UNLV

4-time NDT Qualifier

Second year judging college debate

*****UPDATE*****

I believe that there is a great value to flow-centric, line-by-line debating. Though I don't claim to have the best flow in the country, I believe many debates can be simplified and made clearer by emphasizing the basics of lining arguments up and answering them accordingly. Not only will teams have a better chance to win my ballot by attempting some semblance of organization, but I believe the overall clash of argumentation that would result from this focus could yield more in depth scholarship and understanding of the topic being discussed.

Debaters should clearly flag pieces of evidence they want evaluated after the debate. Failure to do so will more than likely result in me evaluating the round sans calling for cards.

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I believe that debate is an educational and competitive activity. It is my job to adjudicate and render a decision based solely on the arguments presented in the debate. That being said, I believe it is the burden of the debaters to effectively and clearly deploy their arguments if they feel they are critical to the outcome of the round. I will always do my best to match your level of effort from the other side of the podium (or tabletote), but if I can’t understand your argument, or you for that matter, any disagreements we may have about the decision after the round will be largely attributed to 'a failure to communicate’.

Specifics

Framework/Performance—I believe that framework sets the parameters for the debate round. Debate is an educational activity and it is important to understand what purpose the debate round serves in order to maximize learning. I also believe that the resolution matters and that there are unique benefits to learning and debating about timely issues, but if you can sufficiently explain why there is a more productive and educational reason to view the round you will find yourself in better shape. For me, the central question in these debates relies mainly on scholarship and knowledge production. If you can win that your view of debate is ultimately beneficial in that way, I will default to that explanation.

Ks—I am not well versed in this literature, so I would prefer not to hear any "high theory" stuff. I believe that if you are able to clearly establish a link to the aff/plan mechanism you will be in a pretty good position. Alternatives should also provide a specific option or worldview that I can advocate as opposed to simply rejecting the aff. 

CPs—I’m not really a fan of process (condition or consult) CPs. I believe that competition is generated from the plan, not necessarily ‘immediacy’ or ‘certainty’. 

A)    Conditionality is fine if you’re reading 2 advocacies, anything beyond that gets a little iffy.

B)    Other CP theory arguments will generally not be a reason to reject the team.

DAs—The most important issue here is that your disad makes sense. If there are logical holes in your story, the affirmative doesn’t need to have a card to point them out. Comparative impact calculus goes a long way.

Case—My favorite kinds of debate generally involve case defense and a disadvantage/case turns. When extending case arguments, be sure to explain the warrants of your evidence and compare them to that of your opponent. The winner of these debates generally isn’t the team that reads more cards, but the one who can explain and apply the cards they read best.  

I’m happy to answer any other specific questions you may have.

Have fun. Be respectful. Compete.

Mike Bausch

Director of Speech and Debate, Kent Denver

Please include me in email chains; my email is mikebausch@gmail.com.

Thanks for letting me judge your debate. Do what you do best, and I will do my best to adapt to you all. Here are some tips for debating in a way that I find most persuasive:

1. Flow the debate and make complete arguments. I care about line-by-line debating and organization. An argument must have a claim, evidence, and an impact on the debate for me to vote on it. I must understand your reasoning enough to explain to the other team why I voted on it.

2. Be timely and efficient in the round. Nothing impresses me more than students who are prepared and organized. Please conduct the debate efficiently with little dead time. Don’t steal prep.

3. Focus on argument resolution after the first speeches. Impact calculus, developing specific warrants, identifying what to do with drops, answering “so what” questions, making “even if” statements, and comparing arguments (links, solvency, etc) are all great ways to win arguments, rather than just repeat them.

4. Feature judge instruction in the final rebuttals. The best tip I can give you is to go for less distinct issues as the debate develops and to focus on explaining and comparing your best points to your opponent’s arguments more. Begin your final rebuttal by writing my ballot and explicitly saying what you’re winning and why that should win you the debate.

5. Remember that this is a communication activity. Speak clearly, I do not follow along with the speech document and will say “clear” if I can’t understand you. Use your cross-examination time to persuade the judge and prepare for it like a speech.

6. Talk about your evidence more. I think a lot of teams get away with reading poor evidence. Please make evidence comparison (data, warrants, source, or recency) a significant part of the debate. Evidence that is highlighted in complete and coherent sentences is much more persuasive than evidence that is not.

7. Identify specific evidence that you want me read after the debate. I am more likely to read evidence that is discussed and explained during the debate and will use the debater's explanation to guide my reading. I am unlikely to read evidence that I didn't understand when it was initially presented, or to give much credit to warrants that only become clear to me after examining the evidence.

8. Develop persuasive specific links to your desired argument strategy. I think the affirmative should present an advocacy they can defend as topical, and the negative should clash with ideas that the affirmative has committed to defending. I think that the policy consequences and ethical implications of the resolution are both important to consider when debating about the topic. For all strategies, it starts for me with the credibility of the link.

9. Develop and compare your impacts early and often. Impact analysis and comparison is crucial to persuading me to vote for you. In depth explanation is great and even better if that includes clear comparisons to your opponent’s most significant impacts.

10. I prefer clash heavy instead of clash avoidant debates. I am most impressed by teams that demonstrate command of their arguments, who read arguments with strong specific links to the topic, and who come prepared to debate their opponent’s case. I am less impressed with teams that avoid clash by using multiple conditional advocacies, plan vagueness, generic positions without topic nuance, and reading incomplete arguments that lack clear links or solvency advocates.

*Note: Because evidence comparison is a valuable skill, I think all formats of debate benefit from evidence exchange between students in the debate and would prefer if students practiced this norm.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

2nd year Policy debater.

I prefer email: bridgetbeckettunlv@gmail.com

Not familiar with the High School topic this year.

Evaluation:

I will be a blank slate in every round.

I will evaluate any argument that you can execute and explain well.

I am not familiar with a lot of critical arguments but I will try my best to understand them. Therefore, make them clear and explain them well.

AFF:

Always make sure you make sufficient arguments in the 2AC that will help you in the 1AR. I will not allow any new arguments after the 2AC except in response to new args made in the neg block. Make sure you do a great job on the 1AR to make the 2NR's life difficult. Always extend the warrants of your cards. Saying "Extend Johnson 16" is not enough. It becomes very difficult to vote aff without showing any relationship to the topic. Permutations should be made clear and explained how it functions.

NEG:

Make sure you are splitting the block well. I do not want to hear the same arguments made by the 2NC in the 1NR. I am open to critical teams if they are explained and have specific links to the aff. If you do not extend your alt, I am most likely not vote for the neg. I am not familiar with all critical arguments, but this should not discourage you as I feel any critical arguments that might not be clear can be cleared up by explaining the alt well.

Other notes.

I am not as quick at flowing as some are in policy, don't let this stop you with cards but analytics that you want flowed need to be differentiated from cards and clear.

Clarity over amount of arguments.

Do not steal prep time.

Make sure you utilize cx well by asking relevant questions.

Clear and proper explanations are key to great speaker points

Please feel free to make analogies and jokes that are relevant to the round.

Be nice to your fellow debaters.

Do not hesitate to ask questions to me after rounds.

I did policy debate at UNLV for four years. I'm in my last semester of law school at UNLV. While I read everything except pomo in my career, I ended my career focusing on traditional policy arguments. I am open to all types of arguments. I'm a bit pursuaded by t/fw, but ultimately i think it comes down the debating done in the round.

K's - I think the only thing worth mentioning is that I have a high threshold for the explanation of the alt (how it solves, what it does, etc). I believe that the best k's are the ones that genuinely interact with the aff. Debate is a game of clash. I think the threshold for alt solvency has dropped far too much in the past couple of years.

Negative strategy – I believe in preserving maximum strategic and theoretical flexibility for negative teams. I don’t believe contradictions are a bad thing early in the debate, as long as the negative block and the 2nr is consistent. Edit: I think k perf con often justifies perm do the alt, especially when the framing on the k is a question of epistemology / scholarship


CPs—The text of the CP (and all perms) should be written out, and I hold them to as high a standard as I do the affirmative plan. I do not think that a negative team should be afraid to CP in the 2NC (it is a constructive, aff gets a CX, and the risk of a straight turn in the 1AR should check any abuse). These 2NC counter plans could be used to make external impact turns or uniqueness takeouts go away.

T- I'm going to steal this from Matt Gomez because I agree with him:
IMPACT YOUR STANDARDS. Education, ground, and fairness are internal links. Decision-making, Advocacy, and research skills are impacts.
Affirmative team: Counter standards and tell me what affs they'd eliminate from the topic and why those affs are good.
Negative Team: What affs do they allow, why are they bad, what affs do you allow, why does that resolve their impacts.

DA's - DA's are awesome.

LD -- I really enjoy an in-depth value/vc debate. If you tell me to evaluate the debate a certain way and have offensive reasons for why that's good; i'll do it. I think it's strategic in framing out offense.

I feel like the best type of debaters to these things consistently:
a) Consistently compare evidence—“our evidence on X argument is better than theirs for the following reasons.” These reasons may include, but are not limited to qualifications, recency, history is on our side, more complete/better warrants, etc.
b) Saying things like, “even if you don’t believe that we are winning argument X, we still win the debate, because…”
c) Consistently engage in effective impact comparison
d) Remember that defensive arguments are still important
e) Be deep on offensive arguments. A few well developed arguments in the block are typically better than 7 or 8 shallowly developed arguments.
f) Are unafraid to make logical arguments forcefully, without necessarily using “cards” as evidence.

I'm a Varsity Debater for UNLV

I believe in tech over truth. Meaning, I prioritize arguments that are explicitly stated in the round and I don't assume arguments are relevant in the round just because theyre written in evidence - OR vaguely existentially referred to. This means I'm prone to give very little weight to shallow extensions or poor analysis on evidence/arguments in the round. Plausible analytics are good and will earn you speaker points. Blatant falsehoods, the reverse. You're not expected to waste your entire speech perfectly explaining every ounce of every piece of evidence -- you need to prioritize your speech time and use analysis on key arguments to prove why you are correct and they are incorrect. Debate is an oratory activity, that values truth, education and critical thinking. Meaning: you have to say your argument and cleanly extend it for it to be weighed in the round. OR give me a clear voting issue that is worth weighing against their perfomance/advocacy.

Give me simple, technical reasons to give you the ballot.

I'm pretty middle of the road when it comes to voting. I think every formulated argument has a safe place to be discussed in a round, as long as it doesnt focus on adhoms, and it challenges both teams on what they advocate. This means I think that teams require clash on the neg and the aff. The Neg SHOULD link to and ENGAGE the Aff.

I will not vote on an argument that says "they should lose because they don't talk about X." That, in my opinion, is not productive, logical, or engaging. So make sure you have coherent links.

I'll vote for a K if it makes sense. I'm open to performances and changes in debate norms as long as they still advocate for their presence in the debate community(and reasonably follow speech times/norms). However, saying "Debate is Bad" is not a good idea in front of me(!!!WHICH is distinct from saying their form of debate is bad!!!). It's pretty hard to win that kind of argument considering you have submitted your own entry into the competition.

Be clear, early on in the round, about whether or not youre going for your alt, and make sure your alt solves some aspect within the context of the round. I am not okay with shifty reconceptions in the last rebutle because it is blatant lying and theoretically impossible for the opponent to develop a consistent answer. Stand your ground and say what you need to. Clash makes for good and warranted debates.

FW and T are voting issues. They are aprior questions that determine how judges should write their ballots.

Reorganize the debate if its confusing. Use the line by line and list things with structure to be as clear as possible.

There's a fine line between sassy and rude - just be mindful of it. There's nothing wrong with standing your ground but try to be courteous towards your opponents. It's a tense and competitive environment. I get it.

I will vote on Presumption if theres little to no risk of the aff.

CP's need a Net Benefit, otherwise they are just defense and I'm forced to weigh whether or not it's "inherently" competitive. They usually aren't.

Feel like post-rounding? I will end my RFD immediately.

Good luck, have fun and please take something to learn and grow from each round.

Do it to it. Play to win.

Go. Fight. Win.

** Updated for the 2023-2024 Academic Year**

She/Her/Hers

Evidence: Apparently I need to put this on here now, but evidence standards will always be an a priori issue to evaluation for me. If there is a procedural argument that is brought up on the standards for evidence (example: distortion, not being able to access source for evidence, clipped evidence, or non-existent evidence). I will default to NSDA evidence standards unless there are other standards governing evidence evaluation. I will also only evaluate evidence that has been brought up on an ethics violation. Once an evidence ethics argument has been made, I will stop the round and vote immediately on that issue before anything else in the round proceeds. I see evidence as a core ethics argument that impacts the ability to go through anything else in the round and impacts my ability to trust any evidence that has been read by a team with evidence issue.

General Background: I’ve been in the world of policy debate for about 15 years, ranging from participation to coaching. Way back in the day, I debated at both Topeka High and Washburn Rural HS. I also debated in the regional circuit for University of Kansas for a few years and coached in Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. I have a deep love for the activity. I am currently working on a Ph.D. in Political Science and I study immigration surveillance as part of my research.

Topicality/Procedural Issues: I vote on these. While I default to competing interpretations, it's important that you are answering all levels of the argument-- including the impact level of the debate. If you are negative and hope to win the round on T, you need to make sure you have a complete argument out of the gate to vote on. I should see a definition, interp, link, and impact level to your argument and I should see the aff responding to these. Cross-apply this to any procedural argument as well (such as ASPEC, condo bad, etc.)

Disads- There needs to be a terminal impact (or at least solid analysis as to why that impact outweighs aff impacts in the round), a risk/okay probability of the disad happening (otherwise, why does your UQ matter?), and a plausible link to the aff. Generic DAs are fine, but there needs to be a plausible link, even if just at an analytical level.

Counterplans-- I tend to be alright with CPs and lean negative. I think most are generally smart. However, that being said, the CP needs to be both rhetorically and functionally competitive. I think Affs can/should be held accountable for clarifications made on positions and that those links apply across both CP and DA grounds.

Kritiks-- I'm fine with these, however, keep in mind that I am studying political theory in a Ph.D. program, so if your whole knowledge of your K is from a long series of back files on the K or from reading a few paragraphs of Nietzsche, this might end badly for you. I tend to prefer Ks with wider reach (capitalism, feminism, racism, etc) and less so Ks of particular authors, mostly because they are generally done poorly. If you run a K, it is EXTREMELY important that you provide a clear narrative of a) the role of my ballot, b) the world of the alternative, and c) how I should prioritize impact calculus in the round.

General Notes:

- If you are going for more than 2 major things in your 2NR/2AR, there is a low chance you are going to win the round. Similarly, if you don't provide an impact calculus, you likely will not like the decision I make at the end of the round.

- Negative strategy-- there needs to be some sort of offense in the round. A defensive strategic approach has rarely won my ballot.

- Please don't be unpleasant during the round. I can almost guarantee that if you are, it's not aligned with the quality of your argumentation and it's just going to be a long round. For me this looks more like arrogance or intentional cruelness-- I'm fine with bluntness, anger, frustration, etc. If you are unsure what I mean by this, please ask.

- I pay attention to the rhetoric used in the round. Slurs and derogatory language will almost assuredly earn you lower speaker points.

- Both teams should start impact calc early, use this to frame your speeches and line by line, and use impact calc to prioritize voting issues and role of the ballot.

- I reward debaters who make an effort to deeply engage with the topic area and issues.

- Squirrel affs are rarely good affs. They generally have poor structure, poor solvency or advantage foundations, and generate poor debate. I would rather see a super mainstream topic that prompts a lot of clash in the round than an aff that is poorly written for an ambush factor.

- In more policy-centered debates, I may err more on the tech aspect of the debate. In other cases, I may give some leniency on tech if the arguments are "true" (understanding that truth can be a subjective value).

- I'm starting to realize through my working social justice that I'm more easily affected by detailed narratives of sexism, racism, ableism (esp. invisible disabilities), and sexual assault. Trigger warnings aren't very helpful for me as a judge (I don't have a choice to opt out of them and I don't think that I would want to) but know that I may ask for a minute to just breathe or get some water between speeches, so I can have a clear head for the next speaker if there is a particularly vivid or powerful speech. This is by no means a common thing that I do, but I did want to add this to affirm the value of self-care in this activity.

- Add me to the email chain: devon.cantwell@gmail.com

- I flow on my computer, so please make sure you take a beat at the top of flows before jumping in and please slow down to about 70% for analytical arguments, especially if they are fewer than 5 words. I have physical pain in my joints, especially at the end of long days of judging. This doesn't make my ability to assess your arguments any less, nor does it impact my competency. I will do my best to say "slow" if my joints can't keep up.

- If you think you might want my flow of the round, I'm happy to send it. Please try to give me a heads-up before the round starts, as I organize my flows a bit differently when they are being distributed. Also, send me an e-mail after the round to remind me to send it to you.

TL;DR: You do you. Have fun. Be a decent human in the round. Learn some things.

I competed in Lincoln Douglas debate for four years in high school. In college I competed in policy debate for four years at the University of Richmond where I was a three-time participant at the NDT. Since graduating from law school I have been practicing as an attorney in the New York state court system. Any argument preference or style is fine with me: good debate is good debate. To me, well-warranted arguments extended and explained in rebuttals combined with strategic control of the flow wins debates. Technical proficiency in terms of argument interaction is also appreciated. Well executed link and impact turns are also impressive. It won't change how I evaluate the debate, but in case you are curious, I was primarily a 2A/1N and ran everything from hard right, to soft left, to ironic affs as well as a full range on the neg. My email is jchicvak at gmail dot com.

Jason Clarke

Experience:
3 years of high school CX debate
4 years college debate (One year CEDA, 3 years Parli – NPDA)
20 years high school debate coach

Policy Paradigm:

I tend to default to a policymaker paradigm, although I will vote on almost any argument if it is sufficiently warranted and impacted. In most rounds I will weigh the policy impacts according to the time frame, probability, and magnitude of each impact and vote accordingly. If you want me to consider non-policy arguments, like K and T, you just need to provide framework and voters.

I am not opposed to K, in fact I like really good kritiks, but I don't automatically vote on "you link you lose" which has become popular the last few years on the circuit. I prefer for you to explain the role of my ballot in the round to justify my voting for your position. Why is voting for a K and endorsing a theory of power preferable to voting for your opponent's policy option and its impacts? Alternatively, if you fiat a policy or specific plan and your opponent runs a K against it, why should I prefer that policy and its consequences?

If you are clear about how the impacts and voters should be weighed in your rebuttals, you are significantly more likely to win my ballot. Good 2AR and 2NR speeches tell me the story of the round and why I should vote for you. Be sure to extend the internal links, warrants, and impacts of your arguments, not just the tag lines. If you have an overview or under view, your goal should be to clearly articulate what my RFD should be, which makes my job easier.

I am OK with speed - I am pretty used to it by now - but don’t mumble or slur your words together – articulate and efficient speed can be a good strategy; inarticulate spread fails to communicate your arguments. I am a strict flow judge and always vote on the flow in policy debate.

LD Paradigm

I prefer the traditional LD style. I like to see a value and criterion and for your arguments to be impacted through your framework. If you don't have a framework, just be aware that your opponent can use their framework to take out the moral foundation of your argument and win the debate even if you are winning policy implications on the flow. I see policy debate as being primarily about policymaking and LD to be about moral and philosophical questions. I am more likely to vote on a moral or philosophical argument in LD and more likely to vote on consequentialist policy implications in a CX round.

I am okay with reasonable levels of speed but keep in mind that I am more likely to vote on a well articulated and explained moral position than a bunch of cards which you speed through without warrants or explanations. Although in policy debate I flow dropped arguments as granted or conceded, in LD certain arguments can be dropped strategically when a more fundamental or significant argument needs to be further developed. Don't assume I will automatically flow a dropped argument in your favor in LD - you will need to extend the warrants and implications to show me why that dropped argument is more significant than other arguments in the round to win the ballot.

PF Paradigm

Public Forum debate is designed to be a communication-oriented debate style, and I judge it accordingly. I flow every round, but I am more interested in your skill as a debater. I vote for the team that is the most persuasive. This includes your ability to use evidence to support your claims, to speak in a persuasive and articulate manner, and to refute your opponent's ideas in a respectful yet effective way. Avoid spread and jargon in PF please.

cadecottrell@gmail.com

Updated February 2024

Yes I know my philosophy is unbearably long. I keep adding things without removing others, the same reason I was always top heavy when I debated. But I tried to keep it organized so hopefully you can find what you need, ask me questions if not.

For the few college tournaments I judge, understand that my philosophy is geared towards being of use to high school students since that is the vast, vast majority of my judging/coaching. Just use that as a filter when reading.

Seriously, I don't care what you read as long as you do it well. I really don't care if you argue that all K debaters should be banned from debate or argue that anyone who has ever read a plan is innately racist and should be kicked out of the community. If you win it, I'm happy to vote for it.

***Two Minutes Before A Debate Version***

I debated in high school for a school you've never heard of called Lone Peak, and in college for UNLV. I coached Green Valley High School, various Las Vegas schools, as well as helping out as a hired gun at various institutions. I have debated at the NDT, was nationally competitive in high school, and coached a fair share of teams to the TOC if those things matter for your pref sheet (they shouldn't). I genuinely don't have a big bias for either side of the ideological spectrum. I seem to judge a fairly even mix of K vs K, Clash of Civs, and policy debates. I can keep up with any speed as long as its clear, I will inform you if you are not, although don't tread that line because I may miss arguments before I speak up. If you remain unclear I just won't flow it.

Sometimes I look or act cranky. I love debate and I love judging, so don't take it too seriously.

My biases/presumptions (but can of course be persuaded otherwise):

- Tech over Truth, but Logic over Cards

- Quality and Quantity are both useful.

- Condo is generally good

- Generic responses to the K are worse than generic K's

- Politics and States are generally theoretically legitimate (and strategic)

- Smart, logical counterplans don't necessarily need solvency advocates, especially not in the 1NC

- #Team1%Risk

- 2NC's don't read new off case positions often enough

- I believe in aff flexibility (read: more inclusive interpretations of what's topical) more than almost anyone I know. That is demonstrated in almost every aff I've read or coached.

- I'll vote for "rocks are people" if you win it (warrant still needed). Terrible arguments are easily torn apart, but that's the other team's duty, not mine.

***

A Few Notes You Should Know:

Speaker Points: Firstly, I compare my speaker points to the mean after almost every tournament, so I try to stay in line with the community norm. I have had a dilemma with speaker points, and have recently changed my view. I think most judges view speaker points as a combination of style and substance, with one being more valuable than the other depending on the judge. I have found this frustrating as both a debater and coach trying to figure what caused a judge to give out the speaks they did. So I've decided to give out speaker points based solely on style rather than substance. I feel whichever team wins the substance of the debate will get my ballot so you are already rewarded, so I am going to give out speaker points based on the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of a debater. Logos implies you are still extending good, smart arguments, but it just means that I won't tank speaks based off of technical drops (like floating pics, or a perm, etc) as some judges do, and I won't reward a team's speaker points for going for those arguments if I feel they are worse "speakers", the ballot is reward enough. Functionally all it means is that I probably give more low-point wins than some judges (about one a tournament), but at least you know why when looking at cume sheets after tournaments.

Debate is a rhetorical activity. This means if you want me to flow an argument, it must be intelligible, and warranted. I will not vote on an argument I do not have on my flow in a previous speech. I am a decent flow so don't be too scared but it means that if you are planning on going for your floating pic, a specific standard/trick on theory, a permutation that wasn't answered right in the block, etc. then you should make sure I have that argument written down and that you have explained it previously with sufficient nuance. I might feel bad that I didn't realize you were making a floating pic in the block, but only briefly, and you'll feel worse because ultimately it is my responsibility to judge based off of what is on my flow, so make those things clear. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

(*Update: This is no longer true in online debate tournaments, I look through docs because of potential clairty/tech issues*: I don't look at speech docs during debates except in rare instances. I read much less evidence after debates than most judges, often none at all. If you want me to read evidence, please say so, but also please tell me what I'm looking for. I prefer not to read evidence, so when I do after a round it means one of three things: 1. The debate is exceedingly close and has one or two issues upon which I am trying to determine the truth (rare). 2. You asked me to read the evidence because "its on fire" (somewhat common and potentially a fire hazard). 3. The debate was bad enough that I am trying to figure out what just happened.)

Prep time: I generally let teams handle their own prep, I do prefer if you don't stop prep until the email is sent. Doing so will make me much happier. If you are very blatantly stealing prep, I might call you out on it, or it might affect speaker points a little.

***

Neg: I am very much in favor of depth over breadth. Generally that doesn't affect how I feel about large 1NC's but it means I find myself thinking "I wish they had consolidated more in the block" quite often, and almost never the opposite. If you don't consolidate much, you might be upset with the leeway I give to 1AR/2AR explanations. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate. Pick your best arguments and go to battle.

DA's: I love in-depth disad debates. Teams that beat up on other teams with large topic disads usually have one of two things: A. A large number of pre-written blocks B. A better understanding of the topic than their opponents. If you have both, or the latter, I'll quite enjoy the debate. If you only have the former, then you can still get the ballot but not as much respect (or speaker points). Small disads very specific to the aff are awesome. Small disads that are small in order to be unpredictable are not. I am of the "1% risk" discipline assuming that means the disad is closely debated. I am not of that discipline if your disad is just silly and you are trying to win it is 1% true, know the difference.

CP's: I have a soft spot for tricky counterplans. That doesn't mean I think process/cheating counterplans are legitimate, that just means I'll leave my bias at the door more than most judges if you get into a theory debate. That said, theory is won or lost through explanation, not through having the largest blocks. Generally I think counterplans should be functionally and textually competitive, that doesn't mean you can't win of yours isn't, it just means if it is then you probably have some theoretical high ground. I also think if you have a specific solvency advocate for the counterplan (meaning a piece of evidence that advocates doing the counterplan, not just evidence that says the counterplan "is a thing" [I'm looking at you, Consult CP people]) you should utilize that both as a solvency argument and as a theoretical justification for the counterplan. I am neutral on the judge kick question. If you want me to judge kick, say so in the 2NR/2NC, and if you don't then say so in the 1AR/2AR, that's an argument to be had. However, if no one makes an argument either way, my default is if the 2NR is DA, CP, Case, then I think there is an implicit assumption in that strategy that the squo is an option. If the 2NR is only CP & DA, I think the implicit assumption is aff vs. CP. Advantage counterplans are vastly underutilized. Logical counterplans probably don't need solvency advocates.

T: I think the way reasonability is construed is sad and a disservice to the argument. I perceive competing interpretations as a question of whose interpretation sets the best standard for all future debate, and reasonability as a question of whether the aff harmed the negative's fairness/education in this specific round. Under that interpretation (Caveat: This assumes you are explaining reasonability in that fashion, usually people do not). I tend to lean towards reasonability since I think T should be a check against aff's that try to skirt around the topic, rather than as a catch-all. T is to help guarantee the neg has predictable ground. I've voted neg a few times when the aff has won their interp is technically accurate but the neg has won their interp is better for fairness/limits/ground, but that's mostly because I think that technical accuracy/framer's intent is an internal link, rather than an impact. Do the additional work.

Theory: This is a discussion of what debate should look like, which is one of the most simple questions to ask ourselves, yet people get very mixed up and confused on theory since we are trained to be robots. I LOVE theory debates where the debaters understand debate well enough to just make arguments and use clash, and HATE debates where the debaters read blocks as fast as possible and assume people can flow that in any meaningful fashion (very few can, I certainly can't. Remember, I don't have the speech doc open). I generally lean negative on theory questions like condo (to a certain extent) and CP theory args, but I think cp's should be textually, and more importantly, functionally competitive, see above.

Framework/T against Non-Traditional Aff's: I have read and gone for both the Procedural Fairness/T version of this argument and the State Action Good/Framework version of this argument many times. I am more than willing to vote for either, and I also am fine with teams that read both and then choose one for the 2NR. However, I personally am of the belief that fairness is not an impact in and of itself but is an internal link to other impacts. If you go for Fairness as your sole impact you may win, but adequate aff answers to it will be more persuasive in front of me. Fairness as the only impact assumes an individual debate is ultimately meaningless, which while winnable, is the equivalent of having a 2NR against a policy aff that is solely case defense, and again I'm by default #1%RiskClub. "Deliberation/dialogue/nuanced discussion/role switching is key to ____________" sorts of arguments are usually better in front of me. As far as defending US action, go for it. My personal belief is that the US government is redeemable and reformable but I am also more than open to voting on the idea that it is not, and these arguments are usually going straight into the teeth of the aff's offense so use with caution. TVA's are almost essential for a successful 2NR unless the aff is clearly anti-topical and you go for a nuanced switch side argument. TVA's are also most persuasive when explained as a plan text and what a 1AC looks like, not just a nebulous few word explanation like "government reform" or "A.I. to solve patriarchy". I like the idea of an interp with multiple net benefits and often prefer a 1NC split onto 3-4 sheets in order to separate specific T/FW arguments. If you do this, each should have a clear link (which is your interp), an internal link and impact. Lastly, I think neg teams often let affs get away with pre-requisite arguments way too much, usually affs can't coherently explain why reading their philosophy at the top of the 1AC and then ending with a plan of action doesn't fulfill the mandates of their pre-requisite.

K's: These are the best and worst debates. The bad ones tend to be insufferable and the good ones tend to be some of the most engaging and thought provoking. Sadly, most debaters convince themselves they fall into the latter when they are the former so please take a good, long look in the mirror before deciding which you fall under. I have a broad knowledge of K authors, but not an in depth one on many, so if you want to go for the K you better be doing that work for me, I won't vote for anything that I don't totally understand BEFORE reading evidence, because I think that is a key threshold any negative should meet (see above), so a complex critical argument can be to your advantage or disadvantage depending on how well you explain it. I also think the framing args for the K need to be impacted and utilized, that in my opinion is the easiest way to get my ballot (unless you turn case or win a floating pic). In other words, if you can run the K well, do it, if not, don't (at least not in the 2NR).

Edit: I think it usually helps to know what the judge knows about your critique, so this list below may help be a guide:

I feel very comfortable with, know the literature, and can give good feedback on: Nietzsche, Wilderson, Moten (& Harney), Security, Neoliberalism, Historical Materialism, Colonialism (both Decoloniality and Postcolonialism), Fem IR, Deleuze and Guattari (at least relative to most).

I have both debated and read these arguments, but still have gaps in my knowledge and may not know all the jargon: Hillman, Schmitt, Edelman, Zizek cap args, Agamben, Warren, Ableism, Kristeva, Heidegger, Orientalism, Virillio, Lacan, Anthro, Ligotti, Bataille, settler colonialism metaphysics arguments.

ELI5: Baudrillard, postmodern feminism arguments, Killjoy, Bifo, Zizek psychoanalysis, Object Oriented Ontology, Spanos, Buddhism, Taoism, your specific strain of "cybernetics", probably anything that isn't on these lists but ask first.

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Aff:

Bad aff teams wait til the 2AR to decide what their best arguments are against a position. Good aff teams have the round vision to make strategic choices in the 1AR and exploit them in the 2AR. Great aff teams have the vision to create a comprehensive strategy going into the 2AC. That doesn't mean don't give yourself lots of options, it just means you should know what arguments are ideally in the 2AR beforehand and you should adapt your 2AC based off of the 1NC as a whole. Analytical arguments in a 2AC are vastly underused.

Non-Traditional Affirmatives: I'm fine with these. They don't excite me any more or less than a topical aff. I think the key to these aff's is always framing. Both because negatives often go for framework but also because it is often your best tool against their counter-advocacy/K. I often am more persuaded by Framework/T when the aff is antitopical, rather than in the direction of the resolution, but I've voted to the contrary of that frequently enough. This won't affect the decision but I'll enjoy the aff more if it is very specific (read: relevant/jermaine/essential) to the topic, or very personal to yourself, it annoys me when people read non-traditional aff's just to be shady. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

Answering K's: It is exceedingly rare that the neg can't win a link to their K. That doesn't mean you shouldn't question the link by any means, permutations are good ways to limit the strength of neg offense, but it means that impact turning the K/alternative is very often a better strategy than going for a link turn and permutation for 5 minutes in the 2AR. I think this is a large reason why aff's increasingly have moved further right or further left, because being stuck in the middle is often a recipe for disaster. That said, being able to have a specific link turn or impact turn to the K that is also a net benefit to the permutation while fending against the most offensive portions of negative link arguments are some of the best 2AR's.

Last Notes:

I prefer quality over quantity of arguments. If you only need a minute in the 2NR/2AR then just use a minute, cover up any outs, and finish. I believe in the mercy rule in that sense. I will vote against teams that clip and give the culprit 0 speaker points, however I believe in the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt", so be certain before levying accusations and make sure to have a recording. (Explicitly tell me that you want to issue a clipping challenge, I've had debaters email me and I don't see it, or wait until after the debate. Don't do that.)

I'll give you +.1 speaker points if you can tell me what phrase appears the most in my philosophy. Because it shows you care, you want to adapt to your judge, and maybe because I'm a tad narcissistic.

Things I like:
- A+ Quality Evidence (If you have such a card, and you explain why its better than the 3+ cards the other team read, I accept that more willingly than other judges)

- Brave (strategic) 1AR/2AR decisions

- Politics disads that turn each advantage

- If you are behind, I'd much rather you cheat/lie/steal (maybe not steal, and cheat within reason) than give up. If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'.

- Neg blocks that only take 1-2 flows and just decimate teams.

- Controlling the "spin" of arguments (I'll give a lot of leeway)

- Red Bull/Monster/M&M's (Bringing me any of these will make me happy, me being happy generally correlates to higher speaker points)

Things I don't like:
- Not knowing how to send speech docs in a timely manner!

- Debaters that act like they are of superior intelligence compared to their partner/opponents

- Reading arguments with little value other than trying to blindside teams (timecube, most word pics, etc.) Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

- Being unclear

- Horses (Stop acting like they're so goddamn majestic, they're disgusting)

- Toasted Coconut

For e-mail chains (both pls):

damiendebate47@gmail.com

mcclurecronin@gmail.com

About me - I debated for 8 years competitively, starting at Douglas High School (Minden, NV) before transferring to Sage Ridge (Reno, NV) where I debated with the incredibly brilliant Kristen Lowe. We were the first team from Northern Nevada to qualify to the TOC and had a pretty consistent record of deep elim appearances. I went on to debate at Wake Forest University (class of '17) with varying amounts of success on a wide range of arguments, finishing my career with Varun Reddy in semis of CEDA. I currently work as a legal assistant and lobbyist in Reno/Carson City when I'm not out and about judging and coaching debate.

I have also been published a couple times. I don't think any of it applies, but please don't read my work in front of me. That's just awkward.

2023-24 Update: I am just getting back into debate after a roughly 2 year hiatus. Please slow down a tad and know that my prior experience with the topic (camps, summer files, etc.) is pretty much nonexistent.

Generally - YOU DO YOU!!! I cannot stress that enough. Be aware of my general thoughts on debate, but I want to judge the debate that you want to have!! I have increasingly found that my role as an educator and adjudicator in debate prioritizes the debaters themselves, whatever argument that they want to make, and providing them with the advice and opportunities to be better that I can. It is extremely unlikely (but not impossible) that you read an argument that is entirely new to me.

Whether the 1AC has a plan, an advocacy text, or neither, truly makes no difference to me. It is up to you to explain to me why I should care. I have become increasingly frustrated with the people so quick to say "no plan, no chance at my ballot". This is a pedagogical question.

I consider myself a hard working judge. I will flow, I will read cards, and I will take the time to make the best decision I can.

That being said, the following are my thoughts on certain arguments and some pointers on how to win my ballot.

The kritik - Really dig K debates. I'm pretty well read in a lot of different theories and genuinely enjoy reading critical theory, but I still prefer clarity in explanation. The less jargon you use, the easier it will be to win a K in front of me. Overall, I find that framework args are increasingly irrelevant to the way that I evaluate these debates. Both teams will (hopefully) always win why their conversation is good, so just do the impact calc. But also answer critical framing args about ethics/reps/ontology/etc. For the aff - I find that permutations are pretty underutilized when it comes to mitigating links and find myself voting aff in policy v K debates on permutations more than I would have anticipated. Alternatives are usually the weakest part of a K IMO so leveraging bits and pieces that may not be mutually exclusive, in addition to winning some offense/defense, will go a long way. I also think impact turning is something that is truly underutilized by affirmatives that are facing off with a kritik. Digging in on certain points of neg offense can work wonders. DO NOT say things like anti-blackness, sexism, ableism, etc. are good though. PLEASE explain why your aff outweighs the K, especially if you have big stick impacts that are basically designed for some of these debates... For the neg - framing is absolutely essential. I like 2NRs on the K that guide me through my decision in a technical fashion. Links should obviously be as contextualized to the aff as possible. I am frequently persuaded by teams that realize the alt is a dumpster fire and shift to framework for the same effect. I am more likely to vote negative when there is case debating happening in line with the K, as well. Whether that is impact defense or some sort of "satellite" K, well, that's up to you.

The flourishing of performance debate has really effected the way that I think about form and content in the debate setting. I think these arguments are extremely valuable to the activity and I thoroughly enjoy debates about debate as well.

The DA - I think these debates are pretty straight forward. Do your impact calc, win your link, answer uniqueness overwhelms, etc. I like power plays where the aff straight turns a DA, especially if the 1NC was a lot of off case positions.

The CP - don't judge as many of these debates as I would like. A good counterplan with a specific solvency advocate will impress me. I think these arguments are relatively straight forward as well. In terms of theory issues like PICs bad, condo bad, etc., I truly don't have much of an opinion on these issues, but that doesn't mean I will let you get away with shenanigans. I would prefer arguments to be contextualized to in round abuse claims and how the role of the affirmative became structurally impossible. Rarely do I judge a theory debate, but I would be interested to hear more of them.

I do not default to kicking the CP for the negative. I think the 2NR needs to make that choice for themselves and stick with it. That doesn't necessarily mean I cannot be persuaded otherwise, however. This question should be raised before the 2NR for it to be persuasive to me.

Topicality - I like T debates. Limits isn't an impact in and of itself, I want to hear more explanation on how limits effects what should be your "vision of the topic" holistically, what affs and ground exist within it, and why those debates are good. Education impacts that are contextualized and specific will go a long way for me, whether it be in the context of the aff or the resolution.

I am increasingly persuaded by teams that give me a case list and explain what sort of ground exists within that limited topic.

Framework - I am an advocate for engaging with the affirmative and whatever it is that they have to say. I don't think framework should be taken off the table completely, though, and if you do plan to go for it just know that I require a lot more work on a topical version of the aff and some sort of in-road to how you resolve the claims of the 1AC. There are a lot of framework debates I have judged where I wish the 2NR did some work on the case flow -- ex: aff is about movements, 2NR makes arguments about why movements are coopted or repressed, therefore state engagement is essential.... whatever.

Procedural fairness is becoming less and less persuasive to me. I would vote on it if I have to, but I likely won't be happy.

I believe that debate is a game, but a game that has unique pedagogical benefits.

I may seem "K happy" but I promise my judging record proves that I am more than willing to vote on framework. But like I said, there needs to be more interaction between the affirmative and a limited vision of the topic. I have found that a lot of teams give case lists (both on the aff and the neg) but there is little to no clash over what those affirmatives are and why they are or are not good for debate. If you are trying to make arguments about why your vision of the topic provides a better set of affirmations, whether policy or critical, then there must be some comparison between the two. And those comparisons must have some sort of impact.

Other things - if there is anything else, please feel free to ask me. I know that some of this is vague, but my thoughts tend to change based off of the argument that is being presented and how exactly it is explained. I probably lean more on the side of truth over tech, but that doesn't mean I will make a decision wholly irrelevant to what is said in the debate unless I feel that it is absolutely necessary and something terrible happened. Plus I like to think I keep a clean flow so obvi tech still matters. I have absolutely no qualms checking debaters that are being rude or problematic. That being said, I look forward to judging you and happy prep!

UPDATE AS OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2022: Please be aware that as of February 24, 2022, the post-Cold War geopolitical/international security world underwent a monumental (and likely permanent) change. If you are going to make any arguments -- whether you're AFF or NEG, asserting internal links or existential impacts -- built around a conventional war in Europe; America's, NATO's, or Russia's propensities to escalate; the threshold between conventional and nuclear conflict; etc., please ensure that your evidence is up-to-date and timely (and, yes, that probably means written sometime after February 24, 2022) and/or please be prepared and able to explain logically and analytically how any older evidence/logic still applies in light of real-world developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Also be aware that if you read evidence (or make an argument) that fails to take account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I will almost certainly accept your opponent's analytical arguments -- provided they're logical and persuasive in post-February 24 terms -- as more valid than out-of-date evidence and pre-invasion academic theorizing. And your opponents should feel free to ask you, in CX, to explain how and why any pre-February 24 evidence/arguments are still applicable to the position you're advocating or negating. I'm not trying to be difficult, but the world of geopolitics and international security has been radically altered over the past six months. Also, be aware that I spent a large chunk of my 30-year diplomatic career working on NATO issues (including stints at NATO headquarters and on the NATO desk at the State Department). While I don't expect high school debaters to understand or appreciate every detail or nuance of how the Alliance functions on a day-to-day or issue-to-issue basis, please do your best to avoid completely mischaracterizing NATO decision-making or policy implementation.

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Note on Timekeeping: In all forms of debate I expect competitors to keep their own time (to include tracking prep time for both themselves and their opponents). Also, debaters should keep track of their opponent’s time (including prep). I will make an exception for novices at their first few tournaments, but otherwise time yourselves, please.

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After retiring from a three-decade career in the U.S. Foreign Service, I returned to high school debate as a (volunteer) coach and frequent judge in 2013. I'm no longer the head coach at Oak Hill School (as of June 2020), but I still provide some assistance (to South Eugene High School) and judge fairly regularly. Beyond that, I teach public policy and international affairs -- as adjunct faculty -- at the Univ. of Oregon.

CX Paradigm (you should read this even I'm judging you in a different debate format because it speaks to my overall approach): My judging style and philosophy has evolved significantly over the past decade. While I still consider myself more of a truth-over-tech/policymaking-paradigm judge, I don't believe -- as some would suggest -- that policymaker automatically equates with a simple utilitarian approach. Far from it. Essentially, I view the two teams as playing the role of competing actors within a government or other policymaking body, each trying to convince me to endorse their policy option. But I remain open to an alternative framework if one of the teams can convince me that that alternative framework should or best applies.

And while I have an inherent bias toward the realistic (particular as it involves global security issues such as nuclear weapons, NATO and Russia, and the nature and distribution of power and influence within the international state system), I'm fine with K debate. That said, although I know my Marx/Engels/Lenin pretty well from my academic training and Foreign Service experience in Moscow and the former Soviet bloc, if you want to run French post-modernist arguments -- or anything of that sort -- you'll need to explain it to me in terms I can understand and appreciate. And that may mean slowing down enough to make yourself more comprehensible and persuasive. I would also advise you against running any sort of performance AFF...I'll judge it if you run it, but it's as difficult for me to evaluate as Dramatic Interp. For better or worse, I still view the resolution as the starting point of any policy debate, and I still believe that an AFF case needs some version -- however abbreviated -- of a case and a plan. And case matters. A significant percentage of the AFF ballots I write end up noting that NEG essentially conceded case...that shouldn’t be the norm. (And, yes, on the other side of that I still very much believe that presumption lies with the NEG...and that going for it is a legit approach that can easily win a debate for NEG if AFF fails to meet its burdens.) Unless something is truly and grossly abusive, I am not particularly keen on RVIs or similar arguments for a behavior as opposed to a policy issue on the flow.

As for T, I am more than open to T arguments and will vote NEG on T if the AFF can't make a coherent topicality defense. But be aware that I have a very inclusive topicality threshold (to put it in 2014-15 oceans topic terms, if a case involved salt water I was ready to accept it as reasonable... provided the AFF made that argument).

I'm good with aggressive spreading, but recommend you slow down enough to allow me to hear and easily flow your tag lines and organizational structure; sign-posting may seem old-fashioned, but if you want me to flow your argument in the correct spot, intelligible sign-posting remains an important element in the process. Pet peeve addressed to 1NCs: LABEL YOUR ARGUMENTS, please. 'Next' is not a label. Off-case, tell me whether you're reading T, a DISAD, a CP, a K, or something else. Similarly, ‘case’ is not a label. Tell me where you want your argument flowed. It may seem 100% clear to you, but it may not be as clear to me (even if I have your speech within the email chain). Assuming there is an email chain, I expect to be part of it: eddinska@gmail.com.

Tag-team CX is fine, but recognize that if the debater who is the designated questioner or respondent is completely overwhelmed by their partner, both team members will likely receive reduced speaker points.

Lincoln-Douglas and Parli Paradigm: I'm pretty much tabula rasa in both these formats, happy to judge the debate as it's presented and debated. I will always be a flow judge (who values line-by-line clash as much as possible). But I'm generally more 'progressive' in judging LD and Parli than I am in judging Policy. Go figure. In both LD and Parli, I very much appreciate theory/framework arguments. I also think both LD and Parli debates benefit from explicit plans/advocacies, which thus opens up the NEG option of CPs/counter-advocacies. Ditto K debate in LD and Parli...go for it, provided you know what you're doing (and can present the K clearly and coherently). Basically, the more LD and Parli resemble Policy, the better.

Public Forum Paradigm: You should follow the rules, of course, but I'm comfortable with pushing the limits (in terms of advocacies and counter-advocacies and such)...that said, I'm open to the other team pushing back on PF rules/norms regarding plans and CPs and such (i.e., to debate the very theory of PF). In a more traditional PF round, I see framework as a key element; it's important to establish (and win) your framework (and then, having secured the framework, explain how and why it matters to your case). I will always evaluate the debate off my flow, so line-by-line clash and full coverage of the key issues are important. That means that what passes for spreading in PF is fine with me...you don't have much time for each speech, I know, so use what you have to the fullest. Again, PF is kinda/sorta Policy Lite, and I'll always prefer -- but not insist upon -- a more Policy-like approach.

Michael Eisenstadt, Ph.D.

Director of Forensics, California State University Long Beach

13th Year Judging College Debate | 18th Year Judging High School Debate

2014 CEDA Pacific Region Critic of the Year | 2018 "Top Critic Award" at the Las Vegas Classic (UNLV) | 2019 CEDA Pacific Region Critic of the Year

For questions of any kind, please e-mail me at: michael.eisenstadt@csulb.edu

Tournaments Judged This Season (2022-2023):

Updated 9-17-19

***I would like to be on the e-mail chain (m.stadt89@gmail.com, not my Tabroom e-mail).***

I will not necessarily read along with your speeches, but I would like to have evidence in the case that particular cards are disputed in cross-x and/or to make reading them after the debate concludes quicker.

This judge philosophy is just that, a philosophy. I think I have become more ambivalent to what your argument is over the years and more concerned with how you argue it. My job is to evaluate the arguments made in a debate, your job is to tell me why and how I should vote for them. Therefore, I think the following information is more helpful for you than me telling you what arguments I "like." This is your debate and not mine. Every day is #GAMEDAY and I will work hard when judging your debate, the same way I appreciated those who worked hard to judge my own.

An important meta-theoretical note: I believe in a 'healthy diet' of persuasion. I perceive there to be a serious problem with communication in competitive debate. Debates are won by important communicative moments (see below). Whether they are fast, slow, passionate, or hilarious, they must happen. I believe Will Repko has called these "Moments of Connection." Reading into your computer screen with no emphasis or clarity would make having such a moment extraordinarily difficult.

Debate is a communicative activity. This means that to win an argument a) I have to understand it and b) I have to hear it clearly enough to know it was there. At the end of the round, if we have a disagreement about something, usually a failure to achieve those requirements will be my explanation. Reading directly into your computer during your speeches and/or making no attempt at eye contact drastically heightens the risk of a miscommunication.

I am deeply concerned about the trend of evidence quality in debate. Teams seem to frequently read evidence that either fails to make a warranted claim OR that is highlighted down into oblivion. I think that a team who reads fewer, better (read: warranted) cards and sets the bar high for their opponents has a much better chance of winning their nexus/framing arguments.

Debate is what you make it. For some, debate is a game of verbal chess that is designed to teach them about institutional policy-making. For others, it is a place to develop community and advocacy skills for the problems and issues they face on an everyday basis whether at school, within debate, or elsewhere. I believe that one of the best things about this activity is that it can accomplish so many different things for so many individuals and it serves a variety of purposes. I think either or any of these approaches teach us the transferable skills debate can offer. No matter the arguments presented in a debate, I will always recognize this and will always support you for what you do. Over the years I have found myself voting fairly evenly for and against "framework" arguments because I will evaluate the arguments made in the debate itself. My ballot will never be an endorsement of one form of debate over another, it will very simply represent who I thought did the better debating.

Framework. In 1984, Dr. David Zarefsky famously argued, "the person who can set the terms of the debate has the power to win it." Generally, the 2NR that goes for "Topicality + Case D to Aff Impact Turns" is more likely to win in front of me than the 2NR who only goes for "State Good/Inevitable," though that is typically suitable defense on the case when the affirmative criticizes governmental action. The negative wins in front of me going for this 2NR strategy most often when it includes some combination of the following 3 arguments:

1. An interpretation supported by definitional evidence (that is ideally contextual to the topic). I am uncertain why negative interpretations like "direction of the topic" circumvents affirmative offense. These softer interpretations typically hurt the negative's ability to win the limits DA without much payoff. I have found that negative teams have a more uphill battle in front of me when the only term in the resolution they have defined is "United States Federal Government."

2. A Topical Version of the Aff and/or Switch Side Debate argument - I think of "framework" as the intersection between Topicality and argument(s) about how I prioritize impacts, which impacts should be prioritized, and what the best strategy for dealing with those impacts is. So, having a "counterplan" that plays defense to and/or solves portions of the case (and/or the impact turns) can be a good way to beat the affirmative. I find myself voting affirmative in debates where the 2NR did not address the affirmative's substantive offense (so, you did not respond to internal links to impact turns, address impact priority arguments, etc.). I also think this sets the negative up to make arguments about potential neg ground as well as a switch-side debate argument.

3. An impact - I have voted on procedural and structural fairness, topic education, and argument advocacy/testing impacts. Ideally, the 2NR will be careful to identify why these impacts access/outweigh the affirmative's offense and/or solve it. I think that debate is generally more valuable for "argument testing" than "truth testing," since the vast majority of arguments made in a debate rely on assumptions that "the plan/aff happens" or "the alternative/framework resolves a link."

Conversely, the affirmative should point out and capitalize on the absence of these arguments.

Presumption: This is a legal term that I think folks are often confused about. Presumption means that the affirmative has not met their burden of proof (sufficient evidence for change) and that I should err negative and be skeptical of change. Although a 2NR should try to avoid finding themselves with no offense, I am increasingly compelled by arguments that an affirmative who has not chosen to defend a(n) change/outcome (note: this does not mean a plan) has not met their burden of proof. For instance, an affirmative that says "the State is always bad" but does not offer some alternative to it has not overcome the presumption that shifting away from "the State" would be inherently risky. Of course, a framework argument about what it means to vote affirmative, or whether the role of the debate is to advocate for/against change factors into how I think about these issues.

Flowing: is a dying art. Regardless of whether I am instructed to or not, I will record all of the arguments on a flow. You should flow too. Reading along with speech docs does not constitute flowing. I am frustrated by teams who spend an entire cross-x asking which cards were read and requesting a speech doc with fewer cards. In the days of paper debate (I am a dinosaur to the teens of 2020), you would not have such a luxury. There are clearly instances where this is not uncalled for, but the majority of cases appear to be flowing issues, and not "card dumps" from an opposing team.

Permutations: I am almost never persuaded by the argument that the affirmative does not get a permutation in a "method debate." Permutations are mathematical combinations and all methods are permutations of theories and methods that preceded it. I could [rather easily] be persuaded that if the affirmative has no stable advocacy or plan, then they should not get a permutation. That is a different case and has a different warrant (affirmative conditionality). "Perm do the aff" is not an argument, it is not a permutation and says nothing about how a counterplan or alternative competes with the aff. I have also found that teams seem to have difficulty in defending the theoretical legitimacy of permutations. Although I would have an astronomically high threshold for voting on an argument like "severance permutations are a voting issue," such arguments could be persuasive reasons to reject a permutation.

Risk: I find that I am mostly on the "1% risk" side of things when a team has [good] evidence to support a claim. However, I can also be easily persuaded there is a "0% risk" if a team has made too much of a logical leap between their evidence and their claim, especially if the opposing team has also indicted their opponent's evidence and compared it to their own. This is especially true of "Link->Internal Link" questions for advantages and disadvantages.

Tech and Truth: If all arguments were equal in a debate, I would err on the side of truth. However, that is rarely (and should not be) the case. When there is not a clear attempt by both teams to engage in line-by-line refutation, one team tends to miss important framing arguments their opponents are making that undercut the "impact" of their truth claims. This understanding is distinct from "they dropped an arg, judge, so it must be true," since that is not a warranted extension of an argument nor is it a comparison that tells me why the "dropped argument" (how do we know it was dropped if we aren't debating line-by-line and making these comparisons? Could an argument somewhere else or on an entirely different sheet answer it?) should affect the way I evaluate other portions of the debate.

Other important notes:

A) I will vote for the team who I found to do the better debating. This means if your framing argument is "your ballot is political because _______" and I vote for you, my ballot is NOT necessarily an endorsement of that politics. Rather, it means you won your impact prioritization and did the better debating, nothing more, nothing less.

B) I do not want to preside over accusations about what has or has not happened outside of the debate I am judging. In these situations, I will always defer to the arguments presented in a debate first and try to resolve the debate in that fashion, since I am often not witness to the events that are brought up about what may or may not have happened prior to a debate.

C) I am ambivalent about argument selection and theory and am willing to vote against my own convictions. E.G. I think the Delay CP is 100% cheating and unfair but I will not credit a 2AR on that position that does not defeat the negative's arguments about why the CP is good/legitimate or I think conditionality is generally good but would still vote that it is bad if the negative is unable to defend their 1NC strategy.

D) I am unwilling to "judge kick" a CP extended by the 2NR unless they have explicitly told me why I should. The affirmative should, of course, contest the claim that I can always revert to the status quo in the event that a counterplan is insufficient/unnecessary.

If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, bang on the table. Don't bang on the table. I prefer substantive arguments, presented in a linear fashion, strongly supported by logic, and and backed up by well-sourced facts.

I don't know every arcane rule and style of debating, but as an AP Gov teacher for 18 years, I know the topics and recognize proper argumentation and reasoned position-taking.

Thanks.

I am a coach at Nevada Union, C.K. McClatchy and West Campus high schools. My general philosophy is run whatever you want, do it as fast as you want, just be clear. I will vote on just about anything except racist, sexist, homophobic etc arguments. I see my job as a judge as evaluating the evidence in the round and deciding the debate based on what is said without my intervention to the greatest degree possible.

That said, I do have a few notions about how I evaluate arguments:

Topicality -- I vote on it. I do not have any "threshold" for topicality -- either the aff is topical or it is not. That said, for me in evaluating topicality, the key is the interpretation. The first level of analysis is whether the aff meets the neg interpretation. If the aff meets the neg interpretation, then the aff is topical. I have judged far too many debates where the negative argues that their interpretation is better for education, ground etc, but does not address why the aff meets the negative interpretation and then is angry when I vote affirmative. For me if the aff meets the neg interpretation that is the end of the topicality debate.

If the aff does not meet, then I need to decide which interpretation is better. The arguments about standards should relate 1) which standards are more important to evaluate and 2) why either the negative or affirmative interpretation is better in terms of those standards (for example, not just why ground is a better standard but why the affirmative or negative interpretation is better for ground). Based on that, I can evaluate which standards to use, and which interpretation is better in terms of those standards. I admit the fact that I am a lawyer who has done several cases about statutory interpretation influences me here. I see the resolution as a statement that can have many meanings, and the goal of a topicality debate is to determine what meaning is best and whether the affirmative meets that meaning.

That said, I will reject topicality on generic affirmative arguments such as no ground loss if they are not answered. However, I see reasonability as a way of evaluating the interpretation (aff says their interpretation is reasonable, so I should defer to that) as opposed to a general statement without grounding in an interpretation (aff is reasonably to--pical so don't vote on T).

I will listen to critiques of the notion of topicality and I will evaluate those with no particular bias either way.

Theory -- Its fine but please slow down if you are giving several rapid fire theory arguments that are not much more than tags. My default is the impact to a theory argument is to reject the argument and not the team. If you want me to put the round on it, I will but I need more than "voter" when the argument is presented. I need clearly articulated reasons why the other team should lose because of the argument.

Disadvantages and counterplans are fine. Although people may not believe it, I am just as happy judging a good counterplan and disad debate as I am judging a K debate. I have no particular views about either of those types of arguments. I note however that I think defensive arguments can win positions. If the aff wins there is no link to the disad, I will not vote on it. If the neg wins a risk of a link, that risk needs to be evaluated against the risk of any impacts the aff wins. Case debates are good too.

Ks: I like them and I think they can be good arguments. I like specific links and am less pursuaded by very generic links such as "the state is always X." Unless told otherwise, I see alternatives to K's as possible other worlds that avoid the criticism and not as worlds that the negative is advocating. With that in mind, I see K's differently than counterplans or disads, and I do not think trying to argue Kritiks as counterplans (floating PIC arguments for example) works very well, and I find critical debates that devolve into counterplan or disad jargon to be confusing and difficult to judge, and they miss the point of how the argument is a philosophical challenge to the affirmative in some way. Framework arguments on Ks are fine too, although I do not generally find persuasive debate theory arguments that Kritiks are bad (although I will vote on those if they are dropped). However, higher level debates about whether policy analysis or critical analysis is a better way to approach the world are fine and I will evaluate those arguments.

Non-traditional affs: I am open to them but will also evaluate arguments that they are illegitimate. I think this is a debate to have (although I prefer juding substantive debates in these types of rounds). I tend to think that affs should say the topic is true in some way (not necessarily a plan of action) but I have and will vote otherwise depending on how it is debated. I do remain flow-centric in these debates unless there are arguments otherwise in the debate.

America first!

Joshua Gonzalez

8th place in US Extemp my first time at NSDA Nationals.

iykyk...

Current coach at Kent Denver School, University of Kentucky, and Rutgers University-Newark. Previous competitor in NSDA CX/Policy, NDT/CEDA, and NPTE/NPDA. Experience with British Parliamentary and Worlds Schools/Asian Parliamentary.

> Please include me on email chains - nategraziano@gmail.com <

TL;DR - I like judge instruction. I'll vote for or against K 1ACs based on Framework. Clash of Civilization debates are the majority of rounds I watch. I vote frequently on dropped technical arguments, and will think more favorably of you if you play to your outs. The ballot is yours, your speaker points are mine. Your speech overview should be my RFD. Tell me what is important, why you win that, and why winning it means you get the ballot.

Note to coaches and debaters - I give my RFDs in list order on how I end up deciding the round, in chronological order of how I resolved them. Because of this I also upload my RFD word for word with the online ballot. I keep a pretty good record of rounds I've judged so if anyone has any questions about any decision I've made on Tabroom please feel free to reach out at my email above.

1. Tech > Truth

The game of debate is lost if I intervene and weigh what I know to be "True." The ability to spin positions and make answers that fit within your side of the debate depend on a critic being objective to the content. That being said, arguments that are based in truth are typically more persuasive in the long run.

I'm very vigilant about intervening and will not make "logical conclusions" on arguments if you don't do the work to make them so. If you believe that the negative has the right to a "judge kick" if you're losing the counterplan and instead vote on the status quo in the 2NR, you need to make that explicitly clear in your speech.

More and more I've made decisions on evidence quality and the spin behind it. I like to reward knowledgeable debaters for doing research and in the event of a disputable, clashing claim I tend to default to card quality and spin.

I follow along in the speech doc when evidence is being read and make my own marks on what evidence and highlighting was read in the round.

2. Theory/Topicality/Framework

Most rounds I judge involve Framework. While I do like these debates please ensure they're clashing and not primarily block reading. If there are multiple theoretical frameworks (ex. RotB, RotJ, FW Interp) please tell me how to sort through them and if they interact. I tend to default to policy-making and evaluating consequences unless instructed otherwise.

For theory violations - I usually need more than "they did this thing and it was bad; that's a voter" for me to sign my ballot, unless it was cold conceded. If you're going for it in the 2NR/2AR, I'd say a good rule of thumb for "adequate time spent" is around 2:00, but I would almost prefer it be the whole 5:00.

In the event that both teams have multiple theoretical arguments and refuse to clash with each other, I try to resolve as much of the framework as I can on both sides. (Example - "The judge should be an anti-ethical decision maker" and "the affirmative should have to defend a topical plan" are not inherently contradicting claims until proven otherwise.)

Winning framework is not the same as winning the debate. It's possible for one team to win framework and the other to win in it.

Procedural Fairness can be both an impact and an internal link. I believe it's important to make debate as accessible of a place as possible, which means fairness can be both a justification as well as a result of good debate practices.

3. Debate is Story Telling

I'm fond of good overviews. Round vision, and understanding how to write a singular winning ballot at the end of the debate, is something I reward both on the flow and in your speaker points. To some extent, telling any argument as a chain of events with a result is the same process that we use when telling stories. Being able to implicate your argument as a clash of stories can be helpful for everyone involved.

I do not want to feel like I have to intervene to make a good decision. I will not vote on an argument that was not said or implied by one of the debaters in round. I feel best about the rounds where the overview was similar to my RFD.

4. Critical Arguments

I am familiar with most critical literature and it's history in debate. I also do a lot of topic specific research and love politics debates. Regardless of what it is, I prefer if arguments are specific, strategic, and well executed. Do not be afraid of pulling out your "off-the-wall" positions - I'll listen and vote on just about anything.

As a critic and someone who enjoys the activity, I would like to see your best strategy that you've prepared based on your opponent and their argument, rather than what you think I would like. Make the correct decision about what to read based on your opponent's weaknesses and your strengths.

I've voted for, against, and judged many debates that include narration, personal experience, and autobiographical accounts.

If you have specific questions or concerns don't hesitate to email me or ask questions prior to the beginning of the round - that includes judges, coaches, and competitors. 

5. Speaker Points

I believe that the ballot is yours, but your speaker points are mine. If you won the arguments required to win the debate round, you will always receive the ballot from me regardless of my personal opinion on execution or quality. Speaker points are a way for judges to reward good speaking and argumentation, and dissuade poor practice and technique. Here are some things that I tend to reward debaters for:

- Debate Sense. When you show you understand the central points in the debate. Phrases like "they completely dropped this page" only to respond to line by line for 3 minutes annoy me. If you're behind and think you're going to lose, your speaker points will be higher if you acknowledge what you're behind on and execute your "shot" at winning.

- Clarity and organization. Numbered flows, references to authors or tags on cards, and word economy are valued highly. I also like it when you know the internals and warrants of your arguments/evidence.

- Judge instruction. I know it sounds redundant at this point, but you can quite literally just look at me and say "Nate, I know we're behind but you're about to vote on this link turn."

I will disclose speaker points after the round if you ask me. The highest speaker points I've ever given out is a 29.7. A 28.5 is my standard for a serviceable speech, while a 27.5 is the bare minimum needed to continue the debate. My average for the last 3 seasons was around a 28.8-28.9.

Updated 2023 Pre-Northwestern College Season Opener

Assistant Policy Debate Coach at UT-Dallas and Greenhill

Debated at C.E. Byrd HS in Shreveport, Louisiana (class of ’14). Debated in college policy for Baylor University (2014-2016) and the University of Iowa (2017-2019)

Have coached: Caddo Magnet HS, Hendrickson HS, Little Rock Central HS, Glenbrook South HS, University of Iowa, James Madison University

Email chain should be set up/sent before start time. Sam.gustavson@gmail.com

Top level

Please be respectful of one another. We are all sacrificing our weekends to be here and learn, you can be passionate about your arguments without being mean, rude, condescending, hostile, etc. I’d almost always prefer you convince me that your opponent’s arguments are bad, not that they’re bad people. Chances are, none of us know each other well enough to make that determination.

Please prioritize clarity over speed.Everything else you can take with a grain of salt and ultimately do what you are best at, but me being able to understand you comes before anything else.

Debate is hard. People make it harder by making it more complicated than it needs to be. I like debaters who take complex ideas and bring them down to the level of simplicity and common sense.

Judge instruction, impact framing, comparison of evidence, authors, warrants, etc. or “the art of spin” is the most important thing for telling me how I should decide a debate. Making strategic decisions is important.

One of the things that makes debate truly unique is the research that is required, and so I think it makes sense to reward teams who are clearly going above and beyond in the research they’re producing. Good cards won’t auto win you the debate, but they certainly help “break ties” on the flow and give off the perception that a team is deep in the literature on their argument. But good evidence is always secondary to what a debater does with it.

I care about cross-x A LOT. USE ALL OF YOUR CX TIME PLZ

Organization is also really important to me. Debaters that do effective line by line, clearly label arguments and use things like subpoints are more likely to win in front of me and get better speaks.

High School Specific Thoughts

I work full time in college debate and as a result am less familiar with the ins-and-outs of the high school topic. Take that into consideration.

If you’re interested in doing policy debate in college, feel free to talk to me about debating at UT-Dallas! I am a full-time assistant coach there. We have scholarships, multiple coaches, and a really fun team culture.

CLARITY OVER SPEED APPLIES DOUBLE TO HIGH SCHOOL

Set up the email chain as soon as you get to the room and do disclosure. If you’re aff, ask for the neg team’s emails and copy and paste mine from the top of my paradigm. Let’s get started on time!

Please keep track of your own prep, cx, and speech time.

Don’t flow off the speech doc, it’s the easiest way to miss something and it’s super obvious. Don’t waste cross-x time asking what the did and didn’t read! Flowing is so important.

Aff thoughts

I don’t care what “style” of aff you read, I just care that it is consistently explained and executed throughout the debate.

I like most judges enjoy 2ACs that make strategic choices, smart groupings and cross applications, and effectively and efficiently use the 1AC to beat neg positions in addition to reading new cards.

2ACs and ESPECIALLY 1ARs are getting away with murder in terms of not actually extending the aff.

Pretty aff leaning on a lot of CP theory questions (Process especially, 50 states, agent CPs. With the exception of PICs), but usually think they’re a reason to reject the argument. You can win it’s a reason to reject the team, but my bar for winning the 2ac was irrevocably skewed by the existence of a single 1NC position is pretty high. I don’t really lean one way or the other on condo (ideologically at least, I have no clue what my judge record is in condo debates).

Neg Thoughts - General

I like negative strategies that are well-researched specific responses to the aff. I think case debating is super important and underutilized. Nothing is more persuasive than a negative team who seems to know more about the 1AC than the Aff team does.

The 1NR should be the best speech in the debate, you have so much prep.

The 2NR should make strategic decisions, collapse down, and anticipate 2ar framing and pivots. The block is about proliferating options, the 2NR is about making decisions and closing doors.

Counterplans

Like I said above, prefer aff-specific CPs to generics. Counterplans that only compete on immediacy and certainty and net benefits that don’t say the aff is bad are not my favorite. I definitely prefer Process CP + Politics to Process CP + internal net benefit, because the politics DA disproves the desirability of the plan.

Because of the above thoughts, I am more aff leaning on CP theory in a lot of instances, with the exception of PICs. I think PICs that disprove/reject part of the aff are probably good.

People say sufficiency framing without doing the work to explain why the risk of the net benefit actually outweighs the risk of the solvency deficit. You have to do some type of risk calculus to set up what is sufficient and how I should evaluate it.

I have no feelings one way or another about judge kick. Win that it’s good or win that it’s bad.

Counterplans vs K affs are underutilized.

Disads

Comparison is important and not just at the impact level. Telling me what warrants to prioritize on the uniqueness and link debate, rehighlighting evidence, doing organized labeling and line by line, etc. Don’t just extend the different parts of the DA, do comparative work and framing on each part to tell me to tell me why you’re winning it and what matters most in terms of what I evaluate.

Like I said in the neg general section, I usually prefer an aff/topic specific DA to politics, but those concerns can be easily alleviated with good link debating on the politics DA. Your link being specific to the aff/resolution is usually important especially for link uniqueness reasons. I typically like elections more than agenda politics just as a research preference.

Impact Turns

Get in the weeds early in these debates and read a lot of cards. Don’t be afraid to read cards late in the debate either. Teams that get out-carded in these debates early have a tough time getting back in the game.

Recency, specificity, and evidence quality really matter for most every argument, but these debates especially. It’s pretty obvious when one team has updates and the other is reading a backfile

These debates get unorganized in a hurry. Labeling, line by line, using subpoints/numbers, and making clear cross applications are super important

Topicality

I really like T debates vs policy affs. I think creative arguments like extra T and effects T are underutilized or at least often underexplained and that there are affs getting away with fiating a lot of extra-resolutional/non-resolutional things.

Typically default to competing interps, and I’ll be totally transparent here: reasonability is kind of an uphill battle for me. When people go for reasonability with an interp, I almost always understand reasonability as a standard for why the aff’s interp is good. If you’re arguing your interpretation is better because it’s more reasonable, how is that not also an appeal to competing interpretations? And in the other scenario, if you’re going for reasonability with a we meet argument, I feel like a lot of the time it just begs the question of the violation and it’s easy for the neg to frame it as a yes/no question, not something that you can kind of/reasonably meet. Ultimately superior debating supersedes everything. If you win reasonability, you win reasonability. But you are probably better off just winning the we meet or going for a counter-interp

Impact comparison on standards is super important. I don’t have any strong preferences in terms of how I evaluate limits vs precision, aff ground vs neg ground, etc. Those are things you have to win and do the work of framing for me.

For the neg: Case lists, examples of ground lost under the aff’s interp, examples of why the debates under your model over the course of the year, topical versions of the aff, etc. will all help me understand in practice why your interp is better for the year of debate on the topic rather than just in theory.

For the aff: A well-explained we meet and/or counter interpretation, a case list of things you allow and things you don’t, and explanation of what ground the neg gets access to under your interp beyond quickly listing arguments and saying functional limits check, explain the warrant for why your interp preserves that ground and why those debates are good to have. N

Not super persuaded by “we meet – plan text in a vacuum” without much additional explanation. If the aff reads a plan text but then reframes/clarifies what that means in cross-x, in 1ac solvency evidence, or in the 2ac responding to neg positions, I think it’s easy for the neg to win those things outweigh plan text in a vacuum.

Framework

I judge a lot of these debates, and I’m fine with that. I think debating about debate is useful.

Fairness can be and impact or an internal link, just depends on how it’s debated. For it to be an external impact, it needs to not be circular/self-referential, which I think it often is in terms of how teams execute it. “Debate is a game, so it needs to be fair, because games need to be fair, and without fairness we can’t debate” is a circular argument that lacks an impact. To me, the argument becomes more offensive the more teams emphasize the time commitment we all put into debate and why maintaining fairness is important for honoring that time commitment, or explaining why it’s important for participation.

If either side is claiming participation as an impact, you have gotta explain how voting for you/your model would solve it. I think that’s hard to do but I’ve seen it done effectively both with fairness and with K affs doing for access/participation outweighs. The impact is obviously very big, but the internal link is often sketchy and not flushed out, in addition to largely being untrue because things like budget cuts have a lot more to do with who can participate than any particular team reading any particular argument.

I prefer clash as an impact more because I feel like it gets to a bigger impact that is more at the heart of why debate is good and that it often causes the neg to interact with the aff more. Your warrants for why clash turns the aff should be aff specific – same with TVAs. Nothing hurts me worse than ultra-generic framework debating where the argument could apply to literally any K aff. The best way to win your model can account for the aff’s impacts is to use the language of the aff in your explanation of things like clash, Switch-Side, and the TVA.

Affs that have something to do with the topic and can link turn things like topic education and clash are more persuasive to me than affs that try to impact turn every single part of framework. You probably will need to win some defense, because so much of the neg side of framework is defense to the stuff you want to go for.

Having a counter-interpretation really helps me understand how to evaluate offense and defense in these debates. This does not necessarily require the 2AC to redefine words in the resolution, but rather to tell me what the aff’s vision of debate is, what the role is for the aff and neg, and why those debates are good. Even if you are going to impact turn everything, having a counter-interpretation or a model of debate helps me understand what the role of the aff, neg, and the overall role of debate are.

Kritiks

The more aff-specific the better. Links do not necessarily have to be to the plan (it would be nice if they were), but they should implicate the 1ac in specific ways whether it’s their rhetoric, impact scenarios, etc. 2NCs that quote and rehighlight aff evidence, read new cards, proliferate links, and give the 2nr options are good. If you are criticizing/kritiking the aff, you should quote as much of their evidence, indict as many of their authors, and apply your criticism to the aff as much as possible. The most common advice I give 2Ns going for the K is to quote the aff more

Making decisions in the 2NR is still important even when reading the K one-off. You cannot go for every link, framing argument, perm answer, etc. in the 2NR.

The best K 2NRs I’ve ever seen effectively use case to mitigate parts of the aff’s offense. If you give them 100% risk of the aff vs the K, it’s harder to win!

Kicking the alt/going just for links or case turns is not the move in front of me. There are almost always uniqueness problems and I end up usually just voting aff on a risk of case. Whether it’s an alternative or a framework argument, you gotta explain to me how voting neg solves your offense.

I have noticed that in a lot of K debates I find that both the aff and the neg over-invest in framework. I honestly don’t see a scenario where I don’t let the aff weigh the 1AC if they win that fiat is good. I also don’t see a scenario where I vote aff because Kritiks on the neg are unfair. If the neg is making links to the aff, the aff obviously gets to weigh their offense against those link arguments. I really think both sides in most cases would be better served spending time on the link/impact/alt rather than overinvesting time on the framework debate.

I don’t really understand a lot of the form/content distinction stuff people go for because I think that the way arguments about “form” are deployed in debate are usually not actually about the form of anything and almost exclusively refer to disagreements in content

Ethics challenges/Clipping/Out of Round Stuff:

In the case that anyone calls an ethics violation for any reason I reserve the right to defer/go to tab, and then beyond that I can only vote based on my interpretation of events. This used to really only apply to clipping, but I’ve been a part of a bunch of different types of ethics challenges over the years so I’ve decided to update this.

Clipping: Hot take, it’s obviously bad. If I have proof you clipped the round will end and you’ll lose. I don’t follow along in speech docs unless someone starts being unclear, so if your opponent is clipping it’s up to you to notice and get proof. I need a recording if I don’t catch it live, even if we are on a panel and another judge catches it. Without a recording or proof, I’m not pulling the trigger.

Be careful about recording people without their consent, especially minors. Multiple states require two-party consent to record, don’t get yourself in legal trouble over a debate round.

I don’t vote on out of round stuff, especially stuff I wasn’t there for. For clarification, I suppose there could be exceptions to this and my opinions on it have gone back and forth. If you feel that someone in the round has jeopardized your safety, made you uncomfortable, or anything remotely similar, I will do everything in to advocate for you if I witness any of the following. If I am not a witness, I will make sure that the proper channels are used to address the complaint.

This is obviously distinct from criticizing something that someone has said or calling people out for being problematic. I’m saying if something so bad has happened that we have to stop the round, I have to go to the tournament and my bosses and look at my options. For your safety and mine I am required to think about how I’m protected, and my role and qualifications as a coach and educator as it relates to resolving officially lodged complaints of discrimination or harassment.

LD Paradigm:

Tech over truth but asserting that an argument is dropped/conceded is not the same thing as extending a full argument

My debate background is in policy, so I have much more familiarity with policy/LARP and Kritikal debates than I do with phil.

That is not to say you cannot win on philosophy in front of me, but you should try to frame it in language that I will understand. So telling me why your impact outweighs and turns their offense, winning defense to their stuff, doing judge instruction and weighing to tell me what matters and what doesn't.

Clarity is more important than speed. Slow down a bit on counterplan texts, interps, etc. Spreading as fast as you can through theory shells or a million a priori's means there's probably a good chance that I am not going to get everything

A lot of arguments in LD stop at the level of a claim - you can be efficient but you can't just blippily extend claims without warrants and expect to win

Not a huge fan of frivolous theory. I think most theory debates end up being a reason to reject the argument not the team with the exception of condo. But like I said, tech over truth so you can win theory in front of me, it just needs to be well impacted for why it is a reason to drop the debater and why rejecting the argument/practice doesn't solve

Judges for: Sonoma Academy (2019-present)

Previously judged for: Peninsula, MBA, Meadows

UCLA '23

Add me to the email chain: gibran.fridi@gmail.com

Email Chain Format: [Tournament Name Round # : Aff Name vs Neg Name]

Speed is fine, but clarity over speed. I will yell clear, but after the second time if I don't understand what you're saying, I won't flow it. Also please disclose on the wiki.

Some Clarifications for this year because these things keep happening in round:

-cross-ex is not prep

-sending marked docs if it takes more than a minute is prep.

-marked docs don't need to have cards that weren't read taken out, that is your job to flow. The only time u should be sending out marked docs is if you actually mark a card.

- if we are having tech or wifi issues, try to resolve it best before the round starts. I would rather start late but everything working than stop after every speech due to wifi issues.

TLDR

Do what you do best. Trying to adapt to me as a judge is a waste of time. Although I am more familiar with policy arguments, I will vote for any argument you run as long as you do it well. K v K, Policy v K, K v FW, Policy v Policy.... i will vote for anything.

Arguments are claims, warrants, and impacts -- means that "dropped" arguments are true only if you explain why they matter and the reasons they're true. I need more explanation than just "they dropped the DA- we win!"

Tech>Truth

Topicality

I'm down to see a good T debate. I think T is vastly underused by 2Ns. If your 1N is a killer T debater, use it to your advantage. Most affs to some extent are untopical, so make them stop cheating. Have a good interp/counter interp and give me some good clash on the standards debate. I don't defer to reasonability or competing interps, so I will be convinced by both.

Theory

If condo is a legit strat for you it should be a big part of the 1AR and all of the 2AR. I will vote on condo, but there has to be in round abuse. If they read states and neolib, I will not be very convinced to vote on condo. And I definitely believe that neg should definitely have condo to test the aff. Other theory args aren't as convincing to me unless the other team completely drops it.

DA

Probably my favorite debate argument. I love a good CP/DA neg start.

A good advantage CP with a sick DA can be a killer neg strat. But have some good evidence on how and why the CP solves. Usually, 1AC evidence can be used as solvency advocates for ADV CPs. Also, the CP better be competitive, cause then I have no reason to vote for it.

K

Yes, most K's are cool and I will definitely still vote on the K even though I'm most familiar with policy arguments. I think Ks are very interesting and probably produce the most real-world change. But if you don't understand your K and can't explain it to your opponents, I will have a hard time voting for it. Have some good links that you can explain. Also, the alt better solve or at least do something. If you can't explain what the alt does and what voting neg does, then please don't read that K. There's nothing more embarrassing than watching a K team not know what they are talking about in cross-ex. What K lit I know well (Cap, Set Col, Gnoseology, Security, Orientalism, Foucault). Bad K debates are worse than bad policy debates.ngl if ur a POMO team, don't pref me lol. I really don't want to listen to Bifo, Baudrillard, D&G etc debates.

Policy Affs

Do what you do best. Have solvency advocates, win the case solves something.

K Affs

Used to err neg on these debates, but as I judge more and more rounds, I feel differently now lol. I don't really have a preference anymore and yes I will vote for K affs. I am more experienced with policy but recently I have really enjoyed K aff rounds. Same rules apply as the K above.

Case

Destroy them on case. Nothing makes the 1AR harder than amazing case debate in the block.

Speaks

Don't steal prep. Flashing/emailing isn't prep unless it becomes an issue in the round. If you're very unclear, I will dock your speaks. Please don't clip. That's the last thing I want to deal with. You will lose the round, get a 0 and I will have to have a conversation with your coach. Also please don't make sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic etc. comments. You will lose the round and get a 0. Don't be mean to the other team. Friendly banter is always welcome.

Email Chain or questions: lawexpo@gmail.com

Speed: Any speed fine. Any argument fine.

Experience: I debated for three years in high school policy debate and two years on the college NDT Circuit. I'm educated as a philosopher and am a criminal defense lawyer. My philosophical training means I really care about logical fallacies and how arguments are posed and answered. Also, I ponder and wonder about big questions so that translates into my debate thinking. I'm a theory hack. Professionally, I defend criminals so I've developed a very thick skin. My love is trying criminal cases so I'm very focused on how folks decide and why, and how to persuade and adapt--oh just like debate. I dislike dogma which is now shockingly rampant on both sides of our current political culture.

FLOW I flow the debate specifically on a sketch pad. Cross X too. If you do not take this into account I'll miss your arguments. That means give me time to turn the page when moving to new arguments and signpost clearly where you going next on the flow (e.g. "on the states counterplan" and give me time to get there.) Connecting arguments - the line-by-line - is essential you don't want me to put the debate together myself. 'I will feel zero remorse if you tell me that I did not decode the word vomit on 2AC 5 subpoint C or the treatise you regurgitated in a 2NC overview. ..It would help me immensely if you used consistent, easily transcribable soundbites' (thanks Shree) and very clear signposting so I can make connections on the flow effortlessly. Long overviews are bad in this same way--put them in the line by line.

Judging Philosophy: Be yourself, because sincerity is transparent and convincing. No argument would cause me to automatically vote against any team, regardless of whether they are labeled politically incorrect, offensive or whatever (I hate dogma.) If a team thinks an argument is morally wrong tell me why I should not vote for it. I HAVE NO DEFAULT OR PREFERRED JUDGING PARADIGM. I'll follow what the round dictates. Nor have I any theory preferences that I apply to my evaluation. I like theory debates and listening to debate arguments about what debate or the theory should be and why. Alot. I expect the debaters to tell me how to decide the debate. I don't want to determine which interpretation is better or whether human rights trumps extinction. The best teams will compare evidence, indict arguments (qualifications or warrants), and resolve debate questions.

Online Debate: Online debate is terrible both as it deemphasizes persuasion intangibles and fails to replicate the community and support of an in-person tournament. But it is better than not debating. Judges should have their camera on during all speeches as debaters need to assess judge reactions and attention. Competitors should have their cameras on during their speeches and cross x so judges can see non-verbal cues to assign speaker points.

Subjectivity/Ks:

Both policy and kritik debates thrill me when there is clash and great intellectual battles. I'm current on most K literature but that is a double-edged sword. I'll probably understand your Kritik, but I have a higher threshold for what you must articulate. And I'll know when you superficially understand your authors or the literature base.

- - Poor DAs/Advantages/K links: More and more I see DAs and 1AC advantages with poor link evidence and then severe brink and obvious uniqueness issues. Often these go unchallenged by opposing teams in a rush to simply read their evidence blocks. A few analytics or even a well reasoned cross-ex questions could destroy some of these disadvantages. Solid analytics will be rewarded with higher speaker points.

- - Evidence Comparison: Great debaters evaluate, compare and attack evidence. There is good evidence and bad evidence; good sources and lousy sources. Quality of evidence is very important to me. I'll be reading along with your speech doc and reading evidence in your prep time.

- - Cross-x: It's not simply your partner's prep time or to get cards you missed. It's another opportunity to make your arguments. You are welcome to do cross x anyway you want but best speaker points are awarded to those who answer their own cross x. And when you find a soft spot in their answers go for the kill and savor it. It's a rare and beautiful thing...as close to a Perry Mason moment as you'll ever find because they don't happen in court, ever. In the 1994 CEDA finals, James Brian Johnston from UKMC as 2AC, questions 2NC Dave Devereux (KSU) and his questioning beginning around 51 minutes into the video is, for me, a perfectly executed aggressive and brilliant cross-examination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7L5N3Jvg8A&feature=youtu.be

- - Speaker Points I won't give fewer than 26 for any reason. For me, 29 indicates a very good speech with few mistakes. Wake Forest University devised a speaker point scale to attempt to universalize speaker points and I tend to follow it: http://collegedebateratings.weebly.com/points-scale.html

The best debaters I see don't simply bury their heads in their laptop and spread; they actually look at the judge periodically and persuade, particularly in 2NR and 2ar. Watch the 2002 Ceda Finals and see Calum Matheson's 2nc or Jason Regnier's 2ac or 2ar for great examples. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpU21fxfAD4&feature=youtu.be .

Debate is about winning so be assertive even aggressive. Not rude or exclusive but go after your point with passion. We are in the persuasion business and enthusiasm is contagious. Have fun. A sense of humor is priceless (and rare) in a round.

Green Valley HS (NV) '15

UNLV '19

Put me on email chains please - jeffreyrhorn96@gmail.com

Top Level

-Tech over truth, with two caveats: 1) dropped args aren't true if I don't understand them or they were never complete arguments. 2) The bar for explanation is higher the less intuitive the argument is.

-Specificity is crucial. This is true universally regardless of the type of debate. I am usually unpersuaded by the generic nature of framing pages. My tendency is to err on the side of contextualized, specific analysis of a war that could happen over general "no war" theory. Similarly, I don't know what to do with arguments like "util=genocide".

-I try to judge as objectively as possible. I'll vote for just about any argument. I'm very unlikely to be persuaded by "death/suffering/extinction" good.

-"insert rehighlighting" is debatable. I lean towards its allowed if the rehighlighting is summarized. To me, this is no different than a debater just making the argument that evidence in the un-underlined portion says "X", and then after the debate the judge might ask for the debater to point to the paragraphs they are referencing. I can also be persuaded that "insert rehighlighting" is infinitely regressive. If you just re-highlight all of the other side's cards and don't explain the arguments in the re-highlighting until the 2ar, I'm not considering it.

-No touching.

Neg Ks vs. Policy Affs

-It'll be difficult to convince me the Aff can't weigh the plan

-The key for me is explaining how the plan causes a unique increase in suffering that some metric can measure. I dislike tying the plan to some abstract theory and explaining why that abstract worldview is bad.

-Alts should do things and are often under-explained.

K Affs

-I'll vote for them. However, in the spirit of honesty, I am generally persuaded by topicality.

-This predisposition has the best chance of being overcome if the Aff 1) explains what the role of the negative and the judge is in their model of debate and why disagreement is necessary. 2) Focus on 1-2 well-explained offensive arguments. 3) Soundly defeat "do it on the neg" and any "topical versions".

-I think fairness can be an impact in and of itself. Variations of "skills" impacts can be too.

-I am more persuaded by the genre of "skills" impacts when the neg is less hyperbolic (read: topical debates solve global warming). Affs often don't dedicate enough time to dismantling hyperbolic impacts to topicality.

Topicality (in policy debates)

-Arbitrariness matters most to me. The question of whose interpretation is more limited/has better ground seems to fall secondary to whether the interpretation is a predictable one. This is where both sides should invest the most time.

-Reasonability is under-utilized. It's usually just explained "come on, we're close." I find the more persuasive version to be an argument about how high to set the ballot threshold for T. If the differences between the interpretations are very marginal, substance crowd out and the possible moral hazard for the neg to go for T seems like a legitimate concern.

Counterplans

-I default to thinking the status quo is always a logical option for the neg. Debating can reverse this. The neg should still flag the possibility of judge kick early and often. The aff should object to judge kick in the 1ar to increase the chances of sticking the neg with the CP.

-I'm usually persuaded the CP linking less than the plan matters. Links are probabilistic assessments.

-Lean neg on conditionality, states, solvency advocates, multi-branch fiat, self-restraint. Can be reversed but I'm generally skeptical of the arbitrariness of most theory arguments.

-Arbitrary conditionality interpretations are unpersuasive. The only logical limit seems to be one.

-Lean aff on international fiat, consult, conditions, delay, and combined federal and state fiat. Also can be reversed with debating.

-I'm very unpersuaded by theory arguments that devolve to "the CP is too good" or "they fiated out of our internal links or solvency deficits". Every CP should "fiat out of deficits", otherwise it wouldn't solve.

Disads

-"Turns case" and "solves case" are different and should be answered differently. Both these arguments are very important and both sides should be thorough in explaining/answering "turns/solves case".

-Better than most for politics, but most politics DAs have no defensible internal link. You still need good evidence.

-Impact comparison wins debates.

Hello all!

Email for email chain: michaelhunter750@gmail.com

My legal name is Michael Hunter but I go by Geo Hunter.
Yes, this is the correct spelling of my name, pronounced "Joe"

A little about me:
Debated for George Washington High School ('15) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Participated only in CX for three years.

Judged at a handful of tournaments during college years, primarily in the Intermountain West.

I graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor's in Social Studies Teaching

I currently teach AP and core Geography at Cyprus High School in Magna, UT.

I'm an assistant speech and debate coach at CHS, primarily maintaining the Policy Debate/CX event at CHS.

Paradigm:

T- I feel T can be an interesting debate, if debated accurately. If the T is in the 2NR, you better be going for it. I won't vote on "What sticks" The Aff though has a responsibility to acknowledge it.

The K- I'm a traditional Policy person. I don't read up on philosophies/arguments beyond the general K's. I will vote on the K if the Neg does an exceptional job of explaining it and the Aff does poorly in arguing against it. I'm not too versed on abstract philosophies. I enjoy more Cap/FEM-IR/Sec K's if the link is explained. I will listen to framework and weigh impacts more than the typical judge. Aff cannot throw a hundred framework cards at the K and expect me to vote. Explain thoroughly.
Same goes for Critical Affs, explain as much as possible.

CP/DA- I enjoy clash! These are the best arguments to listen to. Politics is a +. Do a good link story please, and Aff should capitalize on a bad one.

Theory/Condo- I will have an Aff bias if the Neg runs 10 CP's, I think a K, CP, DA and ample Offense/Defense on-case is an ideal debate round. I will value framework/theory on the Neg side too in the event of a critical aff.

Speaker Points- I always give high speaks in Novice rounds. Varsity is based on your individual performance. If you act like you were engaged in the round, were courteous and threw in a joke or two, you'll get high 28's and low 29's. If you are a complete jerk, condescending to opponents and act like you are not engaged, your points will reflect that. I do not hesitate to give LPW's to jerk teams. I will make a note on the ballot and notify your coach if it was severe.

Prep- I expect Varsity teams to monitor their times. I will keep track, but will not notify you of speech time. If you say you are done prepping and are flashing, there should be no movement from anyone except the speaker. If people are prepping during flashing, I will doc those points. I will resort to flashing ends at the removal of flash-drive from computer if need be.

With that being said, ask me questions before the round!

Happy Debating!!

Matthew Jallits

Debated 3 years @ Puyallup High School (08-11),

Debated 4 years @ University of Nevada Las Vegas (11-15)

Coached 2 years @ University of Nevada Las Vegas (15-17).

CEDA 2019 Update:

CEDA will be the first full college tournament I will have judged at this year, meaning I will have minimal knowledge about the topic.

I'm down for any form of argumentation as long as there's a reason to vote for it. Direct refutation of arguments is best over implied argumentation. This means I prefer technical, flow-centric line by line debate. I don't think every argument needs a card, but it certainly helps.

Other things:

-I flow on paper

-I don't have my laptop open and will not read any cards until after the debate (if the warrants of a card are in question). I want to be focused on what is being said in the speeches.

-I don't want to preside over accusations about what has or hasn't happened outside of the round I'm currently judging.

-If there's an email chain, I'll be on it: mmjallits[at]gmail[dot]com

1. Conflicts [as of 10/04/2020]

• No Univ of Chicago Lab
• No Iowa City

2. Short Version

• tech over truth
• strong analytics/analysis can beat carded evidence
• prioritize your impacts
• have fun!

3. Pandemic Social Distancing Related Technology Notes

• Please slow down 5-10%. Emphasize your warrants. Without a microphone stem, your quality fluctuates. Keep in mind that I still flow on paper.
• Please get explicit visual or audio confirmation from everyone in the debate before beginning your speech. I may use a thumbs up to indicate I am ready.
• If my camera is off, unless I explicitly have told you otherwise, assume I'm not at the computer.
• If the current speaker has significant tech problems, I'll try to interrupt your speech and mark the last argument and timestamp.

4. Some Detail

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but have not really had the time. My hope is that I end up judging better debates as a result of this updated philosophy. I am now changing to a more linear philosophy, it is my hope that you read this in its entirety before choosing where to place me on the pref sheet. I debated for four years at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the south Chicago suburbs from 2007-2011. During that time I debated, Sub-Saharan Africa, Alternative Energy, Social services and substantial reductions in Military presence.

Nearing a decade ago, during would would have been the h.s. space topic. I started at the University of Northern Iowa, Where I debated NDT/CEDA Middle East/North Africa while judging a few debate rounds across the midwest. After my freshman year I transferred to the University of Iowa, where I started coaching at Iowa City High School. This year, I will continue to coach the City High Debate team.

Framing, Issue choice and impact calculus are in my opinion the most important aspects of argumentation, and you should make sure they are components in your speeches. Late rebuttals that lack this analysis are severely.

I preference tech over truth. Your in round performance is far more important to me, as it is what I hear. I greatly attempt to preference the speaking portion of the debate. Increasingly, I've found that my reading evidence is not necessarily an aspect of close debates, but rather results from poor argument explanation and clarification. The majority of 'close rounds' that I've judged fall into the category of closeness by lack of explanation. In some limited instances, I may call for evidence in order to satisfy my intellectual fascination with the activity. Anything other than that--which I will usually express during the RFD--probably falls upon inadequate explanation and should be treated as such.

I feel my role as a judge is split evenly between policymaker and 'referee' in that when called to resolve an issue of fairness. I will prioritize that first. Addressing inequities in side balance, ability to prepare and generate offense is something may at times find slightly more important than substance. In short, I consider myself a good judge for theory, THAT BEING SAID, rarely do I find theory debates resolved in a manner that satisfies my liking - I feel theoretical arguments should be challenged tantamount to their substance based counterparts. Simply reading the block isn't enough. Though I was a 2A[≈ High power LED current, peak 2.7 A] in high school I have since found myself sliding towards the negative on theoretical questions. I can be convinced, however, to limit the scope of negative offense quite easily, so long as the arguments are well explained and adjudicated.

I consider reasonability better than competing interpretations, with the caveat that I will vote on the best interpretation presented. But topicality questions shouldn't be a major concern if the team has answered.

I have a long and complicated relationship with the K. I have a level of familiarity with the mainstream literature, so go ahead and read Capitalism or Neolib. Less familiar arguments will require more depth/better explanation.

Director of Debate at The University of Michigan

General Judging Paradigm- I think debate is an educational game. Someone once told me
that there are three types of judges: big truth, middle truth, and little truth judges. I would
definitely fall into the latter category. I don’t think a two hour debate round is a search for
the truth, but rather a time period for debaters to persuade judges with the help of
evidence and analytical arguments. I have many personal biases and preferences, but I try
to compartmentalize them and allow the debate to be decided by the debaters. I abhor
judge intervention, but do realize it becomes inevitable when debaters fail to adequately
resolve the debate. I am a very technical and flow-oriented judge. I will not evaluate
arguments that were in the 2AR and 2AC, but not the 1AR. This is also true for
arguments that were in the 2NR and 1NC, but not in the negative block.

Counterplans/Theory- I would consider myself liberal on theory, especially regarding
plan-inclusive counterplans. Usually, the negative block will make ten arguments
theoretically defending their counterplan and the 1AR will only answer eight of them- the
2NR will extend the two arguments that were dropped, etc. and that’s usually good
enough for me. I have often voted on conditionality because the Aff. was technically
superior. If you’re Aff. and going for theory, make sure to answer each and every
negative argument. I am troubled by the recent emergence of theory and procedural
debates focusing on offense and defense. I don’t necessarily think the negative has to win
an offensive reason why their counterplan is theoretically legitimate- they just have to
win that their counterplan is legitimate. For the Aff., I believe that permutations must
include all of the plan and all or part of the counterplan. I think the do the counterplan
permutation is silly and don’t think it’s justified because the negative is conditional, etc. I
do realize this permutation wins rounds because it’s short and Neg. teams sometimes fail
to answer it. On the issue of presumption, a counterplan must provide a reason to reject
the Aff. Finally, I think it’s illegitimate when the Aff. refuses to commit to their agent for
the explicit purpose of ducking counterplans, especially when they read solvency
evidence that advocates a particular agent. This strategy relies on defending the theory of
textual competition, which I think is a bad way of determining whether counterplans
compete.

Topicality- When I debated, I commonly ran Affirmatives that were on the fringe of what
was considered topical. This was probably the reason I was not a great topicality judge
for the negative my first few years of judging college debate. Beginning this year, I have
noticed myself voting negative on topicality with greater frequency. In the abstract, I
would prefer a more limited topic as opposed to one where hundreds of cases could be
considered topical. That being said, I think topicality often seems like a strategy of
desperation for the negative, so if it’s not, make sure the violation is well developed in
the negative block. I resolve topicality debates in a very technical manner. Often it
seems like the best Affirmative answers are not made until the 2AR, which is probably
too late for me to consider them.

Kritiks- If I got to choose my ideal debate to judge, it would probably involve a politics
or other disadvantage and a case or counterplan debate. But, I do realize that debaters get
to run whatever arguments they want and strategy plays a large role in argument
selection. I have probably voted for a kritik about a half of dozen times this year. I never
ran kritiks when I debated and I do not read any philosophy in my free time. Kritik
rhetoric often involves long words, so please reduce your rate of speed slightly so I can
understand what you are saying. Kritiks as net-benefits to counterplans or alternatives
that have little or no solvency deficit are especially difficult for Affirmatives to handle.
Evidence Reading- I read a lot of evidence, unless I think the debate was so clear that it’s
not necessary. I won’t look at the un-underlined parts of cards- only what was read into
the round. I am pretty liberal about evidence and arguments in the 1AR. If a one card
argument in the 1NC gets extended and ten more pieces of evidence are read by the
negative block, the 1AR obviously gets to read cards. I think the quality of evidence is
important and feel that evidence that can only be found on the web is usually not credible
because it is not permanent nor subject to peer review. I wish there would be more time
spent in debates on the competing quality of evidence.

Cheap Shots/Voting Issues- These are usually bad arguments, but receive attention
because they are commonly dropped. For me to vote on these arguments, they must be
clearly articulated and have a competent warrant behind them. Just because the phrase
voting issue was made in the 1AR, not answered by the 2NR, and extended by the 2AR
doesn’t make it so. There has to be an articulated link/reason it’s a voting issue for it to
be considered.

Pet Peeves- Inefficiency, being asked to flow overviews on separate pieces of paper, 2NRs that go for too much, etc.

Seasonal voting record:

Pronounced : Suh-Mean

saminishfaqkamal@gmail.com-- yes add me to the email chain, much appreciated.

Green Valley c/o ‘19

UNLV ‘23

Constraints: Green Valley

Update for Meadows:

This is my first tournament judging on this topic, meaning I don't know all of the topic specific acronyms/abbreviations so explain things, especially in T debates. Also, since I haven’t been in a debate round in a couple months please don’t start off at full speed (60% and then work your way up).

Background:

I debated for Green Valley in Las Vegas for four years and qualified to the TOC with a couple bids my senior year. I was a 2A for my whole career which may explain some biases that I have that I’ll cover later on (i.e probably a lower threshold for certain aff theory arguments). I was mostly a “policy debater” (with the exception of 2 aff’s I read but those also had plan texts) so I’ll feel at home in a counter plan + disad debate, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t listen to other types of arguments, just that you may need a greater depth of explanation.

People who I think about debate like/my favorite judges:

- Cade Cottrell

- Debnil Sur

- Steve Pointer

- Anthony Winchell

- Jeffrey Horn

Decision making:

- I believe debate is a rhetorical game and as such I feel as if debaters should be able to explain and break things down without me having to sit and read through cards. This means that I will likely only read evidence post-debate if 1) I am explicitly instructed to do so by the debaters or 2) there are time sensitive issues that may play a role in my decision (i.e u/q questions on politics da’s).

- I’ll do my best to protect the 2NR from 2AR extrapolation, but I might have a higher threshold for what is considered “new explanation”. I believe that as long as the 1AR has a decent level of warrant and impact analysis the 2AR should be allowed some level extrapolation and cross application and it’s up to the 2NR to do gatekeeping. There’s a difference between new analysis and comparative analysis and good 2A’s tread the line carefully.

- I tend to think that my ballot rewards whoever did the better substantive debating, so I’ll award speaks based on stylistic presentation (ethos, pathos, logos, clarity, etc).

Certain biases/predispositions I have:

- Tech > truth but logic > cards

- Condo is great (can be persuaded otherwise but I have a pretty high threshold on this one)

- Commissions, impact assessment, delay, and consult counterplans are cheating

- You always get to weigh the aff…? even in K debates

- CP that mostly solves the aff + 1% risk of a DA à neg ballot

- I’ll judge kick unless told otherwise

Topicality:

- I default competing interps, meaning at the end of the round I’ll vote for whichever team I think has the best definition for what the topic should look like (this means that ev that has a clear intent to define terms of art in the resolution will probably help you).

- I think reasonability is a great aff argument and I went for it every aff debate vs. T. If you’re going for reasonability you need to frame it like offense and go for it with something like arbitrariness. I feel like aff teams that do this can easily win that the negatives interp is arbitrary and causes substance crowd out. This means that the substance crowd out caused by the negs definition outweighs any marginal difference in interp definitions.

- Impact and internal link analysis and explanation are very important in these debates i.e aff teams might have to explain why predictable limits, inculcated by their interp, is the key internal link to ground or whatever else the neg is going for

- The best way to think about T is like a cp/da debate: the interp is the CP and the impacts are DA’s to the other teams interp

- I think aff flex is great (more inclusive definition of what’s topical)—probably explains why most of the affs I read were borderline T/extra-T

Nontraditional Affirmatives:

- I will frame this section with the fact that I read policy aff’s my whole career with the exception of two faux policy affs that still had a plan text (until the 2AC haha) but I’m still down to listen to these types of debates.

- It will be easier for me to vote aff if the aff as some kind of inherent/unique relationship with the topic—I don’t get what this “we’re in the direction of the topic” stuff is

- I don’t necessarily presume that the aff gets perms in method debates so be sure to resolve this in the round

- For the neg: in these kinds of T debates I often find things like switch side, TVA’s, and skills impacts more persuasive than procedural fairness, but I can also be persuaded that procedural fairness is an impact in and of itself. If you’re going for switch side/skills, you need to win some form of defense to the aff.

Soft Left Aff’s:

- The following is taken word for word from Anthony Winchell, just because I agree with them so much in this case:

- “Honestly, they bore me. That doesn’t mean you won’t win if you read one, but I’m a strong believer that extinction outweighs any structural condition that has the potential to be improved upon in the future. Framing arguments in these debates typically just turn into “X structure is bad v util”, and if it turns out this way, I’m most likely defaulting to util.”

- Nuanced framing debates are just a thing that never really happens—feel free to prove me wrong, you’ll be rewarded with speaks

DA’s:

- I love ‘em. I went for politics 99% of my 1NR’s in high school so I’m very comfortable in these types of debates. With that being said there are still good ptx disads (midterms!) and bad ones (base).

- Turns case analysis is always nice, but I’d prefer a more link centric debate to an impact centric one

- Teams should always make impact turns case arguments along with risk of a link turns case args

- Specific links are good but generic links are fine if the team can control the direction of spin

- Link probably controls the direction of uniqueness, but I can be persuaded otherwise

- I feel as if aff teams should actively call out bad ev or generic ev (instead of relying on me to read it later and come to my own conclusion) and should either explicitly read lines in cross-ex or insert rehighlightings (if you insert a rehighlighting please read it unless you’ve read the lines in CX).

- Teams should do a lot of impact calc analysis and turns case analysis in the 2NR if judge kick is still a thing in the debate

K’s:

- Explanation, not jargon, is very important in these debates. I won’t vote on anything I did not understand in the debate prior to reading evidence

- Please do line by line: I hate when teams read a 5 min overview and get to the line by line and just say “that was answered above”

- Specific links > generic links

- The aff team gets to weigh the aff

- You probably need an alternative—this is the weakest part of the K and I feel as if aff teams don’t push back against it enough. Most K alts seem like this to me: the magical wand of fiat is waved and all the problems in the land are solved…

- Don’t forget to use your aff…duh

- Love impact turns, my senior year we just impact turned most K’s—obviously there are some K’s you cannot impact turn

CP’s:

- Love me some CP’s, even generics if debated well (i.e non-enforcement on the immigration topic—super artificial CP but it gave ya a politics net benefit so whatever)

- Most CP’s are fine, but some are sketchy like process, consult, commissions, and delay (non-action CP’s are probably fine but I’m slightly aff leaning on this question)

- All CP’s don’t need solvency advocates, at least in the 1NC. Smart adv CP’s definitely don’t need advocates. If you have a 9 plank CP that claims to solve every bit of the aff you probably need an advocate (I’m partial to solvency advocate theory in particularly egregious cases).

- I love when neg teams use aff ev as an advocate

- I found it strategic to read adv CP’s on case, teams just seemed to mishandle them and would even forget to make perms

- SQUO is always a logical option, so I’ll judge kick the CP unless explicitly told otherwise—2AR’s that just blippily say “no judge kick” doesn’t fly with me—preempt this from the 2AC/1AR

Theory:

- Generally, neg leaning on most theory args unless mentioned above

- I love when 2A’s terrorize the neg with theory but that does mean that I’ll give the neg leeway on certain arguments, meaning you don’t have to spend a whole minute answering a 15 second multi-plank CP’s bad argument from the 2AC. I was characterized by my former partner Anthony Winchell as a “terrorist with theory”.

- Most theory args are a reason to reject the argument, except condo

- Going for theory when its not necessary will result in lower speaks

- Theory debates are judged purely on in round technical concessions

- If the aff misses a one-line aspec arg I’ll likely give the 1AR leeway to answer it there

Random things:

- To get higher speaks make fun of Anthony Winchell or Cade Cottrell

- Enunciation/inflection is very important

- I’ll yell clear 2-3x but after that it’s on you—just be aware that if I say clear once and you clear up I still may have missed certain things before I said clear—read my facial cues

- I love sassy CX’s but there’s a difference between being rude and being sassy

- I don’t care whether you sit or stand for CX—it perceptually has no difference to me

- If you want me to remember something from CX bring it up in a speech or during CX explicitly tell me to “write this down”

- Eye contact is important—don’t just read into your computer you zombie

- I won’t submit my ballot till I’m done with the rfd—that doesn’t mean that my decision will change, just that speaks might depending on how you decide to handle yourself in the post-round

- Don’t speak over your partner (I get that sometimes this has to happen though)—especially if it’s in like the last 30 seconds of the 2AR—it just perceptually makes you look behind and makes your partner look incompetent (when they probably aren’t).

Debate Experience:

4 years at Greenhill

1 year at USC

Please put me on the email chain. My email is gracekuang3@gmail.com.

I went for' policy' arguments in high school. In terms of categories of negative arguments (i.e. k,cp,da,etc.), I have no overlying ideologies or overt preference to what categories of negative arguments you must make.

However, there are debates that i've noticed that i personally enjoy judging and are interesting to me, and debates that i've noticed i do not enjoy judging and are not interesting to me. so if you are at all interested in my enjoyment:

examples of debates i have enjoyed judging: counterplans and disads, occasionally security, psychoanalysis one time

examples of debates i did not enjoy judging: baudrillard, death good, identity arguments, no fiat/fiat bad

if you plan to do anything from the latter category, please spend more time explaining your arguments because im not as smart as you!

The rest of this paradigm is mostly biases I've noticed about myself when I judge.

Condo - its good. Unless condo is dropped, not really worth going for if I'm judging you. Generally I err neg on theory - states cps, process cps, international fiat and pics/word pics are all okay with me. Private actor fiat, floating piks and multi-actor fiat are the exceptions where I err aff on theory.

judge kick - i won't kick the counterplan for you if you don't tell me to in the 2nr. if you tell me to kick it and/or read it conditionally i will. if you are aff and want me to not kick the counterplan, you should start that debate in the 1ar at the very least. ***if the aff reads and does not extend condo after the block, or at least a reason why conditionality being good does not necessitate that judge kick is also good, i will not be persuaded by judge kick bad in the 2ar.

Offense/defense - I think you can mitigate the risk of something to the point where it is inconsequential in my decision.

Framework/Topicality - I generally think of fairness as an internal link not a terminal impact but could be persuaded otherwise.

tag teaming in cx - its annoying to me but you do you

k affs – you shouldn't pref me. i don't like and don't often vote for these types of affirmatives.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask before the round or email.

Quick 2022 update--CX is important, use it fully. Examples make a big difference, but you have to compare your examples to theirs and show why yours are better. Quality of evidence matters--debate the strengths of your evidence vs. theirs. Finally, all the comments in a majority of paradigms about tech vs. truth are somewhat absurd. Tech can determine truth and vice-versa: they are not opposed or mutually exclusive and they can be each others' best tools. Want to emphasize your tech? Great--defend it. Want to emphasize your truths? Great--but compare them. Most of all, get into it! We are here for a bit of time together, let's make the most of it.

Updated 2020...just a small note: have fun and make the most of it! Being enthusiastic goes a long way.

Updated 2019. Coaching at Berkeley Prep in Tampa. Nothing massive has changed except I give slightly higher points across the board to match inflation. Keep in mind, I am still pleased to hear qualification debates and deep examples win rounds. I know you all work hard so I will too. Any argument preference or style is fine with me: good debate is good debate. Email: kevindkuswa at gmail dot com.

Updated 2017. Currently coaching for Berkeley Prep in Tampa. Been judging a lot on the China topic, enjoying it. Could emphasize just about everything in the comments below, but wanted to especially highlight my thirst for good evidence qualification debates...

_____________________________ (previous paradigm)

Summary: Quality over quantity, be specific, use examples, debate about evidence.

I think debate is an incredibly special and valuable activity despite being deeply flawed and even dangerous in some ways. If you are interested in more conversations about debate or a certain decision (you could also use this to add me to an email chain for the round if there is one), contact me at kevindkuswa at gmail dot com. It is a privilege to be judging you—I know it takes a lot of time, effort, and commitment to participate in debate. At a minimum you are here and devoting your weekend to the activity—you add in travel time, research, practice and all the other aspects of preparation and you really are expressing some dedication.

So, the first issue is filling out your preference sheets. I’m usually more preferred by the kritikal or non-traditional crowd, but I would encourage other teams to think about giving me a try. I work hard to be as fair as possible in every debate, I strive to vote on well-explained arguments as articulated in the round, and my ballots have been quite balanced in close rounds on indicative ideological issues. I’m not affiliated with a particular debate team right now and may be able to judge at the NDT, so give me a try early on and then go from there.

The second issue is at the tournament—you have me as a judge and are looking for some suggestions that might help in the round. In addition to a list of things I’m about to give you, it’s good that you are taking the time to read this statement. We are about to spend over an hour talking to and with each other—you might as well try to get some insight from a document that has been written for this purpose.

1. Have some energy, care about the debate. This goes without saying for most, but enthusiasm is contagious and we’ve all put in some work to get to the debate. Most of you will probably speak as fast as you possibly can and spend a majority of your time reading things from a computer screen (which is fine—that can be done efficiently and even beautifully), but it is also possible to make equally or more compelling arguments in other ways in a five or ten minute speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVq5mugw_Y).

2. Examples win debates. Well-developed examples are necessary to make the abstract concrete, they show an understanding of the issues in the round, and they tend to control our understandings of how particular changes will play out. Good examples take many forms and might include all sorts of elements (paraphrasing, citing, narrating, quantifying, conditioning, countering, embedding, extending, etc.), but the best examples are easily applicable, supported by references and other experiences, and used to frame specific portions of the debate. I’m not sure this will be very helpful because it’s so broad, but at the very least you should be able to answer the question, “What are your examples?” For example, refer to Carville’s commencement speech to Tulane graduates in 2008…he offers the example of Abe Lincoln to make the point that “failure is the oxygen of success” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMiSKPpyvMk.

3. Argument comparison wins debate. Get in there and compare evidence—debate the non-highlighted portion of cards (or the cryptic nature of their highlighting). Debate the warrants and compare them in terms of application, rationale, depth, etc. The trinity of impact, plausibility, and verge analysis doesn’t hurt, especially if those variables are weighed against one another. It’s nice to hear good explanations that follow phrases like “Even if…,” “On balance…,” or “In the context of…” I know that evidence comparison is being done at an extremely high level, but I also fear that one of the effects of paperless debate might be a tilt toward competing speech documents that feature less direct evidence comparison. Prove me wrong.

4. Debates about the relative validity of sources win rounds. Where is the evidence on both sides coming from and why are those sources better or worse? Qualification debates can make a big difference, especially because these arguments are surprisingly rare. It’s also shocking that more evidence is not used to indict other sources and effectively remove an entire card (or even argument) from consideration. The more good qualification arguments you can make, the better. Until this kind of argument is more common, I am thirsty enough for source comparisons (in many ways, this is what debate is about—evidence comparison), that I’ll add a few decimal points when it happens. I do not know exactly where my points are relative to other judges, but I would say I am along a spectrum where 27.4 is pretty good but not far from average, 27.7 is good and really contributing to the debate, 28 is very good and above average, 28.5 is outstanding and belongs in elims, and 29.1 or above is excellent for that division—could contend for one of the best speeches at the tournament.

5. All debates can still be won in 2AR. For all the speakers, that’s a corollary of the “Be gritty” mantra. Persevere, take risks and defend your choices

(https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit). The ballot is not based on record at previous tournaments, gpa, school ranking, or number of coaches.

6. Do not be afraid to go for a little more than usual in the 2NR—it might even help you avoid being repetitive. It is certainly possible to be too greedy, leaving a bloated strategy that can’t stand up to a good 2AR, but I usually think this speech leaves too much on the table.

7. Beginning in the 1AR, brand new arguments should only be in reference to new arguments in the previous speech. Admittedly this is a fuzzy line and it is up to the teams to point out brand new arguments as well as the implications. The reason I’ve decided to include a point on this is because in some cases a 2AR has been so new that I have had to serve as the filter. That is rare and involves more than just a new example or a new paraphrasing (and more than a new response to a new argument in the 2NR).

8. Very good arguments can be made without evidence being introduced in card form, but I do like good cards that are as specific and warranted as possible. Use the evidence you do introduce and do as much direct quoting of key words and phrases to enhance your evidence comparison and the validity of your argument overall.

9. CX matters. This probably deserves its own philosophy, but it is worth repeating that CX is a very important time for exposing flaws in arguments, for setting yourself up for the rebuttals, for going over strengths and weaknesses in arguments, and for generating direct clash. I do not have numbers for this or a clear definition of what it means to “win CX,” but I get the sense that the team that “wins” the four questioning periods often wins the debate.

10. I lean toward “reciprocity” arguments over “punish them because…” arguments. This is a very loose observation and there are many exceptions, but my sympathies connect more to arguments about how certain theoretical moves made by your opponent open up more avenues for you (remember to spell out what those avenues look like and how they benefit you). If there are places to make arguments about how you have been disadvantaged or harmed by your opponent’s positions (and there certainly are), those discussions are most compelling when contextualized, linked to larger issues in the debate, and fully justified.

Overall, enjoy yourself—remember to learn things when you can and that competition is usually better as a means than as an ends.

And, finally, the third big issue is post-round. Usually I will not call for many cards—it will help your cause to point out which cards are most significant in the rebuttals (and explain why). I will try to provide a few suggestions for future rounds if there is enough time. Feel free to ask questions as well. In terms of a long-term request, I have two favors to ask. First, give back to the activity when you can. Judging high school debates and helping local programs is the way the community sustains itself and grows—every little bit helps. Whether you realize it or not, you are a very qualified judge for all the debate events at high school tournaments. Second, consider going into teaching. If you enjoy debate at all, then bringing some of the skills of advocacy, the passion of thinking hard about issues, or the ability to apply strategy to argumentation, might make teaching a great calling for you and for your future students (https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_emdin_teach_teachers_how_to_create_magic note: debaters are definitely part of academia, but represent a group than can engage in Emdin’s terms). There are lots of good paths to pursue, but teaching is one where debaters excel and often find fulfilling. Best of luck along the ways.

Affiliations and History:
Please email (damiendebate47@gmail.com and tjlewis1919@gmail.com) me all of the speeches before you begin.
I am the Director of Debate at Damien High School in La Verne, CA.
I was the Director of Debate for Hebron High School in Carrollton, TX from 2020-2021.
I was an Assistant Coach at Damien from 2017-2020.
I debated on the national circuit for Damien from 2009-2013.
I graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a BA in Critical Theory and Social Justice.
I completed my Master's degree in Social Justice in Higher Education Administration at The University of La Verne.
My academic work involves critical university studies, Georges Bataille, poetics, and post-colonialism.
Author of Suburba(in)e Surrealism (2021).

Yearly Round Numbers:
I try to judge a fair bit each year.
Fiscal Redistribution Round Count: About 40 rounds
I judged 75 rounds or more on the NATO Topic.
I judged over 50 rounds on the Water Topic.
I judged around 40 rounds on the CJR topic.
I judged 30 rounds on the Arms topic (2019-2020)
I judged a bit of LD (32 debates) on the Jan-Feb Topic (nuke disarm) in '19/'20.
I judged around 25 debates on the Immigration topic (2018-2019) on the national circuit.
I judged around 50 rounds on the Education topic (2017-2018) on the national circuit.
LD Protocol:I have a 100% record voting against teams that only read Phil args/Phil v. Policy debates. Adapt or lose.
NDT Protocol: I will rarely have any familiarity with the current college topic and will usually only judge 12-15 rounds pre-NDT.
Please make your T and CP acronyms understandable.

Front Matter Elements:
If you need an accommodation of any kind, please email me before the round starts.
I want everyone to feel safe and able to debate- this is my number one priority as a judge.
I don't run prep time while you email the speech doc. Put the whole speech into one speech doc.
I flow 1AC impact framing, inherency, and solvency straight down on the same page nowadays.
Speed is not an issue for me, but I will ask you to slow down (CLEAR) if you are needlessly sacrificing clarity for quantity--especially if you are reading T or theory arguments.

I will not evaluate evidence identifiable as being produced by software, bots, algorithms etc. Human involvement in the card’s production must be evident unique to the team, individual, and card. This means that evidence you directly take from open source must be re-highlighted at a minimum. You should change the tags and underlining anyways to better fit with your argument’s coherency.

Decision-making:
I privilege technical debating and the flow. I try to get as much down as I possibly can and the little that I miss usually is a result of a lack of clarity on the part of the speaker or because the actual causal chain of the idea does not make consistent sense for me (I usually express this on my face). Your technical skill should make me believe/be able to determine that your argument is the truth. That means warrants. Explain them, impact them, and don't make me fish for them in the un-underlined portion of the six paragraph card that your coach cut for you at a camp you weren't attending. I find myself more and more dissatisfied with debating that operates only on the link claim level. I tend to take a formal, academic approach to the evaluation of ideas, so discussions of source, author intentions and 'true' meaning, and citation are both important to me and something that I hope to see in more debates.

The best debates for me to judge are ones where the last few rebuttals focus on giving me instructions on what the core controversies of the round are, how to evaluate them, and what mode of thinking I should apply to the flow as a history of the round. This means that I'm not going to do things unless you tell me to do them on the flow (judge kick, theory 'traps' etc.). When instructions are not provided or articulated, I will tend to use (what I consider to be) basic, causal logic (i.e. judicial notice) to find connections, contradictions, and gaps/absences. Sometimes this happens on my face--you should be paying attention to the physical impact of the content of your speech act.

I believe in the importance of topicality and theory. No affs are topical until proven otherwise.
Non-impacted theory arguments don't go a long way for me; establish a warranted theory argument that when dropped will make me auto-vote for you. This is not an invitation for arbitrary and non-educational theory arguments being read in front of me, but if you are going to read no neg fiat (for example), then you better understand (and be able to explain to me) the history of the argument and why it is important for the debate and the community.

Reading evidence only happens if you do not make the debate legible and winnable at the level of argument (which is the only reason I would have to defer to evidentiary details).

I find framework to be a boring/unhelpful/poorly debated style of argument on both sides. I want to hear about the ballot-- what is it, what is its role, and what are your warrants for it (especially why your warrants matter!). I want to know what kind of individual you think the judge is (academic, analyst, intellectual etc.). I want to hear about the debate community and the round's relationship within it. These are the most salient questions in a framework debate for me. If you are conducting a performance in the round and/or debate space, you need to have specific, solvable, and demonstrable actions, results, and evidences of success. These are the questions we have to be thinking about in substantial and concrete terms if we are really thinking about them with any authenticity/honesty/care (sorge). I do not think the act of reading FW is necessarily constitutive of a violent act. You can try to convince me of this, but I do start from the position that FW is an argument about what the affirmative should do in the 1AC.

If you are going to go for Fairness, then you need a metric. Not just a caselist, not just a hypothetical ground dispensation, but a functional method to measure the idea of fairness in the round/outside the round i.e. why are the internal components (ground, caselist, etc.) a good representation of a team's burden and what do these components do for individuals/why does that matter. I am not sure what that metric/method is, but my job is not to create it for you. A framework debate that talks about competing theories for how fairness/education should be structured and analyzed will make me very happy i.e. engaging the warrants that constitute ideas of procedural/structural fairness and critical education. Subject formation has really come into vogue as a key element for teams and honestly rare is the debate where people engage the questions meaningfully--keep that in mind if you go for subject formation args in front of me.

In-round Performance and Speaker Points:
An easy way to get better speaker points in front of me is by showing me that you actually understand how the debate is going, the arguments involved, and the path to victory. Every debater has their own style of doing this (humor, time allocation, etc.), but I will not compromise detailed, content-based analysis for the ballot.

I believe that there is a case for in-round violence/damage winning the ballot. Folks need to be considerate of their behavior and language. You should be doing this all of the time anyways.

While I believe that high school students should not be held to a standard of intellectual purity with critical literature, I do expect you to know the body of scholarship that your K revolves around: For example, if you are reading a capitalism K, you should know who Marx, Engels, and Gramsci are; if you are reading a feminism k, you should know what school of feminism (second wave, psychoanalytic, WOC, etc.) your author belongs to. If you try and make things up about the historical aspects/philosophical links of your K, I will reflect my unhappiness in your speaker points and probably not give you much leeway on your link/alt analysis. I will often have a more in-depth discussion with you about the K after the round, so please understand that my post-round comments are designed to be educational and informative, instead of determining your quality/capability as a debater.

I am 100% DONE with teams not showing up on time to disclose. A handful of minutes or so late is different than showing up 3-5 min before the round begins. Punish these folks with disclosure theory and my ears will be open.

CX ends when the timer rings. I will put my fingers in my ears if you do not understand this. I deeply dislike the trend of debaters asking questions about 'did you read X card etc.' in cross-x and I believe this contributes to the decline of flowing skills in debate. While I have not established a metric for how many speaker points an individual will lose each time they say that phrase, know that it is something on my mind. I will not allow questions outside of cross-x outside of core procedural things ('can you give the order again?,' 'everyone ready?' etc.). Asking 'did you read X card' or 'theoretical reasons to reject the team' outside of CX are NOT 'core procedural things.'

Do not read these types of arguments in front of me:
Arguments that directly call an individual's humanity into account
Arguments based in directly insulting your opponents
Arguments that you do not understand

matt mcfadden
matt.mcfadden.99@gmail.com - email chain - please put me on it

IF YOU ARE NOT TAKING PREP FOR THE 1NR, THE SPEECH SHOULD BE SENT BEFORE THE 2N SITS DOWN

YOU CANNOT EMAIL PERM TEXTS. THE 2AC MUST READ THEM.

---update - 2023 ---

if you want to read a k on the aff, i'm not the judge for you

if you want to read a k on the neg - and do it well - i am the judge for you

you cannot insert re-highlightings. you must read them.

---update - 12/5/2021 ---

Acceptable:

- All impact turns

- Specific, well-researched K's

- Tag team for asking questions

- Condo

Unacceptable:

- AFFs without a plan text

- Talking about your identity, race, sexual orientation, class, kinks, or anything of the sort

- Untopical AFFs

- Generic, unapplied arguments

- GBX-style process CPs

- Quantum Physics-based impacts

- Tag team for answering questions

---end of update---

---update - 11/7/2020 ---

reasons to strike me:

-you read a 1ac without a plan text

"27.5 if you think the 1ac is a strategy to survive."

-you talk about your identity in debates

-you read baudrillard

-you have 3-minute-long 2nc overviews

-you think a good 1nc can be made by a conglomeration of generics

---end of update---

---update---

vote from my flow |--------------------------------------X| read every card at the end of the debate

the 1ac can be whatever you want it to be |--------------------------------------X| read a plan

the cp needs a solvency advocate |------------------------X--------------| the cp doesn’t need a solvency advocate

pics are bad |--------------------------------------X| pics are good

condo is bad |---------------------X-----------------| condo is good

go for t |---X-----------------------------------| don’t go for t

k’s that link to every aff |--------------------------------------X| k’s that link to this specific aff

---end of update---

predispositions – if you accurately describe your evidence as phenomenal, i will reward you with extra speaks in proportion to how good your cards are. if you oversell your sub-par cards, i will be thoroughly disappointed. regardless of my biases, please just go for what you are prepared to execute and have the research on.

there are really only 2 things you need to take from this –

1 – do what you're good at
2 – do LINE BY LINE
"i vote on dropped arguments that i don't believe" -ian beier

things that bother me -

prep: please have the 1nr emailed out before 2nc cross-ex is over. you can go get water for -.5 speaks or you can use prep to do it.

topicality – love it. please read a good amount of cards. if you've done the research to support a well-articulated t argument, i will be overjoyed to judge the debate. although i generally default to competing interpretations, after thinking about it, reasonability is compelling if the 2ar accurately articulates why the neg interpretation is unpredictable and overly burdensome for affirmatives, which outweighs 2nr offense – this is especially persuasive if you have aff-specific cards in relation to the topic literature or legal question of the resolution. negatives that 1 – do thorough impact calculus external to ‘they explode limits – limits are good’ and 2 – give overwhelmingly extensive lists of the absurd affs their interp justifies are crucial. limits is an internal link to the topic-specific expertise the resolutional question is designed to impart.


theory – can be tedious to resolve, but i'm intrigued. 1ar's do not extend this enough. 2ar's that do the impact comparison, turns case analysis, and offense/defense framing on theory as if it were a da are very enjoyable. if theory arguments aren't well-articulated and are overly blippy, i am fine with simply dismissing them.

must disclose judge prefs theory – no, thank you. i am not sympathetic.


kritiks – the most intricate debates or the most mediocre debates – i mean this sincerely. if you are good at making a real argument, yes please. specific link work with intricate turns case analysis and examples relating to the aff win debates. reading a new phenomenal critical theory card will make my day - ie if you have done the research to support your argument, let's go. the more generic your k is, the less inclined i am to vote for you. if you are a team that goes for the k like a disad (techy, line-by-line, interacts with the case) i'll be happy to judge the debate; the inverse is true as well.


cp – wonderful.

counterplans with long texts – my favorite.

pics – they're the best. HOWEVER – they should be substantively different than the aff and have a solvency advocate.

process cp's – you're probably cheating.

states cp – teams overestimate the impact of their solvency deficits and underestimate the efficacy of theory as an answer. aff – please go for theory.


da – yes, please.

well-researched link evidence works wonders. taking a minute of the 2nr to detail turns case analysis puts you in a great position.

if you don't have a da, you don't have a da. 1% risk calculus won't make your link for you.


impact turn – please go for these if your evidence is recent and of high quality. this means not spark. doing thorough comparison between the data and qualifications of your cards versus theirs is how these debates are won.
"people should impact turn.... everything" -ian beier


neg v. k affs – if you're neg and don't win these debates, you're the exception. these are the hardest 2nr's, so i'm willing to grant some leeway.

presumption – make this argument.

framework – yes. compare your impacts at the internal link level and do intricate turns case analysis. i enjoy institutional engagement arguments vs identity affs and truth testing/fairness against more abstract affs.

the k – though i think it is an admirable strategy, unless you have hyper-specific evidence about the aff or its mechanism, you are highly susceptible to the perm.


k affs – good luck.


aff v. the k – you have an aff; that's all you have to defend.

affs lose to the k when they don't answer offense that is embedded in link arguments, lose the framework debate, letting them get away with broad and absurd generalizations, and going for too much.


execution – evidence quality doesn't replace the necessity of good debating. but i really do love good evidence.

zero risk – it’s not possible strictly in the sense of ‘zero risk’, because there is inherently a possibility of all events but it is possible to diminish the risk of an advantage or da to such a degree that it is not sufficiently significant to overcome from the noise of the status quo. i think the new fettweis card is pretty devastating impact defense. lots of neg da's are utterly ridiculous.

cx – if their cards are awful, or their da is incoherent, pointing it out is fun. being strategic in the rhetorical method you use to get the other team to say what you want, then referencing their answers in speeches to warrant arguments is persuasive and gets you additional speaks if what they said is truly applicable.

"be snarky if you want" -grace kuang

judges/people i admire - dheidt, tallungan, khirn, tyler peltekci, dan bannister, grace kuang, spurlock, matt munday, tucker carlson, forslund, scott brown.

bad args – 'racism/sexism good' args are obviously non-starters. i won't immediately dismiss 'death good' but if this is really the position you're in, you have more immediate problems than my judging preferences.

Ben McGraw (he/they)

background:

I debated at Juan Diego Catholic (UT) from 2015-2017 before transferring to Rowland Hall St. Marks (UT) from 2017-2019. I attended the University of Michigan for undergraduate from 2019-2022. For those that use success as a benchmark, I attended the TOC once and qualified to NSDA nats twice in high school, and broke at ADA Nationals, CEDA Nationals, and the NDT in college. I have also had the opportunity to coach high school debate for both Rowland Hall (2019-2021) and Young Genius CP (2021-). 

My email is benmcgrawdebate [at] gmail [dot] com. Say hi, ask me questions about debate, and put me on the email chain.

how i think about debate:

If you are reading this, you are likely doing prefs and want to make sure I either agree with how you think about debate or that I am not an unpredictable rando who will drop you for something trivial--thus, here is the scouting I have done on myself so you can determine how unpredictable I may be:

Even though I no longer debate, I care a lot about the activity because it (and the people within it) cared a lot about me. I also care that the debaters treat both their opponents and their judges with kindness and respect. If you think that your previous first rounds or TOC bids justify treating your younger or less experienced opponents dismissively or with contempt, I am not the judge for you. Treat your opponents and the judges with respect and I will respect both you and the arguments that come out of your mouth.

I have a higher threshold for winning an internal link than most. This applies to policy arguments just as much as K arguments. If your 1AC is the style of "death by 1,000 impacts" or if the story of your K relies on poor inductive reasoning, I am not the judge for you. I really don't care what you read, but if your argument can't survive a good cross ex it's better off left in the prep doc.

Here's a tip on how to win my ballot most of the time, regardless of what you're reading: frame the ballot. Even if its subconscious, my mind is easily tricked by the team that puts the pieces together for me. I won't lie and say I'm a robot that resolves everything on the flow--I know myself well enough to know I'm manipulatable (as is everyone, but I won't get into that). Whoever does the better job of telling me why winning their argument matters (and not just why they are winning an argument) is more likely to win my ballot. In a mid- to high-level college debate where it's likely to be a close debate regardless of skill disparity, this will be the reason I vote the way I do.

Last meta-level comment: My biggest risk of intervention is when framework doesn't link up with the theory or story of a Kritik--for example, if you want me to view the 1AC as an object of research/scholarship, and the K is a hodge-podge of contradictory authors while the aff is consistently constructed (even with a problematic assumption), there is a risk I will vote aff (if given a defense of their scholarship) even if they lose framework. 

If you are still curious, here are people who have largely influenced how I view debate: Moses Baca, Maddie Langr, Khalid Sharif, Mike Shackelford, Maggie Berthiaume, Will Repko, Kurt Fifelski, Dustin Meyers-Levy, Thomas Vance, Josh Harrington, Adrienne Brovero, Shunta Jordan, Vida Chiri, and (obviously) Clare McGraw.***

back to the meta-level details:

tech over truth but truth determines tech. arguments require warrants to be legitimate, and those warrants need to be logical. if those warrants go dropped, they have a lower threshold of explanation needed to win them. yet, those warrants still need to be extended/explained. no argument is bad if it is warranted, including most theory args.

i treat all arguments as legitimate until proven otherwise (includes procedurals, process cps, kritiks, politics das, etc). obviously, there are limits to this (see last section).

i enjoy topicality debates but have little knowledge of how the topic works--hold my hand through these but don't be discouraged

i enjoy soft left affs but only when they are debated well

i have yet to judge a theory debate, but would likely vote on tech (instead of the "was condo a cop-out strategy" concept, which i think is absurd)

a lot of the specifics below are geared towards high schoolers and younger debaters--if you know your stuff then you can skim most of it.

online debate/paperless:

for the love of all that is holy please label chains with at LEAST the round, tournament, aff team vs. neg team in some easily readable format.

send analytics in all constructive speeches if your debate. it helps mitigate tech issues, and is NECESSARY for certain arguments, like fw interps or perms. i do not plan on stealing your blocks. 2Ns, take the high road even if the 2AC chooses not to send analytics. if you refuse to send analytics, prepare to record your own speeches in event of tech issues, since I lean against "giving your speech over" to prevent in-round redos.

please try and keep your camera on for your and your opponent's speeches, use a headset/external mic, and have a stable place to debate.  these things passively affect my ability to judge, as it removes the (very important) humanizing element of debate that is already mitigated by zoom.

if my camera is off, please confirm verbally that I am still here before starting. 'is anyone not ready' is not a good metric for online debating, as interrupting is quite literally impossible with a poor connection. I used 'can i get a verbal/visual confirmation' and I find that mostly works.

k affs:

---good for things like music, dancing, performance, as long as they are contestable (outside of "pic out of music/performance/etc.)---this means i am not great for the ballot as solely a form of self-affirmation (a.k.a 'survival strategies')

---if your plan is to go for one-off t usfg, impact why the topic (not just the usfg) is good engagement AND make inroads to the case page, even if it is just analytical presses based on 1AC discrepancies or dml cards.

---i prefer a smaller debate earlier, with only one (maybe two) impacts in the block

---i prefer t against a planless affirmative to look like t against an aff with a plan, using similar organizational structures (aka small/no overviews)

---i am unlikely to vote for an aff team weighing offense without a counter-model of debate, unless they are going for the we meet

the k:

---i tend to allow the aff to access their fiated/in round offense; likewise, i tend to allow the k to question the assumptions of the 1ac. 

---i have a higher threshold for link warrants than many: saying "the aff securitizes china" over and over without explaining either the theory or where the aff links (like the rehighlighting of aff ev/pulling lines from aff ev) will make me much more likely to default aff.

---i prefer examples on both sides that support your theory, but when examples act as the sole explanation of the alt/aff, i will likely be confused

---i am growing tired of improperly structured, terrible “affs v. ks” in high school debates. if reading a different aff will decrease your ability to adequately explain your affirmative, you should stick to your "aff v. policy" because explanation matters more than avoiding a link

---i prefer that identity arguments not contain broad claims about how all people w/in that social location must feel/think about the world if you do not identify with that social location.

---i prefer that everyone treat arguments as legitimate until proven otherwise. debaters tend to think certain arguments are 'bad' on face, which can lead them to underestimate the strength of the argument. I will not be persuaded by 'but Baudrillard is a joke so vote aff' even though I'm not a fan of his work in/out of debate (though the balsas card is a good way to make me laugh, and raise speaks even if it is only for the meme).

note to younger debaters on cx in k debates: if you don't understand their theory or their link, ask for clarification! coaches often teach debaters that cx should make arguments or attempt to trap the other team (which are both fine strategies), but often ignore the structural importance of clarification. questions like "do you defend x" or "what is the link articulation based on the 1ac" help aff teams get a better sense of what the block will do (which helps 2ac prep immensely) more than "one of your cards says white and one says non-black, which is it" (which just gives them a reason to explain residual offense that the 2ac now has to answer).

topicality:

Competing Interpretations vs. Reasonability: I'm neutral, but it you think reasonability is solely "good is good enough" (that includes in the 2AC) then I probably vote neg. if you don't know what reasonability is beyond 'good is good enough,' then email/ask me and i will gladly explain it to you, free of charge.

theory:

top level: theory can be a primary strategy and doesn't necessarily require the aff/neg to prove in round abuse. a good, developed theory debate is quite enjoyable to me. all counterplans are legitimate until proven otherwise, but the threshold for their legitimacy is dependent on the counterplan. i feel that 2ARs should have more counterplan theory in them, especially for counterplans that are obviously pushing the limits of neg fiat.

dropped theory: definitely a voter, but the amount of trickery determines how sad I will be. if you put aspec on it's own flow, had it in the doc, etc. then it's definitely not your problem that they dropped it; however, if it's egregious, then i will be very sad, and perhaps glare/look dead inside. however, it's still a voter, so don't let my deadness deter you. if you are worried about this, i am generally for the question "reasons to reject the team?" as a 1NC/2AC cx question, because even if you do flow it's easy to miss blips.

judge kick: i'll do it unless the aff tells me not to; if the aff brings it up, ill default neg if it was in the block and has a warranted claim. "we said condo/cross apply condo" is not a warrant, it is just a claim.

condo is about type, not number. 1, 2, 3, 4, 17, 26 condo are all the same within the context of whether conditionality is good or bad. if they say dispo, punish them.

disadvantages:

zero risk is possible, but rare---just explain why in the context of the round if you think you get there

I am more likely to vote on internal link takeouts than most (applies both to case and DAs)---most internal links lack reverse causal warrants (obviously) and aff teams should point that out more. I genuinely think that the logical leap that many teams take from internal link to impact is egregious and is the best way to attack a DA/Case you don't have the goods against. This is especially true in warming advantages, as solving 1 instance of BioD loss =/= solving ALL BioD loss, and solving all BioD loss =/= solving all warming, etc.

my research outside of debate is on courts, particularly reproductive rights and judicial ideology. this means that I will likely have a lower bar than some for proving how terrible court DAs are (*cough cough*), and likewise know more about how your courts aff is butchering precedent. however, this doesn't make things like the court ptx da unwinnable---in fact, if you know your stuff and can justify why you think roberts/barrett/kavanaugh vote in particular directions based on past outcomes, i am a very good judge for you.

counterplans:

i'll evaluate any cp with an internal net benefit as a uniqueness cp with the net benefit as a disad if they win a terminal solvency deficit and you don’t win judge kick.

people need to go for theory more against counterplans, but because people do not i have been a good judge for process/agent counterplans

case framing:

six minute long framing pages that don’t make it past the 1ac make me sad. you/your coach chose those pieces of evidence specifically to help you weigh your aff in a strategic way. don't make it unstrategic by reading long extensions and not answering their warrants, or not extending them at all. because the topic almost mandates these affs in most areas, spend some time learning how to do it properly (also, think about it...2/3 previous topics also mandated soft left affs, do you really think this is a skill you don't need to learn?)

utilitarianism=/=consequentialism; likewise, [x] ethics first=/=deontology

non-negotiable rules:

no inserting rehighlightings (charts are fine), but if you have rehighlightings of their evidence i respect you more as a person and debater.

clipping is bad, and ends the round immediately if i notice it. i will give the non-offending team the chance to continue the round for educational purposes, and will give the offender a 25 but will try not to tank everyone elses speaks.

swearing is fine---yes it is an educational activity but i genuinely couldn't care less. slurs =/= swearing.

ev quality outweighs ev quantity---1 good card outweighs 10 bad ones, "outcarding" them is not the way to win my ballot.

don't say problematic things---you can't impact turn everything. examples (not extensive) of this include racism/sexism/homophobia good.

if you need accommodations, let me know (details not required). however, any accommodation applies to you as well. for example: don't ask them not to spread and then go 400 wpm. otherwise, i’m open to whatever makes the round more enjoyable, accessible and fun for all. coaches should not interfere in the process of accommodations in debates in any way for a competitive incentive.

presumption is whoever changes the least

please disclose properly.

good open source in high school gets you +.2 speaks, ill look (or, feel free to tell me after the 2ar).

if you want me to know something that happened before i got there, have proof of it (recordings w/ permission in necessary areas)

give me time between off, or i might miss the top 3 args you make. i usually flow on paper.

visibly writing down answers to cx and using them in speeches is a power move, speaks will be rewarded.

prep ends when you finish making the speech doc, but that doesn't mean you can steal 45 minutes of prep by saying your wifi isn't working or that your "email is slow" while still typing/using ~. i have stolen prep before, i know how it works

i enjoy talking to people, especially about debate. seriously, if you want, feel free to ask about my thoughts on anything about debate, either before or after the round. additionally, feel free to ask me about debating at michigan, debating in college, or anything that a normal human would talk about before screaming at each other for 2 hours.

speaker points: i give high points even compared to current point inflation. competitive varsity debates should expect mid-high 28s to mid 29s with me in the back. older ppl, sorry not sorry. earn speaks by making tasteful jokes about anyone on the michigan team, Letterkenny references, or really any joke dependent on bad humor (particularly ones that reference PDM&CD). if you know me, make fun of me, if you don't, don't. i enjoy self-awareness, especially if you have the knowledge to point out my personal biases (which shouldn't be hard, if you made it here you probably know way too much about me).

decision process:

i will ask myself questions that are integral to the debate, answer those questions, and decide based on the resolution of those questions. read this post from the 3nr for more info: http://the3nr.com/2009/11/03/judging-methodologies-how-do-judges-reach-their-decisions

i will type out my rfd and i will most likely take a while, regardless of how close the round is. this is to ensure i weigh arguments correctly.

Brad Meloche
he/him pronouns

Email: bradgmu@gmail.com (High School Only: Please include grovesdebatedocs@gmail.com as well.)

(I ALWAYS want to be on the email chain. Please do email chains instead of sharing in the zoom chat/NSDA classroom! PLEASE no google docs if you have the ability to send in Word! If you send docs as PDFs your speaker points will be capped at 28.5)

The short version -

Tech > truth. A dropped argument is assumed to be contingently true. "Tech" is obviously not completely divorced from "truth" but you have to actually make the true argument for it to matter. In general, if your argument has a claim, warrant, and implication then I am willing to vote for it, but there are some arguments that are pretty obviously morally repugnant and I am not going to entertain them. They might have a claim, warrant, and implication, but they have zero (maybe negative?) persuasive value and nothing is going to change that. I'm not going to create an exhaustive list, but any form of "oppression good" and many forms of "death good" fall into this category.

Specifics

Non-traditional – I believe debate is a game. It might be MORE than a game to some folks, but it is still a game. Claims to the contrary are unlikely to gain traction with me. Approaches to answering T/FW that rely on implicit or explicit "killing debate good" arguments are nonstarters.

Related thoughts:

1) I'm not a very good judge for arguments, aff or neg, that involve saying that an argument is your "survival strategy". I don't want the pressure of being the referee for deciding how you should live your life. Similarly, I don't want to mediate debates about things that happened outside the context of the debate round.

2) The aff saying "USFG should" doesn't equate to roleplaying as the USFG

3) I am really not interested in playing (or watching you play) cards, a board game, etc. as an alternative to competitive speaking. Just being honest. "Let's flip a coin to decide who wins and just have a discussion" is a nonstarter.

4) Name-calling based on perceived incongruence between someone's identity and their argument choice is unlikely to be a recipe for success.

Kritiks – If a K does not engage with the substance of the aff it is not a reason to vote negative. A lot of times these debates end and I am left thinking "so what?" and then I vote aff because the plan solves something and the alt doesn't. Good k debaters make their argument topic and aff-specific. I would really prefer I don't waste any of my limited time on this planet thinking about baudrillard/bataille/other high theory nonsense that has nothing to do with anything.

Unless told specifically otherwise I assume that life is preferable to death. The onus is on you to prove that a world with no value to life/social death is worse than being biologically dead.

I am skeptical of the pedagogical value of frameworks/roles of the ballot/roles of the judge that don’t allow the affirmative to weigh the benefits of hypothetical enactment of the plan against the K or to permute an uncompetitive alternative.

I tend to give the aff A LOT of leeway in answering floating PIKs, especially when they are introduced as "the alt is compatible with politics" and then become "you dropped the floating PIK to do your aff without your card's allusion to the Godfather" (I thought this was a funny joke until I judged a team that PIKed out of a two word reference to Star Wars. h/t to GBS GS.). In my experience, these debates work out much better for the negative when they are transparent about what the alternative is and just justify their alternative doing part of the plan from the get go.

Theory – theory arguments that aren't some variation of “conditionality bad” are rarely reasons to reject the team. These arguments pretty much have to be dropped and clearly flagged in the speech as reasons to vote against the other team for me to consider voting on them. That being said, I don't understand why teams don't press harder against obviously abusive CPs/alternatives (uniform 50 state fiat, consult cps, utopian alts, floating piks). Theory might not be a reason to reject the team, but it's not a tough sell to win that these arguments shouldn't be allowed. If the 2NR advocates a K or CP I will not default to comparing the plan to the status quo absent an argument telling me to. New affs bad is definitely not a reason to reject the team and is also not a justification for the neg to get unlimited conditionality (something I've been hearing people say).

Topicality/Procedurals – By default, I view topicality through the lens of competing interpretations, but I could certainly be persuaded to do something else. Specification arguments that are not based in the resolution or that don't have strong literature proving their relevance are rarely a reason to vote neg. It is very unlikely that I could be persuaded that theory outweighs topicality. Policy teams don’t get a pass on T just because K teams choose not to be topical. Plan texts should be somewhat well thought out. If the aff tries to play grammar magic and accidentally makes their plan text "not a thing" I'm not going to lose any sleep after voting on presumption/very low solvency.

Points - ...are completely arbitrary and entirely contextual to the tournament, division, round, etc. I am more likely to reward good performance with high points than punish poor performance with below average points. Things that influence my points: 30% strategy, 60% execution, 10% style. Being rude to your partner or the other team is a good way to persuade me to explore the deepest depths of my point range.

Cheating - I won't initiate clipping/ethics challenges, mostly because I don't usually follow along with speech docs. If you decide to initiate one, you have to stake the round on it. Unless the tournament publishes specific rules on what kind of points I should award in this situation, I will assign the lowest speaks possible to the loser of the ethics challenge and ask the tournament to assign points to the winner based on their average speaks.

I won't evaluate evidence that is "inserted" but not actually read as part of my decision. Inserting a chart where there is nothing to read is ok.

my email is menokri@gmail.com

add me to the email chain if I'm about to judge your round.

Online debate note: having judged 35+ rounds of online debate at this point - please slow down if you're debating virtually. 70-80% of your normal max speed should be fine.

TLDR: Say whatever you want to say- if you are passionate and enthusiastic about your argumentation, I am more inclined to be an enthusiastic and active Judge. I have little to say about argumentative preference besides the fact that I am probably not the person to have in the back of a room for a policy-policy T debate given that I have little topic knowledge, and I also hate unresponsive theory debates.

I am here first and foremost to listen to the things you have woken up early in the morning to come tell me about. Do not be afraid to talk to me during your speeches, do not be afraid to tell me which way to vote and why to do it, and do not be afraid of the LBL!

Tech over truth always unless a substantive argument is made by either side as for why debate techné should be reconsidered.

People that have influenced the way I think abt competition and debate: Kevin Kuswa, Dr. Reid-Brinkley, Daryl Burch, Amber Kelsie, Taylor Brough, Ignacio Evans, Jack Lassiter, and Nick Lepp.

Do not call me judge, or ask me to go to the bathroom/start prep/etc. !!!

About me: I debated for Berkeley Preparatory School and as a hybrid team in HS. I had 5 bids my senior year, and 2 my junior year. My senior year, I went to 6 tournaments and got to finals of 4, and got to a bid round and a top 10 speaker award at all 6.

I debated on the 2018-2019 college topic (executive authority) at Wake Forest, cleared at a couple national tournaments and got to Octafinals of CEDA before transferring to Columbia and choosing to no longer pursue collegiate debate.

In both high school and college I was primarily a performance and K debater, but this by no means indicates I lean towards a particular side of the argumentative spectrum- if anything, it means I have a higher burden for both sides in clash of civ debates given that I have been on both sides of that debate several times. I have also read plans, extended disads, gone for Framework, etc.

Things I appreciate regardless of what side of the spectrum you fall on:

- comparative impact calc- do not explain your impacts in a vacuum, explain them in the context of the impacts your opponents are going for! Which impact and TYPE of impacts should I prioritize more?

- I LOVE impact turns. These are some of my fave debates to judge.

- creative strategies and passion

FW debates:

for the love of god, please have external impacts to your model and describe the limits and ground provided by the model of debate you are forwarding.

This means: negative teams going for framework, please isolate why your model of debate is GOOD and what it provides for the community, not just arguments as for why they make your model of debate worse/unplayable.

Aff teams- don't just talk about why their model is bad/harmful- please talk about the minutia of your own model- what can the aff say under your model? what is predictable ground the neg can say in response? Why is this model of debate preferable to theirs?

Generally default to debate being a game unless told otherwise

Aff against the K:

if you have a plan-

- if you say extinction and are good at the util debate, by all means, go for it.

- please defend your aff and why it's a good idea instead of relying on arbitrary FW arguments. I am v inclined to give the neg the K and the aff their aff unless an argument as for why either should be excluded is repeatedly extended and dropped.

- if you're going for the perm, please answer the LBL from the negative team as for why you get the perm instead of making a series of compelling, common-sense perm arguments in the 2AR that should've been in the 1ar.

if you don't-

- big fan of either the link turn or the perm in K v K debates.

- please have a theory of competition!!! that makes these debates so much easier to resolve from my end.

- please do impact calculus- it is unbelievably frustrating to have to determine on my own which nebulous impact matters more or impacts solvency- tell me what to evaluate first and why I should evaluate it first.

Going for the K:

- the primary theory bases I read during my career: afropessimism, queer pessimism, quare theory, anything involving gender, and psychoanalysis- if you are reading anything outside of these literature bases, please be comfortable giving me a greater degree of explanation instead of dropping buzzwords.

- do not be afraid to be creative- a creative, well-thought-out, and well-executed strategy is always more interesting to listen to early in the morning.

- if you're kicking out of the alt, please explain why your link arguments still have uniqueness, especially in a world where your alternative was the only thing generating uniqueness for the K as a whole.

- much better for alts that question/change epistemology in the round or result in some form of praxis than a nebulous alt that never claims to resolve any of the impacts of the Kritik.

- sucker for external impacts and links that turn case.

- answer fairness and reciprocity arguments on the framework flow please

Speaks

- If an argument is consistently extended and dropped as to why one team should get higher/lower speaks I will usually adjust speaks accordingly (assuming I feel comfortable w/ and understand the argument as for why that should be)

To get higher speaks in front of me:

- know what you're talking about

- package your arguments in a way that is both easy to flow and understand (this includes both short blippy theory args and 5 minute K overviews)

- make smart strategic decisions about what is going into your speeches and what you spend your time on

- drop relevant examples and explain/extend them consistently!

- make eye contact/be an engaging speaker that *pretends* to care what they're talking about

Debated for UWG ’15 – ’17; Coaching: Notre Dame – ’19 – Present; Baylor – ’17 – ’19

email: joshuamichael59@gmail.com

Online Annoyance

"Can I get a marked doc?" / "Can you list the cards you didn't read?" when one card was marked or just because some cards were skipped on case. Flow or take CX time for it.

Policy

I prefer K v K rounds, but I generally wind up in FW rounds.

K aff’s – 1) Generally have a high threshold for 1ar/2ar consistency. 2) Stop trying to solve stuff you could reasonably never affect. Often, teams want the entirety of X structure’s violence weighed yet resolve only a minimal portion of that violence. 3) v K’s, you are rarely always already a criticism of that same thing. Your articulation of the perm/link defense needs to demonstrate true interaction between literature bases. 4) Stop running from stuff. If you didn’t read the line/word in question, okay. But indicts of the author should be answered with more than “not our Baudrillard.”

K’s – 1) rarely win without substantial case debate. 2) ROJ arguments are generally underutilized. 3) I’m generally persuaded by aff answers that demonstrate certain people shouldn’t read certain lit bases, if warranted by that literature. 4) I have a higher threshold for generic “debate is bad, vote neg.” If debate is bad, how do you change those aspects of debate? 5) 2nr needs to make consistent choices re: FW + Link/Alt combinations. Find myself voting aff frequently, because the 2nr goes for two different strats/too much.

Special Note for Settler Colonialism: I simultaneously love these rounds and experience a lot of frustration when judging this argument. Often, debaters haven’t actually read the full text from which they are cutting cards and lack most of the historical knowledge to responsibly go for this argument. List of annoyances: there are 6 settler moves to innocence – you should know the differences/specifics rather than just reading pages 1-3 of Decol not a Metaphor; la paperson’s A Third University is Possible does not say “State reform good”; Reading “give back land” as an alt and then not defending against the impact turn is just lazy. Additionally, claiming “we don’t have to specify how this happens,” is only a viable answer for Indigenous debaters (the literature makes this fairly clear); Making a land acknowledgement in the first 5 seconds of the speech and then never mentioning it again is essentially worthless; Ethic of Incommensurability is not an alt, it’s an ideological frame for future alternative work (fight me JKS).

FW

General: 1) Fairness is either an impact or an internal link 2) the TVA doesn’t have to solve the entirety of the aff. 3) Your Interp + our aff is just bad.

Aff v FW: 1) can win with just impact turns, though the threshold is higher than when winning a CI with viable NB’s. 2) More persuaded by defenses of education/advocacy skills/movement building. 3) Less random DA’s that are basically the same, and more internal links to fully developed DA’s. Most of the time your DA’s to the TVA are the same offense you’ve already read elsewhere.

Reading FW: 1) Respect teams that demonstrate why state engagement is better in terms of movement building. 2) “If we can’t test the aff, presume it’s false” – no 3) Have to answer case at some point (more than the 10 seconds after the timer has already gone off) 4) You almost never have time to fully develop the sabotage tva (UGA RS deserves more respect than that). 5) Impact turns to the CI are generally underutilized. You’ll almost always win the internal link to limits, so spending all your time here is a waste. 6) Should defend the TVA in 1nc cx if asked. You don’t have a right to hide it until the block.

Theory - 1) I generally lean neg on questions of Conditionality/Random CP theory. 2) No one ever explains why dispo solves their interp. 3) Won’t judge kick unless instructed to.

T – 1) I’m not your best judge. 2) Seems like no matter how much debating is done over CI v Reasonability, I still have to evaluate most of the offense based on CI’s.

DA/CP – 1) Prefer smart indicts of evidence as opposed to walls of cards (especially on ptx/agenda da's). Neg teams get away with murder re: "dropped ev" that says very little/creatively highlighted. 2) I'm probably more lenient with aff responses (solvency deficits/aff solves impact/intrinsic perm) to Process Cp's/Internal NB's that don't have solvency ev/any relation to aff.

Case - I miss in depth case debates. Re-highlightings don't have to be read. The worse your re-highlighting the lower the threshold for aff to ignore it.

LD

All of my thoughts on policy apply, except for theory. More than 2 condo (or CP’s with different plank combinations) is probably abusive, but I can be convinced otherwise on a technical level.

Not voting on an RVI. I don’t care if it’s dropped.

Most LD theory is terrible Ex: Have to spec a ROB or I don’t know what I can read in the 1nc --- dumb argument.

Phil or Tricks (sp?) debating – I’m not your judge.

I am an old school policy debater.  The kind that used tape, scissors and highlighters to cut evidence.  I debated for Jeff Jarman at Wichita State University, went to the NDT twice and broke at CEDA Nationals at some point.  I debated with Jeremy Hathaway who I met at the World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont, debate nerds.  I coached at Chico State for two years when I was in grad school.  I am from Sacramento, California and debated in high school for 4 years for Kennedy High School.  I am currently a healthcare attorney and I have a daughter who is debating for West Campus High School, Hi Abby!

I don't judge a ton of debates every year.  I think I am a decent judge because I try really hard.  I was a 1A and 2N.  I expect a clean flow and lots of sign posting.  I dont like prep time stealing, be considerate of when you are prepping.  I am probably started running your clock already.  I flow on paper with two different colored pens, I am that old.  I try to keep up with what you are saying when you speak fast, thats fine with me.  I will tell you when to slow down or if I cant understand you, but I am not your mom, you need to listen and adapt.  I will make faces and give you some signs that I understand or I am listening or I have no idea where you are on the flow.  When I put my hands up like, where are you, i really mean, where are you, and at some point i will just start flowing on a new piece of paper, so i have your arguments, but that means that they are not getting applied correctly, and that is your fault, so if you dont like the decision that is your bad.

I like impact calculations.  I like topicality.  I like rules, I try and follow them in life and i think you should too.  I am one of the most liberal people you will ever meet, although I dont think you would ever know it.  I dont let that interfere with my judging but c'mon how can that not play into your decision calculus, its like saying that we are all colorblind, ridiculous.  I call it like i see it.  I dont understand framework arguments, but I am open to hearing them, if you tell me what to do with my ballot, I will do it.  I will entertain arguments that my ballot means something outside of the round, but honestly after seeing thousands of debates I understand that it is the totality of the experience and not the individual round that really matters.  I will never say that I wont listen to an argument, I will listen to anything that you have to share and you have researched.  And I will vote for things that I dont agree with because that is how the game is played.

I have been participating in debate for over 25 years and that gives me some perspective.  I love this activity, I love what it teaches and the hope that it inspires.  I have met my best friends in this activity and people who i think have changed the world for the better.  I believe in the goodness of people within this activity and I hope that you do to.  Treat each other kindly and dont be a jerk.  Life is a series of awkward moments strung together by eating and sleeping, embrace it, admit when you are wrong, and figure out how to get yourself out a jam in a debate round, you cant win everything, pick and choose what you can win and have the tenacity to go for it.  Good luck and dont be afraid to ask me any questions.  

Please add me to the email chain: mwmunday@gmail.com

Affiliations and History

Director of Debate at Westminster. Debated in college between 2008 and 2012. Actively coaching high school debate since 2008.

Debate Views

I am not the kind of judge who will read every card at the end of the debate. Claims that are highly contested, evidence that is flagged, and other important considerations will of course get my attention. Debaters should do the debating. Quality evidence is still important though. If the opposing team's cards are garbage, it is your responsibility to let that be known. Before reading my preferences about certain arguments, keep in mind that it is in your best interest to do what you do best. My thoughts on arguments are general predispositions and not necessarily absolute.

T – Topicality is important. The affirmative should have a relationship to the topic. How one goes about defending the topic is somewhat open to interpretation. However, my predisposition still leans towards the thought that engaging the topic is a good and productive end. I find myself in Framework debates being persuaded by the team that best articulates why their limit on the topic allows for a season's worth of debate with competitively equitable outcomes for both the aff and the neg.

Disads/Case Debate – While offense is necessary, defense is frequently undervalued. I am willing to assign 0% risk to something if a sufficient defensive argument is made.

Counterplans – Conditionality is generally fine. Functional competition seems more relevant than textual competition. If the affirmative is asked about the specific agent of their plan, they should answer the question. I increasingly think the affirmative allows the negative to get away with questionable uses of negative fiat. Actual solvency advocates and counterplan mechanisms that pass the rational policy option assumption matter to me.

Kritiks – I teach history and economics and I studied public policy and political economy during my doctoral education. This background inherently influences my filter for evaluating K debates. Nonetheless, I do think these are strategic arguments. I evaluate framework in these debates as a sequencing question regarding my resolution of impact claims. Effective permutation debating by the aff is an undervalued strategy.

Theory – A quality theory argument should have a developed warrant/impact. “Reject the argument, not the team” resolves most theory arguments except for conditionality. Clarity benefits both teams when engaging in the substance of theory debates.

Speaker Points

(Scale - Adjective - Description)

29.6-30 - The Best - Everything you could ask for as a judge and more. (Top 5 speaker award)

29-29.5 - Very, Very good - Did everything you could expect as a judge very, very well. (Top 10 speaker award)

28.6-28.9 - Very Good - Did very well as a whole, couple moments of brilliance, but not brilliant throughout.

28.3-28.5 - Good - Better than average. Did most things well. Couple moments of brilliance combined with errors.

28-28.2 - OK - Basic skills, abilities, and expectations met. But, some errors along the way. Very little to separate themselves from others. Clearly prepared, just not clearly ahead of others.

Below 28 - OK, but major errors - Tried hard, but lack some basic skills or didn’t pay close enough attention.

Yes, email chain: cmunsinger@gmail.com

Background

-2nd year judging

-Coaching at UNLV

-Debated at Michigan State

Golden Desert

-I’ve judged zero rounds on this topic, don’t do HS research, and didn’t work at a camp. I’ve been around long enough to pick some things up but don’t assume I know the acronyms, meta, your topic DA, etc.

-Everybody needs to slow way down and focus on clarity, especially on theory and T.

Judging defaults / Top-level notes

-Tech > truth when it’s dropped, tech ≈ truth when it’s messy, truth > tech when it’s really close.

-An argument that is conceded is 100% true. This makes me good for try-or-die when it’s relevant.

-An argument that is not conceded is usually > 0%. This makes me bad for presumption in most cases.

-I’m open to alternative models of risk framing, but this is the default that I adopt when not guided by the debate.

-I will judge kick conditional counterplans and evaluate the squo unless the aff objects before the 2AR.

-Anything not specified in the plan is open to interpretation by either side.

-I will decide a debate on clipping if I’m sure that it’s happening, regardless of whether this is an issue in the debate.

-I won't decide a debate on events that happened outside of the round.

-Assuming relatively similar impacts, likelihood usually matters more to me than comparison.

-I’m pretty flexible when teams are responding to “dropped” arguments that constituted <5 seconds of the previous speech.

Evidence

-Evidence quality influences argument quality. Arguments supported by truly terrible evidence require very little from the opposing team in response and vice versa.

-I tend to follow along with speech docs and read a lot of evidence after the debate, both for my own understanding and for resolving arguments.

-I will not evaluate unexplained re-highlightings. If you want it to matter for my decision, read it in the debate or verbally explain the implication of the highlighted sections.

CP

-Generally very good for the neg on theory and pretty good for the aff on competition.

-The less your CP competes based off of a mandate of the plan the more annoyed I will be by it.

-Arg not team for anything but conditionality.

-2NC CPs out of straight turns feel gross and lazy to me.

DA

-Contrived, silly DAs are sometimes necessary but are still contrived and silly. Aff teams frequently do a poor job of reducing the risk of these DAs with smart analytics.

-Zero link is much more likely than zero impact.

-The link is usually the most important part of the DA.

-Likelihood of your DA probably matters more than how much it turns the case.

T vs plans

-T vs core aff that’s obviously topical = annoying

-T vs highly questionable aff = slight lean neg

-T vs really out there = tough for the aff

T vs planless

-I will always try to mitigate the degree to which my beliefs influence outcomes, but I have certain default views about debate that make negative arguments for topicality persuasive to me. As such, I imagine that the bar for a planless aff to defeat T is higher in front of me than the average judge.

-T impacts based on fairness are more persuasive to me than impacts about portable skills or education.

-Aff teams are likely to find more success when pairing their critiques of the negative’s model with a detailed explanation of what aff/neg engagement and argumentation looks like under theirs.

K

-Much better when they specifically say the action of the plan is a bad idea.

-I tend to be good for the aff on alts. If I don’t understand what meaningful action the alt takes to resolve the K’s links/impacts or the aff’s advantages, I’m likely to vote aff in the absence of an argument about why alt solvency doesn’t matter.

-It’s generally pretty hard to convince me that the debate shouldn’t focus on whether the hypothetical implementation of the plan is a good idea, but winning this can make a lot of other concerns irrelevant.

-I'm much more familiar with policy stuff, so err on the side of over-explaining terminology and concepts.

Speaker points

-Giving a slight bump to the higher end as my tendency to max out at 29.1 seems behind the times.

UPDATE CAL 2024

I haven't judged a debate in over three years. I don't really think I have any coherent thoughts on substance of debates anymore but I do think I am more ardent in the belief that it should be about whatever you want it to be as long as you're able to explain it to me.

UC Berkeley 2018

East Kentwood Highschool 2016

Put me on the chain:

michaelobuchi@gmail.com

I like:

warrants, line by line, effort and humor

I don't like:

rudeness

I will hold the line on:

speech times, evidence quality and clipping

Email chain: lily.coaches.debate@gmail.com

About:

• Currently based in Taiwan and coaching debate for the ADL. That means I am staying up all night when I judge at US tournaments. Please pref accordingly
• Debated in college at the University of Kansas, 2017-2022 (Healthcare, Executive Authority, Space, Alliances, Antitrust). I majored in math and minored in Russian if that matters.
• Debated in high school at Shawnee Mission Northwest, 2013-2017 (Latin America, Oceans, Surveillance, China).

Top:

• If I can tell that you are not even trying to flow (eg you never take out a piece of paper the entire debate, you stand up to give your 2NC with just your laptop and no paper) your speaks are capped at 27.
• Please don't call me "judge." It's tacky. My name is Lily. Note that this does not apply to saying "the role of the judge."
• In the words of Allie Chase, "Cross-x isn't 'closed,' nobody ever 'closed' it... BUT each debater should be a primary participant in 2 cross-xes if your goal is to avoid speaker point penalties."
• I would prefer to not judge death/suffering/extinction good arguments or arguments about something that happened outside the debate.
• I might give you a 30 if I think you're the best debater at the tournament.
• High schoolers are too young to swear in debates.
• Don't just say words for no reason - not in cross-x and certainly not in speeches.
• If you are asking questions like "was x card read?" a timer should be running. Flowing is part of getting good speaker points.
• The word "nuclear" is not pronounced "nuke-yoo-ler." If you say this it makes you sound like George Bush.
• Shady disclosure practices are a scourge on the activity.

Framework:

• I judge a lot of clash debates. I'm more likely to vote aff on impact turns than most policy judges, but I do see a lot of value in the preservation of competition. Procedural fairness can be an impact but it takes a lot of work to explain it as such. Sometimes a clash impact is a cleaner kill.
• TVAs don't have to solve the whole aff. I like TVAs with solvency advocates. I think it's beneficial when the 2NC lays out some examples of neg strategies that could be read against the TVA, and why those strategies produce educational debates.

Topicality vs policy affs:

• Speaker point boost if your 2NC has a grammar argument (conditional on the argument making sense of course).
• If you're aff and going for reasonability, "race to the bottom" < debatability.
• Case lists are good.
• The presence of other negative positions is not defense to a ground argument. The aff being disclosed is not defense to a limits argument. This also goes for T-USFG.

Counterplans

• When people refer to counterplans by saying the letters "CP" out loud it makes me wish I were dead.
• As a human I think counterplans that advocate immediate, indefinite, non-plan action by the USFG are legit, but as a judge I'm chaotic neutral on all theory questions.
• Conditionality: I'll give you a speaker point boost if you can tell me how many 2NRs are possible given the number of counterplan planks in the 1NC.

Disads

• Read them
• Politics DAs are fun. Make arguments about polling methodology.

Ks

• I feel like I have a higher threshold for Ks on the neg than some. I'm not a hack and I will vote for your K if you do the better debating, but I also think arguments that rely on the ballot having some inherent meaning are corny unpersuasive.
• I dislike lazy link debating immensely, primarily because it makes my life harder. Affs hoping to capitalize on this REALLY ought to include a perm/link defense in the 2AR.
• Explain how the alt solves the links and why the perm doesn't.
• Affs should explain why mooting the 1AC means that the neg's framework is anti-educational. Negs should explain why the links justify mooting the aff.
• Case outweighs 2ARs can be very persuasive. The neg can beat this with discrete impacts to specific links+impact framing+framework.
• Speaker point penalty if the 1AR drops fiat is illusory - at the very least your framework extension needs an education impact.

Lincoln-Douglas:

• If there is no net benefit to a counterplan, presumption flips aff automatically.
• I do not think permutations are cheating.
• An argument is a claim and a warrant. If you say something that does not contain a warrant, I will not necessarily vote on it even if it's dropped. In the interest of preventing judge intervention, please say things that have warrants.
• Most neg theory arguments I've watched would go away instantly if affs said "counter interpretation: we have to be topical."
• RVIs are not persuasive to me. Being topical is never an independent reason to vote affirmative. The fact that a counterplan is conditional is never offense for the negative.

UPDATED FOR THE THE GLENBROOKS 2023

uclabdb8@gmail.com

***history***
- Director of Programs, Chicago Debates 2023-current
- Head Coach, Policy - University of Chicago Laboratory Schools 2015-2023
- Assistant Coach, PF - Fremd HS 2015-2022
- Tournament of Champions 2022, 2021, 2018, 2016
- Harvard Debate Council Summer Workshop - guest lecturer, lab leader
- UIowa 2002-2006
- Maine East (Wayne Tang gharana) 1999-2002

***brief***
- i view the speech act as an act and an art. debate is foremost a communicative activity. i want to be compelled.
- i go back and forth on kritik/performance affs versus framework which is supported by my voting record
- i enjoy k v k or policy v k debates. however i end up with more judging experience in policy v policy rounds because we're in the north shore
- academic creativity & originality will be rewarded
- clarity matters. pen time on overviews matters. i flow by ear and on paper, including your cards' warrants and cites. people have told me my flows are beautiful
- tag team cx is okay as long as its not dominating
- don't vape in my round, it makes me feel like an enabler
- i have acute hearing and want to keep it that way. kindly be considerate of your music volume. i will ask you to turn it down if it's painful or prevents me from hearing debate dialogue

**background**
identify as subaltern, he/they pronouns are fine. my academic background is medicine. i now spend my time developing programming for Chicago's urban debate league. you may be counseled on tobacco cessation.

**how to win my ballot**
*entertain me.* connect with me. teach me something. be creative. its impossible for me to be completely objective, but i try to be fair in the way i adjudicate the round.

**approach**
as tim 'the man' alderete said, "all judges lie." with that in mind...
i get bored- which is why i reward creativity in research and argumentation. if you cut something clever, you want me in the back of the room. i appreciate the speech as an act and an art. i prefer debates with good clash than 2 disparate topics. while i personally believe in debate pedagogy, i'll let you convince me it's elitist, marginalizing, broken, or racist. in determining why i should value debate (intrinsically or extrinsically) i will enter the room tabula rasa. if you put me in a box, i'll stay there. i wish i could adhere to a paradigmatic mantra like 'tech over truth.' but i've noticed that i lean towards truth in debates where both teams are reading lit from same branch of theory or where the opponent has won an overarching claim on the nature of the debate (framing, framework, theory, etc). my speaker point range is 27-30. Above 28.3-4 being what i think is 'satisfactory' for your division (3-3), 28.7 & above means I think you belong in elims. Do not abuse the 2nr.

**virtual debate**
if you do not see me on camera then assume i am not there. please go a touch slower on analytics if you expect me to flow them well. if anyone's connection is shaky, please include analytics in what you send if possible.

**novices**
Congrats! you're slowly sinking into a strange yet fascinating vortex called policy debate. it will change your life, hopefully for the better. focus on the line by line and impact analysis. if you're confused, ask instead of apologize. this year is about exploring. i'm here to judge and help :)

***ARGUMENT SPECIFIC***

**topicality/framework**
this topic has a wealth of amazing definitions and i'm always up for a scrappy limits debate. debaters should be able to defend why their departure from (Classic mode) Policy is preferable. while i don't enter the round presuming plan texts are necessary for a topical discussion, i do enjoy being swayed one way or the other on what's needed for a topical discussion (or if one is valuable at all). overall, its an interesting direction students have taken Policy. the best form of framework debate is one where both teams rise to the meta-level concerns behind our values in fairness, prepared clash, education, revolutionary potential/impotence, etc. as a debater (in the bronze age) i used to be a HUGE T & spec hack, so much love for the arg. nowadays though, the these debates tend to get messy. flow organization will be rewarded: number your args, sign post through the line-by-line, slow down to give me a little pen time. i tend to vote on analysis with specificity and ingenuity.

**kritiks, etc.**
i enjoy performance, original poetry & spoken word, musical, moments of sovereignty, etc. i find most "high theory," identity politics, and other social theory debates enjoyable. i dont mind how you choose to organize k speeches/overviews so long as there is some way you organize thoughts on my flow. 'long k overviews' can be (though seldom are) beautiful. i appreciate a developed analysis. more specific the better, examples and analogies go a long way in you accelerating my understanding. i default to empiricism/historical analysis as competitive warranting unless you frame the debate otherwise. i understand that the time constraint of debate can prevent debaters from fully unpacking a kritik. if i am unfamiliar with the argument you are making, i will prioritize your explanation. i may also read your evidence and google-educate myself. this is a good thing and a bad thing, and i think its important you know that asterisk. i try to live in the world of your kritik/ k aff. absent a discussion of conditional advocacy, i will get very confused if you make arguments elsewhere in the debate that contradict the principles of your criticism (eg if you are arguing a deleuzian critique of static identity and also read a misgendering/misidentifying voter).

**spec, ethics challenges, theory**
PLEASE DO NOT HIDE YOUR ASPEC VIOLATIONS. if the argument is important i prefer you invite the clash than evade it.

i have no way to fairly judge arguments that implicate your opponent's behavior before the round, unless i've witnessed it myself or you are able to provide objective evidence (eg screenshots, etc.). debate is a competitive environment so i have to take accusations with a degree of skepticism. i think the trend to turn debate into a kangaroo court, or use the ballot as a tool to ostracize members from the community speaks to the student/coach's tooling of authority at tournaments as well as the necessity for pain in their notion of justice. i do have an obligation to keep the round safe. my starting point (and feel free to convince me otherwise) is that it's not my job to screen entries if they should be able to participate in tournaments - that's up to tab and is a prior question to the round. a really good podcast that speaks to this topic in detail is invisibilia: the callout.

i'm finally hearing more presumption debates, which i really enjoy. i more often find theory compelling when contextualized to why there's a specific reason to object to the argument (e.g. why the way this specific perm operates is abusive/sets a bad precedent). i always prefer the clash to be developed earlier in the debate than vomiting blocks at each other. as someone who used to go for theory, i think there's an elegant way to trap someone. and it same stipulations apply- if you want me to vote for it, make sure i'm able to clearly hear and distinguish your subpoints.

**disads/cps/case**
i always enjoy creative or case specific PICs. if you're going to make a severance perm, i want to know what is being severed and not so late breaking that the negative doesn't have a chance to refute. i like to hear story-weaving in the overview. i do vote on theory - see above. i also enjoy an in depth case clash, case turn debate. i do not have a deep understanding on the procedural intricacies of our legal system or policymaking and i may internet-educate myself on your ev during your round.

**work experience/education you can ask me about**
- medical school, medicine
- clinical research/trials
- biology, physiology, gross anatomy, & pathophysiology are courses i've taught
- nicotine/substance cessation
- chicago
- udl
- coaching debate!

**PoFo - (modified from Tim Freehan's poignant paradigm):**

I have NOT judged the PF national circuit pretty much ever. The good news is that I am not biased against or unwilling to vote on any particular style. Chances are I have heard some version of your meta level of argumentation and know how it interacts with the round. The bad news is if you want to complain about a style of debate in which you are unfamiliar, you had better convince me why with, you know, impacts and stuff. Do not try and cite an unspoken rule about debate in your part of the country.

Because of my background in Policy, I tend to look at debate as competitive research or full-contact social studies. Even though the Pro is not advocating a Plan and the Con is not reading Disadvantages, to me the round comes down to whether the Pro has a greater possible benefit than the potential implications it might cause. Both sides should frame the round in terms impact calculus and or feasibility. Framework, philosophical, moral arguments are great, though I need instruction in how you want me to evaluate that against tangible impacts.

Evidence quality is very important.

I will vote with what's on what is on the flow only. I enter the round tabula rasa, i try to check my personal opinions at the door as best as i can. I may mock you for it, but I won’t vote against you for it. No paraphrasing. Quote the author, date and the exact words. Quals are even better but you don’t have to read them unless pressed. Have the website handy. Research is critical.

Speed? Meh. You cannot possibly go fast enough for me to not be able to follow you. However, that does not mean I want to hear you go fast. You can be quick and very persuasive. You don't need to spread.

Defense is nice but is not enough. You must create offense in order to win. There is no “presumption” on the Con.

I am a fan of “Kritik” arguments in PF! I do think that Philosophical Debates have a place. Using your Framework as a reason to defend your scholarship is a wise move. You can attack your opponents scholarship. Racism, sexism, heterocentrism, will not be tolerated between debaters. I have heard and will tolerate some amount of racism towards me and you can be assured I'll use it as a teaching moment.

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

I do not reward debaters who cry foul when hearing an argument that falls outside traditional parameters of PF Debate. But if its abusive, tell me why instead of just saying “not fair.”

Statistics are nice, to a point. But I feel that judges/debaters overvalue them. Some of the best impacts involve higher values that cannot be quantified. A good example would be something like Structural Violence.

While Truth outweighs, technical concessions on key arguments can and will be evaluated. Dropping offense means the argument gets 100% weight.

The goal of the Con is to disprove the value of the Resolution. If the Pro cannot defend the whole resolution (agent, totality, etc.) then the Con gets some leeway.

I care about substance more than style. It never fails that I give 1-2 low point wins at a tournament. Just because your tie is nice and you sound pretty, doesn’t mean you win. I vote on argument quality and technical debating. The rest is for lay judging.

Relax. Have fun.

Please include me on the email chain: kiarapengue@live.com

You’re also welcome to email me for whatever else as well.

Pronouns: she/her

Update For Alta:

This will be my first tournament on this topic. I have been out of debate for about three years now. With that being said, I will do my best to keep up, but you will have to do a bit more work on topic specific args in explanation/etc. Write my ballot for me please and thank you :D

Background:

I debated three years at Copper Hills, debated for a bit at Weber State under Ryan Wash.

I was primarily a K debater; running arguments focusing on fem/intersectional fem and critiques of debate. I'm open to any type of new argumentation as well.

(Conflicts: Copper Hills High School)

Shorter version:

You can run whatever you want, but I'd rather you run what you're good at, K or trad. With that being said, I have a HIGH burden on you explaining whatever argument you choose to run. Don't just assume I understand your theory (this is much more applicable to K debate over trad policy.) Write my ballot for me, please (what are you winning and why do you deserve to win?)

For the Aff:

For topical affs:

Contrary to what it may seem, I'm down with a good policy aff and traditional debates as a whole. However, I need some solid case debating, impact calc, etc. Alt causes and good case turns are also favored.

For K Affs:

No, your aff doesn't have to have a plan text and no, it doesn't *technically* have to have any relation to the topic (though it is preferred).

If I don't understand what the K aff is or does, then I'm likely not voting on it. Y'all can't just say "K aff :)" and call it good.

K v K debates = :)

On that note, I'm real picky about the perm in a K v K debate so make sure you do enough work on it

In FW debates, K affs need to prove why debate is necessary for your specific methodology as well as prove that the educational/etc impacts of the aff are the most important thing to weigh in the round.

For the Neg:

DA’s:

cool.

CP’s:

cool.

pics: if you're going to take the aff away from the aff, tell me why that's a good thing and something that I can vote on.

K’s:

I think the best K debates are ones that are specific and that have a meaning to them. I don't particularly like generics such as cap and security, but if it's done well I'll still vote on them. I feel the best part about K debate is that you get to specifically show your individualism and passion within the debate space. I don't have a high burden on alt solvency so long as the link is strong and clearly explained. But with all of that being said, I’d still rather see a traditional policy debate than a poor K debate.

T:

I actually really like topicality debates, my only comment for this is to make sure in your last speeches to give me clear voters, don’t expect me to just extend what you already said in your previous speeches.

For FW, I feel the TVA is especially important as it's your job to prove that the aff makes debate impossible.

Performance:

Yes, love this, read it, but that also means you have to explain it!! Make sure that the performance doesn’t get dropped in the debate.

other theory:

things I don't like: new affs bad, disclosure, speaks k, and prefs theory. I don't have any strong feelings about other theory args.

Speaker points:

I base a lot of my speaker points off of CX and your presence in the round. Everyone does debate for their own reasons, so let that show. If you are memorable and if you are passionate about what you’re talking about, you’ll probably get higher speaks. I think cross ex is valuable, I will be paying attention to it. This means that you could be losing the round but be getting better speaks.

I feel like this goes without saying but…

Please don’t be racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, etc. there’s also no need to be overly aggressive. This is a space where everyone is supposed to feel safe and comfortable, not a space where they feel that they aren’t welcome.

Experience

Current Affiliation = Notre Dame HS (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Debates Judged on this topic: about 40 Rounds (UMich Debate Institute)
Prior Experience: Debated policy in HS at Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, CA (1992-1995); Debated NDT/CEDA in college at USC (1995-1999); Assistant debate coach at Cal State Northridge 2003-2005; Assistant debate coach at Glenbrook South HS Spring of 2005; Director of Debate at Glenbrook North HS 2005-2009; Director of Debate at Notre Dame HS Fall of 2009-Present.

General Note

My defaults go into effect when left to my own devices. I will go against most of these defaults if a team technically persuades me to do so in any given debate.

Paperless Rules

If you start taking excessive time to flash your document, I will start instituting that "Prep time ends when the speaker's flash drive is removed from her/his computer."

Major Notes

Topic familiarity

I am familiar with the topic (4 weeks of teaching at Michigan at Classic and involved in argument coaching at Notre Dame).

Delivery

Delivery rate should be governed by your clarity; WARRANTS in the evidence should be clear, not just the tagline.
Clarity is significantly assisted by organization - I flow as technically as possible and try to follow the 1NC structure on-case and 2AC structure off-case through the 1AR. 2NR and the 2AR should have some leeway to restructure the debate in important places to highlight their offense. However, line-by-line should be followed where re-structuring is not necessary.

Ideal 2AR Structure

Offense placed at the top (tell me how I should be framing the debate in the context of what you are winning), then move through the debate in a logical order.

2NR's Make Choices

Good 2NR strategies may be one of the following: (1) Functionally and/or textually competitive counterplan with an internal or external net benefit, (2) K with a good turns case/root cause arguments that are specific to each advantage, (3) Disadvantage with turns case arguments and any necessary case defense, (4) Topicality (make sure to cover any theory arguments that are offense for aff). My least favorite debates to resolve are large impact turn debates, not because I hate impact turns, but because I think that students lose sight of how to resolve and weigh the multiple impact scenarios that get interjected into the debate. Resolving these debates starts with a big picture impact comparison.

Evidence Quality/References

Reference evidence by warrant first and then add "That's [Author]." Warrant and author references are especially important on cards that you want me to read at the end of the debate. Also, evidence should reflect the arguments that you are making in the debate. I understand that resolving a debate requires spin, but that spin should be based in the facts presented in your evidence.

I have been getting copies of speech documents for many debates lately so I can read cards during prep time, etc. However, note that I will pay attention to what is said in the debate as much as possible - I would much rather resolve the debate on what the debaters say, not based on my assessment of the evidence.

Offense-Defense

Safer to go for offense, and then make an "even if" statement explaining offense as a 100% defensive takeout. I will vote on well-resolved defense against CP, DA's and case. This is especially true against process CP's (e.g., going for a well-resolved permutation doesn't require you to prove a net benefit to the permutation since these CP's are very difficult to get a solvency deficit to) and DA's with contrived internal link scenarios. Winning 100% defense does require clear evidence comparison to resolve.

Topicality

I like a well-developed topicality debate. This should include cards to resolve important distinctions. Topical version of the aff and reasonable case lists are persuasive. Reasonability is persuasive when the affirmative has a TRUE "we meet" argument; it seems unnecessary to require the affirmative to have a counter-interpretation when they clearly meet the negative interpretation. Also, discussing standards with impacts as DA's to the counter-interpretation is very useful - definition is the uniqueness, violation is the link, standard is an internal link and education or fairness is the impact.

Counterplans

Word PIC's, process, consult, and condition CP's are all ok. I have voted on theory against these CP's in the past because the teams that argued they were illegit were more technically saavy and made good education arguments about the nature of these CP's. The argument that they destroy topic-specific education is persuasive if you can prove why that is true. Separately, the starting point for answers to the permutation are the distinction(s) between the CP and plan. The starting point for answers to a solvency deficit are the similarities between the warrants of the aff advantage internal links and the CP solvency cards. Counterplans do not have to be both functionally and textually competitive, but it is better if you can make an argument as to why it is both.

Disadvantages

All parts of the DA are important, meaning neither uniqueness nor links are more important than each other (unless otherwise effectively argued). I will vote on conceded or very well-resolved defense against a DA.

Kritiks

Good K debate should have applied links to the affirmative's or negative's language, assumptions, or methodology. This should include specific references to an opponent's cards. The 2NC/1NR should make sure to address all affirmative impacts through defense and/or turns. I think that making 1-2 carded externally impacted K's in the 2NC/1NR is the business of a good 2NC/1NR on the K. Make sure to capitalize on any of these external impacts in the 2NR if they are dropped in the 1AR. A team can go for the case turn arguments absent the alternative. Affirmative protection against a team going for case turns absent the alternative is to make inevitability (non-unique) claims.

Aff Framework

Framework is applied in many ways now and the aff should think through why they are reading parts of their framework before reading it in the 2AC, i.e., is it an independent theoretical voting issue to reject the Alternative or the team based on fairness or education? or is it a defensive indite of focusing on language, representations, methodology, etc.?. Framework impacts should be framed explicitly in the 1AR and 2AR. I am partial to believing that representations and language inform the outcome of policymaking unless given well-warranted cards to respond to those claims (this assumes that negative is reading good cards to say rep's or language inform policymaking).

Neg Framework

Neg framework is particularly persuasive against an affirmative that has an advocacy statement they don't stick to or an aff that doesn't follow the resolution at all. It is difficult for 2N's to have a coherent strategy against these affirmatives and so I am sympathetic to a framework argument that includes a topicality argument and warranted reasons to reject the team for fairness or education. If a K aff has a topical plan, then I think that framework only makes sense as a defensive indite their methodology; however, I think that putting these cards on-case is more effective than putting them on a framework page. Framework is a somewhat necessary tool given the proliferation of affirmatives that are tangentially related to the topic or not topical at all. I can be persuaded that non-topical affs should not get permutations - a couple primary reasons: (1) reciprocity - if aff doesn't have to be topical, then CP's/K's shouldn't need to be competitive and (2) Lack of predictability makes competition impossible and neg needs to be able to test the methodology of the aff.

Theory

I prefer substance, but I do understand the need for theory given I am open to voting on Word PIC's, consult, and condition CP's. If going for theory make sure to impact arguments in an organized manner. There are only two voting issues/impacts: fairness and education. All other arguments are merely internal links to these impacts - please explain how and why you control the best internal links to either of these impacts. If necessary, also explain why fairness outweighs education or vice-versa. If there are a host of defensive arguments that neutralize the fairness or education lost, please highlight these as side constraints on the the violation, then move to your offense.

Classic Battle Defaults

These are attempts to resolve places where I felt like I had to make random decisions in the past and had wished I put something in my judge philosophy to give debaters a fair warning. So here is my fair warning on my defaults and what it takes to overcome those defaults:
(1) Theory v. Topcality - Topcality comes before theory unless the 1AR makes arguments explaining why theory is first and the 2NR doesn't adequately respond and then the 2AR extends and elaborates on why theory is first sufficiently enough to win those arguments.
(2) Do I evaluate the aff v. the squo when the 2NR went for a CP? - No unless EXPLICITLY framed as a possibility in the 2NR. If the 2NR decides to extend the CP as an advocacy (in other words, they are not just extending some part of the CP as a case takeout, etc.), then I evaluate the aff versus the CP. What does this mean? If the aff wins a permutation, then the CP is rejected and the negative loses. I will not use the perm debate as a gateway argument to evaluating the aff vs. the DA. If the 2NR is going for two separate advocacies, then the two separate framings should be EXPLICIT, e.g., possible 2NR framing, "If we win the CP, then you weigh the risk of the net benefit versus the risk of the solvency deficit and, if they win the permutation, you should then just reject the CP and weigh the risk of the DA separately versus the affirmative" (this scenario assumes that the negative declared the CP conditional).
(3) Are Floating PIK's legitimate? No unless the 1AR drops it. If the 1AR drops it, then it is open season on the affirmative. The 2NC/1NR must make the floating PIC explicit with one of the following phrases to give the 1AR a fair chance: "Alternative does not reject the plan," "Plan action doesn't necessitate . Also, 2NC/1NR must distinguish their floating PIK from the permutation; otherwise, affirmatives you should use any floating PIK analysis as a outright concession that the "permutation do both" or "permutation plan plus non-mutually exclusive parts" is TRUE.
(4) Will I vote on theory cheap shots? Yes, but I feel guilty voting for them. HOWEVER, I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A REVERSE VOTING ISSUE EVEN IF IT WAS DROPPED.

Who is a Good Debater

Anna Dimitrijevic, Alex Pappas, Pablo Gannon, Stephanie Spies, Kathy Bowen, Edmund Zagorin, Matt Fisher, Dan Shalmon, Scott Phillips, Tristan Morales, Michael Klinger, Greta Stahl, George Kouros. There are many others - but this is a good list.

Respect

Your Opponents, Your Teammates, Your Coaches, Your Activity.

Extra Notes CP/Perm/Alt Texts

The texts of permutations, counterplans, and alternatives should be clear. I always go back and check the texts of these items if there is a question of a solvency deficit or competition. However, I do feel it is the burden of the opposing team to bring up such an argument for me to vote on it - i.e., unless it is a completely random round, the opposing team needs to make the argument that the text of the CP means there is a significant solvency deficit with the case, or the affirmative is overstating/misconstruing the solvency of a permutation because the text only dictates X, not Y, etc. I will decide that the aff does not get permutations in a debate where the affirmative is not topical.

Technical Focus

I try to follow the flow the best I can - I do double check if 2AR is making arguments that are tied to the 1AR arguments. I think that 2AR's get significant leeway to weigh and frame their impacts once the 2NR has chosen what to go for; however, this does not mean totally new arguments to case arguments, etc. that were presented before the 2NR.

Resolve Arguments

Frame claim in comparison to other team's response, extend important warrants, cite author for evidence, impact argument to ballot - all of these parts are necessary to resolve an argument fully. Since debate is a game of time management, this means going for fewer arguments with more thorough analysis is better than extending myriad of arguments with little analysis.

Disrespect Bad

Complete disrespect toward anyone who is nice; no one ever has enough “credibility” in this community to justify such actions. If there is a disrespectful dynamic in a debate, I ALWAYS applaud (give higher speaker points to) the first person to step down and realize they are being a jerk. Such growth and self-awareness should rewarded.

Fear to Engage Bad

Win or lose, you are ultimately competing to have the best debate possible. Act like it and do not be afraid to engage in the tough debates. You obviously should make strategic choices, but do not runaway from in-depth arguments because you think another team will be better than you on that argument. Work harder and beat them on the argument on which she/he is supposedly an expert. Taking chances to win debates good.

Fun Stuff

And, as Lord Dark Helmet says, “evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb.”

Banecat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywjpbThDpE

I did Policy Debate for 6 years.
4 at Coronado HS in Las Vegas and 2 in college for UNLV.
I've judged policy debate intermittently in the past 5-6 years since then.

I think debate is a game. Have fun and keep an open mind. The research and advocacy skills debate affords students cannot be understated.

I'm open to voting for all types of arguments, as long as they are articulated in a way which makes sense and have an impact. My comfort zone lies with more traditional, policy-style arguments, but I have voted for the K somewhat often as a judge. That said, if a team isn't talking about the topic, you should read T.

I prefer to rely on the debaters to characterize evidence and arguments in the debate, rather than reading a bunch of cards after the round. I feel strongly that debate is as much a communication exercise as it is a research one, therefore controlling the "spin" is important. You should clearly emphasize and explain your warrants, as well as point out why your opponent's evidence falls short. You can include me on the email chain (wpregman@gmail.com) but I might not look at your docs until after the debate. Even then, I'd prefer it if you just show me the handful of cards I ask for, if need be.

Prep time stops when the flash drive leaves your computer/the email is sent. I try to give the benefit of the doubt to tech problems, but if it looks like you're not ready and stealing prep, I will start time again and be much harsher about it from that point on.

Lastly, be nice to each other. Assume positive intent. Respect pronoun preferences and other accommodations. Good luck!

Email: ryanquintana1997@gmail.com (yes, include me in the email chain.)

Graduated from Palo Verde High School
Now attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
I debated for two years in College Policy Debate

Meadows 2019:

It has been a year since I have actually debated, I’m not as quick with a pen as I used to be, but that is no excuse to change your normal strat. Play the game, go line by line, and it will be a good time for everyone.

Novice Policy at UNLV 2019:

Debate is a place to learn things, but policy makes it really easy to get lost in the world of thinking that saying debate jargon is the same as making an argument. Remember that no matter what position you are debating you are telling a story and using evidence to paint a convincing picture of a world that I should prefer.

I will attempt to be neutral and evaluate arguments independent of my own biases. Read arguments that you are comfortable with, but pretend that I know nothing about it beforehand. I won't punish you for overexplaining an argument, but under explanation could lose you the round.

--Tech overcomes truth

--Framing then substance

Competitors should be courteous to each other: I will not tolerate offensive/rude behavior.

Speaker Points- You should be clear and able to explain your arguments well. I enjoy jokes and clever analogies that are relevant to the round and arguments being made. Points are awarded purley on style (ie how well do you explain and extend arguments?). I'm not going to tank your speaks for dropping a technical argument. I will also not give you a 29.8-30 for simply winning.

Keep the line by line clean and I will award your speaker points.

Policy:
I will attempt to be as neutral as possible and evaluate the arguments presented in the debate independent of my own opinions.

Negative strategy – I believe in preserving maximum strategic and theoretical flexibility for negative teams. Contradicting arguments early on in the debate are fine as long as it is narrowed down in the negative block and the 2NR is consistent. Though too many contradicting arguments (3+) will make me more sympathetic to the affirmative.

I'm probably not going to vote on condo if they read one conditional position; unless the block straight drops the argument.


Affirmative strategy -I think more affirmative teams should straight (link or impact) turn disadvantages. A good 1AR should attempt to make the 2NR job difficult by reading plenty of evidence, covering, and always using offense. For the 1AR and 2AR I think it is important to EXTEND WARRANTS inside your evidence. You should explain the importance/relevance/ implications of the evidence as well. Just saying “extend our Johnson ’12 card,” does not count as extending the evidence!

Aff- I am open to critical affirmatives that have a relationship to the topic. I have a difficult time voting on an affirmative without a clear relationship to the topic but good debating can easily convince me. I will not vote on T/FW just because it was read, it is the burden of the negative to prove to me why that affirmative is not topical or why it shouldn't be run.

Negative critical arguments: I am willing to vote on critical arguments, as long as it is well explained and specific to the aff. Your Kritik should have an alt and impact that is explained by the negative. I am not familiar with all critical arguments, but I have had experience with a wide variety, capitalism, ableism, and queerness, and anti-blackness are the arguments I am most familiar with. The affirmative should always permutate critical arguments, and explain how the permutation functions.


CPs—Huge fan of counterplans, feel free to run multiple if you would like. The text of the CP (and all perms) should be written out, and I hold them to as high a standard as I do the affirmative plan.

Disadvantages- Needs to be specific to the Aff and link story should make sense. Make sure to emphasize the way the aff links and the impacts it triggers.

Topicality- All for it, I feel that it is a very strategic argument to be made in debate. Needs to be well articulated with both sides submitting competing interpretations. T arguments should be extremely structured and organized to make it easier for me to see why this is a voting issue.



Few other things-

1. Do not steal prep I don't count sending the doc as time, but when time is called all teams should stop until the speech begins
2. I may call for cards after the debate, if it was not well explained in the debate or was a point of contention. I also appreciate debaters who take the time to send the cards they think are the most important at the end of the debate
3. Only one person should be speaking per speech, unless it is a performative necessity or an accessibility issue. It is very difficult to flow more than one voice at a time.
4. Debate should be fun; it is a game so be nice and courteous to everyone involved.

If you would like something explained further, please feel free to ask me some questions before the round.

mcqspeechanddebate@gmail.com

37th year in the activity; lawyer and elected official these days…

Issues:

-I vote for things that I don't like, the debate is yours to make what you will. That does not mean I have no opinions.

-T: compare evidence and impact T like a DA.

-Things I am unlikely to vote for: ticky-tacky debate; Inherency, "speed kills", claims without warrants, poorly debated T violations, "multiple perms bad".

Read a topical plan----------------------X--------------------say anything

Tech-----------------x-------------------------Truth

Usually some risk---------x---------------------------------Zero Risk

Conditionality Good--------------------X----------------------Conditionality Bad

States CP Good------X------------------------------------States CP Bad

Process CPs------------------X------------------------Ew Process CPs

Competing off immediacy/certainty---------------x---------------------------No

Politics DAs are a thing-------------------x-----------------------Good Politics DAs are a thing

Reasonability-----------------------------------x-------Competing Interps

Limits-----------------x-------------------------Aff Ground

Read every card----------x--------------------------------Read no cards

Lots of evidence--------------------------------------x----Lots of good evidence

Judge Kick---------------------x---------------------Stuck with the CP

Reject the Team--------------X----------------------------Reject the Arg

CPs need cards--------------------------------------x----Smart CPs can be cardless

Competition is based off the plan----x--------------------------------------Neg gets to define the plan

Fiat solves circumvention---------------x---------------------------Trump's President

K alts need to do something-------------------------------X-----------but you're asking the wrong question

K links about the plan---------------X---------------------------K links about a broad worldview

Have fun and be kind.

Position yourself so I can hear you. Don't speak into your laptop or stand on the opposite side of the room. Don't read typed-out things like they are the text of a card. Slow down and change the intonation of your voice when you're speaking.

I normally look to impact calc throughout debate

If I don't understand something, I will not vote on it even if it is conceded.

I am getting tired of multiple conditional cp's. Seriously, it is getting out of hand. The neg gets 1 conditional cp or Kritik.

I not only look for argumentation but also HOW you debate (aka how well you can convince me).

Clarity is key. If you are spreading and I can not clearly hear your arguments I will not flow them.

last speeches should start with telling me exactly what should be on my ballot.

I WILL NOT VOTE FOR:

Things I will not vote on:

Arguments that suggest students should engage in risky behavior.

Death is good.

Fear of death is bad

Bataille

Baudrillard

Basic Information

Nathaniel Saxe

UNLV Law Student

No Current Debate Role – Volunteer for UNLV Debate

Judging at the request of Jacob Thompson (Director of Debate UNLV)

Previous institutional affiliations and experience

High School Debater – The Meadows School (Las Vegas) 2008-2012

College Debater – UNLV – 2012-2014

In-round experience:

I debated exclusively in policy debate. I was a 2N/1A for most of my career.

Role of the judge

As a judge, my role is to assign value to each debater’s skills and abilities in the round I am watching based on their ability to win, be respectful, and provide sound intellectual contributions to the conversation.

Purpose of Philosophy

I hope debaters will take this philosophy and feel comfortable running the best strategy they have prepared for this round.

Evaluative Practices and Views on Debate Round Logistics

I am not a stickler on prep time unless it gets ridiculous, but for best practices, I prefer when prep time ends as the opposing team gets access to the evidence the speaking team expects to read. In terms of getting evidence to me,

I would rather be on the email chain and have anything I need if I need it at the end of the round. This is merely for convenience and so debaters do not feel the need to assign value to me asking for certain pieces of evidence at the end of the round. I do not use the speech document throughout the debate to help flow.

Speaker points

Barring a catastrophe, my speaker points typically range from 27-29. If someone was exceptional and vital to their victory in the debate, I typically give higher points. If someone is disrespectful or unclear consistently, I typically give lower points. If you are unclear, I will let you know. If I say it more than twice during a speech, I may not continue to say it.

Reading Evidence

I do not read evidence unless its contents are required to decide the debate. That means the better debating on the piece of evidence and its arguments usually prevail. Debaters must read the portions of the evidence they seek to evaluate. Debaters are welcome to point out arguments their opponents have failed to read.

Subect matter

I am comfortable with Topicality debates, theory debates, most kritiks I have heard of, and alternative interpretations on framework. My predispositions are less relevant because I have not debated for more than 5 years, but I used to read policy affirmatives and kritiks like security or cap.

Please include me on the email chain: jdutdebate@gmail.com

Do what you do best. I’m comfortable with all arguments. Practice what you preach and debate how you would teach. Strive to make it the best debate possible. I reward self-awareness, clash, good research, humor, and bold decisions. I will not tolerate language or behaviors that create a hostile environment. Please include trigger warnings for sexual violence. Feel free to ask me any questions you have before the round.

Specific things:

Speed - I'm comfortable with speed but please recognize that if you're reading typed blocks that are not in the speech doc at the same speed you are reading cards, there's a chance I will miss something because I can't flow every word you're saying as fast as you can say them. Slow down just a bit for what you want me to write down or include your blocks in the doc. I will say "clear" if you are not clear.

Topicality- I enjoy good topicality debates. To me good topicality debates are going to compare impacts and discuss what interp of the topic is going to be better for the debate community and the goals that are pursued by debaters.The goals and purpose of debate is of course debatable and can help establish which impacts are more important than others so make sure you're doing that work for me.

Counterplans- I enjoy creative counterplans best but even your standard ones will be persuasive to me if there is a solid solvency advocate and net-benny.

Theory - In-round abuse will always be far more persuasive to me than merely potential abuse and tricksy interps. I expect more than just reading blocks.

K- I really enjoy a good critical debate. Please establish how your kritik interacts with the affirmative and/or the topic and what that means for evaluating the round in some sort of framework. Authors and buzzwords alone will not get you very far even if I am familiar with the literature. I expect contextual link work with a fully articulated impact and alternative. If your K does not have an alternative, I will weigh it as a DA (that's probably non-unique).

Performance - All debate is a performance and relies on effective communication. If you are communicating to me a warranted argument, I do not care how you are presenting it.

John Shackelford

Policy Coach: Park City, UT

***ONLINE DEBATE***

I keep my camera on as often as I can. I still try to look at faces during CX and rebuttals. Extra decimals if you try to put analytics in doc.

I end prep once the doc has been sent.

GO SLOWER

****TLDR IN BOLD****

Please include me in email chains during the debate (johnshackelf[at]gmail). I do not follow along with the speech doc during a speech, but sometimes I will follow along to check clipping and cross-ex questions about specific pieces of evidence.

Here is what an ideal debate looks like. (Heads up! I can be a silly goose, so the more you do this, the better I can judge you)

- Line by Line (Do it in order)

- Extending > reading a new card (Your better cards are in your first speech anyway. Tell me how the card is and how it frames the debate in your future analysis)

- More content >Less Jargon (avoid talking about the judge, another team, flows, yourselves. Focus on the substance. Avoid saying: special metaphors, Turns back, check back, the link check, Pulling or extending across, Voting up or down. They don’t exist.)

- Great Cross-examination (I am okay with tag team, I just find it unstrategic)

- Compare > description (Compare more, describe less)

- Overviews/Impact Calc (Focus on the core controversy of the debate. Offense wins)

- Engage > Exclude

- Clarity > Speed

- Making generics specific to the round

- Researched T Shells (Do work before reading T. I love T, but I have a standard on what is a good T debate)

- Arguments you can only read on this topic!!

Popular Q&A

- K/FW: More sympathetic to Ks that are unique to the topic. But I dig the 1 off FW strat or 9 off vs a K.

- Theory: Perfcon theory is a thing, condo theory is not a thing. I like cheating strats. I like it when people read theory against cheating strats too.

- Prep time: I stop prep time when you eject your jump drive or when you hit send for the email. I am probably the most annoying judge about this, but I am tired of teams stealing prep and I want to keep this round moving

- I flow on my computer

Want extra decimals?

Do what I say above, and have fun with it. I reward self-awareness, clash, sound research, humor, and bold decisions. It is all about how you play the game.

Cite like Michigan State and open source like Kentucky

Speaker Points-Scale - I'll do my best to adhere to the following unless otherwise instructed by a tournament's invite:

30-99%perfect

29.5-This is the best speech I will hear at this tournament, and probably at the following one as well.

29-I expect you to get a speaker award.

28.5-You're clearly in the top third of the speakers at the tournament.

28-You're around the upper middle (ish area)

27.5-You need some work, but generally, you're doing pretty well

27-You need some work

26.5-You don't know what you're doing at all

26 and lower-you've done something ethically wrong or obscenely offensive that is explained on the ballot.

All in all, debate in front of me if your panel was Mike Bausch, Mike Shackelford, Hannah Shoell, Catherine Shackelford, and Ian Beier

If you have any questions, then I would be more than happy to answer them

Mike Shackelford
Head Coach of Rowland Hall. I debated in college and have been a lab leader at CNDI, Michigan, and other camps. I've judged about 20 rounds the first semester.

Do what you do best. I’m comfortable with all arguments. Practice what you preach and debate how you would teach. Strive to make it the best debate possible.

Key Preferences & Beliefs
Debate is a game.
Literature determines fairness.
It’s better to engage than exclude.
Critique is a verb.
Defense is undervalued.

Judging Style
I flow on my computer. If you want a copy of my flow, just ask.
I think CX is very important.
I reward self-awareness, clash, good research, humor, and bold decisions.
Add me to the email chain: mikeshackelford(at)rowlandhall(dot)org

Feel free to ask.

Want something more specific? More absurd?

Debate in front of me as if this was your 9 judge panel:

Andre Washington, Ian Beier, Shunta Jordan, Maggie Berthiaume, Daryl Burch, Yao Yao Chen, Nicholas Miller, Christina Philips, jon sharp

If both teams agree, I will adopt the philosophy and personally impersonate any of my former students:

Ben Amiel, Andrew Arsht, David Bernstein, Madeline Brague, Julia Goldman, Emily Gordon, Adrian Gushin, Layla Hijjawi, Elliot Kovnick, Will Matheson, Ben McGraw, Corinne Sugino, Caitlin Walrath, Sydney Young (these are the former debaters with paradigms... you can also throw it back to any of my old school students).

LD Paradigm

Most of what is above will apply here below in terms of my expectations and preferences. I spend most of my time at tournaments judging policy debate rounds, however I do teach LD and judge practice debates in class. I try to keep on top of the arguments and developments in LD and likely am familiar with your arguments to some extent.

Theory: I'm unlikely to vote here. Most theory debates aren't impacted well and often put out on the silliest of points and used as a way to avoid substantive discussion of the topic. It has a time and a place. That time and place is the rare instance where your opponent has done something that makes it literally impossible for you to win. I would strongly prefer you go for substance over theory. Speaker points will reflect this preference.

Speed: Clarity > Speed. That should be a no-brainer. That being said, I'm sure I can flow you at whatever speed you feel is appropriate to convey your arguments.

Disclosure: I think it's uniformly good for large and small schools. I think it makes debate better. If you feel you have done a particularly good job disclosing arguments (for example, full case citations, tags, parameters, changes) and you point that out during the round I will likely give you an extra half of a point if I agree.

Experience:
- 11 Years Policy Debate
- Weber State and University of West Georgia
- Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High

1. Good evidence is secondary to what a debater does with it. I really appreciate evidence of interrogation in speeches and cross-examination.

2. I often vote for the team that can make complex arguments sound like common sense. Clarity of thought is paramount

3. If there is an “easy” way to vote, that's warranted, I’m likely to take it.

4. I appreciate technical execution and direct refutation over implied argumentation.

5. The earlier in debate that teams collapse down to lower quantities of positions and/or arguments, the more likely I am to latch on to what is going on and make a decent decision.

6. Identifying what I have to resolve behooves you. Debates are won or lost on a few primary debatable questions. If you are the first to identify and answer those questions thoroughly, you will be ahead in my mind.

jon sharp

Director of Debate @ GDS (the actual GDS, not the camp, not the affinity group, not the cultural phenomenon...well, maybe the cultural phenomenon...)

(Relevant) Background: Debated in HS (program doesn't exist any more) and college (Emory); coached at Emory, West GA, USC, New Trier, Kentucky, and GDS; taught around 75 labs (including, but not limited to the Kentucky Fellows, SNFI Swing Lab, Berkeley Mentors, Antilab, and the forthcoming Quantum Lab). This is what i do - i teach, coach, and judge debate(s). This is both good and bad for you.

This is Good for You: One could say that i have been around, as it were. If you want to do something that people do in debates, i got you. If you want to do something that people don't do in debates, i won't freak out.

This is Bad for You: This ain't my first rodeo. If you want to do something that people do in debates, i have seen it done better and worse. If you want to do something that people don't do in debates, i probably remember the last time that somebody did it in a debate.

Are You For Real? Yah, mostly...i just don't think judging philosophies are all that helpful - any judge that is doing their job is going to suspend disbelief to as great an extent as possible and receive the debate in as much good faith as they can muster...but almost nobody is upfront enough about what that extent looks like.

Well, that's not especially helpful right now. OK, you make a strong point, imaginary interlocutor. Here are a few things that may actually help:

1 - Flow the Debate - I flow the debate. On paper. To a fault. If you do not take this into account, no matter how or what you debate, things are going to go badly for you. Connecting arguments - what used to be called the line-by-line - is essential unless you want me to put the debate together myself out of a giant pile of micro-arguments. You Do Not Want This. "Embedded clash" is an adorable concept and even can be occasionally helpful WHEN YOU ARE MANAGING THE REST OF THE FLOW WITH PRECISION. There is no such thing as "cloud clash."

2 - Do What You are Going to Do - My job isn't to police your argument choices, per se; rather, it is to evaluate the debate. If debaters could only make arguments that i agreed with, there would not be much reason to have these rounds.

3 - If you are mean to your opponents, it is going to cause me to have sympathy/empathy for them. This is not an ideological position so much as an organic reaction on my part.

4 - "K teams," "identity teams," and non-traditional/performance teams pref me more than policy teams - Make of that what you will.

5 - Stop calling certain strategic choices "cheating" - This is one of the few things that just sends my blood pressure through the roof...i know you like to be edgy and i respect your desire to represent yourself as having no ethical commitments, but this is one of the worst developments in the way people talk and think about debate since the advent of paperlessness (which is essentially The Fall in my debate cosmology). Reading an AFF with no plan is not cheating; reading five conditional CPs in the 2NC is not cheating; consult NATO is not cheating. Clipping cards is cheating; fabricating evidence is cheating, consulting your coach in the middle of the debate is cheating. An accusation of an ethics violation (i.e., cheating) means that the debate stops and the team that is correct about the accusation wins the debate while the team that is wrong loses and gets zeroes. This is not negotiable. Ethics violations are not debate arguments, they do not take the form of an off-case or a new page and they are not comparable to anything else in the debate.

Also - just ask.

ericjohnshort@gmail.com please add me to an email chain.

previous coaching: Niles West (2016-present), Walter Payton (2014-2016), Wayzata (2009-2013), Moorhead (2007-2009), University of Minnesota (2011-2015, plus various tournaments since), Concordia College (2006-2009).

I generally judge 75+ debates on the high school topic.

updated September 2019

I'm updating my philosophy not because of a meaningful change in how I evaluate debates, but because I think the process of how I decide debates is more important than how I feel about individual arguments.

I judge debates in the way they are presented to me. This means you control the substance of the debate, not me. As such, the team that will win is the team that is best able to explain why their arguments are better than their opponent's arguments.

I start deciding a debate by determining if I need to read evidence. I often read very few cards at the end of a debate. In many debates, the quality of evidence, its qualifications and even warrants or conclusions go uncontested. I'm not the judge to reconstruct the debate for you. Then, I assign "risk" to the positions forwarded in the last rebuttals. The type of "risk" is determined by the debate--anywhere from "does the DA outweigh the aff" to "do the representations lead to a unique impact" to "does the performance actively resist forms of oppression". Link and impact analysis is therefore extremely important. You probably won’t like the decision if I decide what is most important.

Most of my topic research revolves around critiques. I have also worked at a summer institute almost every year since 2005. Chances are I am familiar with your literature base, no matter which side of the library it's housed in. However, you still need to explain your arguments for me to consider voting for them.

If you want me to consider the status quo as an option, you should tell me in the 2NR: I will not default for you. Outside of conditionality, I default to rejecting the argument, not the team unless instructed otherwise.

Note on decision times: the longer it takes to finish the debate, the less time I have to adjudicate, so it is in your best interest to be efficient.

Speaker points are influenced by a variety of factors. While I do not have a specific formula for integrating all the variables, your points are reflected by (in no particular order): argument choice, clarity, execution, participation in the debate, respect for others, strategy, and time management. I tend to reward debaters for specific strategies, humor, personality and speeches free of disposable arguments.

Green Valley HS (NV) ‘16

University of Nevada, Las Vegas ‘20

I would like to be in email chains please-- emberrsmith@gmail.com

I believe debate is a game and competition. Generally, technical mistakes will significantly influence my decision.

Disads-I care a lot about framing in these debates. Recognize what you’re winning and what the other team is winning and make arguments accordingly. For example, if you’re behind on the link debate, make a link controls the direction of uniqueness arg. Impact calculus is important, as is comparing how your arguments interact. Case turns the DA and DA turns the case should be in each impact debate. Strength of link and internal link are important to determine the risk of the DA.  Evidence comparison is especially important in how I’ll compare your arguments.

Counterplans- I generally don’t think consult CPs, process CPs, or condition CPs are very competitive. Competition should be based on something in the plan. With that, I don’t believe all counterplans need a hyper-specific solvency advocate. 

Conditionality- I lean neg on conditionality. It would take an egregious mistake to convince me that neg doesn’t get one or two conditional advocacies. Four or more I lean aff.

Critiques- I think you need a specific link. If you aren’t able to contextualize your argument to the aff, it will be an uphill battle. I think most alts are silly, and would like affs to push how well the alt can actually resolve the large-scale problems they claim to solve. Aff teams are likely to lose my ballot by dropping epistemology args, turns case args, VTL outweighs extinction, etc. I’m easily persuaded by aff arguments about pragmatism.

T- Please impact your standards. I think education and ground are internal links that should be attached to impacts (like decision making or research skills). That being said, I do think fairness is an impact.

Topicality/ Framework- I think there’s a separation between how this type of argument can be deployed- 1. Topicality- why debating the resolution is good and 2. Framework- why engaging in institutional politics is better than the aff’s method. I enjoy both, but don’t think the aff should answer them the same way. I tend to err neg in critical affs v. framework debates. For critical aff teams, specific counter-interpretations and defense to internal link args will go a long way.

Last Updated: 2/27/24

TLDR: I know what debate is. I'm sorta removed from the activity now but I competed in policy debate in HS and in College at UNLV and have coached Policy for several years after that.

Please speak slower than your top speed so I can Adjust.

I would like to be on the email chain stinnett.jada@gmail.com

***I don't know why debaters have transitioned to using google drive. But since this is the only place I can complain... here I am...so I guess I will be very upset about cards sent in the body of an email instead of a document as well..I will also complain in my head about the usage of speech drop, But this is because debaters remove files after the debate is done and that is annoying***

***This Paradigm is written with with the idea that I will be judging policy debates, if this isn't a policy debate take what applies to you and ignore everything that doesn't***

*Overall Ideas that I have about debate*

I like all styles of debate.

I believe that debate is a fun game we play.

Why we play the game is different for everyone.

I believe that everyone should have fun playing it.

This is especially true for novice debate. I think sometimes we forget we all had a first day.

What this means is that I will make it a priority to keep the spaces I'm involved in safe.

I will acknowledge the material implications of some bodies in certain spaces, so I will not police the debate space or conform to respectability politics of ANY tournament.

I will try my best to make this space accessible for you. Let me know what I can do (this can include an email before the round).

Technical debate is good debate.

A true argument can beat a bunch of silly arguments.

An Argument is a claim with a warrant. I will only flow claims with warrants.

I will not listen to impact turns of oppression. I will stop the round and leave. Your speaker points will reflect this.

Don't use slurs outside of your social location. I will stop the round and leave. Your speaker points will reflect this.

I don't want to judge a debate based off of what happened outside of the round. It becomes really awkward for everyone. And I can't adequately attest these truth claims. Just don't do it. Please.

I flow on paper- due to technology sound transfer and audio processing I ask that you go slower than your fastest pace. 80% of your normal speed should be good. If I don't flow it, it doesn't count so don't try to argue with me on what you did/didn't say.

Spreading is a strategy used to create Layers to an argument in a small amount of time. If you are just fast without adding dimension to your argument then you are dong it wrong and should stop.

I am very expressive, you can tell if I like your argument or if you are winning an argument.

I understand adapting to judges, but from personal experience you can win in front of any critic doing what you do best.

I am open to adjusting my judging style/practice in nearly anyway that is asked of me.

I will not be offended if you ask me about my familiarity with topic specific acronyms/specific arguments. PLEASE DO SO. I want to know what you're talking about.

Other things:

AFF: You should be "topical", what that means is up for debate. Does that mean in the direction of the topic? Does that mean USFG action? IDK you tell me. But criticizing the "norms" of debate without relation to the topic is iffy for me and in my opinion a negative argument. If you have a justification for it go ahead because I will be evaluating the debate based off my flow anyway, but I am sympathetic to T/Framework Arguments. But don't be discouraged I have read/do read/coach teams to read "non-topical" affirmatives and understand the strategic choice behind doing so. That non-topical affirmative MUST do something (re: differ from the status quo).

Case Debate:

The status quo is always an option. Please don't forget the art of case debate. This goes beyond just impact defense. Don't be afraid for a good Impact Turn debate I'm all for a warming good, econ decline good, bio D loss good, ect debate.

T/Framework:

I wholeheartedly believe that you can say the state can do a particular policy action, and that single instance is good for x amount of people, without defending the other terrible things the state has done. Example, Welfare is probably a good thing. Yes there is problems with who gets it, but a world with out it is probably worse. I also believe that wiki disclosures is good defense against predictability claims. I also believe that some teams don't even make an attempt at engagement and some framework shells are written with the intent to never have k debates exist. That's probably a bad thing to defend. Don't let that be you. Nonetheless, T debates are dope. I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise. It will never be a reverse voter. It will never be genocide. You have to have a TVA. Your standards need to be impacted out or else they are just internal links and idk what to do with that. I will not vote on potential abuse. I want to see the blood on the flow. Where did they make the game unfair for you. I think the more specific the evidence/examples the better.

DA:

Impact framing and comparisons are major key. I'm cool with Generics DA's as long as your links are baller, but the more unique the DA the better. I believe in a 1% risk of a link. I also believe in a 0% risk of an impact. Explanation is key here. Im more willing to vote on a good story with fewer cards than me drowning in cards and trying to put together a story myself. also please tag your card 7 words or more. "more ev" is not an argument and i will not evaluate it.

CP:

I'm all for a good counterplan. 2nc counterplans are cool. 2nc amendments are cool. For me to vote on a CP you need to be super good on the case debate and differentiating the perm. Be clear on the CP text so I can flow it and also establish competition and better evaluate the argument. The states counter plan is definitely a legitimate strategy and should be protected at all cost.

K:

I'm most familiar with argumentation in critical race theory, gender and sexuality args and identity/performance based arguments but this doesn't mean I won't listen to what you have to say if those things aren't your jazz. Reading is Fundamental. I read a lot so I will most likely know what you are talking about. I expect college debaters to also be well read. My patience increases with hs debaters learning about different arguments, none the less you should still be reading. I cannot stress this enough. Reading is imperative. My hs kids have taken a liking to old french dudes so I have tried by best as an educator to familiarize myself with that field of literature to be a better coach. I will give you that same respect as an adjudicator if I don't understand your criticism. I believe engagement and contextualizing your theory with your opponents arguments gets you a long way. Explain what the alt does. I think far too often this explanation is missing from the debate. I don't believe in just voting on links (I say this, but as I think about it you can go for links as disads to the case...idk convince me). You have to find a way to resolve those for me. Also "root cause" arguments are not links, they are just alt solvency evidence.

I don't believe in Fem IR criticisms, I don’t believe in satire performances, I’m not a fan of girl boss feminist narratives, language is important so I think there is a big difference between "set col is good" and "modernity is good" and I have a problem with “debate bad” arguments. masculinity is no inherently bad.

THEORY:

Don't read theory args as a time skew. The aff gets a perm unless you say why. Conditionality: The neg can do whatever they want as long as the positions don't contradict (nothing more than 5 off please), and they make a decision in the 2nr. I will not judge kick for you. You need to make a decision. Not here for cheap shots. I really don't want to have to judge a theory debate but I understand abuse and am willing to vote on it. If you plan on going for a theory argument, a substantial amount of time needs to be spent on it in the rebuttal. SPEC arguments are the worst thing to happen to debate and I will buy anything the 2a says if its remotely responsive. As said before, I don't like performative contradictions. This also just applies to the rounds that i'm in. I don't care that the person reading framework against you also reads a k aff. It's a game. they picked a strategy that's going to win them the game.

CX:

Is binding. Is a speech. I'll write notes during this time. Please Answer questions. Don't be sketchy, I'll know it. Don't be afraid to point out if your opponents are being sketchy.

cheating:

Do not Fabricate evidence. It's inexcusable. Do not clip cards. its inexcusable.

Challenges of card clipping will result in stopping the debate if material evidence is provided that proves beyond a reasonable doubt in my mind that card clipping has occurred. the offending team will receive a loss and the offending speaker will receive 0 speaker points. however if i conclude that the speaker is not guilty of clipping cards the challenging team will receive a loss and both challenging speakers will receive 0 speaker points.

***clipping cards is not a slurring of words or clack of clarity***

Evidence:

I'm from the school of thought that everybody in the round should have access to all evidence read in the debate. Denial to share citations or disclose is a b!+ch move. Prepared debate is good debate. Don't get this confused with breaking new, that's all fine.

Prep/Speaking Times:

I don't keep time. Im not a baby sitter. you should all move through speeches and prep in an efficent matter. if i do decided to track time because yall have prolonged this process my time will be the only clock that matters. I don't count flashing or emailing as prep. Flex prep is not a thing(you cannot use cross-x as prep or time to give another speech). Speak in your assigned time slots (interpret this vaguely. It just means 1 constructive and 1 rebuttal. idc the order) unless for some performative or ethical reason that you can't (For example, if both debaters speak during the 1AC cool. There was a reason for it. Probably performative. In the rebuttal to continue the performance? Cool. Have a debater take over the line by line? Not Cool. This is a clear shift in the competitive aspect and nature of the game. Unless for some reason a debater disappears/goes missing...why would this happen? idk, but unusual things happen all the time)

Clarification questions during prep is okay. But don't try to make "a point". If you happen to be a team on the receiving end of someone trying to tear down your argument during prep, please refuse to answer.

Speaks:

I'll hook everyone up with speaks #PointFairy. I never want to be the reason debaters don’t break so I might over compensate, but who cares y’all are doing all the rigorous work the least I can do is help in the speaker point end.

I understand the joy of speaker awards and I will do my best to help y'all out.

I evaluate speaks of by delivery>argument choice. the team with the better Argument choice will most likely win win the round.

You'll get a 30 if you are just baller, or make me laugh uncontrollably. (I enjoy witty jokes, and I'm a big sports fan if that helps you come up with material)

+1.0 if you know who the Las Vegas Aces are

(I haven't made up my mind if I will put a cap on jokes or not, so be a comedian at the risk of knowing you might not be rewarded for all the jokes)

I'll use this as a tool to teach young people how to advocate for themselves. after the round tell me what speaks you think you deserve(realistically) and I might agree with you.

when making analytical arguments I would advise going for the easiest pen to paper phrasing

if you send me your flow after the round I will up your speaks(HS ONLY)

How I make my Decisions:

I use the burden of rejoinder frame to structure how I evaluate debates.

I hold a strict line with new arguments in the rebuttals so a majority of my time will be lining up arguments.

In clash debates the easiest framing for me is what's most educational and best for the community.

I dislike students who try to post round. This has only happened to me twice. None the less I will not tolerate it. I am also willing to admit that I am wrong. But that will not change my decision. If the understanding that I get form your argument happens in a post round and not in a debate, I cannot reward you for communicating your point late in the game. This is a communication activity and if something didn't reach my flow like how you intended there isn't much I can do but listen and process to the best of my ability. If you think I made the wrong decision that's fine and you are completely entitled to feel that way. It does not change the fact that you loss.

Mics/Things you might wanna know about me:

I am Black and Queer.

pronouns: they/them

When I debated I was trained to "Defend the walls" later in my career I became a "k-debater"

You all can call me Jada you don't have to say judge

I was a 2n

#FREEPALESTINE

I have a real pet peeve with what is considered violence in debate

You can insert re highlighting- you don't have to reread the card

Quotes from People in The Community about me:

"Super smart and a great person all around" Allego Wang

"Incredibly intelligent + really good at explaining difficult concepts" Ali Saffieddine

"Their ability to compartmentalize argumentation and overall communication skills are ones I've always aspired to have and continue to grow from simple conversations I have with them. Jada's ability to empathize with students and find the grammar to communicate in ways to accommodate students needs and comprehension skills is one of the many talented characteristics they have. They will really be personal to you and your needs, with flares of individual organic wisdom they've learned over the years. They will not just lecture you. They will help you on your path to education/understanding difficult literature bases by shining light at your strengths and guiding you to find solutions to your weaknesses. Legit, Jada is one of the most influential person I've been blessed to come across" Yumasie Hellebuick

"You're the 50 cent of this community" -Chris Randall

"Jada is the love of my life" - Caitlin Walrath

"I told ppl to pref u just cuz you’re not afraid to stare a k team down and say “yea I voted on nuke war outweighs” with a smile ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" -Ari Davidson

"Jada makes the best memes" JV Soccer Captain and my Teammate Dan Bannister

A note: I've been out of policy for two years so please take the time to clearly articulate your arguments, as I have little prior topic knowledge.

It is somewhat difficult for me to flow due to hand/wrist problems, so if you speed through your arguments with no inflection or change in speed, I might not catch them. That doesn't mean that you can't spread - just please take a second to pause between analytics or cards. 

tl;dr - Run what you want, don't be rude.

Add me to the chain: frogvillages@gmail.com. I go by Georgie.

General

 I've run planless affs, hard right policy strats, and a range of off on the neg, so most arguments that aren't "racism good" are fine; I prioritize offense.

I give out good speaks and judge based on how well you debated, but am also not willing to reward anyone for toxicity. Be kind to each other. 

If you need a particular accommodation for a disability, sickness, etc., let me know and I will try my best to ensure the debate is more accessible.

Case

Tie case args to the bigger picture - the more specific your arguments are to the aff/how your plan interacts with the neg off-case, the better. Case arguments shouldn't exist independent of your off-case - how you apply them is important. Case turns are under-utilized, as is extending case all the way to the 2nr.

Counterplans

Most CPs are legit unless the aff does a good job of debating why they aren’t. The more specific your ev is to the aff and the higher the quality of your cards, the better the debate will go for you. While I don't require a solvency advocate, having one can only help you, especially if the CP is questionably legitimate.

Disadvantages

I like these debates, but “extinction outweighs” means nothing if you don’t explain why. I appreciate solid impact comparison and framing.

Neg - If the aff is mostly winning the DA debate, having a few "DA turns case" arguments can be very convincing. Links about the plan are great, read them.

Aff - I believe 0% risk of the DA can exist. Internal link chain takeouts are a great and underrated way to decrease the chances I vote on a risk of the DA- as are good analytical reasons why the DA doesn't make sense- and they usually don't. If you have a framing page, don't forget it exists.

Critiques

Engage with each other, please.

If you’re neg, link work is actually important- do it. Interact with the aff as much as you possibly can and please don't rely too heavily on buzz words. Don't assume I understand all of your terms - explain and don't be evasive in CX. In the instance that I don’t understand what your k is (which happens a lot in high theory debates), I’ll probably default aff if they win a risk of their impacts.

If you’re aff, don't get lost - remember that you  have a plan that you can get offense from. Your stuff is probably really cool - defend it. I find myself voting neg in debates where the aff's offense is not directly contextualized to the thesis level of the critique - concession of their theory, for me, lets the neg problematize most parts of the flow for the aff. Don't move  too defensively.

Make framework a thing. I generally believe that the aff gets to weigh their stuff, but that's up to y'all.

Critical Affs

I try to operate strictly on what is said in the round, so how you frame the debate is key. Debates that just complain about how critical affs are "obviously cheating, judge" are not especially persuasive. Framework is a question of competing models of debate - you need disadvantages to your opponent's model and advantages to yours to win.

After being on both sides of the framework debate, I'm  open to different interpretations of what debate/the ballot/my role as the judge is. I'll vote for you if you run framework, and I'll vote for you if you don't - just do it well.

On the neg:  Procedural fairness can be a terminal impact if you have a good reason why. I tend to like TVAs as internal link defense to the aff - especially if you have cards. Yes, the aff's DAs and case arguments mean something - don't drop them. Try to clash with the aff as much as possible, which includes how T interacts with their offense. 0 defense to the aff's theory/offense = harder debate for you.

If you prefer a k aff v k debate, the same thing I said about critiques above applies, but try to establish competition early in the debate or the perm will be very convincing.

Presumption arguments are vastly under-used and persuasive 98% of the time.

On the aff: Feel free to run whatever. If I don’t understand what your aff is, I’d be more willing to vote neg on presumption if they go for it. Have external offense on framework other than "the discussion is important" and a methodology that you can defend. Give me a reason why you need to exist outside of the topic or the resolution. I definitely need a reason why the ballot resolves your offense/what my role as the judge is. The perm is usually a good option in K v K debates. Try to clash with the neg as much as possible, which includes how T/the K interacts with your offense. A few good disads to T/the K are better than 30 oddly named and often unexplained ones.

Topicality

I  find that T debates are unfortunately a lot of block reading - engagement with the other team's arguments has to  be a thing. Make an impact about what you want me to care about - “limits” or “ground” isn’t that big of a deal if you don’t tell me why. Impact comparison is important.

As a warning: Don't expect me to fill in the gaps for you in these debates because I have 0 pre-dispositions on T. Even if an aff "obviously explodes limits, judge," a lack of actual analysis and some decent aff defense probably means that you will still lose. 

Misc about content and theory:

-Slow down. Please don't spread through your theory/analytical blocks as quickly as humanly possible. Theory debates can get techy and can be difficult to resolve when I have no idea what you said in ____ speech.

-More than 3 condo and I'll get annoyed - not enough to vote you down automatically if the aff makes a theory argument, but more sympathetic

-A well-developed 1-5 off strategy is much more effective than your 10 off 1nc shell - your primary strategy should not be predicated on you making sure the 2ac gets like 3 arguments on each flow. I won't reject you for it, but I will be very sympathetic to new 1ar spins/pivots.

-Do I enjoy theory debates? No. All judges have some biases, and this is one of mine: You'll win it if you win it, but I tend to evaluate substance first unless the other team has made some heinous mistake like forgetting to answer condo.

thanks for 10 years and 100 tournaments of judging

:)

Director of Speech & Debate Isidore Newman School

Coach USA Debate

EMAIL: Add me to the chain:
newmanspeechdocs@gmail.com

Online Update:
Please slow down! It is much harder for me to hear online. Go at about 75% rather than 100% of your normal pace!!!

Relevant for Both Policy & LD:

This is my 20th year in debate. I debated in high school, and then went on to debate at the University of Louisville. In addition, I was the Director of Debate at both Fern Creek & Brown School in KY, a former graduate assistant for the University of Louisville, and the Director of Speech & Debate at LSU. I am also a doctoral candidate in Communication & Rhetorical studies.

I view my role as an educator and believe that it is my job to evaluate the debate in the best way I can and in the most educational way possible. Over the past several years have found myself moving more and more to the middle. So, my paradigm is pretty simple. I like smart arguments and believe that debates should tell a clear and succinct story of the ballot. Simply put: be concise, efficient, and intentional.

Here are a few things you should know coming into the round:

1. I will flow the debate. But PLEASE slow down on the tag lines and the authors. I don’t write as fast as I used to. I will yell clear ONE TIME. After that, I will put my pen down and stop flowing. So, don't be mad at the end of the debate if I missed some arguments because you were unclear. I make lots of facial expressions, so you can use that as a guide for if I understand you

2. I value effective storytelling. I want debates to tell me a clear story about how arguments interact with one another, and as such see debates holistically. Accordingly, dropped arguments are not enough for me to vote against a team. You should both impact your arguments out and tell me why it matters.

3. Do what you do best. While I do not believe that affirmatives have to be topical, I also find myself more invested in finding new and innovative ways to engage with the topic. Do with that what you will. I am both well versed and have coached students in a wide range of literature.

4. Know what you’re talking about. The quickest way to lose a debate in front of me is to read something because it sounds and looks “shiny.” I enjoy debates where students are well read/versed on the things they are reading, care about them, and can actually explain them. Jargon is not appealing to me. If it doesn’t make sense or if I don’t understand it at the end of the debate I will have a hard time evaluating it.

5. I will listen to Theory, FW, and T debates, but I do not believe that it is necessarily a substantive response to certain arguments. Prove actual in-round abuse, actual ground loss, actual education lost (that must necessarily trade off with other forms of education). Actual abuse is not because you don't understand the literature, know how to deal with the argument, or that you didn't have time to read it.

6. Be respectful of one another and to me. I am a teacher and educator first. I don’t particularly care for foul language, or behavior that would be inappropriate in the classroom.

7. Finally, make smart arguments and have fun. I promise I will do my best to evaluate the debate you give me.

If you have any other questions, just ask.

Please include me in the email chain: christopherwang12@gmail.com

~~~

I will do my best do be a “tabula rasa,” but I have my implicit biases. I will vote for the team that is more persuasive, and I will try to keep an open mind about any argument brought up. That said, here is some background about my debate experience: I debated on The Meadows School policy debate team in high school for 4 years under the tutelage of Alderete Sensei and graduated in 2012. I ran any argument that I considered strategic.

The Issues

-The affirmative must uphold the stock issues, and the negative should probably address these.

-I often ran Kritiks and found them to be some of the most thought-provoking arguments I came across in debate. However, it should actually pertain to the case you are debating and should not be an excuse to distract from the substance of the debate. That said, they are fair game and can make for a great debate.

-I will consider Theory arguments, but usually these should not be the only argument being debated unless it is the only option. It is important to consider the actual activity of debate and its structure, but no one likes a bad Theory debate.

Speech & Logistics

Although the debate round is set up like a game, in my opinion, the goal of the debate should be to learn about the topic and improve speaking skills. Excessive use of debate or expert jargon will make it harder to understand you and makes you less persuasive.

If you are speaking too fast and I can’t understand you, I will call “Clearer!” or “Slower!” If you continue and I still can’t understand you after a few warnings, I will stop flowing.

Be respectful during cross-examination; cutting people off and being rude makes you look bad. Please don’t interrupt anyone while they are giving a speech.

Prep time stops when you hit send on the email or hand the USB to your opponent.

This should go without saying, but I do not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other type of discrimination or hate speech. Treat your opponent with respect.

~~~

“I want a good clean, fight.”

Personal Summary:

Assistant debate coach @ Damien HS in La Verne, California. Debated policy at UNLV. Had some accomplishments.

General Overview -

*Tech > Truth* Its the only way for bad 2AC add-ons to survive. I give 1ARs leeway, but not too much. If an argument is obviously asinine, then you should be able to refute it even without cards. Favorite debates are Impact Turn debates and Soft Left Affs v Disad/CP debates. However, when extending a dropped argument don't just say "they dropped XYZ argument" and move on. This is terrible :( You need to explain why that matters in the debate, otherwise, it'll be hard for me to evaluate that argument properly.

*I like a good policy v policy debate* where each side goes in-depth on certain arguments, however I dislike when teams throw a thousand cards around but don't explain any of them. I also like K v policy debates, they are some of the most interesting debates. K v K debates are a toss up, sometimes they are cool, other times they're not. I don't like it when teams say buzzwords and don't explain them. I have knowledge about the Set Col/Security/Marx lit, but other than that, I am aware that the lit exists but never read it myself (i.e. DnG)

*Have fun* Be adventurous! Go for arguments that are interesting (but that you are prepared to go for). Debate gets boring after reading the same thing a millionth time. Experiment! Read that barely topical aff! Read that hot-off-the-press CP (without or a without a solvency advocate). Make jokes if you can/want.

*Speed* I am fine with speed, but when you are reading analytics, SLOW DOWN! I can understand what you are saying, but my hand can only write so fast! This is a big issue on T when 2A's read multiple distinct analytical arguments but read them as if they were cards.

Detailed (more or less) View of Debate:

DA: Enjoy them. A well thought out story is awesome! Generics are fine, but please contextualize or I will be more likely to discount your evidence. Impact calc is important, especially turns case that make sense. I am a HUGE fan of politics DA's. Especially ones that are unique (i.e. specific senator like UNLV's Rubio DA).

CP: Enjoy them too. Interesting CP's are awesome! CPs with a billion planks are cool too (but honestly might lean Aff on theory for some atrocious CP's i.e. Consult CP's/Delay CP's.). Its okay if you CP doesn't have a solvency advocate.

T: Ok. Not the best judge honestly, but understand it enough to adjudicate fairly. T is about a vision of the topic, so even if your interp is limiting, could it be universally assumed by other teams i.e. if I saw the topic, is this a definition that would produce fruitful debates?

FW: Solid. These debates get boring, but I have been in tons of them so I understand what you need to win and how you are going to lose. Choose either fairness or education/advocacy/whatever flavor in the 2NR. I am solid either way. The cold debaters who say debate is a game and nothing matters will win just as much as the debaters who say debate is a training ground and policy education is good. HOWEVER, even though I understand FW, it DOES NOT mean I will auto vote for you.

Make sure to impact out your T arguments. Tell me why fairness/education etc. matters! Don't just say that being topical causes movements or reduces dogmatism, you need the next step as to why movements are good or why dogmatism is bad. Otherwise it would be very hard for me to vote on framework. Having a TVA that actually solves some portion of the aff is very effective in neutralizing aff offense, but it needs to have a line or two as to why it actually solves/accesses their lit base. Don't be afraid to go all in on fairness.

K: Enjoy them, either side of the debate. They can sometimes be the most cool arguments in debate, but also can be the worst arguments. You do you. Links need to not be generic. You have to clearly articulate the story and why the K matters. I will vote on extinction outweighs, but I also know what the policy teams needs to win to beat the k and if they don't I'll easily vote on the K. K aff's are cool too. Seriously, I hate speeches on K's that end up being super generic. I am a fan of security and set col, but if your speech sounds like it could have been delivered in any other debate regardless of the aff, you will have a hard time getting my ballot regardless of what happens.

C-X: You can be aggressive but don't be mean. Answer questions, I will give you low speaks if you are dodgy; However, not every question has a yes or no answer, and your opponent is perfectly within their rights to say they need to give an explanation. C-X gets you high speaker points, use it to defeat your opponent.

Theory: Boo! Not the best judge for this, lean Aff on a lot of things such as Consult CP's bad, Delay CP's bad, Floating PIK's bad. Yes I will vote on Condo. BUT PLEASE DON'T MAKE THE DEBATE ABOUT THEORY. I understand if its your only way out, but for the love of god, don't please. If you do have to go for theory, please make it into a coherent story i.e. tell me why Consult CP's would be net worse for debate than if we were to allow them.

Any questions, send me an email briandebateunlv@gmail.com Please include me on the email chain.

Hi, I am Ben

My Background

I debated for Dowling Catholic (2010-2014). Later I attended Gonzaga University, where I debated all four years (2014-2018).

Arguments

I have experience with all arguments. I used to read Disads, ptx, policy affs, k affs, 1 off k strategies, pics, process counterplans, T violations, framework, etc. If I didn't read it, I most likely debated against it enough to somewhat understand the argument. I try to evaluate arguments without personal bias, resolving debates by choosing the team that has properly framed the terms of the debate and won on those terms. If you want me to be a policymaker, tell me. If you want me to be a critical intellectual, tell me. I also like creativity and analytic argumentation that demonstrates critical thinking.

other things

Please don't be loud, by all means be yourself, but please no yelling. Debate is an indoor activity, use your indoor voice.

Overall:
1. Offense-defense, but can be persuaded by reasonability in theory debates. I don't believe in "zero risk" or "terminal defense" and don't vote on presumption.

2. Substantive questions are resolved probabilistically--only theoretical questions (e.g. is the perm severance, does the aff meet the interp) are resolved "yes/no," and will be done so with some unease, forced upon me by the logic of debate.

3. Dropped arguments are "true," but this just means the warrants for them are true. Their implication can still be contested. The exception to this is when an argument and its implication are explicitly conceded by the other team for strategic reasons (like when kicking out of a disad). Then both are "true."

Counterplans:
1. Conditionality bad is an uphill battle. I think it's good, and will be more convinced by the negative's arguments. I also don't think the number of advocacies really matters. Unless it was completely dropped, the winning 2AR on condo in front of me is one that explains why the way the negative's arguments were run together limited the ability of the aff to have offense on any sheet of paper.

2. I think of myself as aff-leaning in a lot of counterplan theory debates, but usually find myself giving the neg the counterplan anyway, generally because the aff fails to make the true arguments of why it was bad.

Disads:
1. I don't think I evaluate these differently than anyone else, really. Perhaps the one exception is that I don't believe that the affirmative needs to "win" uniqueness for a link turn to be offense. If uniqueness really shielded a link turn that much, it would also overwhelm the link. In general, I probably give more weight to the link and less weight to uniqueness.

2. On politics, I will probably ignore "intrinsicness" or "fiat solves the link" arguments, unless badly mishandled (like dropped through two speeches). Note: this doesn't apply to riders or horsetrading or other disads that assume voting aff means voting for something beyond the aff plan. Then it's winnable.

Kritiks:
1. I like kritiks, provided two things are true: 1--there is a link. 2--the thesis of the K indicts the truth of the aff. If the K relies on framework to make the aff irrelevant, I start to like it a lot less (role of the ballot = roll of the eyes). I'm similarly annoyed by aff framework arguments against the K. The K itself answers any argument for why policymaking is all that matters (provided there's a link). I feel negative teams should explain why the affirmative advantages rest upon the assumptions they critique, and that the aff should defend those assumptions.

2. I think I'm less technical than some judges in evaluating K debates. Something another judge might care about, like dropping "fiat is illusory," probably matters less to me (fiat is illusory specifically matters 0%). I also won't be as technical in evaluating theory on the perm as I would be in a counterplan debate (e.g. perm do both isn't severance just because the alt said "rejection" somewhere--the perm still includes the aff). The perm debate for me is really just the link turn debate. Generally, unless the aff impact turns the K, the link debate is everything.

3. If it's a critique of "fiat" and not the aff, read something else. If it's not clear from #1, I'm looking at the link first. Please--link work not framework. K debating is case debating.

Nontraditional affirmatives:

Versus T:

1. I'm *slightly* better for the aff now that aff teams are generally impact-turning the neg's model of debate. I almost always voted neg when they instead went for talking about their aff is important and thought their counter-interp somehow solved anything. Of course, there's now only like 3-4 schools that take me and don't read a plan. So I'm spared the debates where it's done particularly poorly.

2. A lot of things can be impacts to T, but fairness is probably best.

3. It would be nice if people read K affs with plans more, but I guess there's always LD. Honestly debating politics and util isn't that hard--bad disads are easier to criticize than fairness and truth.

Versus the K:
1. If it's a team's generic K against K teams, the aff is in pretty great shape here unless they forget to perm. I've yet to see a K aff that wasn't also a critique of cap, etc. If it's an on-point critique of the aff, then that's a beautiful thing only made beautiful because it's so rare. If the neg concedes everything the aff says and argues their methodology is better and no perms, they can probably predict how that's going to go. If the aff doesn't get a perm, there's no reason the neg would have to have a link.

Topicality versus plan affs:
1. I used to enjoy these debates. It seems like I'm voting on T less often than I used to, but I also feel like I'm seeing T debated well less often. I enjoy it when the 2NC takes T and it's well-developed and it feels like a solid option out of the block. What I enjoy less is when it isn't but the 2NR goes for it as a hail mary and the whole debate occurs in the last two speeches.

2. Teams overestimate the importance of "reasonability." Winning reasonability shifts the burden to the negative--it doesn't mean that any risk of defense on means the T sheet of paper is thrown away. It generally only changes who wins in a debate where the aff's counter-interp solves for most of the neg offense but doesn't have good offense against the neg's interp. The reasonability debate does seem slightly more important on CJR given that the neg's interp often doesn't solve for much. But the aff is still better off developing offense in the 1AR.

LD section:
1. I've been judging LD less, but I still have LD students, so my familarity with the topic will be greater than what is reflected in my judging history.

2. Everything in the policy section applies. This includes the part about substantive arguments being resolved probablistically, my dislike of relying on framework to preclude arguments, and not voting on defense or presumption. If this radically affects your ability to read the arguments you like to read, you know what to do.

3. If I haven't judged you or your debaters in a while, I think I vote on theory less often than I did say three years ago (and I might have already been on that side of the spectrum by LD standards, but I'm not sure). I've still never voted on an RVI so that hasn't changed.

4. The 1AR can skip the part of the speech where they "extend offense" and just start with the actual 1AR.

Name: Jefferey Yan
Affiliations: Stuyvesant High School ’15
Binghamton University '19
Currently working as an assistant coach w/ GMU for 2021-22

Please put me on the chain: jeffereyyan@gmail.com

I debated for 8 years, in HS for Stuyvesant and in college at Binghamton. I read a plan for a majority of my time in HS, and various K arguments on the neg. In college, I read an affirmative about Asian-Americans every year with a variety of flavors and a few about disability. On the neg, we primarily went for K arguments with themes of biopower, capitalism, and resiliency.

Form preferences:

I think line by line is an effective way to both record and evaluate clash that happens in debate. I like to judge debates that are heavily invested in line-by-line refutation because I think it requires the least amount of intervention and the largest amount of me pointing to what you said.

That being said, I think rebuttals require less line-by-line and more framing arguments. The biggest problem for me when evaluating debates is there is often little explanation of how I should treat the rest of debate if you win x argument. In other words, you need to impact your arguments not just on the line by line, but also in the broader context of the debate. The ability to do both in a round is primarily what modulates the speaking points I give.

Argumentative familiarity/thoughts:

Framework/T-USFG: I like to think of framework as an all-or-nothing strategy that can either be utilized effectively and persuasively, or poorly and as an excuse to avoid engagement. My ideal block on FW is where you spend time articulating specific abuse and why it implicates your ability to debate with examples. I think specificity is what makes the difference between framework as a strategy for engagement versus framework as a strategy for ignoring the aff. I think a lot of the delineation here is most apparent in the 2NR and whether or not the neg explicitly acknowledges/goes to the case page.

Generally speaking, I think ties to the topic are good. I think topical versions of the aff are something people need to be going for in the 2NR and are lowkey kind of broken given the time tradeoff vs amount of defense generated ratio. I am unpersuaded by fairness as an intrinsic good or impact in itself, and relying heavily on it in the 2nr is not a great spot to be in. For example, I am relatively easily persuaded by the argument that if a current form of the game produces bad outcomes, then whether it’s fair or not is ultimately a secondary to concern when compared to re-thinking the content of the game itself. I think arguments regarding the quality of clash are the most persuasive to me as they can implicate both fairness and education impact arguments fairly intuitively.

I default to competing interps, but I think that aff teams tend to read awful C/Is without realizing it, mostly because they fail to really think through what their counter-model of debate looks like. I think a strong counter-interp really sets aff FW strategies apart, because being able to access the neg’s offense does a lot for you in terms of explaining the specificity of your own impact turns.

T: Like I said, I have very little topic specific knowledge and am a bit out of the loop in regards to the meta. This means I’m probably more willing to vote on a stupid T argument than other judges. This could be good or bad for you.

DA: I like stories. DAs are opportunities to tell good stories. Not much else to say about this.

CP: I wish people slowed down when reading CP texts because it makes it so god damn hard to flow them. I think judge-kick is stupid. If the debate becomes theoretical, please adhere to some kind of line-by-line format.

K: I am most familiar with structural kritiks. Link specificity makes life good. I think framework is incredibly important for both sides to win to win the debate. I think the neg should defend an alternative most of the time. I think the neg should generally pick and choose one or two specific link arguments in the 2NR.

K but on the aff: These debates are largely framework debates, and the winner of that debate gets to decide what happens with the judge and the ballot. I think it’s important to make clear what the aff advocates early on, because often times these affs have too many moving parts, which gets you into trouble vs link debates/presumption arguments. I think ties to the topic are generally good. I usually really like judging these types of affs.