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Junior Varsity Policy Paradigm List

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Mawuli Agbefe Evanston Twp High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon January 8, 2024 at 3:53 AM CDT

DONT RUN ENACT EXCLUDES courts in front of me. It’s wrong and absurd. What would a topic excluding the Supreme Court look like on criminal justice topic. The resolution says USFG. Supreme Court part of USFG.

put me on the Email chain. Silvermdc1@gmail.com

IN MOST ROunds I’m not reading every card on the doc because it’s a communicative activity. I’ve learned that often some peoples explanation of their evidence doesn’t line up with what the text says. In a situation where I’m on a panel where the other judges are reading the cards I too will as well.

while you’re speaking I prefer you turn your camera on. Understand if you don’t have bandwidth to support it.

I evaluate disease based/ pandemic based impacts much more seriously now due to ongoing effects of COVID 19. I still believe that debate is a game, educational one however I want to fully acknowledge the serious situation of where we are in our country with policing. I’m sure we can have debates while being tactful and understanding for some folks the issue can be personal.

I'll shake your hand if it's like your last round of high school debate and I so happen to judge it. It's weird to me when a kid tries to shake my hand after a round though. I did it when I was debating and didn't realize how odd it was. Oops.

It's likely that I'll laugh some don't take it personally I laugh all the time and I'm not making fun of you. I'm a human being and have lots of beliefs and feelings about debate but I'm persuadable. I don't flow Cross X obviously but sometimes questions and or answers end up impacting my perception of the round.

Arguments that I like hearing

I love the politics disadvantage, I like strategic counterplans. relevant case arguments, specfic d/as to plans.

Non-traditional AFFs or teams.

I'll listen to K affs or teams that don't affirm the resolution. Honestly though it's not my cup of tea. Over the years debate has been changing and I guess I've changed in some ways with it.

Other stuff

NEW Counterplans in the 2NC I'm not cool with unless the 2AC reads an add on.

SPeaker points
I evaluate how well you answered your opponents arguments, ETHOs, persuasiveness, Humor, STRATEGIC DECISIONS. There are times when one team is clearly more dominant or one student is a superior speaker. That's GREAT!! I'm not going to reward you with speaker points for walloping a weaker team. You're not going to be penalized either but it's clear when you have a challenge and when you just get an easy draw in round.

IF I HAVE NEVER MET YOU BEFORE DON'T EMAIL ME ASKING FOR EVIDENCE FROM ROUNDS I JUDGED

ARGUMENTs I'd rather not hear.
SPARK
WIPEOUT

SCHLAG

Schopenhauer

Arguments I find offensive and refuse to flow
RACISM GOOD
PATRIARCHY GOOD

If we're talking about paradigm I view debate as a game. It's an educational game but a game still. I think most rules are debateable. I think speech times are consistent and not a breakable rule, ad-hominem attacks are not acceptable.

Even if your're not friends with your debate partner treat them respect and please no bickering with them.

I'd prefer if people do an e-mail stream instead of flashing or other methods of sharing evidence.

KRITIKS

I'll listen to your criticism. Few things. I think there needs to be a coherent link story with the affirmative, words or scholarship the affirtmative said in cross-x. Your K will not be a viable strategy in front of me without a link story. It's a very tough hill to win a K in front of me without an Alternative. Debaters have done it before but it's been less than 5 times.

Explain and analyze what the alternative does.
Who does it
How does a world compare post alternative to pre-alternative?

NEgative Framework
Should interpt various words in the resolution
Have clear brightline about why your view of debate is best for education
Address proper forums for critical arguments people make
Have voting issues that explain why your vision of debate is desirable.
I prioritize role of the ballot issues.

PERFORMANCE/POEMS/ Interpretive
I'll entertain it I guess, I'm probaly not the most recceptive though. Explain how you want me to fairly evaluate these concerns. Also consider what type of ground you're leaving your opponent without making them go for reprehensible args like: Patriarchy Good or racism good.

Counterplans
Need to have a solvency advocate
A text
Literature
Can be topical in my mind
Net benefit or D/A to prefer CP to aff

Needs to be some breathing room between Counterplan and plan. PICS are fine however I don't think it's legit to jack someone elses aff and making a minute difference there isn't lit for.
Legitimate Competition

A reason the permutation can't work besides theory arguments.

Theory

DON'T JUST READ THEORY BLOCKS AGAINST Each other. Respond in a line by line fashion to opponents theory args. Dropped arguments are conceded arguments obviously. In a close debate don't assume because you have a blippy quick theory argument it's neccessarily going to win you a debate in front of me if you didn't invest much time in it.

Rebuttals
1. Engage with opponents evidence and arguments.
2. Make contextual differences.
3. Humor is fine but don't try to be funny if you're not.
4. Clarity is preferred over speed. Not telling you to go slow but if I can't coherently understand what you're saying we have a problem. Like if you're unclear or slurr a bunch of words while you're spreading.
5. HAVE FUN! Getting trophies and winning tournaments is cool but I'm more concerned what kind of person you're in the process of becoming. Winning isn't everything.

Topicality

Don't trivialize T. Burden is on the affirmative to prove they are topical. I'll listen to reasonablity or competing Interpretations framework. I don't believe in one more than other and can be persuaded either way. Standards by which to evaluate and voting issues are nice things to have in addition to an Interpretation.

Arguments I like on T that I find have been lost to the wayside.

Reasons to prefer source of dictionary, information about changing language norms and meaning, the usage of the word in soceity currently.

Grammar analysis pertaining to the resolution.

Framers Intent/ Resolution planning arguments

Voting issues you think someone who thinks debate is an educational game would like to hear.

Disadvantages

Link Story that is specific to AFFIRMATIVE.

Impacts that would make a worse world than aff.

Author qualifications matter to me, Sources of your evidence matter to me. How well you're able to explain your claims matter to me. Evidentiary comparison to your opponents authors are saying.

General stylistics things

Some kind of labelling for arguments like numbers or letters before the tags is preferrable. If you have questions feel free to e-mail me. silvermdc1@gmail.com

Keith Barnstein Maine East High School 1 rounds

Aasiyah Bhaiji Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 19, 2024 at 9:40 AM CDT

UPDATE FOR TOC 2024

a.bhaijidebate(at)gmail.com

gbsdebatelovesdocs(at)gmail.com

**please add both emails to the chain!**

Aasiyah (ah-see-yuh) Bhaiji (by-jee)

any pronouns (pls don't call me judge)

Debated for GBS 2016-2019, qualified to the TOC my third year and was awarded the JW Patterson Fellowship as a member of the graduating class of 2020. I do not debate in college.

I’ve judged around 30 debates on the fiscal redistribution topic. Most of my work related to debate is with Chicago Debates, where I help to build and maintain programs.

SHORT VERSION

"Do your thing, so long as you enjoy the thing you do. My favorite debates to watch are between debaters who demonstrate a nuanced understanding of their literature bases and seem to enjoy the scholarship they choose to engage in...I think judging is a privilege."-Maddie Pieropan.

I flow as much as my fingers will allow me. Slow down on the important parts and always remember clarity should be prioritized over speed.

LONG VERSION

Debate as an activity loses all value when debaters do not consider that there has to be a reason why a team deserves the ballot. I try my hardest to stick to my flow and rely heavily on judge instruction as to how I will write my ballot. YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO CONNECT THE DOTS FOR YOU.

I appreciate debaters who are passionate, excited, and well-prepared. The best debaters I’ve witnessed throughout the years have been the ones who show kindness and respect towards their partners and opponents. I am not a fan of teams that openly mock, belittle, and disrespect the people they are debating.

Clarity is key and seems to be a lost art. I mostly flow by ear and will not catch what you are saying if you blast through your analytics. Please slow down and do not start at 100% speed at the top of your speech.

Planless Affirmatives

I like planless affirmatives, but you absolutely need to defend the choices and explanations you give in early cross-exes. I need to know what your version of debate looks like, and I am finding that most teams aren’t willing to defend a solid interpretation, which makes it hard for me to vote for them.

Please stick to an interpretation once you’ve read it. Clash debates with affs that are centered around the resolution are fun, and I find myself in the back of those debates most of the time.

CPs

I do not default to judge kick; you have to give me instructions. What does it mean to sufficiently frame something? I am so serious. I have been asking this question for what seems like forever now.

I miss advantage counterplans, and I am a less-than-ideal judge for Process CPs (I'm not saying I won’t vote for them, it might do you well to spend a couple more seconds on process cps good in the block).

Solvency advocates are good but not always necessary.

DAs

Zero risk of the DA is super real; sometimes you might not even need a card for it!

DAs as case turns will inevitably end up on the same flow, so please just tell me where to flow things earlier on in the debate.

Biiig fan of 'em.

“Kritiks that rely entirely on winning through framework tricks are miserable. If I am not skeptical of the aff's ability to solve their internal links or the alt's ability to solve them, then I am unlikely to vote negative.”-AJ Byrne

If you cannot explain your alternative using a vocabulary a 7th grader can understand, you are likely using language and debate jargon that I find counterintuitive and, quite frankly, boring.

Why are we putting this as the first off? I will most likely miss the interpretation if you are speeding through it.

Fairness is an internal link, clash is good and I personally think that more teams should be going for portable skills.

I am not good for “our interpretation is better for small schools”.

Other things:

If I could implement the no more than 5 off rule, I would.Obviously against new affirmatives, the circumstances are different, but I firmly believe that everything in the 1NC should be a viable option for the 2NR.
DISCLOSURE IS GOOD!I will try my hardest to be in the room for when it happens and I am not afraid to check teams wikis to see their disclosure practices. If you post round docs and show before I give you my decision, you will be rewarded.
I am super expressive, and you will be able to tell if I am vibing with whatever you are saying. I do have a very prominent RBF. Don’t take it personally; it means I am trying to get everything down.
Fine with tag-team but have found myself becoming frustrated when one debater from a team dominates all of cx. I do think that all debaters should speak at some point during cross-ex.
CX as prep is only justified when there is a new aff or if you are maverick.
The 1AC should be sent out at the scheduled round start time, the only exception is if the tournament is behind schedule and Tab has alerted everyone of the timing change.

More things I have thought about in regards to debate but aren’t wholly necessary to pre-round prep.

There is a difference between speaking up and yelling, I do not do well with debaters talking over their partners.
STOP HIDING ASPEC ON YOUR FLOWS, say it with your CHEST.
I LOVE good case debating, and I get sad when the block treats it as an afterthought.
I had no idea teams gained the ability to remember every single thing their opponent said. FLOW! PLEASE!
Why are we reading the tier 3 argument against planless affirmatives.... let's start using our critical thinking skills
Rehighlighting evidence is a lost art. Bring it back for 2024
Clipping is bad, don't do it. I will clear you twice, and after that, I will stop flowing. If there is a recording of you clipping, it's an auto loss and a talk with your coach
I flow straight down (primarily because of sloppy line-by-line); the more organized your speeches are, the happier I am.
DRINK WATER
I do not care if you put a single card in the body of the email chain.
Have fun and let the games begin!

Alex Brown Niles West High School 3 rounds

Conor Cameron Solorio Academy High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 1:09 PM CDT

Conor Cameron
ccameron3@cps.edu
he/him/his
Coach, Solorio, 2012 - present

TLDR: Better for CP / DA / impact turn debates

I'll do my best to evaluate arguments as made. When the way I make sense of a debate differs from the way debaters make sense of a debate, here seem to be some common sources of the disparity:

1) I'm pretty ingrained in the offense defense model. This means that even if the NB is dumb, if the aff cannot generate a solvency deficit against the CP, and the aff has no offense against the DA, I am highly likely to vote negative.

Some notes: a) I do not think a solvency deficit needs to be carded; b) more difficult, but I could envision voting on analytic offense against a DA, c) I'm willing to vote on zero risk of the DA, but we'd both benefit from you taking a moment to explain why the offense-defense model is inapplicable in the debate at hand

2) I still think I have a relatively high bar for voting negative on topicality; however, I've tried to begin evaluating this debate more from an offense-defense perspective. In my mind, this means that if the affirmative does not meet the negative's interpretation, and does not have its own counterinterpretation, it is essentially arguing that any affirmative is topical and is conceding a 100% link to the limits disadvantage. I'm highly likely to vote negative in such a debate.

General argument notes:
3) I'm probably more sympathetic to cheaty process counterplans than most.

4) While I may complain, I do vote on the standard canon of negative kritiks. Things like cap, security, standard topic kritiks, etc. are fine. Extra explanation (examples, stories, analogies, etc.) is always appreciated, all the more so the further from my comfort zone you venture.

5) FW vs K Affs: I lean negative. However, I judge few of these debates. Both teams would benefit from accepting that I know very little here, slowing down, speaking clearly, and over-explaining (depth, not repetition) things you assume most judges know.

Other notes
6) I judge because:
a) I still really enjoy debate.
b) Judging is an opportunity to continue to develop my understanding of debate.
c) I am covering my students' judge commitment so that they too can benefit from this activity.

7) Quick reference
Policy---X------------------------------------------K

Tech-----------------------------X-----------------Truth

Read no cards-------X----------------------------Read all the cards

Conditionality good--X----------------------------Conditionality bad

States CP good----X------------------------------States CP bad

Politics DA is a thing-----X------------------------Politics DA not a thing

UQ matters most----------------------X----------Link matters most

Limits----------------------------------X------------Aff ground

Presumption---------------------------------X-----Never votes on presumption

Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev

CX about impacts----------------------------X----CX about links and solvency

Gershom Chan Niles West High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 9:44 AM CDT

Background:

I debated for Niles West in high school and West Georgia in college.
BA in Philosophy.
Currently coaching at Niles West.

Email:

gershom000@gmail.com

Top level things:

If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is.
If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
I’m extremely hesitant to vote on arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.
Absolutely no ties and the first team that asks for one will lose my ballot.
Soliciting any outside assistance during a round will lose my ballot.

Pet peeves:

Lack of clarity. Clarity > speed 100% of the time.
The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start.
Email-sending related failures.
Dead time.
Stealing prep.
Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team.
Asserting things are dropped when they aren't.
Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards.
Marking almost every card in the doc.
Disappearing after the round.
Quoting my paradigm in your speeches.
Sending PDFs instead of Word Docs.

Ethics:

If you are caught clipping you will receive a loss and the lowest possible points.
If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted the lowest possible points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted the lowest possible points.
If you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me.

Cross-x:

Yes, I’m fine with tag-team cx. But dominating your partner’s cx will result in lower points for both of you.
Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions, and I will run the timer accordingly.
If you fail to ask the status of the off, I will be less inclined to vote for condo.
If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate:

I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting.

Affirmatives:

I’m fine with plan or planless affirmatives. However, I believe all affirmatives should advocate for/defend something. What that something entails is up for debate, but I’m hesitant to vote for affirmatives that defend absolutely nothing.

Topicality:

I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise.
The most important thing for me in T debates is an in-depth explanation of the types of affs your interp would include/exclude and the impact that the inclusion/exclusion would have on debate.
5 second ASPEC shells/the like have become nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans:

For me counterplans are more about competition than theory. While I tend to lean more neg on questions of CP theory, I lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps.

Disads:

If you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn, it should go on its own sheet. Failure to do so is super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders.

Kritiks:

The more specific the link the better. Even if your cards aren’t that specific, applying your evidence to the specifics of the affirmative through nuanced analysis is always preferable to a generic link extension.
‘You link you lose’ strategies are not my favorite. I’m willing to vote on them if the other team fails to respond properly, but I’m very sympathetic to aff arguments about it being a bad model for debate.
I find many framework debates end up being two ships passing in the night. Line by line answers to the other team's framework standards goes a long way in helping win framework in front of me.

Theory:

Almost all theory arguments are reasons to reject the argument, condo is usually the only exception.
Conditionality is often good. It can be not. I have found myself to be increasingly aff leaning on extreme conditionality (think many plank cps where all of the planks are conditional + 4-5 more conditional options).
Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

Framework/T-USfg:

I find impacts about debatability, clash, and iterative testing to be very persuasive.
I am not really persuaded by fairness impacts, but will vote on it if mishandled.
I am not really persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.
I am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.
I don't think debate is role-playing.

If the aff drops SSD or the TVA and the 2NR extends it, I will most likely vote neg.

Elyse Conklin Glenbrook South High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 12:10 AM UTC

elyse.conklin@gmail.com

I graduated from the Comm Masters Program at Wake Forest where I coached for two years (2015-2017). I coached Whitney Young Magnet (2010-2014) and Walter Payton College Prep (2014-2018). I am not currently coaching and spent the last couple years working as a pastry chef. I have a good base knowledge of the topic, but I might need some clarity on more niche references to argument trends, particularly T if you want to talk about other team's affs as examples of good or bad education.

“Who did the better debating” will always be the last question I ask myself before hitting the Submit button unless there is an extremely pressing reason not to. This also means I'm hesitant to vote for a team that wins one argument but loses the rest, “cheap shots” have to be well-impacted.

I judged quite frequently when I coached and am well-versed in most areas and styles of debate. I tended to coach "high theory" teams (whatever that means), but I think in order to be good at debate you have to engage and understand what other people are saying. If someone described me as a "technical" judge, I would be pleased. Judges who say "Plan or GTFO" or the reverse are doing everyone a disservice.

I am more dispassionate than dogmatic when it comes to substance -- I try to reward quality, up to date research related to the topic, and to respect the work of debaters and coaches by giving my best effort to give a well-explained decision. At the same time, I'm very willing to vote on presumption if the other side has not given me a coherent, justifiable reason to vote for them. The most direct and creative impact turns from any ideological standpoint make for fun debates. Heg and cap good args are fine enough, but I need these positions to be contextualized within current political events and trends, not only theory and impacts. By the final rebuttals I tend to flow straight down and line them up the best I can, but I prioritize typing the content as much as I can during the speech.

Time your speech, your partner's speech, the other team, and prep. If suddenly it seems like you have given a 12 minute 2AC, I will become even grumpier than usual and dock everyone's speaks .1

Abe Corrigan Glenbrook South High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 23, 2024 at 9:28 AM CDT

Pronouns - him/he\they
Email(s) - abraham.corrigan@gmail.com, acorrigan1@glenbrook225.org, catspathat@gmail.com

Hello!

Thank you for considering me for your debate adjudication needs! Judging is one of my favorite things & I aspire to be the judge I wanted when I debated, namely one who was flexible and would judge the debate based on arguments made by debaters. To do that, I seek to be familiar with all debate arguments and literature bases such that my own ignorance will not be a barrier to judging the arguments you want to go for. This is an ongoing process and aspiration for me rather than an end point, but in general I would say you should probably pref me.

I'm fun!

Sometimes I even have snacks.

<*Judging Quirks*>

- I have absolutely zero poker face and will make a lot of non verbals. Please do not interpret these as concrete/100% definitive opinions of mine but rather as an expression of my initial attempts to place your argument within the particular context of the other arguments advanced in a debate.

- All arguments are evaluated within their particular context - Especially on the negative, as a debater in high school and college I went for and won a lot of debates on arguments which would be described, in a vacuum, as 'bad.' Sometimes, all you have to say is a turd and your rebuttal speeches will largely be what some of my judges described as 'turd-shinning.' This means (unless something extreme is happening which is unethical or triggering my mandatory reporter status as a public school employee) I generally prefer to let the arguments advanced in the debate dictate my view of what is and what isn't a 'good' argument.

- I am not a 'k' or 'policy' judge. I just like debate.

<*My Debate History*>

I am a 2a. This means, if left to my own devices and not instructed not to look for this, the thing that I will implicitly try to do is identify a way to leave stuff better than we found it.

High School

- I debated at H-F HS, in Illinois, for my first two years of debate where I was coached by creeps.

- My junior & senior year in HS I transfered to Glenbrook South where I was coached most by Tara Tate (now retired from debate), Calum Matheson (now at Pitt), & Ravi Shankar (former NU debater).

My partner and I largely went for agenda politics da & process cps or impact turns. We were a bit k curious, but mostly read what would be described as 'policy' arguments.

College

- I debated in college for 4 years at Gonzaga where I was coached by Glen Frappier (still DoF at GU), Steve Pointer (now [mostly] retired from debate), Jeff Buntin (current DoD at NU), Iz-ak Dunn (currently at ASU), & Charles Olney (now [mostly] retired from debate).

My partner and I largely went for what is now be described as 'soft left' arguments on the affirmative and impact turns and unusual counterplans when we were negative.

Coaching

- After graduating, I coached at Northwestern University for a year. My assignments were largely 2ac answers & stuff related to translating high theory arguments made by other teams into things our less k debaters could understand.

- I then moved to Lexington, Kentucky and coached at the University of Kentucky for two years. My assignments were largely aff & all things 2a & answering k stuff on the negative.

- I then coached/did comm graduate work at Wake Forest for two years.

- I then took a break from debate and worked as a paralegal at a law firm which was focused on civil lawsuits against police, prisons, whistleblower protections as well as doing FOIA requests for Buzzfeed.

- I then came back to debate, did some logistics for UK, then Mrs. Corrigan got the GBS job & the rest is history!

Jimi Durkee Hire 5 rounds

Amoravy Gaytan Solorio Academy High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 10, 2024 at 2:11 PM CDT

Avy Gaytan-Aranda

Solorio Academy HS '19

UIUC '23

Short Version

-Tech over truth

-No judge kick

-quality over quantity of evidence

-default my paradigm as a policymaker but open to all arguments

-clash is key to any good debate

-Neg gets presumption

-email chain: amoravyg@gmail.com

Long Version

Short background about me: I debated for Solorio academy(Chicago) for four years. I debated in both the UDL and national circuit. I ran mostly policy through the first half of my career, however my junior and senior year my partner and I became more flex. With that being said, I have debated the most sketchy counterplans all the way to postmodern Ks. I am not familiar with the new topic, my knowledge solely comes from judging so you must provide substance in your debates rather than just jargon.

Affs- K affs: Although I always liked and read Ks, I find it really hard to read K Affs. Not about understating, rather how they are used. Hence, when you read a K AFF do not just stand up and explain what is that you are criticizing but also explain the utility of the aff itself. Make sure to implicitly describe the need to not use a plan, and the need to have the discussions that are being had, because otherwise i will likely lean neg on framework. I genuinely don't have a preference for any form of affirmation of the resolution, you can do any form of performance in front of me.

-By any means feel free to run any aff that you want in front of me.

Ks- I want to hear a good explanation of it, defended well, also explain why it matters more than any other arguments in the round. How the alt solves better ..how the K fw suits best for the round...how it outweighs the aff..how it is a issue in the world of the debate round and the real world, etc. Neg, in order to have weight of the K trough the round, articulate a link, wait, articulate MULTIPLE links on the K, without a link you can't win K. Go beyond the techy sutff and K jargin and go further on, expand on the literature authors and their ideas, and connect them to the debate round, to engage not only with the people in the round, but to orient yourself as debater. In other words have a cohesive understanding of the K. Preference wise, even though I have been policy most of my debate career (so far), I do read K literature on my spare time, so with that being said, I am knowledgeable with Stuff like Wilderson, Sexton, Baudrillard, Agamben. The evidence of the kritik should be pretty extensive and well Also, I encourage to defends a solid solvency mechanism aka a strong alt, otherwise, I view myself judging a non-unique disad. Having a solid alternative is literally the most compelling thing when leveraging a framework and the impacts of a link because it makes it easy for me as a judge to prefer it over any fiated plan. With that being said I don't like voting for kritiks with weak alternatives, because I view it as a burden of the neg to prove how the alt overcomes the link story and the premise highlighted in the kritik, well at least explain how they substantially change the sqou described in the world of the K. Overviews are nice when making the extension of the K in the later speeches of the debate, however be aware of how long it's going to be, should be no more than 45 seconds.

- If you go one off K, do your thing, but a major thing! Learn how to split the block please.

- Any death drive, death good stuff is probably not good in front of me (not with that, nor I like that).

- I probably wont vote for you regardless of how well you defend if you read the following: Time Cube, death good, shreck.

Theory, theory is awesome, theory is the most amazing thing in debate. In my opinion theory debate is underrated and underused in modern debate. However if you are reading theory make it interesting. That being that I love theory on CP debates.

Regarding T, CPs, DAs, etc make sure no nonsense argument to waste time. By that I refer to, run an argument you are comfortable with and don't run random arguments just to catch the other team off guard ,be very strategic.....

- I am very sympathetic towards condo, because I believe in teams reading plus 6 off just to catch other teams not responding to args. However going for condo just because it was dropped is not enough to win my ballot, there has to be substance regarding as to why condo matters specifically in the context of the round and why it matter overall.

Be strategic...

For example....Don't run Baudrillard and a heg DA with a war impact, c'mon, it's pretty self explanatory why not.

CPs- Big fan of consults CPs, Not voting for a counter plan without a net benefit...Also, a MUST when reading a CP, don't just prove how phenomenal a CP is independently, but prove to why the CP is specifically competitive with the Solvency of the Plan. Consider not getting too caught up in the explanation of how the CP works, but rather include comparative analysis to the 1ac, and distinction to the net benefit. Also, yes counterplans could get messy and stuff but overviews are helpful in later speeches in the debate if you want to make the CP a possible 2NR strategy. For AFF teams, theory is phenomenal against counterplans in front of me, I tend to believe that just like the 1ac, the counterplan should be questioned and attacked as much as possible the 1ac. That being by either perms, CP specific DAs, theory, etc.

Multi-plank counterplans are really tricky and fun, however, they could get sketchy, I don't think plank kicking is a thing, you either defend the full counterplan or none of it.

- Functionally competitive CP's are better in my opinion; easier to defend and to debate thoroughly.

Theory on CP's such as agent, delay, or int. fiat probably have some truth value considering how abusive CP's could get, however I don't think that 5-20 second extensions are enough for me to vote for any of the theory arguments on CPs

DAs- Even if I believe your DA is bad/ or non uq, I will still give your 100% risk until proven otherwise.

-Not a fan of the courts DAs, because most of them a false and exaggerated. If you read these, please give me a good link story that is coherent to the aff, thus multiple links make it strong for not only picking fewer in the debate, but using them as case turns if mishandled by the affirmative. Impact analysis along with a strong internal link story will probably be the most important when trying to get my vote because it is up to the aff or neg to either prove why such impacts matter more or less than the others.

-Politics are nice.

T- if you are going for T in the 2NR, you better go for it all 5 minutes, I expect some serious analysis on T if you end up going for it in the 2NR. Definitely a winnable argument considering it is the negatives job to prove that the aff doesn't work/ is not topical to begin with.

- consider having a debate past the interpretation and the "they say-we say" stuff, but prove your voters as being true.

- By default I think reasonability is good, so it's your job to convince me otherwise.

- Set the bar as to why T is an independent reason to not evaluate anything but the argument in the round.

Framework- Awesome!!When reading/going for framework, please have a solid interpretation. Having a vague interpretation makes it hard for me as the judge to validate arguments you claim to solve for. Moreover, when going to framework please engage into a line by line, nonetheless I won't feel convinced that your idea of what debate should be is true or convincing. Why is voting the other team bad for debate? what are the impacts of not having your framework? what makes your framework best for the debate? Please answer these questions when articulating the argument in your speech. Additionally, I don't really buy the "screw debate", "f debate" "debate is bad" framings of debates and rounds. However I do like when frameworks present a challenging paradigm for the round such as "Debate should be a sight of x or y" or "engaging in this form of debate is key because..."

- I also think fairness is not an impact; coming from a small school, it is pretty evident that there is things outside the round that make debate pretty unfair.

Moreover, I find that now days framework debates are very reciprocal..either "aff should defend a hypothetical USFG plan", or "we should test the aff's orientation before anything". Those debates can get boring, try to expand and have creative interpretations, to have clashful and more concise debates. Which overall are way better than having broad big impact debates.

-impact wise...explain how procedural impacts outweigh pre-fiated impacts

Moreover, clash is always the key to a good debate round, thus making it not just educational to you as a debater but to me as a judge too.

In round stuff/Random

- PICs are fine with me but don't be abusive.

-Jokes are nice

-Never make fun of opponent

-Never card clip (although there is some leeway for novices)

-If I suspect any stealing of prep during flashing or w.e, I will be Conor Cameron with time through the rest of the round.

- Remember that debate is not a reading game, it's a thinking game. Thus, warrants win you debates not cards.

-AFF: always disclose affirmative case before the round if asked by the negative team.

Michael Greenstein Glenbrook North 1 rounds

James Hanley Oak Park and River Forest 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed November 11, 2020 at 12:09 PM CDT

"ion like to fight until i'm fightin" ~ Chris Breaux

speech doc email go here: <jhanley@oprfhs.org>

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

TL;DR - aside from the generic 'dO wHaT u Do BeSt AnD i WiLl ChEcK mY bIaS' [revealing tangent: are blank slates kind of a scam? methinks yea] let me just say I am gonna need to see ****DEPTH OVER BREATH**** in your second rebuttals!!!!!

This applies in terms of both argumentative (a) category & (b) number:

-- (a) specific scenario > general condition

-- (b) a singular warranted + impacted claim > stuttered collage of blips

this is for the 2XR, regardless of if we are talking T, policy or Ks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some other significant biases that I most certainly will bring into the room:

* tech + truth = means + ends . . . offense/defense is my default means | ethical agonism is my one & only end

* grounding speeches in the resolution is V important to me but im super game for advocacies that dont fiat shit

* also here for nutty theory debates . . . do Topical cps meet the burden of rejoinder? i won't make assumptions

* off case positions are for cowards !!! >:( but if you must -- probably enjoy T or K most but love a good DA/CP

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Personal Philosophy and/or Proprietary Paradigm:

* SPEECH ACT >>> SPEECH DOC | I am of the pre-paperless age . . . One big change in this regard is that, today, there is a complete and total transparency/accessibility of cards & blocks. Not saying it is good or bad -- just that, when I debated, the judge was unable to read along (they could, if need be, call for cards after the round). And I do think there's something to be said for "just listening" !

* I VOTE FROM THE FLOW ALONE | [see above re: speech docs]. If you want a "line" on that flow to affect my decision, it MUST SATISFY all four of the following:

1. appear in >1/4 of your speeches . . . more air time = more weight generally

2. summarize your opponent's response and provide some counter-argument

3. fit into the larger story of what my ballot is doing in this round . . . another way to say this is that EVERYTHING needs to have an "impact" whether it be to establish the uniqueness of a situation, articulate the internal link between phenomena, or explicitly compare ethical priorities

4. have concrete warrant(s) drawing upon a form of history , science , or logic

~ [5.] & get extra speaker points for spinning a yarn and/or cracking a joke !!! ~

* DOCENDO DISCIMUS | Debate is this crazy place where the students profess while teachers pay attention -- a dramatic reversal of the situation that defines our educational system. In other words, this is an activity where the instructor takes instruction. You should make the most of this dynamic and, rather than worry about "if I will listen" to your case, simply move me to sign the ballot in your favor. Make me laugh, make me cry, make me think!

__________[[Experience & Education]]____________

** Debated four years on the midwest / nat'l circuits (2x TOC)

** been out the game since 2011 but I still got some love for it

** ask me about: Silicon Valley; Micronesia; South Side Chicago

Roland Kim New Trier High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Fri March 11, 2022 at 2:02 PM EDT

Updated as of The 2022 IDCA Tournament

Email: rolandhkim@gmail.com

Summary:

Hi! I debated for New Trier, where I went to the TOC thrice and received many speaker awards/bids.

I am majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics and Asian American Studies. This is meant to illustrate that I am down for any argument - from Politics to an Identity K - but greater explanation may be needed for more nuanced and/or topic-specific positions.

Tech>Truth, with an emphasis on implicit argument interaction (i.e., even if a team doesn't explicitly say it, knowing X is true means Y has to also be true). It is your job, in order to minimize "judge intervention," to make these implicit interactions EXPLICITLY stated.

I typically won't read evidence unless you a) tell me and b) give a sufficient explanation of it. However, murkier/closer debates will lead me to do more decision-making based on evidence quality/implicit argument interaction.

Explanation > Outspreading.

I am in no way a perfect adjudicator. Feel free to post-round!

Well-formatted speech docs will steal my heart.

Specific-Issues/HoT TaKeS:

The rest of the paradigm is my opinion on various debate issues. Technical debating, however, can always persuade me in the opposite direction.

Theory --

Presumption = least amount of change.

Yes judge kick.

Vagueness/"_"SPEC are legit arguments if abuse.

Definitions for topicality/perm competition is about what an interpretation ought to be, for competitive debate purposes, rather than a debate about what it literally means. This means that for PDCP, conceding "XYZ counterplan is good" will really hurt your chances of winning. If, for instance, process counterplans are good for neg ground, I'm going to have a tough time justifying why I should vote for an aff interp of "should" that would eliminate such ground. This doesn't mean that predictability/precision arguments aren't valuable, but rather that you need to impact them in a way that is not just "because this definition is true, vote for us" (anyways, this is pretty rare in T/Competition debates).

Impact your standards (e.g. clash and education matter b/c ____).

Compare (e.g. limits > ground, err neg > aff, etc.).

If you're AFF and debating T, please extend reasonability!

If you're NEG, don't be shy to read a ton of planks/fiat through deficits!

Counterplans --

Sufficiency arguments need to be contextualized to the aff's solvency mechanism/arguments.

I am not one of those judges that thinks it is a sin to read Process/"Cheating" counterplans.

Advantage counterplans are low-key OP.

Disadvantage --

Link turns case > internal link turns case > impact turns case

Specific link cards are great. But, having specific link explanation that uses the warrants of a generic link to apply it is also perfectly acceptable.

Kritiks --

Reps K's = <3, ditto for "you link back to your reps so you shouldn't win on FW."

Capitalize on soft-left teams making arguments like "Consequentialism Bad" and "We're a step in the right direction."

I'm more persuaded by FW arguments specific to debate (e.g. debate's justifications for extinction is dehumanizing). This is also true for K AFF v. FW debates, whether it be procedural fairness, debate-based identity arguments, or something else.

Miscellaneous --

Zero-risk is usually tough barring concessions.

More teams should frame their offense as linear if they're worried about losing on "zero-risk".

Smart analytics can destroy most pieces of evidence .

RECUT EVIDENCE!

Extreme impact framing (e.g. "X" FIRST) is sad, but it only matters if you point out why. It would benefit aff/neg teams to defend more "reasonable" framing arguments (e.g., magnitude x probability, contextualized securitization bad) in front of me.

Walter Lindwall Niles West High School 4 rounds

Jackson Miller New Trier High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Tue April 11, 2023 at 5:55 PM CDT

[Names of schools, years of graduation]

I debated for [number] years and made it to [a hotel ballroom nobody cares about].

Have fun always, try your best always. Like really I put it at the top for a reason. Don't insult your opponents. Don't be mean to your partner. The more you think you're better than them the more I'm gonna want you to be wrong.

Put me on the email chain please: jacksonemdebate@gmail.com

I wanted to try and come up with a good song for you to listen to as you read my paradigm like I do with every topic. It's kinda hard to hit all three areas of the topic at once, maybe try like this (although it's definitely not long enough). I feel like this might be the closest I can get since it involves like resurrection which I guess is like biotechnology.

General

(Disclaimer: I like to think I judged decently actively on arms sales and cjr (a combined 75 rounds if I'm counting correctly), but the only judging I did on water was a single season opener. On top of that, I've gotten a lot further into my computer science education since the last time I judged - I'm now officially an incoming software engineer - which I'm sure has radically altered the way I think about things, and probably mostly in ways I'm yet to realize. I wrote this paradigm like 3 years ago and it hasn't changed at all (beyond me removing cynical comments about the debate community that I'm no longer qualified to make 3 yrs out of debate), whereas I myself probably have changed somewhat.)

I know jack-squat about [topic], both in terms of the actual issue as well as how people have been debating it this year. So, I can’t wait for you to teach me! What I can assure you of though is that I’ll never go on facebook or anything during either speeches or cross-ex, and frankly that’s more than some judges can say.

Short version: Tech over truth. Long version: Remember that I am mortal. I would say evaluate my argument preferences under the assumption that those arguments have not been dropped/critically under-covered. Everybody says and understands that the judge votes for whoever best persuaded them, and that's true. But, I think what people often miss is that the judge isn't being persuaded in terms of which team they think is "right," but rather which team they think won the round.

Debaters have been telling me that the K has become more popular as judges and debaters have become more familiar with it. I have like, not judged enough at a high enough level to be part of that shift.

[Statements that amount to "Make good arguments"]

Getting the sense defense has become severely underrated.

I get annoyed when judge paradigms tell you to "act like you care," because I think what they're really saying is "act like you care about winning." In reality, all you should be caring about is just debate itself - and that's distinct. So, I'll tell you to care about debate. I'd maintain that policy debate is a very, uh...heuristic environment, and I stuck with it (kinda?) and am better off for it. But if you still don't care, just stop going to debate tournaments if you can. There's nothing wrong with not liking debate or not caring about it, and you don't owe it to anybody to participate if you really just don't wanna. But on a intra-tournament, round-to-round basis, not putting in full effort is probably bad.

Don'ts

Don't read suicide good. Don't read extinction good. Don't read warming good. Don't read racism good. Don't read sexism good. etc.

Boo to the Schlaang super seat and AntoniNO. I'm gonna suggest you don't read Baudrillard (I hope I spelled that incorrectly), both in front of me and in front of all your other judges.

Don't say "no neg fiat." If you read troll arguments like consult asgard or like time triangular pyramid I'll dock the 2N's speaks.

S e n d a n a l y t i c s.

K Affs

I'm not calling them "planless affs" or "performance affs" or wutevr so that might already give you some indication.

The point of debate is to gain critical thinking skills by repeatedly practicing the comparative analysis of theoretical worlds (counting the squo as one) by framing facts and deductions as uniqueness, links, impacts, etc as a means of trying to understand the implication of those facts upon the imagined theoretical worlds. Critical thinking skills =/= the skill of criticizing things - that's just a coincidence in their spelling. Though, it also isn't at all as though those two concepts are just completely decoupled.

You can win without reading a plan, but you're going to have a rough time unless you have some reason why reading your aff and receiving a ballot improves the status quo. There are many ways to accomplish this and I really want you do at least one of them.

I'd say I find many of the framework arguments both neg and aff teams make to be pretty unconvincing and unoriginal. Neg teams, I'd love for you to think about why k affs would be hard to debate against even if they were predictable. Aff teams, I'd love to hear about why an inability to engage institutions irl means it's bad to debate [topic] in theory/as an educational exercise to practice critical thinking. I could write a million of those requests.

This is gonna sound silly, but I honestly don't find fairness or predictability to be that convincing, at least not in the way I often saw them deployed. Like personally, never once have I heard of a high school debater or coach putting in the time to cut a case neg to an aff unless they already knew for a fact that that aff was being read by a team they were particularly afraid of. Yet at the same time, I do not at all think "predictability" is pointless to talk about. For fairness, I guess I'll just say "fairness is an internal link". I encourage you to really think about what people can get out of debate and what things like fairness and predictability really look like and what their implications are.

*Run framework*. Otherwise, I will be sad and not like the round very much so like just please do. If you think running framework is unethical or wutevr please strike me. Lol I had to have at least one of those in here.

Get creative with your 1NCs. Think about what new opportunities unconventional affs might afford you, both in terms of positions and args within flows. If a center-left layperson wouldn't think it's "unethical" to read, I probably won't either.

I feel like a lot of times when aff teams say "debate isn't a game," they still treat it like it is one.

Neg Kritiks

I'll definitely vote for some Ks, but if your link is only "you use the state" or "you use the [topic]” you're gonna have a tough time getting me to vote for the K.

I didn't even actually debate the [topic] topic I'm sorry I was just trying to look edgy.

But seriously, links are the most important part of K debates and DA debates alike because they, and they alone, are the root for any comparative analysis you can do. They are the only direct way for *you* to illustrate a distinction between the world you're advocating for and the world your opponents are advocating. All of your internal links and impacts are just arguments for why that discrepancy matters. (Okay yeah if they're running a CP differences between worlds are more obvious.)

Number one tip I would say - both to the aff and the neg - is just impact out your args. Never assume I know why you auto-win if you "win the ontology debate." Similarly, you need to explain, impact and probably persuade me of things like "fiat isn't real" and "social death." It is likely that your "tricks" are - in my eyes - actually just bad arguments. Don't get me wrong: a dropped arg is a dropped arg, but a prerequisite to something being a dropped arg is it *being an arg*.

****

Also just like generally about "dropped arguments" - an argument being dropped means that it is substantially easier to extend, not that you no longer have to extend it. If you wanna go for a "dropped argument" in front of me then you should make sure to mention that argument's claim and warrant (and, in rebuttals, its implications for how the round should be decided) in every speech from when you first read it until the debate ends.

****

I default to assuming that the K has to have an alt that solves impacts and is mutually exclusive with the aff. If the impacts the k solves aren't as important as the one the aff solves, I'll vote aff.

"Extinction already 'happens, happened, or will have had happened' for x ppl bc social death" is a hard sell for me, especially if you're trying to argue that it means nuclear war isn't bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPH-br_eJQ

Go to case. Like with *defense*.

Go to case. Seriously.

CPs

Have as many planks as you want. You can read new planks. You can probably amend existing planks, too.

Having a good solvency advocate (so like one from a source actually written in the context of [topic]) usually makes me think a counter-plan is more theoretically legit.

Love an intelligent counter-plan. I don't like process CPs but they definitely are a thing people read.

Theory and T

Honestly, refer to K aff section.

Probably won't win on T unless the aff really isn't T and there's some concrete, specific abuse. The abuse is less of an internal link to a fairness based-RoB and more just really strong evidence for why their model of debate is bad.

I'm much more likely to vote on theory and T when I'm convinced there was in-round abuse. I lean neg on condo but definitely do not think infinite condo is okay.

Everything Else

[Irrelevant opinions] (I mean to be fair that's like most of this paradigm but)

[Relevant opinions immediately made irrelevant by a barrage of qualifiers]

Other

[Encouraging you to make jokes even though in reality that always plays out really awkwardly in round]

Magi Ortiz Hire 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 13, 2023 at 11:46 AM EDT

mx.ortiz.m@gmail.com

Assistant Coach @ Mamaroneck, 2020-2021

Assistant Coach @ Lexington, 2019-20

Debated @ Northside College Prep, 2015-19

TL;DR

The sections below this are a set of my opinions on debate, not a stringent set of guidelines that I always adhere to when making decisions. I encourage you to go for the arguments that you enjoy instead of overcorrecting to my paradigm. I tend to like most arguments - my only distinction between good and bad debates is whether or not your argumentation is strategic and nuanced.

I think CX is heavily underutilized by most debaters. Organized debates make my job easier and are more enjoyable.

Non-negotiables:

I won’t vote on things that have happened outside of the round.

There is a fine line between being assertive and being rude in CX - please be aware of it.

Don’t threaten others or make harmful comments about someone or a group of people - you will lose the round and I will talk with your coaches.

Non-Traditional Affs/Clash Debates

It’s hard for me to be convinced that policy debate actively creates bad people OR perfect policymakers; I think there’s value in challenging our understanding of the resolution and debate itself, but I also don’t think T is inherently violent.

In clash debates, I tend to vote negative when the affirmative fails to parse out the unique benefits of their model of debate, and tend to vote affirmative when the negative fails to grapple with the applicable offense of case. Organization often falls by the wayside in these debates, so I would encourage you to identify the nexus questions of the debate early and compartmentalize them to one area of the flow.

Fairness can be an impact, but it is not one by default - that requires explanation. I’ll vote for any impact on FW if effectively argued, but I personally like strategies centered around truth-testing/dogmatism. I think skepticism is healthy and that breaking out of our preferred ideological bubbles results in more ethical and pragmatic decision-making over time, but I can also be persuaded that the method the aff defends can also be consistently ethical/beneficial.

Aff teams are overly reliant on exclusion/policing arguments but almost never actually impact out the tangible consequences of the negative model as a result, or provide a reason why the ballot would resolve this. If arguments like these are what you like going for, I suggest you codify them within a reasonability paradigm that criticizes the usefulness of the competing interpretations model when it comes to K Affs.

I will say that I am quite partial to teams that go for the K against non-traditional affs (I judge FW debates frequently, and they get repetitive). Most K affs nowadays are specifically tailored to beat FW and generally rely on generic permutations to beat back K’s. I can be easily convinced that permutations exist to compare the opportunity cost of combining specific policies, and that in debates of competing methodologies the evaluating point of the debate should be reliant on who had broader explanatory power and a more effective orientation. How I decide that is up to what parameters you establish within the debate.

Kritiks

I’m not opposed to any of them. However, I do prefer techy K debaters - overviews should be short and the substantive parts of the debate should be done on the respective parts of the line by line.

Specificity goes beyond good links - nuanced impact and turns case explanations make it easier to vote on something tangible as opposed to nebulous platitudes. It’s easy to tell when you have a generic link wall with fill-in-the-blanks like “insert aff impact” “aff mechanism” etc.

For both teams - know the broader theories that your arguments function within (i.e. understanding what theory of IR your authors defend, or actually knowing a decent amount about the author your K is named after). Understanding these concepts outside of the context of debate will give you the tools to be more specific in round, and will often give you additional ways to leverage offense.

Aff teams with extinction impacts - stop overcorrecting to the negative team's strategy. Extinction is extinction, which is easily defensible as bad - if you're not link turning the K/going for the perm, I find it strange when the 1AR/2AR try to subsume the K's impacts/offense by describing how the inroads to extinction would be bad for X group the K is worried about ("nUcLeAr StRiKeS tArGeT uRbAn CeNtErS") ... because extinction, in the end, kills everyone. Also, K teams often capitalize on this arbitrary framing and make it a new link. Don't waste your time - win that you get to weigh your impacts and then win that your impacts outweigh.

CP’s

The more specific, the better.

Yes judge kick. “Status quo is always an option,” once said, is sufficient enough for me to be willing to kick the CP unless the aff explicitly challenges it in both aff rebuttals.

Condo is good. If the 2AR is condo, it's either been dropped or you think it is your only road to victory.

I lean neg on most theory issues, but can be convinced that process CPs and 50 state/NGA fiat are bad for debate.

Invest time and organization into the competition debate - meta definitions matter just as much as word definitions in these debates because they are about competing models.

Severance perms are probably always bad, but intrinsic perms can be very useful if you know how to defend them well.

DA’s/Case turns

Love them, even the crappy ones - there's nothing more fun than watching someone very effectively debate in favor of something everyone in the round knows is ridiculously unlikely.

Winning framing does not mean you win terminal defense to the DA. Winning that a DA is low risk comes from substantive arguments, and then how the framing debate is resolved dictates whether or not risk probability matters. Seriously. Nebulous arguments about the conjunctive fallacy or the general low risk of existential impacts mean nothing if the 2NR can just get up and point to a unique internal link chain on their DA that has not been contested.

Impact turn debates are some of my favorite rounds to judge, but unfortunately I am often left to resolve stalemates within a debate by reading a bulk of the cards in the round and then determining on my own which ones are better, which I think functions as a disservice to everyone in the round. I don’t think that having less/worse ev necessarily means you’ll lose the debate, but you must have constant and effective comparison in-round.

Topicality+

Evidence comparison matters. Terminal impacts are important - so many 2NRs don't do this work (why, I don't know). Not enough teams are going for T against the egregious number of bad affs on this topic.

I don't like arguments like Embody PTX because I don't think there is a way to enforce them as a model and thus lend themselves to problematic enforcement, and it frustrates me when affirmative teams don't make the obvious case for this being true.

Aff teams should be going for reasonability more often against nitpicky T violations - not as a vague appeal, but as a better heuristic than competing interps.

Stephen Pipkin Glenbrook North 4 rounds

KJ Reese Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 8, 2024 at 1:29 AM PDT

Last updated pre-Michigan Camp Tourney 2023.

Policy debater at McQueen High School for 4 years (2015-2019), Policy debater at UMich (2019-2021).

Former coach at Glenbrook South (2022) and SLC West (2019-2021).

Got my Masters in Secondary Education from UMich (2023). I am a secondary social studies teacher in Michigan.

Rounds judged on the 2023-2024 topic: 1!

Please add me on the email chain: reesekatej@gmail.com

My pronouns are they/them. I am white. I am a friggin bum. I do live in a trailer with my mom. I have no need for trigger warnings. Don’t be mean and don’t be sexist/racist/homophobic etc.

I have no paradigms I explicitly look to for inspiration, but in life I am very inspired by Ricky LaFleur if that is any indication of my intelligence or judging style.

TL;DR: none of these are really hot takes, just debate well and explain stuff. Debate is about denial and error, don't be afraid to try something risky in front of me. I'm a middle-of-the-road judge, I judge a lot of clash debates.

*For Public Forum specific info, scroll to the bottom.

******Random Predispositions******

- Animal suffering is a relevant utilitarian consideration. You can beat animal Schopenhauer/human death good, it would be screwy if I auto-voted on that, but don’t assume I’m presumptively human-biased.

- If you run the “Speaks K”, I will auto-deduct .2 speaks.

- Accidentally using words like "stupid" or "crazy" is usually solved by an apology and would not warrant a loss.

- Write your plans/CPs correctly.

- I'd prefer you don't talk to me while your opponent is prepping.

******Thoughts on various arguments******

I feel like I’ve become somewhat neg leaning in T debates. This is because sometimes the aff is not good at extending offense to their interpretation when they don’t decisively meet the negative’s interp. I generally default to an offense/defense paradigm when evaluating T. So, affirmative, you need to have offense to your interp, or you need to persuasively explain why you meet their interp. Negative, not much to say for you here. One of the things you need to do is provide a positive and a negative caselist for your interp. Absent a positive caselist (i.e. the list of cases the aff could read), I find the aff’s overlimiting/predictability offense much more persuasive.

Also, it doesn't take rocket appliances to compare interpretation evidence, you should do it so I don't have to after the round and give you an RFD you won't like.

I like kritiks, I will listen to any kritik. I am a sucker for psychoanalysis and settler colonialism, but I like em all. Please be clear on what the alternative does and defend your worldview. I like links that are specific to the aff. I generally default to weighing the aff against a competitive alternative, unless someone tells me otherwise.

Role of the judge: Not to sleep through pairings, but I’m open to alternatives

Extinction first framing is persuasive to me, please spend time on this argument. I see a lot of K teams in high school blow this off and I have no idea why. It is a very easy way to lose the debate.

This is especially important if you are aff: perms need to have a perm text. Saying "perm", "extend the perm", and then not saying what the perm is or does irks me and doesn't constitute a complete argument. It is especially hard to evaluate when you have read 6 perms and then you just say "extend the perm" and I don't know which one you are going for.

Thoughts specific to antiblackness - I am most persuaded by specific examples on both sides. Explaining the three pillars and the libidinal economy to me isn't enough - I need specific examples of laws or actions that prove your theory as opposed to pure description.

Thoughts specific to settler colonialism - I am not sure how you can get to "settler colonialism/indigeneity etc. is ontological" by regurgitating gratuitous violence, natal alienation and general dishonor and applying it to indigenous people. Because of my thoughts above, I don't find this persuasive, but its double confusing for me because these are different areas of scholarship.

I love disads, which is unfortunate considering that there aren’t a lot of good ones on this topic. I read a lot of cards in DA/DA + CP debates, so my advice is to do a little ev comparison here and read good evidence to begin with. DAs start at 100 percent risk and the aff should take it down from there.

I am typically unpersuaded by short analytical turns case analysis in most disad overviews - I would recommend you read cards unless you can very persuasively explain a turns case argument without one.

Yay, I like counterplans! The more creative the better, get wild with it.

I like plan flaw debates and counterplan flaws matter. Write your counterplan texts correctly.

If the CP debate is gonna be heavy on CP competition, understand that English grammar/the dictionary don't interest me in the slightest and you're going to have to explain to me what a "transitive verb" is if it becomes relevant. And especially on this topic when the definition of the word "the" is apparently so important, for the love of god do some ev comparison or impact out what these definitions mean for debate-ability or something.

Case

I love case debate. If you're negative, point out errors in aff construction and debate impact defense well. If you're affirmative, defend your baby.

Impact turn debates are my absolute favorite to judge, as they often are the best for evidence comparison and impact calculus iv you do them right.

I would prefer if you explicitly extended each impact you're going for in the 2AC. Listing a bunch off with no explanation or saying "we have impacts, they dropped them" makes impact comparison harder for me and it just isn't persuasive.

For soft left affs/framing: I'm sympathetic to probability claims coming from soft left affs but am much more persuaded by claims about why discussing structural violence impacts in debate is important or a deontology angle. For example, I would prefer you say "we should prioritize structural violence impacts in debate because that's what we are most likely to be able to engage with in real life/extinction framing indefinitely obscures structural violence" as opposed to "probability first = util" because the l think the latter is just untrue.

Non-plan affs/K affs

I used to say I wasn’t good for K aff debates, but people kept reading K affs in front of me and I realized I will vote for anything.

I think debate is a game, but you can still win a K aff. You can also persuade me that debate is something more than a game. I will listen K aff debates and evaluate them like I would any other round, but I have a few preconceptions that are relevant. If you're aff, leveraging your offense against clash/fairness/advocacy skills etc. is a good way to get me to vote aff. I am unpersuaded by affs that can't defend that there is some value in negating the aff unless your aff is some flavor of a) debate bad, b) a survival strategy, or c) anything where you argue that negation is bad or unnecessary.

If you're neg, the framework debate can be fairly generic but I think you should still address the components of the case debate that can be used as offense against framework. I am persuaded by procedural fairness as an impact, although I find that debates are easier to evaluate if you go for something external. I also enjoy when neg teams read a K or a DA against non-plan affs. It makes the debate much more interesting.

Theory/Other Issues

I don't unconditionally support conditionality. Feel free to go for condo bad if you're aff, just debate it well. Other theory issues are usually a reason to reject the argument, not the team (unless you just plain drop it).

I often notice that teams will read their generic theory block and not answer the specific standards of their opponent and then leave me to compare for them. If this happens in a theory debate, I usually just default to not rejecting the argument/team.

******CX Stuff******

Although I might seem like I’m not paying attention, don’t judge a cover of a book by its look - I listen to cross examination intently, I just want to avoid staring at my computer screen during online debates so I don't get eye strain.

I’m okay with tag team cross ex but please don’t talk over your partner if you can help it. Remember, a link is only as long as your strongest long chain - it is better to develop CX skills and improve for the benefit of the partnership in the long term, so don’t worry if your partner sounds a little silly or if you think you can answer a question better than them. You can interrupt if needed, but don't make it egregious.

******FUN******

Stuff/people I like that you can reference in your speeches: Trailer Park Boys, Eminem, Minecraft, Kurt Fifelski and Thomas Nelson Vance. Ask your parents permission before seeking out info on any of this media.

Health tip – eat more soluble fiber!

Thanks for reading, have a fun round, and feel free to ask questions if my paradigm is unclear.

******For PF/LD******

I have not judged much PF or LD and I have a limited understanding of some of the norms and practices of the event. I have seen a few rounds before so it’s not completely new to me. Odds are I will end up evaluating your round like I would evaluate a policy round, so see above. Counterplans (if that is what you call them) are presumed OK in my book unless someone convinces me otherwise. Spreading is also fine unless someone convinces me otherwise. I promise I have brain cells and I know what the topic is. Ask me questions if stuff in my paradigm doesn't make sense and I will explain it.

Nathaniel Sawyer Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds None

Parth Shah Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 6, 2024 at 7:57 AM EDT

pasdebate@gmail.com

Subject the email chain - Tournament Name Round # - Aff Team AFF vs Neg Team NEG

Debated at Maine East (2016-2020, TOC Circuit) and the University of Pittsburgh (2020-2023, NDT Qual)

I will boost speaker points if you follow @careerparth on tiktok, bring (vegetarian) food/snacks, and end the debate as fast as possible.

I took most of this paradigm from Reed Van Schenck:

Career wise, my arguments of preference were more critical (Afropessimism, Settler Colonialism, Capitalism, and the likes). I enjoy judging clash debates, policy vs critical. Traditional policy debaters should take note of my lack of experience in policy v policy debates and rank me very low on their judging preferences.

The one thing you should know if you want my ballot is this: If you say something, defend it. I mean this in the fullest sense: Do not disavow arguments that you or your partner make in binding speeches and cross-examination periods, but rather defend them passionately and holistically. If you endorse any strategy, you should not just acknowledge but maintain its implications in all relevant realms of the debate. The quickest way to lose in front of me is to be apprehensive about your own claims.

When in doubt, referring to the judging philosophies of the following folks will do you well: Micah Weese, Reed Van Schenck, Calum Matheson, Alex Holguin, & Alex Reznik

Everything below this line is a proclivity of mine that can be negotiated through debate:

I think that debate is a game with pedagogical and political implications. As such, I see my role as a judge as primarily to determine who won the debate but also to facilitate the debaters' learning. Everything can be an impact if you find a way to weigh it against other impacts, this includes procedural fairness. When my ballot is decided on the impact debate, I tend to vote for whoever better explains the material consequence of their impact. Use examples. Examples can help to elucidate (the lack of) solvency, establish link stories, make comparative arguments, and so many more useful things. They are also helpful for establishing your expertise on the topic. All thing said, at the end of the day, I will adapt to your argument style.

I dislike judges who exclude debaters because of what they decide to read in a debate round, I will NOT do that as long as you don't say anything racist, sexist, etc.

Speaker points are arbitrary. I tend to give higher speaker points to debaters who show a thorough understanding of the arguments they present. I am especially impressed by debaters who efficiently collapse in the final rebuttals. I will boost speaker points if rebuttals are given successfully with prep time remaining and/or off the flow!

Public Forum Debate

The faster you end the debate, the higher your speaks.

I am a flow-centric judge on the condition your arguments are backed with evidence and are logical. My background is in policy debate, but regardless of style, and especially important in PF, I think it's necessary to craft a broad story that connects what the issue is, what your solution is, and why you think you should win the debate.

I like evidence qualification comparisons and "if this, then that" statements when tied together with logical assumptions that can be made. Demonstrating ethos, confidence, and good command of your and your opponent's arguments is also very important in getting my ballot.

I will like listening to you more if you read smart, innovative arguments. Don't be rude, cocky, and/or overly aggressive especially if your debating and arguments can't back up that "talk." Not a good look.

Give an order before your speech

Ashton Smith Maine East High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Fri December 1, 2023 at 7:41 PM EDT

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.

Wayne Tang Northside College Preparatory 3 rounds

Put me on the email chain (WayneTang@aol.com). (my debaters made me do this, I generally don't read evidence in round)

General Background:
Former HS debater in the stone ages (1980s) HS coach for over many years at Maine East (1992-2016) and now at Northside College Prep (2016 to present). I coach on the north shore of Chicago. I typically attend and judge around 15-18 tournaments a season and generally see a decent percentage of high level debates. However, I am not a professional teacher/debate coach, I am a patent attorney in my real (non-debate) life and thus do not learn anything about the topic (other than institutes are overpriced) over the summer. I like to think I make up for that by being a quick study and through coaching and judging past topics, knowing many recycled arguments.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
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 a hard road, but I think it is possible to reduce risk to zero or close enough to it based on defensive arguments.

TOPICALITY
I vote on T relatively frequently over the years. I believe it is the negative burden to establish the plan is not topical. Case lists and arguments on what various interpretations would allow/not allow are very important. I have found that the limits/predictability/ground debate has been more persuasive to me, although I will consider other standards debates. Obviously, it is also important how such standards operate once a team convinces me of their standard. I will also look at why T should be voting issue. I will not automatically vote negative if there is no counter-interpretation extended, although usually this is a pretty deep hole for the aff. to dig out of. For example, if the aff. has no counter-interpretation but the neg interpretation is proven to be unworkable i.e. no cases are topical then I would probably vote aff. As with most issues, in depth analysis and explanation on a few arguments will outweigh many 3 word tag lines.

COUNTERPLANS
Case specific CPs are preferable that integrate well (i.e., do not flatly contradict) with other negative positions. Clever wording of CPs to solve the Aff and use Aff solvency sources are also something I give the neg. credit for. It is an uphill battle for the Aff on theory unless the CP/strategy centered around the CP does something really abusive. The aff has the burden of telling me how a permutation proves the CP non-competitive.

KRITIKS
Not a fan, but I have voted on them numerous times (despite what many in the high school community may believe). I will never be better than mediocre at evaluating these arguments because unlike law, politics, history and trashy novels, I don’t read philosophy for entertainment nor have any interest in it. Further (sorry to my past assistants who have chosen this as their academic career), I consider most of the writers in this field to be sorely needing a dose of the real world (I was an engineer in undergrad, I guess I have been brainwashed in techno-strategic discourse/liking solutions that actually accomplish something). 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 Disad in the policy realm. As such it will probably receive very little weight if challenged by the aff. You must be able to distill long boring philosophical cards read at hyperspeed to an explanation that I can comprehend. I have no fear of saying I don’t understand what the heck you are saying and I will absolutely not vote for issues I don’t understand. (I don’t have to impress anyone with my intelligence or lack thereof and in any case am probably incapable of it) If you make me read said cards with no explanation, I will almost guarantee that I will not understand the five syllable (often foreign) philosophical words in the card and you will go down in flames. I do appreciate, if not require specific analysis on the link and impact to either the aff. plan, rhetoric, evidence or assumptions depending on what floats your boat. In other words, if you can make specific applications (in contrast to they use the state vote negative), or better yet, read specific critical evidence to the substance of the affirmative, I will be much more likely to vote for you.

PERFORMANCE BASED ARGUMENTS
Also not a fan, but I have voted on these arguments in the past. I am generally not highly preferred by teams that run such arguments, so I don't see enough of these types of debates to be an expert. However, for whatever reason, I get to judge some high level performance teams each year and have some background in such arguments from these rounds. I will try to evaluate the arguments in such rounds and will not hesitate to vote against framework if the team advocating non-traditional debate wins sufficient warrants why I should reject the policy/topic framework. However, if a team engages the non-traditional positions, the team advocating such positions need to answer any such arguments in order to win. In other words, I will evaluate these debates like I try to evaluate any other issues, I will see what arguments clash and evaluate that clash, rewarding a team that can frame issues, compare and explain impacts. I have spent 20 plus years coaching a relatively resource deprived school trying to compete against very well resourced debate schools, so I am not unsympathetic to arguments based on inequities in policy debates. On the other hand I have also spent 20 plus years involved in non-debate activities and am not entirely convinced that the strategies urged by non-traditional debates work. Take both points for whatever you think they are worth in such debates.

POINTS

In varsity debate, I believe you have to minimally be able to clash with the other teams arguments, if you can’t do this, you won’t get over a 27.5. Anything between 28.8 and 29.2 means you are probably among the top 5% of debaters I have seen. I will check my points periodically against tournament averages and have adjusted upward in the past to stay within community norms. I think that if you are in the middle my points are pretty consistent. Unfortunately for those who are consistently in the top 5% of many tournaments, I have judged a lot of the best high school debaters over the years and it is difficult to impress me (e.g., above a 29). Michael Klinger, Stephen Weil, Ellis Allen, Matt Fisher and Stephanie Spies didn’t get 30s from me (and they were among my favorites of all time), so don’t feel bad if you don’t either.

OTHER STUFF
I dislike evaluating theory debates but if you make me I will do it and complain a lot about it later. No real predispositions on theory other than I would prefer to avoid dealing with it.

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex.

I do not count general tech screw ups as prep time and quite frankly am not really a fascist about this kind of thing as some other judges, just don’t abuse my leniency on this.

Speed is fine (this is of course a danger sign because no one would admit that they can’t handle speed). If you are going too fast or are unclear, I will let you know. Ignore such warnings at your own peril, like with Kritiks, I am singularly unafraid to admit I didn’t get an answer and therefore will not vote on it.

I will read evidence if it is challenged by a team. Otherwise, if you say a piece of evidence says X and the other team doesn’t say anything, I probably won’t call for it and assume it says X. However, in the unfortunate (but fairly frequent) occurrence where both teams just read cards, I will call for cards and use my arbitrary and capricious analytical skills to piece together what I, in my paranoid delusional (and probably medicated) state, perceive is going on.

I generally will vote on anything that is set forth on the round. Don’t be deterred from going for an argument because I am laughing at it, reading the newspaper, checking espn.com on my laptop, throwing something at you etc. Debate is a game and judges must often vote for arguments they find ludicrous, however, I can and will still make fun of the argument. I will, and have, voted on many arguments I think are squarely in the realm of lunacy i.e. [INSERT LETTER] spec, rights malthus, Sun-Ra, the quotations and acronyms counterplan (OK I didn’t vote on either, even I have my limits), scaler collapse (twice), world government etc. (the likelihood of winning such arguments, however, is a separate matter). I will not hesitate to vote against teams for socially unacceptable behavior i.e. evidence fabrication, racist or sexist slurs etc., thankfully I have had to do that less than double digits time in my 35+ years of judging.

Asya Taylor Walter Payton College Prep 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 26, 2024 at 9:00 AM CDT

wake 24 | law magnet 20

call me asya, like asia.

pls add me to the chain - asyadebates@gmail.com

be fun/funny/interesting, unless you’re not, then don’t be.

i’d rather watch debates i’m normally in (clash, k debates). i’d also rather be doing things that aren’t judging debates so don’t feel like it’s adapt or die if you wanna do plan things, just know i need more handholding on argument interaction.

defend what you say, hold people responsible for what they say. i’m not here to resolve your personal beef with someone, but i do find myself responsible for making sure this space is maximally safe.

“with high risk comes high reward, etc, etc” -- you win more the more you’re willing to try things you wouldn’t go for, and you can persuade me of most things (not ethnic genocide good, never ethnic genocide good).

i flow, but sometimes not very fast or well. if i’m judging you, assume that i’m in the camp of people who are literally writing down what you’re saying and not always the argument you’re making. i don’t suck at debate, i just have short term memory loss and don’t want to literally miss arguments you’re making.

i can’t flow when people are atrociously unclear, which is like saying “i can’t flow when the debaters are completely silent” because you are effectively saying nothing. i get being nervous though so i try as much as possible to not punish debaters for stuttering or anything else that people traditionally suggest makes someone a "bad speaker"

i’m unclear on why people try to resolve debates in their paradigm - if i could resolve a debate on my own, then i would ask you to send speech docs for the 1ac/1nc and get back to you in thirty.

argument specifics:

-convincing me fairness matters as anything more than an internal link will be difficult.

-if debated equally, i tend to err aff on framework.

-default offense-defense, technical concessions matter - unless someone says they don’t or another frame of evaluation

-won’t judge kick unless told to

-unless the negative is crushing framework, at best i default to weighing the non-idealized version of the plan in most aff v k debates (i.e. i’m unlikely to ‘moot’ the aff)

-don’t really follow docs to be honest, if i’m sus about clipping i certainly will (will dock speaks, won’t drop team unless the other team suggests it)

ask me questions about my paradigm, wake debate/the rks, or my rfd. disagreeing with me is fine, insulting me is not.

LD STUFF:

I evaluate debate like a policy debater that reads k's and read 'larp' or more traditional arguments in high school. I value really good thought out strategies over obfuscating the debate. Debate should be about substantive issues so it's easier to get me to reject the argument and not the team for theory.

please don't ask me for your speaks (uncomfortable), please set up an email chain (not fileshare)

if you need help preffing me, nate kruger gave me this guide:

k - 1

larp - 1

theory (topicality) - 1

phil - 4

tricks/theory - 5

Lauren Velazquez Niles North High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon January 8, 2024 at 7:20 AM CDT

Name : Lauren Velazquez

Affiliated School: Niles North

Email: Laurenida@gmail.com

General Background:
I debated competitively in high school in the 1990s for Maine East. I participated on the national circuit where counterplans and theory were common.

Director of Debate at Niles North

Laurenida@gmail.com

Experience:

I competed in the 90s, helped around for a few years, took a bit of a break, have been back for about 7 years. My teams compete on the national circuit, I help heavily with my teams’ strategies, and am a lab leader at a University of Michigan. In recent years I have helped coach teams that cleared at the TOC, won state titles and consistently debated in late elim rounds at national tournaments. TL/DR--I am familiar with national circuit debate but I do not closely follow college debate so do not assume that I am attuned to the arguments that are currently cutting edge/new.

What this means for you---I lean tech over truth when it comes to execution, but truth controls the direction of tech, and some debate meta-arguments matter a lot less to me.

I am not ideological towards most arguments, I believe debate structurally is a game, but there are benefits to debate outside of it being just a game, give it your best shot and I will try my best to adapt to you.

The only caveat is do not read any arguments that you think would be inappropriate for me to teach in my classroom, if you are worried it might be inappropriate, you should stop yourself right there.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
When deciding to vote on disadvantages and affirmative advantages, I look for a combination of good story telling and evidence analysis. Strong teams are teams that frame impact calculations for me in their rebuttals (e.g. how do I decide between preventing a war or promoting human rights?). I should hear from teams how their internal links work and how their evidence and analysis refute indictments from their opponents. Affirmatives should have offense against disads (and Negs have offense against case). It is rare, in my mind, for a solvency argument or "non unique" argument to do enough damage to make the case/disad go away completely, at best, relying only on defensive arguments will diminish impacts and risks, but t is up to the teams to conduct a risk analysis telling me how to weigh risk of one scenario versus another.

TOPICALITY

I will vote on topicality if it is given time (more than 15 seconds in the 2NR) in the debate and the negative team is able to articulate the value of topicality as a debate “rule” and demonstrate that the affirmative has violated a clear and reasonable framework set by the negative. If the affirmative offers a counter interpretation, I will need someone to explain to me why their standards and definitions are best. Providing cases that meet your framework is always a good idea. I find the limits debate to be the crux generally of why I would vote for or against T so if you are neg you 100% should be articulating the limits implications of your interpretation.

KRITIKS
Over the years, I have heard and voted on Kritiks, but I do offer a few honest caveats:

*Please dont read "death good"/nihilism/psychoanalysis in front of me. I mean honestly I will consider it but I know I am biased and I HATE nihilism, psychoanalysis debates. I will try to listen with an open mind but I really don't think these arguments are good for the activity or good for pedagogy--they alienate younger debaters who are learning the game and I don't think that genuine discussions of metaphysics lend themselves to speed reading and "voting" on right/wrong. If you run these I will listen and work actively to be open minded but know you are making an uphill battle for yourself running these. If these are your bread and butter args you should pref me low.

I read newspapers daily so I feel confident in my knowledge around global events. I do not regularly read philosophy or theory papers, there is a chance that I am unfamiliar with your argument or the underlying paradigms. I do believe that Kritik evidence is inherently dense and should be read a tad slower and have accompanying argument overviews in negative block. Impact analysis is vital. What is the role of the ballot? How do I evaluate things like discourse against policy implications (DAs etc)

Also, I’m going to need you to go a tad slower if you are busting out a new kritik, as it does take time to process philosophical writings.

If you are doing something that kritiks the overall debate round framework (like being an Aff who doesnt have a plan text), make sure you explain to me the purpose of your framework and why it is competitively fair and educationally valuable.

COUNTERPLANS
I am generally a fan of CPs as a neg strategy. I will vote for counterplans but I am open to theory arguments from the affirmative (PICs bad etc). Counterplans are most persuasive to me when the negative is able to clearly explain the net benifts and how (if at all) the counterplan captures affirmative solvency. For permutations to be convincing offense against CPs, Affs should explain how permutation works and what voting for perm means (does the DA go away, do I automatically vote against neg etc?)

Random

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex and dominating. You are part of a 2 person team for a reason.

Speed is ok as long as you are clear. If you have a ton of analytics in a row or are explaining a new/dense theory, you may want to slow down a little since processing time for flowing analytics or kritkits is a little slower than me just flowing the text of your evidence.

I listen to cross ex. I think teams come up with a lot of good arguments during this time. If you come up with an argument in cross ex-add it to the flow in your speech.

Jon Voss Oak Park and River Forest

Last changed on Wed March 20, 2024 at 4:14 AM CDT

Jon Voss

Northside College Prep

I coached high school policy debate full-time for 12 years, National Service through Legal Immigration. I've been around debate, first as a debater and then as a coach, since 02. I sat out Legal Immigration and Arms Sales, but I judged and researched some for the Criminal Justice Reform, the Water Resources, and NATO topics. Debate is not my full-time job – I work in higher education as a program/product manager – so I don't cut a ton of cards, I'm not really up on what teams are reading, I don't know what topicality norms were established over the summer, etc. I can still flow just as well as I used to, which is to say "deficiently."

Yes email chain: jvoss1223 AT gmail DOT com. I don't read along during the debate, I just like it so that I can ensure nobody's clipping cards and also so that I can begin my decision-making process immediately after the debate ends. This is important for how you debate -- using the speech doc instead of your flow as a guide is to your detriment.

-- fiscal redistribution topic - I heard a few debates on it before the season started but (as of the early season tournaments) you should consider my topic knowledge extremely limited, especially as it relates to topicality norms and complex explanations of fringe economic theories. I do have a basic understanding of the academic concepts that undergird the topic, however, and I will be somewhat involved in argument production this year.

-- Almost every debate I've seen so far this year has collapsed into a very-hard-to-resolve "growth good"/"degrowth good" debate. These have been late-breaking and I spent the bulk of my decision time wading through ev that didn't get me any closer to an answer I found satisfactory. In each instance, I was unhappy with amount of intervention and lack of depth involved in my decision. In that regard:

*if there's a winning final rebuttal that does not require you to wade into these waters, give that speech instead. I am willing (and maybe even eager) to grab onto something external and use that as a cudgel to decide that the growth debate was difficult to resolve and vote on <other thing>. I think I would be receptive, too, to arguments about how I should react in a debate that you think might be difficult to resolve, but this is just a hunch.

*you would almost certainly be better-served debating evidence that's already been read instead of reading more cards. This is especially true if the 1ac/1nc/both included a bunch of evidence on this issue...your fourth, "yes mindset shift" card is unlikely to win you the debate (or even the specific argument in question) but debating the issue in greater detail than the other team might.

*debated equally, I'm meaningfully better for the standard defenses of growth, especially as it relates to successfully achieving the changes that would be necessary to create a sustainable model of degrowth.

-- a note on plan texts: say what you mean, mean what you say, and have an advocate that supports it. If the AFF's plan is resolutional word salad, will be unapologetically rooting for NEG exploitation in the way of cplan competition, DA links, and/or presumption-style takeouts. I guess the flip side of this is that I have never heard a persuasive explanation of a way to evaluate topicality arguments outside of the words in the plan text, so as long as the AFF goes for some sort of "we meet" argument, I'm basically unwilling to vote NEG. "The plan text says most or all of the resolution (and another word or three) but their solvency evidence describes something very different," is an extremely persuasive negative line of argument, but I think it's a solvency argument.

-- Rehighlighting - you've gotta read itand explain what you believe to be the implication of whatever portion of their evidence you read. I'm somewhat sympathetic to allowing insertion as a check against (aggressively) declining evidence quality in debate, but debate is first and foremost a communicative activity.

-- I don't need nor want a card doc at the end of the debate. I have everything in my inbox already. I know what cards you did/didn't read because I was flowing. I'm honestly a little skeptical of debaters providing judges a lens through which to evaluate different controversies after the 2AR has ended. And to be frank, most of these debates aren't so close that judgement calls on ev are necessary to determine who won.

-- In favor of fewer, better-developed 1NC arguments. I don't have a specific number that I think is best: I've seen 1NC's that include three totally unwinnable offcase arguments and 1NC's that include six or seven viable ones. But generally I think the law of diminishing marginal returns applies. Burden of proof is a precondition of the requirement that the affirmative answer the argument, and less ev/fewer highlighted words in the name of more offcase positions seems to make it less likely that the neg will fulfill the aforementioned burden of proof.

-- Highlighting, or lack thereof, has completely jumped the shark. Read more words.

-- Clarity, or lack thereof, has been bad for awhile, but online debate really exacerbates the problem. I won't use the speech doc to bail you out. Just speak more slowly. You will debate better. I will understand your argument better. Judges who understand your argument with more clarity than your opponent's argument are likely to side with you.

-- I am generally bad for broad-strokes “framing” arguments that ask the judge to presume that the risk of <> is especially low. Indicts of mini-max risk assessment make sense in the abstract, but it is the affirmative’s responsibility to apply these broad theories to whatever objections the negative has advanced. “The aff said each link exponentially reduces the probability of the DA, and the DA has links, so you lose” is a weak ballot and one that I am unexcited to write.

-- I am generally better for a narrow solution that tackles an instance of oppression than an undefined/murky solution that aims to move the needle further than the pragmatic alternative. Some of this new stuff about philosophical competition and associated negative framework arguments that block the AFF from leveraging the 1ac as offense is wild.

-- I am often way less interested in "impact defense" than "link defense." This is equally true of my thoughts toward negative disadvantages and affirmative advantages. For example, if the aff wins with certainty that they stop a US-China war, I'm highly unlikely to vote neg and place my faith in our ability to the big red telephone at the White House to dampen the conflict. Similarly, if the neg wins that your plan absolutely crashes the economy by disrupting the market or causing some agenda item to fail, I will mostly be unconcerned that there are some other historical explanations for great power wars than "resource scarcity." The higher up the link "chain" you can indict your opponent's argument, the better.

-- Sort of a related point, but I thought it might be good to separate this out. I have found myself mentally exhausted at the end of almost every Zoom debate I've judged. There is something about flicking your eyes across three screens while transcribing an entire debate that's occurring in my headphones that is so much more draining than what debate looked like back in the day. I think this impacts how I judge. I certainly don't have any inclination to spend the decision time reading a bunch of evidence if I can avoid it. I don't think that's laziness (but maybe...) -- I'm just tired of staring at a screen. Anything the 2NR / 2AR can do to help craft a simple path to victory that allows me to minimize the number of "decision tree" questions I need to resolve is highly recommended.

-- Don't clip cards. If you're accusing a team of it, you need to be able to present me with a quality recording to review. Burden of proof lies with the accusing team, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is my standard for conviction. If you advance any sort of ethics challenge, the debate ends and is decided on the grounds of that ethics challenge alone.

-- Yes judge kick unless one team explicitly makes an argument that convinces me to conceive differently of presumption. Speaking of, presumption is "least amount of change" no matter what. This could mean that presumption *still* lies with the neg even if the aff wins the status quo is no longer something the judge can endorse (but only if the CP is less change than the plan).

-- Fairly liberal with the appropriate scope of negative fiat as it relates to counterplans. Fairly aff-leaning regarding counterplan competition, at least in theory -- but evidence matters more than general pleas to protect affirmative competitive equity. I could be convinced otherwise, but my default has always been that the neg advocate must be as good as whatever the aff is working with. This could mean that an “advocate-less” counterplan that presses an internal link is fair game if the aff is unable to prove that they…uh…have an internal link.

-- T-USFG: Debate is no longer my full-time job, so I think I have a little less skin in the game on this issue. I also suspect the Trump presidency and the associated exposure of explicit racism within the United States may have made me a better judge for affirmatives that do not instrumentally defend the topic/federal government action. I'm not sure how much better, though, and I'm probably at best a risky bet for affirmatives hoping to beat a solid 2NR on T-USFG. If you do have me in this type of debate:

**Won't vote on any sort of argument that amounts to, "debate is bad, so we will concede their argument that we destroy debate/make people quit/exclude X population of student, that's good."

**Affirmatives would be well served to prioritize the link between defending a particular state action and broader observations about the flaws of the state.

**Procedural fairness is most important. The ballot can rectify fairness violations much more effectively than it can change anything else, and I am interested in endorsing a vision of debate that is procedurally fair. This is both the single strongest internal link to every other thing debate can do for a studeny and a standalone impact. I am worse for the “portable skills” impacts about information processing, decision-making, etc.

David Wang Whitney M. Young Magnet High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun November 22, 2020 at 6:07 AM CDT

Debated 2015-2019 at Whitney Young

Northwestern University Class of 2023

Email, please add to the chain: djwang1863@gmail.com

Tech>truth. A dropped argument is true if it has all the components of a real argument

Use CX as you like in terms of tag team or prep though I may evaluate speaks partly based off CX. And CX is binding for the purposes of argumentation or links.

T - I haven't kept up with the topic so I might not know what the core lit is or the general precedent. Though I do love a good T debate that is really semantic and techy.

DA – Specifics>Core of Topic>esoteric backfile DAs>politics. Extra points if your DA/advantage somehow has an aerospace impact.

CP – The more specific your solvency advocate is the better. I don’t have a personal threshold for how much condo is too much or anything like that for other theory, just justify what you do. A lot of theory on face seems like reasons to reject the argument not the team (particularly specific type of CP/K) but sometimes not depending on context or if coming down to in round abuse args. Condo usually is a reason to reject the team since it explicitly implicates strategy. 2ARs on condo should probably be all in.

Impact Turns – I like debates where debaters are brave enough or reckless enough to throw some of these around. Instead of the usual shirking out of a link to anything, these debates kind of force some good headon clash. Also, can get very interesting and intricate when people start impact turning the impact turns, like CO2 good vs dedev.

Soft left aff – As a 2A I almost always had a big stick IR impact so util is definitely my default on framing.

K – Despite having debated with multiple K loving 2Ns (who mostly ran psychoanalysis or Spanos), I'm still most comfortable with policy. I’m more familiar with some form of cap/security than identity or high theory. It’s always more persuasive when you have specific links. I should be able to tell what aff you’re debating based on how you run your K that round.

K Aff – Read one once. I’m much better for FW or T-USFG on this. I don’t just vote on good ideas. Without a consensus on the traditional guidelines for policy debate, how should I evaluate who did the better debating? Affs tend to make a lot of DAs to FW that usually seem to be a reinstatement of some critical theory in the 1AC. Affs should justify and win an alternative model of debate with reasons exogenous to why the content of the 1AC is important.

Marcus Williams Niles North High School 2 rounds

Matt Zhang Glenbrook North 5 rounds

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