Here's the tl;dr

Specifics > Generics

Substance and T > Rules and fake procedurals

Competitive PICS > Everything

Defending what you do > Aff Framework and Nonsense Perms

Link > Uniqueness

Offense > Everything

Always a risk > Terminal defense

Doing what you do best > Over-adapting

Things to know when debating in front of me:

1) I’m highly suspicious of arguments that have been debunked by contemporary debate theory or demonstrate weakness in preparation or strategy. I’ll vote on these if you win them clearly but my threshold is relatively high. Some examples include: Inherency, vagueness or any other non-topicality procedural, one conditional position bad, PICs bad, Aff framework against the K, non-evidenced analytics, and random NFA LD rules violations (the last one basically never). Otherwise, any argument is fine.

2) That being said, I love a good T debate. Sometimes topicality is the strategy. I default to competing interpretations.

3) I flow carefully. Technical drops are considered true in a relative sense.

4) Go as fast as you want, I can keep up as long as you’re clear. Speed is never ‘exclusionary’, it’s part of the game. You can critique the game, but in the absence of a well developed critique of debate practice, you should be able to cover. Smart and slow beats fast and nonsensical.

5) I have a strong preference for specific arguments and stories. The K and DA might turn case, but how?

6) I decide policy debates in the following manner

a. Decide the relative probability of each position in the debate. This means that you need offense on the major positions in the debate because I will almost never assign 0% probability to either a disadvantage or advantage. This also means that you should never assume you’re winning 100% probability of an argument. “Even if” statements are your friend. The amount of time you spend on a position will help me determine its relative probability.

b. Weigh the relative probability and magnitude of each position. This can get complicated in CP and DA debates, but I consider the degree of CP solvency to determine the probability of the affirmative’s advantages.

c. Attempt to describe the world of my decision. In other words, if I have a hard time wrapping my head around the world that either side describes in the last rebuttal, that’s a problem. I have enough argument critic in me that making sense (in debate’s already skewed and open world) is important.

7) I’m pretty open to any argument style. Love the K if done well, I’m likely familiar with the literature base. In K debates, I'm usually not into the perm unless it makes sense. If you're reading big impacts, it's probably best to impact turn and debate the alternative.

I don’t expect the aff to have a plan, but they probably need to talk about the resolution. I do, however, expect planless affs to defend their practices. You can go for T/Framework in front of me on the neg but you need persuasive answers to the impact turns. In planless aff debates, and K debates more generally, controlling the framing of the ballot is really important. I need to know what’s going on and what voting for you does or means.

8) Hate speech and racist arguments are a no-go. I’m good with weird extinction good arguments, however. Just don’t exclude individuals from the debate because of their identities.

My name is Christopher Hachet, and I am an assistant debate coach and judge from Capital University in Columbus Ohio. I competed in debate during high school and was the novice state champion for Indiana in 1982. Then I judged high school debate when I was in college. Working part time with collegiate debate for about five years now and a bit of back story is in order.

I graduated from Taylor University with a bachelors degree in education in 1989 and decided that I did not want to teach. After a short career in commercial sales, I decided that my real passion was working with my hands and building things. Thus I became a master licensed journeyman electrician and refrigeration mechanic. This proved to be a fabulous career choice for me , and I moved up to become a foreman running all sorts of interesting projects from a neurosurgery clinic to a large middle school.

As the economy slowed and my later forties loomed large, I decided that I wanted a change of pace and took a job at Capital in the Facilities department. My father had worked in higher education for most of his adult life, and I felt a strong desire to give back to the field of higher education. Dr Koch was kind enough to also let me assist with the debate team, and I have had a blast driving all over the country with CEDA, IFA LD and NEDA debate as well as various speech events. Your fifties can really be the best decade of your life, and I still love debate 35 years after my last round of actual competition.

My judging philosophy can perhaps be best summed up by a very short analogy. Were you to be at my work bench struggling to make a strait cut in a piece of wood with a hand saw, I would look at the most simple and immediate items to help you be a better sawyer. Your posture, how you clamped the work piece to the bench, and how you held the saw would be much more important than an esoteric discussion about how to set rake and fleem while sharpening a hand saw. In a like manor, I look for debaters to focus on a strong basic ontological understanding of the concepts they are working with, careful argumentation and analysis, and keen cross examination skills.

Follow Ockham's Razor with Ockham's aftershave and we are all set!

In terms of what my actual voting criteria are, there are perhaps 5 different models of looking at a debate and I borrow from all five. They are;

The Stock issues Paradigm;

Topicality seems to be the defacto concern regarding stock issues. Will vote on topicality with a fairly high threshold because I believe in Affirmative presumption and the right of the aff to approach the topic in whichever route they find pertinent. If you are claiming abuse on the Neg side I will be much more sympathetic to your topicality claims if you attempt to clash with the Aff in good faith. Most topicality debates fall down on the neg side in my experience because of inadequate in round work on why I actually should prefer the neg interpretation. Multiple forms of T arguments in the same round are not abusive IMHO but I often find them counter productive.

The Policy making Paradigm;

This most closely resembles how the older hairy guy sitting in front of you as your judge is going to view the next rather intense hour or so of your life. My personal philosophical world view is based in existentialism and realism, and I tend to view the world and judge policy through that lens. Student analysis and reasoning is much more important to me than evidence. Convince me that you understand the policy issues at hand and have done some original critical thinking on the debate resolution. Debate is not a clash of evidence cards, it is a clash of ideas. Bring me yours. I just drove a few hundred miles to hear them.

The Hypothesis testing/Social science paradigm;

I do allow multiple negative positions to be run even if they are contradictory in order to test the resolution and the Aff's interpretation of the resolution. If I grant the Aff presumption in terms of interpretation I also have to grant the neg presumption on how they will answer the Aff. If you disagree with this, please see Tabla Rasa and Game Theory below.

Tabla Rasa;

The driven sands of the Sahara and the emptiness of a blizzard are my models of thought in terms of both link story for things like negative disadvantage claims and aff solvency claims. I am neither Greek nor Tabla Rasa but I think there is much to learn from both schools of thought. If in doubt, spell it out. It would be unethical for me as a judge to to sit in the back of the room and make assumptions about the actual impacts of implantation of Affirmative's policy proposal. Also unwilling to concede anything along the lines of giving agricultural subsides to Bolivian beet farmers causing nuclear winter and extinction without some sort of plausible explanation.

Your approach to how you wish to approach the round is completely up to you. I have no preferred style of presentation.

Game player theory of debate;

Keeping it fair regardless of school being represented or reputation of debater is a top priority for me as a judge. I have a bad habit of voting down good debaters when they get sloppy.

I expect you to be highly focused on the flow of the debate and make arguments that lead to a proper clash of ideas. Several previous debaters would describe me as shameless at dropping a team on a ballot if a key argument is dropped and the other side catches it. You probably don't want to be that person.

Final notes;

Speed is fine...I have only ever had to ask a debater once to slow down. If you are in round and your opponent is speaking too quickly please get my attention by saying "clear" loudly enough for me to hear. I will acknowledge your request and signal the other debater to slow down a bit. If it is obvious a debater is using speed in an abuse way I reserve the right to down vote this as a form of abuse.

I am open to different philosophical approaches in debate. Upvoting or down voting things like Kritiques based upon actual in round work and explanatory power of ideas presented keeps debaters working hard and tournaments interesting. Most of all I enjoy it when people think hard and challenge my own thinking. By no means am I Elijah sent from on high to be the prophet of debate.

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." - Linus Pauling-I prefer that you pull as much forward into the final rebuttal as reasonably possible. If you are winning an argument and do not bring it forward as a voter clearly I will not upvote you on that idea.

Do not be afraid to disagree with me, and I also am open to any questions before or after the round.

I'm autistic and strictly speaking have a lower audio processesing speed. This only ever really impacts me on theory arguments happening at speed and in especially background noise-ful online debates. Prioritize clarity please. Make it very clear where you're at and what you're doing. I've been doing just fine recently (I think I became accustomed to online debate) but it never hurts to disclose these sorts of things

An update on the above, I honestly have begun to beleive that the shift to speech docs has shifted students AWAY from emphasizing clarity.

I only vote on what I hear you say, not whats in the speech document. I also do not read cards for you unless there is debate on what a card says.

About Me and Debate: I have been doing competitive debate in some capacity since 2007. In terms of reading me: Generally if I look confused, I am. If I am holding my hands in the air and staring at you that means I think you're making a brand spanking new argument in the NR or 2AR that I have no idea what existing argument to put it on. So if that's happening, please make sure I understand why this isn't new (so why its an extension of an existing arg or in the NR's case a response to an Aff arg). Reading your judge is a good skill to have. Ultimately I think the debaters are in charge of their own destiny and I’ll vote wherever/however you tell me I should. I like offense. I am willing to vote on defense, but I will be unhappy about it.

Good line by line argumentation is always awesome. Good analysis will beat just reading a card (a good card PLUS good analysis is even better). I prefer not to read cards after a round unless there is contention on what that cards actually says.

Speed: I am fine with speed, but (especially in this activity) clarity is KEY, if both your opponent and myself can understand then we're all good. I have judged too many rounds where debaters will try to go quickly not because they can do it clearly/efficiently, but because I'm fine with it so why not. That is a terrible reason to spread and I will dock speaks accordingly. Additionally please slow down on your theoretical positions, no one can write that fast. If I don't get all those sick T arguments you're making then my ballot will probably reflect it. Most important thing is everyone in the round understanding you, but don't be that person who says 'clear' just so slow someone down then go that speed yourself. No one should be winning rounds strictly because one person was much quicker than the other or because one debater can't understand the words another is saying.

I will say clear once, and that it all.

Ethos: For the most part, your ethos will only effect your speaker points and not whether or not you win the debate. Just because I think you're a jerk doesn't mean you're not a jerk who won. Though keep in mind that often the things that ruin your ethos ALSO lose you rounds (like assuming arguments are stupid and not explaining why or not finishing your argument because the implications are clear enough to you). I will usually let you know if you have done something that damaged your ethos.

There is another surefire way of damaging your speaks with me in the back of the room: I can get a bit angry when debaters I know are smart make stupid decisions.

General Theory: The voting issue "The NFA-LD rules say X" holds exactly no weight with me. I do not follow/enforce rules simply because they are rules. You should at least explain why that particular rule is good. In fact, if you wish for me to judge based on what the rules say, then I can. Please disregard the entirety of this paradigm, I am now a stock issues judge. If you want me to the follow the rules I will.

There are SO MANY other reasons T is an a priori issue and I never hear most of them.

Topicality: Topicality is my jam. It is quite possibly one of my favorite arguments in debate. I have fairly low threshold for voting on reasonability on marginally topical affs. I think debaters are the ones who set the realm of the topic. Tell me why your aff deserves to be topical. Tell me why your definition is the best one for this topic. Tell me about it. If your aff deserves to be considered topical, TELL ME WHY. For my negatives, remember to tell me why the Aff is taking the topic in the wrong direction. Make sure you think through your position and all of its implications. Make sure you tell me why this aff hurts you. Try to force them into showing their true colors. Run that DA you claim they will No Link out of, worst case is they don't make that argument but now you have a DA with a conceded link. My brain breaks when you refer to things as limits DAs or education DA. Say links.

Kritiks: The Kritik is a special animal, in my opinion. If you run the K like the NDT/CEDA people do I think you’re doing it wrong. In fact, there is a good chance you will lose the debate if you just pull an NDT/CEDA K out of some backfile and read it. Keep your implications tied to policy action and try to avoid flowery and long tags on evidence.View the K as if you are a lobbyist for X cause and you want to convince congress (me) to vote against a policy currently on the floor (the aff) due to a negative assumption that policy is making. Explain to me what happens when we keep making policies that make this bad assumption. Reject the Aff is a fine alt, just keep the above in mind. If you start reading a K and look at me and I look extremely annoyed, its probably because you aren't adapting to me. Not an auto loss, just a rough go. DO NOT RUN LINKS OF OMISSION. I am extremely partial to the 'we can't talk about all the things all of the time' argument.

To my K Affs: Kritikal affs are my favorite thing. I think they're a lot of fun and are super educational. If your K aff doesn't have a plan text that is relevent to the rez you will never get my ballot, preferably it should be fiated but I have softened on that issue. However, I do not listen to Topicality Bad. Consider my position on the K in the paragraph above this one. There are plenty of excellent examples of this. Once I read a position that changed the definition of torture to include mental anguish as a form of torture as a staunch rejection of Cartesian Dualism. This both helped the people we're doing terrible things to in Gitmo and other places, but also began the break down of dualistic rhetoric in the government (and yes, my card did say that. It was a sick card). What I'm trying to stress here is that we are a policy making role play activity. To defend a position you do not believe in is to become more educated on that position. Debates about the political are important and I think the way we do them is especially important.

Please note all of my personal views on competitive equity and having topical and preferably fiated affs can be ignored if your opponent should not even be at the tournament. See: Is a predator.

Roles of the Ballot: The role of the ballot functions as a round framing and a focus. If you think that a particular minority group is underrepresented within the topic and you'd like the debate to be solely about their betterment, make THAT the role of the ballot. Use it as offense on that generic nonsense test the neg didn't bother to make more specific to your position. We can have the debate on whether or not that framework is a productive one. Hell, the neg can agree that you're right about that minority group and tailor their position to operate within it. And isn't that what we should all want, assuming we truly care for said minority group and the role of the ballot is not simply to box the neg out of all of their ground?

Speaker Point Assignment: My speaker point assignment system is mostly gut based to be perfectly honest with you, but there are a couple tips and tricks I can provide to get your 30. Ultimately the assignment is a combination of debate style, organization, ethos, and clarity of speech. A perfectly clear speaker with poor organization won't get a 30, but neither will an unclear speaker with perfect organization. In terms of priority, I suppose, it goes Clarity, Ethos, Organization, Style.

My Flow and You: I would describe myself as a good flow. If you have any experience that statement should ring a few alarm bells and I get that. I have trouble getting cites at times, especially if you're of the 'full citation' mentality where the author and the date are 20 seconds apart. To be honest I prefer people actually extending their positions instead of "Cross apply XY in ## " and it definitely helps with my flowing. If you're flying through things like theory or don't clearly enunciate your tags I will miss things and you may lose because of it. You have been warned.

Things I think are dumb/Pet Peeves: Disease extinction impacts, "The rules say so", State links, Kritiks without impact D, "99% of species that ever existed are now extinct" logical fallacies, the rest of the logical fallacies, Putting the burden of proof on the negating position, blatantly asking your opponent how they'd respond to a potential argument you may make in your next speech (like come on, have some nuance), caring about white nationalists and their feelings. "Just read my evidence" in cross ex.

You'd have thought living through a global pandemic would have put the kabosh on disease extinction impacts. It has not. :(

Other Thoughts: Debate is my favorite thing and happy rounds full of debaters who also love debate is my other favorite thing. Remember, THIS IS A GAME. As the great Abe Lincoln once said in a fictional movie "Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!"

History: This is my sixth year out from undergrad and my second year judging NFA-LD on the regular. 2 years of CEDA/NDT debating, 2 years of NFA-LD debating. High school; Congress and Mock Trial.

Dear Trans Debaters (and judges): Please feel free to approach me at any time over any medium for any reason. I am happy and honored to give any support you may need. Seriously, do not hesitate or think you are being a bother or a burden. You are important and deserve support.

NOW LETS TALK ABOUT DEBATE

New Thoughts: I feel in the last few years Ive gotten a better idea of where I lean on a few things.

In round: You should generally ignore faces I make, I make them a lot. The one thing you should not ignore is if I make a point to lean back in my chair, cross my arms, and frown at you. I am making it obvious that I am not flowing because you are either a)making a completely brand new argument when you shouldn't be b) repeating yourself or c)being offensive.

KRITIKS: Kritiks to me are about questioning and attacking the assumptions inherent in the 1AC and proving that those assumptions cause policy failure and/or significant harms. Note that this does not mean I think the K needs to solve for the case. In fact, most Kritiks that attempt to do so *usually* have terrible Alternatives. Your evidence probably turns case, takes out solvency, or outweighs on impact on its own. Your alternative should be well supported by your evidence. Reject Alts usually don't. I prefer Ks to be as focused on policy making as possible.I probably won't vote for Ks based on links of omission 99.99% of the time, they put an obscene burden on the aff.

COUNTERPLANS: Counterplans are great for education and fairness in debate. Topical counterplans are BEST for these things. If you run a counterplan, you should probably go for it because they take a lot of time to just not go for in an LD structured round. That said, if you somehow have another viable position, you should be able to kick the counterplan as long as you don't use the affs own answers to it against them ? Thats abusive and the one thing I will vote you down for regardless of how poorly the aff explains the abuse.

THE AFFIRMATIVE: I love both traditional policy affs and kritikal affs. K Affs should keep my K section in mind as it applies to them. You should be topical and you MUST specify an actor within the resolution. Technically its not impossible to get me to vote for an untopical aff, but you should be relevant enough to be able to pretend you're topical, and defending yourself as such, or at least that the educational importance of your aff justifies the deviation from the topic. But it needs to at least incorporate some core aspect of the topic, like bare minimum. If you aren't relevant enough to do that, you shouldn't be running this. If you're not heavily involved in the topic, and/or you are refusing to use the USFG, you are blocking your opponent out of the round. Switch side debate is vital for fairness and education and rejecting the USFG cuz its evil is firmly neg ground. This is a game. Without fair rules it devolves into madness and national tournaments where Affs win 90% of their rounds (lookin at you CEDA (yeah that actually happened)). Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, there is always radical lit discussing these issues within the topic, and that radical lit does not preclude USFG usage/topicality as much as everyone thinks it does.

Ultimately running the same thing every round is only robbing yourself of the educational value of switch side debate and learning about the system we are stuck in right now (valuable knowledge for a radical as well). If your opponent does not want to go for the arguments Ive stated preference for here, or doesn't actually win that debate I will still vote for you. It is very easy though to get me to vote on switch side debate good, fairness k2 debate survival. The fairly low number of statism/reject usfg affs does not justify my intervention on this matter, but I will definitely re-evaluate that position if it starts to crowd out topical traditional affs.

ROLE OF THE BALLOT: Roles of the ballot can be used as a great way to open up debate about priorities and whats important. They can also be used to box the neg out of their fair share of ground. The neg should be able to critic it's productiveness and/or work within it. Forcing the neg to run a counterproposal probably means I hate your FW/Role of the Ballot

TOPICALITY: The best way to get my ballot on topicality is a really good brightline and a really good argument on the lost ground and why you should have it. You MUST talk about fairness and education and the topic as a whole. Refer back to General Theory below. If you are going to run it, you should probably mean it.

GENERAL THEORY/PROCEDURALS: In order to vote for a theory/procedural and treat it as a voter I need a clear description of what they did wrong, a brightline/what they should have done instead, and why it matters. It should detail exactly why it is abusive, and how it effects fair/equitable ground and education in this round and debate as a whole. I am not against voting on potential abuse and in fact, you should probably have some examples of it in your impacts. HOWEVER, it is more of an uphill battle.

If all you say is "its abusive and a voter" with no abuse story and no impact on debate as a whole I will not consider it a voter and you couldn't convince me to vote for it even if they drop it. If you can't make a full procedural for whatever reason, don't be afraid to use the word abusive though. It could still make me more likely to drop the arg if you do it right.

Don't rely on the Da Rules. It will eventually come back to haunt you because the rulebook does not distribute ground fairly and is outdated (#sorrynotsorry). Its also a lazy non argument that doesn't develop your critical thinking skills and will lose you speaks.

FLOWING: My flowing capability is decent. I will write everything you say down, and will *probably* put it in the place you want me to, but you should *definitely* be clear about where that is just to be sure. I do not always (or often) catch citations (ya'll mumble them...I did too tho) so you probably shouldn't use just the cite and assume I know exactly which card you are referring to. Tags/Parts of the argument are preferable.

SPEED: I will understand most of what you say no matter how fast you go, but don't push my mediocre flowing to the brink ESPECIALLY if I am flowing on paper. I can only type/write so fast. If I can not understand you its probably an issue of clarity not speed. If I say CLEAR you need to CLEAR. If that requires you to slow down so be it.
You have the right to ask your opponent to slow down, but do not abuse this. I expect you to be able to keep up with above average conversing speed at bare minimum. If you ask someone to slow down, do not dare go any faster than that.

SPEAKS: There is not a very consistent speaker points range in this community. I am probably a bit of a fairy in this regards. Good oration skills will get you higher speaks. Good clear fast talk will get you higher speaks. Making it easy to flow will get you VERY good speaks. Best way to get good speaks is debate well and show you read this paradigm (or at least skimmed it).

michels.browne@gmail.com

I competed in policy debate many years ago for Kansas and coached Lincoln Douglas debate for Penn State the past five years. This is my first year as a CEDA/NDT coach/judge. As an argumentation instructor, I value the quality of evidence and arguments. So, if challenged I will examine the evidence (all of it including the unhighlighted and minimized sections) in the round—best say what you claim it says. I also want to hear warranted arguments, not labels –i.e. just saying “education” on topicality is not sufficient. I, to the best of my ability, adopt the perspective of tabula rasa and will listen to any argument presented in the debate, EXCEPT I still retain common sense. If you tell me the sky is green with orange polka dots, I won’t buy it.

As mentioned, any types of arguments (Ks, counterplans, topicality, etc.) are accepted and can win you the debate, if you convince me why your position is best. I expect to hear an explanation for how you have won in your team’s final rebuttal. Plan-less affs are not my favorite, but I will listen. Not fond of PICs, but again I will listen.

I don’t view debate as a “game”. I perceive it to be an educational activity in which the participants demonstrate their acumen, analytical and argumentative abilities.

Be smart, be civil, have fun.

Years involved in collegiate debate: 35

Debated: NDT policy debate

Coached: NDT, NFA LD, Worlds style BP

I like NFA LD style debate because it relies on evidence and emphasizes the stock issues. I default to policy making but will adjust my paradigm if directed to do so by the debaters.

I will seriously consider nearly every argument - CP's are ok, procedural arguments (T, Vagueness, K's) need to be very clearly explained. I have voted for K's but don't find them super compelling - I think they are frequently vulnerable to perms.

Please be clear, number your arguments, explain why you are winning issues.