GMU'20. WFU'22. Email chain, please put all three: biba.a.t@gmail.com, wfudbt@gmail.com AND debatedocs@googlegroups.com

Anti-trust: don't know much about it :)

—I will do my best to be as flow-centric as possible in every debate. Tech over truth as long as your argument makes sense.
—Respect your competitors, partner, and the time everyone in the room puts into this activity.
—I enjoy substantive and topic grounded arguments and prefer them over cheap shots/run and gun strategies.
—I realized that good impact calc is where I end up deciding many debates, especially when it is close.
—I tend to think link determines the direction of UQ, but just tell me how to vote.
—Revisionism ends up mattering a lot less than you think, regardless of whatever spin you attach to it.
—Topicality: I will default to competing interps. Explain your vision of the topic and model of debate under your interp.
—Overall neg leaning on theory. Infinite condo is good. Can you convince me otherwise? maybe/gut feeling. Things that will increase my likelihood to vote on condo bad: contradictory worlds, and a million unsupported conditional planks.
—Insert rehighlighting? No/maybe (just don't do it excessively)
—Highlight full sentences, seriously. Fragmented, ungrammatical sentences are not arguments and do not make sense.
—Gimme my pen time....beware of the technical implications of online debate and slow down. I flow on paper. Do not start your speech until you get visual confirmation from me. I will always have my camera on unless I am not there.

Policy vs K things:

I have realized that impact calc/clearly articulated impacts is where I start to evaluate a lot of these debates, then I work my way backward to the link and mechanism debating. I would highly encourage both teams to forefront their offense and solvency explanations in the 2nr/2ar and do comparative impact calc.

—Hard to convince me to disregard the 1AC and not let it be weighed as a source of offense.
—You should have k specific links to the aff.
—The more you can explain how the affirmative makes the status quo worst, the better off you will be infront of me.
—Fairness/clash/research are all impacts. I think some are harder to win against certain affs than others but I do not have an ideological preference toward either.
—I appreciate K affs that are grounded in topic literature. If your aff can be read in its exact format on a different topic, that's probably bad.
—My understanding of K literature is limited. Although I am slowly trying to broaden my knowledge of critical scholarship, you may need to communicate your arguments differently for the sake of my comprehension. This means I will want examples and specific link debating from both sides.
—Both sides should slow down while speeding through their blocks. I flow on paper.

Updated 3/5/2021 - Email chain mbarlow15@gmail.com

**If for any reason you ever don't wanna debate and both teams agree, we can flip a coin to determine the winner. Losing side speaks will be 29.1 and 29. Winning side speaks will be 28.7 and 28.8

SHORT - I debated 4 years in college and was a NDT Octa-Finalist. I read afro-pessimism and framework arguments, so I am familiar with the mechanics of both worlds. Im willing to vote on a wide range of arguments. I'm very flow centric; Tech determines truth unless contested. In terms of worldview arguments, the aff doesn't necessarily need to defend the USFG (you can make the arg) but should at a minimum have some relationship to the resolution. That relationship should be made apparent (saying no to the resolution is a relationship). Conditionality is probably good, I will judge kick CPs unless told otherwise, 90% of the time framework debates on kritiks are wasteful. More specific rambles found below.

THERE ARE NO RULES IN DEBATE - There are formats are norms that we adhere to but can be challenged with logical arguments. I believe my job as a judge is to facilitate the exchange of ideas. Whether those ideas are connected to a policy option or a performance is entirely up to the debaters. Personally, my debate strategies have ranged from Wilderson to Consult CP/Politics to Zizek. I am more than willing to hear whatever it is you're comfortable with. See the issue specific stuff below.

Topicality--I think it should be a bigger deal on most topics. Too many neg teams are afraid to invest in it. A good T strat will make the violation apparent, along with the standards, AND a topical version of the aff. Anything less is probably not a winning strategy. I think competing interpretations is good, winning reasonability is possible but probably an uphill battle.

Framework--Pretty versed in the techniques and strategies. I'll flow it like a disad but truth claims matter. I do not think "education" and "fairness" are winning impacts. Decision making skills and strategy testing are internal links to explain impacts. I often feel that framework debates become very blippy and over-tech. Use your persuasive ability to develop these internal link chains in the same way you would a disad. Be clear, concise, and explain warrants. Neg without a topical version of the aff probably loses. The aff should have a counter-interpretation that has a role for the negative. If the aff has an argument for why the negative shouldn't contest the aff, that's probably another uphill battle, but should be explained thoroughly with impacts that OUTWEIGH the negative's.

Counterplans-- Admittingly I'm probably willing to entertain the more abusive CPs. This isn't to say that you can't win theory against a recommend CP, but I won't just assume you're right. You'll have to win the theory debate like a disad. As far as competition goes, I tend to lean more in favor of the aff when the way in which the CP generates a Net-Benefit is sketchy. I don't think that Politics is a clear net-benefit to an Executive Action CP. This is a debate to be had.

Kritiks--If there is a theory of power or root cause claim, you should make the framework in which I consider the plan versus the alternative AND its implications clear. In combination with this, you should make the alternative's interaction with the advantages clear i.e. does the alt solve the case or does the case just not matter? I think the aff has the same burden - Does the aff resolve the kritik or does it simply outweigh? Usually big K debates resolve around the clash of viewpoints so make your viewpoint clear in comparison to theirs.

Disads-- Nothing super in-depth here. If you're going for DA only in the 2NR, you need a turns case argument. I think far too often the 2AC is completely defensive against DAs. Highly advise embedded link turns in every disad 2ac (or impact turns for the brave and the bold).

Case Turns--Same as disads. Strong preference that we don't separate each turn on its own page, but ultimately I'll flow it however you'd like.

Debated at Gonzaga, Currently Judging for Navy -

Email: jenna.bauer95@gmail.com - yes you can put me on the doc chain.

I did primarily CP/DA/Case debate in college and that's what I'm familiar with. I'm helping out with research at Gonzaga this year so I'm fairly familiar with the climate college topic. This is what I think that I think about debate, but I intend to continue updating as I judge more and learn more about what I think.

Affs: I like plans that defend the hypothetical implementation of the plan and are topical. You can read your other affs in front of me but I'm more inclined to think that reading a topical plan is important and good for debate. At the very least you should have a stasis point that is in the direction of the topic and then tell me why that's important.

Ks: I'm most familiar with gender based Ks, I do not know much about this area in general and I will not understand you if you throw out a bunch of buzzwords. If you want to read a K, I like a clearly articulated and specific alternative that does something and explains to me why that thing is important. I am inclined to believe things can always get worse. If you are set on going for your K, make sure your explanation is on point and your links are specific to the aff.

DAs: I like them, I'm willing to assign 0 risk of a DA, especially if the link is really bad. I do a lot of elections/politics work. I will still vote for you if I know your DA is a lie and the other team doesn't call you on it, but I won't be happy about it.

CPs: I have always been a 2N - I lean a little negative on CP theory, but you should point out when you think they’re cheating and can definitely win if you debate the theory well.

***Added after recieving an email for clarification on my thoughts on Topicality - response below****

Topicality:

Short version: Affs that Intend to be T, I can be persuaded either way, but most likely lean a little neg. I dislike affs that never intended to be T and am likely to be persuaded by framework.

This topic in my opinion has the potential to be really large or really small depending on the 'acceptable standards' that the community sets on affs that are intending to be topical so your questions are important to me and I hope to answer them well.

Framing for how I think about T - I have always been a 2N and tend to be slightly neg leaning on most things. However, T was never really my A strategy except against teams that were blatantly non-topical so my bias might not be as apparent in this area.

Topicality for affs that intend to be T - I would say at the beginning of the year I'm more willing to listen to all affs and hear what they think a reasonable interpretation of the topic should be, but I think limits are important especially on this topic. I can definitely be persuaded either way. While I think aff creativity is important, the research burden for the neg is also a major concern for me.

Topicality for affs that don't intend to be T - I don't like when teams do not have plans. No plan at all is probably a non-starter for me because it doesn't meet the requirements I list below in the stasis point section.

- Distinction between Framework and Topicality: When I debated I made a distinction between Framework and Topicality. A lot of people don't think there's a distinction, obviously. I think the distinction is based on the explanation of the link to the argument and the impact. Framework, for me seemed to be about what kind of educational paradigms are endorsed, whereas T was more about the effects on the topic and debatability for the neg. These are in many ways artificial distinctions, and both T and framework are often deployed as encompassing both these arguments because different teams have different conceptions of what framework means. Because of this, I'm fine with whatever teams want to call it - Framework or T - and however you explain it is how I will judge. If you would like to separate T and framework and read them both that's also fine with me both can persuade me.

- Stasis point: When reading/debating a non-topical aff the most important thing to me is that there is a stable controversy that isn't one sided that both teams are prepared to debate. If the negative wins that these conditions do not exist I am very likely to pull the trigger on T/Framework. In order to meet all the requirements above, I think it's necessary to be at the very least in the direction of the topic so the neg can debate the aff. I value in-depth debate of the affirmative and give a lot of weight to "topical" versions of the aff in these debates.

*****End email*****

In general, you should be kind to everyone in the round. I really really don’t like rudeness. Especially when it is directed at your partner.

Adrienne F. Brovero, University of Kentucky

Closing in on 30 years coaching
adri.debate@gmail.com

Please label your email chain subject line with Team names, tourney, round.

Your prep time does not end until you have hit send on the email.

❗Updated 3-27-24 - I am REAL serious about the highlighting thing below - many cards are literally unreadable as highlighted and if I find myself struggling to read your evidence, I will cease to do so.

❗This is a communication activity.❗

Clarity - Cannot emphasize enough how important clarity is, whether online or in-person.

Highlighting - Highlighting has become a disgrace. Highlighting should not result in anti-grammatical shards of arguments. Highlighting should not result in misrepresentation of the author's intent/ideas. Quite frankly, some highlighting is so bad, you would have been better served not reading the evidence. When highlighting, please put yourself in the judge's shoes for a moment and ask yourself if you would feel comfortable deciding a debate based on how you've highlighted that card. If the answer is no, reconsider your highlighting.

SERIOUSLY - LINE-BY-LINE. NUMBER.

If you like to say "I will do the link debate here" - I am probably not the best judge for you. I would prefer you clash with link arguments in each instance they happen, as opposed to all in one place. Same is true for every other component of an argument.

• Qualifications - read them. Debate them.
• Line-by-line involves directly referencing the other team's argument ("Off 2AC #3 - Winners Win, group"), then answering it. "Embedded" clash fails if you bury the clash part so deep I can't find the arg you are answering.
• Overviews - overrated. Kinda hate them. Think they are a poor substitute for debating the arguments where they belong on the line-by-line.

Things that are prep time:

• Any time after the official start time that is not a constructive (9 mins), CX (3 mins), rebuttal (6 mins), or a brief roadmap. Everything else is prep time.
• Putting your speech doc together - including saving doc, setting up email chain, attaching it to the email, etc.
• Asking for cards outside of CX time. ("Oh can you send the card before CX?" - that is either CX or prep time - there is not un-clocked time).
• Setting up your podium/stand.
• Putting your flows in order.
• Finding pens, flows, timers.

Debate like this: http://vimeo.com/5464508

MACRO-ISSUES
Communication: I like it. I appreciate teams that recognize communication failures and try to correct them. If I am not flowing, it usually means communication is breaking down. If I am confused or have missed an argument, I will frequently look up and give you a confused look – you should read this as an indication that the argument, at minimum, needs to be repeated, and may need to be re-explained. I am more than willing to discount a team’s arguments if I didn’t understand or get their arguments on my flow.

Speaker points: Points are influenced by a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: Communication skills, speaking clarity, road-mapping, obnoxiousness, disrespectfulness, theft of prep time, quality of and sufficient participation in 2 cross-examinations and 2 speeches, the quality of the debate, the clarity of your arguments, the sophistication of your strategy, and your execution. I have grown uncomfortable with the amount of profanity used during debates – do not expect high points if you use profanity.

Paperless/Prep Time: Most tournaments have a strict decision time clock, and your un-clocked time cuts into decision time. Most of you would generally prefer the judges has the optimal amount of time to decide. Please be efficient. Prep runs until the email is sent. I will be understanding of tech fails, but not as much negligence or incompetence. Dealing with your laptop’s issues, finding your flows, looking for evidence, figuring out how to operate a timer, setting up stands, etc. – i.e. preparation – all come out of prep time.

Flowing:
• I flow.
• Unless both teams instruct me otherwise, I will flow both teams.
• I evaluate the debate based primarily on what I have flowed.
• I frequently flow CX. I carefully check the 2AR for new arguments, and will not hold the 2NR accountable for unpredictable explanations or cross applications.
• I try to get down some form of tag/cite/text for each card. This doesn’t mean I always do. I make more effort to get the arg than I do the cite or date, so do not expect me to always know what you’re talking about when you solely refer to your “Henry 19” evidence.
• I reward those who make flowing easier by reading in a flowable fashion (road-mapping & signposting, direct refutation/clash, clarity, reasonable pace, emphasis of key words, reading for meaning, no distractions like tapping on the tubs, etc.). If you are fond of saying things like "Now the link debate" or "Group the perm debate" during the constructives, and you do not very transparently embed the clash that follows, do not expect me to follow your arguments or connect dots for you. Nor should you expect spectacular points.

Evidence:
• I appreciate efforts to evaluate and compare claims and evidence in the debate.
• I pay attention to quals and prefer they are actually read in the debate. I am extremely dismayed by the decline in quality of evidence (thank you, Internets) and the lack of teams’ capitalization on questionable sources.
• I don’t like to read evidence if I don’t feel the argument it makes has been communicated to me (e.g. the card was mumbled in the 2AC, or only extended by cite, or accompanied by a warrantless explanation, etc.).
• I also don’t like reading the un-highlighted portions of evidence unless they are specifically challenged by the opposing team.
• I should not have to read the un-highlighted parts to understand your argument – the highlighted portion should be a complete argument and a coherent thought. If you only read a claim, you only have a claim – you don’t get credit for portions of the evidence you don’t reference or read. If you only read a non-grammatical fragment, you are running the risk of me deciding I can’t coherently interpret that as an arg.
• I don’t like anonymous pronouns or referents in evidence like “she says” without an identification of who “she” is – identify “she” in your speech or “she” won’t get much weight in my decision.
• If you hand me evidence to read, please make clear which portions were actually read.

Decision calculus: Procedural determinations usually precede substantive determinations. First, I evaluate fairness questions to determine if actions by either team fundamentally alter the playing field in favor of the aff or neg. Then, I evaluate substantive questions. Typically, the aff must prove their plan is net beneficial over the status quo and/or a counterplan in order to win.

MICRO-ISSUES
Topicality & plan-related issues:
• The aff needs to have a written plan text.
• It should be topical.
• T is a voter. Criticisms of T are RVIs in sheep’s clothing.
• Anti-topical actions are neg ground.
• Have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of how nontraditional advocacies or demands are meaningfully different from plans, other than they are usually either vague and/or non-topical.
• On a related note, I don’t get why calling one’s advocacy a performance or demand renders a team immune from being held responsible for the consequences of their advocacy.
• In relation to plans and permutations, I value specificity over vagueness – specificity is necessary for meaningful debate about policies. However, please do not consider this an invitation to run dumb spec arguments as voting issues – absent a glaring evasiveness/lack of specificity, these are typically more strategic as solvency args.

Critiques/Performance:

Adjudicating critique or performance debates is not my strong suit. Most of these debates take place at a level of abstraction beyond my comprehension. If you have a habit of referring to your arguments by the author’s name (e.g. “Next off – Lacan”), I am not a very good judge for you. I don’t read very much in the advanced political philosophy or performance studies areas. This means, most of the time, I don’t know what the terms used in these debates mean. I am much more the applied politics type, and tend to think pragmatically. This means if you want to go for a critical or performance argument in front of me, you need to explain your arguments in lay-speak, relying less on jargon and author names, and more on warrants, analogies, empirical examples, and specifics in relation to the policy you are critiquing/performing for/against – i.e. persuade me. It also helps to slow it down a notch. Ask yourself how quickly you could flow advanced nuclear physics – not so easy if you aren’t terribly familiar with the field, eh? Well, that’s me in relation to these arguments. Flowing them at a rapid rate hinders my ability to process the arguments. Additionally, make an effort to explain your evidence as I am not nearly as familiar with this literature as you are. Lastly, specifically explain the link and impact in relation to the specific aff you are debating or the status quo policy you are criticizing. Statements like "the critique turns the case” don't help me. As Russ Hubbard put it, in the context of defending his demining aff many years ago, “How does our plan result in more landmines in the ground? Why does the K turn the case?” I need to know why the critique means the plan’s solvency goes awry – in words that link the critique to the actions of the plan. For example: Which part of the harms does the critique indict, with what impact on those harms claims? What would the plan end up doing if the critique turns its solvency? In addition, I find it difficult to resolve philosophical questions and/or make definitive determinations about a team’s motives or intentions in the course of a couple of hours.

I strongly urge you to re-read my thoughts above on “Communication” before debating these arguments in front of me.

Counterplans:

I generally lean negative on CP theory: topical, plan-inclusive, exclusion, conditional, international fiat, agent, etc. Aff teams should take more advantage of situations where the counterplan run is abusive at multiple levels – if the negative has to fend off multiple reasons the CP is abusive, their theory blocks may start to contradict. Both counterplan and permutation texts should be written out. “Do both” is typically meaningless to me – specify how. The status quo could remain a logical option, but growing convinced this should be debated. [NOTE THAT IS A FALL '18 CHANGE - DEBATE IT OUT] Additionally, another shout-out for communication - many theory debates are shallow and blippy - don't be that team. I like theory, but those type of debates give theory a bad name.

Other:

I like DAs. I’m willing to vote on stock issue arguments like inherency or “zero risk of solvency”.

Email chains: hcall94@gmail.com

Coach at Mason (2016-Present)

 

If my camera is off, I am not ready. Please do not start your speech yet or I will likely miss things. Thanks!

Top Level Things:

Tech > truth (most of the time)

Depth > breadth

Strategic thinking/arg development/framing of args > 10 cards that say X

I won't take prep for flashing/emailing, just don't steal it.

If a paradigm is not provided for me to evaluate the round, I will default to util.

I don't keep track of speech time/prep. Please keep your own.

Unless I am told not to judge kick by the 2AR, I will default to judge-kicking the CP or alt (in open).

I won't vote on things that have occurred outside of the round (ie pre-round misdisclosure).

Do not include cards in the card doc if they were not referenced in the 2NR/2AR but they do answer arguments your opponents made in their speech. If you didn't make the arg, I'm not going to read the card.

2:15 judge time is the bane of my existence. I apologize in advance for going to decision time in nearly every open debate. I like being thorough.

Online Debate:

Please. Please. Please. Start slow for the first 5 seconds of each speech. It is sometimes so hard to comprehend online debate, especially if you are even slightly unclear in person.

Make sure to occasionally check the screen when speaking to make sure we aren't frozen/showing you we can't hear you.

I am very understanding of inevitable online tech failures.

Cards:

Main things I end up looking to cards for:

- To clarify questions I have about my flow based on arguments made in the 2NR/2AR.

- To compare the quality of evidence on well-debated arguments. If both teams have done a good job responding to warrants from opponent ev + explaining their own ev, I will look to evidence quality as a tie breaker for those arguments.

- To determine if I should discount a card entirely. If a card is bad, say that. I will then validate if the ev is bad, and if it just doesn't make arguments I will not evaluate it in my decision. If I'm not told a card is bad and the arg is dropped, I'll give the other team full weight of it regardless of ev quality to preserve 2NR/2AR arg choice on arguments dropped by the other team.

•  
• I will NOT use evidence to create applications that were not made by debaters to answer the other team's arguments. 

Theory:

2021 update: I'm fine with unlimited condo. I am very unlikely to vote on condo but will if it is certainly won.

Other theory stuff:

If theory comes down to reasons that the specific CP is a voter, I view it as a reason to reject the arg and not the team. To be clear, I will not vote someone down for reading a certain type of CP or alt based on theory args alone. Independent CP theory args are highly dependent on whether there is quality evidence to substantiate the CP.

DAs:

There can be 0 percent risk of a link.

Bad DAs can be beaten with analytics + an impact defense card.

Uniqueness isn't given enough credit in a lot of 2NRs/2ARs.

Link typically precedes uniqueness. You should do framing for these things.

DA turns case/case turns DA gets dropped A LOT. Try not to do that.

I miss judging politics debates.

Ks v Policy Affs:

I prefer line-by-line debates and very much dislike lengthy overviews and convoluted alt explanations. I will not make cross-applications for you.

I prefer Ks that have specific links to the topic or plan action significantly more than Ks that have state or omission links.

It is important for you to win root cause claims in relation to the specifics of the aff rather than sweeping generalizations about war. This is especially true when the aff has arguments about a certain countries' motives/geopolitical interests or reasons behind corporate/governmental actions.

Outside of something that was blatantly offensive, I believe that all language is contextual and words only mean as much as the meaning attached to them. Thus, args like "we didn't use it in that context" are convincing to me. I can be persuaded to vote them down, but I am going to be more biased the other way.

Some of the below section is also relevant for these debates.

K affs v Policy Team:

The aff should at minimum be tied to the resolution. Novices should read a plan during their first semester.

Honestly, I would just prefer to resolve a debate that is aff v. case defense + offense specific to the aff (reform CP w/ net benefit, etc) over framework. If you go for framework/if you're giving a 2AR v it, below are some random things I think about clash debates. This is not exhaustive, nor does it mean I will automatically vote on these arguments. I will vote for who I think wins the flow, but in close debates, these are my leanings:

- I dislike judging debates that solely come down to structural v procedural fairness. I find them nearly impossible to resolve without judge intervention.

- Fairness is an internal link. There are multiple impacts that come from it.

- K affs are inevitable and we should be able to effectively engage with them in ways other than fw/t when they are based in discussions of the resolution.

- Ground and stasis points in debate are important for testing and arg refinement.

- Arg refinement can still occur over the process of the aff even w/o a plan if it's in the area of the resolution. Everyone should have X topic reform good cards to answer these affs/go against the K.

- Being topical is not the end of debate.

- Affs that are directly bidirectional are not a good idea in front of me and T should be the 2NR.

- Creativity can exist with plan texts and is not precluded by defending one.

- Affs garnering solid offense from sequencing questions is one of the best ways to win my ballot in these debates.

- Debate itself is good. Gaming is good. W/L inevitable. The goal of a debate is to win.

K v K:

If you happen to find me here, give me very clear judge instruction. 

Speaker points:

They're arbitrary. I've given up trying to adapt to a scale but I do try to give speaks based on the division and tournament. Here's some important things to note:

- Confidence gets you a long way.

- If you prevent your opponent from answering in cross ex, that won't bode well for speaks and I will be annoyed.

- I will not give you a 30 because you ask for one. Though I will give birthday and Senior last tournament boosts.

- If I'm not flowing something, and you notice I am staring at you, you are being redundant and should move on.

Put me on the email chain please. Ask me for my email

Kingwood High School 2017

University of Minnesota 2020

I judge/coach for the University of Minnesota very occassionally in my spare time. I'm not actively involved with college debate other than judging, so I'm not doing topic research or anything.

I will not adjudicate things that occurred outside the confines of the specific debate around I am judging. There are ways to resolve such issues that exist outside of the ballot, and I have come to believe that relying on ballots to try to resolve them is both futile and contributes to an increasingly toxic debate community. If your strategy relies on ad-hominems, harassment, or otherwise disparaging your opponents, then I am probably not the judge for you

I don't expect debaters to be 'polite' but I do expect debaters to maintain a bare minimum level civility. If racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, etc speech occurs, then I will punish your speaker points accordingly. If I believe the safety or well being of a debater is in danger, I will intervene, including by ending the round if necessary.

As a general note, as the years go on, I am pessimistic about the value of debate as an activity beyond the skills we learn from it and the community we build along the way. I will try to adjudicate rounds in such a way that my ballot does not reward strategies that make the activity worse. Things like issues with evidence ethics and call outs, while important in context, should not be considered your case neg.

Here's the things you are probably looking for right before your round:

Condo-I think a large number of conditional advocacys result in more interesting negative strategies that test the aff from more interesting angles. Trying to draw the line at X number seems arbitrary to me. While I recognize this creates an incentive towards neg teams spamming poorly thought out counterplans, I think the proper remedy is theory rejecting the specific questionable counterplans. I think the bar for the 2ac to answer counterplans with no solvency advocate (whether it be a 1nc card, or a warrant from a 1ac card), is low, and I grant the 1ar leeway when answering counterplans that are made whole in the block.

Judge kick-I default to judge kicking conditional counterplans unless the aff convinces me I shouldn't (condo bad warrants can usually suffice if applied specifically to judge kick)

Other theory-I think 95% of theory arguments other than condo are reasons to reject the arg, not the team. The bar for me to drop a team on a theory cheapshot is extremely high, even if dropped by the other team.

Process CP-I will admit to having a slight bias against negative postions/aff advantages that feel very contrived. This is probably relevant the most to process CPs. I am apparently a dinosaur on the topic of CP competitiveness, so I start with low bar for the aff to win perm:do the cp a lot of the time. If your competition argument isn't straightforward to someone who's only process counterplan they had to deal with as a debater was ESR, then you should slow down and explain it as clearly as possible to me.

I strongly lean toward tech over truth, but arguments still need to have warrants to be complete and to win on tech.

T vs plan aff-I generally am a fan of t debates vs affs with a plan, and I find 2ar pushes on "going for t is a waste of time/uneducational" to be unpersasive. This is topic neutral, so my thoughts might change year to year. I'm not super involved in the activity, so its unlikely I am aware of whatever the community consensus is.

T vs planless affs-it seems like to me clash is the internal link to everything that makes debate valuable and is therefore a relatively large impact by default. If your model of debate (generally the aff's) doesn't preserve clash, then you need to explain why the activity of debate specifically is key your impacts in a way that academic spaces generally aren't. For example, if the aff's main source of offense is the value of their scholarship or method, than either clash internal links turns the aff's offense because clash is the way unique to debate for the community to engage with the aff's method/scholarship or things outside debate can solve your offense as well as debate can, in which case a presumption push by the neg tends to be persuasive (see my above pessimism about the activity). There are other ways for the aff to garner offense, but the aff still needs to have warrant why the activity of debate specifically is key to win that that offense is reason why a model of debate is desirable. Aff strategies that don't defend a specific model are extremely unpersausive to me and functionally end up conceding most of the neg's best offense. Competetive incentives exist in the activity and it seems strange to pretend otherwise. For the neg, TVAs and SSD seem to be powerful defensive tools that in my experience judging neg teams underutilize. Absent egregious concessions by the aff, the 2NR should usually spend some time on case, since the 1ac is often the aff's best source of offense against T.

Arguments that I strongly prefer you don't go for: Death good, Warming good.

Top Level:

My approach to judging debate has evolved in recent years in an effort to avoid judge intervention and to reward which teams give the best speeches.

• I exclusively flow on paper during debates and do not follow along with speech documents. Given this, I only examine evidence after the debate if specifically requested. It is crucial for debaters to effectively communicate the warrants of their evidence and to evaluate their opponents' evidence for validity and context. If you'd like me to read certain pieces evidence after the debate is over, please instruct me to do so in your speech. Otherwise, I'll decide based off the explanation given during the debate.

• While I do not have a preference for any specific type of argument, I am most familiar with policy debate (i.e., topicality, counterplans, and disadvantages). I believe that 1AC should affirm the resolution in some way. Although I am open to critiques, it is important that links are contextualized to the 1AC.

• To ensure I am fully engaged, I rarely use my laptop during rounds. I recommend speaking at 80% of your normal speed if clarity is an issue for you.

Please put me on the email chain: mbenjc@gmail.com

Personal Preferences:

• As I spend more time judging, I am developing somewhat higher standards for what constitutes a 'minimally viable argument' in the 2AC. For example, if the 2AR wants theory to be a viable option, the offense extended by the 1AR should be in the 2AC (or at least justified as new by the 1AR). I feel similarly about 'links to the net benefit' - this is often claimed, but not warranted by the 2AC.

Ultimately, I have come to conclusion that debate is a game but this game also has real life effects on the people who choose to participate in it. Therefore,BE NICE, HAVE FUN, and DO YOU!!!

I have found in my time debating that there are a few things that debaters are looking for when they read judging philosophies (including myself) so I’ll get straight to the point:

K's:I’m fine with them and have run them for quite some time in my career. However, this does not mean run a K in front of me for the fun of it - rather it means that I expect you to be able to explain your link story and the way the alternative functions. I find that most teams just make the assumption that the Aff doesn’t get a perm because "it’s a methodology debate". That’s not an argument, give me warrants as to why this is true if this is the argument you are going to for. K Aff's are fine often times debaters lose sight of the strategic benefits of the Aff, So a simple advice I can give isDONT FORGET YOUR AFF!!

DA's:In general I like strong impact analysis and good link story. Make logical argument and be able to weigh the impact story against the Aff.

CP’s: I am open all types of CP’s you just have to prove the competitiveness of said CP and make sure it has a net benefit.

FW: Again….Debate is a game but this game has real life implications on those who choose to engage in it. I think FW can be strategic against some Aff’s but don’t use it as a reason to not engage the Aff. Win your interpretation and weigh your impacts. Aff’s: don’t blow off FW answer it and engage it or tell me why you are not engaging in it.

Theory: Not a big fan of it, but make sure you slow down as to ensure I get all the arguments you are making. But do you!

Cross X: I think this is the best part of debate and LOVE it. Don’t waste those 3 min, they serve a great purpose. I am ALWAYS paying attention to CX and may even flow it.

***Please remember that I am not as familiar with the high school topic so don’t assume I know all the jargon ***

Last but not least,watch me!(take hints from the visual cues that I am sending)

David Cram Helwich
University of Minnesota
28 years judging, 20-ish rounds each year

Quick version: Do what you do best and I will try to check my dispositions at the door.

Topic Thoughts: We picked the wrong one (too narrow, needed at least sole purpose). Aff innovation is going to require NFU-subsets affs, but I have yet to see a good argument for a reasonable limit to such an interpretation. "Disarming" creates an unanticipated loophole. Process counterplans that are not directly related to nuclear policymaking seem superfluous given the strength of the negative side of the topic literature.

Online Debate: It is "not great," better than I feared. I have judged quite a few online debates over the past 3 years. Debaters will benefit by slowing down a bit if that enhances their clarity, avoiding cross-talk, and actively embracing norms that minimize the amount of "null time" in debates--watch for speechdocs and download them right away, pay attention to the next speaker as they give the order, be efficient in getting your speechdoc attached and sent, etc.

Evidence: I believe that engaged research is one of the strongest benefits of policy debate, and that judging practices should incentivize such research. I am a bad judge for you if your evidence quality is marginal—sources, recency, and warrants/data offered. I reward teams who debate their opponent’s evidence, including source qualifications.

Delivery: I will provide prompts (if not on a panel) if I am having trouble flowing. I will not evaluate arguments that I could not originally flow.

Topicality: I vote on well-developed procedurals. I rarely vote on T cheap shots. T is not genocide—however, “exclusion” and similar impacts can be good reasons to prefer one interpretation over another. Debaters that focus interpretation debating on caselists (content and size), division of ground, and the types of literature we read, analyzed through fairness/education lenses, are more likely to get my ballot. I tend to have a high threshold for what counts as a “definition”—intent to define is important, whereas proximity-count “definitions” seem more valuable in setting the parameters of potential caselists than in grounding an interpretation of the topic.

Critical Arguments: I have read quite a bit of critical theory, and will not dismiss your argument just because it does not conform to ‘traditional’ notions of debate. However, you should not assume that I am necessarily familiar with your particular literature base. I value debating that applies theory to the ‘artifact’ of the 1AC (or 1NC, or topic, etc). The more specific and insightful the application of said theory, the more likely I am to vote for you. Explaining what it means to vote for you (role of the ballot) is vitally important, for both “policy” and “K” teams. Absent contrary guidance, I view ‘framework’ debates in the same frame as T—caselist size/content, division of ground, research focus.

Disadvantages/Risk: I typically assess the ‘intrinsic probability’ of the plan triggering a particular DA (or advantage) before assessing uniqueness questions. This means that link work is very important—uniqueness obviously implicates probability, but “risk of uniqueness” generally means “we have no link.” Impact assessments beyond shallow assertions (“ours is faster because I just said so”) are an easy pathway to my ballot, especially if you have strong evidentiary support

Theory: I will not evaluate theoretical objections that do not rise to the level of an argument (claim, data, warrant). Good theory debating focuses on how the operationalization of competing interpretations impacts what we debate/research and side balance. Thought experiments (what would debate look like if the neg could read an unlimited number of contradictory, conditional counterplans?) are valuable in drawing such comparisons. I tend to find “arg not team” to be persuasive in most cases. This means you need a good reason why “loss” is an appropriate remedy for a theory violation—I am persuadable on this question, but it takes more than an assertion. If it is a close call in your mind about whether to go for “substance” or “theory,” you are probably better off going for “substance.”

Counterplans: The gold standard for counterplan legitimacy is specific solvency evidence. Obviously, the necessary degree of specificity is a matter of interpretation, but, like good art, you know it when you see it. I am more suspicious of multi-conditionality, and international fiat than most judges. I am probably more open to condition counterplans than many critics. PICs/PECs that focus debate on substantive parts of the aff seem important to me. Functional competition seems to make more sense than does textual competition. That being said, I coach my teams to run many counterplans that I do not think are legitimate, and vote for such arguments all the time. The status quo seems to be a legitimate voting option unless I am instructed otherwise. My assumption is that I am trying to determine the "best policy option," which can include the status quo unless directed otherwise.

Argument Resolution: Rebuttalists that simply extend a bunch of cards/claims and hope that I decide things in their favor do poorly in front of me. I reward debaters that resolve arguments, meaning they provide reasons why their warrants, data, analysis, sources etc. are stronger (more persuasive) than those of their opponents on critical pressure points. I defer to uncontested argument and impact comparisons. I read evidence on questions that are contested, if I want the cite, or if I think your argument is interesting.

Decorum: I believe that exclusionary practices (including speech acts) are unacceptable. I am unlikely to vote against you for being offensive, but I will not hesitate to decrease your points if you behave in an inappropriate manner (intentionally engaging in hostile, classist, racist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist etc. acts, for example). I recognize that this activity is very intense, but please try to understand that everyone present feels the same pressures and “play nice.”

Use an email chain--establish one before the round, and please include me on it (cramhelwich@gmail.com) . Prep time ends once the speechdoc is saved and sent. Most tournaments have policies on how to deal with "tech time"--please know what those policies are. I do not have a strong opinion on the acceptability of mid-speech prep for other purposes.

If you have specific questions, please ask me before the round.

Last updated 9/11/2020

9th year involved in policy debate

Grad student at Indiana University studying public affairs & environmental science with a concentration in energy & policy analysis (Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!)

Indiana University '19
New Trier High School '16
camerondd16@gmail.com -Email, add to email chains

General Stuff:

Plans--x----------------Planless

Tech--x----------------Truth

Infinite condo--x----------------A reasonable amount of condo

Having Fun--x----------------Angry Debate

CX answers are binding, and I flow them- no take backs in the next speech.

"Insert this rehighlighting into the debate" doesn't count- read the new highlighting or I'm not evaluating it.

Kritiks:

If you can't/don't crystallize your K's thesis in 4 sentences max, it's going to be a hard sell for me.

Line-by-line--x----------------9 minute O/V

CP's:

Solvency advocates are good.

Judge kick---------------x---2NR gets one world

T:

Core of the topic---------------x---Actually having an argument

Winning Reasonability means I will judge your aff based on whether I like it or not.

Framework:

Things I find persuasive: Predictability/Arbitrariness, Fairness (Debate’s a game), Iterative testing.

Things I find less persuasive: USFG education good.

Planless Affs:

If your aff does not have an advocacy statement and a clear mechanism and blueprint for what voting aff means, I am not the best judge for you.

Update 4/1/2023

*If you are scanning this philosophy as a nonmember of the community, seeking out quotes to help your political "culture war" cause you are not an honest broker here and largely looking for clickbait. I find your endeavors an unfortunate result of a rage machine that consumes a great deal of quality programs without ever helping them thrive or grow. Re-evaluate your life and think about how you can help high schools and middle schools around this country develop speech and debate programs, core liberal art educational, to improve the quality of argumentation, that otherwise is lacking. In the end, as an outsider looking in, you are missing a great deal of nuance in these philosophies and how they operate in the communities (multiple not just one) around the US and the world.

If you have landed here as a representative of Fox News or an ally or affiliate, I would like to see the receipts of the bias that has and continues to perforate your organization from Roger Ailes to Tucker Carlson and more. Here is my question, when you learned about the Joe McCarthy era of conspiracy theory, along with the hysteria and demonization of potential Americans who are communist (or sympathizers) and "pinko" (gay or sexual "deviants"), is your gripe with McCarthy that he had a secret list without evidence, or do you recognize that a core problem with McCarthy is his anti-democratic fear that there actually ARE communists, gay, trans, bisexual, Americans?

My next question is when and where you think it is acceptable for a person with strong beliefs to exist in democratic spaces. Bias is inevitable and part of this debate game. Organizations attempt to manage types of bias and coaches and debaters learn how to adapt to certain bias while attempting to avoid problematic bias. What do you think? Would right leaning presidential candidates vote for an argument that affirms trans athletes in sports? Should a trans judge leave their identity entirely at the door and embody a leading republican presidential candidate who is against medical care for trans persons? Both answers are no. The issue you seek to lambast for viewership clickbate is much deeper and more complicated than a 3 minute video clip can cover. Thank for reading.

REAL PHILOSOPHY
Background: Indiana University Director of Debate as of 2010. Background is primarily as a policy debater and policy debate coach.

Email Chain: Bdelo77@gmail.com

The road to high speaker points and the ballot

I reward debaters who have a strong knowledge of the topic. Those debaters who can articulate intricacies and relationships amongst topic specific literature will meet what I believe are the educational benefits of having a topic in the first place.

Using evidence to assist you with the argument you are trying to make is more important than stringing evidence together in hopes that they accumulate into an argument. “I have a card judge, it is real good” “pull my 15 uniqueness cards judge” are not arguments. Ex: Obama will win the election – a) swing voters, Rasmussen poll indicates momentum after the DNC b) Washington post “Romney has lost the election” the base is gone… etc. are good extensions of evidence.

Less jargon more eloquence. I get bored with repeated catch phrases. I understand the need for efficiency, but debaters who recognize the need for innovation by individuals in the activity will receive more points.

Speed: I expect I can digest at least 70% of your speech. The other 30% should be general human attention span issues on my part. I firmly believe debate is a communication event, I am saddened that this has been undervalued as debaters prepare for tournaments. If I agree with X debater that Y debater’s speech on an argument was incoherent, I am more and more willing to just ignore the argument. Computer screens and Bayesian calculus aside, there is a human in this body that makes human decisions.

Should affs be topical?

Affs should have a relationship to the topic that is cogent. If there is no relationship to the topic, I have a high standard for affirmatives to prove that the topic provides no “ground” for a debater to adapt and exist under its umbrella. Negatives, this does not mean you don’t have a similar burden to prove that the topic is worth debating. However personally I think you will have a much smaller hill to climb… I find it disturbing that debaters do not go further than a quick “topical version of your aff solves” then insert X switch side good card… Explain why the topical version is good for debate and provides argument diversity and flexibility.

Policy debate is good: When I prep our files for tournaments I tend to stay in the policy-oriented literature. This does not mean that I am unwilling to cut our K file or K answers, I just have limited time and job related motivation to dive into this literature.

K Debate: Can be done well, can be done poorly. I do not exclude the arguments from the round but nebulous arguments can be overplayed and abused.

(Updated 3-2-2022) Conditionality:

1) Judge Kick? No. You made your choice on what to go for now stick with it. 2NRs RARELY have the time to complete one avenue for the ballot let alone two conditional worlds...

I tend to believe that one conditional substantive test of the plan advocacy is good (agent CP, process CP, or ?) and I am open to the idea of the need for a second advantage CP (need to deal with add-ons and bad advantages) or K within limits. I'm not a fan of contradicting conditional advocacies in how they implicate 2AC offense and potential.

Beyond 1-2 conditional arguments, I am torn by the examples of proliferating counterplans and critiques that show up in the 1NC and then disappear in the negative block. There is a substantive tradeoff in the depth and quality of arguments and thus a demotivation incentive for the iterative testing and research in the status quo world of 3+ conditional advocacies. The neg's, "write better advantages" argument has value, however with 2AC time pressure it means that 1ACs are becoming Frankenstein's monster to deal with the time tradeoff.

Plans: I think the community should toy with the idea of a grand bargain where affirmatives will specify more in their plan text and negs give up some of their PIC ground. The aff interp of "we only have to specify the resolution" has pushed us in the direction where plans are largely meaningless and aff conditionality is built into core 2AC frontlines. The thing is, our community has lost many of its fora for discussing theory and establishing new norms around issues like this. Debaters need to help be the change we need and we need more in-depth theory discussions outside of the rounds. Who is the Rorger Solt going to be of the 2020's?

Reading evidence:
I find myself more willing to judge the evidence as it was debated in the round (speeches and cx), and less willing to scan through piles of cards to create a coherent understanding of the round. If a debate is being had about the quality of X card, how I SHOULD read the evidence, etc. I will read it.

Sometimes I just have an interest in the evidence and I read it for self-educational and post-round discussion reasons.

Judging:

I will work extremely hard to evaluate the debate as the debaters have asked me to judge it.

Yes, email chain. debateoprf@gmail.com

ME:

Debater--The University of Michigan '91-'95

Head Coach--Oak Park and River Forest HS '15-'20

Assistant Coach--New Trier Township High School '20-

POLICY DEBATE:

Top Level

--Old School Policy.

--Like the K on the Neg. Harder sell on the Aff.

--Quality of Evidence Counts. Massive disparities warrant intervention on my part. You can insert rehighlightings. There should not be a time punishment for the tean NOT reading weak evidence.

--Not great with theory debates.

--I value Research and Strategic Thinking (both in round and prep) as paramount when evaluating procedural impacts.

--Utter disdain for trolly Theory args, Death Good, Wipeout and Spark. Respect the game, win classy.

Advantage vs Disadvantage

More often than not, I tend to gravitate towards the team that wins probability. The more coherent and plausible the internal link chain is, the better.

Zero risk is a thing.

I can and will vote against an argument if cards are poor exclusive of counter evidence being read.

Not a big fan of Pre-Fiat DA's: Spending, Must Pass Legislation, Riders, etc. I will err Aff on theory unless the Neg has some really good evidence as to why not.

I love nuanced defense and case turns. Conversely, I love link and impact turns. Please run lots of them.

Counterplans

Conditionality—

I am largely okay with a fair amount of condo. i.e. 4-5 not a big deal for me. I will become sympathetic to Aff Theory ONLY if the Neg starts kicking straight turned arguments. On the other hand, if you go for Condo Bad and can't answer Strat Skew Inevitable, Idea Testing Good and Hard Debate is Good Debate then don't go for Condo Bad. I have voted Aff on Conditionality Theory, but rarely.

2023-2024 EDIT:

**That said, the Inequality Topic has made me add an addendum to my aforementioned grievance about being on my lawn: running blatantly contradictory arguments about Capitalism, Unions, Growth, etc. are egregious performance contradictions that I will no longer ignore under the auspices of conditionality. Its not that I am changing my tune on condo per se, its that this promotes bad neg strats that are usually a result of high school students not thinking about things they should be before reading the 1NC. Its pretty easy to win in-round abuse when a Neg is defending Unions Good and Bad at the same time. I encourage you to try.

Competition—

1. I have grown weary of vague plan writing. To that end, I tend think that the Neg need only win that the CP is functionally competitive. The Plan is about advocacy and cannot be a moving target.

2. Perm do the CP? Intrinsic Perms? I am flexible to Neg if they have a solvency advocate or the Aff is new. Otherwise, I lean Aff.

Other Stuff—

PIC’s and Agent CP’s are part of our game. I err Neg on theory. Ditto 50 State Fiat.

No object Fiat, please. Or International Fiat on a Domestic Topic.

Otherwise, International Fiat is a gray area for me. The Neg needs a good Interp that excludes abusive versions. Its winnable.

Solvency advocates and New Affs make me lean Neg on theory.

I will judge kick automatically unless given a decent reason why not in the 1AR.

K-Affs

If you lean on K Affs, just do yourself a favor and put me low or strike me. I am not unsympathetic to your argument per se, I just vote on Framework 60-70% of the time and it rarely has anything to do with your Aff.

That said, if you can effectively impact turn Framework, beat back a TVA and Switch Side Debate, you can get my ballot.

Topic relevance is important.

If your goal is to make blanket statements about why certain people are good or bad or should be excluded from valuable discussions then I am not your judge. We are all flawed.

I do not like “debate is bad” arguments. I don't think that being a "small school" is a reason why I should vote for you.

Kritiks vs Policy Affs

Truth be told, I vote Neg on Kritiks vs Policy Affs A LOT.

I am prone to voting Aff on Perms, so be advised College Debaters. I have no take on "philosophical competition" but it does seem like a thing.

I am not up on the Lit AT ALL, so the polysyllabic word stews you so love to concoct are going to make my ears bleed.

I like reading cards after the debate and find myself understanding nuance better when I can. If you don’t then you leave me with only the bad handwriting on my flow to decipher what you said an hour later and that’s not good for anybody.

When I usually vote Neg its because the Aff has not done a sufficient job in engaging with core elements of the K, such as Ontology, Root Cause Claims, etc.

I am not a great evaluator of Framework debates and will usually err for the team that accesses Education Impacts the best.

Topicality

Because it theoretically serves an external function that affects other rounds, I do give the Aff a fair amount of leeway when the arguments start to wander into a gray area. The requirement for Offense on the part of the Affirmative is something on which I place little value. Put another way, the Aff need only prove that they are within the predictable confines of research and present a plan that offers enough ground on which to run generic arguments. The Negative must prove that the Affirmative skews research burdens to a point in which the topic is unlimited to a point beyond 20-30 possible cases and/or renders the heart of the topic moot.

Plan Text in a Vacuum is a silly defense. In very few instances have I found it defensible. If you choose to defend it, you had better be ready to defend the solvency implications.

Limits and Fairness are not in and of themselves an impact. Take it to the next level.

Why I vote Aff a lot:

--Bad/Incoherent link mechanics on DA’s

--Perm do the CP

--CP Solvency Deficits

--Framework/Scholarship is defensible

--T can be won defensively

Why I vote Neg a lot:

--Condo Bad is silly

--Weakness of aff internal links/solvency

--Offense that turns the case

--Sufficiency Framing

--You actually had a strategy

PUBLIC FORUM SUPPLEMENT:

I judge about 1 PF Round for every 50 Policy Rounds so bear with me here.

I have NOT judged the PF national circuit pretty much ever. The good news is that I am not biased against or unwilling to vote on any particular style. Chances are I have heard some version of your meta level of argumentation and know how it interacts with the round. The bad news is if you want to complain about a style of debate in which you are unfamiliar, you had better convince me why with, you know, impacts and stuff. Do not try and cite an unspoken rule about debate in your part of the country.

Because of my background in Policy, I tend to look at things from a cost benefit perspective. Even though the Pro is not advocating a Plan and the Con is not reading Disadvantages, to me the round comes down to whether the Pro has a greater possible benefit than the potential implications it might cause. Both sides should frame the round in terms impact calculus and or feasibility. Impacts need to be tangible.

Evidence quality is very important.

I will vote on what is on the flow (yes, I flow) and keep my personal opinions of arguments in check as much as possible. I may mock you for it, but I won’t vote against you for it. No paraphrasing. Quote the author, date and the exact words. Quals are even better but you don’t have to read them unless pressed. Have the website handy. Research is critical.

Speed? Meh. You cannot possibly go fast enough for me to not be able to follow you. However, that does not mean I want to hear you go fast. You can be quick and very persuasive. You don't need to spread.

Defense is nice but is not enough. You must create offense in order to win. There is no “presumption” on the Con.

While I am not a fan of formal “Kritik” arguments in PF, I do think that Philosophical Debates have a place. Using your Framework as a reason to defend your scholarship is a wise move. Racism and Sexism will not be tolerated. You can attack your opponents scholarship.

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

I do not reward debaters who cry foul when hearing an argument that falls outside traditional parameters of PF Debate. Again, I am not a fan of the Kritik, but if its abusive, tell me why instead of just saying “not fair.”

Statistics are nice, to a point. But I feel that judges/debaters overvalue them. Often the best impacts involve higher values that cannot be quantified. A good example would be something like Structural Violence.

While Truth outweighs, technical concessions on key arguments can and will be evaluated. Dropping offense means the argument gets 100% weight.

The goal of the Con is to disprove the value of the Resolution. If the Pro cannot defend the whole resolution (agent, totality, etc.) then the Con gets some leeway.

I care about substance and not style. It never fails that I give 1-2 low point wins at a tournament. Just because your tie is nice and you sound pretty, doesn’t mean you win. I vote on argument quality and technical debating. The rest is for lay judging.

Relax. Have fun.

He/Him

Minneapolis South/Occasional judging for Minnesota

My email is izakgm [at] gmail.com, add me to the email chain before the round, please and thank you.

Good debating overwhelms anything else on here. I've coached and judged teams of all styles. I will try my best to evaluate the round on your terms and not my own.

do whatever you gotta do for your internet quality. I'd like camera on but if you can't, you can't, and I won't hold it against you and you don't need to explain to me.

IN PERSON DEBATE IS BACK and its time to shed our eDebate norms like "not saying the words that are in the card text while we spread". I will most certainly let you know I'm not getting it. Teams that spread clearly: I see you, I hear you, I honor you, and I am here with you!

How I judge - big picture > minutia.

I appreciate explicit impact comparison, judge instruction, and when the 2nr/2ar starts in a place that helps me resolve the rest of the debate. I don't mean "they dropped my role of the ballot!!!!!!". If you say "extinction outweighs" but don't tell me what it outweighs, I'll just assume you mean its important since you haven't made a comparative claim.

I'm flow centered, but not a fan of cheap shots or punishing small mistakes. I'm not a perfect flow. In fact I am certainly one of the worst flowers on the circuit and yet I use my flow to decide the round. If you want me to evaluate your argument its on you to make sure I write it down. Late breaking and unforeseeable arguments may justify new responses. I do have 2n sympathyTM and will check the 2ar against arguments that weren't in the 1ar. 2nr line drawing or instruction remains helpful.

I think in terms of risks, including zero risk and presumption. Offense/defense works well a lot of the time, but I'm not a cultist. If internal links are missing and the other team points it out without reply, I'm not giving you 1% just for fun.

I think I used to be harder on the 1ar and 2nr. Now I give a bit more leeway if there was sufficient explanation earlier in the debate. I pay close attention to and often flow cross-x if its going somewhere.

I read less evidence than many judges at the end of the round. If your superior evidence quality is not explained, I might miss it. I will not reconstruct the round through the docs afterwards. I won't read along unless I suspect clipping. If you deliver the text of your evidence incomprehensibly fast I will not read the text of it later to figure out what you said. Again, the burden of communication is on you.

I love strategic concessions and rehighlightings. If you are right and you read it in the speech, I will prioritize your analysis. It makes sense to insert things like charts. If its "a stake the round on it" kind of issue, please do not insert a rehighlighting, I need you read it. If its just an FYI about a tertiary issue... go off I guess.

I'm expressive and might intervene vocally to move you off a stale cx direction or motion to move on if you are repeating yourself in the speech. It will be pretty obvious in person if I have stopped flowing because I don't understand what you are saying. My resting face is rather stern, don't take it personally. I'm probably still vibing with you.

FW v K aff - Yes, I will vote either way. It comes down to links and impacts like any other debate and the best teams in these rounds have offense and defense.

Neg teams: I'll be honest, if you say debate is a game more than twice my eyes start to glaze over. Fairness can be an impact but it usually feels like a small one. By this I mean if the aff wins any impact at all it will be more important to me than fairness. If that's your approach you'll need to be playing great defense (lots of ways to do this) or really filtering out aff offense somehow. I say this and yet I think fairness/clash is by far the most strategic version of this argument. Y'all think I didn't notice you just ctrl-f'd your fairness blocks with clash? Ignoring the questions posed by the aff or repeatedly mischaracterizing the aff's claims will likely result in an aff ballot.

Aff teams: I'm open to whatever approach you want to take. I'm personally more interested in strategies built around a counter interpretation even if its not an intuitive (or predictable) one, will vote for impact turns alone and in many cases that is more strategic. Just FYI, I do not know what the symbolic economy is, so if you are the first one to explain it to me then kudos. I think I just learned what a psychoanalytic drive is last month but I still might not understand it. If the TVA is something I'm thinking about during my decision time, even if you dropped it, then you've written or explained your aff poorly. If your model doesn't explain a role for negation, or your aff is so uncontroversial that it doesn't hold up to a basic inherency push, I can see myself voting neg easily.

Ks on the neg - Love these debates. Explanation is vital on both sides. Aff teams that explain their internal links and solvency have the most success against ks in front of me. Aff framework arguments that exclude kritiks entirely will be a tough sell. If the alt is cheating, you can point that out tho ;) I've yet to hear a persuasive explanation for judge choice - I will only vote on benefits of your plan that you explain. Neg teams do well with strong links that implicate the case. You don't always need an alt in the 2nr, but you might be better off defending an imperfect alt instead of just the squo, especially if the 2ar is on to you. Perms are a valuable tool but 90% of aff wins would be on case outweighs whether the perm was present or not.

Policy stuff - Yes. I like internal link and solvency presses. Impact defense can make sense, but "x doesn't cause extinction" might not get your there if the other team has a nuanced impact comparison. I have a loose attachment to the "link first" camp until you tell me otherwise. My time in Minnesota has left me with a love for impact turns, don't care how dumb it seems. If you can't beat stupid... I don't know what to tell you.

I struggled with Judge Kick for a while. I've come around. I still enjoy strategic and narrow 2nrs (i.e. not making me do this). If you explicitly (saying "squo is always an option" in 1nc cx counts) flag this as an option by the end of the block I'm game. I am open to affs that ask me to stick the 2nr to the cp.

Complicated Perm texts can be explained and inserted - they should be written out fully and sent for all to see. Counterplan texts that you don't want to read fully.... No thank you. Be more creative with how its written.

Things it might be helpful to know about me/carrots+sticks/hot takes inspired by OTT

• i understand why no one does this but if the aff team took a stance on something (like an actual explanation of how they solve not solely hedging against agent cps) and the neg fiats through a solvency deficit based in literature and the aff went for theory I might be more likely to vote aff than most. This obviously goes out the window if the aff says the phrase "for the purpose of counterplan competition" at any point in cx.
• some bonus speaker points (maybe .2?) if your neg strategy (policy or k) hinges on tech and not nato. Feels like there is room for das/impact turns in this area and I would like to see them.
• If your wiki is sparse your points are capped at 28.5 - its JV behavior, you get JV points.
• If you can't answer basic CX questions about a position you are asking for an L 27. If you think the round is over and you stop your rebuttal VERY early because you have already won (invoke a TKO correctly), the baseline for your points is 29.5.
• I'm lukewarm for plan text in a vacuum. "Only non-arbitrary" blah blah blzh both teams should just debate about what the aff does. I will require some extra convincing before the 2ar and will heavily protect the 2nr here.
• truly random defaults that have come up more than once in rounds that I want on the record: perms are tests of competition so I will jettison them if they would hurt the aff. you can implicitly answer a "ballot pic" by trying to win the round.

If you still have questions, please feel free to email or ask me before the round!

Old water topic thoughts archive

- Glad I didn't judge enough on this topic to have thoughts. We only heard extinction affs all year because of the bizcon da? Now that's what I call cowardice. Excited for NATO!

Old CJR thoughts archive

- learning about the criminal justice system is nice. If you teach me something about the topic (yes critical knowledge is part of the topic get over yourself) over the course of the debate, boost to your points. If your aff is about cyberattacks strike me, I simply don't care. If your aff is about cyberattacks and you debate the internal link level well enough to convince me that you were actually talking about criminal justice reform,

- i have some professional experience working on police reform. I live in Minneapolis and South high is blocks from where the 3rd precinct burned. My personal belief is ACAB. I feel familiar with many of the practical arguments for and against abolition, so I have a high threshold for link debating. aff teams, feel free to go for "abolition bad" instead of the perm...

- I'd love to be a judge that fully resolved framing first before substance. Unfortunately the quality of debating here is often such that I have to resolve some substance to figure out what to do.

Ryan Galloway

Samford University

Coached for 29 years

rwlcgalloway@gmail.com

Broad Strokes: I have voted for and against just about every kind of argument in the activity. While my background and research interests are primarily in the policy side of the equation, I have frequently been convinced to vote for critical arguments. I love debate and am happy to be judging you. Debate requires a lot of work and effort on your part, and I plan on returning the favor by working hard to reward your effort in the debate.

Framework: The most important thing I could say about debating this issue, or virtually any other issue, is to listen carefully to what the other team says and to answer it specifically. I find that teams on both sides of the equation become block dependent and fail to answer the nuance of what the other team says. Before last year’s NDT, I thought I was a good judge for the negative, but at the NDT I voted affirmative twice in framework debates. I would recommend more line-by-line from both sides, and less overview dependent arguments. In many framework debates I've judged, the AFF tends to overwhelm the NEG with so many arguments that the NEG can't keep up. I often encourage the NEG to go for other arguments in those situations, even if they are less scripted and rely more on analytic arguments.

Topicality: I tend to be a good judge for contextualized definitions from either side. My ideal topicality debate would be one more about what the word means in context than arbitrary definitions from both sides with appeals to limits and ground. I am more amenable to appeals to reasonable interpretations than most judges. I dislike de-contextualized interpretations that create a meaning that is not in context of the literature or field.

Kritiks generally: Here's where I think I fall on various kritikal strands:

Very good for identity kritiks, very, very bad for high theory kritiks, pretty good for IR kritiks, goodish for nuclear weapons Kritiks, pretty bad for ad hominems disguised as kritiks, do not believe you can cross-x the judge. Unlikely to believe that one theory of power or psychological drive affects everyone in every situation. Do not think the alt or even having an alt is as important as other judges if you prove the ideological or discursive justifications of the affirmative make the world worse. Do not think that there needs to be an alternative to justify permutations to the ideology inherent in the criticism. Kind of bad for tiny risks of extinction mean I should ignore all standards of morality. Think all philosophical endeavors should be geared toward helping real people in their everyday lives. Better for discourse kritiks than most judges. As a vegetarian, I have found myself more sensitive to impacts on non-humans than many.

Identity k's: history shows I'm very good for them. Not as familiar with all the authors, so you need to guide me a bit. Some familiarity with lit on Afro-pess and Afro-futurism. Not good for the logic that suggests “if you link you lose” is somehow a bad standard of evaluation for k’s.

High Theory K's: you should honestly strike me if your primary strategy is to read generic theory cards referencing a dead French or German philosopher and somehow think they apply to nuclear weapons policy in 2024. I have read a fair amount of post-modern authors, who I generally find to be dull, arrogant, incoherent, usually incorrect, and pragmatically unhelpful. I will not apply your general theory of power to specifically link turning a highly nuanced affirmative case .I feel strongly that a lot of what is happening in these high-theory debates is intellectual bankruptcy and am willing to say the emperor has no clothes. I also think I have a higher standard for evidentiary quality in these debates than most.

IR K's: I'll certainly listen to a security K, a fem IR K, Gender kritiks, Complexity Kritiks, Kritiks of realism, etc. Might need to do a little work applying them specifically to the AFF--but I'm pretty open. I think the lit is deep, credible, and important.

Nuke Weapons K's: As long as the K is an actual indictment of nuclear weapons reductions or disarmament, I'm very down. I will caution you that I think most of the cards I've read talking about "nuclear weapons discourse" are in the context of those who discuss building up nuclear weapons and justifying nuclear deterrence, and are not about reductions and disarmament policies.

Clash debates: I find them hard to judge for both sides. I think if each team would line up what they are arguing the debate is about it would be helpful. Am I evaluating the consequences of FIAT'd action? I am evaluating the AFF as a demand for state action? Am I evaluating the educational benefits of a model of a debate? Am I judging the AFF as an artifact of scholarship?

For non-traditional frameworks, having a method or metric to evaluate what the debate is about would be helpful. How do I assess what is good scholarship? What are the benefits of endorsing a particular model of debate?

I've been told I am a k hack. Perhaps. I have been accused of being erratic in clash debates, wracked with guilt, and apply an offense/defense paradigm where it is inappropriate. It is possible that all of these criticisms may be true or false to some extent. I try and judge the debate I’m watching without a pre-prepared standard of evaluation.

Teams that directly engage the argument of the other team and not use generic framing issues tend to do better in front of me. Engage the scholarship directly, even if you don't have cards. Be willing to talk about how your affirmative operates in the framework established by the other team. Be responsive and think on your feet. Surprisingly good for pragmatism and incrementalism arguments. If the k answer fell out of flavor in the mid to late nineties, I probably really like the argument. I am completely uninterested in proving my kritik credentials or proving that I am down with whomever is the new hot theorist making the coffee shop rounds.

Disads and risk: Framing arguments on risk are very important to me. I flow them and will try to evaluate the debate on the terms that you set up. I try to not have a pre-planned position on how to evaluate these arguments. As with most arguments, less overview and more line-by-line is better. I like when teams use their evidence, even if it is not specific, to make link arguments specific to the affirmative. I view evidence as part of the tool-kit that you have, and the specific arguments you make about your evidence are very important to me. Evidence alone is not an argument. The use of evidence to make an argument is a fundamental component of debate.

Counterplans: I enjoy nuanced counterplan debates made specific to the plan/counterplan in the debate. I dislike littering the flow with permutations and generic theory arguments. I like smart counterplans that solve the internal link of the affirmative. I like theory debates where either team responds to what is happening in the debate they are engaged in, as opposed to abstractions. I lean pretty heavily for the neg on conditionality.

Theory: I'm much better for "if they get 'x' we get 'y' then they absolutely should not get 'x' under any circumstances. I like strategic concessions on theory to justify arguments elsewhere on the flow. Standard theory blocks are stale and uninteresting, but if you've got an innovative theory or spin especially based on a concession of their theory, I'd be happy to listen. Standards of logic and whether something truly tests the affirmative plan or method are more persuasive to me than many others. Kind of not good for appeals to time skews and hypothetical strategy skews that are likely non-existent.

Novice Debate: I love novice debate and am so happy to be judging you. Novice is my favorite division to judge. I tend to reward novices who make smart arguments using their own logic to attack the other teams’ arguments. I tend to also reward specific line by line debating, so answer what the other team has to say specifically. Feel free to ask me lots of questions at the end of the debate about style, arguments, the decision, etc.

I have eased off some of my prior criticisms of the way novice is coached, but I will still tend to reward substantive arguments as opposed to arguments I view as cheap shots. I enjoy when novices are taught skills that will benefit them throughout their debate careers, instead of those designed to trick another novice with an esoteric and widely rejected theory they just haven’t heard yet.

Ethics challenges: I strongly believe that you should email your opponent or your coaches if you find a problem with their evidence. I think most mistakes are accidental. I have personally emailed coaches who have incorrectly cited a card and found the mistake to be accidental--cutting a lot of cards with multiple windows open and accidentally putting the wrong cite on a card, etc. I think we have to have a certain measure of trust and respect to make the activity happen.

Ethics challenges are happening way too often and are becoming trivialized. If you worry that my standard for trivial is arbitrary, non-trivial suggests you have contacted your opponents, that you are 100% sure you are factually correct, and you can illustrate intent on your opponents’ parts. I believe accusing someone of being unethical is incredibly serious and the standards should be very high.

Stylistic issues:

1. I prefer if you number your arguments.
2. Arguments should be clear in the 1ac/1nc. I dislike the idea that the other team should have to read your evidence to figure out the scope of the argument. The argument should be clear upon its initial presentation.
3. I prefer clear labels to arguments--no link, non-unique, turn, etc.
4. I prefer labels to off-case positions as they happen in the debate: The Politics disad, The TNW's PIC, the Security Kritik, etc. instead of just launching into a five plank counterplan text and leave me to figure out what the thesis of the argument is.
5. I prefer specific line by line debating to doing most of the work in the overview.
6. I don't read speech docs as the debate goes on and I flow what you say, not what's in the doc.
7. I am very concerned about how stylistic and demeanor norms in the activity marginalize non-cis-dude debaters. Please don't cut off, mansplain to, talk over, berate, or not listen to non-cis-dude debaters. It is shocking to me how much this still goes on.
8. I try to judge the debate, and not the quality of the speech docs after the debate is over. I strongly disagree with judges who read all the cards and decide the debate from that.
9. I seem to be particularly sensitive to aggression in cross-x and cutting someone else off while they are trying to ask or answer a question. I think people should be quiet more and listen to the other side. I also don’t like cross-x filibustering. I don’t think cross-x should be used to “clown” or belittle your opponent. I realize I’m probably saying I believe in the opposite of everything you’ve learned about cross-x, but it’s how I feel. The best cross-x’s set up a trap that isn’t revealed until later in the debate.
10. I still believe in a place called Hope.

Juan Garcia-Lugo

UT-San Antonio

They/Them

jgl.debate@gmail.com

Yes, I want to be on the email chain. I don't follow along with speech documents, but I will usually read most of the cards (I'm curious!).

If an argument is complete, I will evaluate it. While my judging and coaching experience heavily leans towards the critical side of debate, I prefer you read something that you are passionate about and are prepared to debate. Tech and Truth both matter. A conceded argument is a true argument but the significance of that argument is still up for debate. There are many ways to do debate, and when two different styles are present, framing arguments are important for establishing argument priorities. I default to the framing arguments presented and won by the debaters. Otherwise, look below for some of the ways I think about arguments.

Kritiks

I understand most K theory through the use of examples, please provide and debate them. I find presumption strategies against K aff's unpersuasive if the affirmative can articulate and defend a form of action. I find them more persuasive against K aff's that are describing a theory of power. K's that don't defend an alternative are fine, but often necessitate strong framework arguments or decisively won offense against the affirmative.

Framework

I'm usually concerned with "what makes debate a valuable activity?". The idea of a fair game for its own sake is less persuasive to me than the idea of a fair game being necessary for producing valuable education. Quality evidence on framework goes a very long way for me. I don't like evidence that comes from debate textbooks and manuals, but will vote on them.

Theory

Have an interpretation and defend it. I prefer that interpretation not be arbitrary (we get 2 conditional arguments v 3 conditional arguments). When it comes to offense, less is more. Winning 2 big arguments for why process counterplans are good is better than your 8th argument about "best policy option". This is also the only part of debate I strongly stress slowing down on. The impact to most theory arguments is to reject the argument not the team (conditionality is exceptional).

Yes email chain: lincolngarrett49@gmail.com

https://www.debatemusings.org/home/site-purpose-judging-debates

AFF on T

NEG on conditionality, but even I have my limit (more than 3, no evidence for a bunch of them, combining them later in the debate, amending and adding 2NC cps). NEGs are less good at defending their egregiousness in my recent experience.

I will kick the CP if I think it is worse than the status quo. A neg team doesn't have to say "judge kick" and the AFF isn't going to convince me I shouldn't do this.

I reject the argument and not the team for most every other theoretical objection to a CP.

Will vote on K's. Will care about if the plan is a good idea even if the AFF can't physially make it happen.

Don't have to read a plan, but merely saying the res is bad and dropping stuff will lead to L's.

I am not in the market to award AFF vagueness or poor explanations of cases until the 2AR

Evidence quality outweighs evidence quantity.

Yes, I'd like to be on the email chain: thomas.gliniecki at gmail.com . Yes, I'll still make you compile a doc at the end of the round anyway.

Update: December 2021

I admire everyone's tenacity in sticking around through online debate.

I currently coach at Glenbrook South. Getting back into high school debate after years in college has been quite an experience. Here are some reflections based on this topic and things I've noticed through the first semester:

1. When my camera is off, you should assume that I am not there or am having technical difficulties. If I need to turn it off while I am still there, I will make a note of it verbally or in the chat.
2. More teams seem to be reading and going for Ks in front of me. I've noticed a trend that some of these teams "fiat" their alts, e.g. they say their alt is to have a communist revolution overthrowing the US government, and somehow that's strategically equivalent to imagining a policy passing through the USFG. I don't think it is- so "utopian fiat" concerns apply- but I also think that this makes you lose to just perm: do both 99.9% of the time since your links would have to somehow demonstrate that the plan/aff subverted a theoretical revolutionary vanguard powerful enough to off the entire US governing structure.
3. A lot of teams refer to T arguments by the author name on the definition. Maybe this is a function of having not worked at a camp this summer, but this convention never made sense to me and was at odds with how I was taught, which is to label each T argument by the word/phrase being defined (e.g. "T- protection" or "T- water resources"). I don't instinctively remember what author makes what T argument, so using the author name convention is more likely to confuse me than help me conceptualize what your thing is.
4. This topic is very broad, and there don't seem to be cards that meet what I consider to be the "gold standard" of T definitions for operative phrases (such as "protection of water resources"). In the best T debates, both teams would have definitions that are close to such a precise standard, but are vulnerable to criticism to some degree. I anticipate in close T debates, I would lean neg more than a lot of other judges since my response to such situations would be to break ties through an assessment of the quality of each definition for debate, rather than just assuming "if all definitions are on the same plane, I can never exclude the aff."

Update: NDT 2021

I hate arguments that are entirely reliant on some combination of a vocabulary barrier and/or exploiting judge non-interventionism. There are some things that are so ridiculously obvious your opponents shouldn't have to waste their time saying them. If your strategy is premised on your opponents either not knowing at all what you even said or not having the time to make a simple factual observation, I think you will discover that non-interventionism has assumptions that underlie its value as a judging practice, and that working against those assumptions is not a good idea for you strategically.
If you're here to say weird troll-y stuff, cool. I'm glad you found an activity you enjoy. I will ask two things: 1. Ask yourself whether subjecting your competitors to that is ethical, 2. please don't involve me in it. Either change around what you do just this once or strike me before the tournament begins.


Older, "core" philosophy

I'm still not voting on "politics isn't intrinsic." I get it if you throw it out there out of force of habit, especially if I'm on a panel- but I will be happier if you don't. Negs, remember you don't need to waste your time answering it, though again, I'll get it if you do.

Specifics-

K/T in "non-traditional" debates- I think debate is at its best when there is a negotiated point of stasis that each side could predict, and when there is a legitimate opportunity for the negative to have a meaningful role in a contested debate. I generally think that if the aff did not defend a topical plan, that they've denied the negative a meaningful role, and have denied the necessary precondition for in-depth engagement.
Neg Ks against "policy" affs tend to propose that I consider one idea external to or somewhere within the 1AC to the exclusion of all else; I tend to think I shouldn't do that. A "K" with very well-articulated ties to the topic, the plan action, and the advantages might be persuasive to me, however, you will need to identify how your alt competes with the _plan_, how your links apply to the _plan_, and consider tying your alt to an alternative policy option. If that sounds too much like a “counterplan” and thus offends your sensibilities, we’re probably not on the same page.
The K has a very bad record in front of me, despite some valiant efforts. If you must do this, try to couch your argument as "mutually exclusive counterplan that solves inevitable extinction- try or die." The more it seems like a disad-counterplan strategy, the more likely I am to be receptive to your argument.

T in "policy" debates- While it's somewhat hard to forecast at the very beginning of a topic, I have historically been very good for the neg when they have high-quality evidence in support of a more restrictive interpretation of the topic. In these debates, I tend to have a lot of skepticism toward aff defense against limits explosion- for example, "functional limits" just seem like an invitation to a deluge of one-and-done affs with bad (but unpredictable and thus "good" for two hours) tricks vs. whatever generic is supposed to stop the aff from existing, and the lack of solvency advocate has never stopped anyone. This topic in particular strikes me as quite tough for the neg, so I may lack sympathy for some aff offensive args as well (e.g. overlimiting).

CP competition- CPs that are just rewritings of the plan or compete on something that doesn't appear in the plan will have problems. This also applies if your CP competes on a word that could be interpreted multiple ways; you will need to decisively win that it should be interpreted a certain way to win a competition arg.

Part-time coach at the University of Kentucky, formerly debated at UK (graduated in 2020)

add me to the email chain: genevieveelise1028 at gmail dot com

General Thoughts

I like for debate to be fun and will generally enjoy judging in debates where it is clear you are having a good time and doing what you're passionate about. Don't be afraid to let your personality show in how you debate - being funny or spicy in the CX are often times I enjoy the debate the most. I understand the amount of time and dedication it takes to do this activity seriously, so I will work very hard to make sure that I am evaluating your debate in a way that respects the hard work that you have put into the activity, and the time and energy you are using to be present at each tournament.

The more I reflect on how I judge, the more I think it is really important for debaters to provide instruction/guidance in their speeches about how to tie all of the different pieces of the debate together. 2NRs and 2ARs that do a lot of this, backed by quality evidence read in earlier speeches, will often find themselves winning, getting good speaker points, and being more satisfied with my decision and how I understood the overarching picture in the debate. I generally believe, in the 2NR and 2AR, reading cards should be an absolute last resort.

Online Debate

I appreciate the accessibility benefits of online debate but do think it suffers from some quality deficit. If my camera is off during prep time, I have probably walked away for a number of reasons. I'll generally try to pop my camera back on when I get back to signal I have returned, and will also usually keep a headphone in to maintain awareness of when you stop prep. Just give me a sec to turn on my camera and get settled before you launch into an order or the speech.

I have an audio processing disorder, which makes it more challenging to flow due to the variety of ways that online debate affects clarity/feedback/etc - please take this into account and put in more effort to be clear on your transitions, tags, etc. It helps me to be able to see you talking, so if you are angled to be completely hidden by your laptop, I will likely be less of a precise flow than otherwise.

Please recall that while I cannot hear you when you are muted on zoom, I can still see you - things like talking for the entire 2AR, blatantly not flowing your opponents speeches, etc are still bad practice, even if you can technically do it.

Nukes Topic

I love this topic, think debating about nukes is educational and based on a robust controversy in the literature, and personally worked in nonprolif/arms control advocacy so it's an issue I care about lots!

That being said, I'm bored - I think assurances/deterrence is a great debate, but have a pretty high threshold for debating the DAs well on both sides - I think innovation in the way people answer and debate the generics could be more interesting and will reward quality in connecting all of the pieces of these debates. I would also enjoy judging some more varied negative strategies, and will reward innovation on the topic with good speaker points

soapbox moment - say it with me: de-clare-uh-tory - declatory is NOT a word

DA/Case/CP

Disad and case is awesome, more case analysis that is smart will be rewarded in points. I think smart and specific counterplans are cool. The more specific and in grounded in the literature your CP is, the less likely I am to care about theory.

Topicality (vs aff with a plan)

I think a limited topic is good and care immensely about the comparison of one version of the topic to another when it comes to T. If you cannot explain coherently what the difference between the two topics are, I am much less likely to care about your very abstract appeals to the notion of limits or ground.

K (vs aff with a plan)

I enjoy judging these debates. Being more specific about the topic is far better than some random backfile check about Baudrillard. You should explain your arguments clearly vs using buzz words because I will be much more likely to understand what you are trying to communicate.

The specificity of the link and explanation of the link and how it coheres with your broader theory about the world and interacts with the consequences of the plan are all things that strongly influence how much I am persuaded by the K. If you have a link to the action of the plan and clearly explain how the impact to that compares to the impacts of the affirmative, as well as having an alternative that resolves this impact, I am likely to vote for you. I find myself less often voting for the K in debates where the neg relies on a strong framework/prioritize rhetorical/discursive links path but would not preclude this entirely because the aff is often time pressured and poorly equipped to debate about framework and fiat.

In addition, I think it's important to resolve how I should weigh impacts in the later speeches - I find myself often concluding I should weigh the aff and its consequences but also weighing the discursive/ethical/structural impacts described by the neg but not getting a lot of instruction about how to compare those two things and decide which one to vote on. I think mitigating claims about total extinction impacts with impact defense and specific solvency take-outs would go a long way to changing how I vote in these debates.

Planless Affs

I have found myself voting both ways in framework debates, but am usually persuaded by the benefits of clash, procedural fairness, etc. The more specific the aff is to the topic & good aff cards are things that most often lead to an aff ballot in these debates. The negative making a strong, coherent limits argument that includes arguments that appeal to clash while providing defense that proves the topic is compatible with the affs theory are things that most often lead to a neg ballot in these debates.

I think specific strategies against these affs are interesting and good (whether that be a da/k/pic) and will reward this specific research with speaker points. I generally think if something is in the 1AC I am likely to believe there is a link to your argument, and am very persuaded by strategies that utilize the cx to pin down specificities of the 1ac advocacy and then predicate the strategy off of that. If the aff is unwilling to speak specifically about the strategy of the advocacy, I generally tend to be more persuaded by framework.

I usually am not persuaded by strategies that rely on the idea that we should destroy debate, or that extinction or death is good. I do not think there is much of a difference between "debating about death being good" and "advocating death being good" so if your strategy relies on a pivot resembling "well we don't think everyone should die but we should talk about death", it is not a good strategy to use in front of me.

Misc.

I tend to lean towards conditionality being good, but would be persuaded otherwise in particularly egregious incidents.

If you are going to read cards written by former debaters, take ten minutes to ask around why they are no longer in the community. Strongly consider if the reason is one which should preclude their evidence from being introduced in a debate. I do not expect perfection in this regard, but I do think we should be talking about this.

It has come to my attention that I am what one might call a "points fairy". I will be working to adjust my points to more accurately reflect the scale I find most other judges follow.

I like when lots of quality evidence is read, and will often read your evidence at the conclusion of the debate (and if evidence is referenced in a cx, will usually try to find what you are referencing while it's being discussed). That being said, evidence is best paired with strong judge instruction in the rebuttals. There are instances when evidence is good enough to speak for itself, but in a debate where both sides read decent ev on an issue, I will often find myself voting for the team who tells me how and why their arguments matter more.

After hosting a bunch of tournaments in my time at UK, I am sympathetic to the pleas of tournament hosts and tabrooms. Please be on time, keep things efficient in debates, and clean up behind yourselves.

My facial expressions are likely unrelated to the things you are saying. In particular, I may come across low-energy. This doesn't mean that I am unhappy with the debate (although if I find your debating upbeat, engaging, and high-energy I will probably be a bit more likely to mirror that). Tournaments are a long-haul, I judge a lot of debates at each tournament (often every debate), and there seems to be increasingly little time afforded to restorative things like sleep or eating, so don't worry too much if I'm coming across a little sleepy.

Also, I sometimes just stare off into space when I'm typing - I'm still paying attention as long as I'm typing.

Heather Holter Hall

Hallheather8@gmail.com

Salem and Tallwood High School Debater 1990-93

Liberty University Debater 1993-96

Liberty University Assistant Debate Coach 20+ years

 

I love this activity and I look forward to meeting you.

For novices:

Congratulations on being at a debate tournament! I like debates with a few pieces of quality research that you can explain well plus some smart logical arguments. You should focus on good explanation of arguments and on getting better at flowing.  Putting lots of extra pieces of research that you have never read before into your speech is a waste of your time. I would much rather hear you explain research that you understand, compare that research to your opponent’s research and arguments, and tell me why the plan is either a good or bad idea.  The most important comparison in the debate you can make is to tell me whose impacts are bigger, come first, or are more likely. 

I will flow what is spoken in the debate, not the speech document. You should highlight and read complete sentences. I do not count sentence fragments as arguments.

If it is an online debate, please make sure you SEE or HEAR me on the camera before you begin your speech. Please say out loud when you are done with prep time and post how much you have left in the chat. When you say prep time is done, you should be ready to email the speech document immediately. 

For everyone else:

I have spent the majority of the last 20 years coaching novice debate.  I also judge a lot of novice and jv debates. This means that I am not deep into the lit base for most arguments. My days are full of explaining and re-explaining basic debate theory. You should view me as someone who loves learning something new and the debate as your opportunity to teach me. If you want me to assess arguments based upon previous in-depth knowledge of a particular lit base, you will probably be very disappointed. I love the strategic use of each student’s scholarship but get me on the same page first.

Likewise, the theory debates I am used to judging are pretty basic. I would love to hear a well-developed theory debate at a high level, but you will need to slow down, give full warrants, and not assume that “lit checks” means the same to me as it does to you.

About preferred types of arguments—smart strategy with good support that is clearly communicated usually wins. I prefer consistent, thoughtful strategies with a few well developed arguments, but, sadly, I have voted for negatives who won simply by overwhelming the 2AC with skimpy highlighting of 7 off case positions.

I have voted for everything, but I do not judge alternate formats of debates often so you will probably want to slow down, make well developed arguments, and assume I do not know. As long as I am judging and there is a win to assign, my main assumption is that every team is playing the game, maybe in different ways, but still just playing the game. I can only make decisions based on words or actions in a particular debate. I will not begin to speculate about another person’s motive or intentions--that is a job for someone else.

I will flow what is spoken in the debate, including cx.  I will reference the speech doc, BUT if I can’t understand your words or if the words you say do not make grammatically complete sentences, they won’t make it on my flow and only my flow counts. Likewise, if you are hedging the debate on a warrant buried three sentences deep in the fourth card by Smith, you will need to say more than “extend Smith here.”  The more concrete and specific your warrants are, the more likely you are to persuade me.

If it is an online debate, you need to SEE or HEAR me on the camera before you begin your speech.  Yes, this has happened more than once lol.  Don’t steal prep—it is obvious and annoying.

Feel free to strike me. I am not offended at all if you think I am not a good judge for you. Hopefully, I still get a chance to meet you at a tournament and chat.

Finally, I hope you all have a great tournament, learn new things, think deeply, speak well, meet fascinating people, and win lots of debates (unless you are debating my teams)! Have fun and please say hi in between debates!

 

Matt Harkins

If you have any questions or want to add me to an email chain, I'm at mpharks@gmail.com. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.

I have been coaching at the Naval Academy since October 2016, and before that, I coached Cathedral Prep from 2014-2018. I debated on the national circuit in high school and qualified to the TOC twice, but I didn’t debate in college.

Most of my research and coaching is geared toward the K, but I feel comfortable evaluating a da/cp or da/case debate. I often think that the K is the best way to exploit the weaknesses of the affs that I hear, but that doesn't mean you have to take this route.

When debating in front of me, I'd highly recommend developing the implications to your arguments as soon in the debate as possible. In close debates between technically proficient teams, this is especially important. I appreciate it when a debater is creative and tries to relate to me rather than debating like a computer and into their computer.

Virtual Debate
I'd like to make things as easy as possible for you, and you're welcome to set up your speaking/video/microphone situation in whatever way makes you most comfortable.

On my end, I'm still learning how to adapt to zoom debates. There seems to be a lower ceiling on arguments I can process through zoom. This is especially the case on theory debates. If you could help me out by slowing things down, I'd appreciate it.

Debate doesn't translate directly from in-person to zoom. There are some limits that we haven't yet come to terms with, but there are also some possibilities (screen sharing comes to mind) that could be interesting, and you're welcome to experiment with that in front of me.

2021 College Topic
There's an important distinction between labor antitrust and consumer antitrust. In labor antitrust, independent contractors and labor unions are considered the businesses with whom the government is interested in limiting anticompetitive business practices. From the most straightforward reading of the topic, aff ground doesn't seem to allow for much labor antitrust. This would have been a significant consideration in at least half of the debates that I have judged so far.

Because of my academic and professional background, I've thought a lot about labor antitrust, monopolies, market power, and the suitability of the law as a remedy to these issues. To disclose a personal bias: I think that there are significant limits on the capacity of antitrust. That's not to say that I don't think there are many instances in which changes to antitrust law would be a good idea. Nor do I think that there aren't radical possibilities in antitrust. But its limits have become relevant and convincing in kritik debates in which the aff takes for granted the fundamental radicality of their proposal. I think this topic would be worthwhile if the debate community reckoned with those limits. In other words, Robert Bork was a real-life sicko, but so are most people, albeit in less apparent ways, who think that Amazon would stop being a problem if a judge told them to knock it off.

T
- I'm not in touch with community consensus so you might be able to use that to your advantage.
- I really enjoy a good T debate and don't have any strong inclinations toward fairness or education as the ultimate standard.
- I like definitions that define a word as close in a contexts as possible to the other words of the resolution
- I'm often disappointed by T evidence quality. For this reason, source/Expertise/qualifications debates tend to be pretty important. Just because a judge wrote it in a decision doesn't make it a relevant expert definition. Just because the usfg is defined in a certain way in the Bill Emerson English Language Empowerment Act of 1997, doesn't mean it's the best way to understand usfg for debate.
- Debating in the Pennsylvania has given me a comprehensive understanding of inherency as a procedural argument if you want to go there.

"T" (Framework)
- In the last dozen or so framework rounds that I've judged, the neg has won or lost based on whether they had a compelling claim to significant offense.
- It's frustrating to judge a framework debate wherein framework is deployed as a replacement for debating the case. I get that this is tied in some way to the "ground" and "unpredictability" aspects of the arguments you're advancing, but a failure to contend with fundamental questions posed by the aff can come across more as a sin of the neg.
- For me, framework is most useful as a neg strategy in debates where affs are needlessly obscure or cynical.

Disads
- I evaluate the link first, and I think it's a yes/no question which controls the direction of uniqueness.
- Most of the best answers to politics disads I've seen aren't necessarily carded answers to the U/L/IL/I parts of a disad, but arguments about the nonsensical nature of certain parts of the politics disad as applied to the aff.
- Although I don't cut politics files, I'm extremely aware of what's going on and familiar with who's writing what about Congress and the White House.
- I really like impact turn debates.
- Except in cases where something sophisticated is going on, it's usually a waste of time to read evidence that "warming isn't real" or "warming isn't a pressing issue." Go after the internal link, go after solvency, turn the impact, solve the impact. It's hard to convince me that warming isn't an immediate, urgent, and moral concern, but I'm skeptical that the only thing we need to do is develop the right tech or enter certain climate talks with sufficient leverage.

Counterplans
- I won't kick the counterplan for the negative unless the negative persuades me to do otherwise.
- There's a fine line between creative, technical counterplans and a contrived trick. Avoid the contrived tricks. I enjoy a creative and technical counterplan, but these aren't the kinds of arguments I spend a lot of time thinking about, so you'll do well to simplify your explanation of it as much as possible.

Kritiks
- I’m most familiar with psychoanalysis and Marxism (including left criticism of Marxism, Marxist criticisms of leftism, and Marxist critiques of other Marxisms).
- I spend a lot of time thinking about labor because of my day job.
- I first look at role of the ballot/role of the judge arguments when I'm rendering a decision, so these arguments tend to have a strong effect on the outcome of a debate.
- The perm, which is tied in important ways to the role of the ballot, tends to be the aff's most strategic line of pursuit.
- I'm willing to stop the debate and give someone a loss for using flagrantly inappropriate language.
- I've noticed that, on very many occasions in which a K debate was underdeveloped, I have recommended the second chapter of Wretched of The Earth to both teams.

Theory
- Reject the argument is the default. Spend time on the impact level to convince me to reject the team.
- I heard recently that nobody votes on multiple conditional worlds bad anymore. I guess that means I'd be more willing to entertain this argument than the average judge.
- Against affs which don't read a typical plan text or defend the resolution, I would prefer to hear a nitty-gritty case debate rather than a framework debate. This is a strong preference.
- When debaters unsuccessfully extend framework in front of me, the unsuccess is usually a result of disorganization, a lack of adaptation of pre-written blocks to the specific aff arguments, and my inability to interpret the significance of an abstract debate concept.
- If you go for framework, make sure you clearly implicate the stakes of winning a section of the debate. What I mean by this is that you shouldn't assume we're on the same page about what it means to win, say, that there exists a topical version of the aff, or your limits disad, or the benefits of switch-side debate, or etc. Leave nothing flapping in the wind in the 2nr.

Style
- I enjoy humor a lot.
- Speeches are best when they're persuasive performances; I don't enjoy monotone spreading.
- I like when debaters make smart cross applications from a flow the other team tried to kick out of.
- If the chips are down, flip the table. If, going into the rebuttals, you know you're losing 99% of the debate, see if you can explode that 1% into a win.

2022 Update- I am not longer actively coaching debate. Please do not assume that I know a lot about the topic, have any idea what some other school's aff is, or have strong feelings about what obscure topic wordings mean. 

Allison.c.harper@gmail.com. - Put me on the chain please. I will not follow along with the doc or read cards I don't think are necessary to make a decision but spelling my first name is annoying and this was buried near the bottom of my philosophy.

Here are a few ways that I think my judging either differs from others or has changed with online debate:

1) I flow and do not open your speech documents during your speeches. That means you need to try to present arguments in a way that is flowable.  Make sure tags are clear. Answer arguments in an order I can follow (such as the order in which they are presented). Add structure and signpost.  Avoid reading giant analytical paragraphs without breaking things up. Avoid jumping around the flow arbitrarily or reading blocks in places where they dont belong.  Doing these things make sure that I not only have a record of what you said, but helps me understand how you think what you are saying applies/responds to your opponents arguments.  When you don't do these things, you increase the odds that I misunderstand what you think you have answered.

2) Make comparisons.  I read less evidence during and after debates than other judges. I start my decisions by looking at my flows, deciding what the key questions are, resolving things that I can, and only then look at evidence.  Make comparisons between your warrants, quality of evidence. Draw out the interactions for me rather than forcing me to do these things for you. I see that as intervention, but the way that many debaters give rebuttals these days sometimes makes it impossible to decide without that intervention. I would much rather let you do the comparing.

3) I am not in the cult of big impacts/try or die. You need to solve for something. Your counterplan needs a net benefit. I can be convinced to vote for low risk, but presumption and zero risk exist. Not everything needs a card. Smart analytics can knock down the risk of some pretty silly arguments.  If the other team does have evidence of sufficient quality, however, a card to the contrary would go a long way.

4) I don’t think I am a bad judge for the k if you debate the k technically, especially on the neg. I am not great for any argument if you are overly relying on an overview to get things done, are speaking in paragraphs without considering flowability, or are addressing components of the debate in ways that ignore the line by line. I am better for specific links and alts that I would be able to explain back to the other team what they do based on the explanation you offered in the round.  I think 90% of the time spent on “framework” when the neg reads a k is a waste of time by both sides. The neg gets links to what the aff said and did. The aff gets to weigh the implementation of the plan. Unless another way of thinking about this is presented and dropped, this is how I end up evaluating the debate anyway. I am less of a fan of critical affirmatives that are not topical, do not relate to the topic in a significant way, etc. In K aff vs framework debates, the aff is helped if I can understand what reasonable ways the negative could anticipate an aff like yours and reasonably respond to it.

5) I would rather you make link arguments to kritiks about assumptions that the other team has made during this debate rather than ask me to evaluate something that happened other debates or outside of debates. Other debates had judges who rendered their own decisions. If there are serious concerns about a debater's out of round behavior, please take that to their coaches or tournament administrators. 

6) Process debates are boring. They might be necessary on some recent topics, but they are so boring on topics where there are great disads. They would be better with some evidence that suggest this process ought to exist/be used, even better if there are cards about the topic or aff. For example, I am far more into con-con about a constitutional/legal question than con-con to withdraw from NATO. But really, wouldn’t it be cool if we picked debate topics that were actual controversies? Wouldn’t it be cool if topics that had some controversy were limited in a way that makes some sense?

7) When you steal prep time, you are stealing my decision time. Please don’t. If you are making changes to your speech doc (deleting analytics, rearranging blocks, combining multiple docs into one, etc) you should have a prep timer running. Sending a doc is fine outside of prep but should be done efficiently, especially if you are debating at the varsity/open level. Refusing to start CX until you have a marked copy is also a big waste of my time unless you are planning to ask questions that are affected by these markings. I have yet to see that happen, so let's get on with it.

8) In online debate, you MUST make an effort to be clearer. NSDA campus makes you sound like a robot eating rocks. What was passable on classrooms.cloud doesn’t cut it on campus. I should be able to understand the body of your evidence, distinguish tags from cards, etc. I do not open speech documents when you are speaking. I need to be able to hear and understand you.

9) It is much harder to pay attention to online debates. This isn’t your fault. It is a feature of the format. I have found cross-ex in particular difficult to follow and keep in focus. People talking at once is really rough online, and I appreciate attempts to limit this by keeping answers reasonable in length and not cutting off reasonable answers. I will do my best in every debate to give you every bit of attention I have, but it would help me if you would forefront cross-ex questions that might matter to your strategy. Asking the other team what they read is cross-ex time.

Old Philosophy- I don't disagree with this:

I think I am a relatively middle of the road judge on most issues. I would rather hear you debate whatever sort of strategy you do well than have you conform to my argumentative preferences. I might have more fun listening to a case/da debate, but if you best strat or skillset is something else, go for it. I might not like an argument, but I will and have voted for arguments I hate if it wins the debate. I do have a pretty strong preference for technical, line by line style debate.

I am open to listening to kritiks by either side, but I am more familiar with policy arguments, so some additional explanation would be helpful, especially on the impact and alternative level. High theory K stuff is the area where I am least well read. I generally think it is better for debate if the aff has a topical plan that is implemented, but I am open to hearing both sides. To be successful at framework debates in front of me, it is helpful to do more than articulate that your movement/project/affirmation is good, but also provide reasons why it is good to be included in debate in the format you choose. I tend to find T version of the aff a pretty persuasive argument when it is able to solve a significant portion of aff offense.

I don’t have solid preferences on most counterplan theory issues, other than that I am not crazy about consultation or conditions cps generally. Most other cp issues are questions of degree not kind (1 conditional cp and a k doesn’t seem so bad, more than that is questionable, 42 is too many, etc) and all up for debate. The above comment about doing what you do well applies here. If theory is your thing and you do it well, ok. If cp cheating with both hands is your style and you can get away with it, swell.

I have no objection to voting on “untrue” arguments, like some of the more out there impact turns. To win on dropped arguments, you still need to do enough work that I could make a coherent decision based on your explanation of the argument. Dropped = true, but you need a claim, warrant, and impact. Such arguments also need to be identifiable in order for dropped = true to apply.

It’s rarely the case that a team wins every argument in the debate, so including relevant and responsive impact assessment is super important. I’d much rather debaters resolve questions like who has presumption in the case of counterplans or what happens to counterplans that might be rendered irrelevant by 2ar choices than leaving those questions to me.

I try my best to avoid reading evidence after a debate and think debaters should take this into account. I tend to only call for evidence if a) there is a debate about what a card says and/or b) it is impossible to resolve an issue without reading the evidence myself. I prefer to let the debaters debate the quality of evidence rather than calling for a bunch of evidence and applying my own interpretations after the fact. I think that is a form of intervening. I also think it is important that you draw out the warrants in your evidence rather than relying on me to piece things together at the end of the debate. As a result, you would be better served explaining, applying, and comparing fewer really important arguments than blipping through a bunch of tag line/author name extensions. I can certainly flow you and I will be paying attention to your speeches, but if the debate comes down to a comparison between arguments articulated in these manners, I tend to reward explanation and analysis. Also, the phrase "insert re-highlighting" is meaningless to someone who isn't reading the docs in real time. Telling me what you think the evidence says is a better use of your time

I like smart, organized debates. I pay a ton of attention and think I flow very well. I tend to be frustrated by debaters who jump around or lack structure. If your debate is headed this direction (through your own doing or that of the other team), often the team that cleans things up usually benefits. This also applies to non-traditional debating styles. If you don’t want to flow, that’s ok, but it is not an excuse to lack any discernible organization. Even if you are doing the embedded clash thing, your arguments shouldn't seem like a pre-scripted set of responses with little to no attempt to engage the specific arguments made by the other team or put them in some sort of order that makes it easier for me to flow and determine if indeed arguments were made, extended dropped, etc.

Please be nice to each other. While debate is a competitive activity, it is not an excuse to be a jerkface. If you are "stealing prep" I am likely to be very cross with you and dock your speaker points. If you are taking unreasonably long amounts of time to jump/email your docs or acquire someone else's docs, I am also not going to be super happy with you. I realize this can sound cranky, but I have been subjected to too many rounds where this has been happening recently.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thoughts on Pf and LD:

Since I occasionally judge these, I thought I should add a section. I have either coached or competed in both events. I still have a strong preference for flow-centric debate in both activities.

-You may speak as quickly or slowly as you would like. Don't make yourself debate faster than you are able to do well just because I can keep up

-You can run whatever arguments you are able to justify (see policy debate section if you have more specific questions)

-Too many debates in these events spend far too much time debating framing questions that are essentially irrelevant to judge decisions. Those frames mean little if you cant win a link. If you and your opponent are trying to access the same impact, this is a sign that you should be debating link strength not impact strength. Your speech time is short. Don't waste it.

-Make useful argument comparisons. It is not helpful if you have a study and your opponent has a study that says the opposite and that is the end of the argument. It is not helpful if everyone's authors are "hacks." With complicated topics, try to understand how your authors arrived at their conclusions and use that to your advantage.

-Stop stealing prep. Seriously. Stop. It is not cute. Asking to see a source is not an opportunity for your partners to keep prepping. If a speech timer or a prep timer isn't going, you should not be writing on your flows or doing anything else that looks like prepping. I see this in a disturbing number of PF rounds. Stop

-Give a useful road map or none at all. Do not add a bunch of commentary. A road map should tell a judge what order to put pieces of flow paper into and nothing more. Save your arguments for your speech time.

-Paraphrasing is bad. Read quotations. Send out ev in carded form ahead of time. If you are a varsity, national circuit level competitor, you should have figure out efficient ways to manage allowing the other team to review your evidence.

Casey Harrigan

University of Kentucky; 14th year judging; Updated March 2021

Please add me to the doc chain: charrigan@gmail.com

2021 Alliance Topic Updates

1. Assurance is singular, not plural. Like Deterrence.

2. ‘Can I get a copy of the doc [with cards marked / with only the cards you read]?’ – Sure, if you use your prep time for it.

3. ‘Did you read X card?’ – this is CX, not untimed twilight zone

4. I am very lenient when it comes to making adjustments to accommodate online debating. If you need to stop your speech, pause your prep, stop your opponent’s speech because you can’t hear, etc., that is fine. We’re all just out here doing our best.

5. Solvency ‘advocates’ – it is not enough to have a harm and say that is existence implies the opposite, thus solvency. It is also not enough to have a card that says the MDT as currently designed is bad. You need a card that says the United States should do something different toward the alliance. Affs that don't have this have a hard time beating CPs….and solving.

6. My typical decision process:

a) If there are any theory / procedural / T arguments, resolve this first. That seems logical, and if I am voting on them, it saves a lot of decision time.

b) Move to whatever issue appears to be most decisive. Usually something like an advantage that one team appears to be far ahead on, a DA the neg seems to be winning, a CP that looks to solve a lot of the case, etc. This is also for decision efficiency – deciding one issue can clarify the overall debate.

c) Move page-by-page, deciding each. I actively try to check for and counteract confirmation bias – as humans, we want to find ways to resolve conflict and want to generate ‘easy’ decisions. It is natural to want to decide that the DA is small if the case is large or vice versa. I actively try to set aside arguments that I have previously decided when moving to the next.

d) Argument weighting is something like 50% debating, 50% evidence quality. I have spent a lot of time researching the alliances topic and sometimes find it hard to give much credence to arguments that appear to me to be factual incorrect or egregiously false. I do admit to being ‘truthier’ at times that I would like to ideally be; it’s a work in progress. 50/50 is the goal.

e) In very close debates, I do think it is helpful to ‘write a ballot for each team’. Not literally, of course. No one has time for that. But, instead, thinking through the series of decisions that are required to vote for each time and considering which has stronger justifications. The act of considering how an alternative ballot could be cast, why, and then for what reasons should that ballot not be chosen is helpful. For me, at least.

7. K vs Policy? I do not believe there is a difference between these, nor do I have any preference.

Older

-- I enjoy all types of debate and have spent a significant amount of time recently working on K stuff on both sides. I also have been deep in the space topic lit and feel ready to judge a technical debate on most of the core mechanics of the topic. It is said often by many, but I really think it is true for me: do your thing, don’t over adapt to me, don’t think that I have strong immutable beliefs about debate/argument based on what you know about me. I, like everyone, do have preferences and prior assumptions about lots of things. They are easily overridden by good debating. I have often voted for arguments that I personally believe are terrible because one team debated better than the other. If you lose to a bad argument, that means you should debate better, not that I should correct for you by suggesting to the other team that their argument is actually bad.

-- I like my paragraphs breaks uncondensed, font to be Times New Roman, highlighting to be blue, and dashes to be tripled. I prefer A2: over AT: out of habit, though it is probably a little too cool-kid-Y2K to be actually correct.

-- I am probably not who you think I am. I was the only person at MSU who enjoyed reading the T.A. McKinney DRG article on Intrinsicness, the only person who wanted to write 2NR blocks on the Fromm 64 Death K, and the only person who wrote ‘growth is bad because diversionary war against North Korea is good’. I am sure that I have opinions about debate that no one else at UK shares. People are more than the name of the school that follows their name and more than what debate’s 4-year-long institutional memories pigeonhole them to be.

-- I prefer to be on the doc chain during the debate and do read docs occasionally during speeches and especially during CX. Yes, I still flow (and I think I flow pretty well since transitioning to using a laptop – would be willing to have a flow-off with anyone. Flowing gauntlet thrown down). No, I don’t let the cards do debating for you even though I have read them. I can both know things are facts and simultaneously know what arguments were and were not made well in debate. I read all the cards in the debate because I want to provide feedback that is as helpful as possible and I want to see if you have good cards that I should go cut later, not because I need to see all the cards to decide who won or lost.

-- I prefer that plans contain a degree of specificity. To me, a plan that simply says ‘the USFG should cooperate with China on X’ does not convey enough information about the mechanism of action to produce a debate of the highest quality on this topic and I would prefer that the plan state how that cooperation should occur or by what means it would be induced. If teams do not choose to specify in the plan or CX, it seems reasonable to allow that matter to be determined by evidence that describes normal means, which either team can introduce. I believe this introduces a strategic cost that is real and should be exploited by more negative teams and could counteract trends toward non-specificity better than relying on Vagueness as a theory argument.

put me on the email chain: ahart2241@gmail.com

Experience: 3 years of high school policy debate, 5 years of NDT/CEDA debate at Miami University and Missouri State University. High School coach for 4 years at Parkview (Missouri) High School, Graduate Assistant at Missouri State University.

Most of my experience in debate was very much on the policy side of thing. That doesn't make me uncomfortable with kritiks, but I also wouldn't say I'm familiar with much of the critical literature base. Even more so than in policy rounds, solid evidence analysis and application is very important for me to vote on a critical issue on either the affirmative or the negative. For critical affirmatives, I do think it's important to answer any topicality or framework arguments presented by the negative. For kritiks against these types of affirmatives, I think it's important to contextualize the philosophies and arguments in each in relation to the other side. Maybe even more than in policy v policy debates clash here is very important to me.

On the policy side of things, I love to see a good case debate, and think that evidence analysis(of both your own and your opponent's evidence) is of the utmost importance in these debates. I love a good discussion and comparison of impacts.

In terms of CP theory, I will probably default to rejecting the argument rather than the team in most instances if the affirmative wins the theory debate. On conditionality specifically, the affirmative must have a pretty specific scenario on the negative's abuse in the round for me to vote on it. I much prefer the specificity of that distinction over the nebulous "bad for debate" generality. That ship has probably sailed. One other thing to note is that I will not kick the counterplan for you automatically. The negative will need to make a judge-kick argument (preferably starting in the block) to allow the affirmative opportunities to answer it. I think this is a debate to be had, and shouldn't just be something that is granted to the negative at the outset of the round. That being said, I am definitely willing to do it, if said conditions are met and you win the reason why it's good.

Speed is fine, but I think clarity is far more important that showing me that you can read a bunch of cards. I will say that I am a little rusty, having judged at college/higher level high school tournaments sparingly in the last few years. On evidence I will likely be fine, but would appreciate going slightly below full speed when reading a block of analytic arguments/overviews.

Debated: UNI 2007-2011

Coached: University of Minnesota 2011-2017, James Madison University 2017-2021, Texas Tech, 2021-2022

Currently: Senior Lecturer in Communication-RPI

Email: al.hiland@gmail.com

Note: I'm now judging very infrequently. This doesn't change the way I evaluate debates, but debaters may want to adjust their performance in the following ways.
-I will not know the topic nearly as well as I did when coaching. I am likely to need more explanation for topicality and competition debates where the wording of the topic is an essential question.
-I will not be as up to date on acronyms or terms of art in the topic as I once was.
-I probably am not quite as fast at flowing as I once was. That isn't to say that I object to debaters going at their desired speed, but it might be an important consideration for some debaters.

When evaluating debates I try to privilege the arguments made by debaters in the debate, and attempt to resolve the debate based on those arguments as much as possible. Which is to say, I attempt to resolve debates to the greatest of my ability by evaluating competing claims rather than relying on my own assumptions. I do not have any aesthetic or political investment in defending a particular model of debate in how I render decisions, but instead seek to render a decision that reflects my subjective perception of which side did the better debating. Read: I am as comfortable with debaters who choose to pursue critical lines of argumentation as I am with policy debate. Where these differing styles meet I decide the debate on the merits of the arguments advanced. The description below is an attempt to sketch my process for deciding which side advances the better argument.

When rendering a decision I begin by evaluating arguments that establish a framework for comparing the impacts advanced by both sides during the debate. This can be as abstract (from the resolution) as determining whether the arguments in favor of a more fair debate format is more important than a particular kind of education derived from changing the norms of debate, or as concrete as determining whether or not the magnitude of a disadvantage should outweigh the probability of an advantage. Debaters who emphasize comparing impacts in a manner that is clear, helpful, and grounded in a combination of evidence and the nature of the arguments advanced tend to have more success debating in front of me.

After determining what impacts ought to be prioritized I evaluate whether or not those impacts are valid based on the arguments provided. This means determining whether a team has sufficiently proven the constituent elements of the individual argument (for instance, the uniqueness/link/impact of a disadvantage) for me to give the argument credence. One predilection that I have which is unlikely to change is that I do believe that it is possible to win 100% defense against an argument, so debaters should not presume that there is “always a risk” to any claim entered into the debate.

When evaluating individual arguments I usually apply two criteria. First, is the argument is internally consistent? Meaning, the argument should have a consistent logic and avoid internal contradictions. Second, is the argument externally coherent? Meaning, the argument should be consistent with other claims advanced in the debate and has an (arguably) factual correspondence with reality. In both of these criteria I emphasize the way the argument is explained by debaters as well as the quality of evidence provided to support that explanation. Arguments without evidence have value for me, but many claims need evidentiary support in order to satisfy the criteria described above.

Ultimately my decision tends to reflect which team provides the best way to evaluate competing claims where both sides have won at least parts of the position they have advanced. This almost never reflects an absolute view of the value or validity of the arguments advanced. Instead, it reflects a contingent decision based on the debate which has taken place in my view based on the process described above.

Other things that debaters should know about me as a judge:

Clarity is important. While I can flow most speeds I will admit that I am not the fastest around. This is made worse by a lack of clarity. When judging a debate I flow on paper, I do not follow along on speech docs, and I do not look at them during prep time (although I often am on my computer to make comments on the ballot). I will look at evidence after the debate if necessary to make a decision, but my predisposition is to do so as little as possible. Usually when I do look at evidence it is because of a flowing error on my part or the need to do my own interpretive work due to an error on the part of the debaters. Debaters are best served to be clear about how I should read a piece of evidence and its significance rather than relying on me to sort it out after the debate. The more clear that debaters are, both in terms of their speech and the explanation of their argument, the more predictable and consistent I am as a judge.

Cross examination matters for me. I will take notes, and I will be attentive. I consider questions asked and answered to be binding pending an explanation or argumentation to the contrary.

I do have a minimum threshold for argument explanation. Uttering “permutation do both” without any elaboration over the course of the debate is not sufficient, nor is saying “permutation links to the disadvantage.” I am open to debaters giving more thorough explanations over the course of the debate, but simply relying on the fact that a claim has been uttered is not sufficient, as it is not a complete argument.

I will follow the directions provided by debaters on how to treat arguments. For example, if a theoretical objection is raised as “reject the team” I will treat it as such unless it is challenged. Additionally, in keeping with my minimum threshold for argument, an instruction should come with a justification for why that direction makes sense. Similarly, I will not “judge kick” an argument for a team unless directed to do so, and that instruction is not challenged.

I believe that presumption follows from the burden of rejoinder. The affirmative has the burden to respond to the resolution, and I presume to vote negative unless the affirmative succeeds in responding. Subsequently I presume affirmative until the negative has provided a competitive option.

Debaters should not presume that I know anything of substance about goings on in the debate community. That is to say, if the community has decided that a particular argument is a bad one, or that an affirmative is decidedly not topical, that I am unlikely to be clued in to that decision.

Speaker points are at my discretion. That said I modulate the scale quite a bit to account for division and the size/norms of the tournament. I do very occasionally use them as a way to indicate my displeasure, usually at how a debater treats their peers (I think I’ve done this all of five times in as many years).

Online things:
1. Please let me know when you are done prepping and send a message in the chat box letting me know you are done and how much time remains if the platform supports it.

2. I have solid internet and decent equipment, but I have noticed that clarity is still lost somewhat. Mostly it happens where debaters are not enunciating while going quickly. For folks who are clear to begin with it's not generally a problem, but if you have struggled with clarity when debating in person you may need to take just a hair off your top speed for me.

3. Cross-ex is a little messier online because usual techniques for bringing long winded answers and questions to an end don't transmit as well online as in person. Please practice turn taking and be reasonable with how you use your time. Unnecessarily long and convoluted questions and answers used to soak up time are unlikely to be very popular with me.

4. I'm going to follow tournament guidelines for how to deal with tech questions wherever they exist. If there are no guidelines I'm going to assume all debaters are acting in good faith and let you do what you need to do in order to debate.

5. I am not requiring students to have video on in order to debate. I will have my own video on, and I do encourage it because I do think it helps debaters make appeals, but I will do my best to not let the decision to not use video influence my decision or the speaker points that I assign.

I see debate as a space where what counts as reason and what is understood as reasonable is constantly under construction and contestation, which is also to say that I’m down to hear any kind of argument that you think you perform at your best.

I am most familiar with the array of K arguments. This is partly because, in my life outside debate, I am an assistant professor at Skidmore College, where I teach classes listed in our Religious Studies, American Studies, Black Studies, and Gender Studies departments. I love judging debates that draw on and theorize from the literature coming out of those interdisciplines and ones adjacent to them. I am very supportive of performance debate, because–again–I understand all debate as performance. So, if you see a performative contradiction, definitely go ahead and point it out.

I also like debates that think through the theory of debate itself. I look forward to hearing framework arguments, since they give us all a chance to think through what we are doing and to what ends. I often like judging novice debaters for the same reasons.

In the rounds themselves. Again, do you! In general, I think it is the debater’s job to tell me clearly what is in their cards (if you have cards, and I don’t assume that you will!). I flow based on what you say, not based on reading your cards (I’ll read along during the speeches but am unlikely to go back through the cards beyond that). On the neg, in most cases I would rather you debate really well on a few substantial arguments than try to cram in a laundry list of off-case positions.

One thing you might want to know about me is that I wasn’t a debater in college. I’ve been judging debates for Liberty about five years now after getting to know the activity through debater friends and through my scholarship. I realize that this is odd in a community where almost everyone else has prior experience and knows the rhythms, histories, and conventions of the activity. If this means that I am sometimes behind the curve on some of the super obscure techy arguments and need them spelled out, I think my nontraditional way into the activity and my outside work can sometimes be a superpower for strategizing with you about creative ways to synthesize literatures into arguments and strategies.

Updated 2/7/24

Add me to the chain: christopherjpjackson at gmail

Background:

Ames High School (’14)-qualified to the TOC and then-NFL Nationals

University of Iowa (’17)-Dr. Dave once called my extension of topicality “lucid and succinct”

Wake Forest University ('20)-M.A. in Communication

Genealogy:

I've spent over a decade (yikes) in this activity as either a debater, judge, or coach. Just some of the people who have influenced how I think about debate include: David Hingstman, Brian Rubaie, Kyle Vint, Brooke Kimbrough, Jason Regnier.

Overview:

Existence precedes essence. Or, to use the phrase I see littered across numerous paradigms, you do you. My default setting as a judge is nonprescriptivist, and this is reflected in my voting record. Partially from years of playing baseball, I conceptualize the role of the judge as akin to that of an umpire calling balls and strikes, though that itself can be contested by the participants.

Specifics:

K: I am primarily versed in the cap and so-called high theory set of arguments. I likely have a passing understanding/have previously judged whatever K you are thinking about reading. I am not sufficiently predisposed for or against any position to the extent that it becomes expedient to read something other than what you're best at. While in my day "job" I work mostly as a quantitative social scientist, I still enjoy reading philosophy pieces, including those more critical in nature. I prefer, in a strictly relative sense, more systematic criticisms to individual/subject-centered ones. So, for example, I tend to be a better judge for Afropessimism compared to those focused on embodied performance.

CP: I'm probably about one standard deviation more willing than the average judge to err aff on counterplan theory PROVIDED the affirmative does the work throughout the rebuttals beyond just reading extensions. The theoretical validity of some of the jankier counterplans (cc: Lopez) strikes me as seriously questionable, but again, the aff needs to do the work. Incidentally….

Theory: I don't presume to reject the argument and not the team unless prompted.

T: Yes, please. I am very drawn to arguments about grammar and syntax. Like all judges I do think demonstrating actual impacts to debatability are good and well but am quite fine with the point that words mean things.

DA: <3. While I do broadly accept the standard model of debate (and offense/defense more specifically), I can be convinced that there is functionally zero risk of a link or impact. That the chance of something happening is so low as to be the equivalent of statistical white noise=terminal defense.

A pet peeve: "fiat is an illusion". Absent specific contextualization to the round or an on-the-nose card, please, no. I have yet to hear a round where this argument was deployed in a manner that made me think “I’m really glad we had a discussion of how nothing happens when the judge votes aff” at the end of the day. Note: in the years since I first put this in my paradigm I have continued to hear and vote off of this line of argument. So it certainly is viable in front of me-though I don't like it.

Lincoln-Douglas:

I have judged plenty of both national-circuit and old-school LD rounds and am comfortable with either. Value/criterion is useful but not necessary.

Public Forum:

You will find I have high expectations for evidence quality and am quite flow-oriented. Doing well in front of me in PF involves:

-directly answering your opponent's arguments. Directly refute what they said. I'm not going to spot you a link

-explicit impact calculus

-being attuned to the flow

23-24 update: It's your job to persuade me. Keep that in mind. I vote for what wins but what wins is what persuades me to vote. If I am not making a decision based on persuasion - both team messed up.

2022-23 update: you can easily out tech me if you're going a mile a minute speaking. Adjust or you'll lose trying to out tech the other team. The gamesmanship is cool but persuasion and actual communication with the judge you want to vote for you is in fact necessary. Being technically right isn't gonna sway a ballot for me.

2019-2020 update: I want debate to go back to being persuasive... I think that top level speed reading is not persuasive. One of the points of the "game" of debate is to be persuasive... to persuade the judge to vote for you. I am not persuaded by a swarm of gnats sound. I'm not saying you can't talk fast or even speed read - but if there's no inflection in your voice - if you drone on and on and on - if you haven't tried to persuade me but just talked at me - you will not get good speaks from me. You may win the debate because you are strategically ahead and better - but your speaks will suffer. I'm not saying conversational pace - I talk fast in general - I argue fast - I don't sound like a gnat.

I am a Black woman who is also disabled. I debated 4 years for KState mostly running different forms of Black feminism. I enjoy listening to the ways people interpret debates and deploy their arguments strategically. If you're not bored I won't be either.

*******If you are not Black (white and non black poc) do not read anti-blackness/Afrofuturism/pessimism/optimism arguments in front of me (aff/neg) if the other team calls you out at ALL you will lose the debate.... same for other PoC arguments that the authors say are for PoC. If it is not your position you don't get to use other peoples bodies to get a ballot. ***note to PoC your existence is not negated because you have a white partner - I won't vote on "the white person spoke/is here"

DA/CP: I will vote for them. I have a high threshold for internal links. You have to be able to explain how the aff gets to the DA impact. I'm unwilling to give you the benefit of doubt, prove it.

Kritiks: I’ll vote for it. In order for you to get the ballot, the K, like any other argument has to be well explained for me to vote for it. I also believe that in any good K debate their needs to be an obvious link to the case and the alternative of the K must be well explained. The biggest thing I was complimented on from judges was the "big picture" debate. Tell me the story of your K you will not get away with big holes in explanation.

Theory: I’ll vote for it. HOWEVER, I don’t like theory debates that are just blocks or are just spew downs. I like the line by line debate on theory and for the debaters to slow down. I WILL vote on dropped theory arguments- so you better answer them (even if the perm is a test you still need to answer severance). The biggest critique I got from judges was I miss the little details. I am an auditory learner I will be listening but if you speed through theory there is a good chance I won't catch it. Be Clear!

Topicality: I believe that topicality is about competing interpretations. However, I can be persuaded that topicality is not a voting issue and that normative reasons to vote do outweigh. But in order to win these issues there has to be considerable time spent on these arguments not just blips. I do not necessarily believe all affirmatives have to have a plan text, however, I do believe that you should be able to defend the lack thereof. Again, it is not what you do or do not say, it is what you justify. Affirmatives, if you don’t have a plan or don’t defend the consequences you should have reasons why you shouldn’t have to defend those issues.

1) Slow down. My ears are not calibrated to the rapid delivery of policy debaters.

2) Read less cards. I will not read cards at the end of the round unless "what it says" is questioned (as in your calling them a liar). I prefer to watch and evaluate based off of what you have clearly articulated in the debate. Debate is about more than empty words, gestures, and actions. It is not only what you say/do. It is also what you justify. That matters more to me than a bunch of random cards you read to fill time.

3) Don’t rely on being tricky or attempting to “out-tech” the other team. In doing so, you will likely out-tech me and your tricks will go unnoticed. I take notes, on every speech but I don’t flow in the conventional manner of lining up argument-for-argument in columns. There is obviously a minimum of technical skills one needs to compete in debate. If a team does not address an entire position or an important nuance emphasized by their opponents then it is unlikely that they will win.

If you make a Steven Universe reference I will bump .2 speaks

Yes I want to be on the email chain jjackson558@gmail.com

SHORTEST VERSION: THINGS I BELIEVE ABOUT DEBATE

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Good -----|----Neutral Good -----|----Chaotic Good

1AC Plan Texts, ----|----- Case Debate,------|----Performance Debate,

Open Debaters -----|----Novice Debaters----|----JV Debaters

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Neutral ---|---True Neutral------|---- Chaotic Neutral

Topicality -----------|----Counterplans ------|------Dispositionality

_______________________________________________________

Lawful Evil -------|----Neutral Evil ------|-----Chaotic Evil

Framework args ---|----Standard Nuke ----|----- Baudrillard

from 1996 that ----|---- War Disad

say no K's

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHORT VERSION:

You are prepping and don't have time to read everything, or interpret. So this is the stuff you most need to know if you don't know me :

1) I run The New School program. The New School is in the Northeast, around the corner from NYU where I actually work full time. (CEDA has Regions, not Districts. The NDT and the Hunger Games have Districts.) I care about things like novice and regional debate, and pretty much only coach for resource poor programs. You need to know this because it affects how I view your ETHOS on certain "who are we" arguments.

2) Email: vikdebate@gmail.com. Skip the rant below about want/need to be on chain.

3)SLOW THE HELL DOWN, especially ONLINE. I flow on paper. I need PEN TIME. I am not reading along with the doc unless the connection gets bad or I have serious misgivings.

4) Do what you need to do to make the tech work.

5) Do what you do in this activity. Seriously, especially in novice, or on a panel, you are not 100% adapting to me, so change how you debate those things a bit maybe, but not what you debate. To help with that:

6) Yes, my threshold for "is there gonna be a nuclear war" is WAY higher than it is for "what we talk about in the debate round going to affect us personally". I will vote on the wars, but I don't enjoy every debate about prolif in countries historically opposed to prolif. That isn't "realism" - that's hawk fetish porn. So if this IS you, you gotta do the internal link work, not read me 17 overly-lined down uniqueness cards.

7) I am more OFTEN in K rounds, but honestly I am more of a structural K person than a high theory person. Yes, debate is all simulacra now anyway, but racism and sexism - and the violence caused by them - ARE REAL WORLD. Your ability to talk about such things and how they relate to policies is probably one of your better portable skills for the modern world in this activity.

8) Performance good. Literally, I have 2 degrees in theater. Keep in mind that it means I am pretty well read on this as theory. All debate is performance. (Heck, life is performance, but you don't have time for that now...). My pet peeve as a coach is reading through all the paradigm that articulate performance and Kritikal as the same thing. It.Is.Not. Literally, it is Form vs. Content.

9) Winning Framework does not will a ballot. Winning Framework tells me how to prioritize or include or exclude arguments for my calculation of the ballot. T is NOT Framework (but for the record I err towards Education over Fairness, because this activity just ain't fair due to resource disparity, etc, so do the WORK to win on Fairness via in round trade offs, precedents, or models.)

10) Have fun. Debate can be stressful. Savor the community you can in current times.

PS: I am probably more flow focused than you think, BUT I still prefer the big picture. Tell me a story. It has to make sense for my ballot.

---------------------

Previous Version

The 2020 Preamble relevant to ONLINE DEBATE:

1) Bear with my tech for September for the first round of each day - I work across multiple universities and I am still sorting out going across 3 Zoom accounts, 5 emails accounts, and 2 Starfish accounts for any given thing. Working from home for 6 months combined my day-job stuff into my debate stuff, so I may occasionally have to remember to do a setting. This is like the worst version of a Reese's peanut butter cup.

2) Look, it would be great if I COULD see you as you debate. I am old - I flow what you say and I don't read along with the speech doc unless something bad is happening (bad things include potential connection issues in 2020, concerns over academic integrity/skipping words, and you don't actually do evidence comparison as a debater when weighing your cards and theirs). I don't anticipate changing that in the online debate world. But also, tech disparity and random internet gremlins are real things (that's why we need so many cats in the intertubes), so I ALSO understand if you tell me the camera is off for reasons. That's cool.

3) Because of connections and general practices - SLOW DOWN. CLARITY is super important. (Also, don't be a jerk to people with auditory accommodation needs as we do this). Trade your speed drills for some tongue twisters or something.

4) Recording as a back up is probably a necessary evil, but any use of the recording after a round that is shared to anyone else needs explicit - in writing, and can be revoked - permission of all parties present. PRACTICE AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT. See ABAP statement on online debate practices.

5) I have never wanted to be on the email chain/what-not; however, I SHOULD* be on the chain/what-not. Note the critical ability to distinguish these two things, and the relevance of should to the fundamental nature of this activity. Email for this purpose: vikdebate@gmail.com .

(Do not try to actually contact me with this address - it’s just how I prevent the inevitable electronically transmitted cyber infection from affecting me down the road, because contrary to popular belief, I do understand disads, I just have actual probability/internal link threshold standards.)

((And seriously Tabroom, what the F***? First you shill for the CIA, and now you want to edit the words because "children" who regularly talk about mass deaths might see some words I guarantee you then know already? I was an actual classroom teacher....debate should not be part of the Nanny State. Also this is NEW, because the word A****** used to be in my paradigm in reference to not being one towards people who ask for accessibility accommodations. ARRGGHHH!!!))

-------

Things I am cool with:

Tell met the story

Critical Args

Critical Lit (structural criticisms are more my jam)

Performative strategies - especially if we get creative with the 20-21 format options.

CP fun times and clever intersections of theory

A text. Preferable a well written text. Unless there are no texts.

Not half-assing going for theory

Case debate

Reasonability

You do you

Latin used in context for specific foreign policy conditions.

Teaching Assurance/Deterrence with cats.

Things that go over less well:

Blippy theory

Accidentally sucking your own limited time by unstrategic or functionally silly theory

Critical lit (high theory … yes, I know I only have myself to blame, so no penalty if this is your jelly, just more explanation)

Multiple contradictory conditional neg args

A never ending series of non existent nuclear wars that I am supposed to determine the highest and fastest probability of happening (so many other people to blame). You MAY compare impacts as equal to "x number of gender reveal parties".

Not having your damn tags with the ev in the speech doc. Seriously.

As a general note: Winning framework does not necessarily win you a debate - it merely prioritizes or determines the relevancy of arguments in rounds happening on different levels of debate. Which means, the distinction between policy or critical or performative is a false divide. If you are going to invoke a clash of civilizations mentality there should be a really cool video game analogy or at least someone saying “Release the Kraken”. A critical aff is not necessarily non Topical - this is actually in both the Topic Paper for alliances/commitments and a set of questions I asked at the topic meeting (because CROSS EX IS A PORTABLE SKILL). Make smarter framework arguments here.

Don't make the debate harder for yourself.

Try to have fun and savor the moment.

--------------

*** *** ***

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*Judges should be on the chain/what-not for two reasons: 1)as intelligence gathering for their own squad and 2) to expedite in round decision making. My decisions go faster than most panels I’m on when I am the one using prep time to read through the critical extended cards BEFORE the end of the debate. I almost never have the docs open AS the debaters are reading them because I limit my flow to what you SAY. (This also means I don’t read along for clipping … because I am far more interested in if you are a) comprehensible and b) have a grammatical sentence in some poor overhighlighted crap.) Most importantly, you should be doing the evidence comparisons verbally somehow, not relying on me to compare cards after the debate somehow. If I wanted to do any of that, I would have stayed a high school English teacher and assigned way more research papers.

I am the Director of Debate at Georgetown University ('21-present), before which I was the Assistant DOD (2017-21). I am also an Assistant Coach for Westminster. Before that, I debated for 4 years at Georgetown. In high school, I debated only regionally, for a tiny high school in West Texas.

Please include me on the email chain: bwk9@georgetown.edu

***Update: November 2022***

My prior paradigm was 5+ years out of date. The following are patterns in my judging that you should be aware of when debating in front of me.

All of the items below, EXCEPT for the "D-Rules (not subject to debate)" section, are simply DEFAULTS in the absence of debaters making an argument that I should evaluate these things differently. I would prefer that the DEBATERS tell me how to evaluate things and why, in which case these priors should rarely , if ever, come into play.

D-Rules (NOT subject to debate)

1. Please include me on the email chain.

2. In high school debates, all of the participants are minors, and I will not hesitate to intervene in a debate if anything legally or ethically dubious is occurring. This includes any bullying, displays of sexism or racism, etc. Relatedly, there are arguments which are appropriate for the college context but that I will not--and, legally, cannot!--countenance in a HS debate (one example: the reading of uncensored explicit evidence a la Preciado).

3. Consider me dead inside with respect to any preferences regarding argumentative substance. However, I have very little tolerance for either arguments or ways of engaging that make any participant feel unsafe, and will intervene if necessary.

4. Allegations of an ethics violation will immediately end the debate. No take-backs. I will then inform the tabroom and follow the tournament's prescribed procedures, or in the lack of such procedures will unilaterally determine whether it rises to the threshold of an ethics VI. If so, the accuser will win; if not, the accuser will lose. If allowed for by the tournament rules, I will make a subjective determination regarding whether the violation (or accusation, if the accuser loses) was engaged in knowingly and/or in competitive bad faith, and if so will assign the lowest allowable speaker points. To help guide this determination: egregious or persistent clipping is a D-Rule. So is evidence falsification. Poor evidence "hygiene," e.g. ending in the middle of a paragraph, is a D-rule, but is unlikely to warrant the additional "poor speaks" sanction if it does not change the meaning of the card, whereas if it cuts out a strawperson it is likely to warrant the "poor speaks" sanction. Minor good-faith mistakes in evidence citation are very unlikely to rise to the threshold of a D-rule if it is left up to my discretion by tab and/or the tournament rules.

Things to Know About Debating In Front of Me

1. Instead of focusing only on extending and answering arguments, it would behoove debaters to begin their final rebuttals by clarifying what the comparative RFD for the Aff/Neg should be, identifying the key questions to be resolved in the debate, and then going through the process of resolving them. You can think of this as providing me a roadmap for how I should approach adjudicating the debate once it ends. Absent this, I will come up with my own roadmap, but it is substantially less likely to work out in your favor and also I will be grumpy about it.

2. I have found that the way that arguments are characterized early in the debate often bears heavily on how I interpret and resolve disputes over them in the final rebuttals. This has accounted for numerous panel splits in debates I've judged the past couple years. If, for example, an argument is articulated in one way in the CXes (all of which I flow), I will tend to treat that articulation as binding; or, if a plan or counterplan is characterized in a given way in the 2NC and the 1AR does not push back on that characterization, I will adopt that understanding of the plan or counterplan and hold the line against 2ARattempts to rearticulate it.

3. Evidence: I value quality of argument and evidence. A smart, well-warranted analytic is far more valuable than a bad card. Research is at the core of what makes policy debate unique and valuable relative to e.g. Public Forum, Parli, etc. However, evidence matters only insofar as it provides reasons to believe you about your arguments (e.g. qualifications, warrants, etc.); it never constitutes an argument itself.

4. I will not read your speech doc, a practice which I've observed account for other panel splits in recent years. I will spot check specific pieces of evidence if they are contested in CX or in speeches. I will read cards I am directed to after the debate, but it is up to you to have leveraged them effectively in your speech--and, how good a card needs to be to get the job done on a given issue is inversely proportional to how well you debate it. If debaters want their evidentiary advantage to matter--as it should--they should do more evidence comparison, including as it relates to source quality, etc. The sole exception to this: if evidence is selectively underlined to an argument not even contemplated by the original, I reserve the right to unilaterally discount it (think here of the difference between underlining a movie script or selectively underlining words in unrelated sentences to concoct an argument never made in the source, vs. cutting a cards as a strawperson - the latter I will very unhappily accept if the other team does not contest it, albeit at the cost of speaker points, whereas the former I will probably not accept, if I notice it, even if the other team does NOT call it out).

5. Conceded arguments are true arguments. However, 1.) A complete "argument" consists of a claim, a warrant, and an impact--assertions are not arguments, and thus are not "true" even if dropped. 2.) Receiving the full weight of an argument does not matter in-and-of itself--you must still unpack why that dropped argument impacts the rest of the debate, and if that explanation was not there initially then the implication component of that can still constitute a new argument to which responses are allowed.

6. CX filibustering: Some amount of it is part of the game, but if this is taken to a silly extreme, then I will not hesitate to pull a Dallas Perkins and tell you to "ANSWER the QUESTION" so as to enable a meaningful debate to occur

Argument Defaults

1. Absent arguments to the contrary, CX and 2AC clarifications of plan mandates constitute binding amendments to the plan text, making them presumptively legitimate sources of counterplan competition. (Merely saying that something is "normal means," however, does not make it a mandate, and thus is presumptively not a legitimate source of CP competition.)

2. My defaults are that conditionality is a.) an all-or-nothing thing and b.) is good. However, I have become increasingly open to contestation of either premise.

3. Plan vagueness is out of control, especially in high school, and I will gladly vote Neg on that, either as a voting issue in-itself or smart circumvention arguments or DA links about the way in which the vague plan would be most likely interpreted and applied.

4. Counterplan vagueness is also out of control. If your CP text boils down to, e.g., "do innovation" rather than outlining a mechanism for how to bolster innovation, and the Affirmative points out that that is meaningless, I will agree with the Aff.

5. Kritiks: By default I assume that the K is not a DA plus a CP and that therefore the debate is a referendum on whatever the Link/Alt is critiquing, e.g. the Aff's reps, epistemology, political paradigm, etc. I can be convinced of plan focus/FW-no Ks, particularly if it is grounded in arguments about the resolutional burden of proof and the Negative's reciprocal burden of rejoinder, though meeting in the middle is often the path of less resistance. I am also willing to adopt very Neg-friendly frameworks, e.g. 'you link you lose,' but with the proper Aff responses I will find them ultimately unpersuasive. Absent Aff FW arguments that render them applicable ('pragmatism good,' for instance, or arguments about reciprocity of burdens), I do not intuitively understand why arguments like 'movements fail,' 'transition wars,' 'alt not feasible / no one is persuaded,' etc. would be relevant considerations--but with them, I do.

Argument Defaults - K Affs

5. K Affs: I prefer that the Affirmative be "topical" slash affirm the resolution. I am pretty good for topical K Affs, insofar as I think that there is substantial room for play regarding what topical AFFIRMATION means/entails, and that the wording of the resolution does not necessarily prescribe that topical "affirmation" take the form of defending the narrow causal desirability of implementing a specific topical policy proposal.

However, if your approach when reading a K Aff is to impact turn topicality, the part I struggle with is how debate can be workable once we have left the resolution behind. To deal with this, please speak DIRECTLY to that question in some manner in the 2AR -- whether by explicitly saying that it's better for debate not to be workable, explaining why it will not become unworkable, clearly defending some alternative limiting principle for what the Affirmative win condition is in place of the resolution, or something else -- AND have that be clearly traceable to arguments you set up in the 2AC and 1AR.

6. Framework v. K Affs: I do find there to be a meaningful difference between "topicality," i.e. the Affirmative must affirm the resolution and did not, and "framework," i.e. the Affirmative did not debate or affirm in the specific manner the Neg would have liked for them to. It would behoove the Neg to leverage those differences in response to Aff offense that presumes the latter or blurs the line.

I find "fairness" unpersuasive as a terminal impact. However, this is primarily a function of Negatives explaining it poorly, because I am extremely compelled by the argument that an axiomatic precondition for debate to operate is that the Affirmative must meet their burden of proof arising from the resolution, and that until they do so there is no logical basis for the Negative having any burden of rejoinder. All of which is to say: definitely feel free to go for fairness, BUT please take care to explain why it logically precedes everything else, AND to explicitly no-link the Aff's various lines of offense, rather than just making assertions about "procedural fairness."

Alternatively: feel free to say whatever "substantive" FW offense you'd like--I do find link turns to K Affs to often be truer than the K Affs themselves--BUT please do not just assert words like "clash" or "second and third level testing" without explication of what exactly you mean, why it is unique to your model of debate/foreclosed by the Aff's, and what the impact is; AND be aware that in so doing, you run the risk of making Aff impact turns LINK which otherwise would not.

I generally do not care about "T version," except insofar as it is explained in terms of what SPECIFIC lines of Affirmative offense are solved by the being able to read the Aff topically. (For example: "we need to go to X section of the library" is probably solved by T version, and arguably solved BETTER insofar as that model preserves a stronger ability and competitive incentive to dig into that issue than does the Aff's model). I DO think that that if a given Aff is COMPATIBLE with topical affirmation, that makes it easy to moot all of their offense while retaining a clear net benefit by saying that they should've have simply read the same Aff TOPICALLY (in essence, the same function that "T version" plays in a T debate vs. a policy Aff). In contrast, K Affs which are INcompatible with topical affirmation is generally better dealt with in front of me by "do it on the Neg" rather than a TVA.

Correspondingly: I tend to think that the best K Affs are centered not on K's of the resolution or topical Affs, but of BEING TOPICAL slash a model of topical debate--in which case the Neg will need to win that their model of debate is better, and a T version will only be useful in very specific, isolated instances for specific reasons.

Judd D. Kimball, Assistant Coach, University of Mary Washington

Article I. Communication Approach to Debate 
Section 1.01 The following are brief explanation of what I envision when I think of the highest quality debate. These are items that can factor in both positively and negatively for you in my determination of who did the better debating. 
(a) A primary goal should be to present your ideas and arguments in a communicative fashion. What factors influence the effectiveness of your communication? 
(i) Rate of Delivery. You should not present ideas at a rate that interferes with the effectiveness of sharing those ideas with another human being. You must analyze your audience to determine the rate at which they can absorb ideas, and you must evaluate (fairly) your own abilities to speak rapidly which not losing clarity/enunciation or normal tone inflection that signals the beginning and ending of sentences, and is critical to judges understanding concepts and ideas, not just individual words. 
(ii) Clarity/Enunciation. Each word should have a beginning and an ending. Each sound should be pronounced, and not mumbled through. 
(iii) Interpretation/Tonal inflection. It is a personal belief that the way we normally communicate with other people involves a lot of vocal interpretation and tonal inflection. It’s a way to communicate phrases and ideas, rather than just leaving each word hanging out by itself, merely surrounded by other words. With interpretation the audience has an easier time comprehending, understanding the processing the idea, as they don’t have to put the sentence together from the individual words, and then discover the meaning of the phrase or sentence themselves. Interpretation, by my definition, is the attribute of communication that helps provide understanding to the audience of the ideas being presented through the way the ideas are presented. It has been my experience that most debaters are very interpretative speakers when they are not debating from prepared scripts. It is during this time that the communication skills you have honed since you began talking are on display. Yet when it is time to read evidence, or a prepped theory block, they shift communicative gears and start just reading each individual word, rather than presenting ideas for the consideration of the judge. I am very unlikely to read evidence after the debate if it was not read in a comprehensible manner, or the warrants and reasons of the evidence were not discussed as being important ideas. 
(b) A primary focus of your speeches and cross-examination period should be information sharing. This goes beyond your personal motivation to communicate with the judges, and includes a responsibility to present your arguments in a fashion that facilitates your opponent’s comprehension of your position. 
(c) Clash. You should seek to create class in your debates by interacting with not only your opponent’s tag lines, but with the warrants for those claims. In essence, clash is explaining to me why I should prefer/believe your arguments over your opponents. In order to effectively do that, you must be making comparisons that take your opponents argument into account. You must clash. 

Section 1.02 Effective implementation of these points will most likely result in higher speaker points, and a greater understanding of your arguments by me as a judge. That will help you in winning the debate, as I will hold the other team responsible for answering your arguments, and if they fail toy,your superior communication will be a determining factor (as a process) of your victory. 

Article II. Debate Evaluation 
Section 2.01 I recognize objective standards and processes are probably impossible, as the subjective creeps into everything, I just desire and strive for objectivity. 
(a) I have a default judging perspective, which evaluates the net benefits of a policy proposal, and answers the question of whether the government should take a particular course of action. I prefer a framework which strives to include as many voices and perspectives as possible, and provides a framework in which different perspectives can be compared, contrasted and weighed. I like my decision to be grounded in the arguments made in the debate. I strive not to bring in “baggage” with me, though I recognize the final futility of that effort, and I will make every effort to explain my decision by reference what was actually communicated in the debate 
(b) If you wish the debate to be evaluated from an alternate perspective, you will need to provide a well-defined set of criteria for me to apply when evaluating and weighing arguments. The question of controversy needs to be defined, and discussed in order to provide me the necessary framework to avoid subjectively deciding the debate. Now mind you, I don’t mind subjectively deciding a debate, just be prepared to be frustrated by my statement that I can’t explain why I voted for a particular position, just that that was what I wanted to do at that moment of time, or frustrated by the fact that what I voted on wasn’t an argument or part of the debate that you had a chance to answer. That will happen when I find myself stalled out in the decision making, finding no way to decide other than adding in factors that were not included or discussed in the debate. 

Section 2.02 I find questions of autonomous action and personal belief difficult to decide in the context of debate competition. I have found myself perplexed by arguments advanced on the basis of exercising personal autonomy, and then be expected to evaluate them without the inclusion of my opinions, my autonomy, in the process. This is difficult when I find that my personal approach to life contrasts with the approach to individual decision making advocated by one team. If the ballot is my endorsement of your idea, then I would be denying my own autonomous position by being constrained by debate conventions of judging (i.e., you did a better job against the opponents objections, but I wasn’t persuaded to change my personal beliefs). Defining your framework for debate evaluation with this in mind will ease my difficulty. I have been close to taking the action of including my position on the question, in the last few debates I’ve had when this situation arose. Questions of Autonomy and personal belief are difficult questions for me to resolve 

Section 2.03 I will be very resistant to deciding debates where the character of the participants is the foundation for the decision. I do not like to cast judgments on people and their behavior without having gathered as much information as is possible. I do not feel that in the high pressure competition of debate is the best forum for investigating those issues, or in seeking to engage the other individual in a dialogue about their behavior. Am I totally unwilling to decide a debate on such a question? I’m not willing to say that either. But I would have to be convinced that not only was this an egregious act, but that malevolent intent was involved. 

Article III. Other Issues: 
Section 3.01 Topicality I think topicality debates hinge on the question of whose interpretation provides for a better debate topic/experience. If your violation and argumentation does not provide an answer to that question, then figure the answer out. You must also be sure to be complete in your argumentation about why the affirmative violates your interpretation. Do not leave issues of plan interpretation vague, or hinge your argument on a vague cross ex question or answer. Make clear and concise arguments about why the affirmative plan doesn’t meet your interpretation. 

Section 3.02 Counterplans. I’ll evaluate any counterplan presented. I begin from a bias that "net benefits" is the most meaningful competition standard, and perhaps only standard. But you can argue other standards, and you only have to defeat your opponent’s arguments, not mine. As to other theory questions with counterplans, it will depend on who does the best job defending/indicting a particular theoretical practice used in the debate. 

Section 3.03 Kritiks I need to understand what you are saying from the beginning on all arguments, but especially these. Please communicate your ideas to me when you present this type of argument. I won’t go back later and try to figure out what you were arguing about. I need to know what the affirmative does that is bad, and why it is bad enough that I should either vote negative, or not affirmative, or however I should vote. 

Section 3.04 Debating and Evaluating Theory Issues. Theory issues are difficult to evaluate, because they are a yes/no question. If you wish to win a theory objection, you must deal with all of your opponent’s defenses, and provide reasoning explaining why a particular theory position is destructive to quality debate. This is not meant to scare you off of theory debates, just to encourage you to be thorough and complete when discussing this issue. 

Young Kwon

Harvard

Email for speech docs:

y.kwon93@gmail.com

harvard.debate@gmail.com

Update (NDT 2023): I streamlined my paradigm because technical execution in-round trumps my ideological leanings and thoughts about debate most of the time. Feel free to ask me if you've got specific questions though!

Pet peeves

Re-inserting highlighting---I prefer that you argue why the evidence concludes your way first and then read the card

Word salad---I will not read the rest of the evidence to figure out the context if I don't understand what the highlighting is supposed to say.

Talking loudly during other team's speech---Maybe it's an unfortunate byproduct of online debate, but it really interferes with my ability to flow.

Abbreviating cross-examination as "cross"---Please stop. It's called "cross-ex."

Failing to start debates on time---Set up the email chain and send the 1AC before the official start time.

Topicality

This topic is hard for the aff - Reasonability + functional limits are very persuasive.

People should debate internal links a bit more - why is your limit more precise, debatable, or predictable?

Counterplans

“CP must be textually and functionally competitive” – I really don’t know what this means.

Default for presumption is that it flips aff when the neg introduces an advocacy.

Status quo is a logical option when the aff concedes the thesis of conditionality.

Kritik/Framework

Analysis carries more weight than just cards.

Resolving big-picture, meta-level arguments matters more than winning line-by-line.

I am less familiar with the literature, so you need to connect the dots. For instance, how does your theory of power implicate framework?

Background/Top-Level:

He/him/his

I am beginning to judge more events other than just policy but I have almost zero experience with other forms of debate.

Please include me on the email chain: joshlamet@gmail.com. Everyone gets plus .1 speaks if I'm not asked to be put on, and I'm just automatically put on the chain. Ask me any questions about my paradigm in person or via email, although I try to update it regularly with the most important stuff.

School conflicts: Minnesota, Glenbrook North, Como Park

I don't care what you read as long as you convince me to vote for you, I will.

Stuff related to online debating:

Don't delete analytics from the speech doc, please. I'll probably dock your speaks if I remember to. Online debate is harder to flow than in-person so it's good practice if you want me to catch everything you're saying.

Please slow down a little (especially on T and theory*) because the number of arguments I flow is rarely equal to the number of arguments the speaker actually makes, and those numbers will be much closer to each other if everyone prioritizes clarity and slowing down a bit. Don't just read this and think you're fine. Slow down, please. I know half of all judges ever have something like this in their paradigm but I'm a slower flow than average because I flow on paper.

Sliders:

Policy------------------x-------------------K

Read a plan-------------------------------x---------Do whatever (probably at least sorta related to the topic)

Tech--------------x----------------------------Truth -- I hate myself for it, but I am kind of a truth-orientated judge in that I really don't want to vote for silly args, and the worse an arg is, the more leeway I give to answering it

Tricks---------------------------x--------------Clash

Theory-------------------------------------x--------- Substance -- condo is really the only theory arg that gets to the level of "reject the team", I simply feel that most other theory args are reasons to reject the arg, not the team. Unless the negative goes for the CP/K to which the theory applies in the 2nr, it's a tough sell for me to vote on, "They read [insert abusive off-case position], they should lose".

Conditionality good--------x---------------------Conditionality bad -- this being said, I would much rather see 4-6 good off, than a 7+ mix of good and bad

States CP good (including uniformity)-----------x----------------------50 state fiat is bad

Always VTL----------------x---------------------Never VTL

Impact turn (*almost) everything-x-----------------------------I like boring debate -- to add to this, I'm a huge sap for impact calc and specifically rebuttals that provide a detailed narrative of the impacts of the debate and how they interact with the other team's. Impact comparison and impact turns are often the deciding factors for me in close debates

*Almost meaning I'll vote on warming good, death good, etc. but not on args like racism good or ableism good. Why don't people read death good anymore? I am an edgy teenager at heart and could be convinced the human race should go extinct.

Limits---------------x-------------------------------Aff Ground

Process CP's are cheating----------------------x---------------Best fall-back 2nr option is a cheating, plan-stealing CP

Lit determines legitimacy-------x-----------------------Exclude all suspect CPs

Yes judge kick the CP--x-------------------------------------------Judge kick is abusive -- as long as the 2nr says to kick the CP, I'm gonna kick it and just analyze the world of the squo vs the aff and I'm pretty sure there's nothing the aff can really do if condo bad isn't a thing in the round. Heck, I judged a debate where the CP was extended for 30 seconds and not kicked but I still voted neg because the neg won a large risk of a case turn. What I'm saying, is that when you are aff and the neg goes for more than just the CP with an internal NB, beating the CP doesn't equate to winning the debate outright

Presumption----------x--------------------------Never votes on presumption

"Insert this rehighlighting"---------------------x--I only read what you read

I flow on my computer ---------------------------------------x I'm gonna need to borrow some paper

I try to give out speaker points that are representative of how well you performed in the round compared to the tournament as a whole. I try to follow the process detailed here, but I often find myself handing out speaks sort of indiscriminately. Getting good speaks from me includes being respectful and making good choices in the rebuttals (smart kickouts, concessions, and flow coverage).

Clash! I like judging debates where the arguments/positions evolve about one another as opposed to simply in vacuums.

Don't be sloppy with sources.

Random things I am not a fan of: Excessive cross-applications, not doing LBL, email/tech issues, making my decision harder than it should be, and 2ACs and 1ARs that don't extend case impacts (even when they're dropped).

T-USFG/FW:

Fairness is an impact----------x-------------------Fairness is only an internal link -- My threshold is usually how close your aff is to the topic in the abstract, i.e. econ inequality and nukes. I do feel like in the end the main goal of doing debate is to win. The activity serves a ton of other purposes but at the end of each debate, one team wins, and one team loses. This doesn't mean that I think reading a planless aff is unfair and can be convinced that a "fair" debate produces something bad, but it's going to be very hard to convince me that debate is not a game.

Topic education is decent for an education impact but policymaking and policy education are meh. Critical thinking skills can also be extracted from debate and critical skills about calling out state action and for revolution planning.

If you don't read a written-out advocacy statement: Impact turn framework---------x---------------------------Procedural

Debate and life aren't synonymous but I understand that many of your lives revolve heavily around debate, so I will respect any arg you go for as long as you make smart arguments to support it.

Updated: 09/23/20

Email: atlandrum@gmail.com

For background, I debated four years at Liberty University, qualified for the NDT twice, and was a double-octofinalist at the NDT my senior year. I'm now a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia. While debating, I primarily debated policy. However, my experiences don't necessarily reflect my opinion of what debate should be. So, please play to your strengths and do what's comfortable. Please be respectful and enjoy yourself.

Note: I have not researched this topic too much so please do not assume I will understand common acronyms or take for granted any topic-related norms as to what's accepted and what isn't, especially as it relates to topicality. That being said, I will try to become as familiar as possible before judging your team.

Specifics:

1. Disads: high quality evidence and clear analysis is much more persuasive than a 2NC/1NR spent reading blocks and multiple cards saying the same thing. Please, please remember impact calculus.

2. Counterplans: no strong position for or against specific types of counterplans if there is strong topic literature. The more subsuming and generic the CP, the more likely I am to be persuaded by theory arguments.

3. Kritiks: these are a fundamental part of what makes debate special and teams should be comfortable debating for/against kritial arguments. That being said, teams should not undervalue the importance of a clearly explained impact framework and alternative.

If you have specific questions before the round, please feel free to ask.

Jake Lee (He/Him)

Math Teacher and Director of Debate at Mamaroneck High School

My Email for the Chain: jakemlee@umich.edu

HS Debaters ALSO add: mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

In-Depth Judging Record: View this Speadsheet

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TOC Note to the Debaters!

Congrats on qualifying to the 2024 TOC!! Enjoy the moment and the tournament! While the adversarial atmosphere of the tournament looms all weekend, never forget to cherish the moment of being able to compete at this tournament with all of your teammates, coaches and peers! I never got to experience this tournament as a debater, and you all worked hard to get to this spot!! Be proud and happy of yourself, your debate partner and your debate team! If you are a senior and this is your last debate tournament ever, definitely make sure to soak it all in. You all's novice year was online, and you all endured the pain of online debate for two years in your beginning years. If I judge your last debate ever, I definitely will say some concluding remarks for you seniors. Juniors and sophomores you'll have to wait down the line. Remember, have fun and compete hard this weekend! Good Luck to all competitors!! I am excited to judge the round!

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Top Level:

**Before the start of every round: I want every person in the room to go around and state your name, pronouns and one fun fact about yourself. You all are way too stressed out before rounds and having this little icebreaker before the start of rounds promotes a safe, friendly space. It helps create a community in debate, and the teacher in me enjoys the idea of promoting community building.

I evaluate arguments on a Tech over Truth basis. A dropped argument is a true argument on the flow. However, the word "conceded" does not mean you get to skirt by with laziness on the flow.

The only time tech over truth will not matter is on Death Good (Ligotti style), Racism Good, Sexism Good, etc. Reading these arguments at your own expense will lead to an inevitable L and 25's immediately. As an educator, it is my responsibility to make debate a safe space for everyone.

High School Coaches I agree with - Jeremy Hammond, DB, Gabe Koo, Eric Forslund, Allie Chase, Tim Lewis, Peter Susko, Yao Yao Chen, Will Katz, and Maggie Berthiaume.

Schools I judge the most: Lexington (45), Berkeley Prep (43), GDS (40), GBN (25), Calvert Hall (21), New Trier/Bronx Science (19), MBA (16)

I am a big fan of the Washington Urban Debate League! Appreciate all of the work David Trigaux does down there.

Top 5 Favorite Topics I debated/coached (top was favorite): Domestic Surveillance (HS 2016), Oceans (HS 2015), Fiscal Redistribution (HS 2024), Executive Authority (C 2019), Transportation Infrastructure (HS 2013)

Giving the final speeches (2NR/2AR) off the flow (ie paper) will boost speaker points!!!! Shows great ethos in round.

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Fiscal Redistribution Topic Thoughts:

This Topic is Great! Pretty limiting on AFF ground and there is good NEG ground. There is a topic DA now, please go for it!! It is a valuable asset. Seriously please go for DA's, it makes sense.

1AC's that have heard the most - Degrowth FJG, FJG, Logisitcs, FJG w/ FTT

T - Taxes and Transfer: Lean AFF heavily, deficit spending AFFs are T

T - Social Security is OASDI Only: Lean NEG moderately, still believe healthcare AFFs can be topical

T - By: Lean NEG but barely. I think there is some truth to the AFF should only just be deficit spending, but excluding taxes as a whole is not ideal, especially the Social Security Area of the Topic.

Teams that dodge the question of "how is the plan funded" are cowards. If you specify a "wealth tax" or x-tax in your plan text and then say "we are normal means" OR "plan is fiscal redistribution", that is even more cowardly if you are not going to defend your plan.

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The State of Flowing:
The state of flowing and line by line is very concerning. You all should be flowing the SPEECH, NOT the SPEECH DOC. The amount of times the 2AC has answered a skipped offcase or a couple of skipped cards on case because you just did not listen is concerning. Same with the other speeches in the debate where a team is answering something that was not said at all because "iT wAs iN tHe DoC"!! Same thing with people just claiming everyone is dropping everything.

No requesting "can you take out the cards that you did not read" before CX or speeches. If you ask, I'm going to run YOUR prep time and the other team can stall as long as they want because you decided not to flow. I don't care if they purposely run your time to ZERO, you didn't FLOW! You all have the document in front of you. That is a privilege debaters about 15 years ago did not have. If I can flow the speech without looking at the doc, you can to.

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Consider the Following:

1) Implicate Arguments:

Judge Instruction is pretty non-existent in 90% of debates. As a math person, I really care about how things are concluded. What implicating your argument is pretty much equivalent to showing your work to me on a test. Telling me how to vote prevents major judge intervention from me. Clash, compare, articulate, explain arguments and tell me how they relate to you winning the debate round. Arguments without warrants depreciate in value compared to arguments with warrants are appreciated.

Nothing frustrates me more when teams say their arguments but do not tell me how to evaluate them. If I cannot figure out what I am supposed to do with your argument at the end, I am pretty much going to ignore it or not evaluate it. It is pretty consuming to try to sort out a wad of arguments that have no value to them. It is equivalent as to you telling me that this shape is a rectangle, and you cannot tell me why it is a rectangle without the proof/work. Do not bank on me trying to figure out what you are trying to tell me if you do not provide judge instruction, otherwise your arguments get bogged down.

If a team reads an argument that is considered "trolling", you have every right to troll back at them.

It feels really ironic that teams who have "framing contentions" do not do any framing at all. Both AFF and NEG are at fault for just reading cards and not "framing" anything. The spamming of Util Outweighs or Deontology First does nothing to help me evaluate the round.

2) Theory:

Please just stop reading pre-written blocks in these debates. Do Line-by-Line as you would normally do on any other flow.

Conditionality is probably good. I have voted both ways when it comes down to conditionality. Impact calculus and counter-interpretation debating does matter. New AFFs justify condo and perf con.

Hiding ASPEC/Other Theory arguments is Cowardly. If you do it and go for it because the other team dropped it, I will probably still vote for you; but it will end being a low point win. The 2N will take the hit the most for hiding it. You have to read ASPEC/other theory arguments on it's OWN flow to avoid this consequence. Do you want to be known as the ASPEC hider? If I don't catch it on my flow because you hid it, YOU do not get to complain about me missing it. If I know you hid it, I might end up not flowing it. Don't care.

3) Framework:

In these debates, both in K AFF and K rounds, are often quite frustrating to resolve at the end of the day. To win Framework on either the AFF or NEG, you need to do impact calculus! Most debates tend to stagnate and never expand on their impacts.

The other thing that annoys me that teams do not do is explaining their interpretation of debate. Both sides just breeze through this when this actually matters to me a lot as to why you resolve your own offense and why they link to your own offense. Debating and refuting each other's interpretations matters a lot and gets you a lot farther in the debate.

Hey Jake, is Fairness an impact? Yes. I think Fairness is an internal impact that can produce a plethora of external impacts. Hence, I tend to think Fairness is more of an internal link. I prefer clash style impacts over fairness impacts, but fairness can be a powerful impact set up for a lot of framework offense if executed correctly. However, I am not the person debating, and if you make frame Fairness as an external on the flow, I will treat it as an impact on the flow. It is your job to implicate it. Yes, I have voted on Fairness being an impact in the past. Walter Payton SW, LFS MR, Peninsula LL, and UC Lab ES are a few teams that I have voted on fairness for.

I prefer the AFF to have a counter-interpretation most of the time than just going for the impact turn strategy. Counter-interpretations help me get a perspective as to what I should think about debate and how I should come to the conclusion about debate. Most teams fail to provide also any UQ framing about debate.

TVAs are a great tool. A lot of NEG teams fail to understand the purpose of a TVA. A TVA does not need to solve the AFF. If the NEG can prove there is a TVA that can resolve a lot of offense from the AFF, the NEG is in a good spot. The AFF's best shot at beating TVAs is proving how silly sometimes these TVAs are. I am also shocked how AFF teams just let the NEG get away with blatantly untopical TVAs. There are so many times where I am just shocked that I end up voting for a TVA that just sounds very UNTOPICAL under the NEG's definitions.

Switch Side Debate is an under utilized argument that helps with most NEG teams. AFF teams can easily combat this by stating an AFF key warrant, which goes back to my thoughts about the counter-interpretation always being present in the 2AR.

Subjectivities being changed in debate is probably unfalsifiable

Limits DA is OP. I just find it the most persuasive reason to Fairness because in all honestly, debate would be broken if there is no limit.

Here are the following arguments I just find unpersuasive from both sides on Framework:

"They flipped NEG into a K AFF" - don't care, the 2N can lie all they want as to why they flipped neg. the 2N can say because my 2A is tired so we flipped NEG, and I am fine with it

"They flipped AFF with a K AFF, they are embracing competition" - don't care, same as above, the AFF can just lie and be like my 2N is tired so we flipped AFF

"The TVA does not Solve the AFF 100%" - no it does not have to, see the TVA section above

"You read 4+ offcase in the 1NC so you had ground" - 90% of the 1NC is hot garbage so it is not good ground

"We could only read T in the 1NC, so we have no ground" - have you tried at least reading the Cap K or the Heg/Cap Good DA?

"More People have quit debate because of K AFFs" - I do not think this is true, I think this is an unfalsifiable claim

"Perm Do their interpretation and our counter-interpretation" - You can't perm T, it is not an advocacy

4) Counterplans:

I am always down for a counterplan debate. I did find the NATO topic last year a bit annoying with the amount of process CPs that came out of it, so let's try to avoid it this year since there are decent non-process CPs on this topic. Counterplans should be both "textually and functionally" competitive is the immoveable standard that I will stake in counterplan debates.

Not only this forces better counterplans writing, but better permutation writing. Limited intrinsic perms really are go-to strategy against counterplans such as Consult NATO or the Lopez CP when they really have no intrinsic purpose to the topic. But a very good counterplan that destroys the intrinsic perm is very much a power move. I am easily persuaded that the "other issues" perm should be abolished since it limits out NEG ground a ton. Debating out words, phrases, and reasons behind it will go a long way. Should/Resolved debates are pretty meh, but they have stuck with me for a long time given my time debating against GBN and hearing Forslund's thoughts about counterplan competition theory.

Permutation Do Both seems lost in most process CP debates. I sometime think that you can just do both. That places the burden a lot of the NEG to really explain any inherent trade-off between doing the plan and the counterplan, especially with garbage internal net benefits.

Permutations are not advocacies and DO NOT have to be topical.

**Hot Take on Text-Only Counterplans: If the NEG team just reads a counterplan text in the 1NC and nothing else, the AFF can just say Perm Do Both and move on. Here's why: a) there is no claim of solvency established after the text. The Counterplan text explains what you are doing, not how it solves and b) you have not established the threshold of competition. Jimin Park and I had an interesting conversation about this.

5) Disadvantages:

Huge fan of disadvantages. However, this is a sliding scale. There are some DAs that are pretty heat, ie. Assurance DA on Alliances Topic, Econ DA on Health Insurance Topic, Russia Fill-In DA on Arms Sales topic. Then, there are some DAs that are absolute garbage, ie. Federalism DA on Education topic, DoD Trade-Off on the NATO topic.

Much prefer you focus on the link level of the DA. This is where a lot of DA debates are either won or lost. A lot of debaters really fail to explain or attack the link. I see the common tactic against DAs is just impact defense, when again link level debating helps. AFFs should link turn DAs when they have the opportunity. Straight turning stuff has become a lost art.

Politics DAs: Okay, I will admit these DAs are non-sensical. However, I love a good politics DA debate. It was my most common 2NR in high school. That being said, the politics DA is probably the hardest DA to both execute and answer. There are a ton of moving parts to it, that a lot of debaters end up getting lost in the sauce and just make this debate about who likes/hates the plan. Defenses of PC theory, UQ warrants, takes outs of the bill all have large implications on the DA. Winner's Win theory is a great debate to listen if the AFF decides to put offense against the DA. Rider DAs are bad (sorry Voss).

6) Critiques:

Framework for me dictates how I evaluate the round. Both teams should have a comprehensive interpretation of what debates should look like and how I should evaluate it. Both teams should also impact out why their model of debate is better than their opponents. This is where a lot of debates just fall flat. AFF team says fairness and clash. NEG team says that's capitalist/anti-black and that's it. Lack of impact calculus just frustrates me a lot. Why should I have to "weigh the plan" or "prefer representations first prior to weighing the plan". Bronx Science BD was the only team that really impacted out framework and provided a clear lane for judges to evaluate rounds.

I prefer if the critique had links about the plan/topic rather than representations of the AFF's impacts. That is a preference, not a mandate. A lot of good executions of the link debate utilize re-highlightings and implicating the reason for a link. AFF's can easily combat this by just defending their threats are real. I am pretty good for AFF teams that just that their impact is true OR their AFF is just a good idea.

Extinction is First is a default for me, unless there is another Utilitarian thought process that is presented and articulated well to me to think otherwise.

If you say the K is unconditional, and you kick the alt, you cheated!!!! If the NEG team does this, AFF call them out and it does not need to be much, but explain why what they did is bad! The K is not unconditional, the advocacy is. You kicking breaks the rules of uncondo. It is the same logic of a Process CP being uncondo, and then the team kicks the CP part and going for the internal net benefit. That is not how unconditionality works

7) Topicality:

I am probably not the best judge for topicality debates.

I will default to competing interpretations majority of the time.

What matters to me is counter-interpretation debating, and how you explain to me your view of the topic is better for debate. A lot debates end up messy for me to evaluate because there is no impacting out why limits outweighs ground or AFF ground better than NEG ground. I will always will try to figure out which topic is best for both the AFF and NEG.

Much prefer limits over ground, unless there is a clear linkage between the AFF's interpretation decking NEG ground.

8) Case Debating:

Love a good case debate. Both sides will profit well from a good case debate. Making smart internal link/solvency takes outs really provide the NEG a lot of leverage. If going for a counterplan, still having case defense to the advantage that you think the CP solves the least forces me to drop you twice as I have to decide the CP doesn’t solve AND that the case impact outweighs your net-benefit. That seems like a pretty good spot to be in for NEG since I can judge kick the CP and weigh the net benefit. What most high school debaters end up doing is just spamming impact defense. Much prefer internal link/solvency take outs.

Majority of the time, a lot of 1ACs are hyperinflated, illogical and run into a ton of problems. If you tell me you cannot find an illogical flaw in an internal link chain that says, "plan's biofuel research promotes ag research, ag research promotes GMOs, GMOs help solve food shortage in Ukraine, lack of food in Ukraine causes NATO intervention, NATO scares Russia, NATO-Russia war goes nuclear", I will be shocked.

9) Ethics Violations:

Clipping: a team misrepresents how much evidence they have read in a debate, such as improperly highlighting their evidence, “clipping cards” (the team says they read more than they actually did by clipping a card short of the indicated end), or “cross reading” (the team skips words or sentences in the middle of the text but indicates that they read all the highlighted words).

Any altering of the author's original text such as deleting/adding/re-arranging words/phrases/paragraphs is also deemed a fabrication of evidence. Proof of fraud is necessary.

Any ethics violation challenge, the other team must present evidence. Whoever wins the challenge gets the win and max speaker points. Whoever loses the challenge gets the lost and lowest speaker points possible (probably a 25).

I am currently an assistant debate coach with both Montgomery Bell Academy and George Mason University. This is my 15th year in policy debate.

I use he/him pronouns.

Last updated: 1/31/2024

Please put me on the email chain & make me an ev doc at the end of the debate. NJL1994@gmail.com.

Set up and send out the 1AC 10 minutes before the debate begins. Please avoid downtime during debates. If you do both of these things without me needing to say anything (send out the 1AC 10 minutes early + avoid downtime) you'll get higher speaker points.

If I'm judging you online, please slow down a bit and emphasize clarity more than normal.

Top level things:

I think about debate in terms of risk (does the risk of the advantage being true outweigh the risk of the disad being true?). I am willing to vote on presumption, particularly when people say really ridiculous stuff or people's cards are highlighted to say nothing.

I like specificity, nuance, and for you to sound smart. If you sound like you've done research and you know what's going on, I'm likely to give you great points. Being specific, having nuances, and explaining your distinctions is the easiest way to get my ballot.

Judge direction is a lost art. If you win the argument that you're advancing, why should it matter? What does this mean for the debate? What does it mean for your arguments or the other team's arguments? This is the number one easiest way to win my (and really anyone's) ballot in a debate. Direct your judges to think a certain way, because if you don't, your judges are likely to go rogue and decide things that make sense to them but not to you. So impact your arguments and tell me what to do with them. I think it's way more valuable to do that than include one more tiny argument and almost certainly the easiest way to get me to overcome any predispositions.

Decorum is very important to me. If your strategy is to belittle, upset, talk down to, yell at, escalate, curse at, or otherwise be rude or mean to your opponents, then you can expect me to give you terrible speaker points. I also reserve the right to end the debate early if I find the behavior particularly atrocious or potentially threatening to anyone in the room. I am very uninterested in the “I know what you did last summer” strategy or any personal attacks. You certainly don't have to be best friends with your opponents, but I do expect a sense of cordiality when engaging your opponents and their arguments.

"The existence of speech time limits, the assumption that you will not interrupt an opponent's speech intentionally, and the fact that I (and not you) will be signing a ballot that decides a winner and loser is non-negotiable." (taken verbatim from Shree Awsare).

I am incredibly uncomfortable adjudicating things that did not occur in the debate I am watching. Please do not ask me to judge based on something that didn’t happen in the round. I am likely to ignore you.

High school debaters in particular: I have consistently noticed over the past few years of judging that I vote for the team whose arguments I understand. If I cannot connect the dots, I'm not going to vote for you. This goes equally for kritikal and policy debaters. Most of my decisions in high school debates come down to this, and I will tell you that your argument makes no sense in my RFD.

How I decide debates:

First: who solves what?-- does the aff solve its impacts, and (assuming it's in the 2NR) does the negative's competitive advocacy solve its own impacts and/or the aff? In framework debates, this means the first questions I resolve are "does the aff solve itself?" and "does the TVA solve the aff sufficiently?"

Second: Who’s impact is bigger? This is the most important question in the debate. Do impact calculus.

Third: Whatever you have told me matters. Because I have started with solvency & impact calculus questions, everything else is always filtered along those lines (including framework/role of the ballot/role of the judge).

Other misc things:

1. A dropped argument is a true argument but it needs to be a complete argument to begin with or I will likely allow people new answers. For example, this epidemic with high schoolers reading aspec on the bottom of T flows to hide it: if it’s so quick I didn’t catch it in the 1NC, the 1AR gets all the new args they want. Additionally, an argument is not just a claim and a warrant, but a claim, warrant, and reasoning. In other words, your warrant needs to be connected to your claim in order for it to be an argument.

2. I am very flowcentric. Do not ask me to not flow, because I won't listen. Please do line-by-line. If you don't, I'll be frustrated and less likely to buy new extrapolations of arguments. Your speaker points will definitely drop if you don't do line-by-line. I do not like overviews ("overviews are evil"-- one of my labbies; "flowing is good for your health" -- another one of my labbies).

3. Show me that you care. Show me that you know things, that you've done research on this topic, that you want to win, and that debate matters to you. I love this activity and if you also love it I want to know that.

4. Judge kicking makes sense to me but I frequently forget about it, so if you want me to judge kick something you should tell me so in the block/2NR.

5. Cards and highlighting: Teams should get to insert rehighlightings of the other team's cards, but obviously should have to read cards if they're new/haven't been introduced into the debate yet. Two offshoots of this-- 1. You should insert rehighlightings of other team's cards if they suck 2. You should read cards that don't suck.

I do not follow along with speech docs during debates.

Please highlight your ev so it reads as complete sentences. This does not mean that I need you to highlight complete sentences, but if you are brick highlighting, I want to be able to read highlighted portions of your ev as complete sentences—it flows better to me. IE don't skip the letter "a" or the words "in" or "the." Just a random pet peeve.

If you do not have a complete citation or at least a full paragraph from your evidence I will not evaluate what you've said as evidence. Cherrypicked quotes with no context are not evidence.

I tend to not read a lot of cards after the debate unless things are highly technical or I think the debaters aren’t explaining things well. That being said, I’ll likely read at least some cards. Please put together a card doc for me.

6. Debaters parroting their partners: I usually just flow what the partner said. That, obviously, only exists within reason (you don’t get to give a third speech in a debate, but you can interrupt your partner to say something and I will flow it).

7. New 2AR args are bad for debate. I consciously hold the line against them as much as I can. I as a 2N feel as if I got a few decisions where a judge voted aff on an arg that didn't exist until the 2AR and it's the most frustrating. You can expect me to try to trace lines between args in earlier & later speeches. However, if I think the argument they're making is the true argument or a logical extrapolation of something said in the 1AR, I'm more likely to buy it. 2As-- this means if you're gonna do some 2A magic and cheat, you should trick me into thinking that you're not cheating.

Some specifics:

Disads: I’m better for the smart DAs than the silly ones, but I understand the value of bad DAs and will vote for them. I will likely reward you with higher speaker points if I think I understand your story really well and/or you have some cool/unique spin on it. I am fine with logical take outs to DAs that don’t require cards (especially if there’s some logic missing internally in the DA). Don’t just read new cards in the block or 1AR, explain your args (although also read new cards obviously).

I really do not understand how the economy works. I'm sorry. I've really tried to get it, but I just don't. You absolutely can go for econ DAs and/or econ case turns in front of me, but please be extra careful to explain (in lots of detail!) what you're arguing here.

Theory, CPs, and K Alternatives: I put these pieces together because my thoughts on these three args blend together.

Competition is determined off the plantext, not off cross-x, nor off the resolution. PICs & PIKs are only competitive if they PIC/PIK out of something in the plantext. I do not believe that you get to PIC/PIK out of a justification or non-plantext based word. The only way I will ever be convinced otherwise is if the aff allows you to do so.

Condo: It’s good. “They should get one less CP” is an arbitrary interp and makes no sense. The phrase "dispo solves" at the end of your bad 2AC condo block is not an argument and I will not be writing it down on my flow. I will vote on this if it's dropped, but I'm pretty persuaded by neg flex and education-style args.

"Performative Contradictions" is a term of art that has been bastardized to no end by debate. You're either saying the neg has double turned themselves or you're saying conditionality is bad; in my mind, perf con is not even worthy of being written on my flow.

Particular Theory: I’m better for this than most judges (and MUCH more persuaded by it than condo). States theory, international fiat, consult/condition, vague alts, utopian alts, etc—I have gone for all of these and actively coach my debaters to do the same. My predisposition is to reject the arg not the team, but I can be persuaded to reject the team on non-condo theory args (you should introduce the arg as reject the team in the 2AC, not CX, if you want this to be an option).

Theory can be a reason you get to make a cheating perm.

Counterplans/alternatives that use aff evidence as solvency advocates are awesome.

If the CP/alt links less I think it makes sense that I prefer it, but make that arg yourself because I won’t make it for you.

Case: I love love love case debate. You should make logical extrapolations that take out the internal link chains and make me question how the advantage makes sense. The block should read more cards but feel free to make logical case take outs without cards. I don't think you should have to go for impact defense to beat advantages-- uniqueness and internal link take outs are almost always the easier place to attack advantages. I tend to prefer a well-developed take out to the death by a thousand cuts strategy.

Affs-- 2NR that don't do well-developed case debate are generally overwhelmed by your "try or die"/"case outweighs"/"1% chance of solvency" args.

Topicality: I'm getting better for this as a strategy lately than I used to be. I do still generally think that it's about the plantext, but can be persuaded that I should think of the plantext in the context of the 1AC. Topicality is only ever a voter, not a reverse voter. I’m not great for silly/arbitrary T interps (I am very persuaded by the arg that these interps are arbitrary).

Kritiks: I like Ks that care about people and things. I'm optimistic to a fault. I certainly believe that things are still terrible for billions of beings, but it's hard to convince me that everything in the world is so absolutely irredeemable.

Your long overview is actively bad for debate and you will not change my mind.

Make your K interact with the affirmative. I want your links to be about the result of the aff as opposed to just the reading of the aff. Fiat bad links are bad. Your "state is always bad" links are slightly better, but also terrible. Don't just explain your theory of how power works, explain how the action of the aff is bad according to your theory of power.

I think that I am worse for structuralist style kritiks than I used to be for two reasons: 1) I feel more so that I want you to be responding to the action of the aff than I used to 2) I generally study poststructuralism and queer theory. I read a lot of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler.

Grad school has taught me that theory is way more complex than I used to think it was. I will get annoyed if I know that you’re deploying the theory wrong. I'm not good for things like "death good," "meaning doesn't mean anything," or "language is meaningless" because I don't think those are questions even worth asking.

I have read some literature about antiblackness academically and have read a bit more from a debate standpoint. I would not call myself an expert by any means in this literature, but I do understand some of it better than I used to. I am still unwilling to fill in those blanks for you if you are lacking them (ex-- just saying the words "yes antiblackness ontological, natal alienation proves" is not an argument in my mind).

99.99% of the time I will entirely ignore your framework/role of the ballot args when you're going for the K against a topical aff. There's a high chance that I will just stare at you and not flow during your incredibly long and generic 2NC/2NR framework block on your K. I am serious, I may not even waste the ink in my pen flowing this. I do not know how to decide debates unless I'm weighing the merits of the aff against the merits of the K. For example, if the aff is an object of study, then to evaluate that object of study I have to weigh the aff's consequences. You are better off just saying "yes the aff can weigh the plan, we'll just beat it" in front of me. This also means that the role of the ballot/judge is only ever to vote for whoever did the better debating in every round I judge.

“Perms are a negative argument” and “method v method debate means no perms” are both not arguments. Despite judging for however long I have, I still do not know what a "method v method debate" even is or why it's different than every other debate. I will not write these words on my flow.

I also generally do not find the "voting for us gives us more wins/sends us to elims" as a solvency mech persuasive or that "X thing done in the debate is policing/surveillance/violence" (other than actual/physical policing/surveillance/violence) to be persuasive.

Ultimately, I evaluate K debates just like I evaluate policy debates. Technical line by line is key. Explain your args well. Put the debate together. Don't ignore the other side.

2NRs on the K that include case debate (with some level of internal link/impact defense; not just your security K cards on case) are substantially more persuasive to me.

Framework against non-topical affs: you should also read my section on Ks (right above this one) as well.

Framework is a strategy and it makes a lot of sense as a strategy. Just like every other strategy, you should try to tailor it to be as specific to the aff as you possibly can. For example, how does this particular aff make it impossible for you to debate? What does it mean for how debate looks writ-large? What's the valuable topic education we could have had from a topical discussion of this aff in particular? Same basic idea goes for when you’re answering generic aff args—the generic “state always bad” arg is pretty easily beaten by nuanced neg responses in front of me. The more specific you are, the more likely I am to vote for you on framework and the more likely I am to give you good speaks.

Stop reading huge overviews. They’re bad for debate. Your points will suffer. Do line by line. Be a good debater and stop being lazy. The amount of times I have written something like "do line by line" in this paradigm should really tell you something about how I think about debate.

I do not find truth testing/"ignore the aff's args because they're not T" very persuasive. I think it's circular & requires judge intervention.

I do, however, think that fairness/limits/ground is an impact and that it is the most important standard in a T debate.

T and/or framework is not genocide, nor is it ever rape, nor is it a microaggression, nor is it real literal violence against you or anyone else.

I’m a sucker for a good topical version. Teams seem to want to just laundry list potential TVAs and then say "idk, maybe these things let them discuss their theory". I believe that strategy is very easily beaten by a K team having some nuanced response. It makes way more sense to me if the TVA is set up almost like a CP-- it should solve a majority or all of the aff. If you set it up like that and then add the sufficiency framing/"flaws are neg ground" style args I'm WAY more likely to buy what you have to say (this goes along with the whole "I like nuance and specificity and you to sound like you're debating the merits of the aff" motif that I've had throughout my paradigm-- it applies to all debaters).

I oftentimes wonder how non-topical affs solve themselves. The negative should exploit this because I do feel comfortable voting neg on presumption. However, I won’t ever intervene to vote on presumption. That’s an argument that the debaters need to make.

Non-topical affs should have nuance & do line by line as well. Answer the neg’s args, frame the debate, and tell me why your aff in particular could not have been topical. You HAVE to have a defense of your model and not just say that framework is bad or else I will probably vote neg on presumption. The same basic idea applies here as it does everywhere else: the more generic you are, the more likely I am to vote against you.

Garbage/Hidden Stuff/Tricks: Nope. New affs are good, hiding aspec makes you a coward, death is bad, free will exists and I don't care if it doesn't. Make better arguments.

Cross-ex: I am becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with watching how this tends to go down. Unless I am judging a novice debate, questions like "did you read X card" or "where did you mark Y card" are counting as parts of cross-x. I tend to start the timer for cross-ex pretty quickly after speeches end (obviously take a sec to get water if you need to) so pay attention to that.

I pay attention & listen to CX but I do not flow it. Have a presence in CX & make an impact. I am listening.

Speaker points-- I do my best to moderate these based on the tournament I'm at and what division I'm in. That being said, I won’t lie—I am not a point fairy.

I will grant extra speaker points to people who number their arguments and correctly/aptly follow the numbering that has been established in the debate.

Paraphrasing from Shree Awsare-- I will not give you a 30.

29.8-- Top speaker
29.2-29.5-- You really impressed me and I expect you to be deep in the tournament
29-- I think you deserve to clear
28.3-- Not terrible but not super impressive
27.5-- Yikes
I will award the lowest possible points for people who violate the basic human dignities that people should be afforded while debating (e.g., non-black people don't say the N word).

I've also been known to give 20s to people who don't make arguments. I will not be giving you a 30; nobody gives a perfect speech.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the debate begins, or send me an email. I also do seriously invite conversation about the debate after it occurs-- post-rounds are oftentimes the most valuable instantiation of feedback, the best way to get better at debate, and important for improving intellectually. I know that post-rounds sometimes get heated, and I think we all get defensive sometimes when we're being pressed on things we've said (or think we've said) so I will likely consciously try to take deep breaths and relax if I feel myself getting heated during these times. This also means that I may take a second to respond to your questions because I am thinking. I also might take awkward pauses between words-- that's not because I don't think your question is important, I'm just trying to choose my words carefully so I can correctly convey my thoughts. I only post this here because I don't want anyone to feel like they're being attacked or anything for asking questions, and I apologize in advance if anything I say sounds like that.

Ethics Challenge Addendum:

I would strongly discourage ethics challenges in all but the most extreme instances. I don't want to adjudicate them, you don't want to be the team who makes the challenge, etc. If you notice something is wrong, please contact coaches and/or debaters and try to fix the problem rather than making it a challenge in round.

An ethics challenge is not a no-risk option for me. That is, when an ethics challenge is issued, the debate ends. I will clarify that the team issuing the challenge has issued one and then end the debate and adjudicate the challenge. I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward then and there. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances.

An ethics challenge may be issued along one of three lines: either you have accused the other team of clipping cards, of misciting evidence, or of misrepresenting evidence. Nothing else will be considered an ethics challenge for me.

Clipping cards is defined as claiming to have read more or less of the evidence than one actually has. Please note that I do not follow along with evidence as the debate is occurring. Missing a single word/a few words is not enough. I will decide what constitutes enough of the card to be considered clipping.

Misciting evidence is understood as providing the incorrect author and/or date as well as missing the first author, source of publication, and date (at least the year). Please note that putting something like "the New York Times" instead of "Nate Silver" is acceptable for an authorship. Source of publication can be broad (article title, URL, book title). If the article is easily accessible, then it is acceptable. Again, I will determine what constitutes an incomplete or miscited citation if this becomes a relevant question.

I do not consider missing credentials to be unethical but I do consider those pieces of evidence to be incredibly weak.

Misrepresenting evidence is understood as inserting evidence which is missing lines or paragraphs within the parts of the initial article/book being read. So, for example, if you want to read the first and third paragraph from an article, you must leave the second paragraph in the evidence you read in the debate. This means that, for me, ellipses to indicate that parts of the card are missing or stating something like “pages 4-5 omitted” is unethical. Cards need to be full paragraphs.

Providing a single quote from a book or an article is not a card. As such, I will not consider it as you having introduced evidence and it is not unethical for me. However, not providing full paragraph pieces of evidence means your argument is substantially weaker for me (because, again, then you have not read evidence).

I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances. Please note that I will take this seriously; an ethics challenge is not something to be debated out in a round.

The speaker points I will give are as follows: 28.6 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I vote for, 28.5 for the 1^st speaker of the team I vote for, 28.4 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I do not vote for, 28.3 for the 1^st speaker of the team I do not vote for. My assumption in the event of an ethics violation is that you made an honest mistake and that you were not intentionally cheating. I do not understand ethics challenges to be the equivalent of academic dishonesty or worthy of any punishment besides my ballot being cast in that particular debate (I do not hold these challenges against you in future rounds nor do I believe that you should be in trouble with your debate coaches or schools).

Please note that what I have written here is designed for varsity debate only; that is, when judging novice and JV debates, I will be more lenient and talk through what's going on with the students and, depending on the situation, allow the debate to continue.

These are thoughts that are still evolving for me as I talk with more people. Please bear with me as I continue to think this out. (Also note that this caveat goes along well with the first statement in this section: I would prefer you not introduce an ethics violation unless it is a serious issue in that particular debate).

Please also note that these rules do not apply to my standards for threatening violence against another debater (physical or otherwise) or hurling slurs at your opponent. I will immediately end the round and give the lowest speaker points that Tab will allow me to in that situation.

Email Chain: vli40@binghamton.edu (I might not read your docs, but I should still have them in case).

Background: I debated at the University of Georgia for four years as their lone K debater reading Baudrillard and various pomo theories. I've been coaching at Bing for 4 years where I also primarily coach Baudrillard and various pomo theories. I think that debate is an incredible activity and equally value the potential for creativity and education. I tend to think of myself as an educator, and I generally prefer to let people read the arguments that they want to read.

1) Important Note about Adaptation: I have asymmetrical hearing loss. That means that I generally don't hear as clearly as some, which is an issue compounded by the fact that I was a slow K debater and am a slow K judge. I generally don't have an issue catching K and clash debate unless you're spreading quickly or incoherently through prewritten blocks. I do have an issue following fast policy vs. policy debate especially because I rarely know the nuances of any particular topic (certainly not high school). To adapt, you should make sure a) there is an obstacle free line between me and you, so that I can see and hear you, b) slow down if necessary if it seems like I'm flipping through my flows a lot or look annoyed, c) focus on explanation and judge instruction; smart debating can easily overcome tech for me because it will help me organize what is going on.

2) Conduct If you're in high school, college novice, or college junior varsity, don't be excessively mean to your opponents. If you are in college varsity, you should be funny.

Arguments:

Kvk

1) Explain methodologies. Why am I voting for you? How do I know that your argument is true? Because I don't generally have the same stable default of rational, utilitarian policy-maker, it is extremely important for you to tell me how to think about the round and that means defending your methods and presuppositions. If you don't have a reason why a particular framing is good or should be adopted, then that's the equivalent of making a warrantless claim for me.

2) Perms. I don't generally assume that there are no perms in a method debate, but I do think that the current state of debating perms is abusive. It is important that you explain what it is that I am voting for with respect to both the permutation and/or an alternative. If the alt is largely not-mitigated, then it is much harder for you to win the permutation because I am willing to weigh a risk of the perm being worse than the alt against the alt itself.

3) You should try to be as specific as possible and try to contextualize your Theory of Power to the aff. It is literally possible to win neg debates on Theory of Power alone, but I think it's easy for the non-pess team to beat back totalization in which case you will be losing Theory of Power. You can certainly still win debates where you lose Theory of Power as the pess team, and this will usually be through winning links, solvency indicts, or an alternative. This is true for all psychoanalysis arguments and Baudrillard.

4) I will hack for novelty. It's incredible to me how much critical theory we don't use in debate because it fails to meet the bar for what we think is the correct way to execute a Kritik. There's too little incentive for rethinking familiar arguments. If you go equal against a team that is reading something weird and new while you are reading old blocks and recycled 2nrs, then you did the worse debating.

Clash

1) Framework is boring. There are so many things that I would rather hear besides or in addition to framework such as impact turns/disads, cap, topical counterplans, indicts of authors, and other kritiks. If you read framework in front of me me, here are somethings that matter to me

A) Tell a story about actual abuse. I much prefer that framework be read with arguments that you expect your opponents to spike out of. Conversely, if you are the K team and you don't spike disads, then it is much more likely that you will win framework. Winning actual abuse will always legitimate whining about models.

B) Know that I think that fairness is an impact, but I don't think that it can easily be outweighed by structural injustice or the reproduction of violence. It is certainly a tie-breaker when the K team loses that voting for them does nothing or the TVA.

C) Clash is generally an internal link, not an impact. If you win that you have more detailed discussions of something that we shouldn't be talking about, you haven't won anything good.

2) Doing good is good, but you still have to explain buzzwords like utilitarianism and pragmatism. You don't win these arguments by just repeating the word because that's equivalent to a claim without a warrant.

3) Theory usually comes before topic education because it is assumed that we don't need to read conditional offcase or pics to access kritikal education. Again if you can tell me an abuse story, I'm more willing to buy the violation. I also really like 'x justifies y' arguments.

Policy vs. Policy

1) Ideally, I wouldn't be in these rounds, but it happens.

2) I will assume a utilitarian cost benefit analysis unless told otherwise. This means that I will vote for whatever you tell me to vote for. I've voted for first-strike russia, curbing counterplans, and condo.

3) Slow down and don't assume I read and understand what your aff does. Even if I do, I still believe that debate is a communicative activity and expect you to explain your arguments to me.

Georgetown '17

Stuyvesant '13

You should debate what you're best at. To me, the game of debate is more important than any particular argument. I think it's most important that debaters try to write the ballot in their final rebuttal and leave as few issues unresolved as possible. 

While I am doing work for Georgetown this year, I'm probably somewhat less familiar with the topic than you are, so please try to be clear and explain specific terms/acronyms. 

Be respectful of your opponent, partner, and judge. 

Counterplans

I'm aff leaning on most competition questions - if you have doubts about whether your counterplan is competitive, make sure you are very confident in answering the perm. Conditionality is probably good and I'm generally OK with states. Theory debates on those questions are winnable, but should not be your first resort. 

Disasdvantages

"Turns case" and "turns disad" arguments are usually under-explained, however, I'll reward thoughtful versions of these arguments even if analytical. 

Topicality 

Try to provide a clear picture of what debates will look like under the various interpretations in the debate. Negative teams will be best served by reading evidence that clearly substantiates their desired limit. Successful affirmative teams will have well thought out arguments about the intrinsic benefits of including their affirmative in the topic. 

Kritiks 

Specificity is a must, if not in evidence, then in application. I won't hesitate to vote on more generic or tricky arguments if they're dropped, but the bar is higher when the affirmative has a cogent answer. Affirmative teams should be ready with a good defense of they say and do in the debate. Negative teams will benefit greatly with even a few well thought out case arguments. 

Performance/Plan-less/Other Labels

As above, do what you are best at and I will give the attention and thought I would any other argument. That being said, if you want to completely dispense with the plan-focused vision of the topic, you need a very compelling reason for doing so. In topicality/framework debates clear links and clash at the impact level is most important. Simply saying the negative is denied disadvantages or the affirmative is denied ground is not sufficient. 

**standard operating procedure: 1) yes, if you are using an e-mail chain for speech docs, I would like to be on it: mikaela.malsin@gmail.com. The degree to which I look at them varies wildly depending on the round; I will often check a couple of cards for my own comprehension (because y'all need to slow down) during prep or sometimes during a heated cross-ex, but equally often I don't look at them at all. 2) After the debate, please compile all evidence that *you believe* to be relevant to the decision and e-mail them to me. I will sort through to decide which ones I need to read. A card is relevant if it was read and extended on an issue that was debated in the final rebuttals.

updated pre-Shirley, 2013 

Background: I debated for four years at Emory, completed my M.A. in Communication and coached at Wake Forest, and am now in my 2nd year of the Ph.D. program at Georgia.

global thoughts: I take judging very seriously and try very hard to evaluate only the arguments in a given debate, in isolation from my own beliefs. I'm not sure that I'm always successful. I'm not sure that the reverse is true either.  In the limited number of "clash" debates that I've judged, my decisions have been based on the arguments and not on predispositions based on my training, how I debated, or how my teams debate. 

speaker points: I will use the following scale, which (while obviously arbitrary to some degree)  I think is pretty consistent with how I've assigned points in the past and what I believe to represent the role of speaker points in debate. I have never assigned points based on whether I think a team "should clear" or "deserves a speaker award" because I don't judge the rest of the field in order to make that determination, I judge this particular debate. EDIT: I think the scale published for the Shirley is very close to what I was thinking here.

Below 27.5: The speaker has demonstrated a lack of  basic communication. 

27.5-27.9: The speaker demonstrates basic debate competency and argumentation skills. Some areas need substantial improvement.

28.0-28.4: The speaker demonstrates basic argumentation skills and a good grasp on the issues of importance in the debate. Usually shows 1-2 moments of strong strategic insight or macro-level debate vision, but not consistently. 

28.5-28.9: Very solid argumentative skills, grasps the important issues in the debate, demonstrates consistent strategic insight.

29-29.5: Remarkable argumentative skills, understands and synthesizes the key issues in the debate, outstanding use of cross-ex and/or humor.

29.6-29.9: The speaker stands out as exceptionally skilled in all of the above areas.

30: Perfection.

 

Critical arguments: My familiarity is greater than it used to be but by no means exhaustive.  I think  that the "checklist" probably matters on both sides.

Topicality: I believe in "competing interpretations" with the caveat that I think if the aff can win sufficient defense and a fair vision of the topic (whether or not it is couched in an explicit C/I of every word), they can still win. In other words: the neg should win not only a big link, but also a big impact. 

CP’s: Yes. The status quo is always a logical option, which means the CP can still go away after the round. (Edit: I am willing to stick the negative with the CP if the aff articulates, and the neg fails to overcome, a reason why.) Presumption is toward less change from the status quo. 

DA’s: Big fan. At the moment, I probably find myself slightly more in the “link first” camp, but uniqueness is certainly still important. There CAN be zero risk of an argument, but it is rare. More often, the risk is reduced to something negligible that fails to outweigh the other team's offense (edit: this last sentence probably belongs in the all-time "most obvious statements" Judge Philosophy Hall of Fame). 

Theory: RANT is the default. Probably neg-leaning on most issues, but I do think that we as a community may be letting the situation get a little out of control in terms of the numbers and certain types of CP’s. I think literature should guide what we find to be legitimate to the extent that that is both possible and beneficial. 

Good for speaker points: Strategic use of cross-examination, evidence of hard work, jokes about Kirk Gibson (edit: these must be funny) 

Bad for speaker points: Rudeness, lack of clarity, egregious facial hair.

Updated 9-26-2013

Kevin McCaffrey

Assistant Debate Coach Glenbrook North 2014-
Assistant Debate Coach Berkeley Preparatory School 2010-2014
Assistant Debate Coach University of Miami 2007-2009
Assistant Debate Coach Gulliver Preparatory School 2005-2010

I feel strongly about both my role as an impartial adjudicator and as an educator – situations where these roles come into conflict are often where I find that I have intervened. I try to restrain myself from intervening in a debate, but I make mistakes, and sometimes find myself presented with two options which seem comparably interventionary in different ways, often due to underarticulated argumentation. This effort represents a systematic effort to identify the conditions under which I am more or less likely to intervene unconsciously. I try to keep a beginner’s mind and approach every debate round as a new learning opportunity, and I do usually learn at least one new thing every round – this is what I like most about the activity, and I’m at my best when I remember this and at my worst when I forget it.

My default paradigm is that of a policy analyst – arguments which assume a different role (vote no, performance) probably require more effort to communicate this role clearly enough for me to understand and feel comfortable voting for you. I don’t really have a very consistent record voting for or against any particular positions, although identity- and psychology-based arguments are probably the genres I have the least experience with and I’m not a good judge for either.

Rather, I think you’re most interested in the situations in which I’m likely to intervene – and what you can do to prevent it – this has much less to do with what arguments you’re making than it does with how you’re making them:

Make fewer arguments, and explain their nature and implication more thoroughly:

My unconscious mind carries out the overwhelming majority of the grunt work of my decisions – as I listen to a debate, a mental map forms of the debate round as a cohesive whole, and once I lose that map, I don’t usually get it back. This has two primary implications for you: 1) it’s in your interest for me to understand the nuances of an argument when first presented, so that I can see why arguments would be more or less responsive as or before they are made in response 2) debates with a lot of moving parts and conditional outcomes overload my ability to hold the round in my mind at once, and I lose confidence in my ability to effectively adjudicate, having to move argument by argument through each flow after the debate – this increases the chances that I miss an important connection or get stuck on a particular argument by second-guessing my intuition, increasing the chances that I intervene.

I frequently make decisions very quickly, which signals that you have done an effective job communicating and that I feel I understand all relevant arguments in the debate. I don’t believe in reconstructing debates from evidence, and I try to listen to and evaluate evidence as it's being read, so if I am taking a long time to make a decision, it’s probably because I doubt my ability to command the relevant arguments and feel compelled to second-guess my understanding of arguments or their interactions, a signal that you have not done an effective job communicating, or that you have inadvertently constructed an irresolveable decision calculus through failure to commit to a single path to victory.

In short, I make much better decisions when you reduce the size of the debate at every opportunity, when you take strategic approaches to the debate which are characterized by internally consistent logic and assumptions, and when you take time to explain the reasoning behind the strategic decisions you are making, and the meta-context for your arguments. If your approach to debate strategy depends upon overloading the opponent’s technical capabilities, then you will also likely overload my own, and if your arguments aren't broadly compatible with one another, then I may have difficulty processing them when constructing the big picture. I tend to disproportionately reward gutsy all-in strategic decisions. As a side note, I probably won’t kick a counterplan for you if the other team says just about anything in response, you need to make a decision.

Value proof higher than rejoinder:

I am a sucker for a clearly articulated, nuanced story, supported by thorough discussion of why I should believe it, especially when supported by high-quality evidence, even in the face of a diversity of poorly articulated or weak arguments which are only implicitly answered. Some people will refer to this as truth over tech – but it’s more precisely proof over rejoinder – the distinction being that I don’t as often reward people who say things that I believe, but rather reward fully developed arguments over shallowly developed or incomplete arguments. There have been exceptions – a dropped argument is definitely a true argument – but a claim without data and a warrant is not an argument. Similarly, explicit clash and signposting are merely things which help me prevent myself from intervening, not hard requirements. Arguments which clash still clash whether a debater explains it or not, although I would strongly prefer that you take the time to explain it, as I may not understand that they clash or why they clash in the same way that you do.

My tendency to intervene in this context is magnified when encountering unfamiliar arguments, and also when encountering familiar arguments which are misrepresented, intentionally or unintentionally. As an example, I am far more familiar with positivist studies of international relations than I am with post-positivist theorizing, so debaters who can command the distinctions between various schools of IR thought have an inherent advantage, and I am comparably unlikely to understand the nuances of the distinctions between one ethical philosopher and another. I am interested in learning these distinctions, however, and this only means you should err on the side of explaining too much rather than not enough.

A corollary is that I do believe that various arguments can by their nature provide zero risk of a link (yes/no questions, empirically denied), as well as effectively reduce a unique risk to zero by making the risk equivalent to chance or within the margin of error provided by the warrant. I am a sucker for conjunctive/disjunctive probability analysis, although I think assigning numerical probabilities is almost never warranted.

Incomprehensible value systems:

One special note is that I have a moderate presumption against violence, whether physical or verbal or imaginary – luckily for me, this has yet to seriously present itself in a debate I have judged. But I don’t think I have ever ended up voting for a pro-death advocacy, whether because there are more aliens than humans in the universe, or because a thought experiment about extinction could change the way I feel about life, or because it’s the only path to liberation from oppression. While I’d like to think I can evaluate these arguments objectively, I’m not entirely sure that I really can, and if advocating violence is part of your argument, I am probably a bad judge for you, even though I do believe that if you can’t articulate the good reasons that violence and death are bad, then you haven’t adequately prepared and should probably lose.

Email me:

I like the growing practice of emailing flows and debriefing at the end of a day or after a tournament – feel free to email me: kmmccaffrey at gmail dot com. It sometimes takes me a while to fully process what has happened in a debate round and to understand why I voted the way I did, and particularly in rounds with two very technical, skilled opponents, even when I do have a good grasp of what happened and feel confident in my decision, I do not always do a very good job of communicating my reasoning, not having time to write everything out, and I do a much better job of explaining my thinking after letting my decision sit for a few hours. As such, I am very happy to discuss any decision with anyone in person or by email – I genuinely enjoy being challenged – but I am much more capable and comfortable with written communication than verbal.

Debated @ UNT 2009-2014

Coach @ St Marks since 2017

Coach @ UTDallas since 2018

If you have questions, feel free to email me at mccullough.hunter@gmail.com

For me, the idea that the judge should remain impartial is very important. I've had long discussions about the general acceptability/desirability of specific debate arguments and practices (as has everybody, I'm sure), but I've found that those rarely influence my decisions. I've probably voted for teams without plans in framework debates more often than I've voted neg, and I've voted for the worst arguments I can imagine, even in close debates, if I thought framing arguments were won. While nobody can claim to be completely unbiased, I try very hard to let good debating speak for itself. That being said, I do have some general predispositions, which are listed below.

T-Theory

-I tend to err aff on T and neg on most theory arguments. By that, I mean that I think that the neg should win a good standard on T in order to win that the aff should lose, and I also believe that theory is usually a reason to reject the argument and not the team.

- Conditional advocacies are good, but making contradictory truth claims is different. However, I generally think these claims are less damaging to the aff than the "they made us debate against ourselves" claim would make it seem. The best 2ACs will find ways of exploiting bad 1NC strategy, which will undoubtedly yield better speaker points than a theory debate, even if the aff wins.

- I kind of feel like "reasonability" and "competing interpretations" have become meaningless terms that, while everybody knows how they conceptualize it, there are wildly different understandings. In my mind, the negative should have to prove that the affirmative interpretation is bad, not simply that the negative has a superior interpretation. I also don't think that's a very high standard for the negative to be held to, as many interpretations (especially on this space topic) will be hot fiery garbage.

- My view of debates outside of/critical of the resolution is also complicated. While my philosophy has always been very pro-plan reading in the past, I've found that aff teams are often better at explaining their impact turns than the neg is at winning an impact that makes sense. That being said, I think that it's hard for the aff to win these debates if the neg can either win that there is a topical version of the affirmative that minimizes the risk of the aff's impact turns, or a compelling reason why the aff is better read as a kritik on the negative. Obviously there are arguments that are solved by neither, and those are likely the best 2AC impact turns to read in front of me.

- "The aff was unpredictable so we couldn't prepare for it so you should assume it's false" isn't a good argument for framework and I don't think I've ever voted for it.

CPs

- I'm certainly a better judge for CP/DA debates than K v K debates. I particularly like strategic PICs and good 1NC strategies with a lot of options. I'd be willing to vote on consult/conditions, but I find permutation arguments about immediacy/plan-plus persuasive.

- I think the neg gets away with terrible CP solvency all the time. Affs should do a better job establishing what counts as a solvency card, or at least a solvency warrant. This is more difficult, however, when your aff's solvency evidence is really bad. - Absent a debate about what I should do, I will kick a counterplan for the neg and evaluate the aff v. the squo if the CP is bad/not competitive

- I don't think the 2NC needs to explain why severence/intrinsicness are bad, just win a link. They're bad.

- I don't think perms are ever a reason to reject the aff.

- I don't think illegitimate CPs are a reason to vote aff.

Disads

- Run them. Win them. There's not a whole lot to say.

- I'd probably vote on some sort of "fiat solves" argument on politics, but only if it was explained well.

- Teams that invest time in good, comparative impact calculus will be rewarded with more speaker points, and likely, will win the debate. "Disad/Case outweighs" isn't a warrant. Talk about your impacts, but also make sure you talk about your opponents impacts. "Economic collapse is real bad" isn't as persuasive as "economic collapse is faster and controls uniqueness for the aff's heg advantage".

Ks

- My general line has always been that "I get the K but am not well read in every literature". I've started to realize that that statement is A) true for just about everybody and B) entirely useless. It turns out that I've read, coached, and voted for Ks too often for me to say that. What I will say, however, is that I certainly focus my research and personal reading more on the policy side, but will generally make it pretty obvious if I have no idea what you're saying.

- Make sure you're doing link analysis to the plan. I find "their ev is about the status quo" arguments pretty persuasive with a permutation.

- Don't think that just because your impacts "occur on a different level" means you don't need to do impact calculus. A good way to get traction here is case defense. Most advantages are pretty silly and false, point that out with specific arguments about their internal links. It will always make the 2NR easier if you win that the aff is lying/wrong.

- I think the alt is the weakest part of the K, so make sure to answer solvency arguments and perms very well.

- If you're aff, and read a policy aff, don't mistake this as a sign that I'm just going to vote for you because I read mostly policy arguments. If you lose on the K, I'll vote neg. Remember, I already said I think your advantage is a lie. Prove me wrong.

Case

-Don't ignore it. Conceding an advantage on the neg is no different than conceding a disad on the aff. You should go to case in the 1NC, even if you just play defense. It will make the rest of the debate so much easier.

- If you plan to extend a K in the 2NR and use that to answer the case, be sure you're winning either a compelling epistemology argument or some sort of different ethical calculus. General indicts will lose to specific explanations of the aff absent either good 2NR analysis or extensions of case defense.

- 2As... I've become increasingly annoyed with 2ACs that pay lip service to the case without responding to specific arguments or extending evidence/warrants. Just reexplaining the advantage and moving on isn't sufficient to answer multiple levels of neg argumentation.

Paperless debate

I don't think you need to take prep time to flash your speech to your opponent, but it's also pretty obvious when you're stealing prep, so don't do it. If you want to use viewing computers, that's fine, but only having one is unacceptable. The neg needs to be able to split up your evidence for the block. It's especially bad if you want to view their speeches on your viewing computer too. Seriously, people need access to your evidence.

Clipping

I've decided enough debates on clipping in the last couple of years that I think it's worth putting a notice in my philosophy. If a tournament has reliable internet, I will insist on an email chain and will want to be on that email chain. I will, at times, follow along with the speech document and, as a result, am likely to catch clipping if it occurs. I'm a pretty non-confrontational person, so I'm unlikely to say anything about a missed short word at some point, but if I am confident that clipping has occurred, I will absolutely stop the debate and decide on it. I'll always give debaters the benefit of the doubt, and provide an opportunity to say where a card was marked, but I'm pretty confident of my ability to distinguish forgetting to say "mark the card" and clipping. I know that there is some difference of opinion on who's responsibility it is to bring about a clipping challenge, but I strongly feel that, if I know for certain that debaters are not reading all of their evidence, I have not only the ability but an obligation to call it out.

Other notes

- Really generic backfile arguments (Ashtar, wipeout, etc) won't lose you the round, but don't expect great speaks. I just think those arguments are really terrible, (I can't describe how much I hate wipeout debates) and bad for debate.

- Impact turn debates are awesome, but can get very messy. If you make the debate impossible to flow, I will not like you. Don't just read cards in the block, make comparisons about evidence quality and uniqueness claims. Impact turn debates are almost always won by the team that controls uniqueness and framing arguments, and that's a debate that should start in the 2AC.

Finally, here is a short list of general biases.

• The status quo should always be an option in the 2NR (Which doesn't necessarily mean that the neg get's infinite flex. If they read 3 contradictory positions, I can be persuaded that it was bad despite my predisposition towards conditionality. It does mean that I will, absent arguments against it, judge kick a counterplan and evaluate the case v the squo if the aff wins the cp is bad/not competitive)
• Warming is real and science is good (same argument, really)
• The aff gets to defend the implementation of the plan as offense against the K, and the neg gets to read the K
• Timeframe and probability are more important than magnitude 
• Predictable limits are key to both fairness and education
• Consult counterplans aren't competitive. Conditions is arguable.
• Rider DA links are not intrinsic
• Utilitarianism is a good way to evaluate impacts
• The aff should defend a topical plan
• Death and extinction are bad
• Uncooperative federalism is one of the worst counterplans I've ever seen

Brad Meloche
he/him pronouns

Piper's older brother (pref her, not me)

Email: bradgmu@gmail.com (High School Only: Please include grovesdebatedocs@gmail.com as well.)

(I ALWAYS want to be on the email chain. Please do email chains instead of sharing in the zoom chat/NSDA classroom! PLEASE no google docs if you have the ability to send in Word! If you send docs as PDFs your speaker points will be capped at 28.5)

The short version -

Tech > truth. A dropped argument is assumed to be contingently true. "Tech" is obviously not completely divorced from "truth" but you have to actually make the true argument for it to matter. In general, if your argument has a claim, warrant, and implication then I am willing to vote for it, but there are some arguments that are pretty obviously morally repugnant and I am not going to entertain them. They might have a claim, warrant, and implication, but they have zero (maybe negative?) persuasive value and nothing is going to change that. I'm not going to create an exhaustive list, but any form of "oppression good" and many forms of "death good" fall into this category.

Stealing this bit of wisdom from DML's philosophy: If you would enthusiastically describe your strategy as "memes" or "trolling," you should strike me.

Specifics

Non-traditional – I believe debate is a game. It might be MORE than a game to some folks, but it is still a game. Claims to the contrary are unlikely to gain traction with me. Approaches to answering T/FW that rely on implicit or explicit "killing debate good" arguments are nonstarters.

Related thoughts:

1) I'm not a very good judge for arguments, aff or neg, that involve saying that an argument is your "survival strategy". I don't want the pressure of being the referee for deciding how you should live your life. Similarly, I don't want to mediate debates about things that happened outside the context of the debate round.

2) The aff saying "USFG should" doesn't equate to roleplaying as the USFG

3) I am really not interested in playing (or watching you play) cards, a board game, etc. as an alternative to competitive speaking. Just being honest. "Let's flip a coin to decide who wins and just have a discussion" is a nonstarter.

4) Name-calling based on perceived incongruence between someone's identity and their argument choice is unlikely to be a recipe for success.

Kritiks – If a K does not engage with the substance of the aff it is not a reason to vote negative. A lot of times these debates end and I am left thinking "so what?" and then I vote aff because the plan solves something and the alt doesn't. Good k debaters make their argument topic and aff-specific. I would really prefer I don't waste any of my limited time on this planet thinking about baudrillard/bataille/other high theory nonsense that has nothing to do with anything.

Unless told specifically otherwise I assume that life is preferable to death. The onus is on you to prove that a world with no value to life/social death is worse than being biologically dead.

I am skeptical of the pedagogical value of frameworks/roles of the ballot/roles of the judge that don’t allow the affirmative to weigh the benefits of hypothetical enactment of the plan against the K or to permute an uncompetitive alternative.

I tend to give the aff A LOT of leeway in answering floating PIKs, especially when they are introduced as "the alt is compatible with politics" and then become "you dropped the floating PIK to do your aff without your card's allusion to the Godfather" (I thought this was a funny joke until I judged a team that PIKed out of a two word reference to Star Wars. h/t to GBS GS.). In my experience, these debates work out much better for the negative when they are transparent about what the alternative is and just justify their alternative doing part of the plan from the get go.

Theory – theory arguments that aren't some variation of “conditionality bad” are rarely reasons to reject the team. These arguments pretty much have to be dropped and clearly flagged in the speech as reasons to vote against the other team for me to consider voting on them. That being said, I don't understand why teams don't press harder against obviously abusive CPs/alternatives (uniform 50 state fiat, consult cps, utopian alts, floating piks). Theory might not be a reason to reject the team, but it's not a tough sell to win that these arguments shouldn't be allowed. If the 2NR advocates a K or CP I will not default to comparing the plan to the status quo absent an argument telling me to. New affs bad is definitely not a reason to reject the team and is also not a justification for the neg to get unlimited conditionality (something I've been hearing people say).

Topicality/Procedurals – By default, I view topicality through the lens of competing interpretations, but I could certainly be persuaded to do something else. Specification arguments that are not based in the resolution or that don't have strong literature proving their relevance are rarely a reason to vote neg. It is very unlikely that I could be persuaded that theory outweighs topicality. Policy teams don’t get a pass on T just because K teams choose not to be topical. Plan texts should be somewhat well thought out. If the aff tries to play grammar magic and accidentally makes their plan text "not a thing" I'm not going to lose any sleep after voting on presumption/very low solvency.

Points - ...are completely arbitrary and entirely contextual to the tournament, division, round, etc. I am more likely to reward good performance with high points than punish poor performance with below average points. Things that influence my points: 30% strategy, 60% execution, 10% style. Being rude to your partner or the other team is a good way to persuade me to explore the deepest depths of my point range.

Cheating - I won't initiate clipping/ethics challenges, mostly because I don't usually follow along with speech docs. If you decide to initiate one, you have to stake the round on it. Unless the tournament publishes specific rules on what kind of points I should award in this situation, I will assign the lowest speaks possible to the loser of the ethics challenge and ask the tournament to assign points to the winner based on their average speaks.

I won't evaluate evidence that is "inserted" but not actually read as part of my decision. Inserting a chart where there is nothing to read is ok.

I need to be on the chain due to accessibility issues. Nyx.Debate@Gmail.com. Thanks! If there is stuff in the chain you don't want shared with others, let me know and I'll make sure to delete files after the round. Also, if you're doing performance debate and don't want to send me stuff, you should not send me stuff. However, if you're going to be fast (and especially if you're online) please send me analytics so I can make sure I've correctly flowed everything you've said.

Started debate as a novice at Johnson County Community College -> debated/coached at the University of Central Oklahoma -> Independent Debate Work -> Coached at Texas Tech -> Coached at University of Texas - San Antonio -> Current Coach at KU. I'm cute AND I have experience folx.

Pronouns: He/Him or They/Them? I'm an experience with anxiety. Let me know your pronouns if you want.

How can I make the debate better/easier for you, the debater? Let me know if you need any accommodations, I'll do my best to make them happen.

Random Thoughts - Basically, I love impacts.

I will listen to any debate. Please, do whatever you do best, just explain it to me. Why is your aff/neg amazing, and why do I need to vote for it? I love impact comparison and think it should be done more. However, on that note - racist, transphobic, ableist, homophobic ect remarks will not be tolerated.

I mostly debated the K (queerness, anti-blackness, settler colonialism, trans*ness). But see above - I will judge any debate, and I will vote neg on framework/theory because hey, sometimes the neg wins that debate (when they give me a solid TVA and focus on the impact). What I'm trying to say is - if you want to run framework or six off you can still pref me. If you want to do performance debate please pref me.

The short notes:

K Aff v Framework:

Aff: Win that the great idea that your aff is should be exported / used in round and outweighs framework.

Neg: Please show to me how your flavor of fairness/education/clash outweighs the aff. A good/decent TVA is a must.

KvK Debate:

Aff: Show me why the neg's K is bad/can't solve for the aff AND why there's no stable link.

Neg: Please have specific links to the affirmative. Either solve the aff OR prove that the aff is irrelevant.

Policy Stuff:

We all learned about timeframe, probability, and magnitude when we were tiny debaters. These concepts seem simple, but if you cannot prove to me why your aff matters / impacts are bigger or happen first / stable link story / ect then it's a hard round for me to decide. Make it clear in your last speech what you are winning and why it matters.

Other Stuff:

I love a good word PIC. Theory can be fun - in moderation.

I'm sure I'll add onto this as the season goes on, but for now, if you have more questions, just send me an email or ask pre-round.

Gabriel Morbeck

Strath Haven High School (PA) - 2014 to 2016

Emory University - 2016 to 2020

gsmorbeck28@gmail.com

I am currently an assistant coach at Emory and a part-time coach at Woodward Academy.

Please add me to the email chain!

If you're judged by me, here are the most important things for you to know:

1. I prefer affs that defend a topical plan. If they do not, I find framework arguments about fairness and limits very compelling. If you choose to not defend a plan, you have to play at least some defense on fairness/limits to make any education arguments compelling.

2. I think about debates through an offense/defense lens more than most judges. Unwilling to vote on presumption in almost every situation.

3. How I evaluate your explanation is shaped by how much quality evidence you have. I think I care about evidence quantity much more than most judges. Reading 5 cards on something in the 1AR is much more likely to get you back into the debate than explaining why you think its wrong.

4. Tech is important, but so is developing robust positions throughout the debate. If you go for something that the other team has hardly covered or dropped, but you have barely spent any time developing it, I can't guarantee I'll vote on it.

5. Strong neg bias on condo. Generally fine with 2NC counterplans, modifying/kicking planks, etc. I do think that neg teams need to say judge kick in the 2NR for me to consider it. I don't find most other counterplan theory arguments very compelling. You're much better off winning competition arguments than saying that a whole category of counterplan doesn't belong in the debate.

6. I'm not very good at evaluating T debates against policy affs. Go for it at your own risk.

7. I love politics DAs.

8. Debate is fun! I understand everyone cares a lot about wins and losses, but I appreciate debaters who remember that they're functionally just playing a game with their friends on the weekend. I'll enjoy judging you if you enjoy being in the debate!

LD paradigm

I debated policy for 6 years so debates that look closest to policy debates are what I probably want to see. I want to see debates about substance. Plans and counterplans are great, critiques too. Please do impact calc--at least the top 30 seconds of the final rebuttals should be devoted to it.

I care about evidence. I'd rather see you read more cards to build your arguments (throughout every speech except the 2AR) than rely on spin.

I'm meh for theory. From my understanding there is generally a lower threshold for theory args in LD than in policy, so if your are making impassioned appeals to fairness I probably do not feel as cheated as you do.

In K debates--do link debating. I care more about that than framework/role of the ballot args. The strength of the link affects how I view every other arg in the debate.

Values stuff--I generally lean towards util/consequentalism when thinking about debates.

Eric Morris, DoF - Missouri State – 29th Year Judging

++++ NDT Version ++++ (Updated 10-22-2019)

(NFALD version: https://forensicstournament.net/MissouriMule/18/judgephil)

Add me to the email - my Gmail is ermocito

I flow CX because it is binding. I stopped recording rounds but would appreciate a recording if clipping was accused.

Be nice to others, whether or not they deserve it.

I prefer line by line debate. People who extend a DA by by grouping the links, impacts, UQ sometimes miss arguments and get lower points. Use opponent's words to signpost.

Assuming aff defends a plan:

Strong presumption T is a voting issue. Aff should win you meet neg's interp or a better one. Neg should say your arguments make the aff interp unreasonable. Topic wording or lit base might or might not justify extra or effects T, particularly with a detailed plan advocate.

High threshold for anything except T/condo as voting issues*. More willing than some to reject the CP, K alts, or even DA links on theory. Theory is better when narrowly tailored to what happened in a specific debate. I have voted every possible way on condo/dispo, but 3x Condo feels reasonable. Under dispo, would conceding "no link" make more sense than conceding "perm do both" to prove a CP did not compete?

Zero link, zero internal link, and zero solvency are possible. Zero impact is rare.

Large-scale terminal impacts are presumed comparable in magnitude unless you prove otherwise. Lower scale impacts also matter, particularly as net benefits.

Evidence is important, but not always essential to initiate an argument. Respect high-quality opponent evidence when making strategic decisions.

If the plan/CP is vague, the opponent gets more input into interpreting it. CX answers, topic definitions, and the literature base helps interpret vague plans, advocacy statements, etc. If you advocate something different from your cards, clarity up front is recommended.

I am open to explicit interps of normal means (who votes for and against plan and how it goes down), even if they differ from community norms, provided they give both teams a chance to win.

Kritiks are similar to DA/CP strategies but if the aff drops some of the "greatest hits" they are in bad shape. Affs should consider what offense they have inside the neg's framework interp in case neg wins their interp. K impacts, aff or neg, can outweigh or tiebreak.

Assuming aff doesn't defend a plan:

Many planless debates incentivize exploring important literature bases, but afer decades, we should be farther along creating a paradigm that can account for most debates. Eager to hear your contributions to that! Here is a good example of detailed counter-interps (models of debate). http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php/topic,2345.0.html

Impact turns are presumed relevant to kritikal args. "Not my pomo" is weak until I hear a warranted distinction. I prefer the negative to attempt direct engagement (even if they end up going for T). It can be easier to win the ballot this way if the aff overcovers T. Affs which dodge case specific offense are particularly vulnerable on T (or other theory arguments).

Topicality is always a decent option for the neg. I would be open to having the negative go for either resolution good (topicality) or resolution bad (we negate it). Topicality arguments not framed in USFG/framework may avoid some aff offense.

In framework rounds, the aff usually wins offense but impact comparison should account for mitigators like TVA's and creative counter-interps. An explicit counter-interp (or model of debate) which greatly mitigates the limits DA is recommended - see example below. Accounting for topic words is helpful. TVA's are like CP's because they mitigate whether topics are really precluded by the T interp.

If I were asked to design a format to facilitate K/performance debate, I would be surprised. After that wore off, I would propose a season-long list of concepts with deep literature bases and expect the aff to tie most into an explicit 1AC thesis. Such an approach could be done outside of CEDA if publicized.

This was too short?

* Some ethical issues, like fabrication, are voting issues, regardless of line by line.

Email: gabemorrison77@gmail.com

Four years NDT and NFA-LD at Missouri State

Four years CX in high school at Greenwood Lab

***About Your Judge***

Hi, you're probably here because I'm judging you. You have my sincerest condolences.

I was a 2N for 3/4 years in college. My usual 1NC consisted of Nietzsche (neither Der Derian nor "suffering good" nonsense) and several on-case turns, with the latter occupying slightly more 2NRs senior year.

I recently rewrote my old argument-by-argument paradigm because I felt that it poorly represented my judging tendencies and encouraged over-adaptation. I like creative, enthusiastic, and generally high quality debating more than I do any particular argument.

***Suggestions***

- Debate the best version of your opponents' argument.

- Case debate is neat. Smart analytics are sometimes better than cards (doesn't apply to CPs and certain Ks, although case analytics are still very helpful in the latter case). Case 2NRs are power moves.

- Clever impact framing > "role of the ballot."

- Make big decisions in the 2NR and 2AR. Focus on the impacts you actually need to win. Poor prioritization is the death of strategy.

- Define terms with multiple/ambiguous meanings. I like precision because I am pathologically obsessive. If left to my own devices, I will strive to interpret keywords in the least consequential manner, but you might not like the results.

- Honesty > "not one step backward, comrades"

***Requests***

- Don't remove FW interpretations & counterinterpretations from your documents. I'm bad enough at adjudicating T/FW as is and I am on the verge of docking speaks for failure to do so.

- Don't be self-righteous or holier-than-thou, but if that's just who you are, please be good at it.

- Don't pivot for an ableism strat because someone said idiot. The link is usually more ableist than its object, the alternative is non-unique, and homonyms exist.

- Be nice to one another.

- Try to have a good time.

***Dogmas***

- Zero risk is possible and usually occurs when arguments are completely irrelevant or missing internal links.

- The ballot does not represent anything more than "who did the better debating." Everything else is impact framing and development of your story's setting.

- "Ontology" does not mean what many debaters seem to think it means.

- Knowledge is a network of metaphors and metonyms that are taken for granted. Facts are what we call metaphors whose referents have been lost over time. Linguistically mutability does not imply the possible change in a concept, but a state of constant change. Most arguments that universalize adjectives are absurd.

- Fiat is not a verb. We do not "fiat" the plan (or alt) into existence. We suspend disbelief like people do with all hypotheticals.

- "Critique" does not have a K in it unless you are German or LARPing as a German.

- Floating PIKs are PIKs in the same way that the States CP PICs out of the federal government.

***Warnings***

- I don't care about Policy v K ideological battle lines. I don't care about PRL and CEDA bogeys. I will probably not be convinced to care. Sometimes an argument is just a cigar.

- If you spend your prep removing lots of analytics from the doc before you send it, I will interpret it as a lack of confidence in your own arguments and regard them with suspicion for the rest of the debate. Moral of the story? Make analytics up on the fly, get good at pretending you make analytics up on the fly, or flash your blocks.

- I was terrible at topicality and framework debate for eight years. I have voted for and against it several times, but I am not good at flowing it and I seem to view theoretical impacts differently than many other debaters. That does not mean "don't read T." I just may be a little less predictable and more likely to make mistakes.

- I find many ableism arguments patronizing. I will do my best to be open-minded and evaluate yours as an individual case, but I will still probably be a little biased. You can alleviate the impact of this bias by (1) not romanticizing disability, and (2) not excluding, authenticity testing, or in general not making hasty assumptions about the physical and mental faculties of your opponents.

***Theory***

- Theory lean: Conditionality? Good. PICs? Good. Perf Con? See "Conditionality?". Consult/Conditions? Evidence-dependent. International/Foreign? Probably bad. 2NC? Usually, but context-dependent. 1NR? I cast fireball.

- High threshold for conditionality bad. I do not understand why contradictions in a vacuum are imbalanced, even if you win that they exist. I have seen many contradictory advocacies and very few actually forced affirmative teams to debate themselves.

- Solvency advocates are unnecessary if the CP text is referencing aff evidence. CPs without solvency advocates are more a reason for affirmatives to get away with fewer cards and questionable permutations than for me to reject the CP.

- Judge-kick is context-dependent, but I will probably assume judge kick if conditional unless told otherwise.

- Rejecting the argument usually de facto rejects the team.

- Theory is not usually a reason to reject the team outside of conditionality. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that other reject-the-team situations are less common.

***NFA Folks***

- "I do not want to vote on your spec arguments, RVIs, disclosure theory, solvency advocate theory, or similar gobbledygook.* I do not think these arguments have educational merit. This is an exception to my general inclination to be open to all arguments. Be warned: I might not vote on it even these arguments even if they are dropped by the other team, unless you make a serious time commitment and explain to me why your argument is different." - Joe Hamaker

- Neg has a a huge side bias, y'all. 2ARs should accordingly focus on doing overviews, impact calculus, and generally framing the round, as opposed to delivering comprehensive line-by-line answers, as they will be near impossible against a competent opponent.

- NRs should collapse their offense to take full advantage of extra speech time.

Yes, email chain: cmunsinger@gmail.com

Background

-2nd year judging

-Coaching at UNLV

-Debated at Michigan State

Golden Desert

-I’ve judged zero rounds on this topic, don’t do HS research, and didn’t work at a camp. I’ve been around long enough to pick some things up but don’t assume I know the acronyms, meta, your topic DA, etc.

-Everybody needs to slow way down and focus on clarity, especially on theory and T.

Judging defaults / Top-level notes

-Tech > truth when it’s dropped, tech ≈ truth when it’s messy, truth > tech when it’s really close.

-An argument that is conceded is 100% true. This makes me good for try-or-die when it’s relevant.

-An argument that is not conceded is usually > 0%. This makes me bad for presumption in most cases.

-I’m open to alternative models of risk framing, but this is the default that I adopt when not guided by the debate.

-I will judge kick conditional counterplans and evaluate the squo unless the aff objects before the 2AR.

-Anything not specified in the plan is open to interpretation by either side.

-I will decide a debate on clipping if I’m sure that it’s happening, regardless of whether this is an issue in the debate.

-I won't decide a debate on events that happened outside of the round.

-Assuming relatively similar impacts, likelihood usually matters more to me than comparison.

-I’m pretty flexible when teams are responding to “dropped” arguments that constituted <5 seconds of the previous speech.

Evidence

-Evidence quality influences argument quality. Arguments supported by truly terrible evidence require very little from the opposing team in response and vice versa.

-I tend to follow along with speech docs and read a lot of evidence after the debate, both for my own understanding and for resolving arguments.

-I will not evaluate unexplained re-highlightings. If you want it to matter for my decision, read it in the debate or verbally explain the implication of the highlighted sections.

CP

-Generally very good for the neg on theory and pretty good for the aff on competition.

-The less your CP competes based off of a mandate of the plan the more annoyed I will be by it.

-Arg not team for anything but conditionality.

-2NC CPs out of straight turns feel gross and lazy to me.

DA

-Contrived, silly DAs are sometimes necessary but are still contrived and silly. Aff teams frequently do a poor job of reducing the risk of these DAs with smart analytics.

-Zero link is much more likely than zero impact.

-The link is usually the most important part of the DA.

-Likelihood of your DA probably matters more than how much it turns the case.

T vs plans

-T vs core aff that’s obviously topical = annoying

-T vs highly questionable aff = slight lean neg

-T vs really out there = tough for the aff

T vs planless

-I will always try to mitigate the degree to which my beliefs influence outcomes, but I have certain default views about debate that make negative arguments for topicality persuasive to me. As such, I imagine that the bar for a planless aff to defeat T is higher in front of me than the average judge.

-T impacts based on fairness are more persuasive to me than impacts about portable skills or education.

-Aff teams are likely to find more success when pairing their critiques of the negative’s model with a detailed explanation of what aff/neg engagement and argumentation looks like under theirs.

K

-Much better when they specifically say the action of the plan is a bad idea.

-I tend to be good for the aff on alts. If I don’t understand what meaningful action the alt takes to resolve the K’s links/impacts or the aff’s advantages, I’m likely to vote aff in the absence of an argument about why alt solvency doesn’t matter.

-It’s generally pretty hard to convince me that the debate shouldn’t focus on whether the hypothetical implementation of the plan is a good idea, but winning this can make a lot of other concerns irrelevant.

-I'm much more familiar with policy stuff, so err on the side of over-explaining terminology and concepts.

Speaker points

-Giving a slight bump to the higher end as my tendency to max out at 29.1 seems behind the times.

Please include me in your speech doc thread. My email is johnfnagy@gmail.com

If I am judging you online, you MUST slow down. I will not get all of your arguments, particularly analytics, on the flow. You have been warned.

I enjoy coaching and judging novice debates. I think the novice division is the most important and representative of what is good in our community. That being said, I opposed and still oppose the ADA Novice Curriculum Packet. It's an attempt by some in the community, who don't even have novice programs, to use the novice division to further their vision of what debate "should" look like. I don't like that.

I really like judging debates where the debaters speak clearly, make topic specific arguments, make smart analytic arguments, attack their opponent’s evidence, and debate passionately. I cut a lot of cards so I know a lot about the topic. I don’t know much about critical literature.

Framework debates: I don’t enjoy judging them. Everyone claims their educational. Everyone claims their being excluded. It’s extremely difficult to make any sense of it. I would rather you find a reason why the 1AC is a bad idea. There’s got to be something. I can vote for a no plan-text 1AC, if you’re winning your arguments. With that being said, am not your ideal judge for such 1AC’s because I don’t think there’s any out of round spill-over or “solvency.”

Topicality: Am ok with topicality. Competing interpretations is my standard for evaluation. Proving in-round abuse is helpful but not a pre-requisite. If am judging in novice at an ADA packet tournament, it will be very difficult to convince me to vote on topicality. Because there are only 2-3 1AC's to begin with, there's no predictability or limits arguments that make any sense.

Disadvantages: Like them. The more topic specific the better.

Counterplans: Like them. The more specific to the 1AC the better. Please slow down a little for the CP text.

Kritiks: ok with them. I don’t know a lot about any critical literature, so know that.

Rate of Delivery: If I can’t flow the argument, then it’s not going on my flow. And please slow down a little bit for tags.

Likes: Ohio State, Soft Power DA’s, case debates

Dislikes: Michigan, debaters that are not comprehensible, District 7 schools that cut and paste evidence from other schools and present it as their own without alteration. Do that in front of me and I might vote against you automatically.

I've been the Director of Debate at the US Naval Academy since 2005. I debated at Catholic University in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Put me on the doc thread: danielle.verney@gmail.com. Please use the wiki as much as possible!

Four things I hate--this number has gone up:

1. WASTING TIME IN DEBATES--what is prep time? This isn't an existential question. Prep time is anything you do to prepare for a debate. That means when it's start time for the debate, everyone should be READY TO START--restrooms visited, water gathered, stand assembled, doc thread started, timer in hand, snacks ready for your judge (jk). Any of these things that need to happen during a debate are technically prep time and thus should probably happen either during your prep or the other team's prep. The 2:15 decision deadline is an unequivocal good because it makes me 100% more likely to get a reasonable amount of sleep at night which makes me a better judge/coach/administrator/human, but y'all need to get better at managing your time to make it work.

2. Elusiveness (especially in Cross-Ex but during speeches too): “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer. Taking your questioner on a goose-chase for the answer to a simple question is not. Pretending you don't know how the plan works or what it does or that there are a whole bunch of ways it MIGHT happen is not persuasive to me, it just makes it look like you don't know what's going on. Answer the counterplan; tell me it's cheating--I'm one of the like 5 judges in the community who believe you.

3. Debaters who get mad that I didn’t read their one piece of really sweet evidence. If you want me to understand the warrants of the evidence and how they compare to the warrants of the other team’s evidence, maybe you should talk about them in one of your speeches. Read less bad cards and talk about the good ones more--tell me how your one good card is better than their 12 bad ones.

4. Rudeness. Don’t be rude to your partner, don’t be rude to the other team, and DEFINITELY don’t be rude to me. Excessive cursing is frowned upon (louder for the people in the back). Conversely, if you are nice, you will probably be rewarded with points. Entertain me. I enjoy pop culture references, random yelling of "D7", humorous cross-x exchanges, and just about any kind of joke. I spend a LOT of time judging debates, please make it enjoyable, or at least not uncomfortable.

Performance/Ks of Debate:

I’m going to be painfully honest here and say that I don’t like performance debate or critiques of current debate practices. I’m also going to state the obvious and say that I really like policy debate. Why? Well, I guess it’s the same reason that some people root for the Yankees over the Red Sox—I’m evil. Actually, it’s because I think there are a lot of specific educational benefits to traditional policy debate that you can’t get anywhere else. There might be a lot of educational benefits to performances, but I think that you can get those benefits from doing other activities too, which isn’t necessarily true of policy-style debate. If this makes you want to strike me, I heartily encourage you to do so.

HOWEVER--the opposing team would need to advance those arguments to win the debate. Do I think status quo debate is good? Yes. Will I vote on "debate is good" without that argument having been made? No. If the opposing team concedes the framework debate or doesn't advance "status quo debate good" as their framework arg, I'm not going to vote on it, obviously; the debate would proceed as agreed to by both teams. I have judged these debates before and have voted on the arguments in the round.

Kritiks:

Whatevs, if it’s your thing, you can do it in front of me. I’m pretty smart, which means I attempt to avoid reading post-modern philosophy as much as possible, and the only languages I currently speak with any level of fluency are English and Pig Latin. This means you should probably SLOW DOWN and find a convenient time to define any words that are Greek/German/made up by an aging beatnik. The problem I have with most Ks is that they have totally sweet, awesome impacts but there’s little link to the aff (or no harder link to the aff than to the status quo), so maybe that’s something that both the aff and neg should work on in the round. I really prefer Kritiks with alternatives, and I prefer the alternative not be “reject the plan”.

Counterplans:

I think lots of counterplans (consult, international actor, conditions, etc) are probably cheating. As a director of a small school, I don't have a huge problem with cheating if you can defend it and do it well. I wouldn't make this the "A strat" for me if you've got other options, but I appreciate that there sometimes aren't any and I promise not to throw things or set the ballot on fire if you've gotta roll with it.

Not to sound like a grumpy old person (though I am) but I think conditionality run amok is hurting debate. I'm probably okay with 1 CP, 1 K, and the status quo as an option until the 2nr (test the rez from a variety of standpoints, etc). Any more than that and you're pushing my buttons. I'm about as likely to "judge kick" a CP for you as I am to kick a winning field goal for the Steelers (not gonna happen).

Disads:
There’s nothing better than a good disad. What do I mean by a good disad? Well, it should have a pretty clear, and ideally pretty specific, link to the affirmative. It should also (and here’s the part lots of debaters forget about) have some form of internal link that goes from the link to the impact. Aff—if the neg doesn’t have one of those things, you might want to point it out to me.

If your disad makes my internal BS-ometer go off I'm gonna tank your points.


Topicality/Other Procedurals:
I don’t evaluate T like it’s a disad, which I think is the current fashionable thing to say, because unlike lots of people, I don’t think your aff advantages can outweigh T in the way that the aff could outweigh a disad. So I don’t focus as much on the “best” interpretation—if the aff interp is good but not as good as the neg’s, the aff will probably win in front of me. This means I think the neg really needs to focus on the ground and limits debate—here is where you can persuade me that something is really bad.

I think topics are becoming more broad and vague, and understand negative frustration at attempting to engage in a debate about the plan's mechanism or what the plan actually does (often the very best parts of a debate in my opinion). I feel like I can be fairly easily persuaded to vote against a team that just uses resolutional language without a description of what that means in a piece of solvency evidence or a cross-examination clarification. I think neg teams will need to win significant ground loss claims to be successful in front of me (can't just roll with agent cps key) but I think I am more easily persuaded on these arguments than I have been in the past.

Tom O’Gorman – Mary Washington 2018 Update
Navy Debate Husband for 9 years, CUA debater for 4 years – D7 for life!

TLDR: DAs, Ks, T, most CPs fine. Non-T affs should strike. Be nice. Not super uptight about paperless prep, but don’t abuse it. Yes, I would like to be included on the email chain – my email is tomogorman@gmail.com

D7 2019 update: I think I am fine with the ESR CP if its just a policy shift/plain XO (e.g. declaratory NFU), and less fine with it when teams start attaching planks to make it more permanently binding (e.g. OLC opinion). I think Affs should justify that the Prez should not have power to make XYZ decision rather than merely Trump's XYZ decision is bad, but Negs are definitely headed towards stealing ground if they have the Prez surrender the power to make decisions rather than simply change the current decision (this also seems to have real tension with the flex da which is usually, and oddly, the net benefit). Obviously, has to be debated out - but these are my current leanings.

ASPEC:

Normally, I would be fine with USFG but given the 2018/2019 topic is specifically whether the other branches should restrict the executive branch I think you need to do more on this topic. Ideally you would just spec Congress or the Judiciary and be ready to answer the CP. At minimum you should be willing to spec which you will defend unless the Neg runs a Congress/Judiciary CP - and then if the Neg does so I think perm do the CP is a debatable position.

I do think the Neg needs to set this up in CX (or pre-round questioning when I am in the room). I don't think the loss of pre-round prep is abusive - the aff is either a statutory or a judicial restriction - prep both.

CPs:

I am skeptical of the ESR CP, it feels similar to object fiat, but I haven't had enough rounds with it to be sure. see update up top

I am idiosyncratic in that I think advocating perms even if the Neg kicks the CP seems reasonable. Many of the warrants for condo good would also apply to advocating the perm. I am open to being persuaded that perm is just a test of competitiveness; therefore the Aff cannot advocate it (and if Aff states its only a test this is all irrelevant). But, if contested, a warranted argument would need to be made for that position. If no one makes a statement one way or another until the 2AR, I am going to let the Aff do it and feel about as sympathetic to the Neg as if the Aff had never asked the status of the CP (i.e. not at all)

I highly prefer CPs that have specific solvency advocates and net benefits that reference topic literature. I am skeptical of CPs that rely on very generic solvency advocates and/or compete entirely on generic disads (usually politics) Nonetheless, I more often than not end up voting with the Neg in CP debates because theory is so poorly developed by the Aff. Most theory blips are warrantless and question begging (in the pedantic original sense, e.g. to argue the CP steals your ground assumes the conclusion that it was your ground which is the argument being contested). I would much prefer 2-3 actual sentences to 5-6 blips. Attempting to contextualize the CP's theoretical legitimacy in light of this specific topic is extremely desirable.

As to Condo, in general I am fine with the sort of ad hoc norm we have developed of up to 2 CPs/Ks (total - not each) and the squo, and less fine as the number of conditional advocacies increase beyond that (or if they start developing strong contradictions between eachother)– but that’s just biases – willing to vote either way. To me, by default, Condo means that if you are extending the CP/K in the 2NR you are stuck with it. If you want me to judge kick I need you to tell me so explicitly earlier in the debate. I hear "status quo is always an option" as 2NR has option to kick the CP, not as judge can kick after 2AR. So be even more explicit than that if you mean judge kick is an option.

Disads:

Disads are good. Usually consider the link debate more important than the uniqueness debate, but both matter. Try or die is usually a way of saying we are losing. Debaters would do well to a) question terminal impacts more (particularly since the internal links at the nuke war/extinction level are often highly tendentious and b) leverage the lower levels more. Stopping one patriarchal practice almost certainly does not stop all patriarchal practices. Likewise while it possible that an act of nuclear terrorism sparks WW III and extinction, its also very likely that cooler heads in the major powers prevail and while there is some war its more like Afghanistan + Iraq than WW III. This doesn’t mean I don’t like big impacts, it just means I am more likely to see them as increasing the risk of the terminal impact by a percent or two than directly causing then end of days, and, therefore more grounded systemic impacts can trump them. War, recession, oppression, environmental destruction et. al are all bad things even if humanity survives. Given all this I am most likely to care about probability as an impact framing device and put it before magnitude or timeframe.

Flowing:

I am an ok flow, but I definitely cannot flow author names I may not be familiar with at high speed. If you refer to something later as the X evidence without extending the warrant of that evidence as well I may have no idea what you are talking about; therefore extend evidence by more than author + year.

This includes in CX. I do not follow along in the speech doc, and generally do not even look at it until after the debate is over. You need to make what you are talking about clear to someone who is not looking at the evidence at the time you are talking.

Framework:

I am not sure what this means anymore it usually means one of the following.

Aff is Not T and/or reads a T plan text but doesn’t defend implementation of that text; therefore Vote Neg. I agree – and am strongly biased in this – you should probably make the T component explicit.

Ignore the DA/K, its irrelevant/unfair – I am not likely to believe the strong version of this argument, instead take as your starting point the next option and frame your arguments to outweighing instead of excluding.

The K o/w the DA/Advantage (and vice versa) – awesome, guidance and impact framing is central.

Kritiks:

The key issue for winning a kritik debate on the negative in front of me is the link debate. Good negatives will be able to identify specific cards, phrases, concepts of the Aff and re-contextualize them in the context of the K. Big K overviews are often unhelpful to me as they spend too much time on the general story of the K and too little time on the link or specific answers to the K alt is meaningless/utopian. K Affs are great as long as they are topical.

Overviews:

Bad overviews highlight the speaker’s team’s impact and mumble something about timeframe, probability and magnitude, but basically skim over everything the other team will go for. Good overviews compare the speaker’s team’s impacts directly with the other teams. Best overviews highlight the key arguments and their interactions that determine each sides impacts and why that means the speaker’s team wins. (Example: bad overview - CP solves 100% of case and DA is the biggest impact in the round. Good overview – Even if there is a solvency differential to CP its small and DA o/w b/c xyz. Best overview – there is at best a small solvency differential to the CP b/c we are winning argument X. The risk of the D/A is high b/c y and their responses don’t address that. Risk of D/A o/w solvency differential b/c Z.) I am a better judge for people who narrow things down and tell stories rather than go for a lot of arguments.

T:

Team Reasonability – although for me that means that there is a presumption in favor of the aff counter interpretation, and that it is a Neg burden to prove the Aff’s interpretation bad – not merely not as good as the Neg’s interpretation.

Yes, you do have to be topical in front of me. Some leeway on creative counter -interpretations, but that does not mean topic as metaphor or free word association. Resolutional is another way of saying not topical.

ADA packet thing; I have seen people say that unlikely to vote on T because packet affs are obviously predictable. This makes negative sense to me. The Packet is intended to teach arguments including T (hence why the T files were included). So I don't see why that would be a persuasive answer at all. Happy to vote on T even if Aff is well known, in the packet or on the wiki, if the Neg wins the line by line.

Add me to the chain - OliverLanier@gmail.com.

Coaching history:

Oakton High School 2017-2018

Gilman School - 2019-Present

George Mason University - 2018-2020

I decided to add this to the top of my paradigm as it impacts my decision making a lot: you should spend more time actually making arguments. This is distinct from simply slowing down, which shouldn’t be necessary if you commit to your chosen arguments to a greater degree. II think the fastest paced and most technical debates require judges that can both flow at an extremely fast pace (not a bad thing) and have such a great amount of argument-specific/topic knowledge that they’re able to take “small” arguments and make them “big” ones based on their ability to extrapolate from what has been said. While this is impressive, I don’t think it’s a necessarily productive standard to hold judges to, and I believe that it is an expectation that is often fulfilled at the expense of valuable clash. Personally, I can guarantee you that what I spend my time reading and writing about has nothing to do with what you’re saying in a given debate, and the way I’m used to thinking outside of debate looks very different from what debate requires. Don’t assume I am familiar with with your argument(s). Don’t assume I’m going to read a card you’ve read and reconstitute your 1AR sentence/little word cluster. I will absolutely tell you after a debate that I missed an argument if it was underdeveloped, in earnest, and not feel bad about it. I’m sure you can avoid this from happening—I believe in you.

Now I'm just going to give my opinions on things that I always scroll down to when reading people's paradigms:

Topicality: It's in the neg's interest to explain clearly why the dynamics of the topic mean I should err neg on limits, and/or why debatability outweighs aff offense. Absent that kind of common-sense impact framing deciding between a limited neg-leaning topic and a relatively unlimited aff-leaning topic is too intervention-y for my comfort. I see reasonability as a schema through which to evaluate competing interpretations, not an exclusive paradigm. I can be convinced to apply reasonability in an alternative fashion, but I am unconvinced by "arguments" that use reasonability as a stand-in for impact comparison (do not repeat that you are reasonable without explanation in the hopes that my gut-approach to the topic includes your aff). These are debates that I would prefer be had at slower speeds more conducive to me being able to flow complete arguments instead of excessively shallow shorthand (possibly to your detriment).

Theory: I'm open to anything but my threshold for voting aff on delay cps bad is quite different from my threshold for voting aff on vague alternatives bad. If you're negative and reading something that is obviously pushing it it would be helpful for you to have arguments as to why reading your horribly unfair argument is distinct from every other time said horribly unfair argument has been read or is warranted by the topic/specific affirmative. See above note about speed.

Condo: I don't care but see above.

DAs: I believe there can be zero risk of one. Having a diversity of arguments does not have to and shouldn't trade off with smart framing arguments. Spending time winning a single damning argument with certainty is more helpful to me than reading a block your 1A wrote that extends every piece of UQ/Link/Impact ev in the debate. "Link determines direction of uniqueness" is generally more intuitive to me than the inverse.

Ks: If you read it one off I understand if your speeches don't reflect standard practice procedural organization and think it's in your interest to mix things up. I'll flow straight down. If you're affirmative in one of these debates it's your job to use that to your advantage and reconstruct things for me.

Framework: I often vote for non-topical affirmatives in part because framework debates are unnecessarily complicated. Simplifying things will substantially increase your chances of winning a ballot. For the neg this means picking an impact in the 2NR; fairness is one and is often (in my opinion) a better 2NR choice than decision-making/delib (explanation of which tends to be very nebulous and vulnerable to aff link/impact turns). If you go for an education impact, explain why your interp/model solves it or just explain why the aff precludes it. It doesn't take much to convince me that you should get topic education as an impact turn against affs that are explicitly anti-topical, but outside of that context this will require work for me. I say that fairness is often a better option because I generally believe that fairness is required for debate to have internal consistency/meaning, and teams whose strategy on T line up with that will put themselves in a good position in debates that I am judging. As explained above, I am partial to fairness/competitive equity impacts and so it is in the aff's interest to explain why they produce/justify reasonably fair debates/affirmatives OR spend a lot of time impact turning fairness instead of repeating that it's infinitely regressive/doesn't have a brightline/is just an internal link to education/shadow extending another sentence-long 2AC arg. Please don’t drop 100 DAs to framework in the 2AC which are largely the same few arguments with some flashy titles. This having been said, if you have a few core impact turns that you can tease out a lot of vertical depth from/craft an ultimate strategy around, using consistent language to refer to them distinctly is good.

These statements represent my feelings and quite likely my proclivities in judging; they do not, however, represent any hardline stance that I will take regardless of the context supplied by a debate. I flow a lot and will use it more than anything else to make a decision if I am judging you.

- Austin xoxo

Email: jeleesa.omala@gmail.com

I am currently a third year law student at SJU Law out in Queens, NY. I debated all four years of college from 2014-2018. I’m so excited I get to hear you all debate!

A little bit about me: I started as a novice for the Liberty University Debate team and I debated in all three divisions over the course of my four years. I was a CEDA Quarterfinalist in 2017 and a Second Round bid to the NDT in 2018. I started off reading soft left aff's, then blackness theory-based aff's, and even tried some performative things toward the end. I've been both a 2A and a 2N, if that info helps any.

I'm open to listening to any arguments as long as you clearly explain them to me and you look like you know what you’re doing.

Have fun!

Glenbrook North- he/him

If you are visibly sick, I reserve the right to forfeit you and leave.

spipkin at gmail. Please set up the chain at least five minutes before start time. I don't check my email very often when I'm not at tournaments.

1. Flow and respond to what the other team says in order.

2. You almost certainly are going too fast for how clear you are.

3. Kritiks on the neg: Probably a bad idea in front of me.

4. K affs: You definitely want to strike me.

5. No inserting anything into the debate besides like charts or graphics (things that can't be read aloud). You don't need to re-read the plan and counterplan text, and you can say perm specific planks, but if you are reading a more complicated perm than that, you should read the text. The litmus test is "insert the perm text."

6. I generally flow cross-x but won't guarantee I'll pay attention to questions after cross-x time is up. I also don't think the other team has to indefinitely answer substantive questions once cx time is over.

7.Plans: If you say you fiat deficit spending in CX, you don't get to say PTIV on T taxes. If you say normal means is probably deficit spending but it could be taxes, you get to say PTIV but you also risk the neg winning you are taxes for a DA or CP. Fiat is limited to the text of what you have in the plan. Implementation specification beyond the text requires evidence and can be contested by the neg.

8. Highlighting should form a coherent sentence. If it's word salad, I'm not going to waste my time trying to parse the meaning.

9. I like counterplans that are germane to the topic. Most of the process counterplans I've seen this year are not that They either can't solve the net benefit or they're not competitive or both.

Updated for 2023-2024 Season

Please put me on the speech thread! Thank you.

Email: thelquinn@gmail.com

Titles: Director of Debate at Samford University (AL).

Meta-thoughts:

I’m not the smartest human. You’re maybe/likely smarter than me. Please do not assume I know anything you are talking about. And I would honestly love to learn some new things in a debate about arguments you researched.

Debaters are guilty until proven innocent of clipping cards. I follow along in speech docs. I believe it is judges job to police clipping and it is unfair to make debaters alone check it. I will likely say clear though, it's nothing personal.

I keep a running clock and "read along" with speech docs to prevent clipping. At the end of the round, I find myself most comfortable voting for a team that has the best synthesis between good ethos, good tech/execution, and good evidence. I will not vote on better evidence if the other team out debates you, but I assign a heavy emphasis on quality evidence when evaluating competing arguments, especially offensive positions.

Education/Debate Background:

Wake Forest University: 2011-2015. Top Speaker at ADA Nationals my Junior Year. 2x NDT First-Round Bid at Wake Forest. 2x NDT Octofinalist. 2x Kentucky Round Robin. Dartmouth Round Robin. Pittsburgh Round Robin.

Mountain Brook High School: 2007-2011. 3x TOC Qualifier. 2011 Winner of Emory's Barkley Forum in Policy Debate. Greenhill and Harvard Round Robin. Third Place at NSDA Nationals in 2011. Seventh Place NSDA Nationals 2010. Winner of Woodward JV Nationals.

Policy Thoughts:

Tl;dr: Offense/defense, the algorithm, cards are currency. UQ determines link unless otherwise said. Willing to pull the trigger on T/theory.

Flow: Most debaters should make analytics off their flows, especially in digital debate. Conversely, if you include analytics on your speech doc but I do not find you clear but I recognize where you are on your speech doc, I will not consider them arguments.

Condo: Im largely ok with conditionality. I think the best aff args against conditional are against contradictory conditional options. I do not really like the counter-interp of dispo. Im a much bigger fan of CI is non-contradictory conditional options.

• 3 or less non contradictory conditional options is ok to me
• 2 contra condo is fine
• 3 contradictory condo (including a K) and I am willing to vote on contra condo bad.
• For new affs, I think at most 5 contra condo is permissive. Anymore and I think you risk losing on theory.
• I think negs should take the 2 seconds it takes to have a CI that isn't "what we did." "What we did" is not really a good CI in debates.

CP Theory: If the 2AC straight turns your disad, no amount of theory will justify a 2NC CP out of/around the straight turned DA. 2NC CP's vs addons are different and chill/encouraged. Generic Process/ Conditions/ consult CPs cause me to lean aff on theory/perm, unless you have a good solvency advocate specific to their plan text which can prove its predictable and important for that area of debate. But I’m persuaded that a generic/predictable aff posted on the wiki can win a theory debate/perm do CP against a generic process/ conditions/ consult CPs. This is especially true with any Con Con CP. Con Con is the worst.

I hate judge kick. Do you want me to flow for you too? Maybe compose your speech doc while you're at it? I don't give the affirmative random permutations. Don't make me kick your trash counterplan for you.

T: My "favorite" standards are predictable limits (debatability) and real-world context (literature/education). I think a topicality interp that has both of those standards I will err on. Evidence that is both inclusive and exclusive is the gold standard. I tend to be more moderate with reasonability. I am not in the cult of limits. I err aff if I believe your interpretation is "reasonable" and that the negative did not prove you made debate impossible even if their interpretation is slightly better.

Kritikal Debate. I vote off the flow, which means my opinions on K debate are secondary to my voting. And I was 4-0 for Wake BD last year in some big debates against policy teams, so I'm going to vote for the team that I thought did the better debating (But are you Wake BD?). Im not really opposed to kritiks on the negative that are tied to the plan/resolution or kritikal affirmatives that defend a topical plan of action. I think where I draw the line is that I'm not a good judge for more performance based "affirmatives/negatives" that neither affirm nor negate the plan text/resolution. I lean very heavily neg on FW v non or anti-topical K affs. I think a good topical version of the affirmative is the best argument on FW. The role of the judge is to vote for the team who does the better debating. Debate is an educational game we play on the weekend with friends. I will not evaluate arguments that derive from actions/events out of the debate I am judging. Fairness is an impact and intrinsically good. I do not believe the ballot has material power to change the means of production/structures and thinking it does may even be problematic.

Please do not read global warming good. Global warming is real and will kill us all. And I am particularly persuaded by the argument that introducing these arguments in debate is unethical for spreading propaganda and should be deterred by rejecting the team. I'm way more persuaded by inevitability and alt cause args.

Gonzaga University
Judging Experience: 19 years
Email: jregnier@gmail.com (yes, include me on the email thread)

Big Picture: There is no one right way to debate. We all have our biases and preconceptions, but I try to approach each round as a critic of argumentation and persuasion. Some people will define themselves as being more influenced by either “truth” or “tech.” For me, this is a false binary. Tech matters, but it doesn’t mean that I will focus on the ink on the flow to the detriment of argument interconnections or ignore the big picture of the debate. Truth matters, but pretty much every debate I will decide that both teams win arguments that I don’t necessarily believe to be true. In my view, “argument” falls into a third category that overlaps with tech and truth but is distinct from them. Make your argument more effectively than your opponent and you’ll be in good shape. For me, that means making clear claims, developing warrants for those claims, and explicitly identifying what’s important in the debate, how it’s important, and why. Use logos, ethos, and pathos. Look like you’re winning. Your adaptation to the stylistic/technical comments below is far more important than your adaptation to any particular type of argument.

Comment about debate ethics: By debate ethics, I mean both what has been conventionally called “ethics violations” – like clipping cards, evidence fabrication, etc – as well as the interpersonal dynamics of how we treat one another in debate. I group them together here because they are both areas where somebody has crossed a line and upset the conditions necessary for debate to occur. For me, neither of these things is “debatable” in the sense I used above (“making clear claims, developing warrants…,” looking like you’re winning, etc). If a team is suspected of clipping cards, the debate stops and we do our best to resolve the issue before either ending the debate or moving forward. Similarly, if there is a concern that a team made racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted – or even just excessively mean-spirited or rude remarks – the debate should not continue as normal. I have zero interest in watching a competitive debate in this context about what was said, whether an apology was sincere, the terminal impact of discourse, whether the ballot is an appropriate punishment, etc. In this, I aggressively fall into the “truth over tech” crowd.

What this means for me is that I will try to be attentive to these things happening. I do not believe that a debater has to say something for me to vote on an ethics violation. At the same time, there is a lot of gray area in interpersonal relationships and we all draw our own boundaries.

What this means for you is if you believe one of your ethical lines has been crossed, I need you to point it out *outside of speech time* and not treat it like you would other debate arguments. As we all know, there are different ways of arguing that the other team has said offensive things. An argument that the Aff’s Economy advantage is based in colonial & white supremacist logic seems to fall squarely “within the game” as a debatable position. On the other hand, if a debater refers to another debater with an offensive racial epithet, this seems to pretty clearly transcend the game. There’s a million miles of microaggressions and not-so-micro aggressions in between. My working presumption is generally that if you are debating about it, then you consider it debatable and that I should evaluate it within the context of argumentation, persuasion, and competition. But if you feel that the other team has crossed a line and that I should not continue evaluating the round as I would a regular competitive debate, say something – again, *outside of speech time* – and we will work together to reach an understanding and figure out the best resolution to the situation.

Stylistic/Technical Issues: I am a medium flow. My ear for extremely fast speech is not particularly great, and my handwriting is not particularly fast. Extremely fast debates oriented around the techne of the flow are not my forte. There is a fairly clear inverse relationship between the speed at which you speak and the amount that I get written down on my flow. This greatly rewards debaters who give fewer – but more fully developed and explained – arguments. I will probably not read very many cards at the end of the debate, so don’t rely on your evidence to make your arguments for you. At the same time, I do generally try to attend to the quality of cards and bad cards can definitely undermine your arguments. I categorically do not want to be forced to reconstruct the debate by rereading all of the cards. This means that explanation and prioritization in the final rebuttals weighs more heavily for me than it might for other judges. Attend to the big picture, make direct comparisons showing why your arguments are better than your opponents’, and most important, find the hook that allows you to frame the debate in your favor.

Theory Debates: This is the area where my thinking has evolved the most as I’ve aged. There are many theory issues that I can be persuaded by. However, I will say that many theory debates that I have seen are vacuous. The key question for me is what kind of world is created by each side’s interpretation – is it good for debate or bad for debate. The impacts that I find most persuasive are the ones that are less about whether the other team made debate hard for you and more about what their interpretation does to argumentation and whether that’s an educational and constructive vision of what debate should be. Generally, impacts like “time skew” or “moots the 1AC” are pretty empty to me. But an argument that uniform 50 state fiat is an artificial debate construct that’s not rooted anywhere in the solvency literature and distorts the “fed key” debate so wildly as to make it meaningless is maybe something that I can get behind. A short list of a few of my current theory pet peeves: the States CP, object fiat, vaguely written – and downright misleading – plan texts, and nonsense permutations. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it a pet peeve, I may be growing increasingly persuaded that excessive conditionality is not good for debate.

Critical Stuff / Framework: I regularly vote both ways in framework debates. I evaluate these debates much like I would a debate over the "substance" of the case. Both sides need to play offense to amplify their own impacts while also playing defense against their opponent's impacts. In most cases where I have voted against critical affirmatives, it is because they have done a poor job answering the negative's debatability/fairness impact claims. In most cases where I have voted against traditional policy frameworks, it has been because they have done a poor job defending against the substantive critiques of their approach. My general set of biases on these issues would be as follows: critical (and even no-plan) affirmatives are legitimate, the aff needs to either have a defensible interpretation of how they affirm the topic or they need to full bore impact turn everything, a team must defend the assumptions of their arguments, critiques don't need (and are often better served without) alternatives (but they still need to be clear about what I am actually voting for), debate rounds do not make sense as a forum for social movements and “spill up” claims are vacuous, and most of the evidence used to defend a policy framework does not really apply to policy debate. However, to state the obvious, each of these biases can be overcome by making smart arguments.

Speaker Points: Since Tabroom stopped making speaker points accessible, I honestly don’t really even know what they mean anymore. I try to give them careful consideration, but I admit that often it becomes a gestalt thing. I intend somewhere around 28.7 or 28.8 to be my median. I will occasionally dip into the high 27s for debaters that need significant improvement. Good performances will be in the low 29s. Excellent performances will get into the mid 29s. This was generally close to how things broke down the last time I was actually able to run the numbers on speaker point data.

Here are the things I value in a good speaker. I love debaters that use ethos, logos AND pathos. Technique should be a means of enhancing your arguments, not obfuscating or protecting them. Look like you're winning. Show that you are in control of yourself and your environment. Develop a persona that you can be comfortable with and that shows confidence. Know what you're talking about. Answer your own cross-ex questions. Use an organizational system that works for you, but communicate it and live up to it (if you do the line-by-line, then *do* the line-by-line). Avoid long overviews with content that belongs on the line-by-line. Overviews should have a clear and concise purpose that adds something important to the debate. Be clear, which includes not just articulation & enunciation. It also includes the ability to understand the content of your evidence. If I can't follow what your evidence is saying, it will have as much weight in my decision as the tagline for that evidence would have had as an analytic. Debaters who make well thought out arguments with strong support will out-point debaters who just read a lot of cards every time.

my email for email chains is arevelins@gmail.com

Quick update 2018 - some years ago I drafted the rubric for speaker points that you see below. Since then I have monitored developments in the debate community on typical speaker point distribution across all judges/tournaments, as discussed online by people who keep track of such things. I don't really dwell on this data much, but I do try to be mindful of community tendencies. Also, I notice how my own debaters read judge philosophies in crunch-time right before a round, and realize debaters reading this want a tl:dr.

Therefore, note that I probably now give speaker points that inch higher than what I initially suggested. This means in most cases I'm giving 28 and above, for debaters who seem to be doing elim-level debate it's usually 28.5 and above, and for especially impressive debate it's 29 and above. I do still dip into the mid-to-high 27's in occasional instances where I want to make it clear that I think the particular speeches really could use some work. At the time of writing (Jan 2018) my average speaker points are about a 28.5.

*******Paradigm Edited 11/10/13, prior to Wake Forest 2013 *******

** Scroll past speaker point scale to get a shorter philosophy explanation **

Speaker point scale:

0 = the debater committed some sort of ethics violation during the round (e.g. clipping cards)

26 to 26.9 = one or both of the following things happened: a) the debater made some kind of major tactical mistake in the debate, such as a completely dropped off-case position, without any attempt to address how they might still win the debate even if that argument is charitably given the full weight that the opposing team prefers. (more leeway on this is given to novice debates) b) the debater was hostile or rude towards competitors in the debate such that opportunities for respectful discourse concerning different ideas devolved into a breakdown of communication. Debaters have different personalities and approaches and I encourage you to explore ways of comporting yourself that express these personalities and approaches (be proud, indignant, cunning, provocative, etc), but please at all times also communicate with each other as students from different schools who respect each other for taking the time to have a lengthy debate round, in whatever part of the U.S. where you may presently have journeyed for such an encounter.

27 to 27.4 = the debater's overall strategy made sense, but various parts of the debate could have used more depth when instead those parts were fairly 'paint by numbers' (e.g. addressing certain arguments with generic/block answers instead of dealing with them more specifically). Evidence comparisons were fairly sparse, but the basic story on a given sheet of flow paper was clear enough.

27.5 to 27.9 = the debater did a solid job of debating. A coherent strategy was executed well. For certain key issues, initial clash advanced into higher forms of assessment, including a charitable understanding of why your opponent's arguments might be good yet your argument is ultimately more important/relevant.

28 to 28.4 = the debater did a solid job of debating across all the flows that were alive in the round. The debater focused on what mattered, was able to swiftly discount what did not ('closing doors' along the way), and took initial clash on key points to highly advanced levels. Given what I just witnessed, I would not be surprised if a debater with points like this advanced to early elimination debates (e.g. double octo's)

28.5 to 28.9 = the debater did everything from the previous scale, but was also able to do this with incredible organization: the most important things were in rank order, the crucial arguments were made without repetition/with cogent word economy, and I felt that the debater's communication seemed to guide my flow along with me. If cards/evidence are in question, you're able to speak of the overall ideologies or motivations driving a certain scholarship/movement, thus "getting behind" the card, in some sense. If a point is made without evidence or without a traditional claim/warrant structure, the debater does so in way that requires translation/interpretation on my part, yet the manner in which I should translate/interpret is also elicited from me/taught to me over the course of the debate. Given what I just witnessed, I would not be surprised if a debater with points like this could advance past early elimination debates.

29.0 to 29.4 = the debater did everything from the previous scale, but approached a sort of fluency that amazed me. The debater not only did what they needed to in order to match or outclass their opponents, but I furthermore felt that the debater was connecting with me in such a way where your arguments trigger understanding almost as a gestalt phenomenological experience. Given what I just witnessed, I would not be surprised if you did well in any of your other debates, prelim or elim.

29.5 to 30 = If memory serves, I have rarely if ever given speaker points that inch this close to 30. This is because 30 is perfection, without any umms, ahhs, odd turns of phrase, instances where you just lost me or where, given a rebuttal redo, you yourself would probably have done that part of your speech differently. If you are this close to 30 then you have perfect command of your opponent's position, of whatever gap you have to bridge in order for things to 'click' with me, and you are able to talk about your research and core arguments in a way where you yourself are clearly ready to push the scholarship/performance that you draw upon to its next heights, if you are not doing so already.

Objectivity and consistency is an elusive ideal: the reality is that subjectivity and some variability is inevitable. I think a good judge should be attentive in debates and vigiliant with self-assessments, not solipsistically but in light of evolving encounters with others. One of the biggest lessons I got out of my philosophy work was the extent to which all humans are prone to habits of self-deception, on many levels.

***** Debate experience

- Debated policy 4 years in high school (won the TOC)

- Debated policy 4 years at University of Southern California (4-time NDT qualifier, elims in my senior year)

- I was away from debate while in graduate school for philosophy

- I have coached Policy and PF debate at two high schools (Notre Dame and Millburn)

- I have coached Policy debate at two universities (Binghamton and Cornell)

- I am currently Assistant Director of Forensics/head debate coach at Cornell University

***** Some views on certain arguments

Any kind of argument is fine by me: I wait to see how debaters respond to what happens in the round and try not to import any predispositions concerning the default way that I should evaluate things. There are various harms/impacts that can orient a given side’s concern, plus various meta/framing/sequencing arguments that grant, reorient, or block my access to consideration of those harms/impacts, depending on how these issues play out in a debate.

Various kinds of challenges to the resolution and norms of the community are fine by me.

Kritiks: I ran them often in high school/college. I studied philosophy in graduate school.

Counterplans can take various forms: bring it on. See below about having full cp/permutation text for the entire round (to check against ‘morphing advocacies’).

Topicality debates: if an affirmative is trying to present a topical example of the resolution being true, but the negative thinks the aff is not topical then it is the negative’s right to go ‘all in’ on such an argument.

I debated policy advantage/da/impact debates almost as often as kritiks. Any politics link and link turn debates need to be laid out pretty clearly for me - mind your jargon please. The same goes for impact scenarios: who, what, against what country, etc.

For any asserted advocacy or test of competition, the plan text, permutation, etc needs to be clearly articulated in the round and written down so that it can be evaluated. For any card that you want me to read in last rebuttals, you should be telling me what I will find when I read that card and why it matters for the debate. I won't sift through a series of cards if you have just mentioned them/rattled off the citations without making use of them.

***** final notes

I have an aversion towards 'cloud clash', i.e. rattling off 2-3 minutes of overview and then basically hoping that the judge plucks out whatever applies towards some later part of the debate. Line-by-line debate and the elegance of organization that it offers is in decline lately. This has a lot to do with recent norms and computer-debating. This is at the cost of clash and direct refutation, and can come across as being aloof/wanting the judge to do the work for you. So, overviews should be short and then get on with actually responding to individual arguments.

I prefer the email chain over jumping flash drives, when possible. One click of ‘send’ and there is no longer the agonizing wait of flash drive driver installation, throwing jump drives around, etc.

Please communicate with each other, instead of yelling at each other (see my speaker point scale above for the under 27 range).

At the end of any round, I will vote for one team over the other and indicate this with my written ballot. This will be the case for any debate round that I can presently imagine.

That is all I can think of. Feel free to ask me more questions in person.

Whitney Young ‘15

University of Kentucky ‘19

Cornell Law '23

Former WY and UK coach; Officially not coaching anymore. This means that I have less topic knowledge than normal and you should not assume I know what your aff is or will know what those acronyms you just threw out stand for. When in doubt, invest more time in explaining your argument.

Top Level

Add me to the email chain- Jacindarivas@gmail.com

My name is Jacinda (Juh-sin-duh) so call me that instead of judge.

I will reward smart teams that can effectively and efficiently communicate their arguments to me. Engaging with your opponent, having a well-thought out strategy, and demonstrating that you’re doing consistent, hard work is what this activity is about.

Please be nice. I am not very responsive to raising voices/yelling.

Clash debates

No one ENJOYS clash debates but I end up judging quite a few. I really do believe that affs should have a tie to the topic and should be in the direction of the topic. I am not the judge for an aff that has a couple cards that say a theory and then pretend to say something about the topic. I also believe that debate is an inherently good activity so indicting the entirety of the activity we participate in is not great for me. I think this matters a lot for the way some teams answer framework so be cognizant of this. The only thing that my ballot decides is the winner.

Ks

Links should be causal, specific and about the plan. They NEED to be contextualized to what the aff actually did. I have too often judged debates where a team presents a theory of the world but have not explained what the aff has done to implicate that. Explanation is key. That applies to all Ks cause if you are just spitting jargon at me and the other team, you aren’t gonna have a good time. I am not persuaded by arguments that the aff just doesn’t get fiat.

CPs/DAs

Love them. Obviously better the more specific to the aff they are. I default to judge kick unless expressly informed not to.

There can be zero risk of a DA

Theory

Conditionality is good.

Random Things

You can insert a re-highlighting of a card- you shouldn’t have to waste time re-reading a card if they suck at research

Ethics violations (ex. Clipping, a card being cut in the middle of the paragraph, etc.) should just have the debate staked on it. It is a bad form of education and should be rejected. No point in drawing it out.

Further questions- email me at jacindarivas@gmail.com

I love a well-executed impact turn debate . If you can give me this your speaks will show my joy
 Frame the ballot for me in the 2NR/2AR. Don't just extend a bunch of cards and highlight concessions, but be explicit about why a particular argument or collection of arguments wins you the debate. 
 Evidence quality may become important in close debates but is a secondary concern to persuasion within the debate. This is not to say that I won't read your evidence after the debate because i probably will, but I won't evaluate warrants that are in your cards or make judgments about evidence quality unless they were fleshed out adequately in the constructives/rebuttals.

 

- You should assume that I am not up on the literature you have read. You should not expect me to know every acronym or all the latest developments in your DA scenario, nor should you assume that I understand all of the jargon in your K. Err on the side of ,at least, briefly explaining a concept before jumping into the intricacies of your argument.

 

- Defense can win debates and I have no problem pulling the trigger on presumption. I can be compelled that there is 0% risk of solvency to an affirmative case, or that there is no internal link within a DA. "There's a 1% chance that we're good for the world" is not a sufficient justification unless you provide a reason for why the opposing team's defensive argument is false or simply mitigates your claim (rather than taking it out terminally).

 

- I have a tendency to be somewhat expressive. If I find something stupid happening within a debate, I will likely face-palm, and/or shake my head; if I didn't understand you, I will give you a quizzical look. You should look up occasionally and take hints from the visual cues that I am sending. I won't make verbal interjections within a debate unless you're being unclear in which case i will say clear twice

 

- There is a fine line between being assertive and being rude. Don't cross it. If you don't know the difference, just watch for how I react

 

Some specific concerns:

 

Topicality-- I default to competing interpretations . To make these debates even close to enjoyable for me this requires an explicit list of what specific cases your interpretation permits and why this is beneficial for the activity. As for "Kritiks of T": I tend not to view these as RVIs, but instead as counter-standards that privilege an alternate debate curriculum that is more important than traditional conceptions. Negatives that plan on defending T against these criticisms should not only maintain that the 1AC does not meet what they view as fair and educational debate, but also need to go into a more specific discussion that impacts why their vision of a fair and educational debate is good and why the negative's alternate curriculum is worse in comparison.

 

Theory-- pretty similar to T debates but the one difference is that I will default to "reject the argument, not the team" unless given a reason otherwise. I have been known to go for cheapshots, but these require fulfilling a high standard of execution (a fully warranted and impacted explanation of your cheapshot, and closing the doors on any cross-applications the aff can make from other flows). Stylistically speaking, slowing down in these debates will help me put more ink on your side of the flow--otherwise I may miss a part of your argument that you find important. Additionally, a well-thought out interpretation and 3 warranted arguments regarding why a particular practice in debate is bad is significantly stronger than a blippy, generic re-hashing of a 10-point block.

 

Straight-up Strategies-- My favorite strategies often involve more than one or more of the following: an advantage counterplan, topic specific DA(s), and a solid amount of time allocated to case turns/defense. I am obviously open to hear and evaluate more generic arguments like politics, dip cap, delay counterplans, and process counterplans if that is your thing, and you should obviously go for what you are winning.

 

K and Performance Strategies-- I enjoy philosophy and have spent a significant chunk of my free time reading/understanding K and performance arguments. My familiarity with this style of debating makes it a double-edged sword. I will be very impressed if you command significant knowledge about the theory at hand and are able to apply them to the case through examples from popular culture or empirical/historical situations. On the other hand, if you fail to explain basic theoretical ideas within the scope of the K or fail to engage particular points of contention presented by the affirmative, I will be thoroughly unimpressed. Similarly, when opposing a K or performance, I am much more interested in arguments (analytics and cards) that not only substantively engage the K but thoroughly defend why your theorization of politics and interaction with the social should be preferred, rather than a generic 50 point survey of claims that are made by positivist thinkers. This is not to say that generic "greatest hits" style arguments have no value, but they certainly need to be backed up with a defense of the conceptual framing of your 1AC (eg, if the negative wins that the kritik turns the case or a no v2l claim, I'm not sure what "predictions good" or "cede the political" does for the affirmative). In terms of a theory/framework debate, I am much less likely to be persuaded by generic "wrong forum" claims but will be more likely to be compelled by arguments pointing to abusive sections of the specific K that is being run (eg, the nature of the alt).

 

It's also important to defend your impacts thoroughly. My favorite straight up affirmatives to read when I debated had big hegemony advantages. My favorite K authors to read are Wilderson (Afro-Pessimism) and other forms of Black liberation startegies. As a result, I am unlikely be swayed or guilted into voting for you if the only argument you make is a moralizing reference to people suffering/dying. This is NOT to say that I won't vote for you if you choose a strategy that relies on these impacts. However if these impacts are challenged either through impact turns or comparisons, I will not hack for you; I require an adequate refutation of why their impact calculation or understanding of suffering/death is false/incomplete and reasons for why I should prefer your framing. In other words, if the opposing team says "hegemony good and outweighs your K" or alternatively, reads a "suffering/death good" style kritik and your only comeback is "you link to our arguments and people are oppressed" without much other refutation, you will lose. When your moral high ground is challenged, own up to it and refute their assumptions/explanations.

 

brubaie at gmail -- Please add to email chains, thank you

Updated March 2022 for championship season -- congratulations yall!

1. Just do what you do and do it well.I like every "style" of debate and have been lucky to debate, coach, or judge most over these past two decades. Thank you for being stewards of a beautiful game at a pivotal moment in debate history.

2. Above all. The 2NR/2AR should clearly describe what the most important issue(s) in the debate are, why they're the most important issues, and how voting your way best addresses them. Choose, compare, and dig in on a few A+ arguments over a greater volume of A- arguments.

3. Framework. I judge quite a few framework debates and like them. I don't have a strong "lean," but I do notice some slight trends;

-- For the neg, I often find that leaning on fairness/some procedural impact is best. It's the thing the neg's interp most often clearly solves relative to a counter-interp. I think the TVA + aff doesn't solve combo is an effective strategy. I often find that lots of direct pushback vs. case (even without evidence) is necessary and effective. If you don't win some significant defense to the aff it can complicate most paths to victory.

-- For the aff, it helps to clarify a role for each side and to negate/impact turn the neg's interp from there. If you don't have a description of why debating the aff is good and/or how the other team can engage then it can complicate most paths to victory. I am more moved by "here's what the neg could do" than counter-interpreting "resolved."

4. Evidence quality. It's very important, but the key to activating it in my RFD is rebuttal framing. The way evidence is utilized and framed in the final rebuttals is usually the most important variable in how I assess it. The easiest way to hypothesize which evidence I read is a simple if/then: if I hear a clip/quote/even an author name referenced directly in the last speech then I'll 100% read it. Beyond that I'll read for comprehension but that is less likely to drive the outcome of my RFD than direct framing by debaters.

5. Counterplans/theory. Not the worst judge for a funky counterplan. Most common 2AC theory objections seem like competition concerns remedied by kicking the counterplan. I'm not terrible for conditionality bad, but that's almost always because of tech concerns like a flippant block that doesn't answer the 2AC than truth concerns like any real aversion to conditionality (I generally think it's good).

6. Topicality. I haven't really judged a big T throwdown this year. If you prefer someone with no set preferences I'm great, but if you want someone to adhere to consensus I'm afraid I'm unsure what consensus is and will need more explanation than most. Despite my unfamiliarity with many interps, T has generally been an efficient/low-risk/high reward block option in past rounds I've judged.

7. Critiques. The more a K identifies specific parts of the 1AC/2AC that it disagrees with, the better. The aff should attempt to identify which parts of the aff are offense, why only the aff solves them, and why they outweigh. I generally think the aff gets to weigh the aff and most neg framework arguments just seem like impact calculus.

8. National championships!! Congrats again yall :) March 2022 will mark my first tournament judging in person since February 2020. I am thrilled to see you all again and to celebrate all you've done for debate. I know it's the national championship and it's tough to relax, but try as hard as you can to just have fun and enjoy it. Debate goes by way too fast and is very easy to take for granted. Sending all who read this the best of luck and hope you can lift each other up and give each other some really fun, challenging debates to end the season.

Philosophy Updated 9-5-17

Nick Ryan – Liberty Debate – 10th year coaching/Judging

Please label your email chains “Tournament – Rd “#” – AFF Team vs Neg Team” – or something close to that effect. I hate “No subject,” “Test,” “AFF.” I would like to be included “nryan2wc@gmail.com”

Too often Philosophy’s are long and give you a bunch of irrelevant information. I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet.

1. I spend most of my time working with our “Policy teams,” I have a limited amount of working with our “K/Non traditional” debaters, but the bulk of my academic research base is with the “traditional” “policy teams;” don’t expect me to know the nuances of your specific argument, debate it and explain it.

2. Despite this I vote for the K a fair amount of time, particularly when the argument is contextualized in the context of the AFF and when teams aren’t reliant on me to unpack the meaning of “big words.” Don’t rely on me to find your “embedded clash” for you.

3. “Perm Do Both” is not a real argument, neg teams let AFFs get away with it way too often and it shifts in the 1AR. Perms and Advocacy/CP texts should be written out.

4. If neither team clarifies in the debate, then I default to the status quo is always an option.

5. These are things that can and probably will influence your speaker points: clarity, explanations, disrespectfulness to the other team, or your partner, stealing prep time, your use of your speech time (including cx), etc.

6. Prep time includes everything from the time the timer beeps at the end of the lasts speech/CX until the doc is sent out.

7. I think Poems/Lyrics/Narratives that you are reading written by someone else is evidence and should be in the speech document.

ADA Novice Packet Tournaments:

Evidence you use should be from the packet. If you read cards that weren’t in the packet more than once it’s hard to believe it was a “honest mistake.”

If you have any questions about things that are not listed here please ask, I would rather you be sure about my feelings, then deterred from running something because you are afraid I did not like it.

Overview: These are my defaults. Everything is up for debate. Please add me to the email chain phildebate@gmail.com

First, I consider myself an argument critic. By this I mean I might vote on an argument that I do not agree with or one I think is untrue because in the context of the round one team persuades me. This means that I tend to fall on the side of tech over truth.

Second, I understand debate by argument. There is a trend in debate to replace argument with author names. The community has begun referencing authors instead of the argument that the evidence is meant to strengthen. This is a bad trend, in my mind, and should be limited to necessity.

Third, I will not now, nor will I ever, stop a debate if I think that someone is clipping or cross reading. While I think this is cheating I think it is up to the debaters in the round to make an argument and then for me to judge that argument based on the available evidence and render a decision. However, if you are caught clipping when I judge I will give you a loss and zero speaker points. .

Fourth, Speaker-Points are dumb. Preffing judges based on the speaker points they give is even dumber. It has long been the case that weak judges give high speaks in order to be preffed. It is unfortunate that judges of color have had to resort to giving debaters higher points than they deserve to get into debates. I will do my best to maintain the community norm.

Topicality: Yes, I vote on it. It is always a voter. Topicality debates are about competing interpretations and the benefits of those interpretations. It is incumbent upon the debaters to do impact calculus of their advantages (these are the reasons to prefer aka standards) vs. the advantages of the counter-interpretation and the disadvantages to your interpretation. In other words, to win topicality you need win that your interpretation is better for debate than your opponents. This formula is true for ALL theory arguments if you plan to win them in front of me.

Framework: Yes, I vote on it. Framework is, to me, a criticism of the affirmatives method. What does this mean for you? It means that I am less persuaded by arguments like debate is a game and fairness claims. I tend to think of fairness, strategically, and my default is to say that fairness almost never outweighs education. I have voted on fairness as a terminal impact before and will likely do so again but the threshold to beat a team going for fairness is often very low and this gets even lower when the affirmative rightly points out that fairness claims are rooted in protecting privilege. If you are negative and you are going for framework my suggestion is that you make sure to have as many ways to negate the affirmatives offense as possible in the 2nr; this includes switch side debate solves your offense and topical version of your aff. If you do that and then win an internal link into education you will likely win my ballot.

I default to utilitarian ethics when making judgments about what action/vote is most beneficial. If you would like me to use some other method of evaluation that needs to be explained and it needs to be upfront.

Counterplans-You should read one. Counterplans compete through net benefits.

*Presumption never flips aff. I know there is a redefinition of Presumption as “less change” but this is a misunderstanding of presumption. Presumption, simply put, is that the existing state of affairs, policies, programs should continue unless adequate reasons are given for change. Now like everything in this philosophy this is a default. To say that presumption flips affirmative is just to say that the affirmative has achieved their prima facia burden to prove that the SQ needs change.

*Counterplan theory: My default is that conditionality is the state that counterplans naturally exist. Because I believe counterplans are merely a test of the intrinsicness of the affirmatives advantages it means that I also default to judge kick. This means that there is little chance that I will vote outright on conditionality bad. Instead, I will assess that the Negative is now “stuck” with a counter-advocacy that alters the debate in corresponding ways.

Criticisms: Criticisms function much like counterplans and disads, insofar, as they should have an alternative and link and impact. I can be persuaded that K’s do not need an alternative. With that being said, if you are going for a K without an alternative then you need to have a lot of defense against the affirmative. Some of that defense can come in the form of the k itself (serial policy failure or impacts are inevitable arguments) but some of it SHOULD also be specific to the plan.

Any questions just ask. Good Luck!

I graduated from Liberty University in 2020. I was a debater at Liberty from 2017-2020. I ran both policy and ks.

Yes, I would like to be on the email chain. My email: emilyschwabie@gmail.com

Overall: Do what you know! I am very flexible with debates, and I want you to do your best in a round.

That being said, here are some of my thoughts on specific arguments,

Policy:

I started out as a policy debater and am familiar with the language.

Affs: By the end of the debate, your aff has to do something if you are going for it.

Affs should be topical or have a good reason why they might be on the edge of the topic. I am less happy to judge rounds of Affs who willing try to skirt the topic and T debates. I come down on the side of you should be a part of the topic that can have debates.

Just bite the link and debate it out.

Neg: DAs are fun, use a good link to the Aff. Funky CPs are fun but make sure that it can solve some part of the Aff. If there is not a good distinction or it is murky about the differences between the CP and the Aff, I believe the perm.

Have good perm defenses for CPs. I don’t really like PICs (small ones) but I will vote on them.

Condo is 2 CPs, maybe 3. Beyond that, I won’t believe you.

Please stop with 3-5 small T violations, have a solid one and go for it.

Critical:

I am very familiar with critical literature. I have run Cap, semiotics, environment k, and antiblackness with my partner.

If you want me to vote for you, you need to frame the debate around your issue. If you do not do this, I am more inclined to vote for the bigger impact in the round.

Affs: Have a reason that the topic is bad. Have a consistent theory of power or structure of the world. At the end of the debate I should know what your aff is, why it is important, and what your aff does/mean.

Neg v policy affs: Have a consistent theory of power and how the aff fits into the theory that you are making. Have a consistent and solid link. I like good links. You should have alternative should do something.

HAVE A RESPONSE TO FRAMEWORK!!!!!!! UNTIL THE END OF THE DEBATE, PLEASE DON’T DROP IT.

Neg v K affs: Have an alternative theory over power and show how it interacts with the aff’s theory of power. Have a good link and contextualize it to the aff.

Theory:

Have impacts though, and don’t just say the word, like condo bad, have reasons why it is bad. I will say that the neg should not run more than 3 conditional cp/k arguments, but I am flexible.

Final thoughts:

Please be polite in the debates, but I will not take off speaker points for sassiness. I enjoy lively debates and would like people to keep the debates interesting. Good puns will get you extra speaker points if they make me smile.

If you have questions at the end of the round and want to talk, feel free! I’m ok with answering questions and reasoning about my decisions. If you have questions after the round, feel free to email me, I keep my flows.

Ultimately, have fun in debate. I want you to do what you know best and be comfortable with doing it. I can adapt easily as a judge, just tell me what you want to do in a round.

Background: 4 years at Baylor University, 1-Time NDT Qualifier. Assistant Coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, 2018-2022, Assistant Coach at Dowling Catholic High School, 2019-Present. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and I work for the Legislative Services Agency in Iowa.

Yes I want to be on the email chain: Sheaffly@gmail.com. Also email me with questions about this paradigm.

Paradigms are difficult to write because there are so many potential audiences. From novice middle schoolers to varsity college debaters, I judge it all. As a result, I want everyone reading this paradigm to realize that it was written mostly in terms of varsity college debates. I think about debate a little differently in high school and a little differently when it comes to novice debates, but I hope this gives you a general idea of how to debate in front of me

== TL;DR ==

Do line-by-line. I do not flow straight down and I do not flow off the speech doc. I am a DA/CP/Case kind of judge. I am bad at understanding kritiks and I am biased towards the topic being good. Be nice.

== Top Level - Flowing ==

It has become clear to me after years of judging that most of my decisions center not around my biases about arguments (which I won’t pretend not to have), but rather around my ability to understand your argument. My ability to understand your argument is directly related to how clean my flow is. Thus, it is in your best interest to make my flow very clean. I used to think I was bad at flowing, but I've come to the conclusion that line-by-line and organized debate has become a lost art. Debaters who learn this art are much more likely to win in front of me.

You are NOT as clear on tags as you think you are. Getting every 4th word of a tag is okay only if every 4th word is the key nouns and verbs. This is never true. So slow down on your tags, I am NOT READING THEM.

I’m not gonna flow everything straight down and then reconstruct the debate afterwards. The 1NC sets the order of the debate on the case, the 2AC sets the order of the debate off case. Abide by that order. Otherwise, I will spend time trying to figure out where to put your argument rather than writing it down and that’s bad for you.

Another tip: Find ways to give me pen time. For example, do not read 4 perms in a row. It’s impossible for me to write down all of those words. Plus, it’s always first and you haven’t even given me time to flip my paper over. And then your next argument is always an analytic about how the CP doesn’t solve and then I can’t write that down either. So stop doing things like that.

== Top Level – Arguments ==

Basic stuff: I love creativity and learning from debate. Make it clear to me how much you know about the arguments you are making. I don’t think this means you have to have cut every card you read, but understanding not just the substance of your argument, but the tricks within them is important.

As I said above, the thing that will be a problem for me is not understanding your argument. Unfortunately, this probably impacts Kritik debaters more than policy debaters, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I am probably a little more truth > tech than most judges. I believe in technical debate, but I also believe that debate is a place where truth is important. I don't care how many cards you have that say something, if the other team asserts it is not true and they are correct, they win the point.

== Top Level - Community Norms ==

1) For online debate, prep time stops when you unmute yourself and say stop prep. A couple of reasons for this. a) I have no way of verifying when you actually stopped prep if you come out and say "we stopped 15 seconds ago" and b) neither do your opponents, which means that you are basically forcing them to steal prep. I don't like it so that's the rule.

2) Debate is a messed-up community already. Don't make it more so. Be nice to each other. Have fun in the debate while you are disagreeing. If you make it seem like you think the other team is stupid during the debate, it's gonna make me grumpy. I love debate and I love watching people do it, but I hate confrontation and I hate it when people get angry about debates that don't matter that much in the long term. Be nice. Please.

3) This is mostly for high schoolers, where I see this issue all the time: If you are going to send a document without your analytics in it, making the version of the doc without the analytics in it IS PREP TIME. You don't get 45 seconds to send the document. Y'all are GenZ, I know you can send an email faster than that. You get 15 seconds before I break in and ask what the deal is. You get 20 seconds before I start prep again.

== Specifics ==

Affirmatives...

...Which Defend the Topic - I enjoy creativity. This includes creative interpretations of topicality. You should also read my thoughts on DAs as they apply to how you construct your advantages. Clear story is good.

...Which Do Not Defend the Topic - I am likely not a great judge for you. I think I may have a reputation as someone who hates these arguments. That reputation is not unearned, I built it up for years. But over time I’ve come to become a lot more accepting of them. There are many of these affirmatives that I think provide valuable debate. The problem I have is that I cannot figure out an interpretation of debate that allows the valuable "K Affs," but limits out the affs that I think are generally created to confuse their way to a win rather than provide actual valuable propositions for debate. I will always think of framework as a debate about what you JUSTIFY, rather than what you DO, and every interpretation I have ever seen in these debates simply lets in too much of the uneducational debates without providing a clear basis for clash.

I realize this sounds like I have been totally brainwashed by framework, and perhaps I have. But I want to be honest about where I'm at. That said, I think the above makes clear that if you have a defensible INTERPRETATION, I am willing to listen to it. You should also look at the section under kritiks, because I think it describes the fact that I need the actual argument of the affirmative to be clear. This generally means that, if your tags are poems, I am not ideologically opposed to that proposition, but you better also have very clear explanation of why you read that poem.

Negative Strategies

Framework: See discussion above. Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Education > procedural fairness > any other impact. “Ks are bad” is a bad argument, “their interpretation makes debate worse and uneducational” is a winnable argument. Topical version of the aff goes a long way with me.

Topicality: Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Case lists. Why that case list is bad. Affirmatives, you should talk about your education. I love creative interps of the topic if you defend them. But for the love of god slow down.

Disads: Absolutely. Well constructed DAs are very fun to watch. However, see truth vs. tech above – I have a lower threshold for “zero risk of a [link, impact, internal link] etc.” I love Politics DAs, but they’re all lies. I am up-to-date on the news. If you are not, do not go for the politics DA using updates your coaches cut. You will say things that betray that you don’t know what you’re talking about and it will hurt your speaks. Creative impact calc (outside of just magnitude, timeframe, probability) is the best impact calc.

Counterplans: I'm tired of the negative getting away with murder. I am VERY willing to listen to theory debates about some of these crazy process CPs which compete off of a net benefit or immedicacy/certainty. Theory debates are fun for me but for the love of god slow down. Otherwise, yeah, CPs are fine.

Kritiks: Eh. You can see the discussion above about K affs. I used to be rigidly ideological about hating the K. I am now convinced that the K can make good points. But because I was so against them for so long, I don’t understand them. I still think some Kritiks (here I am thinking mostly of French/German dudes) are basically designed to confuse the other team into losing. Problem is, I can’t tell the difference between those Kritiks and other Kritiks, because all Kritiks confuse me.

Very basic Ks are fine. Realism is bad, heg is bad, capitalism is bad, I get. Get much beyond that and I get lost. It's not that I think you're wrong it's that I have always been uninterested so I never learned what you're talking about. I cannot emphasize enough how little I understand what you're talking about. If this is your thing and I am already your judge, conceptualize your K like a DA/CP strategy and explain it to me like I have never heard it before. Literally, in your 2NC say: "We believe that X is bad. We believe that they do X because of this argument they have made. We believe the alternative solves for X." I cannot stress enough how serious I am that that sentence should be the top of your 2NC and 2NR. I have had this sentence in my judge philosophy for 3 years and this has been the top of the 2NC once (in a JV debate!). I do not know how much clearer I can be. Again, I am not morally opposed to Kritiks (anymore), I just do not understand them and I will not vote for something I do not understand. I believe you need a good link. Yes, the world is terrible, but why is the aff terrible. You also need to make your tags not a paragraph long, I never learned how to flow tags that were that long.

jrskoog17@gmail.com

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer

I debated at Brophy College Prep and then debated at Gonzaga University.

I now coach at Gonzaga in Spokane, WA.

Everything under this are my defaults but obviously any argument that is contrary to any of these override my presuppositions. I'll try not to intervene to the best of my ability.

The Highlights:

I don't like when teams read evidence from debate coaches. It is absurd and self-referential.
Tech over truth
I'll call for ev, but only if it is a key part of the debate or I have been told to look at it. I put a lot of stock into the quality of evidence when deciding debates.
I default to reject the arg for everything except conditionality unless told otherwise.
Awesome strategic moves will be rewarded.
For the love of Przemek Karnowski, please don't cheat.
I'm not particularly expressive, but it doesn't mean I hate your argument, I'm just thinking to myself.
Keep your shoes on in the round.


Specifics:

Evidence:
Read warrants please. I will reward fantastic ev. Quality outweighs quantity. Use spin and compare your evidence to theirs.

Case/Impact Defense:
I do tend to default to less change and think that there is such thing as zero risk of the aff. Using very smart case defense arguments is awesome. Internal link defense and solvency arguments are, in my opinion, underused. That makes me sad. So please use them.

Counterplans:
I'm a huge theory nerd so I'm down with being convinced something is competitive. HOWEVER, I do think that a lot of counterplans that are commonly run are not competitive. Granted, I ran Reg Neg and Consult Russia a lot, and I understand why they are necessary sometimes, but I will reward case specific counterplans with net benefits that justify the status quo. To be clear: Artificial net benefits be dumb, yo. Counterplans should have solvency advocates--preferably normative one--which will go a long way in defending the theoretical legitimacy of the advocacy.

Against big stick affs, don't read stupid PICs like "the" or "should" because then I will cry. And I am an ugly crier.

I won't kick a conditional CP in the 2NR unless I'm explicitly told to in the debate.


Disads:
For politics, gotta have the goods evidence-wise.
Political capital key cards should say that political capital is key.
I think that an aff shooting apart the internal link chain of a stupid scenario is sufficient.
I would really like it if your DA was an actual opportunity cost to the plan.
Link controls direction of uniqueness.

Kritiks:
I exclusively went for the K almost all of college, so I know a lot of the literature. I've read a lot of Foucault, Baudrillard, Nietzsche and Deleuze but I won't pretend I know all K authors equally. Please explain it in relation to the aff, not just in high theory terms.
I don't think I'm the federal government. I am a sleepy coach judging a debate. However, I can be persuaded differently by args made in the debate.
Getting to weigh the aff is distinct from a "role of the ballot" argument because Role of the ballot determines how/what I am voting on or evaluating.
I love highly technical K debate ie. LINE BY LINE and clash.
Well researched and case specific Ks will make me smile.


Theory:
I really do enjoy theory debates if it is delivered at a rate consistent with the arguments. For example, if you are saying conditionality is bad in the 1AR don't speed through it because it is difficult to flow in its entirety. I will vote on unconditionality good, or 5 conditional CPs good. Debate is debate. If a theory violation is well impacted and explained, I will vote on it.

Topicality:
I default to competing interpretations unless told to evaluate it differently. I love when people read a lot of cards on tea, or have a hyper specific topicality argument. I evaluate it like a DA, so impacting things such as limits and ground is important.

Framework vs K affs:
I'm down to listen to really anything, and I was usually on the side of the team answering framework for most of my career. That being said, I really really enjoy framework debates. I think that "no Ks" isn't very convincing, but there should probably some agreed upon stasis point. This doesn't mean you need to defend the hypothetical implementation of plan in front of me, but if the other team wins that fiat is a good model of education, I will vote on it.

Ashton Smith, Former Assistant Debate Coach at Maine East High School

Currently a Legal Associate at an investment management firm

Maine East '16, University of Michigan '20

Updated 12/2/2023

General notes:

-- Put me in the email chain: ashtonalsmith@gmail.com

-- I am a former competitive policy debater with primarily "policy"-oriented debate experience but a solid understanding and appreciation for several "kritikal" arguments. I am not well-informed about this year's resolution, so please take that into account when explaining your arguments.

-- I like to believe I'm still a technical, flow-oriented judge who will attempt to adjudicate the debate with as minimal intervention as possible on my part. Dropped arguments may be considered true arguments, absent an explanation for why they should not be. I appreciate tricky concessions that interact with other parts of the debate.

-- I think case-focused debates are the most interesting debates. I love impact turns and I think in-depth case analysis can substantially help negative strategies and affirmative wins against off case positions.

-- Over-prioritizing offense is unnecessary when defensive arguments are sufficient to respond to an argument (in other words... "offense/defense paradigm" can be silly.

SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS
TOPICALITY—

I'm a good judge for Topicality. I enjoy technical, well-defended interpretations of the topic. I am a fan of a well-defended reasonability argument, to contest evaluating these debates through competing interpretations. I do not immediately view any interpretation with a more limited topic as the better limit for the topic.

T-Substantial is a thing.

DISADVANTAGES—

Intelligent story telling with good evidence and analysis is something I like to hear. I generally will vote for teams that have better comparative impact analysis (i.e. they take into account their opponents’ arguments in their analysis). It is definitely possible to reduce risk to zero or close enough to it with defensive arguments, alone.

COUNTERPLANS—

Counterplans are good and strategic. Read them. Debate them. I do have some issues with some PICs, Process CPs and other questionably justifiable positions.

Solvency advocates are good.

KRITIKS—

I really enjoy well-articulated kritiks that directly interact with the affirmative. I enjoy kritiks most when they’re read against kritikal affirmatives. In order to win, the negative must establish a clear story about 1) what the K is; 2) how it links; 3) what the impact is at either the policy level or: 4) pre-fiat (to the extent it exists) outweighs policy arguments or other affirmative impacts. Don’t just assume I will vote to reject their evil discourse, advocacy, lack of ontology, support of biopolitics, etc. Without an explanation I will assume a K is a very bad non-unique disadvantage. If you can make specific applications or read specific critical evidence to the substance of the affirmative, I will be much more likely to vote for you.

Re: Ontology - Too many debaters fail to fully engage the theory level debate and prove/contest metaphysical explanations for the world. In the context of some afropessimism kritiks, I appreciate a substantive debate about whether the theoretical basis for the argument is valid.

PLANLESS AFFIRMATIVES—

I'm probably not the best judge to have in the back if you're reading a planless affirmative (because I spent the majority of negative debates against K affs defending T/Framework). However, I do have experience coaching "K teams" to win against framework. To win in front of me, have a good counter-interpretation and offense against their method for understanding the topic (to supplement a reasonability argument).

I do believe debate is a game. However, you can win that it is also more than a game.

I do appreciate K v K debates. A well-constructed kritik against a planless affirmative can yield a great debate. Many of my 1NRs against kritikal affirmatives (in college) were kritiks or case debates.

THEORY—

I love theory. Use it to attempt to limit our arguments that reduce the quality of debates or misuse negative fiat. I am least persuaded by "conditionality bad" if there are 3 or less conditional positions.

The lack of a solvency advocate bolsters most theory arguments. I believe that the existence of literature on a topic is important for affirmative preparation.

Most theory arguments are a reason to reject the argument unless there is an explanation of why I should reject the team.

Plan-inclusive Kritiks are probably bad but it’s not an immediate Affirmative ballot. I’ll evaluate both PIKs bad debates and framework on whatever happens in a specific debate.

Hello, I'm Jamie Snoddy (pronounced like snotty, but with the [d] sound). I'm a community coach for Patrick Henry HS and also a coach at the University of Minnesota. I did a year of debate at Patrick Henry and debated two years for UMN. I graduated in 2018 with a Bach. in Linguistics (Puns get you extra speaks). Please add me to the email chain with the following email address: snodd003@umn.edu

Overview

Learning is the main focus of debate. I like arguments to be presented in a clear and logical manner (it can even be flawed logic, as long as it's coherent and feasible, I think it's legit.). So, there aren't many things I'm against teams running. TELL ME WHAT TO VOTE FOR PLZ! Impact Calc and Roll of the ballot args are great.

Place a higher precedence on presenting evidence clearly and consistently (so not reading things incoherently fast unless e.v.e.r.y s.i.n.g.l.e t.h.i.n.g. is in your speech doc. Which it shouldn't be. If I'm not looking at you and typing, you're good. If I'm looking at you and leaned back, I'm waiting for flow-able info. If I'm looking at you and nodding I'm listening to good points that I feel have already been flowed.

Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for wipeout/death good args, idc which side it is lbvs. Maybe it's the high school emo in me. Best way to combat these args, to me, is go all into VTL and some change better than no change and, if applicable, the ppl who are getting effed over by sqou violence still don't want to die... then that gets into cruel optimism, yada yare yare.

Case

I'm fine with no plan affs. You just have to reeeeeally be ready to answer FW and T. You need to convince me of why running this aff w/o a plan will not work within the resolution. I'm a former 2A so sympathize with defending your case baby from the big scary neg lolz jk.

CPs

As long as the Neg can keep track of all the CPs they have, have all the cps you want. Just be ready to defend needing all of the cps if the aff chooses to go that route. Condo... is... a thing... I guess. The more cps you have, the high chance I'll believe condo bad args, cuz having that many multiple worlds is sorta abusive. So if you're running 7 or 8 cps, they better be dispo or uncondo, or have really great answers for why having that many condo worlds is necessary...

DAs

Fine and necessary args in policy.

Ks

Great! I love Ks and really love non-basic Ks. I don't like flimsy, vague alts. Even if it is as simple as Reject "x", I need to know what exactly what the world of the alt will look like and why it should be preferred to the aff's.

T

Topicality, to me, is different than theory (I flow them sep) and as long as voters are attached to it, I'll consider the args.

Theory

Is a prior question and needs to be addressed before talking about anything else. If we can't agree on how we talk to each other, then what does anything we say matter? ROB args are persuasive if voters are attached to it.

Speaker Points

Switching between hs and coll. debate sometimes throws me of, but I try to be really generous with them? If you're chill, courteous and not a butt during a round you get higher speaks.

Cutting people off aggressively and being unnecessarily snarky looses you speaks. I get if you're having a bad day or are going through some things that it may get taken out here in our community. If that's the case, just give the people in your round a heads up that you're in a mood.

Current Associate Director of Debate at Emory University

Former graduate student coach at University of Georgia, Wake Forest University, University of Florida

Create an email chain for evidence before the debate begins. Put me on it. My email address is lace.stace@gmail.com

Do not trivialize or deny the Holocaust

Online Debates:

Determine if I am in the room before you start a speech. "Becca, are you ready?" or "Becca, are you here?" I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time.

Please have one (or all) debaters look periodically to make sure people haven't gotten booted from the room. The internet can be unreliable. You might get booted from the room. I might get booted from the room. The best practice is to have a backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules about this, follow those.

DA’s:

Is there an overview that requires a new sheet of paper? I hope not

Impact turn debates are fine with me

Counterplans:

What are the key differences between the CP and the plan?

Does the CP solve some of the aff or all of the aff?

Be clear about which DA/s you are claiming as the net benefit/s to your CP

"Solving more" is not a net benefit

I lean neg on international fiat, PICS, & agent CP theory arguments

I am open minded to debates about conditionality & multiple conditional planks theory arguments.

Flowing:

I strongly prefer when debaters make flowing easier for me (ex. debating line by line, signposting, identifying the other team’s argument and making direct answers)

I strongly prefer when debaters answer arguments individually rather than “grouping”

Cross-X:

"What cards did you read?" "What cards did you not read?" "Did you read X off case position?" "Where did you stop in this document?" - those questions count as cross-x time! If a speech ends and you ask these, you should already be starting your timer for cross-x.

Avoid intervening in your partners cross-x time, whether asking or answering. Tag team is for professional wrestling, not debate.

Public forum debate specific thoughts:

I am most comfortable with constructive speeches that organize contentions using this structure: uniqueness, link, and impact.

I am comfortable with the use of speed.

From my experience coaching policy debate, I care a lot about quantity and quality of evidence.

I am suspicious of paraphrased evidence.

I like when the summary and final focus speeches make the debate smaller. If your constructive started with 2 or 3 contentions, by the summary and final focus your team should make a choice of just 1 contention to attempt winning.

Because of my background in policy debate, it takes me out of my comfort zone when the con/neg team speaks first.

Head Debate Coach - University of Georgia

jstupek8@gmail.com

Top Level

- Clarity and flowability are the strongest qualities that drive my speaker points. I encourage debaters to adopt speaking practices that enhance their flowability such as: structured line-by-line, slowing down when communicating plan or counterplan texts, emphasizing particularly important lines in the body of evidence, and descriptively labeling off-case positions in the 1NC.

- Arguments do not always need cards to be impactful. I care about logical analytic arguments, particularly those that are set up well in cross-examination.

- Plan and counterplan text vagueness is an under-exploited issue. As such, I'm likely more amenable to specification arguments than your average judge.

- While no judge is a true blank slate, I have and am willing to vote on basically anything.

Disads

- I begin resolving these debates by comparing the relative risk of the internal link chains of the disadvantage and the advantage(s) the 2AR went for. All things being equal, I frequently resolve these debates without turning to questions of impact comparison or impact interaction. The advice I often find myself giving after debates is that second rebuttalists should spend less time on traditional impact calculus or turns case arguments and more time making sure you win your advantage or disadvantage. Of course, all things are not always equal and second rebuttalists should point out when there's a tangible timeframe or magnitude distinction between impacts.

- Brink + link uniqueness is not an adequate substitute for traditional uniqueness and link claims.

- Always been a fan of agenda politics, probably always will be.

- For affirmatives reading framing arguments, your time is almost always better spent making substantive answers to the disadvantage rather than meta arguments about the complex nature of disadvantages.

Counterplans

- Please stop starting your counterplan 2ACs with consecutive permutation arguments delivered at top speed. This is the single most difficult thing to flow properly in my experience. The easiest fix here is to read cards in between each different permutation and slowing down when communicating perm texts.

- I have no inherent aversion to process counterplans. I think that at times these debates can be really interesting, especially when contextualized to the topic.

- I still believe in an abstract academic sense, that the benefits of conditionality outweigh its costs. This issue, however, is so rarely evenly debated that more affirmative teams should consider going for conditionality bad.

- My default view is that counterplan theory arguments that are not conditionality bad are reasons to reject the argument rather than reasons to reject the team. This presumption can be overcome, but the bar is high.

- My default view is that I will judge kick the counterplan and compare the aff vs. the status quo. I can and have been persuaded not to do so when the affirmative team advances that argument.

Topicality vs. Policy Affirmatives

- Including resolutional language in your plan text does not in and of itself persuade me the aff is topical.

- Caselists are incredibly useful for articulating just how under or over limiting a particular interpretation is.

- For affirmative teams, I would rather hear impacts about the benefits of a broader topic for affirmative innovation and flexibility than appeals to education about the affirmative's content. I am unlikely to be persuaded that I should reject a negative topicality interpretation because the affirmative would have a difficult time constructing solvency deficits to a particular counterplan under said interpretation. That argument seems to be a theoretical objection the counterplan rather than a topicality standard.

- Teams articulating a "precision" standard should take care to clearly explain what their threshold for a "precise" interpretation is, why their interpretation meets that threshold, and why the opposing team's interpretation does not.

Kritiks On The Neg

- I care about the alt quite a bit. Teams that have persuaded me to vote for kritiks have often done so on the basis of strong alt debating.

- The way "framework" arguments are currently deployed is somewhat puzzling to me. Most aff/neg framework standards seem to get more at the question of "how much" weight I should give to a particular impact than to whether I should consider a particular impact in the first place. I've never been persuaded that framework means I don't consider the merits of the 1AC. I've equally never been persuaded that framework means the alt has to be policy.

- Kritiks that derive their offense from the affirmative not doing enough or being too incremental are vulnerable to permutations.

- Alt causes are not link arguments. Link arguments are not "disads."

Planless Affirmatives

- I have been persuaded that the aff doesn't have to read a plan or say USFG should, but I have not encountered a situation where I have been persuaded that the aff doesn't have to be topical. Having some sort of counter-interpretation, even if it's just "resolved means to analyze," is important for how I ground and resolve aff arguments about the neg's interpretation. I want to hear in detail about what the affirmative's model of debate might look like. I would rather hear one or two conceptual impact turns to the negative's model, than eight different "DA's" that are difficult to distinguish between.

- For the negative, I would rather hear arguments about the value of procedural fairness than than some of the more "substantive" framework arguments.

- The vocabulary of "internal link" and "impact" is not particularly useful in a debate about theory. Certainly the negative needs to explain why fairness is a valuable concept, but that explanation does not have to involve the same kind of cause and effect logic chain we encounter in advantages or disadvantages. The "just an internal link" pejorative often applies just as well to arguments forwarded by the affirmative. As a whole, these debates would be so much better if no one used the words "impact," "internal link," or "disad."

Speaker Points

- I hesitate to offer some sort of static scale for speaks because I think that speaker points are relative and I am constantly reflecting on whether my speaker point distribution is in line with the rest of the judging community.

- Debaters who debate technically and make good strategic decisions will receive good points.

- Debaters who debate with style (humor, passionate rebuttals, exceptional clarity) will receive good points.

Closing Thoughts

If you've made it this far, I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the work you do as debaters and coaches. I know how hard everyone works to prepare for debates and I strive to provide judging and feedback that lives up to that standard.

"As I look back at the contours of my own life, many things about it I would change if I could. But not this. The long hours, the demanding schedules, all that goes into effective debating and effective coaching, the lost weekends. I would do it all again. I would do it all again not for any particular tournament or trophy, not for the specifics of any topic, not even for the intellectual benefits debate bestows upon its participants, critical thinking and the like. I would do it all again for the chance to work with hard-working, dedicated, and committed students like those assembled in this room." - Scott Deatherage

Terrell Taylor

add me to doc chains: terrell taylor at gmail dot com. No punctuation, no space, no frills.

Debated at Mary Washington from 2007-2011

Debate is an intellectual activity where two positions are weighed against each other. A part of this is making clear what your position is (plan, cp, alt, advocacy, status quo etc.) and how it measures up against the other team’s position. Arguments consist of a claim (the point you want to make), warrant (a reason to believe it), and an impact (reason why it matters/way it functions within the debate). Evidence is useful when trying to provide warrants, but is ultimately not necessary for me to evaluate an argument. Debates get competitive and heated, but staying polite and friendly and remembering that the name of the game is fun at the end of the day makes for a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.


Disads/Case and Advantages

These arguments should be stressed in terms of a coherent story of what the world looks like in terms of the status quo, affirmative plan or alternative option. These positions should be attacked from a variety points including the link and internal link chain, impact and uniqueness level. When it comes to link turning, my default thought is that uniqueness determines the direction; if you have an alternative understanding that is particular to a scenario, be sure to explain why it is that the direction of the link should be emphasized or what have you. Impacts should be compared not only in terms of timeframe, probability and magnitude, but in terms of how these issues interact in a world where both impact scenarios take places (the popular "even if.." phrase comes to mind here). Also, keep in mind that I have not kept up with the trends in disads and such within the topic, so explaining specifics, acronyms and otherwise is useful for me. I prefer hearing case specific scenarios as opposed to generic politics and similar positions. This does not mean I will not vote for it or will dock your speaker points, just a preference.



Counterplans and Counterplan Theory

Counterplans should be functionally competitive; textual competition doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (see later section on theory). I think that perms can be advocated, but am more than willing to hear reasons why they shouldn’t be and why that is a bad way to frame debates. When it comes to agent counterplans, I tend to think that topic specific education should trump generic presidential powers or judicial independence debates. Consult and condition cps just make the logician inside my head painfully confused (not sure why a reason to talk to X country is also a reason why the plan is bad). International fiat is suspect to me, and I tend to think that limiting the discussion to US policy (including its international relevance) is a good thing.

All of this being said, I am open to voting for any of the above arguments. These are merely my general theoretical leanings, and I will certainly flow, listen to, and evaluate arguments from the other side.


Topicality

I haven’t seen many debates on this topic, so if a debate comes down to T, don’t be surprised if you see me googling to find the resolution to check the words. In general I think Topicality is important for two reasons. One is the general reason that most people think it’s good, being that we need to be prepared/have set limits and parameters for debate. The second is that I think each year presents an opportunity to gain in depth education on an issue, even if it's not a policy perspective of that issue. I feel that competing interpretations is generally the default for T, but I am open to defenses of reasonability and in fact, think that there are cases where this is the best means of evaluation. Standards should be impacted in terms of education and fairness, and the debate should come down to the best internal links between the standards and these terminal values. If you are the type to critique T, your critique needs to come down to these terms (education and fairness). RVIs don’t make sense to me. If you want to take the challenge of trying to make one make sense, be my guest, but it’s an uphill battle.


General Theory

As mentioned, I am not wedded to any particular frame or “rulebook” for debate. Part of the beauty of debate to me is that debaters get to be both the players and referee. As such, I enjoy theory and think that such discussions can be fruitful. The flipside to this is that most theory debates devolve into tagline debating, shallow and repetitive arguments, and a race to see who can spit their block the fastest. These debates are 1) hard to flow and 2) not really a test or display of your ability so much as a test of your team’s theory block writer. I reward argumentation that is clear, comprehensible and complete in terms of theory debates, and urge debaters to these opportunities seriously.

I’ve laid out most of my theoretical dispositions in the counterplan section. Conditionality to me is like siracha sauce: a little bit heats up the debate, too much ruins it. I don’t know why three or four counterplans or alternatives along with the status quo is key to negative flex or good debating (one is good, two is ok). Also, if you want to use a status other than conditional or unconditional, (like the imaginary “dispo”) you should be ready to explain what that means. Again, I think that it is okay to advocate permutations as positions in the debate.

In terms of alternate frameworks for the debate (i.e. anything other than policy making) I’m honest when I say I’m not extraordinarily experienced in these areas as I’d like to be. I’ve seen a decent few of these debates and think that they provide some nuance to an otherwise stale activity. That being said (and this is true for all theory positions) you should try and weigh the educational and competitive equity benefits of your position versus the other teams proposed framework the debate. I debated for a squad that saw framework as a strategic and straightforward approach to most alternative forms of debate, so those arguments make sense to me. On the other hand, especially when it comes to arguments concerning structural issues in society/debate, if argued well, and with relevance to the topic in some way, I am willing to listen and evaluate.

Critical arguments (Kritiks/K-affs)

Much of what I just said applies here as well. I had the most success/felt most comfortable debating with these types of arguments as a debater (I did, however, spend most of my career debating with “straight-up” affs and disads that claimed nuclear war advantages). I studied English and Philosophy in undergrad and am pursuing a MA in English with a focus on critical theory, so there’s a decent chance that my interests and background might lean more towards a topic oriented critique than a politics Da.

I will avoid following the trend of listing the genres of critiques and critical literature with which I am familiar with the belief that it shouldn't matter. Running critiques shouldn't be about maintaining a secret club of people who "get it" (which often in debates, is construed to be a club consisting of the critique friendly judge and the team running the argument, often excluding the other team for not being "savy"). In other words, Whether I've read a great deal of the authors in your critique or not, should not give you the green light to skimp on the explanation and analysis of the critique. These debates are often about making the connections between what the authors and literature are saying and the position of the other team, and hence put a great burden on the debater to elucidate those connections. A shared appreciation or research interest between a team and a judge does not absolve you of that burden, in my opinion.

I agree with many recent top tier collegiate debaters (Kevin Kallmyer, Gabe Murillo, etc.) that the difference between policy and critical arguments is overstated. An important piece of reading critical arguments with me in the back of the room is explaining what your arguments mean within the context of the aff/da. If you read a no value to life impact, what about the affs framing makes it so that the people involved see their lives differently; if the critiqued impact is a merely constructed threat, reveal to me the holes in the construction and explain how the construction came to be. Doing that level of analysis (with any argument, critical or policy) is crucial in terms of weighing and relating your arguments to the other teams, and engaging in a form of education that is actually worthwhile. This probably entails removing your hypergeneric topic link and replacing with analysis as to the links that are within the evidence (and therefore, the assumptions, rhetoric, methodology, so and so forth) of your opponents. In terms of vague alts and framework, I have mixed feelings. The utopian fiat involved in most alts is probably abusive, but there is something to be said for making the claim that these arguments are vital to thorough education. On the framework question, gateway issue is probably a poor way to go. I don’t understand why the fact that your K has an impact means that you get to suck up the entire debate on this one issue. Instead, a framing that opens the door to multiple ways of critiquing and evaluating arguments (both on the aff and the neg, or in other words, doesn’t hold the aff as a punching bag) is preferable.


Performance

I didn’t do a whole lot of handling with this genre of argument, but have debated semi-frequently and enjoy the critical aspects of these arguments. I think that there is a difference between the type of critical debater that reads a couple of disads along with a K and case args, and a team that reads a indictment of the topic or reads narratives for nine minutes. If you read a poem, sing, recite a story or anything of that nature, I will be more interested in observing your performance than trying to flow or dictate it on my flow (my reasoning for this is that, unlike a speech organized for the purpose of tracking argument development and responses, I don't think flowing a poem or song really generates an understanding of the performance). More importantly, framing should be a priority; give me a reason why I should look at the debate through a certain lens, and explain why given that framing you have done something either worth affirming your advocacy. I think that these types of debates, especially if related to the topic, can be fruitful and worthwhile. Performance affirmatives should try to find some in road to the topic. If your argument is pervasive and deep enough to talk about, I generally think it probably has a systemic implication for the resolution in some way, even if that doesn’t manifest as a topical plan or even agreeing with the resolution.

For teams going against performance strategies, Framework based arguments are options in front of me. A good way to frame this argument is in terms of what is the best method to produce debates that create the most useful form of education, as opposed to just reading it like a procedural argument. I do think it is important to engage the substantive portion of their arguments as well, (there are always multiple dimensions to arguments of these forms) even if it happens to be a critical objection to their performance or method. Many policy based strategies often want to avoid having to engage with the details involved, and in doing so often fail to rigorously challenge the arguments made in the debate.


Good luck, and have fun. I spent a great deal of my debate career stressing out and losing sleep, instead of experiencing the challenge and fun of the activity; Enjoy your time in the activity above everything else.

Email: brithomas1412@gmail.com

Former coach for GMU, former debater at Liberty University, 7 years debating experience overall, NDT 2x, 2019 1st round, 2019 CEDA Top Speaker, and have judged all the tingz. After doing both policy and performance debate, I have learned that the most important thing for me is to create a space for myself and the arguments I want to read. Even though I think this is an educational and competitive activity that pays the bills (#schmoney), I still think it should be fun! That being said, my hope is that you will run what you are passionate about! If that's the Econ DA, Anti-blackness K, Fem K, or USFG, then let's get it! DO YOU BOO! This also means that yes debate is a game, but its full of real people and real consequences so we should keep that in mind as we play.

UD 11/16/21

The above thoughts are still true, but thought it's probably time to update this thing in the case people actually read it. The biggest update is making sure y'all know that I want to be a puppet. I don't want to do more work than I have to, I don't want to have to read your evidence, I don't want to have to find pieces across the flow to make my decision, and I just don't want to intervene. So, please stop card dumping and just explain the warrants you have, please give me a clear ballot you want me to repeat back to you, and please talk about you really cool concepts in relation to the other team's arguments and not just as rants (even though they are really smart rants).

Now, that that's been said, I've found myself mostly in the back of the room of either KvK or clash debates, with the very rare appearance of a policy v policy round (minus novice and so my rant on theory doesn't apply to them), it may help to unpack my thoughts based on type of round.

K v K (jv/open):

There seems to be a lack of explanation burden for affs and alts recently. As a result, it normally ends up hurting the aff on presumption because the neg can kick the alt but the aff can't kick the aff. A few recommendations -

For the aff, make sure you know what your aff does and that you can explain the i/l to resolve your impacts. It really isn't enough to use words within your method to explain your method because it becomes circular logic very quickly. The second is to find ways to make it harder for the negative to kick out of the alt or have less burden to prove solvency than you do.

For the neg, take advantage if the aff has a lack of explanation. You should be pressing them to explain every impact in the aff even if they don't flag it as the big impact. I am very persuaded by presumption when its read offensively so make the aff do their job.

Other comments for k v k include the permutation debate. A lot of neg teams make the argument about no perms in a method debate and the only reason I am persuaded by that is 1ars never answer it and the 2ar answer is so new and lacks depth. As a result, aff's should probably have a better prepared answer and then I would be more open to your perm.

Clash (jv/open):

I vote on who wins the round which means one round I may vote on fmwk against a k aff, the next on the k aff. Each round is different so please, innovate! Even with the same argument, you should be searching for ways to re-articulate arguments. Seeing the same 1nc/2n/1nr read off same blocks is not a good look and this is speaking to both sides policy and k.

In these debates, I normally end up siding with tech over truth insofar as it has let me do the least amount of judge intervention. I want to be very clear about what I mean by this, truth normally requires me to read cards for people which if you're not explaining cards I don't want to do the work for you, which is why I say I tend to lean towards clash. I'm saying this to reassure K teams that tech > truth is not automatically a bad thing for you. Ultimately, the best debaters find a good balance between tech and truth, but again I'm a puppet so if you want me to lean a certain way, tell me to do so and why I should.

Policy v Policy (jv/open):

Again, I am rarely in these but the few I have been in tend to come down to the most random theory arguments and I have to be honest - condo is not bad. Whenever I hear condo read in front of me, it just feels like policy teams whining cause I'm like - this is literally the ground you want when you read fmwk, but now its abusive? 5 off is abusive? 3 off is abusive? I meaaaaan ... it just ain't clicking for me because its mostly teams who are absolutely losing other flows because the other team is better and theory is your hail mary. But that means I reward you for avoiding the fight? ok... That being said, people will continue to read condo and I get that - I don't want neg to read this and be like "bri says condo isn't bad in paradigm therfore I don't have to do a lot of work" - no. Please answer it accordingly. What I'm saying is I do not want to vote for condo so neg please don't create a world in which I end up voting for condo - close that door for the aff and I will forever appreciate you.

The only theory arg I find persuasive is perf con - because it means reading a k with something that contradicts makes you a fake radical. Do with that what you will.

End of update.

Now I know some debaters still like to worry about what the person in the back of the room thinks so I'll break down some key points.

Overview:

-I used to say spreading is fine, but in the era of online debate, folks be more unclear than usual. Spread at your own risk because if you don't pace yourself, then it may not get on my flow.

-Explanation > reading more cards

-Organization is key. Even if the other team is messy, it puts you in a better position to clear things up for the judge so line by line can help

-I'm a very expressive person so look at my face cause my visual cues might help you out (and I oop...)

-More people should pref Tyler Wiseman.

-At the end of the debate, be sure to tell me why I should vote for you; if you don't, then you can't get big mad when I don't ... periodt

K's:

I love running the K and the moment I was able to get into critical literature in my debate career, I dived right in. That being said, two important conclusions: One, I understand the foundations of most literature bases so feel free to run them if that is the style of argumentation you prefer.

Two, I have a larger threshold for the K because I expect you to explain the link story and the alternative with warrants so don't assume that just because I know the theory means you don't have to put in the work for the ballot. Links should be contextualized to the aff - please don't restate your tags and author, but pull lines from 1ac/2ac. I would also warn against just running a K because you think I'm only a K debater. Again, DO YOU BOO! If your heart is in the K, go for it! If its not, don't force yourself.

I love performative links not personal attacks so if you are unsure what that line is, talk to your coaches or email me before you dive in. With performative links, just make sure to give a warranted analysis as to why I should vote on it and what the impact is.

K aff's:

Love them! I do prefer K aff's to be in the direction of the topic or make some attempt to include a discussion of the resolution, but if you are not, then at least give me a warranted explanation as to why you have chosen that route. For those that are in the topic of the resolution, have a clear impact and solvency story. Many times, debaters will get so caught up in the negative arguments that they lose sight of what is important...their aff! So make sure to keep a story line going throughout the entirety of the debate.

When you get into FMWk/T debates, be sure to extend and explain your counter-interpretation. What is your model and why is it good? That plus impact turns = a pretty easy ballot from me.

FMWK/T:

It's a strategy that is read against K aff's, it's a strategy I have won against, a strategy I have lost to, a strategy I have voted on and against. My personal outlook - debate is a game but it has real impacts that can help or harm certain individuals. While it is a competitive strategy, I do not think it is an excuse to not engage the affirmative because most of the time, your lack of engagement is what the aff will use to link turn the performance of reading fmwk (hint hint to K debaters reading this).

PSA - fairness is not an impact... at best, its an internal link to education. That being said, unless the aff has no justification for their aff, then you will have a 2% of getting my ballot by reading fairness. I find it most compelling when you prove in round abuse so be on the lookout and don't miss opportunities if you really down for that fairness life. I like the impact of education a lot more because it has better spill over claims. I also don't think you need a role of the ballot because I think fmwk is a counter RoB, but you should probably indicate that. Don't be shifty with your interp, but I believe a capable 2N will be able to accurately counter the 2AC shift and reframe the debate through the same interp in the 1nc. Please have a TVA! No, it does not need to solve the entirety of the aff because that is neg ground, but it should be able to solve the main impacts they go for. Lastly, defend your model of debate and explain why it would be better for the debate community writ large. If you are only focusing on the one round, then explain why that is better.

CPs:

I don't have a preference meaning I am open to all types of CPs. What I do ask is that you have a net benefit and explain how your CP solves the aff. It's also nice if your CP is competitive...

DAs:

I'm down for some good old throw downs on the DA flow, but make sure you have a clear and warranted link story and awesome impact calc for ya girl.

Theory:

I think theory is procedural just make sure you explain very clearly and slowly what the violation is and why that matters...if you are going to go for theory, I expect the 2n or 2a to spend a good amount of time on it which means not just 30 sec or 1 min.

Policy Affs vs K:

Engage the K! Too many times policy teams just write over the K with their fmwk thinking that is the only work they have to do but it's just like debating a DA or CP. Do the link work and the more specific answers you have to the alt, the better position you are in. Don't just say Perm DB or Perm aff then alt, but really explain what that means and looks like in the world of the aff. I think you do need fmwk to get to weigh your aff but that is all the fmwk will get you which means don't forget to extend your aff and the impact story. A really good way to engage the K is to prove how the plan not only outweighs but resolves the specific impacts.

CX:

I think cross-ex is a really good place to assert your arguments and point out key flaws in the other team's arguments. This means you should take advantage of the time to really prove to me why the entire speech they just gave don't matter. While I think cross-ex is binding, you still have to bring it into a speech to explain why that moment was so important and the impact of it.

hello! i started as a novice at gmu where i debated for 5 years. i then went and coached at binghamton for 2 years and then back to mason for 3.

my email is mthomasgmu@gmail.com

for hybrid, I tend to keep my camera on during speeches. If my camera is off please assume I am not there and do not begin. I’m probably not far from my computer but if it’s been a while shoot me an email. '

Do whatever you do best. i was a flex 2n and read both k affs and policy affs, so i am down for just about anything

I am pro-Palestine. It is already worrying enough how little care debaters take when debating about current events when people’s lives, families, and liberation are on the line, but for one where an ethnic cleansing is currently being funded by our tax dollars, I have very little patience for this topic coming up in policy debates in an unethical way. Tread carefully

FW - this is a huge chunk of the db8s i have judged/debated during my now decade long tenure in debate, so i have heard just about it all. i find clash impacts more persuasive than fairness. topic education das are generally not a winner in front of me - the process of debate does not translate well to the real world so i dont believe you when you say debating w/e topic is going to make you a more persuasive advocate or a better congress person. most of us are far too busy between school, debate, work, etc for this to leave the space so lets not pretend like it will. take advantage of the other teams screw ups - if their counter interp is nonsense, take advantage of that. meanwhile, make sure your tva is relevant and can actually engage with the content of the aff. please also always answer the aff - presumption and turns case args are your friends! side note, if the aff gives you disads or impact turns, i far prefer that debate and will be very grumpy if you chose to go for fw instead.

for answering fw - please defend some sort of action that solves some sort of impact. it obvi doesnt have to be capital T Topical, tho preferably it is in the direction or spirit of the revolution. i have voted for affs with no relevance to the topic, but i have a much lower threshold for fw in that world.

t - again i know little to nothing about the topic but i love a good t debate. ive voted on my fair share of bad t args before (shout out to t subs) because aff teams never seem to provide a meaningful limit with their c/i. i need it explained to me exactly what the case list is under either interp, and what ground was lost. i obvi dont really know the aff/neg ground on this topic but i like to think i can follow along.

Counterplans - not the biggest fan of cheaty cps. condo is good up until a point (probably max 3, preferably 2). dont like perf con or condo planks. not a fan of states but i guess y'all dont really have a choice this year.

case debate - big big fan of good impact turn debates. presumption is also a useful argument.

K - it would be cool if your link would be about the aff - i have judged too many clashless debates where the neg just goes on some adjacent historical tangent but never brings it back to the aff. i like alts but they are not necessary - win the framework debate and you're golden. idk why theres a trend to go for a cap k and then spend a ton of time on framework when it is functionally an impact turn debate??

some odds and ends -

im typically a big picture thinker, so meta level questions and framing args are critical to instructing my ballot, especially in debates involving a k. im very interested in what the ballots relationship is to voting for whichever side, particularly in issues involving things within and outside my social location. i dont really like being perceived as a judge, but what does my ballot as a white queer woman mean? (aka i find the ballot k persuasive more often than not)

if im in a straight up policy debate, i dont get these too terribly often, so id recommend not making it too big - id prefer depth over breadth.

ive found im a pretty expressive judge, and if i am confused or cant understand you my face will make that clear.

Have fun, be clear, be clever.

T—I prefer limits over ground arguments. Rather than right to particular ground I would like interpretations argued in terms of the predictability of the research burden/definition. Case lists are important. I consider T an argument that doesn't specify the relationship between the debaters and the resolutional actor (i.e. how the debate is evaluated and what the role of the judge for evaluating the debate is still in question).  To me, framework is a category of arguments that establish a limit that restricts not just the resolution but the role for the judge.  I find most framework arguments unnecessarily restrictive in their interpretation about how we impact/assess a debate whereas a T interpretation can maintain significant freedom for different ways of couching an affirmative while providing predictable limits. For this reason kritiks of T are difficult for me to accept, while criticisms of framework have frequently been successful. 

DAs- I’m unlikely to assess uniqueness/link in absolute terms.  It tends to be easier to get me to consider direction/quality of link & internal link over uniqueness.   Evidence qualifications are important. I probably give analytic and defensive arguments more weight than many judges. 

CPs--I've rarely voted against CPs for theory reasons. This probably has more to do with what affs are willing to do/commit time to more than it demonstrates any real appeal of certainty-based competition arguments. 

K pickiness—I am more open to aff inclusion and textless alternatives than most. I am frustrated by debates where the alternative “vote negative” squares off against permute “do all the parts of the alternative that don’t compete with the plan.” Those are both just abstract descriptions of what any alternative or permutation entails. In depth debate on these issues might be helped by being less tied to a text and more to not being obnoxious in the c/x in describing an alternative. Pay attention to language/phrasing—pull quotes from evidence and speechs instead of debating author names (Yes, pot-kettle, but still). I prefer Ks that aren’t debated like disads—too much big impact/impact turn and not enough about the aff/alt from either side in most debates I judged. Neg link arguments should include reference to 1AC evidence/tags. Historical examples help a lot for either side.
 
Theory—I tend to dislike theory debates focused on narrow comparison of interpretations.  For the most part, people would be better off discussing the logical implications of a practice rather than a potentially arbitrary implementation of that practice (i.e. conditionality rather than "neg gets 1 CP and 1K").   I am biased in favor of conditionality, though not that strongly.  To me, "status quo is always a logical option" or other logic-oriented defenses of conditionality require a judge to evaluate the plan versus the status quo even if the negative goes for their CP.  I say this for clarifying purposes -- this has very rarely changed the outcome of a debate that I have judged.  I often judge debates that do not presume conventional plan-focused models for debate yet still contain theory arguments that presume a plan-focused terminology and its resulting constraints.  I point this out only to suggest that I think debaters should devote some time to thinking about the consequences of strucutral changes in the form of debate that they advocate for the smaller theoretical practices that occur within those debates. 

Evidence comparison. In most debates I’ve judged if I hear about the other side’s evidence it’s only in the 2NR/2AR or it’s about how the opponent’s evidence is “terrible.” Granted, many people read terrible evidence, nevertheless, sophisticated evidence comparison should begin early in the debate. I intensely dislike random unqualified internet evidence.

I prefer cross-ex strategies premised on listening to an opponent's answer and using it in a subsequent speech, not posturing/arguing as though c/x were another speech.

I'm a bit of grump, especially when it comes to my consistent facial expressions in debates.  It's not often that is about you,  the debaters.  I often talk a great deal after debates. 

I desperately wish I were funny so I will probably appreciate your humor even if I rarely laugh out-loud. My sense of humor is definitively geeky. My speaker point scale is lower than our current average.  I've tried to get more in line with current norms so as not to punish people for speaker point inflation.  That said, for high points (28.5+) I still need to be impressed. 

Currently leaving this blank due to doxxing of judges. Ill update again before the season or debaters can email me for a copy. SovietHistory2396@gmail.com

Hi! My name is Chris. My pronouns are He/Him/His. ChristopherRashadWilliams@gmail.com. for the doc chain or reaching out for questions on the debate.

Summary: I did policy debate with the Rutgers-Newark squad for 4 years. Most of my arguments on the Aff and Neg were based on the work of Deleuze, Lacan, Baudrillard, Wilderson, and secondary lit based on their writings. I also won a few rounds by modifying standup routines for debate rounds. I treat debate rounds like a game, the judge judges listens to whatever happens in round, bracketing their personal preferences as much as possible, unless a team calls on them to not restrain themselves in such a way. The Aff affirms something and the Neg negates something. That something may be the topic, its up to you lot. Clarity and signposting > Reading 10 cards in 8 seconds. I look forward to sharing a round with you!

Longer Paradigm:

Of the list of Judge types listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_%28policy_debate%29, I identify closest with the Tabula Rasa category.

Assume I am new to the topic -- Be careful with acronyms

With that said, I realize that debate may be meaningful and or useful for others in ways that it is not for me. I am open to: straight up discussions of policy, the transformative potential of poetry, whatever. Talk about what you like, just give warranted reasons for who I should vote for and why. Be prepared to defend how you go about doing that. Want to be opaque? Cool! Find a way to justify it without double turning yourself. Unless double turning yourself is good for some reason. I don't know. If I'm nodding at something you say in the rebuttal, then you are doing something right. If I give you a weird look, then its probably because you made a weird argument.

Clarity trumps speed. I may not catch all the warrants and author name in a 4 second spurt, but if it's an argument that is important to you/ compelling enough for you to stake the debate outcome on it, invest enough of your time in it so that this doesn't become a problem.

I do not consider myself a good judge for topicality debates versus policy Affs

Please keep your own time.

In your final speeches, keep it simple in order to minimize my interference.

Kritiks--You should make the framework with which I consider the plan versus the alternative clear. In combination with this, you should make the alternative's interaction with the advantages clear i.e. does the alt solve the case or does the case just not matter? I think the aff has the same burden. Usually big K debates resolve around the clash of viewpoints so make your viewpoint clear in comparison to theirs.

I appreciate a clean 2AR/2NR. Here are some ways to clean them up:

Clarifying points of conflict: They say [claim], but XYZ

Clarifying why I should care that X argument was dropped: They may be winning on the case flow, but they conceded our Nietzsche 63' that says you frame the entire debate as a game of chance and decide based on a coin flip. Heads we win, tails they lose!

Be Confident where you are on the flow, but assess accurately - '"Debaters should recognize when they are losing certain arguments/parts of the debate and incorporate that understanding into their rebuttals." -- Jackson Erpenbach' - Brandon Kelley"

Clarifying alternatives: How would you describe the alt to your non-debate friends? If the alt description is vague then I am willing to give the aff a lot of leeway on what the permutation looks/functions like.

The scale is in your hands: Tell me how to weigh impacts! Sure, 15 more mosquitoes might not be as bad as Nuclear War, but whats the time frame? If the war is a couple hundred years out, the mosquitoes might pick up a ballot. Should I care more about this round'ss outcome or the general trajectory of Debate generally? If the latter, inform me on the general trajectory of Debate and how it would differ if I give you a support ballot. If this is the strat, burden is on you to prove that the Aff somehow makes that general trajectory worse.

I appreciate a clean cross-ex. Here are some ways to clean them up:

Please do not prevent your opponent from answering questions in CX. I reserve the right to dock points for that.

Ask the status of CPs/Ks etc if you like. Answers are binding.

Have a few general clarifying questions for your opponent. Understand in order to overcome.

Please do not use cross-ex to show off how smart you are. Mastery shines through subtle acts. Do your work on the flow and boast with skill, not bragging.

Debated at and now coach for George Mason.

Please put me on the email chain! twisema3@gmail.com

Big picture:

- This is a communication activity. Please be clear. You're probably going much faster than you need to be.

- The aff should defend an unconditional change from the status quo.

- Tech (usually) comes before truth.

- Presumption is a thing. I default to the least change.

Case/CPs/DAs:

- Please debate the case. Terribly constructed affs too often get away with it.

- The only types of CPs I feel any particular bias against are uniqueness CPs and new 2NC CPs. As with all things, this is a threshold/preference thing; if you win the theory debate, you're good.

- There can be zero risk of a DA.

Kritiks/framework:

- I did very little K debating, but am familiar with the more popular/classic lit. Historical examples and analogies are much more helpful in explaining your arguments than just dropping buzz words or author names.

- I'll vote on non-topical affirmatives. The aff probably does need to do something, though.

- Fairness is an impact, but not always the most strategic one.

Theory:

- More than two conditional advocacies puts you in the danger zone.

- Contradictory conditional advocacies are probably bad for debate.

- Condo doesn't outweigh T, but I guess a fire 1AR could change my mind on this.

Procedural issues:

- Cross-ex ends after 3 minutes. Anything after that is not "on the record" but still binding when it comes to things like if the CP is conditional.

- Don't clip cards. A team that calls for an ethics challenge against a team clipping needs to provide proof in the form of an audio recording. If I agree that the team did indeed clip, they'll lose the round and get 0 speaker points. If I decide that the team did not clip, the challenging team will lose the round and get 0 speaker points. This being said, if a tournament has a different procedure for this, I'll obviously adhere to it.

- Mark your cards during the speech. If you can't provide accurately marked cards to your opponents, it makes sense to me that I should disregard that evidence.

**Update January 2024- I do not get to judge a lot of rounds these days, so please make sure that you are contextualizing your arguments. You'll have to explain topic-specific details in cross or clearly in your tags. It is safe to assume that I am not familiar with the current literature. I will still stick to the flow, but I'm not as quick as I used to be when this was my full time job. You would also benefit from a gradual increase in speed as you begin your speech because, once again, I'm not nearly as submersed as I used to be. My facial expressions and body language will make it clear to you if I'm not keeping up :)

Paradigm from Sept 2016-

Offense wins debates. Defense is cool, but offense is why it matters. Warrants are key to offense. Smart analytics are better than bad cards. Examples are great contextualizations that allow you to reframe your opponent's arguments.

Impact framing has to be clear. Internal links are both underrated and underquestioned. Tell me why you get to your impacts and then give me a warrant for how you stop it. Asserting "economic declines leads to war" is not a warranted internal link analysis.

I'm naturally very expressive. Watch me during the debate and you'llhave a pretty good idea of what I think about the argument you are making.

I'm very flow-centric. Overviews are great for impact comparison, but line-by-line is where the fun techy stuff happens. Make sure you have a warrant and impact extended if you expect me to vote on something. Saying "they conceded this claim" is not an argument. That being said, one of my biggest pet peeves is when debaters say "they conceded this argument!" when they clearly answered it. Don't be that person.

Frame my ballot. My default stance is that I'm an educator, but not in the sense that I am present to educate you. I think I should be learning from you in the round, and my role as an educator just means that I am there to make sure everyone is learning. Winning frameworkgoes back to impact comparison- tell me why the impacts on framework outweigh (or have to come before) the aff. That means you also have to engage the aff. If you're trying to beat framework, you need a reason why the case impacts outweigh (or come before) the impacts on framework. That means you have to engage the framework impacts.

In round abuse is a whole lot more convincing than potential abuse. If you're speeding or mumbling through a theory block, don't expect me to get down everything you're saying. The only theory arg I think I lean one way or the other on is performative contradictions. If you're going to contradict yourself, you better have a good defense of it.

I'm not going to vote for your alt if I don't know what it is or why it solves. Impacting your links is a great idea. You need to make sure you're contextualizing why the aff is bad and not why the status quo is bad.

Debate is an awesome opportunity for education in a very unique setting. Don't neglect that by not engaging your opponents' arguments

I'm the assistant director of forensics at the University of Rochester. I'm also a history grad student. I think more debaters should be historians.

There will very likely be a pigeon judging with me. You are free to bring seeds to give to him if they're not covered in sugar or salt. No speaker points or anything, my birds don't get paid to judge debates.

Any and all styles are great since I love it when folks that come out swinging strong for their positions. When y'all can actually be RESOLVED, that's that kind of debate speech I love to see.

A few loose thoughts:

- I don't like it when people ask for high speaker points. If you want a 30, give me a speech that makes me think you're better at debate than Gabby Knight or Kaine Cherry. I'm going to ignore any requests for high speaker points, even if your opponent tells me to follow your instructions. My immediate thought when someone makes this an argument is めんどくさい

- There's a trend of teams not sending out taglines/plan texts on email chains/docs, don't do that. While I still have an aversion to paperless debate, if we're going to be debate cyborgs, be open with what your evidence/positions are so your opponents can engage in good faith.

-I do my best to keep a tight flow, but that said, please slowdown for interps/counter-interps/plan texts, especially if you're not emailing those out and you expect me to say something about that debate.

- I tend to think conditionality is good, since I think Affs should be able to beat the squo or a counterplan/alternative but I have voted on condo bad in the past.

- I'm generally not persuaded by new affs bad theory. Not saying I won't vote on it, but I'm not a fan.

For LD:

In the off chance I'm in the LD pool, I did conservative value-criteria debate during my time in high school and I'd be lying if I said I liked it. That said, I heard rumors of circuit LD and how y'all seem to have a low threshold for theory arguments and that sounds appalling. I like substantive arguments. I like kritik arguments.

Read that as you wish.

Policy > LD.

Also, I strongly suggest y'all check out Keiko Takemiya's To Terra. It's really good.