Please add me to the email chain: kvaoki2000@gmail.com | kvaoki2000 AT gmail DOT com

Background + Top Level

West High School SLC '18

Harvard '22

Currently an assistant debate coach at Harvard

Have some background knowledge on the college topic through research + judging. Have a minimal background on the high school topic. Explanation in both, particularly at the beginning of the season, is always helpful.

I begin evaluating almost every debate by listing out all the impacts made in the 2NR and 2AR and then determine the degree to which each team gets access to the fullest extent of those impacts by parsing out the rest of the debate. After, I'll weigh these impacts by deciding what the implications of winning each of them are (defaulting to and prioritizing the comparative metrics forwarded by the debaters in the round) and then usually have a good idea of who I believe should win.

Line by line is appreciated and minimizes intervention I must make after the round. Further, the more granular the debate (like debates over particular terms of art, specific details, etc.) and/or the closer the debate is, the more I'll look to evidence to break ties. Please engage in evidence comparison to limit the degree of intervention I have to do in a debate.

Quality > Quantity of arguments particularly in rebuttals.

Ultimately, do what you do best because you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your style for any minor predisposition that I may have.

Topicality

Please unpack, apply, and compare, commonly used buzzwords as the rebuttals get closer, i.e. “vote neg because our interpretation sets a functional limit on the topic,” isn’t a complete argument until there is an explanation of why the parameters the neg sets up are better than the aff interpretation for xyz reason.

Impact + caselist comparisons are essential.

Reasonability needs to be connected to how it interacts with neg offense and not just a laundry list of reasons why it is better than competing interpretations.

I think cards and evidence comparison are often underutilized in these debates.

Counterplans + Counterplan Theory

Relatively straightforward. If you’re aff, tie your solvency deficits to a specific impact and explain why it outweighs the net benefit to the counterplan. Conversely, if you’re neg, explain why the deficits don’t apply or why the deficits are unimportant because the CP sufficiently solves.

Will presume judge kick

In terms of most theory issues: literature oftentimes determines how I evaluate the extent of abusiveness of a counterplan; the more specific the solvency advocate, the better. I default to reject the arg, not the team and am relatively unpersuaded by process cps, agent cps, etc. being a reason to reject the neg.

DAs

Strong analytical pushes are good and persuasive, but also not an excuse to not read cards

Turns case arguments on multiple levels of the aff (link level, impact level) are fantastic

Zero percent risk is possible, but not the most preferable strategy

Ks

This is where most of my debate experience is in

Contextualization > Explanation in every instance, which should reflect in the way you give an overview

My biggest thought about these arguments is that both neg teams running the K and aff teams answering the K should recognize where 1AC/NC strengths are. A heg aff is not built to perm the colonialism K and pivoting to that as your strategy in the 2AC is more detrimental than beneficial. In essence, when aff, know whether you will be going for an impact turn or a perm and work backward. When neg, know whether your links/framework/alt are strongest in relation to the aff and work backward.

I've found often that many neg framework interpretations don't generate a lot of offense in terms of grander strategy because they give the aff too much leeway. I've found that I'm most persuaded by framework strategies that do one of three things:

1. attempt to just exclude the aff and win substantial impact turns to their model of plan focus/consequentialism,
2. limit the scope of aff solvency while enhancing the scope of alt solvency, or
3. are ditched in favor of more particular engagements on the link/impact/alt level of the kritik

K Affs/Framework

Having a relationship to the topic is preferable, but that certainly doesn't require "topical action" which I think is up for debate both on what topical constitutes as well as whether being topical is desirable

K Affs probably get a perm, but

1. I'm extremely open to adjusting the parameters of how perms should function in these debates and
2. I think I have a higher threshold of aff explanation for how any permutation functions with a competing kritik/counterplan/advocacy.

Fairness can or can’t be an impact in front of me based on debating. The most persuasive fairness arguments I’ve heard are ones paired with a discussion of how it implicates debate as an educational activity/more education-related impacts as well as how fair norms are necessary and mutually beneficial for both teams. In these debates I typically view fairness as a tiebreaker for the negative but can be convinced that it is more important than that if heavy investment is done.

TVAs should have a substantive explanation as to how they provide a similar discussion of the aff's issues and internal links and framework DAs. Simply reading an alternative plan text is not sufficient. Further, TVAs and Read On Neg/Switch Side have varying degrees of value based on aff offense against T which should affect how you deploy them by the 2NR (if not earlier).

Performances are great, but they're greater when they have explanations and develop organically as the debate continues

Misc (but still important) things

If you have an issue with access in terms of debate, please feel free to send me an email before the round so that I can make the necessary accommodations.

Tech > Truth except arguments along the lines of “racism/sexism/antiqueerness/antiblackness/ableism good”

A dropped argument still needs an extension of a claim and a warrant for me to evaluate it.

I usually look grumpy/apathetic/tired during rounds; I promise it's not usually because of anyone's actions (if it is, I'll be explicit about it after the round), and is more just my face. I deeply appreciate people's commitment to this activity and want to emphasize that I'll do my absolute best to adjudicate. Further, I feel like most of the learning I've had in the activity can be attributed to the comments provided by judges after round. Following that, please know that no amount of questions is too much, and I'm happy to answer any and all of them to make your time in this activity more valuable.

UPDATE 10/14/22

TL:DR

I have not updated by paradigm in well over a decade but much of what I wrote then continues to be true. I've been coaching/judging various styles and forms of debate for over 12 years. I am most comfortable judging debates in Policy, Lincoln-Douglass, and Public Forum. I flow and listen to all arguments, so please debate in whichever way you are most comfortable and I will attempt to evaluate it to the best of my ability. That being said, if you have a position that is complicated or difficult to follow, the onus is on the debaters to ensure that their arguments are well explained. I will not vote on arguments that I do not understand or are blatantly offensive/discriminatory. Otherwise, try  to have fun!

My email for chains is: carlito2692@gmail.com

Old Paradigm:

I competed in LD at University High School in Newark New Jersey, I was nationally competitive for three years.. I also compete in policy debate for Rutgers University.

Presumption: I typically presume neg unless the affirmative advances arguments for why presumption should flow aff (i.e the negative team introduces a counterplan/kritik alt/etc.

Speed: I don't generally have an issue with speed, however I do have a problem with monotone speed, unclear speed. I will yell clear if I can't understand you, but it will only be maybe once or twice, if you don't become clear by then, my ability to properly evaluate the arguments may possibly become impaired. Also, your speaks probably won't be awesome if I have to keep yelling clear.

-I would like you to significantly slow down when reading tags/card names so I can have a properly structured flow, but while reading the card you are welcome to go at top CLEAR speed(a few caveats to be explained later)

-When making analytical arguments, please be clear, because it's difficult for me to follow analytics when they are weirdly phrased and also being spread.

-I don't like speed for the sake of being fast, I prefer when speed is used as a catalyst for an awesome case or a multilayered rebuttal with really nuanced responses on case.

Evidence: Despite what happened in the round, I may call for the cites for cards read in round, I'll specify which specific cites I would like to see. I do this for two reasons: to ensure that there was no miscutting of evidence, and because I believe in disclosure and am from the school of thought that everybody in the round should have access to all evidence read in the round. I don't appreciate a denial to share citations, if citations are not readily available, I may choose to disregard all evidence with missing citations(especially evidence which was contested in the debate).

Cross Examination: I don't know how much I can stress it...CROSS EX IS BINDING! I don't care if you present arguments for why it shouldn't be binding or why lying in CX is ok, or any arguments with the implication which allows dishonesty in CX, there is NO theory to be ran to change my mind. Nevertheless, I don't flow CX, so its up to the debaters to refresh my memory of any inconsistencies between speeches and CX answers. On the other hand, CX can be the BEST or the WORST part of a debate, depending on how it plays out. A funny yet not disrespectful CX will score big when I'm deciding on how to assign speaks, while a rude and boring CX will negatively influence how I assign speaks. Clarification questions during prep is fine, but I'm not cool with trying to tear down an argument during prep, if it was that important, it should have been in the formal CX, rather than during prep. Don't be afraid to refuse to answer a non-clarification question during your opponents prep time.

Critical/Weird Arguments: I love well explained critical positions. With the caveat that these critical arguments are logically explained and aren't insanely convoluted. I have no issue voting for the argument. But if I can't understand it, I won't vote on it. Also, I am a fan of interesting debate, so if you have a neat performance to run in front of me, I would love to hear it!

Theory: I don't presume to competing interpretations or reasonability. The justification for either one needs to be made in round. I don't like greedy theory debates, which means that I generally view theory as a reason to reject the argument rather than the debater. YES, this means you must provide reasons in or after the implications section of your shell, for why this specific violation is a reason for me to use my ballot against the other debater. I'm not persuaded by generic 12 point blocks for why fairness isn't a voter, I prefer nuanced argumentation for why fairness may not be a voter. RVIs have to be justified but I'm willing to vote on them if the situation presents itself, but its up to you to prove why you defensively beating theory is enough for me to vote for you.

Prestandard: I don't like having preconceived beliefs before judging a round, but this is just one of those things that I need to reinforce. I WILL NOT vote on multiple apriori blips, and winning a single apriori is an uphill battle, a serious commitment to advocacy is necessary(you devote a serious amount of time to the apriori position.)

Speaks: I average about a 27, I doubt I'll go lower than 25(unless you do something which merits lower than a 25) because I personally know how disappointing the 4-2/5-2 screw can be, nevertheless I am more than willing to go up or down, depending on the performance in that particular round. The reason I average around a 27 is not because I generally don't give nice speaks, its because the majority of tournaments, I'll judge only a few rounds that deserve more than a 28. It's not difficult at all to get good speaks from me. I reserve 30's for debaters who successfully execute the following: speak really well, good word economy, good coverage/time allocation, takes risks when it comes to strategy, weighs really well, provides AWESOME evidence comparison, and adapts well to the things happening in the round. I really enjoy seeing new strategies, or risky strategies, I.E. I am a fan of the straight refutation 1N, attempting something risky like this and pulling it off, gives you a higher chance of getting a 30. Another way to get high speaks is to be a smart debater as well as funny without being mean or making any kind of jokes at the expense of your opponent(this will lose you speaks)

Delivery: I need evidence comparison! It makes me really happy when debaters do great evidence comparison. Also, I would appreciate for you to give status updates as the rebuttals progress, as well as giving me implications for each extension. When extending arguments which rely on cards, in order for it to be a fully structured extension it must contain: The claim/tag of the card, author/card name, warrant from the card, and the implications of that extension (what does it do for you in the round).

Miscellaneous: You are more than welcome to sit or stand, I don't mind people reading from laptops or being paperless as long as it doesn't delay the round. Also, I don't care if you are formally dressed, jeans and a tshirt will get you the same speaks that a shirt and a tie will. :) I also believe its impossible for me to divorce my judging from my beliefs, but I'll do my best to attempt to fairly adjudicate the debate.

P.S. I don't like performative contradictions...(just felt like I should throw that out there)

//shree

I am a social studies & math teacher who is no longer involved in full-time argument coaching. I am judging this tournament because my wife, a mentor, or a former student asked me to.

I previously served as a DOD at the high school level and as a hired gun for college debate programs. During this time, I had the privilege of working with Baker Award recipients, TOC champions in CX, a NFA champion in LD, and multiple NDT First-Round teams; I was very much ‘in the cards.’ Debate used to be everything to me, and I fancied myself as a ‘lifer.’ I held the naïve view that this activity was the pinnacle of critical thinking and unequivocally produced the best and brightest scholars compared to any other curricular or extracurricular pursuit.

My perspective has shifted since I’ve reduced my competitive involvement with the community. Debate has provided me with some incredible mentors, colleagues, and friends that I would trade for nothing. However, several of the practices prevalent in modern debate risk making the activity an academically unserious echo chamber. Many in the community have traded in flowing for rehearsing scripts, critical thinking for virtue signaling, adjudication for idol worship, and research for empty posturing. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t guilty of adopting or teaching some of the trendy practices that are rapidly devolving the activity, but I am no longer willing to keep up the charade that what we do here is pedagogically sound.

This ‘get off my lawn’ ethos colors some of my idiosyncrasies if you have me in the back of the room. Here are guidelines to maximize your speaker points and win percentage:

1 – Flow. Number arguments. Answer arguments in the order that they were presented. Minimize overviews.

2 – Actually research. Most of you don’t, and it shows. Know what you are talking about and be able to use the vocabulary of your opponents. Weave theory with examples. Read a book. Being confidently clueless or dodgy in CX is annoying, not compelling.

3 – Please try. Read cards from this year when possible; be on the cutting edge. Say new and interesting things, even if they’re about old or core concepts. Adapt your arguments to make them more ‘you.’ Reading cards from before 2020 or regurgitating my old blocks will bore me.

4 – Emphasize clarity. This applies to both your thoughts and speaking. When I return, my topic knowledge will be superficial, and I will be out of practice with listening to the fastest speakers. Easy-to-transcribe soundbytes, emphasis in sentences, and pen time is a must. I cannot transcribe bots who shotgun 3-word arguments at 400wpm nor wannabe philosopher-activists who speak in delirious, winding paragraphs.

5 – Beautify your speech docs. Inconsistent, poor formatting is an eyesore. So is word salad highlighting without the semblance of sentence structure.

6 – No dumpster fires. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy. I find unnecessarily escalating CX, heckling opponents, zoom insults, authenticity tests, and screenshot insertions uncompelling. I neither have the resources nor interest in launching an investigation about outside behavior, coach indiscretions, or pref sheets.

7 – Don’t proliferate trivial voting issues. I will evaluate a well-evidenced topicality violation; conditionality can be a VI; in-round harassment and slurs are not trivial. However, I have a higher threshold than most with regards to voting issues surrounding an author’s twitter beef, poorly warranted specification arguments, trigger warnings, and abominations I classify as ‘LD tricks.’ If you are on the fence about whether your procedural or gateway issue is trivial, it probably is; unless it’s been dropped in multiple speeches, my preferred remedy is to reject the argument, not the team. Depending on how deranged it is, I may just ignore it completely. I strongly prefer substantive debates.

8 – Be well rounded. The divide between ‘policy,’ ‘critical,’ and ‘performance’ debate is artificial. Pick options that are strategic and specific to the arguments your opponents are reading.

9 – Not everything is a ‘DA.’ Topicality standards are not ‘DAs.’ Critique links are not ‘DAs’ and the alternative is not a ‘CP.’ A disadvantage requires, at a minimum, uniqueness, a link, and an impact. Describing your arguments as ‘DAs’ when they are not will do you a disservice, both in terms of your strategy and your speaker points.

10 – I’m old. I won’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. Good debaters can give bad speeches, and the reverse can also be true. Rep has no correlation to the speaker points you will receive. 28.5 is average. 29 is solid. 29.5 is exceptional. 30 means you’ve restored my belief in the pedagogical value of policy debate.

Director of Debate at the University of Texas

brendonbankey@gmail.com - please add me to your email chain

***Nukes Topic - NDT Update***

-Apology not accepted. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

-Don't pref me if you spent your NDT prep taking screenshots of your opponents' wikis or social media instead of cutting cards. The ad-homs have continued unabated all season and its pathetic that the community has created a competitive incentive for character attacks. To the coaches, what purpose are you serving convincing young adults that their path to success should include tactics that would be grounds for civil litigation in any other context? Aren't we all supposed to be educators?

-Students who abuse the subject line of the email chain to insinuate that their opponents are members of hate groups are committing harassment and I will vote against them if it occurs in front of me. Touch grass. No-one competing at this tournament is in the klan. Anyone who devotes themselves to winning the Larmon has forfeited their claim to be holier than thou. Get over yourselves.

***Nukes Topic***

General

I would like to see more evidence spin and storytelling. I think impact interaction matters on this topic. Narrate the trip wires that cause your impact to occur. Timeframe/probability matter a lot more to me than magnitude (it all seems pretty bad). I care whether the disad turns the case or vice versa.

Please engage and indict your opponents' evidence. Evidence quality matters. Several of the major topic authors on this topic were also the major topic authors on the 09-10 topic. I will reward debaters who can articulate the distinct warrants and disagreements between the policy wonks. I think this is especially important for kritik debating. Several topic authors are known quantities and fodder for epistemology links.

I think evidence matters when evaluating topicality and counterplan competition. In addition to reading evidence for interps/violations/textual competition, debaters should explain why their definitions should be preferred. I will defer to the negative on T or counterplan competition until the aff counter-defines the words. If the aff covers the definitions, the neg must also explain why its definitions are better for a year's worth of debates. I think "does this definition produce better debates?" is a more important question than "is this the most precise interpretation?".

K Stuff

-The oldies are goodies. Although the content of the nukes policy v k debate has changed over the past forty years, several of the warrants/justifications/conventional thinking continue to be applied on both sides. I am comfortable using old evidence to establish the thesis for a K as long as the 2N is capable at applying the oldies to give a convincing narrative that makes sense in 2023/4. I think framework/impact comparison becomes more convincing when 2Ns can put the aff's claims in context of the evolution in the academic debates that have occurred over the years. The same is true of 2As that can leverage old evidence that answers the K.

-I struggle with the competition for the abolition/nuclearism alts that include all of the plan. If the 2NR includes an alt that includes all of the plan I see myself voting aff even if the link debating is persuasive. I also think links that argue "the aff described the world problematically" are vulnerable to strategic perm debating. I think Ks are more persuasive that indict fiat and question the pedagogical benefit of reinvesting in gaming the ideal nuclear posture.

-This is the 5th topic in 14 years (Nukes 1, War Powers, Exec Authority, Military Presence, Nukes 2) with a viable version of the NFU aff. Affs should have a take in the 2AC (hopefully several) about why it is pedagogically valuable to debate about the nuclear posture.

-I am unlikely to disregard the nukes K because its unfair unless the block or 2NR drop fairness. I am more likely to disregard the K because the alt doesn't solve and the aff convinces me that the links are not unique to the aff.

-Fiat double bind is not a thing. It's never going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.

Debating Non-USFG Affs

-Will vote for T-US but will be bored if the aff claims to lead to disarm. No solvency/presumption + disad seems more viable/entertaining. I think the aff can win that T-US = FG is overlimiting and produces a stale topic.

-I think that competing interpretation debates are fun and will reward teams who invest in the interpretation debating. I don't think the aff's interps have to be the most predictable as long as they can describe what limits the counter-interps impose on the topic and why they provide a desirable division of ground.

-Affs should vet their authors to make sure they don't advocate the TVA. I think "your author says the US should actually do it" requires 1AR pen time. I don't think that the TVA is a counterplan but I do think that the TVA raises a necessary/sufficiency standard for whether shifting the point of stasis away from the resolution is required to solve the Ks of T. I think if the neg wins a TVA is compatible with the 1AC author's claims it substantially deflates the aff's "topic design bad" offense versus T/framework. If the aff introduces Acheson evidence in the 1AC I expect the 2AC/1AR to be able to explain the method comparison between US disarm and Acheson's vision of disarm.

Arguments Regarding Community Norms

-I think that teams are entitled to make non-resolutional procedural arguments related to argument style or the content that a ballot should endorse. Teams can present an interpretation and argue why that interpretation should be preferred. If I vote for those strategies my ballot just means that a team did the better arguing for the purpose of that debate.

-Ad-homs are not arguments. I do not flow ad-homs or use them to evaluate debates. I am an employee of the state of Texas and will never cast my ballot to assign positive or negative value to an undergraduate student's character. It is wholly outside of my jurisdiction to judge any individual's conduct outside of the words they say in a debate after the 1AC has started and before the 2AR has ended. If you believe the conduct of a member of the community is so reprehensible that it must come before evaluating arguments that occur in a debate, I strongly encourage you to pursue a resolution with the relevant NDT/CEDA/ADA committee prior to the start of a NDT/CEDA/ADA sanctioned competition. Those decision-making bodies are designed to evaluate complaints in a professional manner that protects the confidentiality of all parties. As a tournament director, I can attest to the usefulness of these decision-making bodies to carefully navigate sensitive issues concerning interpersonal conflicts between members of the community. I do not see any value in offering competitive incentives for tactically deploying reputation-damaging claims as procedurals.

***March 2022***

I am a clash judge set out to pasture. I am generally in a state of judging ennui because debates are often copies of copies of debates I've seen before. With that said, here's some advice:

1) All debate is role playing. You're lying to yourself if you think it's not. Make it entertaining, don't break character, and refrain from lobbing fallacies at your opponent.

2) I generally vote for the team that A) has a clear narrative throughout the debate and B) does the most to complicate their opponent's narrative. Be convincing. "Extinction outweighs" is an incomplete narrative. Talk about internal links more and use them to make more turns the case/da/k arguments.

A) Cross-examination is my favorite part of the debate. Don't waste the opportunity. If you can't defend your narrative in cx don't expect me to let you make up for it in rebuttals.

B) The 2NR and 2AR should collapse the debate to the most important questions. Boo to final rebuttals that race through the speech without communicating to me the ballot you would like me to write in your favor.

3) I hate your 2NR/2AR blocks. I don't want them. Just answer the previous speech instead and identify what the errors are of the previous speech. If you read them anyway don't be obvious. I flow on a laptop and will know/become irritated if you are rereading a block from a previous speech instead of developing arguments in response to opponent's arguments.

4) I like evidence-based arguments. Debate should be academically rigorous. The 2AC and the 2NC should read cards. Well-evidence arguments are important because they connect students' creative ideas to academic communities pursuing similar questions. Connecting arguments to academic literature is also important because no individual has a complete understanding of the world. If your strategy does not rely on evidence I expect you to be excellent at cross-examination.

A) If your style is not evidence-centered, I still expect students to connect important ideas to a clearly identifiable literature base. A failure to connect your arguments to a clear literature base feels to me like an effort to deprive opponents of link ground and implicitly an expectation that the opponent is responsible for refuting the un-published ideas of student debaters. I don't want to decide those debates.

B) I am very much over students referencing the history of cross-examination debate without reference to evidence. The rush for originality dismisses the rich history of academic work documenting the examples often invoked in competition.

C) Caveat: I don't read a ton of evidence to decide debates. The best debaters will deploy the claims/warrants of their evidence convincingly such that I feel like they know what they're talking about. I flow on the computer. If I have to read your cards during the debate to figure out what you're talking about I'm having a bad time.

D) If you introduce and convincingly deploy an evidence-based argument (tangential to the new topic) that I've never seen before I will likely tune in and reward you with higher points.

5) Debates over competing interpretations (definitional argument) is, without question, the most important skill that cross-examination debates provide. Interpretations/counter-interpretations provide instruction to the judge for how to interpret whether the teams have met their burdens. I'm agnostic about the content of your theory arguments but I'm unlikely to vote for them if there is not enough information to explain to your opponent what I am voting for when providing my reasons for decision.

6) There is some recent grumbling from my fellow old-heads about neg conditionality and judge kick getting out of control. I cosign those concerns. If the aff breathes a claim and warrant about judge kick in each speech starting in the 2AC I will disregard it. 2N's are entitled to their hustle but shouldn't expect my sympathy if the 1AR answers judge kick and the 2AR extends it. For the aff to win on conditionality the 1AR has to be airtight covering the 2NC/1NR.

***Old Paradigm***

Square up. Friday night lights. Fight night. Any given Sunday. Start your engines and may the best debater win.

My bias is that debate is competitive and adversarial, not cooperative. My bias is that debate strategies should be evidence-centric and, at a minimum, rooted in an academic discipline. My bias is that I do not want to consider anything prior to the reading of the 1AC when making my decision. My bias is that I will only flow one speaker in each rebuttal unless it is clearly and compellingly established in the constructives why I should flow both speakers in the same speech.

For me to vote on an argument it must have a claim, warrant, and impact. A claim is an assertion of truth or opinion. A warrant is an analytical connection between data/grounds/evidence and your claim. An impact is the implication of that claim for how I should evaluate the debate.

I think about permutations in a very precise way. I do not think it's the only way to think about them but I am unlikely to be persuaded to think otherwise. I think that a plan specifies a desired outcome. There are a set number of means to achieve the desired outcome. I also think that a counterplan or alternative specifies a desired outcome with a set number of means to achieve that outcome. A permutation asserts that it is theoretically possible for there to be a means of action that satisfies both the outcome of the plan and the counterplan or alternative. A permutation could be expressed as where the set numbers of the aff's and the neg's strategies overlap. Permutations are defense. Rarely do they "solve all their offense." It would behoove affs to know what offense they are "no linking" with the perm and what offense the perm does not resolve. This discussion should ideally begin in the 2AC and it must take place in the 1AR.

---"Perm do the counterplan" and "perm do the alt" are claims that are often unaccompanied by warrants. I will not vote for these statements unless the aff explains why they are theoretically legitimate BEFORE the 2AR. I am most likely to vote for these arguments when the aff has 1) a clear model of counterplan/alternative competition that justifies such a perm AND 2) an explanation for where the aff and the cp/alt overlap

I would prefer that debaters engage arguments instead of finesse their way out of links. This is especially awful when it takes place in clash debates. If you assert your opponent's offense does not apply when it does I will lower your speaker points.

In that vein, it is my bias that if an affirmative team chooses not to say "USFG Should" in the 1AC that they are doing it for competitive reasons. It is, definitionally, self-serving. Self-serving does not mean the aff should lose, just that they should be more realistic about the function of their 1AC in a competitive activity. If the aff does not say "USFG Should" they are deliberately shifting the point of stasis to other issues that they believe should take priority. It is reciprocal, therefore, for the negative to use any portion of the 1AC as it's jumping off point.

I think that limits, not ground, is the controlling internal link for most T-related impacts. Ground is an expression of the division of affirmative and negative strategies on any given topic. It is rarely an independent impact to T. I hate cross-examination questions about ground. I do not fault teams for being unhelpful to opponents that pose questions in cross-examination using the language of ground. People commonly ask questions about ground to demonstrate to the judge that the aff has not really thought out how their approach to the resolution fosters developed debates. A better, more precise question to ask would be: "What are the win conditions for the negative within your model of competition?"

***Older Paradigm (Still True)***

I judge debates based on execution. My decisions rarely come down to just 2NR v 2AR. They are strongly influenced by how ideas develop in CX, the block, and the 1AR.

The best rebuttals will isolate a unique impact and explain why their opponent's impact is either less important or impossible to resolve. The most persuasive rebuttals, to me, are those that explain how I should evaluate the debate given the available information. This is especially true in debates about debate where neither side agrees on a normative method for evaluation.

I can't stress how irritated I am by students that make sweeping claims about argument styles that they don't usually engage in. Debate is hard and everyone puts in an incredible amount of work. Oftentimes, people don't get credit for their effort. That stinks. That does not mean, however, that other folks' contributions are less valuable than yours because they approach the game differently.

I think there is an important role for philosophical arguments in debate, with caveats. Ks should disprove solvency. I think creatively interpreting the resolution is interesting. Affirmative teams that decide the resolution doesn't matter in advance of the debate and only impact turn their opponent's positions bore me. I would rather affs be deliberately extra-topical than anti-topical. Link arguments should be consistent with framework arguments. The terms used in speeches and tags should reflect the language of the literature base they are meant to represent. Not all Ks of humanism are the same. Not all Ks are Ks of humanism.

I think there is an important role for policy arguments in debate, with caveats. Vague plan writing does not equal strategic plan writing. Impact evidence is often outdated and/or includes multiple alt-causes. I perceive a degree of self-righteousness from debaters that have extensive experience going for T-USFG but have little experience going for T in other situations. I perceive a higher degree of self-righteousness from debaters who preach the merits of research when going for T-USFG while very obviously reading evidence they copy and pasted from other school's open-source documents.

What you should expect of me:

1) I will evaluate the debate and cast a provisional decision about which team did the better debating based on the content of the speeches and the cross-examinations.

2) I will flow your debate in an excel template and save a copy after the debate for scouting purposes.

How I think about debate:

I. The aff's burden is to prove that the 1AC is A) an example of the res and B) a positive departure from the squo. The neg should disprove the 1AC and can win by establishing that the aff is wrong about either A or B. The neg can also win by offering a counter-proposal that competes with and is net beneficial to the 1AC.

II. In order to accomplish A, the aff should be able to:

1) provide an interpretation of the resolution

2) explain how the 1AC meets their interpretation of the resolution

3) demonstrate that their vision of the resolution is superior to the neg’s

III. In the event that the aff argues they do not have to abide by the terms of the resolution, the aff should be able to:

1) provide sound reasoning for why the agreed upon point of stasis fails to address the agreed upon controversy area

2) explain the roles of the aff and the neg in their vision of debate

3) demonstrate that their vision of debate is superior to the neg’s

IV. The aff cannot win by simply flipping the burden of proof and indicting the neg’s interpretation of the resolution.* The aff must at all times defend a contestable proposition. If III (see above) occurs, the neg's burden is not to disprove the solvency and harms of the 1AC (B). Rather, all the neg should have to disprove is that abandoning A is necessary to solve/talk about B. If the neg can demonstrate that the original stasis point can accommodate the harms area then the aff has not proven that abandoning the res must occur.

*Exceptions to IV: language Ks, conditionality bad

Things I enjoy:

· When debaters express a nuanced knowledge of the resolution/controversy area

· Good jokes

· Bold choices

· Exposing specious arguments in C-X

· Solvency debates

· Links to the plan

· Supporting claims with high-quality research

· Final rebuttals that begin with a brief explanation of the key issues in the debate and why they have won given the arguments presented in earlier speeches

· When debaters prioritize answering the question, “What should debate look like?”

· Creative permutations—a perm says that there is a possible world in which both the 1AC and the counter-proposal can occur simultaneously, or that the counter-proposal is an example of how the aff’s proposition could be implemented—the aff should describe the permutation in both rebuttals and explicitly argue what elements of the neg’s strategy it mitigates/solves. Asserting the hypothetical validity of a perm and being intentionally vague until the 2AR does not an aff ballot make.

Things I don’t enjoy:

· When debaters compensate for dropping an argument by asserting that it is new

· When embedded clash becomes an excuse for not flowing

· When debaters make straw person characterizations of argument styles they do not personally engage in

· Trained incapacity

· “Death good”/ “death not real”

· Basic strats

· Recycled strats

· Recycled blocks

· K 1NC shells that I can find in my inbox from previous seasons

· “Procedural fairness”

· Teams that don’t take advantage if/when their opponent impact turns fairness

· Affs that don’t defend a substantial departure from the squo

· Affs that don’t specify the terms of the 1AC/backtrack on the terms of the 1AC for the purpose of permuting the neg’s counter-proposal

· Bad internal links

· C-X belligerence

· Hyperbolic impacts

· Counter-perms (honestly, it’s been 10 years and I still don’t get it)

· Asserting “perm do the counter-proposal” when it’s shamelessly severance

· When great CX moments don’t make it into the speeches

· Failing to capitalize on 2AC/block choices and settling for coin flip decisions

· “Point me to a line in the card where it says…” OR “I just ctrl F’ed that word in the document and it isn’t there”

I want to receive the speech docs, mcbonitto at gmail.com.

This year (2023-2024), I am working as a licensed clinical psychologist in Seattle, WA, in a community health center providing low-cost/free integrated behavioral/mental healthcare primarily to teenagers. I also judge occasionally at both the high school and college levels. I have a full-time job outside of debate. I choose to stay involved with debate because it matters to me. I care about being a good judge and a good coach. I view myself as a constant learner, and I enjoy learning about and thinking about all sorts of debate arguments. If I don't know something in a debate, I will usually try to learn about it by the next time I see you.

Prior to this year- For debate- I was an assistant coach, then the Assistant Director, and later Interim Director of Debate at Wichita State. Prior to that, I was an assistant coach at several high schools in Kansas, including Washburn Rural, Wichita East, and Kapaun. Not debate- I was an assistant clinical professor of education and psychology at Wichita State University. My academic work focuses primarily on psychological assessment.

I did policy debate in both high school and college, I graduated from Wichita State University in 2011. I have a wide background in debate arguments. I have debated and coached almost every style of argument. I firmly believe that you will do best in debate by reading what you are best at, and that is what I want to hear. I want this debate to be about you. I respect you, and I value your education in debate. I will try VERY hard to listen to anything you have to say and vote for whichever team did the better debating.

Across both high school and college, I have judged at least 3 tournaments a year since graduating undergrad 12 years ago. This year (2023-2024), I do not do topic work. The thing I find myself asking for more than anything else in decisions is fewer arguments and more focused explanations.

I think participation in debate is important for all marginalized groups, and I believe in the importance of debate as a community of activists and a tool of empowerment. That being said, yes, I will still vote for your framework arguments, your T debates, your theory arguments, your CP's, or your disads (I really do want to hear what you're best at).

Don’t talk down to or threaten your partners or the other team. I spend more than most people in this activity in healthcare settings working with people with disabilities, many of whom are actively suicidal, depressed, and/or anxious. If you are someone who needs someone in your corner who has that experience during the tournament, I'm happy to try to be that person. If someone is visibly emotionally upset in a debate, before starting prep time, I will usually stop the debate to check in and may encourage a break. I care about people infinitely more than I care about who wins or loses. Also, I am likely not a good judge for final rebuttals that center around arguments that life has no value, death is good, or arguments that encourage suicide or are explicitly violent.

Speaker Points: Norms keep changing with points, and I'm trying to be attentive in giving points consistent with the community norms. I have been told that my points are both wildly too high and wildly too low at various points throughout the years I have been around judging debates. Know that I honestly am trying, and I do apologize if I mess it up. I don't memorize names well, so I am not good at knowing the points you are "supposed" to get. I base points on what I thought of that round and what I perceive to be the norms of that tournament.

Forfeits: Assuming that a tournament gives me the discretion and power to do so, if a person/team in a round that I am judging are clearly interested in and attempting to complete a debate, in the event of a forfeit for reasons that the team cannot control or otherwise make them unable to compete, I will give the round loss to the team that forfeits but will do my best to award fair speaker points to both teams.

Online Debate: For clarity's sake- Please try to slow down a bit and keep your cameras on if possible.

Harvard '19

UCLA Law '24

Coaching for Harker at Berkeley 2024

SLOW DOWN AND CLEARLY ENUNCIATE -- I WILL NOT FOLLOW SPEEC DOCS DURING SPEECHES. I CAN'T HEAR GOOD AND I WILL ONLY TELL YOU TO SLOW DOWN TWICE, AFTERWARDS UR ON UR OWN.

TLDR: I am personally more familiar answering the K than reading it. 2NR should tell me if they want me to judge kick, 2AR should tell me if they don't want me to. I did policy debate for eight years and coached it for longer. I have judged LD only a few times -- bear that in mind if you are going to go for some niche LD theory argument.

Online Debate: Plsss get affirmative visual or verbal confirmation from me and your two opponents that they are ready before speaking. I will pause time if there's a tech issue in a speech or CX. Be extra mindful of not interrupting too much during CX.

Debater Comfort and Safety: If anyone in the room is making you feel uncomfortable during, before, or after the debate please let me know and we can figure out together how to proceed. I feel zero qualms kicking out spectators who make students feel uncomfortable or speaking to the appropriate coaches/tab about a safety issue in round. If your opponents ask for accommodations, please honor them. Debate is adversarial but I believe it is still important to be somewhat kind; there is a thin line between "sassy and competitive" (good, fun) and "mean-spirited and cruel" (bad, not fun). We are likely complete strangers, so be mindful of your power and how you may come accross, especially when debating younger students. No explicit threats of violence towards individuals in the room or at the tournament. I'm just trying to judge a debate round, don't put me or your opponents in a weird position, please.

End of Round Speeches: I will default to good evidence comparison in speeches, and will only call for cards to verify your analysis. Forgoing terminal impact defense is less important if you have other defense, such as internal link defense or link defense etc.

Framework You need to have external offense and to extend case defense or answer aff solvency to win this argument in front of me. I judge this like a DA/case debate, which means both the aff and neg team need to compare impact calculus and solvency mechanisms. I do not feel strongly about any set of framework impacts so long as they are well explained. For the aff: I was on the neg side of framework debates more often than not as a debater, so I have thought more about the neg's impacts than your 1AC's most likely. This means you need to do more judge-direction in your speeches. The aff has to clearly explain the 1AC impact and/or offense against framework, why its bigger than the neg's offense, and if relevant, why TVA/SSD cannot solve it.

Ks: Buzzwords do not amount to a persuasive argument. Effectively using the language of your authors is different from saying buzzwords and hoping they do all the explanation. Purposefully confusing the other team isn't an effective strategy if you don't eventually explain it clearly to me. Links and root cause arguments should be clearly articulated, delineated, and contextualized to the affirmative's evidence, language, or plan. Explain what your framework interpretation means for how I decide the debate. I really dislike negative blocks that completely disregard the 2AC order and don't do any line-by-line, unless that style is explicitly related to your arguments (but im still probably not the best for that). I like when aff offense is about the plan text and aff advantages. Reps Ks: I don't feel like perf-con is a deal-breaker BUT you have to do way more work to distinguish the neg's rhetoric from the aff's if you do this and the perm is very winnable.

DAs The politics DA has been bad lately. Maybe you will come up with a smart version of it and I will like it, or maybe your opponent will be really bad at answering, but I will not just assume bad politics cards are better than they actually are just because the debate community really likes the politics DA. Many politics DAs can be defeated by smart analytics and evidence comparison. Intrinsicness/perm on politics doesn't do much for me.

Theory/T I don't have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about the abusiveness of the states cp, XO, courts CP. I think conditionality is probably good, if you go for conditionality bad in the 2AR and execute well I will understand. The executing team should do a good job explaining why I should reject the argument and not the team, and provide a clear counter interpretation. I am more than happy to vote for theory. I'm more aff leaning on Process/Consult CP theory, but this still requires good affirmative execution. Do impact calculus.

Associate Director of Debate @ KU

Last Updated: Pre-GSU 2016

Quick pre-round notes:

I would prefer speech docs while I judge. Please email them to bricker312@gmail.com.

The affirmative should read and defend a topical example of the resolution and the negative should negate the affirmative's example.

I reward teams that demonstrate a robust knowledge of the topic and literature concerning the topic.

More info:

1. The word "interpretation" matters more to me than some. You must counterdefine words, or you will likely lose. You must meet your theory interpretation, or you will likely lose.
2. The words "voting issue" matter more to me than some. I am not searching for cheap shots, nor do I especially enjoy theory debates. However, I feel that I would be intervening if I applied "reject the argument not the team" to arguments that debaters did not explicitly apply the impact takeout to. That said, proliferation of empty voting issues will not only hurt your speaker points, but can be grouped and pretty easily disposed of by opponents.
3. "Turns the case" matters more to me than some. Is it offense? Does the link to the advantage/fiat outweigh or prevent turning the case? Does it mean the aff doesn't solve? Questions that should be answered by the 1ar.

I believe that debaters work hard, and I will work hard for them. The more debaters can show they have worked hard: good case debates, specific strategies, etc. the more likely it is I will reward debaters with speaker points and higher effort. In the same vain, debaters who make clear that they don’t work outside of debates won’t receive high speaker points.

Argument issues:

Topicality – It is a voting issue and not a reverse voting issue. I have not yet been persuaded by arguments in favor of reasonability; however, the reason for this usually lies with the fact that affirmatives fail to question the conventional wisdom that limits are good.

Kritiks – It will be difficult to convince me that I should completely disregard my conceptions of rationality, pragmatism and my aversion to unnecessary death. As a general rule, I think of Kritiks like a counterplan with net-benefits. The more aff specific the better.

Counterplans – I am up in the air about textual vs. functional competition – they both have their time and place, and are probably not universal rules. The cross-ex answer “for your DAs but not your counterplans” has always made negative sense to me. I understand that there are MANDATES of the plan and EFFECTS of the plan; I find this distinction more understandable than the usual c-x answer.

Rundown of general thoughts about counterplans:

Conditionality – it's feeling like a little bit much at the moment
PICs – Good, especially if they PIC out of a part of the plan
Consult/Condition – Up in the air and context specific. Solvency advocates, aff stances, etc. can change my feelings.
Delay – Aff leaning, but might be more competitive based on the structure of the affirmative, or a cross-ex answer. For example, if the affirmative has an advantage that takes the position the advantage can only be solved if it happens before "X" date, then the counterplan to do it after that date seems competitive.
Word PICs – Aff leaning
Alternate non-USFG actors – Aff leaning


Demeanor issues:

Be respectful of your opponent, partner and judge. All types of discrimination are prohibited. Don’t clip cards, don’t cut cards out of context, etc. Don't misclose.

Finally, our community relies on host tournaments with classroom space - don't steal, defame or destroy it.

Any questions, ask.

Indiana University – Third Year Judge

Email Chain: mbricker35@gmail.com

Education: PoliSci BA: IU ‘21; MPA: Policy Analysis/Public Finance: IU ’23

Debate Career: HS: N/A College: Novice/JV

Job: Financial Analyst – DFAS (DoD)

I am not actively coaching. I will read cards if I need to catch up on background knowledge, though I will work to view the round in the way it was debated.

Big Picture

Debaters do best when they do what they do best. Do that.

Debate’s Value – Debate’s Value comes from the process of debate (i.e., reading academic journals, learning how to effectively communicate various arguments/literature bases, traveling to universities across the country, etc.). Post-college your topic knowledge will fade, but the skills you develop, people you meet, and memories you create will enhance your career and enrich your personal life.

Communication – Debate, at its core, is a communication activity. Too often debaters hide themselves behind their laptops, flows, and slews of cards. The best debaters are those that can debate technically and actively engage with their opponents and judges.

Cx – Enthrall me in the drama of debate. Cx is the perfect time to flex your topic knowledge and rhetorical skills. Ask smart questions, give the best answers. Make me laugh, cry, and feel alive. It is heartbreaking to watch a team get a solid Cx concession and for it to die there.

Speaks – I reward topic/academic knowledge, smart/strategic choices, rhetorical prowess, and growth. Speaks are a combination of how technically clean the ballot was won and how effectively you communicated.

Decorum - Reasonable sass, snark, or shade are fine. I am not a good judge for more hostile approaches, such as belittling opponents or interrupting opponents mid-speech.

Round Adjudication

Judge Role – I am an educator and adjudicator. I am evaluating arguments to determine who did the better debating based on in-round judge instructions.

Write My Ballot – Tell me: where and why I should vote for you and tie up loose ends. Final rebuttals shouldn’t be 6 min overviews, but a little story telling is fun

Disparate line-by-line blips are frustrating and risk me missing something and voting for the other team. I will try my best to evaluate the whole flow, but I am only human and have 20 mins to submit a ballot.

Evidence – I will only read evidence after the round if it is warranted (Ex. debates over quality or how evidence should be read, etc.). Typically, this means the card is explicitly flagged in the 2NR/2AR. I have limited time and don’t want to re-create the round from a slew of cards. No card docs please, I will ask where a card is if needed.

Post-Rounding – During the RFD, you have the right to my thought process in adjudicating the round, not my belittlement. If I feel that I am being post-rounded I reserve the right to immediately end the RFD and direct you to my email.

Post-RFD Qs – Please email me your post-RFD questions. The sooner the better

Technical Debate

Flowing - Tech over truth, but if I don’t understand an argument coming out of the round then I can’t vote on it. By “coming out of the round”, I mean the way the 2NR/2AR articulates an argument that can be traced back across the flow. At the end of the round, I prefer to recall speeches through the flow, I only look at docs if needed.

Spreading – Many open debaters would benefit from slowing down 5-10% when reading tags, long blocks/overviews, making important analytics, and transitioning arguments/flows. I will “clear” you once or twice if needed.

Signposting – Give your speech structure (Ex. Verbal cues, speed changes, argument flagging). Force my hand – make it impossible for my flows to not look like yours.

Arguments

T ­– Make your interp/model clear. My prior is that narrower topics are preferable

CPs – My prior is that the 2NR gets 1 world

DAs – Framing is everything. Smart arguments and coherent narratives trump slews of cards. Crystalized links are important; If I don't understand how the aff triggers the DA then I can't vote for it.

K – An invaluable tool in a debater’s toolbox to test the resolution, affirmative, and debate space. I am less familiar with these arguments/literature bases. Explain advocacies, alternatives, and terms of art. I am less inclined to vote for arguments that are unclear, shifty, utopian, or hide behind buzzwords.

K Aff – The aff should at least be germane to the resolution in some intelligible way

FW - Can be done well, usually frustrating

Big picture things to do:
1. Robust Model of Debate – How do you view debate? Why is that important/preferable?
2. Crystalize the ROB/ROJ – What is my role? What does the ballot do? Why does this matter?

3. Terminal Impacts – Fairness? Education? How does your model/ROB/ROJ resolve these?

Open debaters, slow down to 70% of your top speed when reading the key words and subpoint tags that you want me to flow in these rounds. Especially during the block/1AR. Too often people zoom down their analytics and I find myself struggling to keep up on the flow. If this is the case, you risk me flowing straight down. I will be frustrated.

My prior is that debate is an educational activity and a game, and that fairness and education are both terminal impacts.

Theory – Quality over quantity. Give me typing time. A “dropped” argument is only true if it was properly explained and flow-able in the first place. Theory debates frustrate me when the teams are just reading their blocks back and forth without clashing. If your standards, perms, reasons to prefer are un-flowable, I am increasingly likely to write “theory party”.

Online Debate

1. Clarity is key – technology leaves many failure points, and I may miss something. Be clear – especially in the final rebuttals.

2. If my camera is not on, I am not present and/or not ready to start the speech

3. Please locally record your speeches to ensure we have a copy in the event of tech failure

paradigm writing is confusing bc it ultimately will not tell u much abt how i evaluate debates.

i flow and pay attention to concessions (unless told not to by debaters AND offered an alternative system of evaluation). i wouldn't call myself a flow-centric judge but the flow is important for my decisions bc coverage and the interaction of arguments dictate who gets what offense. my decisions are almost always premised on an offense/defense paradigm (tho this can become complicated in models of debate where people don't 'solve' per se).

i don't believe that judges get rid of all our preconceived assumptions (or any of them tbh) prior to entering the debate but that doesn't mean i'll refuse to listen to ur argument if it's different from how i feel abt debate or the world.

framing and argument comparison is more important than (is also the same thing as) impact calculus-- ur blocks will not tell u much abt how arguments interact but u in the round can take note of their interaction. argument interaction is crucial for both aff and neg. how much of the aff does the alt solve, and vice versa? what disads to the aff/alt are u going for and how do they interact w the offense the aff/alt is winning? if u win ur theory of power, what does that mean for the debate abt aff/alt solvency? etc...

i like good cx. it doesn't happen often, but debates can be won and lost in cx. what does happen often is that arguments can be dismissed or proven in a good cx. strategize. if redirecting or diverting the question is ur style, do it, but please do it well.

ONLINE DEBATING— clarity and slowing down are critical to deal with internet lag. ur judges no longer have the same cues bc of the limitations of the screen. plz account for this when debating in front of me. be willing to sacrifice a little speed so that i actually know wtf u are saying.

Debate Training/Educational Background Rap Sheet

2006 - 2010: Jersey Urban Debate League, NYCUDL,

2008 - Dartmouth Debate Camp,

2009 - UNT Debate Camp,

2011 - Western Connecticut State University,

2013 - University of Vermont. (BA Human Geography, minor Critical Race and Ethnic Studies)

I've been trained and coached by everyone associated with these organizations during the attached time periods.

With that being said, my Paradigm: "If you want to get my ballot, this what you gotta understand." - tune of Spice Girls.

I like great argumentation. I'm great with clarity even if it comes with speed. I like problem solvers.

Debaters who like running politics D/A's and counterplans. My background with policy debate is a 50/50 split in argumentation style, I like running 5 off and I like running critiques about that, I like ALLLLLLLL argumentation/persuasion styles. I like it ALL.

Nine times out of ten, I vote for who runs/develops their argument/style better because I want to see YOUR skills grow, that's the portability. But also, in a high staked round based on your framing, I want to see you really go for winning the impact.

TIE Breaker DEBATES WHERE ENERGETICALLY WE ARE ALL CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT EACH TEAM IS TRYING TO WIN....If I am left with deciphering all the way down to the T who's argument I'd prioritize for my ballot because framework has been thrown away, my knowledge and thought process will take into consideration who better developed a consistent argument by the end of the round (repetitive but yea). I just want to be persuaded for something. Except advocating for - racist, transphobic, rape, addiction/disease actions, etc.*

I am more than eager to email, my insights on where I believe you can improve. Just LMK.

If for any reason you have more questions, persistently ask me before and after rounds.

Jeff Buntin
Northwestern University/Montgomery Bell Academy

Feelings----------------------------------------X--Dead inside

Policy---X------------------------------------------K

Tech-----------------------------X-----------------Truth

Read no cards-----------------------------X------Read all the cards

Conditionality good--X----------------------------Conditionality bad

States CP good-----------------------X-----------States CP bad

Politics DA is a thing-------------------------X----Politics DA not a thing

Always VTL-------x--------------------------------Sometimes NVTL

UQ matters most----------------------X----------Link matters most

Fairness is an impact-X------------------------------Fairness is not an impact

Tonneson votes aff-----------------------------X-Tonneson clearly neg

Try or die--------------x---------------------------What's the opposite of try or die

Not our Baudrillard-------------------------------X Yes your Baudrillard

Clarity-X--------------------------------------------Srsly who doesn't like clarity

Limits--------------------X--------------------------Aff ground

Presumption---------------------------------X-----Never votes on presumption

Resting grumpy face---X--------------------------Grumpy face is your fault

Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev

"Insert this rehighlighting"----------------------X-I only read what you read

2017 speaker points---------------------X--------2007 speaker points

CX about impacts----------------------------X----CX about links and solvency

Dallas-style expressive----------X---------------D. Heidt-style stoic

Referencing this philosophy in your speech--------------------X-plz don't

Fiat double bind-----------------------------------------X--literally any other arg

AT: --X------------------------------------------------------ A2:

AFF (acronym)-------------------------------------------X Aff (truncated word)

"It's inev, we make it effective"------------------------X---"It'S iNeV, wE mAkE iT eFfEcTiVe"

Bodies without organs---------------X---------------Organs without bodies

Redistribution affs must tax----------------------X--------Not required to tax

New affs bad-----------------------------------------X-Old affs bad

Aff on process competition--X-------------------------Neg on process competition

CPs that require the 'butterfly effect' card------------X- Real arguments

'Judge kick'----------------------------------X---Absolutely no 'judge kick'

Nukes topic--X-----------------------------------------Any other topic ever

Paradigm Last Updated – Summer 2023

Coach @ Shawnee Mission South and the University of Kansas.

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

TLDR:

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

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

General:

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

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

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

___________________________________________________________________

Truth over Tech -OR- Tech over Truth

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

Framework

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

Performance + K Affirmatives

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

Kritiks

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

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

Goodluck and have fun!

Put me on the email chain please. Ask me for my email

Kingwood High School 2017

University of Minnesota 2020

I judge/coach for the University of Minnesota very occassionally in my spare time. I'm not actively involved with college debate other than judging, so I'm not doing topic research or anything.

I will not adjudicate things that occurred outside the confines of the specific debate around I am judging. There are ways to resolve such issues that exist outside of the ballot, and I have come to believe that relying on ballots to try to resolve them is both futile and contributes to an increasingly toxic debate community. If your strategy relies on ad-hominems, harassment, or otherwise disparaging your opponents, then I am probably not the judge for you

I don't expect debaters to be 'polite' but I do expect debaters to maintain a bare minimum level civility. If racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, etc speech occurs, then I will punish your speaker points accordingly. If I believe the safety or well being of a debater is in danger, I will intervene, including by ending the round if necessary.

As a general note, as the years go on, I am pessimistic about the value of debate as an activity beyond the skills we learn from it and the community we build along the way. I will try to adjudicate rounds in such a way that my ballot does not reward strategies that make the activity worse. Things like issues with evidence ethics and call outs, while important in context, should not be considered your case neg.

Here's the things you are probably looking for right before your round:

Condo-I think a large number of conditional advocacys result in more interesting negative strategies that test the aff from more interesting angles. Trying to draw the line at X number seems arbitrary to me. While I recognize this creates an incentive towards neg teams spamming poorly thought out counterplans, I think the proper remedy is theory rejecting the specific questionable counterplans. I think the bar for the 2ac to answer counterplans with no solvency advocate (whether it be a 1nc card, or a warrant from a 1ac card), is low, and I grant the 1ar leeway when answering counterplans that are made whole in the block.

Judge kick-I default to judge kicking conditional counterplans unless the aff convinces me I shouldn't (condo bad warrants can usually suffice if applied specifically to judge kick)

Other theory-I think 95% of theory arguments other than condo are reasons to reject the arg, not the team. The bar for me to drop a team on a theory cheapshot is extremely high, even if dropped by the other team.

Process CP-I will admit to having a slight bias against negative postions/aff advantages that feel very contrived. This is probably relevant the most to process CPs. I am apparently a dinosaur on the topic of CP competitiveness, so I start with low bar for the aff to win perm:do the cp a lot of the time. If your competition argument isn't straightforward to someone who's only process counterplan they had to deal with as a debater was ESR, then you should slow down and explain it as clearly as possible to me.

I strongly lean toward tech over truth, but arguments still need to have warrants to be complete and to win on tech.

T vs plan aff-I generally am a fan of t debates vs affs with a plan, and I find 2ar pushes on "going for t is a waste of time/uneducational" to be unpersasive. This is topic neutral, so my thoughts might change year to year. I'm not super involved in the activity, so its unlikely I am aware of whatever the community consensus is.

T vs planless affs-it seems like to me clash is the internal link to everything that makes debate valuable and is therefore a relatively large impact by default. If your model of debate (generally the aff's) doesn't preserve clash, then you need to explain why the activity of debate specifically is key your impacts in a way that academic spaces generally aren't. For example, if the aff's main source of offense is the value of their scholarship or method, than either clash internal links turns the aff's offense because clash is the way unique to debate for the community to engage with the aff's method/scholarship or things outside debate can solve your offense as well as debate can, in which case a presumption push by the neg tends to be persuasive (see my above pessimism about the activity). There are other ways for the aff to garner offense, but the aff still needs to have warrant why the activity of debate specifically is key to win that that offense is reason why a model of debate is desirable. Aff strategies that don't defend a specific model are extremely unpersausive to me and functionally end up conceding most of the neg's best offense. Competetive incentives exist in the activity and it seems strange to pretend otherwise. For the neg, TVAs and SSD seem to be powerful defensive tools that in my experience judging neg teams underutilize. Absent egregious concessions by the aff, the 2NR should usually spend some time on case, since the 1ac is often the aff's best source of offense against T.

Arguments that I strongly prefer you don't go for: Death good, Warming good.

Do what you do best and I will make a decision afterwards

————-

How RyanMalone makes decisions

I hope Whitehead is right, that even dimwits can make good decisions if they follow an appropriate procedure. It’s only fair then for me to give a general sense of how I make decisions, with as few platitudes as possible, though most of them still apply.

1. After the 2ar I review 2nr and 2ar arguments and their comportment with the block and 1ar. Unless there are arguments about how I should or should not flow, I appreciate when debaters are attentive to line-by-line, but I understand that strategy sometimes calls one to deviate from it. When that occurs, I am less likely to line up arguments in the same way as you may want me to.

2. While doing that I clarify shorthand and mark out errata and things that aren’t arguments. There is a difference between arguments and nascent things that purport to be arguments. We don’t need to talk about Toulmin; an argument is really anything that could inform a decision. This may seem arbitrary or kind of like question-begging, but I don’t think it’s capricious. I don’t do this because I have some ultra-strenuous “not buying it” threshold for what constitutes an argument. My concern is that there is a temptation to embellish not-quite-arguments, especially those that, if they had been full arguments, would be compelling, strategic, or make for an easy decision. Assessing, at the outset, what all on the flow are reasonably arguments is a way to ward off that temptation.

3. I then look to arguments the 2nr and 2ar say are the most important and other arguments that appear central to the debate or that may supplant opposing lines of reasoning. The last part may seem to imply a premium on the meta, but rarely are debates leveraged on Archimedean points.

4. If necessary, I read evidence. I don’t follow along in speech docs or look at speeches in more than a cursory way prior to the end of the debate, with perhaps the exception of interpretations and counterplan texts. I will read a piece of evidence if there is contestation about its quality, applicability, or illocution, if I am asked to compare two pieces of evidence or a piece of evidence and a countervailing explanation, or if some argument is dense and, despite good explanation, I’m just not following. My concern is that the more evidence a judge reads without specific reason, the more they reward good evidence read sloppily over clear, persuasive argumentation and are at risk of reconstructing the debate along those lines.

5. I hash out the above (it’s hard to adumbrate this process in a way that’s not super vague) and I get something resembling a decision. I run through a few even-if scenarios: what, if any, central arguments the losing team could have won, but still lose the debate, and what arguments the winning team would have had to lose or the losing team would have had to win for the losing team to win the debate. Finally, I review the flow again to make sure my decision is firmly based in the 2nr and 2ar and that there is nothing I’ve missed.

Note on Framework

Framework debates are better when both teams have some defense, in addition to offense.

Even if fairness is intrinsically value, by which I mean fairness is valuable regardless of relation, I’m unsure how valuable procedural fairness is, in and of itself. Because of that fairness arguments make more sense to me as internal links rather than impacts.

Similarly, impact turns to fairness are more persuasive when they are about the purported use of fairness as an impartial rule. Phrased differently, in explaining the way structural fairness informs procedural fairness as a difference in fairness-in-rule and fairness-in-practice, it may be worth thinking about fairness as the practice of appealing to rules.

Topical versions are under-utilized.

Things that do not concern how I usually make decisions

Some of the above is assiduously believed, but weakly held, however, the following points are immutable: I will comply with any tournament rules regarding speech and decision times, speaker points, etc. Any request not to be recorded or videotaped should be honored. If proven, clipping, cross-reading, or deceitfully manufacturing or altering evidence will result in a loss and zero speaker points. Unlike wit, sass, and tasteful self-effacement, bald-faced meanness will negatively affect speaker points.

My rfds are brief, which I’m working on. This reason for this is twofold. First, most of what I write down concerns how I make my decision, not how I intend to give it. Second, I don’t presume to act, even temporarily, as something like an arguments coach, nor as someone who can adroitly explain or find fault in an opposing team’s arguments. The last thing I want to do is say something that would lead you astray. At this point in my time judging I’m really just trying to be a good heuristic machine—anything more is just gravy. Obviously, to the degree to which I have insight I will give suggestions, clarifications, or share in your befuddlement.

Please feel free to email me if you have questions or concerns.

Updated for the Legalization Topic 9/11/14

I do want on the e-mail chain: mmcoleman10@gmail.com

Debate Experience: Wichita State graduate 2009. We read a middle of the road straight up affirmative and won more debates on arguments like imperialsim good than should have been possible. However, on the negative roughly half of my 2NRs were a K (with the other half being some combination of T, politics/case etc.) so I believe firmly in argumentative flexibility and am comfortable voting for or against almost all arguments.

Judging Experience: 5-8 tournaments each year since graduating.

Most importantly: I do not work with a team currently so I have not done any topic research, my only involvement is judging a handful of tournaments each year. It would be in your best interest to not assume I have the intricacies of your PIC or T argument down and take some time explaining the basis of your arguments. If the first time I figure out what your CP does or what your violation is on T is after you give me the text after the debate, my motivation to vote for you is going to be pretty low. I am currently a practicing attorney so I may have some insight on the topic from that perspective, but I'll try to minimize what impact that has on my decisions outside of possibly some suggestions after the debate on how to make it more accurately reflect how the legal process works.

Ways to kill your speaker points/irritate me

1. Cheating - I mean this substantively not argumentatively. This can include stealing prep time, clipping cards, lying about disclosure etc. If people are jumping cards or waiting to get the flash drive and you are furiously typing away on your computer it's pretty obvious you are stealing prep and I will call you out on it.

2. Being unecessarily uptight/angry about everything. There's no need to treat every round like it's the finals of the NDT, try having some fun once in awhile I promise your points from me and others will go up as a result. I take debate seriously and enjoying being a part of debate, but you can be very competitive and still generally pleasant to be around at the same time. I have no problem if people want to make fun of an argument, but it's one thing to attack the quality of an argument and another entirely to attack the person reading those arguments.

3. Not letting the other person talk in cross-x. It irritates me greatly when one person answers and asks every single question on one team.

4. A lack of line-by-line debate. If your only reference to the previous speeches is some vague reference to "the link debate" you are going to be irritated with my decision. I'm only willing to put in the same amount of work that you are. This is not to say that I can't be persuaded to have a more holistic view of the debate, but if I can't tell what arguments you are answering I am certainly going to be sympathetic if the other team can't either. Also people over use the phrase "dropped/conceded" to the point that I'm not sure they mean anything anymore, I'm paying attention to the debate if something is conceded then certainly call the other team out, if they spent 2 minutes answering it skip the part of your block that says "they've conceded: . It just makes me feel that you aren't putting the same work that I am in paying attention to what is occurring in the debate.

5. If your speech/cx answers sound like a biblography. Having evidence and citations is important, but if all you can do is list a laundry list of citations without any explanation or application and then expect me to wade through it all in the end, well we're probably not going to get along. I do not tend to read many cards after a debate if any. I pretty quickly figure out where the important arguments (debaters that identify and highlight important arguments themselves and resolve those debates for me are going to be very far ahead) and then I will turn to arguments and evidentiary issues that are contested.

Ways to impress me

1. Having strategic vision among the different arguments in the debate. Nothing is better than having a debater realize that an answer on one sheet of paper is a double turn with a team's answer on another and be able to capitalize on it, bold moves like that are often rewarded with good points and wins if done correctly.

2. Using your cross-x well. Few people use this time well, but for me it's some of the most valuable speech time and it can make a big difference in the outcome of debates if used effectively.

3. Having a working knowledge of history. It's amazing to me how many arguments are just patently untrue that could be disproven with even a basic understanding of history, I think those are good arguments and often more powerful than the 10 word overhighlighted uniqueness card you were going to read instead.

Topicality

I enjoy a well crafted and strategic T argument. My biggest problem with these debates is the over emphasis on the limits/reasonability debate occuring in the abstract, usually at the expense of spending enough time talking about the particulars of the aff/neg interps their support in the literature, and how the particular interp interacts with the limits/reasonability debate. T cards rival politics uniqueness cards as the worst ones read in debate, and more time should be spent by both teams in pointing this out.

I think this topic provides an interesting opportunity for discussion with the absence of the federal government in the topic as far as what the Aff can and should be allowed to defend. I'm curious how both Affs and Negs will choose to adapt to this change.

Topicality - K Affs

I think you have to have a defense of the resolution, the manner in which that is done is up to the particular debate. Unfortunately I've been forced to vote on T = genocide more times than I'd like to admit, but Neg's refuse to answer it, no matter how terrible of an argument it is (and they don't get much worse). Critical Affs are likely to do the best in front of me the stronger their tie is to the resolution. The argument there is "no topical version of our aff" has always seemed to me to be a reason to vote Neg, not Aff. Stop making that argument, doing so is just an indication you haven't read or don't care what I put in here and it will be reflected in your points.

I don't ususally get more than one or two opportunities per year to judge debates centered around issues of race/sex/identity but try to be as open as I can to these types of debates when they do occur. I still would prefer these arguments have at least some tie to the resolution as I think this particular topic does allow for good discussion of a lot of these issues. I have generally found myself voting Aff in these types of debates, as the Negative either usually ignores the substance of the Aff argument or fails to explain adequately why both procedurally and substantively the way the Aff has chosen to approach the topic is bad. Debates about alternate ways in which these issues might be approached in terms of what Negatives should get to say against them compared to what the Aff should be forced to defend seem most relevant to me, and one that I find interesting to think about and will try hard to make an informed decision about.

Counterplans/Disads

I like this style of debate a lot. However, one thing I don't like is that I find myself increasingly voting on made up CPs that for some unknown reason link slightly less to politics, simply because Aff teams refuse to challenge this claim. To sum up, don't be afraid to make smart analytical arguments against all arguments in the debate it can only help you. I am among those that do believe in no risk either of an aff advantage or neg disad, but offense is always nice to have.

Affs also seem to give up too easily on theory arguments against certain process CPs (condition/consult etc.) and on the issue of the limits of conditionality (it does exist somewhere, but I can be persuaded that the number of neg CPs allowed can be high/low depending on the debate). In general though I do tend to lean neg on most theory issues and if you want to win those arguments in front of me 1) slow down and be comprehnsible 2) talk about how the particulars of the neg strategy affected you. For example conditionality might be good, but if it is a conditional international agent cp mixed with 2 or 3 other conditional arguments a more coherent discussion about how the strategy of the 1nc in general unduly harmed the Aff might be more effective than 3 or 4 separate theory arguments.

K's

I judge these debates a lot, particularly the clash of civilization debates (the result of judging exclusively in D3). Negative teams would do well to make their argument as particularized to the Aff as possible and explain their impact, and by impact I mean more than a vague use of the word "ethics" or "ontology" in terms of the Aff and how it would implicate the aff advantages. If you give a 2NC on a K and haven't discussed the Aff specifically you have put yourself in a bad position in the debate, apply your arguments to the Aff, or I'm going to be very hesitant to want to vote for you.

Additionally while I vote for it pretty often exploring the critical literature that isn't "the Cap K" would be pleasantly appreciated. I can only judge Gabe's old cap backfiles so many times before I get bored with it, and I'd say 3/4 of the debates I judge it seems to pop up. Be creative. Affs would be smart not to concede big picture issues like "no truth claims to the aff" or "ontology first." I vote for the K a lot and a large percentage of those debates are because people concede big picture issues. Also keep in mind that if you like impact turning the K I may be the judge for you.

Email: kassdebates@gmail.com (note: I don't monitor this email outside of tournaments--- its possible I will not forward you speech docs unless i'm judging that weekend)

Hola,

I was a policy debater at Fort Lauderdale High School (2012-2016) and in college at WVU (2016-2019). While competing in college, I made it to elims at a few national/regional tournaments before I stopped debating and found joy coaching teams to the NDT and TOC and teaching novices. I have a B.A. in Latin American Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and Geography from WVU.

Outside of judging debates, I work full-time in the movement as the National Organizer for Education and Justice Transformation at The Center for Popular Democracy

I'm a pretty flex judge. I want you to do what you're good at and be a decent human while you're doing it. I keep to a tight flow which means I can keep up with plan-debate but I found more competitive success with kritikal/performance. I've been in debate for over a decade sooo you do you, and I'll keep up.

here are some things worth noting tho :)

general stuff

• I center my debate on the flow and make a decision from it
• An argument has a claim, warrant, and impact.
• I'm ok with flex speeches and cross-ex.
• I love good evidence that I can vote on.
• I'm pretty immersed in debate's kritikal lit and can understand most of it, but I'm in the movement and legislative world, so I witness what policy and organizing tactics can do and not do. :')
• I love an impact debate.
• card docs at the end of the debate are helpful (especially for policy throwdowns)
• It's possible I will briefly close my eyes while flowing you -- this is especially true if you're incredibly fast or its the first few rounds of a tournament -- I promise I am listening, when I do this, I am adjusting to your speed/voice/rhythm, listening more intently (there's so much happening in a debate and this helps a bit with auditory processing), and just making sense of the debate. I will type everything you say!

Affs/case

• I prefer that aff's have a mechanism that does something whether that's hypothetical implementation, a material action, mindset shift. I want to know at the end of the debate "what do we do or not do?", and why is that good.
• performance is a-okay with me :) -- I want to know what arguments are embedded in your performance during the 2AC and in later speeches.
• if you're reading high-theory (bauldriard type ppl) give me examples to ground what you're saying. I can read your evidence, but oftentimes in these debates, I ask myself "what does adopting this theory of power lead to?" or "what?" in general, so having examples and full warrants that apply and explain your theory is helpful.
• Impacts are important to me. Tell me the story of the impacts and how they outweigh.
• Case Debates are a lost art. Bring it back.
• I need you to go to the case page in the block or be very clear when you're cross applying arguments to the case flow. The 2NR and 2AR must also go to the case page and isolate what key arguments you're winning. For affs, I want impact work here. I am very persuaded by negative case turns.

FW

• ill vote on it if you win it, this goes both ways! vs K affs, Im a better judge for plan = policy advocacy skills fw versus traditional must defend a plan because debate is a game, but can be persuaded if you're winning tech.
• Impact turns <3
• My decision normally gravitates to whose model of debate is best for Education with any/all DAs or offense you have against the Aff or FW.
• ROBS and ROJs are a good way to help me funnel offense and frame my ballot.
• I'm not really persuaded by fairness as an impact but if you win it, I'll vote on it. I am more persuaded that fairness is an internal link to an education impact

T

• I'd often give 6 min 1NRs on T if that's helpful at all.
• I like T debate and want more specificity here -- sometimes I feel these debates can become technical messes with no substance -- I want competing interps, impact turns, clear TVAs, talking about limits.
• most of my thoughts here are similar to FW

DAs

• I'm good with these
• I love a ptx DA throwdown
• I need clear links and internal link story on how the aff triggers the impact of the DA

CPs

• Tell me how the CP solves, what the NB is, and why the perm isn't an option

Theory

• Please don't read condo if there's 1-2 conditional advocacies

online judging tech/accessibility

• will most likely keep camera off while speeches are going to focus better and get best connection, will give verbal affirmation Im there and try to be on during CX.
• I’m a quick thinker, but sometimes I need more time to pause and think through my thoughts, this is especially true for RFD and questions

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask me before the round or send me an email at kassdebates@gmail.com. My only request is that you put me on the email chain, be open to learning/growing together, and give me enough pen time to flow everything (start speeches slow then speed up, take a second to breathe before switching flows, etc.). Debate is supposed to be a fun and educational activity, so show me what ya got and I'll do my best to keep up! :)

Good luck!

please put me on the chain! - amcalden@gmail.com

Assistant Coach at Niles West

Argument Coach at Baylor University

5 years at Baylor

4 years at Caddo Magnet

In general i'm fine for you to do whatever you want to do. I've read and coached both policy and K things from variety of literature basis so do what you do best and I'm sure to enjoy it! Please don't be overly aggressive, rude, or dismissive of your opponents or speaker points will reflect it

if a timer isn't running you should not be prepping.

if the aff isn't clearly extended in the 1AR i will not give you the 2AR case rants

Framework v K affs: More of an uphill battle given the arguments i predominately read and coached but fairness is an internal link to the integrity of debate which still requires you to win the value of maintaining debate as it currently exists. Clash is by far the most persuasive standard, TVA's don't need to solve the entire aff if there are framing arguments in place or additional tools such as switch side debate to deal with what it doesn't solve, examples of ground, either lost or enabled is helpful on both sides!

K: Links to the plan are nice but not necessary, Alts don't have to solve the link if they are able to avoid them and solve the aff. I do not think you need an alt to win a debate if you have the appropriate framing tools however I need instruction on what to do with offense related to the alternative in a world you are not extending it.

CPs: Comparison between deficits/net benefits is key, can be persuaded for or against "cheating" counterplans, solvency advocates are preferred but not needed if pulling lines from the aff.

DAs: Nothing incredibly innovative to say here! I enjoy internal link comparison, and speaker points will reflect great impact debateing

Theory: Condo is fine, argumentative tension is okay but can be convinced on contradictions being bad.

High school debate: Baltimore Urban Debate League ( Lake Clifton Eastern High School).

College debate: University of Louisville then Towson University.

Grad work: Cal State Fullerton.

Current: Director of Debate at Long Beach State (CSU Long Beach), former Director of Debate a Fresno State.

Email for chain: Devenc325@gmail.com

Speaker Point Scale

29.5-30: one of the best speakers I expect to see this year and has a high grade of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, Talent, and Swag is on 100. This means expert explanation of arguments and most arguments are offensive.

29 - 29.5: very good speaker has a middle grade of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, Talent, and mid-range swag. Explanation of arguments are of great quality and many of the arguments are offensive.

28.4 - 28.9: good speaker; may have some above average range/ parts of the Cha.Uni.Ner.Tal.S acronym but must work on a few of them and may have some issues to work out. Explanation of arguments are of good quality and several of the arguments are offensive.

28 - 28.3: solid speaker; needs some work; probably has average range/ parts of the Cha.Uni.Ner.Tal.S acronym but must work on a few of them and may have some issues to work out. Explanation of arguments are of okayish quality and very few of the arguments are offensive.

27.1 - 27.5: okay speaker; needs significant work on the Cha.Uni.Ner.Tal.S acronym. Not that good of explanation with no offensive arguments.

< 27: you have done something deeply problematic in this debate like clipping cards or linguistic violence, or rhetorically performed an ism without apology or remorse.

Please do not ask me to disclose points nor tell me as an argument to give you a 30. I wont. For some reason people think you are entitled to high points, I am not that person. So, you have to earn the points you get.

IF YOU ARE IN HIGHSCHOOL, SKIP DOWN TO THE "Judging Proper" section :)

Cultural Context

If you are a team that reads an argument based in someone else's identity, and you are called on it by another team with receipts of how it implicates the round you are in, its an uphill battle for you. I am a fan of performing your politics with consistency and genuine ethical relationships to the people you speak about. I am a fan of the wonderful author Linda Martin Alcoff who says " where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says." With that said, you can win the debate but the burden of proof is higher for you....

Post Rounding

I will not entertain disrespectful or abrasive engagement because you lost the round. If you have questions, you may ask in a way that is thoughtful and seeking understanding. If your coach thinks they will do this as a defense of your students, feel free to constrain me. I will not allow my students to engage that way and the same courtesy should be extended to EVERYONE. Losing doesn't does not give you license to be out of your mind and speak with malice. Keep in mind I am not from the suburbs and I will not tolerate anyone's nasty demeanor directed at me nor my students.

"Community" Members

I do not and will not blindly think that all people in this activity are kind, trustworthy, non-cheaters, good intentioned, or will not do or say anything in the name of competition or malice towards others. Please miss me with having faith in people in an activity that often reveals people engaging in misconduct, exploitation, grooming, or other inappropriate activities that often times NEVER get reported. MANY of you have created and perpetuated a culture of toxicity and elitism, then you are surprised when the chickens come home to roost. This applies to ALL forms of college and high school debate...

Judging Proper

I am more than willing to listen to ANY arguments that are well explained and impacted and relate to how your strategy is going to produce scholarship, policy action, performance, movement, or whatever political stance or program. I will refer to an educator framework unless told otherwise...This means I will evaluate the round based on how you tell me you want it to be framed and I will offer comments on how you could make your argument better after the round. Comparison, Framing, OFFENSE is key for me. Please indict each other's framework or role of the ballot/role of the judge for evaluation and make clear offense to how that may make a bad model of debate. OR I am down with saying the debate should not be a reflection about the over all model of debate/ no model.

I DO NOT privilege certain teams or styles over others because that makes debate more unfair, un-educational, cliquey, and makes people not feel valued or wanted in this community, on that note I don't really jive to well with arguments about how certain folks should be excluded for the sake of playing the "game". NOR do I feel that there are particular kinds of debate related to ones personal identity. I think people are just making arguments attached to who they are, which is awesome, but I will not privilege a kind of debate because some asserts its a thing.

I judge debates according to the systematic connection of arguments rather than solely line by line…BUT doesn’t mean if the other team drops turns or other arguments that I won’t evaluate that first. They must be impacted and explained. PLEASE always point out reason why the opposing team is BAD and have contextualized reasons for why they have created a bad impact or make one worse. I DO vote on framework and theory arguments….I’ve been known to vote on Condo quite a bit, but make the interp, abuse story, and contradictions clear. If the debate devolves into a theory debate, I still think the AFF should extend a brief summary of the case.

Don’t try to adapt to how I used to debate if you genuinely don’t believe in doing so or just want to win a ballot. If you are doing a performance I will hold you to the level that it is practiced, you have a reason for doing so, and relates to the overall argument you are making…Don’t think “oh! I did a performance in front of Deven, I win.” You are sadly mistaken if so. It should be practiced, timed well, contain arguments, and just overall have a purpose. It should be extended with full explanation and utility.

Overall I would like to see a good debate where people are confident in their arguments and feel comfortable being themselves and arguing how they feel is best. I am not here to exclude you or make you feel worthless or that you are a "lazy" intellectual as some debaters may call others, but I do like to see you defend your side to the best of your ability.

GET OFF THEM BLOCKS SOME! I get it coaches like to block out args for their students, even so far as to script them out. I think this is a practice that is only focused on WINNING and not the intellectual development of debaters who will go on to coach younger debaters. A bit of advice that I give to any debater I come across is to tell them to READ, READ, READ. It is indeed fundamental and allows for the expansion of example use and fluency of your arguments.

A few issues that should be clarified:

Decorum: I DO NOT LIKE when teams think they can DISRESPECT, BULLY, talk RUDE to, or SCREAM at other teams for intimidation purposes in order to win or throw the other team off. Your points will be effected because this is very unbecoming and does not allow this space to be one of dialogue and reciprocity. If someone disrespects you, I am NOT saying turn the other cheek, but have some tact and utility of how you engage these folks. And being hyper evasive to me is a hard sell. Do not get me wrong, I do love the sassiness, sarcasm, curtness, and shade of it all but there is a way to do it with tact. I am also NOT persuaded that you should be able to be rude or do whatever you want because you are a certain race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, or any other intersection under the sun. That to me is a problematic excuse that intensifies the illegit and often rigid criticism that is unlashed upon "identity politics."

Road maps: STICK TO IT. I am a tight flower and I have a method. However, I need to know where things go so there is no dispute in the RFD that something was answered or not. If you are a one off team, please have a designed place for the PERM. I can listen well and know that there are places things should go, but I HATE to do that work for a team. PLEASE FLOW and not just follow the doc. If you answer an arg that was in the doc, but not read, I will take it as you note flowing nor paying attention to what is going on.

Framework and Theory: I love smart arguments in this area. I am not inclined to just vote on debate will be destroyed or traditional framework will lead to genocide unless explained very well and impacted based on some spill over claims. There must be a concrete connection to the impacts articulated on these and most be weighed. I am persuaded by the deliberation arguments, institutional engagement/building, limits, and topical versions of the Aff. Fairness is an interesting concept for me here. I think you must prove how their model of debate directly creates unfairness and provide links to the way their model of debate does such. I don't think just saying structural fairness comes first is the best without clarification about what that means in the context of the debate space and your model of debate.

Some of you K/Performance folks may think I am a FW hack, thas cute or whatever. Instead of looking at the judge as the reason why you weren't adequate at defending your business, you should do a redo, innovate, or invest in how to strategize. If it seems as though you aren't winning FW in front of me that means you are not focusing how offense and your model produces some level of "good." Or you could defend why the model approach is problematic or several reasons. I firmly believe if someone has a model of debate or how they want to engage the res or this space, you MUST defend it and prove why that is productive and provides some level of ground or debatability.

Winning Framework for me includes some level of case turn or reason why the aff produces something bad/ blocks something good/ there's a PIC/PIK of some kind (explained). This should be coupled with a proficient explanation of either the TVA or SSD strategy with the voter components (limits, predictability, clash, deliberation, research burden, education, fairness, ground etc.) that solidify your model of debate.

Performance: It must be linked to an argument that is able to defend the performance and be able to explain the overall impact on debate or the world/politics itself. Please don’t do a performance to just do it…you MUST have a purpose and connect it to arguments. Plus debate is a place of politics and args about debate are not absent politics sometimes they are even a pre-req to “real” politics, but I can be persuaded otherwise. You must have a role of the ballot or framework to defend yourself, or on the other side say why the role of the ballot is bad. I also think those critics who believe this style of debate is anti-intellectual or not political are oversimplifying the nuance of each team that does performance. Take your role as an educator and stop being an intellectual coward or ideology driven hack.

Do not be afraid to PIK/PIC out of a performance or give reasons why it was BAD. Often people want to get in their feelings when you do this. I am NOT sympathetic to that because you made a choice to bring it to this space and that means it can be negated, problematized, and subject to verbal criticism.

Topic/Resolution: I will vote on reasons why or why not to go by the topic...unlike some closed minded judges who are detached from the reality that the topics chosen may not allow for one to embrace their subjectivity or social location in ways that are productive. This doesn’t mean I think talking about puppies and candy should win, for those who dumb down debate in their framework args in that way. You should have a concrete and material basis why you chose not to engage the topic and linked to some affirmation against racism/sexism/homophobia/classism/elitism/white supremacy and produces politics that are progressive and debatable. There would have to be some metric of evaluation though. BUT, I can be persuaded by the plan focus and topic education model is better middle ground to what they want to discuss.

Hella High Theory K: i.e Hiediggar, Baudrillard, Zizek, D&G, Butler, Arant, and their colleagues…this MUST be explained to me in a way that can make some material sense to me as in a clear link to what the aff has done or an explanation of the resolution…I feel that a lot of times teams that do these types of arguments assume a world of abstraction that doesn’t relate fully to how to address the needs of the oppressed that isn’t a privileged one. However, I do enjoy Nietzsche args that are well explained and contextualized. Offense is key with running these args and answering them.

Disadvantages: I’m cool with them just be well explained and have a link/link wall that can paint the story…you can get away with a generic link with me if you run politics/econ/tradeoff disads. But, it would be great to provide a good story. In the 2NC/1NR retell the story of the disad with more context and OFFENSE and compartmentalize the parts. ALWAYS tell me why it turns and outweighs case. Disads on case should be impacted and have a clear link to what the aff has done to create/perpetuate the disad. If you are a K team and you kick the alt that solves for the disads…that is problematic for me. Affs need to be winning impact framing and some level of offense. No link is not enough for me.

Perms: I HATE when people have more than 3 perms. Perm theory is good here for me, do it and not just GROUP them. For a Method v Method debate, you do not get to just say you dont get a perm. Enumerate reasons why they do not get a perm. BUT, if an Aff team in this debate does make a perm, it is not just a test of competition, it is an advocacy that must be argued as solving/challenging what is the issue in the debate.
Additionally, you can kick the perms and no longer have to be burden with that solvency. BUT you must have offensive against their C/P, ALT, or advocacy.

Counterplans/Advocacies: They have to solve at least part of the case and address some of the fundamental issues dealing with the aff’s advantages especially if it’s a performance or critical aff…I’m cool with perm theory with a voter attached. I am cool with any kind of these arguments, but an internal net benefit is not enough for me in a policy counterplan setting. If you are running a counter advocacy, there must be enumerated reasons why it is competitive, net beneficial, and is the option that should be prioritized. I do love me a PIK/PIC or two, but please do it effectively with specific evidence that is a criticism of the phrase or term the aff used. But, know the difference between piking out of something and just criticizing the aff on some trivial level. I think you need to do very good analysis in order to win a PIC/PIK. I do not judge kick things...that is your job.

Affs in the case of PIK/PICs, you must have disads to the solvency (if any), perm, theory, defend the part that is questionable to the NEG.

Race/ Identity arguments: LOVE these especially from the Black/Latinx/Asian/Indigenous/Trans/Sexuality perspective (most familiar with) , but this doesn’t mean you will win just because you run them like that. I like to see the linkage between what the aff does wrong or what the aff/neg has perpetuated. I’m NOT likely to vote on a link of omission unless some structural claim has risen the burden. I am not familiar with ALL of these types of args, so do not assume that I know all you literature or that I am a true believer of your arguments about Blackness. I do not believe that Blackness based arguments are wedded to an ontology focus or that one needs to win or defeat ontology to win.

I am def what some of you folks would call a "humanist and I am okay with that. Does not mean you can't win any other versions of that debate in front of me.

Case Args: Only go for case turns and if REALLY needed for your K, case defense.…they are the best and are offensive , however case defense may work on impacts if you are going for a K. If you run a K or performance you need to have some interaction with the aff to say why it is bad. Please don't sandbag these args so late in the debate.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am of the strong belief that Congressional debate is a DEBATE event first and foremost. I do not have an I.E or speech background. However, I do teach college public speaking and argumentation. The comments I leave will talk about some speech or style components. I am not a judge that heavily favors delivery over the argumentation and evidence use.

I am a judge that enjoys RECENT evidence use, refutation, and clash with the topics you have been assigned.

STRUCTURE OF SPEECHES

I really like organization. With that said, I do prefer debaters have a introduction with a short attention getter, and a short preview statement of their arguments. In the body of the speech, I would like some level of impacting/ weighing of your arguments and their arguments ( if applicable), point out flaws in your opponents argumentation (lack of solvency, fallacies, Alternative causes), cite evidence and how it applies, and other clash based refutation. If you want to have a conclusion, make sure it has a short summary and a declarative reason to pass or fail.

REFUTATION

After the first 2 speeches of the debate, I put heavy emphasis on the idea that these speeches should have a refutation component outside of you extending a previous argument from your side, establish a new argument/evidence, or having some kind of summary. I LOVE OFFENSE based arguments that will turn the previous arguments state by the opposition. Defensive arguments are fine, but please explain why they mean the opposition cannot solve or why your criticism of their evidence or reason raises to the level of rejecting their stance. Please do not list more than 2 or 3 senators or reps that you are refuting because in some cases it looks like students are more concerned with the appearance of refutation than actually doing it. I do LOVE sassy, assertive or sarcastic moments but still be polite.

EVIDENCE USE

I think evidence use is very important to the way I view this type of debate. You should draw evidence from quality sources whether that is stats/figures/academic journals/narrative from ordinary people. Please remember to cite where you got your information and the year. I am a hack for recency of your evidence because it helps to illuminate the current issues on your topic. Old evidence is a bit interesting and should be rethought in front of me. Evidence that doesn't at some level assume the ongoing/aftermath of COVID-19 is a bit of a stretch. Evidence comparison/analysis of your opponent is great as well.

ANALYSIS

I LOVE impact calculus where you tell me why the advantages of doing or not doing a bill outweighs the costs. This can be done in several ways, but it should be clear, concise, and usually happen in the later speeches. At a basic level, doing timeframe, magnitude, probability, proximity, or any other standard for making arguments based on impact are great. I DISLIKE rehash....If you are not expanding or changing the way someone has articulated an argument or at least acknowledge it, I do not find rehash innovative nor high rank worthy. This goes back to preparation and if you have done work on both sides of a bill. You should prepare multiple arguments on a given side just in case someone does the argument before you. There is nothin worse to me than an unprepared set of debaters that must take a bunch of recesses/breaks to prepare to switch.

David Cram Helwich
University of Minnesota
28 years judging, 20-ish rounds each year

Quick version: Do what you do best and I will try to check my dispositions at the door.

Topic Thoughts: We picked the wrong one (too narrow, needed at least sole purpose). Aff innovation is going to require NFU-subsets affs, but I have yet to see a good argument for a reasonable limit to such an interpretation. "Disarming" creates an unanticipated loophole. Process counterplans that are not directly related to nuclear policymaking seem superfluous given the strength of the negative side of the topic literature.

Online Debate: It is "not great," better than I feared. I have judged quite a few online debates over the past 3 years. Debaters will benefit by slowing down a bit if that enhances their clarity, avoiding cross-talk, and actively embracing norms that minimize the amount of "null time" in debates--watch for speechdocs and download them right away, pay attention to the next speaker as they give the order, be efficient in getting your speechdoc attached and sent, etc.

Evidence: I believe that engaged research is one of the strongest benefits of policy debate, and that judging practices should incentivize such research. I am a bad judge for you if your evidence quality is marginal—sources, recency, and warrants/data offered. I reward teams who debate their opponent’s evidence, including source qualifications.

Delivery: I will provide prompts (if not on a panel) if I am having trouble flowing. I will not evaluate arguments that I could not originally flow.

Topicality: I vote on well-developed procedurals. I rarely vote on T cheap shots. T is not genocide—however, “exclusion” and similar impacts can be good reasons to prefer one interpretation over another. Debaters that focus interpretation debating on caselists (content and size), division of ground, and the types of literature we read, analyzed through fairness/education lenses, are more likely to get my ballot. I tend to have a high threshold for what counts as a “definition”—intent to define is important, whereas proximity-count “definitions” seem more valuable in setting the parameters of potential caselists than in grounding an interpretation of the topic.

Critical Arguments: I have read quite a bit of critical theory, and will not dismiss your argument just because it does not conform to ‘traditional’ notions of debate. However, you should not assume that I am necessarily familiar with your particular literature base. I value debating that applies theory to the ‘artifact’ of the 1AC (or 1NC, or topic, etc). The more specific and insightful the application of said theory, the more likely I am to vote for you. Explaining what it means to vote for you (role of the ballot) is vitally important, for both “policy” and “K” teams. Absent contrary guidance, I view ‘framework’ debates in the same frame as T—caselist size/content, division of ground, research focus.

Disadvantages/Risk: I typically assess the ‘intrinsic probability’ of the plan triggering a particular DA (or advantage) before assessing uniqueness questions. This means that link work is very important—uniqueness obviously implicates probability, but “risk of uniqueness” generally means “we have no link.” Impact assessments beyond shallow assertions (“ours is faster because I just said so”) are an easy pathway to my ballot, especially if you have strong evidentiary support

Theory: I will not evaluate theoretical objections that do not rise to the level of an argument (claim, data, warrant). Good theory debating focuses on how the operationalization of competing interpretations impacts what we debate/research and side balance. Thought experiments (what would debate look like if the neg could read an unlimited number of contradictory, conditional counterplans?) are valuable in drawing such comparisons. I tend to find “arg not team” to be persuasive in most cases. This means you need a good reason why “loss” is an appropriate remedy for a theory violation—I am persuadable on this question, but it takes more than an assertion. If it is a close call in your mind about whether to go for “substance” or “theory,” you are probably better off going for “substance.”

Counterplans: The gold standard for counterplan legitimacy is specific solvency evidence. Obviously, the necessary degree of specificity is a matter of interpretation, but, like good art, you know it when you see it. I am more suspicious of multi-conditionality, and international fiat than most judges. I am probably more open to condition counterplans than many critics. PICs/PECs that focus debate on substantive parts of the aff seem important to me. Functional competition seems to make more sense than does textual competition. That being said, I coach my teams to run many counterplans that I do not think are legitimate, and vote for such arguments all the time. The status quo seems to be a legitimate voting option unless I am instructed otherwise. My assumption is that I am trying to determine the "best policy option," which can include the status quo unless directed otherwise.

Argument Resolution: Rebuttalists that simply extend a bunch of cards/claims and hope that I decide things in their favor do poorly in front of me. I reward debaters that resolve arguments, meaning they provide reasons why their warrants, data, analysis, sources etc. are stronger (more persuasive) than those of their opponents on critical pressure points. I defer to uncontested argument and impact comparisons. I read evidence on questions that are contested, if I want the cite, or if I think your argument is interesting.

Decorum: I believe that exclusionary practices (including speech acts) are unacceptable. I am unlikely to vote against you for being offensive, but I will not hesitate to decrease your points if you behave in an inappropriate manner (intentionally engaging in hostile, classist, racist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist etc. acts, for example). I recognize that this activity is very intense, but please try to understand that everyone present feels the same pressures and “play nice.”

Use an email chain--establish one before the round, and please include me on it (cramhelwich@gmail.com) . Prep time ends once the speechdoc is saved and sent. Most tournaments have policies on how to deal with "tech time"--please know what those policies are. I do not have a strong opinion on the acceptability of mid-speech prep for other purposes.

If you have specific questions, please ask me before the round.

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.

GTA at KU Fall 2021

former NDT/CEDA debater for the University of Missouri - Kansas City

I'd like to be on the email chain.

I will do my best to adjust to your style and evaluate what is presented.

I enjoy judging debates.

I'm generally fine with speed, but please slow down for tags and authors. I flow on paper. If you spread full speed through a CP with 5 planks, I will be struggling to know what it does.

I think debate is usually about story telling, and I often find myself more comfortable voting for debaters who have provided a better and more complete story. This also means I am more hesitant to vote on arguments that just don't make sense to me - this seems obvious but I feel like it comes up more frequently than expected. I need to understand your argument well enough to explain to the other team why they lost a debate on it.

Don't be racist, homophobic, transphobic, or other hateful things.

---------

Kritiks - I like a good kritik. I usually find myself more persuaded by kritiks that have an alternative in the 2NR with lots of examples and explanation for why it resolves the impact. I think policy affs often lack a robust defense of utilitarianism, and I enjoy listening to arguments about why we should use another method to make ethical decisions.

I would also encourage you to:

- contextualize your links to the affirmative

- explain why you control / solve / turn / moot the 1AC's impacts

- illustrate why the aff is factually incorrect, in a way that is consistent with your criticism -- usually think it's a little awkward when the K about epistemology contradicts your case defense from xyz think tank -- I would encourage you to read smart case arguments or be ready to defend "we're negative and get to do that"

I usually think K affs that 1) do something or advocate that something should be done 2) have some relation to the topic - are the most persuasive. If that's not your aff, just be sure to explain why you have good reasons not to.

Topicality / FW - Interpretations should be strategic and well justified. If you go for T, be sure to have clear impacts and weigh them. Reasonability vs competing interpretations is up for y'all to decide. In FW v K debates, I think specific and clear offense in the last speech usually ends up deciding my ballot. Affirmatives without a plan text should be sure to have significant offense - and explain why it outweighs clash or whatever.

Theory - Sure. Be in-depth, specific, and weigh the impacts of each interpretation. 3-4+ condo is probably a lot in front of me, especially if there is a clear in-round abuse story.

DAs - Works for me. Tell a good story and do lots of impact comparison.

CPs - Counterplans are cool and create interesting strategies. I probably lean slightly affirmative on most of the theory here, but could be convinced otherwise. That being said, strategic PICs are often very persuasive to me. If you read a big multi-plank CP, you should particularly emphasize what it does and how it works. Otherwise, we may not be on same page at the end of the debate when you assume that I understand why plank #7 solves the 3rd internal link of the second scenario on the first advantage.

Also, negatives should do more case debate. I am often convinced that plans wouldn't really do anything.

Speaker points:

DO:

- funny or particularly insightful remarks during the debate

- send speech docs quickly and effectively (for example, 1NR sent by the end of 2NC CX)

- signpost well during your speech

- make smart, strategic decisions during the debate

DON'T:

- steal prep

- be overly rude or mean

Update 4/1/2023

*If you are scanning this philosophy as a nonmember of the community, seeking out quotes to help your political "culture war" cause you are not an honest broker here and largely looking for clickbait. I find your endeavors an unfortunate result of a rage machine that consumes a great deal of quality programs without ever helping them thrive or grow. Re-evaluate your life and think about how you can help high schools and middle schools around this country develop speech and debate programs, core liberal art educational, to improve the quality of argumentation, that otherwise is lacking. In the end, as an outsider looking in, you are missing a great deal of nuance in these philosophies and how they operate in the communities (multiple not just one) around the US and the world.

If you have landed here as a representative of Fox News or an ally or affiliate, I would like to see the receipts of the bias that has and continues to perforate your organization from Roger Ailes to Tucker Carlson and more. Here is my question, when you learned about the Joe McCarthy era of conspiracy theory, along with the hysteria and demonization of potential Americans who are communist (or sympathizers) and "pinko" (gay or sexual "deviants"), is your gripe with McCarthy that he had a secret list without evidence, or do you recognize that a core problem with McCarthy is his anti-democratic fear that there actually ARE communists, gay, trans, bisexual, Americans?

My next question is when and where you think it is acceptable for a person with strong beliefs to exist in democratic spaces. Bias is inevitable and part of this debate game. Organizations attempt to manage types of bias and coaches and debaters learn how to adapt to certain bias while attempting to avoid problematic bias. What do you think? Would right leaning presidential candidates vote for an argument that affirms trans athletes in sports? Should a trans judge leave their identity entirely at the door and embody a leading republican presidential candidate who is against medical care for trans persons? Both answers are no. The issue you seek to lambast for viewership clickbate is much deeper and more complicated than a 3 minute video clip can cover. Thank for reading.

REAL PHILOSOPHY
Background: Indiana University Director of Debate as of 2010. Background is primarily as a policy debater and policy debate coach.

Email Chain: Bdelo77@gmail.com

The road to high speaker points and the ballot

I reward debaters who have a strong knowledge of the topic. Those debaters who can articulate intricacies and relationships amongst topic specific literature will meet what I believe are the educational benefits of having a topic in the first place.

Using evidence to assist you with the argument you are trying to make is more important than stringing evidence together in hopes that they accumulate into an argument. “I have a card judge, it is real good” “pull my 15 uniqueness cards judge” are not arguments. Ex: Obama will win the election – a) swing voters, Rasmussen poll indicates momentum after the DNC b) Washington post “Romney has lost the election” the base is gone… etc. are good extensions of evidence.

Less jargon more eloquence. I get bored with repeated catch phrases. I understand the need for efficiency, but debaters who recognize the need for innovation by individuals in the activity will receive more points.

Speed: I expect I can digest at least 70% of your speech. The other 30% should be general human attention span issues on my part. I firmly believe debate is a communication event, I am saddened that this has been undervalued as debaters prepare for tournaments. If I agree with X debater that Y debater’s speech on an argument was incoherent, I am more and more willing to just ignore the argument. Computer screens and Bayesian calculus aside, there is a human in this body that makes human decisions.

Should affs be topical?

Affs should have a relationship to the topic that is cogent. If there is no relationship to the topic, I have a high standard for affirmatives to prove that the topic provides no “ground” for a debater to adapt and exist under its umbrella. Negatives, this does not mean you don’t have a similar burden to prove that the topic is worth debating. However personally I think you will have a much smaller hill to climb… I find it disturbing that debaters do not go further than a quick “topical version of your aff solves” then insert X switch side good card… Explain why the topical version is good for debate and provides argument diversity and flexibility.

Policy debate is good: When I prep our files for tournaments I tend to stay in the policy-oriented literature. This does not mean that I am unwilling to cut our K file or K answers, I just have limited time and job related motivation to dive into this literature.

K Debate: Can be done well, can be done poorly. I do not exclude the arguments from the round but nebulous arguments can be overplayed and abused.

(Updated 3-2-2022) Conditionality:

1) Judge Kick? No. You made your choice on what to go for now stick with it. 2NRs RARELY have the time to complete one avenue for the ballot let alone two conditional worlds...

I tend to believe that one conditional substantive test of the plan advocacy is good (agent CP, process CP, or ?) and I am open to the idea of the need for a second advantage CP (need to deal with add-ons and bad advantages) or K within limits. I'm not a fan of contradicting conditional advocacies in how they implicate 2AC offense and potential.

Beyond 1-2 conditional arguments, I am torn by the examples of proliferating counterplans and critiques that show up in the 1NC and then disappear in the negative block. There is a substantive tradeoff in the depth and quality of arguments and thus a demotivation incentive for the iterative testing and research in the status quo world of 3+ conditional advocacies. The neg's, "write better advantages" argument has value, however with 2AC time pressure it means that 1ACs are becoming Frankenstein's monster to deal with the time tradeoff.

Plans: I think the community should toy with the idea of a grand bargain where affirmatives will specify more in their plan text and negs give up some of their PIC ground. The aff interp of "we only have to specify the resolution" has pushed us in the direction where plans are largely meaningless and aff conditionality is built into core 2AC frontlines. The thing is, our community has lost many of its fora for discussing theory and establishing new norms around issues like this. Debaters need to help be the change we need and we need more in-depth theory discussions outside of the rounds. Who is the Rorger Solt going to be of the 2020's?

Reading evidence:
I find myself more willing to judge the evidence as it was debated in the round (speeches and cx), and less willing to scan through piles of cards to create a coherent understanding of the round. If a debate is being had about the quality of X card, how I SHOULD read the evidence, etc. I will read it.

Sometimes I just have an interest in the evidence and I read it for self-educational and post-round discussion reasons.

Judging:

I will work extremely hard to evaluate the debate as the debaters have asked me to judge it.

he/him delphdebate@gmail.com

year 10 of debate

coach at wake

former LRCH and Kansas Debater

TLDR:

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

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

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

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

General

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

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

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

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

——————————————————————————————

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

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

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

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

K affirmatives

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

Performance

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

FW on the neg

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

K’s

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

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

My email is ian.k.dill [at] gmail

I coach at Churchill High School and Trinity University. My coaching and research time is roughly a 50-50 split between HS and College. I debated at Trinity University for 4 years and at Highland Park in Minnesota for 4 years.

I strongly prefer more academically rigorous arguments. I will reward you for reading and leveraging qualified evidence (peer reviewed, written by people with relevant quals, from reputable sites, etc). When you are pointing me towards evidence to read you should compare qualifications and ev quality explicitly. Don't expect me to do that comparison for you when I am making the decision.

I will not vote for incomplete arguments (claim and warrant). "no perms its a method debate" or "da's not intrinsic" are not sufficient arguments on which I will decide a debate.

Topicality: I like T debates quite a lot, and have no qualms voting for T against any aff if the offense is clearly outlined by the neg, and impact calculus is done well. Caselists and evidence quality are important.

Kritiks: Specificity is the key. I most enjoy k debating that relies on da's to the plan as well as broader philosophical disagreements. I am happy to vote on "link is a da that turns case + try or die for alt" as well as "framework + link." I think the former is underutilized, but requires good case debating, evidence, and a well thought-out answer to perm double bind.

Specificity on the aff is also key. That means explaining how the perm solves the links. It also means explicitly answering links beginning in the 2ac. When I vote for the k, I find that it is often because the aff hasn't answered the thesis claim supporting the links, turns case, and framework arguments. Make sure you dedicate time to identifying and answering that thesis.

Counterplans: Counterplans should be both textually and functionally competitive. I will always reward the recutting of a cp from aff ev. I also think a lot of counterplans cheat, and will be receptive to theory presses against cp's that compete based on definitions of 'should' or 'resolved', for example.

planless affs/framework: I think debate is inevitably competitive and intrinsically valuable. Affs answering framework should clearly outline what debates look like under their interpretation. I enjoy non-fw strategies with well-researched, specific links.

Theory: Do not make weak theory arguments in the 2ac, add specific analysis about the argument you are debating. Also slow down when delivering them.

Random things: I won't flow things being said by anyone besides the person giving the speech.

judge kick: unless complete arguments are made to the contrary by either side, I will default to the logical option. This usually either means judge kicking the cp or voting for a perm that shields the link.

Stanford 24' is my first tournament on the HS topic

I debated at Missouri State for three years and had moderate success. I am now out of the debate community but judge every so often.

Email: engelbyclayton@gmail.com

TL;DR

I slightly prefer policy arguments more than critical ones. I want to refrain from intervening in the debate as much as possible. Extinction is probably bad. I think debate is good and has had a positive impact on my life. Both teams worked hard and deserve to be respected.

My beliefs

-Aff needs a clear internal link to the impact. Teams often focus too much time on impacts and not enough on the link story, this is where you should start.

-I like impact turns that don't deviate from norms of morality.

-Condo is good.

-Fairness is not an impact within itself but could be an internal link to something.

-Kritiks are interesting. Explain your stuff.

-Weighing impacts, evidence comparison, strategic decisions, and judge instruction can go a long way.

Cypress Bay High School

Wake Forest University

Baylor University

Good speaks for good debating, great speaks for being funny and/or just great debating.

I'll vote for anything, just turn up. What follows are my existing thoughts/biases on how to win in front of me in policy debates, please scroll to the bottom for LD and PF.

Email: robertofr99@gmail.com

CX Paradigm: NDT Updates 3/29/23

T: I don't hold strong enough opinions about topic wording and plans to stand by in a debate so judge direction on what SHOULD matter is critical. I don't judge many though and because of that I'd say I'm more likely to default to competing interpretations than not. It would have to be a pretty clear case for me to vote on reasonability. End of year thoughts: nothing is AI and everything is nature; T-subsets is mostly valid.

FW: You can go for it. Thoughts: Unlike other judges, I think to win you need to prove your model is strictly better than a model that includes the aff, which means you should probably be able to prove that a solely plan-based model would be better than the mixed status quo.

I default to thinking of these as debates about models and not about interpretations of the wording of the resolution. That means I prefer that the aff have a counter-interp, even if that counter-interp is totally unlimited. What matters is that both teams have a vision of what their model looks like. No counter-interp is also valid and often strategic so feel free to do that too.

I won't say whether fairness is an impact because that depends on what is said and won in any given debate, but what I will say is that proving that debate is a game does not, on its own, strongly imply that fairness is an intrinsic good. Fairness is also a sliding scale, so I expect nuance about the magnitude of the internal link between the violation or the counter-interp and the fairness impact.

I think that FW teams would benefit from incorporating some kind of uniqueness argument or warrant into their skills modules that substantiates why the skills we learn from plan-based debating are valuable in the current political moment. I often find that teams lose debates where they are winning their limits arguments by failing to justify the value of THIS fair game.

K: Do whatever, odds are I've read something you are reading or someone citing else citing the same people as your authors. That means jargon is fine as long as it's used meaningfully. Big words are meant to convey even bigger ideas in less time so using jargon precisely can really elevate the quality of your speech, but on the other hand, just stringing words together without much thought may really hurt your speech. Performance debate is great, all kinds of art can be evidence as long as I can see/hear/flow it (unless there's a reason I shouldn't I'm up for that too, but I won't stop flowing your opponents speeches during the debate even if you ask me to, that is up to them).

CP: I guess this is more about conditionality than anything, I'd rather not have to deal with more than 4 or 5 conditional advocacies or I might actually vote on condo. I think most counter-plans should have solvency advocates, I can't think of an example that wouldn't off the top of my head but I'm hesitant to say I wouldn't be convinced by ANY CP without one.

DAs: I think the spill-over DA is just a bad argument. If you win it you win it but I feel like I have to be upfront about thinking this argument is garbage.

LD Paradigm:

I'm down with anything, except for really outlandish tricks and some frivolous theory. You could still win "Topic auto-affirms/negates because of definitions" in front of me but my bar is as low as "even if that's true we should ignore it and debate a common understanding of the resolution for X, Y, Z reasons" for me to throw away those kinds of arguments. I have a very deep background in critical theory and philosophy so Phil, K debating, and Skep are all fine by me as long as you remember to explain why I should vote for you rather than just exposing on an argument and hoping that will translate to a win. I like evidence, but evidence can be poetry, music, art, memes, etc. as long as it's used to substantiate something and not just presented without argument.

PF Paradigm:

You should read my other paradigms to get an idea of what I think of different types of arguments, this section is mostly dedicated to what I think of PF norms.

I care about evidence more than most PF judges, I don't think you shouldn't be allowed to reference current events to make points but I think having evidence prepared is definitely more convincing than listing off things that I may or may not have heard of to prove a point. I will want to receive any evidence you use in the debate, so that I can evaluate the comparative quality of evidence when deciding things after the debate. I will prefer low quality delivery of high quality arguments over high quality delivery of low quality arguments.

I will not deduct speaker points for superficial things like profanity or dress, I care about rhetoric as a tool of persuasion and information exchange not as a show of pageantry. Be intentional about what you are saying and why are you are saying it, and I will reward you based on the persuasiveness of that delivery.

Please be respectful to your opponents, your partner, and me in debates, and that means being respectful of our time during prep and cross-examination. If people ask to see your evidence, don't make them waste prep time for you to send it to them, they should already have it.

If you have any specific questions about types of arguments in PF or norms, please feel free to ask me. As a general rule, if it exists in policy or LD I'm willing to vote for it but also willing to vote against it on the basis that these arguments are illegitimate in PF, you just have to actually win that.

*Updates for NDT 2022

Who are you affiliated with?

I coach for Harvard. I attended UMKC.

Email for chain?

davonscope@gmail.com & harvard.debate@gmail.com

Do I care what you do?

I do not personally care about what you do stylistically.

Should I pref you?/How do you vote in clash debates? (Because that's honestly the section of paradigms people care about these days)

Whatever the debaters at hand find important in regards to framing, I will decide the debate through that lens. If the debaters happen to disagree on what lens I should prefer (because that never happens), then I will compare the pros and cons of both lenses and make a decision on which is preferable and thus filter the debate through that lens. In helping me make that decision in a way that benefits you, levy significant offense against the opposing team's lens, while supplementing your own with some defense and net-benefits. I'll give you a hint; education is the impact/net-benefit/tie-breaker. For me, It will rarely be fairness, ground, truth-testing, etc. I have and will likely always see those as internal-links to a much larger discussion about education. Which begs the question, "how do I view debate?" Debate is clearly a game. But this game grounds itself in a degree of realism that finds its value tethered to its capacity for us to maneuver within the world the game is set to reflect. Basically, debate is a game, life is a game, and we play this debate game because we think it can inform how we go about playing the life game. So yeah, sounds like education to me.

*Other things

I flow. I won't be convinced not to. How I flow is up for debate.

Line-by-line is important but I find myself pondering the big issues often. Comprehensive overviews/argument framing with embedded clash can honestly do a lot for me. But the key word is comprehensive. In many rounds, debaters lose me when they prioritize checking off arguments on the flow and not paying particular attention to what arguments matter to a decision.

I value evidence comparison deeply. On important questions that have not been adequately resolved by debaters, I will read the evidence, including the un-underlined components to come to a greater understanding/receive necessary context for the writers intent. This has often shaded my evaluation of arguments made in relation to evidence read, moreso negatively for the reader. To insure this doesn't negatively affect you, be sure to flesh out that card...give me the context, give your interpretation of its impact on the topic at hand, and put it in conversation with the other team's evidence beyond the simple "they said, we said" formula. Display an understanding of why your evidence says what it says, its qualities, etc, and I will be more inclined to accept your description of things. I want to evaluate your arguments, not read cards at the end of the round to fill-in what your arguments are. This also means in my mind the less cards read, the better this is achieved.

I realize my points have been categorically low, and will attempt to rectify this by sitting closer to the perceived average. That said, points I give are based on my evaluation of things only. Points are the few things I have control over in a round, and reserve the right to assign them as I see fit.

Ask a question if you desire an answer not covered by the above statements.

Updated for Northwestern: It occurs to me I haven't touched this thing in awhile. They often feel quite self-aggrandizing, so I'm hoping to keep this short and informative.

For college debates, please add

caldebatechain@gmail.com

For HS, please add

nathankarlfleming@gmail.com

Ks & Framework: I like clash. I think debate is special because of the depth of debate it allows. That means if your K aff is only for you, I'm not. If your K aff defends topic DAs and has a cool spin on the topic though, I'm your guy. I don't believe that heg good isn't offense, and people should feel comfortable going for impact turns against the K in front of me, because it's cleaner than T a lot of the time. Fairness is an impact, but it's way worse than skills.

Theory: the primary concern is the predictability of the interp. In order for it to be predictable, it needs to be based in a logical interpretation of the resolution. This precludes the vast majority of theory arguments. People seem to be souring on conditionality --- I am not one of those people. I've yet to hear an objection to it not solved by writing and reading higher quality arguments.

A few closing comments: unsorted

-I'm kind of an ev hack. I try not to read cards unless instructed, but if you read great ev, you should be loud and clear about telling me to read it, and if it's as good as you say, then speaker points may be in order.

-Sometimes recutting the other team's card to answer their argument is better than reading one of your own. If you want me to read their card on your terms, include highlighting in another color so we're on the same page on what part you think goes the other way.

-Arguments I won't vote for

-X other debater is individually a bad person for something that didn't happen in the debate

-saying violence to other people in the debate is a good idea

-speech times are bad or anything that literally breaks the debate

-new affs bad

Lincoln Douglas

I judge this now, but I'm still getting used to it, so go easy on me. So far, my policy debate knowledge has carried me through most of these debates just fine, but as far as I can tell these are the things worth knowing about how I judge these debates.

-Theory doesn't become a good argument because speech times are messed up. Dispo is still a joke. Neg flex is still important. That doesn't mean counter plans automatically compete off certainty/immediacy, and it doesn't mean topicality doesn't matter. It does mean that hail-marry 2AR on 15 seconds of condo isn't gonna cut it tho.

-Judge instruction feels more important than ever for the aff in these debates because the speech times are wonky.

-I generally feel confident w/ critical literature, but not all of the stuff in Policy is in LD and visa-versa. So if you're talking about like, Kant, or some other funny LD stuff, go slow and gimme some time.

-This activity seems to have been more-or-less cannibalized by bad theory arguments and T cards written by coaches. I will be difficult to persuade on those issues.

-I don’t flow RVIs.

Public Forum

Copy-Pasting Achten's.

First, I strongly oppose the practice of paraphrasing evidence. If I am your judge I would strongly suggest reading only direct quotations in your speeches. My above stated opposition to the insertion of brackets is also relevant here. Words should never be inserted into or deleted from evidence.

Second, there is far too much untimed evidence exchange happening in debates. I will want all teams to set up an email chain to exchange cases in their entirety to forego the lost time of asking for specific pieces of evidence. You can add me to the email chain as well and that way after the debate I will not need to ask for evidence.

This is not negotiable if I'm your judge - you should not fear your opponents having your evidence. Under no circumstances will there be untimed exchange of evidence during the debate. Any exchange of evidence that is not part of the email chain will come out of the prep time of the team asking for the evidence. The only exception to this is if one team chooses not to participate in the email thread and the other team does then all time used for evidence exchanges will be taken from the prep time of the team who does NOT email their cases.

Yes, email chain. debateoprf@gmail.com

ME:

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

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

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

POLICY DEBATE:

Top Level

--Old School Policy.

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

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

--Not great with theory debates.

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

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

Advantage vs Disadvantage

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

Zero risk is a thing.

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

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

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

Counterplans

Conditionality—

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

2023-2024 EDIT:

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

Competition—

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

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

Other Stuff—

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

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

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

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

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

K-Affs

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

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

Topic relevance is important.

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

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

Kritiks vs Policy Affs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topicality

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

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

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

Why I vote Aff a lot:

--Bad/Incoherent link mechanics on DA’s

--Perm do the CP

--CP Solvency Deficits

--Framework/Scholarship is defensible

--T can be won defensively

Why I vote Neg a lot:

--Condo Bad is silly

--Weakness of aff internal links/solvency

--Offense that turns the case

--Sufficiency Framing

--You actually had a strategy

PUBLIC FORUM SUPPLEMENT:

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

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

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

Evidence quality is very important.

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

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

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

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

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

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

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

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

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

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

Relax. Have fun.

Ryan Galloway

Samford University

Coached for 29 years

rwlcgalloway@gmail.com

Broad Strokes: I have voted for and against just about every kind of argument in the activity. While my background and research interests are primarily in the policy side of the equation, I have frequently been convinced to vote for critical arguments. I love debate and am happy to be judging you. Debate requires a lot of work and effort on your part, and I plan on returning the favor by working hard to reward your effort in the debate.

Framework: The most important thing I could say about debating this issue, or virtually any other issue, is to listen carefully to what the other team says and to answer it specifically. I find that teams on both sides of the equation become block dependent and fail to answer the nuance of what the other team says. Before last year’s NDT, I thought I was a good judge for the negative, but at the NDT I voted affirmative twice in framework debates. I would recommend more line-by-line from both sides, and less overview dependent arguments. In many framework debates I've judged, the AFF tends to overwhelm the NEG with so many arguments that the NEG can't keep up. I often encourage the NEG to go for other arguments in those situations, even if they are less scripted and rely more on analytic arguments.

Topicality: I tend to be a good judge for contextualized definitions from either side. My ideal topicality debate would be one more about what the word means in context than arbitrary definitions from both sides with appeals to limits and ground. I am more amenable to appeals to reasonable interpretations than most judges. I dislike de-contextualized interpretations that create a meaning that is not in context of the literature or field.

Kritiks generally: Here's where I think I fall on various kritikal strands:

Very good for identity kritiks, very, very bad for high theory kritiks, pretty good for IR kritiks, goodish for nuclear weapons Kritiks, pretty bad for ad hominems disguised as kritiks, do not believe you can cross-x the judge. Unlikely to believe that one theory of power or psychological drive affects everyone in every situation. Do not think the alt or even having an alt is as important as other judges if you prove the ideological or discursive justifications of the affirmative make the world worse. Do not think that there needs to be an alternative to justify permutations to the ideology inherent in the criticism. Kind of bad for tiny risks of extinction mean I should ignore all standards of morality. Think all philosophical endeavors should be geared toward helping real people in their everyday lives. Better for discourse kritiks than most judges. As a vegetarian, I have found myself more sensitive to impacts on non-humans than many.

Identity k's: history shows I'm very good for them. Not as familiar with all the authors, so you need to guide me a bit. Some familiarity with lit on Afro-pess and Afro-futurism. Not good for the logic that suggests “if you link you lose” is somehow a bad standard of evaluation for k’s.

High Theory K's: you should honestly strike me if your primary strategy is to read generic theory cards referencing a dead French or German philosopher and somehow think they apply to nuclear weapons policy in 2024. I have read a fair amount of post-modern authors, who I generally find to be dull, arrogant, incoherent, usually incorrect, and pragmatically unhelpful. I will not apply your general theory of power to specifically link turning a highly nuanced affirmative case .I feel strongly that a lot of what is happening in these high-theory debates is intellectual bankruptcy and am willing to say the emperor has no clothes. I also think I have a higher standard for evidentiary quality in these debates than most.

IR K's: I'll certainly listen to a security K, a fem IR K, Gender kritiks, Complexity Kritiks, Kritiks of realism, etc. Might need to do a little work applying them specifically to the AFF--but I'm pretty open. I think the lit is deep, credible, and important.

Nuke Weapons K's: As long as the K is an actual indictment of nuclear weapons reductions or disarmament, I'm very down. I will caution you that I think most of the cards I've read talking about "nuclear weapons discourse" are in the context of those who discuss building up nuclear weapons and justifying nuclear deterrence, and are not about reductions and disarmament policies.

Clash debates: I find them hard to judge for both sides. I think if each team would line up what they are arguing the debate is about it would be helpful. Am I evaluating the consequences of FIAT'd action? I am evaluating the AFF as a demand for state action? Am I evaluating the educational benefits of a model of a debate? Am I judging the AFF as an artifact of scholarship?

For non-traditional frameworks, having a method or metric to evaluate what the debate is about would be helpful. How do I assess what is good scholarship? What are the benefits of endorsing a particular model of debate?

I've been told I am a k hack. Perhaps. I have been accused of being erratic in clash debates, wracked with guilt, and apply an offense/defense paradigm where it is inappropriate. It is possible that all of these criticisms may be true or false to some extent. I try and judge the debate I’m watching without a pre-prepared standard of evaluation.

Teams that directly engage the argument of the other team and not use generic framing issues tend to do better in front of me. Engage the scholarship directly, even if you don't have cards. Be willing to talk about how your affirmative operates in the framework established by the other team. Be responsive and think on your feet. Surprisingly good for pragmatism and incrementalism arguments. If the k answer fell out of flavor in the mid to late nineties, I probably really like the argument. I am completely uninterested in proving my kritik credentials or proving that I am down with whomever is the new hot theorist making the coffee shop rounds.

Disads and risk: Framing arguments on risk are very important to me. I flow them and will try to evaluate the debate on the terms that you set up. I try to not have a pre-planned position on how to evaluate these arguments. As with most arguments, less overview and more line-by-line is better. I like when teams use their evidence, even if it is not specific, to make link arguments specific to the affirmative. I view evidence as part of the tool-kit that you have, and the specific arguments you make about your evidence are very important to me. Evidence alone is not an argument. The use of evidence to make an argument is a fundamental component of debate.

Counterplans: I enjoy nuanced counterplan debates made specific to the plan/counterplan in the debate. I dislike littering the flow with permutations and generic theory arguments. I like smart counterplans that solve the internal link of the affirmative. I like theory debates where either team responds to what is happening in the debate they are engaged in, as opposed to abstractions. I lean pretty heavily for the neg on conditionality.

Theory: I'm much better for "if they get 'x' we get 'y' then they absolutely should not get 'x' under any circumstances. I like strategic concessions on theory to justify arguments elsewhere on the flow. Standard theory blocks are stale and uninteresting, but if you've got an innovative theory or spin especially based on a concession of their theory, I'd be happy to listen. Standards of logic and whether something truly tests the affirmative plan or method are more persuasive to me than many others. Kind of not good for appeals to time skews and hypothetical strategy skews that are likely non-existent.

Novice Debate: I love novice debate and am so happy to be judging you. Novice is my favorite division to judge. I tend to reward novices who make smart arguments using their own logic to attack the other teams’ arguments. I tend to also reward specific line by line debating, so answer what the other team has to say specifically. Feel free to ask me lots of questions at the end of the debate about style, arguments, the decision, etc.

I have eased off some of my prior criticisms of the way novice is coached, but I will still tend to reward substantive arguments as opposed to arguments I view as cheap shots. I enjoy when novices are taught skills that will benefit them throughout their debate careers, instead of those designed to trick another novice with an esoteric and widely rejected theory they just haven’t heard yet.

Ethics challenges: I strongly believe that you should email your opponent or your coaches if you find a problem with their evidence. I think most mistakes are accidental. I have personally emailed coaches who have incorrectly cited a card and found the mistake to be accidental--cutting a lot of cards with multiple windows open and accidentally putting the wrong cite on a card, etc. I think we have to have a certain measure of trust and respect to make the activity happen.

Ethics challenges are happening way too often and are becoming trivialized. If you worry that my standard for trivial is arbitrary, non-trivial suggests you have contacted your opponents, that you are 100% sure you are factually correct, and you can illustrate intent on your opponents’ parts. I believe accusing someone of being unethical is incredibly serious and the standards should be very high.

Stylistic issues:

1. I prefer if you number your arguments.
2. Arguments should be clear in the 1ac/1nc. I dislike the idea that the other team should have to read your evidence to figure out the scope of the argument. The argument should be clear upon its initial presentation.
3. I prefer clear labels to arguments--no link, non-unique, turn, etc.
4. I prefer labels to off-case positions as they happen in the debate: The Politics disad, The TNW's PIC, the Security Kritik, etc. instead of just launching into a five plank counterplan text and leave me to figure out what the thesis of the argument is.
5. I prefer specific line by line debating to doing most of the work in the overview.
6. I don't read speech docs as the debate goes on and I flow what you say, not what's in the doc.
7. I am very concerned about how stylistic and demeanor norms in the activity marginalize non-cis-dude debaters. Please don't cut off, mansplain to, talk over, berate, or not listen to non-cis-dude debaters. It is shocking to me how much this still goes on.
8. I try to judge the debate, and not the quality of the speech docs after the debate is over. I strongly disagree with judges who read all the cards and decide the debate from that.
9. I seem to be particularly sensitive to aggression in cross-x and cutting someone else off while they are trying to ask or answer a question. I think people should be quiet more and listen to the other side. I also don’t like cross-x filibustering. I don’t think cross-x should be used to “clown” or belittle your opponent. I realize I’m probably saying I believe in the opposite of everything you’ve learned about cross-x, but it’s how I feel. The best cross-x’s set up a trap that isn’t revealed until later in the debate.
10. I still believe in a place called Hope.

University of Minnesota, NDT-CEDA 2017-2021 (Healthcare, Exec Authority, Space, Alliances). Anoka High School, (lay) LD+PF 2015-2017.

For the email chain: please put the tournament and the teams in the subject line, it makes organization and scouting easier. College rounds: Please put debatedocs@googlegroups.com (not any other email address) on the email chain for me.

If you have questions: don't email debatedocs, email mjgranstrom@gmail.com. Please do not put this on the email chain: I want a clean email inbox, and I will immediately forward the email chain to debatedocs and then delete it. Please save me the effort.

You have my consent to record/stream/publish the round (and you are encouraged to do so, pending the consent of other participants). Here is my policy judging record, with a brief summary of each round and decision.

I appreciate when teams point out their opponents' mistakes in a speech, and I am reluctant to do that work absent debater instruction. I appreciate in-depth case debating. I greatly appreciate mundane arguments executed well.

I dislike time-wasting. I strongly dislike kritiks, and in general only vote on them when the risk of the affirmative's impacts is zeroed by external case defense. I dislike counterplans that do not have predetermined outcomes. I dislike argumentative cowardice: making incomplete arguments for strategic reasons, evasiveness in cross-examination, deliberate opacity in disclosure, making an argument in a speech and then walking it back immediately afterwards in cross-examination.

I am a very expressive judge -- if I look confused during your speech, you have confused me; if I look frustrated during your speech, it is probably your fault; if I laugh when you make an argument it is not because I will not vote on it or because it is a bad argument, it is because the argument is funny (i.e. counterplan texts that take two minutes to read), or because the fact that you have been forced to make it is funny (i.e. a Navy team reading "naval personnel not key to readiness"). I am bad at evaluating topicality debates, this is a skill at which I have been actively seeking to improve. I am willing to evaluate arguments other judges dismiss as jokes (warming good, aliens, wipeout, etc), but be warned: these arguments are jokes because their best answers are easy to execute. I am confident I am in the top five percent of all judges for topicality against kritikal affirmatives: I find it difficult to comprehend any of the answers I have ever heard to 'read it on the negative.'

I am more persuaded by 'elegant' theory interpretations than those that feel arbitrary: Interpretations like "2 conditional counterplans" or "one counterplan and one kritik" feel much less defensible to me than "arbitrarily many conditional counterplans," "arbitrarily many dispositional counterplans", or "only unconditional counterplans". Theory arguments premised on argumentation theory or logic are more intuitive to me than others. Theory debates are frequently lost when one side is reading their blocks at top speed and are not paying attention to the content of the other side's arguments. Despite spending half of my debate career as a 2N, I am less convinced of the value of conditionality than most other judges.

The neg block contains a constructive and a rebuttal. Corollary 1: It is very easy to persuade me to reject new arguments made in the first negative rebuttal. Corollary 2: It is hard to persuade me arguments made in the second negative constructive should be thought of differently than arguments made in the first negative constructive.

Novice/JV debate:

Novice and JV debaters are strongly encouraged to simplify the debate in late rebuttals. This will improve both your speaker points and your odds of making sufficiently complete arguments to win the debate. The best non-varsity speech I have ever heard was a novice 1AR in which the debater kicked down to one advantage and extended no more than two defensive arguments on each other page.

Unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing, your counterplans should probably be conditional -- empirics prove you are more likely to lose because the 2AC can now ignore multiple disads than to lose on conditionality.

Flow the debate -- I will be very disappointed if arguments that were in a speech doc but not read get answered.

Procedural items:

I will evaluate evidence that was inserted but not read only if the mere existence of the evidence constitutes a warrant (for instance, inserting solvency advocates in a topicality debate). I will kick counterplans for the negative only if I am explicitly instructed to do so. I will run a prep timer for teams who need things removed from a speech doc (this is distinct from asking for marks in marked evidence).

An ethics violation (evidence, clipping, etc) introduced as a voting issue will end the debate. If this occurs, I will give the team alleging the violation the opportunity to retract the allegation and proceed with the debate; their opponents may not insist the debate be staked on this issue. I have a high threshold for identifying malice or competitive advantage gained from introducing improperly cited evidence.

A forfeit will occur if one side does not wish to debate. I will consult tab, if they award a forfeit/bye I will not submit a ballot. If I am instructed to submit a ballot, the side withdrawing from the debate will recieve the minimum speaker points allowed. I will not participate in any arrangement to give sham speeches to avoid the bracket implications of a forfeit.

Competition rooms are public spaces, and spectators are welcome to watch or take notes as they see fit.

I will not evaluate either arguments about the conduct of the debaters that did not take place in the particular debate I am adjudicating or arguments about the conduct of individuals not participating in the particular debate I am adjudicating.

Nukes thoughts:

It seems like the deterrence disadvantage has gone out of style since the last time we debated arms control. That's kind of sad.

I have noticed that teams advancing arguments that Trump will win and that will cause broad US isolationism consistently underestimate the extent to which this interferes with internal links about the US being drawn into global crises.

Old personhood thoughts:

Plan texts should describe what the aff does. Plan texts should contain all of the things the affirmative wishes to fiat: If your solvency advocate calls for an insurance mandate, you probably already have enough offense against the PIC out of an insurance mandate to win without perm do the counterplan.

Old antitrust thoughts:

I have noticed that topicality interpretations seem exceedingly contrived and largely silly, and I don't know what is limiting this topic. I have noticed that in case-DA or counterplan-case-DA debates I vote negative an astounding amount of the time. This tells me that affirmative teams need 1) better 1ac answers to states and regs, 2) offense against net benefits, and 3) better case coverage in the 2ac.

Pet peeves:

The number of conditional worlds is two to the power of the number of advocacies, not the factorial of the number of advocacies.

All of the evidence you read in a debate should be formatted in the same way.

Put arguments in a useful order: If the first advantage has two scenarios, answer scenario 1 then scenario 2. If the 1AC has a solvency page, put circumvention there rather than on whichever advantage you take first.

A performative contradiction is never an independent voting issue -- it is either a double-turn (in which case a team can concede both halves and win) or a consequence of the introduction of a conditional advocacy (see above).

The speech doc is not a record of what happened in the round, it is a tool to share evidence. Failing to send evidence you read is a problem, failing to read evidence you sent is not.

No current competitors debated on either the healthcare or executive authority topics, don't act like you were there in T debates. Even I hardly remember those topics.

Current coach at Kent Denver School, University of Kentucky, and Rutgers University-Newark. Previous competitor in NSDA CX/Policy, NDT/CEDA, and NPTE/NPDA. Experience with British Parliamentary and Worlds Schools/Asian Parliamentary.

> Please include me on email chains - nategraziano@gmail.com <

TL;DR - I like judge instruction. I'll vote for or against K 1ACs based on Framework. Clash of Civilization debates are the majority of rounds I watch. I vote frequently on dropped technical arguments, and will think more favorably of you if you play to your outs. The ballot is yours, your speaker points are mine. Your speech overview should be my RFD. Tell me what is important, why you win that, and why winning it means you get the ballot.

Note to coaches and debaters - I give my RFDs in list order on how I end up deciding the round, in chronological order of how I resolved them. Because of this I also upload my RFD word for word with the online ballot. I keep a pretty good record of rounds I've judged so if anyone has any questions about any decision I've made on Tabroom please feel free to reach out at my email above.

1. Tech > Truth

The game of debate is lost if I intervene and weigh what I know to be "True." The ability to spin positions and make answers that fit within your side of the debate depend on a critic being objective to the content. That being said, arguments that are based in truth are typically more persuasive in the long run.

I'm very vigilant about intervening and will not make "logical conclusions" on arguments if you don't do the work to make them so. If you believe that the negative has the right to a "judge kick" if you're losing the counterplan and instead vote on the status quo in the 2NR, you need to make that explicitly clear in your speech.

More and more I've made decisions on evidence quality and the spin behind it. I like to reward knowledgeable debaters for doing research and in the event of a disputable, clashing claim I tend to default to card quality and spin.

I follow along in the speech doc when evidence is being read and make my own marks on what evidence and highlighting was read in the round.

2. Theory/Topicality/Framework

Most rounds I judge involve Framework. While I do like these debates please ensure they're clashing and not primarily block reading. If there are multiple theoretical frameworks (ex. RotB, RotJ, FW Interp) please tell me how to sort through them and if they interact. I tend to default to policy-making and evaluating consequences unless instructed otherwise.

For theory violations - I usually need more than "they did this thing and it was bad; that's a voter" for me to sign my ballot, unless it was cold conceded. If you're going for it in the 2NR/2AR, I'd say a good rule of thumb for "adequate time spent" is around 2:00, but I would almost prefer it be the whole 5:00.

In the event that both teams have multiple theoretical arguments and refuse to clash with each other, I try to resolve as much of the framework as I can on both sides. (Example - "The judge should be an anti-ethical decision maker" and "the affirmative should have to defend a topical plan" are not inherently contradicting claims until proven otherwise.)

Winning framework is not the same as winning the debate. It's possible for one team to win framework and the other to win in it.

Procedural Fairness can be both an impact and an internal link. I believe it's important to make debate as accessible of a place as possible, which means fairness can be both a justification as well as a result of good debate practices.

3. Debate is Story Telling

I'm fond of good overviews. Round vision, and understanding how to write a singular winning ballot at the end of the debate, is something I reward both on the flow and in your speaker points. To some extent, telling any argument as a chain of events with a result is the same process that we use when telling stories. Being able to implicate your argument as a clash of stories can be helpful for everyone involved.

I do not want to feel like I have to intervene to make a good decision. I will not vote on an argument that was not said or implied by one of the debaters in round. I feel best about the rounds where the overview was similar to my RFD.

4. Critical Arguments

I am familiar with most critical literature and it's history in debate. I also do a lot of topic specific research and love politics debates. Regardless of what it is, I prefer if arguments are specific, strategic, and well executed. Do not be afraid of pulling out your "off-the-wall" positions - I'll listen and vote on just about anything.

As a critic and someone who enjoys the activity, I would like to see your best strategy that you've prepared based on your opponent and their argument, rather than what you think I would like. Make the correct decision about what to read based on your opponent's weaknesses and your strengths.

I've voted for, against, and judged many debates that include narration, personal experience, and autobiographical accounts.

If you have specific questions or concerns don't hesitate to email me or ask questions prior to the beginning of the round - that includes judges, coaches, and competitors. 

5. Speaker Points

I believe that the ballot is yours, but your speaker points are mine. If you won the arguments required to win the debate round, you will always receive the ballot from me regardless of my personal opinion on execution or quality. Speaker points are a way for judges to reward good speaking and argumentation, and dissuade poor practice and technique. Here are some things that I tend to reward debaters for:

- Debate Sense. When you show you understand the central points in the debate. Phrases like "they completely dropped this page" only to respond to line by line for 3 minutes annoy me. If you're behind and think you're going to lose, your speaker points will be higher if you acknowledge what you're behind on and execute your "shot" at winning.

- Clarity and organization. Numbered flows, references to authors or tags on cards, and word economy are valued highly. I also like it when you know the internals and warrants of your arguments/evidence.

- Judge instruction. I know it sounds redundant at this point, but you can quite literally just look at me and say "Nate, I know we're behind but you're about to vote on this link turn."

I will disclose speaker points after the round if you ask me. The highest speaker points I've ever given out is a 29.7. A 28.5 is my standard for a serviceable speech, while a 27.5 is the bare minimum needed to continue the debate. My average for the last 3 seasons was around a 28.8-28.9.

Justin Green - Head Coach - Wake Forest University

wfudbt@gmail.com

I plan to clap when the round is done; your effort is appreciated!

Argument Defaults

Preference - The good ones about the topic. Most of my research is on the policy side, but lucky to interact with great debaters and coaches across a wide spectrum of approaches for many years.

Topicality - Yes offense first; defense is essential. Impact turning or going just with reasonability without a quality counter-interp rarely wins.

Policy Aff v the K - Specificity is crucial for both sides. It's rare that I don't consider both the effects of the plan and the scholastic/rhetorical choices including the interactions between the two. Aff's should be prepared to defend the claims made in the 1ac. Winning the world is ordered by an oppressive structure is not enough.

CP Theory - Legitimacy of process CP's increases with more specific advocates. Some conditionality most likely OK - go beyond 2 or 3 or 2nc CP out of impact turns to do the opposite of the 1nc impact; less likely to be ok.

Case Debates - Where have all my heroes gone?

Effective Techniques:

- Articulate when reading! There has been an increasing trend in debates I watch where syllables are consistently muddled or skipped. I'll yell clearer. If I yell it twice know that you are in the danger zone.

- Cross Ex Matters! and it has a time limit – I listen, flow, and those who reference answers from the CX are likely to get higher points. When the timer goes off, it's judge prep even if the two teams decide to continue the CX during prep time. If the two side agree on something when a judge is not there "ex. neg agreed they could kick planks or part of the alt"...please fill me in.

- Smart Analytics exposing flaws can go a long way. Internal link chains and neg K alt solvency are two of many places where this can potentially be effective.

- Quality of Evidence+Quality of Explanation+Quality of comparison=weight of argument

- 2 Tips for last rebuttals beyond impact calculation - Give your partners credit explicitly. Acknowledge where the other side might be correct, but why that is not enough.

Just in case it happens, some strong defaults....

- No shenanigans policy - I expect a 2v2 debate. No three person teams, no one person taking all the speech time, please don't ask for something besides a debate to determine a winner, etc. Two people speaking in the same speech, ok if part of a pre-scripted performance early in the debate. In subsequent speeches, only one person's words count.

- If you ask for a 30. Your speaker points will likely have a 3 in it; 3 will most likely not be the first number. If both you and your partner are asking for a 30, you are playing a dangerous game given the previous sentence.

- Hard to imagine myself voting on elements not related directly to an argument made in the debate (coin flips, previous debates, what their coach did, how someone interacted outside the debate, initials at the end of the card, month of the year). Verified blatant false disclosure of more than a card or two and could be a voting issue.

- Evidence ethics. Yes, follow AFA, ADA and CEDA guidelines. And also, not really trying to vote on: whether the citation includes date accessed, initials of the card cutter (or who cut the card), if there were accidental exclusions of the text that had no material effect.

ENJOY!

If it matters to you, I used to make critical and performance based arguments. I have coached all types. I generally like all arguments, especially ones that come with claims, warrants, impacts, and are supported by evidence.

Do you (literally, WHATEVER you do). Be great. Say smart things. Give solid speeches and perform effectively in CX. Win and go as hard as it takes (but you dont have to be exessively rude or mean to do this part). Enjoy yourself. Give me examples and material applications to better understand your position. Hear me out when the decision is in. I saw what I saw. Dassit.

Add me to the email chain- lgreenymt@gmail.com

My "high" speaker points typically cap out around 28.9 (in open debate). If you earn that, you have delivered a solid and confident constructive, asked and answered questions persuasively, and effectively narrowed the debate to the most compelling reasons you are winning the debate in the rebuttals. If you get higher than that, you did all of those things AND THEN SOME. What many coaches would call, "the intangibles".

Speaking of speaker points, debate is too fast and not enough emphasis is put on speaking persuasively. This is true of all styles of debate. I flow on paper and you should heavily consider that when you debate in front of me. I am a quick and solid flow and pride myself in capturing the most nuanced arguments, but some of what I judge is unintelligible to me and its getting worse. Card voice vs tag voice is important, you cannot read analytics at the same rate you are reading the text of the card and be persuasive to me, and not sending analytics means I need that much more pen time. Fix it. It will help us all. Higher speaker points are easier to give.

Thank you, in advance, for allowing me to observe and participate in your debate.

TG

Sherry Hall, Harvard, Judging Philosophy, East Region
Judged multiple College rounds this year.

Please add me to the doc chain: hallsherry2@gmail.com

I view my role as a debate judge as a "critic of argument." This means that I think the closest analogy to what I do when I judge rounds, is to act as an educator grading a class presentation. But Collegiate debate is not just an educational activity, it is also a competitive activity. Therefore, the judge has the additional role of acting as a "referee" or official who keeps time, and resolves disputes over the "rules". In resolving debates that focus on the "rules" - is topicality a voting issue, are PICs legitimate, must the negative provide an alternative - I tend to evaluate those questions based on the impact that they have on education and competitive equity.

I consider clash against the opponent’s ideas as one of the most important standards by which to evaluate whether or not a particular argument or practice is “good” or “bad” for debate. I do think that for the activity to continue to progress, creativity in arguments and debating styles is a good thing that should be encouraged. I also think that teams which are employing innovations, such as a “performance is all that matters” strategy, will do better with me if the debaters can isolate what standards I should use to evaluate rounds in this new way, and/or what ground is left to the other team. A strategy or performance that leaves nothing for the other team to respond to undermines the goal of competitive equity.

I have a few theoretical preferences, though none is so strong that I cannot be convinced to set it aside despite the arguments in the round. I will list some of these preferences, but the debaters should keep in mind, that these issues still need to be argued, and the side that plays into my preferences, still needs to articulate the reasons why a particular argument should be accepted or rejected.
1. I strongly believe that if asked, the affirmative must specify who does the plan. The fact that the topic does not lock the affirmative into a particular actor, means that the affirmative gets to choose. The whole purpose of having a debate where the negative can clash meaningfully with the affirmative case is lost, if the affirmative can say what their plan does after they have heard the negative strategy.
2. Almost all negative teams these days reflexively declare that the counterplan is conditional. I have seen many rounds this year where that unthinking choice has cost the neg the round. If you have a legitimate reason for your arguments to be conditional and you are prepared to defend it, go for it, but I think it is a bad idea to say that your arguments are conditional when they don’t need to be – you just open yourself up to more ways to lose. My preference is against conditionality. For the same reason that I think the affirmative has to say what their plan does for the negative to meaningfully clash with that plan, the affirmative needs to know what their plan and case is being compared to, in order to effectively clash with the negative’s arguments. It is not enough that the negative will pick one strategy by the end of the round, because too much time has been wasted on arguments that are irrelevant. More importantly, the presence of a counterplan in the round changes how the affirmative answers disadvantages and case arguments. If the negative can drop the counterplan later in the round, the affirmative cannot go back and re-give the 2AC. I think that the debate is better if both sides clearly stake out their ground and their positions from the beginning and the rest of the debate focuses on which is better.

3. I have a mixed voting record in "race" and "identity" debates. I am open to the arguments that they deserve a place in debate. However, I am not familiar with a lot of the literature, and I can therefore feel a little lost understanding some of the vernacular. It is better to explain arguments rather than to rely on terms that I am unfamiliar with. I prefer arguments that have some nexus to the topic or the other team's arguments for the reasons I outlined above when discussing my feelings on clash.

In addition to the theoretical preferences, I do have some views regarding decorum in the round.
1. As I mentioned above, I view myself as an educator and consider the debate round to be a “learning environment”. I believe that both basic civil rights law, as articulated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent state laws, as well as basic ethics requires that debaters and judges conduct themselves in rounds in a manner that protects the rights of all participants to an environment free of racial/sexual hostility or harassment. I am inclined to disallow language and performances that would be considered harassment in a regular class-room setting. I have no problem with discussions that include sexual issues, but if the incorporation of pornography, sexual simulation, sexual threats against the other team, nudity, etc., creates a hostile environment for the other participants in the round, then it should not be presented. If you think your debate performance potentially crosses the line and could constitute sexual and/or racial harassment, your safest bet is to warn the other team before the round and ask if they have any objections. I consider a request from the opposing team or me to not use explicit language/material/performance to be a signal of their/my discomfort and deserving of your respect. I view the intentional decision to create a hostile environment without respecting the feelings of the opposing team to be an unethical practice that will be treated the same way as other ethical violations such as fabricating evidence – loss and zero speaker points.
2. I detest rudeness, especially in cross-examination, or in comments directed at one’s opponents.

Assistant Director of Speech and Debate at Presentation High School and Public Admin phd student. I debated policy, traditional ld and pfd in high school (4 years) and in college at KU (5 years). Since 2015 I've been assistant coaching debate at KU. Before and during that time I've also been coaching high school (policy primarily) at local and nationally competitive programs.

Familiar with wide variety of critical literature and philosophy and public policy and political theory. Coached a swath of debaters centering critical argumentation and policy research. Judge a reasonable amount of debates in college/hs and usually worked at some camp/begun research on both topics in the summer. That said please don't assume I know your specific thing. Explain acronyms, nuance and important distinctions for your AFF and NEG arguments.

The flow matters. Tech and Truth matter. I obvi will read cards but your spin is way more important.

I think that affs should be topical. What "TOPICAL" means is determined by the debate. I think it's important for people to innovate and find new and creative ways to interpret the topic. I think that the topic is an important stasis that aff's should engage. I default to competing interpretations - meaning that you are better off reading some kind of counter interpretation (of terms, debate, whatever) than not.

I think Aff's should advocate doing something - like a plan or advocacy text is nice but not necessary - but I am of the mind that affirmative's should depart from the status quo.

Framework is fine. Please impact out your links though and please don't leave me to wade through the offense both teams are winning in that world.

I will vote on theory. I think severance is prolly bad. I typically think conditionality is good for the negative. K's are not cheating (hope noone says that anymore). PICS are good but also maybe not all kinds of PICS so that could be a thing.

I think competition is good. Plan plus debate sucks. I default that comparing two things of which is better depends on an opportunity cost. I am open to teams forwarding an alternative model of competition.

Disads are dope. Link spin can often be more important than the link cards. But
you need a link. I feel like that's agreed upon but you know I'm gone say it anyway.

Just a Kansas girl who loves a good case debate. but seriously, offensive and defensive case args can go a long way with me and generally boosters other parts of the off case strategy.

When extending the K please apply the links to the aff. State links are basic but for some reason really poorly answered a lot of the time so I mean I get it. Links to the mechanism and advantages are spicier. I think that if you're reading a K with an alternative that it should be clear what that alternative does or does not do, solves or turns by the end of the block. I'm sympathetic to predictable 1ar cross applications in a world of a poorly explained alternatives. External offense is nice, please have some.

I acknowledge debate is a public event. I also acknowledge the concerns and material implications of some folks in some spaces as well. I will not be enforcing any recording standards or policing teams to debate "x" way. I want debaters at in all divisions, of all argument proclivities to debate to their best ability, forward their best strategy and answers and do what you do.

Card clipping and cheating is not okay so please don't do it.
NEW YEAR NEW POINT SYSTEM (college) - 28.6-28.9 good, 28.9-29.4 really good, 29.4+ bestest.

This trend of paraphrasing cards in PFD as if you read the whole card = not okay and educationally suspect imo.

Middle/High Schoolers: You smart. You loyal. I appreciate you. And I appreciate you being reasonable to one another in the debate.

I wanna be on the chain: jyleesahampton@gmail.com

Harris, Scott (University of Kansas)

judgeharris59@gmail.com

Please add me to the email chain.

I am a critic of arguments and an educator not a policy maker. I view my role as deciding who did the better job of debating and won the arguments based on what was said in the debate. I have voted for and against just about every kind of argument imaginable. I will read evidence (including non highlighted portions).

I expect debaters to be comprehensible and I have no qualms about telling you if I can’t
understand you. I try my best to resolve a debate based on what the debaters have said in
their speeches. I try not to impose my own perspective on a debate although there is no such thing as a tabula rosa judge and some level of judge intervention is often inevitable to resolve arguments in a debate. Any argument, assumption, or theory is potentially in play. The purpose of my ballot is to say who I think won the debate not to express my personal opinion on an issue. You make arguments and I decide to the best of my ability who won the arguments based on what you said in the debate. I prefer to follow along with your speech docs to double check clarity, to make sure you are reading all of your ev, and to enhance my ability to understand your arguments.

My speaker points tend to reward smart creative arguments and strategies, smart choices in the debate, high quality evidence, the use of humor, the use of pathos, and making the debate an enjoyable experience. My points rarely go below 28 but you need to really impress me to get me into the 29-30 range. I am rarely impressed.

Absent arguments in the debate that convince me otherwise I have some default assumptions you should be aware of:

The aff should be topical and topicality is a voting issue. What it means to be topical is open for debate and for anyone who wants to build their strategy on framework you should know that I often vote aff in framework debates.

The affirmative must win a comparative advantage or an offensive reason to vote affirmative.

Presumption is negative absent a warranted reason for it to shift.

The affirmative does not need a net benefit to a permutation. The negative must win that a counterplan or critique alternative alone is better than the plan or a combination of the plan and counterplan/alternative.

Permutations are a test of competition and not an advocacy.

Teams are culpable for the ethical implications of their advocacy. This means that framework arguments on K's that say "only consequences matter" have an uphill climb with me. Means and ends are both relevant in my default assessment on critical arguments.

TLDR: You do you. I do what you tell me.

Disclaimer

I strive to judge like a "blank slate" while recognizing that I will never actually be one. Keep this in mind as you read the rest of this paradigm.

Email

carterhenman@gmail.com

If there is an email chain I will want to be on it. I would be glad to answer any questions you have.

Accommodations

Disclose as much or as little as you want to me or anyone else in the room. Either way, I am committed to making the debate rounds I judge safe and accessible.

Experience

I competed in LD in high school (2009-2013) in Wyoming and northern Colorado with some national circuit exposure.

I competed in policy at the University of Wyoming (2013-2018) and qualified to the NDT twice. I loved reading complicated courts affirmatives, bold impact turns, and Ks with specific and nuanced justifications for why they are competitive with the aff. I wish I had had the courage to go for theory in the 2AR more often. I studied (mostly analytic) philosophy and some critical disability theory to earn my bachelor's degree.

Style: agnostic.

All debate is performative. I can be persuaded that one performance is contingently more valuable (ethically, aesthetically, educationally, etc.) than another, but it would be arbitrary and unethical on my part to categorically exclude any particular style.

That being said, I am not agnostic when it comes to form. An argument has a claim, a warrant, and an impact. I do not care how you give me those three things, but if you do not, then you have not made an argument and my RFD will probably reflect that. This cuts in many directions: I hate K overviews that make sweeping ontological claims and then describe implications for the case without explaining why the original claim might be true; I equally detest when anyone simply asserts that "uniqueness determines the direction of the link".

Organization matters. However, I do not think organization is synonymous with what a lot of people mean when they say "line by line". It means demonstrating a holistic awareness of the debate and effectively communicating how any given argument you are making interacts with your opponents'. Therefore, when adjudicating whether something is a "dropped argument" I will parse between (a) reasonably predictable and intelligibly executed cross-applications and (b) superficial line-by-line infractions. Giving conceptual labels to your arguments and using your opponents' language when addressing theirs can help you get on the right side of this distinction.

Evidence matters. A lot. Again, I do not mean what a lot of people mean when they talk about evidence in debate. It is about a lot more than cards. It is also about personal experience and preparation, historical consciousness, and even forcing your opponents to make a strategic concession (by the way, I flow cross-examination). I read cards only when I have to and tend to defer to what was said in the debate regarding how to interpret them and determine their quality. Thus, I will hold the 2NR/2AR to relatively high thresholds for explanation.

I flow on paper. This means I need pen time. It also magnifies the importance of organization since I cannot drag and drop cells on a spreadsheet. Because I flow the "internals" of evidence (cards or otherwise), you will benefit enormously from clarity if you are fast and will not necessarily be at a disadvantage against very fast teams if you are slow but efficient with your tag lines.

Substance: mostly agnostic.

Hate and disrespect are never conducive to education and growth. I presume that the need to disincentivize abusive speech and other behaviors overrides my desire to reward skill with a ballot, but it never hurts for debaters to remind me of why this is true if you are up to it. This includes card clipping and other ethics violations. In general, I will stop the round if I notice it on my own. Otherwise, you have two options: (1) stop the round, stake the debate on it (you may lose if you are wrong, but they will certainly lose and receive no speaker points if you are right), and let me be final arbiter or (2) keep the issue alive throughout the debate, but leave open the option to go for substance. I think this is the most fair way for me to address this as an educator, but please do not think option two gives you license to go for "a risk of an ethics violation" in the final rebuttals or to read a generic "clipping bad" shell in every one of your 1NC/2ACs. That's icky.

There is no right way to affirm the topic. There are wrong ways to affirm the topic. I can be sold on the notion that the aff did it the wrong way. I can also be convinced that the wrong way is better than the right way. It may yet be easiest to convince me that your counter-interpretation of the right way to affirm the topic is just as good as, or better than, theirs.

Theory is mis- and underutilized. You get to debate the very rules of your debate! Current conventions regarding negative fiat, for example, will inevitably make me smirk when you read "no neg fiat." Still, if you invest enough thought, before and during and after debates (not merely regurgitating somebody else's blocks at an unintelligible rate), into any theory argument I am going to be eager to vote on it.

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

Program Manager and Debate Coach, University of Michigan

Head Debate Coach, University of Chicago Lab Schools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0) Online debate

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

1) Tech v. Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2) General Philosophical Disposition

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

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

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

3) Topicality and Specification

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

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

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

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

For Fiscal Redistribution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Risk Assessment

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

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

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

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

5) Counterplans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6) Politics

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

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

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

7) Framework/Non-Traditional Affs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8) Kritiks (vs policy affs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9) Kritiks (vs K affs)

Anything goes!

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

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

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

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

10) Procedural Norms

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

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

11) Addendum: Random Thoughts from Random Topics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Affiliations

North Broward Preparatory School (Assistant Director): 2021 – Present

University of Michigan (Assistant Coach): 2020 – Present

Northwestern University: 2016 – 2020

Email Chain (yes): gabrielj348 [at] gmail.com

Placement

The affirmative team should read a topical plan that agrees with the resolution. The negative team should defend the status quo, a competitive alternative, or a topicality violation. The ballot picks a winner and I’m not likely to be persuaded I should attempt to use it for anything more.

Debate is a voluntary academic contest. Debate rounds should be as fair as possible. I’d strike me if you disagree with that premise. I’d also strike me if your argument says debate is bad, debate rounds should be unfair, the other team/school/community is bad, or in general requires avoiding a well-prepared opponent.

Community events and historical disputes should be separate from debate rounds. If a genuine issue arises during the debate, please alert whomever you feel most comfortable with (judges including myself, your coaches, the tab or tournament staff, etc.) and we will stop the debate. I won’t decide these issues through offense/defense, tech over truth, or line by line. Adhering to debate norms like speech and decision time, spreading, and the flow seems antithetical to resolving genuine concerns and is a disservice to all involved. Please avoid ad hominem attacks, reference to out of round events, or disingenuous complaints and/or accusations. I generally will not vote for them even if dropped.

Tech over truth in most debate... see above. Any argument is on the table. I won’t reject false arguments for the sake of truth alone, even when confident about the issue. I have a low threshold for dismissing incomplete or illogical arguments, especially if you are technically proficient and on the side of truth. My goal as a judge is too avoid unpredictable intervention without giving you a change to adapt. I’ll communicate in my decision if and where I thought I had to intervene, especially if an argument makes writing a coherent ballot for either side difficult.

I default to extinction bad/util good, especially if not told otherwise.

Topicality v. Planless

If the 1AC is planless or does not defend topical enactment of a government policy I am much better for the negative. If debated close to evenly I have a hard time reconciling affirmative offense with the competitive nature of debate.

I have presumptions that debate is first a game, games should be fair, and enforcing norms is not de facto violent. The negative does not need many words to convince me those things are true. If your arguments disagree with those premises, you should strike me.

Both fairness and clash are impacts and considering reasons why they might not be requires fair adjudication and clash.

I have a high threshold for what a complete argument is in framework debates (claim, data, warrant) and labeling something as a DA does not substitute for the parts that constitute one.

I will not footnote in presumed community knowledge or events and strongly prefer debates about the current topic to debates litigating past community conflicts. Even if included I’m not automatically convinced that these are inherently impacts, that the only negative ballot disavows history or that it’s inherently violent to agree with an interpretation that past 1ACs also violate.

I’ll likely vote neg if the following arguments are included: debate is a competition/game that requires fairness, preserving fairness is a prerequisite to achieving other potential worthy outcomes, well-prepared opponents who clash over the same topic improve the quality of rounds, improving rounds is good, strategic choices and competitive desire for the ballot motive every argument, claims to the contrary are strategic choices even if genuine, I should presume them to be motivated by competition since the only certain motivation I know is that all participants currently want the ballot, competing interpretations must consider the likely and worst allowed examples under each interpretation, no interpretation is every interpretation, the resolution is the most and likely only predictable interpretation, and what matters for predictability (and what the ballot is a referendum on) is whether the negative should be able to go for topicality in future debates when faced with a similar 1AC.

Topicality v. Plan

I’m best if you have a specific violation that was clearly tailored to the affirmative ahead of time. If your violation can be read against most 1ACs on the topic I think it’s probably wrong. I’ve voted for bad interpretations but have a low threshold for calling nonsense if there’s an answer that justifies doing so. Acknowledge strategic costs and benefits of an interpretation truthfully rather than asserting it is “best” for both sides or solves everyone’s offense.

I lean affirmative especially if the interpretation is unpredictable, poorly evidence, or creates a slightly more limited topic for the sake of limits. I often find myself frustratingly reading through the unhighlighted sections of out of context definitions that I wish someone had pointed out with an implication beyond “your card is from X”.

I’m more persuaded by debatability and fairness concerns than education. Connecting your standards to impacts and differentiating them each interpretation is important.

Fine for PTIV arguments and have made peace with vague plans. I think solvency and circumvention arguments are a better remedy than topicality.

Usually, I think that arguments that the topic is broken or unworkable for one side are overstated and should be mentioned once if not skipped.

Theory

Conditionality is the only presumed voting issue. Conditional advocacies may be infinite in number and introduced in either constructive. Advantages with intrinsic internal links are my preferred recourse. Most persuaded by logic.

I’d prefer if the negative didn’t CP out of straight turns but more for cowardice than theory reasons.

States uniformly doing the plan and/or all amending constitutions is questionable.

International fiat is bad.

Counterplans

Good for most but the more it tests the plan the better I am. Not a fan of CPs without evidence but evidence may be read after the 1NC.

Fine for process and I appreciate the craft that goes into writing them. They aren’t a personal strength or research priority so try to clearly explain the mechanism, scope of fiat, and standards. Mandate, effect, function language is useful.

Competition debates should include normative justifications for both definitions and counterplan/permutation interpretations.

You cannot selectively “defend” something for a DA but not for CPs.

Disadvantages

Politics is on life support. You should let it go. I have not judged a coherent politics debate backed by quality evidence in years. Most of these scenarios are nuked by a few analytics. There’s no bill yet? Zero risk. No vote for months? Zero risk. Biden must “sign off” tagged as “PC key”? Zero risk. No cards but somehow prices in all thumpers but can’t overcome the link? Zero risk. Bill solves climate change? Probably zero risk.

The block should read additional impact mods and carded turns case arguments.

Zero risk is possible but rare.

Case

I prefer numbered 1NCs that include solvency and internal link presses, re-cuttings, and case turns over a slew of analytics and impact defense. Don’t number if you can’t correctly refer to them throughout the debate. I’ll number my flow regardless.

Impact defense and alt causes are good but you should make arguments specific to the 1AC rather than copy paste a generic block.

2As get away with murder on the case. “Yes X, that’s Y” is not a complete argument. The block should exploit light 2AC coverage. I have a low threshold for zapping case. Being present in the 1AC is not a free pass to resurrect an argument in the 2AR.

Impact turns are great, some of my favorite debates. I tend to start with sustainability/impact framing before transition. Remember to answer/exploit arguments based on the specific internal link conceded to access the impact turn.

Kritiks

I’m better for the aff than neg but went for, have researched, and am gettable on kritiks. The more they test the plan the better.

I generally think the plan should be weighed for fairness/clash reasons, the neg should engage/turn/solve the case, and that permutation double bind is a good argument. I can be persuaded not to weigh the plan at all. I can also be persuaded to say Ks should functionally be CP/DA with link uniqueness, alt solvency, etc. The negative usually spends too much time doing a little of everything without developing anything. I’m more likely to vote neg on a K that’s clearly the Fiat K, no tricks or disguises, than a K that attempts to do everything at once and fix it in the 2NR.

Framework is the most important part of the K for me. I've often sat for the affirmative when the neg was ahead on most of the page but losing framework. If case is dropped and the affirmative gets to weigh it, I generally vote affirmative.

Don’t spend unnecessary time one FW without explaining the implication of winning your interpretation for the other parts of the debate. When both interpretations are compatible with one another (this happens too often and means your interpretation is probably not serving as much utility as you think) the team that identifies that first and allocates time accordingly usually wins.

Neg teams lose me when they conflate being slightly ahead on an interpretation like "we get links to stuff other than the plan" with "we don't need to answer case/those links auto-disprove/dismiss entire affirmative".

If you want the implication of your framework to be that I shouldn't weigh the case, clearly state that in the block.

I'm most persuaded by in descending order: neg can get links to stuff other than the plan, neg can lower the threshold for alt solvency, neg needn’t necessarily solve case to win, case doesn’t matter.

My ideal compromise is the neg gets links to things other than plan implementation but must win that the implication of those links outweighs/denies the hypothetical benefits of implementing the plan.

I am not “deep” in any particular literature base so explain your theory and apply it to the case as much as possible for Ks that are more complex than Capitalism, Security, etc.

I have yet to see a compelling reason why most identity kritiks negate the desirability of the plan or why debate should be primarily about a particular group. Explaining how the kritik implicates the case is very important in these debates. If your strategy does not attempt case debate I am probably bad for it.

Demonstrating an ontology argument does not automatically accomplish that task, necessitate a d-rule framing, or substitute for specific impact instruction and/or comparison. The neg needs to include reasons that winning a descriptive claim implicates normative ones. The world might really really really suck... the plan might make it better. Absent a strong framing argument that implicates that type of thinking, I’m probably voting affirmative.

Cross Examination

CX is important and you should consider it an extension of speeches. CX is binding and starts with the first question (no “did you read” before starting the timer).

You don’t have to answer questions after the timer, after rebuttals, or during prep time and I may not pay attention to questions asked outside of CX. Be reciprocal if you want them to clarify something post timer.

The negative should almost always include questions about the plan in 1AC CX. Random questions about impacts are not going to make or break the debate.

Questions about solvency/mechanisms/links/internal links/alternatives/competition > alt causes, meh analytics, impacts, revisiting past questions.

Evidence/Ethics

Inserting evidence is fine but should preferably be read out loud before the debate ends if you think it’s important. I’m probably won’t care much about recuts if you don’t restate the important lines in final rebuttals.

Ethics "violations" are not a thing. Ethics challenges are. I will stop the round and attempt to reconcile them according to what seems most fair and/or true, best adhering to the governing rules of the tournament. If your argument is best made as a link to something else, make it as a link. Anything rising above that threshold will stop the round and include the possibility of either team losing. Practically speaking this means think hard before saying "new sheet". If you aren't willing to stop the round, I'm not flowing or evaluating it. Speaks will be capped at 28.7 if the round stops. The round will not resume after it stops. There are too many low to no cost voting issues or ethics violations that heavily favor the accusing team, especially when it is evident that pre-tournament preparation has occurred. I will not continue the debate or "draw a line" from past speeches when questions of integrity or character on made.

Speaker Points/Decorum

Treat each other with respect. If you cannot, do not expect respect from others. Put simply, ask yourself if the room would be pleasant were everyone to behave like you.

If a core component of your strategy is ad homs, out of round accusations, screenshots, or refusing questions, strike me.

29.6 – 30.0: Top 1-10 debater at the tournament.

29.0 – 29.5: Should clear/win a speaker award.

28.5 – 28.9: Above average to solid.

28.0 – 28.4: Still learning, stick with it.

27.6 – 27.9: This was tough…

27.0 – 27.5: You were rude. Being here sucked.

25.0: You cheated/clipped/etc. Coaches or Tabroom should be alerted.

LD

I coached LD at Harker for a year but was mainly tasked with policy assignments. If you get me and treat it like a policy debate, you'll be fine. I'm not familiar with phil shells or tricks and very likely won't vote on them.

I'm honestly truth over tech in this activity because so many of the things people say are nonsensical. T is not an RVI. Conditionality is okay. Aff framework choice is fake. Don't proliferate new pages.

I debated at Coeur d’Alene High school for 3 years and Gonzaga University for 4 years.

My email is mdrjohnson26@gmail.com

I haven’t been heavily involved in debate for a few years as I was working abroad.

Essentially, do whatever you want and I’ll do my best. I try my absolute hardest to pay 100% attention while a debate is happening. This means that I try to make eye contact, listen attentively, and catch all of the arguments the best I can. This also means, however, that I flow on paper. As such, please give me some pen time especially if you have a really important argument you want to get across. **This is 10x more true for theory arguments/T debates - you must slow down.

Also, I really hate interrupting a debate. I don’t yell clear, please just…be clear?

Updates as of Kentucky

1. Line by line is important to me - I understand we're on a time crunch, but I have to know what you're answering. Numbers are great, use them consistently.

2. I like research - I love this aspect of the activity a lot. That said, I think that the way a lot of teams highlight cards is odd. I'm naturally more skeptical of a piece of evidence if you've made 1 sentence from 15 lines of text by highlighting a few words. I also really don't like the size 2 font on cards.

3. Compare your cards! I think every debate I've watched in recent memory could have been improved if no one said "their card is really bad". I'm more persuaded if you first tell me what makes your evidence so persuasive and why the opponent's evidence can't meet that threshold.

4. That said, CX needs to extend beyond just evidence. Asking "where in you card does it say 'x'" for 3 minutes isn't persuasive to me.

5. There is no clarification period. If you are asking a question, that is CX.

Decorum
I don’t like obnoxious people. I have a pretty good sense of humor and I know when being funny crosses a line. I’m also not persuaded when debaters tell others to do harm to themselves or others. It won’t necessarily cost you the debate (unless I’m instructed otherwise) but I will tell you now; it’s a waste of breath that will probably lose you speaker points. I also do not enjoy debates where debaters don't defend the things they have said/read. If you read Irigaray, you have to defend Irigaray. If you try to weasel out of it, I'm either going to think you a) are unprepared/don't understand your evidence b) are a weasel c) are an unprepared weasel.

Theory
I lean neg, but everything is open to debate. This was never my favorite kind of debate and it is definitely not my strength. I don’t consider most things reasons to reject the team unless you tell me and give a good reason. I tend to lean negative on conditionality.

Topicality
Love it. Read it, but be honest with yourself. You and I know both know that T – Sub isn’t the best argument ever, but I’ve won on it and voted on it, so here we are. An important note: I find it easier to vote for/against T when I know what exactly a debate round looks like on average. What are the affs? Are they winnable? What are the DAs? Are they winnable?

Counterplans
Love them. If you’re going to have a super long, complicated text, please read it slowly. I try to write it down the best I can. If you have a lot of planks, you should probably have solvency cards for all the planks.

DAs
Love these too.

Ks
Go for them if they’re your thing. I was a philosophy student, but the K lit most kids read was never my jam. I like a specific link story and I would like to know how the alt solves or why, if it doesn’t, I still shouldn’t vote aff. Something that often confuses me about K debates is that I don’t know what to do with the things I am told, so please impact things clearly and let me know what to do with the information you provide.
I’m not a big fan of the dead-on-the-inside stuff as it all sounds like gobbledygook to me, but if it’s your thing and you want to shine, shine on, friend. I’ll do my best.

K Affs
The more about the topic they are, the happier I am. That said, I don’t hate things that have nothing to do with the topic. Just explain the aff well and try to be as clear as possible. I will say, if all of your cards have paragraph-long tags, it will be harder for me to flow.

Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions before/after the debate. I really love debate and want everyone to do well and get better.

Important Update

**Clarification questions about the speech doc are CX time**

laurenlucillejohnson@gmail.com

Director of Debate at Weber State University - presently

Assistant Coach at Western Washington University. 2020-2022

Graduate Assistant Coach at the University of Wyoming 2018-2020

I debated for Gonzaga University 2014-2018

Do what you do best and feel most comfortable and confident forwarding in the debate- I judge a myriad of styles and types of arguments in debates- while my paradigm gives you a sense of how I view decision-making calculus- I first and foremost view my role as a judge as an ethical educator.

Kritiks- I enjoy critical debates. Feel free to run them on both sides. I am well versed in feminist/queer, postmodern, and gender theory, although I am also familiar with other critical literature bases. The link debate is the most important part of a critique for me. Really good impact analysis does not matter if there is no link to the 1AC. I also think that performative links are valid arguments and can be used as reasons for why the permutation does not solve. I generally think the aff should get perms although can be persuaded otherwise in an instance where the aff is not about the resolution or in pure methods debates.

Role of the Ballot - I think the role of the ballot is to vote for who wins their arguments and does the better debating. If you have an argument otherwise, I will be more persuaded/default to a functionality/interpretation of how my vote works if both teams get a chance of receiving that vote. I do not find a "Role of the Ballot" claim that is to "vote for us" to be persuasive. I think it's dishonest and transparently one-sided to interpret the role of a ballot through one team's participation.

Aff framework versus the K- Your interpretation should probably say you should get to weigh your impacts vs. the K. I prefer debates about the substance of the arguments over debates that end up being exclusively about aff framework, if your framework argument ends up mooting the substance of both the aff and the K (aff solvency and alt solvency) then it becomes a messy debate that I will not enjoy adjudicating.

Performative/Non-Traditional Debates - I think the aff should be about something pertaining to the topic and recommend something be done that is different than the status quo (does NOT have to be a plan or involve the United States Federal Government). If the aff chooses to not do this, they'll have to win why the topical version of the aff can't solve for the performance/discussion that the aff began and win an impact turn to framework. In terms of impact analysis. You should be able to explain what reasonable neg ground exists versus your aff that is within the realm of topic-related research. That said, I'll still vote for an aff that is not about the topic if they win their impact turns to framework/accessibility questions.

Framework versus Performative/Non-Traditional Affs- I think that the negative either has to win that there is a ‘topical’ version of the aff that can solve for the substance and performance/discussion of the affirmative, or that their interpretation of debate can allow for better access to the solvency mechanism/ address the impacts of the affirmative. I say ‘topical’ because I am generally unpersuaded that the aff must defend the “hypothetical enactment of the plan by the USFG”, I think that the negative has to prove that the affirmative either justify an interpretation of the topic that makes it impossible to be prepared to debate this particular aff, or that the affirmative is not grounded in a methodology that changes something in the status quo or the lives/experiences of the debaters in the round. I think that the best deliberative model of debate is one in which the affirmative presents a strategy that can generate effective deliberation on a topic because it is something that is contestable and allows for a debate to occur regarding the desirability and effectiveness of two competing strategies/methods to address the affirmatives impacts/concerns.

Topicality- If the debate becomes a large T debate, please slow down so I can get the nuances and particularities of the arguments and debate. I flow on paper so keep that in mind. Limits and predictability are not impacts they are internal links. Discussing how limits and predictability impact debate/ research/ neg prep and what that means in terms of education etc. (This also goes for framework)

Theory- Generally, I think reasonable conditionality (example: 1 Kritik and 1 CP) is a good thing but conditionality bad arguments can be used strategically. I generally err neg on theory arguments that are not conditionality, but I am open to persuasion by either side of the debate.

Counterplans- I generally will vote on a counterplan if you win that you solve the aff, which means you don’t particularly need to win a big risk of your offense to win.

Disads- You need a good disad turns case argument or a case take out to be a round winning strategy. Most of the time I will filter my decision for case versus the disad debates through impact calculus.

**Just a brief update for the high school community on the Inequality topic:

T - Taxes and Transfers - Heavily lean Aff here, but the Neg can win it I guess.

Process CPs - Good luck with these in front of me.

If you feel the need to not take prep before the 2AC or 2NC, good luck with that as well in front of me.

**Updated Summer 2023**

Yes I would like to be on the email chain: jordanshun@gmail.com

I will listen to all arguments, but a couple of caveats:

-This doesn't mean I will understand every element of your argument.

-I have grown extremely irritated with clash debates…take that as you please.

-I am a firm believer that you must read some evidence in debate. If you differ, you might want to move me down the pref sheet.

Note to all: In high school debate, there is no world where the Negative needs to read more than 5 off case arguments. SO if you say 6+, I'm only flowing 5 and you get to choose which you want me to flow.
In college debate, I might allow 6 off case arguments :/

Good luck to all!

Director of Debate at The University of Michigan

General Judging Paradigm- I think debate is an educational game. Someone once told me
that there are three types of judges: big truth, middle truth, and little truth judges. I would
definitely fall into the latter category. I don’t think a two hour debate round is a search for
the truth, but rather a time period for debaters to persuade judges with the help of
evidence and analytical arguments. I have many personal biases and preferences, but I try
to compartmentalize them and allow the debate to be decided by the debaters. I abhor
judge intervention, but do realize it becomes inevitable when debaters fail to adequately
resolve the debate. I am a very technical and flow-oriented judge. I will not evaluate
arguments that were in the 2AR and 2AC, but not the 1AR. This is also true for
arguments that were in the 2NR and 1NC, but not in the negative block.

Counterplans/Theory- I would consider myself liberal on theory, especially regarding
plan-inclusive counterplans. Usually, the negative block will make ten arguments
theoretically defending their counterplan and the 1AR will only answer eight of them- the
2NR will extend the two arguments that were dropped, etc. and that’s usually good
enough for me. I have often voted on conditionality because the Aff. was technically
superior. If you’re Aff. and going for theory, make sure to answer each and every
negative argument. I am troubled by the recent emergence of theory and procedural
debates focusing on offense and defense. I don’t necessarily think the negative has to win
an offensive reason why their counterplan is theoretically legitimate- they just have to
win that their counterplan is legitimate. For the Aff., I believe that permutations must
include all of the plan and all or part of the counterplan. I think the do the counterplan
permutation is silly and don’t think it’s justified because the negative is conditional, etc. I
do realize this permutation wins rounds because it’s short and Neg. teams sometimes fail
to answer it. On the issue of presumption, a counterplan must provide a reason to reject
the Aff. Finally, I think it’s illegitimate when the Aff. refuses to commit to their agent for
the explicit purpose of ducking counterplans, especially when they read solvency
evidence that advocates a particular agent. This strategy relies on defending the theory of
textual competition, which I think is a bad way of determining whether counterplans
compete.

Topicality- When I debated, I commonly ran Affirmatives that were on the fringe of what
was considered topical. This was probably the reason I was not a great topicality judge
for the negative my first few years of judging college debate. Beginning this year, I have
noticed myself voting negative on topicality with greater frequency. In the abstract, I
would prefer a more limited topic as opposed to one where hundreds of cases could be
considered topical. That being said, I think topicality often seems like a strategy of
desperation for the negative, so if it’s not, make sure the violation is well developed in
the negative block. I resolve topicality debates in a very technical manner. Often it
seems like the best Affirmative answers are not made until the 2AR, which is probably
too late for me to consider them.

Kritiks- If I got to choose my ideal debate to judge, it would probably involve a politics
or other disadvantage and a case or counterplan debate. But, I do realize that debaters get
to run whatever arguments they want and strategy plays a large role in argument
selection. I have probably voted for a kritik about a half of dozen times this year. I never
ran kritiks when I debated and I do not read any philosophy in my free time. Kritik
rhetoric often involves long words, so please reduce your rate of speed slightly so I can
understand what you are saying. Kritiks as net-benefits to counterplans or alternatives
that have little or no solvency deficit are especially difficult for Affirmatives to handle.
Evidence Reading- I read a lot of evidence, unless I think the debate was so clear that it’s
not necessary. I won’t look at the un-underlined parts of cards- only what was read into
the round. I am pretty liberal about evidence and arguments in the 1AR. If a one card
argument in the 1NC gets extended and ten more pieces of evidence are read by the
negative block, the 1AR obviously gets to read cards. I think the quality of evidence is
important and feel that evidence that can only be found on the web is usually not credible
because it is not permanent nor subject to peer review. I wish there would be more time
spent in debates on the competing quality of evidence.

Cheap Shots/Voting Issues- These are usually bad arguments, but receive attention
because they are commonly dropped. For me to vote on these arguments, they must be
clearly articulated and have a competent warrant behind them. Just because the phrase
voting issue was made in the 1AR, not answered by the 2NR, and extended by the 2AR
doesn’t make it so. There has to be an articulated link/reason it’s a voting issue for it to
be considered.

Pet Peeves- Inefficiency, being asked to flow overviews on separate pieces of paper, 2NRs that go for too much, etc.

Seasonal voting record:

I do want to be on the email chains: harvard.debate[at]gmail.com and kviveth [at] gmail.com

Evidence/Debating:

Dropped arguments and spin can be true/good to an extent. I tend to look more holistically at the argument even if it was "dropped".

CX ends after three minutes. You can take more prep time to ask questions, but it won't be "on the record"

"Framework" -

I think some of the most meaningful things I've learned from my decade doing policy debate have come from debating, researching, and preparing arguments that are "not about the topic".

That being said, debate is a competitive activity and the resolution is the only non-arbitrary starting point from which to begin research and preparation. If there were no equal prospect of victory and people were just showing up every weekend to talk about different things, there'd be some engagement, but the incentive to test other people's ideas with a level of rigor and tenacity that we value debate for just wouldn't exist.

The fact that there are a myriad of issues that may or may not be more important than the chosen resolution is certainly an important question we should be asking of ourselves and of the topic selection process, but the topic has already been chosen - that's when limits become important.

In general, I'm much better for aff teams that impact turn topicality / framework than teams that try to engage deeply with counter-interpretations.

Counterplans -

The plan is the focus of the debate and perms don't have to be topical.

If you have evidence that compares your CP to the plan, it's probably legitimate

I have a hard time seeing the neg winning on CPs that compete solely off of certainty and immediacy.

The "always a risk of the CP linking less than the plan" is silly.

You don't need solvency advocates especially for smart and intuitive advantage CPs and 2NC CPs out of addons.

I will kick CPs for the neg if the CP is conditional until told not to by the aff.

Critiques -

Framework is either the most important part of a critique debate or totally irrelevant. It's really helpful to me to elaborate on the what the consequence of either team winning their framework argument is.

In recent years, aff teams have radically underutilized the permutation and alt solvency arguments in favor of impact turns. If that's your strategy I'm all for it! However, given that the worst part of almost every critique is the alternative and lack of actual links this could be a good path for teams to take.

Theory -

Most theory arguments are reasons to reject the argument, not the team.

Conditionality - Neg teams are garbage at defending conditionality and the aff should capitalize.

Literature usually guides theory questions for CP legitimacy - if you have evidence that compares the CP to the plan it's probably legitimate.

I am the Director of Debate at Georgetown University ('21-present), before which I was the Assistant DOD (2017-21). I am also an Assistant Coach for Westminster. Before that, I debated for 4 years at Georgetown. In high school, I debated only regionally, for a tiny high school in West Texas.

Please include me on the email chain: bwk9@georgetown.edu

***Update: November 2022***

My prior paradigm was 5+ years out of date. The following are patterns in my judging that you should be aware of when debating in front of me.

All of the items below, EXCEPT for the "D-Rules (not subject to debate)" section, are simply DEFAULTS in the absence of debaters making an argument that I should evaluate these things differently. I would prefer that the DEBATERS tell me how to evaluate things and why, in which case these priors should rarely , if ever, come into play.

D-Rules (NOT subject to debate)

1. Please include me on the email chain.

2. In high school debates, all of the participants are minors, and I will not hesitate to intervene in a debate if anything legally or ethically dubious is occurring. This includes any bullying, displays of sexism or racism, etc. Relatedly, there are arguments which are appropriate for the college context but that I will not--and, legally, cannot!--countenance in a HS debate (one example: the reading of uncensored explicit evidence a la Preciado).

3. Consider me dead inside with respect to any preferences regarding argumentative substance. However, I have very little tolerance for either arguments or ways of engaging that make any participant feel unsafe, and will intervene if necessary.

4. Allegations of an ethics violation will immediately end the debate. No take-backs. I will then inform the tabroom and follow the tournament's prescribed procedures, or in the lack of such procedures will unilaterally determine whether it rises to the threshold of an ethics VI. If so, the accuser will win; if not, the accuser will lose. If allowed for by the tournament rules, I will make a subjective determination regarding whether the violation (or accusation, if the accuser loses) was engaged in knowingly and/or in competitive bad faith, and if so will assign the lowest allowable speaker points. To help guide this determination: egregious or persistent clipping is a D-Rule. So is evidence falsification. Poor evidence "hygiene," e.g. ending in the middle of a paragraph, is a D-rule, but is unlikely to warrant the additional "poor speaks" sanction if it does not change the meaning of the card, whereas if it cuts out a strawperson it is likely to warrant the "poor speaks" sanction. Minor good-faith mistakes in evidence citation are very unlikely to rise to the threshold of a D-rule if it is left up to my discretion by tab and/or the tournament rules.

Things to Know About Debating In Front of Me

1. Instead of focusing only on extending and answering arguments, it would behoove debaters to begin their final rebuttals by clarifying what the comparative RFD for the Aff/Neg should be, identifying the key questions to be resolved in the debate, and then going through the process of resolving them. You can think of this as providing me a roadmap for how I should approach adjudicating the debate once it ends. Absent this, I will come up with my own roadmap, but it is substantially less likely to work out in your favor and also I will be grumpy about it.

2. I have found that the way that arguments are characterized early in the debate often bears heavily on how I interpret and resolve disputes over them in the final rebuttals. This has accounted for numerous panel splits in debates I've judged the past couple years. If, for example, an argument is articulated in one way in the CXes (all of which I flow), I will tend to treat that articulation as binding; or, if a plan or counterplan is characterized in a given way in the 2NC and the 1AR does not push back on that characterization, I will adopt that understanding of the plan or counterplan and hold the line against 2ARattempts to rearticulate it.

3. Evidence: I value quality of argument and evidence. A smart, well-warranted analytic is far more valuable than a bad card. Research is at the core of what makes policy debate unique and valuable relative to e.g. Public Forum, Parli, etc. However, evidence matters only insofar as it provides reasons to believe you about your arguments (e.g. qualifications, warrants, etc.); it never constitutes an argument itself.

4. I will not read your speech doc, a practice which I've observed account for other panel splits in recent years. I will spot check specific pieces of evidence if they are contested in CX or in speeches. I will read cards I am directed to after the debate, but it is up to you to have leveraged them effectively in your speech--and, how good a card needs to be to get the job done on a given issue is inversely proportional to how well you debate it. If debaters want their evidentiary advantage to matter--as it should--they should do more evidence comparison, including as it relates to source quality, etc. The sole exception to this: if evidence is selectively underlined to an argument not even contemplated by the original, I reserve the right to unilaterally discount it (think here of the difference between underlining a movie script or selectively underlining words in unrelated sentences to concoct an argument never made in the source, vs. cutting a cards as a strawperson - the latter I will very unhappily accept if the other team does not contest it, albeit at the cost of speaker points, whereas the former I will probably not accept, if I notice it, even if the other team does NOT call it out).

5. Conceded arguments are true arguments. However, 1.) A complete "argument" consists of a claim, a warrant, and an impact--assertions are not arguments, and thus are not "true" even if dropped. 2.) Receiving the full weight of an argument does not matter in-and-of itself--you must still unpack why that dropped argument impacts the rest of the debate, and if that explanation was not there initially then the implication component of that can still constitute a new argument to which responses are allowed.

6. CX filibustering: Some amount of it is part of the game, but if this is taken to a silly extreme, then I will not hesitate to pull a Dallas Perkins and tell you to "ANSWER the QUESTION" so as to enable a meaningful debate to occur

Argument Defaults

1. Absent arguments to the contrary, CX and 2AC clarifications of plan mandates constitute binding amendments to the plan text, making them presumptively legitimate sources of counterplan competition. (Merely saying that something is "normal means," however, does not make it a mandate, and thus is presumptively not a legitimate source of CP competition.)

2. My defaults are that conditionality is a.) an all-or-nothing thing and b.) is good. However, I have become increasingly open to contestation of either premise.

3. Plan vagueness is out of control, especially in high school, and I will gladly vote Neg on that, either as a voting issue in-itself or smart circumvention arguments or DA links about the way in which the vague plan would be most likely interpreted and applied.

4. Counterplan vagueness is also out of control. If your CP text boils down to, e.g., "do innovation" rather than outlining a mechanism for how to bolster innovation, and the Affirmative points out that that is meaningless, I will agree with the Aff.

5. Kritiks: By default I assume that the K is not a DA plus a CP and that therefore the debate is a referendum on whatever the Link/Alt is critiquing, e.g. the Aff's reps, epistemology, political paradigm, etc. I can be convinced of plan focus/FW-no Ks, particularly if it is grounded in arguments about the resolutional burden of proof and the Negative's reciprocal burden of rejoinder, though meeting in the middle is often the path of less resistance. I am also willing to adopt very Neg-friendly frameworks, e.g. 'you link you lose,' but with the proper Aff responses I will find them ultimately unpersuasive. Absent Aff FW arguments that render them applicable ('pragmatism good,' for instance, or arguments about reciprocity of burdens), I do not intuitively understand why arguments like 'movements fail,' 'transition wars,' 'alt not feasible / no one is persuaded,' etc. would be relevant considerations--but with them, I do.

Argument Defaults - K Affs

5. K Affs: I prefer that the Affirmative be "topical" slash affirm the resolution. I am pretty good for topical K Affs, insofar as I think that there is substantial room for play regarding what topical AFFIRMATION means/entails, and that the wording of the resolution does not necessarily prescribe that topical "affirmation" take the form of defending the narrow causal desirability of implementing a specific topical policy proposal.

However, if your approach when reading a K Aff is to impact turn topicality, the part I struggle with is how debate can be workable once we have left the resolution behind. To deal with this, please speak DIRECTLY to that question in some manner in the 2AR -- whether by explicitly saying that it's better for debate not to be workable, explaining why it will not become unworkable, clearly defending some alternative limiting principle for what the Affirmative win condition is in place of the resolution, or something else -- AND have that be clearly traceable to arguments you set up in the 2AC and 1AR.

6. Framework v. K Affs: I do find there to be a meaningful difference between "topicality," i.e. the Affirmative must affirm the resolution and did not, and "framework," i.e. the Affirmative did not debate or affirm in the specific manner the Neg would have liked for them to. It would behoove the Neg to leverage those differences in response to Aff offense that presumes the latter or blurs the line.

I find "fairness" unpersuasive as a terminal impact. However, this is primarily a function of Negatives explaining it poorly, because I am extremely compelled by the argument that an axiomatic precondition for debate to operate is that the Affirmative must meet their burden of proof arising from the resolution, and that until they do so there is no logical basis for the Negative having any burden of rejoinder. All of which is to say: definitely feel free to go for fairness, BUT please take care to explain why it logically precedes everything else, AND to explicitly no-link the Aff's various lines of offense, rather than just making assertions about "procedural fairness."

Alternatively: feel free to say whatever "substantive" FW offense you'd like--I do find link turns to K Affs to often be truer than the K Affs themselves--BUT please do not just assert words like "clash" or "second and third level testing" without explication of what exactly you mean, why it is unique to your model of debate/foreclosed by the Aff's, and what the impact is; AND be aware that in so doing, you run the risk of making Aff impact turns LINK which otherwise would not.

I generally do not care about "T version," except insofar as it is explained in terms of what SPECIFIC lines of Affirmative offense are solved by the being able to read the Aff topically. (For example: "we need to go to X section of the library" is probably solved by T version, and arguably solved BETTER insofar as that model preserves a stronger ability and competitive incentive to dig into that issue than does the Aff's model). I DO think that that if a given Aff is COMPATIBLE with topical affirmation, that makes it easy to moot all of their offense while retaining a clear net benefit by saying that they should've have simply read the same Aff TOPICALLY (in essence, the same function that "T version" plays in a T debate vs. a policy Aff). In contrast, K Affs which are INcompatible with topical affirmation is generally better dealt with in front of me by "do it on the Neg" rather than a TVA.

Correspondingly: I tend to think that the best K Affs are centered not on K's of the resolution or topical Affs, but of BEING TOPICAL slash a model of topical debate--in which case the Neg will need to win that their model of debate is better, and a T version will only be useful in very specific, isolated instances for specific reasons.

Sean Kennedy - Debated at: University of Kansas

Director of Debate at USC

In general I would prefer to judge based upon the perspective presented by the debaters in the debate. Framing issues are very important to me, and I think debaters should make it clear what they believe those issues are through tone, organization, or explicit labeling (ie "this is a framing issue for the debate" or some similar phrase). Embedded clash is fine, but I think that concept carries some limitations - there is only so far that I am willing to stretch my reading of a (negative/affirmative) argument on X page/part of the flow, that does not reference Y (affirmative/negative) argument on another page/part of the flow. Some of my more difficult decisions have revolved around this point, so to avoid any ambiguity debaters should be explicit about how they want arguments to be read within the debate, especially if they intend a particular argument to be direct refutation to a specific opponent argument.

Beyond that I will try to keep as open a mind about arguments as possible - I have enjoyed initiating and responding to a diverse set of arguments during my time as a debater, and I have had both good and bad experiences everywhere across the spectrum, so I think as a judge I am unlikely to decide debates based on my personal feelings about content/style of argument than the quality of execution and in-round performance.

As a caveat to that - I do think that the affirmative has an obligation to respond to the resolution, though I think whether that means/requires a plan, no plan, resolution as a metaphor, etc is up for debate. However, I am generally, although certainly not always, persuaded by arguments that the affirmative should have a plan.

I am also willing to believe that there is zero risk or close enough to zero risk of link/impact arguments to vote on defense, should the debate appear to resolve the issue that strongly.

Whether or not I kick a counterplan/alt for the 2nr (what some people call "judge conditionality" or "judge kick") depends on what happens in the debate. I will always favor an explicit argument made by either team on that score over some presumption on my part. I have similar feelings about presumption when there is a counterplan/alt. The reason for this is that although there may be logical reasons for kicking advocacies or evaluating presumption in a certain light, I think that debate as a pedagogical activity is best when it forces debaters to make their choices explicit, rather than forcing the judge to read into a choice that was NOT made or requiring that both teams and the judge have an unspoken agreement about what the logical terms for the debate were (this is probably more obvious and necessary in some cases, ie not being able to answer your own arguments, than I think it is in the case of advocacies).

Please be kind to your competitors and treat their arguments with respect - you don't know where they come from or what their arguments mean to them, and I think this community can only work if we value basic decency towards others as much as much as we do argumentative prowess. In that vein, jokes are good, but I'm certainly much less amused by personal attacks and derision than I am by dry humor or cheekiness.

New - NDT 24. Welcome to Atlanta!

The only things you really need to know:
1. If you berate, threaten, verbally or physically attack your opponents, I will end the debate and you'll recieve a loss along with the lowest points tabroom will allow me to asign.
2. Don't endorse self-harm.
3. Arguments admissable for adjudication include everything said from when the 1AC timer starts until the 2AR timer ends. Anything else is irrelevant.

Other than that, do what you do best. Technical debating is more likely to result in you winning than anything else.

I am a coach at Emory, Liberal Arts and Science Academy and The Harker School. Other conflicts: Texas, Westwood, St Vincent de Paul, Bakersfield High School

Email Chain: yes, cardstealing@gmail.com

You will receive a speaker point bump if you give your final rebuttal without the use of a laptop. I will give higher points to speeches with errors/pauses/inconsistencies etc. where the speaker debates off their flows than speeches that sound crystal clear and perfect but are delivered without the speaker looking up from their computer screen. If you flow off your laptop I will use my best judgement to assess the extent to which you're delivering arguments in such a way that demonstrates you have flowed the debate.

Ultimately, do what you do best. Giving speeches you're comfortable with is almost certainly a better path to victory than attempting to adapt to any of this stuff below. Debate is extremely hard and requires immense amounts of works. I will try to give you the same level of effort that I know you've put in.

Debate is an activity about persuasion and communication. If I can't understand your argument because what you are saying because you are unclear, haven't explained it, or developed it into a full argument-claim, warrant, impact, it likely won't factor in my decision.

The winner will nearly always be the team able to identify the central question of the debate first and most clearly trace how the development of their argument means they're ahead on that central question.

Virtually nothing you can possibly say or do will offend me [with the new above caveat] if you can't beat a terrible argument you probably deserve to lose.

Framework- Fairness is both an internal link and an impact. Debate is a game but its also so much more. Go for T/answer T the way that makes most sense to you, I'll do my best to evaluate the debate technically.

Counter-plans-

-spamming permutations, particular ones that are intrinsic, without a text and with no explanation isn't a complete argument. [insert perm text fine, insert counter plan text is not fine].

-pretty neg on "if it competes, its legitimate." Aff can win these debates by explaining why theory and competition should be separated and then going for just one in the 2ar. the more muddled you make this, the better it usually is for the neg.

-non-resolutional theory is rarely if ever a reason to reject the team. Generally don't think its a reason to reject the argument either.

-I'm becoming increasingly poor for conditionality bad as a reason to reject the team. This doesn't mean you shouldn't say in the 2ac why its bad but I've yet to see a speech where the 2AR convinced me the debate has been made irredeemably unfair or un-educational due to the status of counter plans. I think its possible I'd be more convinced by the argument that winning condo is bad means that the neg is stuck with all their counter plans and therefore responsible for answering any aff offense to those positions. This can be difficult to execute/annoying to do, but do with that what you will.

Kritiks

-affs usually lose these by forgetting about the case, negs usually lose these when they don't contextualize links to the 1ac. If you're reading a policy aff that clearly links, I'll be pretty confused if you don't go impact turns/case outweighs.

-link specificity is important - I don't think this is necessarily an evidence thing, but an explanation thing - lines from 1AC, examples, specific scenarios are all things that will go a long way

-these are almost always just framework debates these days but debaters often forget to explain the implications winning their interpretation has on the scope of competition. framework is an attempt to assign roles for proof/rejoinder and while many of you implicitly make arguments about this, the more clear you can be about those roles, the better.

-i'm less likely to think "extinction outweighs, 1% risk" is as good as you think it is, most of the time the team reading the K gives up on this because they for some reason think this argument is unbeatable, so it ends up mattering in more rfds than it should

LD -

I have been judging LD for a year now. The policy section all applies here.

Tech over truth but, there's a limit - likely quite bad for tricks - arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete. Dropped arguments are important if you explain how they implicate my decision. Dropped arguments are much less important when you fail to explain the impact/relevance of said argument.

RVIs - no, never, literally don't. 27 ceiling. Scenario: 1ar is 4 minutes of an RVI, nr drops the rvi, I will vote negative within seconds of the timer ending.

Policy/K - both great - see above for details.

Phil - haven't judged much of this yet, this seems interesting and fine, but again, arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete arguments.

Arguments communicated and understood by the judge per minute>>>>words mumbled nearly incomprehensibly per minute.

Unlikely you'll convince me the aff doesn't get to read a plan for topicality reasons. K framework is a separate from this and open to debate, see policy section for details.

PF -

If you read cards they must be sent out via email chain with me attached or through file share prior to the speech. If you reference a piece of evidence that you haven't sent out prior to your speech, fine, but I won't count it as being evidence. You should never take time outside of your prep time to exchange evidence - it should already have been done.

"Paraphrasing" as a substitute for quotation or reading evidence is a bad norm. I won't vote on it as an ethics violation, but I will cap your speaker points at a 27.5.

I realize some of you have started going fast now, if everyone is doing that, fine. However, adapting to the norms of your opponents circuit - i.e. if they're debating slowly and traditionally and you do so as well, will be rewarded with much higher points then if you spread somebody out of the room, which will be awarded with very low points even if you win.

Judge Philosophy

Conflicts: UGA, Emory University, and North Broward

Email: Brianklarmandebate@gmail.com - Yes, put me on the thread. No, I won't open all of the docs during the round and will likely ask for a doc of cards I find relevant at the end.

2024 Updates:

I am not a fully time debate coach. I am working with the UGA & North Broward debate teams part time.

I am someone who believes tech > truth. However, I do not look at cards during debates, so if your arguments are not clear by explanation/flowable tags/very clearly read card text, they are not "tech" that is on my flow. My favorite debates involve strategy (think: creative "cross applications," argument that are "good because the other teams can't read their best answers," etc). I enjoy a good theory debate (conditionality, solvency advocate, perms, politics theory arguments, etc.) and I would prefer that debates have some depth by the end of the negative block.

College - Assume I know things about the topic, but have not cut cards on it in the past year. I have had conversations with debaters/coaches and am very familiar with nuclear strategy. My knowledge of the college topic extends to knowing: assurance, deterrence, IR Ks, military process CPs*, and anything that would have been read on the past college exec power/military presence/alliance topics. I have written many iterations of both ICBMs and NFU affs & negs.

*If you are going for a T argument or process CP, keep in mind that I could not tell you the wording of the resolution off of the top of my head, so any arguments related to grammatical construction of the resolution might require you explaining with another sentence or going a bit slower. I am under the impression that the topic is pretty small and the negative ground is pretty good, so make sure to impact your limits (or "functional limits")/ground arguments

High School - I have had very little interaction with the current topic. I cut a number of cards on UBI in the past, but I know very little about the other parts of the topic. I did not teach at a debate camp. I have judged a handful of rounds and they were almost all on capitalism or race Ks. I am under the impression that the "core" negative arguments are some combination of States, Politics, "Redistribution" PICs, and Ks about the economy; I assume that the "core" affirmative arguments are all related to the economy and inequality.

2021 Post-NDT Updates:

(1) "X Outweighs Y" - If the 2NR/2AR does not start with some version of this (or include this elsewhere), I will almost certainly vote the other way. I don't super care how you say it, but if you are unwilling to say that the impact you will win is more important than the impact the other team will win, things aren't going well.

(2) T & Theory - I seem to like them more than everyone else I judge with. Go for conditionality bad! I don't necessarily think it is true but never seem to hear 2NC or 2NR blocks that have great offense or impact calc. After judging on a slew of panels, I realize that I am more likely to be into technical theory & T arguments then others. I also tend to expect complete arguments in the 1NC/2AC/2NC (theory needs warrants, T needs the necessary defense and offense).

(3) Tech > Truth - I feel like I have said this a number of times, but I realized that I think this more than others (or at least more than people that I judge with). A "bad" disad has high risk until/unless answers are made. This also has made me amenable to voting on some not great disads vs. planless affs just on the basis of 2ACs lacking necessary defense.

(4) T vs. Planless affs - I have found that I tend to vote affirmative when something is conceded or answered completely incorrectly. I tend to vote negative when the negative goes for a limits/fairness impact and responds to every argument on the line by line. I tend to find myself confused about the relevance of all arguments that the content of the resolution is either good or bad. I feel like I find my voting record to be like 50/50, but I haven't done the math.

(5) Decision making process - I tend to read less cards then others who I judge with. Not because I am against reading cards, but because I only read evidence to resolve questions in a debate. If you want me to read cards (which you likely do), make them relevant.

(6) Points - At the NDT, my points were about .1-.2 below everyone else on every panel. I plan on upping my points by .1-.2. That said, I don't give great points.

2020-2021 Updates - Online Judging: Judging online is difficult - a few implications:

(1) Ask if I am in the room / paying attention before you start speaking. Non-negotiable. "Brian, are you ready?" or "Klarman, are you here?" or anything that requires me to respond. I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

(2) Clarity matters more - I don't usually follow along in the doc and I am unlikely to read cards from both teams if one team is significantly clearer. On a related note, organization and numbering can help a lot with clarity because it tells me what arguments to expect.

(3) Technology skills matter - Emails should be sent out on time. If you are taking "no prep" for the 2AC, 1NR, etc. I assume that means the doc is sent and we are ready to go. I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time and makes concentration harder.

(4) Interesting arguments help keep attention and boosts points - I am really trying to flow and get everything down. I flow CX. I line up arguments. I am more aggressive than most about the flow. That being said, staring at the computer for the 3rd or 4th round of the day is very difficult. I will do my best. I find flowing very important because it lets the debaters do the debating instead of me deciding what I like. That said, online it is taking me a little more energy to focus. I've found when I hear arguments that I either haven't judged before, things I haven't blocked out, or even a new explanation, I tend to think the debate is more interesting which helps points & engagement. I really do love debate, so if you are excited, I will be too. On the other side, if this is the 9th time i am hearing the same school read the same block (and this could be Politics, T, Fairness bad, Deterrence or a K) with no emphasis at the same tournament, its hard to focus.

(5) Internet issues - they happen, I get it. They might happen to you, they might happen to me. I've heard best practice is to have some backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules, follow those. Otherwise I will likely just ask tab what to do if this happens. I'm open to other ideas of how to deal with it. Please please please have one (or all) debaters look to make sure the judge hasn't gotten booted from the room.

2020-2021 Updates - Other:

(1) Points - I think my points average around 28.5. I usually don't go under 28 unless something has gone wrong. If you get a 29.3 or 29.4 that is very good. I'm willing to go above that, but mostly when I hear something and am like "wow, that was memorable. I am going to try to tell people who I coach/teach in lab/judge to do things like this in the future."

(2) I often decide debates by (1) determining what I need to decide (2) looking through my flow for if it is resolved and then (3) reading cards if necessary. I'm unlikely to read a card (for the decision) to figure out something that the debaters never made clear. That said, I am happy to talk about some card or look through your evidence to give advice after the debate if you want - I tend to think debate is collaborative and we should all make each other better.

(3) I miss theory debates - this is the thing I have thought the most about, this is how I debated, and I just think its fun. I don't like "pointless" theory, but if you can convince me that something is the debate in the literature and predictable - from process CPs to T arguments to even spec arguments - I'm happy to hear it. That said, if you make your theory argument intentionally blippy ("ASPEC, they didnt, its a voter") I won't care.

I also left my old paradigm up here, but I think it mostly says: I did more "DA/CP/T" stuff than "K" stuff, I am familiar with "K" literature about race/gender/biopower/cultural studies, I like specific strategies, good case debating always impresses me, and I am very particular about the flow.

Old Stuff:

Preferences: I don't really care about what argument you make. I tend to think bad arguments will lose. The debate things I think about the most are counterplans and topicality arguments. That being said, I cut everything and coach everything. I feel like I mostly judge K debates where no one agrees about anything at this point. In those, I generally am familiar with that set of arguments (I am completing my MA in cultural studies, focusing on questions of race & gender) but not how to fit them into a debate. I tend to be very comfortable with how DAs, CPs, T arguments, and case fit into debate, but I tend to do weird research so I might not know what all the technical stuff of the CP is. That also means that the purpose of a K argument (or answer to the purpose) might require more explanation than the purpose of another argument. The things I think you actually need to know about me are below. I tried to lay out what I do in most debates while they are happening and afterwords and be as honest as possible.

Flowing: I will try to flow every argument in the debate. I expect that debaters will be doing the same thing. I could not possibly care less what the speech doc says or if you are "skipping a card" in the doc (that being said, I would like to be on the chain because I like glancing at cards after debates & trying to learn more about the topic/have informed discussions after the debates; also if you are doing some super annoying thing in the doc just to mess with the other team, I will likely be upset at you when I realize that in the post round/give points). When I flow speeches that set up argument structure (1nc on case, 2ac on off case), I will attempt to number the speech and will give higher speaker points to 1ns and 2as who set up that structure themselves (as well as be able to better understand their arguments; the 1nc that makes 4 analytics in a row without numbering is basically unflowable which means when the 2ac drops something I won't care). In subsequent speeches, I will go by the order of those numbers and will attempt to find what you are answering before I flow what you say. This means that if the 2nc starts on 2ac 4, I will mostly likely miss the first few arguments trying to figure out where to flow it (unless they say "2ac 4 - X - here's our answer" which would just be easily flowable but I might be confused about why the 2nc started on 2ac 4). If the 2nc starts on 2ac 1, I will not have an issue flowing. If the negative block (or 1ar) decides that the order is irrelevant, I am likely to be very grumpy; it is hard to vote on technical concessions or other things if the flow gets ruined and it makes it hard to tell a 1ar "you dropped X" when the block does not answer 2ac arguments. In addition to initial numbering, I will be able to better understand later speeches if you give me some idea (probably by number or argument) where the thing you are extending is on my flow. If you would like to only extend an impact turn or thumper or some no internal link argument in the 1ar that is 2ac 9 on my flow but don't tell me that you are starting at 2ac 9, it is going to take me a minute to find it on my flow. If, however, the 1ar goes to a flow and says "2ac 9 - they dropped X - here's what it is and why it matters" I will be able to immediately find it on my flow (it is easier to find numbers than exact arguments on a flow).

CX: I love CX. It is maybe my favorite "speech." I often try to flow it or take some notes at the least. That means you should pick words carefully in CX. I will especially try to write down anything about the advocacy and frameworks for evaluating debates (meaning metrics for thinking about things, which is not always how debate uses the word). CX can be fun even when teams get heated, but when CX is just people yelling at people and it is clear that people are more upset than enjoying things, I tend to lose interest. I like when people answering questions are honest, explain things, etc. I sometimes have the docs open and if we are having a fight about some card, I will look at it. I am not yet entirely comfortable with this, but if I miss the answer to a question, I may re-ask for the answer after the timer (I will do this with things like status or clarification, I don't think I will with other things yet but I might). I am also not comfortable interrupting CX to say things, but if someone is intentionally saying something that isn't true to answer clarification questions or refusing to answer clarification questions I may do so. If I make any definitive judgement about these things, I will try to update my philosophy again.

Look at me: I do not have a good poker face. I'd recommend looking for expression or other gestures. When I cannot flow people, I tend to look very confused. Same when an argument is bad. When I think an argument has already been explained and/or you are saying things that aren't arguments, I tend to sit there with my pen on my paper waiting for you to say something that needs to be flowed.

How I make a decision: At the end of the debate, I try to figure out what arguments are going to decide the debate (there tend to be 1-3), parse those out, and figure out what happens from there. It is generally better if debaters tell me what those things will be either on the line by line or in an overview (this is the only reason I could really imagine having an overview unless it is to explain some super complicated thing). I tend to think the best speeches are the ones that both identify these key points, explain why they win and then what happens if they win those key things. If there is no discussion of key points (either implicit or explicit), it is highly possible that I will try to find a few points that are key and then explain my decision from there (I determined this argument was probably the most important, here's how I evaluated it, here's why it deals with lots of other stuff). Any decision like that just makes me grumpy, especially because it always ends with the judge CX forever about why I decided this way and my answer tends to be "I didn't know how else to decide"

Speaker points: I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I understand this entire speaker point thing. I think my points might be a bit low. I don't plan on just raising them; if you need higher points I get that I might not be the judge for you. At the moment, I don't think that raising points just to raise them is a great idea because it eliminates a lot of range and variation in points that I think signal improvement for debaters and help communicate about the debate. I might revisit this later on if people want. I don't really know what an "average" speech looks like. If I had to try and articulate some made-up scale, it would probably look something like this: if the speech you gave was the best it could have been and/or basically won you the debate, its in the 29.3+ space. If the speech kept things going and helped a bit but not as much as it could, its in the 28.7+ range. If the speech was fine but didn't have much value value, I tend to think its in the 28.2+ range. If the speech wasn't good and didn't help much, it in the 27.5+ area. If the speech is bad, we are in the like 27 or even 26.8+ range. I don't think I've given many points lower than 27 and if I did, something must have gone very wrong. I tend to find most speeches between that 28-29 range. I think I average in the low 28s but I don't really know or care. Only a few speeches have just crushed the debate for me. I tend to have a lot of issue judging debates when I feel that all the speeches were about 28.2s or something and I have to give people different points. I think my default is to make the thing I think the top end or top middle (so if it was 28.2, maybe i'd give 28.3-28 to everyone). That being said, I think I am more willing to use high range in points based on speeches. I am also happy to add points for well used CX, good numbering, clarity of cards and highlighting (like if I can understand all the warrants in the evidence while you are reading), partners who work well together and make each other look good (I think basically every bold move in debate could be characterized by the 2nr/2ar as a big mistake or a big efficiency gain; if you can convince me that the 1ar under-covering the DA was to trick them to go for it, I will likely think the 1ar choice was smart and hence deserves better points, same with other speeches), etc. If people have a better way of doing speaker points, I am happy to talk about it.

Do not: Clip cards, lie, use something out of context, or do anything else unethical. These will result in loss of speaker points or loss of rounds.

Wake Forest '21, Working at Harvard

Please add to the email chain: rubycklein@gmail.com & harvard.debate@gmail.com

Tech and execution matter most, presuming there are warrants and implications for your arguments.

I like to read through cards closely, so if I’m taking a while, that’s probably why.

I think the aff gets to weigh their case vs. Ks, so protracted debates about framework are rarely important. I would much prefer aff-specific link debating or more about your alternative.

Neg framework impacts about clash and the value of research are generally the most persuasive to me, but if your thing is something else, that’s fine, too. Clearly conveying why your impact matters and how it interacts with aff offense is most essential.

Turning the case is way more likely with cards. And, I really enjoy and care about turns case arguments.

International, consult, condition, etc. CPs are likely bad, but a specific advocate about the plan could help.

If the neg tells me to, my presumption is to kick the CP.

Neg-leaning on conditionality.

Inserting re-highlighting is fine if it’s to provide context and you fully explain what it reveals.  

email: rakoort99@gmail.com.

former debater at UH, now judge/coach there.

You do you. I have few predispositions about how the round ought be. I have no real preference between policy and K arguments, but I am significantly more experienced with the policy side of things. I won't be as familiar as you with your specific lit base.

Judge instruction is important and I take it seriously. It is better for you as debaters and me as the judge when you explain a clear path to the ballot rather than having me do unguided forensic analysis on the flow.

I love case debate. I think it is underutilized. The 2ac is often allowed to get away with far too much. I am not unwilling to zero solvency when affs are missing key pieces. I take evidence quality seriously when it is made an issue in round.

Almost certainly won't vote on condo or new affs bad, won't default to judge kick but can be swayed.

Be kind, have fun.

julian kuffour (any)

julianjudging@gmail.com

slower = better. won't flow until the 1nc on the case (reading the cards), won't clear you or say i understood what you said if you're unclear or i do not follow your argument.

Young Kwon

Harvard

Email for speech docs:

y.kwon93@gmail.com

harvard.debate@gmail.com

Update (NDT 2023): I streamlined my paradigm because technical execution in-round trumps my ideological leanings and thoughts about debate most of the time. Feel free to ask me if you've got specific questions though!

Pet peeves

Re-inserting highlighting---I prefer that you argue why the evidence concludes your way first and then read the card

Word salad---I will not read the rest of the evidence to figure out the context if I don't understand what the highlighting is supposed to say.

Talking loudly during other team's speech---Maybe it's an unfortunate byproduct of online debate, but it really interferes with my ability to flow.

Abbreviating cross-examination as "cross"---Please stop. It's called "cross-ex."

Failing to start debates on time---Set up the email chain and send the 1AC before the official start time.

Topicality

This topic is hard for the aff - Reasonability + functional limits are very persuasive.

People should debate internal links a bit more - why is your limit more precise, debatable, or predictable?

Counterplans

“CP must be textually and functionally competitive” – I really don’t know what this means.

Default for presumption is that it flips aff when the neg introduces an advocacy.

Status quo is a logical option when the aff concedes the thesis of conditionality.

Kritik/Framework

Analysis carries more weight than just cards.

Resolving big-picture, meta-level arguments matters more than winning line-by-line.

I am less familiar with the literature, so you need to connect the dots. For instance, how does your theory of power implicate framework?

Updated for NU 22

NOTE: I have not thought about debate since the 2022 NDT. I am excited to be back but know that these rounds will be the first time I am hearing about Legal Personhood.

Yes Email Chain brent.lamb97@gmail.com

The short version

I am a judge who will vote for essentially any argument. I am as likely to vote on FW versus K affs than I am to vote for impact turns on FW. Simply put, run whatever arguments you are the most comfortable with and dont feel the need to change your style for me.

I will say that because of my debating style I am much more experienced in Policy v Policy and Policy v K debates but I still view K v K debate as amazing and will be excited whenever I get a chance to judge one of those rounds! NOTE: I am super inexperienced at Pomo debates. I have and will continue to vote for them IF I can understand them, pref me if you read those arguments at your own risk.

I think it is important as I judge more rounds to note areas that I have noticed that have become more important to me. The biggest thing I have noticed is debate is a communication event as a result I place a higher premium on communication than some other judges do. Don't read great evidence and leave it at that but rather connect it to the debate round as a whole. I am a judge who loves judge instruction and telling me how I should evaluate arguments or impacts is going to put you in a much better position than simply hoping that I will follow your same line of thinking.

The long version: Most of these comments below are my specific thoughts. Things like DA's and CP's are pretty straightforward. Have a link for the DA and be able to solve some or all the aff with the CP.

Tech over truth: If an argument goes conceded and you impacted it well enough and explain why I should vote for it, I will.

Speed: I have a high threshold for speed and will yell clear out twice in a speech before I stop flowing. That being said with this year most likely being all on Zoom it is important to go at a speed that everyone can understand online. I recommend 80% of your normal speed but you know what works best for you.

K-affs: This is an area where I have experience in but was never my main focus during debate. K's and K affs are the areas where I am the most likely not to vote on an argument because I did not understand it. All that means is to make sure to explain your argument and dont assume that I will fill in the gaps with the same level of knowledge that you all have.

I prefer affs that are in the direction of the topic (that doesn't mean defending USFG action) but affs that are not in the direction of the topic are still able to win my ballot if it is well debated.

K-aff's Vs T/FW: My opinion of what arguments against framework that I find persuasive is still very malleable. All that really means is answer framework in whatever way you think is the most strategic. Reading my advice on T/FW vs K-aff's will give you a good idea of what I find important and being able to beat those arguments will put you in a good place in the debate. Affirmative teams usually win against T/FW in front of me when you prove that the neg's interp excludes the possibility of being able to discuss your scholarship (got to beat the TVA), combined with offense.

After judging multiple framework vs K aff rounds I have come to find that I am more persuaded by whatever team does better impact comparison (why does fairness outweigh education or vice versa?). I will also say that I am less persuaded by general debate bad arguments. I agree that the community is messed up and there is a lot we can do to improve it but saying that debate provides no benefit is a harder sell. If that is your A strat you are not out of luck instead it just requires you to invest more time in this argument if you would like to win it. In general impact turning, T/FW is very viable in front of me.

T/FW vs K-aff's: Im relatively open to all type of negative impacts for framework. I am much more persuaded by T impacts that are centered around skill-building or resolution focus good compared to impacts such as fairness but again am open to any impact. TVA's are pretty much must haves and at the very least make your odds of winning much higher.

K's: Just like above I have some experience but it was not my main focus. Having links to the aff and winning impact calc and/or framework will put you in a good spot.

Going for CP's: I default to no judge kick unless told otherwise.

Theory: Theory is a tool that is underutilized by a lot of aff teams Neg's get away with a lot and needs some checks. Condo theory I view as a reason to reject the team. I am more lenient on reject the arg with everything non-condo but I can be convinced why reading those CP's in the first place is a reason to reject the team. I enjoy theory debates less typed out/reading blocks and more engaging on the line by line and vision of debate.

Topicality for policy affs: Having a specific violation and examples of in round abuse puts you in a better place than just a generic T-shell. Also in the later speeches if you are still going for it, make sure to explain what a world of your interp looks like (What affs are aloud, why are only those affs good for debate, etc)

Impact Turns: Love them and think they are underutilized as well. I have had experience with impact turns from Heg bad to Nuke war good.

Random Info

Prep: I do not count flashing/emailing as prep, as soon as your document is finished you can stop prep. If I see you stealing prep I will call you out once and then start the clock for your prep.

Language: Your language matters racist,homophobic,abelistic,misgendering language is probelmatic just be kind to people.

Clipping cards: If someone is accused of clipping cards the round will stop, you must have video evidence and make the claim in the round. Clipping cards causes an instant loss and low speaks. Accidents happen just make sure you are reading everything you said you read. Mark where you said to mark.

If you have any questions before the round don't be afraid to ask!

Brent

Background/Top-Level:

He/him/his

I am beginning to judge more events other than just policy but I have almost zero experience with other forms of debate.

Please include me on the email chain: joshlamet@gmail.com. Everyone gets plus .1 speaks if I'm not asked to be put on, and I'm just automatically put on the chain. Ask me any questions about my paradigm in person or via email, although I try to update it regularly with the most important stuff.

School conflicts: Minnesota, Glenbrook North, Como Park

I don't care what you read as long as you convince me to vote for you, I will.

Stuff related to online debating:

Don't delete analytics from the speech doc, please. I'll probably dock your speaks if I remember to. Online debate is harder to flow than in-person so it's good practice if you want me to catch everything you're saying.

Please slow down a little (especially on T and theory*) because the number of arguments I flow is rarely equal to the number of arguments the speaker actually makes, and those numbers will be much closer to each other if everyone prioritizes clarity and slowing down a bit. Don't just read this and think you're fine. Slow down, please. I know half of all judges ever have something like this in their paradigm but I'm a slower flow than average because I flow on paper.

Sliders:

Policy------------------x-------------------K

Read a plan-------------------------------x---------Do whatever (probably at least sorta related to the topic)

Tech--------------x----------------------------Truth -- I hate myself for it, but I am kind of a truth-orientated judge in that I really don't want to vote for silly args, and the worse an arg is, the more leeway I give to answering it

Tricks---------------------------x--------------Clash

Theory-------------------------------------x--------- Substance -- condo is really the only theory arg that gets to the level of "reject the team", I simply feel that most other theory args are reasons to reject the arg, not the team. Unless the negative goes for the CP/K to which the theory applies in the 2nr, it's a tough sell for me to vote on, "They read [insert abusive off-case position], they should lose".

Conditionality good--------x---------------------Conditionality bad -- this being said, I would much rather see 4-6 good off, than a 7+ mix of good and bad

States CP good (including uniformity)-----------x----------------------50 state fiat is bad

Always VTL----------------x---------------------Never VTL

Impact turn (*almost) everything-x-----------------------------I like boring debate -- to add to this, I'm a huge sap for impact calc and specifically rebuttals that provide a detailed narrative of the impacts of the debate and how they interact with the other team's. Impact comparison and impact turns are often the deciding factors for me in close debates

*Almost meaning I'll vote on warming good, death good, etc. but not on args like racism good or ableism good. Why don't people read death good anymore? I am an edgy teenager at heart and could be convinced the human race should go extinct.

Limits---------------x-------------------------------Aff Ground

Process CP's are cheating----------------------x---------------Best fall-back 2nr option is a cheating, plan-stealing CP

Lit determines legitimacy-------x-----------------------Exclude all suspect CPs

Yes judge kick the CP--x-------------------------------------------Judge kick is abusive -- as long as the 2nr says to kick the CP, I'm gonna kick it and just analyze the world of the squo vs the aff and I'm pretty sure there's nothing the aff can really do if condo bad isn't a thing in the round. Heck, I judged a debate where the CP was extended for 30 seconds and not kicked but I still voted neg because the neg won a large risk of a case turn. What I'm saying, is that when you are aff and the neg goes for more than just the CP with an internal NB, beating the CP doesn't equate to winning the debate outright

Presumption----------x--------------------------Never votes on presumption

"Insert this rehighlighting"---------------------x--I only read what you read

I flow on my computer ---------------------------------------x I'm gonna need to borrow some paper

I try to give out speaker points that are representative of how well you performed in the round compared to the tournament as a whole. I try to follow the process detailed here, but I often find myself handing out speaks sort of indiscriminately. Getting good speaks from me includes being respectful and making good choices in the rebuttals (smart kickouts, concessions, and flow coverage).

Clash! I like judging debates where the arguments/positions evolve about one another as opposed to simply in vacuums.

Don't be sloppy with sources.

Random things I am not a fan of: Excessive cross-applications, not doing LBL, email/tech issues, making my decision harder than it should be, and 2ACs and 1ARs that don't extend case impacts (even when they're dropped).

T-USFG/FW:

Fairness is an impact----------x-------------------Fairness is only an internal link -- My threshold is usually how close your aff is to the topic in the abstract, i.e. econ inequality and nukes. I do feel like in the end the main goal of doing debate is to win. The activity serves a ton of other purposes but at the end of each debate, one team wins, and one team loses. This doesn't mean that I think reading a planless aff is unfair and can be convinced that a "fair" debate produces something bad, but it's going to be very hard to convince me that debate is not a game.

Topic education is decent for an education impact but policymaking and policy education are meh. Critical thinking skills can also be extracted from debate and critical skills about calling out state action and for revolution planning.

If you don't read a written-out advocacy statement: Impact turn framework---------x---------------------------Procedural

Debate and life aren't synonymous but I understand that many of your lives revolve heavily around debate, so I will respect any arg you go for as long as you make smart arguments to support it.

I am currently an assistant debate coach with both Montgomery Bell Academy and George Mason University. This is my 15th year in policy debate.

I use he/him pronouns.

Last updated: 1/31/2024

Please put me on the email chain & make me an ev doc at the end of the debate. NJL1994@gmail.com.

Set up and send out the 1AC 10 minutes before the debate begins. Please avoid downtime during debates. If you do both of these things without me needing to say anything (send out the 1AC 10 minutes early + avoid downtime) you'll get higher speaker points.

If I'm judging you online, please slow down a bit and emphasize clarity more than normal.

Top level things:

I think about debate in terms of risk (does the risk of the advantage being true outweigh the risk of the disad being true?). I am willing to vote on presumption, particularly when people say really ridiculous stuff or people's cards are highlighted to say nothing.

I like specificity, nuance, and for you to sound smart. If you sound like you've done research and you know what's going on, I'm likely to give you great points. Being specific, having nuances, and explaining your distinctions is the easiest way to get my ballot.

Judge direction is a lost art. If you win the argument that you're advancing, why should it matter? What does this mean for the debate? What does it mean for your arguments or the other team's arguments? This is the number one easiest way to win my (and really anyone's) ballot in a debate. Direct your judges to think a certain way, because if you don't, your judges are likely to go rogue and decide things that make sense to them but not to you. So impact your arguments and tell me what to do with them. I think it's way more valuable to do that than include one more tiny argument and almost certainly the easiest way to get me to overcome any predispositions.

Decorum is very important to me. If your strategy is to belittle, upset, talk down to, yell at, escalate, curse at, or otherwise be rude or mean to your opponents, then you can expect me to give you terrible speaker points. I also reserve the right to end the debate early if I find the behavior particularly atrocious or potentially threatening to anyone in the room. I am very uninterested in the “I know what you did last summer” strategy or any personal attacks. You certainly don't have to be best friends with your opponents, but I do expect a sense of cordiality when engaging your opponents and their arguments.

"The existence of speech time limits, the assumption that you will not interrupt an opponent's speech intentionally, and the fact that I (and not you) will be signing a ballot that decides a winner and loser is non-negotiable." (taken verbatim from Shree Awsare).

I am incredibly uncomfortable adjudicating things that did not occur in the debate I am watching. Please do not ask me to judge based on something that didn’t happen in the round. I am likely to ignore you.

High school debaters in particular: I have consistently noticed over the past few years of judging that I vote for the team whose arguments I understand. If I cannot connect the dots, I'm not going to vote for you. This goes equally for kritikal and policy debaters. Most of my decisions in high school debates come down to this, and I will tell you that your argument makes no sense in my RFD.

How I decide debates:

First: who solves what?-- does the aff solve its impacts, and (assuming it's in the 2NR) does the negative's competitive advocacy solve its own impacts and/or the aff? In framework debates, this means the first questions I resolve are "does the aff solve itself?" and "does the TVA solve the aff sufficiently?"

Second: Who’s impact is bigger? This is the most important question in the debate. Do impact calculus.

Third: Whatever you have told me matters. Because I have started with solvency & impact calculus questions, everything else is always filtered along those lines (including framework/role of the ballot/role of the judge).

Other misc things:

1. A dropped argument is a true argument but it needs to be a complete argument to begin with or I will likely allow people new answers. For example, this epidemic with high schoolers reading aspec on the bottom of T flows to hide it: if it’s so quick I didn’t catch it in the 1NC, the 1AR gets all the new args they want. Additionally, an argument is not just a claim and a warrant, but a claim, warrant, and reasoning. In other words, your warrant needs to be connected to your claim in order for it to be an argument.

2. I am very flowcentric. Do not ask me to not flow, because I won't listen. Please do line-by-line. If you don't, I'll be frustrated and less likely to buy new extrapolations of arguments. Your speaker points will definitely drop if you don't do line-by-line. I do not like overviews ("overviews are evil"-- one of my labbies; "flowing is good for your health" -- another one of my labbies).

3. Show me that you care. Show me that you know things, that you've done research on this topic, that you want to win, and that debate matters to you. I love this activity and if you also love it I want to know that.

4. Judge kicking makes sense to me but I frequently forget about it, so if you want me to judge kick something you should tell me so in the block/2NR.

5. Cards and highlighting: Teams should get to insert rehighlightings of the other team's cards, but obviously should have to read cards if they're new/haven't been introduced into the debate yet. Two offshoots of this-- 1. You should insert rehighlightings of other team's cards if they suck 2. You should read cards that don't suck.

I do not follow along with speech docs during debates.

Please highlight your ev so it reads as complete sentences. This does not mean that I need you to highlight complete sentences, but if you are brick highlighting, I want to be able to read highlighted portions of your ev as complete sentences—it flows better to me. IE don't skip the letter "a" or the words "in" or "the." Just a random pet peeve.

If you do not have a complete citation or at least a full paragraph from your evidence I will not evaluate what you've said as evidence. Cherrypicked quotes with no context are not evidence.

I tend to not read a lot of cards after the debate unless things are highly technical or I think the debaters aren’t explaining things well. That being said, I’ll likely read at least some cards. Please put together a card doc for me.

6. Debaters parroting their partners: I usually just flow what the partner said. That, obviously, only exists within reason (you don’t get to give a third speech in a debate, but you can interrupt your partner to say something and I will flow it).

7. New 2AR args are bad for debate. I consciously hold the line against them as much as I can. I as a 2N feel as if I got a few decisions where a judge voted aff on an arg that didn't exist until the 2AR and it's the most frustrating. You can expect me to try to trace lines between args in earlier & later speeches. However, if I think the argument they're making is the true argument or a logical extrapolation of something said in the 1AR, I'm more likely to buy it. 2As-- this means if you're gonna do some 2A magic and cheat, you should trick me into thinking that you're not cheating.

Some specifics:

Disads: I’m better for the smart DAs than the silly ones, but I understand the value of bad DAs and will vote for them. I will likely reward you with higher speaker points if I think I understand your story really well and/or you have some cool/unique spin on it. I am fine with logical take outs to DAs that don’t require cards (especially if there’s some logic missing internally in the DA). Don’t just read new cards in the block or 1AR, explain your args (although also read new cards obviously).

I really do not understand how the economy works. I'm sorry. I've really tried to get it, but I just don't. You absolutely can go for econ DAs and/or econ case turns in front of me, but please be extra careful to explain (in lots of detail!) what you're arguing here.

Theory, CPs, and K Alternatives: I put these pieces together because my thoughts on these three args blend together.

Competition is determined off the plantext, not off cross-x, nor off the resolution. PICs & PIKs are only competitive if they PIC/PIK out of something in the plantext. I do not believe that you get to PIC/PIK out of a justification or non-plantext based word. The only way I will ever be convinced otherwise is if the aff allows you to do so.

Condo: It’s good. “They should get one less CP” is an arbitrary interp and makes no sense. The phrase "dispo solves" at the end of your bad 2AC condo block is not an argument and I will not be writing it down on my flow. I will vote on this if it's dropped, but I'm pretty persuaded by neg flex and education-style args.

"Performative Contradictions" is a term of art that has been bastardized to no end by debate. You're either saying the neg has double turned themselves or you're saying conditionality is bad; in my mind, perf con is not even worthy of being written on my flow.

Particular Theory: I’m better for this than most judges (and MUCH more persuaded by it than condo). States theory, international fiat, consult/condition, vague alts, utopian alts, etc—I have gone for all of these and actively coach my debaters to do the same. My predisposition is to reject the arg not the team, but I can be persuaded to reject the team on non-condo theory args (you should introduce the arg as reject the team in the 2AC, not CX, if you want this to be an option).

Theory can be a reason you get to make a cheating perm.

Counterplans/alternatives that use aff evidence as solvency advocates are awesome.

If the CP/alt links less I think it makes sense that I prefer it, but make that arg yourself because I won’t make it for you.

Case: I love love love case debate. You should make logical extrapolations that take out the internal link chains and make me question how the advantage makes sense. The block should read more cards but feel free to make logical case take outs without cards. I don't think you should have to go for impact defense to beat advantages-- uniqueness and internal link take outs are almost always the easier place to attack advantages. I tend to prefer a well-developed take out to the death by a thousand cuts strategy.

Affs-- 2NR that don't do well-developed case debate are generally overwhelmed by your "try or die"/"case outweighs"/"1% chance of solvency" args.

Topicality: I'm getting better for this as a strategy lately than I used to be. I do still generally think that it's about the plantext, but can be persuaded that I should think of the plantext in the context of the 1AC. Topicality is only ever a voter, not a reverse voter. I’m not great for silly/arbitrary T interps (I am very persuaded by the arg that these interps are arbitrary).

Kritiks: I like Ks that care about people and things. I'm optimistic to a fault. I certainly believe that things are still terrible for billions of beings, but it's hard to convince me that everything in the world is so absolutely irredeemable.

Your long overview is actively bad for debate and you will not change my mind.

Make your K interact with the affirmative. I want your links to be about the result of the aff as opposed to just the reading of the aff. Fiat bad links are bad. Your "state is always bad" links are slightly better, but also terrible. Don't just explain your theory of how power works, explain how the action of the aff is bad according to your theory of power.

I think that I am worse for structuralist style kritiks than I used to be for two reasons: 1) I feel more so that I want you to be responding to the action of the aff than I used to 2) I generally study poststructuralism and queer theory. I read a lot of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler.

Grad school has taught me that theory is way more complex than I used to think it was. I will get annoyed if I know that you’re deploying the theory wrong. I'm not good for things like "death good," "meaning doesn't mean anything," or "language is meaningless" because I don't think those are questions even worth asking.

I have read some literature about antiblackness academically and have read a bit more from a debate standpoint. I would not call myself an expert by any means in this literature, but I do understand some of it better than I used to. I am still unwilling to fill in those blanks for you if you are lacking them (ex-- just saying the words "yes antiblackness ontological, natal alienation proves" is not an argument in my mind).

99.99% of the time I will entirely ignore your framework/role of the ballot args when you're going for the K against a topical aff. There's a high chance that I will just stare at you and not flow during your incredibly long and generic 2NC/2NR framework block on your K. I am serious, I may not even waste the ink in my pen flowing this. I do not know how to decide debates unless I'm weighing the merits of the aff against the merits of the K. For example, if the aff is an object of study, then to evaluate that object of study I have to weigh the aff's consequences. You are better off just saying "yes the aff can weigh the plan, we'll just beat it" in front of me. This also means that the role of the ballot/judge is only ever to vote for whoever did the better debating in every round I judge.

“Perms are a negative argument” and “method v method debate means no perms” are both not arguments. Despite judging for however long I have, I still do not know what a "method v method debate" even is or why it's different than every other debate. I will not write these words on my flow.

I also generally do not find the "voting for us gives us more wins/sends us to elims" as a solvency mech persuasive or that "X thing done in the debate is policing/surveillance/violence" (other than actual/physical policing/surveillance/violence) to be persuasive.

Ultimately, I evaluate K debates just like I evaluate policy debates. Technical line by line is key. Explain your args well. Put the debate together. Don't ignore the other side.

2NRs on the K that include case debate (with some level of internal link/impact defense; not just your security K cards on case) are substantially more persuasive to me.

Framework against non-topical affs: you should also read my section on Ks (right above this one) as well.

Framework is a strategy and it makes a lot of sense as a strategy. Just like every other strategy, you should try to tailor it to be as specific to the aff as you possibly can. For example, how does this particular aff make it impossible for you to debate? What does it mean for how debate looks writ-large? What's the valuable topic education we could have had from a topical discussion of this aff in particular? Same basic idea goes for when you’re answering generic aff args—the generic “state always bad” arg is pretty easily beaten by nuanced neg responses in front of me. The more specific you are, the more likely I am to vote for you on framework and the more likely I am to give you good speaks.

Stop reading huge overviews. They’re bad for debate. Your points will suffer. Do line by line. Be a good debater and stop being lazy. The amount of times I have written something like "do line by line" in this paradigm should really tell you something about how I think about debate.

I do not find truth testing/"ignore the aff's args because they're not T" very persuasive. I think it's circular & requires judge intervention.

I do, however, think that fairness/limits/ground is an impact and that it is the most important standard in a T debate.

T and/or framework is not genocide, nor is it ever rape, nor is it a microaggression, nor is it real literal violence against you or anyone else.

I’m a sucker for a good topical version. Teams seem to want to just laundry list potential TVAs and then say "idk, maybe these things let them discuss their theory". I believe that strategy is very easily beaten by a K team having some nuanced response. It makes way more sense to me if the TVA is set up almost like a CP-- it should solve a majority or all of the aff. If you set it up like that and then add the sufficiency framing/"flaws are neg ground" style args I'm WAY more likely to buy what you have to say (this goes along with the whole "I like nuance and specificity and you to sound like you're debating the merits of the aff" motif that I've had throughout my paradigm-- it applies to all debaters).

I oftentimes wonder how non-topical affs solve themselves. The negative should exploit this because I do feel comfortable voting neg on presumption. However, I won’t ever intervene to vote on presumption. That’s an argument that the debaters need to make.

Non-topical affs should have nuance & do line by line as well. Answer the neg’s args, frame the debate, and tell me why your aff in particular could not have been topical. You HAVE to have a defense of your model and not just say that framework is bad or else I will probably vote neg on presumption. The same basic idea applies here as it does everywhere else: the more generic you are, the more likely I am to vote against you.

Garbage/Hidden Stuff/Tricks: Nope. New affs are good, hiding aspec makes you a coward, death is bad, free will exists and I don't care if it doesn't. Make better arguments.

Cross-ex: I am becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with watching how this tends to go down. Unless I am judging a novice debate, questions like "did you read X card" or "where did you mark Y card" are counting as parts of cross-x. I tend to start the timer for cross-ex pretty quickly after speeches end (obviously take a sec to get water if you need to) so pay attention to that.

I pay attention & listen to CX but I do not flow it. Have a presence in CX & make an impact. I am listening.

Speaker points-- I do my best to moderate these based on the tournament I'm at and what division I'm in. That being said, I won’t lie—I am not a point fairy.

I will grant extra speaker points to people who number their arguments and correctly/aptly follow the numbering that has been established in the debate.

Paraphrasing from Shree Awsare-- I will not give you a 30.

29.8-- Top speaker
29.2-29.5-- You really impressed me and I expect you to be deep in the tournament
29-- I think you deserve to clear
28.3-- Not terrible but not super impressive
27.5-- Yikes
I will award the lowest possible points for people who violate the basic human dignities that people should be afforded while debating (e.g., non-black people don't say the N word).

I've also been known to give 20s to people who don't make arguments. I will not be giving you a 30; nobody gives a perfect speech.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the debate begins, or send me an email. I also do seriously invite conversation about the debate after it occurs-- post-rounds are oftentimes the most valuable instantiation of feedback, the best way to get better at debate, and important for improving intellectually. I know that post-rounds sometimes get heated, and I think we all get defensive sometimes when we're being pressed on things we've said (or think we've said) so I will likely consciously try to take deep breaths and relax if I feel myself getting heated during these times. This also means that I may take a second to respond to your questions because I am thinking. I also might take awkward pauses between words-- that's not because I don't think your question is important, I'm just trying to choose my words carefully so I can correctly convey my thoughts. I only post this here because I don't want anyone to feel like they're being attacked or anything for asking questions, and I apologize in advance if anything I say sounds like that.

Ethics Challenge Addendum:

I would strongly discourage ethics challenges in all but the most extreme instances. I don't want to adjudicate them, you don't want to be the team who makes the challenge, etc. If you notice something is wrong, please contact coaches and/or debaters and try to fix the problem rather than making it a challenge in round.

An ethics challenge is not a no-risk option for me. That is, when an ethics challenge is issued, the debate ends. I will clarify that the team issuing the challenge has issued one and then end the debate and adjudicate the challenge. I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward then and there. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances.

An ethics challenge may be issued along one of three lines: either you have accused the other team of clipping cards, of misciting evidence, or of misrepresenting evidence. Nothing else will be considered an ethics challenge for me.

Clipping cards is defined as claiming to have read more or less of the evidence than one actually has. Please note that I do not follow along with evidence as the debate is occurring. Missing a single word/a few words is not enough. I will decide what constitutes enough of the card to be considered clipping.

Misciting evidence is understood as providing the incorrect author and/or date as well as missing the first author, source of publication, and date (at least the year). Please note that putting something like "the New York Times" instead of "Nate Silver" is acceptable for an authorship. Source of publication can be broad (article title, URL, book title). If the article is easily accessible, then it is acceptable. Again, I will determine what constitutes an incomplete or miscited citation if this becomes a relevant question.

I do not consider missing credentials to be unethical but I do consider those pieces of evidence to be incredibly weak.

Misrepresenting evidence is understood as inserting evidence which is missing lines or paragraphs within the parts of the initial article/book being read. So, for example, if you want to read the first and third paragraph from an article, you must leave the second paragraph in the evidence you read in the debate. This means that, for me, ellipses to indicate that parts of the card are missing or stating something like “pages 4-5 omitted” is unethical. Cards need to be full paragraphs.

Providing a single quote from a book or an article is not a card. As such, I will not consider it as you having introduced evidence and it is not unethical for me. However, not providing full paragraph pieces of evidence means your argument is substantially weaker for me (because, again, then you have not read evidence).

I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances. Please note that I will take this seriously; an ethics challenge is not something to be debated out in a round.

The speaker points I will give are as follows: 28.6 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I vote for, 28.5 for the 1^st speaker of the team I vote for, 28.4 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I do not vote for, 28.3 for the 1^st speaker of the team I do not vote for. My assumption in the event of an ethics violation is that you made an honest mistake and that you were not intentionally cheating. I do not understand ethics challenges to be the equivalent of academic dishonesty or worthy of any punishment besides my ballot being cast in that particular debate (I do not hold these challenges against you in future rounds nor do I believe that you should be in trouble with your debate coaches or schools).

Please note that what I have written here is designed for varsity debate only; that is, when judging novice and JV debates, I will be more lenient and talk through what's going on with the students and, depending on the situation, allow the debate to continue.

These are thoughts that are still evolving for me as I talk with more people. Please bear with me as I continue to think this out. (Also note that this caveat goes along well with the first statement in this section: I would prefer you not introduce an ethics violation unless it is a serious issue in that particular debate).

Please also note that these rules do not apply to my standards for threatening violence against another debater (physical or otherwise) or hurling slurs at your opponent. I will immediately end the round and give the lowest speaker points that Tab will allow me to in that situation.

Gabe Lewis

Assistant Director of Debate at Georgetown University

gl642@georgetown.edu

_____________________________

NDT Update - February 2024

I am still not a topic expert so don't assume I know everything about the weapons systems you're droning on about.

I really do not enjoy process counterplan debates, especially on this topic. Say the aff is a bad idea! Say that it is not topical! But do not tell me that we should have a constitutional convention to eliminate nuclear subs! I mean you can tell me that but I'm going to be grumpy about it.

If your 2AC to T is more focused on grammar/semantics/fringe definitions than explaining why your version of the topic is better... just don't do it. Tell me why your version of the topic is better!

Stylistic Things - Please number your arguments and slow down between pages. Please do not put nine consecutive permutations at the top of the CP flow in the 2AC. Every time you refuse to label an off-case position, I die a little inside. You can "insert the rehighlighting" as much as your heart desires but I refuse to acknowledge it unless you've read the rehighlighting given the communicative activity of it all.

Top Level Debate Thoughts:

Explanation: I am a bit of a dinosaur (or maybe I'm just right) when it comes to expectations about explanation. I want to know exactly what internal links you solve & how you solve them for each impact. I want to know this in every speech. If after the debate I do not understand how the aff resolves the internal links, I am not going to vote on your impact outweighing.

Delivery and Evidence: Debaters should SLOW DOWN especially when reading blocks. I understand that there is an incentive to be the fastest speaker in the room but this negatively impacts you when I cannot understand what you are saying let alone to flow your arguments. Debate is a communicative activity first and foremost. That means I am uninterested in reading a lot of evidence after the debate.

Decision Making: Think about what argument you will win the debate on and then spend your time appropriately developing that argument in the final rebuttals. I understand it can be frustrating if a judge doesn't vote on the argument you think is capital T true but if you spend a few seconds on it four minutes into your last speech, you're probably doomed because judges have countless other arguments to think through and evaluate. You should put your best arguments at the top of the speech and you should also do judge instruction.

Argument Specific Thoughts

Kritiks: I did not read them in college and am not familiar with the various literature bases. Going for a K against a policy aff will be an uphill battle for you. I am, at my core, a pragmatist and it will be difficult to convince me that the alternative (or doing nothing) is preferable to the affirmative without a significant amount of case defense.

K Affs: I think affirmative teams should affirm the resolution and I am sympathetic to negative topicality/framework arguments. I am not convinced by "in the direction of the topic" We Meet/Counter-interpretations because I find them very self-serving, vague, and arbitrary.

T v Policy Affs: I evaluate these as debates about comparative models of the topic. What does the topic look like under two different interpretations? Is that good or bad for debate? Does it limit out all affs on the topic? Does it explode the limits of the topic? Does it obfuscate all negative ground? These are considerations you should grapple with when answering and extending Topicality/defending your model. I am more likely to side with a solid version of the topic as explained by the debaters than I am to side with a better evidenced explanation of the topic that provides no clear brightlines or guardrails.

Politics: I thoroughly enjoy politics debates - even if it's midterms or elections. I think internal links can be generally contrived so I would encourage aff teams to point out the various uniqueness issues these DA's tend to present. I am not a fan of politics theory arguments (Vote No, Intrinsicness, Fiat Solves the Link) because I think they are generally warrantless arguments that negative teams hope the aff will miss. Without a warrant, a dropped claim does not matter as I do not believe it to be a completed argument.

CP: I think CP theory is a reason to reject the argument, not the team. I HATE when teams read multiplank CP's and do not explain the utility of the planks in the solvency debate. Why are you reading ten planks if you explain the CP like it is a single plank? I generally believe that CPs link to the net benefits. If your explanation of a plank in the 2NC is rereading it without explanation and context, I'm not the judge for you. Not great on counterplan competition questions and have little experience debating competition or judging these debates.

Conditionality: Fine - more than three is pushing it.

Matt Liu

University of Wyoming

Last updated: 9-12-22

Email chain: mattliu929@gmail.com

Feb 2022 update: If your highlighting is incoherent gibberish, you will earn the speaker points of someone who said incoherent gibberish. The more of your highlighting that is incoherent, the more of your speech will be incoherent, and the less points you will earn. To earn speaker points, you must communicate coherent ideas.

If you want to read far more than necessary on my judging process: https://wyodebateroundup.weebly.com/blog/reflections-on-the-judging-process-inside-the-mind-of-a-judge

I put a pretty high premium on effective communication. Too many debaters do not do their evidence justice. You should not expect me to read your evidence after the round and realize it’s awesome. You should make sure I know it’s awesome while you read it. I find many debaters over-estimate the amount of ideas they believe they communicate to the judge. Debaters who concentrate on persuading the judge, not just entering arguments into the record, will control the narrative of the round and win my ballot far more often than those who don’t. I have tended to draw a harder line on comprehensibility than the average judge. I won’t evaluate evidence I couldn’t understand. I also don’t call clear: if you’re unclear, or not loud enough, I won’t intervene and warn you, just like I wouldn't intervene and warn you that you are spending time on a bad argument. Am I flowing? You're clear.

Potential biases on theory: I will of course attempt to evaluate only the arguments in the round, however, I'll be up front about my otherwise hidden biases. Conditionality- I rarely find that debaters are able to articulate a credible and significant impact. International actor fiat seems suspect. Uniform 50 state fiat seems illogical. Various process counterplans are most often won as legitimate when the neg presents a depth of evidence that they are germane to the topic/plan. Reject the arg not the teams seems true of nearly all objections other than conditionality. I will default to evaluating the status quo even if there is a CP in the 2NR. Non-traditional affirmatives- I'll evaluate like any other argument. If you win it, you win it. I have yet to hear an explanation of procedural fairness as an impact that makes sense to me (as an internal link, yes). None of these biases are locked in; in-round debating will be the ultimate determinant of an argument’s legitimacy.

Clock management: In practice I have let teams end prep when they begin the emailing/jumping process. Your general goal should be to be completely ready to talk when you say ‘end prep.’ No off-case counting, no flow shuffling, etc.

Cross-x is a speech. You get to try to make arguments (which I will flow) and set traps (which I will flow). Once cross-x is over I will stop listening. If you continue to try to ask questions it will annoy me- your speech time is up.

Pet-peeves: leaving the room while the other team is prepping for a final rebuttal, talking over your opponents. I get really annoyed at teams that talk loudly (I have a low threshold for what counts as loudly) during other teams speeches- especially when it’s derisive or mocking comments about the other team’s speech.

I don't have a public judge philosophy because this website is not secure. Nothing has otherwise changed, I will try to be as fair as possible and I am open to persuasion on most things. Email me if you have questions.

I am an average judge to be honest. I do try to do my best but my biggest problem is that I do not really have a stable set of rules or frames for how I judge. Each round is different and I don't always see things in the same way from one round to the next.

Some of the more important things you should know about me as a judge are...

- I am not the fastest flow in the world so make sure you explain your arguments and provide me some idea of how you want me to prioritize your ideas

- I don't have a specific style of debate I prefer but I can probably say that I am a bit more capable contemplating ideas rather than calculating drops on a flow sheet

- I have so much respect for all the work that you all do to become good at this activity so whether you agree with my decision or not please know that I always challenge myself to be fair to you even if we see the debate differently

- I have been judging policy debates for over 17 years now from novice to the ndt

- Have fun and do you. I will try my best to give a decision that accurately reflects the debate I watched to the best of my ability

Eric

Email: flynnmakuch@gmail.com

***you know what is absolutely CX or your prep time? asking the other teams which cards they read or didn't read. you are responsible for flowing and don't get free time to compensate for your inability to do so. a "marked doc" does not mean a new doc where the other team removes all the cards they didnt read

a few virtual/hybrid debate things:

-audio is less intelligible than in person -- make sure you're really clearly enunciating -- i'll yell clear 2-3 times and my facial expressions will be obvious if i can't flow you and then frankly the L is on you pal

(tbh i think most people would benefit from going a bit slower even in person. don't sacrifice judge understanding at the altar of reading that last card)

-MAKE SURE you get a thumbs up or a yes that I'm ready before you start

-prep stops when you've attached the document to the email it shouldn't take you more than 5 seconds from after you've said stop prep to have pressing send on the email

My pronouns are they/them and my last name is pronounced "MACK-oo."

I have judged close to a million rounds

debate history: -HS GBN (2x TOC elims, RRs) - College Texas (2x NDT elims, RRs) -Colleges coached: WSU, UCO, Emory, NU -HSs coached: bronx science, edgemont, GBS, westwood, damien -taught/directed at many camps every summer over the last 12 years -currently assistant coach for NU and used to work full time at the Chicago Debate League + judge/direct lots of tournaments

TOP LEVEL:

Even though I read as arguments and studied critical literature about race, gender, colonialism, and sexuality in college, my HS background was exclusively "policy," and I continue to do research and coach in both areas.

In the post round, if you'd like to seek advice or challenge components of my thinking or note your disagreement or be grumpy or try to get my ballot in the future or try to understand my decision, I would love to discuss my decision with you! If you are into post-rounding as some weird ego thing where you need to demonstrate that you couldn't possibly have lost a debate by berating the judge, then you should not pref me.

I take a while/my time to decide debates, so time-wasting during a debate is truly to your detriment.

After the 2XR, please send me a judge doc with the (marked version) of ONLY the cards you extended.

Things I am really interested in:

--lots of evidence comparison!! this very often shifts my decisions and honestly y'all have become not that good at doing this consistently. a great 2XR will explicitly indict every piece of evidence the other team has read on the position they are extending

--nuanced impact/il comparison

--framing arguments and judge instruction!!!!!!!

--even if arguments -- recognizing where you might be losing

--beginning the 2XR with what you want the RFD to be very explicitly

--in depth explanations -- more warrants! i feel QUITE confident just jettisoning arguments that weren't explained

--strategic concessions + cross applications

--thoughtful and consistent analytics

--attentive line by line

--(hate to have to say this) 2NRs that take advantage of 1AR dropped arguments. It will hurt your speaker points a little if there's a clear path to victory that you ignore entirely

Things I am not interested in:

--cruelty

--inserting long rehighlightings

--long overviews - LINE BY LINE is where those overview arguments fit my friends. i promise you can find a spot if u look

--being rude to your partner

--scholarship/behavior that is morally reprehensible

--"if you vote X you'll have to look me in the eye and explain..., etc." type of inefficient judge strong-arming

--multiple paragraph tags

--mumble spreading on the text of cards

--things that happened outside of the round

--highlighting into sentence fragments

When cx time is over, both teams need to stop talking unless someone wants to take prep.

Make sure you time yourselves, because I WILL forget at some point

Pointing out that something was conceded is not the same as extending that argument. Author names or claims without warrants are not arguments. I think I have a higher standard than most for this. A conceded assertion is still not an argument. Yes ofc, your burden of explanation is substantially reduced, but there's gotta be something.

Framework:

Things I am interested in:

--saying anything new or unique if possible - tbh i judge mostly fw debates and i promise you i have already heard your blocks many times and i am bored

--the solvency mechanism of the aff, whatever solvency means in the context of the affirmative

--clash impacts in the context of skills gained from debate

--whether the aff is contestable

--a good ol' topical version of the aff that addresses impact turns

--impact framing arguments

--line by line refutation

--well developed impact turns to the neg's interpretation/TVA that don't apply to a counter interpretation

--counter interpretations that address some of the neg's clash/limits arguments

--slowing down when reading consecutive paragraphs of text you have typed for 2nr/2ar

Things I am less interested in:

--affs that are descriptive but not prescriptive -- it's easy to say something is bad, even in a very theoretically dense, educational, interesting way. the more difficult question is determining the best method (not picky about what this is) for addressing or approaching the problem described

--fairness as an impact in and of itself -- it's an internal link to an impact (in my default view, though I end up voting for it pretty frequently bc not well contested)

--long, pre-written "overviews" where you address none of the line by line (both sides are very bad about doing this)

(As an aside, if the aff says they'll defend they link to DA(s), I would always strongly prefer the neg take them up on a substantive debate. That's not to say the neg shouldn't go for framework if that's their heart's desire, only that I find a substantive debate more interesting.)

Counterplans:

Whatever re: the whole thing. I truly have no strong feelings/beliefs about conditionality either way, other than it'll be tough to win 1 is bad. But, I decide that like I decide all things: based on the arguments actually presented in the theory debate.

Exception to that -- perms are just no link arguments to the opportunity cost of the CP, so I will never vote that dropped perm theory arguments are a reason to reject the team.

DAs:

See plea for evidence and impact comparison above. When I get a stack of cards at the end of the debate, it's going to be annoying for both of us that I now just have to render judgment on each of them with no guidance.

Please make more smart, warranted analytics about why the DA is nonsense. A lot of DAs don't pass the test of being a complete argument if the full text of the cards are read and you just take a second to actually think about it.

I expect a high degree of technical proficiency in these debates.

Ks:

Can we please being doing more line by line?

Neg needs SPECIFICITY in your explanation of the aff. Highly specific cards to the aff are not necessary, though helpful, to make specific links, alt solves, turns case, root cause arguments etc. Reference/quote the aff's 1ac ev. Use historical examples. Make logical arguments.

What is the impact to the link in the context of turning/implicating the aff? If you can't answer this question I don't think the link is all that useful unless it's a top level thesis claim. The more contextual your explanation of every facet of the k is to the aff, the more likely you will win that part of the debate and the higher your speaker points will be.

Against policy affs, you will likely win a link, so focus your attentions on defeating the impact turns/case outweighs arguments from the jump. Opposite for k affs -- less focus on impact, instead focus on in depth contextual explanations of the link and how it turns the aff, the alt solves aff impact better, DAs to the perm that aren't just links to the aff, etc.

I almost always find the framework debate to be a huge waste of everyone's time. Both sides get to weigh their stuff -- there are NO debate theory arguments I find persuasive responding to that. Please just spend this time clashing over the substance of the K/aff (things like epistemology/discourse first are substantive arguments btw). This is my most biased opinion, in that it's the only place I consider intervening -- I will almost always err towards allowing both teams to access their substance, even if one team isn't doing very well on the fw debate. If I'm the only judge, feel free to spend VERY little time here.

Finally, almost every argument in the overview should/could be on the line by line.

When aff vs. the K, know thyself. Before the tournament you should know what you want the 2AR to be against Ks. Hint: it's probably not the perm if you're not reading a k aff

T:

Debates about reasonability are usually so shallow as to be meaningless.

Let me save you time:

You: "What did you think about [x argument/author name]"???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Me: "I didn't think about it that much because you didn't tell me to/you didn't speak about it enough or in a way that made it relevant to my decision making process."

However:

I do try to be thorough. Debaters have worked hard to get here, so it's my obligation to work hard to assess the debate.

**************

This is the best cx I've ever seen and a very important video to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2rgzsO-AMM

**standard operating procedure: 1) yes, if you are using an e-mail chain for speech docs, I would like to be on it: mikaela.malsin@gmail.com. The degree to which I look at them varies wildly depending on the round; I will often check a couple of cards for my own comprehension (because y'all need to slow down) during prep or sometimes during a heated cross-ex, but equally often I don't look at them at all. 2) After the debate, please compile all evidence that *you believe* to be relevant to the decision and e-mail them to me. I will sort through to decide which ones I need to read. A card is relevant if it was read and extended on an issue that was debated in the final rebuttals.

updated pre-Shirley, 2013 

Background: I debated for four years at Emory, completed my M.A. in Communication and coached at Wake Forest, and am now in my 2nd year of the Ph.D. program at Georgia.

global thoughts: I take judging very seriously and try very hard to evaluate only the arguments in a given debate, in isolation from my own beliefs. I'm not sure that I'm always successful. I'm not sure that the reverse is true either.  In the limited number of "clash" debates that I've judged, my decisions have been based on the arguments and not on predispositions based on my training, how I debated, or how my teams debate. 

speaker points: I will use the following scale, which (while obviously arbitrary to some degree)  I think is pretty consistent with how I've assigned points in the past and what I believe to represent the role of speaker points in debate. I have never assigned points based on whether I think a team "should clear" or "deserves a speaker award" because I don't judge the rest of the field in order to make that determination, I judge this particular debate. EDIT: I think the scale published for the Shirley is very close to what I was thinking here.

Below 27.5: The speaker has demonstrated a lack of  basic communication. 

27.5-27.9: The speaker demonstrates basic debate competency and argumentation skills. Some areas need substantial improvement.

28.0-28.4: The speaker demonstrates basic argumentation skills and a good grasp on the issues of importance in the debate. Usually shows 1-2 moments of strong strategic insight or macro-level debate vision, but not consistently. 

28.5-28.9: Very solid argumentative skills, grasps the important issues in the debate, demonstrates consistent strategic insight.

29-29.5: Remarkable argumentative skills, understands and synthesizes the key issues in the debate, outstanding use of cross-ex and/or humor.

29.6-29.9: The speaker stands out as exceptionally skilled in all of the above areas.

30: Perfection.

Critical arguments: My familiarity is greater than it used to be but by no means exhaustive.  I think  that the "checklist" probably matters on both sides.

Topicality: I believe in "competing interpretations" with the caveat that I think if the aff can win sufficient defense and a fair vision of the topic (whether or not it is couched in an explicit C/I of every word), they can still win. In other words: the neg should win not only a big link, but also a big impact. 

CP’s: Yes. The status quo is always a logical option, which means the CP can still go away after the round. (Edit: I am willing to stick the negative with the CP if the aff articulates, and the neg fails to overcome, a reason why.) Presumption is toward less change from the status quo. 

DA’s: Big fan. At the moment, I probably find myself slightly more in the “link first” camp, but uniqueness is certainly still important. There CAN be zero risk of an argument, but it is rare. More often, the risk is reduced to something negligible that fails to outweigh the other team's offense (edit: this last sentence probably belongs in the all-time "most obvious statements" Judge Philosophy Hall of Fame). 

Theory: RANT is the default. Probably neg-leaning on most issues, but I do think that we as a community may be letting the situation get a little out of control in terms of the numbers and certain types of CP’s. I think literature should guide what we find to be legitimate to the extent that that is both possible and beneficial. 

Good for speaker points: Strategic use of cross-examination, evidence of hard work, jokes about Kirk Gibson (edit: these must be funny) 

Bad for speaker points: Rudeness, lack of clarity, egregious facial hair.

Updated 9-26-2013

Kevin McCaffrey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Value proof higher than rejoinder:

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

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

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

Incomprehensible value systems:

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

Email me:

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

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".

Ks

- 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

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

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

A few top level things:

• If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
• If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
• Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
• I'm a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
• I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
• Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
• Email-sending related failures
• Dead time
• Stealing prep
• Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team
• Asserting things are dropped when they aren't
• Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards
• Disappearing after the round

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

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

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

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

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

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate: I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

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

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans: I would say that I generally lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps, but obviously am more than willing to vote for them if they are debated better by the negative.

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

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

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

Theory: Conditionality is often good. It can be not. Conditionality is the ONLY argument I think is a reason to reject the team, every other argument I think is a reason to reject the argument alone. Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

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

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

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

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

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

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.

I generally am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.

I don't think debate is roleplaying.

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

Alex McVey - Director of Debate at Kansas State University

Yes Email chain - j.alexander.mcvey at gmail

Online things - Strong preference for Camera On during speeches and CX. I'm willing to be understanding about this if it's a tech barrier or there are other reasons for not wanting to display. But it does help me a ton to look at faces when people are speaking.

If I'm physically at a tournament and judging a debate with one online and one in-person team, I'm always going to try to be in the same room as the in-person team, if the tournament permits. Within those parameters, Zoom teams should let me know if there's anything I can do to make myself more present for them in that space. I respect what online debate has done to increase access for some teams, but I value in-person connection with debaters too much to go judge from an empty classroom or hotel room.

I flow on paper. I need pen time. Clarity is really important to me. I'll always say "clear" if I think you're not being clear, at least 1-2 times. If you don't respond accordingly, the debate probably won't end well for you.

I tend to be expressive when I judge debates. Nodding = I'm getting it, into your flow, not necessarily that it's a winner. Frowny/frustrated face = maybe not getting it, could be a better way to say it, maybe don't like what you're doing. I would take some stock in this, but not too much: I vote for plenty things that frustrate me while I'm hearing them executed, and vote down plenty of things that excite me when first executed. All about how it unfolds.

The more I judge debates, the less ev I'm reading,  the more I'm relying on 2nr vs 2ar explanation and impact calculus. If there are cards that you want me to pay attention to, you should call the card out by name in the last rebuttal, and explain some of its internal warrants. Debaters who make lots of "even if" statements, who tell me what matters and why, who condense the debate down to the most important issues, and who do in depth impact calculus seem to be winning my ballots more often than not.

Debating off the flow >>> Debating off of speech docs (ESPECIALLY IN REBUTTALS). I'd say a good 25% of my decisions involve the phrase "You should be more flow dependent and less speech doc dependent." Chances are very little that you've scripted before the debate began is useful for the 2nr/2ar.

My experience and expertise is definitely in kritik debate, but I judge across the spectrum and have been cutting cards on both K and Policy sides of the legal personhood topic. Run what you're good at. Despite my K leaning tendencies, I’m comfortable watching a good straight up debate.

Don't assume I've cut cards in your niche research area though. I often find myself lost in debates where people assume I know what some topical buzzword, agency, or acronym is.

Theoretical issues: Blippy, scatter-shot theory means little, well-developed, well-impacted theory means a lot. Again, pen time good.

I have no hard and set rules about whether affs do or don't have to have plans. Against planless/non-topical affs, I tend to think topicality arguments are generally more persuasive than framework arguments. Or rather, I think a framework argument without a topicality argument probably doesn't have a link. I'm not sure what the link is to most "policy/political action good" type framework arguments if you don't win a T argument that says the focus of the resolution has to be USFG policy. I think all of these debates are ultimately just a question of link, impact, and solvency comparison.

I tend to err on truth over tech, with a few exceptions. Dropping round-winners/game-changers like the permutation, entire theoretical issues, the floating PIC, T version of the aff/do it on the neg, etc... will be much harder (but not impossible) to overcome with embedded clash. That being said, if you DO find yourself having dropped one of these, I'm open to explanations for why you should get new arguments, why something else that was said was actually responsive, etc... It just makes your burden for work on these issues much much more difficult.

Be wary of conflating impacts, especially in K debates. For example, If their impact is antiblackness, and your impact is racism, and you debate as if those impacts are the same and you're just trying to win a better internal link, you're gonna have a bad time.

I intuitively don't agree with "No perms in a method debate" and "No Plan = No Perm" arguments. These arguments are usually enthymematic with framework; there is an unstated premise that the aff did something which skews competition to such a degree that it justifies a change in competitive framework. Just win a framework argument. That being said, I vote for things that don't make intuitive sense to me all the time.

I like debate arguments that involve metaphors, fiction, stories, and thought experiments. What I don't understand is teams on either side pretending as if a metaphor or thought experiment is literal and defending or attacking it as such.

A nested concern with that above - I don't really understand a lot of these "we meets" on Framework that obviously non-topical affs make. I/E - "We're a discursive/affective/symbolic vesting of legal rights and duties" - That... doesn't make any sense. You aren't vesting legal rights and duties, and I'm cool with it, just be honest about what the  performance of the 1ac actually does. I think Neg teams give affs too much leeway on this, and K Affs waste too much time on making these nonsensical (and ultimately defensive) arguments. If you don't have a plan, just impact turn T. You can make other defensive args about why you solve topic education and why you discuss core topic controversies while still being honest about the fact that you aren't topical and impact turn the neg's attempt to require you to be such.

RIP impact calculus. I'd love to see it make a comeback.

RIP performance debates that actually perform. My kingdom for a performance aff that makes me feel something.

Affs are a little shy about going for condo bad in front of me. I generally think Condo is OK but negatives have gotten a bit out of control with it.  I'm happy to vote for flagrant condo proliferation if the neg justifies it. I just don't think affs are making negs work hard enough on these debates.

Negs are a little shy about making fun of 1ac construction in front of me. Ex: K affirmatives that are a random smattering of cards that have little to do with one another. Ex: Policy affs where only 2 cards talk about the actual plan and the rest are just genero impact cards. I feel like negative's rarely ever press on this, and allow affirmatives to get away with ludicrous 2AC explanations that are nearly impossible to trace back to the cards and story presented in the 1ac. More 1nc analytical arguments about why the aff just doesn't make sense would be welcome from this judge.

In a similar vein, many affirmative plans have gotten so vague that they barely say anything. Negatives should talk about this more. Affs should write better plans. Your plan language should match the language of your solvency advocate if you want me to grant you solvency for what is contained in said evidence. I'm going to be trigger happy for "your plan doesn't do anything" until teams start writing better plans.

Debaters should talk more about the lack of quality the other team's evidence and the highlighting of that evidence in particular. If you've highlighted down your evidence such that it no longer includes articles (a/an/the/etc...) in front of nouns, or is in other ways grammatically incoherent due to highlighting, and get called out on it, you're likely to not get much credit for that ev with me.

Be kind to one another. We're all in this together.

Misc procedural things:

1. He/him/his; "DML">"Dustin">>>"judge">>>>>>>>>>"Mr. Meyers-Levy"

2. Debated at Edina HS in Minnesota from 2008-2012, at the University of Michigan from 2012-2017, and currently coach at Michigan and Glenbrook North

3. Please add me to the email chain: dustml[at]umich[dot]edu. College debaters only: please also add debatedocs[at]umich[dot]edu (note that this is not the same as the community debatedocs listerv).

4. Nothing here set in stone debate is up to the debaters go for what you want to blah blah blah an argument is a claim and a warrant don't clip cards

5. Speaks usually range from 28.5-29.5. Below 28.5 and there are some notable deficiencies, above 29.5 you're going above and beyond to wow me. I don't really try to compare different debaters across different rounds to give points; I assign them based on a round-by-round basis. I wish I could give ties more often and will do so if the tournament allows. If you ask me for a 30 you'll probably get a 27.

6. If you're breaking something new, you'll send it out before your speech, not after the speech ends or as it's read or whatever. If you don't want to comply with that, your points are capped at 27. If you're so worried that giving the neg team 9 extra minutes to look at your new aff will tip the odds against you, it's probably not good enough to win anyway.

7. You will time your own speeches and prep time. I will be so grumpy if I have to keep track of time for you.

8. Each person gives one constructive and one rebuttal. The first person who speaks is the only person I flow (I can make an exception for performances in 1ACs/1NCs). I don’t flow prompting until and unless the assigned speaker says the words that their partner is prompting. Absolutely no audience participation. If you need some part of this clarified, I’m probably not the judge for you.

9. I am a mandatory reporter and an employee of both a public university and a public high school. I am not interested in judging debates that may make either of those facts relevant.

10. If you would enthusiastically describe your strategy as "memes" or "trolling," you should strike me.

11. Online debates: If my camera's off, I'm not listening. Get active confirmation before you start speaking, don't ask "is anyone not ready" or say "stop me if you're not ready," especially if you aren't actually listening to/looking at the other participants before you check. If you start speaking and I'm not ready or there, expect abysmal speaker points.

TOC notes:

I cannot express just how bad I am at economics. It is my kryptonite. I am an extremely unreliable judge for any debate that involves treating anything more complicated than the supply-and-demand graph as a given. What's a bond? No idea. Keynes? Never heard of him. Gini coefficient? Sounds like a bad coffee shop. I will be lost in any debate that is more complicated than your freshman year econ class (I'm talking pre-AP) without a lot of explanation. Conversely, it will be much easier to impress me by walking me through your arguments and breaking them down as simply as you possibly can, telling me what it means when your evidence references basically any economic concept, etc. More explanation can only help. This also means you can probably convince me of just about anything if you make it simple enough and line it up with what your evidence says.

Good judge for:

• Process counterplans that are topic-specific, especially versus new affs.
• Presumption arguments against affs without a plan. I prefer depth over breadth--I'm more likely to vote for one well-developed presumption argument that sets up a clear burden for the aff than I am three or four "vote neg on presumption" one-liners scattered across the flow without a warrant.
• K affs that explicitly redefine what being "topical" means, especially when paired with reasonability arguments about what I should choose to understand as a "reasonable" affirmation of the topic. I think affs should be topical, but I'm open to arguments about why being "topical" doesn'tneed to be based in definitions.
• Ks with developed alternatives that you're willing to defend the details of. I'm an easier sell on Ks that let the aff weigh the plan and give the neg some leeway on what they get to defend with regards to the alt than "you link you lose"-adjacent framework pushes.

Not a fantastic judge for:

• Complicated econ DAs. I'm very sorry. While you were studying the markets, I studied the blade (by which I mean Deleuze).
• 1ACs/1NCs that are largely opaque or obfuscatory, especially when the team in question is unwilling to clarify in cross-x. If you aren't willing to answer basic clarification questions about your argument from an opponent who isn't following, strike me.
• Neg framework blocks that don't change based on the aff. I think framework is best deployed as an internal link turn to the aff's method and appreciate when neg teams use the aff's language/phrasing to explain that. When that's not happening, I think it's a lot easier for the aff to characterize the neg's arguments as exclusive.
• Arguments about anything other than the things that both teams say during the span of the round that I'm judging. If you can connect some external thing to an argument that your opponent is making, that's fair game. If you want to win (or your opponents to lose) based purely on that external thing in a vacuum, you may want to focus on the other judges on the panel.
• Fiat Ks.

Top-level:

When making my decisions, I seek to answer four questions:

1. At what scale should I evaluate impacts, or how do I determine which impact outweighs the others?

2. What is necessary to address those impacts?

3. At what point have those impacts been sufficiently addressed?

4. How certain am I about either side’s answers to the previous three questions?

I don’t expect debaters to answer these questions explicitly or in order, but I do find myself voting for debaters who use that phrasing and these concepts (necessity, sufficiency, certainty, etc) as part of their judge instruction a disproportionate amount. I try to start every RFD with a sentence-ish-long summary of my decision (e.g. "I voted affirmative because I am certain that their impacts are likely without the plan and unlikely with it, which outweighs an uncertain risk of the impacts to the DA even if I am certain about the link"); you may benefit from setting up a sentence or two along those lines for me.

Intervention on my part is inevitable, but I’d like to minimize it if possible and equalize it if not. The way I try to do so is by making an effort to quote or paraphrase the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR in my RFD as much as possible. This means I find myself often voting for teams who a) minimize the amount of debate jargon they use, b) explicitly instruct me what I need in order to be certain that an argument is true, and c) don’t repeat themselves or reread parts of earlier speeches. (The notable exception to c) is quoting your evidence—I appreciate teams who tell me what to look for in their cards, as I’d rather not read evidence if I don’t have to.) I would rather default to new 2AR contextualization of arguments than reject new 2AR explanation and figure out how to evaluate/compare arguments on my own, especially if the 2AR contextualization lines up with how I understand the debate otherwise.

I flow on my computer and I flow straight down. I appreciate debaters who debate in a way that makes that easy to do (clean line-by-line, numbering/subpointing, etc). I’ll make as much room as you want me to for an overview, but I won’t flow it on a separate sheet unless you say pretty please. If it’s not obvious to me at that point why it’s on a separate sheet, you’ll probably lose points.

Consider going a little bit slower. I prefer voting on arguments that I am certain about, and it is much easier to be certain about an argument when I know that I have written down everything that you’ve said.

Presumption always initially goes negative because the affirmative always has the burden of proof. If the affirmative has met their burden of proof against the status quo, and the negative has not met their burden of rejoinder, I vote affirmative.

I am "truth over tech." I will not vote for something if I cannot explain why it is a reason that one side or the other has done the better debating, even if it is technically conceded by the other team. Obviously, this is not to say that technical concessions do not matter--they're probably the most important part of my decisionmaking process! However, not all technical concessions matter, and the reasons that some technical concessions matter might not be apparent to me. A dropped argument is true, but non-dropped arguments can also be true, and I need you to contextualize how to evaluate and compare those truths.

I appreciate well-thought-out perms with a brief summary of its function/net beneficiality in the 2AC. I get frustrated by teams who shotgun the same four perms on every page, especially when those perms are essentially the same argument (e.g. “perm do both” and “perm do the plan and non-mutually exclusive parts of the alt”) or when the perm is obviously nonsensical (e.g. “perm do the counterplan” against an advantage counterplan that doesn’t try to fiat the aff or against a uniqueness counterplan that bans the plan).

I appreciate when teams read rehighlightings and not insert them, unless you’re rehighlighting a couple words. You will lose speaker points for inserting a bunch of rehighlightings, and I’ll happily ignore them if instructed to by the other team.

I prefer to judge engagement over avoidance. I would rather you beat your opponent at their best than trick them into dropping something. If your plan for victory involves hiding ASPEC in a T shell, or deleting your conditionality block from the 2AC in hopes that they miss it, or using a bunch of buzzwords that you think the other team won't understand but I will, I will not be happy.

I generally assume good faith on the part of debaters and I'm very reticent to ignore the rest of the debate/arguments being made (especially when not explicitly and extensively instructed to) in order to punish a team for what's often an honest mistake. I am much more willing to vote on these arguments as links/examples of links. Obviously, there are exceptions to this for egregious and/or intentionally problematic behavior, but if your strategy revolves around asking me to vote against a team based on unhighlighted/un-underlined parts of cards, or "gotcha" moments in cross-x, you may want to change your strategy for me.

K affs:

1. Debate is indisputably a game to some degree or another, and it can be other things besides that. It indisputably influences debaters' thought processes and subjectivities to some extent; it is also indisputably not the only influence on those things. I like when teams split the difference and account for debate’s inevitably competitive features rather than asserting it is only one thing or another.

2. I think I am better for K affs than I have been in the past. I am not worse for framework, but I am worse for the amount of work that people seem to do when preparing to go for framework. I am getting really bored by neg teams who recycle blocks without updating them in the context of the round and don’t make an effort to talk about the aff. I think the neg needs to say more than just “the aff’s method is better with a well-prepared opponent” or “non-competitive venues solve the aff’s offense” to meaningfully mitigate the aff's offense. If you are going for framework in front of me, you may want to replace those kinds of quotes in your blocks with specific explanations that reference what the aff says in speeches and cards.

3. I prefer clash impacts to fairness impacts. I vote negative often when aff teams lack explanation for why someone should say "no" to the aff. I find that fairness strategies suffer when the aff pushes on the ballot’s ability to “solve” them; I would rather use my ballot to encourage the aff to argue differently rather than to punish them retroactively. I think fairness-centric framework strategies are vulnerable to aff teams impact turning the neg’s interpretation (conversely, I think counter-interpretation strategies are weak against fairness impacts).

4. I don't think I've ever voted on "if the 1AC couldn't be tested you should presume everything they've said is false"/"don't weigh the aff because we couldn't answer it," and I don't think I ever will.

5. I think non-framework strategies live and die at the level of competition and solvency. When aff teams invest time in unpacking permutations and solvency deficits, and the neg doesn’t advance a theory of competition beyond “no perms in a method debate” (whatever that means), I usually vote aff. When the aff undercovers the perm and/or the alt, I have a high threshold for new explanation and usually think that the 2NR should be the non-framework strategy.

6. I do not care whether or not fiat has a resolutional basis.

Ks on the neg/being aff vs the K:

I am getting really bored by "stat check" affs that respond to every K by brute-forcing a heg or econ impact and reading the same "extinction outweighs, util, consequentialism, nuke war hurts marginalized people too" blocks/cards every debate. That's not to say that these affs are non-viable in front of me, but it is to say that I've often seen teams reading these big-stick affs in ways that seem designed to avoid engaging the substance of the K. If this is your strategy, you should talk about the alternative more, and have a defense of fiat that is not just theoretical.

I care most about link uniqueness and alt solvency. When I vote aff, it's because a) the aff gets access to their impacts, b) those impacts outweigh/turn the K, c) the K links are largely non-unique, and/or d) the neg doesn't have a well-developed alt push. Neg teams that push back on these issues--by a) having well-developed and unique links and impacts with substantive impact calculus in the block and 2NR, including unique turns case args (not just that the plan doesn't solve, but that it actually makes the aff's own impacts more likely), b) having a vision for what the world of the alt looks like that's defensible and ostensibly solves their impacts even if the aff wins a risk of theirs (case defense that's congruent with the K helps), and/or c) has a heavy push on framework that tells me what the alt does/doesn't need to solve--have a higher chance of getting my ballot. Some more specific notes:

1. Upfront, I'm not a huge fan of "post-/non-/more-than/humanism"-style Ks. I find myself more persuaded by most defenses/critical rehabilitations of humanism than I do by critiques of humanism that attempt to reject the category altogether. You can try your best to change my mind, but it may be an uphill battle; this applies far more to high theory/postmodern Ks of humanism (which, full disclosure, I would really rather not hear) than it does to structuralist/identity-based Ks of humanism, though I find myself more persuaded by "new humanist" style arguments a la Fanon, Wynter, etc than full-on rejections of humanism.

2. There's a new trend of Ks about debt, debt imperialism, etc. I may not be the best judge for these arguments, simply because of my difficulty with understanding economics on its own terms, let alone in the context of a K. It's not for lack of trying to understand or familiarize myself, I just have tremendous difficulty understanding even basic economic concepts at a fundamental level, and this is seriously amplified when those concepts are being analyzed by relatively complex critical theory. This isn't to say these arguments are unwinnable in front of me (I've voted for them this year and in past years), but you may want to consider something else and/or investing a really large amount of time in explaining the fundamentals of your arguments to me.

3. I also don't really get all these new Ks about quantum physics in IR and stuff. Again, it's me, not you. I was an English major; every time I try to read these articles I get a headache. I'm interested, I promise, and if you can explain it to me I'll be very appreciative! But for transparency's sake, I think it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to both explain the argument to me in a way that I can comprehend AND invest the time necessary to win the debate in your 36 collective minutes of speaking time.

4. I'm quite interested in emerging genres of critical legal theory. I think I would be a good judge for Ks that defend concrete changes to jurisprudence and are willing to debate out the implications of that.

5. I think that others should not suffer, that biological death is bad, and that meaning-making and contingent agreement on contextual truths are possible, inevitable, and desirable. If your K disagrees with any of these fundamental premises, I am a bad judge for it.

6. I don't get Ks of linear time. I get Ks of whitewashing, progress narratives, etc. I get the argument that historical events influence the present, and that events in the present can reshape our understanding of the past. I get that some causes have complex effects that aren't immediately recognizable to us and may not be recognizable on any human scale. I just don't get how any of those things are mutually exclusive with, and indeed how they don't also rely on, some understanding of linear time/causality. I think this is because I have a very particular understanding of what "linear time" means/refers to, which is to say that it's hard for me to disassociate that phrase with the basic concept of cause/effect and the progression of time in a measurable, linear fashion. This isn't as firm of a belief as #5; I can certainly imagine one of these args clicking with me eventually. This is just to say that the burden of explanation is much higher and you would likely be better served going for more plan-specific link arguments or maybe just using different terminology/including a brief explanation as to why you're not disagreeing with the basic premise that causes have effects, even if those effects aren't immediately apparent. If you are disagreeing with that premise, you should probably strike me, as it will require far longer than two hours for me to comprehend your argument, let alone agree with it.

7. "Philosophical competition" is not a winning interpretation in front of me. I don't know what it means and no one has ever explained it to me in a coherent and non-arbitrary way.

8. There's a difference between utilitarianism and consequentialism. I'm open to critiques of the former; I have an extremely high burden for critiques of the latter. I'm not sure I can think of a K of consequentialism that I've judged that didn't seem to link to itself to some degree or another.

Policy debates:

1. 95% of my work in college is K-focused, and the other 5% is mostly spot updates. I have done very little policy-focused research in the preseason.

For high school, I led a lab this summer, but didn't retain a ton of topic info and have done exclusively K-focused work since the camp ended. I probably know less than you do about economics.

2. “Link controls uniqueness”/“uniqueness controls the link” arguments will get you far with me. I often find myself wishing that one side or the other had made that argument, because my RFDs often include some variant of it regardless.

3. Apparently T against policy affs is no longer in style. Fortunately, I have a terrible sense of style. In general, I think I'm better for the neg for T than (I guess) a lot of judges; reading through some judge philosophies I find a lot of people who say they don't like judging T or don't think T debates are good, and I strongly disagree with that claim. I'm a 2N at heart, so when it comes down to brass tacks I really don't care about many T impacts/standards except for neg ground (though I can obviously be persuaded otherwise). I care far more about the debates that an interpretation facilitates than I do about the interpretation's source in the abstract--do explanation as to why source quality/predictability influences the quality of debates under the relevant interpretation.

4. I think judge kick makes intuitive sense, but I won't do it unless I'm told to. That said, I also think I have a lower threshold for what constitutes the neg "telling me to" than most. There are some phrases that signify to me that I can default to the status quo by my own choosing; these include, but aren't necessarily limited to, "the status quo is always a logical policy option" and/or "counter-interp: the neg gets X conditional options and the status quo."

5. I enjoy counterplans that compete on resolutional terms quite a bit; I'd rather judge those than counterplans that compete on "should," "substantial," etc.

6. Here are some aff theory arguments that I could be persuaded on pretty easily given a substantive time investment:

--Counterplans should have a solvency advocate ideally matching the specificity of the aff's, but at least with a normative claim about what should happen.

--Multi-actor fiat bad--you can fiat different parts of the USFG do things, and international fiat is defensible, but fiating the federal government and the states, or the US and other countries, is a no-no. (Fiating all fifty states is debatably acceptable, but fiating some permutation of states seems iffy to me.)

--No negative fiat, but not the meme--counterplans should take a positive action, and shouldn't fiat a negative action. It's the distinction between "the USFG should not start a war against Russia" and "the USFG should ban initiation of war against Russia."

--Test case fiat? Having osmosed a rudimentary bit of constitutional law via friends and family in law school, it seems like debate's conception of how the Supreme Court works is... suspect. Not really sure what the implications of that are for the aff or the neg, but I'm pretty sure that most court CPs/mechanisms would get actual lawyers disbarred.

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

15ayushm@gmail.com

Update for Gonzaga 2022: I haven't judged a debate in over 2 years. I still understand what's going on, but I will probably be less comfortable flowing very fast speakers, and I won't be fluent with topic-specific acronyms/abbreviations. Please slow down, thank you!

Please do not threaten your opponents with violence. If you do this, I will vote against you.

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I make decisions by determining the important questions of the debate, starting with the most broad (does the case outweigh the DA? does the solvency deficit outweigh the net benefit to the CP? does the K outweigh the case?) and paring that down to the specific disagreements (does economic decline cause war? do the consequences of actions matter more than their ethical import?) based on sets of evidence. Given this model of decision-making, it would behoove you to articulate those questions and keep in mind how you would like them answered. Very clear judge instruction about the big picture at the beginning of speeches goes a long way. Reasonably assess what you and your opponent are each winning and present the case for a ballot in your favor. Teams very rarely win all of their arguments, so the team that convincingly and reasonably evaluates the debate is more successful.

Clash and engagement usually matter above the content of any particular argument (with some important exceptions). Given this emphasis on engagement, it is important for both teams to highlight points of disagreement.

Regarding theory and topicality, effective comparison of the impacts of standards wins debates. Beginning this process early in the debate increases your chances of winning and makes these debates more interesting. The argument that counterplans should be textually and functionally competitive is easily winnable, especially if the 1AR engages the line-by-line and defines relevant words.

Framework debates almost always require debating about the case. A topical version of the aff has varying levels of value depending on the aff's best offense against framework. T standards about the value of engagement and clash are more intuitively persuasive than nebulous "decision-making" impacts, but I am open to hearing both. Most importantly, articulating a clear, salient impact that interacts with the other team's offense is the most valuable strategic choice for the beginning of the final rebuttals.

If left undebated, I will not "judge kick" advocacies extended in the 2NR, and I will weigh the case against Ks.

Lincoln-Douglas
My debate experience has mostly been in policy debate, and while I am familiar with the differences in LD, mostly everything above applies.

"Conditionality bad" is substantially more winnable in LD than in policy, but the mechanics of how I think theory should be debated remain the same. Reasonability is also more winnable in LD given the rise of absurd theory arguments. I would prefer to judge a debate that does not center upon theory.

I need to be on the chain due to accessibility issues. Nyx.Debate@Gmail.com. Thanks! If there is stuff in the chain you don't want shared with others, let me know and I'll make sure to delete files after the round. Also, if you're doing performance debate and don't want to send me stuff, you should not send me stuff. However, if you're going to be fast (and especially if you're online) please send me analytics so I can make sure I've correctly flowed everything you've said.

Started debate as a novice at Johnson County Community College -> debated/coached at the University of Central Oklahoma -> Independent Debate Work -> Coached at Texas Tech -> Coached at University of Texas - San Antonio -> Current Coach at KU. I'm cute AND I have experience folx.

Pronouns: He/Him or They/Them? I'm an experience with anxiety. Let me know your pronouns if you want.

How can I make the debate better/easier for you, the debater? Let me know if you need any accommodations, I'll do my best to make them happen.

Random Thoughts - Basically, I love impacts.

I will listen to any debate. Please, do whatever you do best, just explain it to me. Why is your aff/neg amazing, and why do I need to vote for it? I love impact comparison and think it should be done more. However, on that note - racist, transphobic, ableist, homophobic ect remarks will not be tolerated.

I mostly debated the K (queerness, anti-blackness, settler colonialism, trans*ness). But see above - I will judge any debate, and I will vote neg on framework/theory because hey, sometimes the neg wins that debate (when they give me a solid TVA and focus on the impact). What I'm trying to say is - if you want to run framework or six off you can still pref me. If you want to do performance debate please pref me.

The short notes:

K Aff v Framework:

Aff: Win that the great idea that your aff is should be exported / used in round and outweighs framework.

Neg: Please show to me how your flavor of fairness/education/clash outweighs the aff. A good/decent TVA is a must.

KvK Debate:

Aff: Show me why the neg's K is bad/can't solve for the aff AND why there's no stable link.

Neg: Please have specific links to the affirmative. Either solve the aff OR prove that the aff is irrelevant.

Policy Stuff:

We all learned about timeframe, probability, and magnitude when we were tiny debaters. These concepts seem simple, but if you cannot prove to me why your aff matters / impacts are bigger or happen first / stable link story / ect then it's a hard round for me to decide. Make it clear in your last speech what you are winning and why it matters.

Other Stuff:

I love a good word PIC. Theory can be fun - in moderation.

I'm sure I'll add onto this as the season goes on, but for now, if you have more questions, just send me an email or ask pre-round.

FOR COLLEGE TOURNAMENTS: ukydebate@gmail.com

FOR HS TOURNAMENTS:devanemdebate@gmail.com

My name is Devane (Da-Von) Murphy, and I'm the Associate Director of Debate at the University of Kentucky. My conflicts are Newark Science, Coppell High School, University High School, Rutgers-Newark, Dartmouth College, and the University of Kentucky. I debated 4 years of policy in high school and for some time in college, however, I've coached Lincoln-Douglas as well as Public Forum debaters so I should be good on all fronts. I ran all types of arguments in my career, from Politics to Deleuze and back, and my largest piece of advice to you with me in the back of the room is to run what you are comfortable with. Also, I stole this from Elijah Smith's philosophy

"If you are a policy team, please take into account that most of the "K" judges started by learning the rules of policy debate and competing traditionally. I respect your right to decide what debate means to you, but debate also means something to me and every other judge. Thinking about the form of your argument as something I may not be receptive to is much different from me saying that I don't appreciate the hard work you have done to produce the content"

***Emory LD Edit***

I'm a policy debater in training but I'm not completely oblivious to the different terms and strategies used in LD. That being said, I hate some of the things that are supposed to be "acceptable" in the activity. First, I HATE frivolous Theory debates. I will vote for it if I absolutely have to but I have VERY HIGH threshold and I will not be kind to your speaker points. Second, if your thing is to do whatever a "skeptrigger" is or something along that vein, please STRIKE me. It'd be a waste of your time as I have nothing to offer you educationally. Another argument that I probably will have a hard time evaluating is constitutivism/truth testing. Please compare impacts and tell me why I should vote for you. Other than that, everything else here is applicable. Have fun and if you make me laugh, I'll boost your speaks.

DA's: I like these kinds of debates. My largest criticism is that if you are going to read a DA in front of me, please give some form of impact calculus that helps me to evaluate which argument should be prioritized with my ballot. And I'm not just saying calculus to mean timeframe, probability or magnitude but rather to ask for a comparison between the impacts offered in the round. (just a precursor but this is necessary for all arguments not just DA's)

CP's: I like CP's however for the abusive ones (and yes I'm referring to Consult, Condition, Multi-Plank, Sunset, etc.) Theoretical objections persuade me. I'm not saying don't run these in front of me however if someone runs theory please don't just gloss over it because it will be a reason to reject the argument and if its in the 2NR the team.

K's: I like the K too however that does not mean that I am completely familiar with the lit that you are reading as arguments. The easiest way to persuade me is to have contextualized links to the aff as well as not blazing through the intricate details of your stuff. Not to say I can't flow speed (college debate is kinda fast) I would rather not flow a bunch of high theory which would mean that I won't know what you're talking about. You really don't want me to not know what you're talking about. SERIOUSLY. I will lower your speaker points without hesitation

Framework: I'm usually debating on the K side of this, but I will vote on either side. If the negative is winning and impacting their decision-making impact over the impacts of the aff then I would vote negative. On the flip side, if the aff wins that the interpretation is a targeted method of skewing certain conversations and wins offense to the conversation, I would vote aff. This being said I go by my flow. Also, I'm honestly not too persuaded by fairness as an impact, but the decision-making parts of the argument intrigue me.

K-Affs/Performance: I'm 100% with these. However, they have to be done the right way. I don't wanna hear poetry spread at me at high speeds nor do I want to hear convoluted high theory without much explanation. That being said, I love to watch these kinds of debates and have been a part of a bunch of them.

Theory: I'll vote on it if you're impacting your standards. If you're spreading blocks, probably won't vote for it.

Jeff Nagel

DOD - Baylor University

Yes please on email chain - jeff_nagel@baylor.edu

FOR TEAMS PRE-ROUND:

Hello! The very short version of this is "do what you're best at and tell me why things matter in relation to other things." Historically, I have tended to be almost exactly 50/50 AFF/NEG in "framework"/"one off" debates, without much variance in which side is which. My personal academic research leans more critical but I mostly cut policy/case cards for Baylor, so I may not have read your specific counterplan advocate but I have a good sense about what is encompassed in the topic. I don't care what you do and I hope that you do what makes you most comfortable and you feel gives you the best chance to win. I'd much rather you make the arguments you think are best instead of you trying to adapt to some assumptions you think I may hold. My goal is a tabula rasa approach to adjudication, which we know is impossible, but I generally seem to vote for teams who keep the flow clean and isolate the central questions of the debate. That said, being tab only extends to arguments and argumentation that does not personally impact, harm, or otherwise exclude folx, especially those with marginalized identities.

FOR PREFFING:

Affiliated with college debate from visas (2010-11) through warming (2016-17), left and got a PhD in rhetoric, and became Baylor Director of Debate from rights (2022-23) to present.

I'm excited to be back in the activity. My goal is a tabula rasa approach to adjudication, which we know is impossible, but I generally seem to vote for teams who keep the flow clean and isolate the central questions of a debate. That said, being tab only extends to arguments and argumentation that does not personal impact, harm, or otherwise exclude folks, especially those with marginalized identities.

***Longer Thoughts***

My primary goal is to write down everything you say, but walls of text or implicit arguments make that much tougher, especially since I LOATHE to have to read speech docs during a debate. Debaters that explicitly tag arguments/headers (the ontology debate, the access DA, etc) or do actual line by line (and by this i do mean on down the flow) make my life easier and it tends to reward you in both ballots and speaker points.

Teams that win structural framing arguments and apply them down the flow also tend to help shape how I evaluate parts of the debate, and virtually always in your favor.

RFD-giving is a learned skill and I continue to strive to improve my practice of it in order to both relay my thinking and give feedback.

***General Things***

1) Do what you're best at. Judges should adapt to debaters, and not vice-versa

2) Argument = claim + warrant + impact. Any argument that has all three (this certainly does not mean carded) can win my ballot.

3) Dropped args are virtually always true, excepting when the arg does not meet #2, which gives the other team leeway in new answers. Tech creates "truth". What is "truth" is entirely contingent to the round and arguments that are made (and won). I will vote for arguments I personally disagree with or seem silly when one side executes better.

4) I think people forget that this is ultimately a communication and persuasion activity, so clarity matters. Evidence text should be audible/discernable. Also please don't just talk into your laptop or, if you're online, spread too fast for your mic to properly sort sound. Arguments that don't make it onto my flow don't exist. Sorry not sorry.

5) I plan on flowing almost exclusively on paper. I'm better at it and it keeps the debate cleaner in my mind, but that does mean you should allow for a little pen time while making a quick wall of arguments (like, say, a theory block).

***Admin Things***

1) Speaker Points: I am an argument critic. Points received from me reflect the debating done in front of me and are neither punished, nor rewarded, by particular ideology, style, or approach to debate, with the standard caveats from before about obvious exceptions vis-a-vis discourse or actions that make debate actively harmful, unsafe, etc. Argument selection, persuasion, clarity, wit, approach to opponents, specificity of examples, and explantation of argumentative import are just some of things that go into my speaker point scale. This is both a communication activity and a persuasion activity, and both matter for better or worse.

My scale is constantly evolving and subject to the whims of fate. 29 is the new 28 apparently.

2) "Clock management:" I am inclined to give a speech time out under the reasonable conditions if requested (asthma attack, coughing fit, speaking stand collapses, etc).

3) Judge Kick: Is this still a thing? It seems silly. I will assume the 2NR is going for what the 2NR went for unless otherwise instructed. That said, if "judge kick" first appears in the 2NR, the 2AR definitely gets to answer it.

4) Clipping: I will not proactively call out clipping; it must be done by one of the debaters in a round. Round stops, either the clipper or false accuser gets a 0. You do need evidentiary support of clipping (i.e. recording) in order for me to adjudicate that question. Clipping is defined as intentionally portraying cards or words as having been read into the debate when they have not.

***Specific Arguments***

T/FRAMEWORK:

The best framework debaters focus more on the testing/debatability arguments or a traditional limits/fairness DA. Debaters should focus on meta-questions like "what is debate?", "why does this round/activity matter?", and which interpretation creates a better/more sustainable version of debate now and in the future, etc. I often think about these debates as being competing advocacies of what debate should look like with a collection of ADV/DA to each. Debaters that organize and condense these effectively in the 2NR/2AR will be rewarded with ballots and speaker points. The best affs are ones that are "about the topic," in whatever capacity, and these are the affs that teams will have the hardest time winning FW against.

For the record, I think most education impacts to FW are silly and a much harder path to victory. I see many more debaters and coaches go into the academy or public life as opposed to becoming tiny Eichmann policy folks who care about Schoolhouse Rock stuff. And frankly, given white supremacy and other ongoing issues, it seems wild to think that critical theory has no place in understanding how arguments and policy work in the real world.

When the affirmative is ostensibly trying to be topical, T is usually a priori until debaters win arguments otherwise. Debaters have a history of blasting through walls of text here without actually analyzing anything, which is hard to flow and harder to evaluate. Examples of what affs are justified or excluded, what ground is added or lost, etc are incredibly helpful. Potential abuse is a voter if you win it should be. You need a reasonability claim to win a 'we meet' or counter-interp or I default to a competing interp paradigm.

CRITIQUES:

Just because I liked the K does not mean I understand what you're talking about, so please explain what argument you think you're making. The best critical debaters tie the links of the K into the aff to implicate solvency and/or the adv's. Isolate your offense, how you access it, and how it turns or outweighs or solves the aff.

What does the alt do? How does it solve the links? 2N's seem insistent on not answering these questions, to my endless frustration. Buzzwords like "endless wars" is not an impact on its own; its a claim. Implicate how and why these things occur, preferably in the context of the aff.

My personal research sits at the intersection of gender, sexuality, identity, and race, usually historically situated in archives. Does this mean I'm a better judge for those arguments or that I have a higher threshold for good quality arguments? Historically, neither.

COUNTERPLANS:

They're great and I like them. Baylor has historically had a diverse squad in terms of arguments so I may have heard of your acronym or process counterplan, but probably not. Counterplans should be competitive. I defer to functional competition being important and textual competition being up for debate, but am easily shifted by quality argumentation.

THEORY:

Theory is best used as a tool to justify things rather than as a reason for decision. I am normally unlikely to vote on theory, but mostly this is because people are bad at debating it, and spew blocks and then move on. Good theory debating, like T debates, is nuanced and provides specific lists of examples of things that included/excluded/justified and so forth, and defends this in order to further a definition of what debate should entail. If it's your thing, do it, but it needs to be done well and clearly. I'm much happier analyzing theory as a way to help frame my adjudication of the substance, but do what you gotta do to win.

Nic D Murphy

The N in Rutgers MN

2017 Crowns United!

navenicole5@gmail.com

First, Energy is essential to me. Everyone must be respectful of the speaker and the participants in the round.

Background-I debated for the St.Louis Urban debate league in high school in college. After that, I debated for Rutgers University Newark. I'm the first Black Woman to win the NDT and Unite the Crowns. I debated primarily in the D3, which means I know the actual structure of argumentation.

Traditional Policy Debate Proper
Speed-Do you, I'm here to support all styles and genres!

T- This is probably one of my favorite arguments in debate, the idea that I can be so petty to review a word or process makes me so happy! The pettier, the better!

DA's-Literally the first negative argument i learned in debate I love Enviorments and Climate change impacts anything with EV and mobility is also interesting to me. Politics obviously should be unique and have solid impacts!

CP's-I believe in condo also the states arent terrible...

K's,K Affs- I love learning new things! Teach me something i DON'T KNOW! I would love to hear the latest authors and see some creativity I find myself bored by some of the K debate thats been happening and think the style is declining and policy is just as entertaining at this point but thats just my take... Who am I ?

K Aff's VS Framework
Beat the procedural and win your impacts, I believe framework is one of the easiest arguments a K Aff can answer but also one of the hardest if your aff doesnt actually do anthing. Make it make sense

LD,PF,Big Questions

I know what's going on and the rules/format of your styles of debate; I have coached students in these formats as well. Remember, you are not in a policy debate. Do not adapt to me... Follow the norms of your event.

Joe Patten - I make it a point to judge the round based on the evidence provided by both teams, and do not make arguments for teams - in other words, I will vote for teams even if I don't personally agree with their arguments.  I can judge speed, but tend to give higher speaks for debaters who speak clearly.

     By far the most important thing you need to understand in order to successfully debate for me is that I am not going to follow along with your speech document in order to try to understand what you are saying.  If you cannot deliver your arguments and read your evidence in a fashion that is comprehensible, I am not a good judge for you.  I read a very limited amount of evidence after debates, always and only to decide arguments where the two sides have advanced detailed disagreements about what the evidence in question actually says.  I only hold teams responsible for answering arguments after I have understood them:  calling 1AR answers to a kritik new will not avail if I only understood the basics of your argument after the block.  I am not saying this is an oratory contest, but it is oral advocacy.

     When I do read evidence, I am increasingly suspicious of cards that consist of a few words highlighted here and there over several pages of text.  If you can't find a single sentence from you author that states the thesis of your argument, you may have difficulty selling it to me. 

     My "paradigm:"  I try to judge as if I were at a town meeting or other public forum where the audience would listen to a discussion and then each person would vote their opinion.  I deviate from the real world as little as possible, mostly to exclude my own predispositions and decide based on what is said by the contestants.  If weighty matters are at stake, I would hope that I would not be persuaded to vote for bad ideas because the advocates of better ideas had committed some argumentative indiscretion.  (This is a fancy way of saying that I am a tough sell for "discourse kritiks"--you'll do much better to attack your opponents' thinking than their language.)  I generally do not accept arguments that urge me to "punish" a team for advancing an ill-considered position in the debate.

    I do believe that both sides should stick to one policy system to defend.  This requires that they eschew "conditional" advocacy, whether that is vague plans or multiple counterplans.  I see both of these strategies as needlessly diluting the advocacy in what is already a short time to discuss even one policy comparison.  I see the attempt to discuss multiple comparisons in a single debate as far more motivated by nefarious strategy than any sort of truth seeking.

     My voting record on kritikal arguments is far better than my reputation suggests.  Solid, topic-specific attacks on the logic and worldview of the opposition, with specific links and impacts I can understand, frequently succeed om winning my ballot.

Scott Phillips- for email chains please use iblamebricker@gmail in policy, and ldemailchain@gmail.com for LD
Coach@ Harvard Westlake/Dartmouth

My general philosophy is tech/line by line focused- I try to intervene as little as possible in terms of rejecting arguments/interpreting evidence. As long as an argument has a claim/warrant I can explain to your opponent in the RFD I will vote for it. If only one side tries to resolve an issue I will defer to that argument even if it seems illogical/wrong to me- i.e. if you drop "warming outweighs-timeframe" and have no competing impact calc its GG even though that arg is terrible. 90% of the time I'm being postrounded it is because a debater wanted me to intervene in some way on their behalf either because that's the trend/what some people do or because they personally thought an argument was bad.

I am a good judge for you if/A bad judge for you if not

1. You cut good cards and highlight them to make complete arguments in at least B- 7th grade English, which is approximately my level. Read uniqueness. If your disad is non unique, not putting a uniqueness card in the 1NC is not cute, its a waste of time. If your best answers to an IR K are Ravenhall 09 and Reiter 15 you are not meeting this criteria, ditto answering pessimism with "implicit bias is malleable".
2. You debate evidence quality/qualifications and read evidence from academic sources rather than twitter/forum posts. If you are responding to a zany argument not discussed in academia, blog/forum away. If that is not the case I implore you to ask why these sources are the only ones you can find.
3. You listen to what the other team is saying and give a speech that demonstrates that you did by answering all of their arguments correctly and in the order in which they were presented . Do not read a collection of non responsive blocks in random order. And then in follow up speeches you compare/resolve those arguments rather than repeating yourself.
4. You make smart analytics against arguments with obvious weaknesses. Most 1NC disads and 1AC advantages in current debate are incoherent/missing several pieces. You do not have to respond to an incomplete argument, point out it is incomplete and move on. Once completed you get new answers to any part of it.
5. You rely on knowing what you are talking about more than posturing/grandstanding.
6. You understand your arguments/can explain things. In CX and speeches you should be able to explain words/concepts from your evidence correctly, and be able to apply them. If your link card says "the aff is not disarm" thats not a link, thats an observation
7. You can cover/don't drop things. Grouping things is fine. Making a philosophical argument for why line by line debate is bad, and instead making your argument in the form of big picture conceptual analysis is fine. Randomly saying things in the wrong place, dropping 1/2 of what the other team said and then expecting me to figure out how to apply what you said there is not. I will not make "reject argument not team" for you.

I operate on a "3 strikes" rule: each side gets up to 3 nonsense arguments- a CP that is just a text, a bad disad or advantage, an unexplained perm etc. After that your points and credibility plummet precipitously. If I'm reading your card doc I will stop reading your evidence after 3 cards highlighted into nothing. If you include 3 "rehighlightings" of the other teams evidence that are obviously wrong I will ignore all your evidence/default to the other sides.

If debated by two teams of equal skill/preparation, the following arguments are IMO unwinnable but I vote for them more often than not because the above suggestions are ignored.

-please let us weigh our case or we said the word extinction so Ks don't matter

-the framework is: object of research, you link you lose, debate shapes subjectivity, ethics first without explaining what ethics are/mean

-War good, pollution good, renewables bad- it doesn't matter if these are in right wing heritage impact turn form or academic K form

-the neg needs more than 1cp and 1K for debate to be fair. Arguments like "hard debate is good debate... so make it hard for them" are so bad you should be able to figure it out/not say them

-PICS that do/result in the whole plan are legitimate. The negative can actually win without these, especially on a topic where there are 3 affs.

-counterplans that ban the plan as their only form of competition are legitimate, especially on a topic with only...

Updated for 2023-2024 Season

Please put me on the speech thread! Thank you.

Email: thelquinn@gmail.com

Titles: Director of Debate at Samford University (AL).

Meta-thoughts:

I’m not the smartest human. You’re maybe/likely smarter than me. Please do not assume I know anything you are talking about. And I would honestly love to learn some new things in a debate about arguments you researched.

Debaters are guilty until proven innocent of clipping cards. I follow along in speech docs. I believe it is judges job to police clipping and it is unfair to make debaters alone check it. I will likely say clear though, it's nothing personal.

I keep a running clock and "read along" with speech docs to prevent clipping. At the end of the round, I find myself most comfortable voting for a team that has the best synthesis between good ethos, good tech/execution, and good evidence. I will not vote on better evidence if the other team out debates you, but I assign a heavy emphasis on quality evidence when evaluating competing arguments, especially offensive positions.

Education/Debate Background:

Wake Forest University: 2011-2015. Top Speaker at ADA Nationals my Junior Year. 2x NDT First-Round Bid at Wake Forest. 2x NDT Octofinalist. 2x Kentucky Round Robin. Dartmouth Round Robin. Pittsburgh Round Robin.

Mountain Brook High School: 2007-2011. 3x TOC Qualifier. 2011 Winner of Emory's Barkley Forum in Policy Debate. Greenhill and Harvard Round Robin. Third Place at NSDA Nationals in 2011. Seventh Place NSDA Nationals 2010. Winner of Woodward JV Nationals.

Policy Thoughts:

Tl;dr: Offense/defense, the algorithm, cards are currency. UQ determines link unless otherwise said. Willing to pull the trigger on T/theory.

Flow: Most debaters should make analytics off their flows, especially in digital debate. Conversely, if you include analytics on your speech doc but I do not find you clear but I recognize where you are on your speech doc, I will not consider them arguments.

Condo: Im largely ok with conditionality. I think the best aff args against conditional are against contradictory conditional options. I do not really like the counter-interp of dispo. Im a much bigger fan of CI is non-contradictory conditional options.

• 3 or less non contradictory conditional options is ok to me
• 2 contra condo is fine
• 3 contradictory condo (including a K) and I am willing to vote on contra condo bad.
• For new affs, I think at most 5 contra condo is permissive. Anymore and I think you risk losing on theory.
• I think negs should take the 2 seconds it takes to have a CI that isn't "what we did." "What we did" is not really a good CI in debates.

CP Theory: If the 2AC straight turns your disad, no amount of theory will justify a 2NC CP out of/around the straight turned DA. 2NC CP's vs addons are different and chill/encouraged. Generic Process/ Conditions/ consult CPs cause me to lean aff on theory/perm, unless you have a good solvency advocate specific to their plan text which can prove its predictable and important for that area of debate. But I’m persuaded that a generic/predictable aff posted on the wiki can win a theory debate/perm do CP against a generic process/ conditions/ consult CPs. This is especially true with any Con Con CP. Con Con is the worst.

I hate judge kick. Do you want me to flow for you too? Maybe compose your speech doc while you're at it? I don't give the affirmative random permutations. Don't make me kick your trash counterplan for you.

T: My "favorite" standards are predictable limits (debatability) and real-world context (literature/education). I think a topicality interp that has both of those standards I will err on. Evidence that is both inclusive and exclusive is the gold standard. I tend to be more moderate with reasonability. I am not in the cult of limits. I err aff if I believe your interpretation is "reasonable" and that the negative did not prove you made debate impossible even if their interpretation is slightly better.

Kritikal Debate. I vote off the flow, which means my opinions on K debate are secondary to my voting. And I was 4-0 for Wake BD last year in some big debates against policy teams, so I'm going to vote for the team that I thought did the better debating (But are you Wake BD?). Im not really opposed to kritiks on the negative that are tied to the plan/resolution or kritikal affirmatives that defend a topical plan of action. I think where I draw the line is that I'm not a good judge for more performance based "affirmatives/negatives" that neither affirm nor negate the plan text/resolution. I lean very heavily neg on FW v non or anti-topical K affs. I think a good topical version of the affirmative is the best argument on FW. The role of the judge is to vote for the team who does the better debating. Debate is an educational game we play on the weekend with friends. I will not evaluate arguments that derive from actions/events out of the debate I am judging. Fairness is an impact and intrinsically good. I do not believe the ballot has material power to change the means of production/structures and thinking it does may even be problematic.

Please do not read global warming good. Global warming is real and will kill us all. And I am particularly persuaded by the argument that introducing these arguments in debate is unethical for spreading propaganda and should be deterred by rejecting the team. I'm way more persuaded by inevitability and alt cause args.

Gonzaga University
Judging Experience: 19 years
Email: jregnier@gmail.com (yes, include me on the email thread)

Big Picture: There is no one right way to debate. We all have our biases and preconceptions, but I try to approach each round as a critic of argumentation and persuasion. Some people will define themselves as being more influenced by either “truth” or “tech.” For me, this is a false binary. Tech matters, but it doesn’t mean that I will focus on the ink on the flow to the detriment of argument interconnections or ignore the big picture of the debate. Truth matters, but pretty much every debate I will decide that both teams win arguments that I don’t necessarily believe to be true. In my view, “argument” falls into a third category that overlaps with tech and truth but is distinct from them. Make your argument more effectively than your opponent and you’ll be in good shape. For me, that means making clear claims, developing warrants for those claims, and explicitly identifying what’s important in the debate, how it’s important, and why. Use logos, ethos, and pathos. Look like you’re winning. Your adaptation to the stylistic/technical comments below is far more important than your adaptation to any particular type of argument.

Comment about debate ethics: By debate ethics, I mean both what has been conventionally called “ethics violations” – like clipping cards, evidence fabrication, etc – as well as the interpersonal dynamics of how we treat one another in debate. I group them together here because they are both areas where somebody has crossed a line and upset the conditions necessary for debate to occur. For me, neither of these things is “debatable” in the sense I used above (“making clear claims, developing warrants…,” looking like you’re winning, etc). If a team is suspected of clipping cards, the debate stops and we do our best to resolve the issue before either ending the debate or moving forward. Similarly, if there is a concern that a team made racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted – or even just excessively mean-spirited or rude remarks – the debate should not continue as normal. I have zero interest in watching a competitive debate in this context about what was said, whether an apology was sincere, the terminal impact of discourse, whether the ballot is an appropriate punishment, etc. In this, I aggressively fall into the “truth over tech” crowd.

What this means for me is that I will try to be attentive to these things happening. I do not believe that a debater has to say something for me to vote on an ethics violation. At the same time, there is a lot of gray area in interpersonal relationships and we all draw our own boundaries.

What this means for you is if you believe one of your ethical lines has been crossed, I need you to point it out *outside of speech time* and not treat it like you would other debate arguments. As we all know, there are different ways of arguing that the other team has said offensive things. An argument that the Aff’s Economy advantage is based in colonial & white supremacist logic seems to fall squarely “within the game” as a debatable position. On the other hand, if a debater refers to another debater with an offensive racial epithet, this seems to pretty clearly transcend the game. There’s a million miles of microaggressions and not-so-micro aggressions in between. My working presumption is generally that if you are debating about it, then you consider it debatable and that I should evaluate it within the context of argumentation, persuasion, and competition. But if you feel that the other team has crossed a line and that I should not continue evaluating the round as I would a regular competitive debate, say something – again, *outside of speech time* – and we will work together to reach an understanding and figure out the best resolution to the situation.

Stylistic/Technical Issues: I am a medium flow. My ear for extremely fast speech is not particularly great, and my handwriting is not particularly fast. Extremely fast debates oriented around the techne of the flow are not my forte. There is a fairly clear inverse relationship between the speed at which you speak and the amount that I get written down on my flow. This greatly rewards debaters who give fewer – but more fully developed and explained – arguments. I will probably not read very many cards at the end of the debate, so don’t rely on your evidence to make your arguments for you. At the same time, I do generally try to attend to the quality of cards and bad cards can definitely undermine your arguments. I categorically do not want to be forced to reconstruct the debate by rereading all of the cards. This means that explanation and prioritization in the final rebuttals weighs more heavily for me than it might for other judges. Attend to the big picture, make direct comparisons showing why your arguments are better than your opponents’, and most important, find the hook that allows you to frame the debate in your favor.

Theory Debates: This is the area where my thinking has evolved the most as I’ve aged. There are many theory issues that I can be persuaded by. However, I will say that many theory debates that I have seen are vacuous. The key question for me is what kind of world is created by each side’s interpretation – is it good for debate or bad for debate. The impacts that I find most persuasive are the ones that are less about whether the other team made debate hard for you and more about what their interpretation does to argumentation and whether that’s an educational and constructive vision of what debate should be. Generally, impacts like “time skew” or “moots the 1AC” are pretty empty to me. But an argument that uniform 50 state fiat is an artificial debate construct that’s not rooted anywhere in the solvency literature and distorts the “fed key” debate so wildly as to make it meaningless is maybe something that I can get behind. A short list of a few of my current theory pet peeves: the States CP, object fiat, vaguely written – and downright misleading – plan texts, and nonsense permutations. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it a pet peeve, I may be growing increasingly persuaded that excessive conditionality is not good for debate.

Critical Stuff / Framework: I regularly vote both ways in framework debates. I evaluate these debates much like I would a debate over the "substance" of the case. Both sides need to play offense to amplify their own impacts while also playing defense against their opponent's impacts. In most cases where I have voted against critical affirmatives, it is because they have done a poor job answering the negative's debatability/fairness impact claims. In most cases where I have voted against traditional policy frameworks, it has been because they have done a poor job defending against the substantive critiques of their approach. My general set of biases on these issues would be as follows: critical (and even no-plan) affirmatives are legitimate, the aff needs to either have a defensible interpretation of how they affirm the topic or they need to full bore impact turn everything, a team must defend the assumptions of their arguments, critiques don't need (and are often better served without) alternatives (but they still need to be clear about what I am actually voting for), debate rounds do not make sense as a forum for social movements and “spill up” claims are vacuous, and most of the evidence used to defend a policy framework does not really apply to policy debate. However, to state the obvious, each of these biases can be overcome by making smart arguments.

Speaker Points: Since Tabroom stopped making speaker points accessible, I honestly don’t really even know what they mean anymore. I try to give them careful consideration, but I admit that often it becomes a gestalt thing. I intend somewhere around 28.7 or 28.8 to be my median. I will occasionally dip into the high 27s for debaters that need significant improvement. Good performances will be in the low 29s. Excellent performances will get into the mid 29s. This was generally close to how things broke down the last time I was actually able to run the numbers on speaker point data.

Here are the things I value in a good speaker. I love debaters that use ethos, logos AND pathos. Technique should be a means of enhancing your arguments, not obfuscating or protecting them. Look like you're winning. Show that you are in control of yourself and your environment. Develop a persona that you can be comfortable with and that shows confidence. Know what you're talking about. Answer your own cross-ex questions. Use an organizational system that works for you, but communicate it and live up to it (if you do the line-by-line, then *do* the line-by-line). Avoid long overviews with content that belongs on the line-by-line. Overviews should have a clear and concise purpose that adds something important to the debate. Be clear, which includes not just articulation & enunciation. It also includes the ability to understand the content of your evidence. If I can't follow what your evidence is saying, it will have as much weight in my decision as the tagline for that evidence would have had as an analytic. Debaters who make well thought out arguments with strong support will out-point debaters who just read a lot of cards every time.

I'm healed now run it all back

Please put me on the e-mail chain: peanutdebater@gmail.com

**Highschool peeps: I've been told by my coach friends, my debaters, and students I've judged that I come off mean in RFDs because of how blunt I am. I don't mean to be rude or anything like that but if that seems like I am, it's most likely not you.

***Well done*** Naruto references get you speaker point boosts.

Background

Greetings Comrades, I debated four years of varsity debate in high school at East Kentwood competing nationally and then debated for five years at Wayne State. Now I'm a grad assistant at Baylor. I have been almost exclusively a K debater. Some of the areas include anti-blackness, settler colonialism, cap, Edelman, and Chicanx arguments but I also have read and coached policy arguments so throw em at me. (Random impact turns like bootlicking China).

The Topic:

College: Oh wow nukes can't wait to hear all the same impacts from the last five years.

High School: BIG MOOONEY

In round:

Evidence sharing and disclosure is good. Do it.

As of this moment I am not evaluating anything out of round unless I see it or you have physical proof (screenshot, recording) that your opponents did something violent messed up etc. I'm not gonna play detective again nor am I going to make value judgements on peoples sincerity or honesty.

Tag teaming is okay but I'd rather it kept to a minimum or zero.

Did you read a? Did you skip b? What cards did you read? Are cross ex questions I will enforce that time on a one judge panel. Don't like it? Get good at flowing, sorry but I'm not sorry, like at all.

Don't be oppressive or violent in the round, don't say that mess we are too old for that. If you do I'll let the other team roast you in their speech if they want to dunk and gain speaker points, if they don't take the opportunity to do it I will do it post round including lower speaks and an L.

I've noticed now more that I am an expressive judge so you will often know how I feel about something in the debate. So do with that as you will.

I've started to hate large overviews because honestly most of that work can/should be done on the line by line portion of the debate. I am also personally fine with the 1AR or block foregoing and overview and just tear up the opponents arguments directly.

More hostility in debate. Like why are we treating bad or silly arguments and the people that run them as serious. This isn't like be mean and call people names, but like you just called their epistemology racist and you're friends or cordial with someone reading that racist stuff? That's weird... Enter the room with that mamba mentality, that's all.

***Online Debates. I would love and prefer your cameras on at all times as I think it checks back cheating, helps me see you and allows you to use non-verbal's to persuade me and absent that build a sense of community and friendship :). If you can't or it's important to your argument and/or have another reason for not using a camera I get it, just my preference.

Args

If you have a fringe argument that some deem as silly, funny, goofy, weird, and/or obscure read that ish I like weird impact turns and all kinds of funky DAs. Spark, rouge AI, aliens, or whatever have fun.

I think post-rounding is silly because debate is communicative and if you failed to articulate your round winning argument then I’m sorry but I’m not going to go crying to tab changing the result. But waste our time if you really feel that way I won't think about the round ever again likely so no clue what you want to be the result of it. I've only had this problem once twice thrice so let's keep it that way.

If I wanted to hear just the truth I'd go to therapy. In other words the tech on the flow matters

Perms need a deeper explanation than you just rambling off four perms in hopes that the neg drops one it likely won't be developed enough by the 1AR/2AR to get my ballot

Aff

Aff has the burden of proof, prove a change is needed or what you do is the change + is good. Neg has the burden of rejoinder respond any way you want. Lots of times I feel that I vote neg because I lose sight of what the aff does as the 1AC slowly decomposes into nothing-ness at the end of the round. Explain what your aff does, why you are doing it, and how. Neg people don’t let affs shine light on their arguments and you have a hot shot at getting a win or a presumption ballot at the least.

T

First slow down on the violation, standards, and voters people blaze through it at top speed please relax let me flow it, damn. I feel like well done policy affs vs. T debates are some of my favorite but also could be really really generic and mid debates. So don't be boring. The impact level needs to come down to what specific abuse or education loss happened not something abstract.

FW

Borrowing from Pirates of the Caribbean, "The [Resolution] is more what you call guidelines, than actual rules."

Aff teams should prove a reasonable way, form, and or model of engagement or have significant impact turns to the neg arguments, I'm not convinced by some generic bs like "policy bad" we can do better y'all. Neg teams not gonna hold you IDGAF about fairness in the abstract. You need to prove the specific abuse in the round not just some lofty fairness claims. You need to contextualize your offense to the specific aff you debate and if you can do that you'll most likely be good absent something external in the round.

K Affs

Rez connection is appreciated and desired although not mandatory ig, please make sure you have thought through why you have completely rejected it. If you are just gonna say debate bad but have no other juice aside from that why we here?

Theory

So I've come around and like a good theory debate so go for it. I'm most open to disclosure theory, condo in a world of 4+ off (i.e. time skew claims and ability to generate offense on the net benefits). I also will flow on paper so like depth over breath for me. Y'all really need to levy perf-con against teams that read Ks and then have some policy defense/args. In a world of two perf con policy CPs I'll lean more neg flex but in a world of K v Policy stuff it shows bad K debating and I lean aff.

D.A.’s

TBH not a fan of most politics DAs because they seem boring and repetitive. If I had a dollar for every time something was supposed to shift a vote or election I would have more money than Bezos so you either need really good specific link evidence or you should read something else. If you decide to read a new disad in the block make sure you have a warrant as to why you did.

CP’s

Make sure you outline the net benefit pretty please? However, how much fiat the teams want to grant the CP will be up to y’all. I love a tricky PIC but don't love 4 plank long counterplans.

The K

Real world impacts are good and are grounded in more reality thus I feel are easier to believe than most. In addition to the arguments I mentioned in my background I dappled with a broad range of other arguments but that does not mean I'm neck deep in all the literature of everything so explain. Going for alt? Explain how it solves the links. No alt? Fine K’s can also function as disads without alts and be a reason to not do the aff but you will have to win how the aff increases said bad thing not just they use the state. In general I think the state link is probably the weak “link” of k links, see what I did there ;). I’d rather you contextualize your argument to the aff. Or to win the K you need a good FW/epistemology connection so make sure to have that if you aren't going the material route.

Ummmm... why ain't we fiating alts around here we really letting the policy crew have a monopoly on the tools of imagination?

**HS in particular: Please don’t be like “He’s a K debater so reading the K is how we win” If you would like feedback I can probably provide that for you as an educational opportunity but don’t read it just for the sake of it. I don’t like buns K debates and if you think you have that FW or DA fire instead just read that.

Whitney Young ‘15

University of Kentucky ‘19

Cornell Law '23

Former WY and UK coach; Officially not coaching anymore. This means that I have less topic knowledge than normal and you should not assume I know what your aff is or will know what those acronyms you just threw out stand for. When in doubt, invest more time in explaining your argument.

Top Level

Add me to the email chain- Jacindarivas@gmail.com

My name is Jacinda (Juh-sin-duh) so call me that instead of judge.

I will reward smart teams that can effectively and efficiently communicate their arguments to me. Engaging with your opponent, having a well-thought out strategy, and demonstrating that you’re doing consistent, hard work is what this activity is about.

Please be nice. I am not very responsive to raising voices/yelling.

Clash debates

No one ENJOYS clash debates but I end up judging quite a few. I really do believe that affs should have a tie to the topic and should be in the direction of the topic. I am not the judge for an aff that has a couple cards that say a theory and then pretend to say something about the topic. I also believe that debate is an inherently good activity so indicting the entirety of the activity we participate in is not great for me. I think this matters a lot for the way some teams answer framework so be cognizant of this. The only thing that my ballot decides is the winner.

Ks

Links should be causal, specific and about the plan. They NEED to be contextualized to what the aff actually did. I have too often judged debates where a team presents a theory of the world but have not explained what the aff has done to implicate that. Explanation is key. That applies to all Ks cause if you are just spitting jargon at me and the other team, you aren’t gonna have a good time. I am not persuaded by arguments that the aff just doesn’t get fiat.

CPs/DAs

Love them. Obviously better the more specific to the aff they are. I default to judge kick unless expressly informed not to.

There can be zero risk of a DA

Theory

Conditionality is good.

Random Things

You can insert a re-highlighting of a card- you shouldn’t have to waste time re-reading a card if they suck at research

Ethics violations (ex. Clipping, a card being cut in the middle of the paragraph, etc.) should just have the debate staked on it. It is a bad form of education and should be rejected. No point in drawing it out.

Further questions- email me at jacindarivas@gmail.com

I would like to be on the email chain -- if you don't have my email ask me

I debated at Iowa City West in high school, then 5 years at Iowa.

Don't be overly mean

T --

I default to competing interps

Reasonability is supposed to be applied to interpretations, not the aff

You should go slower on T and Theory than other flows because the relative percentage of the words you're saying that I have to write down is higher

K --

I will default to evaluating the implementation of the plan vs the implementation of the alt -- this isn't to say that you can't convince me otherwise

I probably won't vote neg on your k's impacts if the alt doesn't solve them//you haven't won that your framework obviates the question of solvency (which requires a warrant and doesn't defacto happen once you won framework)

I often find kritiks of extinction framing don't have impacts that outweigh extinction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

K Affs --

Judging framework debates I'm often more persuaded by internal link analysis based on interps/counterinterps than the impacts themselves in the abstract. That seems like it should be obvious, but contextual analysis about the magnitude of limits explosion based on the affs counterinterp is rarely made, and even more rarely contested by the affirmative. I'm much more persuaded to vote aff if it's made clear to me that there is valuable role for the negative team in their model of debate.

The most kritikal aff I ever read was an Agamben aff on the surveillance topic in high school that defended the rez as a plan text and read a bunch of aff perm cards as solvency advocates lol do with that information what you will

CP --

Advantage counterplans are dope -- solvency advocates for them are cool -- if you dont have a solvency advocate for the counterplan it better very obviously solve the aff

I love PICs, especially ones that compete positionally as per Brett Bricker's Positional Competition: More Than Just a Plan Text, The National Journal of Speech & Debate, Vol. 2, Iss. 1, September 2013

Process CPs are winnable, but aff theory and competition args against them are persuasive

Condo's probably good

DA --

idrk what to say here -- who doesn't love a good DA, if you have a good DA you should read it

dont be afraid to go for DA and case, especially if your DA has in-roads to complicating the affirmatives internal links or impacts and happens on a shorter timeframe

do your thing, and I'll do my best to render a decision based on the arguments the two teams presented in the round ???? (sorry for the lame platitude but it's a requirement for a paradigm)

Put me on your email chain (all of them, even if I'm not judging. I just want to be included): dar298@cornell.edu

Update (2023/2024)
Less involved in debate than previous years and I judge even less. I probably will be confused about certain acronyms and shorthand others might get.

Please do what you do. I will try my best to meet you where you are, and on the grounds you start from. I am, however, not a blank slate.

The longer version of this paradigm was written when I was an over-eager debate coach, and is way too long. Here's the short of it:

- All arguments are Ks and performances and about identity-- yes, even the Japan prolif DA (especially!). Just make good ones.
- I am equally good for T/FW and against it. I believe that FW as traditionally conceived is bad on a truth level, but I think some things implicit to all FW debates (what we talk about and where we devote our energies) are so important that they often contest the core of the aff and thus overshadow this error.
- Being able to critically contest ideas and sort out moral quandaries without prepared research isn't just useful, it's an essential skill that we should actively cultivate in debate. Effective research is also an essential skill and highly prepared debates are extremely fun and informative.
- Please respect your opponents enough to speak with and in their terminology, language and concepts, even if you haven't read their literature. The best answer to most K affs is to simply think on the fly and contest their understanding of the world/problem and their solution.
- I will never vote for anthro good. I will happily vote for criticisms of how animal subjectivity/rights are traditionally conceived. I just will never accept that I am more important than a cow or a chicken.
- I am extremely sympathetic to critiques of non-black people reading afropessimism.
- Be nice. Sometimes being nice to yourself means no longer being nice to your opponents and I respect that. But don't be needlessly cruel.

I would like to repost something from one of my favorite judges when I was a debater, Will Baker. This part of his paradigm resonated deeply with me:

Cherish this moment. Being at a university with the resources to send you across the country to represent them in intellectual combat forwarding whatever arguments you wish against some of the most talented debaters in the world backed by an incredible braintrust of coaches, in front of a critic that you preferred is an immense privilege and a societal rarity. In a world that thrives on hot takes over listening and polarizarion over pragmatism, debaters need to understand your power, hone your craft, and value others. We lose brilliant, debate minds too often. Others globally perish in silence, pain, disasters and darkness. Thank your parents/guardians, your administrators, your coaches, but most of all your OPPONENTS. None of us would be here without others to debate so respect them whether your perfect strat features a Politics DA & a CP or impassioned narratives set to Janelle's dulcet tones.

Update (2022)
Less involved with debate than before, so please keep that in mind. That said, my research does involve animal personhood and I did contribute to the animals K neg section of the topic paper, so I am familiar with the RoN/animal topic.

I am less familiar with the AI topic than the personhood topic, but I am willing to listen and learn.

I've become more dissatisfied with the presumption that debate arguments follow the narrow exceptions to make them justified unless "beaten" (e.g. First Strike an enemy of the US because it could be justified under consequentialist grounds if certain things are met--counterforcing works, war coming now etc., which is supposed to lessen the vileness of that thought experiment). I have trouble distinguishing the universally agreed areas outside these limits (spark, death good, homophobia good, etc.) from things currently accepted that I see as similarly pedagogically harmful (first strike US enemy, US heg good, warming not real). Do whatever you may with that info.

Overview/Long of it

Started as a novice in college and I love novice debate! Don't talk badly of it in my presence.

Started policy debate running xo and politics every round, devolved into reading one off Ks most rounds (mostly anthro and disability [as 2n/1a], sometimes various strains of afropessimism [not as 2n])

Do NOT assume that because I read critical arguments you are better suited to read critical stuff in front of me- do what you do. I love policy research and did a lot of it for various squads over the years so please don't be afraid to go for it in front of me.

I enjoy critical affs, especially if it's something that you have put thought into/challenges how I think of the world. It's some of the best and most educational part of debate.

This does not mean I am opposed to voting on FW or T arguments- it's a large amount of what I debated against so I am well aware of when a team does it well. I think a lot of affs mishandle T/FW and it can be a very strategic choice for the negative - especially when T/FW implicates the aff's knowledge production/method.

I am very line by line and flow centric- I don't think this is at all opposed to "big picture debate" or in-depth argumentation but that's just my style that will be represented in my judging- i dislike implicit "overview" clash that doesn't flag what your argument does or how it functions in relation to their argument.

I would rather not read every card referenced in the debate after it ends- debate is a game about communication and spin can beat evidence if you do it well enough- I don't vote on whether or not your or your coach cut a good card, I vote on the way you articulate the importance and weight of an argument the card makes (or comes close to making).

Skip here if you don't care to read above/Specific arguments:

Case: Debate it more- most cases don't make sense and can be dismantled with analytic arguments/a small amount of cards.

DA: I probably have a higher threshold for internal link explanation to impacts than other people - especially advantage extensions in the speeches like the 1AR- too often the 1ar runs through a scenario without an internal link and it pops back up in the 2ar again magically.

FW: FW is a K, defend your alternative view of the world/debate and the relative disads to the counterinterp/aff and how you capture/mitigate/outweigh/turn their offense. No feeling one way or another, either side can win- debate it.

T: Do your thing, but I'm probably extremely unfamiliar with norms of T/shorthand, etc.

K: Familiar with most lit bases in debate, in particular animal studies, afropessimism, disability etc. Don't assume my familiarity with the K- explain the arguments in depth and their importance as if I had no idea what you were talking about.

CPs: Impact out your solvency deficits or else it's hard for me to compare relative deficits/advantages in solvency

Other things:

Reading afropessimism is all the rage for non-black people in debate but if you are not black I will be very sympathetic to arguments about that from the otherside- - years of seeing in this debate has made me very uncomfortable with this. (Christina Sharpe and Selamawit Terrefe in Rhizomes- "The only people who can be and embrace it are particularly these white, male, young academics who are so excited. They're excited by it. And it's an invigorating theory because it's a purely intellectual enterprise for them. This is something we have to experience and re-experience viscerally when we read Frank and Jared's work. It's a traumatic experience. But it's not a trauma that is being imposed by us— by the theory or by those of us who write and critically engage with the work. It's a trauma that we're reliving because we're never outside of this trauma. So I think Black people's responses, Black academics' responses in particular...it's not a foreclosure the way white or non-Black academics would respond. If it's a negative response it's foreclosing on their own...ethical relationship—")

The one exception to this is I can think of is if you have a partner that is black and wants to read that argument, but I am willing to hear args for and against that. (This does not mean don't discuss race/colonialism/your relation to that if you are white but be critically aware of how you are situated in relation to identity and the dangers involved.)

Please respect people's pronoun choices.

I will never vote for anthro good. If you decide to argue that in front of me, that is your issue.

That twitter account is not me, it's some impersonator.

- Please add me to the e-mail chain - sabcsaenger@gmail.com

- I'm open to hear and vote on any argument as long as it's presented clearly and carried throughout the round.

- Please speak clearly, clarity over speed.

- Impact Calc - tell me why you should win.

- Have fun!

Email chain: zahir.shaikh112@gmail.com

I have read and voted for many different styles of arguments. I appreciate thorough, technical debating, regardless of the content of your argument. Try to understand what issues you're winning, which ones you're behind on, and how that shapes the debate. Explain why winning certain issues frames the debate.

Being confidently wrong isn't a good thing. Debaters who exhibit general lack of awareness of the world or the topic will lose speaker points. I am far more likely to vote for the team that knows what they are talking about.

jrskoog17@gmail.com

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer

I debated at Brophy College Prep and then debated at Gonzaga University.

I now coach at Gonzaga in Spokane, WA.

Everything under this are my defaults but obviously any argument that is contrary to any of these override my presuppositions. I'll try not to intervene to the best of my ability.

The Highlights:

I don't like when teams read evidence from debate coaches. It is absurd and self-referential.
Tech over truth
I'll call for ev, but only if it is a key part of the debate or I have been told to look at it. I put a lot of stock into the quality of evidence when deciding debates.
I default to reject the arg for everything except conditionality unless told otherwise.
Awesome strategic moves will be rewarded.
For the love of Przemek Karnowski, please don't cheat.
I'm not particularly expressive, but it doesn't mean I hate your argument, I'm just thinking to myself.
Keep your shoes on in the round.


Specifics:

Evidence:
Read warrants please. I will reward fantastic ev. Quality outweighs quantity. Use spin and compare your evidence to theirs.

Case/Impact Defense:
I do tend to default to less change and think that there is such thing as zero risk of the aff. Using very smart case defense arguments is awesome. Internal link defense and solvency arguments are, in my opinion, underused. That makes me sad. So please use them.

Counterplans:
I'm a huge theory nerd so I'm down with being convinced something is competitive. HOWEVER, I do think that a lot of counterplans that are commonly run are not competitive. Granted, I ran Reg Neg and Consult Russia a lot, and I understand why they are necessary sometimes, but I will reward case specific counterplans with net benefits that justify the status quo. To be clear: Artificial net benefits be dumb, yo. Counterplans should have solvency advocates--preferably normative one--which will go a long way in defending the theoretical legitimacy of the advocacy.

Against big stick affs, don't read stupid PICs like "the" or "should" because then I will cry. And I am an ugly crier.

I won't kick a conditional CP in the 2NR unless I'm explicitly told to in the debate.


Disads:
For politics, gotta have the goods evidence-wise.
Political capital key cards should say that political capital is key.
I think that an aff shooting apart the internal link chain of a stupid scenario is sufficient.
I would really like it if your DA was an actual opportunity cost to the plan.
Link controls direction of uniqueness.

Kritiks:
I exclusively went for the K almost all of college, so I know a lot of the literature. I've read a lot of Foucault, Baudrillard, Nietzsche and Deleuze but I won't pretend I know all K authors equally. Please explain it in relation to the aff, not just in high theory terms.
I don't think I'm the federal government. I am a sleepy coach judging a debate. However, I can be persuaded differently by args made in the debate.
Getting to weigh the aff is distinct from a "role of the ballot" argument because Role of the ballot determines how/what I am voting on or evaluating.
I love highly technical K debate ie. LINE BY LINE and clash.
Well researched and case specific Ks will make me smile.


Theory:
I really do enjoy theory debates if it is delivered at a rate consistent with the arguments. For example, if you are saying conditionality is bad in the 1AR don't speed through it because it is difficult to flow in its entirety. I will vote on unconditionality good, or 5 conditional CPs good. Debate is debate. If a theory violation is well impacted and explained, I will vote on it.

Topicality:
I default to competing interpretations unless told to evaluate it differently. I love when people read a lot of cards on tea, or have a hyper specific topicality argument. I evaluate it like a DA, so impacting things such as limits and ground is important.

Framework vs K affs:
I'm down to listen to really anything, and I was usually on the side of the team answering framework for most of my career. That being said, I really really enjoy framework debates. I think that "no Ks" isn't very convincing, but there should probably some agreed upon stasis point. This doesn't mean you need to defend the hypothetical implementation of plan in front of me, but if the other team wins that fiat is a good model of education, I will vote on it.

2023 Nukes Rewrite

He/Him

Jsmith55@binghamton.edu

Please add me to the chain, I do not usually read along during speeches but I like to able to check things during cx/prep and it makes post-round evidence collection easier. I prefer when teams send analytics (especially for online debates) because I think normalizing the practice makes debate more accessible for people who might struggle to process policy debate speed without forcing people to ask for that accommodation.

Debated at Binghamton for 2.5 years (college novice), coached at Baylor for two, and am now in my 5th year as a coach/gta for the University of Kansas.

Random logistical note:My verbatim does not do well with images, by default I can not see most images when I open a word document. If you're argument has a visual component to it that it is important for me to see remind me so I make sure to open the document in a way that lets me see the image. (I try to do this by default but I do forget sometimes so the reminder is helpful)

I love debate and promise to put my full effort into the rounds I judge.

This philosophy is very long because I would rather over explain and give more insight into how I think of my judging then less. Ultimately, you should do what you do best, everything below is a preference but I do try my hardest to adapt to the debate in front of me.

Broad Debate Thoughts

I think I'm generally in line with most of the community in the sense that I think specific debate is better than generic debate, clarity is really important but undervalued, and most rebuttal speeches could use more comparative impact calculus.

In terms of areas where I might differ a little/require stylistic adaptation, the most important is that I tend to really value/give significant weight to spin and the explanation of arguments. Part of my goal as a judge is to base a decision as much as I can on the words of the debaters in the 2NR/2AR. That means that I'm looking to the story or narrative you are creating and reading your arguments through that lens as opposed to looking at what your cards say. A lot of my decisions in close debates come down to the question of who was more explicit in constructing a story that not only framed why they won arguments substantively but also how they won the debate at a meta level. Story telling in debate is everything for me and I try to reward teams who do that work as opposed to teams hoping that I will construct a ballot or narrative for them.

Functionally, my focus on explanation and spin means that I am not a great judge for 2nr 2ar's that attempt to identify everything each team conceded and ask me to construct a ballot from those concessions. I am better for teams who explicitly identify the ballot they want me to write and then frame the remainder of the speech by explaining how various arguments support that particular ballot. As a side note, generally, I'm of the opinion that the word conceded (or their equivalents) should be used minimally in 2nr/2ars because it ends up serving as a placeholder for comparison and the narrative construction I am discussing. The over use also makes it harder to emphasize the actual important drops that teams may have made as they get lost within the 20 things you claim they never answered.

I tend give a lot of leeway in terms of how teams apply and expand on evidence which means that I think I'm certainly a better judge for the team that reads a couple of good cards and focuses on spin and narrative with those cards that I am for the team that reads a lot of cards but never really tells me what I should do with them. I am also better for teams that are explicit in applying their arguments to different parts of the flow, than I am for teams that hope I will pick the embedded clash out of an overview. If one team is doing the work to explain a piece of evidence and its implication while the other team is implicitly answering the argument in an overview I tend to side with the team doing the more explicit analysis.

None of this is to say that I do not care about evidence quality, especially if you make arguments as to why evidence quality matters in your particular debate but that I think I am more willing then a lot of judges to give credence to analytics and explanation because in my mind that leads to less intervention

This preference means that clarity is really important, I can keep up with fast debate, but the more explanation I get/words I understand the better it will be for you, so try to find a balance. I'm also not the most technical flow, even though I tend to be very tech over truth in how I evaluate rounds, so be aware of giving me time and being clear with transitions and packaging especially.

I have a substantial neg bias in my voting record, I think that this true for several reasons, some of which come down to chance/variance and some meta things about how clash debates play out. However, I do think I tend to be better for the negative because in a lot of debates, I usually find myself feeling like the neg block overwhelms the 1ar and that I am reluctant to give the 2ar much room to spin out of those concessions. I am much better for affirmative teams that are willing to go for less arguments (1/2) and explain how the rest of the debate is implicated by those arguments. However, I often feel like 2ars think they need to match every 2nr argument which makes it difficult to produce a narrative or story for my ballot.

Framework v K affs

My record in these debates has increasingly shifted towards the neg. That is less of an ideological question and more a question of how the meta of these debates has changed. I often think negative teams do a better job (it is also easier for them) of controlling a lot of framing and uniqueness issues that I find important. Affs often struggle against arguments like "debate is a game so that means fairness is the most important impact" or the "affs offense is non-unique because it is a criticism of the content of the resolution but the ci can't solve it" or "debate does not shape subjectivity at all".

At a truth level, I believe that K-affs are good for debate and lead to some of the most important/relevant discussions in our community but I do find myself feeling like K teams might be a bit behind in terms of dealing with those framing arguments.

affs

You need an argument about the purpose of debate and the question of "what we are doing here". Ideally that argument needs to be based in your 1ac and you need to leverage it against the neg claims that debate is just a game or that subject formation does not happen in these spaces. I'm very persuaded by the argument that if the activity is unethical then who cares if it is fair, but I think affs often struggle to have an explanation that actually implicates the activity/form of debate.

I wish aff teams would be more willing to challenge neg teams on questions of debates relation to subject formations. I often think, neg teams get away with an almost nihilistic depiction of debate as absolutely valueless. Aff teams should argue that even if individual rounds do not shape subjectivity, the type of activity we create and norms of research do have an impact on how we think and move throughout the world. I also frequently find myself thinking that the argument current "debate does not shape subjectivity"should be an aff argument not an neg argument because it seems like that is something k affs would say is the problem. Maybe we should attempt to construct a model of debate that does try to shape how we think and educate rather than focusing on being a pure competitive game with no regard for the types of people we produce.

I also wish affs would more push back against the internal link that just because debate is a game it means we should fully maximize fairness, (or even what it means to maximize fairness) There are a lot of great games that do not require fairness in the way debate discusses it. Games are also often more about education and learning then competitive equity but generally we've defaulted to the idea that debate is a game and the thing that matters for games is that they are fair.

I'm a good judge for arguments that draw on the utility of kvk debate and the conversations that are had there. I think fw teams often pretend those debates don't exist or devalue those arguments in ways that could generate significant offense for the affirmative but affs sometimes fail to take advantage of those arguments.

I think overall I'm better competitively for more impact turn styles of answering framework because those have been increasingly the meta and I'm more used to them. However, I do really enjoy teams that articulate alternative relationships to the resolution that are more nuanced then 'res bad/unethical" and discuss in-depth alternative models of debate .

Neg-

When I vote aff, it is frequently because the aff won the case page, which made structural claims as to how debate, contestation language, etc operate and those claims shape how I view the framework page. Thus, for me, you must engage the case, either by isolating fw from it, or with various case defense arguments.

Good fw debating is good case debating, if you are not talking about the aff, on both pages, (ie how fw relates to the affs impacts and structural claims) you are losing the debate. I think the question of how specific the fw is to the aff is what differentiates great fw debaters from good fw debaters.

That is also true for explaining impacts like fairness/clash, If you are able to describe to me how their aff/interpretation specifically makes it impossible to be neg/ruins models of debate and provide examples in round it will always go further than general rants about the necessity of limits. I can go either way on the question of fairness being an impact and it most often comes down to which team is controlling spin on what debate is/what is the goal of our activity. The more the narrative of "debate is a game, fairness matters for games, therefore fairness matters here" is clear to me, the more I am likely to think of fairness as an impact.

I understand the strategic utility of more procedural based arguments and impacts. However, I will say I enjoy fw debates where the neg defends the possibility of what plan based debate can do or why it is educationally valuable, far more then the current trend of making neg claims as small as possible. However, in the end do what you have to do.

Policy aff v K

The fw debate is incredibly important for me.

I do not like the trend of kind of deciding that the fw debate is a wash and constructing some weird compromise outside of what the interpretations/views of the debate actually were.

I think fw interps/arguments should be as explicit as possible in terms of instructing judges as to what you think the implication of winning your frame work is. I often think teams are very unclear on this question and leave it to judges to fill in blanks. I think that is particularly true for aff fw interps that often stop at "weigh the plan" with very little explanation of what that means or how the K prevents weighing the aff/the plan. Similarly you have to tell me how the neg moots the 1ac and not just assert that it occurs.

Neg teams need to recognize that winning framework is not game over, but a way of shaping how the rest of the debate plays out. As such your links and even alternative should be contextualized to the framework interpretation you are going for/winning. If your framework is about research practices, then your links better explicitly explain why the aff research practices are bad. If your framework is about competing political imaginaries your criticism of the aff should use that language.

A lot of my neg decisions start with some variation of "I thought the neg was winning a structuring (often theory of power) claim that shaped how I came down on a lot of the close issues in the debate. A lot of my aff decisions start with I thought the aff won that they should get to weigh the plan and that the aff outweighed links that were relatively non-unique.

Kvk debates

Generally, the team that is able to package their arguments into a clearer narrative/story wins the debate. That goes beyond just being right about the content of the arguments but focusing on explaining how that content converts into a ballot

I'm not great for aff teams that just try to permute everything because I tend to think more structural Ks will always find a link. You are better of challenging the neg's view of the world and defending how your aff approaches politics.

I'm pretty willing to listen to arguments about what competition should look like in kvk debates, i.e. how much of the aff should one have to disagree with to earn a ballot is often a relevant question in a lot of these debates since both teams often agree on a lot of premises. That means I'm also better than a lot of judges for arguments about whether the aff should get a perm.

In terms of K familiarity, I'm very familiar with the ableism literature used in debate. I'm also very comfortable with the cap arguments generally read in debate, though I often think teams deploy them pretty poorly, especially against K teams. I have a working knowledge of the more structural ks in debate though I'm not particularly well-read. I do not feel very confident in my knowledge of the more "high theory" arguments deployed in debate. Those require more explanation and examples with an emphasis on explaining the applicable elements of those criticisms.

Policy v Policy

I don't judge too many of these debates, and I still probably judge more than I should. The biggest thing to think about is my discussion of explanation at the top. In policy v policy debates there is a tendency to forgo that storytelling element of debate in the name of efficiency because it is assumed that judges will somewhat fill in those gaps. That ends up being difficult for me because my lack of experience with these debates makes it hard to fill in the gaps and I just generally don't like doing so. That means the team that focuses more on explicitly instructing me as to how I should understand the debate at the meta-level will do better.

That is especially true for counter plan competition debates and topicality debates because I have virtually no experience in either and can struggle to process what is going on as I attempt to keep up with the block spewing. The more work you can do to make me understand, even if you feel like you are overexplaining the better you will do.

Random side notes

I think I'm a decent judge for arguments that challenge the form of debate (think spades, coloring etc) as long as you are being explicit in explaining why you are doing what you are doing, you have an actual argumentative backing for what you are doing and you are trying to win the round.

I don't really know where I fall on most theory issues because I judge them so rarely, I would say that I'm fairly agnostic on conditionality in general, but I do think there is an increasing prevalence of a style of run and gun argumentation that I really dislike. In my mind, the style of reading like 8 bad arguments, going for the least covered one in the block (or just kicking all of them in the 1nr and talking about t for 9 minutes against k teams) creates shallow antieducational debates. I don't think that practice is intrinsically tied to conditional argumentation but that it does seem to go hand in hand and I could probably be convinced condo is bad because it promotes this model. Read this as you are better off constructing 1ncs with arguments you will actually go for/discuss and not trying to just outspread the aff with random nonsense.

I have an absurdly awful poker face while judging debates. You will see me react to things. I will say that if push comes to shove you should always prioritize your view of an argument/the round over what you perceive my reaction to be, because I might be reacting to something totally different then what you think. Furthermore, I vote for arguments that I dislike all the time and vote against arguments I do like as well, so my reaction might not be tied at all to the competitive element of the debate.

If you are some one who finds facial expressions/reactions distracting and unhelpful feel free to let me know and I will do my best to limit them

There are very few arguments that I will refuse to consider on face, but please do remember if you are the type of team that enjoys the wipeout, spark or death good, genres of argumentation, that debate is ultimately a persuasive activity and the burden of work you will have to do to win/be persuasive for those arguments will likely be higher than normal.

* Minor note before Blake

I've done essentially no research on the 2023-2024 high school topic. While I've debated or coached on topics relevant to this area, I might not recognize very specific acronyms and am generally unaware of how people have approached questions related to the limits/broad meaning of this topic for T debates.

*Briefly updated before 2022 season

Debaters should have the ability to argue about what the terms of the debate are and how that relates to my decision. I prefer judging debates where the competitors are invested in their arguments, whatever those might be.

It is very rare in the debates I’ve judged that one team loses every argument on the flow. Consequently, it often seems going for a few less arguments improves the quality of the debating for both sides. Most debates tend to be decided in terms of how well either team characterizes each other’s options and framing what matters. At the top of your final rebuttal, please clearly prioritize how I should evaluate the debate. I love when debaters give me a roadmap of what's going to happen and then make it happen.

E-debate/Paperless:

Prep time only goes until you’re done prepping your speech, which means email time doesn't count against you. Please always include me on your email chain. Sometimes in cross-x when people are asking questions about evidence, I like to be able to look at the cards as well.

I'm pretty sympathetic that the transition to online debate is hard for many people and not the same as doing it in person. I'll try to do my best to make sure the rounds go smoothly.

I am better at flowing if I can maintain eye-contact with the person speaking. If you need to have your camera off for connection issues / personal reasons, I totally understand.

Speaker Points:

I spend most of my time at the end of the debate trying to decide who won and what I would have needed from the other team to win the debate or general commentary about the debate. While I’m filling out the ballot, I spend a few seconds trying to decide speaker points. I don’t have a static starting point for assigning or categorizing speakers, but try to decide how well the speakers used / responded during cross-x, whether a decision made by one of the speakers uniquely helped improve/hurt the teams chances of winning and how well the speakers brought together the debate in their final rebuttals.

I take notes during cross-x and enjoy when debaters get strategic concessions that are used in their speeches.

Argument related comments:

- Counterplans generally require a solvency advocate. This can be aff evidence or neg evidence.

- Critiques may not need to have an alternative to be competitive with the aff, but I will not judge kick an alt (or counterplan) for you unless the framing in the 2NR justifies that option.

- I often find it insufficient to read a hodgepodge of cards or arguments that “critique the squo” and call it an affirmative. Good affs have compelling methods, approaches to the space, or defenses of the resolution.

- In all debates but especially K aff verse K debates, links need impacts / clear internal links. The negative can win a link and still lose the debate if it’s unclear why that link “matters”.

- Competing methodologies is too often left as a buzz phrase that does not establish why the aff should not have a permutation. Similarly, asserting there is a permutation that is advantageous, does not explain why I should allow the aff to access that option. In either case, having a bit of depth goes a long way to win whether the aff should or should not have a perm.

In-round Accessibility

Part of my responsibility as the judge is to make the debate accessible. If there is something I can do to help with that – please let me know. If you don’t feel like disclosing then you’re welcome to email me (address above).

Pet Peeves:

1- Clipping cards is punishable with a loss and 0 speaker points. I do not feel that I need a debater to initiate a clipping challenge, as an educator I feel I have a responsibility to monitor against cheating.

2- I value very highly the safety for ALL competitors to engage in this activity, so please be considerate of others. Making arguments with sexist, racist, ableist, and other exclusionary language can be especially harmful for people in the activity.

3- Please make sure you ask your opponents what pronouns they use. Misgendering is a serious issue.

4- Stealing prep time

5- Reading conditional arguments that clearly and unquestionably contradict

6- Repeating that an argument was conceded- especially if it clearly was not

7- Asking cross-x questions that go nowhere in developing the strategy or understanding of the debate.

8- Don’t be disrespectful to the people who host tournaments.

Brief Bio

I studied philosophy and sociology as an undergraduate, communication at UNLV for an MA, and now communication at U-Iowa for a PhD.

3 years of debate at Millard South High School

4 years of debate at Concordia College – Moorhead

2 years coaching at University of Nevada- Las Vegas

5 years as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Iowa and 2nd year as the Debate Coach at Iowa

1. You have to have truth

Matt Stannard

stannard67@gmail.com

Me: he/him, I participated in policy debate for West Jordan High School and Weber State University, I have coached multiple formats at Eastern Utah, Long Beach, Wyoming and Lewis & Clark, and have directed and/or taught at a vast multitude of institutes.

Delivery: I will, shockingly enough, miss your unclear analytics. Speak clearly no matter your rate of delivery. Over-enunciate. Don't leave comprehension to chance; control what I write down.

The (very important) game: all styles and formats of debate are good, policy/critical/procedural all valuable, I am not the state, topics and topic research are good, I vote for all kinds of arguments even when I intellectually disagree with them, debate should be both very accessible and very challenging.

Important needs and assumptions: besides clarity, I have these predispositions: (1) conditionality is fine until the 2NR; you need to explicitly tell me what advocacy you are kicking. (2) I seem to have a greater need than other judges for good solvency cards for affs, counterplans, and K alternatives. Many K alts I hear feel vague to me at the outset. Love voting for movements and don't think fiat is confined to the state, but the threshold is specific advocacy with solvency cards. (3) political and social implications of T and other procedural/framework interps can be reasons to prefer/reject them, weighable against other reasons. They aren't "genocide" per se, but they aren't ideologically neutral; debate it out. (4) aff should provide a clear statement of advocacy, neg should provide a clear reason to reject the aff.

Tech: I judge online a lot, please use the best mic tech you have and don't project your vocals directly into an internal laptop mic. Prep time ends when you say so and then IMMEDIATELY hit send, and in all debate tech scenarios if anything goes wrong don't panic, we'll be fine and figure out what to do.

Ethics: be chill to each other outside of your speeches (in your speeches you should feel free to be ruthless if that's your thing), don't cheat, let's all commit to dismantling classism, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, ageism and ableism, and to listen to those affected by exclusion--not just as debaters making arguments but as responsible and accountable human beings making our world. It's okay that debate is weird and different. Please make it a safe place for everyone.

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.

Many judges will lie to you in an RFD and promise that the round was “close.” I will not, as I don't find most rounds close. I decide most debates quickly, based only on my flow. I find evidence quality irrelevant unless contested, and I disregard “truth” when making a decision.

I also intervene as little as possible. That means I will make a face as you gaslight me, but accept what you say at face value. This holds for arguments that I know as obviously false: if a team drops that an old argument is new and I should reject it, then I do so. This might lead to some absurd outcomes. But the judges that I respect do their best not to intervene.

As a quick aside, I do not share everyone's disdain for topicality, theory, and counterplan competition debates. To be sure, I've judged plenty of tragically bad theory debates. But I struggle to understand the people who contend it's not “real” or “substantive” debate. I find many topicality debates just as exciting as a politics/case debate.

Likewise, though, I find the personhood topic quite exciting. I have cut hundreds of cards because I find the research refreshing.

What I don't find refreshing, however, is arguments of the critical variety. Ideologically, I am just not good for them. I am unfamiliar with most critical literature and have no interest in reading it. So if you do have the (mis)fortune of my name on the pairing, argue as technically as possible. When I vote for a critical team, it is because they debated more technically than their opponents.

Updated 1/28/2024

Quick Q&A:

1. Yes, include me on the doc chain – mrgrtstrong685@gmail.com

2. No, I am not ok with you just putting the card in the text of the email. Even if it’s just one card

3. Idk if the aff has to read a plan. I went for framework and read a plan, so I'm definitely more versed in that side of the debate, but I'm frequently in support of identity-based challenges to framework. I went for framework because it was the best thing I knew how to go for, not because it was objectively the best

4. No, you should not try to read Baudrillard or other post-modern theories against me. (Yes. Against me.) This is not a challenge. It's not a threat, it's a warning, be careful with me. I am admitting insurmountable bias.

5. Yes, you should (please) slow down while debating if you are online. There are glitches in streaming and it’s hard enough to understand you. For a while, I tried following along with the docs when I missed something, but we all know that just leads to more errors. This is your warning: if you are not clear enough to flow I will not try to flow it. I will give two warnings to be clear (and one after your speech in case you didn’t hear me). If you choose to keep doing you, don’t expect to win or for me to know what you said. On the flip side, if you are actively slowing down to make the debate comprehensible, you will be rewarded with a speaker point bump.

6. JESUS CHRIST PLEASE stop trying to debate how you think I want you to. It's never a good look to over-adapt. The only exception is if you want to go for Baudrillard and somehow ended up with me as a judge. Then please over-adapt. I cannot stress enough the importance of adaptation if you are trying to tell me post-modern theory or that death is cool.

7. I don't like to read cards as a default because decision time is 20 minutes assuming there were no delays in the round. If a card is called into question or my BS meter is going off, I will read the card. Absent that, I'm mostly about the flow and ethos. Tell me what warrants in your card you want me to know about. Point out the parts in the other team's evidence that are bad for them. That makes my judging job easier, causes me to read the card, AND gives you a sick speaker point boost.

WARNINGS:

1. I am chronically ill. If you pref me, there is a chance I have a flare up while judging you. This means I will finish the debate with my camera off but am still there. I just want some privacy while sick/you really don't want to see my face if I turn my camera off. If we are in person this may mean a slight delay in the debate. One time and one time only I have gotten so sick in a debate that a bye was given to both teams. So pref me if you want the chance of a free win!
2. I am a blunt judge. When I say that I mean I am autistic and frequently do not know how to convey or perceive tone in the way that other do. If you post-round me, I wont call you out of your name, but I will be very clear about your skills (or lack thereof) in the debate.
3. I also might cry...I'm clinically hypersensitive from CPTSD. Sometimes people assume I have a tone and "match" or "reraise" what they think I'm doing. If I cry and you weren't being a total jerk, don't over-apologize and make the RFD about me, lets just plan on a written RFD in that case.
4. I appreciate trigger warnings about sexual abuse. I will not vote on trigger warning voters because it's impossible to know everyone's trigger and ultimately we are responsible for our own triggers. All debaters who wish to avoid triggers should inform opponents before the round, not center the debate on it. I'd rather use "tech time" for the triggered debater to try to get back to their usual emotional state and try to finish the round if desired.
5. If the behavior of one of the teams crosses the line into what I deem to be inappropriate or highly objectionable behavior I will stop the debate and award a loss to the offending team. Examples of this behavior include but are not limited to sexual harassment/abuse, abusive behavior or threats of violence or instances of overt racism, sexism or oppression based on identity generally.

• This does not include self-expression. I would prefer not to see an erotic performance from high schoolers as an adult, but I am able to do so without sexualizing said debaters. There are limits to this, as you are minors and this is a school activity. Please do not make me have to stop the round because you exposed yourself to the other team, or something similar. If you are in college I still feel like you are a student, but I will honor that you have the right to express yourself without sexualizing you. Please no "flashing" without consent - that is sexual harassment/assault.
• This also does not include a Black debater using the N-word, unless used intentionally to put down another Black debater to the point of distress in the other Black debater.
• When in doubt, don’t make it your goal to traumatize the other team and we will all be fine.
• If you ask a team to say a slur in CX I will interrupt the debate to change course, though I will not auto-vote against you. I don’t think we should encourage people to say slurs to try to prove a point. Find another way, or don’t pref me.

The longer version:

Speaker points:

I've been told you need to average a 29.2 to clear nowadays. Because of that:

-a learning speech will be 28.4-28.7,

-an average speech will be 28.8-29.1,

-a clearing level speech will be 29.2-29.5,

-a top ten speaker will be 29.6-29.9.

I'm not giving 30s. Ya gotta be perfect to get a 30, and Hannah Montana taught me that nobody's perfect.

If you get below a 28.4 you probably severely annoyed me.

If you get below a 28, you were probably a problem in the debate, ethically.

I have yet to give a low point win, to my memory. I generally think winning is a part of speaking well. If you cause your team to lose the debate, you’re likely to get lower points.

Speaker-point factors:

- Did you debate well?

- Were you clear?

- Did you maintain my attention?

- Did you make me laugh, critically think, or gasp?

- Did your arguments or behavior in the debate make me cringe?

- Were you going way to hard in a debate against less experienced debaters and made them feel bad for no reason?

K STUFF:

Planless Clash debates:

-I’ve rarely judged a planless debate where the neg has not gone for framework. In instances where I have, the neg was policy style impact turning a concept of the aff, not going for a K based on a different theory of the world.

-I generally went for framework against planless affirmatives when I debated, and therefore am a bit deeper on the neg side of things. That being said, I also have a standard for what the neg needs to do to make a complete argument.

-I don’t think topicality, or adhering to a resolution, is analogous to rape, slavery, or other atrocities. That doesn't mean arguments about misogynoir, pornotroping, or other arguments of that nature don't work with me. I understand the logic of something being problematic. It's just the oversimplification of theory into false comparisons I take issue with.

-I don’t think that not being topical will cause everyone to quit, lose all ability to navigate existential crises, or other tedious internal link chains. That being said, I love an external impact to framework that defends the politics of government action.

-I would really prefer if people had reasonable arguments on topicality for why or why they don’t need to read a plan, rather than explaining to me their existential impact to voting aff or neg. In the same way that I'm not persuaded the neg will quit or extinction will happen if you don't read a plan, I also don't think extinction will happen if you lose to topicality. Focus instead on the real debate impacts at hand. Though, as said above, I love a good defense of your politics, and if that has a silly extinction impact that's fine.

-I find myself persuaded that the case can not outweigh topicality. Arguments from the case can be used to impact turn topicality, but that is distinct from “case outweighs limits” in my mind. T is a gateway issue. If the neg goes for T, that's what the debate is about. This is why I think many planless 1ACs are best when they have a built-in angle against framework.

-indicts to procedural fairness impacts are persuasive to me.

-modern concrete examples of incrementalism failing or working help a lot

-aff teams need to explain how their counter interpretation solves the neg impacts as well as their impact turns.

-neg teams need to turn the aff impacts and have external offense of their own. Teams frequently do one or the other

Neg K v plans:

-Generally, the alt won’t solve when the aff does a serious push, but the aff will let the neg get away with murder on alt solvency.

-Generally, the alt doing the plan is a reason to reject the alt/team absent a framework debate, which is fine.

-Generally, contradictions justify severance

-Always, the neg is allowed to read Ks

-I'm getting more and more persuaded the neg needs a big push on framework to beat the perm. If the alt is fiated and not mutually exclusive with the plan, there is almost no way to convince me that the perm won't solve. This is not true on topics where the alt impact turns the resolution. You truly can't do both sometimes.

-Framework debates are won by engaging the theory aspect and is pragmatism/action desirable, not just one. Typically the neg spends a bunch of time winning the aff is an unethical method, while the aff is talking about fairness and limits.

-please slow down on framework blocks!

K v K debate:

I tend to find myself thinking of things in terms of causality, so if that’s not your jam you gotta tell me not to think in that way. I have *technically* judged a K v K debate, but I'm pretty sure it was a cap debate that was more impact turn-y than theory of power-y.

I'm interested in seeing debates like this despite my lack of experience.

K stuff in general:

-My degree is in math. While y’all were reading a lot of background lit, I was doing abstract algebra. You might have to break it down a bit. I'm reading a bit more of the stuff y'all debate from in grad school, but it's still safe to eli5. My masters work is mostly on pop culture, hip-hop, and Black Feminist literature. If you want to debate about Megan Thee Stallion, I should be your ordinal one because it is the topic of my thesis.

-I am more persuaded by identity or constructivism than post-modernism. I am the opposite of persuaded by post-modernism.

-I DO NOT recommend reading Baudrillard, Bataille, etc. You might think "but I'm the one that will change her mind;" you aren't. I will be annoyed for having to judge the debate tbh. You have free will to read it if you want, but I have free will to tank your points with ZERO remorse. If this third warning doesn't do it for you, you are responsible for your speaker points. If I was swapped in to judge your debate last minute, I won't tank your speaks. I only clarify because this happened to a team once.

POLICY STUFF:

CPs:

-Tell me if I can (or can’t!) kick it for you. I may or may not remember to if you don’t. I may or may not feel like you are allowed to if you don’t.

-Reading definitions of should means the perm or theory is in tough shape. It's not unwinnable, but I was a 2A… Tricky process counterplans that argue to result in the aff by means of solvency, but are *actually* competitive (more than just should and resolved definitions), game on. If that means you have to define some topic words in an interesting way, I'm fine with that. Also, despite being a classic 2A, I find myself holding the aff to a higher standard sometimes. Maybe it's because I went to MSU, but a lot of times I find myself thinking "this CP obviously doesn't solve. why doesn't the aff just say that or try to cut a card about it???"

-Make the intrinsic perm great again!

-Links to the net benefit is usually a sliding scale. But sometimes links have a certain threshold where it doesn’t matter which links less. Please consider this nuance when debating.

Theory:

-TBH – y’all blaze through theory blocks with no clarity and then get confused when I have no standards written down. These debates are bad. Be more clear. Speak at a flowable pace. Maybe make your own arguments. Idk.

-It is debatable whether an argument is a reason to reject the argument or team.

-2ACs that spend 15-plus seconds on the theory shell will see a lot more mileage and viability for the 2AR. One-sentence blips with no warrants and flow checks will be treated as such.

-impact comparison and turns case are lost arts in theory debates.

DAs:

-Yes, there can be zero DA. No, it’s not as common as you think.

-answer turns case!!!

PF/LD:

I have coached LD and PF for years, but it is hard for me to separate my years of policy debate experience from the way I judge all debates. I was trained for 8 years as a policy debater and continue to coach that format. I have participated in both LD and PF debates a few times in high school, so I’m not a full outsider

LD

I’m not a trickster and I refuse to learn how Kant relates to the topic. Similarly, theory arguments like “abbreviating USFG is too vague” or “You misspelled enforcement and that’s a VI” are silly to me. Plan flaws are better when the aff results in something meaningfully different from what they intend to, not something that an editor would fix. I’m not voting/evaluating until the final speech ends. Period.

Dense phil debates are very hard for me to adjudicate having very little background in them. I default to utilitarianism and am most comfortable judging those debates. Any framework that involves skep triggers is very unlikely to find favor with me.

PF:

Do not pref me if you paraphrase evidence.

Do not pref me if you do not have a copy of your evidence/relevant part of the article AND full-text article for your opponent upon request.

Please stop with the post-speech evidence swap, make an email chain before the debate, and send your evidence ahead of time. If your case includes analytics you don’t want to send, that’s fine, though I think it’s kinda weaksauce to not disclose your arguments. If the argument is good, it should withstand an answer from the opponent.

Second, there is far too much untimed evidence exchange happening in debates. I will want all teams to set up an email chain to exchange cases in their entirety to forego the lost time of asking for specific pieces of evidence. You can add me to the email chain as well and that way after the debate I will not need to ask for evidence. This is not negotiable if I'm your judge - you should not fear your opponents having your evidence. Under no circumstances will there be an untimed exchange of evidence during the debate. Any exchange of evidence that is not part of the email chain will come out of the prep time of the team asking for the evidence. The only exception to this is if one team chooses not to participate in the email thread and the other team does then all time used for evidence exchanges will be taken from the prep time of the team who does NOT email their cases.

symonds77@gmail.com

I'm judging more often and tabbing less these days, so I thought it was fair to have a little substance here. Anyway, this is how I judge:

(1) I have the speech doc open and I'm following along as you're reading cards

(2) I'm only ever listening to the speaker(s), I think it's really important not to be messing around with electronic media while judging.

(3) I'm constantly judging argument quality throughout the debate, so when the 2AR ends, 90% of the time I'm fairly certain who I am going to vote for. What time I spend looking over my flow and the evidence is used to think through the most likely questions from the losing team, to see if there's something that I might have missed.

(4) My general decision making process starts with impact calculus and impact comparison. If one side is decisively ahead here, this often controls my vote. 2NR and 2AR work here is vital.

(5) To decide key points of controversy in the debate, I identify each one from the final rebuttals, list them in the AFF or NEG column, then find the arguments from the responding team and line them up. Once I think the lists are complete, I choose which side persuaded me on each one.

(6) While I work hard to keep my (long list of) debate opinions out of debate in deference to the specific ways debaters make their arguments, I think it's only fair to list some of my abstract debate leanings so that you have more context/information:

--Everyone reading an aff related to the topic IS ideal for fairness, education, and research-based reasons, but simply listing off these buzzwords is not going to persuade me. And "related to the topic" is really case by case.
--On framework, education is more important than procedural claims - I regularly vote aff against framework bc the neg is overly fixated on "procedural fairness outweighs"
--Topical Versions of the Aff and Switch-Side debate arguments function like CPs that access AFF education and preserve fairness
--States CP is illegit bc it eliminates the literature-based debate over FG vs States
--CPs ought to be textually and functionally competitive
--Alts succeed by being deliberately vague and shifting later in the debate - especially "reject the aff" alts
--"Realism good" indicts virtually all affs on the Space Cooperation topic
--Both truth and techne matter

The things:

Npiredebate@gmail.com

Affil: Baylor, Georgetown University, American Heritage and Walt Whitman High School.

If you think it matters, err on the side of sending a relevant card doc immediately after your 2nr/2ar.

**New things for College 2023-24(Harvard):

Weird relevant insight: Irrespective of the resolution- I am somewhat of a weapons enthusiast and national security nerd.

Yes, I am one of those weirdos that find pleasure in studying weapon systems, war/combat strategy and nuclear posture absent debate. Feel free to flex your topic knowledge, call out logical inconsistencies, break wild and nuanced positions etc. THESE WILL MAKE ME HAPPY(and generous with speaks).

In an equally debated round, the art of persuasion becomes increasingly important. I hate judge intervention and actively try to avoid it, but if you fail to shore up the debate in the 2nr/2ar its inevitable.

Please understand, you will not actually change my mind on things like Cap, Israel, Heg, and the necessity of national security or military resolve in the real world...and its NOT YOUR JOB TO; your job is to convince me that you have sufficiently met the burden set forth to win the round.

Internal link debates and 2nr scenario explanation on DAs have gotten more and more sparse...please do better. I personally dont study China-Taiwan and various other Asian ptx scenarios so I will be less familiar with the litany of acronyms and jargon.

***

TLDR:

Tech>Truth (default). I judge the debate in front of me. Debate is a game so learn to play it better or bring an emotional support blanket.

Yes, I will likely understand whatever K you're reading.

Framing, judge instruction and impact work are essential, do it or risk losing to an opponent that does.

There should be an audible transition cue/signal when going from end of card to next argument and/or tag. e.g. "next", "and", or even just a fractional millisecond pause. **Aside from this point, honestly, you can comfortably ignore everything else below. As long as I can flow you, I will follow the debate on your terms.

Additional thoughts:

-My first cx question as a 2N/debater has now become my first question when deciding debates--Why vote aff?

-My ballot is nothing more than a referendum on the AFF and will go to whichever team did the better debating. You decide what that means.

-Your ego should not exceed your skill but cowardice and beta energy are just as cringe.

-Topicality is a question of definitions, Framework is a question of models.

-If I don't have a reason why specifically the aff is net bad at the end of the debate, I will vote aff.

-CASE DEBATE, it's a thing...you should do it...it will make me happy and if done correctly, you will be rewarded heavily with speaks.

-Too many people (affs mainly) get away with blindly asserting cap is bad. Negatives that can take up this debate and do it well can expect favorable speaks.

More category specific stuff below, if you care.

Ks

From low theory to high theory I don't have any negative predispositions.

I do enjoy postmodernism, existentialism and psychoanalysis for casual reading so my familiarity with that literature will be deeper than other works.

Top-level stuff

1. You don't necessarily need to win an alt. Just make it clear you're going for presumption and/or linear disad.

2. Tell me why I care. Framing is uber important.

My major qualm with K debates, as of late, mainly centers around the link debate.

1. I would obvi prefer unique and hyper-spec links in the 1nc but block contextualization is sufficient.

2. Links to the status quo are links to the status quo and do not prove why the aff is net bad. Put differently, if your criticism makes claims about the current state of affairs/the world you need to win why the aff uniquely does something to change or exacerbate said claim or state of the world. Otherwise, I become extremely sympathetic to "Their links are to the status quo not the aff".

Security Ks are underrated. If you're reading a Cap K and cant articulate basic tenets or how your "party" deals with dissent...you can trust I will be annoyed.

CP

- vs policy affs I like "sneaky" CPs and process CPs if you can defend them.

- I think CPs are underrated against K affs and should be pursued more.

- Solvency comparison is rather important.

T

Good Topicality debates around policy affs are underappreciated.

Reasonability claims need a brightline

FWK

Perhaps contrary to popular assumption, I'm rather even on this front.

I think debate is a game...cause it is. So either learn to play it better or learn to accept disappointment.

Framework debates, imo, are a question of models and impact relevance.

Just because I personally like something or think its true, doesn't mean you have done the necessary work to win the argument in a debate.

Neg teams, you lose these debates when your opponent is able to exploit a substantial disconnect between your interp and your standards.

Aff teams, you should answer FW in a way most consistent with the story of your aff. If your aff straight up impact turns FW or topicality norms in debate, a 2AC that is mainly definitions and fairness based would certainly raise an eyebrow.

*Updated November 2023*

CONTACT INFORMATION

Email: thurt11@gmail.com

LD NOTE

I've been in debate for fifteen years as a competitor, judge, and coach. In that time, I've almost exclusively done policy debate (I think I've judged <10 LD rounds ever). That's to say, judging LD at the Glenbrooks will be a bit different for me.

I don't think you'll need to dramatically adjust how you debate. In fact, I'd prefer to judge you in your best style/approach/form. Relatedly, I don't think I'm particularly ideological, and I'm like not a bus driver or parent who has been dropped into the judge pool. That said, be aware of my still-developing topic knowledge, norms of LD, and theory. I will do my best to resolve the debate before me. That said, folks should know that I'll likely have many idiosyncracies of someone who has basically always been in policy debate.

PF NOTE

Much of what is said about LD is true here too. Some thoughts on evidence that I stole from Greg Achten:

First, I strongly oppose the practice of paraphrasing evidence. If I am your judge I would strongly suggest reading only direct quotations in your speeches. My above stated opposition to the insertion of brackets is also relevant here. Words should never be inserted into or deleted from evidence.

Second, there is far too much untimed evidence exchange happening in debates. I will want all teams to set up an email chain to exchange cases in their entirety to forego the lost time of asking for specific pieces of evidence. You can add me to the email chain as well and that way after the debate I will not need to ask for evidence. This is not negotiable if I'm your judge - you should not fear your opponents having your evidence. Under no circumstances will there be untimed exchange of evidence during the debate. Any exchange of evidence that is not part of the email chain will come out of the prep time of the team asking for the evidence. The only exception to this is if one team chooses not to participate in the email thread and the other team does then all time used for evidence exchanges will be taken from the prep time of the team who does NOT email their cases.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION

I debated for four years at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Go Packers/Brewers/Bucks! In college, I debated for four years at Michigan State University, earning three first-round bids and a semifinals appearance at the NDT.

Currently, I work on the non-debate side of Michigan State, doing education data analysis, program evaluation, and professional development. On the side, I coach for Georgetown University. I still love debate, but it is no longer my day job. Given that, I'm not a content expert on this topic like some of your other judges might be.

More generally, any given debate can get in-depth quickly, so you should be careful with acronyms/intricacies if you think that your strategy is really innovative or requires a deep understanding of your specific mechanism. Teams sometimes get so deep in the weeds researching their business that they forget to provide a basic explanation for the argument's context/history/background. Instead, they jump into the most advanced part of the topic. If something is creative, that's an issue because it's likely the judge's first time hearing it.

Everyone says it and almost no one means it, but I think that you should debate what you care about/what interests you/what you're good at doing. In other words, put me in the "big-tent" camp. All of the stuff below is too long and shouldn't impact your debating (maybe besides the meta issues section). It really is just my thoughts (vs. a standard), and is only included to offer insight into how I see debate.

META ISSUES/ABBREVIATED PHILOSOPHY/STRIKE CARD ESSENTIAL

1. Assuming equal debating (HUGE assumption), I'm *really* bad for the K on the neg/as planless aff. I find myself constantly struggling with questions in decision-time like: Does the neg ACTUALLY have a link to the plan's MECHANISM or even their SPECIFIC representations? What is the alternative? How does that advocacy change the extremely sweeping and entrenched problems identified in the 1NC/2NC impact evidence? If it's so effective, why doesn't it overcome the links to the plan? If the alt is just about scholarship/ethics/some -ology, how does that compare to material suffering outlined by the 1AC? This year, some of these biases are accentuated by the "disarm" and negative state action planks of the topic. On the affirmative, I think there are many creative ways to critically defend the idea of ending nuclear weapons (especially by the "United States" rather than the "United States federal government"). On the negative, I have hitherto been unimpressed with the Ks of "disarm" (like the ACTUAL "We end the nukes and dismantle them because they risk horrific US first use/nukes are bad" disarm) I've seen.

In the end, when I vote negative for Ks or affirmative for planless affs, it's generally because the losing team dropped a techy ballot like ethics first, serial policy failure, or "we're a PIK." Do you, don't overadapt, and feel confident that I approach every debate with the intention of deciding the question of "who did the better debating?" REGARDLESS of the subject of the debate. Relatedly, know that I'm excited to have the chance to evaluate your arguments (even if it's really late and I'd rather not be judging at all in the abstract) basically no matter what you say. Instead, I would take my above biases as things to keep an eye out for from your opponents/come up with novel responses to/overcover/etc.

2. College debate made me more oriented to tech than truth. In my experience as a debater and judge, ignorance of tech resulted in a callous dismissal of arguments as “bad” and increased judge intervention to determine what is “correct” instead of what was debated in the round and executed more effectively. That said, truth is a huge bonus, and being on the right side makes your task of being technically proficient easier because you can let logic/evidence speak a little for you.

3. I care about evidence quality - to an extent. Debate is a communicative activity, and I'm not going to re-read broad swaths of evidence to ensure that your opponents read a card on all their claims. To be clear, I do think that part of my role in judging is comparing evidence *when it's contested and through the lens with which it was challenged.* Put concretely, if your 2NR says "all their evidence is trash and doesn't say anything" or is silent on evidence comparison, I'm not gonna be doing you any favors and looking at the speech doc. I'm certainly not going to be reading un-underlined text in 1AC/1NC cards without explicit direction of what I'm looking for. Instead, if you're like "Their no prolif cards are all before Kishida and only talk about means vs. motive," I'm happy to read a pile of cards, looking to assess their quality on those two grounds. If that sounds time-consuming for your final rebuttals, it is. You should create time by condensing the debate down to the core issues/places of evidentiary disagreement.

4. Every round could use more calculus and comparisons. The most obvious example of this thesis is with impact calc, but I think there is a laundry list of other examples like considering relative risk, quality of evidence, and author qualifications. As a format, any of these comparisons should have a reason why your argument is preferable, a reason why that frame is important, and a reason why your opponent’s argument is poor/viewed through a poor lens. In the context of impact calc, this framework means saying that your impact outweighs on timeframe, that timeframe is important, and that while your opponent’s impact might have a large magnitude, I should ignore that frame of decision-making. Engaging your opponents’ arguments on a deeper level and resolving debates is the easiest way to get good points. Beyond that, making a decision is functionally comparing each team’s stance/evidence quality/technical ability on a few nexus questions, so if you’re doing this work for me you will probably like my decision a lot more.

5. I hold debaters to a high standard for making an argument. Any claim should be supported with a warrant, evidence, and impact on my decision. Use early speeches to get ahead on important questions. For instance, I won’t dismiss something like “Perm do Both,” but I think the argument would be bolstered by a reason why the perm is preferable in the 2AC (i.e. how it interacts with the net benefits) instead of saving those arguments for the 1AR/2AR. By the way, you should consider this point my way out in post-rounds where you're like "but I said X...It was right here!" For me, if something is important enough to win/lose a debate, you should spend a significant amount of time there, connect, and make sure your claim is *completely* and *thoughtfully* warranted.

6. All debates have technical mistakes, but not all technical mistakes are equal or irreversible. Given those assumptions, the best rebuttals recognize flaws and make “even if” statements/explain why losing an argument does not mean they lose the debate. I think debaters fold too often on mistakes. Just because you dropped a theory argument doesn’t mean you cannot cross-apply an argument from another theory argument, politics, or T to win.

7. I'm a bad judge for yes/no arguments like "presumption," "links to the net benefit absolutely," or "zero risk of X." I think the best debaters work in the grey areas.

8. Things people don't do enough:

a) Start with the title for their 1NC off case positions (i.e. first off states)

b) Give links labels (i.e. our "docket crowdout link" or "our bipart link")

c) Explain what their plan actually does - For instance (in college), what nuclear forces do you disarm? Who does it? What is the mechanism? I've decided that if the aff is vague to an egregious extent, I'll be super easy on the negative with DA links and CP competition. Aff vagueness is also a link to circumvention and explains why fiat doesn't solve definitional non-compliance. I will say, I'd rather lacking aff clarity (e.g. when aff's include resolutional language in their plan and say "plan text in a vacuum") be resolved by PICs/topic DAs than by T. I don't think that the negative gets to fully define the plan or have some weird positional competition vision for T even if I think 2As frequently dance around what they do. Punish affs for ambiguity and lazy plan writing for the purposes of T on substance!

d) Call out new arguments - I don't have sympathy if you *wish* you said no impact in the 2AC. There are times that I wish it existed, but there isn't and can't be a 3AC. I will say that for mostly pragmatic reasons, I'm not to the point of reviewing every new 1AR argument. I'll protect the 2NR for the 2AR, but you have to do the work before that.

9. Random (likely to change) topic thoughts:

a) Both sides are likely to get to some risk of Russia and/or China nuke war. The best 2Ns/2As will dehomogenize these impacts based on scenarios for escalation and their internal links.

b) Be careful your UQ CP doesn't overwhelm the link to your DA. Sometimes the neg goes a bit too far. I do love a good UQ CP though!

c) This is a rare topic where I'm less interested in process stuff! Who would've thought?

d) Debated equally, I'm 60/40 that we should include NFU subsets and "disarm" actions that fall short of "elimination/abolition." I get the evidence is good. I'd just abstractly rather have these arguments as affs than PICs/would prefer a bit more than the smallest topic since single payer.

GENERIC DISPOSITIONS

Planless affirmatives – The affirmative would ideally have a plan that defends action by the United States (least important). The affirmative should have a direct tie to the topic. In the context of the college resolution, this means you would have a defense of decreasing nukes/their role (pretty important). The affirmative MUST defend the implementation of said "plan" - whatever it is (MOST important). While I will NOT immediately vote negative on T or “Framework” as a procedural issue, if you don’t defend instrumental implementation of a topical plan *rooted in the resolutional question*, you will be in a tough spot. I’m especially good for T/Framework if the affirmative dodges case turns and debates over the question if nukes are good or bad. In particular, I am persuaded by arguments about why these affirmatives are unpredictable, under-limit the topic, and create a bad heuristic for problem-solving. Short version is that you can do you and there is always a chance I’ll vote for you, but I’m probably not an ordinal one for teams that don’t want to engage the resolutional question.

I do want to say that at tournaments with relaxed prefs, I will do my absolute best to keep an open mind about these assumptions. That shouldn't be read as "Thur says he's open to our planless aff - let's move him up to push down 'policy' people." It should be read as if I come up at one of these tournaments, you might as well do what you're most comfortable with/what you've practiced the most instead of over-adapting.

Critiques—Honestly, just read the first point in the "meta issues" section. I understand neolib/deterrence/security pretty well because they were a big part of my major. If you want to push against my confusion on the K (as a concept), you need to have specific links to the plan’s actions, authors, or representations. Again, trying to be honest, if you're itching to say Baudrillard, Bataille, Deleuze, death good, etc., I'm not your guy. On framework, the affirmative will almost surely be able to weigh their 1AC (unless they totally airball), and I'm pretty hesitant to place reps/scholarship/epistemology before material reality. One other thing - substitute out buzzwords and tags for explanation. Merely saying "libidinal economy" or "structural antagonism" without some evidence and explanation isn't a win condition.

In terms of being affirmative against these arguments, I think that too often teams lose sight of the easy ballots and/or tricks. The 1AR and 2AR need to “un-checklist” those arguments. In terms of disproving the critique, I think I’m pretty good for alternative fails/case outweighs or the permutation with a defense of pragmatism or reformism. Of those 2 - I'm best for "your alt does nothing...we have an aff..."

Case- I’m a huge fan. With that, I think that it’s very helpful for the neg (obviously?). I believe that no matter what argument you plan to go for, (excluding T/theory) case should be in some part of the 2nr. In the context of the critique, you can use case arguments to prove that the threats of the 1AC are flawed or constructed, that there are alternative causes to the affirmative that only the alternative solves, or that the impacts of the affirmative are miniscule and the K outweighs. For CPs, even if you lose a solvency deficit, you can still win because the net benefit outweighs the defended affirmative. Going for case defense to the advantage that you think the CP solves the least forces me to drop you twice as I have to decide the CP doesn’t solve AND that the case impact outweighs your net-benefit. That seems like a pretty good spot to be in.

CP- My favorite ones are specific to the 1AC with case turns as net benefits. Aside from that, I think that I am more inclined than most to vote aff on the perm when there is a trivial/mitigated net benefit vs. a smallish solvency deficit, but in the end I would hope you would tell me what to value first. I had a big section written up on theory, and I decided it's too round-dependent to list out. I still think that more than 2 conditional positions is SUPER risky, functional > textual competition, competition is dictated by mandates and not outcomes (i.e. CPs that are designed to spur follow-on are very strategic), judge kick is good, consult/condition/delay/threaten generally suck, and interpretations matter A LOT.

Topicality- People have started flagging violations based on things not in the plan (solvency lines, advocate considerations, aff tags, 2ac arguments, etc.). This is a bad way to understand T debates. The affirmative defines the plan, positional competition is bad, plan text in a vacuum makes sense, and the way to beat teams that include resolutional language in the plan is on PICs not T.

I default to reasonability, but I can be convinced that Competing Interpretations is a decent model. The negative does not need actual abuse, but they do need to win why their potential abuse is likely as opposed to just theoretical. That is, I'll be less persuaded by a 25-item case list than a really good explanation of a few devastating new affirmatives they allow. If I were to pick only one standard to go for, it would be predictable limits. They shape all pre-round research that guides in-round clash and ensure that debates are dialogues instead of monologues. Finally, as a framing point, I generally think bigger topics = better.

SPEAKER POINTS

They're totally broken...

I'll try to follow the below scale based on where points have been somewhat recently.

29.4 to 29.7 – Speaker Award - 1 to 10

29.2 to 29.3 – Speaker Award - 11 to 25

28.9 to 29.1 – Should break/Have a chance

28.4 to 28.8 – Outside chance at breaking to .500

28 to 28.3 – Not breaking, sub-.500

27 to 27.9 – Keep working

Below 26 – Something said/done warranting a post-round conversation with coaches

Ashe Tippins - they/them pronouns (she/her is not preferred but i'm not gonna correct you if you use it, just try to like not)

ashe.tippins@gmail.com // please include me on any email chain that is created for the round

First a little about me as a debater: I debated in college parli debate for four years at Western Washington University off and on between 2010-2016 (yes i'm old, but hey at least i've seen a lot of rounds lmao). I coached high school policy debate for two years. In the six years since I debated, I have coached and judged rounds in a variety of formats; I, now, coach policy and CARD debate at Western Washington University.

How I evaluate a round: My evaluation of a round does not change based on the arguments presented in the round. The only exception being debate performances that present sufficient cause to abandon the guidelines I have listed below. Such performances are; arguments that have won on the flow but are morally reprehensible (i.e. arguments that advocate for transphobia, antiblackness, colonialism, misogyny, antifatness, ableism, etc.), ad hominin based arguments*, and arguments that preclude another debater's ability to compete (i.e. triggering arguments). My bright line for abandoning the evaluation method outlined below is; 1) the performance of one of the listed behaviors above being present within the debate round, and 2) the argument is made that the team must be voted against for their performance within the debate. I would prefer that teams collapse to the performative exclusion type arguments however, a collapse is not necessary for me to vote on the argument. I do not enjoy voting on these arguments and I prefer to default to my stated evaluation method; i do not think a minor performance of these listed behaviors will be enough for me to exclude an entire team rather than simply excluding the argument**. *Ad hominin based arguments about public figures, authors, or rapists are not performances I would include within this designation. **this does not apply to performance-based arguments, simply arguments concerning the performance of the debaters’ opponents in the round.

A Note About Misgendering Your Opponents: DON'T DO IT! You are not always gonna know ahead of time, so ASK and never assume. If your opponent lets you know that you have misgendered them and you do not stop misgendering them, I WILL VOTE YOU DOWN. This functions the same way that the performance-based reasons to evaluate the round differently function; the only differing factor is that I have a zero-tolerance policy for continued misgendering within the debate round.

1. FRAMEWORK: By the very nature of framework, it must come first in any evaluation. Comparison work must be done between competing framework interpretations; simply giving further examples of your own framework is not sufficient. Framework decides which impacts must be solved for and which types of arguments I should prefer when making my decision. Role of the ballot arguments also need to be a full argument [claim-warrant-impact] as opposed to an assertion.  

2. INTERNAL LINKS/SOLVENCY: After determining which impacts must be solved (the point of framework debates), it is a question of who solves the impacts best. This is; CP solvency vs. Plan solvency – Alt Solvency vs. Plan solvency – Plan solvency vs. Status Quo Solvency – Standards internal link vs. counter standards internal link.

a. If the framework and uniqueness are agreed upon, then my decision will be for the team that best solves for the agreed upon impacts.

b. If the framework is won by either side, my decision will be for the team that best solves for the impacts that the winning interpretation prioritizes.

c. Under the winning framework, if solvency of the impacts is sufficiently contested and justified by each team, it is a question of uniqueness and the evaluation continues.

3. UNIQUENESS: There is all types of uniqueness – link turn uniqueness, uniqueness overwhelms the link, disad uniqueness, internal link turn uniqueness, etc. – and justifying sufficient uniqueness for your offense is the way to edge your way out of a close debate in front of me.

a. If the team wins that their instance of solvency is unique in some way - i.e. there's an opportunity cost or solving for a problem now allows future problems to have greater solvency - then the team that has the most unique solvency will have my ballot.

b. Conversely, if a team wins that there is no uniqueness for the other teams solvency - i.e. the problem could be solved later or will be solved by enacting some alternative to the presented advocacy - then the question becomes what percentage of the impact did each team win and which type of solvency should be preferred. This is where impact calculus comes in - magnitude, probability, reversibility, and timeframe. Realistically these are just impact framework arguments however, if there is no uncontested or cleanly won uniqueness for either sides impact solvency and there is nearly equal claim to solvency then it is ONLY a question of what type of solvency is best. These questions are answered by impact calculus and impact comparison. Too many times debaters leave this last question to the judge - which results in unhappy debaters and judges - if you want to be in control of the decision in front of me - then simply tell me how to vote and i'll follow you like jazz.

Dartmouth, Interlake. He/him.

Email Chain

Add me: ant981228 at gmail dot com

College people, add: debatedocs at googlegroups dot com

Please include the tournament, round, and teams debating in the subject line of the email.

Key Things to Know

I will flow and vote based on the things you said. Negs can say whatever but the more it says the plan is bad the better. Conditionality and judge kick are good. Affs should be T and are likely to lose if they aren't. If you say death good you lose. If you ask for a 30 you will get a 25.

I do a lot of work during tournaments and will be tired on their last few days. I have found that this makes it harder for me to focus. To counteract this, I have gone back to flowing on paper, which I have found helps me process the debate as it is happening. You will benefit if you make my paper flowing life easier (give me time to flip the page, warn me if you're going to make an abnormally large number of arguments about part of the flow, tell me to make an overview or framework page if I need one, etc.).

Online

I STRONGLY prefer that all cameras be on whenever anyone in the debate is speaking, but I understand if internet or other considerations prevent this.

If my camera is off, assume I am away from my computer and don't start talking. If you start your speech while I am away from my computer you do not get to restart. That is on you.

Here is how to successfully adjust to the online setting:

1. Inflect more when you are talking.

2. Put your face in frame. Ideally, make it so you can see the judge.

3. Get a microphone, put it close to your face, talk into it, make sure there is an unobstructed line between it and your mouth.

4. Talk one at a time.

T/L

Tech determines truth unless it's death good. If you tell me to embrace death because life is bad I will vote against you even if you do not go for the argument. More broadly, all else being equal, I strongly prefer to solve problems without resorting to violence or force if possible.

Otherwise, unless my role as a judge is changed, I will attempt to make the least interventionary decision. This means:

1. I will identify the most important issues in the debate, decide them first based on the debating, then work outward.

2. What is conceded is absolutely true, but will only have the implications that you say it has. Unless something is explicitly said, conceded, and extended, or is an obvious and necessary corollary of something that is said, conceded, and extended, I will attempt to resolve it, rather than assuming it.

3. I will intervene if there is no non-interventionary decision.

4. I will attempt to minimize the scope of my intervention by simplifying the decision-making process. I would prefer to decide fewer issues. If an issue seems hard to resolve without intervening, I will prioritize evaluating ballots that don't require resolving that issue.

This procedure typically means (for example):

1. I will prioritize resolution of impact claims.

2. I will deprioritize resolution of claims that do not affect the relative magnitude of two sides' offense. For example, in a DA/case debate where turns case is conceded, uniqueness is often irrelevant since aff solvency is reduced to the same extent neg offense is inevitable.

I am aware that this procedure can influence my assessment of substance. Given infinite decision time, I would decide every question in the debate. However, shrinking decision times make this impractical. Minutes spent resolving complex or under-debated issues that are not outcome-determinative trade off with the quality of my assessment of issues that are. I believe this process net reduces error costs.

As of end-of-season 2024, I have voted aff 47% of the time, and sat on 11% of panels.

I often vote quickly. This does not necessarily mean the debate was lopsided or bad; more likely, it is a sign that the teams clearly communicated the relationships between their arguments, allowing me to perform evaluations as the debate is happening. If I take a long time that means I was unable to do this, either because there was significant complexity in the debate or because communication was poor.

The following are my inclinations - if you don't like them you can change them through debating.

DAs

The agenda DA will usually not survive a rich, accurate description of the current legislative agenda based on thoughtfully reading the news.

CPs

If no one says anything I will assume I can judge kick. It is very hard to use theory to stop me from thinking about the status quo. Nothing but conditionality is a voting issue. Pretty neg on most theory, except fiating out of your own straight turned offense.

Competition is usually more impactful than theory. Theory arguments that logically presume you have won a competition argument ("CPs that steal the aff are a voting issue" assumes you have demonstrated that the CP has stolen the aff, which is a competition argument. "CPs that are not functionally and textually competitive are a voting issue"... come on, what are we doing here) are a waste of time. Just win the competition argument.

Functional competition + explaining what your plan does + definitions + reasons to prefer your definitions >>>>> anything involving the concept of textual competition. Textual competition is mind poison that corrupts any competition model it touches. "Should =/= immediate" plus a cr

If I can't explain what a CP does and how it accomplishes whatever the neg says it does, I am unlikely to vote for it. You can avoid this by writing a meaningful CP text AND explaining it in the speech.

T

I like judging good T debates. I really don't like judging bad ones. What sets these apart is specific application of broad offense to interpretations and impact debating that is specific to internal links, grounded in a vivid vision for debates under your topic.

I do not think the intrinsic value of being "factually correct" about your T argument is very high.

Many parts of a T argument can be enhanced with cards - e.g. link to limits, claims of aff/neg bias in the literature, predictability via prodicts/indicts.

Argue by analogy and comparison to other affs, especially in CX.

Ks / Planless Affs

Good for specific Ks on the neg, bad for random backfile slop, bad for K affs, death good = L.

If your K is secretly a DA, refer to the DA section. If your K is not a DA then yes, you need framework and you need an alternative. Whatever issue your framework says should determine the round should be what your link, impact, and alt are about.

I do not judge many debates involving nontraditional affs. The biggest hurdles to voting aff for me are usually: 1) why can't the aff be read on the neg, 2) why is the aff's offense inherent to resolutional debate or to voting neg on framework instead of some avoidable examples, and 3) how do I reconcile the aff's vision of debate or the topic with debate's inherently (even if not exclusively) competitive nature.

I am very willing to entertain arguments that attempt to denaturalize debate as competition but struggle when these critiques lack an alternative or a theory of why debate as a way of putting two teams and a judge in conversation with one another is nevertheless useful.

I think affs that creatively reinterpret the resolution in a way that does not create excessively demanding curricular demands would be more up my alley, but no one has tested this, so proceed with caution.

I am open to different understandings of what it means for things to compete if there is no plan. However, "no plan, no perms" is nonsense.

The only effect of my ballot is to decide the winner.

Speaker Points

Strong strategy, being fun/engaging to watch, being smart, being classy, being clear = higher speaks.

Making wrong strategic choices, being underprepared or ignorant about substance, making CXs annoying/pointless, making bad arguments, being needlessly mean, being a mumbler... = lower speaks.

I do not view speaker points as divorced from substance.

My points are slightly below average.

Asking for a 30 will yield a 25.

Ethics and Conduct

If the tabroom tells me to do something, it is not up for debate. I will do that thing. The rest is what I will do if left to my own devices.

Evidence ethics (out of context? straw-person? lied about quals? cut in middle of paragraph?) should be debated out like any other theory argument. Alternative remedies short of an automatic loss could be more responsive or proportional to the harm: scratching the argument AND evidence, scratching only the evidence and treating the argument as if it is made analytically, assuming an author is absolutely unqualified, requiring the team to produce the full text of articles in question, requiring the violating team to establish a paper trail authenticating other important evidence and presuming unauthenticated evidence to be fabricated, requiring a team to produce the full text of every article in the debate and presuming unauthenticated evidence to be fabricated, reducing speaker points, informing the team's coaches after the fact. They MAY be a reason to reject the team, but I will not treat them as such by default.

Clipping - claiming you read words from evidence that you did not read - is different, and a voting issue. It is a form of dishonesty that irreparably distorts teams' speech times, which affects every other issue in the debate, and which opponents are uniquely poorly positioned to police. If you are inexperienced or appear to have clipped by mistake, I will be lenient. Otherwise, it is non-negotiable.

Thoughts on stopping the debate early:

1. This is an exceptional measure to be avoided if possible.

2. Once the debate stops because of an ethics challenge, my first step is to consult the tabroom and do whatever they say.

3. Unless expressly instructed otherwise by the tabroom, the debate will not resume once stopped. The winner and loser will be determined solely by the ethics challenge.

4. An accusing team can stop the debate at any time except during a speech or a cross-ex. They win if they are correct, present compelling evidence that they are correct, and I agree that the conduct justifies a penalty loss. The winner will receive 28.5 and 28.6. Losers who have personally committed an ethics violation receive the lowest points allowed. Losers who have not personally committed an ethics violation - either due to an unsuccessful accusation, or because the partner committed the violation - receive a 27 and 27.1.

5. During the dispute, both teams must engage in good faith. The accusing team must submit evidence of their accusation as soon as possible. I will not consider evidence submitted within 20 minutes of decision time. Any filibustering or other unreasonable behavior by the accusing team will result in a win for the accused.

6. An accused team can stop the debate, even if the accusing team does not wish to do so, if the accusation concerns the fundamental academic integrity of the accused. This is a very high bar.

7. An accusing team may ask me if I believe certain conduct justifies a penalty loss without stopping the debate. I will take judge prep to answer. This answer is not an invitation to negotiate and obviously doesn't bind the tabroom.

8. I will proactively end the debate for clipping. I will not do this for other evidence ethics or academic integrity issues.

9. Basically none of this applies to novice or JV, where I will resolve the dispute as quickly and narrowly as possible with the aim of maximizing the number of speeches that can happen.

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

T—I prefer limits over ground arguments. Rather than right to particular ground I would like interpretations argued in terms of the predictability of the research burden/definition. Case lists are important. I consider T an argument that doesn't specify the relationship between the debaters and the resolutional actor (i.e. how the debate is evaluated and what the role of the judge for evaluating the debate is still in question).  To me, framework is a category of arguments that establish a limit that restricts not just the resolution but the role for the judge.  I find most framework arguments unnecessarily restrictive in their interpretation about how we impact/assess a debate whereas a T interpretation can maintain significant freedom for different ways of couching an affirmative while providing predictable limits. For this reason kritiks of T are difficult for me to accept, while criticisms of framework have frequently been successful. 

DAs- I’m unlikely to assess uniqueness/link in absolute terms.  It tends to be easier to get me to consider direction/quality of link & internal link over uniqueness.   Evidence qualifications are important. I probably give analytic and defensive arguments more weight than many judges. 

CPs--I've rarely voted against CPs for theory reasons. This probably has more to do with what affs are willing to do/commit time to more than it demonstrates any real appeal of certainty-based competition arguments. 

K pickiness—I am more open to aff inclusion and textless alternatives than most. I am frustrated by debates where the alternative “vote negative” squares off against permute “do all the parts of the alternative that don’t compete with the plan.” Those are both just abstract descriptions of what any alternative or permutation entails. In depth debate on these issues might be helped by being less tied to a text and more to not being obnoxious in the c/x in describing an alternative. Pay attention to language/phrasing—pull quotes from evidence and speechs instead of debating author names (Yes, pot-kettle, but still). I prefer Ks that aren’t debated like disads—too much big impact/impact turn and not enough about the aff/alt from either side in most debates I judged. Neg link arguments should include reference to 1AC evidence/tags. Historical examples help a lot for either side.
 
Theory—I tend to dislike theory debates focused on narrow comparison of interpretations.  For the most part, people would be better off discussing the logical implications of a practice rather than a potentially arbitrary implementation of that practice (i.e. conditionality rather than "neg gets 1 CP and 1K").   I am biased in favor of conditionality, though not that strongly.  To me, "status quo is always a logical option" or other logic-oriented defenses of conditionality require a judge to evaluate the plan versus the status quo even if the negative goes for their CP.  I say this for clarifying purposes -- this has very rarely changed the outcome of a debate that I have judged.  I often judge debates that do not presume conventional plan-focused models for debate yet still contain theory arguments that presume a plan-focused terminology and its resulting constraints.  I point this out only to suggest that I think debaters should devote some time to thinking about the consequences of strucutral changes in the form of debate that they advocate for the smaller theoretical practices that occur within those debates. 

Evidence comparison. In most debates I’ve judged if I hear about the other side’s evidence it’s only in the 2NR/2AR or it’s about how the opponent’s evidence is “terrible.” Granted, many people read terrible evidence, nevertheless, sophisticated evidence comparison should begin early in the debate. I intensely dislike random unqualified internet evidence.

I prefer cross-ex strategies premised on listening to an opponent's answer and using it in a subsequent speech, not posturing/arguing as though c/x were another speech.

I'm a bit of grump, especially when it comes to my consistent facial expressions in debates.  It's not often that is about you,  the debaters.  I often talk a great deal after debates. 

I desperately wish I were funny so I will probably appreciate your humor even if I rarely laugh out-loud. My sense of humor is definitively geeky. My speaker point scale is lower than our current average.  I've tried to get more in line with current norms so as not to punish people for speaker point inflation.  That said, for high points (28.5+) I still need to be impressed. 

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

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

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

Top Level

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Online Debate

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

Theory

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

T

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

DAs and CPs

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

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

Ks

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

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

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

K Affs

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

Framework

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

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

Debate Ethics

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

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

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

Debate History:

Juan Diego Catholic: 2011-2014 (1N/2A and 1A/2N)

Rowland Hall-St. Marks: 2014-2015 (1A/2N)

University of Michigan: 2015-2019 (1A/2N)

University of Kentucky: 2019-2020 (Assistant Coach)

Wake Forest University: Present (Assistant Coach)

*Please put me on the email chain: caitlinp96@gmail.com - NO POCKETBOXES OR WHATEVER PLEASE AND THANK YOU*

TL;DR: You do you, and I'll flow and judge accordingly. Make smart arguments, be yourself, and have fun. Ask questions if you have them post-round / time permits. I would rather you yell at me (with some degree of respect) and give me the chance to explain why you lost so that you can internalize it rather than you walk away pissed/upset without resolution. An argument = claim + warrant. You may not insert rehighlighted evidence into the record - you have to read it, debate is a communicative activity.

General thoughts: I enjoy debate immensely and I hope to foster that same enjoyment in every debate I judge. With that being said, you should debate how you like to debate and I’ll judge fairly. I will immediately drop a team and give zero speaks if you make this space hostile by making offensive remarks or arguments that make it unsafe for others in the round (to be judged at my discretion). Clipping accusations must have audio or some form of proof. Debaters do not necessarily have to stake the round on an ethics violation. I also believe that debaters need to start listening to each other's arguments more, not just flowing mindlessly - so many debates lose potential nuance and clash because debaters just talk past each other with vague references to the other team's arguments. I can't/won't vote on an argument about something that happened outside the debate. I have no way of falsifying any of this and it's not my role as a judge. This doesn't apply to new affs bad if both teams agree that the aff is new, but if it's a question of misdisclosure, I really wouldn't know what to do (stolen from DML and Goldschlag). *NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me. (stolen from Val)

General K thoughts:

- AT: Do you judge these debates/know what is happening? Yes, its basically all I judge anymore (mostly clash of civs)

- AT: Since you are familiar with our args, do we not have to do any explanation specific to the aff/neg args? No, you obviously need to explain things

- AT: Is it cool if I just read Michigan KM speeches I flowed off youtube? If you are reading typed out copies of someone else's speech, I'm going to want to vote against you and will probably be very grumpy. Debate is a chance for you to show off your skill and talent, not just copy someone's speech you once saw on youtube.

K (Negative) – enjoyable if done well. Make sure the links are specific to the case and cause an impact. Make sure that the alt does something to resolve those impacts and links as well as some aff offense OR have a framework that phases out aff offense and resolves yours. Assume I know nothing about your literature base. Try not to have longer than a 2-minute overview

K (Affirmative) / Framework – probably should have some relation to the resolution otherwise it's easy to be persuaded that by the interp that you need to talk about the resolution. Probably should take some sort of action to resolve whatever the aff is criticizing. I think FW debates are important to have because they force you to question why this space has value and/or what needs to change in said space. Negative teams should prove why the aff destroys fairness and why that is bad. Affirmative teams should have a robust reason why their aff is necessary to resolve certain impacts and why framework is bad. Both teams need a vision of what debate looks like if I sign my ballot aff or neg and why that vision is better than the other side’s. Fairness is an impact and is easily the one I'm most persuaded by, particularly if couched in terms of it being the only impact any individual ballot can solve AND being a question of simply who's model is most debatable (think competing interps).

T is distinct from Framework in these debates in so far as I believe that:

- T is a question of form, not content -- it is fundamentally content neutral because there can be any number of justifications beyond simply just the material consequences of hypothetical enactment for any number of topical affs

- Framework is more a question of why this particular resolution is educationally important to talk about and why the USfg is the essential actor for taking action over these questions

Case – Please, please, please debate the case. I don’t care if you are a K team or a policy team, the case is so important to debate. Most affs are terribly written and you could probably make most advantages have almost zero risk if you spent 15 minutes before round going through aff evidence. Zero risk exists.

CPs – Sure. Negative teams need to prove competition and why they are net beneficial to the aff. Affirmative needs to impact out solvency deficits and/or explain why the perm avoids the net benefit. Affs also must win some form of offense to outweigh a DA (solvency deficits, theory, impact turn to an internal nb/plank of the cp) otherwise I could be persuaded that the risk of neg offense outweighs a risk a da links to the cp, the perm solvency, etc.

DAs – Also love them. Negative teams should tell me the story of the DA through the block and the 2nr. Affirmative teams need to point out logical flaws in the DA and why the aff is a better option. Zero risk exists.

Politics – probably silly, but I’ll vote on it. I could vote on intrinsicness as terminal defense if debated well.

Topicality – You need a counter-interp to win reasonabilty on the aff. I default to competing interpretations if there is no other metric for evaluation.

Theory – the neg has been getting away with murder recently and its incredibly frustrating. Brief thoughts on specific args below:

- cps with a bunch of planks to fiat out of every possible solvency deficit with no solvency advocate = super bad

- 3+ condo with a bunch of conditional planks = bad

- cps that fiat things such as: "Pence and Trump resign peacefully after [x] date to avoid the link to the politics da", "Trump deletes all social media and never says anything bad about the action of the plan ever", "Trump/executive office/other actor decides never to backlash against the plan or attempt to circumvent it" = vomit emoji

- commissions cps = still cheating, but less bad than all the things above

- delay cps = boo

- consult cps = boo (idk if these exist on the immigration topic, but w/e)

- going for theory when you read a new aff = nah fam (with some exceptions)

- 2nr cps (yes this happened recently) = boo

- going for condo when they read 2 or less without conditional planks = boo

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

- theory probably does not outweigh T unless impacted very early, clearly, and in-depth

Bonus – Speaker Point Outline – I’ll try to follow this very closely (TOC is probably the exception because y'all should be speaking in the 28.5+ category):

(Note: I think this scale reflects general thoughts that are described in more detail in this: http://collegedebateratings.weebly.com/points-scale.html - Thanks Regnier)

29.3 < (greater than 29.3) - Did almost everything I could ask for

29-29.3 – Very, very good

28.8 – 29 – Very good, still makes minor mistakes

28.5 – 28.7 – Pretty good speaker, very clear, probably needs some argument execution changes

28.3 – 28.5 – Good speaker, has some easily identifiable problems

28 – 28.3 – Average varsity policy debater

27-27.9 – Below average

27 > (less than 27) - You did something that was offensive / You didn’t make arguments.

Iowa City High school 2012-2016

Northwestern University 2016-2020

Northwestern University Coach 2020-???

I want on the email chain: josephweideman01@gmail.com

--I generally know more about policy arguments, but I'm happy to vote for the K/think it is very strategic and usually answered badly.

--In K debates, both sides need to do a much better job of: 1) using examples/contextualizing their offense; 2) debating the other team's argument instead of a caricature of their argument; 3) evidence based debating

--I care a lot about evidence quality. I'll usually read a good chunk of the cards during the debate.

--I think a lot of debates are determined by which team has the better strategic vision/ability to weave the different pieces of a debate together into a win. I do not like having to piece together a debate without instruction from debaters on how to do so.

--I will be very quick to ignore evidence composed of sentence fragments that make no grammatical sense when put together.

--Inserting re-highlighting of the other team's ev is fine, but you must explain what you're inserting/why you think it helps you.

--T-USFG/FW: I think the vitriol with which this argument is approached by many people on both sides of this issue is bordering on the absurd. FW has argumentative merit. So do the answers to FW. Clash is good (If you want to convince me otherwise you'll need to explain what debate is without clash). I care less about fairness gripes. Stop saying things are intrinsic goods and instead use descriptive language to explain why they matter. Aff teams' impact usually outweighs but I consistently vote neg when the aff shotguns offense and fails to answer the neg's defense/tricks and/or because clash turns aff offense.

--I am uninterested in adjudicating personal attacks/arguments about things that happened outside of the debate.

--Conditionality = Good

--T vs Plans: Least favorite type of debate to judge (other than theory debates...maybe). I think evidence quality/predictability matters a lot and its usually silly to put limits above everything else.

--Make choices please.

I did Policy in HS and College. I coached Middle/HS LD for six years, and am now coaching Policy for UWyo.

I am collecting anonymous feedback and data about my judging. If I've judged you and you'd like to contribute, please fill out the form!

Above any ideological loyalty or stylistic preference is my appreciation and need for clean, organized, structured debates.

natalieforensics@gmail.com

Mechanics of Evaluation

I try my hardest to be tabula rasa, but I'm also a person. I vote on dropped arguments more than most people.

Major things that make me different from other judges:

I'm somewhat hard of hearing - try to talk way louder than you would. This is usually only a problem during physical (not online) tournaments and in rooms with much echo. If you are unclear, I'll yell clear twice before I stop flowing. Don't slur your words together. Use complete sentences while avoiding filler words. If you've never recorded yourself giving a speech and tried to flow yourself, chances are you think you are far clearer than you really are.

Tech and Truth - it's not hard for me to see the connections between arguments. I vote on many conceded args with impacts, and heavily undercovered args. I guess that makes me more of a tech judge, but I also will be very grumpy about arguments that don't make sense, so I'll vote on them but I'll complain about having voted on them.

1ar/2nr/2ar dynamics - I like to protect the 2nr. If the arg wasn't in the 1ar or the 2ar pivot is outlandish, it can be a problem for me. That being said if the 2nr spin on the block strat is heavy, 2ars should be pointing that out as a reason to justify new 2ar args.

Speech docs- I hate having to follow along on the doc. I think debaters' flowing skills have rapidly deteriorated since judges were added to speech docs. But now, with mixed modalities, it's very much necessary. That being said, I'm not gonna base much of my decisions on your evidence unless there's a disagreement about what it says - the parts that are most relevant should be paraphrased and cited by author name and the speech they were introduced in the rebuttals.

It's also silly how often people spread through their analytics (especially on theory) as though they're highlighting within a card and expect the judge to follow along on the speech doc.

Try to be pleasant - It's not gonna swing my ballot unless it's turned into an argument, which usually has to do with critiques of how people talk.

Events that happened out of round -This is a gray area for me. I guess on some level I think you should be held accountable for things that happened that can be proven to have happened. On the other hand, how many times does someone have to lose on something for them to be free of their past? I guess that's for y'all to debate about and me to find out.

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Ideologies and their Juxtapositions

K v K Debate

This is the format that the algorithm has determined I'm destined to judge the most...

Be organized. Distinguish between claim warrant and implications. Writing the story of the ballot can be crucial. Detailed perm theory about what the aff does or does not get to permute is essential for me.

Framework/T-Usfg

When I vote on Framework, there's usually an offensive answer to "you don't address the aff impacts" via a conversation about how affs that have no tie to the topic or completely foreclose upon state engagement to trade off with opportunities to learn about the values of state engagement or ways in which the topic hurts the people the aff is talking about. I do think that soft framework with interps such as "aff must defend a tangible strategy," "aff must have a connection to the resolution," "aff must be in the direction of the resolution," etc. with most of the same justifications as regular framework can be solid round winners in front of me. My neg ballots on this usually start with "the topical version of the affirmative resolves most of the aff's offense and has better inroads into dialogue/clash and advocacy/policymaking skills for the following reasons:" or because the aff undercovered switch-side debate.

Plan v K Debate

Aff: Don't over-rely on framework, perms and theory. Read these arguments when they really make sense, not out of fear of engaging the substance of the K. Make sure that the K actually violates the rules you want to set up before spending time setting up those rules.

Neg: Don't be lazy! Read specific, offensive links with well-explained alts that are both paradigmatic and can be translated into action that helps people. You can advocate for specific solutions (that may or may not be state policies) as examples of a broader and more general alternative. Find a good balance between examples, explanations, and warrants/proof.

Discourse/rhetoric links: this is my jam. Neg teams answering these - perm and framework go a long way, but honestly people should sometimes just defend their rhetoric. You're not gonna have a defense of every word you use so offensive args about why the 1ac performance is net good even if it's messy or not ideologically pure. The defense of the performance of the 1ac is the key here, and what impacts it addresses. Labeling it as "the value of the performance of the 1ac outweighs the negative harms of their links" really goes a long way with me because it's a clearer contextualization of what "policymaking good" and "research on this topic is good" are actually doing for you besides getting you out of "roleplaying bad" debates. This isn't a theory arg either - you're just weighing the costs vs benefits of the 1ac speech act, in addition to a robust strategy about why my ballot should prioritize the outcomes of the plan over the performance of the speech.

Critiques based on consequences: winning the impact/root cause debate is key? Idk what else to say here.

Traditional

I did this style in High School, and while I coach a team that predominantly does traditional debate, I don't spend much time thinking about this side of the topic. My favorite traditional debates have been more technical than most. Since I'm more unfamiliar I tend to be a lot more tech over truth, given as I'm not exactly doing regular work on your politics disad or specific uniqueness claims. I am also not very knowledgeable about what many acronyms on the topic mean.