Updated for CPS 2018: This update is to mostly reflect how I've been judging rounds lately.

Background:
I debated for four years for Loyola high. I broke at multiple tournaments and had a 4-3 record at the TOC.

I am more familiar with policy arguments, philosophy, and theory, and am less familiar with kritiques. However, I am not really a fan of how most philosophy and theory debates are done today, and thus my familiarity does not always correspond to what arguments I vote on.

Specifically, I think that moral philosophy positions that involves tricks are doing a disservice to the literature. Further, theory debates are often frivolous, although what I may consider frivolous may be different than what others consider frivolous. Some examples of what I consider frivolous theory are the following: font-size theory, must spec status in speech theory, some spec shells, etc. My litmus test for frivolous theory might be the following: does the theory shell isolate an issue of fairness that has actual educational implications on the debate round?

Kritiques usually have good explanations attached to them, so I've voted on them in the past and will probably continue to vote on them in the future.

Overview:
I evaluate the round via an offense/defense paradigm. Thus, I will vote for the debater who provides comparatively more offense back to the framework that has been won in the round, lest there are other issues (theory or kritiques) that precede this evaluation. Beyond this, I will try to evaluate the round in the most objective way possible. However, as all judges do, I have certain basic preferences that it would help to conform to.

First, when there is a clash on an issue or position, I tend to default to the more thorough and comprehensive explanation that makes sense to me. While technical drops are important, I don't think they automatically preclude good analysis. Strong weighing matters more to me than a dropped blippy argument on the flow.

Granted, this threshold only exists when there is clash on a position (and maybe sometimes across positions). If a position is totally conceded, or mostly conceded except for a couple of weaker arguments, my threshold for explanation and extensions becomes much lower (if totally conceded, it approaches zero).

Second, I flow CX, both because of theoretical implications of answers, and because I think your position is only as well warranted as your CX answers indicate. If I don't think there's a warrant after a particularly devastating CX on a position, you're going to have an uphill battle to convince me of the argument. (This is true only if the other debater brings up the flaws they pointed out in CX during a speech. CX by itself is not a rebuttal and thus cannot be the sole basis for my decision).

Third, I heavily favor debater's original analysis and arguments in later rebuttals (2NR and 2AR) as opposed to cards. While cards are good at setting up a position in constructive speeches, I heavily prefer debate styles that can go beyond cards with good explanations.

Theory defaults:
I default competing interpretations. I default no-RVI's. Topicality is a voter. All other issues must be justified by the debater.

Random Notes:

I like numbered responses to arguments, and clear distinction between line-by-line analysis and overviews.

I will only vote on arguments that I have flowed. During rebuttals, I mostly flow from what you're saying, rather than from the speech doc, so adjust accordingly.

While debate is a game, it is an educational game that brings lots of enjoyment to many of our lives. Please treat other debaters and it with respect.

I debate for Dartmouth in Policy. I have been both 2A and 2N in college.

I debated 4 years in LD and 3 years in Parli for Brentwood. In LD, I was the runner up at the 2018 NSDA National Championship and had 4 TOC bids my senior year. I also coach LD and Policy at Durham.

Conflicts: Brentwood School and Durham Academy.

Please add cavsdebate@gmail.com to chains.

*2021-2022 Update* I have come to the conclusion that speaker points are arbitrary and probably negatively influenced by individual judge's implicit biases. To mitigate this, I have decided that in Policy I will give the winning team a 30 and 29.9 and the losing team a 29.8 and a 29.7 (higher points to the last rebuttal). In LD, the winner will get a 30 and the loser a 29.9. If you think this model will skew seeding, you are probably right. A quick fix would be tournaments using opponent wins to decide seeding instead.

For online tournaments, please record your speeches. I will ask you to send recordings if there is an issue that leads to my missing parts of speeches.

I will say clear if I cannot understand you. I do not flow docs and I will not flow what I cannot hear so it is in your best interest to be clear.

It is your burden to explain arguments. I will not vote for positions if I do not understand your explanation of them.

You should extend your arguments, specifically their warrants. I will not evaluate arguments that are not in your team's final speech.

Do not cheat. If the opposing team or I catch you, I will vote for the opposing team. If you accuse the opposing team of cheating and I determine that they did not cheat, I will vote for the opposing team.

My judging vision is very similar to that of my Dartmouth coaches and teammates. Specifically, you may want to look at the paradigms of John Turner or Raam Tambe.

If you cannot spread, but are trying to, please don't. I'd much rather hear you be coherent as opposed to stumble and double breathe every 5 seconds to imitate spreading.

Space - If an aff defends the topic but doesn't defend "implementation" in the traditional sense because of the way the topic is worded, I still have a hard time conceptualizing why it doesn't link to disads.

HW 22 - I have not judged in over a year. I do not know anything about the topic, and I don't remember every opinion that I've ever had about debate. That being said, if some of the pet peeves I had before come up, odds are I will be even more irritated by it. Just look up my wiki for arguments that I generally liked.

Online debate is annoying, send out docs in a prompt manner. The 1AC/1NC I generally do not care how fast you go, just make sure that everyone is in agreement on what was read and what wasn't. Both of you should record for potential shenanigans. I don't care if your camera is on/off, but just make sure I can hear you. If I yell clear, sometimes it might not be your fault, but its your responsibility to just slow down. If I didn't hear it, then I didn't flow it. Just something we have to deal with in online debate.

San Marino HS 18

NYU 22

dengeric2k@gmail.com for email chains

About me:

I debated on the circuit for 2 years at San Marino High School in CA. I received 5 career bids and made it to octos of the TOC. I did college debate for a year as a 2A. I've taught at VBI and TDI/SJDI. My primary argumentative preferences were for policy arguments, though I did read a fair share of affirmatives that did not defend the topic. These preferences have not really swayed anyone from reading arguments I don't like in front of me, despite my best efforts, so you do you and I'll do my best to adjudicate. I am not super active coaching or competing anymore so I do not know what core topic lit is nor do I understand the "hip" new K.

For a tl;dr of arguments that I read when I debated here is a link to my wiki with open-sourced docs: https://hsld17.debatecoaches.org/San%20Marino/Deng%20Neg disclaimer: I read a lot of arguments that I personally disliked or did not find persuasive, the frequency of arguments read usually indicates my like or dislike of those arguments.

I used to have a long spiel, but I think nobody cares because people still read bad arguments in front of me. Instead, I will just give some random thoughts on arguments:

Disclosure -- pretty much non-negotiable, I'll listen to arguments that are based on academic literature/philosophy but I will not listen to arguments relating to fairness and education against disclosure. e.g. disclosure = surveillance? weird/bad argument, but I'll listen. disclosure = worse for fairness and education? not a fan. new affs bad/round reports disclosure/must open source etc do not fall under this -- they're both true, but I'd much rather the debate be about anything else.

Nebel T/Plans bad/T-generics/T-bare plural -- whatever variation of no plans/plans bad that you are running, it's boring and demonstrates a lack of preparation and research. I will vote on this argument but I hate it and you should too.

theory -- frivolous theory arguments are not my strength, nor am I particularly found of them.,I'm not any good at judging these debates because they're way too messy and it is not something that can be resolved by excellent debating due to them being late-breaking and the plethora of new arguments that end up being made. if you're THE theory debater this year you're not gonna like me

K Affs/Non-topical affirmatives -- beat framework, have a defense of your model not just your aff; solvency based on wins/losses/ballots is highly questionable and I'm skeptical of these arguments. Those reading framework should have a defense of their model. Fairness is an impact, and attempting to solve the aff through a tva or education is not necessary but may be helpful. Those reading Ks against K affs will probably not like my decision both ways, as I am not the best judge for in-depth debates about philosophy/academic literature.

RoB/standards/ld philosophy -- saying any of these things does not mean its the only thing that matters (that's what debate and impact calc is for) -- I view these things as just buzzwords in order to substitute with real impact calc. I would prefer you not be lazy and actually explain instead of hiding behind these words.

truth vs tech -- this is arbitrary -- if your strategy is predicated on winning blatantly false/unwarranted arguments by spewing out a bunch of them, I am a) not going to be able to flow them, and b) the threshold for convincing me the opposite of your arguments is very low. Technical debating is made easier with truthful/well-researched arguments.

Plans/DAs/CPs/etc. -- evidence quality matters. You should want me to read your evidence to confirm the claims that you are making, otherwise your argument probably isn't as good as you say it is. I have a soft spot for advantage counterplans and the states counterplan, but find that many teams are not answering/reading these in the correct manner. I am not a fan of the "everything except this one instance of the topic" PIC as I find that these are mostly disads with a counterplan text attached and no real solvency advocate. PICs should exclude a meaningful part of the aff and have a solvency advocate. If your PIC falls under this category, I will most likely significantly lean aff on theory. Otherwise, I slightly lean neg on most counterplan theory questions. Conditionality is probably good, but its certainly winnable that its bad in LD.

misc -- If this is still a thing, I strongly dislike evidence made by debate coaches/meta-articles about debate. They're subjective and incentivizes people to write debate articles to make an argument in round. I will just treat it as an analytic.

speaks -- I give low speaks relative to people, but maybe other people are inflating? If you're trying to win top speaker, I'm probably not the best judge for you unless you're really good.

(recently updated)

Email: danidosch@gmail.com

I am an assistant coach for Immaculate Heart High School. I debated for Immaculate Heart for four years. I am now a 4th year philosophy student at UC Berkeley.

Most important stuff:

I try my best to not let my argument preferences influence my decision in a debate; I have no problem voting for arguments that I disagree with. That said, I will only vote on arguments — that is, claims with warrants — and I have no problem not voting for an "argument" because it is not properly warranted.

I will not vote on arguments that I don't understand or didn't have flowed. I do not flow from the doc; I think the increasing tendency of judges to do this is abetting the issue of students being literally incomprehensible. I will occasionally say clear, but I think the onus is on you to be comprehensible.

You must send to your opponent whatever evidence you plan to read before you begin your speech; you do not need to send analytics. If you mark cards during a speech — that is, if you begin reading a card but do not finish reading that card — then you must indicate where in the card you stopped, and you should send a marked doc immediately after your speech. You do not need to send a document excluding cards that were not at all read.

If you want to ask your opponent what was read/not read, or what arguments were made on a certain page, you of course may, but you must do it in CX or prep. There is no flow clarification time slot in a debate!

The upshot of the last few comments is that I think flowing is a very important skill, and we should endorse practices that cultivate that skill.

You will auto-lose the debate if you clip cards. Prep ends once the speech doc has been sent. If you want to advance an evidence ethics violation, you must stake the debate on it.

Be respectful to your opponent. This is a community.

Other stuff:

Above all, I like clash-heavy debates between well-researched positions.

My favorite negative strategies include impact turns, counterplans, and NCs. My favorite affirmative strategies are plans with “big-stick” or “soft-left” advantages.

I don't really like "tricks" of any genre because I think overwhelmingly they simply lack warrants.

I don't like strategies that depend entirely on framework or framing arguments to exclude your opponent's offense. You should always answer the case even if you are reading a framework/impact framing argument that explains why I should prioritize your offense over your opponent's.

As I said, I will never not vote on an argument simply because I disagree with it. I will, however, ignore arguments that are not warranted, and I think certain claims are very difficult, if not impossible, to provide a warrant for.

Here are some examples of claims that I think are very difficult to provide a warrant for:

• It would be better if debates lacked a point of stasis.

• The outcome of a given debate is capable of changing people's minds/preferences.

• It would be better if the negative could not read advocacies conditionally.

• I should win the debate solely because I, in fact, did not do anything that was unfair or uneducational.

• There is a time skew between the aff and neg in a debate.

• A 100% risk of extinction does not matter under my non-utilitarian/non-consequentialist framework.

• My 1ar theory argument should come procedurally prior to the negative's topicality argument.

• There is something paradoxical about our understanding of space/time, so you should vote for me.

Here are some claims that I will never vote on, whether you try to warrant them or not:

• That which is morally repugnant

• This debate should be about the moral character of my opponent

• X is a voting issue simply because I labeled it as such.

I am the Director of Debate at Immaculate Heart High School. I am a conflict for any competitors on this list.

General:

1. I will vote on nearly any argument that is well explained and compared to the arguments your opponent has made.

2. Accusing your opponent of an evidence ethics or clipping violation requires you to stake the debate on said allegation. If such an allegation is made, I will stop the debate, determine who I think is in the wrong, and vote against that person and give them the lowest speaker points allowed by the tournament.

3. I won’t vote on arguments that I don’t understand or that I don’t have flowed. I have been involved in circuit LD for almost ten years now and consider myself very good at flowing, so if I missed an argument it is likely because you were incomprehensible.

4. I am a strong proponent of disclosure, and I consider failing to disclose/incorrect disclosure a voting issue, though I am growing weary of nit-picky disclosure arguments that I don’t think are being read in good faith.

5. For online debate, please keep a local recording of your speech so that you can continue your speech and share it with your opponent and me in the event of a disconnect.

6. Weighing arguments are not new even if introduced in the final rebuttal speech. The Affirmative should not be expected to weigh their advantage against five DAs before the Negative has collapsed.

7. You need to use CX to ask which cards were read and which were skipped.

Some thoughts of mine:

1. I dislike arguments about individual debaters' personal identities. Though I have voted for these arguments plenty of times, I think I would vote against them the majority of the time in an evenly matched debate.

2. I am increasingly disinterested in voting for topicality arguments about bare plurals or theory arguments suggesting that either debater should take a stance on some random thing. No topic is infinitely large and voting for these arguments discourages topic research. I do however enjoy substantive topicality debates about meaningful interpretive disagreements regarding terms of art used in the resolution.

3. “Jurisdiction” and “resolvability” standards for theory arguments make little sense to me. Unless you can point out a debate from 2013 that is still in progress because somebody read a case that lacked an explicit weighing mechanism, I will have a very low threshold for responses to these arguments.

4. I dislike critiques that rely exclusively on framework arguments to make the Aff irrelevant. The critique alternative is one of the debate arguments I'm most skeptical of. I think it is best understood as a “counter-idea” that avoids the problematic assumptions identified by the link arguments, but this also means that “alt solves” the case arguments are misguided because the alternative is not something that the Negative typically claims is fiated. If the Negative does claim that the alternative is fiated, then I think they should lose to perm do both shields the link. With that said, I still vote on critiques plenty and will evaluate these debates as per your instructions.

5. Despite what you may have heard, I enjoy philosophy arguments quite a bit and have grown nostalgic for them as LD increasingly becomes indistinct from policy. What I dislike is when debaters try to fashion non-normative philosophy arguments about epistemology, metaphysics, or aesthetics into NCs that purport to justify a prescriptive standard. I find philosophy heavy strategies that concede the entirety of the opposing side’s contention or advantage to be unpersuasive.

6. “Negate” is not a word that has been used in any resolution to date so frameworks that rely on a definition of this word will have close to no impact on my assessment of the debate.

Email: connorengel@gmail.com

Things to know

[1] I have no interest in judging debates about bad theory arguments. They are bad, boring, and pointless. If you make an exceptionally terrible theory argument, I just won't vote on it. This doesn't apply to many arguments. For example, arguments that are fair game are CP theory, plans good/bad, some spec args, AFC good/bad, etc. This is only meant to exclude really awful arguments like "neg may only make 2 arguments," "must spec CP status in speech," "must read an explicit standard text," "must contest the aff framework," and "must spec what you meant when you said 'competing interps.'" Strategic theory is fine, but theory debates about arguments this bad are honestly just not worth my time.

[2] I value explanation a lot. I've found that I vote aff in a lot of debates in which the neg goes for a ton of arguments, each of which could be a winning 2NR but end up getting very under-explained. I have also voted for a lot of debaters whose evidence is not amazing but who give very good explanations/spin for that evidence. The best debaters I've seen collapse in rebuttals, give overviews, and weigh.

[3] I am unlikely to be convinced that something categorically outweighs something else (e.g. .01% risk of extinction outweighs, fairness outweighs everything no matter what, etc.). Your weighing arguments should be contextual/comparative.

[4] I really enjoy good T, policy-style, theory, and K v. policy aff debates. I’ve found that I normally do not like “philosophy”/ framework debates because they tend to involve bad mis-explanations of moral theories, cards cut out of context, and general trickery/tomfoolery. Paraphrasing Travis Fife: If you actually read moral/political philosophy and apply it to debate in a way that’s true to the literature, I might be a great judge for you. If you use moral theory as an excuse for engaging in trickery/obfuscation and making implausible normative claims, I am a very bad judge for you (and you should stop doing that).

[5] I have voted for T/framework against K affs more often than I have voted against it. When I vote neg in T/FW debates, I normally vote on skills-type impacts and topic education impacts, and I almost never vote on "fairness is an intrinsic good." When I vote aff in these debates, I normally think that the aff has done something to mitigate the neg's impact (e.g. a counter-interpretation that solves, link/impact defense) and won a good-size piece of offense for their counter-interpretation. I think the aff in these debates needs to have a counter-interpretation and should prove that that counter-interpretation is better than the neg interpretation.

[6] I actively enjoy K debate, but there's nothing worse than bad K debate. Just because I'm black and read certain identity politics args in high school doesn't mean I'll autovote on them without any explanation. In fact if you're going to read afropess the bar is set extra high for actually explaining and extending ontology warrants rather than just yelling at your opponent about the middle passage for 7 minutes.

[7] I don't really understand most "high theory" arguments (Baudrillard, Bataille, Deleuze, etc.). I won't vote on something that I cannot coherently explain, so the bar for explanation is pretty high. In general, you should not assume I am well-read on the critical literature you’re reading unless it’s marxism or identity politics. I have found that slowing down, collapsing, and giving examples all enhance my understanding of arguments made in rounds.

[8] I am very unlikely to vote on a "risk of offense" argument on theory. I'm inclined to think that the debater initiating theory has to generate a real/substantial advantage to their interpretation that I could describe without using the term "risk of offense".

[9] “Reasonability” means to me that the person answering theory need only meet a “reasonable” interpretation, rather than the optimal interpretation. “Reasonability” does not mean to me: “evaluate just whether our particular aff should be allowed,” “only demonstrated/in-round/whatever-you-call-it abuse matters,” or “we may ‘reasonably meet their interpretation.’”

I think that reasonability is most persuasive against theory arguments with a very small impact. The best arguments for reasonability argue that requiring debaters’ practices to meet a certain (reasonable) standard, rather than requiring them to meet the optimal standard, produces the best debates. Generic “competing interps is bad” arguments are not great args for reasonability.

[10] Please slow down on theory arguments, especially if you don't put them on their own pages. If you read theory args at the same speed that you read cards, I almost certainly won't get down everything that you want me to.

[11] I'm not interested in listening to call-outs of or jabs at other schools, debaters, coaches, etc. E.g. I don't want to hear "[School X] always does this!" or "Of course [Debater Y] is going for [Argument A]!" Lines like these do not help illustrate your argument at all, make the debate uncomfortable to judge, and are often just mean/uncalled for.

[12] You cannot "insert highlighting" or a list of what the aff defends. If either the warrant in a card is given by a chart/table or you want to insert a very long list, then you should at least describe what the chart/table says or identify the source of the list, what it's a list of, and that you'll defend it (respectively).

[13] I quickly get lost in debates that use the word "fiat" a lot. I don't think that the terms "pre-fiat" and "post-fiat" are very illuminating; it's not clear to me what they mean in most contexts or what the significance of supposed distinction between "pre-" and "post-fiat" is supposed to be. I also think that using the word "fiat" as a verb is obfuscatory in a lot of contexts; it's not clear to me that "fiatting" an action is anything over and above just saying that someone should do it. Relatedly, I don't think that "truth-testing" means the aff doesn't have to defend fiat or implementation. (This is largely because I don't know what "truth-testing" does to sidestep the justification for fiat, which comes from the word "ought" in the resolution.)

[14] In most of the K debates that I have judged, framework (the "role of the ballot") has been woefully underdeveloped on both sides. Often, the neg does not clearly extend a framework arg and articulate what it means. And often the aff's only framework arg is "let us weigh the case because fairness." This makes these debates very hard to judge. K 2NR's that include a robust framework argument and explanation of how that includes the neg impacts and excludes weighing the case make it much easier to vote neg. Similarly, 2AR's on the K that include robust "exclusive plan focus good" or "let us weigh the case + case outweighs" arguments make it much easier to vote aff. When neither side clearly labels and develops a framework argument, I find it very difficult to piece these debates together/determine what each side thinks I should be evaluating in the debate.

[15] What is up with this sending cards in the body of the email thing? Do people not make speech docs? It is fine in principle to send cards in the body of the email. But if your opponent asks you to send them in a document instead, then you need to take your prep time to compile and send a speech doc (or if you are out of prep time, you should start your speech time to compile + send the doc).

Things About Cheating

[1] I think that evidence ethics matters regardless of whether an argument/ethics challenge is raised in the debate. If I notice that a piece of evidence is miscut, I will vote against the debater who reads the miscut evidence.

I think that a piece of evidence is miscut if:

• it starts and/or ends in the middle of a sentence or paragraph.

• text is missing from the middle of the card (replacing that text with an ellipsis does not make it okay),

• the next paragraph or another part of the article explicitly contradicts the argument/claim made in the card,

• the card is highlighted in a way that modifies or does not accurately represent the author’s claim [Be careful with brackets - I don’t think they always mean a card is miscut, but I’ve seen that they very often do. I think that brackets, more often than not, are bad - if a bracket changes the strength of a claim made by the author, or in some other way changes the *meaning* of the evidence, it is miscut] [also, I think that highlighting only part of a word is the same as bracketing - if you highlight only part of a word, then the word you read is not what the author wrote],

If I decide a debate on evidence ethics, I will let the debate finish as normal. If the debate is a prelim, I will decide speaks based on the content of the debate and subtract two speaker points from the debater that I vote against. If the debate is an elim, I will submit my ballot and won’t say anything about my decision until the debate is announced.

If both sides read miscut evidence, I will vote against the debater who read miscut evidence first. (I really don’t love this as a way to evaluate these debates, but the only comparable scenario that I can think of is clipping, and that’s how I would resolve those debates.)

I do not plan to go out of my way looking for miscut evidence or checking to see whether every card is cut correctly. If I do notice that something is miscut, I will vote against the debater who reads it regardless of whether a challenge is made.

Please do not hesitate to ask questions about this before the debate.

[2] If a debater says that a piece of evidence is miscut in round and their opponent clarifies that they are making an "evidence ethics challenge" (and the former person confirms that they want to make a challenge), the debate ends. I will read all of the relevant stuff and then make a decision. Whoever is correct on the evidence ethics challenge wins the debate. The loser will get the lowest speaks I can give.

In lieu of an evidence ethics challenge, I am also ok with asking your opponent to just strike the cards from the doc/cross them off the flow in cx and have the rest of the debate but calling a challenge if they refuse to do so (this is noble but not required). You could also make arguments about why misquoting is bad, but I'm compelled by a response that basically says "call an ethics challenge or don't make the argument; we'll stake the debate on it." Indeed, I think that if you make an evidence ethics argument, you should be willing to stake the debate on it. If you don't stake the round on it, you'll still win (if they committed the evidence ethics violation), but your speaks will be worse than they otherwise would have been.

[3] Clipping is cheating! I read along with most cards, and if I notice that someone is clipping, I'll vote against them and give them the lowest speaks that I can give. I will not stop the debate unless a challenge is made, but if I notice clipping, I will vote on it regardless of whether a challenge is made. For clipping challenges, I'll follow the same procedure that I follow with evidence ethics (above). A similar procedure that might be helpful to look at is written out more formulaically in the NDCA guidelines: <https://static.squarespace.com/static/53416a18e4b0aa2aaadf85e4/t/53665f81e4b03af4b79e088f/1399218049326/clipping.pdf>. (The NDCA guidelines say that clipping has to be at least 5 words, but that seems to me like too many. Skipping ~3 words is definitely clipping, and skipping fewer (i.e. 1-2) is also bad and potentially a VI!)

Things I Won't Vote On

A prioris

Oppression good (if you concede that your position entails that oppression is good, then your position is that oppression is good)

Moral skepticism

Trivialism

Awful theory args

Speaks

I will give speaks based on how well I think you should do at the tournament. I also give higher speaks to reward strategies and arguments that I think are good/enjoyable to listen to/generally fun.
Here's a rough scale of how I'll give speaks:

30 = you should win everything

29.5-29.9 = you should be in late elims

29-29.5 = you should clear

28.5-29 = you should be on the bubble

27.5-28.5 = average

26.5-27.5 = you made some important strategic errors/lacked a clear strategy

<26.5 = I found something about this debate very annoying

Disclosure

Just disclose, ok? If you don't meet some minimum threshold for disclosure (the Harvard Westlake tournament disclosure policy requires what I consider the minimum acceptable disclosure) and your opponent reads disclosure theory, then you're going to lose. To be clear this does not require the disclosure of personal information that may endanger any debater (the brightline for which I leave to your discretion), but rather an attempt in good faith to provide your opponent with as much information about your position as possible.

The aff must tell the neg what aff they're going to read unless it's a new aff.

The wiki goes down every tournament. When it does, both debaters should make an effort to contact each other to disclose.

General Info

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Benjamin Franklin High School

Tulane University

Current Conflicts: Durham Academy

Email: SeanFaheyLD@gmail.com (please put me on email chains and feel free to email me questions)

September 2022 Update (Read if you're a traditional debater): How exciting to be back in person! Some notes on lay debate in front of me. I am open-minded in terms of how you approach these debates as long as it does not come at an unfair expense to your opponent (ex: spreading against competitors who do not want to). Please be respectful of each other. I think about traditional LD fairly linearly - win offense underneath whatever framework is winning in the round. Whether that means conceding your opponents framework and going for turns or having an elaborate framework debate, all that matters to me is whether you outweigh under the winning framework. Cases without a criterion are very hard to evaluate unless you contextualize your offense to your opponents standard. I don't see much value in the value debate (no pun intended) other than using the value as an additional reason to prefer a certain criterion. I will listen to lay theory arguments, such as 'no counterplans', but, if you want to win on this argument, you need to articulate the theoretical argument as a voting issue and why (fairness/education/etc.). I appreciate thoroughly extended impacts and clear, decisive weighing. Also - with peace and love - please don't try to shake my hand, we just got out of a big pandemic. Have fun and debate your best!

I debated for 4 years at Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans, LA. I competed at the TOC twice and got to finals of the CFL National Tournament my senior year. I've taught at the Victory Briefs Institute and The Debate Intensive.

I read all styles of arguments at some point in time, but mostly read critical theory. That said, I’m open to all styles of argumentation and speed (I will state clear as needed). I like in-depth debates that emphasize critical and comparative handling of evidence/nuanced arguments. Simply reading a card is not really a full argument to me; rebuttals need to have a clear, full extension of arguments presented in your evidence. I don't have much lenience in evaluating extensions that are just the tagline and author. This should also flag that I’m not a huge fan of blippy styles of argumentation and, while debate is a competitive activity, I’d rather evaluate a more scholastic engagement of ideas.

I decide based on the flow, but everyone says that and it kinda means nothing. That said, I view myself as an educator and, as such, I don’t allow hateful/violent discourse and I will reflect that with my ballot/RFD.

I usually flow CX. I like well-used CX time.

Please slow down for plan texts, CP texts, theory interpretations, perm texts, or anything that has precise value in its wording.

Little blurb on disclosure+debating politely:

I think open source disclosure is a very good thing and I regard most attempts to avoid this norm as unpersuasive. That said, I have voted against disclosure theory many times on impact turns to fairness or transparency, given those arguments are won on the flow, of course. I think reading disclosure theory against debaters clearly out of the national circuit loop is pretty unkind and often voids engagement, so please don’t. That said, I think reading disclosure theory against novices/early varsity members of large programs on the wiki is acceptable because their coaches should tell them to do so/do so for them (especially if the rest of the team discloses) and sometimes these debates are the only way for people to learn.

In the same vein as my policy on disclosure theory, please do not spread out debaters who clearly can not spread. You can still win this way because I won't intervene, but I will dock your speaks because I think it's rude. Please be considerate and inclusive.

Little blurb on theoretical presumptions:

In the past I have said what I default to in terms of paradigms for theory and framework, but I’ve come to view this norm as an incentive for lazy debating. I think you should have to justify everything necessary for you to win.

Things ppl actually care about:

• 50-50 on Framework v Non-T affs and not necessarily because of my personal opinions on the matter.
• Fairness and education are voters in no particular order; I think strength of link is especially relevant in the determination of which of these matters more in a given round.
• That said, I think epistemic modesty, as it is generally used, is pretty nonsensical. Don’t really understand weighing a deontic violation against a risk of an impact.
• I think K affs should do something or place some theoretical weight in the act of affirmation. Pessimism based affs with no clear solvency mechanism (or definition of what solvency is in the eyes of the affirmative position) generally seem to be negative presumption arguments in my mind. Feel free to change my mind on this point. I’ve seen exceptions to this.
• Please explain your permutations by illustrating a clear picture of the world it supposes.
• Weigh impacts and strength of internal links. PLEASE. Don’t presume that I think extinction is worse than genocide, war, etc. and give me some way to do risk analysis.
• Asinine theory follows the pornography rule for me, you know it when you see - my threshold on answering these args is substantively very low.
• Have fun, take it easy, and make some jokes or something.

Debated for Northwestern 2018-22

Assistant coaching for Dartmouth this year

Please put ninafridman3@gmail.com on the chain.

I am assistant coaching for Dartmouth this year, but also have a full-time non-debate job. I know the basics of the topic but assume I don’t know as much as your other judges who are more involved in topic research.

I flow what I hear you say. If you send out a document with every analytic argument and then blaze through it I will not just read it afterwards to reconstruct what you’ve said.

I care about the quality of your arguments and cards but don't care as much about the content. As a debater, I didn't find long judge philosophies particularly helpful because often what people write in their philosophies doesn't really correspond too much to how they evaluate debates, so I am not going to write down all of my tiny opinions about arguments. The only two maybe caveats are that I will kick the CP for the NEG if no one tells me not to, and I will vote against you if you say death is good (this especially includes suggesting that the death of your opponents would be good).

After the round is over, please send a complied doc of all of the cards you think were relevant in the debate. (Relevant=extended in a final rebuttal). Compiling cards is meant to make it easier/faster for me to render a decision, and is not a 3NR/3AR. Therefore, when you make this document please do not include headers or notes that make arguments (ex: putting a note that says “these cards answer the AFF’s second advantage also” if you read/extended those cards only on advantage 1). I find this to be borderline cheating.

If you ask me for a 30 you get a 25 instead.

Feel free to email me prior to if you have any questions.

Include me on email chains - Laura.Hosman5@gmail.com

Background

I currently coach LD and CX at Denver East. I competed in LD back in the early 2000s, and have been coaching since I graduated from HS in 2004. Most of my coaching as been part time as I'm a perpetual student/grad student. I'm currently working on my PhD in IR at the University of Denver. Prior, I attended law school and completed my JD in 2013. My current research interests focus broadly on judicial defection under non-democracies, International Human Rights Law, and the impact of transitional justice on democratization (https://www.du.edu/korbel/sie/people/research_assistants.html). Feel free to talk to me about law school versus grad school - I'm friendly :)

Since I've been coaching for almost 14 years now, but part time, I'm good with national circuit trends and topic substance despite a low judging record. Where it hurts me is with spreading - I'm good with a fast rate of speed, but I'm not where I should be with proper spreading. As long as you flash me or email me your stuff, and slow down on tags and analytics, and you're clear, I'm fine. If I miss any cards I'll just ask.

On staff at SJDI this summer -- https://camp.thesjdi.org/instructors/

Logistics

Flashing/Emailing is not prep - just keep it reasonable. I prefer email chains.

Flex prep is fine - that's up to the debaters as far as I'm concerned

For CX - open cross is fine; again, that's up to the debaters as far as I'm concerned

Overall

I lean strongly towards an offense-defense paradigm - You can concede FW and I'll still vote for you so long as your impacts outweigh. Just make sure when you kick FW its strategic - otherwise why are you running that FW in the first place. Subsequently, I'm not a huge fan of terminal defensive - link turns and perms are good so long as the impacts outweigh and there are some grounds for uniqueness.

I don't vote on presumption - the negative should at least have some net positive impacts from the SQ that outweigh. If I do vote on presumption, it was a bad round.

I'm a pretty progressive judge, so I love a good K, including [performance] aff Ks. But I'll hold you to a higher standard - if you access your solvency via deconstruction of the round itself, your method of doing so better be consistent with your theoretical FW. Fiat is merely a tool through which we can debate empirical impacts as a basis for that which we ought to do, rather than debating the likelihood of occurrence. So if you're running something pre-fiat, you no longer have the luxury of severing theory from method. On neg Ks, just make sure there's a link that's clear and specific, and you have an alt. If you do that you're probably fine. I'm significantly more likely to vote for your K if you have an alt.

Dropped arguments only matter if there's an impact - so again, be strategic and focus on the warrant + impact. In general try not to drop arguments though.

I favor conditionality, just explain [in brief] why kicking the CP, K, or whatever doesn't impact your offense.

DAs - links and impacts generally matter more than uniqueness, but don't ignore uniqueness if there's a CP/Perm

Counterplans are good, just make sure it competes with the plan (think opportunity cost model here).

Debate Theory/ROB - I've never once been persuaded by debate theory. Feels like most folks run debate theory out of habit and because they have the blocks, not because they mean it or even hope to win on it. And folks tend to sound like they are whining by defaulting to theory cause they don't have cards prepped out. But if you can argue it well I might be persuaded by it - especially if something in round is egregious enough to warrant rejection on such grounds (guess I'm yet to see something so egregious). In general, though, I'd rather just see debaters debate substance. I'm more inclined to favor the educational value that comes from debating whatever is offered in round, especially in light of current disclosure norms.

Disclosure Theory - I'm yet to have this be an issue in round, so I can't say definitely how I would vote if someone ran disclosure theory against their opponent. But I've been in this community a decent amount of time, and I've seen the net positive benefits of disclosing on competitive debate. So I strongly support disclosing and am apt to vote accordingly. Granted, I'd rather just vote on the substance of whatever is offered in round if I can, so I wouldn't spend much time on this (esp if its clearly a kid from a i.e. small program without a lot of resources - the net effect at that point is to just be exclusionary and keep kids out of the community).

Theory is not an RVI.

I default to competing interps.

I like T debates, but rarely find myself voting for it - probably because folks don't argue it well and don't impact it. Explain to me why I should pref your definition and why the distinction matters - the distinction should be fundamental and substantial to the resolution/debate/evidence, so don't just run debate theory as the basis for preferring your interp (i.e. studies on democratization are largely dependent on how you define "democracy," with findings determined by quantity versus quality operationalizations of democracy -- so you could link/impact turn the entire 1AC with an alternative definition of democracy). Generally, I'm more inclined to favor the educational value of debating whatever is offered in round and not vote on T.

I'm not a fan of spikes, so I wouldn't go for that strategy. I do see debate as a game, but it should be one with integrity and I see spikes as diminishing the integrity of the game.

Lastly, be nice and respectful, esp in cross. I have a really high threshold for what I consider to be "too aggressive," so rarely do I ever think debaters have crossed the line so to speak. But, i.e. do give your opponents an opportunity to answer during cross.

Speaks - I generally range from 27 to 30. My average is probably somewhere around a 28.5 (I wouldn't be surprised if I'm more generous than others with speaks). If you get above a 29, I think you should be in elim rounds. If you get below a 28, something about your behavior in round bothered me (it probably had to do with cross, and I've only given below a 28 once). If its borderline, I'll probably just give you a flat 29.

For traditional LD, the logic of all of the above applies - I need an impact calc under your value-criterion FW. You can concede your value and still win on impact calc.

Add me to the chain: speechdocs@whitjack.me

conflicts: DebateDrills, Brentwood (class of 2018)

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I am a coach with the DebateDrills Club Team. Information regarding conflicts, team policies, and harassment reports can be found at https://debatedrills.com/en/private-prep-sharing/#policy. Should you have any questions or concerns, email leadership@debatedrills.com

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General Philosophy

Debate should be fun and I want to see you have fun and excel at what you do best. Please don't adjust your debating too much to me. Everything below that isn't described as a hard and fast rule should be treated as a mild suggestion about quirks in my judging. I regularly vote for arguments and strategies I passionately disagree with and vice versa. No matter what strategy you defend, act as if my prior knowledge of it is close to 0. Even if you're right, I will judge and hold you accountable for warranting your arguments as if my knowledge was in fact 0. I treat judging as a serious obligation and no matter what you do, I'll give you my full attention and effort!

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Online (will update as I go)

1. 5 minutes of prep including sending docs. Any extra time comes from your speech.

2. You need to go 65% speed max. Counterplan texts, interps, perms, and anything else where exact wording matters should be conversational speed. If you do not do this, I will miss significant portions of your speech and I will not fill in the gaps. 90% of debaters have not met this threshold and the debaters who have do have done significantly better in front of me.

3. Record your speeches. If anyone's internet goes out you should immediately send the recording to everyone in the round. If you don't have a recording, you only get what I flowed.

4. Blips don't win online debates. Given the difficulties of the format, I'm less willing to vote on a random dropped .5 second subpoint.

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Non-Negotiables

1) Disclose. Full text is a bare minimum to win in front of me.

2) I will not vote on any argument about events outside the debate (I consider disclosure pertinent to the debate). Death good, arguments about your opponents appearance/clothing, and facially offensive actions end the round. I am not comfortable using my ballot as a moral judgement on students.

3) Fair Play. Miscut evidence, clipping, reading ahead, outside communication, evidence fabrication, etc are cheating. Accusations without proof mean you lose. “Evidence ethics” ends the round.

4) I won't vote on arguments I can't understand in the speech they're first made.

5) Show up to round on time. 5 minutes of prep. Prep ends when the doc is sent. Flow clarification is prep/CX. Marked docs should be sent immediately after the speech. Dead time is the devil and I'll reward good debate practices with good speaks.

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Preferences

1) I don't want to judge rounds about heinous theory arguments or tricks. I don't usually enjoy judging these debates and I don't think I'm very good at resolving them. I enjoy judging Phil debates but think they usually benefit from more explanation and less tricks.

2) I lean further neg than most on counterplan theory. Creative counterplans are underutilized. Creative perms are too (and usually a better 2AR than theory). Judge kick makes sense to me. I'm not opposed to voting on condo but I don't find hail-mary condo 2ARs fun to judge. To make it a viable 2AR, condo should be more than a sentence in the 1AR.

3) "Not defending implementation" doesn't make sense to me.

4) I think my record is near 50/50 in K Aff vs. T debates. I coach students on both sides. Thoughts:

Aff: I think affirmatives have a burden of "affirming" something -- i'm pretty easily persuaded that pure pessimism is neg ground and presumption is very winnable if the aff doesn't do anything (I seriously don't know why this is almost never the 2nr). When answering T counter-define words and have a debatable counterinterp ("discussion of the topic", "only our aff", etc. wouldn't make sense in any other T debate). Impact turns need a counter-interp to provide uniqueness.

Neg: Fairness >>> skills, don't read a 4 minute overview, don't rely on bad args like truth-testing. Please listen to the 1AR -- when I vote aff (or neg) it’s usually because of technical drops. Neg usually under-develop the TVA, but I find having one less important than a lot of judges do.

5) To be upfront, I have voted aff vs the K at a much higher rate than usual this season. I have no personal qualms with the K as an argument, but most rounds I've seen so far this season have lacked specificity to the plan and good impact comparison/framing. When I vote aff vs the K, it's usually because I think the aff outweighs the impact to the links. It would be wise to structure your 2NR around the question of why the links prove the aff is bad and invest significant time winning defense on case.

6) Independent voters don't exist. All arguments need to be tied to a specific framing argument. The distinction between "pre/post fiat" arguments is meaningless.

7) Tired of hearing the same topicality debates over and over again. If it's just a dressed up version of plans bad (Nebel/T-a/etc) I'm probably not the best judge for it. I think topics with diverse aff ground are usually the best and I don't think complex grammar debates are the best way to set the limits of the topic. Perfectly fine for T arguments that delve into specific definitional disagreements that qualitatively, rather than solely quantitatively change the nature of the topic.

8) Random paradigmatic things:

- 1AR doesn't get add ons. 2NR doesn't get new uniqueness, links, etc. Unless the alt explicitly includes the aff in the 1NC, it isn't a PIK.

- Insert re-highlighting: sure

- "You didn't read a fairness voter" isn't super compelling to me w.r.t. paragraph theory. It seems obvious to me that both sides should have a roughly equal shot at winning, all things equal.

- I will disregard any argument about my "jurisdiction" as a judge.

I will vote on almost anything. I like theory. I flow CX.

CKM '18

Berkeley '22

Assistant coach at Immaculate Heart. She/her. annabellelong@berkeley.edu

I’ve heard/debated it all and will listen to/vote on anything, provided you do it well. Specific argument preferences are below, but none of these preferences should significantly change what you read or how you debate in front of me. If you win the debate, I will vote for you.

Ks: I’ll vote for them. I'm familiar with most commonly read Ks. I think good K teams do more than just read the same shell and 2NC overview every round, and I’ll appreciate it and find it easier to vote for you if you have contextual links to the plan/impacts. It will be difficult to convince me that debate is bad.

K vs K: the area where I’m least familiar. I'm not super comfortable evaluating these rounds. You will have a hard time convincing me that the perm doesn't solve.

Counterplans: On condo: it’s good. On kicking planks: you can do it. On 2NC counterplans: they are good. None of these preferences mean I can't be convinced otherwise, but if debating on the question is equal, that is how I will typically lean.

Disads: I really care about evidence quality – if any card you’re planning to read has frankensteined a sentence out of words from three different paragraphs, it’s probably a bad disad, and I won’t be a fan. Zero risk is definitely a thing.

Framework: yes. Plans = good, debate = good, topic education = good. I’ll vote on fairness. I think portable skills are real and that movements-style framework can be strategic. I am not the best judge for you if you read a k aff, but I certainly won't auto vote neg on framework. Always tech over truth.

LD: I strongly dislike and do not feel comfortable judging theory/tricks debating, I love policy-style arguments, and am not fond of judging traditional LD philosophy debates (convincing me util is wrong/not the best way to make governmental decisions will be difficult). It will be nearly impossible to win an RVI in front of me. You should not pref me if you frequently go for theory or tricks. I will functionally judge the debate as if it is a 1v1 policy round (with the exception of maybe being more sympathetic to condo).

Misc.:

It is often in your best interest to go slower than your top speed. I do not flow off the doc and will not vote for arguments that I do not have on my flow.

Record your speeches locally in the event of a technical issue.

I am not timing your speech or your prep time.

JACK HOWE UPDATE: I haven't judged since Damus '21 so I'm not too familiar with the current meta. If you're using trendy new jargon, that's fine, but please make sure you explain how it functions in the round. If you're super fast, please plan to debate at ~80% of top speed for me, and send docs when possible (louisamelcher@gmail.com).

The Basics: I’ll listen to anything, except blatantly offensive arguments. Theory is fine. If you’re reading a complicated framework or K, don’t assume I have background in the lit. Speed is alright, but slow down for tags and analytics.

Background: I debated for Immaculate Heart High School for four years, and I qualified to TOC my senior year. I taught at camp for three years and just graduated from Columbia in the spring.

Extensions: I have a pretty low threshold for extensions. For example, don’t extend the aff card by card – just summarize the advantage(s) you are going for and explain why it outweighs the negative’s arguments.

Theory/Topicality: Unoriginal, frivolous shells (like plans good/bad) will probably harm your speaks. I default to competing interps, drop the argument, and no RVIs. All of these defaults can be changed through in-round args. If you go for reasonability, explain how you want me to decide what’s reasonable.

Kritiks: I don’t have too much else to say about Ks, except that I’m fine with them (including performative or non-topical ones). I’m not biased against condo alts or K tricks (floating PIK, alt solves case, etc.).

DA/CP/Case: All good. Condo is fine (but so is Condo Bad theory).

Ethical Frameworks: Framework debate is fine. Slow down for tags. I default to only evaluating offense under the winning framework, but I’m open to epistemic modesty args.

Speaks: I award speaks based on argument clarity and strategic choices.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in person or email me at louisamelcher@gmail.com.

ck mcclatchy '18 // harvard '22

put me on the email chain: elyse.d.pham@gmail.com

tldr: debated for four years at ckm and have been coaching/judging on the natl circuit for the past two. as a 2n in hs, my 2nrs were just as often a counterplan/disad as they were afropessimism. barring anything racist, sexist, or otherwise abhorrent, i don't care all that much what you do, as long as you can do it and explain it well; very few of my predispositions are so rigid that they cannot be swayed by superior debating. i only evaluate warrants that are highlighted/read, and spin is good but must have reasonable basis in the ev. tech > truth.

specific thoughts:

critical affs: admittedly, i'm a better judge for teams that defend a topical plan. inclined to believe that debate is a) a game and b) one that produces valuable skills intrinsic to the structure of competition and predictable resolutional stasis point. i should not, and cannot, decide debates based on the individual identity of debaters; by this, i mean that there is a line between identity as a justification for/informing arguments, and identity itself as the primary reason for the ballot. do the former if you want, not down for the latter. i won't evaluate anything that happened outside the debate i'm judging. framework is just another argument; please do not treat it as incredibly deep.

-- if you're aff: i need substantial thesis explanation and one or two pieces of clearly isolated offense that frame the 2ar. your best bet vs fwk is impact turning any reason that a limited model of debate (or debate as it currently exists at all) might be good, bc i will be skeptical that your counterinterp actually places a meaningful limit on the topic.

-- if you're neg: i am good for both procedural and skills-based (note: not "institutional engagement" or "topic education") impacts to fwk but find that the former's often better vs high theory affs and the latter's better vs identity affs. fairness is probably an impact but that's not a given. willing to vote on presumption.

the k: obviously explain well w/o jargon. specificity to the aff will get both teams much farther than totalizing metaphysical claims about the world, the state, whatever. inclined to believe that extinction is bad, suffering is bad, structures are contingent, material progress is worthwhile, and the aff gets to weigh the fiated consequences of the plan text. at the same time, reps/scholarship probably matter. both teams need to invest heavily in the fwk debate bc it determines what links and impacts i evaluate (i.e. if no links are to the plan text, and no impacts are directly or uniquely caused by the plan, the aff winning fwk likely means the whole k goes away). the alt debate is often neglected and i'm left not really knowing what the alt does, but also not knowing why i can't just believe the neg's assertion that it solves stuff. don't leave this up to me.

counterplans: cheat as much as you want, just be good at the theory/competition debates. if you can outtech the aff on an egregiously cheating counterplan i will be entertained. prefer when the aff goes for "counterplan is not competitive" rather than "counterplan is theoretically illegitimate." condo is likely good when debated evenly. i don't default to judgekick.

topicality: most interps on the arms topic are silly and arbitrary (i.e. portella for t-subs), but if you outtech the aff you win. "plan in a vaccuum" is convincing -- the effect of plan might be an increase in arms sales, but that doesn't mean the plan isn't topical. limits only matter insofar as they are predictable/grounded in the lit. finding myself more and more convinced by reasonability, granted that the aff proves a marginal difference between the interps and explains why substance crowdout, race to the bottom, etc internal link turn the neg's impacts.

disads: zero risk is a thing. smart analytics > card dumps.

south eugene '18

harvard '22.5

add me to the email chain: leosaenger@gmail.com, and please send me a doc of whatever you want me to read after the round

update 2/7/2022: i have not judged/coached since the 2020-2021 season, and this is my first tournament on this topic, so please explain acronyms a bit more, understand i won't know whatever T card you're referring to by last name, etc.

copying from stephen lowe: I really like when debates start on time. If your 1ac is on the wiki I don't see any disadvantage to sending it out before start time so that you can start speaking at start time. You don't have to start reading the 1ac as soon as its sent. You could send it as soon as you get the pairing and then just start reading it at the start time. I get not sending if its a new aff.

self-background, in case it is relevant to you: in high school, i read bataille & baudrillard-adjacent arguments at south eugene. i debated for 1 yr at Harvard and read policy arguments and went for framework against every k aff. these days i do quantitative economics/finance/statistics-type things, happy to offer career thoughts on that if you want.

what's written below is still how i feel about debate, though i will try very hard to not intervene in any way.

when i used to pref judges, i liked when their philosophies quickly/easily answered the general questions i used to ask. so, here are the answers to the questions i usually ask, arranged from most to least useful (so if you feel like it's no longer useful for prefs, you should probably stop reading):

how does this person feel about framework?

aff: i am a solid judge for an aff that impact turns framework. if you’re doing this, i don’t care very much about your topic tie.

neg: i am a good judge for the neg when they go for skills/deliberation framework impacts. i am a good judge for fairness as a terminal impact when the negative wins that an aff ballot does not change debate, and debate doesn’t change us as people (i.e. it is only a game). i don’t think this is particularly hard to do, but it is not necessarily the default. i will very quickly (and happily) vote neg on presumption vs a k aff that claims to change things via the ballot (if you’re doing this, i don’t think you really need cards). (k teams: get better at explaining your solvency/why you get your impacts).

what about the k?

aff: when i was in high school, i mostly read critical arguments, but the result of this ended up being that i sympathize with policy arguments vs a lot of the things i ran. logical analytics beat illogical ks. i have no preference w/ soft-left or hard-right vs the k. aff framework arguments that go beyond the words “fairness” and “plan focus” repeated in the 2ac/1ar/2ar are very persuasive to me.

neg: go for it. now's your chance. i have no feelings as to what constitutes a "normal" k or what is "weird". chances are i have probably heard of it before. explain why your overarching theory means a neg ballot. give examples = get speaker points.

will this person judge in a competent/predictable way?

competent: in hs, i reached the final rounds of/received speaker awards at most major tournaments i attended. in college, i broke at a few tournaments reading policy args, so i like to think i'm fairly competent in that domain as well.

predictable: i think i have a relatively high standard for explanation for critical arguments. cheap shot args are ok (in k and policy) if they have at least a sentence of explanation/an impact. logical arguments don’t necessarily need to be carded. line by line matters a lot – you must do it – i will feel very uncomfortable making cross-applications for you if you do not do it (if you number things, all the better). evidence comparison is a good tiebreaker. i don’t think i have any weird quirks with das, t (not usfg), cps, etc.

how does this person feel about [x] argument?

the only arguments i think i categorically dislike are non-competitive ks (usually vs k affs) that attempt to compete on “no perms”. if this is your jam, go ahead, but i will be sympathetic to logical “we get a perm” arguments from the aff. k-affs should be making framework-esque arguments (competition good, etc) in these situations.

everything else is free game. if you’re unsure, it’s probably fine. if you care about making me happy, i have a soft spot for clever cps (but who doesn’t?).

if you are reading this before the round:

i would much rather see what you enjoy debating/are skilled in than anything else. if you want to go for heg good vs a k aff, i would very much enjoy that if you are enjoying that too. clever neg strategies > generic ks that you dig up because you think i would like them more (i won't).

misc thoughts

judge kick = say it (“status quo is always an option” in cx = ok)

ask for clarification (eg "did you flow condo bad") in cx = ok

mark the card means marking it in the doc = yes you must do this

multi-round condo/perf-con = please no

“inserting” re-highlighted ev = no, but obviously you don't have to "read" graphs/figures

ask me for my flow = yes, i think this is useful for redos

Arjun Tambe

Co-director, The Debate Intensive

Stanford '19
Palos Verdes Peninsula ‘15
Conflicts: PV Peninsula, La Canada, Dougherty Valley

Send speech docs to - arjuntambe1 AT gmail

General Beliefs / Rules

-I will not vote on arguments I did not flow or did not understand. Being unclear in the constructive will greatly increase the explanation required for the 2NR.
-My default is an offense-defense paradigm. Skepticism is defense. You will need to justify a truth-testing paradigm in order to win a skepticism argument.

-I will not vote for a Floating PIK. If your alternative says in the 1NC that it includes the plan, that's fine; but if the plan was never included in the alt in the 1NC then I will not allow the 2NR to claim, for the first time in the debate, that the alt includes the plan.
-Theory: I lean against voting on theory and topicality. I believe it should take a substantial violation of fairness and education to decide the debate on procedural grounds. Just as virtually everyone agrees that "I meet" definitively answers theory, even without offense, I think other responses that demonstrate there is no abuse can do the same. Voting for theory risks over-punishment, which seems just as bad as allowing the violation. If the offense on theory is small, the risk of over-punishment seems to outweigh the reasons to vote for theory. Most arguments for competing interps does not justify why a "risk of offense" actually justifies deciding the debate on theory.
-Argument quality matters, not just the extent to which an argument is answered. Bad arguments are less likely to be true, and dropped arguments aren’t 100% true. Similarly, framework is impact calculus – it makes certain impacts more or less important, not the only impacts that matter.
-Presumption is almost always irrelevant.
-2AR and 2NR impact calculus is not a new argument.
-2AR cards are a legitimate response to new 2NR cards.

-CX matters. Being unable to explain your arguments in CX seriously counts against both your arguments and your speaker points, and being unable to ask good questions in CX counts against your speaker points. "You can make that argument" is a cop-out, not an answer, to a good CX question.

Hard and Fast Rules

-You must disclose or give cites to me upon request. If a position is not disclosed I won't disregard it, but I am easily persuaded by disclosure theory arguments.
-You must make your speech doc during prep time.
-You must be willing to email or flash cases. If your opponent does not have a laptop you must have a viewing computer, pass pages, or lend your opponent your laptop.
-Card clipping or evidence ethics violations result in a loss-20. If you think your opponent has done either of these things, stop the round for an ethics challenge.
-You must have proper cites for your cards (including author name, publication date if available, and source at the least). I will disregard evidence that lacks proper citations.
-Please avoid adding brackets to your evidence. I would prefer if you remove them or at least restrict them to tense, punctuation, and offensive language.

Arguments I Do and Do Not Find Persuasive
-Many people oddly do not add author quals to their cards in LD, and this could be a good way to scrutinize their evidence, especially if it is published in a blog or opinion page.

Counterplans and disads

-Try or die is not always persuasive because the probability of the aff's extinction impacts are, usually, relatively low.

-I tend to think disads like elections or politics are very improbable; however, that's also true of tiny aff advantages with poor, scrapped-together evidence.

-I like well thought-out "plan flaw" arguments when the aff's plan is poorly or strangely written, and think "plan flaw" should be extended more often. However, "plan flaw" is only a complete argument if you explain why the plan isn't enactable, and why it should be.

-I enjoy process counterplans and think they should be read more often.

Topicality and Theory
-I lean neg in Topicality vs Plan-less Aff debates, but end up voting aff just as much as I vote neg. This is often because the neg lacks an external impact to topicality.
-1 conditional advocacy seems okay, but I can be persuaded otherwise. 2 seems on the fence.
-I generally think that education outweighs fairness.

Philosophy
-I do not find the strategy of reading a liberty NC and dropping the aff's claim that the plan will prevent everyone on earth from dying to be persuasive. No serious philosopher would defend such a view. Such NCs are only persuasive to me when coupled with good case defense.
-A clear explanation of what incorrect assumption your opponent's framework relies on that yours doesn't is far more effective than saying your meta-meta-epistemology "precludes" their arguments.

Critiques
-I assume kritiks/links to the aff’s representations should be part of the debate. However, I think I am easier than average to persuade that the debate should center only on the plan.

-Permutations solve links to the tune of "the aff didn't talk about X." The negative needs at least a basic explanation of a link argument to have a chance in a K debate. The less central the neg's link is to the thesis of the affirmative, the more likely it is that the case outweighs.

-Dense, obtuse evidence for a kritik needs to be interpreted and explained thoroughly enough for it to make sense as an actual argument. I often find the evidence in various postmodernist critiques to be very unpersuasive, and it often criticizes something not directly relevant to the aff.
-I often find alt solvency to be under-explained by the neg, and think "alt fails" is very often a persuasive argument. However, I also find that alt solvency is often not answered well by the aff.

-I do not find broad, sweeping "root cause" and other arguments (e.g., "the aff evidence should be distrusted because capitalism corrupts academia") to be persuasive at all, unless they are applied well to the aff.
-There is almost always value to life, so value to life does not "non-unique" extinction, though it can still be an impact.
-More critiques should be impact turned. The cap K is a good example.

Stylistic preferences
With a few exceptions, I find explanations of "how the round breaks down" to be annoying and a waste of time.
You do not need to waste a ton of time "extending" your aff card by card if there wasn't case defense.