Last changed on
Mon April 29, 2024 at 7:22 AM CDT
Hi, I'm Taylor. Keep in mind that my thoughts will probably change on specific aspects of debates as I judge more rounds, so I might change some things here and there in my paradigm.
My email: taylorrafferty22@gmail.com
About me (If you care)
I debated at Jenks High School for four years. I mainly did Lincoln-Douglas Debate and International Extemp. While at Jenks on the state level, I was in 4 state final rounds between Lincoln-Douglas and International Extemp. On the national level, I was a 4x national qualifier in 3 different events, and in my senior year, I took 24th in the nation in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. I now attend ESU and personally coach a few students in LD. Despite my LD experience I find myself judging mostly policy rounds these days but I will see a LD or PF round every now and then.
General Debate Things
1. Tech>Truth; however, my threshold for responding to bad arguments is incredibly low.
2. I like Impact calc a lot. It would help if you did it.
3. Offense will get you further with me rather than defense. I don't think defense should be abandoned but telling me why you win goes much further than telling me why you don't lose.
4. EXTEND YOUR ARGUMENTS. I'm not going to do work for you if you don't extend your arguments through your last speech. I'm not gonna bother weighing it into my decision.
5. Crystalize and summarize your best arguments and why you won them in your final speeches. Generally, going for every argument on the flow is not in your best interest.
6. Time yourself. I'm terrible at it.
7. If you can be funny or sarcastic in a round (not at the expense of actually debating well), then more power to you. I will probably give you more speaks.
Traditional LD
Only Warning
I will NOT hesitate to drop anyone who spreads or engages in debate practices that would not be persuasive or understandable to a reasonable person—this is not negotiable. Please do not see my policy background or circuit LD experience as an invitation to make this round uninteresting for everyone involved. I do not think it's impressive to win the flow while making the debate as inaccessible as possible for your opponent.
General Things
1. If you signpost, extend your arguments, try not to drop stuff, and give an offensive reason why I should vote for you as opposed to a defensive one, you'll be in very good shape. (Offense = why I'm winning, Defense = why I'm not losing)
2. I generally evaluate things sequentially. I use who's value/criterion or framework is winning to determine which arguments and impacts to weigh and, subsequently, who's won the ballot. This means framework in and of itself is not a voter, but it has a massive impact on who wins my ballot. For example, if you're winning the aff leads to extinction but you've conceded a Kant FW, you'll probably lose.
3. Good debaters have consistency between their value/criterion or framework and their contentions. If you're reading Kant and then a bunch of util arguments, I might cry.
4. I prefer more principled and philosophical arguments in trad LD. If the debate does become a question about the consequences of adopting some policy, I prefer empirical studies and examples over random predictions without evidence. This is not to say I don't enjoy analytics with good warrants.
Public Forum Debate
1. If I don't get a framework, I will default to Util for my framing. If you don't want me to do that, you should give me a framework.
2. DON'T paraphrase evidence. It looks lazy, shady, and unethical. (Unfortunately, this seems to be a big problem in PFD specifically)
3. Don't make PFD complicated. If you cover the flow well, weigh impacts, and crystalize your most important arguments in your final speech. You will be in an excellent position to win my ballot.
Policy Debate
Just a few general things specifics are under my prefs.
1. Please add me to the email chain. My email is at the top of the paradigm.
2. My speed threshold is around 8.0/10 if that is any help at all (Probably not). I will yell "clear" if you're going too fast for me. If you ignore me I will be very sad. Please slow down on the analytics you don't put in the doc; if I can't hear them, I won't flow them.
3. Open cross is fine.
4. If you have questions about my policy paradigm, please ask before the round.
Prefs
1. Policy- Easily what I feel the most comfortable judging. I like seeing a topical aff against a competitive cp and some dis ads. I enjoy case debates, something that needs to be done way more. When you are reading your perms explain how it functions within the certain perm you read .
2. Topicality- Topicality is fun..... Until it's not. T feels more like a throwaway off-case position, especially as the violations continue getting increasingly ridiculous. I'm not saying you have to go for it if you read it, but I would like to feel like I know your T might be a legit way to the ballot rather than knowing it's just gonna be a time suck within the first 5 seconds you're into reading the T. With all that being said, winning the links to why the violation is legit is going to be way more important to me than harping on the impacts of the T. Sure, impacts are important, but if you're not going to put any effort into proving the T violation than why spend all that time impacting it out.
3. Theory- I find theory to be super boring mostly because it just turns into both teams reading their generic block files that I have heard for the thousandth time. That's not to say I won't vote on it. At some points, I have voted for speed theory and condo (It's been nearly a year, though), although I usually prefer to drop the argument and not the team. I'm very iffy on out-of-round theory violations being read I.E (the opposing team did something bad before the round started, so you are now reading theory). Once again, not that I wouldn't vote on it, but I don't have an objective view on what happened because likely I wasn't there ofc this isn't considering screenshots for a disclosure shell or something like that. I will reiterate what has been said about T previously: prove the violation first, then impact out.
4. K's- My experience with Ks has grown over the years. I generally feel comfortable with them. Explain how the alt functions and have a clear ROB; you should be fine. If you are reading something really abstract, you are going to have to explain it more to me, but I can catch on pretty fast. K affs have gotten more enjoyable for me as well just make sure it can compete and I will weigh it vs anything.
5. Performance- I am not gonna be your guy for this.
