I will do my best to evaluate the debate as fairly as possible despite any of my biases. Debate is a persuasive game and read the arguments that you feel most comfortable reading.

Have fun, enjoy the debate, and respect one another! Respect people’s pronouns

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at katiecarithers@gmail.com

Policy:

Debated policy for 4 years in high school as a 2N and 1 year in college as a 2A

Impact calc is extremely important and often under-utilized—it can decide which team wins or loses a debate.

Topicality: I think really any aff can lose to a t violation if argued well and not utterly ridiculous. Debaters should explain their impacts beyond nebulous ideas like “fairness” and “education” and clearly identify and articulate offense. What the topic would look like under each interpretation should be explained including affs allowed and affs excluded.

Topicality vs. Plan-less Affs: I think fairness arguments are persuasive, especially reasons why fairness should precede education or is a pre-requisite to advocacy/engagement/critical thinking skills. I also coach students who read plan-less or advocacy-based affirmatives and think the neg probably needs to win that a state heuristic is a good model of debate.

Ks: I have gone for Ks and am familiar with general K literature. Leverage your links and make the K as specific to the aff as possible. Explain the alt and why it solves for its impacts and why it solves for or accesses the impacts of the aff.

The aff impacts are powerful tool to leverage vs the K, especially when most alts are nebulous or unexplained

K tricks should always still be answered in the 2AR even if the 1AR drops them with an explanation that they were not articulated in that same argumentative form in the block as in the 2NC – example: “fiat is illusory” said in the 2NC and then blown up in the 2NR.

Theory: Well-debated theory debates can be great – I ran a lot of Process/Agent CPs my senior year.

LD:

I taught at the San Jose Debate Institute this past summer and have judged upwards of 40 LD debates. I have also been coaching LD for the past year.

Tricks: I am less familiar with this style of debate

Theory: I am probably less lenient on theory violations without well-explained and rigorously defendable arguments of reasons to reject the team

rnix@bostondebate.org

Policy Debate Coach for 3 years at Edward M Kennedy (MA), now working for the Boston Debate League. I'm familiar with the resolution and most of the common policy Affs this year. I'm familiar with the more common K and Theory arguments, but if you're running a theory-heavy kritikal aff, do a little bit extra to make sure I understand your argument. I believe my role as the judge is to help both teams improve their arguments and learn from the round.

I go blank slate as best as possible, but I will vote down offensive arguments, and I will explain myself fully in my feedback if that is the reason why I voted you down. I will vote on anything, including K, T, Theory, FW.

Please extend your positions throughout the debate, if you drop an entire position in a speech, even if you bring it back later, I will vote on fairness/violation issues (but only if the other team actually explains the nature of the violation and why I should care that there was a violation in the round, I will do my best not to intervene). Violations won't lose you the debate, but they may cause me not to consider some of your arguments.

I will only ask to see evidence if there has been a direct challenge by the opposing team to it's content or validity.

Impact analysis is the debate round. Convince me why your impacts within your framework are best and why you best achieve your framework and you'll win the round. If one side drops framework, I will assume whatever framework the other team gives me. You need to do the work to weigh the most important arguments at the end of the round. It's safe to assume that if an argument was run and extended throughout the debate that I will at least minimally weigh it in my decision calc, so ultimately you need to explain to me why the summation of your impacts outweighs those of the other team.

I'm pretty good with speed, but volume is important, as long as you're loud enough we'll be all set. There is something to be said for emphasizing your most important points by extending them throughout the round and changing your tone when you present them. Otherwise I will assume everything you're saying has equal weight, which may not benefit you in the round.

Organization is important. Tell me which flow you're on and tell me when you move to something new. If you're giving a line-by-line, let me know, otherwise I'm going to flow everything straight down as an over/underview. I won't do the work for you on the flow.