Last changed on
Mon April 22, 2024 at 8:44 AM CDT
Adam White
He/Him
Last Substantive Paradigm Update: 4/12/24
Georgetown '25 (debating). 3x NDT elim participant.
Affiliations: Blue Valley West
adamwhite(dot)debate(at)gmail(dot)com---Yes Chain. Please include the following pieces of information in the subject line: Year, Tournament, Round Number, Aff Team, Neg Team
Feel free to email me at any time for questions, requests, etc.
---Strike Check---
Most familiar with policy arguments; bad for kritiks/arguments that don't contest the aff's core premises but comfortable voting for those that do; intuitively skeptical of affs that don’t affirm the resolution.
My 2NRs over my college career:
vs affs with a plan: 30 CP+DA, 16 DA, 3 T, 6 CP, 1 K, 3 CT
vs affs without a plan: 12 T, 7 K, 5 DA, 1 CT, 4 DA+CA
---General Notes---
Do not send me a speech doc that is not a verbatimized Microsoft Word document absent extenuating circumstances.
Yes marked docs. No cards in email body. Yes card doc with relevant cards referenced in the 2NR/2AR. No inserting rehighlighted ev to make new warrants.
---Top Level---
My favorite debates to judge, and the ones I am most confident in evaluating, are those where 2NR offense is in the form of a disad or case turn against an affirmative with well-explained and coherent internal link chains to specific impacts.
Absent judge instruction to the contrary, I will default to voting negative unless the aff proves the resolution true by example.
I refuse to evaluate anything that occurred outside of the debate round.
I flow by ear and will not follow along in the doc.
---Evidence---
I care about evidence a lot, both in terms of quantity and quality. The 2NR and 2AR should speak to the specific warrants in their evidence they would like me to read.
If I am reading evidence for you, I will only give you access to your highlighted words. I don't care if cards are short, but I care substantially that there is relative grammatical coherence.
That said, I give smart analytics a lot of weight, and I give evidence with no author credentials little weight.
---Case Debating With A Plan---
2As get away with murder. 2Ns should exploit that by explicitly flagging warrants in 1NC case evidence that the 2AC does not contest.
“Util/consequentialism bad” arguments are not very persuasive to me if the aff has a consequence to their plan that they would like me to evaluate in a utilitarian manner.
---Disads---
I like them. I like them a lot. I’d prefer to vote on ones that make sense.
---Counterplans---
I don’t entirely understand debates over sufficiency framing—if the neg offense generated by a net benefit outweighs the impacted solvency deficits generated by the aff, then I vote neg.
I tend to care more about arbitrariness/logic/predictability than debatability, though this is not absolute (for instance, aff intrinsicness tests seem unworkable on many topics even if they are logical).
I prefer for theory debates (process/consult/delay/whatever bad) to be couched in terms of why I should normatively view a specific permutation as legitimate. Otherwise, I have a hard time overcoming the inevitable neg arbitrariness argument.
I find conditionality bad arguments fairly unpersuasive. "We/they get 3!" is not super persuasive to me (see arbitrariness over debatability). I am amenable to the claim that conditionality bad is a reason to stick the neg with all the advocacies, not to reject the team.
I default to placing the burden on the aff to prove their advocacy desirable in relation to both the status quo and competitive advocacies introduced by the negative.
---Topicality vs Plans---
Retweet statement about arbitrariness/predictability over debatability. I view topicality as a descriptive question where we interpret the words in the resolution, not create new ones.
Given the above, I have a very high threshold for interpretation evidence quality (and to some degree quantity) that both teams will have to overcome.
I am somewhat persuaded by reasonability claims that operate at the level of interpretations and less so those that are about the specific aff in question.
I am very amenable to smuggling in topicality debates on PICs out of words in the plan.
---Kritiks---
I am fully comfortable discounting an argument if I do not understand it.
Evidence is important. I am heavily skeptical of concluding that broad, structural claims are true absent a strong epistemic basis for doing so. The world is a complex place, and overarching claims for how everything operates without specificity is a losing game if properly exploited. This also goes for policy-oriented teams, particularly with regard to IR.
The explanation of the kritik should be consistent both internally within the round and vis-à-vis the evidence. If your argument doesn’t start as the security K, it should not end as the security K.
Framework---I will not arbitrarily decide some middle ground interpretation between the aff and neg framework interps unless one team tells me that it's an option. Both teams, please explain your interp: can the neg win for disproving a single aff justification? How do I weigh policy consequences against epistemological indicts? Does the aff get to weigh the totality of their representations? Does the neg get PIKs? Should we imagine the aff as being implemented using the 1AC's representations? Is neg offense against aff justifications based on the policies those justifications would lead us to, or based on the consequences of introducing said scholarship in debate, or something else entirely? I am pretty good for neg framework interps that link turn fairness and clash against "FW: No Ks/plan consequences only," but only if the above set of questions is answered.
---Kritikal Affs---
Against T: I am fairly good for affirmatives that counterdefine words in the resolution in a nuanced/interesting way and defend that interpretation. I feel that most counterinterpretations are entirely arbitrary.
I am highly skeptical that the way I vote in a given debate has any meaningful impact on anything.
If the aff makes an argument for why they should win the debate, and the neg proves that the opposite of that argument is true, then I vote neg.
Given that the resolution and usual policy-making paradigms are abandoned in these debates, I am unsure how presumption should function. Hence, neg teams should explain why I should view presumption in a certain way if they want it to be an important part of the 2NR.
---Topicality/FW---
I am not dogmatic about what impact you read.
When going for a fairness impact, I will need more dot-connecting and explanation in the 2NR than many other judges. I implicitly feel that fairness is an impact, but I find some explanations uncompelling that others have found entirely sufficient.
TVAs are generally overutilized and Read-It-On-The-Neg is generally underutilized as defense, but each have their place against specific 2AC arguments.
