Middle School Policy 1216
2022 — Zoom, CA/US
Policy Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HideAdd me to your email chains! shrey.agarwal.ca@gmail.com
I am a Sophomore at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School
In general Tech>Truth
I am not extremely familiar with K's yet, but I am fine with everything else as long as your arguments are cohesive and well supported.
I give 26-30 speaks and if you make me laugh (in a way that doesn't offend the other team) I will toss you a .5 bonus especially if you mention "monkeys."
I don't mind seeing generic arguments as long as they are well explained and thought out.
I am totally fine with spreading as long as it is coherent, I WILL NOT FLOW if it is not clear. You don't need to be too loud just enough so I can hear you.
SIGNPOST/give an order before your speeches.
On K's more specific I understand them at a debatable level but if your K is complex and has extremely complex language, please explain it in a way that I can understand. I am pretty sure I will understand most K's but just in case. I read Imperialism and Securitization K's and feel comfortable understanding the basics of Queer theory and gender K's as a whole.
Also mark your own docs CLEARLY please and I will not deduct prep for marking and sending them out so please do so! It helps with organization and keeps the debate easier to manage for everyone.
Im Mira and have been in policy debate for 6 years - I debated at Taipei American school in high school and currently debate at the university of michigan
Email: mirababa@umich.edu
- Tech > truth
- Not good for identity or high theory, k affs need to have connection to the topic and clear method.
- Best for traditional policy debates (process, disads + counterplans, big impact turns)
- Please overexplain rather than underexplain your interp in t debates, especially because i have limited knowledge on patents/trademarks/etc
- I don’t judge kick unless instructed to
- All theory except condo is a reason to reject the argument not the team. Condo violations need to be egregious (5 or more? Can be convinced otherwise)
- I find new cross apps in the 2ar to be a little sketchy - there should be a clear line between the 1ar and 2ar
- Speaker point inflation > deflation. If i give below a 28.4 you probably did a macroaggression or were mean to your partner/opponents
Peninsula '26
peninsulamkdebate@gmail.com
Top Level: Tech > Truth.
No marked copies if it's only one or two cards.
Asking for skipped cards/positions requires prep or cross-ex time.
Time your own stuff and keep track of prep.
Open-cross if fine, don't ask if it is. Don't interrupt your partner.
Disclose at least 20 minutes before the round.
Tech > Truth.
All theory is a reason to reject the arg not the team unless dropped or its condo. I will evaluate the condo debate purely technically.
Good for T, Disads, and all counterplans.
For Middle Schoolers only: If you read a process CP and the other team can't answer it, and then youdon't go for it, and win, I will give you much higher speaks.
Fairness. That's all I'm going to say about kritiks.
Reading any kind of "Pomo" K is the equivalent of speaking Mandarin in front of me: I will claim to know what you're talking about but will only understand 10% of it.
Stanford '28
Peninsula '24
Add me to the email chain: peninsulalailai@gmail.com
Disads
Bar explicit concessions made by the other team, zero risk does not exist and neither does 100% risk. That's true of dropped arguments too. Dropped arguments are only as true as the warrants are true, and their implications can still be debated.
For that reason, I will never vote on presumption.
Similarly, the link matters more than uniqueness because uniqueness is not a yes/no question. When you say, "Harris wins the election," you're not saying with 100% certainty she will win. If that were the case, she would win even if the plan happened.
Counterplans
I dislike Process CPs because they make being aff hard and encourage block recycling. Go for theory. However, it should be noted that many Process CPs do not solve the aff.
Conditionality is good.
Judgekick is my default.
Kritiks
are good when they disprove the truth of the aff.
adamlu4023@gmail.com
Peninsula Freshman, did MS debate, though I don't spend too much time on debate (to my detriment) so I won't be as good as most other Peninsula judges you've gotten before. *I do Policy
Don't say anything goofy
none of that "3 2 1 time starts now"
If you beat me in a hypixel classic duel pre-round, auto 30 speaks.
K affs are fine, as long as you explain it well enough. I won't vote for it if I can't understand it. Also, high chance of losing to T, will put more weight to fairness.
Ks are also fine, but do good link work.
Speak clearly. My flowing is sub-par, so make sure I'm not missing anything. Don't jump between flows.
Fine with all policy arguments.
NO GOOGLE DOCS NO GOOGLE DOCS NO GOOGLE DOCS NO GOOGLE DOCS NO GOOGLE DOCS NO GOOGLE DOCS
Lincoln Douglas:
idk a thing. Explain all ur arguments clearly.
(he/him); armangiveaway@gmail.com
Debated for four years at Peninsula
Currently at Cal (not debating) studying plant biology and data science
If I can't understand you I'll stop flowing. Don't expect me to compensate from the doc - I usually don't look at those until the end of the debate. Stay on the safe side and be clear even if it means sacrificing speed.
You must read your rehighlightings if you want me to evaluate them.
General notes: the rebuttals should be like an RFD, you need to explain a way in which I can feel comfortable voting for you while also taking into account your opponents offense. Please don't just extend arguments from your constructives but also interact with your opponents claims.
Plan-less affs: Please don't. But if you must I prefer if they be contextualized to the topic. If you're reading something complicated, I need a solid enough explanation in the round that's sufficient for me to understand what the argument you're going for is. Obviously T is the most intuitive argument against these positions and you should certainly go for it if you want to. I find that impact turning T is the best way to go if you're aff. Fairness is an impact. I also really like seeing contextualized and well researched Ks and PIKs against these sorts of affs. If you have one, don't be afraid to go for it.
Soft-left affs: I think they're great. You need a compelling argument for why I should shift away from the delusional impact weighing assumptions that policy debate has normalized. CPs that solve the aff are probably the best neg strat.
T v. plan: Don't really have any unusual thoughts on T. Go for it if you must. I have a limited experience going for or judging it but as long as you debate it well you should be fine.
K: I enjoy these, and I have found myself primarily going for them as I matured as a debater. I like specific critiques. If I listened to your 2NC in a vacuum and I didn't know what 1AC you were responding to then that's a problem so make sure to do the contextual work here to really impress me.
Framework for the K: I'm inclined to evaluate debates through an offense-defense paradigm. It's your job to show that the assumptions made in the 1AC implicate aff solvency/truth claims.
If you're aff in front of me and you're choosing between impact turning or link turning the links, you should impact turn unless you have a good reason not to. I find teams tend to be more successful in front of me doing the former.
Theory: you need in round abuse to go for it. I love theory 2ARs against really abusive CPs. It's probably your best way out. I think i'm pretty charitable to condo 2ARs.
Thoughts on competition: I don't default to judge kick and I don't think "the status quo is always a logical option" is a particularly good model since it invites loads of judge intervention. If you go for a CP and the aff has offense to the CP that outweighs the offense the neg has forwarded then i'm voting aff. Same goes for the alt.
I have a lower bar for aff victory on the perm than most people I know. The role of the perm is to prove that all of the plan and some of the CP/Alt could plausibly happen and not trigger the DA. As long as I reasonably believe this to be true, then i'm voting aff. I don't think the aff needs to win a 'net benefit' to the perm bc that makes the perm no longer about competition and warps it into some sort of advocacy that the aff could go for which isn't what I believe the perm to be.
LD Note: You can probably skip the part of the AC where you define all the words in the res. Not a fan of tricks.
Don’t pref me if you don’t read a plan and care about winning.
It is true that every debater enters a two hour round wanting to win, and any argumentation otherwise will result in an immediate vote for the opponents in the spirit of unfairness, because you have just said that you do not want to win.
"When debaters walk in the room, they expect the judge to render a fair decision, not to rob them of years of hard work and dedication by substituting their personal biases for the arguments presented."
I try to make my speaks normally distributed (u = 28.4, sd = 0.5).
Prep ends when email is sent.
Topicality is primarily a question of truth.
Debate is better when debaters are dressed business professional (applies to online debate).
Cross-ex is binding.
Everything is probabilistic. You can win the full weight of a dropped argument and easily still lose the debate.
Peninsula '23 | Emory '27 | Peninsula, OCSA & Archbishop Mitty
Do not pref me if you are toxically masculine.
I have profound appreciation for the dedication that goes into preparing for debate tournaments, and I judge debates accordingly:
1. I will avoid intervening in decisions with my personal opinions and default strictly to the technical debating and evidence presented in the round.
2. Debates are best when clash and research are maximal. Thus, affs should be topical and negs should prove that the plan is bad. The execution differential required to overcome these predispositions is likely higher for me than most judges.
3. Tech over truth should incentivize engagement, not be taken to the extreme of shallow argumentation. Clash-avoidance devices including intentional opacity (embedded theory, floating piks) and incomplete arguments (laundry-list impact evidence, incomplete DAs & incoherent counterplans) will not be evaluated on principle. Evaluating them as 'arguments' that can be 'conceded' is infinitely regressive & rapidly degrades the quality of debates.