For email chains ... my email is amod (at) oes . edu

I am a former the HS policy debate coach and CEDA Coach. Founding member of the Portland Urban Debate League - expanding debate opportunities to underserved schools in Portland Metro.

I was a policy/LD debater for Lincoln High School in the early 90s and CEDA debater for The American University in Washington, DC. Upon graduation, I returned to coach the American CEDA program for three more years. After a long hiatus, I’ve been called back to the activity that I love. Beyond my coaching experience, I am a founder of the Portland Urban Debate League.

Debate is awesome! But … it’s only as good as we, as a community, make it. I am coming back to the activity to make sure that it continues for future generations. Teams that disrespect their opponent, or this activity, will be dealt with severely on my ballot. Integrity is not something to trifle with for short-term strategic benefits.

1. Homophobic, racist, religiously intolerant, or sexist language and/or behavior will not be tolerated.

2. Rudeness, dishonesty, cruelty and vulgarity devalues the activity.

3. Have fun! Strive for creativity, humor, debate scholarship, humility, compassion, and being strategic.

Stylistic Overview

1. CLASH!

2. Quality over quantity. Just because I can handle a faster round doesn't mean that it impresses me.

3. Smart analytics is always better than lazy warrantless evidence.

4. Debates about evidence QUALITY and CONTEXT are to be encouraged!

5. I am ok with tag teaming during cross ex so long as it provides greater clarity and isn’t abused.

6. So long as it’s not a new case, advantage/scenario or neg position. The negative and affirmative positions should be disclosed pre round, if asked.

7. If asked, evidence must be made available to the opposition.

8. Provide a clear decision-making calculus from the start throughout the round and please do all the impact analysis for me.

9. I believe one or two prestandards (a propri) arguments are sufficient, anything more and I lean towards abuse.

10. I've been away from the activity for a few years and online debating creates some clarity issues. Let's bring it down a notch or two while my ear gets retrained to the activity.

Positions

Kritiks

I’m more than open to them. But know that I’d probably rather judge just about anything … than a postmodernism debate. Even if you argued this in front of me 5 times this season, debate a K as if I’ve never heard the topic before.

Topicality/theory debates

Slow down for clarity, these debates tend to be nuanced. Try to limit these positions to only abusive situation

Disadvantages

Not shockingly, case specific disads are better than generic.

Counterplans

Competition is key. Aff leaning on Conditionality. Legit perms must include all of plan and part of the counter plan.

I will try to judge whatever you want, within reason, so long as you justify it.

Buck Arney (He/Him)

buckarney@gmail.com

Northwestern 27'

Head-Royce 23'

Last Update: 12/13/24

Top Level Thoughts:

I love this activity, it had a profound impact on my life and still does, and I hope it does for y'all as well. Please treat others with respect and have fun in this activity as for many this activity is a place people call home.

In college I go for nearly exclusively policy arguments and in high school I went for nearly exclusively critical arguments.

Generic neg strats with very little clash with the aff have to be one of my biggest problems with debate, conversely highly strategic and thought out neg strats are my favorite part of the activity.

I am very disinterested in debate rep. I love seeing upsets and hate that the community for some reason prevents them from happening due to rep. If you are really the best you should beat everyone.

Flowing Practices:

I flow on my computer using excel as I cannot handwrite proficiently enough to flow. I flow straight down.

I will have the 1AC and 1NC docs open, after that I WILL NOT open any docs until after the round if reading evidence is necessary.

Argument Specifics:

Counterplans: Great for these and love a good pic. I am good for evaluating a process debate but lean aff on competition (For the IP topic I am probably more neg biased because they seem uniquely nuked). However, neg teams are almost always better at process competition because of prep bias which means you should not be deterred if you are confident in your competition debating.

Disads: Good for these, go for what you want here.

T: I love T debates. Well thought out T debates are some of the best debates to watch. If you believe the aff in the round is not topical please go for T.

K:The K is a great argument when it is accompanied with well-thought-out contextual link and impact debating. Without that I am pretty uninterested. I am well versed in kritiks that pull from ableism, security, asian, and black studies.

K-Affs: Went for a K-AFF for most of highschool and I am down the middle when it comes to T v these affs. This is not an ideological pre-disposition rather it is an issue with teams either being terrible at going for a K-Aff or terrible at going for T. K-Affs need to have an answer to SSD and TVA that is CONTEXTUAL to their aff, if they do not have this it is a very uphill battle. Teams going for T have to answer the specificity of T-USFG disads, disads are not just policing, and if you answer the DA like this you will probably lose. I also recommend going for things outside T-USFG, teams generally have horrible answers to Cap, T-Tactics, T-Parametrics etc.

If your Kritikal aff is not adjacent to the topic the bar for a negative ballot is at the floor.

Theory: Solid for theory and don't really have any ideological predispositions except that I think condo is conclusively good and have not really been convinced otherwise, obviously if it is dropped I will probably vote for it.

Extra:

I am not a huge fan of speaker point inflation, but I am also not going to fight it because I am not an old-head "debate was better when we spoke off tubs and I had to carry a printer cross-country" type of person.

I love innovation, if you are actively innovating arguments in debate please pref me and I will probably give you good speaks and advice

+.1 for good sports references or just being funny overall

Evan Baines (he/they) 12/2024

Please include me in email chains bainesevan1227@gmail.com

About me:

-High School Policy Debate at La Crosse Central High School from 2017-2021 on the topics of education, immigration reform, arms sales, and criminal justice reform.

-I ran soft-left affs and k affs throughout most of hs. I am familiar with the K lit on Set Col, Cap, Gender/Fem Ir, and Anti-Blackness.

-I have judged debate since 2021.

General:

I am not picky about specific arguments. run what you're comfortable with and what you can win a debate with.

truth > tech to some extent. Arguments such as "climate change is not real" will be difficult to win a debate with, and in my mind, there is a significantly lower threshold for proving climate change is real than proving it is fake. I view debate as a primarily educational activity and thus find it difficult but not impossible to endorse such claims if warranted effectively and the other team completely drops the ball.

I like to see lots of clash on the flow! Your evidence and warrants are very important particularly on the solvency flow and disads.

I prefer speeches that are flowable just by listening, particularly in the rebuttals when your analytics are not included in a shared speech doc. I will not necessarily dock speaker points for unclear speeches if the analysis is good, but if I cannot even hear the arguments that are being read it is likely I will just not have that argument on my flow and might lose because of that. If you or your opponent has to ask primarily clarifying questions about what arguments were read during cross x, it is likely I did not hear them either.

When debating in an online format, please include analytics in the speech doc as the microphone/internet quality significantly hinders the clarity of the speeches.

T:

I am not a big fan of t arguments, but I will certainly still vote for them. Due to the fact that I view debate as primarily an educational activity, the most persuasive voter to me is education. I am not necessarily convinced by fairness arguments unless there is clear evidence of in-round abuse that is specifically pointed out by the negative. I do quite enjoy the debates about semantics and definitions, and when evaluating interpretations and counter interpretations author's credibility and specificity to the topic are the most important.

K:

Alt explanation and Solvency is key to winning the k flow for me. if you don't have adequate solvency or explanation, I am left with a non-unique da to the case which makes it hard for me to vote on the K flow. I could still vote on presumption if the k impact and links are adequately explained, and the K is reframed as a non-uq DA.

in-round decorum:

please refrain from personal attacks on the other team, talking over each other, or other rude behavior. please remember that the people you are debating against are human beings and treat them with kindness and respect :)

Spreading is in the nature of the debate beasts in the modern era…please keep it to 50% of your max.

I am a newer judge and coach, but I can appreciate all intellectually sound arguments. My largest concern is your understanding of your material and capability to defend it. 

High school LD in the dark ages before the internet. I prefer traditional LD, and arguments to be flowable. 

Superior logic, evidence, and skill in defending/refutation will always dictate my vote. In a very close race speaks will turn the tide in your favor. Strong presentation skills are part of the persuasive package.

Add me to the chain: zbpolicydebate@gmail.com and smdebatedocs@gmail.com

Top Level: I debated for St. Mark's from 2019-2022. I am a current student at Georgetown.

Tech/Truth, but that doesn't mean abandon all truth--I'll listen to each "if they drop x then we win the debate" argument and be as fair as possible, but I will try my very best to give the benefit of the doubt to well thought out arguments rather than silly shots for the ballot.

I really value impact analysis, you should draw the impacts of the debate out and tell me what I should value more.

I'll love it if you do good case debating, and reward you with high speaks. Prioritize case in the block, it goes a long way.

K's: I am probably not the best judge to pref if you are a high-theory K team. With regards to security, set col, and cap k, I know my way around, so you should be fine. If you run a K-aff, I do buy into T-USFG a little more, but I can be swayed, as with anything ig.

DA: Impact framing is important. I do not want to judge intervene on whether great power war is more important than nuclear terrorism.
I will lean towards 1% chance of the DA. You have to have a very solid, airtight plan if you want to win 0% risk (i.e. DA already happened/impact is impossible)

CP: Counterplans rarely solve 100% of case, but too often AFFs let it happen. Compare solvency deficit impacts with the DA, do not leave that work up to me please. Please EXPLAIN sufficiency framing, don't just say it otherwise I will assume any argument in the 2AR for why CP doesn't solve disproves sufficiency framing.

T: Resolutional debating is hard and confusing, but I will reward teams that do it really well with good speaks. Love watching good T debates, but make sure to have solid understanding of your interps and how they relate to the topic vision.

Closing thoughts: I am pretty open to most arguments. Debate better than the other team and you will win.

Lowell 23' Berkeley 27'

Email:

lowelldebatedocs [at] gmail.com for email chains and tournaments.

Parli / PF at the bottom.

TLDR: Speed is fine but clarity > speed. Prefer a policy debate instead of a K v K debate.

Background: Hi, I'm Michael. I was a 2A/1N at Lowell High School. Jenny Liu carried me as my 2N/1A partner, with both of us under the watchful eye of the Mr. Debnil Sur.

Circuit:

Topicality: Sure. I evaluate T through competing interpretations. Reasonability is not a real argument ... unless it's dropped ...

K Affs: Limited experience. Too often in these debates there is not clear warranting / impacting of things like fairness, clash etc. The team with the better high level storytelling and clearer explanation of arguments that matter will pick up my ballot.

Neg K: Framework Ks are awesome! Ks with an alt are cool too, but it seems that the alt never gets developed or explained sufficiently to overcome the status quo. Affirmatives that exploit this and negatives that explain why this doesn't matter (dropped, floating pics, having an actual alt that overcomes the links) will have a stronger chance of picking up my ballot.

CP: No familiarity with the IP topic --- err on the side of over explanation. Would love to see a case specific cp with a decent solvency advocate, +0.2 speaks if you have a case specific cp with a rehighlighted piece of their ev that says your plan solves (and the rehighlighting actually says what you want it to say).

DA: Sure, I'll vote on them if your ahead, generic links are bad but it doesn't matter if the 1AR drops them, explain why your impact outweighs / make smart turns case arguments. I do not think you need evidence to make an argument. Many bad DAs can be reduced to noise through smart analytics. Doing so will improve your speaker points. Better evidence will require your own.

Case: More likely to be convinced by smart analytics and evidence rehighlightings than impact defense alone. Warrant comparison is so important -- make the 2AR actually have to spend time on the case page pls!!

CX: I flow it so use it to poke holes and get concessions. Don't be rude, cutting people off is fine but do it in a polite way. Open CX is cool.

Condo: More sympathetic to the AFF then typical. Would much prefer to judge a well warranted and high clash 4-off debate than a 11-off 1NC where the 2AC gets like 4 arguments on every flow at best.

+0.1 if you follow @lowellpolicyheg on insta, tell me before the round!!

+0.1 for your team if you title one of your docs "lay-debate-is-not-dead".

+0.2 if you make a funny joke about Debnil, Jessie, Taylor, Taytum, Eloise, Win, or Jenny (the seven of them have taught me everything I know about debate so you can look at their paradigms if you really want to understand where I am coming from as a judge).

Policy (Lay / GGSA):

Circuit's fine if both teams agree to do so, throughout my career there have been too many circuit teams that agree to a lay debate and then run 10 off -- it's not cool.

Ethos matters! Looking at me instead of your computer can get you a long way especially when writing my ballot in the 2nr or 2ar.

Case in a lay debate setting: Honestly totally go for case with me, I have a pretty high threshold that the aff has to pass, if you can prove to me beyond the preponderance of the evidence that the aff can't solve or access their impacts I'll vote for you. Use their ev against them. If you are going for just case in the 2nr say at the top "Russell Brand would vote on stock issues so you should too" it will remind me that GGSA is a lay tournament so I can pull the trigger on solvency, plus it will boost your speaks 0.1

Parli

Ethos > logos; I'm sorry but if your doing parli I have 0 respect for your ev so I vote on your rhetoric and delivery of arguments.

That said make your arguments logical not going to vote on something insanely stupid just because you said it well.

Dropped arguments are true, but you need to explain what that dropped argument means / how it should shape the rest of the debate.

Perms are a test of competition, running one in 2a does not lock you into it for the VI.

I'll strike new arguments but call a POO the first time they make one, I'll say taken into account and be strictly looking for new arguments through out the rest of the VI. That said if your wrong I'll be very sad so make sure your right that it's new.

+0.1 if you follow @lowellpolicyheg on insta, tell me before the round.

+0.1 if you make a joke about anyone who's done Lowell parli

PF

I've never debated in PF and have limited experience judging this event! Explicit judge instruction and impact calc will go a long way for me, especially in the final rebuttals.

Affiliations

St. Mark's, Northwestern

Emails

--mlcpolicydebate[at]gmail[dot]com and smdebatedocs[at]gmail[dot]com

Paradigm

I will strictly rely on the evidence and arguments presented during the round, refraining from adding my opinions to my decision.

I have limited knowledge of the topic. Goes double LD and PF.

T (3 Wins) - K-Aff (5 Wins)

If you are a team that does the following, your speaks will suffer:

--requires more than two minutes to send an email,

--starts the round late,

--steals prep,

--disrespects others,

--uses SpeechDrop,

--fails to add both emails in the paradigm to the chain.

they/she. astrid, not judge.

astridmeadowww@gmail.com – email subject lines should be: “[tournament] round [#] – [aff team] – [neg team]”

ferris 19-21 – CM: arms sales, CJR. west georgia 21-23 – CF: antitrust. CL: legal personhood. gap year(s) 23-?.

conflicts: N/A

NDT doubles 2023, TOC participant 2021.

non-negotiables / “rules”

Debates have one winner and one loser. I will evaluate the entire debate. I will award speaker points at my own discretion. High school policy debates have 4 participants, each of whom gives one 8 minute constructive speech and one 5 minute rebuttal speech. High school LD debates have 2 participants and strange speech times, but I will enforce them regardless. Speeches must be clear, I will not flow what I cannot understand.* Prep time is allotted by the tournament and ends when the document is sent, no earlier. Clipping accusations end the debate and are an issue for tabroom, not me. Safety concerns end the debate and are an issue for tabroom, not me. Please keep your shoes on. If something is not listed here, it is up for contestation.

notes on evidence practices

Everyone must highlight their cards in a way which makes a complete argument while maintaining coherent grammar and the authors intent. Most highlighting has become so atrocious that I will happily evaluate arguments along the lines of “this highlighting is horrible” as either reasons to strike evidence entirely or even vote a certain way. If arguments about highlighting quality are not made, poor highlighting will be reflected in poor speaker points and a frustrated RFD.

You can insert re-highlightings which amount to "they've misrepresented their own argument" or "this isn't actually what the evidence says" as long as you say analytically why this is the case. You must read re-highlightings which make a new argument. For example: alt causes, solvency deficits, disad link concessions, you get the idea.

*Truf has accurately pointed out that debaters are speaking worse and reading more from the document than they did in the past. I think this is bad. In accordance with his article linked below, I will clarify the 1AC/1NC tags off the doc if they're unclear, because that might be on me and I know 1AC/1NC's are meticulously timed. I have no desire to be the reason you don't read a crucial card in the first speech. After that I will say clear twice during your speech before dramatically giving up and putting my pen down. I will only write down what I hear you say. I will pick my pen back up if you become clearer. However, if you think your opponent is incomprehensible prior to my total abandonment of flowing, say so, you will likely see me nod if you are correct, and I'll likely raise an eyebrow if you're wrong.
https://debate-decoded.ghost.io/judges-should-disclose-if-they-are-flowing-the-doc/

topic notes

I am not currently coaching anyone (though I am open to the right offer), so err on the side of over explanation, especially when you're in the legal weeds of a process counterplan debate, but as a Marxist & avid reader outside debate I'm at least aware of the core controversies and mechanisms of the topic. Any arguments about side bias are alien; don't assume I'll grant/check abusive counterplans on the basis of bias/seasonal norms.

tl:dr

policy – aff-neg all time voting record: 42-49.

LD – aff-neg all time voting record: 6-11.

Debate is good because it is a lawless, vacuous and sophistic game. Debaters should read whatever they deem the most strategic path to the ballot. No argument is off limits*. Tech over “truth” is absolute. A complete argument consists of a claim, warrant** and implication; incomplete arguments needn’t be answered and will not be evaluated. It is a debaters burden to make an argument before it is their opponents burden to answer it. I will hold the line on this.

*though I won’t immediately end the debate over someone forwarding a controversial or “evil” argument, I am very sympathetic to responses like “this argument is evil, reading it is a reason to reject the team regardless of the rest of the debate” when supplemented by a substantive response to the argument. Be reasonable. Make good arguments.

**some warrants are self-evident/implied. We needn’t have a debate about easily observable & provable phenomena which exist in the status quo. Use your intuition to determine the level of analysis you need to win each argument.

the long version.

Honestly, the rest of this paradigm is largely unimportant ramblings because of my near total ambivalence regarding content, but exists for the sake of optimizing everyone’s pref sheets given the tragic inevitability of pre-existing bias influencing how convincing any given argument is to me. I am imperfect. If something is evenly debated, exceptionally messy, or not debated at all, the following paragraphs are insights to my defaults and tie-breakers.

about me / overarching biases

I am a grumpy trans woman who cares about debate very much, though not for any external reasons like “community” or “skills”. I like debate because it is a space which allows people to be creative and express themselves and their ideas; I love debate because of the way those things are facilitated by and interact with its competitive form. I am a very competitive girl and a “policy” 2N at heart, but I have primarily read critical arguments throughout my career given the size of programs I’ve attended, partner preferences, topics debated, and my more personal research interests.

I think of debate as very similar to music. In the same way there is a very technical, theoretically complex, even mathematical way to go about each, there is also a much more artistic, fluid, and creative way. The best debaters and musicians are able to merge technical understanding and proficiency with an ethos which conveys unique ideas and character, though each school of thought is more than capable of producing something beautiful and revolutionary alone. If this doesn’t make sense to you don’t worry too much, simply do what you’re best at and I will appreciate it.

I’m more sympathetic to accommodations and arguments regarding flowability than a lot of judges. I am a slow writer, I am losing hearing in my right ear, and I flow on paper. I will have the speech document open to minimize my errors, but I will only check it to clarify and elaborate on arguments I’ve already heard. I will not use it to fill gaps and compensate for anyone’s lack of clarity and organization. Please slow down on tags, authors, qualifications, dates, and analytics. If anyone else has a (non-safety) related accommodation request, send an email to me and your opponents before the debate so I have a record of it and can fairly evaluate arguments you may make if said accommodations are not met.

Influences & contemporaries include, but are not limited to: Geoff Lundeen, Sarah Lundeen, Jason Regnier, Adrienne Brovero, David Kilpatrick, Joe Skoog, Nathan Fleming, Julian Kuffour, Kate Marin, David Sposito, Rafael Pierry, Jordan Keller, Patrick Fox, Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz, and Blaine Montford.

on policy throwdowns

The affirmative has the burden of proof and the negative has the burden of rejoinder. That's all. For the negative this means, at least, I value case defense more highly than many and, at most, I am more willing to pull the trigger on presumption against poorly constructed affirmatives. For the affirmative this means the same emphasis on defense applies to disadvantages, and I'm very willing to listen to 2AC tricks like intrinsicness tests, weird permutations, and anything else you can think of that amounts to “this argument doesn’t necessarily prove the plan is a bad idea.”

I slightly prefer straight up policy strategies over tricky ones, but that is quickly overridden when the tricks are well executed and provide obvious strategic benefit. I value evidence quality and story both very highly in these debates. The best practice is obviously having both good cards and a good story. Though if lacking one, Debaters can get me to vote for an extremely contrived, improbable internal link chain if they have the evidentiary goods, and I am just as happy to vote for a smart analytic argument against contrived scenarios. Debaters should take time to clarify exactly how I should evaluate analytics vs evidence to minimize the chance of me evaluating these arguments in a way they may not like.

Magnitude times probability is not the only way to do impact calculus, and becomes exceptionally problematic when dealing with extinction because of the potential value of future generations. To resolve this, below a certain probability threshold, I think magnitude ceases to matter almost entirely. Given debate doesn’t deal with percentages, determining the threshold relies more or less on gut checks which are able to leverage the tech over truth paradigm. This means I’m probably better for soft left affirmatives or smaller disadvantages than a lot of policy people assuming both sides are reading comparably good evidence to defend their impact calculus.

I lean slightly affirmative on all theory questions except topicality because I prefer debates which contain less BS and more clash. My like/dislike for an argument is directly proportional to the amount of clash it is capable of producing or mitigating respectively. Impact turns have my heart. If the 2AR is 5 minutes of no neg fiat the floor of the 2A's speaks is a 29. If the 1NC is zero off the floor of both negative debaters speaks is a 29.

on critiques

I hate overviews. Do line-by-line. I’ve been around debate long enough I am familiar with most of this literature.

The most interesting and important things in these debates are competition and framework. If the aff gets to weigh the plan it will outweigh most critiques absent substantial case defense, and if the aff doesn’t get to weigh the plan it will usually lose if the critique is competitive. What exactly makes a critique competitive is up for debate, but consider that permutation debates get really messy absent a theory debate which tells me how I should evaluate the kind of competition created by the link. If the link is to discourse, but the permutation says the alternative doesn’t functionally compete with the plan, I’m not sure how to compare those because they operate on totally different levels. The critique needs to disprove the desirability of the aff. I am probably not voting negative on “the aff is bad because it didn’t solve everything ever”, but I am willing to evaluate negative link arguments to basically anything which is present in affirmative speeches, not just the plan.

KvK debates are probably where I’m the worst because of the aforementioned competition point. These debates are messy because the permutation is OP and I’m not sympathetic to “no permutations because it’s too broken” given the obvious aff response is “no permutations is even more broken.” That said, the standard for competition is much lower in these debates and I’m far more down for PIK type arguments than I would be against a policy aff. If you have me in the back for one of these feel free to get super far into the weeds of your literature. I know lots of authors commonly read in debate disagree with each other over small issues, but this usually gets ignored because the scope is so small that it doesn’t work within the usual argumentative strategy of debate. KvK debates are where those disagreements can see the light of competition. Just tell me exactly what it is about the affirmative your criticism disagrees with – be it their theory of power, their entire advocacy, their tactics, the fact they’re reading the aff in debate, author choice, language, or whatever – and cover the rest of your usual bases and I’m down to decide the debate over something which may seem extremely miniscule when compared to the usual scope of disagreement in debate.

Though the above maybe reads like I'm a hater, I promise I'm not. I spent high school reading either Baudrillard or Deleuze on both sides and I spent my only full year of college going for Marxism in every single negative debate against an affirmative with a plan (except the two I went for topicality). I still spend my free time reading postmodern philosophy. My current thing is Bataille if anyone cares. The policy debater in me likes when links are more specific to the affirmative and able to re-contextualize advantages in favor of the negative, while the high theory hack in me says the negative can create link arguments from anything they choose, especially if the block is hot and the 2AC is not. The "death" K is OP.

on topicality framework

If you are only ever on side of this debate, I am fine for you, but you should probably pref me below people who will be more biased in your favor. If you are a team who reads a critical affirmative, but wants to maintain the option of going for framework on the negative, you should pref me very highly.

My biases on this question very slightly favor the negative, but the affirmatives preparation advantage in these debates generally offsets those biases because, when evaluating these debates, I care more about specific analysis and world building than anything else. Impact work is framed by the interpretation / counter-interpretation debate. Aff teams should think more about the counter-interpretation (and reasonability). Neg teams should be more willing to punish aff teams that don’t bother trying to mitigate their offense. Everyone should read less blocks and do more line-by-line.

My overarching personal belief regarding this activity is that the only intrinsic, inherent, and terminal impact to debate is debate itself. Thus, I tend to vote for whatever model produces the best debates. When determining the best model, I think of fairness and education as the thesis and antithesis which produce the synthesis of debate. Both are necessary components of the activity, but neither is enough in and of itself to create a model worth defending. Conversely, a model which substantially or entirely lacks one or both is worth criticizing. No model is perfect and there is ample, specific, nuanced ground for both sides in these debates.

That said, debate means something different to each person and it is not my place or within my ability to dictate what each person gets out of this activity or why each person is here, so arguments about community, skills, and other things which I may not personally be here for, but someone else conceivably may be, are still worth making. These arguments are most convincing when articulated as internal links which influence the quality of rounds and least convincing when articulated as ends in and of themselves (though I have voted on & once went for “framework solves extinction”).

Not rehashing any obvious content takes here. Yes switch side and the TVA matter. Yes the aff matters. Yes structural and procedural fairness are different. etc. etc. Framework debates are more or less a "solved" part of the game which now exist more as a formula for teams to execute or a logic problem for judges to solve than anything new or unique. This is why my preference in these debates is for more specific arguments about how a given affirmative on a given topic interacts with the broader models defended over arguments everyone has heard for almost as long as I've been alive. If you would like to talk to me more about my thoughts regarding the meta-theory of strategy games, my email is at the top.

on speaker points

average points given: TBD

I am still working to determine my overall margin of error when compared to the average, but I know I tend to give points on the lower end. So I’m offering opportunities to get free points to offset my tendency to underrate debaters which also make the world a slightly better place.

+.1 for bringing me black coffee before the debate

+.1 for full open-source. tell me after the 2AR.

email me with any questions, job offers, scouting requests, or other inquiries. happy to talk, coach, or judge debate whenever.

Mya Colburn (she/her)

Please add me to the email chain: mmcolburn23@gmail.com

My Background

- I debated policy at La Crosse Central High School from 2019-2023 (topics were arms sales, criminal justice, water policy, and NATO)

- I was mainly a Kritik debater, especially towards the end of my career. Because of this, I am familiar with the main idea of most national circuit Ks

- I am currently studying Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota Rochester

Arguments

- I am typically a Tabs judge, I will judge whatever you give me a good reason to judge. If you are going to run CPs, DAs, Kritiks, etc give me a reason why I should vote for them.

- I honestly hate topicality, unless it is crazy abusive I will not vote for it. Also, if you run other off cases with links, the plan is clearly not that bad.

- If you do not give me a clear reason to vote for a particular argument I will fall back on weighing impacts. Whichever team has the clearest and most realistic impact will win the round.

- I am generally tech>truth, but if you run a good truth>tech framing, I will evaluate the round as such.

- Do impact calculus and clash with the other teams arguments. Minimize how much work I have to do at the end of the round.

- I tend to be against topicality and other vague theory arguments. If you run them you should have a clear reason why this makes it nearly impossible for you to debate in this round.

- I am really looking for a solid rebuttal that lays out the arguments in this particular debate and shows me why I should vote for a particular side.

Other Notes

- I have done very minimal research on this years topic so make sure you are clearly outlining the inherency and links of your argument

- I am good with speed as long as the tags are clear and you read the text of the card without mumbling. If you are making an analytical argument you need to slow down and make it clearly (especially if it is not on the doc).

- I am okay with a open CX as long as the person whose CX it is and the person who is being CX'd do the majority of the talking. Partners can make a point or two and add ideas but if they are answering/asking every question I will start to lower speaks.

jdawson4646@gmail.com

I mainly debated policy for four years in highschool. I also did PF at a few tournaments. I went to GDI twice and went to state 3 times.

I am mostly a policy judge but have judged plenty of LD and PF over the years as well.

LD & PF:

Speed is always fine. Make sure that you are respectful to eachother. I have no specific argument preferences. Impact calc is always important. Tell me why your impact matters more/outweighs. Make sure that you cover both your opponents and your own case. Please make sure that if you are making good arguments that you extend them in your following speeches so I can vote on them.

Policy:

Stock issues are voters, T is especially a voter. I thoroughly enjoy K and T debates, and theory is fun.

If there is a theoretical violation, my threshold for voting on it will probably be pretty low. During theory debates, for the love of God, don't spread through every standard in 4 seconds.

I dislike almost all colonialization debates and colonization K's...

Don't run a counter plan unless you can do it right.

Make sure that you are extending arguments and cards.

When in doubt, do impact calc/outweigh work. It's always nice when I have an easy and clear way to vote.

A drop is a concession

I do not flow new arguments in rebuttals (very rare exceptions)

I allow tag team cross ex and flashing doesn't count as prep. I am a flow judge, so responding to arguments and offense is very important

Updated -- IP high school topic / Clean Energy Topic

dawsonnick02@gmail.com

a 2n and have debated 4 years of HS and on my fourth in college at Gonzaga. I love the activity and give praise to everyone who debates.

My favorite thing to see in a debate is a well researched cohesive strategy

For policy debate::

I’ve been focusing on leaning policy in college lately, and have researched critical lit less lately, but I was generally a k debater in HS. In college I’ve been a flex team reading both K and policy. That being said, I try to be a mainly tabu la rasa judge. In almost every manner I am a blank slate that is what the debaters say I should be.

Theory

T and condo are always voters, and almost never reverse voters. Almost every other interpretation is solved by rejecting the argument, unless otherwise instructed.

K's

I have a pretty good knowledge on most k lit. That being said, if you have specific questions, you can ask me before round. I'm down to hear whatever you got. Creative K's are epic.

For the Aff specifically. I will judge the aff how you tell me to judge it, unless the negative has a more beneficial interpretation of how I should instead.

What you probably shouldn't run:

Double win/loss / other rule breaking

Defending suicide alternatives/advocacies(ligotti, schope, others like these are ok)

Anything other than policy debate

I'm a blank slate judge that tries to leave all prior knowledge of the topic outside of the room.

I prefer it if debaters spent way more time on comparing the (framework/resolutional analysis/etc) to the other teams. This is, in my opinion the most important part of debate that can instruct me to shield in or out teams' offense and defense.

Impact calculus in the later speeches is necessary. It defines the most important parts of the round, and if you win it, it should mostly define who/what my ballot should be for.

any other questions feel free to ask me before the round.

hi!

sonoma ‘24 (1A/2N), ucla ‘28, she/her
add me to the email chain zadiedeford@gmail.com and sonomacardscardscards@gmail.com

top level

basically just do what you want

-speed is fine
-i have no topic knowledge
-tech > truth absent ethics violations
-organization and judge instruction is super important
-write my ballot- the top of the 2nr/2ar should be what you would want me to start my rfd with
-i won’t vote on an argument i don’t understand
-saying anything racist/sexist/homophobic/otherwise problematic is an easy way to get an L + the lowest possible speaks + i will contact your coach

specific stuff:

k affs: i’m prob not the best judge for k affs but i’m also not the worst. i read a k aff my senior year and you can definitely read yours in front of me as long as its explained well. it should probably be related to the topic. i will happily vote neg on presumption if you don't explain your aff adequately

framework: boring. if u read blocks straight down and dont engage with the aff u will not win. i probably think debate is a game

k v k: i usually went for kritiks against k affs but i don’t have a ton of specific literature knowledge here so def overexplain. i think these debates are interesting but please know what you’re talking about

policy v k: sure. i’m familiar with the basic ones but if the lit is confusing please explain explain explain

topicality: i don't know anything about the topic so i might be a little confused. line by line is soo important in t rounds. give examples and do impact calc

counterplans: do whatever. i think i default to judge kick but i’ve also never been in a round where that mattered

disads: slow down and explain the link story. impact calc/comparison is important. don’t just tell me what the impact is, tell me how to evaluate it. defense on case is also crucial

theory: i’m fine to judge these. condo is probably good. i will be so sad if i have to vote on something stupid like utopian fiat

“i will likely vote for the team who is best able to isolate the central question of the round and explain why the arguments in the round mean they’ve won” -mateo mijares (he taught me almost everything i know about debate and i’ll try to judge like the nicer version of him)

“i think debate is fun, people do silly things, people make even sillier arguments. laugh about it.” -malone urfalian

be nice good luck have fun !!

e-mail chain: dondraper021@gmail.com

garfield ‘19, uw '24

coach for garfield. i debated locally and nationally for 3 years, winning state my senior year. i was a k and k aff leaning debater (including performance debate), but i've had my fair share of running 6 plank adv counterplans and econ disads.

general

run anything you want. i don't play favorites when it comes to judging. i lean tech > truth, but context could change that.

i don’t have much formal knowledge of the topic, so be careful when spreading jargon or specific details.

if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask before the round!

k aff + fw

absolutely go for it. with fw: impact turns, internal link turns, counter models of debate, f uck debate — u do u.

for framework, i tend to be more persuaded by arguments about skills and research than procedural fairness.

the k

if you wanna run the weirdest k in the world, go for it.

please don't have long overviews :( if you have to have them, just let me know before you start the speech.

theory

i'm open to any theory argument, but please explain why that should result in an L, no CP, etc. if it's in your 2ar/2nr, spend time on it.

Benjamin Hamburger 10/2022

Sure, you can add me to an email chain. benjamin dot hamburger at gmail. So you know, I probably will NOT follow along on your speech doc, though.

12/2024 update:

Like many other older judges I have observed a substantial post-COVID shift towards lack of clarity in speaking and overreliance on speech docs. vs. flowing the debate. I am heartened by the coaches and judges who have taken to holding the line on debate as a public speaking activity. In order to join them, I'll disclose these things about how I judge:

1.) I flow on my laptop on excel because flowing on paper for years hurt my fingers and now my hands are weak and uncalloused.

2.) Although I have cheated in the past couple of years because I feared it was my fault/getting old, I will no longer open speech docs until a piece of evidence is specifically debated about, and I will not flow from speech docs. I'll give you a 'clear' or two, and I have always been easy to read regarding how well I am flowing you. If you don't pay attention to that, it's your funeral.

3.) Prioritizing clarity over speed and signposting on line-by-line will both help your chances of winning arguments on the flow and boost your speaker points.

Information about me:
*I have judged and coached in what would be considered "national-circuit" style Midwestern high school policy debate since about 1998 as a card-cutting coach, as the primary policy coach, as a head coach, and now as a head coach at Central High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I am also a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the History Department. I am now getting old in debate terms--44 at the time of writing--which means I have old ideas and am grumpy about certain things.

*A Debate History:
1993-1998 Policy debater at Hastings High School, Hastings, NE
1998-1999 Judge/minor card cutter, Hastings Senior High School
1999-2005 Assistant Coach for Policy Debate at Fremont High School, Fremont, NE
2005-2007 Director of Forensics, Iowa City High School, Iowa City, IA
2007-2016 Assistant Varsity Coach, Cedar Rapids Washington High School, Cedar Rapids, IA
2016-Present Director of Debate, La Crosse Central High School, La Crosse, WI

*Academic Info that Might Be Relevant:
B.A. in Political Science (emphases in international relations and political theory) and History, a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
M.A. in Secondary Social Studies Education and History from the University of Iowa.

Argument choice issues:
*Choose your arguments. I try to avoid evaluating rounds based on what I like to hear. Even if I don’t like your argument, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost it, etc. My self-estimation is that I am fairly even on the K vs. Policy question. I believe that both are very interesting and useful styles of debate. Most of the time framework debates aren’t particularly productive, the aff will win that they get to weigh the case, the neg will win that they get some form of an alternative, etc. (hint: if you are serious about winning framework, don’t waste your time on the rest of the debate—prove that you’re serious about it and go for it.)

Disad thoughts:
*One of the areas I am slightly old school. Left to my own devices, I am more likely than many judges to evaluate the risk of a disad as zero if there is a step which has been substantially defeated. I do not particularly prefer offense-defense paradigms, it is my feeling that it is necessary to win your arguments to get a DA. Similarly, I think you need to win a link to generate offense, so without justification I do not default to a uniqueness-focused decision-making process. In spite of these warnings, a justified argument can change those decision-making processes. Generally, though, a good politics debate with developed turns-case analysis is a thing of beauty. Quality of evidence comparison/warrants will always beat number of cards.

*I have increasingly found myself somewhat lost in fast debates about security policy which include multiple interacting internal links--not because I am incapable of understanding them, but because I am not as familiar with these arguments as you all are. On occasion debaters need to slow down and explain some arguments.

K Thoughts:
*My favorite negative strategies are about criticisms that isolate and condemn social injustice or reveal power relations and debate epistemology smartly. I have no problem with generic criticisms like security and the cap k, but to win them or to get decent points requires specific discussion of the 1ac—isolating the links and their implications for evaluating the aff is what makes it awesome. Affs lose lots of K debates largely because they pile up cards rather than planning what the 2ar endgame looks like. Often affs are better served defending their own assumptions than reading argument-specific cards that are not part of a specific strategy. To wit, affs regularly go for permutations or no link arguments when they claim an advantage which impact turns the k while conceding a utopian alternative. Because I am a sucker for well-developed analysis about epistemology/ontology, I don't think as a rule the 2nr needs to go for external case defense, at least if you can give examples of how aff authors have specific problems or biases. Wisconsin teams have proven to think that mindless tech can win you a permutation, this is not generally true--most neg args against one permutation work against all of them.

*I consider myself generally well-read on critical arguments, but that reading maybe stopped being so robust in like 2007 or 2008, and so I'm not as up-to-date on the more recent turns in that literature. I can observe some additional relevant tendencies: I often find myself frustrated in rounds that involve a lot of psychoanalytic arguments (I get the cap bad part of Zizek. That may be about it). I dislike the Nietzsche alternative viscerally. In each of these cases, if this is your only game, I am probably not a good judge for you. I will also explicitly note some critical arguments with which I am well acquainted: I’m fairly well read in Foucault, Heidegger, lots of feminisms, critical international relations business, cap bad, etc. Lots of experience now with Afro-pessimism, Orientalism, at least some entré into queer theory args. I still need someone to convince me that Bataille and Baudrilliard are more smart than confusing.

*I’m probably a decent judge for a T debate. Most of the theoretical issues are up in the air—competing interpretations vs. abuse as a standard, etc. If you concede a competing interpretations arg, though, be aware that you’ll need offense on your interp.

*I can enjoy a good theory debate, but if you actually want to win it you probably need to convince me early on in a debate that you are going to do something other than just read your block at full speed. i have a natural dislike towards theory debates that i see as unnecessary. I'm not the ideal judge if you *plan* on going for theory a lot, but again, i try to evaluate those debates fairly. I will note that I do not have a neg side bias when it comes to counterplan debates--be it issues of conditionality, fiat, or competition issues. Some people see that fact in and of itself as an aff side bias on those theoretical issues, but what it means is that i am more than willing to vote aff because a counterplan is cheating, if you win that debate.
*I have found that I am getting older and more dinosaur-like on counterplan theory: I think I have an aff bias on these issues: multiple counterplans, consult counterplans, and conditionality.

*Non-traditional affs: it seems that I am going to judge my share of clash-of-civs rounds, which is fine. I generally think that negative teams do not work hard enough to generate smart arguments against non-traditional affs, so I start with a slight lean against framework arguments, but a sophisticated execution of those debates are often successful. I will also say that aff teams that make efforts to meet some standard of topicality also will find me more forgiving than teams that do not; I think negs do deserve some degree of a starting point.

Decision-making Process:
*I believe my job as a critic is to evaluate a debate as it occurred, rather than retroactively applying my standards of what debate should look like to your round. I try as hard as I can to stay to this standard, but some intervention is inevitable. Read below in the “self-observed biases” section. I try to remain agnostic about the various frameworks for evaluating debates, so that means that if there is a difference in the round as to how I should evaluate it, you should propose your framework explicitly and defend it. My presumption is that debate should be an educational activity, and it would be hard to shake me of that idea, as I am an educator by trade. However, I am open to debates about what kinds of education debate should bring, and how it does so.

*My decisions are nearly always decided by a close review of the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR, with references to the negative block as necessary. I am not, however, a perfect flow, and you should be aware of that and flag important arguments as such. I believe a part of persuasion is correct emphasis.

*It is fairly uncommon for me to read evidence after a debate--use the evidence yourself, refer to warrants, etc. If you think you have good evidence, you need to show it off. The "in" thing to say is that I reward a team for good research, but the most important part of good research is understanding why your evidence is good, and exercising your ability to explain and use the evidence. I do not plan to do evidence comparison for anyone.

*As regards "offense/defense" distinctions: I understand the importance of offense, but I do not discount the art of defensive argumentation. The fact that the other team does not have a turn does not mean you are winning. I have probably evaluated the risk of a disad or other impact as zero (or close enough to not matter) more than the average judge.

*I generally speaking will not seriously consider any independent issue that is not in your final rebuttal for at least 2 minutes--I do not reward a refusal to put all eggs in one basket. This is particularly true for theory arguments. If you feel that a theoretical issue is strong enough to justify a vote, plan to spend the better part of your final rebuttal on it, or don't expect my ballot on it.

In Round Decorum:
*Not much here--but I absolutely cannot stand when debaters talk audibly during an opponent's speech. Increasingly it is hard for me to follow what a fast speaker is saying anyhow--when you're talking too, I am liable to get angry at you.
*I think most of the time you will tend to get better speaker points if you stand up when you speak. Also, pay attention to where your opponent is and where you are when you cross-ex--it is a speech. Cross-ex's where all the debaters are sitting across the room from one another and staring at their computers is not a good persuasive strategy.
*I will also likely get grumpy at you about your paperless crap, especially when it makes a debate round last 20 minutes longer than it should. Don't worry about that too much. Unless it gets out of hand. If you don't know the difference, watch me, and you'll be able to tell.

I am a former policy debater (and 2003 IR WA state champ, yo.) and current English teacher (11th grade, AP Lang and Comp) and debate coach in Eastern WA. I have mostly judged policy the past few years, but am very familiar with public forum as well. As far as my judging paradigm, I will listen to anything you want to try and sell me on. The weirder you go, the stronger your link chains need to be. Tell me exactly where to flow things when we get into the weeds so that I can find them when you want me to; I expect roadmaps at the top of speeches and appreciate good signposting.

For policy: I am not a fan of running a ton of off case on the neg with the plan to kick a bunch of it later. It isn't an immediate voter, but will probably harm your speaking points, because it stops really good clash from happening and wastes everyone's time. I would rather listen to the things you actually find relevant to your case. When running T, be sure you have super clear criteria for why the team does not meet your definitions. I'm fine with speed, but if you are really unclear, I probably won't tell you, I will just not get everything you want me to get. Only spread if you are able to do so with clarity.

For all debate styles: above all else: impacts, impacts, impacts! I need to know why the things you say are going to happen matter, and I need to see a path to get there. Re specifics on speeches: Give your own. I won 't flow anything that is verbally given by your partner or anything the non-speaking partner says to the judge. There is a reason speeches are split, and they should stay that way. AMA else in round.

I am okay with judging anything in round. I firmly believe that debates should be left up to the debaters and what they want to run. If you want to read policy or a new kritik; I am good with anything y'all as debaters want to run. Do not read anything that is homophobic, racist, ableist, or sexiest in round. Debate should be a safe place for everyone. A little bit about me I was a 1A/2N my senior year. I recently graduated from Sac State with a major in Communications and Women's Studies. I am currently applying to Law school and will be attending a law school in fall of 2024. I am currently a policy coach for the Sacramento Urban Debate League, coaching at Ghidotti, CKM, and West Campus.

Kritikal Affs: I love identity politics affirmatives. They are one of my favorite things to judge and hear at tournaments. I ran an intersectional k aff my senior year. If you run an identity politics affirmative then I am a great judge for you. For high theory k affs I am willing to listen to them I am just not as well adapted in that literature as identity politics. But on the negative, I did run biopower.

Policy Affirmative: Well duh.... I am good at judging a hard-core policy round or a soft-left affirmative. Once again whatever the debaters want to do I am good with judging anything.

Framework: I feel like the question for framework that debaters are asking here is if I am more of a tech or truth kind of judge. I would say its important for debaters to give me judge instruction on how they want to me to judge the round. If you want me to prefer tech or truth you need to tell me that, and also tell me WHY I should prefer tech or truth. The rest of the debate SSD, TVAs etc need to be flushed out and not 100% blipy. But that's pretty much how I feel like with every argument on every flow.

CP/DA: Do whatever is best for you on how many you want to bring into the round.

Theory: I will be honest; I am not the best at evaluating theory arguments. I know what they are, and you can run them in front of me. But if you go for them, judge instruction is a must, and explaining to me how voting for this theory shell works for the debate space etc.

I like being told what to vote for and why. I am lazy to my core. If I have to look at a speech doc at the end of the round I will default to what happened in the round, not on the doc.

On a side note, go follow the Sacramento Urban Debate League on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, I want to be in the email chain. My email is smsj8756@gmail.com thanks!

lowell 24’ cal 28'

put lowelldebatedocs@gmail.com on the email chain

tldr: first year out policy debater and very flexible, comfortable with ks, theory, policy, whatever you want

my only accomplishment is breaking at the toc as an at-large team ^^

my biggest inspiration is debnil sur

i probably think of arguments similarly to him, since he's coached me for all of my debate career

general background: im currently an undeclared liberal arts major at uc berkeley and hoping to go into law. in high school, i debated with many many many partners (basically the whole team) and that taught me the art of adaptation- i ended up debating with dora, where i got most of my legitimate varsity experience... i read both impact filled policy affs and an asian women k aff which i LOVED reading. on the neg i have gone for the classic states cp ptx, econ adv cp, as well as race ir, psychoanalysis, and a silly nommo cp. as u can tell, i have experience debating a variety of arguments and will prob be comfortable with essentially anything.

topic background: zero. sorry :*( i am very interested in ip rights and will def learn more about it thru out the topic.. pls explain things clearly bc i do not get things sometimes. if i don't understand ur aff by the end of the round, ur much more likely to lose... and that's a u problem, not mine!

flowing/evidence: i will definitely NOT going to read u into a decision (unless i have zero clue what is happening) i will take your word for whats in your evidence and the warrants UNLESS the opposing team points it out. which means... if the other side is completely lying abt the evidence and ur not pointing it out, u will probably lose bc what are u doing. with that being said if u lie abt ur evidence i will lower ur speaks if i find out!

k affs and framework: i have debated on both sides of this debate, and i feel comfortable voting for either side. i went for a k aff with an impact turn style on framework and that worked out... okay? i understand how these debates turn out and it's often just reading blocks without much impact comparison. please explain things clearly instead of just dropping jargon, i'll still get it, but its just a lot more persuasive if there's an explanation. refer to debnils paradigm for detailed thoughts.

k v k:i will probably be aff leaning if i do not understand what the k is. i have gone for cap k and this baudrillard k against k affs but its like not really complicated. if u are confident that u can write me an rfd at the top of ur 2nr that makes sense, then yes, go for it! but i am not deep into k literature so u cannot rely on me to do the background information for u. i think k debaters win too much by relying on k hacks that just do the thinking for them. pls learn how to think!

policy v ks: i have a lot of experience debating ks with a policy aff as well as the neg so i understand the usual framework tricks etc etc. similar to what i said above, i think k debaters often turn off their brain and read blocks and rely too much on k hack judges. if u are going to spread thru blocks, at least slow down occasionally so u can explain to me what exactly ur win condition is and ur main pieces of offense. yes, the world is racist, but why does the aff make it worse? u cannot be upset at me if i vote aff if u just spent the whole debate spreading thru analytics with big words with zero specific analysis abt the aff. for me its better when ks are dumbed down, like yes the opponents won't understand it, but what makes u think the judge does too? u don't need to use big boy words u found from searching up "ways to describe racism"

topicality: i think these debates are interesting if debated well. it's not just comparing which author is more qualified, but more abt the model of debate that your definition justifies. give examples, point out in round abuses that would make you much more persuasive. i am not very familiar with the topic still and would appreciate if examples are explained and contextualized.

theory: im okay for this.. condo is good ! stupid theory arguments are stupid. i will still vote on it if horribly mishandled. but it must obviously have warrants. debates with less comparison are hard to resolve for me and more analysis and explanations will only help you.

counterplans: i default to judge kick. i don't think i have judged a counterplan competition round yet but i think im ok for it? just dont spread thru analytics plz

disads: please over explain and slow down disad stories! this topic is really confusing for me and im probably exhausted so i need you to slow down and explain to me. do impact calc, tell me how to evaluate them, contextualize them! good impact calculus usually wins you this debate. however even if i dont completely understand your disad but if i have a vague picture and you're winning impact calc then i'll probably vote for you. love aff straight turns btw, so strategic.

misc:

i am very expressive so do ur best to guess what im thinking

unless i am visibly in distress or deep in thought, im probably not taking a long time to decide, im just writing down comments

i hope you all know i am as stressed as you are while waiting for my decision. i know how it feels and it only makes deciding more stressful

Top shelf:

Pronouns are she/her

Just call me Alyssa or ALB - do not call me judge and dear debate Lord do not call me ma'am.

RE: Truf's flowing off the doc post - times I look at the doc:

-I typically will read the plan text and CP texts during the round in the sense that if I mis flow those we are all kinda cooked. I spot check for clipping on cards every once in a while. If there is an ornate perm text I will check that during the debate. If a specific piece of evidence is called into question during CX or during a speech I may check that piece of ev during CX or during prep. Besides that I will not under any circumstances flow off the doc. If you are unclear and I therefore do not understand your argument I could not expect your opponents to and therefore I will not vote for you.

Email chains: SonomaCardsCardsCards@gmail.com AND alyssa.lucas-bolin@sonomaacademy.org - I strongly prefer email chains over speech drop etc.

I deleted most of my paradigm

...Because I have run into way way way too many situations where people wildly misinterpret my paradigm and it leads to a rather miserable situation (mostly for myself.)

Debate well and we'll figure it out.

I'd prefer you talk about the topic and that your affirmative be in the direction of the topic. I could not possibly care less if that is via policy debate or K debate. False divide yada yada. Both policy teams and K teams are guilty of not actually talking about the topic and I am judging ALL of you.

Speed is fine but I need clear distinction between arguments and I need you to build up your speed for the first 10 seconds.

Tag team is fine but I'd prefer that the designated partner handle most of the cross ex - only intervene if it is absolutely necessary. I am an educator and would prefer to see each student develop their skill set.

Stop stealing prep.

Please make as many T Swift references as possible.

Have solvency advocates - plz plz plz don't read a cardless CP :(

Heavy stuff:

*No touching. Handshakes after the debate = fine but that is it.

*I am not the right judge for call outs of specific debate community members

*I am a mandatory reporter. Keep that in mind if you are reading any type of personal narrative etc in a debate. A mandatory reporter just means that if you tell me something about experiencing violence etc that I have to tell the authorities.

*I care about you and your debate but I am not your debate mommy. I am going to give you direct feedback after the debate. I won't be cruel but I'm also not a sugar coater. It takes some people off guard because they may be expecting me to coddle them. It's just not my personality - I deeply care about your debate career and want you to do your best. I also am just very passionate about arguments. If you're feeling like I'm being a little intense just Shake It Off (Lauren Ivey.)

*Clipping = zero points and a hot L. Clarity to the point of non-comprehension that causes a clipping challenge constitutes clipping.

*I am more than fine with you post rounding as long as you keep it respectful. I would genuinely prefer you understand my decision than walk out frustrated because that doesn't help you win the next time. Bring it on (within reason). I'm back in the ring baby.

Let's have a throwdown!!! If you're reading this before a round I am excited to see what you have to offer.

dmarshall36@gmail.com

'24-'25 high school policy and NFA LD: I don't know what your plan text does. These topics are huge, I have no background in these areas, and I don't coach/didn't do a camp last summer. just be aware, these 1ac's are harder for me to keep up with than previous topics.

weird pet peeve. please don't tell me that time starts on your first word before your speech or cross-ex. i saw this in novice a few years ago and now varsity teams are doing it. judges know how timing works :)

copied from a former coach:
"I think 'previous debate experience' sections of judging philosophies are mostly for peculiar in group fronting and/or serve to reify fairly problematic norms of treating debate 'expertise' or whatever like a value neutral concept, so."


i love debate.


tell me how i should evaluate the round. tell me why you win if i choose to evaluate the round that way.


whatever style of debate you feel best doing: go for it. i usually flow by hand so please pop your tags.


keep it lovely. i take speaker points when debaters are mean.


i hate "perm do the counterplan." unless there's some theoretical reason why the cp is aff ground (text comp good or something) i just won't vote on it.

if the debate is lopsided and you're winning by a mile against more novice debaters, you'll get many extra speaks by going slower, explaining the debate to the other team clearly during cross-ex, and making the round educational.


im familiar with all styles of 1ac's. i consider role of the ballot arguments as framing, and dont necessarily weigh traditional standards and f/w voters above other frameworks unless told to with warranted arguments. using specific cards of a k aff to impact turn framework is undervalued in high school debate, for some reason.


im looking for warrant comparison in the rebuttals. i like to directly quote the 2nr and 2ar in my rfd, so impact stories and reading warrants from important cards are winning strategies to get my ballot.


i have little sympathy for debaters answering cards that are in the doc but are not read in the speech. this is worse than missing a card on your flow, it shows that you're just not flowing. i want to be added to the doc so i can read your evidence throughout the debate, but i will not flow off the doc.


please slow down on tags and interps. you should stop "hiding" interps in the 1nc. slow down on your interps.


High School LD

see above. i try my best to give leeway to the four minutes 1ar, but that can be difficult to discern. i notice a lot of cultural norms around theory debates. to be extra clear: if there is k offense in the 2n and the 2ar goes for theory without addressing the k offense, im probably going to vote that the impacts of the k outweigh fairness or whatever. i simply expect the 2ar to layer the voters for me, extend an apriori issue, or something of the sort. i think that assuming theory is layered before the impacts of the debate is intervening.


PFD

im somewhat familiar with pf. i will not evaluate advocacies in this event.


im bothered by the evidence norms of this event. i see debaters read authors and taglines as if that is sufficient, but debate should include analyzing evidence. that means reading warrants directly from the authors of the evidence. if your opponents are flying through taglines of evidence instead of reading parts of the studies/articles, i would be persuaded by an argument that told me to not evaluate taglines as evidence. if your style is name dropping as many authors as you can, im probably not the best judge for you.


here's some of NSDA Board Member Dave Huston's thoughts on this. i agree with what the paragraph below.

"The NSDA evidence rule says specifically that you need to provide the specific place in the source you are quoting for the paraphrasing you have used. .........[redacted because im not Dave Huston]...
...If you like to paraphrase and then take fifteen minutes to find the actual evidence, you don't want me in the back of the room. I will give you a reasonable amount of time and if you don't produce it, I'll give you a choice. Drop the evidence or use your prep time to find it. If your time expires, and you still haven't found it, take your choice as to which evidence rule you have violated. In short, if you paraphrase, you better have the evidence to back it up."

Assistant Director of Debate -- UTD... YOU SHOULD COME DEBATE FOR US BECAUSE WE HAVE SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

So I really dont want to judge but if you must pref me here's some things you should know.

Arguments I wont vote on ever

Pref Sheets args

Things outside the debate round

Death is good

General thoughts

Tl:Dr- do you just dont violate the things i'll never vote on and do not pref me that'd be great.

Line by Line is important.

I generally give quick RFDs this isnt a insult to anyone but I've spent the entire debate thinking about the round and generally have a good idea where its going by the end.

Clarity over speed (ESP IN THIS ONLINE ENVIRONMENT) if I dont understand you it isnt a argument.

****NEW THOUGHTS FOR THE NDT**** I generally dont think process CPs that result in the aff are competitive -- I'm more likely to vote on perm do both or the PDCP if push comes to shove... could I vote on it sure but I generally lean aff on these cps.

Online edit -- go slower speed and most of your audio setups arent great. (See what I did there)

Only the debaters debating can give speeches.

I catch you clipping I will drop you. So suggest you dont and be clear mumbling after i've said clear risk me pulling the trigger.

ecmathis AT gmail for email chains... but PLEASE DONT PREF ME

Longer thoughts

Can you beat T-USFG in front of me if your not a traditional team.... yes... can you lose it also yes. Procedural fairness is a impact for me. K teams need to give me a reason why I should ignore T if they want to win it. Saying warrantless claims impacted by the 1AC probably isnt good enough.

Aff's that say "Affirm me because it makes me feel better or it helps me" probably not the best in front of me. I just kinda dont believe it.

Reading cards-

I dislike reading cards because I do not fell like reconstructing the debate for one side over another. I will read cards dont get me wrong but rarely will I read cards on args that were not explained or extended well.

K-There fine I like em except the death good ones.

In round behavior- Aggressive is great being a jerk is not. This can and will kill your speaks. Treat your opponents with respect and if they dont you can win a ballot off me saying what they've done in round is problematic. That said if someone says you're arg is (sexist, racist, etc) that isnt the same as (a debater cursing you out because you ran FW or T or a debater telling you to get out of my activity) instant 0 and a loss. i'm not about that life.

I have 5 total years of speech and debate experience and currently compete in collegiate speech and debate Just don't be mean to each other.

Andrea Moreno - She/her

Gonzaga '25 - 2A/1N

Juan Diego Catholic High School '21- 2A/1N

Add me to the email chain: andream060403@gmail.com

TLDR: Happy to flow and listen to all arguments, but I have more research and skills toward critical topics/debates. With that being said, I rely heavily on the flow and vote on arguments that are warranted and clear at the end of the round. Please tell me why you won at the end of the round. Make it clear to me what you want me to vote for in both the 2NR and 2AR *JUDGE INSTRUCTION*. A lot of my decisions will come from that.

Substance:

Affs- I’m good with anything. My experience is running big stick policy affs, soft left affs, or a K aff.

K affs are fun. Personally, I would like it if they had an advocacy statement or plan but anything is cool with me. This doesn't mean I won't vote for framework on the negative.

Read more on case. If you're not winning solvency on the affirmative, I can definitely be persuaded to vote negative on presumption.

Topicality-

Explain the world of your interpretation and how they violate vs. the world of their interpretation and how that impacts debate both in the round, tell me the specific reason you can't read your DA.

Ks-

K teams that do good line-by-line refutation will be rewarded with speaker points more than teams that have 4-minute overviews. Don't assume I know all the big words that you are going to throw at me.

Tell me what the world of the alt looks like.

Make sure the link story actually makes sense.

Disads/CP's

I love a good DA/CP debate. If the CP solves the aff and avoids the net benefit it's pretty easy to vote on it. For the aff give me specific scenarios of the aff that the CP can't solve. I love multiple solvency deficits in the 2ac. If the DA outweighs the aff TELL ME WHY!! Be clear on the impact calc, and why the aff will clearly trigger the impact of the da scenario.

Additional comments-

be nice and have fun!

this is your debate round, not mine, don't let anything on here influence what you read in front of me

if you have any questions before the round just lmk or email me.

Put ryanpmorgan1@gmail.com on the email chain.

In accordance with this article - https://debate-decoded.ghost.io/judges-should-disclose-if-they-are-flowing-the-doc/

• I flow on excel.
• I try to flow everything in traditional line-by-line, but if you give up on it, I may too and just flow your speech straight down. I will not be happy about this.
• I will have the speech doc open. I will look at it. I will use it to error-correct my flow if I can't keep up with you, but I try really really really hard to only use it as a last resort.
• I usually flow the 1AC and 1NC positions, and I try to flow CP and perm texts well enough that I can know what is going on without looking at a doc

• I highly advise not stripping analytics out of the doc, unless you are in the top 1% of most clear debaters.

_____________________________________________________

Policy paradigm

Especially for online debate, slow down a little, particularly from the 2NC on.

Please include Ryanpmorgan1@gmail.com and interlakescouting@googlegroups.com for the email chain. Please use subject lines that make clear what round it is.

I wrote a veritable novel below. I think its mostly useless. I'm largely fine with whatever you want to do.

Top level:

• I am older (36) and this definitely influences how I judge debates.
• Yes, I did policy debate in high school and college. I was mediocre at it.
• Normal nat circuit norms apply to me. Speed is fine, offense/defense calc reigns, some condo is probably good but infinite condo is probably bad, etc.
• I have a harder time keeping up with very dense/confusing debates than a lot of judges. Simplifying things with me is always your best bet.

Areas where I diverge from some nat circuit judges:

• I am more likely to call "nonsense" on your bewildering process CP or Franken K. If the arg doesn't make any sense, you should just tell me that.
• Aff vagueness (and in effect, conditionality) is out of control in modern debate. I will vote on procedural arguments to rectify this trend.
• Bad process CPs are bad and shouldn't be a substitute for cutting cards or developing a real strategy. Obviously, I'll vote on them, but the 2AR that marries perm + theory into a comprehensive model for debate is usually a winner.
• I'm less likely to "rep" out teams or schools. I don't keep track of bid leaders and what not. Related: I forget about most rounds 20 minutes after I turn in my ballot.

Stats:

• Overall Aff win rate: 48.7%
• Elim aff win rate: 42.3%
• I have sat 6 times in 53 elims

Core controversies - I'm pretty open so take these with a grain of salt.

• Unlimited condo | -----X-------- | 2-worlds, maybe
• Affs should be T | ---X----------- | T isn't a voter
• Judge kick | ----X--------- | No judge kick
• "Meme" arguments | --------X- | You better be amazing at "meme" debate
• Research = better speaks | --X--------- | Tech = better speaks
• Speed | -------X---- | Slow down a little
• Inherency is case D | -X--------- | Inherency is a DA thumper

My Knowledge:

• I went for politics DA a lot. Its the only debate thing I'm a genuine expert in, at least in debate terms.
• I do not "get" the topic (IPR) yet. I did not go to camp.
• I have some familiarity with the following K lit - cap, Foucault/Agamben, Lacan/psychoanalysis, security, nuclear rhetoric, nihilism, non-violence, and gendered language.
• I'm basically clueless RE: set col / Afropess / Baudrillard / Bataille. I have voted on all of them, though, in the past..

K affs

I prefer topical affs, and I like plan-focused debates. I'm neg-leaning on T-framework in the sense that I think reality leans neg if you actually play out the rationale behind most K affs that are being run in modern debate. But I vote aff about 50% of the time in those debates, so if that's your thing, go for it.

T/cap K/ ballot PIK and the like are boring to me, though. I think that unless the K aff is pure intellectual cowardice, and refuses to take a stand on anything debatable, there are usually better approaches for the neg to take.

I'm a great judge for impact turning K affs - e.g., cap good, state reform good.

Word PIKs are a good way to turn the aff's rejection of T/theory against them.

Or, you could simply, you know, engage the aff's lit base and cut some solvency turns / make a strong presumption argument that engages with the aff's method.

Some other advice:

• "Bad things are bad" is not a very interesting argument. You should have a solvency mechanism.
• Affs should have a "debate key" warrant. That warrant can involve changing the nature of debate, but you should have some reason you are presenting your argument in the context of a debate round.
• I think fairness matters, but its obviously possible to win that other things matter more depending on the circumstances.
• Traditional approaches to T-FW is best with me - very complicated 5th-level args on T are less persuasive to me than a simple and unabashed defense of topicality + switch-side debate = fairness + education. "We can't debate you, and that makes this activity pointless" is usually a win condition for the neg, in my book. St. Marks teams always do a really good job on this in front of me, so idk, emulate them I guess, or steal their blocks.

Topicality against policy affs

I have not read enough into this topic's literature to have a strong opinion on the core controversies.

I think I tend to lean into bigger topics than most modern judges do. That a topic might have dozens of viable affs is not a sign of a bad topic, so long as it incents good scholarship and the neg has ways to win debates if they put in the work.

Speaker points

When deciding speaks, I tend to reward research over technical prowess.

If you are clobbering the other team, slow down and make the debate accessible to them. Running up the score will run down your speaks.

I frequently check my speaker points post-tournament to make sure I'm not an outlier. I am not, as near as I can tell. I probably have a smaller range than average. It takes a LOT to get a 29.3 or above from me, but it also takes a lot for me to go below 28.2 or so.

Ethical violations

I am pretty hands off and usually not paying close enough attention to catch clipping unless it is blatant.

Prep stealing largely comes out of your speaks, unless the other team makes an appeal.

Updating in progress November 2024.

Yes, I want to be on the email chain, please put both emails on the chain.

codydb8@gmail.com (different email than years past)

colleyvilledebatedocs@gmail.com

I am willing to listen to most arguments. There are very few debates where one team wins all of the arguments so each of you must identify what you are winning and make the necessary comparisons between your arguments and the other team's arguments/positions. Speed is not a problem although clarity is essential. If I think that you are unclear I will say clearer and if you don't clear up I will assign speaker points accordingly. Try to be nice to each other and enjoy yourselves. Good cross-examinations are enjoyable and typically illuminates particular arguments that are relevant throughout the debate. Ending cx early and turning that time into prep time is not a thing in front of me. You have either 8 or 10 minutes of prep time, use it judiciously. Please, do not prep when time is not running. I do not consider e-mailing documents/chains as part of your prep time nonetheless use e-mailing time efficiently.

I enjoy all kinds of debates. If you run a critical affirmative you should still be able to demonstrate that you are Topical/predictable. I hold Topicality debates to a high standard so please be aware that you need to isolate well-developed reasons as to why you should win the debate (ground, education, predictability, fairness, etc.). If you are engaged in a substantive debate, then well-developed impact comparisons are essential (things like magnitude, time frame, probability, etc.). Also, identifying solvency deficits on counter-plans is typically very important.

Theory debates need to be well developed including numerous reasons a particular argument/position is illegitimate. I have judged many debates where the 2NR or 2AR are filled with new reasons an argument is illegitimate. I will do my best to protect teams from new arguments, however, you can further insulate yourself from this risk by identifying the arguments extended/dropped in the 1AR or Negative Bloc.

If the first thing you do on counterplans is read 3 or 4 permutations and a theory argument at top speed then you know I won't be able to flow all of the distinctions. Why not separate every other analytical argument with an evidenced argument or what if you slowed down just a tad.... I am a great flow, it is just analytical arguments aren't supposed to be read at top speed stacked next to each other. Same on K's F/w then numerous Perm's all at top speed stacked on top of each other is silly and not realistic for judges to get all of the distinctions/standards.

GOOD LUCK! HAVE FUN!

LD January 21, 2025

No tricks, A few clarifications... As long as you are clear you can debate at any pace you choose. Any style is fine, although if you are both advancing different approaches then it is incumbent upon each of you to compare and contrast the two approaches and demonstrate why I should prioritize/default to your approach. If you only read cards without some explanation and application, do not expect me to read your evidence and apply the arguments in the evidence for you. Be nice to each other. I pay attention during cx. I will say clearer once or twice and then it is up to you if you are going to choose to read clearly. If you are unclear, you can look at me and you will be able to see that there is an issue. I might not have my pen in my hand or look annoyed. I keep a comprehensive flow and my flow will play a key role in my decision. With that being said, being the fastest in the round in no way means that you will win my ballot. Concise well explained arguments will surely impact the way I resolve who wins, an argument advanced in one place on the flow can surely apply to other arguments, however the debater should at least reference where those arguments are relevant. CONGRATULATIONS & GOOD LUCK!!!

LD Paradigm from May 1, 2022
I will update this more by May 22, 2022

I am not going to dictate the way in which you debate. I hope this will serve as a guide for the type of arguments and presentation related issues that I tend to hear and vote on. I competed in LD in the early 1990's and was somewhat successful. From 1995 until present I have primarily coached policy debate and judged CX rounds, but please don't assume that I prefer policy based arguments or prefer/accept CX presentation styles. I expect to hear clearly every single word you say during speeches. This does not mean that you have to go slow but it does mean incomprehensibility is unacceptable. If you are unclear I will reduce your speaker points accordingly. Going faster is fine, but remember this is LD Debate.

Despite coaching and judging policy debate the majority of time every year I still judge 50+ LD rounds and 30+ extemp. rounds. I have judged 35+ LD rounds on the 2022 spring UIL LD Topic so I am very familiar with the arguments and positions related to the topic.

I am very comfortable judging and evaluating value/criteria focused debates. I have also judged many LD rounds that are more focused on evidence and impacts in the round including arguments such as DA's/CP's/K's. I am not here to dictate how you choose to debate, but it is very important that each of you compare and contrast the arguments you are advancing and the related arguments that your opponent is advancing. It is important that each of you respond to your opponents arguments as well as extend your own positions. If someone drops an argument it does not mean you have won debate. If an argument is dropped then you still need to extend the conceded argument and elucidate why that argument/position means you should win the round. In most debates both sides will be ahead on different arguments and it is your responsibility to explain why the arguments you are ahead on come first/turns/disproves/outweighs the argument(s) your opponent is ahead on or extending. Please be nice to each other. Flowing is very important so that you ensure you understand your opponents arguments and organizationally see where and in what order arguments occur or are presented. Flowing will ensure that you don't drop arguments or forget where you have made your own arguments. I do for the most part evaluate arguments from the perspective that tech comes before truth (dropped arguments are true arguments), however in LD that is not always true. It is possible that your arguments might outweigh or come before the dropped argument or that you can articulate why arguments on other parts of the flow answer the conceded argument. I pay attention to cross-examinations so please take them seriously. CONGRATULATIONS for making it to state!!! Each of you should be proud of yourselves! Please, be nice in debates and treat everyone with respect just as I promise to be nice to each of you and do my absolute best to be predictable and fair in my decision making. GOOD LUCK!

First of all, good on you for giving up your weekend to do something really hard in order to have a better shot at college or to better yourself intellectually (unless you just extremely love debate, lol)!

Lowell High School '24

UC Berkeley '28

Please put these emails on the chain: lowelldebatedocs@gmail.com and llc39354@berkeley.edu.

TLDR: I judge like most circuit judges. I have zero topic knowledge and hate extremely complicated arguments (especially complex Ks). Debate is hard, heated, and downright monotonous at times, so please be respectful of everyone.

Hello! My name is Win and I do not debate anymore, but loved my time (for the most part) while I did it! My views reflect those of the following people who all put up with my shenanigans and who I am so grateful to have met: my previous main debate partner,Eloise So, my senior year debate partner,Ethan Lee, my watchful, wise, and whimsical coach,Debnil Sur, and my equally watchful, wise, and whimsical debate directors, Jessie Satovsky and Taylor Tsan. Please refer to the above paradigms if you want more specific information about my judging style than what is covered below.

Specific stuff (shamelessly stolen from Taylor Tsan's paradigm with some modifications):

Policy

Lay Debate: I'll evaluate the debate as a slow round unless both teams agree to go fast. Adapt to the rest of the panel before me.

Topicality: It's the negative's burden to prove a violation. I think debate is both an educational space and a competitive game, so I will be more persuaded by the model that maximizes its benefits for debaters and creates the most level playing field for both sides. That being said, PLEASE try to collapse to either fairness or education in the 2NR/2AR.

Counterplans: Unlimited condo is good. Advantage CP planks should have rehighlightings or solvency advocates to be legitimate. Deficits should be clearly impacted out from the 2AC to the 2AR for me to vote on them.

Disads: Turns case arguments, aff-specific link explanations, and ev comparison matter most for me. Logical, smart analytics do just as much damage as ev.

Ks: Most familiar with cap/setcol/security/IR Ks. I evaluate framework first to frame the rest of my flow. Contextualization to the aff, turns case analysis, and pulling lines from the 1AC are really important for the link debate. Tricks are fine (I ran them lol), but don't make them overly complex.

K-Affs/KvK: I have the least experience judging these debates. "As the negative, recognize if this is an impact turn debate or one of competing models early on (as in, during the 2AC). When the negative sees where the 2AR will go and adjusts accordingly, I have found that I am very good for the negative. But when they fail to understand the debate's strategic direction, I almost always vote aff." - Debnil Sur

Misc.

I won't read evidence at the end of the debate unless you explicitly tell me to and send a compiled card doc.

Read whatever you want - if an argument is truly so bad that it shouldn't be debated, you should be able to beat it with zero cards. With that said, there is a clear difference between going for certain args and being actively violent in round, and I have zero tolerance for the latter.

Be nice, don't cheat, and have fun!

-----------------------------------------

SPEAKS BOUNTIES

-----------------------------------------

WANTED: Laughter

REWARD: 0.3 speaks

WANTED: Smile WITH TEETH

REWARD: 0.2 speaks

WANTED: Smile WITHOUT TEETH

REWARD: 0.1 speaks

-----------------------------------------

All bounties are renewable once a round. Please try to keep track of if I have done any of the above (I will try to also keep track, but I can be forgetful. Please don't gaslight me -_-

stuy '23, emory '27

2N/1A('19-'21), 2A/1N('21-'23)

the n of stuy hn

email chain please: [angryasiantwins11@gmail.com] + [stuypolicydebatedocs@gmail.com]

***i'm a few years out and i've done no research on this topic... which means please slow down a bit for me to flow and don't expect me to know all your abbreviations

anything i say below can be obviously easily overridden by good debating -

preferences/experience:

- policy: i'm familiar with the core policy strategies and have decent experience debating for/against them. 10 off and case is <3 but only when run well (quality>quantity). i also really care about an internal link chain as i just find that its never explained that well, but i feel like it's really important to get me to buy your impact calculus more. i actually really like t debate - specifically i love a creative interpretation and really prioritize doing work on standards.

- k: love these, ran primarily ks my sophomore and junior years. As i judge more, i find myself really prioritizing framework when evaluating these flows: give me reasons to prefer your interpretation and what debate looks like under that. some lit bases i know pretty well: cap, Asian identity, techno-orientalism, afropess, antiblackness, set-col, Agamben, biopower, and security. some lit bases i'm familiar with: Baudrillard, psychoanalysis, QT, and cybernetics.

- kvk debates: don't have much experience judging these but i've been on both sides of the debate. i think that in these debates id need the most explanation on the thesis and alt level.

- kaff v framework: i've been in this type of debate a lot. i don't tend to lean one way or another on if debate is a game, i evaluate it based on what's on my flow at the end of the round. i think that education is an impact but also that procedural fairness is pretty important.

- theory: i'll vote for condo and yes judge kick. other than that, i think theory is pretty unpersuasive, but that does not mean you can't win in front of me on it.

- cx: yes open cx is fine. i flow cx & really like when you can use something that the other team said in cx against them. cx is binding but i draw the line at making arguments at cx. jokes are definitely welcome in cx and i'm down for a good ethos moment. that being said, there's a clear distinction between having ethos and just being a jerk and i will dock speaks for poor cx etiquette.

- flow: i won't claim to be the best flow. i flow straight down and will do my best to navigate between the doc and your speech. given that i'm a few years out, i admittedly am not the best with fast spreading. if you have reason to believe this is you, slow down to 85% of your speed ESPECIALLY if you don't have a good mic. this is your warning, and if your speech becomes unintelligible to me the argument just won't be on the flow + don't be surprised if i may not vote in your favor

notes:

- i default tech>truth and util good

- speed is fine (within reason) but clarity>speed

- i will dock speaks for being late and if it's taking more than 3 minutes to send out the file (after 3 minutes I start running prep)

- giving a 7-minute overview will not win you the round. i'd rather you read a 15-sec overview because i probably know the lit you're reading from and get to the line by line.

- PLEASE TIME YOUR OWN SPEECHES AND PREP TIME - i won't be timing the round.

- any racism, homophobia, ableism, or any other -isms warrant a massive dock in your speaks, an auto L, and a conversation with tab

- if you've read this far, give me a music rec BEFORE the round starts and I'll boost speaks depending on how much i like it

Interlake 23, Emory 27.

Email: michi.debate@gmail.com. Appreciate this subject line: Tournament - Round X - Team Code Aff v. Team Code Neg.

TL: I've said both policy and K positions and am happy to judge either. I will try to minimize intervention as much as possible, flowing and evaluating the debate technically following explicit arguments and judge instruction that is flowed, absent that I will default to my own understanding of debate math/opinions to render a decision. I have opinions about debate (below) but am also incredibly gullible and tech > truth so any thoughts can be reversed through coherent, technical debating. I think I am a decent flow and do not flow off the document, sorry if I miss something :(. I think I am fairly expressive but don't read into it too much. I get to end the debate if something obviously objectionable happens.

Clash: I've said K Aff, but my AT: T win rate was abysmal, so good for either side! Aff notes: I find impact turns strategic, dislike when the 2AR is too new, impact comparison please. Neg notes: I find ballot scope arguments persuasive, limits DA needs a case-list, should adopt Aff language when answering offense.

K: Framework first, I will decide an interpretation and work from there. K teams should leverage tricks (framework, PIK, link turns case, ballot proximity, etc.) to moot/turn/outweigh the Aff. Aff teams should impact turn for wins or link turn for speaker points (lol).

Policy: No hot takes, slow down on T/theory/analytics.

LD: Explain arguments, interested in philosophy, less so in 'tricks.'

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.

email chain: avreneephil@gmail.com

Centennial High School-- 2015-2019

Gonzaga University-- 2019-2024

Strong preferences:

Tech > Truth, but you still need to extend warrants to dropped arguments and explain the implications

Re-highlightings need to be read aloud, not just inserted.

I am uninterested in evaluating debates involving interpersonal problems and situations occurring outside of the round.

I am not easily convinced that debate is bad and/or that it isn't a game.

Clarity is fundamental. It should be obvious when you are switching between tags, reading evidence, and moving on to the next card. You should go slower on analytics and number your arguments.

Impact calc/defense wins rounds

Conditionality is a reason to reject the team. For all other theory things, I will reject the argument. I don't find "performative contradictions" to be the gotcha moment some people do and think conditionality answers it sufficiently. I default to judge kicking the CP.

I do tend to read cards after the round, but I won't do it randomly and it is always compared to what I have on the flow. Thus, warranted explanations are key (don't just do tagline extensions) and if some evidence is extra important, tell me to star it in your speeches.

Okay, now just a couple of notes on some argument-specific things---

Framework debates:

I tend to believe that resolutional restrictions on affirmative ground are good for fairness and education (both of which are terminal impacts). The TVA is good defense to have, but you dont need to win one to win framework. I am much more persuaded by switch-side debate and research/clash focused arguments. Often the competing interp/reasonability portion of these debates are underwhelming and I default to competing models. I really do not enjoy FW debates where the aff and neg are just reading blocks at each other. Adapt and be genuinely responsive.

While I have a disposition that would be better for a neg fw team, I do my best to bracket my personal perspectives when adjudicating debates. Good and technical debating from a team running a K-aff will win my ballot 100% of the time over a sloppy execution of fw by the negative.

If you are a nontopical K-aff in front of me, some of my prefs:

a) dont just go for the impact turn, have defense to the substantive claims from the negative (except in the 2ar if the neg really messed up)

b) tell me if you have a big overview so i can get another sheet, but the overview should not replace nor sacrifice time doing technical debating and direct clash (the less embedded clash the better)

c) im really bad for metaphorical and other non-definitional counter-interpretations. if you cant provide me a counter interp with limits, then you need to spend more time making an argument against competing interps/models of debate

d) if you are doing a performance style of debating, like reading poetry, playing music, telling stories, etc. i need an explanation of how i am supposed to weigh that, and not just an assertion that "our performance is offense"

e) there needs to be a role for the negative under your model/understanding of debate. explain to me what that is.

Ks on the negative:

Are cool.

If FW isn't decisively in favor of the neg, and most other things are equal, I find myself leaning aff on the permutation. The negative should be attentive to doing refutation to aff fw answers and not just extending their standards/offense.

Im not super good for high theory ks. Nothing against the literature, I just think they're often poorly executed and too confusing for their own good.

The alternative debate shouldn't come across like it is forgotten. If it isn't an important part of the K strat, make that explicit. If it is, spend time there and explain it thoroughly.

Topicality v Policy Affs:

Default to competing interps

Go slower on analytics in these debates.

Counterplans:

Sometimes I find myself getting lost in the sauce of the highly technical and complicated competition debates. The permutation is often a critical evaluation point, so try to be extra clear and organized going through that portion of the argument.

Less is more with permutations. I would rather have 2 clearly explained perms than 7 sneakily dropped ones.

Counterplan solvency needs to be explained, not assumed. It should be specified to the affirmative and not just explained broadly.

Lean slightly neg on CP theory. I dont particularly enjoy evaluating theory debates. But if you have to go for it because you are losing substance, it happens. It's an important last line of defense.

Disadvantages

Are good. I dont have any outlandish preferences. Be technical, do impact calc, read lots of cards.

Zachary Reshovsky Paradigm

Last changed 12/13 10:32P PST

About me and Overview: I have a background with 4 years as a high school debater (Lincoln Douglas) and 3 years as a collegiate debater (1 year NPDA parliamentary and 2 years NDT-CEDA Policy) at the University of Washington - Seattle. At UW, I majored in International Relations where I graduated Top 3% of class and was a Boren and Foreign Language and Area Scholar (Chinese language) and nominee for the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarship. My expertise is in China studies, US-China relations and Great Power Relations.

As an LD debater, I was (and still am) a believer in traditional LD rather than progressive LD arguments. I believe that the introduction of policy arguments to LD (in particular on resolutions that clearly resolve around moral/philosophical issues) are inappropriate. As such, I strongly prefer cases centered around a strong Value and Value/Criterion, an explanation of why that V/VC is moral, and how it links to the topic. As well, please explain to me in rebuttals why you are winning using specific articulations and spins on your/opponent's evidence. High school debaters in particular struggle with articulating why they are winning in final rebuttals, which oftentimes invites frustrating judge interventions. I will consider consider policy arguments in LD (in particular on topics that directly involve a policy proposal - e.g. "the US should implement a federal jobs guarantee" topic). However, these type of arguments will get substantial less weight than traditional LD topics. I prefer depth over breath arguments - I've noticed a lot of debaters will extend all of their offense without telling me which argument is the strongest, why I should vote on it, and how it beats out your opponents arguments. This forces me to intervene and attempt to weigh which extended arguments are strongest. In an ideal world, you'll provide me with a single argument where I can feel comfortable voting. Regarding procedurals, I have an extremely high threshold for Theory. I believe that Theory is vastly overused in LD and distracts from the substantive education that discussing the topic brings. Your opponent needs to be doing something truly abusive for me to consider it. I'm happy to consider Topicality arguments if I'm judging CX. In LD, I rarely see cases that are off-topic, but if you feel your opponent is feel free to run T.

As well, try to be creative! I come from a family of artists and always have looked at debate as equal parts rhetorical art and logic. Some of the best rebuttals and cases I have seen have had really creative spins on them and really sounded entertaining and compelling. I would encourage debaters to study examples of speeches in which the speaker has articulated not only a strong argument, but also delivered it in a way that delivered with rhythm, well apportioned arguments, was organized cleanly, and had substance that was comparable to strong prose in a novel rather than a rote response to a prompt.

Regarding my views on specific types of arguments:

- Primarily policy/on-case judge, but certainly willing to consider Kritikal and off-case arguments. DisAd/Ad impacts need to be spelled out clearly and weighed thoroughly in later rounds or else risk judge intervention. Find that debaters oftentimes do not get beyond surface-level tit-for-tat argumentation in later speeches in debate. No attempts made at crystallization of arguments, nor any attempt made to weigh why one impact (magnitude, timeframe, probability) or combination of impacts should OW other impacts and, equally importantly, why they should OW. Magnitude definitely easiest impact to evaluate, but feel free to do other impacts as well.

- For CPs, better to run 1 CP than many. Leaves more room for fleshing out that argument. I'm ok with Consult CPs.

- For Kritiks, I'm familiar with general arsenal of Kritiks, but please do not assume that I know the ideology/philosophy by heart. Explain it as if I am a 200-level undergrad student. Second, please articular impacts as you could an advantage or disadvantage. In particular, the link needs to be strong, specific, and very clearly linked to Case. Unmoored or vague links tend to be the death-knell of kritiks - debaters oftentimes just pull out the first link that they find and then proceed to force it to link to the case the AFF is reading. Make sure you make clear why the AFF is uniquely causing some ideologically-grounded harm or is buying into some existing detrimental framework.

Likewise, the impact of Kritiks tends to be highly nebulous (e.g. the plan causes more capitalism and capitalism is bad). Specific and clearly defined impacts are always good - they are particularly helpful for K debates.

Think of K Alternatives as very similar to a kritikal CounterPlan text - ideologically-driven condemnations that (e.g. "The AFF is evil in some undefined but scary sounding way") never work out well much like CounterPlans like (e.g. "Do the Plan but in a better way" never work). Would always recommend to debaters that they discuss why the Alternative solves or remedies some problem to a greater degree than the Plan.

- For Identity arguments, please lay out specifically how and why the AFF/NEG is engaging with a structure of power or dominance in a specific way that is problematic. That the AFF/NEG simply exists/reifies an existing power structure will get some traction yes. However, given that in order to make positive change in any environment one has to engage with unequitable power structures, it is important to describe precisely how the offending party has 1. in concrete terms, made the situation worse/more inequitable & 2. how this OW whatever benefits the offending party is accruing. Saying the offending party is simply working within existing inequities alone will not be sufficient to win usually, even when those inequities are a valid cause for concern. Again, specificity is important here - how many and in what ways is the offending party hurting disadvantaged communities.

- For Performance-based arguments on the NEG - I have a very high threshold for clearly non-Topical Perf arguments. Many teams seem to be running clearly non-topical arguments on AFF that do not in anyway link to the resolution and then proceed to claim some special framework that neatly fits/justifies their Performance into the resolution - this does not mean that they will get my ballot if the Neg runs Topicality in the 1NC.

- Likewise, for Performance-based arguments on the NEG - NEG needs to clearly win 1. why the Performance should be weighed in opposition to the AFF and within the AFF's FW. OR 2. Why whichever NEG FW that is put forth is clearly preferable. Again, I have a high threshold for clearly non-resolution specific neg performance arguments. So if the Neg wishes to win in this situation it needs to VERY CLEARLY win why a performative FW is the criterion on which the debate should be judged.

Speaking point scale:

- 29.9-30-near 100% perfect (flawless execution, strong elocution, high degree of erudition in arguments)

- 29.5-29.8-very strong debater, octo/elims performance (highly coherent arguments, well extended, effective execution and thoughtful usage of time, high degree of consideration to opponents)

- 28.8-29.4-average debater, perhaps 4-2/3-3 record level performance (better than average, but includes some dropped arguments, lack of coherency throughout debate but ultimately enough arguments are extended to win and/or come close in debate)

- 27.8-28.7 - un-average debater - unable to make coherent arguments, lots of drops, lack of tactical acumen or strategic skill in debate proper. Able to read first constructive, but unable to recognize with arguments are to be prioritized in final speeches. Relies too much on ASPEC/procedurals in place of on case/Kritikal arguments.

below-27.8 - very un-average debater - does not know how to debate and cannot coordinate correctly with partner. Lacking in basic etiquette towards others.

- Notes to debaters: Evaluation mostly dependent on quality of arguments - however, polish also comes into play. Clarity/clear organization and efficiency in rebuttals will increase your speaker points dramatically. Well run obscure and non-Western philosophies (Eg Baudrilliard, Taoism, Shintoism) will also garner extra speaker points on basis that they make judging more interesting and less monotonous/repetitive. Same thing goes for contentions that discuss innovative/non-talked about issues

FOR LD: I debated LD In high school and am comfortable with speed in it. I strongly prefer value/criterion based debate and will not consider policy arguments in LD. From my perspective it is important to win the VC debate, but not essential. I view the VC as something akin to goal posts in soccer (you can still score/gain offense through the oppositions goal posts, but it is harder to win because your opponent controls the scoring boundaries).
Ultimately, I will evaluate offense/impacts through a normal magnitude/probability/timeframe lens and will default to a Utilitarian calculus if nothing else is provided, but will weigh through whatever VC wins. I strongly prefer weighable impacts (Eg X number of people will be helped to Y degree), which creates clarity in judges mind. I see a lot of debaters (especially in LD) not doing 𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧 weighing of their impacts vs opponents impacts in NR And 2NR, which is unhelpful and creates judge intervention. I would strongly recommend spending at least some time in each rebuttal evaluating your impacts as to why you are winning on probability/magnitude/timeframe/vulnerability of populations affected/permanence of your impacts. As with all debate, please crystallize in final speeches with concise underviews that explain why you are winning and how your arguments OW/eclipse/precede your opponent’s impacts.

several general thoughts on LD debates I’ve seen:

- on contention level debate, please warrant out your contentions and extend claims and evidence in whole (claim, internal warrant, and impact), in particular in the rebuttals. Greater specificity is better. I’ve noticed a lot of debaters merely extend the tag lines of their evidence without the warrants/cards behind them and, more specifically, what the evidence does in debate/how I should evaluate it relative to other positions. This is problematic in that it leads to judge intervention and forces me to evaluate evidence after round. In NR/2AR I would prefer that you tell me how to vote rather than ask me to adjudicate between/weigh in on Impacts. A good rebuttal will not just include extensions of evidence, but also point to what parts of the evidence (eg the historical example that the author references, the statistical meta study that the cards author proffered) support your claims and what impacts their ideas will lead to.

- evidence: I prefer evidence that has descriptive/historical/statistical claims rather than predictive/speculative claims due to the fact that the former is based on things that have already happened/is more scientific whereas the latter has not occurred/is based on predilections that may or may not occur. I will prefer the former over the latter absent an argument made to differentiate the two. Expert authors will be preferred to non-experts in a vacuum. Non-contextualized anecdotal evidence is the least preferred type of evidence.

- AFF strategy: I notice a lot of debaters (in particular on the affirmative) have a difficult time extending sufficient offense in the debate to stay in the running. I would strongly recommend extending your arguments/contentions first (esp in the 1AR where there is a timeskew) before moving on to opponents case. Inexperienced debaters tend to get distracted/overwhelmed by their opponents case and attempt to tackle it first, but end up running out of time to extend their own case after getting bogged down in said opponents arguments. The best offense is a good offense - you can win if you extend your claims and leave some of your opponents claims dropped, but you cannot win if you extend none of your claims but shoot down the majority of your opponents arguments. I would strongly recommend starting out with your case first in rebuttals and then moving to refute your opponents case.

The Affirmative needs to be even more strategic/efficient in the 2AR. The 2AR needs to focus down on one to two arguments they are winning and not attempt to cover the entire flow. Past losing 2ARs I have seen have spread themselves too thin and never told me where to vote. In order to ensure that you get your offense on the flow, I would recommend a 20/30 second overview at the top of the 2AR explaining why/where you are winning and where I should vote. This ensures you have a shot at winning even if you do not get to all points you wish to discuss in this short 3 minute speech.

- Timeskew: By default, I will give the affirmative somewhat more room than negative to make less well developed/consistently extended arguments due to the timeskew (The Neg won 52.37% of ballots according to a meta analysis of 17 TOC debate tournaments in 2017-18). Beyond this, if the AFF argues that their arguments should have a lower burden of proof bc of timeskew, I will give the AFF even more room to make blippy arguments.

Kritiks (General): Im a fan of Ks in LD. Unlike Policy arguments that have crept into LD (Plans/CPs/DisAds), I believe that Ks belong in LD on the basis that they are grounded in philosophy rather than practical politics.

Several observations/suggestions for Ks in LD:

- On the Link level, please make a clear link to something your opponent specifically does in her/his case. I've noticed that a lot of Kritikal debaters rely on very generic links (e.g. saying that the AFF proposes a policy, the policy involves Capitalism, and that Capitalism is bad, therefore you should reject the AFF) rather than an indictment of some aspect of the AFF's specific proposal (e.g. the AFF's plan proposes an increase in mandatory minimum sentencing, this will lead to a higher prison population, prisons disproportionately affect minority populations and are therefore structurally racist, mass incarceration is the warrant, therefore you should reject the AFF because they lead to more structural racism). The former example relies on generic appeal to a structure the AFF exists within/likely would have to exist within in order to implement policy, the latter explicitly outlines what specifically the AFF does to increase racism/violence. If and at all possible, please try to articulate what the opponent explicitly does to warrant your K.

- On the Alt, I have noticed that many people who run Ks have a very vague (and at times non sensical) Alternatives—in the past I have voted against Ks often because of their lack of Alt solvency. If you plan on running a K, please make clear what the Alt does and how the Alt can solve/lead to some substantive change better than AFF can. I have a very difficult time voting for Alts when I don't know what they do. I would recommend making specific empirical examples of movements that align with Alt’s views that have succeeded in the past (eg if you’re running an Alt that wants to deconstruct settler colonialism, point to historical examples of Native movements that dislodged colonialism or the effects of colonialism—for example protests against the DACA pipeline in S Dakota, Native Americans protests against Columbus Day + what meaningful and lasting policy/public opinion changes these movements imbued). Its my personal belief that movements that lead to most meaningful change not only indicts and identifies a policy/problem with the status quo, but is also able to engage with the political sphere and implement some meaningful change. I believe that a well-articulated K should be able to do the same.

- K Impact: If K Impact involves some degree of indictment of the AFF, please explain to me what the AFF indictment does/leads to out of round beyond merely asserting that the AFF leads to bad impacts - otherwise it is likely that I will default to voting AFF on basis that AFF does/advocates for something imperfect but net positive. Even winning that the Aff leads to bad things (eg that the AFFs deployment of military forces is imperialist/that AFFs passing of a policy leads to more capitalism) may be insufficient to win when weighed against the entirety of AC impacts — the K also needs to prove THAT they do something beneficial as well (see previous paragraph).

- Type of K you run: You are of course welcome to run any K you feel is strategically valuable in the moment. As a personal side note, I personally prefer hearing Ks that come from obscure/not-commonly-run philosophers (e.g. Foucault, Deleuze, St. Thomas Aquinas) rather than commonly-understood philosophies (e.g. Capitalism). I believe that introducing non-traditional philosophers into debate adds substance, flavor, and argumentative diversity to the debate sphere - Independent on whether they win, I will reward debaters who run these arguments with additional speaker points for the above mentioned reasons.

Race/Gender/Transphobic/Homophobic Kritikal indicts - I will consider indictments of an opponent on the basis that they have done said something racist, gendered, -phobic in their personal behavior. The indictment, however, needs to clearly documented (e.g. a screen shotted Facebook post, a accusation with references to multiple witnesses who can corroborate the incident) and the offending violation/action needs to fall into the category of commonly understood violations of norms of basic decency surrounding race/gender (eg a racist joke that would be called out at a dinner party, usage of the N word towards a debater of color, calling a female debater the B-word, usage of the six letter homophobic/anti-gay term that starts with F). Microaggressions will be considered, but will have a much higher burden of proof to overcome because they are more difficult to prove/document and have comparatively less negative impact. As well, these arguments preferable should be accompanied by an articulation of what Impact of dropping a debater will have (e.g. will it send a strong sanctioning signal to other debater generally to not make the joke in question in the future(?), will it merely deter the accused debater from another repeated violation(?)) outside of round. Without an articulation of framework, I will default to a standard VC framework in LD and Policymaking Impact calculus on basis of magnitude/probability/TF in CX - if you lose/fail to provide a non-traditional framework, this does not mean that your race/gender arguments will not be evaluated, but does mean you will have to explain how they work/function under a CXmaking/VC framework and likely means you will face a comparatively uphill battle.

Speed Ks-please do not run them - I don’t believe they are worth considering and are a waste of time. After having come across them 3-4 times this year, have not voted for a speed K. Unless opponent is literally spreading so fast no they are unintelligible, I believe that it is unwise to spend all our time and energy indicting each other for procedurals when we could be debating about the substantive of the topic.

I am not a fan of Performance/poetry in LD, but will consider it if absolutely necessary. Know that I have a high BoP to consider these types of args.
I generally have a very low bar to granting the AFF RVIs due to timeskew. I have granted AFF RVIs about 70-80% of the time when the AFF has introduced this argument.

update for the 2025 conway: everything below is still true but i have genuinely zero topic knowledge. start your speeches slower so i can get used to your voice which is especially true for online!!

Current debater at Gonzaga University

baxter5326@gmail.com

tldr:

Do what you're good at.

Make fewer arguments and explain them more - i will hear and comprehend more of your arguments and we both want that. Quality > quantity.

I need to understand an argument to vote on it, which is a statement on speed (you can spread but i am kind of a slow writer. so probably go slower on analytics) and on content (i'll vote on stuff that i don't think is true but if i can't explain an argument back to you i'm not voting on it)

If you love going for counterplan theory or the minutia of topicality, please overexplain. I want to give the best decision possible and these are not my wheelhouse.

Thoughts

Ideally, my RFD should be the top of the final rebuttals. Explicit judge instruction is awesome. So is impact calculus. Tell me which stuff matters and why and we'll both be happier. If you don't, then I have to figure it out, and neither of us want that.

Disadvantages -- who doesn't like them?

Same deal with counterplans. I think clever CPs are fun and interesting, for the most part.

Kritiks are cool and where I'm most comfortable. Know what you're talking about and display that knowledge through your debating. Contextualize, explain, so forth. I have 0 remorse voting against something I didn't understand (this applies to other stuff too)

Topicality is important. I'm more convinced by fairness than other impacts. Probably err on the side of over-explaining here.

Theory isn't something I'll NEVER vote on but i don't really get it a lot of the time. The amount of work you'd have to do in order to get me to vote for you is definitely way higher than with any other argument.

Bad arguments are...bad. But I like silly stuff. If it's a bad argument, you should be able to beat it really easily. All dogs are blue?

Make good arguments you enjoy, be nice, have fun! If you have questions about anything just ask me before the round.

LD

not super familiar with what y'all do. The more you can frame it like a policy round the better I'll do. overexplain acronyms, theory, phil, etc.

About me:

Pronouns: she/her/hers & they/them/theirs

Currently the assistant coach at La Crosse Central (specifically coaching novice policy)

I did Policy debate as a novice for one year as a senior at La Crosse Central, and I am now a junior at UW-La Crosse studying Sociology!

Debate Stuff:

Include me on the email chain: evarussellmiller@gmail.com

Time your own speeches and prep time if you can--I will do my best to do so, but do not rely on me to do it for you!!!

Please treat everyone with kindness and respect--if you fail to do so in-round it will result in lower speaker points

High school value LD, collegiate IPDA. Not a huge flow judge

Don't run nuclear war impacts, respect your opponent, and don't defend human rights violations or you're getting dropped

They/Them - Lewis & Clark 23' - KU 27'

Please label the subject of your email chain with: "[Tournament][Round #][Your Team Code and School] (aff) vs [Opponent Team Code and School]"

Add me to the email chain: sharmanaleksander@gmail.com

General Guidance:

I am a strict flow and will do my best to evaluate the debate based on who is ahead on substantive arguments. I am open to any arguments and am a proponent of experimentation in debate as long as you support your positions with evidence.

Try to keep the round moving, if it takes more than 30 seconds to open a file and hit send on the email you should be using prep. Cross-ex starts when the previous speech ends. Tag-team CX is fine just try to keep it to a minimum or it might start to affect your speaker points.

Check to make sure everyone is ready before you begin a speech.

Time your own prep and speeches because I am notoriously bad at pressing start on my end.

Number your Line-By-Line and answer arguments in order - put new evidence by the argument it references, not all clumped together. Case order is dictated by the 1NC, and Off Case by the 2AC. - - reference the other team's arguments by what they are and where they are on the flow. Mention authors but understand I flow authors secondarily (I am focused on your arguments) and often you have multiple cards with the same author. "They say [author x]" doesn't tell me anything about where to put your argument on my flow.

Don't steal prep or clip evidence. "Somebody else cut it" is not an excuse.

Tech > Truth (Unless you win I should evaluate the debate otherwise)

Argument Specifics:

Framework only dictates what I evaluate first - you still have to win the substantive arguments you want me to evaluate. Don't neglect your other flows. Clash is key - answer each of your opponent's framework planks in order, don't just speed through unrelated blocks - if you need to take a couple of seconds in cx to confirm what they said, so be it.

Theory - I generally default to reasonability (assuming it's read) unless the argument is clearly abusive. I will not vote on an RVI.

Condo - The less arguments link in the 1nc, the more I buy this as potentially abusive. Make sure you meet your own counterinterpretation. If you are pulling blocks out of backfiles they may not be specific.

Kritiks - Label stuff and explain the contextual link chain between the K and the aff. Presumption is what is most known. It flows negative until you read an alternative, then it flows aff. Keep that burden in mind when weighing the alt vs the aff. Follow the 2AC order in the 2NC otherwise it divulges into two ships passing in the night.

Kritikal affirmatives - Big fan, Walk me through your evidence and solvency because chances are I've never read the literature. Negatives! Engage with the substance, it's not immoral to challenge their solvency, read counter plans, or disads. K v K debates are amazing! Look for places where their evidence contradicts itself or other theories of thought. I promise you they exist, don't be scared to look. The only thing you should avoid is challenging the veracity of personal narratives.

Topicality - substantively compare the words in your evidence to what the aff does. Don't go for untrue T args unless they literally drop the we meet and c/i.

he/him/his

Pronounced phonetically as DEB-nil. Not pronounced "judge", "Mister Sur", or "deb-NEIL".

Policy Coach at Lowell High School, San Francisco

Email: lowelldebatedocs [at] gmail.com for email chains. If you have my personal email, don't put it on the email chain. Sensible subject please.

Lay Debate: I care deeply about adaptation and accessibility. I find "medium" debates (splits of lay and circuit judges) incredibly valuable for students' skills. In a split setting, please adapt to the most lay judge in your speed and explanation. I won't penalize you for making debate accessible. Some degree of technical evaluation is inevitable, but please don't spread. If both teams explicitly tell me they want a lay debate before hand, I will gladly toss out all my knowledge about debate and judge like a parent (think San Jose Indian father). Speaks will range from 28.5 to 30, and like a lay judge, I will choose random numbers in that range based on your aesthetic appeal.

Resolving Debates: Above all, tech substantially outweighs truth. The below are preferences, not rules, and will easily be overturned by good debating. But, since nobody's a blank slate, treat the below as heuristics I use in thinking about debate. Incorporating some can explain my decision and help render one in your favor.

I believe debate is a strategy game, in which debaters must communicate research to persuade judges. I'll almost certainly endorse better judge instruction over higher quality yet under-explained evidence. I flow on my laptop, but I only look at the 1AC and the 1NC. Subsequent evidence is only read when deciding the debate. (When online, I always have docs open.) I will only read a card in deciding if that card was contested by both teams or I was told explicitly to and the evidence was actually explained in debate.

I take an above-average time to decide debates. My decision time has little relationship with the debate's closeness, and more with the time of day and my sleep deprivation. (I am typically the sole coach and judge with my teams, so I'm quite tired by elim day.) I usually start 5-10 minutes after the 2AR, so I can stretch my legs and let the debate marinate in my head. Debaters work hard, and I reciprocate that effort in making decisions. My decisions themselves are quite short. Most debates come down to 2-4 arguments, and I will identify those and explain my resolution. You're welcome to post-round. It can't change my decision, but I want to learn and improve as a judge and thinker too.

General Background: I work full-time in tech as a software engineer. In my spare time, I have coached policy debate at Lowell in San Francisco since 2018. I am involved in strategy and research and have coached both policy and K debaters to the TOC. I am, quite literally, a "framer", as a member of the national topic wording committee. Before that, I read policy arguments as a 2N at Bellarmine and did youth debate outreach (e.g., SVUDL) as a student at Stanford.

I've judged many excellent debates. Ideologically, I would say I'm 60/40 policy-leaning. I think my voting records don't reflect this, because K debaters tend to see the bigger picture in clash rounds.

I am judging some college debate, mostly to help the return of Stanford's team. No topic knowledge or college judging experience. I'm likely a policy-leaning clash judge in college prefs?

Topic Background: I judge and coach regularly and am fully aware of national circuit trends. I'm not super in the weeds as a researcher. I don't cut as many cards as I did in the pandemic years, and I don't work at debate camp.

I do work in software and have applied for patents on my day-to-day work. This personal experience will make me more skeptical of sweeping innovation or tech impacts. But if you're detailed, granular, and apply technical knowledge well, your speaks will benefit.

Voting Splits: I haven't updated these in a couple of years. I've been too busy with my non-debate life post pandemic. I think the trends exhibited on water are likely still accurate.

As of the end of the water topic, I have judged 304 rounds of VCX at invitationals over 9 years. 75 of these were during college; 74 during immigration and arms sales at West Coast invitationals; and 155 on CJR and water, predominantly at octafinals bid tournaments.

Below are my voting splits across the (synthetic) policy-K divide, where the left team represents the affirmative, as best as I could classify debates. Paradigm text can be inaccurate self-psychoanalysis, so I hope the data helps.

I became an aff hack on water. Far too often, the 2AR was the first speech doing comparative analysis instead of reading blocks. I hope this changes as we return to in-person debate.

Water

Policy v. Policy - 18-13: 58% aff over 31 rounds

Policy v. K - 20-18: 56% aff over 38 rounds

K v. Policy - 13-8: 62% aff over 21 rounds

K v. K - 1-1, 50% aff over 2 rounds

Lifetime

Policy v. Policy - 67-56: 55% for the aff over 123 rounds

Policy v. K - 47-52: 47% for the aff over 99 rounds

K v. Policy - 36-34: 51% for the aff over 70 rounds

K v. K - 4-4: 50% for the aff over 8 rounds

Online Debate:

1. I'd prefer your camera on, but won't make a fuss.

2. Please check verbally and/or visually with all judges and debaters before starting your speech.

3. If my camera's off, I'm away, unless I told you otherwise.

Speaker Points: I flow on my computer, but I do not use the speech doc. I want every word said, even in card text and especially in your 2NC topicality blocks, to be clear. I will shout clear twice in a speech. After that, it's your problem.

Note that this assessment is done per-tournament: for calibration, I think a 29.3-29.4 at a finals bid is roughly equivalent to a 28.8-28.9 at an octos bid.

29.5+ — the top speaker at the tournament.

29.3-29.4 — one of the five or ten best speakers at the tournament.

29.1-29.2 — one of the twenty best speakers at the tournament.

28.9-29 — a 75th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would barely clear on points.

28.7-28.8 — a 50th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would not clear on points.

28.3-28.6 — a 25th percentile speaker at the tournament.

28-28.2 — a 10th percentile speaker at the tournament.

K Affs and Framework:

1. I have coached all sides of this debate.

2. I will vote for the team whose impact comparison most clearly answers the debate's central question. This typically comes down to the affirmative making negative engagement more difficult versus the neg forcing problematic affirmative positions. You are best served developing 1-2 pieces of offense well, playing defense to the other team's, and telling a condensed story in the final rebuttals.

3. Anything can be an impact---do what you do best. My teams typically read a limits/fairness impact and a procedural clash impact. From Dhruv Sudesh: "I don't have a preference for hearing a skills or fairness argument, but I think the latter requires you to win a higher level of defense to aff arguments."

4. Each team should discuss what a year of debate looks like under their models in concrete terms. Arguments like "TVA", "switch-side debate", and "some neg ground exists" are just subsets of this discussion. It is easy to be hyperbolic and discuss the plethora of random affirmatives, but realistic examples are especially persuasive and important. What would your favorite policy demon (MBA, GBN, etc.) do without an agential constraint? How does critiquing specific policy reforms in a debate improve critical education? Why does negative policy ground not center the affirmative's substantive conversation?

5. As the negative, recognize if this is an impact turn debate or one of competing models early on (as in, during the 2AC). When the negative sees where the 2AR will go and adjusts accordingly, I have found that I am very good for the negative. But when they fail to understand the debate's strategic direction, I almost always vote affirmative. This especially happens when impact turning topicality---negatives do not seem to catch on yet.

6. I quite enjoy leveraging normative positions from 1AC cards for substantive disadvantages or impact turns. This requires careful link explanation by the negative but can be incredibly strategic. Critical affirmatives claim to access broad impacts based on shaky normative claims and the broad endorsement of a worldview, rather than a causal method; they should incur the strategic cost.

7. I am a better judge for presumption and case defense than most. It is often unclear to me how affirmatives solve their impacts or access their impact turns on topicality. The negative should leverage this more.

8. I occasionally judge K v K debates. I do not have especially developed opinions on these debates. Debate math often relies on causality, opportunity cost, and similar concepts rooted in policymaking analysis. These do not translate well to K v K debates, and the team that does the clearest link explanation and impact calculus typically wins. While the notion of "opportunity cost" to a method is still mostly nonsensical to me, I can be convinced either way on permutations' legitimacy.

Kritiks:

1. I do not often coach K teams but have familiarity with basically all critical arguments.

2. Framework almost always decides this debate. While I have voted for many middle-ground frameworks, they make very little strategic sense to me. The affirmative saying that I should "weigh the links against the plan" provides no instruction regarding the central question: how does the judge actually compare the educational implications of the 1AC's representations to the consequences of plan implementation? As a result, I am much better for "hard-line" frameworks that exclude the case or the kritik.

3. I will decide the framework debate in favor of one side's interpretation. I will not resolve some arbitrary middle road that neither side presented.

4. If the kritik is causal to the plan, a well-executing affirmative should almost always win my ballot. The permutation double-bind, uniqueness presses on the link and impact, and a solvency deficit to the alternative will be more than sufficient for the affirmative. The neg will have to win significant turns case arguments, an external impact, and amazing case debating if framework is lost. At this point, you are better served going for a proper counterplan and disadvantage.

5. I will not evaluate non-falsifiable statements about events outside the current debate. Such an evaluation of minors grossly misuses the ballot. Strike me if this is a core part of your strategy.

Topicality:

1. This is about the plan text, not other parts of the 1AC. If you think the plan text is contrived to be topical, beat them on the PIC out of the topic and your topic DA of choice.

2. This is a question of which team's vision of the topic maximizes its benefits for debaters. I compare each team's interpretation of the topic through an offense/defense lens.

3. Reasonability is about the affirmative interpretation, not the affirmative case itself. In its most persuasive form, this means that the substance crowdout caused by topicality debates plus the affirmative's offense on topicality outweighs the offense claimed by the negative. This is an especially useful frame in debates that discuss topic education, precision, and similar arguments.

4. Any standards are fine. I used to be a precision stickler. This changed after attending topic meetings and realizing how arbitrarily wording is chosen.

5. From Anirudh Prabhu: "T is a negative burden which means it is the neg’s job to prove that a violation exists. In a T debate where the 2AR extends we meet, every RFD should start by stating clearly what word or phrase in the resolution the aff violated and why. If you don’t give me the language to do that in your 2NR, I will vote aff on we meet." Topicality 101---the violation is a negative burden. If there's any uncertainty, I almost certainly vote aff with a decent "we meet" explanation.

Theory:

1. As with other arguments, I will resolve this fully technically. Unlike many judges, my argumentative preferences will not implicate how I vote. I will gladly vote on a dropped theory argument---if it was clearly extended as a reason to reject the team---with no regrets.

2. I'm generally in favor of limitless conditionality. But because I adjudicate these debates fully technically, I think I vote affirmative on "conditionality bad" more than most.

3. From Rafael Pierry: "most theoretical objections to CPs are better expressed through competition. ... Against these and similar interpretations, I find neg appeals to arbitrariness difficult to overcome." For me, this is especially true with counterplans that compete on certainty or immediacy. While I do not love the delay counterplan, I think it is much more easily beaten through competition arguments than theoretical ones.

4. If a counterplan has specific literature to the affirmative plan, I will be extremely receptive to its theoretical legitimacy and want to grant competition. But of course, the counterplan text must be written strategically, and the negative must still win competition.

Counterplans:

1. I'm better for strategies that depend on process and competition than most. These represent one of my favorite aspects of debate---they combine theory and substance in fun and creative ways---and I've found that researching and strategizing against them generates huge educational benefits for debaters, certainly on par with more conventionally popular political process arguments like politics and case.

2. I have no disposition between "textual and functional competition" and "only functional competition". Textual alone is pretty bad. Positional competition is similarly tough, unless the affirmative grants it. Think about how a model of competition justifies certain permutations---drawing these connections intelligently helps resolve the theoretical portion of permutations.

3. Similarly, I am agnostic regarding limited intrinsicness, either functional or textual. While it helps check against the truly artificial CPs, it justifies bad practices that hurt the negative. It's certainly a debate that you should take on. That said, if everyone is just spreading blocks, I usually end up negative on the ink. Block to 2NR is easier to trace than 1AR to 2AR.

4. People need to think about deficits to counterplans. If you can't impact deficits to said counterplans, write better advantages. The negative almost definitely does not have evidence contextualizing their solvency mechanism to your internal links---explain why that matters!

5. Presumption goes to less change---debate what this means in round. Absent this instruction, if there is an advocacy in the 2NR and I do not judge kick it when deciding, I'm probably not voting on presumption.

6. Decide in-round if I should kick the CP. I'll likely kick it if left to my own devices. The affirmative should be better than the status quo. (To be honest, this has never mattered in a debate I've judged, and it amuses me that judge kick is such a common paradigm section.)

Disadvantages:

1. There is not always a risk. A small enough signal is overwhelmed by noise, and we cannot determine its sign or magnitude.

2. I do not think you need evidence to make an argument. Many bad advantages can be reduced to noise through smart analytics. Doing so will improve your speaker points. Better evidence will require your own.

3. Shorten overviews, and make sure turns case arguments actually implicate the aff's internal links.

4. Will vote on any and all theoretical arguments---intrinsicness, politics theory, etc. Again, arguments are arguments, debate them out.

Ethics:

1. Cheating means you will get the lowest possible points.

2. You need a recording to prove the other team is clipping. If I am judging and think you are clipping, I will record it and check the recording before I stop the debate. Any other method deprives you of proof.

3. If you mark a card, say where you’re marking it, actually mark it, and offer a marked copy before CX in constructives or the other's team prep time in a rebuttal. You do not need to remove cards you did not read in the marked copy, unless you skipped a truly ridiculous amount. This practice is inane and justifies debaters doc-flowing.

4. Emailing isn’t prep. If you take too long, I'll tell you I'm starting your prep again.

5. If there is a different alleged ethics violation, I will ask the team alleging the violation if they want to stop the debate. If so, I will ask the accused team to provide written defense; check the tournament's citation rules; and decide. I will then decide the debate based on that violation and the tournament policy---I will not restart the debate---this makes cite-checking a no-risk option as a negative strategy, which seems really bad.

If you could have emailed the other team about your ethics violation, I will only evaluate it if there's proof you contacted the other team. Prepping ethics violations as case negs is far worse than any evidence ethics violation I've seen.

Note that if the ethics violation is made as an argument during the debate and advanced in multiple speeches as a theoretical argument, you cannot just decide it is a separate ethics violation later in the debate. I will NOT vote on it, I will be very annoyed with you, and you will probably lose and get 27s if you are resorting to these tactics.

6. The closer a re-highlighting comes to being a new argument, the more likely you should be reading it instead of inserting. If you are point out blatant mis-highlighting in a card, typically in a defensive fashion on case, then insertion is fine. I will readily scratch excessive insertion with clear instruction.

Miscellaneous:

1. I'll only evaluate highlighted warrants in evidence.

2. Dropped arguments should be flagged clearly. If you say that clearly answered arguments were dropped, you're hurting your own persuasion.

3. Please send cards in a Word doc. Body is fine if it's just 1-3 cards. I don't care if you send analytics, though it can help online.

4. Unless the final rebuttals are strictly theoretical, the negative should compile a card doc post 2NR and have it sent soon after the 2AR. The affirmative should start compiling their document promptly after the 2AR. Card docs should only include evidence referenced in the final rebuttals (and the 1NC shell, for the negative)---certainly NOT the entire 1AC.

5. As a judge, I can stop the debate at any point. The above should make it clear that I am very much an argumentative nihilist---in hundreds of debates, I have not come close to stopping one. So if I do, you really messed up, and you probably know it.

6. I am open to a Technical Knockout. This means that the debate is unwinnable for one team. If you think this is the case, say "TKO" (probably after your opponents' speech, not yours) and explain why it is unwinnable. If I agree, I will give you 30s and a W. If I disagree and think they can still win the debate, you'll get 25s and an L. Examples include: dropped T argument, dropped conditionality, double turn on the only relevant pieces of offense, dropped CP + DA without any theoretical out.

Be mindful of context: calling this against sophomores in presets looks worse than against an older team in a later prelim. But sometimes, debates are just slaughters, nobody is learning anything, and there will be nothing to judge. I am open to giving you some time back, and to adding a carrot to spice up debate.

7. Not about deciding debates, but a general offer to debate folk reading this. As someone who works in tech, I think it is a really enjoyable career path and quite similar to policy debate in many ways. If you would like to learn more about tech careers, please feel free to email me. As a high school student, it was very hard to learn about careers not done by my parents or their friends (part of why I'm in tech now!). I am happy to pass on what knowledge I have.

Above all, be kind to each other, and have fun!

Hey, I’m Eli! Binghamton University (Bing TC)

email chain: afroditeoshun@gmail.com

Personal thoughts (on debate): Debate is a business. To debate is work. Yes, enjoy the activity, but also have a plan for how you interact with this space.

Do what you want, but let me not feel about your arguments how Grace Jones felt about Lady Gaga:

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/grace-jones-on-meeting-lady-gaga-i-just-didnt-feel-a-soul-2015510/

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For PF: you can read this paradigm to understand how I engage arguments in general, but the threshold is MUCH lower (except for everything I wrote after the Theory section). Do you, have fun. I don't particularly care.

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Speed: If I yell clear twice, I will default to what I’ve heard and understood. So, make sure you emphasize and are clear on what's important. For your sake, not mine.

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Policy Affs- I need a clear framework for how I am to evaluate the plan (and round) beyond a reactionary response to the negative. I require a clear link story to the impact(s), and discussion of how the plan secures a resolution to the harms of the 1AC.

Prep out for T. That seems to be a lot of policy teams' weakness when Affirmative.

T/Framework: It's fine. Strategic. And honestly, they're easy outs when judging. HOWEVER, you're not gonna go far if the block is surface level on questions of YOUR wants. Get nuanced and specific. Actually implicate the Affirmative

CPs: I’m pretty neutral on them. Please just remember to have a net benefit (whether it’s internal or a DA).

DAs: Again, also pretty neutral. Just have a very clear and concise link story and impact comparison to justify why the DA outweighs (and/or turns) case. Like, why is it important? Many times I see DAs be ran and I'm just like... 'this feels like a huge FYI and I don't know why I should care (judge instruction)...'

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The K-(however it so comes about)

Aff: Be in discussion of the topic. If not, I need instruction as to why I should care. I feel like that's my entire paradigm: why should I care... how should I evaluate the round...?

Neg: Content and form must be aligned. I require strong judge instruction because I refuse to do any more labor than I need to. This applies to Affs as well, but I specified here as the Neg has the burden to rejoin.

POMO: I require an advocacy/alt that could easily be materialized or understood to resolve specified harms. Examples and analogies would be best.

"Identity": Win your Theory of Power and that your method best resolves (as opposed to being an 8/9-minute FYI). I'm familiar with many and live in the intersections of many (Black Fem args have my heart).

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Theory: Divert from only reading unspecified shells. Apply it to the actual performances and actions of the opposing team, so that I can evaluate its importance. Clear articulation (and extension) of the abuse story is key.

/

Any default to antiblackness (yes that includes misogynoir), queer/trans-phobia, ableism, etc- I will drop you and end the round. Auto-loss.

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I live for a good ki ki, a roast, a gag. So, gag me and I will give a boost to your speaks.

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Anything more than 5 off, you're clicking... but you're clicking down

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I (still) flow on paper.

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Add on to previous: I primarily flow from speech. Clarity please.

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I vote fast because I am actively thinking about the round. My written RFD will be short, but the verbal RFD will be plentiful. Take notes and ask questions.

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I'm a 'let the debaters debate' type of person. In other words: debate is what *you* choose to make of it. My time to be in y'all's position is over. So, you all determine the tone by which y'all engage each other, I just have to submit the ballot by the end.

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Point 1 is my boundary and only intervention

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I cuss, but only to emphasize certain points. Do not be surprised if I say a curse here or there, it is what it is (not applicable to Nov/JV)

For email chains: anaghataneja@gmail.com. Speech drop is good too.
I've debated in previous years but I'm not super familiar with this year's topic, so please explain any odd acronyms at least once.
I don't love K affs, but am fine with Ks on neg.

I prefer arguments that are simple, strategic, and impactful—keep them clear and easy to explain!

If you're running a really niche argument, please make sure that you are very clear in how you explain it and that it is fully fleshed out--I won't vote on it if I can't understand it.
For any open teams running against novice, be considerate of any skill or knowledge gaps.
Please be respectful of each other :)

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign '28 ('27?) (Not Debating (for now))

Fox Chapel '24

Other conflicts/coaching: Gunn KB, Edison BB, Jenks GH, Whitney Young SV/MB

Email: adhi[dot]thirumala[at]gmail[dot]com

Varsity only, add this as well: realartistsofguantanamobay[at]googlegroups[dot]com

I've decided to do version-control on this page; you can find previous versions at my Github.

Long story short, dishonorable victory is preferable to honest defeat. Because some people have misinterpreted this line in the past, this does NOT mean to do academic dishonesty.

I've been every speaker position, gone for every kind of argument, and debated at every level of the activity from the most lay to the most circuit. This used to be a lot longer. I thought that I needed to express all these random thoughts about the activity, but as I kept going on, I realized that I don't actually care that much. Debate made me happy in high school, and I enjoyed doing it. One of the few things that caused me anguish while I competed was judge intervention, either at the level where they would enforce argument preference, or at the level where they would make poor technical decisions and not take the simplest path to a victory. Part of what made the activity so fun was going for whatever positions I wanted, whether they were "honorable" or not. I will try my hardest to listen to whatever is in front of me because at the end of the day, the debate is about you, the debaters, not me.

I will intervene and end the round only in one of the three following circumstances.
1. A debater asking to end the round.
2. A debater not capable of communicating to me that they would like the debate to continue (e.g. someone unconscious, linguistic barrier, etc.)
3. Tabroom telling me to make a decision in a certain manner.

A couple of thoughts from an older version of this document that I think are still necessary for me to express.
1. Remember to have offense. Posturing and asserting that your opponent has gone for a "bad" argument does nothing to beat back the "badness" of it. This applies a lot in theory, competition, and topicality debates a lot. Having strong vision in these debates is something that will result in high speaker points.
2. Send me emails with proper subjects, WORD documents with proper names and headers, and time your prep. Preferably nothing in the body of an email either. My computer is already cluttered; don't make it worse.
3. I don't want a card document. I think most judge screws come from judges going rogue and reading evidence. I will try my hardest not to do this unless instructed to by debaters. I also think that card documents give debaters an incentive to add cards not extended or rewrite headers to imply arguments not made. I don't want to deal with that.

Now, to end this page, imagine that I quoted that line about science fiction, trolls, and blank checks.

lowell | davis

sabrina.toeee@gmail.com | lowelldebatedocs@gmail.com

i'm good for circuit or lay. tech over truth

online: my camera is usually off because it is early in the morning and i’m a sleep deprived college student, i will probably type if i leave. i really only clear online; if i do it might not always be your fault and rather a result of my horrible internet, but after a couple times i won’t flow anymore

topic: i don’t know anything about IPR, please do your best to explain or i will just vote with what i am given

i tend to not vote on an argument if it is not clearly extended and impacted enough throughout the debate because i do not want to intervene and do any of the work for you.

topicality: i prefer interacting with the model of debate that your interp justifies. i am not the biggest fan of precision, obviously will vote on it if debated well. i always vote on dropped ptiv :)

policy v k: i am the most comfortable with framework ks because that is what i read on the neg in high school and generally i will be good for the k. please slow down a little on the blocks. if you go for the alt: i mostly only know the basic ks (cap, setcol, security) so explain more if it is niche

k-affs: i will not be able to give you the level of judging you need/want. i was only policy in high school and i just became a k-debater, so i really only know the basics. if you really choose to, i will be visibly upset and you most likely will be too when you hear my decision

counterplans: i default judge kick and sufficiency framing. condo good, however it is a little easier to convince me otherwise than most.

disads: not too many opinions, i happen to like straight turns.

ethics violation: do what you will, i will always pause the round immediately first. for evidence ethics, you don’t need to inform the other team but it just holds vastly less weight with me if you don’t — especially if you’re just clearly using it as a last resort. if found during the round, you need to really make a push for it to matter to me.

overall, i literally will not care what happens in the round unless someone is crying or intentionally getting hatecrimed. in that case, i will stop the round — and get tab for the latter because you should be grown enough to know better :(

+0.1 if you guess my favorite taylor swift album before the round

I debated throughout high school and then at Idaho State University for 5 years. I then coached at Idaho State University for 2 years, Weber for 1, USC for 1, and am currently with Houston.

I am a firm believer that debate is for debaters. I've had my time to make others listen to whatever (and I mean absolutely whatever) I wanted to say, and it's my turn to listen to and evaluate your arguments, whatever they may be. While I'm sure I have my limitations, make me adapt to you instead of the other way around.

I try my damnedest to line up all the arguments on my flow. I am, however, open to alternate flowing styles. I really do prefer when debaters make specific reference of which argument(s) they are answering at a given time regardless of flowing style. I also flow the text of cards.

I prefer not to call for evidence (although I would like to be on your email chain... misslindsayv@gmail.com). This means explain, explain, explain! Tell me what the card says; tell me why I should care and how I should apply it. That being said, I do not think that cards are always better than analytics.

Be prepared to defend all aspects of your argument.

Everything is open to (re)interpretation. For example, some questions that may be relevant to my ballot include: What is the purpose of debate? How does this affect the way that impacts are evaluated? These kinds of top-level framing issues are the most important to me.

This means things like framework and T (fun little-known fact: I've always found topicality in general super interesting--I love the nit-picky semantics of language) can be viable options against K affs. However, you are better off if you have a substantive response to the aff included as well.

I'm still kind of deciding how I feel about how competition functions in method debates. I think the most accurate depiction of what I think about it now is this (and it all obviously depends on what's happening in the debate/on the flow, but in general): I'll probably err that the affirmative on-face gets a permutation to determine if the methods are mutually exclusive, and so that means the best strategy for the negative in this world is to generate their links to the aff's method itself to prove that mutual exclusivity.

I'd really appreciate it if you could warn me in advance if there will be graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

Jon Voss

Johns Creek

I've been around for a long time. Debate is not my full-time job anymore – I mostly sell vintage Pokemon cards – so with the unique exception of literature related to the Tiffany decision and the intricacies of running a small business on eBay/Mercari/Whatnot, my topic knowledge is limited to what I know about IPR from coursework completed earning my MBA and the years I spent in debate. I don't cut a ton of cards, I'm not really up on what teams are reading, I don't know what topicality norms were established over the summer, and I certainly don't know who is supposed to be good. I can still flow just as well as I used to, which is to say "barely."

Yes email chain: consult.australia at gmail. Please CC your coach if you are contacting me for feedback about a debate or something. Please also consider contacting someone with a better grasp on contemporary debate trends; my takes were last hot during the Obama years if they were ever hot at all.

Trufanov flowing thing: -- I don't read along during the speeches, ever. On my laptop, in an excel template. It was is and forever shall be titled"Sheboygan North Debate Flowing Template_Working_110907.xlt." I might poke around during prep time to read counterplan/permutation texts or verify something that was said in CX. Beyond that, I won't open the doc until the debate ends unless I think you're clipping. This is important for how you debate -- using the speech doc instead of your flow as a guide is to your detriment.

> 95% of high school debates are not so close that my argument preferences would matter a whole lot. Your ability to identify the argument made by your opponent in the order they made the argument and respond to it in the next speech in the order the argument was presented ("tech") is the only thing that matters except at the margins and maybe not even then. The better team will win most rounds regardless of the judge, the arguments selected, etc. There are a handful of things that may matter to you though, especially if you are reading this anticipating that the debate I'm about to hear is going to be relatively evenly matched or otherwise fly off the rails.

--IPR topic: entering December, I've seen a lot of debates on the topic and have actively worked on the argument side of the topic a fair amount. I don't have the test cases to say it with certainty, but the topic feels impossibly large and I think I'd be very good for the NEG going for T against a 2ar that has to go for a less limiting counter-interpretation. Still very good for creative "we meet" arguments from AFFs who have made strategic choices to defend a broad plan text in hopes of trading T concerns for linking to more DAs, however.

--I won't vote on arguments that call students' character into question based on behaviors outside of the specific debate I am judging. That includes introducing evidence that undermines a person's character as an argument during the debate itself. Adults who coach students to leverage screenshots and personal attacks to win debates should leave the activity. Judges who feel differently should grow tf up. Things said or done inside of a debate I'm judging are different: you can certainly make an argument that, for example, a team should lose the debate because they used gendered language. I'll stop the debate myself and let my esteemed colleagues in the tabroom handle it if it's egregious...I've had to do it twice, ever, against ~1500 rounds judged, but I'm not afraid.

-- Limited decision times and time wasting norms from the COVID years makes it more important than ever that the 2XR prioritize the easiest path to victory. I don't want to have to resolve any more issues than I absolutely have to. You want the same thing - left to my own devices, my reading comprehension and argument resolution skills will shock and dismay some of you.

-- If I can understand > 90% of the words you say (including the text of your evidence), the floor for speaker points is 29. If I cannot understand > 50% of the words you say (including the text of your evidence), the ceiling for speaker points is a 27 and you're almost certain to lose because I missed at least half of your arguments. If you debate close to conversationally and win the debate while demonstrating exemplary command of the relevant issues, I might even start throwing some 30s around. Just speak more slowly and clearly. You will debate better. I will understand your argument better. Judges who understand your argument with more clarity than your opponent's argument are likely to side with you.

-- a note on plan texts: say what you mean, mean what you say, and have an advocate that supports it. If the AFF's plan is resolutional word salad, will be unapologetically rooting for NEG exploitation in the way of cplan competition, DA links, and/or presumption-style takeouts. I guess the flip side of this is that I have never heard a persuasive explanation of a way to evaluate topicality arguments outside of the words in the plan text, so as long as the AFF goes for some sort of "we meet" argument, I'm basically unwilling to vote NEG on T assuming reasonable 2AR execution. "The plan text says most or all of the resolution (and another word or three) but their solvency evidence describes something very different," is an extremely persuasive line of argument, but I think it's a solvency argument.

-- Rehighlighting - you've gotta read it and explain what you believe to be the implication of whatever portion of their evidence you read. I'm somewhat sympathetic to allowing insertion as a check against (aggressively) declining evidence quality in debate, but debate is first and foremost a communicative activity.

-- In favor of fewer, better-developed 1NC arguments. I don't have a specific number that I think is best: I've seen 1NC's that include three totally unwinnable offcase arguments and 1NC's that include six or seven viable ones. But generally I think the law of diminishing marginal returns applies. Burden of proof is a precondition of the requirement that the affirmative answer the argument, and less ev/fewer highlighted words in the name of more offcase positions seems to make it less likely that the neg will fulfill the aforementioned burden of proof.

-- Highlighting, or lack thereof, has completely jumped the shark. Read more words.

-- I am generally bad for broad-strokes “framing” arguments that ask the judge to presume that the risk of <> is especially low. Indicts of mini-max risk assessment make sense in the abstract, but it is the affirmative’s responsibility to apply these broad theories to whatever objections the negative has advanced. “The aff said each link exponentially reduces the probability of the DA, and the DA has links, so you lose” is a weak ballot and one that I am unexcited to write.

-- I am often way less interested in "impact defense" than "link defense." This is equally true of my thoughts toward negative disadvantages and affirmative advantages. For example, if the aff wins with certainty that they stop a US-China war, I'm highly unlikely to vote neg and place my faith in our ability to the big red telephone at the White House to dampen the conflict. Similarly, if the neg wins that your plan absolutely crashes the economy by disrupting the market or causing some agenda item to fail, I will mostly be unconcerned that there are some other historical explanations for great power wars than "resource scarcity." The higher up the link "chain" you can indict your opponent's argument, the better.

-- Don't clip cards. If you're accusing a team of it, you need to be able to present me with a quality recording to review. Burden of proof lies with the accusing team, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is my standard for conviction. If you advance any sort of ethics challenge, the debate ends and is decided on the grounds of that ethics challenge alone.

-- Yes judge kick unless one team explicitly makes an argument that convinces me to conceive differently of presumption. Speaking of, presumption is "least amount of change" no matter what. This could mean that presumption *still* lies with the neg even if the aff wins the status quo is no longer something the judge can endorse (but only if the CP is less change than the plan).

-- Fairly liberal with the appropriate scope of negative fiat as it relates to counterplans. Fairly aff-leaning regarding counterplan competition, at least in theory -- but evidence matters more than general pleas to protect affirmative competitive equity. I could be convinced otherwise, but my default has always been that the neg advocate must be as good as whatever the aff is working with. This could mean that an “advocate-less” counterplan that presses an internal link is fair game if the aff is unable to prove that they…uh…have an internal link.

-- T-USFG: Debate is no longer my full-time job, so I think I have a little less skin in the game on this issue. But I'm probably at best a risky bet for affirmatives hoping to beat a solid 2NR on T-USFG. If you do have me in this type of debate:

**Affirmative teams should probably just impact turn everything the neg says and hope the 2N hasn't had their coffee yet. I am likely to be persuaded by the stock negative responses to those impact turns, but at least then it's just an impact comparison debate. And while that road to victory is still treacherous with me, "where there is a link there is a way."

**Affirmatives would be well served to prioritize the link between defending a particular state action and broader observations about the flaws of the state.

**Procedural fairness is most important. The ballot can rectify fairness violations much more effectively than it can change anything else, and I am interested in endorsing a vision of debate that is procedurally fair. This is both the single strongest internal link to every other thing debate can do for a student and a standalone impact. I am worse for the “portable skills” impacts about information processing, decision-making, etc.

**It is helpful, but not imperative, that the negative prove that the affirmative's literature could have been introduced in support of a topical advocacy and/or when debating as the negative team.

This is moved to the bottom because it was written during the 23-24 topic, but it's still instructive about how you might approach a deep impact/impact-turn debate if I'm judging:

-- Broadly, unless you can't avoid it, don't. This isn't an argument preference or literature thing; I just very authentically (and, I think, correctly) believe I am much worse at judging these debates than those that involve more external interactions between arguments. I'll give it my best shot no matter what...but you've been warned.

-- Almost every debate I've seen so far this year has collapsed into a very-hard-to-resolve "growth good"/"degrowth good" debate. These have been late-breaking and I spent the bulk of my decision time wading through ev that didn't get me any closer to an answer I found satisfactory. In each instance, I was unhappy with amount of intervention and lack of depth involved in my decision. In that regard:

*if there's a winning final rebuttal that does not require you to wade into these waters, give that speech instead. I am willing (and maybe even eager) to grab onto something external and use that as a cudgel to decide that the growth debate was difficult to resolve and vote on . I think I would be receptive, too, to arguments about how I should react in a debate that you think might be difficult to resolve, but this is just a hunch.

*you would almost certainly be better-served debating evidence that's already been read instead of reading more cards. This is especially true if the 1ac/1nc/both included a bunch of evidence on this issue...your fourth, "yes mindset shift" card is unlikely to win you the debate (or even the specific argument in question) but debating the issue in greater detail than the other team might.

*debated equally, I'm meaningfully better for the standard defenses of growth, especially as it relates to successfully achieving the changes that would be necessary to create a sustainable model of degrowth.

Competitive Experience: Thomas Jefferson High School (2010 - 2014), 2014 ToC (4-3, top quintile speaker).

Coaching Experience: Lowell High School (2023 - Present).

Email Chain: Yes, richard.wang.debate [at] gmail.com; please cc lowelldebatedocs [at] gmail.com

Online Debate

I prefer camera on but don't really care, I spend my entire working life on Zoom calls. Please check verbally or visually with all participants prior to starting your speech. Assume I'm away if my camera is off unless I tell you otherwise.

Outlook on Debate

Just do what you're good at. Nobody is a blank canvas but if you're making complete arguments I do not care what those arguments are or how they are created. I was a lazy debater and am a lazy judge, which should frame your reading of this paradigm. However, substance generally means higher speaks.

In HS, Shree was my coach and I was double 2s - my philosophy has been shaped by that experience. If you want to have a technical K v K debate, I would love to judge it.

I will only evaluate arguments pertaining to the round. Out of round ad homs are a loser and will result in a loss of speaker points.

This is impacted out further down, but I really prefer judging a debate where (1) both teams follow the LBL on each flow after overviews (if relevant) and (2) hard number substantially all arguments. This (1) makes it easier for everyone to follow and evaluate the debate and (2) saves me time as I flow on paper and want to spend my mental energy on the substance of your arguments and evidence vs. piecing together the flow during and after the round.

Tech > Truth. Every argument is functionally the same, assume I will vote based directly off where the flow is headed unless you make arguments such as "you shouldn't flow" and impact them out. Virtually nothing you can possibly say argumentatively will offend me personally, if you can't beat a terrible argument you probably deserve to lose. However, be a good human, this is still an educational space and people should feel personally safe.

Spin > Evidence. Properly deploying evidence in round is better than having me read it. If you tell me to read evidence post-round, It's your onus to get me to read your evidence and 2R evidence should be assembled in a card doc. But, spin only gets you so far and I will close read evidence. More below.

Claim + Warrant + Impact. If you don't present a complete and properly impacted argument, I wont vote for it. The flip-side of this is that if there is uncontested offense on the flow, I will pull the trigger regardless of quality. I will happily pull the trigger on a conceded 15 second theory argument that is properly impacted by the 2R.

I will evaluate procedurals and in-round offense first unless you convince me otherwise.

Presumption and/or Terminal Defense are real. I believe there can be 0% risk of solvency, 0% risk of an impact, 0% risk of uniqueness etc.

I prefer a Technical Knockout (TKO) whenever possible. This means that the debate is unwinnable for one team. If you think this is the case, say "TKO" (probably after your opponents' speech, including the 2NR) and explain why it is 100% unwinnable. If I agree, I will give you 30s and a W. If I disagree and think they can still win the debate, you'll get 25s and an L. Examples include: dropped T/SPEC argument, dropped conditionality, double turn on the only relevant pieces of offense, dropped CP + DA without any theoretical out. Be mindful of context: calling this against materially less experience debaters in presets looks worse than against an experienced team in a later prelim. But sometimes, debates are just slaughters, nobody is learning anything, and there will be nothing to judge. I am open to giving you some time back to rest and prep, and to adding a carrot to spice up debate.

Specific Arguments

The best debates are when there is (1) substantive contestation of the arguments and (2) all participants leave the debate learning something new. Impact turns are also fun and easy to judge.

Debate Theory: just because something is in the meta right now doesn't mean it's the default. I generally evaluate theory arguments in a single round vacuum. If you properly impact out the 2R, substantially all theory arguments are winners. If you don't do so and expect me to vote on implied impacting through the meta, I'll move on to substance.

Procedurals: both T and kritikal ones are great if they are properly impacted out in the 2Rs (even if it's "You Aren't Taoist").

Case: I love deep case debates and more Ks should be case args.

CPs/CAs: having 10 reasons why 1 perm is good is better than 1 reason why 10 perms are good. Substance > spam. More Ks should be CPs/CAs.

DAs: more Ks should be DAs.

Ks: I get that the meta is generally a framework argument. However, I would much rather have a substantive debate on "prior questions" supported by the literature (vs. debate theory), methods, and/or impact turns - this is why more Ks should be CPs/CAs and DAs. Quoting Kilpatrick: "I'm less likely to think "extinction outweighs, 1% risk" is as good as you think it is, most of the time the team reading the K gives up on this because they for some reason think this argument is unbeatable, so it ends up mattering in more rfds than it should". Critical ecology is not a loser with me, and I think its exit from the debate meta does not match "actual" academic spaces.

Speaks

They are subjective and everything you do matters. I like to be entertained, whether it be through humor or an artfully executed strategic vision.

I want every word said, even in card text and especially in your 2NC topicality blocks, to be clear. I will shout clear twice in a speech. After that, it's your problem.

I will substantially award going 1:1 down the LBL vs. just reading blocks all over the flow - especially because I flow on paper like a dinosaur.

Although tech > truth, I will reward deeply understood arguments backed by thoughtful evidence.

Speaker point inflation has been very real, and it makes me sad. However, I will not to be a demon.

29.5+ — the top speaker at the tournament.

29.3-29.4 — one of the five or ten best speakers at the tournament.

29.1-29.2 — one of the twenty best speakers at the tournament.

28.9-29 — a 75th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would barely clear on points.

28.7-28.8 — a 50th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would not clear on points.

28.3-28.6 — a 25th percentile speaker at the tournament.

28-28.2 — a 10th percentile speaker at the tournament.

Personal History Informing Debate

As a debater: generally procedural and kritikal in nature.

As a student:

BA in Economics and Political Philosophy from Cornell University (2017). I have taken graduate level courses in relevant kritikal topics like legal economics, continental philosophy, historical materialism, fem IR, and critical theory (Frankfurt, race, ethnicity, gender, ecology, penal).

I won't punish you if you fundamentally misunderstand theory, but I will grant speaker points for those that really do get it and use it to their advantage in a round. I will tell you after the round if you misunderstood. Hint: Marxist literature kritiks socialism, communism is not socialism.

Please talk to me about Cornell or a degree in Economics and/or Political Philosophy if you're interested!

As a homo economicus:

I currently am an executive at a financial technology company and previously was a hedge fund investor specializing in long/short equity and special situations. I have a deep "practicioner's" understanding of relevant policy topics such as rates, inflation, "financialization good", and tech generally. I have heterodox thoughts on the implementation of MMT.

I won't punish you if you fundamentally misunderstand economics, but I will grant speaker points for those that really do get it and use it to their advantage in a round. I will tell you after the round if you misunderstood. Hint: the internal link between monetary policy and economic activity is the cost of capital of market participants.

Please talk to me about Finance & Tech if you're interested!

email chain: rubywasserman795@ gmail.com

currently assistant coach for garfield. i debated there locally and nationally for 3 years as a 1a/2n, mostly doing ks. even tho thats what im most familiar with, i'll absolutely listen to and vote on basically any policy arg if its ran well.

i dont have a ton of formal knowledge on the topic. be careful spreading jargon in my face!

ruby or judge is fine i dont particularly mind.

if you have questions abt anything, please ask me before the round!

ks / k affs:
love!! please run your most specific k in front of me, i want to see cool interesting niche stuff in rounds (if you have a cthulhucene file i am the judge for you). performance on the neg is so fun and i wish i saw it more. im also a huge fan of more generic ks like cap or security as long as theyre contextualized well to the aff! as long as its well explained and debated, ill buy just about anything. im not the most familiar with high theory / pomo stuff (except for bataille) but if its your thing id love to see it, just know you might have to do a little bit more explaining.

you dont have to sell me on the alt to win the round, although itll help. i generally went for links + framework as a debater, and if you decide to go for this, go all out (ie should i even weigh the aff at all). i am probably more comfortable with you link you lose than many people. if you do decide to go for the alt, explain to me how it resolves the links and why its more important than the aff.

k affs should probably be related (somewhat) to the topic. besides that, do whatever you want. performance is amazing. you can do whatever feels best on framework - debate sucks, countermodels, impact turns - just explain why each of those things matters in the context of the round and debate as a whole. kvk rounds are something i dont have much experience in but i would love to see them. i think k affs probably get perms but i could definitely be convinced otherwise. presumption is a very persuasive argument against k affs imo. i can absolutely be convinced that my ballot doesnt really do anything for the project of the affirmative.

i am most familiar with the fem k, so if youre at all curious, please ask me about it / shoot me an email! id love to judge a great fem round :)

t framework:
i was usually on the other side of this debate, but i think framework is generally a good and convincing argument. tell me what debate would look like under your model, if its different than the squo, why it matters. i generally think structural fairness outweighs procedural fairness, but i could be convinced otherwise with good debating. debate is probably a game (but that isnt very important). education and portable skills are the most important impacts for me in a fw debate - fairness is usually an internal link to those.

k affs probably arent fair, but its up to the neg to convince me that it matters.

cps:
to be honest i dont think ive ever ran a straightforward cp + da strat. im not sure what that says about me as a debater, but as a judge all it means is that im less familiar with it. the more specific your cp is, the better (best if its cut specifically for the aff youre facing). very specific and well-articulated counterplans are really cool! make it clear how your cp avoids the net benefit and what that means for the perm. im not exactly excited about your plank / advantage cps but ill vote for them if you explain how they depart from the squo and are competitive with the aff.

disads:
same as above, im less familiar with this side of debate. ideally, your da should tell me a story about what the aff does and why it matters. impact calculus is the most important part of your da: explain to me why your nuclear war is bigger, faster, more likely, whatever.

t (vs policy):
i dont love t vs affs that are pretty obviously topical, but if its mishandled i will absolutely vote on it. be as specific as you can, and if you do end up going for it, really commit! i think t is at its best vs very unpredictable small affs.

theory:
i love tricky theory arguments. if youre going to go for theory, please actually commit to it (similar to t). i will often default to reject the argument and not the team, so dedicate time to blowing up your violations / voters and explaining why they are important to convince me otherwise. dont just make every little thing a voter and then not explain to me why its something to vote on.

dont read arguments like racism good. you will lose and i will talk to tab / your coaches.

Debated for four years at Dowling Catholic and three years at the University of Kentucky. Currently finishing undergrad at Gonzaga and on their debate team.

Do what you do best.

I care about responsiveness more than anything else. Don't just shotgun warrants/restate arguments, listen to what your opponent says, apply your warrants to what they are saying, and explain why your arguments subsume theirs.

Line by line is the most important part of debate for me.

I try to be more deterministic than probabilistic when evaluating arguments. Strong comparative analysis and argument resolution can turn 'risks' of things into decisive yes/no questions for one team.

Add me to the chain (weinhardtdash@gmail.com) however I try to look at speech docs as little as possible. I think the increasing card-docification of debate is an unhealthy trend. The value of cutting really good cards should be that you can explain and apply them advantageously and access a higher standard for ev comparison, as such, the purpose of me having access to the doc should be to verify if what you're saying your ev says is true in the event the other team disputes it, not to assess the quality of the cards in the abstract. This is also why slowing down and being clear helps since If I flow your arguments from hearing them first I feel less interventionist when granting you their weight.

Slow down for arguments that have a really dense concept-to-word ratio like T and theory.

I'm cool with inserting rehighlightings as long as you actually explain in depth what the rehighlighting says/why it matters rather than just exploiting it as a method to read cards faster - if this turns into a moral hazard for one team the other should call it out.

CP competition admittedly isn't my strong suit.

lesser stylistic things -

Pick your battles, especially in CX. Chances are, not every word that comes out of your opponents mouth is an F tier trash argument. I get that having conviction and passion is important, but sometimes knowing when to give certain opposing arguments a respectful level of credence can convey nuance and demonstrate to me that you're smart enough to be cognizant of the substantive difference between certain arguments in the round.

numbering arguments is always a plus.

I like when tags have the card's warrants in them.

PF - in all honesty I will probably judge this like a policy round, so most of the stuff above applies. if you're responsive and focus on developing less arguments more in depth and with more warrants you should be good.

LD - tricks suck. please don't pref me if this is your style.

Olathe Northwest '22 and current debater at Gonzaga University.

If you have questions about anything, email me at kaelyn.a.w@gmail.com.

General:

I will NEVER vote for ableism/sexism/racism/homophobia good or anything similar, and will vote you down the second I hear it. Do what you're most comfortable with, I would much rather see you perform at your best than try to adapt to me.

Disadvantages:

I think DAs are one of your best take outs on the aff's case. I'm fine with general DAs but if they aren't specific to the case you should have good evidence that clearly outlines the link. I will vote on pretty much any DA impact as long as you compare it to the affs and explain why yours is better and have the evidence to back it up.

Counterplans:

Counterplans should be competitive with the aff. Have a clear understanding of the perms and be able to defend how they are not viable options. If I believe that the CP can be permed I will not vote on it. (if you are aff pointing out logical flaws in the cp is a good way for me to flow it to you). If you are running DAs and a CP together, PLEASE pick a CP that doesn't link to the DAs. As long as you can convince me that the CP is better than the aff I may vote on it.

Topicality:

I fucking love T. IMO the interpretation is an internal link to accessing the impacts of the standards so I most usually default to competing interpretations. I'm sympathetic to fun ways of arguing t such as it being an RVI, so if you understand those args and can defend them I say go for it.

Kritiks:

God I love Kritiks. I frequently run them myself and am familiar with most of the literature behind common ones (Cap, Biopolitics, Critical Disability Studies, etc). I know the general concepts for others like Baudrillard but am not well versed so as a general rule make sure you have clear explanations. Your K should have a clear link to the aff, and I probably won't vote for it if there isn't one. I prefer functional alts, but have no problem with voting for the K as an independent DA if you choose to kick the alt. I find K debates super fun and interesting, so it may be a good choice if you're on the neg.

Framing:

FRAMING. FRAMING. FRAMING. Explain to me why your impact matters!!! This is key for both sides of the debate. If I believe the entirety of the aff and neg arguments because no real clash has taken place then it comes down to whoever has done the better job of showing why their impact is the most important.

Theory:

Don't run it if it's not warranted. I'm not a huge fan of voting on theory, but if the round comes down to it I will vote on it.

Hi all :)

I am the head coach of Parkrose High School in Portland, OR. At Parkrose, I primarily coach policy for the Oregon/NAUDL/Nat Cir. but I have students who do IE's and other debate events as well. I did policy debate in high school and parli (NPDA) in college, nat cir. I have either debated, debated against, or am familiar with most, if not all, arguments out there. I spent my time debating policy and k arguments pretty equally - but probably more k heavy - both on the aff and neg.

I would call myself a tech judge first who judges off the flow. I will hear any argument you can justify - with some exceptions (ex: don't impact turn racism or say feminism doesn't matter. I have seen it happen, don't be that person. I will vote you down, tank your speaks, and probably report you to ta). Other than that, have fun with it, I love to hear fun and interesting stuff :) I will also be okay hearing a policy aff and a T / DA / CP debate. Don't feel like you have to get fancy with it if it's not the best strategic choice for you. I want to hear whatever will make the best debate possible. Debate the topic, don't debate the topic, reject the topic, whatever you choose to do, just be prepared to do it well. I also encourage the use of alternative modalities if that's something you like to do. I want to create a space where you can say what you want and feel free to run any arguments you would like. If you have any other questions about any specific arguments or types of arguments, please ask before the round.

Specific arguments:

T - I like T and will vote on it. I'm okay with a potentially abusive T shell if you can win it. I also don't mind a potentially untopical aff if you can win it. I don't think I have bias more towards one side or the other.

DA / CP - I find generics a little boring but will definitely vote for them if they are won. New, interesting, creative, or aff-specific DAs or CPs would make me the more happy though.

K - Realistically, I am probably a little bias towards the K. I am pretty familiar with most variations on the K as well as K lit. I also feel confident that I have enough background information to understand anything I may have not heard before. I think generic links are fine if you can explain them well, obviously the more aff-specific it is, the better, but do what you can. I think K's do need to have a clearly explained link scenario with an impact extended. For the alternative - please explain the method and how it solves the impact and the aff in some way.

K Affs - Love. I am a good judge to run a K aff in front of. I will vote for framework but I prefer a K v. K debate if you have it in you.

At the end of the day, please do whatever you want. Just be a good debater, whatever that means to you.

Other things:

Email Chain - I prefer to be on the email chains. Please ask for my email at the beginning of the round.

Time Keeping - I don't want to do it. Time each other, please.

Cross-ex - Tag-team cx is fine but the person who is supposed to be doing it should be doing at least 50%.

Speed - I don't judge all that often and am just getting back into debate after a few years off so please take it a ~little~ slower on tags and non-carded arguments than you normally would. Feel free to still spread but on tags, analytics, and theory arguments please slow down a tiny bit, especially with theory. I was a very fast debater and I understand the need to go as quick as you can (little time, lots of args) but I am a little out-of-practice with debate speed and do not want to miss anything that could be important to you later on. This is mainly targeted at extremely fast debaters, if you don't feel like you're in the top 10% of speed, you're fine. I am also hard of hearing so diction is important, especially during online format.

Signposting - I feel like the vast majority of HS debaters do not know how to speak in a way that signals to the judge with clarity when they are moving to different arguments down the flow. I should, in general, be able to tell where you are based on what you're saying but HS debates can be very messy, so please, do make it as clear for me as possible. Verbally signaling, whether through just saying where you're at and what you're responding to, saying "next" in between args, or using other tone/volume/pausing indicators (more advanced skill), make sure you're letting me know in some capacity where to write an argument. If I don't have to spend time figuring out where you are on the flow, it not only looks a lot better on you but it also means I can hear more warrants / examples etc. in depth and overall makes it a lot easier for you to win the debate. Tell me when you're going the link level or the alternative or the perm debate before you start in on that section of flow.

Analytical Arguments - I probably put a lot more stock in analytical arguments than other judges. Please use it to your advantage.

Pro-tips for my ballot:

1. I can really see how you're evaluating the debate based on what you're saying. Show me your best understanding of the debate through your speeches. Efficiency, time-allocation, and cross-flow extensions and applications are good ways to show me you're an advanced debater. Your speaks will reflect it.
2. For the aff - perms are great opportunities for analytical arguments.
3. For the neg - the case debate is a great opportunity for analytical arguments.
4. Warrants are VERY important. I feel like this has gotten worse since the pandemic but so many debates seem shallow and circular to me. Giving examples, context, and background information in your explanations of your positions are important and add substance to the debate. Your speaks will reflect it.
5. I can tell when speeches are pre-written. Obviously a lot of blocks are pre-written but if we're past the 1nr and you're just reading off your laptop, your speaks will reflect it. The best debaters are able to go back and forth from their blocks to their the flow and not lose the judge with what part of the debate they're at.
6. I really don't like when arguments are numbered. Referring to arguments as "2AC #2" will annoy me a bit. Obviously I'll know what you're talking about but I don't write down numbers and this is a debate norm I disagree with. If that's what you do that's fine, don't feel like you have to edit your blocks for me, but do try to refer to the argument by the claim + author as much as possible.
7. I've been told I look pretty disinterested while I'm judging but I promise I'm just thinking about what you're saying. :)

Pet Peeves:

1. Being ~too~ aggressive in cross-ex. Cross-ex can get heated. I have been there, and I understand that sometimes it's just part of debate, but sometimes, there are times when it clearly goes beyond being competitive. From a judge perspective, aggression in cross-ex can come off anywhere from being passionate and competitive to being condescending, demeaning, and potentially misogynist. You are in control of how you treat others within the debate space. We all create the environment that is "the debate space", make sure you are acting in alignment with what you think it should look like.
2. Running things you don't know. I understand that it can be difficult to know all in the ins and outs of an argument when breaking it for the first time. I also get wanting to try new things that you may not know all that much about. But, it's very easy to tell when someone is reading an argument they know next to nothing about and are betting that they know just enough to beat someone knows nothing about it. I don't think it produces very good debates and is often a strategy used to avoid meaningful clash. (this is mainly about k's - if you're going to read a k, please AT LEAST be able to explain the link and alternative in your own words as well as how it relates to the topic/aff).
3. Extending arguments without actually explaining the argument. If you're extending an argument / author, I need at the very least the claim + warrant and how this argument functions in the debate. You can extend a card that says "x" but if I don't have an extension of x bc y and this is important bc a + b, then it makes the debate hallow and very circular. I find that high school policy debaters have the biggest problem doing this well because of the reliance on cards and evidence. For example, do not just say "extend the link" say "extend (insert author) who says (insert claim + warrant). the aff is doing (insert plan / part of plan the offcase position links to) which relates to (what author says) in xyz way which creates ~whatever impact~". I get that everyone is pressed for time but the work done on these explanations in the constructives are important and set up the rest of the debate if done properly.