Paradigm Last Updated – Summer 2023

Coach @ Shawnee Mission South and the University of Kansas.

Put me on the email chain :) azjabutler@gmail.com

TLDR:

Judge instruction, above all else, is super important for me – I think this looks differently depending on your style of debate. Generally, I think clear instruction in the rebuttals about where you want me to focus my attention and how you want me to filter offense is a must. For policy teams I think this is more about link and impact framing, and for more critical teams I think this is about considering the judge’s relationships to your theory/performance and being specific about their role in the debate.

For every "flow-check" question, or CX question that starts with a variation of "did you read..." I will doc you .5 speaker points. FLOW DAMNIT.

General:

I am flexible and can judge just about anything. I debated more critically, but read what you're most comfortable with. I will approach every judging opportunity with an open mind and provide feedback that makes sense to you given your strategy.

I care about evidence quality to the extent that I believe in ethically cut evidence, but I think evidence can come in many forms. I won’t read evidence after a debate unless there is an egregious discrepancy over it, or I've been instructed to do so. I think debaters should be able to explain their evidence well enough that I shouldn’t have to read it, so if I'm reading evidence then you haven't done your job to know the literature and will probably receive more judge intervention from me. That being said, I understand that in policy debate reading evidence has become a large part of judging etc, because I'm not ever cutting politics updates be CLEAR and EXPLICIT about why I am reading ev/ what I should be looking for.

Please know I am more than comfortable“clearing” you. Disclosure is good and should be reciprocated. Clipping/cutting cards out of context is academic malpractice and will result in an automatic loss.

___________________________________________________________________

Truth over Tech -OR- Tech over Truth

For the most part, I am tech over truth, but if both teams are ahead on technical portions of the debate, I will probably use truth to break the tie.

Framework

I think debates about debate are valuable and provide a space for confrontation over a number of debate's disparities/conflicts. A strong defense of your model and a set of specific net-benefits is important. Sure, debate is a game, education is almost always a tiebreaker. Fairness is a fake impact -- go for it I guess but I find it rare nowadays that people actually go for it. I think impact-turning framework is always a viable option. I think both sides should also clearly understand their relationship to the ballot and what the debate is supposed to resolve. At the end of the debate, I should be able to explain the model I voted for and why I thought it was better for debate. Any self-deemed prior questions should be framed as such. All of that is to say there is nothing you can do in this debate that I haven't probably seen so do whatever you think will win you the debate.

Performance + K Affirmatives

Judge instruction and strong articulation of your relationship to the ballot is necessary. At the end of the debate, I shouldn't be left feeling that the performative aspects of the strategy were useless/disjointed from debate and your chosen literature base.

Kritiks

I filter a lot of what I have read through my own experience both in and out of academia. I think it’s important for debaters to also consider their identity/experience in the context of your/their argument. I would avoid relying too much on jargon because I think it’s important to make the conversations that Kritiks provide accessible. I have read/researched enough to say I can evaluate just about anything, but don't use that as an excuse to be vague or assume that I'll do the work for you. At the end of the debate, there should be a clear link to the AFF, and an explanation of how your alternative solves the links -- too many people try to kick the alt and I don't get it. Links to the AFF’s performance, subject formation, and scholarship are fair game. I don’t want to say I am 100% opposed to judging kicking alts for people, but I won’t be happy about it and doubt that it will work out for you. If you wanna kick it, then just do it yourself... but again I don't get it.

Any other questions, just ask -- at this point people should know what to expect from me and feel comfortable reaching out.

Goodluck and have fun!

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

Hiyyyyyy! :)

rcav.debate@gmail.com

Any pronouns

Gemini

Updated August 2023

For in person tournaments:

Please wear a mask at all times, including during speeches. I don't want covid.

NOTE:

If you're looking to do college debate feel free to reach out and ask about Iowa debate with the email I have above! I'd love to answer any questions!

TLDR:

I do exclusively K debate, currently at the University of Iowa going on my 8th year of debate. I've mostly run trans studies, queer theory, and antiblackness. Yes I can still judge a policy debate. Poorly executed framework/K debates from either side are not fun to watch (notes below on how you can persuade me). Top level instruction is important.

General:

Obviously my job as your judge is to evaluate the round as fairly as possible. However, every judge has their biases, so I'll do my best to explain mine here:

4 years of debate at Northside (Chicago/CDL), 2016-2020. I debated on China, Education, Immigration, and Arms Sales. Currently in my fourth year debating at Iowa - I've debated on Alliances, Antitrust, Personhood and Nukes. I was a lab leader during Summer of 2023 for Fiscal Redistribution so I have a decent understanding of the topic.

Most of my higher-level experience has been with K debate, so that's what I'm most familiar/comfortable with. I've had the most experience with trans studies, queer theory, and antiblackness but I have a basic enough handle on almost anything else you can name. Maybe a little less familiar with obscure pomo theory but I get the basics. Obviously if what you're running is super out there, make sure that you are able to thoroughly explain your theory of power and specific links to the aff (which honestly applies to anything you're running).

Top-level stuff: Although I have thoughts about different arguments in debate, please go for whatever you feel comfortable running. Adaptation can be important, but over adapting and going for something you aren't familiar or comfortable with can often hinder you more than help. It's my job to evaluate the round fairly.

Also I personally think that more than 5ish off is unnecessary and uneducational. I'll probably still flow all of them but be willing to give the aff more slack when it comes to new 1AR extrapolations if the neg is running an obscene number of arguments. This is especially true if you read half-arguments in the 1NC that are blown up in the block - think one card K's that barely have a link/impact/alt.

I'm somewhere in between being 'big picture' and being 'techy'/flow centric, but as a judge will put large emphasis on the former. Telling me how to think about/evaluate arguments and what my role is as a judge will get you far.

Asking for a marked doc means that cards were marked, not that they didn't get to every card in the doc. If you want to ask which cards were read, you need to run cross-x or prep.

Usually I'm not looking at docs when flowing speeches and I flow on paper (this is probably different if it is an online debate because I find it somewhat harder to flow over zoom). I do take notes during cross-x, and think it is often a really important part of debates - referencing significant moments from cross-x is a good practice.

I fundamentally think disclosure theory/new affs bad is a true argument (absent specific reasons for opacity, etc.), but that doesn't mean I will auto vote for theory. Just felt like a strange enough disposition to mention.

T (not FW/USFG): I tend to find judging these debates quite boring in most instances, but if you think it'll be a strong argument please go for it. If you are talking about super specific acronyms make sure you clarify things that might not be obvious. Also make sure you're still doing impact comparison - it is hard to evaluate a T debate when both sides are extending their own impacts without interaction with the other teams arguments.

CPs/Theory: I actually kind of like a good, cheaty, cleverly crafted counterplan with a good net benefit. Condo is probably good up to a certain point, process CPs are fine as long as there's a net ben. I think judges are less willing to vote on PIC/Ks now for some reason and I disagree with that. But also if you're the aff you should obviously still say they're bad.

Random thought, it's called a "counterplan" not a "see-pee" this annoys me for no reason lol

K's: Pretty much covered this above, but yeah I like Ks. I think the best ways to beat a K are some combination of framework, a perm, and alt takeouts. As much as I like the K, I'm very willing to vote you down if you don't properly extend links to the aff, alt solvency (unless you've got a reason why you don't need an alt), etc. This is more of an observation that a judge philosophy, but kicking the alt (particularly in K v K debates but in others as well) seems more often than not to lead to teams losing. I generally think that teams that try to read bad preempts affs when they hit "k teams" are hurting themselves more than helping. It's much easier to win going for the big stick impacts youre used to if that's what you do.

F/W v. K Aff: I personally tend to believe that debate should be a space where debaters have the opportunity to performatively explore how different forms of knowledge production and political engagement shape the way they occupy debate, which is something that can take many forms. This doesn't mean that I won't vote on framework (especially if the team running the K aff isn't properly answering it), however, it does mean that you should be engaging with the affirmative and giving reasons why debate is better off with a traditional way of engaging the resolution. I think that clash-based impacts to framework are better than education-based impacts to framework because it makes it easier to weigh your standards against the aff. I used to think fairness was an internal link but more recently think its the only inherent impact to framework that isn't dependent on winning some larger argument. A TVA can be powerful, but you should probably have some sort of solvency advocate that ties the TVA to the ability to engage with knowledge/the debate space in a similar way to the affirmative. i.e. I'm much more likely to vote for a carded TVA than a two-second blip or suggestion of a potential topical aff. That doesn't just mean "the TVA does something vaguely good for X group!", especially if the aff is directly addressing the way that knowledge/discourse shape those policies in the first place.

A general note on K aff's too: I love it when teams do performative things. I've done all kinds of stuff in my affs, and honestly I think an aff that has less ev but is more performatively interesting is much better than a wall of cards. Multiple affs that I've written have been like two cards and some poetry at conversational speed.

K v. K: You do you. I've had many of these debates myself, so I enjoy judging them. I am starting to think perms are kind of fake, although that does not mean the aff shouldn't go for one.

Ethics Challenges: Since this seems to be happening way more frequently now for some reason, a few notes on what an ethics violation is and what it means:

An ethics challenge refers to something like a miscut piece of evidence, and amounts to stopping the debate. If it is called an ethics violation, the round stops - it is not debated out (unless tab decides otherwise, but if it is up to my discretion I will stop the debate).

Ethics violations are sometimes a necessity in situations of bankrupt research practices, but in my opinion is not a "strategy" for you to be prepped to go for if you think you are losing a debate. Posing such a challenge will result in me contacting tab about appropriate measures - whether that means me making the decision or the tab director depends on the tournament and circumstances. Some examples of ethics violations are internal omissions of evidence, straw mans, etc.

I understand that often times (especially in high school debate) citational or miscutting errors are not intentional or done with malice, and so please note I will not hold it against you personally if such a violation occurs. In the event of this situation, I will award a 28.8/28.7 to the team who wins and a 28.6/28.5 to the team who loses (again, absent intervention from tab/egregious violations that result in me awarding minimum speaks allowed).

Speaks: I try to start at a 28 and add or deduct points from there based on nuance, clarity, etc. I'd say on average my points generally range from 28.6 - 29.2 for teams in the middle to upper range of the tournament.

I've never 'cleared' before and I likely won't unless it becomes necessary - if you are going so fast that it compromises your ability to speak clearly and effectively communicate your arguments, I will simply stop flowing.

Good luck, and have fun!

he/him delphdebate@gmail.com

year 10 of debate

coach at wake

former LRCH and Kansas Debater

TLDR:

When it comes to evaluating debates, two things are the most important for me:

1. Clear judge instructions in the rebuttals of how I should filter offense and arguments made in the round. Impact and Link framing are a must. if I can't explain the argument myself, I probably can't vote on it.

2. Impact comparison and clear reason why I should prioritize impacts in the round between the neg and aff. Each argument should have a claim - warrant - impact for me to evaluate it as such.

Use these to filter the rest of my paradigm and general in round perception.

General

I consider myself to be pretty flexible when it comes to arguments that teams want to read. I debated more critically but you should read whatever arguments that you are comfortable with. Any racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc will be met with speaker points that reflect, so don't be an assho|e.

Most of my debate experience was in critical debates on both the aff and neg (I was a 1A/2N), but I’m not unfamiliar with the technical aspects of policy debates.

I’m probably not the best for Topicality debates in general when it comes to plan-based policy debates and less likely to vote on Framework vs plan-less affs if going for impacts such as fairness/competitive equity or predictability. I generally lean more into truth over tech in most debates, but tech is important for impact comparison.

for college: still formulating how I understand and evaluate as a judge, so making sure I clearly understand what I should evaluate without intervention from me comes down to how you go for your arguments. The less judge intervention I feel like I have to do, the happier we are all in the post-round RFD.

——————————————————————————————

Truth over tech/Tech over truth? - Depends, i view myself evaluating truth before tech concessions but that isn’t always the case. I think technical concession are important for evaluating impact debates, so utilize both these to your advantage.

Framework on the Neg? - I’ll evaluate any negative arguments about the meta of debate. If you win your model of debate is good and the aff in question doesn’t access it then generally I’m pretty neutral on Framework arguments. Same for K’s with framing questions, the way you want me to evaluate a prior question should be framed as such.

10 off? I’d prefer if you didn’t, gish galloping is a fascist tactic.

Theory arguments? I believe theory arguments are heavily underutilized in high school debates. I evaluate conditionality and presumption debates as much as I evaluate K vs Framework. I have a certain threshold for certain arguments that I will vote on in theory debates, I think condo is a definite aff/neg ballot if it gets dropped in the neg block or rebuttals. I tend to vote neg on presumption, in those debates I think a lot of the perm debate and solvency portions of both sides are important to those rounds. CP contextual theory, perm text theory, textual severance, etc im all game for theory. i think theory debates get underutilized a lot

K affirmatives

I read them, I think that you should read whatever you read on the aff. I will vote for them, but I at least think they should be in the direction of the topic and a reason why the topical version doesn't solve.

Performance

If performance is your thing - go ahead go for it.

FW on the neg

I will vote on a neg FW but I think that there are certain arguments that I'm gonna have a harder time pulling the trigger on, i.e. fairness. I don't think fairness is something I would absolutely vote on but of course that all depends on the round. I also think the neg should be doing a lot of work why the state/usfg is worth it, why the aff isnt good for a model of debate, or why the judge should care. Generic args on framework aren't gonna cut it for me tbh, i need a concise way of why i should view the debate through the neg and why the aff doesnt solve etc etc.

K’s

Pretty versed in most of the lit but you shouldn't use a lot of buzzwords in front of me. I think you should say why the aff is uniquely bad and how the alternative can resolve its impacts and the squo. Why perms don't solve, links are disads, etc etc. I find alternative debates to be the most shallow, I think even if you are winning reason the links are disads you still need a reason the alt isn't the squo. Role of the ballot arguments are self-serving but it makes is a lot easier to evaluate them when they are dropped or not contested by the aff. Aff teams: FW on Ks is underutilized, I think you should make arguments about why you should get to weigh your impacts vs the K.

Any other questions just ask before the round, "If you can't dazzle me with excellence, baffle me with bullshit."

Yes, email chain. debateoprf@gmail.com

ME:

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

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

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

POLICY DEBATE:

Top Level

--Old School Policy.

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

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

--Not great with theory debates.

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

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

Advantage vs Disadvantage

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

Zero risk is a thing.

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

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

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

Counterplans

Conditionality—

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

2023-2024 EDIT:

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

Competition—

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

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

Other Stuff—

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

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

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

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

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

K-Affs

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

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

Topic relevance is important.

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

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

Kritiks vs Policy Affs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topicality

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

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

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

Why I vote Aff a lot:

--Bad/Incoherent link mechanics on DA’s

--Perm do the CP

--CP Solvency Deficits

--Framework/Scholarship is defensible

--T can be won defensively

Why I vote Neg a lot:

--Condo Bad is silly

--Weakness of aff internal links/solvency

--Offense that turns the case

--Sufficiency Framing

--You actually had a strategy

PUBLIC FORUM SUPPLEMENT:

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

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

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

Evidence quality is very important.

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

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

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

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

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

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

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

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

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

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

Relax. Have fun.

42fryguy@gmail.com

I debated at KU and Blue Valley Southwest, I am currently coaching at Glenbrook North

FW

I am heavily persuaded by arguments about why the affirmative should read a topical plan. One of the main reasons for this is that I am persuaded by a lot of framing arguments which nullify aff offense. The best way to deal with these things is to more directly impact turn common impacts like procedural fairness. Counter interpretations can be useful, but the goal of establishing a new model sometimes exacerbates core neg offense (limits).

K

I'm not great for the K. In most instances this is because I believe the alternative solves the links to the aff or can't solve it's own impacts. This can be resolved by narrowing the scope of the K or strengthening the link explanation (too often negative teams do not explain the links in the context of the permutation). The simpler solution to this is a robust framework press.

T

I really enjoy good T debates. Fairness is the best (and maybe the only) impact. Education is very easily turned by fairness. Evidence quality is important, but only in so far as it improves the predictability/reduces the arbitrariness of the interpretation.

CP

CPs are fun. I generally think that the negative doing non-plan action with the USfg is justified. Everything else is up for debate, but well developed aff arguments are dangerous on other questions.

I generally think conditionality is good. I think the best example of my hesitation with conditionality is multi-plank counter plans which combine later in the debate to become something else entirely.

If in cross x you say the status quo is always an option I will kick the counter plan if no further argumentation is made (you can also obviously just say conditional and clarify that judge kick is an option). If you say conditional and then tell me to kick in the 2NR and there is a 2AR press on the question I will be very uncomfortable and try to resolve the debate some other way. To resolve this, the 2AC should make an argument about judge kick.

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.

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

Update: December 2021

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

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

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

Update: NDT 2021

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


Older, "core" philosophy

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

Specifics-

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

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

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

If I am judging you at a tournament with preferences, then you should strike me if you do not agree with all of the following:

-I am an educator first. If anything happens in the debate that I deem would not be okay in a high school classroom, I will stop the debate and vote against the team that engaged in the inappropriate behavior.

-The affirmative should defend a topical plan and defend the implementation of the plan.

-Affirmative plans these days are too vague. You only get to fiat what your plan says, not what it could mean or what you want it to mean. If you clarify your plan in cross-x, the negative can use that clarification to setup counterplan competition.

-The negative should prove why the plan causes something bad to happen, not why it justifies something bad. In other words - most of your Kritks are probably just FYIs.

-I evaluate debate in large part based on the line-by-line. If you cannot flow, I am not a good judge for you. If you cannot specifically answer the other team's arguments and apply your arguments to them and instead just read pre-scripted blocks, I am not a good judge for you.

-Debate is a communicative activity. I don't follow a card document. I listen to what you say. I will only read evidence if I cannot resolve something in the debate based on how it was debated.

-For something to count as an argument it must be complete and explained. I also must be able to understand what you are saying.

-My lifetime speaker point average range is probably lower than what you are used to.

-If you are visibly sick during the debate, I reserve the right to forfeit you and leave.

College of William and Mary

Walter Payton College Prep '21

Put bhemingwaydebate@gmail.com and sweetnessdebatedocs@gmail.com on the email chain.

I debated for four years at Payton and am not debating in college. If you are a team that reads k affs, you should not pref me. My only 2NR strategy was framework, and I really don't buy the common arguments about debate space being bad or debaters having the ability to change it through individual rounds.

A compete argument consists of a claim and warrants. Simply saying that an argument was dropped means nothing if it's not contextualized to how that implicates the round.

Case

Case debate is underutilized by many of the teams that I judge. Neg teams should use smart case turns or recut the 1ac evidence instead of just using impact defense.

Bad framing debates are the worst. If you don't use warrants and just parrot taglines at each other, I will just default to util.

Disadvantages

2NRs that are the DA v case are fantastic. I judge disadvantages v case primarily through the quality of warranted rebuttal analysis, quality of evidence, and impact calc. I think 0 risk is possible, but it would require a lot of evidence analysis by the aff.

Explain why uniqueness matters with politics DAs.

Counterplans

Process counterplans need to have a clear solvency advocate and articulated reasons why its better then the plan because I'm not a fan of sneaky CPs.

Kritiks

I am qualified to judge a Security/Biopolitics/Cap K round. Identity and high theory Ks will be very unpersuasive to me. Links must be specific to the 1ac -- reciting generic blocks will not be voted on. I have a high threshold for voting neg on the K-- the neg should win specific links and framework. It's not necessary to win an alternative.

Topicality

I default to competing interpretations. I don't have a lot of preferences other than both teams need to describe what the topic looks like underneath both interpretations. 2NRs and 2ARs should clearly explain what their view of the topic looks like and what their opponents view looks like.

I'll vote on extra-T or effects-T only if there is a clear violation.

Theory

Theory should be 5 minutes of the 2AR if you're going for it.

Email: khirn10@gmail.com --- of course I want to be on the chain

Program Manager and Debate Coach, University of Michigan

Head Debate Coach, University of Chicago Lab Schools

Previously a coach at Whitney Young High School (2010-20), Caddo Magnet (2020-21), Walter Payton (2018, 2021-23)

Last updated: April, 2024 (new FR thoughts in the Topicality section, random updates throughout)

Philosophy: I attempt to judge rounds with the minimum amount of intervention required to answer the question, "Who has done the better debating?", using whatever rubrics for evaluating that question that debaters set up.

I work in debate full-time. I attend a billion tournaments and judge a ton of debates, lead a seven week lab every summer, talk about debate virtually every day, and research fairly extensively. As a result, I'm familiar with the policy and critical literature bases on both the college nuclear forces topic and the HS fiscal redistribution topic. For fiscal redistribution, I gave the topic lecture for the Michigan debate camp and I wrote both the Topicality and Job Guarantee Aff/Neg files for their starter pack

I’ve coached my teams to deploy a diverse array of argument types and styles. Currently, I coach teams that primarily read policy arguments. But I was also the primary argument coach for Michigan KM from 2014-16. I’ve coached many successful teams in both high school and college that primarily read arguments influenced by "high theory", postmodernist thought, and/or critical race literature. I'm always excited to see debaters deploy new or innovative strategies across the argumentative spectrum.

Impact turns have a special place in my heart. There are few venues in academia or life where you will be as encouraged to challenge conventional wisdom as you are in policy debate, so please take this rare opportunity to persuasively defend the most counter-intuitive positions conceivable. I enjoy judging debaters with a sense of humor, and I hope to reward teams who make their debates fun and exciting (through engaging personalities and argument selection).

My philosophy is very long. I make no apology for it. In fact, I wish most philosophies were longer and more substantive, and I still believe mine to be insufficiently comprehensive. Frequently, judges espouse a series of predictable platitudes, but I have no idea why they believe whatever it is they've said (which can frequently leave me confused, frustrated, and little closer to understanding how debaters could better persuade them). I attempt to counter this practice with detailed disclosure of the various predispositions, biases, and judgment canons that may be outcome-determinative for how I decide your debate. Maybe you don't want to know all of those, but nobody's making you read this paradigm. Having the option to know as many of those as possible for any given judge seems preferable to having only the options of surprise and speculation.

What follows is a series of thoughts that mediate my process for making decisions, both in general and in specific contexts likely to emerge in debates. I've tried to be as honest as possible, and I frequently update my philosophy to reflect perceived trends in my judging. That being said, self-disclosure is inevitably incomplete or misleading; if you're curious about whether or not I'd be good for you, feel free to look at my voting record or email me a specific question (reach me via email, although you may want to try in person because I'm not the greatest with quick responses).

0) Online debate

Online debate is a depressing travesty, although it's plainly much better than the alternative of no debate at all. I miss tournaments intensely and can't wait until this era is over and we can attend tournaments in-person once again. Do your best not to remind us constantly of what we're missing: please keep your camera on throughout the whole debate unless you have a pressing and genuine technical reason not to. I don't have meaningful preferences beyond that. Feel free to record me---IMO all debates should be public and free to record by all parties, especially in college.

1) Tech v. Truth

I attempt to be an extremely "technical" judge, although I am not sure that everyone means what everyone else means when they describe debating or judging as "technical." Here's what I mean by that: outside of card text, I attempt to flow every argument that every speaker expresses in a speech. Even in extremely quick debates, I generally achieve this goal or come close to it. In some cases, like when very fast debaters debate at max speed in a final rebuttal, it may be virtually impossible for me to to organize all of the words said by the rebuttalist into the argumentative structure they were intending. But overall I feel very confident in my flow: I will take Casey Harrigan up on his flowing gauntlet/challenge any day (he might be able to take me if we were both restricted to paper, but on our computers, it's a wrap).

In addition, being "technical" means that I line up arguments on my flow, and expect debaters to, in general, organize their speeches by answering the other team's arguments in the order they were presented. All other things being equal, I will prioritize an argument presented such that it maximizes clear and direct engagement with its counter-argument over an argument that floats in space unmoored to an adversarial argument structure.

I do have one caveat that pertains to what I'll term "standalone" voting issues. I'm not likely to decide an entire debate based on standalone issues explained or extended in five seconds or less. For example, If you have a standard on conditionality that asserts "also, men with curly unkempt hair are underrepresented in debate, vote neg to incentivize our participation," and the 1ar drops it, you're not going to win the debate on that argument (although you will win my sympathies, fellow comb dissident). I'm willing to vote on basically anything that's well-developed, but if your strategy relies on tricking the other team into dropping random nonsense unrelated to the rest of the debate entirely, I'm not really about that. This caveat only pertains to standalone arguments that are dropped once: if you've dropped a standalone voting issue presented as such in two speeches, you've lost all my sympathies to your claim to a ballot.

In most debates, so many arguments are made that obvious cross-applications ensure precious few allegedly "dropped" arguments really are accurately described as such. Dropped arguments most frequently win debates in the form of little subpoints making granular distinctions on important arguments that both final rebuttals exert time and energy trying to win. Further murkiness emerges when one realizes that all thresholds for what constitutes a "warrant" (and subsequently an "argument") are somewhat arbitrary and interventionist. Hence the mantra: Dropped arguments are true, but they're only as true as the dropped argument. "Argument" means claim, warrant, and implication. "Severance is a voting issue" lacks a warrant. "Severance is a voting issue - neg ground" also arguably lacks a warrant, since it hasn't been explained how or why severance destroys negative ground or why neg ground is worth caring about.

That might sound interventionist, but consider: we would clearly assess the statement "Severance is a voting issue -- purple sideways" as a claim lacking a warrant. So why does "severence is a voting issue - neg ground" constitute a warranted claim? Some people would say that the former is valid but not sound while the latter is neither valid nor sound, but both fail a formal test of validity. In my assessment, any distinction is somewhat interventionist. In the interest of minimizing intervention, here is what that means for your debating: If the 1ar drops a blippy theory argument and the 2nr explains it further, the 2nr is likely making new arguments... which then justifies 2ar answers to those arguments. In general, justify why you get to say what you're saying, and you'll probably be in good shape. By the 2nr or 2ar, I would much rather that you acknowledge previously dropped arguments and suggest reasonable workaround solutions than continue to pretend they don't exist or lie about previous answers.

Arguments aren't presumptively offensive or too stupid to require an answer. Genocide good, OSPEC, rocks are people, etc. are all terribly stupid, but if you can't explain why they're wrong, you don't deserve to win. If an argument is really stupid or really bad, don't complain about how wrong they are. After all, if the argument's as bad as you say it is, it should be easy. And if you can't deconstruct a stupid argument, either 1) the argument may not be as stupid as you say it is, or 2) it may be worthwhile for you to develop a more efficient and effective way of responding to that argument.

If both sides seem to assume that an impact is desirable/undesirable, and frame their rebuttals exclusively toward avoiding/causing that impact, I will work under that assumption. If a team read a 1AC saying that they had several ways their plan caused extinction, and the 1NC responded with solvency defense and alternative ways the plan prevented extincton, I would vote neg if I thought the plan was more likely to avoid extinction than cause it.

I'll read and evaluate Team A's rehighlightings of evidence "inserted" into the debate if Team B doesn't object to it, but when debated evenly this practice seems indefensible. An important part of debate is choosing how to use your valuable speech time, which entails selecting which pieces of your opponent's ev most clearly bolster your position(s).

2) General Philosophical Disposition

It is somewhat easy to persuade me that life is good, suffering is bad, and we should care about the consequences of our political strategies and advocacies. I would prefer that arguments to the contrary be grounded in specific articulations of alternative models of decision-making, not generalities, rhetoric, or metaphor. It's hard to convince me that extinction = nbd, and arguments like "the hypothetical consequences of your advocacy matter, and they would likely produce more suffering than our advocacy" are far more persuasive than "take a leap of faith" or "roll the dice" or "burn it down", because I can at least know what I'd be aligning myself with and why.

Important clarification: pragmatism is not synonymous with policymaking. On the contrary, one may argue that there is a more pragmatic way to frame judge decision-making in debates than traditional policymaking paradigms. Perhaps assessing debates about the outcome of hypothetical policies is useless, or worse, dangerous. Regardless of how you debate or what you debate about, you should be willing and able to mount a strong defense of why you're doing those things (which perhaps requires some thought about the overall purpose of this activity).

The brilliance and joy of policy debate is most found in its intellectual freedom. What makes it so unlike other venues in academia is that, in theory, debaters are free to argue for unpopular, overlooked, or scorned positions and ill-considered points of view. Conversely, they will be required to defend EVERY component of your argument, even ones that would be taken for granted in most other settings. Just so there's no confusion here: all arguments are on the table for me. Any line drawn on argumentative content is obviously arbitrary and is likely unpredictable, especially for judges whose philosophies aren't as long as mine! But more importantly, drawing that line does profound disservice to debaters by instructing them not to bother thinking about how to defend a position. If you can't defend the desirability of avoiding your advantage's extinction impact against a wipeout or "death good" position, why are you trying to persuade me to vote for a policy to save the human race? Groupthink and collective prejudices against creative ideas or disruptive thoughts are an ubiquitous feature of human societies, but that makes it all the more important to encourage free speech and free thought in one of the few institutions where overcoming those biases is possible.

3) Topicality and Specification

Overall, I'm a decent judge for the neg, provided that they have solid evidence supporting their interpretation.

Limits are probably desirable in the abstract, but if your interpretation is composed of contrived stupidity, it will be hard to convince me that affs should have predicted it. Conversely, affs that are debating solid topicality evidence without well-researched evidence of their own are gonna have a bad time. Naturally, of these issues are up for debate, but I think it's relatively easy to win that research/literature guides preparation, and the chips frequently fall into place for the team accessing that argument.

Competing interpretations is potentially less subjective and arbitrary than a reasonability standard, although reasonability isn't as meaningless as many believe. Reasonability seems to be modeled after the "reasonable doubt" burden required to prove guilt in a criminal case (as opposed to the "preponderence of evidence" standard used in civil cases, which seems similar to competing interps as a model). Reasonability basically is the same as saying "to win the debate, the neg needs to win an 80% risk of their DA instead of a 50% risk." The percentages are arbitrary, but what makes determining that a disad's risk is higher or lower than the risk of an aff advantage (i.e. the model used to decide the majority of debates) any less arbitrary or subjective? It's all ballpark estimation determined by how persuaded judges were by competing presentations of analysis and evidence. With reasonability-style arguments, aff teams can certainly win that they don't need to meet the best of all possible interpretations of the topic, and instead that they should win if their plan meets an interpretation capable of providing a sufficient baseline of neg ground/research parity/quality debate. Describing what threshold of desirability their interpretation should meet, and then describing why that threshold is a better model for deciding topicality debates, is typically necessary to make this argument persuasive.

Answering "plan text in a vacuum" requires presenting an alternative standard by which to interpret the meaning and scope of the words in the plan. Such seems so self-evident that it seems banal to include it in a paradigm, but I have seen many debates this year in which teams did not grasp this fact. If the neg doesn't establish some method for determining what the plan means, voting against "the plan text in a vacuum defines the words in the plan" is indistinguishable from voting for "the eighty-third unhighlighted word in the fifth 1ac preempt defines the words in the plan." I do think setting some limiting standard is potentially quite defensible, especially in debates where large swaths of the 1ac would be completely irrelevent if the aff's plan were to meet the neg's interp. For example: if an aff with a court advantage and a USFG agent says their plan meets "enact = Congress only", the neg could say "interpret the words USFG in the plan to include the Courts when context dictates it---even if 'USFG' doesn't always mean "Courts," you should assume it does for debates in which one or more contentions/advantages are both impertinent and insoluable absent a plan that advocates judicial action." But you will likely need to be both explicit and reasonable about the standard you use if you are to successfully counter charges of infinite regress/arbitrariness.

For Fiscal Redistribution:

I'm probably more open to subsets than most judges if the weight of predictable evidence supports it. The neg is maybe slightly favored in a perfect debate, but I think there is better aff evidence to be read. I generally think the topic is extremely overlimited. Both the JG and BI are poorly supported by the literature, and there are not a panoply of viable SS affs.

Social Security and programs created by the Social Security Act are not same thing. The best evidence I've seen clearly excludes welfare and health programs, although expanding SS enables affs to morph the program into almost anything topically (good luck with a "SS-key" warrant vs the PIC, though). SSI is debateable, though admittedly not an extreme limits explosion.

Topicality arguments excluding plans with court actors are weaker than each of the above arguments. Still tenable.

Topicality arguments excluding cutting programs to fund plans are reasonable edge cases. I can see the evidence or balance of debating going either way on this question.

Evenly debated, "T-Must Include Taxes" is unwinnable for the negative. Perhaps you will convince me otherwise, but keep in mind I did quite a bit of research on this subject before camps even started,so if you think you have a credible case then you're likely in need of new evidence. I really dislike being dogmatic on something like this. I began the summer trying todevelop a case for why affs must tax, but I ran into a basic logical problem and have not seen evidence that establishes the bare minimum of a topicality interpretation. Consider the definition of "net worth." Let's assume that all the definitions of net worth state it means "(financial assets like savings, real estate, and investments) - (debts and liabilities)." "T-FR must include tax" is the logical equivalent of "well, because net worth means assets AND liabilities, cashing a giant check doesn't increase your net worth because you don't ALSO decrease your debts owed elsewhere." For this to be a topicality argument, you'd need to find a card that says "Individual policy interventions aren't fiscal redistribution if they merely adjust spending without tax policy." Such a card likely doesn't exist, because it's self-evidently nonsense.

Of course, I'll certainly evaluate arguments on this subject as fairly as possible, and if you technically out-execute the opposing team, I'll vote against them remorselessly. But you should know my opinion regardless.

4) Risk Assessment

In front of me, teams would be well-served to explain their impact scenarios less in terms of brinks, and more in terms of probabilistic truth claims. When pressed with robust case defense, "Our aff is the only potential solution to a US-China war that's coming in a few months, which is the only scenario for a nuclear war that causes extinction" is far less winnable than "our aff meaningfully improves the East Asian security environment through building trust between the two great military powers in the region, which statistically decreases the propensity for inevitable miscalculations or standoffs to escalate to armed conflict." It may not be as fun, but that framing can allow you to generate persuasive solvency deficits that aren't grounded in empty rhetoric and cliche, or to persuasively defeat typical alt cause arguments, etc. Given that you decrease the initial "risk" (i.e. probability times magnitude) of your impact with this framing, this approach obviously requires winning substantial defense against whatever DA the neg goes for, but when most DA's have outlandishly silly brink arguments themselves, this shouldn't be too taxing.

There are times where investing lots of time in impact calculus is worthwhile (for example, if winning your impact means that none of the aff's impact claims reach extinction, or that any of the actors in the aff's miscalc/brinkmanship scenarios will be deterred from escalating a crisis to nuclear use). Most of the time, however, teams waste precious minutes of their final rebuttal on mediocre impact calculus. The cult of "turns case" has much to do with this. It's worth remembering that accessing an extinction impact is far more important than whether or not your extinction impact happens three months faster than theirs (particularly when both sides' warrant for their timeframe claim is baseless conjecture and ad hoc assertion), and that, in most cases, you need to win the substance of your DA/advantage to win that it turns the case.

Incidentally, phrasing arguments more moderately and conditionally is helpful for every argument genre: "all predictions fail" is not persuasive; "some specific type of prediction relying on their model of IR forecasting has little to no practical utility" can be. The only person who's VTL is killed when I hear someone say "there is no value to life in the world of the plan" is mine.

At least for me, try-or-die is extremely intuitive based on argument selection (i.e. if the neg spots the aff that "extinction is inevitable if the judge votes neg, even if it's questionable whether or not the aff solves it", rationalizing an aff ballot becomes rather alluring and shockingly persuasive). You should combat this innate intuition by ensuring that you either have impact defense of some sort (anything from DA solves the case to a counterplan/alt solves the case argument to status quo checks resolve the terminal impact to actual impact defense can work) or by investing time in arguing against try-or-die decision-making.

5) Counterplans

Counterplan theory/competition debating is a lost art. Affirmatives let negative teams get away with murder. Investing time in theory is daunting... it requires answering lots of blippy arguments with substance and depth and speaking clearly, and probably more slowly than you're used to. But, if you invest time, effort, and thought in a well-grounded theoretical objection, I'll be a receptive critic.

The best theory interpretations are clear, elegant, and minimally arbitrary. Here are some examples of args that I would not anticipate many contemporary 2N's defeating:

--counterplans should be policies. Perhaps executive orders, perhaps guidence memos, perhaps lower court decisions, perhaps Congressional resolutions. But this would exclude such travesties as "The Executive Branch should always take international law into account when making their decisions. Such is closer to a counterplan that says "The Executive Branch should make good decisions forever" than it is to a useful policy recommendation. It's relatively easy for CPs to be written in a way that meets this design constraint, but that makes it all the easier to dispose of the CPs that don't.

--counterplans should not be able to fiat both the federal government and additional actors outside of the federal government. It's utopian enough to fiat that Courts, the President, and Congress all act in concert in perpetuity on a given subject. It's absurd to fiat additional actors as well.

There are other theoretical objections that I might take more seriously than other judges, although I recognize them as arguments on which reasonable minds may disagree. For example, I am somewhat partial to the argument that solvency advocates for counterplans should have a level of specificity that matches the aff. I feel like that standard would reward aff specificity and incentivize debates that reflect the literature base, while punishing affs that are contrived nonsense by making them debate contrived process nonsense. This certainly seems debateable, and in truth if I had to pick a side, I'd certainly go neg, but it seems like a relatively workable debate relative to alternatives.

Competition debates are a particularly lost art. Generally, I prefer competition debates to theoretical ones, although I think both are basically normative questions (i.e. the whole point of either is to design an ideal, minimally arbitrary model to produce the debates we most desire). I'm not a great judge for counterplans that compete off of certainty or immediacy based on "should"/"resolved" definitions. I'm somewhat easily persuaded that these interpretations lower the bar for how difficult it is to win a negative ballot to an undesirable degree. That being said, affs lose these debates all the time by failing to counter-define words or dropping stupid tricks, so make sure you invest the time you need in these debates to win them.

"CPs should be textually and functionally competitive" seems to me like a logical and defensible standard. Some don't realize that if CPs must be both functionally and textually competitive, permutations may be either. I like the "textual/functional" model of competition BECAUSE it incentives creative counterplan and permutation construction, and because it requires careful text-writing.

That being said, "functional-only" is a very defensible model as well, and I think the arguments to prefer it over functional/textual hinge on the implication of the word being defined. If you say that "should is immediate" or "resolved is certain," you've introduced a model of competition that makes "delay a couple weeks" or "consult anyone re: plan" competitive. If your CP competes in a way that introduces fewer CPs (e.g. "job guarantees are admininstered by the states", or "NFUs mean no-first-use under any circumstance/possibility"), I think the neg's odds of winning are fairly likely.

Offense-defense is intuitive to me, and so teams should always be advised to have offense even if their defense is very strong. If the aff says that the counterplan links to the net benefit but doesn't advance a solvency deficit or disadvantage to the CP, and the neg argues that the counterplan at least links less, I am not very likely to vote affirmative absent strong affirmative framing on this question (often the judge is left to their own devices on this question, or only given instruction in the 2AR, which is admittedly better than never but still often too late). At the end of the day I must reconcile these opposing claims, and if it's closely contested and at least somewhat logical, it's very difficult to win 100% of an argument. Even if I think the aff is generally correct, in a world where I have literally any iota of doubt surrounding the aff position or am even remotely persuaded by the the negative's position, why would I remotely risk triggering the net benefit for the aff instead of just opting for the guaranteed safe choice of the counterplan?

Offense, in this context, can come in multiple flavors: you can argue that the affirmative or perm is less likely to link to the net benefit than the counterplan, for example. You can also argue that the risk of a net benefit below a certain threshold is indistinguishable from statistical noise, and that the judge should reject to affirm a difference between the two options because it would encourage undesirable research practices and general decision-making. Perhaps you can advance an analytic solvency deficit somewhat supported by one logical conjecture, and if you are generally winning the argument, have the risk of the impact to that outweigh the unique risk of aff triggering the DA relative to the counterplan. But absent any offensive argument of any sort, the aff is facing an uphill battle. I have voted on "CP links to politics before" but generally that only happens if there is a severe flaw in negative execution (i.e. the neg drops it), a significant skill discrepancy between teams, or a truly ill-conceived counterplan.

I'm a somewhat easy sell on conditionality good (at least 1 CP / 1 K is defensible), but I've probably voted aff slightly more frequently than not in conditionality debates. That's partly because of selection bias (affs go for it when they're winning it), but mainly because neg teams have gotten very sloppy in their defenses of conditionality, particularly in the 2NR. That being said, I've been growing more and more amenable to "conditionality bad" arguments over time.

However, large advantage counterplans with multiple planks, all of which can be kicked, are fairly difficult to defend. Negative teams can fiat as many policies as it takes to solve whatever problems the aff has sought to tackle. It is unreasonable to the point of stupidity to expect the aff to contrive solvency deficits: the plan would literally have to be the only idea in the history of thought capable of solving a given problem. Every additional proposal introduced in the 1nc (in order to increase the chance of solving) can only be discouraged through the potential cost of a disad being read against it. In the old days, this is why counterplan files were hundreds of pages long and had answers to a wide variety of disads. But if you can kick the plank, what incentive does the aff have to even bother researching if the CP is a good idea? If they read a 2AC add-on, the neg gets as many no-risk 2NC counterplans to add to the fray as well (of course, they can also add unrelated 2nc counterplans for fun and profit). If you think you can defend the merit of that strategy vs. a "1 condo cp / 1 condo k" interp, your creative acumen may be too advanced for interscholastic debate; consider more challenging puzzles in emerging fields, as they urgently need your input.

I don't think I'm "biased" against infinite conditionality; if you think you have the answers and technical acuity to defend infinite conditionality against the above argumentation, I'd happily vote for you.

I don't default to the status quo unless you explicitly flag it at some point during the debate (the cross-x or the 2nc is sufficient if the aff never contests it). I don't know why affs ask this question every cross-x and then never make a theory argument about it. It only hurts you, because it lets the neg get away with something they otherwise wouldn't have.

All that said, I don't have terribly strong convictions about any of these issues, and any theoretical predisposition is easily overcame by outdebating another team on the subject at hand.

6) Politics

Most theoretical objections to (and much sanctimonious indignation toward) the politics disadvantage have never made sense to me. Fiat is a convention about what it should be appropriate to assume for the sake of discussion, but there's no "logical" or "true" interpretation of what fiat descriptively means. It would be ludicrously unrealistic for basically any 1ac plan to pass immediately, with no prior discussion, in the contemporary political world. Any form of argument in which we imagine the consequences of passage is a fictive constraint on process argumentation. As a result, any normative justification for including the political process within the contours of permissible argument is a rational justification for a model of fiat that involves the politics DA (and a DA to a model of fiat that doesn't). Political salience is the reason most good ideas don't become policy, and it seems illogical for the negative to be robbed of this ground. The politics DA, then, represents the most pressing political cost caused by doing the plan in the contemporary political environment, which seems like a very reasonable for affs to have to defend against.

Obviously many politics DAs are contrived nonsense (especially during political periods during which there is no clear, top-level presidential priority). However, the reason that these DAs are bad isn't because they're theoretically illegitimate, and politics theory's blippiness and general underdevelopment further aggravate me (see the tech vs truth section).

Finally, re: intrinsicness, I don't understand why the judge should be the USFG. I typically assume the judge is just me, deciding which policy/proposal is the most desirable. I don't have control over the federal government, and no single entity does or ever will (barring that rights malthus transition). Maybe I'm missing something. If you think I am, feel free to try and be the first to show me the light...

7) Framework/Non-Traditional Affs

Despite some of the arguments I've read and coached, I'm sympathetic to the framework argument and fairness concerns. I don't think that topicality arguments are presumptively violent, and I think it's generally rather reasonable (and often strategic) to question the aff's relationship to the resolution. Although framework is probably always the best option, I would generally also enjoy seeing a well-executed substantive strategy if one's available. This is simply because I have literally judged hundreds of framework debates and it has gotten mildly repetitive, to say the least (just scroll down if you think that I'm being remotely hyperbolic). But please don't sacrifice your likelihood of winning the debate.

My voting record on framework is relatively even. In nearly every debate, I voted for the team I assessed as demonstrating superior technical debating in the final rebuttals.

I typically think winning unique offense, in the rare scenario where a team invests substantial time in poking defensive holes in the other team's standards, is difficult for both sides in a framework debate. I think affs should think more about their answers to "switch side solves your offense" and "sufficient neg engagement key to meaningfully test the aff", while neg's should generally work harder to prepare persuasive and consistent impact explanations. The argument that "debate doesn't shape subjectivity" takes out clash/education offense, for example, is a reasonable and even threatening one.

I'm typically more persuaded by affirmative teams that answer framework by saying that the skills/methods inculcated by the 1ac produce more effective/ethical interactions with institutions than by teams that argue "all institutions are bad."

Fairness is an impact, though like any impact its magnitude and meaning is subject to debate. Like any abstract value, it can be difficult explain beyond a certain point, and it can't be proven or disproven via observation or testing. In other words, it's sometimes hard to answer the question "why is fairness good?" for the same reason it's hard to answer the question "why is justice good?" Nonetheless, it's pretty easy to persuade me that I should care about fairness in a debate context, given that everyone relies on essential fairness expectations in order to participate in the activity, such as expecting that I flow and give their arguments a fair hearing rather than voting against them because I don't like their choice in clothing.

But as soon as neg teams start introducing additional standards to their framework argument that raise education concerns, they have said that the choice of framework has both fairness and education implications, and if it could change our educational experience, could the choice of framework change our social or intellectual experience in debate in other ways as well? Maybe not (I certainly think it's easy to win that an individual round's decision certainly couldn't be expected to) but if you said your FW is key to education it's easy to see how those kinds of questions come into play and now can potentially militate against fairness concerns.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to question the desirability of the activity: we should all ideally be self-reflexive and be able to articulate why it is we participate in the activities on which we choose to dedicate our time. Nearly everybody in the world does utterly indefensible things from time to time, and many people (billions of them, probably) make completely indefensible decisions all the time. The reason why these arguments can be unpersuasive is typically because saying that debate is bad may just link to the team saying "debate bad" because they're, you know... debating, and no credible solvency mechanism for altering the activity has been presented.

So, I am a good judge for the fairness approach. It's not without its risk: a small risk of a large-magnitude impact to the ballot (e.g. solving an instance of racism in this round) could easily outweigh. But strong defense to the ballot can make it difficult for affs to overcome.

Still, it's nice to hear a defense of debate if you choose to go that route as well. I do like FWs that emphasize the benefits of the particular fairness norms established by a topicality interpretation ("models" debates). These can be enjoyable to watch, and some debaters are very good at this approach. In the aggregate, however, this route tends to be more difficult than the 'fairness' strategy.

If you're looking for an external impact, there are two impacts to framework that I have consistently found more persuasive than others, and they're related to why I value the debate activity. First, "switch-side debate good" (forcing people to defend things they don't believe is the only vehicle for truly shattering dogmatic ideological predispositions and fostering a skeptical worldview capable of ensuring that its participants, over time, develop more ethical and effective ideas than they otherwise would). Second, "agonism" (making debaters defend stuff that the other side is prepared to attack rewards debaters for pursuing clash; running from engagement by lecturing the neg and judge on a random topic of your choosing is a cowardly flight from battle; instead, the affirmative team with a strong will to power should actively strive to beat the best, most well-prepared negative teams from the biggest schools on their terms, which in turn provides the ultimate triumph; the life-affirming worldview facilitated by this disposition is ultimately necessary for personal fulfillment, and also provides a more effective strategy with which to confront the inevitable hardships of life).

Many aff "impact turns" to topicality are often rendered incoherent when met with gentle pushback. It's difficult to say "predictability bad" if you have a model of debate that makes debate more predictable from the perspective of the affirmative team. Exclusion and judgment are inevitable structural components of any debate activity that I can conceive of: any DA excludes affs that link to it and don't have an advantage that outweighs it. The act of reading that DA can be understood as judging the debaters who proposed that aff as too dull to think of a better idea. Both teams are bound to say the other is wrong and only one can win. Many aff teams may protest that their impact turns are much more sophisticated than this, and are more specific to some element of the topicality/FW structure that wouldn't apply to other types of debate arguments. Whatever explanation you have for why that above sentence true should be emphasized throughout the debate if you want your impact turns or DA's to T to be persuasive. In other words, set up your explanation of impact turns/disads to T in a way that makes clear why they are specific to something about T and wouldn't apply to basic structural requirements of debate from the outset of the debate.

I'm a fairly good judge for the capitalism kritik against K affs. Among my most prized possessions are signed copies of Jodi Dean books that I received as a gift from my debaters. Capitalism is persuasive for two reasons, both of which can be defeated, and both of which can be applied to other kritiks. First, having solutions (even ones that seem impractical or radical) entails position-taking, with clear political objectives and blueprints, and I often find myself more persuaded by a presentation of macro-political problems when coupled with corresponding presentation of macro-political solutions. Communism, or another alternative to capitalism, frequently ends up being the only solution of that type in the room. Second, analytic salience: The materialist and class interest theories often relatively more explanatory power for oppression than any other individual factor because they entail a robust and logically consistent analysis of the incentives behind various actors committing various actions over time. I'm certainly not unwinnable for the aff in these debates, particularly if they strongly press the alt's feasibility and explain what they are able to solve in the context of the neg's turns case arguments, and I obviously will try my hardest to avoid letting any predisposition overwhelm my assessment of the debating.

8) Kritiks (vs policy affs)

I'm okay for 'old-school' kritik's (security/cap/etc), but I'm also okay for the aff. When I vote for kritiks, most of my RFD's look like one of the following:

1) The neg has won that the implementation of the plan is undesirable relative to the status quo;

2) The neg has explicitly argued (and won) that the framework of the debate should be something other than "weigh the plan vs squo/alt" and won within that framework.

If you don't do either of those things while going for a kritik, I am likely to be persuaded by traditional aff presses (case outweighs, try-or-die, perm double-bind, alt fails etc). Further, despite sympathies for and familiarity with much poststructural thought, I'm nevertheless quite easily persuaded to use utilitarian cost-benefit analysis to make difficult decisions, and I have usually found alternative methods of making decisions lacking and counter-intuitive by comparison.

Kritik alternatives typically make no sense. They often have no way to meaningfully compete with the plan, frequently because of a scale problem. Either they are comparing what one person/a small group should do to what the government should do, or what massive and sweeping international movements should do vs what a government should do. Both comparisons seem like futile exercises for reasons I hope are glaringly obvious.

There are theory arguments that affs could introduce against alternatives that exploit common design flaws in critical arguments. "Vague alts" is not really one of them (ironically because the argument itself is too vague). Some examples: "Alternatives should have texts; otherwise the alternative could shift into an unpredictable series of actions throughout the debate we can't develop reasonable responses against." "Alternatives should have actors; otherwise there is no difference between this and fiating 'everyone should be really nice to each other'." Permutations are easy to justify: the plan would have to be the best idea in the history of thought if all the neg had to do was think of something better.

Most kritik frameworks presented to respond to plan focus are not really even frameworks, but a series of vague assertions that the 2N is hoping that the judge will interpret in a way that's favorable for them (because they certainly don't know exactly what they're arguing for). Many judges continually interpret these confusing framework debates by settling on some middle-ground compromise that neither team actually presented. I prefer to choose between options that debaters actually present.

My ideal critical arguments would negate the aff. For example, against a heg aff, I could be persuaded by security K alts that advocate for a strategy of unilateral miltary withdrawal. Perhaps the permutation severs rhetoric and argumentation in the 1ac that, while not in the plan text, is both central enough to their advocacy and important enough (from a pedagogical perspective) that we should have the opportunity to focus the debate around the geopolitical position taken by the 1ac. The only implication to to a "framework" argument like this would be that, assuming the neg wins a link to something beyond the plan text, the judge should reject, on severence grounds, permutations against alts that actually make radical proposals. In the old days, this was called philosophical competition. How else could we have genuine debates about how to change society or grand strategy? There are good aff defenses of the plan focus model from a fairness and education perspective with which to respond to this, but this very much seems like a debate worth having.

All this might sound pretty harsh for neg's, but affs should be warned that I think I'm more willing than most judges to abandon policymaking paradigms based on technical debating. If the negative successfully presents and defends an alternative model of decisionmaking, I will decide the debate from within it. The ballot is clay; mold it for me and I'll do whatever you win I should.

9) Kritiks (vs K affs)

Anything goes!

Seriously, I don't have strong presuppositions about what "new debate" is supposed to look like. For the most part, I'm happy to see any strategy that's well researched or well thought-out. Try something new! Even if it doesn't work out, it may lead to something that can radically innovate debate.

Most permutation/framework debates are really asking the question: "Is the part of the aff that the neg disagreed with important enough to decide an entire debate about?" (this is true in CP competition debates too, for what it's worth). Much of the substantive debating elsewhere subsequently determines the outcome of these sub-debates far more than debaters seem to assume.

Role of the ballot/judge claims are obviously somewhat self-serving, but in debates in which they're well-explained (or repeatedly dropped), they can be useful guidelines for crafting a reasonable decision (especially when the ballot theorizes a reasonable way for both teams to win if they successfully defend core thesis positions).

Yes, I am one of those people who reads critical theory for fun, although I also read about domestic politics, theoretical and applied IR, and economics for fun. Yes, I am a huge nerd, but who's the nerd that that just read the end of a far-too-long judge philosophy in preparation for a debate tournament? Thought so.

10) Procedural Norms

Evidence ethics, card clipping, and other cheating accusations supercede the debate at hand and ask for judge intervention to protect debaters from egregious violations of shared norms. Those challenges are win/loss, yes/no referendums that end the debate. If you levy an accusation, the round will be determined based on whether or not I find in your favor. If I can't establish a violation of sufficient magnitude was more likely than not, I will immediately vote against the accusing team. If left to my own discretion, I would tend not to find the following acts egregious enough to merit a loss on cheating grounds: mis-typing the date for a card, omitting a sentence that doesn't drastically undermine the card accidentally. The following acts clearly meet the bar for cheating: clipping/cross-reading multiple cards, fabricating evidence. Everything in between is hard to predict out of context. I would err on the side of caution, and not ending the round.

'Ad hominem' attacks, ethical appeals to out-of-round behavior, and the like: I differ from some judges in that, being committed to minimal intervention, I will technically assess these. I find it almost trivially obvious that introducing these creates a perverse incentive to stockpile bad-faith accusations and turns debate into a toxic sludgefest, and would caution that these are likely not a particularly strategic approach in front of me.

11) Addendum: Random Thoughts from Random Topics

In the spirit of Bill Batterman, I thought to myself: How could I make this philosophy even longer and less useable than it already was? So instead of deleting topic-relevent material from previous years that no longer really fit into the above sections, I decided to archive all of that at the bottom of the paradigm if I still agreed with what I said. Bad takes were thrown into the memory hole.

Topicality on NATO emerging tech: Security cooperation almost certainly involves the DOD. Even if new forms of security cooperation could theoretically exclude the DOD, there's not a lot of definitional support and minimal normative justification for that interpretation. Most of the important definition debates resolve substantive issues about what DA and impact turn links are granted and what counterplans are competitive rather than creating useful T definitions. Creative use of 'substantially = in the main' or 'increase = pre-existing' could elevate completely unworkable definitions into ones that are viable at the fringes.

Topicality on Legal Personhood: Conferring rights and/or duties doesn't presumptively confer legal personhood. Don't get me wrong: with evidence and normative definition debating, it very well may, but it doesn't seem like something to be taken for granted. There is a case for "US = federal only" but it's very weak. Overall this is a very weak topic for T args.

Topicality on water: There aren't very many good limiting devices on this topic. Obviously the states CP is an excellent functional limit; "protection requires regulation" is useful as well, at least insofar as it establishes competition for counterplans that avoid regulations (e.g. incentives). Beyond that, the neg is in a rough spot.

I am more open to "US water resources include oceans" than most judges; see the compiled evidence set I released in the Michigan camp file MPAs Aff 2 (should be available via openevidence). After you read that and the sum total of all neg cards released/read thus far, the reasoning for why I believe this should be self-evident. Ironically, I don't think there are very many good oceans affs (this isn't a development topic, it's a protection topic). This further hinders the neg from persuasively going for the this T argument, but if you want to really exploit this belief, you'll find writing a strategic aff is tougher than you may imagine.

Topicality on antitrust: Was adding 'core' to this topic a mistake? I can see either side of this playing out at Northwestern: while affs that haven't thought about the variants of the 'core' or 'antitrust' pics are setting themselves up for failure, I think the aff has such an expansive range of options that they should be fine. There aren't a ton of generic T threats on this topic. There are some iterations of subsets that seem viable, if not truly threatening, and there there is a meaningful debate on whether or not the aff can fiat court action. The latter is an important question that both evidence and normative desirability will play a role in determining. Beyond that, I don't think there's much of a limit on this topic.

ESR debates on the executive powers topic: I think the best theory arguments against ESR are probably just solvency advocate arguments. Seems like a tough sell to tell the neg there’s no executive CP at all. I've heard varied definitions of “object fiat” over the years: fiating an actor that's a direct object/recipient of the plan/resolution; fiating an enduring negative action (i.e. The President should not use designated trade authority, The US should not retaliate to terrorist attacks with nukes etc); fiating an actor whose behavior is affected by a 1ac internal link chain. But none of these definitions seem particularly clear nor any of these objections particularly persuasive.

States CP on the education and health insurance topics: States-and-politics debates are not the most meaningful reflection of the topic literature, especially given that the nature of 50 state fiat distorts the arguments of most state action advocates, and they can be stale (although honestly anything that isn't a K debate will not feel stale to me these days). But I'm sympathetic to the neg on these questions, especially if they have good solvency evidence. There are a slew of policy analysts that have recommended as-uniform-as-possible state action in the wake of federal dysfunction. With a Trump administration and a Republican Congress, is the prospect of uniform state action on an education or healthcare policy really that much more unrealistic than a massive liberal policy? There are literally dozens of uniform policies that have been independently adopted by all or nearly all states. I'm open to counter-arguments, but they should all be as contextualized to the specific evidence and counter-interpretation presented by the negative as they would be in a topicality debate (the same goes for the neg in terms of answering aff theory pushes). It's hard to defend a states CP without meaningful evidentiary support against general aff predictability pushes, but if the evidence is there, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to require affs to debate it. Additionally, there does seem to be a persuasive case for the limiting condition that a "federal-key warrant" places on affirmatives.

Topicality on executive power: This topic is so strangely worded and verbose that it is difficult to win almost any topicality argument against strong affirmative answers, as powerful as the limits case may be. ESR makes being aff hard enough that I’m not sure how necessary the negative needs assistance in limiting down the scope of viable affs, but I suppose we shall see as the year moves forward. I’m certainly open to voting on topicality violations that are supported by quality evidence. “Restrictions in the area of” = all of that area (despite the fact that two of the areas have “all or nearly all” in their wordings, which would seem to imply the other three are NOT “all or nearly all”) does not seem to meet that standard.

Topicality on immigration: This is one of the best topics for neg teams trying to go for topicality in a long time... maybe since alternative energy in 2008-9. “Legal immigration” clearly means LPR – affs will have a tough time winning otherwise against competent negative teams. I can’t get over my feeling that the “Passel and Fix” / “Murphy 91” “humanitarian” violations that exclude refugee, asylums, etc, are somewhat arbitrary, but the evidence is extremely good for the negative (probably slightly better than it is for the affirmative, but it’s close), and the limits case for excluding these affs is extremely persuasive. Affs debating this argument in front of me should make their case that legal immigration includes asylum, refugees, etc by reading similarly high-quality evidence that says as much.

Topicality on arms sales: T - subs is persuasive if your argument is that "substantially" has to mean something, and the most reasonable assessment of what it should mean is the lowest contextual bound that either team can discover and use as a bulwark for guiding their preparation. If the aff can't produce a reasonably well-sourced card that says substantially = X amount of arms sales that their plan can feasibly meet, I think neg teams can win that it's more arbitrary to assume that substantially is in the topic for literally no reason than it is to assume the lowest plausible reading of what substantially could mean (especially given that every definition of substantially as a higher quantity would lead one to agree that substantially is at least as large as that lowest reading). If the aff can, however, produce this card, it will take a 2N's most stalwart defense of any one particular interpretation to push back against the most basic and intuitive accusations of arbitrariness/goalpost-shifting.

T - reduce seems conceptually fraught in almost every iteration. Every Saudi aff conditions its cessation of arms sales on the continued existence of Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi military was so inept that the Houthis suddenly not only won the war against Saleh but actually captured Saudi Arabia and annexed it as part of a new Houthi Empire, the plan would not prevent the US from selling all sorts of exciting PGMs to Saudi Arabia's new Houthi overlords. Other than hard capping the overall quantity of arms sales and saying every aff that doesn't do that isn't topical, (which incidentally is not in any plausible reading a clearly forwarded interpretation of the topic in that poorly-written Pearson chapter), it's not clear to me what the distinction is between affs that condition and affs that don't are for the purposes of T - Reduce

Topicality on CJR: T - enact is persuasive. The ev is close, but in an evenly debated and closely contested round where both sides read all of the evidence I've seen this year, I'd be worried if I were aff. The debateability case is strong for the neg, given how unlimited the topic is, but there's a case to be made that courts affs aren't so bad and that ESR/politics is a strong enough generic to counter both agents.

Other T arguments are, generally speaking, uphill battles. Unless a plan text is extremely poorly written, most "T-Criminal" arguments are likely solvency takeouts, though depending on advantage construction they may be extremely strong and relevant solvency takeouts. Most (well, all) subsets arguments, regardless of which word they define, have no real answer to "we make some new rule apply throughout the entire area, e.g. all police are prohibitied from enforcing XYZ criminal law." Admittedly, there are better and worse variations for all of these violations. For example, Title 18 is a decent way to set up "T - criminal justice excludes civil / decrim" types of interpretations, despite the fact it's surprisingly easy for affs to win they meet it. And of course, aff teams often screw these up answering bad and mediocre T args in ways that make them completely viable. But none of these would be my preferred strategy, unless of course you're deploying new cards or improved arguments at the TOC. If that's the case, nicely done! If you think your evidence is objectively better than the aff cards, and that you can win the plan clearly violates a cogent interpretation, topicality is always a reasonable option in front of me.

Topicality on space cooperation: Topicality is making a big comeback in college policy debates this year. Kiinda overdue. But also kinda surprising because the T evidence isn't that high quality relative to its outsized presence in 2NRs, but hey, we all make choices.

STM T debates have been underwhelming in my assessment. T - No ADR... well at least is a valid argument consisting of a clear interp and a clear violation. It goes downhill from there. It's by no means unwinnable, but not a great bet in an evenly matched ebate. But you can't even say that for most of the other STM interps I've seen so far. Interps that are like "STM are these 9 things" are not only silly, they frequently have no clear way of clearly excluding their hypothesized limits explosion... or the plan. And I get it - STM affs are the worst (and we're only at the tip of the iceberg for zany STM aff prolif). Because STM proposals are confusing, different advocates use the terms in wildly different ways, the proposals are all in the direction of uniqueness and are difficult to distinguish from similar policy structures presently in place, and the area lacks comprehensive neg ground outside of "screw those satellites, let em crash," STM affs producing annoying debates (which is why so many teams read STM). But find better and clearer T interps if you want to turn those complaints about topical affs into topicality arguments that exclude those affs. And I encourage you to do so quickly, as I will be the first to shamelessly steal them for my teams.

Ironically, the area of the topic that produces what seem to me the best debates (in terms of varied, high-quality, and evenly-matched argumentation) probably has the single highest-quality T angle for the neg to deploy against it. And that T angle just so happens to exclude nearly every arms control aff actually being ran. In my assessment, both the interp that "arms control = quantitative limit" and the interp that "arms control = militaries just like chilling with each other, hanging out, doing some casual TCBMs" are plausible readings of the resolution. The best aff predictability argument is clearly that arms control definitions established before the space age have some obvious difficulties remaining relevant in space. But it seems plausible that that's a reason the resolution should have been written differently, not that it should be read in an alternate way. That being said, the limits case seems weaker than usual for the neg (though not terrible) and in terms of defending an interp likely to result in high-quality debates, the aff has a better set of ground arguments at their disposal than usual.

Trump-era politics DAs: Most political capital DAs are self-evidently nonsense in the Trump era. We no longer have a president that expends or exerts political capital as described by any of the canonical sources that theorized that term. Affs should be better at laundry listing thumpers and examples that empirically prove Trump's ability to shamelessly lie about whatever the aff does or why he supports the aff and have a conservative media environment that tirelessly promotes that lie as the new truth, but it's not hard to argue this point well. Sometimes, when there's an agenda (even if that agenda is just impeachment), focus links can be persuasive. I actually like the internal agency politics DA's more than others do, because they do seem to better analyze the present political situation. Our political agenda at the national level does seem driven at least as much by personality-driven palace intrigue as anything else; if we're going to assess the political consequences of our proposed policies, that seems as good a proxy for what's likely to happen as anything else.

Northside '21

Harvard '25

she/her

Add me to the email chain: laurenhollis@college.harvard.edu

---

Background: I debated for 4 years at Northside College Prep in Chicago, Illinois. I went to workshops over the summer including the Chicago Debate Summer Institute, DDIx, and DDI. I'm currently debating at Harvard. My debating experience is all with policy debate, but I have judged public forum as well.

I am open to all types of debate - DA, CP, T, K, theory - go for it.

Instances of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc will not be tolerated.

I will vote you down if you are egregiously clipping.

Please be nice to one another! Debate should be an enjoyable activity that you are continuously learning from :)

email -- hunti058@umn.edu

hi im syd (they/them)! i am a phil/cscl major at the umn.

spectators need to ask if every student is okay with being watched. same goes for recording rounds. i will double check before the round starts, and intervene if necessary.

please set up chains/get to the round on time, its a latent pet peeve (won't effect ur speaks, will make me grouchy).

i don't really care about speaks. i pretty much give out 28.8-30, although i don't think i've given out a 30 yet? the breakdown generally results in winning 2N/2A being the highest, winning 1A/1N second, etc. but i will lower for the usual reasons. mnudl kids i tend to follow the guidelines given by the udl for udl tournaments, this may result in slight discrepancies.

u need to be slower than ur top speed. tags+analytics need to be like an 8, fw/t like a 6 (which goes ESPECIALLY for k vs fw. i have the hardest time adjudicating these kinds of rounds if the debaters are flying through blocks). i flow speeches not docs, and i will vote based on the arguments i can flow. this means my decisions are better the more clear you keep your speeches.

stolen from rose larson's paradigm -- "An argument has a claim, a warrant, and an implication. Less than that and you have not made an argument and I will not evaluate it. Don't test my limits - I don't care if words you've said were not answered by your opponent, they have not 'dropped an argument' until you have actually MADE one."

my policy knowledge is always limited on any topic, you need to explain your acronyms and internal link scenarios, especially on aff. i will vote on presumption (if introduced by the neg) if i do not understand the world of the aff by the end of the debate. usually also makes me bad for t debates, since i don't have enough knowledge to make global decisions on the topic. i leave that one to the pros and love to vote on reasonability.

condo is fine until the other team wins via tech that its not. perf con to a certain extent is fine, but if your k is premised on epistemological claims i will be super willing to vote for perf con.

very tech over truth these days. dead inside etc. i will read cards after the round if there is obvious judge direction to do so, but i don't like looking at docs during speeches unless i need to for more complex debates (or when i miss an author).

i like kritiks more than any other argument in debate. these rounds are always more fun for me than policy rounds.

addendum to this -- i am dissuaded by generic kritiks. to be successful in front of me you need to have specific and clear links to the affirmative. you should be including quotes from cards or cx, the blocks should be somewhat tailored. do not fiat your alts, i do not know how that became a trend.

another kritik addendum -- you should absolutely authenticity test your opponents, especially in rounds where the argument in question is pessimistic about the future of groups of people. i do not want to hear arguments about black people being ontologically dead from a nonblack person, i do not want to hear arguments about trans people being ontologically dead from a cis person.

i like all affs, but i am also as good for fw as any other off case. these debates should be slower toward the end of the debate, and kept very narrow if possible. please overexplain interps/we meets/counter interps, this is where i get lost the most. impact framing really matters in this kind of debate.

Email: Mahnoor.jamal.0@gmail.com
Previous experience: Policy debater for Maine East High School for two years.
Current speech, IPDA, Public Forum, and BP/Worlds debater

Heavily policy-oriented— if you’re going to do any type of K work please speak to me as if I don’t know what’s going on. Avoid buzzwords and jargon unless you will give a proper explanation and the framework/role of the ballot should be clearly defined giving me valid explanations as to why I should prefer your interpretation. Please have developed SPECIFIC links to the plan if you’re running a K on the Neg and your overviews for Ks (be it an affirmative or negative position) should be talked through not spread through. Make me understand—don’t just throw words at me.

TLDR; if it’s a K talk to me like I’m lay. (If you’re novice going for the K you need to properly show you UNDERSTAND the K don’t just read varsity blocks)

Counterplans and Disads are my cup of tea. I will vote aff on theory if it’s against a shifty process or conditions counterplan (I absolutely despise conditions CP). Also, don’t go for condo unless there are specific instances of abuse (like 3 conditional advocacies) and you plan on speaking a whole 5min is your 2AR about it I don’t wanna hear that speech, you don’t wanna give that speech, and your opponent probably will think you're not cool by the end of it.

I value clarity over speed—if you have clear arguments with an in-depth explanation I’ll lean towards you (at least in terms of speaker points) rather than having an abundance of unclear arguments. I also am adjusting to spreading! If you are spreading your analytics, and overviews there is a 99% chance I won't flow them properly.

Please be flowing, try line by line the best you can, avoid card clipping, and just be a decent human being in terms of interactions with one another.
Edit: if you’re varsity and are unclear or spreading EVERYTHING without proper explanation or analysis in your rebuttal Speeches I’m not here for it :))))

If you’re not telling me to switch flows there’s a higher chance (due to my misflowing) the argument will be up in the air I probably won’t evaluate it.

if you’re actually reading this: show me a meme, a cute animal picture, or something weeb related by the end of the round or before it I’ll give you an extra 0.1 speaker point (add it to the email chain!!)

2024 TOC update:

I have exclusively been coaching/judging college debate for the last 2 years and have done almost zero research on this year's high school topic. Please keep this in mind if I am judging you and err on the side of over-explaining.

General things:

Please add me to the email chain.

tayjdebater@gmail.com, dukesdebate@gmail.com

Currently the Interim Director of Debate at JMU. I debated on the local Missouri Circuit as a high school student and debated for 3 years at UCF when they still had a policy team (2011-2014). I coached Berkeley Prep for 2 years while in college, coached JMU as a grad student, took some time off to finish my PhD, and have recently returned to debate.

My MA thesis was about Indigenous anti-nuclear movements and I've spent a fair amount of time researching the intersections of settler colonialism, environmental justice, and nuclear testing/uranium mining/radioactive waste storage, so I have a higher-than-average amount of topic knowledge on that end of the topic, but probably a lower-than-average amount of knowledge on the various weapons systems/tech/military strategy side of the topic.

If I seem crabby in the round, there's a high probability it's not your fault. The later in the tournament it is, the higher that probability gets - my ability to mask my crabby faces/moderate my vocal tone is inversely related to my tiredness/hunger/stress levels, so I'm probably not actually mad at you, just irritated at the world.

My decision-making process/how I approach debates:

I tend to prioritize solvency/links first when evaluating a debate. I think it's totally possible to win zero risk of an impact and I'm definitely willing to vote on presumption (but if that's your strategy I expect you to do the work to make it explicit).

I like well-explained, smart arguments. I would rather hear you explain something well with good examples than read a ton of cards that all say the same thing. I'll stick as close to the flow as I can and judge the debate based on how the debaters tell me to judge.

An argument has a claim, warrant, and impact. Dropped things only matter if you make them matter. It is your job to frame the voting issues in the round for me and make it clear how I should weigh arguments against one another.

I prefer to minimize how much evidence I read after the round. I expect you to do more than shadow extend things. If all I have on my flow by the end of the round is an author name, I'm not hunting that card down to figure out the warrant for you.

I flow on paper and line things up on my flow. Please give me sufficient pen time on analytics, signpost, and keep things organized. If I am unable to get something on my flow because you did not do these things or because you were not clear, that's a you problem. I will always do my best to get everything written down, even if it's in the wrong place, but it will make it more difficult for me to meaningfully weigh arguments against each other, which means longer decision times and probably worse decisions.

I don't flow CX, but will pay attention throughout CX and jot down notes if something particularly important/eye-catching seems to be happening. If something occurs in CX that you want me to vote on, it needs to make it into a speech.

I do not follow the speech doc while flowing. I may have the document open and refer to specific cards if they are referenced in CX, but I won't be flowing from your doc or reading your evidence along with you during your speech.

Stylistic things

Prep ends when you hit send on the email, and unless you're planning to ask questions about the extra cards they added, please don't make us wait to start CX until they send them. I will keep as close to a running clock as possible - we all have a role to play in making sure the tournament runs on time, and we all want a chance to get a halfway decent amount of sleep.

If you play music/videos/etc. while you are speaking, please ensure the volume of the music is substantially quieter than the volume of your voice. I have some auditory processing issues that make it extremely difficult for me to understand people's voices while there is any kind of background noise. I want to flow and evaluate your arguments, but I can't do that if I can't process your words.

I vote on things that happened during the debate. I do not vote on things that the other team (or their friends, coaches, squad-mates, acquaintances, enemies, etc.) did during pre-round prep, in the hallway yesterday, at the bar last tournament, this morning at the hotel, etc. I will not attempt to adjudicate interpersonal events I was not present to witness.

I generally think debate is good. That doesn't mean I think debate is perfect. There are absolutely valid critiques of debate that should be addressed, and I think there is value in pushing this activity to be the best version of itself. However, if your arguments rely on the assumption that debate is irredeemably bad, I'm probably not the right judge for you. I think you need a model of debate that you think is desirable and achievable within the confines of an activity in which two sides argue with each other and at the end one side is selected as a winner.

Most debaters would benefit from slowing down by about 20%. Not because speed is bad, but because few debaters are actually clear enough for the average judge to get a good flow when you're going at 100% speed.

Examples, examples, examples. If you take one thing away from my paradigm, it is that I like to be given examples. What does your theory look like in practice? What kinds of plans are included/excluded under your T interp? Etc.

Please do not assume I know what your acronyms/etc mean. If I don't know what the bill/organization/event you're talking about is, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to evaluate your link story.

I will open the speech doc, but will not necessarily follow along. I may look at a card if something spicy happens in CX, if you're referring to a card in a rebuttal, etc., but I do not look at or flow from the doc. If you are not clear enough for me to flow without looking at your doc, I will not fill in gaps from the doc.

Ethics Violations:

I take ethics challenges extremely seriously. I consider them to be an accusation of academic dishonesty equivalent to plagiarism. Just like any other instance of academic dishonesty, ethics violations can have serious consequences for debaters and programs, and the perception that our activity condones such behavior could have serious repercussions for the survival of our activity. If an ethics challenge is issued, that is the end of the debate. If the tournament invitation includes a protocol for handling ethics challenges, I will follow the tournament rules. If the tournament does not have a clear set of protocols, I will clarify that an ethics challenge has been issued, make a determination in regards to the challenge, and either vote for the team issuing the challenge or for the team against whom the challenge was issued.

If you become aware of something you think might be an ethics violation prior to the round (you notice a card that is cited incorrectly, etc.) I would STRONGLY PREFER that you reach out to the team/their coach before the round and let them know/give them a chance to fix it, rather than initiating an ethics challenge in the round.

Because of the seriousness of ethics challenges, I consider it the responsibility of the team issuing the challenge to 1) prove that a violation (defined as card clipping or intentionally manufacturing or mis-representing the source or content of evidence) occurred and 2) provide a reasonable degree of evidence that the violation was intentional or malicious (i.e., I do not consider someone mumbling/stumbling over words because they were tired to be the same thing as intentional card clipping, and do not think it should have the same consequences).

That said, I understand that proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt is an impossible standard. I do not expect you to prove exactly what was going on in the other team's mind when the event happened. However, you should be able to show that the other team reasonably should have known that the cite was wrong, the text was missing, etc. and chose to engage in the behavior knowing that it was unethical. I do not think we should be accusing people of academic dishonesty as a strategy to win a round. I also do not think we should be engaging in cheating behavior to win rounds. No one debater's win record is worth more than the continued health of our activity as a whole. If we would like this activity to continue, we must have ethical standards, including not cheating and not frivolously accusing people of cheating.

Speaker Points:

These are relative for each division (e.g., what I consider an "average performance" that gets a 28.3 in novice will be different from what I think of as an "average performance" that gets a 28.3 in varsity)

29.5-30: You should be in the top 3 speakers at the tournament. I can count the number of times I have given above a 29.5 on one hand.

29-29.5: This was an incredible performance. I expect you to be in late out rounds at this tournament and/or to win a speaker award

28.6-29: This was an above-average performance. Something about your speeches/CXs impressed me. Keep this up and I anticipate you will clear.

28.3-28.6: This was an average performance. You had some good moments, but nothing incredible happened.

27.5-28.3: I like your attitude. Some rough things happened during this round. Maybe you dropped an off-case position, only read blocks, were extremely unclear, etc.

Below a 27.5: Something majorly wrong has happened in this round. You failed to participate meaingfully in the debate and/or failed to demonstrate basic human decency toward other people in the room.

Case debate

Yes, please. I love a good case debate, particularly when it is grounded in specific and detailed analysis of what the aff claims their plan/advocadcy does vs what their cards actually say.

T/Framework

I judge a lot of these debates, and enjoy them. Ultimately, these are debates about what we think debate should be. Because of that, I think you need a clear description of what your model of debate looks like, what it includes/excludes, and why that's a good thing.

Debate is an educational activity unlike any other, and I think that's a good thing. I generally default to believing education is the most important impact in these debates, but can absolutely be persuaded that something else (i.e. fairness) should come first.

Despite what I just said, I think the competitive nature of debate is also good, which means there should probably be at least some parameters for what the activity looks like that allows both sides a reasonable shot at winning. What that looks like is up for debate.

I prefer affirmatives with some clear tie to the resolution. That doesn't mean you have to fiat a topical plan text, but I do think it means debate is better when the affirmative is at least in the direction of the topic and/or about the same general content as the resolution.

Your TVA needs to actually access whatever offense the aff is leveraging against T. Lots of TVAs fail this test. I think a good TVA can be super important, but a bad TVA is typically a complete waste of time.

Against policy affs, I think giving me specific examples of ground you lost (not just "we lost some DAs" but "We specifically couldn't read these 2 core DAs and this core CP") is important. If you can show in-round abuse via spiking out of links, that would be ideal.

Please give me pen time.

Counterplans

If your counterplan has a bajillion hyper-specific planks, you need to slow down enough for me to at least get an idea of what they are in the 1NC.

I like counterplans that are specific, well-researched, and have a clear basis in a solvency advocate. I don't love counterplans that have a million planks that are not clearly explained until the block or the 2nr and are not grounded in some kind of solvency advocate/literature.

You should be able to clearly articulate how the implementation of the CP works. I think most aff teams should spend more time articulating solvency deficits based on the negative team's inability or refusal to articulate what the implementation process of the CP looks like in comparison to the aff.

I think conditionality is good, within reason. I think PICs are good, within reason. I think multi-actor fiat, counterplans with a zillion planks, etc. are probably not great, but generally are reasons to reject the argument, not the team. I can be convinced that any of the above opinions are wrong, given the right arguments by either team.

Disads

Please make clear what your acronyms mean, what your specific link story is, etc. early in the debate. I don't spend a ton of time judging giant big-stick policy rounds, so I'm probably not as versed in this literature as you. Please don't make me spend 20 minutes after the debate trying to decipher your impact scenario. Give me a very clear explanation in the 2nc/1nr overview.

Kritiks

I think the aff gets to weigh their impacts if they prove that the ideas underwriting those impacts are good and accurate. I think the neg gets links to the aff's reps/discourse/etc. I think the negative needs to win a specific link to the aff (i.e., not just to the status quo) and also either that the links are sufficient to undermine the aff's internal links (i.e. I should vote on presumption) or that the alternative can resolve the links. I don't think any of those statements are particularly controversial.

The role of the ballot is to decide who did the better debating in this round. Always. How I should evaluate what counts as "better debating" is up for debate, but I am pretty unsympathetic to obviously self-serving roles of the ballot.

If you say the phrase "vote aff to vote neg" or "vote neg to vote aff" in a round I am judging, you owe me $10.

I am okay with judging anything in round. I firmly believe that debates should be left up to the debaters and what they want to run. If you want to read policy or a new kritik; I am good with anything y'all as debaters want to run. Do not read anything that is homophobic, racist, ableist, or sexiest in round. Debate should be a safe place for everyone. A little bit about me I was a 1A/2N my senior year. I recently graduated from Sac State with a major in Communications and Women's Studies. I am currently applying to Law school and will be attending a law school in fall of 2024. I am currently a policy coach for the Sacramento Urban Debate League, coaching at CKM and West Campus.

Kritikal Affs: I love identity politics affirmatives. They are one of my favorite things to judge and hear at tournaments. I ran an intersectional k aff my senior year. If you run an identity politics affirmative then I am a great judge for you. For high theory k affs I am willing to listen to them I am just not as well adapted in that literature as identity politics. But on the negative, I did run biopower.

Policy Affirmative: Well duh.... I am good at judging a hard-core policy round or a soft-left affirmative. Once again whatever the debaters want to do I am good with judging anything.

Framework: I feel like the question for framework that debaters are asking here is if I am more of a tech or truth kind of judge. I would say its important for debaters to give me judge instruction on how they want to me to judge the round. If you want me to prefer tech or truth you need to tell me that, and also tell me WHY I should prefer tech or truth. The rest of the debate SSD, TVAs etc need to be flushed out and not 100% blipy. But that's pretty much how I feel like with every argument on every flow.

CP/DA: If you want to read 9 off you can.

Theory: I will be honest; I am not the best at evaluating theory arguments. I know what they are, and you can run them in front of me. But if you go for them, judge instruction is a must, and explaining to me how voting for this theory shell works for the debate space etc.

I like being told what to vote for and why. I am lazy to my core. If I have to look at a speech doc at the end of the round I will default to what happened in the round, not on the doc.

On a side note, go follow the Sacramento Urban Debate League on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, I want to be in the email chain. My email is smsj8756@gmail.com thanks!

About Me:

New Trier ‘16

Dartmouth ‘20

wwardkirby@gmail.com, add me to the email chain

Please keep in mind I am not very actively involved in the high school debate topic, and while I have judged at a couple of tournaments and have been involved in argument discussion with New Trier, I might have a slightly higher threshold for which claims require evidence than other judges.

I am not actively involved in college debate, but study Environmental Science and International Relations in college. For climate-based debates, this means I am going to be incredibly unpersuaded by environment impact defense, as well as extremely skeptical of any internal links that claim to solve the coming environmental catastrophe. For IR debates, I will reward teams that can explain holistic theories of state behavior and how that implicates their position in the debate, instead of taking ad hoc approaches depending on what flow they're on.

Non-Negotiable Beliefs:

The following predispositions I have are basically uncontestable within a round, and if you disagree, feel free to strike me

Death/Sexism/Racism/Heteronormativity are all bad

Disclosure is good, and failure to correctly disclose previously read positions is considered cheating, and is a loss (of course, these debates can be impossible to evaluate as I am unable to evaluate things that occur outside of the round itself)

Line-by-line is good, and if you choose to ignore any sort of organizational structure to your speeches I won’t feel bad if I miss something

I reserve the right to vote down any argument that I don’t understand, and don’t feel obligated to read through all of your evidence to piece together what wasn’t sufficiently explained in the debate—if you rely on replacing explanation with jargon, proceed at your own peril

I have recently realized that I am growing more and more frustrated with hiding deliberately bad arguments with the hope opponents drop them. If you are willing to advance an argument in order to win the debate, it shouldn't be one 15-second undertagged card in the 2NC on the K that suddenly turns into death not real, or a three-second ASPEC shell in the 1NR on the perm, or C/I only our aff hidden in the middle of some other standards on T. I by no means want to disincentivize proper flowing and clash, but this shouldn't come at the expense of making strategic, well-reasoned arguments.

If you seem to not care about your debate, then I will care a lot less about judging you—as long as you are invested in the debate for two hours, I will do my best to match or exceed that level of commitment

Kritiks:

My feelings about judging the K are directly related to the level of responsiveness to the 1AC—as long as your links are explained in terms of the action the 1AC takes/the assumptions that their specific authors make/the language in the 1AC evidence I’m perfectly content—I am much less persuaded by Ks that criticize structures that undergird the 1AC without explaining how the aff furthers the harms of that system. This also applies to being aff against the K, where I would hold the same burden of specificity—teams need to be much better at using the specifics of their case to make nuanced permutations, no link arguments, etc. etc.

If your K is based in any form of postmodernism, ESPECIALLY the aff’s relationship to death, you’re fighting an uphill battle. If you want to make the debate as difficult for yourself to win as possible, go for the fiat double-bind.

K Affs:

I’d prefer you read a plan. Having done a decent amount of work on “soft-left” (an imperfect term) affirmatives, I am very sympathetic to smart impact framing and feel no problem at all assigning zero risk to nonsensical DAs. I am much less sympathetic to affirmatives that don’t read plans, and VERY unsympathetic to affirmatives that don’t defend at least some interpretation of what a topical aff looks like (also, wtf does it mean to be "in the direction of the topic"). I’m not immovable on these questions by any means, as there are large portions of common negative framework arguments that are either nonsensical (looking at you, decision-making impact), or just regularly executed poorly. That being said, when two teams of equal skills execute both sides of the debate with similar quality, I would be surprised to find myself voting affirmative.

CPs:

Overly vague plan texts not only annoy me, but will make me lean negative on almost every theoretical question, especially counterplan competition. I love specific PICs (with solvency advocates) and affirmative attempts to avoid those debates are upsetting, to say the least. I’m somewhat neutral about International or State counterplans, but am more neg-leaning when the topic is large enough to be considered unmanageable. I lean aff on most Process CPs, but find that aff teams rarely execute in these theoretical debates.

As for judge kick, I’ll default to it, but will be very frustrated if the debate comes down to whether or not I had to kick the counterplan for the 2NR with ZERO discussion of whether or not that’s theoretically legitimate in a debate. I don’t think it’s a particularly uphill battle to win that judge kick is bad, but would strongly prefer the argumentation over that question to begin prior to the final rebuttals.

Conditionality:

The word “interpretation” matters to me quite a bit in theory debates, and I am often unconvinced that there is a large strategic difference between dispositionality and conditionality, so 2As need to be careful that their interpretation solves their own offense.

Like many judges, I’d prefer not to have to judge a theory debate, but understand the necessity of it. Aff teams will fare best when the language of the 2AR is clearly rooted in previous aff speeches. I will do my best to protect the 2NR, particularly when the 1AR fails to make an adequate investment in the argument, but am less sympathetic to the 2NR when it is clear the aff team wants to go for conditionality.

Topicality:

I am a good judge for the negative on topicality, provided the negative can win a clear violation (if I have to decide a debate based a we meet claim that neither side has fleshed out at all, I'm going to be upset). For me, we meet is largely a yes/no question, I've never understood how there could be a "risk" that you either do or don't meet. I am not a fan when people reduce limits to “number of affs under both interpretations”, and then arbitrarily argue whether or not their arbitrary number of affs is better or worse. T debates are best when they are specific and discuss specific affirmative and negative grounds and impact those arguments out. Reasonability, when articulated as “good is good enough” makes negative sense to me.

DAs/Case:

Nothing really novel here. Turns case is obviously super important. Uniqueness controls the direction of the link/link controls uniqueness arguments are incoherent at best. Zero risk (or, more accurately, low enough risk so as to be statistically insignificant) is most definitely a thing, and nothing frustrated me more as a debater when judges arbitrarily assigning risk to an advantage or DA when a defensive argument was decisively won. Terrible internal link chains that can be defeated with simple analytics are rarely made, please be the one to change that.

Speaker Points:

My goal is to reward teams that are kind, invested in the activity, clear (I cannot emphasize this enough, please, please, please be clear) and demonstrate specific research and content knowledge. Cross-x is an excellent opportunity to increase your points, and defaulting to your partner on every question is a excellent way to decrease your points.

I've realized I might be a little behind the curve on speaker point inflation and am trying to adjust accordingly.

If you are unnecessarily rude (and trust me, there is a clear difference between being a little bit overzealous in cross-x and genuinely mean—don’t cross that line), then I won’t feel bad at all for hurting your speaks.

I also tend to assign more low-point wins than most judges, simply because I award speaker points immediately after you have given your last speech, because I believe my process for deciding speaker points should be independent and prior to deciding who won the round. I still don’t give low-point wins very often, but I regularly had at least one per tournament.

Yes, put me on the email chain - koperski.debate@gmail.com

Any pronouns

Please refer to me as my name and not as "judge" in round.

University of Iowa 2025
Farmington High school 2021

Topics I've debated:
Immigration - 2018/19
Arm Sales - 2019/20
Criminal Justice Reform - 2020/21
Antitrust laws - 2021/22
Legal Personhood - 2022/23

Top level

1. Clarity over speed - this is even more important in the era of online debating, and you should always send your analytics in speech docs

2. When debating case, the first thing I look to is solvency. If I conclude that your aff doesn't do what you say it does, then I have no reason to vote for the affirmative. If solvency becomes a core issue in the debate, I will always go and read the aff's cards.

3. The neg needs to explain what their advocacy on the Kritik or Counterplan does for me to weigh it, it really boils down to "If I don't know what it is, I won't weigh it"

4. I am a good judge to go for Topicality or Theory in front of so long as you can explain things sufficiently and really impact it out - for novices, "Packet checks T" is not an argument

5. Cx is a speech, so use it well to attack your opponents while propping yourself up - tag team is fine so long as its not your partner taking up the whole cross period when you are supposed to be asking the questions

6. Do not read objectively bad procedurals in round, this means stuff like arguing USFG is faceters guild or bad links in the citations when you forgot to remove a period at the end (it shows that you don't care for debating, but rather you just want to waste your opponents time). I find these arguments to be detrimental to debate as an activity because it distracts from critical thinking and good argumentation, to being caught up in semantics that really don't matter. However, if the procedurals are based in good faith I am more sympathetic to voting on it. If your procedurals are in bad faith, I will dock speaks for it, I have no tolerance for it anymore.

7. I do not judge kick unless instructed to, if the other team argues that I should not judge kick after instructed to, then they should explain in detail the reasons why judge kicking is bad. If judge kick bad is argued, I am very sympathetic to agreeing that it's bad and end up not judge kicking the position. You read it, and now you must stick with it.

8. Tech > Truth - However, both are important in a debate round, and I can be swayed to evaluate Truth>Tech if you warrant out why viewing the round this way is inherently better

9. If you have to ask if there are any theoretical reasons to reject the team, one of two things is true, either you weren't paying attention, or the other team isn't giving enough importance to them. Reasons to reject the team should be at the forefront of the debate if you actually want me to reject the team on something.

10. My general philosophy on evidence is that you should read less evidence that is of higher quality rather than reading more evidence. Debate is a game of arguments, not one of speed. I am also very sympathetic to teams that rehighlight the other teams evidence because I believe that it's the evidence that should be making the arguments in a debate, and if the evidence you choose to read contradicts itself (even if it's part of the same source that you do not read), then you shouldn't be reading that card, and the teams that point this out and argue it well, will see an increase in speaker points and an easier path to the ballot.

Ethics Violations

I, as a judge will not intervene on something that can be considered an ethics violation without the opposing team raising the issue in round as well as clearly stating that they are making an ethics challenge. If/When that occurs, the round will stop, and I will assess the alleged violation. If I find that a violation has occurred, the challengers will win the round, and the team that committed the ethics violation will receive at most 25 speaker points. In the event that I find that no ethics violation has occurred, the challengers will lose the round and receive at most 25 speaker points.

Specifics to off case positions

Theory - I believe that theory is under utilized in debate, a theory debate should end up being about in round harms and methods and models of debate. I enjoy a good theory debate, this does not mean you should read theory in front of me, especially if you don't know how to impact it out. I typically lean aff on condo and disclosure theory, but will easily vote neg on condo if they argue arbitrariness of interps well. I do believe that theory is a reason to reject the argument, not the team, but, there are a few exceptions to this, especially if the other team does not make the argument that it's not a reason to reject the team.

K - Going for the K can be a bit of a daunting task, however if you can use the affs evidence to point out a link and can explain how the alt functions and solves then you will be in a pretty good position. The aff should always perm the K. I'm familiar with most kritiks that you'll probably run, but it's always a good idea to explain things especially if you are running a more obscure or high theory K. I also find that a lot of K teams get trapped in an echo chamber of their alt and assume that they don't need to explain the alt on a more general level. Being able to clearly explain your alt in a way that everyone can understand will greatly increase your chances of winning the alt debate (assume you're explaining it to someone who has never done debate). Yes your Baudrillard

T - Topicality comes down to competing interpretations and methods of debate, your aff simply being topical isn't enough to win on T, you need to prove why the resolution should include your aff. As stated above, "Novice packet checks T" is not an argument and I won't consider it, instead, as the aff, you should challenge T head on instead of trying to skirt the question of Topicality. I believe that a more limited topic is always better than a broad topic, it allows for more depth and conversation about the topic, and it encourages innovation and better research for both the aff and the neg instead of finding some obscure topic that's impossible to research. I also do not believe that "plan text in a vacuum" is a good "We meet" argument, it encourages bad and vague plan writing. A good limits argument should include a case list with explanation on why what their topic includes that yours doesn't is bad.

CP - Every CP needs to have a net benefit for me to weigh it. You need to have warranted analysis on the net benefit and how the CP solves. Solvency deficits, when argued well can easily take down a CP. As the aff, you always need to perm the CP and extend the perm throughout the whole debate, If there is no perm on the CP you need to win a large solvency deficit.

DA - Weigh the impacts of the DA to the impacts of the aff, I personally like link debates and find them to be the best way to challenge or defend a DA, that being said, this does not absolve you from doing impact work, if the link isn't clearly contested the impact is the next thing I look at, so focus more on the impacts, because if the DA doesn't link, the impacts of the DA are moot.

Case - See top level point 2 for aff stuff. For the neg, impact turn everything, if they say "x" is good, then say "x" is bad, if you have the cards for it, then I will listen (unless it's so untrue that it becomes harmful). I will listen to even the most absurd impact turns and vote on them, but only if you can actually convince me that they are true.

K affs - I am not the best judge to read these in front of, that being said, I have ran K affs before. My general philosophy is that in order to win while running a K aff, you must do the following

1. Prove why the K aff is better than following the resolution (unless you are reading a topical K aff, in which case, you'll just need to explain what makes it topical if it's not obvious)

2. Win on FW and on how your model of debate is better, the easier it is to understand your framework and the model of debate it proposes, the more likely you are to win it in front of me.

3. Do enough work on the impact/advocacy level to prove that not only is the impact/advocacy necessary, but also why we should first focus on that and not the general impact scenarios in typical debates.

4. Avoid relying on K and FW tricks to win, I greatly dislike them and I find them to ruin the spirit of debate. Debate is and should continue to be focused on education, by relying on tricks, it takes away from this education and skills building.

5. On Framework, SLOW DOWN, I'd rather you make less arguments that are smart and well thought out, than make a lot of arguments just to fill the flow. Also, if you are reading pre-made arguments, send them out, going fast and not sending what you read is super problematic and I find that a ton of teams do this as a way to win, and I find this practice to be detrimental and contributes to exclusionary practices in debate.

My views on debate

1. I believe that debate is a competitive game that can have some real world implications through rhetoric and discussions of how different forms of knowledge and power shape someone's lived experiences

2. This is a reading and research activity - attack your opponents warrants and author qualifications but if you are going to do this, make it clear why I should reject that piece of evidence. If you are going to run a Kritik in front of me, the best way to win the link debate is to use the aff's 1AC evidence to prove a link.

3. I have no tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Homophobia etc. in debate. This is an educational safe space and everyone should be treated with the upmost respect. If I find that you are making the space unsafe or problematic, I will dock speaker points, and if it's bad enough, I will drop the team. I find that the debate space can be very problematic at times and that it drives people out of the activity, and I want to ensure that this does not continue.

4. Actively debating is a performance and you are the performer, the time is yours when you speak and you may use that time however you want, but you should have a justification as to why you do the things you do.

5. At the end of the day, debate should always be something you do for fun. Debate can be tiring for everyone, so maintaining civility in the debate should always be the top priority. You don't know what your opponents have been through, or how they feel about debate, and I would hate if you contributed to why people leave this activity.

Speaker Points

Speaker points are mostly based off of the vibes in round. Everyone starts at a 28.5, debating well and being nice will increase your speaks, conversely, poor debating and being mean/hostile will lower your speaks. If you get below a 27, that means you either made a massive round ending mistake that should have been easy to spot, or you said something objectionable. If you get a 25, that means you either lost on an ethics violation, repeatedly said something in round that was objectionable and unethical, or said something about your opponents or myself that is beyond any doubt meant to demean, dehumanize, ostracize, or cause mental anguish.

-paradigm is essentially arranged from most to least useful to you so if you're reading and start feeling like it's no longer helpful for prefs or pre-debate adaptation you could probably stop bc it'll only get worse lol

-please put stephenlowep@gmail.com on the chain

-I really like when debates start on time. If your 1ac is on the wiki I don't see any disadvantage to sending it out before start time so that you can start speaking at start time. You don't have to start reading the 1ac as soon as its sent. You could send it as soon as you get the pairing and then just start reading it at the start time. I get not sending if its a new aff.

-please send a doc with the ev you want me to read after the round

-I try hard not to intervene in any way(note abt this at the end)

-best t-usfg impact for me is fairness. It doesn't matter to me a bunch if debate is valuable for clash type reasons bc we are all here afterall. We are doing debate for some reason however varied those reasons may be.

-best aff way to beat a fairness impact in front of me would involve winning some kind of subjectivity change. If aff can win a solvency claim for any kind of impact like racism or war then the aff will probably end up winning. I just think it's really hard to win that solvency claim given how important competition is to debate.

-I will provide clarification abt an argument if asked during your own speech or anyone’s prep time, e.g. I will answer “did you flow conditionality bad?”

-i encourage you to challenge my decisions if you disagree. I'd rather hash it out and have someone's opinion change than mutual disagreement. I don't take it personally and I won't judge any future debate based on what has happened in a previous one.

-if never mentioned judge kick is okay(and this means judge kick of individual planks if the neg says they can kick planks)

-i will reject the argument and not the team unless the aff explicitly argues their non-conditionality thing is a voting issue before the 2ar

-i lean towards competing interps over reasonability

-i lean limits over precision

-competition over theory

-perms aren't advocacies but perm do the counterplan does demonstrate that the aff could be implemented in such a way that there is no net benefit

-perm double bind seems to make a lot of sense absent the neg winning framework, but if the neg wins framework it seems they can win by convincingly criticizing the aff

-i suspect I care about impact uniqueness more than most

-i try not to be visually reactive. i don't want to effect the decisions you all make

-any questions at all ask over email. I believe you should have the opportunity to know enough about me to strike me if you'd like

-I think a lot of speaker points/my general disposition in debates is driven by how interested I am in what's happening. I'm more interested when both teams are reading a lot of cards and there's a high rate of arguments being made. Bold choices are also fun like impact turning in latter constructives, 2nc counterplans, etc. You shouldn't do these things just bc you have me and I like chaos but if it serves some strategic purpose go for it. Like I'm better for ev that's less highlighted, lighter explanation, and higher breadth strategies than most.

---non-intervention note

What I'm trying to say here is I will try hard not to dismiss an argument because it clashes with my personal beliefs or because it's offensive or anything like that. I'm not going to vote against any kritik, any style of death good, or pretty much any argument at all just because it was read. I will intervene on some line by line issues if the debating forces me too. For example if there is a t debate where both sides are making internal link arguments about education but they don't directly clash then my hand is forced and I will have to intervene to decide which internal link is better. Similarly there are certain arguments that don't require responses not because they are ideologically bad but because they are logically incoherent however this is rare. I will not vote for an elections DA if the election has already happened and I won't vote on a DA to space elevators if it's been read against a CJR aff. This isn't because I'm offended or am truth over tech or something. This is because these DAs are simply not arguments that prove I should vote neg whereas most death good args or kritiks are. Like if every part of these DAs were true by virtue of concession the most they could prove is that space elevators cause extinction or that the aff would've shifted an election which can be true and all but I couldn't possibly explain to a team why it means they should lose.

---other note

Everything below has nothing to do with how I judge debate. I’ve had a lot of conversations with high school debaters and I think many could benefit from reading what’s below. It’s not THE TRUTH but it’s my thoughts and I think some people may be able to get something useful out of them. I don't think reading what's below will help you with prefs or anything though.

-I enjoyed most of my time debating. I stopped debating because I wasn’t enjoying it. There were still times when I did debate and I didn’t enjoy it. After all there’s more to life than a search for what brings the most enjoyment. People who climbed Mount Everest didn’t do it because it was fun. They did it because it was Everest. Still, debate is a lot less cool than Everest and that’s also worth remembering.

-I recently learned that me quitting was evidence that I lied about my commitment level to debate. Commitment levels can change overtime. It seems the best thing I could do for the team and myself was stop. This was informed by people I spoke to on and off the team that advised me this was true. I’ve been a lot happier since I’ve stopped and my former team has been incredibly successful. This seems like a win-win to me. I don’t think anyone should feel any obligation to stay in what is in all reality an extracurricular club that they don’t enjoy because at one point in their lives they enjoyed it and they told other people they enjoyed it.

-Any monetary rewards I received from competing in debate were far outweighed by the money I spent attending tournaments on food, transport, and registration costs. I never got scholarship money in high school or college or for attending camp but I do get paid to judge/coach debate. I didn’t do debate as a survival strategy. I did it because I thought it was fun and I liked being good at something. Maybe the benefit of the connections and skills I’ve acquired through debate made participation a financially good decision. It’s impossible to say.

-I don’t know all of the different factors that can make someone’s relationship to debate unhealthy. I don’t know what it means in any clear sense to have an unhealthy relationship to the activity. I do believe there are people that are in debate that have intense anxiety and depressive episodes related to their participation. I’m not subtweeting here. This is just a thing that happens in debate. This seems bad but I’m not a doctor and I’m not saying you should stop if this is the case for you but it’s worth thinking about what you get from debate.

-There are a lot of interesting people in debate. Not all of them want you to feel good or feel good themselves. Being a good debater doesn’t make someone an admirable person. I don’t think there’s a negative correlation either but debate is an activity that selects naturally disagreeable and competitive people. Debaters hang out with other debaters and often times will not have good friends outside of the activity. Good and bad debaters want to hangout with good debaters. Outside of debate people want to hangout with people who are fun to be around. Being good at something is not a sustainable strategy for building strong relationships with other people.

-I also don’t think being a good debater means you’re any smarter. There are a lot of smart people that do debate but I don’t think there’s any reason to idolize debaters who are competitively successful as being ultra intelligent. Being really good at debate will cause people to believe you’re really smart and it may cause you to believe you’re really smart but this isn’t the same thing as being really smart. The flip side of this is that if you aren’t good at debate, you shouldn’t stay up at night wondering if you’re good enough. You are good enough and you would’ve been even if you had never heard of debate in the first place.

-No one becomes famous from debate. There are some debaters with famous parents but that fame came from elsewhere. People in debate will know of other debaters. Almost no one outside debate will know of any debaters. Even less people care. There are also other non policy debate events like mock trial, model UN, parliamentary debate, and even LD. Policy debaters like to make fun of these events but its worth remembering that however little we know about these things, people outside of our activity know even less about policy debate. My point is that there are far better ways to chase clout than convincing college students and high school teachers to tell you that you won an argument with other high-schoolers.

-Debate is not a game about logic. It’s a game about convincing another person to vote for you. There are some people who are trying to treat it like there’s always a right and wrong decision but there’s not. Different people have different ways of coming to conclusions and there are infinite arguments to be had about who won a given debate. There are logical games that exist like chess where there cannot be arguments about who won. Debate is not one of these games.

-Debate is not the most useful thing you can do for college applications. It certainly helps but there are far better activities to leverage in a similar way to debate if getting into an elite college is your goal. Again, debate helps but I wouldn’t recommend committing to debate purely as a strategy for college applications especially given all of the aforementioned baggage.

-debate is not separate from the world. It is in the world. One thing abt the world is that people with more money have an advantage over people with less. There is a reason the same schools are consistently good at debate in both college and high school. There are other things in debate that probably matter that can’t be controlled by the people that are both helped and hurt by these factors: race, gender, sexuality, etc. Debate is not an escape from these imbalances. I think it should be. I don’t think these imbalances should exist in debate or the real world. I don’t think any decision anyone will ever make in any debate will change this.

-I don’t know if debate participation is decreasing or not. People tell me that it is. If debate can’t successfully make a case for its own existence and usefulness to high school students then I don’t really know what the point is. That doesn’t mean I like this trend. I would prefer if debate grew. I think debate is better when it is bigger and I like debate.

Top shelf:

Pronouns are she/her

Just call me Alyssa or ALB - do not call me judge and dear debate Lord do not call me ma'am.

email chains: gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

questions etc: alucasbolin@glenbrook225.org. If you are a student from another school emailing me please copy an adult coach on the email (just a good safety norm.)

Director of Debate at GBS since 2019, and assistant coach at GBS for a year before that. Prior to that I had taken a few years off of debate but coached at Notre Dame, University of North Texas, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and USC. I only mention this because I've coached debate in a variety of geographical locations with a variety of different argument perspectives. I hope this information helps avoid you "pigeon-holling" me into a Glenbrooks cyborg or whatever the community perception is. If you do this anyway, you'll find yourself either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised at the end of the debate.

People always ask about my own debate career - the answer is "meh - not bad, not great." I was one of those debaters who qualified to the TOC (once) and the NDT (three times) but was in no way shape or form going to clear at either of those tournaments. This has made me a much better coach because I spend a ton of time thinking about how I can help my own debaters and the people I judge go from good to great. I try to always make sure it's about you and not about me, but I use my own experience to fuel my passion for the activity. Never in my Wildest Dreams (Lauren Ivey) would I kill it in my own debate career but I think I'm pretty okay at giving you feedback to help you kill it in yours.

Brownie points for having as many T Swift, cat, and/or Heartstopper references as possible. To be clear - the reward here is making me smile. I will not actually bump your speaker points or anything because I don't play that way.

Hot takes:

I love debate more than anything else in the world. If you show that YOU love debate more than anything else in the world that is going to go way way way farther than any preference of mine.

Favorite args in order of favoriteness (not so you make these args - just trying to give you a sense of me as a judge)

1. Politics DAs - I am still waiting for someone to do a one off strategy where it's just politics and the case. Be that person.
2. Well-executed case debate that features internal link and solvency presses in addition to impact D
3. Kritiks with SPECIFICITY TO THE AFF (either in analysis or evidence or - gasp - both)
4. Wonky debates about competition
5. Very weird impact turns, straight turns, etc

*I am not a great judge for condo - my teams go for it, I know I know, but it does not come from me. I'll vote on it - I just have a high threshold.

*I am a huge switch-side debate person - I really hate the community trend towards only reading arguments that fit in politically correct norms. If you have an evil argument Bring. It. On. I am personally progressive but that has absolutely nothing to do with how I judge debates. The obvious exception to this is attacking people's identity or safety. But if you're packing an absurd impact turn or read a politics da about a piece of legislation that is objectively terrible that you can prove is good, etc, I will be deeply amused.

*I literally have "2a" tattooed on my foot. 2ar terrorism is one of the most wonderful things in debate - make big bold choices if the foundation is there in the 1ar.

*My teams do everything - some are hard right policy teams and some are ... not that. I tend to think that debaters debate best when they find their own brand of debate and let their personalities shine through.

* No roboting through the round. Think. Make risky moves. Let's get weird.

*Style: Don’t be a jerk for the sake of it, but you shouldn’t feel pressure to be sugary sweet if you’re not - expectations of civility, politeness, etc tend to fall on noncis dudes and BIPOC disproportionately. Therefore a little attitude is fine with me. It’s a competition. I'm a woman who directs a major debate program and co-directs one of the biggest tournaments - I understand the need to be assertive and hold your ground.

*Clarity is very important to me. So is pen time.

*Technical debating, line by line, etc are important to me. If you flow off the doc I am not the judge for you.

*Zero risk is a thing. Love me some smart defensive arguments against silly arguments. GIVE JUDGE DIRECTION - challenge normal conceptions of risk.

*If you're making new args late in the debate you're likely to have to justify them to me. That doesn't mean don't do it, it just means defend your actions. THE 1AR IS NOT A CONSTRUCTIVE.

*You do you, but I find that I am slightly more confident in my judging if you include your analytics in the doc. I solemnly swear I am flowing by ear, but just being able to process information both visually and through listening helps my mental processing a bit.

*The one exception to the above is that if you read a new 1ac on paper I am 100% in favor - I truly enjoy watching people freak out when they have to deal with paper debate since I had the not-so-lovely experience of transitioning to paperless mid college debate career.

*EXPLAIN YOUR ACRONYMS - especially in a t debate.

Other random hot takes:

Wipeout - trash takes itself out every single time (me)

Impact turning Ks old school style - it's a love story, baby just say yes (me)

Baudrillard - I forgot that you existed (me)

No cp solvency advocate- now we've got bad blood (Aayan)

More than 6 or 7 off - You're On Your Own Kid (Aayan)

Things that are sexist/homophobic/racist etc - I Know Places where that is tolerated but I will not let rounds I judge be one of them (Aayan)

You must Speak Now (Lauren Ivey/me) in your own cross ex - like obvi tag teaming is sometimes fine but I hate when one partner does ALL of the cx in any given debate.

Heavy stuff:

*No touching.

*I am not the right judge for call outs of specific debate community members

*I am a mandatory reporter. Keep that in mind if you are reading any type of personal narrative etc in a debate. A mandatory reporter just means that if you tell me something about experiencing violence etc that I have to tell the authorities.

*I care about you and your debate but I am not your debate mommy. I am going to give you direct feedback after the debate. I won't be cruel but I'm also not a sugarcoater. It takes some people off guard because they may be expecting me to coddle them. It's just not my personality - I deeply care about your debate career and want you to do your best. I also am just very passionate about arguments. If you're feeling like I'm being a little intense just Shake It Off (Lauren Ivey.)

*Clipping = zero points and a hot L. Clarity to the point of non-comprehension that causes a clipping challenge constitutes clipping.

*I am more than fine with you post rounding as long as you keep it respectful. I would genuinely prefer you understand my decision than walk out frustrated because that doesn't help you win the next time. Bring it on (within reason). I'm back in the ring baby.

Let's have a throwdown!!! If you're reading this before a round I am excited to see what you have to offer. YAY DEBATE!!!

Updated 9-26-2013

Kevin McCaffrey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Value proof higher than rejoinder:

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

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

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

Incomprehensible value systems:

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

Email me:

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

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

I would like to be on the email chain - my email address is valeriemcintosh1@gmail.com.

A few 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. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
• 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 a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
• I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
• Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
• 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
• Disappearing after the round

Online debate: My camera will always be on during the debate unless I have stepped away from my computer during prep or while deciding so you should always assume that if my camera is off, I am not there. I added this note because I've had people start speeches without me there.

Ethics: 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 zero speaker points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points.
*NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me.

Organization: I would strongly prefer that if you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn that it go on its own page - its super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders. Ditto to reading advantage CPs on case - put it on its own sheet, please!

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. 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.

Translated evidence: I am extremely skeptical of evidence translated by a debater or coach with a vested interest in that evidence being used in a debate. Lots of words or phrases have multiple meanings or potential translations and debaters/coaches have an incentive to choose the ones that make the most debate-friendly argument even if that's a stretch of what is in the original text. It is also completely impossible to verify if words or text was left out, if it is a strawperson, if it is cut out of context, etc. I won't immediately reject it on my own but I would say that I am very amenable to arguments that I should.

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. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

Topicality: I enjoy judging topicality debates when they are in-depth and nuanced. Limits are an an important question but not the only important question - your limit should be tied to a particular piece of neg ground or a particular type of aff that would be excluded. I often find myself to be more aff leaning than neg leaning in T debates because I am often persuaded by the argument that negative interpretations are arbitrary or not based in predictable literature.

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly 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: I would say that I generally 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, but obviously am more than willing to vote for them if they are debated better by the negative.

I think that CPs should have to be policy actions. I think this is most fair and reciprocal with what the affirmative does. I think that fiating indefinite personal decisions or actions/non-actions by policymakers that are not enshrined in policy is an unfair abuse of fiat that I do not think the negative should get access to. The CP that has the US declare it will not go to war with China would be theoretically legitimate but the CP to have the president personally decide not to go to war with China would not be. Similarly CPs that fiat a concept or endgoal rather than a policy would also fall under this.

It is the burden of the neg to prove the CP solves rather than the burden of the aff to prove it doesn't. Unless the neg makes an attempt to explain how/why the CP solves (by reading ev, by referencing 1AC ev, by explaining how the CP solves analytically), my assumption is that it doesn’t and it isn’t the aff’s burden to prove it doesn’t. The burden for the neg isn’t that high but I think neg teams are getting away with egregious lack of CP explanation and judges too often put the burden on the aff to prove the CP doesn’t solve rather than the neg to prove it does.

Disads: Uniqueness is a thing that matters for every level of the DA. I am not very sympathetic to politics theory arguments (except in the case of things like rider disads, which I might ban from debate if I got the choice to ban one argument and think are certainly illegitimate misinterpretations of fiat) and am unlikely to ever vote on them unless they're dropped and even then would be hard pressed. I'm incredibly knowledgeable about politics and enjoy it a lot when debated well but really dislike seeing it debated poorly.

Theory: Conditionality is often good. It can be not. Conditionality is the ONLY argument I think is a reason to reject the team, every other argument I think is a reason to reject the argument alone. 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?

Kritiks: I've gotten simultaneously more versed in critical literature and much worse for the kritik as a judge over the last few years. Take from that what you will.

Your K should ideally be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If not, you're better off with it primarily being a framework argument.

Yes the aff gets a perm, no it doesn't need a net benefit.

Affs without a plan: I generally go into debates believing that the aff should defend a hypothetical policy enacted by the United States federal government. I think debate is a research game and I struggle with the idea that the ballot can do anything to remedy the impacts that many of these affs describe.

I certainly don't consider myself immovable on that question and my decision will be governed by what happens in any given debate; that being said, I don't like when judges pretend to be fully open to any argument in order to hide their true thoughts and feelings about them and so I would prefer to be honest that these are my predispositions about debate, which, while not determinate of how I judge debates, certainly informs and affects it.

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very 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 generally 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 roleplaying.

I am uncomfortable making decisions in debates where people have posited that their survival hinges on my ballot.

cam, they/she, camnofdebate@gmail.com

last time large substance changes were done : nov 2022

if you are a contemporary reading this and i have stolen things from your paradigm, it's because they are good and i will not rehash something already well-written.

bio

- 8 years of cx debate experience and counting

- happily in college debate limbo (transfer student blues)

- lane tech debate captain ('21)

- lane tech debate co-coach (‘22-now)

- went to the toc in hs if that sort of thing has significance to you

- people who have had a significant effect on my debate style and experience: lila lavender, george lee, geo liriano, sam price, uiowa CE, and the entire university west georgia with an emphasis on CL

top level

online debate: please turn your camera on, I hate listening to 4 black boxes - this excludes tech problems, my laptop is also prone to very dramatic tantrums.

don't call me judge, my name will do just fine.

very little offends me. it should be simple for you to prevail if it's so wrong and you're so right.

in my personal career i primarily went for policy aff's and k's or t on the neg. i generally think that good things are good and bad things are bad. i have few stipulations (probably even less than most) on how the "rules" of debate ought to work, if you win the thing that you are running then i will vote on it.

1) an argument is a claim and a reason (at least).

2) evidence supports your argument, evidence is NOT your argument

3) i won't kick arguments for you

4) line by line debating is non-optional

5) tech > truth (this has nuances, you won't read them if i write them...)

5) if you cannot collapse, you are a bad debater

the most significant thing to remember is that i am a human (by most definitions) that does make mistakes (despite my best attempts). i'm generally proficient at flowing, and i will flow the entire round-barring something catastrophic. i've had excellent and extensive conversations with many other college-age judges about this, during which i have concluded the following. my job as a judge is to do my best to fairly adjudicate the round to the best of my ability, which i can assure you that i will do. if you feel the need to hammer me in the post-round, by all means, go for it, but make note that i will respect you as much as you respect me. there are right and wrong decisions in varsity debates, and judges can & do fail to deliver the right ones, which is a regrettable, yet inevitable part of the game; i do my absolute best to avoid this, and i can assure you i have interpreted every argument on the flow to the best of my working ability.

now, much like keryk kuiper outlines, i am a fairly expressive judge. i laugh when things are funny, i do make faces at things, and i have been known to throw flow paper about in a rather dramatic way. you are under no obligation to change strategies based on the way i react to it, and you will win something that i don't "like" as long as you are winning it on the flow. you may, however, choose to alter it. that is your right and your decision. you are also a human with "free will". do as you please - but note that reacting to those things is a crucial part of becoming a better debater - and if your argument is so bad that i look like i’m about to throw up, good luck getting me to hack for you in the rfd.

i believe it goes without saying i would much rather judge a well-executed policy v policy round than a poorly executed k v k round. just because i have a better substantive grasp on a larger body of k lit than an average clash judge does not mean that i think you should pref me higher as a k team. my ideal debate is something you have the best grasp of, and that you are the most excited about. if that happens to be the k, then wonderful, but if it is also a CP you have labored over then i am equally as enthusiastic. all good debate teams do their best to exert themselves on arguments that they think have the most merit - that is what i want to hear.

below are, as the intro would suggest, my many conflicting opinions on debate. do not confuse this with rules for a round. these are just my personal thoughts, and i take pride in my ability to objectively adjudicate whatever presents itself to me.

k things

K's proper: LT PN was explicitly a set col team for many moons, so i am personally most familiar with that set of lit in the context of my own competitive practice. in my time as a coach, i've also worked on plenty of semio-cap/po-mo/ "high theory" based k's. external to debate, i'm fairly well-versed in anti-capitalist and queer theory literature. this is not an excuse to not judge instruct. i have a strong distaste for k teams whose strategy is to confuse the opponent out of ballots with large, and often unnecessary words. i find this practice incredibly disingenuous and i have (unhappily) noticed its presence increase over time. if you rely on obfuscation, the argument is probably quite poor, and you should not be reading it. on a personal note, in working with the lovely lila lavender for quite some time, i have found myself more drawn to k v k debate over time, as i firmly believe it is the most interesting and innovative form that debate can take.

additionally, i do wholeheartedly agree with her analysis of non-colonized and non-black people reading afro-pessimism as a strategy, for more information I have included the same blog link here

https://thedrinkinggourd.home.blog/2019/12/29/on-non-black-afropessimism/

K on the aff: you must be willing to commit. it is far too often that i judge k aff teams that are determined to make their aff more middle-of-the-road/palatable. clever k teams should be able to achieve equilibrium with effective policy teams with the amount of tools at their disposal and yet they seem unwilling to use them. i am far more willing to hear that debate is better with no competition models, debate should be thrown off a cliff, or that debating the resolution has no intrinsic value than your average clash judge. that being said, i have a stronger preference for k affs that defend something material (specific political project) than the average k judge. too many k affs shy away from fiating the alt, but i digress. as far as content goes, the material that i have the most personal familiarity is outlined above. i think lila says it best when they say "If you are going to reject the res, which is totally cool with me, you should make sure to have justifications as to why the res is bad, and why rejecting it on the affirmative is key."

if you are going to perform, and it is significant to you that the performance is flowed a certain way, indicate that.

i will probably not flow your overview if it is longer than 30 seconds.

i will definitely not flow your overview if it requires a separate sheet.

K on the neg: should deal with the case in some way (either moot it entirely on the FW flow/ fiat the alt/ what have you). generating philosophical or research practice based competition is most likely to be persuasive to me - i am of the many that believe beyond game theory, debate is a research practice. one team will win their FW interpretation, as most other standards are arbitrary. same content familiarity applies here. generally, the neg shouldn't be lazy with their links, and the aff should be smarter debating fiat arguments. i prioritize specificity and spin above all else. i also think affs should be smarter (and earlier) on the FW flow.

my favorite part of nick rosenbaum's theory of debate is that "you do not need an alternative if you are winning framework OR if your links are material DA's to the aff's implementation where the squo would be preferable OR if your theory of power overdetermines the aff's potential to be desirable OR if you can think of another reason you don't need an alt." same material praxis alternative preference as k aff's (internal or external to debate). fiating mindset shifts/epistemic reorientations (i have yet to hear a sound description of what that is) is probably abusive and generally not a good argument. i will (and have - dont ask) vote on death good - if you win it.

FW: i generally believe that framework is probably true to some extent, and net good for clash v k affs because reciprocity is good and so on and so forth. as my judging record would indicate, i am neg leaning in K v FW debates, mostly for the reasons outlined in the k aff section of this paradigm. i find tournament and season preparation disparity arguments fairly silly. for the negative, use smart defensive tactics like switch-side debating and TVA's, explain the flaws in the counter-interpretation (unlimited topic, links to aff offense), and produce smart arguments about limits, mechanism education, or clash.

making sure there is fairness in a competition between two teams is one of the judge's main responsibilities. judges are fundamentally expected to evaluate the discussion honestly; forcing them to disregard fairness in that appraisal removes the prerequisite for debate. on the aff, you should impact turn the process of policy debates on the topic - this is distinct from the affs on the topic. if you win that the process of debating the topic is bad, then preserving fairness is futile to the game.

policy things

T: probably makes its way into 75% of my own 1NR’s, competing interps/quality of evidence comes first. do not hinge your strat on some vague cross ex answer, clear and concise arguments only. additionally, both or either team reading blocks through the rebuttals without refuting the other team's arguments in depth is very boring and not something I want to watch.

Theory: See T. I err aff on condo generally and for the sake of transparency thing, most consult/agent counterplans are probably abusive, but don't let that sway you, i will still vote on the flow work (yes i am a strong believer in the debate truth that neg fiat is bad). i'm predisposed to believe exactly what YOU think debate ought to be.

Da's: make sure you do plenty of impact work, and PLEASE articulate why the impact of your DA overwhelms the harms of the aff. Links exist on a spectrum; the "chance of a link" has to be qualified and then incorporated into the risk assessment component of impact calculus. Expert turns case analysis is invaluable. “Any risk” is inane. Below some level of probability, signal should be overwhelmed by noise, or perhaps the opposite effect might occur. Pretending that one can calculate risk precisely is stupid. Are you really sure that the risk of a disad is fifteen percent? Are you sure it’s not, say, twenty? Or maybe ten? Or, God forbid, twenty-five? If you are able to calculate risk with such precision, please quit debate and join the DIA. Your country needs you, citizen. If not, recognize that risks can be roughly calculated in a relative way, but that the application of mathematical models to debate is a (sometimes) useful heuristic, not an independently viable tool for evaluation. - mollison stolen from matheson which has now trickled down to here.

CP's: win the net ben and how you access it, otherwise i will vote on a nice Aff perm. That being said, If a perm is present in the 1ar, I will NOT automatically judge kick the CP if the squo is preferable. In this scenario, the 2nr would need to instruct me as to why I should do this, however I think judge kick goes aff easily in the presence of a perm.I think lots of counterplans that steal much of the aff (interpret that as you wish) are illegitimate and the aff should hammer them. the aff still needs has to win theory regardless of my personal disdain for certain CP's. i do like a well executed tricky PIC though on a NATO topic, i find them widely entertaining. not sure of their legitimacy, but at least i'll be in a good mood.

final notes

have fun, debate should be something you enjoy doing. be nice and cordial to your opponents, that being said don't be afraid to be assertive. don't clip cards. i follow the nsda handbook re: evidence violation, so any of those issues must be resolved through tab. if the tournament is not NSDA sanctioned and i am instructed to make the decision, i will default to my best interpretation of what "good practice" looks like on the current college circuit/"general accepted community norms". all that good stuff

bonus speaks section

+0.1 for open sourcing (let me know, i won't look)

+0.1 for any good joke in a speech (this is at my discretion, good luck)

+0.1 for novices that show me their flows after the round has ended

Background

I have experience in just about all types of debate. While some distinctions between formats I see similarities rooted in intentional relationships, education and rhetoric. I do not see the judge as a blank slate. So I have some things that I think, based on my experiences as a debater, social science teacher, coach, parent and program director effect my role as a judge. We all have filters.

Personally, I debated NDT for the University of Houston in the early 80's. Achieving out rounds at major national tournaments and debating at both the NDT and CEDA Nationals. I have coached all debate events and many speech events. My policy teams won St. Marks and Memorial TOC tournaments and enjoyed success nationally. My students were also successful on Texas UIL and local circuits. I have had debate teams, LD debaters, extemp speakers and congress entries placed 1st or 2nd in Texas and have also coached a state oratory champion.

Currently, I consult and do debate on the side from home. I'm 62 years old. Concerns or questions about a judge that age are addressed below. The two biggest concerns are usually handling "speed" and "progressive" arguments. Speed with style and good technique is one thing speed that seems like a stream of consciousness is another. As for what progress is or progressive is, well that depends on your experiences.

I am open to alternative approaches to resolutions but also enjoy frameworks employed in the past. Debating and coaching in Houston and teaching at the UTNIF for a decade definitely shaped my my ability to listen to different types of frameworks - or what the debate is supposed to mean or accomplish. I have coached at so many levels, for many years on different topics - instead of seeing differences I see many similarities in the way arguments are framed evolve. I debated when it was highly questionable to do anything beyond policy debate - even counterplans, much less conditional frameworks, but being from a small squad (in a different info environment - when access to research and evidence was definiteley privileged) we pursued the edge strategies - such as hypothesis testing to level the field. Coaching in policy we ran all range of arguments. Over time shifting to a more critical approach. Once again in response, in part, to the changing information space. On an education topic we went deep all year on Critical Pedagogy and on a criminal justice - Constitutive Criminology. There are very few rules in debate. What policy debate means and what my vote means are for grabs by both teams. I'm not into labels at way to define myself. If I had to pick a term it would be: Critic of Argument

A couple of notes

Speed, unless evolution is really off track, speed can't be any faster, even from when we debated in college. Speed is rarely what set the best debaters apart. However, these are my first NDT rounds this year. (I'm contemplating grad schools in the mountain west for next year) Make sure acronyms, initialisms etc. are clear first before ripping through what will be new information for me. I suggest making sure each of you arguments (CP/K/DA - plan objection if you're old -) have a quick efficient thesis that makes sure I understand your position and its potential in the round before you take off speaking more quickly.

Evidence

I evaluate your proofs. Proof is a broad term - much more than published material.

I consider evidence to be expert testimony. A type of proof. The debater who presents experts to support their claims should lay the predicate - explain why that source is relevant and qualified to be an expert - when they present the evidence. Quotations submitted as evidence with just a publication title or name and date often fall short of this standard. Generally I don't want to call for a card after the round whose author was not qualified when presented in constructives. I will call for evidence on contested points. However, that evidence has been well qualified by the team presenting it and the debaters are usually talking about lines and warrants from the card. It is highly unlikely that I will call for card not qualified and/or not talked about in rebuttals. If a piece of evidence is not qualified in a meaningful way during a debaters speech - it is unlikely I would call for it after the round. I've seen traveling graduate students from England just dismantle top flight policy teams - they had proofs that all knew and accepted often with out some of the "debate tech" norms found in academic policy debate (NDT/CEDA). See the comments below on what matters in rebuttals!

Notes on Education

Spurious "quick claims" claims of a specific educational standard thrown out with out all elements of an argument are problematic. I am a life long educator who has witnessed and evolved with debate. Often teams quick claim Education as a voting issue. As an educator, I often see performance methodology (like only reading names and dates to qualify evidence or "card stacking" reading only the parts of a card that favor you - even if full context sheds a different light OR speed reading through post-modern literature as probably much more important than a debate tech argument) as serious education issues that could be discussed - and much more primary to education - than debate tech one offs.

I find "debate tech" like spreading and some uses of technology in round serve to privilege or tilt the playing field. This doesn't mean to slow to a crawl - fast and efficient - but also accessible to both the other team and the judge. So winning because the affirmative can't respond in depth to 8 off case arguments is not persuasive to me. Be bold - go deep on issues that you think are yours. "Debate Terms of Art" often fall in this category. Language choice should be accessible - even if it means adapting to your opponent as well as your judge.

Evidence often is not enough

Most debates aren't won early - the changing information space has created a lot of equity. But there two things debaters do in my experience in rebuttals that make a difference. After they have strategically collapsed or decided which issue to go for they:

1. They talk authors and specific warrants contained in the evidence - usually contrasting opposing authors and warrants. These warrants are prima facia - they are best when clearly identified - even in the opening speeches.

2. They can tell a narrative - or give examples of the mechanics, warrants, internal links in the card. They can also explain sequences of events - what would happen if I voted for your argument/position or team.

From an educators view - this is the goal of debate.

Counterplans and debate tech

Counterplan "micro theory" has really evolved. That is my term for many variations of counterplans that drive focus away from clash on the topic. Superficial, procedural and timing exceptions or additions counterplans. I actually spent time reviewing two articles on the history of PICs and their evolution prior to writing this. The excessive use of academic debate "Terms of Art" is problematic, sometimes exclusionary. I prefer head on collision in debate - and debaters who figure out how to position themselves for that debate. I prefer the debate come down to clash on field contextual issue as opposed to "side swiping" the topic. Just my preference.

I also find that this type of debate tech functions as a tool of exclusion. The debate should be accesable to your opponents without an overreliance of theory or tech debates. If they are used as time sucks that rubs me the wrong way going to your Ethos as a debater.

I do not and will not vote on or enforce a preround disclosure issue. Settle that before the round starts. Take it over my head if you object. If you ask me to adjudicate that - you might not like the answer.

How we treat each other

This is something that might trigger my voting in way you don't expect. Let's work on accomodating each other and creating safe spaces for academic discourse and the development of positive intentional relationships.

Arjun Patel, Maine East Debate 2012-2016, TOC Octafinalist 2016, UChicago Alumni (Class of 2020), BA in Statistics, Lead Data Scientist at Speeko. Updated for 2020-2021!

Do not read death good in front of me or you will lose

Email: arjunkirtipatel@gmail.com

General Background:

Debated for Maine East High School (coached by Wayne Tang, Keith Barnstein, Ann Peter). Most of my ideations about debate have been shaped by who I've debated with (Ashton Smith) and who've I been coached by. I will approach arguments in a very "policy" mindset, so keep that in mind throughout this paradigm. It will be harder to win non-intuitive arguments (death good, etc) in front of me, but tech rules truth.Generally, if you are confused by anything here, check Ashton Smith's paradigm or Wayne Tang's to gain an insight into my debate atmosphere.

Affirmative General Comments:

Ran policy affs through most of my career, ran a soft left aff at the TOC and the good part of my senior year (genetic discrimination/racism impacts), check the wiki for 2015-2016. Generally, the smarter and more nuanced the aff, the more I'll enjoy it.

Disadvantages

Disads are awesome, as long as you make sure you are making inroads to the case and are mitigating aff arguments. The more specific the arg, the more diverse the link debate, and the stronger the internal link to the impact, and everything will go fine.
Politics: I am very receptive to affirmative arguments on politics, especially link defense and uniqueness thumpers. It's a good disad only in the hands of the technical. Make sure you spell out the uniqueness debate.

Enough chips away at the disad, and it's entirely possible for the aff team to reduce risk of the DA to zero. Be careful. This also means that 1% risk framing isn't super convincing to me on face, and you need to do work to establish this.

Answer warrants in impact defense.

I am receptive to ethical objections to the DA, if they are relevant (eg last year, terror DA is racist, etc), as long as they are supported and impacted.

Counterplans.

Good, nuanced ones are going to convince me very well. Make the net benefit clear, and dispatch of theoretical concerns, make the aff team's life hell. Aff: theory arguments and smart perms are incredibly persuasive, as well as smart solvency deficits. No solvency advocate is ALWAYS a bad time.

Topicality

I'm not the best judge for this argument, even though my debate career might imply otherwise. I strongly suggest you go for another argument unless the aff is blatantly un topical or you are damn good at explaining T debate jargon free. Unless you have made it incredibly devastating for the affirmative, it will be tough for me to decide the debate on T, and I will lean affirmative.

If you do decide to do this, make the impacts clear. Assume I have no idea about the acronyms you will inevitably use on the T debate. Explain as much as possible.

Framework

I didn't go for framework much, but I am pretty receptive to the argument given clear clash and engagement with the affirmative arguments. Please impact why your framework is better, and why your interpretation solves offense from the aff side. Please engage with the case. Topical version of the affirmative is a strong defensive argument, which if dropped or substantially won, becomes a huge reason to vote for the team that proposed it.

Planless Affs/Performance.

In general, not really receptive to these arguments, but I will not refuse to listen to them and I will judge them to the best of my ability. I consider Plan Text solves the case and C/I solves the aff args the most damaging against these affirmatives, as well as ballot k type arguments made pertinent to the affirmative, so prepare accordingly.

I'm going to post something that my former debate partner put quite well here (Ashton Smith).

"Note: Coming from a school without tons of resources and recognizing the experiences of other relatively resource deprived school trying to compete against very well resourced debate schools, I am not unsympathetic to arguments based on inequities in policy debates."

Lastly, if you debate your affirmative well, and dispatch with neg offense, you will win my ballot. If you use obtuse philosophical/(insert theory here) language, and not explain what is going on, chances are I will get lost and I'll vote for the other team. I'm not an expert in what you're running, please understand that and accommodate. Part of debate is effective communication and if you don't effectively communicate the thesis of your argument to me, you lose.

Kritiks:

Don't use jargon the average person wouldn't understand. If you do, explain your terms explicitly.

I had an odd relationship with kritiks in my debate career. I have ran k arguments, ranging from security to Virillio to antiblackness a few times, however with any k debate I probably don't know what you are talking about. I will approach a kritik debate, in the absence of clear explanation from the negative, very much like a counterplan with a non-unique net benefit. Make it clear what your k is, why the affirmative UNIQUELY links, and what the impact is. Don't forget to include why your alternative solves risk of aff offense. BS K tricks are just that, BS k tricks...you can do better, and I'm not likely to vote on them. floating piks are silly and I won't vote on them. Probably weigh the aff.

MISC

Please don't expect me to understand the complicated jargon you will inevitably use (k stuff, legal terms, agency acronyms or bill titles). Make an effort too clearly, and concisely, explain the arguments you are presenting.

I despise when students (especially top tier senior teams) read 5+ off, especially in front of sophomores. Don't do this. You can win the debate without outspreading the opponent, and if you can't, you have bigger fish to fry... Having said that, as usual I will listen to the debate I just won't like it. If you are an aff team that destroys a neg team trying to outspread you, expect high speaker points.

The best debate possible is one with heavy discussion of case (such as case/author indicts, turns, arguments cut from the opposing sides evidence, impact turns, mechanism cps/mechanism das, and analytics).This is true even with planless affs and performance. If you can dismantle an affirmative with more analytics than cards in the 1nc, I'll be impressed.

Cross ex is a speech. I take notes on cross ex (meaning I write down what you state, in order to use this as clarifying or framing information for arguments you make make later) so make the most use of it. Get concessions, framing, clarification, or run traps. Point out flaws. Bonus if you can make their arguments look ridiculous, while still being classy.

Protip: I have a horrible poker face, so if I look distracted, or confused in the round, chances are that I am. Same for if I don't look those ways.

I'm a sucker for impact turns, so I appreciate a good impact turn adv cp strategy. (Consequently however, I will pay especially close attention to this debate. It isn't a get out of jail free card).

If you can trap the affirmative (or the negative) in making an argument detrimental to themselves (especially in CX), or if you concede arguments strategically to put yourself in a better position, speaker points will go up. Some of the best debate rounds happen when unseen connections are made between arguments, and used efficiently.

The more you engage the case, the more I will enjoy the debate and the better it will turn out for you.

Dropping Theory is almost always a game over, but this is diminished by how ridiculous the theory argument is. Condo is persuasive, so is any kind of theoretical objections to abusive counterplans (conditions, multi-actor fiat, no solvency advocate, pics bad etc). Just be sure you impact your argument when it's dropped, and it's good.

Don't do anything unethical (racist, sexist etc). I will not hesitate to drop you. If you think the other team has done something unethical and I don't look like I have noticed (again, I have a really bad poker face) make that clear, please.

Good luck.

UPDATED FOR THE THE GLENBROOKS 2023

uclabdb8@gmail.com

***history***
- Director of Programs, Chicago Debates 2023-current
- Head Coach, Policy - University of Chicago Laboratory Schools 2015-2023
- Assistant Coach, PF - Fremd HS 2015-2022
- Tournament of Champions 2022, 2021, 2018, 2016
- Harvard Debate Council Summer Workshop - guest lecturer, lab leader
- UIowa 2002-2006
- Maine East (Wayne Tang gharana) 1999-2002

***brief***
- i view the speech act as an act and an art. debate is foremost a communicative activity. i want to be compelled.
- i go back and forth on kritik/performance affs versus framework which is supported by my voting record
- i enjoy k v k or policy v k debates. however i end up with more judging experience in policy v policy rounds because we're in the north shore
- academic creativity & originality will be rewarded
- clarity matters. pen time on overviews matters. i flow by ear and on paper, including your cards' warrants and cites. people have told me my flows are beautiful
- tag team cx is okay as long as its not dominating
- don't vape in my round, it makes me feel like an enabler
- i have acute hearing and want to keep it that way. kindly be considerate of your music volume. i will ask you to turn it down if it's painful or prevents me from hearing debate dialogue

**background**
identify as subaltern, he/they pronouns are fine. my academic background is medicine. i now spend my time developing programming for Chicago's urban debate league. you may be counseled on tobacco cessation.

**how to win my ballot**
*entertain me.* connect with me. teach me something. be creative. its impossible for me to be completely objective, but i try to be fair in the way i adjudicate the round.

**approach**
as tim 'the man' alderete said, "all judges lie." with that in mind...
i get bored- which is why i reward creativity in research and argumentation. if you cut something clever, you want me in the back of the room. i appreciate the speech as an act and an art. i prefer debates with good clash than 2 disparate topics. while i personally believe in debate pedagogy, i'll let you convince me it's elitist, marginalizing, broken, or racist. in determining why i should value debate (intrinsically or extrinsically) i will enter the room tabula rasa. if you put me in a box, i'll stay there. i wish i could adhere to a paradigmatic mantra like 'tech over truth.' but i've noticed that i lean towards truth in debates where both teams are reading lit from same branch of theory or where the opponent has won an overarching claim on the nature of the debate (framing, framework, theory, etc). my speaker point range is 27-30. Above 28.3-4 being what i think is 'satisfactory' for your division (3-3), 28.7 & above means I think you belong in elims. Do not abuse the 2nr.

**virtual debate**
if you do not see me on camera then assume i am not there. please go a touch slower on analytics if you expect me to flow them well. if anyone's connection is shaky, please include analytics in what you send if possible.

**novices**
Congrats! you're slowly sinking into a strange yet fascinating vortex called policy debate. it will change your life, hopefully for the better. focus on the line by line and impact analysis. if you're confused, ask instead of apologize. this year is about exploring. i'm here to judge and help :)

***ARGUMENT SPECIFIC***

**topicality/framework**
this topic has a wealth of amazing definitions and i'm always up for a scrappy limits debate. debaters should be able to defend why their departure from (Classic mode) Policy is preferable. while i don't enter the round presuming plan texts are necessary for a topical discussion, i do enjoy being swayed one way or the other on what's needed for a topical discussion (or if one is valuable at all). overall, its an interesting direction students have taken Policy. the best form of framework debate is one where both teams rise to the meta-level concerns behind our values in fairness, prepared clash, education, revolutionary potential/impotence, etc. as a debater (in the bronze age) i used to be a HUGE T & spec hack, so much love for the arg. nowadays though, the these debates tend to get messy. flow organization will be rewarded: number your args, sign post through the line-by-line, slow down to give me a little pen time. i tend to vote on analysis with specificity and ingenuity.

**kritiks, etc.**
i enjoy performance, original poetry & spoken word, musical, moments of sovereignty, etc. i find most "high theory," identity politics, and other social theory debates enjoyable. i dont mind how you choose to organize k speeches/overviews so long as there is some way you organize thoughts on my flow. 'long k overviews' can be (though seldom are) beautiful. i appreciate a developed analysis. more specific the better, examples and analogies go a long way in you accelerating my understanding. i default to empiricism/historical analysis as competitive warranting unless you frame the debate otherwise. i understand that the time constraint of debate can prevent debaters from fully unpacking a kritik. if i am unfamiliar with the argument you are making, i will prioritize your explanation. i may also read your evidence and google-educate myself. this is a good thing and a bad thing, and i think its important you know that asterisk. i try to live in the world of your kritik/ k aff. absent a discussion of conditional advocacy, i will get very confused if you make arguments elsewhere in the debate that contradict the principles of your criticism (eg if you are arguing a deleuzian critique of static identity and also read a misgendering/misidentifying voter).

**spec, ethics challenges, theory**
PLEASE DO NOT HIDE YOUR ASPEC VIOLATIONS. if the argument is important i prefer you invite the clash than evade it.

i have no way to fairly judge arguments that implicate your opponent's behavior before the round, unless i've witnessed it myself or you are able to provide objective evidence (eg screenshots, etc.). debate is a competitive environment so i have to take accusations with a degree of skepticism. i think the trend to turn debate into a kangaroo court, or use the ballot as a tool to ostracize members from the community speaks to the student/coach's tooling of authority at tournaments as well as the necessity for pain in their notion of justice. i do have an obligation to keep the round safe. my starting point (and feel free to convince me otherwise) is that it's not my job to screen entries if they should be able to participate in tournaments - that's up to tab and is a prior question to the round. a really good podcast that speaks to this topic in detail is invisibilia: the callout.

i'm finally hearing more presumption debates, which i really enjoy. i more often find theory compelling when contextualized to why there's a specific reason to object to the argument (e.g. why the way this specific perm operates is abusive/sets a bad precedent). i always prefer the clash to be developed earlier in the debate than vomiting blocks at each other. as someone who used to go for theory, i think there's an elegant way to trap someone. and it same stipulations apply- if you want me to vote for it, make sure i'm able to clearly hear and distinguish your subpoints.

**disads/cps/case**
i always enjoy creative or case specific PICs. if you're going to make a severance perm, i want to know what is being severed and not so late breaking that the negative doesn't have a chance to refute. i like to hear story-weaving in the overview. i do vote on theory - see above. i also enjoy an in depth case clash, case turn debate. i do not have a deep understanding on the procedural intricacies of our legal system or policymaking and i may internet-educate myself on your ev during your round.

**work experience/education you can ask me about**
- medical school, medicine
- clinical research/trials
- biology, physiology, gross anatomy, & pathophysiology are courses i've taught
- nicotine/substance cessation
- chicago
- udl
- coaching debate!

**PoFo - (modified from Tim Freehan's poignant paradigm):**

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

Because of my background in Policy, I tend to look at debate as competitive research or full-contact social studies. Even though the Pro is not advocating a Plan and the Con is not reading Disadvantages, to me the round comes down to whether the Pro has a greater possible benefit than the potential implications it might cause. Both sides should frame the round in terms impact calculus and or feasibility. Framework, philosophical, moral arguments are great, though I need instruction in how you want me to evaluate that against tangible impacts.

Evidence quality is very important.

I will vote with what's on what is on the flow only. I enter the round tabula rasa, i try to check my personal opinions at the door as best as i can. I may mock you for it, but I won’t vote against you for it. No paraphrasing. Quote the author, date and the exact words. Quals are even better but you don’t have to read them unless pressed. Have the website handy. Research is critical.

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

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

I am a fan of “Kritik” arguments in PF! I do think that Philosophical Debates have a place. Using your Framework as a reason to defend your scholarship is a wise move. You can attack your opponents scholarship. Racism, sexism, heterocentrism, will not be tolerated between debaters. I have heard and will tolerate some amount of racism towards me and you can be assured I'll use it as a teaching moment.

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

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

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

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

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

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

Relax. Have fun.

Put me on the chain: jppiazza3@gmail.com

Topicality

I like good T debates, but they can get messy pretty easily, so clean line by line here is important. Competing interps are probably good. I am most persuaded by predictable limits in that it shapes prep and probably is the best internal link to clash filled debates and education.

Counterplans

CPs specific to the aff are always preferred. Condo is probably good, but if there is in round abuse story, theory can be convincing. Otherwise, I'm fine with cheating process counterplans, but they should probably have solvency advocates/a lit base.

Disads

Read them! I love politics disads, but anything case specific is probably better. I think each part of the disad can be reduced to zero percent. Smart analytics can beat cards. Do impact calc.

Kritiks

I'm familiar with most of the basic Ks (cap, security, fem...). I'm fine with high theory stuff, as long as you make it clear what you are critiquing and the impact to that. Weighing the aff is probably good, so I err aff on framework, but I'll try to stay as unbiased as possible. Good/specific link analysis is a must ! I will defualt to plan focus.

Planless Affirmatives

If you don't read a plan, make your method or advocacy clear in how it functions and what a world post aff looks like. You can weigh the aff against framework. I will be more persuaded to vote for you if the aff is in the direction of the topic, in the case of immigration you advocate less restrictions on immigration, however if you go the other way that's fine as well.

email: picklara4@gmail.com

- she/her

Glenbrook North '20

Northwestern University '24 (not debating)

- name chain logically (pls include name round and turney)

-- Novices/JV: if you follow my labeling advice for docs I will give you +0.1 speaks

-- if you can, pls send your analytics so I can flow better - if helps me and you, I promise

- clarity > speed (especially when online), seriously go slower or I will probably miss much of what you're saying

- impact everything out!

- no hateful language, don't clip, don't steal prep, death is not good, etc

- tech>truth (within moderation)

-- if I don't understand any part of what you said, that means you did not sufficiently explain your arguments

-- if you want me to flow every word of your analytics, send them in the chain

- Novices: don't read condo if there's only one counterplan or kritik (one advocacy)

- its probably fair to assume I'm not particularly well-versed in your kritik (especially if high theory) and need more explanation to fully understand your arguments. Be mindful of

- not read up on this topic so be sure to explain arguments fully

Maddie or Mads, not "judge"

any pronouns

maddiepieropandebate@gmail.com

Background/Affiliations: BVSW 2020, current KU debater; Coaching at the Berkeley preparatory school

TLDR: 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. Research should be a fun tool for you to explore new and interesting concepts, and debating is the manifestation of your process and progress in exploring new literature bases. The below paradigm is extremely long and in-depth--since I am largely in the back of clash debates, I feel the need to explain exactly how I decide debates so as to avoid confusion. I judge a ton of debates and I think judging is a privilege.

Prep Notes:

(1) I am very close to adopting Tim Ellis' prep practices. I've seen a major increase in people taking way too much time in between prep, CX, sending docs, etc---I will try and be as sympathetic as I can, but my patience is growing thin.

(2) "marked copy" does not mean "remove the cards you didn't read." you do not have to do that, and you should not ask your opponents to do that. If you must, that's prep (note: prep and not cx time). This is majorly pissing me off recently. (special thank you to holland bald for the wording)

Clipping: If an ethics challenge is forwarded, the debate will end and I will determine its validity with a loss and lowest speaks. If an ethics challenge is not forwarded but I believe clipping happened anyway, I will also give a loss and lowest speaks, but allow the debate to continue. Clipping includes being unreasonably unclear while spreading the text of a piece of evidence--I am willing to clear you three times before doing this.

Most important:

First --- I think most people would characterize me as a “clash” judge, which I’m okay with. I’m down for a good policy throwdown, but I’m best in terms of feedback for K v Policy, Framework, and K v K debates (and they’re the debates I enjoy judging the most). My voting record is pretty even.

Second --- I very passionately situate myself as an educator in debate. What I mean is I place quite a bit of value on my role as an educator, not in how I decide debates necessarily, but rather how I give decisions. I have previously held that I will put in as much effort into judging you as you do debating, but I have since realized that I tend to put in maximum effort into judging debates and give substantive feedback. I flow debates very carefully and care deeply about the post-round commentary and feedback I give, so be prepared for the RFD rants I have grown to enjoy.

Given that, I think the pedagogical value of this activity is tremendous and believe it should be acknowledged as such. If I deem that you have engaged in a practice that harms the community (read: don’t be racist, transphobic, misogynistic, or otherwise), I will not hesitate to dock your speaks, contact tournament directors and/or coaches, or simply end the round early as I deem necessary.

Third (this is important) --- Because I think debate is necessarily educational, I encourage debaters to be intentional in making arguments. Including arguments for the sake of including them is asinine and largely frustrating.

T-USFG/Framework

Things that matter to me:

1. Competing interpretations are more important to me than most others. This isn't true of all kritikal AFFs, but if the AFF is a critique of research practices, pedagogy, or orientations towards either, I am generally of the opinion that your angle vs framework should be one that posits a new model of engaging the activity/research that resolves your offense. The threshold to win an impact turn vs framework when reading an AFF about research practices tends to be difficult because it requires winning a threshold of contingent solvency that I don't think is usually achievable, or at the very least are typically poorly explained.

2. Both teams should identify what 2AC offense is intrinsic to the AFF vs the C/I, there are plenty of debates I watch in which the 2AR goes for a C/I that doesn't solve their impact turn to T, which is not persuasive. Negative teams should be taking advantage of poorly written C/I's.

3. Debate can certainly be characterized as a game, but I think it is better described as a competitive research activity--intuitively, debate is not yahtzee. Debate is a game is impact framing, not an impact.

4. Internal links matter more to me than others and I find this portion of the debate regularly is underdebated. That said, internal links and impacts are not interchangeable, your 2NR explanation should reflect that.

5. I have found myself giving many RFDs this year that are extremely frustrating because 2NR's and 2AR's alike are refusing to go for both offense and defense. Both teams need to extend an impact, do impact calcand impact comparison, and resolve residual pieces of offense with existing defense. If you do this, my life will be easier and your speaker points will be higher.

On the negative ---

----Clash is very persuasive – particularly:

1. Predictability > other internal links alone: Predictable clash is good and guided by resolutional wording. We rely on the resolution as a pre-season and pre-tournament research guide that allows us to determine what is and is not included in research areas under the resolution.

2. Contextualize it to the topic. Why is clash over the resolution good—what pedagogical, transformative, or reflexive potential does it have? I prefer these defenses of research to be personalized and about debate as opposed to spill-up arguments about enacting change – i.e. how does clash over the resolution change the ways we engage with the controversy surrounding the resolution rhetorically, educationally, and politically. These don't necessarily have to be "NATO good" but "studying NATO good" or something.

3. Turns case arguments are your friend, especially against AFFs that criticize debates research. Comparative internal link debating and impact calc are super important here --- contextualizing clash as a pre-requisite to actualizing the telos of the AFF, i.e. the epistemic shift the 1AC attempts to resolve.

----Fairness:

1. Good for this now. That being said, I often am hearing 2NR fairness explanations that end up being roundabout ways to get to a clash terminal, if this is the way you explain fairness, you would be better suited to simply go for clash in front of me.

2. Even when going for fairness, you need to answer AFF offense against your model of debate/content of research you mandate. Saying “debate is a game” and T is a “procedural question” doesn’t mean you are shielded from AFF offense against the content/research produced as a consequence of “fairness”

3. Its an impact, but one that is typically poorly explained.

TVA/SSD: My apparent “hot take” is that I think there are few scenarios in which it is strategic and beneficial to include both a topical version of the AFF and switch side in the 2NR. Usually, there is a blatant reason why either one solves the AFF, and you should pick that in the 2NR. The TVA and switch side are not ‘you drop it you lose,’ but impact defense, use it that way, and flag which piece of offense you think it is responsive against.

On the affirmative---

1AC Construction:

1. Be intentional: I want to emphasize this for those who read kritikal affirmatives. The 1AC should be a complete and cohesive argument in some capacity, I am not particular about the form through which this is conveyed (i.e. performance or scholarship or both), but I think many kritikal affirmatives lack an argumentative telos that is largely frustrating. The AFF should not be an 8 minute framework pre-empt, just as you should avoid including evidence that is not useful to you as offense. (this is a similar frustration to that I hold of policy AFF’s with K-pre empts and framing contentions)

2. You don’t need an advocacy statement, but if you do not have one, I should know what your argument is prior to CX of the 1AC.

C/I:

1. Prior to writing the AFF, you should decide if your angle vs fwk relies on offense that is intrinsic to the speech act of the 1AC or your counter-interpretation as a model of debate/research. You should make this distinction clear in the 2AC and establishes a threshold of what solvency mechanisms you have to win in order to access your framework offense.

2. Contextualize the C/I to the 1NC’s offense, anything the C/I doesn’t solve you should impact turn.

Misc:

1. I appreciate those who show me that they understand the academic context of the 1AC beyond the evidence included --- that includes history, examples, references to authors, etc.
2. If you are reading from a literature base from which you are unfamiliar with,I will know and I won't be happy. I do not care if you have skimmed the cards, if you cannot answer questions that your literature base has foundational answers to, I will be reluctant to give you speaks higher than 28.5
3. 1AR/2AR consistency is important --- you should be using similar language to explain your offense
4. Please defend things. Stop trying to avoid talking about the AFF, if you’ve read your lit base and are confident in your level of explanation, I don’t see a reason why you should be responding to every 1AC CX question with a variation of “we don’t do that,” especially when you clearly do.
5. ROB/ROJ arguments are very helpful for 2AR packaging and framing, you should use them
6. 2-3 well developed, carded DA’s to FW > shotgunning 8 DA’s that say the same thing
7. 2AR impact turn strategies need defense

Policy v K:

Misc:

1. I usually think AFFs get to weigh consequences/impacts, but you get links to discourse/rhetoric/scholarship, this is easily changed with good framework debating.

2. Framework probably matters to me a lot more than most. I think about debate a lot through its mechanics, not necessarily only through its content. I start here in most debates, unless told otherwise.

On the neg:

----The 2NR should always extend framework as a framing argument for how I evaluate consequences, otherwise you’ll likely take the L to a 2AR that moralizes about extinction. Explain what winning the framework means in context of the permutation/evaluating link arguments, I need contextualization and instruction of what you think framework does for you.

----You don’t need to extend 10 trillion link arguments, 1-2 is fine, impact them out and include link alone turns case arguments and specific contextualizations to the AFF---1AC lines or references to AFF speeches are rewarded.

----If you’re not going to the case debate, tell me why it doesn’t matter - I have been voting on extinction outweighsa lot recently

----I don’t think you need an alternative, but you do need to either win framework or links should have external offense and you should have substantial case defense

----Theories of power/structural claims mean nothing in a vacuum – you have to apply them where they matter and tell me what it means to win your theory of power

----I judge a lot of these debates and find that so many 2NR's overstretch themselves here. The 2NR should not be a condensed version of the 2NC, rather, you should make strategic decisions about whether to go for an alternative OR framework heavy strategy depending on the 1AR's decision

On the AFF:

----Like I said, framework matters a lot more to me, and you should use it to your advantage. The most persuasive way to articulate FW on the AFF in front of me is in the context of competition. Most framework debates devolve into weighing the AFF vs not weighing the AFF, which is always messy. Instead, contextualize your offense to how competition gets established and how that implicates link generation/alt solvency.

----The 2AC permutation explanation should contextualize the permutation to all of the links, explaining how you resolve it

----“Extinction outweighs” is not a defense of extinction rhetoric. You have to defend your research/scholarship by defending its academic/pedagogical value, because most of the time they are not critiquing securitization/extinction rhetoric in a vacuum, but rather the aff’s use of extinction rhetoric in an academic space for whatever reason.

----Asserting that something is a link of omission does not a link of omission make, this 2AC line is often a cop out for answering link arguments.

----Your FWK interpretation shouldn’t be “you don’t get K’s,” I’m far more persuaded by predictable clash style arguments like I explained above. That said, I think predictability and competition based framework offense is incredibly persuasive if you explain why it matters. Framework should always be in the 2AR, competition based offense makes winning a permutation a lot easier as well.

----If the K makes a structural claim or theory of power, you should read defense to it but also offer an alternate theory that explains [the thing]

----I’m not a fan of the 1AC structure that’s like [4 card advantage] [17 K pre-empts], nor am I a fan of the 2AC card dump vs 1 off strategies --- you should be thinking about how your aff interacts with the K and contextualizing 1AC evidence/scholarship vs the K

----I have judged a few debates now where the 2AC reads a link turn and an impact turn to the K. Please refrain from double-turning yourself.

K v K:

----If you have an advocacy statement, I generally agree that you get permutations, but I can be convinced otherwise

----I will be very impressed if you exemplify knowledge of how your literature base interacts with the other literature base your debating, most of the time scholars engage with one another by name and discuss their theories co-constitutively, and if you have read those theorizations and can explain them well I will be very happy.

----Comparative debating about structural claims/theories of power is really important here

Separate note about settler colonialism because I find myself in the back of these debates often:

----I agree almost whole-heartedly with Josh Michael’s paradigm here

----I have found that some people attempt to overadapt and go for settler colonialism in front of me, for whatever reason. If you aren’t familiar with the literature base and read this just for the sake of it, don't. That said, if this is a literature base that you are wanting to become more familiar with, I am more than willing to offer feedback, resources, and any other advice that might be helpful for you to continue exploring!

----I usually think that settler colonialism debates should be one-off debates, most importantly because I feel that it’s difficult to make a well-developed settler colonialism shell that is 3 cards

----GBTL/Material Decol > everything else

----Paperson doesn’t say legalism good.

----“Ontology framing bad” doesn’t disprove the structural claim of settler colonialism.

----You should be reading indigenous scholars. Geez.

In the unlikely event that you find yourself in a policy throwdown with me in the back:

Theory

----SLOW DOWN – I need to catch interps

----neg leaning, dispo is the only thing that solves your offense.

----Random procedurals are a waste of time and ruin speaks.

CP’s

----like these debates. good for PICS, bad for process. Competition debates that depend on legal intricacies are difficult for me to decide.

----Solvency deficits need impacts

----default judge kick

----stop getting to internal net benefits with 30 seconds left in the block.

DA’s

----the more specific your link ev is the better.

----turns case matters more to me than others, i think. tiebreaker in close debates will usually come down to this for me.

----I judge too many debates where the 2NR just doesn't extend an internal link, do that.

T

----fine for most t debates, bad for t debates that are particularly couched in legal distinctions.

----precision and predictability > debatability

----have judged a few of these debates recently that came down to insufficient violation ev---making this part of the debate clear to me makes deciding the rest of the debate a lot more clear.

Closing rants and pet peeves:

----Don’t use language/jargon that isn’t found in your literature base. Academic diction isn’t something you can mix and match to apply to your argument unless the evidence you're reading uses that particular language. If your evidence doesn’t use “communities of care,” “ontology,” or “social death,” don’t describe things as that.

----“Lengthy” overviews are the bane of my existence. I cannot remember the last time I gave a K 2NC with an overview, everything you do there can be done on the line by line. When I say lengthy I mean literally anything more than 25 seconds.

----I'll doc your speaks by .2 if you give a stand-up 1AR.

----(ONLINE SPECIFIC) Be respectful of everyone’s time. I am sympathetic to tech issues, but please make sure you aren’t having to send 3 different documents because you forgot to hit reply all, someone isn’t on the email chain, or you attached the wrong document.

----I hate the CX line of questioning that's like "if we win x,y,z does that mean we win the debate?" most of the time you're just asking "if we win the debate do we win the debate" and it gets you nowhere

----If you seem like you’re genuinely enjoying the activity, being respectful, and not taking things too seriously, chances are I’ll reward you with high speaks. My favorite debates to judge are those in which debaters are having fun!

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll try and respond as soon as I can!

Glenbrook North- he/him

If you are visibly sick, I reserve the right to forfeit you and leave.

spipkin at gmail. Please set up the chain at least five minutes before start time. I don't check my email very often when I'm not at tournaments.

1. Flow and respond to what the other team says in order.

2. You almost certainly are going too fast for how clear you are.

3. Kritiks on the neg: Probably a bad idea in front of me.

4. K affs: You definitely want to strike me.

5. No inserting anything into the debate besides like charts or graphics (things that can't be read aloud). You don't need to re-read the plan and counterplan text, and you can say perm specific planks, but if you are reading a more complicated perm than that, you should read the text. The litmus test is "insert the perm text."

6. I generally flow cross-x but won't guarantee I'll pay attention to questions after cross-x time is up. I also don't think the other team has to indefinitely answer substantive questions once cx time is over.

7.Plans: If you say you fiat deficit spending in CX, you don't get to say PTIV on T taxes. If you say normal means is probably deficit spending but it could be taxes, you get to say PTIV but you also risk the neg winning you are taxes for a DA or CP. Fiat is limited to the text of what you have in the plan. Implementation specification beyond the text requires evidence and can be contested by the neg.

8. Highlighting should form a coherent sentence. If it's word salad, I'm not going to waste my time trying to parse the meaning.

9. I like counterplans that are germane to the topic. Most of the process counterplans I've seen this year are not that They either can't solve the net benefit or they're not competitive or both.

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******

T

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.

K

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.

DA

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.

CP

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.

Background: 4 years at Baylor University, 1-Time NDT Qualifier. Assistant Coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, 2018-2022, Assistant Coach at Dowling Catholic High School, 2019-Present. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and I work for the Legislative Services Agency in Iowa.

Yes I want to be on the email chain: Sheaffly@gmail.com. Also email me with questions about this paradigm.

Paradigms are difficult to write because there are so many potential audiences. From novice middle schoolers to varsity college debaters, I judge it all. As a result, I want everyone reading this paradigm to realize that it was written mostly in terms of varsity college debates. I think about debate a little differently in high school and a little differently when it comes to novice debates, but I hope this gives you a general idea of how to debate in front of me

== TL;DR ==

Do line-by-line. I do not flow straight down and I do not flow off the speech doc. I am a DA/CP/Case kind of judge. I am bad at understanding kritiks and I am biased towards the topic being good. Be nice.

== Top Level - Flowing ==

It has become clear to me after years of judging that most of my decisions center not around my biases about arguments (which I won’t pretend not to have), but rather around my ability to understand your argument. My ability to understand your argument is directly related to how clean my flow is. Thus, it is in your best interest to make my flow very clean. I used to think I was bad at flowing, but I've come to the conclusion that line-by-line and organized debate has become a lost art. Debaters who learn this art are much more likely to win in front of me.

You are NOT as clear on tags as you think you are. Getting every 4th word of a tag is okay only if every 4th word is the key nouns and verbs. This is never true. So slow down on your tags, I am NOT READING THEM.

I’m not gonna flow everything straight down and then reconstruct the debate afterwards. The 1NC sets the order of the debate on the case, the 2AC sets the order of the debate off case. Abide by that order. Otherwise, I will spend time trying to figure out where to put your argument rather than writing it down and that’s bad for you.

Another tip: Find ways to give me pen time. For example, do not read 4 perms in a row. It’s impossible for me to write down all of those words. Plus, it’s always first and you haven’t even given me time to flip my paper over. And then your next argument is always an analytic about how the CP doesn’t solve and then I can’t write that down either. So stop doing things like that.

== Top Level – Arguments ==

Basic stuff: I love creativity and learning from debate. Make it clear to me how much you know about the arguments you are making. I don’t think this means you have to have cut every card you read, but understanding not just the substance of your argument, but the tricks within them is important.

As I said above, the thing that will be a problem for me is not understanding your argument. Unfortunately, this probably impacts Kritik debaters more than policy debaters, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I am probably a little more truth > tech than most judges. I believe in technical debate, but I also believe that debate is a place where truth is important. I don't care how many cards you have that say something, if the other team asserts it is not true and they are correct, they win the point.

== Top Level - Community Norms ==

1) For online debate, prep time stops when you unmute yourself and say stop prep. A couple of reasons for this. a) I have no way of verifying when you actually stopped prep if you come out and say "we stopped 15 seconds ago" and b) neither do your opponents, which means that you are basically forcing them to steal prep. I don't like it so that's the rule.

2) Debate is a messed-up community already. Don't make it more so. Be nice to each other. Have fun in the debate while you are disagreeing. If you make it seem like you think the other team is stupid during the debate, it's gonna make me grumpy. I love debate and I love watching people do it, but I hate confrontation and I hate it when people get angry about debates that don't matter that much in the long term. Be nice. Please.

3) This is mostly for high schoolers, where I see this issue all the time: If you are going to send a document without your analytics in it, making the version of the doc without the analytics in it IS PREP TIME. You don't get 45 seconds to send the document. Y'all are GenZ, I know you can send an email faster than that. You get 15 seconds before I break in and ask what the deal is. You get 20 seconds before I start prep again.

== Specifics ==

Affirmatives...

...Which Defend the Topic - I enjoy creativity. This includes creative interpretations of topicality. You should also read my thoughts on DAs as they apply to how you construct your advantages. Clear story is good.

...Which Do Not Defend the Topic - I am likely not a great judge for you. I think I may have a reputation as someone who hates these arguments. That reputation is not unearned, I built it up for years. But over time I’ve come to become a lot more accepting of them. There are many of these affirmatives that I think provide valuable debate. The problem I have is that I cannot figure out an interpretation of debate that allows the valuable "K Affs," but limits out the affs that I think are generally created to confuse their way to a win rather than provide actual valuable propositions for debate. I will always think of framework as a debate about what you JUSTIFY, rather than what you DO, and every interpretation I have ever seen in these debates simply lets in too much of the uneducational debates without providing a clear basis for clash.

I realize this sounds like I have been totally brainwashed by framework, and perhaps I have. But I want to be honest about where I'm at. That said, I think the above makes clear that if you have a defensible INTERPRETATION, I am willing to listen to it. You should also look at the section under kritiks, because I think it describes the fact that I need the actual argument of the affirmative to be clear. This generally means that, if your tags are poems, I am not ideologically opposed to that proposition, but you better also have very clear explanation of why you read that poem.

Negative Strategies

Framework: See discussion above. Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Education > procedural fairness > any other impact. “Ks are bad” is a bad argument, “their interpretation makes debate worse and uneducational” is a winnable argument. Topical version of the aff goes a long way with me.

Topicality: Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Case lists. Why that case list is bad. Affirmatives, you should talk about your education. I love creative interps of the topic if you defend them. But for the love of god slow down.

Disads: Absolutely. Well constructed DAs are very fun to watch. However, see truth vs. tech above – I have a lower threshold for “zero risk of a [link, impact, internal link] etc.” I love Politics DAs, but they’re all lies. I am up-to-date on the news. If you are not, do not go for the politics DA using updates your coaches cut. You will say things that betray that you don’t know what you’re talking about and it will hurt your speaks. Creative impact calc (outside of just magnitude, timeframe, probability) is the best impact calc.

Counterplans: I'm tired of the negative getting away with murder. I am VERY willing to listen to theory debates about some of these crazy process CPs which compete off of a net benefit or immedicacy/certainty. Theory debates are fun for me but for the love of god slow down. Otherwise, yeah, CPs are fine.

Kritiks: Eh. You can see the discussion above about K affs. I used to be rigidly ideological about hating the K. I am now convinced that the K can make good points. But because I was so against them for so long, I don’t understand them. I still think some Kritiks (here I am thinking mostly of French/German dudes) are basically designed to confuse the other team into losing. Problem is, I can’t tell the difference between those Kritiks and other Kritiks, because all Kritiks confuse me.

Very basic Ks are fine. Realism is bad, heg is bad, capitalism is bad, I get. Get much beyond that and I get lost. It's not that I think you're wrong it's that I have always been uninterested so I never learned what you're talking about. I cannot emphasize enough how little I understand what you're talking about. If this is your thing and I am already your judge, conceptualize your K like a DA/CP strategy and explain it to me like I have never heard it before. Literally, in your 2NC say: "We believe that X is bad. We believe that they do X because of this argument they have made. We believe the alternative solves for X." I cannot stress enough how serious I am that that sentence should be the top of your 2NC and 2NR. I have had this sentence in my judge philosophy for 3 years and this has been the top of the 2NC once (in a JV debate!). I do not know how much clearer I can be. Again, I am not morally opposed to Kritiks (anymore), I just do not understand them and I will not vote for something I do not understand. I believe you need a good link. Yes, the world is terrible, but why is the aff terrible. You also need to make your tags not a paragraph long, I never learned how to flow tags that were that long.

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.

Updated Feb 2017

Yes, I want to be on the email chain, tewsie1@gmail.com.

If you are a team that has been judged by me in the past there aren’t many changes. This is mostly an update b/c I haven’t looked at this thing in like 7 years.

I don’t really have strong argumentative preferences. Do what you do best and I will give you my best attempt to understand what you are arguing. Complete arguments have a claim, warrant and impact (reason it matters in the debate). Incomplete arguments rarely make it into my decision.

I flow and I don’t really read speech doc until I need a specific piece of evidence at the end. I value line-by-line refutation and get irritated when arguments don’t line. Overview proliferation is annoying. Most of those args can just be made on the lbl. I also flow on paper so undeclared overviews destroy my flow.

Good impact analysis helps my decision. Spend a little time talking about timeframes and probabilities instead of just magnitude. Often times mag is a tie, so I need something to clarify the extinction v extinction debate, obviously.

I look mad all the time. I’m not actually mad. It has no bearing on how I feel about the debate or you as debaters.  If I am mad at you, you will know it.

Pet Peeves:

Links are links not Disads to XYZ. If you win a link that means the argument competes, it isn’t a DA to anything on its own.

Debaters should handle their own CXs. If they need help that is fine, but they should at least be given the chance to answer questions in their own CX.

You are 18-25 year olds, figure out how email works. Excessive time sending email will result in prep time restarting.

I find it kind of sad that debaters aren’t funny anymore. I reward humor with points. Obviously, you should consider audience and appropriateness but don’t take everything so seriously all the time.

CP/Disads

I don’t really have anything substantive to say here. You can outweigh the aff with a good disad you don’t always have to have a counter-plan but you do have to win case defense. It also helps if you explain the warrants of the case defense in relation to the aff impact claims (instead of just reading cards and letting me sort it out). In DA outweighs the aff rounds, you must have internals between your DA and the case impacts OR some really good defense. You also need to spend a lot of time on internals and TF/Prob differentials.  

Kritiks

I pretty much adjudicate K debates like I do disads, did you prove a link and does the impact outweigh. Also typically in K rounds I will ask myself at the end of the round if I can explain in plain English why I voted on this argument (to the losing team). In other words if you can’t explain a K in simple English it becomes more difficult (not impossible) for me to vote for you. Alternatives don’t have to solve the aff if they solve the K and it outweighs the aff.

Self-serving roles of the ballot are annoying. My ballot typically indicates who did the better debating. Sometimes that better debating means that you convinced your opponents that the ballot means something different, but for real that ballot doesn’t change just b/c you said so. Go ahead and play the game but like all other arguments you are going to have to win this. A simple assertion of a new role is not enough. If you want to change the role of the ballot you are going to have to have a rationale for why your role is good for debate/the round/has some justification that goes beyond “you want to win the round”.

Topicality:

It is a voter. I usually evaluate on competing interps. I can be persuaded by reasonability however I think that these args are deployed weakly these days. Reasonability is a value claim and as such you need to assert the value (i.e. we are reasonable) and then explain how to evaluate reasonableness (how do I recognize if something is reasonable). The aim of this should be to take the onus off of my moral system of what is reasonable/fair to me and put it more on an objective system for recognizing reasonability in relation to community norms. It helps if you have a vision for debate and can defend it and don’t just treat T/FW as an analytic disad.

Theory

I often struggle with theory debates because people blaze through them with no regard for pen time. If you want to win theory debate you have to have a clear link and impact and explain why the impact should merit the ballot. I won’t read your blocks, if I can’t understand it from the speech and my flow then it doesn’t count. 

jvt.debate@gmail.com

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I did Policy Debate for 8 years at Solorio HS in Chicago (2016-2020) and at Dartmouth College (2020-2024).

Debate is a research-based, communicative activity. Arguments that are divorced from external scholarship are not persuasive to me.

Answer arguments in the order presented.

I am at my best in debates where the Affirmative has presented a topical plan and the Negative strategy involves a counterplan and/or disadvantage.

I tend to evaluate impacts based on the relative probability of the internal link chain more than magnitude.

Criticisms are fine, but I generally think Links should be about the plan and/or its justifications. If your speeches sound like they could be about any affirmative, I am unlikely to vote for you.

In Topicality debates (against policy or planless affirmatives) I am more persuaded by arguments about limits than ground.

Basically no patience for debate shenanigans. The answer to "hmm,, is X a debate shenanigan?" is likely "yes." This is especially true of egregious Negative practices of conditionality.

I flow on paper, I am not following along with the speech docs so that I can understand what is happening in the debate in front of me. Please don't make a card doc for me after the debate, I will ask each team after the 2AR to send me the set of cards I need to decide the debate. (ex: "Neg can you send me the DA link cards, Aff can you send me the internal link for Y").

There are adults in the activity that enjoy when cross-examination turns into a heated exchange between the debaters. I do not.

Random Note: Most people like to engage in small talk with their judges. I am very awkward with people I don't know, so this is actually my nightmare. I will not ignore you, but if my responses are not the friendliest that is why.

I miss One Direction, they broke up right when they found their style and were finally starting to mature as a band #Zouis

Unironically have read Tuck & Yang 2012 one centillion times.

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ONLINE DEBATE:

If my camera is off, please assume that I am not at my computer and do not start speaking.

Updated 1/7/23 for clipping/ethics challenge policy (at bottom)

4 years in Kansas in high school, 4 years at Baylor University, now a grad student and coach at KU and Barstow.

Add me to the email chain please: aewalberg@gmail.com and rockchalkdebate@gmail.com (college only)

Top Level

Do what you do best, I will do my best to be unbiased when evaluating arguments. I tend to take a long time making decisions regardless of the round, so don't read into it.

Judge instruction/telling me how to write my ballot is really important, points will be higher and you'll be more likely to win if you put the pieces together in the 2NR/2AR, are honest about the parts of the debate you're winning and losing, actually make decisions about what to go for, etc.

As I continue to judge, I find myself prioritizing tech over truth more and more, exception being when arguments/debates are violent, unsafe, etc. This means that you might think an argument is totally nonsensical, nonresponsive, etc. and I might agree, but you have to make those arguments in a speech in order for me to consider them when making my decision. If you want me to evaluate the debate through a lens other than tech, you should say that and explain what that means/why that mode of evaluation is better.

I think you should probably have to read re-highlighted ev, not just insert it. Open to persuasion but debates where both teams are inserting re-highlightings without analysis or explanation are negative persuasive to me.

I am generally open to whatever arguments you want to run, the substantive exception is wipeout. More critical arguments about death are fine, but I am not particularly interested in listening to or voting on suffering outweighs any potential for pleasure/we are primed to be afraid afraid of death but should die anyway.

I will read along with you in the doc while you are reading cards but I will not read along with the analytics you send, that's not a substitute for clarity or slowing down to give pen time. I also don't generally re-read a ton of evidence at the end of the debate unless told to, your analysis/explanation in round is much more important to me. If I'm in a position at the end of the debate where I have to put things together myself by sorting through a lot of evidence that received very little explanation, neither of us will probably be particularly happy with the decision.

Pet peeves: talking over each other in CX excessively---I cannot hear or understand anyone when this happens especially online, asking what cards were/weren't read in a speech if it's not prep time or cx, not having the email chain ready or sent when round start time hits, stealing prep (if it's not speech, cx, or prep time you shouldn't be typing/talking), calling me by my first name when we don't know each other. They're small things and old grumpy judge complaints, but they'll give you a sizable speaker point boost.

Online Debate

Slow down, be clearer. Make sure you can hear judges/other people in the round so you don't miss people telling you to pause or repeat an order.

Theory

I will vote on it if you win it, but that probably means you need more than one sentence on it in the 2AC. Slow down on these debates. I lean condo being the only reason to reject the team.

T

Slow down some. Impact it out in the 2NR. Don't forget to explain what winning competing interps or reasonability actually means for you.

DAs and CPs

I don't do a lot of topic research, so it'll be helpful for both of us if you do a little more explanation on topic specific things like link stories/solvency mechanisms/etc.

Good analytics can definitely beat a crappy DA. Winning terminal defense/zero percent risk is possible.

Ks

Explain why winning framework matters for you and how you still win the debate even if you lose framework.

You don't necessarily need a material alt to win if you go for framework.

2ACs should explicitly answer each of the link arguments even if it's just by explaining that it's a link to the status quo, a block that can impact out a dropped link argument well is likely to get my ballot as long as they are somewhat ahead on the framework or impact framing debate.

K Affs

Good. I do think it is possible to vote neg on presumption, so specific analysis about aff solvency or method is important. I find myself voting overwhelmingly aff in debates where the negative concedes the aff in the 2NR, so I strongly recommend extending your best 1 or 2 case arguments regardless of what else you're going for.

Framework

Neg: Best neg args are usually about models but can be persuaded it's about this round. Explain why fairness, clash, etc. is an impact and how your model accesses the aff's impacts. A well-developed TVA is great. These debates are pretty hard to win in front of me if you fully concede case.

Aff: Explain what debate looks like under your counter interp or counter model of debate or explain why you don't need a counter model. I am not a huge fan of the 2AC strategy of saying as many disads to framework as possible without explaining or warranting any of them out, two well-developed disads are more powerful than seven one-line ones.

Debate Ethics

If I cannot follow along in the evidence as you're reading it due to clarity issues or I can see you're skipping words as I'm following along, I will clear you once. If you continue skipping words or clipping and the other team does not call it out, I will let the debate continue and give feedback for educational purposes but will drop the team clipping. If you're clipping and the other team does call it out and issues an ethics challenge or otherwise ends the debate, I will end the debate, drop the team clipping, and give feedback based on the debate thus far.

If there is an ethics challenge issued and the debate is stopped, the team who is correct (about the clipping, miscut evidence, citation problem, etc.) wins the debate. Arguments about evidence ethics can be made absent an ethics challenge and without stopping the debate; for example, when connected to a citational politics argument. However, if one team says to stop the round because something is an ethics challenge, the round will stop and the team who is correct about the issue will win.

Arguments that are racist, transphobic or queerphobic, sexist, or that otherwise make the debate violent or unsafe will result in contacting your adults/coaches and a response proportional to/appropriate given what is said.

flow

cowardice will be punished

I strongly dislike offcase positions

every word that is unclear is -1 speaker point

Debated 4 years of policy debate at Iowa City High school
Debated 3 years at the University of Iowa (BS Economics)
University of Chicago (Master of Public Policy)
Drake University (Doctor of Education started 2022)

Contact: wright.henry15@gmail.com

I find debates the most interesting when debaters bring new things to the table or have a strong and innovative way to explain their argument. Someone who understands and can apply their links from the cap K or spending DA to the aff specificity is more rewarding than someone struggling to answer basic questions about a more topic-specific argument. With that in mind, if you have spent the time to construct a specific strat please please read it.

Before taking everything I say to heart, Tim Alderete told me something that changed my perspective on reading judge philosophies. He said something to the effect of “Judges ALWAYS lie. No one ever wants to say they are a bad judge or predisposed to certain arguments. It is your job as debaters to sift through that.” So if you want the truth don't ask me what I like ask people who know me.

1) I find that debate is a game and whoever plays it better wins. I really enjoy good line-by-line debate but what is often lost is for what ends are your arguments being made. Please have a framework for me to evaluate everyone's arguments. That should help prevent me from intervening arbitrarily.

2) Speed=amount of arguments clearly articulated per second. So make sure you articulate the argument and not just a claim. Moreover, if I can't understand you then I can't flow you and I can't evaluate what you said as an argument.

3) I think that a discussion of the resolution is important. That can be in many forms but the aff should include an advocacy that affirms the resolutional statement.

I want you to enjoy this activity so please ask me for help if you want it.

GBN '18

Northwestern University '22 (do not debate here)

email: matthewzhang48@gmail.com

- no real preference between policy vs k arguments but k teams have a slightly higher bar to meet in terms of explaining their arguments given my policy background. with that being said, run what you want and i promise i will do my best to follow

- slow down on theory/t arguments

- tech over truth to an extent. truer arguments are inherently easier to win so keep that in mind throughout the round when making strategic decisions. also, a dropped argument is not a true argument until you sufficiently explain the impact of the dropped argument in the context of the flow/round. however, i will not let my personal thoughts about the world wholly influence my decision-making unless you run something dumb and objectively morally corrupt like death good or racism good

- perm do both, perm do the plan and non-mutually exclusive parts of alt, etc. are not persuasive arguments unless you explain exactly how those perms are implemented by both the usfg and the cp/k actor during the 2ac

- cp theory arguments should not be in the 2ac unless some really egregious in-round violation happened - odds are there are much more persuasive arguments you can make that actually engage with the substance of the cp

- i evaluate rounds very similarly to how kevin mcccaffery's paradigm describes his approach (specifically the stuff under the first two sub-headings) so i'd look there if you want more detail

- admittedly not the best at flowing so if you think of yourself as a fast spreader then you should probably slow down a little bit

- please be nice to each other and try to have fun !!

Contact Info:
jzuckerman@glenbrook225.org
gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

Questions/comments:
If you contact me for feedback, please CC your coach in the email or I will not respond.

Current School:
Glenbrook South

Prior Schools:
Glenbrook North, 18-23
Blue Valley Southwest, 10-18
Blue Valley North, 04-10

Greenhill Disclaimer:

–I did not work a camp this summer and thus have little familiarity with topic specific terminology, mechanisms, or the basic t arguments. Please take that into account.

-I spent the past 2-3 years working with students in congressional debate and novice policy.

-Don't assume I know as much as you do about how the economy works.

General Disclaimer:

–Slow down, care about clarity, and have speech docs in a usable format that both teams can use. Manage your own prep and start the debate on time.

–I don’t know anything about non-policy arguments. I err neg on the importance of being topical.

–I am not qualified to judge a debate based on things taking place outside of the round.

–On a scale of evidence versus in round performance, I slightly learn towards the performance.