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Crestian Policy Classic

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Varsity Policy Paradigm List

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Holland Bald Mamaroneck High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 29, 2024 at 5:40 PM EDT

me: holland, not "judge," he/him. dartmouth 2025, westminster before that.hollandebate@gmail.com. put me on the email chain.

tldr: i believe that the best debates contain many topic-specific cards and rigorous line by line between two teams over the consequences or core ideological assumptions of topical plans. i am committed to technical evaluation of arguments presented to me, so with jurisdictional exceptions*, you are welcome to do whatever you'd like. however, at the margins, the further your debating deviates from this model, the less likely you are to win.

i will do my best to be tabula rasa. i believe that most debates are not close enough to require intervention, so you should do what you do best and not over-adapt. however, in cases where i do have to intervene, the below should give you a sense of my predispositions. if something is missing from this paradigm, it probably means i have no strong opinions about it.

tech overtruth, but the threshold for answering a facially bad argument is low.

clarity: i care a lot about it. particularly in debates where constructives are >20% analytics, you must be clear. i will also be very amenable to arguments about why i should not allow an unclear team to re-characterize their arguments if i did not understand them the first time.

Ks on the NEG:

good for them if they say a core concept in the 1AC is bad. bad for them if they are recycled and/or you dont look like you have done any reading.

in truth, i think "framework, no Ks" should be an uphill battle. conversely, so should "you link, you lose."

your framework interpretation should make sense. i often find that the aff tries to proclaim the framework debate is a wash and so "we get to weigh the aff but they get the k." i have no idea how one would weigh "fiated plan action solves extinction" vs, for example, ks of language or representations, since those two arguments operate on separate planes of evaluation. after stating your framework interpretation, you need to lay out how i would go about making a decision under it.

lastly, the obvious logical conclusion of many neg framework interps in my mind is plan inclusion (since the point of critiques as distinct from counterplans is that the locus of competition is not plan action). i think in many cases it is more strategic for the neg to just say and defend that.

Ks on the AFF: very good for T when the NEG gets off their blocks and explains how T interacts with what the AFF is saying. much more amenable to impacts about the process of debate (clash, fairness) than its content (topic education, skills). i have exclusively been on the NEG side of this debate, so while i am capable and willing to vote for planless AFFs, the threshold for explanation is likely higher for the AFF and i am likely to be able to subconsciously fill in the gaps for the NEG more. the NEG going for a specific position will likely be rewarded with high points.

counterplans: i would say i have a 70% grasp on textual and functional competition. the less you can use buzzwords and rely on me to fill in everything for you in high-level competition debates, the better off you will be.

advantage counterplans are racing toward incoherence. "the USfg should invest in pandemic preparedness, transition to a green economy, and increase supply chain adaptability" is a non-argument.

theory: slow down. my sole strong opinion is that 2nc counterplans out of 2ac straight turns are obviously bad. i often find that objections in the vein of "this cp is too close to the plan" are better expressed as competition, not theory.

disadvantages: the only maybe-quirk i have here is that, due to the nature of debates on the college nukes topic, i have spent a fair amount of time this year thinking about try or die. i think it is pretty silly - but the NEG must say at least something about it or it will be difficult to defeat a 2ar that spends a lot of time explaining and unpacking why it should frame my decision.

T vs plan affs: this will be an uphill battle for the NEG if the AFF seems like it is advancing a reasonable construction of the topic. this is particularly true for short T extensions with nearly no cards. AFF-specific violations and card-heavy 2NCs are great.

evidence quality: i think one of the most valuable parts of debate is the original research skills it teaches. i will greatly reward you for reading good, new, topic-specific evidence that you cut. that said, i will not pick through all the cards before deciding. i will read evidence in two situations:

1. there is contestation over its quality, highlighting, and/or warrants. evidence comparison is wonderful and debaters who can balance it with substantive argumentation will be greatly rewarded.

2. the debate is close enough that i cannot resolve it based on the words on my flow.

this means that if a silly argument is dropped, i will not read the evidence to determine whether it is true. this also means that "read our card" does NOT substitute for extending its warrants. however, if the NEG is reading a bad card for their silly argument and AFF is making smart analytic presses against it despite not having a card of their own, the NEG should not expect to win on "we have a card and they do not."

*jurisdiction:

trufanov: "Being racist, sexist, violent, etc. in a way that is immediately and obviously hazardous to someone in the debate = L and 0. My role as educator outweighs my role as any form of disciplinarian, so I will err on the side of letting stuff play out - i.e. if someone used gendered language and that gets brought up I will probably let the round happen and correct any ignorance after the fact. This ends when it begins to threaten the safety of round participants. You should give this line a wide berth."

awsare: "No double wins, devolution to another game, or soliciting audience participation. First to initiate receives a L and very low speaks." "Ad hominem is a logical fallacy. Screenshots are not ev. I have neither the authority nor resources to launch an investigation about outside behavior, coach indiscretions, and pref sheets."

giampetruzzi: "I strongly believe you should email your opponents if you find an ethical issue with their evidence or strategy pre-round. Treating ethics challenges like case negs is worse for the integrity of the activity than the ethics issues in question."

Sarah Davidson Notre Dame High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 3, 2024 at 4:06 AM PDT

Put me on the email chain - sarahelisedavidson@gmail.com

Online debate:

-I'd prefer if you have your camera on, but having it off is fine

-If my camera isn't on, I'm not ready

-Ask for confirmation that I'm ready before giving your speech

General things:

-time your own speech and prep

-tech > truth

-fairness > education

-I tend to place a lot of weight on evidence quality. I'll still vote on spin of course, but, if the debate is close, I usually look to the quality of both sides' evidence.

-I care a lot about judge instruction in rebuttals. It's really helpful and will get you good speaks

-I love impact turns, advantage cps, and well-debated disadvantages

-I don't like judging topicality or theory debates, but you should still go for it if you know it's the right strategy.

-I was a 2A, but my views are probably more in line with that of a 2N.

-Topical versions of the aff and case lists are good.

-A smaller topic is probably better than aff innovation.

-Competing interpretations > reasonability

Soft left affs:

- I'm predisposed towards extinction-level impacts, and I tend to think utilitarianism is the best framework for evaluating choices between policies. You're far better off spending more time attacking the link and internal link level of a DA than wasting a bunch of time on framing, which is usually a wash anyway. I think that a securitization-type framing argument is way better than some arbitrary "probability first" or "util bad" claim, BUT winning this requires meaningfully reducing the risk of the DA.

DA:

- My favorite debates are DA/case debates.

- I love politics DAs, but aff specific and topic DAs are even better. But feel free to read whatever contrived DA scenario you want. I'll vote on it if you win it.

- Pls do impact calculus - it makes my decision 1000x times easier

- Turns case is also super persuasive to me

- If you're going for a non-unique + link turn, actually explain why the aff resolves the link

CPs:

- Impact out your solvency deficits or explain why the perm shields the net benefit

- I'm not a good judge for process CPs. Complicated competition debates are confusing to me

- I won't kick the CP for you unless you tell me to

Theory:

- I will vote on theory, but you need to give examples specific to abuse within the debate and impact out theory in the 2AR

- cheaty fiat cps (ie Tsai should resign or Saudi should stop the war in Yemen) are definitely bad

- Agent CPs, 2NC cps, 50 state fiat, consult Cps, con cons, etc are probably good

- condo = good (but, again, I can be persuaded otherwise)

- perf con is a reason you get to sever your reps

Ks on the neg:

- i feel like my views on the k have changed a lot over the past few months. i like it more than i used to.

- cap, security, fem ir, and settler colonialism are the literature bases I'm most familiar with -- if you want me to vote on other things, i need lots of explanation

- i prefer specific links to the plan - the more specific, the better

- actually engage with the 1ac and spend time on case in the 2nr - i like when neg teams take lines out of the 1ac and/or recut 1ac ev

- floating PIKs are bad

- the alt should resolve your impacts and links

- i hate long overviews - your overviews should be short & contextualized to the aff

K affs:

- I prefer that you read a plan & im probably not the best judge for you if you read an untopical aff, but I'll still vote for a k aff and I have several times in the past

- at least have some sort of relation to the topic

- just asserting that the USFG is bad is not enough to get my ballot

- k affs probably don't get perms - if the aff doesn't have to be topical, then Cps / K's don't have to be competitive, but this needs to be explained in the debate

Neg v. k affs:

- framework - fairness is an impact (but you have to explain why it is), TVAs are great, tell me what debate looks like in the world of the aff & neg and why your model is better

- presumption - go for it. a lot of k affs just don't do anything

- k's vs k affs - not great for this. if you're going to go for a k, pls do thorough explanations and impact out each of your links

Speaks

- I'll dock your speaks if you're mean or rude to me or others in the round

Ashley Ellis Evanston Twp High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sat November 9, 2019 at 8:29 AM EDT

always throw me on the email chain- my email is ashleyellis068@gmail.com

- northwestern university 2022/shawnee mission northwest 2018

- coach at evanston township

top level:

1. be nice to each other please-- being excessively rude will to anyone in the room will probably get your speaker points docked. aggressive postrounding is ugly and will also get your speaker points docked.

2. tech (almost always) > truth

3. tech>truth, but i do think pics, conditions cps, object fiat, and other silly fiat tricks can be pretty cheaty, so you'll have to reeeeeally pull through on those to win them-- and i will grant a lot of leeway to bad 2acs on them

4. debate is a game

5. i try to avoid any argumentative extrapolation when deciding

6. time yourselves

case:

1. affirmatives should be topical. i'll weigh a k aff if you win framework. be clear and thorough with framework answers or i'll probably err neg

2. i find presumption arguments to be pretty persuasive

3. any impact scenario is fine-- if you're reading a structural advantage, have good framing cards

4. fiat is durable

topicality: jurisdiction is not a voter and potential abuse is ALMOST never a voter

disadvantages: please read them

counterplans: as i said above, there are a few types that i think can be cheating and you absolutely must win the theory debate if you want me to vote on them. if you find yourself wondering if you may be reading a cp that i am inclined to think is cheating, just ask yourself: am i cheating right now? the answer should become pretty clear at that point. be very clear and thorough on cp theory.

i'll judge kick if you tell me to. i'll probably do it even if you don't tell me to. as long as it's conditional, the status quo is always an option, especially since you'll presumably still have a disad in play. not allowing judge kicking justifies sloppy work on the net benefit which is probably... bad for debate.

** to be clear: i will not judge kick if the aff is winning a perm or any offense. apparently this is a point of contention.

kritiks: go for them if that's your thing, i'll weigh them. i'm really not sure how i feel about out-of-round occurrences, so you can most likely persuade me either way.

1. don't sacrifice argumentative clarity for trying to sound sophisticated

2. perms

3. cyclical structural violence is infuriating but you should still, idk, be a nice person in round

theory: It sounds trashy, but, as a 2a, I'm definitely willing to vote on bad theory arguments if not answered well. this is where i'm definitely the most tech>truth.

conditionality is generally good but I'll vote aff on *1 fewer* solves their offense if the work is there.

reverse voting issues??? probably don't belong in debate

speaker points: start around a 28.5 and i'll raise or lower them accordingly. you can go pretty fast in front of me, i'll probably be slightly offended if you go slow. pop tags and stay clear. i appreciate good jokes and time-relevant memes. really hot lines in cards will probably get you a boost. i really like weird/risky strategies that end well. a strong, hot cross ex is the #1 route to a 30. good organization is #2.

lincoln-douglas:

****framework =/= framing****

1. i am 100% a policy debater/judge/coach but I did a little bit of ld in high school and have judged it before without managing to royally screw up decisions-- keep this in mind when choosing which argumentative tools are at your disposal in the debate.

2. being that I'm not too big into ld, make sure you're getting your point across. i understand most of the tech, but if I look confused, you should try to help me out. i'm pretty reactive.

3. util did not justify slavery. this arg is tired and I have a very very very low* threshold for voting on it.

4. i think defensive framework pre-empts in the 1ac are generally a waste of time because they make args that have to almost fully be reiterated in the 1ar- just read more offense.

*I will never vote on it

public forum:

1. see ld- i'm definitely a policy person. i did pf a lot more in high school than I did ld and was alright at it, but i was limited to the local, nsda-type circuit.

i'm not sure if that means I'm a flex-type judge then? if you want to turn it into a policy debate---go ahead, i'll adjudicate the round like i would a policy debate. if you want to keep it soundbyte debate, then it will probably be a low point win-- i can't not let myself weigh tech, sorry.

Tim Freehan New Trier High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed February 28, 2024 at 8:14 AM CDT

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.

Christopher Fry Glenbrook North 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 5:59 PM CDT

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).

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.

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.

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.

Tom Gliniecki Glenbrook South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed December 8, 2021 at 11:06 AM EDT

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.

Michael Greenstein Glenbrook North 6 rounds

Jeremy Hammond Pine Crest School 2 rounds

Jam Hoffmann Shawnee Mission South High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue March 19, 2024 at 5:09 AM CDT

they/them

please add me to chain - jamdebate@gmail.com

important stuff not directly related to my opinions about debate:

ceda update:

this is my first year judging college debate and kentucky is the only tournament i've judged at. i have not done any topic research for nukes. i've been out of college debate for a few years, but have been consistently coaching and judging high school debate. i am pretty experienced coaching/judging most different types of arguments, but for the past three years have mostly coached teams going for critical arguments. i used to primarily judge policy debates, but now primarily judge clash and kvk debates

please be honest with yourself about how fast you are going. i need pen time! i don't need you to go dramatically slower than you normally would, but please do not drone monotonously through your blocks as if they are card text or i will likely miss some arguments.

if debating online: go slower than usual, especially on theory

how i decide stuff:

i try my best to decide debates strictly based on what is on my flow. i generally try to intervene as little as possible, but i am not a judge that thinks that any argument is true until disproven in the debate. as much as some consider themselves "flow purists," i think every judge agrees with this to a degree. for example, "genocide good" or "transphobia good" etc. are obviously reprehensible arguments that are harmful to include in debate and i won't entertain. that being the case, i have kind of a hard time distinguishing those "obvious" examples from more commonly accepted ones that are, to me, just as harmful, like first strike counterplans, interventions good, etc. i’m disappointed i have to add this to my paradigm, but i will not vote on “the police are good” or "israel is good"

despite how the above paragraph might be interpreted, i frequently vote for arguments i don't like, including arguments i think are harmful for debate. at the end of the day, unless something i think drastically requires my intervention, i will try to judge the debate as objectively as i can based on my flow

by default i will vote for the team with the most resolved offense. a complete argument is required to generate offense, so i won't vote for an incomplete argument (e.g. "they dropped x" still needs a proper extension of x with a warrant for why it's true). judge instruction is very important for me. if there is an issue in the debate with little guidance from the debaters on how to resolve it, don't be surprised if there is some degree of intervention so i can resolve it. i will also not vote for an argument that i cannot explain

opinions on specific things:

i am willing to vote on arguments about something that happened outside of the debate, but need those arguments to be backed up with evidence/receipts. this is not because i don't/won't believe you otherwise, but because i don't want to be in the position of having to resolve a debate over something impossible for me to substantiate. i know it’s somewhat arbitrary, but it seems like the least arbitrary way for me to approach these debates without writing them off entirely, which is an approach i strongly disagree with. however, if someone i trust tells me that you are a predator or that you knowingly associate with one, i will not vote for you under any circumstances.

plan texts: if yours is written poorly or intentionally vaguely, i will likely be sympathetic to neg arguments about how to interpret what it means/does. neg teams should press this issue more often

planless affs: i enjoy judging debates where the aff does not read a plan. idc if the aff does not "fiat" something as long as it is made clear to me how to resolve the aff's offense. i am very willing to vote on presumption in these debates and i yearn for more case debating

t-usfg/fw: not my favorite debates. voting record in these debates is starting to lean more and more aff, often because the neg does a poor job of convincing me that my ballot cannot resolve the aff's offense and aff teams are getting better at generating uniqueness. i am less interested in descriptive arguments about what debateis (for example, "debate is a game") and more interested in arguments about what debate ought to be. the answer to that can still be "a game" but can just as likely be something else.

k thoughts: not very good for euro pomo stuff (deleuze, bataille, etc) but good for anything else. big fan of the cap k when it's done well (extremely rare), even bigger hater of the cap k when it's done poorly (almost every cap k ever). if reading args about queerness or transness, avoid racism. i don't mind link ev being somewhat generic if it's applied well. obviously the more specific the better, but don't be that worried if you don't have something crazy specific. i think "links of omission" can be persuasive sources of offense. for the aff, saying the text of a perm without explaining how it ameliorates links does not an argument make

theory: please make sure you're giving me pen time here. i am probably more likely than most to vote on theory arguments, but they are almost always a reason to reject the arg and not the team (obvi does not apply to condo). that being said, you need a warrant for "reject the arg not the team" rather than just saying that statement. not weirdly ideological about condo (i will vote on it)

counterplans/competition: a perm text without an explanation of how it disproves the competitiveness of the counterplan is not a complete argument. by default, i will judge kick the cp if the neg loses it and evaluate the squo as well. aff, if you don't want me to do that, tell me not to

lastly, i try to watch for clipping. if you clip, it's an auto-loss. the other team does not have to call you out on it, but i am much more comfortable voting against a team for clipping if the issue is raised by the other team with evidence provided. if i clear you multiple times and the card text you're reading is still incomprehensible, that's clipping. ethics challenges should be avoided at all costs, but if genuine academic misconduct occurs in a debate i will approach the issue seriously and carefully

avoid saying slurs you shouldn't be saying or you'll automatically lose

Addison Kane Niles North High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed May 10, 2023 at 2:21 AM EDT

Add me to the email chain: addison.kane00@gmail.com

Pronouns They/Them or She/Her

Northside CP Class of 2018

University of Michigan Class of 2021

Currently Grad School @ University College London, doing a dissertation on queer geopolitics

Assistant Coach at Niles North (2020-2022)
-> Now a Remote Coach (2022-)

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

If I am judging you it means it is online and I am judging you from the United Kingdom. If it is past 10 P.M. where I am (I'm 5 hours ahead of EST - do the math), I'd prefer it if you debate at a slower speed.

I've judged multiple hundreds of high school debates at this point, in literally every medium, so I don't give any care about what style of debate you prefer. Just make creative, unique, and captivating arguments and defend those arguments well.

On framework:

I vote for framework quite a lot. It would be neat to do something creative with it and/or actually describe to me what your model of debate tangibly looks like outside of 'our model = fairness = inherent good'. Fairness to what end? What kind of scholarship does your model produce? What does it prioritize? What does it exclude? What community effect does it have? What skills do debaters gain that they can't gain elsewhere? Framework teams I've judged have hid behind these questions just to say "rules be rules, stop being unfair", which is only an argument if you win your ruleset has value in the first place.

It is also impossible to make me believe that debate does not shape individual subjectivity. It absolutely does. Anyone who genuinely believes otherwise needs to seriously look inwards on themselves and the rest of the community.

I also think debate is simultaneously a great activity and a very dangerous one as well - debate trains you to be a better reader/writer/researcher, it enables you to critically think about two sides of any argument, it allows students to make extremely valuable friendships, and its community can provide an insulated support system which can be an important safe haven for certain individuals. On the other side of things, I also believe and have witnessed the hypercompetitive nature of debate produce quite toxic and problematic personal characteristics in debaters as well, which has devastating mental health effects across the community. In framework debates, its both teams' job to convince me that your model of debate actively produces better/worse forms of these givens and/or other good/bad things outside of these givens. You can also try and convince me that some of these givens are more or less important than others, but you cannot convince me any of these givens are untrue.

Debate like people...please:

I think that debate is first and foremost a performative activity. I am increasingly frustrated by the ways in which online debate has produced a lot of ethos-less debate drones. Obviously I evaluate technical concessions and line by line, but the way in which I evaluate those speeches is filtered through the quality of your speech performance. What this means in a practical sense is, for example, if you're making an argument and sound like you have no idea if what you're saying is actually correct, or you are unable to hold the warrants up in cross-ex, I'm unlikely to vote for that argument, even if I could possibly justify it as a concession on the flow. Additionally, a convincing well-warranted analytic can beat pretty much any card, good and smart off-the-cuff rebuttals will usually beat out blocked out analytics.

Please read this:

Debate isn't life or death. Take breaks often, breathe, and relax. This activity can and will break you if you don't care for your mental health and wellbeing. If you're reading this doing prefs the night before the tournament or something, go do something nice for yourself that isn't debate.

Old Paradigm (use to determine your prefs at your own risk): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lL8SwemB064RuWAg6HB_aJzitSJaE8U7GDib6NxW2l0/edit?usp=sharing

Grace Kessler Westminster 5 rounds

Reuben Lack Alpharetta HS 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon February 5, 2024 at 4:58 AM PDT

Reuben Lack
Alpharetta High School '12
Emory University '16

I debated four years at Alpharetta and qualified to the TOC in my senior year before debating for Emory University. Currently, I'm a dubbing producer & director for Disney, with a specific focus on anime & animation content.

My top-line advice if you have me in the back of the room is do what you do best. These are general predispositions, not immutable laws of judging, and you're always best off advancing a strategy you know well.

Please add me to the email chain: reubenlack1@gmail.com.

We only have 5 minutes before the round, what should we know about you?
I consider myself a 'middle of the road' judge on most meta debate issues. When I was in the activity, I did everything from Politics DA 2NR's to more obscure 1-Off Kritik strategies. I'm comfortable with pretty much anything. I'm neither a "K judge" nor a "policy judge," and will do my best to examine the debate from the arguments you give me. Tactically, judge instruction and comparative evidence analysis are appreciated. My thresholds for theory arguments are probably lower than most judges.

To the extent I have certain leans on close calls, or musings about debate issues, I've done my best to illustrate those below.

Are you OK with K's/Critical Affs/Planless Affs/Performance/Non-Traditional Affs?
I've run everything from super 'policy' affs with giant heg and econ advantages to 1ACs that consisted largely of a poem and leftist arguments. In high school and college, I went for stuff like Security, Badiou, Derrida, and had a good share of 1NCs that were 1-Off Kritik. That said, it's been years since I've delved into these arguments, so explanation is a must for any high-theory strategies.

When it comes to framework and framework-related arguments against these types of Affs/K's, your 2NR/2AR 'story' should focus on the educational implications of each side's approaches. I'm interested in the question of how to make debate an educational and useful activity for students. How does your position interact with those considerations?

As for how to align your strategy, I'm more likely to be persuaded by a direct challenge to the efficacy of the non-traditional team's method/model for debate than a procedural fairness claim, which often falls short. It's always better to go on offense. There are serious & legitimate objections to K Aff's/performance Aff's that Neg teams should feel comfortable to make as part of their FW arguments. I have a particular soft spot for turns of the "cede the political" variety (e.g., withdrawing from the state/policy-making leads to state apparatuses controlled by conservatives).

Thoughts on the Politics DA & DA Strategy?
Love them. My senior year was almost entirely me taking that week's Politics DA in the 1NR. My favorite 1NR's dig deep into the aff evidence, tear it apart, and make solid comparative analysis. For the aff, don't be shy about putting all your firepower against 1 or 2 serious logical holes in the DA (this goes for any, not just Politics/Elections). The internal linkage between a particular bill passing to a terminal impact is typically pretty flimsy, and Aff's that push that point will do well in front of me. Zero risk of the disad is an RFD I've given.

Should I ever make Theory arguments an option in your rounds?
I'm probably more willing to vote on theory arguments than your average judge. That said, if you want to make "Conditionality Bad," "50 State Fiat Bad," or other theory arguments an option, you need to focus on what debate looks like under the other side's interpretation. What happens to prep, strategy, research, and why is it bad? Do the impact work, talk about what your vision of optimal debate looks like. These debates tend to be especially messy, so minimizing theory jargon is recommended.

Anything else you really like?
Impact turns, advantage counterplans, highly-specific case debates.

Any strong opinions about Topicality?
I enjoy a good T debate and was something of a "T Hack" for the first few years of my high school career. Reasonability is hard to win in front of me, but strong counter-interpretations are underrated. Like Theory debates, jargon is overused in T 2NR's/2AR's; I recommend focusing on the impact level, i.e., what happens to the topic if X is/isn't considered topical.

At the end of the round, how do you usually go about making your decision?
When the round ends, I take a note of all the key questions to resolve, then work through them one-by-one. This means framing arguments and judge instruction ("prioritize X," "view the [X] through the lens of [Y]," "here are the 2 ways to vote [X]") are great ways to win my ballot. My default state, unless guided by arguments in-round, is to assess the debate through an offense-defense paradigm, weighing how one area of risk interacts and/or outweighs another. I also rarely call for cards unless a nexus question of evidence quality decides the round. To borrow from Ed Lee's paradigm, "while I am a huge fan of quality evidence, my decisions will privilege a debater’s assessment of an argument over my reading of a piece of evidence."

What can I do to get high speaks if you're my judge?
Have fun! Be nice! Utilize cross-x effectively. My favorite debaters were all fairly slow at spreading, yet extremely strong speakers. And hey, I work in the anime industry, so pandering with references never hurts.

Any pet peeves we should know about?
Two pet peeves. First, please, please, please email/flash speeches in a timely fashion. Second, there is no "flow clarification" segment in policy debate, i.e., if you're asking what cards a team read, that's part of CX. You should always be flowing, with the speech doc as a reference, but not as the source of truth. There's been an unfortunate trend away from strong flowing skills, please don't let needless mistakes happen to you.

"Don't forget. Believe in yourself. Not in the you who believes in me. Not the me who believes in you. Believe in the YOU who believes in yourself."
- Kamina, Gurren Lagann
I wish you the best of luck and hope my feedback will help for future rounds. I love the activity and the fantastically cool people in it. I’ll do whatever I can to support you and help you grow as a debater.

Jake Lee Mamaroneck High School 1 rounds

Last changed on Thu May 2, 2024 at 10:28 AM EDT

Jake Lee (He/Him)

Math Teacher and Director of Debate at Mamaroneck High School

My Email for the Chain: jakemlee@umich.edu

HS Debaters ALSO add: mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

In-Depth Judging Record: View this Speadsheet

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Top Level:

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

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

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

Schools I judge the most: Lexington (45), Berkeley Prep (43), GDS (40), GBN (26), Calvert Hall (21), New Trier (20), Bronx Science (19), MBA (16)

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

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

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

Consider the Following:

1) Implicate Arguments:

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

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

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

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

2) Theory:

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

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

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

3) Framework:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Counterplans:

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

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

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

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

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

5) Disadvantages:

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

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

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

6) Critiques:

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

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

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

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

7) Topicality:

I am probably not the best judge for topicality debates.

I will default to competing interpretations majority of the time.

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

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

8) Case Debating:

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

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

9) Ethics Violations:

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

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

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

Tess Lepelstat Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Christopher Lucas Blue Valley North 3 rounds

Last changed on Tue September 13, 2022 at 5:49 AM EDT

I debated at Blue Valley North and at the University of Kentucky.

clucasdebate@gmail.com

For online debate, please turn your cameras on.

I would prefer if you went slightly slower than what you usually debate.

Topicality: I view topicality as a strategic argument on the same level as any other off-case position, I think it is incredibly valuable to debate. I don't think limits are the only impact but it is probably the best one. Instead of listing a lot of cases that exist under interpretations, I would prefer a smaller amount with a little explanation for each one. If reasonability is a big push, explain what you want me to understand when you say reasonability because I won't automatically understand how you are using it.

Disads: I will care a lot about smart turns case arguments especially ones that have cards.

Counterplans: I won't judge kick unless you say something. This isn't a statement about how I believe conditionality interacts with judge kick or whatever, but more of if it's something you wanted me to do you should have the strategic thought to say it. I don't have any negative thoughts towards any types of counter-plans, but I would not say I am a strong judge for debates that would center around counterplan competition.

FW: I think fairness is an impact. However, I think that the magnitude of that impact depends on your explanation of how you get there and what fairness itself means. I know that just describes doing impact calculus, but I always thought that doing impact calculus in framework debates was the most interesting kind of impact calculus because it has the most real-world implication. You are having a debate about debate so I think clearly framing impact calculus in a way that shows you have thought about how and why debate would get worse without just reading a super old script. For AFF teams, I haven't judged a lot of the debates to know my preferred aff strategy. I think it would be helpful to know I think debate is a game, I will only evaluate what's happening in the debate in front of me, and that being topical in some sense is important. I used to read a lot of racial capitalism books in high school.

Kritiks: I think that everyone gets their arguments in these debates. I do not enjoy it when people make framework arguments with no clear purpose and strategy and it is very easy to tell when you are just reading it just because you have a block. I like relevant historical examples and descriptions of impacts as supposed to generic descriptions. I research and read arguments about capitalism and biopolitics. I debated, judged, and coached about arguments centering around most other things.

Other general stuff:

I don't have a lot of particularly strong thoughts about debate so I will not automatically assume a lot of things that other judges might for you. That should hopefully give you a lot of creative autonomy in how you want to debate if you really guide me through how you want me to judge your arguments.

I think cross-ex is one of the most important parts of the debate and will pay attention to it and factor it into my points.

Evidence quality is really important and should be the main focus of final rebuttals and cross-ex. Even if people don't talk about evidence, I will read it and will inevitable have perceptions about them so reading good cards is important.

When reinserting ev if you just highlight the parts you want me to look at and paraphrase what you are trying to say that should be fine. You don't have to reread a tiny line to say what you already said.

Presumption/zero risk of something based on it literally making no sense or garbage evidence is something I will vote on.

I don't think conditionality is the only plausible to reason to reject the team.

If an argument is particularly stupid -- you should just ignore it.

Alyssa V Lucas-Bolin Glenbrook South High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 16, 2024 at 10:51 AM CDT

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)

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.
Well-executed case debate that features internal link and solvency presses in addition to impact D
Kritiks with SPECIFICITY TO THE AFF (either in analysis or evidence or - gasp - both)
Wonky debates about competition
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!!!

Kevin McCaffrey Glenbrook North 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 6:43 AM EDT

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.

Ryan McFarland Blue Valley Southwest High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 7:07 AM CDT

Ryan McFarland
Debated at KCKCC and Wichita State

Two years of coaching at Wichita State, 3 years at Hutchinson High School in Kansas, two years at Kapaun Mt. Carmel, now at Blue Valley Southwest.

email chain: remcfarland043@gmail.com , bvswdebatedocs@gmail.com

Stop reading; debate. Reading blocks is not debating. You will not get higher than a 28.3 from me if you cant look away from your computer and make an argument.

I've seen deeper debates in slow rounds than I've seen in "fast" rounds the last couple years. "Deep" does not mean quantity of arguments, but quality and explanation of arguments.

Talk about the affirmative. I've judged so many debates the last couple years where the affirmative is not considered after the 1AC. Impact defense doesn’t count. I don't remember the last time my decision included anything about impact defense that wasn't dropped.

I am not a fan of process counterplans. I’m not auto-vote against them, but I think they’ve produced a lazy style of debating. I don’t understand why we keep coming up with more convoluted ways to make non-competitive counterplans competitive instead of just admitting they aren’t competitive and moving on with our lives.

I'm not good for the K. I spent most of my time debating going for these arguments, have coached multiple teams to go for them, so I think I understand them well. I've been trying to decide if it's about the quality of the debating, or just the argument, but I think I just find these arguments less and less persuasive. Maybe its just the links made on this topic, but it's hard for me to believe that giving people money, or a job, doesn't materially make peoples lives better which outweighs whatever the impact to the link you're going for. I don't think I'm an auto-vote aff, but I haven't voted for a K on this topic yet.

If you decide to go for the K, I care about link contextualization much more than most judges. The more you talk about the aff, the better your chances of winning. I dislike the move to never extend an alternative, but I understand the strategic choice to go for framework + link you lose type strategies.

An affirmative winning capitalism, hegemony, revisionism true/good, etc. is a defense of the affirmatives research and negative teams will have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

I think K affirmatives, most times, don't make complete arguments. They often sacrifice solvency for framework preempts. I understand the decision, but I would probably feel better about voting for an affirmative that doesn't defend the topic if it did something.

Zero risk is real. Read things other than impact defense. Cross-ex is important for creating your strategy and should be utilized in speeches. Don’t be scared to go for theory.I will not vote on something that happened outside of a debate, or an argument that requires me to make a judgement about a high school kid's character.

Don't clip. Clarity issues that make it impossible to follow in the doc is considered clipping.

Valerie McIntosh Niles West High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 16, 2024 at 1:47 PM EDT

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.

Joshua Michael Notre Dame High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 12:10 PM EDT

Debated for UWG ’15 – ’17; Coaching: Notre Dame – ’19 – Present; Baylor – ’17 – ’19

email: joshuamichael59@gmail.com

Online Annoyance

"Can I get a marked doc?" / "Can you list the cards you didn't read?" when one card was marked or just because some cards were skipped on case. Flow or take CX time for it.

Policy

I prefer K v K rounds, but I generally wind up in FW rounds.

K aff’s – 1) Generally have a high threshold for 1ar/2ar consistency. 2) Stop trying to solve stuff you could reasonably never affect. Often, teams want the entirety of X structure’s violence weighed yet resolve only a minimal portion of that violence. 3) v K’s, you are rarely always already a criticism of that same thing. Your articulation of the perm/link defense needs to demonstrate true interaction between literature bases. 4) Stop running from stuff. If you didn’t read the line/word in question, okay. But indicts of the author should be answered with more than “not our Baudrillard.”

K’s – 1) rarely win without substantial case debate. 2) ROJ arguments are generally underutilized. 3) I’m generally persuaded by aff answers that demonstrate certain people shouldn’t read certain lit bases, if warranted by that literature. 4) I have a higher threshold for generic “debate is bad, vote neg.” If debate is bad, how do you change those aspects of debate? 5) 2nr needs to make consistent choices re: FW + Link/Alt combinations. Find myself voting aff frequently, because the 2nr goes for two different strats/too much.

Special Note for Settler Colonialism: I simultaneously love these rounds and experience a lot of frustration when judging this argument. Often, debaters haven’t actually read the full text from which they are cutting cards and lack most of the historical knowledge to responsibly go for this argument. List of annoyances: there are 6 settler moves to innocence – you should know the differences/specifics rather than just reading pages 1-3 of Decol not a Metaphor; la paperson’s A Third University is Possible does not say “State reform good”; Reading “give back land” as an alt and then not defending against the impact turn is just lazy. Additionally, claiming “we don’t have to specify how this happens,” is only a viable answer for Indigenous debaters (the literature makes this fairly clear); Making a land acknowledgement in the first 5 seconds of the speech and then never mentioning it again is essentially worthless; Ethic of Incommensurability is not an alt, it’s an ideological frame for future alternative work (fight me JKS).

General: 1) Fairness is either an impact or an internal link 2) the TVA doesn’t have to solve the entirety of the aff. 3) Your Interp + our aff is just bad.

Aff v FW: 1) can win with just impact turns, though the threshold is higher than when winning a CI with viable NB’s. 2) More persuaded by defenses of education/advocacy skills/movement building. 3) Less random DA’s that are basically the same, and more internal links to fully developed DA’s. Most of the time your DA’s to the TVA are the same offense you’ve already read elsewhere.

Reading FW: 1) Respect teams that demonstrate why state engagement is better in terms of movement building. 2) “If we can’t test the aff, presume it’s false” – no 3) Have to answer case at some point (more than the 10 seconds after the timer has already gone off) 4) You almost never have time to fully develop the sabotage tva (UGA RS deserves more respect than that). 5) Impact turns to the CI are generally underutilized. You’ll almost always win the internal link to limits, so spending all your time here is a waste. 6) Should defend the TVA in 1nc cx if asked. You don’t have a right to hide it until the block.

Theory - 1) I generally lean neg on questions of Conditionality/Random CP theory. 2) No one ever explains why dispo solves their interp. 3) Won’t judge kick unless instructed to.

T – 1) I’m not your best judge. 2) Seems like no matter how much debating is done over CI v Reasonability, I still have to evaluate most of the offense based on CI’s.

DA/CP – 1) Prefer smart indicts of evidence as opposed to walls of cards (especially on ptx/agenda da's). Neg teams get away with murder re: "dropped ev" that says very little/creatively highlighted. 2) I'm probably more lenient with aff responses (solvency deficits/aff solves impact/intrinsic perm) to Process Cp's/Internal NB's that don't have solvency ev/any relation to aff.

Case - I miss in depth case debates. Re-highlightings don't have to be read. The worse your re-highlighting the lower the threshold for aff to ignore it.

All of my thoughts on policy apply, except for theory. More than 2 condo (or CP’s with different plank combinations) is probably abusive, but I can be convinced otherwise on a technical level.

Not voting on an RVI. I don’t care if it’s dropped.

Most LD theory is terrible Ex: Have to spec a ROB or I don’t know what I can read in the 1nc --- dumb argument.

Phil or Tricks (sp?) debating – I’m not your judge.

Cody Morrow St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed February 21, 2024 at 2:09 PM CDT

________________________________________________________________________

Paradigm from 2017 through February 2024.

Yes, I want to be on the email chain, please put both emails on the chain.

codymorrowtx1@gmail.com

smdebatedocs@gmail.com

Speaker Points

I attempted to resist the point inflation that seems to happen everywhere these days, but I decided that was not fair to the teams/debaters that performed impressively in front of me.

27.7 to 28.2 - Average

28.3 to 28.6 - Good job

28.7 to 29.2 - Well above average

29.3 to 29.7 - Great job/ impressive job

29.8 to 29.9 - Outstanding performance, better than I have seen in a long time. Zero mistakes and you excelled in every facet of the debate.

30 - I have not given a 30 in years and years, true perfection.

I am willing to listen to most arguments. There are very few debates where one team wins all of the arguments so each of you must identify what you are winning and make the necessary comparisons between your arguments and the other team's arguments/positions. Speed is not a problem although clarity is essential. If I think that you are unclear I will say clearer and if you don't clear up I will assign speaker points accordingly. Try to be nice to each other and enjoy yourself. Good cross-examinations are enjoyable and typically illuminates particular arguments that are relevant throughout the debate. Please, don't steal prep time. I do not consider e-mailing evidence as part of your prep time nonetheless use e-mailing time efficiently.

I enjoy substantive debates as well as debates of a critical tint. If you run a critical affirmative you should still be able to demonstrate that you are Topical/predictable. I hold Topicality debates to a high standard so please be aware that you need to isolate well-developed reasons as to why you should win the debate (ground, education, predictability, fairness, etc.). If you are engaged in a substantive debate, then well-developed impact comparisons are essential (things like magnitude, time frame, probability, etc.). Also, identifying solvency deficits on counter-plans is typically very important.

Theory debates need to be well developed including numerous reasons a particular argument/position is illegitimate. I have judged many debates where the 2NR or 2AR are filled with new reasons an argument is illegitimate. I will do my best to protect teams from new arguments, however, you can further insulate yourself from this risk by identifying the arguments extended/dropped in the 1AR or Negative Bloc.

GOOD LUCK! HAVE FUN!

LD June 13, 2022

A few clarifications... As long as you are clear you can debate at any pace you choose. Any style is fine, although if you are both advancing different approaches then it is incumbent upon each of you to compare and contrast the two approaches and demonstrate why I should prioritize/default to your approach. If you only read cards without some explanation and application, do not expect me to read your evidence and apply the arguments in the evidence for you. Be nice to each other. I pay attention during cx. I will not say clearer so that I don't influence or bother the other judge. If you are unclear, you can look at me and you will be able to see that there is an issue. I might not have my pen in my hand or look annoyed. I keep a comprehensive flow and my flow will play a key role in my decision. With that being said, being the fastest in the round in no way means that you will win my ballot. Concise well explained arguments will surely impact the way I resolve who wins, an argument advanced in one place on the flow can surely apply to other arguments, however the debater should at least reference where those arguments are relevant. CONGRATULATIONS & GOOD LUCK!!!

LD Paradigm from May 1, 2022
I will update this more by May 22, 2022

I am not going to dictate the way in which you debate. I hope this will serve as a guide for the type of arguments and presentation related issues that I tend to hear and vote on. I competed in LD in the early 1990's and was somewhat successful. From 1995 until present I have primarily coached policy debate and judged CX rounds, but please don't assume that I prefer policy based arguments or prefer/accept CX presentation styles. I expect to hear clearly every single word you say during speeches. This does not mean that you have to go slow but it does mean incomprehensibility is unacceptable. If you are unclear I will reduce your speaker points accordingly. Going faster is fine, but remember this is LD Debate.

Despite coaching and judging policy debate the majority of time every year I still judge 50+ LD rounds and 30+ extemp. rounds. I have judged 35+ LD rounds on the 2022 spring UIL LD Topic so I am very familiar with the arguments and positions related to the topic.

I am very comfortable judging and evaluating value/criteria focused debates. I have also judged many LD rounds that are more focused on evidence and impacts in the round including arguments such as DA's/CP's/K's. I am not here to dictate how you choose to debate, but it is very important that each of you compare and contrast the arguments you are advancing and the related arguments that your opponent is advancing. It is important that each of you respond to your opponents arguments as well as extend your own positions. If someone drops an argument it does not mean you have won debate. If an argument is dropped then you still need to extend the conceded argument and elucidate why that argument/position means you should win the round. In most debates both sides will be ahead on different arguments and it is your responsibility to explain why the arguments you are ahead on come first/turns/disproves/outweighs the argument(s) your opponent is ahead on or extending. Please be nice to each other. Flowing is very important so that you ensure you understand your opponents arguments and organizationally see where and in what order arguments occur or are presented. Flowing will ensure that you don't drop arguments or forget where you have made your own arguments. I do for the most part evaluate arguments from the perspective that tech comes before truth (dropped arguments are true arguments), however in LD that is not always true. It is possible that your arguments might outweigh or come before the dropped argument or that you can articulate why arguments on other parts of the flow answer the conceded argument. I pay attention to cross-examinations so please take them seriously. CONGRATULATIONS for making it to state!!! Each of you should be proud of yourselves! Please, be nice in debates and treat everyone with respect just as I promise to be nice to each of you and do my absolute best to be predictable and fair in my decision making. GOOD LUCK!

Matt Munday Westminster 1 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 26, 2024 at 5:15 PM EDT

Please add me to the email chain: mwmunday@gmail.com

Affiliations and History

Director of Debate at Westminster. Debated in college between 2008 and 2012. Actively coaching high school debate since 2008.

Debate Views

I am not the kind of judge who will read every card at the end of the debate. Claims that are highly contested, evidence that is flagged, and other important considerations will of course get my attention. Debaters should do the debating. Quality evidence is still important though. If the opposing team's cards are garbage, it is your responsibility to let that be known. Before reading my preferences about certain arguments, keep in mind that it is in your best interest to do what you do best. My thoughts on arguments are general predispositions and not necessarily absolute.

T – Topicality is important. The affirmative should have a relationship to the topic. How one goes about defending the topic is somewhat open to interpretation. However, my predisposition still leans towards the thought that engaging the topic is a good and productive end. I find myself in Framework debates being persuaded by the team that best articulates why their limit on the topic allows for a season's worth of debate with competitively equitable outcomes for both the aff and the neg.

Disads/Case Debate – While offense is necessary, defense is frequently undervalued. I am willing to assign 0% risk to something if a sufficient defensive argument is made.

Counterplans – Conditionality is generally fine. Functional competition seems more relevant than textual competition. If the affirmative is asked about the specific agent of their plan, they should answer the question. I increasingly think the affirmative allows the negative to get away with questionable uses of negative fiat. Actual solvency advocates and counterplan mechanisms that pass the rational policy option assumption matter to me.

Kritiks – I teach history and economics and I studied public policy and political economy during my doctoral education. This background inherently influences my filter for evaluating K debates. Nonetheless, I do think these are strategic arguments. I evaluate framework in these debates as a sequencing question regarding my resolution of impact claims. Effective permutation debating by the aff is an undervalued strategy.

Theory – A quality theory argument should have a developed warrant/impact. “Reject the argument, not the team” resolves most theory arguments except for conditionality. Clarity benefits both teams when engaging in the substance of theory debates.

Speaker Points

(Scale - Adjective - Description)

29.6-30 - The Best - Everything you could ask for as a judge and more. (Top 5 speaker award)

29-29.5 - Very, Very good - Did everything you could expect as a judge very, very well.

28.6-28.9 - Very Good - Did very well as a whole, couple moments of brilliance, but not brilliant throughout.

28.3-28.5 - Good - Better than average. Did most things well. Couple moments of brilliance combined with errors.

28-28.2 - OK - Basic skills, abilities, and expectations met. But, some errors along the way. Very little to separate themselves from others. Clearly prepared, just not clearly ahead of others.

Below 28 - OK, but major errors - Tried hard, but lack some basic skills or didn’t pay close enough attention.

Bruce Najor Pine Crest School 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 15, 2024 at 9:26 AM EDT

he/him

Coach at Michigan State University 2019-

Coach at Wayne State University 2010-2019

Debater at Wayne State University 2006-2009

Debater at Brother Rice HS 2000-2004

BruceNajor@gmail.com

Below is a compilation of thoughts. Some are argument related, some are decision-making related. I update it periodically to keep it fresh, but nothing important has changed since you last read this.

-General-

- I used to judge 80+ debates a year, and now I probably judge less than 20. As with anything, skills atrophy, and I find that I'm a bit slower in terms of argument processing, both in real time and in decision time. It would behoove you to narrow the debate and explain the winning arguments as early as the negative block, treat the 1AR like a rebuttal, not a 3AC, and make connections on the line x line, instead of emailing me a plethora of cards and expecting me to sort it out.

- I flow. I don't follow the speech doc while you're talking. If you are unclear I won't be able to get what you say down and I won't vote on it.

- Slightly more truth > tech than the median judge. Once indicts are made your rejoinder burden grows depending on the strength/weakness of the original argument. Bad arguments can lose to bad arguments. Your argument got what it deserves.

- I value my decision time, and I'd hope you do too. Judges normally get around 30 minutes assuming everything in the round ran promptly. This is not an unreasonable amount of time, but ask yourself if the minute(s) it takes to get that marked copy before CX, or the "econ decline doesn't cause war" card before starting prep > subtracting those minutes from decision time. Please be prompt in making and sending a post-round doc.

- I carry the try-or-die flag higher than anyone else in the judge pool. I find I get sat on this argument more than any other. This probably won't bother you on a panel, but may be a tad more frustrating in a prelim debate. Ensuring that the world you're advocating for has a chance at sustainability is important. This isn't applicable to how I think about impacts generally (see below), rather, I think of it as a win condition of the game. If voting for you means there's a 100% chance of everyone dying, but voting for the other team means there's a 1% chance of everyone staying alive you lose, regardless of solving an impact. I'm open to teams who find themselves in a try-or-die trap arguing for rejecting this as a win condition, but debated out equally, or not debated out at all, well, you can't say you weren't warned.

- A bit inconsistent with the above, but once the conditions for try-or-die are not met, I find that I put greater emphasis on the link than many of my colleagues. When I get sat for non try-or-die reasons, it is often because I thought the link was small despite the impact being large.

- I don't flow "stream of consciousness" well. I encounter this a lot in 2NRs where the 1N typed up a thing for the 2NR to blitz through. I don't have an issue with speedy delivery communicated in a way that allows for the listener to digest the content, but if you're just speed reading through a long chunk of text I'm probably missing 50+% of it.

- We don't "debate out" accusations of unethical behavior/practices. If you want to stop the debate and have me adjudicate whether a debater/team was unethical, the debate ends. We cannot restart the debate from the alleged unethical practice, and the winner of the debate cannot be decided on "who did the better debating." I think a fundamental standard for "unethical" must be obfuscation for the purpose of gaining a competitive advantage. This doesn't mean the team in question had to know they were gaining a competitive advantage (i.e. they didn't have to have cut the card), but that the way the evidence was presented gained the team a competitive advantage they wouldn't otherwise have had if the evidence was presented properly.

-Critical / Critique-

- I generally understand impact turns to topicality as "counter-standards" that support a counter-interpretation, so I struggle as a judge to get to an aff ballot when the "critical aff" (broad interpretation) fails to provide a counter-interpretation to the resolution. I equally struggle when that counter-interp is self-serving and not grounded in defining resolutional terms (i.e. "affs can affirm or negate the resolution").

- Most critical debate is too fast for me. If these arguments are your thing, you will benefit from slowing down over-explaining.

- I struggle to understand critiques of "fiat." I find that most of them rely on an interpretation that is divorced from what I understand "fiat" to mean. Absent a tech disaster from one team, I have consistently been persuaded that the aff gets to weigh the benefits of implementation versus the impacts of the K.

- A critique argument still needs to engage the case. Trying to simply outweigh the case or framework it away has empirically been unlikely to persuade me to vote neg.

- Critiques of "impact magnitude" are generally unpersuasive to me. "Critical affs" are much more successful in front of me when they focus on challenging the link.

-Evidence-

- My decision will probably reflect evidence quality / evidence specificity more than the median judge.

- I value good evidence with coherent highlighting. Nonsense highlighting makes me want to read for flaws in your evidence and have it reflect in my decision making even if not brought up in round.

- I don't have an issue with "insert re-highlighting" as long as its accompanied by an actual argument, and the insert has merit. If your "inserting" is actually just mis-readings on your end, I won't care if it's "dropped". Likewise, if you're inserting stuff but haven't introduced context for an actual argument, the other teams burden of rejoinder is low to nil.

-Theory / Competition-

- More neg than the median judge on conditionality.

- 50/50 on judge-kick but presumption is 2NR = one-world. This means if neither team addresses the judge-kick contingency, I will not do it and vote aff if the neg fails to prove a NB and/or competition, even if I think the NB links to and outweighs the case.

- Slightly more neg than the median judge on neg fiat (states, international, multi-actor). I can't see myself ever rejecting the team for non-conditionality theory arguments, even if dropped in every speech.

- "Perm do CP" means the plan and the CP can be the same thing. "Perm do both" means doing the plan and CP at the same time resolves all the NB, or enough of the NB that the solvency deficit outweighs. If you are making a different perm than either of these, you need to say more in the 2AC than "do both" or "do CP"

- I'm not going to vote on disclosure args (not disclosing the 1AC is a voter, you disclosed to us wrong, you're not on the wiki, you only gave us a paper copy, you only read this in X spot, etc.). Disclosure is a privilege, not a right, and I'm here to judge a debate, not be the disclosure police. That said, poor aff disclosure can be persuasively used to justify leniency for the neg on theory args, like conditionality or judge kick.

-Speaker Points-

- I don't really have a model. I suppose my scale goes from 28-30, but realistically my range is probably 28.5-29.5. That doesn't mean if you get a 28.5 you're the worst debater I've seen, it means you did an adequate job and I expected debaters I judged at this tournament to fall in that range. #BringBackTies

Claire Park Notre Dame High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue March 21, 2023 at 4:14 PM EDT

Claire Park (she/they)

Email: claireparkdebate@gmail.com

Short Version

- Read whatever you want

- tech = truth

- I like good evidence, I like spins more

- "status quo is always an option" means judge kick

- Judge direction is always good

I prefer to evaluate the debate on what is said in the debate, and I can vote for any argument. I think slight judge intervention is inevitable, but l do my very best to limit it as much as I can.

Online debating

- If I can't hear you or if my wifi is bad, I'll verbally let you know

- My camera will be on, if it is off I am not ready

Background Info

- Georgetown '25: not debating

- Major: Science, Technology, and International Affairs concentrating in Security, especially with AI.

- Notre Dame ‘21: 2N/1A

Case

Please use your 1AC

Disadvantages

Turns case is good

Impact calculus is close to essential

Topicality

Case lists and TVAs are really persuasive to me

Usually, competing interpretations > reasonability

Counterplans

As a 2N, I love a good cheaty and tricky counterplan, so I'll consider it more than the average judge.

Kritiks

Honestly, you can read any K in front of me

Specific links can only help you

K affs

The aff

- I'm fine with them - the closer you are to the topic the better

- I'm more inclined to say that you get a perm

the neg [overview]

Framework [neg]

- Same thing as topicality portion

- I've voted for framework and I've voted against framework - as long as you debate it well I'm all for it

K v K

- My favorite debates to judge when done well, and my least favorite when done messily

Theory

- Similar to the topicality paradigm

- I don't really have a strong opinion on condo

- I'm inclined to think that perf con isn't a voting issue

Miscellaneous

*I'm fine with tag-team cross-x, as long as you give the person who's supposed to question and/or answer the chance to do so

*Also if an argument is dropped, I won't give it weight unless you extend the argument. Don't just point out it's dropped

- I don't really have that many strong opinions on debate that'll affect the decision. I prefer to be convinced of your argument despite my opinion.

SPEECH PARADIGM

wsd & extemp

I've judged only some wsd & speech, BUT I have done some debates in wsd and know a bit about speech and understand the structure. Honestly, just debate, argue, and convince well and I will judge to the best of my abilities.

Lara Pick Glenbrook North 6 rounds

Bella Piekut New Trier High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 1:30 PM CDT

maine east '21. emory '25.

put me on the chain: bellapiekutdebate@gmail.com

tldr:

- little to no topic knowledge.

- time yourself. i will forget. i'm not perfect.

- send analytics. if you're good, you don't have to win because they drop things.

- online debate is hard, but please try to be timely and efficient. i'd appreciate if you have your camera on, but i understand that's not possible for everyone. make sure you're clear. if my camera is off, make sure i'm there and ready for the speech.

- i don't like reading through card docs, but will if i have to or am told to. spin matters. i often find that my decision tends to differ from other judges because of this. evidence quality matters, but if neither team tells me what is wrong with the other team's evidence or why their evidence is good, I will not make that determination myself. there is a debate to be had about the quality of evidence, and I view it as interventionist to decide that myself.

- stolen from dani roytburg: "this is the only belief i hold that i allow to determine my ballot: i exclusively evaluate the arguments in a debate and on my flow. the only time where i might see myself making decisions about things debaters don't say occurs with either abysmally little clash or near-perfect debating on both sides."

- nothing pissed me off more as a debater than seeing paradigms that say "specific strategies = speaks boosted." yes, in-depth, specific strategies are valuable and will probably make the debate easier for the neg, but are impossible to prep against every aff for many teams, especially with the proliferation of new affs at end of the year tournaments. what matters most is your ability to contextualize whatever you're going for to the affirmative. that's something that not many teams do well, and should also be rewarded!

- i won't hesitate to stop the round if anything racist/homophobic/sexist/etc happens. please please please be nice and don't be arrogant or problematic. there's a difference between standing your ground and laughing at the other team's arguments.

ks:

- stolen from margaret hecht: "i am admittedly not the best judge for critical arguments. my issue isn't ideological, rather a lack of experience and research. i have no preferences for what you read, relation to the topic, etc., and will do my best to judge these debates, but please don't assume that i know the implication of historical examples and/or have a deep understanding of the literature base." run what you want and if you win the flow, i'll vote for you. that being said, pretend i don't know anything about it. explain it without buzzwords. stay away from long overviews. clash.

- you probably need an alt absent winning framework or strong case turns arguments. make sure the alt solves the links.

- weighing the plan is probably good, but i'll try to be objective about it. i find i vote aff most often when the neg doesn't articulate clearly what the world of their interpretation looks like or have sufficient defense against the aff's impacts.

- on the aff: going for impact turns/heg good/cap good/etc and extinction outweighs has a special place in my heart. or go for the perm, also a fan, just stick to a strat. you're not going to win no link against cap when you have an economy advantage.

k affs:

- never been in a k v k debate [other than going for the cap k which barely counts]. not sure if i'm confident making the correct decision [expect for cap or the other policy basics]. do what you want with this information.

- go for a da! even if it's heg! just clearly articulate the link. i'm more inclined to lean neg on the link debate if the aff clearly doesn't do anything.

- fairness is an impact and probably the best one, but the neg needs to explain it in a way that makes it one. also a fan of clash style impacts. other impacts will probably be not strategic and unpersuasive in front of me. tvas and ssd are not always necessary but usually are helpful. explain how it solves the aff's offense, don't just repeat it accesses their literature. case lists are very helpful, but make sure they're contextualized to the aff's interpretation.

- on the aff, i usually find impact turns most convincing. i tend to view limits/predictability/ground/etc as linear impacts, so going for defense isn't the best strat in front of me, but if it's done well you can totally win. I tend to vote neg when ssd or the tva is mishandled and there's not enough defense extended to the negative's impact or IL.

- i have little topic knowledge, so explain what your interpretation is to me like i'm a child. that being said, I've been thrown into a couple of t debates with little topic knowledge and found that the only real times this hinders me is in predictability debates when both teams insist their cards have topic experts without doing any comparisons or when each team spews case lists without explaining what those affirmatives are. i don't know what "new triers aff" is. explain.

- limits are very compelling, but predictability is probably the best impact. aff ground can totally win you the debate, but you have to do the work to make sure it outweighs whatever the neg's impact is. aff ground is most compelling when there's a structural reason the neg's interpretation makes it impossible to be aff [for example, no solvency deficits to agent cps or infinite pics existing] and when the aff is able to quantify and compare the magnitude of the ground lost to the magnitude of affs included under their interpretation. just saying you lose core of the topic affs means nothing and will ensure a negative ballot.

- like practically every judge, i default to competing interpretations, but mainly because people don't go for reasonability right. if you can do it, do it. contextualize your offense to the neg's interpretation. extend enough defense so that your interpretation is reasonable.

theory:

- don't spread through your blocks, clash!

- absent being dropped, the only reason to reject the team is probably condo. make sure to have clear offense, impact comparisons, and inroads to the other team's offense no matter which side of this debate you're on!

cps:

- cps that compete off of certainty or immediacy make me sad, but i understand they're necessary and have went for plenty myself.

- perm texts!!! write them!!! still, slow down in competition debates. i've been on both sides of these debates, but still get confused.

- sufficiency framing means practically nothing. spend your time explaining why there's no impact to the solvency deficit instead.

das:

- winning turns case is nice, but it's not always necessary [i also don't know why some people give it so much weight]. i would invest time on it if you're behind on case and need to mitigate it.

- don't forget about impact calc. i used to blow it off, but judging has made me realize that it's a lifesaver in close debates.

- i love a good politics debate, but storytelling and evidence quality will make or break it. for the aff, often times, I've found the weakest part of the DA and the part teams aren't prepared to defend is the internal link. although i understand the impulse to go for non-unique or thumpers, which are often strategic, don't be afraid to diversify your 2ar options.

- not much else to say. das are cool.

Stephen Pipkin Glenbrook North

Ian Poe Pine Crest School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 23, 2024 at 2:12 AM CDT

I think that debate should be safe and welcoming for everybody. If you prevent this, I do not want to judge you, and you will not want to be judged by me. This is very important, so I’ve put it first.

LASA 21, Emory 25. I coach for Pine Crest.

He/Him. poedebatedocs@gmail.com

I primarily judge policy debates, but I also understand LD to some extent and have been an instructor at an LD camp. I am familiar with PF as well, but to a lesser extent.

(bad disclosure = bad speaker points)

NOTE FOR ONLINE DEBATE

Fix the microphone echo issues. They're incredibly annoying.

TLDR

Do what you'd like and don't over-adapt. I'm fine with both policy and K strats, but I'd rather hear a specific strategy than generics. I think research is the most important part of debate. I try to be tech>truth but I'm skeptical of garbage arguments. Speed is fine if you're clear. Have good disclosure. Don't say stuff that's racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist etc. (but also don't accuse the other team of doing this if they didn't.)

Theory

If the abuse is egregious I'll totally vote on it. 2-3 condo worlds usually seems ok, but it's easier for the aff to win this debate with more worlds. Well researched strategies and specific solvency advocates help the neg win theory.

Lean neg: most agent CPs, advantage CPs, PICs out of something in the plan, CPs recut from aff ev, basically anything with an aff-specific solvency advocate.

Lean aff: generic process CPs, kicking planks, 2NC CPs, CPs with no solvency advocate, CPs that only compete textually.

Topicality

Not a huge fan! I think about T in a more truth>tech way than I do other arguments. Have specific case lists, examples of ground loss, and a qualified interp that's somewhat contextual to the topic. "More affs bad" isn't good enough.

Policy Affs

Have an actual solvency advocate. I prefer specific impact scenarios like "these countries go to war" over something like "democracy solves everything!" Neg teams should do case debate. Generic framing frustrates me.

Counterplans

Case-specific CPs > generics. Big fan of advantage CPs. If your CP steals the aff to get a contrived internal net benefit, it's an uphill battle to beat the perm. 1NC needs a solvency advocate.

Disads

Good spin and story > dumping 50 cards and hoping I'll sort them out. I prefer DAs based on the outcome of the plan rather than the process, but I'm more down for politics DAs based on stuff like political capital than I am for bad Rider DAs. 0% risk is possible.

Kritiks

Have specific links and explain how the K implicates the aff. Generic state bad or cruel optimism links aren't persuasive. I've got a high bar for structural arguments, but if you do a good job I'll vote on it. Answer examples.

I lean toward thinking the neg should have links to the plan or the 1AC's core ideas (which could include reps, but might not include "your author defended stuff we don't like in an unhighlighted part of the card.") I start the debate assuming the aff gets the plan but you can change my mind.

Tell me what the alt does and give examples if you can. Alts that do something material > alts that think really hard.

Kritikal Affs

Explain what your aff does and why it matters. It should be about the topic, not just a previous year's aff with one topic-adjacent card. You should defend something and be stuck defending it. It's hard to win that your performance actually did something unless your evidence is fantastic.

Neg teams should try to engage with the content of the aff, but I get it if you can't. I'm often persuaded by presumption. K v K debates are awesome, but only if both sides know what's going on.

Framework

Clash/Research > "fairness because fairness." I enjoy creative styles of framework like "T - talk about the topic at all." Tell me the ground you lost, why it's good, etc. Explain the types of debates that would happen in the world of the TVA if you want to go for it.

Charles Roeder Hayden HS 4 rounds

Dani Roytburg New Trier High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 23, 2024 at 12:50 PM CDT

This paradigm is sorted in descending order in terms of the importance of each component as I perceive them.

djroytburg@gmail.com

I debated at New Trier and currently study Computer Science and Statistics at Emory. I am immensely grateful for the communities I found debating with these two institutions, and I aspire for my view on debate to replicate many of the values of the coaches and debaters that have supported me.

I try not to let my beliefs influence me.

I won’t entertain arguments that are facially unethical, including death good. I’ll stop flowing.

I am a big believer in decorum and procedure. Please time yourselves. Please take a shower if needed. Please send everything in one doc before you stop prep. Please do not come to the debate in your pajamas. The mass migration to the bathroom post-2NC needs to stop, or at least diffuse a little bit. Please treat your opponents and I with respect, at least until you leave the room. Your content is formed by your form.

I am an expressive judge. My face betrays my emotions, no matter how hard I try.

I believe the status quo to be a somewhat stabilized form of debate for both K and policy teams. I do not consider topicality to be unreasonable or dangerous. I do not consider K AFFs to be the reason debate is dying. I am difficult to persuade that ballots shape personal subjectivities. I believe that K teams are better-equipped to win alternative, equally impactful forms of offense.

Topicality debates against planless AFFs should rely more on delineating boundaries between interpretations. I feel that most K AFFs produce vague, unclear imperatives (“AFFs must trouble the epistemology of the resolution”) as if they are defined parameters on the topic, and everyone assumes that this makes sense. This makes it difficult to understand AFF offense beyond “this AFF is very important.” I think about topicality through models, not AFFs.

Teams defending K AFFs should be very clear about a solvent mechanism or advocacy that redresses harms outlined. The risk that you win offense is, to an extent, predicated on this question.

I have been told by every university-level debater and coach around me that “conditionality bad” is facially nonsensical, but I can’t seem to remember why.

Counterplan theory debates need to devolve to issues that are more enriching than AFF and NEG ground. Unless someone is interested in doing better comparative work to prove some definitive topic bias, I couldn’t help but care less.

Debaters generally need need higher-quality evidence, particularly on topicality. I cannot believe some the things I have read in your card docs pass as evidence.

Debaters need to substantiate their arguments much more. Debaters will spurt out any wild conjecture that comes to mind in order to answer solvency deficits. Many of these are claims that one would need a Ph.D. to prove in any serious context. Spin is for comparing or connecting substantiated arguments, not for constructing them from thin air.

You can substantiate an argument with something other than a card. Good analytics beat bad disads. Mid analytics don’t beat mid disads.

Lastly, please keep the following, little catchphrases to yourselves. I never want to hear them ever again:

“Uniqueness determines the link/the link determines uniqueness”

“No perms in a method debate”

“Sufficiency framing”

“Our impacts are linear”

“Intrinsicness”

Phillip Samuels Westminster 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 11:27 AM CDT

Overview: These are my defaults. Everything is up for debate. Please add me to the email chain phildebate@gmail.com

First, I consider myself an argument critic. By this I mean I might vote on an argument that I do not agree with or one I think is untrue because in the context of the round one team persuades me. This means that I tend to fall on the side of tech over truth.

Second, I understand debate by argument. There is a trend in debate to replace argument with author names. The community has begun referencing authors instead of the argument that the evidence is meant to strengthen. This is a bad trend, in my mind, and should be limited to necessity.

Third, I will not now, nor will I ever, stop a debate if I think that someone is clipping or cross reading. While I think this is cheating I think it is up to the debaters in the round to make an argument and then for me to judge that argument based on the available evidence and render a decision. However, if you are caught clipping when I judge I will give you a loss and zero speaker points. .

Fourth, Speaker-Points are dumb. Preffing judges based on the speaker points they give is even dumber. It has long been the case that weak judges give high speaks in order to be preffed. It is unfortunate that judges of color have had to resort to giving debaters higher points than they deserve to get into debates. I will do my best to maintain the community norm.

Topicality: Yes, I vote on it. It is always a voter. Topicality debates are about competing interpretations and the benefits of those interpretations. It is incumbent upon the debaters to do impact calculus of their advantages (these are the reasons to prefer aka standards) vs. the advantages of the counter-interpretation and the disadvantages to your interpretation. In other words, to win topicality you need win that your interpretation is better for debate than your opponents. This formula is true for ALL theory arguments if you plan to win them in front of me.

Framework: Yes, I vote on it. Framework is, to me, a criticism of the affirmatives method. What does this mean for you? It means that I am less persuaded by arguments like debate is a game and fairness claims. I tend to think of fairness, strategically, and my default is to say that fairness almost never outweighs education. I have voted on fairness as a terminal impact before and will likely do so again but the threshold to beat a team going for fairness is often very low and this gets even lower when the affirmative rightly points out that fairness claims are rooted in protecting privilege. If you are negative and you are going for framework my suggestion is that you make sure to have as many ways to negate the affirmatives offense as possible in the 2nr; this includes switch side debate solves your offense and topical version of your aff. If you do that and then win an internal link into education you will likely win my ballot.

I default to utilitarian ethics when making judgments about what action/vote is most beneficial. If you would like me to use some other method of evaluation that needs to be explained and it needs to be upfront.

Counterplans-You should read one. Counterplans compete through net benefits.

*Presumption never flips aff. I know there is a redefinition of Presumption as “less change” but this is a misunderstanding of presumption. Presumption, simply put, is that the existing state of affairs, policies, programs should continue unless adequate reasons are given for change. Now like everything in this philosophy this is a default. To say that presumption flips affirmative is just to say that the affirmative has achieved their prima facia burden to prove that the SQ needs change.

*Counterplan theory: My default is that conditionality is the state that counterplans naturally exist. Because I believe counterplans are merely a test of the intrinsicness of the affirmatives advantages it means that I also default to judge kick. This means that there is little chance that I will vote outright on conditionality bad. Instead, I will assess that the Negative is now “stuck” with a counter-advocacy that alters the debate in corresponding ways.

Criticisms: Criticisms function much like counterplans and disads, insofar, as they should have an alternative and link and impact. I can be persuaded that K’s do not need an alternative. With that being said, if you are going for a K without an alternative then you need to have a lot of defense against the affirmative. Some of that defense can come in the form of the k itself (serial policy failure or impacts are inevitable arguments) but some of it SHOULD also be specific to the plan.

Any questions just ask. Good Luck!

Michael Scott Pine Crest School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 28, 2024 at 4:57 AM CDT

Top level:

Tech > truth but cards decide close debates. Both sides need cards to back up their advantage and DAs, but I will not read cards unless they are disputed and/or the content of them is relevant to my decision. I will be happy to vote on your analytical press against a DA or someone's case. The best takeouts to most DAs and even advantages won't have cards for them but you SHOULD make the argument and I will vote on it. However, if both sides are clashing on an issue in the debate I will read the cards and they will shape my decision.
Macro-strategy is the best way to win my ballot. A lot of debates I watch have a lot of good line-by-line and clash going on, but neither side is thinking about how arguments interact and what they want the ballot to say. The more judge instruction and thinking about the debate you do the more likely you are to win my ballot.
A note on how I evaluate debates - At the end of every debate, I make a T chart where I write down what "world" is being advocated by each team in the final rebuttal and the pros and cons of each "world." Keeping this in mind when doing final speech impact calculus and judge instruction could help you win a close debate. This also means that I care about 'try or die' a lot more than most. In K debates, the neg could probably get pretty far by explaining how their framework should alter how I approach the debate and my decision.

Framework debates:

I care more than the average judge about:

The NEG robustly describing the role of critiques under their model
The link to exclusion DAs run by the AFF. Whoever wins the link debate on this argument is likely to win my ballot. I highly encourage the neg to focus a lot of time here and make offensive arguments rather than just defense. Your fairness/clash impact is unlikely to outweigh this sort of argument if you blow it off.
Models of debate. The best AFF framework arguments connect an in round action by the NEG to an implication for their broader model.
The TVA. A well crafted NEG TVA can eliminate most AFF offense. In most cases, this shouldn’t just be an afterthought.

K debates:

I care more than the average judge about:

The framework debate. I won’t just default to my own arbitrary “middle ground.” One side will win the framework debate and that will frame my ballot. However, I am very open to one side defending their own compromise framework if they can clearly articulate how I should decide the round.
“Soft left” impacts. Evenly debated, I am unlikely to significantly discount non-extinction impacts in my decision. However, I am more than willing to vote on “only extinction matters” if decisively won.

Samuel Shafiro Pace Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 24, 2024 at 1:23 PM EDT

Introduction

Call me Sam, Oak Park River Forest '21 & Emory '25, coach for Pace Academy, yes email chain oprfgs@gmail.com , I know absolutely nothing about this topic...

In my mind there are two serious reasons you might be reading my paradigm: either 1. you are determining prefs before a tournament or 2. you are determining how I will respond to your strategy before the round. I have organized my paradigm accordingly.

Listed below are the things I think are most important to point out about the way I judge, and the places where I might differ from the "consensus" of the debate community. If I do not bring up a certain issue, you should assume that I adopt the general "consensus view." If there is a particularly question that is important to you that I do not mention, you should absolutely feel free to email me before a tournament or even before a round. I will not write you an essay on what arguments to go for but I will answer straightforward yes or no questions like "is inserting a card ok if it was read in cx" (yes) or "when debated equally, do you think a textually legitimate but functionally illegitimate perm is valid if both teams agree a counterplan must be textually and functionally competitive" (also yes). If you are unsure whether your question is appropriate, ask anyway.

For Prefs

General

-I like smart arguments. I like line by line. I like spreading (while being clear) and reading lots of cards and comparing evidence.

-I put substantial effort into evaluating every debate I judge to the best of my ability. That being said, the following is a ranking from most to least of my average confidence in evaluating each type of debate: DA/CP/Case Turn v Policy Aff, T v Policy Aff, K v Policy Aff, T/FW/DA v K Aff, K v K Aff.

FW/K

-Debate is a competitive research game with a winner and a loser. It is my job to determine who the winner and the loser are based on who does the better debating in the round. It is very difficult to convince me to vote for something outside of the round (however, a team responding to "out-of-round" arguments should still defend why these arguments exceed the ballot's purview).

-I have not judged many T-USFG/FW debates, so I am not sure how idiosyncratic my approach of them is compared to common community practices. However, all else being equal, I have yet to see a convincing argument for why the affirmative should not have to defend a topical plan.

For Pre- (and Post-) round

General Notes

-Do not over-adapt. Do what you do, do it well, and you will get my ballot.

-I am easily impressed by debaters who demonstrate that they command an extensive but approachable understanding of American foreign policy, the internal politics of other countries, "critical" debates in academia, etc. I am easily depressed by debaters who's knowledge of these subject is superficial or who can not describe these things in a way that is easily digestible. The best way to prove to me your quality as a speaker is to debate an important area of study both in-depth and in a way that a non-expert could understand.

-Read re-highlightings.

-Have perm texts (it's ok to insert them).

-I generally flow in-person debates on paper. If you think you are going too fast you are. If you think you are unclear you are. Please slow down when you are making a lot of non-carded arguments in constructives, especially on T/Theory/K OVs.

-Generally, after the debate ends, I will create a list of the questions I need to resolve to determine which side won. If the answers to any of these questions can clearly be determined based on my flow I will resolve them in the appropriate way. Finally, I will read the evidence presented by both teams on the more ambiguous questions on my list, and incorporate evidence, spin, and analytical arguments into evaluating them. Therefore, while good evidence is always important, evidence quality begins to matter a lot more to me if you have done less work with spin/analytics/etc, which is something you should keep in mind in how you approach your 2nr/2ar.

-Online: I highly encourage you to turn on your video if you are able to do so. Debate is a communicative activity and seeing you speak significantly helps me understand you on a psychological level.

-If the most precise reading of the resolution results in a bad topic, that's a gripe for the topic comity, not a justification for trying to re-define the topic (on either the aff or the neg). Is it possible to win my ballot on debatability? Yes. Does it require a lot of impact work? Also yes.

-Instead of focusing on only winning I should look at debatiability, predictability, or any of their component parts, consider how I will evaluate the round after it ends. Often times both teams have offered multiple lenses that modify one or more of these categories and how they interact. The teams that win T debates in front of me are usually the ones who come closest to identifying all the impacts and framing devices in the debate and explaining how they resolve.

DAs

-I love the politics DA. However, politics DAs require a story. The words "strong-arming moderates" in your uq ev + an "aff requires PC" card do not a story make. I will give good points for (decent) innovative politics strategies because I think they get at the heart of what makes debate fun and the ambiguities that fiat creates.

-There is a direct, positive, linear relationship between the amount of impact calc you do and how likely I am to vote for you. I know that's a cliché and I'm still including it here which should clue you in to how important this is. This also means that I am not a fan of framing contentions, and I only think they are useful in so far as you impact out and do impact calc with the applicable arguments on the appropriate DA or counterplan page. This is not to say I will throw out framing contentions; I will still try to adjudicate the debate as fairly as possible, just know that all else being equal I lean negative on theses issues and if you are running a framing contention you are better off convincing me the neg's impacts are securitized and bad then you are convincing me that DAs are fake.

CPs

-I default to counterplans needing to be functionally and textually competitive. However, the way the affirmative determines if the CP meets that burden is the permutation. Therefore, when debated equally, a textually legitimate but functionally illegitimate perm is valid.

-I am sympathetic to being time pressed in the 2AC and think the threshold for a sufficient explanation for a perm or solvency deficit in the 2AC is that I am able to reasonably predict the subsequent 1AR explanation. However, I am a lot less sympathetic to perms and solvency deficits (especially impacts to solvency deficits) that sound substantially different in the 2AR then they do in the 1AR (or that barely feature in the 1AR but feature prominently in the 2AR). While this is opposite to your strategic incentives, the earlier you explain your arguments the better for me as a judge, and perms or solvency deficits that are explained thoroughly in the 2AC require less time investment to explain in the 1AR, so there is a cost/benefit calculus you have to take on.

-In my mind, perms are a yes/no question. My default way to evaluate perms is to look at each one, see if it clearly establishes that the counterplan is not an opportunity cost the the plan, and depending on if the answer is yes or no discard the counterplan or move on to other arguments respectively. One implication of this is that I am generally unsympathetic to "any risk of a link to the net benefit" answers to the perm. Nevertheless, my stance on perms as a yes/no question is somewhat malleable if debaters make explicit arguments for why I should understand the perm in a different way.

-I view CPs through the lens of negation theory. The negative is, first and foremost, responsible for giving me a reason the aff is bad (not just a reason the aff is less good than it could be). That means all counterplans must have offensive net benefits. I will never vote for a counterplan whose net benefit is better aff solvency. Even if the counterplan solves the aff better, and is mutually exclusive with the aff, it has not provided a reason the aff is bad.

-By default neg leaning on theory. The two most important things to my ballot on a theory argument: 1. Win topic side bias AND/OR how this theory argument implicates this topic specifically AND explain the implications of this. 2. Do impact calc. These debates often get messy, so being simple and formulaic is to your benefit.

-If judge kick is not brought up in the debate, I will kick the CP for you if it has been clearly designated as conditional/dispositional. Otherwise, I will evaluate the arguments for/against judge kick presented in the debate. If the counterplan has not been clearly designated as conditional I will not kick it.

-If neither team forwards a "middle ground" fw interpretation, like "weigh the advantage but also weigh reps links," I will not intervene and make one for you. I will only decide between the fw interpretations forwarded by either side, but a team can make arguments that modifying its fw interpretation in later speeches to attempt to take the "middle of the road" and capture the other team's offense.

-I am uncomfortable adjudicating anything other than the debating that took place within the round I am assigned. If there is harassment within the round, I hold the appropriate course of action to be stopping the debate and going to tab, where I am happy to argue that the team doing the harassment should be expelled from the tournament and talk to the team's coaches about the debaters facing repercussions. If there is harassment outside the round, talk to me and/or send me an email and we can go to tab and/or try to determine an appropriate course of action.

Final thoughts

-I think debate is no fun when everyone is up-tight and being a little fun and/or silly is a good thing. However, this should never come at the expense of debating well.

-I am probably a better judge for arguments like death good than the rest of this paradigm makes it seem.

-If you feel unsafe during a round for any reason, send me an email.

-I am still paying attention even I am staring off into the distance, especially if I am flowing on my computer.

Brian Snitman Notre Dame High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Thu September 22, 2022 at 2:31 AM PDT

USC '25 - Notre Dame '21 - add me to the email chain - [briansnitman at gmail.com]

TLDR: I view debate as a competitive activity which means that my argumentative preferences go out the window once I enter the room or the zoom call. For me, this has meant I have cut arguments ranging from SPARK to Set Col to H-Triv. For me it doesn't really matter, I don't think that any discussion can be objectively pedagogically harmful no matter the content. This means that to me Tech>Truth, and I can be convinced of anything if the other team does not contest it adequately. The only other important thing to know is that for me, the most effective ballot framing occurs when each team can paint a clear picture of what the world looks like after I submit an aff or neg ballot. This means going beyond just extending your impacts, and actually humanizing the whole aff, and almost explaining it in very simple terms. I am also not very card focused meaning: Smart Analytics > Bad cards or even good cards that aren't explained well.

K's - I'll be honest as a 2A my partner and I ran a one-off K strat every round, but I still don't understand all the buzzwords that people like to throw out. For the neg, I am more likely to just vote on just framework than other judges because the aff teams usually don't do any line-by-line. If the alt is just a framework argument then just say it, otherwise, I get confused. Links are usually mishandled and don't require a lot of evidence. K-tricks are cool and I think they should be employed, who cares if it's an easy way out. For the aff, perms make a lot of sense for soft-left aff's - you do need a net-benefit, but it seems pretty easy to win that the alt doesn't solve the aff so long as you answer the outlandish alt solves case arguments. Other than material net-benefits - I think that epistemological net-benefit also makes sense (ie practicality or particularity in policy analysis). The neg usually makes the mistake of not contextualizing the link to the perm - and DA's to perms usually don't have impacts that the alt can't resolve. For me, the perm doesn't need to avoid the links if it solves the impacts to said links. For extinction affs it makes a lot of sense to just go for util and impact turns, but you have to use util as a justification on the framework, otherwise it will be difficult to win.

PTX DA's - Let's be honest the politics card you are probably reading aren't about the aff, meaning that a blanket extension is not sufficient. I don't want to hear "X author says this"; instead take the opportunity to impress me with your civics knowledge and make logical arguments as to why the aff would derail the agenda. The one caveat to the you don't need cards rule is that if the aff has very specific link turn evidence you will be in a bad spot. I think that it is important for the negative to contextualize the link as much as possible. Too often the generic 1NC taglines make it seem like there are a million thumpers and anything can trigger it. What this means is, if your card says that water policy is controversial and thus derails the agenda, you should explain why every other contentious policy issue does not derail the agenda in similar ways. For the aff, you should obviously try to do the reverse and explain why, despite what their evidence says, other issues do have the potential to derail policy items. While the link debate is a little bit more about spin, I think that cards are very important on the internal link and uniqueness debate.

TOPIC DA's - These typically cause a lot of clash which makes them more fun to judge. Hats off to you if you go for a generic disad and just get really good at it. That being said, these disads usually require a little bit more evidence. For me, I think it is more important to contextualize all the warrants in the existing evidence, IE explains what the statistics and studies mean before you read another card that says basically the same thing as the one you already read.

CP's - I was a 2N my junior year and I almost exclusively went for the most abusive counterplan on the topic - thus have fun and feel free to terrorize the aff so long as you can defend it. Theory is great against these counterplans but affs get scared to go for it when the block read their 18 sub-point response. Condo - literally have no preference.

T - This is the one place where it is all about evidence. Intent to exclude is very important to me, otherwise IDK why the aff can't be topical.

Speaks - Technical debating is what gets you the ballot - ethos and pathos get you speaker points - To be honest I probably give higher speaks than other judges

William Soper Blue Valley North 3 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 27, 2024 at 4:29 AM CDT

Hi, I’m Will Soper. He/him/his. Wsoper03@gmail.com .

I did NDT/CEDA debate for four years at the University of Kansas. I'm currently coaching for Blue Valley North. I worked with a lab at Michigan for a little while this summer and judged a lot of practice debates.

Last Chance PF Update: I have competed in and judged primarily policy debate my entire career. I judge a handful of PF rounds each year but they are typically local Kansas rounds. I am not familiar with any national circuit PF norms or customs. That said, I promise you will have my undivided attention while your debate is happening. Here are some tips for debating in front of me:

Read evidence. In general, I am more persuaded by arguments which are backed up by qualified sources. If possible, I'd prefer you send me evidence you read or reference in an email chain, speechdrop, or NSDA doc share. If you read evidence, you need to make it available to your opponents.

Answer things your opponents say. Effective teams won't just restate their side of the resolution, but compare their arguments to their opponents and say why they won.

Everything below is policy specific, don't worry too much about it if you are a career PFer.

Grumpy stuff. Do not ask for a marked document. If the number of cards marked in a speech is excessive, I will ask for a marked document. Asking what cards were read is either CX time or prep time. Prompting needs to stop. Past the first time, I will not flow the things your partner prompts you to say. Send the email before you stop prep.

I dislike bad arguments. I think most debaters understand what these are: hidden aspec in the 1NC, reading paradoxes as solvency arguments, counterplans which assassinate anyone, etc. If your ideal negative strategy involves more nonsense than specific discussions of the affirmative, we probably don't think about debate the same way.

Presumption/Vagueness. I am willing to (and have) voted negative on vagueness and that the affirmative has not met its stock issues burdens. Similarly, if the negative is reading a CP with an internal net benefit and doesn't have evidence demonstrating that the inclusion of the plan prevents the net benefit, I am willing to vote on "perm do both" even if the aff doesn't have a deficit to the CP. I am willing to dismiss advantage CP planks which are overly vague or not describing a policy.

Evidence matters a lot. Debaters should strive to connect the claims and warrants they make to pieces of qualified evidence. If one team is reading qualified evidence on an issue and the other team is not, I'll almost certainly conclude the team reading evidence is correct. I care about author qualifications/funding/bias more than most judges and I'm willing to disregard evidence if a team raises valid criticisms of it.

Kritiks. The links are the most important part of the kritik. If I have a hard time explaining back exactly what bad thing the 1AC did or assumed, I will have a hard time voting for you. Here are some things to increase your win percentage in front of me if you're extending a kritik. 1. Make link arguments that are specific to the affirmative. If debaters spent even 5 minutes before the debate reading through the 1AC, identifying themes or premises that are kritik-able, and made those into link arguments, their win percentage in front of me would skyrocket. 2. Rehighlight aff evidence to make these arguments. 3. Tell me how your link arguments disprove the case or make affirmative advantages irrelevant. I cannot remember the last time an "ontology" argument was relevant to my decision.

Planless affs. I basically always vote for the team that slows down and starts comparing their impact to the other team's first. The more a team reads blocks into their computer, the less likely I am to vote for them. I am a poor judge for fairness/clash/debate bad.

Topicality against plans. I am more willing than other judges to take a "you know it when you see it" approach to topicality. Overly limiting interpretations that most affs at the tournament would violate are not very persuasive to me. For example, I have voted that adopting medicare for all is not Social Security. I have not, however, heard a compelling reason aff's can't deficit spend. I'm not immovable on either issue, but your debating should be as aff-specific as possible.

Things which will make your speaker points higher: exceptional clarity, numbering your arguments, good cross-x moments which make it into a speech, specific and well-researched strategies, developing and improving arguments over the course of a season, slowing down and making a connection with me to emphasize an important argument, not being a jerk to a team with much less skill/experience than you. I decide speaker points.

You're welcome to post-round or email me if you have questions or concerns about my decision.

Elizabeth Sperti Evanston Twp High School 1 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 24, 2024 at 4:23 AM CDT

Hi! I’m Elizabeth. I did LD at Evanston Township for 3 years and have coached there for five years.

- FOR STAGG ON 1/27 -

I have experience judging PF and I've found that it's fairly similar to a traditional LD round, which I've been judging for five years. I will flow everything in your speeches, I pay attention during CX, and I will judge based on the flow. Ultimately you need to do your best to weigh your arguments against theirs or I will be forced to weigh for you.

I assume I won't see much "progressive" debate but I'm certainly open to it as long as you provide justifications for your method.

To summarize:

· Performance and Ks>CPs/DAs/policy stuff AND traditional LD>>theory that isn’t tricks*>>>"phil" I guess? The kind of phil that is actually tricks.

· If you run tricks, you're better off striking me.

· I think part of being a good debater is making me care about what you're saying in addition to making me understand it.

· I did traditional LD as well as nat circuit (or "progressive") so I’d happily judge a traditional LD round if that’s what you’re here for!

Additional things you may find helpful:

I spent my junior year running various race/queer/colonialism K’s. I spent over half of my senior year running a performance aff so I’m 100% open (and excited!) to hearing anything performative. I think debates about the debate space are really cool and educational. I also think debates about the hypothetical implementation of a plan are really cool and educational. So whichever one of these wins me over is entirely dependent on the round in front of me.

I very much agree with my high school debate coach, Jeff Hannan, on this:

“I will make decisions that are good if:

you explain things to me; you establish a clear standard, role of the ballot, value, or other mechanism and explain to me how I can use that to make my decision; you compare or weigh offense linked to a standard.

I will make decisions that are bad if:

you expect me to do work for you on the flow or among your arguments; you assume I know more than I do.”

This probably means that if you want to run a bunch of blippy offs to spread your opponent out, I am not the judge for you. We will probably end up in a situation where you feel like I've missed something, and then everyone is sad. I would much prefer a deep analysis on one or two offs. But either way, the more you try to write my ballot for me the better things will go for you. Like please just give me a weighing mechanism and explain how you win under it at least pls pls pls or I will not know what to do with your impacts.

Framework things that are important to me:

To expand on my last point...please weigh your impacts back to your framework or at least back to something!!! I've noticed debaters doing this thing where they say a bunch of impacts but don't compare them (weigh them) and then I have to do all the work myself which can leave debaters disgruntled with my decision. Truly all I would like you to do is weigh the impacts in the round to your framework and it will take you a long way.

If your frameworks are basically the same I'll ultimately collapse them to make my decision. If you have impacts that only link under your framework then by all means argue the heck out of the framework debate! BUT PLEASE NOTE: "they don't link to their FW because I actually link better as shown in my contentions..." is NOT a reason to prefer your framework, it's just a solvency argument.

Stuff on Ks specifically:

I love a good K debate! Familiar with settler colonialism, afropess, and queer stuff.

If you can explain/impact the rhizome or hyperreal stuff to me and actually make it interesting then you can go ahead and try but you will have to explain VERY well and slowly.

I really enjoy any K stuff that relates specifically to education and discourse.

If you kick a K about an identity group you're not a part of (especially for frivolous theory omg) I'm going to definitelyyyy knock your speaks at least.

Stuff on theory specifically:

Generally convinced by reasonability because it often feels like theory is in fact frivolous or a waste of my time.

I don't have a negative predisposition toward RVIs but if the debate is coming down to that it’s probably already making me sad.

If there’s legit abuse then by all means call it out. On disclosure specifically: if they read something predictable or obviously within your resources to respond to just fine, I will be nonplussed. However, if they're reading something super specific or non-T that a reasonable person couldn't predict, I'm totally fine with disclosure theory.

*The more genuine and not-blippy your theory shell is the more I will like it. My favorite kind of debate that I ever did was debate about the debate space so I actually think theory is very cool ~in theory~ but in practice people use it to waste their opponent’s time and that seems antithetical to education to me.

Additional additional stuff:

Not to be a stickler but I'm not a huge fan of LDers saying "we" unless it's meaningfully symbolic for some reason. I won't knock down your speaks but I will internally sigh and wonder why you want to be in policy.

Please put me on the email chain (elizabethasperti@gmail.com). Even in my debating days, I didn’t have a great ear for speed. But I can understand spreading, please just be clear. I’ll say “clear” if I’m not understanding you. So don’t stress too much about being too fast just...try to be clear? Also if you're ever wondering if you should send your analytics, send the analytics.

If your opponent can’t understand you, I see that as a failure on your part, not theirs. If you can’t understand your opponent, please feel free to say “clear.” I have no idea why that’s not seen as “acceptable” in the debate space. That kind of just seems like a basic right a debater should have in the round.

For everyone:

Please be respectful to each other, and please try to have an illuminating debate.

Carly Wunderlich Pine Crest School 1 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 6:49 PM UTC

Background: Debated 2006-2010 at Michigan State University, Assistant Coach at Gonzaga 2010-2011, Coach at MSU 2011-present

carly.wunderlich@gmail.com

---Updates Based on Getting Old---

1. What happened to 1NC DA shells that were complete arguments? Card 1 – Dems will win now – health care is a thing that matters. Card 2 – Dem win stops impeachment. Card 3 – Trump causes nuclear war. Um, no. You don’t have an argument here. The aff gets a wreck of leeway to answer stuff in the 1AR because this isn’t even starting to establish a causal link chain in the 1NC.

3. What happened to 1NC solvency cards for CPs? If your 2NC starts “they dropped the announcements plank in the 2AC it’s GAME OVER” but you haven’t read solvency for that plank that’s a no as well.

They all have huge strategic benefits, I get it – you can just spread them out and then piece it together once the aff drops everything. It’s gross to watch, your speaker points will reflect it and I won't forget who's fault it is that the debate is a wreck to try to decide because the debating didn't start until the block. This is also all true of ludicrous aff moves in the same vein

---Old Philosophy + Minor Revisions---

Things I like about debate

1. Working hard/preparation--- I think quality research should be a guiding factor when making decisions. Specific strategies rewarded, poo-nuggets punished

2. Critical thinking--- nothing gets you thinking you your feet like debate. I like interesting pivots and fast-moving debates

3. Argument testing---looking at both sides of an issue to parse out the most compelling arguments on both sides without confirmation bias – more important than ever, in my opinion

Topicality

As an old 2A I think reasonability works out well for the aff in a lot of spots. I'm very close to living in a post-T world if I'm being honest. The link to the limits DA should be well explained and evidenced (either by analysis or with actual evidence). Need clear case lists with explanation why you do/don’t include a specific case. T-substantial/significant is no for me.

CPs

I find myself leaning neg on a lot of CP theory questions (agent, pics, states) as reasons to reject the team. I do not think that CPs that compete on the certainty of plan (consult, condition) are competitive but that this is a reason the aff should get permutation and not a reason to reject the CP in most instances. I also do not think that distinct is competitive and I think the neg should compete off a mandate of the plan.

Conditionality- for the last decade my philosophy has read “this is an area where I've started to move farther into the aff camp. My predisposition is that the neg should get one conditional counterplan. I've not heard many good reasons that the neg should get multiple counterplans. It think that 1 is a logical limit and that to say that 2 or more is OK becomes a slippery slope. I think we all need to do a better job of protecting the aff in this department.” Unfortunately, I have failed the aff and voted neg in a LOT of spots. I still wish in my heart that we could limit the number of CPs read in a debate but unfortunately my voting record has not reflected that.

Unless the neg explicitly says it I will not "reject the CP and default to the status quo because it's always a logical option."

DAs

I think there are many logical inconsistencies with DAs that often go unremarked on by the aff in favor of impact defense. I think the aff would generally do better on engaging at the link/internal link level of dubious DAs. Picking one argument to deal a death blow to the DA works better than death by a thousand cuts.

Topic specific Ks that turn and/or solve the aff are better. Links to the plan action are best. Affs get far on “K doesn’t remedy “x” advantage and that outweighs” if the neg is not good and explicit about it. Almost all frameworks are a race to the middle. Neg gets to question assumptions of the aff, aff gets to weigh advantages- that’s a warning to the aff and the neg.

The Aff

I feel that there are lots of instances where crummy affs get away with it because the neg only focuses on impact calc. I think this is another instance, like DAs, where focusing on solvency/internal link args can pay bigger dividends than impact calc.

Speaker points

Things I like in speeches

1. Connections on central questions- slowing down and effectively communicating about guiding issues

2. Technical proficiency- answering clearly all necessary arguments

3. Clarity- I’m doing my best to be mindful of this but I honestly sometimes just forget- I’ll call clear once if you’re incomprehensible but at a certain point it will affect whether or not I vote on arguments

4. Strategic cross-exs- I’d prefer not to spend another 12 mins listening to “where does your card say that?”

Things that will result in reduced speaker points

1. Cross-reading, clipping- if there is an ethics challenge made I will stop the debate and evaluate it. If the person in question is found to be doing it they will lose the debate and receive zero speaker points.

2. Tech fails- please be prompt and quick with tech things. In a world of decision times this is increasingly getting to me.

3. Creating an environment that is hostile or unsafe for me or the other team – It's important for productive conversations and it's not healthy for all of us to leave tournaments hating each other.

4. Talking over everyone in c-x – I get it, you think you’re cool but I’m pretty bored with watching people get themselves all worked up and then just yell over the other team

My Speaker Point Scale (unless otherwise published by the tournament)

29.6 -30: You should receive a Top 10 speaker award

29.3 – 29.5: In this debate, you were an quarters level debater

28.8 – 29.2: In this debate, you were a 5-3, octos or double octos debater

28.4 – 28.7: In this debate, you were a 4-4 debater on the verge or bubble of clearing

28 – 28.3: You are improving but not quite there on big picture issues

27.5 – 28: You need some improvement on technical items as well as big picture things

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