Kalen.pop@gmail.com

Put me on that email chain. Policy Debate Coach at Iowa City West since '18, Head Debate Coach at Liberty High since '20. I'm a senior Political Science/Journalism double major and "member of" the policy debate team at the University of Iowa. Before college, I debated policy at ICW for all 4 years of high school. Scroll to the bottom if you're a PF or LD debater

TLDR: I'll vote on anything you can make me understand. Tech and truth are both important, tech over truth unless instructed to do otherwise or if the tech is indisputably false. I often enjoy judging K affs but have been told I'm a bad judge for them. I'm intimately familiar with cap and politics, but I'll vote on anything I can understand.

Detailed Paradigm:

The type of debater I am: When I debated, I typically went for policy arguments and policy-ish Ks. (Cap, Agamben, some very shallow Foucault, etc.) As a judge, I'll vote on any argument I can understand. I often find framework against negative Ks uncompelling unless the neg drops it or you have some reason that the specific Kritik in question that round is bad for debate.

Spreading: is fine. But don't spread analytics, please, for the love of god.

Tag team CX: it's allowed but I lower your maximum speaker points to 29.9. Also, if you do it when you don't need to or if you do it very excessively (i.e., the 2A talking for over half of 1AC cx) I'll drop it further.

DAs: see paragraph 1 of the detailed paradigm. DA+Case in the 2NR is the most satisfying thing in the world, done correctly.

CPs: Yeah ofc you can and should read CPs, it's not the 60s. Perms are good, btw: only way to test negation theory. Don't say perms are severance unless you can explicitly outline for me which perm severed and how.

CP theory: I'll admit that I'm personally biased in favor of condo good bc I was, in my prime, a condo hack. If you want to win condo bad, be very clean and very thorough about it. I only vote on no neg-fiat when it's cold conceded, but I do think debates about specific types of negative fiat are interesting. (i.e. 50 state fiat, consultation fiat, international fiat, etc.)

Kritiks: pretty rad, whether they're read as part of a 12-off 1NC or a 1-off, no case strat. I want to be clear, though: I REALLY NEED to understand what you're saying to vote for you with confidence. I try to understand things that I can, but I lack the exposure and/or general vocabulary to understand a lot of high theory keywords and phrases. Please don't hesitate to use Layman's terms when I look confused, and I assure you, I will eventually look confused.

I usually find aff framework against Ks kind of uncompelling. I think Ks are probably fine for education, and the link lit base probably means they're fair. I don't want to vote aff on "kritiks bad for debate," it makes me feel indescribably upset to do so. (I'm still down to vote aff on like, condo tho. See the CP theory section.)

K affs: I find K affs very interesting, but I AM AN EMPIRICALLY BAD JUDGE FOR THEM. I hold affs to an allegedly higher-than-average threshold of explanation for why being topical wasn't an option, and why reading an actively untopical aff is better. I will not assume these arguments for you, they need to be spelled out clearly. Your 1AC should probably mention the resolution subject at some point.

I also want to re-emphasize the thing I said about kritiks here: if I don't understand the K aff, it's a lottttt harder for me to vote for you. If I look confused, that's a big red flag, and means I need more explanation about what the things you're saying mean because I'm not big brain enough to understand your vocabulary. I try to approach every round as objectively and neutrally as possible, but I need to understand what both teams are saying in order to maintain that neutrality, and tapping into a niche high theory literature base will often make that much harder for you to do. Props to you if you can adapt to this, but please understand that I may not comprehend 100% of what you're saying.

Topicality: Yeah, it's good stuff. Use it to hold affs accountable for jumping to the whacky end of the topic, or just to fill time you wanted to use on your politics DA that no longer links. "Literature base checks" + "we're a core of the topic" is a pretty compelling aff combo to me, but only when both of those things are like, true.

Want better speaks? Don't be blippy on T. If you choose extend it, do it in such a way that I won't feel like trash for voting on it later.

Policy affs: just because you're topical doesn't mean you're ethically justified. You should be ready to defend your methods/ethics/whatever just as much as you expect untopical K affs to. AT THE SAME TIME, just because an aff is topical doesn't always mean it links to the K. Careful K teams: I do still expect you to win links to things.

Misc. notes:

- My friends know me as a Cap and Politics debater and they're not wrong. That doesn't mean I'll auto-vote on these arguments, but it does mean these are the flows on which you'll probably get the most in-depth feedback. (Again: don't assume I'll vote you up just for reading cap or politics.)

- I'm always impressed with good, clean line-by-line. I'll give you speaks for being clean on the flow.

- Spreading is an impressive skill and you should do it when you read cards. HOWEVER, if you spread analytics, I'M GONNA MISS SOME. 300 WPM on analytical arguments is really pushing it. I know that some judges can flow that fast, but I am not one of them: my handwriting sucks and is capped at like, normal tagline pace. (This DOES NOT MEAN go slow in general. It just means that you should acknowledge that the concept of going too fast can sometimes exist in the context of analytics.)

- Debate is a functionally a game (not necessarily in the context of framework, just like, in the abstract.) It's also a community, so you should be nice to eachother. I'll probably give you speaks for it, and I'll certainly take them away for being rude.

PF: PF is traditionally about being persuasive, whereas policy is about being right. If you can do both I'll be impressed and probably give you a 30. Otherwise, I feel like I have a more or less firm grasp on your activity.

LD: I have no idea how your activity works and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. Whoever successfully teaches me the activity will get an automatic 30. Please dumb your Ks down for me, I'm a policy hack. If you can't do that, you can always go for Cap.