Affiliations:

I am currently coaching 3 teams at lamdl (POLAHS, BRAVO, LAKE BALBOA) and have picked up an ld student or 2. I am pretty familiar with the fiscal redistribution and WANA topics.

I do have a hearing problem in my right ear. If I've never heard you b4 or it's the first round of the day. PLEASE go about 80% of your normal spread for about 20 seconds so I can get acclimated to your voice. If you don't, I'm going to miss a good chunk of your first minute or so. I know people pref partly through speaker points. My default starts at 28.5 and goes up from there. If i think you get to an elim round, you'll prob get 29.0+

Evid sharing: use speechdrop or something of that nature. If you prefer to use the email chain and need my email, please ask me before the round.

What will I vote for? I'm mostly down for whatever you all wanna run. That being said no person is perfect and we all have our inherent biases. What are mine?

I think teams should be centered around the resolution. While I'll vote on completely non T aff's it's a much easier time for a neg to go for a middle of the road T/framework argument to get my ballot. I lean slightly neg on t/fw debates and that's it's mostly due to having to judge LD recently and the annoying 1ar time skew that makes it difficult to beat out a good t/fw shell. The more I judge debates the less I am convinced that procedural fairness is anything but people whining about why the way they play the game is okay even if there are effects on the people involved within said activity. I'm more inclined to vote for affs and negs that tell me things that debate fairness and education (including access) does for people in the long term and why it's important. Yes, debate is a game. But who, why, and how said game is played is also an important thing to consider.

As for K's you do you. the main one I have difficulty conceptualizing in round are pomo k vs pomo k. No one unpacks these rounds for me so all I usually have at the end of the round is word gibberish from both sides and me totally and utterly confused. If I can't give a team an rfd centered around a literature base I can process, I will likely not vote for it. update: I'm noticing a lack of plan action centric links to critiques. I'm going to be honest, if I can't find a link to the plan and the link is to the general idea of the resolution, I'm probably going to err on the side of the perm especially if the aff has specific method arguments why doing the aff would be able to challenge notions of whatever it is they want to spill over into.

I lean neg on condo. Counterplans are fun. Disads are fun. Perms are fun. clear net benefit story is great.

If you're in LD, don't worry about 1ar theory and no rvis in your 1ac. That is a given for me. If it's in your 1ac, that tops your speaks at 29.2 because it means you didn't read my paradigm.

Now are there any arguments I won't vote for? Sure. I think saying ethically questionable statements that make the debate space unsafe is grounds for me to end a round. I don't see many of these but it has happened and I want students and their coaches to know that the safety of the individuals in my rounds will always be paramount to anything else that goes on. I also won't vote for spark, trix, wipeout, nebel t, and death good stuff. ^_^ good luck and have fun debating

About Me:

Bravo '20, CSULB '24, LAMDL 4eva

2024 ADA Champ, CEDA Semis, NDT Quarters, #3 Copeland Panelist

Currently coaching Huntington Park High School

Email: diegojflores02@gmail.com

People I talk about debate with or have influenced me heavily: Deven Cooper, Jaysyn Green, Geordano Liriano, Curtis Ortega, Andres Marquez, Isai Ortega, Toya Green, Azja Butler, Cameron Ward, Jonathan Meza, Jared Burke, Elvis Pineda, Irshad Reza Husain, Tatianna Mckenzie, Khamani Griffin

TOC Update

nothing new, if anybody's interested in debating at csulb lemme know

How I Judge

• Judge instruction above all else. Tell me why your argument comes first (framing, recency, more contextualized, etc.) or why winning x part of the flow wins you the rest, and do the opposite to your opponent's framing. A long 2AR/2NR overview that identifies the 2-3 biggest issues to resolve is much more instructive to me than blasting off a pre-written block. I fully believe that the focus of the debate is completely up to the debaters to determine and will decide it only on what the flow says, not what I think it should say.
• When resolving arguments for either side, I tend to view it kind of like debate math. If one side has a full extension of their argument (claim, warrant, ev) and the other side is incomplete (claim, warrant, no ev), then I default to the side that has a more complete explanation of their argument. In scenarios where debating is equal, I listen to judge instruction and read evidence when necessary, but this a rarity. I hate having to insert my own beliefs about debate in order to decide which argument is better, which is why direct argument comparison and judge instruction are the most important things to do when I'm judging you.
• I flow straight down and heavily decide debates based on technical execution, so responding to the arguments in the order that they come in is preferable to me. However, I am completely fine with you going in your own order as long as you clearly state what argument you're responding to and still directly engage your opponent's arguments.
• I don't have the docs open during the debate and only refer to them during cx to read ev or if the debate is really close. I'm comfortable flowing any speed, but will not hesitate to say in the RFD that I could not catch an argument because the analytics were unflowable or the argument did not make sense. Please do not spread your analytics as if they're cards.
• Capable of writing a clear RFD for any style of debate, but my advice for improvement is better if critical literature is introduced. I only read K-oriented arguments in college, but was a flex/policy-leaning debater in high school.
• Following the above ensures that good, technical debating always overrides my personal beliefs (hate capitalism and psychoanalysis but vote on them all the time its concerning)
• No judge kick make your own decisions, inserting rehighlights is fine with me on the condition that you explain what the rehighlight says using quotes from the ev.
• Speaker points start at a 28.5 and move up and down according to execution: Rebuttals > Organization > Strategic pivots/ concessions > Sounding like you want to be here > Winning Cross-ex moments is probably my list of priorities when thinking about it
• boo being a bad person to your opponents booooo. i'm all for debaters standing on business, petty throwdowns, etc., but i am not for full-on disrespecting your opponents simply for the sake of it. every debate is a performance and you should be aware of how you come off.
• Format stuff -- title ur email chains [Tournament Name - Round x - Team A -Aff- v. Team B -Neg-), pls put ev in a doc before sending it out, etc.

Argument Preferences

I appreciate debaters who stick to their convictions and are confident in their ability to win what they're best at regardless if the judge is predetermined to agree with their set of arguments or not. The following is a list my personal beliefs about debate that only matter if there is a complete absence of judge instruction/technical debating by both sides. Anything that is not addressed just means I'm neutral for both sides about the argument and is overwhelmingly determined by the flow.

K Affs - Affs should be clear about the method/epistemological shift from the status quo they defend and why it challenges the impacts/theory of power outlined in the 1AC. I'm better for method-based K Affs than solely epistemological ones because I think the latter is susceptible to presumption arguments since I'm usually unsure about the scale that is required for the epistemological shift to solve the 1AC's impacts and why the aff is uniquely key. Method-based affs should be prepared to debate impact turns.

K Aff v. Framework - I strongly prefer a counter-interpretation than just a impact turn strategy. What it means to be resolutional must be defined in the 2AC through definitions or a different vision for engagement. I also strongly prefer that the counter-interpretation is in reference to models of debate established by scholars in the activity (DSRB’s Three Tier, Elijah Smith’s KFM, Amber Kelsie’s Blackened Debate, etc.). I think there is enough history of debate established for us to have substantive debates over the pros/cons of traditional/non-traditional models of debate.

Framework v. K Affs - Clash/Skills with Fairness as an internal link instead of as an impact on its own. SSD over TVA unless you have a solvency advocate. A combination of limits arguments and no clash turning the case is needed in order to win these debates in front of me. The only "engage the aff's case" I require is defense agains the aff's theory of power and their "ballot key" arguments since those two are usually cross-applied to become offense against framework.

K v. K - The biggest thing to clarify is how competing visions/demands about society structure your offense against each side of the debate. Each form of offense should have a material example of how your theoretical distinctions manifest into real impacts.

PIKs - Affs should always explain that the component that the negative has PIK'd out of is necessary for aff solvency, and that the PIK is a worse version because of it. Offense by the aff is often underdeveloped and I wish neg teams would be less afraid to go for PIKs since its usually cleaner than other flows.

Policy Affs - 2ACs overviews need to explain what the plan does and why it solves the impacts of the 1AC as opposed to just impact calculus at the top. Negative teams should be more willing to go for analytics that call out wonky internal link chains and solvency claims.

Extinction Affs v. K - Affs should defend the representations of their plan beyond "if we win case then reps true + extinction outweighs" by thoroughly explaining why the impact scenario is true as opposed to the 2AR saying "no case defense, flow our stuff through for us". I truly don't understand the new trend for every debater to rattle off "debate doesnt shape subjectivity + fairness is nice" and think that its sufficient to beat the K without addressing the link or the alt. I'd much rather hear a 2AR that substantively defends the case and impact turns the links. I absolutely hate when heg teams say "china evil cus uyghurs" or "russia evil" and refuse to acknowledge their hypocrisy in defending the United States (enslavement, genocide, current support of Israel, just history and today in general.). If you want to win heg good in front of me, I need a substantive impact turn to the link and an offensive push for why the alternative on the K is worse than the status quo, not just "fwk - weigh the aff".

Soft-Left Affs v. K - These are my favorite debates to judge. Affs should spend more time explaining why the case is a good form of harm reduction as opposed to trying to beat the ontology of the K with "progress possible + pessimism bad" arguments. I usually think that these arguments do nothing for the aff since none of the cards are about the case, and they'd be better off explaining why the aff is better than the status quo even if the neg's ontology is correct, and that a perm would resolve the links enough.

K v. Policy - K teams should have a "link turns case argument" even if the 2NR is a huge framework push, but I prefer the strategy to extend an alt that solves the case and resolves the link debate. Case defense is appreciated. I'm not the best for K 2NR's that invest most of their time into the ontology debate because I think its better for neg teams to go for specific links that turn the case or have an argument that the impacts of the K should come first before the aff, and winning a link means the alt comes first before the aff. At most, I think the ontology of a Kritik should be used to frame which impacts matter most, and it usually does not make-or-break debates for me. I don't require "specific" link evidence versus the aff, but I appreciate link contextualization in the block and I think K's are best when the 2NC/2NR pulls specific lines from the Affs speeches and explain how their method's underlying assumptions turn itself.

Counterplans - Neutral for each side about theory/competition arguments. Counterplans that only rely on internal net benefits are less likely to win in front of me since I think a combination of aff theory + a permutation can beat it.

Disadvantages - PLEASE INTRODUCE IMPACT CALCULUS IN THE 2AC/2NC, I hate when the first time I'm hearing it is in the rebuttal speeches from both sides. Direct evidence comparison above all else, i appreciate an overview of the impact scenario at the top of each speech. I'm a lot more concerned by whose impact scenario has more overall risk of occurring than a "turns the case/DA" argument.

LAMDL/UDL Stuff

• ONLY TO LAMDL/OTHER UDL KIDS - Email me with questions, speech redoes, questions about debate, and I will try my best to get back to you with advice/feedback. Not having coaches and learning debate by yourself is hard and I can’t guarantee responses all the time but I try to respond to mostly everybody that reaches out to me.
• WIKI RANT - have a wiki up by your 2nd tournament or I’m capping speaks at 29. Cites of the arguments/evidence you have read are the only thing needed, not open source. Not disclosing on the wiki diminishes the quality of debates LAMDL produces and exacerbates the gaps we have in resources as UDL schools, and it does nothing to help up and coming varsity debaters who don’t know how to start prep against teams that refuse to disclose. Debate is competitive and we’re all here to win, but it sucks when part of the reason nobody’s prepped to be negative is because nobody knows what anybody is reading.

other thoughts

• Highlight Color Rankings - Yellow > Blue > custom light pastel color > any other color is ew
• Water > Coffee > any energy drink like Red Bull or Monster is disgusting
• Tagline quality. They’re either unflowable (too long/wordy) or way too flowable (no warrant/2 word). The way people feel about highlighting trends is how I feel about tags. I hope for the perfect middle ground.
• If you run critical arguments about an identity you don’t belong to, I need you to explain what my/your role as a judge/competitor is to that literature, even if the other side never brings it up. I think it’s valuable to understand how we position ourselves in relation to literature that isn’t about us and see how it affects our decisions to use it as an argument, as well as develop ethical relationships to it.
• I think variations of the Cap K (escalante, racial cap, abolition democracy, etc.) are great and the majority of Affs mishandle them. Defending it as a methods debate as opposed to a "cap root cause + extinction ow + state engagement good" strategy is better in front of me and the affs common responses of "racist party + accountability DA + aff theory is root cause of cap" can be easily beat assuming the negative has actually read the literature behind the cap k. Despite the fearmongering by framework teams, the Cap K is a great generic and more teams should be willing to go for it.

Email: taniaelopez03@gmail.com.