Bio
Out of the night comes a man who saves lives at the risk of his own. Once a circus performer, an aerialist who refused the net. Once a cat burglar, a master among jewel thieves. Now a professional bodyguard. Primitive... savage... in love with danger. Judge Nate Day.

Experience
11 years judging at ~15 national circuit tournaments, tons of local tournaments
5 year public high school coach, specializing in PF, DX, and IX
3 years competing in speech and debate (2 years of PF, 1 year mix of LD and CX, every speech event but interps)
~1500 NSDA points when my time as a competitor wrapped up in 2012 (made it to premier distinction yeaaaah black sticker baybeeeee)

Style
I try to be stone cold and as unreadable as possible in round, to maximize neutrality for all competitors and give you, as a competitor, some practice speaking to a difficult-to-read audience member. I take extensive notes in speech events, and flow debate rounds digitally, so expect to see my typing like mad through round.

Paradigm
I strongly prefer for YOU as a competitor tell me in round how I ought to judge, because that's a better exercise to develop your persuasion skills than me unilaterally declaring how round MUST go (I ain't one of those self important judges who demands you debate a certain way every round and invents new rules). I'm here to help you improve your skillset, not to be entertained by you contorting yourselves to accommodate made up rules or ridiculous imagined standards. Without your guidance or direction, here's what I'll do:

In PF, LD, and Congress, I default to judging as a policymaker (RPing as a person who votes for the side that presents the best policy option).

In CX, I'll default to judging as a game theorist. Any coherent logical argument is "fair play" - as long as you can prove whatever lunacy you're advocating for is the best choice in round, you win!

Philosophy / Miscellanea
I treat my paradigm as a set of not-too-serious guidelines, not ironclad rules - the NSDA rules exist for a reason, and paradigms ought to be compliments to the rulebook, not substitutions for it.

In LD or PF, I categorically won't buy into Ks or "reject the team" theory args outside the NSDA rules.

Due to the way NSDA rules are written, I will not vote for counterplans or anything outside the context of the resolution in PF or LD. If you wanna run off-case or performative arguments, do Policy.

The framework of your debate should not be about how unfair the structure of the debate is to your side. You chose to enter into your debate category. You knew the rules when you signed up. If you'd like them to change, write an editorial for the Rostrum.

If you don't extend your arguments, they will drop off my flow (unless no one in round extends their arguments, in which case I have to pick and choose whatever arguments I found most persuasive throughout the round).

I flow in a spreadsheet, I don't flow cross, and I write a lot of feedback during cross to expedite ballot submission at the end of round.

If you plan to run off-case or performative arguments in Policy, it is your burden to explain how they link to the debate on the resolution.

I'm actively developing an alternative to Tabroom.com and frequently test the limits of this service to try to find break points. If my name, paradigm, contact info, pronouns, etc. appear weird, that's why. Check out this article on ???? HOW TO BE A HACKER ???? to learn how to exploit user editable fields.

email: alisafieddine.22@gmail.com (please make sure to email your speech out by the time you end your prep)

debate history: dartmouth college 2018-21, green valley high school 2015-18

big picture

Don't sacrifice clarity for speed because I can't vote for an argument if I can't hear it.

I care more about the quality of your evidence and debating than I do about the type of arguments you read.

I try to adjudicate the debate in whatever ways the final rebuttals tell me to.

Judge instruction and persuasive story-telling matter just as much to me, if not more, than the evidence you introduce into the debate.

Compare evidence without relying on value judgements ("their evidence is bad").

Please send me a document of the cards you extend into the 2NR/2AR after the debate is over.

My flow dictates my ballot, but these are my opinions about debate:

theory

• Conditionality is good.
• If no one says anything about it, I shouldn't judge kick.

topicality

• Topicality should be evaluated based on competing interpretations and models of debate, not "reasonability".
• Framing your impacts against affs that have a non-traditional interpretation of the topic usually makes most sense in terms of limits, not ground...there's probably something to say against the aff they read, it's just probably not fair to expect you to prepare for it if it's not under the scope of the resolution.
• Fairness is an impact.

impacts

• Frankly, I don't think any of these affs cause or prevent extinction, not because all impact defense is true, but because the internal links for these arguments are shady.

kritiks

• Ks on the NEG only make sense if the link is to the plan or its advantages, not the resolution.
• The best answer to the permutation is the link to the affirmative.
• Alternatives should do something. It helps a lot when you explain how the world would be different if I endorsed the alt instead of the aff. Otherwise, it makes sense for me to default to evaluating the plan vs. the status quo. "Reject the aff because we have a link" is rarely persuasive because in most of these debates the link is non-unique.

cx

• In cross-ex, it makes more sense to ask questions that sets you up to use your opponents' answers in your future speeches than it does to ask questions like "You said this argument, but we have this argument, what's your answer?".
• Dodgy cross-ex answers are frustrating. Your opponent might not know what to answer, but your judge also won't know what your argument is...?