JCHS Practice 2
2022 — Johns Creek, GA/US
Public Forum Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show Hideemail : gia.atmakuri@gmail.com
Former debater (hs policy and college NDT/CEDA...decades ago) and current parent of a PF debater.
I flow. Good with normative jargon. I care about the line-by-line. Number your arguments and signpost--I like a clean flow. I can handle spreading, I'll call "clear" if unable to keep up. If a shell or the arg is a tad squirrelly be deliberate so I don't miss warrants. If this is a fast-paced, high-stakes Varsity round...I’m not going to be up on the latest literature--so Ks will carry a risk of losing me, and none of us want that! Fancy srategies and theory are cool but slow down the explanations—connect dots for me. If it isn’t my making sense, my face will tell you. Please make it make sense :) I'm going to be best judging a normative round--but I'll listen to any argument you want to make.
Little things I’ve noticed about my preferences in PF (but like any tech judge, I work hard to evaluate the debate based on the round not my preferences)
- I’m a fan of case disclosure--in the hopes it will create a little more ev rigor in PF. My biggest surprise in PF is how little ev is read and scrutinized...but ultimately case disclosure is up to the debaters, not me!
- Housekeeping to cut down on time for ev exchange: start ev chain before round; Include me on the email chain. Make sure your opponents and I get the card doc (if applicable) prior to starting your speech. Card docs should cut full paragraphs, and include highlighting.
- If you offer a framework in your case, lean into it…, meaning it should match your impact/weighing or else it becomes a tad tedious for me.
- I would love to hear more comparative link weighing in PF.
A little FAQ for first/second years:
- I don’t flow Cx. It is binding. But you need to bring it up in your speech to get it in flow. And you don’t have to face me during CX, you can face your opposing team.
- Collapsing is good, if second final focus brings up new arguments, don’t panic. I’m not flowing it.
- Frontline in the second rebuttal. If you don’t, I’ll most likely buy the other team’s argument that it’s conceded.
- Good warranting and implications raises speaks.
I'm pretty laid back...have fun...sit, stand, go barefoot I don't care. Be clear before you'e clever, but be clever.Bring your best strategy, argue it well and have fun. And you do you...I'll flex as best I can!
Experience-This will be my fifth year as the head coach at Northview High School. Before moving to Georgia, I coached for 7 years at Marquette High in Milwaukee, WI.
Yes, add me to the email chain. My email is mcekanordebate@gmail.com
*As I have gained more coaching and judging experience, I find that I highly value teams who respect their opponents who might not have the same experience as them. This includes watching how you come across in CX, prep time, and your general comportment towards your opponent. In some local circuits, circuit-style policy debate is dwindling and we all have a responsibility to be respectful of the experience of everyone trying to be involved in policy debate.*
I recommend that you go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles before the debate rather than before a speech.
LD Folks please read the addendum at the end of my paradigm.
Meta-Level Strike Sheet Concerns
1. Debates are rarely won or lost on technical concessions or truth claims alone. In other words, I think the “tech vs. truth” distinction is a little silly. Technical concessions make it more complicated to win a debate, but rarely do they make wins impossible. Keeping your arguments closer to “truer” forms of an argument make it easier to overcome technical concessions because your arguments are easier to identify, and they’re more explicitly supported by your evidence (or at least should be). That being said, using truth alone as a metric of which of y’all to pick up incentivizes intervention and is not how I will evaluate the debate.
2. Evidence quality matters a bunch to me- it’s evidence that you have spent time and effort on your positions, it’s a way to determine the relative truth level of your claims, and it helps overcome some of the time constraints of the activity in a way that allows you to raise the level of complexity of your position in a shorter amount of time. I will read your evidence throughout the debate, especially if it is on a position with which I’m less familiar. I won’t vote on evidence comparison claims unless it becomes a question of the debate raised by either team, but I will think about how your evidence could have been used more effectively by the end of the debate. I enjoy rewarding teams for evidence quality.
3. Every debate could benefit from more comparative work particularly in terms of the relative quality of arguments/the interactions between arguments by the end of the round. Teams should ask "Why?", such as "If I win this argument, WHY is this important?", "If I lose this argument WHY does this matter?". Strategically explaining the implications of winning or losing an argument is the difference between being a middle of the road team and a team advancing to elims.
4. Some expectations for what should be present in arguments that seem to have disappeared in the last few years-
-For me to vote on a single argument, it must have a claim, warrant, impact, and impact comparison.
-A DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link and impact argument is presented.Too many teams are getting away with 2 card DA shells in the 1NC and then reading uniqueness walls in the block. I will generally allow for new 1AR answers.
Similarly, CP's should have a solvency advocate read in the 1NC. I'll be flexible on allowing 1AR arguments in a world where the aff makes an argument about the lack of a solvency advocate.
-Yes, terminal defense exists, however, I do not think that teams take enough advantage of this kind of argument in front of me. I will not always evaluate the round through a lens of offense-defense, but you still need to make arguments as to why I shouldn’t by at least explaining why your argument functions as terminal defense. Again this plays into evidence questions and the relative impacts of arguments claims made above.
Specifics
Case-Debates are won or lost in the case debate. By this, I mean that proving whether or not the aff successfully accesses all, some or none of the case advantages has implications on every flow of the debate and should be a fundamental question of most 2NRs and 2ARs. I think that blocks that are heavy in case defense or impact turns are incredibly advantageous for the neg because they enable you to win any CP (by proving the case defense as a response to the solvency deficit), K (see below) or DA (pretty obvious). I'm also more likely than others to write a presumption ballot or vote neg on inherency arguments. If the status quo solves your aff or you're not a big enough divergence, then you probably need to reconsider your approach to the topic.
Most affs can be divided into two categories: affs with a lot of impacts but poor internal links and affs with very solid internal links but questionable impacts. Acknowledging in which of these two categories the aff you are debating falls should shape how you approach the case debate. I find myself growing increasingly disappointed by negative teams that do not test weak affirmatives. Where's your internal link defense?? I also miss judging impact turn debates, but don't think that spark or wipeout are persuasive arguments. A high level de-dev debate or heg debate, on the other hand, love it.
DA-DAs are questions of probability. Your job as the aff team when debating a DA is to use your defensive arguments to question the probability of the internal links to the DA. Affirmative teams should take more advantage of terminal defense against disads. I'll probably also have a lower threshold for your theory arguments on the disad. Likewise, the neg should use turns case arguments as a reason why your DA calls into question the probability of the aff's internal links. Don't usually find "____ controls the direction of the link" arguments very persuasive. You need to warrant out that claim more if you're going to go for it. Make more rollback-style turns case arguments or more creative turns case arguments to lower the threshold for winning the debate on the disad alone.
CP-CP debates are about the relative weight of a solvency deficit versus the relative weight of the net benefit. The team that is more comparative when discussing the solvency level of these debates usually wins the debate. While, when it is a focus of the debate, I tend to err affirmative on questions of counterplan competiton, I have grown to be more persuaded by a well-executed counterplan strategy even if the counterplan is a process counterplan. The best counterplans have a solvency advocate who is, at least, specific to the topic, and, best, specific to the affirmative. I do not default to judge kicking the counterplan and will be easily persuaded by an affirmative argument about why I should not default to that kind of in-round conditionality. Not a huge fan of the NGA CP and I've voted three out of four times on intrinsic permutations against this counterplan so just be warned. Aff teams should take advantage of presumption arguments against the CP.
K-Used to have a bunch of thoughts spammed here that weren't too easy to navigate pre-round. I've left that section at the bottom of the paradigm for the historical record, but here's the cleaned up version:
What does the ballot do? What is the ballot absolutely incapable of doing? What does the ballot justify? No matter if you are on the aff or the neg, defending the topic or not, these are the kinds of questions that you need to answer by the end of the debate. As so much of K debating has become framework debates on the aff and the neg, I often find myself with a lot of floating pieces of offense that are not attached to a clear explanation of what a vote in either direction can/can't do.
T-Sitting through a bunch of framework debates has made me a better judge for topicality than I used to be. Comparative impact calculus alongside the use of strategic defensive arguments will make it easier for me to vote in a particular direction. Certain interps have a stronger internal link to limits claims and certain affs have better arguments for overlimiting. Being specific about what kind of offense you access, how it comes first, and the relative strength of your internal links in these debates will make it more likely that you win my ballot. I’m not a huge fan of tickytacky topicality claims but, if there’s substantial contestation in the literature, these can be good debates.
Theory- I debated on a team that engaged in a lot of theory debates in high school. There were multiple tournaments where most of our debates boiled down to theory questions, so I would like to think that I am a good judge for theory debates. I think that teams forget that theory debates are structured like a disadvantage. Again, comparative impact calculus is important to win my ballots in these debates. I will say that I tend to err aff on most theory questions. For example, I think that it is probably problematic for there to be more than one conditional advocacy in a round (and that it is equally problematic for your counter interpretation to be dispositionality) and I think that counterplans that compete off of certainty are bad for education and unfair to the aff. The biggest killer in a theory debate is when you just read down your blocks and don’t make specific claims. Debate like your
Notes for the Blue Key RR/Other LD Judging Obligations
Biggest shift for me in judging LD debates is the following: No tricks or intuitively false arguments. I'll vote on dropped arguments, but those arguments need a claim, data, warrant and an impact for me to vote on them. If I can't explain the argument back to you and the implications of that argument on the rest of the debate, I'm not voting for you.
I guess this wasn't clear enough the first time around- I don't flow off the document and your walls of framework and theory analytics are really hard to flow when you don't put any breaks in between them.
Similarly, phil debates are always difficult for me to analyze. I tend to think affirmative's should defend implementation particularly when the resolution specifies an actor. Outside of my general desire to see some debates about implementation, I don't have any kind of background in the phil literature bases and so will have a harder time picturing the implications of you winning specific arguments. If you want me to understand how your argumets interact, you will have to do a lot of explanation.
Theory debates- Yes, I said that I enjoy theory debates in my paradigm above and that is largely still true, but CX theory debates are a lot less technical than LD debates. I also think there are a lot of silly theory arguments in LD and I tend to have a higher threshold for those sorts of arguments. I also don't have much of a reference for norm setting in LD or what the norms actually are. Take that into account if you choose to go for theory and probably don't because I won't award you with high enough speaks for your liking.
K debates- Yes, I enjoy K debates but I tend to think that their LD variant is very shallow. You need to do more specific work in linking to the affirmative and developing the implications of your theory of power claims. While I enjoy good LD debates on the K, I always feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify a ballot in either direction. This is magnified by the limited amount of time that you have to develop your positions.
Old K Paradigm (2020-2022)
After y’all saw the school that I coach, I’m sure this is where you scrolled to first which is fair enough given how long it takes to fill out pref sheets. I will say, if you told me 10 years ago when I began coaching that I’d be coaching a team that primarily reads the K on the aff and on the neg, I probably would have found that absurd because that wasn’t my entry point into the activity so keep that in mind as you work with some of the thoughts below. That being said, I’ve now coached the K at a high level for the past two years which means that I have some semblance of a feeling for a good K debate. If the K is not something that you traditionally go for, you’re better off going for what you’re best at.
The best debates on the K are debates over the explanatory power of the negative’s theory of power relative to the affirmative’s specific example of liberalism, realism, etc. Put another way, the best K debaters are familiar enough with their theory of power AND the affirmative’s specific impact scenarios that they use their theory to explain the dangers of the aff. By the end of the 2NR I should have a very clear idea of what the affirmative does and how your theory explains why doing the affirmative won’t resolve the aff’s impacts or results in a bad thing. This does not necessarily mean that you need to have links to the affirmative’s mechanism (that’s probably a bit high of a research burden), but your link explanations need to be specific to the aff and should be bolstered by specific quotes from 1AC evidence or CX. The specificity of your link explanation should be sufficient to overcome questions of link-uniqueness or I’ll be comfortable voting on “your links only link to the status quo.”
On the flipside, aff teams need to explain why their contingency or specific example of policy action cannot be explained by the negative’s theory of power or that, even if some aspects can be, that the specificity of the aff’s claims justifies voting aff anyway because there’s some offense against the alternative or to the FW ballot. Affirmative teams that use the specificity of the affirmative to generate offense or push back against general link claims will win more debates than those that just default to generic “extinction is irreversible” ballots.
Case Page when going for the K- My biggest pet peeve with the current meta on the K is the role of the case page. Neither the affirmative nor the negative take enough advantage of this page to really stretch out their opponents on this question. For the negative, you need to be challenging the affirmative’s internal links with defense that can bolster some of your thesis level claims. Remember, you are trying to DISPROVE the affirmative’s contingent/specific policy which means that the more specificity you have the better off you will be. This means that just throwing your generic K links onto the case page probably isn’t the move. 9/10 the alternative doesn’t resolve them and you don’t have an explanation of how voting neg resolves the offense. K teams so frequently let policy affs get away with some really poor evidence quality and weak internal links. Please help the community and deter policy teams from reading one bad internal link to their heg aff against your [INSERT THEORY HERE] K. On that note, policy teams, why are you removing your best internal links when debating the K? Your generic framework cards are giving the neg more things to impact turn and your explanation of the internal link level of the aff is lowered when you do that. Read your normal aff against the K and just square up.
Framework debates (with the K on the neg) For better or worse, so much of contemporary K debate is resolved in the framework debate. The contemporary dependence on framework ballots means a couple of things:
1.) Both teams need to do more work here- treat this like a DA and a CP. Compare the relative strength of internal link claims and impact out the terminal impacts. Why does procedural fairness matter? What is the terminal impact to clash? How do we access your skills claims? What does/does not the ballot resolve? To what extent does the ballot resolve those things? The team that usually answers more of these questions usually wins these debates. K teams need to do more to push back against “ballot can solve procedural fairness” claims and aff teams need to do more than just “schools, family, culture, etc.” outweigh subject formation. Many of you all spend more time at debate tournaments or doing debate work than you do at school or doing schoolwork.
2.) I do think it’s possible for the aff to win education claims, but you need to do more comparative impact calculus. What does scenario planning do for subject formation that is more ethical than whatever the impact scenario is to the K? If you can’t explain your education claims at that level, just go for fairness and explain why the ballot can resolve it.
3.) Risk of the link- Explain what winning framework does for how much of a risk of a link that I need to justify a ballot either way. Usually, neg teams will want to say that winning framework means they get a very narrow risk of a link to outweigh. I don’t usually like defaulting to this but affirmative teams very rarely push back on this risk calculus in a world where they lose framework. If you don’t win that you can weigh the aff against the K, aff teams need to think about how they can use their scenarios as offense against the educational claims of the K. This can be done as answers to the link arguments as well, though you’ll probably need to win more pieces of defense elsewhere on the flow to make this viable.
Do I go for the alternative?
I don’t think that you need to go for the alternative if you have a solid enough framework push in the 2NR. However, few things to keep in mind here:
1.) I won’t judge kick the alternative for you unless you explicitly tell me to do it and include a theoretical justification for why that’s possible.
2.) The framework debate should include some arguments about how voting negative resolves the links- i.e. what is the kind of ethical subject position endorsed on the framework page that pushes us towards research projects that avoid the links to the critique? How does this position resolve those links?
3.) Depending on the alternative and the framework interpretation, some of your disads to the alternative will still link to the framework ballot. Smart teams will cross apply these arguments and explain why that complicates voting negative.
K affs (Generic)
Yes, I’m comfortable evaluating debates involving the K on the aff and think that I’ve reached a point where I’m pretty good for either side of this debate. Affirmative teams need to justify an affirmative ballot that beats presumption, especially if you’re defending status quo movements as examples of the aff’s method. Both teams benefit from clarifying early in the round whether or not the affirmative team spills up, whether or not in-round performances specific to this debate resolve any of the affirmative offense, and whatever the accumulation of ballots does or does not do for the aff. Affirmative teams that are not the Louisville project often get away with way too much by just reading a DSRB card and claiming their ballots function the same way. Aff teams should differentiate their ballot claims and negatives should make arguments about the aff’s homogenizing ballot claims. All that being said, like I discussed above, these debates are won and lost on the case page like any other debate. As the K becomes more normalized and standardized to a few specific schools of thought, I have a harder and harder time separating the case and framework pages on generic “we couldn’t truth test your arguments” because I think that shifts a bit too strongly to the negative. That said, I can be persuaded to separate the two if there’s decent time spent in the final rebuttals on this question.
Framework vs. the K Aff
Framework debates are best when both teams spend time comparing the realities of debate in the status quo and the idealized form of debate proposed in model v. model rounds. In that light, both teams need to be thinking about what proposing framework in a status quo where the K is probably going to stick around means for those teams that currently read the K and for those teams that prefer to directly engage the resolution. In a world where the affirmative defends the counter interpretation, the affirmative should have an explanation of what happens when team don’t read an affirmative that meets their model. Most of the counter interpretations are arbitrary or equivalent to “no counter interpretation”, but an interp being arbitrary is just defense that you can still outweigh depending on the offense you’re winning.
In impact turn debates, both teams need to be much clearer about the terminal impacts to their offense while providing an explanation as to why voting in either direction resolves them. After sitting in so many of these debates, I tend to think that the ballot doesn’t do much for either team but that means that teams who have a better explanation of what it means to win the ballot will usually pick up my decision. You can’t just assert that voting negative resolves procedural fairness without warranting that out just like you can’t assert that the aff resolves all forms of violence in debate through a single debate. Both teams need to grapple with how the competitive incentives for debate establish offense for either side. The competitive incentive to read the K is strong and might counteract some of the aff’s access to offense, but the competitive incentives towards framework also have their same issues. Neither sides hands are clean on that question and those that are willing to admit it are usually better off. I have a hard time setting aside clash as an external impact due to the fact that I’m just not sure what the terminal impact is. I like teams that go for clash and think that it usually is an important part of negative strategy vs. the K, but I think this strategy is best when the clash warrants are explained as internal link turns to the aff’s education claims. Some of this has to due with the competitive incentives arguments that I’ve explained above. Both teams need to do more work explaining whether or not fairness or education claims come first. It’s introductory-level impact analysis I find lacking in many of these debates.
Other things to think about-
1.) These debates are at their worst when either team is dependent on blocks. Framework teams should be particularly cautious about this because they’ve had less of these debates over the course of the season, however, K teams are just as bad at just reading their blocks through the 1AR. I will try to draw a clean line between the 1AR and the 2AR and will hold a pretty strict one in debates where the 1AR is just screaming through blocks. Live debating contextualized to this round far outweighs robots with pre-written everything.
2.) I have a hard time pulling the trigger on arguments with “quitting the activity” as a terminal impact. Any evidence on either side of this question is usually anecdotal and that’s not enough to justify a ballot in either direction. There are also a bunch of alternative causes to numbers decline like the lack of coaches, the increased technical rigor of high-level policy debate, budgets, the pandemic, etc. that I think thump most of these impacts for either side. More often than not, the people that are going to stick with debate are already here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to the kinds of harms to the activity/teams as teams on either side of the clash question learn to coexist.
K vs. K Debates (Overview)
I’ll be perfectly honest, unless this is a K vs. Cap debate, these are the debates that I’m least comfortable evaluating because I feel like they end up being some of the messiest and “gooiest” debates possible. That being said, I think that high level K vs. K debates can be some of the most interesting to evaluate if both teams have a clear understanding of the distinctions between their positions, are able to base their theoretical distinctions in specific, grounded examples that demonstrate potential tradeoffs between each position, and can demonstrate mutual exclusivity outside of the artificial boundary of “no permutations in a method debate.” At their best, these debates require teams to meet a high research burden which is something that I like to reward so if your strat is specific or you can explain it in a nuanced way, go for it. That said, I’m not the greatest for teams whose generic position in these debates are to read “post-truth”/pomo arguments against identity positions and I feel uncomfortable resolving competing ontology claims in debates around identity unless they are specific and grounded. I feel like most debates are too time constrained to meaningfully resolve these positions. Similarly, teams that read framework should be cautious about reading conditional critiques with ontology claims- i.e. conditional pessimism with framework. I’m persuaded by theoretical arguments about conditional ontology claims regarding social death and cross apps to framework in these debates.
I won’t default to “no perms in a methods debate”, though I am sympathetic to the theoretical arguments about why affs not grounded in the resolution are too shifty if they are allowed to defend the permutation. What gets me in these debates is that I think that the affirmative will make the “test of competition”-style permutation arguments anyway like “no link” or the aff is a disad/prereq to the alt regardless of whether or not there’s a permutation. I can’t just magically wave a theory wand here and make those kinds of distinctions go away. It lowers the burden way too much for the negative and creates shallow debates. Let’s have a fleshed out theory argument and you can persuade me otherwise. The aff still needs to win access to the permutation, but if you lose the theory argument still make the same kinds of arguments if you had the permutation. Just do the defensive work to thump the links.
Cap vs. K- I get the strategic utility of these debates, but this debate is becoming pretty stale for me. Teams that go for state-good style capitalism arguments need to explain the process of organization, accountability measures, the kind of party leadership, etc. Aff teams should generate offense off of these questions. Teams that defend Dean should have to defend psychoanalysis answers. Teams that defend Escalante should have specific historical examples of dual power working or not in 1917 or in post-Bolshevik organization elsewhere. Aff teams should force Dean teams to defend psycho and force Escalante teams to defend historical examples of dual power. State crackdown arguments should be specific. I fear that state crackdown arguments will apply to both the alternative and the aff and the team that does a better job describing the comparative risk of crackdown ends up winning my argument. Either team should make more of a push about what it means to shift our research practices towards or away from communist organizing. There are so many debates where we have come to the conclusion that the arguments we make in debate don’t spill out or up and, yet, I find debates where we are talking about politically organizing communist parties are still stuck in some universe where we are doing the actual organizing in a debate round. Tell me what a step towards the party means for our research praxis or provide disads to shifting the resource praxis. All the thoughts on the permutation debate are above. I’m less likely to say no permutation in these debates because there is plenty of clash in the literature between, at least, anti-capitalism and postcapitalism that there can be a robust debate even if you don’t have specifics. That being said, the more you can make ground your theory in specific examples the better off you’ll be.
add me to the email chain- alyssacdebate@gmail.com
Please call me "Queen of Sheba" instead of "judge"
tech > truth. that being said i am not a fan of dumping 4+ of blippy and unwarranted contentions that are being spread at the speed of light. if you do, however, decide to dump that on me, please send a speech doc. i'm not a huge fan of flowing off docs but i will if you want me to.
i vote off of the contents of a round, there are too many judges who give an rfd to the scope of "i didn't like your case" which is really stupid because it massively tanks the educational and regular value of prep that went into that round which often ends up being a screw. in other words, i will never intervene because interventionists are bad.
Singposting makes me very happy. pls pls signpost, otherwise there will likely be content that i did not flow because i didn't know where to flow it that you think should have won you the round.
feel free to skip grand cross for a minute of prep.
time your own prep. also stop asking me to take prep just do it pls.
defense is never sticky. extend it, always.
General
win the weighing debate to win the ballot, but win your case first. second rebuttal is expected to frontline all turn, preferably collapse or at least drop a contention. if you can frontline your entire case in second rebuttal efficeintly, expect high speaks. I have a high threshold for extensions- i will not to any work for you, you need to cleanly extend the uniqueness, link and impact of any offense you want me to evaluate- otherwise it makes it hard for me to do so. implicate and clearly flesh out all turns. collapse in summary- otherwise it makes the round super messy.
Weighing
- meta weigh for the love of god please it makes everything easier, meaning compare the weighing and actually interact with their weighing and your own weighing, don't just spew off fancy mechanisms and buzzwords to me because i will have no idea how to evaluate it.
- start weighing in summary, or rebuttal if you really want to
- please call your opps out if any probability weighing just ends up being new defense, which it does most of the time
Ev Ethics
im generally a little skeptical of paraphrasing but if you can provide me with cut card as long as it fits my flow then we're good.
Any card called for must be fully cut, meaning not googled mid round and then pasted with a URL as the citation.
Serius ev ethic violations- ie unhighlighting the word "not" or atrocious highlighting that skews ev, card clipping, or just total bsing ev will result in highly tanked speaks. If the violation goes above and beyond, an L is a real possibility.
any card called for must also be provided within 1 min, otherwise the opposing team can take prep, excluding potential tech issues
theory
before you read this know that if you're reading shells on novices or teams who clearly don't know what's happening just to grab a W, the L is a big and real possibility, also please shape shells around actual violations of real rules and actual abuses. I am highly opposed to friv theory and i think it's stupid because it does nothing to actually set good norms. Otherwise:
- i def lean towards disclo good and slightly towards para bad, but it isn't impossible to win my ballot. pretty neutral on other shells.
- that being said i also an way less experienced in theory rounds in compared to substance so flesh out and articulate things really clearly for me
- pls direct me throughout the theory debate
- i dont have a preference on rvi's
- justify your voters
K's
run to your discretion- i'm less familiar with k's but get the general idea. if you do run one, and i look confused, it's because i am. I will try my best to evaluate k's but don't trust me to do so. i'm generally not a fan of k's read in PF so think carefully before you read one.
feel free to postround me, i think its educational but do not expect my decision to change
Speaks
I'll almost always give above 28 as long as you don't completely screw up. order me bubble tea +1, guess my order right and order me bubble tea +1.5
Any questions, ask before round.
Other paradigms I agree with- Patrick Smith, Olivia Tye
Lay Paradigm
Hello
I have 24 years of experience in dolphin communications and interpersonal molecular forces.
I am best persuaded by sound logic and compelling, crystallized evidence and statistics.
Please time your speeches.
I am also persuaded by brown sugar milk tea [half sugar less ice]
Jerry Chen
Northview '25
Tech over truth. Take every thought and opinion in this paradigm with a grain of salt because any argument can win given the better debating. That means I will vote on any argument as long as it is on my flow and technically won, including arguments like death good and wipeout. My job as a judge is solely to evaluate the flow objectively and technically, not arbitrarily insert my opinions and let those insertions influence the decision.
Given that, the only things I will refuse to vote on are events that transpired outside of the round. Ad-homs, callouts, and attacks on personal character are not arguments.
Novices
---Less cards; more explanation. Too many novices read files and blocks straight down---I will reward teams that consistently extend previously read evidence before reading new cards and who directly engage in line by line.
---Flow! This is a super important practice and is overlooked in novice debates. Flowing well and using your flow effectively is the biggest difference maker when you're a novice, so take advantage of it.
---Abuse impact calculus. The best novice debates I have judged involved heavy impact weighing from both sides.
---Be efficient. You should know how to send a speech doc, reply all to an email, track prep, and do cross-ex by now.
Overview
---Give judge instruction. The top of your final rebuttals should clearly outline why I should vote for you and what I am voting on.
---"When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate." - Matt Cekanor.
Topicality
---Teams should clearly go for predictability outweighing debatability or vice versa, not go for a combination of both or a middle ground.
---Plan text in a vacuum is fine.
Counterplans
---Judgekick is good.
---You should read solvency advocates in the 1NC unless you're against a new aff.
---Fine for 2NC counterplanning out of add-ons.
---I'm pretty comfortable and probably err neg in competition debates. 2Ns let 2As get away with murder way too much with abusive perms that are clearly illegitimate---draw a line in the sand.
---Answer the net benefit or lose! You do not want to hand the neg a try or die push, especially because your deficits likely will not outweigh 100% risk of a conceded net benefit.
Disadvantages
---Disads must be coherent in the 1NC with clear uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact.
---Turns case is super important, true, and rarely answered correctly by aff teams---take advantage of it. You should also do in-depth impact calculus, especially if you're going for a linear disad without a counterplan.
Kritiks
---I'm a lot better for race-based critiques than postmodern ones. If you are reading the latter, more explanation and less buzzwords would be greatly appreciated.
---Framework interps should moot the plan. Going for the alternative coupled with links to the plan's material implications means you will lose to the perm double bind. I strongly prefer critiques that center around scholarship and discourse as opposed to materiality.
---Links should be in the context of the aff---no generic or uncontextualized links. PLEASE provide quotes or rehighlightings coupled with coherent extrapolation.
---Love tricks, and will quickly vote on one if dropped. However, the threshold for what constitutes an argument still applies. For example, simply asserting 'fiat isn't real' is not an argument with a warrant, and I will not evaluate 2NR extrapolation about presumption even if the aff team dropped it.
---I will not arbitrarily create a middle-ground interpretation---that is up to the debaters to do, although I do not find it very strategic.
Kritikal Affirmatives
---Your aff should be related to the resolution in some way, shape, or form. What this looks like is up to you, but I'm not down for recycled BS.
---Go for impact turns. Counterinterpretation approaches never made sense to me, because any coherent negative team could easily win DAs to your model.
---Fairness is a better impact than clash.
---Arguments like the Heg DA or Cap Good DA never made sense to me. Unless presented with some framing mechanism, I will heavily err aff on a question of reading an aff in one round not ending all of [insert thing that is good].
---Presumption is an arbitrary double standard---the role of the ballot is to determine whether or not the method of the 1AC is a good idea.
Theory
---Above all, slow down. These debates turn into block-spreading competitions at max speed, making them incredibly hard to adjudicate---do us all a favor and just slow down and do line by line.
---Conditionality is probably good, especially against new affs, and is the only theoretical reason to reject the team. Numerical interpretations are incoherent---it's about the practice, not the number.
Misc.
---Tag team cx is fine, I don't care.
---Inserting evidence is great (with summaries of the rehighlighting, of course). Teams that recognize questionably cut evidence and rehighlight on the fly should be rewarded.
Procedural Stuff
Call me Blake or BD instead of Judge, I don't like feeling old
Email chain: blako925@gmail.com
Please also add: jchsdebatedocs@gmail.com
Add both emails, title the chain Tournament Rd # Your Team vs. Other Team ex) Harvard Round 4 Johns Creek XY vs. Northview AM.
1AC should be sent at round start or if I'm late (sorry in advance), as soon as I walk in the room
If you go to the bathroom or fill your waterbottle before your own speech, I'll dock 1 speaker point
Stealing prep = heavily docked speaks. If you want to engage your partner in small talk, just speak normally so everyone knows you're not stealing prep, don't whisper. Eyes should not be wandering on your laptop and hands should not be typing/writing. You can be on your phone.
Clipping is auto-loss and I assign lowest possible speaks. Ethics violation claims = round stoppage, I will decide round on the spot using provided evidence of said violation
Topic Knowledge
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE.
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE
I debated in high school, didn’t debate in college, have never worked at any camp. I currently work an office job. Any and all acronyms should be explained to me. Specific solvency mechanisms should be explained to me. Tricky process CPs should be explained to me. Many K jargon words that I have heard such as ressentiment, fugitivity, or subjectivity should be explained to me.
Spreading
I WRITE SLOW AND MY HAND CRAMPS EASILY. PLEASE SLOW DOWN DURING REBUTTALS
My ears have become un-attuned to debate spreading. Please go 50% speed at the start of your speech before ramping up. I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it. If you are in novice this probably doesn't apply to you.
While judges must do their best to flow debates and adjudicate in an objective matter that rewards the better debater, there is a certain level of debater responsibility to spread at a reasonable speed and clear manner. Judge adaptation is an inevitable skill debaters must learn.
In front of me, adaption should be spreading speed. If you are saying words faster than how fast I can move my pen, I will say SLOW DOWN. If you do not comply, it is your prerogative, and you can roll the dice on whether or not I will write your argument down. I get that your current speed may be OK with NDT finalists or coaches with 20+ years of experience, but I am not those people. Adapt or lose.
No Plan Text & Framework
I am OK with any affirmative whether it be policy, critical, or performance. The problem is that the 2AC often has huge case overviews that are sped through that do not explain to me very well what the aff harms are and how the advocacy statement (or whatever mechanism) solves them. Furthermore, here are some facts about my experience in framework:
- I was the 1N in high school, so I never had to take framework other than reading the 1NC shell since my partner took in the 2NC and 2NR.
- I can count the number of times I debated plan-less affs on one hand.
- As of me updating this paradigm on 01/28/2023 I have judged roughly 15 framework rounds (maybe less).
All the above make framework functionally a coin toss for either side. My understanding of framework is predicated off of what standards you access and if the terminal impacts to those standards prove if your model of debate is better for the world. If you win impact turns against the neg FW interpretation, then you don't need a C/I, but you have to win that the debate is about potential ballot solvency or some other evaluation method. If the neg wins that the round is about proving a better model of debate, then an inherent lack of a C/I means I vote for the better interp no matter how terrible it is. The comparison in my mind is that a teacher asked to choose the better essay submitted by two students must choose Student A if Student B doesn't turn in anything no matter how terrible or offensive Student A's essay is.
Tech vs. Truth
I used to like arguments such as “F & G in federal government aren't capitalized T” or “Period at the end of the plan text or the sentence keeps going T” b/c I felt like these arguments were objectively true. As I continue to judge I think I have moved into a state where I will allow pretty much any argument no matter how much “truth” there is backing it especially since some truth arguments such as the aforementioned ones are pretty troll themselves. There is still my job to provide a safe space for the activity which means I am obligated to vote down morally offensive arguments such as racism good or sexism good. However, I am now more inclined to vote on things like “Warming isn’t real” or “The Earth is flat” with enough warrants. After all, who am I to say that status quo warming isn’t just attributable to heating and cooling cycles of the Earth, and that all satellite imagery of the Earth is faked and that strong gravitational pulls cause us to be redirected back onto flat Earth when we attempt to circle the “globe”. If these arguments are so terrible and untrue, then it really shouldn’t take much effort to disprove them.
Reading Evidence
I err on the side of intervening as little as possible, so I don’t read usually read evidence. Don't ask me for a doc or send me anything afterwards. The only time I ever look at ev is if I am prompted to do so during speech time.
This will reward teams that do the better technical debating on dropped/poorly answered scenarios even if they are substantiated by terrible evidence. So if you read a poorly written federalism DA that has no real uniqueness or even specific link to the aff, but is dropped and extended competently, yes, I will vote for without even glancing at your ev.
That being said, this will also reward teams that realize your ADV/DA/Whatever ev is terrible and point it out. If your T interp is from No Quals Alex, blog writer for ChristianMingle.com, and the other team points it out, you're probably not winning the bigger internal link to legal precision.
Case
I love case debate. Negatives who actually read all of the aff evidence in order to create a heavy case press with rehighlightings, indicts, CX applications, and well backed UQ/Link/Impact frontlines are always refreshing watch. Do this well in front of me and you will for sure be rewarded.
By the 2AR I should know what exactly the plan does and how it can solve the advantages. This obviously doesn't have to be a major component of the 1AR given time constraint, but I think there should at least some explanation in the 2AR. If I don't have at least some idea of what the plan text does and what it does to access the 1AC impacts, then I honestly have no problem voting on presumption that doing nothing is better than doing the aff.
Disads
Similar to above, I think that DA's have to be fully explained with uniqueness, link, and impact. Absent any of these things I will often have serious doubts regarding the cohesive stance that the DA is taking.
Topicality
Don't make debate meta-arguments like "Peninsula XY read this at Glenbrooks so obviously its core of the topic" or "every camp put out this aff so it's predictable". These types of arguments mean nothing to me since I don't know any teams, any camp activities, any tournaments, any coaches, performance of teams at X tournament, etc.
One small annoyance I have at teams that debate in front of me is that they don't debate T like a DA. You need to win what standards you access, how they link into your terminal impacts like education or fairness, and why your chosen impact outweighs the opposing teams.
Counterplan
I have no inherent bias against any counterplan. If a CP has a mechanism that is potentially abusive (international fiat, 50 state fiat, PICs bad) then I just see this as offense for the aff, not an inherent reason why the team or CP should immediately be voted down.
I heavily detest this new meta of "perm shotgunning" at the top of each CP in the 2AC. It is basically unflowable. See "Spreading" above. Do this and I will unironically give you a 28 maximum. Spread the perms between cards or other longer analytical arguments. That or actually include substance behind the perm such as an explanation of the function of the permutation, how it dodges the net benefit, if it has any additional NB, etc.
I think 2NR explanation of what exactly the CP does is important. A good 2N will explain why their CP accesses the internal links or solvency mechanisms of the 1AC, or if you don't, why the CP is able to access the advantages better than the original 1AC methods. Absent that I am highly skeptical of broad "CP solves 100% of case" claims and the aff should punish with specific solvency deficits.
A problem I have been seeing is that affirmatives will read solvency deficits against CP's but not impacting the solvency deficits vs. the net benefit. If the CP doesn't solve ADV 1 then you need to win that ADV 1 outweighs the net benefit.
Judge kick is not my default mindset, neg has say I have to judge kick and also justify why this is OK.
Kritiks
I don't know any K literature other than maybe some security or capitalism stuff. I feel a lot of K overviews include fancy schmancy words that mean nothing to me. If you're gonna go for a K with some nuance, then you're going to need to spend the effort explaining it to me like I am 10 years old.
Theory
If the neg reads more than 1 CP + 1 K you should consider pulling the trigger on conditionality.
I default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told.
Define dispositionality for me if this is going to be part of the interp.
Extra Points
To promote flowing, you can show me your flows at the end of a round and earn up to 1.0 speaker points if they are good. To discourage everyone bombarding me with flows, you can also lose up to a full speaker point if your flows suck.
email: sevendeng.wa@gmail.com
Hey guys, my name is Seven Deng, a JC varsity debater, 1N/2A in policy.
Some things to know
- tag teaming is okay during cross
- tech>truth
- please track your time.
- clarity>speed
- have fun! Do not be discouraged no matter what the result is.
- be nice to each other
- impact analysis!!!!
Hiiiiii, my name is Guliana Freitas :)
My email is: gulianakfreitas@gmail.com
Here are a few things to know ahead of time:
- Tag teaming in cross x/fire is okay.
- Pls keep time (if u want me to do it lmk)
- Plsss 1AC, start the email chain asap! I rlly don't like wasting my time and your time on something sooo simple as an email chain. Thank youuuuu!
- <3 Impact Calc <3
- If you guys have any questions lmk before the round, thx!
Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom?
Because the “P” is silent
RIP, boiling water
You will be mist.
I ordered a chicken and an egg online
I’ll let you know what comes first.
What did one toilet say to another?
You look flushed.
What does corn say when it gets a compliment?
Aw, shucks!
FOOD AND DRINKS = <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
If you give me a new funny joke, I will add it here, and give you a winning vote...
.....in my heart
Here is my paradigm
Main point speech- Go at what ever speed you like just say it CLEARY if I can’t understand what you are saying I will ask you to start again
Crossfire- I won’t mainly look at this but I will still listen. Be POLITE, don’t talk over each other or I will give you low speaks
1st Rebutal-
Requirments Recommended
Responding to Responses Talk about your case and why I should vote for you
2nd Rebutal-
Requirements Recommended
Respond to their case Talk about your case why you win and Respond to their responses
Summary-
Extend your case
Extend Responses
Last chance to bring up any thing new
Final Focus
Talk mainly about why YOUR case wins against theirs
Hi I’m Renee ^_^
I don’t really have any preferences for or against certain types of arguments so don’t worry about that
if your opponent drops an argument or forgets to respond to yours make sure you mention it in your speeches to make sure I’m aware of it! I will be keeping track too but make sure to mention just in case I miss it
It’s ok if you talk quickly while reading cards because I will follow along on the documents, but if you are doing analytics and your speech becomes unrecognizable I will not be able to count contentions that I cannot understand.
Lastly, try to be punctual so we can start the debate on time and do not steal prep.
Add me to the email chain: theodore.jeemin.kim@gmail.com
Be nice and respectful, it's too early/middle/late in the day to be at each other's throats. I appreciate specificity over generics, but anything goes I guess. I'm more of a realist, so try to interact with the topic/resolution reasonably (especially with impacts, make sure the links make sense and the uniqueness is unique.)
Let's hear all the weird theories and philosophies! I'm very interested in hearing about them and although there's a good chance you're going to lose if it's really weird, I'll give you extra speaker points.
Identity and framework arguments - I probably won't ever get one, but if I do, let's hear it! There's definitely value in these sorts of debates even if they aren't the 'traditional debate' educational value.
K - Love them, please run them, but explain them well and make sure they aren't ____-ist. Realism in a K doesn't make much sense but I prefer alt-Ks to in-round Ks, but anything is good.
T - Go for any T about any word/definition, but make sure it makes at least a little bit of sense.
Everything else also all good.
If there's a particular reason for me to vote for you, I expect you to point it out, explain it, and keep that point going – I'm not going to give myself extra reasons to vote for a specific side by thinking 'too much.'
Ok so I’ve been doing debate for around a year now so I understand how a lot of it works. My main thing is make sure you’re actually addressing what the other-side said. I’m flowing what you guys arguing (that’s like half my job lol) and so should you if you want to win.
Besides that don’t be rude, don’t steal prep (lower speaker points), and don’t curse (if you do it often it will be a VERY low point win or just a straight up loss).
Oh yeah and be funny cause the rounds gonna be like 2 hours and silent rooms are boring and just have a good time :)
Hiiii I’m Eylul :D
- clarity>>!
- T’’s are always fun, if you know how to use them then go for it!
- Be sure to give roadmap ????
- Have respect for the other team, any rudeness is automatically a loss
- Cross teaming is fine!
- I don’t mind an email chain but I probably won’t look at it and flow instead
- Impact is important!!
- Try to have funnnnnnnnnn
Northview IS, MS
Assistant Coach - Northview High School
Assistant Coach - Suffolk University
Top
**If I look confused, I am confused, please make me not confused.
**Yes you can read the K in front of me HOWEVER reading the K in front of me on either side IS NOT a guaranteed ballot. Quite frankly I've grown frustrated with the K especially when it's poorly debated.
**Novices: "I’m a firm believer in flowing and I don’t see enough people doing it. Since I do think it makes you a better debater, I want to incentivize it.So if you do flow the round, feel free to show me your flows at the end of the debate, and I’ll award up to an extra .3 points for good flows.I reserve the right not to give any points (and if I get shown too many garbage flows maybe I’ll start taking away points for bad ones just so people don’t show me horrible flows, though I’m assuming that won’t happen much), but if you’ve got the round flowed and want to earn extra points, please do!By the way you can’t just show one good flow on, lets say, the argument you were going to take in the 2nc/2nr – I need to see the round mostly taken down to give extra points" - Ben Schultz
**LD folks scroll to the bottom for specific LD stuff
General
1—Please don't call me judge. Makes me feel hella old. Just call me Juliette.
2—Tech over truth to its logical extent. Debate is not about solely the truth level of your arguments but your ability to substantially defeat the other team’s claims with your technical ability.
3—When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate."- Matt Cekanor
4—For those curious, I mainly debated the K in high school (on both sides). I'm usually good with most Ks, even so, you still have the burden of explaining it to me well as I vote off the flow and won't do additional work for you even if I read the lit. (Excuse the rant but...) I think most POMO arguments in debate are stupid and for some reason every POMO debate I've judged the team has double turned themselves (lowk probably cuz most (if not all) POMO is ridiculous to read in this activity). Then again, debate it well and yes I will vote on whatever POMO stuff you throw my way.
K-Affs
Yes, I read a K aff. Yes, I will vote on them. No, I don't think a majority of these affs solve any of the impacts they claim to solve. I think a key thing that most of these affs lack is proper solvency. If you're going to convince me that you solve things, I need a good reason to either why your method is good (i.e. give me concrete examples of what your aff looks like) and/or tell me why an aff ballot in this debate solves. That being said, for the negative, I often find a good presumption push to be a solid strat.
Framework
1. No preference on what impact you go for (but come on, clash is not an impact... alas, if you debate it well I will vote on it). Some impacts require more case debating than others. For example, if going for fairness, you need to spend more time winning the ballot portion of your offense and defense against the other team’s theory of how debate operates. If going for clash, you need to spend more time winning how your model over a year’s worth of debates can solve their offense and spend more time with defense to the affirmative.
2. I have spent a large part of my high school career thinking about arguments for the negative and the affirmative in these debates. To put it into perspective, almost 90% of my debates over a given season are framework debates, on the neg and the aff. For a large amount of framework debates, the better-practiced team always wins.
3. Use defense to your advantage. Nebulous claims of inserting the affirmative can be read on the negative with no specific internal link or impact debating will largely not factor in my decision. However, there are fantastic ways to use defense like switch side debate and the TVA.
4. Very specific TVA’s can work against very specific types of framework arguments. If the affirmative has forwarded a critique of debating the topic then TVA’s can mitigate the affirmative’s DAs. However, if the affirmative team has forwarded an impact turn to the imposition of framework in the round, they are less useful.
5. Impact turning topicality - Do it. Do it well and you'll be rewarded.
6. Often times when starting out, 2AR's go for too much in the 2AR. If you are impact turning T, go for one DA's and do sufficient impact comparison. Your 2AR should answer the questions of how T is particularly violent or links to your theory of power and most importantly HOW MY BALLOT CAN RESOLVE THOSE THINGS. Your impact only matters as much as its scope of solvency. You must also do risk comparison. Most neg framework teams are better at this. The way the aff loses these debates is when there's a DA with substantive impact turn and there's a negative impact that is explained less but is paired with substantively more internal link work and solvency comparison.
If going for a CI, focus on one impact turn and focus on how the CI solves it and how the DA links to their interp. Think of it like CP, your CI should include some aspects of their interpretation but avoids the risk of your DAs.
K v Policy AFF
Two types of 2NRs. Ones that go for in round implications and ones that go for out of round implications.
A)In Round—In round route requires a larger push on framework and a higher level of technical debating on the level of the standards but is usually much easier if you’re a practiced K 2NR. 2NC will usually have like 10 arguments on framework, 1AR extends their standards and answers like 2 arguments. 2NR just goes for the DA and all conceded defense, GGs. In addition, the best K 2NRs going for the in round version will have a link to the “plan or the effects of the plan”. What this means in this sense is that they will tie affirmative implementation to a link that proves their ethic mobilizes bad subjects IN DEBATE.
B)Out of Round—Out of round requires like close to 0 time on framework. Most policy 2As now just grant the K links but just say affirmative vs the alternative. Thus, if you are going for the alternative with links to the plan, just spend time winning the link debate, explaining why the affirmative doesn’t happen in the way they think. Most times these Ks will have a substantial impact turn debate so winning that is essential.
K v K Debates
1. Technical Debating is often lost in these debates but this necessarily happens due to the nature of K v K debates as theory of power debating is often the most important part. That being said, vague link debating will mitigate you winning your theory of power.
2. You need to pick something and defend it. The neg team will ask about the affirmative in 1AC CX, that explanation should stay consistent throughout the round. Lack of a consistent explanation will lower my threshold for buying a risk of a link and higher the burden for you to win the permutation.
3. Use links to implicate solvency. Often times its hard to make a K aff stick to in round or out of round solvency. Use links in the 2NC and 2NR to mitigate parts of both so even if the 2AR consolidates to one, you still have defensive arguments.
4. K affs have built in theory of power and solvency that's inherently offensive. I'll be grumpy if you jettison the aff but will not if you provide extrapolated offensive explanations in the 2AR using your affirmative and pieces of offense that they dropped. 2AR's that do this will be rewarded with higher speaks.
Topicality (Policy v Policy)
1. Fine judge for these debates. T can lower your burden of prepping out some affirmatives that are inherently untopical and it's a good strat to have in your back pocket. However, for this topic the caselists and violations are pretty overlimiting.
2. Caselists are always useful for understanding these arguments.
3. Impact debating doesn't matter much in these debates but internal link debating does. Make sure to indict and compare interps and both sides. Predictability is the IL to all impacts.
4. The best 2AR's in these debates are ones that pick through negative evidence and identify no intent to define, arbitrariness, and combine that with reasonability
Counterplans
1. Probably err negative on theory concerns but if there's a technical crush I will certainly vote affirmative.
2. My predisposition toward counterplans is that they must be both textually and functionally competitive but always up to interpretation by the theory debate in round.
3. The best counterplans are PICs and other counterplans that are cut to beat specific affs. That being said, I do find some PICs to be extremely abusive so I will be sympathetic towards the aff on a PICs bad theory debate.
4. Presumption flips aff when you read a CP.
5. Affirmatives always freak out when they hit a CP they don't have blocks to but your advantages are there for a reason, its not hard to write specific deficits during the 1NC.
Theory
I dislike generic theory debates. I do not think anything but condo/extremely abusive PICs is a reason to reject the team but I can be persuaded otherwise if there is extreme in-round abuse or the other team straight-up drops it.
It will take a lot to convice me to vote aff on condo in a one/two conditional off debate. Three conditional off can start getting more legit in novice. Four and plus and sure I'll listen.
DA
1. Risk matters most when evaluating a DA. The affirmative arguments are made to give me skepticism in the internal links and the negatives job is to mitigate that by link work and turns case debating implicating affirmative solvency.
2. DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact arguments are presented. If not present in the block, the 1AR will get new answers. I also need a full scenario in the 2NR for me to vote on.
3. When the DA is the best utilized is the 1NR. Very hard for the 1AR when 1NR gets 5 minutes to read a slew of cards answering all 2AC claims.
Case
1. Yes you can win on a straight-up presumption ballot. This type of ballot is not popular anymore but it should be. Too many teams get away with reading an affirmative with no specific evidence or internal links. This was especially prevalent on the criminal justice reform topic but it is still a problem on the water topic too. Teams will highlight evidence terribly and act like the solve it even though it makes no sense, especially against the K. K teams should take advantage of this. Ex. aff that talks about financing technologies- solvency advocates will mention one type of technology but the advantage area will be about a different kind. Neg teams call this out and go for presumption.
2. Affirmative teams must answer all case arguments not merely by extending their impact again but by answering the warrants in the card. Most policy teams just say "doesn't assume our x" without refuting the warrants in the card.
Argument Preferences
1. Don't really care what you read in front of me. Though I've spent the vast majority of my high school career in the K realm, and probably because of that, I've thought about most policy answers to the K so either side can make sense to me. However, it is your job as debaters to ensure a technical win, and ensure my job is to solely evaluate the flow.
2. If you are going to read the K in front of me, please do it well. Because I've seen the K debated at some of the highest levels, it's annoying to see it butchered.
3. I'm fine for policy v policy throw-downs. These debates are often much easier to resolve as one team almost always clearly wins on the flow and are much easier to understand.
Speaker Points
I find myself giving speaks on the higher end. Ways to improve your speaks include:
Being funny, making smart arguments, having fun, being clear, not saying your opponent conceded/dropped something when they didn't, talking about penguins, make fun of anyone I know.
Cross-ex can be a great way to improve speaks, however, there's a thin line between being competetive and just being rude and I have no shame in docking speaks if you choose to be a jerk.
It irks me when debaters claim their opponents "dropped" something when I have it on my flow. I understand that sometimes mistakes happen and you don't flow an argument or something similar. However (comma) if it becomes a recurring problem in a speech I will dock speaks each time it happens.
Also, I will yell "clear" three times, if you choose not to slow down or be clear I will start docking speaks. If you are speaking faster than I can move my pen or type then don't complain when I didn't catch something on my flow. "I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it." - Blake Deng
LD
I’m not an LD person, so keep things as simple and direct as possible.
I sorta know what a value criterion is.
You gotta do more weighing in phil debates.
Now on a technicality I’m probably best for the K, however, because policy speech times are longer, I tend to look for more warranted comparisons by the end of the debate. Also, I just have high standards for explanations.
I refuse to vote on something I don’t comfortably understand.
Important thing to remember is I was a policy debater NOT and LD debater. Lucky for you, my face says it all, if I look confused, I am confused, please just make me not confused. Also, NO TRICKS.
Debated 4 years Marquette University HS (2001-2004)
Assistant Coach – Marquette University HS (2005-2010)
Head Coach – Marquette University HS (2011-2012)
Assistant Coach – Johns Creek HS (2012-2014)
Head Coach – Johns Creek HS (2014-Current)
Yes, put me on the chain: bencharlesschultz@gmail.com
No, I don’t want a card doc.
Its been a long time since I updated this – this weekend I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned that I have "made it clear I wasn’t interested in voting for the K”. Since I actually love voting for the K, I figured that I had been doing a pretty bad job of getting my truth out there. I’m not sure anyone reads these religiously, or that any paradigm could ever combat word of mouth (good or bad), but when I read through what I had it was clear I needed an update (more so than for the criticism misconception than for the fact that my old paradigm said I thought conditionality was bad – yeesh, not sure what I was thinking when I wrote THAT….)
Four top top shelf things that can effect the entire debate for you, with the most important at the top:
11) Before I’m a debate judge, I’m a teacher and a mandatory reporter. I say this because for years I’ve been more preferred as a critical judge, and I’ve gotten a lot of clash rounds, many of which include personal narratives, some of which contain personal narratives of abuse. If such a narrative is read, I’ll stop the round and bring in the tournament director and they will figure out the way forward.
22) I won’t decide the debate on anything that has happened outside of the round, no matter the quality of evidence entered into the debate space about those events. The round starts when the 1AC begins.
33) If you are going to the bathroom before your speech in the earlier speeches (constructives through 1nr, generally) just make sure the doc is sent before you go. Later speeches where there's no doc if you have prep time I can run that, or I'll take off .4 speaks and allow you to go (probably a weird thing, I know, but I just think its stealing prep even though you don't get to take flows or anything, just that ability to settle yourself and think on the positions is huge)
44) No you definitely cannot use extra cross-ex time as prep, that’s not a thing.
5
55) Finally, some fun. I’m a firm believer in flowing and I don’t see enough people doing it. Since I do think it makes you a better debater, I want to incentivize it. So if you do flow the round, feel free to show me your flows at the end of the debate, and I’ll award up to an extra .3 points for good flows. I reserve the right not to give any points (and if I get shown too many garbage flows maybe I’ll start taking away points for bad ones just so people don’t show me horrible flows, though I’m assuming that won’t happen much), but if you’ve got the round flowed and want to earn extra points, please do! By the way you can’t just show one good flow on, lets say, the argument you were going to take in the 2nc/2nr – I need to see the round mostly taken down to give extra points
Top Shelf:
This is stuff that I think you probably want to know if you’re seeing me in the back
· I am liable probably more than most judges to yell “clear” during speeches – I won’t do it SUPER early in speeches because I think it takes a little while for debaters to settle into their natural speed, and a lot of times I think adrenaline makes people try and go faster and be a little less clear at the start of their speeches than they are later. So I wait a bit, but I will yell it. If it doesn’t get better I’ll yell one more time, then whatever happens is on you in terms of arguments I don’t get and speaker points you don’t get. I’m not going to stop flowing (or at least, I never have before), but I also am not yelling clear frivolously – if I can’t understand you I can’t flow you.
· I don’t flow with the doc open. Generally, I don’t open the doc until later in the round – 2nc prep is pretty generally when I start reading, and I try to only read cards that either are already at the center of the debate, or cards that I can tell based on what happens through the 2ac and the block will become the choke points of the round. The truth of the debate for me is on the flow, and what is said by the debaters, not what is said in their evidence and then not emphasized in the speeches, and I don’t want to let one team reading significantly better evidence than the other on questions that don’t arise in the debate influence the way I see the round in any way, and opening the doc open is more likely than not to predispose me towards one team than another, in addition to, if I’m reading as you go, I’m less likely to dock you points for being comically unclear than if the only way I can get down what I get down is to hear you say it.
Argumentative Stuff
Listen at the end of the day, I will vote for anything. But these are arguments that I have a built in preference against. Please do not change up your entire strategy for me. But if the crux of your strategy is either of these things know that 1 – I probably shouldn’t be at the top of your pref card, and 2 – you can absolutely win, but a tie is more likely to go to the other side. I try and keep an open mind as much as possible (heck I’ve voted for death good multiple times! Though that is an arg that may have more relevance as you approach 15 full years as a public school DoD….) but these args don’t do it for me. I’ll try and give a short explanation of why.
1. I’m not a good judge for theory, most specifically cheap shots, but also stuff seen as more “serious” like conditionality. Its been a long long time since anyone has gone for theory in front of me – the nature of the rounds that I get means there’s not usually a ton of negative positions – which is good because I’m not very sympathetic to it. I generally think that the negative offense, both from the standpoint of fairness and education, is pretty weak in all but the most egregious rounds when it comes to basic stuff like conditionality. Other counterplan theory like no solvency advocate, no international fiat, etc I’m pretty sympathetic to reject the argument not the team. In general, if you’re looking at something like conditionality where the link is linear and each instance increases the possibility of fairness/education impacts, for me you’ve got to be probably very near to, or even within, double digits for me to think the possible harm is insurmountable in round. This has come up before so I want to be really clear here – if its dropped, GO FOR IT, whether alone or (preferably) as an extension in a final rebuttal followed by substance. I for sure will vote for it in a varsity round (in novice rounds, depending on the rest of the round, I may or may not vote on it). Again – this is a bias against an argument that will probably effect the decision in very close rounds.
2. Psychoanalysis based critical literature – I like the criticism, as I mentioned above, just because I think the cards are more fun to read and more likely to make me think about things in a new way than a piece of counterplan solvency or a politics internal link card or whatever. But I have an aversion to psychoanalysis based stuff. The tech vs truth paragraph sums up my feelings on arguments that seem really stupid. Generally when I see critical literature I think there’s at least some truth to it, especially link evidence. But
3. Cheap Shots – same as above – just in general not true, and at variance with what its fun to see in a debate round. There’s nothing better than good smart back and forth with good evidence on both sides. Cheap shots (I’m thinking of truly random stuff like Ontology Spec, Timecube – stuff like that) obviously are none of those things.
4. Finally this one isn’t a hard and fast thing I’m necessarily bad for, but something I’ve noticed over the years that I think teams should know that will effect their argumentative choices in round – I tend to find I’m less good than a lot of judges for fairness as a standalone impact to T-USFG. I feel like even though its never changed that critical teams will contend that they impact turn fairness, or will at least discuss why the specific type of education they provide (or their critique of the type of education debate in the past has provided), it has become more in vogue for judges to kind of set aside that and put sort of a silo around the fairness impact of the topicality debate and look at that in a vacuum. I’ve just never been good at doing that, or understanding why that happens – I’m a pretty good judge still for framework, I think, but youre less likely to win if you go for a fairness impact only on topicality and expect that to carry the day
Specific Round Types:
K Affs vs Framework
Clash rounds are the rounds I’ve gotten by far the most in the last 5-8 years or so, and generally I like them a lot and they consistently keep me interested. For a long time during the first generation of critical affirmatives that critique debate/the resolution I was a pretty reliable vote for the affirmative. Since the negative side of the no plan debate has caught up, I’ve been much more evenly split, and in general I like hearing a good framework press on a critical aff and adjudicating those rounds. I think I like clash rounds because they have what I would consider the perfect balance between amount of evidence (and specificity of evidence) and amount of analysis of said evidence. I think a good clash round is preferable than almost any round because there’s usually good clash on the evidentiary issues and there’s still a decent amount of ev read, but from the block on its usually pure debate with minimal card dumpage. Aside from the preference discussed above for topicality based framework presses to engage the fairness claims of the affirmative more, I do think that I’m more apt than others to vote negative on presumption, or barring that, to conclude that the affirmative just gets no risk of its advantages (shoutout Juliette Salah!). One other warning for affirmatives – one of the advantages that the K affords is that the evidence is usually sufficiently general that cards which are explained one way (or meant to be used one way) earlier in the round can become exactly what the negative doesn’t need/cant have them be in the 2ar. I think in general judges, especially younger judges, are a little biased against holding the line against arguments that are clearly new or cards that are explained in a clearly different way than they were originally explained. Now that I’m old, I have no such hang ups, and so more than a lot of other judges I’ve seen I’m willing to say “this argument that is in the 2ar attached to (X) evidence is not what was in the 1ar, and so it is disallowed”. (As an aside, I think the WORST thing that has happened to, and can happen to, no plan teams is an overreliance on 1ar blocks. I would encourage any teams that have long 1ar blocks to toss them in the trash – if you need to keep some explanations of card warrants close, please do, but ditch the prewritten blocks, commit yourself to the flow, and listen to the flow of the round, and the actual words of the block. The teams that have the most issue with shifting argumentation between the 1ar and the 2ar are the teams that are so obsessed with winning the prep time battle in the final 2 rebuttals that they become over dependent on blocks and aren’t remotely responsive to the nuance of a 13 minute block that is these days more and more frequently 13 minutes of framework in some way shape or form)
K vs K
Seems like its more likely these days to see clash rounds for me, and next up would be policy rounds. I’d actually like to see more K v K rounds (though considering that every K team needs to face framework enough that they know exactly how to debate it, and its probably more likely/easier to win a clash round than a K v K round on the negative, it may be more strategic to just go for framework on the neg if you don’t defend the USFG on the aff), and I’d especially love to see more well-argued race v high theory rounds. Obviously contextualization of very general evidence that likely isn’t going to be totally on point is the name of the game in these rounds, as well as starting storytelling early for both sides – I’d venture to say the team that can start telling the simple, coherent story (using evidence that can generally be a tad prolix so the degree of difficulty for this is high) early will be the team that generally will get the ballot. The same advice about heavy block use, especially being blocked out into the 1ar, given above counts here as well.
Policy v policy Rounds
I love them. A good specific policy round is a thing of beauty. Even a non-specific counterplan/DA round with a good strong block is always great. As the season goes on its comparatively less likely, just based on the rounds I usually get, that I’ll know about specific terminology, especially deeply nuanced counterplan terminology. I honestly believe good debaters, no matter their argumentative preference or what side of the (mostly spurious) right/left divide in debate you’re on, are good CASE debaters. If you are negative and you really want to back up the speaker point Brinks truck, a 5+ minute case press is probably the easiest way to make that happen.
Individual argument preferences
I’ll give two numbers here – THE LEFT ONE about how good I think I am for an argument based on how often I actually have to adjudicate it, and THE RIGHT ONE will be how much I personally enjoy an argument. Again – I’ll vote for anything you say. But more information about a judge is good, and you may as well know exactly what I enjoy hearing before you decide where to rank me. 1 being the highest, 10 being the lowest.
T (classic) --------------------------------------- 5/4
T (USFG/Framework) ------------------------ 1/1
DA ------------------------------------------------ 3/2
CP ------------------------------------------------- 4/2
Criticism ----------------------------------------- 1/2
Policy Aff --------------------------------------- 2/2
K Aff ---------------------------------------------- 1/3
Theory ------------------------------------------- 8/9
Cheap Shots ------------------------------------ 10/10
Post Round:
I feel like I’ve gotten more requests lately to listen to redos people send me. I’m happy to do that and give commentary if folks want – considering I saw the original speech and know the context behind it, it only makes sense that I would know best whether the redo fixes the deficiencies of the original. Shoot me an email and I’m happy to help out!
Any other questions – just ask!
I have been a PF debate coach at Ivy Bridge Academy for the past 7 years and I also did policy debate at Chattahoochee High School and UGA. Here are things that are important to me in debates and will influence my decision:
1. Debate is fundamentally about winning arguments, so make good arguments. I will do my best to evaluate your argument as objectively as possible but make sure contentions are well-developed with clear warrants, evidence, and impacts. The more unrealistic the argument, the less likely I’ll vote for it, but I do also believe it is the burden of your opponent to clearly articulate why the argument is wrong.
2. Frontlining - while not doing this isn’t technically against the rules, I highly encourage it and will reward teams that do it effectively with better speaker points. I don’t consider something dropped in the 2nd rebuttal, but I do expect teams to cover everything you plan on extending. I also like teams condensing to one contention in the second rebuttal if it makes strategic sense.
3. Summary - condensing down to a few key voting issues is important to me. If you don’t do weighing in rebuttal, then it should start here. Anything, including defense, must be in the summary if you want me to evaluate it. Don’t drop responses or contentions in these speeches. I will reward summary speakers who make good strategic decisions and manage their time well.
4. Final Focus - Clear voting issues and weighing are important to me. I will only evaluate arguments extended in the summary here. Having a clear narrative and focusing on the big picture is important, as well as answering extended responses. This is also your last chance to win key responses against your opponent's case. Make sure to not just extend them, but explain them, answer the summary, and what the implications are if you win x response.
5. Paraphrasing - I’m fine with it, but you need to be able to produce either a card or the website if asked. If you can’t produce it in time or deliberately misrepresent the evidence, then I will ignore the argument, and in extreme cases, vote the guilty team down.
6. Weighing - this is important to me, but I think debaters overvalue it a bit. The link debate is more important in my opinion and realistic impacts are as well. Try and start the weighing in the rebuttal or summary speeches. Comparison is key to good weighing in front of me.
7. Crossfire - any argument established in crossfire must be brought up in the subsequent speech for me to evaluate it. I will reward creative and well thought out questions. Please don’t be rude or aggressive in the crossfire. That will definitely hurt your speaker points. Civility is very important to proper debate in my humble opinion. You can sit or stand for the grand cross.
8. Speaking - I will give higher speaks to passionate speakers who are good public speakers. I did policy, so I’m fine with speed, but I don’t like spreading unless you absolutely have to cover. Please clearly signpost which argument you are responding to and when you are moving to the other side of the flow or weighing.
9. Prep - I will do my best to keep track of it, but please, both teams should also be tracking the time.
10. References - any well-executed Biggy, Kendrick, J. Cole, Drake, or Childish Gambino reference will be rewarded. Don’t overdo it though and I reserve the right to decrease points if it’s way off point.
11. Speech docs - if you share your case with me, then it will help me flow, understand your arguments, and I won't have to call for ev, so I will give both speakers 2 extra points if they do so.
JV/V Debater at Johns Creek High School
Name: Mason Stansbury
Email: masonstansbury@gmail.com
1. Speak Clearly; I will take it into account when assigning speaker points
2. I favor DAs and CPs much more than Ks and T; I don't like voting on theory or condo. So you must explain the theory argument really clearly for me to consider voting on it.
3. I will more than likely completely disregard arguments that are idiotic or that I cannot understand, so
4. Make sure you allocate a lot of time in the arguments for impact calculus; it can win you a debate
5. I allow tag-teaming, as long as one partner does not completely take over
6. Please don't do idiotic stuff, and don't be annoying (I will heavily drop speaker points for this).
7. If you send me a google doc instead of a word doc (I've seen this too many times), I will drop your speaker points
8. And finally, please do not blame technology to get more preparation time
Call me "jsp" or "Josh"
joshuasp.debate@gmail.com - yes put me on the chain, i want an email chain set up before each rounds start time
Recent Coaching/Debating Affiliations: Ivy Bridge Academy, Georgia State University, Thomas Kelly College Prep
Bottom line: I am a 3rd year out debater doing policy, I did 4 years of LD in high school and I have been coaching PF at Ivy Bridge Academy. I can follow technical debating and jargon from across those 3 events so just you do you - I have coached/debated/judged/voted on tricks, theory, kritiks, plan, phil, trad and lay (insert whatever non-descriptive 1 word shorthand you like). Whatever you are doing will likely not be new to me in all honesty. Some people call me a tabula rasa judge even though I think the phrase tabula rasa is a conservative debate dogwhistle (I spend a lot of my time thinking about why we do what we do in debate, I think this makes me decent at judging method debates).
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Quick Prefs:
1 - K, Plans, Case Debate, Lay, T/T-FW
2 - DA's/CP's, Theory, Narratives
3 - Phil
4 - Tricks
Strike - Out of round violations, frivolous arguments
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Translation for PF Debaters: this means I am a "tech judge". Speed is fine and prog is cool. Just don't be a jerk, be a sensible person.
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I have given myself 5 things to say about how I evaluate debates, no more, no less:
1. I need pen time, i flow on paper and by ear
2. I will not vote for arguments that had no warrant/signaling. Such as ur fiat K's that ngl was not even in the block
3. It must have been in your final speech for me to vote for you on it (including extending case vs T)
4. I evaluate impact level first usually unless told otherwise (whether its education or nuke war, etc)
5. My ballot will likely be determined off who i have to do the least work for, i do not usually vote on presumption
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Evidence shenanigans:
this is the only stuff that will change how I vote directly, everything else is flexible.
Put me on the email chain, i do like to read evidence because no one compares the evidence themselves. I prefer ev to be send before speeches and in cut cards. Your speaks are capped below 29.5 if there is no doc and below 28 if when you send evidence there is not evidence in cut card format. Paraphrasing is fine if you have cut cards to go along with it AND you send them out BEFORE. I make exceptions to this if you are part of a small program which has no way knowing how to cut cards and this is in novice.
If you send your case as a google doc, copying perms needs to be on. This is because I need to create a stable copy of your evidence, anything that you can edit without sending a new doc risks being problematic (ie changing highlighting mid round or adding ev and claiming to have read it). Strike me if how I deal with ev ethics is a problem.
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How I vote
I will only vote on what was in the final speech and what is implicated to be in the final speech as the reason to vote for you. That is the only hard line I draw. (this includes you must extend case against a 2nr on T). Every form of debate is full of brain rot and I genuinely care about voting for people who are capable of thinking of why they do the norms they partake, not only does it make you a better debater but also a better person. Idc what it is or how it got there, just get to the finish line. Any arg is a voting issue if made to be that way. I only vote on complete arguments. Stock args are very strategic in front of me because I am not better for random arguments but for good arguments you can defend well. The frontlines and weighing wins you the round, not the constructive.
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Speaker Points
Be clear, pen time gets speaker points.
Strategic collapses that make my life easier are appreciated
Clear signalling/signposting helps
+.2 speaker points for gender minorities
redid this cus i was bored
northview 25/northview bt
debatebtbc@gmail.com
Overview
Biggest Influences: Matt Cekanor, Jerry Chen, Ayush Potdar
Tech>>>>Truth in every instance. The only role of the judge is to vote for the team who did the better debating, not to arbitrarily intervene using predispositions. I.e. I will evaluate any arguments; wipeout, spark, death good, aspec, etc. are all fair game.
"i don't care about death good, wipeout, etc. it's usually not that deep---debate's a game where we don't believe in our arguments. say whatever you want, just be prepared to defend it." - Michael Ross
"Judges who say "I'll vote on anything except [xyz]" don't understand what tech over truth means." - Archan Sen.
Given the above---"When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate." - Matt Cekanor.
Novices
"Avoid reading too many cards---the novice packet comes with a large set of evidence BUT most of these are not independently sufficient arguments that can be voted on. Avoid the tendency to read the "extend [insert]" block in the file and instead write out analytical extensions to what you have already read in previous speeches.
Example: If you read a 1AC with a warming impact, then subsequent speeches should NOT read another warming card but instead say "Extend [insert] 1AC evidence---it says that warming is exclusively anthropogenic with [insert] timeframe of [insert] years that comes before [insert neg impacts] and outweighs."
Other things that boost speaker points and get you closer to the win:
- Being well read on your arguments---this means not having to look at your cards during 1AC cx (because you should already know it)
- Putting in a clear effort---if I notice you're not trying it'll be hard for me to vote for you, debate is highkey a myth but at the end of the day should still be taken seriously.
- Signposting and being clear---say when you're moving from one offcase to another."
- Aryan Bhattacharya
Topicality
competing interps good. evidence comparison. case lists.
ground > limits in my op. It's just more convincing. But again, you do you---I'll def vote for limits if it's better debated.
CPs
Judgekick unless the aff tells me why I shouldn't. Never made sense to me why I should vote for a world worse than the squo
I'm decent at competition; probably err neg if all else is equal. If perms get super technical or its about theoretical justifications, not as comfortable.
Read solvency advocates in the 1NC for the most part. 20 plank Adv CPs with no solvency advocates are hella abusive, but I probably like it given neg terrorism is cool. But the 1AR also prolly gets new answers.
"Answer the net benefit or lose! You do not want to hand the neg a try or die push, especially because your deficits likely will not outweigh 100% risk of a conceded net benefit." - Jerry Chen
DAs
Sure. Impact calc and case defense. Need uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact throughout the debate. Tell that story in the 2NR.
DA turns the case is underrated.
Kritiks
i run ks on the aff and neg 90% of debates. That being said, if your theory of power is some pomo bs, I'll definitely vote on it but I have little to no background knowledge so explain it well. or dont idrc ill just nuke your speaks.
Good links. ie there must be quotes from 1ac evidence or cross ex, at the minimum.
"Framework interps should moot the plan. Going for the alternative coupled with links to the plan's material implications means you will lose to the perm double bind." - Jerry Chen
Framework goes aff or neg; I will not create my own "middle ground" interp. I will start from framework, given it is called framework, thus is how I evaluate the debate.
Kritikal Affirmatives
read whatever. Have a topic link if you want. topic link makes it easier to beat the TVA but if you don't want one, you do you.
burden of rejoinder still exists. i.e. it is still a debate.
impact turns > c/i. most counterinterps are hella arbitrary and self serving, so unless you have something more nuanced than "topical affs plus us" the ci is probably ass.
T-USFG
fairness >>> everything else. fairness paradox is objectively true---but, as with everything else, it can be out-debated.
Do ballot instruction.
2nr needs to go to case, i.e the subject formation debate---if you grant them "we make everybody less racist" then you will probably lose on "racism ow fairness."
Other
Condo is good. Its not 1980 anymore. Go for it if you want and I will evaluate it objectively, but I find "no condo" to be unpersuasive.
Tag team cross is fine.
Card Doc? No. I don't read evidence---unless told to AND it's relevant to my decision.
Inserting evidence is good.
Hey guys, I know you might be nervous, don't worry, you'll do great!
You guys can go with Megha or Judge.
Well, jumping straight into the point I'd like to be clear with a few expectations and rules I'd like to go with:
- Prioritize active listening: I will take in count about how you have responded towards each and every speech and how well the cross-ex has been answered, make sure to be straight on point and very clear with your reading as it all matters, to me and your opponent.
- Never make silly mistakes: I've always had people read wrong cards and get the whole debate confused, never read/send the wrong cards as everything matters including every second, this might cause you to loose a few points anywhere as again, everything matters to me!
- Logical and intellectual arguments must be made: Make sure that you use a logical and mature language as it shows how well you have aced the content and how you respect your opponent!
- Few pieces of advice: Stay awake, listen, show confidence as "Confidence is key", act respectful and mature and you'll do great. I don't have any particular debate advice as people have their different methods so, let's rock!
- Timing and questions: I will time you guys so don't worry about that, if you have any questions feel free to ask as I'm just judging your debate, not questions!
- My Goal: My goal is to create a friendly debatable environment and help people learn + have fun, Of course! Well, that's enough info, again don't worry, you guys will do well, "win or lose, give your best and I'll give mine!
sohamverma03@gmail.com - add me to the email chain pls
PF
Tech>truth - Front lining is also a must. These are key to winning debates and I vote for arguments that are clashed. If something is dropped by both teams I don't make my decision based on it.
If you drop a case that still has turn on it and the other team extends it, IT COUNTS AS OFFENSE. It's technically reverting their point toward them therefore it is an offense and is a valid point to argue for. If you flesh out a turn well you can very likely win the debate because of it. Impact weighing is key and for me to evaluate it you must relate to any of the weighing mechanisms. Most teams just talk about their impact but I need you to compare it for me... so like saying why their impact is bad. If a team frontlines a response and the other team does not respond to the frontline I will count that response as dropped. please collapse flesh out warrants well.
Policy
Your speech should probably follow along the border of this:
1AC - Aff reads plan and advantage.100% just reading the evidence
1NC - Reads DA's and advantage answer.- 95% evidence, 5% analytics. Some people include analytics on cases or mention things that were said in cross-ex (CX)
2AC - Extends 1AC to explain why 1NC case defense is wrong & reads answers to DA's - case is all extensions NO CARDS unless absolutely necessary, answers to DA's are 95% cards, 5% analytics that you think of or come from CX
2NC/1NR - Extend DA's and advantage answers --- 50/50 cards and extensions you want to extend 1NC cards and then support them with more evidence
1AR - Re-extends what was said in the 2AC on the case & choose the strongest arguments to go for on the DAs (Can't go for everything b/c 1AR is 5 minutes vs Neg block which is 13 minutes) - -- 80% extensions, may need a card here or there for new things read in the block
2NR - Makes final decision on what the neg is going to go for. For example, if reading 2 DAs, 2N has to choose 1 to all in on. Do impact calc on the DA vs the advantages - 100% ANALYTICS AND EXTENSIONS
2AR - Makes final decision on what the aff is going to go for. Only extend 1 advantage and do impact calc on the ADV VS DA - 100% ANALYTICS AND EXTENSIONS
Just make sure to clash a lot and win dropped args and ill end up voting for u