Middle School Policy 1103
2023 — Online, CA/US
Policy Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HidePeninsula High School.
Add me to the email chain: aadibhagat2008@gmail.com
Debated for like 2 years ish.(Policy)
Tech>Truth
I can't really understand spreading so be clear if you chose to do so.
Don't assume I understand all your jargon, explain arguments well.
You don't have to stop prep when the email is sent, so you can stop it when you are done preparing, but I do expect the process of the email being sent to be quick and for both teams not to steal prep.
Extend your offense first.
"DON'T KEEP YAPPING"-a wise debater.
Theory:
I WILL vote on APSEC.(Most of the time)
Don't just reread your theory arguments in the block/2nr,explain why fairness outweighs education or vice-versa and extend your standards.
Also, if you have Aspec blocked out and you show that to me after round I will give 30 points.
If the AFF/NEG answers the theory argument you made, don't just extend it bc of my paradigm but extend at your your own risk.
"Please warn me when you're about to start the speech with a 10 second countdown and get verbal confirmation by everyone in the room individually that they're ready for you to start, it's important everyone is ready."
"Please pronounce all punctuation verbally- it prevents me from flowing effectively if you do not."--Brandon Lin
Xavier Burchfield
xavierburchfield09@gmail.com
I have been every speaker pos.
I will easily vote on a well explained and debated theory argument
If I am judging novice, which I probably am, DO NOT BE A BLOCK BOT PLEASE, that is not helping you get better, it just looks stupid when you read something and just don't know what it is when answering cross
Prepared to vote on anything
IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A GOOD CHANCE OF WINNING, READ A POLICY AFF, DONT READ A K AFF, AND k's on the neg are a little more easy, but it might confuse me.
I will vote on the K, but the team reading it is at a disadvantage as I don't always feel comfortable voting on it if the debate is messy, or if the K isn't explained well
I strongly suggest you don't read a k aff against me, and if you make a mistake and do, pretend I am a baby. Explain everything very well.
I tend to lean neg against k affs
I usually understand the T-FW arguments and don't need as much explanation, but I definitely need help understanding case.
(I will vote on wipeout or spark or death good)
If it is debated well, I will feel comfortable voting on it
Dropping case in the 2ac and full pushing condo the rest of the debate is a fire strategy
I love a good case turn on the neg in the 2nr, and on aff, i love a turn on a disad
This doesn't mean read something completely new, if you read something completely new, I won't even flow it and the other team doesn't have to acknowledge it because it is not their burden.
Don't be scared to go for risky arguments, I won't take my personal beliefs into the debate, so even if you run wipeout or spark, if it is technically debated well, I will vote for it.
If you are answering cross, and you avoid the questions, and just yap about something else, speaks are going to probably go down.
Pronounce punctuation verbally (Brandon Lin)
Impact turn fairness
SPEAKS
- 25 --- Rock bottom, you were discriminatory, mean, etc, or you clipped.
- 26-27 --- You barely spoke and had no warrants and just practically yapped about nothing relevant.
- 27-28 --- It was mid, you spoke fine, but it wasn't anything great.
- 28-29 --- somewhat good, you had good clarity, you had good speed and understanding of arguments.
- 29-29.5 --- You were really good and i liked mostly all of it.
- 29.5-30 --- You have a very bright future and did really well in the debate.
Coach @ Asian Debate League
Debated 4 years at Kapaun** Mount Carmel in Wichita, Kansas, 2017
Debated 4 years NDT/CEDA/D3 at University of Kansas, 2021
Email chain: gaboesquivel@gmail.com
My biases:
I lean aff for condo. Some might say too much. I might expect a lot from you if you do go for it.
For K's I value consistency between the scale of the links and impacts i.e. in round impacts should have in round links.
I strongly bias toward "The K gets links and impacts vs the aff's fiated impacts" unless someone delivers a very persuasive speech. I can be persuaded that making a personal ethical choice is more important than preventing a nuclear war.
I lean toward affs with plans. Fairness concerns me less than usual nowadays. I like research/clash impacts.
I will read evidence and vote for evidence in debates where things are not settled by the debater's words. This happens frequently in T debates and impact turn debates.
Status quo is always an option=judge kick
How I judge:
I am patient with novices because most of my students are novices.
I listen first and read your evidence second. If you are clear, this distinction shouldn't matter. If you aren't clear I'm not comfortable reading your blocks and cards to fill in the gaps for you.
I flow and use everything I hear in my decision, and overemphasize what is said in the rebuttals. I'll reference the 1AR speech to protect the 2NR on a 2AR that "sounds new" and I'll reference the block on a 2NR that claims the 1AR dropped something. I'll reference a 2AC on a 1AR that claims the block dropped something, etc.
For a dropped argument to be a true argument it must have been a complete claim and warrant from the beginning. I am not a fan of being "sneaky" or "tricky". Unless you are going for condo ;)
I am persuaded by ethos and pathos more than logos. I find myself wanting to vote for a debater who tries to connect with me more than a debater who reads a wall of blocks even if they are technically behind. When both teams are great speakers I rely more on tech and evidence.
I try to craft my decision based on language used by the debaters. I reference evidence when I cannot resolve an argument by flow alone. PhD's, peer reviewed journals, and adequate highlighting will help you here. If I can't resolve it that way I'll look for potential cross applications or CX arguments and might end up doing work for you. If I do work for one team I will try to do the same amount for the other team. It might get messy if its close, that's what the panel is for, but please challenge my decision if you strongly disagree and I'll tell you where my biases kicked in.
**Pronounced (Kay-pen)
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.
People you can roast for 0.1 extra speaker points-
Jordan Yao
Aiden Kwon
Iva Liu
Scott Wheeler
Jonathan Yang
Jeremy Kim
Vincent Liu
Anyone in the BEJJP Lab
Anyone on the Pen Debate Team
Peninsula '26
tech>truth
condo = good
k aff = :(
Peninsula '27
Add me to the email at peninsulaLL27@gmail.com
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Novices
I know debate can be hard, just have fun and do your best! I'll try to evaluate as fairly as I can with the least judge intervention.
Peninsula'25 flipped back and forth between LD and policy so pretty aware of all the norms, LARP>>>>.
Email Chains
Please add me to the email chain - shawnlo0927@gmail.com
Speaking
Speed is fine, slow down on theory if you want me to vote on it,
Overall
Tech>Truth
higher speaks if no blocs
default to judge kick unless condo bad
CPs: Sympathetic to the aff on theory, and intrinsic perms against cheaty process counterplans
DAs: Fully extend your links, and impacts, and do weighing/judge instructions and your good.
Ks: Aff bias on FW, not defaulting to plan focus, I'm pretty bad at evaluating "debate bad Ks"
Kaffs: Huge bias against them but if you can convince me about your model of debate, a ballot isn't impossible.
T: cool, threshold to voting on an rvi is pretty high, T blocs<<flow
Policy
No matter what do not yell at your partner, idc how much better you think you are
LD
Do not read Phil at me, explain it to me..i cannot evaluate phil for the life of me
Theory
condo is good, i vote on dropped trix
Call me Shawn
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).
Everything is probabilistic. You can win the full weight of a dropped argument and easily still lose the debate.
For PF: Speaks capped at 27.5 if you don't read cut cards (with tags) and send speech docs via email chain prior to your speech of cards to be read (in constructives, rebuttal, summary, or any speech where you have a new card to read). I'm done with paraphrasing and pf rounds taking almost as long as my policy rounds to complete. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that do read cut cards and do send speech docs via email chain prior to speech. In elims, since I can't give points, it will be a overall tiebreaker.
For Policy: Speaks capped at 28 if I don't understand each and every word you say while spreading (including cards read). I will not follow along on the speech doc, I will not read cards after the debate (unless contested or required to render a decision), and, thus, I will not reconstruct the debate for you but will just go off my flow. I can handle speed, but I need clarity not a speechdoc to understand warrants. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that are completely flowable. I'd say about 85% of debaters have been able to meet this paradigm.
I'd also mostly focus on the style section and bold parts of other sections.
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2018 update: College policy debaters should look to who I judged at my last college judging spree (69th National Debate Tournament in Iowa) to get a feeling of who will and will not pref me. I also like Buntin's new judge philosophy (agree roughly 90%).
It's Fall 2015. I judge all types of debate, from policy-v-policy to non-policy-v-non-policy. I think what separates me as a judge is style, not substance.
I debated for Texas for 5 years (2003-2008), 4 years in Texas during high school (1999-2003). I was twice a top 20 speaker at the NDT. I've coached on and off for highschool and college teams during that time and since. I've ran or coached an extremely wide diversity of arguments. Some favorite memories include "china is evil and that outweighs the security k", to "human extinction is good", to "predictions must specify strong data", to "let's consult the chinese, china is awesome", to "housing discrimination based on race causes school segregation based on race", to "factory farms are biopolitical murder", to “free trade good performance”, to "let's reg. neg. the plan to make businesses confident", to “CO2 fertilization, SO2 Screw, or Ice Age DAs”, to "let the Makah whale", etc. Basically, I've been around.
After it was pointed out that I don't do a great job delineating debatable versus non-debatable preferences, I've decided to style-code bold all parts of my philosophy that are not up for debate. Everything else is merely a preference, and can be debated.
Style/Big Picture:
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I strongly prefer to let the debaters do the debating, and I'll reward depth (the "author+claim + warrant + data+impact" model) over breadth (the "author+claim + impact" model) any day.
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When evaluating probabilistic predictions, I start from the assumption everyone begins at 0%, and you persuade me to increase that number (w/ claims + warrants + data). Rarely do teams get me past 5%. A conceeded claim (or even claim + another claim disguised as the warrant) will not start at 100%, but remains at 0%.
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Combining those first two essential stylistic criteria means, in practice, many times I discount entirely even conceded, well impacted claims because the debaters failed to provide a warrant and/or data to support their claim. It's analogous to failing a basic "laugh" test. I may not be perfect at this rubric yet, but I still think it's better than the alternative (e.g. rebuttals filled with 20+ uses of the word “conceded” and a stack of 60 cards).
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I'll try to minimize the amount of evidence I read to only evidence that is either (A) up for dispute/interpretation between the teams or (B) required to render a decision (due to lack of clash amongst the debaters). In short: don't let the evidence do the debating for you.
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Humor is also well rewarded, and it is hard (but not impossible) to offend me.
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I'd also strongly prefer if teams would slow down 15-20% so that I can hear and understand every word you say (including cards read). While I won't explicitly punish you if you don't, it does go a mile to have me already understand the evidence while you're debating so I don't have to sort through it at the end (especially since I likely won't call for that card anyway).
- Defense can win a debate (there is such as thing as a 100% no link), but offense helps more times than not.
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I'm a big believer in open disclosure practices, and would vote on reasoned arguments about poor disclosure practices. In the perfect world, everything would be open-source (including highlighting and analytics, including 2NR/2AR blocks), and all teams would ultimately share one evidence set. You could cut new evidence, but once read, everyone would have it. We're nowhere near that world. Some performance teams think a few half-citations work when it makes up at best 45 seconds of a 9 minute speech. Some policy teams think offering cards without highlighting for only the first constructive works. I don't think either model works, and would be happy to vote to encourage more open disclosure practices. It's hard to be angry that the other side doesn't engage you when, pre-round, you didn't offer them anything to engage.
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You (or your partner) must physically mark cards if you do not finish them. Orally saying "mark here" (and expecting your opponents or the judge to do it for you) doesn't count. After your speech (and before cross-ex), you should resend a marked copy to the other team. If pointed out by the other team, failure to do means you must mark prior to cross-ex. I will count it as prep time times two to deter sloppy debate.
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By default, I will not “follow along” and read evidence during a debate. I find that it incentivizes unclear and shallow debates. However, I realize that some people are better visual than auditory learners and I would classify myself as strongly visual. If both teams would prefer and communicate to me that preference before the round, I will “follow along” and read evidence during the debate speeches, cross-exs, and maybe even prep.
Topicality:
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I like competing interpretations, the more evidence the better, and clearly delineated and impacted/weighed standards on topicality.
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Abuse makes it all the better, but is not required (doesn't unpredictability inherently abuse?).
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Treat it like a disad, and go from there. In my opinion, topicality is a dying art, so I'll be sure to reward debaters that show talent.
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For the aff – think offense/defense and weigh the standards you're winning against what you're losing rather than say "at least we're reasonable". You'll sound way better.
Framework:
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The exception to the above is the "framework debate". I find it to be an uphill battle for the neg in these debates (usually because that's the only thing the aff has blocked out for 5 minutes, and they debate it 3 out of 4 aff rounds).
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If you want to win framework in front of me, spent time delineating your interpretation of debate in a way that doesn't make it seem arbitrary. For example "they're not policy debate" begs the question what exactly policy debate is. I'm not Justice Steward, and this isn't pornography. I don't know when I've seen it. I'm old school in that I conceptualize framework along “predictability”; "topic education", “policymaking education”, and “aff education” (topical version, switch sides, etc) lines.
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“We're in the direction of the topic” or “we discuss the topic rather than a topical discussion” is a pretty laughable counter-interpretation.
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For the aff, "we agree with the neg's interp of framework but still get to weigh our case" borders on incomprehensible if the framework is the least bit not arbitrary.
Case Debate
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Depth in explanation over breadth in coverage. One well explained warrant will do more damage to the 1AR than 5 cards that say the same claim.
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Well-developed impact calculus must begin no later than the 1AR for the Aff and Negative Block for the Neg.
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I enjoy large indepth case debates. I was 2A who wrote my own community unique affs usually with only 1 advantage and no external add-ons. These type of debates, if properly researched and executed, can be quite fun for all parties.
Disads
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Intrinsic perms are silly. Normal means arguments are less so.
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From an offense/defense paradigm, conceded uniqueness can control the direction of the link. Conceded links can control the direction of uniqueness. The in round application of "why" is important.
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A story / spin is usually more important (and harder for the 1AR to deal with) than 5 cards that say the same thing.
Counterplan Competition:
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I generally prefer functionally competitive counterplans with solvency advocates delineating the counterplan versus the plan (or close) (as opposed to the counterplan versus the topic), but a good case for textual competition can be made with a language K netbenefit.
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Conditionality (1 CP, SQ, and 1 K) is a fact of life, and anything less is the negative feeling sorry for you (or themselves). However, I do not like 2NR conditionality (i.e., “judge kick”) ever. Make a decision.
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Perms and theory always remain a test of competition (and not a voter) until proven otherwise by the negative by argument (see above), a near impossible standard for arguments that don't interfere substantially with other parts of the debate (e.g. conditionality).
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Perm "do the aff" is not a perm. Debatable perms are "do both" and "do cp/alt"(and "do aff and part of the CP" for multi-plank CPs). Others are usually intrinsic.
Critiques:
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I think of the critique as a (usually linear) disad and the alt as a cp.
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Be sure to clearly impact your critique in the context of what it means/does to the aff case (does the alt solve it, does the critique turn it, make harms inevitable, does it disprove their solvency). Latch on to an external impact (be it "ethics", or biopower causes super-viruses), and weigh it against case.
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Use your alternative to either "fiat uniqueness" or create a rubric by which I don't evaluate uniqueness, and to solve case in other ways.
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I will say upfront the two types of critique routes I find least persuasive are simplistic versions of "economics", "science", and "militarism" bad (mostly because I have an econ degree and am part of an extensive military family). While good critiques exist out there of both, most of what debaters use are not that, so plan accordingly.
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For the aff, figure out how to solve your case absent fiat (education about aff good?), and weigh it against the alternative, which you should reduce to as close as the status quo as possible. Make uniqueness indicts to control the direction of link, and question the timeframe/inevitability/plausability of their impacts.
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Perms generally check clearly uncompetitive alternative jive, but don't work too well against "vote neg". A good link turn generally does way more than “perm solves the link”.
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Aff Framework doesn't ever make the critique disappear, it just changes how I evaluate/weigh the alternative.
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Role of the Ballot - I vote for the team that did the better debating. What is "better" is based on my stylistic criteria. End of story. Don't let "Role of the Ballot" be used as an excuse to avoid impact calculus.
Performance (the other critique):
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Empirically, I do judge these debate and end up about 50-50 on them. I neither bandwagon around nor discount the validity of arguments critical of the pedagogy of debate. I'll let you make the case or defense (preferably with data). The team that usually wins my ballot is the team that made an effort to intelligently clash with the other team (whether it's aff or neg) and meet my stylistic criteria. To me, it's just another form of debate.
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However, I do have some trouble in some of these debates in that I feel most of what is said is usually non-falsifiable, a little too personal for comfort, and devolves 2 out of 3 times into a chest-beating contest with competition limited to some archaic version of "plan-plan". I do recognize that this isn't always the case, but if you find yourselves banking on "the counterplan/critique doesn't solve" because "you did it first", or "it's not genuine", or "their skin is white"; you're already on the path to a loss.
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If you are debating performance teams, the two main takeaways are that you'll probably lose framework unless you win topical version, and I hate judging "X" identity outweighs "Y" identity debates. I suggest, empirically, a critique of their identity politics coupled with some specific case cards is more likely to get my ballot than a strategy based around "Framework" and the "Rev". Not saying it's the only way, just offering some empirical observations of how I vote.