Denslow, Keith Edit 0 3… Judging Philosophy
Keith Denslow,
Skiatook High School,
Skiatook, OK

I have taught academic debate for 32 years. I have coached both policy debate and value debate on the high school level plus NDT and CEDA for 2 years on the college level. I have coached regional, district, and state champions.

I give up. I embrace the absurdity which is post-modern debate. If you debate on a critical level, then it is your burden to understand and explain the philosophical position you are advocating and offer a rational alternative to the worldview.

Topicality is an outdated mode of thought with tries to put up fences in our brain about what we can and can not talk about. It harms education and the marketplace of ideas. As a negative, only run Topicality if the argument is 100% accurate not as a test of skill or response.

It is important that anyone arguing counterplans have an understanding of counterplan theory especially how a counterplan relates to presumption. DO NOT automatically permute a counterplan or critique without critically thinking about the impact to the theory of the debate.

Style issues: Civility is important. Open CX is okay. Clarity must accompany speed. Numbering your arguments is better than “next” signposting. Detailed roadmaps are better than “I have 5 off” and prep time doesn’t continue for 2 minutes after you say “stop prep” Flash evidence faster!

I run the Tulsa Debate League. I debated at Charles Page for four years in the 90's and at the University of Southern California for four years in the early aughts. For most of my career, I ran what would be considered traditional policy debate arguments. I've certainly ran and been exposed to other styles of argumentation, including many varieties of kritiks (though I have very limited experience with what was once called performance arguments). With that said, I haven't been heavily involved in the national circuit or college debate for many years, so, if you are running a set of arguments which require a vernacular and a set of assumptions that I lack, it is your job to educate me on those issues. My default set of assumptions will necessarily be based on my experience and historical reference points. With that said, I try to be as open-minded and inclusive as possible. I have voted for both identity K teams and policy teams, on topicality and for multiple counterplan strategies that I deplore when I felt like they these strategies were debated well.

If you asked me what I'd like to see rather than what I will merely vote on, I would say I like to see debates with clash and a clear, big picture sense of what matters in the debate. Great debaters tell stories with evidence and examples.

Most of the debating that I have seen in Oklahoma since moving back here could have been made better with the use of paper files instead of computers. The use of flash drives and laptops has generally made debaters less apt to flow, which has caused all manner of problems, such as dropping arguments and failing to explain arguments to the judge because you assume it's on the flash drive. And flash drives have added hours to tournaments. So be mindful of that.

I would love to see is a commitment to making the community better and more inclusive. Being nice is always a good thing.

Hey. My name is Jordan. I competed in policy at Union High School in Tulsa, OK. I also competed in parliamentary style debate in college at Morehouse College in Atlanta. In high school, I read a lot of small impact policy affs, a few kritikal affs, and mostly t/k/case strats. I've judged a good number of rounds throughout undergrad and this current 18-19 debate season. I'd say that my paradigm is probably policymaker. I'm open to hearing well impacted topicality arguments and kritiks on the neg, in addition to DA's, CP's, and theory arguments. I also don't mind kritikal affs, as long as they make a good argument for why they are germane to the topic, but I do have some reservations about affs that incorporate personal narratives in their strategy. I think that debates should be educational, and I think that debaters have the right to discuss what the rules of the debate should be. I'm good with speed, as long as you clearly enunciate your tags.

In addition to all of this, I think that debaters should be respectful to one another, and I'm always open to discuss my decision and the round, if time permits.

I'm Black.

My pronouns are he/him/his.

Cross-x.com has hidden gems.

Email: jordanothniel@gmail.com

I'm the Program Director for the Tulsa Debate League. I coach all events but my focus is policy debate. I'm open to all styles of debate and I try to minimize judge intervention in my decisions. With that in mind, I’m more concerned with argument form than argument content. Arguments can come in many forms (e.g., traditional policy arguments, kritikal arguments, narrative arguments, etc.) but I think all arguments should have warrants and impacts. I also think line-by-line and clash help me minimize judge intervention. If your debate style eschews line-by-line, that's okay, but the clash should still be present, even if it's implicit. Ultimately though, I will do my best to evaluate your round according to the terms you establish in the round. With all that said, the rest of this paradigm covers a few technical aspects of debate that I consider important.

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Speech Docs

Please include me in the email chain: michael.haskins@tulsadebate.org

Flowing

I will flow where you tell me to flow. If you don’t tell me where to flow, I will flow in the way that makes the most sense to me. I'm hesitant to cross-apply for you so sign-posting and explicit cross-applications are important.

Evidence

I prefer fewer pieces of evidence better explained and better applied than many pieces of evidence poorly explained and poorly applied. I think the debate community as a whole has done a poor job of teaching debaters how to evaluate competing evidence. Credentials and expert status hold less sway in my mind than the empirical and logical analysis contained in the evidence. On that note, I tend to give more weight to analytical arguments that use common knowledge examples and reasoned analysis than most judges. I consider this an important check against teams that run intentionally obscure offense on the hope that the other team will lack the evidence to respond.

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Feel free to ask me questions. I love to talk debate.

Conflicts: Jenks High School

Experience: I debated for four years at Jenks High School in Oklahoma (2013-2017). I traveled out-of-state and went to state three of those four years. I ran heavy K stuff my sophomore year. A mixture of K and Policy my junior year and mainly policy stuff my senior year.

Education topic: I have judged very few debates on this topic. Do not expect me to know your acronyms or the “obvious” links.

Prep stops when the flash leaves the computer/email is sent/pocketbox uploaded.

Speed: I debated fast against fast people. That being said I don’t judge often and it’s been a while since I debated. So slow down at the beginning to let me get used to your voice. Trust that I am doing my best to flow, but I am not perfect. I will yell clear twice for each team if I feel like you are being unclear or too fast for me. Otherwise you shouldn’t be surprised if I can’t get your arguments on the flow.

General: Do what you do best because most of the times you will be worse if you do otherwise. I try to be as unbiased as possible, but I am imperfect. Don’t make me do work you should be doing. Don’t be hostile. It annoys me and drives people away from the activity I love. As far as post-rounds, I post-rounded too hard after my rounds so I am probably hypocritical on this, but I ask you be civil. I respect the schedule because I have been in tabrooms before and so that will be the primary reason for me to end a post-round. I do believe the judge should be able to confidently defend their decision. I may withhold some things for the sake of time. I’ll try to put them on the ballot. Feel free to ask me about them.

Evidence: I won’t call for much and will only do so if it is disputed or if no one explains it well.

Also do not clip. I love passive-aggressive questions like “do you mind sending me the highlighted version of your evidence?” If I am very confident you are clipping I will vote against you and tank your speaker points. I do this because the activity already suffers from poor representations of evidence and clipping is one of the worst forms of that. I will listen to recordings for proof.

DA/CP: Have good links. Get technical and explain evidence.

Case debates: Spend more time on them and make them good.

FW: I’ve been on both sides of this issue. They tend to get repetitive so try to not make them so. I like generic theoretical arguments as well as state pedagogy ones.

Theory: You need to impact these arguments out for these to be convincing. Be technical and list examples. I usually agree with “reject the argument and not the team,” but feel free to convince me otherwise. 

Random note: Disclosing makes debates better so please do it or have a really good reason not to.

Cross-X: Utilize this effectively. Don’t make me feel like you are struggling to make up questions. Have some planned out. Follow lines of questioning to make a point. Don’t be a bully. I will know when the person being cross X’d is losing a point and you don’t need to keep rubbing it in.

Topicality: Most of theory applies here. I don’t think you need to win in round abuse if you win competing interpretations. Being unfamiliar with this topic means you are going to have to do more work here. I don’t know the cliché T card that people read every round. I personally think definition origins is not debated enough, this effects predictability. 

Kritiks: I read many of these but I only occasionally ventured beyond the 5 or 6 most popular arguments so keep that in mind. Don’t assume I know the literature behind all of your work. Explain the alternative. I personally don’t find the permutation double bind argument convincing (alt should be strong enough to overcome the instance of the aff.) You can make it but don’t plan on this being your round winner. Explain your jargon as you use it. Have good links and explain them. Don’t assume because they have an econ advantage that you don’t have to explain the link to your cap K or your Anti-blackness K. Even if they don’t try to link turn the K, the Links are how you access the impact to your K, so it is still super important to explain them.

If you have any questions or concerns: mlugibihl@ou.edu

Noah Schrick
Experience: 5 years of high school debate at Tulsa-Union (OK), volunteer for UDL in Tulsa (TDL).
Email: nschrick98@gmail.com

Paradigm –
Game-playing.

Policy/Traditional Affs –
No objection to these. I think these can be some of the most developed and strategic affs. That being said, shady or loose internal links is a pretty easy way for me to vote neg on presump.

Topicality –
All for it. 5 minutes of T in the 2NR is a very fun, legitimate strat. If you do go for T, be sure to impact your standards out. In addition, don't just make blanket, generic impact claims such as, "this is bad for education." I think that education and fairness are impacts, but also internal links to external issues. Why is education important? Why should we care about fairness? Be sure to explain these for extra speaks and a better T debate.
Refer to speed section.

Theory –
Also all for it. I’ll vote for any theory argument as long as you can fully explain why I should vote for it. Granted, I'll have a higher threshold for a crazy, off the wall arg, however I will still vote for it if it is explained well enough and impacted out.
I default to reject the arg unless there is substantial work done to explain why I should go otherwise, or there is a prejudice made by a team that is interfering with the debate.
Refer to speed section.

Framework –
Will gladly vote on it. I do think RoBs are arbitrary, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that it can win an argument, but I guess I'm open to it if you can convince me why a drop is game-changing. Both teams usually present them in a way to exclude the other. Majority of the time, no real clash occurs from these.
Refer to speed section.

K Affs/Non-Traditional –
Go for it. Would prefer it was germane to the topic, but it's not a necessity.
Disclaimer: I am not completely up-to-date with identity args and authors. Just make sure that rather than giving author names, read out their claims and warrants to me. I'm not lay, but do explain the world of the aff and explain what the args mean. You can usually tell pretty easily if I'm following or not.

CP –
All CPs are fine. With that in mind, if you read a rider, delay, or any other similar counterplan, be ready to defend theory since I'll have a higher threshold. CPs must also be competitive and have a net benefit. It will take a lot of work to convince me to vote for a CP just because it has good solvency with no additional benefits.
Aff: if you read theory on a CP, be sure to explain why the CP in question is bad, not just the type of CP (Example: I'll vote on Intl' CP Fiat Bad, but I will be much more likely to buy China/Russia/Japan Fiat Bad)

DA –
Specifics over generic. I will vote for generic DA’s/links, but it will be much easier to sway me to not vote for them if it is generic. No link args made by aff will be harder to overcome for generics.

K –
Reading the same K shell every round won’t cut it. Whether you have cards specific for the aff case or not, you need to apply the K in terms of the aff. If you can read back 1AC/2AC cards or quotes and link it back to the K, it will go a long way for your link analysis. I really don’t like to vote on link of omissions, but I will if you can convince me why I should. Expect to put in time to convince me to vote on those; a couple sentences won’t get the job done. Don’t just repeat alt taglines at me, contextualize it in terms of the aff/round/world/whatever.
Refer to K aff section in regards to identity.

Speed –
Don’t shotgun theory/t/fw args. If you read 5 blippy analytical arguments that you believe are all key reasons why I should vote for your args, but you read them all in rapid succession without stopping for a breath and you still expect me to catch and flow every single one, I won’t. If I don’t catch it, I won’t flow it. Clarity comes before speed. Taglines should be presented with a change in pitch or volume.
Debaters tend to spread paragraphs of analytical args and expect me to flow every word. If you do have these paragraphs, slow down a tad so that I can write it. You don't need to talk in a normal speaking voice, but at least slow down a little.
That being said, I am okay with speed, despite what you might interpret from that. Don’t be afraid to read quickly in front of me. If you think you could flow it, then I will probably be able to as well.

Misc-

-Overflows > Underflows. But also, I just don't like underflows in general.
-Prep ends when the drive leaves the computer or when the email is sent.

-I love Clever technical tricks/kicks/cross-applications. This will get a major boost in speaks from me.

-CX is binding.
-Don’t clip cards. This should be obvious and applies to every round.
-If you’re kicking an advocacy such as a CP or an alt, be sure to say so.
-If there’s an email chain, go ahead and put me in it.
-Cross-Ex: Be aggressive, not rude.
-Don’t mock or be distracting during someone else’s speech. I will dock speaker points if I deem it necessary

Speaker points –
30: Probably the best speaker at the tournament
29.5+: Getting a speaker award
29+: Has a few mistakes, but is still a fantastic speaker
28.5+: More mistakes, but still above average
28+: About average, could’ve handled some things differently or improved on speaking quality
27.5+: Many mistakes
27+: Many larger mistakes
26: Made huge errors that affected the outcome of my decision
Below a 26: Behavior, actions, or words that are harmful or hateful towards a people or a person directly. Also given for those that don’t fully participate.

Colton Smith 

5 Years of High School Debate @ Tulsa Union HS 

Freshman NDT debater @ Missouri State University (Mo State SW)

Version 1.0 - Last edited 10-16-17

The closest thing that you can pin me to is tabula rasa. I have experience going for a cheating CP's with small net benefit to reading various K's sometimes all in the same 1NC. I was a 2N in high school if this helps at all. My favorite kinds of debates are ones where there is a small truthful policy aff with either the 2NR being a super specific DA (with or without a CP - doesn't matter to me) or a K with spec link lit. CAUTION - I like some K's but have a really high threshold for others. For example, I have read and debated Identity/structural K's frequently, but I do not have any experience with Baudrillard, Bataille, or whatever pomo person you have in mind. This can all be resolved with sufficient explanation so PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE HECK YOUR JARGON MEANS. That being said, I don't want the way I view debate to constrain what your strat is. If you think this is your A strat, then rep it and I'll be there to decide :). 

TLDR: I am good with about anything that you want to read in front of me, but you have to justify it words that I will be able to understand. Truth v Tech is a false dichotomy - a good argument should be able to have both. Speed is fine as long as you place clarity above speed. Prep ends when you say it does - do NOT abuse this privilege as it get annoying to wait three minutes to flash a speech doc. DO NOT STEAL PREP FOR THE LOVE OF gOD. The easiest way to my ballot is to sum up the debate for me. If you do an email chain, then you should put me on it at mc2turnt@gmail.com

Just a few random things that you might want to look into when debating with me in the back 

- evidence comparison - Debates frequently get out of hand and both sides win their own argument and it starts to look like two ships passing in the night. If you are doing comparative analysis with your evidence - PROPS! This makes for better debates and you might get a smile out of me if you do so. 

- Cross Ex - It is okay to be assertive, but rude it should never be. I think that people underestimate the value of CX in policy debate, and if you can use it effectively with me in the back it may result in better speaks. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is to be really nice in cross ex

- Marking Cards - I know that sometimes in a debate you have really long cards, but if I hear you marking every card in your 1NC, then there is a massive problem. One of the things that really can get under my skin is when you mark a lot of cards and try to extend them without reading that warrant. It's usually just a good idea to read the beautiful ev you have presented me. 

Onto the more specific things in life...

T/FW - I do not have many predispositions to this in any way. I am down for you to go 1 off fw if that's your planless aff strat. I will default to comp interps in a FW debate, but could be persuaded to default to reasonability if you warrant it well enough. I think for the negative to win these debates in regards to FW, you need to find a way to hedge back against their impact turns. This is possible and if I am in the back with this debate I could go either way, but I do appreciate teams that try to hold the line effectively. If the aff is policy and you want to go for T, then I think it might be the smartest to have a nuanced T violation. I didn't go for T very many times in my high school career, but I like to see them happen. For me to pick you up as the negative, you need to win why your interp/violation specifically generates abuse, and yes I can be persuaded that potential abuse is abuse. Also remember impacts are pretty important here too :) Do Not think that this is an invitation to only read FW in front of me. I like FW but I am not a hack for it. I like other nuanced and comprehensive strategies too and probably even more so.  

K - the more case-specific your link and the more comprehensive your alternative explanation, the more I’ll be persuaded by your kritik.

Do as much of your explanation on the line-by-line as possible - I am not the person that you want to read a 6 minute overview in the back of the room. You could be the best debater at the tournament, but if you drop long overviews - it will be hard to win the debate and your speaks will reflect that. 

you must find a way to weigh the aff and must have some defense to your method so that you have some justification for the 1AC. Think of the 1AC as a research project and you have to defend that research process. A good defense of your process specifically can be pretty devastating.

 I can be persuaded by extinction 1st and weigh the aff or just alt offense that is contextual to their research base, but the most important thing that the aff can do against K's is create 1 win condition and win it in the 2AR. A lot of teams get shook up trying to learn what the K means instead of creating a coherent strategy for the 2AR. 

I am an OK judge to do your K tricks with in the back, but you will need to explain their implications to the round itself. 

I am good with some K's but not all - if I look confused in the back, take a step back and explain what the argument means in my world. 

All in all K debates r fun ! 

CP - 

I like a good CP debate against an aff - I am the judge that will be down to hear topic generic CP's or super nuanced ones. Just win that the CP is theoretically justified, solves the entirety of the aff, and has a risk of a NB. 

I am okay with most CP's but you have to have a justification for the CP. 

I am a fan of most CP's. There are cheating CP's out there and a lot of them, but if you don't tell me why the CP is illegit then Ill let them run with it. 

The more spec the research is the better. 

YOU BEST HAVE A SOLVENCY ADVOCATE FOR THE CP TOO - unless its an adv cp and you tell me why there is not one that's needed VERY WELL. 

DA's - 

Yes Please

If you have a super unique DA that is spec to the topic and people haven't done their UQ updates then you as the neg have the right to exploit this. 
NEW DA's will be rewarded on level of prep 

I REALLY REALLY LIKE A GOOD DA DEBATE - but Zero risk is possible but difficult to prove by the aff. 

PLEASE justify your internal links very well - I think this is typically one of the weaker points of da's in general. 

I also like generic topic DA's that have a unique flavor to them.

if you go for a DA in the 2NR please do a lot of COMPARATIVE IMPACT CALCULUS. This is something that I think is fun to watch and can be a wonderful point for clash. Also, your DA turns case analysis should turn the im pacts of the 1AC as well as the solvency mechanism of the aff - these args if developed well enough will make me want to vote for you. 

Theory - Cool with it - gotta have an interp that generates offense for you though.

Case - I am a sucker for good case arguments and impact turns. I like to see a good impact turn debate, but I also like a strat where you decimate the case page. I feel like case debate is extremely underutilized and needs to be revitalized. 

If you have any questions or are just confused about what I have just told you, then you can drop me an email at mc2turnt@gmail.com 

As for CX, I lean in the traditional direction of favoring well-researched and crafted AFFs that link to the topic, solve genuine harms and produce plausible advantages. NEGs need to produce offense and defense arguments, looking for clear on-case attax and Off-case flows with specific links and significant impacts and CPs that are competitive. T args are usually a waste of time with me unless NEG can prove serious abuse of the topic. I'll vote on the K if I can buy the Alt. I ask to see cards on regularly. As for speed, if it is clear, I can flow it, and if I can flow it I can weigh/judge it. I'll yell "Clear" once, and after that, if the speaker is unintelligible, I put down my G2.

In LD, I flow everything--even CX. I look for good Framework clash/comparison and weighing which V/C will carry the round. Contentions must clearly link to the FW, backed up by solid evidence. I'm looking for debaters who can cover both flows thoroughly and offer a clear, concise pathway to getting my ballot. Try to stay steady and organized. Present good voters and weigh them against your opponent. I will listen to progressive strategies if they make sense to me.

With PF, I flow it all, but I in all honesty, I am looking for the team that can articulate the best scenario, back it up with stellar evidence, speak with authority and avoid making CX a barking fest.