Midway '20 / Baylor '24

TFA, UIL, NSDA, NDCA debater

He/Him

Please add me to the email chain - StephenBender3@gmail.com

(Email me w/ any questions)

Top Level:

Debated all 4 years, qualified for TFA/UIL state 3 years, NSDA 2 years.

In General

I am a tab judge. I will weigh anything if you can tell me why I should.

Speed is fine but is never more important than clarity (especially for online debate). I'll give you two warnings before I stop flowing.

Please give me a roadmap before speeches and stick to it as best you can.

Tech over truth, for the most part. I will intervene as little as possible.

Scoring

Clarity, honesty, and thoughtful analysis of arguments will earn high speaks from me. I cannot emphasize enough how important clash is- if neither side is responding to anything the other is saying, both sides will get low speaks.

However, the only way you could score below 27 speaks is if you are

a) Unnecessarily rude,

b) Intentionally throwing, or

c) Disrespectful to me, your fellow debaters, or debate itself.

Discrimination and/or personal attacks are grounds for 0 speaks. Don’t.

T

I won't be happy if you run it as a time skew.

I will default to reasonability unless you prove there is a violation.

Case

I’m not likely to be educated on your specific case. This means that it is EXTREMELY important that you understand your own case and explain it to me thoroughly.

No underviews please, overviews are great as long as they are short.

DA

Not a big fan of super long, weak, or general link chains.

Impact calculus in the last speeches please.

CP

Prove competition with the aff and a net benefit.

K

Kritiks are great, but I should see a well-explained alt solvency mechanism. Give me an alt that actually defends something or I probably won't vote.

I'm fairly well versed in biopolitics, setcol, cap, afropessimism, and neitzsche. Run whatever, but anything (especially lit heavy things) should be explained thoroughly.

Most importantly, you must be able debate your Kritik in your own words without simply repeating your evidence. I'm not likely to vote for something that I completely don't understand at the end of the round.

K affs

You’ll have to be ready to win the framework debate. Basically, everything that applies to Ks applies here: know what you're talking about and defend an alternative.

Theory

Feel free to ask about specifics, but in general unless there is blatant, in-round abuse, the chance I will vote on or even weigh theory is very small.

tl;dr

Be kind, be clear, and know your arguments well. Run whatever you would like. Good luck!