email: lydiawang327@gmail.com

background: debated ld in hs, now 1A/2N @UH

come to our debate camp! https://uh.edu/honors/Programs-Minors/co-curricular-programs/debate/debate-workshop/

top level:

Columbia update – prefer not to judge trad rounds, in open there’ no need to adapt to a lay/novice debater anything is fair game, ** extra speaks if you sit down early when you clearly winning **

tech>truth, if something is conceded then it’s true, but warrants still need to be extended

pet peeves:

- pdfs, google sheets, speechdrop

- counting down

- excessive flow clarification

- stealing prep

- splitting the 2nr

theory:

no such thing as friv theory read whatever you want, default c/I, dtd, no rvis

t:

i like these debates, impact weighing = good

plans:

good, higher threshold on 1AR/2AR extensions than most judges

cps:

equally good for cheaty cps and cp, good competition debate = higher speaks, judge kick unless told otherwise

da:

better than most judges for spin on politics DA, ok for intrinsicness debates

k affs:

been on both sides of the debate, probably slightly neg leaning on framework

ks:

dislike "you link you lose", rep ks, word piks, good for anything else

phil:

never read it in debate but familiar with kant, hobbes, levinas, hegel, etc in academic context

tricks:

err on over explanation, will be annoyed if long underview is read but not utilized well, meaning don’t make me flow your 11^th point on eval theory after the 1ar if you don’t extend it when conceded

Background / Top-Level stuff

tl;dr My pronouns are he/him. Do whatever you want. I’ll probably be down with it. More information found below. For people who want some experience, here’s the lowdown for me: four years HS LD for Gig Harbor. I was in a lot of bid rounds my senior year but I never won any. I was pretty successful on my local circuit. I was assistant coach at Gig Harbor for a year. We qualled a debater to the TOC. I spent three years competing in NPTE/NPDA Parli for Western Washington University debating on the national circuit where I was pretty successful. I also spent a year doing NDT/CEDA policy where I qualified to the NDT during my first (and only) year.

The Big Picture

Do whatever you want. I know pretty much every judge who wants to be preffed high says that, but that’s probably because every judge thinks they’re super chill and down for anything, and I'm not any different. I can’t tell you with absolute certainty if I’ll vote on your arguments when you read them because I think the idea of a syncretic judging philosophy that’s internally coherent is nonsensical. We all have biases or understandings of the way that certain arguments work, so instead of trying to tell you something like “I’m a flex judge” or “I’m a policy judge” or “I’m a clash of civs judge” or another equally meaningless turn of phrase, I’ll just tell you about how I think debate is/should work and you can decide whether or not you want me in the back of the room based on how much that conforms to your expectations/beliefs about the activity, or your strategic preferences. To clarify; almost everything in my philosophy is subject to change based on the stuff that you do/say in your rounds (i might think that presumption flips neg, but if you can explain to me why it flips aff i'll still vote on it), but I’ve found as a competitor that confronting arbitrary biases or argumentative tendencies in a judge philosophy tend to be helpful in navigating in-round conduct, so here’s the quick hits. Most of these won’t matter because these are defaults that can easily change every round based on the arguments that you tell me matter.

- I'm not paradigmatically opposed to speed, but I think online debate should usually a bit slower than IRL policy, so you might want to start at like 75% of your max speed and work your way up to like 85% to give me time to adjust. Slowing down for tags / repeating texts and interps is also good, especially if you're not flashing or emailing.

- Condo is good

- Competing interps is the best way to evaluate theory

- Kritiks are great, but I strongly prefer durable, aff-specific links ("you use the state" or "you are the usfg" are not super compelling to me)

- Theory for strategic purposes is fine. I don’t need to see proven abuse.

- I like it when the aff is topical, but it doesn't have to be for me to vote aff

- Perm is a test of competition, not an advocacy

- PICs probably aren’t cheating

- Spec is usually bad for debate (but that's never stopped me from reading it, so it shouldn't stop you either)

That’s not to say you can’t read arguments contrary to my beliefs but just know that it’ll be more of an uphill battle than it might be for other stuff. If you make arguments, I’ll vote on them as best I can. There are a few things that I paradigmatically believe in.

- Transphobia/ableism/racism/misogny is bad. Don’t do any of those or I’ll drop you.

- 2AR/2NR theory is a silly silly argument, and I will not evaluate it unless given a VERY compelling reason to (usually it has to do with one of the above things).

- I won’t dock you speaks for clarity but I will yell clear if you’re being unclear.

- Don’t use speed as a tool to exclude your opponents; we've all been the novice who gets six off read against them. If they ask you to slow down a little bit, please accommodate or your speaks will probably tank.

Other than that, go nuts.

Topic Debate / Policy stuff

I was never much of a policy-type debater in high school. Since I did LD, I would mostly defend whole res and read a big framework and like two cards that functioned as framework links to the topic. I’ve defended specific plan texts a lot more in my last two years of parli competition which have turned me into a big fan of more technical policy-oriented debate. The biggest place I think I depart from most judges is insofar as I have a pretty high threshold for try-or-die as a legitimate argument in the face of terminal defense absent winning some framing questions for why your impacts come first. In those sorts of situations, I’m willing to vote negative on presumption (but only if the argument is made). Since I haven’t really prepped any teams this last year, I’m not super up-to-date on the topic lit in high school policy or whatever the current LD topic is, so my threshold for link and uniqueness explanation is probably a little bit higher than the judges you see at every other tournament, but I’ll try to evaluate things fairly.

As far as negative strategy goes, I think counterplans are very strategically underutilized tool. I don’t necessarily think you need to be textually competitive or unconditional or whatever norms exist right now, and am very amenable to CP solves case + net benefit / disad strategy. I don’t get to see these arguments very often in NPDA/NPTE since there’s a very noticeable skew towards the K at the highest level in those circuits, so a good deployment of these sorts of arguments will probably net you high speaks because I like to see novel things.

The K

The K was my go-to negative strategy in high school, but I would mostly read stuff like Nietzsche, Derrida, or Heidegger, not stuff that’s super popular nowadays. As far as stuff I’ve been doing more recently in NPDA/NPTE, and later in NDT/CEDA, it’s mostly Fanon, Agamben, Marx, Black Marx, Semiocap, and D&G. I only have some passing familiarity with things like Baudrillard and Wilderson, but that shouldn’t stop you from reading those arguments in front of me if you want to. Just know that with the K more than with something like a topical policy aff you run the risk of me just being confused and voting on bad arguments your opponents make which misrepresent your position. Don’t assume that I know your authors or whatever -ologies you’re using to justify the framework of the K.

Since I’ve been out of the circuit for a minute, I’m not super up-to-date on the most popular trends in terms of arguments read, so slow down a bit when you read tags and try to maintain clarity when you’re reading super dense evidence about whatever undergirding philosophy your authors are talking about

As far as structural stuff goes, I think that a lot of debaters get by on really lazy link scenarios – I don’t love seeing stuff like “you use the state” on a biopolitics kritik and am usually willing to look other places on the flow if I can do so without intervening. On the same note, links of omission suck and you all can do better than that. Talk about why the aff is bad. Most affs are going to do or say something bad. It’s not that much to ask.

As far as the permutation goes, I default to the perm being a test of competition, and absent some specific framing argumentation, I don’t think that there is sticky offense that can be generated on the perm since it isn’t an advocacy.

On the K v K debate – I tend to believe in my heart of hearts that non-topical affs shouldn't get access to a perm. I think that you get a perm to hedge against counterplans that solve the aff plus other stuff that are not competitive on their own – things like Plan Plus or Alt Actor CPs. You’re constrained to the topic, and absent a permutation, the negative would always win by saying “Do the aff plus give everyone a puppy with a net benefit of cuteness”. If you elect to reject the topic, it doesn’t make sense to me to also give you access to a permutation since you could have read the negative strategy on the affirmative without the constraints of the topic. This is not to say I’ll drop you if you go for the perm in a K v K, or that I think you should not read a perm in a KvK debate (you should! the perm is a good argument!), but I’ll be sympathetic to arguments that say you don’t get access to one, and that's a bias that you should be aware of if you're going to be explicitly non-topical.

On a similar note, I’ve found that teams often do a poor job of explaining or generating competition between K affs and K alts and want to especially stress what I mentioned above about making clear and specific link scenarios between your alt and the affirmative in the K v K debate. Try not to make it messy.

Theory and Procedurals

Everybody’s favorite. I default to no RVIs, drop the debater, competing interps, and fairness and education mattering. I'can't recall ever hearing a super compelling argument for why fairness should be a terminal impact instead of just a side-constraint on education, but won't ignore you if you say fairness is the only terminal impact. These defaults usually don’t matter because debaters tend to make arguments that would either confirm or override these defaults. I also err heavily towards using the interp that I have flowed when deciding the round unless a text of the interp has been flashed/emailed/passed to me by the team who read it which has also been made available to the other team. If I wasn’t able to flow your interp, and your specific wording matters, then your opponent probably couldn’t either, and were at a competitive disadvantage as a result. Not much more to say here.

If you have any questions, feel free to fire away. You can message me on facebook or just ask me before the round starts. I'm an open book.

UW'23

If I am your judge, please put me on your email chain: prabhat@interlakedebate.org

LD Paradigm

I prefer Aff to be topical. I prefer a traditional Value/Criterion debate. I like clear signposting, that opponents refer to when refuting each other. I also require evidence to uphold your warrants and link to your personal analysis. All affirmatives should have some kind of standard that they try to win, value/criterion. The negative is not necessarily tied to the same obligation. The affirmative generally has the obligation to state a case construction that generally affirms the truth of the resolution, and the negative can take whatever route they want to show how the affirmative is not doing that sufficiently.

When I see a traditional debate that clashes on fundamental issues involving framework, impacts, and what either side thinks, really matters in my weighing of the round, it makes deciding on who was the better debater during the round an easier process. I like debate that gets to the substantive heart of whatever the issue is. There are very few arguments I would actually consider a priori. My favorite debates are the kind where one side clearly wins standards, whichever one they decide to go for, and has a compelling round story. Voters are crucial in rebuttals, and a clear link story, with warrants and weighted impacts, are the best route for my ballot.

I will listen to a Kritik but you must link it to the debate in the room, related to the resolution in some way, for me to more likely to vote for it. I am biased toward topicality.

I hold theory to higher bar. I will most likely vote reasonability instead of competing interpretations. However, if I am given a clearly phrased justification for why I should accept a competing interpretation and it is insufficiently contested, there is a better chance that I will vote for a competing interpretation. You will need to emphasize this by slowing down, if you are spreading, slow down, speak a little louder, or tell me “this is paramount, flow this”.

Reasonability. I believe that theory is intervention and my threshold for voting on theory is high. I prefer engagement and clash with your opponent. If I feel like negative has spoken too quickly for an Affirmative to adequately respond during the round, or a Neg runs 2+ independent disadvantages that are likely impossible for a "think tank" to answer in a 4 minute 1AR, and the Affirmative runs abuse theory, and gives direct examples from Neg, I'll probably vote Affirmative. Common sense counts. You do not need a card to tell me that the Enola Gay was the plane that dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.

I default Affirmative framework for establishing ground, I default Kritiks if there are clear pre-fiat/post-fiat justifications for a K debate instead of on-case debate. I do not flow cross examination. If there are any concessions in CX, you need to point them out in your next speech, for me to weigh them.

Cross Examination

Sitting or standing, whatever you are comfortable with. I'm fine with flex prep. I think debaters should be respectful and polite. Cross examination concessions are binding, if your opponent calls them out in their next speech.

Speaker Points

If I do not understand what you are saying, don’t expect to receive anything higher than a 28. You will lose speaker points if your actions are disrespectful to either myself or to your opponent. I believe in decorum and will vote you down if you are rude or condescending toward your opponent. I do not flow “super spreading”. I need to understand what you are saying, so that I can flow it. I will say “slow” and “clear” once. If there is no discernable change, I will not bother to repeat myself. If you respond, slow down, then speed up again, I will say “slow” and/or “clear” again. For my ballot, clarity over quantity. Word economy over quantity. I reward debaters who try to focus on persuasive styles of speaking over debaters who speak at the same tone, pitch, cadence, the entire debate.

If something is factually untrue, and your opponent points it out, do not expect to win it as an argument.

Please give me articulate voters at the end of the NR and 2AR.

I disclose if it is the tournament norm.

If you are unclear about my paradigm, please ask before the round begins.

Public Forum Paradigm

RESPECT and DECORUM

1. Show respect to your opponent. No shouting down. Just a "thank you" to stop their answer. When finished with answer, ask your opponent "Do you have a question?" Please ask direct questions. Also, advocate for yourself, do not let your opponent "walk all over you in Crossfire".

2. Do not be sexist/racist/transphobic/homophobic/etc.... in round. Respect all humans.

I expect PF to be a contention level debate. There may be a weighing mechanism like "cost-benefit analysis" that will help show why your side has won the debate on magnitude. (Some call this a framework)

I really like signposting of all of your contentions. I really like short taglines for your contentions. If you have long contentions, I really like them broken down into segments, A, B, C, etc. I really appreciate you signposting your direct refutations of your opponents contentions.

I like direct clash.

All evidence used in your constructed cases should be readily available to your opponent, upon request. If you slow down the debate looking for evidence that is in your constructed case, that will weigh against you when I am deciding my ballot.

I do not give automatic losses for dropped contentions or not extending every argument. I let the debaters decide the important contentions by what they decide to debate.

In your summary speech, please let me know specifically why your opponents are loosing the debate.

In your final focus speech, please let me know specifically why you are winning the debate.

Hey! I'm Kristen East, I debated Policy in high school, judged on-and-off while in college, and have been working as an assistant coach for Gig Harbor High School for the past 5 years. My email is eastkristen@gmail.com

I often use quiet fidgets during speeches and may color during crossfire; these are strategies that I've found help me to pay attention and keep my mind from wandering during rounds. If I'm distracting you at any point, then please politely ask and I'll switch to a different strategy.

Public Forum: I technically did public forum in middle school, so I guess that's relevant? I've also watched a lot of public forum rounds and judged it on and off over the years. I tend to be less formal than some public forum judges. I care more about competitors being considerate of others and having fun than I do about pleasantries and formalities. Please don't be "fake nice" to each other. That being said, I mean don't be offensive (i.e. making arguments based on racial or cultural stereotypes, or making personal ad hominem attacks).

-The biggest thing to know is that I am a "flow judge." I will be flowing/taking notes for each speech, will be writing down rebuttals next to the argument they are addressing, and will draw arrows for argument extensions. What this means for you is that you should be clear about which contention you are talking about, and also that I will be looking for consistency between partners' speeches. There should be continuity of arguments throughout the round. That does NOT mean your last speech needs to have the same arguments as your first speech, but all arguments in your last speech should have been introduced in one of your team's 4-minute speeches. I also will not consider brand-new arguments in any of the 2-minute speeches.

-I like rounds with clash, where each team explains how their arguments interact with the other team's arguments. If you're citing evidence, make sure to mention the warrant (the author's reasoning or statistics that support your claim). Please make it clear during your speeches when you are about to directly quote a source (i.e. saying "in 2019 Santa Claus wrote for the North Pole Times that...") and when you stop quoting them. You don't need evidence to make an argument, and well-reasoned analytics (arguments without an external source) can be just as powerful.

- I will decide the round based on impacts. Please compare your impacts to your opponent's (timeframe, probability, magnitude, etc.). If no one tells me otherwise, I'll probably default util when evaluating impacts. Be specific about how your impact is connected to the resolution, and who/what the impact will affect. Tell me the story of the impact (i.e. If we stop sanctions on Venezuela, then their economy will recover and then xyz people's lives will be saved because they won't die of starvation).

Parli: I've never judged or watched a parli round before. I've heard it has some similarities to policy, which I do have a background in, so feel free to read my policy paradigm to see if that's relevant. I'm excited to judge parli! From what I've heard, it should be fun!

Policy and LD paradigms are below.

Debate Style: I'm good with speed, just start out slow so I can get used to your voice. If you aren't clear, I'll yell at you to be clear. Start out a little slower on tags, especially for Ks and theory. Please don't mumble the text. If the text is completely unintelligible, I'll yell clear, and if you don't clear it up, then I'll count it as an analytic rather than a card. It's a pet peeve of mine when people cut cards repeatedly (i.e. cut the card here, cut the card here). PLEASE, please put theory arguments as a new off (i.e. Framework on a K, Condo bad, etc.). A tag should be a complete idea with a warrant. One word ("extinction" "Solves") does not count as a tag or an argument. I don't care about tag-teaming in CX, but it might influence speaker points (i.e. if one partner is being rude, or one never answers a question). Be nice to each other. I will vote you down if you're a complete jerk (threaten physical violence, harass someone, etc.). I am somewhat sensitive to how mental health, suicide, rape and disabilities are discussed and expect such sensitive topics to be approached with appropriate respect and care to wording and research.

Arguments: There are a few arguments I just dislike (for rational and irrational reasons) so just don't run them in front of me. If you don't know what these args are, you're probably fine. Basically, don't run anything offensive. No racism good, no death good (including Spark DA or Malthus/overpopulation arguments). I also hate Nietzsche, or nihilism in general. Also, arguments that seem stupid like time cube, or the gregorian time K, or reptiles are running the earth or some crap like that is prolly not gonna fly. I'm not gonna take nitpicky plan flaw arguments like "USfg not USFG" seriously. I will not vote for disclosure theory unless someone flat out lies about disclosure. Like they tell you they will run a case and then don't run it. Arguments I'll evaluate but don't love/am probably biased against but will evaluate include: PICs, Delay CPs, ASPEC Topicality, kritical-based RVIs on T, Performance Affs.

Defaults: I'm a default policymaker but am open to other frameworks. I do consider Framework to be theory, which means 1) put it on it's own flow and 2) arguments about like, fairness and ground and other standards are legit responses. I have a strong preference for frameworks that have a clear weighing mechanism for both sides. I default competing interpretations on T. I was a little bit of a T/theory hack as a debater, so I have a lower threshold on theory than a lot of judges. What that means is that I'll vote on potential abuse, or small/wanky theory (like severance perm theory) IF it's argued well. Theory needs real voters, standards and analysis and warrants just like any other argument. If you're going for theory, go all out in your last speech. It should be 4 minutes of your 2NR, or all of your 2AR.

Note on Performance Ks: I have a high threshold on performance arguments. If you're doing a performance, you have to actually be good at performing, keep up the performance throughout the round, and have a way for the other team to compete/participate in the performance. I prefer for performance Ks to be specific to the current resolution, or in some cases, based on language or something that happened in this round.

Constructive speeches: Clash is awesome. Signposting will help me flow better. Label args by topic not by author because I'm prolly not gonna catch every author.

Rebuttals: In my opinion, the point of rebuttals is to narrow the debate down to fewer arguments and add analysis to those arguments. This applies to aff and neg. Both sides should be choosing strategic arguments and focusing on "live" arguments (Don't waste your time on args the other team dropped in their last speech, unless it's like an RVI or something). Both sides should watch being "spread out" in the 2nr and 2ar.

Note about LD: Being a policy judge doesn’t mean I love policy arguments in debate. In LD, you don’t really have the time to develop a “plan” properly and I probably lean towards the “no plans” mindset. I expect a DA to have all the requisite parts (uniqueness, link, impact). I’m okay with Ks, and theory. To help me flow, please number and/or label arguments and contentions, and signal when you are done reading a piece of evidence (either with a change of voice tone or by saying “next” or a brief pause. That being said, speed is not a problem for me. If you follow the above suggestions, and maybe slow a little on theory and framework, you can go as fast as you’re comfortable with. If I’m having trouble flowing you I’ll say “clear.” No flex prep. Sitting during CX is fine. I love a good framework debate, but make sure you explain why framework wins you the round, or else, what's the point? If framework isn't going to win you the round or change how I evaluate impacts in the round, then don't put it in rebuttals.

I like judging. This is what I do for fun. You know, do a good job. Learn, live, laugh, love.

Run whatever you want, add me to the email chain: bitaniyagiday@gmail.com

I'm volunteering as a judge and I used to be a circuit debater until 2012 getting to about half a dozen or so bid rounds and dropping them all (bummer) and I coached for a year privately after that for a handful of circuit debaters in Washington. I've since been far removed from the activity and have stopped the night sweats caused by fears of judge intervention. After looking at contemporary modern paradigms it seems that the more things change the more things stay the same for LD, so I'll try to recollect and/or rediscover the opinions I used to have. Granted, none of these opinions matter weighted against args made in-round.

Theory, Plans, Ks (I'll need handholding for these) etc. are all cool by me. It seems like most people LARP now, but imo non-consequentialist standards are legit and I think in LD ethics and meta-ethics should be regularly used to nullify offense (offense doesn't exist in a moral vacuum). Consequentialism is fine too but I found many of those debates to be hard to parse/weigh. Even with the best weighing, who can really tell the consequentialist difference between India-Pakistan Nuclear war (and the fallout thereafter) and the existential impact of global warming.

I feel like I default on:

Competing Interps

No RVI

Drop the arg (Not strongly held)

Some abusive arg might disproportionately waste your time to read theory on it if you can't win off it, but the threshold for dropping the arg is also significantly lower. Someone read 6 minutes of NiBs, and a minute of turns, and you go all in on winning NiBs bad and answering the turns then you're still in a good spot where an abusive argument doesn't warrant dropping the debater. I admit that's a cherry-picked example and folks can read disparate kinds of abusive offense that requires multiple T shells to handle.

I feel like I can handle spreading still (I'll say clear as many times as I need to) though I'll likely need to call for the text anyways, and if that's a concern I'll be happy to get a copy of your texts before you speech as I'm a better reader than listener. Speaking and communication matters but not to the extent that I'll ignore the apparent weight of args that are poorly explained, though merely saying "extend contention 1" is insufficient (I don't want to do work for either debater). I think speaks start at 27.5 and are largely impacted by argument clarity as time goes on.

I don't really have an opinion on prepping during cx or asking questions during prep. I'll ask the debaters to agree beforehand on what to do but I'll default to yes to prep during cx and yes to questions during prep. Imo, debaters should always answer clarifying questions about any arg that was presented during cx and prep.

I think disclosure is good but if a debater doesn't want me to disclose to them I won't, not sure if that also means I shouldn't disclose to the opponent.

No matter how intelligible the above seems, please ask me questions before the debate if you have any because I'm absolutely rusty. I'm a software engineer and somehow can't figure out why tabroom is tossing my paradigm's formatting, so sorry for that..

My email is hello@jaydanhoward.com

email: keerthanakompella@gmail.com

interlake '23

i'll listen to whatever as long as its not racist/sexist/homophobic ect.

Congressional Debate-- I'll keep it simple. . .

1) I'm looking for an actual debate (not reading statements written weeks in advanced). The authorship speech and the first speech in opposition do not need to directly address what has already been said. The rest of the speeches do need to respond to what has been said. Please directly reference what you are addressing (e.g. Senator Smith said, ". . ." I respectfully disagree because. . .). Your argumentation should have a direct link to either voting "yes" or "no" on the bill or resolution. I'm looking for good warrants for your claim. Don't just read a quote from someone (even an expert) and assume I agree with the quote. Give evidence that your opinions are the correct ones (i.e. statistics (cite the actual study), arguments from history, detailed explanations, etc.). If you are citing a major news organization, tell me if you are citing an actual news article or an editorial (e.g. Don't just say, "The New York Times argued that. . . "). Your arguments should demonstrate that you have a basic understanding of the social sciences (especially economics). I tire of arguments that assume the legislative body has a magic wand that can do anything (e.g. raising minimum wage to $50 an hour while making inflation illegal). There are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Explain to me why your tradeoffs are better than the alternatives.

2) I'm looking for uniqueness. I'm a social studies teacher. If I learned something from your speech, you are more likely to get a higher score. If I'm thinking, "I knew all of this already," you are more likely to get a lower score. If you are piggybacking on an argument already made, I am expecting you to add to that point (not just repeat it).

3) I'm looking for a demonstration of good public speaking skills. The reason I favor congressional debate over policy debate is that this form of debate makes you learn useful communication skills. Watch members of Congress speak. Listen to real lawyers argue before the Supreme Court. They do not spread. They do not just read cards. I want to see the entire public speaking skills set. . . fluent delivery, excellent nonverbal communication, appeals to ethos, pathos, logos.

LD--

I would be considered a "traditional" LD judge.
You are debating values. I want to know the paramount value and the criteria used to assess the value. There needs to be clash on the value and criteria unless you mutually agree on the same value/criteria. Your arguments should flow from your value and criteria.

Things to avoid. . .
1) Kritics-- No Kritics in LD
2) Spreading-- You should speak no quicker than a moderately quick speaking rate
3) Ignoring the value/criteria debate-- you need to win this first before you do anything else
4) Presenting a plan-- I want to hear about the morality of this situation. I don't need to know how your going to actually have a policy to achieve that value. "Nuclear weapons are immoral" and "the United States should practice unilateral disarmament" are two totally different types of debate

Case/evidence email: k3n.nichols@gmail.com

Lincoln Douglas

Background: I've been judging high school Lincoln Douglas for over 6 years and work in the tech industry.

Speed: I'm a native English speaker, so faster than conversational delivery is fine, but debaters should attempt to be persuasive and not speak just to fill time. (I do appreciate good argumentation and have noticed that faster speakers tend to rush past important points without fully exploring their significance, so keep that in mind.)

Criteria: I consider myself to be a "traditional" LD judge. I value logical debate, with analysis and supporting evidence... co-opting opponents' value & criterion and showing how your case wins is completely fair and certainly a winning strategy. I do weigh delivery and decorum to some degree, but generally it isn't a factor... in the event of a tie, Neg wins. Neg owns the status quo, so the burden is on Aff to show why changes must be made.

Note: I don't care for "progressive" arguments... most of the time they're just a cheap ploy to ambush unsuspecting opponents instead of expanding our understanding of the problem and the philosophical underpinnings guiding our decision. (If you'd rather be doing policy, there's a whole other event for you to enter.)

Public Forum

Public Forum is based on T.V. and is intended for lay viewers. As a result, there's no paradigm, but some of the things that help are to be convincing, explain what the clash is between your opponents position and yours, and then show why your position is the logical conclusion to choose.

TLDR: Substance first. Depth over Breadth. Speed mostly fine (Yes Clarity still matters -_-). K's n stuff fine. Not the biggest fan of T. Be organized.

I don't usually count flashing as prep unless it becomes a problem. Only ever had a problem in Policy and (funnily enough) Pufo rounds.

Email: graythesun@gmail.com

Pronouns: He/Him

Prep:

All Prep is running prep. I'm not setting a timer, I'm using a stopwatch for all prep. Watch your own time.

Flex-Prep is valid. As in, asking questions during Prep time. I prefer if Flex-prep is more used for clarifying arguments rather then finding tricky questions... you had your chance in CX.

Framework:

As a judge I really like framework, it tends to make for an easier decision. I.E. some arguments that are argued don't really fit within frameworks in round, and I can just drop them. If there are competing frameworks I expect you to debate them, and end up with one superseding the other. That being said... if you have the same or similar frameworks, unless you're gonna describe what the nuanced difference is and how that changes the valuation in round, it's almost better to just agree that the Fw's are the same.

Contention level:

I definitely prefer depth of argumentation over breadth, knowing your evidence is key to educating yourself on the topic. I will always buy a warrant from your evidence that's well explained and utilized over one that isn't. A lot of responses to arguments made against a card can be found within the card itself. This doesn't mean you should just re-read the card. This does not mean that you can reread your card or tagline and be good.

In high school I competed in most debate formats, but preferred PF. I am very traditional and prefer logical arguments over anything else, but if done well, other appeals will absolutely work for me. While I can generally understand faster talking, spreading does not belong in PF and if I can't understand, I can't flow it. With that being said, my result will be decided by my flow. If you give me a framework and can reasonably explain why I should use it, I probably will. If you choose not to give a framework, I will use what I believe the resolution best calls for. I absolutely love clash, feel free to make the debate engaging for me, but if I feel you were disrespectful, it will be reflected on the ballot.

Hi.

This is Tim Pollard.

Brief note for LD Debaters (2024):

Yearly small note addition before I judge my one-ish tournament of the season, content of last year's note is all you really need to know (but my hearing has improved dramatically).

JanFeb 2024 is a topic that concerns several rapidly-developing global crisis. Evidence that describes the behavior of states a decade ago is probably really questionable. Evidence the describes the relations between countries in the region more than 6 months ago is probably pretty questionable. You should ask your opponent these questions.

** I am going to be very willing to accept reasonable analysis made by a debater about current states of affairs over outdated evidence. **

Brief note for LD Debaters (2023):

Every year I stray further from meaningful investment in debate. All the things below are probably still true, but I have spent even less time involved in the activity than previously. Be gentle. I can hopefully still flow your speed but my sound discrimination is completely shot so make sure you are exceptionally clear at whatever speed you debate.

To summarize the decade of rambling that follows, the process to get me to vote for you is:

a. explain what you are defending.

b. explain why that is different from the other side.

c. explain why that means you win.

I will probably laugh if you structure every argument with each of these three points but based on a lot of the debates I've judged in the past few years it would probably also result in the easiest ballot of my life voting for you.

Brief note for LD Debaters (2022):

Short notes to actually reflect the sort of debates I seem to be judging.

The space topic is complex and kindof unclear about what actually constitutes topical ground. Please make it extremely clear what constitutes "appropriation" and what your position says about it. I will be heavily rewarding debaters who leverage this fact in the speaker points department and think it will greatly improve your strategic position.

util mirrors reward nuance and in-depth analysis. You should be able to identify what the current direction of the status quo is (uniqueness) what the affirmative does to affect that condition (link) and what the implication is for people (impact). Your speech should reflect this structure and the more explicitly you develop what each portion of the argument ("the economy is collapsing now so there's no risk to the disadvantage", "chinese emissions mean US action can't change the status quo") the more directed I will be towards voting for you.

the easiest way to increase your speaker points beyond that on the negative is to not waste speech time reading a nonsense framework that is just "act utilitarianism" when your opponent has already done so. If your framework offers an actual strategic advantage, go ahead but if your 2nc is going to be a body count against the aff's bodycount please don't spend 20s of the 1n telling me why "justice subsumes morality" (please never say that in any debate).

Note for LD debaters (2020):

Below you will find a paradigm that reflects what I've been doing in debate for the last 5 years - infrequently judging policy debates. All the points translate pretty directly back to how I feel about LD. Though I should add that I do have a reasonable amount of familiarity with "LD-style" arguments, so don't worry that I won't like your Kant Aff. I would love to hear your Kant aff.

However, policy debate HAS spoiled me by not having to deal with some of the ... idiosyncrasies of LD debate. Three aimless rant sections identified with bold if you don't have time to read the corpus and need to check what's relevant to you.

First, I think Theory debates in LD generally sit somewhere between asinine and making the activity of debate actively worse. If yr ideal 1ar involves metatheory, I am likely not your judge. I also really don't want to judge any theory debate that would make "Reading util against a Kant aff and then going to case" an impermissible negative strategy (AFC / ACC sort of things). Arguments like theory-justified frameworks are pretty close to that as well, seems like cowards moves. That said THERE ARE DEFINITELY TIMES WHERE YOU CAN AND SHOULD READ THEORY AND THAT'S OK. TOPICALITY is a different class of argument from theory and you should read it.

Second, at an in-person debate event, i would be unable to flow yr a-through-f enumerated warp-speed-delivered 5-word-each wall of spikes. I can't imagine this gets better over Zoom, so enunciate. Slow down a little, or i'm liable to miss the third reason why moral skepticism affirms and I will not vote on it when it shows up in the rebuttal. This is also true in the theory debate. If yr strat is to make your opponent miss something in the cloud of chaff, I'm likely to miss it as well and won't feel bad about not voting on it.

Third, some of the notes on K debates below likely operate slightly differently in LD than in policy debate (or maybe they don't.. i have no idea what the metagame looks like these days). Short version: Yes I will vote for your critical argument. It is absolutely crucial that you explain how it functions and under what understanding of the world and debate I should vote for it if that differs from "the resolution is true/false". I've probably forgotten most of the buzzwords so walk me through it.

Please feel free to ask me questions before the round if you want something made more clear or it's not in the doc - I don't spend a lot of time in-depth thinking about debate anymore so I'm sure it's imperfect. timapollard is my google email handle if you have q's. (Actually does this tournament even have prefs? You might just be stuck with me and I hope to provide better service than the average rando. Good luck.)

Top-level (Following material assumed policy debate but still applies generally):

The first thing I evaluate in debates are questions of uniqueness or differentiation. You will win if you prove why whatever you did in your speech is distinct and preferable from your opponents.

I usually think of debate as a game (in the strategic and competitive sense). That doesn’t mean that it lacks extrinsic value or is bound to specific sets of norms or forms of strategy. But does mean that things like speech time limits and my ability to sign a ballot deciding a winner are non-optional. Prep ends when you email the doc or otherwise transmit your speech to the opponent.

The ability for me to understand the structure of your argument is a prerequisite for me to evaluate it, so debaters have a positive burden to explain the function and operation of their argument. I am willing to vote on presumption if either I cannot describe to myself what an argument does or can be persuaded by either side wrt it's non-function.

Judging the round is based on the comparative quality of argument as presented. The most important thing is that your chosen form of argumentation displays knowledge of the issues and is compellingly defended. The more you sound well-researched and engaged in the issues, the better points I'm likely to give you.

I evaluate performance in CrossX compatibly to a speech.

I flow on paper and might ask you for some. I still want the doc, but pay attention because I don't want to (and probably won't) dredge up yr args from some speech doc if I couldn't catch them in the speech. I'm usually pretty good at saying if I can't flow you.

Assorted Specifics:

This is the first tournament I have judged on the arms sales topic. Assume my knowledge of the topic is imperfect - as mentioned, yr burden to make me get yr arg.

Plan is implemented and matters debates

I don't subscribe to the offence/defense paradigm and believe in the ability of sufficiently complete defense/lack-of-link to take out an impact.

Going for the permutation against a criticism in your big silly impacts aff generally just sounds weird and you are actually going for "case outweighs" anyway. Seriously just talk about how sweet your aff is. The permutation is a fundamentally defensive argument.

Go for T against policy affs more. Folks are getting away with WAY too much.

KvK debates

First, generating external impacts and/or differentiating your impact claim is critical. Often these debates get gummed up in both teams winning that they solve and the other team causes some amount of violence/oppression - with me left to muck through and pick an internal link story, tending to have people end up unhappy.

Second, explain how yr perm works in the context of the debate round - what does it mean for me to endorse/reject a permutation? The argument that affs don't get permutations in these situations (method v method debate) threatens to make sense but also has to work through my presumption that the negative must prove something the aff does/assumes/engages with is bad. Generally you should not expect to win just for having another good idea.

Clash debates

I am extremely unlikely to be persuaded by args that reduce to FW: Ks are bad. Stop whining and defend yr aff.

I generally think affirmatives should take an affirmative position wrt the topic area (this doesn't mean you need a plan or to defend the politics DA or whatever).

Debates where I vote for critical affirmatives against T usually hinge on the aff either successfully defending what distinguishes the affirmative from a negative arg against topical affs, or winning impact turns. You will benefit from putting a lot of defensive pressure on the neg's impacts - which tend to be poorly developed.

Both sides - don't fall into the trap of forgetting the 1AC. At the end of the day the 1AC happened and its ability to solve is likely strongly determinant of a lot of the rest of the debate.

T debaters: Stop going for the truth-testing 'assume all their args are false because we can't research them' stuff.

Hey! My name is Atul Rao, and I attend Baylor University. I did debate for 3 years in high school and qualified for State in Public Forum. Speed is not an issue for me, but if you choose to speak at 2 million words per minute, do not be mad at me for not getting everything on the flow.

Please don't tell me when your time starts. I can tell when you start speaking. If you are doing PF, feel free to give me a road map, but I will count it as on time. If you are doing LD, I won't count them as off-time, so don't worry about that.

For speaks, you start at a 27 and then go up or down depending on what happens in the round. I don't flow cross, but I will be paying attention and listening so I can better represent your speaks. There is a difference between a good crossfire and just talking over your opponent. If you talk over your opponent the whole time, not only will I not flow the points you make in cross, I will drop your speaks as well. If your opponent says something in cross that you want me to flow, bring it up in a speech. Speaks are also independent of who wins. You and your partner can both get a 30 from me and still lose, and you can both get 25s from me and still win.

I am not a boxing referee. I do not enjoy shouting matches. If you use ad hominem, I will immediately give you a 20 in speaks for the round and will probably vote against you.

I also vote off of only what happens in the round. If your opponent says something that I know is untrue, and you let it go unrefuted, I will flow it. Don't worry, I will only flow things that are brought up multiple times, so you should have multiple chances to refute their untrue statements.

As smart as you may be, you are not an expert. If your opponent has a card saying something, and you refute it by saying that "it isn't true" with nothing to back up your claim, I won't buy it. However, if you use a card that refutes what your opponent says, I will buy it.

If your opponent doesn't do a line-by-line rebuttal, don't tell me certain cards have gone "cOmPlEtElY uNrEfUtEd" in the round. You can tell me a certain point, or sub-point, or contention has gone unrefuted, but you can't expect your opponent to rebut every single card you bring up in round. Don't bring up arguments that are not relevant either. If you make an argument in your case, and then drop it during rebuttal and summary, I will not flow it if you bring it up in your Final Focus.

I'll let you in on a secret here. Judges from certain schools oftentimes find out records of teams and sometimes are influenced in their decision making process by giving certain teams wins over other teams. Despite this, I will disclose results, but try not to tell your coach so that we can keep the playing field level for all debaters at this tournament.

Lastly, this is high school debate. Your chances for getting into Stanford are not going to be affected by how I vote in a round. I will do my best to give you guys the best RFDs I can, both in feedback and on your ballots. I do understand the feeling, though, when I lose a round and I cannot understand why I lost. If you feel the same way, please email me and challenge my decision. There's nothing I love more than a debater who wants to know absolutely everything about a round that they lost, because to me it screams of a love for debate.

If you made it this far, if you sign the "Remove France" petition on change.org and show me I will give you an automatic 30.

Zachary Reshovsky Paradigm

Last changed 12/13 10:32P PST

About me and Overview: I have a background with 4 years as a high school debater (Lincoln Douglas) and 3 years as a collegiate debater (1 year NPDA parliamentary and 2 years NDT-CEDA Policy) at the University of Washington - Seattle. At UW, I majored in International Relations where I graduated Top 3% of class and was a Boren and Foreign Language and Area Scholar (Chinese language) and nominee for the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarship. My expertise is in China studies, US-China relations and Great Power Relations.

As an LD debater, I was (and still am) a believer in traditional LD rather than progressive LD arguments. I believe that the introduction of policy arguments to LD (in particular on resolutions that clearly resolve around moral/philosophical issues) are inappropriate. As such, I strongly prefer cases centered around a strong Value and Value/Criterion, an explanation of why that V/VC is moral, and how it links to the topic. As well, please explain to me in rebuttals why you are winning using specific articulations and spins on your/opponent's evidence. High school debaters in particular struggle with articulating why they are winning in final rebuttals, which oftentimes invites frustrating judge interventions. I will consider consider policy arguments in LD (in particular on topics that directly involve a policy proposal - e.g. "the US should implement a federal jobs guarantee" topic). However, these type of arguments will get substantial less weight than traditional LD topics. I prefer depth over breath arguments - I've noticed a lot of debaters will extend all of their offense without telling me which argument is the strongest, why I should vote on it, and how it beats out your opponents arguments. This forces me to intervene and attempt to weigh which extended arguments are strongest. In an ideal world, you'll provide me with a single argument where I can feel comfortable voting. Regarding procedurals, I have a very high threshold for Theory. I believe that Theory is vastly overused in LD and distracts from the substantive education that discussing the topic brings. Your opponent needs to be doing something truly abusive for me to consider it. I'm happy to consider Topicality arguments if I'm judging CX. In LD, I rarely see cases that are off-topic, but if you feel your opponent is feel free to run T.

As well, try to be creative! I come from a family of artists and always have looked at debate as equal parts rhetorical art and logic. Some of the best rebuttals and cases I have seen have had really creative spins on them and really sounded entertaining and compelling. I would encourage debaters to study examples of speeches in which the speaker has articulated not only a strong argument, but also delivered it in a way that delivered with rhythm, well apportioned arguments, was organized cleanly, and had substance that was comparable to strong prose in a novel rather than a rote response to a prompt.

Regarding my views on specific types of arguments:

- Primarily policy/on-case judge, but certainly willing to consider Kritikal and off-case arguments. DisAd/Ad impacts need to be spelled out clearly and weighed thoroughly in later rounds or else risk judge intervention. Find that debaters oftentimes do not get beyond surface-level tit-for-tat argumentation in later speeches in debate. No attempts made at crystallization of arguments, nor any attempt made to weigh why one impact (magnitude, timeframe, probability) or combination of impacts should OW other impacts and, equally importantly, why they should OW. Magnitude definitely easiest impact to evaluate, but feel free to do other impacts as well.

- For CPs, better to run 1 CP than many. Leaves more room for fleshing out that argument. I'm ok with Consult CPs.

- For Kritiks, I'm familiar with general arsenal of Kritiks, but please do not assume that I know the ideology/philosophy by heart. Explain it as if I am a 200-level undergrad student. Second, please articular impacts as you could an advantage or disadvantage. In particular, the link needs to be strong, specific, and very clearly linked to Case. Unmoored or vague links tend to be the death-knell of kritiks - debaters oftentimes just pull out the first link that they find and then proceed to force it to link to the case the AFF is reading. Make sure you make clear why the AFF is uniquely causing some ideologically-grounded harm or is buying into some existing detrimental framework.

Likewise, the impact of Kritiks tends to be highly nebulous (e.g. the plan causes more capitalism and capitalism is bad). Specific and clearly defined impacts are always good - they are particularly helpful for K debates.

Think of K Alternatives as very similar to a kritikal CounterPlan text - ideologically-driven condemnations that (e.g. "The AFF is evil in some undefined but scary sounding way") never work out well much like CounterPlans like (e.g. "Do the Plan but in a better way" never work). Would always recommend to debaters that they discuss why the Alternative solves or remedies some problem to a greater degree than the Plan.

- For Identity arguments, please lay out specifically how and why the AFF/NEG is engaging with a structure of power or dominance in a specific way that is problematic. That the AFF/NEG simply exists/reifies an existing power structure will get some traction yes. However, given that in order to make positive change in any environment one has to engage with unequitable power structures, it is important to describe precisely how the offending party has 1. in concrete terms, made the situation worse/more inequitable & 2. how this OW whatever benefits the offending party is accruing. Saying the offending party is simply working within existing inequities alone will not be sufficient to win usually, even when those inequities are a valid cause for concern. Again, specificity is important here - how many and in what ways is the offending party hurting disadvantaged communities.

- For Performance-based arguments on the NEG - I have a very high threshold for clearly non-Topical Perf arguments. Many teams seem to be running clearly non-topical arguments on AFF that do not in anyway link to the resolution and then proceed to claim some special framework that neatly fits/justifies their Performance into the resolution - this does not mean that they will get my ballot if the Neg runs Topicality in the 1NC.

- Likewise, for Performance-based arguments on the NEG - NEG needs to clearly win 1. why the Performance should be weighed in opposition to the AFF and within the AFF's FW. OR 2. Why whichever NEG FW that is put forth is clearly preferable. Again, I have a high threshold for clearly non-resolution specific neg performance arguments. So if the Neg wishes to win in this situation it needs to VERY CLEARLY win why a performative FW is the criterion on which the debate should be judged.

Speaking point scale:

- 29.9-30-near 100% perfect (flawless execution, strong elocution, high degree of erudition in arguments)

- 29.5-29.8-very strong debater, octo/elims performance (highly coherent arguments, well extended, effective execution and thoughtful usage of time, high degree of consideration to opponents)

- 28.8-29.4-average debater, perhaps 4-2/3-3 record level performance (better than average, but includes some dropped arguments, lack of coherency throughout debate but ultimately enough arguments are extended to win and/or come close in debate)

- 27.8-28.7 - un-average debater - unable to make coherent arguments, lots of drops, lack of tactical acumen or strategic skill in debate proper. Able to read first constructive, but unable to recognize with arguments are to be prioritized in final speeches. Relies too much on ASPEC/procedurals in place of on case/Kritikal arguments.

below-27.8 - very un-average debater - does not know how to debate and cannot coordinate correctly with partner. Lacking in basic etiquette towards others.

- Notes to debaters: Evaluation mostly dependent on quality of arguments - however, polish also comes into play. Clarity/clear organization and efficiency in rebuttals will increase your speaker points dramatically. Well run obscure and non-Western philosophies (Eg Baudrilliard, Taoism, Shintoism) will also garner extra speaker points on basis that they make judging more interesting and less monotonous/repetitive. Same thing goes for contentions that discuss innovative/non-talked about issues

FOR LD: I debated LD In high school and am comfortable with speed in it. I strongly prefer value/criterion based debate and will not consider policy arguments in LD. From my perspective it is important to win the VC debate, but not essential. I view the VC as something akin to goal posts in soccer (you can still score/gain offense through the oppositions goal posts, but it is harder to win because your opponent controls the scoring boundaries).
Ultimately, I will evaluate offense/impacts through a normal magnitude/probability/timeframe lens and will default to a Utilitarian calculus if nothing else is provided, but will weigh through whatever VC wins. I strongly prefer weighable impacts (Eg X number of people will be helped to Y degree), which creates clarity in judges mind. I see a lot of debaters (especially in LD) not doing 𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧 weighing of their impacts vs opponents impacts in NR And 2NR, which is unhelpful and creates judge intervention. I would strongly recommend spending at least some time in each rebuttal evaluating your impacts as to why you are winning on probability/magnitude/timeframe/vulnerability of populations affected/permanence of your impacts. As with all debate, please crystallize in final speeches with concise underviews that explain why you are winning and how your arguments OW/eclipse/precede your opponent’s impacts.

several general thoughts on LD debates I’ve seen:

- on contention level debate, please warrant out your contentions and extend claims and evidence in whole (claim, internal warrant, and impact), in particular in the rebuttals. Greater specificity is better. I’ve noticed a lot of debaters merely extend the tag lines of their evidence without the warrants/cards behind them and, more specifically, what the evidence does in debate/how I should evaluate it relative to other positions. This is problematic in that it leads to judge intervention and forces me to evaluate evidence after round. In NR/2AR I would prefer that you tell me how to vote rather than ask me to adjudicate between/weigh in on Impacts. A good rebuttal will not just include extensions of evidence, but also point to what parts of the evidence (eg the historical example that the author references, the statistical meta study that the cards author proffered) support your claims and what impacts their ideas will lead to.

- evidence: I prefer evidence that has descriptive/historical/statistical claims rather than predictive/speculative claims due to the fact that the former is based on things that have already happened/is more scientific whereas the latter has not occurred/is based on predilections that may or may not occur. I will prefer the former over the latter absent an argument made to differentiate the two. Expert authors will be preferred to non-experts in a vacuum. Non-contextualized anecdotal evidence is the least preferred type of evidence.

- AFF strategy: I notice a lot of debaters (in particular on the affirmative) have a difficult time extending sufficient offense in the debate to stay in the running. I would strongly recommend extending your arguments/contentions first (esp in the 1AR where there is a timeskew) before moving on to opponents case. Inexperienced debaters tend to get distracted/overwhelmed by their opponents case and attempt to tackle it first, but end up running out of time to extend their own case after getting bogged down in said opponents arguments. The best offense is a good offense - you can win if you extend your claims and leave some of your opponents claims dropped, but you cannot win if you extend none of your claims but shoot down the majority of your opponents arguments. I would strongly recommend starting out with your case first in rebuttals and then moving to refute your opponents case.

The Affirmative needs to be even more strategic/efficient in the 2AR. The 2AR needs to focus down on one to two arguments they are winning and not attempt to cover the entire flow. Past losing 2ARs I have seen have spread themselves too thin and never told me where to vote. In order to ensure that you get your offense on the flow, I would recommend a 20/30 second overview at the top of the 2AR explaining why/where you are winning and where I should vote. This ensures you have a shot at winning even if you do not get to all points you wish to discuss in this short 3 minute speech.

- Timeskew: By default, I will give the affirmative somewhat more room than negative to make less well developed/consistently extended arguments due to the timeskew (The Neg won 52.37% of ballots according to a meta analysis of 17 TOC debate tournaments in 2017-18). Beyond this, if the AFF argues that their arguments should have a lower burden of proof bc of timeskew, I will give the AFF even more room to make blippy arguments.

Kritiks (General): Im a fan of Ks in LD. Unlike Policy arguments that have crept into LD (Plans/CPs/DisAds), I believe that Ks belong in LD on the basis that they are grounded in philosophy rather than practical politics.

Several observations/suggestions for Ks in LD:

- On the Link level, please make a clear link to something your opponent specifically does in her/his case. I've noticed that a lot of Kritikal debaters rely on very generic links (e.g. saying that the AFF proposes a policy, the policy involves Capitalism, and that Capitalism is bad, therefore you should reject the AFF) rather than an indictment of some aspect of the AFF's specific proposal (e.g. the AFF's plan proposes an increase in mandatory minimum sentencing, this will lead to a higher prison population, prisons disproportionately affect minority populations and are therefore structurally racist, mass incarceration is the warrant, therefore you should reject the AFF because they lead to more structural racism). The former example relies on generic appeal to a structure the AFF exists within/likely would have to exist within in order to implement policy, the latter explicitly outlines what specifically the AFF does to increase racism/violence. If and at all possible, please try to articulate what the opponent explicitly does to warrant your K.

- On the Alt, I have noticed that many people who run Ks have a very vague (and at times non sensical) Alternatives—in the past I have voted against Ks often because of their lack of Alt solvency. If you plan on running a K, please make clear what the Alt does and how the Alt can solve/lead to some substantive change better than AFF can. I have a very difficult time voting for Alts when I don't know what they do. I would recommend making specific empirical examples of movements that align with Alt’s views that have succeeded in the past (eg if you’re running an Alt that wants to deconstruct settler colonialism, point to historical examples of Native movements that dislodged colonialism or the effects of colonialism—for example protests against the DACA pipeline in S Dakota, Native Americans protests against Columbus Day + what meaningful and lasting policy/public opinion changes these movements imbued). Its my personal belief that movements that lead to most meaningful change not only indicts and identifies a policy/problem with the status quo, but is also able to engage with the political sphere and implement some meaningful change. I believe that a well-articulated K should be able to do the same.

- K Impact: If K Impact involves some degree of indictment of the AFF, please explain to me what the AFF indictment does/leads to out of round beyond merely asserting that the AFF leads to bad impacts - otherwise it is likely that I will default to voting AFF on basis that AFF does/advocates for something imperfect but net positive. Even winning that the Aff leads to bad things (eg that the AFFs deployment of military forces is imperialist/that AFFs passing of a policy leads to more capitalism) may be insufficient to win when weighed against the entirety of AC impacts — the K also needs to prove THAT they do something beneficial as well (see previous paragraph).

- Type of K you run: You are of course welcome to run any K you feel is strategically valuable in the moment. As a personal side note, I personally prefer hearing Ks that come from obscure/not-commonly-run philosophers (e.g. Foucault, Deleuze, St. Thomas Aquinas) rather than commonly-understood philosophies (e.g. Capitalism). I believe that introducing non-traditional philosophers into debate adds substance, flavor, and argumentative diversity to the debate sphere - Independent on whether they win, I will reward debaters who run these arguments with additional speaker points for the above mentioned reasons.

Race/Gender/Transphobic/Homophobic Kritikal indicts - I will consider indictments of an opponent on the basis that they have done said something racist, gendered, -phobic in their personal behavior. The indictment, however, needs to clearly documented (e.g. a screen shotted Facebook post, a accusation with references to multiple witnesses who can corroborate the incident) and the offending violation/action needs to fall into the category of commonly understood violations of norms of basic decency surrounding race/gender (eg a racist joke that would be called out at a dinner party, usage of the N word towards a debater of color, calling a female debater the B-word, usage of the six letter homophobic/anti-gay term that starts with F). Microaggressions will be considered, but will have a much higher burden of proof to overcome because they are more difficult to prove/document and have comparatively less negative impact. As well, these arguments preferable should be accompanied by an articulation of what Impact of dropping a debater will have (e.g. will it send a strong sanctioning signal to other debater generally to not make the joke in question in the future(?), will it merely deter the accused debater from another repeated violation(?)) outside of round. Without an articulation of framework, I will default to a standard VC framework in LD and Policymaking Impact calculus on basis of magnitude/probability/TF in CX - if you lose/fail to provide a non-traditional framework, this does not mean that your race/gender arguments will not be evaluated, but does mean you will have to explain how they work/function under a CXmaking/VC framework and likely means you will face a comparatively uphill battle.

Speed Ks-please do not run them - I don’t believe they are worth considering and are a waste of time. After having come across them 3-4 times this year, have not voted for a speed K. Unless opponent is literally spreading so fast no they are unintelligible, I believe that it is unwise to spend all our time and energy indicting each other for procedurals when we could be debating about the substantive of the topic.

I am not a fan of Performance/poetry in LD, but will consider it if absolutely necessary. Know that I have a high BoP to consider these types of args.
I generally have a very low bar to granting the AFF RVIs due to timeskew. I have granted AFF RVIs about 70-80% of the time when the AFF has introduced this argument.

My paradigm is simple. Talk clearly, not too fast, quality of content>quantity, good sportsmanship and good grammar.

Hi! I'm Andrew (he/him) and I debated in LD at Interlake for 3 years, graduating in 2021 and qualifying to the TOC my senior year. I now do some policy debate in college as a hybrid team with Western Washington University. Please add me to the email chain: shawan[at]uw.edu

Top Level:

- I am most familiar with philosophical arguments and decently familiar with policy, theory/topicality, and critical arguments. However, I'm willing to listen to anything as long as it is warranted and explained well—please don't run something you don't understand just because you think I would like to see it. I will also not supplement arguments using my prior knowledge if you do not make them, so what I know/do not know well should not be super relevant.

- In general, I will vote for the side that requires the least intervention for me to vote for.

- Weigh, signpost clearly, and collapse—the 2NR/2AR should give a ballot story and a clear path for me to vote for you.

- Don't do anything racist/sexist/xenophobic/homophobic/anything that makes the round unsafe.

- Please try to use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to your opponents (e.g. they say instead of he/she says).

- Defaults: drop the debater, no RVIs, competing interps, epistemic confidence, no judge kick, presume neg unless there is a CP/alt.

Locals:

- I'm fine with speed if you're clear.

- I will vote on the flow and will not consider blatantly new arguments that are made in the 2NR/2AR.

- It also makes me sad that framework/phil debates are dying out, so I'll give higher speaks if I see a normative framework syllogism and/or in-depth framework debate.

- I'm not interested in listening to your value debates. Values other than morality are probably impact justified and regress back to some form of morality. I use the value criterion to evaluate the debate at the end of the day, so please spare us all 3 mins of justice vs. societal welfare and skip to the value criterion debate.

- If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Phil:

- This is not the same as tricks debate—if your idea of a phil debate is spamming independent justifications or hiding indexicals in analytics, please see the tricks section below.

- Here are the FWs I ran/am most familiar with: Kant, virtue ethics, pragmatism, ubuntu.

- Well-justified normative syllogism > 10 blippy independent reasons to prefer. The best phil affs are those where every part of the syllogism can be strategically leveraged against different possible 1NCs.

- I know all judges say this, but please weigh and do comparative interactions between FW justifications! This means going beyond "and actor spec comes first since different actors have different obligations," but instead doing big picture explanation of the main points of disagreement and using those warrants to take out individual arguments.

- My favorite affs are plan phil affs with offense unique to the plan. I think analytic philosophy in general has a strong Western bias and love to see phil outside the Western canon when it's run well.

- I never understood indexicals and think it's a silly argument. It's fine as a throwaway argument in the 2NR/2AR but I would rather not vote on it.

DA/CP:

- LD 1NCs should spend more time on case in my opinion—many policy affs in LD can either be impact turned or are behind on the internal links debate.

- Cheaty perms are fine as long as you defend your model of CP competition and/or what the opponent has done to justify the perm.

- Weighing arguments should be comparative.

Topicality/Theory:

- A lot of theory shells/dumps are severely underwarranted—please include full warrants for theory arguments in the original speech that they are read in.

- I don't care whether your shell is frivolous.

- Paragraph theory ("x is a voting issue") and full theory shell are both fine.

- Reasonability needs a brightline. "Good is good enough" is not an argument.

- I think Nebel T is probably true on a semantic level and like a good 2NR collapse on semantics.

- No strong biases on condo or other CP theory—just justify why it's good/bad.

Kritiks:

- I am familiar with common Ks (afropess, anti-humanism, setcol, fem, cap, security, etc.). Regardless of my familiarity with your K, you should still give a brief thesis-level explanation of your theory in the 2NR.

- Ks should have link explanations that are contextualized to the aff and impacted out in the 2NR—explain the broader implication of your link arguments beyond just operating under the framing of the K.

- Floating PIKs are fine but the newer it is in the 2NR the more leeway I will give the 2AR to answer them.

Tricks:

- I don't like these arguments but will vote for them if won. I was never the best at flowing fast analytics, so read at your own risk.

- If I just don't understand an argument, I will not vote for it.

- I will evaluate the debate after the 2AR regardless of what arguments are made to the contrary, as it seems infinitely regressive to me to evaluate arguments on this issue.

- EDIT: Please do not read no 2NR I-meets + the N-word shell in front of me—I don't think it's responsible to trivialize serious racial issues in debate. If you read this and there is even a semblance of a response in the 2NR I will not evaluate it.

- EDIT: After judging truth testing + a prioris for 4/6 prelims at Grapevine, I would like to reiterate that I do not enjoy judging these debates. You will have a much better chance of getting higher speaks if you do not go for this strategy in the 2NR/2AR—please be more creative with tricks :(

K Affs and T-FW:

- I vote aff on K affs when the 2AR isolates an explainable impact to voting aff or what the ballot does.

- Affs that defend the topic "as a method of x" and then go for pre-fiat reasons to vote aff seem extra-topical or non-topical to me.

- 2NRs on T-FW should spend more time answering case.

- I think fairness is an impact and intrinsic to debate, but that there can be other impacts that matter more.

I like debate and have been coaching and judging debate for 40 years. I competed in high school policy debate and college NDT and CEDA debate. For most of my career, I coached all events at Okoboji High School in Iowa. I worked for Summit Debate at NDF Boston in Public Forum for 15 years and judged numerous PF LD practice and tournament rounds. I have been the LD coach for Puyallup High School for the past five years. I'm working with the LD, Congress and PF at Puyallup.

The past six years, I've judge LD rounds from novice through circuit tournaments. I judge policy rarely, but I do enjoy it. Paradigms for each follow.

PF This is a debate that should be interesting for all Americans. It should not be overly fast or technical. I will take a detailed flow, and I don't mind terms like link and impact. Evidence should be read, and I expect refutation of important issues, especially the offense presented in the round. Follow the debate rules, and I should be good. The final focus should spend at least some time going over weighing. Be nice to each other, and Grand Cross should not be a yelling match. The summary speaker must extend any arguments to be used in Final Focus. I expect the second speaking team to engage in the arguments presented in the rebuttal. I do not like disclosure theory, and it would be difficult for me to vote for it.

LD - I have judged a lot of circuit rounds over the years but not as many over the past four years. Washington state has a slower speed preference than the national circuit, so I'm not as practiced at that type of speed. My age means I don't flow or hear as well as I use to, so make sure I'm flowing. I like speed, but at rare times I have difficult time keeping up. If this happens, I will let you know. I expect a standard/criterion debate in the round. If you do something else, you must explain to me why it is legitimate. If you run kritiks, DA's, or plans, you must develop them enough for me to understand them. I do not like micropol positions. I will not drop them on face. I don't mind theory, but again, it must be developed. Bad advocacy is bad debating. Lying in the round or during cx will be dealt with severely. CX is binding. I expect clean extensions of arguments, and will give weight to arguments dropped by debaters. I want to be a blank slate in the back of the room. Please tell me why I should vote for you. Deontology frameworks are fine, but they must be justified. Any tricks must be clear, and obtuseness in CX will not be allowed. Finally, I will not vote for disclosure theory unless something weird happens.

Policy died in our circuit, and we were the only team still trying to do it. I haven't coached a policy team for a season since 2010; however, I've had teams go to tournaments in policy for fun and to try it. I've also judged policy debate at district tournaments to fulfill the clean judge rule. I have judged a couple of policy rounds this year, and they were not difficult to judge. Just expect me to like traditional positions.

Watch me for speed. I will try to keep up, but I'm old. It's a lack of hearing that may cause me to fall behind. I will yell "clear," and that probably means slow down. I'll do my best. I like all kinds of policy arguments, and I'm ok with kritiks. You may want to explain them to me a bit better because it may have been awhile since I heard the argument. Besides that, I'm a policy maker unless you tell me to be something else. Theory is ok, but it should be developed. Abuse must be proven in the round. Rebuttals should kick unimportant arguments and settle on a few to delineate. The final speeches should weigh the arguments.

Former high school speech/debate competitor. Fifth year coaching speech/debate. It’s really important for me that you are clear, enunciate carefully and don’t speak so fast I can’t track your points. Sign posting is essential. Show me why you won your case. Focusing on impacts is also important to me.

Doug Weinmaster is a parent judge with prior experience in PF, LD, and IE events.

I do not need off time road maps, and I do not appreciate spreading. I prefer that you weigh your impacts. Please speak at a slow enough pace that I can understand. If I cannot understand you, I will stop flowing.

Contentious but respectful debaters will earn the highest speaker points.

I award "bonus" speaker points for:

a) Reference to a specific type of aircraft or spacecraft;

b) Use of a line from any classic "80's" movie . . . i.e. "I feel the need . . . the need for speed!"; or

c) Reference to, or use of a line from a John Grisham novel or movie about lawyers.

Congratulations - because your participation in Speech & Debate means you have already "won" by developing your skills, knowledge, and confidence!