Niles North

put these on the chain: anabojinov7@gmail.com and niles-north-debate@googlegroups.com

I'll vote on anything except death good and stuff like that, feel free to ask me questions before the round. Please flow and time your speeches and prep. I prefer policy and I'm not that familiar with specific K lit, but I'll vote on Ks.

Have fun and don't be mean!

email: bbousquettedebate@gmail.com

Hey y'all, thanks for checking out my paradigm. Chances are, you're prepping for a debate, so I'll keep it short.

General Stuff: I'm a freshman at the University of Michigan, and I've been a K debater all throughout high school and college. I rarely read policy, but I'd like to think that I've done sufficient background research to understand policy arguments enough. Tech > truth, and I've read all sorts of crazy arguments like Virilio and Death Good. Because of my background, I'm inherently biased against heg good args, but I'll do my best to keep that bias out of the round. You should, however, explain and GIVE EXAMPLES when I'm listening to a heg debate.

In terms of K on the neg debate, I'm well-versed in queer literature, most post-modernism with the exception of Deleuze (please don't read Deleuze in front of me), and race theory/set col theory.

K affs: love them. Read them. Performances? Even better. I'm a sucker for a good performance. Just make sure your answers to framework aren't just "they're racist" or "they're homophobic" -- my threshold for an aff ballot rides upon weighing why the aff is a uniquely better model of debate than the current framework. Definitely frame my ballot in the 2AR/2NR.

DAs: Have a specific link, but other than that, go for it.

CPs: Functionally, I love counterplans. In execution, a lot of teams perform them terribly. The existence of the counterplan opens up so many possible opportunities, as they're meant to be nontopical versions of the aff. I've gone for odd counterplans, like Berkeley Prep KZ's "Angry Father", I've written and read an "Eat the Rich" counterplan, but I've also gone for policy CPs like Escalate. As long as you CLEARLY explain the net benefit, you'll probably get a ballot if you can explain why the aff doesn't access the net benefit but you do. (i.e alliances w/ a uq cp)

Hi, I'm Eemaan (ee-mahn), I use she/her pronouns, and I'm a varsity debater at Lane Tech! I have experience with both policy and K debate so I am open to most arguments as long as you can do it well. That said, hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated, and if I catch your team making racism good, patriarchy good, etc. arguments or using derogatory language I will vote you down and give you both lowest speaks.

General things:

- Add me to the email chain: ebutt@cps.edu

- I should be able to hear what you're spreading! Clarity > speed.

- I will keep time, but get into the habit of timing yourselves

- Tag team is fine w me in CX

- If the round gets messy (i.e. no clash, too many dropped arguments), I will lean towards voting for whoever I want. Please dont let it come to that tho as that would make my life harder

Overall, have a good time! Debate can be stressful, especially now that it's all virtual, but allow yourself to have fun and enjoy the round. At the end of the day, this is an activity and a learning experience. Be nice to your partner, to your opponents and to me!

I will give +0.3 speaks if you manage to make a reference to stan twt without it sounding weird.

hi I'm Kendra! add me to the email chain kebyrd1@cps.edu

they/them

let me know your pronouns before the round starts, I don't want to misgender you!

if you mention Beyonce in round I'll give you +.6 speaks.

even more speaks if you can quote a song that she sings on the Homecoming album.

i'll also give you +.1 speaks for having your cameras on throughout the debate.

i'm a varsity debater at LT and I'm probably just as nervous to judge as you may be to debate :) we're in this together

i don't really have any preferred arguments but I like to see people run args that they actually believe in. i prefer clarity over speed but spread until you pass out if you want to.

most importantly, if you use any racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, or any other discriminatory language, you will lose the round with the lowest speaks and i will contact your coach.

be kind to everyone involved in the round but most importantly have fun :)

email: alexisschia@gmail.com

STANFORD & BERKELEY 24: Very thin working knowledge of the topic. Proceed assuming I know almost nothing, ESPECIALLY in heavy econ debates

my name is kyujin (pronounced Q-jin) – he/him, toc elim debater & il state champion @ northside from 2017-21, coaching @ interlake since 2021. email chain: kyujinderradji@gmail.com and interlakescouting@googlegroups.com.

trying to update this once or twice a year every year that I’m active; debaters spend thousands of hours researching and preparing for tournaments, and the least i can do to maximize the benefits that come from that is to let you know how i will approach evaluating the things you prepared to say.

TLDR: no hard and fast rules except that I will not evaluate death good, and i am heavily biased against strategies that eschew line-by-line debating. if you read a planless aff i would put me lower than “k-friendly” judges but not at the bottom of your pref sheet.

LONGER:

top level –

· i have substantive preferences (of course, everyone does even if they don’t say so) BUT those should not change the way you debate. debates are best when debaters are not just Saying The Words They Were Told To Say, but rather when all the debaters have evidently been thinking about their position and making refined and clear arguments that are not intended to confuse but instead to persuade. while, of course, you will not persuade me that we should kill social security to prevent the Hat Man from haunting your dreams, my role is to evaluate the effectiveness of your communication in attempting to prove that such is true.

· additionally, i will exclude arguments prefaced off events that happened outside of what i have witnessed in the debate, ad homs, or otherwise accusatory statements. i will err towards facilitating the continuation of the debate unless it becomes clear that is no longer possible, in which case i will follow tabroom procedure and maximize opportunities to ensure the well-being of the debaters directly affected by malicious and/or harmful behavior.

· do not attempt to pander to me!! there’s obviously a level of comfortability and camaraderie that i think is good and appropriate in the setting of a debate, but ultimately i am almost out of college. many older people in debate lack boundaries when engaging with high schoolers that honestly makes me very uncomfortable. i appreciate being friendly/relaxed etc, and i encourage that, but please do not act like we are old buddies or make comments that you wouldn’t make to a teacher.

· people who have shaped the way i think about debate: john turner, shree awsare, dml, holland bald, luther snagel, addison kane, wayne tang, all of northside c/o '19

pet peeves –

· clarity. i will not clear you. it's up to you to be as clear as possible even if that means sacrificing speed. having to give an rfd where i tell you that i couldn't understand a third of what you were saying is frustrating annoying for me and embarrassing for you.

· kicking stuff. not kicking out of stuff correctly, even if it doesn’t do you any strategic harm, is a very bad look and your speaks will suffer.

· cx. barring the aff is new or you are mav, you must either do cross ex for all 3 minutes or end early. you cannot use cross ex for prep.

speaker points –

· speaker points will be rewarded by knowing what you are talking about, doing research, clarity, strategic vision, and being funny. speaker points will be docked by rudeness/undue assertiveness, lack of clarity, and lack of strategic vision.

· doing my best to accommodate new trends in speaker points even if i might disagree with them. i understand how frustrating it is to have stingy judges give low speaks and jeopardize seeding/breaking.

decision calc –

· tech over truth. BUT! that requires you extend a claim, warrant, and impact. a 2nr should extend an impact and do impact comparison, not something like “they dropped impact #3 in the 1nr, extinction, don’t make me reinvent the wheel” – bad bad bad. setting yourself up for failure at the hands of a smart 2a.

· i need your arguments to make sense – that’s really really crucial. seems like a truism but unfortunately it is not.

evidence –

· i care a lot about evidence quality – i'd say more than the average judge. research is the largest/most valuable portable skill from debate and i will look for ways to reward teams who have clearly conducted original, innovative, and/or high-quality research and can demonstrate the knowledge that research has imparted them with.

· i do read evidence (not every time, but if I feel so compelled) but i will not include that into my decision unless evidence is a subject of disagreement.

· I will read more than the highlighting, but I will only evaluate the un-highlighted portion if I think that you have misrepresented it in a way that makes the evidence read better than it is i.e. you selectively highlight words or ignore paragraphs to make your evidence look more conclusive. I will not include warrants from ev in my decision that you have not read obviously.

· rehighlightings are obvi great, you can insert them, as long as it’s not egregious. You can’t insert cards from other articles that an author has written in order to indict them – you have to read that. the point of inserting recuttings is just to point to the other team’s own evidence and provide direction as to what specifically is at issue with it. introducing other articles obviously requires you read them, because that is not evidence read by the other team.

· caveat to the above – please! make sure you are not mis-recutting evidence. It will look like you didn’t actually read the evidence and assumed it was miscut. Your speaks will suffer.

the rest of this paradigm are my opinions on various positions, but matter much less than what was just said above.

planless affs/framework –

· 70-30 neg. one of the two hardest things for the aff in these debates are when the aff does not have a meaningful reason why debates over the resolution are bad, as opposed to the resolution itself. this usually requires some kind of exclusionary critique of the idea of debating the topic entirely, which is a pretty high bar to clear imo. the other barrier to an aff ballot in my mind is the role of debate. what is the ballot’s function? what does it mean if i vote aff or neg? why is debating the 1ac valuable fro the neg? all of these are questions I think the aff must be able to answer, and often they cannot to a satisfactory degree. given the aff is choosing to forego a traditional defense of the resolution, i think the burden of proof is set significantly higher because the aff must then establish a new set of criteria by which to evaluate the debate – which also often lends to the neg’s predictability offense on framework.

· i heavily prefer impacts pertinent to the process of debate rather than its substance (paraphrased from holland <3). topic education and the like tend to ignore the way that competition/resolutional wording distorts how we approach the topic – and lend themselves to internal link turns absent substantive defense to the 1ac’s thesis claims.

· all good for a da/pic against a planless aff – my favorite debates v k affs senior year were going for tech good against a “zoom bad” aff and heg good against a mao aff.

· NOT good for k v k debates. i will likely be confused and you will likely be unhappy with my decision.

counterplans –

· :thumbs-up:

· fine for intricate competition debates BUT i will need arguments to be warranted – saying “their interp justifies x” is sometimes not immediately intuitive for me, so just err on the side of explaining things more.

· agree with like everyone else that counterplans can’t simply identify an aff internal link and write a plank to the effect of “solve x impact”. it’s like making an alt cause argument that explains no alt causes.

· i won’t automatically judge kick a counterplan.

· i am neg leaning on basically all theory. most theory is better articulated as a competition argument. i am not a good judge for teams who shotgun 1ar extensions of conditionality and make it 5 minutes of the 2ar – obviously can be a legitimate strategy but it feels like it has recently become a safety net for teams who are afraid of debating substance. also, please slow down in heavy theory debates.

disads –

· :thumbs-up:

· comparison and narrative-telling are the most important. telling me why I should care about your thing and using examples/common threads from evidence is very helpful and demonstrates a lot of skill.

t v plans –

· :thumbs-up:

· there should only really be two kinds of t debates to me: one that gets to the core of a topic disagreement (i.e. t-enact on CJR or t-AOS on immigration) and one that points out an egregious instance of a violation. outside of these two instances, i’ll tend to err aff.

· i prefer t debates with lots of evidence, warrants, and little repetition. limits is the best neg impact and (usually) precision or aff ground are the best aff impacts.

k’s vs. plans –

· yes for most. i think these are best executed when they function as an impact turn to core ideological assumptions of the plan. the more the k is [insert theory – no perm because footnote DA] or reps k of [one of your 9 impacts], the less I will be a fan.

· ideally, the function of your framework argument should be to ratchet down the importance of having a coherent alternative.

· i generally quite dislike "you link, you lose", and i have a pretty low threshold for voting aff on framework in these debates. giving the aff some kind of access to their consequences (at least as a defense of their epistemology) will make me much more receptive to a research or epistemology k.

Email: rgu6@illinois.edu and gurachael@gmail.com (in case one doesn't work)

wy '21 (policy)

uiuc '25 (parli)

I am not familiar with the emerging technologies topic this year so please contextualize whenever you can.

I’m not really good with K debates. However, if you do run a K, make sure it is well explained. Be very clear when explaining the link, impact, and alt to the k. I don’t like super wild K’s, so be careful with those.

For the rebuttals, tell me what I should be voting for and why you should win. During novice year, I think it is especially important to do impact calc and evidence comparison.

Please signpost and tell me which argument you are answering and do line-by-line. This would make it easier for me to flow your speech.

Also, have fun and try your best.

Solorio ’21

Any pronouns are coolio.

cesargutierrez.email@gmail.com

If CPS: cgutierrez38@cps.edu

General:

Tech>Truth.

I'll usually vote on anything if well-articulated.

Impact calc is good.

Have fun.

Don't be a jerk.

Clarity over speed.

***Specifics***

Case:

Always important. I do think most teams nowadays are doing less of it. A good 2nr/2ar should always give me a story of what is happening and how I should evaluate it. Overviews are good... just don't forget the line by line. Tell me how the advantage interacts with the disad or kritik and what that means.

Disadvantages:

Love these. I always want a good thorough story of the DA [assume I don't know anything about it]. Turns case should always be there, tell me how your DA interacts with the aff [Don't just be like "Extinction turns the aff", tell me how your impact or Link specifically affects the aff. Blocks are good, just don't rely on them too much. I prefer impact analysis on top instead of an overview. Compare your cards to theirs, "Our card is more recent, qualified, etc...". Every part of the DA is important. You do have to win every part of the DA [Same for Advantages] If they drop a DA [or anything] don't just say "they dropped it", give me a reason why I should care, what does it mean that they dropped it, you get the picture. Link turns case is a really good argument.

Counterplans:

CP and DA is always a good move. Adv cp + impact turn = my fave. You do have to win the net benefit. Won’t vote on a Counterplan without it. 100 planks? Of course. Agent Counterplans are amazing, just make sure to establish competition. Love Pics, the aff does have to win the entire Plan is a good idea. Always remember to answer theory on the CP. Explain how you access the aff's internal links and do the work. Competition determines legitimacy for CPs - if a CP is a legitimate opportunity cost to the aff, aff theory arguments are a bit less persuasive to me.

Topicality:

If you do go for it make sure it's a full 5 minutes. None of this T, CP, and Disad nonsense. Impact out both your standards and theirs. Give me reasons to prefer reasonability and competing interps. Probably need examples of in-round abuse. ASPEC is pure banter. Just don't drop it 2as.

Theory:

This is always an important part of the debate. 3 condo is probably the max. Prove to me why rejecting the team is necessary. If you have to think "is this counterplan shady/cheating". It probably is.

Kritiks:

I find them interesting, explain your theory of power, philosophy, etc. Explain the alt very clear, and how it resolves the impact to the K. I am most familiar in the following, Cap/Neolib, Security, Settler Colonialism, Ableism. Links specific to the aff are amazing. [It has to be why the aff links and not the squo]. Long overviews? Sure why not but don’t just read it and be like “Line by line, done above, done above, done above”. Framework is important, don't undercover this in rebuttals. The vague alt argument isn't very convincing unless made iffy in CX. The alt needs to solve case, establish root cause claims. Not my Baudrillard < Yes, its your Baudrillard.

K Affs:

"Good luck to you" - Conor Cameron 2019.

Misc:

Roadmaps [This is copied from Argent Martinez’s paradigm who copied it from John Tao's paradigm—I agree with them both]

Please. There are four things I've been seeing that drive me absolutely insane - and apparently there's enough for me to even write about it.

1) Roadmapping the 1AC. Don't do it. It's not necessary. It's not a thing.

2) Asking if I want a roadmap. The answer is YES. The answer is always YES (with the exception of the 1AC, because, once again, don't do it).

3) 1NC roadmap - just tell me how many off, and then where you plan on going on. Don't tell me what the Off cases are, that's not necessary.

4) Roadmap by being clear and concise: "DA, K, Case in order of solvency then advantage one." Do not roadmap: "I'm going to go a little bit on solvency, and then maybe the K...and if I have time maybe the DA...."

Important:

Don't be a douchebag. If you are ableist, sexist, racist, etc. I will vote you down on the spot.

add me to the email chain -- ohernandez55@cps.edu

If you are reading this, hello.

My debate philosophy is based on the versatility of debate itself. The fun part about debate is the fact that there are thousands of ways to debate along with unique arguments that may seem unconventional but can be used in a very practical way.

Opinions on counterplans: Although I enjoy the versatility of debate, counterplans lie in a bit of a grey area. I will only vote on a CP if the CP in question is able to thoroughly defend itself against any perm and is intrinsically unique when compared to the AFF.

Kritiques: I vote looser when it comes to Ks. In order for me to vote on a K, it has to have either a clear path of solvency or it the alt is completely unorthodox but has been debated thoroughly and seriously. I will not vote on joke Kritiques. If you are running a K, it is ideal that you debate with both passion and extensive knowledge of the Kritique you are running.

Topicality: I will rarely ever vote on T. Unless there are outright violations outlined thoroughly in the T flow, I most likely will not vote on it unless of course the AFF has dropped it.

Spreading/Speed: When giving a speech, it is important to get through all cards. It is equally important to speak clearly. I am not stingy when it comes to speed, but if it gets to a point where the debater is rambling jibberish, I will begin to consider the better speaker in my decision.

Extra: If you run the Surrealism K, 9 times out of 10 I WILL vote on it. The only time I won't is if the debater just downloaded the file from Open Evidence just to take a quick W. I will know if you did this.

Northside '21

Harvard '25

she/her

Add me to the email chain: laurenhollis@college.harvard.edu

---

Background: I debated for 4 years at Northside College Prep in Chicago, Illinois. I went to workshops over the summer including the Chicago Debate Summer Institute, DDIx, and DDI. I'm currently debating at Harvard. My debating experience is all with policy debate, but I have judged public forum as well.

I am open to all types of debate - DA, CP, T, K, theory - go for it.

Instances of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc will not be tolerated.

I will vote you down if you are egregiously clipping.

Please be nice to one another! Debate should be an enjoyable activity that you are continuously learning from :)

Hey, Im Mason Hubbard I use he/him pronouns and am part of the Lane Tech Varsity debate team. I have knowledge and understanding of both policy and K debate so I am definitely open to most arguments. My main rule is that rounds will be conducted with respect for everyone inside and outside of the room meaning any arguments that are promoting any sort of hate speech (pro racism, sexism, etc) will be voted down and the partnership will receive the lowest speaks. Besides that though I anticipate clashes and really enjoy good cross examination and closing speeches so make sure to to be as engaging as possible.

Further things to take note of:

Add me to email chains: mhubbard2@cps.edu

I prefer clear speaking over speed reading, make sure to pronounce tags loud and clear.

Time your speeches and cross ex always.

I will give additional speaks for any good NBA or marvel movie references during speeches

Overall I look forward to competitive rounds with both teams learning more than they left the round knowing and both sides being respectful to everyone in the room.

bnkatz1@gmail.com

Northside '21

Northwestern '25

0 time TOC qualifier, 4 years of debate for Northside College Prep

He/Him

--

If I am judging a virtual debate and you send documents with analytics omitted, you will be docked speaker points. Your mic quality is not nearly as good as you think it is, so why would you voluntarily make it harder for the person who's deciding which team wins (me) to understand what you're saying by omitting a useful visual supplement? Act like I'm half-deaf.

--

Pay attention to where you use jargon and explain or contextualize where you can. This topic has lots of acronyms so it would help to say full phrases and what they actually mean at least once in-round.

If you can't explain an argument you plan to read in front of me at a conversational speed, there are very good odds that you won't win me over when trying to spread it. Debate what you're comfortable with, not what you think I'll like the most.

I avoid reading speech docs where possible. I will read a card if it is referenced during cross-ex, as well as if specific warrants are called to my attention during speeches. However, I will not give the full robustness of a card's argument to you if all you are doing is repeating the author's name and the claim.

Primarily debated soft left affs in high school, but have also read traditional policy. I have read every kind of argument on the neg. Increasingly sympathetic to traditional big stick affs as a judge, just because soft left debaters have a structurally harder time winning the debate.

Thoughts on arguments:

• Both aff and neg teams severely underfocus on case. This is almost universal. For the neg, aff evidence is never as good as it's made out to be and should be called out in the 1NC. If you're an aff team and truly believe your case is good, then actually spend time talking about why your warrants respond to the neg's on- and off-case arguments (which it should if it's good) beyond just saying that you are extending X card.
• Disads reach zero risk very easily. Although framing debates tend to be ineffective and misfocused, my general perspective is that low probability likely negates high magnitude at the point that a layman would consider your DA contrived. I like politics DAs but they tend to be really bad, and case-specific DAs are often the most interesting but always harder to develop. In general, if you think your DA is good, I'll probably think it's okay; if you think your DA is bad, I'll probably think it's terrible. A good internal link makes everything I said above moot.
• Counterplans have been massacred without forgiveness and it makes me sad. I strongly dislike the current norm of going for the most abusive counterplan that can still be voted for, but a won argument is a won argument. Still, I tend to bias aff theory against CPs even if it's not a reason to reject the team. (advantage cps > pics/agent cps > process cps > cps that compete off of a single word). As far as complicated mechanisms go, go nuts, I'll be able to grasp it.
• Not sure what this topic holds, but I imagine lots of the research will be focused on security and reps-based kritiks. One characteristic of Ks which somehow appears all the time in K Aff debates but never gets drawn own on the neg side is the role of Ks in shaping how the round is argued. If you treat your K like a counterplan, you're fighting a losing battle. I'm not necessarily pro "framework K," but ultimately the alternative is just a digestible manifestation of the epistemology/pedagogy/whatever that you claim the aff is undermining.
• Topicality debates tend to be dependent on a lot of factors external to the resolution - mainly how late into the year it is and how many affs have already been generated on the topic. A small topic tends to lean aff on allowing innovative (to an extent) plans, but large topics justify limiting what affs are acceptable more stringently. In a given round, this is largely irrelevant, but good debaters draw these characteristics in as warrants on the standards debate. These claims provide rhetorical strength and can help the persuasiveness of the line-by-line on interpretations/standards substantially.
• K Affs are interesting and I'll happily vote on them, but I am, personally, reasonably persuaded by aff arguments favoring predictability and the benefits of switch-side debate. A good kritikal aff is not one which critiques the resolution, but critiques the way that we debate the resolution. If your aff does the latter, most framework arguments go out the window. I will deduct speaker points for 2ACs that have a massive overview but doesn't include it in the doc.
• K v K debates are the debates I have debated and certainly judged the least. I think it's the burden of the aff to prove that perms are allowed in a method debate since the aff has already gone so far as to reject the resolution to justify reading their advocacy, but it is up for discussion. Cap links to just about everything but that doesn't always means it's good. The Parenti and Emanuele card is not nearly good enough for the amount it gets read by neg teams. Most of what I said in my thoughts on Ks extends here too.

Two separate instances of clipping will result in an auto-loss and zero speaker points for both debaters. To be clear, clipping is intentionally skipping highlighted parts of a card while acting as though it was still read. To not clip, explicitly state when you stop reading a card before fully finishing ("cut the card at [x]"), keep track of where you stopped reading that card, and after your speech ask if anyone in the round wants a marked copy of your document where the highlighting you didn't read in the card is omitted.

***FOR NOVICES: HOW TO WIN***

Flowing is the most important (and underutilized) skill in debate. Write down your opponent's arguments. All of them.

Do line-by-line - Read and answer everything you just wrote down. Answer your opponent's arguments. All of them.

Novices that learn how to do both of these semi-competently will win the vast majority of their rounds.

Hi, I'm a cool bean. I don't judge too harshly and I give good speaks for good flows, you know so long as you are trying and know what your speaking about in debate.

I love k's and I understand policy but, I want you to explain whatever your talking about to me as if I have no experience in debate. That being said I know most debate terms, I understand how debate works, don't steal prep, I expect you to keep track of your own prep time and speech times but I will as well. Controversial to the points with flows, your speaks will show if I catch you stealing prep time or talking over your speech time.

I hate topicality arguments, take that as you will but I absolutely detest them. You have been warned. I pay attention in cx but it's not a voter so if something spicy happens and I expect you to bring it up and you drop it I will be really sad. Don't be mean to your partner, don't be mean to your opponents.

Treat each other with respect, and use their proper pronouns. Mine are she/her/shes. I am not a mean person but if you say some off-land shizzz i will make note of that.

I hate when teams drop an argument and try to pick it up later in the debate, unless you can effectively link it to another argument already haven been made and carried out throughout the entirety of the debate I don't care if the opponent doesn't contest it, it's not a voter for me because it was dropped.

Lastly, debate is meant to be fun and educational. Love what you read, read what you love, understand what you read, read what you understand and don't stress too much. As Mr.Fine would say "It's just chinese food". If you made it this far, props, try to get gucci bear or gingerbread in round and I will love you forever.

Oh, and I believe it is the job of the neg to get me to believe that the aff is faulted in whatever matter that is. I believe what the aff says because that's what I hear first. You've been warned.

Clash during round, on every flow, and during cx. If there is no clash then nobody wins because you learn nothing from starting points that don't interact with one another. And I'll just vote whoever I feel like.

I would like to be on the email chain it that is a thing still.

Points for saying cool bean in round also, make it fun.

PLEASE TURN YOUR CAMERA ON, I DO NOT LIKE STARING INTO A VOID OF NOTHING!!!!!!

cam, they/she, camnofdebate@gmail.com

last time large substance changes were done : nov 2022

if you are a contemporary reading this and i have stolen things from your paradigm, it's because they are good and i will not rehash something already well-written.

bio

- 8 years of cx debate experience and counting

- happily in college debate limbo (transfer student blues)

- lane tech debate captain ('21)

- lane tech debate co-coach (‘22-now)

- went to the toc in hs if that sort of thing has significance to you

- people who have had a significant effect on my debate style and experience: lila lavender, george lee, geo liriano, sam price, uiowa CE, and the entire university west georgia with an emphasis on CL

top level

online debate: please turn your camera on, I hate listening to 4 black boxes - this excludes tech problems, my laptop is also prone to very dramatic tantrums.

don't call me judge, my name will do just fine.

very little offends me. it should be simple for you to prevail if it's so wrong and you're so right.

in my personal career i primarily went for policy aff's and k's or t on the neg. i generally think that good things are good and bad things are bad. i have few stipulations (probably even less than most) on how the "rules" of debate ought to work, if you win the thing that you are running then i will vote on it.

1) an argument is a claim and a reason (at least).

2) evidence supports your argument, evidence is NOT your argument

3) i won't kick arguments for you

4) line by line debating is non-optional

5) tech > truth (this has nuances, you won't read them if i write them...)

5) if you cannot collapse, you are a bad debater

the most significant thing to remember is that i am a human (by most definitions) that does make mistakes (despite my best attempts). i'm generally proficient at flowing, and i will flow the entire round-barring something catastrophic. i've had excellent and extensive conversations with many other college-age judges about this, during which i have concluded the following. my job as a judge is to do my best to fairly adjudicate the round to the best of my ability, which i can assure you that i will do. if you feel the need to hammer me in the post-round, by all means, go for it, but make note that i will respect you as much as you respect me. there are right and wrong decisions in varsity debates, and judges can & do fail to deliver the right ones, which is a regrettable, yet inevitable part of the game; i do my absolute best to avoid this, and i can assure you i have interpreted every argument on the flow to the best of my working ability.

now, much like keryk kuiper outlines, i am a fairly expressive judge. i laugh when things are funny, i do make faces at things, and i have been known to throw flow paper about in a rather dramatic way. you are under no obligation to change strategies based on the way i react to it, and you will win something that i don't "like" as long as you are winning it on the flow. you may, however, choose to alter it. that is your right and your decision. you are also a human with "free will". do as you please - but note that reacting to those things is a crucial part of becoming a better debater - and if your argument is so bad that i look like i’m about to throw up, good luck getting me to hack for you in the rfd.

i believe it goes without saying i would much rather judge a well-executed policy v policy round than a poorly executed k v k round. just because i have a better substantive grasp on a larger body of k lit than an average clash judge does not mean that i think you should pref me higher as a k team. my ideal debate is something you have the best grasp of, and that you are the most excited about. if that happens to be the k, then wonderful, but if it is also a CP you have labored over then i am equally as enthusiastic. all good debate teams do their best to exert themselves on arguments that they think have the most merit - that is what i want to hear.

below are, as the intro would suggest, my many conflicting opinions on debate. do not confuse this with rules for a round. these are just my personal thoughts, and i take pride in my ability to objectively adjudicate whatever presents itself to me.

k things

K's proper: LT PN was explicitly a set col team for many moons, so i am personally most familiar with that set of lit in the context of my own competitive practice. in my time as a coach, i've also worked on plenty of semio-cap/po-mo/ "high theory" based k's. external to debate, i'm fairly well-versed in anti-capitalist and queer theory literature. this is not an excuse to not judge instruct. i have a strong distaste for k teams whose strategy is to confuse the opponent out of ballots with large, and often unnecessary words. i find this practice incredibly disingenuous and i have (unhappily) noticed its presence increase over time. if you rely on obfuscation, the argument is probably quite poor, and you should not be reading it. on a personal note, in working with the lovely lila lavender for quite some time, i have found myself more drawn to k v k debate over time, as i firmly believe it is the most interesting and innovative form that debate can take.

additionally, i do wholeheartedly agree with her analysis of non-colonized and non-black people reading afro-pessimism as a strategy, for more information I have included the same blog link here

https://thedrinkinggourd.home.blog/2019/12/29/on-non-black-afropessimism/

K on the aff: you must be willing to commit. it is far too often that i judge k aff teams that are determined to make their aff more middle-of-the-road/palatable. clever k teams should be able to achieve equilibrium with effective policy teams with the amount of tools at their disposal and yet they seem unwilling to use them. i am far more willing to hear that debate is better with no competition models, debate should be thrown off a cliff, or that debating the resolution has no intrinsic value than your average clash judge. that being said, i have a stronger preference for k affs that defend something material (specific political project) than the average k judge. too many k affs shy away from fiating the alt, but i digress. as far as content goes, the material that i have the most personal familiarity is outlined above. i think lila says it best when they say "If you are going to reject the res, which is totally cool with me, you should make sure to have justifications as to why the res is bad, and why rejecting it on the affirmative is key."

if you are going to perform, and it is significant to you that the performance is flowed a certain way, indicate that.

i will probably not flow your overview if it is longer than 30 seconds.

i will definitely not flow your overview if it requires a separate sheet.

K on the neg: should deal with the case in some way (either moot it entirely on the FW flow/ fiat the alt/ what have you). generating philosophical or research practice based competition is most likely to be persuasive to me - i am of the many that believe beyond game theory, debate is a research practice. one team will win their FW interpretation, as most other standards are arbitrary. same content familiarity applies here. generally, the neg shouldn't be lazy with their links, and the aff should be smarter debating fiat arguments. i prioritize specificity and spin above all else. i also think affs should be smarter (and earlier) on the FW flow.

my favorite part of nick rosenbaum's theory of debate is that "you do not need an alternative if you are winning framework OR if your links are material DA's to the aff's implementation where the squo would be preferable OR if your theory of power overdetermines the aff's potential to be desirable OR if you can think of another reason you don't need an alt." same material praxis alternative preference as k aff's (internal or external to debate). fiating mindset shifts/epistemic reorientations (i have yet to hear a sound description of what that is) is probably abusive and generally not a good argument. i will (and have - dont ask) vote on death good - if you win it.

FW: i generally believe that framework is probably true to some extent, and net good for clash v k affs because reciprocity is good and so on and so forth. as my judging record would indicate, i am neg leaning in K v FW debates, mostly for the reasons outlined in the k aff section of this paradigm. i find tournament and season preparation disparity arguments fairly silly. for the negative, use smart defensive tactics like switch-side debating and TVA's, explain the flaws in the counter-interpretation (unlimited topic, links to aff offense), and produce smart arguments about limits, mechanism education, or clash.

making sure there is fairness in a competition between two teams is one of the judge's main responsibilities. judges are fundamentally expected to evaluate the discussion honestly; forcing them to disregard fairness in that appraisal removes the prerequisite for debate. on the aff, you should impact turn the process of policy debates on the topic - this is distinct from the affs on the topic. if you win that the process of debating the topic is bad, then preserving fairness is futile to the game.

policy things

T: probably makes its way into 75% of my own 1NR’s, competing interps/quality of evidence comes first. do not hinge your strat on some vague cross ex answer, clear and concise arguments only. additionally, both or either team reading blocks through the rebuttals without refuting the other team's arguments in depth is very boring and not something I want to watch.

Theory: See T. I err aff on condo generally and for the sake of transparency thing, most consult/agent counterplans are probably abusive, but don't let that sway you, i will still vote on the flow work (yes i am a strong believer in the debate truth that neg fiat is bad). i'm predisposed to believe exactly what YOU think debate ought to be.

Da's: make sure you do plenty of impact work, and PLEASE articulate why the impact of your DA overwhelms the harms of the aff. Links exist on a spectrum; the "chance of a link" has to be qualified and then incorporated into the risk assessment component of impact calculus. Expert turns case analysis is invaluable. “Any risk” is inane. Below some level of probability, signal should be overwhelmed by noise, or perhaps the opposite effect might occur. Pretending that one can calculate risk precisely is stupid. Are you really sure that the risk of a disad is fifteen percent? Are you sure it’s not, say, twenty? Or maybe ten? Or, God forbid, twenty-five? If you are able to calculate risk with such precision, please quit debate and join the DIA. Your country needs you, citizen. If not, recognize that risks can be roughly calculated in a relative way, but that the application of mathematical models to debate is a (sometimes) useful heuristic, not an independently viable tool for evaluation. - mollison stolen from matheson which has now trickled down to here.

CP's: win the net ben and how you access it, otherwise i will vote on a nice Aff perm. That being said, If a perm is present in the 1ar, I will NOT automatically judge kick the CP if the squo is preferable. In this scenario, the 2nr would need to instruct me as to why I should do this, however I think judge kick goes aff easily in the presence of a perm.I think lots of counterplans that steal much of the aff (interpret that as you wish) are illegitimate and the aff should hammer them. the aff still needs has to win theory regardless of my personal disdain for certain CP's. i do like a well executed tricky PIC though on a NATO topic, i find them widely entertaining. not sure of their legitimacy, but at least i'll be in a good mood.

final notes

have fun, debate should be something you enjoy doing. be nice and cordial to your opponents, that being said don't be afraid to be assertive. don't clip cards. i follow the nsda handbook re: evidence violation, so any of those issues must be resolved through tab. if the tournament is not NSDA sanctioned and i am instructed to make the decision, i will default to my best interpretation of what "good practice" looks like on the current college circuit/"general accepted community norms". all that good stuff

bonus speaks section

+0.1 for open sourcing (let me know, i won't look)

+0.1 for any good joke in a speech (this is at my discretion, good luck)

+0.1 for novices that show me their flows after the round has ended

Hey whats up guys, as you can see my name is Jace, don't be afraid to call me by my first name !!

I prefer policy debate but k debate is great too. Don't let my preference scare you from running the arguments you want to run. I'm pretty open to most arguments.

The only thing I would note is that I'm not really gonna vote T unless it isn't answered correctly or it's dropped.

Lane Tech ’21

Macalester ’25

Chain: macalesterpw@gmail.com

People who have heavily influenced how I see debate: Keryk Kuiper, Lila Lavender, Nick Rosenbaum, Ella Williams, Arnav Gupta, Beau Larsen, Will Kochel, Kwudjwa Osei <3

If you strike Ella Williams, I should be your ordinal 1. #PartnerDifferences

"1) Line-by-line debating is not optional. I will be :( if you don't do/attempt line-by-line debating. Please try your best!

2) I like when debaters write my ballot for me, present nexus questions/framing issues, and do detailed impact calculus. Impact calculus doesn't just mean Mag/TF/Prob, but rather, instruct me how to understand the interaction between arguments. Tell me, why is this argument important? Use "even if" statements, weigh the quality of evidence/qualifications, and have an understanding of how different parts of the debate mesh with each other." -Arnav Gupta

“In debates I begin with the disposition of being someone who wants to minimize suffering and maximize happiness (util is truetil) and who will weigh the aff, but if you're actively winning I should do otherwise that of course drastically changes, just be aware it seems most logical to me intuitively to view things from that perspective. My preferences for K teams concern technique, rather than content. If you prefer to substitute traditional line-by-line for musical performance or emphasize the affective resonance of your speeches over strategic concessions, I am not the best for you. That doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate those elements, but I will evaluate them based on their technical execution. On the other hand, if you are team that relishes technical debating and precise sequencing, but simply prefers debate arguments of a kritikal genre, then I am an apt critic.” -Rafael Pierry

samir.i.rahaman@gmail.com

Northside '21 (debated)

KU '25 (debated freshman year)

1. I probably care more about clarity than others. I won't flow off the speech doc and I will try to avoid reading cards after the debate. If I can't understand the words you are saying when you are reading a card I will give that card minimal weight even if the tag is comprehensible.
2. I am bad for Ks and K affs.

- email: mnsodini@cps.edu

- If you can, try to keep cameras on during the debate

- Try your best!

Contact/Email-Chain: cpunwincontact@gmail.com

Top Level:

My name is Cameron (he/him), I'm a fourth-year debater at Niles North High School. I started on the immigration topic.

Time your own speeches/prep, I will also be timing for my own purposes but if you're not timing that's gonna hurt your speaks.

Don't be mean. I get it, debaters are grouchy, like to yell and be aggressive CX that's fine you do you, but if you are consistently being condescending and rude to the other team or your partner that is gonna damage your speaks and make me less likely to vote for you. Just be respectful of other people.

Tech > Truth... Yes even if its a really absurd argument (excluding racism, sexism, homophobia etc). It's up to the debaters to tell me that the argument is stupid.

Really read whatever you want... I prefer more policy-oriented rounds but I don't really mind. If its not a common knowledge acronym don't use the acronym form or clarify what it means.

Yup that's it (I only judge novis), have a fun round.