Ad Astra November Novice
2020 — Online, KS/US
Policy Debate Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HidePlease add me to the email chain: changwen919@gmail.com
I've competed at multiple TOC tournaments and know this topic fairly well.
Overview
Speed is cool with me, but i have to be able to understand you. Don't go so fast that you sacrifice clarity.
Being racist, sexist, and whatnot to anyone in the round will result in a loss for that team.
Haven't gone for many K's, so if you want to go for it, then you have to explain what your K does and tell me why it outweighs the aff.
Please don't read like 9-10 off, it's not as good as you think I promise
Love impact calc
This is your debate round, read what you think is the best. Just have fun, I'm open to new ideas and will vote on them.
Speaker points - Clarity will get you the most speaker points. Consistent roadmaps and judge instructions will also award you with more speaker points.
Specifics
DA - Go for them. Love these, but make sure you have a clear story of what exactly happens when the aff passes.
CP - Love them as well. But just keep in mind that I think anything more than 3 condos is pushing it.
T - Love them. Go for it if you think you're winning on this flow. I will vote on it if you can explain how the aff violates it and why that's bad.
K - Like I said above, I'm not well versed in K lit, other than Cap and Abolish K. But if you want to read a new K, go for it, but you have to explain what your alt does and why that outweighs the aff. That really goes for any of the K's you read, you have to explain them well.
Theory - I'll vote on them, but I'm not a huge fan. If there is truly an absurd amount of abuse (like 8 condo or something) I'll probably sympathize with the aff.
anjali singh - she her
wichita east '22
fourth-year debater
have fun and try your best!
add me to the email chain anjalizsingh17@gmail.com
I am a recently retired former debate coach of more than 35 years so I am familiar with debate theory and practice. In general I will listen to any arguments put forward by the debaters and evaluate them in the manner the debaters ask me to. That said, if the debaters do NOT give me a framework for evaluating arguments I will have to make one up which is likely to make at least one of the teams in the round unhappy. There are a couple of things that I am "old school" on. I will listen to T arguments and use the voters the teams put forward to evaluate it, but I believe that being inside the boundaries of the resolution is a minimum requirement for the Affirmative so I am not giving any bonus points to Aff. for doing so. In short, reverse voters on T are going to require a lot of work by the Aff to convince me. I also believe that CPs must be non-topical; otherwise they are advocating affirming the resolution. So if Neg want to run a topical counter plan they are going to have to do some work to convince me that is an acceptable position. Otherwise the round belongs to the teams and I will evaluate in the manner they ask me to. Finally, speed is fine so long as it is clear. That said, I am happier as a judge evaluating augments that are developed in depth rather than evaluating many arguments presented rapidly but with little depth or explanation. Good luck and speak well!
High School Debate/Forensics – Shawnee Heights (2014-2018)
College Policy Debate (NDT/CEDA) – Wichita State (2018-2022)
Previous Assistant Debate and Forensics Coach at W. East and W. Southeast
Current Head Debate/Forensics Coach at Wichita Southeast High School
Email: kaylab222@gmail.com
I like clean, organized, and well thought out debates that focus more on the depth of the arguments. I also value and reward teams that engage in high levels of clash and attack the warrants of the evidence. I am a policy centric judge, that has coached all types of debate styles. That being said, do what you are comfortable with. However, I am best in debates that revolve around some sort of policy or plan. The best way to win my ballot is doing clean line-by-line and explain why the weight of your arguments matter more than that of the opposing team.
When debating on the affirmative, what I look for is a team that can articulate a story about what the plan is, how the plan solves, and what the advantage of the plan is. I am noticing more and more in debate rounds that teams are not extending each part of the AFF, with explanations of all the moving parts. Even if the neg does not respond to a part of the aff, your job as the aff is to still extend that argument if you want to keep it viable.
If you are going to read topicality, there are a few things to consider. First, I am a judge that is a sucker for in round abuse. Even if you have to bait them into giving you the link on your ground/limit’s arguments, it is something that I am willing to vote on.
I love a good CP/Net Ben/DA Debate. This is the debate I am probably the most comfortable in, and the best judge for. The only thing I ask for in this type of debate is for the negative to explain how the CP solves the link on the DA/Net Ben, I am not going to be this gracious and do the work for you.
I don’t have a preference on whether teams go for theory or topicality. The biggest thing I look for in these types of debates are 3 things: 1. Proven in-round abuse, I don’t really care for the hypotheticals of “well this could happen” I want to know why the other team violated the rules so egregiously that it made this debate impossible for you to win. 2. Voters, this is something that is being overlooked and I am not sure why. Tell me how and why I should evaluate this argument in the context of the debate. 3. On topicality, I am more apt to vote for T if there is some version of a TVA – especially if you make an argument as to how the tva solves the advantages.
I don’t have much thought on K Debate, well-articulated links and solvency is what I look for in a K debate. I am not the most familiar with K literature, so please make sure to articulate any complex components of solvency or any buzz words.
Other niche thoughts, be nice to people, don’t steal prep, please signpost, analytics is not a part of a roadmap (what are the analytics about?), and have fun.
Questions? Ask me before the round.
I coach at a 4A school in southeast Kansas. I did debate & forensics in high school, but not in college.
-Topicality is important to me, but actually make a point with it. Don't just run T to run T and then drop it later.
-DAs are great, generic DAs are fine as long as links are clearly analyzed.
-CPs are fine as well, but again don't just run it to kill time only to drop it later.
-I judge pretty big on speaking - speak "pretty". Be organized, concise, have good speed (as long as I can understand your words I have no issue with speed), make me apart of the round. Advocate for your viewpoint and why I should prefer it.
-Make me whatever kind of judge you want me to be - policy maker, real world, but if all else fails I'll fall back on stock issues and aff burden of proof as a guide for my RFD.
I did high school debate and forensics ten years ago, was briefly an assistant coach. I mainly focused on debate.
Debate: Don't take arguments personally, we're here to have fun and to learn. Each team is just doing their job.
Framing arguments and K are fine, just please understand them if you're going to run them.
Unconditional or conditional, both are fine, but if an argument is made that one is to be preferred, I will absolutely listen.
Unless given a different framework, I default to util and policy.
LD: I'm fine with any speed, just give clear tags and authors. Same as above, if you don't understand something, probably shouldn't use it.
Try not to curse unnecessarily, looks unprofessional. Hate speech is unacceptable and will mean an automatic loss.
Be polite and have fun!
I debated for 4 years at Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School and 2 years for K-State.
Email: benlengle@gmail.com
For LD thoughts look to the bottom of the paradigm.
Speed is fine, but clarity is more important. If I say "clear" and you don't become more clear I will put my pen down and stop flowing until you do so.
In the era of online debate I ask that you go 70-75% of your max speed.
Clipping is cheating. If a warranted ethics challenge is made, it will be an auto-loss. If not argument is made I will scratch any evidence that was clipped in a speech.
TLDR
Most of my argumentative style deals with the kritik. Policy is great but much like with the k, explain stuff and don't assume I know anything.
Theory
Don't waste your time reading theory arguments that intuitively don't make sense, you aren't prepared to go for, and/or are just a time suck. If you read conditionality you should explain what particular abuse they lead to or what they force you to choose between that results in strat skew. Bad theory arguments can only hurt your speaks. I need pen time or I won't flow your argument. I default to judge kick but making the argument as early as the block makes sleeping at night easier. "New affs bad" prolly isn't a voter.
DAs
They're great. Evidence comparison is important.
CPs
Your CP needs an internal or external net benefit that outweighs a solvency deficit if you want me to vote on it. "Solving the aff better" is not an offensive net benefit. People seem to make competition a very complicated issue. I don't think that textual competition matters that much. "Positional" competition does matter to me. I don't think there is such thing as a "cheating" CP as long as it has a solvency advocate and the affirmative gets to make solvency deficits.
Case
Case debates are good, woefully lacking right now, and can make other arguments easier to go for. I also think that people need to debate the case for K affs in most cases. Even if it's as basic as saying "ontology wrong" or "psychoanalysis bad", say something to mitigate their ability to weigh case against your off case arguments. If there is literally nothing you can say on case without being problematic, point that out on your framework page. I love analytics on case.
T
Your T argument needs to make sense in my mind if you want me to pull the trigger on it. If you see me looking confused in the back, make sure you explain your violation. I default to competing interps unless told otherwise. Aff teams need to explain what they mean by reasonability and how it implicates the rest of the neg's offense.
Ks vs Policy Affs
Don't assume I know the complex theory behind your criticism. I am most familiar with queer theory and settler colonial critiques, but do not assume that I am an expert on either. Your K needs uniqueness, or more specifically how the aff makes things worse than the direction the squo is going or the alt will go. I think the aff, in most instances, gets to weigh the aff. What that means (fiated implementation, research practices, etc.) is up to the debaters.
Additionally, since I primarily read the critique, I will hold debaters to a higher standard in terms of explaining alternative solvency and link stories. Don't think that just because your judge was a K debater that you can get away with just reading the K and winning.
T vs Non-traditional Affs
"The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom" -a fortune cookie
I tend to believe that fairness is not a terminal impact. I have a hard time quantifying it in relation to affirmative turns and disads to framework. You would need some concrete, aggregate data that showed people quitting or however you explain why it matters and exclude any variables that don't deal with critical affirmatives. Clash and iterative education are much easier to win in front of me.
If you are not reading a plan text that says "USfg should" I generally think you are wasting your time trying to meet the neg's interps. You are much better off just impact turning their standards and telling me "maybe our interp is flawed but theirs sucks so much more". Not to say that you can't read redefine "USfg", "restrict", etc. but if you do you need to be ready to debate DAs and mechanism CPs. I do think a counter interp is necessary to win these debates, but I can be convinced otherwise.
I think a lot of policy teams tend to look at a k aff, see it doesn't say "USfg should" and determine framework is the only answer. I implore you to go to the other side of the library and find some good critique of their theory. That could be the cap k or any number of criticisms that impact turn the aff (queer optimism against queer pessimism), but just relying on FW only plays into the hands of these k aff 2As.
While my track record in college is only reading non-traditional affs, don't assume that I won't vote on framework. While I had my reasons for reading a critical affirmative, I probably think that policy affs have some educational value so just be real and tell me why you think your legal education/fairness arguments matter.
Method vs Method
The only question I think teams care about for rev v rev debates concerning judges is whether the aff get's a perm. While I can be persuaded by the argument "no plan = no perm", I generally think that permutations are logical in method debates. That being said if the aff is shifting their advocacy every speech, the argument "no perms in method debates" makes a whole lot more sense.
Here are some miscellaneous tips:
I'm displeased by the way cards are read these days. If you have fortune cookie highlighting and 3 word tags, expect lower speaks. Your tags should make a strong claim with a hint of the warrants in the card, which should be highlighted to include sentences that make sense. When highlighting is like, "heg...key...stop...isis...get...nuc", it shows how little you've invested into your evidence quality.
I generally prefer tech over truth when it comes to competing claims, but my ballot will never say I vote aff/neg because any form of bigotry is good.
Reading structural pessimism arguments (Edelman, Wilderson, etc.) when you not of the structural group your evidence talks about (queer, black, etc.) against someone of that subject position is risky in front of me and kind of uncomfortable. The threshold for commodification or paternalism arguments is really low in these debates.
If you disagree with my decision feel free to ask away after the round. Just be aware that if it isn't on my flow, I don't evaluate it. If I can't explain your arguments back to you/the other team, that's usually your fault and not mine.
LD Paradigm
Value/Criterion Debate- I prefer a simpler debate here and am not a fan of vacuous v/c's. In my experience judging these rounds, they tend to devolve into debates of semantics where people are saying the same things in different ways, or people are making assertions concerning the opponent's v/c without any logic or evidentiary proof. The v/c debate, much like the case debate needs to be warranted, impacted out, and comparative to your opponent's. Refrain from clear hyperbole (e.x. "They justify the Holocaust/slavery").
Case- Aside from problematic arguments (racism, homophobia, sexism good, etc.), I am fine with you reading whatever you please. Do comparative impact work across the AC and NC flows and connect your arguments with the v/c debate and you'll be fine.
She/her - katherinej.halabi@gmail.com
Wichita East ’23, Georgetown ’27 (not debating)
Zero topic experience – please explain!
Tech > truth, but evidence quality shapes the level to which this is true. Tech coming first means none of these predispositions really matter, so this paradigm is pretty irrelevant minus the following absolutes:
Being kind and funny, enjoying debate, giving rebuttals without your laptop, citing the kshsaa handbook, and being unafraid to defend your arguments will earn you high speaks. If you’re overly rude, sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise offensive, I’ll drop you and your speaks.
I won’t vote on anything outside of the debate. Interactions are non-falsifiable, and I shouldn’t be evaluating high schoolers’ personal issues.
T –
Competing interps > reasonability. Reasonability is an uphill battle, the neg dropping reasonability isn’t a TKO because you still need offense, and you need to do the work to explain how it shapes the debate.
Ks, generally –
Comfortable with cap, security, antiblackness, set col, and heidegger (unfortunately). I’m very willing to lean aff on neg teams under-explaining their theories.
Explain how winning framework implicates me weighing the aff’s impacts. I am predisposed to weighing the aff and disagreeing with interps that ban Ks.
K affs –
Fairness is an impact, but its importance is shaped by warranted explanation and comparison to competing impacts. I don’t think I have a high threshold for fairness impact explanation, but you still need to do the work as you would in a policy debate.
My experience in these debates is only being neg and being the one extending T, but we went for cap in most of these debates. While I’m down to listen to Ks vs. K affs, I think that the alt defending something material is more strategic and that explanation on the K-fw level should be super explicit.
CPs –
Every CP is legitimate until it’s not. I loveee smart perms that test functional and textual competition. Theory is probably necessary to justify said smart, but maybe questionable, perms.
I won’t judge kick unless you tell me to.
Theory –
Condo bad is an uphill battle. I love conditionality. I think neg teams should be more condo. However, I think condo bad is underused in debates, and if it’s the best option, don’t be afraid to go for theory. The aff needs to delineate its impacts pre-2AR, and imo 2AR blocks are generally bad.
I’ll default to condo being the only reason to reject the team. I’m willing to evaluate other theory args as reasons to reject the team, but you need to justify why I should.
Debated four years at Maize High School '20
Former assistant coach at Wichita East High School '20-'21
Duke 2024 (not debating)
Add me to the chain: jason.g.lin20@gmail.com
NCFL - PFD
There are 2 rules in PFD
-No Ks
-No Spreading
Overall
*I'm 2 years out from thinking about policy debate, so I will struggle some to keep up with national circuit speed. I will try my best. Decisions will also likely take longer. I can still watch lectures on 1.75x at least, #PortableSkills.
Tech > Truth, and evidence quality matters to me. I find a lot of cards are atrociously highlighted. That said, I don't wish to read through all your cards; Make arguments about them, so I don't need to default to ev.
Clarity > Speed - note, this is even more true for online debate. Speed = # of ideas effectively communicated to the judge.
Don't clip/steal prep. Let me emphasize again -- DON'T CLIP, actually physically mark cards when you say to mark cards. Stealing prep after a warning has great speaker point consequences.
Evidence comparison/argument resolution good. Shadow extension/no clash bad.
I would rather listen to a politics+CP debate than a kritik debate, but I would also rather listen to you debating your strongest argument than you adapting to my preferences. Ks must pass the make sense test
A well explained, logical, argument trumps an unexplained argument merely extended by its "card name"
Cross x is a speech-I figure it in as a substantial factor in speaker points
DA
- Disads are about story telling - If I can't explain the story of the DA back to you then I won't vote on it.
- I think link debates require the most skill, and I will focus on it heavily. Many internal links also are often sus but overlooked.
- Do turns case and comparative impact calc. Canned overviews without any change round-to-round are bad. Judge instruction is good. Impact calc about risk is also pretty convincing since I'm often left with two existential impacts
CP
- Great, but like most judges, I prefer case-specific over generic counterplans, but we can’t always get what we want.
- CP's like consult or conditions that compete off certainty aren't great, but the aff can't blow it completely off either
- Floating PICs/Word PICs are pretty iffy for the neg--reading it as a K should solve most of the education impact, but I have yet to see many of these debates
T/Theory
- Blocks are good but no substitute for the line-by-line.
- I find a bunch of T-interps are arbitrary. Precision/predictability should prolly outweigh a marginal limits impact. However, negs that coherently connect their interpretation, violation, and standards with tangible impacts will be rewarded
- Default condo good. Somewhat high threshold, but I do recognize how forcing the aff to double turn themselves can (debatably) be problematic
- Perf Con is better utilized as a solvency takeout rather than a theoretical issue
FW
- Impact calc matters a bunch here; offense is key.
- I read both fairness and education impacts, and I don't have a strong preference for either against K affs.
- K affs in the direction of the topic are better for me
- new-ish to these debates
K
- I most likely only have a surface level understanding of your Kritik. Even less for postmodernist theories. More common K's like Cap and Security make more sense to me.
- Impact turning is often underutilized. Extinction first/heg good can be persuasive if done right
- Go more in-depth with each aff argument rather than shotgunning a billion perms. That increases my burden on the negative to disprove your arguments
esther (she/her)
policy at wichita east for four years, first year at Texas
please put me on the chain: eliu.debate@gmail.com
I will judge whatever arguments made in round but I do know that everyone has argumentative ideologies that may unintentionally affect the decision. So, here are my thoughts:
T -- I went and still go for T a lot. Competing interps is probably best. Caselists are helpful and so is describing what your world of debate looks like vs the aff's and why it's better.
CP -- "Cheating" counterplans are legitimate until brought up for debate. Condo is good.
DA -- Specific links are great and impact calc can take you far.
K -- I am the most experienced with Cap, Antiblackness, SetCol, and Fem IR. Regardless, debate as if I don't know the technicalities of your critical theory. Links to the plan are more persuasive than links to reps.
K-Aff -- I have only ever been neg in these debates. I find ones that are in the direction of the topic most convincing.
In a method debate, I am the most experienced with Cap.
Misc:
Please leave pen/typing time, spreading through analytics at top speed means I will inevitably drop arguments. Assume I am not following the speech doc.
Read re-highlightings instead of inserting them in the doc.
Note for econ topic: It'd be helpful if acronyms and certain terms were spelled out and explained earlier on in the debate.