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Illinois Debate Coaches Association JV and Novice State

2016 — IL/US

Novice Policy Paradigm List

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Raja Archie Evanston Township High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed December 18, 2019 at 3:04 AM CDT

Hi! I'm Raja Archie (my preferred pronouns: she/her/hers)

My email is rrarchie98@gmail.com and I’d love to be added to the email chain

Full Disclosure: This judge is black, disabled, and queer (be mindful of what you say around her and in her rounds)

My rounds are a safe places. Which means you are required to respect preferred pronouns. I encourage you to ask before the round starts and if you don’t get the chance to ask before the round avoid the use of gendered language. Homophobia, discrimination, racism, xenophobia, ableism, transphobia, sexism, and all other awful prejudices in any form is not tolerated in my rounds and I won’t hesitate to vote you down and end the round early if an unsafe environment is created. Just be a nice human :)

My Background: Former Policy and Congressional debate coach for ETHS. Former NatCirc + local circuit congress (1yr) and policy debater (5yrs) for 4yrs at ETHS (c/o 2016). Judging since 2015 and have experience in judging Congress, Policy, and LD.

My Philosophy: I don’t believe in telling debaters how they should debate, or what arguments they should read. As a judge I just decide who did the better debating at the end of the round.

A note for Congressional Debaters: Remember it's Congressional Debate, key word 'debate' that's the one really important aspect that separates this type of debate from a speech event so please please please remember to debate, clash really is critical. Also, try not to obsessively rehash which can be avoided by remembering to review your flow and trying to refute line by line. Lastly, the speakers who stick out to me the most aren't just the ones who sound good or present well they're the ones who can structure a speech and debate well on top of those things.

Important FYI! Please refrain from using gendered language in session, especially if everyone hasn't gone around and introduced themselves along with their preferred pronouns. Fortunately in Congress everyone has a title of either 'Rep. [insert last name]' or 'Sen. [insert last name]' which makes avoiding gendered language like 'she'/'he'/'her'/'miss'/etc. even easier :)

For Policy Debaters

Read arguments that YOU think are rad. Just do you. If you have a plan text that’s cool..but like also no plan text no problem because framework makes the game work. I'm not going to evaluate problematic or offensive arguments (i.e. ‘racism good’, ‘heteronormativity good’, ‘patriarchy good’, etc.) because that not only requires my brain power as a judge but also emotional labor that I won't be compensated for so just no. Note that problematic or offensive arguments does not mean problematic or offensive execution of an argument. Everyone is ignorant about some thing at some point and I am willing to educate if you’re willing to take an L, respectfully listen to what I have to say, and learn.

Speaking - When it comes to speaking speed is not an issue I can flow by ear exceptionally well but clarity is a must especially if you want high speaker points from me

Debaters love to ask me before round, ‘What types of arguments do you like judge?’ So to answer that simply, I like good arguments. What I'm not going to do is list which arguments I read as a debater because I don’t want you to read my paradigm then poorly execute an argument in front of me as a desperate attempt to secure a W. I do understand the importance of prefs though so full disclosure I’m probably not the preferred judge for you if your neg strat doesn’t contain a K

No matter what types of arguments you read, if I’ve judged you in the past, if I’m cool with your school or coach, what types of teams I’ve coached, what kind of debater I was or what lit I’ve read..I won’t do any of the work for you. That means don’t debate lazily. That means even if it’s the 6th prelim round give it your all still. That means clear breakdowns of arguments (i.e. solid overviews, answering those direct CX questions about your argument’s content, etc.). That also means crystal clear breakdowns of how your side has won the debate within rebuttal speeches is a necessity.

Remember, education comes first always, be kind to one another, spread positive vibes among your fellow debaters, and good luck!

Ben Barov Niles North High School 5 rounds None

Simon Berdes Niles West High School 3 rounds None

Melinda Berman Homewood-Flossmoor High School 5 rounds None

Robb Berry Northside College Prep 3 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 7, 2024 at 8:02 AM CDT

(updates for cities '21)

- i have judged zero rounds of online debate, so bear with me and probably aim for clarity as opposed to warp speed.

- i have judged zero rounds on the topic, so while i can read ev and follow a round don't assume i share, or care about, the community opinions about what cards or arguments or teams are good or bad or cool or automatically knock out others. good warrants are good warrants, trash is trash. now that i think about it, that's the case for every year.

- previewing your aff doesn't mean you're topical. it means you're predictable.

- there are a fair number of northside judges in the pool. for the most part we share a brain when it comes to what works for us stylistically, so if they've judged you before, that's a good barometer for what i'm looking for.

- it's the end of a brutal debate year for everyone, and for some of you it's the end of your careers. treat that scenario and everyone in it with the kindness and decency it deserves.

previous

(updated as of fall '17 for the sake of efficiency and clarity)

(further update: take anything aidan kane has told you about my judging with a grain of salt the size of a city bus.)

i spent the past 11 years as head coach at Northside College Prep (UDL school from Chicago, though we compete nationally) before stepping down in may. i don't judge a ton anymore, and don't pore over files as closely anymore.
i'd like to be on the email chain, but i won't be reading along with the speech doc. if you want the card to matter, make sure you’re clear and organized enough that it’s on my flow the way you want it. i don’t generally take prep for flashing/emailing; in panel rounds i’m happy to defer to less lenient judges.
fine with national-circuit speed when you’re reading cards, though per the above note you do need to cue me when you’re moving between cards or from the overview to the line-by-line. when you’re making analytics or reading your t/theory/fw blocks, you need to go slower. i say this knowing every other judge says the same, and yet for some reason it’s still necessary to say this.
the more bogged down in minutiae without clear framing and organization you all make the debate, the more likely i am to vote on the general thesis of the arguments. (not purposely or anything, just happens.) this might work in your favor, this might not.
non-traditional affirmatives (whatever that means now) have generally done well in front of me, although that’s largely a result of negative teams not being terribly strategic. i’m in a weird position in that i probably agree with your critique of societal ills and probably agree that they need to be aired, but i default to disagreeing that entirely delimiting the affirmative team is good for the educational value of the game. my initial degree of sympathy towards the neg on fw is usually dependent on how untethered the aff is from the core ground of the resolution as opposed to a particular method of defending it.
i will vote for arguments that i hate (besides the obvious like racism/sexism/etc. good), though both your burden and my blood pressure is higher in those instances.
Ks i hate: death cult/death good (it might be, but we have no game without those impacts), arguments that the state itself is bad (it might be, but at present we have no game without the aff being topical) as opposed to a specific action the plan fiats that the state takes. Ks i don’t love: those with alternatives that don’t take an action (and unless your alt solvency evidence is good, rethinking =/= acting). Ks i’m fine with: the rest. CPs i hate: artificially competitive process CPs. everything else is reasonable if you can justify it.
early in the year i look more to competing interpretations/potential abuse on t; later in the year, as the community is more settled, for me it becomes more about reasonability/in-round abuse.
i’m almost always going to default to RANT rather than dropping a team on a cheap theory violation. i’ve got more tolerance to outright drop a team on well-developed theory args on status questions as opposed to type questions.
ways to improve your speaks: have a coherent strategy, whether aff or neg; have causal scenarios that make sense as opposed to being distinct ideas from different contexts clumsily Frankenstein-ed back together; provide comparative impact and link work rather than ignoring what your opponent is in front on; don't be a tool in cx (better yet, at all); stick to the 2AC order (particularly in the block); structure your last rebuttals in such a way that i don't have to intervene a ton.

William Bert Niles North High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 10, 2017 at 4:35 AM CDT

General Overview

I will vote on anything, granted that it has an impact to it. I don't think I have the right to try to alter how the debaters make arguments or present claims, but it needs to actually have warrants and a reason it should make me vote aff or neg. I try as strictly as possible to evaluate the debate solely based off of what was said in the round, but absent any explanation of certain issues in the round, my unconscious dispositions will probably kick in.

It's great. I default towards competing interpretations, but a well argued reasonability argument as a lens through which I can evaluate your interpretation is powerful. You must explain the impact to limits, ground, precision, etc. for it to be a persuasive reason to reject their interpretation (likewise with overlimiting and other aff arguments). Impact comparison is crucial for these debates, and the team that controls this element of the debate will probably win.

Disads

They're good.

Link probably controls the direction of uniqueness.

Do impact calc and turns case.

Politics-

My junior year consisted of this in every 1nr, so i have some love for politics.

I was also a 2a who loved intrinsicness. Do as you will.

Counterplans

I don't have very strong feelings about competition/legitimacy either way for any type of counterplan, so I don't care what you read as long as you justify it. This does not mean I'm bad for theory, I actually love theory args, but you'll need to win the debate either way.

Debates about solvency deficits should be framed in terms of comparative risks of solvency defecit v net benefit.

Kritiks

I love the k and have read a lot of the relevant literature, but you still need to be explaining yourself in these debates. Don't rattle off a bunch of buzzwords and expect me to fill in the holes.

You need to win some substantive link to the aff, their reps, or some assumption intrinsic to the aff. These don't necessarily need to be carded, but should have some logical or contextual explanation of the link. Using lines of the other team's ev is always a plus.

You must either win a mutually exclusive alternative that resolves the harms of the kritik, or a framework argument that obviates that consideration entirely.

For alts-What does the alt do? How does this resolve the harms you articulate? Is it an indict of the affirmatives action/presumption of action?

For framework-What is the role of debate?-Why should resolutional policy considerations be ignored?

Planless Affs

They're cool.

You need to articulate what the method/performance/analysis of the 1ac does to combat the problems you outline

On framework, you need to prove why you fit into a good interpretation of the topic, or why that understanding of topicality is bad

Framework

You need to prove why their violation of topical advocacy makes a worse model of debate.

I've always tended to prefer arguments based on debate's status as a game and procedural fairness, but arguments about the state being good and skills impacts are cool too.

Theory

I will vote on any well argued theory violation, but it needs an impact and a justification why that impact is sufficient to reject the team

Slow down on these debates, and provide clear impact comparison.

Conditionality-I'm fairly agnostic on this-Read 7 condo for all I care, but your theory block better be pretty incredible to pull that off.

I will not presumptively kick your cp, butif the neg wins the judge kick debate I obviously will.

Other Notes

Be Nice. I've had an aggressive style fo most of my carreer, so I get it, but don't cross the line into being a scumbag.

Clarity matters a lot to me. I will call clear twice. Then I will stop flowing.

Be yourself. If you're funny, be funny. If you're serious, be serious.

No memes. I can't in good conscience vote you down if you read time cube or consult jesus, but I can aggressively dock your points.

Things that will boost your speaker points:

Well thought out, case specific strategies
Meta level framing debate
Blocks that spend at least 4 minutes on case(13 minutes of case probably gets an extra speaker point)
Contextual and well developed K debating

Hayward Blake Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds None

Lenny Brahin Walter Payton College Prep 2 rounds

Devon Bright-Patterson Northside College Prep 2 rounds None

Alex Brown Niles West High School 4 rounds

Celia Buckman New Trier High School 5 rounds

Hannah Buzil Glenbrook North 5 rounds

Byrne Byrne New Trier High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed April 24, 2024 at 6:48 AM CDT

ajbyrne1018(at)gmail.com

New Trier ‘16

Northwestern '19

Hierarchy of how I want you to refer to me: "AJ">>>> "Mr. Byrne" >>>>>>>>>>"My Dude" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>"Judge"

Background: I debated at New Trier for four years (2x TOC qualifier) and then at Northwestern for three years. I coached for New Trier from 2016-2019. Back coaching for New Trier for fiscal redistribution topic. In the “real world” I am a pursuing my MEd in School Counseling from Loyola University Chicago.

I have judged 80+ debates on the Fiscal Redistribution Topic

Judging is one of my favorite things to do. 99 out of 100 times I would rather be judging than have a round off.

I value debaters that show enthusiasm, passion, and respect for the game. I am eager to reward preparation, good research, and debaters WHO DO NOT FLOW OFF THE SPEECH DOC. I have nothing but contempt for debaters who disrespect the game, their opponents, or (most importantly) their partners.

Debate is a communication activity. I am not flowing off the speech doc and will not reward a lack of clarity or debaters who think it is a good idea to go 100% speed through their analytic blocks. I will be very lenient for teams that are on the opposing end of such practices.

Planless is fine but you absolutely need to defend that choice. I think that my voting record is slightly neg leaning but that is because I do not think aff teams go for enough offense or they struggle to explain what debate looks like under their interpretation.

I am not voting for any argument regarding your interp being “good for small schools”

Default is no judge kick – I need specific 2NR instruction for me to do that for you. “Sufficiency framing” is not the same as judge kick.

Process CPs are fine (except Conditions I mean c’mon). Probably neg on most theory questions but also not going to let the neg get away with murder just because they are neg. The less generic and more germane to the topic the CP is, the better the neg is. If you are thinking about reading commissions or an advantage CP, I think you should probably read the advantage CP.

Zero risk of the DA is real, zero risking a DA without needing to read evidence is possible.

Plan Popular is not an argument that link turns an agenda DA.

Kritiks are rad. Kritiks that rely entirely on winning through framework tricks are miserable. If I am not skeptical of the aff's ability to solve their internal links or the alt's ability to solve them then I am unlikely to vote negative.

Other things:

Tag-team CX is fine but also sometimes very frustrating to evaluate. If I think someone is not adequately participating in CX, their points will suffer greatly.

Only Mavs and Neg teams debating new affs get to use CX as prep time. If a team wants to use CX as prep time under any other circumstances, the opposing team will be able to read additional evidence during this time.

CX begins at the first question asked, even if that question is something like “What card did you stop at?” (The only exception is “are you ready for cx?”)

Debates need to start on time, please!

More Debate Thoughts

These aren’t intended to be relevant to your pre-round prep. Just some opinions after spending 4 years away from the activity and then judging over 70 fiscal redistribution debates.

Please stop starting your speech at 100% speed. It guarantees that I am going to be unable to flow you for the first 10-15 seconds.
To go off that, why is it considered common practice to have T as the first off in the 1NC? That basically guarantees that I won’t be able to flow an entire offcase position and that doesn’t seem good.
Debaters that try to go fast as possible tend to end up being very slow. Your debate speaking voice should be your regular speaking voice, but faster.
I usually flow on paper, so I take a second to flip between flows. This usually means in every 2AC I miss roughly six perms on the CP because it has become common practice to just dump all the perms at the top of the block instead of the MUCH BETTER practice of spreading them throughout your block.
Seriously, please slow down.
I don’t care if you highlight in purple. Standard highlighting and consistent formatting are a BARE MINIMUM for a speech doc. Otherwise I will assume that you did not prep well for the tournament.
If it can be demonstrated from your wiki that you suck at disclosing I will spend a significant amount of my decision making fun of you. People who suck at disclosure are bad and should feel bad.
From the 2AC onwards, if you are speaking from a computer and not even referencing your flow, you are not debating the right way.
If the 1AC isn’t ready to start at start time, a puppy dies.
Anybody who uses the term “Speaks” to describe speaker points should have more respect for themselves.
Thinking about making it my policy that if I think you are stealing prep, I just give you a 26 without telling you.
Why does nobody read add-ons anymore?
I am pretty sick of <2 minutes of the block being spent on the case pages.
Tournament days are less grueling than they used to be but that has been in spite of debaters best efforts to be as slow as possible. Filling up the debate with dead time means less decision time which is only bad for you. As a wise man once said: “Keep ‘er movin”

Michael Callahan Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Conor Cameron Solorio Academy HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 1:09 PM CDT

Conor Cameron
ccameron3@cps.edu
he/him/his
Coach, Solorio, 2012 - present

TLDR: Better for CP / DA / impact turn debates

I'll do my best to evaluate arguments as made. When the way I make sense of a debate differs from the way debaters make sense of a debate, here seem to be some common sources of the disparity:

1) I'm pretty ingrained in the offense defense model. This means that even if the NB is dumb, if the aff cannot generate a solvency deficit against the CP, and the aff has no offense against the DA, I am highly likely to vote negative.

Some notes: a) I do not think a solvency deficit needs to be carded; b) more difficult, but I could envision voting on analytic offense against a DA, c) I'm willing to vote on zero risk of the DA, but we'd both benefit from you taking a moment to explain why the offense-defense model is inapplicable in the debate at hand

2) I still think I have a relatively high bar for voting negative on topicality; however, I've tried to begin evaluating this debate more from an offense-defense perspective. In my mind, this means that if the affirmative does not meet the negative's interpretation, and does not have its own counterinterpretation, it is essentially arguing that any affirmative is topical and is conceding a 100% link to the limits disadvantage. I'm highly likely to vote negative in such a debate.

General argument notes:
3) I'm probably more sympathetic to cheaty process counterplans than most.

4) While I may complain, I do vote on the standard canon of negative kritiks. Things like cap, security, standard topic kritiks, etc. are fine. Extra explanation (examples, stories, analogies, etc.) is always appreciated, all the more so the further from my comfort zone you venture.

5) FW vs K Affs: I lean negative. However, I judge few of these debates. Both teams would benefit from accepting that I know very little here, slowing down, speaking clearly, and over-explaining (depth, not repetition) things you assume most judges know.

Other notes
6) I judge because:
a) I still really enjoy debate.
b) Judging is an opportunity to continue to develop my understanding of debate.
c) I am covering my students' judge commitment so that they too can benefit from this activity.

7) Quick reference
Policy---X------------------------------------------K

Tech-----------------------------X-----------------Truth

Read no cards-------X----------------------------Read all the cards

Conditionality good--X----------------------------Conditionality bad

States CP good----X------------------------------States CP bad

Politics DA is a thing-----X------------------------Politics DA not a thing

UQ matters most----------------------X----------Link matters most

Limits----------------------------------X------------Aff ground

Presumption---------------------------------X-----Never votes on presumption

Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev

CX about impacts----------------------------X----CX about links and solvency

Dylan Chase Glenbrook North 5 rounds None

Eugene Chung Niles West High School 5 rounds None

Zach Cohen Glenbrook North 5 rounds None

Sara Cooper Evanston Township High School 5 rounds None

Jared Croitoru Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 2 rounds

Last changed on Sun November 14, 2021 at 12:47 PM CDT

Hi i'm jared

Lane Tech 2016

GSU'2021

- i help coached at wheeler hs in georgia alittle this year and rufus king here and there this year so topic knowledge is there. Im the current coach here at Georgia State.my email is chicagofire2798@gmail.com

to win my ballot beat the other persons arguments.

For novices: You do you, Im here to be a teacher nothing more, nothing less.

For others:

CP's:External Net Benefits please really unsure how to evaluate internal net benefits. Theory makes sense once CP's net benefits become more convuluted.

K Aff's: You do you, just explain solvency and make sure you either have some connection to the topic or have good warrants on why your alternative model of debate is better. Once you are a more theoretical levels alittle more explanation will go a long way. Highly Unfamiliar with the dead old-french men.

DA's: I think Politics is slighty underrated and overrated at the same time. But smart DA's and case turns are intriguing.

Policy T: I think if done right it could be interesting, with a focus on how aff's are cheaty. If you win that your interp provides a better limit to the topic and why the Aff isnt a good limit to the topic I could vote on this.

Theory: Just dont go 100% through your theory shell. Otherwise i think probably at max 5-6 condo is where things become cheaty. If a good voter is impacted out I might vote on it otherwise I'll default to the least amount of judge intervention.

larger meta-framing issues :

a. dont be racist

b. aff prove why the status quo is bad - neg says its good or run your k or cp

c. ill dig a cp and impact turn strat with your 8 off strat or one off performance - ill listen to your arguements and look at it.

d. anything is probably could be voted on if not racist

e. framework and the time of trump - im pretty sure trump is showing why political has always been about how to make america white again. so take that with a grain of salt

F.I am probably truth is higher value than tech ,I'm not the most familiar with more techy policy args where slow down more of my knowledge is the K I'll try buy if im confused and look lost that means you are going over my head. Where truth is just the idea if something is probably true it doesnt need a card to beat a card thats probably not true big picture.

g. Theory wise : just please dont spread through the shell at full speed. Im more in the boat of letting y'all play it out but if I need to intervene here are my views:

NGA CP is probably tangentially close to the 50 states CP.

Limited Condo is probably the best .

Anything else just email me with questions.

Luisa Cusick Walter Payton College Prep 3 rounds

Cameron Dehmlow Dunne New Trier High School 5 rounds

Jeremy Doman Glenbrook North 2 rounds None

Patrick Dressler Glenbrook South High School 5 rounds

Evan Elkin Northside College Prep 5 rounds

Andrew Fine Hire None

Navin Gopaul Glenbrook North 5 rounds None

gerard gueringer Walter Payton College Prep 3 rounds

Last changed on Tue December 15, 2020 at 6:57 PM CDT

Experience: 4yrs of high school, mostly in the UDL. 3 years coaching for Lindblom Math and Science

Run whatever your best at running. No biases that I may have about certain arguments will effect my decision. I will vote for whatever team gives me the best reason to vote for them no matter how absurd the argument may be. The following comments more so to give you an idea of how to make the debate easier for me to evaluate, enjoyable for me and possibly boost your speaks.

I know a lot about debate, but that doesn't mean some things won't go over my head. You will probably be able to tell if I don't understand something through facial expressions, but for safety, If you think I would be confused by something, explain it clearly and thoroughly.

I don't have any major biases towards arguments. I prefer strategic choices in terms of arguments to read, but your are probably best off reading whatever you think you can win on. I won't drop you because I don't like the 1AC or 1NC. Link specificity is really important for me. It isn't essential for it to be carded but some analysis needs to be done there.

I will only evaluate things that are said in the round, so if you say "extend "x" evidence" without saying what claim "x" evidence makes , your argument will mean very little to me. Also, I love warrants. I prefer you answer args with warrants in previously read evidence instead of more evidence. It makes me happy. If there is a ton of evidence read, chances are I'll have to call for something and I hate doing that so just avoid reading new evidence unless it's necessary.

In terms of speed, if by any chance I'm judging you and flowing on a computer, you may wan't to either be clearer, slow down, make a big deal out of things you want me to make a big deal out of, or a combination of all the previous stated. However if I'm flowing on paper, which I usually will be, go as fast as you'd like while maintaining clarity.

I'm tabula rasa when it comes to arguments but for specifics:

Topicality: I was a T hack in highschool. Debating this well makes me happy. I default to competing interps but can be persuaded toward reasonability if debated well. Also education and fairness aren't impacts, you need to explain why I should care about a loss of education or fairness if you go for T.

Dis-Advantages: They're fine. I think timeframe is the most important to win but can be persuaded otherwise. Link specificity is important as well.

Counterplan: CP abuse isn't set in stone, please do not kick out of a CP because they put theory on it. If you provide a reason on why the CP is even 0.01% better than the plan or perm, I'll vote on it. Also perm abuse is not set in stone. I will be angry if you don't go for the perm because there is theory on it.

Kritik: I'm pretty well versed. Went for them all the time I have a lot of thoughts about K's so it's probably best to ask me specific questions before the round. Link analysis needs to be undoubtedly solid so be specific.

Non-Traditional stoof: Same with K's. I need a reason to vote for you, otherwise you're good.

Theory, I love it, but please do not go super fast on theory because I won't get everything. I default to rejecting the team if not told otherwise with warrants except for perm theory (default to rejecting the arg). Please don't try to avoid theory debating by kicking out of things with theory on them.

Some ways to boost your speaks: GOOD DECISIONS, jokes, being interesting, not being an asshole

I don't take prep for flashing but be timely

Charlie Hansell New Trier High School 5 rounds

Adam Hausman Northside College Prep 2 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 11, 2024 at 3:16 AM CDT

9th year head coach of Northside College Prep. I primarily teach novices but have obviously been out in the National Circuit madness with my varsity squads for the past decade also - so I'm familiar with bid circuit norms etc. I did not debate in high school, but have done my best to learn as much as possible about debate over my time in the game.

General preferences:

- FOR ONLINE DEBATE: PLEASE slow down slightly so I can actually hear you, and I strongly encourage you to send analytics even if you usually don't - if the mic drops out or I glitch, I bet you want me to see that you did in fact extend the dropped Condo violation etc.

- Don't be a jerk, during the round OR during the RFD. The idea that (adults or kids) people in the community think being known for being a post-rounder/jerk blows my mind. I will wreck your speaks for doing it, even if I pick you up. Just be nice, the whole world needs it right now.

- I vote on my flow, no matter how much I despise certain arguments or think they are stupid (with obvious exceptions like sexism is good etc). Understand though that it means I vote on what is on my flow, not what you thought you said.

- I've coached high-level teams that are both pure policy and pure K, and feel comfortable judging both types of debates (I've actually probably judged more high level K debates than anything). I'm probably a "soft left vanilla K policy-leaning" judge, if you want to shoehorn me.

- Fine for National Circuit speed on cards and clash, but please slow down a bit when reading a CP text, theory arg, framework interp, or making T args. I have not judged much recently, and I need to actually hear and process analytics.

- I am an English teacher first and coach second, which means I think your evidence should be good and qualified (not excessively power tagged or ridiculously underhighlighted or in the context of Australia). Feel free to crap on bad pieces of evidence the other team runs, and put me in a position to be able to throw it out by making smart args (through CX questions and then in speeches). Quality over quantity, children.

- I don't think tech and truth are mutually exclusive. I lean toward tech/dropped arg is true arg, but if you leave open-ended questions in the debate, I'm going to make a truth-based decision to resolve them.

K side preferences:

- I prefer affs with a plan (soft left especially), but I'm a fan of a good K aff also and will/have vote for them happily. However, I have a much greater skepticism for high theory (look, Baudrillard is dumb and trolling. I know his book, I get his theory, but we're not living in a simulation. In the words of a former debater "If I punched you, you'd probably say ow" kinda sums up my feelings on high theory)

- I think framework debates are interesting and important, and not structurally exclusionary, but if you win impact turns to framework I can be persuaded your way

- I think fairness is an impact to FW, although I'm more interested in debates about the educational potential/impacts of your framework when making my decision

- I think policy teams sadly never challenge the substance of K affs or thesis of kritiks enough - make case args and don't just read your FW blocks. I also love when teams try to boldly out-left K affs by reading sneaky word PICs, counteradvocacies etc - if you want to go 7 off against a K aff, I'm here for it.

- For the K on the neg, link debates need to be specific, sopull lines from their cards, set up specific links in CX, and read cards that aren't just links of omission. You need to prove the aff is making your issue worse in some way for me to pull the trigger on your K, even if I might think it's true outside of Debate World.

Policy Stuff

- I like a good counterplan debate, but do think artificially competitive process CPs and ridiculous multiplank CPs without solvency evidence are pretty unfair and am sympathetic to aff theory args in these rounds. For some odd reason, I love sneaky PICs.

- I love a run-of-the-mill disad or case debate, with the caveat that I am more comfortable assigning zero risk of a link to a truly dumb DA/case argument if the evidence is bad than most judges

- Ugh, topicality. My biggest issue with T debates (I'm admittedly not a great judge for them) is that debaters blast through T args with no consideration of whether I actually hear or understand them. In terms of preferences, I view T as a contest of competing views of the debate topic and activity i.e. which interpretation is better if the national community would be affected by my ballot. So, I look to competing interpretations first (and truly appreciate args on why interps are qualified or not, intent to define, etc), and for the love of God please impact out T clearly for me to make my head hurt less when I try to resolve the round.

- I usually think theory is a reason to reject the arg and not the team, but can persuaded otherwise (or, obviously, persuaded if they drop your cheap shot arg)

Kevin Hirn Whitney M. Young Magnet High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 13, 2024 at 5:09 AM EDT

Email: khirn10@gmail.com --- of course I want to be on the chain

Program Manager and Debate Coach, University of Michigan

Head Debate Coach, University of Chicago Lab Schools

Previously a coach at Whitney Young High School (2010-20), Caddo Magnet (2020-21), Walter Payton (2018, 2021-23)

Last updated: April, 2024 (new FR thoughts in the Topicality section, random updates throughout)

Philosophy: I attempt to judge rounds with the minimum amount of intervention required to answer the question, "Who has done the better debating?", using whatever rubrics for evaluating that question that debaters set up.

I work in debate full-time. I attend a billion tournaments and judge a ton of debates, lead a seven week lab every summer, talk about debate virtually every day, and research fairly extensively. As a result, I'm familiar with the policy and critical literature bases on both the college nuclear forces topic and the HS fiscal redistribution topic. For fiscal redistribution, I gave the topic lecture for the Michigan debate camp and I wrote both the Topicality and Job Guarantee Aff/Neg files for their starter pack

I’ve coached my teams to deploy a diverse array of argument types and styles. Currently, I coach teams that primarily read policy arguments. But I was also the primary argument coach for Michigan KM from 2014-16. I’ve coached many successful teams in both high school and college that primarily read arguments influenced by "high theory", postmodernist thought, and/or critical race literature. I'm always excited to see debaters deploy new or innovative strategies across the argumentative spectrum.

Impact turns have a special place in my heart. There are few venues in academia or life where you will be as encouraged to challenge conventional wisdom as you are in policy debate, so please take this rare opportunity to persuasively defend the most counter-intuitive positions conceivable. I enjoy judging debaters with a sense of humor, and I hope to reward teams who make their debates fun and exciting (through engaging personalities and argument selection).

My philosophy is very long. I make no apology for it. In fact, I wish most philosophies were longer and more substantive, and I still believe mine to be insufficiently comprehensive. Frequently, judges espouse a series of predictable platitudes, but I have no idea why they believe whatever it is they've said (which can frequently leave me confused, frustrated, and little closer to understanding how debaters could better persuade them). I attempt to counter this practice with detailed disclosure of the various predispositions, biases, and judgment canons that may be outcome-determinative for how I decide your debate. Maybe you don't want to know all of those, but nobody's making you read this paradigm. Having the option to know as many of those as possible for any given judge seems preferable to having only the options of surprise and speculation.

What follows is a series of thoughts that mediate my process for making decisions, both in general and in specific contexts likely to emerge in debates. I've tried to be as honest as possible, and I frequently update my philosophy to reflect perceived trends in my judging. That being said, self-disclosure is inevitably incomplete or misleading; if you're curious about whether or not I'd be good for you, feel free to look at my voting record or email me a specific question (reach me via email, although you may want to try in person because I'm not the greatest with quick responses).

0) Online debate

Online debate is a depressing travesty, although it's plainly much better than the alternative of no debate at all. I miss tournaments intensely and can't wait until this era is over and we can attend tournaments in-person once again. Do your best not to remind us constantly of what we're missing: please keep your camera on throughout the whole debate unless you have a pressing and genuine technical reason not to. I don't have meaningful preferences beyond that. Feel free to record me---IMO all debates should be public and free to record by all parties, especially in college.

1) Tech v. Truth

I attempt to be an extremely "technical" judge, although I am not sure that everyone means what everyone else means when they describe debating or judging as "technical." Here's what I mean by that: outside of card text, I attempt to flow every argument that every speaker expresses in a speech. Even in extremely quick debates, I generally achieve this goal or come close to it. In some cases, like when very fast debaters debate at max speed in a final rebuttal, it may be virtually impossible for me to to organize all of the words said by the rebuttalist into the argumentative structure they were intending. But overall I feel very confident in my flow: I will take Casey Harrigan up on his flowing gauntlet/challenge any day (he might be able to take me if we were both restricted to paper, but on our computers, it's a wrap).

In addition, being "technical" means that I line up arguments on my flow, and expect debaters to, in general, organize their speeches by answering the other team's arguments in the order they were presented. All other things being equal, I will prioritize an argument presented such that it maximizes clear and direct engagement with its counter-argument over an argument that floats in space unmoored to an adversarial argument structure.

I do have one caveat that pertains to what I'll term "standalone" voting issues. I'm not likely to decide an entire debate based on standalone issues explained or extended in five seconds or less. For example, If you have a standard on conditionality that asserts "also, men with curly unkempt hair are underrepresented in debate, vote neg to incentivize our participation," and the 1ar drops it, you're not going to win the debate on that argument (although you will win my sympathies, fellow comb dissident). I'm willing to vote on basically anything that's well-developed, but if your strategy relies on tricking the other team into dropping random nonsense unrelated to the rest of the debate entirely, I'm not really about that. This caveat only pertains to standalone arguments that are dropped once: if you've dropped a standalone voting issue presented as such in two speeches, you've lost all my sympathies to your claim to a ballot.

In most debates, so many arguments are made that obvious cross-applications ensure precious few allegedly "dropped" arguments really are accurately described as such. Dropped arguments most frequently win debates in the form of little subpoints making granular distinctions on important arguments that both final rebuttals exert time and energy trying to win. Further murkiness emerges when one realizes that all thresholds for what constitutes a "warrant" (and subsequently an "argument") are somewhat arbitrary and interventionist. Hence the mantra: Dropped arguments are true, but they're only as true as the dropped argument. "Argument" means claim, warrant, and implication. "Severance is a voting issue" lacks a warrant. "Severance is a voting issue - neg ground" also arguably lacks a warrant, since it hasn't been explained how or why severance destroys negative ground or why neg ground is worth caring about.

That might sound interventionist, but consider: we would clearly assess the statement "Severance is a voting issue -- purple sideways" as a claim lacking a warrant. So why does "severence is a voting issue - neg ground" constitute a warranted claim? Some people would say that the former is valid but not sound while the latter is neither valid nor sound, but both fail a formal test of validity. In my assessment, any distinction is somewhat interventionist. In the interest of minimizing intervention, here is what that means for your debating: If the 1ar drops a blippy theory argument and the 2nr explains it further, the 2nr is likely making new arguments... which then justifies 2ar answers to those arguments. In general, justify why you get to say what you're saying, and you'll probably be in good shape. By the 2nr or 2ar, I would much rather that you acknowledge previously dropped arguments and suggest reasonable workaround solutions than continue to pretend they don't exist or lie about previous answers.

Arguments aren't presumptively offensive or too stupid to require an answer. Genocide good, OSPEC, rocks are people, etc. are all terribly stupid, but if you can't explain why they're wrong, you don't deserve to win. If an argument is really stupid or really bad, don't complain about how wrong they are. After all, if the argument's as bad as you say it is, it should be easy. And if you can't deconstruct a stupid argument, either 1) the argument may not be as stupid as you say it is, or 2) it may be worthwhile for you to develop a more efficient and effective way of responding to that argument.

If both sides seem to assume that an impact is desirable/undesirable, and frame their rebuttals exclusively toward avoiding/causing that impact, I will work under that assumption. If a team read a 1AC saying that they had several ways their plan caused extinction, and the 1NC responded with solvency defense and alternative ways the plan prevented extincton, I would vote neg if I thought the plan was more likely to avoid extinction than cause it.

I'll read and evaluate Team A's rehighlightings of evidence "inserted" into the debate if Team B doesn't object to it, but when debated evenly this practice seems indefensible. An important part of debate is choosing how to use your valuable speech time, which entails selecting which pieces of your opponent's ev most clearly bolster your position(s).

2) General Philosophical Disposition

It is somewhat easy to persuade me that life is good, suffering is bad, and we should care about the consequences of our political strategies and advocacies. I would prefer that arguments to the contrary be grounded in specific articulations of alternative models of decision-making, not generalities, rhetoric, or metaphor. It's hard to convince me that extinction = nbd, and arguments like "the hypothetical consequences of your advocacy matter, and they would likely produce more suffering than our advocacy" are far more persuasive than "take a leap of faith" or "roll the dice" or "burn it down", because I can at least know what I'd be aligning myself with and why.

Important clarification: pragmatism is not synonymous with policymaking. On the contrary, one may argue that there is a more pragmatic way to frame judge decision-making in debates than traditional policymaking paradigms. Perhaps assessing debates about the outcome of hypothetical policies is useless, or worse, dangerous. Regardless of how you debate or what you debate about, you should be willing and able to mount a strong defense of why you're doing those things (which perhaps requires some thought about the overall purpose of this activity).

The brilliance and joy of policy debate is most found in its intellectual freedom. What makes it so unlike other venues in academia is that, in theory, debaters are free to argue for unpopular, overlooked, or scorned positions and ill-considered points of view. Conversely, they will be required to defend EVERY component of your argument, even ones that would be taken for granted in most other settings. Just so there's no confusion here: all arguments are on the table for me. Any line drawn on argumentative content is obviously arbitrary and is likely unpredictable, especially for judges whose philosophies aren't as long as mine! But more importantly, drawing that line does profound disservice to debaters by instructing them not to bother thinking about how to defend a position. If you can't defend the desirability of avoiding your advantage's extinction impact against a wipeout or "death good" position, why are you trying to persuade me to vote for a policy to save the human race? Groupthink and collective prejudices against creative ideas or disruptive thoughts are an ubiquitous feature of human societies, but that makes it all the more important to encourage free speech and free thought in one of the few institutions where overcoming those biases is possible.

3) Topicality and Specification

Overall, I'm a decent judge for the neg, provided that they have solid evidence supporting their interpretation.

Limits are probably desirable in the abstract, but if your interpretation is composed of contrived stupidity, it will be hard to convince me that affs should have predicted it. Conversely, affs that are debating solid topicality evidence without well-researched evidence of their own are gonna have a bad time. Naturally, of these issues are up for debate, but I think it's relatively easy to win that research/literature guides preparation, and the chips frequently fall into place for the team accessing that argument.

Competing interpretations is potentially less subjective and arbitrary than a reasonability standard, although reasonability isn't as meaningless as many believe. Reasonability seems to be modeled after the "reasonable doubt" burden required to prove guilt in a criminal case (as opposed to the "preponderence of evidence" standard used in civil cases, which seems similar to competing interps as a model). Reasonability basically is the same as saying "to win the debate, the neg needs to win an 80% risk of their DA instead of a 50% risk." The percentages are arbitrary, but what makes determining that a disad's risk is higher or lower than the risk of an aff advantage (i.e. the model used to decide the majority of debates) any less arbitrary or subjective? It's all ballpark estimation determined by how persuaded judges were by competing presentations of analysis and evidence. With reasonability-style arguments, aff teams can certainly win that they don't need to meet the best of all possible interpretations of the topic, and instead that they should win if their plan meets an interpretation capable of providing a sufficient baseline of neg ground/research parity/quality debate. Describing what threshold of desirability their interpretation should meet, and then describing why that threshold is a better model for deciding topicality debates, is typically necessary to make this argument persuasive.

Answering "plan text in a vacuum" requires presenting an alternative standard by which to interpret the meaning and scope of the words in the plan. Such seems so self-evident that it seems banal to include it in a paradigm, but I have seen many debates this year in which teams did not grasp this fact. If the neg doesn't establish some method for determining what the plan means, voting against "the plan text in a vacuum defines the words in the plan" is indistinguishable from voting for "the eighty-third unhighlighted word in the fifth 1ac preempt defines the words in the plan." I do think setting some limiting standard is potentially quite defensible, especially in debates where large swaths of the 1ac would be completely irrelevent if the aff's plan were to meet the neg's interp. For example: if an aff with a court advantage and a USFG agent says their plan meets "enact = Congress only", the neg could say "interpret the words USFG in the plan to include the Courts when context dictates it---even if 'USFG' doesn't always mean "Courts," you should assume it does for debates in which one or more contentions/advantages are both impertinent and insoluable absent a plan that advocates judicial action." But you will likely need to be both explicit and reasonable about the standard you use if you are to successfully counter charges of infinite regress/arbitrariness.

For Fiscal Redistribution:

I'm probably more open to subsets than most judges if the weight of predictable evidence supports it. The neg is maybe slightly favored in a perfect debate, but I think there is better aff evidence to be read. I generally think the topic is extremely overlimited. Both the JG and BI are poorly supported by the literature, and there are not a panoply of viable SS affs.

Social Security and programs created by the Social Security Act are not same thing. The best evidence I've seen clearly excludes welfare and health programs, although expanding SS enables affs to morph the program into almost anything topically (good luck with a "SS-key" warrant vs the PIC, though). SSI is debateable, though admittedly not an extreme limits explosion.

Topicality arguments excluding plans with court actors are weaker than each of the above arguments. Still tenable.

Topicality arguments excluding cutting programs to fund plans are reasonable edge cases. I can see the evidence or balance of debating going either way on this question.

Evenly debated, "T-Must Include Taxes" is unwinnable for the negative. Perhaps you will convince me otherwise, but keep in mind I did quite a bit of research on this subject before camps even started,so if you think you have a credible case then you're likely in need of new evidence. I really dislike being dogmatic on something like this. I began the summer trying todevelop a case for why affs must tax, but I ran into a basic logical problem and have not seen evidence that establishes the bare minimum of a topicality interpretation. Consider the definition of "net worth." Let's assume that all the definitions of net worth state it means "(financial assets like savings, real estate, and investments) - (debts and liabilities)." "T-FR must include tax" is the logical equivalent of "well, because net worth means assets AND liabilities, cashing a giant check doesn't increase your net worth because you don't ALSO decrease your debts owed elsewhere." For this to be a topicality argument, you'd need to find a card that says "Individual policy interventions aren't fiscal redistribution if they merely adjust spending without tax policy." Such a card likely doesn't exist, because it's self-evidently nonsense.

Of course, I'll certainly evaluate arguments on this subject as fairly as possible, and if you technically out-execute the opposing team, I'll vote against them remorselessly. But you should know my opinion regardless.

4) Risk Assessment

In front of me, teams would be well-served to explain their impact scenarios less in terms of brinks, and more in terms of probabilistic truth claims. When pressed with robust case defense, "Our aff is the only potential solution to a US-China war that's coming in a few months, which is the only scenario for a nuclear war that causes extinction" is far less winnable than "our aff meaningfully improves the East Asian security environment through building trust between the two great military powers in the region, which statistically decreases the propensity for inevitable miscalculations or standoffs to escalate to armed conflict." It may not be as fun, but that framing can allow you to generate persuasive solvency deficits that aren't grounded in empty rhetoric and cliche, or to persuasively defeat typical alt cause arguments, etc. Given that you decrease the initial "risk" (i.e. probability times magnitude) of your impact with this framing, this approach obviously requires winning substantial defense against whatever DA the neg goes for, but when most DA's have outlandishly silly brink arguments themselves, this shouldn't be too taxing.

There are times where investing lots of time in impact calculus is worthwhile (for example, if winning your impact means that none of the aff's impact claims reach extinction, or that any of the actors in the aff's miscalc/brinkmanship scenarios will be deterred from escalating a crisis to nuclear use). Most of the time, however, teams waste precious minutes of their final rebuttal on mediocre impact calculus. The cult of "turns case" has much to do with this. It's worth remembering that accessing an extinction impact is far more important than whether or not your extinction impact happens three months faster than theirs (particularly when both sides' warrant for their timeframe claim is baseless conjecture and ad hoc assertion), and that, in most cases, you need to win the substance of your DA/advantage to win that it turns the case.

Incidentally, phrasing arguments more moderately and conditionally is helpful for every argument genre: "all predictions fail" is not persuasive; "some specific type of prediction relying on their model of IR forecasting has little to no practical utility" can be. The only person who's VTL is killed when I hear someone say "there is no value to life in the world of the plan" is mine.

At least for me, try-or-die is extremely intuitive based on argument selection (i.e. if the neg spots the aff that "extinction is inevitable if the judge votes neg, even if it's questionable whether or not the aff solves it", rationalizing an aff ballot becomes rather alluring and shockingly persuasive). You should combat this innate intuition by ensuring that you either have impact defense of some sort (anything from DA solves the case to a counterplan/alt solves the case argument to status quo checks resolve the terminal impact to actual impact defense can work) or by investing time in arguing against try-or-die decision-making.

5) Counterplans

Counterplan theory/competition debating is a lost art. Affirmatives let negative teams get away with murder. Investing time in theory is daunting... it requires answering lots of blippy arguments with substance and depth and speaking clearly, and probably more slowly than you're used to. But, if you invest time, effort, and thought in a well-grounded theoretical objection, I'll be a receptive critic.

The best theory interpretations are clear, elegant, and minimally arbitrary. Here are some examples of args that I would not anticipate many contemporary 2N's defeating:

--counterplans should be policies. Perhaps executive orders, perhaps guidence memos, perhaps lower court decisions, perhaps Congressional resolutions. But this would exclude such travesties as "The Executive Branch should always take international law into account when making their decisions. Such is closer to a counterplan that says "The Executive Branch should make good decisions forever" than it is to a useful policy recommendation. It's relatively easy for CPs to be written in a way that meets this design constraint, but that makes it all the easier to dispose of the CPs that don't.

--counterplans should not be able to fiat both the federal government and additional actors outside of the federal government. It's utopian enough to fiat that Courts, the President, and Congress all act in concert in perpetuity on a given subject. It's absurd to fiat additional actors as well.

There are other theoretical objections that I might take more seriously than other judges, although I recognize them as arguments on which reasonable minds may disagree. For example, I am somewhat partial to the argument that solvency advocates for counterplans should have a level of specificity that matches the aff. I feel like that standard would reward aff specificity and incentivize debates that reflect the literature base, while punishing affs that are contrived nonsense by making them debate contrived process nonsense. This certainly seems debateable, and in truth if I had to pick a side, I'd certainly go neg, but it seems like a relatively workable debate relative to alternatives.

Competition debates are a particularly lost art. Generally, I prefer competition debates to theoretical ones, although I think both are basically normative questions (i.e. the whole point of either is to design an ideal, minimally arbitrary model to produce the debates we most desire). I'm not a great judge for counterplans that compete off of certainty or immediacy based on "should"/"resolved" definitions. I'm somewhat easily persuaded that these interpretations lower the bar for how difficult it is to win a negative ballot to an undesirable degree. That being said, affs lose these debates all the time by failing to counter-define words or dropping stupid tricks, so make sure you invest the time you need in these debates to win them.

"CPs should be textually and functionally competitive" seems to me like a logical and defensible standard. Some don't realize that if CPs must be both functionally and textually competitive, permutations may be either. I like the "textual/functional" model of competition BECAUSE it incentives creative counterplan and permutation construction, and because it requires careful text-writing.

That being said, "functional-only" is a very defensible model as well, and I think the arguments to prefer it over functional/textual hinge on the implication of the word being defined. If you say that "should is immediate" or "resolved is certain," you've introduced a model of competition that makes "delay a couple weeks" or "consult anyone re: plan" competitive. If your CP competes in a way that introduces fewer CPs (e.g. "job guarantees are admininstered by the states", or "NFUs mean no-first-use under any circumstance/possibility"), I think the neg's odds of winning are fairly likely.

Offense-defense is intuitive to me, and so teams should always be advised to have offense even if their defense is very strong. If the aff says that the counterplan links to the net benefit but doesn't advance a solvency deficit or disadvantage to the CP, and the neg argues that the counterplan at least links less, I am not very likely to vote affirmative absent strong affirmative framing on this question (often the judge is left to their own devices on this question, or only given instruction in the 2AR, which is admittedly better than never but still often too late). At the end of the day I must reconcile these opposing claims, and if it's closely contested and at least somewhat logical, it's very difficult to win 100% of an argument. Even if I think the aff is generally correct, in a world where I have literally any iota of doubt surrounding the aff position or am even remotely persuaded by the the negative's position, why would I remotely risk triggering the net benefit for the aff instead of just opting for the guaranteed safe choice of the counterplan?

Offense, in this context, can come in multiple flavors: you can argue that the affirmative or perm is less likely to link to the net benefit than the counterplan, for example. You can also argue that the risk of a net benefit below a certain threshold is indistinguishable from statistical noise, and that the judge should reject to affirm a difference between the two options because it would encourage undesirable research practices and general decision-making. Perhaps you can advance an analytic solvency deficit somewhat supported by one logical conjecture, and if you are generally winning the argument, have the risk of the impact to that outweigh the unique risk of aff triggering the DA relative to the counterplan. But absent any offensive argument of any sort, the aff is facing an uphill battle. I have voted on "CP links to politics before" but generally that only happens if there is a severe flaw in negative execution (i.e. the neg drops it), a significant skill discrepancy between teams, or a truly ill-conceived counterplan.

I'm a somewhat easy sell on conditionality good (at least 1 CP / 1 K is defensible), but I've probably voted aff slightly more frequently than not in conditionality debates. That's partly because of selection bias (affs go for it when they're winning it), but mainly because neg teams have gotten very sloppy in their defenses of conditionality, particularly in the 2NR. That being said, I've been growing more and more amenable to "conditionality bad" arguments over time.

However, large advantage counterplans with multiple planks, all of which can be kicked, are fairly difficult to defend. Negative teams can fiat as many policies as it takes to solve whatever problems the aff has sought to tackle. It is unreasonable to the point of stupidity to expect the aff to contrive solvency deficits: the plan would literally have to be the only idea in the history of thought capable of solving a given problem. Every additional proposal introduced in the 1nc (in order to increase the chance of solving) can only be discouraged through the potential cost of a disad being read against it. In the old days, this is why counterplan files were hundreds of pages long and had answers to a wide variety of disads. But if you can kick the plank, what incentive does the aff have to even bother researching if the CP is a good idea? If they read a 2AC add-on, the neg gets as many no-risk 2NC counterplans to add to the fray as well (of course, they can also add unrelated 2nc counterplans for fun and profit). If you think you can defend the merit of that strategy vs. a "1 condo cp / 1 condo k" interp, your creative acumen may be too advanced for interscholastic debate; consider more challenging puzzles in emerging fields, as they urgently need your input.

I don't think I'm "biased" against infinite conditionality; if you think you have the answers and technical acuity to defend infinite conditionality against the above argumentation, I'd happily vote for you.

I don't default to the status quo unless you explicitly flag it at some point during the debate (the cross-x or the 2nc is sufficient if the aff never contests it). I don't know why affs ask this question every cross-x and then never make a theory argument about it. It only hurts you, because it lets the neg get away with something they otherwise wouldn't have.

All that said, I don't have terribly strong convictions about any of these issues, and any theoretical predisposition is easily overcame by outdebating another team on the subject at hand.

6) Politics

Most theoretical objections to (and much sanctimonious indignation toward) the politics disadvantage have never made sense to me. Fiat is a convention about what it should be appropriate to assume for the sake of discussion, but there's no "logical" or "true" interpretation of what fiat descriptively means. It would be ludicrously unrealistic for basically any 1ac plan to pass immediately, with no prior discussion, in the contemporary political world. Any form of argument in which we imagine the consequences of passage is a fictive constraint on process argumentation. As a result, any normative justification for including the political process within the contours of permissible argument is a rational justification for a model of fiat that involves the politics DA (and a DA to a model of fiat that doesn't). Political salience is the reason most good ideas don't become policy, and it seems illogical for the negative to be robbed of this ground. The politics DA, then, represents the most pressing political cost caused by doing the plan in the contemporary political environment, which seems like a very reasonable for affs to have to defend against.

Obviously many politics DAs are contrived nonsense (especially during political periods during which there is no clear, top-level presidential priority). However, the reason that these DAs are bad isn't because they're theoretically illegitimate, and politics theory's blippiness and general underdevelopment further aggravate me (see the tech vs truth section).

Finally, re: intrinsicness, I don't understand why the judge should be the USFG. I typically assume the judge is just me, deciding which policy/proposal is the most desirable. I don't have control over the federal government, and no single entity does or ever will (barring that rights malthus transition). Maybe I'm missing something. If you think I am, feel free to try and be the first to show me the light...

7) Framework/Non-Traditional Affs

Despite some of the arguments I've read and coached, I'm sympathetic to the framework argument and fairness concerns. I don't think that topicality arguments are presumptively violent, and I think it's generally rather reasonable (and often strategic) to question the aff's relationship to the resolution. Although framework is probably always the best option, I would generally also enjoy seeing a well-executed substantive strategy if one's available. This is simply because I have literally judged hundreds of framework debates and it has gotten mildly repetitive, to say the least (just scroll down if you think that I'm being remotely hyperbolic). But please don't sacrifice your likelihood of winning the debate.

My voting record on framework is relatively even. In nearly every debate, I voted for the team I assessed as demonstrating superior technical debating in the final rebuttals.

I typically think winning unique offense, in the rare scenario where a team invests substantial time in poking defensive holes in the other team's standards, is difficult for both sides in a framework debate. I think affs should think more about their answers to "switch side solves your offense" and "sufficient neg engagement key to meaningfully test the aff", while neg's should generally work harder to prepare persuasive and consistent impact explanations. The argument that "debate doesn't shape subjectivity" takes out clash/education offense, for example, is a reasonable and even threatening one.

I'm typically more persuaded by affirmative teams that answer framework by saying that the skills/methods inculcated by the 1ac produce more effective/ethical interactions with institutions than by teams that argue "all institutions are bad."

Fairness is an impact, though like any impact its magnitude and meaning is subject to debate. Like any abstract value, it can be difficult explain beyond a certain point, and it can't be proven or disproven via observation or testing. In other words, it's sometimes hard to answer the question "why is fairness good?" for the same reason it's hard to answer the question "why is justice good?" Nonetheless, it's pretty easy to persuade me that I should care about fairness in a debate context, given that everyone relies on essential fairness expectations in order to participate in the activity, such as expecting that I flow and give their arguments a fair hearing rather than voting against them because I don't like their choice in clothing.

But as soon as neg teams start introducing additional standards to their framework argument that raise education concerns, they have said that the choice of framework has both fairness and education implications, and if it could change our educational experience, could the choice of framework change our social or intellectual experience in debate in other ways as well? Maybe not (I certainly think it's easy to win that an individual round's decision certainly couldn't be expected to) but if you said your FW is key to education it's easy to see how those kinds of questions come into play and now can potentially militate against fairness concerns.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to question the desirability of the activity: we should all ideally be self-reflexive and be able to articulate why it is we participate in the activities on which we choose to dedicate our time. Nearly everybody in the world does utterly indefensible things from time to time, and many people (billions of them, probably) make completely indefensible decisions all the time. The reason why these arguments can be unpersuasive is typically because saying that debate is bad may just link to the team saying "debate bad" because they're, you know... debating, and no credible solvency mechanism for altering the activity has been presented.

So, I am a good judge for the fairness approach. It's not without its risk: a small risk of a large-magnitude impact to the ballot (e.g. solving an instance of racism in this round) could easily outweigh. But strong defense to the ballot can make it difficult for affs to overcome.

Still, it's nice to hear a defense of debate if you choose to go that route as well. I do like FWs that emphasize the benefits of the particular fairness norms established by a topicality interpretation ("models" debates). These can be enjoyable to watch, and some debaters are very good at this approach. In the aggregate, however, this route tends to be more difficult than the 'fairness' strategy.

If you're looking for an external impact, there are two impacts to framework that I have consistently found more persuasive than others, and they're related to why I value the debate activity. First, "switch-side debate good" (forcing people to defend things they don't believe is the only vehicle for truly shattering dogmatic ideological predispositions and fostering a skeptical worldview capable of ensuring that its participants, over time, develop more ethical and effective ideas than they otherwise would). Second, "agonism" (making debaters defend stuff that the other side is prepared to attack rewards debaters for pursuing clash; running from engagement by lecturing the neg and judge on a random topic of your choosing is a cowardly flight from battle; instead, the affirmative team with a strong will to power should actively strive to beat the best, most well-prepared negative teams from the biggest schools on their terms, which in turn provides the ultimate triumph; the life-affirming worldview facilitated by this disposition is ultimately necessary for personal fulfillment, and also provides a more effective strategy with which to confront the inevitable hardships of life).

Many aff "impact turns" to topicality are often rendered incoherent when met with gentle pushback. It's difficult to say "predictability bad" if you have a model of debate that makes debate more predictable from the perspective of the affirmative team. Exclusion and judgment are inevitable structural components of any debate activity that I can conceive of: any DA excludes affs that link to it and don't have an advantage that outweighs it. The act of reading that DA can be understood as judging the debaters who proposed that aff as too dull to think of a better idea. Both teams are bound to say the other is wrong and only one can win. Many aff teams may protest that their impact turns are much more sophisticated than this, and are more specific to some element of the topicality/FW structure that wouldn't apply to other types of debate arguments. Whatever explanation you have for why that above sentence true should be emphasized throughout the debate if you want your impact turns or DA's to T to be persuasive. In other words, set up your explanation of impact turns/disads to T in a way that makes clear why they are specific to something about T and wouldn't apply to basic structural requirements of debate from the outset of the debate.

I'm a fairly good judge for the capitalism kritik against K affs. Among my most prized possessions are signed copies of Jodi Dean books that I received as a gift from my debaters. Capitalism is persuasive for two reasons, both of which can be defeated, and both of which can be applied to other kritiks. First, having solutions (even ones that seem impractical or radical) entails position-taking, with clear political objectives and blueprints, and I often find myself more persuaded by a presentation of macro-political problems when coupled with corresponding presentation of macro-political solutions. Communism, or another alternative to capitalism, frequently ends up being the only solution of that type in the room. Second, analytic salience: The materialist and class interest theories often relatively more explanatory power for oppression than any other individual factor because they entail a robust and logically consistent analysis of the incentives behind various actors committing various actions over time. I'm certainly not unwinnable for the aff in these debates, particularly if they strongly press the alt's feasibility and explain what they are able to solve in the context of the neg's turns case arguments, and I obviously will try my hardest to avoid letting any predisposition overwhelm my assessment of the debating.

8) Kritiks (vs policy affs)

I'm okay for 'old-school' kritik's (security/cap/etc), but I'm also okay for the aff. When I vote for kritiks, most of my RFD's look like one of the following:

1) The neg has won that the implementation of the plan is undesirable relative to the status quo;

2) The neg has explicitly argued (and won) that the framework of the debate should be something other than "weigh the plan vs squo/alt" and won within that framework.

If you don't do either of those things while going for a kritik, I am likely to be persuaded by traditional aff presses (case outweighs, try-or-die, perm double-bind, alt fails etc). Further, despite sympathies for and familiarity with much poststructural thought, I'm nevertheless quite easily persuaded to use utilitarian cost-benefit analysis to make difficult decisions, and I have usually found alternative methods of making decisions lacking and counter-intuitive by comparison.

Kritik alternatives typically make no sense. They often have no way to meaningfully compete with the plan, frequently because of a scale problem. Either they are comparing what one person/a small group should do to what the government should do, or what massive and sweeping international movements should do vs what a government should do. Both comparisons seem like futile exercises for reasons I hope are glaringly obvious.

There are theory arguments that affs could introduce against alternatives that exploit common design flaws in critical arguments. "Vague alts" is not really one of them (ironically because the argument itself is too vague). Some examples: "Alternatives should have texts; otherwise the alternative could shift into an unpredictable series of actions throughout the debate we can't develop reasonable responses against." "Alternatives should have actors; otherwise there is no difference between this and fiating 'everyone should be really nice to each other'." Permutations are easy to justify: the plan would have to be the best idea in the history of thought if all the neg had to do was think of something better.

Most kritik frameworks presented to respond to plan focus are not really even frameworks, but a series of vague assertions that the 2N is hoping that the judge will interpret in a way that's favorable for them (because they certainly don't know exactly what they're arguing for). Many judges continually interpret these confusing framework debates by settling on some middle-ground compromise that neither team actually presented. I prefer to choose between options that debaters actually present.

My ideal critical arguments would negate the aff. For example, against a heg aff, I could be persuaded by security K alts that advocate for a strategy of unilateral miltary withdrawal. Perhaps the permutation severs rhetoric and argumentation in the 1ac that, while not in the plan text, is both central enough to their advocacy and important enough (from a pedagogical perspective) that we should have the opportunity to focus the debate around the geopolitical position taken by the 1ac. The only implication to to a "framework" argument like this would be that, assuming the neg wins a link to something beyond the plan text, the judge should reject, on severence grounds, permutations against alts that actually make radical proposals. In the old days, this was called philosophical competition. How else could we have genuine debates about how to change society or grand strategy? There are good aff defenses of the plan focus model from a fairness and education perspective with which to respond to this, but this very much seems like a debate worth having.

All this might sound pretty harsh for neg's, but affs should be warned that I think I'm more willing than most judges to abandon policymaking paradigms based on technical debating. If the negative successfully presents and defends an alternative model of decisionmaking, I will decide the debate from within it. The ballot is clay; mold it for me and I'll do whatever you win I should.

9) Kritiks (vs K affs)

Anything goes!

Seriously, I don't have strong presuppositions about what "new debate" is supposed to look like. For the most part, I'm happy to see any strategy that's well researched or well thought-out. Try something new! Even if it doesn't work out, it may lead to something that can radically innovate debate.

Most permutation/framework debates are really asking the question: "Is the part of the aff that the neg disagreed with important enough to decide an entire debate about?" (this is true in CP competition debates too, for what it's worth). Much of the substantive debating elsewhere subsequently determines the outcome of these sub-debates far more than debaters seem to assume.

Role of the ballot/judge claims are obviously somewhat self-serving, but in debates in which they're well-explained (or repeatedly dropped), they can be useful guidelines for crafting a reasonable decision (especially when the ballot theorizes a reasonable way for both teams to win if they successfully defend core thesis positions).

Yes, I am one of those people who reads critical theory for fun, although I also read about domestic politics, theoretical and applied IR, and economics for fun. Yes, I am a huge nerd, but who's the nerd that that just read the end of a far-too-long judge philosophy in preparation for a debate tournament? Thought so.

10) Procedural Norms

Evidence ethics, card clipping, and other cheating accusations supercede the debate at hand and ask for judge intervention to protect debaters from egregious violations of shared norms. Those challenges are win/loss, yes/no referendums that end the debate. If you levy an accusation, the round will be determined based on whether or not I find in your favor. If I can't establish a violation of sufficient magnitude was more likely than not, I will immediately vote against the accusing team. If left to my own discretion, I would tend not to find the following acts egregious enough to merit a loss on cheating grounds: mis-typing the date for a card, omitting a sentence that doesn't drastically undermine the card accidentally. The following acts clearly meet the bar for cheating: clipping/cross-reading multiple cards, fabricating evidence. Everything in between is hard to predict out of context. I would err on the side of caution, and not ending the round.

'Ad hominem' attacks, ethical appeals to out-of-round behavior, and the like: I differ from some judges in that, being committed to minimal intervention, I will technically assess these. I find it almost trivially obvious that introducing these creates a perverse incentive to stockpile bad-faith accusations and turns debate into a toxic sludgefest, and would caution that these are likely not a particularly strategic approach in front of me.

11) Addendum: Random Thoughts from Random Topics

In the spirit of Bill Batterman, I thought to myself: How could I make this philosophy even longer and less useable than it already was? So instead of deleting topic-relevent material from previous years that no longer really fit into the above sections, I decided to archive all of that at the bottom of the paradigm if I still agreed with what I said. Bad takes were thrown into the memory hole.

Topicality on NATO emerging tech: Security cooperation almost certainly involves the DOD. Even if new forms of security cooperation could theoretically exclude the DOD, there's not a lot of definitional support and minimal normative justification for that interpretation. Most of the important definition debates resolve substantive issues about what DA and impact turn links are granted and what counterplans are competitive rather than creating useful T definitions. Creative use of 'substantially = in the main' or 'increase = pre-existing' could elevate completely unworkable definitions into ones that are viable at the fringes.

Topicality on Legal Personhood: Conferring rights and/or duties doesn't presumptively confer legal personhood. Don't get me wrong: with evidence and normative definition debating, it very well may, but it doesn't seem like something to be taken for granted. There is a case for "US = federal only" but it's very weak. Overall this is a very weak topic for T args.

Topicality on water: There aren't very many good limiting devices on this topic. Obviously the states CP is an excellent functional limit; "protection requires regulation" is useful as well, at least insofar as it establishes competition for counterplans that avoid regulations (e.g. incentives). Beyond that, the neg is in a rough spot.

I am more open to "US water resources include oceans" than most judges; see the compiled evidence set I released in the Michigan camp file MPAs Aff 2 (should be available via openevidence). After you read that and the sum total of all neg cards released/read thus far, the reasoning for why I believe this should be self-evident. Ironically, I don't think there are very many good oceans affs (this isn't a development topic, it's a protection topic). This further hinders the neg from persuasively going for the this T argument, but if you want to really exploit this belief, you'll find writing a strategic aff is tougher than you may imagine.

Topicality on antitrust: Was adding 'core' to this topic a mistake? I can see either side of this playing out at Northwestern: while affs that haven't thought about the variants of the 'core' or 'antitrust' pics are setting themselves up for failure, I think the aff has such an expansive range of options that they should be fine. There aren't a ton of generic T threats on this topic. There are some iterations of subsets that seem viable, if not truly threatening, and there there is a meaningful debate on whether or not the aff can fiat court action. The latter is an important question that both evidence and normative desirability will play a role in determining. Beyond that, I don't think there's much of a limit on this topic.

ESR debates on the executive powers topic: I think the best theory arguments against ESR are probably just solvency advocate arguments. Seems like a tough sell to tell the neg there’s no executive CP at all. I've heard varied definitions of “object fiat” over the years: fiating an actor that's a direct object/recipient of the plan/resolution; fiating an enduring negative action (i.e. The President should not use designated trade authority, The US should not retaliate to terrorist attacks with nukes etc); fiating an actor whose behavior is affected by a 1ac internal link chain. But none of these definitions seem particularly clear nor any of these objections particularly persuasive.

States CP on the education and health insurance topics: States-and-politics debates are not the most meaningful reflection of the topic literature, especially given that the nature of 50 state fiat distorts the arguments of most state action advocates, and they can be stale (although honestly anything that isn't a K debate will not feel stale to me these days). But I'm sympathetic to the neg on these questions, especially if they have good solvency evidence. There are a slew of policy analysts that have recommended as-uniform-as-possible state action in the wake of federal dysfunction. With a Trump administration and a Republican Congress, is the prospect of uniform state action on an education or healthcare policy really that much more unrealistic than a massive liberal policy? There are literally dozens of uniform policies that have been independently adopted by all or nearly all states. I'm open to counter-arguments, but they should all be as contextualized to the specific evidence and counter-interpretation presented by the negative as they would be in a topicality debate (the same goes for the neg in terms of answering aff theory pushes). It's hard to defend a states CP without meaningful evidentiary support against general aff predictability pushes, but if the evidence is there, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to require affs to debate it. Additionally, there does seem to be a persuasive case for the limiting condition that a "federal-key warrant" places on affirmatives.

Topicality on executive power: This topic is so strangely worded and verbose that it is difficult to win almost any topicality argument against strong affirmative answers, as powerful as the limits case may be. ESR makes being aff hard enough that I’m not sure how necessary the negative needs assistance in limiting down the scope of viable affs, but I suppose we shall see as the year moves forward. I’m certainly open to voting on topicality violations that are supported by quality evidence. “Restrictions in the area of” = all of that area (despite the fact that two of the areas have “all or nearly all” in their wordings, which would seem to imply the other three are NOT “all or nearly all”) does not seem to meet that standard.

Topicality on immigration: This is one of the best topics for neg teams trying to go for topicality in a long time... maybe since alternative energy in 2008-9. “Legal immigration” clearly means LPR – affs will have a tough time winning otherwise against competent negative teams. I can’t get over my feeling that the “Passel and Fix” / “Murphy 91” “humanitarian” violations that exclude refugee, asylums, etc, are somewhat arbitrary, but the evidence is extremely good for the negative (probably slightly better than it is for the affirmative, but it’s close), and the limits case for excluding these affs is extremely persuasive. Affs debating this argument in front of me should make their case that legal immigration includes asylum, refugees, etc by reading similarly high-quality evidence that says as much.

Topicality on arms sales: T - subs is persuasive if your argument is that "substantially" has to mean something, and the most reasonable assessment of what it should mean is the lowest contextual bound that either team can discover and use as a bulwark for guiding their preparation. If the aff can't produce a reasonably well-sourced card that says substantially = X amount of arms sales that their plan can feasibly meet, I think neg teams can win that it's more arbitrary to assume that substantially is in the topic for literally no reason than it is to assume the lowest plausible reading of what substantially could mean (especially given that every definition of substantially as a higher quantity would lead one to agree that substantially is at least as large as that lowest reading). If the aff can, however, produce this card, it will take a 2N's most stalwart defense of any one particular interpretation to push back against the most basic and intuitive accusations of arbitrariness/goalpost-shifting.

T - reduce seems conceptually fraught in almost every iteration. Every Saudi aff conditions its cessation of arms sales on the continued existence of Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi military was so inept that the Houthis suddenly not only won the war against Saleh but actually captured Saudi Arabia and annexed it as part of a new Houthi Empire, the plan would not prevent the US from selling all sorts of exciting PGMs to Saudi Arabia's new Houthi overlords. Other than hard capping the overall quantity of arms sales and saying every aff that doesn't do that isn't topical, (which incidentally is not in any plausible reading a clearly forwarded interpretation of the topic in that poorly-written Pearson chapter), it's not clear to me what the distinction is between affs that condition and affs that don't are for the purposes of T - Reduce

Topicality on CJR: T - enact is persuasive. The ev is close, but in an evenly debated and closely contested round where both sides read all of the evidence I've seen this year, I'd be worried if I were aff. The debateability case is strong for the neg, given how unlimited the topic is, but there's a case to be made that courts affs aren't so bad and that ESR/politics is a strong enough generic to counter both agents.

Other T arguments are, generally speaking, uphill battles. Unless a plan text is extremely poorly written, most "T-Criminal" arguments are likely solvency takeouts, though depending on advantage construction they may be extremely strong and relevant solvency takeouts. Most (well, all) subsets arguments, regardless of which word they define, have no real answer to "we make some new rule apply throughout the entire area, e.g. all police are prohibitied from enforcing XYZ criminal law." Admittedly, there are better and worse variations for all of these violations. For example, Title 18 is a decent way to set up "T - criminal justice excludes civil / decrim" types of interpretations, despite the fact it's surprisingly easy for affs to win they meet it. And of course, aff teams often screw these up answering bad and mediocre T args in ways that make them completely viable. But none of these would be my preferred strategy, unless of course you're deploying new cards or improved arguments at the TOC. If that's the case, nicely done! If you think your evidence is objectively better than the aff cards, and that you can win the plan clearly violates a cogent interpretation, topicality is always a reasonable option in front of me.

Topicality on space cooperation: Topicality is making a big comeback in college policy debates this year. Kiinda overdue. But also kinda surprising because the T evidence isn't that high quality relative to its outsized presence in 2NRs, but hey, we all make choices.

STM T debates have been underwhelming in my assessment. T - No ADR... well at least is a valid argument consisting of a clear interp and a clear violation. It goes downhill from there. It's by no means unwinnable, but not a great bet in an evenly matched ebate. But you can't even say that for most of the other STM interps I've seen so far. Interps that are like "STM are these 9 things" are not only silly, they frequently have no clear way of clearly excluding their hypothesized limits explosion... or the plan. And I get it - STM affs are the worst (and we're only at the tip of the iceberg for zany STM aff prolif). Because STM proposals are confusing, different advocates use the terms in wildly different ways, the proposals are all in the direction of uniqueness and are difficult to distinguish from similar policy structures presently in place, and the area lacks comprehensive neg ground outside of "screw those satellites, let em crash," STM affs producing annoying debates (which is why so many teams read STM). But find better and clearer T interps if you want to turn those complaints about topical affs into topicality arguments that exclude those affs. And I encourage you to do so quickly, as I will be the first to shamelessly steal them for my teams.

Ironically, the area of the topic that produces what seem to me the best debates (in terms of varied, high-quality, and evenly-matched argumentation) probably has the single highest-quality T angle for the neg to deploy against it. And that T angle just so happens to exclude nearly every arms control aff actually being ran. In my assessment, both the interp that "arms control = quantitative limit" and the interp that "arms control = militaries just like chilling with each other, hanging out, doing some casual TCBMs" are plausible readings of the resolution. The best aff predictability argument is clearly that arms control definitions established before the space age have some obvious difficulties remaining relevant in space. But it seems plausible that that's a reason the resolution should have been written differently, not that it should be read in an alternate way. That being said, the limits case seems weaker than usual for the neg (though not terrible) and in terms of defending an interp likely to result in high-quality debates, the aff has a better set of ground arguments at their disposal than usual.

Trump-era politics DAs: Most political capital DAs are self-evidently nonsense in the Trump era. We no longer have a president that expends or exerts political capital as described by any of the canonical sources that theorized that term. Affs should be better at laundry listing thumpers and examples that empirically prove Trump's ability to shamelessly lie about whatever the aff does or why he supports the aff and have a conservative media environment that tirelessly promotes that lie as the new truth, but it's not hard to argue this point well. Sometimes, when there's an agenda (even if that agenda is just impeachment), focus links can be persuasive. I actually like the internal agency politics DA's more than others do, because they do seem to better analyze the present political situation. Our political agenda at the national level does seem driven at least as much by personality-driven palace intrigue as anything else; if we're going to assess the political consequences of our proposed policies, that seems as good a proxy for what's likely to happen as anything else.

Rubab Hyder Niles North High School 5 rounds None

Ayyad Jacob Whitney M. Young Magnet High School 5 rounds None

Alex Joh-Jung Evanston Township High School 5 rounds

Wes Jones Northside College Prep 5 rounds None

Will Kirby New Trier High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Thu December 3, 2020 at 12:50 PM CDT

About Me:

New Trier ‘16

Dartmouth ‘20

wwardkirby@gmail.com, add me to the email chain

Please keep in mind I am not very actively involved in the high school debate topic, and while I have judged at a couple of tournaments and have been involved in argument discussion with New Trier, I might have a slightly higher threshold for which claims require evidence than other judges.

I am not actively involved in college debate, but study Environmental Science and International Relations in college. For climate-based debates, this means I am going to be incredibly unpersuaded by environment impact defense, as well as extremely skeptical of any internal links that claim to solve the coming environmental catastrophe. For IR debates, I will reward teams that can explain holistic theories of state behavior and how that implicates their position in the debate, instead of taking ad hoc approaches depending on what flow they're on.

Non-Negotiable Beliefs:

The following predispositions I have are basically uncontestable within a round, and if you disagree, feel free to strike me

Death/Sexism/Racism/Heteronormativity are all bad

Disclosure is good, and failure to correctly disclose previously read positions is considered cheating, and is a loss (of course, these debates can be impossible to evaluate as I am unable to evaluate things that occur outside of the round itself)

Line-by-line is good, and if you choose to ignore any sort of organizational structure to your speeches I won’t feel bad if I miss something

I reserve the right to vote down any argument that I don’t understand, and don’t feel obligated to read through all of your evidence to piece together what wasn’t sufficiently explained in the debate—if you rely on replacing explanation with jargon, proceed at your own peril

I have recently realized that I am growing more and more frustrated with hiding deliberately bad arguments with the hope opponents drop them. If you are willing to advance an argument in order to win the debate, it shouldn't be one 15-second undertagged card in the 2NC on the K that suddenly turns into death not real, or a three-second ASPEC shell in the 1NR on the perm, or C/I only our aff hidden in the middle of some other standards on T. I by no means want to disincentivize proper flowing and clash, but this shouldn't come at the expense of making strategic, well-reasoned arguments.

If you seem to not care about your debate, then I will care a lot less about judging you—as long as you are invested in the debate for two hours, I will do my best to match or exceed that level of commitment

Kritiks:

My feelings about judging the K are directly related to the level of responsiveness to the 1AC—as long as your links are explained in terms of the action the 1AC takes/the assumptions that their specific authors make/the language in the 1AC evidence I’m perfectly content—I am much less persuaded by Ks that criticize structures that undergird the 1AC without explaining how the aff furthers the harms of that system. This also applies to being aff against the K, where I would hold the same burden of specificity—teams need to be much better at using the specifics of their case to make nuanced permutations, no link arguments, etc. etc.

If your K is based in any form of postmodernism, ESPECIALLY the aff’s relationship to death, you’re fighting an uphill battle. If you want to make the debate as difficult for yourself to win as possible, go for the fiat double-bind.

K Affs:

I’d prefer you read a plan. Having done a decent amount of work on “soft-left” (an imperfect term) affirmatives, I am very sympathetic to smart impact framing and feel no problem at all assigning zero risk to nonsensical DAs. I am much less sympathetic to affirmatives that don’t read plans, and VERY unsympathetic to affirmatives that don’t defend at least some interpretation of what a topical aff looks like (also, wtf does it mean to be "in the direction of the topic"). I’m not immovable on these questions by any means, as there are large portions of common negative framework arguments that are either nonsensical (looking at you, decision-making impact), or just regularly executed poorly. That being said, when two teams of equal skills execute both sides of the debate with similar quality, I would be surprised to find myself voting affirmative.

CPs:

Overly vague plan texts not only annoy me, but will make me lean negative on almost every theoretical question, especially counterplan competition. I love specific PICs (with solvency advocates) and affirmative attempts to avoid those debates are upsetting, to say the least. I’m somewhat neutral about International or State counterplans, but am more neg-leaning when the topic is large enough to be considered unmanageable. I lean aff on most Process CPs, but find that aff teams rarely execute in these theoretical debates.

As for judge kick, I’ll default to it, but will be very frustrated if the debate comes down to whether or not I had to kick the counterplan for the 2NR with ZERO discussion of whether or not that’s theoretically legitimate in a debate. I don’t think it’s a particularly uphill battle to win that judge kick is bad, but would strongly prefer the argumentation over that question to begin prior to the final rebuttals.

Conditionality:

The word “interpretation” matters to me quite a bit in theory debates, and I am often unconvinced that there is a large strategic difference between dispositionality and conditionality, so 2As need to be careful that their interpretation solves their own offense.

Like many judges, I’d prefer not to have to judge a theory debate, but understand the necessity of it. Aff teams will fare best when the language of the 2AR is clearly rooted in previous aff speeches. I will do my best to protect the 2NR, particularly when the 1AR fails to make an adequate investment in the argument, but am less sympathetic to the 2NR when it is clear the aff team wants to go for conditionality.

Topicality:

I am a good judge for the negative on topicality, provided the negative can win a clear violation (if I have to decide a debate based a we meet claim that neither side has fleshed out at all, I'm going to be upset). For me, we meet is largely a yes/no question, I've never understood how there could be a "risk" that you either do or don't meet. I am not a fan when people reduce limits to “number of affs under both interpretations”, and then arbitrarily argue whether or not their arbitrary number of affs is better or worse. T debates are best when they are specific and discuss specific affirmative and negative grounds and impact those arguments out. Reasonability, when articulated as “good is good enough” makes negative sense to me.

DAs/Case:

Nothing really novel here. Turns case is obviously super important. Uniqueness controls the direction of the link/link controls uniqueness arguments are incoherent at best. Zero risk (or, more accurately, low enough risk so as to be statistically insignificant) is most definitely a thing, and nothing frustrated me more as a debater when judges arbitrarily assigning risk to an advantage or DA when a defensive argument was decisively won. Terrible internal link chains that can be defeated with simple analytics are rarely made, please be the one to change that.

Speaker Points:

My goal is to reward teams that are kind, invested in the activity, clear (I cannot emphasize this enough, please, please, please be clear) and demonstrate specific research and content knowledge. Cross-x is an excellent opportunity to increase your points, and defaulting to your partner on every question is a excellent way to decrease your points.

I've realized I might be a little behind the curve on speaker point inflation and am trying to adjust accordingly.

If you are unnecessarily rude (and trust me, there is a clear difference between being a little bit overzealous in cross-x and genuinely mean—don’t cross that line), then I won’t feel bad at all for hurting your speaks.

I also tend to assign more low-point wins than most judges, simply because I award speaker points immediately after you have given your last speech, because I believe my process for deciding speaker points should be independent and prior to deciding who won the round. I still don’t give low-point wins very often, but I regularly had at least one per tournament.

Nicole Kretekos Glenbrook South High School 5 rounds None

Jake Lee Glenbrook South High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Thu May 2, 2024 at 10:28 AM EDT

Jake Lee (He/Him)

Math Teacher and Director of Debate at Mamaroneck High School

My Email for the Chain: jakemlee@umich.edu

HS Debaters ALSO add: mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

In-Depth Judging Record: View this Speadsheet

-
Top Level:

**Before the start of every round: I want every person in the room to go around and state your name, pronouns and one fun fact about yourself. You all are way too stressed out before rounds and having this little icebreaker before the start of rounds promotes a safe, friendly space. It helps create a community in debate, and the teacher in me enjoys the idea of promoting community building.

I evaluate arguments on a Tech over Truth basis. A dropped argument is a true argument on the flow. However, the word "conceded" does not mean you get to skirt by with laziness on the flow.

The only time tech over truth will not matter is on Death Good (Ligotti style), Racism Good, Sexism Good, etc. Reading these arguments at your own expense will lead to an inevitable L and 25's immediately. As an educator, it is my responsibility to make debate a safe space for everyone.

Schools I judge the most: Lexington (45), Berkeley Prep (43), GDS (40), GBN (26), Calvert Hall (21), New Trier (20), Bronx Science (19), MBA (16)

Giving the final speeches (2NR/2AR) off the flow (ie paper) will boost speaker points!!!! Shows great ethos in round.

The State of Flowing:
The state of flowing and line by line is very concerning. You all should be flowing the SPEECH, NOT the SPEECH DOC. The amount of times the 2AC has answered a skipped offcase or a couple of skipped cards on case because you just did not listen is concerning. Same with the other speeches in the debate where a team is answering something that was not said at all because "iT wAs iN tHe DoC"!! Same thing with people just claiming everyone is dropping everything.

No requesting "can you take out the cards that you did not read" before CX or speeches. If you ask, I'm going to run YOUR prep time and the other team can stall as long as they want because you decided not to flow. I don't care if they purposely run your time to ZERO, you didn't FLOW! You all have the document in front of you. That is a privilege debaters about 15 years ago did not have. If I can flow the speech without looking at the doc, you can to.

Consider the Following:

1) Implicate Arguments:

Judge Instruction is pretty non-existent in 90% of debates. As a math person, I really care about how things are concluded. What implicating your argument is pretty much equivalent to showing your work to me on a test. Telling me how to vote prevents major judge intervention from me. Clash, compare, articulate, explain arguments and tell me how they relate to you winning the debate round. Arguments without warrants depreciate in value compared to arguments with warrants are appreciated.

Nothing frustrates me more when teams say their arguments but do not tell me how to evaluate them. If I cannot figure out what I am supposed to do with your argument at the end, I am pretty much going to ignore it or not evaluate it. It is pretty consuming to try to sort out a wad of arguments that have no value to them. It is equivalent as to you telling me that this shape is a rectangle, and you cannot tell me why it is a rectangle without the proof/work. Do not bank on me trying to figure out what you are trying to tell me if you do not provide judge instruction, otherwise your arguments get bogged down.

If a team reads an argument that is considered "trolling", you have every right to troll back at them.

It feels really ironic that teams who have "framing contentions" do not do any framing at all. Both AFF and NEG are at fault for just reading cards and not "framing" anything. The spamming of Util Outweighs or Deontology First does nothing to help me evaluate the round.

2) Theory:

Please just stop reading pre-written blocks in these debates. Do Line-by-Line as you would normally do on any other flow.

Conditionality is probably good. I have voted both ways when it comes down to conditionality. Impact calculus and counter-interpretation debating does matter. New AFFs justify condo and perf con.

Hiding ASPEC/Other Theory arguments is Cowardly. If you do it and go for it because the other team dropped it, I will probably still vote for you; but it will end being a low point win. The 2N will take the hit the most for hiding it. You have to read ASPEC/other theory arguments on it's OWN flow to avoid this consequence. Do you want to be known as the ASPEC hider? If I don't catch it on my flow because you hid it, YOU do not get to complain about me missing it. If I know you hid it, I might end up not flowing it. Don't care.

3) Framework:

In these debates, both in K AFF and K rounds, are often quite frustrating to resolve at the end of the day. To win Framework on either the AFF or NEG, you need to do impact calculus! Most debates tend to stagnate and never expand on their impacts.

The other thing that annoys me that teams do not do is explaining their interpretation of debate. Both sides just breeze through this when this actually matters to me a lot as to why you resolve your own offense and why they link to your own offense. Debating and refuting each other's interpretations matters a lot and gets you a lot farther in the debate.

Hey Jake, is Fairness an impact? Yes. I think Fairness is an internal impact that can produce a plethora of external impacts. Hence, I tend to think Fairness is more of an internal link. I prefer clash style impacts over fairness impacts, but fairness can be a powerful impact set up for a lot of framework offense if executed correctly. However, I am not the person debating, and if you make frame Fairness as an external on the flow, I will treat it as an impact on the flow. It is your job to implicate it. Yes, I have voted on Fairness being an impact in the past. Walter Payton SW, LFS MR, Peninsula LL, and UC Lab ES are a few teams that I have voted on fairness for.

I prefer the AFF to have a counter-interpretation most of the time than just going for the impact turn strategy. Counter-interpretations help me get a perspective as to what I should think about debate and how I should come to the conclusion about debate. Most teams fail to provide also any UQ framing about debate.

TVAs are a great tool. A lot of NEG teams fail to understand the purpose of a TVA. A TVA does not need to solve the AFF. If the NEG can prove there is a TVA that can resolve a lot of offense from the AFF, the NEG is in a good spot. The AFF's best shot at beating TVAs is proving how silly sometimes these TVAs are. I am also shocked how AFF teams just let the NEG get away with blatantly untopical TVAs. There are so many times where I am just shocked that I end up voting for a TVA that just sounds very UNTOPICAL under the NEG's definitions.

Switch Side Debate is an under utilized argument that helps with most NEG teams. AFF teams can easily combat this by stating an AFF key warrant, which goes back to my thoughts about the counter-interpretation always being present in the 2AR.

Limits DA is OP. I just find it the most persuasive reason to Fairness because in all honestly, debate would be broken if there is no limit.

Here are the following arguments I just find unpersuasive from both sides on Framework:

"They flipped NEG into a K AFF" - don't care, the 2N can lie all they want as to why they flipped neg. the 2N can say because my 2A is tired so we flipped NEG, and I am fine with it

"They flipped AFF with a K AFF, they are embracing competition" - don't care, same as above, the AFF can just lie and be like my 2N is tired so we flipped AFF

"The TVA does not Solve the AFF 100%" - no it does not have to, see the TVA section above

"You read 4+ offcase in the 1NC so you had ground" - 90% of the 1NC is hot garbage so it is not good ground

"We could only read T in the 1NC, so we have no ground" - have you tried at least reading the Cap K or the Heg/Cap Good DA?

"More People have quit debate because of K AFFs" - I do not think this is true, I think this is an unfalsifiable claim

"Perm Do their interpretation and our counter-interpretation" - You can't perm T, it is not an advocacy

4) Counterplans:

I am always down for a counterplan debate. I did find the NATO topic last year a bit annoying with the amount of process CPs that came out of it, so let's try to avoid it this year since there are decent non-process CPs on this topic. Counterplans should be both "textually and functionally" competitive is the immoveable standard that I will stake in counterplan debates.

Not only this forces better counterplans writing, but better permutation writing. Limited intrinsic perms really are go-to strategy against counterplans such as Consult NATO or the Lopez CP when they really have no intrinsic purpose to the topic. But a very good counterplan that destroys the intrinsic perm is very much a power move. I am easily persuaded that the "other issues" perm should be abolished since it limits out NEG ground a ton. Debating out words, phrases, and reasons behind it will go a long way. Should/Resolved debates are pretty meh, but they have stuck with me for a long time given my time debating against GBN and hearing Forslund's thoughts about counterplan competition theory.

Permutation Do Both seems lost in most process CP debates. I sometime think that you can just do both. That places the burden a lot of the NEG to really explain any inherent trade-off between doing the plan and the counterplan, especially with garbage internal net benefits.

Permutations are not advocacies and DO NOT have to be topical.

**Hot Take on Text-Only Counterplans: If the NEG team just reads a counterplan text in the 1NC and nothing else, the AFF can just say Perm Do Both and move on. Here's why: a) there is no claim of solvency established after the text. The Counterplan text explains what you are doing, not how it solves and b) you have not established the threshold of competition. Jimin Park and I had an interesting conversation about this.

5) Disadvantages:

Huge fan of disadvantages. However, this is a sliding scale. There are some DAs that are pretty heat, ie. Assurance DA on Alliances Topic, Econ DA on Health Insurance Topic, Russia Fill-In DA on Arms Sales topic. Then, there are some DAs that are absolute garbage, ie. Federalism DA on Education topic, DoD Trade-Off on the NATO topic.

Much prefer you focus on the link level of the DA. This is where a lot of DA debates are either won or lost. A lot of debaters really fail to explain or attack the link. I see the common tactic against DAs is just impact defense, when again link level debating helps. AFFs should link turn DAs when they have the opportunity. Straight turning stuff has become a lost art.

Politics DAs: Okay, I will admit these DAs are non-sensical. However, I love a good politics DA debate. It was my most common 2NR in high school. That being said, the politics DA is probably the hardest DA to both execute and answer. There are a ton of moving parts to it, that a lot of debaters end up getting lost in the sauce and just make this debate about who likes/hates the plan. Defenses of PC theory, UQ warrants, takes outs of the bill all have large implications on the DA. Winner's Win theory is a great debate to listen if the AFF decides to put offense against the DA. Rider DAs are bad (sorry Voss).

6) Critiques:

Framework for me dictates how I evaluate the round. Both teams should have a comprehensive interpretation of what debates should look like and how I should evaluate it. Both teams should also impact out why their model of debate is better than their opponents. This is where a lot of debates just fall flat. AFF team says fairness and clash. NEG team says that's capitalist/anti-black and that's it. Lack of impact calculus just frustrates me a lot. Why should I have to "weigh the plan" or "prefer representations first prior to weighing the plan". Bronx Science BD was the only team that really impacted out framework and provided a clear lane for judges to evaluate rounds.

I prefer if the critique had links about the plan/topic rather than representations of the AFF's impacts. That is a preference, not a mandate. A lot of good executions of the link debate utilize re-highlightings and implicating the reason for a link. AFF's can easily combat this by just defending their threats are real. I am pretty good for AFF teams that just that their impact is true OR their AFF is just a good idea.

Extinction is First is a default for me, unless there is another Utilitarian thought process that is presented and articulated well to me to think otherwise.

If you say the K is unconditional, and you kick the alt, you cheated!!!! If the NEG team does this, AFF call them out and it does not need to be much, but explain why what they did is bad! The K is not unconditional, the advocacy is. You kicking breaks the rules of uncondo. It is the same logic of a Process CP being uncondo, and then the team kicks the CP part and going for the internal net benefit. That is not how unconditionality works

7) Topicality:

I am probably not the best judge for topicality debates.

I will default to competing interpretations majority of the time.

What matters to me is counter-interpretation debating, and how you explain to me your view of the topic is better for debate. A lot debates end up messy for me to evaluate because there is no impacting out why limits outweighs ground or AFF ground better than NEG ground. I will always will try to figure out which topic is best for both the AFF and NEG.

Much prefer limits over ground, unless there is a clear linkage between the AFF's interpretation decking NEG ground.

8) Case Debating:

Love a good case debate. Both sides will profit well from a good case debate. Making smart internal link/solvency takes outs really provide the NEG a lot of leverage. If going for a counterplan, still having case defense to the advantage that you think the CP solves the least forces me to drop you twice as I have to decide the CP doesn’t solve AND that the case impact outweighs your net-benefit. That seems like a pretty good spot to be in for NEG since I can judge kick the CP and weigh the net benefit. What most high school debaters end up doing is just spamming impact defense. Much prefer internal link/solvency take outs.

Majority of the time, a lot of 1ACs are hyperinflated, illogical and run into a ton of problems. If you tell me you cannot find an illogical flaw in an internal link chain that says, "plan's biofuel research promotes ag research, ag research promotes GMOs, GMOs help solve food shortage in Ukraine, lack of food in Ukraine causes NATO intervention, NATO scares Russia, NATO-Russia war goes nuclear", I will be shocked.

9) Ethics Violations:

Clipping: a team misrepresents how much evidence they have read in a debate, such as improperly highlighting their evidence, “clipping cards” (the team says they read more than they actually did by clipping a card short of the indicated end), or “cross reading” (the team skips words or sentences in the middle of the text but indicates that they read all the highlighted words).

Any altering of the author's original text such as deleting/adding/re-arranging words/phrases/paragraphs is also deemed a fabrication of evidence. Proof of fraud is necessary.

Any ethics violation challenge, the other team must present evidence. Whoever wins the challenge gets the win and max speaker points. Whoever loses the challenge gets the lost and lowest speaker points possible (probably a 25).

Sarah Lee Glenbrook North 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed August 2, 2023 at 4:24 AM EDT

Email for the year: slee11398@gmail.com

Email for UMich Camp Tournament: tdhsqtdr@umich.edu

Led a sophomore lab at Michigan for a couple years. Judge exclusively high school debate during the year for MBA. Outside of debate, I’m also a PhD student and college instructor in Philosophy.

K-related thoughts (what you probably care most about):

The kind of rounds I enjoy judging most are “clash” rounds - especially policy aff v K neg, but also including K aff v framework.

Due to a variety of factors, I do not think that I ultimately have a side preference for debates in which these strategies are executed. However, that does not suggest (as is the case for most/all judges) that I am a "blank slate" for all argument. Like most/all of us involved in debate, there are arguments I tend to find more or less persuasive. These tendencies are not set in stone, but below, I have provided some of my thoughts that may be helpful if you are debating in front of me:

**For the "K" side:

I’m interested in a number of kinds of K’s, but I can be persuaded to vote on things whether or not I personally like the lit base it comes from. I especially like strategies which read specific links to each advantage/impact, rather than broad links that have little to do with anything specific or unique to the aff (but I have also voted on the latter when aff teams fail to adequately answer such arguments).

**For the "policy" side:

One of the policy FW arguments I tend to be particularly persuaded by is something like the following: scenario-planning is good, it’s a quite unique thing we get to do in debate, and it turns K impacts into ethical education/advocacy skills/political activism, etc.

When you’re aff v the K, I tend to like link turn + perm arguments significantly more than case o/w + ext 1st arguments (and a gamut of arguments that tend to go with that framing, i.e. "future generations are the only important ethical consideration.")

**Both sides:

Please do line by line, to the extent possible. I appreciate debaters who can organize debates which are pretty messy - even as simply by signposting like “I’ll do the link debate here.”

I tend to think fairness is an internal link, but I can be persuaded otherwise - though it would likely take some effort and nuanced debating on your part.

Non-K-related thoughts:

Impact Calculus

I encourage you to try to do nuanced impact calculus that avoids hyperbole and stays at least somewhat grounded in reality. That is, obviously debate is a funny little game in which people try to make everything turn into extinction, but the more interesting debaters say something less like “they definitely 100% lead to war which outweighs on timeframe because fiat makes the plan happen immediately” and more like “the plan decreases the propensity for war sufficiently to allow for stopgap measures like diplomacy to win out in the long-term.”

Various things

I'm more tech over truth than the other way around. But remember that an argument is (at least) a claim and (a) warrant(s).

I tend to be sympathetic to neg flex arguments, though there are limits to that.

If I can't flow you, the argument doesn't "count." Make sure you're clear. That probably means you need to go slower than you tend to go. Most debaters are not as clear as they are fast.

An important note

Be nice. Rude debaters are annoying, and your speaks will reflect that.

jason levin Glenbrook North

Carter Levinson Homewood-Flossmoor High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Thu September 7, 2023 at 10:14 AM CDT

Northwestern 2023 Updates:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am keeping the below paradigm such that you can freely see how my thoughts on debate have changed and evolved. When I was looking through these paradigms as a debater, I appreciated having as much information as possible and I intend to provide you with the same courtesy. I have tried to summarize these changes below and have struck through anything in my original paradigm which no longer applies or may be a source of confusion.

Meta Level:

The single biggest thing I want to emphasize to you is that I view debate as a technical "game" wherein everything besides speech times is up for discussion. I greatly appreciate the tactical and strategic aspect of debate and will reward you greatly for making good argumentative decisions. Unless told otherwise, I evaluate debates in the following manner:

1.) Determine the role of the judge / ballot: absent being told otherwise I assume the role of the ballot is to reward the most speech act containing the most persuasive argumentation.

2.) Evaluate impacts: absent being told otherwise, I assume that the most persuasive speech act is the team that has convinced me voting for the other team is the riskier option.

3.) Assess comparative risks: absent being told otherwise, I assume that impact calculus is determined through the lens of probabilistic risk. Your job is to convince me that your impacts are more important than the other teams. I have discussed a little bit of how to do this below.

Miscellaneous:

Please point out gaps in logic or jumps in reasoning. Proving that one thing doesn't follow from another is a great way to show me I'm not risking anything by not voting for the other team.

Please note that I have since changed my mind about blippy arguments. If I have a substantiated voter on my flow that the other team has dropped, I will take the easy way out. That being said, If your strategy involves spamming voters in the hope that the other team drops one of them to take advantage of this rule, I will drop your speaks accordingly.

Feel free to email me with any questions: Carter.Levinson.Debate@gmail.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meta Level:

1.) The critical versus policy divide is illusory and the borders between them are far more viscous than you would like to believe. Despite what you may believe based upon my current argumentative proclivities, I have no preferences in terms of critical or policy arguments. This is NOT to say that I am tabula rasa. Aristotle was far too presumptuous to believe such a thing was possible. I DO have preferences, but these preferences are based upon HOW not WHAT you argue. Read a plan, go for a tricky counterplan--but impress me in the WAY that you do so.

2.) Research first. Whether you debate critiques or policy, high quality evidence presented effectively determines the validity of your strategy. Show me that you have a well-researched strategy that grapples with an important issue and I will reward you accordingly (speaker points, the W etc.) Consequently, I will call for cards often and read them in the light of the debate round at hand. I don't necessarily believe that the evidence you read is MORE important than the spin utilized in the round, but I do consider spin and card quality to be equal in assessing the value of evidence. Throwing good cards at me is not enough to win a debate, but neither is throwing good spin at me without good evidence to back it up. For teams, evidence does not necessarily refer to cards, it can be any sort of warrant to support your case, but cards will still always be considered.

Also, Put me on the email chain: Carter.Levinson.Debate@gmail.com

3.) Framing Wins debates.

a.) Impact Calculus: This seems redundant to say, but impact calculus is perhaps the single most important that you can do in a given debate. Yet, unfortunately, it seems to be one of the things debaters that debaters do the most poorly. Speak to me in terms of risk analysis, the tools you are most familiar with (magnitude, timeframe and probability) are only internal links (or pathways) for you to access the end goal of giving me a risk of an impact. Tell me what I’m risking by voting for the other team.

b.) Hyperbolic impact claims are unpersuasive: This is not me taking a crack at “big-stick” impacts, nor does it it mean you should switch to “structural” style impacts (although these are also usually persuasive in front of me.) Economic decline=nuclear war=extinction is not the equation to my ballot. You should instead aim to make smaller, more compartmentalized arguments about what a limited nuclear war would do to the environment or perhaps what it could do to geopolitics in an unstable, chaotic region etc. Don’t ditch your current AFF, but rather change how you argue these claims in the first place. Do not be overconfident in what your AFF solves, as often times the ‘smaller’ you think your impact is a greater risk can be assigned to it.

c.) Impact Framing: Distinct from impact calculus, but equally important. I start with assessing comparative risk, but arguments that change how I consider impacts are a necessity if you want to be making critical arguments (or even more traditional arguments like the politics disad) Tell me what you want me to do at the end of the round. Am I a policymaker? the president? A Philosopher? What do those roles mean I do? What do I look at first? If there’s a greater risk of war, maybe I should look at poverty first. These are the arguments that are the most open to interpretation and the more of them the make the less you'll be complaining about intervention at the end of the round. Or, to steal from Joe Krakoff, who is himself stealing faces,” I will attempt to emulate some or all of the following people when deciding your debate: Mike Hester, Julio Cortàzar, jon sharp, Jack Ewing, THE judy butler, THE Judith Butler, John Turner, Amber Kelsie, Jean Genet, Jorge Luis Borges, Félix Guattari, and Jim Gentile. I am (un)comfortable playing (m)any of these roles -- and any role at all -- so lest I choose one to my fancy, you had better tell me how to decide your debate.

“Specific” Arguments:

I didn’t initially want to include this section, as I firmly believe the things I have written above apply to all styles, and arguments equally. Consequently, my priority goes as follows: What was said in the debate trumps my preferences. However, in close debates these guidelines and thoughts I have in regards to different types of arguments may be the difference between a win and a loss or, at the very least, speaker points.

Disads: Defense is both awesome and necessary on both sides. I certainly believe that zero risk is a thing, or at least that you can mitigate the risk close enough to zero that the “noise” that clouds all predictions makes the status quo a better option. I will attempt to judge these debates as some strange and probably inaccurate combination of Kevin Hirn and Calum Matheson.

A final note: if at all possible, and by that I mean if you anything remotely more specific, read that instead of the politics disad.

Counterplans: I like specific, nuanced theory debates. I find these debates exciting rather than droll, and think that every counterplan and practice in debate is legitimate until someone tells me that it isn’t. Fairness and education are internal link arguments, please explain these debates in terms of impacts. What should we be debating about? What are the implications of using certain practices? USE YOUR BRAINS! DON’T READ BLOCKS! I will reward those who do this heavily.

Other advice: Slow down on text, make nuanced perms coming out of the 2AC, the more specific your perm is in the 2AC the less likely I will hack out for generic 2NRs on the perm links to the net benefit.

Critiques: You will be hard pressed to find a set of critical literature that I don’t like or haven’t heard of. I like critical strategies best (especially if you plan on going 1-Off) when you let research inform the strategy instead of debate arguments. If you show me proof that you have a robust knowledge of the theory external to the evidence you are reading, and you have well-researched high-quality evidence that contests with claims of the AFF, then I will reward you graciously.

Side note: I am unlikely to be persuaded by the use of personal experience as evidence (unless you are reading evidence why personal experience is a good strategy of resistance) I am FAR more likely to persuaded by arguments about larger (potentially) structural issues (think Wilderson, Yancy, Butler, Irigaray etc) rather than solipsistic narratives.

Topicality: Fairness impacts are bad. The Rowland Evidence is bad. These debates have the potential to be awesome, however they often fall short of the mark. Topicality provides that rare opportunity to discuss what type of debates we should be having. If you make your impact arguments about comparing visions of the topic rather than circular claims about fairness and predictability than I am a good judge for you.

Framework: I firmly believe that these debates are incredibly complicated and are full of small intricate parts that never get fleshed out. Both sides take absolutely ridiculous claims as obviously true (Debates about the Government produce better decisions, Framework is the same as real violence etc) These are obviously fringe claims, but I have seen them made time and time again and very few people challenge them at more than a cursory level. Both sides are posing serious questions about the future of this activity and need to treat the debate with that level of seriousness.

Flesh out questions that don’t get fleshed out usually, it can only benefit you. What is the relationship of the state debate to the theory debate? Who has to win State good/Bad to win? Who has to win theory to win? What if one side wins one part of the debate and not the other? What should I do? Don’t assume you are winning all your offense, assume your opponents are doing a better job than you think they are, play smart defense. Calculate impacts, Frame the debate. Otherwise I will certainly choose in a way that isn’t good for you.

Miscellaneous: “In order that you are not surprised should the following take place in your debate, I will tell you now I do not intend to vote on blippy arguments that side-step the real question of the debate. This will not apply against a category of warranted arguments that might be considered "must answer" or even "cheap shots" arguments that are, however, germane to the debate. Examples include but are not limited to floating pics, topical versions, truth testing, cp results in the aff. If you like to hide a one sentence ASPEC violation in a 2nc block or practice other forms of argumentative cowardice, I will be displeased and I expect you will feel similar displeasure as a result of my own.”

Christina Li Glenbrook North 5 rounds None

Jon Mantis Glenbrook South High School 3 rounds

Matt McColgan Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds None

Lucy McDermott Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 10, 2017 at 11:05 AM EDT

Walter Payton College Prep: Class of 2017

General

Tech over truth
Warrants and explanation are important. It's better to have one or two well-explained arguments in the final speeches than thirty tagline extensions
You do you: I’ll listen to the debate and do my best to evaluate it without regard to the predispositions below.
If you seem to be repeatedly and deliberately attempting to insult the other team in CX, I will dock your speaks

K Affs and Framework

· My belief is that the aff should defend a topical plan; however, I am certainly willing to vote against framework, provided that the aff wins the line-by-line.
· The most persuasive aff answers to framework are reasons the aff’s model of debate is good for education or skills and reasons why these can’t be accessed under the neg’s model of debate
· Aff teams that read social justice impacts are engaging in important discussions that the neg should have a TVA to access; however, if the aff is closer to Bataille than it is to Wilderson, I don't have qualms against voting on "Bataille doesn't belong in debate."

Kritiks

· K’s are cool, provided that the negative interacts with and mitigates the aff
· Contextualizing the criticism to the affirmative specifically is important: links can be about the reps of the plan, but they need to be more specific than “you used the state”
· Case outweighs is a very persuasive argument
You don't need an alt, but having one can gives you solvency to weigh vs the aff
Answer the case. This applies to all K's, but it is especially important if the K argues that the aff's scholarship is wrong.
· Unlike others at my school, I’ve not read much postmodern lit

Topicality

· Predictability, limits and topic education are better standards than ground

· I default to competing interpretations, but can be persuaded otherwise; however, simply saying "race to the bottom" is not enough to do the trick

Counterplans

· These can be very strategic

· I will vote on Process CP's if the neg wins theory, but "Process CP's bad" will probably be an easy sell

· There are persuasive arguments on both sides of the condo debate, but condo is a very strategic aff argument

Disads

· Neg teams: Make sure you cover/have warrants for every aspect of the DA

· Politics: uniqueness outweighs the link

· The disad should have a coherent story: it should be about why the status quo is good, what the plan SPECIFICALLY does to disrupt this, and why that's bad (read: if the bill is going to pass because of Democrats, the plan alienating Republicans is not a good link).

Emily McFadyen Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds

Lindsay McFadyen Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds

Val McIntosh Niles West High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 16, 2024 at 1:47 PM EDT

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

I would like to be on the email chain - my email address is valeriemcintosh1@gmail.com.

A few top level things:

If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
I'm a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
Email-sending related failures
Dead time
Stealing prep
Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team
Asserting things are dropped when they aren't
Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards
Disappearing after the round

Online debate: My camera will always be on during the debate unless I have stepped away from my computer during prep or while deciding so you should always assume that if my camera is off, I am not there. I added this note because I've had people start speeches without me there.

Ethics: If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points.
*NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me.

Organization: I would strongly prefer that if you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn that it go on its own page - its super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders. Ditto to reading advantage CPs on case - put it on its own sheet, please!

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Translated evidence: I am extremely skeptical of evidence translated by a debater or coach with a vested interest in that evidence being used in a debate. Lots of words or phrases have multiple meanings or potential translations and debaters/coaches have an incentive to choose the ones that make the most debate-friendly argument even if that's a stretch of what is in the original text. It is also completely impossible to verify if words or text was left out, if it is a strawperson, if it is cut out of context, etc. I won't immediately reject it on my own but I would say that I am very amenable to arguments that I should.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate: I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

Topicality: I enjoy judging topicality debates when they are in-depth and nuanced. Limits are an an important question but not the only important question - your limit should be tied to a particular piece of neg ground or a particular type of aff that would be excluded. I often find myself to be more aff leaning than neg leaning in T debates because I am often persuaded by the argument that negative interpretations are arbitrary or not based in predictable literature.

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans: I would say that I generally lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps, but obviously am more than willing to vote for them if they are debated better by the negative.

I think that CPs should have to be policy actions. I think this is most fair and reciprocal with what the affirmative does. I think that fiating indefinite personal decisions or actions/non-actions by policymakers that are not enshrined in policy is an unfair abuse of fiat that I do not think the negative should get access to. The CP that has the US declare it will not go to war with China would be theoretically legitimate but the CP to have the president personally decide not to go to war with China would not be. Similarly CPs that fiat a concept or endgoal rather than a policy would also fall under this.

It is the burden of the neg to prove the CP solves rather than the burden of the aff to prove it doesn't. Unless the neg makes an attempt to explain how/why the CP solves (by reading ev, by referencing 1AC ev, by explaining how the CP solves analytically), my assumption is that it doesn’t and it isn’t the aff’s burden to prove it doesn’t. The burden for the neg isn’t that high but I think neg teams are getting away with egregious lack of CP explanation and judges too often put the burden on the aff to prove the CP doesn’t solve rather than the neg to prove it does.

Disads: Uniqueness is a thing that matters for every level of the DA. I am not very sympathetic to politics theory arguments (except in the case of things like rider disads, which I might ban from debate if I got the choice to ban one argument and think are certainly illegitimate misinterpretations of fiat) and am unlikely to ever vote on them unless they're dropped and even then would be hard pressed. I'm incredibly knowledgeable about politics and enjoy it a lot when debated well but really dislike seeing it debated poorly.

Theory: Conditionality is often good. It can be not. Conditionality is the ONLY argument I think is a reason to reject the team, every other argument I think is a reason to reject the argument alone. Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

Kritiks: I've gotten simultaneously more versed in critical literature and much worse for the kritik as a judge over the last few years. Take from that what you will.

Your K should ideally be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If not, you're better off with it primarily being a framework argument.

Yes the aff gets a perm, no it doesn't need a net benefit.

Affs without a plan: I generally go into debates believing that the aff should defend a hypothetical policy enacted by the United States federal government. I think debate is a research game and I struggle with the idea that the ballot can do anything to remedy the impacts that many of these affs describe.

I certainly don't consider myself immovable on that question and my decision will be governed by what happens in any given debate; that being said, I don't like when judges pretend to be fully open to any argument in order to hide their true thoughts and feelings about them and so I would prefer to be honest that these are my predispositions about debate, which, while not determinate of how I judge debates, certainly informs and affects it.

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.

I generally am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.

I don't think debate is roleplaying.

I am uncomfortable making decisions in debates where people have posited that their survival hinges on my ballot.

Sahra Merchant Glenbrook North 2 rounds None

Amanda Nguyen Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds None

Mandela Okere Northside College Prep 2 rounds

Nimil Patel Glenbrook South High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 6, 2021 at 3:22 AM CDT

Currently, I am a full-time employee in the Madison, WI area. I debated at Glenbrook South High School for four years and am currently tangentially connected with them. I am somewhat familiar with the topic, but you have to be clear because I may not be sure about the context.

Debate is a fun activity, but also a competitive one, so have fun, but also have good sportsmanship. Needless to say, be nice to your opponents and get to know them if you can because you might see them later in the year and if you know your opponents, then it makes the debate more interesting, more fun, and more competitive. Arguments have three parts to them: claim, warrant, and impact. In order to win an argument, it needs to be sufficiently extended, you need to answer their answers, and make sure you have evidence or it is backed up with logic.

I debated as both speaker positons in high school, so I normally do not have any bias and understand the difficulties of all speaker positions.

In general, I am ok with all arguments as long as it is clearly explained.

T - I used to go for this a lot in high school, but there is a high burden for the negative.

K - I am not the biggest fan of the argument, but you need to be very clear about the argument since I am probably not very familiar with the neg lit base. I struggle with judging this argument the most, but that does not mean I won't vote for it. If you have questions about specific K's, then pull me aside and ask.

CP - I am ok with all types of counterplans and think they can be effective, but that does not mean the aff can convince me otherwise on theory (especially after debating GBN). Make sure you have sufficient solvency of the aff and a clear net benefit.

DA - I like 1NR's that are 5 mins of the DA and 2NR's that are DA and case. Both sides need to put in work where necessary on the flow to win their argument and impact calculus is important.

Impact turns - they are fun and a good source of offense for both the Aff and Neg.

Theory - I don't really lean one way or the other here, but there needs to be in round abuse.

K Affs - They need to be close to the topic... I am not afraid to vote for them. I think framework is an important argument.

Lastly, make sure to have fun and be optimistic.

If you have any questions, email me nimilpatel25@gmail.com.

Siraj Patel Niles West High School 2 rounds None

Vinay Patel Niles West High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Sun August 11, 2019 at 7:23 PM CDT

Niles West (Debater 2010-2014, Coach 2014-2018)

Northwestern University (2014-2018)

Columbia Law School (2018-2021)

I'm always working on recognizing my habits as a judge, so take all this with a grain of salt. I think all types of debate are interesting and enjoyable as long as you do it well. I’d rather you do what you do best than what you think I like best. You should assume I don't have much familiarity with the topic. I am not perfect. I am not a machine. Connect with me (on important arguments, not as friends. I don't want to be your friend). Make Arguments. Say Words.

Note for Novices -- Congratulations for reading judge paradigms before debates. You probably don't need to read much more than this. If you've figured out what's going on in a debate round, how to flow, go line by line, and do impact calc & comparison, you will do really well, and I will be impressed. I am more strict about novice tag-team CX because too many novices abuse the privilege. Bring your own timer. Please do not try to shake my hand after debates. I am your judge, not your friend. Don't make things weird.

Procedures

I care deeply about plan texts and counterplan texts being written correctly. More than grammar, this is an issue of clearly defining the scope of your ability to fiat action and making sure your plan/CP does what you say it does. Texts must be entirely written out.

I strongly prefer that you do your own CXs. Your partner is a lifeline, not the focus of the CX. I will let you know if your tag-team gets out of hand.

I do not take prep for emailing or flashing, but it needs to be done efficiently. When you end prep time, I expect you to have your speech ready and have a road map.

Often times, I feel that people aren't speaking loud enough.

Be confident and assertive, not rude and insulting.

Don't cheat. You should clearly state at which word you are marking a card during your speech. If a prep or speech clock is not running, you should not do or look like you are doing any preparatory activity related to the debate. Don't lie.

Tech Over Truth

Truth and evidence quality are important and are usually persuasive, but I feel more comfortable rewarding you for work you have done in the round than punishing you for not answering true arguments that your opponent hasn't meaningfully developed.

Having a card on something doesn't always beat a good analytic press.

I will not assume dropped arguments are true if you haven’t done the work to extend it.

Good analysis needs to make it all the way through to the final speeches.

You will be rewarded for keeping my flow organized.

You can make all of the arguments you need to win the debate, but I cannot find them or understand your strategy, you may be disappointed with the results.

Kritikal Arguments

I think they’re interesting and useful as long as they’re articulated well. If you’re going for Security and can’t explain threat construction or Wilderson when you don’t know what social death is, you will most likely lose unless the other team messes up worse which will make me upset with everyone. With enough work, even the most generic K can be devastating. Make your arguments apply to the aff, or I will be very sympathetic to a perm.

You must advance some coherent normative claim for me to explain why my ballot should go to your team. I didn't realize that this was a controversial issue, but after judging some Bataille and Baudrillard debates, I learned that I was mistaken.

What is the alt? Is there an alt?

I prefer it when K affs are tied to the topic, have a clear advocacy/method, and a clear reason to vote aff in the debate at hand (not reliant on what happens after the debate or outside of it).

I am willing to pull the trigger both for and against framework. Neg teams may struggle in front of me if they choose not to engage the aff at all. Thinking of good T versions of the aff are very useful for the neg and can be very dangerous for the aff. Generic state good/bad debates don't necessarily tell me whether advocating governmental policy with fiat in a debate round is good or bad. Impact analysis and comparison is very important for both sides.

I often question the role of the judge, the ballot, and the debate space on my own time without resolving anything, so deciding these and other issues should be debated out in round. Be sure to explain how I should be making my decision under whichever framework you propose.

Counterplans

Specific Counterplans are cool. Advantage CPs are good; if you have a bunch of planks with totally unrelated solvency advocates, I might find it unreasonable at some point. I would prefer that you read some form of solvency advocate (not necessarily specific to the aff) in the 1NC, but I don't think I should punish you for thinking of a smart CP on the fly.

Aff teams should make sure that their permutations are coherent.

There’s a theory debate to be had about many different categories of CPs.

If you want the aff to defend something that they have not said explicitly, you need some pretty good evidence for me to not be sympathetic to aff clarification arguments.

Generic Conditions, Consult, and other Process CPs are dubious in both competition and theory, but I have read those types of CPs and am willing to vote on them.

Theory

Theory arguments can be used very effectively, but they usually don’t get developed enough before the final rebuttals.

I usually won't reject the team on issues other than conditionality, but sometimes rejecting a certain argument is enough to beat the other team. If no one has articulated what I should do about a theory violation, I will default to whatever I think will resolve the impacts best.

Some of this was covered in the CPs section.

Regarding conditionality, having 1 conditional option is probably fine, having 2 conditional options is probably okay, and having 3 conditional options is probably pushing it. New affs probably justify more leniency. All of this is debatable, but those are my predispositions.

If you're going to read an interpretation, try not to do so arbitrarily. If you extend a theory interpretation, your standards should be explained in the context of that model of debate compared to the other team's model.

I will not kick the CP or alt for you unless you say so in the 2NR.

Does T come before theory? Probably.

Topicality

Put in the effort to describe debate under each interpretation (Case lists, why certain types of affs are good/bad, specific examples of ground gained/lost, why that aff/neg ground is good for debate) to explain why your interpretation is a better version of the topic for debate.

I will default to competing interpretations. However, a reasonability argument is winnable and very useful for the aff. To be clear, reasonability is an argument about how reasonable your interpretation is for debate, not how reasonable or predictable the aff itself is.

Well-researched T debates are interesting to watch.

Disadvantages

Good. The more specific, the better.

Most politics theory arguments are bad.

Stephen Pipkin Glenbrook North 1 rounds

Jackie Reis Niles West High School 5 rounds

Brian Roche Glenbrook South High School 5 rounds

Randy Rossman Niles North High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Thu October 8, 2015 at 4:40 AM EDT

I debated at New Trier and Michigan State. Now, I help out at Niles North.

How to win my ballot

Control the frame and explain why your arguments beat their arguments under that framing. The framing could be anything. Really, the framing could be anything. Frames that have won my ballot: magnitude comes first, only epistemology matters, the judge is a critical intellectual, reasonability dictates T debates. Other ones have won, too!

I strive to be as non-interventionist as possible. Make sure your winning arguments make it onto my flow. Answer the arguments your opponent can win on.

Read the arguments you are best at. I doubt you will be better at debating something totally new that you think I will like than reading something you are familiar with that you think I do not like.

Preferences

Top-level: these are either defaults that your arguments can render meaningless or opinions that probably only matter for speaker points, if they matter at all.

Topical plans>topical advocacies>topical planless speech-acts>not-quite-topical 1ACs of any variety>>>>>affs that ignore the topic

The most entertaining negative strategies are case-specific.

I will evaluate theory and/or T before I evaluate anything else.

Education, fairness, jurisdiction, limits, ground, and their friends are internal links, not impacts. What do I do with the offending arguments? Please tell me. If you do not tell me, I will vote against the team that you win read an untopical aff or ran their neg advocacies conditionally. If a permutation or negative advocacy is shown to be theoretically illegitimate, then I won’t consider it in my decision, unless, of course, you win that I should do something else.

I love DAs.

I view counterplans as opportunity cost DAs. As a default, I will kick them for the neg if they link to the net benefit. Just a default, though.

I tend to view counterplans that compete on the certainty and/or immediacy of the plan or the process of its implementation as uncompetitive but are probably theoretically legitimate.

Critiques tend to win when the other team drops a checklist argument. Sufficiently answer arguments such as X comes first, value to life, X is the root cause of violence, then you will probably beat the critique.

If you have questions or something needs to be clarified, feel free to email me at randy.rossman@gmail.com.

Have fun, make jokes, love debate.

Martin Salgado Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds None

Maria Sanchez Northside College Prep 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 13, 2024 at 1:46 AM CDT

Northside College Prep '16 - University of Kentucky '20

Please add me to the email chain: mariaesan98@gmail.com

Judging Notes:

Please keep track of your own prep
Please be as quick with tech as possible - I will deduct from your prep time if this becomes unreasonable as I want to be respectful of the folks running the tournament
No tag team CX - I really prefer to hear individual 1 v 1 CX clash and this helps me determine speaker points more easily
Unless this is a reasonable ask, if you care about where a team marked their cards/what cards they did or did not read, then please be diligent about flowing that yourself - I have a very strong preference towards not sending out marked copies of speech docs when there were only one or two marked cards

I will always reward smart teams that can effectively and efficiently communicate their arguments to me. Engaging with your opponent, having a well-thought out strategy, and demonstrating that you’re doing consistent, hard work is what this activity is about. Please be respectful to both your partner and your opponents and give it your best!

Disads:

I like them a lot. There is such a thing as zero risk of a disad and there can be no link. Do impact calculus, have a clear link to the affirmative. Quality evidence is appreciated, though it's not the only thing! Being able to communicate what your ev says and why your ev matters is key!

Theory:

Conditionality is good.

Critical Strategies:

I am okay for critical strategies. However, I didn’t debate these so make sure to explain your authors to me. Affirmatives that do little engagement with the critique alternative are likely to lose. Critiques that do little engagement with the affirmative itself are likely to lose. Explain your links in the context of the AFF and your AFF in the context of the alternative. The perm is not always the best strategy and that is okay.

I am willing to vote either way on framework. I should be able to tell that you know and understand what the affirmative is if you are reading it. Framework is best when it engages with the methodology of the AFF and questions the state’s role in activism. I like topic education arguments.

Naomi Sanchez Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds

Jack Scullion New Trier High School 5 rounds None

Ali Sears Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 2 rounds

Max Shapiro Glenbrook South High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Tue October 18, 2016 at 11:43 AM CDT

Max Shapiro, GBS '17

I'm generally pretty open to things, but I do have a couple of limitations.

DAs - yes, yes, yes. Especially case-specific DAs. Comparing your impacts to the aff is a game-changer, and will win you debates. If you're going to go for something generic like Terror, make sure you do some killer link analysis.

Politics DAs - love the politics DA. However, link analysis is important. If you read a super-generic "China policy unpopular" link in the 1NC, and don't answer a 2AC no link/link turn, chances are I wiill vote you down. However, I am a huge fan of a well-rounded politics DA. If you run it right (actually using a relevant bill), and outweigh the aff, I will probably give you the ballot.

Elections DAs - I do like elections DAs, a LOT. I am willing to vote on this DA if you can prove that the plan really skews the election - but if the aff wins that it's unpredictable, that's a prerequisite that you have to answer, and if you drop it, game over.

CPs - a good 2NR for me is a CP+DA. Especially CP + Politics. Make sure you don't read generic "X has the potential to solve everything" solvency cards, but read, "X will solve terror" or "X will solve climate change".

Ks - this is where I'm not a big fan. If you're going for popular Ks like Neolib, Cap, or Security, I'll have no problem voting you up seeing as the link and impact work is good enough. If you're going for a really obscure K, make sure you do a really good job explaining it in the 2NR.

Kritical Affirmatives - don't.

Case Debate/Stock Issues - I feel like this has been largely ignored with the massive amount of off-case positions we have in debate today. A good case debate for the neg will win. If you can prove the aff does nothing/doesn't solve, you can win the ballot permitting you do a sufficient amount of work.

T - make sure you explain your violation clearly. A lot of teams just pull up their T file and pull out a super generic interpretation that the aff meets.

Theory - 1 condo advocacy is not abusive. 2 maybe, if you can convice me. 3, probably. 4, yes. The only way you can win a condo debate against 1 condo advocacy is if the neg straight up drops it. If you go for other theory make sure you do a good job explaining in-round abuse.

Ways to get extra speaker points:

+.3 - jokes about any political figure (i.e. Trump, Clinton, Ken Bone)

+.2 - jokes about any GBS Senior

+.1 - well thought-out puns

Alex Sherman Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun February 25, 2024 at 12:42 PM CDT

Shirley Update

The only topic work I’ve done for Personhood is digging up my old plant ontology files, go slow and tell me your stuff.

If my camera is off I am not present - don’t start.

Short

I've read every kind of aff from straight up heg good to baudrillard, I care way less about what arguments you make than how well you defend them.

I went for the K a lot in high school and still do, but I also love a good policy round, and would much rather you debate to your strengths than to what arguments you think I'll like.

Put me on the email chain, alexsherman99@gmail.com I won't be reading along, unless you read a card that I think is so good I want to recut it for my teams, or if there's a dispute about something that was read.

Long version

I flow on paper. This means that you going slightly slower, and having a clear story will be quite helpful. I'm at the tail-end of year 10 competing and year 5 judging, so this doesn't mean you have to talk to me like I'm a parent judge, but it does mean that if you go full speed through 8 minutes of blocks, to not be surprised when I miss an argument or two. The easy fix to this, for all of you speed demons out there, is to label your arguments with a flowable tag. We already do this with cards, why not do it with our analytics too?

When making my decision. I first write up the most important arguments for both sides. This usually comes down to about 2-3 things, though that may just be because I only judge clash rounds. I then look over my flow, and try to write up an explanation of each, and what it means for both sides. I then compare these, and look for responses that the other team has forwarded. What this means for you, is that it is in your interest to identify what you think the 2-3 most important arguments for either side are, tell me why you're winning them, or why you should still win in the event that you don't win these arguments. If you do not do this, I will still do my best to identify these arguments, but, what I think is important and what you do may not line up, and as a result, our perceptions of the winner may not line up either.

When doing this, I often try as hard as I can to not read evidence. This is because I am very committed to my belief that debate is an activity about communication, and that if you did not effectively communicate an argument to me, it does not matter if you read an amazing card. While I obviously still care about research and evidence quality, I feel that the impulse to read all of the evidence to decide the round makes me more interventionist (which I would like to avoid) and also seems to fall outside of the terms of debate. I.e. outside of teams dropping stuff, if i were to just decide the round based on the cards you read, and not what you said about them, why should I even be sitting there for two hours listening to you? Couldn't you just send me your cards and have me decide at the end whose I thought were better?

This applies less and less if both sides are comparing a piece of evidence, or questioning it's qualifications, or implication, but the "this card is fire, please read it judge" has never been something I have been that inclined to do.

I judge a majority clash debates (around 80% when I last checked) and have found that oftentimes the winners in this debates are the ones who engage with the other side's approach to the world, rather than just explaining why their approach is better. While we obviously should still care about drops, and they are often useful in making decisions in these rounds, I've found that it's useful for both teams to invest a substantial amount of time in looking to where the other team clashed, as much as where they didn't.

I've noticed that I may sound kind of grumpy when giving rfds. This very rarely reflects my distaste at having to judge your round, and more so reflects that I am displeased at having to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

My favorite judges in high school were always the ones who seemed really excited to be there judging my round, and the ones who emphasized voting on what was in the round. I love debate and I know you care about the activity to be giving up your weekends to compete in it, and it would be rude of me if I didn’t put all my effort into making the best decision I can. If you don’t think I’m paying enough attention, go ahead and call me out. Nothing here is set in stone, but, if you don't tell me to change how I'd evaluate any of these, then they're my defaults.

1 Tech Over truth, but to an extent. True arguments require less technical explanation for me to buy what you're selling. Oftentimes when making decisions, I find that I am looking at dropped words on my flow, but am unsure how to piece them together to make a cohesive rfd. It is in your best interest to not only tell me what was dropped, but then tell me what I should think about the drops.

2 Mediocre strategies may win in front of me, but, speaker points will likely suffer. If the 1ar drops aspec that was at the bottom of your t overview, and that’s your a-strat, I’m probably not the judge for you. I prefer debates with either really tricky and nuanced strategies, or teams that are willing to just bet it all on black and go for impact turns. I've found that teams that do a better job articulating how I should evaluate arguments do better in front of me than teams that just wait for me to reconstruct what an argument means for my decision. I'm not smart so if you tell me how arguments implicate the rest of the debate, you'll be in a better spot.

3 Protecting the 2nr. There's nothing worse than giving what you think is a fire 2nr and then watching the judge nod along with an argument you're certain wasn't in the 1ar. 2ars should have a high standard for drawing arguments from the 1ar unless they were clear in the speech. I.E. new 2ar cross applications should be justified in the speech/flagged in the 1ar. If I don’t think I could have seen it coming, I probably will think it’s new.

4 Counterplans: They should compete with the aff. Theory arguments are usually just reasons to reject the counterplan, but this is primarily because most folks are afraid of going all in. If your solvency deficit is mediocre, theory is probably a good way out. You don't need a solvency advocate, but having one definitely makes your job easier. Exploit generic link chains in affs.

Generic pics are awful, and specific pics are one of the fastest ways to get good speaks, but in both cases, pics bad needs to come back with a vengeance. I won't judge kick unless you tell me to in the 2NR.

5 Disads: 2acs with bold strats, i.e. straight turning a disad would increase my value to life, and your speaker points. I am very much in the camp that a disad that isn't a full argument in the 1nc is a terrible strategic decision hint: 1a's pull out your impact turns. Outside of that though, I really do like them, whether you're a plug and chug politics team, or a team with the amazing topic link card that no one else has found.

6 Kritiks I like them, they’re probably my favorite argument. I’m really into high theory, and probably am a good judge for you if you like to run kritiks. I’ve run all kinds of things, mainstream stuff like cap, and apoc rhet, to stuff like dng, baudrillard, and halberstam. Examples, explanation and re-contextualization will be integral to your success. These rounds are often more about controlling the narrative than many others, which makes sense given that the focus of the debate is on whether the assumptions that the other team has forwarded are valid.

You don’t need to have an alt to win, but you should justify why. Your links should be specific to the aff. Obviously this is a sliding scale, and if you're reading a K of realism against an aff from John Mearsheimer, I won't be rolling my eyes wishing you had a card specific to the aff, but, If I can’t tell what aff your debating in your 2nc on the k, we’re both gonna have a bad time.

I was always pretty frustrated after giving a 2nr on the K when the judge was just like. "I know you both read a bunch of stuff on framework, but I couldn't really decide who won so I kinda just picked a middle option that both teams never said" Not only does this seem to heavily favor the affirmative, but also reflects a combination of arguments that was never advocated for by either team. I think the best strategy for the aff is just to have some arguments that presume that they (gasp) have to defend why their representations and scholarship are good. Given that most k's are some kind of argument about how the affirmative's theory of IR justifies violence, it doesn't seem that hard to identify the strain of IR that you have affirmed, and provide a defense of why you think about the world the way you do. If the neg has said debate is about how we craft our subjectivity, and said that the subjectivity they endorse opposes a particular world view, why wouldn't this equally apply to the aff, and the defensive realist subjectivity of the taiwan aff be a reason why you should get to say your impacts still matter.

Generally though, I think that affs need to be doing a lot better job answering k's. Please talk about your aff more and generic backfile cards less. Most cases outweigh the k, and extinction impacts are often pretty persuasive. I really do not want to die, and presume that most people do not want to die either, and one thing that always confused me was when there were debates where that comparison didnt really start until the last two rebuttals.

I also think more affs should just bite the link and impact turn the K. Obvi dont read racism/sexism/ableism good, thats the quickest way to a 25 and an L short of conceding the round, but, every K makes other claims that you can, and probably should consider reading offense against.

Two side thoughts

1. Most people read utterly incoherent theories of international relations. I.E. Ikenberry and Mearsheimer may both think that leadership is good, but are not as buddy buddy as people would like me to believe. Obviously just being like "lmao these cards are a double turn" does not meet the threshold of an argument, but, "the aff de-prioritizes the role of institutions because ___ this means that you should be skeptical of their ability to solve for the liberal international order, which Ikenberry says is cohered through a strong commitment to international institutions" is. The latter will shock and impress me, and put your baseline speaks at a 29.

2. Most people have turned against the "not our x" Sometimes this is fair, because the team is lying to get out of links. But, I don't particularly understand why a team should be punished because their author had a bad idea that they don't defend or talk about in the 1ac or 1nc. Consider if we applied this same standard to policy rounds, and the neg read a politics card from nate silver about a specific seat in the midterms. The affirmative responded with a card that said "nate silver was way off on this one super unrelated prediction" and read a card indicting the method of that poll specifically. Why would the neg be tied to defending the poll that they have not cited, and is not intrinsic to their argument? This doesn't mean that I'm waiting to vote on not our x, but, that I will be pleased if both teams can defend why their argument is or is not distinct from x, by demonstrating a command of the literature base that they are deploying.

7 Topicality: Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really understand ground arguments - if you don't have generics ready to go for core topic areas, or arguments that make debating the aff irrelevant (impact turns, process cp's etc) that seems like a you problem. I get some affs are really small and don't do much, but either they have an absurd impact claim that you can turn or outweigh, or they'd need such a contrived interpretation of the topic to be T that you could just go for limits.

Reasonability has never really made sense to me either, because usually those debates just boil down into the same silly buzzwords that everyone uses. I think reasonability can be an incredibly gnarly argument if it's framed more in the form of an explanation of why offense/defense is bad for topicality debates. Scotty P wrote a really good explanation of what that would look like here https://hsimpact.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/what-is-reasonability/

8 Speaks

Things that will get you good speaks

5 minutes of Antonio in the 2nr (not joking)

9 Clipping- Don’t do it. I’ll be sad, and have to give you a 0

10 No argument too strange- I can be convinced to vote on anything if you do well. T is a rvi, double win theory, normativity k, silence k. If you think you can pull it off, and want to risk a ballot on it go ahead. If you execute it poorly, I'll probably be annoyed, but at the same time, no one ever did anything to radically change debate without taking a lot of risks.

11 Non-traditional affs. I think I’m a pretty good judge for these. I think these affirmatives are unfair, but, don't really know why that's bad (fairness is not an impact). I don’t really think framework is deployed effectively very often, which is unfortunate, because I oftentimes think that many of the claims from framework teams make a lot of intuitive sense. I ended up voting against framework about 60% of the time last year, but I'd attribute that a lot more to what happened in the rounds I judged than to a general predisposition.

For the neg. When I vote neg on T, it's because the negative has successfully done one of two things.

1. Proven that their impact turns the aff's offense.

2. Proven that the aff doesn't solve their offense, and have mitigated the application of case to T in a way beyond the sentence blurb "they don't get to weigh the aff because t is a procedural"

I've found that the topical version of the aff has become less persuasive to me the more clash rounds I've judged. This is not due to the argument being not strategic, but rather, me being left confused about how the topical version resolves offense that the affirmative has deployed, (and a secondary problem of most topical versions of the aff not meeting the standard of being a topical aff in a policy v policy round). The solution to this is easy. Instead of repeating any disad to the topical version doesn't prove it isn't an answer, it just proves neg ground, take some time thinking about the offense that the other team is deploying.

A second problem, is that most people seem to forget they're reading a topicality argument. I have judged almost 30 framework debates this year, and in about 5 of them, I've been clear on how the counterinterpretation solved the aff's disads, and included their affirmative. If the aff read a counterinterp they didn't meet on T-Pearson, or that didn't solve the aff's overlimiting offense why wouldn't you point that out? There's a reason why you're reading interpretations, and why we call framework a topicality argument, you should debate your shell as such.

I've also found that the repetitive "but what do you do?" presumption argument, is wholly unpersuasive. Most affs say they do something, and the neg says, but what do you do, the aff says what they do, and the neg says, yeah, but what do you do? I think this can also be fixed pretty easily, instead of carrying over this, but what do you do argument, make the implied follow on argument, which is something to the effect of, if x structure is so totalizing as their theory says it is, their method is insufficient to resolve it. Think about x as a similar example, which failed for y reason.

All this being said, I'm more than willing to vote on T, as it is obviously a strategic position, and I'm very sympathetic to teams (especially without substantial coaching resources) who would rather prepare to get really good at one argument that would answer all no plan affs, as opposed to specific critiques/disads.

For the aff - Have a clear counterinterp, tight impact turn story, and exploit the weakness of most teams at answering arguments that they are mostly unfamiliar with.

You have to answer disads, even if you dont defend hypothetical implementation of usfg action. This doesn't mean I'm waiting to vote on the aff flips the 2020 election, but rather that if you can think of a nuanced way to articulate a link I wont be a super tough sell on the aff has to defend the consequences of their epistemology. I.e. if an aff says that executive power is bad, I feel like John Yoo would have some things to say about that, even if the aff doesn't implement a policy.

I also really enjoy K vs K debates, as this gives me a break from hearing about what Steinberg and Freely need to tell me about decisionmaking, and allows both sides to engage literature bases that are often not brought into connection with each other. One side note is that I tend to find that the theory of power debate is far less compelling than specific applications. Most folks in the 2nr and 2ar tend to just be like, they dropped our theory of power, game over!!

Questions? Email me at alexsherman99@gmail.com. The longer you wait, the less specific my comments may be, but I have noticed that I recall my thoughts about rounds more than I don't.

Sara Siddiqui Niles North High School 5 rounds

Sharmain Siddiqui Niles North High School 5 rounds

Emily Silber Niles West High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri October 12, 2018 at 12:41 PM CDT

Niles West 2017

Emory 2021

please put me on your email chain emsilber15@gmail.com

The Reason You're Probably Reading This

The thing you probably care most about is what I think about k affs vs t/framework so I'll start with that. I am a policy debater that consistently goes for t against k affs and therefore default to thinking the aff should read a topical plan. I think that there's a lot of validity to a couple framing arguments that the aff needs to deal with. These most notably include the idea that debate is a game, it's meaningful to try to achieve some level of procedural fairness, and that the aff should be tied to the topic. I'm less persuaded by skills and education arguments and think that framing usually favors the aff. For the neg-- using the arguments I listed will help you, but not guarantee that you win. Make sure you're actually explaining them and not just repeating buzzwords.

T/Theory

I know next to nothing about the topic and therefore have no strong opinions on T. I'm inclined to err aff on T when the violation seems contrived and the aff can convince me they're reasonable and err neg when the aff is tiny and ridiculous even when the neg might not have the perfect violation to encapsulate why the aff shouldn't be T. I lean tentatively aff on most theory and think the neg needs to do a better job actually answering the arguments than more teams do. The exception is no neg fiat. That's dumb and honestly that's all you need to say.

Kritiks on the Neg

I've gone for a few but definitely not my go-to. Things I've read that I'm familiar with: (from most to least) Fem IR, Security/Imperialism, Agamben, Neolib, and Fem Rage. Obviously I've debated against other arguments and have some basic understanding but you'll need to spend more time explaining. I think the aff should be able to weigh the case and the neg should have to prove the plan is worse than the status quo but can be convinced otherwise. Make sure the alt does something to solve the links/potentially the aff or don't make it an integral part of your 2nr strategy. I hate the fiat double bind.

Counterplans/Disads

IMO, the best strategies. Politics and midterms are dumb and can be easily beaten with simple logical arguments, but most aff teams don't take advantage of that. I default to the offense/defense paradigm. Process counterplans are probably bad and 50 state fiat is questionably ok. Advantage counterplans are amazing.

Case Debate

It's underrated. Do more than impact defense and please don't read the same cards from forever ago. Don't be afraid to have smart analytics be your primary case defense. Impact turns and link turns are exciting.

Some Things

- Be sassy, not mean. If you're unsure which category something falls in, just be nice.

- Don't steal prep.

- Death is probably bad.

- Don't ask or be afraid to go to the bathroom and get water. Obviously don't be excessive but live your life.

- Don't say my name, call me "judge," or anything else during the debate. Just feels weird.

Doug Stryker Glenbrook South High School 2 rounds

Madison Sullivan Whitney M. Young Magnet High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri March 10, 2017 at 1:47 PM EDT

about me:

add me to the email chain mdsnsllvn@gmail.com

I am in my fourth year of debate at Whitney Young. I have been to more than ten tournaments this year, most of which I have engaged in "critical" argumentation. I have judged at five tournaments this year (3 of them middle school).

Some ways to get extra speaks in front of me: make fun of Connor Warshauer's scrubiness, not being a total jerk (within reason, they might deserve it), be smart and know your arguments.

also, if you drop an entire offcase position dont expect anything more than a 27.5 :)

general disposition:

Like I said, you would probably consider me a k debater but I have recently invested in policy research and would genuinely like to judge these debates. I went to camp at Michigan, and therefore probably have a general idea of what your disads or counterplans say. I am really down for either form of debate and suggest you commit to whichever you feel most comfortable with.

topicality:

My partner has probably taken T in the 1NR in almost half our debates this year. I am well versed in the topic lit and interps, but you will need to invest a substantial amount of time guiding my decision, making smart parallels and comparisons, and on the impact debate for me to comfortably vote for you.

kritiks (vs policy affs):

Some kritiks I am most familiar with: spanos, psychoanalysis, cap, security, deleuze

Some kritiks I have negative predispositions against and the aff should make fun of: baudrillard, nietzche

The link debate is probably the most important part of this debate for me, and you should be investing a lot of time developing them. That is probably obvious to you, but I really stress this as it will shape how willing I am to vote on the k.

I havent judged many k debates, but this is probably the debate that peaks my interest the most. If you want me to vote neg, that probably means you won your framework interpretation and the debate that follows that interpretation. You probably dont need an alt if you win framework.

For the aff, I am likely persuaded by the "case o/w" and well developed permutation arguments if you have won the framework debate as well. Something my partner does when we read a policy aff that I think is funny is to make parallels to the neg's framework and the real world. If you are reading a warming aff and the alt is like "wait lets questions things first", tell them thats synonymous with things like climate denial. That in combination with a persuasive and developed permuation debate means it will be a pretty easy win for you.

counterplans:

Love them and you should try to go for them in front of me. I really appreciate advantage counterplans and will probably reward you if you execute them well.

If you are aff, I think that condo is a bad argument only because I lose to it and if condo is your thing, go for it. Theory is an underutilized tool you should probably use against tricky counterplans.

disads:

I love chinese politics! I know a fair amount about the chinese political system, so you should probably too. I really appreciate a good case and da 2nr.

The aff needs to win more than a defensive argument in the 2ar, unless the da is so bad that it a mere defensive argument persuasively makes it go away.

framework vs K aff:

This is a debate I have engaged in for most of the year, so you coould say I know the ins and outs. That being said, I am probably more biased towards the aff. However, the aff needs a few specific lines of offense that directly correlate with the thesis of the affirmative.

If there is probably a t version of the aff, I am likely to be persuaded by it. This may seem obvious, but there are a few affs on this topic where I think this is uniquely true.

Sobia Sultana Northside College Prep 2 rounds

John Tao Solorio Academy HS 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 13, 2021 at 6:06 AM CDT

BACKGROUND (Policy Debate) ~

Nationally ranked high school debater (2004- 2006)
Former Director of Debate at IUPUI (2009- 2012)
Former Director of Debate at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (2013-2015)
Volunteer Judge for the CUDL 4+ years
Chicago Debate Summer Institute Instructor (Summer 2015)
Solorio HS Coach (2015- Present)
Milwaukee Debate League Executive Director (2017- 2020)

TL;DR (The "Round Starts in 2 minutes, Who is this judge?!") *

Speed: Fine
Line-by-line: Always
Signpost: Always
Roadmap: Yes, off the clock
Tag Team: Meh
Default paradigm: Policymaker
Theory: Great
T: Lovely
K: Fine
Framework: Meh
CP: Competitive
DA: Awesome
Case: Fantastic
Analysis: Necessary
Debate Formality: Meh

Longer Form (The "Oh, there's time and we should probably see what this judge is all about")*

SPEED

I'm comfortable with speed. But, with that said you need to be clear, you ideally do not do weird distracting things (like GASPS of air), you ideally slow down on tags, you ideally slow down when reading plan text/advocacy statement.

I ultimately flow based on what I hear within a round regardless of what you think you may or may not have said. I will "clear" you if you are egregiously unintelligible but that's probably a bad sign if I need to do that. If after I "clear" you and I still find myself struggling significantly with quality of presentation I will literally stop flowing for as long as I need to. With all of that said though, I do have a fairly high tolerance for speed.

There is one more important caveat I think it's necessary to say here: if you are able to spread and your opponents are clearly not able to handle it (e.g. literally cannot flow) I expect you to adapt to the round (i.e. do not steamroll a team because you are able to overwhelm them with quantity of arguments). Speed is a tool in the world of debate and I fully expect you to use it but not at the point where it becomes abusive for the other team and takes away from the educational value of the round for all parties.

LINE-BY-LINE

Please try your best to stick to the structures of the round. Please do your best to frame your arguments in the "They say but we say" structure. Even if things get messy, please do your best to consolidate, group, or summarize arugments together and respond to them in a clear manner. Try and not jump all over the place.

With all of that said, I think this is a skill that all debaters aspire for. Sometimes rounds get messy and all I really do is ask that you do your best to try and line up your arguments as best as you can. The effort is important at the end of the day. I know all judges like a clean line-by-line, and I know that it can get lost in the moment, so... all I ask is that you try your best (cause, let's be honest, is there going to be a judge that ever says "No line-by-line"?)

SIGNPOST

Part and parcel with the idea of line-by-line format is signposts. I think it's incredibly important for teams to make sure they give proper sign posts. Give me a remider of where you are, let me know where I should be flowing, let me know what's going on. Give me a sign that you're about to move to the next card (usually a "AND NEXT" is a good indicator). Signposts help keep you organized, help your opponent stay organized, and helps the judge stay organized. It's an important skill to have... and all I ask is that you try your best.

ROADMAP

Please. There are four things I've been seeing that drive me absolutely insane - and apparently there's enough for me to even write about it.

1) Roadmapping the 1AC. Don't do it. It's not necessary. It's not a thing.

2) Asking if I want a roadmap. The answer is YES. The answer is always YES (with the exception of the 1AC, because, once again, don't do it).

3) 1NC roadmap - just tell me how many off, and then where you plan on going on. Don't tell me what the Off cases are, that's not necessary.

4) Roadmap by being clear and concise: "DA, K, Case in order of solvency then advantage one." Do not roadmap: "I'm going to go a little bit on solvency, and then maybe the K...and if I have time maybe the DA...."

TAG TEAM

Tag teaming is okay as long as 1) the other team is okay with it and 2) as long as it is not abused. The person being questioned should be responding to a majority of the questions. The partner should be able to help but should absolutely not be dominating the cross-ex. Keep it minimal if you are not "standing up" during cross.

DEFAULT PARADIGM

I like policy rounds. I think debate is a forum for analyzing policy so my default is always to be a policy maker. But, with that said, I've been engaged in this activity enough that I also just see it as a free-form open game space for debaters to discuss whatever issues, in whatever format they want to. If you are making arguments that deviate outside of the traditional policy arguments that's totally cool! I'm down (with caveats I'll explain on each specific argument below) but you need to give me a paradigm to judge in otherwise it probably won't go in your favor (or at least it'll be more of an upward climb).

THEORY

I used to debate theory all the time. I don't think abuse necessarily has to be proven within a round to win this argument. I do think you need to make well articulated, well warranted, well impacted out arguments though. I am more on the side of rejecting the argument and not the team but depending on the flow of the round I can be convinced otherwise. I think a well run theory argument is something a debater can fill a full 8 minutes with, if necessary. That is the level of analysis I love for theory. The quick 10s blips are not particularly compelling.

Okay. I really do like Ks. BUT I need to see that the team running it (whether as a negative argument or aff advocacy statement) has a very good understanding of the Kritikal arguments. I think too many K cards are incredibly power tagged and full of unnecessary jargon. Keep things simple, pretend I've never heard of your literature/author, and explain it to me, do not assume I know your literature or author. For example, if you use the term "war machine" repeatedly but never explain what the "war machine" is, I will not do the mental work for you. You need to at a minimum explain it in the beginning of your speech. I think the K debate ultimately is made or broken at the link level -- generic Ks will not really do that much for me. I want to see that you understand the K you are running, and that you can actually find specific, concrete links, into your opponents' arguments.

Second, I think alternatives should actually be viable alternatives. Tell me what the altnerative is and show me how it can work. I think that should come without saying but often I hear alternatives that don't necessarily connect with the thesis of the K or ultimately just don't make sense. If the argument does not make sense then I will very unlikely vote for it.

FRAMEWORK

Framework arguments are kind of boring these days to be honest. Try and keep it interesting by being specific. Show me how the framework interacts with the rest of your arguments. Explain to me how your framework works. Give me analysis, bring it outside of the world of generic cards and let me know how the framework works within the round we are in.

Ideally CPs are non-topical and competitive. I think they are viable options but there needs to be a clear solvency story presented and particularly good impact analysis to balance the world of the plan against the world of the counter plan.

DAs are great. The more specific the better. Generic DAs happen, of course, but the better the link story the better. If you can give me a good DA to the case then you have a significant chance of being able to win the round but it has to be well articulated, it has to be well warranted, it has to be well impacted out against the world of the plan.

CASE

Let's be real, the more specific case arguments you can make the better. Who doesn't like clash and actually engaging in the arguments?

ANALYSIS

Give me analysis. It's not good enough to give me impact calculus in the form of magnitude, timeframe, and significance. I need to understand how you reach the world of the impacts. I need to understand why the impacts are even a possibility. The magnitude, timeframe, and significance formula is fine and all but I need much more than that.

DEBATE FORMALITY

I strongly prefer both teams time themselves, accountability is a good skill to have, but at the request of Tab I will also be timing rounds as necessary. I don't really care where you're speaking from. I'm not particularly formal about the rounds.

--------------------------------------------------------------

* I generally view the role of the judge as being up to the debaters. If you think I should be voting on a movement, tell me why and how the ballot functions. If you think I should be the President making a decision, tell me why and how the ballot functions. I try my best to go into rounds with as few assumptions and biases as possible (recognizing that it's impossible to remove all bias as a human) and you would never see me make a claim that I am the President of a round before it starts (as an example). In short, as much as humanly possible, I try and be a tabula rasa judge so it is on the debaters to make their case for how I should view the round, how I should weigh my decision, and how my ballot should function.

~ A comment on speaker points if I am judging a Wisconsin, non-national circuit tournament. My default speaker point calibration is set to a 28.1 in accordance with national debate trends. Within the state of Wisconsin I have traditionally held an average of 27.5/28 with the idea that points should not and cannot go lower than a 25 (as a matter of custom and as a matter of rule at many tournaments since at least 2002). However, I have recently seen ballots within the state of Wisconsin where points within the low 20s (e.g. "23") seem to be acceptable and endorsed by the state. With that in mind, I am specifically calibrating my average point distribution to a 26 to ensure consistency with state practices.

Sandra Tello Solorio Academy HS 5 rounds None

Nitin Thomas Niles West High School 4 rounds None

Ethan Tibbets Glenbrook North 5 rounds None

Anthony Trufanov Glenbrook North 1 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 29, 2024 at 12:01 PM EDT

Dartmouth, Interlake. He/him.

Email Chain

Add me: ant981228 at gmail dot com

College people, add: debatedocs at googlegroups dot com

Please include the tournament, round, and teams debating in the subject line of the email.

Key Things to Know

I will flow and vote based on the things you said. Negs can say whatever but the more it says the plan is bad the better. Conditionality and judge kick are good. Affs should be T and are likely to lose if they aren't. If you say death good you lose. If you ask for a 30 you will get a 25.

I do a lot of work during tournaments and will be tired on their last few days. I have found that this makes it harder for me to focus. To counteract this, I have gone back to flowing on paper, which I have found helps me process the debate as it is happening. You will benefit if you make my paper flowing life easier (give me time to flip the page, warn me if you're going to make an abnormally large number of arguments about part of the flow, tell me to make an overview or framework page if I need one, etc.).

Online

I STRONGLY prefer that all cameras be on whenever anyone in the debate is speaking, but I understand if internet or other considerations prevent this.

If my camera is off, assume I am away from my computer and don't start talking. If you start your speech while I am away from my computer you do not get to restart. That is on you.

Here is how to successfully adjust to the online setting:

1. Inflect more when you are talking.

2. Put your face in frame. Ideally, make it so you can see the judge.

3. Get a microphone, put it close to your face, talk into it, make sure there is an unobstructed line between it and your mouth.

4. Talk one at a time.

T/L

Tech determines truth unless it's death good. If you tell me to embrace death because life is bad I will vote against you even if you do not go for the argument. More broadly, all else being equal, I strongly prefer to solve problems without resorting to violence or force if possible.

Otherwise, unless my role as a judge is changed, I will attempt to make the least interventionary decision. This means:

1. I will identify the most important issues in the debate, decide them first based on the debating, then work outward.

2. What is conceded is absolutely true, but will only have the implications that you say it has. Unless something is explicitly said, conceded, and extended, or is an obvious and necessary corollary of something that is said, conceded, and extended, I will attempt to resolve it, rather than assuming it.

3. I will intervene if there is no non-interventionary decision.

4. I will attempt to minimize the scope of my intervention by simplifying the decision-making process. I would prefer to decide fewer issues. If an issue seems hard to resolve without intervening, I will prioritize evaluating ballots that don't require resolving that issue.

This procedure typically means (for example):

1. I will prioritize resolution of impact claims.

2. I will deprioritize resolution of claims that do not affect the relative magnitude of two sides' offense. For example, in a DA/case debate where turns case is conceded, uniqueness is often irrelevant since aff solvency is reduced to the same extent neg offense is inevitable.

I am aware that this procedure can influence my assessment of substance. Given infinite decision time, I would decide every question in the debate. However, shrinking decision times make this impractical. Minutes spent resolving complex or under-debated issues that are not outcome-determinative trade off with the quality of my assessment of issues that are. I believe this process net reduces error costs.

As of end-of-season 2024, I have voted aff 47% of the time, and sat on 11% of panels.

I often vote quickly. This does not necessarily mean the debate was lopsided or bad; more likely, it is a sign that the teams clearly communicated the relationships between their arguments, allowing me to perform evaluations as the debate is happening. If I take a long time that means I was unable to do this, either because there was significant complexity in the debate or because communication was poor.

The following are my inclinations - if you don't like them you can change them through debating.

DAs

The agenda DA will usually not survive a rich, accurate description of the current legislative agenda based on thoughtfully reading the news.

CPs

If no one says anything I will assume I can judge kick. It is very hard to use theory to stop me from thinking about the status quo. Nothing but conditionality is a voting issue. Pretty neg on most theory, except fiating out of your own straight turned offense.

Competition is usually more impactful than theory. Theory arguments that logically presume you have won a competition argument ("CPs that steal the aff are a voting issue" assumes you have demonstrated that the CP has stolen the aff, which is a competition argument. "CPs that are not functionally and textually competitive are a voting issue"... come on, what are we doing here) are a waste of time. Just win the competition argument.

Functional competition + explaining what your plan does + definitions + reasons to prefer your definitions >>>>> anything involving the concept of textual competition. Textual competition is mind poison that corrupts any competition model it touches. "Should =/= immediate" plus a cr

If I can't explain what a CP does and how it accomplishes whatever the neg says it does, I am unlikely to vote for it. You can avoid this by writing a meaningful CP text AND explaining it in the speech.

I like judging good T debates. I really don't like judging bad ones. What sets these apart is specific application of broad offense to interpretations and impact debating that is specific to internal links, grounded in a vivid vision for debates under your topic.

I do not think the intrinsic value of being "factually correct" about your T argument is very high.

Many parts of a T argument can be enhanced with cards - e.g. link to limits, claims of aff/neg bias in the literature, predictability via prodicts/indicts.

Argue by analogy and comparison to other affs, especially in CX.

Ks / Planless Affs

Good for specific Ks on the neg, bad for random backfile slop, bad for K affs, death good = L.

If your K is secretly a DA, refer to the DA section. If your K is not a DA then yes, you need framework and you need an alternative. Whatever issue your framework says should determine the round should be what your link, impact, and alt are about.

I do not judge many debates involving nontraditional affs. The biggest hurdles to voting aff for me are usually: 1) why can't the aff be read on the neg, 2) why is the aff's offense inherent to resolutional debate or to voting neg on framework instead of some avoidable examples, and 3) how do I reconcile the aff's vision of debate or the topic with debate's inherently (even if not exclusively) competitive nature.

I am very willing to entertain arguments that attempt to denaturalize debate as competition but struggle when these critiques lack an alternative or a theory of why debate as a way of putting two teams and a judge in conversation with one another is nevertheless useful.

I think affs that creatively reinterpret the resolution in a way that does not create excessively demanding curricular demands would be more up my alley, but no one has tested this, so proceed with caution.

I am open to different understandings of what it means for things to compete if there is no plan. However, "no plan, no perms" is nonsense.

The only effect of my ballot is to decide the winner.

Speaker Points

Strong strategy, being fun/engaging to watch, being smart, being classy, being clear = higher speaks.

Making wrong strategic choices, being underprepared or ignorant about substance, making CXs annoying/pointless, making bad arguments, being needlessly mean, being a mumbler... = lower speaks.

I do not view speaker points as divorced from substance.

My points are slightly below average.

Asking for a 30 will yield a 25.

Ethics and Conduct

If the tabroom tells me to do something, it is not up for debate. I will do that thing. The rest is what I will do if left to my own devices.

Evidence ethics (out of context? straw-person? lied about quals? cut in middle of paragraph?) should be debated out like any other theory argument. Alternative remedies short of an automatic loss could be more responsive or proportional to the harm: scratching the argument AND evidence, scratching only the evidence and treating the argument as if it is made analytically, assuming an author is absolutely unqualified, requiring the team to produce the full text of articles in question, requiring the violating team to establish a paper trail authenticating other important evidence and presuming unauthenticated evidence to be fabricated, requiring a team to produce the full text of every article in the debate and presuming unauthenticated evidence to be fabricated, reducing speaker points, informing the team's coaches after the fact. They MAY be a reason to reject the team, but I will not treat them as such by default.

Clipping - claiming you read words from evidence that you did not read - is different, and a voting issue. It is a form of dishonesty that irreparably distorts teams' speech times, which affects every other issue in the debate, and which opponents are uniquely poorly positioned to police. If you are inexperienced or appear to have clipped by mistake, I will be lenient. Otherwise, it is non-negotiable.

Thoughts on stopping the debate early:

1. This is an exceptional measure to be avoided if possible.

2. Once the debate stops because of an ethics challenge, my first step is to consult the tabroom and do whatever they say.

3. Unless expressly instructed otherwise by the tabroom, the debate will not resume once stopped. The winner and loser will be determined solely by the ethics challenge.

4. An accusing team can stop the debate at any time except during a speech or a cross-ex. They win if they are correct, present compelling evidence that they are correct, and I agree that the conduct justifies a penalty loss. The winner will receive 28.5 and 28.6. Losers who have personally committed an ethics violation receive the lowest points allowed. Losers who have not personally committed an ethics violation - either due to an unsuccessful accusation, or because the partner committed the violation - receive a 27 and 27.1.

5. During the dispute, both teams must engage in good faith. The accusing team must submit evidence of their accusation as soon as possible. I will not consider evidence submitted within 20 minutes of decision time. Any filibustering or other unreasonable behavior by the accusing team will result in a win for the accused.

6. An accused team can stop the debate, even if the accusing team does not wish to do so, if the accusation concerns the fundamental academic integrity of the accused. This is a very high bar.

7. An accusing team may ask me if I believe certain conduct justifies a penalty loss without stopping the debate. I will take judge prep to answer. This answer is not an invitation to negotiate and obviously doesn't bind the tabroom.

8. I will proactively end the debate for clipping. I will not do this for other evidence ethics or academic integrity issues.

9. Basically none of this applies to novice or JV, where I will resolve the dispute as quickly and narrowly as possible with the aim of maximizing the number of speeches that can happen.

Being racist, sexist, violent, etc. in a way that is immediately and obviously hazardous to someone in the debate = L and 0. My role as educator outweighs my role as any form of disciplinarian, so I will err on the side of letting stuff play out - i.e. if someone used gendered language and that gets brought up I will probably let the round happen and correct any ignorance after the fact. This ends when it begins to threaten the safety of round participants. You should give this line a wide berth.

Joel Veizi Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun October 4, 2020 at 5:37 AM CDT

A little about me:

I know many debaters reading this care about records and the sort to decide whether judges are worth a pref, especially with me having graduated some time ago. I qualified to the ToC my senior year in 2016, and finished with a 4-3 record. I debated out of a UDL school in Chicago, and the bulk of my final year was spent ironically flip flopping between critical args and framework. With that being said, I was all policy for the 3 years prior.

My paradigm:

Disads - Effective internal link debates are the name of the game. Useful for decisive impact calc and turns case args. It's more effective to leverage your internal link as a turns case arg "Gutting X program results in economic downturn and destroys X solvency," than it is to say "nuclear war turns the environment adv. because everything will be destroyed if it happens..." Getting to the second turns case scenario requires you to win the uniqueness, link, I/L, AND impact debate which at that point - the round should already be in the bag.

Politics Disad - Great. Good on you if you actually cut plan-specific link evidence that's both nuance and recent. You shouldn't rely on a spin of your generic 1nc link frontline to win the debate. The uniqueness overwhelms the link vs link determines the direction of uniqueness will usually be decided by the quality of respective cards. You're not gonna win the former if your updates for the tournament consist of a recent card that's one sentence long. On that same note, you wont win the former with a bad card that saids *Insert Random Dem/Rep interested in something remotely similar to the plan.*

Ks - Read anything you enjoy reading. Have noticed Affs tend to not attack the alt enough, and often end up getting pulled down a rabbit hole instead. If a team is pivoting to fw, especially with reps Ks to supplement for the alt, teams should avoid falling for cheap shot K tricks.It's also prudent to use your aff as the best offense (i.e. Heg aff vs. security K) relative to card/block dumping.

Performance affs/framework - I do not have a bias for either side, but I would preface that the former should really try to align with the resolution in terms of content . Aff teams should press against framework offense by questioning the underlying values that are otherwise taken as truth in normative debate (fairness, education, etc.) Neg teams should hold the aff to a higher standard in regards to solvency, and place a special emphasis on impacting out arguments (Why is deliberative discussion on set issues of policy importance? Why is your spectrum of fairness valuable?, etc.) To sum it up, the debate is going to come down to offense and as an extension of that - who can spin a more ideal vision of what debate ought to look like.

IMPORTANT (a few things):

1. I'm not super familiar with this years topic, so try to avoid or at least explain any acronyms that are commonly thrown around.
2. Try to spread at your natural flow (i.e. don't go faster than you can just for the sake of it).

3. Be respectful and try to avoid being snarky, especially in cx. It doesn't make you look cool or intelligent.

Lauren Velazquez Solorio Academy HS 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon January 8, 2024 at 7:20 AM CDT

Name : Lauren Velazquez

Affiliated School: Niles North

Email: Laurenida@gmail.com

General Background:
I debated competitively in high school in the 1990s for Maine East. I participated on the national circuit where counterplans and theory were common.

Director of Debate at Niles North

Laurenida@gmail.com

Experience:

I competed in the 90s, helped around for a few years, took a bit of a break, have been back for about 7 years. My teams compete on the national circuit, I help heavily with my teams’ strategies, and am a lab leader at a University of Michigan. In recent years I have helped coach teams that cleared at the TOC, won state titles and consistently debated in late elim rounds at national tournaments. TL/DR--I am familiar with national circuit debate but I do not closely follow college debate so do not assume that I am attuned to the arguments that are currently cutting edge/new.

What this means for you---I lean tech over truth when it comes to execution, but truth controls the direction of tech, and some debate meta-arguments matter a lot less to me.

I am not ideological towards most arguments, I believe debate structurally is a game, but there are benefits to debate outside of it being just a game, give it your best shot and I will try my best to adapt to you.

The only caveat is do not read any arguments that you think would be inappropriate for me to teach in my classroom, if you are worried it might be inappropriate, you should stop yourself right there.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
When deciding to vote on disadvantages and affirmative advantages, I look for a combination of good story telling and evidence analysis. Strong teams are teams that frame impact calculations for me in their rebuttals (e.g. how do I decide between preventing a war or promoting human rights?). I should hear from teams how their internal links work and how their evidence and analysis refute indictments from their opponents. Affirmatives should have offense against disads (and Negs have offense against case). It is rare, in my mind, for a solvency argument or "non unique" argument to do enough damage to make the case/disad go away completely, at best, relying only on defensive arguments will diminish impacts and risks, but t is up to the teams to conduct a risk analysis telling me how to weigh risk of one scenario versus another.

TOPICALITY

I will vote on topicality if it is given time (more than 15 seconds in the 2NR) in the debate and the negative team is able to articulate the value of topicality as a debate “rule” and demonstrate that the affirmative has violated a clear and reasonable framework set by the negative. If the affirmative offers a counter interpretation, I will need someone to explain to me why their standards and definitions are best. Providing cases that meet your framework is always a good idea. I find the limits debate to be the crux generally of why I would vote for or against T so if you are neg you 100% should be articulating the limits implications of your interpretation.

KRITIKS
Over the years, I have heard and voted on Kritiks, but I do offer a few honest caveats:

*Please dont read "death good"/nihilism/psychoanalysis in front of me. I mean honestly I will consider it but I know I am biased and I HATE nihilism, psychoanalysis debates. I will try to listen with an open mind but I really don't think these arguments are good for the activity or good for pedagogy--they alienate younger debaters who are learning the game and I don't think that genuine discussions of metaphysics lend themselves to speed reading and "voting" on right/wrong. If you run these I will listen and work actively to be open minded but know you are making an uphill battle for yourself running these. If these are your bread and butter args you should pref me low.

I read newspapers daily so I feel confident in my knowledge around global events. I do not regularly read philosophy or theory papers, there is a chance that I am unfamiliar with your argument or the underlying paradigms. I do believe that Kritik evidence is inherently dense and should be read a tad slower and have accompanying argument overviews in negative block. Impact analysis is vital. What is the role of the ballot? How do I evaluate things like discourse against policy implications (DAs etc)

Also, I’m going to need you to go a tad slower if you are busting out a new kritik, as it does take time to process philosophical writings.

If you are doing something that kritiks the overall debate round framework (like being an Aff who doesnt have a plan text), make sure you explain to me the purpose of your framework and why it is competitively fair and educationally valuable.

COUNTERPLANS
I am generally a fan of CPs as a neg strategy. I will vote for counterplans but I am open to theory arguments from the affirmative (PICs bad etc). Counterplans are most persuasive to me when the negative is able to clearly explain the net benifts and how (if at all) the counterplan captures affirmative solvency. For permutations to be convincing offense against CPs, Affs should explain how permutation works and what voting for perm means (does the DA go away, do I automatically vote against neg etc?)

Random

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex and dominating. You are part of a 2 person team for a reason.

Speed is ok as long as you are clear. If you have a ton of analytics in a row or are explaining a new/dense theory, you may want to slow down a little since processing time for flowing analytics or kritkits is a little slower than me just flowing the text of your evidence.

I listen to cross ex. I think teams come up with a lot of good arguments during this time. If you come up with an argument in cross ex-add it to the flow in your speech.

Bill Ziegelmueller Northside College Prep 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon March 7, 2016 at 2:04 AM CDT

Tl;dr (I'm told this means summary): I'm an experienced debater who just recently returned to judge. I'll vote on anything, but I lean policy. I will reward you for clarity and persuasion. Explain why I should vote for you, especially in rebuttals.

Background:

I was an NDT policy debater at Wake Forest before you were born. I then judged regularly for Northwestern at college tournaments and also at some local high school tournaments for several years in the mid-90's. After that, I didn't see or judge a debate until 2015. So, don't assume I know anything about the topic, electronic files, your reputation, or really anything that matters.

General Paradigm:

I will vote for the team that best persuades me that it should win. I will vote on anything, but I prefer evidence-based policy rounds. Topicality may be debated like any other issue, but to win on T the negative must commit to the argument and persuade me why the aff interpretation is abusive.

I am not as comfortable with kritiks as with policy, and if you run a kritik don't assume I know anything about the philosphy that you're advocating. The farther you get from debating the topic the more you will have to explain why I should vote for you. I tend to evaluate kritiks much the same way I evaluate a DA--is there a clear reason we are having this discussion in this round (link) and is there a clear reason why I should reject your opponents or vote for you (impact). Too many kritiks sound like generic, non-unique DAs to me, and the more generic your argument is the less likely I am to vote on it. I'm particularly unimpressed with kritiks that fault the affs for merely existing, being who they are, doing what debaters do, etc. You will do better if you specifically link the kritik to the affirmative plan, evidence, or rhetoric. K affs are the same way. If I can't understand it I won't vote for it.

The same comments really apply to all negative arguments. I prefer less generic and more specific attacks to those that simply spew generic DAs. I tend to reward debaters who do not merely read their blocks but who come up with their own arguments on the fly, think independently, make strategic decisions, explain their positions, and weigh the competing policies or issues in rebuttal.

Pet Peeves:

Tag team c/x is stupid. If you can't do your own cross, learn how to. If your partner needs to ask a question or two to help him/her prepare, that's fine, but each cross should primarily involve one person asking and one person answering. I punish debaters who waste c/x or make no effort to ask questions that expose flaws in the opposing argument--that is the purpose of c/x, after all--so use the time wisely.

If you can't flash/email files quickly, learn how. I won't run prep time as long as I believe you are doing your best to transfer things efficiently, but don't test my patience or waste my time.

Debate is still a speaking activity. I will not have your speech doc open, so you need to communicate with me orally. Tell me when you're moving between arguments, distinguish between labels and evidence, tell me what you want me to know. I try not to inject myself into the round, so I am unlikely to tell you if I can't understand you or think your argument is stupid. You should know if you're being clear without me having to tell you.

Don't be a jerk to your opponent or partner. There is no reason to get indignant, angry, snotty, rude, etc. Have fun and be nice.

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