I competed in policy debate in high school, parliamentary debate in college, and I have been coaching since 2001. I would consider myself a tabula rasa judge, as much as that is possible. I feel comfortable with any line of argumentation, but expect clear articulation of said argumentation. I want you to provide me with compelling reasons why you should win the debate. Generic argumentation, weak links, and time sucks are not appreciated. I don't judge a ton (in my local circuit I am in tab a lot), but I did judge at NSDA Nationals in 2020 including some late Elim rounds. I keep a detailed flow so staying organized is key to winning my ballot. Pronouns: she/her/hers. If you have questions, feel free to ask before the round starts. Email for the chain: amdahl-masona@nclack.k12.or.us.

So, as obnoxious as this is, my judging philosophy is that I don’t have a judging philosophy. I’ve been out of debate for three years; let this piece of information guide you in two ways:

1)    1) Don’t assume I’m familiar with major arguments on this topic or its literature base … because I’m not.

2)     2) Slow down, be clear, and draw clear lines between your evidence and your arguments. The burden is on you to explain to me the role of the ballot, how I should evaluate impacts, and why I should vote for you. I won’t draw these lines for you, and the easier you make my life the more likely I am to vote for you.

In terms of specific arguments: you do you and what you are most comfortable with. I was on the more critical side of things during my time debating, but I feel strongly that there should be parameters that guide debate and ensure fairness for both teams.

With that being said, at the end of the day I will take the path of least resistance. This means I will pull the trigger on theory if that is the easy way out. I am also more likely to be persuaded by overarching ‘framing’ questions that could possible trump the other team’s offense, if mishandled. Again, make my life as easy as possible by telling me exactly how I should vote and why. Address role of the ballot issues early and control the impact calculus throughout the round if you want my vote.

The single most important thing to me, however, is for you to make this debate enjoyable. This should go without saying, but all too often it becomes a problem. Be nice to your opponents, be nice to your partner, and have fun. Debate is a game; games should be fun to participate in and fun to watch!!

Good luck everyone!! 

UNLV

4-time NDT Qualifier

Second year judging college debate

*****UPDATE*****

I believe that there is a great value to flow-centric, line-by-line debating. Though I don't claim to have the best flow in the country, I believe many debates can be simplified and made clearer by emphasizing the basics of lining arguments up and answering them accordingly. Not only will teams have a better chance to win my ballot by attempting some semblance of organization, but I believe the overall clash of argumentation that would result from this focus could yield more in depth scholarship and understanding of the topic being discussed.

Debaters should clearly flag pieces of evidence they want evaluated after the debate. Failure to do so will more than likely result in me evaluating the round sans calling for cards.

****************

I believe that debate is an educational and competitive activity. It is my job to adjudicate and render a decision based solely on the arguments presented in the debate. That being said, I believe it is the burden of the debaters to effectively and clearly deploy their arguments if they feel they are critical to the outcome of the round. I will always do my best to match your level of effort from the other side of the podium (or tabletote), but if I can’t understand your argument, or you for that matter, any disagreements we may have about the decision after the round will be largely attributed to 'a failure to communicate’.

Specifics

Framework/Performance—I believe that framework sets the parameters for the debate round. Debate is an educational activity and it is important to understand what purpose the debate round serves in order to maximize learning. I also believe that the resolution matters and that there are unique benefits to learning and debating about timely issues, but if you can sufficiently explain why there is a more productive and educational reason to view the round you will find yourself in better shape. For me, the central question in these debates relies mainly on scholarship and knowledge production. If you can win that your view of debate is ultimately beneficial in that way, I will default to that explanation.

Ks—I am not well versed in this literature, so I would prefer not to hear any "high theory" stuff. I believe that if you are able to clearly establish a link to the aff/plan mechanism you will be in a pretty good position. Alternatives should also provide a specific option or worldview that I can advocate as opposed to simply rejecting the aff. 

CPs—I’m not really a fan of process (condition or consult) CPs. I believe that competition is generated from the plan, not necessarily ‘immediacy’ or ‘certainty’. 

A)    Conditionality is fine if you’re reading 2 advocacies, anything beyond that gets a little iffy.

B)    Other CP theory arguments will generally not be a reason to reject the team.

DAs—The most important issue here is that your disad makes sense. If there are logical holes in your story, the affirmative doesn’t need to have a card to point them out. Comparative impact calculus goes a long way.

Case—My favorite kinds of debate generally involve case defense and a disadvantage/case turns. When extending case arguments, be sure to explain the warrants of your evidence and compare them to that of your opponent. The winner of these debates generally isn’t the team that reads more cards, but the one who can explain and apply the cards they read best.  

I’m happy to answer any other specific questions you may have.

Have fun. Be respectful. Compete.

**Online update: if my camera is off, i am not there**

I think debate is a game with educational benefits. I will listen to anything, but there are obviously some arguments that are more persuasive than others. i think this is most of what you're looking for:

1. arguments - For me to vote on an argument it must have a claim, warrant, and impact. A claim is an assertion of truth or opinion. A warrant is an analytical connection between data/grounds/evidence and your claim. An impact is the implication of that claim for how I should evaluate the debate. debate is competitive and adversarial, not cooperative. My bias is that debate strategies should be evidence-centric and, at a minimum, rooted in an academic discipline. My bias is that I do not want to consider anything prior to the reading of the 1AC when making my decision.

2. more on that last sentence - i am uninterested and incapable of resolving debates based on questions of character based on things that occurred outside of the debate that i am judging. if it is an issue that calls into question the safety of yourself or others in the community, you should bring that issue up directly with the tournament director or relevant authorities because that is not a competition question. if you are having an interpersonal dispute, you should try resolving your conflict outside of a competitive space and may want to seek mediation from trained professionals. there are likely exceptions, but there isnt a way to resolve these things in a debate round.

3. framework - arguments need to be impacted out beyond the word 'fairness' or 'education'. affirmatives do not need to read a plan to win in front of me. however, there should be some connection to the topic. fairness *can be* a terminal impact.

4. critiques - they should have links to the plan or have a coherent story in the context of the advantages. i am less inclined to vote neg for broad criticisms that arent contextualized to the affirmative. a link of omission is not a link. similarly, affirmatives lose debates a lot just because their 2ac is similarly generic and they have no defense of the actual assumptions of the affirmative.

5. counterplans - should likely have solvency advocates but its not a dealbreaker. slow down when explaining tricks in the 2nc.

6. theory - more teams should go for theory more often. negatives should be able to do whatever they want, but affirmatives need to be able to go for theory to keep them honest.

7. topicality - its an evidentiary issue that many people impact poorly. predictable limits, not ground, is the controlling internal link for most T-related impacts. saying 'we lose the [insert argument]' isnt really an impact without an explanation of why that argument is good. good debates make comparative claims between aff/neg opportunities to win relative to fairness.

8. clipping - i sometimes read along with speeches if i think that you are clipping. i will prompt you if i think you are clipping and if i think you are still clipping i will vote against you even if the other team doesnt issue an ethics challenge.

9. 2nr/2ar - there are lots of moving parts in debate. if you disagree with how i approach debate or think about debate differently, you should start your speech with judge instruction that provides an order of operations or helps construct that ballot. teams too often speak in absolute certainties and then presume the other team is winning no degree of offense. that is false and you will win more debates if you can account for that in your speech.

10. keep track of your own time.

unapologetically stolen from brendan bankey's judge philosophy as an addendum because there is no reason to rewrite it:

---"Perm do the counterplan" and "perm do the alt" are claims that are often unaccompanied by warrants. I will not vote for these statements unless the aff explains why they are theoretically legitimate BEFORE the 2AR. I am most likely to vote for these arguments when the aff has 1) a clear model of counterplan/alternative competition AND 2) an explanation for where the

I would prefer that debaters engage arguments instead of finesse their way out of links. This is especially awful when it takes place in clash debates. If you assert your opponent's offense does not apply when it does I will lower your speaker points.

In that vein, it is my bias that if an affirmative team chooses not to say "USFG Should" in the 1AC that they are doing it for competitive reasons. It is, definitionally, self-serving. Self-serving does not mean the aff should lose [or that its bad necessarily], just that they should be more realistic about the function of their 1AC in a competitive activity. If the aff does not say "USFG Should" they are deliberately shifting the point of stasis to other issues that they believe should take priority. It is reciprocal, therefore, for the negative to use any portion of the 1AC as it's jumping off point.

I think that limits, not ground, is the controlling internal link for most T-related impacts. Ground is an expression of the division of affirmative and negative strategies on any given topic. It is rarely an independent impact to T. I hate cross-examination questions about ground. I do not fault teams for being unhelpful to opponents that pose questions in cross-examination using the language of ground. People commonly ask questions about ground to demonstrate to the judge that the aff has not really thought out how their approach to the resolution fosters developed debates. A better, more precise question to ask would be: "What are the win conditions for the negative within your model of competition?"

I did policy debate at UNLV for four years. I'm in my last semester of law school at UNLV. While I read everything except pomo in my career, I ended my career focusing on traditional policy arguments. I am open to all types of arguments. I'm a bit pursuaded by t/fw, but ultimately i think it comes down the debating done in the round.

K's - I think the only thing worth mentioning is that I have a high threshold for the explanation of the alt (how it solves, what it does, etc). I believe that the best k's are the ones that genuinely interact with the aff. Debate is a game of clash. I think the threshold for alt solvency has dropped far too much in the past couple of years.

Negative strategy – I believe in preserving maximum strategic and theoretical flexibility for negative teams. I don’t believe contradictions are a bad thing early in the debate, as long as the negative block and the 2nr is consistent. Edit: I think k perf con often justifies perm do the alt, especially when the framing on the k is a question of epistemology / scholarship


CPs—The text of the CP (and all perms) should be written out, and I hold them to as high a standard as I do the affirmative plan. I do not think that a negative team should be afraid to CP in the 2NC (it is a constructive, aff gets a CX, and the risk of a straight turn in the 1AR should check any abuse). These 2NC counter plans could be used to make external impact turns or uniqueness takeouts go away.

T- I'm going to steal this from Matt Gomez because I agree with him:
IMPACT YOUR STANDARDS. Education, ground, and fairness are internal links. Decision-making, Advocacy, and research skills are impacts.
Affirmative team: Counter standards and tell me what affs they'd eliminate from the topic and why those affs are good.
Negative Team: What affs do they allow, why are they bad, what affs do you allow, why does that resolve their impacts.

DA's - DA's are awesome.

LD -- I really enjoy an in-depth value/vc debate. If you tell me to evaluate the debate a certain way and have offensive reasons for why that's good; i'll do it. I think it's strategic in framing out offense.

I feel like the best type of debaters to these things consistently:
a) Consistently compare evidence—“our evidence on X argument is better than theirs for the following reasons.” These reasons may include, but are not limited to qualifications, recency, history is on our side, more complete/better warrants, etc.
b) Saying things like, “even if you don’t believe that we are winning argument X, we still win the debate, because…”
c) Consistently engage in effective impact comparison
d) Remember that defensive arguments are still important
e) Be deep on offensive arguments. A few well developed arguments in the block are typically better than 7 or 8 shallowly developed arguments.
f) Are unafraid to make logical arguments forcefully, without necessarily using “cards” as evidence.

Green Valley High School '14

University of Nevada Las Vegas; Cornell University '18

I've debated for four years in high school (a brief stint in LD before 3 years in policy) and 2 years in college. I also spent some time as an assistant coach for Green Valley HS. 

Updates  

I've felt my ideological beliefs slightly shift. To summarize this pedagogical transition, I offer the following analogy: If two teams of equal caliber are debating where the affirmative defends a straight-up 1AC against a Kritikal 2NR, I probably see myself voting Affirmative 53-47. Similarly, if two equally skilled teams have a Framework/T debate then I see myself going Negative 53-47. 

Not Much Time? Read this!

Just do you and don’t worry. I will listen to and evaluate whatever you may want to read. I've gone for arguments across the argumentative spectrum on both the affirmative and the negative. I'll be happy to answer any specific questions in person or by email. 

Miscellaneous

If there is an email chain, I would like to be a part of it, my email is Bhatti.DebateJudging@gmail.com 

Debate is first and foremost a communication activity between the speaker and the judge. As your judge changes from round to round I believe it is necessary to adapt your argumentative style to resonate with the judge. A lapse in effective communication can potentially decide the round. That may mean include from slowing down, staying clear, remaining organized, or ensuring your explanations are top notch. 

I generally default to tech over truth. This means that I also evaluate the debate from a very line-by-line perspective. It will be very hard to convince me that I should adopt a different lens for evaluating the debate.

I will strike new arguments from my flow if they are explicitly pointed out and deligitimized.

I’m a fan of unconventional deployment of the spin zone.

No prep for flashing unless, during the round, things become out of hand.

Aggressive argumentation is good; being rude is not.

I’ll kick the CP or the Alt for you only if explicitly told to do so; cover all your bases.

Evidence comparison is paramount to good debates.

I have a low threshold for dismissing your silly argumets (ex. Justice League CP) and a high threshold for voting on them.

No Buenos

Accusations of clipping evidence are serious. If you have clipped, or if you have incorrectly accused someone of clipping, you will receive 0 speaker points and a loss. Don't make me adjudicate this and if you do, make sure you have proof.

Stealing prep-time isn’t cool, the game is fun because you’re supposed to be under a time crunch while competing. Adrenaline is where it’s at.

Specifics! 

Disadvantages

Probably the best part about debate. Topic specific and case specific DA’s make for the best debates, but politics is cool too. Specific and unique link analysis is definitely preferred over your core generics. Impact calculus, turns case, and other framing issue arguments can swing debates dramatically. Make my job easy and compartmentalize areas on the flow well. 

Counterplans

The second best part about debate. There is probably some fine line between reading as many (including planks) as you want and making it impossibly hard for the affirmative but being negative is hard. I guess my general rule would be the more specific your counterplans are in relation to the aff the less I am inclined to care about conditionality. If there is a scenario where a 2AC undercovers a not-so-specific 1NC that may be excessive in terms of number of counterplans, I'm sympathetic to a 1AR's recovery.

Solvency advocates are bueno but even better are counterplans with solvency advocates written by affirmative authors. Net benefits need to be clearly articulated. PIC’s are strategic and inevitable but if they result in the entirety of the 1AC then you’re in some dangerous theoretical waters. Advantage CP's are poppin'.

With regards to competition: Consult and delay CP’s aren’t the most persuasive. Agent and process CP's are slightly more acceptable. With these arguments, the more specific your solvency advocate the better. Be prepared to theoretically defend them well and clearly. 

Case

I love in-depth and heavily researched case debates. Analytical arguments can suffice in taking out whackier advantages. I'm willing to vote on 0% risk of the affirmative if the work is put in - BUT you'll have to put up a conclusive and thoroughly convincing effort. Point out the flaws and inconsistencies in the 1AC's evidence and internal link chains as early as possible. You can't always be specific and I get that, this is where top notch comparison and utilizing the spin zone come in. If you pressure the affirmative significantly on case in the block, I'm not very sympathetic to a 1AR that brushes over the case debate. 

Theory

More than anywhere else in the debate, it is imperative that you slow down during the theory debate. Besides egregious examples of conditionality, most theory arguments hardly ever warrant rejecting the team. I will, however, evaluate warranted analysis that is specific and thorough. That being said, conditionality is generally cool (being negative is hard), but the more conditional positions you read, the less cool it becomes. Shady and tricky theory can be fun and strategic; obviously, do not default to these arguments as your round winners before the debate starts. If you ARE banking on these arguments for whatever reason, it is your best interest to do whatever you can to make sure I flow everything and have a clear picture of what's happening (i.e. slow down, be clear, be concise). 

Topicality

Technical decisions and miscues most heavily impact my decision in T debates. That being said, it is of the highest significance that both sides are clear in their articulation of framing their meta-level impact issues on what is evaluated first (for example, why I should evaluate education over fairness OR why your definitions/interpretations should be the lens through which I frame the round). When going for Topicality, you should make my job easier by having a very structured and highly organized 2NR. 

Framework

Meta-level framing issues that are better fleshed out by a team will probably be the ones deciding the debate. Make sure your impact claims interact with your opponents. Non-state based framework and T arguments are highly strategic. Fairness IS an impact in and of itself (structural and procedural fairness are different). I probably think debate is primarily a game that has added benefits. I can definitely be convinced otherwise but I advise you to be very prepared to respond to the procedural impact level claims that result from debate being viewed as a game. Explanations of why dialogue, agonism, ideas-testing, skill, etc. turn case, prevent solvency, or come first in my decision calclus are absolutely necessary for winning the debate. When going for institution-style framework, be prepared with specific examples and evidence that prove institutions can be used to resolve the impact claims of the affirmative.

Kritiks

A large portion of my career has consisted of Kritikal debate. That being said let me say this:  

Different authors discuss and use similar terminology in different ways. Do not expect me to already know your buzzwords, fundamental critical theory, or other shenanigans. This does NOT mean that you shouldn’t read your argument if you think it will win you the round - it simply means you might need to go the extra mile of giving a more thorough explanation of what your buzzwords mean to ensure everything connects. Just remember I evaluate your argumentation and explanation – not my own prior knowledge of your argument. 

I honestly don't mind 'generic' K's, but the more specific they are the better position you'll be in. I'm fine voting on just the framework portion of the K. Thorough link analysis is your friend. 

Kritikal Affirmatives

I respect the decision of reading an affirmative that doesn’t affirm the topic or defend a plan text. I often read these types of affirmatives and understand their strategic benefit. I do believe that the affirmative should have something to do with the resolution and annual topic. If your affirmative is substantially outside the scope of the topic you have an uphill battle ahead of you. If your affirmative has largely nothing to do with the topic, regardless of the importance of the subject matter, I am not the judge for you.

Speaker Points

I probably give higher speaker points than the average judge. I evaluate strategy and execution first and foremost. This does, however, include clarity, ability to coherently explain your position, and argument structure. 

Your jokes will be evaluated on the following scale:

[+.2] Incorporation of well explained, specific stories that I might know about

[+.1] General references about people I went to school/debated/might associate with

[+.1] Jokes about me

[+.1] Witty remarks that reflect intelligence

[+.1] {Friendly} Quips directed towards your partner or opponents

Additionally, if you happen to mention certain mystery subjects, you will not only net yourself some extra speaker points, but also a coveted, eternal spot on this page with the date and tournament corresponding to the accomplishment.

[+.1] Huskies - November 1, 2014, Round 5, The Meadows Tournament, Elliot Kovnick and Jaden Lessnick

[+.1] ???

[+.1] ???

[+.1] ???

[+.1] ???

*Bonus points cap at a combined maximum of [+.3] and may deviate [-.1] based on your jokes.

Officially dragged back into the activity by the pandemic. I'm doing some administrative work for the Sacramento Urban Debate League. Don't expect to find me on your pref sheet but feel free to contact me at sarabeth@sudl.org if you have research questions.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Officially retired. Feel free to contact me with research questions but I'm no longer actively involved in the activity. - May 2019

.

.

.

.

.

I debated policy for 5 years in college and qualified twice to the NDT for UNLV. I coached policy for College Prep (Oakland) for 3 years, and policy for Wake Forest for a year.

I also have several years of high school public forum experience and occasionally judge and coach those debates, but I am not actively coaching the 2018-2019 topics.

A little more about me: white, crip[pled], queer, femme, she/her or they/them pronouns.

Three Important Things

a. If you need to communicate an access issue to me before the debate, please send me an email before the round. This is a private way for you to give me information that you do not want to share with the entire room (for example, if nonverbal communication isn't accessible to you).

b. I have an auditory processing disorder. I can flow fast, technical debate but please do not sacrifice clarity for speed. If I have to call clear repeatedly, I will just stop flowing. If music is a part of your arguments please turn the volume down a bit so that I can hear you (I understand that music/audio are important and vital to certain argumentation; you do not have to turn it off -- just adjust the volume in front of me).

c. I will listen to almost anything, with a couple of caveats; I am not interested in hearing arguments like racism good or rape good, etc, or in hearing arguments or jokes about suicide. Also if appropriating culture or literature that doesn't belong to you is the strat, please don't pref me.

Everything Else

Debate is a communicative activity. Pick an argument and defend it, and answer the other team's arguments. Be persuasive. Make claims, back them up with warrants, and please compare impacts. Make jokes. Speaker points will go up. Cards are good, contextual analysis using cards is better, comparative claims contextualized to the evidence in the round is best. I don't read much evidence so don't count on me to read the 16 cards you shadow extend in the rebuttal; it is your job to tell me why a few of them tip the debate in your direction.

As a competitor I read everything from elections to Baudrillard, but had the most competitive success with structural criticisms about ableism and disability. I valued fast, technical debate and I appreciate and understand those debates. I also did performance debate for a year and have read a lot of critical race theory, critical disability studies/crip studies, gender/queer theory, and colonialism literature. Yes I will vote on in-round rhetoric arguments, so do not use racist/cissexist/ableist/homophobic/transphobic language. I will be very persuaded by a well-constructed argument about it from the other side.

I like all different styles of debate, so read arguments you are comfortable with and I will do my best to evaluate the debate in front of me. Speaker points are almost always between 28 and 29, adjusted for division; above or below indicates a unique round. Please remember that I am an imperfect being in the service of the imperfect god of debate, but I do promise to be attentive, work hard to understand your arguments, and try to give an RFD focused on education and how to improve for the future. One last thing: I give long RFDs, #sorrynotsorry.

1. I believe the topic is a hypothesis that is to be tested by argument and analysis during the specific round in which I am assigned to critique. I focus, generally, on line-by-line analysis of the arguments and analysis generated by each team to determine which side did the proverbial "better job of debating." I typically render my decisions based on the positions taken in constructive arguments and advanced through rebuttals. I welcome and invite debaters to provide me with the frameworks and meta-analysis needed to render a decision, but, in the final analysis, I rely on the arguments on the flow and how they are developed in each round. I depend on evidence-based argument as a general rule, but am also open to analysis and strategic constructs which may arise in any particular round. The following may be helpful to in-round participants. I also welcome queries from the in-round participants so long as no attempt is being made to "pre-condition" my ballot.

2. T - When I debated in HS and College, T was "the last refuge of the damned." I have a very high bar for T because I think limiting the topic limits creativity in argument. Also, because I am a lawyer and not necessarily connected to the debate community I don't have the credibility to limit research outside of a debate coach's perogative. In the past, I have rarely balloted on T. I will, however, "pull the trigger" when T arguments are mishandled. With respect to extra-T, I tend to give a little more
"love" to such claims when linked to a specific violation.

3. Counterplans - I tend to be somewhat conservative with C-Plans. I tend to require that they be 1) non-topical, 2) competitive, and 3) provide some net benefit. I perfer that C-Plans are solvent with evidence independent of the affirmative. That being said, I have balloted for topical c-plans, and have balloted for net benefit c-plans. I have also balloted for partial c-plans (not completely solving the aff harm area).

4. K - Affs - I find critical affs interesting and will ballot when they carry the day. To defeat a critical aff, I tend to require specific evidence taking out the authors or positions advanced. As for Neg K, I am generally open to them but usually require some impact analysis - with evidence, please, that overcomes the affirmative.

5. DA - With respect to DA's, I need intrinsic and extrinsic links to some type of terminal impact to ballot. If the links are weak, you need to explain things to me in late rebuttals - althought it's never to early to start this process.

6. I do try to line up and compare analysis and argument at the end of the round to reach my decision, but the more help you give me, the more likely I will find in your favor.

7. The same holds true for LD and POFO debates that I witness.
8. I flow cross-ex and hold teams to the positions they take.

email= rbuscho59@gmail.com

Rachel Carlson

Juan Diego 2014

TOC Quailfier, Women's Debate Institute Collegiate Scholar 

Coached by; Josh Clark, Tony Johnson 

I was a primarily a 2N/1A. 

I am now an assistant coach for Juan Diego. 

I like debates on both sides of the ideological divide. I myself have forwarded arguments from a wide range of stylings, from feminism to hegemony. As long as your argument has a clear claim, warrant, and impact I am willing to vote on it. 

If I don't understand the argument you are trying to make, the chances of me evaluating it are slim. Take a second to ask yourself "is this coherent?" before you make an argument. Too many debaters stop the argument creation process at identifying what they need to say, and forget how important it is to find an effective way to say it.

Specificity is key. I am compelled to vote for contextual examples, in-depth refutation and historical examples. I reward specific strategies and research with higher speaker points. 

Quality over quantity. I appreciate the teams that can overwhelm the line by line with original insights or analysis that comes from a few (longer) cards. This applies to any quadrant of the ideological spectrum, from politics uniqueness to critique links 
I will work very hard as a critic. My biggest pet-peeve when I debated were judges that didn't respect the time and effort that went into preparing for debates. I will be excited to judge you and provide (hopefully insightful) feedback. 
Paperless transition of evidence will NOT be timed. 
Alternative use time if all debaters want. 
Cutting cards during the debate is okay. 
Receiving coaching is not. Or clipping cards. Or stealing an obnoxious amount of prep. 
Be Nice. I have no tolerance for discrimantory language, gestures, or actions. Have fun, learn lots. 

If you have questions, feel free to ask. 

P.S. Here is a reward if you are still reading... Cat puns in rebutals will earn extra speaker points. With a .5 ceiling. 

Affiliation: Clackamas High School

Competitive experience: 2 years of NPDA (college parli), 1 year of CEDA (college policy)

Coaching/Judging experience: 6 years of NPDA coaching with 45-60 rounds judged per year, 10 years coaching high school policy

Pronouns: He/him

Post the order in the zoom chat ((especially when someone is afk) credit to Wichita BM and Gerrit Hansen for this one)

I’m into philosophy. It was my major for my decade-long undergrad, so that won’t change anytime soon.

I'm also a former law student focused on immigration, employment, and labor.

Although I have run topical affirmatives with a plan in the past, I have generally moved towards the critical as I have continued (From a Heg and Econ National Security Courts aff to Lovecraft performance and high theory).

In CEDA, I have gone for the Cap K with a Historical Materialism alt in every one of my 2NRs. This does not mean that I will automatically pick you up if you run it, but I will be familiar with most of the arguments and authors involved in that debate.

I have come to grips with the fact that I am not very good at evaluating Framework. This does NOT mean you shouldn't run it in front of me or go for it. I think Framework is a valuable debate to be had in most rounds and I encourage people to look at varying forms of this argument in debate. You should be aware, however, that I am not going to be able to fully appreciate the nuances of Framework arguments. It's really not you, it's me.

I hold a high regard for creativity in debate, both in strategy and style. In my mind, creativity is the reason debate is such a fantastic activity. I particularly like arguments that are novel, strange, or Weird.

I am also pretty expressive in round. If you notice me nodding my head or or making a face that suggests "Hey, that sounds reasonable" then that probably means I'm thinking that. If I look up in disgust or confusion, then that means I am probably experiencing one of those things.

All that being said, I am open to most any position or style so long as you can articulate why your arguments are preferable.

Also, feel free to find me outside of rounds and ask me about a round (please bring your flow or be specific about what went on in the round, I can only remember so much on demand) or about general arguments and strategies or whatever.

Clarity: I flow all speeches in the debate and I stick to that flow when making my decision. I will call clear if I can’t understand you. If you are still not understandable to me after I call clear twice, I will stop flowing what I cannot understand.

Clipping: If there is a challenge relating to clipping cards, it must be brought with video evidence. If a team has been shown to be clipping cards in my round; that team will receive a loss and the clipper will receive 0 speaker points for that round.

Email: forensicsresearchinstitute@gmail.com

Debate History

1 - Nevada Union (2009-2014)

2 - Weber U (2014-2015)

3 - UCO (2015-Present)

Round judged on Education topic: 4

Currently coaching Cabot

Helloooo! It is nice to see humbleness and kindness. I find it to be more important relative to debating because you might find yourself as far as a across the country from the person your debating, or in your dorm when you get to college. Just be nice, play friendly, but don't let that deter you from establishing the arg in a manner you usually do. Just don't be uncomfy.

Short Version:

To be honest, I think I could consider myself "flexible" in most regards. I think the best example of this is my ability to go for a Domestic PIC in one debate against Texas and then "T-Domestic" against the same team when they took it out against me 3 months later. So I think your 2NR on any argument will be okay.

I've been debating for a second now, but don't believe that I will be able to handle your queer deleuzian k of semiotic wounded attachments. I'm gonna need you to explain that one to me. Put simply: Just because I go for it doesn't mean I'm going to get your argument. I don't think about these arguments like a lot of debaters do, and a lot of my mentors aren't debaters. So there will for sure be disconnects. I think part of being that debater is being held to the standard of applying your argument, but that is generally true for all arguments. For example - "diseases cause extinction" is no more of an extension than "The subject is interpolated into a pretextual paradigm of discourse that includes consciousness as a paradox" (Literally taken from the post modern generator). 

Condense the 2NR, and frame the debate by the end of it. Same for the 2AR, but tell me what I need to do, why I should do it, and what the impact to that reason is.

Just have fun, remember what an argument is, and make funny references that are clever. 

Long Version - More about argumentative preferences.

First and foremost: anyone who tells you they're tabula rasa is lying almost as much as my coaches do when they say I'm good at debate. No one is tabula rasa. We were all predisposed in one way or another. Can we control that? No, because if we could the concept of "accountability" would be a wild one to think about. So, my job is to ensure that you know what ways my conscious, subconscious, and unconscious might lead when thinking about the debate.

Case - I actually have a lot of these, but I will be honest. I am the rare few that doesn't like a huge case debate. I think it is nice to have a separate flow to evaluate. Like, if it is a case debate against an aff without a plan. then hell yeah, I could go with that. If it is like a one off, 3 card cap K, and 7 minutes of case against an aff with a plan, then I might be thinking this is going to be interesting. Not because I dislike the nature of those debates, but so many people end up just reguritating the taglines that it ends up being 13 minutes of blips or card reading instead of comparative claims. I think so many of you are so so smart and super talented. In fact, I think probably all of you are, but I don't think you show it when you do this, and I just want you to give that 2NC, let the timer go off, and feel like Mr. Hotspot did when he first ate rap snacks with the migos on the front. 

T - I love a good topicality debate. I probably think that I shouldn't be the person deciding what's reasonable on the topic. I don't have a good track record, but I mean I need you to tell me why I shouldn't. If not, looks like some random aff on education about a specific military project in India is going to be topical. I don't wanna do it, but ya made me, and I'm telling you not to make me when we cross that bridge. I think my fav T strategy is a Small TVA, Huge Limits DA, and a heavy impact comparison. 

DA/CP - do it, don't go for the case if it solves 100% of the aff. Just win that it solves the aff with a tie breaker. I think comparative UQ claims about the NB are good ways to justify any impact to the DA to or for a solvency deficit to the CP. 

K - Most of this is above. I'll understand your argument, but I will not just let you throw buzzwords at me. I think the link needs context. I think it should quote their evidence. I think that the link should then explain the context based internal link to their impact argument. For instance - education policy results in militarism should be explained as why the research in this debate on education policy can inform the research algorithms we take from the debate to inform later research which materializes our ideological relationship to X event.

FW - I think there are some instances where they get to weigh the aff. I think it is REALLY easy to make the argument that the aff's internal link claims have some remote relation to the way we teach people about policy (it's literally the education topic - if your aff isn't already making a research argument, we should talk). TVA is less convincing that SSD and a limita DA - I think TVA is a CP in most instances. I think fw debaters tend to be kind of lazy when going for it, and I'm going to actively refuse those 2NRs. 

Overall, just do you. I'm here for two hours, want to help you learn, and to be honest, I'm actually super excited to see all of you debate. You all are awesome, talented, and your coaches stick around because of that. Just enjoy each other, and thank you for letting me sit in the back! 

2017-2018 Season

Background:

This year will be my 12th year in the activity. I debated for 3 years in high school at Puyallup High School (2006-2009) and 4 in college at Idaho State University (2009-2013).  

I have not been involved in college policy debate since the 2015 NDT. I am currently working with The University of Washington on a part-time basis. Gonzaga will be my first tournament, and I am a little bit behind on topic research as a result. This just means I may need a little time to catch up on key topic discussions and acronyms. As a judge, I think it is important to work hard to make the best possible decision in every debate I judge.

---

How I decide debates: I evaluate debates holistically, however I also try my best to keep a good flow of the debate, and use the flow for the basis for my decision. What does this mean for you? The best way to win my ballot is to frame the debate around central questions for the debate. I think both tech and truth is important, so winning larger thesis level claims , and then executing technically on the line-by-line are equally important.

Framework: While I used to have a higher threshold for framework, this is no longer the case. I think framework is an important tool for negative teams to use vs. non-topical/non traditional/non-fiat based affirmatives. If you have read this type of affirmative and don't have a good defense of it, you should lose. Reading an AFF just because it is important in the abstract is not a good enough reason to not talk about the topic. On the flip side, if you are going for framework, you should still be responsible for engaging the content of the affirmative. Also, having tangible impacts to your framework arguments is necessary to win these debates.

Counterplans: What is theoretically legitimate is open for debate. I try to enter the debate without any biases for what debaters should be allowed to talk about. With that being said, I probably still think that counterplans should have solvency advocates, compete in some capacity, and provide and opportunity cost to the affirmative. I think judge kick is stupid. I will do it if I am told to, but I am persuaded that 2N’s should have to think strategically and should be held accountable to their 2NR choice. AFF’s should exploit the difference between the CP and the AFF.

Disadvantages: I prefer to hear DA's that are specific to the AFF or that are a central to the topic. I think DA's paired with large case debates can be some of the most fascinating debates to watch. Controlling spin and having great evidence are two key factors to winning these debates in front of me.

K/Performance Debate: Controlling meta level questions for the debate is necessary. This is the type of debate that I have the most experience with. I rather see a debate where people are willing to defend something specific and generate offensive arguments from it rather then saying they are everything and nothing. You should be able to justify what you do. AFF’s should get permutations regardless of the type of debate that is happening (although like everything, I am open to hearing arguments on the other side. It just may require additional work to win this argument in front of me). Debate is a competition and negative teams have the burden of meeting some standard for competition. I don’t think the alt has to solve the AFF. I think the alt needs to at least resolve a substantial amount of the link to the AFF. I am less well read when it comes to high theory, especially psychoanalysis, so explanation is critical for me in these debates.

Other miscellaneous things:

• Flowing and good line by line debate is a lost art. You will be greatly rewarded if you do good line by line debate.
• Bad embedded clash is almost impossible to follow and I probably won't get arguments where they should be. 
• Most of the time I keep a pretty good flow and I have typically found that my flow reflects the quality of the debate in terms of efficiency and debate technique. 
• Framework vs. framing – to me, framework is what should be allowed in the debate, and framing is what impacts should come first. I think these two things often times become conflated. To me, unless otherwise stated, the role of the ballot, judge, etc.. are all just impact framing issues.
• Aff framework vs. the K is silly and neither team is going to generate traction in front of me spending substantial time here.
• I am a strong believer in high evidence quality. Research is one of the most important parts of debate. This is tricky for me because I don’t read a lot of evidence, however I do think that high evidence quality should be rewarded. If I happen to read some of your evidence or you are really trying to get evidence in my hand, you should make sure it is good.
• Debate is fun. I hope that you debate because you love this activity. I also like judging debates when debaters are intelligent, witty, funny, and engaged. I have zero tolerance for people that destroy the pedagogical values of this activity or that make this activity an unsafe, violent, or unpleasant space for other participants.  

cadecottrell@gmail.com

Updated February 2024

Yes I know my philosophy is unbearably long. I keep adding things without removing others, the same reason I was always top heavy when I debated. But I tried to keep it organized so hopefully you can find what you need, ask me questions if not.

For the few college tournaments I judge, understand that my philosophy is geared towards being of use to high school students since that is the vast, vast majority of my judging/coaching. Just use that as a filter when reading.

Seriously, I don't care what you read as long as you do it well. I really don't care if you argue that all K debaters should be banned from debate or argue that anyone who has ever read a plan is innately racist and should be kicked out of the community. If you win it, I'm happy to vote for it.

***Two Minutes Before A Debate Version***

I debated in high school for a school you've never heard of called Lone Peak, and in college for UNLV. I coached Green Valley High School, various Las Vegas schools, as well as helping out as a hired gun at various institutions. I have debated at the NDT, was nationally competitive in high school, and coached a fair share of teams to the TOC if those things matter for your pref sheet (they shouldn't). I genuinely don't have a big bias for either side of the ideological spectrum. I seem to judge a fairly even mix of K vs K, Clash of Civs, and policy debates. I can keep up with any speed as long as its clear, I will inform you if you are not, although don't tread that line because I may miss arguments before I speak up. If you remain unclear I just won't flow it.

Sometimes I look or act cranky. I love debate and I love judging, so don't take it too seriously.

My biases/presumptions (but can of course be persuaded otherwise):

- Tech over Truth, but Logic over Cards

- Quality and Quantity are both useful.

- Condo is generally good

- Generic responses to the K are worse than generic K's

- Politics and States are generally theoretically legitimate (and strategic)

- Smart, logical counterplans don't necessarily need solvency advocates, especially not in the 1NC

- #Team1%Risk

- 2NC's don't read new off case positions often enough

- I believe in aff flexibility (read: more inclusive interpretations of what's topical) more than almost anyone I know. That is demonstrated in almost every aff I've read or coached.

- I'll vote for "rocks are people" if you win it (warrant still needed). Terrible arguments are easily torn apart, but that's the other team's duty, not mine.

***

A Few Notes You Should Know:

Speaker Points: Firstly, I compare my speaker points to the mean after almost every tournament, so I try to stay in line with the community norm. I have had a dilemma with speaker points, and have recently changed my view. I think most judges view speaker points as a combination of style and substance, with one being more valuable than the other depending on the judge. I have found this frustrating as both a debater and coach trying to figure what caused a judge to give out the speaks they did. So I've decided to give out speaker points based solely on style rather than substance. I feel whichever team wins the substance of the debate will get my ballot so you are already rewarded, so I am going to give out speaker points based on the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of a debater. Logos implies you are still extending good, smart arguments, but it just means that I won't tank speaks based off of technical drops (like floating pics, or a perm, etc) as some judges do, and I won't reward a team's speaker points for going for those arguments if I feel they are worse "speakers", the ballot is reward enough. Functionally all it means is that I probably give more low-point wins than some judges (about one a tournament), but at least you know why when looking at cume sheets after tournaments.

Debate is a rhetorical activity. This means if you want me to flow an argument, it must be intelligible, and warranted. I will not vote on an argument I do not have on my flow in a previous speech. I am a decent flow so don't be too scared but it means that if you are planning on going for your floating pic, a specific standard/trick on theory, a permutation that wasn't answered right in the block, etc. then you should make sure I have that argument written down and that you have explained it previously with sufficient nuance. I might feel bad that I didn't realize you were making a floating pic in the block, but only briefly, and you'll feel worse because ultimately it is my responsibility to judge based off of what is on my flow, so make those things clear. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

(*Update: This is no longer true in online debate tournaments, I look through docs because of potential clairty/tech issues*: I don't look at speech docs during debates except in rare instances. I read much less evidence after debates than most judges, often none at all. If you want me to read evidence, please say so, but also please tell me what I'm looking for. I prefer not to read evidence, so when I do after a round it means one of three things: 1. The debate is exceedingly close and has one or two issues upon which I am trying to determine the truth (rare). 2. You asked me to read the evidence because "its on fire" (somewhat common and potentially a fire hazard). 3. The debate was bad enough that I am trying to figure out what just happened.)

Prep time: I generally let teams handle their own prep, I do prefer if you don't stop prep until the email is sent. Doing so will make me much happier. If you are very blatantly stealing prep, I might call you out on it, or it might affect speaker points a little.

***

Neg: I am very much in favor of depth over breadth. Generally that doesn't affect how I feel about large 1NC's but it means I find myself thinking "I wish they had consolidated more in the block" quite often, and almost never the opposite. If you don't consolidate much, you might be upset with the leeway I give to 1AR/2AR explanations. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate. Pick your best arguments and go to battle.

DA's: I love in-depth disad debates. Teams that beat up on other teams with large topic disads usually have one of two things: A. A large number of pre-written blocks B. A better understanding of the topic than their opponents. If you have both, or the latter, I'll quite enjoy the debate. If you only have the former, then you can still get the ballot but not as much respect (or speaker points). Small disads very specific to the aff are awesome. Small disads that are small in order to be unpredictable are not. I am of the "1% risk" discipline assuming that means the disad is closely debated. I am not of that discipline if your disad is just silly and you are trying to win it is 1% true, know the difference.

CP's: I have a soft spot for tricky counterplans. That doesn't mean I think process/cheating counterplans are legitimate, that just means I'll leave my bias at the door more than most judges if you get into a theory debate. That said, theory is won or lost through explanation, not through having the largest blocks. Generally I think counterplans should be functionally and textually competitive, that doesn't mean you can't win of yours isn't, it just means if it is then you probably have some theoretical high ground. I also think if you have a specific solvency advocate for the counterplan (meaning a piece of evidence that advocates doing the counterplan, not just evidence that says the counterplan "is a thing" [I'm looking at you, Consult CP people]) you should utilize that both as a solvency argument and as a theoretical justification for the counterplan. I am neutral on the judge kick question. If you want me to judge kick, say so in the 2NR/2NC, and if you don't then say so in the 1AR/2AR, that's an argument to be had. However, if no one makes an argument either way, my default is if the 2NR is DA, CP, Case, then I think there is an implicit assumption in that strategy that the squo is an option. If the 2NR is only CP & DA, I think the implicit assumption is aff vs. CP. Advantage counterplans are vastly underutilized. Logical counterplans probably don't need solvency advocates.

T: I think the way reasonability is construed is sad and a disservice to the argument. I perceive competing interpretations as a question of whose interpretation sets the best standard for all future debate, and reasonability as a question of whether the aff harmed the negative's fairness/education in this specific round. Under that interpretation (Caveat: This assumes you are explaining reasonability in that fashion, usually people do not). I tend to lean towards reasonability since I think T should be a check against aff's that try to skirt around the topic, rather than as a catch-all. T is to help guarantee the neg has predictable ground. I've voted neg a few times when the aff has won their interp is technically accurate but the neg has won their interp is better for fairness/limits/ground, but that's mostly because I think that technical accuracy/framer's intent is an internal link, rather than an impact. Do the additional work.

Theory: This is a discussion of what debate should look like, which is one of the most simple questions to ask ourselves, yet people get very mixed up and confused on theory since we are trained to be robots. I LOVE theory debates where the debaters understand debate well enough to just make arguments and use clash, and HATE debates where the debaters read blocks as fast as possible and assume people can flow that in any meaningful fashion (very few can, I certainly can't. Remember, I don't have the speech doc open). I generally lean negative on theory questions like condo (to a certain extent) and CP theory args, but I think cp's should be textually, and more importantly, functionally competitive, see above.

Framework/T against Non-Traditional Aff's: I have read and gone for both the Procedural Fairness/T version of this argument and the State Action Good/Framework version of this argument many times. I am more than willing to vote for either, and I also am fine with teams that read both and then choose one for the 2NR. However, I personally am of the belief that fairness is not an impact in and of itself but is an internal link to other impacts. If you go for Fairness as your sole impact you may win, but adequate aff answers to it will be more persuasive in front of me. Fairness as the only impact assumes an individual debate is ultimately meaningless, which while winnable, is the equivalent of having a 2NR against a policy aff that is solely case defense, and again I'm by default #1%RiskClub. "Deliberation/dialogue/nuanced discussion/role switching is key to ____________" sorts of arguments are usually better in front of me. As far as defending US action, go for it. My personal belief is that the US government is redeemable and reformable but I am also more than open to voting on the idea that it is not, and these arguments are usually going straight into the teeth of the aff's offense so use with caution. TVA's are almost essential for a successful 2NR unless the aff is clearly anti-topical and you go for a nuanced switch side argument. TVA's are also most persuasive when explained as a plan text and what a 1AC looks like, not just a nebulous few word explanation like "government reform" or "A.I. to solve patriarchy". I like the idea of an interp with multiple net benefits and often prefer a 1NC split onto 3-4 sheets in order to separate specific T/FW arguments. If you do this, each should have a clear link (which is your interp), an internal link and impact. Lastly, I think neg teams often let affs get away with pre-requisite arguments way too much, usually affs can't coherently explain why reading their philosophy at the top of the 1AC and then ending with a plan of action doesn't fulfill the mandates of their pre-requisite.

K's: These are the best and worst debates. The bad ones tend to be insufferable and the good ones tend to be some of the most engaging and thought provoking. Sadly, most debaters convince themselves they fall into the latter when they are the former so please take a good, long look in the mirror before deciding which you fall under. I have a broad knowledge of K authors, but not an in depth one on many, so if you want to go for the K you better be doing that work for me, I won't vote for anything that I don't totally understand BEFORE reading evidence, because I think that is a key threshold any negative should meet (see above), so a complex critical argument can be to your advantage or disadvantage depending on how well you explain it. I also think the framing args for the K need to be impacted and utilized, that in my opinion is the easiest way to get my ballot (unless you turn case or win a floating pic). In other words, if you can run the K well, do it, if not, don't (at least not in the 2NR).

Edit: I think it usually helps to know what the judge knows about your critique, so this list below may help be a guide:

I feel very comfortable with, know the literature, and can give good feedback on: Nietzsche, Wilderson, Moten (& Harney), Security, Neoliberalism, Historical Materialism, Colonialism (both Decoloniality and Postcolonialism), Fem IR, Deleuze and Guattari (at least relative to most).

I have both debated and read these arguments, but still have gaps in my knowledge and may not know all the jargon: Hillman, Schmitt, Edelman, Zizek cap args, Agamben, Warren, Ableism, Kristeva, Heidegger, Orientalism, Virillio, Lacan, Anthro, Ligotti, Bataille, settler colonialism metaphysics arguments.

ELI5: Baudrillard, postmodern feminism arguments, Killjoy, Bifo, Zizek psychoanalysis, Object Oriented Ontology, Spanos, Buddhism, Taoism, your specific strain of "cybernetics", probably anything that isn't on these lists but ask first.

***

Aff:

Bad aff teams wait til the 2AR to decide what their best arguments are against a position. Good aff teams have the round vision to make strategic choices in the 1AR and exploit them in the 2AR. Great aff teams have the vision to create a comprehensive strategy going into the 2AC. That doesn't mean don't give yourself lots of options, it just means you should know what arguments are ideally in the 2AR beforehand and you should adapt your 2AC based off of the 1NC as a whole. Analytical arguments in a 2AC are vastly underused.

Non-Traditional Affirmatives: I'm fine with these. They don't excite me any more or less than a topical aff. I think the key to these aff's is always framing. Both because negatives often go for framework but also because it is often your best tool against their counter-advocacy/K. I often am more persuaded by Framework/T when the aff is antitopical, rather than in the direction of the resolution, but I've voted to the contrary of that frequently enough. This won't affect the decision but I'll enjoy the aff more if it is very specific (read: relevant/jermaine/essential) to the topic, or very personal to yourself, it annoys me when people read non-traditional aff's just to be shady. Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

Answering K's: It is exceedingly rare that the neg can't win a link to their K. That doesn't mean you shouldn't question the link by any means, permutations are good ways to limit the strength of neg offense, but it means that impact turning the K/alternative is very often a better strategy than going for a link turn and permutation for 5 minutes in the 2AR. I think this is a large reason why aff's increasingly have moved further right or further left, because being stuck in the middle is often a recipe for disaster. That said, being able to have a specific link turn or impact turn to the K that is also a net benefit to the permutation while fending against the most offensive portions of negative link arguments are some of the best 2AR's.

Last Notes:

I prefer quality over quantity of arguments. If you only need a minute in the 2NR/2AR then just use a minute, cover up any outs, and finish. I believe in the mercy rule in that sense. I will vote against teams that clip and give the culprit 0 speaker points, however I believe in the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt", so be certain before levying accusations and make sure to have a recording. (Explicitly tell me that you want to issue a clipping challenge, I've had debaters email me and I don't see it, or wait until after the debate. Don't do that.)

I'll give you +.1 speaker points if you can tell me what phrase appears the most in my philosophy. Because it shows you care, you want to adapt to your judge, and maybe because I'm a tad narcissistic.

Things I like:
- A+ Quality Evidence (If you have such a card, and you explain why its better than the 3+ cards the other team read, I accept that more willingly than other judges)

- Brave (strategic) 1AR/2AR decisions

- Politics disads that turn each advantage

- If you are behind, I'd much rather you cheat/lie/steal (maybe not steal, and cheat within reason) than give up. If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'.

- Neg blocks that only take 1-2 flows and just decimate teams.

- Controlling the "spin" of arguments (I'll give a lot of leeway)

- Red Bull/Monster/M&M's (Bringing me any of these will make me happy, me being happy generally correlates to higher speaker points)

Things I don't like:
- Not knowing how to send speech docs in a timely manner!

- Debaters that act like they are of superior intelligence compared to their partner/opponents

- Reading arguments with little value other than trying to blindside teams (timecube, most word pics, etc.) Being shady RARELY pays off in debate.

- Being unclear

- Horses (Stop acting like they're so goddamn majestic, they're disgusting)

- Toasted Coconut

I have 10+ years of policy debate experience as a competitor, coach, and judge.  My own view of debate have changed as I started as a CP/Da debater and am now very appreicate of innovative affirmatives and negatives.  Without being too cheesy debate is about education and critical thinking meaning that the debate space is a safe space. I believe that the debate space is a space where change can occur, and think that debaters have an obligation to push the social justice agenda.  I don't define what this is, but allow you to work on your own engagement on the issues that matter to you.   

Having spent time in other formats as a coach and judge I tend to prefer "manner" more than other judges, not necessarily in the speech but how you present yourself in round.  This means that I'm not judging you on if you wore a tie or not, but rather how did you engage with your opposition. Presentation of an argument affects how I engage with it. 

AFF - I am open to "K affs" but may be a bit more skeptical at first with a case I have not heard yet.  Not saying don't run it but don't assume I am where you are on this topic.  On this I am more familair with class issues as opposed to race/gender  so be willing to give me a framework or treat me as you would a high school freshman on your team.

NEG - anything goes 

I am open to any arguments as long as they were well represented within the speeches, or are clear enough to make it onto the flow.  Other than that there is little to say, and I consider myself a "tabula rasa" judge, but if no other weighting criterion is offered by either team I defalt to a policy making framework. 

 Only other notes:

Ts must prove in round abuse.  Out of round is not enough of a voter.

Ks need to be explained outside the cards and in the own debaters voice.  I.e a surface level knowledge will not be enought to persaude me.  I dont do work for debaters and will decide based on the flow.

Speed - fine with speed, will yell "clear" if I can't understand.  Does not happen often but be warned. 

**Less than 5 debates judged on this policy topic so no acronyms without explanation first plz**

Policy Paradigm (LD at bottom)

Currently head coach of Whitefish Bay High School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin since September 2022

Graduated HS in 2014, policy debater from 2010-2014 (2N/1A) with some national circuit outround/bid round experience.

Assistant coached LD and Policy at:

Central Valley HS (Spokane, WA 2014-2016)

Capitol HS (Boise, ID 2016-2017)

Former co-head coach at Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin (2017-2020)

--Yes, I want to be on the email chain. Blerickson95@gmail.com

--Overall, I am not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed, and I vote for the team that quite literally makes the most sense to me. I am not afraid to take the easy way out if I am given warranted reasons why I should. The harder you make it for me, the more work you make me do, the less likely you are to get my ballot, and I think that makes sense and is fair.

--For the love, please time yourselves.

--Your speaks will increase if you don't spend at ton of time at the beginning of cross ex asking what cards were and weren't read :) (I like flowing!)

--Maybe I am just old and grumpy but, do not wear your headphones in round, at any time, once the debate starts. Not in one ear only, not because "you'e just the 1N", not because you are the 2A and don't want to listen to the 1AC. I think it's rude, pompous, and just plain obnoxious. No debater in the world is too important to listen to a full debate. It is so disrespectful to the other team, the judge, and everyone who took time to be at that debate. Ugh. I hate it so much. Headphones on during a debate are an auto 27 or lower. That's all :) *Obviously this does not carry through for online debate!

Quick version

Generally good for:

--DA-case debates

--Cheater counterplan debates

--Politics/elections debates

Not as good for:

--Heavy K debates

--Any type of death good argument (I think death is bad, and we should try to avoid it)

--Baudrillard

--Any strategy that is largely based off of debate being inherently bad/irredeemable

Online debate things:

--I would prefer if the person speaking had their camera on, but I am obviously understanding if that cannot happen.

--I keep my camera on for the debate but I turn it off during prep to go sit on my couch and hold my dog. So, please make sure, before you start your speech, I am back on the camera. If I am not and you start, that would be no good.

Longer version

General

--I, for the most part, love this activity, and respect anyone who takes the time and effort to participate. This activity is rigorous, and good for you for even being here. I welcome questions before and after the round. I realize some people won't agree with my decision, and I welcome questions as to how I came to my conclusion. However, what I don't welcome, is blatant disrespect because you disagree with my decision. Slamming your things, muttering rude things under your breath, or screaming at me, won't make me email tab begging to change my ballot. In fact, it will make me really not like you.

--I flow on paper, so I need pen time. I understand and follow the debate better this way, but that also means I am not writing everything down verbatim, so if you have arguments you think are important, sit on them.

--I am very expressive. I have tried to have a better poker face, but I simply cannot do it. You should be able to tell if I am unhappy or not.

--Don't be racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. You will lose immediately and receive the lowest speaker points I am allowed to give u

--Prep ends when you’re done prepping and begin flashing/emailing (I can tell if you’re flashing/emailing or prepping, if I see you prepping off prep time, I’ll start your speech time)

--If you clip and it's recorded, you lose. It needs to be recorded.

--I will not evaluate things that happened outside of the debate.

Topic Thoughts

Very few judged on this topic. Plz don't use acronyms without explaining them first.

K debate

--The role of the judge is to decide who did the best debating. The role of the ballot is to tell Tabroom who won.

--Fiat isn't real and that's fine.

--This is my area of less familiarity. Although I have fairly frequently found myself in the back of clash of civ debates, I am less familiar with critical arguments. IR K's such as cap, security, gender, etc. I do not have a problem understanding. I have a harder time understanding high theory, philosophy debates. Pleeease do not assume I have read your author. Do not let this dissuade you from reading your bread and butter K arguments in front of me, just know I need more explanation. I think in good debates this can even just be done in a cross ex.

--I need a reason why the aff is bad. I often find myself voting on the perm because I do not know why the aff is specifically bad for causes more bad things to happen. I am not saying this can't be done, it definitely can be done, and should be.

--I am not here to change how you debate, but it would be disingenuous for me to say my experiences in debate have not affected how I am used to and comfortable evaluating debates. That being said, I tend to think speech times are good, and an hour and a half of discussion is not as good. If we are going to throw speech times out the window, I need to know what the structure is for the remainder of the debate. I.e. when we are done, how I should evaluate arguments in this new format, etc. If there is no structure, I need to know why not having a structure for the debate is good. I do my very best to not intervene, and if the debate devolves into a discussion, the only time I will intervene is to say when time is up for the round. It would be GREAT if that was done for me by one of the teams. I try to talk in debate rounds *literally* as little as possible but I also do not want to make the tournament run behind.

--I have evaluated many framework debates, but I think I am about even voting for and against it. That being said, I think predictable limits are my point of most persuasion. But do what u do.

K affs

--I need to know what the aff does. I just do.

--I do not necessarily need you to defend hypothetical USfg action, but I really appreciate topic relevance.

Theory

Anything is legitimate until you prove to me that it’s not. If you drop these things, you lose*: Conditionality, ASPEC. Flow! Don't just follow the speech doc! Ask what reasons are to reject the team in cx!

*I think sometimes cross applications are sufficient. Or aff outweighs arguments for critical affs. It literally just depends how the debate shakes out, but I would just try to answer them explicitly the first time.

I think fairness can be an internal link or an impact depending on how you spin it. Tell me how you want me to view and evaluate fairness.

Topicality

I have recently realized that I take a little more than the average person to vote on T. I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise. T isn’t an RVI. Slow down on T debates plz.

For me to vote on topicality, I need: a topical version of the aff (doesn't need to solve the aff, it just needs to show an alternate, topical version of the discussion), a list of topical aff's under your interpretation, a list of what you were deprived of in the debate because of the aff's untopicality OR a reason why I should vote on potential abuse.

Counterplans

I’m a big fan. Counterplans should be competitive and have a solvency advocate, in my perfect world. But hey, I am becoming more and more okay with counterplans that do not have a solvency advocate for some reason.

The more specific, the better. Sufficiency arguments are persuasive to me. I need to know HOW the counterplan solves every portion of the aff, don’t just assert that it does. Process, conditions, delay, consult, advantage etc. I’m fine with; like I said, anything is legitimate unless proved otherwise. I really like smart pics/word pics.

My mantra has always been, if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'. Cheating counterplans can get the job done and if there is no theoretical objection to reject the argument, you may be in trouble. That being said, compelling reasons why that specific cheating counterplan is bad can sometimes convince me to reject the argument. Again, it's ~debatable~

*The only counterplan I think is silly and likely won't vote for is a PIC out of the ballot. Never got it, never will, likely will always think it's silly.

Aff: Solvency deficits need to be impacted. But WHY is the federal government key? Also, I would really like if permutations were more than just "Do both" at the end of the debate, but if the neg never presses you on what this means, I will likely give the aff a lot of leeway throughout the debate on what that means/how it functions. This is important--negative teams are deciding what the permutation is and how it functions for the aff and it is just destroying the aff. Tell me what your perm means and how it functions, if you let the neg do it for you I can bet it won't turn out well for you.

I am hearing a lot of "perm shields the link to the net benefit so it solves". WHY. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY. HOW. WHY AND HOW. I am begging you to give me some sort of permutation explanation.

That being said, “Protect the 2nr” is a persuasive phrase to me in situations that call for it. I will kick the counterplan for the negative, if it's conditional, unless I am given a reason not to by the aff.

Disadvantages

A disadvantage has: uniqueness, a link, an internal link, and an impact. 2 card disads make me sad and I am immediately skeptical of them.

Disad-case debates are my favorite. What I was told as a novice still applies today: tell me the story of your disad. How does the link/internal link chain work to achieve the impact, etc. Disad overviews are important (cards in overviews are cool too); turns case arguments are basically necessary to my ballot. Tell me how your impact relates to the aff.

Case

Engage the case! Do case debate!

LD Paradigm

I debated at two LD tournaments in high school: Nat quals and NFL (now NSDA?) nationals my junior year. I coached LD for 3 years before coming to Homestead. I have coached/judged very traditional, value-criterion LD debate, and I have also coached/judged progressive LD debate. I am truly fine with either. For more progressive LD debate, my policy paradigm applies. A couple caveats:

--T or theory is not an RVI. I realize the time skew in LD debate. T or theory is not an RVI. I will vote on theory, just not silly ones.

--Shorter speeches than in policy, so I think a bunch of short off-case positions are less preferable than less, more in-depth off-case positions. But do what u need to do.

--Tricks? nah

--Meta-theory? nah

--Cutting evidence from debate blogs? nah

--In-depth, educational debates about the topic? Yeah!!!

Have fun!! :)

Kyle Eriksen

Green Valley High School (NV) 2006-2010.

UNLV 2010-2014. 1x NDT Qualifier.

I haven't been actively involved in coaching debate since the 2016-2017 season. I don’t believe much has changed, but something to keep in mind.

I have zero investment in terms of what debate should look like. I used to almost exclusively judge clash debates. With that said, it’s been a decade since I’ve done genuine topic research/politics DA etc. I think the foundational elements of what wins a debate hold true no matter the argument. Something else to keep in mind.

Speaking very broadly: the aff has to win that they are better than the squo or competing alternatives, and the neg needs unique link arguments to the aff to win the position.

If you are reading something exceptionally dense, please do the work to explain your position and clearly identify unique links to the aff. If you are aff, please explain why what’s happening is happening.

I like: impact turns, bold strategies, disad and case debates, crafty counter plans, technical topic and case specific K debates.

I’m cool with: debates about debate, “non-traditional” approaches, theory debates, backfile checks.

I don’t like (but will vote on): framework without direct refutation to the K aff, conditionality bad, SPEC args, convoluted topicality debates.

I’m not keeping time. You got this. Not interested in email chain or reading evidence unless there is a factual dispute.

Treat people like they are people and respect the tournament host and its facilities. Automatic loss for flagrant disrespect. This isn’t Twitter. Clean up after the debate.

I’ll leave you with this: I’ve always believed debate is merely a game we play to refine skills we will take with us to the outside world. Nothing more, nothing less. Enjoy your time in this activity!

I have been involved with debate for a min now. All debates are performances . I believe education should be what debates are about . I read the topic paper every year( or when it stop being Throw backs). Topical education is something i consider but can be impact turned. Topicality is a method of the objective game. I will vote on conversations of community norms like predictability good , switch side , or even static notions of politics. Framework is how we frame our work. Method debates I welcome. We are intellectuals so we should be responsible for such i.e you can be voted down if the debaters or their positions/in round performance are racist, sexist, classist, or ableist . If not voted down,I still reserve the discretion to give the debater(s) responsible a 3.5 in speaker points . Do what you do and do it well.

Email chain/contact: lanikfrazer@gmail.com

About me - I was the director of speech & debate at sonoma academy for 4 years, and coach for 3 years prior. I debated at SVDP and at Cal and have taught at the CNDI. I no longer do anything debate related.

General - My judging philosophy is pretty simple - you should ultimately do what you do best. I prioritize specificity, contextualization, and evidence quality over your style of debate. Really, I can't stress this enough. I don't judge many policy v. policy debates, but I am able to adjudicate them. I do, however, primarily judge K v. K/clash rounds.

Organization is very important. I flow on paper. I am not a fan of huge overviews and card dumps- please do the work for me and tell me where I should flow things. Explaining warrants is crucial. Empirics and examples are great. Impact analysis is critical. Tech should be truth.

Topicality - I will vote on topicality. The negative must win that their interpretation is good, predictable, and resolves their voters. You should be explaining why, as a whole, your vision of the topic is good, and have tangible impacts. Potential abuse isn't super compelling to me, but I'll vote on it if you tell me why I should. Ks of T are often pretty trifling and need to be explained in depth. "Community consensus" on T doesn't mean much to me and should not be taken for granted.

Theory - I have a high threshold for theory debates and find them to be blippy and frivolous most of the time. I default to rejecting the argument and not the team, but if there is a voting issue it must be thoroughly articulated and should have a very strong presence in the 2nr/2ar. Slow down, be clear, and do more than read the shell.

Framework - I mostly judge debates wherein affirmatives do not read a traditional plan text. I am fine with this. Should affirmatives at least be in the direction of the topic? Probably, but not necessarily. Framework read against a K/performance aff that does something concrete is typically not a good argument to read in front of me. You should be engaging in what they do and you should do more than say that they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Provide a creative topical version, and explain why fairness or education or whatever comes first (and why this means the aff can't access their own pedagogy). Do more than provide a case list, but explain why those cases are good for debate. I tend to think that fairness is more of an internal link and not a terminal impact, but if you're winning that I will vote for you.

The K - love it. I spend a lot of time reading critical theory and am probably familiar with your lit, but I will not do extra work for you, so the less jargon/more explanation, the better. Be specific and have contextualized links (the link should be to the aff and not the world). You should also answer all of the aff's impacts through turns, defense, etc. Framing is super important. The permutation is underutilized. Impact turns on the aff are cool, but not when it's something you shouldn't say pedagogically.

Disadvantages - Fine. Win your link, turn/outweigh the case, impact calc. Intrinsicness is silly and I'll probably not evaluate it much unless it's seriously mishandled (though it can be compelling against things like riders DAs, which are, in my opinion, a misinterpretation of fiat).

Counterplans - Great. I love a creative advantage CP. You should have a solvency advocate. I definitely lean neg on most theory arguments here, but that doesn't mean I won't vote on them.

Let me know if you have any questions. Shoot me an email before the round if you want me to be aware of access needs, pronouns, etc.

Debated in High School from 2010-2014, Judged and coached from 2014-2019. I may need a bit of time to adjust as I haven't judged since then, so bear with me. my email is dylan.paul.frederick@gmail.com for any questions, and for adding me to the email chain.

I've seen a lot of stuff, please feel free going with any debate style you prefer. Try to assume I don't know a ton about what you are reading.

If you want to win in front of me, please try to go top down - what is the framing I should look to at the end of the round, what is the most important impact/voting issue/whatever, and what is the link to that offense. I pretty much look at what offense is there for me to vote on at the end of the round, and try to sort out which offense wins. You can't go wrong with more depth on your link arguments in front of me, as long as there's a reason to vote for those links.

I don't have strong opinions either way on theory arguments, critical affs, T violations, ect. Do what you like and convince me what the debate should be about.

The debates I like the most are ones where you play to your best strengths, and debates with plenty of actual argument interaction. I have ADHD so the best way for me to disengage from the debate or miss an argument or just not care is to read blocks at each other and not make any explicit, direct challenges to your opponents arguments. If you're not going to actually debate, it makes me want to flip a coin, because you're leaving me to decide which arguments were best myself (I'm always trying my hardest to be fair, but I'm not going to give good speaker points if I'm left trying to compare two ships passing in the night)

If you have any specific questions or concerns, feel free to ask me.

Experience

I have been a policy debater for 3 years at Arizona State University. I am currently the head debate coach at BASIS Chandler. In college I have generally ran more non-traditional affs such as Lovecraft.

Overview

I am a very flow oriented judge. I give equal preference to policy style debate as well as Kritical debate. As long as there is plenty of clash and no signs of legitimate abuse I am fine with a Kritical aff. I won't vote for you just because you have large quantity arguments, however well developed and well analyzed arguments generally hold more weight with me. I am comfortable with high speed debate, but please be clear.

FW/T

I have a high threshold level to win a Framework debate. Be sure not to just be repetitive but also expand and further analyze FW arguments in rebuttal. As long as you can show clear abuse, which I usually am very critical of, then I will be sympathetic in a FW debate. However, as a K debater I generally believe the more breadth of information the better in debate, so I am sympathetic to K affs that increase in-round education.

I have a high standard for winning a T debate, not only must you not be topical but must win args for why non-T args are abusive, which is difficult. I will weigh args for why topic education is good for debate.

CASE

Pretty straight forward, make sure there is plenty of case offense for the Neg and sufficient Aff responses. Aff needs to spend sufficient amount of time on case args in every speech as well as short overviews on case, don't just extend args but expand.

CP/DAs

Ensure there are relevant and specific links to the aff as I hold link args to high standards. Ensure plenty of impact comparison. Net benefits to CP must be substantially better then aff. I am ok with all types of CPs, just make sure you defend the style of CP you want to run. Perm debate is very important, but there must be adequate explanation of the function of the perm in order to win the perm debate, simply saying perm is not sufficient.

K

I am comfortable with a wide range of kritical debate. Again, specific links are necessary, weak links or links of omission aren't very compelling args. Again, explain the function of the perm and why/how the aff is allowed to perm the K. Explain the alt world and the methodology you use to get there. I am comfortable with ontological debate, but args must be well developed and explained for me to understand. I am comfortable with weighing all Kritical impacts, so good impact comparison is a must.

Clipping

I don't usually ask for cards so I need you to let me know if clipping occurs in round. Debate will stop immediately to assess clipping, and if there is substantial evidence, those caught clipping will automatically loose the debate and you will be reported to tournament staff.

Matt Gomez

Graduate Assistant @ UNLV

Assistant Coach @ Rowland Hall St Marks

Please include me in the email chains: mattgomez22@gmail.com

Top Level:

Hot take: The s is silent in debris.

I'll be honest. I really really really hate judging psychoanalysis. I would prefer not to judge these arguments. That being said, I'll still just evaluate the line-by-line....but just my preference

---Write the ballot in the 2NR/2AR

---The most reasonable argument usually wins in an equally debated round

---Risk is a sliding scale and arguments should be couched probabilistically since most of this isn't objective

---I prefer engagement over tricks. This applies in clash debates, k v k rounds, or policy throw downs. Speaker points will be higher in debates where you engage.

---Not interested in constant shifting explanations and dodging in cross-ex. Confident and direct answers show that you understand the weakness of your argument and are prepared to defend it.

---I generally lean neg on theory

---Affs can be vague in their plan but it makes circumvention and Say No harder to answer

---I will not give up my ballot to someone else. I will not evaluate arguments about actions taken when I was not in the room or from previous rounds. I will not vote for arguments about debaters as people. I will always evaluate the debate based on the arguments made during the round and which team did the better debating. Teams asking me not to flow or wanting to play video games, or any other thing that is not debate are advised to strike me. If it is unclear what "is not debate" means, strike me.

---Speech times are set. So is cross-ex and prep.

T vs Plans

Generally: Interps and definitions really matter. You need to counter-define words. Probably default to competing interps but I'm ok for reasonability combined with functional limits and indicts of neg evidence. But generally, aff's should be worried in front of me if they don't think their plan is T and negs shouldn't be afraid of going for T if they have good evidence. This is a big topic and I will have little sympathy for teams trying to make it even bigger.

Counterplans

An ESR counterplan that has the executive branch establish a policy is a core negative position that challenges the necessity of statutory and/or judicial restrictions on executive authority. An ESR CP that fiats Trump is intelligent or decides to resign or some other thing that is not necessarily an opportunity cost to statutory/judicial restrictions on executive authority are more questionable (though I lean neg on theory)

States is competitive (replace with ESR for college topic). Consult is most likely not. I'm not stoked about counterplans that do all of the aff but am a fan of smart PIC strategies. Textual vs Functional competition...both are probably good and each has its time and place... I still do not fully understand competition. If the aff has real solvency deficits they can make, I'm likely to not vote on theory.

I will kick counterplans for the neg IF the 2NR invokes the option. It is unlikely that I will care about new 2AR args for why thats difficult to answer if the 1AR didn't extend conditionality.

DAs

For God's sake please read impact defense

A DA is comprised of UQ, Link, Internal Link, and Impact arguments. I am not pleased with the recent trend that UQ is an argument for the block...

I'm willing to allow the 1AR to read cards based on 2AC analytics that actually have warrants.

---ok: No impact to proliferation---every empirical example like North Korea, India, and Pakistan disprove.

---not ok: No impact to prolif---empirics

Its arbitrary, but one is clearly a more complete argument than the other. Not saying I won't let the 1AR read a card in the 2nd instance, but you are much more likely to lose if the negative says that wasnt a complete arg in the 2AC and 1AR doesn't get to complete it.

Turns case arguments matter a lot to me. Make them and answer them. I can vote aff on a good risk of an advantage combined with a solid impact defense and internal link defense push. But I can also check out on turns case even if there is a large risk of the aff.

Policy Aff vs K

Totally open to it. These were my favorite debates as a 2A and offer some great opportunity for a smaller but more in-depth debate.

Affirmative teams should make sure to pre-empt the blocks attempt to not let them weigh the aff. Make impact framing arguments. And either no link or impact turn links. But the best focus is usually on the alternative. Most important, don't back down. Defend that things that matter actually do matter. Don't be the person who loses on "death good" or can't even answer the question "what is death." Think about why incremental progress matters, have a defense of it, and beat the ontology arguments. I find the most successful affirmative strategy is one that goes through the checklist of things every 2A needs to do against a K but also genuinely tries to understand the K and logically dismantles it/proves that is not the way the world works.

Negative teams are advised to generate links to the plan action. You can functionally disregard aff framework arguments if you do this because it proves the plan is a bad idea. If your strategy is to win links to discourse, epistemology, other "ologies" or things that are not the plan, the 2NC is advised to invest a substantial amount of time on framework. A well-devised framework argument, diverse links, impact framing arguments, and a decent alternative make for an extremely difficult 1AR. Combined with case defense and it becomes even harder. If you are feeling ambitious and can do both in the 2NC and have a DA in the 1NR, even better for neg flex.

---I generally find ways to think myself into believing structural/identity Ks do prove the aff is a bad idea if the negative wins their theory of power and am unlikely to vote on "plan action or gtfo" FW. The power of that arg is I have to weigh implications of the link vs implications of the plan, NOT that I throw out the K entirely.

I don't understand the trend of 1NR's "taking the perm" when the 2NC does the link debate. They are functionally the same and it doesn't take that much longer to put it in the 2NC and place some lower arguments into the 1NR to avoid messing up my flow.

The fiat double-bind is fundamentally unpersuasive. I do not enjoy K's that argue death isn't real/ is good.

K vs K

I've debated post-modernism and materialism. I read a lot. I watch a lot of different styles of debate. That being said, I very rarely participated in these debates. It will be important to identify points of disagreement and offense. For the aff, its important to identify actual link turns. Saying "the plan is anti-capitalist" is not a link turn or an answer to the link. Plenty of movements that didn't like capitalism ended up operating in a way that was beneficial to it.

Please say the alternative doesn't solve. And say the alternative does solve.

Please say root cause. And answer root cause.

Pick and choose links and consolidate as the round goes on.

Permutations need to explain why they solve the links and the negative needs to apply links to the permutation as well as the plan.

K vs T

I entirely believe debate is a game. I will vote otherwise if the argument presented as to why it is not a game or should be evaluated as something else is won by the affirmative, and that is because I believe it is a game... This can be an uphill battle if the affirmative does not present an alternate model for debate that has a well-conceived role for both the affirmative and negative and is able to weigh the benefits of that model against the negative's. It is easy to say what you are against, harder to say what you are for.

I do not have a preference for fairness or education (also called advocacy skills, mechanism education, etc.), but i do think the negative can persuasively argue that fairness is an impact in and of itself. Affirmative's must win that their educational benefits outweigh the negative's or that the cost of unfairness is worth the positive benefits of their model of debate.

I do not believe T is a weapon to exclude. I think it is an argument like any other and a core negative check against untopical affs (the states counterplan of clash debates). I believe that negative's who are overly rude, dismissive, or offensive in how they deploy T can lose to exclusion offense. Conduct yourself accordingly.

Topical version of the aff and Switch Side Debate are counterplans meant to prove the affirmative could access a large swathe of their literature base/education offense under the "traditional" model of debate. The negative should try to solve as much of the case as possible or prove that the TVA debates are better than the aff as is. The affirmative should argue that those debates are not educational, bad for their education, etc.

As always, these debates will become hyperbolic. That's fine. But when I vote on the silly hyperbole one team makes against the silly hyperbole the other team makes, that is just because it is what I was given to work with.

Brock Hanson

Precious Assistant coach, Rowland Hall St. Marks — five years

Debating Experience

High school - Three years, Nationally

Policy Debate

Role as judge in debate — I attempt to enter debates with as little preconcieved notion about my role as possible. I am open to being told how to evaluate rounds, be it an educator, policymaker, etc. Absent any instruction throughout the round, I will most likely default to a role as a policymaker.

Purpose of philosophy — I see this philosophy as a tool to be used by debaters to help modify or fine-tune specific parts of their strategies in round. I don’t think that this philosophy should be a major reason to change a 1AC/1NC, but more used to understand how to make the round as pleasant as possible.

Evaluative practices and views on debate round logistics

Prep time — Prep ends when the flash drive leaves the computer/when the speech-email has been sent. I expect debaters to keep track of their own prep time, but I will usually keep prep as well to help settle disagreements

Evidence — I would like to be included in any email chain used for the round using the email address below. I will read un-underlined portions of evidence for context, but am very apprehensive to let them influence my decision, unless their importance is identified in round.

Speaker point range — 27.0 - 30. Speaker points below a 27 indicate behavior that negatively affected the round to the point of being offensive/oppressive.

How to increase speaker points — Coherence, enthusiasm, kindness, and the ability to display an intimate knowledge of your arguments/evidence. Cross-ex is an easy way to earn speaker points in front of me - I enjoy enthusiastic and detailed cross-ex and see it as a way to show familiarity with arguments.

How to lose speaker points — Being excessively hostile, aggressive, overpowering, or disengaged.

Clarity — I will say ‘Clear’ mid-speech if I’m unable to understand you. I will warn you twice before I begin subtracting speaker points and stop flowing - I will attempt to make it obvious that I’ve stopped flowing in a non-verbal manner (setting down my pen, etc.) but will not verbally warn you.

Argumentative predispositions and preferences

Affirmatives - I don’t think affirmatives should be inherently punished for not reading a plan text, as long as they justify why they do it. I am probably more interested in ‘non-traditional’ affirmatives than a big-stick Heg aff.

Counter-Plans — Speeding through a 20-second, catch-all, 7 plank, agent counter-plan text will not be received well in front of me. However, super-specific counter-plans (say, cut from 1AC solvency evidence) are a good way to encourage debates that result in high speaker points.

Disadvantages — Specific, well articulated DA debate is very appealing to me, but super-generics like spending are a bit boring absent an aff to justify them as the primary strategy.

Framework — Engagement > Exclusion. The topic can be a stasis point for discussion, but individuals may relate to it in very different ways. (See Role as judge in debate)

Kritiks — Easily my 'comfort-zone' for debates, both for the affirmative and negative. Creativity in this area is very appealing to me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that whoever reads the best poetry automatically wins. Be smart and articulate about your arguments, and make it seem like you care about what you're talking about. The 'K’s are cheating and so they should lose' -esque arguments aren’t especially compelling, but if you can intelligently explain why the hippy-anarchists sitting across from you should go back to their coffee shops and beat-poetry, I'll vote on it. Performance as a method of supporting arguments is welcomed and enjoyable insofar as it is grounded in arguments.

Theory — I think specific, contextualized Theory arguments are much more persuasive than generic, broad-sweeping theory claims. Spending 5 minutes on Theory in a rebuttal does not grant you an instant ballot, inversely,15 seconds of blippy violations it at the end of the debate makes it difficult to pull the trigger absent blatant concessions. I’m more comfortable and better versed in regards to theory arguments than with topicality. I am very persuaded by arguments against performative contradiction. I understand the strategic utility of having multiple lines of offence in a 1NC, but would prefer to evaluate 1NC’s holistically as a constant thought.

Topicality — Topicality is perhaps where I’m least experienced from an argument standpoint, and thus don’t particularly enjoy topicality debates, I do, however understand its utility against blatantly abusive affirmative. In-round abuse is more persuasive than potential abuse.

Feel free to ask before round or email me if you have any questions

Brock Hanson

Debate.brock.s.hanson@gmail.com

John Hines
DOD at Head Royce
20+ Years Judging/Coaching

UPDATE--1/2/24

Commencing old man ranting at clouds:

So, it appears my addendum from 6 years ago was just marking the beginning of the end of line-by-line debate.

After returning from a four-year hiatus, I discovered last year that flowing and line-by-line debating are essentially a thing of the past that current debaters don't even really realize they aren't actually doing.

I blame the judges who started flowing directly from the speech docs and decided they no longer needed to hold debaters accountable for what actually came out of their mouths.

So, we now have a community of JUDGES who never actually learned how to flow or debate line by line, either.

This creates a fundamental problem for me. I have no idea how to evaluate debates when everyone else in the room is just reading and responding to the speech docs without knowing whether the judge who actually listens and flows is getting things down on the flow where they belong.

I honestly have no idea how judges today decide debates fairly and objectively based on what was actually said in the debate.

So, I'll summarize everything else below very simply here:

If you don't flow, I probably won't vote for you.

If you don't debate line-by-line, I probably won't vote for you.

If you don't care whether I'm trying to flow the words coming out of your mouth, I probably won't vote for you.

If neither you nor your opponent flows or debates line by line, I will be forced to vote for somebody, but I will have ZERO TOLERANCE for someone who didn't flow or debate off the flow, post-rounding me for why I didn't vote theway they wanted me to vote.

Addendum--10/15/17

Line-by-line debate is actually a thing. It's a skill not a referendum on you as a person or what I think about your arguments. It's a method of clash that allows judges to decide rounds with minimum intervention on their part. If your approach to debating line-by-line includes extensive overviews, "cloud clash," and requests for me to pull out new sheets of paper I am probably not a very good judge for you. I will do my best to evaluate the round in front of me, but if you chose to abandon the line by line please know that you have asked me to insert my subjective views of debate into the round and you are not likely to be happy with the outcome.


Standard philosophy begins here:
Rather than list off a series of personal beliefs about arguments, an explanation of how I decide debates seems more productive. Three keys to debating well in front of me:

1. Make Arguments. I tend to decide debates within 20 minutes of the end of the round. I will call for VERY few cards after the debate as I prefer to make my decision based upon what you argued in the last rebuttals rather than what I think about the quality of your cards. I will not re-read every card read in the debate. I will not read portions of evidence not read in the round by debaters. I will not read cards handed to me that were not extended in the last two rebuttals. I will resolve arguments consisting of disputes over interpretation of warrants in evidence by reading those cards. I will make sure arguments extended in the last two rebuttals can be traced back across the flow to the point they originated. I will make sure cards handed to me were extended properly during the debate before reading them. I will keep a careful flow of the debate and will do my best to vote based upon warranted arguments extended throughout the debate. Your job is to speak clearly and coherently and to dispute the warrants within your opponents’ arguments with analysis and evidence.

2. Make Choices. Most debates come down to a couple of key issues which need to be resolved by me; awareness of these nexus issues and the ability to clarify how they should be resolved is the key to your success. Does the perm on the CP avoid the links to the net-benefits? Does the solvency deficit to the counter-plan outweigh the net-benefits? Who controls the question of uniqueness (both at the link and impact level)? Can the alternative to the criticism function simultaneously with the plan? I prefer to intervene as little as humanly possible. Your ability to accurately frame the nexus issues of the debate for me will reduce the need for me to resolve these questions for you and make me a much happier judge.

3. Don’t be a Jerk. As Ed Lee of Emory says in his most recent Judge Philosophy--"Respect is non-negotiable for me". I work VERY HARD as a judge. I flow on paper, I generally keep my computer closed the entire debate and I try to pay very close attention to everything you say. I spend time constructing my post-round discussion to be clear, concise, and educational. I do not take kindly to debaters or coaches who wish to interrupt and argue with me before I've reached the conclusion of my RFD. I promise to give you plenty of time to ask productive follow-up questions. Lately, I've become even more concerned with in-round comity. Rudeness and snide remarks during cross-ex, insulting the intelligence and goodwill of the other team, and other derisive and insulting behavior towards opponents will not be tolerated. To once again quote Ed - "If you are engaging your opponent in a way that you would not if you were in front of one of your professors [teachers] or the president of your university [principal/head of school] then you should not do it in front of me." I love seeing passionate engagement with argument, but quickly become physically uncomfortable when passion turns into hostility. If you are confused as to where this line resides watch my non-verbals...it will be very obvious.

Finally, on the question of "What kinds of arguments do you prefer" I'll answer by agreeing with Jarrod Atchison on the importance of FLEXIBILITY as a debater. To quote his ballot from a recent NDT final round "Debater flex is the past, present, and the future":

Jarrod ATCHISON, Director of Debate and Assistant Professor of Speech and Drama at Trinity University (Incoming DOF at Wake Forrest), 2008
[Judge Ballot from the Final Round of the 2008 National Debate Tournament, Available Online at http://groups.wfu.edu/NDT/Results/JudgesBallots2008final.htm, Accessed 03-16-2010]

7. Debater Flex is the wave of the future: I would have loved to have been a part of the Dartmouth coaching staff and squad when they were brainstorming a negative strategy for this debate. Although they had an extremely limited amount of time, they had two fantastic debaters in Josh and Kade that could execute a wide range of arguments leaving no option unavailable. In this debate, they had two case specific counterplans, a well developed kritik, two topicality arguments, etc…This debate reminded me that debaters who self identify as “policy” or “kritik” are missing out on a wide range of ways to win. Forget the labels, just think of everything as an argument. Some arguments require more understanding than others, but they are just arguments. If you want to be able to take on a new high tech aff with less than 45 minutes of prep before the final round of the NDT, the last thing that you want to tell your coach/partner is “I can’t argue __.” Debater flex is the past, present, and the future and I hope that students will see Josh and Kade’s 1NC as an example of how important it is to be versatile.

Matthew Jallits

Debated 3 years @ Puyallup High School (08-11),

Debated 4 years @ University of Nevada Las Vegas (11-15)

Coached 2 years @ University of Nevada Las Vegas (15-17).

CEDA 2019 Update:

CEDA will be the first full college tournament I will have judged at this year, meaning I will have minimal knowledge about the topic.

I'm down for any form of argumentation as long as there's a reason to vote for it. Direct refutation of arguments is best over implied argumentation. This means I prefer technical, flow-centric line by line debate. I don't think every argument needs a card, but it certainly helps.

Other things:

-I flow on paper

-I don't have my laptop open and will not read any cards until after the debate (if the warrants of a card are in question). I want to be focused on what is being said in the speeches.

-I don't want to preside over accusations about what has or hasn't happened outside of the round I'm currently judging.

-If there's an email chain, I'll be on it: mmjallits[at]gmail[dot]com

2024 TOC update:

I have exclusively been coaching/judging college debate for the last 2 years and have done almost zero research on this year's high school topic. Please keep this in mind if I am judging you and err on the side of over-explaining.

General things:

Please add me to the email chain.

tayjdebater@gmail.com, dukesdebate@gmail.com

Currently the Interim Director of Debate at JMU. I debated on the local Missouri Circuit as a high school student and debated for 3 years at UCF when they still had a policy team (2011-2014). I coached Berkeley Prep for 2 years while in college, coached JMU as a grad student, took some time off to finish my PhD, and have recently returned to debate.

My MA thesis was about Indigenous anti-nuclear movements and I've spent a fair amount of time researching the intersections of settler colonialism, environmental justice, and nuclear testing/uranium mining/radioactive waste storage, so I have a higher-than-average amount of topic knowledge on that end of the topic, but probably a lower-than-average amount of knowledge on the various weapons systems/tech/military strategy side of the topic.

If I seem crabby in the round, there's a high probability it's not your fault. The later in the tournament it is, the higher that probability gets - my ability to mask my crabby faces/moderate my vocal tone is inversely related to my tiredness/hunger/stress levels, so I'm probably not actually mad at you, just irritated at the world.

My decision-making process/how I approach debates:

I tend to prioritize solvency/links first when evaluating a debate. I think it's totally possible to win zero risk of an impact and I'm definitely willing to vote on presumption (but if that's your strategy I expect you to do the work to make it explicit).

I like well-explained, smart arguments. I would rather hear you explain something well with good examples than read a ton of cards that all say the same thing. I'll stick as close to the flow as I can and judge the debate based on how the debaters tell me to judge.

An argument has a claim, warrant, and impact. Dropped things only matter if you make them matter. It is your job to frame the voting issues in the round for me and make it clear how I should weigh arguments against one another.

I prefer to minimize how much evidence I read after the round. I expect you to do more than shadow extend things. If all I have on my flow by the end of the round is an author name, I'm not hunting that card down to figure out the warrant for you.

I flow on paper and line things up on my flow. Please give me sufficient pen time on analytics, signpost, and keep things organized. If I am unable to get something on my flow because you did not do these things or because you were not clear, that's a you problem. I will always do my best to get everything written down, even if it's in the wrong place, but it will make it more difficult for me to meaningfully weigh arguments against each other, which means longer decision times and probably worse decisions.

I don't flow CX, but will pay attention throughout CX and jot down notes if something particularly important/eye-catching seems to be happening. If something occurs in CX that you want me to vote on, it needs to make it into a speech.

I do not follow the speech doc while flowing. I may have the document open and refer to specific cards if they are referenced in CX, but I won't be flowing from your doc or reading your evidence along with you during your speech.

Stylistic things

Prep ends when you hit send on the email, and unless you're planning to ask questions about the extra cards they added, please don't make us wait to start CX until they send them. I will keep as close to a running clock as possible - we all have a role to play in making sure the tournament runs on time, and we all want a chance to get a halfway decent amount of sleep.

If you play music/videos/etc. while you are speaking, please ensure the volume of the music is substantially quieter than the volume of your voice. I have some auditory processing issues that make it extremely difficult for me to understand people's voices while there is any kind of background noise. I want to flow and evaluate your arguments, but I can't do that if I can't process your words.

I vote on things that happened during the debate. I do not vote on things that the other team (or their friends, coaches, squad-mates, acquaintances, enemies, etc.) did during pre-round prep, in the hallway yesterday, at the bar last tournament, this morning at the hotel, etc. I will not attempt to adjudicate interpersonal events I was not present to witness.

I generally think debate is good. That doesn't mean I think debate is perfect. There are absolutely valid critiques of debate that should be addressed, and I think there is value in pushing this activity to be the best version of itself. However, if your arguments rely on the assumption that debate is irredeemably bad, I'm probably not the right judge for you. I think you need a model of debate that you think is desirable and achievable within the confines of an activity in which two sides argue with each other and at the end one side is selected as a winner.

Most debaters would benefit from slowing down by about 20%. Not because speed is bad, but because few debaters are actually clear enough for the average judge to get a good flow when you're going at 100% speed.

Examples, examples, examples. If you take one thing away from my paradigm, it is that I like to be given examples. What does your theory look like in practice? What kinds of plans are included/excluded under your T interp? Etc.

Please do not assume I know what your acronyms/etc mean. If I don't know what the bill/organization/event you're talking about is, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to evaluate your link story.

I will open the speech doc, but will not necessarily follow along. I may look at a card if something spicy happens in CX, if you're referring to a card in a rebuttal, etc., but I do not look at or flow from the doc. If you are not clear enough for me to flow without looking at your doc, I will not fill in gaps from the doc.

Ethics Violations:

I take ethics challenges extremely seriously. I consider them to be an accusation of academic dishonesty equivalent to plagiarism. Just like any other instance of academic dishonesty, ethics violations can have serious consequences for debaters and programs, and the perception that our activity condones such behavior could have serious repercussions for the survival of our activity. If an ethics challenge is issued, that is the end of the debate. If the tournament invitation includes a protocol for handling ethics challenges, I will follow the tournament rules. If the tournament does not have a clear set of protocols, I will clarify that an ethics challenge has been issued, make a determination in regards to the challenge, and either vote for the team issuing the challenge or for the team against whom the challenge was issued.

If you become aware of something you think might be an ethics violation prior to the round (you notice a card that is cited incorrectly, etc.) I would STRONGLY PREFER that you reach out to the team/their coach before the round and let them know/give them a chance to fix it, rather than initiating an ethics challenge in the round.

Because of the seriousness of ethics challenges, I consider it the responsibility of the team issuing the challenge to 1) prove that a violation (defined as card clipping or intentionally manufacturing or mis-representing the source or content of evidence) occurred and 2) provide a reasonable degree of evidence that the violation was intentional or malicious (i.e., I do not consider someone mumbling/stumbling over words because they were tired to be the same thing as intentional card clipping, and do not think it should have the same consequences).

That said, I understand that proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt is an impossible standard. I do not expect you to prove exactly what was going on in the other team's mind when the event happened. However, you should be able to show that the other team reasonably should have known that the cite was wrong, the text was missing, etc. and chose to engage in the behavior knowing that it was unethical. I do not think we should be accusing people of academic dishonesty as a strategy to win a round. I also do not think we should be engaging in cheating behavior to win rounds. No one debater's win record is worth more than the continued health of our activity as a whole. If we would like this activity to continue, we must have ethical standards, including not cheating and not frivolously accusing people of cheating.

Speaker Points:

These are relative for each division (e.g., what I consider an "average performance" that gets a 28.3 in novice will be different from what I think of as an "average performance" that gets a 28.3 in varsity)

29.5-30: You should be in the top 3 speakers at the tournament. I can count the number of times I have given above a 29.5 on one hand.

29-29.5: This was an incredible performance. I expect you to be in late out rounds at this tournament and/or to win a speaker award

28.6-29: This was an above-average performance. Something about your speeches/CXs impressed me. Keep this up and I anticipate you will clear.

28.3-28.6: This was an average performance. You had some good moments, but nothing incredible happened.

27.5-28.3: I like your attitude. Some rough things happened during this round. Maybe you dropped an off-case position, only read blocks, were extremely unclear, etc.

Below a 27.5: Something majorly wrong has happened in this round. You failed to participate meaingfully in the debate and/or failed to demonstrate basic human decency toward other people in the room.

Case debate

Yes, please. I love a good case debate, particularly when it is grounded in specific and detailed analysis of what the aff claims their plan/advocadcy does vs what their cards actually say.

T/Framework

I judge a lot of these debates, and enjoy them. Ultimately, these are debates about what we think debate should be. Because of that, I think you need a clear description of what your model of debate looks like, what it includes/excludes, and why that's a good thing.

Debate is an educational activity unlike any other, and I think that's a good thing. I generally default to believing education is the most important impact in these debates, but can absolutely be persuaded that something else (i.e. fairness) should come first.

Despite what I just said, I think the competitive nature of debate is also good, which means there should probably be at least some parameters for what the activity looks like that allows both sides a reasonable shot at winning. What that looks like is up for debate.

I prefer affirmatives with some clear tie to the resolution. That doesn't mean you have to fiat a topical plan text, but I do think it means debate is better when the affirmative is at least in the direction of the topic and/or about the same general content as the resolution.

Your TVA needs to actually access whatever offense the aff is leveraging against T. Lots of TVAs fail this test. I think a good TVA can be super important, but a bad TVA is typically a complete waste of time.

Against policy affs, I think giving me specific examples of ground you lost (not just "we lost some DAs" but "We specifically couldn't read these 2 core DAs and this core CP") is important. If you can show in-round abuse via spiking out of links, that would be ideal.

Please give me pen time.

Counterplans

If your counterplan has a bajillion hyper-specific planks, you need to slow down enough for me to at least get an idea of what they are in the 1NC.

I like counterplans that are specific, well-researched, and have a clear basis in a solvency advocate. I don't love counterplans that have a million planks that are not clearly explained until the block or the 2nr and are not grounded in some kind of solvency advocate/literature.

You should be able to clearly articulate how the implementation of the CP works. I think most aff teams should spend more time articulating solvency deficits based on the negative team's inability or refusal to articulate what the implementation process of the CP looks like in comparison to the aff.

I think conditionality is good, within reason. I think PICs are good, within reason. I think multi-actor fiat, counterplans with a zillion planks, etc. are probably not great, but generally are reasons to reject the argument, not the team. I can be convinced that any of the above opinions are wrong, given the right arguments by either team.

Disads

Please make clear what your acronyms mean, what your specific link story is, etc. early in the debate. I don't spend a ton of time judging giant big-stick policy rounds, so I'm probably not as versed in this literature as you. Please don't make me spend 20 minutes after the debate trying to decipher your impact scenario. Give me a very clear explanation in the 2nc/1nr overview.

Kritiks

I think the aff gets to weigh their impacts if they prove that the ideas underwriting those impacts are good and accurate. I think the neg gets links to the aff's reps/discourse/etc. I think the negative needs to win a specific link to the aff (i.e., not just to the status quo) and also either that the links are sufficient to undermine the aff's internal links (i.e. I should vote on presumption) or that the alternative can resolve the links. I don't think any of those statements are particularly controversial.

The role of the ballot is to decide who did the better debating in this round. Always. How I should evaluate what counts as "better debating" is up for debate, but I am pretty unsympathetic to obviously self-serving roles of the ballot.

If you say the phrase "vote aff to vote neg" or "vote neg to vote aff" in a round I am judging, you owe me $10.

I currently at a coach at a high school in LA's UDL. I am a recent USC graduate, where I was primarily a 2A running affirmatives with plan texts and social justice-y advantages over the course of 3 years. I debated 4 years in high school at Saint Francis HS in CA before then.

For the HS oceans topic, I have mostly judged JV level debates so far this year. Please take care to explain your terms. 

You should feel comfortable running anything in front of me. I will try my best to make the debate safe and flow less traditional arguments to be faithful to the performance, including any affective results. Please be respectful of people in the debate space and try to have fun! 

Prep time ends when the flash drive leaves your computer.

***

Below are just thoughts about contentious things I have run into judging/debating in the past:

Framing (both role of my ballot and impact framing) is important. You should seek to control the most meta-level debate structure claim; that will characterize how I evaluate the individual components of each team’s competing story.

Offense and defense matter but I don't vote automatically on dropped arguments unless you call a TKO: Technical drops are not always conceptual dropped arguments and require extra impact explanation, not mere extension.

Presumption is neg until an alternative advocacy is offered, then it goes aff. I don't see presumption as about "least change."

Director of Debate at The University of Michigan

General Judging Paradigm- I think debate is an educational game. Someone once told me
that there are three types of judges: big truth, middle truth, and little truth judges. I would
definitely fall into the latter category. I don’t think a two hour debate round is a search for
the truth, but rather a time period for debaters to persuade judges with the help of
evidence and analytical arguments. I have many personal biases and preferences, but I try
to compartmentalize them and allow the debate to be decided by the debaters. I abhor
judge intervention, but do realize it becomes inevitable when debaters fail to adequately
resolve the debate. I am a very technical and flow-oriented judge. I will not evaluate
arguments that were in the 2AR and 2AC, but not the 1AR. This is also true for
arguments that were in the 2NR and 1NC, but not in the negative block.

Counterplans/Theory- I would consider myself liberal on theory, especially regarding
plan-inclusive counterplans. Usually, the negative block will make ten arguments
theoretically defending their counterplan and the 1AR will only answer eight of them- the
2NR will extend the two arguments that were dropped, etc. and that’s usually good
enough for me. I have often voted on conditionality because the Aff. was technically
superior. If you’re Aff. and going for theory, make sure to answer each and every
negative argument. I am troubled by the recent emergence of theory and procedural
debates focusing on offense and defense. I don’t necessarily think the negative has to win
an offensive reason why their counterplan is theoretically legitimate- they just have to
win that their counterplan is legitimate. For the Aff., I believe that permutations must
include all of the plan and all or part of the counterplan. I think the do the counterplan
permutation is silly and don’t think it’s justified because the negative is conditional, etc. I
do realize this permutation wins rounds because it’s short and Neg. teams sometimes fail
to answer it. On the issue of presumption, a counterplan must provide a reason to reject
the Aff. Finally, I think it’s illegitimate when the Aff. refuses to commit to their agent for
the explicit purpose of ducking counterplans, especially when they read solvency
evidence that advocates a particular agent. This strategy relies on defending the theory of
textual competition, which I think is a bad way of determining whether counterplans
compete.

Topicality- When I debated, I commonly ran Affirmatives that were on the fringe of what
was considered topical. This was probably the reason I was not a great topicality judge
for the negative my first few years of judging college debate. Beginning this year, I have
noticed myself voting negative on topicality with greater frequency. In the abstract, I
would prefer a more limited topic as opposed to one where hundreds of cases could be
considered topical. That being said, I think topicality often seems like a strategy of
desperation for the negative, so if it’s not, make sure the violation is well developed in
the negative block. I resolve topicality debates in a very technical manner. Often it
seems like the best Affirmative answers are not made until the 2AR, which is probably
too late for me to consider them.

Kritiks- If I got to choose my ideal debate to judge, it would probably involve a politics
or other disadvantage and a case or counterplan debate. But, I do realize that debaters get
to run whatever arguments they want and strategy plays a large role in argument
selection. I have probably voted for a kritik about a half of dozen times this year. I never
ran kritiks when I debated and I do not read any philosophy in my free time. Kritik
rhetoric often involves long words, so please reduce your rate of speed slightly so I can
understand what you are saying. Kritiks as net-benefits to counterplans or alternatives
that have little or no solvency deficit are especially difficult for Affirmatives to handle.
Evidence Reading- I read a lot of evidence, unless I think the debate was so clear that it’s
not necessary. I won’t look at the un-underlined parts of cards- only what was read into
the round. I am pretty liberal about evidence and arguments in the 1AR. If a one card
argument in the 1NC gets extended and ten more pieces of evidence are read by the
negative block, the 1AR obviously gets to read cards. I think the quality of evidence is
important and feel that evidence that can only be found on the web is usually not credible
because it is not permanent nor subject to peer review. I wish there would be more time
spent in debates on the competing quality of evidence.

Cheap Shots/Voting Issues- These are usually bad arguments, but receive attention
because they are commonly dropped. For me to vote on these arguments, they must be
clearly articulated and have a competent warrant behind them. Just because the phrase
voting issue was made in the 1AR, not answered by the 2NR, and extended by the 2AR
doesn’t make it so. There has to be an articulated link/reason it’s a voting issue for it to
be considered.

Pet Peeves- Inefficiency, being asked to flow overviews on separate pieces of paper, 2NRs that go for too much, etc.

Seasonal voting record:

I do want to be on the email chain: rkezios@gmail.com

tl;dr version: Currently a GA at Baylor. I debated mostly policy argument for 4 years in high school at Notre Dame under Christina Phillips, and 5 years in college at UNLV under Jacob Thompson reading only critical arguments. My view of debate is heavily influenced by Tyler Snelling and Darrian Carroll. I have dabbled in most areas of critical literature, but tended to lean towards the postmodern. I also enjoy good framework debates, but if you have me in a policy v policy round you have done your prefs incorrectly. I was a 2N my entire career.

Long version:

I'm here to see good debates. I can't imagine ever giving a 30 to someone who followed my paradigm to the letter, and as such didn't change my view in some way. With that being said, these are the positions I find myself generally inserting myself most as a judge:

Framework in general - I think both sides are always cheating. I think debate is and has always been a game of who cheats best. If you are on either side of a K aff v framework debate do not assume I am your friend. To be clear I do draw the line of rhetorical cheating at the point at which you actively impede your opponent ability to debate that rise to the level of ethics challenges, such as but not limited to clipping.

Framework impacts. I think both fairness and education are things that can be articulated as impacts, but neither are in and of themselves. I tend to assume fairness is an internal link to education because I am more likely to buy education as an inherent impact. On the same note I think if the affirmative impact turns these questions it makes most of the flow irrelevant for me, and would expect a strategy to put substantial depth here.

Permutation debates. I don't know what a permutation is anymore when a K aff is involved, and I haven't for a long time. At this point I consider its existence in the 2ac a placeholder for a real argument that will come forth in the 1ar. Because of this I grant an amazing amount of leeway to the 2nr in answering it. I hate that this creates late breaking debates, so developing standards for competition and explicit definitions of the permutation early in the debate is more likely to earn you higher speaker points and make me more likely to hold the line on the later speeches.

I try to make sure I can draw lines between 2ar and 1ar arguments before submitting each decision.

I've probably both left out and unintentionally lied about things so definitely look at my actual judging record.

Please add me on your email chains: jjkim96@gmail.com

THINGS TO KNOW WHILE FILLING OUT PREF SHEETS:

My background in debate:
2011-2014: Policy @ Lexington High School (Lexington, MA)
2015-2016: Policy @ UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
2015-2020: Policy/LD/PF Coach @ The Harker School (San Jose, CA)
2020-Present: Not coaching, currently in grad school for Security Studies @ Georgetown University

I had the privilege of being debating under, debating with, and helping coach top-tier talents at top-tier teams that got to see much of the national circuit. I've been out of debate for a bit but I'm still deep in the security and policy literature.

My affinity for arguments, in order:
Disclaimer: the difference between 1 and 5 is far narrower than the difference between 5 and 6.

1) Policy/LARP (DAs, CPs, Impact turns, etc.)
2) IR Ks (Security, Fem IR), Marxist Ks (Cap, Neolib, Materialism, etc.)
3) Identity-based args (Pessimism, SetCol)
4) Postmodern Ks (Baudrillard, Bataille, Psychoanalysis, etc. - Deleuze is a 6)
5) T/Theory (notable exception: T vs Non-topical affs, which is a 2)

---[I'll happily judge and vote for everything above this line - everything below, I have a harder time following along]---

6) Modernist Ks (Nietzsche, Heidegger)
7) Phil
8) Frivolous theory/tricks

Reasons to pref me high:
- Your evidence is high-quality
- You are confident in your ability to extend and expand on your high-quality evidence
- You have multiple strategies for a given round (and you can go for any of them)
- You have one strategy that you know you are incredibly good at AND can explain it to someone who's not as familiar with it

Reasons to pref me low:
- You rely on a number of other factors that have little to do with the quality of your evidence and arguments (spreading out debaters, intimidating/shaming opponents, betting on opponents to drop something) to win the round
- You are significantly more knowledgeable in your literature than I am AND you feel that the judge should do a lot of work for you if the opponent drops some foundational theory about your lit base (do you read source lit for Ks? If so, you may be here)

THINGS TO KNOW FOR THE PEOPLE I AM JUDGING

This section is deliberately short.
If you'd like to know my background knowledge regarding and/or willingness to vote for any argument without tipping your hand to your opponent or have any concerns about the round re: safety/comfort, please send me an email or ask to speak to me privately before the round. I'll happily answer any questions you have to the best of my abilities. Seriously, email me; It’s a zero-risk option for you.

Here are some questions I’ve been asked before:
"My opponent has a history of clipping; how do you go about verifying and punishing it?"
”What were your favorite args to go for in high school/college?”
"Do you vote for RVIs on T?"
"How familiar are you with semiocapitalism?"
"What are your thoughts re: fairness as an independent impact to Framework?"
"My opponent has a history of making me uncomfortable in round. Could you keep that in mind as this debate occurs?

Other thoughts:
- I don't assume the worst of debaters when it comes to slips in language. That said, the bar is a lot lower if you misgender/misprofile people.
- Presumption is a non-starter in front of me. The likelihood of one side having zero risk of offense is low, but the likelihood of both sides having zero risk is impossible. Win your offense.
- Accusations of cheating (e.g. clipping, evidence ethics) are not theory violations. The round ends immediately and I decide on the spot.

Background: I debated for 4 years at C.K McChlatchy high school on the national circuit. I am currently attending the University of Nevada Las Vegas. 

How I frame debate: I think that debate is a game of execution. I vote for the team who better executes and interacts with the other team's arguments. I am open to most arguments, be they traditional policy arguments or weirder critical arguments, as long as they are presented in a way that makes sense and can be applied to what the other team is saying. For more specific opinions, I have listed them below. 

High school topic - I've done almost no research on this topic, so the excessive use of acronyms or references to "cores on the topic" should be explained at least a little in the debate. 

Speed - I'm fine with you going fast, just not being unclear. Your speaker points will suffer or be rewarded accordingly. I go by the 3 strikes rule. If I have to say clear more than 3 times, I will put down my pen and stop flowing until you fix the issue. 

Kritik - I am pretty familiar with the more common args like Cap, Security, and Anthro as I ran them pretty frequently in high school as a 2n. I am much less familiar
with Nietzsche and Heidegger esque arguments and therefore require a bit more explanation. If you are going for the Kritik in front of me, you need to remember two things. First, don't substitute K jargon for actual analysis and spin. Second, the alt. The alt is almost always the weakest part of the Kritik, and therefore requires the most explanation. I will reward aff teams that call people out on this and reward neg teams even more for effectively defending it. I think that it is also worth noting that I am a sucker for social justice type arguments, especially when they are specific to an aff or specific to the topic. Also, I am much more familiar with "identity" type args than other forms to critical literature. 

CP- I'm all for cheating but I definitely think that some CPs are dumber than others. If you are going for a Consult, Conditions, Amendments, Lopez, Delay, or Veto Cheto CPs, be careful. I think that these kind of CP are silly from both a competitive and a theoretical standpoint and that aff teams need to exploit that. That being said, I love me an aff specific PIC. It tells me that you (probably) did research on the other team's aff and you should be rewarded because of it. If you are aff going against a CP, I rarely think that theory specific to a CP is a reason to reject the team, however, I definitely think it means that I give you some more weight to the permutation or solvency deficits.

DA - How could you hate DAs? While I am all for a case and DA debate, I think that these debates can fall prey to two issues. First, I think that these debates become more of a card reading contest than an actual debate. To remedy this, I think that the negative needs to do both evidence comparison and try to answer an aff arg with analytics, spin, and a card, instead of substituting the first two with more cards. Second, I don't think that all DAs were born equal, and I do buy card-less "gut check" arguments. I think it is worth mentioning that I do believe there is a such thing as a 0% risk of a DA, or at least there is a percentage that is so abysmally small that it is not worth considering.

T - Love love love T. I think it is a very strategic, but also under used argument in debate. Run it. I default to competing interps. Aff your evidence better be good on this. 

Framework - I felt that this justified it's own section given the growing prevalence in high school debate. I definitely think this is a viable strategy and have no problem with you reading it. That being said, I tend to think that the "You need to read plan" version of framework just doesn't work for me as these debates just tend to be two sides of the community butting heads. I would recommend adapting your strategy accordingly. 

K Affs - I am totally fine with them and there isn't anything too weird for me outside of telling the other team to kill/harm themselves. A lot of my opinions on K affs apply to the Kritik section of this paradigm, so to get an idea as to the K's I'm familiar with, read those. 

Misc stuff worth noting -
1. I do not call for cards unless it falls into one of both of the following issues. First, to settle an ethical issue within the evidence. Second, to settle a factual claim, like the economy has recovered by 5%. The phrase "this card is really good" or "this card does the debating for us" is not an argument. Debate is a game of execution, not reading cards. My standard for both of these things is very high and I will very rarely ask to see a piece of evidence.

2. I tend to be very expressive in round. This includes me nodding or giving you faces that range from "What the hell are you doing?" to "Oh yeah I guess you are right about that." 

Pet Peeves 
This is a list of miscellaneous stuff that debaters do that infuriate me to no end. 
-The underview. Either end your speech or do something, literally anything, other than this. If you have to pause and think about weather what you are about to do is an underview, it probably is. 
-Tech issues. Yall are old enough to understand how to put a flash drive in a computer. Make this as efficient as you reasonably can. 
-Gotcha moments that aren't gotcha moments. If I had a dollar for every time someone said "the debate is over" when it wasn't, I wouldn't need the money I get from judging. 
-Rudeness. You aren't nearly as good as you think you are, and there is no excuse to ever disrespect your opponent. 

-A speech that is just cards. If you just read cards in your speech without any analytics, comparison, or any level of analysis, the only think you have demonstrated to me is that you are literate and have the ability to say words that are put in front of you. 

Speaker Points - I evaluate speaker points according to the following criteria.
30 - You made me laugh, cry, and reconsider my standing in life. You showed up with 37 pieces of flair. And a terrific smile. You did very specific analysis, gave me a clear picture of what happened in the round, why you won, and executed your strategy flawlessly.
29 - You impressed me with your ability to execute your arguments, make specific spin to theirs, and showed me that you are well versed in what you are going for.
28 - You were an above average speaker. Good for the most part, but clearly suffered from some issues in the round.
27 - Meh. You were an average speaker with an incoherent strategy.
26 - You are an okay debater for the most part, but something went critically wrong in the round for me to give you this.
25-20 - You really need to fix something. You are an okay debater, but you either insulted me, the other team, or someone else in a way that was truly offensive and executed your strategy so poorly that I didn't even think you were making an argument. Me giving you something this low is meant to send a very clear message: Whatever you did, don't ever do it again.
Anything below 20 - What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in the room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you with this amount of speaker points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

put me on the email chain: mikekurtenbach@gmail.com

coach @ Brophy College Prep.

experience: 10+ years

tldr: i have minimal predispositions - all of the following are my preferences, but good debating will always change my mind. i arbitrate debates purely based off the flow - i don’t read evidence unless 1) i was told to in reference to an argument or 2) the debate is incredibly close and evidence quality is the tiebreaker.

topicality: it’s okay. i think limits are the controlling standard. reasonability is probably a non-starter unless it’s dropped.

framework/k affs: let me start off by saying i would prefer if the affirmative defends something contestable. affirmative teams should not rely on “thesis-level claims” and should engage the line by line, mostly consisting of defense and impact turns. as long as the negative wins that debate in and of itself is good (which shouldn’t be hard), fairness is a legitimate impact. i think decision-making is silly. negative teams shouldn’t be afraid to go for presumption. same goes for performance affs. i don’t think a poem necessarily solves unless tied to tangible advocacy; convince me otherwise. *on the education topic, i’m especially persuaded by the tva*

kritik: it’s okay, but i’d prefer a more technical line-by-line execution by the neg over three minute long overviews that are repeated on every single argument. that being said, i think the ideal 2nc for most k’s should focus less on reading new evidence and more on contextualized analysis to the substance of 1ac. i think most k debates are lost due to lack of explanation or contextualization of the link or alternative. blippy extensions won’t do it for me, unless you can explain your advocacy in tangible terms. i will probably default to letting the aff weigh its impacts, unless you convince me otherwise. affirmatives, this is probably where you should invest the most time. losing 2ar’s either miss offense embedded on the link debate, lose the framework, or let them get away with absurd broad generalizations (or drop a pik). winning 2ar’s buckle down on case outweighs, mutual exclusivity, or well-analyzed impact turns.

da: love them. politics is my favorite argument. case-specific da’s are the best. aff don’t drop turns case. in the absence of a counterplan, impact calc/framing is incredibly important for my ballot and should be introduced earlier rather than later. in the presence of a counterplan, negs should weigh the da to the risk of a solvency deficit. specific internal links always beat general framing pre-empts.

cp: also love ‘em. pics are my second favorite argument. condo is probably good to an extent. decide what that extent is for me. i enjoy watching a well-executed process counterplan so long as you know how to defend it theoretically. unless told otherwise, i default to judge-kick.

case: please bring this back - it’s a lost art. highly encourage re-hilightings of their evidence, specific advantage frontlines, etc. i love impact turn debates. if an aff can’t defend why economic decline is bad, why should it win?

cross ex: i appreciate when you can answer every question straight-up in cross ex, instead of dodging them. cross-ex is a great time to build ethos. i think one of the greatest mistakes i see debaters make round after round is not carrying concessions in cross-ex into their speeches. cross-ex is binding.

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.

email chains: gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

questions etc: alucasbolin@glenbrook225.org. If you are a student from another school emailing me please copy an adult coach on the email (just a good safety norm.)

Director of Debate at GBS since 2019, and assistant coach at GBS for a year before that. Prior to that I had taken a few years off of debate but coached at Notre Dame, University of North Texas, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and USC. I only mention this because I've coached debate in a variety of geographical locations with a variety of different argument perspectives. I hope this information helps avoid you "pigeon-holling" me into a Glenbrooks cyborg or whatever the community perception is. If you do this anyway, you'll find yourself either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised at the end of the debate.

People always ask about my own debate career - the answer is "meh - not bad, not great." I was one of those debaters who qualified to the TOC (once) and the NDT (three times) but was in no way shape or form going to clear at either of those tournaments. This has made me a much better coach because I spend a ton of time thinking about how I can help my own debaters and the people I judge go from good to great. I try to always make sure it's about you and not about me, but I use my own experience to fuel my passion for the activity. Never in my Wildest Dreams (Lauren Ivey) would I kill it in my own debate career but I think I'm pretty okay at giving you feedback to help you kill it in yours.

Brownie points for having as many T Swift, cat, and/or Heartstopper references as possible. To be clear - the reward here is making me smile. I will not actually bump your speaker points or anything because I don't play that way.

Hot takes:

I love debate more than anything else in the world. If you show that YOU love debate more than anything else in the world that is going to go way way way farther than any preference of mine.

Favorite args in order of favoriteness (not so you make these args - just trying to give you a sense of me as a judge)

1. Politics DAs - I am still waiting for someone to do a one off strategy where it's just politics and the case. Be that person.
2. Well-executed case debate that features internal link and solvency presses in addition to impact D
3. Kritiks with SPECIFICITY TO THE AFF (either in analysis or evidence or - gasp - both)
4. Wonky debates about competition
5. Very weird impact turns, straight turns, etc

*I am not a great judge for condo - my teams go for it, I know I know, but it does not come from me. I'll vote on it - I just have a high threshold.

*I am a huge switch-side debate person - I really hate the community trend towards only reading arguments that fit in politically correct norms. If you have an evil argument Bring. It. On. I am personally progressive but that has absolutely nothing to do with how I judge debates. The obvious exception to this is attacking people's identity or safety. But if you're packing an absurd impact turn or read a politics da about a piece of legislation that is objectively terrible that you can prove is good, etc, I will be deeply amused.

*I literally have "2a" tattooed on my foot. 2ar terrorism is one of the most wonderful things in debate - make big bold choices if the foundation is there in the 1ar.

*My teams do everything - some are hard right policy teams and some are ... not that. I tend to think that debaters debate best when they find their own brand of debate and let their personalities shine through.

* No roboting through the round. Think. Make risky moves. Let's get weird.

*Style: Don’t be a jerk for the sake of it, but you shouldn’t feel pressure to be sugary sweet if you’re not - expectations of civility, politeness, etc tend to fall on noncis dudes and BIPOC disproportionately. Therefore a little attitude is fine with me. It’s a competition. I'm a woman who directs a major debate program and co-directs one of the biggest tournaments - I understand the need to be assertive and hold your ground.

*Clarity is very important to me. So is pen time.

*Technical debating, line by line, etc are important to me. If you flow off the doc I am not the judge for you.

*Zero risk is a thing. Love me some smart defensive arguments against silly arguments. GIVE JUDGE DIRECTION - challenge normal conceptions of risk.

*If you're making new args late in the debate you're likely to have to justify them to me. That doesn't mean don't do it, it just means defend your actions. THE 1AR IS NOT A CONSTRUCTIVE.

*You do you, but I find that I am slightly more confident in my judging if you include your analytics in the doc. I solemnly swear I am flowing by ear, but just being able to process information both visually and through listening helps my mental processing a bit.

*The one exception to the above is that if you read a new 1ac on paper I am 100% in favor - I truly enjoy watching people freak out when they have to deal with paper debate since I had the not-so-lovely experience of transitioning to paperless mid college debate career.

*EXPLAIN YOUR ACRONYMS - especially in a t debate.

Other random hot takes:

Wipeout - trash takes itself out every single time (me)

Impact turning Ks old school style - it's a love story, baby just say yes (me)

Baudrillard - I forgot that you existed (me)

No cp solvency advocate- now we've got bad blood (Aayan)

More than 6 or 7 off - You're On Your Own Kid (Aayan)

Things that are sexist/homophobic/racist etc - I Know Places where that is tolerated but I will not let rounds I judge be one of them (Aayan)

You must Speak Now (Lauren Ivey/me) in your own cross ex - like obvi tag teaming is sometimes fine but I hate when one partner does ALL of the cx in any given debate.

Heavy stuff:

*No touching.

*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 sugarcoater. 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. YAY DEBATE!!!

tl;dr yeah, you can go fast

Yes, I would like to be on the email chain: jrmartin707@gmail.com

--

Debated in college for UC Berkeley, have coached high school and college teams at local and TOC levels, etc. Doing a bit of occasional coaching and judging now but I'm not plugged into the circuit hardcore; you should assume I'm familiar with everything argumentatively/stylistically and very little on the topic. Generally, same stuff everyone says: debate like you want to debate, explain things and impact them, tell me why you winning or losing an argument does or does not influence my decision, and have fun. Otherwise, here’s some things you probably want to know:

- My own argumentative evolution has been from a pretty exclusively K debater early on to almost all policy work by the end, though I've coached all kinds. For what it’s worth, if you need an easy way to rank me, I lean more and more towards enjoying straight-up policy debates the more I judge. It's tough to disentangle "what are you a good judge for" and "what are you gonna have more fun watching" sometimes, even though they're definitely different, so I'm just gonna be honest and say that if you have no good reason to pick the K or the DA or which of your affs you're gonna read, might as well read the policy one. My favorite debates to judge are: huge in-depth case throwdowns, techy aff-specific counterplan debates, K on K clashes that are grounded in true disputes in the literature, impact turn debates (on the case or against a DA/K), and well-executed topicality debates.

- I do fundamentally believe that framework is true and debate would be better if people read plans, not that that means I exclusively vote negative in those debates. Predictability and debatability sound like pretty important things to me, and I think most aff framework counter-interps do not develop a feasible role for the negative and what neg prep should look like in their version of debate, but that doesn't mean any given neg team executes properly. I think like most everyone I’d rather here some clever unique strategy, but I dislike the dichotomy that framework isn’t a “substantive” argument and that the negative “didn’t engage the aff” by reading it. It's a good argument. The best aff answers lay out really clear alternatives for what debate should look like and impact turn all the skills that policy-focused debate generates.

- I’m generally unpersuaded by arguments along the lines of “the permutation/framework/etc. is violence/stealing our advocacy/etc.”, arguments that the negative doesn’t have to disprove the affirmative, purely nihilistic alternatives, and K speeches that consist entirely of buzzwords where you expect me to fill in what I already know about your concepts. I’m not afraid to give decisions which consist mostly of “I have no idea what you were talking about most of the time” if you just repeated the words “rhizome” or “foundational antagonism” at me, even if I know what you were trying to mean. Additionally, I'm super not down with arguments that are about things outside of the debate, like "show us your prefs" style stuff. I think the other team needs like a ten second defense of "you can only critique stuff we actually said" and I'm checked out.

- I have relatively few strong predispositions about common theory arguments; conditionality is probably fine but not necessarily, etc. I'll be extremely flow-centric here: I have absolutely voted for really bad theory args that got dropped, and also refused to vote for dropped ones when they were never a full argument with an impact in the first place.

- Evidence comparison, and calling out your opponent’s terrible, terrible evidence for what it is, is both extremely important and probably the best way to rack up your speaker points, alongside detailed impact calculus. The best ways to hurt your speaker points are to be a jerk to your partner, to get angry for no reason in cross-ex, and to spend your whole speech behind your laptop not paying any attention to the judge's reactions. Try to be a kind person who knows their stuff and the rest will follow.

- Because so many debates start with the question, "Can we do open CX?", the answer is always the same: you can, technically, there's no rule against it. But I would really recommend you don't - it's always better to get practice handling your CXs alone, going to your partner only as a last resort. It's important that they have the time to prep their next speech (that's three full minutes of free prep time!) and it's also much better for both of your speaker points if you each look organized and have mastery of your material.

Laila McClay
Director of Debate, Sonoma Academy (2015-2019)
Director of Speech & Debate, St. Vincent de Paul High School (2005-2015)


THIS IS YOUR DEBATE. IT IS NOT ABOUT ME. DO WHAT YOU DO BEST.

I value clarity above all else. I think signposting is really important. Slow down for tag lines (I am not looking at your speech doc).

My big picture philosophy is that I want to minimize judge intervention as much as possible. I DO NOT want to be part of your debate. In a close debate my RFD will often include the language "the least intervening way I could vote was..."

HOWEVER, I have found recently that I do have a preference for arguments that do something. And, when weighing arguments that do nothing (high theory goo) against deeply held identity arguments (race, gender, class, etc) I have a pretty high threshold for how the high theory goo team interacts with the identity/performance team; don’t use your high theory to say to someone in an oppressed group that their personally perceived oppression is a fiction. Ultimately, I think that debate is more than a game. I think debate is an activity that has incredible potential to transform the way teenagers think and interact with the world. Arguments that seek to or have the effect of pushing students out of the activity are bad for debate and that is where an ethos moment on that point MIGHT be able to sway me from my predisposition to only evaluate the flow. None of this is to say I don’t also like/understand/read high theory goo, just that I think there is a responsibility on the part of teams who read these arguments to see how what they are saying probably comes from a point of privilege and has a specific interaction with the lived experience of the other debaters in the room.

More specifics:

Kritiks – ONLY READ K’s THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. For the AFF, you need to engage with the K. I think the Perm debate is probably the most important part of the K debate. The Neg shouldn't group all the perms. They Aff should make multiple perms. I like smart debaters who do their own work and know what they are talking about.

K Aff's/Performace - I am fine with all of this. Be smart and show me you know what you are talking about. I tend to be a little more comfortable when the AFF has some sort of stable advocacy statement, but that is just a default and not a requirement.

I think morally repugnant arguments should be answered by the other team with in-round discourse/language shapes reality arguments.

Each speech is a speech act, not a written exchange of arguments. Debaters need to pay more attention to what is said rather than just relying on what is in the speech doc.

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

I would like to be on the email chain - my email address is valeriemcintosh1@gmail.com.

A few top level things:

• If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
• If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
• Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
• I'm a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
• I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
• Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
• Email-sending related failures
• Dead time
• Stealing prep
• Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team
• Asserting things are dropped when they aren't
• Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards
• Disappearing after the round

Online debate: My camera will always be on during the debate unless I have stepped away from my computer during prep or while deciding so you should always assume that if my camera is off, I am not there. I added this note because I've had people start speeches without me there.

Ethics: If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points.
*NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me.

Organization: I would strongly prefer that if you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn that it go on its own page - its super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders. Ditto to reading advantage CPs on case - put it on its own sheet, please!

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Translated evidence: I am extremely skeptical of evidence translated by a debater or coach with a vested interest in that evidence being used in a debate. Lots of words or phrases have multiple meanings or potential translations and debaters/coaches have an incentive to choose the ones that make the most debate-friendly argument even if that's a stretch of what is in the original text. It is also completely impossible to verify if words or text was left out, if it is a strawperson, if it is cut out of context, etc. I won't immediately reject it on my own but I would say that I am very amenable to arguments that I should.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate: I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

Topicality: I enjoy judging topicality debates when they are in-depth and nuanced. Limits are an an important question but not the only important question - your limit should be tied to a particular piece of neg ground or a particular type of aff that would be excluded. I often find myself to be more aff leaning than neg leaning in T debates because I am often persuaded by the argument that negative interpretations are arbitrary or not based in predictable literature.

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans: I would say that I generally lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps, but obviously am more than willing to vote for them if they are debated better by the negative.

I think that CPs should have to be policy actions. I think this is most fair and reciprocal with what the affirmative does. I think that fiating indefinite personal decisions or actions/non-actions by policymakers that are not enshrined in policy is an unfair abuse of fiat that I do not think the negative should get access to. The CP that has the US declare it will not go to war with China would be theoretically legitimate but the CP to have the president personally decide not to go to war with China would not be. Similarly CPs that fiat a concept or endgoal rather than a policy would also fall under this.

It is the burden of the neg to prove the CP solves rather than the burden of the aff to prove it doesn't. Unless the neg makes an attempt to explain how/why the CP solves (by reading ev, by referencing 1AC ev, by explaining how the CP solves analytically), my assumption is that it doesn’t and it isn’t the aff’s burden to prove it doesn’t. The burden for the neg isn’t that high but I think neg teams are getting away with egregious lack of CP explanation and judges too often put the burden on the aff to prove the CP doesn’t solve rather than the neg to prove it does.

Disads: Uniqueness is a thing that matters for every level of the DA. I am not very sympathetic to politics theory arguments (except in the case of things like rider disads, which I might ban from debate if I got the choice to ban one argument and think are certainly illegitimate misinterpretations of fiat) and am unlikely to ever vote on them unless they're dropped and even then would be hard pressed. I'm incredibly knowledgeable about politics and enjoy it a lot when debated well but really dislike seeing it debated poorly.

Theory: Conditionality is often good. It can be not. Conditionality is the ONLY argument I think is a reason to reject the team, every other argument I think is a reason to reject the argument alone. Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

Kritiks: I've gotten simultaneously more versed in critical literature and much worse for the kritik as a judge over the last few years. Take from that what you will.

Your K should ideally be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If not, you're better off with it primarily being a framework argument.

Yes the aff gets a perm, no it doesn't need a net benefit.

Affs without a plan: I generally go into debates believing that the aff should defend a hypothetical policy enacted by the United States federal government. I think debate is a research game and I struggle with the idea that the ballot can do anything to remedy the impacts that many of these affs describe.

I certainly don't consider myself immovable on that question and my decision will be governed by what happens in any given debate; that being said, I don't like when judges pretend to be fully open to any argument in order to hide their true thoughts and feelings about them and so I would prefer to be honest that these are my predispositions about debate, which, while not determinate of how I judge debates, certainly informs and affects it.

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.

I generally am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.

I don't think debate is roleplaying.

I am uncomfortable making decisions in debates where people have posited that their survival hinges on my ballot.

I flow everything straight down on paper.

I actually think framework is a good argument, but in the way that I think it pushes K args to defend some of the fundamental aspects of their arguments - reform, legal solutions, the state, progress, liberalism, traditional forms of politics, etc. I think these are the important aspects of framework. Procedural fairness is an impact and not one that I love, but it's a means to an end. You still have to win some kind of terminal impact to framework, otherwise we're just playing a technical game of checkers. Give me a reason to care.

Affs get perms. You need a link to your K anyway. That should make it so the perm is unable to solve the impacts of your criticism. But they still get to make the perm argument so that that aspect of the debate is tested. I get it, it's a method debate. But I super want you to have a link that says why their method sucks.

Example: direct revolutionary praxis vs strategic, opaque resistance. There are a ton of flavors of these methods, but at their roots they are competitive and produce good debates.

"Performance" - All debate is a performance. This categorical distinction is arbitrary and I don't like it. Of course you can read a story to support your argument. People do that.

Evidence – I'm going to read cards. I like them. I think cards should be good and well warranted, and I hate calling for cards only to find a good argument was backed up with some lackluster ev.

Experience: I debated for 5 years at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve been a 2A for 4 of the those years.

I haven't debated since the TOC of 2013 so be gentle. It'll take me a little while to get used to the fastest level of spreading. Start slow. I also have had with zero experience with the 2013-2014 High School topic other than hearing the actual resolution and the names and advantages of a few affs. I used to hate "disinterested" college students like me, when I was a high school debater but I still try to stay engaged now - even if I look tired I'm still engaged. It's just up to you to adapt.

Cliffnotes: An argument is a claim + a warrant. I listen and flow all arguments. All arguments? Yes. All arguments. To quote Calum Matheson’s judge philosophy: “All styles of debate can be done well or done poorly. Very little offends me. If you can’t beat the argument that genocide is good or that rocks are people, or that rock genocide is good even though they’re people, then you are a bad advocate of your cause and you should lose. If it’s so wrong and you’re so right, then it should be easy for you to win”.

One other thing I will mention is that I am a sucker for strategy. Not to say that I tend to be distant from rounds, but I think that a good strategy with clever tricks (on the aff or neg) garners more interest from me which can only benefit your points and the quality of my decision. I think that the words “debate” and “clash” could be interchangeable. The earlier and more either team engages their opponent the more/better the debating becomes. This does not necessarily preclude the K – quite the contrary. A Kritik contextualized to an aff (or at least the impacts) combined with some case arguments with some spin can be devastating. Just to be clear though, do the most strategic thing to win: I don't really care about clash in a debate where the 2AC has dropped a process counterplan and politics. You don't need to practice going for the only thing the 2AC answered which is your piss-poor Kritik - just go for the damn counterplan.


Rest: You should assume I am stupid (probably because I am). If you intend for me to vote on an argument, explain what it is. I will under no circumstance feel comfortable voting on an argument I do not understand. Below is a guide for varying degrees of explanation necessary for certain arguments

Disadvantages – I understand almost all of them. I don’t expect a story, just a comparison of the impacts and how they interact.

Topicality – I understand most of the mechanics of a good T debate. In the event of an extremely technical T debate, both final rebuttals would benefit from a strong overview that provides a case list of their interpretation, a topical version of the aff (for the neg), or an counterinterpretation/ interpretation permutation that probably solves most of the impacts + some reasonability arguments (for the aff).

Counterplans– I understand most counterplans. Process counterplans are like cannabilism - frowned upon by many but necessary in some instances. In the event that you read a counterplan like this I just need a clear explanation of a) what the counterplan does and b) how it competes (textual vs. functional should occur here). With regards to counterplan theory I try to maintain as much neutrality as possible. I believe that for several counterplans (Conditions, Consult, etc…) the affirmative arguments for why those counterplans are illegitimate/not competitive are better than the their negative counterparts however if those arguments are not made/consistently extended then the negative should win. For me to be able to do this I need to be able flow the arguments (claim + warrant) otherwise I cannot understand what the argument is and cannot use it to make a decision.

Critiques– Explain how the aff is a problem and how the alternative resolves that problem. Specific K alternatives are much better than a floating PIK and just as devastating as the floating PIK. If you think it is un-strategic to point out you are making a floating PIK argument because then the affirmative would answer it then you are stupid and deserve to lose. Chances are I will be much more sympathetic to a 2AR permutation if the affirmative was not given an explicit chance to defend exactly which part of the aff the negative kritik. This is mainly a question of understanding what the kritik does at the end of the debate and how it interacts with the case. Explain WHY ontology is a prerequisite to doing policy. How does approaching policy with a "problem-solving oriented mindset" cause ontological destruction and doom the aff solvency/impacts? If I understand this I will be much more likely to be able to make more educated decision about the debate.
Random things about the K
K tricks are incomplete statements until you tell me how your alternative/worldview is able to solve them. As long as both components are well debated and present in the Block and/or 2NR I will feel comfortable voting for them. If you don’t like this compromise sucks to suck.

Performance: Defend a plan text. I think these debates can be sweet/with a lot of clash but I need a clear explanation of what the ballot is/does and how it operates within your movement. Do not choose to only talk about social injustice, and deny me some delicious clash. I will be unhappy.

Defaults (These only occur if nothing has been said about them during the debate) - 
These are copy/pasted from assorted judge philosophies. These people have much more credibility than I do but I agree with all of these preferences. I.E. Calum, Greenstein, Nick Miller, Ellis Allen,

1. I believe in terminal defense - “Any risk” is inane. Below some level of probability, the effect identified should be overwhelmed by random noise, or perhaps the opposite effect might occur. You know who’s bad at applying math to policymaking? Jonathan Schell. The exact calculation of risk is similarly hilarious. Are you really sure that the risk of a disad is fifteen percent? Are you sure it’s not, say, twenty? Or maybe ten? Or, God forbid, twenty-five? If you are able to calculate risk with such precision, please quit debate and join the DIA. Your country needs you, citizen. If not, recognize that risks can be roughly calculated in a relative way, but that the application of mathematical models to debate is a (sometimes) useful heuristic, not an independently viable tool for evaluation.

2. Theory debates are cool BUT - Offense/defense isn’t always appropriate for theory arguments. The team that makes the argument has the burden to show that it’s okay to do that, but they don’t need to prove that something is particularly good—just okay. Theory arguments should be rooted in something fundamental. There are hypothetical benefits of debate, then practices that further them, then specific arguments that are examples of those practices. These principles rarely result in a counterinterpretation that isn’t an arbitrary, self-serving turd shat gracelessly into a shallow theory debate.

3. No Judge Kick - Unless the Negative makes an argument to the contrary, going for a counterplan in the 2NR means that the only relevant comparison is the counterplan versus the plan. If the plan is better than the counterplan, the Aff does not need to be compared to the status quo. It is “logical” for the judge to compare the plan to the status quo if the counterplan is a bad idea, but it’s similarly logical for the judge to vote for only part of the plan, or the plan plus some undiscussed-but-implied alternative, delay the plan for a couple of months, or to unilaterally decide that a disad isn’t intrinsic. Saying “status quo is always an option” doesn’t resolve this—an option for who? The 2NR or the judge? If you want the status quo to be considered along with the counterplan, you should say so clearly

4. T before other theory args

5. Intrinsicness - Advance a complete argument in the 2ac - I understand the motive to spit it out quickly, but if you don't explain it on a basic level then I'll be lenient when the neg messes up.Debates should be about opportunity cost. Disadvantages should be intrinsic to the plan. Many people seem not to understand what this means. If the impact to a disad is that the same actor doing the plan would then do something bad, this disad is not intrinsic—i.e., nothing about the plan means that the disadvantage necessarily results. Example: the plan has the US Congress withdraw US troops from Iraq. The Neg says “Congress would then choose not to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment and that would hurt US-Russian relations.” This disadvantage is not intrinsic, because the same actor—Congress—could do the plan and still repeal Jackson-Vanik. A legitimate Aff response is “Congress could do the plan and still repeal Jackson-Vanik.” Here’s where some people seem to get stuck: the Aff argument “we could do the plan and Congress could give Alaska back to Russia” is not a legitimate argument. Intrinsicness arguments are like permutations of the status quo—they test to see if the Aff could do the plan and still maintain the decision that the negative says the plan trades off with (Jackson-Vanik). They can’t introduce new options to solve the same impact because that tests the necessary magnitude of the cost, not whether or not two courses of action are actually exclusive of one another. The “plan plus return Alaska” argument tests competition with a hypothetical world where we’re giving back Alaska, which is not the world that the Negative defends. There are many, many ways around this intrinsicness requirement for the Negative, and I have very rarely voted Aff on this argument.

6. Ev v. explanation. I respect the hell out of quality ev and the work that goes into it, but I also don’t want to punish teams with less capacity to generate it or who do more work explaining the cards they did read. Whoever establishes how to evaluate evidence has a chance to get ahead.

7. Policymaker default - Always arguable, and usually favors the aff in most instances, but neg teams keep saying "permutations check abuse" in condo debates so I guess ya'll agree with me anyway.



Speaker Points 
I can’t really tell you specifically what constitutes a 27.5 or 28 – I will not go below a 27 assuming no one was physically injured/no cheating. Otherwise I feel that they are subject to the each individual round and are adversely affected by the quality of the round. I think that to maximize the chance of good speaker points you should take into account the following.

1. Be Funny- I hate judges who think an amazing speech deserves only a 28.5. If you are sweet, you will get sweet points. Also, the funnier you are and the more you can make me laugh the better your points will be

2. Don’t Debate Down - Debating down can nuke your speaker points. If you believe that you are better at debate than your opponent prove it. If they think It’ll be funny to read their politics links on the T-Human flow, answer that ish on the politics flow

3. Cross X -I freaking love Cross-X. Most people don't care enough about cross-x. If you use your Cross-x well (eg, if it is well thought out and used to generate arguments and understandings that are useful in speeches for important parts of the debate), my happiness and your speaker points will increase.

4. Clarity - Debate is a public speaking and communication activity. Good debaters engage the judge, speak clearly, and are able to explain their arguments and be funny despite time pressure. Debaters who look up from their flow while speaking will benefit from being able to see my reactions to arguments. Debaters who are clear will benefit from my ability to understand or flow the warrants of their cards

5. Civility – Be Civil. Bullying anyone in the debate will not be tolerated. I understands debates can get heated sometimes especially against people you really want to beat but verbal or physical attacks on the other team or your partner will never show up in my RFD and therefore should not be present in a debate

6. We’re not friends – If I know varsity members on your squad, do not assume that you can make fun of me for throwing a timer at Jordan Epstein. If I think you’re a punk there’s only a risk it hurts you and I get to tell your varsity members how much fun it was dropping a rude kid. See #1 and then maybe we can talk.

Non-Negotiables
1. Cheating – clipping, cross reading, misrepresenting evidence, physical/sexual harassment will result in the lowest points allowed by the tournament and a loss even if it is not called out within the round

2. Paperless – I’m fine with it. I will more than likely ask for a few cards after the round although I try to limit the number of cards I look at. I will need them on a jump drive (I will not steal your evidence).

3. Prep Time – I am one of those freaks who’ll have a running timer. It makes me incredibly angry when other teams blatantly steal prep in front of everyone. I’ll stop the timer when the speech is ready to be saved on the flash drive. At that point everyone’s hands should leave their laptops and everything should be still until the other team receives the flashdrive to pull the speech on the viewer/their laptops. If you do attempt to steal prep, I will catch you and I will deduct however long I think you took + 5 seconds

Donny Peters

20 years coaching. I have coached at Damien High School, Cal State Fullerton, Illinois State University, Ball State University, Wayne State University and West Virginia University. Most of my experience is in policy but I have also coached successful LD and PF teams.

After reading over paradigms for my entire adult life, I am not sure how helpful they really are. They seem to be mostly a chance to rant, a coping mechanism, a way to get debaters not to pref them and some who generally try but usually fail to explain how they judge debates. Regardless, my preferences are below, but feel free to ask me before the round if you have any questions.

Short paradigm. I am familiar with most arguments in debate. I am willing to listen to your argument. If it an argument that challenges the parameters and scope of debate, I am open to the argument. Just be sure to justify it. Other than that, try to be friendly and don't cheat.

Policy

For Water Protection: I am no longer coaching policy full time so I haven't done the type of topic research that I have in the past. I have worked on a few files and have judges a few debates but I do not have the kind of topic knowledge something engaged in coaching typically does.

For CJR: New Trier is my first official tournament judging this season, but I have done a ton of work on the topic, judged practice debates etc.

Evidence: This is an evidence based activity. I put great effort to listening, reading and understanding your evidence. If you have poor evidence, under highlight or misrepresent your evidence (intentional or unintentional) it makes it difficult for me to evaluate your arguments. Those who have solid evidence, are able to explain their evidence in a persuasive matter tend to get higher speaker points, win more rounds etc.

Overall: Debate how you like (with some constraints below). I will work hard to make the best decision I am capable of. Make debates clear for me, put significant effort in the final 2 rebuttals on the arguments you want me to evaluate and give me an approach to how I should evaluate the round.

Nontraditional Affs : I tend to enjoy reading the literature base for most nontraditional affirmatives. I'm not completely sold on the pedagogical value of these arguments at the high school level. I do believe that aff should have a stable stasis point in the direction of the resolution. The more persuasive affs tend to have a personal relationship with the arguments in the round and have an ability to apply their method and theory to personal experience.

Framework: I do appreciate the necessity of this argument. I am more persuaded by topical version arguments than the aff has no place in the debate. If there is no TVA then the aff need to win a strong justification for why their aff is necessary for the debate community. The affirmative cannot simply say that the TVA doesn't solve. Rather there can be no debate to be had with the TVA. Fairness in the abstract is an impact but not a persuasive one. The neg need to win specific reasons how the aff is unfair and and how that impacts the competitiveness and pedagogical value of debate. Agonism, decision making and education may be persuasive impacts if correctly done.

Counter plans: I attempt to be as impartial as I can concerning counterplan theory. I don’t exclude any CP’s on face. I do understand the necessity for affirmatives to go for theory on abusive counterplans or strategically when they do not have any other offense. Don’t hesitate to go for consult cp’s bad, process cps bad, condo, etc. For theory, in particular conditionality, the aff should provide an interpretation that protects the aff without over limiting the neg.

DA's : who doesn't love a good DA? I do not automatically give the neg a risk of the DA. Not really sure there is much else to say.

Kritiks- Although I enjoy a good K debate, good K debates at the high school level are hard to come by. Make sure you know your argument and have specific applications to the affirmative. My academic interests involve studying Foucault Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze, , etc. So I am rather familiar with the literature. Just because I know the literature does not mean I am going to interpret your argument for you.

Overall, The key to get my ballot is to make sure its clear in the 2NR/2AR the arguments you want me to vote for and impact them out. That may seem simple, but many teams leave it up to the judge to determine how to prioritize and evaluate arguments.

For LD

Loyola: I have done significant research on the topic and I have judged a number of rounds for camps.

Debate how your choose. I have judged plenty of LD debates over the years and I am familiar with contemporary practices. I am open to the version of debate you choose to engage, but you should justify it, especially if your opponent provides a competing view of debate. For argument specifics please read the Policy info. anything else, I am happy to answer before your debate.

Scott Phillips- for email chains please use iblamebricker@gmail in policy, and ldemailchain@gmail.com for LD
Coach@ Harvard Westlake/Dartmouth

My general philosophy is tech/line by line focused- I try to intervene as little as possible in terms of rejecting arguments/interpreting evidence. As long as an argument has a claim/warrant I can explain to your opponent in the RFD I will vote for it. If only one side tries to resolve an issue I will defer to that argument even if it seems illogical/wrong to me- i.e. if you drop "warming outweighs-timeframe" and have no competing impact calc its GG even though that arg is terrible. 90% of the time I'm being postrounded it is because a debater wanted me to intervene in some way on their behalf either because that's the trend/what some people do or because they personally thought an argument was bad.

I am a good judge for you if/A bad judge for you if not

1. You cut good cards and highlight them to make complete arguments in at least B- 7th grade English, which is approximately my level. Read uniqueness. If your disad is non unique, not putting a uniqueness card in the 1NC is not cute, its a waste of time. If your best answers to an IR K are Ravenhall 09 and Reiter 15 you are not meeting this criteria, ditto answering pessimism with "implicit bias is malleable".
2. You debate evidence quality/qualifications and read evidence from academic sources rather than twitter/forum posts. If you are responding to a zany argument not discussed in academia, blog/forum away. If that is not the case I implore you to ask why these sources are the only ones you can find.
3. You listen to what the other team is saying and give a speech that demonstrates that you did by answering all of their arguments correctly and in the order in which they were presented . Do not read a collection of non responsive blocks in random order. And then in follow up speeches you compare/resolve those arguments rather than repeating yourself.
4. You make smart analytics against arguments with obvious weaknesses. Most 1NC disads and 1AC advantages in current debate are incoherent/missing several pieces. You do not have to respond to an incomplete argument, point out it is incomplete and move on. Once completed you get new answers to any part of it.
5. You rely on knowing what you are talking about more than posturing/grandstanding.
6. You understand your arguments/can explain things. In CX and speeches you should be able to explain words/concepts from your evidence correctly, and be able to apply them. If your link card says "the aff is not disarm" thats not a link, thats an observation
7. You can cover/don't drop things. Grouping things is fine. Making a philosophical argument for why line by line debate is bad, and instead making your argument in the form of big picture conceptual analysis is fine. Randomly saying things in the wrong place, dropping 1/2 of what the other team said and then expecting me to figure out how to apply what you said there is not. I will not make "reject argument not team" for you.

I operate on a "3 strikes" rule: each side gets up to 3 nonsense arguments- a CP that is just a text, a bad disad or advantage, an unexplained perm etc. After that your points and credibility plummet precipitously. If I'm reading your card doc I will stop reading your evidence after 3 cards highlighted into nothing. If you include 3 "rehighlightings" of the other teams evidence that are obviously wrong I will ignore all your evidence/default to the other sides.

If debated by two teams of equal skill/preparation, the following arguments are IMO unwinnable but I vote for them more often than not because the above suggestions are ignored.

-please let us weigh our case or we said the word extinction so Ks don't matter

-the framework is: object of research, you link you lose, debate shapes subjectivity, ethics first without explaining what ethics are/mean

-War good, pollution good, renewables bad- it doesn't matter if these are in right wing heritage impact turn form or academic K form

-the neg needs more than 1cp and 1K for debate to be fair. Arguments like "hard debate is good debate... so make it hard for them" are so bad you should be able to figure it out/not say them

-PICS that do/result in the whole plan are legitimate. The negative can actually win without these, especially on a topic where there are 3 affs.

-counterplans that ban the plan as their only form of competition are legitimate, especially on a topic with only...

Updated for ASU 2021

I spent the first half of my debate career reading primarily "policy" arguments and the second half of my career experimenting with critical literature. Most of my 2NRs my senior year consisted of either psychoanalysis, politics (and CP/case), T, or framework. I've debated and coached both sides of the framework debate. I'm currently a lawyer. I have not judged any debates on this topic and have done almost no research on it either.

Contact info: rsrajan93@gmail.com (add me to the email chain)

Big picture:

-Each side should have offense (solvency deficits, DAs, etc.) to the other side's proposed advocacy (1AC, TVAs, CPs, K alts, etc.). In terms of impacts, however, I am comfortable believing that there is such a low risk of something happening that it is not a concern.

-Impact COMPARISONS frame my decision regardless of the genre of debate. Your final speech ought to provide some insight into why the strategy you are going for is a good one.

-While I care a lot about both evidence quality and spin, how you debate your evidence matters the most. Evidence quality will influence speaker points.

-Even...if argumentation is good because you're not likely to win every argument.

-Less is more. Final speeches ought to value breadth over depth. Fewer arguments that are better impacted out have a greater chance winning in front of me than hoping your opponent drops a poorly impacted one.

-I am quite good for impact turns, especially in Policy v. K debates.

-I have to be able to trace any argument that is in the 2AR to the 1AR. I will not reward aff vagueness or any attempt to obfuscate the debate up until the 2AR.

Note: Each debater gets one constructive and one rebuttal. After the 1AC/1NC, I will not evaluate what you say during your partner's speeches. This presumption can only be overcome with a very good and explicit reason.

Specific Arguments:

Framework: I judge this debate the most often. Fairness is far more persuasive as an internal link than it is as an external impact. The two most persuasive negative strategies are either: (a) an explanation of how the negative's conception of the activity promotes certain beneficial skills or a model of research (or engagement with the world) that links to some larger impact that outweighs and is mutually exclusive with the aff OR (b) a reason for why conceiving of debate as more than just a game structured by competitive incentives is bad. Negatives should still play defense to the substance of the aff via case answers, TVAs, state engagement good args, an SSD claim, etc. Such defense should also address aff impact turns to framework.

Affirmatives need a connection to the topic. Affs should also defend doing something and that advocacy should extend beyond the aff debaters. Otherwise, it's very easy for me to find that any impact on framework outweighs the aff. To effectively hedge against procedural fairness offense, affirmatives ought to have a vision of what debate looks like under their interpretation. I've noticed that I've been voting negative more often because affirmatives spend too much time describing the content of the aff and not enough time explaining how they grapple with the competitive structure of debate. Explain how you deal with the fact that debate is a competitive activity and how you would change our relationship to or channel the benefits of competition.

Lastly, I have a hard time completely separating "form" from "content." I am willing, however, to believe that one may be more important than (or control how I evaluate) the other.

Kritiks: Examples matter. While specificity to the aff is not required, specificity does influence how likely I am to believe the thesis of your K.

For the aff, if the negative critiques a methodological underpinning necessary for the aff to be true/function, the burden is on the affirmative to answer that critique. It behooves the aff to have a defense of their epistemology, ontology, representations, etc. or reasons why those considerations should not matter. The aff can and should make arguments about specificity, but needs to contextualize these arguments for the purposes of impact calculus or internal link takeouts.

When answering framework on the K, the aff should defend their model of engaging the resolution. I'm not too persuaded by arguments grounded in predictability or fairness.

Topicality: I default to competing interpretations. Reasonability arguments should be phrased as reasons why the negative's interpretation is bad. I also believe that T is about what you justify so potential abuse is a voting issue. I'm not too persuaded by plan text in a vacuum type arguments. For both sides, it's important to contextualize any standards to specific arguments grounded in topic literature.

CPs/Theory: I heavily lean neg on conditionality. I lean aff on theoretical objections to CPs that compete off the certainty of the aff. The negative can obviate a lot of these concerns by having a topic-specific solvency advocate defending the value of discussing the CP. My default is to reject the argument and not the team.

I will kick the CP if I think it's worse than the status quo. A neg team does not have to say judge kick. Affs can make arguments about why judge kick is bad, but I'm a tough sell.

If you have any questions or would like a typed up version of my RFD, please email me.

4 years of policy debate at St. Francis HS, fourth year policy debater at ASU. I coach for DV. I do not flow straight down. I will probably vote on your dirty tech tricks if you win that I should vote on them.

If someone wins that I should be a policymaker or look at offense/defense I'll evaluate the debate accordingly. I CAN be persuaded that there is zero risk of something. I'll vote for anything if you win that's what I should vote on.

I STRONGLY hold the line on new 1ar/2nr/2ar arguments; I will confidently default to not evaluating a new rebuttal argument.

Historical analysis and demonstrably deep/nuanced knowledge of your argument is very, very persuasive for me.

I'm much better for straight-up policy debates than you think I am.

k stuff I'm particularly familiar with: triple o, foucault, queer theory, postcoloniality & decoloniality, hillman, berlant, Nietzsche, lacan, fanon

I will buy your internal link turns to framework if that's the best way your aff interacts with the topic - you don't HAVE to impact turn framework if you don't want to.

This is a thing now I guess: if a question is asked in cx but there’s not enough time to answer, you can ask the cx-ing team if they’d like to use their own prep time to answer it. Do it fast. Then that’s it. I have gotten bored and am not listening anymore. Example: the 1A shouldn’t continue cxing the 1N during the entire span of 2AC prep, but the 1N CAN say "would you like to use your prep for me to answer the question" if the question was asked before the timer went off.

Don't say things are postmodern when they're not postmodern. pet peeve. "Postmodern" does not mean "confusing."

Also I hate when people say stuff like "no perm bc it's a method debate" or "fiat solves the link" or "perm shields the link to midterms" with no explanation. That's not an argument. I'm not writing it down.

The perm doesn't need a net benefit to win the debate because it's a test of competition. It doesn't even need a card explaining why it's possible (although having one doesn't hurt).

You can get my vote on "neg gets one unconditional option."

I only say "clear" twice (per person).

I debated for 4 years at Desert Vista High School, and I am a freshman debating at ASU.

I will ask for flashed versions of the speeches and, if I can, I will try to record rounds so I can make sure there is no clipping or cheating. I encourage you to do the same. Everything will be deleted at the end of the round. I can handle speed but will tell you if I need you to be clearer and/or slow down. Be funny in cross ex, don't be rude.


tldwr: I will vote for the arguments that the team is winning. Don't be offensive, ableist, discriminatory, or make anyone in the round uncomfortable with your language, behavior and/or body odor. Warranted and comparative analysis and line by line debating is actually directly correlated with how well you do in the round.
tech over truth, offense/defense paradigm but if you're winning defensive reasons to not vote for the other team I can be persuaded.

http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Revenew%2C+Kailyn

PARADIGM FOR CHAD RIGSBY

I'm the current Saint George's Debate Coach and a former Assistant Debate Coach at Gonzaga University.  I've been judging on and off for 20 years.  

I believe that debate is a combination of strategic game and storytelling.  I consider the flow the game board and I pay attention to drops, but I expect that debaters will have a coherent story to explain their victory at the end of the round.  Although I am comfortable with most sorts of arguments, I would say that I'm primarily interested in strategic decisionmaking and in an explanation of why a team should win.

I don't have many set preferences about arguments.  I'm fine with critical/methodological arguments, though I do look closely at the Role of the Ballot in these situations; too often, these arguments devolve into discussion of methodologies that don't seem to really compete.  I am willing to listen to most theory arguments and don't have particularly strong preconceptions about them, though I do look for theoretical consistency.

I understand that debate often requires people to speak fast.  I'm fine with that.  I will tell you if you're not clear enough.

Good Luck & Have Fun!

2016 updated

Tech outweighs truth, great spin/technical debating can beat higher quality ev when you have only decent/kinda bad cards, I'm more flow oriented when judging, these are my defaults, you can change them by making arguments about it though.

DAs - pointing out logical holes and good analytics get really far with me and can completely take out a DA. Zero risk is possible. Don't drop "DA turns and/or solves the case". I'm more willing to listen to intrinsincness arguments than most people, I like them, but there are good neg answers too.

CPs - CPs that do the aff are illegit, but if you can defend them read them. Theory is always an option against bad CPs. I really like theory debates, but impact calc is incredibly important here. You really need to slow down so I can write down what you said though, I can be persuaded that abusive counterplans extended in the block are voting issues even if the neg doesn't go for it in the 2NR, but the 1AR has to spend a lot of time on why this is true. The neg can obviously beat this if dealt with, and it would take actual work for me to vote on it, not a 1-second blip. That being said, if you can defend these CPs theoretically, you should go for them.

K's - Aff's get to weigh implementation of the Plan. I am not a good judge for the K.

T/Theory - Give examples of what affs would be justified by the aff's interp. Impact comparison between standards is crucial. I'm open to either reasonability or competing interpretations. Theory is always an option in front of me, if you can't beat dumb things like T-substantial, you should lose. The text of your interpretation matters to me.

K-affs - You must read a Plan.

The foundation of my philosophy is that debate is a game. This is important in that I believe strongly that everyone who wants to should be able to play. That means that treating each other with respect, and sportsmanship are very important. If you lie to me, or your competitors or do anything to intentionally belittle anyone's efforts you will awaken my wrath. You should always debate to the best of your ability but if you are debating a team that clearly isn't up to your competition level please try to make it quick and painless. If you don't need to use all your speech time don't and in those situations because I am a coach I tend to reward debaters who are kind  and helpful to those who are still learning.

I appreciate debate as  forum for education and expression and believe that my role is simply to try to do my best to evaluate the round through whatever method you effectively present to me. I have been participating in this activity in one way or another for 20 years. That has benefits and disadvantages to you. I am willing and able to evaluate any style of debate and my preference for what you choose to do doesn't exist as long as you do your thing well. Because I have seen so many debates, I do appreciate creativity in argument choice, and strategy.

I am not as good at flowing as I used to be so signposting and clarity are key. If the round comes down to whether you uttered one sentence or not somewhere in the round that is not a position I would trust my own flow in so debate better than that. If an argument is really important you should flag it as such. 

My understanding of most philosophy/philosophers/Kritiks is very basic. So, you need to be clear in your explanations  of any positions that involve these things. My own debate preference was theory, D/As, and C/Ps as a result those positions are easiest for me to evaluate. While I often very much enjoy performance/identity debates they are the most difficult to evaluate as I find they often call for judge intervention. Because I believe debate is a game (your game not mine) I do my best to just follow where you take me in a round. That means anything goes. To answer the typical questions: speed is fine (being unclear can cause you problems), tag team is fine, playing media is fine, anything you can justify through argumentation is fine. 

Specifics on my experience: 3 years high school policy TOC qualifier, 4 years college policy debate (CEU, Georgia State, Weber State) NDT qualifier. 12 years various coaching positions. Have coached TOC qualifiers in all events. 

Have fun! Please ask if you have any other questions.

Hi! I'm Jaime (pronounced high-meh), I debated at Damien High School and I graduated in 2016. TL;DR: debate is what you make it, so say what you want and argue well. Don't be a douche, and you'll be good. I'll do my absolute best to reward hard work on both sides of the debate.

Debates with plan 1AC's:

You should assume I don't know what you're talking about when it's pertaining to the topic, i.e., different acronyms, specific mechanisms for the aff, topic DA's, etc. That being said, if you explain things like T and DA's for the neg/the plan for the aff and I get it, your speaks will reflect that. 

Debates with no-plan 1AC's:

Aff - I debated these for most of my senior year, and I am definitely going to listen to what you have to say if that's your 1AC. 

Neg - I am down for whatever you're going to do, whether it's framework or a very specific K on the 1AC's method/performance. However, I should warn you that if all you're gonna do is read framework and a bunch of generic case stuff, then you should do a lot of work on explaining on why the aff links to your generic case stuff or else I'll be very sympathetic to the aff.

Things pertaining to speaks:

1) If you say something blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or just some awful stuff, your ceiling is a 25. This is a precursor to everything else on this paradigm.

2) Be creative. A lot of times, there's an accepted set of arguments to read against something, whatever; if you surprise me with a new argument, I'll surprise you with good speaks.

3) Don't shout in cross-ex, it never ends well. If both of y'all are shouting, I'm just gonna start listening to music; if one of y'all is shouting at the other and the other is chill about it, I'm gonna give the calm one high speaks. 

Hopefully I didn't make debate sound too boring. Good luck!

Name Sara Sanchez
Affiliation: NAUDL
School Strikes: Glenbrook South, Lexington
Last Edited: 1/21/2024, Edited for Emory 2024

General Overview: I default to the least interventionist way to evaluate the round possible. I’ve pretty much voted on anything that you can think of, and likely some things that you can’t. I have not been historically inclined to accept/reject any arguments on-face. That said, the following is true:

Impact calculus and comparison is your friend. I cannot stress this enough. I'm routinely surprised by the number of quality rounds I judge where each team is weighing their impacts but no one is weighing their impacts vis a vis the other team. It is not enough to explain your scenario for solving/avoiding war, explain to me why that matters in the context of the other team's genocide impact.

I would like you to be driving questions of impact calculus and framing. I prefer to be reading your evidence through the lens you have set up in round. You should be telling me what your evidence says and why it matters. This means I probably give a little more weight to spin than some judges, you should be calling out bad evidence that is being mischaracterized if you want me to read it. Obviously, I have (and will) read evidence on questions that have not adequately been fleshed out in round when it’s necessary, but now you are held accountable for my understanding of the card, which may, or may not, have been on the flow. So please, weigh those issues for me, and we’ll all be happy.

Clarity & Organization: This section used to be a note about speed. It was a gentle request that you keep in mind that reading 3 word theory arguments at the same rate as the cards you are reading was obviously silly and difficult to flow. I am now substantially more concerned with clarity in general. I can understand a pretty rapid rate of delivery. I want to hear the words you say. All of them. That includes the words in your cards and the sub-points of your theory block. I think we as a community have let clarity get away from us. I was recently pleasantly surprised by a few debaters who were both incredibly fast and crystal clear at all points in their speeches. I was also saddened that they stood out as anomalous in contrast to many of the debate rounds that I judge. In addition to the clarity with which you deliver your speeches I believe this also is a component of organization in the round. It is functionally impossible to follow your arguments and apply them correctly when all of the debaters in the room abandon the structure of the flow/line-by-line. Embedded clash is fine. Flat out ignoring the order/structure of arguments and answers is not. While my speaker points have always reflected things like clarity & organization I am going to use them more heavily in this regard in an effort to encourage good practices among the debaters in my rounds. If you are not clear, I will ask you to be clear once, if you are not clear after that, your partner should probably keep an eye on me to make sure I look like I’m following you, because if it’s not on my flow, it’s not in the round. If I cannot understand large swaths of your speeches and/or you are jumping all over the flow with no attempt to answer arguments in the order they were made, your points will be low (think less than 27.5 range). If, on the other hand, I can understand almost every word of your speech, and you consistently following the line-by-line structure of the round, your points will be high (think 29-29.5 range) to ensure you have a better chance at clearing if points become an issue. If you have questions about this, please ask before the round.

Clipping: I am disturbed that the number of clipping incidents seems to be on the rise and that there appears to be some confusion as to what constitutes clipping. Card clipping, is failing to read sections of the card without marking audibly during the speech and on the speech doc (or on paper, if you are not paperless). It can be definitively determined by recording the speech and playing it back with the speech doc. It is an ethical violation and if proven will result in zero speaker points for the debater(s) who have clipped cards and the loss. If an accusation occurs I will stop the round, ask for proof, and make a determination about the accusation at that point in the round. That decision will determine who wins the round. I will also make a point to talk to your coach after the round to explain what I believe happened and why. I reserve the right to adjust the policy according to circumstances (i.e. accidental clipping in a novice round is different than clipping in a senior varsity debate).

Please be nice to each other and have fun. I’ve yet to have someone upset me to the point where it has lost them the round, but I will not hesitate to punish people for being rude via speaker points. Debate is a wonderful activity, that I care about a lot, and we don’t all give up our weekends, nights, and a decent portion of our social lives to be verbally abused or to witness said abuse. That said, competitive spirit is fine, flat out rudeness is not. If you need clarification on where the line is, feel free to ask.

Speaker points Apparently I needed to bump these to align with point inflation, so I have. Points probably start at a 27.5-28. Anything over 29.5 is rare, it's been years since I gave a 30. If you get below a 25 it's probably because you did something offensive/unethical in the round, and I'll likely tell you about it before I turn in my ballot.

27.5-28 Average
28.1-28.7 Good, but probably will miss on points or go 3-3
28.8-29.2 Good, chance to go 4-2 and clear low
29.2-29.5 I believe you should get a top 20 speaker award at this tournament
29.5-29.8 You were one of the most exceptional speakers I've heard in years, and should be in the top 5 speakers of this tournament.

What’s above is more important than what is below, as I will default to the round that is given me, however I’ll include a couple of notes on specific positions. The below list is not exhaustive, if you have specific questions, ask.

Topicality/Theory: I’m more than open to these debates, I have no problem pulling the trigger on them. I tend to evaluate these debates in a framework of competing interpretations. You should have an interpretation in these debates, and you should be able to articulate reasons (with examples, evidence, and comparative impacts) that your interpretation is preferable to the other team's. You should be explaining why your arguments matter and what the world of your interpretation looks like (case lists, argument ground). You should not assume that the 3-word blippy jargon we all use now is an argument, because I don't tend to think it is one. If you've done the above things, and you want to go for theory or T, you're probably fine. That said...

Counterplans: I personally tend to error negative on a lot of theoretical CP objections when these aren't adequately debated in round (dispo, PICs, condo, etc.) I'm probably more sympathetic to objections to consult counterplans, or procedural counterplans like delay, sunsets, etc. I love specific counterplans and adore specific PICs, so you have a bit more of an uphill battle on the PICs bad debate. That doesn't mean I won't evaluate PICs/Dispo/Condo bad args, feel free to make/go for them, see the interpretations note above. I am more likely to vote on nuanced theory arguments than generic ones. For example, conditional, consult, counterplans bad is more persuassive than just conditionality bad.

Condo - couple of extra notes: I think that having more than one K and one CP in the round is pushing the limit on conditionality. You would still need to do work here to earn my ballot, but it's definitely viable. I also tend to think that uniform 50 state fiat counterplans that counterplan out of all solvency deficits are not good for debate. The reason for this is that I tend to like solvency advocates for counterplans and there isn't one for those types of CPs. These are both cases where, if sufficient analysis was done, I'd be okay rejecting the team. For the record, I have not voted on either of these yet, because no one has made these args in a compelling enough way, but the potential exits.

The K: I don’t have a problem with it generally. I’ll entertain various frameworks and interpretations of debate, but this isn't where I spend most of my research time. I’m also reticent to vote on “framework” in terms of "there should be no Ks in debate ever." I don't think this line of argumentation is necessary or desirable—it seems to me people should just be able to answer the arguments that are leveled against their case. I tend to believe both sides should get to weigh their impacts. I find framework debates generally lack a decent amount of clash, which is incredibly frustrating for me to adjudicate. Framework debates that center on the question of accurate methodology, bias and substantive education are by far more persuasive.

If you’re running a K in front of me on the negative, specific links and a solid articulation of what the alternative does will help you. Let me know what the world looks like post-plan and why that is different post-alt. Similarly if you're running a K aff, you should explain to me how your action truly shifts mindsets, what the role of the ballot is, etc.

The above noted, I find myself focusing more on policy literature than critical literature these days. My undergrad and graduate work is in political science and international relations, not political theory/philosophy. I tend to be much more familiar with some K authors than others. I've read a decent amount of Foucault, I've read almost nothing Lacanian. In addition to Foucault I am substantially more familiar with Ks centered around IR theory, non-psychoanalytic capitalism and questions of gender and identity. I am less to not at all familiar with psychoanalysis, Nietzsche and Heidegger. I personally lean towards believing realism inevitable type arguments and that floating PIKs are bad (reason to reject the alt). While I do everything possible to objectively evaluate the round that happened, this is probably why I’ve noticed a very slight tilt towards the policy side of things in these rounds.

Affs that don't have topical advocacies: I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I feel as though I've been asked to objectively and neutrally evaluate a set of arguments where the people proffering those arguments in no way practice the same neutrality has always created a lot of tension for how I evaluate these arguments. To that end I offer my full disclosure of my connections to, and beliefs about, this activity. If you would like to attempt to change those biases, you are welcome to try, but the bar for such debates will be high, because I am not neutral on this.

I came back to debate 15 years ago after a brief hiatus working in politics and public policy because I firmly believe there is no stronger or more effective pedagogical tool. I have routinely been impressed by the skills and information this co-curricular activity provides for the participants that practice it. I chose a career in debate at the time because I think that teaching young people how to debate a topic while switching sides and researching policy and philosophy is one of the best things our educational system has to offer. I worked hard for my debaters, in class, after school, on weekends, and during summers because I believe this game, even with its imperfections, is good. It will be difficult for you to get my ballot if your goal for the round is to convince me that 15 years of my life and countless hours of work has been a mistake. I also see problems in this activity in terms of equity and access. There are good reasons my work after directing large debate programs focused on education policy, equity, and now urban debate. If your arguments are criticisms of debate you should take all of that into consideration when trying to win my ballot.

Topic Specific Addendum: I currently work for NAUDL, I run our national tournament, write curriculum for our coaches, attend the topic meeting every August and work on our file set each year. I judge substantially fewer rounds than I used to and have fewer conversations with friends about the direction of the topic. You should assume I'm familiar with debate arguments but you should not assume I'm super up to date on the latest topic specific acronyms or fanciness. This means a little explanation on what the NSDOQPC* is will probably be necessary if you'd like me to understand your aff/da/etc.

*(The NSDOQPC, to the best of my knowledge, is not a real thing. It's merely an example of the type of insane acronyms/topic specific jargon that gets routinely bantered about on most topics)

Additionally, while I haven't had a chance to test this yet, I'm reasonably certain my tolerance for the truly inane has lowered substantially. I now spend my days working on debate in a more education focused environment that is centered on building many strong programs rather than the TOC arms race. I also spend a bunch of my spare time working in politics and on policy and advocacy campaigns that have real world implications. I'm not entirely sure what the implication of this are for you, but if it's the pre-round and you have two strategies to choose from, one of which is asinine and one of which is more substantive, I'd bet that the more substantive one is going to work out a lot better for you.

Finally, it's been a few months since I've flowed a top speed round. I'm pretty sure I'm still fine there, but if you could keep that in mind, and ease into your top speed in speeches, it would be appreciated.

If you have a question I haven't answered here, feel free to ask.

Good luck. :)

LD Specific Business

Most of what is above will apply here below in terms of how I evaluate substance, impacts, etc. However, since I have judged more LD rounds recently it was time for me to clear some of this stuff up.

I spent most of my time at tournaments judging policy debate rounds, however I did teach two LD classes a year for seven years and I judged a large number of practice debates in class during that time. I tried to keep on top of the arguments and developments in LD and likely am familiar with your arguments to some extent.

Theory: The way theory is debated in LD makes my head hurt. A LOT. It is rarely impacted, often put out on the silliest of points and used as a way to avoid substantive discussion of the topic. It has a time and a place. That time and place is the rare instance where your opponent has done something that makes it literally impossible for you to win (teeny area of the topic, frameworks and definitions that cross the border from strategic to definitionally impossible to debate, etc) it is NOT every single round. I would strongly prefer you go for substance over theory. Speaker points will reflect this preference.

Speed: I am fine with speed. I am not fine with paragraph after paragraph of a prioris/theory/continental philosophy read at a top speed with zero regard for clarity whatsoever. I will say clear if you are engaging in the practice above, and I will stop flowing if you don't alter your delivery to a rate I can understand after that. I will only vote on what is on my flow. I may call for evidence after the round, however, I will not call for your theory blocks because I didn't understand them. Slow down, be clear, and enunciate on that stuff for the love of all that is holy, or you will have very little chance of winning my ballot. Also see the clarity note at the top of this post. It will apply to LD as well.

Disclosure: I think it's uniformly good for large and small schools. I think it makes debate better. If you feel you have done a particularly good job disclosing arguments (for example, full case citations, tags, parameters, changes) and you point that out during the round I will likely give you an extra half of a point if I agree.

Prep Time: 2 Notes. First, I like Cross-Examination. I pay attention to it and think it is strategically valuable. You should use your CX time. If you would like to ask more questions beyond CX in prep, that's cool. But please make use of CX. Second, prep time is the time you use to prep, that includes actions like giving your opponent your case or whatnot if you haven't done this in a timely manner. There are no alternate time outs or whatever. If you are reading a case off a laptop, you need to make that case available to your opponent before you start speaking OR immediately thereafter. There will not be a non-prep-time time outs while you all figure this out. That time will come from one of your prep times. In other words, if the culprit is the aff, who has not made a computerized case available to their opponent in a timely manner, then the AFF loses prep time while they get it ready for the neg, and vice versa.


Good luck, and have fun.

Basic Information

Nathaniel Saxe

UNLV Law Student

No Current Debate Role – Volunteer for UNLV Debate

Judging at the request of Jacob Thompson (Director of Debate UNLV)

Previous institutional affiliations and experience

High School Debater – The Meadows School (Las Vegas) 2008-2012

College Debater – UNLV – 2012-2014

In-round experience:

I debated exclusively in policy debate. I was a 2N/1A for most of my career.

Role of the judge

As a judge, my role is to assign value to each debater’s skills and abilities in the round I am watching based on their ability to win, be respectful, and provide sound intellectual contributions to the conversation.

Purpose of Philosophy

I hope debaters will take this philosophy and feel comfortable running the best strategy they have prepared for this round.

Evaluative Practices and Views on Debate Round Logistics

I am not a stickler on prep time unless it gets ridiculous, but for best practices, I prefer when prep time ends as the opposing team gets access to the evidence the speaking team expects to read. In terms of getting evidence to me,

I would rather be on the email chain and have anything I need if I need it at the end of the round. This is merely for convenience and so debaters do not feel the need to assign value to me asking for certain pieces of evidence at the end of the round. I do not use the speech document throughout the debate to help flow.

Speaker points

Barring a catastrophe, my speaker points typically range from 27-29. If someone was exceptional and vital to their victory in the debate, I typically give higher points. If someone is disrespectful or unclear consistently, I typically give lower points. If you are unclear, I will let you know. If I say it more than twice during a speech, I may not continue to say it.

Reading Evidence

I do not read evidence unless its contents are required to decide the debate. That means the better debating on the piece of evidence and its arguments usually prevail. Debaters must read the portions of the evidence they seek to evaluate. Debaters are welcome to point out arguments their opponents have failed to read.

Subect matter

I am comfortable with Topicality debates, theory debates, most kritiks I have heard of, and alternative interpretations on framework. My predispositions are less relevant because I have not debated for more than 5 years, but I used to read policy affirmatives and kritiks like security or cap.

Mike Shackelford
Head Coach of Rowland Hall. I debated in college and have been a lab leader at CNDI, Michigan, and other camps. I've judged about 20 rounds the first semester.

Do what you do best. I’m comfortable with all arguments. Practice what you preach and debate how you would teach. Strive to make it the best debate possible.

Key Preferences & Beliefs
Debate is a game.
Literature determines fairness.
It’s better to engage than exclude.
Critique is a verb.
Defense is undervalued.

Judging Style
I flow on my computer. If you want a copy of my flow, just ask.
I think CX is very important.
I reward self-awareness, clash, good research, humor, and bold decisions.
Add me to the email chain: mikeshackelford(at)rowlandhall(dot)org

Feel free to ask.

Want something more specific? More absurd?

Debate in front of me as if this was your 9 judge panel:

Andre Washington, Ian Beier, Shunta Jordan, Maggie Berthiaume, Daryl Burch, Yao Yao Chen, Nicholas Miller, Christina Philips, jon sharp

If both teams agree, I will adopt the philosophy and personally impersonate any of my former students:

Ben Amiel, Andrew Arsht, David Bernstein, Madeline Brague, Julia Goldman, Emily Gordon, Adrian Gushin, Layla Hijjawi, Elliot Kovnick, Will Matheson, Ben McGraw, Corinne Sugino, Caitlin Walrath, Sydney Young (these are the former debaters with paradigms... you can also throw it back to any of my old school students).

LD Paradigm

Most of what is above will apply here below in terms of my expectations and preferences. I spend most of my time at tournaments judging policy debate rounds, however I do teach LD and judge practice debates in class. I try to keep on top of the arguments and developments in LD and likely am familiar with your arguments to some extent.

Theory: I'm unlikely to vote here. Most theory debates aren't impacted well and often put out on the silliest of points and used as a way to avoid substantive discussion of the topic. It has a time and a place. That time and place is the rare instance where your opponent has done something that makes it literally impossible for you to win. I would strongly prefer you go for substance over theory. Speaker points will reflect this preference.

Speed: Clarity > Speed. That should be a no-brainer. That being said, I'm sure I can flow you at whatever speed you feel is appropriate to convey your arguments.

Disclosure: I think it's uniformly good for large and small schools. I think it makes debate better. If you feel you have done a particularly good job disclosing arguments (for example, full case citations, tags, parameters, changes) and you point that out during the round I will likely give you an extra half of a point if I agree.

Experience:
- 11 Years Policy Debate
- Weber State and University of West Georgia
- Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High

1. Good evidence is secondary to what a debater does with it. I really appreciate evidence of interrogation in speeches and cross-examination.

2. I often vote for the team that can make complex arguments sound like common sense. Clarity of thought is paramount

3. If there is an “easy” way to vote, that's warranted, I’m likely to take it.

4. I appreciate technical execution and direct refutation over implied argumentation.

5. The earlier in debate that teams collapse down to lower quantities of positions and/or arguments, the more likely I am to latch on to what is going on and make a decent decision.

6. Identifying what I have to resolve behooves you. Debates are won or lost on a few primary debatable questions. If you are the first to identify and answer those questions thoroughly, you will be ahead in my mind.

Coach at Alpharetta High School 2006-Present
Coach at Chattahoochee High School 1999-2005
Did not debate in High School or College.

E-mail: asmiley27@gmail.com

General thoughts- I expect debaters to recognize debate as a civil, enjoyable, and educational activity. Anything that debaters do to take away from this in the round could be penalized with lower speaker points. I tend to prefer debates that more accurately take into account the types of considerations that would play into real policymakers' decision making. On all arguments, I prefer more specifics and less generics in terms of argument choice and link arguments.

The resolution has an educational purpose. I prefer debates that take this into account and find ways to interact with the topic in a reasonable way. Everything in this philosophy represents my observations and preferences, but I can be convinced otherwise in the round and will judge the arguments made in the round. I will vote on most arguments, but I am going to be very unlikely to vote on arguments that I consider morally repugnant (spark, wipeout, malthus, cancer good, etc). You should avoid these arguments in front of me.

Identity arguments- I do not generally judge these rounds and was traditionally less open to them. However, the methods and messages of these rounds can provide important skills for questioning norms in society and helping all of us improve in how we interact with society and promote justice. For that reason, I am going to work hard to be far more open to these arguments and their educational benefits. There are two caveats to this that I want you to be aware of. First, I am not prima facie rejecting framework arguments. I will still be willing to vote on framework if I think the other side is winning that their model of debate is overall better. Second, I have not read the amount of literature on this topic that most of you have and I have not traditionally judged these rounds. This means that you should not assume that I know all of the terms of art used in this literature or the acronyms. Please understand that you will need to assist in my in-round education.

K- I have not traditionally been a big fan of kritiks. This does not mean that I will not vote for kritiks, and I have become much more receptive to them over the years. However, this does mean a couple of things for the debaters. First, I do not judge as many critical rounds as other judges. This means that I am less likely to be familiar with the literature, and the debaters need to do a little more work explaining the argument. Second, I may have a little higher threshold on certain arguments. I tend to think that teams do not do a good enough job of explaining how their alternatives solve their kritiks or answering the perms. Generally, I leave too many rounds feeling like neither team had a real discussion or understanding of how the alternative functions in the round or in the real world. I also tend towards a policy framework and allowing the aff to weigh their advantages against the K. However, I will look to the flow to determine these questions. Finally, I do feel that my post-round advice is less useful and educational in K rounds in comparison to other rounds.

T- I generally enjoy good T debates. Be sure to really impact your standards on the T debate. Also, do not confuse most limiting with fair limits. Finally, be sure to explain which standards you think I as the judge should default to and impact your standards.

Theory-I am willing to pull the trigger on theory arguments as a reason to reject the argument. However, outside of conditionality, I rarely vote on theory as a reason to reject the team. If you are going for a theory arg as a reason to reject the team, make sure that you are impacting the argument with reasons that I should reject the team. Too many debaters argue to reject the team without any impact beyond the argument being unfair. Instead, you need to win that it either changed the round in an unacceptable way or allowing it changes all future rounds/research in some unacceptable way. I will also tend to look at theory as a question of competing interpretations. I feel that too many teams only argue why their interpretation is good and fail to argue why the other team’s interpretation is bad. Also, be sure to impact your arguments. I tend towards thinking that topic specific education is often the most important impact in a theory debate. I am unlikely to do that work for you. Given my preference for topic specific education, I do have some bias against generic counterplans such as states and international actor counterplans that I do not think would be considered as options by real policymakers. Finally, I do think that the use of multiple, contradictory neg advocacies has gotten out of hand in a way that makes the round less educational. I generally believe that the neg should be able to run 1 conditional CP and 1 conditional K. I will also treat the CP and the K as operating on different levels in terms of competition. Beyond that, I think that extra conditional and contradictory advocacies put too much of a burden on the aff and limit a more educational discussion on the merits of the arguments.

Disads- I generally tend towards evaluating uniqueness as the most important part of the disad debate. If there are a number of links and link turns read on a disad debate, I will generally default towards the team that is controlling uniqueness unless instructed by the debaters why I should look to the link level first. I also tend towards an offense defense paradigm when considering disads as net benefits to counterplans. I think that the politics disad is a very educational part of debate that has traditionally been my favorite argument to both coach and judge. I will have a very high threshold for voting on politics theory. Finally, teams should make sure that they give impact analysis that accounts for the strong possibility that the risk of the disad has been mitigated and tells me how to evaluate that mitigation in the context of the impacts in round.

Counterplans-I enjoy a good counterplan debate. However, I tend to give the aff a little more leeway against artificially competitive counterplans, such as consult counterplans. I also feel that a number of aff teams need to do more work on impacting their solvency deficits against counterplans. While I think that many popular counterplans (especially states) are uniquely bad for debate, I have not seen teams willing to invest the time into theory to help defeat these counterplans.

Reading cards after the round- I prefer to read as few cards post round as possible. I think that it is up to the debaters to give clear analysis of why to prefer one card over another and to bring up the key warrants in their speeches.

Debate Experience:
High School Policy Debate: Debated four years at Bingham High School.
College Policy Debate: In my first year at Weber State University.

LD Paradigm:

I usually judge policy debate, but I have a bit of judging experience with LD.   LD debates don't have as much time to develop arguments to the level I'm used to, so my threshold for work required to extend/extrapolate arguments will be a little lower while judging an LD round.  

Policy Paradigm:
I’ve judged a few high school rounds this year, but I don’t really know how the topic has evolved or what popular acronyms might be.

Arguments:
In general: Go for what you want, what matters more is how you develop the argument, and explain it. If you want me to evaluate certain arguments over others, tell me. 
T: T debates are fine, I don’t think my threshold on T is high in either direction. That being said, I’m less willing to pull the trigger on T when teams don’t impact T beyond buzzwords. I’m not saying you can’t label standards with those words, I just think you should probably explain why things like education or fairness are important to debate.

Theory: Theory args are acceptable, if you can articulate a scenario for abuse. I’ll probably default most theory args might not be reasons to reject the team, but that all depends on how you frame that argument. 
Counterplans: Counterplans are fun, make sure they’re competitive, make sure there’s a net benefit. Shadier counterplans like word PICs aren’t my favorite arguments, but I’ll vote on them if you articulate a net benefit. 
Disadvantages: CP/DA debates might be my favorite negative arguments in debate, make sure your disads are either net benefits to the CP or are packaged with some case turns/impact defense, otherwise the aff will probably beat you in a body count debate. 
THE KRITIK: K’s are fine, just be willing to put in the work necessary to explain the argument. I know some greatest hits, but there are things I might not understand without some explanation. You don't need an alternative to win on a Kritik if you can phrase it as an effective enough case turn, that being said, having an alternative makes it much easier to resolve those debates if your alternative can resolve the impacts of the case. 
Case: Case debates are underrated, but do what you have to do for your negative strategies. Read impact defense.
Impacts:Comparative impact calc is something that makes resolving debates much easier for me. Questions of magnitude, timeframe, and probability are important and you should talk about those, but take it to the next level and talk about how your impacts interact with each other. 

Delivery: 
Speed is fine, clarity is better. 
Don’t hide behind your laptop for the whole round. 
Don’t prep steal. 
Don’t be a jerk to other debaters, don’t be a jerk to your partner. 
Maybe try and have a little fun, who knows.

Speaker Points:
I don't think a speech deserving of a 30 exists. I'll probably stay within 27-29 speaker points. If you're a meanie I'll probably dock your speaks.

Updated November 2022

Dan Stanfield

2 Years at Los Rios Community College

1 Year at CSU Fullerton

1 Year at UNLV

2 Years Coaching at UWG

2 years @ Baylor

Iowa 2019 - 2020

IC 2022

Coached for CKM on TI topic

Coached for Juan Diego on Surveillance

Coach for SLC West Education

Coached for CKM Immigration - CJR

Coached for Nevada Union Immigration - CJR

Add me to your email chain stanfield.dan@gmail.com

Michigan 2023 Update:

Pronouns: they/them

Please don't over adjust your content to me, I am a lover of debate in all its forms. Make the arguments you want to make and I'll evaluate the debate.

I have had very few rounds on this topic so if there is any topic specific jargon err toward a higher degree of explanation.

October 2022 Update:

Taylor Swift lyrics cleverly incorporated will result in a speaker point boost. Jokes in poor taste will result in a speaker point drop. Buyer beware.

"I am a firm believer that debate is for debaters. I had my time to make others listen to whatever (and I do mean absolutely whatever) I wanted to say, and its 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" -- Lindsay VanLuvanee

I will attempt to limit the amount my predispositions will influence how I evaluate a debate round. Don't feel as if you need to change your strategy to debate in front of me, do what you do best, because the alternative is usually subpar debate. The final two rebuttals should write my ballot for me, teams that accurately break the round down and are reasonable about what they are and are not winning will usually be rewarded with increased speaker points.I enjoy a high level of specificity and nuance broad sweeping claims will get you nowhere. I place importance on how pieces of evidence get debated, as opposed to simply constructing debates based on the pieces of evidence that have been introduced. While I also place a premium on quality evidence (which, I would like to be able to hear during your speech), I believe that a smart analytic argument has the potential to gain equal traction to a solid piece of evidence. Quality always trumps quantity.

I find cross ex to be the most important part of debate its one of the few times I feel I get to connect with the individual debaters, while I don't flow it I pay very close attention to it, and what happens here will inform how I see large portions of the round.

Theory:
Theory needs to be well executed. Debates in which theory blocks do the arguing almost always favor the neg.

I don’t like cheap shots.(This does not mean I won't vote on them, I'll just be cranky about it) I like arguments to be well developed. Most cheap shots are not reasons to reject the team and significant time would need to be spent in order to convince me otherwise. However, it is your burden to point out how irrelevant many theory arguments that are advanced in debates are, as a concession may force my hand.

Nearly all theory questions I end up siding in favor of the negative, I think conditionality is fine, any potentially abusive CP is checked by quality of evidence. 50 States Fiat is one arg where an affirmative could convince me this is a reason to reject the team it is likely to still be an uphill battle.

Judge Kick: I think this deserves its own section, when the 2nr goes for a CP I believe the debate is solely a question of plan versus the CP. While a 2nr can instruct me to to kick the cp for them if the 2r wins offense against the counterplan an affirmative can respond that I shouldn't kick the counterplan for the negative and I am likely to side with the affirmative. If the 2nr contains a counterplan I have a very strong predisposition that if the affirmative wins substantive solvency deficits to the counterplan or other offense against it that outweighs the net benefit than I should be voting aff. And that I then shouldn't decide to then evaluate the status quo (i..e the net-benefit) vs. the plan.


T:
Separate from the framework section, I really enjoy evidentiary T debates that aren't clash of civ debates. I find these are some of the most nuanced debates about what the resolution means which is always compelling to me. I evaluate topicality like a DA offense v defense. For affirmatives here do not place all your eggs in the basket of reasonability, I think only reasonability is only a question of the interpretation and not the aff or plan itself. Any other interpretation of reasonability I don't think constitutes an actual argument.

FW

First contrary to popular belief I do not hack for framework, however this year I have noticed myself voting for framework more often than I don't vote for framework. For me there are a few ways the framework debates break down in terms of impact, primarily between procedural and education based impacts. By procedural I mean those impact arguments that result from things such as limits, or grounds internal links to impacts like clash, fairness, debatability. The second form of framework are those arguments about decision making skills, topic education, deliberative democracy.

If you are negative reading framework I cannot stress how much I would rather see the version of framework that couches its arguments in terms of the procedural side, ie. limits , ground, etc. I believe this is the most strategic form of the argument. I believe debate is a game and impacts that make the game unable to be played by one side or the other constitute a reason to vote negative. Explanations of the impact that have been compelling to me is that I strongly believe there should be a negative path to victory, a negative that couches their impacts like this will have greatly increased my likelihood to vote for framework. For affirmatives debating this style of framework if you win a counter interpretation that provides a limit on the topic and can explain why that limit on the topic mitigates some portion of the negative offense regards to limits or debateability, then that is the best route for getting me to vote affirmative. I will also say YOU NEED OFFENSE, playing the middle ground will not get my ballot I need impact turns big disads to their interpretation of the topic with well explained impacts. If affirmative I do not need 5-10 barely explained disads to FWI need 1-4 well explained and warranted DA's to the negative interpretation.

Conversely it is much harder to win my ballot exclusively going for arguments about topic education, decision making skills, or deliberative democracy. I believe any affirmative that is even close to knowing what they are doing will be able to easily impact turn these arguments. This isn't to say you shouldn't read these arguments at all they can be excellent external impacts to your interpretation, but instead you should use these arguments as a supplement to the more game-playing/ procedural versions of the argument.

For negatives who have framework as their go to strat THE CASE STILL MATTERS , the reason for this is the case determines the weight I give to affirmative impact turns / disadvantages to framework. If the affirmative solves 100% of their aff then I gave 100% of the weight of their impact turns to framework, conversely if the aff solves maybe 1% of their aff then the strength of the disadvantages or impact turns will be drastically reduced.

Topical version of the aff: You don't have to have one to win but it can help. They also don't have to solve the entire aff instead they are a test to show that the content of the aff is not precluded by the resolutional prompt. For affirmatives the topical version of the aff doesn't solve our aff not very persuasive to me. However, an argument that the topical version of the aff is not in fact topical under the negative's interpretation of the topic is persuasive. Similarly an argument that the topical version of the aff in fact does not allow for the content of the aff to exist. Form based arguments from affirmatives are also compelling to me in response to topical versions of the aff, how the content may exist but the form of it would not be, can be an extremely persuasive argument against both the topical version, as well as also acting as offense against the negatives interpretation.

Beyond counter interpretations it can be incredibly helpful for an affirmative to have a counter model of what debate looks like, which can act as a filter for a variety of the negatives arguments as well as acting as a type of uniqueness for your own impact turns to a negatives interpretation of the topic.

Something I've told to a few debaters this year may help further contextualize what I've said here -- "If both affirmative and neg execute absolutely perfectly I probably lean slightly negative" -- however it should be noted that I have never seen this perfect execution take place.

The K:
I will do my best to limit my predispositions from giving explanation or advancing arguments for the other team. Specificity and spin are important for both sides of the debate. I don’t like generic explanations of meta theory with no tie to the affirmative. Similarly, I don’t like generic responses to critical theory outside of the context of the aff. Generic evidence does not force generic explanation.

Disability k's -- Due to how I spent my last two years in debate , this is obviously a body of literature that I am extremely familiar with however if you are not familiar with it trying to pick it up just because I am in the back of the room is a terrible decision, and one you will almost certainly regret. Secondarily I thought I should include my thoughts on the various ableist language arguments. Essentially most of the time I believe these arguments in and of themselves don't constitute a great argument unless its an especially violent piece of language this doesn't mean what you say doesn't matter what it does mean is that the negative needs to explain to me why the language warrants a negative ballot and not just punitive measures like maybe lower speaker points or not evaluating certain pieces of evidence. I'm happy to explain this further if there are questions.

Recent years I have found I have a tendency to enjoy arguments described as "high-theory" IF THEY ARE EXECUTED WELL. I have coached teams to read all variety or arguments from the cap k to baudrillard, so if the death K is your jam then you should go for it. A lot of my current academic work revolves around disability and psychoanalysis so take that as you will.

If you ask anyone at Baylor they will tell you (and are correct) in that I really enjoy hearing arguments about psychoanalysis I find this to be an incredibly interesting area of argumentation and always enjoy when the affirmative or negative has to do with these questions of psychoanalysis.

CPs/Das:
I love a good, well-researched, specific strategy. The more generic your strategy becomes, the greater the chance of me assigning an extremely low risk to these arguments. Sometimes there is simply no link. Absolute defense does exist.

The last thing I will say is that debates that I have fun in will be rewarded by higher speaker points. I have fun when I see well thought out and deployed strategy.. Make me laugh and you will be rewarded. Be nice.

Also, I adore good puns (well maybe bad ones even more) make some clever puns in your speeches and you will be rewarded with speaker points.

Change in 2014

excessive / intentional use of racial slurs, jokes in bad tase, misgendering, ableist slurs will result in much lower speaker points. Note: an ableist slur is the R word , or derogatorily referring to someone as a cripple. It is not saying the word stand in your plan text/advocacy statement.

Hello! I am a former coach (quadruple ruby level) of Hillcrest High School (UT) that has 10 years of experience with all high school speech and debate events (though policy was my specialty). I stopped coaching debate to pursue graduate school and have earned my PhD in the Life Sciences. The skills and experiences I developed through speech and debate are continually incorporated into my research and science communication, so even though I have not been actively involved in high school debate since Fall 2015, I have maintained the scholarly and adaptable open-mindedness that I find essential to evaluating speech and debate rounds.

Some General Notes:

- I like to take a lot of notes during speeches! I use the flow to help me track the progression and clarity of arguments through the round and will turn to my notes to help make decisions about dropped arguments, key ideas, and extensions.

- I am good with jargon, technical language, and fast talking. I have a plethora of experience and remain familiar with key terms used to describe parts of arguments as well as discipline-specific knowledge in intro-level humanities and high-level STEM content areas.

- I value professionalism and respectful conduct. In debate we are critiquing and evaluating arguments not the people making the arguments. Be sure to extend that courtesy to all, as debate should be an inclusive space where we cultivate critical thinking and communication skills.

- I see my role as being that of an active listener that wants to encourage your continued engagement in speech and debate. I will work to foster positive learning environments and provide constructive feedback that will hopefully transcend the boundaries of a single round and help you cultivate transferable skills across debate and your other academic/professional trajectories.

Policy (CX):

I am receptive to all types of arguments, including the more technical side of theory debates, the framework and discourse of Kritiks - on the aff or the neg, and well-crafted Counter Plan and DA combos. I'm here for it. And I am happy to listen to you explain your reasoning/justification - whatever your strategy may be.

Thekey to the aff winning the round is to show me that affirming the resolution through their plan has the potential to create a better future than the status quo OR that by affirming I am challenging current discourse that is an essential pre-requisite to taking policy actions.

The key to the neg winning the round is to show me how/why the aff plan specifically is problematic (e.g. ineffective, counter-productive, etc.) either because it has the potential to shape a world worse than the status quo OR that the affirmative's advocacy generates/perpetuates some kind of harm (e.g. discourse, ontology, epistemology, etc.).

Lincoln-Douglas (LD):

Given my policy background I am a flow intensive judge. This means I will be looking for you to extend your arguments throughout the round and to provide warranted analysis and interpretation.At the end of the round I will ask myself: "under the framework provided as the ideal weighing mechanism for this round, what are the impacts to voting aff and what are the impacts to voting neg?"

- If affirming the resolution has the best potential for upholding the winning framework I will vote aff. The aff needs to show me clear links and impacts that are accessed/supported by the winning framework and needs to sufficiently address negative arguments to build a strong case for how/why affirming is theoretically, practically, and/or morally the best decision.

- If negating the resolution has the best potential for upholding the winning framework I will vote neg.The neg needs to show me why the aff cannot access their impacts and thus not uphold the framework (defense) as well as demonstrate why voting aff may actually cause worse things to happen and thus means I should reject the aff under that framework (offense).

Style Notes: I am adaptable and will not prioritize/prefer any one style over another. Here are some specifics:

- Both sides, you can run a V/C combination or a Standard, just be sure you explain why this lens is the best framework for the round. I will default to consequentialist framing if the framework debate is a wash (e.g. impact calculus based on links and turns).

-Affirmatives you can run a K Aff, but you still need to show me why that means I affirm the resolution.

-Negatives, you are welcome to run off case positions, these should be clearly indicated as "new pages" for the flow and must include clear links to the affirmative position and/or case.

-I am good with fast speaking, just make sure you are clear (absence of clarity while speaking means I can't record your arguments/comments which hinders your effectiveness as a communicator).

Public Forum (PF):

This debate form was undergoing rapid evolution when I was last involved due to the influence of policy and LD styles being increasingly incorporated into the event. I am not sure what this debate form looks like today in terms of style, so I will echo my similar comments from above.

I am open to any arguments you want to make, I am capable of listening to arguments at fast speed as long as the speech is clear, and I take many detailed notes of arguments to help me evaluate the round.

Ultimately, what I am looking for is a thoughtful and well-reasoned interpretation of the resolution, with clear links and warrants for the potential impacts/outcomes proposed by each side. As the round continues I am looking for comparative analysis between pro/con flows and for synthesis of the key ideas (e.g. voting issues) associated with the cases/contentions.

Speech Events:

I am excited to hear from you, and will evaluate your speaking skills and speech content with fairness and cultural awareness. Generally, I am swayed by clear organization, thoughtful reasoning/justification, and creative strategies. I am a strong proponent of cultivating a growth mindset to facilitate learning and will seek to provide constructive feedback to that end.

Experience

Current Affiliation = Notre Dame HS (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Debates Judged on this topic: about 40 Rounds (UMich Debate Institute)
Prior Experience: Debated policy in HS at Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, CA (1992-1995); Debated NDT/CEDA in college at USC (1995-1999); Assistant debate coach at Cal State Northridge 2003-2005; Assistant debate coach at Glenbrook South HS Spring of 2005; Director of Debate at Glenbrook North HS 2005-2009; Director of Debate at Notre Dame HS Fall of 2009-Present.

General Note

My defaults go into effect when left to my own devices. I will go against most of these defaults if a team technically persuades me to do so in any given debate.

Paperless Rules

If you start taking excessive time to flash your document, I will start instituting that "Prep time ends when the speaker's flash drive is removed from her/his computer."

Major Notes

Topic familiarity

I am familiar with the topic (4 weeks of teaching at Michigan at Classic and involved in argument coaching at Notre Dame).

Delivery

Delivery rate should be governed by your clarity; WARRANTS in the evidence should be clear, not just the tagline.
Clarity is significantly assisted by organization - I flow as technically as possible and try to follow the 1NC structure on-case and 2AC structure off-case through the 1AR. 2NR and the 2AR should have some leeway to restructure the debate in important places to highlight their offense. However, line-by-line should be followed where re-structuring is not necessary.

Ideal 2AR Structure

Offense placed at the top (tell me how I should be framing the debate in the context of what you are winning), then move through the debate in a logical order.

2NR's Make Choices

Good 2NR strategies may be one of the following: (1) Functionally and/or textually competitive counterplan with an internal or external net benefit, (2) K with a good turns case/root cause arguments that are specific to each advantage, (3) Disadvantage with turns case arguments and any necessary case defense, (4) Topicality (make sure to cover any theory arguments that are offense for aff). My least favorite debates to resolve are large impact turn debates, not because I hate impact turns, but because I think that students lose sight of how to resolve and weigh the multiple impact scenarios that get interjected into the debate. Resolving these debates starts with a big picture impact comparison.

Evidence Quality/References

Reference evidence by warrant first and then add "That's [Author]." Warrant and author references are especially important on cards that you want me to read at the end of the debate. Also, evidence should reflect the arguments that you are making in the debate. I understand that resolving a debate requires spin, but that spin should be based in the facts presented in your evidence.

I have been getting copies of speech documents for many debates lately so I can read cards during prep time, etc. However, note that I will pay attention to what is said in the debate as much as possible - I would much rather resolve the debate on what the debaters say, not based on my assessment of the evidence.

Offense-Defense

Safer to go for offense, and then make an "even if" statement explaining offense as a 100% defensive takeout. I will vote on well-resolved defense against CP, DA's and case. This is especially true against process CP's (e.g., going for a well-resolved permutation doesn't require you to prove a net benefit to the permutation since these CP's are very difficult to get a solvency deficit to) and DA's with contrived internal link scenarios. Winning 100% defense does require clear evidence comparison to resolve.

Topicality

I like a well-developed topicality debate. This should include cards to resolve important distinctions. Topical version of the aff and reasonable case lists are persuasive. Reasonability is persuasive when the affirmative has a TRUE "we meet" argument; it seems unnecessary to require the affirmative to have a counter-interpretation when they clearly meet the negative interpretation. Also, discussing standards with impacts as DA's to the counter-interpretation is very useful - definition is the uniqueness, violation is the link, standard is an internal link and education or fairness is the impact.

Counterplans

Word PIC's, process, consult, and condition CP's are all ok. I have voted on theory against these CP's in the past because the teams that argued they were illegit were more technically saavy and made good education arguments about the nature of these CP's. The argument that they destroy topic-specific education is persuasive if you can prove why that is true. Separately, the starting point for answers to the permutation are the distinction(s) between the CP and plan. The starting point for answers to a solvency deficit are the similarities between the warrants of the aff advantage internal links and the CP solvency cards. Counterplans do not have to be both functionally and textually competitive, but it is better if you can make an argument as to why it is both.

Disadvantages

All parts of the DA are important, meaning neither uniqueness nor links are more important than each other (unless otherwise effectively argued). I will vote on conceded or very well-resolved defense against a DA.

Kritiks

Good K debate should have applied links to the affirmative's or negative's language, assumptions, or methodology. This should include specific references to an opponent's cards. The 2NC/1NR should make sure to address all affirmative impacts through defense and/or turns. I think that making 1-2 carded externally impacted K's in the 2NC/1NR is the business of a good 2NC/1NR on the K. Make sure to capitalize on any of these external impacts in the 2NR if they are dropped in the 1AR. A team can go for the case turn arguments absent the alternative. Affirmative protection against a team going for case turns absent the alternative is to make inevitability (non-unique) claims.

Aff Framework

Framework is applied in many ways now and the aff should think through why they are reading parts of their framework before reading it in the 2AC, i.e., is it an independent theoretical voting issue to reject the Alternative or the team based on fairness or education? or is it a defensive indite of focusing on language, representations, methodology, etc.?. Framework impacts should be framed explicitly in the 1AR and 2AR. I am partial to believing that representations and language inform the outcome of policymaking unless given well-warranted cards to respond to those claims (this assumes that negative is reading good cards to say rep's or language inform policymaking).

Neg Framework

Neg framework is particularly persuasive against an affirmative that has an advocacy statement they don't stick to or an aff that doesn't follow the resolution at all. It is difficult for 2N's to have a coherent strategy against these affirmatives and so I am sympathetic to a framework argument that includes a topicality argument and warranted reasons to reject the team for fairness or education. If a K aff has a topical plan, then I think that framework only makes sense as a defensive indite their methodology; however, I think that putting these cards on-case is more effective than putting them on a framework page. Framework is a somewhat necessary tool given the proliferation of affirmatives that are tangentially related to the topic or not topical at all. I can be persuaded that non-topical affs should not get permutations - a couple primary reasons: (1) reciprocity - if aff doesn't have to be topical, then CP's/K's shouldn't need to be competitive and (2) Lack of predictability makes competition impossible and neg needs to be able to test the methodology of the aff.

Theory

I prefer substance, but I do understand the need for theory given I am open to voting on Word PIC's, consult, and condition CP's. If going for theory make sure to impact arguments in an organized manner. There are only two voting issues/impacts: fairness and education. All other arguments are merely internal links to these impacts - please explain how and why you control the best internal links to either of these impacts. If necessary, also explain why fairness outweighs education or vice-versa. If there are a host of defensive arguments that neutralize the fairness or education lost, please highlight these as side constraints on the the violation, then move to your offense.

Classic Battle Defaults

These are attempts to resolve places where I felt like I had to make random decisions in the past and had wished I put something in my judge philosophy to give debaters a fair warning. So here is my fair warning on my defaults and what it takes to overcome those defaults:
(1) Theory v. Topcality - Topcality comes before theory unless the 1AR makes arguments explaining why theory is first and the 2NR doesn't adequately respond and then the 2AR extends and elaborates on why theory is first sufficiently enough to win those arguments.
(2) Do I evaluate the aff v. the squo when the 2NR went for a CP? - No unless EXPLICITLY framed as a possibility in the 2NR. If the 2NR decides to extend the CP as an advocacy (in other words, they are not just extending some part of the CP as a case takeout, etc.), then I evaluate the aff versus the CP. What does this mean? If the aff wins a permutation, then the CP is rejected and the negative loses. I will not use the perm debate as a gateway argument to evaluating the aff vs. the DA. If the 2NR is going for two separate advocacies, then the two separate framings should be EXPLICIT, e.g., possible 2NR framing, "If we win the CP, then you weigh the risk of the net benefit versus the risk of the solvency deficit and, if they win the permutation, you should then just reject the CP and weigh the risk of the DA separately versus the affirmative" (this scenario assumes that the negative declared the CP conditional).
(3) Are Floating PIK's legitimate? No unless the 1AR drops it. If the 1AR drops it, then it is open season on the affirmative. The 2NC/1NR must make the floating PIC explicit with one of the following phrases to give the 1AR a fair chance: "Alternative does not reject the plan," "Plan action doesn't necessitate . Also, 2NC/1NR must distinguish their floating PIK from the permutation; otherwise, affirmatives you should use any floating PIK analysis as a outright concession that the "permutation do both" or "permutation plan plus non-mutually exclusive parts" is TRUE.
(4) Will I vote on theory cheap shots? Yes, but I feel guilty voting for them. HOWEVER, I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A REVERSE VOTING ISSUE EVEN IF IT WAS DROPPED.

Who is a Good Debater

Anna Dimitrijevic, Alex Pappas, Pablo Gannon, Stephanie Spies, Kathy Bowen, Edmund Zagorin, Matt Fisher, Dan Shalmon, Scott Phillips, Tristan Morales, Michael Klinger, Greta Stahl, George Kouros. There are many others - but this is a good list.

Respect

Your Opponents, Your Teammates, Your Coaches, Your Activity.

Extra Notes CP/Perm/Alt Texts

The texts of permutations, counterplans, and alternatives should be clear. I always go back and check the texts of these items if there is a question of a solvency deficit or competition. However, I do feel it is the burden of the opposing team to bring up such an argument for me to vote on it - i.e., unless it is a completely random round, the opposing team needs to make the argument that the text of the CP means there is a significant solvency deficit with the case, or the affirmative is overstating/misconstruing the solvency of a permutation because the text only dictates X, not Y, etc. I will decide that the aff does not get permutations in a debate where the affirmative is not topical.

Technical Focus

I try to follow the flow the best I can - I do double check if 2AR is making arguments that are tied to the 1AR arguments. I think that 2AR's get significant leeway to weigh and frame their impacts once the 2NR has chosen what to go for; however, this does not mean totally new arguments to case arguments, etc. that were presented before the 2NR.

Resolve Arguments

Frame claim in comparison to other team's response, extend important warrants, cite author for evidence, impact argument to ballot - all of these parts are necessary to resolve an argument fully. Since debate is a game of time management, this means going for fewer arguments with more thorough analysis is better than extending myriad of arguments with little analysis.

Disrespect Bad

Complete disrespect toward anyone who is nice; no one ever has enough “credibility” in this community to justify such actions. If there is a disrespectful dynamic in a debate, I ALWAYS applaud (give higher speaker points to) the first person to step down and realize they are being a jerk. Such growth and self-awareness should rewarded.

Fear to Engage Bad

Win or lose, you are ultimately competing to have the best debate possible. Act like it and do not be afraid to engage in the tough debates. You obviously should make strategic choices, but do not runaway from in-depth arguments because you think another team will be better than you on that argument. Work harder and beat them on the argument on which she/he is supposedly an expert. Taking chances to win debates good.

Fun Stuff

And, as Lord Dark Helmet says, “evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb.”

Banecat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywjpbThDpE

Updated 8/22/2019

She/her

I am a former coach and debater from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I am currently a Masters student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

3rd year judging college debate

6th year judging high school debate

N/A rounds on the college topic judged so far

8 rounds judged on the high school topic so far

Please include me on the email chain - Email:Taylor3@unlv.nevada.edu

*strongly prefer email over pocketbox(or speech drop)

TLDR Version:
I am willing to evaluate any arguments that you make, as long as you explain and execute it well. There is no need to change your arguments to something you think I like or will vote on, just give me the best debate you can, using your best arguments, and you will be fine. I try very hard to keep my personal opinions out of my decision as much as possible. I am more of a tech > truth judge, because I think technical debate is good debate. If you aren't doing line by line debate, or keeping things organized in some other manner, my flows probably look a mess which isn't good for anyone, so please keep things clean.

Long Version:
I will attempt to be as neutral as possible and evaluate the arguments presented in the debate independent of my own opinions.

I think it is important to EXTEND WARRANTS inside your evidence. You should explain the importance/relevance/ implications of the evidence as well. Tagline extended claims without warrants are not complete arguments.

Smart analytical arguments beat terrible cards all day, every day. Please don't just card dump if you never plan to explain any of those arguments or worse yet, if you aren't sure what to say. I would prefer you take the time to logically think through the other teams arguments than just read a bunch of cards that don't make arguments.

Judge Instructions/Directions: This is super important, especially in the last rebuttals, tell me why I should vote for you in response to the other teams arguments about why I should vote for them. Tell me how I should begin evaluating the round by comparing your arguments to the other team's.

Theory: Slow down on theoretical arguments, or I won't be able to flow them. They should not be read at the same speed as a card. I am fine to adjudicate theory args but you need to be specific, tell me how many conditional advocacies is too many and what specific abuse that causes.

Affirmatives with a plan: If I don't understand what the aff does at the end of the round or how it accesses its impacts, I won't vote for it. Make sure you are contextualizing your arguments to the specific round and not just reading generic blocks.

Critical Affirmatives- I am open to critical affirmatives that either defend a relationship to the topic or make offense reasons as to why they don't have to. Be careful about trying to be tricky, it may confuse the other team (idk why you want that) but it could easily backfire and leave me lost as well.

Negative critical arguments: I am willing to vote on any argument as long as it is well explained and has specific links to the aff. Your Kritik should have an alt and impact that is explained by the negative, I am highly unlikely to vote negative if you do not extend the alt. I am not familiar with all critical arguments, but I have had experience with a wide variety; capitalism, ableism, queerness, and anti-blackness are the arguments I am most familiar with. My last year as a debater I primarily read Warren on the negative, so I am most familiar with afro pessimism arguments when it comes to my understanding of anti-blackness. Good alt explanation can resolve any lack of knowledge I have. I am not a fan of post modernist critiques so it is a slightly higher threshold for explanation. The affirmative should always permutate critical arguments, and explain how the permutation functions, as well as how it resolves any residual links to the kritik.

Other negative arguments
CPs— I am fine with counterplans, but prefer they have some sort of solvency advocate as well as a net benefit. The text of the CP (and all perms) should be written out, and distributed to the other team. Affirmative permutations need to be explained, if you go for it, I need to know why I should prefer the perm to the CP and how it gets out of any DA links.

Disadvantages- I really like a DA vs. Case debate, but you need to have a link to the aff. Make sure to explain how the aff links to the disad and then how it triggers the impact(have a clear link story).

Topicality- I feel that it is a very strategic argument to be made in debate. Needs to be well articulated with both sides submitting competing interpretations. T arguments should be extremely structured and organized to make it easier for me to see why this is a voting issue. If you don't have a TVA and a list of specific abuses caused by the affirmatives interpretation, you will have a hard time winning T in front of me.

Speaker Points- You should be clear and able to explain your arguments well. I enjoy jokes and clever analogies that are relevant to the round and arguments being made. I adjust my points based off the level of debate I am judging, so a 28.5 in Novice is not equal to a 28.5 in Open.

Few other things-

1. Do not steal prep!!!! I do not take time for sending out the document, but when the team that took prep calls time, everyone else should pause until the speech is handed over and begins.
2. Only one person should be speaking per speech, unless it is a performative necessity or an accessibility issue in which case that should be made clear during the debate.
3. Flow! If you are not flowing I notice and it probably reflects in the quality of your speeches, in particular the line by line debate.
4. My face is pretty expressive, if I look confused or annoyed (during a speech or CX) I probably am and you should be reflexive about that.
5. Debate should be fun; it is a game so be nice and courteous to everyone involved.

If you would like something explained further, please feel free to ask me questions before the round or send me an email. If you have any questions about debating in college or about debate in general, feel free to contact me, I am more than happy to help in any way that I can.

GENERAL

1. Clarity > Loudness > Speed.

2. Framing > Impact > Solvency. Framing is a prior question. Don’t let me interpret the debate, interpret the debate for me.

3. Truth IS Tech. Warranting, comparative analysis, and clash structure the debate.

4. Offense vs Defense: Defense supports offense, though it's possible to win on pure defense.

5. Try or Die vs Neg on Presumption: I vote on case turns & solvency takeouts. AFF needs sufficient offense and defense for me to vote on Try or Die.

6. Theory: Inround abuse > potential abuse.

7. Debate is a simulation inside a bigger simulation.

NEGATIVE

TOPICALITY: As far as I am concerned, there is no resolution until the negative teams reads Topicality. The negative must win that their interpretation resolves their voters, while also proving abuse. The affirmative either has to win a no link we meet, a counterinterp followed up with a we meet, or just straight offense against the negative interpretation. I am more likely to vote on inround abuse over potential abuse. If you go for inround abuse, list out the lost potential for neg ground and why that resolves the voters. If you go for potential abuse, explain what precedents they set.

FRAMEWORK: When the negative runs framework, specify how you orient Fairness & Education. If your FW is about education, then explain why the affirmative is unable to access their own pedagogy, and why your framework resolves their pedagogy better and/or presents a better alternative pedagogy. If your FW is about fairness, explain why the affirmative method is unable to solve their own impacts absent a fair debate, and why your framework precedes Aff impacts and/or is an external impact.

DISADVANTAGES: Start with impact calculation by either outweighing and/or turning the case. Uniqueness sets up the timeframe, links set up probability, and the impact sets up the magnitude.

COUNTERPLANS: Specify how the CP solves the case, a DA, an independent net benefit, or just plain theory. Any net benefit to the CP can constitute as offense against the Permutation.

CASE: Case debate works best when there is comparative analysis of the evidence and a thorough dissection of the aff evidence. Sign post whether you are making terminal defense arguments or case turns.

KRITIKS: Framing is key since a Kritik is basically a Linear Disad with an Alt. When creating links, specify whether they are links to the Aff form and/or content. Links to the form should argue why inround discourse matters more than fiat education, and how the alternative provides a competing pedagogy. Links to the content should argue how the alternative provides the necessary material solutions to resolving the neg and aff impacts. If you’re a nihilist and Neg on Presumption is your game, then like, sure.

AFFIRMATIVES

TRADITIONAL AFFIRMATIVES

PLANS WITH EXTINCTION IMPACTS: If you successfully win your internal link story for your impact, then prioritize solvency so that you can weigh your impacts against any external impacts. Against other extinction level impacts, make sure to either win your probability and timeframe, or win sufficient amount of defense against the negs extinction level offense. Against structural violence impacts, explain why proximate cause is preferable over root cause, why extinction comes before value to life, and defend the epistemological, pedagogical, and ethical foundations of your affirmative. i might be an "extinction good" hack.

PLANS WITH STRUCTURAL IMPACTS: If you are facing extinction level disadvantages, then it is key that you win your value to life framing, probability/timeframe, and no link & impact defense to help substantiate why you outweigh. If you are facing a kritik, this will likely turn into a method debate about the ethics of engaging with dominant institutions, and why your method best pedagogically and materially effectuates social change.

KRITIKAL AFFIRMATIVES

As a 2A that ran K Affs, the main focus of my research was answering T/FW, and cutting answers to Ks. I have run Intersectionality, Postmodernism, Decolonization, & Afropessimism. Having fallen down that rabbit hole, I have become generally versed in (policy debate's version of) philosophy.

K AFF WITH A PLAN TEXT: Make sure to explain why the rhetoric of the plan is necessary to solve the impacts of the aff. Either the plan is fiated, leading a consequence that is philosophically consistent with the advantage, or the plan is only rhetorical, leading to an effective use of inround discourse (such as satire). The key question is, why was saying “United States Federal Government,” necessary, because it is likely that most kritikal teams will hone their energy into getting state links.

K BEING AFFS: Everything is bad. These affs incorporate structural analysis to diagnosis how oppression manifests metaphysically, materially, ideologically, and/or discursively, "We know the problem, and we have a solution." This includes Marxism, Settler Colonialism, & Afropessimism affs. Frame how the aff impact is a root cause to the negative impacts, generate offense against the alternative, and show how the perm necessitates the aff as a prior question.

K BECOMING AFFS: Truth is bad. These affs point to complex differences that destabilize the underlying metanarratives of truth and power, "We problematize the way we think about problems." This includes Postmodern, Intersectionality, & Performance affs. Adapt to turning the negative links into offense for the aff. Short story being, if you're just here to say truth is bad, then you're relying on your opponent to make truth claims before you can start generating offense.

For PF: Speaks capped at 27.5 if you don't read cut cards (with tags) and send speech docs via email chain prior to your speech of cards to be read (in constructives, rebuttal, summary, or any speech where you have a new card to read). I'm done with paraphrasing and pf rounds taking almost as long as my policy rounds to complete. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that do read cut cards and do send speech docs via email chain prior to speech. In elims, since I can't give points, it will be a overall tiebreaker.

For Policy: Speaks capped at 28 if I don't understand each and every word you say while spreading (including cards read). I will not follow along on the speech doc, I will not read cards after the debate (unless contested or required to render a decision), and, thus, I will not reconstruct the debate for you but will just go off my flow. I can handle speed, but I need clarity not a speechdoc to understand warrants. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that are completely flowable. I'd say about 85% of debaters have been able to meet this paradigm.

I'd also mostly focus on the style section and bold parts of other sections.

---

2018 update: College policy debaters should look to who I judged at my last college judging spree (69th National Debate Tournament in Iowa) to get a feeling of who will and will not pref me. I also like Buntin's new judge philosophy (agree roughly 90%).

It's Fall 2015. I judge all types of debate, from policy-v-policy to non-policy-v-non-policy. I think what separates me as a judge is style, not substance.

I debated for Texas for 5 years (2003-2008), 4 years in Texas during high school (1999-2003). I was twice a top 20 speaker at the NDT. I've coached on and off for highschool and college teams during that time and since. I've ran or coached an extremely wide diversity of arguments. Some favorite memories include "china is evil and that outweighs the security k", to "human extinction is good", to "predictions must specify strong data", to "let's consult the chinese, china is awesome", to "housing discrimination based on race causes school segregation based on race", to "factory farms are biopolitical murder", to “free trade good performance”, to "let's reg. neg. the plan to make businesses confident", to “CO2 fertilization, SO2 Screw, or Ice Age DAs”, to "let the Makah whale", etc. Basically, I've been around.

After it was pointed out that I don't do a great job delineating debatable versus non-debatable preferences, I've decided to style-code bold all parts of my philosophy that are not up for debate. Everything else is merely a preference, and can be debated.

Style/Big Picture:

• I strongly prefer to let the debaters do the debating, and I'll reward depth (the "author+claim + warrant + data+impact" model) over breadth (the "author+claim + impact" model) any day.

• When evaluating probabilistic predictions, I start from the assumption everyone begins at 0%, and you persuade me to increase that number (w/ claims + warrants + data). Rarely do teams get me past 5%. A conceeded claim (or even claim + another claim disguised as the warrant) will not start at 100%, but remains at 0%.

• Combining those first two essential stylistic criteria means, in practice, many times I discount entirely even conceded, well impacted claims because the debaters failed to provide a warrant and/or data to support their claim. It's analogous to failing a basic "laugh" test. I may not be perfect at this rubric yet, but I still think it's better than the alternative (e.g. rebuttals filled with 20+ uses of the word “conceded” and a stack of 60 cards).

• I'll try to minimize the amount of evidence I read to only evidence that is either (A) up for dispute/interpretation between the teams or (B) required to render a decision (due to lack of clash amongst the debaters). In short: don't let the evidence do the debating for you.

• Humor is also well rewarded, and it is hard (but not impossible) to offend me.

• I'd also strongly prefer if teams would slow down 15-20% so that I can hear and understand every word you say (including cards read). While I won't explicitly punish you if you don't, it does go a mile to have me already understand the evidence while you're debating so I don't have to sort through it at the end (especially since I likely won't call for that card anyway).

• Defense can win a debate (there is such as thing as a 100% no link), but offense helps more times than not.

• I'm a big believer in open disclosure practices, and would vote on reasoned arguments about poor disclosure practices. In the perfect world, everything would be open-source (including highlighting and analytics, including 2NR/2AR blocks), and all teams would ultimately share one evidence set. You could cut new evidence, but once read, everyone would have it. We're nowhere near that world. Some performance teams think a few half-citations work when it makes up at best 45 seconds of a 9 minute speech. Some policy teams think offering cards without highlighting for only the first constructive works. I don't think either model works, and would be happy to vote to encourage more open disclosure practices. It's hard to be angry that the other side doesn't engage you when, pre-round, you didn't offer them anything to engage.

• You (or your partner) must physically mark cards if you do not finish them. Orally saying "mark here" (and expecting your opponents or the judge to do it for you) doesn't count. After your speech (and before cross-ex), you should resend a marked copy to the other team. If pointed out by the other team, failure to do means you must mark prior to cross-ex. I will count it as prep time times two to deter sloppy debate.

• By default, I will not “follow along” and read evidence during a debate. I find that it incentivizes unclear and shallow debates. However, I realize that some people are better visual than auditory learners and I would classify myself as strongly visual. If both teams would prefer and communicate to me that preference before the round, I will “follow along” and read evidence during the debate speeches, cross-exs, and maybe even prep.

Topicality:

• I like competing interpretations, the more evidence the better, and clearly delineated and impacted/weighed standards on topicality.

• Abuse makes it all the better, but is not required (doesn't unpredictability inherently abuse?).

• Treat it like a disad, and go from there. In my opinion, topicality is a dying art, so I'll be sure to reward debaters that show talent.

• For the aff – think offense/defense and weigh the standards you're winning against what you're losing rather than say "at least we're reasonable". You'll sound way better.

Framework:

• The exception to the above is the "framework debate". I find it to be an uphill battle for the neg in these debates (usually because that's the only thing the aff has blocked out for 5 minutes, and they debate it 3 out of 4 aff rounds).

• If you want to win framework in front of me, spent time delineating your interpretation of debate in a way that doesn't make it seem arbitrary. For example "they're not policy debate" begs the question what exactly policy debate is. I'm not Justice Steward, and this isn't pornography. I don't know when I've seen it. I'm old school in that I conceptualize framework along “predictability”; "topic education", “policymaking education”, and “aff education” (topical version, switch sides, etc) lines.

• “We're in the direction of the topic” or “we discuss the topic rather than a topical discussion” is a pretty laughable counter-interpretation.

• For the aff, "we agree with the neg's interp of framework but still get to weigh our case" borders on incomprehensible if the framework is the least bit not arbitrary.

Case Debate

• Depth in explanation over breadth in coverage. One well explained warrant will do more damage to the 1AR than 5 cards that say the same claim.

• Well-developed impact calculus must begin no later than the 1AR for the Aff and Negative Block for the Neg.

• I enjoy large indepth case debates. I was 2A who wrote my own community unique affs usually with only 1 advantage and no external add-ons. These type of debates, if properly researched and executed, can be quite fun for all parties.

Disads

• Intrinsic perms are silly. Normal means arguments are less so.

• From an offense/defense paradigm, conceded uniqueness can control the direction of the link. Conceded links can control the direction of uniqueness. The in round application of "why" is important.

• A story / spin is usually more important (and harder for the 1AR to deal with) than 5 cards that say the same thing.

Counterplan Competition:

• I generally prefer functionally competitive counterplans with solvency advocates delineating the counterplan versus the plan (or close) (as opposed to the counterplan versus the topic), but a good case for textual competition can be made with a language K netbenefit.

• Conditionality (1 CP, SQ, and 1 K) is a fact of life, and anything less is the negative feeling sorry for you (or themselves). However, I do not like 2NR conditionality (i.e., “judge kick”) ever. Make a decision.

• Perms and theory always remain a test of competition (and not a voter) until proven otherwise by the negative by argument (see above), a near impossible standard for arguments that don't interfere substantially with other parts of the debate (e.g. conditionality).

• Perm "do the aff" is not a perm. Debatable perms are "do both" and "do cp/alt"(and "do aff and part of the CP" for multi-plank CPs). Others are usually intrinsic.

Critiques:

• I think of the critique as a (usually linear) disad and the alt as a cp.

• Be sure to clearly impact your critique in the context of what it means/does to the aff case (does the alt solve it, does the critique turn it, make harms inevitable, does it disprove their solvency). Latch on to an external impact (be it "ethics", or biopower causes super-viruses), and weigh it against case.

• Use your alternative to either "fiat uniqueness" or create a rubric by which I don't evaluate uniqueness, and to solve case in other ways.

• I will say upfront the two types of critique routes I find least persuasive are simplistic versions of "economics", "science", and "militarism" bad (mostly because I have an econ degree and am part of an extensive military family). While good critiques exist out there of both, most of what debaters use are not that, so plan accordingly.

• For the aff, figure out how to solve your case absent fiat (education about aff good?), and weigh it against the alternative, which you should reduce to as close as the status quo as possible. Make uniqueness indicts to control the direction of link, and question the timeframe/inevitability/plausability of their impacts.

• Perms generally check clearly uncompetitive alternative jive, but don't work too well against "vote neg". A good link turn generally does way more than “perm solves the link”.

• Aff Framework doesn't ever make the critique disappear, it just changes how I evaluate/weigh the alternative.

• Role of the Ballot - I vote for the team that did the better debating. What is "better" is based on my stylistic criteria. End of story. Don't let "Role of the Ballot" be used as an excuse to avoid impact calculus.

Performance (the other critique):

• Empirically, I do judge these debate and end up about 50-50 on them. I neither bandwagon around nor discount the validity of arguments critical of the pedagogy of debate. I'll let you make the case or defense (preferably with data). The team that usually wins my ballot is the team that made an effort to intelligently clash with the other team (whether it's aff or neg) and meet my stylistic criteria. To me, it's just another form of debate.

• However, I do have some trouble in some of these debates in that I feel most of what is said is usually non-falsifiable, a little too personal for comfort, and devolves 2 out of 3 times into a chest-beating contest with competition limited to some archaic version of "plan-plan". I do recognize that this isn't always the case, but if you find yourselves banking on "the counterplan/critique doesn't solve" because "you did it first", or "it's not genuine", or "their skin is white"; you're already on the path to a loss.

• If you are debating performance teams, the two main takeaways are that you'll probably lose framework unless you win topical version, and I hate judging "X" identity outweighs "Y" identity debates. I suggest, empirically, a critique of their identity politics coupled with some specific case cards is more likely to get my ballot than a strategy based around "Framework" and the "Rev". Not saying it's the only way, just offering some empirical observations of how I vote.

I will evaluate what is debated in front of me. Usually in an offense/defense paradigm.

T

is is a voter. However I will evaluate impact turns to T. I assume competing interpretations on T

cps

must compete

da

will vote on if it outweighs case. I will also evaluate linear das if it turns the aff

K/performance

I will vote on. Sometimes people don’t articulate the link well. Make sure your explaining your arguments in the context of the aff. Performance affs are a voter however I will not evaluate based on competing methodologies unless I’m asked to do so

Do your best debating. I will look at the flow and decide who wins. Impact calculus of some kind is usually important in my decision

Hey my name is Krista, I have done debate for 4 years and am co-captain of the Meadows Debate Team. I tend to lean towards progressive debate, but don't like frivolous theory. I am a K debator, but usually need to hear a clear extension of the role (please for everyone involved understand the K before you read it). If your framework is the same I would smile upon conceding and moving forward with your life instead of wasting 20 seconds. As Alderete's protoge I am not a fan of prep theft. I am good with speed and am chill with things such as sitting during speeches. If you can be funny, be funny, if you can't please don't try. I give extra speaker points for girl scout cookies. 

I debated for UNLV and Damien High School, debating at the National Debate Tournament, Tournament of Champions, and NFLs, as well as coaching teams and judging at each.

I participated in policy debate only, but, I have judged a LD and Parli.

I view debate as a very fun game that I used to play and enjoy watching.

Do what you do best. I will vote for you if I think you win.

Please be nice to your opponents.

As far as preconceived notions of debate go, here are a few of mine:

(1) I think the topic should be debated.

(2) I enjoy case debates and plan specific counterplans.

(3) Few things the neg does are voting issues.

(4) I enjoy T debates because a word's meaning is important.

(5) The neg has to win a unique reason the aff is bad to win the debate.

(6) I am a lawyer, so naturally I think think that law and the state can be used for good.

(7) I usually don't have speech docs open during the debate so your clarity is important to me.

Questions? Ask me before the round.

I'm a policy debater at UNLV, so I'm down with speed, weird args, classic case args, and pretty much anything you want to throw at me. On that same note, don't expect me to know the philosophy/arg you're running if you haven't explained it well. I most likely will get it, but I will disregard my prior knowledge for the sake of a fairer debate if it comes to that. You do you, I'm just here to objectively weigh the points in the debate.

*If I'm not judging you in a policy round, the same applies. Give me something to vote on in your rebuttal speeches. Voters, framework, role of the ballot, I win because are all a thing and they are effective.*

Speaks:

I give pretty high speaks to begin with. I like funny jokes, I love puns (good ones please), if you can make me laugh I'll definitely add points. Don't worry if you can't be funny, I'm not, so I won't dock you for it.

BE CLEAR. I've noticed people trying too hard to go too fast and it's never pretty. I will yell clear or slow if needed. The second time I have to tell you is when I'll start docking speaks. 

 There's only one thing I'd automatically dock hard for. If you say an offensive term, and we all know what those are, I'm going to warn you, then I'll take a few points. I don't care about cursing even though I'm sure your coaches would, I won't dock points for cursing, but I will for insults and degrogatory terminology. If you do it after I warn you, you're getting a 0. 

Most of all, HAVE FUN. Debate is an enjoyable activity and sometimes I feel like most of you are walking into a round looking like you're heading to the executioners. I will do my best to make the round an educational one. My philosophy is that if you walk out of a debate round knowing more than you come in, winning or losing matters much less. Enjoy yourselves y'all.

Jon Voss

Northside College Prep

I coached high school policy debate full-time for 12 years, National Service through Legal Immigration. I've been around debate, first as a debater and then as a coach, since 02. I sat out Legal Immigration and Arms Sales, but I judged and researched some for the Criminal Justice Reform, the Water Resources, and NATO topics. Debate is not my full-time job – I work in higher education as a program/product manager – so 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, etc. I can still flow just as well as I used to, which is to say "deficiently."

Yes email chain: jvoss1223 AT gmail DOT com. I don't read along during the debate, I just like it so that I can ensure nobody's clipping cards and also so that I can begin my decision-making process immediately after the debate ends. This is important for how you debate -- using the speech doc instead of your flow as a guide is to your detriment.

-- fiscal redistribution topic - I heard a few debates on it before the season started but (as of the early season tournaments) you should consider my topic knowledge extremely limited, especially as it relates to topicality norms and complex explanations of fringe economic theories. I do have a basic understanding of the academic concepts that undergird the topic, however, and I will be somewhat involved in argument production this year.

-- 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 <other thing>. 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.

-- 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. "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 negative line of argument, but I think it's a solvency argument.

-- Rehighlighting - you've gotta read itand 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.

-- I don't need nor want a card doc at the end of the debate. I have everything in my inbox already. I know what cards you did/didn't read because I was flowing. I'm honestly a little skeptical of debaters providing judges a lens through which to evaluate different controversies after the 2AR has ended. And to be frank, most of these debates aren't so close that judgement calls on ev are necessary to determine who won.

-- 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.

-- Clarity, or lack thereof, has been bad for awhile, but online debate really exacerbates the problem. I won't use the speech doc to bail you out. Just speak more slowly. 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.

-- 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 generally better for a narrow solution that tackles an instance of oppression than an undefined/murky solution that aims to move the needle further than the pragmatic alternative. Some of this new stuff about philosophical competition and associated negative framework arguments that block the AFF from leveraging the 1ac as offense is wild.

-- 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.

-- Sort of a related point, but I thought it might be good to separate this out. I have found myself mentally exhausted at the end of almost every Zoom debate I've judged. There is something about flicking your eyes across three screens while transcribing an entire debate that's occurring in my headphones that is so much more draining than what debate looked like back in the day. I think this impacts how I judge. I certainly don't have any inclination to spend the decision time reading a bunch of evidence if I can avoid it. I don't think that's laziness (but maybe...) -- I'm just tired of staring at a screen. Anything the 2NR / 2AR can do to help craft a simple path to victory that allows me to minimize the number of "decision tree" questions I need to resolve is highly recommended.

-- 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. I also suspect the Trump presidency and the associated exposure of explicit racism within the United States may have made me a better judge for affirmatives that do not instrumentally defend the topic/federal government action. I'm not sure how much better, though, and 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:

**Won't vote on any sort of argument that amounts to, "debate is bad, so we will concede their argument that we destroy debate/make people quit/exclude X population of student, that's good."

**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 studeny and a standalone impact. I am worse for the “portable skills” impacts about information processing, decision-making, etc.

Assume I want to be added to your email chain: andre.d.washington@gmail.com

Andre Washington
Rowland Hall St. Marks
Assistant Coach

IMPORTANT CHANGES: After 5 years of judging a wide range of debate styles, I think I've come to the conclusion that I just can't connect with or enjoy the current iteration of HS high theory debate. Being able to act as an educator is an important reason for why I judge, and I don't think I can offer that in your Baudrilliard debates anymore.

This will be my sixth year with the program at Rowland Hall, and 10th year of debate overall.

I love debate and want students to love it as well.

Do what you want, and do it well. ---

Kritiks: Despite the revision above, you absolutely should still be reading the K in front of me. I am fine with the K. I like the K as it functions in a greater neg strategy (ie, I'd rather judge a 5 off round that includes a K than a 1 off K round). However, I went 1-off fem K in highschool for many rounds, so I am genuinely pretty accepting on this issue. Given that I don't spend a great deal of my time working through K literature, I think it's important that you explain these to me, but that's basically what a good K debater should expect to do anyway.

Disads: I cut politics every week. I love both sides of the politics debate and can benefit you as a judge on how to execute these debates well.

Counterplans: Counterplans of all shapes and sizes are a critical place to form a strategy and I enjoy these debates. Theory is to be argued and I can't think of any predisposition.

Topicality: I think that debaters who can execute "technical" args well are enjoyable enough to watch and judge, and I think I can probably benefit as a judge to any technical debater. I think that any violation, on face, has validity and there are no affs that are so "obviously" topical that they cannot be beaten on T.

Kritikal affs: I am not ideologically opposed to K affs at all and even enjoy these debates, although I primarily work on and with policy affs so I would say explanation is still key.

Framework: I find that good framework debaters know how to make the flow accessible to the judge. I think that there are a number of compelling claims and debates to be had on framework, and they can be just as strongly argued as anything else (including your kritik or kritikal aff).

Updated 9/9/2016

A few firm rules:

-Speech times are 9 minutes for constructives, 6 minutes for rebuttals, and 3 minutes for CX. Prep is determined by tournament invite. Each debater should give one constructive and one rebuttal, with only one debater giving each speech. 

-Note on CX: you get 3 minutes of CX time. If you ask the other team clarification questions during prep (“Did you read this card?” “Can you confirm your CP text?” etc), it would be pretty rude of them not to answer, but I will not flow this/treat it as argument-development time like CX.  

-I will use my ballot to decide the debate in front of me. Debaters can advance various criteria for how I should evaluate that debate, but I can’t render a decision on the basis of something that did not occur in the debate I have been watching.

-Be transparent about your evidence. The other team should receive the same speech documents that I do. That doesn’t mean you are obligated to include analytical arguments – people should also flow! Also, mark stuff during the speech, you probably aren’t going to remember each word you stopped at once the speech is over. 

A few argument leanings:

-I am pretty convinced that competitive debate requires a point of stasis. That doesn’t mean I think there is only one way to read/interpret the resolution, but it does mean that I am most persuaded by affs that relate themselves to the resolution in a way that they can argue provides predictable points of contestation for the neg. In short, Predictability/Argument Testing Good > Policymaking Good.

-I like plan/CP texts with some specificity. If your plan text is just a re-printing of the resolution, it will probably annoy me. If a team is vague about their advocacy, I am more likely to give the other team leeway in interpreting how it would play out through evidence.

-I am more sympathetic than average to aff theoretical objections (conditionality and multi-actor fiat stand out). If theory debates reflect well thought-out visions of debate rather than regurgitation of stock phrases, then I actually enjoy them.

-I can be persuaded that theory arguments are a reason to reject the team, and not simply the argument, if persuasive reasons are given. However, my default position is always to reject the argument (conditionality is an exception; rejecting the argument would make it conditional, so teams are encouraged to explain an alternative remedy), unless a developed warrant is made to the contrary. 

A couple general reflections on my judging:

-I think I care more about evidence than I did a few years ago. Debate requires skill in framing arguments and making comparisons, but also in finding good evidence to support your claims. Obviously I prefer to watch debaters do good evidence comparison, but it’s often hard to fully interrogate every piece of evidence in the debate. If a team has invested good effort in evidence comparison, I will try to extend their skepticism in a limited fashion as I read other evidence after the debate.

-I give the best points to debaters who have a good big-picture strategic vision of the debate and how the relevant arguments interact. If debaters invest their time in the right places and explain their strategic decision-making, I am more likely to view the debate the way they would like.

Overall:
1. Offense-defense, but can be persuaded by reasonability in theory debates. I don't believe in "zero risk" or "terminal defense" and don't vote on presumption.

2. Substantive questions are resolved probabilistically--only theoretical questions (e.g. is the perm severance, does the aff meet the interp) are resolved "yes/no," and will be done so with some unease, forced upon me by the logic of debate.

3. Dropped arguments are "true," but this just means the warrants for them are true. Their implication can still be contested. The exception to this is when an argument and its implication are explicitly conceded by the other team for strategic reasons (like when kicking out of a disad). Then both are "true."

Counterplans:
1. Conditionality bad is an uphill battle. I think it's good, and will be more convinced by the negative's arguments. I also don't think the number of advocacies really matters. Unless it was completely dropped, the winning 2AR on condo in front of me is one that explains why the way the negative's arguments were run together limited the ability of the aff to have offense on any sheet of paper.

2. I think of myself as aff-leaning in a lot of counterplan theory debates, but usually find myself giving the neg the counterplan anyway, generally because the aff fails to make the true arguments of why it was bad.

Disads:
1. I don't think I evaluate these differently than anyone else, really. Perhaps the one exception is that I don't believe that the affirmative needs to "win" uniqueness for a link turn to be offense. If uniqueness really shielded a link turn that much, it would also overwhelm the link. In general, I probably give more weight to the link and less weight to uniqueness.

2. On politics, I will probably ignore "intrinsicness" or "fiat solves the link" arguments, unless badly mishandled (like dropped through two speeches). Note: this doesn't apply to riders or horsetrading or other disads that assume voting aff means voting for something beyond the aff plan. Then it's winnable.

Kritiks:
1. I like kritiks, provided two things are true: 1--there is a link. 2--the thesis of the K indicts the truth of the aff. If the K relies on framework to make the aff irrelevant, I start to like it a lot less (role of the ballot = roll of the eyes). I'm similarly annoyed by aff framework arguments against the K. The K itself answers any argument for why policymaking is all that matters (provided there's a link). I feel negative teams should explain why the affirmative advantages rest upon the assumptions they critique, and that the aff should defend those assumptions.

2. I think I'm less technical than some judges in evaluating K debates. Something another judge might care about, like dropping "fiat is illusory," probably matters less to me (fiat is illusory specifically matters 0%). I also won't be as technical in evaluating theory on the perm as I would be in a counterplan debate (e.g. perm do both isn't severance just because the alt said "rejection" somewhere--the perm still includes the aff). The perm debate for me is really just the link turn debate. Generally, unless the aff impact turns the K, the link debate is everything.

3. If it's a critique of "fiat" and not the aff, read something else. If it's not clear from #1, I'm looking at the link first. Please--link work not framework. K debating is case debating.

Nontraditional affirmatives:

Versus T:

1. I'm *slightly* better for the aff now that aff teams are generally impact-turning the neg's model of debate. I almost always voted neg when they instead went for talking about their aff is important and thought their counter-interp somehow solved anything. Of course, there's now only like 3-4 schools that take me and don't read a plan. So I'm spared the debates where it's done particularly poorly.

2. A lot of things can be impacts to T, but fairness is probably best.

3. It would be nice if people read K affs with plans more, but I guess there's always LD. Honestly debating politics and util isn't that hard--bad disads are easier to criticize than fairness and truth.

Versus the K:
1. If it's a team's generic K against K teams, the aff is in pretty great shape here unless they forget to perm. I've yet to see a K aff that wasn't also a critique of cap, etc. If it's an on-point critique of the aff, then that's a beautiful thing only made beautiful because it's so rare. If the neg concedes everything the aff says and argues their methodology is better and no perms, they can probably predict how that's going to go. If the aff doesn't get a perm, there's no reason the neg would have to have a link.

Topicality versus plan affs:
1. I used to enjoy these debates. It seems like I'm voting on T less often than I used to, but I also feel like I'm seeing T debated well less often. I enjoy it when the 2NC takes T and it's well-developed and it feels like a solid option out of the block. What I enjoy less is when it isn't but the 2NR goes for it as a hail mary and the whole debate occurs in the last two speeches.

2. Teams overestimate the importance of "reasonability." Winning reasonability shifts the burden to the negative--it doesn't mean that any risk of defense on means the T sheet of paper is thrown away. It generally only changes who wins in a debate where the aff's counter-interp solves for most of the neg offense but doesn't have good offense against the neg's interp. The reasonability debate does seem slightly more important on CJR given that the neg's interp often doesn't solve for much. But the aff is still better off developing offense in the 1AR.

LD section:
1. I've been judging LD less, but I still have LD students, so my familarity with the topic will be greater than what is reflected in my judging history.

2. Everything in the policy section applies. This includes the part about substantive arguments being resolved probablistically, my dislike of relying on framework to preclude arguments, and not voting on defense or presumption. If this radically affects your ability to read the arguments you like to read, you know what to do.

3. If I haven't judged you or your debaters in a while, I think I vote on theory less often than I did say three years ago (and I might have already been on that side of the spectrum by LD standards, but I'm not sure). I've still never voted on an RVI so that hasn't changed.

4. The 1AR can skip the part of the speech where they "extend offense" and just start with the actual 1AR.

Debated for four years in high school. 

- I was a 2N in high school and went for Ks (from Buddhism to Virilio) and policy arguments (from whale malthus to bad Jon Voss politics disads), read K affs and policy affs, and loved going for T

- I hate generic process counterplans

- I am a young judge so I can’t be exactly sure what all of my specific preferences are – everything below this bullet point is just an educated guess on how I will judge your debate. (Yes, I am 100% sure I hate generic process CPs).

- I judge debates very technically.  However, don't be surprised if I find a bad theory argument (like generic PICs bad) less convincing.  

- I will vote for almost anything.  Getting offended at the stupidity/edginess of your opponent’s argument is not a counter-argument on its own.  Rather, make actual counter-arguments and then use your emotions to be more persuasive.  That being said, remember that debate isn’t just your playground, it is also coaches’ workspace and career.  Please respect that.  If you want to use a debate round to discuss the intricacies of your masturbation techniques, don’t.  You aren’t funny or cool. 

- On tech vs. truth, I think debate is about persuasion rather than truth-seeking. However, “true” arguments tend to sound more persuasive.  This probably has something to do with the previous bullet point. 

- I will vote on intrinsicness vs. a politics DA.

Speaker Points: Well-researched strategies and persuasive speaking styles (voice inflection, eye contact, etc.) will boost your points. 

Evidence or analytics, it needs a claim and reasons why that claim is true.

Defaults (stuff I’ll assume if no one says anything):

- No judge kick

- Death and suffering are bad

- Dropped arguments stay true throughout the entire debate

- Topicality is a voting issue

- Competing interpretations are good

- Reject the arg not the team unless the arg is your entire practice or strategy (e.g. condo)

Try to make the K seem as relevant as possible and not jargon-filled hippie crap.  If you go for the K a lot, you have probably figured out that this has less to do with what K you run, and more with how you explain it. 

A good K debate is more interesting than a good policy debate, but a bad K debate can be seizure inducing.  If you plan on winning on your K by hiding some idiotic trick in the middle of an incoherent 2NC overview, just… stop.  

One last thing, if you understand how framework actually functions in a round when the neg goes for a K and the aff defends the plan, you will probably win.  I am willing ignore the effects of the plan and make the debate about the 1AC’s language/ontology/etc.  

Pref sheet -
1: Lay
2: LARP
3: Policy Action/Plans etc.
4: Theory
5: Kritiks
6: Anything progressive or tech

General:
Please do not spread, rather be clear and concise. Please conduct yourself with decorum and treat others with respect. Please articulate your arguments succinctly. Give me a clear and concise reason and place to vote. I value organization, and appreciate roadmaps. I am a very lay judge and this is my first National Circuit tournament.

Debating: St. Vincent de Paul ‘2012-2014 (TOC qualifier 2013, 2014); UNLV 2014-2015

Coaching: St. Vincent de Paul 2014-2018

Last time I updated my paradigm was on wikispaces. If you can find it, you may learn a bit more about my philosophy than what I include below. I spent most of my debate career going for the K. I read K affs and went for Condo regularly. I read cap and now I am a cog in the machine. I do not want to have to do your work for you so think critically, engage with the other team's argument(s) and make my role easy.

Here is some stuff I think that I stole from Laila McClay's philosophy that applies to me (I hope you appreciate the irony considering some of the stmts below):

Kritiks – ONLY READ K’s THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. For the AFF, you need to engage with the K. I think the Perm debate is probably the most important part of the K debate. The Neg shouldn't group all the perms. They Aff should make multiple perms. I like smart debaters who do their own work and know what they are talking about.

K Aff's/Performace - I am fine with all of this. Be smart and show me you know what you are talking about. I tend to be a little more comfortable when the AFF has some sort of stable advocacy statement, but that is just a default and not a requirement.

I think morally repugnant arguments should be answered by the other team with in-round discourse/language shapes reality arguments.

Each speech is a speech act, not a written exchange of arguments. Debaters need to pay more attention to what is said rather than just relying on what is in the speech doc.

Amor Fati