School andover central high school

# of years debated in high school 3          what school 9th- ramay jr. high, 10-11 fayetteville high school, AR

# of years debated in college 4                  what college/university harding university, AR

Currently a head hs coach, I have also coached at the college level

What paradigm best describes your approach to debate policy/stock/narrative (in the fisher sense).  I will try to be in the paradigm you put me, if you win the position.  But, the above are my default

What do you think the aff burdens should be?  To present a prima facie case

What do you think the neg burdens should be?  To provide a reason to reject the aff’s prima facie case

How I feel about delivery (slow vs fast)? If it is clear, it can be relatively fast.  If I cannot understand, I will say “clear”, after that, you are on your own.

How I feel about generic disads, counterplans, kritiks? Fine on all of the above – I do want some type of link or connection to the aff or resolution (if it is a kritikal aff).  I do not like conditionality (see paradigm), but will vote for conditional arguments if the other side does not beat them.  The easiest way to beat a kritik with me in the round is usually to show performative contradictions by the team running them.  If you are going to run a kritik, you need to live the kritik.  I prefer non-topical counterplans, but will vote for topical counterplans if the other side does not beat them. 

How I feel about case debates?  I enjoy them if they are true case debates – I can and have voted on solvency and inherency (sparingly, for inherency)

Other comments/suggestions:  I am old, but not dead.  I have been involved with debate since 1978.  I have competed and coached at both the high school and college level.  Ask questions before the round to find out what you need to find out about me.  I do not like meanness in a round and have been known to vote against it. Debate is an activity that is best served by inclusion rather than exclusion.  I tend to flow claims rather than authors – so if you want to point something out – give me the claim rather than the author or I may miss it.  I do listen to evidence and will flow what the card says as well as what the claim is.  Make sure that there is a clear distinction between pieces of evidence.  If there is a run on between the last sentence in the card and the next claim, I may miss it.  That is easily solved by signposting with numbers and/or letters rather than “ANDDDD”.

Contact me with any questions, hate mail, or life advice: mason5855[at]gmail[dot]com

Debated 4 years in High school in the Shawnee Mission Area on the competitive local and national circuit
Currently debating @ KU
Rounds Judged on LA topic: 30+
Rounds Judged on Oceans: 10+
Rounds Judged on Surveillance: 9

TL;DR--Read a plan, don't read a plan, play music, read hundreds of cards - *how* you debate doesn't influence my decision unless implications of your method/performance are brought up in round. I rely on framing arguments to check my intervention in the debate, but intervention is probably inevitable to some degree. You can read things like Baudrillard and Heg advantages in front of me, but I won't encourage you to do so. email me if you have any questions

*Kansas Debate*

An argument = Claim + WARRANT + Impact. A lot of debates that I judge at regional tournaments involve debaters with relatively *good* understanding of techne and argumentative theory, but are really, really shallow when articulating why an argument is true or why a certain internal link chain makes sense. If you are tag-line or shaddow extending your arguments, you should expect my decision to be increasingly subjective, especially if I have no idea what your advocacy is/does (this goes for both critical and traditional policy arguments). Make framing arguments. Make permutations. Don't re-read evidence. Explain a dropped argument beyond "they dropped this so it flows Aff/Neg".

*Old Debate*

Aff:

Talk about the topic - this isn't a rule, but I think it's meaningful. It helps you contextualize your theoretical abstractions and/or policy discussions. We pick a new one every year, and there's a lot of creativity in tying your research to a prompt that won't always be available to you in educational environments.

I've been a 1A, and will give you leeway on extensions, but there has to be 2AC substance to back it up. Important things to make sure you highlight for me are framing arguments, the description/evaluation of permutations, and a clear articulation of your advocacy, interp, or whatever it is that you're defending. I'll also let the 1AR get away with embeded clash if it can be contextualized in a clearer fashion in the 2AR. 

I will vote on a plan-flaw. I hope you've appropriately capitalized the letters in your actor names. 

T:

I generally think reasonability means that your grounding in topical literature solves most of the Neg's offense, but you need to explain what reasonability is in the 1AR at minimum, preferably in the 2AC. "Be reasonable" is as vague as "vote for the team with the best argument". I default to competing interps because that's where most of the offense gets hashed out anyways. Intent to define and Author quals are a good way to frame how i evaluate each teams standards. When impacting out T, try to contextualize your argument to the Aff's interp. The Roland/People Quit type of impacts only get you so far if both teams agree that being topical is good.

T/Framework:

I think the second half of the rez is always easier to defend than the "USfg should", but I'll evaluate your interp regardless. I'm less swayed by the traditional "switch-side debate good, state good, limits/predictability, etc" impacts, but I do enjoy the nuance of deliberative democracy, stasis, and institutional competency. You will never win that ontological and epistemological inquiries are irrelevant to policy-making in front of me unless the other team drops it. You should have a defense of why your interp facilitates a better mechanism to discuss these rather than try to frame them away from the impact debate. I think it's also important to deliniate between role-playing/fiat and institutional competency or legal education if those are the types of arguments you're going for. 

Disads:

I don't have many thoughts on the substance of these debates, but i do think perception-based links give the neg some creativity in terms of impact calc. Don't expect me to be knowledgable about the uniqueness of these - i don't read politics or traditional disads anymore and haven't invested enough time in them to keep up with the lingo.

CPs:

They need to be competitive. They need to solve some part of the aff, everything else is up to the case debate. I'm open to whatever CP you want to read as well as the theory debates behind them. Like disads, i don't read traditional CPs much and won't be familiar with your tricks, so try and highlite these in the overview or whatever part of the debate you think they apply to. Object fiat is probably cheating and pedagogically unproductive.

Kritiks:

You need a clear articulation of not just what your Alt "is", but specifically what it does. you should articulate the relationship between my endorsement of your alt and your impacts. specific links aren't a rule for me, but they'll make the 1AR sand-bagging on the perm less messy and will help you control the case/impact debate. I'm more persuaded by Aff defenses of methodology/reps/epistemology/ontology rather than theoretical objections to prioritizing those. Both teams need to analyze the relationship between the link debate and the perm debate - this is where a lot of cheap-shots are won, and substantive argument is lost. Both teams need to give me a framework that either A) positions me to evaluate arguments in a given context or B) establishes what the function/role of the ballot is or should be. Absent this, my decision will be a forced arbitration that will be whatever makes sense to me. you might love or hate that depending on which flavor of koolaid you're sipping on. 

Theory:

I'm personally not experienced in either going for theory or evaluating it. that said, i won't tell you which theory interps to read/not read. you NEED to slow down when impacting out your argument - especially in your shells and especially if i don't have access to the analytic in the speech doc. I think identifying in-round strat skews helps offset the "reject the arg not the team", but i won't promise you a win for making it.

*New Debate*

Methodology

Methodology is important and I think that having a good understanding of both yours and your opponents makes for some really great debates. It's important that you highlite the difference in scholarship-production/pedegogy between the two. I also think this both complicates and redefines the attributes of the permutation. I don't think that you can necessarily "do both", especially when it comes to performing your method. I do think you can contest the mutual-exclusivity of a competing method. A lot of method debates that I've been in come down to questions of accessibility and knowledge production, so you should have a good defense of both in the context of your argument.

Performance

i think performative contradictions in more traditional K arguments give the Aff way more leeway towards perms and link evasions. I think your performance should account for how your performance is received and interpolated, as most discourse/affect theory tends to be grounded in the speaker/audience relationship and since my decision is ultimately my interpretation of your discourse/affect regardless of your style anyways. Also the more you do to explain how the permutation should be evaluated in this kind of debate, the better. 

*Technicalities* Speed

Clarity > Speed - especially in theory/analytic debates.

Prep time

Prep time ends when the flash-drive is pulled or when the doc is saved/is being emailed. I'm not harsh about this, but please don't take 5 minutes to save your speech or pretend that you're jumping when you're actually removing analytics.

Flowing

I flow whatever is said during the speech times with a grace period if the debate warrants it.  I think it's warranted to extend a little bit if something about the debate gets personal (see thoughts on micro-aggressions), but not if you're getting to the 4 perm disads that you forgot to extend in your 1NR or reading new ev, etc.

Speaks

Speaker points are still difficult for me - my largest issue is that my expectation of what a given debate looks like will change depending on where I'm judging. at regional/Kansas tournaments, i'm likely to reward debaters with 27.8-28.8 if they engage in minimal articulation of claims + warrants + impacts, whereas my expectations of debaters at national-circuit and competitive local tournaments will be much higher to get those kinds of speaks, or higher speaks respectively. The easier you make the debate for me to evaluate, the higher your speaks will be. i tend to reward things like awareness and articulation of conceded arguments, contextualization of your arguments to the round, clear speaking, and strategic choice when picking which arguments to extend. I tend to give lower speaks for inarticulate explanations of arguments, generic blocks that don't speak to the context of arguments made in the debate, rude behavior, and tooling your partner.

I debated for 4 years at Andover Central High School. I debated at Wichita State University for 4 years. I was an assistant coach at Andover Central for 3 years.

Jodee Hobbs and Chris Loghry have been the biggest debate influences on me. As such, my thoughts on debate are probably derivatives of theirs. Also, Daniel Saunders is my other head, so anything that works in front of him probably works in front of me.

I think debate should be fun. I think debate should be about having fun. If you’re not having fun, I’m not having fun; everyone loses in that world. I have gone for almost every “type” of argument imaginable and would not consider myself partial to any one “style” of debate. I’ll gladly listen to your performance, kritik, DA, conspiracy theory, or whatever. I often get told that I would be at home in the late 90’s and the 00’s. That’s probably not the best way to put it... I somehow have a reputation for being obsessed with “wild arguments” and being a bit of a K hack. I honestly have no clue how I got this reputation. However, if you want to do something of the wall; go for it. I feel that off beat arguments lead to some of the highest quality debates. In my mind the best strategies are those that trap or trick your opponents. As such, I am not much a fan of the “the block read 67 cards, the 1ar read 34” type debates. Debate should not solely be about out spreading your opponent; it should be about out smarting them (This being said, I love strategies that outspread people too. If you want to impact turn somebody, GO FOR IT). I think creativity has all but died in debate (This is a large part of the reason why I hate Cap, Security, Politics, etc.). If you do something original, and I mean original, you’re in good shape. I think that I have a responsibility as an educator to encourage teams to innovate and find their own style/identity in debate. I will heavily reward teams that make clever arguments, think on their feet, and have a good attitude/sense of humor. If y’all want to talk after I give an RFD; I’ll happily give you tips, tricks, and argument ideas. Likewise, if something seemed off in my decision, talk to me about it. I know that I make the wrong decision from time to time; I’m not a robot (or am I?).

Specific Stuff:

Speed: Spreading is an integral part of debate and a necessary skill for all involved. If speed isn’t your thing, it’s cool though (while I think you should be fast, you should also debate how you’re comfortable). If you’re unclear, I will yell “CLEAR” once and if you continue to be unclear I will stop flowing. I must note that there are two spreading styles that I find absolutely unintelligible. First is the “whisper spread,” where kids talk in an extremely soft and high pitched voice. Often times when kids do this I can’t understand a word because they are too quiet. You’ve got to BE LOUD and enunciate. Second is the “clear tags spread.” In this one the tags are really clear but the warrants of the card are unintelligible. If I can’t understand the warrants of a card, it’s functionally the same as not making the argument (I believe an argument consists of a Claim and a Warrant).

CX: CX is one of the most important and underused parts of a debate. Good CX can win a round. I think CX is not a speech (Controversial Right?). I think CX is binding. CX is about making arguments not getting clarifications. With that said, you should ask and answer questions, not just shout at each other.

Disadvantages: DAs are great. Generic DAs are fine, specific links are preferred. Gotta do impact calc. Gotta tell me a story with your DA. AFF: Turns are cool, Add-ons are cool, UQ overwhelms the link is real. Not much to say here.

PTX: This is one of the arguments in debate that I absolutely loathe. It is wholly unimaginative and embodies everything that is wrong with debate. I’ll probably think less of you as a debater if this is a mainstay of your strategy. This does not mean that I won’t vote on politics. Regretfully, I end up voting for a PTX DA more often than not. AFF: All your favorite theory arguments and fiat tricks are live in front of me. If you know what you are doing you can probably make this DA disappear.

Counterplans: CPs need to be competitive. CPs need to have a Net Benefit. Plan Plus Counterplans probably lose to a perm. Consult is probably illegitimate; unless you win it’s not. Multiplank Counterplans could possibly be abusive. I’m a huge fan of tricky PICs. Word PICs are fine. Props if you can PIC out of something not in the Aff… AFF: I live for the perm debate. Complex perms will not only win you debates, they’ll win my respect.

T/FW: Hands down my favorite argument. Predictable Limits, Ground and Deliberation are the only real standards. Everything else is a subsidiary of those three. Quit with this Precision stuff. With that said, I don’t have any thoughts on weather a team needs to be topical. I think K affs and Non-traditional affs either need to win a Counter Interpretation or an Impact Turn to T/FW. T Version is a defensive argument that helps with answering offense predicated off of the Aff being excluded. T version is NOT a CP. PERMING T DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.

Theory: Learn it, Live it, Love it. Don’t fly through your blocks.

Kritiks: This is why you’re here right? I’m familiar with a lot of stuff. I’ve read/ran mostly Anthro, Critical Geopolitics, Coloniality, Levinas, Zizek, Nihilism, OBJ, and Ableism. You should ALWAYS assume that I’m not familiar with what you’re running. I won’t make arguments for you, even if I know the literature base. I like to think that I have a sort of “debate understanding” of a lot of kritikal arguments, where I don’t quite understand the entire body of literature or the overarching theory but I have seen the argument deployed enough to get the general idea of where teams are wanting to go. I think that K debates, particularly at the high school level, are often very non-interactive. K teams like to talk a lot about their theory but not apply it to the Aff. In order to be successful, you must explain how the K deals with the Aff. Examples are encouraged but not always necessary. Some part of the debate needs to make a sort of framework argument that tells me what I prioritize in my decision and/or what my decision means/does. This does not necessarily mean a role of the ballot type claim; most ROBs are nonsensical and extremely vacuous. Likewise, I CANNOT vote for something that I don’t understand. If I don’t get how the Alt functions and/or how the links work; I’m most likely voting Aff.

Other Stuff:

I’m super torn on the “What should debate be” question. I don’t know if you can actually change stuff through debate. I’d love to hear you talk about it though.

Language Ks are my least favorite thing to judge; even more so than PTX. “You said a bad word, you deserve to lose” isn’t the best model for debate. I have no clue why more people aren’t going for PC Bad/Free Speech Good.

I’ll vote on Inherency and/or You don’t solve your Aff.

I think there can be zero risk of a link or impact.

I understand sports metaphors, unlike some of your judges.

I’m super into anything DC Comics.

HUMOR IS ENCOURAGED.

I absolutely HATE it when kids idolize the kid that they are debating. Don’t worship at their feet during the round. Buck up, and beat them down. These people should be your rivals not your idols.

Debate is a fight. You’ve gotta have the EYE OF THE TIGER. If you get offended or ticked off by what people say; you’re probably in the wrong sport.

I am a flow judge. I will listen to any argument. Argumention is the heart of debate and weighs heaviest on my ballot. Clear arguments and reasoning for how a round should be decided, especially in those last two rebuttals, will weigh heaviest in my decision. At the end of the day, your argumentation should decide any round.

I debated for 3 years @ Washburn Rural
I debated for 4 years @ Emporia State (NDT '08)
I am the Director of Debate at Lawrence Free State HS (7th year at FS, 15th year as a head coach, 23rd year in Policy Debate)

*Please add me to the email chain if one exists: kmikethompson@gmail.com

tl;dr

I will do my best to answer any questions that you have before the debate.

-I don't care how fast you talk, but I do care how clear you talk. I'm unlikely to clear you but it will be obvious if I can't understand you because I won't be flowing and I communicate non-verbally probably more than most other judges. This is particularly relevant in online debate.

-I don't care what arguments you read, but I do care whether you are making arguments, responding to opposition arguments, and engaging in impact calculus (your arg v their arg, not just your arg) throughout the debate.

-I don't care what aff you read, if you defend a plan, or if you debate on the margins of the topic, but I do care if you have offensive justifications for your decisions, and if you solve.

-If you're reading generic link arguments or CP solvency cards - it will matter a great deal how well you can contextual that generic evidence to the specific affirmative plan.

-I think teams should be willing to go for theory more.

Some top level thoughts:

1) "New in the 2" is bad for debate. Barring an affirmative theoretical objection - I'll evaluate you arguments and not intervene despite my bias. But, if the other team makes an argument about it - I will disregard all new positions read in the negative block.

2) Neg ground on this topic is not very good. I'm sympathetic to the negative on theoretical objections of counterplans as a result.

3) If you're flowing the speech doc and not the speech itself you deserve to be conned in to answering arguments that were never made in the debate, and to lose to analytic arguments (theory and otherwise) that were made while you were busy staring at your screen.

4) People should assume their opponent's are winning some arguments in the last rebuttals. A decision to assume you're winning everything nearly guarantees that you are incorrect and minimizes the likelihood that you're doing relevant impact calculus. I really think "even-if" statements are valuable for final rebutalists.

-My speaker point scale has tended to be:

29+ - you should be in elimination debates at this tournament, and probably win one or more of those rounds

28.5 - you are competing for a spot to clear but still making errors that may prevent you from doing so. Average for the division/tournament.

28 - you are slightly below average for the division/tournament and need to spend some time on the fundamentals. Hopefully, I've outlined in my notes what those are.

27.5 - there were serious fundamental errors that need to be corrected.

Topicality- I really enjoy T debates, I think competing interpretations is probably true and find reasonability arguments to be uncompelling almost always. That said, this topic is kinda awful for T debates. If you're not topical you should have an offensive reason that you're not. If you are topical then you should win why your vision of the resolution is superior to the negatives.

Critiques- K debaters tend to spend an extraordinary amount of time on their link arguments, but no time on explaining how the alternative resolves them. Affirmatives tend to concede K tricks too often.

Counterplans - I like smart, aff specific counter plans more than generic, topic type counter plans.

Critical affs - I'm fine with K affs and deployed them often as a debater. I find it difficult to evaluate k affs with poorly developed "role of the ballot" args. I find "topical version of the aff" to be compelling regularly, because affs concede this argument. I have been more on the "defend topical action" side of the framework debate in the last two years or so. I'm not sure why, but poorly executed affirmative offense seems to be the primary cause.

https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Williams%2C+David+J.

Name David J. WIlliams
School; Newton HS Kansas
# of years debated in HS_0 What School NOPE
# of years debated in College_0 What College/UniversityNope
Currently a (check all that apply) xHead HS Coach _Asst. HS Coach
College Coach _College Debater
Debate Fan who regularly judges HS debate
# of rounds on this year’s HS Topic _10_
What paradigm best describes your approach to debate?
_xPolicy Maker _Stock Issues _Tabula Rasa
_Games Player _Hypothesis Tester ___Other (Explain)
What do you think the Aff burdens should be?
I think the aff should affirm the resolution and be topical and have the basic INH/PLAN/ADV/S structure.or something similar. I am willing to listen to any aff position but I am mainly a policy guy but a K aff is fine if you can explain it well enough. I won’t pretend to understand your position, aff or neg, so please prepare a presentation that balances a quicker than normal speech but not spewing and wheezing. Don’t speed through your 1ac and quit with 90 seconds to go.

What do you think the Neg burdens should be?
I think the neg may choose to debate the case or go with a generic position but I am going to vote on offense. I hate topicality and most theory arguments mainly because I hate flowing it. IF the aff is topical, even a little, then don’t run T. I wont flow it the way you want me to and I will default more to reasonability. If is reasonable then I wont vote against them on T. If the aff is not topical then run T. I will punish affirmatives who are non-topical. IF the aff is unreasonable then Neg will win even if I am terrible flowing the T.
How I feel about delivery (slow vs. fast)?
Slow tags/authors and quicker on card content. If I cannot understand you I will say clear. I prefer a slower style of debate that still uses the flow. My flow will be accurate(if you let me) with a slower round. Faster rounds will be my best guess. I would say slow down and be persuasive and signpost for me.
How I feel about generic Disads, Counter Plans, Kritiks?
Generics with good links are fine. I need to know the story of your arguments. If I cannot remember the story then I can’t voter for it.
How I feel about case debates?
I LOVE A GOOD CASE DEBATE…but I don’t require it.

Flashing is prep time. Flashing is not moving all your cards to a speech doc. THIS IS PREP TIME AND SPEECH PREP> IF you jump a speech to the other team please do so quickly. I believe the last step of every speech should be the flash. Once the flash drive is given to the other team..Prep starts for other team if the non speaking team wants to hold up speech to see if it is on jump drive. Prep is over for the non speaking team when they indicate they are ready. IF the speech did not make it or if the format is difficult to use. I will grant a grace period of 1 mintue to resolve the issue. Laptops are normal for me. I don’t want your face buried in your screen.