Pronouns: He, Him

Experience: 6-year asst. coach and 4-year competitor in both debate and speech. Significant experience in L-D and PF, but minimal experience in CX.

Style Preferences: Speed is usually fine as long as your enunciation can keep up. I will never vote on delivery, but strong delivery and clarity will only help your judge's understanding of your arguments.

Judging: Debate is about the clash of ideas. Tabula rasa is impossible, but I strive for coming into a round with absolutely zero preconceptions regarding what arguments hold water and what arguments do not. It's the role of the opponent to discredit the speaker's arguments (not my role); so, as long as the argument has a reasonable claim, data, and warrant, I'll accept the impacts of that claim until the opponent tells me not to.

The only time my preconceptions will ever come into play is with topicality/resolutional analysis in instances where neither side gives me a reason to buy their interpretation of the topic. I need to vote on the resolution by the end of the round, which means that I need to have an interpretation of what the resolution means and the burdens of each side. If neither side makes an argument for what those burdens are and what interpretations are fair/unfair, then I have to use the burdens and interpretations that make most sense to me.

Because you don't know what my perceived burdens and interpretations for any given resolution are, this means that you would be wise to spend time on topicality/burdens in your speeches if it seems like you and your opponent aren't seeing eye to eye. Also, I love burden/topicality debates; if you want to make my life more fun, argue burdens.

Cross: CX is the Maury of debate: It's inflammatory and usually not super substantive for the viewer (judge), but I would be lying if I said that it didn't greatly entertain me. For me, the CX or crossfire is for the benefit of the debaters, rather than the benefit of the judge. This means a few things: First, coming out "on top" or "looking better than the opponent" doesn't mean much to me. Second, I will add to my flow from cross if something comes up that clarifies something from the speeches, but I don't actively flow cross. Finally, any holes that you expose in cross should also be covered in your subsequent speeches if you really want it to be considered.

Things I like:

- Clear and consistent signposting

- Topicality/Rules/Burden Debate

- Clear impacts that stem from clear Claim-Data-Warrant structures.

- Kritiks - I like kritiks and off-the-wall arguments as long as their relevance to the ballot is made exceedingly clear.

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Things I DO NOT like:

- "I/my partner can bring that up in their next speech" -> Never brings it up. If this happens, I don't hesitate to drop the contention that the question was related to (because part of the defense being used is to hide evidence that they have/don't have by being dishonest to the opposition/judge).

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Debate is incredibly fun. I'm having the most fun when the debaters in front of me are having fun too.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask pre-round as long as we're not running behind.

-Christian Novak