Yes email chain please:

nolangoodwin21@gmail.com

Debated four year at Salina South High School

Coached on and off since 2013

Speed is fine. If I can't understand you I will just say clear.

Don't just read pre-prepared blocks straight from your laptop at full speed with little contextualization to the arguments the other team is making. Please don't just speed read over views to me in the 2NR/2AR and expect to win my ballot. Don't force me to make a decision because you chose not to slow down and contextualize your arguments. It's pretty easy to tell if I am agreeing with your argumentation. I will either miss important things you want me to vote on, or I will try to keep up with everything and not think about the arguments which will most likely result in me voting on something that you didn't actually want me to vote for.

K vs FW- If you are going to read a K aff in front of me please take the time to explain what the aff does. Defending some type of advocacy statement in front of me is going to be the best option when reading a K aff. I enjoy topic debates but that doesn't mean that I haven't voted for K affs. I often end up voting neg on FW because the aff doesn't effectively argue against a topical version of the aff. I don't really find arguments about framework creating violence to be very persuasive and reading debate bad in front of me is not going to get you anywhere.

CP- I would prefer that you have a well thought out text than just some vague text that says we do the plan minus x or something like that. Don't be afraid to go for theory arguments in front of me on cheating counter plans that don't actually do anything. I would much rather vote for theory arguments than some process counterplan that does nothing.

K- I'm good on basic K lit but if you are reading some new alt that you haven't read before or are breaking something new I would probably not suggest doing it in front of me unless you can clearly explain what the world of the alternative actually does in a method that you can defend. You need to contextualize your link arguments. I'm not going to give you a lot of lead way on generic masking links.

I think that if you are reading more than 5-6 off that you are just doing too much most of the time. You should spend more time burying them in the block on case rather than reading 4 different CP's that all have next to no way to actually solve the aff and are just baiting them into undercovering something so you can go for it because you were just faster. That just leads to boring debates.

If you have any more question feel free to email me or just ask before round.

lukehartman3@gmail.com

Background:

I debated for four years at Olathe Northwest and one year at Kansas State. I was previously an assistant coach at Blue Valley North (2014-2018 and 2021-2022), a lab leader at the Jayhawk Debate Institute (2018), and an assistant coach at Peninsula (2019-2021). I am now a patent lawyer based in Austin.

General Comments:

• I prefer policy-oriented debates, but I'm not terribly picky and will listen to most arguments as long as you can justify them.
• I don't pretend to be truly tabula rasa, as I believe that setting some ground rules (namely, that the affirmative team should defend the resolution and that the negative team should disprove the desirability of the affirmative) is a necessary prerequisite to meaningful, fair debate.
• Logic > tech > truth
• I'm far more willing vote for a smart analytical argument than a shallow extension of a card. Evidence should be read for the purpose of backing up your arguments, not the other way around.
• The technical aspect of debate is important to me. I'm generally willing to assign substantial risk to dropped arguments, but you still have to extend those arguments and their respective warrant(s).
• I love cross-x. If your cross-x is well thought out and used to generate arguments and understandings that are useful in speeches for important parts of the debate, my happiness and your speaker points will increase. [Credit to Nick Miller for most of the preceding sentence.]
• I enjoy a good joke (and occasionally a bad one).

Topicality/Theory:

The affirmative team must affirm the resolution in order to win the debate, and I believe that maximizing fairness and education (generally in that order) is good for debate. "The plan is reasonably topical" is not an argument unless the negative's interpretation is patently absurd; the neg's standards/voters are reasons why the aff is not reasonably topical. T is never an RVI. Conditionality is fine unless abused in an egregious fashion; for example, if your 1NC strat consist of 3 Ks and 4 CPs (I've seen it), you should probably go home and rethink your life.

Kritiks:

I am not especially well versed in high-theory critical literature, so do what you can to avoid burying me in jargon. I am probably persuaded by permutations more often than the average judge, and I tend to be skeptical of alts that seem utopian and/or impossible. I'm not a fan of 2NRs that go for "epistemology first" as a way to remove all substantive clash from the debate. Additionally, I tend not to think that my ballot has any particular "role" besides choosing who wins/loses the debate. "Role of the ballot" arguments should be articulated as impact framework, and they require actual standards/warrants -- not just the assertion that "The role of the ballot is [to vote for exactly what our aff/K does]." I am extremely skeptical of the idea that an isolated use of gendered/ableist language is reason enough for a team to lose a debate round. Please avoid reading from dead French philosophers if at all possible.

Debates judged (current topic): 0

Debates judged (career): 337

Name: William Klausmeyer
School: Kapaun Mt. Carmel (Wichita, KS)
Experience: 3 year high school debater, 2 of those were high flow years

    1 year Wichita State University Debate

I debated 3 years in high school and was a high flow kritikal debater. I’ve debated most types of debates from straight up policy to performative and everything in between. That being said don’t assume that I know your literature base. I’m a tabula rosa judge (meaning I’ll vote for anything if it’s a warranted claim) but I default to a policy maker paradigm.

Speed – I prefer clarity over speed especially in nuanced arguments. It’s been a while since I’ve debated a high-flow round so start off slow and give me time to adjust. If I can’t understand you I’ll yell clear.

T/Theory – Give me a quality theory debate and I’ll vote for you. That said, my threshold for quality is probably higher than most. Theory was my baby in high school so if you want me to vote for you do it right. That means impacting your arguments out and explaining your arguments well. You’ll have a tough time winning the round on a blip theory argument unless its extended correctly (tell me what your argument was and why I should vote on it).

Disads – I like a specific story and a good link chain. Impact cards should be updated as well as the link cards. Don’t be making economic collapse causes war arguments from 2005 cards. That’s an easy way to lose credibility. I’ve always liked good DA turns case arguments, so if you have them use them. It’s an easy way to get more ground out of 1 argument.

Case – Case debate is vital to a good round (unless you have an AMAZING argument as to why case doesn’t matter). Good, logical arguments give you a lot of credibility. Case turns are an easy way to generate offense. At the very least you should mitigate case as best as possible.

Kritiks – I ran kritiks in high school but I by no means know the entire literature base. Don’t assume I know what you’re talking about, explain your arguments well. If you don’t have an interwoven argument to take out case you need to attack it separately.

Performance – Go for it but make real arguments and be able to explain them. Know your framework and how to win it.

Go for clash and debate warrants not just tags and you’ll have a much easier time winning. This is by no means comprehensive so ask any questions you have before the round.

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.

Last update September 2023 in an attempt to majorly condense down to what you actually want to know.

Yes email chain (I like Speechdrop or Tabroom Share even better but will defer to what y'all want) - eskoglund@gmail.com

POLICY DEBATE

Background

Olathe South 2001, 1 year at KU

Head coach, Olathe Northwest HS, Kansas (assistant 2006-2016, head 2016-present)

90%+ of my judging is on a local circuit with varying norms for speed, argumentation, etc.

1) My most confident decisions happen in policymaker-framed rounds. I will do my best to follow you to other places where the debate takes us.

2) If your aff doesn't advocate a topical plan text, the burden is on you to ensure that I understand your advocacy and framework. If you don't make at least an attempt to relate to the resolution, it's going to be very hard for you.

3) I flow what I hear but I will follow speech docs to watch for clipping. Egregious clipping will lead me to decide the round even if a formal challenge is not filed.

4) Whether you've got a plan, an advocacy statement, or whatever - much of the work coming out of camps is so vague as to be pointless. You don't need a six plank plan or a minute of clarification, but a plan should be more than the resolution plus a three word mission statement. I will err neg on most questions of links and/or theory when affirmatives ignore this.

5) I don't judge kick unless given explicit instruction to that effect. Conditional 2NRs are gross.

6) Flow the debate, not the speech doc.

7) Anytime you're saying words you want on my flow, those need to not be at 400 wpm please.

8) On T, I primarily look for a competing interpretation framework. "Reasonability" to me just means that I can find more than one interpretation acceptable, not that you don't have to meet an interp. My understanding of T is more "old school" than a lot of the rest of arguments; a T debate that talks a lot about offense/defense and not a lot about interpretations/violations is less likely to be something I comprehend in the way you want.

9) Long pre-written overviews in rebuttals are neither helpful nor persuasive.

10) I will not lie to your coach about the argumentation that is presented in the round. I will not tolerate the debate space being used to bully, insult, or harass fellow competitors. I will not evaluate personal disputes between debaters.

11) I think disclosure probably ought to be reciprocal. If you mined the aff's case from the wiki then I certainly hope you are disclosing negative positions. My expectations for disclosure are dependent on the division and tournament, and can be subject to theory which is argued in the round. DCI debaters in Kansas should be participating in robust disclosure, at a minimum after arguments have been presented in any round of a tournament.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE

First and foremost, this is a debate event. Any speech after the authorship/sponsorship speech should be making direct, meaningful reference to prior speakers in the debate. Simply repeating or rehashing old points is not an effective use of your, or my, time. Several speeches in a row on the same side is almost always bad debate, so you should be prepared to speak on both sides of most legislation.

The fastest path to standing out in most chambers is to make it clear that you're debating the actual content of the legislation, not just some vague idea of the title. Could I get your speech by just Googling a couple of words in the topic, or have you actually gotten into the specific components of the legislation before you?

I come from the policy debate planet originally but that doesn't mean I want you to speed. We have different events for a reason.

Role playing is generally good, particularly if we're at a circuit or national tournament where your constituents might be different from others in your chamber.

I notice and appreciate effective presiding officers who know the rules and work efficiently, and will rank you highly if your performance is exemplary.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE

Speed is fine but I will not clear you (see longer discussion in policy below). I come from a fairly traditional LD circuit, so while I can understand policy type argumentation, my decision calculus may be a bit unpredictable if you just make this a 1 on 1 CX round with too-short speech times.

I am watching for clipping and will directly intervene against you if you clip cards in a way that I judge to be egregious, even if the issue is not raised in the round.

My default way of evaluating an LD round is to compare the impacts presented by both sides through the lens of each side's value and criterion, if presented. If you want me to do something different please run a clear role of the ballot or framework argument and proactively defend why your approach is predictable enough to create fair debate.

Your last 1-2 minutes, at least, should be spent on the big picture writing my reason for decision. Typically the debater who does this more clearly and effectively will win my ballot.

PUBLIC FORUM

Clash is super important to all forms of debate and is most often lacking in PF. You need to be comparing arguments and helping me weigh impacts.

Pointing at evidence is not incorporating it into the round. If you don't actually read evidence I won't give it any more weight than if you had just asserted the claim yourself. Smaller quotations are fine, but the practice of "this is true and we say this from Source X, Source Y, and the Source Z study" is anti-educational.

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.