I would like to be included in email chains. Email: kellyleecody@gmail.com

You're also welcome to reach out to me with questions, if you need extra help, etc.! Happy to be a resource for you.

A little bit about me

I did policy debate at Colleyville Heritage High School (2010-2014). I have worked various debate camps over the years such as Mean Green Debate/DUDA and have been an assistant coach for Jesuit College Prep (2018-2019) and Greenhill (2019-2020). I currently work for the Boston Debate League.

On to debate stuff

Framing arguments in the context of the entire debate/connecting across flows is very important. Otherwise, I have to intervene and make assumptions, which puts you in a risky position.

Kritiks: Links need to be contextualized to the aff. If you win a link, you do not automatically win the debate. You also need to articulate the terminal impact to that link and how those impacts interact with the impacts of the affirmative. Performance/no rez affs are okay with me, but I'll be honest, I'm probably better in the back of the room for a more policy-oriented round.

Framework: Framework is a debate to be had. Please use warrants when you defend your vision of debate- i.e. if you claim your world of debate is more inclusive, how?

Topicality: You need to articulate your violation and terminal impact quite clearly. I find it more persuasive when fairness is used as a terminal link into education/portable skills as opposed to the terminal impact itself. I default to competing interpretations unless you identify a reason otherwise (ex: the education their interpretation accesses is net bad, etc.). Examples of topical versions of the aff and examples of the types of absurd affs their interpretation would justify are useful when explaining these things.

Disadvantages: Agenda politics debates are my favorite, but I haven’t seen a good scenario in a while. Impact comparison will get you far in debate. You can win a zero risk of the aff (if you prove zero solvency of the aff I will also vote neg on presumption, but you better be pretty confident in this). I do not think there is always a risk of a disad if you win a link.

Counterplans: Your counterplan needs to be competitive with the affirmative (whether you establish this with textual competitiveness, etc. I do not care). I like PICs that are well researched.

Theory: While I do think that theory is important, I will not vote on a dropped theory argument that is very blippy just because it is dropped. The argument needs to be well impacted and articulated enough throughout prior speeches for it to be an option. I don’t like “new affs bad” or “no wiki bad” arguments, but any other theory argument is okay with me.

Miscellaneous

You should be nice to one another.

Spreading is fine, but you should be clear.

Open-CX is fine. However, the individuals who are supposed to be participating in the CX should be the ones primarily contributing to it.

Flowing is a big thing for me. I think by not doing it (or not doing it well), you actively sabotage your chances of winning the debate.

Stealing prep is cheating and annoying. I don’t like to have to constantly remind you to stop prepping when everyone is just waiting for a speech doc to be sent out.

If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask.

Jack Griffiths

Assistant Coach and Alumni Service Corps at Jesuit Dallas

jack9riff at gmail dot com

Updated Before TFA State

About Me:
- Debated at Jesuit from 2015-2019 (2A)
- Have experience with all sorts of arguments, from mostly big-stick arguments my first few years to mostly K-oriented strategies my senior year
- Judged, coached, and cut cards part-time for Jesuit during the pandemic years
- Have been serving as assistant coach during my ASC year at Jesuit (2023-2024) and judging at local, regional, and national tournaments (about 40 rounds total so far this year)

**I have made some updates throughout the paradigm to give a better sense of how I have decided these different kinds of debates during this season.

I believe that my responsibility as a judge is to adapt to the debaters' arguments rather than the other way around. There are arguments I'm more familiar with than others, but as long as your explanations are well-warranted and digestible, you should feel free running what you want to run (with the exception of arguments that are discriminatory or advocate for self-harm).

For me, doing proper clash and line-by-line is absolutely essential. Debates become the most enjoyable when they feature lots of organized back-and-forth and detailed comparisons between arguments. The most crucial elements of line by line include keeping an accurate flow, proper signposting (“2AC 1—they say x, we say y”), and using your own voice to initiate comparisons (rather than simply reading walls of cards). To elaborate more on that last item, I find myself more persuaded by debaters who acknowledge the areas where they’re behind and explain why they still win (i.e. “even if they win x, we still win because y”) than by debaters who assert that they’re winning on absolutely every level (which is almost never true).

Note: to incentivize clash, if you show me your flows after the debate, and I believe that your flows truly served as the basis of your argumentation during your speeches, I will give you +0.2 speaker points.

Because of everything stated above, I find myself disappointed by debates in which teams either don’t directly clash or in which teams intentionally avoid the need to clash by throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. This isn’t to say that you can’t initiate a high volume of arguments in front of me, but if it comes at the expense of direct engagement with the other team’s arguments, I’m less likely to enjoy the round.

Things that increase speaker points: active flowing, direct clashing, strategic use of CX, effective use of framing moments in the final rebuttals

Things that limit speaker points: not flowing (and struggling to do effective line-by-line as a result), being overly aggressive/snarky, over-reliance on tag-team CX

Theory

Although I've generally unlikely to reject the team, I have pulled the trigger in the past. More often, theory is best used to give yourself more leeway when answering a sketchy argument. Conditionality is generally good but can become less good with multiple conditional contradictory worlds, an absence of solvency advocates, an abundance of conditional CP planks, etc. SPEC arguments are usually uncompelling to me. News affs are good—I wouldn’t burn 10 seconds in the 1NC by reading your shell.

Be sure to slow down a bit when reading all your compressed analytics. Finding in-round examples of abuse isn't intrinsically necessary but does help you out quite a bit.

Topicality

Topic-specific thoughts: While many debaters have asserted that tax-and-transfer is intrinsically the core of the topic, I'm not quite as convinced, as it often seems like affs with taxes sideline discussions of the 3 areas in favor of whole advantages predicated off of whatever taxes they choose to defend. I also am likely to be more skeptical of tax-and-transfer affs that don't have a solvency advocate that advocates for both the tax AND the transfer as a complete package. I can definitely still vote for such affs, but I’m open to listen to teams that can speak to the trends I've been witnessing, and teams that are in favor of tax-and-transfer as their view of the topic should have a more warranted explanation for why that view is good.

General thoughts:When deciding these rounds, I first decide whether to evaluate the debate through competing interpretations or reasonability (based on which framework I have been persuaded is best based on the debating) before looking deeper into the flow. I default to competing interpretations if not given an alternative (which generally means I end up deciding the debate based on the comparative risks of the two team's standards). I personally find reasonability at its most compelling/least arbitrary when contextualized to a counter-interpretation (i.e. as long as our counter-interpretation is reasonable enough, you should vote affirmative) rather than when presented in an aff-specific way (i.e. we’re a camp aff so we’re topical). If after the debate I decide to evaluate the round through the lens of reasonability, that usually means I should vote aff unless their interp is evidently bad for debate.

I think debaters tend to spend too much time reading cards in these debates that could instead be spent on giving concrete examples for their standards to help me visualize the limits explosion, loss in ground, etc. Teams also should be doing a better job at explaining the terminal impact to these standards (i.e. what does "precision" actually mean and how much does it matter?). Not articulating your impacts will force me to intervene more than I'm usually comfortable with.

K Aff vs T/Framework

I’ve judged a few of these, and my decisions in them have generally come down to which side gives me a better sense of what their model of debate produces relative to the other team’s. Negative teams are most compelling when they articulate how iterative debates with a resolutional focus produce research skills, engagement through clashing perspectives, and topic-specific knowledge. Affirmative teams are persuasive when they successfully point out limitations of the negative’s model of debate and/or when they argue that the values the negative espouses will be used for detrimental ends absent the affirmative’s method. “Procedural fairness” could be an impact but most teams that have centralized their strategy around it have sounded too tautological to me, so if going for it is your preference then make sure to articulate why fairness is important beyond just saying “debate is a game so fairness must be important.” A K Aff should still have some connection to the resolution/topic area as well as a clearly-signposted advocacy statement. Affirmatives also need to have robust answers to TVAs and switch side debate.

K vs. K

Although I’ve never judged this form of debate, I had a few rounds like these as a debater from the negative side. I think it’s an open discussion whether the affirmative should be able to have a permutation in these debates—the more vague the affirmative’s method is, the more likely I am to defer negative.

Policy Aff vs K

I have three asks for affirmative teams. First, leverage the 1AC, whether in the form of “case outweighs” argument, a disad to the alt, or as an example of why whatever thing the negative criticizes can be good. Second, choose a strategy that synergizes well with the type of affirmative you’re reading. If your 1AC is 8 minutes of heg good, impact turn. If you’re a soft-left aff, link turn by explaining how the solvency of the aff can challenge structures of oppression. Third, prioritize offensive arguments. I’ve seen too many debates where the 2AR spends almost all their time going for the “perm double bind” and overly defensive strategies. Instead, center the debate about why your method is good and makes things better and why the alternative makes things worse.

Negatives should be able to explain their kritiks without heavily reliance on jargon, especially when reading high theory (given my relative unfamiliarity with it). I like it when negatives present detailed link narratives that are specific to the aff, explain how the alternative addresses the proximate causes of the affirmative impacts, and leverage on-case arguments to supplement the kritiks. I like it less when negatives rely on “tricks” (e.g. framework landmines, ontology without impacting it out) or enthymemes (i.e. establishing only part of an argument/dropping a buzzword while expecting me to fill in the blanks for you simply because prevalent K teams make the same argument).

A note on framework: I am personally uncomfortable voting on overly-exclusionary framework interpretations (e.g. "no Ks allowed" or "aff doesn't get to weigh the plan) unless one team is dropping the ball, and so I'm more compelled by nuanced interpretations that leave some room for the other side (e.g. "the aff can weigh their plan but we should still be able to problematize their assumptions"). For similar reasons, I'm not the biggest fan of pure fiat Ks (but if you win them then you do you, I suppose).

Counterplan Debates

I've progressively grown more and more frustrated by the proliferation of random, old process CPs that steal the aff this year. Not to say you can't read them, but I'll be more sympathetic to smart aff permutation arguments, and you should make sure your theory defenses are sufficient.

Counterplans should have solvency advocates—and if you manage to find a hyper-specific solvency advocate related to the aff, that can make me more open to counterplans that I might otherwise deem sketchy (process, conditions, etc.). Topic/aff-specific PICs are valuable because they reward targeted research, but word/language-related PICs are likely less legitimate unless you have a very compelling reason why they make sense in a given debate. I’m ambivalent about multiplank counterplans, but if you claim planks are independently conditional and/or you lack a unified solvency advocate for all the planks, I’m more likely to side with the aff. I won’t judge kick unless you tell me in the 2NR.

Disadvantage Debates

Disad debates are fun as long as they’re presented with qualified evidence that can reduce the need for too much “spin.” Controlling uniqueness is important. Turns case is most valuable when contextualized specifically to the aff scenarios and when it isn’t reliant on the negative winning full risk of their terminal impact. Risk can be reduced to zero with smart defensive arguments and if the quality of the disad is just that bad, but generally you’ll be in a better spot if you find a source of offense (which can be even something as simple as “case outweighs”).

Case

Although case answers are (sadly) generally underutilized by the negative, they have influenced quite a few of my recent decisions, so negative teams should feel compelled to make case debating a more crucial part of their strategy in front of me. Internal link and solvency takeouts (both evidenced and analytical) are much more persuasive to me than reading generic impact defense.

Jake LoRocco

Updated 1/10/2023

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About Me

I did policy debate for four years in high school at Dallas Jesuit. I did not debate in college but judged throughout and stayed involved in the community.

Currently judging/volunteering with the Boston Debate League.

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General

I'm good with any type of argument (as long as it's not racist, sexist, etc...) in any form (K, DA, CP, etc...). No matter the argument though, tell me why it's important and why I should vote for it. And please make it aff specific.

You can talk as fast as you want (and I will let you know if you aren't clear).

I don't think new affs bad is a legitimate argument.

jesuit '21

boston university '25 (majoring in political science and international relations)

2n/1a

he/him

yes, i want to be on the email chain: jesuitdebatemr@gmail.com

online debate things

slow down a little bit! especially in the online environment, clarity > speed, and i won't be following along with the speech doc while you're speaking, so it's in your best interest to make sure i can hear everything during the speech. if you're having tech difficulties, that's totally fine, i'm not going to dock speaks or anything, but make sure you/your partner is giving a play by play of what's going on so i know you're not stealing prep.

don't read arguments about zoom/jitsi being bad. yes, it sucks. no, that's not a reason you pointing that out deserves a win.

general things

i will attempt to adjudicate any round i judge as impartially as i can, but no judge is truly tabula rasa. i have my argumentative biases, but except for the non-negotiables, i can be convinced to vote on pretty much anything with specific and well-warranted clash. be nice to your partner and the other team, your novice year is meant to get you excited and invested in debate, you don't need to go full throttle on competitiveness to the point that it makes it not fun for other people in the "room." truth filters tech and vice versa (truth matters a lot more for politics).

water topic specific things

i know nothing about this "water" thing, so please explain topic specific jargon if you want me to understand it. i'm not going to look anything up post-debate that's not been said out loud or is in your cards, so if something doesn't make sense/is poorly explained, it's probably not going to be a factor in my ballot.

things that aren't really negotiable

- death is bad

- racism/sexism/structures of oppression are bad, impact turning that will result in a loss

- each speaker will give a constructive and a rebuttal, with constructives lasting 8 minutes and rebuttals lasting 5 minutes

- do not read any advocacy of suicide (i.e. pinkard)

i realize that some people view things (like death good) as arguments that should be heard out, but debate is at its core a persuasive activity, and you just won't persuade me with it :)

to be absolutely clear, i reserve the right to vote you down for any of the things listed above, as well as the right to arbitrarily determine what counts as advancing those arguments. in other words, don't test me <3

things that i guess are arguments but you really shouldn't rely on in front of me

- any kind of "spec"

- disclosure theory

- new affs bad

affs, if you hit any of those arguments, they are bad, but you still need to say why they are bad.

case debate

please do it, and do it in a substantial manner. a lot of affs, especially this year, rely on counter intuitive claims about the world to get to extinction. case debate has kinda fallen by the wayside in recent years, and i think that you ought to be engaging the case.

DAs

i love DAs! unfortunately they suck this year. i'll vote on them if you establish a coherent story and make it specific to the aff, but be warned: politics really, really doesn't make sense. i'm not going to grant you a risk of your DA just because you read it, if the aff is clearly winning logical indicts of the argument, i'm comfortable voting on 0% risk. link specificity is what will win you these debates, even if your evidence isn't name dropping the aff, make your contextualization apply.

politics might make sense after the inauguration, but if you don't read 2021 cards don't expect me to be happy - negs, please update your shells - affs, call out negs that don't. if a neg reads a DA that is no longer factually true, like 2020 elections, then all a 2AC or 1AR needs to say is that "this DA isn't a thing" and tell me why it's not. if it's not brought up, i'll assign a very low risk to your DA, but because negs make strategic choices based on aff answers i will *sigh* still evaluate your "DA." please don't tho. expect me to intervene more in politics debate, i'm kind of a wonk.

CPs

they need a net benefit and they need to be competitive. ideally, both of those will come from plan text wording or external offense like a DA instead of an internal net benefit that isn't an opportunity cost to the aff, but it's up to the aff to prove why an internal net benefit is bad, i won't do that work for them. as a debater, i didn't like shady process/consult/actor CPs, but once again, it's up to the aff to win a theoretical objection to a counterplan. PICs are chill with specific solvency advocates, and i have a special place in my heart for smart word PICs.

for the aff, use adjectives with your theory. i.e., multiple conditional PICs without a solvency advocate are bad > condo bad.

i lean neg on condo unless it's an egregious amount of contradictory advocates. for perfcon, make arguments about both why it's theoretically bad and why it implicates their arguments. despite me being a 2n, i'm not the biggest fan of judge kick, so as long as the aff brings up by the 1ar and extends to the 2ar why i shouldn't, unless the neg is very compelling i probably won't judge kick a CP, but that's more of an ideological disposition than anything set in stone.

T vs. policy affs

sometimes t is necessary against particularly abusive affs, just make sure you keep the flow clean. i default competing interps, and i think if you've won reasonability, you're probably winning your interp/we meet so it doesn't matter that much. please in the name of all that is holy keep the flow clean. slow down and clearly warrant out your standards with internal links and impacts, just like with a DA.

kritiks

love 'em. kind of. sort of. but also very much yes. they're probably the best arguments on this topic, and there's a ton of insanely specific topic literature that makes these interesting and fun debates to have. that being said. these are the worst and best debates. messy K debates are some of the worst, and clean and innovative K debates are pretty awesome. here's a collection of some of my thoughts on Ks.

- i'm familiar, generally, with kritiks relating to capitalism, biopower, settler colonialism, anti-blackness, borders, abolition, and security. i'm not familiar with kritiks relating to baudrillard, bataille, and other forms of psychoanalysis. in any case, explain your literature in easy-to-understand terms. it's probably not in your best interest to let me fill in the gaps in your theory.

- long overviews (with no real point besides hiding tricks) = bleh

- specificity is necessary to win a K debate. if you don't mention the aff in a speech, i will have a very hard time voting for you.

- winning your theory of power does not mean you auto-win.

- framework needs to have a point. i feel like ultimately, i'm going to weigh some part of the aff, but it's up to y'all to frame which parts are more important and what i should/shouldn't include in weighing.

- i mentioned this in the non-negotiables, but i feel compelled to really emphasize this, do not read suicide as an advocacy or death good. if you're aff, please make an argument about those arguments being unethical. i still won't vote on them, but i'll feel better about that if you initiate that in the debate.

everything else is up for debate. i read a ton of Ks (almost all my 2nrs) my junior and senior years, so i have no aversion for you going for one. just do it well.

if you're a novice and reading this, i would caution you against going for a k at all if you're not totally 100% confident on how to go for one. i will be >:( if your debate devolves down to some incoherent miasma of k words. no one benefits from that, including your chance of winning and your speaks. affs, hunker down and tell me how your aff interacts with the K.

K affs

yes!!

- justify your aff's existence. have reasons why your aff and the model of debate you are forwarding are good, and make those reasons specific.

- you need some relation to the topic. which probably means something more substantial than adding one new card to a backfiles aff.

- be nice to your opponent. if they seem to be lost/confused, don't bully them.

- fairness is probably just an internal link to education/clash, but i won't default to that understanding unless i'm instructed to. of course negs can refute that idea, but that's just my starting ideological bias.

- presumption is a good argument to gut check the aff's method of solvency. i think that a smart CX can dismantle aff solvency if an aff can't explain their method of solvency well.

T vs. K affs (or where i say the magic words about my stance on fairness)

fairness/procedural fairness is an impact just like any other. that means you have to debate it like an impact. you have to prove a) a specific internal link to the aff and b) why fairness is good in the abstract with specific impact scenarios that relate to the aff.

for the aff, that means that creative and specific impact turns to fairness will generally outweigh really generic explanations of it coming from the neg.

clash is good, but i think both the aff and neg can win persuasive reasons why their model of clash is better and why the other's is bad.

i think the aff probably needs to be defending a counter-interpretation of the topic and not just impact turns to the neg's interp. i think that creative internal link debating that dismantles generic extensions of framework is really cool, you don't only need to impact turn to prove why your model is better.

speaker points

good speaking gets good points, offensive things get bad points. i flow on paper and i will try my best not to read along with docs during the speech, so if i don't catch something because you're going too fast/aren't clear, i don't feel compelled to look at a document to fill in the gaps for you.

also, unequal partner dynamics are kinda sus, especially if it involves a person who presents as a guy just running over someone who presents as a girl.

if you have any questions, don't be scared to ask!!!

Background

- Jesuit Dallas '21 - Debated Education, Immigration, Arms Sales, and Criminal Justice Reform (If this matters)

- A&M '25

- 2N/1A - 1 year (Freshman year)

- 2A/1N - 3 years

- Email for email chains and speech docs: joshram2021@gmail.com and jcpdebate@gmail.com (email my personal email for questions about past rounds/general questions; for questions, just give me a couple days to respond)

-- For GDI, just use my personal email

Top Level

- Line By Line matters, clash is key (I will auto number Case args and the 2AC block, if it isn't numbered)

- Please be nice

- My coaches have impacted my view of debate a lot (Tracy McFarland and Dan Lingel), along with my fellow Jesuit Class of 2021 and some alum

- All of these are just my initial views on certain things but obviously my mind can be changed based on who did the better debating

- Evidence comparison is great

- Read your re-highlightings in round unless it doesn't makes sense to do it

- Underviews and overviews that aren't used for judge instruction aren't useful for anyone

- CX is a useful reference to refer to in speeches, I'll try to pay attention

- Short Overviews --X------- Long Overviews

- Explanations X--------- Enthymemes

- Tech ----X----- Truth

- Don't steal ev and disclosure is good, re-highlighting or recutting a card is different than using a card from another team in a debate (I can help with giving access to pdfs/articles, especially if they're Jesuit cut). Also don't clip

- I will try to read the important ev after the round, especially if you flag it down

- Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions before and after the round

- PLEASE don't read any advocacy advocating for suicide, I will vote you down if you do end up advocating for suicide (There are explicit arguments for that phrase that the authors who use it have, USE THAT EXPLANATION, you are still open to criticisms of that advocacy to begin with). Regardless, I think there are better arguments instead of suicide advocacy.

- Feel free to ask if you need a clarification of my RFD, I sometimes ramble

FOR NOVICES - Novice year really pushed me to want to continue debate so make sure to have fun and ask questions, I'll do my best to explain the argument and what your answer could've been.

FOR ONLINE DEBATE - I'd ideally like everyone's camera to be on during the debate, or at least when you're giving a speech, but I understand if there's technical problems that mean it's not possible. PLEASE start slightly slower, I have good quality headphones now but like if your mic is peaking I'm just not gonna properly process what you're saying

Econ Topic Specific Thoughts/Ramblings

- Rounds Judged: 5

- T over what "financial redistribution" is seems important

- I'm a little new to learning about how some of the econ stuff works so I'm more likely to read the ev when it comes down to some of the nitty gritty tech stuff for it

T/Procedurals

- Majority of my 1NRs were either a DA or T

- Good T debates are really fun to watch and judge, clear up impacts and how your interp best accesses those

- I default to competing interpretations (Reasonability requires you to win some semblance of a we meet or your Counter interp resolving limits)

- Caselists are very very important

- Limits is important but limits for the sake of limits is bad

- Ev should be read in T debates (either interps or what their interp would justify; If you can read a solvency advocate for what their interp would include, that would be very impressive and gives Neg's game on the limits debate), call out interps that aren't related to the topic (PLEASE DON'T JUST CARD DUMP, especially if your interps contradict or aren't in the context of the res, cause the 1AR will be very persuasive to me if they point that out)

- That being said, Interps should probably be in the context of the res, Aff's should either point out it doesn't or draw lines from their interp to prove we meet

- Please make these clean, messy T debates are really easy to cause and make everything harder

- Procedurals should have some relation to the res

- Extra-T and Effects T are both cool, but need thorough explanation (I would know cause some 1NRs I would just say it without like a decent explanation). Will definitely vote on it though (probably Extra more than Effects cause Extra is more justifiable)

DAs

- Specific DAs = perfect

- There can be 0% risk of a DA

- It's very important that DAs have some form of external impact compared to the Aff, please do impact calc that frames the impact stories and their interaction (through like turns case or time frame/probability/magnitude)

- Evidence specificity is important when it comes to DAs

- Politics DAs are potentially alive now, stay within reason, I value recent ev over tech (unless you're spinning the ev harder than Beyblades), I also need you stay coherent with the link story

- Diversify Links and give them some short, flowable labels

CPs

- Sufficiency framing should work for most things except structural violence impacts

- Smart, specific CPs are great combined with specific DAs

- Creative Perms are good

- CPs should be competitive, at least functionally if not both textually and functionally

- Affs should call out shady CPs (i.e. the process of the CP or how the CP would solve the Aff)

- Clear up the technical parts of process CPs as I can get lost in the jargon when it's not explained clearly

- I won't automatically judge kick (I also am adverse to judge kick)

Ks

- A K was in all of my 1NCs except for one round my senior year (the break down is something like 55% Abolition, 35% Cap/Historical Materialism, 5% Security, 5% Settler Biopolitics, and then like 0.1% Borders)

- FW is so underutilized

- I'm still confused with high theory Ks (like pomo type stuff, am familiar with the theories but the more vocab you throw at me the more I'm gonna get lost)(race/identity based stuff I'm super familiar with and am comfortable deciding on as long as it doesn't get messy) but I'll do my best (I've run Cap/Historical Materialism, Borders, Deschooling, Security, Abolition, and Bioptx and debated a plethora)

- Link stories are important and explaining exactly what part of the Aff you are kritiking (your life is so much easier if you impact out links)

- Overviews that require a page or half of my flow are not good and will annoy me, ESPECIALLY if you start doing just all the K work on the other page, cause then what's the point of that initial K flow

- Case debating is very important, I'll give the Aff leeway on weighing the Case vs the K if there's 0 contestation throughout the debate/in the 2NR (i.e. Case impacts, value of debating the Aff on FW, Perm explanation, etc.). Neg's can challenge this by either A) actually implicating case args with the K or B) on the K flow, explaining how it relates to the mechanisms of the 1AC/Aff, if that make sense

- K alts should be explained (i.e. explain how the world of the alt would looks), they are often the weakest parts of the K so please try to explain them in some way that resolves the links and the Aff (I use the language of resolve because the Alt doesn't need to "solve" but like prove how the Alt addresses the bad assumptions of the Aff and the harms that the Aff attempts to address); Also, please don't make your K's just sad tarnished case turns.

- Diversify the Links (either with cards, how they explained the Aff would function, or how the Aff is written), if you read generic evidence, please explain how it relates to the Aff and how the Aff is what the card is talking about (generic links are probably alright if they relate to the Aff in some aspect, i.e. if the card doesn't have x part of the Aff in the card or mentions the Aff in any capacity, the Neg should explain why the card still applies)

K Affs

- Explain what voting for you means and what my vote means in the context of the Aff (I know that I vote for the better debater, at least that is my default understanding of what the ballot means, but what is the advocacy/worldview of the Aff), both sides must explain the importance of the ballot in relation to the Aff (There's a big difference between advocating for a method related to the topic vs pointing out how x thing is racist and that's bad, etc.; Just because I read K Affs doesn't mean I won't vote on presumption if I have no idea why I vote Aff or what the Aff's method is trying to accomplish)

- Please have some form of advocacy, related to the topic, that you can defend throughout the debate (Don't shift it because it confuses me more and probably gives more leverage to T/FW; consistency is key for Aff offense and fighting the zump)

- I'm much more persuaded on Models of Debate discussions paired with turns/offense over straight Impact turns to education and fairness (doesn't mean I won't vote on education and fairness turns, I just happen to be more familiar with these debates over Counter Interps/Models of Debate)

Neg strats

- T/FW - Debate is a game (a very fun game), Fairness is more of an internal link (Like debate is a game but education/portable skills is stuff we actually get out of round, it's the telos), I prefer Clash/Advocacy Skills/External Impacts over the usual Fairness/Education, TVAs are great and almost always a must. Focus on forwarding offense cause these debates can get compartmentalized, contextualize your blocks (please clash with the args instead of reading your blocks, this goes for both teams) (I find many rounds when I was Aff where I got away with a lot of things b/c of the moving parts of offense). I understand the small distinction between T and FW but at the end, it comes down to models of debate (that is gonna be my default unless you make the distinction clearer for me)

- K's - I understand Historical Materialism/Cap the best out of all the K's in K vs K Aff debates. Probably neutral on whether there are Perms in a method debate (ofc depends on the types of methods engaged in), link debate and framing is where I determine whether I should allow a Perm (FW debate too, probably). Please PLEASE contextualize links to the Aff's method or theory's assumptions, it makes the Link clearer and gives the Aff less room for link turns/Perm explanation.

- Other strats - PICs, procedurals, Counter Advocacies etc. are strategic and interesting. I'll listen to them but will probably evaluate them similar to some of the way I view things above. Feel free to ask specifics.

- Case is/can be important for either 2NR you would go for and some of the Case cards should be cross applied if not referenced. 2NRs not getting to Case gives 2ARs way too much room to use the weight of the Aff vs whatever the 2NR was, which I'm sympathetic to because there wasn't an answer to case (super helpful during my Senior year when Case was like barely anything in the 2NR)

Theory

- Theory is pretty cool

- Specific theory = even cooler

- Contextualize it to other arguments run and what happens in the round, this is probably my weakest area to judge a debate on, partly cause if you go too fast, I can't write everything down (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ACTUALLY COMPARE STANDARDS AND INTERPS, it gets frustrating when both teams just rant about what their interp on theory is, without actually clash between the two)

- Ask if there are any specific views that I have on CPs and other things (Condo is dependent on the situation, PICs are good, Word PICS are 50/50 (probably need a good interp on what words you should be able to PIC out of), Multi-plank CPs with more than one solvency advocate aren't good, Dispo is just spicy Condo, Process CPs are meh, Con-Con and NGAs are boooo)

- This is probably my weakest area to judge (ironic for a former 2A), so please please please make sure that you're clear when spreading through your blocks and make sure that you're doing the right work, because I really don't want to do the comparison for you, especially if I wasn't able to get half your standards

Case

- If I didn't have a DA or T, I always took Case in the 1NR, it showcased how important/helpful it is for in depth case debating that relates back to whatever the 2NC took, whether it was a K or DA or CP

- Offense and defense matters, make sure to frame them

- Impact turns that are smart are great (Won't vote on Racism good, Sexism good, etc.; I don't think I understand Death Good well enough to be able to form an opinion, at least the high theory Baudrillard level of it) (PLEASE don't just card dump, I've done this before and it wasn't clean; if it works against a K Aff go for it)

- 2AR/2NR framing/judge instruction is pretty important and very helpful, didn't realize how important it was until I started listening to some of my speeches, there's a big difference between extending your offense and framing offense against each other and giving me words to write in my ballot and give in the RFD

toby.whiz@gmail.com

Fundamentally I see debate as a game. I think it is a valuable and potentially transformative game that can have real world implications, but a game none the less that requires me to choose a winner. Under that umbrella here are some specifics.

1. Comparative analysis is critical for me. You are responsible for it. I will refrain from reading every piece of evidence and reconstructing the round, but I will read relevant cards and expect the highlighting to construct actual sentences. Your words and spin matters, but this does not make your evidence immune to criticism.

2. The affirmative needs to engage the resolution.

3. Theory debates need to be clear. Might require you to down shift some on those flows. Any new, exciting theory args might need to be explained a bit for me. Impact your theory args.

4. I am not well versed in your lit. Just assume I am not a "____________" scholar. You don't need to treat me like a dullard, but you need to be prepared to explain your arg minus jargon. See comparative analysis requirement above.

Side notes:

Not answering questions in CX is not a sound strategy. I will give leeway to teams facing non responsive debaters.

Debaters should mention their opponents arguments in their speeches. Contextualize your arguments to your opponent. I am not persuaded by those reading a final rebuttal document that "answers everything" while not mentioning the aff / neg.

Civility and professionalism are expected and will be reciprocated.

Speech events. I am looking for quality sources and logic in OO and Inf. I have been teaching speech for 18 years and will evaluate fundamentals as well.