Email Chain: qmnguyen1229@gmail.com

Please include relevant information (tournament name, round, team codes, ect.) in the subject line and speech doc names.

I debated at Wichita East (2015-2019). I then coached + regularly judged (2019-2022). Since then, I have not coached and only judge once or twice a year. I likely know absolutely nothing about the topic or newer debate trends/norms.

When I debated, I was a stereotypical policy 2N – I usually went for a counterplan + disad, never read kritiks, and always went for T-USFG vs K affs. I have very little experience reading kritiks but plenty answering them.

Thus, I am most comfortable and competent judging policy vs policy rounds. I am okay for policy vs K rounds. I will be a very bad judge for K vs K rounds. I do not have an ideological opposition to kritiks but due to my lack of experience going for them you should err on the side of over explanation.

That being said, please debate using whatever speed and arguments you are most comfortable with, and I will do my best to adapt to you. If you provide clear and warranted analysis, explanation, impact comparison, and judge instruction you are likely to win my ballot regardless of your argument style.

Debated 4 years Wichita East in Wichita, KS graduated 2019

Debating at UT Austin

justin8real@gmail.com

General:

Clipping is cheating- if it's egregious you'll lose with the lowest possible speaks.

I'm down for whatever you want to do (within reason- don’t say/do offensive things), but be ready to defend your actions, justify them, and be able to explain your arguments.

Repeating a tagline isn't an extension.

Calculated and strategic risks WILL pay off with speaks (e.g. kicking the aff properly, impact turns, clever PIC/PIKs). Poorly calculated strategic choices will not.

*Local circuit people*

I'm 99.9% not going to vote on something being a stock issue. This is not to say I won't vote for inherency but that there needs to be a reason keeping affs inherent creates a good model of debate and provides for the best education or fairness in the round, not purely that it's a stock issue.

Also, please don't call me judge. It's just weird.

Case:

I've met very few judges whose feelings are not "case debate is undervalued and underutilized" yet very rarely is this advice heeded. Too often, aff internal link evidence is absolutely horrible yet they're able to get away with essentially anything in rounds. Don't let this happen if you're neg.

K aff's:

Too often I judge rounds where teams have really well written 1AC's with offense built in meant to answer FW or specific K's and then the 2AC stands up and uses absolutely none of what the 1AC set up. Please don't be this team. It doesn't usually factor into the decision but it's frustrating, shows you probably don't know your aff as well as you should, and definitely hurts speaks.

Topicality:

Top level:

CI>Reasonability nearly always (more below). Make sure you explain your internal links- too often it seems like a 2NR will skip from "they hurt limits" to "education is important". In a vacuum, an unlimited topic doesn't affect education- explain how you get there.

Secondary:

1. Reasonability is about whether there is a reasonable debate to be had under the affirmative's model, not about whether the affirmative is reasonably topical (whatever that means). This means the standards debate is still in question when evaluating the round, just with discretion.

2. My threshold for explanation on T debates are pretty high, and you need to win not only the link chain to education or fairness but that education means something more than just "that destroys education". In order for education or fairness to be impacts you need to explain the implications of not preserving them- this is why so many people don't think fairness is an impact because "that destroys fairness- makes it impossible to be aff" isn't a reason to vote negative because there's no implication to hard aff debates.

3. Most T debates revolve around a central framing question (precision, predictability, etc.)- if you're not identifying what you want me to filter the debate through, I will filter it through what I think it should be through, which is probably not what you want. Framing is just as, if not MORE important on T than every other flow.

FW/T vs K affs:

Affs that just act like they're negative when they're aff will probably find it hard to generate offense on FW that isn't solved by switch side. You need to explain switch side though and give actual warrants about why it solves any aff offense.

I feel like reasonability is decent for topic based K affs and find the 'we are a discussion of the topic therefor we are topical' type argument pretty persuasive. This is not to say having a topic link means you win my ballot but rather that when the entire aff is topic based it makes it much easier. This should be a question of advocacy as well- reading the alt from a backfile shell or having a generic advocacy won't really access this, but when the mechanism of the aff is in the direction of the topic you will have a much easier time. That being said, a well thought out TVA could probably solve a majority of the offense you have on FW, so you should probably be making arguments about why form outweighs content and determines the direction of your offense.

If you are not in the direction of the topic, I'm not sure what you're doing if you're trying to do anything other than impact turn on FW. While I admit I am generally a little more neg leaning on questions like predictability good/bad, this is a much more persuasive place to be than "we're predictable enough".

P/ your interp plus our aff makes no sense- it's a debate of models and that model would be a world where every single aff could be about literally anything and say "your interp plus our aff" and win

K's

K debates I judge too often come down to a NL or shoddy link turn and perm which often ends up with me voting neg. Use the aff- it's your main source of offense. There's probably a very low risk of me buying that you have no ability to weigh the aff but it's up to you to frame the debate and help me decide how much to weigh it. No matter what, you should be doing the same level of work to explain your theories whether you think I know it or not. PoMo is fine but don't just copy Michigan KM because you wanna be edgy.

Every K has top level theory that every team needs to answer and should have at least a cursory understanding of. If you don't, it will just generally be hard for you to win the debate.

*kicking the alt*

I would advise against it, but if you must, you better either:

- Be very far ahead on FW to where there is little doubt in my mind that you are winning whatever ethics claims you're going for

- Generate uniqueness for an actual disad- something actually has to meaningfully change with the links/impacts. Linear disads will be an uphill battle

- Have a PIK that was conceded (in the event the 2AC or 1AR makes a PIKs bad arg then it's probably sufficient to answer)

DA's

I really enjoy disad debates and think both teams have a lot of leeway to do what they want here.

Aff: I personally love impact turns on disads in the 2AC and impact turning addons in the 1AR is amazing. Straight turning can be super strategic and will be rewarded if it's the right decision- don't be scared to do it. I find myself pretty doubtful of the possibility that there's 0-risk of a DA except for really bad ptx disads but I guess if you're just going for aff OW it can work.

Neg: I think you need a scenario in the 1NC for your DA- it shouldn't stop at an internal link and affirmatives should punish teams who do this. For instance, the Base DA- Street 16 doesn't provide an impact, it just says trump lashes out somewhere, anywhere, who knows? The problem is, the 2AC isn't going to read impact defense to lashout and war with NoKo, Russia, China, Iran, etc. individually, and the lashout itself is the internal link. You need to have a scenario.

*DA v Case*:

You need to very clearly articulate why the DA outweighs and turns the impacts, and have very clear analysis on the case debate. Your framing of the round needs to be great and you also need to have specificity on every level of the DA. It's not impossible, just a lot easier with a CP.

CP:

If you want me to judge kick the CP, you need to tell me. And if you don't want me to judge kick the CP for them, you need to tell me why doing so is bad. Neg teams should be answering reasons why it's bad when they tell me they want me to do it the first time.

I love cheating CP's ngl. The more you can get away with, the better. That being said, the nature of this love also makes me realize they are in fact cheating CP's which means I am inclined to listen to a well constructed theory argument.

So, theory:

1. Keywords here are well constructed theory args. Reading a generic PICs bad shell won't work against most teams who are reading cheating CP's and answering theory often.

2. Most theory args are reasons to reject the arg not the team

3. Condo is probably good but I can definitely be persuaded otherwise. Again, it's a debate of models.

4. In my opinion, if a CP is deemed theoretically illegitimate it is separate from judge kick. Judge kick is done if the CP doesn't meet their burden of proof of a change to the squo when presumption flips (i.e. if it links to net benefit, doesn't solve anything). Judge kick is NOT when it is theoretically illegitimate. If the neg wins that I reject the CP on condo, it's saying that CP never should have been run in the first place, which still means evaluate da v case. If theory is part of the judge kick equation, there is not point for the distinction between reject the arg/reject the team.

Recent update: Theoretically, everything below is still true, but note that I've not touched debate in a few years so

1. I probably don't remember buzzwords and definitely don't know any new-fangled args, I reserve the right to vote you down bc you don't tell me what your words mean.
2. My ear is rusty, don't run me out of the room.

Other than that, have fun, win more offense than the other team.

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

Debated at Wichita East 2015-2019

Email: noahyust at gmail dot com

Affs

K/Planless: This is fine. Have a clear advocacy. Your answers to tusfg should be contextualized to your advocacy not just generic state engagement bad. I've read some PoMo nonsense on aff/neg and setcol on the neg... but you should presume I don't understand your K.

Soft left: I have never heard a "framing contention" compelling enough to make DAs go away. To do that you need to point out specific epistemological flaws in the DA; if you can do that, you probably don't need the "framing contention." I see these contentions as filler to make the 1AC as small as possible; which is is annoying, at least please make the 2AC fun. Also- I've yet to see a card tagged "x comes first" that seriously and literally means that x is worse than extinction. For me, Just sit on the fact that ur impact is the most probable.

Big Stick: sure yes.

Case

Impact turns: yes, more more more

Tusfg/Framework

I think debate is a game, but it can be more than a game. A good TVA makes a neg ballot very easy. Fairness is important to access education, but probably hard to win as an external impact. I dislike debaters making broad claims about their opponent's model of debate when they clearly have no idea what it's like to always read a plan/never read a plan (That's my way of saying be respectful).

T

I need you to paint very good pictures of your and your opponent's interpretations of the topic. Caselists are good but insufficient to accomplish this alone. Good TVAs are always good. I rarely went for T, probably not the t judge you want. I'm not sympathetic to warrantless buzzword spam.

Theory

Condo is probably good. Reject the argument>reject the team. Except in the case of condo. Excessive theory can be strategic but is always annoying.

K

Presume I don't know your lit. Link work is key, I think it determines the strength of your answers to perms and fw args. I dislike FrankenKs. Please, for the love of god, don't make me get out a new sheet for the overview.

DA

Yes, please do.

I think it is possible for a bad DA to be reduced to 0% probability via analytics and recutting ev. I.e. breaking a new Albanian ptx DA does not guarantee you a viable 2NR.

CP

I can be easily persuaded that delay, consult, offsets, and CPs that just rename the aff (see parole from the immigration topic) are theoretically illegitimate.

Affs should impact out each solvency deficit.

I default to judge kick unless instructed otherwise.

Speaks

28.5 is the middle

Things that help: Good jokes, good cadence, clarity, smart strategic decisions, evidence-based CX, having fun

Things that hurt: reading 7 one-line CPs, spreading through theory blocks, being unkind

Misc.

Disclosure is good!

I think like a 2A

don't round/steal prep time

Be nice. I reserve the right to vote you down for [bad things]