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Marist Ivy Street Invitational

2022 — NSDA Campus, GA/US

Policy Debate Paradigm List

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Bennett Applbaum St. Mark's School of Texas 3 rounds

Zaarah Azad Westminster 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 24, 2024 at 2:40 PM EDT

for the chain- zaarah.azad@gmail.com

reagan '21, duke '24

pronouns: she/her

qualified to the TOC twice

for prefs:

if you're a hardcore policy team, i would not pref me high. i did k debate of 3 of the 4 years i debated so that should probably tell you how well versed i am with policy things. if you do end up having me in the back and only read these arguments, don't worry. you just have to simplify and connect the dots for me more than you would for other judges. for k teams i am probably in the range of a 1-3 and policy teams from a 4-6.

background:

my sophomore year i read settler colonialism and linguistic criticisms like anzuldua. my junior year i read a baudrillard aff and a bunch of k's on the negative like semiocap, wilderson, settler colonialism, and baudrillard. my senior year i only read warren on the aff and neg.

notes:

- clarity > speed

-tech > truth in most instances

- don't be problematic. i am unafraid to vote on microaggressions. (racism, sexism, death good)

- clipping is bad but needs proof (L and 0 speaks for the team who does it)

- try entertaining me! judging can get boring sometimes so enjoyable rounds are always good

- zoom debate can be miserable if you aren't careful. please have a good mic, try and have your camera on, and don't speak over others during cx because nothing can be heard

kritiks:

- these debates can either be really good or really bad - please don't make them bad

- im familiar with antiblackness, set col, cap, and baudrillard. even if i may know what you are reading, you still need to do nuanced analysis on the thesis of your k.

- i never understood long overviews cause you re-explain all of what you said on the line-by-line. if you do have a long overview, try and make it the least redundant as possible.

- i have a deep deep deep hatred for links of omission. please make them specific.

- framework determines the rest of the debate. you need a model of debate that is preferable and probably should have offense on why the other side's model is bad for debate.

- if you read a kritik against a K aff, i will reward specific engagement by holding affirmative teams to a higher standard for permutation explanation.

- you can kick the alt

- just cause you won your theory of power doesn't mean you won the round :P

t-usfg:

- i read k affs a lot but that doesn't mean i wont vote for t usfg. it just means i know a lot about how it should be ran

- clash as an impact>>>>

- fairness and limits > education and ground

- often negative teams forget to do impact comparison when going for t-usfg - this is the easiest way to win my ballot

- subjectivity debates matter and can implicate a lot of the flow

- i think switch side is very persuasive and solves a lot of offense

topicality:

- i lean towards competing interpertations but will still vote on reasonability

- case lists are nice

- i appreaciate intent to define arguments

- impact comparison is pretty important

- good counter interp ev is really cool.

- like t-usfg i am more persuaded by limits fairness and clash than education and ground

counterplans:

- smart, creative counterplans are appreciated if executed well

- i like counterplans that are textually and functionally competitive, but your counterplan by no means has to be. i mostly just think you should have a solvency advocate.

- i lean neg for most counterplan theory except for consult, condo, solvency advocate. theory debates get wack so do a lot of work here to make it make sense

- i need instruction for judge kick.

disadvantages:

- impact comparison is especially important for these debates

- evidence comparison is also pretty important

- turns case arguments when executed correctly are strategic and beneficial for negative teams

- 1ar gets new arguments to new uniqueness, links, or impacts in the blocks

theory:

- apart from things like condo and judge kicks i am not nuanced in theory arguments. slow down and overexplain things if you plan on doing this in front of my

case debate:

- you should probably do this besties

miscellaneous:

- i hate aspec. if you hide this in a t shell i hate you.

-be nice. being sassy can be fun but there is a limit

- respect your opponents. respect their pronouns. don't cut each other off. just be respectful

- put a trigger warning on your stuff!!!!!

- i am heavily influenced by Philip Dipiazza, Gavin Loyd, Sean Kennedy, Rafael Sanchez, and David Gutierrez. if you have any questions, their paradigms could probably answer it.

- taylor swift references gives you +0.2 speaker points

Luke Bagdon Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 8, 2024 at 8:11 AM EDT

conflicts: groves high school (class of 2019), wayne state university (class of 2023, secondary ed major w/ minors in public health & gender, sexuality, and women's studies), detroit country day high school

always put me on the email chain! Literally always! if you ask i will assume you haven't read this! legit always put me on the email chain! lukebagdondebate@gmail.com

pronouns: they/them.

the abridged version:

do you, and do it well
don't cheat in ways that require me to intervene
don't misgender me, or your competitors
do not assume i am going to vote for you because you say my name a lot

some general stuff:

the more and more i do debate the less i care about what's put in front of me. when i first started debating, i cared very deeply about norms, the resolution, all that jazz. now, if you're willing to read it i'm willing to judge it. i'd rather see an in depth debate with a lot of offense and clash than anything else, and i don't care whether you do that on a T flow vs. a k aff or a cap flow vs. a policy aff.

my least favorite word in the english language (of which is not a slur) is the word "basically." i would rather listen to everyone for the rest of time describe everything as "moist" than listen to you say the word "basically." i've hated this word for years, do not use it. make of that what you will.

it should be said i at one point read a parody aff that involved my partner and i roleplaying as doctor/patient during the 1ac. i care exceedingly little what you want to do with your 8 minute constructive, 3 minute cx, and 5 minute rebuttals - but those speech times are non-negotiable (unless the tournament says otherwise). play a game, eat a salad, ask me about my cat(s), color a picture, read some evidence; but do it within the constraint of a timer.

(this "time fetish" is less of a "respect my time" thing and more of a "i need to know when i can tell tab who i voted for" thing. i take a lot of pride in getting my decision in before repko, and i wish to continue that streak.)

stuff about me as a judge:

i do not follow along in the speech doc. i try not to look at cards. be clear, be concise, be cool. debate is first and foremost a communicative activity. i will only read y'alls ev if there is serious contention, or you tell me to. i HATE DOING THIS, and this very often does not go how people think it will.

if you say "insert re-highlighting" instead of reading the re-highlighting i WILL consider that argument uncarded

bolded for emphasis: people are also saying they can 'insert a caselist' for T flows. this is not a thing. and i will not consider them part of the debate if this occurs.

i do not play poker both because i am terrible at math and because i have a hard time concealing my emotions. i do have pretty bad rbf, but i still think you should look at me to tell what i'm thinking of your speeches/cx.

speaker points:

Misgendering is bad and a voting issue (at the very least I will give you exceptionally low speaks). due to my gender identity i am hyper aware of gender (im)balances in debate. stop being sexist/transphobic jerks, y'all. it's not that hard. additionally, don't be racist. don't be sexist. don't be ableist. don't be a bad person.

Assigning speaker points comes down to: are you memorable? are you funny? are you a bad person? Did you keep my flow neat? How did you use cross?

I usually give in the 28.2-29.9 range, for reference.

ethics violations:

i consider ethics violations clipping, evidence fabrication/omission of paragraphs between the beginning and end of the card, and violence (e.g. calling Black people the n word as a non-Black person, refusing to use correct pronouns).

for clipping: a recording must be presented if a debater brings forth the challenge. if i notice it but no one brings it up, your speaker points will suffer greatly.

for evidence miscutting (this is NOT power tagging): after a debater brings it forward the round will stop. if the evidence is miscut, the team who miscut the evidence will lose with lowest speaker points possible. if the evidence is not miscut, the team who brought forth the violation will lose with the lowest speaker points possible. i will not entertain a debate on the undebatable.

for violence: i will stop the debate and the offender will receive the lowest speaker points possible and will lose. the person who is on the receiving end of the violence is not expected to give input. if you misgender me i will not stop the debate, but your speaker points will suffer.

one of these, because i love getting caught in the hype

brad hombres ------------------------------------X--banana nut brad

generic disad w/ well developed links/uq------X------------------------------------ thing you cut 30 mins before the round that you claim is a disad

read a plan--------------------X---------------------don't read a plan

case turns--X----------------------------------------generic defense

t not fw--------------X-------------------------------fw not t

"basically"-------------------------------------------X-just explaining the argument

truth over tech------------------X--------------------tech over truth

being nice-X------------------------------------------being not nice

piper meloche--------------------X--------------------brad meloche

'can i take prep'----------------------------------------X-just taking prep

explaining the alt------X--------------------------------assuming i know what buzzwords mean

process cps are cheating--------------------------X-------sometimes cheating is good

fairness--------------------------------X----------------literally any other fw impact besides iteration

impact turn-X--------------------------------------------non impact turn

fw as an impact turn------X--------------------------------fw as a procedural

green highlighting-X----------------------------------------any other color

rep---------------------------X----------------i don't know who you are and frankly i don't care to find out

asking if everyone is ready -X-----------------------------------asking if anyone isn't ready

jeff miller --------------------------------------X--- abby schirmer

PUBLIC FORUM SPECIFIC THINGS:

i find myself judging this a lot more than any other activity, and therefore have a LOT of opinions.

time yourself. this includes prep. i'm not your mom, and i don't plan on doing it for you. the term "running prep" is becoming very popular, and i don't know what that means. just take prep.
don't call me judge. "what should we refer to you as?" nothing! i don't know who is teaching y'all to catch judges' attentions by referring to us directly, but it's horrible, doesn't work, annoys all of us, and wastes precious time. you should be grabbing my attention in other ways: tone, argumentation, flowability, humor, sarcasm, lighting something on fire (please do not actually do this). call me by my first name (luke) if you have to, but know if you overuse it, it has the exact same affect as calling me "judge."
PLEASE don't assume i know community norms, and saying things like "this is a community norm" doesn't automatically give you that dub. i entered PF during covid, and have a very strong policy background. this influences how i view things like disclosure or paraphrase theory.
even more so than in policy, "post-rounding" me after a decision is incredibly common. you're allowed to fight with me all you want. just know it doesn't change my ballot, and certainly won't change it the next time around.
i will never understand this asking for evidence after speeches. why aren't we just sending speech docs? judges are on a very strict schedule, and watching y'all spend five minutes sending evidence is both annoying and time consuming - bolding, because i continue to not get and, honestly? actively hate it when everyone spend 5-10 minutes after each speech exchanging evidence. just sent the whole speech. i don't get why this isn't the norm
i'm fine with speed and 'unconventional arguments.' in fact, i'm probably better for them because i've found PF aff/neg contentions to be vague and poorly cut.
PFers have a tendency to call things that aren't turns "turns." it's very odd to me. please don't do it.
i'm not going to delay the round so you can preflow. idk who told y'all you can do that but they're wrong
if you are using ev sending time to argue, i will interrupt you and make you start and/or i will tank your speaks. stop doing this.
i'm very split on the idea of trigger warnings. i don't think they're necessary for non-in-depth/graphic discussions of a topic (Thing Exists and Is Bad, for example, is not an in-depth discussion in my eyes). i'm fine with trigger warning theory as an argument as long as you understand it's not an automatic W.
flex prep is at best annoying and at worst cheating. if you start flex prepping i will yell at you and doc your speaker points.
PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO READ THEORY:I hear some kind of theory (mostly disclosure) at least once a tournament. I usually end up voting for theory not because the theory is done well, but because the other team does not answer it properly. I do like theory an unfortunate amount, but I would prefer to watch a good "substance" debate than a poor theory debate

LINCOLN DOUGLAS SPECIFIC THINGS:

please read my policy and pf paradigms. they have important information about me and my judging
of all the speech activities, i know about lincoln douglas the least. this can either be to your advantage or your detriment
apparently theory matters to a lot of y'all a lot more in this activity than in policy. i got a high threshold for voting on any sort of theory that isn't condo, and even then you're in for the uphill battle of the century. i like theory debates generally, but watching LDers run theory like RVIs has killed my confidence in LD theory debate.
'i'm gonna take X minutes of prep' isn't needed. just say you're taking prep and take prep. i'll never understand LD or PF judges who act as if they are parents and y'all are 5 year olds asking for cookies after dinner; if you can figure out how tabroom works and how to unmute yourself, i'm pretty sure you can time your own prep.
going fast does not mean you are good at debate, please don't rely on speed for ethos
i hate disclosure theory and will prob vote neg 99.9% of the time (the .001% is for new affs or particularly bad answers). just put your stuff on the wiki, i genuinely don't understand why this is a debate to be had. just disclose. what year are you people living in.

things i don't care about:

- whether you keep your camera on or off (if you wanna lose free speaker points, that's up to you)

speed. however, you should never be prioritizing speed over clarity.

hidden at the bottom: if you read the kato k and call it the "oppenheimer k" in the roadmap for the whole round i will give you a 30

neda-specific:

please use all your time. my bar for civility is much lower than most neda judges, so make of that what you will. please also use evidence.

Alex Barreto Montgomery Bell Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed April 24, 2024 at 7:27 AM CDT

v24

Casady 2021 (debated)

University of Kansas 2025 (debating)

I want the ev. (also questions) pls- alexpbarreto1@gmail.com

Conflict me if you know you're committed to debating at KU.

Follow speech times, don't clip/miscut ev, and don't be problematic.

Things

Understanding decisions is hard my goal is not to try to convince you I am right but to try and help you understand why I rendered my decisions as outlined below. Feel free to ask lots of questions/email---I'm not a very reactive person so feel free to to tell me why you think you are right---That said, time limits etc... I try to write into my decisions several ways in which each team could have improved and how the losing team could have gotten my ballot.

As a debater, I hate when I felt that judges decided based on perception/opinion rather than using the instruments presented to them in the debate. I will seek to couch my decision in your wording, your choices, your evidence, and your ethos. That said while I think too many judges rely too much on instinct, intuition, their own debate experience for decision PERCEPTION ie: how a judge perceives a debate is inevitable, and it often always is not the same as how the debaters perceive it. Two things you can do to help me with this, everything else is how my perceptions will inevitably function.

A: Ethos, or rather, the confidence "your argument" "can win". If you don't believe you can win it becomes very hard for a judge to vote for you, I believe this is largely inevitable, and though there are technical exemptions usually the team that seems like they are winning, does. Many debates exude a simple failure of the debaters to meet the above statement: if you see a pairings and give up, that might contribute to why you lose. That said on a less literal level it represents many things I inevitably perceive throughout the debate. Your knowledge of your argument, how you treat your opponents and their arguments, the quality of your evidence, your decision-making etc.. The more these things seem out of continuum I believe every judge would agree it becomes harder to vote for you---because they all represent that "your arguments" "can't win". Ensuring your arguments have internal consistency, you have met a baseline of foundation for your arguments, and set up the winning rebuttal earlier in the debate are all simple things you can do that ensure I can craft a ballot for you.

B: Framing. Tell me how I should decide, read evidence, evaluate moments in the debate etc... The more you do this the more you give me the language to the explain the debate in your terms rather than having to do so in the other teams(or mine). I find this especially important in debates about different "levels" ie: fiat, education, consequences etc... not because it's uniquely needed in these debates---Framing is important in both, how I read ev/decide portions of every debate BUT debaters seem to forget to respond to the other teams argument when they are each have a different starting point for the "what" in the debate. Don't get lost in the theoretical, by the final rebuttal you should be able to evaluate the likelihood the argument you are extending will be a winning argument and then use that estimation to implicate it out for how I should decide-often manifesting in approaching arguments with best/worse case lines of answers.

1---I will always start with my decision with “I vote (aff/neg) for x” where x is the world gone for by the 2NR/2AR debated. If it’s neg on aff bad, it’s for the squo. But almost always I will start deciding by finding where the rebuttal encapsulated why I should vote for you(ideally the start); and if I don’t understand what I’m voting for…. That will be tough. This framing is especially important in debates that operate at different scales ie: subject formation, consequentialism, fiat. Though also important in simple impact calculus, more and more debaters move to vague scenarios that fail to explain how their impacts are both external to and can implicate the other teams-which is usually the best combination for success.

2---Internal argument consistency matters for me way more than most-If the logical conclusion of your arguments seem to be that the other team is right it is gonna be hard to vote for you. You should capitalize on 1ACs that that contain evidence/mechanics that substantiate alt causes/reasons the aff is bad. Similarly capitalizing on ways 1NCs undercut themselves and the ability for the 2NR to then go on with the "business as usual" strategy. I am thus significantly more willing to grant large "risk" of arguments that has premises unchallenged earlier on in the debate and to significantly lower the risk of arguments that has even a single premise(usually it's weakest) heavily challenged throughout the debate. What this means is I much better for the 2NR/2ARs that go for 1 or 2 key issues on most arguments, and emphasizes covering weakness, than trying to put words next to everything they said. I am more willing to grant larger "risk" to well debated defensive arguments like presumption, thumpers, alt causes, no internal links even when they lack evidence if they are well debated substantiated with criticism of the other teams arg/ev. In critical debates I find this plays out the most with performative contradictions/double turns---I struggle to make internally consistent decisions when teams decide debates should be about subject formation/x issue and then simultaneously find themselves linked to an argument about said issue.

3---What you read matters way less for me than most, how you read it though... I think debate has evolved metas---that condition judges and debaters in a similar way to echo chambers. After a seasons worth of debates we feel like we've figured it all out---People dismiss evidence by author name of their read, assume teams are making arguments because they know the args better than the team making them, and essentially often interpolate debaters arguments into their mind as if they were their own arguments to make a decision rather than use what the debaters have given them. This paradigm is to represent that other things matter significantly more for me--That you have demonstrated you have thought through a win condition for the argument you are making and that you understand it enough to explain it to me in words I can repeat with confidence. I try not to read along in the doc unless I think your clipping/I miss something reasonable enough to fill in---That said I do skim the docs/evidence during the debate and read evidence noted in the 2NR/2AR. The quality of the ev, it's highlighting, and my ability to locate your arguments in it often matter a lot---particularly in debates that don't have a clear deciding issue/mechanism presented in the final rebuttals. What "evidence" is I find highly open to interpretation whether it's a standard card, art, lived experience, empiric, metaphor etc... but what I find matters is how you can use it as a base for the arguments in your latter speeches and that the best teams use that base to seemingly transition to the expansion of their argument. What that means is, it does not seem out of nowhere. If you are not saying what your card says, what you were saying earlier on in the debate, or you are substantiating claims with claims rather than ev/warrants it will become immensely harder to vote for you even if you could still win on the other teams mistakes.

4---I flow speeches and CX until told otherwise... I try to write down the words you are saying. What I don't think debaters often realize is the Sisyphean nature of this task. In lieu of perfect hearing and typing speed I use shorthand/abbreviation. When debates often come down to the specific words said---if you are speaking inordinately fast/unclearly I will not feel bad saying I didn't get it as a reason I did not vote for you. I have good memory but tangibles like Pen time and if you think your that fast, slowing down slightly, might behoove you. Effectively "flagging" your argument with titles/numbers/letters is also helpful in creating a memory of the debate in my head closer to yours. In CX this relates to your decisions of what you choose to say---or really nowadays choose to avoid saying it seems. I find I'm much more convinced cross ex is used effectively when you use it to effectively communicate both a question/answer and a perception/moment of the debate that I should be thinking about.

5---I think part of the problem with judging as a community of former debaters and current coaches is that debate thought is constantly increasingly. I often find this played out in games of diminishing marginal utility where debaters engage in practices they believe will be helpful but become ultimately so divorced from reality, they have little practical value. Focusing on your args, understanding what's wrong with your opponents args, and how to explain that in a way I get will matter exponentially more than things like not sending analytics, obfuscating your arguments to confuse your opponents, trying to gain some artificial pre round advantage. I probably spend very little time thinking about you outside of the context I'm judging you in so I would emphasize "best practices" that convince me your a good person rather than things that will not impress/likely end up hurting your speaks.

Some people I liked decisions from/try to emulate as a judge.
Tommy Snider

Especially for policy debates,

Brett Bricker, Yao Yao Chen, Ned Gidley, Ethan Harris, Hunter McCullough

Especially for k debates,

Nathan Rothenbaum, Scott Harris, David Kilpatrick, Scott Phillips, Jared Spiers

Grace Blackwell Alpharetta HS 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 13, 2024 at 8:36 AM CDT

Please be on time for check-in.

Email: Gracenicoleb@gmail.com

She/her

Background

I did policy debate at Samford for 3 years.
2 time NDT qualifier.
Assistant coach of the SpeakFirst debate team.

Top-level thoughts:

I prefer clear, slow speaking over fast, unintelligible speaking. With online debate, clarity is key. A lot of technology leaves failure points where I may miss something. I will be more likely to vote for the team that carefully explains their arguments over a team that provides more evidence but neglects warrants.

I will not vote for death good or warming good.

If I notice you are clearly clipping cards or are engaging in racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. remarks or behavior, I will vote you down. If you want to call out a team that you believe is clipping cards, debaters are innocent until proven guilty. Be prepared to have it recorded or have some other way for me to verify it.

Disclosure: Debaters should disclose. I am fine with disclosure arguments.

Judge kick: I will kick the cp for the neg if no one tells me not to.

Tech > Truth with limits. A dropped argument is assumed to be contingently true unless it is obviously unethical or when I go back and read your evidence, it does not say what you say it does. I will read most of the evidence in round but if you're answering a specific argument/link/internal link with a generic, I won't always accept that without contextualization. If you leave it up to me to resolve an argument, you get what you get.

More specific thoughts:

I default to sufficiency framing. The Cp's viability as a winning argument is essentially a product of how much it resolves the aff's impacts and the magnitude of the NB. Also, if it is not 100% clear on the distinction between the cp and the plan, outline the differences for me. If the CP has no external net benefit-- it must solve better than the aff for some reason.

Be clear on the link level- this means I don't want you to just read cards on why you don't link-- I want an explanation. I will vote for a DA if I think there is a small risk of a link and a significant probability of an impact. I will not vote for a DA if I feel like there is not a significant probability of an impact, even if there is a small risk of a link. There are downsides to every policy-- it's the burden of the neg to prove why their impacts outweigh.

You should start with the assumption that I know nothing about your literature base. I will vote for a K if it is specific and interacts with the Aff. I will not vote for generic Ks that are not explained well or lack evidence. Line-by-line is very important for these debates so don't just rely on cards. Unless told specifically otherwise, I assume that life is preferable to death. In order to convince me otherwise, you must prove that a world with no value to life/social death is worse than being biologically dead. My best piece of advice is that if you want me to vote for the K, you must prove how it SOLVES whatever the debate is about. If the K doesn't solve anything, expect an L. I think too often, Ks get away with cheap solvency. My only caveat here is that I am more likely to vote on bad rhetoric Ks/independent voters- these arguments are sometimes very convincing to me.

I am not the best person to judge a super in-depth T debate, but I'll do my best. I view topicality through the lens of competing interpretations, but I could possibly be persuaded to vote another way. I tend to have a high threshold for voting on T so if you are going to go for it, commit to it. T outweighs condo 98% of the time.

Theory

I lean neg on theory. Condo- good and key to neg flex, but it's a debate to be had. For me to vote on generic condo, there needs to be something egregiously abusive going on in the round. My only caveat here is that I am more likely to vote on contra condo. I could be persuaded that going 5+ off with multiple contradictory conditional options is a voting issue for 2AC fairness and education. Any other theory argument I think is categorically a reason to reject the argument and not the team.

Resolution

Please read a plan. Without a plan, often the thesis of the aff gets lost, which is super frustrating. This doesn't mean I won't vote for you, but if you decide to not read a plan just make sure that you thoroughly explain what the aff does.

PF & LD

Do not drop line by line to summarize your arguments. I'm more likely to vote for the team that interacts with the other teams' arguments to accelerate their own. I'm fine with CPs, DAs, plans, etc. if you want to run them. Impact calc is a must and make sure you collapse down to your best arguments in the summary. Don't waste time on insignificant arguments you're not going for. You must explain the warrants of the evidence you read. I will not accept the extension of a tag. Lastly, I hate tricks and will vote you down if that's what you go for.

Jacob Bosley NSU University School 1 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 10:14 AM EDT

Assistant Speech & Debate Coach at NSU University School

Last Update: November 2023---Thoughts on "Disclosure" and "Evidence Ethics" in PF added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1---Big Picture

Please put me on the e-mail chain.

Policy--- uschoolpolicy@gmail.com AND jacob.daniel.bosley@gmail.com

Public Forum--- uschoolpf@gmail.com AND jacob.daniel.bosley@gmail.com

I actively coach and research policy and public forum debate. I enjoy technical, organized debates. I don’t think I have particularly controversial views, but have tried to be thorough where it matters for prefs/pre-round prep.

Policy vs. K---An argument is an argument, assuming it’s complete, warranted, and applicable.

Tech vs. Truth---Tech obviously informs truth, but if I have to decide between intuitive and well-explained arguments vs. terrible evidence, I’ll choose the former. There are few things I won’t vote on, but “death good” is among them.

Offense vs. Defense---This is a helpful paradigm for assessing relative risk, but risk can be reduced to zero.

2---General Practices

Speed---Go for it, but at the higher end you should scale back slightly. I flow on a computer without much shorthand.

Evidence---I read it during debates. When referenced in CX, I’ll likely go to it. Quality is in the back of my mind, consciously or not.

Re-Highlighting---If small, I don’t think you need to re-read in speech. Don’t expect me to read a giant card to figure out if you’re right.

Digital Debate---Make sure everyone is present with confirmation before starting. Be reasonable about tech issues, as I will track tech time. If there are major issues, I’ll default to tournament procedures.

Decorum---Sass, snark, or shade are fine within reason. I’m not a good judge for hostile approaches, e.g. interrupting speeches.

“New” Arguments---The more late-breaking, the more open I am to responses. “Late-breaking” is relative to me catching the initial argument. Happy to strike 1AR/2NR arguments rightly flagged as “too new.”

Alternative Practices---I’m here to flow and judge a debate, awarding a single win. If you’re trying to do something different, I’m not the judge for you.

3---T vs. Plans

“Competing Interpretations”---This makes more intuitive sense to me than “reasonability,” but that's often because the latter isn't explained as a frame. Affs are still better off prioritizing offense.

"Fiscal Redistribution" Specifics---I was not at camp this summer, and at this point in the season still do not have strong views on most of the debated T issues like “FR = tax and transfer” or “FJ = no subsets.” From grad school studying health policy, "Social Security can be turned into single-payer health insurance" seems a bit absurd, but I’ll let evidence dictate decisions.

4---T vs. K Affs

Frustrations---These debates are often two ships passing in the night due to reliance on pre-written blocks. Please make judges lives easier by:

A---Have a robust defense of your model of debate, including roles for teams/judge, examples of how debates play out, net-benefits, etc.

B---Pick and choose your offense and compare it with what the other team has actually said.

"Affirmation"---At a bare minimum, affirmatives should have some relationship to the topic and “affirm” a clear advocacy. I am not sympathetic to purely negative arguments/diagnoses of power relations.

"Debate is a Game" vs. "Subject Formation"----Debate is a complicated space that's competitive, academic, and personal space. Arguments that assume it’s only one seem a bit shallow. Offense can be made assuming all three.

Terminal Impacts---“Fairness” or “clash” can be terminal impacts, though often teams don’t seem to explain why.

"Truth Testing"---I am less persuaded by these arguments because all argumentation seems to rely on some outside/unstated assumptions. I can certainly be persuaded that the structure of debate warps content and that could be a reason for skepticism.

"TVAs"---The 2NR needs to explain what offense they think the TVA resolves instead of expecting me to figure it out.

"T = [X Violent Practice]"---Feel free to impact turn the resulting curriculum, models, debates, etc. of an interpretation of debate, but its difficult to convince me reading an argument about the topic of discussion is analogical to policing/"stop and frisk"/"drone strikes"/other material violence.

5---Kritiks

Framework---I don't get middle grounds by default. I will resolve this debate one way or the other based on what is said, and then determine what remaining arguments count as offense.

Uniqueness---The alt needs to resolve each link, or have some larger reason that’s not relevant, e.g. framework. Affs are often in a better spot pressing poorly explained alternatives/links.

Competition---I presume affs can test mutual exclusivity of alts, whether against a “plan” or “advocacy.” Feel free to argue different standards of competition. The less the aff outlines a clear method, the more I’m persuaded by “no plan, no perm.”

Perm Texts---They are great. This can be difficult when alts are amorphous, but 1AR/2AR explanation needs to rise above “do both.”

6---Counterplans

Judge Kicking---If you want me to explicitly consider multiple worlds post-2NR, e.g. both CP vs. aff and/or status quo vs. aff, make an explicit argument. Saying the words “the status quo is always an option” in CX is not enough for me.

Theory vs. Literature---Topic literature helps dictate what you can persuade me is reasonable. If your only basis for competition is a definition of “resolved”/“should” and a random law review, good luck. If you have evidence contextual to a topic area and a clear explanation of functional differences in implementation, I’m far easier to persuade.

Solvency Advocates---CPs should have solvency advocates of “comparable quality” to the 1AC. If your Advantage CP plank cites 1AC evidence, go for it. If you’re making something up, provide a card. If you’re trying to make card-less “Con Con” a thing, I’m a hard sell.

Intrinsicness---Both the aff/neg need to get better at debating intrinsic/“other issues” perms. I'm an easier sell than others that these obviate many of the sillier CPs.

7---Disadvantages

Framing---It's everything: impact calculus, link driving uniqueness or vice-versa, the works. Smart arguments and coherent narratives trump a slew of evidence.

Internal Links > Impacts---I find most "DA Turns the Case" / "Case Turns the DA" debates don't spend enough time on causation or timing.

Politics Theory---Most 2AC theory blips against Politics DAs aren’t complete arguments, e.g. “fiat solves the link” or "a logical policymaker could do both." Still, intrinsicness arguments against DAs are underutilized.

8---Theory

Conditionality---It’s difficult to convince me some conditionality isn’t necessary for the neg to be viable. Things can certainly change based on substantive contradictions or quantity. Negs should be clear under what conditions, if any, they can kick individual CP planks.

Other Theory Issues---It’s difficult to persuade me that most theoretical objections to CPs or perms are reasons to reject the team.

“Tricks”/“Spikes”---Please no.

9---Public Forum Specifics

I am not a "lay"/"flay" judge.

A few views of mine may be idiosyncrasies:

Paraphrasing---I’m convinced this is a harmful practice that hides evidence from scrutiny. Evidence should be presented in full context with compete citations in real time. That means:

A---Author, Date, Title, URL

B---Complete paragraphs for excerpts

C---Underlining and/or highlighting indicating what is referenced.

D---Sending evidence you intend to read to opponents before the speech is delivered.

Purely paraphrased evidence compared to a team reading cut cards will be treated as baseless opinions.

Line-by-Line

A---You need to answer arguments in a coherent order based on when/where they were introduced.

B---You need to extend complete arguments, with warrants, in later speeches. If not in summary, it’s too late to bring back from the dead in final focus.

If neither side seems to be doing the needed work, expect me to intervene.

Disclosure---I generally think disclosure is beneficial for the activity, which is why our program open sources. However, I am not as dogmatic about disclosure when judging. It is difficult to convince me "disclosure in its entirety is bad," but the recent trend seems to be shifting interpretations that are increasingly difficult to meet.

Absent egregious lack of disclosure/mis-disclosure, I am not the best judge for increasingly demanding interpretations if opponents have made a good faith effort to disclose. For example, if a team forgot to disclose cites/round report for a single round, but is otherwise actively disclosing, it is difficult to convince me that a single mistake is a punishable offense.

While I don't want to prescribe what I think standard disclosure should be and would rather folks debate the specifics, I am an easier sell than others on some things:

A---The quality of debates is better when students know what arguments have been read in the past. This seems more important than claims that lack of disclosure encourages "thinking on your feet."

B---Debaters should provide tags/citations of previously read contentions. A doc with a giant wall of text and no coherent tags or labels is not meaningful disclosure.

C---Round reports don't seem nearly as important as other forms of disclosure.

Evidence Ethics---Evidence issues are getting egregious in PF. However, I also do not like some of the trends for how these debates are handled.

A---NSDA Rules---If an evidence challenge is invoked, I will stop the debate, inform the team issuing the challenge that the entire debate will hinge on the result of evaluating that challenge, and then consult both the NSDA rules and any tournament specific procedures to adjudicate the challenge. Questions of evidence ethics cannot be just "theory" or "off-case" arguments.

B---"Spirit" of Rules vs. Cheap Shots---I admittedly have idiosyncracies on specific issues, but if they come up will do my best to enforce the exact wording of NSDA rules.

i---"Straw" arguments where the cut section clearly does not represent the rest of the article, ellipses out of major sections, bracketing that changes the meaning of an article (including adding context/references the author didn't intend), and fabrication are easy to convince me are round-enders.

ii----A single broken URL, a card that was copy and pasted from a backfile incorrectly so the last sentence accidentally cut off a couple words, and other minor infractions do not seem worth ending a round over, but it's up for debate.

iii---Not being able to produce the original full text of a card quickly seems like a reason to reject a piece of evidence given NSDA wordings, though I worry this discourages the cutting of books which are harder to provide access to quickly during debates.

Denise Carmona Chattahoochee High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 15, 2024 at 10:41 AM CDT

Den (She/They)

Email:
• For chain, please use crossxnight@gmail.com
• For personal inquiries, contact at dnisecarmna@gmail.com

Background:
• Community Coach @Kelly College Prep (Chicago, IL)
• 4 years of High School Policy Debate experience
• Judging Nat Circuit & UDL Tournaments since '19

Topic Comment(s)

Round Counter: 76

4/4 -- Let's have some fun. Except if you run the Death K. Then perish. Joking aside, run anything you deem fit. This is cities, you should never give your opponents mercy because best believe I never got any. ????

Overview:

I'm experienced with both lay/circuit styles of policy debate. Nevertheless, I default towards a tech over truth style of judging unless said otherwise in-round. In terms of judging preferences, I have none. As evidenced by my judging record, I'm primarily preffed by k-oriented teams. I have judged k v k rounds. I have judged k v fw rounds. k v heg good. Judging these rounds have led me to think of debate in a broader capacity. Despite set preferences, I'm capable of being in back of the room judging stock issues debate.

Overall, I'll do my best to judge rounds fairly. I wholeheartedly appreciate the opportunity to judge. It allows me to better educate myself and teach my students on topic trends and/or strategy innovation.

Chicago/UDL: To answer a common question I get... I judge a multitude number of debates (~40) a year. The debaters I've coached win top speakers & break at locals. My proudest achievement is one of my debaters winning the City Championships! Therefore, I'm confident I'm qualified to judge your round. If you ever have any questions about your rounds, please CC: your coach and reach me at dcarmona16@cps.edu since I'm a school district employee.

What I enjoy:

Disadvantages-- Specific links to affirmatives recommended but generics are fine as long as it's still applicable. In terms of the politics disadvantage, evidence recency takes priority. However, how politicians act > what politicians verbally express. Uniqueness overwhelms the Link is a strong argument.

Kritiks-- Always have specific links to the affirmative. Links predicated off the topic itself doesn't lead to any meaningful educational debate specific to the case being ran. However, that doesn't mean I won't vote for Links of omission if the opposing team fails to answer them. If your strategy entails going for the links as impact turns to the affirmative, tell me explicitly to judge kick the alternative. If the negative has to win that the plan is a bad idea, don't let the alternative weigh the kritik down.

Counterplans-- CP debate is pretty awesome. Multiplank Counterplans are good. Planks that are supported by 1AC authors are even better. I don't have a disdain towards process counterplans. If your counterplan is not carded/supported by evidence in the 1NC, those rounds shape to be an uphill battle for the negative.

Topicality-- For the negative to win Topicality, they must [1] provide a model that best adheres to the topic, [2] exclaim why the affirmative fails to meet that model, [3] flesh out why the negative's model of debate is preferable, [4] evaluating the flow through competing interpretations is best. For the affirmative to beat Topicality, they must [1] explain why they meet the negative's model and/or [2] provide a counter-model that's better for the topic, which leads to [3] more educational and fair debates moving forward. [4] Frame the debate through reasonability.

T-USFG-- Prefer the debate to be framed similar to topicality (better model of debate). However, teams going for the impact turn(s) are welcome to do so. Affirmative teams running an advocacy statement tend to go for "the negative's model of debate is inherently worse, therefore by default the judge should vote for the affirmative's model". Definitely, the best approach when 1ACs are built to counter FW by embedding claims on the game of debate and how to best approach the topic. However, I have seen my fair share of critical affirmative's that.. could be read on any other topic. Negative teams, emphasize switch side debate. Provide TVA(s) under your model of debate. Explain the affirmative's burden and the negative's role in this game. Convince me that the negative should be the one reading all these different theory of powers against teams defending a policy. If they break structural rules such as going over speech time, call it out. Procedural fairness leads to better education. Don't rely too heavily on portable skills, I typically buy claims that people rarely become policymakers after this activity.. I'm a graphic designer for reference.

***If your arguments are descriptive in its explicit/graphic content, please provide a trigger warning pre-round. Let's avoid going to tab at all costs and/or having a procedural ran on you. I will stop the round if the other team deems the environment as uncomfortable.

Hall of Famers---

Rats: Kelly Lin, Lisa Gao, Ramon Rodriguez

Learned From: Armando Camargo, Juan Chavez, Jocelyn Aguirre, Leobardo Ramos, Scott Dodsworth

Sung Yun Chang BASIS Peoria 4 rounds

Brandon Chen ADL 6 rounds

Joseph Chicvak Berkeley Preparatory School 3 rounds

Max Chuang St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

Jamie Davenport Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 10:01 AM EDT

Put me in email chains or feel free to email me questions: JamieSuzDavenport@Gmail.com

I probably need to do an overhaul of my paradigm; it will likely not happen until I'm out of grad school. Seriously just AMA if it will help you going into the round.

Experience:

MPA-MSES @ IU Dec ’23, hoo hoo hoo Hoosiers. GA since '21. Please note this is an environmental science degree. I have a very low tolerance for climate denial or global warming good and would recommend not going for those args.

BA: IR, Fr, Arabic @ Samford, May ’20, ruff ‘em, CX and novice coaching

HS: LD in GA, ‘16

Misc

A note: I won't read cards unless instructed or seeking clarity (and if this is the case, I will be grumpy). All comments will be typed in the ballot and am open to questions immediately following the round and via email afterward. I do my best not to intervene or let personal biases cloud my judgment. I do have a deep appreciation for friendly competition and will generally be happier while giving out speaks or making decisions if I think the people in the round embodied that spirit. Conversely, am not afraid to have a come-to-Jesus meeting for unnecessary antagonism.

For eTournaments: I'll need a little more time than normal to adjust to your style of speaking/spreading because online anything gets tricky. Try to keep that in mind for your speeches so my ears can adjust. I'll default to having my camera on.

Zoom debate: PLEASE double-check your mic settings so that background noise suppression is not on. Zoom decides that spreading is background noise and it messes with the audio.

Overall:

Do what you want. I'm pretty go-with-the-flow and will try to adapt to what the round is versus making you adapt to me. The main thing to consider with me is my personal debate experience and potential knowledge gaps because of it. I'm not a great judge for high theory because I simply don't get it and it takes more explaining for me to understand and take it seriously (@ Baudrillard, semio-cap, etc.). There's some k lit that I'm not fully versed in but I try to keep current on major issues. Otherwise go nuts but make good choices.

2AR/NR: I more and more find myself telling debaters to tell me a story so I think I should put it in here. Whether you're going for a K, FW, DAs, extinction - whatever - start the speech telling me what your scenario is and why it's preferable to the other team. This is especially true if going for a perm or in a KvK debate, having a nuanced explanation clearly at the top of the speech frames the rest of the lbl and interactions you go for.

This was formerly organized by each event that I judge but that was getting unmanageable and ugly. If you have specific questions about anything event-specific or otherwise, just email or ask before the round starts.

Theory

Topicality/FW - I'll default that fairness is k2 education – if you want a different standard to be my primary metric, just tell me to do the thing. Might need more explanation of how I can apply the standard but that’s mostly for the atypical ones. Err on the side of over-explaining everything. Please please please explain your (counter)interp and what standards I should apply to favor yours - if there are a bunch of standards, which one do I evaluate first? Why? To reiterate: err on the side of over-explaining everything.

Fiat - I'll imagine it's real for policy v policy debates but more than willing to be sus of it, just tell me why.

Condo – dispo is an archaic interp and I think you can get better offense from other brightlines (2, what they did minus 1, etc.). I’ll vote on dispo but it’ll take more for you to win it than you need to do. Generally, think condo gets to its extremes when in the 3-4+ area, but new affs could change that yadda yadda, do what you want.

Other theory – whatever, just make the interp/counter-interp clear and tell me what to do with it.

RVI’s – please strike me or pref me real real low if this is your thing. I just don’t like it. This is one of if not the only hard-line I draw on content. They’re a time suck to play weird chess instead of engaging in the substance of the debate. Also, the majority of the time, horribly explained/extended.

Content

No huge preferences here

Cross-ex - I don’t flow cx unless something spicy grabs my attention and it’s usually obvious when that happens based on my reaction. Bring it up in a speech to remind me. Open cross, flex prep, is fine – I for real check out for flex prep.

Card clipping – you’ll lose. Might report it to tab/your coach if I’m feeling zesty that day.

Silliness

Love a good joke, wordplay, or reference. I currently am trying to incorporate “slay”, “yeehaw”, “gaslight gatekeep girlboss” and more into my regular debate vernacular. Feel free to also use these and I’ll at least laugh, maybe boost speaks, who knows – depends on how much of a silly goofy mood I’m in.

Blake Deng Woodward Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 14, 2024 at 12:31 PM EDT

Procedural Stuff

Call me Blake or BD instead of Judge, I don't like feeling old

Email chain: blako925@gmail.com

Please also add: jchsdebatedocs@gmail.com

Add both emails, title the chain Tournament Rd # Your Team vs. Other Team ex) Harvard Round 4 Johns Creek XY vs. Northview AM.

1AC should be sent at round start or if I'm late (sorry in advance), as soon as I walk in the room

If you go to the bathroom or fill your waterbottle before your own speech, I'll dock 1 speaker point

Stealing prep = heavily docked speaks. If you want to engage your partner in small talk, just speak normally so everyone knows you're not stealing prep, don't whisper. Eyes should not be wandering on your laptop and hands should not be typing/writing. You can be on your phone.

Clipping is auto-loss and I assign lowest possible speaks. Ethics violation claims = round stoppage, I will decide round on the spot using provided evidence of said violation

Topic Knowledge

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE.

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I debated in high school, didn’t debate in college, have never worked at any camp. I currently work an office job. Any and all acronyms should be explained to me. Specific solvency mechanisms should be explained to me. Tricky process CPs should be explained to me. Many K jargon words that I have heard such as ressentiment, fugitivity, or subjectivity should be explained to me.

Spreading

I WRITE SLOW AND MY HAND CRAMPS EASILY. PLEASE SLOW DOWN DURING REBUTTALS

My ears have become un-attuned to debate spreading. Please go 50% speed at the start of your speech before ramping up. I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it. If you are in novice this probably doesn't apply to you.

While judges must do their best to flow debates and adjudicate in an objective matter that rewards the better debater, there is a certain level of debater responsibility to spread at a reasonable speed and clear manner. Judge adaptation is an inevitable skill debaters must learn.

In front of me, adaption should be spreading speed. If you are saying words faster than how fast I can move my pen, I will say SLOW DOWN. If you do not comply, it is your prerogative, and you can roll the dice on whether or not I will write your argument down. I get that your current speed may be OK with NDT finalists or coaches with 20+ years of experience, but I am not those people. Adapt or lose.

No Plan Text & Framework

I am OK with any affirmative whether it be policy, critical, or performance. The problem is that the 2AC often has huge case overviews that are sped through that do not explain to me very well what the aff harms are and how the advocacy statement (or whatever mechanism) solves them. Furthermore, here are some facts about my experience in framework:

I was the 1N in high school, so I never had to take framework other than reading the 1NC shell since my partner took in the 2NC and 2NR.
I can count the number of times I debated plan-less affs on one hand.
As of me updating this paradigm on 01/28/2023 I have judged roughly 15 framework rounds (maybe less).

All the above make framework functionally a coin toss for either side. My understanding of framework is predicated off of what standards you access and if the terminal impacts to those standards prove if your model of debate is better for the world. If you win impact turns against the neg FW interpretation, then you don't need a C/I, but you have to win that the debate is about potential ballot solvency or some other evaluation method. If the neg wins that the round is about proving a better model of debate, then an inherent lack of a C/I means I vote for the better interp no matter how terrible it is. The comparison in my mind is that a teacher asked to choose the better essay submitted by two students must choose Student A if Student B doesn't turn in anything no matter how terrible or offensive Student A's essay is.

Tech vs. Truth

I used to like arguments such as “F & G in federal government aren't capitalized T” or “Period at the end of the plan text or the sentence keeps going T” b/c I felt like these arguments were objectively true. As I continue to judge I think I have moved into a state where I will allow pretty much any argument no matter how much “truth” there is backing it especially since some truth arguments such as the aforementioned ones are pretty troll themselves. There is still my job to provide a safe space for the activity which means I am obligated to vote down morally offensive arguments such as racism good or sexism good. However, I am now more inclined to vote on things like “Warming isn’t real” or “The Earth is flat” with enough warrants. After all, who am I to say that status quo warming isn’t just attributable to heating and cooling cycles of the Earth, and that all satellite imagery of the Earth is faked and that strong gravitational pulls cause us to be redirected back onto flat Earth when we attempt to circle the “globe”. If these arguments are so terrible and untrue, then it really shouldn’t take much effort to disprove them.

Reading Evidence

I err on the side of intervening as little as possible, so I don’t read usually read evidence. Don't ask me for a doc or send me anything afterwards. The only time I ever look at ev is if I am prompted to do so during speech time.

This will reward teams that do the better technical debating on dropped/poorly answered scenarios even if they are substantiated by terrible evidence. So if you read a poorly written federalism DA that has no real uniqueness or even specific link to the aff, but is dropped and extended competently, yes, I will vote for without even glancing at your ev.

That being said, this will also reward teams that realize your ADV/DA/Whatever ev is terrible and point it out. If your T interp is from No Quals Alex, blog writer for ChristianMingle.com, and the other team points it out, you're probably not winning the bigger internal link to legal precision.

Case

I love case debate. Negatives who actually read all of the aff evidence in order to create a heavy case press with rehighlightings, indicts, CX applications, and well backed UQ/Link/Impact frontlines are always refreshing watch. Do this well in front of me and you will for sure be rewarded.

By the 2AR I should know what exactly the plan does and how it can solve the advantages. This obviously doesn't have to be a major component of the 1AR given time constraint, but I think there should at least some explanation in the 2AR. If I don't have at least some idea of what the plan text does and what it does to access the 1AC impacts, then I honestly have no problem voting on presumption that doing nothing is better than doing the aff.

Disads

Similar to above, I think that DA's have to be fully explained with uniqueness, link, and impact. Absent any of these things I will often have serious doubts regarding the cohesive stance that the DA is taking.

Topicality

Don't make debate meta-arguments like "Peninsula XY read this at Glenbrooks so obviously its core of the topic" or "every camp put out this aff so it's predictable". These types of arguments mean nothing to me since I don't know any teams, any camp activities, any tournaments, any coaches, performance of teams at X tournament, etc.

One small annoyance I have at teams that debate in front of me is that they don't debate T like a DA. You need to win what standards you access, how they link into your terminal impacts like education or fairness, and why your chosen impact outweighs the opposing teams.

Counterplan

I have no inherent bias against any counterplan. If a CP has a mechanism that is potentially abusive (international fiat, 50 state fiat, PICs bad) then I just see this as offense for the aff, not an inherent reason why the team or CP should immediately be voted down.

I heavily detest this new meta of "perm shotgunning" at the top of each CP in the 2AC. It is basically unflowable. See "Spreading" above. Do this and I will unironically give you a 28 maximum. Spread the perms between cards or other longer analytical arguments. That or actually include substance behind the perm such as an explanation of the function of the permutation, how it dodges the net benefit, if it has any additional NB, etc.

I think 2NR explanation of what exactly the CP does is important. A good 2N will explain why their CP accesses the internal links or solvency mechanisms of the 1AC, or if you don't, why the CP is able to access the advantages better than the original 1AC methods. Absent that I am highly skeptical of broad "CP solves 100% of case" claims and the aff should punish with specific solvency deficits.

A problem I have been seeing is that affirmatives will read solvency deficits against CP's but not impacting the solvency deficits vs. the net benefit. If the CP doesn't solve ADV 1 then you need to win that ADV 1 outweighs the net benefit.

Judge kick is not my default mindset, neg has say I have to judge kick and also justify why this is OK.

Kritiks

I don't know any K literature other than maybe some security or capitalism stuff. I feel a lot of K overviews include fancy schmancy words that mean nothing to me. If you're gonna go for a K with some nuance, then you're going to need to spend the effort explaining it to me like I am 10 years old.

Theory

If the neg reads more than 1 CP + 1 K you should consider pulling the trigger on conditionality.

I default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told.

Define dispositionality for me if this is going to be part of the interp.

Extra Points

To promote flowing, you can show me your flows at the end of a round and earn up to 1.0 speaker points if they are good. To discourage everyone bombarding me with flows, you can also lose up to a full speaker point if your flows suck.

Maeve Ella Montgomery Bell Academy 6 rounds

Giovannie Ferrer-Falto Jesuit College Prep 4 rounds

Eric Forslund Pace Academy 2 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:53 PM EDT

email: eforslund@gmail.com

Copied and Pasted from my judge philosophy wiki page.

Recent Bio:

Director of Debate at Pace Academy

15 years judging and coaching high school debate. First at Damien High School then at Greenhill. Generally only judge a handful of college rounds a year.

Zero rounds on the current college topic in 2020.

Coached at the University of Wyoming 2004-2005.

I have decided to incentivize reading strategies that involve talking about the specifics of the affirmative case. Too many high school teams find a terrible agent or process cp and use politics as a crutch. Too many high school teams pull out their old, generic, k's and read them regardless of the aff. As an incentive to get away from this practice I will give any 2N that goes for a case-only strategy an extra point. If this means someone who would have earned a 29 ends up with a 30, then so be it. I would rather encourage a proliferation of higher speaker points, then a proliferation of bad, generic arguments. If you have to ask what a case strategy involves, then you probably aren't going to read one. I'm not talking about reading some case defense and going for a disad, or a counterplan that solves most of the aff. I'm talking about making a majority of the debate a case debate -- and that case debate continuing into the 2NR.

You'll notice "specificity good" throughout my philosophy. I will give higher points to those teams that engage in more specific strategies, then those that go for more generic ones. This doesnt mean that I hate the k -- on the contrary, I wouldn't mind hearing a debate on a k, but it needs to be ABOUT THE AFF. The genero security k doesnt apply to the South Korean Prostitutes aff, the Cap k doesnt apply to the South Korea Off-Shore Balancing aff - and you arent likely to convince me otherwise. But if you have an argument ABOUT the affirmative --especially a specific k that has yet to be read, then you will be rewarded if I am judging you.

I have judged high-level college and high school debates for the last 14 years. That should answer a few questions that you are thinking about asking: yes, speed is fine, no, lack of clarity is not. Yes, reading the k is ok, no, reading a bunch of junk that doesn't apply to the topic, and failing to explain why it does is not.

The single most important piece of information I can give you about me as a judge is that I cut a lot of cards -- you should ALWAYS appeal to my interest in the literature and to protect the integrity of that literature. Specific is ALWAYS better than generic, and smart strategies that are well researched should ALWAYS win out over generic, lazy arguments. Even if you dont win debates where you execute specifics, you will be rewarded.

Although my tendencies in general are much more to the right than the rest of the community, I have voted on the k many times since I started judging, and am generally willing to listen to whatever argument the debaters want to make. Having said that, there are a few caveats:

1. I don't read a lot of critical literature; so using a lot of terms or references that only someone who reads a lot of critical literature would understand isn’t going to get you very far. If I don’t understand your arguments, chances are pretty good you aren’t going to win the debate, no matter how persuasive you sound. This goes for the aff too explain your argument, don’t assume I know what you are talking about.

2. You are much better off reading critical arguments on the negative then on the affirmative. I tend to believe that the affirmative has to defend a position that is at least somewhat predictable, and relates to the topic in a way that makes sense. If they don’t, I am very sympathetic to topicality and framework-type arguments. This doesn’t mean you can’t win a debate with a non-traditional affirmative in front of me, but it does mean that it is going to be much harder, and that you are going to have to take topicality and framework arguments seriously. To me, predictability and fairness are more important than stretching the boundaries of debate, and the topic. If your affirmative defends a predictable interpretation of the topic, you are welcome to read any critical arguments you want to defend that interpretation, with the above stipulations.

3. I would much rather watch a disad/counterplan/case debate than some other alternative.

In general, I love a good politics debate - but - specific counterplans and case arguments are THE BEST strategies. I like to hear new innovative disads, but I have read enough of the literature on this year’s topic that I would be able to follow any deep debate on any of the big generic disads as well.

As far as theory goes, I probably defer negative a bit more in theory debates than affirmative. That probably has to do with the fact that I like very well thought-out negative strategies that utilize PICS and specific disads and case arguments. As such, I would much rather see an affirmative team impact turn the net benefits to a counterplan then to go for theory (although I realize this is not always possible). I really believe that the boundaries of the topic are formed in T debates at the beginning of the year, therefore I am much less willing to vote on a topicality argument against one of the mainstream affirmatives later on in the year than I am at the first few tournaments. I’m not going to outline all of the affs that I think are mainstream, but chances are pretty good if there are more than a few teams across the country reading the affirmative, I’m probably going to err aff in a close T debate.

One last thing, if you really want to get high points in front of me, a deep warming debate is the way to go. I would be willing to wager that I have dug further into the warming literature than just about anybody in the country, and I love to hear warming debates. I realize by this point most teams have very specific strategies to most of the affirmatives on the topic, but if you are wondering what advantage to read, or whether or not to delve into the warming debate on the negative, it would be very rewarding to do so in front of me -- at the very least you will get some feedback that will help you in future debates.

Ok, I lied, one more thing. Ultimately I believe that debate is a game. I believe that debaters should have fun while debating. I realize that certain debates get heated, however do your best not to be mean to your partner, and to the other team. There are very few things I hate more than judging a debate where the teams are jerks to each other. Finally, although I understand the strategic value to impact turning the alternative to kritiks and disads (and would encourage it in most instances), there are a few arguments I am unwilling to listen to those include: sexism good, racism good, genocide good, and rape good. If you are considering reading one of those arguments, don’t. You are just going to piss me off.

Aryan Gaddi Berkeley Preparatory School 3 rounds

Last changed on Fri March 8, 2024 at 12:10 PM EDT

he/him

LRC 2022 2N/1A (best position)

TOC 2020-2021

ye, email chain: aryangaddipolicy@gmail.com

I'm a tech K debater

I assume I will be in a lot of KvK rounds but to make this clear I am not biased for the K team in K-Aff v Policy or Policy v K debates. I will vote for the team that has won the round through the core issues collapsed down to by both teams and at worst my knowledge of the lit might make the explanation threshold lower but not the threshold for instruction.

Top Level (Descending order)

Judge Intervention/Help is the most frustrating thing as a debater so pls pls pls do good judge instruction so I don't have to do work that wasn't done by the 2NR/2AR

Tech >>>> Truth -> saying that a team "dropped X" does not prove the validity or truth of X if a warrant is not extended or explained so give me one or two lines of warrant and an additional two for what that means for the debate.

I feel slimy evaluating your embedded clash. Let me explain: I love K-Tricks and Overviews with offense but there needs to be some clarity to these arguments in the 2NR. If applied properly in the 2NR after being embedded in the 2NC on the line-by-line or at the top then I will gladly evaluate it but if still ambiguous I can't guarantee its importance in my decision.

*will judge death good and impact turn debates*

evidence quality has a high standard in my mind but I am only evaluating arguments extrapolated by the debaters from their cards and not the other way around.

re-highlightings have to be read to be evaluated and don't 'insert graph' me.

Speech, Prep, and Cross-X Time are non-negotiable. Who is speaking during that time is.

Clarity, Eye contact, and emphasis do wonders for speaks.

ins and outs are cool

Mark your own cards and time your own speeches and prep

All of my preferences aren't strict lines to adapt to -- pls debate how you always do. I try to limit my predispositions as each round is premised upon what the debaters want not me but in the end, tabula rasa just doesn't exist -- I am here to evaluate everything including Policy v Policy while I might not be better than the hacks and my partner Joe. Debate is a pedagogical space that can be a multiplicity of things based on the round and I am here to be stimulated by outlandish and interesting rounds that deviate from what is considered normal so do your best at catching my attention!

K-Aff

1 or 2 for you -- read a K-Aff all my career

Direction of the topic or impact-turn it idrc but a counter-interp on FW > no interp

Key to getting my ballot v FW is to have one well-explained piece of offense whether DA or impact turn that is resolved by the counter-interp that either a. outweighs the neg's offense or b. has defense against their offense while also having a robust answer to their defense like SSD & TVA

Aff solvency filters the weight of your offense on FW -- if the neg does good case analysis that limits aff solvency then the 2AR will have an uphill battle by nature on both the case and the FW flow (I look at case before FW)

Key to my ballot v Ks is to win either a. your theory of power and outweighs b. link-turn w alt solvency deck c. perm

ROB & ROJ are useful framing mechanisms for debates (having an understanding of what the ballot does for the aff is preferable) -- don't get me wrong they are self-serving and arbitrary but their concession/technical loss can be damning for the negatives overall strategy

Pls don't fiat the K-Aff (methodologically different from imagining decol and Afro-Futurism)

Don't try to solve an overarching structure but be realistic about the aff does

FW/T-USFG v K-Aff

2 or 3 here -- If you covered the 2AC & 1AR line-by-line accurately I'll give u +0.3

Procedural impacts like fairness and clash are much more convincing than skills and education -- whether or not fairness is impact is determined by the debate. "Intrinsic Good" is two words that aren't a substitute for warranted analysis on why fairness is good in debate.

Key to my ballot v C/I K-Affs is to go for at most two impacts with strong internal link that proves the pedagogical value and potential of debate is maximized under your model. Ideally having defense to the aff's model whether that's the TVA or SSD makes it significantly easier to pull the trigger for the negative in close rounds but you can also go the outweighs route. Any DA (small schools, dogmatism etc.) won on FW serves as a solvency deficit for the affirmative model that bolsters your interp -- severely underutilized in FW debates.

Key to my ballot v Impact Turn K-Affs is to go for at most two impacts with strong internal link that proves the pedagogical value and potential of debate is maximized under your model compared to blanket offense that can't be resolved at all. Winning the TVA or SSD is devastating in these debates as it nulls all the aff's offense.

Additionally, you should tell me what of the AFF's offenses you solve and why the risk of your impact outweighs the small part you might not solve.

Cap K v K-Aff

1 here -- love method v method and materiality

Framing is key in this debate whether impact, materiality, or root cause so both sides need to be both forwarding your own arg and negating the other teams

Can the alt solve the aff? Yes

Does it always? No

Link Specificity filters applicability of Aff Link-Turn so at least try to add link nuance to your generic links

Off v K-Aff

Love unique and specific responses to K-affs - by far my favorite form of debate to watch and judge

Establish the difference between the aff and the off case

More specific the link or solvency mechanism the more likely I am to vote neg

Aff needs to have one really strong reason or several less important args to have a substantive chance here

DAs & CPs

Sanjith Geevarghese Montgomery Bell Academy 4 rounds

Ashna Ghanate Woodward Academy 4 rounds

Last changed on Sun December 3, 2023 at 6:30 PM EDT

Woodward Academy '22

Dartmouth College '26

Email chain: ashna.ghanate@gmail.com

Important

The very most important thing to me is that everyone in the round has fun, learns something, and is respectful. Debate is a wonderful activity, and we should all be grateful for the opportunity (Especially when a lot of people can't do what they love anymore)! Your gratitude is proven through your etiquette.

Short Version + Novices

Win on clarity, clash, and argument comparison.

Flow, be nice, be clear, have fun, and send out analytics.

Please feel free to ask questions!

Longer Version

Case

Impact turns that are reasonable (LIO bad, economic growth bad, etc.) can make for extremely fun, nuanced debates.

Kritiks

I think you should explain your argument well. It's also important that you try to make affirmative specific links.

I personally believe critiques are better with framework that is about weighing the plan vs the competitive alternative. The kritik can also become a "DA". You can still get critiques of representations under this interpretation - just win that representations steer policy implementation. In round debating outweighs this opinion, though.

Topicality vs. USfg Action Affirmatives

It's important to emphasize why your model of debate is better. I think the smaller the case, the more persuasive topicality is. No real predispositions (although I think precision debates often become a wash).

Topicality vs. Critical Affirmatives

I'll most likely defer to the process of debating.

If you are confused about the affirmative, I probably am too. Just point it out.

Procedural fairness is an impact. This opinion can be changed for the ballot by in-round debating.

I think a lot of teams forget that you can read a topical affirmative that is also non-traditional/changes the debate space/creates good pedagogy.

Theory

I enjoy good theory debates. I have no real reservations, but try not to be silly.

Counterplans

I enjoy counterplan debates! Competition debates don't bother me that much, and I think they can be really fun.

Misc

Card/evidence quality matters a LOT.

I don't think framing debates matter as much as some people would like them too. For example, if you are saying "util outweighs," that doesn't mean that just because you think the affirmative has a "small" impact and the DA accesses extinction, I should vote negative. Mitigate the risk of case. Conversely, if you are reading an affirmative and say "probability should come first," I do not think you can just assert that the DA is low probability. You need to actually prove that the DA is low probability.

Intrinsic permutations can be justified.

Nishita Ghanate Woodward Academy 2 rounds

Last changed on Wed March 20, 2024 at 9:28 PM EDT

Woodward Academy '20

University of Virginia '24

Email chain: ghanate.nishita@gmail.com

People who taught me how to debate and their paradigms:

Bill Batterman: https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=10298

Maggie Berthiaume: https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=1265

Meta Comments

1. Respect your opponents. Don't do silly things or make fun of your opponents.

2. The document that you send out should be the exact same document that you are reading from your computer. Not only will you be depriving me the opportunity to read along with you, but you will also be giving me the impression that your arguments are bad enough that if your opponents knew what you were saying they would win.

3. I care the most about clash and nuanced arguments. The best debates are ones with aff-specific strategies that show off what both teams know about the topic. I am not impressed by winning debates on State CPs that fiat out of everything or affirmatives without a solvency advocate with contrived advantages. Engage the literature.

4. I read evidence at the end of a round. It doesn't make or break my decision, but I definitely would lean more to the side of being a "truth over tech" judge.

5. You can win absolute defense in front of me. It's hard but not impossible especially if your opponent reads cards that clearly conclude in the opposite direction or leave out an internal link.

Critiques

If the point of your kritik is to say words that your opponents won't understand, I will not understand what you are saying either. Avoid jargon. Try to explain your arguments more. I am familiar with the most common critiques (capitalism, anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, militarism, feminism, abolition).

I think aff-specific kritiks or generic kritiks with aff-specific links can be an amazing strategy especially if it's a core of the topic kritik (IE the abolition K on the CJR topic). However, I think too many "K teams" get away with reading silly links, links of omissions, serial policy failure, the fiat double bind, or any other K trick you can name. The best K debates are the ones that actually pinpoint something that the aff has done or something in their plan that is in fact bad. I'm not saying that all links should be to the plan, but I am saying that all links should be grounded in the 1AC. If the goal of your kritik is to clash with the aff from a new angle (IE reform vs transformative justice), you're on the right track.

Topicality

For not trying to be topical teams:

I think that teams should read a plan text especially in sub-varsity levels. Debate isn't a forum designed to provide a survival strategy or create a community of resistance. It is inherently a competitive space. Teams that do choose to read a non-topical aff should be prepared to defend every part of the 1AC through the end of the 2AR. CX is binding and I will hold you to what you say regardless of what you say in later speeches.

For teams with a plan text:

I enjoy T debates with concise impacts that actually attempt to exclude affs that shouldn't be a part of the topic. For this reason, T-Substantial is extremely persuasive to me given how well it limited the immigration and arms sales topic. As such, giving me a case list of not only what you include but also what you exclude is going to be extremely persuasive. But, I'm probably not going to vote on an interpretation that excludes a core of the topic aff.

'Planicality' is a non-starter for me. It's silly to think that adding the word substantial (or any other words in the resolution) all of a sudden makes your plan topical. It encourages poorly written plan texts that are incredibly vague so the aff can spike out of DAs while also doing all kinds of things that have no relation to the topic. It also poses an unfair burden on the neg as they now not only have to defend T to limit the scope of the plan, but also win substance as well.

Theory

I generally believe that the only voter is conditionality(No, {insert letter here}SPEC is not a voter), but I can be persuaded that some other theory violation is a voter especially if the theory violation is egregious.

Hiding ASPEC (not putting it on a separate flow) is a great way to lose speaker points for both negative debaters. Calling out your opponents and making hidden ASPEC an RVI is a great way to add to your speaker points.

Impact debating matters just as much in theory debates as it does in any other debate. If you don't have an impact and articulate why it matters more than your opponent's, I will likely not vote for you.

I will not judge kick unless the neg explicitly asks me to and the aff doesn't provide a theoretical reason not to. Keep in mind that if the neg has "dropped" the aff's advantages, a judge kick only benefits the aff.

Counterplans that compete off of certainty or immediacy are likely not competitive. Permutations, even perm: do the counterplan, do not have to be topical, as in they only have to meet definitions of the words in the plan. Similarly, I don't think Agent CPs are competitive unless the aff has specified their agent or read an advantage to their agent.

Disclaimer

While these are my general opinions of debate, I am by no means a norm setter or emotionally attached to them. I can always be persuaded by what happens in a debate round.

Ben Glick Wylie E. Groves HS 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 9, 2024 at 5:46 AM EDT

General:

My email is Benglick78@gmail.com, I'd like to be on the chain.

Please also add the email grovesdebatedocs@gmail.com to the email chain.

If I ever judge you and you have questions that you didn't ask after the round, please feel free to email me whatever your questions are.

I'm Ben Glick, a former policy debater at Groves High School. My pronouns are he/him.

I'm a normal person, so you can call me Ben, not judge, if you're comfortable.

I will very likely forget to include a lot of relevant information, so you can ask me anything about my paradigm before the debate.

Questions like where did you end or what cards did you read are cross ex questions. If you're gonna ask, do it in cross not before.

Ks:

I'm probably not the best judge if you plan on reading high theory or super complex Ks. Considering I haven't read a lot of K lit, if you plan on reading these types of Ks make sure you are explaining it. During my time debating and judging, I've become more familiar with several Ks: Death Drive, some queer theory, some reps Ks, set col, misc Ks. Point being, I can understand the K, and I really enjoy K debates. However, there is a lot of lit am unfamiliar with, so make sure you actually understand the K you are running the the point where you can clearly articulate the concept of your K, the alt, and the links to the aff. Historically, I have been more sympathetic to voting on f/w plus links than I think other judges are, so if you are clearly winning on f/w thats an option assuming you're reading the right type of f/w. I also really enjoy subject formation type arguments because I think they are generally true in the case of debate.

K affs:

My thoughts on this are very similar. My knowledge of the specific literature for K affs is also limited. I have read, helped make, and judged k affs before, so I am not clueless. The parts of the K aff that I have a weaker understanding of would be your specific solvency mechanism or specific K theory. I'm probably not a great judge to read a K aff in front of, but it's not something I will refuse to hear in a debate.

One suggestion I will make is if you're extending T into the block, please don't just go full speed, monotone through the whole flow. T debates don't use a lot of cards, and it's hard to flow when I'm getting 18 unclear analytics per second. So just be clear and signpost between arguments on the flow.

Please have an interpretation that makes sense with your violation. I have seen too many rounds in the state of Michigan where a team just doesn't read a interpretation or reads a violation that doesn't make sense with the interpretation read. Think of it like a DA. You wouldn't read a politics DA without uniqueness, and you wouldn't read a plan saps PC link with a floor time uniqueness story.

Also, neg you don't need to formally concede T, and aff you don't need to inform me that the neg did not extend T

CPs and CP theory:

As a debater, I tended to lean neg on counterplan theory, the consequences of being a 2N. More recently, I think my opinions have began to move in the other direction. Really, I can be convinced of anything, just be able to defend whatever type of CP you're reading. I'm up for a theory debate. I love a smart PIC.

Case:

I think the case flows are a really underappreciated portion of debate. I really enjoy negatives that take advantage of 1AC rehighlights and creative offense on case. Honestly, creative arguments in general. They will go a long way. When we have to sit through 3 straight minutes of impact defense, no one wins.

Andrew Gollner Woodward Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 9:30 AM EDT

If you're running an email chain, please add me: Andrewgollner@gmail.com

he/him

About me: I debated one year of PF and three years of policy at Sequoyah High, and I debated three year of college policy at the University of Georgia. I was a 2N that generally runs policy offcase positions but, especially earlier in my debate career, I ran many critical positions. I'll try to be expressive during the round so that you can discern how I am receiving your arguments.

Judge Preferences: On a personal level, please be kind to your opponents. I dislike it when a team is unnecessarily rude or unsportsmanlike. I am completely willing to discuss my decision about a round in between rounds, so please ask me if you want me to clarify my decision or would like advice. You can email me any questions you have.

FOR PF/LD:

I am primarily a policy judge. This means

I am more comfortable with a faster pace. While I don't like the idea of spreading in PF and LD I can handle a faster pace.

2. I am decently technical. If an argument is dropped point it out, make sure I can draw a clean line through your speeches.

3. I am less used to theory backgrounds in your form of debate, slow down and explain these.

4. Ask me any specific questions you have.

FOR POLICY:

I recognize that my role is to serve as a neutral arbiter without predispositions towards certain arguments, but as this goal is elusive the following are my gut reactions to positions. I strive to ensure that any position (within reason, obviously not obscene or offensive) is a possible path to victory in front of myself.

CP: I love a well written CP which is tailored to your opponent's solvency advocate and that can be clearly explained and is substantiated by credible evidence. If your CP is supported by 1AC solvency evidence, I will be very impressed. Generic CPs are fine, I've read a ton of them, but the more you can at least explain your CP in the context of the affirmative's advantages the more likely you are to solve for their impact scenarios.

DA: Make sure to give a quick overview of the story during the neg block to clarify the intricacies of your position. If, instead of vaguely tagline making a turns case arg like "climate turns econ, resource shortages", you either read and later extend a piece of evidence or spend 10 to 15 seconds analytically creating a story of how climate change exasperates resource shortages and causes mass migrations which strain nation's financial systems, then I will lend far more risk to the disadvantage turning the case. Obviously the same goes for Aff turns the DA. I will also weigh smart analytical arguments on the disad if the negative fails to contest it properly. I'm also very persuaded when teams contest the warrants of their opponents evidence or point out flaws within their opponents evidence, whether it's a hidden contradiction or an unqualified author.

T: I've rarely gone for topicality but I have become increasingly cognizant of incidents in which I likely should have. My gut reaction is that competing interpretations can be a race to the bottom, but I have personally seen many affirmatives which stray far enough from the topic to warrant a debate centered over the resolution in that instance.

K: I used to run Ks pretty frequently in high school but I run them far less frequently now. I'm likely not deep in your literature base so be sure to explain your position and your link story clearly.

FW: My gut feeling is that debate is a game and that it should be fair, but I have seen many rounds where the affirmative team has done an excellent job of comparing the pedagogy of both models and won that their model is key for X type of education or accessibility there of. However, I am persuaded that a TVA only needs to provide reasonable inroads to the affirmatives research without necessarily having to actually solve for all of the affirmative. I do find the response that negs would only read DAs and ignore/"outweigh" the case to be effective - try to add some nuance to this question of why negs would or wouldn't still need to grapple with the case.

Non-traditional Aff: I've always run affs with USFG plan texts, but that doesn't mean that these positions are non-starters. I will be much more receptive to your affirmative if it is intricately tied to the topic area, even if it does refuse to engage the resolution itself for whichever reasons you provide.

Theory: I generally think 2 condo is good, more than that and things start to get a bit iffy.

Most importantly, please be kind to your opponents and have a good time.

David Heidt Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 12:10 PM EDT

David Heidt

Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart

davidheidt@gmail.com

Some thoughts about the fiscal redistribution topic:

Having only judged practice debates so far, I like the topic. But it seems harder to be Aff than in a typical year. All three affirmative areas are pretty controversial, and there's deep literature engaging each area on both sides.

All of the thoughts I've posted below are my preferences, not rules that I'll enforce in the debate. Everything is debatable. But my preferences reflect the types of arguments that I find more persuasive.

1. I am unlikely to view multiple conditional worlds favorably. I think the past few years have demonstrated an inverse relationship between the number of CPs in the 1nc and the quality of the debate. The proliferation of terrible process CPs would not have been possible without unlimited negative conditionality. I was more sympathetic to negative strategy concerns last year where there was very little direct clash in the literature. But this topic is a lot different. I don't see a problem with one conditional option. I can maybe be convinced about two, but I like Tim Mahoney's rule that you should only get one. More than two will certainly make the debate worse. The fact that the negative won substantially more debates last year with with no literature support whatsoever suggests there is a serious problem with multiple conditional options.

Does that mean the neg auto-loses if they read three conditional options? No, debating matters - but I'll likely find affirmative impact arguments on theory a lot more persuasive if there is more than one (or maybe two) CPs in the debate.

2. I am not sympathetic about affirmative plan vagueness. Debate is at it's best with two prepared teams, and vagueness is a way to avoid clash and discourage preparation. If your plan is just the resolution, that tells me very little and I will be looking for more details. I am likely to interpret your plan based upon the plan text, highlighted portions of your solvency evidence that say what the plan does, and clarifications in cx. That means both what you say and the highlighted portions of your evidence are fair game for arguments about CP competition, DA links, and topicality. This is within reason - the plan text is still important, and I'm not going to hold the affirmative responsible for a word PIC that's based on a piece of solvency evidence or an offhand remark. And if cx or evidence is ambiguous because the negative team didn't ask the right questions or didn't ask follow up questions, I'm not going to automatically err towards the negative's interpretation either. But if the only way to determine the scope of the plan's mandates is by looking to solvency evidence or listening to clarification in CX, then a CP that PICs out of those clarified mandates is competitive, and a topicality violation that says those clarified mandates aren't topical can't be beaten with "we meet - plan in a vacuum".

How might this play out on this topic? Well, if the negative team asks in CX, "do you mandate a tax increase?", and the affirmative response is "we don't specify", then I think that means the affirmative does not, in fact, mandate a tax increase under any possible interpretation of the plan, that they cannot read addons based on increasing taxes, or say "no link - we increase taxes" to a disadvantage that says the affirmative causes a spending tradeoff. If the affirmative doesn't want to mandate a specific funding mechanism, that might be ok, but that means evidence about normal means of passing bills is relevant for links, and the affirmative can't avoid that evidence by saying the plan fiats out of it. There can be a reasonable debate over what might constitute 'normal means' for funding legislation, but I'm confident that normal means in a GOP-controlled House is not increasing taxes.

On the other hand, if they say "we don't specify our funding mechanism in the plan," but they've highlighted "wealth tax key" warrants in their solvency evidence, then I think this is performative cowardice and honestly I'll believe whatever the negative wants me to believe in that case. Would a wealth tax PIC be competitive in that scenario? Yes, without question. Alternatively, could the negative say "you can't access your solvency evidence because you don't fiat a wealth tax?" Also, yes. As I said, I am unsympathetic to affirmative vagueness, and you can easily avoid this situation just by defending your plan.

Does this apply to the plan's agent? I think this can be an exception - in other words, the affirmative could reasonably say "we're the USFG" if they don't have an agent-based advantage or solvency evidence that explicitly requires one agent. I think there are strong reasons why agent debates are unique. Agent debates in a competitive setting with unlimited fiat grossly misrepresent agent debates in the literature, and requiring the affirmative to specify beyond what their solvency evidence requires puts them in an untenable position. But if the affirmative has an agent-based advantage, then it's unlikely (though empirically not impossible) that I'll think it's ok for them to not defend that agent against an agent CP.

3. I believe that any negative strategy that revolves around "it's hard to be neg so therefore we need to do the 1ac" is not a real strategy. A CP that results in the possibility of doing the entire mandate of the plan is neither legitimate nor competitive. Immediacy and certainty are not the basis of counterplan competition, no matter how many terrible cards are read to assert otherwise. If you think "should" means "immediate" then you'd likely have more success with a 2nr that was "t - should" in front of me than you would with a CP competition argument based on that word. Permutations are tests of competition, and as such, do not have to be topical. "Perms can be extra topical but not nontopical" has no basis in anything. Perms can be any combination of all of the plan and part or all of the CP. But even if they did have to be topical, reading a card that says "increase" = "net increase" is not a competition argument, it's a topicality argument. A single affirmative card defining the "increase" as "doesn't have to be a net increase" beats this CP in its entirety. Even if the negative interpretation of "net increase" is better for debate it does not change what the plan does, and if the aff says they do not fiat a net increase, then they do not fiat a net increase. If you think you have an argument, you need to go for T, not the CP. A topicality argument premised on "you've killed our offsets CP ground" probably isn't a winner, however. The only world I could ever see the offsets CP be competitive in is if the plan began with "without offsetting fiscal redistribution in any manner, the USFG should..."

I was surprised by the number of process CPs turned out at camps this year. This topic has a lot of well-supported ways to directly engage each of the three areas. And most of the camp affs are genuinely bad ideas with a ridiculous amount of negative ground. Even a 1nc that is exclusively an economy DA and case defense is probably capable of winning most debates. I know we just had a year where there were almost no case debates, but NATO was a bad topic with low-quality negative strategies, and I think it's time to step up. This topic is different. And affs are so weak they have to resort to reading dedevelopment as their advantage. I am FAR more likely to vote aff on "it's already hard to be aff, and your theory of competition makes it impossible" on this topic than any other.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to PICs, or even most counterplans. And high quality evidence can help sway my views about both the legitimacy and competitiveness of any CP. But if you're coming to the first tournament banking on the offsets CP or "do the plan if prediction markets say it's good CP", you should probably rethink that choice.

But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe the first set of tournaments will see lots of teams reading small, unpredictable affs that run as far to the margins of the topic as possible. I hope not. The less representative the affirmative is of the topic literature, the more likely it is that I'll find process CPs to be an acceptable response. If you're trying to discourage meaningful clash through your choice of affirmative, then maybe strategies premised on 'clash is bad' are more reasonable.

4. I'm ambivalent on the question of whether fiscal redistribution requires both taxes and transfers. The cards on both sides of this are okay. I'm not convinced by the affirmative that it's too hard to defend a tax, but I'm also not convinced by the negative that taxes are the most important part of negative ground.

5. I'm skeptical of the camp affirmatives that suggest either that Medicare is part of Social Security, or that putting Medicare under Social Security constitutes "expanding" Social Security. I'll approach any debate about this with an open mind, because I've certainly been wrong before. But I am curious about what the 2ac looks like. I can see some opportunity for the aff on the definition of "expanding," but I don't think it's great. Aff cards that confuse Social Security with the Social Security Act or Social Security Administration or international definitions of lower case "social security" miss the mark entirely.

6. Critiques on this topic seem ok. I like critiques that have topic-specific links and show why doing the affirmative is undesirable. I dislike critiques that are dependent on framework for the same reason I dislike process counterplans. Both strategies are cop-outs - they both try to win without actually debating the merits of the affirmative. I find framework arguments that question the truth value of specific affirmative claims far more persuasive than framework arguments that assert that policy-making is the wrong forum.

7. There's a LOT of literature defending policy change from a critical perspective on this topic. I've always been skeptical of planless affirmatives, but they seem especially unwarranted this year. I think debate doesn't function if one side doesn't debate the assigned topic. Debating the topic requires debating the entire topic, including defending a policy change from the federal government. Merely talking about fiscal redistribution in some way doesn't even come close. It's possible to defend policy change from a variety of perspectives on this topic, including some that would critique ways in which the negative traditionally responds to policy proposals.

Having said that, if you're running a planless affirmative and find yourself stuck with me in the back of the room, I still do my best to evaluate all arguments as fairly as a I can. It's a debate round, and not a forum for me to just insert my preferences over the arguments of the debaters themselves. But some arguments will resonate more than others.

Old thoughts

Some thoughts about the NATO topic:

1. Defending the status quo seems very difficult. The topic seems aff-biased without a clear controversy in the literature, without many unique disadvantages, and without even credible impact defense against some arguments. The water topic was more balanced (and it was not balanced at all).

This means I'm more sympathetic to multiple conditional options than I might otherwise would be. I'm also very skeptical of plan vagueness and I'm unlikely to be very receptive towards any aff argument that relies on it.

Having said that, some of the 1ncs I've seen that include 6 conditional options are absurd and I'd be pretty receptive to conditionality in that context, or in a context where the neg says something like hegemony good and the security K in the same debate.

And an aff-biased topic is not a justification for CPs that compete off of certainty. The argument that "it's hard to be negative so therefore we get to do your aff" is pretty silly. I haven't voted on process CP theory very often, but at the same time, it's pretty rare for a 2a to go for it in the 2ar. The neg can win this debate in front of me, but I lean aff on this.

There are also parts of this topic that make it difficult to be aff, especially the consensus requirement of the NAC. So while the status quo is probably difficult to defend, I think the aff is at a disadvantage against strategies that test the consensus requirement.

2. Topicality Article 5 is not an argument. I could be convinced otherwise if someone reads a card that supports the interpretation. I have yet to see a card that comes even close. I think it is confusing that 1ncs waste time on this because a sufficient 2ac is "there is no violation because you have not read evidence that actually supports your interpretation." The minimum threshold would be for the negative to have a card defining "cooperation with NATO" as "requires changing Article 5". That card does not exist, because no one actually believes that.

3. Topicality on this topic seems very weak as a 2nr choice, as long as the affirmative meets basic requirements such as using the DOD and working directly with NATO as opposed to member states. It's not unwinnable because debating matters, but the negative seems to be on the wrong side of just about every argument.

4. Country PICs do not make very much sense to me on this topic. No affirmative cooperates directly with member states, they cooperate with the organization, given that the resolution uses the word 'organization' and not 'member states'. Excluding a country means the NAC would say no, given that the excluded country gets to vote in the NAC. If the country PIC is described as a bilateral CP with each member state, that makes more sense, but then it obviously does not go through NATO and is a completely separate action, not a PIC.

5. Is midterms a winnable disadvantage on the NATO topic? I am very surprised to see negative teams read it, let alone go for it. I can't imagine that there's a single person in the United States that would change their vote or their decision to turn out as a result of the plan. The domestic focus link argument seems completely untenable in light of the fact that our government acts in the area of foreign policy multiple times a day. But I have yet to see a midterms debate, so maybe there's special evidence teams are reading that is somehow omitted from speech docs. It's hard for me to imagine what a persuasive midterms speech on a NATO topic looks like though.

What should you do if you're neg? I think there are some good CPs, some good critiques, and maybe impact turns? NATO bad is likely Russian propaganda, but it's probably a winnable argument.

******

Generally I try to evaluate arguments fairly and based upon the debaters' explanations of arguments, rather than injecting my own opinions. What follows are my opinions regarding several bad practices currently in debate, but just agreeing with me isn't sufficient to win a debate - you actually have to win the arguments relative to what your opponents said. There are some things I'll intervene about - death good, behavior meant to intimidate or harass your opponents, or any other practice that I think is harmful for a high school student classroom setting - but just use some common sense.

Thoughts about critical affs and critiques:

Good debates require two prepared teams. Allowing the affirmative team to not advocate the resolution creates bad debates. There's a disconnect in a frighteningly large number of judging philosophies I've read where judges say their favorite debates are when the negative has a specific strategy against an affirmative, and yet they don't think the affirmative has to defend a plan. This does not seem very well thought out, and the consequence is that the quality of debates in the last few years has declined greatly as judges increasingly reward teams for not engaging the topic.

Fairness is the most important impact. Other judging philosophies that say it's just an internal link are poorly reasoned. In a competitive activity involving two teams, assuring fairness is one of the primary roles of the judge. The fundamental expectation is that judges evaluate the debate fairly; asking them to ignore fairness in that evaluation eliminates the condition that makes debate possible. If every debate came down to whoever the judge liked better, there would be no value to participating in this activity. The ballot doesn't do much other than create a win or a loss, but it can definitely remedy the harms of a fairness violation. The vast majority of other impacts in debate are by definition less important because they never depend upon the ballot to remedy the harm.

Fairness is also an internal link - but it's an internal link to establishing every other impact. Saying fairness is an internal link to other values is like saying nuclear war is an internal link to death impacts. A loss of fairness implies a significant, negative impact on the activity and judges that require a more formal elaboration of the impact are being pedantic.

Arguments along the lines of 'but policy debate is valueless' are a complete nonstarter in a voluntary activity, especially given the existence of multiple alternative forms of speech and debate. Policy debate is valuable to some people, even if you don't personally share those values. If your expectation is that you need a platform to talk about whatever personally matters to you rather than the assigned topic, I encourage you to try out a more effective form of speech activity, such as original oratory. Debate is probably not the right activity for you if the condition of your participation is that you need to avoid debating a prepared opponent.

The phrase "fiat double-bind" demonstrates a complete ignorance about the meaning of fiat, which, unfortunately, appears to be shared by some judges. Fiat is merely the statement that the government should do something, not that they would. The affirmative burden of proof in a debate is solely to demonstrate the government should take a topical action at a particular time. That the government would not actually take that action is not relevant to any judge's decision.

Framework arguments typically made by the negative for critiques are clash-avoidance devices, and therefore are counterproductive to education. There is no merit whatsoever in arguing that the affirmative does not get to weigh their plan. Critiques of representations can be relevant, but only in relation to evaluating the desirability of a policy action. Representations cannot be separated from the plan - the plan is also a part of the affirmative's representations. For example, the argument that apocalyptic representations of insecurity are used to justify militaristic solutions is asinine if the plan includes a representation of a non-militaristic solution. The plan determines the context of representations included to justify it.

Thoughts about topicality:

Limited topics make for better topics. Enormous topics mean that it's much harder to be prepared, and that creates lower quality debates. The best debates are those that involve extensive topic research and preparation from both sides. Large topics undermine preparation and discourage cultivating expertise. Aff creativity and topic innovation are just appeals to avoid genuine debate.

Thoughts about evidence:

Evidence quality matters. A lot of evidence read by teams this year is underlined in such a way that it's out of context, and a lot of evidence is either badly mistagged or very unqualified. On the one hand, I want the other team to say this when it's true. On the other hand, if I'm genuinely shocked at how bad your evidence is, I will probably discount it.

Gene Herrmann Montgomery Bell Academy 1 rounds

Derek Hilligoss Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 3:10 PM CDT

Currently a coach and PhD student at The University of Kansas.

Add me to the chain plz and thank you DerekHilligoss@gmail.com

for college add rockchalkdebate@gmail.com as well

TL;DR do what you do and do it well. Don't let my preferences sway you away from doing what you want.

The biggest thing for me is that I value good impact framing/calc. If you aren't explaining why your impacts matter more then your opponents you are leaving it up for me or the other team to decide.

Framework: Go for whatever version of framework you like but I tend to think it should interact with the aff at some level. If you give the 2NC/2NR and make no reference to the aff you will find it harder to win my ballot.

Planless affs: The one note I wanna make outside of FW notes is that you have to be able to answer the "what do you do" question no matter how silly it may seem. If I don't know what the aff does after the 1AC/CX that's gonna put you in a rough spot. I don't think this means you have to do anything but you should have a good justification for why you don't have to.

Theory: condo (probably) to a certain extent is good and counterplans should (probably) have solvency advocates. I have no strong opinions just tell me how to feel.
*new strong opinion* going for condo is not a remedy for being a bad 2A---

Topicality: limits for the sake of limits probably bad?

Counterplans: cool? Do it

Disads: The only thing I wanna note here is highlight your cards better. I don't wanna have to read 30 crappy cards to get the story of the disad and it makes it easier for the aff to win with a few solid cards.

Kritiks: Specific links go a long way. This doesn't mean it has to be exactly about the plan but your application will do better than a generic "law bad" card. Applying your theory to the aff's advantages in a way that takes out solvency will make your lives so much easier.

For the aff FW I think a well developed FW argument about legal/pragmatic engagement will do more for you than fairness/limits impacts.

Random things:

If you are unclear I'll yell clear twice before I stop flowing. I'll make it apparent I'm not flowing to let you know you need to adjust still.

If you clip you will lose.

"reinsert card here"- nope :) read it- this is a communication activity not a robot activity.

Lawson Hudson Montgomery Bell Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 20, 2024 at 5:18 AM CDT

Put me on the email chain: Lawsonhudson10@gmail.com

Cabot '19

Baylor '24 - 3x NDT Qualifier

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

TLDR: Do what you want and do it well. Paradigms can be more dissuasive than informative so let me know if you have any questions before the round. I've almost exclusively done K debate so more judge framing in policy v policy rounds is very helpful. Depth over breadth, if your strat is 7+ off Im probably not the judge for you. I'll always read ev and be engaged in the round but it's your responsibility to tell me how to evaluate the round/impacts. Debate is fundamentally a communicative activity, I usually flow on paper and if you want me to evaluate your args I need you to explain your warrants rather than just extending tags/card names. If there's disputes over what a piece of evidence says I'll read evidence but I shouldn't have to sift through a card doc to resolve a debate. If there's anything I can do to make debates more accessible for you, please let me know before round either via email or a pre-round conversation. Debate well and have fun!

TOC Update:

LDers: DO NOT ASK TO DO SPEECHDROP. READ THE FIRST LINE ABOUT PUTTING ME ON THE EMAIL CHAIN

I honestly don't care what you do or say, just please have fun and value the time you have at tournaments; and don't say messed up things. I've been a 2n most of my career but I've also been a 2a at times. I've read everything from baudrillard to disability and performance arguments on the aff to cap, spanos, necropolitics, semiocap, set col, and hostage taking on the neg (this isn't an exhaustive list). I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've went for fw since hs (one time). This doesn't mean I won't vote on it, but it is to say I will have have a hard time being persuaded by "K affs set an impossible research burden" or "procedural fairness is the only thing that matters in debate." More thoughts on fw below. I want to see and will reward with increased speaks the following: argument innovation, specificity, quality ev, jokes/good vibes, good cx, examples, and judge instruction. Please give me judge instruction. Write my ballot in the beginning of your final rebuttal and make sure to resolve the offense on the flow. I want to see clash, the more you clash with your opponents, the more likely you are to get my ballot.

K affs

Go for it. Affs that defend doing things in the direction of the topic tend to do better in fw debates but if your aff doesn't do that, just win why not doing that is good and you'll be fine. I'm honestly down for whatever. Whether your strategy is to have a connection to the topic and a method that results in topical action, or you read your aff to impact turn fw I've done it and will evaluate anything. I tend to thing presumption is a strategic strategy against k affs that at least forces teams to explain what they are defending. Tell me what my role in these debates is, what the ballot does, and what the benefit to debating the aff is. If you do these things, you're good.

Go for it. I think T is especially underutilized against certain policy affs. Contrary to some belief, I will vote for fw and will evaluate it like any argument. I usually evaluate fw debates through the lens of competing models of debate but can be convinced otherwise. For the neg, I find arguments about clash and advocacy centered on the topic generally more persuasive than arguments about procedural fairness. Especially on this topic, I think having offense as to why debating fiscal redistribution is good would be beneficial for the neg. TVA's probably need to have at least texts, can be convinced they need solvency advocates too. I can be convinced affs make clash impossible, but if your only idea of clash is the politics da and the states cp I'll be less persuaded. In my opinion, the best way to go for fw is to win your interp creates a model of debate that is able to solve the affs offense (either through the tva or ssd). For the aff, its usually easier to win impact turns to fw but having a solid defense of your model/counter interp goes a long way in mitigating neg offense. I enjoy creative we meet args/counter-interps. New, innovative approaches to fw are always exciting as these debates can get very stale.

K's

These debates are where I have the most background and feel the most comfortable judging. The two biggest issues for the negative in K debates tend to be link application and alt explanation. Focusing on these areas along with round framing i.e. fw (for both the aff and the neg) will largely determine the direction of my ballot in these debates. Affs needs to explain how the permutation functions in the context of the alternative rather than simply extending a perm text as well as net benefits to the perm while the negative should equally spend sufficient time explaining why the aff and the alt are mutually exclusive. I don’t think the neg necessarily needs to go for an alt but if that's your thing you need to make sure you win the framework debate. Affs tend to do better when they engage with the actual content of the K and extend offense in addition to the case. If your aff obviously links to the K i.e. cap vs an innovation aff, you're probably in a better position impact turning the K than going for the no link/perm strategy in front of me. Aff teams would benefit from spending less time on framework/reading endless cards and more time engaging with the links/thesis of the K.

CPs/DA's

Make sure to explain how the counterplan is mutually exclusive with the aff and what the net benefit is. When going for the disad the negative needs to have a clear link, preferably reasons why the disad turns the case, and Impact Framing. Both the 2nr and the 2ar need to explain to me why your impacts outweigh theirs because I don't want to do that work for you.

LD:

While I've done LD, I have done exclusively progressive LD so I'm not familiar with some of the traditional LD norms. I'm fine with general theory arguments like conditionality and disclosure theory but if your strat relies on your opponent conceding a bunch of blippy, unwarranted statements that don't mean anything I'm probably not the judge for you. I'd much rather you see you win on the content of the debate than extending a blippy 1ar theory argument so you don't have to debate the substance of the case. Go as fast as you want as long as you are clear. I'm not likely to vote on tricks/spikes and long underviews in 1acs are annoying. If the 1ac involves reading 5 minutes of preempts with 1 minute of content I’m probably not the judge for you. I'm a policy debater at heart. I ultimately don't care what you do or say in round as long as it's not racist, sexist, ableist, or transphobic. Just make arguments - claim, warrant, impact - and tell me why you're winning the debate in the rebuttal speeches. I judge LD rounds slightly differently - I flow on my laptop. I first evaluate the fw debate which only ends up mattering when it does I guess? I then evaluate the 2nr/2ar to resolve key points of offense. I find LD debaters are often too defensive in their rebuttals and if that's you its not likely to work in your favor. Have offense. Be willing to impact turn your opponents position. I want to see ~clash~.

ASHISH JAIN BASIS Peoria 4 rounds

Tommy Jordan Riverwood High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue April 9, 2024 at 9:29 AM EDT

Main Paradigm

questions/email chain - jordant2debate@gmail.com

You do you; I do not care. Any style of debating is on the table as long as there is clash and respect.

I will vote on pretty much anything, as long as it is warranted and packaged well.

The following are just random thoughts.

Policy:

You are not allowed to send more than three cards in the body of the email.

Theory: I will not judge kick. Multiple conditional planks on the same cp are very bad to me. All other theory depends on the flow. I am in favor of multiple conditional alternatives as long as there is no contradiction.

T:Love me some T debates. The neg should provide an explanation of the topic and clearly define how the affirmative justifies unfair/unpreppable affs. The neg should also provide a clear vision of topical ground with possible affs that could be read under aff's interp. The aff should provide a defense of how their plan text can be reasonably debated within the boundaries of the topic itself even if it might be outside the lit base.

K stuff:

Planless affs should respond to the resolution, even if you say no.

The k should link to the aff.

I am very sympathetic to presumption in a lot of these debates, and under-explained or confusing alts/solvency mechanisms are not going to go well with me. When on the neg, critical teams should highlight specific examples of the problematic philosophy/worldview that manifested in the 1AC. I also need strong arguments for why your argument matters in this scholastic activity.

More framework debaters should just go for the object of the resolution as topicality. Way too many planless teams depend entirely on state bad to win the debate without addressing real topic knowledge.

LD:

Overview:

I default to an offense/defense paradigm. Win the impact debate and the framework, and you will probably win the debate.

I will be deep in the cold, hard ground before I vote on an RVI.

Flex prep is allowed, but I do not count it as CX. You really should only do it to ask clarifying or procedural questions.

I am much more familiar with arguments that can be found in other events than I am with more specific LD arguments. This means that the nuances of unique LD debates like Phil could be lost on me. If you find me in the back for these debates, I will require more explanation and application to the larger debate to make sense of your argument.

Phil:I need a good overview at the top to explain your position. I am getting more familiar with this type of debate, but a quick and concise argument will make the debate easier for you.

Ks: Do it. I am pretty familiar with most lit bases, so I will probably have some bad comments to make.

PF:

No need for off-time road-maps or clarifications about the topic: I am aware of the resolution. Unless you are anticipating a definitions debate, that time could be better used. PF roadmaps don't make sense; you only have two flows....

I disclose, and I expect you to take notes on my RFD: You only get better with honest feedback and taking notes on said feedback. Feel free to ask questions of my decision.

I strongly encourage disclosure/evidence sharing: Good debates are made by good prep. Disclosing contentions and sharing evidence helps all of us ensure that we are using the best arguments possible. This is not a requirement, but it will help me give a better RFD and help you get better at debate.

Most 'voters' I hear aren't real voters: Voters should be crucial moments of the debate that control how I adjudicate the round. They are not just your impacts...

Framework: Can either be in the constructive or the rebuttal. It should be in the final focus if you want me to vote off it.

Theory: Allowed, but I will only vote on it if the violation is egregious and obvious.

Generic Thoughts: I think the second rebuttal should respond to the first rebuttal, and I think the first rebuttal should include a number of preemptive arguments that you assume will be read in the round. Use their contentions, their cross-fire questions, and your knowledge of the topic to predict what they will run and base your defense around that. Most case defense is meaningless repetition at best, and I don't bother flowing a lot of it.

The summary should be your last refutation of their points and the final focus should be framing, impacts, and writing the ballot. This means not everything has to be in the final focus, but offensive arguments should be.

Anish Kapoor Alpharetta HS 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 9, 2024 at 6:25 PM EDT

2A/1N - Alpharetta HS '23, UGA '27

***I have no topic knowledge***

Email: techieanishk@gmail.com

---email title should provide useful information. Ex. Tournament---Round #---Team A v. Team B.

TLDR

---I am not ready when my camera is off.

---debating and judge instruction matter way more than personal preferences.

Online Debate

---I would prefer if everyone had their webcams on (though I understand if you cannot).

---debates already move slow, let's pick up the pace with technology.

Top Level

---tech > truth

---I will flow and vote on things said in the debate. Ideological considerations are irrelevant and I will value judge instruction more than anything

---asking for what cards were read is CX

---stop hiding ASPEC or other dumb stuff. You'll lose speaker points.

---condo is good

---don't say buzzwords and I am not as comfortable with these arguments---does not mean I will not hear these arguments but will need more explanation

---have links to the plan > links about reps

---do case debating

---good framework debating and links don't usually need an alternative

---competing interpretations > reasonability.

---better interpretations and more cards are always good

---impact comparison will heavily shape my decision

---DA/CP---love them, most comfortable with these debates

---solvency deficits need impacts tied to the ADVs

---sufficiency framing seems intuitive based on cost-benefit analysis.

---intrinsic perms are fine, but they need a justification like texual legitamacy

---pretty NEG on most theory---competition probably decides if it's legit

---im down for politics DAs in most variations---please explain what is going on for UQ

---impact turns are fun BUT plz make them coherent

---good impact calc will be rewarded and is always good

Others

---not voting for death good

---stealing prep, clipping cards = auto L + speaks nuked

---anything very unethical = auto L + speaks nuked

Will Katz Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon April 22, 2024 at 6:48 AM EDT

Updated pre-woodward 2024

Yes email chain-- willkatzemailchain@gmail.com

I am currently a coach at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart. I debated in high school at Washburn Rural and in college at the University of Kansas.

I have a large amount of topic knowledge for the hs fiscal redistribution topic. I am actively involved in research and have judged at a lot of tournaments.

As a judge, these are the things that I care about (in order of importance):

1. That you treat all participants in the debate with respect and that your speeches are something that I, a high school teacher, could enthusiastically show my administration

2. That you flow the debate and use that flow to make and respond to arguments. I find that debaters are almost universally better at flowing if they try to flow and line arguments up on paper, not their computer.

3. That you are advancing logical, well-evidenced, warranted claims that demonstrate topic knowledge and research. I am not a good judge for you if your arguments are generally 1 sentence assertions, uncarded, or wholly irrelevant to the topic.

4. That you make good, bold strategic choices. I will give absurdly high speaker points to students that take good risks to collapse the debate to a small number of arguments that create favorable win conditions for them.

5. That you make comparisons between your arguments/evidence and your opponents. If your final rebuttals consist of more comparisons than summary and description, I am a great judge for you.

Note that "subject" isn't really on this list outside of it being relevant to the topic. I don't care if you read a soft left aff, go for topic-relevant critiques, read 90 plank advantage counterplans, or go for politics.

Everything below offers clarification on how this set of arguments plays out in practice

_________________________________________________

I love debate. I really, really like seeing students demonstrate that they are having fun, working hard, thinking about debate, researching the topic, and engaging in debates that reflect the topic's literature base. In many ways, debate is better now than it has ever been.

I will not evaluate arguments about an individual's character or behavior that occurred outside of the debate. If I am told about or personally observe behavior that I would consider in need of an intervention, I am going to approach the tournament administration about it rather than use my ballot as a punishment/reward system. If your speech explains how you are discriminated against, oppressed, bullied, or otherwise unsafe in debate, I am going to talk to the tournament administration instead of letting that be a matter of debate. Ad hom attacks against the other team are a sua sponte reverse voting issue. If you launch one against the other team, I will vote against you (whether your opponents tell me to or not). If your debate strategy relies on ad hom attacks against your opponents, I am not the judge for you. If your opponent is so horrendous of a person that you must levy ad hom attacks, please direct your complaints to the tabroom

Debaters should flow and use that flow to make arguments in a line-by-line fashion that responds directly to what the other team said. Debaters should not just read into a speech document for the entire speech.

Have fun! I more often vote for and give higher points to teams that have fun and are nice. If you are mean or look like you are here against your will, voting for you will be a challenge.

I am trying to adjust to modern speaker points. I still find it hard to believe that if you got a 29 in every debate, you would not have been particularly close to a top 25 speaker at Greenhill or St. Marks. That is the reality we live in, but it is a difficult pill to swallow.

Here are my biases.

-I prefer debates about the topic. That means aff with a plan and negative strategies that use arguments germane to the topic to say the plan is bad. That also means that I do not prefer super generic impact turns like spark/wipeout or arguments like "x author is bad so they should lose for introducing that author"

- I prefer specificity over vagueness. That's true with plans, cp's, da links, alternatives, etc. With me as a judge, vagueness is not as strategic as specificity.

-I care about cards. I want you to read good cards and a lot of cards. Good is more important than a lot, but if you end the debate and your card doc is 4 cards long, something has gone wrong.

- Plans have texts and functions. Unless the debating is very lopsided, I will probably not view the plan's text "in a vacuum" because I will also care about the action that the plan does. If that changes in every speech or multiple times a speech, I will be grumpy (see my point about vagueness)

-Bring theory back! Not in an annoying way where you always go for conditionality when you're losing. But in a way that punishes negative teams for relying on strategies that aren't germane to the aff.

-I feel reasonably strongly that "Social Security" refers to Old Age, Survivor, and Disability Insurance and I think that affirmative teams that read an ssi/medicare/tanf/etc aff probably need to treat topicality as a very threatening 2nr choice. I haven't really seen debates over any other t argument yet.

-I think if evenly debated, I would agree with an aff team that said "cp's must have published solvency advocates." While others interpret this standard as necessarily arbitrary (what is a solvency advocate? Why can't the debaters be solvency advocates?), it seems like it would create a massive increase in the quality of debates for a relatively low amount of arbitrariness.

Jordan Keller Chattahoochee High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed March 27, 2024 at 4:52 PM PDT

Jordan | UWG 26 | 2x CEDA quarterfinalist

jrelleks2@gmail.com

Before anything else, I am a fan of ruthlessness when debating. If a team drops an entire process counterplan, please just extend the counterplan, answer any offense they have elsewhere, and collect the W. This mindset also applies to other TKOs like theory.

TL;DR is anything goes, I anticipate I will judge a lot of clash debates. I further anticipate that I will be best for technically skilled critical teams and policy teams that engage with the theoretical substance of critical arguments. For whatever this information is worth, I read the largest affirmative on the college nuclear weapons topic and exclusively go for the K on the negative.

I am a debate judge. I am not a policymaker, anti-ethicist, or public speaking educator. I evaluate debates as faithfully to the line-by-line as possible, but recognize that nobody can leave who they are at the door. I challenge everyone to consider what it means to be "tabula rasa"--blank slate--when the status quo is characterized by racism, ableism, sexism, trans/queerphobia, and the like. I could never in good-faith wholly abandon my experiences as a queer disabled person, alongside the personal research informed by that subject position, for the sake of a debate round.

That being said, I prefer technical, tricky debating over all else. I strongly believe that both teams should take whatever necessary action to maximize their chance of winning. Importantly, the quality of an argument does not reciprocally determine the quality of necessary responses--you should respond bravely and efficiently. "Bad arguments" are "bad" because their counterarguments are "good". I am--and have been--more than willing to vote on "no cause and effect," "death is good," "the United States refers to the United States of Mexico," etc.

Fair warning--while I think I am a good flow, I have an auditory processing disorder. Sometimes I just won't catch things.

Topicality.

Competing interpretations vs. reasonability. Winning reasonability sets the bar much lower for an affirmative victory, especially when they have defense elsewhere. Unless the negative is winning the full magnitude of a violation and a large (and convincing) limits story, it would be very difficult for them to come back from a concession or mishandling of reasonability. On the contrary, competing interpretations makes it much easier for the negative to win--I believe the best terminal impact to topicality is debatability, which limits has a very convincing internal link to.

Impact calculus. Judge instruction is just as important in these debates as anywhere else. Direct comparison along the lines of "aff ground outweighs neg limits because x, y, z..." is how topicality debates under competing interpretations are won and lost.

Evidence comparison. Absent clear judge instruction or a "precision"/"grammar" standard, I will not read evidence or compare it on my own. Evidence comparison is crucial in close topicality debates, and that goes further than "their ev has no intent to define." I much prefer arguments along the lines of "their ev has no intent to define, therefore it cannot be an accurate nor predictable vision of the topic."

Plan text in a vacuum is intuitive, but oftentimes poorly debated. It is unclear to me how you determine topicality if not by the relationship between the plan text and the resolution.

Counterplans.

The negative can do whatever they can theoretically justify, but the more extreme an offense, the harder to justify--such is the logical implication of tech over truth. I will curtail my disdain for "generic" positions for the sake of an accurate decision. Anything that rejoins the affirmative is legitimate.

As far as theory goes, most arguments are so poorly developed in the 2AC that they can be readily dismissed as reasons to reject the argument rather than the team. I will not arbitrarily abandon the offense/defense paradigm for questions of theory unless justified by reasonability. If the 2NR drops "dispo solves" or some other terminally defensive TKO, you can--and should--swiftly win on conditionality. I do not share the popular predisposition that any answer to conditionality is sufficient, and 2Ns are getting away with murder in these theory blocks. In truth, though, conditionality is probably good...

DAs.

I am increasingly frustrated with lack of impact calc and turns case analysis. They are of crucial importance.

2Ns can do whatever as long as they have evidence supporting the causal chain of events that connects the passage of the plan to some negative impact. That includes a wide range of arguments from politics to links to fiat to whatever disadvantage is most popular on the topic. DA + case 2NRs are fun and far too rare.

2As should capitalize on the variety of tricks at their disposal. "DA not intrinsic" and "fiat solves the link" are short arguments that 2Ns underestimate the value of.

Please don't insert rehighlightings--read them. When judging I try not to open speech documents until the round is over.

Critiques v policy affs.

Do not assume superior knowledge on my part. Explain your argument, preferably without a minute+ long overview.

Critical teams have many tricks at their disposal to win these debates. I prefer techy, tricky, quick K debate. I will quickly vote negative if they are dropped or poorly answered--there are some concessions from which the 1AR and 2AR, no matter how valiant, cannot recover. Dropping "vote neg to do the aff without the links" or "you link you lose" are examples of these. Tech over truth does not falter just because the negative is reading critical theory rather than the politics disadvantage.

Framework is the most important consideration. I will never settle on a middle ground, however I think the best interpretation is one that weighs the consequences of the plan against the link arguments the negative is making to the affirmative's rhetorical and epistemological commitments. Critiques either need to fully moot the 1ac or "artificially" generate competition for some counterplan-style alternative in order to win. Otherwise, it's a nonunique DA that is easily outweighed by the case.

Link specificity is a must. Links can be to anything--the plan, their rhetoric, etc.--but they should always implicate the passage of the plan.

I am a K debater. I have experience in literature bases such as queer theory, disability studies, critiques of anthropocentrism, Baudrillard, Nietzsche, prison abolition, and Marxism.

The best 2AR is probably framework.

Tabroom will not allow me to use the language I require to articulate my disdain for "give me a 30" style arguments.

Framework and planless affs.

On the affirmative--pick a strategy. I have read and judged both impact turn strategies and counterinterpretation + link turn strategies. I prefer the former. By the 1AR it is often true that your counterinterpretation does not serve any defensive purpose--i.e., it cannot solve limits--but it can generate uniqueness for your impact turns, which is important. In impact turn debates I am better for "topicality is unenforceable, competing interpretations is a fantasy" than "our model is better"--affirmative teams tend to have more success when they call into question some of the tension underlying strict framework interpretations.

On the negative--framework on the negative is just as much a medium for "tricks" as critiques on the negative are. You should use everything you have at your disposal, whether that means "vote neg to vote aff, no ballot key warrant," "can't know if the aff is true if we can't test it, vote neg on presumption," or "judges don't have the jurisdiction to vote on non-topical affirmatives."

In truth and as much as my sympathies lie with critical affirmatives, most of them lose to the TVA or they lose to SSD. The affirmative should critique the form of debate (or the process of debating under a given resolution) as much as possible--otherwise, a 2N that correctly identifies the affirmative's weakness will quickly win.

I will evaluate fairness as an impact if told to. However, is the point of debate not to minimize fairness for your opponents? And in doing so, are we not as well minimizing clash?

I am interested in more creative approaches to framework. What does it mean that teams write critical affirmatives around the existence of framework? There are certainly teams that write critical affirmatives specifically so that they can have the framework debate often. Perhaps this insight could provide uniqueness for the negative, or nonuniqueness for aff impact turns?

If the aff links to one of the topic disadvantages, please just go for that instead.

KvK debate is fun and it is what I pride myself in researching most. Lack of predictability does not abdicate the negative of responsibility for link specificity, but because establishing competition is hard I am far more amenable to floating PIK style arguments in these debates. These critiques should have built-in framework arguments that set a different standard for competition.

Other.

I give speaker points based off vibes and nothing else. I hope my average is higher than most.

I've found that when people do the thing where one partner--the non-speaking one--says something, and then the speaking partner repeats it, it makes it really difficult to flow.

UWG Debate. If you have any questions about debating at the University of West Georgia, don't hesitate to reach out to me. We are a storied, long-standing debate program about an hour away from Atlanta that offers cheap tuition.

Music. Feel free to play it if we are in person. If I like your music, I might increase your speaks. I personally listen to a lot of hyperpop, fifth-wave emo, and indie music, but I enjoy mostly everything.

Be nice people.

Michael Kloster LOGYC 2 rounds

Keryk Kuiper Berkeley Preparatory School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 7, 2024 at 2:53 PM EDT

Lane Tech - 2012 - 2013

Iowa City High - 2013 - 2016

University of Northern Iowa - 2016 - 2017

Emporia State 2018 - 2021

Berkeley Prep - 2021 -

-----

2022 Update

TLDR:

-email chain -

BerkeleyPrepDocs@gmail.com

natodocs@googlegroups.com

-Recently retired k-leaning flex debater/resident performative stunt queen for Berkeley Prep Debate

-would much rather judge a really good policy v policy round than a poorly executed k round - BUT - would ultimately prefer to judge a k v k round where both sides have competing and creative strategies that they are both a) deeply invested in and b) have interesting interpretations of. Those are the rounds I always had the most fun in, but to be clear, I have also realized over the years that a policy v policy round has the potential for just as much, if not more and have no problem judging these debates.

-the team executing whatever argument they are most comfortable with at the highest level they can, will always in my eyes have an easier time getting my ballot/receiving higher speaks which means that the the speeches I want to see are those that you are enthused about giving and ultimately, I want you to be excited to be able to do whatever it is that you are best at.

-went for everything from big stick warming affs to f*** debate performance 1AC's, to Black/Native Studies like Warren, Wilderson, Moten, King, Gumbs and Hartman to Queer theory like Butler, Edelman and Trans-Rage to High theory like Nietzsche, Baudy and OOO as well as Procedurals like T/FW/A- and I-Spec, Disads/Case turns like to deterrence, politics and SPARK and of course, multiple different flavors of counterplans. so regardless of what it is you go for I'm down - just don't take this as an excuse to not use judge instruction/concise explanations that makes sense - even if I was a Nietzsche one - trick in high school that doesn't mean I'm going to do the nihilism work for you. All this is to say is that whoever you may be, you should feel comfortable that I have in some way or another had a certain level of experience with your literature base.

Important Note:

Due to recent events its been suggested to me that I add a layer to my philosophy I wasn't sure was necessary, but in an effort to help protect future debaters/debate rounds, as well as myself/fellow judges, here is what I will say -

While I do empathize with the competitive nature of this activity, it should go without saying that if there is violence of any kind, whether that be intentional or not, my role as an educator in this community is to intervene if that situation deems my involvement to be necessary and I want to make it very clear that I have no qualms in doing so. Its important to recognize when we have to put the game aside and understand as a community that we have a responsibility to learn from situations like those and to be better as we move forward. SO just for the sake of clarity, I do not have a desire to stop rounds, in fact - quite the opposite. However, my role as a judge (one that I would hope others embody when judging my own students) is one that adjudicates the round in the most equitable means possible AS WELL AS one that ensures the safety of, to the best of my capacity, each debate round and all of its participants/observers.

Also - Sometimes, and not always, but in the same fashion as countless other judges, I can, at times, be a very reactive/nonverbal judge. Understanding that those kinds of things are a) an inevitable part of this activity b) not always caused by something you did and c) can be incredibly critical in your in round-decision making is crucial and is a fundamental skill that I believe to be vastly important in succeeding within this activity. HOWEVER, that means that whether or not you choose to modify what you are doing based off how I am reacting is, at the end of the day, your decision and your decision alone - recognizing when to do so/when not to is a core facet of competing.

Strike me if you don't like it.

specific feels about certain things:

- have aff specific link explanations regardless of offcase position - that doesnt mean that every card has to be specific to the aff but your explanation of the link should be as specific to the 1AC as you can make possible - extra speaker points to those who can successfully pull lines

- hot take: after all this time in online debate, I will in fact "verbally interject if unable to hear" regardless of whether you make that clear to me before you begin your speech - so as a personal preference don't feel obligated to say that anymore. Id rather you just give me an order and start after getting some signal (verbal or visual) that we're all ready. as an incentive to help try and stop this practice, expect a lil boost in points.

- that being said, "as specific to the 1AC" means you could have a really good link to aff's mechanism. or you could have a great state link. or a link to their impacts. etc. it doesnt matter to me what the link is as long as it is well developed and made specific to what the 1AC is. I dont want to hear the same generic state link as much as the next person but if you make it creative and you use the aff than I dont see a problem.

- affirmatives could be about the topic, or they could not be, its up to you as long as whatever you choose to do you can defend and explain. If you're not about the topic and its a framework debate, I need to know what your model of debate is or why you shouldnt need to defend one etc. if youre reading a performance aff, the performance is just as important if not more than the evidence you are reading - so dont forget to extend the performance throughout the debate and use it to answer the other teams arguments.

- whether its one off or 8 please be aware of the contradictions you will be making in the 1NC and be prepared to defend them or have some sort of plan if called out.

- on that note theory debates are fine and could be fun. im not that opposed to voting on theory arguments of all varieties as long as you spend a sufficient amount of time in the rebuttals to warrant me voting on them. most of the time thats a substantial amount if not the entirety of one or more of your rebuttals.

- perm debates are weird and i dont feel great voting for "do both" without at least an explanation of how that works. "you dont get a perm in method debates" feels wrong mostly because like these are all made up debate things anyways and permutations are good ways to test the competitiveness of ks/cps/cas. that being said, if you have a good justification for why the aff shouldnt get one and they do an insufficient job of answering it, i will obviously vote on "no perms in method debates"

- dropped arguments are probably true arguments, but there are always ways to recover, however, not every argument made in a debate is an actual argument and being able to identify what is and isn't will boost your speaker points

speaks:

how these are determined is inherently arbitrary across the board and let's not pretend I have some kind of rubric for you that perfectly outlines the difference between a 28.5 and a 28.6, or a 29.3 and a 29.4, or that my 29.3 will be the same as some other judges.

I do however think about speaks in terms of a competitive ladder, with sections that require certain innate skills which ended up being fairly consistent with other judges, if not slightly on the higher side of things. Hopefully, this section will more so help give you an idea of how you can improve your speeches for the next time you have me in the back.

-26s: these are few and far between, but if are to get one of these, we've probably already talked about what happened after the round. The key here is probably don't do whatever is that you did, and is most likely related to the stuff I talked about at the top.

-27s: If you're getting something in this range from me, it means you should be focusing on speaking drills (with an emphasis on clarity, and efficiency), as well as developing a deeper/fuller analysis of your arguments that picks apart the detailed warrants within the evidence you are reading.

-28s: Still need to be doing drills, but this time with more of an emphasis on affective delivery, finding a comfortable speed, and endurance. At this point, what I probably need to see more from you is effective decision making as well as judge instruction - in order to move into the 29 range, you should be writing my ballot for me with your final rebuttals in so far as using those speeches to narrow the debate down and effectively execute whatever route that may be by painting a picture of what has happened leading up to this moment

-29s: at this point, you're probably fairly clear and can effectively distinguish between pitches and tones as you go in order to emphasize relevant points. The only drills you should be doing here should be concerned with efficiency and breathing control, and if you are in the low 29's this is most likely a clarity issue and you should probably slow down a bit in order to avoid stumbling and bump your speaks up to high 29's. Higher 29's are most likely those who are making the correct decisions at most if not all stages of the debate, and successfully execute the final speeches in ways that prioritize judge instruction, and clearly lay the ballot out for me throughout the speech.

-30s: I actually don't have a problem giving these out, because I think my bar for a "perfect" speech can be subjective in so far as 30's for me can definitely make mistakes, but in the end you had a spectacular debate where you gave it everything you could and then some. I try not to give these out often though because of the risk it could possibly mess with your seeding/breaking, so if you do get one of these, thanks - I had a wonderful experience judging you.

-0.0 - 0.9 - this section is similar for every category in that it is dependent on things like argument extension and packaging, handling flows/the line by line, cross ex, link debating, etc. however, a team that is in the 29 range will have a higher bar to meet for those sort of minutia parts of your speech than those in the 28 or 27. That's because as you improve in delivery you should also be improving in execution, which means that in my eyes, a debater who may be in the 27 range the first time I see them, but is now speaking in the 28 range will have a higher bar than they did before in order to get into the high 28s.

Joshua Kwon Pace Academy 5 rounds

John Lawson Wylie E. Groves HS 2 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 6, 2024 at 5:34 PM EDT

I am the Co- Director of Debate at Wylie E. Groves HS in Beverly Hills, MI. I have coached high school debate for 49 years, debated at the University of Michigan for 3.5 years and coached at Michigan for one year (in the mid 1970s). I have coached at summer institutes for 48 years.

Please add me to your email chains at johnlawson666@gmail.com.

I am open to most types of argument but default to a policy making perspective on debate rounds. Speed is fine; if unintelligible I will warn several times, continue to flow but it's in the debater's ball park to communicate the content of arguments and evidence and their implication or importance. As of April 2023, I acquired my first set of hearing aids, so it would be a good idea to slow down a bit and make sure to clearly articulate. Quality of arguments is more important than sheer quantity. Traditional on- case debate, disads, counterplans and kritiks are fine. However, I am more familiar with the literature of so-called non mainstream political philosophies (Marxism, neoliberalism, libertarianism, objectivism) than with many post modern philosophers and psychoanalytic literature. If your kritik becomes an effort to obfuscate through mindless jargon, please note that your threshold for my ballot becomes substantially higher.

At the margins of critical debate, for example, if you like to engage in "semiotic insurrection," interface psychoanalysis with political action, defend the proposition that 'death is good,' advocate that debate must make a difference outside the "argument room" or just play games with Baudrilliard, it would be the better part of valor to not pref me. What you might perceive as flights of intellectual brilliance I am more likely to view as incoherent babble or antithetical to participation in a truly educational activity. Capitalism/neoliberalism, securitization, anthropocentrism, Taoism, anti-blackness, queer theory, IR feminism, ableism and ageism are all kritiks that I find more palatable for the most part than the arguments listed above. I have voted for "death good" and Schlag, escape the argument box/room, arguments more times than I would like to admit (on the college and HS levels)-though I think these arguments are either just plain silly or inapplicable to interscholastic debate respectively. Now, it is time to state that my threshold for voting for even these arguments has gotten much higher. For example, even a single, persuasive turn or solid defensive position against these arguments would very likely be enough for me to vote against them.

I am less likely to vote on theory, not necessarily because I dislike all theory debates, but because I am often confronted with competing lists of why something is legitimate or illegitimate, without any direct comparison or attempt to indicate why one position is superior to the other on the basis of fairness and/or education. In those cases, I default to voting to reject the argument and not the team, or not voting on theory at all.

Specifically regarding so-called 'trigger warning' argument, I will listen if based on specific, explicit narratives or stories that might produce trauma. However, oblique, short references to phenomena like 'nuclear war,' 'terrorism,' 'human trafficking,' various forms of violence, genocide and ethnic cleansing in the abstract are really never reasons to vote on the absence of trigger warnings. If that is the basis for your argument (theoretical, empirically-based references), please don't make the argument. I won't vote on it.

In T or framework debates regarding critical affirmatives or Ks on the negative, I often am confronted with competing impacts (often labeled disadvantages with a variety of "clever" names) without any direct comparison of their relative importance. Again, without the comparisons, you will never know how a judge will resolve the framework debate (likely with a fair amount of judge intervention).

Additionally, though I personally believe that the affirmative should present a topical plan or an advocacy reasonably related to the resolution, I am somewhat open to a good performance related debate based on a variety of cultural, sociological and philosophical concepts. My personal antipathy to judge intervention and willingness to change if persuaded make me at least open to this type of debate. Finally, I am definitely not averse to voting against the kritik on either the affirmative or negative on framework and topicality-like arguments. On face, I don't find framework arguments to be inherently exclusionary.

As to the use of gratuitous/unnecessary profanity in debate rounds: "It don't impress me much!" Using such terms doesn't increase your ethos. I am quite willing to deduct speaker points for their systemic use. The use of such terms is almost always unnecessary and often turns arguments into ad hominem attacks.

Disclosure and the wiki: I strongly believe in the value of pre-round disclosure and posting of affirmatives and major negative off-case positions on the NDCA's wiki. It's both educationally sound and provides a fair leveling effect between teams and programs. Groves teams always post on the wiki. I expect other teams/schools to do so. Failure to do so, and failure to disclose pre-round, should open the offending team to a theory argument on non-disclosure's educational failings. Winning such an argument can be a reason to reject the team. In any case, failure to disclose on the wiki or pre-round will likely result in lower speaker points. So, please use the wiki!

Finally, I am a fan of the least amount of judge intervention as possible. The line by line debate is very important; so don't embed your clash so much that the arguments can't be "unembedded" without substantial judge intervention. I'm not a "truth seeker" and would rather vote for arguments I don't like than intervene directly with my preferences as a judge. Generally, the check on so-called "bad" arguments and evidence should be provided by the teams in round, not by me as the judge. This also provides an educationally sound incentive to listen and flow carefully, and prepare answers/blocks to those particularly "bad" arguments so as not to lose to them. Phrasing this in terms of the "tech" v. "truth" dichotomy, I try to keep the "truth" part to as close to zero (%) as humanly possible in my decision making. "Truth" can sometimes be a fluid concept and you might not like my perspective on what is the "correct" side of a particular argument..

An additional word or two on paperless debate and new arguments. There are many benefits to paperless debate, as well as a few downsides. For debaters' purposes, I rarely take "flashing" time out of prep time, unless the delay seems very excessive. I do understand that technical glitches do occur. However, once electronic transmission begins, all prep by both teams must cease immediately. This would also be true if a paper team declares "end prep" but continues to prepare. I will deduct any prep time "stolen" from the team's prep and, if the problem continues, deduct speaker points. Prep includes writing, typing and consulting with partner about strategy, arguments, order, etc.
With respect to new arguments, I do not automatically disregard new arguments until the 2AR (since there is no 3NR). Prior to that time, the next speaker should act as a check on new arguments or cross applications by noting what is "new" and why it's unfair or antithetical to sound educational practice. I do not subscribe to the notion that "if it's true, it's not new" as what is "true" can be quite subjective.

PUBLIC FORUM ADDENDUM:

Although I have guest presented at public forum summer institutes and judged some public forum rounds, it is only these last few weeks that I have started coaching PF. This portion of my philosophy consists of a few general observations about how a long time policy coach and judge will likely approach judging public forum judging:

1. For each card/piece of evidence presented, there should, in the text, be a warrant as to why the author's conclusions are likely correct. Of course, it is up to the opponent(s) to note the lack of, or weakness, in the warrant(s).

2. Arguments presented in early stages of the round (constructives, crossfire) should be extended into the later speeches for them to "count." A devastating crossfire, for example, will count for little or nothing if not mentioned in a summary or final focus.

3. I don't mind and rather enjoy a fast, crisp and comprehensible round. I will very likely be able to flow you even if you speak at a substantially faster pace than conversational.

4. Don't try to extend all you constructive arguments in the final stages (summary, final focus) of the round. Narrow to the winners for your side while making sure to respond to your opponents' most threatening arguments. Explicitly "kick out" of arguments that you're not going for.

5. Using policy debate terminology is OK and may even bring a tear to my eye. I understand quite well what uniqueness, links/internal links, impacts, impact and link turns, offense and defense mean. Try to contextualize them to the arguments in the round rather than than merely tossing around jargon.

6. I will ultimately vote on the content/substance/flow rather than on generalized presentational/delivery skills. That means you should flow as well (rather than taking random notes, lecture style) for the entire round (even when you've finished your last speech).

7. I view PF overall as a contest between competing impacts and impact turns. Therefore specific impact calculus (magnitude, probability, time frame, whether solving for your impact captures or "turns" your opponents' impact(s)) is usually better than a general statement of framework like "vote for the team that saves more lives."

8. The last couple of topics are essentially narrow policy topics. Although I do NOT expect to hear a plan, I will generally consider the resolution to be the equivalent of a "plan" in policy debate. Anything which affirms or negates the whole resolution is fair game. I would accept the functional equivalent of a counterplan (or an "idea" which is better than the resolution), a "kritik" which questions the implicit assumptions of the resolution or even something akin to a "topicality" argument based on fairness, education or exclusion which argues that the pro's interpretation is not the resolution or goes beyond it. An example would be dealert, which might be a natural extension of no first use but might not. Specifically advocating dealert is arguably similar to an extratopical plan provision in policy debate.

9. I will do my level headed best to let you and your arguments and evidence decide the round and avoid intervention unless absolutely necessary to resolve an argument or the round.

10. I will also strive to NOT call for cards at the end of the round even if speech documents are rarely exchanged in PF debates.

11. I would appreciate a very brief road map at the beginning of your speeches.

12. Finally, with respect to the presentation of evidence, I much prefer the verbatim presentation of portions of card texts to brief and often self serving paraphrasing of evidence. That can be the basis of resolving an argument if one team argues that their argument(s) should be accepted because supporting evidence text is read verbatim as opposed to an opponent's paraphrasing of cards.

13. Although I'm willing to and vote for theory arguments in policy debate, I certainly am less inclined to do so in public forum. I will listen, flow and do my best not to intervene but often find myself listening to short lists of competing reasons why a particular theoretical position is valid or not. Without comparison and refutation of the other team's list, theory won't make it into my RFD. Usually theoretical arguments are, at most, a reason to reject a specific argument but not the team.

Overall, if there is something that I haven't covered, please ask me before the round begins. I'm happy to answer. Best wished for an enjoyable, educational debate.

Allison Lee Chattahoochee High School 4 rounds

Mia Leutzinger Alpharetta HS 6 rounds

Dan Lingel Jesuit College Prep 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 25, 2024 at 4:53 AM CDT

Dan Lingel Jesuit College Prep—Dallas

danlingel@gmail.com for email chain purposes

dlingel@jesuitcp.org for school contact

"Be smart. Be strategic. Tell your story. And above all have fun and you shall be rewarded."--the conclusion of my 1990 NDT Judging Philosophy

Updated for 2023-2024 topic
30 years of high school coaching/6 years of college coaching
I will either judge or help in the tabroom at over 20+ tournaments

****read here first*****
I still really love to judge and I enjoy judging quick clear confident comparative passionate advocates that use qualified and structured argument and evidence to prove their victory paths. I expect you to respect the game and the people that are playing it in every moment we are interacting.

***I believe that framing/labeling arguments and paper flowing is crucial to success in debate and maybe life so I will start your speaker points absurdly high and work my way up (look at the data) if you acknowledge and represent these elements: label your arguments (even use numbers and structure) and can demonstrate that you flowed the entire debate and that you used your flow to give your speeches and in particular demonstrate that you used your flow to actually clash with the other teams arguments directly.

Some things that influence my decision making process

1. Debate is first and foremost a persuasive activity that asks both teams to advocate something. Defend an advocacy/method and defend it with evidence and compare your advocacy/method to the advocacy of the other team. I understand that there are many ways to advocate and support your advocacy so be sure that you can defend your choices. I do prefer that the topic is an access point for your advocacy.

2. The negative should always have the option of defending the status quo (in other words, I assume the existence of some conditionality) unless argued otherwise.

3. The net benefits to a counterplan must be a reason to reject the affirmative advocacy (plan, both the plan and counterplan together, and/or the perm) not just be an advantage to the counterplan.

4. I enjoy a good link narrative since it is a critical component of all arguments in the arsenal—everything starts with the link. I think the negative should mention the specifics of the affirmative plan in their link narratives. A good link narrative is a combination of evidence, analytical arguments, and narrative.

5. Be sure to assess the uniqueness of offensive arguments using the arguments in the debate and the status quo. This is an area that is often left for judge intervention and I will.

6. I am not the biggest fan of topicality debates unless the interpretation is grounded by clear evidence and provides a version of the topic that will produce the best debates—those interpretations definitely exist this year. Generally speaking, I can be persuaded by potential for abuse arguments on topicality as they relate to other standards because I think in round abuse can be manufactured by a strategic negative team.

7. I believe that the links to the plan, the impact narratives, the interaction between the alternative and the affirmative harm, and/or the role of the ballot should be discussed more in most kritik debates. The more case and topic specific your kritik the more I enjoy the debate. Too much time is spent on framework in many debates without clear utility or relation to how I should judge the debate.

8. There has been a proliferation of theory arguments and decision rules, which has diluted the value of each. The impact to theory is rarely debating beyond trite phrases and catch words. My default is to reject the argument not the team on theory issues unless it is argued otherwise.

9. Speaker points--If you are not preferring me you are using old data and old perceptions. It is easy to get me to give very high points. Here is the method to my madness on this so do not be deterred just adapt. I award speaker points based on the following: strategic and argumentative decision-making, the challenge presented by the context of the debate, technical proficiency, persuasive personal and argumentative style, your use of the cross examination periods, and the overall enjoyment level of your speeches and the debate. If you devalue the nature of the game or its players or choose not to engage in either asking or answering questions, your speaker points will be impacted. If you turn me into a mere information processor then your points will be impacted. If you choose artificially created efficiency claims instead of making complete and persuasive arguments that relate to an actual victory path then your points will be impacted.

10. I believe in the value of debate as the greatest pedagogical tool on the planet. Reaching the highest levels of debate requires mastery of arguments from many disciplines including communication, argumentation, politics, philosophy, economics, and sociology to name a just a few. The organizational, research, persuasion and critical thinking skills are sought by every would-be admission counselor and employer. Throw in the competitive part and you have one wicked game. I have spent over thirty years playing it at every level and from every angle and I try to make myself a better player everyday and through every interaction I have. I think that you can learn from everyone in the activity how to play the debate game better. The world needs debate and advocates/policymakers more now than at any other point in history. I believe that the debates that we have now can and will influence real people and institutions now and in the future—empirically it has happened. I believe that this passion influences how I coach and judge debates.

Logistical Notes--I prefer an email chain with me included whenever possible. I feel that each team should have accurate and equal access to the evidence that is read in the debate. I have noticed several things that worry me in debates. People have stopped flowing and paying attention to the flow and line-by-line which is really impacting my decision making; people are exchanging more evidence than is actually being read without concern for the other team, people are under highlighting their evidence and "making cards" out of large amounts of text, and the amount of prep time taken exchanging the information is becoming excessive. I reserve the right to request a copy of all things exchanged as verification. If three cards or less are being read in the speech then it is more than ok that the exchange in evidence occur after the speech.

Lucas Lobo Marist School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun April 21, 2024 at 8:54 PM EDT

Emory ’26. Calvert Hall ’22. Yes, email chain: lcsrlobo@gmail.com. Chain should be named “Tournament -- Round # -- AFF Team vs Neg Team.”

Must read: Do line-by-line, judge instruction, warrant arguments, and narrow the debate as it progresses. Any ideological preference can be overcome by good debating. Do not overadapt; going for an argument that your judge goes/went for can often hurt you more than it helps. Led a lab at the DDI but haven’t done any research since then, so do not assume I know seemingly obvious terms or acronyms that evolved throughout the year. Inserting rehighlights is fine. I really don’t want to vote for dropped, arbitrary theory arguments. If you introduce an ethics violation you must stake the debate on it. Tech > truth on most everything that isn’t death good or clearly problematic.

Update 1/27: I have judged way too many debates that involve both teams spewing economic concepts with no explanation of what they mean, why they are true, etc. Please do not do this!

T: persuaded by reasonability when impact/internal link differentials are tiny, less receptive when big. “Good is good enough” alone doesn’t make much sense. Include caselists, do impact comparison, and answer defensive arguments contextual to your interp. It matters a lot to me that every word is counter defined but it matters more that a non-counter defined word has a concrete limits/ground case attached to it.

CPs: No judge kick unless told to. Evidence quality and impacted deficits matter lots. Links less is usually unpersuasive, sufficiency framing usually is. Condo- numerical interps are arbitrary, logic + risk aversion make sense to me, and fairness by default outweighs education. Substance > theory, but if you do go for theory slow down and answer arguments.

DAs: Relative risk precedes and determines turns case. Cards aren’t necessary if logical defense beats a DA, but I’d prefer ev if you have it. Love the politics DA.

Ks: I find myself voting for the team that best compartmentalizes the moving parts of the debate. I want framework to be as much of a wash as possible- “no Ks” and “you link you lose” are equally unpersuasive, so winning alt solves, impact outweighs, or links turn case claims are the path of least resistance in front of me. That's not to say I won't vote on framework, especially if large swaths of offense are dropped/mis-answered. Links should be somewhat unique and include rehighlights/pull lines. Am more persuaded by “aff outweighs” than the perm/link turn unless the alt is fiated. I am fundamentally unpersuaded to one-sentence 'role of the judge' and 'role of the ballot' arguments other than deciding who did the better debating and submitting it to tabroom, respectively. These arguments are often better explained as pieces of framework offense.

Planless: Anything can be an impact (aff or neg) contingent on comparison and turns case. Extremely persuaded by SSD and TVA when contextualized to AFF offense. It’s hard to toe the line between C/I + link turn and impact turn, so picking one or the other is best. KvK debates almost always come down to the perm, so win a theoretical objection (meh) or material DA (better) to it.

John Marshall Hire 6 rounds

Raleigh Maxwell Montgomery Bell Academy 4 rounds

Hunter McCullough St. Mark's School of Texas 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 12:01 PM CDT

Debated @ UNT 2009-2014

Coach @ St Marks since 2017

Coach @ UTDallas since 2018

If you have questions, feel free to email me at mccullough.hunter@gmail.com

For me, the idea that the judge should remain impartial is very important. I've had long discussions about the general acceptability/desirability of specific debate arguments and practices (as has everybody, I'm sure), but I've found that those rarely influence my decisions. I've probably voted for teams without plans in framework debates more often than I've voted neg, and I've voted for the worst arguments I can imagine, even in close debates, if I thought framing arguments were won. While nobody can claim to be completely unbiased, I try very hard to let good debating speak for itself. That being said, I do have some general predispositions, which are listed below.

T-Theory

-I tend to err aff on T and neg on most theory arguments. By that, I mean that I think that the neg should win a good standard on T in order to win that the aff should lose, and I also believe that theory is usually a reason to reject the argument and not the team.

- Conditional advocacies are good, but making contradictory truth claims is different. However, I generally think these claims are less damaging to the aff than the "they made us debate against ourselves" claim would make it seem. The best 2ACs will find ways of exploiting bad 1NC strategy, which will undoubtedly yield better speaker points than a theory debate, even if the aff wins.

- I kind of feel like "reasonability" and "competing interpretations" have become meaningless terms that, while everybody knows how they conceptualize it, there are wildly different understandings. In my mind, the negative should have to prove that the affirmative interpretation is bad, not simply that the negative has a superior interpretation. I also don't think that's a very high standard for the negative to be held to, as many interpretations (especially on this space topic) will be hot fiery garbage.

- My view of debates outside of/critical of the resolution is also complicated. While my philosophy has always been very pro-plan reading in the past, I've found that aff teams are often better at explaining their impact turns than the neg is at winning an impact that makes sense. That being said, I think that it's hard for the aff to win these debates if the neg can either win that there is a topical version of the affirmative that minimizes the risk of the aff's impact turns, or a compelling reason why the aff is better read as a kritik on the negative. Obviously there are arguments that are solved by neither, and those are likely the best 2AC impact turns to read in front of me.

- "The aff was unpredictable so we couldn't prepare for it so you should assume it's false" isn't a good argument for framework and I don't think I've ever voted for it.

CPs

- I'm certainly a better judge for CP/DA debates than K v K debates. I particularly like strategic PICs and good 1NC strategies with a lot of options. I'd be willing to vote on consult/conditions, but I find permutation arguments about immediacy/plan-plus persuasive.

- I think the neg gets away with terrible CP solvency all the time. Affs should do a better job establishing what counts as a solvency card, or at least a solvency warrant. This is more difficult, however, when your aff's solvency evidence is really bad. - Absent a debate about what I should do, I will kick a counterplan for the neg and evaluate the aff v. the squo if the CP is bad/not competitive

- I don't think the 2NC needs to explain why severence/intrinsicness are bad, just win a link. They're bad.

- I don't think perms are ever a reason to reject the aff.

- I don't think illegitimate CPs are a reason to vote aff.

Disads

- Run them. Win them. There's not a whole lot to say.

- I'd probably vote on some sort of "fiat solves" argument on politics, but only if it was explained well.

- Teams that invest time in good, comparative impact calculus will be rewarded with more speaker points, and likely, will win the debate. "Disad/Case outweighs" isn't a warrant. Talk about your impacts, but also make sure you talk about your opponents impacts. "Economic collapse is real bad" isn't as persuasive as "economic collapse is faster and controls uniqueness for the aff's heg advantage".

- My general line has always been that "I get the K but am not well read in every literature". I've started to realize that that statement is A) true for just about everybody and B) entirely useless. It turns out that I've read, coached, and voted for Ks too often for me to say that. What I will say, however, is that I certainly focus my research and personal reading more on the policy side, but will generally make it pretty obvious if I have no idea what you're saying.

- Make sure you're doing link analysis to the plan. I find "their ev is about the status quo" arguments pretty persuasive with a permutation.

- Don't think that just because your impacts "occur on a different level" means you don't need to do impact calculus. A good way to get traction here is case defense. Most advantages are pretty silly and false, point that out with specific arguments about their internal links. It will always make the 2NR easier if you win that the aff is lying/wrong.

- I think the alt is the weakest part of the K, so make sure to answer solvency arguments and perms very well.

- If you're aff, and read a policy aff, don't mistake this as a sign that I'm just going to vote for you because I read mostly policy arguments. If you lose on the K, I'll vote neg. Remember, I already said I think your advantage is a lie. Prove me wrong.

Case

-Don't ignore it. Conceding an advantage on the neg is no different than conceding a disad on the aff. You should go to case in the 1NC, even if you just play defense. It will make the rest of the debate so much easier.

- If you plan to extend a K in the 2NR and use that to answer the case, be sure you're winning either a compelling epistemology argument or some sort of different ethical calculus. General indicts will lose to specific explanations of the aff absent either good 2NR analysis or extensions of case defense.

- 2As... I've become increasingly annoyed with 2ACs that pay lip service to the case without responding to specific arguments or extending evidence/warrants. Just reexplaining the advantage and moving on isn't sufficient to answer multiple levels of neg argumentation.

Paperless debate

I don't think you need to take prep time to flash your speech to your opponent, but it's also pretty obvious when you're stealing prep, so don't do it. If you want to use viewing computers, that's fine, but only having one is unacceptable. The neg needs to be able to split up your evidence for the block. It's especially bad if you want to view their speeches on your viewing computer too. Seriously, people need access to your evidence.

Clipping

I've decided enough debates on clipping in the last couple of years that I think it's worth putting a notice in my philosophy. If a tournament has reliable internet, I will insist on an email chain and will want to be on that email chain. I will, at times, follow along with the speech document and, as a result, am likely to catch clipping if it occurs. I'm a pretty non-confrontational person, so I'm unlikely to say anything about a missed short word at some point, but if I am confident that clipping has occurred, I will absolutely stop the debate and decide on it. I'll always give debaters the benefit of the doubt, and provide an opportunity to say where a card was marked, but I'm pretty confident of my ability to distinguish forgetting to say "mark the card" and clipping. I know that there is some difference of opinion on who's responsibility it is to bring about a clipping challenge, but I strongly feel that, if I know for certain that debaters are not reading all of their evidence, I have not only the ability but an obligation to call it out.

Other notes

- Really generic backfile arguments (Ashtar, wipeout, etc) won't lose you the round, but don't expect great speaks. I just think those arguments are really terrible, (I can't describe how much I hate wipeout debates) and bad for debate.

- Impact turn debates are awesome, but can get very messy. If you make the debate impossible to flow, I will not like you. Don't just read cards in the block, make comparisons about evidence quality and uniqueness claims. Impact turn debates are almost always won by the team that controls uniqueness and framing arguments, and that's a debate that should start in the 2AC.

Finally, here is a short list of general biases.

The status quo should always be an option in the 2NR (Which doesn't necessarily mean that the neg get's infinite flex. If they read 3 contradictory positions, I can be persuaded that it was bad despite my predisposition towards conditionality. It does mean that I will, absent arguments against it, judge kick a counterplan and evaluate the case v the squo if the aff wins the cp is bad/not competitive)
Warming is real and science is good (same argument, really)
The aff gets to defend the implementation of the plan as offense against the K, and the neg gets to read the K
Timeframe and probability are more important than magnitude
Predictable limits are key to both fairness and education
Consult counterplans aren't competitive. Conditions is arguable.
Rider DA links are not intrinsic
Utilitarianism is a good way to evaluate impacts
The aff should defend a topical plan
Death and extinction are bad
Uncooperative federalism is one of the worst counterplans I've ever seen

Tracy McFarland Jesuit College Prep 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 11:54 AM CDT

Updated Sept 5, 2022

Tracy McFarland

Jesuit College Prep - for a long while; back in the day undergrad debate - Baylor U

Please use jcpdebate@gmail.com for speech docs. I do want to be in the email chain.
However, I don't check that email a lot while not at tournaments - so if you need to reach me not at a tournament, feel free to email me at tmcfarland@jesuitcp.org

Reason for update - I have updated my judging paradigm not because my fundamental views of debate have changed, really. BUT , as one of my labbies put it this summer, apparently the detail of my previous paradigm was "scary". So, I have tried to distill down some of the most important ways I evaluate debate.

Clash - it's good - which means you need to flow and not script your speeches. LBL with some clear references to where you're at = good. Line by line isn't answer the previous speech in order - it's about grounding the debate in the 2ac on off case, 1nc on case.

Dates and "real world" matter - with WMD after 9/11 and immigration during Trump as close rivals, this topic seems one of the most current event influenced debate topics I've experienced. Obviously I mean this in terms of Russia invasion on Feb 24, 2022 - but I also mean in the sense of Madrid Summitt and new Strategic Concept as it relates to the areas; new president in the US as of 2021 with very different policies about NATO and IR; etc. You do not need evidence to integrate current events into your argument - you do need an explanation about why dates matter - ie what's happened that the other team's arguments don't assume. But these arguments can go far in my mind to reduce risk of a DA or an advantage - so you should make these arguments and use as indicts of the other team's evidence as appropriate. . I am persuaded by teams that call out other teams based on their evidence quality, author quals, lack of highlighting (meaning they read little of the evidence

Process CPs and other neg trickeration - it's such a good topic that I would definitely prefer to see topic specific arguments. This means that there are some process CPs or other debates grounded in the lit that are really good debates; there are some that are not. Particularly as the season progresses, I would expect a discussion of what normal means is - both on the aff and the neg to justify process-y cps.

DAs - it's possible to win zero risk that the DA is an opportunity cost to the aff.

Ks - specific links are good. You should have a sense on the aff and the neg what FW is going to get you in a debate.

K affs - should be tied to the topic in some way. If they aren't, then neg args with topical versions or ways to access the education the K aff offers through the resolution are usually persuasive to me. If the aff has a K of the topic, that's great offense that negs need to have an answer. I don't think that debate is just a game. Its a competitive activity that does shape our political subjectivity.

T - if you have a good violation and reasons why an aff should be excluded, by all means read it. If you are just reading it as a "time suck" then, meh, read more substance. And, an argument that ends in -spec is usually an uphill battle unless it's clever [this cleverness standard does preclude generally a- and o-]

Impact turns - topic specific one = good; generic ones - more meh

New affs are good - and don't need to be disclosed before a debate if it's truly the very first time that someone at your school has read the argument. But new affs may justify theoretically sketchy args by the neg - you can integrate that into the theory debate, you don't need a new affs bad 1nc arg to do that.

Be nice to each other - it's possible to be competitive without being overly sassy.

Modality matters - when you are debating in person, remember that people can hear you talk to your partner and you should have a line of sight with the judge. If you are online, make sure that your camera is on when possible to create some engagement with the judge.

Maya Wickelgren Mikelson Hire 2 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 3:06 AM CDT

UMich ‘25

LASA ‘21

I am making my paradigm increasingly grumpy to reflect my feelings when judging debates.

If you think that Wake Forest RT defeated Michigan PP in the finals of the 2023 NDT, strike me.

I don't think I'm a particularly good judge. I would strike me if I was doing prefs as a policy team too. I will do my best to evaluate any debate I am in but I just don't think that is very good. I am trying to be super transparent so that you can do prefs with a full idea of how I judge and how good of a judge I am.

If both teams agree to stake the debate on something other than an actual debate, (i.e. a chess game, a board game), we can do that and I will give as close to a 30 to everyone as I can. This is the ideal scenario. If this doesn't happen, I will be sad.

Add me to the email chain: mayacxdebate@gmail.com. Please title it with tournament name, round number, and team names so I can find it later. Don't use NSDA file share. If I have to download a document with NSDA file share, you and your partner will get a 25.

Please send out a Word doc, if possible.

Tech over truth. However, I do need to be able to explain back to the other team why you won. This means I've found I have a higher burden of explanation for certain arguments that make less intuitive sense to me and that I've had less experience with. Sometimes this means that even if I feel like you are the better debaters, you still lose the debate (usually this happens when it is a K/K aff and teams just say buzzwords and I am left confused).

Please do specific impact calculus. I would like to take the easy way out and evaluate the impacts the way the debaters describe and I think this causes less judge intervention.

If I have to be judging, I would like to judge unintuitive impact turns. Not death good (although I will vote for that if you win it). Climate change good and prolif good are perfect examples of these. Dedev is not.

Unless it is dropped, I won't vote for personal attacks or things that happened outside of the round. A sufficient response is "don't evaluate things that happened outside the round."

I'm not going to pretend that my predispositions don't factor into the way I evaluate debates even though I will try to limit them.

Theory

I want to cast the easiest ballot possible. This means I am willing to vote on any dropped theory argument that was a reason to reject the team even if they kicked the argument it was about. It does need to be a full extension in subsequent speeches.

I am willing to vote on most theory as reasons to reject the team if it's dropped even if they kicked the argument. I want to put the least amount of thinking to my decision as possible.

You probably shouldn't pref me for K debates. What I read in college has absolutely no bearing on the debates I am qualified to judge or want to see. Just because there are some Ks that are okay in front of policy judges does not mean they are okay in front of me. Usually, people take this as, "it'll be okay we just read Cap and Security" but you shouldn't.

Against an aff that can go for util outweighs, you will have a hard time winning that your structural violence impact outweighs.

I have yet to understand an explanation of why the 2NR can just go for framework (including in debates where I'm giving the 2NR) and not a material alt (which is then solved by the perm). It is unclear to me why voting neg solves the impacts to the K if they don't fiat an alt. If you fiat an alt, it seems like the perm should overcome any disads to the aff.

Between two equal teams, the aff should always win the perm solves. Between a better neg team and a worse aff team, the aff should nearly always win the perm solves. Between a varsity neg team and a novice aff team, I suppose the neg will probably win but it will be begrudgingly, and at that point, you could just as easily beat them on a policy argument and I will be much happier with you and your speaks will indicate that.

K affs

Most of the K section should give you the idea that I'm probably not the best to have in the back for this debate. Because I think this might be important to the way you see my judging: I read framework against K affs until part way through junior year of high school with no success. At that point, I pivoted to reading specific K arguments, Cap or frame subtraction against K affs.

I have slightly more confidence in my ability to evaluate a K v. K debate than a K v. Framework debate. Framework debates generally have lots of analytics that are read at full speed which makes it a lot harder for me to keep up.

I don't judge high school frequently or do any research on the topic. I never went for T that frequently. What this means is you're gonna have to slow down and I will barely know what the resolution is. Go for T at your own risk.

DAs/CPs

This is mostly for novices. Have an external impact. Do line by line. It would help you a lot if you have a way to access the affs impact either through your impact turning theirs or a CP.

Analytics that are specific to the other teams' warrants will get you as far as (and probably farther than) reading your generic uniqueness updates block for whatever tournament. This includes the politics DA. Look at what states/specific senators/blocks of representatives the other team talks about and provide reasons why they're wrong.

I auto-judge kick if it isn't brought up in the debate but if it is, I will evaluate who won it.

Miscellaneous stuff that won't cost you the debate but that you should listen to

Theory should be answered on the page where it was read. Your order should not have the name of a theory argument in it or say "I'll do theory here." I guarantee you I do not know where the theory argument was read off the top of my head.

Write down how much prep time you have left on either your flow or somewhere on your laptop. It wastes so much time to stand up, find a marker, and write it on a board. Also, it will make me think less of you.

CX time isn't meant for clarifying questions, use it to attack the other teams cards/arguments. 1-2 clarifying questions are okay beyond that it should be prep.

Do you really need to ask for "reasons to reject the team" just learn how to flow.

I am completely fine with reading condo on pages that aren't conditional worlds. It makes it more likely the other team will drop it and I would prefer a condo debate to a substance debate especially if it is dropped.

Perf con isn't a real argument unless the aff is willing to concede something to get out of the other argument. Obviously, if it's dropped I will vote on it though.

Miriam Mokhemar Woodward Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Mon February 5, 2024 at 10:03 AM EDT

A few things about me (TLDR version):

Former debater at University of Georgia

Plans are good

Impact calculus is important. Tell me how to write my ballot.

Clarity > Speed

Cross-ex is binding

Have fun and don't be rude!

Long version:

Framework - I'm a good judge for framework. Debate is a game and framework is procedural question. I’m persuaded by negative appeals to limits and I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I don’t think the topical version of the aff needs to “solve” in the same way the aff does. If there are DA's to the topical version of the aff, that seems to prove neg ground under the negative’s vision of debate. Tell me what your model of debate looks like, what negative positions does it justify, and what is the value of those positions.

Kritiks - I think it's really hard for the neg to win that the aff shouldn't get to weigh the plan provided the aff answers framework well. I've got a decent grasp on the literature surrounding critical security studies, critiques of capitalism, settler colonialism, and feminist critiques of IR. The aff should focus on attacking the alternative both at a substance and theoretical level. It's critical that the 2AR defines the solvency deficits to the alternative and weigh that against the case. Negative debaters should spend more time talking about the case in the context of the kritik. A good warranted link and turns the case debates are the best way for negative teams to get my ballot. Tell me how the links to the aff uniquely lead to the impacts.

Counterplans - They don't have to be topical. Whether you have a specific solvency advocate will determine if your counterplan is legitimate or not. There's nothing better than a well-researched mechanism counterplan and there's nothing worse than a hyper-generic process counterplan that you recycle for every negative debate on the topic. I generally think that 2 conditional options are good, but I can be persuaded by 3 condo is okay. PICs are probably good. Consult/Conditioning/delay counterplans, international fiat, and 50 state fiat are bad. Typically, if you win theory I reject the argument not the team unless told otherwise.

Disads- I love a good DA and case debate. I've gone for the politics DA a lot in my college career. Normally uniqueness controls the link, but I can persuaded otherwise. Impact calc and good turns cases analysis is the best!

Add me onto the e-mail chain, my email is miriam.mokhemar@gmail.com. If your computer crashes, stop the timer until you can get your doc back up.

Jack Moore Jesuit College Prep 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue March 5, 2024 at 7:14 AM CDT

Jack Moore

Affiliation: 4 years at Jesuit Dallas, currently at Trinity University

2N Life

Email: mojack221.goo@gmail.com

Updated: 3/5/24

Round Procedure

- Send out the 1ac before start time, not after. The debate starts at start time.

- Send cards in a doc - not the body of the email

- Prep stops when docs are saved. Deleting Analytics is Prep. Don't send cards in the body of the email. If you do, I will make you take prep to put it in a document and send it.

- Respect your opponents and be nice to each other.

- Inserting Evidence: I'm conditionally fine with it. If it from a different part of the article that the other team hasn't cut, you must read it. If it's highlighting parts of the card that they just didn't underline or highlight, you don't have to read it IF you paraphrase or do the work to explain why the re-highlighting matters. BUT, if it's so important, you may as well read it because that's powerful

- Disclosure: new affs are good. Disclosure ought to happen, but it does not need to happen. Mis-disclosure is the only type of disclosure theory I will vote on and for that to happen I either need to have seen the mis-disclosure, which I probably won't OR both teams need to agree on what happened during CX or something.

- While I won't punish the lack of disclosure, I think generally keeping an updated wiki is good, so tell me if you have one and if you update it before my decision, I'll add a few points. If the wiki is down or some uncontrollable happens where that's not possible, I'll assume good faith.

Online Debates:

- if my camera is not on, I'm not ready

- please slow down.

- I'd encourage cameras to be on the whole debate, but obviously understand that's not always possible

- please get confirmation everyone is ready.

How I Go About Judging Debates

- I take judging very seriously and recognize the hard work you all put into it. Debate is not easy and sometimes it is very difficult to even show up to a tournament, much less debate your best every round. I do my best to keep a positive attitude and facilitate learning. You get my full attention during the debate and in the post round. I appreciated the judges and coaches who helped me grow as a debater by not just deciding the round, but also gave extensive feedback on how to improve. I strive to do the same.

- I'm not very expressive unless you say something absurd. I'm not really grumpy, that's just my face.

- Flowing:

- a) medium: I flow on paper 99% of the time. For me, that means I flow the debate and track it by the line by line. Even if you just speak "straight down" in overview fashion, I will still try to line things up to where I think that goes on the flow. It would benefit you to tell me either directly where you are going on the line by line OR tell me a different way to flow and give me plenty of pen/organization time.

- b) instrument: I prefer pen. G2 .38 or .5. I write a lot so slowing down is good

- Reading Evidence: I don't read evidence during the debate. I do not have the speech docs open during your speeches. I look at cards during prep if they are being disputed.

- Speed: Go for it. Clarity, Organization, and Pen Time are all essential to effective speed.

- Evidence quality > quantity. Part of this includes highlighting sentences/making your cards comprehensible. If I look at cards, I only look at the highlighting you read.

- Decisions: I start with important frames and judge instructions given by the 2nr/ar. I think through different ballots that could be given, exploring all possible victories for each team. I pick the one I think is most supported by the round.

- Trolls: If you've done the work to cut a lot of cards that at least have the illusion of quality and demonstrate how your argument interacts with the other teams in significant ways, I'm fine for you. If it's a terrible back file check or something that anyone could prep in 30 minutes, I'm not your judge and your points will suffer. It also helps if your argument has an impact instead of only trying to trigger presumption.

Fiscal Redistribution Thoughts

-This topic is great and you're lucky you get to debate it.

- single payer not topical

- When all things lead to the economy, differentiation, comparison, and interaction of the internal links is super helpful. Inflation pressures o/w government spending because XYZ warrants for example

- In terms of argument and evidence quality, the capitalism good-bad debate is one sided. If evenly debated, I’m probably going with cap bad.

The rest of the philosophy is mostly me rambling and heavily influenced by the explanation in any given round.

Case:

- It's underutilized - specific internal link and solvency arguments go a long way in front of me. Strategically, a good case press in the block and 2nr makes all substantive arguments better

- Impact turns are fantastic

Topicality:

- I evaluate Topicality like a CP and DA. You ought to do impact calc and have offense and defense to the other team’s stuff.

DA:

- I will vote on defense against a DA. There's probably always a risk, but that doesn't mean I care about such risk

- ev comparison or judge instruction about micro moments in the debate goes a long way for winning individual parts of a DA.

- I like good evidence that contains arguments. You should keep that in mind before going for politics.

- Most politics DAs end up sounding more like the political capital K to me, meaning they lack any specific internal link from an unpopular plan to an agenda item. I really hope the economic inequality topic fixes this issue, but I doubt it.

CP:

- For questionably competitive CPs, clarity on the difference between the aff and the cp, what words if any are being defined, and an organized presentation of why your standard is better are crucial. It would also be helpful to slow down on texts, perms, theory, the usual stuff. Blippy cards and analytics mixed with speed are the enemy of the flow.

- Solvency advocates that compare the CP to topic or plan mechanisms greatly help in winning competition and theory

- I don't judge kick unless instructed to in the 2nr. Debate to me is about choices and persuasion. So unless your choice in the 2nr explicitly includes the fail safe of judge kick, I'm not going to do it for you.

Theory:

- I don't think I lean heavily aff or neg.

- Conditionality is debatable. Quantitative interps don’t make sense to me. Condo is good or bad. Fun fact, dispositionality was originally used because it was in a thesaurus under the word conditionality. This is to say, if your interp is anything under than condo bad, I'm going to need you to unpack the terms for me.

- My default is to reject the argument for all things except conditionality. This shouldn't deter you from going for theory given rejecting a CP usually means the neg has little defense left in a debate.

- Good K debating is good case debating. A good critique would explain why a core component of the 1ac is wrong or bad.

- The link is the most important part of the debate. Be specific, pull 1AC lines, say what you are disagreeing with, give examples, etc. Explain why winning the thesis takes out specific parts of the solvency or internal link chain. More link debating is my number one comment to teams going for the K.

- Framework needs a purpose and that purpose should be communicated to me. Affirmatives often go for arguments about links to the plan or weighing the impact, when the neg agrees. Make sure you explain how your fw arguments explain how I evaluate the link, impact, alt, solvency, whatever. It should be explicit how winning framework changes the debate. I’m more persuaded when framework is explained as impact prioritization.

- Defend things. The neg should have a clear disagreement with the aff. The aff should defend the core assumptions of the aff. If you're reading an aff that defends US hegemony, going for super specific internal literature indicts against a settler colonialism K won't help you. A defense of IR scholarship, realism, impact prioritization, and alt indicts might.

- I don't care for alts.

- Perms against pessimism Ks, absent some specific perm card, have generally been unpersuasive to me.

K affs:

- Go for it. They should have some connection to the topic and some statement of advocacy. If you can read your aff on every topic without changing cards or tags, I’ll enjoy the debate less, but it's your debate, not mine.

- Role of the ballot means nothing to me and often a substitute for judge instruction

- Presumption questions are usually just questions of framework and the value the aff's model provides. Neg teams spend way too much time asking questions about ballot spill up or the debate round changing the world. We all agree fiat illusory is a bad argument in a policy prescription model of debate. Why is it all of the sudden good now? Your time is much better served explaining how the aff's model of debate is counterproductive to its benefits. In other words, answer the should not would question.

- Aff teams should critique presumption in favor of the status quo.

Framework/T USFG

- Framework debates are important because they force us to question fundamental assumptions and norms of the activity. It's about models of debate. Convince me yours is good and theirs is bad.

- I'm open to most impacts to framework. I judge them like most debates where I compare the aff's offense to the neg's offense, defense, and framing arguments from 2nr and 2ar. I have voted for and against all the common impacts for T-USFG/traditional FW (procedural fairness, clash, topic mechanism education, agonistic democracy, advocacy skills, etc).

- I'm not the biggest fan of aff strategy's vs T that exclusively rely on the impact turn. It's a really hard sell that the idea of a topic for debate shouldn't be a thing. I think the impact turns are more persuasive if the neg is exclusively going for fairness or it's a game with no other value. However, if the neg has a coherent defense of clash, negation, or research over a limited topic plus defense against the impact turn, I'm likely to be persuaded by the T strategy.

- The inverse of this is that when the aff has a counter interpretation that defines resolution words in creative ways, I find it very hard for the negative to win much offense. I'm much more persuaded by an argument that says singular interpretation of the topic as mandating simulated federal government policy are unpredictable and bad than I am by the argument we should throw away the topic because it can be read in a singular way.

Speaker Points:

- a bit arbitrary, but I'll start at 28.5 and go up and down based on the round

- factors I consider: smart arguments, strategic choice, and organization are the biggest factors in determining speaker points

Cody Morrow St. Mark's School of Texas 3 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!

Jack Mruz Alpharetta HS 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue April 16, 2024 at 9:30 AM EDT

ctrl + f "Planless Affs v. T", “Policy Aff v. T”, "Policy Aff v. CP/DA", "Policy Aff v. K", or "K v. K" for relevant sections

Cambridge '20

Georgia '23 (https://comm.uga.edu/debate/recrutiment or email jstupek8@gmail.com) Go Debate Dawgs!

they/them. ask your opponents what pronouns they prefer before the round and stick to them. pls call me jack or big dawg not judge

jackmdebate@gmail.com - please have the 1ac sent by the round start time.

mc hammer reads philosophy, you should too

i am autistic, don't read into my facial expressions as a reliable predictor of the ballot. apologies in advance for any confusion

IF YOU READ GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE, INCLUDE A TRIGGER WARNING AND HAVE A VERSION OF THE CARDS OMITTING THE GRAPHIC DETAILS READY IF SOMEONE INDICATES IT'S AN ISSUE. I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO HAVE TRAUMATIC FLASHBACKS BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO LAZY TO TYPE OUT A SENTENCE ON THE WIKI/AT THE TOP OF THE DOC.

*i have hearing difficulties, please either send the doc you're reading from or SLOW DOWN. i.e. you probably don't need to send your T-USfg 2NC analytics but make sure you're reading them at a speed that people that don't have the exact blocks you're looking at in front of them can still understand

**LD/PF - i only competed in policy and i'm unfortunately unfamiliar with the particular nuances of LD/PF debate so i am more likely to vote for substantive arguments than procedurals that rely on an understanding of LD/PF debate norms.

Top Level

- debate is too serious. i enjoy fun rounds, i greatly appreciate jokes. kindness is underrated - opponents are (most likely) not your enemy but rather fellow participants in an extracurricular activity who have decided to spend their weekend debating with you instead of doing literally anything else. please treat them that way.

- you get three perms per arg. new 1AR articulation of the perm warrants new 2NR responses.

- i am uncomfortable with being asked to adjudicate things that occurred outside of the round. (note: i consider the round to start when the pairing comes out, so disclosure theory etc. are still fair game i just have the same institutional (lack of) capability to handle things like Title IX violations as you). i take ethics violations very seriously. if you believe your opponents have behaved in a manner inconsistent with ethical participation in this activity, let me know and i'll contact tab instead of starting the round.

- racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anything that makes the round unsafe is a quick way to earn an instant L and zero speaker points. i will not hesitate to intervene.

- speaker points: my range is generally high-27s to mid-29s. i would probably be considered a point fairy but occasionally it goes the opposite way so warning you in advance. making and executing strategic decisions in rebuttals is the best way to get higher speaks in front of me. i reward taking risks. while i try to hold the line on new args, most judges are inherently suckers for a lying 2A. contextualizing your arguments to the other side’s will earn you more points than just spreading through a K or CP explanation written by coaches four years ago devoid of context or specificity. i.e. "CP solves advantage 1 because [warrant], solves advantage 2 because [warrant]" as opposed to "CP solves entire topic because [warrant]" or "K solves our links and case because [warrant]" and not "THEY DROPPED THE ALT (they probably didn't if we're being honest), WE WIN BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW THAT'S JUST HOW DEBATE WORKS I GUESS".

Scale based on my immediate reaction after the speeches:

30 - Perfect. I do not want anyone I coach to hit you in elim rounds because it's gg.

29.9-29.5 - Woah. You're almost done! The summit is near and you'll be there with a few more practice speeches.

29.4-29 - Yo that was fire. Y'all did your thing and executed well. Good job!

28.9-28.5 - Nice!

28.4-28 - Pretty Good.

27.9-27.5 - Needs some work.

<27.5 - If I've given you this, you know what you did.

- the roughly two hours that i am in the room are your time. if you want to post-round me, go for it (although once i submit the ballot there's nothing i can do to change the decision) but please be courteous regarding your opponents' desires and make sure any more immediate concerns they may have have been resolved before we get into it

- read whatever you want. although i personally lean in certain directions on common debate args, i try to check as many biases as possible at the door and base my decisions on the actual debating done. i want to limit judge intervention as much as possible so comparison and telling me how i should resolve the debate is very important. if i don't have judge instruction coming out of the 2XR, i intervene to resolve the round the best i can. condo is probably the arg you are least likely to win in front of me but i'll vote for it if it's mishandled

- the status quo is always a logical option unless you tell me it isn't

- 2xr should start with: "[Our arg] outweighs [their arg] because"

- dropped args are true, it's up to you to make that matter though

- rather than tell you what i think about specific issues, i think it may be more helpful to disclose how i come to decisions. in the absence of a clear dub for either team, i evaluate the flow. if i can't come to a decision based purely on my flow and memory of the round, i read the ev for each arg and decide whether the cards support the args that are being made as well as which team has better ev for each specific arg. if i still can't come to a decision based on reading cards, i'll reconstruct the debate and necessarily fill in gaps for both sides based on my understanding of the best version of each team's args. YOU DO NOT WANT THIS. there is a non-zero probability that your cards are not as good as you think and potentially a very large probability that filling in the gaps works out better for the other team. to avoid this, DO GOOD COMPARISON. compare ev quality, risk of impact scenarios, EVERYTHING. i understand how frustrating it is when you catch an L after a super close debate because it feels like the judge did slightly more work for the other side. i do not want this for you. you do not want this for you. work with me and you'll probably be much happier with the result. in the absence of judge instruction, i will intervene as necessary to resolve the round.

Planless Affs v. T

- planless affs typically beat T in front of me with nuanced impact turns or a C/I based on counter-definitions of words in the resolution with a DA. i am not a good judge for C/Is that aren’t based in definitions of words in the rez as i am typically persuaded by the 2NR argument that it’s arbitrary and self-serving (which is irrelevant/actually good if you go for the impact turn to T). i'm most persuaded by fairness and clash as impacts to T. TVAs are defense, i won't vote on that alone so make sure you have offense against the aff's model (even if it's just that the TVA is good and the aff's model precludes reading it). i believe that procedural fairness is a terminal impact although i can be persuaded that it’s only an i/l if you make the arg

- i will vote on presumption if the neg proves that the aff just results in the squo

- i went double 2s most of my debate career. my favorite neg rounds in college were 2NC T/1NR Case but i read planless affs my senior year and prepped against T so i think i'm pretty 50/50 in these debates when equally debated

Policy Aff v. CP/DA

- affs typically beat the CP/DA strategy in front of me by either winning a solvency deficit to the CP that outweighs the DA or proving that the CP is not competitive. I will vote on zero risk of the DA but only if there's offense against the CP.

- probably a better judge for theory than most against CPs. i default to believing that CPs must be textually and functionally competitive but can be convinced otherwise absent aff warranted argumentation

- note for soft-left/K affs with a plan - although i am convinced by framing that says we should prioritize structural violence or reject util/extinction logic, you're not going to win on that alone if the neg has a CP that resolves the aff's impacts especially if the neg is winning that i should view CP solvency through sufficiency framing

Policy Aff v. T

- i am a grammar nerd, args that are based on grammatically incorrect definitions are unlikely to win in front of me i.e. i can't vote for "United States" is an adjective because that's wrong

- models are important

- i tend to do the most intervention in these debates. absent a 2NR/2AR that completely writes my ballot, i find myself resolving the round by going through my flow and the docs and reconstructing the debate with the best version of both sides' arguments.

Policy Aff v. K

- 2AR should be either fwk + case outweighs/offense OR fwk + perm + no link/alt fails. if the negative wins framework but the affirmative wins that the aff is a good idea it likely means that the aff's knowledge production is good which often solves the link.

- specificity is the most important thing is these debates. well-warranted analytics contextualized to your argument as well as the other team's will get you further than shotgunning cards with no explanation.

- if your 1AR/2AR framework explanation is entirely "you link, you lose bad" but they're going for links that have uniqueness you are probably going to lose.

- the vast majority of my college debate rounds involved cap sustainability debates so i am very familiar with the args made and ev read by both sides. although i personally believe that the cap bad cards are better, i've always cut the cap good file and will vote happily for McAfee (despite my personal belief that the card is garbage) if the other side doesn't explain their offense adequately.

- i tend to be persuaded by smart turn args regarding trivialization or cruel optimism when links seem especially contrived i.e. it's bad to say a team reading a soft left aff on a reform vs. rev topic is literally enacting physical violence against marginalized peoples "outside of the debate space" (this isn't to say i'm not persuaded by those same link args as i have and will continue to vote for "you link you lose" logic when it's debated well despite 2As whining)

K v. K

- these are the rounds i judge the least (although i find them to be interesting and wish i got to judge more) so i don't have many predisposed biases aside from defaulting to allowing the aff to read perms until the neg convinces me they shouldn't get them.

- i (believe i) am familiar with most lit bases, although this might work against you. for example, i do not want to vote for you if you read ev by José Esteban Muñoz and then claim that he makes a blanket "utopia bad" arg because that's the literal opposite of everything the author has written.

- if the neg wins the alt solves the aff, i vote neg.

- 2N - do not forget that the squo is a logical option. i.e. if you're winning that the aff doesn't solve and that there's risk of a link (for example, that the aff would cause backlash against [x] people), the squo is probably better than the aff regardless of whether or not you're winning alt solvency.

Theory

- condo is a yes/no question (i am unlikely to vote for "the negative gets [x] number of conditional advocacies", you should instead say "the negative gets NO conditional advocacies or dispositional advocacies etc"). i default to weighing the aff against the alt/squo but can be convinced to disregard the theoretical implementation of either of those options. probably not going to convince me that the neg should not get to read a K wholesale but that's more logical than some of the fw interps i've seen so ????...

- you probably should not read conflicting interps in the 1NC. 2AC to "T-read a plan" and "fiat bad" is really easy which negates any of the time skew benefits

- fiat - both sides get it until someone tells me they don't or wtv idk no neg fiat never really made sense to me but i'd vote on it if it's mishandled

authors whose work i found enjoyable or informative in no particular order: sylvia wynter, nietzsche, toni morrison, enriqué dussel, dahlma llanos-figueroa, judith butler, karl marx, gilles deleuze, felix guattari, jafari s. allen, josé esteban muñoz, reinaldo arenas, nina maria lozano, vine deloria jr., guy hocquenghem, desiree c. bailey, langston hughes, manuel zapata olivella, nicholas guillén, josé martí, colin dayan, kit heyam, ishmael reed, maggie nelson, viola f. cordova

helpful notes on a few of these authors: http://www.protevi.com/

Anjana Murthy Woodward Academy 6 rounds

Tejas Murugesh Jesuit College Prep 2 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 1, 2024 at 7:30 AM CDT

Tejas Murugesh

he/him

Jesuit '23, IU Bloomington '27 - currently a freshman

Updated somewhat but does not cover econ stuff 2/1/2024

---I hope you realize for T and any procedural arguments that I will not follow as well along with your caselists and blippy lists - so I would rather have more explanation-y oriented stuff than the blippy lists

Yes email chain please - tejassmurugesh@gmail.com

Top Level

People do not use current evens

All in all, go for what you are best at going at -- I can evaluate most arguments BUT you must always assume that I cannot understand something i.e. don't go for the cap k and just say cap causes war without warranting it out.

Truth > Tech but can be convinced otherwise that is explained and justified i.e. you can't just say you win an argument because it's dropped. However, I err more on the truth side when it comes to bad ev quality and I try my best to pay attention to news.After spending a couple months off of debate, I hope you realize how terribly awful it is to read cards that don't assume current events. They are like history books...it already happened!

I will do my best to evaluate arguments from the flow, but if you tell me (i.e. during your speech) to read a card after the round for an argument you extended in the final rebuttals, and the card says the opposite of what you said, then that argument will be null. Regardless, telling me to read a card so you don't have to do the actual warrant extension/why it matters is a BAD strategy in front of me, especially with the terrible ev quality we have these days.

I do not endorse reading a ton of off - like 10 off - it's such an awful model of debate - if you are a policy team on the neg, you can EASILY crush the aff with just like 6 off (without having to make me waste more trees with 10 off - but I still am wasting trees lol) - and making smart args you will be fine. Even that isn't necessary, I was a one off K debater and was happy enough with the run I had

I am not going to make arguments for you. I flow on paper, and that means I will SOLELY evaluate what warrants YOU have extended, nothing more. The only time I am going to make arguments for myself is when there is no clash, requiring me to evaluate and compare the merits of each argument and card on my own. BUT of course that won't happen because you are a great debater, and if you think you're not, well then fake it till you make it! You are each your own unique snowflake!

A theme you will notice is the contextualization of an argument to a given debate = best thing to ever do in front of me. Too many people read blocks for arguments that sound unpersuasive and make it hard to vote on.

Below are my preferences:

CPs

I dont really vibe with artificially competitive CPs, sorry not sorry! :)

I'm not doing this judge kick nonsense for you. If you're gonna go for an arg in the 2NR, then that's YOUR decision, not mine

Having a good, specific solvency advocate makes it a lot more convincing to vote on. When you start to get process-y, you need a quick overview explaining the mechanism.

For the aff, specific theory is underutilized (see theory section below). Smart permutations (like combining texts of aff and CP in unique ways etc.) show me you think outside the box, and executing and flushing out the permutation makes it super convincing.

Explain how the perm looks like/how it solves and how shields link to net benefit

If you are going for a CP flaw, impact the argument out - saying something along the lines of, "The CP text is wrong, so that means vote aff," then that is not a complete argument for me. I need standards - and ultimately a persuasive reason(s) why the incorrectness of the CP text means to vote aff (the same goes for the neg on aff plan flaws).

DAs

A good politics debater is 90% spin and 10% truth. Just kidding, you need some updated ev to win in front of me.

Heavy impact calculus coupled with link walls that have spin and contextualized (assuming you are winning the uniqueness debate) to the aff is best. All parts of a DA must be won (uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact); otherwise, it is an incomplete argument. Read cards when necessary, not just for the sake of being a policy argument.

Good evidence quality matters a lot.

Topicality

Default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise. Case lists that include affs allowed under your interp and affs allowed under the counter-interpretation, tying that in with a clear internal link and impact extension = yes please. Reading a lot of cards doesn't do much for me unless you say what you are doing with those cards (like if it's to prove your precision standard etc).

Theory

I am more likely to vote on your argument if you are making a specific theory argument and have detailed impact calculus over one-liner arguments - AND DON'T READ IT FAST PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (bc I actually have to flow all ur stuff as a judge - I can't just be goofing around or prepping like the other team who would not be listening)

If debating a CP, I find specific theory arguments tons more convincing (example: 50 state fiat vs. conditional 50 state fiat with no solvency advocate). Every argument is a reason to reject the argument, not the team, unless told otherwise.

How I evaluate Ks at the end of the debate (unless you instruct me to do differently) -- FW, link, impact, alt

Link arguments contextualized to the aff are most persuasive to me. Having a generic link arg in the 1NC is ok, but I would really love to see research and evidentiary innovation -- having specific links shows a lot to me about your strategy thinking.

Doing a lot of work on the FW page is great and all - BUT you need to say WHY THAT MATTERS!!!!!!!! I always start on framework as the framework interpretation that wins is the one I will use as a lens to evaluate the rest of the arguments on the flow. A lot of negative interpretations need to be fleshed out more than people think they do to actually make it useful for the rest of the flow, coupled with saying what winning FW means for the rest of the flow (this goes for K affs as well); otherwise, I don't know what your big K word salad is despite having read some of the common literature bases used in debate.

If the neg says something like "the judge should evaluate the epistemological implications of the aff's research practices," then that's a pretty ambiguous interp - it becomes less ambiguous when you define what are "epistemological implications" and "aff's research practices" in the context of this debate - like just edit your blocks with some specific examples and ta-da it's a lot more interesting!

If the aff says something like "weigh the consequences of the plan/aff vs the k" - then define for me what the consequences are in this debate - because otherwise the neg will just make consequences fit their own definition and not give you the offense you want.

For the aff, I find offensive reasons against the alternative quite impressive coupled with reasons how the aff might avoid that; however, permutation/link turn strategies are quite nice as well (I personally did this one the most). I do think that when a K is a non-starter for the neg team to go for (as in just being a time suck for the 2AC to card dump), then I think the aff should make that clear in CX - BUT if the aff messes up in the 2AC because of that and then the neg takes the aff on it...I'll definitely consider it.

Also for the aff -- if you're always going for that same impact turn strategy -- it has to be specific to the K and what is happening in that debate. Too many debaters' 2AR sounds like it can be copied and pasted into any other debate and I wouldn't even notice -- and the same goes for the neg with all your scripts.

Framework vs K affs

Procedural fairness is fine to run in MOST instances - you can still run it but I would be careful with your words, most especially with Ks of 1) debate and 2) the topic that err more on the identity side - if you make some sort of actually pejorative argument towards any folk, than I might have to seriously consider auto voting. I generally find impacts like skills and education more persuasive than fairness as a lot of teams when going for fairness just say, "It's an intrinsic good to debate." I can always be persuaded otherwise by this if you actually impact out fairness - like trust me I'm all for it just impact it out

Arguments about why your impact turns the aff's impacts is quite persuasive coupled with external reasons = high chance I'm voting for you.

Negatives reading arguments about how there are other ways that the aff would be accessible outside of this debate (like going to a book club and reading their scholarship etc.) are quite persuasive as well.

TVA/SSD are quite useful because most affs don't have good defense to them.

Saying FW is policing because it causes psychic violence is a tough argument for me to vote on - this is a voluntary activity, and if you actually are feeling psychic violence then I am here to help.

Case vs K affs

Presumption is soooooooooooo badddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. Unless it's against like some high theory mash-up jumbo bumbo soup, then sure. But like if it's against some K aff that's in the direction of the topic and is just like a really big K of debate community -- then pleaseeeeeeeeee for the love of god to nottttt go for it.

You are much better off with saying why the aff's method is bad, why their theory of power is bad, and if they reject the state then say why state and institutional engagement good. and you know all the other types of those args are good too.

K affs

Sure, but am more likely to vote on a well-researched topic-y aff rather than a generic one that has no tie to the topic and/or is a backfile, so if you are reading one that has no tie to the topic/generic, make sure to be on your A game. Judge instruction vs T-FW is very very useful.

With the amount of mash-up K affs these days and if the aff wants to have a high chance of winning, then you need to have a quick overview at the top of the case page explaining what your advantage/theory of power/construction of the world is about and what your advocacy is. Or even a 10 second one of just saying the advocacy statement in easier words really goes a long way. That way I can really plunge my brain into your type of theory of power (and this honestly goes for all theories - what would an anticapitalist ecosocialist think of economic policy?? you get the idea)

Miscellaneous & Stylistic Items

Extending evidence means saying saying the warrants you are extending to support your argument in addition to perhaps referring to the author name

Clarity > speed otherwise I can't flow you, which means if I can't flow you then I don't know what arguments you are speaking and hence you are kinda screwed

Line by line > your own order

Speaker points

Russia invaded Ukraine, there's a conflict between Palestine and Israel, there's constant political changes happening all the time in literally every sphere, COP28 just happened in early December, etc. You gotta mention all the possible current events or have inherency cards (for your specific arg/theory) to prove your point is true. Remember, debate is a scholarly activity that revolves around what is happening rn, not yesterday, but NOW!

27.5 and above. Strategic usage of cross-ex by setting up your arguments and asking questions that shed light on the sketchiness of the other team's argument means your points will increase. Ima put you real low if you be asking me for points or telling me how to do points cuz that's just wrong

Another way to increase points is choosing certain arguments in the rebuttals and thoroughly extending them, clashing with the other team's arguments, meaning the 1AR-2AR (same for the neg) should not be re-reading the 2ac.

Being rude, racist, sexist, etc. would decrease points and potentially lose you the debate if it becomes too much. But I know that you won't do that because you are a nice human being and must exemplify that. Debate is merely a competitive activity, not the $5 million lottery (and nor is it a gambling addiction). Enjoy the ability to engage in such a fun and novel activity when the world is not doing the best right now. Be the policy maker or critical theorist you always wanted to do.

Speaker points should not be your goal in debates, but you, as a novice/JV, should focus on the argument at hand in the debate. Honestly, if you want good speaks, don't be a jerk and get your head into the game (i.e. this debate round).

Ryan Nierman Wylie E. Groves HS 2 rounds

Last changed on Mon January 22, 2024 at 2:19 PM EDT

Oakland University - PhD Applied Mathematics (2017)

U of M - Dearborn - BSE Computer Engineering & Engineering Mathematics (2011)

I debated for Groves High School for two years, U of M - Dearborn for one year, and I debated for U of M - Ann Arbor for one year. I have been coaching at Groves High School since August 2007, where I am currently Co-Director of Debate.

Please include me on the email chain: ryannierman@gmail.com

Please also add the email grovesdebatedocs@gmail.com to the email chain.

Top Level: Do whatever you want. My job is to evaluate the debate, not tell you what to read.

Speed: Speed is not a problem, but PLEASE remain clear.

Topicality: I am willing to vote on T. I think that there should be substantial work done on the Interpretation vs Counter-Interpretation debate, with impacted standards or reasons to prefer your interpretation. There needs to be specific explanations of your standards and why they are better than the aff's or vice versa. Why does one standard give a better internal link to education or fairness than another, etc?

CPs: I am willing to listen to any type of CP and multiple counterplans in the same round. I also try to remain objective in terms of whether I think a certain cp is abusive or not - the legitimacy of a counterplan is up for debate and thus can vary from one round to the next.

Disads: Sure. There should be a clear link to the aff. Yes, there can be zero risk. The overviews should focus in on why your impacts outweigh and turn case. Let the story of the DA be revealed on the line-by-line.

Kritiks: Sure. I enjoy a good kritik debate. Make sure that there is a clear link to the aff. This may include reading new link scenarios in the block. There should also be a clear explanation of the impact with specific impact analysis. Spend some time on the alternative debate. What is the alt? Does it solve the aff? What does the world of the alternative look like? And finally, who does the alternative? What is my role as the judge? The neg should also isolate a clear f/w - why does methodology, ontology, reps, discourse, etc. come first?

Theory: I don't lean any particular way on the theory debate. For me, a theory debate must be more than just reading and re-reading one's blocks. There needs to be impacted reasons as to why I should vote one way or another. If there are dropped independent voters on a theory debate, I will definitely look there first. Finally, there should be an articulated reason why I should reject the team on theory, otherwise I default to just rejecting the argument.

Performance: Sure. I prefer if the performative affirmation or action is germane to the topic, but that is up for debate. I am certainly willing to listen to your arguments and evaluate them fairly.

Paperless Debate: I do not take prep time for emailing your documents, but please do not steal prep. I also try to be understanding when tech issues occur, but will honor any tech time rules established and enforced by the tournament. I will have my camera on during the round. If my camera is off, please assume that I am not there. Please don't start without me.

Other general comments:

Line-by-line is extremely important in evaluating the rounds, especially on procedural flows.

Clipping cards is cheating! If caught, you will lose the round and get the lowest possible speaker points the tournament allows.

I do not feel comfortable voting on issues that happen outside the round.

You should read rehighlightings.

Don't change what works for you. I am willing to hear and vote on any type of argument, so don't alter your winning strat to fit what you may think my philosophy is.

Cross-x is a speech - it should have a clear strategy and involve meaningful questions and clarifications.

Have fun!

Shannon Nierman Wylie E. Groves HS 2 rounds

Last changed on Sun October 27, 2019 at 2:14 PM UTC

Email: shannonnierman@gmail.com

I debated for Wylie E. Groves High School for four years, debated for 3 years at MSU, and currently coach at Groves.

Topicality: I’m not opposed to voting on T, but rereading T shells is insufficient. There needs to be substantial work on the interpretations debate from both teams, in addition to the standards and voters debate, i.e. education and fairness. As long as the aff is reasonably topical and it is proven so, T is probably not a voter. Also, if you are going for T in the 2NR, go for only T, and do so for all 5 minutes.

Counterplans: Any type of counterplan is fine; however, if it is abusive, do not leave it for me to decide this, make these arguments.

Disads: Any type of DA is fine. A generic link in the 1NC is okay, but I think that throughout the block the evidence should be link specific. When extending the DA in the block, an overview is a must. The first few words I should here on the DA flow is “DA outweighs and turns case for X and Y reasons.”

Kritiks: I will vote on the K, but I often find that in the K rounds people undercover the alternative debate. When getting to this part of the K, explain what the world of the alternative would look like, who does the alternative, if the aff can function in this world, etc. I am well versed in psychoanalytic literature i.e. Zizek and Lacan and I do know the basis of a plethora of other Ks. This being said, I should learn about the argumentation in the round through your explanation and extrapolation of the authors ideas; not use what I know about philosophy and philosophers or what like to read in my free time. Read specific links in the block and refrain from silly links of omission.

Theory: I am not opposed to voting on theory, but it would make my life a lot easier if it didn’t come down to this. This is not because I dislike the theory debate rather I just believe that it is hard to have an actual educational and clear theory debate from each side of the debate. Now, this said, if a theory argument is dropped, i.e. conditionality bad, by all means, go for it!

Performance: An interesting and unique type of debate that should still relate to the resolution. As long as there is substantive and legitimate argumentation through your rapping or dancing and whatever else you can come up with, I am willing to vote on it. Even if you are rapping, I would prefer to have a plan text to start.

*As technology is vital in our life, many of us have switched toward paperless debate. I do not use prep for flashing, because I have also debated both off of paper and paperlessly in debate and I understand that technology can sometimes be your opponent in the round, rather than the other team. I am being a nice and fair judge in doing this, so please do not abuse this by stealing prep, because I will most likely notice and take away that stolen prep.

FAQs: Speed – I’m okay with speed as long as you are clear!
Tag teaming - I’m okay with it as long as it’s not excessive.

Things not to do in rounds I’m judging: go for RVIs, go for everything in the 2NR, and be mean. Believe it or not, there is a distinction between being confident and having ethos vs. being rude and obnoxious when you don’t have the right to be.

Jack Pacconi Montgomery Bell Academy 1 rounds

Last changed on Fri July 22, 2022 at 9:05 AM CDT

MBA '22

Northwestern '26

Add me to the email chain: jackpacconi2026@u.northwestern.edu

tl;dr

- These are my predispositions, but technical prowess can easily alter them.

- Tech > Truth. I will evaluate an argument to the extend that I understand it and could explain it to the losing team post-round. The flow and technical debating resolve most debates, but I appreciate quality evidence and if necessary will read it. Dropped arguments are true, but only insofar as I will only evaluate the words you said. Often teams will expand on dropped arguments, permitting new answers.

- I'm best for policy arguments, but K teams can still win my ballot through better technical debating.

Topicality vs. K Affs

- I probably lean neg in these debates, but better debating can change that. While I think T is often strategic and comfortable, I would prefer to see a substantive debate, but play to your strengths.

- Counter-interp > Impact Turning. If you read a plan-less aff, I am not a huge fan of the popular impact turning strategy because I evaluate clash debates like T vs. policy affs. I care a lot about the counter-interp. Both sides should clearly clearly define the words in the resolution and explain what their topic as well as their oponent's topic look like by establishing strong internal-links. There should be a clear role for the aff and the neg. It is rather difficult to convince me that debate is more than a game or that debate has some emancapatory potential.

- Fairness > Clash, but go for what you're best at.

Topicality vs. Policy Affs

- I will vote for any predictability, limits, or ground impact but typically care more about the internal links. I should have a clear vision of what the topic looks like for the aff and neg as well as what arguments will be read.

- I'm better for plan text in a vacuum than most judges.

K vs. Policy Affs

- Neg teams will struggle to persuade me to not weigh the plan unless the line-by-line flows neg.

- I like alts that do something beyond just rethinking or being critical, but understand the strategic appeal.

- I prefer links to be to the plan.

- Death and extinction are probably bad. The neg is more likely to convince me that the link outweighs, alt solves case, or link turns case than to adopt an alternative risk calculous.

Counterplans

- I'm good for competition. I think the aff frequently lets the neg get away with murder. Functional + textual competition makes intuitive sense to me, but I am down for functional vs. textual competition debates.

- I love PICs when they're aff specific.

- Condo is probably good; egregious, kickable 20 plank advantage counterplans are probably bad. If the neg wants me to judge kick the counterplan, they should tell me.

Misc

- You can insert re-highlightings if you explain what the re-highlighting says and why I should care. Teams should be punished for what their evidence says, but you need to explain it. I will be very grumpy if you just say "insert this rehighlighting" without explanation.

Jimin Park Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 19, 2024 at 2:33 AM CDT

jpark.debate@gmail.com , taipeiamericanpolicy@gmail.com

University of Kansas '23, Washburn Rural '19

he/him/his

Coaching for the Asian Debate League and Taipei American School

Based in Taiwan, so the time difference will affect my judging. This means you need to have more enunciation and clarity than usual.

TLDR:

---very low econ knowledge

---very bad for K AFFs, process counterplans, and technical T arguments

---decent for other policy arguments and Ks that are DAs

________________________________________________________________________________________

TLDR:

---Not the greatest flow, likes creativity, more likely to care about macro-issues than minor technical drops, avoid jargon/acronyms, will vote on args that promote sedition

---Fully-developed strategies that clash tend to perform better in front of me.

---I think have a higher bar for what constitutes a 'complete argument' than the average college-aged judge and some may say I care more about the "truth" side of "tech over truth." This is not necessarily about content, but about argument development/evidence/persuasion.

---My debate beliefs are malleable. This paradigm might make me seem like an old person (true, though), but good debating can remedy my predispositions. Good ev helps too.

---Largely persuaded that:

(1) incomplete args in the 1NC justify new responses

(2) net benefits should be verbally stated in the 1NC

The justification for both of these will be below.

________________________________________________________________________________________

General:

Positives

1---Respecting your opponents (CX, pronouns, don't mercilessly bludgeon less-experienced debaters), be ethical, etc.

2---Efficiency. In your speech, during prep, emailing, down-time. etc. If you don't need 10 minutes of prep for the 2NR/2AR, don't take it.

3---Taking debate seriously. Pay attention, flow, try. But also, have fun! We are all invested, so let's make our debates worthwhile. Ad-homs are bad and not arguments.

4---Research (evidence matters, but so could spin). Vertifical proliferation is better than horizontal proliferation of arguments. Also, likely won't vote for death good.

5---Ethos and Clarity. I am a bad judge for teams that just spit into their computer at 300 WPM at 65% clarity. Lowkey think that debaters that are slow (while being smart, technical, etc.) are *****chefs kiss***** I should hear every single word you say. Please enunciate and recognize that debate is also a communication activity instead of a block-perfecting competition in the 2NR and 2AR. If you are a team that has rebuttals prescripted without any plans of contextualization (such as asserting things happened when they didn't), then please email me your 2NR/2AR blocks, and I will assign your speaker points during the 1AC and vote against you.

6. Organization---speech docs, cards, wikis

Negatives

1---Lack of analysis. You should have framing arguments, judge instruction, contextualization, and argument development.

2---Debates that make me litigate things outside of the debate.

3---Vagueness. It should be clear what your AFF does, what the plan means, what the counterplan does, what your highlighting of evidence means, and what the tags of your cards are intended to communicate. I am likely more amenable to vagueness arguments than most judges.

Misc

I kicked the AFF in a decent chunk of debates I was in. I do not think this influences my judging but my AFF (and NEG) debates would sometimes look really different than a lot of people.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Policy:

Topicality vs. Policy AFFs

T versus policy AFFs was one of my least favorite arguments. It isn't ideological, but I spent most of my debate career debating with 2Ns who were obsessed with it, so I just never really thought about it. I find most T debates dry but I understand the strategic necessity of them. My aversion stems from 1NCs that lack a violation and then debate becoming late-breaking.

To improve my VTL when going for T, internal link explanation is important. 2Ns have seemed to forget that there ought to be a reasonable explanation about how we get from the violation to zero NEG ground ever. Both teams should have more debating about what the interp/counter-interp debates would look like. Assertions of topic biases or quality of generics should be explained with warrants. I am not the ideal judge for a technical T argument.

For some reason, I find ground arguments more compelling than limits/precision. Not sure if this will affect my judging, but I've always thought that limits arguments were hyperbolic. Big topics feel good if the NEG has robust strategies to counter them. When evenly debated, plan-text-in-a-vacuum is a tough sell for me.

Disadvantages

The optimal 2NR is a DA and the case. Counterplans are for cowards. I'm not as big on the modern Politics DA as most Kansas debaters but it's okay. I would prefer not to judge debates about intrinsicness tests.

AFFs teams should have offense on the DA. NEG teams should try to have real "turns case" arguments outside of "nuke war is bad."

Counterplans

I'm mostly AFF-leaning on theory arguments. I'm not wedded to these beliefs, but I have some predispositions. I am not a huge believer in conditionality. This is not a free invitation to go for condo in the 2AR, merely an observation that in-depth debates are better.

My least favorite genre of argument as a debater was the process counterplan. Again, I understand its strategic utility and will judge the debate neutrally. I'd prefer a 2NR that is about why the AFF's bad. Competition debates are dry. Comparative evidence between the AFF and the counterplan's process demonstrating functional competition could make me hate your counterplan a little less. I am also a less qualified judge for complex competition debates.

Case

I am a good judge for presumption and giving a low weight to the AFF advantages. The 2AC and 1AR get away with murder on the case, so the NEG teams should use that to their advantage. This is an area where good debating will be rewarded with nice speaker points.

Soft Left

I enjoy soft left AFFs but framing contentions need to contain offense. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Critiques:

Ks vs. Policy AFFs

I'm better for Ks on the NEG. I will award specificity, especially backed with evidence. I will have a hard time voting on critiques that lack interactions with the scholarship and thesis of the 1AC. If the NEG reads a K impact turn to the AFF's advantage, that is likely the best strategy in front of me. Or, have a robust framework justification with turns case arguments. I seem to care a little bit more about performative contradictions/linking to your own K than some (not for theory reasons). The closer your K is to a soft-left impact turn, the better. I am willing to vote on non-extinction impact-turns (example: heg is racist/causes violent interventions---bipolarity is preferable).

K AFF vs. T: USFG

I have voted both ways but am a bad judge for you/find most AFF offense not intrinsic to T. Explain what debates over the AFF interp would look like. I always thought framework debates were thought-provoking and helped me think about debate. Explain what debates over the NEG interp/TVA would look like. I am open to voting for either fairness or education. I am a believer in research about the topic, so the closer your AFF is to being about the topic, defending a theory of power, being a substantial shift from the status quo, and defending material action, the better. Any lit bases outside of bio power, colonialism, settler colonialism, capitalism, and IR need more explanation.

________________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Incomplete Arguments

I am mostly compelled that the 1AR should get whatever it wants in response to incomplete 1NCs. Debates are increasingly rewarding blippy 1NCs, causing debates that are worse to judge and I believe judges ought hold the line on what the debate community constitutes a complete argument. If a 1NC DA shell lacks uniqueness, then why should the 2AC be burdened to make link turn args as to how they reverse the deficiencies of the status quo. The logical conclusion of "you have to answer everything" would mean the AFF would have to read impact d to random floating impacts, which is absurd.

(2) Net Benefits

Whatever the net benefit of every advocacy is should be specified in the 1NC. This is low-cost for the NEG and would improve debates/AFF strategy. CX doesn't remedy this because NEG teams take forever to answer, which is unfair for the AFF because the 1A could be asking good, substantive questions. Instead, I have to listen to the 1N say "everything is a net benefit... wait... <>...then the 2N takes 15 seconds to decide and then lists net benefits to analytical con con, states, the one card Security K, a card-less 15 plank advantage counterplan, and a process counterplan. This take might seem extreme, but I believe it is the least arbitrary and most efficient way to resolve net benefit shenanigans (a time limit feels weird). For most counterplans, they are only complete arguments if they have arguments about solvency AND competition in the 1NC. Counterplans that rely on DAs to beat the perm and complete, so it seems logical that the NEG should be responsible for this. Lastly, I want to award bold strategies. The clearer the net benefits are, the better AFFs will be at straight-turning and NEGs will read better DA + CP combinations.

Ceili Peake Galloway 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 7:56 AM EDT

Former open debater at GMU from 2018-2022. I ran mostly queer theory, disability, and various forms of cap for the last couple years and am most familiar with those lit bases.

She/they pronouns. Put me on the email chain please, ceili1627 at gmail dot com. Feel free to email me after rounds with questions.

TL;DR: run whatever you want and I'll judge as best I can. I think my role as a judge is to be an educator/facilitator of idea exchanges regardless of whether those ideas are connected to anything from USFG action to interpretive dance performances. Keep in mind that even though debate is a game that you should have fun playing, it has real-world consequences for the real people who play it. As a great woman once said, "At the end of the debate, be sure to tell me why I should vote for you; if you don't, then you can't get big mad when I don't ... periodt" and I live by that <3

Policy:

K Affs: I'm totally down with k affs but I prefer them to have at least a vague link to the topic. It's super easy for the narrative of k affs to get lost during the round so please keep the aff story alive!! In FW/T debates, make sure to explain what debate rounds look like under your counterinterp, and that plus solid impact turns is usually a fairly easy ballot from me.

FW/T: As the same great woman once said, "I have voted against framework, I have voted for framework, but at the end of the day I don't really want to be there when framework is read." Run a caselist. Reasonability isn’t really an argument and fairness definitely isn't an impact. I tend to default to competing interps unless given a good reason otherwise. The neg needs to really spell out why I should err towards them on limits. TVAs are pretty useful for mitigating offense against fw as long as they're explained and contextualized well. Please for the love of god contextualize all your fw blocks to the round & aff in question instead of just reading a transcript of fw blocks from an NDT outround half a decade ago. I'm not persuaded by args that debate doesn't shape subjectivity--if you come out of a round the exact same as you entered it (regardless of if your opinions/beliefs have changed) then you're probably playing the game wrong.

Theory: Trying to convince me to care about potential abuse is an uphill battle. Don’t spread through theory blocks please. For blippy args I generally err towards rejecting the arg but will (extremely) reluctantly vote on it if dropped.

DAs/Case: Impact calc and clear internal link chains are both super important for me to vote on a DA. I tend to think that links determine DA direction but can probably be persuaded that direction is determined by uniqueness. I really enjoy heavy case debates and am disappointed that's increasingly missing from a lot of rounds. Also I think re-highlighting your opponents' ev is a bold move that's cool and often persuasive when it's done right but is pretty cringe if done poorly.

Ks: I was mostly a k debater in college and I'm most familiar with lit bases for queer theory, cap, set col, and debility. Still, you need to clearly explain your theories of power and all that good stuff instead of throwing around a bunch of obscure terms expecting me to know what you’re talking about. Please please please don't read a k just because you think that's what I want to hear--it makes for a bad debate and a grumpy judge. I’d like to think my ballot actually means something so explain to me what it does and I'll be more likely to pull the trigger for you. I feel most comfortable voting on specific links to the aff though I prefer the debate to go beyond the level of you-link-you-lose. Please give me a clear and coherent framework under which I consider the aff vs the alt, but also I think too many policy affs use framework to avoid engaging with the k at all which is both frustrating to judge and not at all strategic.

CPs: 50 state fiat is definitely core neg ground at the high school level. I’m fine with the neg having 2 conditional worlds, 3 makes me lean aff, and the neg shouldn't ever need 4+ conditional worlds. I don't judge kick and I'm likely to entertain most if not all CPs as long as they have a clear net benefit and explanation of how they solve the aff. Super meta CP theory confuses and bores me.

General: Tech > truth (often but not always, e.g. I usually tend to evaluate the debate through tech > truth but can be fairly easily convinced otherwise), debate is a game that you should have fun playing, clarity > speed (especially for zoom debate), I reserve the right to tank speaks if you're being homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, ableist, excessively rude, or clipping cards. Please don't make me have to judge something that happened outside the round like authenticity checks or happenings from other tournaments/seasons. I usually have little HS topic knowledge but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't pref me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's good for the neg on T insofar as I don't have a predetermined view of what the topic should look like, but it's also good for the aff because I don’t have much knowledge on the nuances of what affirmatives look like under particular definitions. I'm pretty hit or miss on reading ev after rounds unless explicitly told to, and on that note please highlight your cards in as close to complete and coherent sentences as you can. Violent verb fragments aren't arguments.

PF:

I did 4 years of PF in high school so I'm quite familiar with this format. Extend your own args, don’t drop your opponents’ args. I vote on the flow and default to util for impact comparison unless you tell me to frame impacts differently. I’m most likely to vote for a PF team that nails impact calc in the rebuttals, does solid work extending offense, and uses effective warrant-level evidence comparison. My 3 biggest pet peeves with PF are (1) labeling literally everything as a voter, (2) saying "de-link,", and (3) using "frontline" as a verb.

LD:

I never debated this format, though I understand it, and I tend to judge it from a somewhat policy perspective. I'm cool with both traditional and progressive formats--do what you do best/enjoy most and I'll vote off the flow. What bugs me most is the introduction of some kind of framing lens at the beginning of the round (like value/value criteria or another kind of framework) that isn't extended or used throughout the rest of the debate.

The Gamble

If you use One Direction lyrics in your speechI will raise your speaks a max of 0.5. Do with that what you will.

Rose Pelham Woodward Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 4:53 AM EDT

Last edited on 5/27/23 to rewrite the sections on experience, Statement on Racism, and K Affirmatives.

Pronouns: she/they

Experience: I have spent my entire life in the debate community one way or another. That said, I spent five years debating middle school/high school, took a break from debating in undergrad, then came back to judge and coach for a variety of schools.

Statement on Racism (& other Prejudices) in Debate

Debate should encourage students to see themselves as agents capable of acting to create a better world. We will not achieve this vision for our activity so long as we pretend it is in a realm separate from reality. Judges have an ethical obligation to oppose prejudice in round including but by no means limited to: racism, queerphobia, antisemitism, sexism, Islamophobia, ableism, and classism, among others. Debate, as an activity, has its fair share of structural inequities. We, as coaches and judges, need to address these and be congnizant of them in our decisions.

General Philosophy

I see the role of the judge as that of an educator concerned primarily with what teams learn from the experience. Therefore, the most important aspect of being a judge, to me, is to provide good constructive criticism to teams about their arguments and performance, and to promote the educational qualities of debate. When teams are using prep time, I am usually writing speech by speech feedback for my ballots––which I very much hope teams and their judges will read. As a judge, I want you to come out of the round, win or lose, feeling like you learned something worthwhile.

As an educator concerned with what can be learned from the round, I think the quality of arguments are much more important than their quantity, and whenever possible prefer to reward well researched and articulated arguments more than arguments will few warrants that might be read in the hopes of their being dropped. I prefer to decide rounds based upon the meaning of the arguments presented and their clash rather than by concession.

I flow the round based on what I hear, preferring not to use speech documents. For this reason, clarity is more important than speed. For an argument to exist in the round, it needs to be spoken intelligibly. Rounds that are slower typically offer better quality arguments and fewer mistakes.

Argument Specific preferences:

Plan-less critical affirmatives: I am happy to judge and vote on them. K affs are a useful tool for contesting the norms of debate, including those which are the most problematic in the activity. Over time, I have changed my threshold on their topicality. These days, my position is that so long as they are clearly related to the topic, I am happy to consider them topical. When aff teams argue critical affirmatives, I strongly prefer there be a specific solvency mechanism for their interpretation of the role of the ballot. For negative teams arguing against K affs, I have a strong preference for specific case answers. Given that K affs are a fixture of debate and are generally available to find on open evidence and the caselist wiki, prepping to specifically answer them should be possible. While I am unlikely to vote in favor of arguments that would outright eliminate K affs in debate, counter kritiks are a strategy I am amenable to.

Kritiks: At its most fundamental level, a kritik is a critical argument that examines the consequences of the assumptions made in another argument. I love well run kritiks, but for me to decide in favor of a kritik it needs a specific link to the assumptions in the 1AC and a clearly articulated alternative that involves a specific action (as opposed to a vague alt). Experience informs me that K's with generic links and vague alternatives make for bad debate.

Framework: Lately this term seems to have become a synonym for a kind of impact calculus that instead of focusing on magnitude, risk, and time-frame attempts to convince me to discard all impacts but those of the team running this argument. Framework, as I understand it, is a synonym to theory and is about what the rules of debate should be. Why should it be a rule of debate that we should only consider one type of impact? It seems all impacts in debate have already boiled themselves down to extinction.

Topicality: Please slow down so that I can hear all your arguments and flow all their warrants. The quality of your T arguments is much more important to me––especially if you argue about the precedent the round sets––than how many stock voters you can read. I may prefer teams that offer a clear argument on topicality to those that rely on spreading, however tactically advantages the quickly read arguments may be.

Counter plans: The burden of demonstrating solvency is on the negative, especially with PICs. PICs are probably bad for debate. Most of the time they are just a proposal to do the plan but in a more ridiculous way that would likely never happen. So if you are going to run a PIC, make sure to argue that changing whatever aspect of the plan your PIC hinges on is realistically feasible and reasonably advantageous. Otherwise, I will do everything I can to avoid deciding the round on them.

Conditionality: I have no problem with the negative making a couple conditional arguments. That said, I think relying on a large number of conditional arguments to skew the aff typically backfires with the neg being unable to devote enough time to create a strong argument. So, I typically decide conditionality debates with a large number of conditional arguments in favor of the aff, not because they make debate too hard for the aff, but because they make debating well hard for everyone in the round.

For rookie/novice debaters:

If you're reading this, then you're already a step ahead and thinking about the skills you will need to be building for JV and varsity debate. What I want to see most in rookie/novice debates is that teams are flowing and clearly responding to each other.

Donald Pierce Montgomery Bell Academy 5 rounds

Last changed on Sun January 21, 2024 at 3:32 PM CDT

Please put me on the email chain: donpierce2025@gmail.com and debatemba@gmail.com.

Tech > Truth

Recently, I have become generally more K oriented, but I have made both policy and K arguments, so I have some knowledge in both areas. I will do my best to follow along to any argument that is made. That being said, if the argument has not been explained to the point where I would feel comfortable explaining why I am voting for it at the end of the round, I am not going to vote on it. Explain acronyms.

My ballot generally will start with framing/impact calc and/or framework, where you should be comparing/debating out both which sides framing is better and what that means for my ballot. This sets a threshold for what I should look for on the other pages and minimizes intervention. I can be convinced to build offense from the bottom up, meaning I consider each level of offense as a yes/no question and then consider who access more offense at the end of that chain and then do framing/framework/impact calc, but that is not my default.

Policy

The most important things:

Theory---I will be fine if you want to go for theory but please slow down on it especially if you don't send analytics in the speech doc. Outside of conditionality, I generally don’t think theory arguments are reasons to reject the team, and it would be difficult to persuade me to vote on it.

Ks---you can read Ks in front of me but do not use excessive jargon or just assume that I understand the underlying theory. The framework debate is often ignored or not fleshed out, which means I generally have to give the aff their plan and the k their links.

K affs---I have read both policy affs and K affs, so you should run what you want to run in front of me. The focus of these debates need to be on clashing and comparing the two sides. Avoiding excessive jargon and using many examples will be the most useful. I generally think procedural fairness is an impact, but I can be persuaded away from it, like most things.

Other things:

CPs---they are great. If you say judge kick and say I could in the 2nr, you should do that impact calc/framing for both a ballot with the cp + da and da + case defense. Generally speaking, I think the literature determines which counterplans are legitimate and which aren’t, but I can be persuaded that against that

DAs---also great. DA plus case is an underrated strategy vs bad affs.

Ts---a good T debate is really fun to listen to, but it requires a lot of judge instruction in order to not intervene.

I have no background in PF. My policy paradigm will help shed light on what I have the best background on, content wise, but ultimately, I am fairly open to anything. Given my lack of background in the activity, I will need more explanation on arguments/acronyms that are isolated to the activity.

I flow closely and track argument consistency throughout the round. If the argument you are going for is brand new in your last speech, I will be very skeptical of it.

Joshua Ramos Jesuit College Prep 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu April 25, 2024 at 12:03 PM CDT

Background

- Jesuit Dallas '21 - Debated Education, Immigration, Arms Sales, and Criminal Justice Reform (If this matters)

- A&M '25

- 2N/1A - 1 year (Freshman year)

- 2A/1N - 3 years

- Email for email chains and speech docs: joshram2021@gmail.com and jcpdebate@gmail.com (email my personal email for questions about past rounds/general questions; for questions, just give me a couple days to respond)

-- For GDI, just use my personal email

Top Level

- Line By Line matters, clash is key (I will auto number Case args and the 2AC block, if it isn't numbered)

- Please be nice

- My coaches have impacted my view of debate a lot (Tracy McFarland and Dan Lingel), along with my fellow Jesuit Class of 2021 and some alum

- All of these are just my initial views on certain things but obviously my mind can be changed based on who did the better debating

- Evidence comparison is great

- Read your re-highlightings in round unless it doesn't makes sense to do it

- Underviews and overviews that aren't used for judge instruction aren't useful for anyone

- CX is a useful reference to refer to in speeches, I'll try to pay attention

- Short Overviews --X------- Long Overviews

- Explanations X--------- Enthymemes

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

- Don't steal ev and disclosure is good, re-highlighting or recutting a card is different than using a card from another team in a debate (I can help with giving access to pdfs/articles, especially if they're Jesuit cut). Also don't clip

- I will try to read the important ev after the round, especially if you flag it down

- Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions before and after the round

- PLEASE don't read any advocacy advocating for suicide, I will vote you down if you do end up advocating for suicide (There are explicit arguments for that phrase that the authors who use it have, USE THAT EXPLANATION, you are still open to criticisms of that advocacy to begin with). Regardless, I think there are better arguments instead of suicide advocacy.

- Feel free to ask if you need a clarification of my RFD, I sometimes ramble

FOR NOVICES - Novice year really pushed me to want to continue debate so make sure to have fun and ask questions, I'll do my best to explain the argument and what your answer could've been.

FOR ONLINE DEBATE - I'd ideally like everyone's camera to be on during the debate, or at least when you're giving a speech, but I understand if there's technical problems that mean it's not possible. PLEASE start slightly slower, I have good quality headphones now but like if your mic is peaking I'm just not gonna properly process what you're saying

Econ Topic Specific Thoughts/Ramblings

- Rounds Judged: 5

- T over what "financial redistribution" is seems important

- I'm a little new to learning about how some of the econ stuff works so I'm more likely to read the ev when it comes down to some of the nitty gritty tech stuff for it

T/Procedurals

- Majority of my 1NRs were either a DA or T

- Good T debates are really fun to watch and judge, clear up impacts and how your interp best accesses those

- I default to competing interpretations (Reasonability requires you to win some semblance of a we meet or your Counter interp resolving limits)

- Caselists are very very important

- Limits is important but limits for the sake of limits is bad

- Ev should be read in T debates (either interps or what their interp would justify; If you can read a solvency advocate for what their interp would include, that would be very impressive and gives Neg's game on the limits debate), call out interps that aren't related to the topic (PLEASE DON'T JUST CARD DUMP, especially if your interps contradict or aren't in the context of the res, cause the 1AR will be very persuasive to me if they point that out)

- That being said, Interps should probably be in the context of the res, Aff's should either point out it doesn't or draw lines from their interp to prove we meet

- Please make these clean, messy T debates are really easy to cause and make everything harder

- Procedurals should have some relation to the res

- Extra-T and Effects T are both cool, but need thorough explanation (I would know cause some 1NRs I would just say it without like a decent explanation). Will definitely vote on it though (probably Extra more than Effects cause Extra is more justifiable)

DAs

- Specific DAs = perfect

- There can be 0% risk of a DA

- It's very important that DAs have some form of external impact compared to the Aff, please do impact calc that frames the impact stories and their interaction (through like turns case or time frame/probability/magnitude)

- Evidence specificity is important when it comes to DAs

- Politics DAs are potentially alive now, stay within reason, I value recent ev over tech (unless you're spinning the ev harder than Beyblades), I also need you stay coherent with the link story

- Diversify Links and give them some short, flowable labels

CPs

- Sufficiency framing should work for most things except structural violence impacts

- Smart, specific CPs are great combined with specific DAs

- Creative Perms are good

- CPs should be competitive, at least functionally if not both textually and functionally

- Affs should call out shady CPs (i.e. the process of the CP or how the CP would solve the Aff)

- Clear up the technical parts of process CPs as I can get lost in the jargon when it's not explained clearly

- I won't automatically judge kick (I also am adverse to judge kick)

- A K was in all of my 1NCs except for one round my senior year (the break down is something like 55% Abolition, 35% Cap/Historical Materialism, 5% Security, 5% Settler Biopolitics, and then like 0.1% Borders)

- FW is so underutilized

- I'm still confused with high theory Ks (like pomo type stuff, am familiar with the theories but the more vocab you throw at me the more I'm gonna get lost)(race/identity based stuff I'm super familiar with and am comfortable deciding on as long as it doesn't get messy) but I'll do my best (I've run Cap/Historical Materialism, Borders, Deschooling, Security, Abolition, and Bioptx and debated a plethora)

- Link stories are important and explaining exactly what part of the Aff you are kritiking (your life is so much easier if you impact out links)

- Overviews that require a page or half of my flow are not good and will annoy me, ESPECIALLY if you start doing just all the K work on the other page, cause then what's the point of that initial K flow

- Case debating is very important, I'll give the Aff leeway on weighing the Case vs the K if there's 0 contestation throughout the debate/in the 2NR (i.e. Case impacts, value of debating the Aff on FW, Perm explanation, etc.). Neg's can challenge this by either A) actually implicating case args with the K or B) on the K flow, explaining how it relates to the mechanisms of the 1AC/Aff, if that make sense

- K alts should be explained (i.e. explain how the world of the alt would looks), they are often the weakest parts of the K so please try to explain them in some way that resolves the links and the Aff (I use the language of resolve because the Alt doesn't need to "solve" but like prove how the Alt addresses the bad assumptions of the Aff and the harms that the Aff attempts to address); Also, please don't make your K's just sad tarnished case turns.

- Diversify the Links (either with cards, how they explained the Aff would function, or how the Aff is written), if you read generic evidence, please explain how it relates to the Aff and how the Aff is what the card is talking about (generic links are probably alright if they relate to the Aff in some aspect, i.e. if the card doesn't have x part of the Aff in the card or mentions the Aff in any capacity, the Neg should explain why the card still applies)

K Affs

- Explain what voting for you means and what my vote means in the context of the Aff (I know that I vote for the better debater, at least that is my default understanding of what the ballot means, but what is the advocacy/worldview of the Aff), both sides must explain the importance of the ballot in relation to the Aff (There's a big difference between advocating for a method related to the topic vs pointing out how x thing is racist and that's bad, etc.; Just because I read K Affs doesn't mean I won't vote on presumption if I have no idea why I vote Aff or what the Aff's method is trying to accomplish)

- Please have some form of advocacy, related to the topic, that you can defend throughout the debate (Don't shift it because it confuses me more and probably gives more leverage to T/FW; consistency is key for Aff offense and fighting the zump)

- I'm much more persuaded on Models of Debate discussions paired with turns/offense over straight Impact turns to education and fairness (doesn't mean I won't vote on education and fairness turns, I just happen to be more familiar with these debates over Counter Interps/Models of Debate)

Neg strats

- T/FW - Debate is a game (a very fun game), Fairness is more of an internal link (Like debate is a game but education/portable skills is stuff we actually get out of round, it's the telos), I prefer Clash/Advocacy Skills/External Impacts over the usual Fairness/Education, TVAs are great and almost always a must. Focus on forwarding offense cause these debates can get compartmentalized, contextualize your blocks (please clash with the args instead of reading your blocks, this goes for both teams) (I find many rounds when I was Aff where I got away with a lot of things b/c of the moving parts of offense). I understand the small distinction between T and FW but at the end, it comes down to models of debate (that is gonna be my default unless you make the distinction clearer for me)

- K's - I understand Historical Materialism/Cap the best out of all the K's in K vs K Aff debates. Probably neutral on whether there are Perms in a method debate (ofc depends on the types of methods engaged in), link debate and framing is where I determine whether I should allow a Perm (FW debate too, probably). Please PLEASE contextualize links to the Aff's method or theory's assumptions, it makes the Link clearer and gives the Aff less room for link turns/Perm explanation.

- Other strats - PICs, procedurals, Counter Advocacies etc. are strategic and interesting. I'll listen to them but will probably evaluate them similar to some of the way I view things above. Feel free to ask specifics.

- Case is/can be important for either 2NR you would go for and some of the Case cards should be cross applied if not referenced. 2NRs not getting to Case gives 2ARs way too much room to use the weight of the Aff vs whatever the 2NR was, which I'm sympathetic to because there wasn't an answer to case (super helpful during my Senior year when Case was like barely anything in the 2NR)

Theory

- Theory is pretty cool

- Specific theory = even cooler

- Contextualize it to other arguments run and what happens in the round, this is probably my weakest area to judge a debate on, partly cause if you go too fast, I can't write everything down (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ACTUALLY COMPARE STANDARDS AND INTERPS, it gets frustrating when both teams just rant about what their interp on theory is, without actually clash between the two)

- Ask if there are any specific views that I have on CPs and other things (Condo is dependent on the situation, PICs are good, Word PICS are 50/50 (probably need a good interp on what words you should be able to PIC out of), Multi-plank CPs with more than one solvency advocate aren't good, Dispo is just spicy Condo, Process CPs are meh, Con-Con and NGAs are boooo)

- This is probably my weakest area to judge (ironic for a former 2A), so please please please make sure that you're clear when spreading through your blocks and make sure that you're doing the right work, because I really don't want to do the comparison for you, especially if I wasn't able to get half your standards

Case

- If I didn't have a DA or T, I always took Case in the 1NR, it showcased how important/helpful it is for in depth case debating that relates back to whatever the 2NC took, whether it was a K or DA or CP

- Offense and defense matters, make sure to frame them

- Impact turns that are smart are great (Won't vote on Racism good, Sexism good, etc.; I don't think I understand Death Good well enough to be able to form an opinion, at least the high theory Baudrillard level of it) (PLEASE don't just card dump, I've done this before and it wasn't clean; if it works against a K Aff go for it)

- 2AR/2NR framing/judge instruction is pretty important and very helpful, didn't realize how important it was until I started listening to some of my speeches, there's a big difference between extending your offense and framing offense against each other and giving me words to write in my ballot and give in the RFD

KJ Reese Hire 6 rounds

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

Last updated pre-Michigan Camp Tourney 2023.

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

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

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

Rounds judged on the 2023-2024 topic: 1!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Write your plans/CPs correctly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case

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

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

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

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

Non-plan affs/K affs

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

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

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

Theory/Other Issues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Health tip – eat more soluble fiber!

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

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

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

Joe Rhee Montgomery Bell Academy 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 1, 2024 at 6:41 AM EDT

update 2/1/24: scrapped my old paradigm because much did not apply and debaters don't read into it a lot. a more detailed judging record (including arguments read) is here, poached from David McDermott.

must reads:

joe, not judge. i'm not that old. yes, email chain. joerhee779@gmail.com
email subject should be include tournament, round, teams, and codes. ex: 2021 TOC - Round 4 - Mitty AP (Aff) vs Little Rock GR (Neg)
safety and integrity are prior. do not touch each other, me, or anyone's property, say slurs, misgender, etc. outside help is prohibited. each debater must give 1 constructive and 1 rebuttal, unless there's a maverick situation that has been pre-approved. speech times are non-negotiable. do not clip. clipping = misrepresenting evidence. if you skip a word on accident, don't worry. if you skip a sentence, several words, or even paragraphs, in more than one card, i will be less forgiving. these are an auto-L and lowest speaks possible.
communication first. eye contact, pausing for pen time, clarity, ethos, and good CX are a must. rehighlightings that explain warrants beyond what is in the tag should be read.
minimize downtime. be ready to give the 1AC at start time, including having the doc sent. don't take obnoxiously long to send docs, or i will tell you start prep (deleting analytics is prep). asking what cards they read is a CX question.

me:

little rock central '22, vanderbilt '26. human and organizational development major, minoring in data science and asian studies. you can ask questions about vandy if you want after a decision has been made or through email.
read basically everything in high school as a 2A and 2N. did one tournament in college that was about the same. did the toc once. broke there. qualed twice.
i research a lot for debate and college. i actively coach both policy and K teams for MBA, though I research more Ks and K answers than anything else. i have very strong political opinions, but don't use them for argument development or judging almost at all. i am pretty evenly prefed for both "clash" and "policy" debates.
very data oriented. i think of debate as a time game. assuming argument quality is the same (it usually isn't), the side with more time spent on the core issues of the debate will win.
my thoughts on judging are essentially like Debnil Sur, Daniel Gallagher, and Texas DK.

argument evaluation:

tech over truth to its logical extent. arguments must have a claim, warrant, and implication. this means i must be able to explain what i flowed to the other team, not agree with it. this includes clarity - if i didn't hear/understand the argument, i will not vote on it. too often, debaters do not explain the implication of "true"/dropped arguments. judge instruction and impact calculus is a key part of argumentation that gets lost in the name of tech. yes, you can win death/war/warming good, no condo, racism outweighs T, fairness is an impact, etc. but must explain its importance.
i will not judge personal character. i lack the resources and willpower to discuss debaters' personal lives. barring a debater saying we ought to openly hate entire groups of people online on a publicly accessible website (screenshots are not evidence), i am unwilling to vote on minors' actions. if someone uses gendered language or says something that could be problematic, i will likely correct it after the fact, not drop the debater. you are free to make this a link argument or voting issue, but i will evaluate it like any other argument.
clash is good - do disclosure, line-by-line, impact calculus, evidence comparison, and make well-developed arguments. debaters should combine specificity, evidence, ethos, nuance, and concessions. i prefer debates that are less than 7 off, just because they are often underdeveloped, but i get why it happens. it won't be a knock on your speaks.
evidence quality matters and is under-debated. a good analytic can beat a bad card, but no cards decreases the chance of a win. similarly, a slew of bad cards is usually not helpful. some good evidence and some good analytics is your best bet. evidence comparison, including qualifications, bias, data, studies, and warrants are all underutilized.
debaters work hard, so i will give as much effort as you. i will attempt an RFD that makes sense after thinking through the arguments as presented in the debate in order of importance. if you disagree post-round, please explain why and i will walk through my reasoning with you.

specific argument genres:

Ks: have read many, but don't assume I know what you're talking about. framework is important, and i will only vote on an interp introduced in the debate. affs should either go for framework + case/impact turn outweighs or the perm/link turn. negs should go for a link that turns, outweighs, or brackets the case [with framework], or a mutually exclusive alt that solves an impact that outweighs. in K v. K debates, unsure why framework and impact calculus suddenly disappears and why "no perms in a method debate" is a truism.
K affs: fine. if your aff is "method = nothing", you will probably lose. vs. T, choose either a counter interp or impact turn strategy. for the neg, explaining what the ballot/debate does is usually the most helpful for T. more defense and a lower scope of ballot solvency is best for fairness. link turning aff offense is best for clash. TVAs are usually meh unless the aff is close to the topic or just "state bad". SSD is usually good. impact turns like heg/cap/state good are fine.
T: offense-defense. reasonability doesn't make sense without a counter-interp. don't spread through T blocks like they're cards. don't have a preference for limits vs. aff ground. just do comparison. my thoughts on theory are essentially the same, except that because they lack evidence, most claims like aff and neg bias are usually unwarranted.
CPs: amenable to both neg terrorism and their corresponding affirmative objections. advantage counterplans, especially with 1AC authors, are underrated. solvency deficits must be real, otherwise write a better aff.
DAs: agenda and rider DAs are probably fake irl, but i don't care. "winners win" and "a logical policymaker could do both" are equally as silly, but i've voted both ways. zero risk is possible, but hard to achieve.
Case: underrated. don't just read impact defense. 2As - during the 2AC please actually explain line-by-line warrants. half the time it is incomprehensible. 2Ns - exploit 2A posturing and bad evidence quality. same with disadvantages, presumption/zero risk can be achieved, but requires killer arguments. impact turns are fun, but often unorganized.

speaks:

speaker point inflation is out of hand. i will use a wider range than the average judge.

below 27.0 - reserved for clipping and the like.

27.0 - 0.0 percentile speaker at the tournament.

27.5 - 17th percentile speaker at the tournament.

28.0 - 33rd percentile speaker at the tournament.

28.5 - 50th percentile speaker at the tournament.

29.0 - 67th percentile speaker at the tournament.

29.5 - 83rd percentile speaker at the tournament.

30 - 100th percentile speaker at the tournament.

miscellaneous:

i am expressive, perhaps too much. i have voted on arguments i have made a stank face at, so don't be discouraged.
"tag team" cx is fine, but if one debater is taking every question, speaks will suffer.

Daniella Roos Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart 4 rounds

Last changed on Mon March 18, 2024 at 9:37 AM EDT

2a at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart - fourth year debater.

Add me to the chain, please!! My email is 24droos@carrollton.org .

Do what you do best. I will decide the debate using my flow and according to the technical ability of the debaters. That being said, everyone has biases and I will detail them here.

Disads:

Both the aff and the neg should focus on impact calculus in DA debates. Also, both sides should read the cards! Often they don't say what they are tagged to say, don't apply to the aff/disad, or are heinously outdated/underqualified. Evidence comparison and rehilightings can go a long way.

Counterplans:

I won't judge kick unless the neg tells me to and the aff drops it. I generally agree with the aff when they say that it's noneducational judge intervention. While I don't think they are a reason to reject the team, I enjoy watching "50 state fiat bad" and "process counterplans bad" debates when they aren't messy.

Topicality:

I think I am a good judge for T, since I ran it a lot in novice year. If you are going for predictability/precision, you NEED to be doing evidence comparison and explaining why the other team's evidence is not predictable/precise. Also, please don't spread through analytics at 50000 miles per hour (this also goes for theory speeches).

Kritiks:

If your framework doesn't moot the case, what are you doing? To win the K, you must win framework. I think a 2nr should spend 3-4 minutes on framework and it's implications (ie, framework means no perms and the links don't have to be unique). Every time a neg team running the Cap K says "concede framework, this is basically a counterplan and disad" I lose my mind. It is not a good counterplan and disad. The cap counterplan loses to the perm and the cap disad is unquestionably non unique. Teams running the Cap K should explain why (for fairness and education reasons) debate is better when we focus on epistemology, representations, ontology, etc as opposed to the consequences of solvent advocacies.

Planless Affs:

Fairness is an impact, but you need to explain why. Going for a counter-interp on T is an uphill battle; they rarely provide a fair division of ground AND are predictable AND are decently limited. Feel free to try to convince me, though! If I were the aff in these debates, I would probably "impact turn" the reading of T-USFG.

To be honest, I am probably not the best judge for KvK debates, as I have never been in one and am unfamiliar with how most K lit bases would interact with each other. If are running a K against a planless aff in front of me, please err on the side of over-explanation.

Other thoughts:

A dropped argument is a true argument, but you have to tell me why that matters for it to be a factor in my decision. For example, if the aff drops case arguments in the 2ac, you cant just say "they dropped case" and nothing else. You need to extend the arguments that they dropped, and then say "they dropped it so that means it's true."
Don't hide theory or rely on tricks to avoid clash. If your arguments are good, it doesn't matter whether or not the other team realizes you read them.
Reading more than two counterplans/kritiks is a crime on this topic. I am a good judge for conditionality in a debate where the neg has advanced 3 or more conditional options.
Be nice. I appreciate when teams are aggressive/funny/sassy, but be mature about recognizing when a line is crossed.

Abby Schirmer Marist School 6 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 2:46 PM EDT

Marist, Atlanta, GA (2015-2019, 2020-Present)
Pace Academy, Atlanta GA (2019-2020)
Stratford Academy, Macon GA (2008-2015)
Michigan State University (2004-2008)

Pronouns- She/Her

Please use email chains. Please add me- abby.schirmer@gmail.com.

Short version- You need to read and defend a plan in front of me. I value clarity (in both a strategic and vocal sense) and strategy. A good strategic aff or neg strat will always win out over something haphazardly put together. Impact your arguments, impact them against your opponents arguments (This is just as true with a critical strategy as it is with a DA, CP, Case Strategy). I like to read evidence during the debate. I usually make decisions pretty quickly. Typically I can see the nexus question of the debate clearly by the 2nr/2ar and when (if) its resolved, its resolved. Don't take it personally.

Long Version:
Case Debate- I like specific case debate. Shows you put in the hard work it takes to research and defeat the aff. I will reward hard work if there is solid Internal link debating. I think case specific disads are also pretty good if well thought out and executed. I like impact turn debates. Cleanly executed ones will usually result in a neg ballot -- messy debates, however, will not.

Disads- Defense and offense should be present, especially in a link turn/impact turn debate. You will only win an impact turn debate if you first have defense against their original disad impacts. I'm willing to vote on defense (at least assign a relatively low probability to a DA in the presence of compelling aff defense). Defense wins championships. Impact calc is important. I think this is a debate that should start early (2ac) and shouldn't end until the debate is over. I don't think the U necessarily controls the direction of the link, but can be persuaded it does if told and explained why that true.

K's- Im better for the K now than i have been in years past. That being said, Im better for security/international relations/neolib based ks than i am for race, gender, psycho, baudrillard etc . I tend to find specific Ks (ie specific to the aff's mechanism/advantages etc) the most appealing. If you're going for a K-- 1) please don't expect me to know weird or specific ultra critical jargon... b/c i probably wont. 2) Cheat- I vote on K tricks all the time (aff don't make me do this). 3) Make the link debate as specific as possible and pull examples straight from the aff's evidence and the debate in general 4) I totally geek out for well explained historical examples that prove your link/impact args. I think getting to weigh the aff is a god given right. Role of the ballot should be a question that gets debated out. What does the ballot mean with in your framework. These debates should NOT be happening in the 2NR/2AR-- they should start as early as possible. I think debates about competing methods are fine. I think floating pics are also fine (unless told otherwise). I think epistemology debates are interesting. K debates need some discussion of an impact-- i do not know what it means to say..."the ZERO POINT OF THE Holocaust." I think having an external impact is also good - turning the case alone, or making their impacts inevitable isn't enough. There also needs to be some articulation of what the alternative does... voting neg doesn't mean that your links go away. I will vote on the perm if its articulated well and if its a reason why plan plus alt would overcome any of the link questions. Link defense needs to accompany these debates.

K affs are fine- you have to have a plan. You should defend that plan. Affs who don't will prob lose to framework. A alot.... and with that we come to:

NonTraditional Teams-
If not defending a plan is your thing, I'm not your judge. I think topical plans are good. I think the aff needs to read a topical plan and defend the action of that topical plan. I don't think using the USFG is an endorsement of its racist, sexist, homophobic or ableist ways. I think affs who debate this way tend to leave zero ground for the negative to engage which defeats the entire point of the activity. I am persuaded by T/Framework in these scenarios. I also think if you've made the good faith effort to engage, then you should be rewarded. These arguments make a little more sense on the negative but I am not compelled by arguments that claim: "you didn't talk about it, so you should lose."

CPs- Defending the SQ is a bold strat. Multiple conditional (or dispo/uncondish) CPs are also fine. Condo is probably good, but i can be persuaded otherwise. Consult away- its arbitrary to hate them in light of the fact that everything else is fine. I lean neg on CP theory. Aff's make sure you perm the CP (and all its planks). Im willing to judge kick the CP for you. If i determine that the CP is not competitive, or that its a worse option - the CP will go away and you'll be left with whatever is left (NBs or Solvency turns etc). This is only true if the AFF says nothing to the contrary. (ie. The aff has to tell me NOT to kick the CP - and win that issue in the debate). I WILL NOT VOTE ON NO NEG FIAT. That argument makes me mad. Of course the neg gets fiat. Don't be absurd.

T- I default to offense/defense type framework, but can be persuaded otherwise. Impact your reasons why I should vote neg. You need to have unique offense on T. K's of T are stupid. I think the aff has to run a topical aff, and K-ing that logic is ridiculous. T isn't racist. RVIs are never ever compelling.... ever.

Theory- I tend to lean neg on theory. Condo- Good. More than two then the aff might have a case to make as to why its bad - i've voted aff on Condo, I've voted neg on condo. Its a debate to be had. Any other theory argument I think is categorically a reason to reject the argument and not the team. I can't figure out a reason why if the aff wins international fiat is bad that means the neg loses - i just think that means the CP goes away.

Remember!!! All of this is just a guide for how you chose your args in round. I will vote on most args if they are argued well and have some sort of an impact. Evidence comparison is also good in my book-- its not done enough and i think its one of the most valuable ways to create an ethos of control with in the debate. Perception is everything, especially if you control the spin of the debate. I will read evidence if i need to-- don't volunteer it and don't give me more than i ask for. I love fun debates, i like people who are nice, i like people who are funny... i will reward you with good points if you are both. Be nice to your partner and your opponents. No need to be a jerk for no reason

Liam Seaward St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

Jet Semrick ADL 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 26, 2024 at 1:49 AM CDT

Email: jet.semrick@gmail.com and taipeiamericanpolicy@gmail.com

Coach @ ADL and Taipei American School | Debated @ University of Kansas 2019-2023 and Shawnee Mission East 2015-2019

______________________________________________

Summary:

--My goal is to render a decision without intervention. I will work hard to evaluate and provide helpful feedback for any arguments presented regardless of my opinions. I enjoy judging debates where debaters work hard. Currently, my full time job is to teach and research the high school topic.

--I believe AFFs should be topical and solve a unique problem. The NEG should argue the AFF is undesirable. I am a good judge for any strategy that demonstrates the plan is a bad idea.

--Quality of an argument matters. I am more likely to be persuaded by complete, sound, and logical arguments. However, technical debating can change this predisposition. A dropped claim is irrelevant unless accompanied by a warrant and explanation of how my decision should be impacted.

--Preference for fewer, but more developed positions over many underdeveloped ones. My ideal debate to judge is the topic disadvantage against the largest affirmative on the topic.

--Take the debate seriously. Be reasonable with down time, sending out emails, and please don't send out or ask for a marked doc if it's not needed.

--Ethos, clarity, and strategic decisions will be rewarded with speaker points.

______________________________________________

Policy:

Topicality vs. Plans

Plan text in a vacuum is not a persuasive defense of a non topical AFF.

Topicality debates where I vote NEG are generally not close because of truthful arguments that are difficult to overcome via technical debating. High quality interpretation evidence is important.

Prioritize the internal link over impact explanation. Give examples and context. Ground is the most compelling standard because a 'limits explosion' can be mitigated by the existence of predictable and high quality NEG ground.

Counterplans

Specificity is best. Evidence that compares the CP to the plan is the gold standard. 1AC re-highlightings are persuasive.

Competition debates are boring and I usually vote AFF because the NEG is reading and not debating. I sympathize with the need for process on bad topics, but economic inequality... give me a break.

I will judge kick counterplans unless told otherwise. I think conditionality is bad, but necessary. I am convinced that fiating out of solvency deficits and straight turns in the 2NC is not a good practice. In general, more counterplans equal worse debating and lower speaker points. In truth, I think dispositionality is a better model because it would require more strategic decisions and research on the part of both the AFF and the NEG. However, that does not mean I am more likely to vote AFF in a condo debate. I generally end up voting NEG because conditionality does not make debate impossible and NEG flex is important.

AFF on consult, delay, process, international, word PICs, and fifty state fiat. These are reasons to reject the argument. Debates with a partially intrinsic permutation versus a non-germane process counterplan favor the AFF.

Ideally, the NEG specifies net benefits and establishes competition in the 1NC.

Disadvantages

DA and case 2NRs are the best debates to judge. I enjoy debates about the economy and politics. Mechanically sound DA debating is a lost skill. Turns case is most persuasive when supported by evidence.

The AFF should read offense when answering DAs. If the NEG wins an uncontested link argument, AFF uniqueness arguments are less persuasive because there is always a risk the status quo is stable given the certain instability of the plan. The resolve this problem, disprove the internal link which is typically the weakest part of the DA.

Case

A block and 2NR that prioritizes the case is potent given the AFF trend to be efficient at any cost. Solvency deficits and alt causes are more compelling than impact defense.

If you decide to read a "soft left" AFF make sure the framing page is meaningful. Generic framing arguments are boring and generally still devolve to magnitude x probability. I am more willing than most to vote AFF for a small magnitude high probability advantage vs. a low risk high magnitude DA.

______________________________________________

Critique:

Topicality vs. K AFFs

I want to vote NEG in these debates. I have never been compelled by arguments for why the AFF should not be topical. If the NEG reasonably executes the argument they will receive my ballot.

Fairness is the best impact for T. I am also persuaded by impacts about iteration, research, and clash. Without a predictable AFF constraint, I don't think debate could exist. I think topicality is like a baseball strike zone, its boundaries are not perfectly defined or perfect for either team, but without it the game could not be played in a competitive manner.

In order for the AFF to win, they need to defend a model of debate that provides a valuable role for the NEG, solves AFF offense, and is mutually exclusive with the NEG model. If you are impact turning NEG standards, you must provide a compelling reason why voting for your advocacy resolves your offense.

Critiques vs. Policy AFFs

I will likely weigh the plan. To win, the NEG needs to win link turns case arguments, solvency deficits, or impact turns.

Both teams should have a reason for making a framework argument. The 2NR and 2AR need to give judge instruction for what I should do if you win or lose your framework interpretation. I default to weighing the impacts the plan can solves against the impacts of links that the alternative can resolve. I think the AFF is only responsible for impacts that they make worse.

I think the alternative should materially solve a problem, and am not persuaded by rejection style criticisms. I think linear DAs can be good and can be persuaded by an impact framing argument if you win a non-unique link to the plan.

I am persuaded that the NEG does not get to sever reps if other arguments are explicit contradictions. Examples of this are reading the cap K and growth DA. The AFF should exploit tensions between pages and generate smart DAs to alternatives or link turns.

______________________________________________

Ethics Violations:

I would prefer for debates to be completed and am not interested in judging the moral character of debaters or events that took place outside of the round. I value my role as an educator and will intervene or answer questions mid debate if that leads to an agreeable resolution that allows the debate to continue.

I would prefer to strike evidence rather than end the debate. Questions about qualifications, context, and argument representation should be argued in speeches to undermine the credibility of a position.

If there is a formal ethics challenge by a team, the debate ends. If the challenge is successful, the team who made the challenge wins and receives average speaks. If not, they lose and receive low speaks. I will defer to tab, my experience, and advice of others.

If the issue could have been resolved before the debate and is unintentional, I will likely reject the challenge. If I catch clipping, I will give a warning during the speech under the assumption that debaters are competing in good faith. If there is an egregious pattern or the warning is ignored, I will vote for the other team at the end of the debate.

Adrian Sendejas St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri March 22, 2024 at 10:03 AM CDT

****He/Him/His****Preferred name is “Adrian”*** Yes,email chain. Oneoffcap@gmail.com ***

Policy Debater @ UTD 25’

IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT DEBATING IN COLLEGE THEN REACH OUT TO MY EMAIL ABOVE... UTD HAS GREAT COACHES, PROGRAMS, AND SCHOLARSHIPS FOR DEBATE + MANY OTHER THINGS...

Quick Prefs:

1- Policy (CP + DA, DA + Case, T, Straight or Impact Turns)

2- IdPol K, Low-Theory K's (cap, security, university), Phil

3- Theory, PoMo or High theory K's

Strike- Tricks, Memes, Skep

General Thoughts

I flow. I will make my decisions largely based on it, as I feel it is the most objective metric I have to evaluate the debate. You can still have good judge instruction. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

Dont be ableist, sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic etc. you will have an L0 slam-dunked onto your ballot.

low tolerance for misgendering, just use gender neutral pronouns if you’re not sure.

Make sure to set up the email chain pre-round

Titles of email chains should go as follows: teams, tournament and year, then round number" *** ie “Aff Team v Neg Team -- Grapevine 2022 -- R4”, for example

Dont clip cards--if called out there will be a very swift path to an L.

*** Judge instruction is very key. Legit, tell me how to write my ballot. An interactive moment in the last rebuttals where you literally say “top level your ballot should be based on x" followed by an explanation of x, why x should be the top of the ballot, and why you are winning x in relation to your opponents refutation is very persuasive to me. ***

Policy v Policy -- DA's should have a link, outweigh and (hopefully) turn the case, CP's should usually solve the aff or a portion of it and be competitive via a net benefit of sorts. UQ CP's are usually chill -- I default to sufficiency framing, and will not judge kick unless told to. Not great for process/consult-esque strategies.

T -- Probably better for T than most, but won't know a ton of nuances on high school topics -- default to competing interps, and im best for limits standards in these debates -- ev should have 2 things, intent to define and intent to exclude — im not very compelled by “we’ve read this aff all year/it’s the end/beginning of the year” args

Policy v K -- Win a link, you dont have to go for the alt but it can help. If you dont go for the alt and they win try or die framing, you are in a bad spot. Explain your theory of power / thesis claim of the criticism, and how it implicates the aff. Aff teams probably get to weigh the case, neg teams get links/DA’s to it.

K affs vs T -- Affs that have a unique, strategic angle on T in these types of debates will be rewarded with better speaks. Neg without a persuasive reason for why debate is primarily a competitive activity and overcoded by competition probably loses. Affs that have a counter-interp that can justify their approach are appreciated. I care FAR FAR less about having a TVA than some judges.

K v K -- I really need some judge instruction here. Explain why your theory of power accounts for theirs, subsumes theirs, and is a better explanation for the other criticism. More explanation is better, keeping it simple is also good.

Theory -- Dont go for the weird spec shells if you dont have an actual abuse story, and dont go for condo unless it is severely fumbled. Condo is typically great. Saying contradictory things is not. I prob default reasonability on theory and competing interps on topicality. Disclosure theory is not compelling, unless paired as a standard on some type of T flow, you prob dont get to be non-topical on top of not disclosing but its still not too strong of an arg.

Speaks:

Hella arbitrary, don’t really rock with em, but it’s a part of the game I guess.

I’ll try to stay within a decent range, starting at a rough 28.5 and working up

dont be an a-hole in round for no reason

strategic decisions will be rewarded

+.2 if you make a sports reference that makes sense in the debate or make me laugh in general

Interp — Solid intro, get my attention. Nothing is off-limits (absent the aforementioned explicit comments). Organize your speech into points. Speak/communicate in whichever way makes you feel the most comfortable. I primarily did extemporaneous in HS when I did interp events.

Closing Remarks:

I understand the time commitment that is put into debate, and will do my best to adjudicate to the best of my ability because that is what you deserve. This activity becomes toxic often times, and I believe judges can play a large role in that. Knowing this, I will do my best to be understanding of all circumstances. If there is ANYTHING I can do to better accommodate you, please let me know prior to the debate beginning if you are comfortable with that. You may also let me know at any other time throughout or after the debate.

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.

Parth Shah Hire 6 rounds

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

pasdebate@gmail.com

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

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

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

I took most of this paradigm from Reed Van Schenck:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public Forum Debate

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

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

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

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

Give an order before your speech

Ryan Snow ADL 6 rounds

Rebecca Steiner Pace Academy 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 4:39 PM EDT

Current Associate Director of Debate at Emory University

Former graduate student coach at University of Georgia, Wake Forest University, University of Florida

Create an email chain for evidence before the debate begins. Put me on it. My email address is lace.stace@gmail.com

Do not trivialize or deny the Holocaust

Online Debates:

Determine if I am in the room before you start a speech. "Becca, are you ready?" or "Becca, are you here?" I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time.

Please have one (or all) debaters look periodically to make sure people haven't gotten booted from the room. The internet can be unreliable. You might get booted from the room. I might get booted from the room. The best practice is to have a backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules about this, follow those.

DA’s:

Is there an overview that requires a new sheet of paper? I hope not

Impact turn debates are fine with me

Counterplans:

What are the key differences between the CP and the plan?

Does the CP solve some of the aff or all of the aff?

Be clear about which DA/s you are claiming as the net benefit/s to your CP

"Solving more" is not a net benefit

I lean neg on international fiat, PICS, & agent CP theory arguments

I am open minded to debates about conditionality & multiple conditional planks theory arguments.

Flowing:

I strongly prefer when debaters make flowing easier for me (ex. debating line by line, signposting, identifying the other team’s argument and making direct answers)

I strongly prefer when debaters answer arguments individually rather than “grouping”

Cross-X:

"What cards did you read?" "What cards did you not read?" "Did you read X off case position?" "Where did you stop in this document?" - those questions count as cross-x time! If a speech ends and you ask these, you should already be starting your timer for cross-x.

Avoid intervening in your partners cross-x time, whether asking or answering. Tag team is for professional wrestling, not debate.

Public forum debate specific thoughts:

I am most comfortable with constructive speeches that organize contentions using this structure: uniqueness, link, and impact.

I am comfortable with the use of speed.

From my experience coaching policy debate, I care a lot about quantity and quality of evidence.

I am suspicious of paraphrased evidence.

I like when the summary and final focus speeches make the debate smaller. If your constructive started with 2 or 3 contentions, by the summary and final focus your team should make a choice of just 1 contention to attempt winning.

Because of my background in policy debate, it takes me out of my comfort zone when the con/neg team speaks first.

Clay Stewart Galloway 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu March 7, 2024 at 6:49 AM EDT

E-Mail: cstewart[at]gallowayschool[dot]org

Disclaimer #1:I am a mandatory reporter under Georgia law. If you disclose a real-world risk to your safety, or if I believe there is an imminent threat to your well-being, I will stop the debate and contact the Tabroom. Arguments that talk generally about how to engage systems of power in the debate space are more than okay and do not violate this.

Disclaimer #2: I am partially deaf in my left ear. While this has zero impact on my ability to flow in 99.9% of debates, exceptionally bad acoustics may force me to be closer than usual during speeches.

Speaker Points Update (November 2023):Moving forward, I will be following Regnier's speaker points distribution (see below). This should align my points with national trends and ensure I am not unfairly penalizing (or rewarding) debaters I am judging.

--- Fabulous (29.7 - 29.9) / Excellent (29.4-29.6)

--- Good (29.1 - 29.3) / Average (28.7 - 29)

--- Below Average (28.4 - 28.6) / Poor (28 - 28.3) / Very Poor (27.6 - 27.9)

Experience

Debate Experience

--- Lincoln-Douglas: 3 Years (Local / National Circuit)

--- Policy Debate: 4 Years of College Policy Debate (Georgia State University)

-- 2015 NDT Qualifier

-- Coached By: Joe Bellon, Nick Sciullo, Erik Mathis

-- Argument Style: Kritik (Freshman / Sophomore Year) & Policy (Junior / Senior Year)

-- Caselist Link (I Was A 2N My Senior Year): https://opencaselist.com/ndtceda14/GeorgiaState/StNa/Neg

Coaching Experience

--- Lincoln-Douglas: 4 Years (Local / National Circuit)

--- Policy Debate

-- University of Georgia - Graduate Assistant (3 Years)

-- Atlanta Urban Debate League (3 Years)

-- The Galloway School - Head Coach (3 Years)

Preferences - General

Overview:

Debate is a game; my strongest belief is that debaters should be able to play the game however they want to play it. I remain committed to Tabula Rasa judging, and have yet to see an argument (claim/ warrant) I would not pull the trigger on. The only exception to this is if I could not coherently explain to the other team the warrant for the argument I'm voting on. Unless told otherwise, I will flow the debate, and vote, based on the line-by-line, for whomever I thought won the debate.

What follows are my general thoughts about arguments, because for some reason that's what counts as a "judging paradigm" these days. Everything that follows WILL be overridden by arguments made in the debate.

Evidence:

Evidence is important, but not more than the in-round debating. Substantial deference will be given to in-debate spin. Bad evidence with spin will generally be given more weight than good evidence without.

Theory:

No strong predispositions. Run theory if that's your thing, there's actual abuse, or it's the most strategic way out of the round. I have no default conception of how theory functions; it could be an issue of competing interpretations, an issue of reasonability, an RVI, or a tool of the patriarchy. Given my LD background, I likely have a much lower threshold for pulling the trigger than other judges. Defaults such as X is never a reason to reject the team, RVIs bad, and a general disregard of Spec arguments aren't hardwired into me like the majority of the judging pool.

If you're going for theory, easiest thing you can do to win my ballot is to slow down and give an overview that sets up a clear way for me to evaluate the line-by-line.

Counterplans:

Read 'em. While I'm personally a big fan of process CPs/ PICs, I generally default to letting the literature determine CP competition/ legitimacy. If you have a kickass solvency advocate, then I will probably lean your way on most theoretical issues. On the other hand, as a former 2A, I sympathize with 2AC theory against CPs against which it is almost impossible to generate solvency deficits. 2ACs should not be afraid to bow up on CP theory in the 1AR.

DAs:

Specific DAs/ links trump generic DAs/ links absent substantial Negative spin. Love DAs with odd impact scenarios/ nuanced link stories.

Politics:

I functionally never read this as a debater, but my time coaching at UGA has brought me up to speed. Slow down/ clearly flag key points/ evidence distinctions in the 2NR/ 2AR.

Topicality:

Read it. Strategic tool that most 2Ns underutilize. Rarely hear a nuanced argument for reasonability; the T violation seems to prove the 1AC is unreasonable...

Kritiks:

I do not personally agree with the majority of Kritiks. However, after years of graduate school and debate, I've read large amount of Kritikal literature, and, if you run the K well, I'm a good judge for you. Increasingly irritated with 2ACs that fail to engage the nuance of the K they're answering (Cede the Political/ Perm: Double-Bind isn't enough to get you through a competently extended K debate). Similarly irritated with 2NCs that debate the K like a politics DA. Finally, 2ACs are too afraid to bow up on the K, especially with Impact Turns. I often end up voting Negative on the Kritik because the 2AC got sucked down the rabbit hole and didn't remind there was real-world outside of the philosophical interpretation offered by the K.

Framework (2AC):

I am generally unpersuaded by theoretical offense in a Policy AFF v. Kritik debate. You're better off reading this as policymaking good/ pragmatism offense to defend the method of the AFF versus the alternative. Generally skeptical of 2ACs that claim the K isn't within my jurisdiction/ is super unfair.

Framework (2NC):

Often end up voting Negative because the Affirmative strategically mishandles the FW of the K. Generally skeptical of K FW's that make the plan/ the real-world disappear entirely.

Preferences - "Clash" Debates

Clash of Civilization Debates:

Enjoy these debates; I judge alot of them. The worst thing you can do is overadapt. DEBATE HOWEVER YOU WANT TO DEBATE. My favorite debate that I ever watched was UMW versus Oklahoma, where UMW read a giant Hegemony advantage versus Oklahoma's 1-off Wilderson. I've been on both sides of the clash debate, and I respect both sides. I will just as easily vote on Framework as use my ballot to resist anti-blackness in debate.

Traditional ("Policy" Teams):

DO YOU. Traditional teams should not be afraid to double-down against K 1ACs,/ Big K 1NCs either via Framework or Impact Turns.

Framework (As "T"):

Never read this as a debater, but I've become more sympathetic to arguments about how the the resolution as a starting point is an important procedural constraint that can capture some of the pedagogical value of a Kritikal discussion. As a former 2N, I am sympathetic to limits arguments given the seemingly endless proliferation of K 1ACs with a dubious relationship to the topic. Explain how your interpretation is an opportunity cost of the 1ACs approach, and how you solve the 2ACs substantive offense (i.e. critical pedagogy/ our performance is important, etc.).

Non-Traditional ("Performance"/ "K" Teams):

As someone who spent a semester reading a narrative project about welcoming veterans into debate, I'm familiar with the way these arguments function, and I feel that they're an integral part of the game we call debate. However, that does not mean I will vote for you because you critiqued X-ism; what is your method, and how does it resolve the harms you have isolated? I am greatly frustrated by Kritik Teams that rely on obfuscation as a strategic tool---- even the Situationist International cared deeply about the political implications of their project.

AT: Framework

The closer you are to the topic/ the clearer your Affirmative is in what it defends, the more I'm down with the Affirmative. While I generally think that alternative approaches to debate are important discussions to be had, if I can listen to the 1AC and have no idea what the Affirmative does, what it defends, or why it's a response to the Topic beyond nebulous claims of resisting X-ism, then you're in a bad spot. Explain how your Counter-Interp solves their theoretical offense, or why your permutation doesn't link to their limits/ ground standards.

Fairness/ Education:

Are important. I am generally confused by teams that claim to impact turn fairness/ education. Your arguments are better articulated as INL-turns (i.e. X-ism/ debate practice is structurally unfair). Debate at some level is a game, and you should explain how your version of the game allows for good discussion/ an equal playing field for all.

Misc. - Ethics Violations

Ethics Violations:

After being forced to decide an elimination debate on a card-clipping accusation during the 2015 Barkley Forum (Emory), I felt it necessary to establish clarity/ forewarning for how I will proceed if this unfortunate circumstance happens again. While I would obviously prefer to decide the debate on actual substantive questions, this is the one issue where I will intervene. In the event of an ethics accusation, I will do the following:

1) Stop the debate. I will give the accusing team a chance to withdraw the accusation or proceed. If the accusation stands, I will decide the debate on the validity of the accusation.

2) Consult the Tabroom to determine any specific tournament policies/ procedures that apply to the situation and need to be followed.

3) Review available evidence to decide whether or not an ethics violation has taken place. In the event of a clipping accusation, a recording or video of the debate would be exceptionally helpful. I am a personal believer in a person being innocent until proven guilty. Unless there's definitive evidence proving otherwise, I will presume in favor of the accused debater.

4) Drop the Debater. If an ethics violation has taken place, I will drop the offending team, and award zero speaker points. If an ethics violation has not occurred, I will drop the team that originally made the accusation. The purpose of this is to prevent frivolous/ strategic accusations, given the very real-world, long-lasting impact such an accusation has on the team being accused.

5) Ethics Violations (Update): Credible, actual threats of violence against the actual people in the actual debate are unacceptable, as are acts of violence against others. I will drop you with zero speaker points if either of those occur. Litmus Test: There's a difference between wipeout/ global suicide alternatives (i.e. post-fiat arguments) and actually punching a debater in the face (i.e. real-world violence).

Ria Thakur Woodward Academy 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 23, 2024 at 11:40 AM EDT

Ria Thakur

Johns Hopkins University '26

Woodward Academy '22

Last Updated: 07/20/2023

Please add me to the email chain: riathakur228@gmail.com

Top Level

Most important thing is to be respectful and have fun. We are all taking valuable time out for this activity, hopefully everyone learns something from the debate. Please send out a speech document — don't intentionally take out any analytical arguments. Flow. Feel free to ask me any questions and/or email me post round.

Online Debate

It is very important to speak slightly slower and more clearly with online debate. I would prefer that you keep your camera on throughout the debate.

Do not worry too much if you have a tech issue — it happens and I know it can be stressful. Don't steal prep.

[Side Note: Your speech starts on your first word. You know that. I know that. So you really do not need to do the whole "Starting in 3...2...1..." countdown or say "Beginning on my first word...". Just go for it. You got this!]

General

Explain your positions well; the better you do so, the more likely you are to win your arguments. Contextualize your arguments to the opponent's position and make sure to cite and extend your evidence with well warranted claims. Do line-by-line and signpost your speech. Don't forget to explain the significance of winning a particular argument—why does that mean you should win the debate? Also, important moments from CX should show up in your speeches.

Please do not read positions such as "death good" in front of me.

Case

Case debating is very important. I can vote on complete defense. Impact turns are fun, but please explain them well.

Kritiks

I am fine with you reading pretty much whatever you want, but I cannot guarantee that I will understand everything. I am particularly not good for high theory debates. I like when kritiks are more topic (or aff) specific.

Contextualize the links to the affirmative. Explain the alternative.

Counterplans

Read what you want. Please have a solvency advocate.

Disadvantages

Good, specific links will take you a long way. I love good impact calculus and turns case arguments. Not the biggest fan of the Politics DA, but can still vote on it.

Miscellaneous

Don't hide ASPEC; put it on its own flow.

If you have good/better evidence on an argument, point it out in your speech (make sure to explain why it is better). I'll make sure to look at it.

New block arguments justify new 1AR answers.

Try not to speak for or over your partner in CX unless they are seriously struggling.

Thomas Vance Marist School 3 rounds

Subhash Verma BASIS Peoria 4 rounds

Whit Whitmore Pace Academy 4 rounds

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 3:39 AM EDT

add me to the email chain: whit211@gmail.com

Do not utter the phrase "plan text in a vacuum" or any other clever euphemism for it. It's not an argument, I won't vote on it, and you'll lose speaker points for advancing it. You should defend your plan, and I should be able to tell what the plan does by reading it.

Inserting things into the debate isn't a thing. If you want me to evaluate evidence, you should read it in the debate.

Cross-ex time is cross-ex time, not prep time. Ask questions or use your prep time, unless the tournament has an official "alt use" time rule.

You should debate line by line. That means case arguments should be responded to in the 1NC order and off case arguments should be responded to in the 2AC order. I continue to grow frustrated with teams that do not flow. If I suspect you are not flowing (I visibly see you not doing it; you answer arguments that were not made in the previous speech but were in the speech doc; you answer arguments in speech doc order instead of speech order), you will receive no higher than a 28. This includes teams that like to "group" the 2ac into sections and just read blocks in the 2NC/1NR. Also, read cards. I don't want to hear a block with no cards. This is a research activity.

Debate the round in a manner that you would like and defend it. I consistently vote for arguments that I don’t agree with and positions that I don’t necessarily think are good for debate. I have some pretty deeply held beliefs about debate, but I’m not so conceited that I think I have it all figured out. I still try to be as objective as possible in deciding rounds. All that being said, the following can be used to determine what I will most likely be persuaded by in close calls:

If I had my druthers, every 2nr would be a counterplan/disad or disad/case.

In the battle between truth and tech, I think I fall slightly on side of truth. That doesn’t mean that you can go around dropping arguments and then point out some fatal flaw in their logic in the 2AR. It does mean that some arguments are so poor as to necessitate only one response, and, as long as we are on the same page about what that argument is, it is ok if the explanation of that argument is shallow for most of the debate. True arguments aren’t always supported by evidence, but it certainly helps.

I think research is the most important aspect of debate. I make an effort to reward teams that work hard and do quality research on the topic, and arguments about preserving and improving topic specific education carry a lot of weight with me. However, it is not enough to read a wreck of good cards and tell me to read them. Teams that have actually worked hard tend to not only read quality evidence, but also execute and explain the arguments in the evidence well. I think there is an under-highlighting epidemic in debates, but I am willing to give debaters who know their evidence well enough to reference unhighlighted portions in the debate some leeway when comparing evidence after the round.

I think the affirmative should have a plan. I think the plan should be topical. I think topicality is a voting issue. I think teams that make a choice to not be topical are actively attempting to exclude the negative team from the debate (not the other way around). If you are not going to read a plan or be topical, you are more likely to persuade me that what you are doing is ‘ok’ if you at least attempt to relate to or talk about the topic. Being a close parallel (advocating something that would result in something similar to the resolution) is much better than being tangentially related or directly opposed to the resolution. I don’t think negative teams go for framework enough. Fairness is an impact, not a internal link. Procedural fairness is a thing and the only real impact to framework. If you go for "policy debate is key to skills and education," you are likely to lose. Winning that procedural fairness outweighs is not a given. You still need to defend against the other team's skills, education and exclusion arguments.

I don’t think making a permutation is ever a reason to reject the affirmative. I don’t believe the affirmative should be allowed to sever any part of the plan, but I believe the affirmative is only responsible for the mandates of the plan. Other extraneous questions, like immediacy and certainty, can be assumed only in the absence of a counterplan that manipulates the answers to those questions. I think there are limited instances when intrinsicness perms can be justified. This usually happens when the perm is technically intrinsic, but is in the same spirit as an action the CP takes This obviously has implications for whether or not I feel some counterplans are ultimately competitive.

Because I think topic literature should drive debates (see above), I feel that both plans and counterplans should have solvency advocates. There is some gray area about what constitutes a solvency advocate, but I don’t think it is an arbitrary issue. Two cards about some obscure aspect of the plan that might not be the most desirable does not a pic make. Also, it doesn’t sit well with me when negative teams manipulate the unlimited power of negative fiat to get around literature based arguments against their counterplan (i.e. – there is a healthy debate about federal uniformity vs state innovation that you should engage if you are reading the states cp). Because I see this action as comparable to an affirmative intrinsicness answer, I am more likely to give the affirmative leeway on those arguments if the negative has a counterplan that fiats out of the best responses.

My personal belief is probably slightly affirmative on many theory questions, but I don’t think I have voted affirmative on a (non-dropped) theory argument in years. Most affirmatives are awful at debating theory. Conditionality is conditionality is conditionality. If you have won that conditionality is good, there is no need make some arbitrary interpretation that what you did in the 1NC is the upper limit of what should be allowed. On a related note, I think affirmatives that make interpretations like ‘one conditional cp is ok’ have not staked out a very strategic position in the debate and have instead ceded their best offense. Appeals to reciprocity make a lot sense to me. ‘Argument, not team’ makes sense for most theory arguments that are unrelated to the disposition of a counterplan or kritik, but I can be persuaded that time investment required for an affirmative team to win theory necessitates that it be a voting issue.

Critical teams that make arguments that are grounded in and specific to the topic are more successful in front of me than those that do not. It is even better if your arguments are highly specific to the affirmative in question. I enjoy it when you paint a picture for me with stories about why the plans harms wouldn’t actually happen or why the plan wouldn’t solve. I like to see critical teams make link arguments based on claims or evidence read by the affirmative. These link arguments don’t always have to be made with evidence, but it is beneficial if you can tie the specific analytical link to an evidence based claim. I think alternative solvency is usually the weakest aspect of the kritik. Affirmatives would be well served to spend cross-x and speech time addressing this issue. ‘Our authors have degrees/work at a think tank’ is not a response to an epistemological indict of your affirmative. Intelligent, well-articulated analytic arguments are often the most persuasive answers to a kritik. 'Fiat' isn't a link. If your only links are 'you read a plan' or 'you use the state,' or if your block consistently has zero cards (or so few that find yourself regularly sending out the 2nc in the body rather than speech doc) then you shouldn't be preffing me.

LD Specific Business:

I am primarily a policy coach with very little LD experience. Have a little patience with me when it comes to LD specific jargon or arguments. It would behoove you to do a little more explanation than you would give to a seasoned adjudicator in the back of the room. I will most likely judge LD rounds in the same way I judge policy rounds. Hopefully my policy philosophy below will give you some insight into how I view debate. I have little tolerance and a high threshold for voting on unwarranted theory arguments. I'm not likely to care that they dropped your 'g' subpoint, if it wasn't very good. RVI's aren't a thing, and I won't vote on them.

Jacob Wilkus Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 12, 2024 at 6:11 AM CDT

I am in my 7th year of debate. Third year in college at Kansas (NDT ‘24), four years prior at Lawrence Free State. I coach at Shawnee Mission East.

Please add both: jwilkus1@gmail.com and smedocs@googlegroups.com.

Last Updated: February 16^th, 2024, Pre-Spartan Green & Gold.

General:

Do what you want. I genuinely believe in debate as a space for debaters to make any argument they choose. This means I don’t care if you go for the K, read a plan, or force me to evaluate a highly technical counterplan competition debate. Over the course of my short 3 year tenure of judging, I have judged over 170 debates, voting for basically every argument imaginable.

I do care about teams making complete arguments. A complete argument is one that contains a claim, warrant, and impact. Arguments that are not explained with warrants or impacted out in the context of their opponent’s arguments are incomplete and therefore have less sway on my decision than those that are complete. For example, if the AFF has said “climate change causes extinction---ocean rise, temperature change, etc. make Earth uninhabitable by collapsing agriculture and destroying society”, the response of “no impact to climate change---it’s fake” is insufficient because a.) it does not contain a warrant (why is it fake?) and b.) it does not contain an impact (why does it matter if it is fake?).

The above applies equally to “answered” and “dropped” arguments. You cannot just say “conceded” or “they’ve dropped x” 20 times and expect me to vote on it. You still need to give a reason if it is true and implicate the concession in the debate. An argument being dropped does not guarantee it is “true”.

I have spent almost the entirety of my debate career reading a plan and going for DAs and CPs. This means while I will still vote for any argument, my experience and knowledge are both better in policy debates and the way I think about the K is attempting to beat it, not win rounds on it.

I will likely have a lot to say in the decision. I usually write a lot down, and tend to have opinions on almost everything said in the debate. I will likely talk for a while, either until I run out of things to say or am cut off by a question. Assuming the questions remain civil, I will answer any and all questions debaters, coaches, or teammates have about the round. If you start yelling at or berating me, I will likely pack up and leave.

I will do my best to give complete and thorough feedback for each speech. Too many times I've asked in an RFD "how can I improve the 1NR/2AR?" and received the response "I think the 1NR/2AR was really good. Don't have anything I'd add", while later seeing I got a 28.9. This is extremely frustrating as a debater, and I will do my best to avoid doing that by spending prep time after your speech coming up with feedback.

The bottom line for everything in this paradigm is that I care a lot about debate. I spend a large portion of my free time debating, judging, coaching, running tournaments, writing files, cutting cards, streaming debates on YouTube, etc. It has become an almost integral part of the last third of my life, and I know that is true of many of the debaters I will have the honor of judging. As such, I will try my absolute hardest in each and every debate I judge to render the correct decision and give thorough feedback.

Topicality vs. Policy AFFs:

---Competing interpretations is the only method of evaluation that makes sense to me. I do not understand how I would approach evaluating T debates if not from an offense-defense point of view. I also think that “reasonability” is meaningless and ultimately devolves into competing interpretations---instead of “we are reasonable because the NEG had the ability to debate”, explain it in the context of the risk of their impacts versus yours.

---I am getting really sick of AFFs reading vague plans that barely modify resolution language so they can go for “plan text in a vacuum”. Will I vote on it, and do I do it in my debates? Sure. But I think it’s a bad argument. Instead of touting your AFF that definitely violates as “topical” because you said a word or phrase, defend a model of debate that includes your AFF.

---In-round abuse is not necessary (it’s a debate of models), but explanation of what debates look like under your model is (case lists, examples of ground, etc.).

---My favorite T speeches I've ever watched are when the AFF has read a counter-interpretation they do not meet. This happens more often than teams realize, but is often ignored because the argument was either a cheap shot or the blanket assumption that the AFF meets the interpretation. If you think the AFF doesn't meet their own interpretation, go for it.

Topicality vs. Planless AFFs:

---Fairness can be an impact, but it also cannot. Whether it is depends equally on the NEG’s explanation and the AFF’s responses. I have found fairness to be a more persuasive impact than clash but have voted and gone for both.

---I find myself voting NEG when teams correctly use small, technical arguments to drastically reduce the risk of AFF offense (“T is a procedural, so you cannot weigh case vs. T”, “debate does not change subjectivity”, “the ballot cannot solve their offense alone, but it can solve ours”). I find myself voting AFF when teams either go for their counter-interpretation resolves NEG offense OR impact turn everything the NEG has said.

---I find it very hard to vote NEG when teams are re-reading blocks without engaging in the AFF’s arguments, or not explaining their offense in terms of what the NEG has said (going for a predictability internal link instead of a limits internal link when the counter-interpretation is “limited” but unpredictable, not comparing your impact to the language of the AFF’s impact, etc.). I find it hard to vote AFF when they are not debating technically or exploiting dropped arguments (the NEG dropping something like “small schools” or “the ballot can only solve our offense” but not going for it because your pre-written blocks don’t include an extension).

Disadvantages:

---Politics scenarios have become laughable. Writing a politics DA does not mean just finding a card that says a bill exists and a card that it would do good things, then throwing your generic PC or bipartisanship link and climate change impact card and making a DA. A politics scenario makes sense when it is something being actively debated or campaigned for, and when it is something the president is actually spending PC on. I love a good politics DA, but those tend to be few and far between anymore.

---I care a lot about turns case arguments---both “impact turns case” and “link turns case”. I equally care a lot about “case turns the DA” arguments. I find these to be extremely helpful in both breaking down close debates but also helping to reduce opponent’s offense because it tends to always be unanswered.

Counterplans:

---I hate watching a process CP debate---not because I think the argument is inherently bad (though it is), but because both teams are usually horrendous in doing the relevant line by line for competition.

---AFF-specific PICs are some of my favorite arguments. Topic generic PICs (like country PICs on NATO) are the opposite. I love it when counterplans contest a core assumption of the AFF, not when they negate something the AFF had no choice but to defend.

---Conditionality is good, and core to NEG strategy. I will still vote on theory, but it’s an uphill battle. I am NEG leaning on almost all theory, except for performative contradictions or international fiat, because I tend to find those violations to be extremely egregious.

---Most other theory is a reason to reject the argument, not the team. But, if the counterplan is the 2NR and you are clearly ahead on a given theory argument, go for it.

Kritiks:

---I find it much easier to vote NEG when the 2NR is FW, not the alternative. I personally think AFFs should get to weigh the plan but have found so many debaters to be horrendous at defending why that is the case. I find that FW 2NRs make the most sense when they attempt to reduce AFF offense to as close to zero as possible.

---However, I find it extremely difficult for the NEG to win FW or reps-based arguments when they have read contradictory arguments at different points in the debate, and I do not think that condo or NEG flex justifies that.

---If the 2NR is the alternative, I find it far easier to vote NEG when it is actively compared to and explained in terms of the AFF (does it solve the AFF? Make it impossible to solve?).

---I find it much easier to vote AFF when teams do impact calculus on FW or go for DAs to the alternative. It is insufficient to just say “fairness matters” or “education comes from talking about the plan”, it also needs to be explained in terms of why the NEG’s interpretation forecloses it and why those things matter more than the NEG’s offense. The same is true for the alternative---most AFF teams let the NEG get away with murder in terms of alternative explanation (especially when going for the alt solves the AFF), so reasons why the alternative does not make sense or cannot solve the links / AFF would be super helpful.

---AFF specific links > topic generic links > the USFG is bad > the theory of power is a link.

Case:

---The more time you spend on case, the better. My ideal 1NC is a single DA, a single CP, and 5.5 minutes of case. But this is high school policy debate so I know I will never get that.

---I find case debating that is just impact defense to be woefully insufficient. Solvency deficits, internal link defense, or analytics of any kind go a long way.

---You should go for the impact turn. Debaters are horrible at answering it, and I love a good, and fun, impact turn debate.

DJ Williams Berkeley Preparatory School 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu February 8, 2024 at 3:57 PM EDT

Last Updated: February 8, 2024

Assistant Policy Debate Coach @ Berkeley Preparatory School.

Debated at Little Rock Central High School (TOC Finalist '16) and Wake Forest University (NDT 1st round '19).

- Put me on the email chain: williamsd.j.jr@gmail.com

General/TLDR:

Please be CLEAR. I will not yell "clear" at you doing the round. If I can't understand you, having debated, judged, and coached at the highest level for 10+ years, then your speaking is egregious, and I WON'T flow it. I will also lower your speaks

I don't have an argument style preference and willing to judge everything. I primarily read Ks/K affs; however, I was introduced to debate as a "traditional" policy debater and read T, DAs, and CPs throughout my career. I prefer not to evaluate arguments about debater's character/behavior outside of the round, UNLESS you got receipts and it's relevant to the round. If it happens during the round, go for it.

Tech over truth; however, I find myself overly frustrated with the throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy. I will not likely resolve an entire debate on an underdeveloped (i.e. no impact) "dropped" arguments unless the argument isn't answered in two speeches.

Personally, I view debate as a game. That being said, I do think there is value to debate outside of competitive success. Debate has changed and will continue to change many people's lives. I can be persuaded that something else is equally, if not more important, than wins and losses.

"Judge instruction, impact framing, comparison of evidence, authors, warrants, etc. or “the art of spin” is the most important thing for telling me how I should decide a debate. Making strategic decisions is important.

One of the things that makes debate truly unique is the research that is required, and so I think it makes sense to reward teams who are clearly going above and beyond in the research they’re producing. Good cards won’t auto win you the debate, but they certainly help “break ties” on the flow and give off the perception that a team is deep in the literature on their argument. But good evidence is always secondary to what a debater does with it." -- Sam Gustavson

Framework/Non-Traditional Affs:

I am a fan of clash debates, and I willing to vote for both sides.

I believe affs should be in the direction of the topic (i.e. at the very least questioning the assumptions undergirding the resolution). I am not likely to vote on aff that is completely unrelated to the topic, assuming the team goes for FW. Affs that discuss the topic and link turn FW (e.g. explain why they access education, clash, or fairness impacts) are more persuasive to me than trying to label framework as violent or impact turning everything. If you take the latter route, make sure to explain how voting aff solves. You will also need to win some defense to FW no matter which strategy you employ.

Fairness can be a terminal impact or an internal link, but it depends on how it's debated. Saying "debate is a game," "you follow certain rules," or "you expect the judge to adjudicate fairly" is not always enough for me, but at worst will be evaluated as defense to the aff's model of debate. I am more compelled by a team that clearly articulates all of the following: their conception of a fair debate, how the other team has impeded your ability to access fairness, how your interpretation ensures fairness, and why preserving fairness matters (e.g. participation, debatability, etc.). Winning fairness is an intrinsic good is be an uphill battle in front of me, though not impossible. These arguments sound circular and often lack a clear impact (e.g. "debate is a game, so it needs to be fair because it's a game"). I want to know why the game matters. Whether that's competition or some other external offense, it needs to be contextualized to the debate and the other team's offense.

I believe debate CAN (not does) shape subjectivity; however, I don't think this argument is unique offense for K affs because: 1) Other things influence our subjectivity as well. However, I am not persuaded by the neg just listing various things that influence our subjectivity and labelling them as alt causes. You will have to either read evidence or make arguments explaining why those other things have a greater/significant enough influence on subject formation. 2) Policy debates can also influence subjectivity for good. I am a fan of negative teams that take this route. Explain to my why your model of debate is preferable for crafting people who are ethical and possess the necessary skills to solve some external impact or the aff's impacts. 3) I don't believe all subjectivity crafted in debate is uniquely good. The onus is on you to explain which form of subjectivity is preferable.

I prefer testing/clash/education impacts because they serves as a better internal link to the why debate matters and encourages more interaction with the aff and vice versa. If you explain to me why having limited/ predictable debaters produces some external value/solves some external impact the aff can't, you will be in a great position. Even better, if this is combined with a specific TVA(s) or SSD arguments. This will force the aff to not only defend the intrinsic value of reading their 1AC but also why their model of debate outweighs, which I find is harder to do.

Counter-interpretations matter. You don't have to counter define specific words in the resolution, but I do need to understand the role of the aff and neg in order for me to evaluate offense and defense. I am not a fan of self-serving counter-interps (e.g. "squo + our aff" or "affirm X methodology"). I think you ended up linking to a lot of your own exclusion offense, and it requires you winning a specific uniqueness argument about the nature of debate or academic scholarship. Just articulate what your vision of debate is and why those debates are good.

Kritiks (vs. Policy Affs):

The more specific the better. I prefer you have specific links to the plan with clear impacts/turns case arguments. This allows you to win the debate without an alternative or winning FW. Nevertheless, I will evaluate links to the aff's rhetoric, reps, epistemology, impacts, etc. Generic links will require you at least winning FW (i.e. arguing that I should view the debate in some way other than "weighing the consequences of the plan vs. squo/alt"), and will find it hard to beat the traditional aff presses (e.g. case outweighs, try-or-die, alt fails, perms) in a close debate.

Make strategic 2NR decisions.Don't go for every link, DA to the perm, framework DA, etc.

Kritiks (vs. K Affs):

ESKETIT!!! May the more well read team win lol.

In all seriousness, too many of these debates devolve down to root cause debates or disagreements about scholarship without impacting out what it means one's analysis of the problem is wrong. Don't just try to out theorize the other team, but explain the significance of my ballot.

I'm pretty familiar with most critical theory. I primarily read arguments related to race, but I have a lot of experience in postmodernism as well.

Role of the ballot claims are typically too self-serving. I'd prefer these debates to mimic FW debates in plan v. K debates. Give me the guidelines for evaluating what's important (e.g. material solvency, ethics, epistemology, etc.) and why. I will default to whatever evaluating metric I'm given in debates in which the ROB is well-developed or completely dropped.

Perms usually win this debate for me, when the K is not specific to the aff. DAs to the perm need to be impact out in order for the vote on them. I might still vote on a perm if the neg just extends blippy DAs or perm theory that lacks an impact.

I typically end up reading a lot of evidence when deciding these debates, so make sure your arguments are extrapolating too much from the warrants in your cards.

Topicality:

I enjoy these debates. Just make sure to have a clear impact in the 2NR and not get too focused on just proving the violation. Give case lists, examples of ground lost under the aff's interp, explanation for why debates under your interp are better, etc. The aff needs to do the same.

T is being under utilized by everyone, especially by K teams going up against questionably topical soft left affs. I enjoy listening to debates where Kritikal teams extend topicality. I did this a lot in high school, and it was very helpful for setting up links because T forces the aff to clearly define what it thinks the aff does.

I typically default to competing interps rather than reasonability because any metric I would employ to establish that standard is arbitrary and infinitely regressive. However, I am open to voting on this argument, assuming the aff team explains why their interp is capable of providing sufficient ground for the aff and neg, equitable research burdens, and quality debates. This requires you establishing a threshold for your reasonability standard and explaining why it is a better model of debate for deciding topicality debates.

Saying the following: "plan text in vacuum" without explaining why this standard is best to interpret the meaning and scope of words in the plan, "functional limits check" without a warrant for why your interp preserves equitable ground, "intent to define" without justification, etc. mean nothing to me.

Counterplans:

Prefer CPs to be specific to the aff. Generics and PICs are fine though. Must have a net benefit. I prefer the net benefit to disprove the desirability of the plan (i.e. politics, spending DA vs. internal net benefit).CPs should be at least functionally competitive, but I would prefer them to also be textually competitive as well. I apply the same standard to permutations as well.

Aff should have offense against the CP (e.g. solvency deficit, DA to CP, aff/perm links less to the net benefit than the CP, etc).

Perms aren't advocacies, just a test of competition. Saying "perm do both," "perm do the cp," "perm do each," etc. means nothing to me without a warrants about how it's function challenges mutual exclusivity.

I am easily persuaded on conditionality being good (at least 1 CP/ 1 K is fine), but I am willing to vote on conditionality bad, especially when the neg has multiple contradicting positions. I'm not a fan of multiple plank counterplans, when each plank is conditional. This greatly skews the aff's strategy and disincentives them researching the CP or reading a 2AC add on.

Don't make a sufficiency framing argument without doing the work to explain why the CP does not need to solve the entire aff or why I should prefer it as long as it solves most/certain parts of the aff. You have to instruct me on what is "sufficient" and how that influences the way I should evaluate impacts.

Disadvantages:

Prefer aff/topic specific DAs to politics, but I don't really care if there's good link debating.

Please explain the DA in the overview whether or not it is conceded. Go through each part (uniqueness, link, internal link, impact) before the line by line.

Evidence quality matters. Many times in closed debates I will base my decision based on the warrants provided in the evidence.

Impact comparison is really important.Arguments about timeframe and probability are more persuasive to me than magnitude, assuming both teams have an existential impact. Neg teams that make quality turns case arguments are typically successful in front of me because it helps me weigh the significance of an impact.

Aff teams should attack the internal link more so than reading impact defense. I am more persuaded by the fact that economic decline doesn't lead to nuclear war, especially when teams don't articulate the specifics of their scenario (e.g. which countries go to war, what's unique about this economic downturn, etc.) rather than nuclear war/warming/etc. not causing extinction. The latter typically requires more scientific explanation that many teams (myself included) are not well versed enough to evaluate the truth of. The former requires more common sense, empirics.

Sam Wombough Woodward Academy 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 9:43 AM EDT

Email: womboughsam36@gmail.com

UGA Law '27

Georgia Tech '23 (History and Sociology)

Woodward Academy ’20

Topic Knowledge: I have judged a lot of debates and worked at ENDI this past summer.

Last Substantively Updated: 1/7/24

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Short Version + Novices (est. 45 sec. to read)

"Debate like an adult. Show me the evidence. Attend to the details. Don't dodge, clash. Great research and informed comparisons win debates." — Bill Batterman

Flow.

Be nice.

Be clear.

Have fun!

Time yourselves.

It’s probably not a voting issue.

If you read a plan, defend and clarify it.

Do not request a marked copy in lieu of flowing.

Be an evidenced, well-reasoned critic, not a cynic.

If you stop prep and then re-start prep, take off 10 seconds of prep.

If you don't have your video on in online debate, I will struggle to stay engaged.

An argument must be complete and comprehensible before there is a burden to answer it.

Focus on depth in argument. It's more engaging and is the only reliable way to beat good teams.

Write my ballot for me at the top of your late rebuttals, without using any debate jargon or hyperbole.

"Marking a card" means actually clearly marking that card on your computer (e.g. multiple Enter key pushes).

If you advocate something, at some point in the debate, you need to explain the tangible results of your advocacy without relying on any debate or philosophy jargon.

There has been a significant decline in the quality of speaking since online debate started because debaters became less familiar with speaking directly to the judge and because judges gave more leeway to the absence of clarity due to the computer instrument. Judges should never have to rely on reading along with the speech document in order to flow tags/analytics. If you have no intonation nor emphasis during tags/analytics/rebuttals, you are a bad speaker.

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More Stuff (est. 1:30 min. to read)

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Debate

I really enjoy debate. Debate is the most rewarding activity I have ever done. But debate didn't always feel rewarding while I was doing it. Accordingly, I hope that everybody prioritizes having fun, and then learning and improving.

From Johnnie Stupek's paradigm: "I encourage debaters to adopt speaking practices that make the debate easier for me to flow including: structured line-by-line, clarity when communicating plan or counterplan texts, emphasizing important lines in the body of your evidence, and descriptively labelling off-case positions in the 1NC."

Purging your speech documents of analytics and then rocking through them will be just as likely to "trick" me into not flowing an argument as it will be your opponents.

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Case

I will vote on absolute defense.

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Critiques

Explain; don’t confuse.

It is anti-black for debaters that are not black (team) to present afropessimist arguments. This practice exists because of the anti-blackness or cowardice of some non-black educators in debate. Frank Wilderson III claims that he "grieves over" debate's appropriation of his work (“Staying Ready for Black Study: A Conversation”).

Postmodernism— Debaters often mischaracterize ornamental absolutism in philosophical writings as almost-theological dogmatisms about how the world operates. This is anti-modern, not postmodern. <— I don't know if that paragraph makes any sense.

I've seen a few debates exclusively about personal identity that were extremely distressful for both sides. I think it's really weird when a high school student prompts a rejoinder from their peers to a pure affirmation of their identity. Please don't make me adjudicate it.

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Non-Topical Debates

"No" to aff conditionality. Defend your aff and comparatively weigh offense.

Please stop referencing college debate rounds that you only know about thirdhand.

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Theory

The more conditional advocacies there are in the 1NC, the worse the debate usually is.

I am sympathetic to affirmative complaints about process counterplans and agent counterplans that do nearly all of the affirmative. These counterplans, with the States-multi-plank CP in mind, tend to stagnate negative topic innovation and have single-handedly ruined some topics (Education).

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Extra

I almost always defer to technical debating, but in close debates:

I am a degrowth hack. T: Substantial against a quantifiably small aff is fun.

I am easily convinced that Bostrom-esque "extinction first" is incoherent and can justify repulsive ideologies.

I strongly believe that China is not militarily revisionist. I think Sinophobic scholarship is festering in debate.

With respect to "Catastrophe Good" arguments, "we must die to destroy a particle accelerator that will consume the universe" is less convincing to me than a nihilism or misanthropy argument. I value accurate science.

Lastly, don't purposefully try to fluster the judge if you want quality post-round answers.

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Cheating

In the instance that a team accuses the other of clipping, I will follow the NDCA clipping guidelines (2).

Strawmanning is an ethics violation as per the NSDA guidelines.

(1) https://the3nr.com/2014/08/20/how-to-never-clip-cards-a-guide-for-debaters/

(2) https://static.squarespace.com/static/53416a18e4b0aa2aaadf85e4/t/53665f81e4b03af4b79e088f/1399218049326/clipping.pdf

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More References

https://the3nr.com/2009/11/03/judging-methodologies-how-do-judges-reach-their-decisions/

https://the3nr.com/2016/04/15/an-updated-speaker-point-scale-based-on-2015-2016-results/ (I inflate this).

https://new.debateus.org/to-consult-or-not-to-consult-on-the-theoretical-legitimacy-of-the-consultation-counterplan/

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