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Alex Barreto Montgomery Bell Academy 6 rounds

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

v24

Casady 2021 (debated)

University of Kansas 2025 (debating)

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

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

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

Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Especially for policy debates,

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

Especially for k debates,

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

Liberty Belote Emporia High School 4 rounds

Dustyn Beutelspacher Greenhill School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:59 PM EDT

Put me on the email chain: dustyn.beutelspacher@gmail.com

Affiliations: Debated at Niles West in high school, UTD in college. Now coach for UTD and Greenhill school

LD exception - If an argument can be described as a 'trick', please dont read it in front of me. Likewise, if your theory argument is based on something you opponent didn't do, it is probably unpersuasive to me.

TL;DR:

Go for what you want to go for, if you got a K aff, make sure you can beat framework, if you go for a process cp, make sure you can beat theory, etc, etc, I will try my hardest to adapt and judge the round as objectively as possible.

I love line-by-line. The more you engage with your opponent's arguments, the more likely you are to win and the higher your speaks will be.

I won't vote on things that happened out of round or in other debates.

You can insert rehighlightings of the other team's evidence, text of a card only needs to be read once for it to be evaluated.

No racism/sexism/etc, be nice. Don't do that thing where you delete tags or read new affs on paper or stuff like that to make your speech harder to read.

Longer:

I've become more willing to comb through evidence over the years, but it's mostly out of curiosity since debaters seem to be getting better at spinning ev, obviously I have my limits, but the debate includes the debate over the evidence.

I think conditionality is good, it seems to be necessary in this day and age when topics are very broad. I've become more neg biased recently but maybe it's just my disillusion with one unwarranted sentence of condo bad somehow becoming an entire 2ar. Condo in general seems to have gotten significantly more shallow. There probably is some point at which condo becomes bad, but I can't truthfully see myself voting for condo bad absent some egregious neg strategy or technical error.

Since it has come up more than once, my stance on judge kick is that I will presume judge kick if nothing has been said on theory, if the aff wants to win no judge kick, then you must at least make the arg in the 1ar.

You get infinite condo against new or undisclosed affs.

I personally don't particularly like process cps, this is a sliding scale, as consult ICJ or a commission cp seems less competitive than something like a states cp on face, but it seems like people are either unwilling or unable to actually invest time in theory in the 1ar anyways, so it often doesn't matter. I think fiating multiple actors (think both USFG and the states, not the states cp, or fiating compliance with another actor whom you fiat) is probably cheating, but I can be convinced otherwise. I tend to lean neg on theory questions despite all that

I like Ks the more specific the link analysis is. I tend to think of Ks as one or multiple thesis statements that, if won, should theoretically disprove the aff. This means the more you pull warrants from cards, explain the aff in the terms of your K, etc, the more likely it is that you beat the perm since that explanation makes links a lot more salient. That's a lot more persuasive than big aff/neg framework pushes to me

FW/T vs K affs. Since this is the only portion of a paradigm that matters for most pref sheets, yes I will vote on framework, yes I will vote against it. These debates seem to come down to impact comparison, as usually it seems hard to win either topical affs are necessary to prevent the entire collapse of this activity, versus framework is genocide, which makes winning as much of your impact quite important. Fairness impact seem to make intrinsic sense to me if debate is a game, but im not sure why that is a catch-all win if the aff wins debate rounds have impacts.

On a side note, I hate long overviews. Overviews should be for args that either: a. Are significantly more important and necessary for your argument to work, or b. Don't make sense when on the line-by-line (eg, meta-framing for how I should evaluate a debate). If you can do it on the flow, do it on the flow.

Zayn Bhimani St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 1:54 PM CDT

Add me to the chain: zbpolicydebate@gmail.com and smdebatedocs@gmail.com

Top Level: I debated for St. Mark's from 2019-2022. I am a current student at Georgetown.

Tech/Truth, but that doesn't mean abandon all truth--I'll listen to each "if they drop x then we win the debate" argument and be as fair as possible, but I will try my very best to give the benefit of the doubt to well thought out arguments rather than silly shots for the ballot.

I really value impact analysis, you should draw the impacts of the debate out and tell me what I should value more.

I'll love it if you do good case debating, and reward you with high speaks. Prioritize case in the block, it goes a long way.

K's: I am probably not the best judge to pref if you are a high-theory K team. With regards to security, set col, and cap k, I know my way around, so you should be fine. If you run a K-aff, I do buy into T-USFG a little more, but I can be swayed, as with anything ig.

DA: Impact framing is important. I do not want to judge intervene on whether great power war is more important than nuclear terrorism.
I will lean towards 1% chance of the DA. You have to have a very solid, airtight plan if you want to win 0% risk (i.e. DA already happened/impact is impossible)

CP: Counterplans rarely solve 100% of case, but too often AFFs let it happen. Compare solvency deficit impacts with the DA, do not leave that work up to me please. Please EXPLAIN sufficiency framing, don't just say it otherwise I will assume any argument in the 2AR for why CP doesn't solve disproves sufficiency framing.

T: Resolutional debating is hard and confusing, but I will reward teams that do it really well with good speaks. Love watching good T debates, but make sure to have solid understanding of your interps and how they relate to the topic vision.

Closing thoughts: I am pretty open to most arguments. Debate better than the other team and you will win.

Alex Brown Montgomery Bell Academy 2 rounds

Azja Butler New Trier High School 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 6:59 PM CDT

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!

Michael Cerny Hire 4 rounds

Allie Chase Greenhill School 2 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:57 PM CDT

Associate Director of Debate @ Greenhill

Still helping KU in my free time

Please add me to the email chain: a.rae.chase@gmail.com

I love debate and I will do my absolute best to make a decision that makes sense and give a helpful RFD.

Topicality

Competing interpretations are easier to evaluate than reasonability. You need to explain to me how we determine what is reasonable if you are going for reasonability.

Having said that if your intep is so obscure that there isn't a logical CI to it, perhaps it is not a good interpretation.

T debates this year (water topic) have gotten too impact heavy for their own good. I've judged a number of rounds with long overviews about how hard it is to be negative that never get to explaining what affirmatives would be topical under their interp or why the aff interp links to a limits DA and that's hard for me because I think much more about the latter when I think about topicality.

T-USFG/FW

Affirmatives should be about the topic. I will be fairly sympathetic to topicality arguments if I do not know what the aff means re: the topic after the 1AC.

I think teams are meming a bit on both sides of this debate. Phrases like "third and fourth level testing" and "rev v rev debates are better" are kind of meaningless absent robust explanation. Fairness is an impact that I will vote on. Like any other impact, it needs to be explained and compared to the other team's impact. I have also voted on arguments about ethics, education, and pedagogy. I will try my best to decide who wins an impact and which impact matters more based on the debate that happens.

I do not think the neg has to win a TVA to win topicality; it can be helpful if it happens to make a lot of sense but a forced TVA is generally a waste of time.

If the aff is going for an impact turn about debate, it would be helpful to have a CI that solves that impact.

DA’s

I would love to see you go for a disad and case in the 2NR. I do not find it persuasive when an affirmative team's only answer to a DA is impact framing. Impact framing can be important but it is one of a number of arguments that should be made.

I am aware the DA's aren't all great lately. I don't think that's a reason to give up on them. It just means you need a CP or really good case arguments.

K's

I really enjoy an old-fashioned k vs the aff debate. I think there are lots of interesting nuances available for the neg and the aff in this type of debate. Here are some specific thoughts that might be helpful when constructing your strategy:

1. Links of omission are not links. Links of “commission” will take a lot of explaining.

2. Debating the case matters unless there is a compelling framework argument for why I should not evaluate the case.

3. If you are reading a critique that pulls from a variety of literature bases, make sure I understand how they all tie to together. I am persuaded by aff arguments about how it's very difficult to answer the foundation of multiple bodies of critical literature because they often have different ontological, epistemological, psychoanalytic, etc assumptions. Also, how does one alt solve all of that??

4. Aff v. K: I have noticed affirmative teams saying "it's bad to die twice" on k's and I have no idea what that means. Aff framework arguments tend to be a statement that is said in the 2AC and repeated in the 1AR and 2AR - if you want fw to influence how I vote, you need to do more than this. Explain how it implicates how I assess the link and/or alternative solvency.

5. When ontology is relevant - I feel like these debates have devolved into lists of things (both sides do this) and that's tough because what if the things on the list don't resonate?

CP's

Generic counterplans are necessary and good. I think specific counterplans are even better. Counterplans that read evidence from the 1AC or an aff author - excellent! I don't have patience for overly convoluted counterplans supported by barely highlighted ev.

I do not subscribe to (often camp-driven) groupthink about which cp's "definitely solve" which aff's. I strongly disagree with this approach to debate and will think through the arguments on both sides of the debate because that is what debate is about.

Solvency deficits are a thing and will be accounted for and weighed along with the risk of a DA, the size of the DA impact, the size of the solvency deficit, and other relevant factors. If you are fiating through solvency deficits you should come prepared with a theoretical justification for that.

Other notes!

Some people think it is auto-true that politics disads and certain cp's are terrible for debate. I don't agree with that. I think there are benefits/drawbacks to most arguments. This matters for framework debates. A plan-less aff saying "their model results in politics DA's which is obviously the worst" will not persuade absent a warrant for that claim.

Love a good case debate. It's super under-utilized. I think it's really impressive when a 2N knows more about the aff evidence than the aff does.

Please don't be nasty to each other; don't be surprised if I interrupt you if you are.

I don't flow the 1AC and 1NC because I am reading your evidence. I have to do this because if I don't I won't get to read the evidence before decision time in a close debate.

If the debate is happening later than 9PM you might consider slowing down and avoiding especially complicated arguments.

If you make a frivolous or convoluted ethics challenge in a debate that I judge I will ask you to move on and be annoyed for the rest of the round. Legitimate ethics challenges exist and should/will be taken seriously but ethics challenges are not something we should play fast and loose with.

For debating online:

-If you think clarity could even possibly be an issue, slow down a ton. More than ever clarity and quality are more important than quantity.

-If my camera is off, I am not there, I am not flowing your speech, I probably can't even hear you. If you give the 1AR and I'm not there, there is not a whole lot I can do for you.

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

Matt Coleman Washburn Rural High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 11:03 PM PDT

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.

Sean Duff Washburn Rural High School

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 9:30 AM CDT

Debated 4 years at Dowling HS in Des Moines, Iowa (09-12, Energy, Poverty, Military, Space)
Debated at KU (13-15, Energy, War Powers, Legalization)
Previously Coached: Ast. Coach Shawnee Mission Northwest, Lansing High School.
Currently Coaching: Ast. Coach Washburn Rural High School

UPDATE 10/1: CX is closed and lasts three minutes after constructive. I won't listen to questions or answers outside of those three minutes or made by people that aren't designated for that CX. I think it's a bummer that a lot of CXs get taken over by one person on each team. It doesn't give me the opportunity to evaluate debaters or for debaters to grow in areas where they might struggle. I'm going to start using my rounds to curb that.

Top Level
Do whatever you need to win rounds. I have arguments that I like / don't like, but I'd rather see you do whatever you do best, than do what I like badly. Have fun. I love this activity, and I hope that everyone in it does as well. Don't be unnecessarily rude, I get that some rudeness happens, but you don't want me to not like you. Last top level note. If you lose my ballot, it's your fault as a debater for not convincing me that you won. Both teams walk into the room with an equal chance to win, and if you disagree with my decision, it's because you didn't do enough to take the debate out of my hands.

Carrot and Stick
Carrot - every correctly identified dropped argument will be rewarded with .1 speaks (max .5 boost)
Stick - every incorrectly identified dropped argument will be punished with -.2 speaks (no max, do not do this)

General
DAs - please. Impact calc/ turns case stuff great, and I've seen plenty of debates (read *bad debates) where that analysis is dropped by the 1ar. Make sure to answer these args if you're aff.

Impact turns - love these debates. I'll even go so far as to reward these debates with an extra .2 speaker points. By impact turns I mean heg bag to answer heg good, not wipeout. Wipeout will not be rewarded. It will make me sad.

CPs - I ran a lot of the CPs that get a bad rep like consult. I see these as strategically beneficial. I also see them as unfair. The aff will not beat a consult/ condition CP without a perm and/or theory. That's not to say that by extending those the aff autowins, but it's likely the only way to win. I lean neg on most questions of CP competition and legitimacy, but that doesn't mean you can't win things like aff doesn't need to be immediate and unconditional, or that something like international actors are illegit.

Theory - Almost always a reason to reject the arg, not the team. Obviously conditionality is the exception to that rule.

T - Default competing interps. Will vote on potential abuse. Topical version of the aff is good and case lists are must haves. "X" o.w. T args are silly to me.

Ks - dropping k tricks will lose you the debate. I'm fine with Ks, do what you want to. Make sure that what you're running is relevant for that round. If you only run security every round, if you hit a structural violence aff, your security K will not compel me. Make sure to challenge the alternative on the aff. Make sure to have a defense of your epistemology/ontology/reps or that these things aren't important, losing this will usually result in you losing the round.

K affs - a fiat'd aff with critical advantages is obviously fine. A plan text you don't defend: less fine, but still viable. Forget the topic affs are a hard sell in front of me. It can happen, but odds are you're going to want someone else higher up on your sheet. I believe debate is good, not perfect, but getting better. I don't think the debate round is the best place to resolve the issues in the community.

Speaker points.
I don't really have a set system. Obviously the carrot and stick above apply. It's mostly based on how well you did technically, with modifications for style and presentation. If you do something that upsets me (you're unnecessarily rude, offensive, do something shady), your points will reflect that.

Tim Ellis Washburn Rural High School

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 3:05 AM CDT

Tim Ellis
Head Coach - Washburn Rural High School, Topeka, KS
Updated July 23
Email chain - ellistim@usd437.net , fiscalrizztribution@googlegroups.com

Introduction: Hello, debaters and fellow educators. I am Tim Ellis, and I am honored to be here as a judge at this high school policy debate tournament. My background includes [briefly mention your educational and professional background relevant to the debate topic or communication skills]. My role as a judge is to evaluate your arguments, critical thinking, and communication abilities, while maintaining a fair and unbiased approach to the debate.

Debate Philosophy: I believe in fostering an environment where students can express their ideas passionately, engage in respectful discourse, and develop their critical thinking skills. I encourage debaters to focus on clear and logical arguments, evidence-based analysis, and effective communication. Substance will always take precedence over style, but effective delivery can enhance your message.

Argumentation: I value well-structured arguments that are supported by credible evidence. When presenting your case, it's important to clearly define your position, provide relevant evidence, and logically connect your arguments. The use of real-world examples and expert opinions can significantly bolster your points. Remember, the quality of your evidence matters more than the quantity.

Clash and Refutation: Debates thrive on clash – the direct engagement with your opponents' arguments. I expect debaters to engage with opposing viewpoints by directly addressing their arguments, demonstrating the weaknesses in their logic, and offering counterarguments supported by evidence. Effective refutation requires a deep understanding of your opponents' case, so take the time to dissect their position and refute it cogently.

Communication: Clear communication is key to conveying your ideas persuasively. Speak confidently, enunciate your words, and maintain a steady pace. Avoid jargon or excessive use of technical terms that might alienate those unfamiliar with the topic. Remember, effective communication isn't just about what you say, but how you say it – engaging with your audience is crucial.

Etiquette and Sportsmanship: Respect for your opponents, your partner, and the judge is non-negotiable. Keep your focus on the arguments and ideas, rather than personal attacks. Maintain a professional demeanor throughout the debate, and remember that good sportsmanship is an integral part of the debate community.

Time Management: Time management is essential. Respect the allocated time limits for your speeches, cross-examinations, and rebuttals. Effective time allocation allows for a balanced and comprehensive discussion of the issues at hand.

Final Thoughts: Debating is a valuable skill that extends beyond the walls of this tournament. Regardless of the outcome, embrace the learning experience. Constructive feedback is intended to help you grow as debaters and thinkers. I am here to provide a fair assessment of your performance, and my decisions will be based on the quality of your arguments, your ability to engage in meaningful clash, and your overall communication skills.

I am looking forward to witnessing your insightful arguments and thoughtful engagement. Let's engage in a spirited and enlightening debate that enriches all of us. Best of luck to each team, and may the discourse be both rigorous and rewarding.

Tim Freehan New Trier High School 3 rounds

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

Yes, email chain. debateoprf@gmail.com

ME:

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

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

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

POLICY DEBATE:

Top Level

--Old School Policy.

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

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

--Not great with theory debates.

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

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

Advantage vs Disadvantage

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

Zero risk is a thing.

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

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

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

Counterplans

Conditionality—

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

2023-2024 EDIT:

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

Competition—

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

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

Other Stuff—

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

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

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

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

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

K-Affs

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

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

Topic relevance is important.

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

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

Kritiks vs Policy Affs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topicality

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

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

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

Why I vote Aff a lot:

--Bad/Incoherent link mechanics on DA’s

--Perm do the CP

--CP Solvency Deficits

--Framework/Scholarship is defensible

--T can be won defensively

Why I vote Neg a lot:

--Condo Bad is silly

--Weakness of aff internal links/solvency

--Offense that turns the case

--Sufficiency Framing

--You actually had a strategy

PUBLIC FORUM SUPPLEMENT:

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

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

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

Evidence quality is very important.

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

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

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

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

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

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

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

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

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

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

Relax. Have fun.

Christopher Fry Glenbrook North 4 rounds

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

42fryguy@gmail.com

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

FW

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Greenstein Glenbrook North

David Griffith New Trier High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sun April 21, 2024 at 8:00 AM EDT

David Griffith

Coach at New Trier

Debated at Oak Park River Forest and the University of Kentucky

Add griffithd2002@gmail.com and jordandi505@gmail.com to the chain.

If you are interested in debating in college and want to know more about Kentucky, please feel free to ask me via email or at tournaments. I also (most likely) have Kentucky Debate stickers on me at any given tournament, so if you want one, let me know.

The following is the only information that you must know. The rest of this paradigm is just organized ramblings that may or may not be helpful.

Conditionality is good---I will vote neg if the 2AR is only condo. This is neither a prediction nor a challenge. It is a threat. Every other theory argument is fair game (including yes/no judge kick), but I will never punish the neg for advocacies that the 2NR does not extend.

Organization is more important than style or substance---if you are unclear, refuse to number, do not signpost, make arguments in long, intricately worded paragraphs, or fly through analytics at a million miles an hour, I will miss arguments. I will never use the speech doc to fill in holes because debate is communication activity. If I miss an argument, that is on you because debate is a speech activity, not a reading contest. I always try to make it obvious that I am not able to follow you through both verbal and non-verbal cues.

I have very few argumentative preferences---other than my hatred of theory, I hold very few predispositions when it comes to arguments informed by evidence of any kind, whether that be cards, personal experience, or something else. The only thing I must know by the end of the debate is why you should win. Put another way, I value execution more than substance. I do not read very many cards. I do not assign arbitrary importance to single lines not impacted out in final rebuttals.

How do you get the decision you want from me?

Tell me what to do in every place possible---robust judge instruction is the only way to avoid catastrophic judge intervention. Rather than force the judge to find the win for them, the best debaters tell the judge both why they win and the other team loses. This is aided by a clear, cohesive, and consistent narrative through the debate. Final rebuttals should clearly explain the implication of winning your most important arguments, particularly relative to the other team's arguments. Doing so will result in a faster, clearer decision and better speaker points. I only read cards when it is absolutely required because of a dispute over evidence quality, qualifications, etc. I do not read cards to fill in gaps on my flow.

Explain the implication of technically concessions---the bar I use for this is that I have to be able to explain to the other team what the implication was of them dropping a certain argument. Often teams will assert that things like "turns case" are dropped but won't say what this means or what the argument even is. If you truly believe something is conceded and important enough to jump up and down about, you are leaving me to my own devices to figure out the extent to which that argument matters. The most often reason that I sit on elim panels is because I, right or wrong, often have a different understanding of technically conceded arguments than the other judges. The way to avoid this is by arguing concessions as if the other team will win full risk of every other argument and explaining why I still vote for you (this means arguing conceded links as if the other team wins link defense to the other links, theory as if the CP is better than the plan, or rollback as if the aff wins solvency). Otherwise, relative risk could come back to bite you.

What can you do change about your debating to maximize your chances of winning?

Complain about new arguments more than usual---the bar is on the floor. I think new 1AR arguments have gotten out of hand. If the block informs me of its deliberate choice not to make certain arguments because of 2AC errors/concessions/to avoid new 1AR arguments, I am very likely to obey 2NR judge instruction to ignore whatever new 1AR nonsense occurs. For example, if the 2AC says "perm do both" but does not explain why it solves the net benefit, the negative does not have to answer it. Further, if the 1AR then explains why it shields, the 2NR can just say the explanation was new. For the aff side, I willing to entertain the idea that the 1NR does not get new impacts to the DA (or even give the 1AR add-ons in response). Just call these things out when you see them, and the debate will become much simpler.

Don't pander---as much as being pandered to boosts my ego, I would much rather see people do what they're comfortable with. Debating with personality and confidence is infinitely more likely to boost your chances of winning than your argument selection. Debate is a persuasive activity, and I would be lying if I said it was possible to sever presentation from technical debating. If you debate your best, everything in this paradigm, including my stylistic preferences, go away.

Make complete arguments, and refuse to answer incomplete ones---it is not the 12-off 1NC that makes me angry, it is the 2AC that treats each off-case equally. If the 1NC doesn't even try to read a link, the 2AC does not have to say no link because fully conceding every other component of the DA doesn't matter unless if the link is zero. If the 1NC reads a link to a different aff, you should only say "no link" in the 2AC. If the 1NC doesn't say the CP solves the case, the 2AC does not have to say it doesn't unless you are afraid that once explained, the 1AR will have to overcompensate. I consistently see 2ACs that will accurately assess that a 1NC position was incomplete and then spend an inordinate amount of time outcarding the 1NC. This will make me second-guess whether the 1NC applied because it tells me that you take the argument seriously. Stop doing that.

How should I approach debates involving planless affirmatives?

Shallow debating will favor the neg---I find that teams will often repeat lines of argumentation that they assume to be true without explaining them. For neg teams, this is oftentimes asserting that fairness is an impact without any of the explanation required to prove such a claim, and for aff teams, this usually looks like asserting some structural problem with debate and/or the topic without explaining why that problem exists/why the aff solves it. This is where my bias comes in: because I am more familiar with the neg side of things, when underdeveloped, I am more likely to intervene for the negative simply by virtue of the fact that I have only been aff in these debates like 4 times roughly 6 years ago, and I do not have as much of an intuitive grasp on how the aff arguments apply to the neg ones as I do of the inverse.

You don't need to adapt---I'm agnostic towards both the "best impact" to framework and the "best" way to answer it. I don't view framework debates as distinct from anything else and try my best to maintain the same conventions of judging that I do in every other debate.

Focus on internal links---what I mean by this is that teams seldom disagree with one another about whether debate has some value. The question that each team should try to answer in front of me is how we can maximize debate's value wherever it exists. A good portion of the final rebuttal needs to be dedicated to explaining why the model that you have forwarded does that better than the other team's can. This may just boil down to "do impact comparison," but I find that framework debates are more engaging to watch and easier to evaluate when teams explicitly focus on comparison as opposed to making large, structural claims and trying to get me to connect the dots for them.

What should you know in debates where the neg goes for the K against a policy aff?

Vagueness will favor the aff---I'm a terrible judge for teams that rely on dropped tricks in order to win, especially if those tricks are vague assertions of "serial policy failure" or "ontology" or "root cause" without tailored application to the aff. I'm a great judge for nuanced link debating, competing ethical frameworks, and alternatives oriented towards changing the world in some capacity rather than simply explaining it.

Very good for the link turn and perm---I would much prefer to judge link turn/perm debates than whatever you'd call buzzword-laden 2ARs about utilitarianism. I often find myself questioning why alternatives solve link arguments. If you read a 1AC full of pre-empts, I strongly prefer you go for those rather than gesturing at the world being complex and saying the case is true as an abstraction.

Here is a list of thoughts related to counterplans.

Judge kick is my default, I guess?---does this even matter in the year of our lord 2024, where no one goes for "links to the net benefit" and very few teams have full-throated defenses of permutations against anything but the slimiest of process junk? If no one tells me to kick the counterplan, I guess I'll kick it, but I'm a very easy sell on the argument that I shouldn't.

I need to understand CP solvency---I do not presume that a CP solves the case in the same way that I do not presume the 1AC reading a plan text automatically means it solves its advantages. The 2AC cannot drop CP solvency if CP solvency is not argued by the 1NC. The same is true for the 1AR if the 2NC does not explain the CP. The neg burden here is not unreasonable, but I have seen enough decisions hinging on this issue recently that I feel the need to say this explicitly.

Not great in complex competition debates---these tend to be the debates that go over my head the most. I find myself voting neg a lot just because of technical concessions and a lack of 2AR judge instruction inviting intervention based on my general neg bias. Moreover, I am not intimately familiar with the inner workings of functionally and textually non-severance partially-but-sometimes-fully intrinsic permutations, and I require extra hand-holding in the 2NR/2AR on that particular issue.

Impacts matter---solvency deficits need connections to them. "Delay" and "certainty" only matter if the aff has a short-term impact that requires certainty. If I can't explain what impact that is, the deficit doesn't matter.

Theory ideally justifies a perm, not a ballot---I can see myself voting on most theory arguments. I don't love these debates most of the time, but I get it, cutting cards about CPs is hard work. I prefer that theoretical objections to CPs are phrased as justifications for competition, as those debates seem much less arbitrary than the latest flavor of "X CP is bad because it solves the case." That being said, this really only applies to process CPs, so I understand the utility of a theory 2AR in every other situation.

Will I vote on T against a policy aff!

Absolutely---some of the best debates I've watched, judged, and have participated in involved T. Good T speeches earn very high speaker points. I don't really care what the T argument is as long as you explain it compellingly.

What is plan in a vacuum?---seriously, someone tell me. How do you interpret the plan in a vacuum? The 1AC read evidence that informs what the plan means. This is why the aff can go for solvency deficits against CPs and nuanced no link arguments against DAs. To me, it seems untenable to suggest that the evidence the 1AC used to define plan function should be ignored when deciding topicality. This is not to say that plan in a vacuum is completely unwinnable in front me. Rather, I am not a fan of writing vague plan texts that lack a clear mandate, reading a 1AC that defends potentially untopical action, and then going for plan in a vacuum as if the 1AC deliberately read an advantage/solvency cards about something the plan didn't do.

Predictability matters vastly more than anything else---I think that the more precise or predictable an interpretation is, the less it matters how good its limits are on the topic in a vacuum. If a "bad" definition is more precise or predictable, limits are solely a reason we should've written the resolution better. This also means that I believe that precision is possible. Certain people in debate have convinced themselves that one definition cannot be more "precise" than another. Tell that to a lexicographer, and they will laugh in your face. This is what T debates should be all about. While I agree that "random court definition" is not a desirable model, there is always a debate to be had over the applicability over those "random court definitions," and the case facts, context of the definition, and outcome of the opinion certainly are relevant when reading the resolution. In past debates with insufficient impact calculus in the 2NR/2AR, I have intervened in favor of the team that more convincingly articulates predictability as an internal link because of this view.

The aff should go for reasonability---this is the ultimate conclusion to my disdain for limits. Most neg impacts to T can be taken out easily enough that offense about substance crowd-out can outweigh them.

What if I have the misfortune of needing to go for the status quo?

This is where I am the most neg biased---I am better than average for believing the world is better now than it is post-plan. I'm generally bad for structural uniqueness arguments if there's adequate link debating by the neg, and I am such a sucker for case defense that even weak DAs end up doing enough for me to win.

Evidence quality matters---this is in the DAs section of the paradigm because it is where it matters most. Far too often, teams read lots of bad cards that gesture at vague economic concepts for a few rebuttals, tell me to read the cards, and then don't look alarmed when I conclude that the cards sucked. Debates over bad evidence result in more intervention, particularly when that evidence is under-explained by the 2NR/2AR. This means that if you're going for the status quo with a DA that doesn't have the best evidence, you cannot afford to let your cards do the debating for you.

Thumpers are boring and cowardly---mostly applies to politics on this topic. "There are other bills in Congress" is not a link nor a uniqueness answer to the politics DA. You have to explain why your thumper implicates the DA or is not priced in by the neg reading a uniqueness card.

Be smart---I am not a particularly smart person but know one when I see one. Smart arguments as an alternative to getting lost in the cards will not only increase your chances of winning, but it will also boost your speaker points. Knowing stuff about the world is really cool.

How can I get better speaker points?

Be yourself---the worst form of overadapting is when serious people try to be funny or funny people try to be serious. I love debaters with personality and reward them with speaker points much more than I do anything else. Show me you want to be there, and you'll be fine.

Any thoughts on impact turns?

Impact framing matters more than impact defense---I am more than willing to pull the trigger on impact framing even with unmitigated impacts from the other side. I am not averse to stomaching a nuclear war if animals come first or risking the heat death of the universe if future generations don't matter. I think people care too much about impact defense in this debates when it rarely matters. Invest more time in explaining how I should decide the debate than assuming I can follow the implication of every technical drop exactly how you envision I shoudl.

I have no thoughts on the substance of impact turns---everything is fair game. It is virtually impossible to get me to toss an impact turn without substantive refutation. If you can't explain why spark or wipeout or warming good is incorrect, you deserve to lose because the majority of impact turns are academically ridiculous and/or philosophically inconsistent.

Why is your paradigm so long?

I like reading long paradigms when I am bored. I put a lot of care into judging and like to learn about how people think, so I try to make my paradigm reflect both of these values. Plus, I judge enough debates to be guaranteed an audience, so I might as well take advantage of it.

I also think paradigms are mostly unhelpful (this extends to my own). The best way to learn how a judge thinks is to have them judge you and to ask questions after the debate. Most judges, myself included, don't really know how they judge debates until they're in them. The length of this paradigm reflects a series of observations that, if adhered to, would make it easier to predict how I would vote.

I struggle to get rid of parts of my paradigm. I update it whenever I'm bored because that is what spending a long time on debate will do to your brain. As a debater, I hate paradigms that don't provide helpful information about why a judge thinks the way that they do. I figure that having a long paradigm is the best way to avoid being unhelpful, because the more information I include, the clearer my thinking should be to the people I am judging. It also forces me to adhere to the procedures I explain, theoretically resulting in more consistent decisions over time.

For LD.

Strike me if you go for tricks and/or theory. Do not take me high if you don't read and defend a plan. I have read some philosophy and have a decent understanding of much of what is read in LD, but I do not intuitively understand how some of it applies to debate, so I may need more explanation than the normal LD judge would for some of the more complex stuff (think: the more premises in your logic equation, the more explanation I need to understand why your argument is sound).

Kevin Hamrick Montgomery Bell Academy 2 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 4:58 AM CDT

KRHAMRICK@GMAIL.COM

I've been judging debates for a long time. I prefer listening to debates wherein each team presents and executes a well-researched strategy for winning. The ideological flavor of your arguments matters less to me than how you establish clash with your opponents’ arguments. I am open to most anything, understanding that sometimes “you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do” to win the debate.

At the end of the debate, I vote for the team that defends the superior course of action. My ballot constitutes an endorsement of one course relative to another. To win the debate, the affirmative must prove their course is preferable when compared to the status quo or negative alternatives. That being said, I interpret broadly exactly what constitutes a plan/course of action. An alternative is proven a superior course of action when it is net beneficial compared to the entirety of the plan combined with part or parts of the alternative. Simply solving better than the affirmative is not enough: the alternative must force choice. Likewise, claiming a larger advantage than the affirmative is not enough to prove the alternative competitive. A legitimate permutation is defined as the entirety of the "plan" combined with parts or parts of the alternative. Mere avoidance of potential or "unknown" disadvantages, or a link of omission, is insufficient: the negative must read win a link and impact in order to evaluate the relative merits of the plan and the alternative. The 2AC saying something akin to "Perm - do the plan and all noncompetitive parts of the counterplan/alternative" is merely a template for generating permutation ideas, rather than a permutation in and of itself. It's your job to resolve the link, not mine.

I believe there is an inherent value to the topic/resolution, as the topic serves as the jumping off point for the year's discussion. The words of the topic should be examined as a whole. Ultimately, fairness and ground issues determine how strict an interpretation of the topic that I am willing to endorse. The most limiting interpretation of a topic rarely is the best interpretation of a topic for the purposes of our game. The topic is what it is: merely because the negative wishes the topic to be smaller (or the affirmative wishes it bigger, or worded a different way) does not mean that it should be so. An affirmative has to be at its most topical the first time it is run.

I don’t care about any of your SPEC arguments. The affirmative must use the agent specified in the topic wording; subsets are okay. Neither you nor your partner is the United States federal government. The affirmative is stuck with defending the resolutional statement, however I tend to give the affirmative significant leeway as to how they choose to define/defend it. The affirmative is unlikely to persuade me criticisms of advocacy of USFG action should be dismissed as irrelevant to an evaluation of policy efficacy. I believe that switch-side debating is good.

All theory arguments should be contextualized in terms of the topic and the resultant array of affirmative and negative strategies. Reciprocity is a big deal for me, i.e., more negative flex allows for more aff room to maneuver and vice versa). Conditional, topical, and plan inclusive alternatives are presumptively legitimate. A negative strategy reliant on a process counterplan, consultation counterplan, or a vague alternative produces an environment in which in which I am willing to allow greater maneuverability in terms of what I view as legitimate permutations for the affirmative. I’ve long been skeptical of the efficacy of fifty state uniform fiat. Not acting, i.e., the status quo, always remains an option.

Debate itself is up for interrogation within the confines of the round.

I tend to provide a lot of feedback while judging, verbal and otherwise. If you are not clear, I will not attempt to reconstruct what you said. I tend to privilege the cards identified in the last two rebuttals as establishing the critical nexus points of the debate and will read further for clarification and understanding when I feel it necessary. Reading qualifications for your evidence will be rewarded with more speaker points. Reading longer, more warranted evidence will be rewarded with significantly more consideration in the decision process. Clipping cards is cheating and cardclippers should lose.

I value clash and line-by-line debating. Rarely do I find the massive global last rebuttal overview appealing. Having your opponent's speech document doesn't alleviate the need for you to pay attention to what's actually been said in the debate. Flow and, for god's sake, learn how to efficiently save/jump/email/share your speech document. I generally don't follow the speech doc in real time.

"New affs bad" is dumb; don't waste your time or mine. When debating a new aff, the negative gets maximum flexibility.

I believe that both basic civil rights law 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.

Joshua Harrington Niles North High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue March 26, 2024 at 3:07 PM EDT

Paideia 2019

Michigan 2023

Currently Pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Emory University

Email: harrington.joshua33@gmail.com

TLDR:

Policy debaters lie and K debaters cheat. If you believe both of these, you should pref me in the 1-25 percentile. If you believe only one of these, you should consider how much you disagree with the other then put me somewhere in the 25-50 percentile. If you disagree with both of these, consider preffing someone else. Any and all thoughts in this paradigm are malleable and determined by the debating done in a given round. My ideal tournament is one in which any judge from any program can fairly adjudicate any argument without any prior ideological commitments.

I fully believe that the role of the judge is to consider the arguments presented and do their best to render a decision that best reflects the round presented to them. Throughout my debate career I have seen judges allow personal bias and apathy render meaningless the hours of time and energy that debaters give to this activity that we all have limited time in. Therefore, I will do my best to flow all arguments made, listen to CX’s, render a decision, and give comments that I think will aid you in future debates. With that being said, this paradigm reflects my current thoughts on policy debate and how I render my decisions.

If at any point you read this paradigm and think I am referencing a specific ideological position in an attempt to cement a singular vision of debate, I am not. I find equal flaws and absurd arguments across the ideological spectrum and equally dislike most of the arguments, practices, and trends rewarded in this activity. I have felt this sentiment for a few years now. Despite this reality, the one truth I consistently return to is that I love debate. I love this activity and will do my best as a judge to make this activity a welcoming place to all argumentative styles and positions. If you have any questions or concerns, I encourage you to reach out via email or even come up to me at a tournament and introduce yourself. Far too many of us are strangers and fail to reach out, so know I am more than open to dialogue.

Background:

I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. in philosophy at Emory University and plan to continue coaching alongside. I debated for 8 total years and during that time, I was lucky enough to debate across a range of argumentative styles and strategies. I found value in all argumentative forms but have also developed my own argumentative preferences in doing so. I strongly prefer strategies that open oneself to deliberation and defend controversial positions. I believe the issue of clash and what kinds of education we produce are important ones to explore, as I continue to judge. I believe the difference between a good argument and a bad argument is often about packaging and impact calculus and often vote against teams that poorly articulate concepts and the implications of the arguments presented. Similarly, I often vote against arguments not because they are wrong, but because they have not been packaged in a manner that is responsive and/or implicated enough for me to vote on. Once again, any and all arguments are open for me, but if I cannot articulate the impact of an argument and its implications on the other arguments presented, I am very unlikely to vote on it.

Online Debate:

I encourage you to have face cams on, at least during speeches and CX but understand if you are not comfortable with that or just choose not to. I'm a pretty good flow overall, but if there is a tech issue or the speech becomes unclear, I'll do my best to let that be known.

Case/impact:

I will likely read your 1AC and be annoyed if you claim to do things and solve impacts not supported by your current 1AC construction. Many people claim the 2AR lies, but I believe the lies start as early as 1AC CX. This is not to say that new articulations, warrants, and impacts cannot be accessed throughout the process of debating, but I am annoyed by AFF inconsistency. I do not care what 1AC is read or what 2AR is given, just do your best to maintain consistency.

In terms of engagement with case, your negative strategy should implicate the case page in some way. When I say “implicate”, I mean that in the loosest of definitions possible. This can stem from going for terminal defense all the way to fully mooting the 1AC via framework. Remember, no matter what, at the end of the round, a negative ballot will likely have to answer the question, “what should I do with the 1AC?”

DA’s:

Read any and all of them as you please so long as it is substantiated by evidence. These debates often come down to impact calc and card quality. In case vs DA debates, I find myself often voting aff on try or die. Your impact calculus should anticipate that you are defending the status quo and do your best to overcome that.

CP’s:

I am fine with any counterplan so long as it has a solvency advocate, or as long as I can intuitively understand how the counterplan would function. I am working to become a better judge at in-depth counterplan competition debates, but for now err towards over explaining rather than under explaining. Judge kick seems to be good, however if I am judge kicking a counterplan, I am likely to vote on case outweighs unless sufficient case mitigation.

Theory:

I very much do not want to judge condo debates. I default to three being good, four being up for debate, and five or more being bad. The common rebuttal to this format is “number of condo doesn’t matter/it is about the practice/no clear difference between four and five”. I recognize these arguments even though I believe they are said in bad faith. This is an instance where technical execution can overcome ideology for me. However, in most theory debates (including condo), the aff needs to prove in-round abuse in order to persuade me. With theory arguments besides condo, I am likely to just reject the argument and not the team.

I care very little about negative contradictions at a theoretical level. Performative contradictions are not reasons you get to sever your reps, but they can be reasons that I ought to be skeptical of certain arguments.

Kritiks:

Any and all kritiks are viable options when I am in the back. I believe links should either be in the context of doing the plan, the assumptions around particular impacts, or the failures of a particular understanding the 1AC relies on. I find most one card kritiks incredibly unconvincing. I like kritiks that are not just kritiks of fiat and will give you a speaker points boost for developing your kritik beyond “fiat is bad”. I read and enjoy kritiks that defend a theory of power and apply that theory to the link debate; those were the kritiks that I read as a debater.

Answering Kritiks:

For answering the kritik, I am very good for many of the classical policy argumentative pushes that people use against common kritiks. That includes but is not limited to arguments such as: humanism good, psychoanalysis wrong, state inevitable/good/will crackdown, scenario analysis good etc. When a floating PIK/utopian alt is read, I am likely to be convinced by the permutation and a fairness push on framework. Otherwise, I would highly recommend going for a clash impact over fairness against most kritiks.

Defending your 1AC and implicating the kritik is the most effective and likely path to the ballot. I believe the FW (fairness) + extinction outweighs is a more than viable 2AR to give. That said, 75% of the time debaters do not articulate these arguments in a manner that is responsive to the negative’s kritik. I believe it is bad to only have extinction outweighs and fairness-centric framework in your arsenal because there are instances where clash is more responsive and debating the warrants of the kritik will increase your chances of the ballot. In addition, you should be willing to push NEG team on what they are saying. Pressing on the truth of a theory, the relevance of a link, and the viability of the alternative are all more than viable strategies and far more enjoyable to judge than the “two ships passing in the night” trend of Policy vs K debates we currently have.

K AFF’s:

K AFF’s are likely to be most successful in front of me when they take a stance on the resolution and a defend a theory of power that can be applied to the NEG’s offense. What a theory of power constitutes can be very broad, but I am likely to make you defend the implications and solvency of your 1AC. What it means to solve something likely depends upon your 1AC choice, but I must know what you are trying to do to know whether it is good, worthwhile, or even possible.

My three preferred 2NRs vs K AFFs were the Cap K, Topicality, and Afropessimism. I write this to demonstrate, I believe every AFF is answerable, and sometimes the best answer is Topicality.

Similar to the case section, I am most likely to vote NEG when NEG teams make arguments that meaningfully implicate the case page. I think presumption is a necessary tool that is often poorly deployed. I believe it can supplement most strategies and can be won in 1AC CX by a creative 2N who asks the right questions.

I enjoy topicality debates, both going for it and answering it. Fairness and clash are both impacts that should be explained more than you currently plan on. Most of these debates come down to who best articulates the role of the ballot and its ability to solve both sides’ offense. If you are AFF, I am likely to want an answer to the question, “what is the role for the negative”. Through smart defensive arguments, a counter interp, and/or a large defense of an impact turn, I can be easily convinced to never vote on topicality. On the opposite side, you should use fairness/clash to implicate case impacts and beat logical inconsistencies in most 2AC’s to framework. Different K AFF’s have different strategic strengths and weaknesses; different K AFF’s also produce different discussions and forms of clash (maybe). Recognizing the most strategic deployment of the 1AC in addition to your most strategic articulation of fairness, clash, tva, ssd, etc. will increase your chances of getting my ballot.

For K v K debates, I am increasingly conflicted on my beliefs of whether the AFF gets a perm and whether that perm requires a net benefit. I believe it is possible for 2N’s to craft competitive alternatives that disagree with core parts of the affirmative. At the same time, I recognize the potential fluidity of many K AFF’s and am thus sympathetic to different visions of competition. This analysis must be done and resolved otherwise I will abide by traditional rules of competition and consider whether the alt is mutually exclusive with the AFF. I very much dislike floating PIKs, but depending on the PIK and relevant offense, I can be convinced that PIKs in the 1NC can be good.

Procedurals/Ethics violations/RVI’s:

The only procedural I am likely to vote on is topicality. The vast majority of non-topicality procedurals that I have been exposed to are incredibly arbitrary and lose to a 2AR on “we meet”. If you find an 1AC you feel as though you cannot debate with a substantive strategy, I encourage you to find a topicality violation based in the resolution or find a way to out cheat your opponent.

Similarly, when issues of evidence become potential grounds for the rejection of the team, I am highly likely to strike the card and/or the argument rather than the team. Similar to the condo section, I do not particularly want to judge these debates and very rarely am certain enough that the practice should end the debate and/or be grounds for voting a team down.

Lastly, I am a very poor judge for strategies dependent upon out of round interactions. I believe the competitive aspects of debate makes the conversations incredibly unproductive and conversations outside of round are necessary (when possible) to resolve such disputes.

Misc:

My ideal debater combines the persuasion and ethos of Giorgio Rabbini and Natalie Robinson, the technical skill of Rafael Pierry and Elan Wilson the work ethic of DML, Kris Wallen, Don Pierce, Hana Bisevac, and Pranay Ippagunta, the judging abilities of Corey Fisher, Vida Chiri, Devane Murphy, Shree Awsare, and Taylor Brough and the attitudes of Nate Glancy, Jimin Park, Ariel Gabay, and Ben McGraw. If you are able to display any of these qualities to the level that these debaters have, you have set yourself up to thrive in this activity.

Margaret Hecht Westminster 5 rounds

Niko Helixon Blue Valley Southwest High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 5:34 AM EDT

Nikola Helixon

Assistant Coach @ BVSW

Chain: helixon.niko@gmail.com

"Using cross-ex as prep" is not a thing that exists. I will not let you do that.

I don't know as much about the economy as you do.

I am very close to just saying everyone needs to debate slow in front of me. Clarity and efficiency matter. I will not clear you. There are some debaters who can be both very fast and clear. You are probably not that debater.

I won't vote for arguments about a persons worth, or some drama between high school students. I don't think high school students should be coached to attack the quality of another person for the sake of winning a debate round and find it odd that an adult would insert themselves into the lives of high school kids in that way.
If you only read from your computers, don't look at your flows, have the debate scripted from the first speech, you will get bad speaks. We spend a lot of time getting to tournaments, prepping, sacrificing time doing other things we enjoy. If debate is just a block reading contest, we could save a lot more time not going to tournaments and just submitting speech documents.

Important

Probably fine for everything. Most used to Policy AFF v. K and K AFF v. FW debates.

I dislike overuse of buzzwords, monologues, jargon. I don't do anything related to debate over the summer. I don't really do research on the topic during the year either.
Overviews should not exist. Put your arguments on the flow.

I don't like to read evidence when making a decision. I will if I feel I need to. I don't want a card doc.

- Be clear: Slow down and be clear, debate is a communication and persuasion activity.

Ending rebuttals: should frame my decision. Have a view of the overall round and tell me why you win.

Prep

- I've noticed a sharp increase in the amount of time between when prep ends and when you start speaking. There's very little reasons why this should take more than a minute, especially since you just have to click a button to send the document out.

- "Marked copy" does not mean "remove the cards you didn't read." You do not have to do that, and you should not ask your opponents to do that.

T vs. Planless AFFs

-Affirmatives should probably be related to the topic.

-Fairness is an intrinsic good only if debate is also good. If debate is good, usually nothing matters more than fairness. This is why I think affs that are about debate are the most strategic - otherwise it's hard to win that you get to weigh your impacts in front of me since very few non-debate critical affirmatives operate on the same plane as fairness.

Fairness still makes most sense to me as an impact to T-USFG. Most negative clash explanations end up either 1. trying to solve affirmative offense which, oftentimes, ends up being a very defensive strategy or 2. trying to solve some topic education offense which is often an uphill battle against impact turns. I think the most strategic way to go for clash is explaining it as good in and of itself, but usually that explanation ends up resembling fairness. I'm open to hearing most all impacts though.

Subject formation is persuasive to me if it's about the activity as a whole. I don't think affs need to win subject formation to solve (I typically just vote aff if the aff is a good idea) but I do think they need to win subject formation to access a good amount of their offense. This makes switch side very persuasive to me.
Thresholds are weird for me, I find myself being pretty hard on affirmative teams to win these debates but at the same time the amount of 2NRs I've heard that are almost purely defense makes me want to rip my hair out. If you explain your argument the best you'll win.

Ks on the Negative

Links should be to something the AFF does. I don't think you need an alternative.

Alternatives based in a pure intellectual nature probably just lose to the perm in a world where the affirmative wins framework. Intellectual/epistemology based alternatives should probably lead to something tangible that the perm can't solve.

Counterplans

Competition - I'm a bit out of my depth when I hear teams trying to defend counterplans that only need to be textually competitive, so it's probably not a good idea to read these in front of me. If you do want to read them I need a great deal more explanation than you'd think, probably.

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mGleRitgQc)

Parker Hopkins The Pembroke Hill School

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:47 PM CDT

Competed:

2011-15 – Lawrence Free State, KS, Policy (Space, Transportation, Latin America, Oceans)

2015-17 – JCCC, KS, NDT/CEDA (Military Presence, Climate Change); NFA-LD (Bioprospecting, Southern Command)

2017-20 – Missouri State University, MO, NDT/CEDA (Healthcare, Exec Authority, Space); NFA-LD (Policing, Cybersecurity)

Coached:

2016-17 – Lawrence High School, KS, (China Engagement)

2017-19 – Olathe West High School, KS, (Education, Immigration)

2019-22– Truman High School, MO, (Arm Sales, CJR, Water)

2020-Present– Missouri State University, MO, (MDT Withdrawal, Anti-Trust, Rights/Duties, Nukes); NFA-LD (Climate, Endless Wars)

2022-23- Truman State University, MO, NFA-LD (Elections)

2022-Present - The Pembroke Hill School, MO, (NATO, Economic Inequality).

Always add:

phopsdebate@gmail.com

Also add IF AND ONLY IF at a NDT/CEDA TOURNAMENT: debatedocs@googlegroups.com

If I walk out of the room (or go off-camera), please send the email and I will return very quickly.

Email chains are STRONGLY preferred. Email chains should be labeled correctly.

*Name of Tournament * *Division* *Round #* *Aff Team* vs *Neg Team*

tl;dr:

You do you; I'll flow whatever happens. I tend to like policy arguments more than Kritical arguments. I cannot type fast and flow on paper as a result. Please give me pen time on T, Theory, and long o/v's etc. Do not be a jerk. Debaters work hard, and I try to work as hard as I can while judging. Debaters should debate slower than they typically do.

Evidence Quality X Quantity > Quality > Quantity. Argument Tech + Truth > Tech > Truth. Quals > No Quals.

I try to generate a list of my random thoughts and issues I saw with each speech in the debate. It is not meant to be rude. It is just how I think through comments. If I have not said anything about something it likely means I thought it was good.

Speaker Points:

If you can prove to me you have updated your wiki for the round I am judging before I submit the ballot I will give you the highest speaker points allowed by the tournament. An updated wiki means: 1. A complete round report. 2. Cites for all 1NC off case positions/ the 1AC, and 3. uploaded open source all of the documents you read in the debate inclusive of analytics. If I become aware that you later delete, modify, or otherwise disclose less information after I have submitted my ballot, any future debate in which I judge you will result in the lowest possible speaker points at the tournament.

Online debates:

In "fast" online debates, I found it exceptionally hard to flow those with poor internet connections or bad mics. I also found it a little harder even with ideal mic and internet setups. I think it's reasonable for debates in which a debater(s) is having these issues for everyone in the debate to debate at an appropriate speed for everyone to engage.

Clarity is more important in a digital format than ever before. I feel like it would behoove everyone to be 10% slower than usual. Make sure you have a differentiation between your tag voice and your card body voice.

It would be super cool if everyone put their remaining prep in the chat.

I am super pro the Cams on Mics muted approach in debates. Obvious exceptions for poor internet quality.

People should get in the groove of always sending marked docs post speeches and sending a doc of all relevant cards after the debate.

Disads:

I enjoy politics debates. Reasons why the Disad outweighs and turns the aff, are cool. People should use the squo solves the aff trick with election DA's more.

Counter Plans:

I generally think negatives can and should get to do more. CP's test the intrinsic-ness of the advantages to the plan text. Affirmatives should get better at writing and figuring out plan key warrants. Bad CP's lose because they are bad. It seems legit that 2NC's get UQ and adv cp's to answer 2AC thumpers and add-ons. People should do this more.

Judge kicking the cp seems intuitive to me. Infinite condo seems good, real-world, etc. Non-Condo theory arguments are almost always a reason to reject the argument and not the team. I still expect that the 2AC makes theory arguments and that the neg answers them sufficiently. I think in an evenly matched and debated debate most CP theory arguments go neg.

I am often not a very good judge for CP's that require you to read the definition of "Should" when answering the permutation. Even more so for CP's that compete using internal net benefits. I understand how others think about these arguments, but I am often unimpressed with the quality of the evidence and cards read. Re: CIL CP - come on now.

Kritiks on the Negative:

I like policy debate personally, but that should 0% stop you from doing your thing. I think I like K debates much better than my brain will let me type here. Often, I end up telling teams they should have gone for the K or voted for it. I think this is typically because of affirmative teams’ inability to effectively answer critical arguments

Links of omission are not links. Rejecting the aff is not an alternative, that is what I do when I agree to endorse the alternative. Explain to me what happens to change the world when I endorse your alternative. The aff should probably be allowed to weigh the aff against the K. I think arguments centered on procedural fairness and iterative testing of ideas are compelling. Clash debates with solid defense to the affirmative are significantly more fun to adjudicate than framework debates. Floating pics are probably bad. I think life has value and preserving more of it is probably good.

Kritical Affirmatives vs Framework:

I think the affirmative should be in the direction of the resolution. Reading fw, cap, and the ballot pik against these affs is a good place to be as a policy team. I think topic literacy is important. I think there are more often than not ways to read a topical USfg action and read similar offensive positions. I am increasingly convinced that debate is a game that ultimately inoculates advocacy skills for post-debate use. I generally think that having a procedurally fair and somewhat bounded discussion about a pre-announced, and democratically selected topic helps facilitate that discussion.

Case Debates:

Debates in which the negative engages all parts of the affirmative are significantly more fun to judge than those that do not.

Affirmatives with "soft-left" advantages are often poorly written. You have the worst of both worlds of K and Policy debate. Your policy action means your aff is almost certainly solvable by an advantage CP. Your kritical offense still has to contend with the extinction o/w debate without the benefit of framework arguments. It is even harder to explain when the aff has one "policy" extinction advantage and one "kritical" advantage. Which one of these framing arguments comes first? I have no idea. I have yet to hear a compelling argument as to why these types of affirmative should exist. Negative teams that exploit these problems will be rewarded.

Topicality/procedurals:

Short blippy procedurals are almost always only a reason to reject the arg and not the team. T (along with all procedurals) is never an RVI.

I am super uninterested in making objective assessments about events that took place outside of/before the debate round that I was not present for. I am not qualified nor empowered to adjudicate debates concerning the moral behavior of debaters beyond the scope of the debate.

Things that are bad, but people continually do:

Have "framing" debates that consist of reading Util good/bad, Prob 1st/not 1st etc. Back and forth at each other and never making arguments about why one position is better than another. I feel like I am often forced to intervene in these debates, and I do not want to do that.

Saying something sexist/homophobic/racist/ableist/transphobic - it will probably make you lose the debate at the worst or tank your speaks at the least.

Steal prep.

Send docs without the analytics you already typed. This does not actually help you. I sometimes like to read along. Some non-neurotypical individuals benefit dramatically by this practice. It wastes your prep, no matter how cool the macro you have programmed is.

Use the wiki for your benefit and not post your own stuff.

Refusing to disclose.

Reading the 1AC off paper when computers are accessible to you. Please just send the doc in the chain.

Doing/saying mean things to your partner or your opponents.

Unnecessarily cursing to be cool.

Some random thoughts I had at the end of my first year judging NDT/CEDA:
1. I love debate. I think it is the best thing that has happened to a lot of people. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to get more people to do it. People should be nicer to others.
2. I was worse at debate than I thought I was. I should have spent WAY more time thinking about impact calc and engaging the other teams’ arguments.
3. I have REALLY bad handwriting and was never clear enough when speaking. People should slow down and be clearer. (Part of this might be because of online debate.)

4. Most debates I’ve judged are really hard to decide. I go to decision time often. I’m trying my best to decide debates in the finite time I have. The number of times Adrienne Brovero has come to my Zoom room is too many. I’m sorry.
5. I type a lot of random thoughts I had during debates and after. I really try to make a clear distinction between the RFD and the advice parts of the post-round. It bothered me a lot when I was a debater that people didn’t do this.

6. I thought this before, but it has become clearer to me that it is not what you do, it is what you justify. Debaters really should be able to say nearly anything they’d like in a debate. It is the opposing team’s job to say you’re wrong. My preferences are above, and I do my best to ignore them. Although I do think it is impossible for that to truly occur.

Disclosure thoughts:

I took this from Chris Roberds who said it much more elegantly than myself.

I have a VERY low threshold on this argument. Having schools disclose their arguments pre-round is important if the activity is going to grow/sustain itself. Having coached almost exclusively at small, underfunded, or new schools, I can say that disclosure (specifically disclosure on the wiki if you are a paperless debater) is a game changer. It allows small schools to compete and makes the activity more inclusive. There are a few specific ways that this influences how ballots will be given from me:

1) I will err negative on the impact level of "disclosure theory" arguments in the debate. If you're reading an aff that was broken at a previous tournament, on a previous day, or by another debater on your team, and it is not on the wiki (assuming you have access to a laptop and the tournament provides wifi), you will likely lose if this theory is read. There are two ways for the aff to "we meet" this in the 2ac - either disclose on the wiki ahead of time or post the full copy of the 1ac in the wiki as a part of your speech. Obviously, some grace will be extended when wifi isn't available or due to other extenuating circumstances. However, arguments like "it's just too much work," "I don't like disclosure," etc. won't get you a ballot.

2) The neg still needs to engage in the rest of the debate. Read other off-case positions and use their "no link" argument as a reason that disclosure is important. Read case cards and when they say they don't apply or they aren't specific enough, use that as a reason for me to see in-round problems. This is not a "cheap shot" win. You are not going to "out-tech" your opponent on disclosure theory. To me, this is a question of truth. Along that line, I probably won't vote on this argument in novice, especially if the aff is reading something that a varsity debater also reads.

3) If you realize your opponent's aff is not on the wiki, you should make every possible attempt before the round to ask them about the aff, see if they will put it on the wiki, etc. Emailing them so you have timestamped evidence of this is a good choice. I understand that, sometimes, one teammate puts all the cases for a squad on the wiki and they may have just put it under a different name. To me, that's a sufficient example of transparency (at least the first time it happens). If the aff says it's a new aff, that means (to me) that the plan text and/ or advantages are different enough that a previous strategy cut against the aff would be irrelevant. This would mean that if you completely change the agent of the plan text or have them do a different action it is new; adding a word like "substantially" or "enforcement through normal means" is not. Likewise, adding a new "econ collapse causes war" card is not different enough; changing from a Russia advantage to a China, kritikal, climate change, etc. type of advantage is. Even if it is new, if you are still reading some of the same solvency cards, I think it is better to disclose your previous versions of the aff at a minimum.

4) At tournaments that don't have wifi, this should be handled by the affirmative handing over a copy of their plan text and relevant 1AC advantages etc. before the round. If thats a local tournament, that means as soon as you get to the room and find your opponent.

5) If you or your opponent honestly comes from a circuit that does not use the wiki (e.g. some UDLs, some local circuits, etc.), I will likely give some leeway. However, a great use of post-round time while I am making a decision is to talk to the opponent about how to upload on the wiki. If the argument is in the round due to a lack of disclosure and the teams make honest efforts to get things on the wiki while I'm finishing up my decision, I'm likely to bump speaks for all 4 speakers by .2 or .5 depending on how the tournament speaks go.

6) There are obviously different "levels" of disclosure that can occur. Many of them are described above as exceptions to a rule. Zero disclosure is always a low-threshold argument for me in nearly every case other than the exceptions above.

That said, I am also willing to vote on "insufficient disclosure" in a few circumstances.

A. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy your wiki should look like this or something very close to it. Full disclosure of information and availability of arguments means everyone is tested at the highest level. Arguments about why the other team does not sufficiently disclose will be welcomed. Your wiki should also look like this if making this argument.

B. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy. Debaters should go to the room immediately after pairings are released to disclose what the aff will be. With obvious exceptions for a short time to consult coaches or if tech problems prevent it. Nothing is worse than being in a high-stress/high-level round and the other team waiting until right before the debate to come to disclose. This is not a cool move. If you are unable to come to the room, you should be checking the wiki for your opponent's email and sending them a message to disclose the aff/past 2NR's or sending your coach/a different debater to do so on your behalf.

C. When an affirmative team discloses what the aff is, they get a few minutes to change minor details (tagline changes, impact card swaps, maybe even an impact scenario). This is double true if there is a judge change. This amount of time varies by how much prep the tournament actually gives. With only 10 minutes between pairings and start time, the aff probably only get 30 seconds to say "ope, actually...." This probably expands to a few minutes when given 30 minutes of prep. Teams certainly shouldn't be given the opportunity to make drastic changes to the aff plan text, advantages etc. a long while after disclosing.

Sruthi Ilangovan Liberal Arts and Science Academy 4 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 17, 2024 at 9:20 AM CDT

I did policy debate for four years at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA High School) before graduating in 2020. I debated over 80 debates per school year, with around 50 of them on the national circuit. I now coach and judge for LASA sporadically.

If there’s an email chain, please add me at i.sruthi13@gmail.com

…

TLDR:

Do what you do best. I would rather listen to you debating your strongest argument than you adapting to my preferences. Having said that, I’m most comfortable judging CP + DA debates, since that is the literature base I know best. Write my ballot in the 2NR/2AR and tell me what I’m voting on. Your speaks will thank you. Tech > Truth.

For novices: The most important thing is to have fun! It’s important to remember that debate is a process, not a product. Focus on learning as much as you can from these debates, instead of focusing on the results. If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask me or send me an email. I promise I’m not scary!! Yes, I’m okay with speed (as long as you are clear). No, flashing and emailing are not prep (unless it’s excessive). Yes, I’m okay with open CX.

For LD: I coached LD in the 2020-2021 season. Since my background is in policy debate, I am most comfortable judging LARP and kritiks (to a lesser extent). I'm not the judge for you if you specialize in phil/theory/tricks.

…

Framework:

I went for framework a LOT. This doesn’t mean I hate all K affs, but it does mean I subconsciously look at these debates through the lens of a 2N. I find myself going for fairness as an impact in some debates, so I can definitely be persuaded to vote on it. Don’t forget impact calculus! It’s not enough to extend the impact of the aff on the case page. Explain how it implicates framework and why it outweighs the Limits DA (or whatever the negative team goes for). In that same vein, make sure you are not just extending arguments. Explain the broader implication of winning that argument and why it means you win the debate. "I find it really hard to explain why the act of reading framework in and of itself is violent or bad." -- Mason Marriott-Voss. Retweet.

…

Topicality:

Going for topicality was my jam in high school. These debates come down to the execution of your standards. Quality of your definition matters, especially if you are going for a precision or predictability impact.

“Reasonability is a debate about the aff’s counter-interpretation, not their aff.” -- Yao Yao Chen. Retweet. Topicality is a question of models of debate, not THIS debate.

…

Kritiks:

I’ve dabbled in the fem K and the cap K, but I have very little expertise in critical literature. If you want to go for another kritik, by all means, do it. Just be clear with your explanations. The more case-specific your link is, the more likely you are to get my ballot. I find myself questioning what the purpose of framework is in these debates. If your 2NR/2AR strategy relies on winning framework, explain what winning framework gets you in terms of the rest of the debate. Floating PIKs must be clearly made in the 2NC. If you bust one out in the 2NR, I’m probably not a great judge for you.

…

Counterplans:

Theory debates are fantastic. I lean affirmative on process CPs (consult, delay, etc.). I lean negative on PICs. I don’t have a preference on conditionality, 50 state fiat, or international fiat.

…

Disadvantages:

I find evidence quality matters a lot more than evidence quantity, especially in politics debates and impact turn debates. Evidence comparison is under-utilized.

…

I will not vote on any argument that endorses racism, sexism, homophobia, or otherwise offensive ideologies. I will also not listen to any arguments that endorse self-harm, suicide, or purposeful death. I will vote you down and it will be completely on you for not reading this paradigm.

This paradigm is definitely a work in progress because I’m still figuring out how I think about debate. Yao Yao Chen has probably influenced my thoughts on debate the most. Check out his paradigm here if you want to.

Alan ivackovic Niles North High School 6 rounds

Jonah Jacobs Glenbrook North 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 17, 2024 at 10:54 AM EDT

Jonah Jacobs

Glenbrook North 2017

University of Michigan 2021

11/6 Update

I've judged at more tournaments in the past year than the previous 4, have never judged at the college level, and have been out of debate since leading a lab at Michigan in the Summer of 2020. Some suggestions --- in addition to my earlier thoughts and feelings about debate listed below this --- that could be used to your advantage:

-I am corporate but know nothing about anti-trust law

-I've always found Topicality/Framework arguments more compelling than their affirmative answers

-CX is awesome; asking about lines of evidence that don't impact the debate is lame

-Most claims of "X was conceded" are lies; lying is not only a violation of one of the 10 Commandments, but extremely irritating and impacts speaker points

-Please slow down on T in the 1NC and 2AC - I don't like trying to figure out what's happening in the block

-Arguments have way more cross-applicability than usually suggested and tension between them is often not capitalized on

-I am a sucker for: carded turns case arguments, all the 1AR cards, judge instruction, absurd uses of fiat, Game of Thrones

Stuff I wrote a few years ago that I still agree with

Policy>K

The flow is the only thing that matters - your ability to explain the arguments imbedded in your evidence and articulating why they are superior to your opponents' matters more than the quantity and quality of evidence you have read in the debate.

Judge intervention is awful, I refuse to do it. If the "sky is pink" is unanswered by your opponent, I will presume the sky is pink. If "Topicality - Agent Specification" is unanswered by your opponent, I will presume that teams must specify their agent in order to be topical. But, if you don't explain why this argument wins you the debate, I will not presume it does. Again, the flow is the only thing that matters.

Clarity and persuasion matter immensely to me.

So does impact comparison. I care much less about "magnitude" and "timeframe" than "economic collapse causes a nuclear war faster than democratic backsliding" and "U.S.-Russia war kills more people than U.S.-China war

Aaron Kall Hire 1 rounds

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:

Addison Kane Niles North High School 6 rounds

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

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

Pronouns They/Them or She/Her

Northside CP Class of 2018

University of Michigan Class of 2021

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

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

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

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

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

On framework:

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

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

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

Debate like people...please:

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

Please read this:

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

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

Ben Katz Northside College Preparatory 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat February 10, 2024 at 11:01 AM CDT

bnkatz1@gmail.com

Northside '21

Northwestern '25

0 time TOC qualifier, 4 years of debate for Northside College Prep

He/Him

If I am judging a virtual debate and you send documents with analytics omitted, you will be docked speaker points. Your mic quality is not nearly as good as you think it is, so why would you voluntarily make it harder for the person who's deciding which team wins (me) to understand what you're saying by omitting a useful visual supplement? Act like I'm half-deaf.

Pay attention to where you use jargon and explain or contextualize where you can. This topic has lots of acronyms so it would help to say full phrases and what they actually mean at least once in-round.

If you can't explain an argument you plan to read in front of me at a conversational speed, there are very good odds that you won't win me over when trying to spread it. Debate what you're comfortable with, not what you think I'll like the most.

I avoid reading speech docs where possible. I will read a card if it is referenced during cross-ex, as well as if specific warrants are called to my attention during speeches. However, I will not give the full robustness of a card's argument to you if all you are doing is repeating the author's name and the claim.

Primarily debated soft left affs in high school, but have also read traditional policy. I have read every kind of argument on the neg. Increasingly sympathetic to traditional big stick affs as a judge, just because soft left debaters have a structurally harder time winning the debate.

Thoughts on arguments:

Both aff and neg teams severely underfocus on case. This is almost universal. For the neg, aff evidence is never as good as it's made out to be and should be called out in the 1NC. If you're an aff team and truly believe your case is good, then actually spend time talking about why your warrants respond to the neg's on- and off-case arguments (which it should if it's good) beyond just saying that you are extending X card.
Disads reach zero risk very easily. Although framing debates tend to be ineffective and misfocused, my general perspective is that low probability likely negates high magnitude at the point that a layman would consider your DA contrived. I like politics DAs but they tend to be really bad, and case-specific DAs are often the most interesting but always harder to develop. In general, if you think your DA is good, I'll probably think it's okay; if you think your DA is bad, I'll probably think it's terrible. A good internal link makes everything I said above moot.
Counterplans have been massacred without forgiveness and it makes me sad. I strongly dislike the current norm of going for the most abusive counterplan that can still be voted for, but a won argument is a won argument. Still, I tend to bias aff theory against CPs even if it's not a reason to reject the team. (advantage cps > pics/agent cps > process cps > cps that compete off of a single word). As far as complicated mechanisms go, go nuts, I'll be able to grasp it.
Not sure what this topic holds, but I imagine lots of the research will be focused on security and reps-based kritiks. One characteristic of Ks which somehow appears all the time in K Aff debates but never gets drawn own on the neg side is the role of Ks in shaping how the round is argued. If you treat your K like a counterplan, you're fighting a losing battle. I'm not necessarily pro "framework K," but ultimately the alternative is just a digestible manifestation of the epistemology/pedagogy/whatever that you claim the aff is undermining.
Topicality debates tend to be dependent on a lot of factors external to the resolution - mainly how late into the year it is and how many affs have already been generated on the topic. A small topic tends to lean aff on allowing innovative (to an extent) plans, but large topics justify limiting what affs are acceptable more stringently. In a given round, this is largely irrelevant, but good debaters draw these characteristics in as warrants on the standards debate. These claims provide rhetorical strength and can help the persuasiveness of the line-by-line on interpretations/standards substantially.
K Affs are interesting and I'll happily vote on them, but I am, personally, reasonably persuaded by aff arguments favoring predictability and the benefits of switch-side debate. A good kritikal aff is not one which critiques the resolution, but critiques the way that we debate the resolution. If your aff does the latter, most framework arguments go out the window. I will deduct speaker points for 2ACs that have a massive overview but doesn't include it in the doc.
K v K debates are the debates I have debated and certainly judged the least. I think it's the burden of the aff to prove that perms are allowed in a method debate since the aff has already gone so far as to reject the resolution to justify reading their advocacy, but it is up for discussion. Cap links to just about everything but that doesn't always means it's good. The Parenti and Emanuele card is not nearly good enough for the amount it gets read by neg teams. Most of what I said in my thoughts on Ks extends here too.

Two separate instances of clipping will result in an auto-loss and zero speaker points for both debaters. To be clear, clipping is intentionally skipping highlighted parts of a card while acting as though it was still read. To not clip, explicitly state when you stop reading a card before fully finishing ("cut the card at [x]"), keep track of where you stopped reading that card, and after your speech ask if anyone in the round wants a marked copy of your document where the highlighting you didn't read in the card is omitted.

***FOR NOVICES: HOW TO WIN***

Flowing is the most important (and underutilized) skill in debate. Write down your opponent's arguments. All of them.

Do line-by-line - Read and answer everything you just wrote down. Answer your opponent's arguments. All of them.

Novices that learn how to do both of these semi-competently will win the vast majority of their rounds.

Will Katz Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart 4 rounds

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

Updated pre-woodward 2024

Yes email chain-- willkatzemailchain@gmail.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

Here are my biases.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sarah Lee Montgomery Bell Academy 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed August 2, 2023 at 4:24 AM EDT

Email for the year: slee11398@gmail.com

Email for UMich Camp Tournament: tdhsqtdr@umich.edu

Led a sophomore lab at Michigan for a couple years. Judge exclusively high school debate during the year for MBA. Outside of debate, I’m also a PhD student and college instructor in Philosophy.

K-related thoughts (what you probably care most about):

The kind of rounds I enjoy judging most are “clash” rounds - especially policy aff v K neg, but also including K aff v framework.

Due to a variety of factors, I do not think that I ultimately have a side preference for debates in which these strategies are executed. However, that does not suggest (as is the case for most/all judges) that I am a "blank slate" for all argument. Like most/all of us involved in debate, there are arguments I tend to find more or less persuasive. These tendencies are not set in stone, but below, I have provided some of my thoughts that may be helpful if you are debating in front of me:

**For the "K" side:

I’m interested in a number of kinds of K’s, but I can be persuaded to vote on things whether or not I personally like the lit base it comes from. I especially like strategies which read specific links to each advantage/impact, rather than broad links that have little to do with anything specific or unique to the aff (but I have also voted on the latter when aff teams fail to adequately answer such arguments).

**For the "policy" side:

One of the policy FW arguments I tend to be particularly persuaded by is something like the following: scenario-planning is good, it’s a quite unique thing we get to do in debate, and it turns K impacts into ethical education/advocacy skills/political activism, etc.

When you’re aff v the K, I tend to like link turn + perm arguments significantly more than case o/w + ext 1st arguments (and a gamut of arguments that tend to go with that framing, i.e. "future generations are the only important ethical consideration.")

**Both sides:

Please do line by line, to the extent possible. I appreciate debaters who can organize debates which are pretty messy - even as simply by signposting like “I’ll do the link debate here.”

I tend to think fairness is an internal link, but I can be persuaded otherwise - though it would likely take some effort and nuanced debating on your part.

Non-K-related thoughts:

Impact Calculus

I encourage you to try to do nuanced impact calculus that avoids hyperbole and stays at least somewhat grounded in reality. That is, obviously debate is a funny little game in which people try to make everything turn into extinction, but the more interesting debaters say something less like “they definitely 100% lead to war which outweighs on timeframe because fiat makes the plan happen immediately” and more like “the plan decreases the propensity for war sufficiently to allow for stopgap measures like diplomacy to win out in the long-term.”

Various things

I'm more tech over truth than the other way around. But remember that an argument is (at least) a claim and (a) warrant(s).

I tend to be sympathetic to neg flex arguments, though there are limits to that.

If I can't flow you, the argument doesn't "count." Make sure you're clear. That probably means you need to go slower than you tend to go. Most debaters are not as clear as they are fast.

An important note

Be nice. Rude debaters are annoying, and your speaks will reflect that.

Zachary Lim New Trier High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 31, 2023 at 11:32 AM CDT

Intro/Affiliations

Email: zachlim804@gmail.com

- Former student at New Trier HS (2015-2019) and the University of Pittsburgh (2019-2022).

- Experience: 6 years as a policy debater, no TOC bids, & NDT doubles (NDT '21) in college. I have been coaching for 2 years and judging for 4 years, albeit the past year and a half has been PF heavy.

**PF Stuff at the bottom

Online Debate

Cameras on preferably, slow down, and I don't know why this happens but wait until you know 100% that I am present before you give an order or start your speech. A black screen with my name means I am not there/ready unless I say otherwise.

Important/Relevant Thoughts

- For this specific topic, I am not familiar with the trends and arguments being made on the circuit, specifically the subsets, but I am knowledgeable on NATO as an organization from a previous college topic.

- My experience is policy-heavy, but in college, I strayed away from strict policy debating to more critical debating on both sides, mostly reading iterations of racial security and racial capitalism kritiks and critical affs with a plan. I am most comfortable adjudicating DA v. case, CP/DA v. case, and K v. case; it ultimately isn't my choice what I hear, but point is I think I've seen, heard, and debated a wide variety of arguments that will help aid in judging so do what you know best.

- I find debate enjoyable and I truly appreciated judges who gave a full effort in paying attention and offering an understandable RFD so I will attempt to emulate that in every round that I judge. With that, the best thing you can do for yourself is, up to you how you go about this, to orient your debating around "making my job easy". Whether you lean critical or policy, be more reliant on explanation and spin rather than being solely reliant on what your evidence says. Show me the big picture and within that picture, point out any fine details that are important for me to evaluate. Be explicit, get straight to the point, and avoid unnecessary speak/fillers. Judge instruction is key.

- A judge is never going to be unbiased when listening to different types of arguments. However, pre-conceptions are malleable and good debating (lbl, explanation, etc.) can supersede argument bias, but given my varying degrees of knowledge/expertise in different arguments, adaptation will matter in how "good debating" is performed in round.

- Continuity in argumentation and explanation will be scrutinized. Having been on both sides as a 2N and 2A, I believe many final rebuttals get away with a lot of new spin/explanation, so as I have throughout judging debates, I will hold a higher standard for extensions and such.

- Absolutely do not read morally reprehensible arguments such as death good, racism good, homophobia good, etc. There is no room for that in debates, and it is not courteous to your judge or opponents. You will be dropped and receive a zero.

- The link below will take you to a doc that I wrote many years ago, containing specific thoughts I have about specific types of arguments. I honestly do not think it's as relevant as it was when I was a first year out, but if you aren't familiar with what I think of certain arguments, then feel free to check it out to gain some more clarity. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d5pO-KRsf90F5Y-9Hfc1RlzRxsu21KCSxV9aVZFcRH0/edit?usp=sharing

- Don't hesitate to ask me any questions about my college debate experience as well as my time at Pitt. Feel free to email me or ask after the round!

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Public Forum

I am a flow-centric judge on the condition your arguments are backed with evidence and are logical. My background is in policy debate, but regardless of style, and especially important in PF, I think it's necessary to craft a broad story that connects what the issue is, what your solution is, and why you think you should win the debate.

I like evidence qualification comparisons and "if this, then that" statements when tied together with logical assumptions that can be made. Demonstrating ethos, confidence, and good command of your and your opponent's arguments is also very important in getting my ballot.

I will like listening to you more if you read smart, innovative arguments. Don't be rude, cocky, and/or overly aggressive especially if your debating and arguments can't back up that "talk". Not a good look.

Give an order before your speech

Catherine Magana Blue Valley Southwest High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue October 31, 2023 at 11:51 AM CDT

Catherine Magaña

cemagana715@gmail.com

I appreciate when debaters show that they care and that they want to be debating and put energy into it. I will put as much effort into my decision and comments as you do into debating. Lots of good can come from this activity so I encourage you to be part of that.

Won't vote on events that happened outside of the round. I am not the person to adjudicate those experiences.

If I cannot hear what you are saying I will clear you once and then stop flowing. You may have made an argument but if you're unclear, the chances I write it down are slim. And if you're not flowing, I'm not flowing.

Don't clip and don't steal prep.

Specific evidence comparison is important, so do more than just surface level analysis. Pull lines out of cards, indict them, anything. People get away with reading lots of terrible evidence - don't let them!

As the judge, I will do my best not to intervene but if I have to come to my own conclusion about something that wasn't debated out then I will explain why I did and what could have prevented that.

CP and DA

If you want me to utilize judge kick then please do not wait until the 2NR to say it. I think zero risk can be a thing. Everything else is game.

If you're neg - I find myself persuaded most often by K turns case arguments and specific links. Talk about the aff more. I think speech organization is important here and will appreciate signposting instead of just reading down your document.

I vote for planless affs as much as anything else. Affs should probably be related to the topic. Tell me why spending time learning about x is better than learning about y, especially in that round.

I enjoy T debates. These debates can be shallow sometimes so I appreciate contextualization of the aff, in-round abuse, and telling me what precedent would be set by x definition. Not voting on plan text in a vacuum.

Other: Reading every word off of your computer is not impressive or innovative. Speaks will reward the use of your flow.

Drew Marshall St. Mark's School of Texas 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri March 8, 2024 at 7:40 AM EDT

dmarshall36@gmail.com

copied from a former coach:
"I think 'previous debate experience' sections of judging philosophies are mostly for peculiar in group fronting and/or serve to reify fairly problematic norms of treating debate 'expertise' or whatever like a value neutral concept, so."

i love debate.

tell me how i should evaluate the round. tell me why you win if i choose to evaluate the round that way.

whatever style of debate you feel best doing: go for it. i usually flow by hand so please pop your tags.

keep it lovely. i take speaker points when debaters are mean.

ihate"perm do the counterplan." unless there's some theoretical reason why the cp is aff ground (text comp good or something) i just won't vote on it.

if the debate is lopsided and you're winning by a mile against more novice debaters, you'll get a 30 and 29.9 by going slower, explaining the debate to the other team clearly during cross-ex, and making the round educational.

im familiar with all styles of 1ac's. i consider role of the ballot arguments as framing, and dont necessarily weigh traditional standards and f/w voters above other frameworks unless told to with warranted arguments. using specific cards of a k aff to impact turn framework is undervalued in high school debate, for some reason.

im looking for warrant comparison in the rebuttals. i like to directly quote the 2nr and 2ar in my rfd, so impact stories and reading warrants from important cards are winning strategies to get my ballot.

i have little sympathy for debaters answering cards that are in the doc but are not read in the speech. this is worse than missing a card on your flow, it shows that you're just not flowing. i want to be added to the doc so i can read your evidence throughout the debate, but i will not flow off the doc.

please slow down on tags and interps. you should stop "hiding" interps in the 1nc. slow down on your interps.

High School LD

see above. i try my best to give leeway to the four minutes 1ar, but that can be difficult to discern. i notice a lot of cultural norms around theory debates. to be extra clear: if there is k offense in the 2n and the 2ar goes for theory without addressing the k offense, im probably going to vote that the impacts of the k outweigh fairness or whatever. i simply expect the 2ar to layer the voters for me, extend an apriori issue, or something of the sort. i think that assuming theory is layered before the impacts of the debate is intervening.

PFD

im somewhat familiar with pf. i will not evaluate advocacies in this event.

im bothered by the evidence norms of this event. i see debaters read authors and taglines as if that is sufficient, but debate should include analyzing evidence. that means reading warrants directly from the authors of the evidence. if your opponents are flying through taglines of evidence instead of reading parts of the studies/articles, i would be persuaded by an argument that told me to not evaluate taglines as evidence. if your style is name dropping as many authors as you can, im probably not the best judge for you.

here's some of NSDA Board Member Dave Huston's thoughts on this. i agree with what the paragraph below.

"The NSDA evidence rule says specifically that you need to provide the specific place in the source you are quoting for the paraphrasing you have used. .........[redacted because im not Dave Huston]...
...If you like to paraphrase and then take fifteen minutes to find the actual evidence, you don't want me in the back of the room. I will give you a reasonable amount of time and if you don't produce it, I'll give you a choice. Drop the evidence or use your prep time to find it. If your time expires, and you still haven't found it, take your choice as to which evidence rule you have violated. In short, if you paraphrase, you better have the evidence to back it up."

John Marshall Greenhill School 6 rounds

Samuel Maurer Westminster 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 20, 2024 at 2:45 PM CDT

Samuel Maurer
Part time coach @ Head-Royce

Yes I want to be on the speech doc. samuel.maurer@gmail.com

TOC 2024 update

I haven't judged a debate in a year so you're going to have to fill me in on topic nuance if you want me to vote on it. Since I also haven't been flowing for awhile, focusing on transmission of the important stuff is probably a very valuable use of your time.

ALSO...I clarify below that CXing and getting CXed are speeches to me. If you waive your CX to prep, the floor for speaker points falls well below a 27, just as if you had 'opted-out' of a rebuttal. Not being able to come-up with any useful attempts at CX questions screams "I don't understand strategy" to me so I don't have reservations about wrecking points. You've been warned.

old stuff

A note on speech docs: I read them during the debate to enhance my knowledge of your arguments. I do not read them to fill-in the blank for a speech that is incomprehensible. I judge the debate speeches, I don't referee emails. So assuming that the written existence of an argument in the document is a sufficient means of introducing it into the debate is dangerous in front of me. If that key comparison was buried in the middle of a wall of text you read like a bored robot, I'm not going to evaluate it. Conversely, if you are deliberately unpacking evidence that I can re-read to verify your interpretations and arguments, your doc can help add depth to your argument. I read the doc as a speech supplement, not a substitute.

I’ll talk about some more specific proclivities that may be useful for your strike-sheet since, if you are reading this, you’re probably filling it out.

Speaker points/CX: I believe that debaters give 4 “speeches” in a debate: C, R, CX, and Being CXed. My speaker points are based on all 4. If you don’t answer/ask a CX question, your speaker points will suffer dramatically. If you’re an jerk or don’t answer simple questions or are simply obstructionist, speaker points suffer. Don’t neglect CX. I will diligently flow cross-examination but if you take prep to ask questions, I consider it to not be part of the debate. Don't be offended if I leave while you go into overtime.

Know when its better to slow down

-- if I’ve never judged you before, give me time at the beginning of a constructive to get used to your voice.

-- complex/tricky CP texts – please slow down during these. I’m not going to look at the speech doc and CX won’t always clear it up. Clearly emphasize the differences (supreme court, different language pic, etc.)

-- Judge instruction helps me -- big picture moments in rebuttals -- "if we win this, we win the debate", etc. Crucial moments of impacts/evidence comparison.

Evidence: Quality over Quantity – I know this is almost a cliché in judging philosophies but I don’t just mean lots of bad cards are worse than 1 good card. That is obvious. I also mean that you should consider focusing on fewer cards in front of me than you might otherwise.

-- Indexing – judging debates where last rebuttals (more often 2NR’s) mention every name of every card and say how it interacts with an argument concept (“McCoy means we turn the link”, “Smith is the impact to that”) is very frustrating for me. I thrive on the big picture. I don’t view your evidence as that or even an argument unto itself – I view your evidence as a tool. You have to explain how it works and why.

-- highlighting – I find myself increasingly choosing to ignore or assign very little weight to evidence because scant highlighting leaves a lot to the imagination. In front of me, it might be wise to select a few important cards in the debate that you would read a longer version of (crucial internal link card for elections, link to the PIC’s net benefits, alt cards, etc.).

-- I read evidence after debates to confirm its function in your speeches, not so that it can “make an argument” to me in some disembodied fashion 15 minutes after the round ends.

I prefer narrower, deeper debates: Not going to lie, when debates get horizontally big and stay that way through rebuttals, I’m less comfortable making a decision. I think this has to do with how I read evidence (above) in that often times debates that stay horizontally big require the judge to do a lot of inference into conclusions made in cards they read as opposed to speeches they evaluate. I’m okay with debates on several sheets of paper but just make sure you are identifying what you think are the strategic bottlenecks of the debate and how you are winning them. “they can’t win X if we win Y because the following impact comparison wasn’t answered…”

Links/UQ: I think debaters too often think of link direction in purely binary terms. In addition to winning links, debaters need to explicitly create mechanisms for evaluating link direction. don’t just put “this thing key” cards in my hands and expect me to ref an ev fight. Tell me why this internal controls the other or vice versa.

Framework: I’ve voted for either side of this debate plenty of times. If it’s a choice between an engaging strategy against a critical aff and T, the former is a preferable strategy in front of me. I will vote on impact turns to topicality even if the negative doesn’t go for it (provided, of course, the affirmative makes a valid argument for why I should). I find myself often frustrated in debates that lack concrete nouns and instead choose arguments/strategies where abstractions are posited in relationship to one another, concretizing through examples helps a lot. I think 'fairness' is an internal link that, when well-developed with method for debate that is academically engaging and balanced, can have a large impact on my decision. By itself, a fair game is just stable, could be good or bad. I think negs running framework are best when talking about dynamics of the debate, not just complaining about how much/many affs there are. I'm not one who believes in the "procedural fairness or education" dilemma, good framework execution involves both I think. TVA's and SSD's are defense/counterplan type arguments that I think both sides are wise to not just address but frame in my decision.

Theory: Seems dead. Seemingly fewer and fewer affirmatives even make a meaningful press on theoretical objections to the CP. I still appreciate theory on the aff and not just as an “independent voter” but rather a good way to strategically dictate the landscape of the debate. This by no means implies that I’m a hack for any affirmative theory argument. But it does mean aff’s that hear a 3 cp’s in the 1NC and don’t make more than a 10 second conditionality block and don’t mention that there were 3 counterplans are giving up on some production. I think it goes without saying that very blippy theory debates are terrible. Slowing down and being more thematic and explanatory is almost always a better approach the theory execution in front of me. In the end, I'm pretty old school and think theory needs to make a comeback (mostly so aff's can not give their cases away to disposable 15-plank hydras every debate) but it seems perfunctory in execution anymore.
Finally, please make sure to mark evidence as you read it.

Kevin McCaffrey Hire 6 rounds

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

Updated 9-26-2013

Kevin McCaffrey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Value proof higher than rejoinder:

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

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

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

Incomprehensible value systems:

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

Email me:

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

Hunter McCullough St. Mark's School of Texas 4 rounds

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

Debated @ UNT 2009-2014

Coach @ St Marks since 2017

Coach @ UTDallas since 2018

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

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

T-Theory

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

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

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

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

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

CPs

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

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

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

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

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

Disads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case

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

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

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

Paperless debate

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

Clipping

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

Other notes

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

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

Finally, here is a short list of general biases.

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

Ryan McFarland Blue Valley Southwest High School 3 rounds

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

Ryan McFarland
Debated at KCKCC and Wichita State

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Connor Mitchell St. Mark's School of Texas 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 12, 2024 at 8:10 AM EDT

Maize High School (China, Education, Immigration, Arm Sales)

Wichita State (Alliances)

Cornell '24 (taking a sabbatical)

Formerly coached at Maize High School and St. Mark's School of Texas Call me Connor. they/them

connormlldebate@gmail.com

---Top Level---

1. Do whatever you're best at and I'll be happy. When I debated, I primarily ran policy args. My last year of debate, ~50% of my 2nr's were T. I was more K focused for a few years. I'm probably not the absolute best for K debaters (see section below), but I can hang. I usually find myself in clash debates.

2. Disclosure is good. Preferably on the wiki. Plus .2 speaker points if you fully open source the round docs on the wiki (tell me/remind me right after the 2ar. I'm not going to check for you and I'm bad at remembering if you tell me earlier).

3. Don't be mean or offensive. Please actively try to make the community inclusive. I think debate is sometimes an opportunity to learn and grow. However, openly reprehensible remarks and a continuation of poor behavior after being corrected will not be tolerated. I will not hesitate to dock speaks, drop you, or report you to the tournament directors/your coach if you say or do anything offensive or unethical. I can "handle" any type of argument but maintaining a healthy debate environment is the most important aspect of any round for me.

---Things that make me sad---

"Mark that as an analytic" - no.

Not numbering and labeling your arguments. Give your off names in the 1nc. It makes me frustrated when everyone's calling the same sheet different names.

Asking for a marked copy bc you didn't flow.

Stealing prep. You all are not as clever as you think you are. I know what you are doing.

Not starting the round promptly at the start time and generally wasting time unnecessarily. Debate tournaments are exhausting for everyone and I would like the round to be finished ASAP so I have time to write a ballot, give an RFD, talk to my teams, eat food, etc.

Not knowing how to email. I get that mistakes happen, but also it's the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four. The chain should be set up before the round. I really don't want to do a speechdrop.

Give your email a proper subject line so everyone involved can search for rounds when they need to later.

"I can provide a card on this later" - no you won't, no one ever does.

---Online Debate---

I'm a big fan of posting the roadmap in the chat.

Slow down. It's possible that I might miss things during the round due to tech errors. Most mics are also not great and so it can be harder to understand what you are saying at full speed.

I have a multiple monitor setup so I might be looking around but I promise I'm paying attention.

If my camera is ever off, please get some sort of confirmation from me before you begin your speech. It's very awkward to have to ask you to give your speech again bc I was afk. It has happened before and it sucks for everyone involved.

---Ks---

I'm totally fine with Ks, but my audio processing issues often are not. I struggle to flow K debates the most I've noticed, and I think a lot of that has to do with the way K debaters debate. Being hyper conscious of the flowability of your arguments is key to me picking up everything. I won't be offended if that means you pref me down. I'm mostly just requesting you don't drop huge blocks filled with words that are not easy to flow if you want me to flow everything you said.

If you're reading something that includes music in someway, I'd greatly appreciate if you turn it down/off while you speak. My auditory processing issues makes it difficult for me to understand what you're saying when there is something playing in the background. I don't have any qualms about this form of argumentation, I just want to understand what you're saying.

If you are going for the K in the 2nr and don't go to case, tell me why I shouldn't care about it.

K affs need counter interps. I require a greater explanation of what debate looks like under the aff model more than most judges. You should explain how your (counter)interp generates offense/defense to help me conceptualize weighing clash vs your model. I don't think shotgunning a bunch of underdeveloped framework DAs is a good or efficient use of your time. Most of them are usually the same argument anyways, and I'd rather you have 2-3 carded & impacted out disads.

I think that fairness is probably an impact but I don't think it makes sense to use it as a round about way to go for a clash terminal. Just go for clash or go for fairness. Predictability is usually the most persuasive i/l for me. I think debate has game characteristics, but is probably not purely a game. If you go for clash, contextualize the education you gain to the topic and be specific. I think it rarely makes sense to go for both the TVA and SSD in the 2nr.

---Other thoughts---

Condo is good but I'll vote that it's bad if you go for it. I mostly don't think there's a great interp for either side.

I love scrappy debaters. I've only ever debated on small squads (i.e., my partner and I were the ones doing the majority of prep for the team) so I respect teams that are doing what they can with limited resources more than most. Debaters who are willing to make smart, bold strategic moves when they're behind will be rewarded.

I'm not sure how I feel about judge kick. It seems like it makes 2ars incredibly difficult, but I think sometimes that's okay.

I'm almost always willing to hear a T debate.

Ben Mnushkin Glenbrook North 6 rounds

Alex Mojica Olathe North High School 4 rounds

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

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

________________________________________________________________________

Paradigm from 2017 through February 2024.

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

codymorrowtx1@gmail.com

smdebatedocs@gmail.com

Speaker Points

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

27.7 to 28.2 - Average

28.3 to 28.6 - Good job

28.7 to 29.2 - Well above average

29.3 to 29.7 - Great job/ impressive job

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

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

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

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

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

GOOD LUCK! HAVE FUN!

LD June 13, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

Kenneth Nelson Hire 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri September 29, 2023 at 1:50 PM MDT

Read the bold stuff if you're in a hurry.

Logistics: 1) Add me to the chain: knj522@gmail.com, and 2)both teams can insert re-highlighting of the other teams' evidence if they give a brief explanation of what they think the evidence actually says.

2023-2024 Topic Update: I'd love to see some wonky economics debates, whether it be a novel cap k or whacky interest rates DA. I'll bump speaks and I'll be able to give you targeted feedback, including ideas for argument innovation and specific authors. This was my major and how I enjoy spending free time.

SLC West '19
Trinity '23

Affiliations: Glenbrook North High School, Casady High School

Background and Thoughts on Debate:

I endeavor to be maximally impartial in making decisions. If judges interjected their beliefs into my debates, I got quite annoyed. Consequently, I won't consciously interject my beliefs into debates, with two exceptions.

First, be nice: interpersonal hostility sucks, especially in debate. I won't hesitate to nuke your speaks if you're rude. Debaters should show each other mutual respect for the work they put into the activity. Conversely, making small chat before the round and during dead time in the debate will boost your speaks.

Second, I (and everyone) will inject their unconscious biases into debates. There's three you should be aware of:

First, I'm an economics and political science data nerd whose primary debate strategies were tiny aff's, the cap k, generic counterplans, politics, whatever the topic DA was, and impact turns. Consequently,
my knowledge of much critical literature - especially critical literature authored by old, white, French guys - is lacking. If I can't understand your argument, I can't vote on it. If I were a critical team, I would pref me above "no plan, no ballot" judges but below most clash judges.

Second, my primary skill in debate was evidence production, not speaking. Good cards will have an undue influence on how I see the debate. Nonetheless, I acknowledge this is a bias: I strive to focus on what debaters, not the cards, say.

Third, I take a more big picture/embedded clash view of debate than many critics. Debate is about telling compelling stories. Far more important than the fact that 2NC #3b was dropped is how 2NC #3b fits into the narrative you're weaving. This has two consequences for you. First, isolating, weighing, and explaining how your external offense turns your opponents' external offense is critical. Second, I'm much more willing to "zero" DAs or advantages than most judges. If an advantage or DA is bunk for a very specific reason, tell me. Even good analytics can zero a DA or advantage.

Besides that, I see debate as a game that I evaluate based on the flow. From planless affs to process CPs - I'll strive to ensure the win/loss evaluation is based on who debated the issue better.

However, my evaluation of speaker points will be quite subjective. In addition to rating debaters' speaking quality, I use points to reward strategies and practices which I believe make debate fun and educational. These strategies and practices include:
1. Novelty in general, but especially in clash/framework debates
2. Methodological indicts of your opponents evidence (minimal sample size, correlation vs causation, etc) and methodological prodicts of your evidence (explaining the specific methodology and why it's reliable, reading a meta analysis of studies)
3. Really good cards - on anything. Be loud about it if you believe your evidence meets this threshold.
4. Unique, specific variants of the cap k (not just reading the cap k - finding a specific, weird Marxist tradition/thesis that rebuts the aff)
5. Impact turns - I love dedev and war good debates.
6. Straight turning an advantage or DA
7. Tiny, clever aff's with tricks
8. Huge, whole-rez style aff's

Cam Nofsinger Lane Tech College Prep H.S. 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 11, 2023 at 3:44 AM CDT

cam, they/she, camnofdebate@gmail.com

last time large substance changes were done : nov 2022

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

bio

- 8 years of cx debate experience and counting

- happily in college debate limbo (transfer student blues)

- lane tech debate captain ('21)

- lane tech debate co-coach (‘22-now)

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

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

top level

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

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

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

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

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

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

3) i won't kick arguments for you

4) line by line debating is non-optional

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

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

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

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

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

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

k things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

policy things

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

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

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

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

final notes

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

bonus speaks section

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

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

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

Jimin Park Greenhill School 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 19, 2024 at 2:33 AM CDT

jpark.debate@gmail.com , taipeiamericanpolicy@gmail.com

University of Kansas '23, Washburn Rural '19

he/him/his

Coaching for the Asian Debate League and Taipei American School

Based in Taiwan, so the time difference will affect my judging. This means you need to have more enunciation and clarity than usual.

TLDR:

---very low econ knowledge

---very bad for K AFFs, process counterplans, and technical T arguments

---decent for other policy arguments and Ks that are DAs

________________________________________________________________________________________

TLDR:

---Not the greatest flow, likes creativity, more likely to care about macro-issues than minor technical drops, avoid jargon/acronyms, will vote on args that promote sedition

---Fully-developed strategies that clash tend to perform better in front of me.

---I think have a higher bar for what constitutes a 'complete argument' than the average college-aged judge and some may say I care more about the "truth" side of "tech over truth." This is not necessarily about content, but about argument development/evidence/persuasion.

---My debate beliefs are malleable. This paradigm might make me seem like an old person (true, though), but good debating can remedy my predispositions. Good ev helps too.

---Largely persuaded that:

(1) incomplete args in the 1NC justify new responses

(2) net benefits should be verbally stated in the 1NC

The justification for both of these will be below.

________________________________________________________________________________________

General:

Positives

1---Respecting your opponents (CX, pronouns, don't mercilessly bludgeon less-experienced debaters), be ethical, etc.

2---Efficiency. In your speech, during prep, emailing, down-time. etc. If you don't need 10 minutes of prep for the 2NR/2AR, don't take it.

3---Taking debate seriously. Pay attention, flow, try. But also, have fun! We are all invested, so let's make our debates worthwhile. Ad-homs are bad and not arguments.

4---Research (evidence matters, but so could spin). Vertifical proliferation is better than horizontal proliferation of arguments. Also, likely won't vote for death good.

5---Ethos and Clarity. I am a bad judge for teams that just spit into their computer at 300 WPM at 65% clarity. Lowkey think that debaters that are slow (while being smart, technical, etc.) are *****chefs kiss***** I should hear every single word you say. Please enunciate and recognize that debate is also a communication activity instead of a block-perfecting competition in the 2NR and 2AR. If you are a team that has rebuttals prescripted without any plans of contextualization (such as asserting things happened when they didn't), then please email me your 2NR/2AR blocks, and I will assign your speaker points during the 1AC and vote against you.

6. Organization---speech docs, cards, wikis

Negatives

1---Lack of analysis. You should have framing arguments, judge instruction, contextualization, and argument development.

2---Debates that make me litigate things outside of the debate.

3---Vagueness. It should be clear what your AFF does, what the plan means, what the counterplan does, what your highlighting of evidence means, and what the tags of your cards are intended to communicate. I am likely more amenable to vagueness arguments than most judges.

Misc

I kicked the AFF in a decent chunk of debates I was in. I do not think this influences my judging but my AFF (and NEG) debates would sometimes look really different than a lot of people.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Policy:

Topicality vs. Policy AFFs

T versus policy AFFs was one of my least favorite arguments. It isn't ideological, but I spent most of my debate career debating with 2Ns who were obsessed with it, so I just never really thought about it. I find most T debates dry but I understand the strategic necessity of them. My aversion stems from 1NCs that lack a violation and then debate becoming late-breaking.

To improve my VTL when going for T, internal link explanation is important. 2Ns have seemed to forget that there ought to be a reasonable explanation about how we get from the violation to zero NEG ground ever. Both teams should have more debating about what the interp/counter-interp debates would look like. Assertions of topic biases or quality of generics should be explained with warrants. I am not the ideal judge for a technical T argument.

For some reason, I find ground arguments more compelling than limits/precision. Not sure if this will affect my judging, but I've always thought that limits arguments were hyperbolic. Big topics feel good if the NEG has robust strategies to counter them. When evenly debated, plan-text-in-a-vacuum is a tough sell for me.

Disadvantages

The optimal 2NR is a DA and the case. Counterplans are for cowards. I'm not as big on the modern Politics DA as most Kansas debaters but it's okay. I would prefer not to judge debates about intrinsicness tests.

AFFs teams should have offense on the DA. NEG teams should try to have real "turns case" arguments outside of "nuke war is bad."

Counterplans

I'm mostly AFF-leaning on theory arguments. I'm not wedded to these beliefs, but I have some predispositions. I am not a huge believer in conditionality. This is not a free invitation to go for condo in the 2AR, merely an observation that in-depth debates are better.

My least favorite genre of argument as a debater was the process counterplan. Again, I understand its strategic utility and will judge the debate neutrally. I'd prefer a 2NR that is about why the AFF's bad. Competition debates are dry. Comparative evidence between the AFF and the counterplan's process demonstrating functional competition could make me hate your counterplan a little less. I am also a less qualified judge for complex competition debates.

Case

I am a good judge for presumption and giving a low weight to the AFF advantages. The 2AC and 1AR get away with murder on the case, so the NEG teams should use that to their advantage. This is an area where good debating will be rewarded with nice speaker points.

Soft Left

I enjoy soft left AFFs but framing contentions need to contain offense. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Critiques:

Ks vs. Policy AFFs

I'm better for Ks on the NEG. I will award specificity, especially backed with evidence. I will have a hard time voting on critiques that lack interactions with the scholarship and thesis of the 1AC. If the NEG reads a K impact turn to the AFF's advantage, that is likely the best strategy in front of me. Or, have a robust framework justification with turns case arguments. I seem to care a little bit more about performative contradictions/linking to your own K than some (not for theory reasons). The closer your K is to a soft-left impact turn, the better. I am willing to vote on non-extinction impact-turns (example: heg is racist/causes violent interventions---bipolarity is preferable).

K AFF vs. T: USFG

I have voted both ways but am a bad judge for you/find most AFF offense not intrinsic to T. Explain what debates over the AFF interp would look like. I always thought framework debates were thought-provoking and helped me think about debate. Explain what debates over the NEG interp/TVA would look like. I am open to voting for either fairness or education. I am a believer in research about the topic, so the closer your AFF is to being about the topic, defending a theory of power, being a substantial shift from the status quo, and defending material action, the better. Any lit bases outside of bio power, colonialism, settler colonialism, capitalism, and IR need more explanation.

________________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Incomplete Arguments

I am mostly compelled that the 1AR should get whatever it wants in response to incomplete 1NCs. Debates are increasingly rewarding blippy 1NCs, causing debates that are worse to judge and I believe judges ought hold the line on what the debate community constitutes a complete argument. If a 1NC DA shell lacks uniqueness, then why should the 2AC be burdened to make link turn args as to how they reverse the deficiencies of the status quo. The logical conclusion of "you have to answer everything" would mean the AFF would have to read impact d to random floating impacts, which is absurd.

(2) Net Benefits

Whatever the net benefit of every advocacy is should be specified in the 1NC. This is low-cost for the NEG and would improve debates/AFF strategy. CX doesn't remedy this because NEG teams take forever to answer, which is unfair for the AFF because the 1A could be asking good, substantive questions. Instead, I have to listen to the 1N say "everything is a net benefit... wait... <>...then the 2N takes 15 seconds to decide and then lists net benefits to analytical con con, states, the one card Security K, a card-less 15 plank advantage counterplan, and a process counterplan. This take might seem extreme, but I believe it is the least arbitrary and most efficient way to resolve net benefit shenanigans (a time limit feels weird). For most counterplans, they are only complete arguments if they have arguments about solvency AND competition in the 1NC. Counterplans that rely on DAs to beat the perm and complete, so it seems logical that the NEG should be responsible for this. Lastly, I want to award bold strategies. The clearer the net benefits are, the better AFFs will be at straight-turning and NEGs will read better DA + CP combinations.

Jiyoon Park Washburn Rural High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 4:08 AM EDT

jiyooon.park@gmail.com

Washburn Rural '22

KU '26

Assistant coach for Washburn Rural and Greenhill

I will judge solely on the technical debating done and will avoid intervening. As I judge more debates, I continue to vote on arguments I vehemently disagree with, but were executed well on a technical level. The only requirement for all debaters is that an argument has a claim and a warrant. This means a few things:

- I will decide debates based on my flow, but do not care whether you go for the fiat K, politics, or warming good. The main caveat is my bar for an argument is claim and warrant*, the absence of the latter will make it easier to discount or refute. I would prefer strategies reflective of the literature with good evidence, but debate is a game so you do you.

*If you say only "no US-China war" and the other team concedes it, that is functionally meaningless. If you say "no US-China war, interdependence and diplomacy" that holds more relevance if dropped, BUT not as much as you'd think given it was not a complete thought. The logical progression of this example is that you should fully flesh out your arguments.

- I will read evidence out of interest during the debate, but it will not influence my decision until the debaters make it matter. This can be through establishing a metric for how I should evaluate and elevate certain types of evidence and then naming certain authors/relevant cards for my decision. If a metric is never set, I favor better highlighted evidence, complete warrants, and conclusiveness. Argument made analytically can hold similar weight to evidence if warranted and smart.

- The last thing that will boost you chances of winning is clear judge instruction. Flag your clear pieces of offense, dropped concessions, and say where I should start my decision. This also means when extending a claim and a warrant, explain the implication of winning an argument.

- I will not vote on anything external to the debate such as personal attacks, receipts, prefs, or ad-homs. Ethical/external issues should be settled outside of the debate.

- The only caveat to me deciding technically and offense-defense is cowardice and cheap-shots. I will not vote on hidden-SPEC and am very willing to give new answers. Similar ones like floating PIKs also probably don't meet the bar of a complete argument. If there is uncertainty make it a real argument...

That said here are some of my debate thoughts that could shape your strategy:

- For K-AFFs, it makes far more sense to go for a form based impact turn, rather than a content one or a counter-interpretation.

- For framework, contextualize your offense and defense to the debate/case you are debating or just go for fairness.

- Performative contradictions, when going for the K/the 1NC is multiple worlds, matter a lot to me and probably implicate your framework arguments.

- The fiat K/interpretations that zero the 1AC make more sense to me than trying to make causal links to the plan and huge alternatives because the perm double bind becomes truer.

- I have never seen an AFF reasonability argument on T that I found persuasive, I can obviously be convinced otherwise, but it seems like an uphill battle.

- My default is no judge kick/I will not do it, unless explicitly told to.

- Non-condo theory is almost always a reason to reject the argument not the team.

- Absolute defense, zero-risk, and presumption are most definitely a thing.

- AFF intrinsicness arguments on DAs have rarely made sense to me.

- Establish a metric for competition and have standards. I would like to see a counterplan that competes on the unique resolutional mechanism, rather than certainty and immediacy.

Things that will boost your speaks:

- Flow, i.e. correctly identifying dropped arguments, strategically going for dropped arguments, writing/typing when the other team is speaking, etc.

- Debating off paper and being less laptop dependent such as giving the final rebuttals with only paper.

- Having fun, debates are more fun when they are light hearted and you seem like you're enjoying it.

- Fewer off and a more cohesive strategy.

- Strategic and funny cross-exes. Most cross-exes are FYIs and reminders, don't do that.

- Down-time moving faster such as sending speeches out, starting cross-ex, etc. Asking for a marked doc when it was only two cards marked will annoy me and marked docs don't include cards not read. Just flow pls...

Miscellaneous things include:

- Keeping your camera on during online debates makes them more bearable.

- I will clear you twice and after that I will vote against you for clipping/stop flowing your speech, but for educational purposes I won't halt the debate.

Bella Piekut New Trier High School 4 rounds

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

maine east '21. emory '25.

put me on the chain: bellapiekutdebate@gmail.com

tldr:

- little to no topic knowledge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ks:

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

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

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

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

k affs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

theory:

- don't spread through your blocks, clash!

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

cps:

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

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

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

das:

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

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

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

- not much else to say. das are cool.

Stephen Pipkin Glenbrook North

Brian Roche Northside College Preparatory 5 rounds

Veronica Rubin New Trier High School 3 rounds

Serena Rupp NSU University School 4 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 12:51 AM CDT

Emory 26, Lawrence Free State 22

serenajosephinerupp@gmail.com

I am extremely tech > truth, which frames the rest of my thoughts about debate. Every time I judge this paradigm gets shorter because my predispositions are weak and irrelevant to the vast majority of debates.

Only non-negotiables:

1. No death good.

2. I won't vote on things that happen outside of the round. I'm 20 years old and so unqualified to mediate high schoolers' interpersonal conflicts.

Absolutely love T debates when debaters do impact comparison. Competing interpretations > reasonability.

Truthfully, I think that predictable limits are the gold standard. Limits for the sake of limits are bad. The most legally precise definition isn't necessarily the best one for debate. That being said, just debate.

Ks:

I am comfortable judging Ks like cap, set col, antiblackness, security, etc. I know basically nothing about postmodernism/poststructuralism/high theory.

My predisposition is that teams should get to weigh their aff and that framework interps that entirely exclude Ks are unpersuasive.

K affs:

In a close T debate, I’m a bit better for the neg. This is an issue with experience more so than bias. I’ve basically always been on that side of the debate, so I can subconsciously fill in more gaps when both teams lack judge instruction. With that said, I am so flow-oriented that this rarely matters. I’m just going to vote for the team that wins more of their impact and explains why it outweighs. Fairness is an impact so long as you can explain it as one. I don’t have a strong preference between clash and fairness. If you’re neg, I’m on par better for T than the K because that’s where my experience lies.

DAs:

Obviously great. Smart turns case explanation = good speaks.

CPs:

Functional and textual competition is the gold standard. Default to judge kick.

Theory:

Conditionality is the only reason to reject the team. I'm a 2N and personally believe that condo is good, but quality of debating matters most. The aff needs to clearly explain an impact prior to the 2AR, or else I’m very sympathetic to the neg. Please do line by line.

Parth Shah Westminster 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat April 6, 2024 at 7:57 AM EDT

pasdebate@gmail.com

Subject the email chain - Tournament Name Round # - Aff Team AFF vs Neg Team NEG

Debated at Maine East (2016-2020, TOC Circuit) and the University of Pittsburgh (2020-2023, NDT Qual)

I will boost speaker points if you follow @careerparth on tiktok, bring (vegetarian) food/snacks, and end the debate as fast as possible.

I took most of this paradigm from Reed Van Schenck:

Career wise, my arguments of preference were more critical (Afropessimism, Settler Colonialism, Capitalism, and the likes). I enjoy judging clash debates, policy vs critical. Traditional policy debaters should take note of my lack of experience in policy v policy debates and rank me very low on their judging preferences.

The one thing you should know if you want my ballot is this: If you say something, defend it. I mean this in the fullest sense: Do not disavow arguments that you or your partner make in binding speeches and cross-examination periods, but rather defend them passionately and holistically. If you endorse any strategy, you should not just acknowledge but maintain its implications in all relevant realms of the debate. The quickest way to lose in front of me is to be apprehensive about your own claims.

When in doubt, referring to the judging philosophies of the following folks will do you well: Micah Weese, Reed Van Schenck, Calum Matheson, Alex Holguin, & Alex Reznik

Everything below this line is a proclivity of mine that can be negotiated through debate:

I think that debate is a game with pedagogical and political implications. As such, I see my role as a judge as primarily to determine who won the debate but also to facilitate the debaters' learning. Everything can be an impact if you find a way to weigh it against other impacts, this includes procedural fairness. When my ballot is decided on the impact debate, I tend to vote for whoever better explains the material consequence of their impact. Use examples. Examples can help to elucidate (the lack of) solvency, establish link stories, make comparative arguments, and so many more useful things. They are also helpful for establishing your expertise on the topic. All thing said, at the end of the day, I will adapt to your argument style.

I dislike judges who exclude debaters because of what they decide to read in a debate round, I will NOT do that as long as you don't say anything racist, sexist, etc.

Speaker points are arbitrary. I tend to give higher speaker points to debaters who show a thorough understanding of the arguments they present. I am especially impressed by debaters who efficiently collapse in the final rebuttals. I will boost speaker points if rebuttals are given successfully with prep time remaining and/or off the flow!

Public Forum Debate

The faster you end the debate, the higher your speaks.

Give an order before your speech

Ayden Smith Maize High School 2 rounds

Last changed on Thu April 4, 2024 at 4:05 PM CDT

Truman '22

Wichita State '26

Assistant Coach at Maize HS

(He/Him)

Email- aydebate22@gmail.com

Former 2A, reformed 2N

I think debate should be an opportunity to put research skills to the test. I highly value good evidence spin and think in many instances teams who tell me what their evidence says wind up better off than teams who just read what the evidence says.

I think the only ideological predisposition that affects me the most is my neg lean on a lot of theory questions. Condo is probably good and certainly doesn't outweigh T but I've recently been finding myself persuaded by condo bad a lot more. Edit: I have oddly enough recently become far more convinced that it's good for the aff to extend and go for condo despite making the switch to 2N. That isn't to say I am easy to win on the argument but rather that I can be persuaded either way. For it to be viable, however, aff teams need to start contextual analysis and interp debating in the 1AR and slow down so I can flow everything.

Evidence quality is something I've noticed decline at a shocking level. No author qualifications, shady websites, poor highlighting to the extent that there's no warrant highlighted, etc. Even though I noted above appreciation for evidence spin, that spin should incorporate indicts to bad evidence from the other team. If they read a card that's tagged, "BBB Passes." and the only words highlighted are "BBB" and "Passes" I feel no reason to consider that card in my decision.

Don't be needlessly mean to your opponents. Being blatantly racist/sexist/transphobic etc. will certainly tank your speaks and probably lead to an L. Making fun of bad evidence does not require attacking the character of who you're debating.

Most of my debate influence comes from Parker Hopkins.

General Scales

Teams should adapt---------------------------X----Judge should adapt

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

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

Counterplans aren't fair--------------------X-----------Counterplans are fun

Nothing competes----------------------X---------Summers 94

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

Reasonability--------------X-----------------Competing interpretations

Death good is acceptable-----------------------X-------Not a good argument

Case Debate

Impact turns can be exceptionally fun but often times are full of terrible literature. Teams should point that out.

I think teams are scared to go for turns vs affs that aren't flat out impact turns and I think both evidence wise and strategically it's a good idea to put hefty link turn arguments on case.

A lot of affs are so painfully shady in their advocacy that I think the neg certainly gets to make assumptions and assertions about what the aff actually does.

Teams often do impact comparison exclusively at the terminal impact level without incorporation of vital solvency deficits implications to that calculus.

There's a lot of focus on reading an unnecessary number of cards in the block on certain arguments. If 1NRs cut UQ cards in half in favor of link cards I think the debate certainly winds up further in your favor.

If you are gonna read 2 minutes of UQ then my smallest request is to make the tags funnier. I'll give extra speaks if you make the worst part of the debate a bit sillier.

Politics is one of my favorite arguments but I think there comes a time when people should recognize that a DA is beyond repair. Sometimes truth can ethos wise outweigh tech in these debates that makes it feel displeasing to vote on a PTX DA.

Top of any neg speech with a DA after the 1NC should start with something like, "DA outweighs and turns case."

The Rider DA can be a lot of fun and holds an interesting implication for affs but I think it's almost always very flawed at an internal link level.

If an aff is really good enough you should be able to answer every counterplan just by winning it's different from the 1AC. Not being able to do that is not the fault of the negative.

Non condo theory issues are 99% of the time a reason to reject the argument, not the team so if you list them as a reason to do so in 2AC cross you should have a reason why that's true before I hold the neg to answering it with anything else than "reject the arg, not the team."

Clever PICs can be really fun debates but word PICs can be a little more lifeless than others and less fun to debate and evaluate.

Judge kick is usually my default. It makes since to me that the neg always defends the squo even if they introduce other advocacies because their role is simply to prove that whatever change the aff makes is the wrong one.

A lot of my first hand K knowledge is limited to Cap, set col, or Heidegger but I feel comfortable in a decent bit of these debates. I think the more abstract and post modern the K leans the more I find myself feeling confused and I'd hope for more explanation.

I think a good link debate is frequently a lost art. A lot of teams will just assert that there is one but I think there really needs to be an explanation of the direct effects of voting aff. That doesn't mean it has to be a disad style story of cause and effect but explain what the aff's theorization of things justifies and use their evidence and authors to prove it. I think that link explanation also requires a reason why the alt solves it. Good enough link debate gives teams a better chance of winning without the alternative and if a team chooses to kick the alt absent a solid link your chances of winning certainly go down.

A lot of framework interpretations that don't have an end point that allow the aff to weigh its stuff vs the K seem counterproductive to me. Framework should function not just to the advantage of the K's impact and solvency calculus but should also have relatively clear parameters for what an aff must do to weigh itself. I think usually framework interpretations are better the more simplistic and common they are (the aff should be an object of research that must justify its scholarship is typically a solid interp) Otherwise it ends up too self serving.

The alt should be able to be explained to tangibly do something. Alts that just "refuse" or "reject" something seem counterintuitive to political progress in a lot of ways because I don't think they can ever have an endpoint that solves the Ks impacts.

K Affs

I've only been on the negative in these debates but I don't think I've wound up as opposed to critical affirmatives as my coaches or even partner. There's no doubt that affirmatives that challenge the resolution are important to debate as a whole but since I've spent most of time thinking about neg strategies I think a lot of my views can be filtered through weighing traditional neg offense.

I think affirmatives are always best whenever they take advantage of the 1AC to leverage a counter model of debate that can access some of the negs offense. It's hard to convince me in a competitive setting that procedural fairness is outright bad whenever the affirmative is required to engage in some procedurally fair part of the activity before the 1NC even occurs, that said I think impact turns should be paired with reasons why the affirmatives model can avoid said offense.

Affirmatives really need a clearly defined theory of power and a reason why that should filter neg offense. Aff teams who read a bunch of authors who would probably disagree with one another and throw made up words into tags are more likely to lose my attention than win my ballot.

I should be able to explain what voting aff endorses and why the model that comes with it is better than whatever the negative proposes.

Neg teams in these debates should be more direct and willing to read a lot of off case positions. For one it can be effective against teams who are only ready to answer 2 or 3 off, but also I think it helps get a gage on what the aff actually does and helps point out contradictions in what they advocate for.

Topicality/Procedurals

T is one of the more fun arguments in debate because I think it's good to limit out bad or shady affirmatives in real time.

I feel like Extra and Effects T affs are more common and that's dumb. Aff teams usually just say "because there's extra stuff from the plan you get more DA links." That's ridiculous and neg teams should put a stop to it.

Impact debate on T needs to occur alongside a counter explanation of what the neg interp does to both solve it and create better debate as a whole. It feels like a lot of T debates suffer from serious disconnect.

Most procedural arguments are lost on me as legitimate reasons to vote against an aff team. Procedurals that require unorthodox things of the affirmative usually seem silly to me.

Sneaking in ASPEC is quite ridiculous and I will decrease speaks of any neg team who hides the analytic or sends out everything in the 1NC except for it. If it's short enough that the aff team doesn't notice it I'll guess that's because it's not warranted enough to justify voting negative and the 1AR will get new answers.

As far as I'm concerned there's only one procedural type argument that's of immediate value:

Disclosure is probably one of the most important things about modern debate. I come from a school where my partner and I were the only team consistently debating with a small coaching staff. Despite that, I think I'm opposed to the view that disclosing is even close to bad for smaller programs. I agree a lot with Chris Roberds here, "I have a VERY low threshold on this argument. Having schools disclose their arguments pre-round is important if the activity is going to grow / sustain itself. Having coached almost exclusively at small, underfunded, new, or international schools, I can say that disclosure (specifically disclosure on the wiki if you are a paperless debater) is a game changer. It allows small schools to compete and makes the activity more inclusive." Teams should disclose what stuff they read and open source docs on the wiki. If you tell me you open sourced the round I'll bump speaks. All of this comes with some caveats like the neg should ask for disclosure before the round before they make the argument in the 1NC, which requires that both teams come to the room (or zoom) shortly after pairings are released. I think if the aff team flat refuses to disclose anything (on the wiki or preround after being asked) than I can easily be convinced on the theory argument but the the neg did not attempt to get disclosure or if there are a reasonable set of interrupting circumstances for the aff pre round then maybe I will give leeway. Your best bet is to have some sort of physical evidence (ie a screenshot of an email which was not answered or if you ask for disclosure while I am in the room and the aff says no) and contextualize the violation.

Matthew Sung Northside College Preparatory 6 rounds

Wayne Tang Northside College Preparatory 6 rounds

Put me on the email chain (WayneTang@aol.com). (my debaters made me do this, I generally don't read evidence in round)

General Background:
Former HS debater in the stone ages (1980s) HS coach for over many years at Maine East (1992-2016) and now at Northside College Prep (2016 to present). I coach on the north shore of Chicago. I typically attend and judge around 15-18 tournaments a season and generally see a decent percentage of high level debates. However, I am not a professional teacher/debate coach, I am a patent attorney in my real (non-debate) life and thus do not learn anything about the topic (other than institutes are overpriced) over the summer. I like to think I make up for that by being a quick study and through coaching and judging past topics, knowing many recycled arguments.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
Intelligent story telling with good evidence and analysis is something I like to hear. I generally will vote for teams that have better comparative impact analysis (i.e. they take into account their opponents’ arguments in their analysis). It is a hard road, but I think it is possible to reduce risk to zero or close enough to it based on defensive arguments.

TOPICALITY
I vote on T relatively frequently over the years. I believe it is the negative burden to establish the plan is not topical. Case lists and arguments on what various interpretations would allow/not allow are very important. I have found that the limits/predictability/ground debate has been more persuasive to me, although I will consider other standards debates. Obviously, it is also important how such standards operate once a team convinces me of their standard. I will also look at why T should be voting issue. I will not automatically vote negative if there is no counter-interpretation extended, although usually this is a pretty deep hole for the aff. to dig out of. For example, if the aff. has no counter-interpretation but the neg interpretation is proven to be unworkable i.e. no cases are topical then I would probably vote aff. As with most issues, in depth analysis and explanation on a few arguments will outweigh many 3 word tag lines.

COUNTERPLANS
Case specific CPs are preferable that integrate well (i.e., do not flatly contradict) with other negative positions. Clever wording of CPs to solve the Aff and use Aff solvency sources are also something I give the neg. credit for. It is an uphill battle for the Aff on theory unless the CP/strategy centered around the CP does something really abusive. The aff has the burden of telling me how a permutation proves the CP non-competitive.

KRITIKS
Not a fan, but I have voted on them numerous times (despite what many in the high school community may believe). I will never be better than mediocre at evaluating these arguments because unlike law, politics, history and trashy novels, I don’t read philosophy for entertainment nor have any interest in it. Further (sorry to my past assistants who have chosen this as their academic career), I consider most of the writers in this field to be sorely needing a dose of the real world (I was an engineer in undergrad, I guess I have been brainwashed in techno-strategic discourse/liking solutions that actually accomplish something). In order to win, the negative must establish a clear story about 1) what the K is; 2) how it links; 3) what the impact is at either the policy level or: 4) pre-fiat (to the extent it exists) outweighs policy arguments or other affirmative impacts. Don’t just assume I will vote to reject their evil discourse, advocacy, lack of ontology, support of biopolitics, etc. Without an explanation I will assume a K is a very bad non-unique Disad in the policy realm. As such it will probably receive very little weight if challenged by the aff. You must be able to distill long boring philosophical cards read at hyperspeed to an explanation that I can comprehend. I have no fear of saying I don’t understand what the heck you are saying and I will absolutely not vote for issues I don’t understand. (I don’t have to impress anyone with my intelligence or lack thereof and in any case am probably incapable of it) If you make me read said cards with no explanation, I will almost guarantee that I will not understand the five syllable (often foreign) philosophical words in the card and you will go down in flames. I do appreciate, if not require specific analysis on the link and impact to either the aff. plan, rhetoric, evidence or assumptions depending on what floats your boat. In other words, if you can make specific applications (in contrast to they use the state vote negative), or better yet, read specific critical evidence to the substance of the affirmative, I will be much more likely to vote for you.

PERFORMANCE BASED ARGUMENTS
Also not a fan, but I have voted on these arguments in the past. I am generally not highly preferred by teams that run such arguments, so I don't see enough of these types of debates to be an expert. However, for whatever reason, I get to judge some high level performance teams each year and have some background in such arguments from these rounds. I will try to evaluate the arguments in such rounds and will not hesitate to vote against framework if the team advocating non-traditional debate wins sufficient warrants why I should reject the policy/topic framework. However, if a team engages the non-traditional positions, the team advocating such positions need to answer any such arguments in order to win. In other words, I will evaluate these debates like I try to evaluate any other issues, I will see what arguments clash and evaluate that clash, rewarding a team that can frame issues, compare and explain impacts. I have spent 20 plus years coaching a relatively resource deprived school trying to compete against very well resourced debate schools, so I am not unsympathetic to arguments based on inequities in policy debates. On the other hand I have also spent 20 plus years involved in non-debate activities and am not entirely convinced that the strategies urged by non-traditional debates work. Take both points for whatever you think they are worth in such debates.

POINTS

In varsity debate, I believe you have to minimally be able to clash with the other teams arguments, if you can’t do this, you won’t get over a 27.5. Anything between 28.8 and 29.2 means you are probably among the top 5% of debaters I have seen. I will check my points periodically against tournament averages and have adjusted upward in the past to stay within community norms. I think that if you are in the middle my points are pretty consistent. Unfortunately for those who are consistently in the top 5% of many tournaments, I have judged a lot of the best high school debaters over the years and it is difficult to impress me (e.g., above a 29). Michael Klinger, Stephen Weil, Ellis Allen, Matt Fisher and Stephanie Spies didn’t get 30s from me (and they were among my favorites of all time), so don’t feel bad if you don’t either.

OTHER STUFF
I dislike evaluating theory debates but if you make me I will do it and complain a lot about it later. No real predispositions on theory other than I would prefer to avoid dealing with it.

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex.

I do not count general tech screw ups as prep time and quite frankly am not really a fascist about this kind of thing as some other judges, just don’t abuse my leniency on this.

Speed is fine (this is of course a danger sign because no one would admit that they can’t handle speed). If you are going too fast or are unclear, I will let you know. Ignore such warnings at your own peril, like with Kritiks, I am singularly unafraid to admit I didn’t get an answer and therefore will not vote on it.

I will read evidence if it is challenged by a team. Otherwise, if you say a piece of evidence says X and the other team doesn’t say anything, I probably won’t call for it and assume it says X. However, in the unfortunate (but fairly frequent) occurrence where both teams just read cards, I will call for cards and use my arbitrary and capricious analytical skills to piece together what I, in my paranoid delusional (and probably medicated) state, perceive is going on.

I generally will vote on anything that is set forth on the round. Don’t be deterred from going for an argument because I am laughing at it, reading the newspaper, checking espn.com on my laptop, throwing something at you etc. Debate is a game and judges must often vote for arguments they find ludicrous, however, I can and will still make fun of the argument. I will, and have, voted on many arguments I think are squarely in the realm of lunacy i.e. [INSERT LETTER] spec, rights malthus, Sun-Ra, the quotations and acronyms counterplan (OK I didn’t vote on either, even I have my limits), scaler collapse (twice), world government etc. (the likelihood of winning such arguments, however, is a separate matter). I will not hesitate to vote against teams for socially unacceptable behavior i.e. evidence fabrication, racist or sexist slurs etc., thankfully I have had to do that less than double digits time in my 35+ years of judging.

Aarthi Toniappa Blue Valley North 4 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 12:08 PM CDT

I debated at Blue Valley North 2018-2022

I don’t have much topic knowledge so try and avoid acronyms in tags for the first constructives

email chain: atoniappa@gmail.com

If you are smart in cx and apply it during your speech I will increase your speaker points.

being smart does not equal being mean or talking over your opponents -- please be respectful

tech over truth

Evidence

Your evidence has to make arguments-- three buzz words highlighted will make me give the opposing team more leeway with their responses (especially internal link cards).

Case

I care about case and I don't think it's utilized enough in most debates. “I’m willing to vote on defensive arguments against incomplete affirmatives.”- Brian Box

Topicality

This was my favorite argument to go for. I believe it should be looked at from an offense defense perspective. I'm most likely going to default to competing interps if it's not clear you're sitting on reasonability -- I don't think there's such thing as a bad interp it's just about how you debate it.

judge kick is a logical extension of condo --- if condo or judge kick is never verbally specified (in cx or the speeches before the 2nr) and the 1AR says no judge kick I'll be more likely to default AFF if nothing is verbally specified by the negative throughout the debate and the 2ar says no judge kick I'll default AFF.

I like counter plans that are textually and functionally competitive but if you impact out why having one is better for the sake of competition I’ll vote on it

Neg

- internal net benefits need to be able to withstand a CX

- threshold for what needs to be highlighted in a 1NC solvency card isn't that high in comparison to internal links or impact cards

AFF

- Impact out your solvency deficits

- A good explanation of PDB can be very persuasive

I like the politics da :)

don't be afraid to go for DA and case

I think da turns case can be very persuasive

the more specific the link the easier it is to win my ballot

Theory

I’m good with whatever— reject the arg not the team is enough for me if its not the 2nr

The neg reading a bunch of off doesn’t make me lower the bar for aff team going for condo

these debates can get really annoying when it’s two ships sailing in the night and if you debate it like that it will be reflected in speaks

K’s

If the alt is not explained clearly in cx and the 2NC contextualization is very different than cx your speaks will drop. If you’re going for the alt I need a thorough explanation of what it does and why it matters

Tbh not the best judge for high theory — I’m not super familiar with most lit other than set col, cap, and IR k’s but as long as you’re flushing out the arguments and not spreading your blocks at top speak it should be fine

If you’re going for a reps link PLEASE have specific lines from the aff

When evaluating K debate I start on the link then move to FW — if you do not have a link specific to the aff or the affs impacts I don’t see a world where I vote neg unless you win framework

K affs

I think these debates are very interesting

please do not read t blocks straight down without engaging in the aff's offense

I need an implicit answer to the TVA in the 1ar or at the very least 2ar answer needs to match 1ar warrants with the same wording

K v K debates are interesting but links to the plan/rehighlighting are even more important in these debates

Jacob Wilkus Lawrence Free State High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri April 12, 2024 at 6:11 AM CDT

I am in my 7th year of debate. Third year in college at Kansas (NDT ‘24), four years prior at Lawrence Free State. I coach at Shawnee Mission East.

Please add both: jwilkus1@gmail.com and smedocs@googlegroups.com.

Last Updated: February 16^th, 2024, Pre-Spartan Green & Gold.

General:

Do what you want. I genuinely believe in debate as a space for debaters to make any argument they choose. This means I don’t care if you go for the K, read a plan, or force me to evaluate a highly technical counterplan competition debate. Over the course of my short 3 year tenure of judging, I have judged over 170 debates, voting for basically every argument imaginable.

I do care about teams making complete arguments. A complete argument is one that contains a claim, warrant, and impact. Arguments that are not explained with warrants or impacted out in the context of their opponent’s arguments are incomplete and therefore have less sway on my decision than those that are complete. For example, if the AFF has said “climate change causes extinction---ocean rise, temperature change, etc. make Earth uninhabitable by collapsing agriculture and destroying society”, the response of “no impact to climate change---it’s fake” is insufficient because a.) it does not contain a warrant (why is it fake?) and b.) it does not contain an impact (why does it matter if it is fake?).

The above applies equally to “answered” and “dropped” arguments. You cannot just say “conceded” or “they’ve dropped x” 20 times and expect me to vote on it. You still need to give a reason if it is true and implicate the concession in the debate. An argument being dropped does not guarantee it is “true”.

I have spent almost the entirety of my debate career reading a plan and going for DAs and CPs. This means while I will still vote for any argument, my experience and knowledge are both better in policy debates and the way I think about the K is attempting to beat it, not win rounds on it.

I will likely have a lot to say in the decision. I usually write a lot down, and tend to have opinions on almost everything said in the debate. I will likely talk for a while, either until I run out of things to say or am cut off by a question. Assuming the questions remain civil, I will answer any and all questions debaters, coaches, or teammates have about the round. If you start yelling at or berating me, I will likely pack up and leave.

I will do my best to give complete and thorough feedback for each speech. Too many times I've asked in an RFD "how can I improve the 1NR/2AR?" and received the response "I think the 1NR/2AR was really good. Don't have anything I'd add", while later seeing I got a 28.9. This is extremely frustrating as a debater, and I will do my best to avoid doing that by spending prep time after your speech coming up with feedback.

The bottom line for everything in this paradigm is that I care a lot about debate. I spend a large portion of my free time debating, judging, coaching, running tournaments, writing files, cutting cards, streaming debates on YouTube, etc. It has become an almost integral part of the last third of my life, and I know that is true of many of the debaters I will have the honor of judging. As such, I will try my absolute hardest in each and every debate I judge to render the correct decision and give thorough feedback.

Topicality vs. Policy AFFs:

---Competing interpretations is the only method of evaluation that makes sense to me. I do not understand how I would approach evaluating T debates if not from an offense-defense point of view. I also think that “reasonability” is meaningless and ultimately devolves into competing interpretations---instead of “we are reasonable because the NEG had the ability to debate”, explain it in the context of the risk of their impacts versus yours.

---I am getting really sick of AFFs reading vague plans that barely modify resolution language so they can go for “plan text in a vacuum”. Will I vote on it, and do I do it in my debates? Sure. But I think it’s a bad argument. Instead of touting your AFF that definitely violates as “topical” because you said a word or phrase, defend a model of debate that includes your AFF.

---In-round abuse is not necessary (it’s a debate of models), but explanation of what debates look like under your model is (case lists, examples of ground, etc.).

---My favorite T speeches I've ever watched are when the AFF has read a counter-interpretation they do not meet. This happens more often than teams realize, but is often ignored because the argument was either a cheap shot or the blanket assumption that the AFF meets the interpretation. If you think the AFF doesn't meet their own interpretation, go for it.

Topicality vs. Planless AFFs:

---Fairness can be an impact, but it also cannot. Whether it is depends equally on the NEG’s explanation and the AFF’s responses. I have found fairness to be a more persuasive impact than clash but have voted and gone for both.

---I find myself voting NEG when teams correctly use small, technical arguments to drastically reduce the risk of AFF offense (“T is a procedural, so you cannot weigh case vs. T”, “debate does not change subjectivity”, “the ballot cannot solve their offense alone, but it can solve ours”). I find myself voting AFF when teams either go for their counter-interpretation resolves NEG offense OR impact turn everything the NEG has said.

---I find it very hard to vote NEG when teams are re-reading blocks without engaging in the AFF’s arguments, or not explaining their offense in terms of what the NEG has said (going for a predictability internal link instead of a limits internal link when the counter-interpretation is “limited” but unpredictable, not comparing your impact to the language of the AFF’s impact, etc.). I find it hard to vote AFF when they are not debating technically or exploiting dropped arguments (the NEG dropping something like “small schools” or “the ballot can only solve our offense” but not going for it because your pre-written blocks don’t include an extension).

Disadvantages:

---Politics scenarios have become laughable. Writing a politics DA does not mean just finding a card that says a bill exists and a card that it would do good things, then throwing your generic PC or bipartisanship link and climate change impact card and making a DA. A politics scenario makes sense when it is something being actively debated or campaigned for, and when it is something the president is actually spending PC on. I love a good politics DA, but those tend to be few and far between anymore.

---I care a lot about turns case arguments---both “impact turns case” and “link turns case”. I equally care a lot about “case turns the DA” arguments. I find these to be extremely helpful in both breaking down close debates but also helping to reduce opponent’s offense because it tends to always be unanswered.

Counterplans:

---I hate watching a process CP debate---not because I think the argument is inherently bad (though it is), but because both teams are usually horrendous in doing the relevant line by line for competition.

---AFF-specific PICs are some of my favorite arguments. Topic generic PICs (like country PICs on NATO) are the opposite. I love it when counterplans contest a core assumption of the AFF, not when they negate something the AFF had no choice but to defend.

---Conditionality is good, and core to NEG strategy. I will still vote on theory, but it’s an uphill battle. I am NEG leaning on almost all theory, except for performative contradictions or international fiat, because I tend to find those violations to be extremely egregious.

---Most other theory is a reason to reject the argument, not the team. But, if the counterplan is the 2NR and you are clearly ahead on a given theory argument, go for it.

Kritiks:

---I find it much easier to vote NEG when the 2NR is FW, not the alternative. I personally think AFFs should get to weigh the plan but have found so many debaters to be horrendous at defending why that is the case. I find that FW 2NRs make the most sense when they attempt to reduce AFF offense to as close to zero as possible.

---However, I find it extremely difficult for the NEG to win FW or reps-based arguments when they have read contradictory arguments at different points in the debate, and I do not think that condo or NEG flex justifies that.

---If the 2NR is the alternative, I find it far easier to vote NEG when it is actively compared to and explained in terms of the AFF (does it solve the AFF? Make it impossible to solve?).

---I find it much easier to vote AFF when teams do impact calculus on FW or go for DAs to the alternative. It is insufficient to just say “fairness matters” or “education comes from talking about the plan”, it also needs to be explained in terms of why the NEG’s interpretation forecloses it and why those things matter more than the NEG’s offense. The same is true for the alternative---most AFF teams let the NEG get away with murder in terms of alternative explanation (especially when going for the alt solves the AFF), so reasons why the alternative does not make sense or cannot solve the links / AFF would be super helpful.

---AFF specific links > topic generic links > the USFG is bad > the theory of power is a link.

Case:

---The more time you spend on case, the better. My ideal 1NC is a single DA, a single CP, and 5.5 minutes of case. But this is high school policy debate so I know I will never get that.

---I find case debating that is just impact defense to be woefully insufficient. Solvency deficits, internal link defense, or analytics of any kind go a long way.

---You should go for the impact turn. Debaters are horrible at answering it, and I love a good, and fun, impact turn debate.

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