Debated 5 years @ UMKC

             I’m not really sure what my "paradigm" is yet (at the college level) since 2015-2016 is my first year out. I'm really sorry if this makes prefs all the more difficult/annoying. So, if you email me with specific questions tailored to your strategy and its possible success, I will most assuredly email you back within the day.Overall/personally however, I think I enjoy substance & intellectual rigor more than anything––on both the policy and critical theory sides of things.

I debated both spectrums in college (from H1B, XO, & PTX to West African metaphysics & divinities). I try to flow and read as much as possible during the round.... If I’m lost, I'll probably just ask you what's troubling me/what I need.

Berkley notes:

I really enjoy when debaters really KNOW their stuff in relation to the other team's stuff. That’s the best way to get me on board really --having a command over the knowledge and the flow(s). This is a lost art... and so are advantage counterplans & actual case debate/engagement ...  

I think that the AFF should be a thing that is a relevantly (topically, globally, politically, pedagogically, etc.) different from the status quo. If it is not, then I am inclined to believe that your AFF is actually NEG ground... and that is awkward.

I think the NEG needs to win offense against the AFF, what the AFF stands for, or the textual artifact that is the 1AC.

I'm more concerned with debaters entering into meaningful conversation(s). I think that ya’ll will all be fine with me (wherever you are coming from), just be dope at what you do.  If you tell me to read something, I will.

 

Good luck!

Keep me on the email chain / flash please (Jide134@gmail.com)

Updated 1/13/21

Hi! Thanks for looking at my bio. I'm a former NYU debater and former president of the NYU policy team. My experience in policy debate has been 4 years of college debate, 3 years of which were open, and I have coached for 4 years. I have coached for Success Academy Midtown West for 2 years. I am currently a law student at NYU Law.

As a debater, I did just about every form and style of debate (everything from 6 min of politics DAs in the block to performance args with narratives and/or poetry), but I honestly do not have a particular preference for arguments anywhere on the spectrum. As a judge, I view my role primarily as an evaluator of the arguments presented before me in the round. If you decide for whatever reason (consciously or unconsciously) that it's not in your best interest to frame the round for me, I'll default first to the flows and if you've messed those up too much, then my secondary default is to vote for the side that has done the best debating overall by some fun arbitrary standard I'll invent for you and if neither side did a particularly great job debating according to that standard, I'll vote for the team that was the better collaborative pair in the debate space.

T: Yup, it’s a voting issue, and it's an a priori one so just go ahead and answer it however you want, but at least answer it. Counter-interps are probably a good idea if you’re aff, but you can convince me otherwise if that's not the path you want to take in answering it. I'll gladly entertain any T arguments, but I expect a full warranted out standards and impact debate coming off the violation. Small tricky affs are small and tricky, so if T is your generic go to, take the time to explain how they untopical and why that has significance for the round don't just cry that they're unfair for 5 minutes because all that will do is just make me very sad and I'll be wishing that we were having a different debate than the one we're having.

Disads: Turns case arguments are great, and I love to see them. Note, I'm generally pretty generous with allowing links on DAs to affs until they're contested. Neg, be tight on your internal link story. If your explanation of the DA doesn't make sense to me, I'm not going to pull the trigger on it if the aff is winning a reasonable part of their case. Note, if it’s a particularly bad DA, aff’s don’t need evidence to answer it.

Kritiks: I like these. A lot. They're pretty neat and let you do a lot of fun tricks. However, to go for these, I think you need a clear explanation of how the K functions, and you still need to do impact calculus. There has to be at least one clear link articulated consistently from the block to the 2nr. If you don’t understand the K, I probably won’t understand your articulation of it either.

Framework: Specificity is important for the negative. Point out exactly how we should frame the debate, why that’s a good idea, and any in round abuse. Don’t neglect the line by line in these debates. Role of the ballot args are nice when they meet the following criteria: they're consistent, make sense, and are carried through the round.

Counterplans: These need to have a well-articulated net benefit. Other than that, anything goes.

I will typically not judge kick the CP or the K alt. Just do the basic work of kicking out of these if you're not going for one, never assume I'll do work for you that favors you.

Debate is supposed to be both fun and educational. Enjoy your round, and try to make it fun for everyone in the room.

I really enjoy clever jokes and entertaining CXs.

UPDATE 10/14/22

TL:DR

I have not updated by paradigm in well over a decade but much of what I wrote then continues to be true. I've been coaching/judging various styles and forms of debate for over 12 years. I am most comfortable judging debates in Policy, Lincoln-Douglass, and Public Forum. I flow and listen to all arguments, so please debate in whichever way you are most comfortable and I will attempt to evaluate it to the best of my ability. That being said, if you have a position that is complicated or difficult to follow, the onus is on the debaters to ensure that their arguments are well explained. I will not vote on arguments that I do not understand or are blatantly offensive/discriminatory. Otherwise, try  to have fun!

My email for chains is: carlito2692@gmail.com

Old Paradigm:

 

I competed in LD at University High School in Newark New Jersey, I was nationally competitive for three years.. I also compete in policy debate for Rutgers University.

Presumption: I typically presume neg unless the affirmative advances arguments for why presumption should flow aff (i.e the negative team introduces a counterplan/kritik alt/etc.

Speed: I don't generally have an issue with speed, however I do have a problem with monotone speed, unclear speed. I will yell clear if I can't understand you, but it will only be maybe once or twice, if you don't become clear by then, my ability to properly evaluate the arguments may possibly become impaired. Also, your speaks probably won't be awesome if I have to keep yelling clear.

-I would like you to significantly slow down when reading tags/card names so I can have a properly structured flow, but while reading the card you are welcome to go at top CLEAR speed(a few caveats to be explained later)

-When making analytical arguments, please be clear, because it's difficult for me to follow analytics when they are weirdly phrased and also being spread.

-I don't like speed for the sake of being fast, I prefer when speed is used as a catalyst for an awesome case or a multilayered rebuttal with really nuanced responses on case.

Evidence: Despite what happened in the round, I may call for the cites for cards read in round, I'll specify which specific cites I would like to see. I do this for two reasons: to ensure that there was no miscutting of evidence, and because I believe in disclosure and am from the school of thought that everybody in the round should have access to all evidence read in the round. I don't appreciate a denial to share citations, if citations are not readily available, I may choose to disregard all evidence with missing citations(especially evidence which was contested in the debate).

Cross Examination: I don't know how much I can stress it...CROSS EX IS BINDING! I don't care if you present arguments for why it shouldn't be binding or why lying in CX is ok, or any arguments with the implication which allows dishonesty in CX, there is NO theory to be ran to change my mind. Nevertheless, I don't flow CX, so its up to the debaters to refresh my memory of any inconsistencies between speeches and CX answers. On the other hand, CX can be the BEST or the WORST part of a debate, depending on how it plays out. A funny yet not disrespectful CX will score big when I'm deciding on how to assign speaks, while a rude and boring CX will negatively influence how I assign speaks. Clarification questions during prep is fine, but I'm not cool with trying to tear down an argument during prep, if it was that important, it should have been in the formal CX, rather than during prep. Don't be afraid to refuse to answer a non-clarification question during your opponents prep time.

Critical/Weird Arguments: I love well explained critical positions. With the caveat that these critical arguments are logically explained and aren't insanely convoluted. I have no issue voting for the argument. But if I can't understand it, I won't vote on it. Also, I am a fan of interesting debate, so if you have a neat performance to run in front of me, I would love to hear it!

Theory: I don't presume to competing interpretations or reasonability. The justification for either one needs to be made in round. I don't like greedy theory debates, which means that I generally view theory as a reason to reject the argument rather than the debater. YES, this means you must provide reasons in or after the implications section of your shell, for why this specific violation is a reason for me to use my ballot against the other debater. I'm not persuaded by generic 12 point blocks for why fairness isn't a voter, I prefer nuanced argumentation for why fairness may not be a voter. RVIs have to be justified but I'm willing to vote on them if the situation presents itself, but its up to you to prove why you defensively beating theory is enough for me to vote for you.

Prestandard: I don't like having preconceived beliefs before judging a round, but this is just one of those things that I need to reinforce. I WILL NOT vote on multiple apriori blips, and winning a single apriori is an uphill battle, a serious commitment to advocacy is necessary(you devote a serious amount of time to the apriori position.)

Speaks: I average about a 27, I doubt I'll go lower than 25(unless you do something which merits lower than a 25) because I personally know how disappointing the 4-2/5-2 screw can be, nevertheless I am more than willing to go up or down, depending on the performance in that particular round. The reason I average around a 27 is not because I generally don't give nice speaks, its because the majority of tournaments, I'll judge only a few rounds that deserve more than a 28. It's not difficult at all to get good speaks from me. I reserve 30's for debaters who successfully execute the following: speak really well, good word economy, good coverage/time allocation, takes risks when it comes to strategy, weighs really well, provides AWESOME evidence comparison, and adapts well to the things happening in the round. I really enjoy seeing new strategies, or risky strategies, I.E. I am a fan of the straight refutation 1N, attempting something risky like this and pulling it off, gives you a higher chance of getting a 30. Another way to get high speaks is to be a smart debater as well as funny without being mean or making any kind of jokes at the expense of your opponent(this will lose you speaks)

Delivery: I need evidence comparison! It makes me really happy when debaters do great evidence comparison. Also, I would appreciate for you to give status updates as the rebuttals progress, as well as giving me implications for each extension. When extending arguments which rely on cards, in order for it to be a fully structured extension it must contain: The claim/tag of the card, author/card name, warrant from the card, and the implications of that extension (what does it do for you in the round).

Miscellaneous: You are more than welcome to sit or stand, I don't mind people reading from laptops or being paperless as long as it doesn't delay the round. Also, I don't care if you are formally dressed, jeans and a tshirt will get you the same speaks that a shirt and a tie will. :) I also believe its impossible for me to divorce my judging from my beliefs, but I'll do my best to attempt to fairly adjudicate the debate.

P.S. I don't like performative contradictions...(just felt like I should throw that out there)

Updated 3-7-24

Congrats on attending Nationals. Being at a university with the resources to send you cross-country to represent them is an immense privilege Thank those responsble including partners, teammates, coaches, parents & especially your opponents. People matter. Celebrate, respect and appreciate them while you can.

(NEW) TLDR: K Affs, FW, DA/CP strats, K strats, Procedurals - Fine. You do you. Condo- Ok w Limits (read CP stuff below) Base points - 28.7 If you care about pts a) look at who got 29.4+ from me to see what I like. b) 2NRs that don't spend time on case do so at their own risk. When I'm online, a) get verbal/visual confirmation before you speak b) slow down 10%. Won't litigate past debates, social media beefs etc on my ballot. PRE-EMPT- Read no further at your own risk.

General Approach: Add me to the chain if you have my email already. Start the rd when your opponent has the doc up once you confirm all parties are ready. I don't follow along with your speech docs. Flowing on paper. Pen time good. Be organized, Be considerate. Be ready. Recuts of opponents' ev need to be read in round not just inserted into the doc to be assessed on my flow. Good debaters work extremely hard so I will make every effort to be very thoughtful and conscientious as your judge. Whatever decision allows me to inject myself the least into the interpretations of issues in the round is the one I will attempt to make. Compare positions, ev and tell a story in your last rebuttal that frames the round the way you wish me to decide it. I’ll vote where you tell me if it's coherent. If you have multiple stories, prioritize them. Don't rely on my post-round reconstruction. If you only spend 10 seconds on a key point in your last rebuttal, don't expect me to spend much more than that evaluating it. Most rounds come down to impact assessment and warrant comparisons. An author’s name is not an argument. Provide warrants for why your ev is better than theirs.

Tech vs. TruthTech over truth is an inflection point not a value system. My voting record reflects a tech leaning apparently but that's more reflective of how truth is framed in the 2AR vs. my role to protect the neg. My ballot really comes down to the skills and execution of the particular debaters.

The Aff: Do what you want in terms of policy, K or performance. Explain advantages to your model over theirs. Tell me how to evaluate your affirmation prior to the 2AR if you are performing. Make sure that the role of the ballot is articulated and extended and not a 2AR surprise. My evaluation will come down to offense on the FWK flow based on impacts identified by the debaters unless it's one of those rare rounds where the neg has a viable, specific strat.

The Neg: Well-developed, evidence-based strategies are awesome and will be rewarded. 90% of affs, both kritikal and policy have lit that goes the other way. Cut cards and forward options along with T/FW. If you want to defend your right to a Deterrence DA link or a certain interp, go for it. Presumption matters and is underutilized.

TOPICALITY/FWK: I’ll vote either way on T/FW if you win the relevant impacts to your model of debate e.g. EXTERNAL (why is it or is it not productive?) or INTERNAL (what does it communicate or provide you with in the debate space of importance?). You're more likely to have faith in the credibility of your definition and implicit approaches to the topic than I am so be prepared to defend them. Not a fan of: violations that morph in the block unprovoked, crummy counter-interps or generic TVAs that disregard this 1AC. T against policy affs is underutilized. Elevate your answers from the crap you read in HS. It's disingenuous for experienced debaters to say K-affs about AB, Set Col. or Trans Life were unpredictable or that FW is the ultimate form of violence in the world.

DISADS Fine obviously. Providing reasons why the DA turns case is always a good idea. CAVEAT - Including this since it's come up 2x this year. If there is an Existence question relating your DA or aff story (e.g. a rumored "secret" weapon system, Aliens are coming, etc), try or die only kicks in if you win the Existence question as a precursor.

CPs Smart CPs with solvency advocates improve your strat. If you regularly read CPs with conditional planks leading to 10 different versions or more than 3 conditional advocacies in a rd, I'm not the right judge for you. New or undisclosed 1ACs lend credence to more condo options. Feel free to take advantage of teams that read & react without studying your CP text carefully. Sympathetic to "1AR gets new answers" vs CPs with no 1NC solvency ev. or process CPs with no relqtion to how the US government works. I welcome solvency deficits if the AFF is correct on function indicts. I don't judge kick without specific instruction.

K: For teams that generate links from messed-up, in-round behaviors or focus on the debate space-all good. If teams defend external claims and impacts, winning anti-blackness is a superstructure or capitalist gov't solutions have failed on-balance is necessary but not sufficient. Quality examples are essential and readily available whether you're discussing micro-political movements, capitalism, racial injustice, colonialism, sabotage, disability and/or militarism. Your arsenal needs solid answers to scalability, empirical solvency, and why gov't action will not inevitably be needed. Include good reasons why the K turns case. 3 page long cards don't equal explanations.

Topic Specifics Spent 4 years working with Rev Vernon Nichols at the UU-UNO when he chaired the NGO Committee on Disarmament learning about prolif, movements and miscalc. As far as the 2023-24 topic, I read lots of topic lit from both traditional and nontraditional sources and have judged too much.

Pet Peeves that lower points: 1-STEALING PREP TIME -It's a nasty habit. You are taking time from my life that I will never get back. 2-POOR TECH PREP- I have sympathy for unexpected tech issues not poor preparation that delays the tournament. If you're debating online: a) Check your tech between rds for charge etc. b) Have a back-up (phone, tablet, etc.) in case of lmid-speech malfunctions c) Get verbal/visual confirmation everyone is back before starting speeches d) don't record people without permission e) slow down 10-20% because it's hard to hear/decipher stuff online 3--OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE in your speeches. Don't have a bright line but if you need to ask, you're probably excessive. 4--SLOPPY SOURCING. You say “Read the Jones 10 ev after the rd!” I read it and it sucks. In the post-round, it becomes “I meant to say Roberts, not Jones,” or “There were 3 pieces of Jones ev I meant the 1AR card.” That's a "you" problem. Effective communication good.

Issa Paradigm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3kz4AUHe1M

I'd never worship a god that didn't know how to dance

For the brave:

I am not the gambling type but I do love a good joke, and a good joke deserves a reward of .2 to a .5 speaker point boost to your total speaker points, but there are limits as to what I will dub as funny enough to avoid having to judge rounds of last comic standing. The jokes I will reward are as follows,

1. The "Lt. Louis Armstrong" voice - get it right and you get a .5 boost, get it wrong and you lose .1

2. Strong pun game - puns get a bad for a reason, they are often terrible. Although anyone who knows me well knows I love well timed, expertly executed puns. Here's your opportunity to prove your pun game is strong. .4 boost if you make a pun and I enjoy it, fail you lose .2

3. Use the phrase "Omae wa mou shinderiu" correctly in a debate you get a .3 boost. Get it wrong you lose .3

These are the jokes I will reward; may the odds forever be in your favor.

Things you need know:

Yes, I would like to be in the email chain, my email is ibrown.gmu1@gmail.com

No, I do not believe that novice should have to debate K affs until the tail end of the second semester, these debates are often anti-educational hurt novice development. Which is to say I believe you must first learn debate before you can debate about debate. This is not to say that I won't judge these debates fairly, but rather a warning that I am incredibly sympathetic to the otherside of the argument. Although once it is the 2nd half of the first second semester my sympathies die out.

I always flow on paper so give me pen time when you're blazing through your analytics

I will not vote on comparing arguments to sexual assault in anyway shape or form, I think those debates are violent, anti-educational and only risk net harm to everyone involved.

I debated a total of 7 years

2 years in the Chicago UDL

5 years at George Mason 1-year policy 1 year flex 3 years critical. I went to the NDT twice and I broke into elims of CEDA twice. I debated off of my flow and I judge the same way. It really doesn't matter what your argument is, if you can communicate it to me and the other team cannot then simply put, you are ahead. It is your responsibility to get your arguments onto my piece of paper and I will do everything that is in my power to get the ballot to tab with your name as the victor but that's only if your opponent doesn't beat you to the ballot. All of this is to say, read what you want in front of me, the flow is the deciding factor.

What I want to hear:

This should never be the question you ask when you get me in the back of the round, I want to judge you at your best so read whatever it is that is your best. Be fast, be strategic, be smart and be effective. These are the traits that I look for in a good debater, which is to say I don't place a limit on the style of debate you do, if the argument you like going for involves telling me that Russia has got it out for the US and the only thing that can solve that is a single-payer health care system then DO THAT. Or if your best is telling me the world as I know it writ large is founded on a set of principles that require investigation and or just blanket rejection DO THAT. My job is not to actively seek confirmation bias by judging every Baudrillard/Afro-pess debate ever, I am here to take really fast notes and tell you what I think the best argument was at the end of the debate. So, do you in whatever form that may look.

The ways I evaluate debates:

1. As mentioned above I follow the flow to the T, but even this is debatable although even in debates that critique flowing in a normative fashion, I will continue to flow unless explicitly asked not to (this is for my benefit as I like to have a point of reference when deciding things.)

2. In particularly messy debates I will be annoyed and you will lose points if my flow becomes a random assortment of words. Line arguments up as best as you can, this is for my benefit as well as yours, debate is a communication activity and good line by line while hard to come by is extremely important when the debate comes down to a degree of nuance. You don't want me to have to do work for you by having to decipher the entire debate. You want to be clear, concise and ready to go. Line by line then while not necessary is preferred.

3. Tell me a story, but make sure this story has a claim warrant and impact. Reel me in with whatever necessary just make sure you have a complete argument.

Speaks:

Stolen from Patrick McCleary

“I give speaker points based on how effectively students articulate their arguments, regardless of the type of argument. Above a 29.5 deserves to contend for top speaker, 29-29.5 is a speaker award, 28.5-29 is good/should be clearing, 28.1-28.5 is on the cusp of clearing, 28 is average, 27.5 is below average, 27 needs work. Any lower and you are probably either in the wrong division or did something offensive. Given what I've seen from people who compile the data on this stuff, this seems to be somewhat close to the community norm.”

"Debaters who have used the opportunity afforded by annual resolutions to learn about the topic and are able to apply that knowledge in the round will be in position to receive higher points than debaters whose speeches are lacking in this category. Debaters whose speeches reflect little to no effort at having learned about this season's topic may win the debate, but will not receive good points.

This does not mean the AFF must read a plan text...nor that the NEG can only debate the case (rarely a wise strategy). It simply means I am listening for proof that debaters are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn about a different topic area each season."

Theory/T Debates:

Provide me an interpretation and defend it I’ll evaluate it.

Framework:

Outside of what I read as a debater this is probably the argument I know the most about on both the AFF and NEG side of things and while I would impact turn this whenever I heard it that does not mean I am AFF leaning on FW. Simply put I will vote on what’s on my flow regardless of how I feel about it despite that I feel it necessary to disclose several arguments that I find more persuasive on both sides of the debate.

NEG:

· Debate is a Game (This can be debated and if you win it on the flow I am amendable to change but it is my default setting)

· AFF’s should have to defend something (this does not mean they must have a plan)

· AFF’s should be testable (this doesn’t mean that a generic counterplan/DA is the best method to test the AFF)

AFF:

· If you can do it on the neg they should be prepared (In that scenario they get to weigh their aff, making this not an argument alone you have to impact this argument to make it more offensive)

· K-affs inevitable (Doesn’t make those affs predictable)

· Fairness is often times arbitrary (But winnable, I think the move to deliberation over procedural fairness is silly, just tell them to get out of your house)

TLDR:

I am tech over truth appeals to my emotions gets you speaker points not ballots. Simply put I will do no work for you and I will judge the flow and only the flow unless an argument is made telling me not to.

I debated four years in high school and three years for the New York City Coalition under the City University of New York. I continue to coach and judge for the City University of New York for the last seven years.

New Trends: I come from the debate world of tubs and expandos. I do not take prep for jumping. I do not want to be on the email chain. Debate is about convincing the judge. Therefore,  you have to explain your evidence in comparison to the other team. I do not read evidence because I flow the warrants of the evidence. Please be very clear when reading.

Framework: I do not mind as long as it is impacted and there is clash on the interpretation vs counter interpretation.

Disads/cps: I do not mind. However, on disads,  you need to explain the internal link to the impact. I won't just vote for you because you said nuclear war. For cps, I like when negative teams have creative ways to solve for the aff. As far as theory,  I am not that incline to vote on these args but in some instances theory args have been very well articulated and I have voted on them. These debates can not be two ships passing in the night.

Kritiks: I believe the negative have the ability to win this argument without an alternative. However, I like alternative versus solvency debates.

Performance: I believe debate is a space where students have freedom of expression.  While making your arguments, you need to indicate how I'm suppose to situate myself within the round.

Your stylistic approach to debate is entirely up to you. I'm just there to adjudicate the round. Have Fun!

Email: timothyabyram@gmail.com

First off, do you. If my judging philosophy meant that you were put at a disadvantage for any particular style of debate, that would be indicative of a larger problem.

I am a Junior at Liberty University. I have done traditional policy, critical, and performative debate, though recent experience has drifted heavily toward the latter end of the spectrum. I am decently well-versed in most forms of critical literature. However, my level of familiarity with a topic should be largely irrelevant to the way you debate. I view debate generally as a format established for the clash of pedagogies. This clash can take place on the macro level or the micro, and applies to both policy and critical debate. The key is to explain which premises of your opponent’s arguments are in contestation and why. In other words, it can be as broad as a discussion on the merits or demerits of proximate state action, or as specific as the effectiveness of China deterrence to maintain US hegemony. This principle can be applied to virtually all arguments:

Ks: Isolate what the affirmative has done, explain how their particular methodology/epistemology perpetuates structural violence, and give me a clear explanation of how to avoid those harms. In debate-speak, spell out the link/s, draw a story between that link and a particular impact, and explain to me how your alternative avoids said link/impact story. The debaters who do this best are the ones who can relate the structural to the specific (ie, the aff’s use of x term/methodology/analysis leads to y structural impact writ large through z process). K affs function similarly: Tell me what systems of behavior or thought are perpetuated in the status quo, how this is done, why it is bad, and what you do about it.

FW: Framework can be run in many different ways, and should be contested in accordance to the specific argument run. For the team running it: Tell me the specific violation of the affirmative, and give me palpable reasons why the aff perpetuates a model that is harmful for debate/why your model is relatively better. Central to this argument is an explanation of why your version of debate is good, or at least better than that of the affirmative. Contestability is important, but it must ultimately be tied to the specific impacts of the model you are offering. For the team answering it: tell me in what ways you meet their interpretation, or in what ways that interpretation is bad. On both sides of the debate, blanket statements are insufficient. Tell me specific reasons why your opponents’ framing is bad. This involves an interplay of tech vs. truth that I will attempt to balance depending on the arguments made in the particular round.

DAs & CPs: My assessment of the risk of the DA happening as a result of the aff is dependent on the specific details offered as part of the negative strategy. Give me a clear line of reasoning between that link and the impact. Specificity is also important for Counter Plans, in that you must show me how the Counter Plan is competitive with the aff. Don’t assume I am familiar with the jargon.

T: I like T but I am not particularly well versed in the area. Be creative, slow down a bit, and give me well-reasoned applications to the aff.

I debated for Boston College from 2013-2017. I am currently a graduate student in philosophy at BC.

Topicality: I think topicality is about competing interpretations of the resolution, so you will have to demonstrate why your interpretation has a higher net benefit and provide an impact. It's obvious that fiat isn't real, but I also don't think arguing that a team should be prima facie dismissed for either defending or not defending explicit USFG action.

Conditionality: It (along with topicality) is a voting issue, but I have a decently high threshold, insofar as I think there should be demonstrable in-round abuse that was allowed by the negative reading multiple conditional positions. Be explicit about kicking out of counterplans, I will not do this for you.

Theory: Articulation and argumentation over throw-away catch phrases and buzz words. I don't understand why reverse voting issues are a thing in policy, so if you can explain that to me, I may vote on it, otherwise, not likely a voting issue.

Kritiks: I think kritiks offer an interesting perspective in that is good for very far-reaching education. I think this potential is done a horrible disservice when debaters throw around multi-syllabic French neologisms without really understanding what they actually mean within the wider philosophical tradition within which they are situated, or worse, grossly misappropriating terms/scholarship. If the 2nr cannot articulate the K in such a way that my grandmother could understand, it is not likely that I will vote for it. Additionally, I think there should be a relatively obvious academic standard as to what qualifies as 'critical literature', i.e., a blog post does not satisfy this, nor am I inclined to consider personal identity or narrative based arguments as meeting this standard either.

Last note: Please be clear and courteous--failure to do so will be reflected in speaker points. Judge-intervention is all but inevitable in a subjective activity such as this; I will try to limit personal biases as much as possible, but doing so completely is totally impossible. If I have forgot to address anyhting just ask.

Quanzel Caston, known as "Quanzy"

United States Military Academy c/o 2017

 

I'm still in the circuit, so I'll probably at most judge novice rounds, but paradigms are honest attempts to explain how you view debate, and I'll take it as such. 

First, a couple of things

+Keep Time. I won't keep time, and I trust your self-interest to lead you to police the other team.

+I know flashing and emailing is a curse, I would rather us all join the revolution and use Pocketbox. If you're not about it and still look forward to the methodical email method, that's fine too.

 

I'm Quanzy, I've debated policy at West Point for two years. Before that, especially in high school, I was deep in the upper echelons of high school debate in Extemp and Congress (yeah, you can laugh). This is my first year judging. Although I haven't had that much time, I had a partner who was super experienced and accelerated my learning curve so that we went to the NDT in my Novice year and got 8th at CEDA last year. I see debate as less of a competition and more of an engagement of scholarship and argumentation to shape what I think is the best world post the presentation of the AFF. I'm semi-deep into Anti-blackness literature and have a working grasps of most Ks. I think that the topical action can be violent, and totally love hearing affs not rooted in the state, but also have a strong line that the topic, something about the topic, should be apart of the aff's advocacy or discussion. I think theory is a reason to reject an argument, not the team, unless there is some particular impact tied to larger structures from a team's theory performance. Although I'm familiar with Ks, I dedicated a large portion of my younger life to debates about policy and USFG actions, and can appreciate and stick with a policy v. policy debate. I love hearing good warranted analysis and strong extensions. I will take good warrants and excellent explanation over stacks of cards. I think that the team that can better give explanatory power to the other sides claims as well as provide examples that support their argumentation will usually win the thesis of their argument. I have love for analytics, and think that slower analytics make more impacts that longer cards.

Teams can be rejected for performances or arguments that are demeaning, degrading or disrespectful. I'll take it out on your speaker points and probably attempt to have a semi-constructive discussion about it. If a team makes good arguments on why you should be rejected for it, I'll go for it. Being aggressive and clever in CX is legit, but there is always and line, and if you cross the line, I'll let you know about it after the round. CX matters to me, especially for links and Disads, so know that I'm listening to the exchange. Speed is fine. If you're slower than the other team, hope is not lost. Just because a card was read does not mean that they get 100% access to it because it was read. No warrant extension will make it just another card they read, and good arguments can counteract a shit ton of cards.

 

I love debate, the education it gave me is priceless. I only look to further opportunities for debaters to grow and learn through competition.

Ultimately, I have come to conclusion that debate is a game but this game also has real life effects on the people who choose to participate in it. Therefore,BE NICE, HAVE FUN, and DO YOU!!!

I have found in my time debating that there are a few things that debaters are looking for when they read judging philosophies (including myself) so I’ll get straight to the point:

K's:I’m fine with them and have run them for quite some time in my career. However, this does not mean run a K in front of me for the fun of it - rather it means that I expect you to be able to explain your link story and the way the alternative functions. I find that most teams just make the assumption that the Aff doesn’t get a perm because "it’s a methodology debate". That’s not an argument, give me warrants as to why this is true if this is the argument you are going to for. K Aff's are fine often times debaters lose sight of the strategic benefits of the Aff, So a simple advice I can give isDONT FORGET YOUR AFF!!

DA's:In general I like strong impact analysis and good link story. Make logical argument and be able to weigh the impact story against the Aff.

CP’s: I am open all types of CP’s you just have to prove the competitiveness of said CP and make sure it has a net benefit.

FW: Again….Debate is a game but this game has real life implications on those who choose to engage in it. I think FW can be strategic against some Aff’s but don’t use it as a reason to not engage the Aff. Win your interpretation and weigh your impacts. Aff’s: don’t blow off FW answer it and engage it or tell me why you are not engaging in it.

Theory: Not a big fan of it, but make sure you slow down as to ensure I get all the arguments you are making. But do you!

Cross X: I think this is the best part of debate and LOVE it. Don’t waste those 3 min, they serve a great purpose. I am ALWAYS paying attention to CX and may even flow it.

***Please remember that I am not as familiar with the high school topic so don’t assume I know all the jargon ***

Last but not least,watch me!(take hints from the visual cues that I am sending)

I debated for CUNY for three and 1/2 years so I ran a decent amount of arguments dealing with policy but not so much in the critical aspect of debate rounds. I vote on anything as long as it is given to me in the rebuttals clear, concise and logical. Even though I am not profound in certain kritiks, as long as they are explained to me then I will most likely vote for it, unless I disagree with the viewpoint of that kritik. My viewpoint deals with race arguments and how it prevents certain impacts such as genocide. I am really patient so I will not take time for jumping files but please make sure that it doesn't prolong the round for too long. Please be sure to accommodate for the other team if all your files are on the computer and you flow on it as well.

Hello Everyone! I am Amanda and I debated at Liberty. I am currently a GA at JMU.

 

Big Things: Read what you want to read. I am open to hearing just about any kind of argument. With that being said, I do believe in sticking to the flow, but what that means in each round can vary. So be techy or be meta, just make sure you are answering arguments.

 

The Specifics:

Framework: Alright here are my specific beliefs with FW. First, if you want to read it… go for it. With that being said, I think that interpretations that the neg makes should be concrete. Saying that K’s should be excluded from debate or destroy debate will probably not get my ballot. I think education impacts on FW are the most compelling but a team could totally win fairness impacts in front of me, I just generically prefer to talk about the education. 

Topicality: Affs should probably have some relationship to the topic, but what that relationship should be is open to interpretation. TVA’s are important and necessary. If you are reading T, you need a terminal impact. The words fairness and education do not cut it. If you are answering an aff’s DA’S on T, please actually respond to them.

**K Affs answering T: Please clearly label/name DA’s- I love a good impact turn

Disads: These are good, but I want good evidence with warrants. One sentence highlighted probably doesn’t cut it. I believe that risk beats magnitude. I need impact calc to be a substantive part of 2NR/2AR for either side to win these debates.

Counterplans: Have clear and written out CP texts please. I think affs should read theory args on CP’s, but I want these arguments to not just be blocks but responsive. Perms are good, but make sure you have an explanation as to how the Perm functions. Other than that, do what you want. 

K’s: This is the kind of argument that I read when I debated, and so I am familiar with how critiques should function. With that being said, odds are I am not an expert on your literature base. Please do not read a K that you are unfamiliar with, contextualizing and being able to explain the thesis of your argument are important in my book.

**Negs reading a K: please have a clear link story, links can be based on the logic of the plan but some links pertaining to the actual specifics of the plan are good.  Please have an external impact to the aff. If you are reading high theory arguments do your best to contextualize them to the real world (examples are cool- and I know this can be challenging). [Side note: overviews are fine, but keep them short, odds are some of the arguments made in the overview can be made and lined up somewhere else on the flow... Oh I also enjoy great alt explanations with clear articulations as to how to resolve the impacts] 

**Affs answering a K: These are just my generic things feel free to ask specifics. Please do not card dump on a K with repetitive arguments, read one card that makes the argument and move on. If you are going to go for the perm in the 2AR there needs to be a decent amount of time spent on explaining how the perm functions and what that world looks like- this needs to be set up in the 1AR though. 

Final Thoughts: Banking on presumption is probably not the best idea [however, there are rounds where I understand that it is a thing]. Do not be rude to one another, if anyone has gotten to this part of the paradigm and happens to include a pun or flannel reference at any point in the round… speaker points will be awarded.

 

If you have specific questions feel free to email me or whatnot... I would like to be on email chains: dabney40@gmail.com

Debated 3 years in high school, 4 in college, coached 3 years at GMU, been out of the activity for 2 years. This paradigm is sloppy as a result. I had made it into a joke when I knew I wouldn't be judging for awhile, but joke's on me rewriting it now.

In short, you do whatever strategy you think is best. Longer, here's an unorganized list of comments:

- Assume I know nothing about the topic or what abbreviations stand for;

- I like policy and critical debate;

- Fairness can be an impact;

- Explicit clash over implicit clash;

- Analysis over evidence;

- I won't vote on evidence being bad if it was not indicted in a speech;

- I lean toward competing interps on T;

- Whether for FW or T, politics is likely not a good example of neg ground;

- It's easier to win that the aff is defensible on a meta-level than it is to win 2ac fw against k's;

- I don't have any hard biases on condo or theory generally;

- Cross x is binding;

- Fewer overviews and more contextual line by line debating from neg k's;

- I'll tolerate ridiculous arguments because they should be easy to answer anyway.

An inexact speaker point scale generalized across divisions:

<27 - you did something very wrong

27.1-27.7 - need work/wrong division

27.8-28.5 - general average gradient

28.6-29 - should break

29.1-29.5 - should get a speaker award

>29.6 - contender for top speaker

add me to the email chain: colind525@gmail.com

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

Experience: I did policy debate in high school and college.

Overview: I am fine with anything you want to read. I did strictly policy (CPs/Das/T) in high school and then leaned more towards Ks in college. I have read every K from Security to DADA. Impacts need to be well extended and weighed and my role as the judge should be made clear by both teams.

Most important thing for me: I love debate. I think the community has its flaws but is unique in the sense that there aren’t many places where a bunch of really smart students can come together and discuss anything from Chinese politics to DeleuzeandGuattari. I understand if teams make arguments about the flaws in debate and more than often I believe they are true. But on the other side, I think debate offers so many valuable skills, research being one of the most important, and should exist.

Specifics

Framework (read on theneg, “you have to read a topical plan”): I really enjoy framework debates. I really go either way on this. I rarely defended a stable plan text and understand the merit in that. I also have read framework on the negative many times and understand that as well. I believe a good framework debate comes down to well impacted education arguments. I understand the merit in “but the state is bad” argumentsbut I don’t believe that is enough, especially if the negative wins a topical version of your plan.

T: I believe competing interpretations are great because the negative can always find a definition that excludes the aff. Like framework, I believe a good debate comes down to the educational impact level. Simply extending “key to ground"isn’t enough.I am not totally sold on just fairness impacts. I believe fairness is just an internal link to participation and clash but is not an impact within itself. Finally, I really like affirmatives that address the topic through a tricky wording in the plan text. This creativity, I believe, is a great skill andleads to creative debate that negatetopic staleness.

DA: I really like DA debates and wish I could have had more of them myself. The best DA debates are ones that come down to the pieces of evidence. As I said above, one of debates greatness merits is the research and there is nothing better than a DA debate to show off the amazing research you’ve done. I think the other really important part of a DA is explaining the story. Saying that “Immigration brings in more high skilled workers and that is key tohegwhich is key to preventing nuclear war” isn’t really enough.

CPs: I love topic specific, alternative solvency CPs. The affirmative reads a lot of evidence and more often than not the authors will come up with different solvency mechanisms. CPs thatgooff of this are awesome. Advantage CPs are cool too, especially when they are very specific and the negative can explain the solvency on the CP better than the affirmative on their case. I have read Consults CPs, agents CPs…(anything that steals the plan) and I like them but also believe that they should be germane to the case/topic. Reading Consult NATO against every Affcan lead to a very stale debate. I like theory onthese CPs, especially ones that make “stale education” arguments.

Theory: Condo is probably a good thing but if theaff wins theneg is being abusive with it, I will voteon it. CP theory is good (as stated in the CP section). I will listen to whatever theory you want just make sure it is impacted well.

K: My favorite type of debate and the one I am most familiar with. I have read tons of Ks and heard even more. If you read a new K in front of me, even if you think it is stupid, I will consider voting on it and always LOVE HEARING NEW PHILOSOPHIES. Please show that you know the theory of whatever you are advancing. I will go into some specifics on each part of the K. The most important thing on a K is making it germane to the aff. Don’t just say “they conceded our warming link." It is best when you use examples from history as to why the aff is just another example of x.

-Framework: I am open to both sides. Ks can lead to generic debates but theaffhas to be held accountable for assumptions.

-Links: links that are explained as turns case arguments or separate impacts are awesome. Shows you really know the philosophers. Use examples as I said above.

-Impacts: Just extended them and do impact calc.

-Perms: Theaffhas the potential to be abusive here. I believe that theaff should be held accountable for everything in the 1ac so “severing reps” arguments hold little weight with me. If the other team drops it I will vote on it but give me a reason to. Also, a good perm do both with net benefits to the perm is awesome. If you can explain why the net benefits are good and outweigh any risk of the link I will be very impressed.

-K tricks (serial policy failure, reps first…): Love them. Just impact them well and give examples of how theaff leads to serial policy failure or what not.

Hi Friends,

 

Just a quick paradigm-

-I'm open and willing to vote on anything, but make sure the story is clear. Have questions about what the case is? Ask during CX- that's what its for.

-Impact Calc.- why should I vote for you?

-Speak Clearly- if I can't understand what your saying, your speaker points will reflect it, as well as my flows.

- Time yourselves.

-Keep it simple, and have fun.

(Any specfic questions for me, feel free to ask! :)

Affiliation: University of Houston

I’ve been judging since 2011. As of January 2nd, 2022 I am the third most prolific college policy judge in the era of Tabroom. Ahead of me are Jackie Poapst and Armands Revelins, behind me are Kurt Fifelski and Becca Steiner. Take this how you will.

Yes, I want to be on the E-mail chain. Send docs to: robglassdebate [at] the google mail service . I don’t read the docs during the round except in unusual circumstances or when I think someone is clipping cards.

The short version of my philosophy, or “My Coach preffed this Rando, what do I need to know five minutes before the round starts?”:

1. Debate should be a welcoming and open space to all who would try to participate. If you are a debater with accessibility (or other) concerns please feel free to reach out to me ahead of the round and I will work with you to make the space as hospitable as possible.

2. Have a fundamental respect for the other team and the activity. Insulting either or both, or making a debater feel uncomfortable, is not acceptable.

3. Debate is for the debaters. My job, in total, is to watch what you do and act according to how y’all want me. So do you and I’ll follow along.

4. Respond to the other team. If you ignore the other team or try to set the bounds so that their thoughts and ideas can have no access to debate I will be very leery of endorsing you. Find an argument, be a better debater.

5. Offense over Defense. I tend to prefer substantive impacts. That said I will explicitly state here that I am more and more comfortable voting on terminal defense, especially complete solvency takeouts. If I am reasonably convinced your aff does nothing I'm not voting for it.

6. With full credit to Justin Green: When the debate is over I'm going to applaud. I love debate and I love debaters and I plan on enjoying the round.

Nukes thoughts:

The amount of time, reading, discussion, and even writing I have dedicated to American and International nuclear strategy is hard to overstate. Please treat this topic with respect.

The standard argumentative thoughts list:

Debate is for the debaters - Everything below is up for debate, and I will adapt to what the debaters want me to do in the round.

Aff relationship to the topic - I think affirmatives should have a positive relationship to the topic. The topic remains a center point of debate, and I am disinclined to think it should be completely disregarded.

"USFG" framework: Is an argument I will vote on, but I am not inclined to think it is a model that best suits all debates, and I think overly rigid visions of debate are both ahistorical and unstrategic. I tend to think these arguments are better deployed as methodological case turns. TVAs are very helpful.

Counter-plan theory: Condo is like alcohol, alright if used in moderation but excess necessitates appropriate timing. Consultation is usually suspect in my book, alternative international actors more so, alternative USFG actors much less so. Beyond that, flesh out your vision of debate. My only particularly strong feeling about this is judge kick, which is explained at the bottom of this paradigm.

Disads: I have historically been loathe to ascribe 0% risk of a link, and tended to fall very hard into the cult of offense. I am self-consciously trying to check back more against this inclination. Impact comparison is a must.

PTX DAs: For years I beat my chest about my disdain for them, but I have softened since. I still don't like them, and think intrinsicness theory and basic questions of inherency loom large over their legitimacy as argumentation, but I also recognize the role they play in debate rounds and will shelve my personal beliefs on them when making my decision. That said, I do not think "we lose politics DAs" is a compelling ground argument on framework or T.

Critiques: I find myself yearning for more methodological explanation of alternatives these days. In a related thought, I also think Neg teams have been too shy about kicking alts and going for the "link" and "impact" (if that DA based terminology ought be applied one-to-one to the K) as independent reasons to reject the Affirmative advocacy. One of the most common ways that other judges and I dissent in round is that I tend to give more credit to perm solvency in a messy perm debate.

Case debate: Please. They are some of my favorite debates to watch, and I particularly enjoy when two teams go really deep on a nerdish question of either policy analysis or critical theory. If you're going down a particularly deep esoteric rabbit hole it is useful to slow down and explain the nuance to me, especially when using chains of acronyms that I may or may not have been exposed to.

Policy T: I spend a fair chunk of my free time thinking about T and the limits of the topic. I used to be very concerned with notions of lost ground, my views now are almost the opposite. Statistical analysis of round results leads me to believe that good negative teams will usually find someway to win on substance, and I think overly dramatic concerns about lost ground somewhat fly in the face of the cut-throat ethos of Policy Debate re: research, namely that innovative teams should be competitively rewarded. While framework debates are very much about visions of the debate world if both teams accept that debate rounds should be mediated through a relationship to policy action the more important questions for me is how well does debate actually embody and then educate students (and judges) about the real world questions of policy. Put differently, my impulse is that Framework debates should be inward facing whereas T debates should be outward facing. All of that should be taken with the gigantic caveat that is "you do you," whatever my beliefs I will still evaluate warranted ground arguments and Affirmative teams cannot simply point at this paradigm to get out of answering them.

Judge Kick: Judge kick is an abomination and forces 2ARs to debate multiple worlds based on their interpretation of how the judge will understand the 2NR and then intervene in the debate. It produces a dearth of depth, and makes all of the '70s-'80s hand-wringing about Condo come true. My compromise with judge kick is this: If the 2NR advocates for judge kick the 2A at the start of 2AR prep is allowed to call for a flip. I will then flip a coin. If it comes up heads the advocacy is kicked, if it comes up tails it isn't. I will announce the result of the flip and then 2AR prep will commence. If the 2A does this I will not vote on any theoretical issues regarding judge kick. If the 2A does not call for a flip I will listen and evaluate theory arguments about judge kick as is appropriate.

Online Debate Thoughts:

1. Please slow down a little. I will have high quality headsets, but microphone compression, online compression, and then decompression on my end will almost certainly effect just how much I hear of your speeches. I do not open speech docs and will not flow off of them which means I need to be able to understand what you’re saying, so please slow down. Not much, ~80% of top speed will probably be enough. If a team tries to outspread a team that has slowed down per this paradigm I will penalize the team that tried for said advantage.

1A. If you're going too fast and/or I cannot understand you due to microphone quality I will shout 'clear'. If after multiple calls of clear you do nothing I will simply stop flowing. If you try to adapt I will do the best I can to work with you to make sure I get every argument you're trying to make.

2. I come from the era of debate when we debated paper but flowed on computers, which means when I’m judging I will have the majority of my screen dominated by an excel sheet. If you need me to see a performance please flag it for me and I’ll rearrange my screen to account for your performance.

3. This is an echo of point 1, but it's touchy and I think bears repeating. The series of audio compressions (and decompressions) that online debate imposes on us has the consequence of distorting the high and low ends of human speech. This means that clarity will be lost for people with particularly high and low pitches when they spread. There is, realistically speaking, no way around this until we're all back in rooms with each other. I will work as hard as I can to infer and fill in the gaps to make it so that loss is minimized as much as possible, but there is a limit to what I can do. If you think this could affect you please make sure you are slowing down like I asked in point 1 or try to adapt in another way.

4. E-mail chains, please. Not only does this mean we don't have to delay by futzing around with other forms of technology but it also gives us a way to contact participants if (when) connections splutter out.

5. The Fluffy Tax. If during prep or time between speeches a non-human animal should make an appearance on your webcam and I see it, time will stop, they will be introduced to the debaters and myself, and we shall marvel at their existence and cuteness together. In the world of online debate we must find and make the joy that we can. Number of times the fluffy tax has been imposed: 3.

6. Be kind. This year is unbelievably tiring, and it is so easy to both get frustrated with opponents and lose an empathetic connection towards our peers when our only point of contact is a Brady Bunch screen of faces. All I ask is that you make a conscious effort to be kind to others in the activity. We are part of an odd, cloistered, community and in it all we have is our shared love of the activity. Love is an active process, we must choose to make it happen. Try to make it happen a little when you are in front of me.

Samantha Godbey, PhD

Director of Debate

West Virginia University

Debaters please send speech docs here: wvucoaches@gmail.com I only check this email at debate tournaments.

If you would like to contact me, not during a debate tournament please email at SamanthaEGodbey@gmail.com.

A note about my education-I started as a novice in 2004 (fossil fuels)- debated through college mostly in CEDA Northeast. My PhD is in Political Science, in particular my dissertatation is on the American public policy process in the area of human trafficking policy. I also have comped in International Relations and Comparative Politics- I have never taken a communications class in my life. All of that means literally nothing except that there are pretty good odds I have not read whatever it is you are reading (policy or k lit). It is your job to explain it to me and pursuade me, not assume that I already know what you are talking about.

How I feel about arguments

I want you all to do whatever it is you do best/ enjoy the most. There is nothing I won’t listen to/ vote on. I really like offense. It is very persuasive to me. I feel as if that is what I look for when I am making my decision at the end of the round, I also like when debaters tell me how they won. I don't like having to look for those reasons/ decide which is most important myself.

Im not crazy about judge intervention, I do my best to come in to every round as tabula rasa as possible. It is your responsibility to persuade me in one way or another to get my ballot.

I believe that I am extremely flow centric (unless you tell me not to be), also seems like I should note that I flow what you say not what is in your speech doc. I wont have your speech doc open at any time unless I am reading cards at the end of the debate. So, if its said in the round, it'll be on my paper. The round is therefore decided by my flow (again, unless told otherwise).

I vote for who wins the debate, I find all types of arguments persuasive from critical to straight up policy. I don't care what you do, just do what you do best (and impact it).

I also think it is worth noting in framework debates that though I have, and I'm sure will in the future, vote on fairness being an impact to framework, I do not find it very persuasive. I am much more into topic education, roleplaying government good, TVAs, switch side education good, etc being a reason why debate should conform to certain guidelines (i.e. framework).

Benjamin Hagwood, Director at Vancouver Debate Academy

About me - former college policy debater, flow-centric, like all arguments but the politics DA (Elections gets a pass)

Debate is a game that can be played in a multitude of ways. It is the responsibility of the students to determine the parameters of the games and to call "foul" if they think someone has done something abusive. I will judge the round as it happens. Here are a few things about me that you might find useful when preparing for a round:

1. Flowing - I do my best to have as accurate a flow as possible while trying to capture but the context and citation of your arguments. Dropping arguments could be detrimental if your opponents extend and weight those arguments properly.
2. Observer not a Participant - I won't do work for you or insert myself into your debate. You will win OR lose based on the arguments in the round not my person opinion.
3. Style over Speed - swag is subjective - bring yours.
4. Petty but not Disrespectful - don't be unnecessarily rude to your opponent - but I must admit being petty is strategic.
5. Challenges - if you challenge someone and lose the challenge you lose the debate (this could also apply on theory debates depending on the debate - but not RVI's)

Universal Speaker Point Adjustments: all students are evaluated on their level. A 29 in novice is not the same as a 29 in open. 28 is my base for completing all your speeches and using all your speech time.

1. Wear a bowtie (+.5 point)
2. Be entertaining (tell jokes...if I laugh...you get points...if I don't you won't be punished) (+.5 point)
3. Be rude (-.5 point)
4. Don't use all your time (-.5 point)
5. Steal prep (-.5 point)

If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me and ask. Students may request my flow and written feedback at the end of the debate if they want. I will only share it with the students in the round unless they consent to the flow being shared with other opponents.

Heather Holter Hall

Hallheather8@gmail.com

Salem and Tallwood High School Debater 1990-93

Liberty University Debater 1993-96

Liberty University Assistant Debate Coach 20+ years

 

I love this activity and I look forward to meeting you.

For novices:

Congratulations on being at a debate tournament! I like debates with a few pieces of quality research that you can explain well plus some smart logical arguments. You should focus on good explanation of arguments and on getting better at flowing.  Putting lots of extra pieces of research that you have never read before into your speech is a waste of your time. I would much rather hear you explain research that you understand, compare that research to your opponent’s research and arguments, and tell me why the plan is either a good or bad idea.  The most important comparison in the debate you can make is to tell me whose impacts are bigger, come first, or are more likely. 

I will flow what is spoken in the debate, not the speech document. You should highlight and read complete sentences. I do not count sentence fragments as arguments.

If it is an online debate, please make sure you SEE or HEAR me on the camera before you begin your speech. Please say out loud when you are done with prep time and post how much you have left in the chat. When you say prep time is done, you should be ready to email the speech document immediately. 

For everyone else:

I have spent the majority of the last 20 years coaching novice debate.  I also judge a lot of novice and jv debates. This means that I am not deep into the lit base for most arguments. My days are full of explaining and re-explaining basic debate theory. You should view me as someone who loves learning something new and the debate as your opportunity to teach me. If you want me to assess arguments based upon previous in-depth knowledge of a particular lit base, you will probably be very disappointed. I love the strategic use of each student’s scholarship but get me on the same page first.

Likewise, the theory debates I am used to judging are pretty basic. I would love to hear a well-developed theory debate at a high level, but you will need to slow down, give full warrants, and not assume that “lit checks” means the same to me as it does to you.

About preferred types of arguments—smart strategy with good support that is clearly communicated usually wins. I prefer consistent, thoughtful strategies with a few well developed arguments, but, sadly, I have voted for negatives who won simply by overwhelming the 2AC with skimpy highlighting of 7 off case positions.

I have voted for everything, but I do not judge alternate formats of debates often so you will probably want to slow down, make well developed arguments, and assume I do not know. As long as I am judging and there is a win to assign, my main assumption is that every team is playing the game, maybe in different ways, but still just playing the game. I can only make decisions based on words or actions in a particular debate. I will not begin to speculate about another person’s motive or intentions--that is a job for someone else.

I will flow what is spoken in the debate, including cx.  I will reference the speech doc, BUT if I can’t understand your words or if the words you say do not make grammatically complete sentences, they won’t make it on my flow and only my flow counts. Likewise, if you are hedging the debate on a warrant buried three sentences deep in the fourth card by Smith, you will need to say more than “extend Smith here.”  The more concrete and specific your warrants are, the more likely you are to persuade me.

If it is an online debate, you need to SEE or HEAR me on the camera before you begin your speech.  Yes, this has happened more than once lol.  Don’t steal prep—it is obvious and annoying.

Feel free to strike me. I am not offended at all if you think I am not a good judge for you. Hopefully, I still get a chance to meet you at a tournament and chat.

Finally, I hope you all have a great tournament, learn new things, think deeply, speak well, meet fascinating people, and win lots of debates (unless you are debating my teams)! Have fun and please say hi in between debates!

 

Michael Hall - Updated 9/15/22

Liberty University

28 Years coaching

Upfront, you should know that I've only judged a handful of debates over the last two years and those were intrasquad practice debates Second, I've developed slight hearing loss that makes it harder for me to pick out voices when there's background noise.

For the email chain: mprestonhall@gmail.com

The comments below reflect how I'm likely to things left to my own devices, but I do my best to evaluate the debate on the arguments made in the round.

Theory: I am not tabula-rosa. Minimally, each argument should contain a claim, some support (evidentiary or otherwise), and an impact. That said, I do my best to minimize my substantive preferences and therefore find myself voting for positions I don’t particularly like. I attempt to use the decision calculus most persuasively advocated by the debaters.

Topicality: I tend to see topicality as a contest of competing interpretations. I probably vote on T more often than most judges and have no problem voting against "core affirmatives" when the negative has a superior interpretation of the topic. I'm most easily persuaded to vote on T when the negative team develop arguments based on a comparison of ground offered under each interpretation of the resolution. I tend to find in-round abuse arguments less persuasive as its hard to determine whether the negative should have a right to those arguments without first establishing a coherent division of aff/neg ground. I am usually more persuaded by arguments about the quantity and quality of affs allowed by each interpretation and the negative's ability to access a core set of negative arguments. Topicality is by nature exclusionary.

Counterplans: I enjoy debates with creative counterplans tailored to specific affirmatives. The affirmative should be prepared to defend the entirety of the plan, and plan inclusive counterplans are one way of making them do so.

I’ve found myself voting against conditional counterplans a little more often in recent years, which I attribute to the quality of the negative’s defense of conditionality rather than a change in my CP leanings. If the negative justifies the conditional nature of the counterplan, other theory arguments are reasons to reject the counterplan not the team.

The text of the counterplan and all permutations should be written out. Trying to win a perm that doesn’t include all of the plan or that contains action not contained in the plan or counterplan is nearly impossible.

Kritikal Debate: I've found myself becoming much less dogmatic about the need for affirmatives to have topical plan texts. I don't know if I can pinpoint why, but I think it's partially due to conversations with various Liberty coaches and debaters and partially due to my own reading interests gravitating more toward critiques of the enlightenment and religious critiques of capitalism. I can certainly be persuaded to vote negative on framework but debaters should no longer assume it’s a hard default.

I don't think much has changed about the way I evaluate negative K strategies. Like any other part of the negative strategy, the more you tailor your link arguments to the affirmative in question, the more likely I am to find your arguments persuasive. Likewise, an overview that details how the kritik turns the affirmative’s solvency, outweighs the case, etc. would be more helpful than several more impact cards.

Style: Given what I wrote in the first two sentences, this is section of my philosophy almost certainly the most important for you remember during the debate. Things you should know in descending order of importance: (1) I am a better critic for those who collapse the debate in the block and 2NR than for those who go for most of their 1NC arguments into the 2NR. (2) I am a better critic for debaters who emphasize clarity over speed. I’ve found this to be especially true in paperless rounds where everyone in the debate except for the judge is reading along with the speech doc. Again, my hearing isn't what it used to be making the need for clarity even more important. I’ll give you verbal and nonverbal signals if I can’t understand you. (3) I have come to the conclusion that the more evidence I read, the less my decisions have reflected the arguments made by the debaters. As a result, I try to read fewer cards after a debate and am more easily persuaded to see a debate through the lens that allows me to do so. (4) If you think an argument is important, find a way to set it apart from the rest of the debate.

Prep time: Prep time stops when the speech doc is emailed.

I am a graduate of NYU working currently as a paralegal.  I did not compete in intercollegiate debate but had several policy format rounds on-campus.   Last year, I became involved in debate as a result of a policy debate class I took.  I heard a lot more traditional policy rounds than I did critical or performative rounds so I'm more familiar with those but if you tell me how to evaluate your arguments I will listen and do my best to adjudicate.  This will be my first tournament judging ever so here are a few tips to make it better for all of us:

 

1.   Slow it way down:  I have not flowed in months so I'm a bit rusty.  If you want me to follow your arguments, your best choice is less is more.  I'm willing to write down your arguments but I can't write them down or include them in my decision if I can't understand them.

 

2.    Be careful with terminology.  Both healthcare terms since I haven't judged much and policy debate terms because I may not be familiar with your word choices even if I would understand the concept.

 

3.    Be nice to your opponents.  Debate is an intense, wonderful activity.   There's no reason to mar it with rudeness or demeaning comments to your opponents.        

 

Good luck!

Debater for NYU for four years. I've since graduated and only judge/assist with rounds a few times a year. As a result, note that I am not living and breathing the topic like the rest of you!

The main thing you should do in debate is have fun!

But if you're competitive too, here's what you should know about how I judge:

I vote on a mix of tech vs. truth. I vote based on the flow and the way you frame the debate/what my ballot means in the rebuttals. However, if I don't know what your arg is before the rebuttals, I won't evaluate it i.e. no sandbagging. Be responsive to other teams' arguments and give a roadmap. Spreading is fine. However please be mindful - If you're fast, project and enunciate, it's all good. If you're fast and have no clarity or a very low volume, you're in trouble. Slow down on your overviews and analytics. What I hear is what's on the flow. If you want something flagged, tell me to flag it. If you're going to a new sheet, say so. If you want me to understand a crucial point, sit on it. If you go acronym crazy, you might lose me. If you're playing any music/video/other media, it's in your best interest that I can hear you over whatever you're playing. Don't cut cards. Mark cards sparingly. Know the difference.

Theory, T and Framework can be voters if you give legitimate reasons why they should be. I will vote on Ks of Theory, T or Framework, but you MUST HAVE A COUNTERINTERPRETATION. ROBs are self-serving when you assume saying "role of the ballot" creates an automatic d-rule. ROBs are good when you tell me why yours specifically is good. This means having warrants as to why I should vote on the round that way.

For folks who decide to forfeit ballots to have an open discussion/forum in lieu of a formal round - you will not convince me to stay for the discussion. This is because I do not agree with such teams. Yes, there is an educational benefit to having open discussion, but these don't have to happen in lieu of debate rounds. I think most of us in this activity can agree there is an educational benefit to debate rounds for BOTH teams - including when a team doesn't feel they have a "winning" strategy or complete understanding of the other team's arguments. On top of that, forfeiting poses the losing team as the martyr of the round and the winning team as the sole authority on a specific issue. To me, that's not right. Main point: other educational methods can happen on your own time.

Args that will place you on an uphill battle to convince me:

• Our ROB is to vote for us (as stated above)
• Args not clarified until the rebuttals (sandbagged args)
• This "ism" is the root cause of all "isms"
• Sweeping solvency claims
• "We don't know/can't tell you what X will look like but we're advocating for X"
• Links of omission

Timing is on you. You don't have to count flash drive time but don't be obnoxious. Don't steal prep. I will not pause time if your speech has already started (except if there are serious issues, including tech issues within reason). Don't be disruptive during the other team's prep (even pre round prep). Be respectful to the other team, but especially to your partner.

John Katsulas, Director of Debate, Boston College
30 years coaching

Here are the rules for debate:
1) The affirmative side must advocate a plan of action by the United States Federal Government. If you merely read poetry, dance, or play music, you will lose.
2) The negative side must defend a consistent policy position in the debate. The negative may choose to defend the status quo, or the negative may advocate an unconditional counterplan.
3) Topicality is a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue.
4) Conditionality is prohibited.
5) The resolution is worded as a policy proposition, which means that policy making is the focus of debate.
6) Kritiques are not welcome.
7) Performance-style debate belongs in theatre productions.
.
Here are suggestions for debating in front of me:
1) The affirmative side has huge presumption on topicality if they can produce contextual evidence to prove their plan is topical.
2) Agent counterplans are fine. Don’t waste your time arguing PICS bad arguments against them. The legitimacy of international fiat is debatable, but I definitely believe there are far stronger arguments favoring limiting fiat to U.S. governmental actors.
3) Politics disadvantages are welcome. I like to hear them. Affirmatives should attack the internal link stories on many of these disadvantages. This is frequently a more viable strategy than just going for impact turns.
4) Both sides should argue solvency against affirmative plans and negative counterplans. Both sides should attack the links and internal links of impacts.
5) If you are incomprehensible, I won’t re-read all of your evidence after the debate to figure out your arguments.
6) Negative can win my ballot on zero risk of affirmative case solvency. Many affirmatives cases are so tragically flawed that they can be beaten by an effective cross-examination and/or analytical case presses.
7) I am very strict on 1ARs making new answers to fully developed disadvantages which don’t change from the 1NC.
8) Cross-examination answers are binding.
9) ASPEC: I won’t vote on it UNLESS you ask in cross-ex and they refuse to specify an agent.
10) Too late to add new links and impacts to your disadvantages during the first negative rebuttal.

I have a low threshold for dismissing non-real world arguments like nuclear war good and wipe-out.

SHORTEST VERSION: THINGS I BELIEVE ABOUT DEBATE

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Good -----|----Neutral Good -----|----Chaotic Good

1AC Plan Texts, ----|----- Case Debate,------|----Performance Debate,

Open Debaters -----|----Novice Debaters----|----JV Debaters

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Neutral ---|---True Neutral------|---- Chaotic Neutral

Topicality -----------|----Counterplans ------|------Dispositionality

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Evil -------|----Neutral Evil ------|-----Chaotic Evil

Framework args ---|----Standard Nuke ----|----- Baudrillard

from 1996 that ----|---- War Disad

say no K's

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SHORT VERSION:

You are prepping and don't have time to read everything, or interpret. So this is the stuff you most need to know if you don't know me :

1) I run The New School program. The New School is in the Northeast, around the corner from NYU where I actually work full time. (CEDA has Regions, not Districts. The NDT and the Hunger Games have Districts.) I care about things like novice and regional debate, and pretty much only coach for resource poor programs. You need to know this because it affects how I view your ETHOS on certain "who are we" arguments.

2) Email: vikdebate@gmail.com. Skip the rant below about want/need to be on chain.

3)SLOW THE HELL DOWN, especially ONLINE. I flow on paper. I need PEN TIME. I am not reading along with the doc unless the connection gets bad or I have serious misgivings.

4) Do what you need to do to make the tech work.

5) Do what you do in this activity. Seriously, especially in novice, or on a panel, you are not 100% adapting to me, so change how you debate those things a bit maybe, but not what you debate. To help with that:

6) Yes, my threshold for "is there gonna be a nuclear war" is WAY higher than it is for "what we talk about in the debate round going to affect us personally". I will vote on the wars, but I don't enjoy every debate about prolif in countries historically opposed to prolif. That isn't "realism" - that's hawk fetish porn. So if this IS you, you gotta do the internal link work, not read me 17 overly-lined down uniqueness cards.

7) I am more OFTEN in K rounds, but honestly I am more of a structural K person than a high theory person. Yes, debate is all simulacra now anyway, but racism and sexism - and the violence caused by them - ARE REAL WORLD. Your ability to talk about such things and how they relate to policies is probably one of your better portable skills for the modern world in this activity.

8) Performance good. Literally, I have 2 degrees in theater. Keep in mind that it means I am pretty well read on this as theory. All debate is performance. (Heck, life is performance, but you don't have time for that now...). My pet peeve as a coach is reading through all the paradigm that articulate performance and Kritikal as the same thing. It.Is.Not. Literally, it is Form vs. Content.

9) Winning Framework does not will a ballot. Winning Framework tells me how to prioritize or include or exclude arguments for my calculation of the ballot. T is NOT Framework (but for the record I err towards Education over Fairness, because this activity just ain't fair due to resource disparity, etc, so do the WORK to win on Fairness via in round trade offs, precedents, or models.)

10) Have fun. Debate can be stressful. Savor the community you can in current times.

PS: I am probably more flow focused than you think, BUT I still prefer the big picture. Tell me a story. It has to make sense for my ballot.

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Previous Version

The 2020 Preamble relevant to ONLINE DEBATE:

1) Bear with my tech for September for the first round of each day - I work across multiple universities and I am still sorting out going across 3 Zoom accounts, 5 emails accounts, and 2 Starfish accounts for any given thing. Working from home for 6 months combined my day-job stuff into my debate stuff, so I may occasionally have to remember to do a setting. This is like the worst version of a Reese's peanut butter cup.

2) Look, it would be great if I COULD see you as you debate. I am old - I flow what you say and I don't read along with the speech doc unless something bad is happening (bad things include potential connection issues in 2020, concerns over academic integrity/skipping words, and you don't actually do evidence comparison as a debater when weighing your cards and theirs). I don't anticipate changing that in the online debate world. But also, tech disparity and random internet gremlins are real things (that's why we need so many cats in the intertubes), so I ALSO understand if you tell me the camera is off for reasons. That's cool.

3) Because of connections and general practices - SLOW DOWN. CLARITY is super important. (Also, don't be a jerk to people with auditory accommodation needs as we do this). Trade your speed drills for some tongue twisters or something.

4) Recording as a back up is probably a necessary evil, but any use of the recording after a round that is shared to anyone else needs explicit - in writing, and can be revoked - permission of all parties present. PRACTICE AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT. See ABAP statement on online debate practices.

5) I have never wanted to be on the email chain/what-not; however, I SHOULD* be on the chain/what-not. Note the critical ability to distinguish these two things, and the relevance of should to the fundamental nature of this activity. Email for this purpose: vikdebate@gmail.com .

(Do not try to actually contact me with this address - it’s just how I prevent the inevitable electronically transmitted cyber infection from affecting me down the road, because contrary to popular belief, I do understand disads, I just have actual probability/internal link threshold standards.)

((And seriously Tabroom, what the F***? First you shill for the CIA, and now you want to edit the words because "children" who regularly talk about mass deaths might see some words I guarantee you then know already? I was an actual classroom teacher....debate should not be part of the Nanny State. Also this is NEW, because the word A****** used to be in my paradigm in reference to not being one towards people who ask for accessibility accommodations. ARRGGHHH!!!))

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Things I am cool with:

Tell met the story

Critical Args

Critical Lit (structural criticisms are more my jam)

Performative strategies - especially if we get creative with the 20-21 format options.

CP fun times and clever intersections of theory

A text. Preferable a well written text. Unless there are no texts.

Not half-assing going for theory

Case debate

Reasonability

You do you

Latin used in context for specific foreign policy conditions.

Teaching Assurance/Deterrence with cats.

Things that go over less well:

Blippy theory

Accidentally sucking your own limited time by unstrategic or functionally silly theory

Critical lit (high theory … yes, I know I only have myself to blame, so no penalty if this is your jelly, just more explanation)

Multiple contradictory conditional neg args

A never ending series of non existent nuclear wars that I am supposed to determine the highest and fastest probability of happening (so many other people to blame). You MAY compare impacts as equal to "x number of gender reveal parties".

Not having your damn tags with the ev in the speech doc. Seriously.

As a general note: Winning framework does not necessarily win you a debate - it merely prioritizes or determines the relevancy of arguments in rounds happening on different levels of debate. Which means, the distinction between policy or critical or performative is a false divide. If you are going to invoke a clash of civilizations mentality there should be a really cool video game analogy or at least someone saying “Release the Kraken”. A critical aff is not necessarily non Topical - this is actually in both the Topic Paper for alliances/commitments and a set of questions I asked at the topic meeting (because CROSS EX IS A PORTABLE SKILL). Make smarter framework arguments here.

Don't make the debate harder for yourself.

Try to have fun and savor the moment.

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*Judges should be on the chain/what-not for two reasons: 1)as intelligence gathering for their own squad and 2) to expedite in round decision making. My decisions go faster than most panels I’m on when I am the one using prep time to read through the critical extended cards BEFORE the end of the debate. I almost never have the docs open AS the debaters are reading them because I limit my flow to what you SAY. (This also means I don’t read along for clipping … because I am far more interested in if you are a) comprehensible and b) have a grammatical sentence in some poor overhighlighted crap.) Most importantly, you should be doing the evidence comparisons verbally somehow, not relying on me to compare cards after the debate somehow. If I wanted to do any of that, I would have stayed a high school English teacher and assigned way more research papers.

Judge Philosophy

Conflicts: UGA, Emory University, and North Broward

Email: Brianklarmandebate@gmail.com - Yes, put me on the thread. No, I won't open all of the docs during the round and will likely ask for a doc of cards I find relevant at the end.

2024 Updates:

I am not a fully time debate coach. I am working with the UGA & North Broward debate teams part time.

I am someone who believes tech > truth. However, I do not look at cards during debates, so if your arguments are not clear by explanation/flowable tags/very clearly read card text, they are not "tech" that is on my flow. My favorite debates involve strategy (think: creative "cross applications," argument that are "good because the other teams can't read their best answers," etc). I enjoy a good theory debate (conditionality, solvency advocate, perms, politics theory arguments, etc.) and I would prefer that debates have some depth by the end of the negative block.

College - Assume I know things about the topic, but have not cut cards on it in the past year. I have had conversations with debaters/coaches and am very familiar with nuclear strategy. My knowledge of the college topic extends to knowing: assurance, deterrence, IR Ks, military process CPs*, and anything that would have been read on the past college exec power/military presence/alliance topics. I have written many iterations of both ICBMs and NFU affs & negs.

*If you are going for a T argument or process CP, keep in mind that I could not tell you the wording of the resolution off of the top of my head, so any arguments related to grammatical construction of the resolution might require you explaining with another sentence or going a bit slower. I am under the impression that the topic is pretty small and the negative ground is pretty good, so make sure to impact your limits (or "functional limits")/ground arguments

High School - I have had very little interaction with the current topic. I cut a number of cards on UBI in the past, but I know very little about the other parts of the topic. I did not teach at a debate camp. I have judged a handful of rounds and they were almost all on capitalism or race Ks. I am under the impression that the "core" negative arguments are some combination of States, Politics, "Redistribution" PICs, and Ks about the economy; I assume that the "core" affirmative arguments are all related to the economy and inequality.

2021 Post-NDT Updates:

(1) "X Outweighs Y" - If the 2NR/2AR does not start with some version of this (or include this elsewhere), I will almost certainly vote the other way. I don't super care how you say it, but if you are unwilling to say that the impact you will win is more important than the impact the other team will win, things aren't going well.

(2) T & Theory - I seem to like them more than everyone else I judge with. Go for conditionality bad! I don't necessarily think it is true but never seem to hear 2NC or 2NR blocks that have great offense or impact calc. After judging on a slew of panels, I realize that I am more likely to be into technical theory & T arguments then others. I also tend to expect complete arguments in the 1NC/2AC/2NC (theory needs warrants, T needs the necessary defense and offense).

(3) Tech > Truth - I feel like I have said this a number of times, but I realized that I think this more than others (or at least more than people that I judge with). A "bad" disad has high risk until/unless answers are made. This also has made me amenable to voting on some not great disads vs. planless affs just on the basis of 2ACs lacking necessary defense.

(4) T vs. Planless affs - I have found that I tend to vote affirmative when something is conceded or answered completely incorrectly. I tend to vote negative when the negative goes for a limits/fairness impact and responds to every argument on the line by line. I tend to find myself confused about the relevance of all arguments that the content of the resolution is either good or bad. I feel like I find my voting record to be like 50/50, but I haven't done the math.

(5) Decision making process - I tend to read less cards then others who I judge with. Not because I am against reading cards, but because I only read evidence to resolve questions in a debate. If you want me to read cards (which you likely do), make them relevant.

(6) Points - At the NDT, my points were about .1-.2 below everyone else on every panel. I plan on upping my points by .1-.2. That said, I don't give great points.

2020-2021 Updates - Online Judging: Judging online is difficult - a few implications:

(1) Ask if I am in the room / paying attention before you start speaking. Non-negotiable. "Brian, are you ready?" or "Klarman, are you here?" or anything that requires me to respond. I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

(2) Clarity matters more - I don't usually follow along in the doc and I am unlikely to read cards from both teams if one team is significantly clearer. On a related note, organization and numbering can help a lot with clarity because it tells me what arguments to expect.

(3) Technology skills matter - Emails should be sent out on time. If you are taking "no prep" for the 2AC, 1NR, etc. I assume that means the doc is sent and we are ready to go. I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time and makes concentration harder.

(4) Interesting arguments help keep attention and boosts points - I am really trying to flow and get everything down. I flow CX. I line up arguments. I am more aggressive than most about the flow. That being said, staring at the computer for the 3rd or 4th round of the day is very difficult. I will do my best. I find flowing very important because it lets the debaters do the debating instead of me deciding what I like. That said, online it is taking me a little more energy to focus. I've found when I hear arguments that I either haven't judged before, things I haven't blocked out, or even a new explanation, I tend to think the debate is more interesting which helps points & engagement. I really do love debate, so if you are excited, I will be too. On the other side, if this is the 9th time i am hearing the same school read the same block (and this could be Politics, T, Fairness bad, Deterrence or a K) with no emphasis at the same tournament, its hard to focus.

(5) Internet issues - they happen, I get it. They might happen to you, they might happen to me. I've heard best practice is to have some backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules, follow those. Otherwise I will likely just ask tab what to do if this happens. I'm open to other ideas of how to deal with it. Please please please have one (or all) debaters look to make sure the judge hasn't gotten booted from the room.

2020-2021 Updates - Other:

(1) Points - I think my points average around 28.5. I usually don't go under 28 unless something has gone wrong. If you get a 29.3 or 29.4 that is very good. I'm willing to go above that, but mostly when I hear something and am like "wow, that was memorable. I am going to try to tell people who I coach/teach in lab/judge to do things like this in the future."

(2) I often decide debates by (1) determining what I need to decide (2) looking through my flow for if it is resolved and then (3) reading cards if necessary. I'm unlikely to read a card (for the decision) to figure out something that the debaters never made clear. That said, I am happy to talk about some card or look through your evidence to give advice after the debate if you want - I tend to think debate is collaborative and we should all make each other better.

(3) I miss theory debates - this is the thing I have thought the most about, this is how I debated, and I just think its fun. I don't like "pointless" theory, but if you can convince me that something is the debate in the literature and predictable - from process CPs to T arguments to even spec arguments - I'm happy to hear it. That said, if you make your theory argument intentionally blippy ("ASPEC, they didnt, its a voter") I won't care.

I also left my old paradigm up here, but I think it mostly says: I did more "DA/CP/T" stuff than "K" stuff, I am familiar with "K" literature about race/gender/biopower/cultural studies, I like specific strategies, good case debating always impresses me, and I am very particular about the flow.

Old Stuff:

Preferences: I don't really care about what argument you make. I tend to think bad arguments will lose. The debate things I think about the most are counterplans and topicality arguments. That being said, I cut everything and coach everything. I feel like I mostly judge K debates where no one agrees about anything at this point. In those, I generally am familiar with that set of arguments (I am completing my MA in cultural studies, focusing on questions of race & gender) but not how to fit them into a debate. I tend to be very comfortable with how DAs, CPs, T arguments, and case fit into debate, but I tend to do weird research so I might not know what all the technical stuff of the CP is. That also means that the purpose of a K argument (or answer to the purpose) might require more explanation than the purpose of another argument. The things I think you actually need to know about me are below. I tried to lay out what I do in most debates while they are happening and afterwords and be as honest as possible.

Flowing: I will try to flow every argument in the debate. I expect that debaters will be doing the same thing. I could not possibly care less what the speech doc says or if you are "skipping a card" in the doc (that being said, I would like to be on the chain because I like glancing at cards after debates & trying to learn more about the topic/have informed discussions after the debates; also if you are doing some super annoying thing in the doc just to mess with the other team, I will likely be upset at you when I realize that in the post round/give points). When I flow speeches that set up argument structure (1nc on case, 2ac on off case), I will attempt to number the speech and will give higher speaker points to 1ns and 2as who set up that structure themselves (as well as be able to better understand their arguments; the 1nc that makes 4 analytics in a row without numbering is basically unflowable which means when the 2ac drops something I won't care). In subsequent speeches, I will go by the order of those numbers and will attempt to find what you are answering before I flow what you say. This means that if the 2nc starts on 2ac 4, I will mostly likely miss the first few arguments trying to figure out where to flow it (unless they say "2ac 4 - X - here's our answer" which would just be easily flowable but I might be confused about why the 2nc started on 2ac 4). If the 2nc starts on 2ac 1, I will not have an issue flowing. If the negative block (or 1ar) decides that the order is irrelevant, I am likely to be very grumpy; it is hard to vote on technical concessions or other things if the flow gets ruined and it makes it hard to tell a 1ar "you dropped X" when the block does not answer 2ac arguments. In addition to initial numbering, I will be able to better understand later speeches if you give me some idea (probably by number or argument) where the thing you are extending is on my flow. If you would like to only extend an impact turn or thumper or some no internal link argument in the 1ar that is 2ac 9 on my flow but don't tell me that you are starting at 2ac 9, it is going to take me a minute to find it on my flow. If, however, the 1ar goes to a flow and says "2ac 9 - they dropped X - here's what it is and why it matters" I will be able to immediately find it on my flow (it is easier to find numbers than exact arguments on a flow).

CX: I love CX. It is maybe my favorite "speech." I often try to flow it or take some notes at the least. That means you should pick words carefully in CX. I will especially try to write down anything about the advocacy and frameworks for evaluating debates (meaning metrics for thinking about things, which is not always how debate uses the word). CX can be fun even when teams get heated, but when CX is just people yelling at people and it is clear that people are more upset than enjoying things, I tend to lose interest. I like when people answering questions are honest, explain things, etc. I sometimes have the docs open and if we are having a fight about some card, I will look at it. I am not yet entirely comfortable with this, but if I miss the answer to a question, I may re-ask for the answer after the timer (I will do this with things like status or clarification, I don't think I will with other things yet but I might). I am also not comfortable interrupting CX to say things, but if someone is intentionally saying something that isn't true to answer clarification questions or refusing to answer clarification questions I may do so. If I make any definitive judgement about these things, I will try to update my philosophy again.

Look at me: I do not have a good poker face. I'd recommend looking for expression or other gestures. When I cannot flow people, I tend to look very confused. Same when an argument is bad. When I think an argument has already been explained and/or you are saying things that aren't arguments, I tend to sit there with my pen on my paper waiting for you to say something that needs to be flowed.

How I make a decision: At the end of the debate, I try to figure out what arguments are going to decide the debate (there tend to be 1-3), parse those out, and figure out what happens from there. It is generally better if debaters tell me what those things will be either on the line by line or in an overview (this is the only reason I could really imagine having an overview unless it is to explain some super complicated thing). I tend to think the best speeches are the ones that both identify these key points, explain why they win and then what happens if they win those key things. If there is no discussion of key points (either implicit or explicit), it is highly possible that I will try to find a few points that are key and then explain my decision from there (I determined this argument was probably the most important, here's how I evaluated it, here's why it deals with lots of other stuff). Any decision like that just makes me grumpy, especially because it always ends with the judge CX forever about why I decided this way and my answer tends to be "I didn't know how else to decide"

Speaker points: I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I understand this entire speaker point thing. I think my points might be a bit low. I don't plan on just raising them; if you need higher points I get that I might not be the judge for you. At the moment, I don't think that raising points just to raise them is a great idea because it eliminates a lot of range and variation in points that I think signal improvement for debaters and help communicate about the debate. I might revisit this later on if people want. I don't really know what an "average" speech looks like. If I had to try and articulate some made-up scale, it would probably look something like this: if the speech you gave was the best it could have been and/or basically won you the debate, its in the 29.3+ space. If the speech kept things going and helped a bit but not as much as it could, its in the 28.7+ range. If the speech was fine but didn't have much value value, I tend to think its in the 28.2+ range. If the speech wasn't good and didn't help much, it in the 27.5+ area. If the speech is bad, we are in the like 27 or even 26.8+ range. I don't think I've given many points lower than 27 and if I did, something must have gone very wrong. I tend to find most speeches between that 28-29 range. I think I average in the low 28s but I don't really know or care. Only a few speeches have just crushed the debate for me. I tend to have a lot of issue judging debates when I feel that all the speeches were about 28.2s or something and I have to give people different points. I think my default is to make the thing I think the top end or top middle (so if it was 28.2, maybe i'd give 28.3-28 to everyone). That being said, I think I am more willing to use high range in points based on speeches. I am also happy to add points for well used CX, good numbering, clarity of cards and highlighting (like if I can understand all the warrants in the evidence while you are reading), partners who work well together and make each other look good (I think basically every bold move in debate could be characterized by the 2nr/2ar as a big mistake or a big efficiency gain; if you can convince me that the 1ar under-covering the DA was to trick them to go for it, I will likely think the 1ar choice was smart and hence deserves better points, same with other speeches), etc. If people have a better way of doing speaker points, I am happy to talk about it.

Do not: Clip cards, lie, use something out of context, or do anything else unethical. These will result in loss of speaker points or loss of rounds.

For the email chain: kozakism@gmail.com

I am the former founding Director of Debate at Rutgers University-Newark and current Speech and Debate Coordinator for the Newark Board of Education.

I do not have any formal affiliation with any school in the City of Newark. I represent the entire district and have been doing nothing but competing, teaching, coaching, and building debate for the last 22 years. I have judged thousands of debates at almost every level of competition.

I am in the process of rewriting my judge philosophy to reflect my current attitudes about debate better and be more helpful to competitors trying to adapt. The one I have had on tabroom is over ten years old, and written in the context of college policy debate. I apologize to all the competitors in the many rounds I have judged recently for not being more transparent on Tabroom.

Do what you do best, and I will do my best to evaluate arguments as you tell me.

I will keep a slightly edited version of my old philosophy while I work on my new one, as it still expresses my basic feelings about debate.

If you have questions about my judge philosophy or me before a tournament, please email me at ckozak@nps.k12.nj.us.

You can also ask me any questions prior to the debate about any preferences you might be concerned about. Good luck!

Old
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My judging philosophy/preference is simple. Make arguments. That includes a claim, a warrant, and why your claim matters in a world of competing claims. I don't have an explicit judging "paradigm," and to say that I am a tabla rasa is naive. I am going to split the difference and just explain to you what kinds of arguments I am familiar with.

I debated the K for most of college. I value nuanced Ks that are well-explained and applied to a specific context. I like original thinking in debate and will try to adapt to any performance style you wish to present in the round. Just be aware to all teams when debating framework on these issues that I do not consider appeals to "objective rules" persuasive in the context of determining debate norms. Debate is a rare activity in which students can define the conditions of their education. I take this aspect of debate very seriously. This does not mean I am hostile to "policy debate good" arguments; it just means that I am holding both teams to a high standard of explanation when evaluating framework arguments.

I was mostly a traditional policy debater in high school, so I am very familiar with the other side of the fence. I love an excellent straight-up policy round. Give me all your weird counterplans and ridiculous disad scenarios. I am a current events junkie and find that form of debate extremely valuable. I enjoy speed; but I have a hard time flowing quick blips analysis (who doesn't?). If you just make sure you pause for a breath or something between arguments, I will get everything you need me to get on my flow.

It may sound like I have a lot of "biases," but I do honestly try to evaluate arguments exactly as debaters tell me to. These preferences mostly come into play only when debaters are not doing their jobs.

Avoid having to adapt to me at all, and just tell me what you would like my preferences to be, and we will be good.

I welcome you to ask any specific questions you may have about my philosophy before the debate, considering I don't have much of an idea about what to put in these things, as I found most judge philosophies deceptive as a competitor.

I judge rounds based on the best debating in the round, not in favor of or opposition to any particular argument in the round. While rounds may have real impacts, the ballot goes to the winner of the debate (the team that does the best debating).

The best way to earn my ballot is with good argumentation, and analysis in the rebuttals. I expect the final two speeches to make it clear how to view the round position by position if necessary. I want you to explain the cross application, not hope that I can find it on my flow. I want you to explain how arguments interact and why they do so favorably for you. I don’t vote for the best evidence or even the best positions, but the better argumentation. That means explain your positions, and if I’m reading your evidence after the round, it is either for my own curiosity, or to verify that it says what you claimed it said. It is not to say, “This is the best card and explains the position.” I also have a preference for a few strategic arguments that interact well rather than many arguments that lack internal consistency, though I can vote on either.

On traditional ‘policy’ debates I am also more impressed with tight internal link stories rather than huge impacts on the probability x impacts calculus. A clear and more probable story will beat a muttled and improbable huge impact story, but I do require you to make this point in round. Please explain that the greater probability means more risk despite a lower impact (I do hold the bias that risk=probability x impact). I hold no inherent theory assumptions except that fairness and education are real (I think debate is an activity that is competitive and educational).

On traditional ‘K’ debates I prefer internal consistency. You will not lose my vote if you link to your own criticism, but I am unlikely to give it the same weight if you do. This is magnified for the affirmative, since negation theory grants the negative some leeway for internal inconsistency.

On more holistic and critical arguments, I tend to also widen my judging philosophy more holistically. I will not be offended or upset by any arguments on either side since debate is a competitive game. That being said, real world violence (verbal or otherwise) will not be tolerated (keep the debate about ideas, not about actors). That is not to say arguments about social position are not valid.

I have not preference on speaking style. I will flow what is clear. If not clear, I will say so, then put my pen down (if my pen is down, I'm not taking notes). Speaker points will be a function of quality of speech (regardless of speed) and quality of argumentation.

In conclusion, I will judge the debate in round. While I have been out of the activity for about a decade, I think you can trust me to be a fair critic. I hope you get as much out of the activity and the community as possible. I am certain you have and will put more into it than you expected initially. Good luck.

Director of Debate at Riverdale Country School.

Participated in policy debate

HS- late 90s

College 2000-2018

Coached Public Forum

2000-now

Open to most arguments.

Please ask questions.

Yes. I do flow.

Yes. I do vote on Theory or T.

Yes. I do vote on Kritiks.

Hi, I'm Andre and I was a 4 year debater for George Mason. Short version big pitcture, I care about framing. 2NR's/2AR's should give brief instructions of how I should vote. Give me something to filter arguments in the debate through, the less work I have to do to reconstruct the debate the better. Ethos matters. 

Topicality: Always a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue. I default to competiting interpretations. I see Topicality as an issue of community norms. Teams should explain what kinds of debates their interpretation facilitates and a robust explanation of caselists that exist under their interpretation. Reasonability should have an explanation of what functional limits exist.

DA: Always cool. Overviews help. Does the disad turn the case? Does the link determine uniquness? I prefer smart arguments over a ton of evidence, although if a slew of evidence is necessary for your politics DA at least give me some framing for how I should evaluate that evidence in the round. Impact framing is crucial. 

CP: I will not kick a counterplan unless explicitly told to do so in the 2NR. Affs should frame solvency deficits as it pertains to each of their advantages. International fiat and process based counterplans are probably unfair. 

Case Debate: Love em'. I think they are an underutilized weapon in debate. A 2NC that is 9 minutes of a case debate will get a healthy boost in speaker points. 

K: I will be very annoyed by a barrage of buzzwords and author names. Explanation is paramount. Links should be based on concrete examples from the affirmative such as lines from their evidence, their mechanism etc. The alternative is very important in these debates. Sell me what the world of the alt looks like, how the alt generates unique competiton from the aff and how the alt resolves the links and impacts to the K. Impact turns to the K are always welcome. If going for the permutation, the more detailed the explanation of the world of the perm and how it resolves specific links, the better place the Aff will be. Counter perms just aren't a thing. 

Framework: Affirmatives should have some relation to the topic, though that does not necessarily mean that a plan has to be read. I prefer nuanced impacts to framework. These debates should be an explnation of competitve model of argumentation and how the skills garnered from the model of education/sepcific topic education outweigh/turn the Aff. What core gorund is lost? How is that ground necessary for the development of certain skills/education? Likewise, Aff counterinterpreations should have explanations of how they solves Framework's theoretical offense. 

Theory: Please slow down when going for theory in front of me. Two non-contradicotry conditional position is generally okay. Three is pushing it. Four is just asking me to drop you on condo. 

General things: If I can't hear you clearly in a debate, I will yell "Clear" twice. Please be respectful of your opponents and your partner. Please don't cheat. I will generally not vote on language K's as long as an apology was issued unless someone was blantaly racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic etc. 

Speaker Points Scale:

30: Life changed

29.5-29.9: Easily one of the best speeches of the tournament. 

29-29.4: Excellent speeches. Deserves to get to deep outrounds and get a high speaker award. 

28.5-28.9: Good speeches. Deserves to clear and get a speaker award. 

28-28.4: Average speeches. 

27.5-27.9: Meh speeches. Defintely room for some improvements. 

27-27.4: You didn't really make an argument past the 1AC/1NC.

Below a 27: You probably did something really offensive in the round.

If you have any specific questions, email me at andremassa8@gmail.com. As always, have fun and yay debate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

General: Be sure to explain how specific args on the flow should affect my overall evaluation of the debate. In many debates, both teams have offense on different pages of the flow after the final speeches. When this occurs, comparing your impacts to those of your opponents is critical, as is explaining the relevance of these impacts to my decision. The 2NR/2AR should compare the world of the affirmative to the world of the negative. 

Cross-X: I view answers in cross-X as binding unless told otherwise. Feel free to be funny if you can, but don’t be rude, and there is a fine line. 

Topicality/Procedurals: Negatives going for topicality should provide specific examples of ground that they lose and why that ground is important. Generally, quality of ground (on both sides) is more important than quantity of ground. 

“Nonpolicy” affirmatives: I am open to affs that do not defend a specific policy action; in fact I hear them quite frequently. Negatives going for framework need to impact their arguments beyond just “fairness” and “education.” As with any other debate, both sides should engage in impact comparison. 

Counterplans: I’ll listen to just about any counterplan you want to run. I tend to lean negative on most counterplan theory questions, although I don’t find claims of “aff side bias” very persuasive. I can be swayed to vote aff on theory if the negative does not specifically justify their type of strategy. For example, if the negative reads a critique and a counterplan that links to the K, the affirmative can make arguments as to why contradictory positions are uniquely bad. In this case, the negative should justify not only conditional positions, but conditional args that link to each other. Teams should be clear on what the different CP statuses entail. Does conditionality mean that the status quo is always an option when I make my decision, or does the negative have to make a decision in the 2NR? If dispo means that the aff can make you go for the counterplan by straight turning it, then what constitutes a “straight turn?” I assume that permutations are tests of competition unless told otherwise. 

Disads: The more case-specific the better. Direction of the link is key; if the aff wins the entirety of the link direction, I view this as at least terminal defense for the aff, even if the negative is winning the uniqueness question. If you’re going for a d/A in the 2NR, weighing is always important. While timeframe is still important, I view probability and magnitude as more essential factors in the decision calculus. 

Kritiks: Impacts! Negatives running critiques often focus too heavily on the link level, forgetting why the K is important. That said, specificity of links to the aff is still key when answering permutations. Be sure to explain the way I should evaluate the implications of the K against the impacts of the aff. An analysis of the role of the ballot is helpful. It helps to have an alternative, but if you can win that the K functions as a case turn, you don’t necessarily need an alt. For affirmatives: don’t let your case go away when answering a critique; be sure to extend the 1AC. Aff framework args are more powerful as substantive rather than theoretical questions. That is, “critiques are cheating” is not a compelling claim, but the aff can use framework args to instruct the way I should evaluate different types of impacts. Oh, and please don’t make “aff choice” one of your framework args. 

Good luck and have fun! 

I am a former Army West Point Debater, 2016 JV/Novice National Champion, 2017 and 2018 NDT Participant, and three-time CEDA DoubleOcta Finalist.

I graduated from West Point in 2019 and have stayed connected to the community.

I will listen to Ks or Policy; just make sure it's warranted. Ultimately, my flow will determine who wins the round, so being efficient and orderly would be beneficial. I flow cross-ex. I enjoy, in the last rebuttals, each side telling me what to look for when determining who wins the round in the overview.

I enjoy good K debates, as I am a K debater! I am very familiar with black studies.

With that being said, whether or not it comes down to methodology or framework debates, it is up to the debaters to explain their evidence.

I won't connect the arguments for you and I expect to hear great articulations to win my ballot. Impact Calculus is always good.

I may or may not vote on T; depends on the answered and unanswered questions.

Speaker Points vary starting at 25. Not in favor of jerks, love comedy. PLEASE make me laugh :)

If you really want me to hear something you say, slow down and tell me so I can flow it. Remember, slow and steady can win races too.

Ks:

ROB is crucial. It is a framing question of how I should view the round. Explain your link story, how it turns the aff, how your alt functions (EXPLAIN your alt-give me something to weigh with the aff and its impacts of the aff), and how it interacts with the aff. If not, i'll have to vote on "perm solves, case outweighs" and other aff solvency claims. For aff, explain what the perm is and what is wrong with framework or whatever. Both sides: Make sure to interact with the other team's evidence. NOT generic blocks.

CPs:

Counterplans are okay. AFF should make any theory arguments that apply.

DAs/Case:

Disads should apply to the AFF. If it is a tricky disad, explain it. Trickiness does not win rounds if I don't understand. Always try to answer case.

Performance/Non-Traditional Debate:

You should explain why your performance is important, how it relates to debate, the resolution, the other team, and me. Don't just dance, sing, play tracks, or whatever and expect me to vote for you.

Theory:

Make your arguments as needed.

Current as of 19 March 2018

Currently inactive in policy debate as I finish my MA. Moving into a PhD program in political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will probably become active again sometime in the fall at local/regional tournaments, depending on time and capital constraints.

FOR COLLEGE TOURNAMENTS: ukydebate@gmail.com

FOR HS TOURNAMENTS:devanemdebate@gmail.com

My name is Devane (Da-Von) Murphy, and I'm the Associate Director of Debate at the University of Kentucky. My conflicts are Newark Science, Coppell High School, University High School, Rutgers-Newark, Dartmouth College, and the University of Kentucky. I debated 4 years of policy in high school and for some time in college, however, I've coached Lincoln-Douglas as well as Public Forum debaters so I should be good on all fronts. I ran all types of arguments in my career, from Politics to Deleuze and back, and my largest piece of advice to you with me in the back of the room is to run what you are comfortable with. Also, I stole this from Elijah Smith's philosophy

"If you are a policy team, please take into account that most of the "K" judges started by learning the rules of policy debate and competing traditionally. I respect your right to decide what debate means to you, but debate also means something to me and every other judge. Thinking about the form of your argument as something I may not be receptive to is much different from me saying that I don't appreciate the hard work you have done to produce the content"

***Emory LD Edit***

I'm a policy debater in training but I'm not completely oblivious to the different terms and strategies used in LD. That being said, I hate some of the things that are supposed to be "acceptable" in the activity. First, I HATE frivolous Theory debates. I will vote for it if I absolutely have to but I have VERY HIGH threshold and I will not be kind to your speaker points. Second, if your thing is to do whatever a "skeptrigger" is or something along that vein, please STRIKE me. It'd be a waste of your time as I have nothing to offer you educationally. Another argument that I probably will have a hard time evaluating is constitutivism/truth testing. Please compare impacts and tell me why I should vote for you. Other than that, everything else here is applicable. Have fun and if you make me laugh, I'll boost your speaks.

DA's: I like these kinds of debates. My largest criticism is that if you are going to read a DA in front of me, please give some form of impact calculus that helps me to evaluate which argument should be prioritized with my ballot. And I'm not just saying calculus to mean timeframe, probability or magnitude but rather to ask for a comparison between the impacts offered in the round. (just a precursor but this is necessary for all arguments not just DA's)

CP's: I like CP's however for the abusive ones (and yes I'm referring to Consult, Condition, Multi-Plank, Sunset, etc.) Theoretical objections persuade me. I'm not saying don't run these in front of me however if someone runs theory please don't just gloss over it because it will be a reason to reject the argument and if its in the 2NR the team.

K's: I like the K too however that does not mean that I am completely familiar with the lit that you are reading as arguments. The easiest way to persuade me is to have contextualized links to the aff as well as not blazing through the intricate details of your stuff. Not to say I can't flow speed (college debate is kinda fast) I would rather not flow a bunch of high theory which would mean that I won't know what you're talking about. You really don't want me to not know what you're talking about. SERIOUSLY. I will lower your speaker points without hesitation

Framework: I'm usually debating on the K side of this, but I will vote on either side. If the negative is winning and impacting their decision-making impact over the impacts of the aff then I would vote negative. On the flip side, if the aff wins that the interpretation is a targeted method of skewing certain conversations and wins offense to the conversation, I would vote aff. This being said I go by my flow. Also, I'm honestly not too persuaded by fairness as an impact, but the decision-making parts of the argument intrigue me.

K-Affs/Performance: I'm 100% with these. However, they have to be done the right way. I don't wanna hear poetry spread at me at high speeds nor do I want to hear convoluted high theory without much explanation. That being said, I love to watch these kinds of debates and have been a part of a bunch of them.

Theory: I'll vote on it if you're impacting your standards. If you're spreading blocks, probably won't vote for it.

Please include me in your speech doc thread. My email is johnfnagy@gmail.com

If I am judging you online, you MUST slow down. I will not get all of your arguments, particularly analytics, on the flow. You have been warned.

I enjoy coaching and judging novice debates. I think the novice division is the most important and representative of what is good in our community. That being said, I opposed and still oppose the ADA Novice Curriculum Packet. It's an attempt by some in the community, who don't even have novice programs, to use the novice division to further their vision of what debate "should" look like. I don't like that.

I really like judging debates where the debaters speak clearly, make topic specific arguments, make smart analytic arguments, attack their opponent’s evidence, and debate passionately. I cut a lot of cards so I know a lot about the topic. I don’t know much about critical literature.

Framework debates: I don’t enjoy judging them. Everyone claims their educational. Everyone claims their being excluded. It’s extremely difficult to make any sense of it. I would rather you find a reason why the 1AC is a bad idea. There’s got to be something. I can vote for a no plan-text 1AC, if you’re winning your arguments. With that being said, am not your ideal judge for such 1AC’s because I don’t think there’s any out of round spill-over or “solvency.”

Topicality: Am ok with topicality. Competing interpretations is my standard for evaluation. Proving in-round abuse is helpful but not a pre-requisite. If am judging in novice at an ADA packet tournament, it will be very difficult to convince me to vote on topicality. Because there are only 2-3 1AC's to begin with, there's no predictability or limits arguments that make any sense.

Disadvantages: Like them. The more topic specific the better.

Counterplans: Like them. The more specific to the 1AC the better. Please slow down a little for the CP text.

Kritiks: ok with them. I don’t know a lot about any critical literature, so know that.

Rate of Delivery: If I can’t flow the argument, then it’s not going on my flow. And please slow down a little bit for tags.

Likes: Ohio State, Soft Power DA’s, case debates

Dislikes: Michigan, debaters that are not comprehensible, District 7 schools that cut and paste evidence from other schools and present it as their own without alteration. Do that in front of me and I might vote against you automatically.

Nic D Murphy

The N in Rutgers MN

2017 Crowns United!

navenicole5@gmail.com

First, Energy is essential to me. Everyone must be respectful of the speaker and the participants in the round.

Background-I debated for the St.Louis Urban debate league in high school in college. After that, I debated for Rutgers University Newark. I'm the first Black Woman to win the NDT and Unite the Crowns. I debated primarily in the D3, which means I know the actual structure of argumentation.

Traditional Policy Debate Proper
Speed-Do you, I'm here to support all styles and genres!

T- This is probably one of my favorite arguments in debate, the idea that I can be so petty to review a word or process makes me so happy! The pettier, the better!

DA's-Literally the first negative argument i learned in debate I love Enviorments and Climate change impacts anything with EV and mobility is also interesting to me. Politics obviously should be unique and have solid impacts!

CP's-I believe in condo also the states arent terrible...

K's,K Affs- I love learning new things! Teach me something i DON'T KNOW! I would love to hear the latest authors and see some creativity I find myself bored by some of the K debate thats been happening and think the style is declining and policy is just as entertaining at this point but thats just my take... Who am I ?

K Aff's VS Framework
Beat the procedural and win your impacts, I believe framework is one of the easiest arguments a K Aff can answer but also one of the hardest if your aff doesnt actually do anthing. Make it make sense

LD,PF,Big Questions

I know what's going on and the rules/format of your styles of debate; I have coached students in these formats as well. Remember, you are not in a policy debate. Do not adapt to me... Follow the norms of your event.

I debated for 3 years at Cornell University and Coached for 3 more at NYU while I was in law school. I no longer coach and judge only sparingly, so do not expect me to be well versed in either the minutae of the topic or what arguments teams have been making so far this year.

About debate itself: Debate should be fun. Doing things that make debate less fun will make me sad. Berating someone in c/x, stealing prep, stealing the other team’s evidence, yelling at your partner etc. will be reflected in your speaker points. There is NEVER a reason to yell at or get visibly frustrated with your partner in the round. Sarcastically mocking the other team is okay, but sarcastically mocking the other team’s ridiculous arguments and shoddy research is better and encouraged. If you make me laugh I will give you higher speaker points.

Winning the debate in front of me: Control the meta level issues. Are human rights more important than stopping nuclear war? Should we view ourselves as policy makers? Competing interpretations or reasonability? Education or fairness? Watch me during the debate, if I’m nodding, then I understand what you’re talking about. If I make a face that looks like I’m in a lot of pain, you’ve made a poor strategic choice. I believe strongly in letting you see what I'm thinking beacuse I think it leads you to make smarter choices.

Evidence: I will read it if you tell me to in the last two rebuttals, but make sure you tell me to read the right card. Don’t say after the round, oh I know I said Khalizad but I meant these 10 cards. I also don’t really care about the source unless it’s a question of fact. The DOD card saying there are 2,000 special forces troops in Afghanistan is more credible than the random blogger who says there are 10,000, but if it’s K literature or just an argument, I really only care about the warrant.

My preferences: I will vote against these if you win the argument, I promise, but people want to know anyway, so here it is. I think T should be decided on reasonability, but that an unpredictable interpretation of the resolution may not be reasonable even if it offers plenty of ground. I do think affirmatives should have to be topical, but I won’t interject that into a debate. I love theory and T, I went for them all the time when I debated.

Theory: I believe dispo is okay and that conditionality is cheating, but I also will hold you to a high standard if you go for conditionality bad because I went for it a lot and was pretty good at it. Good pics are good, and stupid pics are bad (says the guy who is responsible for every time Cornell ran the “Iran should be called Persia” CP on the middle east topic). Tell me why their strategy is unfair and/or destroys education, and then tell me why I should care.

A not-so-brief note about counterplan competition: while I’m perfectly fine judging functional and textual comp debates, my personal belief is that a counterplan is competitive if a person or governmental body could reasonably be deciding between the two options. Under this interpretation, pics are competitive, even consult would be competitive (although it might be cheating for other reasons), but international fiat or agent counterplans are NOT competitive. While you’d still have to win this argument in a debate, it’s what I personally believe makes sense. This is because there is no point in debating plan v. counterplan if nobody has the agency to implement both. If there were a cabinet meeting with Obama and his cabinet about some foreign policy initiative, and somebody said, I think the EU should do it instead, they’d be laughed out of the room.Those two policy options could never compete because nobody could ever be deciding between them, so it’s not a competitive counterplan.

The K: I think good K’s are good, and bad K’s are bad. If you can run the exact same 1nc shell every neg round, it’s probably a bad K. I went for Normativity a lot and am very familiar with the literature, but that’s the only K I can say that about. (By the way Normativity is a bad K). I like K’s of capitalism, I think they’re interesting, but I hate Zizek. A lot. Make sure you establish what the Alt does and what the world of the Alt looks like. The more specific the better, both for the link and for the alt solvency. I WILL NOT VOTE FOR SOMETHING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, but I will try very hard to understand.

DA: Good DA’s with specific links are awesome, generics are bad. (there’s a pattern in this philosophy). I am very, very familiar with politics scenarios both in debate and in real life so please do not try to BS your way through one. If you tell me the plan will cause the senate to flip their vote on a bill then I'd like you to tell me the vote count w/o the plan, which senators will flip, and why. If you think the passage of X bill will destroy the economy and lead to nuclear armageddon, you should probably really know what that bill does and why anyone would actually want to pass it. I will vote Aff on defense alone if you’re stone cold winning it, but offense is better. Unless uniqueness is predictive ("bill will pass in the squo") there is not a “risk of uniqueness.” If it's something like "relations with china are good now" you can't win a "risk" of that. You win an argument like this or you don’t, and if you don’t then there isn’t a “risk of the disad.” Bad DA’s can be beaten with analytics alone, and if you’ve overtagged a bunch of evidence and you only read a sentence on each card in the 1NC I’m not giving your argument a lot of weight.

Case: Love it, who doesn’t? Impact turning or solvency turning someone’s case in the 1nc is a great strat that not enough people go for.

Performance: If you are affirmative you should affirm something and that something should be topical. But I actually care more about you affirming something than whether it is topical. I will listen to and frequently vote for arguments about why affirmatives should not have to be topical. I am much less sympathetic to arguments attempting to justify affirmatives that are really just negatives. If you run the same thing on the affirmative and negative then I think you're missing out on the most valuable part of debate. Also if you're performing, I want you to explain why your performance is uniquely valuable in a way that mere words would not be. If at the end of the debate I’m left thinking, “Okay that’s a good argument but why didn’t you just say it, why did I have to sit through your interpretive dance?” your speaker points will suffer.

Go for what you’re good at, not what I like. I’d rather see a good debate on stuff I hate then a bad debate on stuff I love. Debate well, have fun, and good luck!

Joe Patrice

USMA

Paperless Policy:I'm at joepatrice@gmail.com. Or I can do the situational dropbox thing. Whatever. Regale me with your evidence. I don't read it during the round, I just want it all for post-round evaluation and caselist obligations. I still flow based on what you SAY so don't cut corners on clarity just because I have your speech docs in my inbox.

Flowing: Seriously, I’m not reading your evidence during your speech. Why doesn’t anyone ever trust me on this? Did I do something in a past life that makes debaters pathologically incapable of believing me? Anyway, if you’re not articulating your distinct arguments, you’re taking your chances that I’m not getting what you’re trying to put out there. I consider debate to be a contest between teams to communicate to me what should be on my flow and where, so orient your argumentation accordingly.

Everything Else: I characterize myself as a critic of argument, which is the pretentiousway of saying that I listen to everything, but that, all else equal, certain things are more compelling than others.

NOTE: Do not necessarily interpret any of my preferences as bans on any kind of arguments, or even guides to how to select down. It's a threshold of believability issue.

Policy Debates: Compare your impacts, weigh them, and tell me a story of the world of voting Aff vs. voting Neg. I’ll choose the one that’s comparatively advantageous.

I prefer fewer positions withlonger evidence, clearer scenarios, and more analysis of impact probability ratherthan harping on the massive scale of the impacts. If I hear that a slight increase in spending collapses the world economy triggering a nuclear war, you may as well tell me aliens are invading. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll vote on it, but I’ll die a little inside and there’s frighteningly little of my soul left to kill – I’m a lawyer.

I’m not particularly excited about the world of flinging 4 CPs at the Aff and just playing the coverage game. It’s just not the makings of a compelling debate, you know? Pick a lane! And it doesn’t seem especially cool on a topic featuring legal scholars proposing almost infinite specific counter-proposals to research. I’ve got no preferences on CP/Perm theory arguments other than it bugs me that people don't feel compelled to explain the abuse story like they would on T. I do not think the blip "the Perm is severance" is enough to get the job done and if I’m going to vote on it, I’d really prefer if, before the round is over, I can comfortably explain why it severs and preferably a reason why that is uniquely disadvantageous. But given that caveat, I'm more than willing to vote on these args because people all too often don't answer them well enough, probably because they don't know how to flow anymore. NOTICE A TREND!

In other words, if you're going the policy route, you’ll make me so happy teeing off with specific arguments tied to the real academic/policy debate over the subject.

And if you’re reading this harsh criticism of policy debate with a smug look on your face, slow your roll there Kdebater...

Kritik Debates: Kritiks challenge the advocacy of the other team in salient ways that could be lost in a pure utilitarian analysis. Issues of exclusion and oppression ingrained in the heart of a policy proposal or the representations of the other team can be called out with kritiks ranging from simple “-ism” args to a postmodern cavalcade.

It is NOT an excuse to say random pomo garbage that sounds cool but doesn’t bear upon what’s happening in the round. Esoteric ramblings from some dead French or German thinker can – and often do – have as little to do with the debate round as the hypothetical global nuclear wars that have killed us a million times over in this activity. Look, I actually KNOW what most of that garbage means, but that's not a reason for you to not make sense. Make the K relevant to the specific policy/issue discussion we’re having and I’ll be very happy.

Again, I vote on this stuff, but see above about killing me inside.

When it comes to K/Performance Affs, I’m pretty open to however you justify the Aff (metaphorically, as activism, as some kind of parable), so long as deep down you’re advocating that all things equal, “giving rights or duties to the things listed in the topic would be good.” Faint in the direction of the topic and you’re in good shape.

With that caveat, if you outright refuse to "affirm" anything in the "topic," that's all well and good, just be a really good T/Framework debater. I'll vote for a compelling justification — I’ve recently been told that according to Tabroom, I’m almost exactly .500 in K v. Framework debates over the last few years. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds right. Frankly, I'd rather hear "we can't be Aff because the resolution is broken and we'll win the T/Framework debate" than some squirrely "we're not topical, but kind of topical, but really not" thing.

But who am I to judge! Oh right... I'm the judge. Kinda my job.

An honest pet peeve (that I can be talked out of, round-by-round) is that I don't think “performance” means acting out the argument in-round. For example, Dadaism is an argument, not a reason to answer every question with “Fishbulbs!" You job is to sell me that people answering questions with “Fishbulbs” would be good – if you’re doing it in-round you’ve skipped the foundational part.

Topicality: I feel like I've told enough people in enough rounds about this that I'm comfortable putting it here: if you're running this Scalia evidence as a definition of "vest" despite the fact that it is EXPLICITLY not about rights and duties and solely about Article II power or if you're running the "rights are 15 things" from a definition about how the Indian legal system makes distinctions between constitutional rights and statutory legal rights, you're engaged in an act of such intellectual dishonesty that I think I'm willing to vote on that alone if the other team mentions it.

Every time you steal prep time will also kill me a little more inside. But you’re going to do it anyway.

Joe Patten - I make it a point to judge the round based on the evidence provided by both teams, and do not make arguments for teams - in other words, I will vote for teams even if I don't personally agree with their arguments.  I can judge speed, but tend to give higher speaks for debaters who speak clearly.

Email: vl_pavlov@hotmail.com (yea. seriously. it gets my emails to me on time and im not really looking for a change. i know the world uses gmail)

Please add me on the email chain.

NSDA things and thoughts

Ill add tournament specific things as we go through the weekend.

-- PF/LD notes at the bottom. TLDR -- with a couple minor exceptions I view my role very similar to how I judge Policy rounds. IMPORTANT: for PF make sure to have impacts. I find those are underdeveloped a lot of the time in PF. So for example if youre saying the bad thing is CO2 emissions, why is that bad? Are people going to die? Will the environment collapse? That's the next level analysis that I think will be VERY helpful to get my ballot in PF.

-- I have zero thoughts on the topic. I probably did a little coaching at the tournament so I know a little but by no means anything concrete.

-- Debaters get complacent with spreading -- blast through tags, cards and analytics. Dont. Have a clear transition word for tags and on analytics slow WAY down so I can actually differentiate between what argument is being made.

But Vlad, I wont get through my all my arguments!

Ok. I promise you'll still be in an infinitely better position if you do the above adjustments than if youre blitzing through everything.

-- I think I more and more lean away from giving affs the benefit of the doubt on theories of power or models of debate that they endorse. I think when we get to the 2AR and you basically drop and the aff and go for "our theory of power is..." or "our method of debate is..." but never actually warrant out why thats in any way true, my threshold for presumption neg ballots goes waywayway down. This just feels like lazy debating. Not a big fan.

-- I'm in law school now. I think the implication is Ive learned about more and more shitty things in the world and I've learned more and more how engrained institutions are. So what does this mean for debate. I think discussions about reformation of institutions are super valuable and its a shame that debaters generally fall squarely into the camps of "yay state" or "reject all instances of state". Specific criticism of the state and reformation tactics I think are valuable. This isnt to say that if you dont youll lose, in fact I dont think my actual debate judging stances have actually changed...just a thought on the discussions I think would be cool to have.

Side note: If you want to chat about law school, whatever aspect of it youre interested in, feel free to reach out (email or any time at the tournament) Id be happy to chat. Its a big decision so Id be happy to talk to anyone considering it.

Top 'things everyone should be aware of with me judging' level

I debated for NYU for 2.5 years. Most ran policy/soft left affs, but have gone for many things on the neg. Since I've coached and judged on just about every level from Middle School debate to College at the NDT.

A DROPPED ARGUMENT IS ONLY TRUE TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU EXPLAIN IT. The only thing that a dropped argument means you will get 100% of the explanation that you GIVE. It does not mean you get to say 'they dropped X so we get Y argument and we win (the flow/debate).' If anything you should be sitting on the argument for an extended period of time and not 5 seconds. Especially if its a good piece of offense.

I usually wont take any longer then 15 minutes deciding a round. At most. I strongly believe that once I start thinking longer then that I start making connections that were not made in round and end up inserting more of my own thoughts and think about things that I dont have on my flow. My process is mostly limited to the following: I will do my best to vote on the flow, when I look at my flow I look at arguments and warrants made by both teams and how they clash on my flow. If I am able to coherently come to a decision based on arguments and evidence in the round, I will. If there is a block in my decision making I evaluate what is causing the blockage and read evidence to resolve the block. I will refrain from making any extrapolations and building argumentative connections that were not in the round.

**while the above is true, there are two exceptions -- gross misreading and misrepresentation of evidence is a droppable offense EVEN IF the other team doesnt call you out. Other exception is author criticism, specifically if the claim is that authors perpetuate problematic systems, is likely where author criticism will elevate to a voter issue. Otherwise, I THINK its most likely a reason to reject an argument, not the team. I think its important that literature in the debate space isnt written by awful people. If that claim is made, but not super clearly and there is contestation, I might google more about the author to verify who they are. I'd rather make the right decision in regards to authors, rather than keep it within the scope of what was said in round.

Im happy to judge policy v policy, clash of civs and k v k rounds. I will however caution high theory teams against prefing me. While I will vote on it, a lot of high theory K teams seem to rely on a lot of jargon that doesnt mean much to me. (EX. if you framing for the round only extends to the following phrase 'our framing for this round is libidinal economy' that means basically nothing to me). If you want a judge who will hear that phrase and immediately have that mean something to them, in full transparency, you probably should have me lower on your pref sheet. If you are able to give real world examples and implications of your theory to the aff and the world you should be ok, but I do think these are the types of arguments I have the highest threshold for voting on. If you choose not to pref me, fair enough, but if you do get me as a judge dont change what you do best. I will do my best to vote off my flow and stay as objective as possible.

Impact framing makes my life and yours easier especially in clash of the civilization rounds. When in doubt, do it old skool, spell out why you win simply and how your args short-circuits the ability of the other side to access their impacts [too few negs do this and without that step, the 2AR has a lot of ground to play with unencumbered]. If both teams are winning impacts but no one tells me how I should evaluate the impacts it leaves it in my hands which impact is more important and leaves one team feeling sad. This goes for any round.

Timing ends when you tell me it ends. If the email chain takes over a minute to send Ill probably just start running prep again.

I started flowing on computer but I still actually type and im not the fastest typer ever. I also dont EVER just copy and paste things from speech docs onto my flow. This means, especially for rebuttal speeches, that if you make a blippy argument and move on in your speech, dont get offended if I dont vote on it since Im not able to get it down properly as I'll be moving on to the next arguments youre making and trying to get those down. If its a killer argument SLOW DOWN, FLAG IT and SPEND TIME ON IT.Generally a debate is won in the rebuttals by 5 very well articulated arguments, not 40 terribly executed arguments. Focus in on those 5 arguments you need to win and make sure you win them. If your strategy is to make 40 blippy arguments TBH I probably wont flow 50% of them and I certainly wont try to figure out why those arguments win you the round.

Generally Tech > Truth, but if a theory argument is dropped by a team but is just 100% not true I wont vote on it. For example, if the neg claims the aff severed from their aff but thats not the case I will not vote on dropped severance theory.

Affirmative: You do you.

Often times affirmatives get caught up in neg arguments and dont refer to what they are trying to defend. At the end of the debate I want a clear articulation of your affirmative story and what impacts Im supposed to vote on and why your stuff outweighs.

Case Debates: Really enjoy good case debates, unfortunately they dont seem to be very common. Smart analytics and close reading of aff evidence can get the neg far. Yet teams seem scared of going hard on case and feel like they have to win an off case position...you dont. If a team cant defend its aff, by all means, let em have it. Ive voted neg that was 6 minutes of just case in the 2NR. I think a 2NR thats 100% presumption is kinda hard to win. I generally presume that an aff likely does even just a little that I can vote on. Thus, you probably some offense somewhere.

Neg: You do you, and Im fine with voting on it. I think love hearing things that divert from typical strats. Ive gone for anything from DAs, to Ks, to T so Im familiar with a wide range of debates.

DAs: I like them. BUT. DO NOT READ 30 POWER TAGGED CARDS THAT HAVE 4 HIGHLIGHTED WORDS EACH. You've been warned. Generally the Links and internal links are pretty weak in most DAs, so try to have a clear articulation how you get to your extinction scenario. The more clear this is, the more happy ill be to vote on it. Topic specific DAs are cool. A great part of debate is the research and knowledge about the topic that debaters gain. When you read a well thought out DA it shows a great knowledge and effort into the topic.

CPs: Go for it. Im fine with PICS or consult CPs. Have a clear net benefit.

Ks: I think Ks are great and I love judging em. Lately there has been a frustrating trend where debaters have become real lazy with links. 98% of links feel like links to the SQUO and just 'you use the USFG'. I find this to be incredibly lazy debating and makes me sad. I have increasing had a higher and higher threshold for voting on these links. Make of that what you will.

I prefer alts to exist and I prefer that you have real world explanations of how the alt results in something. These are the best and most persuasive alts. Jargon without how it applies to the real world doesnt do it for me. Without an alt, usually I only vote neg when the aff horribly messes up.

FWK: Happy to vote on it. While I ran mostly topical affs, since I stopped debating Ive been coaching more borderline/non topical affs and definitely understand the benefit and necessity of non topical affs. I dont think I have a predisposition for FWK either way. Win the flow, win the round.

Fairness is an internal link, NOT AN IMPACT. Im sure Ive voted on fairness as an impact but I probably wasn't thrilled. Goes for T as well.

T: Especially this year there are some weird plan texts floating around. if its a well thought out violation Ill probably be happy to pull the trigger on it if its well executed.

Performance: Overtime Ive been finding myself judging more of these rounds. While its not something I've ever done and not literature Ive read, as long as you can clearly articulate why your aff is a good idea Ill be happy to vote on it.

Theory: Teams cheat. Ive seen affs in the 2AC sever out of the entire 1AC. Thats probably bad. Thats probably abusive. Theory makes sense. Teams read arguments that are probably unfair. If a team made it hard for you to debate let me know. I might vote on it. These arent my favorite debates to judge, but I also understand that 5 conditional worlds are hard to debate against.

Please dont read violations that didnt happen in the round or REALLY didnt impact your ability to debate at all. New Affs/Non-disclosure bad are uphill battles for me, I heavily lean towards both those things being legit and decent enough debate practices.

Generally becomes a debate of two teams reading blocks of text against each other with 10+ points. Unless one side horribly mismanages this flow it probably wont mean too much at the end of the debate. If you go beyond reading walls of text, and actually make an argument out of the Theory argument you go for, this could become a voter at the end of the debate. Although it seems like its really rare that a deep debate happens on this flow.

MISC THINGS:

1. Dont tell the other team to 'do X (flow, debate, read, etc.) better' and similarly dont say things like 'clearly only one team know what theyre talking about and thats us'. You arent perfect either. Nor am I. Above all else I view debate as an activity to hone vital life skills that debate uniquely promotes. I dont think policy or K or performance debate is any way exclusionary, but I sure do think that 'arguments' that directly attack debaters and their ability to perform in this space are exclusionary and problematic. If this is how you answer CX qs or if this is an argument you think is good, your speaks just became non existent. Im not sure where these types of 'arguments' are coming from but they are popping up and I really hope they get stamped out ASAP. UPDATE: Good news, havent heard this in a while. But just gonna keep this here for a little while longer anyways.

2. In final rebuttals: 3 very well articulated arguments >>>>>>>>>>>> 57 blippy arguments. If you ask why I didnt vote on your 47th blippy argument its probably because I was still trying to process your 28th blippy argument.

3. If I look tired, I probably am. Its also probably not your fault. I also probably just spent all night doing law school work.

Novice Things: If youre a novice and got down this far, congrats. Here are things that if I see in a novice debate your speaks will go up some arbitrary amount.

1. Time yourself.

2. I kinda hate to say it but use your whole speech time. Even if you feel like you said everything you need to say, trust me. You havent. If you feel like youre about to basically just repeat yourself, thats fine too. Theres a chance you might frame or articulate an argument that puts you ahead in the round. Maybe you need to take 30 seconds to think of something to say, thats fine too.

3. Overviews are cool.

4. Less cards, more engaging with the other teams args.

5. 2nrs that go for one off case position. (Or CP with a DA as a net benefit)

PF

My foray into PF has been fairly limited but I found myself evaluating most rounds according to the above. If thats incorrect...sorry. But here are a few thoughts and feelings:

1. I know final focus is short. But that doesnt mean 'we extend our card, that takes out their case' is an argument. If that card does in fact take out their argument, you gotta explain the card. Even if the other team doesnt respond to it, it's your responsibility to make sure I still evaluate it. If you dont explain it, I wont think about it, I wont read your evidence, I wont vote on it.
2. Impacts are cool. I think a lot of speeches, especially in the final focus forget about actually explaining why things matter. So what if the economy gets better under your resolution? I urge you to think about the broader implication of your impact, are there deeper issues that youre solving?

LD

I judge a tournament or two in LD a year. So far I havent found the need to evaluate these rounds any differently than Policy rounds. But I suppose here are just a couple thoughts:

1. I dont know what a trick is, but Ive been told by other LD people and coaches that I would hate them. So unless its absolutely necessary I will default to those coaches whom I trust. Lets keep me ignorant of what tricks are.
2. A couple years ago this thing happened where people would read MASSIVE underviews with 25 arguments, and each argument had 4-5 different subparts and decide to blow up dropped underview arguments in later speeches. IDK if it was just a glitch in the LD system or if that a pervasive thing that people do and Ive just been lucky since to not hear that anymore...If that was a weird year, great! We all move on. If thats still a thing and your A-level strategy is to do what I described above -- please strike me. Or if Im judging you I strongly suggest you switch up your strategy for the upcoming round.

About me:

Director of Debate at George Mason University.

Please add me to chain: japoapst@gmail.com

11/26/2023 Speaker Point Update:

I will be utilizing the Regnier speaker point scale

5+ Random Things that Annoy me:

1. Hostility - I am too old, too cranky, and too tired to hear undergraduate students treating opponents, partners, or me like trash. I literally can't handle the levels of aggression some rounds have anymore. Please just stop. Be community minded. You are debating another person with feelings, remember that. Opponents are friends on the intellectual journey you are having in debate, not enemy combatants. Give people the benefit of the doubt and try to practice grace in rounds.

2. Debaters who act like they don't care in debates. If being a troll or giving some performance of apathy about debate is your shtick I am absolutely not the judge for you. Debate is a privilege that many individuals do not have the ability to participate in due to lack of collegiate access or financial well being, and I think we should treat the opportunity we have to be in this activity with respect.

3. Multiple cards in the body of the email.

4. Yelling over each other in cx - everyone will lose speaks.

5. Interrupting your partner in cx - I am seriously close to saying I want closed cx, I am so annoyed at how egregious this is becoming. I will deduct speaks from both partners.

6. Extending Cross ex past 3 minutes. I will actively stop listening in protest/leave the room. Anything past the 3 minutes should be for clarification purposes only.

7. Wipeout, Baudrillard, Malthus, Con Con CPs, Strike 'x' country CPs, trivializing the holocaust, reading re-prints of books from 1995 but citing it as the reprint date, fiating mindset shifts.

Topicality:

The nukes topic is great for the negative and I do not think I will be persuaded on sub-sets arguments against NFU. This topic is too small give the aff a break.

If cross ex actually checked for specification questions (i.e. "who is the actor" - and they tell you "Congress") - that is the only argument the 2ac needs to make against a 1NC spec argument.

NOVICE NOTE: I think it is ridiculous when novices read no plan affs - do whatever you want in other divisions, but these kids are just learning how to debate, so providing some structure and predictability is something I think is necessary. I err heavily on framework in those debates for the negative in the first semester.

Theory:

Besides conditionality, theory is a reason to reject the argument and not the team. Anything else is an unwinnable position for me. I genuinely do not know how I lean in condo debates. Some rounds I feel like the amount of conditional positions we are encouraging in debates is ridiculous, others I wish there were more. Open to being convinced in either direction.

Counterplans:

Are awesome. The trickier, the better. I’m okay with most of them, but believe that the action of the CP must be clearly explained at least in the 2NC. I don’t vote on something if I don’t know what my ballot would be advocating. I shouldn’t have to pull the CP text at the end of the round to determine what it does. I err to process/agent/consult cp’s being unfair for the aff (if you can defend theory though, this doesn’t mean don’t read them). Also, I think that perm do the cp on CPs that result in the plan can be rather persuasive, and a more robust textual/functional cp debate is probably necessary on the negative's part.

**Delay and consultation cp’s are illegit unless you have a specific solvency advocate for them. Agenda DA Uniqueness cp’s are too – I’m sorry that the political climate means you can’t read your politics strat on the negative, but that doesn’t mean you should be able to screw the aff’s strategy like that. Have other options.

Important CP Judge Kick Note: I always judge kick if the negative would win the debate on the net benefit alone. However, I will not judge kick to vote on presumption. Going for a CP forfeits the negative's right to presumption.

Disadvantages:

Wonderful. Disadvantages versus case debates are probably my favorite debates (pretty much every 2NR my partner and I had). I love politics disads, however, I can be very persuaded by no backlash/spillover answers on the internal link – in so many situations the internal link just makes NO sense. I think there is such a thing as 100% no link and love thumper strategies. Like elections DA's - not a huge fan of impact scenarios relying on a certain party/candidate doing something once they get in office. Think shorter term impact scenarios are necessary.

Kritiks:

2023 update: For the past several years my work with Mason Debate has primarily focused on research and coaching of our varsity policy teams and novices. I am not keeping up with the K lit as I was a few years ago. Please keep this in mind. Everything below is from a few years ago.

I wrote my thesis on queer rage and my research now focuses on a Derridian/Althusserian analysis of Supreme Court rhetoric - but that does not mean I will automatically get whatever random critical theory you are using. Due to who I coach and what I research for academics, I am most familiar with identity theories, biopower, Marxism, any other cultural studies scholarship, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Deleuze. If your K isn't one of those - hold my hand. I think the most persuasive kritik debaters are those who read less cards and make more analysis. The best way to debate a kritik in front of me is to read slower and shorter tags in the 1NC and to shorten the overviews. I find most overviews too long and complicated. Most of that work should be done on the line-by-line/tied into the case debate. Also, debating a kritik like you would a disad with an alternative is pretty effective in front of me. Keep it structured. Unless your kritik concerns form/content - be organized.

Note for policy v K regarding the "weigh the affirmative or nah" framework question - basically no matter how much debating occurs on this question, unless the affirmative or negative completely drops the oppositions' arguments, I find myself normally deciding that the affirmative gets to weigh their aff but is responsible for defending their rhetoric/epistemology. I think that is a happy middle ground.

Critical Affirmatives:

Nukes note: I think the affirmative should *at least* defend that the US' reliance on nuclear weapons for military policy is bad. Some type of critique in the direction of the resolution. Inserting the word "nuclear" or "weapons" into your aff is not enough of a topic relevant claim imo. In general, I believe affirmatives should defend some universalized praxis/method and that deferral is not a debatable strategy.

Overall Framework update: Procedural fairness IS an impact, but I prefer clash key to education. I find it difficult to vote for impacts that preserve the game when the affirmative is going for an impact turn of how that game operates.

Generic Case Update: I find myself voting neg on presumption often when this is a large portion of the 2nr strategy. I recommend affirmatives take this into account to ensure they are explaining the mechanism of the aff.

I find judging non-black teams reading afro-pessimism affirmatives against black debaters an uncomfortable debate to decide, and my threshold for a ballot commodification style argument low.

Individual survival strategies are not predictable or necessarily debatable in my opinion (i.e. "This 1AC is good for the affirmative team, but not necessarily a method that is generalizable). I enjoy critical methods debates that attempt to develop a praxis for a certain theory that can be broadly operationalized. For example, if you are debating "fem rage" - you should have to defend writ large adoption of that process to give the negative something to debate. It is pretty difficult for a negative to engage in a debate over what is "good for you" without sounding incredibly paternalistic.

Overall Sound:

I am partially deaf in my left ear. It makes it difficult to decipher multiple sounds happening at the same time (i.e. people talking at the same time/music being played loudly in the background when you are speaking). I would recommend reducing the sound level of background music to make sure I can still hear you. Also means you just have to be a smidge louder. I'll let you know if sound level is an issue in the debate, so unless I say something don't let it worry you.

Flowing:

I love flowing. I do my best to transcribe verbatim what you say in your speech so I can quote portions in my RFD. I do NOT flow straight down, I match arguments. I most definitely WILL be grumpy if speeches are disorganized/don't follow order of prior speeches. If you ask me not to flow, the amount I pay attention in the debate probably goes down to 20% and I will have mild anxiety during the round.

Your Decorum:

Debate should be fun - don't be jerks or rhetorically violent. This includes anything from ad homs like calling your opponent stupid to super aggressive behavior to your opponents or partner. Speaker points are a thing, and I love using them to punish jerks.

My Decorum:

I am extremely expressive during round and you should use this to your advantage. I nod my head when I agree and I get a weird/confused/annoyed face when I disagree.

<3 Jackie

My default position:
I will judge the debate how you tell me. If I’m supposed to believe that I’m every citizen in America then I will. I really don’t care. Please be clear.


Counterplans:
All cp’s are legit until the aff prove otherwise. Cheat how you feel and the aff should be making as many theory arguments as they can.

Kritiks:
I ran the K for the majority of my college time. Explain your link story, how it turns the aff, how your alt functions and how it interacts with the aff. If not, I’ll have to vote on “case outweighs, perm solves residual links”. For the aff answering the k, be smart please. Don’t just say framework and the perm double bind. Diversify your arguments and cross apply your aff scenarios to mess with the k story.

Non-traditional debate/performance:
Do what you gotta do. I’m in no position to tell you how or how not to debate. However, you probably should explain why your performance is important and how it relates to debate, the rez, the other team, me, etc. Don’t just dance or play a song and expect me to vote for you.

DA/Case:
Nothing wrong with that. If your DA is tricky then explain it. If not, keep it simple and make sure to do the proper impact analysis. In fact, start that asap.

Theory:
Conditionality is probably good. T is probably a voter. However, this and every other theory question is up for debate. Chances are I won’t flow the 6th subpoint on your theory blocks because you’re probably just speeding through it. Slow down and make your arguments as needed.

Speaker points:
Be funny, be smart, and don’t be arrogant. Debates happen too early in the morning for me to have to deal with people’s ego.

I love a well-executed impact turn debate . If you can give me this your speaks will show my joy
 Frame the ballot for me in the 2NR/2AR. Don't just extend a bunch of cards and highlight concessions, but be explicit about why a particular argument or collection of arguments wins you the debate. 
 Evidence quality may become important in close debates but is a secondary concern to persuasion within the debate. This is not to say that I won't read your evidence after the debate because i probably will, but I won't evaluate warrants that are in your cards or make judgments about evidence quality unless they were fleshed out adequately in the constructives/rebuttals.

 

- You should assume that I am not up on the literature you have read. You should not expect me to know every acronym or all the latest developments in your DA scenario, nor should you assume that I understand all of the jargon in your K. Err on the side of ,at least, briefly explaining a concept before jumping into the intricacies of your argument.

 

- Defense can win debates and I have no problem pulling the trigger on presumption. I can be compelled that there is 0% risk of solvency to an affirmative case, or that there is no internal link within a DA. "There's a 1% chance that we're good for the world" is not a sufficient justification unless you provide a reason for why the opposing team's defensive argument is false or simply mitigates your claim (rather than taking it out terminally).

 

- I have a tendency to be somewhat expressive. If I find something stupid happening within a debate, I will likely face-palm, and/or shake my head; if I didn't understand you, I will give you a quizzical look. You should look up occasionally and take hints from the visual cues that I am sending. I won't make verbal interjections within a debate unless you're being unclear in which case i will say clear twice

 

- There is a fine line between being assertive and being rude. Don't cross it. If you don't know the difference, just watch for how I react

 

Some specific concerns:

 

Topicality-- I default to competing interpretations . To make these debates even close to enjoyable for me this requires an explicit list of what specific cases your interpretation permits and why this is beneficial for the activity. As for "Kritiks of T": I tend not to view these as RVIs, but instead as counter-standards that privilege an alternate debate curriculum that is more important than traditional conceptions. Negatives that plan on defending T against these criticisms should not only maintain that the 1AC does not meet what they view as fair and educational debate, but also need to go into a more specific discussion that impacts why their vision of a fair and educational debate is good and why the negative's alternate curriculum is worse in comparison.

 

Theory-- pretty similar to T debates but the one difference is that I will default to "reject the argument, not the team" unless given a reason otherwise. I have been known to go for cheapshots, but these require fulfilling a high standard of execution (a fully warranted and impacted explanation of your cheapshot, and closing the doors on any cross-applications the aff can make from other flows). Stylistically speaking, slowing down in these debates will help me put more ink on your side of the flow--otherwise I may miss a part of your argument that you find important. Additionally, a well-thought out interpretation and 3 warranted arguments regarding why a particular practice in debate is bad is significantly stronger than a blippy, generic re-hashing of a 10-point block.

 

Straight-up Strategies-- My favorite strategies often involve more than one or more of the following: an advantage counterplan, topic specific DA(s), and a solid amount of time allocated to case turns/defense. I am obviously open to hear and evaluate more generic arguments like politics, dip cap, delay counterplans, and process counterplans if that is your thing, and you should obviously go for what you are winning.

 

K and Performance Strategies-- I enjoy philosophy and have spent a significant chunk of my free time reading/understanding K and performance arguments. My familiarity with this style of debating makes it a double-edged sword. I will be very impressed if you command significant knowledge about the theory at hand and are able to apply them to the case through examples from popular culture or empirical/historical situations. On the other hand, if you fail to explain basic theoretical ideas within the scope of the K or fail to engage particular points of contention presented by the affirmative, I will be thoroughly unimpressed. Similarly, when opposing a K or performance, I am much more interested in arguments (analytics and cards) that not only substantively engage the K but thoroughly defend why your theorization of politics and interaction with the social should be preferred, rather than a generic 50 point survey of claims that are made by positivist thinkers. This is not to say that generic "greatest hits" style arguments have no value, but they certainly need to be backed up with a defense of the conceptual framing of your 1AC (eg, if the negative wins that the kritik turns the case or a no v2l claim, I'm not sure what "predictions good" or "cede the political" does for the affirmative). In terms of a theory/framework debate, I am much less likely to be persuaded by generic "wrong forum" claims but will be more likely to be compelled by arguments pointing to abusive sections of the specific K that is being run (eg, the nature of the alt).

 

It's also important to defend your impacts thoroughly. My favorite straight up affirmatives to read when I debated had big hegemony advantages. My favorite K authors to read are Wilderson (Afro-Pessimism) and other forms of Black liberation startegies. As a result, I am unlikely be swayed or guilted into voting for you if the only argument you make is a moralizing reference to people suffering/dying. This is NOT to say that I won't vote for you if you choose a strategy that relies on these impacts. However if these impacts are challenged either through impact turns or comparisons, I will not hack for you; I require an adequate refutation of why their impact calculation or understanding of suffering/death is false/incomplete and reasons for why I should prefer your framing. In other words, if the opposing team says "hegemony good and outweighs your K" or alternatively, reads a "suffering/death good" style kritik and your only comeback is "you link to our arguments and people are oppressed" without much other refutation, you will lose. When your moral high ground is challenged, own up to it and refute their assumptions/explanations.

 

I debated at Monmouth for 4 years and have coached/judged for the past 3.

I promise to not let any bias come into my judging. Any argument you can think of will be fair game as long as you explain it clearly and carry it throughout the round. That being said, if you have any questions regarding my judging philosophy please feel more than free to ask me anything before the round.

I understand how stressful debating can be. Remember that at the end of the day this is an academic sport, and you're most likely doing this because like me you love and believe in debating. Soon enough you will graduate and wish you were back debating. Make the most out of these experiences and have fun! 

 

 

Kathryn Rubino
USMA
Put me on the chain: kathrynrubino@gmail.com

I dislike intervening in debate rounds. I would much rather apply the criteria the debaters supply and work things out that way. As a result the final rebuttals should provide me with a clean story and a weighing mechanism. If only one side provides this I will default to their standards. If neither side does this, I’ll use my own opinions and evaluations of the round.

Simply put the debate is about impacts- weigh them, their likelihood and magnitude and we’re doing fine.

I think it is the debater’s responsibility to explain the analysis of their cards, particularly on complex positions. However, I recognize the time constraints in a round and will read cards that receive a prominent place in rebuttals. But I do not like to read piles of cards and being forced to apply my analysis to them. As a side note, I rarely flow author names so don’t just extend the author’s name- also be clear to which argument the card applies to.

I’ll listen to whatever people want to say- but you should probably know my dispositions ahead of time. Be warned however, I have voted against my preferences many times and anticipate doing it again in the future.

I like kritik/advocacy debate. That being said, I do not have a knee-jerk reaction when I hear them. Part of what makes kritiks interesting is the variety and depth of responses available. To get my vote here I generally need a clear story on the link and implication levels.

I enjoy framework debates- debating about debate is fun- and as a bonus I don’t think there are any right or wrong answers- just arguments that can be made.

I rejoice the return of topicality! And I have no problem voting on topicality, even if I don’t agree with a particular interpretation, but I do think a T story needs to be clear and technically proficient.

DAs are great, and the more case specific the better. Make sure you have a clear story and try to create distinctions between multiple end of the world scenarios if that's your thing.

I don’t mind listening to PICs or other interesting CPs, and I often feel they’re good way to test the validity of a plan. However, I am open to theoretical debate here and I’m willing to vote on it.

I will vote on the easy way out of a round- I don’t try to divine the ultimate truth of what the debaters are saying. I’m just adjudicating a game- a fun game that can teach stuff and be pretty sweet- but still a game. So enjoy your round, do your job and I will too.

EMAIL lindseyshook@gmail.com

Currently - Director at the University of Oklahoma

Previously – Director at James Madison and Univ. of Central Florida

Way previously – graduate student coach at Univ. of Kansas

Long long ago – debated for the Univ. of Central Oklahoma

BIG PICTURE

My default way of viewing a debate is as follows – I am deciding between hypothetical worlds. In general debates are either about the world at outside of our activity (fiated plans, CPs, and critical advocacies that are about what society at large should do or think or change). Or debates are about debate as an activity (topicality, theory, critical advocacies that are about endorsing or rejecting particular kinds scholarship or argument or forms of presentation).

In either case I assume I am being asked what is the preferrable world? The world where the aff plan is enacted into law? The status quo? The world of debate where everyone meets your version of the topic? The world of debate where no one reads conditional advocacies? Etc.

Arguments that directly challenge this are things like reject the team for reasons of fairness or because they did something problematic. I have and am certainly willing to vote on those reasons but they need to be clear and specific to what has gone wrong in the debate you are in. Ideally not a generic set of reasons (at least by the last rebuttals).

I can certainly be persuaded to understand debate in a different way or to evaluate your arguments from a different perspective but just so you know that is where I start.

OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES

- - A drop matters if you make it matter and if it actually implicates the round

- - I am not offense defense oriented. You can win on defense alone particularly against poorly written advantages and disadvantages.

- - It is hard but not impossible to win you link you lose style debates. You are better off with some version of an alt or a more specific framing argument in front of me.

- - I flow on paper. I can generally keep up with speed but the less you sound like a person reading fast and the more you sound like a robot spitting out random words with no rhythm or cadence the harder it is for my brain to process what you are saying. So if you know you are in the wordwordwordwordwordword spreading habit either slow down a bit or work on getting some normal speech patterns into the reading.

- - I’m old so I try to line arguments up on my flow. This makes me annoyed with overviews and people who don’t do the line by line. I will still flow it but I will try to line things up until I can’t keep up with you and line things up. Then I will flow straight down but it makes my decision take longer at the end so be warned.

SPECIFICS

Case – more case debate is good. Always. In every kind of debate. The more specific and in depth the better. I think that is coldest take in debate at this point.

T – I mostly judge clash debates and I don’t hate judging them or T. If the aff can be used as offense against your topicality argument you would do well to have specific arguments to neutralize that (not all TVAs or do it on the neg etc. are good and having a bad one is a waste of time). You can win fairness comes first. Again it helps to have some specificity about why this round or affs like this one are so bad. I am not convinced affs have to have a counter interpretation to win. Impact turning the neg. interpretation can be enough.

Kritiks – framework against the K from the side of a traditional policy aff is generally meh. You get to weigh your impacts if you win that those mechanisms are good. Util? policy making? Extinction? If those are good things to value when I make a decision win that. Fairness is useless as a standard. They get a K. Stop it. See above for alts are preferable. Floating PICs are generally useless. Most K tricks are tricks for a reason they don’t work in the face of answers. I still have no idea what no perms in a method debate is supposed to mean.

CPs – I love theory and think it is absolutely crucial for most 2As (including critical affs) to help fend off counter advocacies and counter plans. CPs are probably the easiest way to neutralize the aff – I probably care more about how they solve than most judges so more time on solvency deficits in both directions is a good idea.

Disads – great arguments with often terrible evidence and spin. If your ev is bad debate well enough that I don’t have to read it. You are better being honest about your evidence and making up for it with spin and common sense than pretending your cards are amazing only for me to figure out that’s not true.

I am a former policy debater at both the college and high school levels. I debated for Army from 2016-2020 and for Chattahoochee High School in Georgia from 2012-2016. While debating in college, I debated at both the NDT and CEDA as well as a variety of other national tournaments.

I believe in good argumentation but delivery and in-round behavior have an impact on the quality of the argument you deliver.

I do not need to be included on email chains.

Please time your own prep. Please be nice in general and everyone will have a positive, educational experience in the round.

Please do not be disrespectful to your partner or your opponents during the round.

Key things to do are:

1) Speak clearly. Focus on clarity over speed.

2) Have coherent arguments. Every argument should explain exactly how you win the debate.

3) Have fun. If you aren't enjoying yourself, you won't argue well. Be willing to take risks and be confident.

Mick Souders

Director, James Madison University

20th year judging NDT/CEDA debate

micksouders@gmail.com

Updated 11/2/2022

CNTRL F "Short Version" for a summary version.

CNTRL F "Long Version" for rambling long version.

CNTRL F "Critical Identity Team" for full views on that.
CNTRL F "Ethics Challenge" for full views on that.
CNTRL F "Speaker Point Scale" for full views on that

CNTRL F "Procedure Notes" for info about card procedures and humbugs about CX.

*SHORT VERSION*

Debate is game with a very serious purpose: teaching critical thinking, argument and research skills, subject knowledge, and tactical and strategic perspectives. I will take your debate seriously.

-I try to be objective, not neutral. I see job my as evaluating the disagreement in debate using my critical thinking abilities and, if necessary, my prior knowledge and experience.

-Disclosure is a courtesy, not a rule. I will not vote on an argument about a team not disclosing. I will only vote on a mis-disclosure argument if you can show its (a) factual and (b) intentionial.

-The topic is important to promote clash. However, I often vote for non-topical teams because topicality is debate-able and teams arguing for the topic must be able to win the topicality argument.

-I am not likely to be persuaded debate is a bad activity. Criticism of how we debate is different than saying debate is bad.

-I flow on paper. Iexpect debaters to flow/note take and do not think opponents are required to provide pristine speech docs or analytics.

-I do not usually read speech docs during the speech. I read lots of cards after debates/in prep time.

-I believe I am a good judge for a variety of K teams but most K teams disagree. This is probably due to my views on topicality. I think that establishing a negative framework for impact evaluation and alternative solvency are the two most important aspects of winning a criticism.

-I am burden of proof oriented. I expect claims to be supported, not presumed. That means I vote on no risk of a link or no solvency more often than other judges.

-I am not a good judge for self-referential/circular arguments (i.e., 'Vote for what's best for me and I'm the judge of what's best for me').

-CX is not prep time. Prep time is not CX time. I will end CX if you aren't using it. I will not listen to prep time CX. Blow off your CX and see the results in your points.

-I have of views on counterplans and counterplan theory. If that matters to you, see below.

-I often look and sound upset, annoyed or angry but I am actually rarely these things in any meaningful sense. My thinking face looks like an angry scowl. My slightly confused face looks like I'm seriously enraged. My 'slightly annoyed for 2 sec' face looks like I'm about to toss over a desk. Sorry about this. I was born with this face.

*END SHORT VERSION*

LONG VERSION

Mea culpa

I believe that I’m out of step with contemporary debate. I feel it almost every time I judge. It’s not about the type of arguments that are made, it’s about how I judge them. I try to be even-handed and fair to both sides, but compared to most debaters’ expectations: I’m too opinionated about what constitutes adequate support, I’m too willing to dismiss badly supported arguments, I have too high of standards of engagement between two teams, I expect extra-ordinary claims to have at least decent proof, I don’t think repeating a prior block is a respectable extension of an argument even if the other team didn’t respond, I don’t think 2-3 sentences is usually enough to win a major argument. I do think you need to explain the claim, warrant, data for arguments in rebuttals, even when dropped. I don’t think a dropped assertion is necessarily true for the purposes of debate. I will ignore arguments I cannot understand and I have a coherence standards for positions and arguments. I think lots of ‘defensive’ arguments end up being terminal for positions.

Which is all to say that I am probably far too opinionated and interventionist for most debaters’ tastes. I like to think of it as being a principled critic of argumentation, but call it what you will. Does that make me a bad judge? Well, I certainly don’t think I’m what debaters want. I don’t know. But I am this way because I feel like these principles matter and I find them impossible to ignore.

Philosophy

Debate is the kiln in which minds are strengthened into ever better forms. The goal of each debate is not necessarily to find the right answer to a question, but an exploration of ideas and an experiment with concepts, enabled by the unique forum of debate that protects us from the full consequences of the ideas we advocate. It is the freedom of debate which enables it to be so effective. Hence, debate is a political project as well as an educational one. It is a democratic experiment. In it, we exercise our freedom to advocate for ideas—and to oppose them—in the spirit of putting our minds to work on a wide set of problems.

As a judge, I try to evaluate the quality of ideas and argumentation that debaters present. I do not have a preference for policy debate, critique debate, non-traditional debate or whatever any wishes to call their format. I do ask that ideas are presented coherently, cogently, and be well-supported by epistemologically-appropriate evidence.

I do have some argument biases (charted, per others):

Killing/letting die on purpose good--------------------------X--Killing/letting die on purpose bad.
Children are good-X--------------------------------Children are bad.
Ha funny debate only stupidity good!------------------------X-Ha funny debate only stupidity bad!
Topic ------X------------------No Topic.
Conditionality Good--X------------------Bad
ESR good for debate--------------------X---ESR is nonsense.
Offense/defense paradigm yes----------------X----no.
Alt-less Ks yes-----------------------X---no.
Stupid contrived fiat on CPs yes!-----------------------X--no.
Asserting another person has no role in debate: YES good strat-------------------------X---no.
Fairness It's an objective truth--------X--------------------It doesn't exist & we shouldn't consider it.

Here's that in another form.

I tend to dislike misanthropic arguments that ask me to kill people or increase suffering. If you read any argument says people dying is irrelevant, mass suffering is good for people or that children should not exist or be killed, you simply do not want me as a judge.

I tend to dislike arguments that rely on ideas almost everyone knows are wrong or originate out of dubious sources.

I tend to dislike arguments that attempt to stop rather than promote the development of ideas.

I tend to think the concept of a resolution is good and affirmatives should be topical, although I vote for non-topical affirmatives when it seems warranted by the debate (see note).

I tend to err negative on many theory questions, except when it comes to fiat. In that, I believe that international fiat, state fiat, and object fiat are unfair to affirmatives but to be honest these don't seem like voting issues, just reasons the counterplan should be ruled out.

I do not believe your assertion alone constitutes an argument that I am required to respect.

I tend to place great weight on cross-examination.

I tend to dislike arguments or positions that indicate that the other team has no place in the conversation.

I’ll limit how much I inject my own ideas into decisions but I will not prohibit my evaluative skills from the debate. I demand greater argumentative power from what appear to me to be counterintuitive arguments. I try to be reflective about my biases but I will not defer to other persons to make decisions for me.

I fundamentally believe in standards of decency and respectful treatment of colleagues and a sporting attitude toward competition. I understand that debate is serious. I realize that civility is sometimes a policing standard and there are limits to its application. But I persist in believing debaters should be free to make their arguments free from undue personal insults, discriminatory remarks, interruption, intimidation, or slurs regarding their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sex, sexual behavior, religion or socioeconomic standing. I am quite willing to step in and object or refuse to continue to participate in debates in which such activity continues.

Speaker Point Scale (novice doesn't follow this scale):

2021-Present Averages:
Open: 28.49; JV: 28.05; Novice: 28.31

29.5-29.9 Very to extremely high quality speeches that I would consider very good even for Copeland/Top 5 plaque competitors.

29-29.4 Excellent speeches that significantly advanced your team's chances of winning. Good to very good speeches for First Round-level competitors.

28.6-28.9 Above average speeches that I would expect to see out of clearing teams. Good to very good speeches for competitors at the NDT qualifier level.

28.1-28.5 Average to somewhat above average speeches that contributed to your team's chances of winning. Slightly above to somewhat below average speeches for the NDT qualifier level.

27.6-28 Mediocre to average speeches that only moderately advanced your team's position toward winning the debate.

27.1-27.5 Fairly poor speeches that did not significantly advance your teams position in the debate and likely did not sound good.

26.5-27 Poor speeches that had a negative impact on your team's chances of winning.

< 26.4 You did something very insulting and/or turned a near-certain win into a certain loss via your speech

**I am moderately hearing impaired. This should not affect you except that it helps if you enunciate clearly and project your voice. Rooms with echoes or ambient noise pose particular problems for me. If you see me moving around the room to hear, it's not necessarily you, it may be me trying to get a better angle to hear you.

Critical Identity Teams

Originally written in 2014 so maybe out of date. I haven't revised it in quite a while. Most of it still accurate to me even if the language and named arguments are a bit out of date.

I find it a nearly undeniable fact that the growth of critical identity arguments has dramatically increased the inclusiveness of our community in the past ten years. This is meaningful change. So I’m taking the time to write this extensive addendum to my judging philosophy because I think it’s important to recognize that there are terminological differences and stylistic differences in debate right now and I want to help the teams that are helping make our community more inclusive feel more comfortable in front of me.

Teams that make critical identity arguments are widely varied and so I’m reluctant to comment on them (or define them), except that I have noticed that those I think of *provisionally as critical identity teams are sometimes surprised by my decisions (for and against them). After some thought, I think it is because of a certain divergence in the judging pool. Critical identity teams, roughly speaking, share a common judging pool that emphasizes certain things, takes others for granted and has certain expectations. My background in traditional critique and policy debating has emphases and vocabularies different from this pool. In a few decisions that a few teams have not liked, I’ve explained my perspective and it’s sometimes been rejected or received push back and even dismissal. That’s regrettable. I want these teams (you, if you’re reading this) to see me as pointing them to the path to victory with me as the judge and I encourage these teams to see me as an opportunity rather than as a barrier.

So, rather than wait until a post-round to translate my views—which is too late—I’m going to post them here. It’s long, yes, but I put some effort and thought into this.

Overview over, here are my notes:

NEG:

It’s probably true that it’s easier for you to win on the negative because there’s no topical barrier for you. There’s a huge exception to this, noted in the affirmative section. Here’s my hints:

-Argue the alternative. This is the number one point of difference between myself (and judges like me) and the pool of judges I’ve noted above. Winning a link and impact isn’t enough. You’re going to need to focus on extending, arguing, and explaining how your alternative solves your link arguments, how it solves the case and/or how it is the ‘better’ choice in the face of affirmative case arguments. If your alt solves the case, explain how. If it doesn’t solve the case, explain why that doesn’t matter. Your alternative needs to solve the link to the case, because if not, there’s simply no uniqueness to your arguments against the affirmative—they are true whether I vote affirmative or negative. That doesn’t mean that you need to solve the WHOLE link. For example, if the law is fundamentally anti-black, then even if the alternative doesn’t solve the law being anti-black it might provide us with a path to a non-law based perspective or something of that sort. When I’ve voted AFF against critical identity teams, there’s often been a post-round attempt at a gotcha question: “So, you just voted for a law you agree is anti-black/queer/ableist?” And I’ve answered: “No. Voting for an anti-black/queer/ableism law was inevitable because the alternative didn’t solve any bit of anti-blackness/queerness/ableism.” I will say that 90% of the time I’ve come to the conclusion NOT because I evaluated a contested debate about the alternative but because the negative barely extended the alternative or did not do so at all. I'm generally unpersuaded by "reject" arguments without some value to the rejection.

-Argue the case. Affirmatives often solve impacts—and those impacts can outweigh. If you don’t just let that slide, the fact that they CAUSE another impact cannot be easily dismissed. I watched a debate at the NDT where the critical race team just slayed the policy affirmative by reading phenomenal cards that indicating the structural, racist roots of climate change and consumption patterns. It was excellent. However, that doesn’t happen very often. Being anti-queer is bad…but so is climate change that kills millions, particularly vulnerable populations. It’s easier to pick which one I must address first if the chances of the cases chances of solving climate change are either mitigated or critiqued in a fashion that undermines its solvency.

-Frame the impact. A certain group of judges might think that if you win “social death now” that means basically all the impacts of the case are irrelevant. I don’t think it’s nearly that easy. Think of it this way—you, the debater, are often in the population that your argument says is socially dead. Yet I think that your life matters. And I want to stop bad things from happening to you despite your state of partial or total social death. So, you must say MORE than social death. You may explain, for example, that social death perpetually PERMITS radical violence at a constant or increasing rate; that massive real violence is a terminal and immutable consequence of social death. This does not, by the way, mute the entirety of offense gained by an opponent’s policy action, but in combination with a won alternative provides a nice pairing of a systemic impact with strong empirical grounding and very high future risk with a method of addressing that risk. Some framing evidence helps here.

-Fiat is illusory isn’t a real argument (nor is the affirmative argument that the “The plan REALLY happens!”). I get the plan doesn’t happen but it’s a worthwhile thought experiment that enables us to discuss the merits of the plan. I don’t AUTOMATICALLY assume this, but if the affirmative team frames their case as an representative anecdote of how we can learn to engage in politics, or how this kind of debate informs politics, either in general or in specific, I tend to agree that’s reasonable since that is the whole reason I think debate is educational. THUS! The KEY is is not to argue, “Fiat is illusory, they lose on presumption”—which is a bad argument—but to argue that given that they are teaching a BAD politics and that you present a better one. Your better framework may include arguing for the abandonment of plan-based politics.

-Frame the meaning of winning a key premise. To some extent, I find that to be true of anti-blackness or anti-queerness or anti-intersex, etc. If you win that blackness is an ontology and anti-blackness is a political ontology (although, to be honest, I’m not sure I understand what a political ontology is) you’ve won a premise that gets you a long way in the debate. However, you haven’t WON the debate, per se (nor does losing this premise necessarily lose you the debate). If society is anti-black, does that means politics is irrelevant? My presumption is NO. If you are black and live in anti-black civil society, I still presume that it would be better to do things that blunt the force of anti-blackness with ‘liberal’ policies. Now, you have a huge advantage if you win your premise because in a larger sense you’re winning that liberalism is doomed—but you need to make that clear. Finally, you should work at backstopping this argument. I’ve seen teams go all-in on winning queer is ontological without looking at how they could win if they did not win this premise. I saw a team at the NDT nicely win a debate where they lost that blackness is ontological by arguing that even if its socially constructed, its so deeply embedded that it can’t be extracted and that the alternative resolved it best. Well done.

AFF

Most of this is about topicality because once you’re beyond that barrier you’re just in regular debateland and the above guidelines apply.

Topicality

First hint with me on this overall—persuade your opponent not to go for topicality. When negative teams don’t go for topicality against blatantly non-topical teams, I have a ridiculous affirmative voting record. The reasons are obvious: Links and competition are hard to generate when you’re not topical. That’s why topicality is vital for those teams. But let’s ignore that for a moment.

-Topicality: First hint: Be topical. I think it’s possible. I particularly think it’s possible to defend the topic from the outside—I think it’s possible for queer victims of police violence to argue police who harass queers should be arrested by the state without being or endorsing the state. I think you can be topical and argue that you shouldn’t need to answer process arguments. As the coach of repeated, successful topical K teams I don’t think topicality automatically means role-playing in the strong sense. I also think these debates are essential. Surely it can’t be the case that all critical identity positions of value require non-topicality and I’m very interested to hear the ways critical queer, race, gender, intersex values can be met with a topical plan. ***HOWEVER, if you have me as a judge and you’re NEVER topical, it’s probably a bad idea to just toss a plan in. It’s bad because you haven’t thought through how to defend yourself against arguments.

-Ok, so you’re not topical. Let’s talk about my presumptions on that. The main barrier for you here is that I don’t believe that any state action 100% pollutes any action. That doesn’t mean the state is good. Far from it. But considering the fact that many of the teams that refuse to ever agree with the topic attend STATE UNIVERSITIES with coaches receiving paychecks from THE STATE it’s hard for me to understand why talking about state action is impossible. That’s not a killer argument, but it does seem to hint that SOME state actions are not entirely poisonous. This is my own view and while it does color my T arguments, it’s not insurmountable. Here’s how you overcome that.

-Don’t be anti-topical. It’s a lot easier for me to vote for you if you’re not anti-topical. If you are anti-topical, say, your affirmative says (last year’s topic) that prostitution is bad (and implies shouldn’t be legal) then it’s going to be much harder for you to win in front of me. The reason is simply that you’ve staked out negative ground. You’ve admitted there’s a debate to be had on something and chosen NOT to take your assigned side. You refuse to take up the affirmative side yet you functionally attempt to force the other team to do just that.

- Being PRO-TOPICAL still requires you to be smart. The problem is that the other team will ask, “Why NOT be topical?” You need an answer to that question that isn’t just “State messed up, yo.” You CAN argue that. You CAN win that argument. But I’m going to want nuanced reasons that are specific to a particular to a place and time. Saying, “The US government is messed up and did bad things” seems to me to beg the question of what it SHOULD do to change. So, to overcome that you’ll need to explain why it’s better to debate about your adjacent discussion of topical things rather that government action AND you’ll need to explain why that’s an AFFIRMATIVE argument and not a negative argument.

-Answer their offensive arguments on T. Limits, ground, fairness, predictability, education—these are real things in debate and they matter. You will do well to answer these arguments with both offense and defense. I often see all offense (limits debate protect white folks) without any defense. PARTICULARLY answer their arguments about why topical/legal debating is good, in addition to the regular T argument set. These cards tend to be pretty good so your responses need to be good as well. “Fairness for who?” is a good question—but it needs to be answered rather than just leaving it open ended. On your education arguments you need to move beyond “All our arguments are educational” to explaining why you lead to good, predictable debates that are relatively fair and deeply educational. I am in agreement with the point that critical identity arguments are intrinsically educational (see my intro to this whole thing) but the bigger question is how do they create good debates where both sides explore issues in depth? There are really good reasons that this is the case—you need to make those arguments.

-Address topical version of the affirmative and understand that the legal debates good is a net benefit to this argument. A good team T will argue that you do not have a right to the perfect affirmative, just one that lets you discuss similar key issues. Also understand that “State bad” isn’t necessarily an answer. If can be, but even the anti-statist needs to understand the state. As a former anti-capitalist advocate, I still needed lawyers to get me out of jail and I still needed knowledge of the law to protect myself from the police as much as could be managed..

-Realize that “No Topical Version” is a trap. If you say no topical version, you are setting yourself up to link to the “this is anti-topical” argument, i.e., that your aff is wholly unpredictable and in the reverse direction of all of the regular topic negative arguments. The “no topical version of the aff” made by the 2AC sounds like, “Our whole affirmative advantage is illegitimate.” If you say “yes, topical version” then obviously you’ve also set yourself up. At the very least, so don't assert the 'no topical version' and set yourself up for this debate intentionally.

-Have an answer for the topical research burden argument. Critical identity teams are fond of arguing that there are many different versions of their arguments—TRUE! Which for teams going for T just shows how large the research burden becomes to prep for every single iteration—every different case is its own topic area. You need offensive and defense arguments. The argument that “You just don’t want to answer/research queer/black/feminist/trans/ableism arguments” is a good starting point but it’s not enough (and solved by topical version of the affirmative). “Case list” is also not answer to this argument, because research burden isn’t a question of predictability. Don’t fall into the trap of listing off a bunch of crappy positions you refuse to defend (state good, cap K) as neg ground.

-Find A CERTAIN TOPICALITY. Optimally, a strategic team will find a way to be topical, yet not defend the state. FYI, I absolutely do not think that having a plan that mentions what the US or USFG should do obligates you to defend “the State”. I think it obligates you to defend that particular state action. However, I think you can go beyond that. I think you can defend the plan as a critical intervention, as an imaginative starting point, as epistemological experiment etc. without defending state action in other ways. Now, you’ll have to defend your plan (or a topical advocacy statement—you need not have a PLAN, per se) in SOME ways but probably not a lot of different things.

-Impact turn topicality. If all else fails, impact turn and be extremely offensive against it. Disallow me from voting for T—you can complete this tactic by providing defense against their impact arguments while working on your own. Defense wins championships.

Hints not related to topicality

Once you’re past the topicality gate, you’re in the realm of normal non-procedural arguments and I have few suggestions in this area to avoid common errors (certainly not universal errors) I see in debates in front of me:

-Back up outrage with arguments. Excellent critical identity teams do this…but younger/lesser teams seem to struggle with this. Don’t get so wound up in your position that it stops you from making your argument.

-Antagonizing your opponent won’t sway me. There are reasons that you may choose to antagonize your opponent, some of which may be strategic, some not, some both. But as for how I view the debate, it will not contribute to me voting for you. See note in original philosophy about respectful behavior toward colleagues.

-Make the history lesson pay. Sometimes these debates collapse into scattered historical anecdotes that are only lightly tied together—get full credit for your analysis of history by investing time in explaining its application in this case.

-Don’t rely too heavily on enthymeme (don’t rely on me filling in the blanks for you). Too often, I hear judges (on MANY sides) say, “I guess I just know what they’re talking about.” No. You have an explanatory burden to help me cognitively grasp the situation. I grasp the frustration that comes with my lack of cultural connection to your argument, but I’m doing my best. If you think, “I’m tired of explaining myself to straight people, white people, cis gender people, able-bodied people, etc” and then don’t explain, it becomes really hard for me to vote for you (as well as making a bunch of assumptions that may or may not be accurate, depending on your judge). I won’t vote on what I can’t explain.

FINAL NOTE: You might be thinking, after reading this, ‘WOW, we’re NEVER preferring him. Look all the things he wants us to do—his presumptions are just too high. What a T hack.’

Maybe. But what I’ve tried to do is review almost every argument I find persuasive on T and flag it for you and send you in the right direction in answering it. In REAL DEBATES, teams won’t make all these arguments and they won’t always make them well. I ALWAYS evaluate the debate in front of me. But I wanted to flag all these so you could think through your answers and win my ballot. I wanted to flag these because winning my ballot is possible, not impossible.

I also think this can serve as a primer for winning in front of judges that are like me. To succeed in the big picture, you need to expand your judging pool. At the NDT and in national circuit elimination debates, you can’t hide from all the judges who think topicality is a thing or who have a grounding in traditional critique or policy debate. In my ideal world, you’d see me (or someone like me) on a panel against a non-critical identity team and think, “Good. Mick is a fair judge who sees the value of our arguments. He cares about our role in debateland and the world and even though he might not be our wheelhouse judge, we know the route to win with him.”

And, in the ideal world, your opponent would think the exact same thing.

Ethics Challenge

I want to say that I am not a fan of ethics challenges but they may be the only resolution to certain circumstances. In most cases, I prefer lesser solution from a team with a ethics-related issue: i.e., rejection of the piece of evidence, rejection of a position, rejection of all evidence with demonstrated problems, etc.

I have a relatively standard procedure on ethics challenges. Ethics challenges are accusations of academic misconduct against the opposing team that are outside the bounds of what can be adjudicated by the debate. Justifications for an ethics challenge include, but are not limited to:

1) Mis-representing evidence, i.e., “cutting out of context”--This includes highlighting, reading, or constructing evidence in a way that allows the team to present the evidence as supporting a claim that directly contradicts the intention of the author.

2) Fabricating evidence– This includes altering evidence by adding or deleting parts of cited evidence or wholesale making up evidence and presenting it in a debate.

3) Mis-representing what evidence has been read in the round, i.e., “clipping” or “cross-reading” or falsely claiming a piece of evidence has been read when it has not, or, alternatively, claiming a piece of evidence has NOT been read by the team when it has.

4) Refusing to provide your cited/read evidence to your opponent in the debate or intentionally leaving evidence out of a speech document in order to gain a competitive advantage.

5) Intentionally mis-citing evidence in order to gain a competitive advantage, i.e., leaving out an author or source that might be a liability in a debate. Incidental mis-citation is not subject to an ethics challenge.

6) Using ellipsis or leaving out parts of evidence that are part of the context of the evidence because the part excluded by the ellipsis would be a significant liability in the debate.

7) Intentionally mis-disclosing to another team in pre-round pre-round preparation in order to gain a competitive advantage.

8) If you generally accuse the team ‘cheating’ on any non-debate argument issue and try to make it a ‘voting issue’ (disclosure, speech docs, cards, etc), I will ask if you intend this as an ethics challenge.

This is not a complete list. Please note that some of these include a factor of intention and others do not. If you read a card that’s out of context or fabricated, it doesn't matter if you or your partner didn’t cut the card. In other cases, there must be intention.

Process and burden of proof for ethics challenges:
1) An ethics challenge will stop the round. I may pause once and try to talk through the issue briefly, trying to find a negotiating solution short of the challenge. But once the challenge is confirmed, it’s round over for me. If the tournament or organization procedures turn it over to the tournament officials, I will do that. If it is left to me to decide, I will ask for proof and defense and make a decision. I may give time for teams to produce evidence. For example, to provide a full length version of a card, article, book to demonstrate a defense. Moreover, I am NOT simply relying on team arguments. This is no longer a debate where I rely solely on the arguments presented. I will use any resource I can to reach a conclusion. If I am on a panel and it is not in my sole power to stop the round, I will adjudicate the debate based on the initial charge and defense. I will not evaluate the rest of the debate, even if the rest of the debate proceeds.

(2) I have a fairly high bar for voting on them. I must see clear and convincing evidence of the conditions above. Suspicion or even simply me believing it’s likely is not sufficient for me to vote on an ethics challenge against a team.

(3) If an ethics challenge is proven with clear and convincing evidence it’s a loss for the team challenged. If it is not proven to a clear and convincing level, it’s a loss for the team conducting the challenge.

***PROCEDURE NOTES.

1. I am worn out of looking through 6 different speech documents for cards. I am implementing a policy of asking that cards on positions that have been gone for in the 2NR/2AR be consolidated and sent to me). You don't need to sort out WHICH cards you went for, it's easier if I pick through what matters. Just consolidate them, organized by SUBJECT and SPEECH and send them to me. If you are paper team, you're are a cruel person who wants trees to die, but, on the other hand you make judging much easier :).

2. Most CX answers that given outside the 3 minutes of designated CX are not relevant to my decision. You want to get your argumentative question in? Fit your question and the opportunity to answer it into the CX time. You don't get to use some prep time to cover the argument you dropped, so you don't get to used prep time to ask the questions you forgot. Exception A: Filibustering to run out the clock will cause me to ignore this rule. CXer, you'll know you are free to keep asking because I will keep paying attention instead of getting up or walking away. Exception B: While answers might be non-binding, deception is misconduct foul, auto-loss. If the Cx-ee answers a clarifying question in prep like, "What's the status of the counterplan?" and then CHANGES it and thinks that's a clever trick, I see that as misconduct. Exception C: I think clarifying questions are fine in CX. Examples: What was your third argument on the DA? What's the status of the CP? Which card did you read? Answering these questions are matters of courtesy and fair play. Of course, they might just answer: "We didn't take a position on CP rules in the 1NC." And you'll be out of luck in arguing with them.

GO READ KATHRYN RUBINO's PHILOSOPHY. https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=7374

Here are a few additional comments specific to me.

I debated from 1998-2002 (in Texas) and 2002-2006 (in CEDA East).

In 2009 I was a junior faculty member at the Asian Debate Institute in Seoul, Korea.

I graduated from law school in 2013, and am currently a lawyer in the Army.

Although I've done some judging in the past ten years (once at CEDA, once at TFA State, once at the NDT, and periodically for the Houston Urban Debate League) I have been mostly away from the policy debate community.

Accordingly, please err on the side of over-explanation rather than assume that I am up on the latest and greatest in creative argumentation. You should generally not assume that I am familiar with your authors or that I will do the work for you.

I still like real-world policy discussions. I still love topicality. I still enjoy thinking outside the box. I like listening to debates about theory.

I will listen to anything, but I need there to be clash and I need someone to tell me what framework to adopt. Policy Debate is an open forum where any and all arguments are fair game, but you have to make the case for it if you want to be successful.

I am always willing to answer questions, so if you have specific ones let me know.

Above all, have fun.

[For evidence distro purposes, please use this email address: RESDebate@gmail.com]

Years judging college: 12

 

Topicality: My default is that topicality is about competing interpretations of the resolution. Prove that yours is more net beneficial and provide an impact and you win the debate. I think of this as an evaluative tool for T debates and it applies to non-traditional aff's as well, unless the debaters provide me with an alternate framework. Spec args are fine also.

Theory: Love good technically proficient theory debates. Sentences like "Dispo solves the Neg's offense" are good but warranting them is even better. When I am judging a debate I always feel like it is more important to evaluate the arguments made as opposed to inserting my own personal opinion in the mix. However, when I say that to debaters they still seem to what to know what my general feeling is regarding things like Dispo and Agent CP's... So here you all go. I tend to think that Dispo is OK, Conditionality is rather shady and PICS can go either way depending on the nature of CP. Just to let you know... not a huge fan of the "Our K is a gateway arg". I think that it is often advantageous to have the groundwork for weighing the impacts to CP theory, perm theory, and alternative theory debates explicated and framed by the 1AR. This means reasons why this comes before T and warrants as to why it is a reason the reject the team and not just the arg should probably be made by that point in the debate.

Kritiks: For me, most times good critical debates that center around a position that has an alternative come down to offense (disads) to the permutation vs. in roads against the "solvability" of that alternative. I'd prefer not to feel as though I have to read a ton of your cards at the end of a round to synthesize your argument. My preference when I have to read evidence is to only read cards that is the focus of the finals rebuttals.

CP/DA: I heart a really involved DA/CP debate. I often think some of the best deployment of the DA involves interacting the disad impact with the case. Please take the time to kick them cleanly.

Framework- I really enjoy these debates. Framework debates necessitate that both teams do extremely effective impact work. My biggest suggestion when debating framework in front of me is to make sure to keep the rest of the debate in mind. How can your Aff be offensive even in a world that you are loosing a portion of the framework debate? Competitiveness- Are portions of the Neg’s framework not competitive with Aff's? How does that circumvent the Neg’s ability to garner offense off of the impacts to the framework debate?

Engaging the Resolution/Performance-  If you are a performance team with a coherent arg that in some way engages with the topic area of the resolution you are good to go. I don't need you to advocate state action, endorse fiat... but I do think the Aff should in some way engage the topic area (legalization and one of the subtopics). I really enjoy these debates when they are done well and when, at the end of the round, there is an argument that is being made. I am not the best judge for you if your strategy is to say nothing in an effort to bait the other side into being the only one who actually makes an argument. I feel as though this leads to debate that are woefully underdeveloped, frustrating, and debate only actually occurs when the final rebutalists decide to finally illuminate why they think they should win. 

Run what you want and what you feel you are good at. Speed is fine. Speed and clarity are even better :) Please remember to be polite and considerate. I know many of us tend to turn into a cracked out version of Perry Mason when the timer starts but please forgo this urge and remain civil. Answer questions in CX. Being evasive/sketchy looks bad and makes you seem unsure/insecure about your args. Make me laugh. Don't steal prep. I hate it. No, I really hate it. I feel a certain burden to protect the 2NR from new and unpredictable 2AR extrapolations and cross applications. Finally, debate is for the debaters. Take what I have said above as a guide and not the end all. If you have any questions feel free to ask me! Good luck to all and have fun!

 

Hi! My name is Chris. My pronouns are He/Him/His. ChristopherRashadWilliams@gmail.com. for the doc chain or reaching out for questions on the debate.

Summary: I did policy debate with the Rutgers-Newark squad for 4 years. Most of my arguments on the Aff and Neg were based on the work of Deleuze, Lacan, Baudrillard, Wilderson, and secondary lit based on their writings. I also won a few rounds by modifying standup routines for debate rounds. I treat debate rounds like a game, the judge judges listens to whatever happens in round, bracketing their personal preferences as much as possible, unless a team calls on them to not restrain themselves in such a way. The Aff affirms something and the Neg negates something. That something may be the topic, its up to you lot. Clarity and signposting > Reading 10 cards in 8 seconds. I look forward to sharing a round with you!

Longer Paradigm:

Of the list of Judge types listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_%28policy_debate%29, I identify closest with the Tabula Rasa category.

Assume I am new to the topic -- Be careful with acronyms

With that said, I realize that debate may be meaningful and or useful for others in ways that it is not for me. I am open to: straight up discussions of policy, the transformative potential of poetry, whatever. Talk about what you like, just give warranted reasons for who I should vote for and why. Be prepared to defend how you go about doing that. Want to be opaque? Cool! Find a way to justify it without double turning yourself. Unless double turning yourself is good for some reason. I don't know. If I'm nodding at something you say in the rebuttal, then you are doing something right. If I give you a weird look, then its probably because you made a weird argument.

Clarity trumps speed. I may not catch all the warrants and author name in a 4 second spurt, but if it's an argument that is important to you/ compelling enough for you to stake the debate outcome on it, invest enough of your time in it so that this doesn't become a problem.

I do not consider myself a good judge for topicality debates versus policy Affs

Please keep your own time.

In your final speeches, keep it simple in order to minimize my interference.

Kritiks--You should make the framework with which I consider the plan versus the alternative clear. In combination with this, you should make the alternative's interaction with the advantages clear i.e. does the alt solve the case or does the case just not matter? I think the aff has the same burden. Usually big K debates resolve around the clash of viewpoints so make your viewpoint clear in comparison to theirs.

I appreciate a clean 2AR/2NR. Here are some ways to clean them up:

Clarifying points of conflict: They say [claim], but XYZ

Clarifying why I should care that X argument was dropped: They may be winning on the case flow, but they conceded our Nietzsche 63' that says you frame the entire debate as a game of chance and decide based on a coin flip. Heads we win, tails they lose!

Be Confident where you are on the flow, but assess accurately - '"Debaters should recognize when they are losing certain arguments/parts of the debate and incorporate that understanding into their rebuttals." -- Jackson Erpenbach' - Brandon Kelley"

Clarifying alternatives: How would you describe the alt to your non-debate friends? If the alt description is vague then I am willing to give the aff a lot of leeway on what the permutation looks/functions like.

The scale is in your hands: Tell me how to weigh impacts! Sure, 15 more mosquitoes might not be as bad as Nuclear War, but whats the time frame? If the war is a couple hundred years out, the mosquitoes might pick up a ballot. Should I care more about this round'ss outcome or the general trajectory of Debate generally? If the latter, inform me on the general trajectory of Debate and how it would differ if I give you a support ballot. If this is the strat, burden is on you to prove that the Aff somehow makes that general trajectory worse.

I appreciate a clean cross-ex. Here are some ways to clean them up:

Please do not prevent your opponent from answering questions in CX. I reserve the right to dock points for that.

Ask the status of CPs/Ks etc if you like. Answers are binding.

Have a few general clarifying questions for your opponent. Understand in order to overcome.

Please do not use cross-ex to show off how smart you are. Mastery shines through subtle acts. Do your work on the flow and boast with skill, not bragging.

Hi all

-----Paradigm Starts here-----

Background:

Current Head Coach/ADoD? at Binghamton University (2021 - Present)

Debated/Coached for George Mason University (2009-2019)

-----Super short version 10 min before round-----

I always want to be on the email chain - email to woodward@binghamton.edu

I have judged or have seen pretty much every argument in debate at least once.

As a debater I mostly read policy arguments, but ended my career doing critical arguments. I was also a 2A and 2N at different points.

I prefer you do what you're best at- don't over adapt to me

Am a sucker for judge instruction -> If you tell me to evaluate in a certain way and the other team doesn't rebut it then I'm going to.

I require explanation - my understanding of K lit is better because I've been at Bing for a while now, but I still not super great at it. Assume you know your lit more than I will. Examples from the 1AC or historical examples go a long way. This also applies to policy things. I cut policy cards but that's not my main focus most of the time so I'm not gonna be super up to date on the latest meta shifts/counterplan acronyms.

Good analysis and explanation beats a card the majority of the time in front of me

Be polite. (This is different from being nice, but there is a cutoff point)

Have fun!

Would prefer that people slow down/go to about 90% of top speed. I don't think this matters for most debates but it would be appreciative. I will yell slow/clear as applicable.

Harvard HS Tournament specifically - Two things to note.

1. I have read/judged/thought 0 about the HS topic- most of my time is focused on NDT/CEDA topic. I will need explanation and clarifications about jargon, arguments, etc.
2. My limits for "acceptable" behavior in terms of how people should treat each other is lower than in college rounds.

-----You have time to read/more specific things-----

---Novice/JV---

Is the most important division. We should be doing what we can to help the division grow and new debaters to improve and feel welcome- the community depends on it.

The packet at this point is not helpful outside of providing evidence to programs who need it to help start their programs. It needs healthy reforms to make it a better educational tool. That being said I will not enforce packet rules after the first two tournaments, or in any division above novice.

I'm fine with novices learning whatever arguments they wish. I would prefer if novices did defend the topic, or if they took alternate routes to the topic they still defended topic DAs and were in a topic direction.

I am also not a fan of misinformation type arguments in novice. This doesn't mean hiding DAs or case turns on case, or an extra definition on T (because those promote better flow practices) This means arguments that are obtuse to be obtuse for no reason.

---Topicality---

Is a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue.

I am not persuaded by "norms" or "it's 1st/last tournament etc." style arguments. I do not need abuse to vote on topicality.

Competing interpretations is what I default to.

After Fall Semester/Wake- I feel even more strongly we have overcorrected and have made the Nukes topic entirely too small. I still have some limits when it comes to subsets of topic areas, but I can be persuaded that allowing a few more affirmatives is a good thing.

Going into Districts/NDT/CEDA thoughts - Still think letting the aff have subsets makes this topic more interesting but after hearing 2-3 debates on it, I am still 50/50 on this debate but my default leans aff, if both sides debated perfectly. I'm still down to hear the argument because I do think there's some room to convince me.

---Disadvantages---

DAs are good, turns case arguments are good, I think there isn't a ton of nuance here. My only 2 caveats are as follows.

I wish more teams would attack DAs on the internal link level-

Politics and Elections DAs are decent educational discussions and are strategic. But the current political system is so flawed it is hard to take the arguments seriously. I am very persuaded by arguments about why radicalism in our government has doomed the ability for it to function. (or arguments that explain why congress is in a terrible spot for legislation currently)

Elections/Midterms DAs, the closer we get to November 2024, the better the DA sounds in front of me. Interpret this as you wish.

---Counterplans---

They're good - but I reward teams for more specific reasons why the CP solves the aff vs no federal/xyz process good key warrant. I'm not a fan of no solvency advocate + just the CP text in the 1NC, but generally i'm cool with most counterplan ideas.

I don't judge kick the counterplan, it promotes neg terrorism. I can be persuaded otherwise, but outside of strong neg defenses, and/or a lack of aff response I will not give the neg the status squo if a CP is in the 2NR.

I default to reject the argument on theory. I can be persuaded most things could be a reason to reject the team, or gives leeway on other arguments. My standards for voting on theory even with this are somewhat high.

Conditionality in limited instances are good. That being said my cutoff is lower than most judges. The max before I start to err affirmative is 2 conditional worlds. If there is a new aff, i'm fine with 3. I do think more than 3 conditional worlds isn't needed. I also think kicking planks compounds and makes any conditionality arguments even stronger

---Critiques (When you are neg) ---

Judge instruction + framework is your friend. I usually compare the aff vs the alt in a vacuum, but when one team is telling me what to do, and one is not with this information this goes a long way into deciding my ballot. Sometimes good judge instruction can overcome technical drops. "Weigh the aff" is not an aff interp on framework. I think it does you a disservice unless the neg's interp is legitimately you don't get the aff without jumping through multiple hoops. I would prefer interps based on something more specific, whether it's extinction/impact based, or even better education towards an issue, or even the self serving ROB = best at fighting nuke weapons.

I require a bit of explanation. My critical knowledge is better than it was in the past but you are more likely to know your argument more than me. Empiric examples, applications to the affirmative, etc are all useful and persuasive.

Go for tricks, if the aff messes them up then it's a valid strategy, I don't think you need the alt alone if you're winning a sizeable enough impact + link for a case turn type of argument

But do what you do best, I do genuinely like any presentation or idea for argument, as long as it's explained clearly and developed before the 2NR.

--- Critiques (When you are aff) ---

I prefer affirmatives that are in the direction of the topic and do something, or if they do neither have a good justification for doing otherwise.

Defend your arguments and be strategic. IF your 1AC is saying Heg + Prolif, it does not make sense to go for the link turns. This doesn't mean don't make the arguments if it's what you've prepped for but think about what your aff is designed to do and don't shy away from impact turns or alt offense.

Framework is viable and a decent strategy in front of me. I default to Limits > Fairness > Skills based arguments. Another thing from being at Bing is I am slowly leaning towards Fairness is more of an internal link vs an impact alone BUT I can be persuaded otherwise. I am also fine with impact turn debates but not having defense on neg framework standards (Or case defense to the aff) is pretty devastating and a problem for the team without said defense.

Something I have noticed as a pattern for lots of the framework rounds I judge is that not having defense, or at least references/cross applications that can be clear to answer terminal impacts on either side is usually something that can be a round ender. I find that I am somewhat persuaded by 2NR/2ARs that go for conceded impact scenarios on framework/affirmative answers to framework. Outside of heavy framing articulations this is usually hard to overcome.

When resolving a clash debate (most of my rounds) I think my preference is Case specific strat > Framework > Cap unless that is your specific thing you do.

Case should be in the 2NR in some way or fashion. I am willing to vote on presumption or case turns alone.

Critical teams should think hard about if they want to defend DAs or not. I'm not sold one way or the other, but i do get a bit concerned if the 2AC says they'll defend the deterrence DA, but the 1AR/2AR drastically doesn't apply (unless the neg doesn't read a link)

---Misc---

Speaker points are weird and rough at the moment. I don't want to keep people from breaking however. My speaks guidelines end up looking like this for varsity. This may adjust due to trends at all levels.

Nationals

Speaker award - 29.3

should/can clear - 28.7

Regional

Speaker Award -29

Should clear - 28.6

I adjust for division, but IF I give a student in JV or Novice a 29+ I believe they could debate a division up and succeed.

I don't like trolling - if you do not want to debate, simply forfeit, or have a discussion/pursue other methods of debating. IF you read an argument with the sole plan of being disruptive or trolling a debate you get a 15. IF you're funny you get a 25.

Don't cheat- I have fortunately only had to resolve this in 1 round. But if you accuse someone, round ends and will not restart. We don't have that many rules in debate, we should follow them, especially the rules about academic honesty/evidence.

Be polite- doesn't have to be "nice" but generally we shouldn't make rounds overly hostile for 0 reason. We will see each other multiple times over the next few years. There is a cutoff for being snarky and being a jerk.

---Other Events---

I am a policy coach. I have spent the vast majority of my time coaching and preparing things in policy formats. I will flow, I evaluate my decisions based on that flow. I believe the best debaters are ones who both prove their side of an issue is the most effective, and have combatted the opposing side effectively. I will never determine a round solely based on presentation, decorum or speaking style unless something problematic happened to where coaches/tab have to be involved.

LD - i've judged maybe 40 LD rounds in my life (if being generous). I still am shaky about value criterions, I will have done 0 topic research. If you do LD like it's mini policy I am prob very good for you. Disclosure is virtually mandatory. I have heard explanations from LD'ers about theory. My gut is if it's something like counterplan competition or conditionality it is fine. If it's something frivolous or ridiculous I am not great for your speaks or chances to win the ballot. But do what you do best. I don't believe in RVIs

PF - I did PF in 2007-2009 while in high school. I coached a team in PF in the spring of 2021. I generally vote on and will flow. I will heavily follow judge instruction. Disclosure theory is a very persuasive argument and I think evidence practices are egregiously awful for PF. Paraphrasing, and only sending links for evidence is not acceptable for evidence. It must be in a format that is easily accessible and reviewable by both teams AND should be provided before the speech. I'm very flexible on most things, Evidence and disclosure I am not.

Other formats- have 0 experience but will take notes and evaluate based on the rules given.

I'm the assistant director of forensics at the University of Rochester. I'm also a history grad student. I think more debaters should be historians.

There will very likely be a pigeon judging with me. You are free to bring seeds to give to him if they're not covered in sugar or salt. No speaker points or anything, my birds don't get paid to judge debates.

Any and all styles are great since I love it when folks that come out swinging strong for their positions. When y'all can actually be RESOLVED, that's that kind of debate speech I love to see.

A few loose thoughts:

- I don't like it when people ask for high speaker points. If you want a 30, give me a speech that makes me think you're better at debate than Gabby Knight or Kaine Cherry. I'm going to ignore any requests for high speaker points, even if your opponent tells me to follow your instructions. My immediate thought when someone makes this an argument is めんどくさい

- There's a trend of teams not sending out taglines/plan texts on email chains/docs, don't do that. While I still have an aversion to paperless debate, if we're going to be debate cyborgs, be open with what your evidence/positions are so your opponents can engage in good faith.

-I do my best to keep a tight flow, but that said, please slowdown for interps/counter-interps/plan texts, especially if you're not emailing those out and you expect me to say something about that debate.

- I tend to think conditionality is good, since I think Affs should be able to beat the squo or a counterplan/alternative but I have voted on condo bad in the past.

- I'm generally not persuaded by new affs bad theory. Not saying I won't vote on it, but I'm not a fan.

For LD:

In the off chance I'm in the LD pool, I did conservative value-criteria debate during my time in high school and I'd be lying if I said I liked it. That said, I heard rumors of circuit LD and how y'all seem to have a low threshold for theory arguments and that sounds appalling. I like substantive arguments. I like kritik arguments.

Read that as you wish.

Policy > LD.

Also, I strongly suggest y'all check out Keiko Takemiya's To Terra. It's really good.