Iowa City CW and debating in college at Harvard (sorta)

He/Him

Coach for UC Lab

Yes, add me to the chain: simphi314@gmail.com

Zoom Debate - if my camera is off or if I am not within the frame, don't start talking. I am not there and will miss your speech.

TLDR; I am a significantly worse judge than you think I am. My voting record is surprisingly neg leaning. I'm not a great flow. I *hate* framing contentions. I think being unclear is borderline clipping. Fine with all types of debates, but am generally preffed policy > clash > KvK. I generally give low speaks (I have never given above a 29.5, so far).

Top Level

People who’ve influenced my views on debate: Vince Woolums, Bill Batterman, Maggie Berthiaume, Ellie Bennet, Nate Sawyer, Kyle Joseph.

Will hold the line against any bad ‘ism’. If this is a vague standard to anyone reading my paradigm, 1) Don’t pref me 2) Read a better argument.

You can insert ev, as long as it was read by the other team.

Small schools get higher speaks, as long as I see a sufficient amount of Orginal prep work.

If you don't send analytics you lose speaks (doesn't apply for stuff on your flow, duh). If you send speech docs where you deleted analytics you will lose extra speaks.

K affs

If a debate were 50-50 I would likely vote for the FW team, but no debate will ever be 50-50 and I'll determine who's winning in the most equitable way possible

Full Disclosure: I debated a cap k aff for most of my sophomore year and have only read aff with plantexts since (although most were dubiously topical). I was more on the side of T during hs, but actively work to judge these debates with as little ideology as possible.

That being said, here are some of my preferences:

I very much enjoy originality, I strongly believe Shree’s view on aff diversity. There are lots of defensible positions in every part of the library, you should branch out and read the most strategic ones.

You actually have to beat T-USfg – I slightly prefer C/I over Impact turns, but you do you.

For FW teams – have SSD or TVA – probably don’t need both

Clash/Negation > Fairness > Skills

I think debate is good however the activity is flawed. I generally feel like most impact turns about the community aren't based on whether or not you read a plan text.

Case args are almost always mishandled by the neg – yes the aff doesn’t fiat something but almost all K affs advocate some sort of future. Debate the methodology, the ‘imagined future’, and the contradictions that are in almost all K affs. It’s far less difficult than you think it is.

Please don’t be rude in these rounds (@policy hacks), just because it’s a clash debate does not justify being an ass.

Non-T strats are very fun. Especially Counter Advocacies

K v. K are my least familiar debates but I generally view it as a question of the perm. Be clear on how you want me to frame my ballot please!

Policy Affs

Similar to K affs above, I enjoy diversity. The best affs are the ones you cut.

Most affs are trash – sometimes the best affs are trash. Make of that what you will.

I hate framing contentions – I have never seen an arguement in a framing card that has needed evidence before. If you can’t find framing cards that are specific to your aff, then your aff is most likely bad.

Impact turns are fun (not spark). Also, impact turning impact turns is very fun Probably will involve me reading a lot of ev.

T

I think I’m a pretty good judge for this. I had a lot of experience debating T on very dubious affs. Aff teams get away with murder when it comes to affs, negs should hold the line.

I’m very much on the side of Legal precision outweighs Debatability (the only reason something is debatable is because we know what the topic is)

Jurisdiction is just a reason why T is a voting issue

T is not genocide

Hidden theory dropped = insta dub (as long as you go for it)+ me being very sad - if you hide your theory on a flow that is not T expect low speaks

K

I have either debated or debated against basically every K that teams read nowadays. I am most familiar with Cap, Security, Anthro, Abolition, and Set Col.

I think self-described K debaters often get stuck with very little strategic K diversity (a different link card does not a new K make). As with K affs above, there are many parts of the critical library and many of them engage the aff better than most generic Ks.

I actively support arguments that engage in sedition.

I exclusively went for the Perm + link turn as a debater. If you wanna defend heg though, go for it.

K tricks are stupid and affs have a very low threshold to answer them.

Yes, your Baudrillard – I see no reason why debates over author quals are legitimate on other flows but not here.

CP

Negative teams get away with murder when it comes to cp texts, affs should hold the line

generally fine for perm debates - impact calc and framing on the definitions is the best way to avoid judge choice from determining rounds

Condo is a reason to reject the team, it should be in every debate. That being said I read both 4000 conditional advocacies and 0 conditional advocacies in my career, so its really just a question of who debates it better

Perms are an affs best friend

DA

Not much to say here – topic disads are better than ptx das but I get that its not possible to have topic disads sometimes.

Its generally a question of the link – tbh idrk if uq determines the link or vice versa – it shall be open to debate

Disad theory is pretty dumb, exceptions being fiat args vs ptx das

Misc

Member of the No Spark Society

I flow exclusively on paper

I won’t vote you down for memes but like they’re not good args

Please email me with questions after a debate if you have any

Any type of debate that’s not policy, I apologize profusely that you have to have me judging. I know nothing about your event. The closer you are to policy the better you will do in front of me.

FOR PF – Paraphrasing evidence is academically dishonest. I will NOT evaluate ANY piece of evidence that is paraphrased. Don't test me.