 24, 2024 at 10:32 AM CDT

Coach for St. Paul Central from 2021(water)->present

Pronouns are they/she

I would like to be on the email chain stpaulcentralcxdebate@gmail.com

Email for questions / contact: marshall.d.steele@gmail.com

---------------------------

Quick and easy for prefs/strikes

Clash judge that appreciates good judge instruction and is neutral on most things. Good judge for k/fw debates and probably not the best for lots of (no substance)pics. If you just wanna know my K aff thoughts I will happily vote on em but am friendly to TVAs and skeptical of a lot of SSD claims. Be nice and run arguments you like and we'll get along fine.

---------------------------

Paradigm In progress, feel free to ask anything not yet answered here.

Judging Takes:

PLEASE ACTUALLY LABEL YOUR FLOWS IN DOC AND IN SPEECH: I will dock points if you don't. its an accessibility issue and the minor time skew of clicking on the flow and coming up with a name isn't worth annoying your judge.

Judge Kick: I support it unless either side gives a reason not to.

Tech V Truth:Tech over truth but making overtly untrue arguments to get the other side to drop them isn't gonna be great for your speaks and doesn't make for persuasive argumentation.

Speed - I don't think judge lines on speed effect much. Just here to say I don't mind speed and can flow very fast rounds. If you are fast and unclear I will drop args off the flow and will feel 0 remorse. speed is a choice one that comes with the responsibility to still communicate your ideas. Not sure where else to put this but I will put something as new the first time I hear a warrant. i.e unwarranted claim from the bottom of the 1nc dropped in the 2ac still needs explanation in the block to win in the 2nr.

Framework - Im fine with framework, I've run both sides of it. Realistically every framework interp is self serving I really only care if you can defend *your* self serving model as better than theirs. If your model would be really messed up to read against people of a certain identity, maybe don't read it at all

Kritikal Affs - go for it. I like them, probably don't admit debate is just a game in cx and you'll have a better time. Don't assume I'll automatically understand your lit or import my analysis - same standard as any policy arg. If fairness is bad what offensive reason do I have to not flip a coin and vote how I feel?

Topicality - I'm pretty neutral on T. just please don't forget to at minimum say "voter for xyz" and I'm open to hear your interp of the topic. For 2023-24 I am probably leaning a little neg on T but thats speculative and open to change.

Counterplans - I think a lot of counterplans really test the limits of tech>truth with the actual text / claimed solvency mechanism. that said if the 2ac doesn't say anything I'll buy it. I don't have many strong opinions on counterplans. default to perms as a test of competition. Am generally not a fan of counterplans with 5+ (functionally contradictory) planks.

Kritiks - I like kritiks, I don't like how they tend to get argued. TLDR is please give me specific links and an articulation of the alt if you want me to vote on it. If not please actually give instruction on how you get a ballot. Generally a big fan of framework vs kritiks as I think a lot of kritiks tend to make valid analysis and give little reason to vote. The specificity of your arguments and how much you elaborate on them is gonna be big in front of me. Also like, probably don't read a K against an aff your authors are on record supporting(looking at you biopower teams).

Anything not listed above you can assume im mostly neutral on. As a final note on my judging philosophy, debate whatever you feel most comfortable with in front of me. An argument I don't like debated well is better than one I do debated poorly. Plus we all have more fun if your debating what you actually enjoy debating/feel comfortable with and that genuinely supersedes pretty much everything else listed on this paradigm.

Jack Stern Polytechnic School 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 3, 2024 at 10:01 AM PDT

My email is jstern23@cmc.edu.

I coach policy for Poytechnic. I did LD in high school and had 4 bids over 2 years, but a lot of my views have changed since then. I really like actual debating, regardless of what you read. Go for death good, high theory, straight policy, condo, whatever - you do you. Good debate is good debate. I give speaks based on strategy and I like it when debaters think critically instead of reading from a script. I'll put some more specific stuff below.

I am a big fan of explanations. This is true in general: you should be able to explain your args without needing a ton of jargon. But I find that this is most commonly an issue in K debates, especially in cross ex. You should be able to clearly explain your links, what the importance of the ballot is, how your framing functions, and (especially) what the alt does. K tricks can work, but be transparent about them in CX. If your opponent asks you if the alt can solve the Aff and you don't give them a straight answer, I won't vote on a floating PIK.

Meta-weighing is super under-utilized. Often rounds turn into races to extinction, but there's no reason this has to be the case. If you weigh well, you can win that highly probable structural violence outweighs some far out extinction impact. Or that a high probability long term extinction risk outweighs a low probability short term one. Should I prioritize a 90% chance of extinction from climate change in 100 years, a 10% chance of extinction from a US-China war in 5 years, or 100% chance of a continued cycle of oppression? You tell me.

For K's, it's often unclear if impacts are supposed to be relative to the particular round, relative to the debate community as a whole, or relative to all of society, so this should be explained. I'm sympathetic to T and I think that fairness and clash are impacts. I also like debate and think it's educational. Call me an optimist. Cross ex is important to pin down non-T affs. But I don't dislike non-T affs when they're run well - again, you do you.

Against pess, I'm extremely sympathetic to "progress is possible." I also think you can weigh on scope against pess- even if the government is unable to help a certain group of people, if you're winning an extinction impact, that's bad for everyone, which is probably worse. I also think that perm double bind is pretty effective against pess. If it's true that things can't get worse, then it seems like the Aff doesn't make anything worse, so the links aren't disadvantages to the perm.

Theory against CP's is usually a good idea and I'm definitely willing to vote on condo or process CP's bad. But I also enjoy creative process CP's and advantage CP's. I don't have a strong leaning on most shells. The shell that I most heavily lean Aff on is 50 states fiat bad. It's not because I think that 50 states is particularly unfair (though it probably is), but I think it's utopian fiat and thus bad policymaking education: in the real world, the 50 states have never passed a policy in conjunction. I'd much rather you read a delay CP to go with Politics or Elections. Real world policymakers delay legislation to deal with PC concerns, they don't pass it onto the states.

Finally, I don't want to vote on any procedurals that involve characterizing an opponent as offensive in any way unless they actually are. If you do go for a procedural like this, I will use my discretion to determine whether to vote on it or not, even if you win it.

Updates 2/3/24: Prep time ends when you hit send. Teams seem way to afraid to pull the trigger on theory arguments; if you put it in your speech, you should be prepared to go for it. And I think I've been a little bit of a point fairy, I probably won't go over 29.5 as much anymore. Finally, I like creative args- if you pull out a disad or something that I haven't seen before this year, I will boost your speaks.

Oskar Tauring-Traxler Minneapolis South 2 rounds

Iyana Trotman Hire 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 16, 2024 at 9:05 AM EDT

2023 NDT Champion; 2023 CEDA Champion - Wake Forest

Iyanarobyndebate@gmail.com (Add me to the email chain)

"I am not a judge, but if you introduce these arguments (and by these I mean white mediocrity) I will be your executioner" - MWAH NO BARS.

**And so the chorus sings. I believe that all debates are performances and you are responsible for what you say and do in round. Because that is true, you should be prepared to debate the justifications and epistemologies of your arguments as well as the way you have performed in this debate. I have grown increasingly concerned with the language of “adhoms” and “violent arguments” in relationship to black debate and kritik arguments as ways to devoid accountability for instances of antiblackness, misogynoir, transphobia, classism etc. The phrasing of adhom attacks and the punitive measures adjudicators are taking (in the form of assigning losses, docking speaker points etc) is an indicator of the physical manifestations of antiblackness in the debate space. It is the “wrong forum” Framework argument being acted out. But, if debate is about compeititve incentives, where is the argument development from the plan side?? What are the other ways to address the antiblackness when yall run from and do not engage black debate in any way?Instead of taking the concerns people are raising about the activity and the students and programs in it that have caused actual antiblack misogynoirst violence - the decision has been made to frame performance and black debate as anti-educational and bad for the activity. This is an age old tactic that we’re used to. Calling out antiblackness is not violent. Calling out misogynoir is not violent. Calling out the ways the debate arguments that are “just for the game” spill into their personal lives and actions is not violent. What IS violent, however, is the reduction of Black debate to adhom attacks and violence. What IS violent is the sudden authority and clarity white people have developed about what constitutes as a violent act all because they haven’t won a debate; all the while, justifying and staying silent on the legacy of this activity and it’s theft and pathologization of black debate. In the words of Rashad Evans, “eat, pray, love, and cut some better cards”. GET GOOD! Happy Debating! **

I answer respectful questions, do not post round me rudely or I will respond accordingly.

I do not flow docs - I flow what you are saying in the speech. Be clear.

Do what you want! I've done Black Feminism, Pessimism, Afro-Futurism, Framework, Racial Capitalism, Eroticism, RSPEC, Counter Performances, Body Politics, Critical IR Theory, Academy K etc.

I stop listening after 5 off.

Rosie Valdez Little Rock Central 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 23, 2024 at 11:44 AM CDT

-Director of Debate at Little Rock Central High School
-Yes, email chain and sure, questions. Please put BOTH of these on chains: rosalia.n.valdez@gmail.com and lrchdebatedocs@gmail.com.

Virtual Debate Updates:

I am almost always using two computers so I can watch you speak and flow/look at docs. I would prefer that you debate with your camera on so that I can watch you speak, but PLEASE do feel free to turn it off if doing so stabilizes your audio.

Do NOT start at top speed. You should start a little slower anyway to allow judges to get acclimated to your speaking style, but I think this is especially important in virtual debate.

Do I understand why you don't want to flash theory/overviews/analytics? Of course. Do you have to do it? No. Will I be mad at you if you don't? Of course not. Would it help me flow better in many virtual debates? YES.

TL;DR

Do what you do and do it well. I will vote for who wins. Over-adaptation is exhausting and I can smell your soft-left add-ons a mile away. My voting record is a pretty clear indication that I judge a wide variety of debates. Who/what I coach(ed) are generally good indications of what I am about. Update: I've found myself recently in some seven off rounds. I really hate to say I am bad for any kind of debate, but I am bad for these rounds. Late-breaking debates make me tired and grumpy, and I find myself having to do way too much work in these debates to resolve them. If seven off is your thing, and I am your judge, do what you do I guess, but know this is probably the only explicit "don't pref me" in this whole paradigm.

Evidence/Argumentation/General

I care a lot about quality of evidence. I would much rather hear you read a few well-warranted cards than a wave of under-highlighted evidence. Same goes for redundant evidence; if you need six cards that “prove” your claim with the same words interchanged in the tag, your claim is probably pretty weak. Evidence does not (alone) a (winning) argument make.

I think I flow pretty throughly. I often flow in direct quotes. I do this for me, but I feel like it helps teams understand my decision as we talk after a round. I reward organized speakers and meaningful overviews. I am easily frustrated by a messy card doc.

I listen closely to cross-ex.

Neg teams lose when they don’t demonstrate how their arguments interact with the 1AC. Winning that the affirmative is “flawed” or “problematic” does not guarantee a neg ballot. In my mind, there are two ways to win the k versus a policy aff: either win that the effects of the plan make the world significantly worse OR win framework and go for epistemology/ontology links. Know when framework is important and when it’s not. Give analysis as to how your links implicate the world of the aff. This is where case mitigation and offense on why voting affirmative is undesirable is helpful. These debates are significantly lacking in impact calculus. Also - the alt needs to solve the links, not the aff - but if it does, great! If you win framework, this burden is lessened. Don’t spread through link explanations. I am seeing more debates where teams kick the alt and go for the links as disads to the aff. This is fine, but be wary of this strategy when the alt is what provides uniqueness to the link debate.

Conversely, affs typically lose these debates when there is little press on what the alternative does and little analysis of perm functions. However, some teams focus on the alt too much and leave much to be desired on the link debate (especially important for soft-left affs). Defend your reps. Your framework shell should also include a robust defense of policymaking, not just procedural fairness. The 1AR should actually answer the block’s framework answers. More impact turning rather than defensive, no-link arguments.

Also, running to the middle will not save you. Some Ks are going to get a link no matter what, and tacking on a structural impact to your otherwise straight policy aff will likely only supercharge the link. So. Read the aff you'd read in front of anybody in front of me. You're probably better at that version anyway.

K Affs vs. FW

For affs: I’m good for these although I do think that oftentimes the method is very poorly explained. Neg teams should really press on this and even consider going for presumption. Side note: I absolutely do not think that critical affs should have to win that the ballot is key for their method. Against framework, I most frequently vote aff when the aff wins impact turns that outweigh the neg’s impacts and have a counter-interp that resolves the majority of their offense. I can still vote for you if you don’t have a counter-interp in the 2AR but only if the impact work is exceptional. I prefer affs that argue that the skills and methods produced under their model inculcate more ethical subjectivities than the negative’s. The best aff teams I’ve seen are good at contextualizing their arguments, framing, and justifying why their model and not their aff is uniquely good. I am most frequently preffed for K v K debates. Judge instruction is extremely important I would rather evaluate those rounds based on whose method is most relevant to the debate rather than k tricks.

For neg teams: I like to see framework deployed as debate methodologies that are normatively good versus debate methodologies that are undesirable and should be rejected. Framework debates should center on the impact of certain methodologies on the debate space. “Your argument doesn’t belong in debate” is not the same thing as “your argument is hindered by forum” or “your argument makes it functionally impossible to be negative.” (fun fact: I read a lot of judges' paradigms/preferences..."debate is a game" does not = debate is a good game, and participation in that "game" does not = can't say the game is bad). I prefer more deliberation & skills-based framework arguments rather than procedural fairness, but I will vote on either as long as you have warrants and comparative impact analysis. If going for skills & research impacts, the internal link debate is most important. TVAs are great as defense against the aff’s impact turns. They do not have to solve the aff but should address its central controversy.

I feel similarly about theory debates in that they should focus on good/undesirable pedagogical practices. Arguments that explain the role of the ballot should not be self-serving and completely inaccessible by a particular team.

Topicality

Topicality is a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue. T debates are won and lost on the standards level. If the affirmative wins that their interpretation solves the impact of topicality, then I see no reason to vote negative. Thorough T debates are about more than fairness. The idea that you have no game on an aff in this era is just not as persuasive as the idea that the aff’s interpretation negatively impacts future debates.

Disadvantages/Counterplans

No real issues here. Specific links to case obviously preferred to generic arguments. Give me good impact analysis. As a debater, counterplans weren’t really my jam. As a judge, I can’t say that I get to vote on CPs often because they are typically kicked or are not competitive enough to survive an affirmative team well-versed in permutations. A CP should be something to which I can give thoughtful consideration. Don’t blow through a really complicated (or long) CP text. Likewise, if the permutation(s) is intricate, slow down. Pretty sure you want me to get these arguments down as you read them, not as I reconstruct them in cross. I vote for theory as much as I don’t vote for theory. No real theoretical dispositions.

Arkansas Circuit

1. I’m not going to bump your speaks for thanking me and taking forever to start the round because you’re asking “opponent ready? judge ready? partner ready? observers ready?” for the first 20 minutes.
2. If you do not take notes during my RFD, I will leave.
3. Don’t clip. Why do debaters in Arkansas clip so much? Answer: Because I don’t judge very much in Arkansas.
4. Keep your own time.

Sean Wallace Georgetown Day School 7 rounds

Last changed on Tue April 16, 2024 at 2:52 PM EDT

Sidwell '23, Dartmouth '27.

Please put me on the chain - s.k.wallace.09@gmail.com AND georgetowndaydebate@gmail.com (if policy).

Debate should be fun for everyone. If I can help you in any way when it comes to your comfort or safety in the round, let me know.

OV:

1. I don't have much topic knowledge.

2. I will not open docs until after the debate ends.

3. You must disclose anything that isn't new.

4. I am best for teams that, in the 2NR/2AR, tell a cohesive and pretty story about the technical debating that has occurred. If this is helpful, I am most persuaded by teams that debate like: Georgetown AM/BK/KL, Dartmouth SV/TV, Wake EF, Harvard BS.

Policy stuff:

I judge this most.

I basically only read cards as a tiebreaker for technical debating in close debates.

Try or die framing is not very persuasive to me. I evaluate relative risk of advantage vs disadvantage. The risk of the advantage linearly decreases with the risk of solvency.

Arguments about the procedure of debate/debating counterplans are more persuasive to me as theory, not competition. This is not a particularly strong opinion.

I will almost certainly not reject the team for anything other than conditionality.

Planless affs:

I don't judge this much. My voting record is 50/50. I vote affirmative either when the negative drops a trick, or the aff wins sufficient defense to neg debatability offense such that a K of the reading/imposition of T outweighs.

I can't imagine a 2AR that convinces me to vote on "they flipped neg to read T and that's bad." It's a logical criticism of a non-topical affirmative. Similarly, if the 2NR doesn’t go for T, it will be hard to persuade me to vote on disads to their interpretation.

I judge this a bit more. My voting record leans slightly policy. This is broadly a reflection of who has done the better technical debating in the particular rounds I have judged. I generally vote negative when the neg wins a framework argument and a link that outweighs aff link turns.

I really enjoy critiques that make aff specific and nuanced arguments for why the affirmative is bad, premised on framework arguments that emphasize the importance of how we do research or justify policy.

I am very bad for Ks that rely on the logic of cause and effect - if links are non-unique, it makes no sense to attempt to attempt to garner offense from a unique consequence of the plan.

"Debaters should presume good-faith engagement by their opponents. If your strategy primarily relies on ad hominems, references to out-of-round events, screenshots, or accusations that could have been resolved by emailing your opponents or their coaches before the round, you should strike me."

Eden Yohannes Rosemount Sr High School 7 rounds

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