My preferences as your judge are:

1. Speak at your normal pace, not too quickly

2. Enunciate clearly and define unfamiliar terms- I may not be familiar with the topic

3. Do a short wrap up of your main points at the end of each timed section.

I'm a previous policy debater. I mainly ran K affs in high school. I appreciate a good K argument but please be specific (i.e. include solid links). Policy arguments are perfectly fine though! Don't feel pressured to run a K if you don't feel comfortable, because I do expect K's to be fully developed.

For parli:

Spreading is okay but please either enunciate very well and slow down while saying your assertion titles. This isn't needed if you share a copy of your speech to both the judge and the opposing team.

I think it's best to present a plan for the topic.

I don't think there needs to be a plan to present a counter plan or counter plan type argument.

I like theory arguments such as topicality and framework and think that fairness is a good impact for this type of debate.

Make sure you provide solid impacts for all your points and assess which impacts are the most important and why. I highly value impact analysis so be careful how you frame the debate, if you win the framing argument I will use it to evaluate the debate (even if that hurts your argument).

Kailey (she/her)

if you're lazy or short on time read the bolded parts for a short version of my paradigm. you are so very welcome.

West Campus '19; Gonzaga '23

Debate is very important to me. Please try and have some fun! I've had very bad anxiety that manifests itself physically as trichotillomania. Debate is a challenge to participate in fully because of anxiety. If you need to step out, take a minute, leave after your last speech, or anything else that will make debate accessible for you, I totally understand. Just let me know before round.

That goes for anything that will make the round more accessible for you, please just let me know before the round.

In terms of argument preference, do what you want. I’m good with whatever you want to throw at me (that’s a lie please don’t throw things at me I have very little coordination). Here’s a couple things to know:

T(opicality) – Fairness and education are voters but not if those 5 words are all you say about it. Otherwise do what you want.

Theory – slow down on analytics pls. honestly kind of a theory hack. drops are drops. if they drop theory don't be scared to go for it...Otherwise do what you want.

DAs – The more interesting, creative, fun the better; that doesn’t mean I won’t vote on, listen to, or even enjoy a politics debate. Otherwise do what you want.

CPs – slow down on theory. Advantage cps are sick but I do love my 50 states cp too. Otherwise do what you want.

Ks – I was a very pOliCy dEbaTeR in high school. I think ks are incredibly strategic arguments. I have a high threshold for aff specific links and prefer alts with some form of praxis. I tend to view a majority of the ks read in average high school rounds as non-unique disads, please make me want to take this out of my paradigm !! I want you to know what you’re doing and be able to do it well. I am not well-versed in K lit. I would say that while this is the largest section of my paradigm it’s a section that I believe will continue to evolve. if you want to change my mind about any of my k opinions pls pref me and get the chance to actually use your mindset shift alt :) I’m so down to have all of my opinions changed. Otherwise do what you want.

K affs – I frick with good framework debates. Let's talk about how we frame our work on both sides. I find case debate in K aff rounds super interesting. I think often times k on k debate can make things super messy and leave quite a bit too much up to judge discretion. Enter at your own risk. Otherwise do what you want.

Anything else - Do what you want. Seriously, my paradigm is short and blippy because debate is about you not me. I want to be as blank of a slate as possible and a fair of a judge as possible. This is educational for me too! Change my opinions, be articulate, get your point across, essentially do the bettter debating and you've probably got my vote.

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A couple other things:

-Debate is a game. Duh. But what does that mean? You tell me.

-Please be nice. Be nice to me, be nice to your opponents, be nice to your partner, and coaches be nice to your kids. To quote the legend and my teammate Molly Martin, we are people before we are debaters.

-Tag team is always legit

-Emailing/flashing isn’t prep. If i'm feeling moody or tired this might change. If emailing/flashing is excessive I’ll call you out. Don’t steal prep.

-Ask all the questions you want and I will try to give you as much explanation for my decision. When I'm giving your decision, I have already submitted your ballot and my decision isn't changing no matter how good your post-rounding ability is.

-Debate is a home for so many students and the community is an undeniably amazing and unique thing. That being said, I am shattered whenever I think of all of the young people, especially young girls, who have experienced forms of sexual violence within this space. I have felt first-hand the kind of damage that this space can do. Let's do all we can to change that.

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Put me on the email chain: littlehalbo@gmail.com

About me:

I've debated PF, LD, and primarily Policy. Qualified to NCFL (cancelled due to corona). I will not vote on anything antiblack, racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, ableist, etc. I will give you high speaks if you make me laugh. High speaks if you make a Kanye reference. Assume I know nothing about the topic. Explain topic-specific acronyms. Do NOT power tag cards - your evidence better say exactly what you say it does.

For Policy:

I debated at a small school where my team was the only policy team. I couldn't afford to go to camp or hire a coach so all my debate knowledge was obtained from cross-x.com or tournaments. I debated primarily lay at league but occasionally we would go to a larger tournament (like Berkeley or Stanford). For that reason, stock issues are super important to me. This includes - topicality, inherency, solvency, and harms/advantages.

My default paradigm is a stock issues judge - this means aff has the burden of winning all stock issues beyond a reasonable doubt. If neg wins any one of those issues, or mitigates enough, I vote neg on presumption. I don't buy 1% risk of solvency or 1% risk of triggering the impact. I will reward a team with high speaks that really goes down the flow and proves why there are no harms in the squo, but even if there were, they're already being solved for, and even if they weren't already being solved for, the plan wouldn't solve them (harms, inherency, solvency).

That being said, if both teams agree to an offense/defense paradigm instead of the stock issue paradigm, I'll evaluate the round as such.

DAs/CPs

I prefer these. I primarily went for these in high school so I'm most comfortable with a solid DA/CP strat. The more believable the DA the better. I really do not like extinction impacts but do as you wish. Specific DA links into the aff will make me want to vote for you 100x more than generics.

Topicality

Yeah I know y'all are gonna read the same T violations on the top as a time suck. Sure. I will vote off of T, even more compelling with a small aff.

Theory

I default to reasonability. In-round abuse is more important than potential for abuse. Debate is a game with pedagogical value, so fairness is important.

Kritiks

I'm pretty comfortable with your standard neolib, setcol, antiblackness, fem, militarism k, etc. Reading some esoteric nonsense like "Deconstructing radical semiotics through rhizomatic schizoanalysis" isn't gonna help your round though. No matter what K you're reading, really explain your argument and what the k means instead of just throwing out buzzwords and flowy bs that doesn't make sense. If you don't understand or can't explain your own K that is a big problem.

fw

I will vote off of fw. Explain: what specific ground do you lose, why is their interpretation or violation unfair, and what specifically happens to education? Why is your interp a better model of debate?

k aff

I've never hit a k aff or ran one before, but I've read through a bunch during my spare time and understand the basics. I'm not the biggest fan but I'll still evaluate it. I think the resolution exists for a reason so the advocacy, performance, or whatever it is should have some connection to the topic. Don't make the "we are topical" argument if it's pretty clear you're not.

condo

I think neg should get condo but at the point where they're reading more than 3 condo offs, i would probably buy condo bad. It depends on how its articulated though, obviously.

I love line by line.

speed is fine but if I can't understand you I will yell clear.

Tell me a clear story of what happens in your world (how the DA, CP, etc. interact)

tech>truth, i think "truth" requires too much judge intervention to decide which arguments are good enough to be considered true.