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Marist Scrimmage Series 2

2023 — NSDA Campus, GA/US

Policy Debate Paradigm List

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Mallory Akard Woodward Academy

Kaitlin Algeo Marist School 6 rounds

Nandana Avasarala '24 Westminster

Brian Bellamy Thomas County Central

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 5:16 AM EDT

I based my decisions on the overall effectiveness of the debater. I usually determine effectiveness by the quality of the arguments made. Quality arguments are those that state a coherent claim that is clearly linked to the resolution at hand. Further, the claim is supported by quality evidence and quality warrants with analysis and commentary. In a very close debate, I will also consider backing, response to rebuttal, and other aspects of good argument. I find the Toulmin model of argumentation to be a persuasive model of argumentation. I favor logical appeals over appeals of ethos and pathos. However, in PF and LD, I will give weight to appeals of ethos and pathos when the argument is well-made. I will consider appeals of ethos when determining the credibility of evidence used to support a claim. I will discount the importance of a claim in which the evidence supporting the claim is shown by the opponent to be faulty because of the qualifications of the author, the context of the evidence, or other qualitative factors in the evidence. I like for contestants in debate to clash with the other contestant and explain to me when they choose not to clash for strategic reasons so that I can understand their reasoning and prioritization of their arguments. I try really hard to let the contestants tell me what is important in the round, and I try not to let my personal reflections on logic or political views influence my decisions unless the debaters provide little more than superlatives for me to base my decision on. I do not enjoy spreading and find that I loose track of the depth of arguments being made. If my flow is shallow for one side but deep for another, I may give a decision to the side with the deeper argument is the impact of that argument is sufficient when compared with any arguments on the flow that were dropped by that team. In other words, I prefer quality over quantity. When both teams give high quality arguments with clash and have similar impacts, I may base a decision on the overall clarity and effectiveness of the speaker. But, I generally reward quality of argument much more than quality of speaking. I will punish a speaker who does not conduct themselves professionally during a round, as I feel this is detrimental to the educational quality and purpose of the contest.

With respect to topicality and other issues outside of debate on the resolution, I will give weight to those issues when supported. I will decide them much like I would any other claim. I will not grant a round based on topicality or a like voting issue if stated without warrants backing them, as I feel this would be making a decision based upon my own opinion. I feel the debaters should be rewarded for explaining their reasoning for arguments, and I look harder at arguments that are more than just the statement of a claim without more.

Kayce Brown Woodward Academy

Andrew Gollner Woodward Academy

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 9:30 AM EDT

If you're running an email chain, please add me: Andrewgollner@gmail.com

he/him

About me: I debated one year of PF and three years of policy at Sequoyah High, and I debated three year of college policy at the University of Georgia. I was a 2N that generally runs policy offcase positions but, especially earlier in my debate career, I ran many critical positions. I'll try to be expressive during the round so that you can discern how I am receiving your arguments.

Judge Preferences: On a personal level, please be kind to your opponents. I dislike it when a team is unnecessarily rude or unsportsmanlike. I am completely willing to discuss my decision about a round in between rounds, so please ask me if you want me to clarify my decision or would like advice. You can email me any questions you have.

FOR PF/LD:

I am primarily a policy judge. This means

I am more comfortable with a faster pace. While I don't like the idea of spreading in PF and LD I can handle a faster pace.

2. I am decently technical. If an argument is dropped point it out, make sure I can draw a clean line through your speeches.

3. I am less used to theory backgrounds in your form of debate, slow down and explain these.

4. Ask me any specific questions you have.

FOR POLICY:

I recognize that my role is to serve as a neutral arbiter without predispositions towards certain arguments, but as this goal is elusive the following are my gut reactions to positions. I strive to ensure that any position (within reason, obviously not obscene or offensive) is a possible path to victory in front of myself.

CP: I love a well written CP which is tailored to your opponent's solvency advocate and that can be clearly explained and is substantiated by credible evidence. If your CP is supported by 1AC solvency evidence, I will be very impressed. Generic CPs are fine, I've read a ton of them, but the more you can at least explain your CP in the context of the affirmative's advantages the more likely you are to solve for their impact scenarios.

DA: Make sure to give a quick overview of the story during the neg block to clarify the intricacies of your position. If, instead of vaguely tagline making a turns case arg like "climate turns econ, resource shortages", you either read and later extend a piece of evidence or spend 10 to 15 seconds analytically creating a story of how climate change exasperates resource shortages and causes mass migrations which strain nation's financial systems, then I will lend far more risk to the disadvantage turning the case. Obviously the same goes for Aff turns the DA. I will also weigh smart analytical arguments on the disad if the negative fails to contest it properly. I'm also very persuaded when teams contest the warrants of their opponents evidence or point out flaws within their opponents evidence, whether it's a hidden contradiction or an unqualified author.

T: I've rarely gone for topicality but I have become increasingly cognizant of incidents in which I likely should have. My gut reaction is that competing interpretations can be a race to the bottom, but I have personally seen many affirmatives which stray far enough from the topic to warrant a debate centered over the resolution in that instance.

K: I used to run Ks pretty frequently in high school but I run them far less frequently now. I'm likely not deep in your literature base so be sure to explain your position and your link story clearly.

FW: My gut feeling is that debate is a game and that it should be fair, but I have seen many rounds where the affirmative team has done an excellent job of comparing the pedagogy of both models and won that their model is key for X type of education or accessibility there of. However, I am persuaded that a TVA only needs to provide reasonable inroads to the affirmatives research without necessarily having to actually solve for all of the affirmative. I do find the response that negs would only read DAs and ignore/"outweigh" the case to be effective - try to add some nuance to this question of why negs would or wouldn't still need to grapple with the case.

Non-traditional Aff: I've always run affs with USFG plan texts, but that doesn't mean that these positions are non-starters. I will be much more receptive to your affirmative if it is intricately tied to the topic area, even if it does refuse to engage the resolution itself for whichever reasons you provide.

Theory: I generally think 2 condo is good, more than that and things start to get a bit iffy.

Most importantly, please be kind to your opponents and have a good time.

Anna Jane Harben Woodward Academy

George Jabren Westminster

Rishabh Jain Woodward Academy

Last changed on Tue February 27, 2024 at 5:30 AM EDT

Rishabh Jain (he/him)

Woodward '24, debated for 3.5 years. Northwestern '28.

24rjain@woodward.edu

Influences: Bill Batterman, Maggie Berthiaume, Sam Wombough, Gabriel Morbeck

I have decent topic knowledge.

Novice Version:

I hope yall take enjoyment in this activity. Debate can be an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, and I'll do my best as a judge to make it that way for yall. The main things i want yall to do is:

have fun!
be nice!
be clear and practice line by line!
don't clip - if you don't know what this is, feel free to ask me
send me the chain!
flow and look like you're invested in the debate!
tell me you know, or at least you're trying/pretending to know what you're talking about.

IDK if this is ever gonna be relevant but I think the novice division is more for learning how to debate, with the topic as a vehicle for core topic args to be introduced so novices can learn how to apply topic arguments to debate and learn how arguments interact with each other. If that doesn't make any sense, just know that I don't like it when novices run Process CPs or goofy stuff their varsity/coaches told them to run and win because the other team has no idea what they're doing.

Long (Varsity) Version:

I'll be attempting to resolve the questions I always had of a judge when i was debating. I'll try to keep my personal biases (explained below) out of every round, but they might affect my feedback to a degree. Feel free to post round - every judge should be able to defend their decision, and if they can't, that's on me. Just don't scream at me please.

Tech over truth. Ideological predispositions are irrelevant to my decision calculus. I will evaluate the most atrocious 14 off 1NC that boils down to warming good in the 2NR the same way I will evaluate a 2NR that goes for a deep and nuanced advantage CP with a hyperspecific DA to the aff. The only exception is when arguments become so morally repugnant to a standard beyond debate that I have to give an L + 0. This includes: suicide good + racism, sexism, etc. good. "My role as educator outweighs my role as any form of disciplinarian, so I will err on the side of letting stuff play out. This ends when it begins to threaten the safety of round participants." - Truf.

Tech over truth is not to say I'll vote on dropped ASPEC hidden in some random CP shell with a humongous smile on my face. While I will vote on it, I probably won't be happy about it at all. The best debates (and the ones that result in higher speaker points) are where two teams who are able to communicate clearly and confidently demonstrate deep understanding of a topic. I also think truer arguments are easier to win on.

FYI - an argument is a claim and a warrant - if a claim is dropped, but it has no warrant nor an implication on the rest of the debate, it's probably going to be completely irrelevant to how I evaluate the debate.

I understand that a claim and a warrant might sound infinitely regressive - take for example the derivative of x^2 is 2x because you do the power rule. But there could always be a warrant for why you do the power rule, like it's best and fastest method. But there could always be warrant for why its the best and fastest method, and so on, and so forth. So I'll draw a line and count anything as an argument when the claim you make has at least 1 "because XYZ claim".

Above all, you do you. Don't try to cater to me - that will probably be a worse debate than if you just did what you usually do. Every preference I list in this paradigm can be overcome by good debating, these are simply my views in a debate where these beliefs are not contested.

Misc Practices:

I'm good for tag teaming, just keep it at a reasonable level.

Inserting rehighlights is definitely a good practice, but you have to explain what the rehighlight says before you insert it.

Also, if you're recutting an article and reading stuff from beyond what the other team has cut it to be, you must read the recut. Inserting a bunch of ev into the debate without an explanation defeats the whole point of debate being a communicative activity.

Sending analytics? You don't need to, but it's probably a good idea to - I want to say my flowing skills are average.

CX as prep? no, unless you're mav.

Highlighting colors? Good for blue, green, yellow, purple, gray for rehighlights/inserts etc. Just don't make the highlighting absolutely atrocious and unreadable.

Card Docs? Send them please. Chances are I won't look at them unless the debate truly comes down to the evidence OR if a team expressly tells me to look at a card, however.

Addendum: Please Don't Tag Cards Like This. Who Writes Anything Like This.

Substantive Thoughts on Arguments:

General/Stuff that doesn't really fit into any one category.

I don't really have any strong feelings on "neg terrorism" (CPing out of straight turns, lots of condo). Do what you must. Too many aff teams let the neg get away with antics though.

Case Debate.

Most 1ACs are usually nonsensical and have glaring flaws the neg tends to not exploit, instead opting for impact defense. Why are you doing this? Good case debating, and likewise, a 1AC that the aff team can coherently explain, will result in higher speaks.

Disadvantages.

No hot takes on them. Politics DAs are fine. Turns case is extremely important, and applying it at all levels of the DA is a good idea.

Counterplans.

Fine for you going for artificially competitive counterplans, but evenly debated, I'd lean aff.

Some theoretical objections to these are explained in a way that every CP would violate. "Reject Process CPs" - what is a process? Isn't every CP a process?

Creative advantage CPs are good. The monstrous multiplank advantage CP is kind of fun.

International fiat on domestic topics, object fiat, and multi-level government fiat is bad.

Impact Turns.

These can be fun and nuanced.

Spark or wipeout are fine with me.

Kritiks.

The 2NC and 2NR has to explain their theory of power and their impact coherently. Otherwise, I likely won't have any idea what I'm voting on, and that's going to make my decision much harder to parse thru. A really buzzwordy overview won't help.

I will not decide a middle ground framework and will only choose between the ones both sides present me in the debate.

Not much knowledge on stuff beyond security/cap/set col - you'll probably lose me a bit if you're rocketing 400 WPM thru a bunch of blocks on high theory. I kinda understand bataille though.

Topicality.

I think plan text in a vacuum is a true argument, but I think it has limited use cases. (i.e., if they go for "if they win PTXIV vote neg on presumption" and i could truthfully vote neg on presumption if the definition of the word took out the whole aff, i wouldn't recommend going for it)

Evenly debated, I think predictability > limits/debatability.

Limits is probably a better impact than ground.

Theory.

Condo is probably good. This isn't to say I won't vote on condo bad - I think the best condo 2ARs identify round-specific reasons why condo was bad so as to avoid the best general condo good offense.

Skew feels inevitable.

Anything else is probably just a reason to reject the arg.

K Affs.

Only ever been neg vs a k aff.

Presumption is really good against a lot of these. I think smart K affs that actually can beat presumption are kind of cool.

T USFG.

Go for it.
Good for either fairness or clash. I think fairness is an impact, and is probably more strategic a majority of the time. But clash is still fine with me in the back.

KvK.

Probably have no idea what I'm doing here tbh.

Varsity Speaker Points

<28 - Clipped, or other technical fouls.

28 - You messed up a lot.

28.5 - Median.

29 - I think you're breaking.

29.2+ - Solid elim run.

29.6+ - Winning the tournament.

29.9 - Future NDT winner.

Don't ask for a 30 pls.

Ways to get speaker points:

knowing what you're talking about
being nice
sounding smart and confident and clear
having good evidence and explaining said good evidence
judge instruction
doing line by line
well formatted and organized evidence + docs

Ways to lose speaker points:

being slow to send out stuff, being kinda late to start the round
unclarity (is that a word?)
rudeness or disrespectfulness
dropping multiple pieces on the line by line

Good luck!

Ella Jones Marist School 6 rounds

Michelle Lee Marist School None

John Masterson Woodward Academy

Aaly Nanji Woodward Academy

Rex Nassah Marist School 6 rounds

Lasya Paladugu Woodward Academy

Tanvi Pamulapati Woodward Academy

Rose Pelham Woodward Academy

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 4:53 AM EDT

Last edited on 5/27/23 to rewrite the sections on experience, Statement on Racism, and K Affirmatives.

Pronouns: she/they

Experience: I have spent my entire life in the debate community one way or another. That said, I spent five years debating middle school/high school, took a break from debating in undergrad, then came back to judge and coach for a variety of schools.

Statement on Racism (& other Prejudices) in Debate

Debate should encourage students to see themselves as agents capable of acting to create a better world. We will not achieve this vision for our activity so long as we pretend it is in a realm separate from reality. Judges have an ethical obligation to oppose prejudice in round including but by no means limited to: racism, queerphobia, antisemitism, sexism, Islamophobia, ableism, and classism, among others. Debate, as an activity, has its fair share of structural inequities. We, as coaches and judges, need to address these and be congnizant of them in our decisions.

General Philosophy

I see the role of the judge as that of an educator concerned primarily with what teams learn from the experience. Therefore, the most important aspect of being a judge, to me, is to provide good constructive criticism to teams about their arguments and performance, and to promote the educational qualities of debate. When teams are using prep time, I am usually writing speech by speech feedback for my ballots––which I very much hope teams and their judges will read. As a judge, I want you to come out of the round, win or lose, feeling like you learned something worthwhile.

As an educator concerned with what can be learned from the round, I think the quality of arguments are much more important than their quantity, and whenever possible prefer to reward well researched and articulated arguments more than arguments will few warrants that might be read in the hopes of their being dropped. I prefer to decide rounds based upon the meaning of the arguments presented and their clash rather than by concession.

I flow the round based on what I hear, preferring not to use speech documents. For this reason, clarity is more important than speed. For an argument to exist in the round, it needs to be spoken intelligibly. Rounds that are slower typically offer better quality arguments and fewer mistakes.

Argument Specific preferences:

Plan-less critical affirmatives: I am happy to judge and vote on them. K affs are a useful tool for contesting the norms of debate, including those which are the most problematic in the activity. Over time, I have changed my threshold on their topicality. These days, my position is that so long as they are clearly related to the topic, I am happy to consider them topical. When aff teams argue critical affirmatives, I strongly prefer there be a specific solvency mechanism for their interpretation of the role of the ballot. For negative teams arguing against K affs, I have a strong preference for specific case answers. Given that K affs are a fixture of debate and are generally available to find on open evidence and the caselist wiki, prepping to specifically answer them should be possible. While I am unlikely to vote in favor of arguments that would outright eliminate K affs in debate, counter kritiks are a strategy I am amenable to.

Kritiks: At its most fundamental level, a kritik is a critical argument that examines the consequences of the assumptions made in another argument. I love well run kritiks, but for me to decide in favor of a kritik it needs a specific link to the assumptions in the 1AC and a clearly articulated alternative that involves a specific action (as opposed to a vague alt). Experience informs me that K's with generic links and vague alternatives make for bad debate.

Framework: Lately this term seems to have become a synonym for a kind of impact calculus that instead of focusing on magnitude, risk, and time-frame attempts to convince me to discard all impacts but those of the team running this argument. Framework, as I understand it, is a synonym to theory and is about what the rules of debate should be. Why should it be a rule of debate that we should only consider one type of impact? It seems all impacts in debate have already boiled themselves down to extinction.

Topicality: Please slow down so that I can hear all your arguments and flow all their warrants. The quality of your T arguments is much more important to me––especially if you argue about the precedent the round sets––than how many stock voters you can read. I may prefer teams that offer a clear argument on topicality to those that rely on spreading, however tactically advantages the quickly read arguments may be.

Counter plans: The burden of demonstrating solvency is on the negative, especially with PICs. PICs are probably bad for debate. Most of the time they are just a proposal to do the plan but in a more ridiculous way that would likely never happen. So if you are going to run a PIC, make sure to argue that changing whatever aspect of the plan your PIC hinges on is realistically feasible and reasonably advantageous. Otherwise, I will do everything I can to avoid deciding the round on them.

Conditionality: I have no problem with the negative making a couple conditional arguments. That said, I think relying on a large number of conditional arguments to skew the aff typically backfires with the neg being unable to devote enough time to create a strong argument. So, I typically decide conditionality debates with a large number of conditional arguments in favor of the aff, not because they make debate too hard for the aff, but because they make debating well hard for everyone in the round.

For rookie/novice debaters:

If you're reading this, then you're already a step ahead and thinking about the skills you will need to be building for JV and varsity debate. What I want to see most in rookie/novice debates is that teams are flowing and clearly responding to each other.

Jayden Rachal Marist School 6 rounds

Parth Shah Woodward Academy

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

pasdebate@gmail.com

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

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

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

I took most of this paradigm from Reed Van Schenck:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public Forum Debate

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

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

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

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

Give an order before your speech

Suhani Sharma Westminster

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Marist Scrimmage Series 2

2023 — NSDA Campus, GA/US

Policy Debate Paradigm List

Judges