Debate is what you make it, so first and foremost ALWAYS DO YOU!!!!!

 

With that said most of my decisions are made off of what is said in the last 2 speeches, IMpact comparrison is really really important.

 

I view the debate in terms of offense and defense. Offense wins games, defense wins championships! ( except in debate)

 

I hate most theory args (unless its super creative), I hate high theory,by high theory I mean all those white dudes who were clearly high when they were writing their sh***, If you read that stuff make it as real world as possible! I hate debaters who just read into a computer screen and never look at the judge, stuff like that causes you to lose speaker points.

 

Speaker point Scale=27-30, if i give you below a 27 you did smthing really rea

UPDATE 10/14/22

TL:DR

I have not updated by paradigm in well over a decade but much of what I wrote then continues to be true. I've been coaching/judging various styles and forms of debate for over 12 years. I am most comfortable judging debates in Policy, Lincoln-Douglass, and Public Forum. I flow and listen to all arguments, so please debate in whichever way you are most comfortable and I will attempt to evaluate it to the best of my ability. That being said, if you have a position that is complicated or difficult to follow, the onus is on the debaters to ensure that their arguments are well explained. I will not vote on arguments that I do not understand or are blatantly offensive/discriminatory. Otherwise, try  to have fun!

My email for chains is: carlito2692@gmail.com

Old Paradigm:

 

I competed in LD at University High School in Newark New Jersey, I was nationally competitive for three years.. I also compete in policy debate for Rutgers University.

Presumption: I typically presume neg unless the affirmative advances arguments for why presumption should flow aff (i.e the negative team introduces a counterplan/kritik alt/etc.

Speed: I don't generally have an issue with speed, however I do have a problem with monotone speed, unclear speed. I will yell clear if I can't understand you, but it will only be maybe once or twice, if you don't become clear by then, my ability to properly evaluate the arguments may possibly become impaired. Also, your speaks probably won't be awesome if I have to keep yelling clear.

-I would like you to significantly slow down when reading tags/card names so I can have a properly structured flow, but while reading the card you are welcome to go at top CLEAR speed(a few caveats to be explained later)

-When making analytical arguments, please be clear, because it's difficult for me to follow analytics when they are weirdly phrased and also being spread.

-I don't like speed for the sake of being fast, I prefer when speed is used as a catalyst for an awesome case or a multilayered rebuttal with really nuanced responses on case.

Evidence: Despite what happened in the round, I may call for the cites for cards read in round, I'll specify which specific cites I would like to see. I do this for two reasons: to ensure that there was no miscutting of evidence, and because I believe in disclosure and am from the school of thought that everybody in the round should have access to all evidence read in the round. I don't appreciate a denial to share citations, if citations are not readily available, I may choose to disregard all evidence with missing citations(especially evidence which was contested in the debate).

Cross Examination: I don't know how much I can stress it...CROSS EX IS BINDING! I don't care if you present arguments for why it shouldn't be binding or why lying in CX is ok, or any arguments with the implication which allows dishonesty in CX, there is NO theory to be ran to change my mind. Nevertheless, I don't flow CX, so its up to the debaters to refresh my memory of any inconsistencies between speeches and CX answers. On the other hand, CX can be the BEST or the WORST part of a debate, depending on how it plays out. A funny yet not disrespectful CX will score big when I'm deciding on how to assign speaks, while a rude and boring CX will negatively influence how I assign speaks. Clarification questions during prep is fine, but I'm not cool with trying to tear down an argument during prep, if it was that important, it should have been in the formal CX, rather than during prep. Don't be afraid to refuse to answer a non-clarification question during your opponents prep time.

Critical/Weird Arguments: I love well explained critical positions. With the caveat that these critical arguments are logically explained and aren't insanely convoluted. I have no issue voting for the argument. But if I can't understand it, I won't vote on it. Also, I am a fan of interesting debate, so if you have a neat performance to run in front of me, I would love to hear it!

Theory: I don't presume to competing interpretations or reasonability. The justification for either one needs to be made in round. I don't like greedy theory debates, which means that I generally view theory as a reason to reject the argument rather than the debater. YES, this means you must provide reasons in or after the implications section of your shell, for why this specific violation is a reason for me to use my ballot against the other debater. I'm not persuaded by generic 12 point blocks for why fairness isn't a voter, I prefer nuanced argumentation for why fairness may not be a voter. RVIs have to be justified but I'm willing to vote on them if the situation presents itself, but its up to you to prove why you defensively beating theory is enough for me to vote for you.

Prestandard: I don't like having preconceived beliefs before judging a round, but this is just one of those things that I need to reinforce. I WILL NOT vote on multiple apriori blips, and winning a single apriori is an uphill battle, a serious commitment to advocacy is necessary(you devote a serious amount of time to the apriori position.)

Speaks: I average about a 27, I doubt I'll go lower than 25(unless you do something which merits lower than a 25) because I personally know how disappointing the 4-2/5-2 screw can be, nevertheless I am more than willing to go up or down, depending on the performance in that particular round. The reason I average around a 27 is not because I generally don't give nice speaks, its because the majority of tournaments, I'll judge only a few rounds that deserve more than a 28. It's not difficult at all to get good speaks from me. I reserve 30's for debaters who successfully execute the following: speak really well, good word economy, good coverage/time allocation, takes risks when it comes to strategy, weighs really well, provides AWESOME evidence comparison, and adapts well to the things happening in the round. I really enjoy seeing new strategies, or risky strategies, I.E. I am a fan of the straight refutation 1N, attempting something risky like this and pulling it off, gives you a higher chance of getting a 30. Another way to get high speaks is to be a smart debater as well as funny without being mean or making any kind of jokes at the expense of your opponent(this will lose you speaks)

Delivery: I need evidence comparison! It makes me really happy when debaters do great evidence comparison. Also, I would appreciate for you to give status updates as the rebuttals progress, as well as giving me implications for each extension. When extending arguments which rely on cards, in order for it to be a fully structured extension it must contain: The claim/tag of the card, author/card name, warrant from the card, and the implications of that extension (what does it do for you in the round).

Miscellaneous: You are more than welcome to sit or stand, I don't mind people reading from laptops or being paperless as long as it doesn't delay the round. Also, I don't care if you are formally dressed, jeans and a tshirt will get you the same speaks that a shirt and a tie will. :) I also believe its impossible for me to divorce my judging from my beliefs, but I'll do my best to attempt to fairly adjudicate the debate.

P.S. I don't like performative contradictions...(just felt like I should throw that out there)

Director of Debate at the University of Texas

brendonbankey@gmail.com - please add me to your email chain

***Nukes Topic - NDT Update***

-Apology not accepted. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

-Don't pref me if you spent your NDT prep taking screenshots of your opponents' wikis or social media instead of cutting cards. The ad-homs have continued unabated all season and its pathetic that the community has created a competitive incentive for character attacks. To the coaches, what purpose are you serving convincing young adults that their path to success should include tactics that would be grounds for civil litigation in any other context? Aren't we all supposed to be educators?

-Students who abuse the subject line of the email chain to insinuate that their opponents are members of hate groups are committing harassment and I will vote against them if it occurs in front of me. Touch grass. No-one competing at this tournament is in the klan. Anyone who devotes themselves to winning the Larmon has forfeited their claim to be holier than thou. Get over yourselves.

***Nukes Topic***

General

I would like to see more evidence spin and storytelling. I think impact interaction matters on this topic. Narrate the trip wires that cause your impact to occur. Timeframe/probability matter a lot more to me than magnitude (it all seems pretty bad). I care whether the disad turns the case or vice versa.

Please engage and indict your opponents' evidence. Evidence quality matters. Several of the major topic authors on this topic were also the major topic authors on the 09-10 topic. I will reward debaters who can articulate the distinct warrants and disagreements between the policy wonks. I think this is especially important for kritik debating. Several topic authors are known quantities and fodder for epistemology links.

I think evidence matters when evaluating topicality and counterplan competition. In addition to reading evidence for interps/violations/textual competition, debaters should explain why their definitions should be preferred. I will defer to the negative on T or counterplan competition until the aff counter-defines the words. If the aff covers the definitions, the neg must also explain why its definitions are better for a year's worth of debates. I think "does this definition produce better debates?" is a more important question than "is this the most precise interpretation?".

K Stuff

-The oldies are goodies. Although the content of the nukes policy v k debate has changed over the past forty years, several of the warrants/justifications/conventional thinking continue to be applied on both sides. I am comfortable using old evidence to establish the thesis for a K as long as the 2N is capable at applying the oldies to give a convincing narrative that makes sense in 2023/4. I think framework/impact comparison becomes more convincing when 2Ns can put the aff's claims in context of the evolution in the academic debates that have occurred over the years. The same is true of 2As that can leverage old evidence that answers the K.

-I struggle with the competition for the abolition/nuclearism alts that include all of the plan. If the 2NR includes an alt that includes all of the plan I see myself voting aff even if the link debating is persuasive. I also think links that argue "the aff described the world problematically" are vulnerable to strategic perm debating. I think Ks are more persuasive that indict fiat and question the pedagogical benefit of reinvesting in gaming the ideal nuclear posture.

-This is the 5th topic in 14 years (Nukes 1, War Powers, Exec Authority, Military Presence, Nukes 2) with a viable version of the NFU aff. Affs should have a take in the 2AC (hopefully several) about why it is pedagogically valuable to debate about the nuclear posture.

-I am unlikely to disregard the nukes K because its unfair unless the block or 2NR drop fairness. I am more likely to disregard the K because the alt doesn't solve and the aff convinces me that the links are not unique to the aff.

-Fiat double bind is not a thing. It's never going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.

Debating Non-USFG Affs

-Will vote for T-US but will be bored if the aff claims to lead to disarm. No solvency/presumption + disad seems more viable/entertaining. I think the aff can win that T-US = FG is overlimiting and produces a stale topic.

-I think that competing interpretation debates are fun and will reward teams who invest in the interpretation debating. I don't think the aff's interps have to be the most predictable as long as they can describe what limits the counter-interps impose on the topic and why they provide a desirable division of ground.

-Affs should vet their authors to make sure they don't advocate the TVA. I think "your author says the US should actually do it" requires 1AR pen time. I don't think that the TVA is a counterplan but I do think that the TVA raises a necessary/sufficiency standard for whether shifting the point of stasis away from the resolution is required to solve the Ks of T. I think if the neg wins a TVA is compatible with the 1AC author's claims it substantially deflates the aff's "topic design bad" offense versus T/framework. If the aff introduces Acheson evidence in the 1AC I expect the 2AC/1AR to be able to explain the method comparison between US disarm and Acheson's vision of disarm.

Arguments Regarding Community Norms

-I think that teams are entitled to make non-resolutional procedural arguments related to argument style or the content that a ballot should endorse. Teams can present an interpretation and argue why that interpretation should be preferred. If I vote for those strategies my ballot just means that a team did the better arguing for the purpose of that debate.

-Ad-homs are not arguments. I do not flow ad-homs or use them to evaluate debates. I am an employee of the state of Texas and will never cast my ballot to assign positive or negative value to an undergraduate student's character. It is wholly outside of my jurisdiction to judge any individual's conduct outside of the words they say in a debate after the 1AC has started and before the 2AR has ended. If you believe the conduct of a member of the community is so reprehensible that it must come before evaluating arguments that occur in a debate, I strongly encourage you to pursue a resolution with the relevant NDT/CEDA/ADA committee prior to the start of a NDT/CEDA/ADA sanctioned competition. Those decision-making bodies are designed to evaluate complaints in a professional manner that protects the confidentiality of all parties. As a tournament director, I can attest to the usefulness of these decision-making bodies to carefully navigate sensitive issues concerning interpersonal conflicts between members of the community. I do not see any value in offering competitive incentives for tactically deploying reputation-damaging claims as procedurals.

***March 2022***

I am a clash judge set out to pasture. I am generally in a state of judging ennui because debates are often copies of copies of debates I've seen before. With that said, here's some advice:

1) All debate is role playing. You're lying to yourself if you think it's not. Make it entertaining, don't break character, and refrain from lobbing fallacies at your opponent.

2) I generally vote for the team that A) has a clear narrative throughout the debate and B) does the most to complicate their opponent's narrative. Be convincing. "Extinction outweighs" is an incomplete narrative. Talk about internal links more and use them to make more turns the case/da/k arguments.

A) Cross-examination is my favorite part of the debate. Don't waste the opportunity. If you can't defend your narrative in cx don't expect me to let you make up for it in rebuttals.

B) The 2NR and 2AR should collapse the debate to the most important questions. Boo to final rebuttals that race through the speech without communicating to me the ballot you would like me to write in your favor.

3) I hate your 2NR/2AR blocks. I don't want them. Just answer the previous speech instead and identify what the errors are of the previous speech. If you read them anyway don't be obvious. I flow on a laptop and will know/become irritated if you are rereading a block from a previous speech instead of developing arguments in response to opponent's arguments.

4) I like evidence-based arguments. Debate should be academically rigorous. The 2AC and the 2NC should read cards. Well-evidence arguments are important because they connect students' creative ideas to academic communities pursuing similar questions. Connecting arguments to academic literature is also important because no individual has a complete understanding of the world. If your strategy does not rely on evidence I expect you to be excellent at cross-examination.

A) If your style is not evidence-centered, I still expect students to connect important ideas to a clearly identifiable literature base. A failure to connect your arguments to a clear literature base feels to me like an effort to deprive opponents of link ground and implicitly an expectation that the opponent is responsible for refuting the un-published ideas of student debaters. I don't want to decide those debates.

B) I am very much over students referencing the history of cross-examination debate without reference to evidence. The rush for originality dismisses the rich history of academic work documenting the examples often invoked in competition.

C) Caveat: I don't read a ton of evidence to decide debates. The best debaters will deploy the claims/warrants of their evidence convincingly such that I feel like they know what they're talking about. I flow on the computer. If I have to read your cards during the debate to figure out what you're talking about I'm having a bad time.

D) If you introduce and convincingly deploy an evidence-based argument (tangential to the new topic) that I've never seen before I will likely tune in and reward you with higher points.

5) Debates over competing interpretations (definitional argument) is, without question, the most important skill that cross-examination debates provide. Interpretations/counter-interpretations provide instruction to the judge for how to interpret whether the teams have met their burdens. I'm agnostic about the content of your theory arguments but I'm unlikely to vote for them if there is not enough information to explain to your opponent what I am voting for when providing my reasons for decision.

6) There is some recent grumbling from my fellow old-heads about neg conditionality and judge kick getting out of control. I cosign those concerns. If the aff breathes a claim and warrant about judge kick in each speech starting in the 2AC I will disregard it. 2N's are entitled to their hustle but shouldn't expect my sympathy if the 1AR answers judge kick and the 2AR extends it. For the aff to win on conditionality the 1AR has to be airtight covering the 2NC/1NR.

***Old Paradigm***

Square up. Friday night lights. Fight night. Any given Sunday. Start your engines and may the best debater win.

My bias is that 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. My bias is that I will only flow one speaker in each rebuttal unless it is clearly and compellingly established in the constructives why I should flow both speakers in the same speech.

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.

I think about permutations in a very precise way. I do not think it's the only way to think about them but I am unlikely to be persuaded to think otherwise. I think that a plan specifies a desired outcome. There are a set number of means to achieve the desired outcome. I also think that a counterplan or alternative specifies a desired outcome with a set number of means to achieve that outcome. A permutation asserts that it is theoretically possible for there to be a means of action that satisfies both the outcome of the plan and the counterplan or alternative. A permutation could be expressed as where the set numbers of the aff's and the neg's strategies overlap. Permutations are defense. Rarely do they "solve all their offense." It would behoove affs to know what offense they are "no linking" with the perm and what offense the perm does not resolve. This discussion should ideally begin in the 2AC and it must take place in the 1AR.

---"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 that justifies such a perm AND 2) an explanation for where the aff and the cp/alt overlap

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, 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?"

***Older Paradigm (Still True)***

I judge debates based on execution. My decisions rarely come down to just 2NR v 2AR. They are strongly influenced by how ideas develop in CX, the block, and the 1AR.

The best rebuttals will isolate a unique impact and explain why their opponent's impact is either less important or impossible to resolve. The most persuasive rebuttals, to me, are those that explain how I should evaluate the debate given the available information. This is especially true in debates about debate where neither side agrees on a normative method for evaluation.

I can't stress how irritated I am by students that make sweeping claims about argument styles that they don't usually engage in. Debate is hard and everyone puts in an incredible amount of work. Oftentimes, people don't get credit for their effort. That stinks. That does not mean, however, that other folks' contributions are less valuable than yours because they approach the game differently.

I think there is an important role for philosophical arguments in debate, with caveats. Ks should disprove solvency. I think creatively interpreting the resolution is interesting. Affirmative teams that decide the resolution doesn't matter in advance of the debate and only impact turn their opponent's positions bore me. I would rather affs be deliberately extra-topical than anti-topical. Link arguments should be consistent with framework arguments. The terms used in speeches and tags should reflect the language of the literature base they are meant to represent. Not all Ks of humanism are the same. Not all Ks are Ks of humanism.

I think there is an important role for policy arguments in debate, with caveats. Vague plan writing does not equal strategic plan writing. Impact evidence is often outdated and/or includes multiple alt-causes. I perceive a degree of self-righteousness from debaters that have extensive experience going for T-USFG but have little experience going for T in other situations. I perceive a higher degree of self-righteousness from debaters who preach the merits of research when going for T-USFG while very obviously reading evidence they copy and pasted from other school's open-source documents.

What you should expect of me:

1) I will evaluate the debate and cast a provisional decision about which team did the better debating based on the content of the speeches and the cross-examinations.

2) I will flow your debate in an excel template and save a copy after the debate for scouting purposes.

How I think about debate:

I. The aff's burden is to prove that the 1AC is A) an example of the res and B) a positive departure from the squo. The neg should disprove the 1AC and can win by establishing that the aff is wrong about either A or B. The neg can also win by offering a counter-proposal that competes with and is net beneficial to the 1AC.

II. In order to accomplish A, the aff should be able to:

1) provide an interpretation of the resolution

2) explain how the 1AC meets their interpretation of the resolution

3) demonstrate that their vision of the resolution is superior to the neg’s

III. In the event that the aff argues they do not have to abide by the terms of the resolution, the aff should be able to:

1) provide sound reasoning for why the agreed upon point of stasis fails to address the agreed upon controversy area

2) explain the roles of the aff and the neg in their vision of debate

3) demonstrate that their vision of debate is superior to the neg’s

IV. The aff cannot win by simply flipping the burden of proof and indicting the neg’s interpretation of the resolution.* The aff must at all times defend a contestable proposition. If III (see above) occurs, the neg's burden is not to disprove the solvency and harms of the 1AC (B). Rather, all the neg should have to disprove is that abandoning A is necessary to solve/talk about B. If the neg can demonstrate that the original stasis point can accommodate the harms area then the aff has not proven that abandoning the res must occur.

*Exceptions to IV: language Ks, conditionality bad

Things I enjoy:

· When debaters express a nuanced knowledge of the resolution/controversy area

· Good jokes

· Bold choices

· Exposing specious arguments in C-X

· Solvency debates

· Links to the plan

· Supporting claims with high-quality research

· Final rebuttals that begin with a brief explanation of the key issues in the debate and why they have won given the arguments presented in earlier speeches

· When debaters prioritize answering the question, “What should debate look like?”

· Creative permutations—a perm says that there is a possible world in which both the 1AC and the counter-proposal can occur simultaneously, or that the counter-proposal is an example of how the aff’s proposition could be implemented—the aff should describe the permutation in both rebuttals and explicitly argue what elements of the neg’s strategy it mitigates/solves. Asserting the hypothetical validity of a perm and being intentionally vague until the 2AR does not an aff ballot make.

Things I don’t enjoy:

· When debaters compensate for dropping an argument by asserting that it is new

· When embedded clash becomes an excuse for not flowing

· When debaters make straw person characterizations of argument styles they do not personally engage in

· Trained incapacity

· “Death good”/ “death not real”

· Basic strats

· Recycled strats

· Recycled blocks

· K 1NC shells that I can find in my inbox from previous seasons

· “Procedural fairness”

· Teams that don’t take advantage if/when their opponent impact turns fairness

· Affs that don’t defend a substantial departure from the squo

· Affs that don’t specify the terms of the 1AC/backtrack on the terms of the 1AC for the purpose of permuting the neg’s counter-proposal

· Bad internal links

· C-X belligerence

· Hyperbolic impacts

· Counter-perms (honestly, it’s been 10 years and I still don’t get it)

· Asserting “perm do the counter-proposal” when it’s shamelessly severance

· When great CX moments don’t make it into the speeches

· Failing to capitalize on 2AC/block choices and settling for coin flip decisions

· “Point me to a line in the card where it says…” OR “I just ctrl F’ed that word in the document and it isn’t there”

Updated for October 2018.

Put me on the email chain - abdebate1@gmail.com

Note - I only check this email at debate tournaments, so if you are trying to contact me for some other reason, my response will be delayed.

Short version.

I've started to question the utility of these paradigm things. In short, do whatever you want. Read whatever you want to read. All styles of debate can be done well or poorly. My decision in any particular debate does not reflect a judgement on those styles but instead on the aptitude with which they are deployed in the given debate. Content matters less than strategy, unless the content of your argument makes it a bad strategy. I tend to make decisions quickly. This should not indicate to you whether the debate was close or not. Just because I go for or have gone for certain arguments does not mean I will automatically understand your arguments or do work for you. Similarly, it doesn't mean I will automatically discount any particular argument. I like clash. I dislike attempts to avoid clash. Perm do the aff is not an argument.

One thing I have noticed about debate is the proliferation of "cut the card there." When you stop reading before what your evidence indicates what you will read, you or your partner must mark the card in the speech doc and have a copy of those marks ready for anyone who needs them. To quote Andy Montee,
"If you just yell out "Mark the card at bacon!" you have to physically mark the card on your computer. It is not the responsibility of the other team or myself to do so."
Not marking evidence, and relying "cut the card there" to indicate where you stopped reading, is a form of clipping cards, and I will treat it as such. Since this seems to be an acceptable thing in debate at the moment, at the first occurrence of "cut the card there" I will ask for the marks, and if I notice you going through the doc to mark your cards post-speech, I will warn you about basically everything above.

Background info on me: I'm a first year out of college debate. I debated at the college level for 4 years at the University of Southern California. Attended the NDT four times, making it to doubles twice and octas once. I debated at the high school level for 4 years at Notre Dame High School. Qualified to the TOC 3 times. I was both 2A and 2N during my debate career.

Longer version.

Debate is a rhetorical game where debaters use a set of (ostensibly) mutually agreed upon scripts to persuade a judge. Scripts are rhetorical conventions that have been constructed in order for the game to make sense to all involved - impact calculus, uniqueness, etc. are examples of these scripts, convenient ways of describing a world that make the complexity of that world reducible to a (hopefully) less than 2 hour conversation. Debaters who can control how these scripts operate within the debate, either by implicitly agreeing to them and winning their set of contentions, or through the use of competing framing arguments, generally seem to win more debates. For example, many debates occur in which the value of life is never questioned - that is a script implicitly accepted in those debates for the purpose of brevity. This is not to say that I want to judge a bunch of death good debates, though I won't say the opposite either. Regardless, controlling the framing of the debate will serve you well.

I seem to be judging a lot of framework/T-USFG debates. I think quite a few of the commonly held framework predispositions are arbitrary, so I'll just say this: yes, you can read your K aff in front of me. Yes, you can go for framework in front of me. I don't really care, just make it a good debate.

Here are some of my reflections about FW rounds that I have judged.

-I find myself voting affirmative when the negative fails to explain their impact beyond "limits are important for negative ground" or "we won't learn stuff about immigration" or "fairness is important because otherwise debate isn't fair."

-I find myself voting negative when the aff fails to provide a workable vision of what debate would/should look like. T/FW/whatever we call it is a question of models of debate. That the neg could have read a particular strategy against your particular aff is not a defense of your model. In other words, "potential abuse" is important. You need a defense of your model of debate.

-Almost all of the K affs that I saw on the education topic were basically little more than a criticism of education policy. I did not hear a persuasive response to "do it on the neg" in these contexts.

-Topical versions of the aff are not counter-plans. They don't have to be perfect. They should, however, be well researched (though not necessarily evidenced in the debate) and explained. I would prefer 1 good TVA over 5 asserted TVAs.

-Asserting that debate is a game is fair enough, but does not on its own provide a reason to discount any of the aff's impact turns. I do believe fairness is an impact. I don't think it is an impact that automatically trumps all other impacts. As with all other things, impact calculus on the parts of the debaters matters most.

Case Debate
I would prefer to adjudicate a debate in which the negative reads less than or equal to 4 well constructed offcase positions and invests a good deal of time in taking apart the aff instead of a debate in which throwaway offcase positions are used as a timeskew and the case is addressed sparsely and with only impact defense. A diverse 1NC that attacks advantages at every level is helpful regardless of your broader strategy. Most affs are terribly constructed and have awful chains of internal links. Most affs wont solve the things they say they solve. Point it out.

You do not need a card to make a smart case arguments. In fact, the desire for cards to make an argument can often work to limit the vectors of attack you have against the case. Example: you do not need a card to point out a missing internal link, or that the aff's internal link evidence is about X and their impact evidence is about Y.

CPs and DAs
Not much to say here. If you have them, read them. Specificity is your friend. "DA turns case" arguments are invaluable.

Teams have found it difficult to convince me that the reading of any particular counterplan makes being aff impossible and as such is a voting issue.

At the same time, I find myself increasingly annoyed at the "use fiat as a battering ram" approach to counter-plans. Indefinite parole that is immune from deportation or cancellation, has full work authorization, all the benefits of LPR, etc. is just not something that exists in the literature base and is a ridiculous interpretation of what scholars in the field are actually talking about. All that being said, it is up to the debaters to figure this stuff out in the round.

I have voted for conditionality bad only once, in a debate where the 2NR spent about 15 seconds on it.

"Judge kick" is an inevitable element of conditionality. If the status quo is always an option, then a 2NR that includes a counterplan is not always and forever bound to that counterplan. In other words, if the counerplan is described by the negative as conditional, then my default is to also consider the status quo, and not just the counterplan. I can be persuaded otherwise.

Critiques

Sure, why not. I've read them, I've debated against them. Just be specific about what your alternative does. If it is a pic, say that it is and what your pic removes from the aff. If you are debating against a K, defend your aff. Generic K answers like the Boggs card are far less useful than justifying whatever assumption that the neg is critiquing.

Permutations are tricky. All too often, the aff just kinda extends "perm do both" and leaves it there. Explain what parts of the criticism you are permuting, how that interacts with the links, etc.

"No perms in a method debate" is a bad argument. You can wish away the form of "permutation," but you cannot do away with the logic of opportunity cost. If your K doesn't actually link, find a better argument.

As said above, "perm: do the aff" is not a thing.

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of severance permutations or intrinsic permutations. A permutation is legitimate only if it contains the entire aff plan and some to all of the negative counterplan/alternative. At the same time, many alternative texts are not representative of everything that an alternative would do - in my opinion, any evidence included by the negative as descriptive of the alternative is fair game for permutations. Example - many alt texts are written as "The alternative is to vote negative" - but the alt card says that "interrogating tropes of security" is important. A permutation that does the plan and interrogates tropes of security is not intrinsic.

If you have a theory of power, explain it and its implications for the aff. Meta arguments such as these have broad implications for both the link and the alternative.

Speaker Points

Points are always arbitrary and I wont pretend that my personal scale is anything different. Average speakers get in the low to mid 28s. Good speakers get in the high 28s to low 29s. Mid to high 29s, good job. You wont get a 27 unless you consistently do something annoying, like telling your partner "faster!" over and over during their speech.

Other random thoughts.

--Puns translate directly to increased speaker points.

--Please don't call me judge.

--When reading evidence, I will only evaluate warrants that are highlighted.

--I hate word-salad cards.

--Arguments that are "new in the 2" - generally the bar for me is whether the opponent team could have expected this argument based on the content of the previous speech. This excludes new impact turns to a disad in the 2AR, but maintains the capacity for 2As to cross apply, say, an impact defense argument on the case in the 2NR (intervening actors check, for example) to a disad scenario. If an argument is made in the 2AC, conceded by the neg block, not mentioned in the 1AR (and thus not responded to by the 2NR), it would be 'new' for the 2AR to extend and elaborate on the argument. While this may seem arbitrary, and while dropped arguments are, in a provisional sense, true, it is the job of the debaters to jump on strategic mishaps, not me. However, if a completely new argument arises in the 2NR or 2AR, I am willing to strike it from my flow without a debater pointing out that it is, in fact new.

--Speed is good, clarity is better.

--Confidence in your arguments, your partner, and yourself is good, disrespecting your opponents is bad.

--Ethically repugnant arguments will not make me want to vote for you. At the same time, however, if you cannot defeat ostensibly "bad" arguments, then you are a bad advocate and you should lose.

--If a debate does not occur, I will either flip a coin or consult tab.

--Please, "settler colonialism", not "set col". similarly, "afro-pessimism" not "afro-pess" -- yeah, I'm grumpy.

--Just because I go for certain arguments does not mean I will either automatically understand your argument or supplement your lack of analysis with my understanding of the literature.

--Random buzzwords are not arguments. I don't care until you impact a statement.

--There can always be 0 risk of something.

--Ad homs about the other teams authors aren't arguments.

--A claim without a warrant is just that.

--Theory and T debates are not my favorite.

--No insults or general shenanigans.

--Binding and prior consultation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is probably pedagogically relevant.

Email: timothyabyram@gmail.com

First off, do you. If my judging philosophy meant that you were put at a disadvantage for any particular style of debate, that would be indicative of a larger problem.

I am a Junior at Liberty University. I have done traditional policy, critical, and performative debate, though recent experience has drifted heavily toward the latter end of the spectrum. I am decently well-versed in most forms of critical literature. However, my level of familiarity with a topic should be largely irrelevant to the way you debate. I view debate generally as a format established for the clash of pedagogies. This clash can take place on the macro level or the micro, and applies to both policy and critical debate. The key is to explain which premises of your opponent’s arguments are in contestation and why. In other words, it can be as broad as a discussion on the merits or demerits of proximate state action, or as specific as the effectiveness of China deterrence to maintain US hegemony. This principle can be applied to virtually all arguments:

Ks: Isolate what the affirmative has done, explain how their particular methodology/epistemology perpetuates structural violence, and give me a clear explanation of how to avoid those harms. In debate-speak, spell out the link/s, draw a story between that link and a particular impact, and explain to me how your alternative avoids said link/impact story. The debaters who do this best are the ones who can relate the structural to the specific (ie, the aff’s use of x term/methodology/analysis leads to y structural impact writ large through z process). K affs function similarly: Tell me what systems of behavior or thought are perpetuated in the status quo, how this is done, why it is bad, and what you do about it.

FW: Framework can be run in many different ways, and should be contested in accordance to the specific argument run. For the team running it: Tell me the specific violation of the affirmative, and give me palpable reasons why the aff perpetuates a model that is harmful for debate/why your model is relatively better. Central to this argument is an explanation of why your version of debate is good, or at least better than that of the affirmative. Contestability is important, but it must ultimately be tied to the specific impacts of the model you are offering. For the team answering it: tell me in what ways you meet their interpretation, or in what ways that interpretation is bad. On both sides of the debate, blanket statements are insufficient. Tell me specific reasons why your opponents’ framing is bad. This involves an interplay of tech vs. truth that I will attempt to balance depending on the arguments made in the particular round.

DAs & CPs: My assessment of the risk of the DA happening as a result of the aff is dependent on the specific details offered as part of the negative strategy. Give me a clear line of reasoning between that link and the impact. Specificity is also important for Counter Plans, in that you must show me how the Counter Plan is competitive with the aff. Don’t assume I am familiar with the jargon.

T: I like T but I am not particularly well versed in the area. Be creative, slow down a bit, and give me well-reasoned applications to the aff.

Ultimately, I have come to conclusion that debate is a game but this game also has real life effects on the people who choose to participate in it. Therefore,BE NICE, HAVE FUN, and DO YOU!!!

I have found in my time debating that there are a few things that debaters are looking for when they read judging philosophies (including myself) so I’ll get straight to the point:

K's:I’m fine with them and have run them for quite some time in my career. However, this does not mean run a K in front of me for the fun of it - rather it means that I expect you to be able to explain your link story and the way the alternative functions. I find that most teams just make the assumption that the Aff doesn’t get a perm because "it’s a methodology debate". That’s not an argument, give me warrants as to why this is true if this is the argument you are going to for. K Aff's are fine often times debaters lose sight of the strategic benefits of the Aff, So a simple advice I can give isDONT FORGET YOUR AFF!!

DA's:In general I like strong impact analysis and good link story. Make logical argument and be able to weigh the impact story against the Aff.

CP’s: I am open all types of CP’s you just have to prove the competitiveness of said CP and make sure it has a net benefit.

FW: Again….Debate is a game but this game has real life implications on those who choose to engage in it. I think FW can be strategic against some Aff’s but don’t use it as a reason to not engage the Aff. Win your interpretation and weigh your impacts. Aff’s: don’t blow off FW answer it and engage it or tell me why you are not engaging in it.

Theory: Not a big fan of it, but make sure you slow down as to ensure I get all the arguments you are making. But do you!

Cross X: I think this is the best part of debate and LOVE it. Don’t waste those 3 min, they serve a great purpose. I am ALWAYS paying attention to CX and may even flow it.

***Please remember that I am not as familiar with the high school topic so don’t assume I know all the jargon ***

Last but not least,watch me!(take hints from the visual cues that I am sending)

Do what you do best and I will make a decision afterwards

————-

How RyanMalone makes decisions

I hope Whitehead is right, that even dimwits can make good decisions if they follow an appropriate procedure. It’s only fair then for me to give a general sense of how I make decisions, with as few platitudes as possible, though most of them still apply.

1. After the 2ar I review 2nr and 2ar arguments and their comportment with the block and 1ar. Unless there are arguments about how I should or should not flow, I appreciate when debaters are attentive to line-by-line, but I understand that strategy sometimes calls one to deviate from it. When that occurs, I am less likely to line up arguments in the same way as you may want me to.

2. While doing that I clarify shorthand and mark out errata and things that aren’t arguments. There is a difference between arguments and nascent things that purport to be arguments. We don’t need to talk about Toulmin; an argument is really anything that could inform a decision. This may seem arbitrary or kind of like question-begging, but I don’t think it’s capricious. I don’t do this because I have some ultra-strenuous “not buying it” threshold for what constitutes an argument. My concern is that there is a temptation to embellish not-quite-arguments, especially those that, if they had been full arguments, would be compelling, strategic, or make for an easy decision. Assessing, at the outset, what all on the flow are reasonably arguments is a way to ward off that temptation.

3. I then look to arguments the 2nr and 2ar say are the most important and other arguments that appear central to the debate or that may supplant opposing lines of reasoning. The last part may seem to imply a premium on the meta, but rarely are debates leveraged on Archimedean points.

4. If necessary, I read evidence. I don’t follow along in speech docs or look at speeches in more than a cursory way prior to the end of the debate, with perhaps the exception of interpretations and counterplan texts. I will read a piece of evidence if there is contestation about its quality, applicability, or illocution, if I am asked to compare two pieces of evidence or a piece of evidence and a countervailing explanation, or if some argument is dense and, despite good explanation, I’m just not following. My concern is that the more evidence a judge reads without specific reason, the more they reward good evidence read sloppily over clear, persuasive argumentation and are at risk of reconstructing the debate along those lines.

5. I hash out the above (it’s hard to adumbrate this process in a way that’s not super vague) and I get something resembling a decision. I run through a few even-if scenarios: what, if any, central arguments the losing team could have won, but still lose the debate, and what arguments the winning team would have had to lose or the losing team would have had to win for the losing team to win the debate. Finally, I review the flow again to make sure my decision is firmly based in the 2nr and 2ar and that there is nothing I’ve missed.

Note on Framework

Framework debates are better when both teams have some defense, in addition to offense.

Even if fairness is intrinsically value, by which I mean fairness is valuable regardless of relation, I’m unsure how valuable procedural fairness is, in and of itself. Because of that fairness arguments make more sense to me as internal links rather than impacts.

Similarly, impact turns to fairness are more persuasive when they are about the purported use of fairness as an impartial rule. Phrased differently, in explaining the way structural fairness informs procedural fairness as a difference in fairness-in-rule and fairness-in-practice, it may be worth thinking about fairness as the practice of appealing to rules.

Topical versions are under-utilized.

Things that do not concern how I usually make decisions

Some of the above is assiduously believed, but weakly held, however, the following points are immutable: I will comply with any tournament rules regarding speech and decision times, speaker points, etc. Any request not to be recorded or videotaped should be honored. If proven, clipping, cross-reading, or deceitfully manufacturing or altering evidence will result in a loss and zero speaker points. Unlike wit, sass, and tasteful self-effacement, bald-faced meanness will negatively affect speaker points.

My rfds are brief, which I’m working on. This reason for this is twofold. First, most of what I write down concerns how I make my decision, not how I intend to give it. Second, I don’t presume to act, even temporarily, as something like an arguments coach, nor as someone who can adroitly explain or find fault in an opposing team’s arguments. The last thing I want to do is say something that would lead you astray. At this point in my time judging I’m really just trying to be a good heuristic machine—anything more is just gravy. Obviously, to the degree to which I have insight I will give suggestions, clarifications, or share in your befuddlement.

Please feel free to email me if you have questions or concerns.

(1) I don't flow linearly, instead I evaluate the debate wholistically.

(2) I like big picture argumentation. Think about the implications that has for speed and argument extensions. You should be very clear in your extension of argument analysis. It is your responsibility to clearly communicate the arguments you need to win the debate. Don't assume that the tech advantages you get from the flow apply the same for me. This does not mean that I am not smart enough to follow debates but it does mean that I will not have a linearly constructed document at the end of the debate that will inform how I evaluate the debate.

I feel that a new tabbing website calls for a new judge philosophy.  That, and my other one was about to start kindergarten, so...  

Some things have changed, some things have stayed the same.  Looking back on my old philosophy, I could tell that it was the scribbles of youth and over-exuberance.  There were many foundations that I would have liked to shake with that little document, but it is a rare occurance that anything written changes anything acted.  And such a poorly written little document at that! 

Some things you should know about me: I'm a philosophy guy.  I've done all of my formal academic training in philosophy and the history of philosophy, and debate plus a few classes on the side are all I have in communications studies training.  I tend to think that fact-value and fact-theory distinctions are bogus in practice but conceptually useful.  So, for example, against an "ontology comes first" argument, I would much rather hear a defense of your ontology rather than an argument about why ontological questioning should subside in the face of mass death.  Despite all this, I am a believer in the incommensurability of theories (paradigms?), so make your comparisons relevant--I'm a big sucker for elegance on this front.

I'm not big on offense-defense, especially on debate theory arguments.  Thus I'm not particularly happy when someone banks a debate on "any risk of a _____" impact calculi.  I'll vote on we-meets, too.  Even worse than this quirk in the way I evaluate the logos of your claims is the fact that I'll let the ethos and pathos of your speeches play into my decision.  I will let myself be "persuaded" by arguments, and though this sounds unfair, I think it is better that I am up-front about it rather than in denial.  As much as anyone tries to exclude them, these factors play a role in every decision.

I no longer default to flowing you in paragraphs in Word.  I used to do this because I thought that it would help me see through the way that the line-by-line obfuscates larger narratives and commitments in the debate round.  Not a lot of people do the line by line effectively anymore, and I feel that this obscures larger issues in a debate round in a more fundamental way (bad line by line outweighs dangers of line by line-centrism).  So now I'm out to help you figure out how to make the line by line work for you.

I will time your prep until the flash drive is out of your computer.

I will not disclose my decision until you update your wiki.

Without getting into too many specifics, I think that this pretty much covers what might make me different from the majority image of a policy debate critic.  I would much rather discuss concerns or questions you have about the way I'll evaluate debates with you in person, so please feel free to approach me or email me questions.

izak

9/17/2012

New Pet Peeve (10/14/2012)

2ac says various things about the alternative throughout their speech.  In the block, you say "Now onto the Alternative debate" and just say a bunch of stuff about the alternative.  "Embedding" clash is not an excuse to forego comparison between arguments, and not going to the line by line is not license to not talk about your opponent's arguments.  If this is your style of debate, you'd better make sure you are EXTENDING arguments (i.e., comparing them, arguing for them, deploying and employing them) as opposed to REPEATING the constructive that happened before you spoke.

If you do this in front of me, I'm going to set a very high bar for your speaker points.  If you do not actually embed clash, you will not receive more than 27 points from me.

Not all of you are ready to "do" embedded clash.  In fact, you've got to be pretty good at making discriminations about the line by line before you can decide on what does and does not count as a responsible or responive argument--in a way, it's a prerequisite to doing competent embedded clash.

Point Inflation Adjustment (11/8/2013)

After reading a lot about speaker points this year, I realize that I am way behind the times regarding point inflation.  When I was a debater, "competent and winning" was a fast way to get a 27.5, which wasn't bad (wasn't great, but wasn't bad either).  If I were "competent and losing", I usually got a 27 or a 27.5.  Speaker points describing incompetence lived around 27 and below.

My scale to date has pegged "competent and winning" at a 28.  This, of course, is just a baseline--I've definitely given points higher than a 28 to all four debaters in a round.  But, as long as you aren't vomiting on yourself during your speeches and are making good enough strategic decisions to win the debate, I'll give you a 28.  

It seems like I need to bump my points about half a point overall considering 5-3 teams are averaging about a 28.5.  I'm going to try and give "competent and winning" a 28.5 starting at Wake, if only to prevent teams from preffing me in all of my educational glory from being unfairly penalized by my miserly nature.

Point Inflation Update (11/12/2013)

Two edits: (1) For Wake, I'll use their speaker point scale.  It already seems pretty close to my inflation adjustment.  (2) After Wake, I'm going to try and give "competent and winning" a 28.3.  Seems to capture what teams that are winning just over half of their debates are averaging in 2013.  Also, I used to have to work hard for my 28.5's and am besieged on all sides by a burning and childish need to feel better than all of you.

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.

Juan Garcia-Lugo

UT-San Antonio

They/Them

jgl.debate@gmail.com

Yes, I want to be on the email chain. I don't follow along with speech documents, but I will usually read most of the cards (I'm curious!).

If an argument is complete, I will evaluate it. While my judging and coaching experience heavily leans towards the critical side of debate, I prefer you read something that you are passionate about and are prepared to debate. Tech and Truth both matter. A conceded argument is a true argument but the significance of that argument is still up for debate. There are many ways to do debate, and when two different styles are present, framing arguments are important for establishing argument priorities. I default to the framing arguments presented and won by the debaters. Otherwise, look below for some of the ways I think about arguments.

Kritiks

I understand most K theory through the use of examples, please provide and debate them. I find presumption strategies against K aff's unpersuasive if the affirmative can articulate and defend a form of action. I find them more persuasive against K aff's that are describing a theory of power. K's that don't defend an alternative are fine, but often necessitate strong framework arguments or decisively won offense against the affirmative.

Framework

I'm usually concerned with "what makes debate a valuable activity?". The idea of a fair game for its own sake is less persuasive to me than the idea of a fair game being necessary for producing valuable education. Quality evidence on framework goes a very long way for me. I don't like evidence that comes from debate textbooks and manuals, but will vote on them.

Theory

Have an interpretation and defend it. I prefer that interpretation not be arbitrary (we get 2 conditional arguments v 3 conditional arguments). When it comes to offense, less is more. Winning 2 big arguments for why process counterplans are good is better than your 8th argument about "best policy option". This is also the only part of debate I strongly stress slowing down on. The impact to most theory arguments is to reject the argument not the team (conditionality is exceptional).

If it matters to you, I used to make critical and performance based arguments. I have coached all types. I generally like all arguments, especially ones that come with claims, warrants, impacts, and are supported by evidence.

Do you (literally, WHATEVER you do). Be great. Say smart things. Give solid speeches and perform effectively in CX. Win and go as hard as it takes (but you dont have to be exessively rude or mean to do this part). Enjoy yourself. Give me examples and material applications to better understand your position. Hear me out when the decision is in. I saw what I saw. Dassit.

Add me to the email chain- lgreenymt@gmail.com

My "high" speaker points typically cap out around 28.9 (in open debate). If you earn that, you have delivered a solid and confident constructive, asked and answered questions persuasively, and effectively narrowed the debate to the most compelling reasons you are winning the debate in the rebuttals. If you get higher than that, you did all of those things AND THEN SOME. What many coaches would call, "the intangibles".

Speaking of speaker points, debate is too fast and not enough emphasis is put on speaking persuasively. This is true of all styles of debate. I flow on paper and you should heavily consider that when you debate in front of me. I am a quick and solid flow and pride myself in capturing the most nuanced arguments, but some of what I judge is unintelligible to me and its getting worse. Card voice vs tag voice is important, you cannot read analytics at the same rate you are reading the text of the card and be persuasive to me, and not sending analytics means I need that much more pen time. Fix it. It will help us all. Higher speaker points are easier to give.

Thank you, in advance, for allowing me to observe and participate in your debate.

TG

Benjamin Hagwood, Director at Vancouver Debate Academy

About me - former college policy debater, flow-centric, like all arguments but the politics DA (Elections gets a pass)

Debate is a game that can be played in a multitude of ways. It is the responsibility of the students to determine the parameters of the games and to call "foul" if they think someone has done something abusive. I will judge the round as it happens. Here are a few things about me that you might find useful when preparing for a round:

1. Flowing - I do my best to have as accurate a flow as possible while trying to capture but the context and citation of your arguments. Dropping arguments could be detrimental if your opponents extend and weight those arguments properly.
2. Observer not a Participant - I won't do work for you or insert myself into your debate. You will win OR lose based on the arguments in the round not my person opinion.
3. Style over Speed - swag is subjective - bring yours.
4. Petty but not Disrespectful - don't be unnecessarily rude to your opponent - but I must admit being petty is strategic.
5. Challenges - if you challenge someone and lose the challenge you lose the debate (this could also apply on theory debates depending on the debate - but not RVI's)

Universal Speaker Point Adjustments: all students are evaluated on their level. A 29 in novice is not the same as a 29 in open. 28 is my base for completing all your speeches and using all your speech time.

1. Wear a bowtie (+.5 point)
2. Be entertaining (tell jokes...if I laugh...you get points...if I don't you won't be punished) (+.5 point)
3. Be rude (-.5 point)
4. Don't use all your time (-.5 point)
5. Steal prep (-.5 point)

If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me and ask. Students may request my flow and written feedback at the end of the debate if they want. I will only share it with the students in the round unless they consent to the flow being shared with other opponents.

Assistant Director of Speech and Debate at Presentation High School and Public Admin phd student. I debated policy, traditional ld and pfd in high school (4 years) and in college at KU (5 years). Since 2015 I've been assistant coaching debate at KU. Before and during that time I've also been coaching high school (policy primarily) at local and nationally competitive programs.

Familiar with wide variety of critical literature and philosophy and public policy and political theory. Coached a swath of debaters centering critical argumentation and policy research. Judge a reasonable amount of debates in college/hs and usually worked at some camp/begun research on both topics in the summer. That said please don't assume I know your specific thing. Explain acronyms, nuance and important distinctions for your AFF and NEG arguments.

The flow matters. Tech and Truth matter. I obvi will read cards but your spin is way more important.

I think that affs should be topical. What "TOPICAL" means is determined by the debate. I think it's important for people to innovate and find new and creative ways to interpret the topic. I think that the topic is an important stasis that aff's should engage. I default to competing interpretations - meaning that you are better off reading some kind of counter interpretation (of terms, debate, whatever) than not.

I think Aff's should advocate doing something - like a plan or advocacy text is nice but not necessary - but I am of the mind that affirmative's should depart from the status quo.

Framework is fine. Please impact out your links though and please don't leave me to wade through the offense both teams are winning in that world.

I will vote on theory. I think severance is prolly bad. I typically think conditionality is good for the negative. K's are not cheating (hope noone says that anymore). PICS are good but also maybe not all kinds of PICS so that could be a thing.

I think competition is good. Plan plus debate sucks. I default that comparing two things of which is better depends on an opportunity cost. I am open to teams forwarding an alternative model of competition.

Disads are dope. Link spin can often be more important than the link cards. But
you need a link. I feel like that's agreed upon but you know I'm gone say it anyway.

Just a Kansas girl who loves a good case debate. but seriously, offensive and defensive case args can go a long way with me and generally boosters other parts of the off case strategy.

When extending the K please apply the links to the aff. State links are basic but for some reason really poorly answered a lot of the time so I mean I get it. Links to the mechanism and advantages are spicier. I think that if you're reading a K with an alternative that it should be clear what that alternative does or does not do, solves or turns by the end of the block. I'm sympathetic to predictable 1ar cross applications in a world of a poorly explained alternatives. External offense is nice, please have some.

I acknowledge debate is a public event. I also acknowledge the concerns and material implications of some folks in some spaces as well. I will not be enforcing any recording standards or policing teams to debate "x" way. I want debaters at in all divisions, of all argument proclivities to debate to their best ability, forward their best strategy and answers and do what you do.

Card clipping and cheating is not okay so please don't do it.
NEW YEAR NEW POINT SYSTEM (college) - 28.6-28.9 good, 28.9-29.4 really good, 29.4+ bestest.

This trend of paraphrasing cards in PFD as if you read the whole card = not okay and educationally suspect imo.

Middle/High Schoolers: You smart. You loyal. I appreciate you. And I appreciate you being reasonable to one another in the debate.

I wanna be on the chain: jyleesahampton@gmail.com

Harris, Scott (University of Kansas)

judgeharris59@gmail.com

Please add me to the email chain.

I am a critic of arguments and an educator not a policy maker. I view my role as deciding who did the better job of debating and won the arguments based on what was said in the debate. I have voted for and against just about every kind of argument imaginable. I will read evidence (including non highlighted portions).

I expect debaters to be comprehensible and I have no qualms about telling you if I can’t
understand you. I try my best to resolve a debate based on what the debaters have said in
their speeches. I try not to impose my own perspective on a debate although there is no such thing as a tabula rosa judge and some level of judge intervention is often inevitable to resolve arguments in a debate. Any argument, assumption, or theory is potentially in play. The purpose of my ballot is to say who I think won the debate not to express my personal opinion on an issue. You make arguments and I decide to the best of my ability who won the arguments based on what you said in the debate. I prefer to follow along with your speech docs to double check clarity, to make sure you are reading all of your ev, and to enhance my ability to understand your arguments.

My speaker points tend to reward smart creative arguments and strategies, smart choices in the debate, high quality evidence, the use of humor, the use of pathos, and making the debate an enjoyable experience. My points rarely go below 28 but you need to really impress me to get me into the 29-30 range. I am rarely impressed.

Absent arguments in the debate that convince me otherwise I have some default assumptions you should be aware of:

The aff should be topical and topicality is a voting issue. What it means to be topical is open for debate and for anyone who wants to build their strategy on framework you should know that I often vote aff in framework debates.

The affirmative must win a comparative advantage or an offensive reason to vote affirmative.

Presumption is negative absent a warranted reason for it to shift.

The affirmative does not need a net benefit to a permutation. The negative must win that a counterplan or critique alternative alone is better than the plan or a combination of the plan and counterplan/alternative.

Permutations are a test of competition and not an advocacy.

Teams are culpable for the ethical implications of their advocacy. This means that framework arguments on K's that say "only consequences matter" have an uphill climb with me. Means and ends are both relevant in my default assessment on critical arguments.

Currently a coach and PhD student at The University of Kansas.

Add me to the chain plz and thank you DerekHilligoss@gmail.com

for college add rockchalkdebate@gmail.com as well

TL;DR do what you do and do it well. Don't let my preferences sway you away from doing what you want.

The biggest thing for me is that I value good impact framing/calc. If you aren't explaining why your impacts matter more then your opponents you are leaving it up for me or the other team to decide.

Framework: Go for whatever version of framework you like but I tend to think it should interact with the aff at some level. If you give the 2NC/2NR and make no reference to the aff you will find it harder to win my ballot.

Planless affs: The one note I wanna make outside of FW notes is that you have to be able to answer the "what do you do" question no matter how silly it may seem. If I don't know what the aff does after the 1AC/CX that's gonna put you in a rough spot. I don't think this means you have to do anything but you should have a good justification for why you don't have to.

Theory: condo (probably) to a certain extent is good and counterplans should (probably) have solvency advocates. I have no strong opinions just tell me how to feel.
*new strong opinion* going for condo is not a remedy for being a bad 2A---

Topicality: limits for the sake of limits probably bad?

Counterplans: cool? Do it

Disads: The only thing I wanna note here is highlight your cards better. I don't wanna have to read 30 crappy cards to get the story of the disad and it makes it easier for the aff to win with a few solid cards.

Kritiks: Specific links go a long way. This doesn't mean it has to be exactly about the plan but your application will do better than a generic "law bad" card. Applying your theory to the aff's advantages in a way that takes out solvency will make your lives so much easier.

For the aff FW I think a well developed FW argument about legal/pragmatic engagement will do more for you than fairness/limits impacts.

Random things:

If you are unclear I'll yell clear twice before I stop flowing. I'll make it apparent I'm not flowing to let you know you need to adjust still.

If you clip you will lose.

"reinsert card here"- nope :) read it- this is a communication activity not a robot activity.

About Me:

I have debated for three years at Georgia State and did a mixture of debate in high school. Now I’m a graduate coach at Wake Forest

I want to be on the email chain; use gsupanther84@gmail.com

General:

Slow down when reading your tag and author, or I won't be able to catch it.

If GSU debate has taught me anything, it's to be extremely open minded to a variety of arguments. If you want to run death good, afropessimism, deterrence das, no period plan flaw, K affs, traditional affs, feminist killjoy etc, go for it. Just be sure to explain why you should win with this argument. ROB will be who debated the best unless I'm given another ROB with reason to perfer it. I'm against judge fill in but will vote down oppressive/offensive language/arguments especially if the other team points it out.

Aff

Do whatever you're best at, stay topical (or be ready to explain why topicality doesn't matter), be organized, and extend your case and why it outweighs throughout. I tend to err aff on framework if they have and defend a plan text, but you have to lock in if you decide to do that, otherwise I'll be persuaded to neg's abuse claims.

Ks

I love a good k with a clear link and impact. Your alts have to be clearly explained. I'll buy links of omission but the neg has to defend why the aff can't simply perm. Negs really have to take time in the block to explain why the aff can't perm and why it's net better to do the alt alone. Affs have to explain why they can perm and why the perm is net better than aff alone or why the alt can't solve the case. Don't drop theory args, or I will have to vote the other way.

DAs

I’m good with das but there has to be work done on how it links to the aff, or I will agree with the aff on no link args. If you have a solid Nonunique arg and extend it and I will vote on that. Solid impact calc will seal the deal for me, but if the aff successfully turns the DA or explains why the case outweighs the DA, I will vote on that as well. Long story short the more clash on the DA the better.

CPs

Love a creative CP, but it needs to solve/have a net benefit (DA or a K) along with stealing aff ground; otherwise I will agree with aff's perm and theory args. Aff needs to clearly explain why CP can't solve case, beat the net benefit, and articulate why the perm is best. Don't drop theory or you lose my ballot.

T

I will vote neg on a T arg if you convince me the violation is clear, the aff's counter interpretation is unreasonable, and the impact is big. I will vote aff if they convince me that their aff is reasonable, counter interpretation is better or equal to the negs, and a benefit to their definition, but aff can chuck topicality and still win if they articulate why being topical doesn't matter or is worse for debate. If the aff locks in and says they're T however, they cannot shift or it's an auto win for the neg.

FW

I lean aff in most cases unless the neg provides me with a clear violation, story, and impact. 2acs have to clearly explain why the aff is fair and/or better. Tech is important when arguing FW but explanation is key when you arguing framework. Truth always better than tech.

CX

cross ex is binding, answer the questions honestly, don't ask why the aff should win during 1ac cross ex or generic questions like that.

23-24 update: It's your job to persuade me. Keep that in mind. I vote for what wins but what wins is what persuades me to vote. If I am not making a decision based on persuasion - both team messed up.

2022-23 update: you can easily out tech me if you're going a mile a minute speaking. Adjust or you'll lose trying to out tech the other team. The gamesmanship is cool but persuasion and actual communication with the judge you want to vote for you is in fact necessary. Being technically right isn't gonna sway a ballot for me.

2019-2020 update: I want debate to go back to being persuasive... I think that top level speed reading is not persuasive. One of the points of the "game" of debate is to be persuasive... to persuade the judge to vote for you. I am not persuaded by a swarm of gnats sound. I'm not saying you can't talk fast or even speed read - but if there's no inflection in your voice - if you drone on and on and on - if you haven't tried to persuade me but just talked at me - you will not get good speaks from me. You may win the debate because you are strategically ahead and better - but your speaks will suffer. I'm not saying conversational pace - I talk fast in general - I argue fast - I don't sound like a gnat.

I am a Black woman who is also disabled. I debated 4 years for KState mostly running different forms of Black feminism. I enjoy listening to the ways people interpret debates and deploy their arguments strategically. If you're not bored I won't be either.

*******If you are not Black (white and non black poc) do not read anti-blackness/Afrofuturism/pessimism/optimism arguments in front of me (aff/neg) if the other team calls you out at ALL you will lose the debate.... same for other PoC arguments that the authors say are for PoC. If it is not your position you don't get to use other peoples bodies to get a ballot. ***note to PoC your existence is not negated because you have a white partner - I won't vote on "the white person spoke/is here"

DA/CP: I will vote for them. I have a high threshold for internal links. You have to be able to explain how the aff gets to the DA impact. I'm unwilling to give you the benefit of doubt, prove it.

Kritiks: I’ll vote for it. In order for you to get the ballot, the K, like any other argument has to be well explained for me to vote for it. I also believe that in any good K debate their needs to be an obvious link to the case and the alternative of the K must be well explained. The biggest thing I was complimented on from judges was the "big picture" debate. Tell me the story of your K you will not get away with big holes in explanation.

Theory: I’ll vote for it. HOWEVER, I don’t like theory debates that are just blocks or are just spew downs. I like the line by line debate on theory and for the debaters to slow down. I WILL vote on dropped theory arguments- so you better answer them (even if the perm is a test you still need to answer severance). The biggest critique I got from judges was I miss the little details. I am an auditory learner I will be listening but if you speed through theory there is a good chance I won't catch it. Be Clear!

Topicality: I believe that topicality is about competing interpretations. However, I can be persuaded that topicality is not a voting issue and that normative reasons to vote do outweigh. But in order to win these issues there has to be considerable time spent on these arguments not just blips. I do not necessarily believe all affirmatives have to have a plan text, however, I do believe that you should be able to defend the lack thereof. Again, it is not what you do or do not say, it is what you justify. Affirmatives, if you don’t have a plan or don’t defend the consequences you should have reasons why you shouldn’t have to defend those issues.

1) Slow down. My ears are not calibrated to the rapid delivery of policy debaters.

2) Read less cards. I will not read cards at the end of the round unless "what it says" is questioned (as in your calling them a liar). I prefer to watch and evaluate based off of what you have clearly articulated in the debate. Debate is about more than empty words, gestures, and actions. It is not only what you say/do. It is also what you justify. That matters more to me than a bunch of random cards you read to fill time.

3) Don’t rely on being tricky or attempting to “out-tech” the other team. In doing so, you will likely out-tech me and your tricks will go unnoticed. I take notes, on every speech but I don’t flow in the conventional manner of lining up argument-for-argument in columns. There is obviously a minimum of technical skills one needs to compete in debate. If a team does not address an entire position or an important nuance emphasized by their opponents then it is unlikely that they will win.

If you make a Steven Universe reference I will bump .2 speaks

Yes I want to be on the email chain jjackson558@gmail.com

laurenlucillejohnson@gmail.com

Director of Debate at Weber State University - presently

Assistant Coach at Western Washington University. 2020-2022

Graduate Assistant Coach at the University of Wyoming 2018-2020

I debated for Gonzaga University 2014-2018

Do what you do best and feel most comfortable and confident forwarding in the debate- I judge a myriad of styles and types of arguments in debates- while my paradigm gives you a sense of how I view decision-making calculus- I first and foremost view my role as a judge as an ethical educator.

Kritiks- I enjoy critical debates. Feel free to run them on both sides. I am well versed in feminist/queer, postmodern, and gender theory, although I am also familiar with other critical literature bases. The link debate is the most important part of a critique for me. Really good impact analysis does not matter if there is no link to the 1AC. I also think that performative links are valid arguments and can be used as reasons for why the permutation does not solve. I generally think the aff should get perms although can be persuaded otherwise in an instance where the aff is not about the resolution or in pure methods debates.

Role of the Ballot - I think the role of the ballot is to vote for who wins their arguments and does the better debating. If you have an argument otherwise, I will be more persuaded/default to a functionality/interpretation of how my vote works if both teams get a chance of receiving that vote. I do not find a "Role of the Ballot" claim that is to "vote for us" to be persuasive. I think it's dishonest and transparently one-sided to interpret the role of a ballot through one team's participation.

Aff framework versus the K- Your interpretation should probably say you should get to weigh your impacts vs. the K. I prefer debates about the substance of the arguments over debates that end up being exclusively about aff framework, if your framework argument ends up mooting the substance of both the aff and the K (aff solvency and alt solvency) then it becomes a messy debate that I will not enjoy adjudicating.

Performative/Non-Traditional Debates - I think the aff should be about something pertaining to the topic and recommend something be done that is different than the status quo (does NOT have to be a plan or involve the United States Federal Government). If the aff chooses to not do this, they'll have to win why the topical version of the aff can't solve for the performance/discussion that the aff began and win an impact turn to framework. In terms of impact analysis. You should be able to explain what reasonable neg ground exists versus your aff that is within the realm of topic-related research. That said, I'll still vote for an aff that is not about the topic if they win their impact turns to framework/accessibility questions.

Framework versus Performative/Non-Traditional Affs- I think that the negative either has to win that there is a ‘topical’ version of the aff that can solve for the substance and performance/discussion of the affirmative, or that their interpretation of debate can allow for better access to the solvency mechanism/ address the impacts of the affirmative. I say ‘topical’ because I am generally unpersuaded that the aff must defend the “hypothetical enactment of the plan by the USFG”, I think that the negative has to prove that the affirmative either justify an interpretation of the topic that makes it impossible to be prepared to debate this particular aff, or that the affirmative is not grounded in a methodology that changes something in the status quo or the lives/experiences of the debaters in the round. I think that the best deliberative model of debate is one in which the affirmative presents a strategy that can generate effective deliberation on a topic because it is something that is contestable and allows for a debate to occur regarding the desirability and effectiveness of two competing strategies/methods to address the affirmatives impacts/concerns.

Topicality- If the debate becomes a large T debate, please slow down so I can get the nuances and particularities of the arguments and debate. I flow on paper so keep that in mind. Limits and predictability are not impacts they are internal links. Discussing how limits and predictability impact debate/ research/ neg prep and what that means in terms of education etc. (This also goes for framework)

Theory- Generally, I think reasonable conditionality (example: 1 Kritik and 1 CP) is a good thing but conditionality bad arguments can be used strategically. I generally err neg on theory arguments that are not conditionality, but I am open to persuasion by either side of the debate.

Counterplans- I generally will vote on a counterplan if you win that you solve the aff, which means you don’t particularly need to win a big risk of your offense to win.

Disads- You need a good disad turns case argument or a case take out to be a round winning strategy. Most of the time I will filter my decision for case versus the disad debates through impact calculus.

New - NDT 24. Welcome to Atlanta!

The only things you really need to know:
1. If you berate, threaten, verbally or physically attack your opponents, I will end the debate and you'll recieve a loss along with the lowest points tabroom will allow me to asign.
2. Don't endorse self-harm.
3. Arguments admissable for adjudication include everything said from when the 1AC timer starts until the 2AR timer ends. Anything else is irrelevant.

Other than that, do what you do best. Technical debating is more likely to result in you winning than anything else.

I am a coach at Emory, Liberal Arts and Science Academy and The Harker School. Other conflicts: Texas, Westwood, St Vincent de Paul, Bakersfield High School

Email Chain: yes, cardstealing@gmail.com

You will receive a speaker point bump if you give your final rebuttal without the use of a laptop. I will give higher points to speeches with errors/pauses/inconsistencies etc. where the speaker debates off their flows than speeches that sound crystal clear and perfect but are delivered without the speaker looking up from their computer screen. If you flow off your laptop I will use my best judgement to assess the extent to which you're delivering arguments in such a way that demonstrates you have flowed the debate.

Ultimately, do what you do best. Giving speeches you're comfortable with is almost certainly a better path to victory than attempting to adapt to any of this stuff below. Debate is extremely hard and requires immense amounts of works. I will try to give you the same level of effort that I know you've put in.

Debate is an activity about persuasion and communication. If I can't understand your argument because what you are saying because you are unclear, haven't explained it, or developed it into a full argument-claim, warrant, impact, it likely won't factor in my decision.

The winner will nearly always be the team able to identify the central question of the debate first and most clearly trace how the development of their argument means they're ahead on that central question.

Virtually nothing you can possibly say or do will offend me [with the new above caveat] if you can't beat a terrible argument you probably deserve to lose.

Framework- Fairness is both an internal link and an impact. Debate is a game but its also so much more. Go for T/answer T the way that makes most sense to you, I'll do my best to evaluate the debate technically.

Counter-plans-

-spamming permutations, particular ones that are intrinsic, without a text and with no explanation isn't a complete argument. [insert perm text fine, insert counter plan text is not fine].

-pretty neg on "if it competes, its legitimate." Aff can win these debates by explaining why theory and competition should be separated and then going for just one in the 2ar. the more muddled you make this, the better it usually is for the neg.

-non-resolutional theory is rarely if ever a reason to reject the team. Generally don't think its a reason to reject the argument either.

-I'm becoming increasingly poor for conditionality bad as a reason to reject the team. This doesn't mean you shouldn't say in the 2ac why its bad but I've yet to see a speech where the 2AR convinced me the debate has been made irredeemably unfair or un-educational due to the status of counter plans. I think its possible I'd be more convinced by the argument that winning condo is bad means that the neg is stuck with all their counter plans and therefore responsible for answering any aff offense to those positions. This can be difficult to execute/annoying to do, but do with that what you will.

Kritiks

-affs usually lose these by forgetting about the case, negs usually lose these when they don't contextualize links to the 1ac. If you're reading a policy aff that clearly links, I'll be pretty confused if you don't go impact turns/case outweighs.

-link specificity is important - I don't think this is necessarily an evidence thing, but an explanation thing - lines from 1AC, examples, specific scenarios are all things that will go a long way

-these are almost always just framework debates these days but debaters often forget to explain the implications winning their interpretation has on the scope of competition. framework is an attempt to assign roles for proof/rejoinder and while many of you implicitly make arguments about this, the more clear you can be about those roles, the better.

-i'm less likely to think "extinction outweighs, 1% risk" is as good as you think it is, most of the time the team reading the K gives up on this because they for some reason think this argument is unbeatable, so it ends up mattering in more rfds than it should

LD -

I have been judging LD for a year now. The policy section all applies here.

Tech over truth but, there's a limit - likely quite bad for tricks - arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete. Dropped arguments are important if you explain how they implicate my decision. Dropped arguments are much less important when you fail to explain the impact/relevance of said argument.

RVIs - no, never, literally don't. 27 ceiling. Scenario: 1ar is 4 minutes of an RVI, nr drops the rvi, I will vote negative within seconds of the timer ending.

Policy/K - both great - see above for details.

Phil - haven't judged much of this yet, this seems interesting and fine, but again, arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete arguments.

Arguments communicated and understood by the judge per minute>>>>words mumbled nearly incomprehensibly per minute.

Unlikely you'll convince me the aff doesn't get to read a plan for topicality reasons. K framework is a separate from this and open to debate, see policy section for details.

PF -

If you read cards they must be sent out via email chain with me attached or through file share prior to the speech. If you reference a piece of evidence that you haven't sent out prior to your speech, fine, but I won't count it as being evidence. You should never take time outside of your prep time to exchange evidence - it should already have been done.

"Paraphrasing" as a substitute for quotation or reading evidence is a bad norm. I won't vote on it as an ethics violation, but I will cap your speaker points at a 27.5.

I realize some of you have started going fast now, if everyone is doing that, fine. However, adapting to the norms of your opponents circuit - i.e. if they're debating slowly and traditionally and you do so as well, will be rewarded with much higher points then if you spread somebody out of the room, which will be awarded with very low points even if you win.

Offer a good story, and provide a framework for evaluating competing stories.

Be topical, or don't.

Be persuasive.

Debate how you'd like, and I will be an active listener in the conversation.

Aside -- I have a personal conviction to praxis that is grounded in theory that makes the concept of "theoretical praxis" far less attractive to me.

For the email chain: kozakism@gmail.com

I am the former founding Director of Debate at Rutgers University-Newark and current Speech and Debate Coordinator for the Newark Board of Education.

I do not have any formal affiliation with any school in the City of Newark. I represent the entire district and have been doing nothing but competing, teaching, coaching, and building debate for the last 22 years. I have judged thousands of debates at almost every level of competition.

I am in the process of rewriting my judge philosophy to reflect my current attitudes about debate better and be more helpful to competitors trying to adapt. The one I have had on tabroom is over ten years old, and written in the context of college policy debate. I apologize to all the competitors in the many rounds I have judged recently for not being more transparent on Tabroom.

Do what you do best, and I will do my best to evaluate arguments as you tell me.

I will keep a slightly edited version of my old philosophy while I work on my new one, as it still expresses my basic feelings about debate.

If you have questions about my judge philosophy or me before a tournament, please email me at ckozak@nps.k12.nj.us.

You can also ask me any questions prior to the debate about any preferences you might be concerned about. Good luck!

Old
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My judging philosophy/preference is simple. Make arguments. That includes a claim, a warrant, and why your claim matters in a world of competing claims. I don't have an explicit judging "paradigm," and to say that I am a tabla rasa is naive. I am going to split the difference and just explain to you what kinds of arguments I am familiar with.

I debated the K for most of college. I value nuanced Ks that are well-explained and applied to a specific context. I like original thinking in debate and will try to adapt to any performance style you wish to present in the round. Just be aware to all teams when debating framework on these issues that I do not consider appeals to "objective rules" persuasive in the context of determining debate norms. Debate is a rare activity in which students can define the conditions of their education. I take this aspect of debate very seriously. This does not mean I am hostile to "policy debate good" arguments; it just means that I am holding both teams to a high standard of explanation when evaluating framework arguments.

I was mostly a traditional policy debater in high school, so I am very familiar with the other side of the fence. I love an excellent straight-up policy round. Give me all your weird counterplans and ridiculous disad scenarios. I am a current events junkie and find that form of debate extremely valuable. I enjoy speed; but I have a hard time flowing quick blips analysis (who doesn't?). If you just make sure you pause for a breath or something between arguments, I will get everything you need me to get on my flow.

It may sound like I have a lot of "biases," but I do honestly try to evaluate arguments exactly as debaters tell me to. These preferences mostly come into play only when debaters are not doing their jobs.

Avoid having to adapt to me at all, and just tell me what you would like my preferences to be, and we will be good.

I welcome you to ask any specific questions you may have about my philosophy before the debate, considering I don't have much of an idea about what to put in these things, as I found most judge philosophies deceptive as a competitor.

Do you. Do what you do and do it well. I've been apart of the debate community for 6 years and come to the conclusion that all debates are a series of competing dramatic performances that I could be perusauded on anyday, any performance. With that being said, if rap, poetry or storytelling is not your thing.. Dont do it just because your in front of me. I value clash and big picture focus, however #LineByLineMatters. 

"Power is the ability to define phenomena, and make it act in a desired manner. " - Huey P. Newton

 

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the f*ck on.”  â€• Tupac Shakur

 

 

The time has come for my yearly overhaul of my paradigm

Crystallegionaires@gmail.com

Debating
Weber State University- 5 1/2 years included attending the NDT and breaking at CEDA
Alta High School- 3 years

Judging
Judging and helping at West High- 5 years
Current Judging for Weber State

"I know in your heart of hearts you hate [policy arguments] but you also vote for that stuff all the time."
-Mike Bausch

The more I judge, the more I find that the way that I debated and the way that I judge are fairly different. I love kritik debate and I find it to be some of the most educational debates and research that I have found personally with inserting and forefronting real life impacts and experiences into debate especially for me as a disabled transgender woman. I also find that "kritik" or "performance" or "nontraditional" teams or what have you are bad at answering policy arguments from framework to simple extinction outweighs. It's incredibly frustrating but despite my reluctance, leads me to voting a fair amount for policy arguments. Let me make this clear though, I'm not a great judge for your super technical line by line on a politics disad though I won't be opposed to voting on that for you if you win.

One of the main reasons I present this with a caveat is because I have a **sensory processing disorder.** If you want to spread through and get as many arguments out no matter what, I will be unable to keep up with you and I will tell you to slow down. It is in your best interest to do so. The more time I struggle to hear the less I'm hearing and writing down. Furthermore if you refuse to slow down, **I will stop writing down arguments and start removing speaker points.** I'll tell you to slow down 3 times and then I will stop flowing. Further speeches will have 1 warning before that happens. Whatever speed I lower you to, go one lever below that to account for speeding up in the speech later. Trust me, you don't need that last argument more than you want me to understand the debate. 1 card I do understand is way better than 10 cards I don't. I almost never read cards unless necessary or if I'm looking for feedback so reliance on cards won't get you that far. If you want me to read a piece of evidence, it needs to be on an important part of the debate that can't be resolved otherwise and needs to be impacted out.

I'm a truth over tech judge one good/"true" argument can beat ten terrible cards. However, that doesn't mean you can't get me to vote on tech, you just have to impact it out more. If there is a strategic messup by your opponents and you explain why that should grant you and argument eg if they concede a permutation and you go for it even if it doesn't make sense outside of debate, if you explain it, I'm willing to grant it to you. You need to explain your shit. Cards and dropped arguments aren't inherently true and round ending. You have to tell me why all your shit matters for me to weigh it. I find teams are especially light on their impact level of the debate and on the solvency of their arguments so I would make sure to have emphasis there.

Postmodernism, psychoanalysis and the like aren't my cup of tea. I often spend these debates trying to wrap my mind around the terminology rather than the argument in question which can be a detriment to the debaters in round, just how my mind processes new information. I won't straight tell you I won't vote on it but I also find these arguments struggle to have applicability that can be explained in the "real world."

I believe there can be zero risk of impacts. I don't believe in assigning .1% risk of impacts to extinction. Either way the impacts go you need to tell me why that is the case.

I also don't believe that you just saying so means that you solve 100% of the aff with your counterplan. You need to explain in depth why that is the case

I default that the ballot does have meaning and that debate isn't just a game. I can be persuaded otherwise but I feel you need to explain why the community and activism that happens in debate is more of a side effect instead of debate actually having meaning

I think nontopical affs are often really cool and bring extra insight into the topic. For framework teams, i can be persuaded that these teams are cheating if it's impacted out and the education is bad but there is often a lack of legalistic warrants or topic specific education warrants to these arguments which needs to be present. I generally think it is better for the aff to be resolutional eg if it's an immigration topic, talk something about immigration but I won't penalize you for not doing so.

If you run a nontopical aff, you need a disad to the topical version of the aff on framework. I can't stress this enough. Many of my decisions have been made because the TVA solves the aff meaning the offense goes away or the aff forget to extend offense or impact out that disad. This is THE point that I find myself voting on over and over again on framework/t

I do find the evidential debate on disads and counterplans especially to have unique education and debate benefits that don't exist elsewhere and look forward to how debaters utilize them

I think theory debates are really useless. Everyone runs condo and severance perms and it's more of a flow check. I have a high threshold for a theory argument and there better be a damn good reason why you are turning the debate into a theory debate. I also find debaters being exceptionally bad at impacting out theory and explaining the standards. For these reasons I don't see myself voting on theory in the near future. Exceptions to the rule are 50 State fiat, world government fiat and other ridiculous multiactor counterplans and possibly utopian fiat on absurd kritiks.

I think "performative" arguments are really important to the activity and bring pathos that the event often badly lacks. Because of this, I often find myself giving better speaker points to performative teams. I don't think it is cheating or undebateable for someone to bring in their or other experiences and I look forward to these debates. That being said, I can often be persuaded to vote on framework because performative teams often struggle with what to do with their performance once they have performed.

I am currently an assistant debate coach with both Montgomery Bell Academy and George Mason University. This is my 15th year in policy debate.

I use he/him pronouns.

Last updated: 1/31/2024

Please put me on the email chain & make me an ev doc at the end of the debate. NJL1994@gmail.com.

Set up and send out the 1AC 10 minutes before the debate begins. Please avoid downtime during debates. If you do both of these things without me needing to say anything (send out the 1AC 10 minutes early + avoid downtime) you'll get higher speaker points.

If I'm judging you online, please slow down a bit and emphasize clarity more than normal.

Top level things:

I think about debate in terms of risk (does the risk of the advantage being true outweigh the risk of the disad being true?). I am willing to vote on presumption, particularly when people say really ridiculous stuff or people's cards are highlighted to say nothing.

I like specificity, nuance, and for you to sound smart. If you sound like you've done research and you know what's going on, I'm likely to give you great points. Being specific, having nuances, and explaining your distinctions is the easiest way to get my ballot.

Judge direction is a lost art. If you win the argument that you're advancing, why should it matter? What does this mean for the debate? What does it mean for your arguments or the other team's arguments? This is the number one easiest way to win my (and really anyone's) ballot in a debate. Direct your judges to think a certain way, because if you don't, your judges are likely to go rogue and decide things that make sense to them but not to you. So impact your arguments and tell me what to do with them. I think it's way more valuable to do that than include one more tiny argument and almost certainly the easiest way to get me to overcome any predispositions.

Decorum is very important to me. If your strategy is to belittle, upset, talk down to, yell at, escalate, curse at, or otherwise be rude or mean to your opponents, then you can expect me to give you terrible speaker points. I also reserve the right to end the debate early if I find the behavior particularly atrocious or potentially threatening to anyone in the room. I am very uninterested in the “I know what you did last summer” strategy or any personal attacks. You certainly don't have to be best friends with your opponents, but I do expect a sense of cordiality when engaging your opponents and their arguments.

"The existence of speech time limits, the assumption that you will not interrupt an opponent's speech intentionally, and the fact that I (and not you) will be signing a ballot that decides a winner and loser is non-negotiable." (taken verbatim from Shree Awsare).

I am incredibly uncomfortable adjudicating things that did not occur in the debate I am watching. Please do not ask me to judge based on something that didn’t happen in the round. I am likely to ignore you.

High school debaters in particular: I have consistently noticed over the past few years of judging that I vote for the team whose arguments I understand. If I cannot connect the dots, I'm not going to vote for you. This goes equally for kritikal and policy debaters. Most of my decisions in high school debates come down to this, and I will tell you that your argument makes no sense in my RFD.

How I decide debates:

First: who solves what?-- does the aff solve its impacts, and (assuming it's in the 2NR) does the negative's competitive advocacy solve its own impacts and/or the aff? In framework debates, this means the first questions I resolve are "does the aff solve itself?" and "does the TVA solve the aff sufficiently?"

Second: Who’s impact is bigger? This is the most important question in the debate. Do impact calculus.

Third: Whatever you have told me matters. Because I have started with solvency & impact calculus questions, everything else is always filtered along those lines (including framework/role of the ballot/role of the judge).

Other misc things:

1. A dropped argument is a true argument but it needs to be a complete argument to begin with or I will likely allow people new answers. For example, this epidemic with high schoolers reading aspec on the bottom of T flows to hide it: if it’s so quick I didn’t catch it in the 1NC, the 1AR gets all the new args they want. Additionally, an argument is not just a claim and a warrant, but a claim, warrant, and reasoning. In other words, your warrant needs to be connected to your claim in order for it to be an argument.

2. I am very flowcentric. Do not ask me to not flow, because I won't listen. Please do line-by-line. If you don't, I'll be frustrated and less likely to buy new extrapolations of arguments. Your speaker points will definitely drop if you don't do line-by-line. I do not like overviews ("overviews are evil"-- one of my labbies; "flowing is good for your health" -- another one of my labbies).

3. Show me that you care. Show me that you know things, that you've done research on this topic, that you want to win, and that debate matters to you. I love this activity and if you also love it I want to know that.

4. Judge kicking makes sense to me but I frequently forget about it, so if you want me to judge kick something you should tell me so in the block/2NR.

5. Cards and highlighting: Teams should get to insert rehighlightings of the other team's cards, but obviously should have to read cards if they're new/haven't been introduced into the debate yet. Two offshoots of this-- 1. You should insert rehighlightings of other team's cards if they suck 2. You should read cards that don't suck.

I do not follow along with speech docs during debates.

Please highlight your ev so it reads as complete sentences. This does not mean that I need you to highlight complete sentences, but if you are brick highlighting, I want to be able to read highlighted portions of your ev as complete sentences—it flows better to me. IE don't skip the letter "a" or the words "in" or "the." Just a random pet peeve.

If you do not have a complete citation or at least a full paragraph from your evidence I will not evaluate what you've said as evidence. Cherrypicked quotes with no context are not evidence.

I tend to not read a lot of cards after the debate unless things are highly technical or I think the debaters aren’t explaining things well. That being said, I’ll likely read at least some cards. Please put together a card doc for me.

6. Debaters parroting their partners: I usually just flow what the partner said. That, obviously, only exists within reason (you don’t get to give a third speech in a debate, but you can interrupt your partner to say something and I will flow it).

7. New 2AR args are bad for debate. I consciously hold the line against them as much as I can. I as a 2N feel as if I got a few decisions where a judge voted aff on an arg that didn't exist until the 2AR and it's the most frustrating. You can expect me to try to trace lines between args in earlier & later speeches. However, if I think the argument they're making is the true argument or a logical extrapolation of something said in the 1AR, I'm more likely to buy it. 2As-- this means if you're gonna do some 2A magic and cheat, you should trick me into thinking that you're not cheating.

Some specifics:

Disads: I’m better for the smart DAs than the silly ones, but I understand the value of bad DAs and will vote for them. I will likely reward you with higher speaker points if I think I understand your story really well and/or you have some cool/unique spin on it. I am fine with logical take outs to DAs that don’t require cards (especially if there’s some logic missing internally in the DA). Don’t just read new cards in the block or 1AR, explain your args (although also read new cards obviously).

I really do not understand how the economy works. I'm sorry. I've really tried to get it, but I just don't. You absolutely can go for econ DAs and/or econ case turns in front of me, but please be extra careful to explain (in lots of detail!) what you're arguing here.

Theory, CPs, and K Alternatives: I put these pieces together because my thoughts on these three args blend together.

Competition is determined off the plantext, not off cross-x, nor off the resolution. PICs & PIKs are only competitive if they PIC/PIK out of something in the plantext. I do not believe that you get to PIC/PIK out of a justification or non-plantext based word. The only way I will ever be convinced otherwise is if the aff allows you to do so.

Condo: It’s good. “They should get one less CP” is an arbitrary interp and makes no sense. The phrase "dispo solves" at the end of your bad 2AC condo block is not an argument and I will not be writing it down on my flow. I will vote on this if it's dropped, but I'm pretty persuaded by neg flex and education-style args.

"Performative Contradictions" is a term of art that has been bastardized to no end by debate. You're either saying the neg has double turned themselves or you're saying conditionality is bad; in my mind, perf con is not even worthy of being written on my flow.

Particular Theory: I’m better for this than most judges (and MUCH more persuaded by it than condo). States theory, international fiat, consult/condition, vague alts, utopian alts, etc—I have gone for all of these and actively coach my debaters to do the same. My predisposition is to reject the arg not the team, but I can be persuaded to reject the team on non-condo theory args (you should introduce the arg as reject the team in the 2AC, not CX, if you want this to be an option).

Theory can be a reason you get to make a cheating perm.

Counterplans/alternatives that use aff evidence as solvency advocates are awesome.

If the CP/alt links less I think it makes sense that I prefer it, but make that arg yourself because I won’t make it for you.

Case: I love love love case debate. You should make logical extrapolations that take out the internal link chains and make me question how the advantage makes sense. The block should read more cards but feel free to make logical case take outs without cards. I don't think you should have to go for impact defense to beat advantages-- uniqueness and internal link take outs are almost always the easier place to attack advantages. I tend to prefer a well-developed take out to the death by a thousand cuts strategy.

Affs-- 2NR that don't do well-developed case debate are generally overwhelmed by your "try or die"/"case outweighs"/"1% chance of solvency" args.

Topicality: I'm getting better for this as a strategy lately than I used to be. I do still generally think that it's about the plantext, but can be persuaded that I should think of the plantext in the context of the 1AC. Topicality is only ever a voter, not a reverse voter. I’m not great for silly/arbitrary T interps (I am very persuaded by the arg that these interps are arbitrary).

Kritiks: I like Ks that care about people and things. I'm optimistic to a fault. I certainly believe that things are still terrible for billions of beings, but it's hard to convince me that everything in the world is so absolutely irredeemable.

Your long overview is actively bad for debate and you will not change my mind.

Make your K interact with the affirmative. I want your links to be about the result of the aff as opposed to just the reading of the aff. Fiat bad links are bad. Your "state is always bad" links are slightly better, but also terrible. Don't just explain your theory of how power works, explain how the action of the aff is bad according to your theory of power.

I think that I am worse for structuralist style kritiks than I used to be for two reasons: 1) I feel more so that I want you to be responding to the action of the aff than I used to 2) I generally study poststructuralism and queer theory. I read a lot of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler.

Grad school has taught me that theory is way more complex than I used to think it was. I will get annoyed if I know that you’re deploying the theory wrong. I'm not good for things like "death good," "meaning doesn't mean anything," or "language is meaningless" because I don't think those are questions even worth asking.

I have read some literature about antiblackness academically and have read a bit more from a debate standpoint. I would not call myself an expert by any means in this literature, but I do understand some of it better than I used to. I am still unwilling to fill in those blanks for you if you are lacking them (ex-- just saying the words "yes antiblackness ontological, natal alienation proves" is not an argument in my mind).

99.99% of the time I will entirely ignore your framework/role of the ballot args when you're going for the K against a topical aff. There's a high chance that I will just stare at you and not flow during your incredibly long and generic 2NC/2NR framework block on your K. I am serious, I may not even waste the ink in my pen flowing this. I do not know how to decide debates unless I'm weighing the merits of the aff against the merits of the K. For example, if the aff is an object of study, then to evaluate that object of study I have to weigh the aff's consequences. You are better off just saying "yes the aff can weigh the plan, we'll just beat it" in front of me. This also means that the role of the ballot/judge is only ever to vote for whoever did the better debating in every round I judge.

“Perms are a negative argument” and “method v method debate means no perms” are both not arguments. Despite judging for however long I have, I still do not know what a "method v method debate" even is or why it's different than every other debate. I will not write these words on my flow.

I also generally do not find the "voting for us gives us more wins/sends us to elims" as a solvency mech persuasive or that "X thing done in the debate is policing/surveillance/violence" (other than actual/physical policing/surveillance/violence) to be persuasive.

Ultimately, I evaluate K debates just like I evaluate policy debates. Technical line by line is key. Explain your args well. Put the debate together. Don't ignore the other side.

2NRs on the K that include case debate (with some level of internal link/impact defense; not just your security K cards on case) are substantially more persuasive to me.

Framework against non-topical affs: you should also read my section on Ks (right above this one) as well.

Framework is a strategy and it makes a lot of sense as a strategy. Just like every other strategy, you should try to tailor it to be as specific to the aff as you possibly can. For example, how does this particular aff make it impossible for you to debate? What does it mean for how debate looks writ-large? What's the valuable topic education we could have had from a topical discussion of this aff in particular? Same basic idea goes for when you’re answering generic aff args—the generic “state always bad” arg is pretty easily beaten by nuanced neg responses in front of me. The more specific you are, the more likely I am to vote for you on framework and the more likely I am to give you good speaks.

Stop reading huge overviews. They’re bad for debate. Your points will suffer. Do line by line. Be a good debater and stop being lazy. The amount of times I have written something like "do line by line" in this paradigm should really tell you something about how I think about debate.

I do not find truth testing/"ignore the aff's args because they're not T" very persuasive. I think it's circular & requires judge intervention.

I do, however, think that fairness/limits/ground is an impact and that it is the most important standard in a T debate.

T and/or framework is not genocide, nor is it ever rape, nor is it a microaggression, nor is it real literal violence against you or anyone else.

I’m a sucker for a good topical version. Teams seem to want to just laundry list potential TVAs and then say "idk, maybe these things let them discuss their theory". I believe that strategy is very easily beaten by a K team having some nuanced response. It makes way more sense to me if the TVA is set up almost like a CP-- it should solve a majority or all of the aff. If you set it up like that and then add the sufficiency framing/"flaws are neg ground" style args I'm WAY more likely to buy what you have to say (this goes along with the whole "I like nuance and specificity and you to sound like you're debating the merits of the aff" motif that I've had throughout my paradigm-- it applies to all debaters).

I oftentimes wonder how non-topical affs solve themselves. The negative should exploit this because I do feel comfortable voting neg on presumption. However, I won’t ever intervene to vote on presumption. That’s an argument that the debaters need to make.

Non-topical affs should have nuance & do line by line as well. Answer the neg’s args, frame the debate, and tell me why your aff in particular could not have been topical. You HAVE to have a defense of your model and not just say that framework is bad or else I will probably vote neg on presumption. The same basic idea applies here as it does everywhere else: the more generic you are, the more likely I am to vote against you.

Garbage/Hidden Stuff/Tricks: Nope. New affs are good, hiding aspec makes you a coward, death is bad, free will exists and I don't care if it doesn't. Make better arguments.

Cross-ex: I am becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with watching how this tends to go down. Unless I am judging a novice debate, questions like "did you read X card" or "where did you mark Y card" are counting as parts of cross-x. I tend to start the timer for cross-ex pretty quickly after speeches end (obviously take a sec to get water if you need to) so pay attention to that.

I pay attention & listen to CX but I do not flow it. Have a presence in CX & make an impact. I am listening.

Speaker points-- I do my best to moderate these based on the tournament I'm at and what division I'm in. That being said, I won’t lie—I am not a point fairy.

I will grant extra speaker points to people who number their arguments and correctly/aptly follow the numbering that has been established in the debate.

Paraphrasing from Shree Awsare-- I will not give you a 30.

29.8-- Top speaker
29.2-29.5-- You really impressed me and I expect you to be deep in the tournament
29-- I think you deserve to clear
28.3-- Not terrible but not super impressive
27.5-- Yikes
I will award the lowest possible points for people who violate the basic human dignities that people should be afforded while debating (e.g., non-black people don't say the N word).

I've also been known to give 20s to people who don't make arguments. I will not be giving you a 30; nobody gives a perfect speech.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the debate begins, or send me an email. I also do seriously invite conversation about the debate after it occurs-- post-rounds are oftentimes the most valuable instantiation of feedback, the best way to get better at debate, and important for improving intellectually. I know that post-rounds sometimes get heated, and I think we all get defensive sometimes when we're being pressed on things we've said (or think we've said) so I will likely consciously try to take deep breaths and relax if I feel myself getting heated during these times. This also means that I may take a second to respond to your questions because I am thinking. I also might take awkward pauses between words-- that's not because I don't think your question is important, I'm just trying to choose my words carefully so I can correctly convey my thoughts. I only post this here because I don't want anyone to feel like they're being attacked or anything for asking questions, and I apologize in advance if anything I say sounds like that.

Ethics Challenge Addendum:

I would strongly discourage ethics challenges in all but the most extreme instances. I don't want to adjudicate them, you don't want to be the team who makes the challenge, etc. If you notice something is wrong, please contact coaches and/or debaters and try to fix the problem rather than making it a challenge in round.

An ethics challenge is not a no-risk option for me. That is, when an ethics challenge is issued, the debate ends. I will clarify that the team issuing the challenge has issued one and then end the debate and adjudicate the challenge. I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward then and there. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances.

An ethics challenge may be issued along one of three lines: either you have accused the other team of clipping cards, of misciting evidence, or of misrepresenting evidence. Nothing else will be considered an ethics challenge for me.

Clipping cards is defined as claiming to have read more or less of the evidence than one actually has. Please note that I do not follow along with evidence as the debate is occurring. Missing a single word/a few words is not enough. I will decide what constitutes enough of the card to be considered clipping.

Misciting evidence is understood as providing the incorrect author and/or date as well as missing the first author, source of publication, and date (at least the year). Please note that putting something like "the New York Times" instead of "Nate Silver" is acceptable for an authorship. Source of publication can be broad (article title, URL, book title). If the article is easily accessible, then it is acceptable. Again, I will determine what constitutes an incomplete or miscited citation if this becomes a relevant question.

I do not consider missing credentials to be unethical but I do consider those pieces of evidence to be incredibly weak.

Misrepresenting evidence is understood as inserting evidence which is missing lines or paragraphs within the parts of the initial article/book being read. So, for example, if you want to read the first and third paragraph from an article, you must leave the second paragraph in the evidence you read in the debate. This means that, for me, ellipses to indicate that parts of the card are missing or stating something like “pages 4-5 omitted” is unethical. Cards need to be full paragraphs.

Providing a single quote from a book or an article is not a card. As such, I will not consider it as you having introduced evidence and it is not unethical for me. However, not providing full paragraph pieces of evidence means your argument is substantially weaker for me (because, again, then you have not read evidence).

I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances. Please note that I will take this seriously; an ethics challenge is not something to be debated out in a round.

The speaker points I will give are as follows: 28.6 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I vote for, 28.5 for the 1^st speaker of the team I vote for, 28.4 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I do not vote for, 28.3 for the 1^st speaker of the team I do not vote for. My assumption in the event of an ethics violation is that you made an honest mistake and that you were not intentionally cheating. I do not understand ethics challenges to be the equivalent of academic dishonesty or worthy of any punishment besides my ballot being cast in that particular debate (I do not hold these challenges against you in future rounds nor do I believe that you should be in trouble with your debate coaches or schools).

Please note that what I have written here is designed for varsity debate only; that is, when judging novice and JV debates, I will be more lenient and talk through what's going on with the students and, depending on the situation, allow the debate to continue.

These are thoughts that are still evolving for me as I talk with more people. Please bear with me as I continue to think this out. (Also note that this caveat goes along well with the first statement in this section: I would prefer you not introduce an ethics violation unless it is a serious issue in that particular debate).

Please also note that these rules do not apply to my standards for threatening violence against another debater (physical or otherwise) or hurling slurs at your opponent. I will immediately end the round and give the lowest speaker points that Tab will allow me to in that situation.

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.

FOR COLLEGE TOURNAMENTS: ukydebate@gmail.com

FOR HS TOURNAMENTS:devanemdebate@gmail.com

My name is Devane (Da-Von) Murphy, and I'm the Associate Director of Debate at the University of Kentucky. My conflicts are Newark Science, Coppell High School, University High School, Rutgers-Newark, Dartmouth College, and the University of Kentucky. I debated 4 years of policy in high school and for some time in college, however, I've coached Lincoln-Douglas as well as Public Forum debaters so I should be good on all fronts. I ran all types of arguments in my career, from Politics to Deleuze and back, and my largest piece of advice to you with me in the back of the room is to run what you are comfortable with. Also, I stole this from Elijah Smith's philosophy

"If you are a policy team, please take into account that most of the "K" judges started by learning the rules of policy debate and competing traditionally. I respect your right to decide what debate means to you, but debate also means something to me and every other judge. Thinking about the form of your argument as something I may not be receptive to is much different from me saying that I don't appreciate the hard work you have done to produce the content"

***Emory LD Edit***

I'm a policy debater in training but I'm not completely oblivious to the different terms and strategies used in LD. That being said, I hate some of the things that are supposed to be "acceptable" in the activity. First, I HATE frivolous Theory debates. I will vote for it if I absolutely have to but I have VERY HIGH threshold and I will not be kind to your speaker points. Second, if your thing is to do whatever a "skeptrigger" is or something along that vein, please STRIKE me. It'd be a waste of your time as I have nothing to offer you educationally. Another argument that I probably will have a hard time evaluating is constitutivism/truth testing. Please compare impacts and tell me why I should vote for you. Other than that, everything else here is applicable. Have fun and if you make me laugh, I'll boost your speaks.

DA's: I like these kinds of debates. My largest criticism is that if you are going to read a DA in front of me, please give some form of impact calculus that helps me to evaluate which argument should be prioritized with my ballot. And I'm not just saying calculus to mean timeframe, probability or magnitude but rather to ask for a comparison between the impacts offered in the round. (just a precursor but this is necessary for all arguments not just DA's)

CP's: I like CP's however for the abusive ones (and yes I'm referring to Consult, Condition, Multi-Plank, Sunset, etc.) Theoretical objections persuade me. I'm not saying don't run these in front of me however if someone runs theory please don't just gloss over it because it will be a reason to reject the argument and if its in the 2NR the team.

K's: I like the K too however that does not mean that I am completely familiar with the lit that you are reading as arguments. The easiest way to persuade me is to have contextualized links to the aff as well as not blazing through the intricate details of your stuff. Not to say I can't flow speed (college debate is kinda fast) I would rather not flow a bunch of high theory which would mean that I won't know what you're talking about. You really don't want me to not know what you're talking about. SERIOUSLY. I will lower your speaker points without hesitation

Framework: I'm usually debating on the K side of this, but I will vote on either side. If the negative is winning and impacting their decision-making impact over the impacts of the aff then I would vote negative. On the flip side, if the aff wins that the interpretation is a targeted method of skewing certain conversations and wins offense to the conversation, I would vote aff. This being said I go by my flow. Also, I'm honestly not too persuaded by fairness as an impact, but the decision-making parts of the argument intrigue me.

K-Affs/Performance: I'm 100% with these. However, they have to be done the right way. I don't wanna hear poetry spread at me at high speeds nor do I want to hear convoluted high theory without much explanation. That being said, I love to watch these kinds of debates and have been a part of a bunch of them.

Theory: I'll vote on it if you're impacting your standards. If you're spreading blocks, probably won't vote for it.

In high school I was a member of Moore High Schools speech and debate team. There I competed in LD, PFD, OO and Extemp. I crossed over to policy in 2014 when I started debating for the University of Oklahoma’s policy debate team. I honestly do not care what you do in front of me. Debate is a game, a performance, I am the audience and attempt to judge as fair as possible. Persuade me. I am a black woman living in America in the year 2018 with Donald Trump as our President. That is the basic lens through which I evaluate things through.

If you are not clear I will not flow you and will not default to the speech doc.

I like framing and I like being persuaded. It makes my job easy.

Have a link to the case and not the squo. Makes it easier to vote for you.

I love a well-executed impact turn debate . If you can give me this your speaks will show my joy
 Frame the ballot for me in the 2NR/2AR. Don't just extend a bunch of cards and highlight concessions, but be explicit about why a particular argument or collection of arguments wins you the debate. 
 Evidence quality may become important in close debates but is a secondary concern to persuasion within the debate. This is not to say that I won't read your evidence after the debate because i probably will, but I won't evaluate warrants that are in your cards or make judgments about evidence quality unless they were fleshed out adequately in the constructives/rebuttals.

 

- You should assume that I am not up on the literature you have read. You should not expect me to know every acronym or all the latest developments in your DA scenario, nor should you assume that I understand all of the jargon in your K. Err on the side of ,at least, briefly explaining a concept before jumping into the intricacies of your argument.

 

- Defense can win debates and I have no problem pulling the trigger on presumption. I can be compelled that there is 0% risk of solvency to an affirmative case, or that there is no internal link within a DA. "There's a 1% chance that we're good for the world" is not a sufficient justification unless you provide a reason for why the opposing team's defensive argument is false or simply mitigates your claim (rather than taking it out terminally).

 

- I have a tendency to be somewhat expressive. If I find something stupid happening within a debate, I will likely face-palm, and/or shake my head; if I didn't understand you, I will give you a quizzical look. You should look up occasionally and take hints from the visual cues that I am sending. I won't make verbal interjections within a debate unless you're being unclear in which case i will say clear twice

 

- There is a fine line between being assertive and being rude. Don't cross it. If you don't know the difference, just watch for how I react

 

Some specific concerns:

 

Topicality-- I default to competing interpretations . To make these debates even close to enjoyable for me this requires an explicit list of what specific cases your interpretation permits and why this is beneficial for the activity. As for "Kritiks of T": I tend not to view these as RVIs, but instead as counter-standards that privilege an alternate debate curriculum that is more important than traditional conceptions. Negatives that plan on defending T against these criticisms should not only maintain that the 1AC does not meet what they view as fair and educational debate, but also need to go into a more specific discussion that impacts why their vision of a fair and educational debate is good and why the negative's alternate curriculum is worse in comparison.

 

Theory-- pretty similar to T debates but the one difference is that I will default to "reject the argument, not the team" unless given a reason otherwise. I have been known to go for cheapshots, but these require fulfilling a high standard of execution (a fully warranted and impacted explanation of your cheapshot, and closing the doors on any cross-applications the aff can make from other flows). Stylistically speaking, slowing down in these debates will help me put more ink on your side of the flow--otherwise I may miss a part of your argument that you find important. Additionally, a well-thought out interpretation and 3 warranted arguments regarding why a particular practice in debate is bad is significantly stronger than a blippy, generic re-hashing of a 10-point block.

 

Straight-up Strategies-- My favorite strategies often involve more than one or more of the following: an advantage counterplan, topic specific DA(s), and a solid amount of time allocated to case turns/defense. I am obviously open to hear and evaluate more generic arguments like politics, dip cap, delay counterplans, and process counterplans if that is your thing, and you should obviously go for what you are winning.

 

K and Performance Strategies-- I enjoy philosophy and have spent a significant chunk of my free time reading/understanding K and performance arguments. My familiarity with this style of debating makes it a double-edged sword. I will be very impressed if you command significant knowledge about the theory at hand and are able to apply them to the case through examples from popular culture or empirical/historical situations. On the other hand, if you fail to explain basic theoretical ideas within the scope of the K or fail to engage particular points of contention presented by the affirmative, I will be thoroughly unimpressed. Similarly, when opposing a K or performance, I am much more interested in arguments (analytics and cards) that not only substantively engage the K but thoroughly defend why your theorization of politics and interaction with the social should be preferred, rather than a generic 50 point survey of claims that are made by positivist thinkers. This is not to say that generic "greatest hits" style arguments have no value, but they certainly need to be backed up with a defense of the conceptual framing of your 1AC (eg, if the negative wins that the kritik turns the case or a no v2l claim, I'm not sure what "predictions good" or "cede the political" does for the affirmative). In terms of a theory/framework debate, I am much less likely to be persuaded by generic "wrong forum" claims but will be more likely to be compelled by arguments pointing to abusive sections of the specific K that is being run (eg, the nature of the alt).

 

It's also important to defend your impacts thoroughly. My favorite straight up affirmatives to read when I debated had big hegemony advantages. My favorite K authors to read are Wilderson (Afro-Pessimism) and other forms of Black liberation startegies. As a result, I am unlikely be swayed or guilted into voting for you if the only argument you make is a moralizing reference to people suffering/dying. This is NOT to say that I won't vote for you if you choose a strategy that relies on these impacts. However if these impacts are challenged either through impact turns or comparisons, I will not hack for you; I require an adequate refutation of why their impact calculation or understanding of suffering/death is false/incomplete and reasons for why I should prefer your framing. In other words, if the opposing team says "hegemony good and outweighs your K" or alternatively, reads a "suffering/death good" style kritik and your only comeback is "you link to our arguments and people are oppressed" without much other refutation, you will lose. When your moral high ground is challenged, own up to it and refute their assumptions/explanations.

 

Philosophy Updated 9-5-17

Nick Ryan – Liberty Debate – 10th year coaching/Judging

Please label your email chains “Tournament – Rd “#” – AFF Team vs Neg Team” – or something close to that effect. I hate “No subject,” “Test,” “AFF.” I would like to be included “nryan2wc@gmail.com”

Too often Philosophy’s are long and give you a bunch of irrelevant information. I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet.

1. I spend most of my time working with our “Policy teams,” I have a limited amount of working with our “K/Non traditional” debaters, but the bulk of my academic research base is with the “traditional” “policy teams;” don’t expect me to know the nuances of your specific argument, debate it and explain it.

2. Despite this I vote for the K a fair amount of time, particularly when the argument is contextualized in the context of the AFF and when teams aren’t reliant on me to unpack the meaning of “big words.” Don’t rely on me to find your “embedded clash” for you.

3. “Perm Do Both” is not a real argument, neg teams let AFFs get away with it way too often and it shifts in the 1AR. Perms and Advocacy/CP texts should be written out.

4. If neither team clarifies in the debate, then I default to the status quo is always an option.

5. These are things that can and probably will influence your speaker points: clarity, explanations, disrespectfulness to the other team, or your partner, stealing prep time, your use of your speech time (including cx), etc.

6. Prep time includes everything from the time the timer beeps at the end of the lasts speech/CX until the doc is sent out.

7. I think Poems/Lyrics/Narratives that you are reading written by someone else is evidence and should be in the speech document.

ADA Novice Packet Tournaments:

Evidence you use should be from the packet. If you read cards that weren’t in the packet more than once it’s hard to believe it was a “honest mistake.”

If you have any questions about things that are not listed here please ask, I would rather you be sure about my feelings, then deterred from running something because you are afraid I did not like it.

Debate at Kansas State from Treaties (2001) – Courts (2006), Coached at Kansas State on Middle East (2007) & Agriculture (2008), Coached at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh for Weapons (2009) & Immigration (2010). I was at Johnson County Community College from Middle East (2011) to Space (2020).

I'd like to be on the e-mail chain- debatelearningdotcom@gmail.com (just copy and past that exact e-mail)

If I leave the room, please send the e-mail. It will signal I need to come back to the room. People should just not open the doc until I get back.

My litmus test for what I can vote for is solely based upon the ability to take what you said while debating and regurgitate it back to the other team as a reason why they lost.

I believe the most important part of debate is impacts. If left with no argumentation about impacts or how to evaluate them I will generally default to look for the biggest impact presented. I appreciate debate that engages in what the biggest impact means, and/or if probability and timeframe are more important. This does not simply mean “policy impacts”, it means any argument that has a link and impact. You could easily win that the language used in the round has an impact, and matters more than the impacts of plan passage. All framing questions concerning what comes first have impacts to them, and therefore need to be justified. The point is, whether you are running a Kritik, or are more policy based, there are impacts to the assumptions held, and the way you engage in politics (plan passage governmental politics, or personal politics). Those impacts need to be evaluated

I also prefer that teams explain their arguments so that a macro level of the argument is explained (Meaning a cohesive story about the uniqueness, link, or link and alternative are also necessary). This means piecing together arguments across flows and explaining how they interact with one another. My threshold for the possibility for me to vote on your argument is determined by whether or not I can explain why the other team lost.

Policy arguments are fine by me.

Quirks with Counterplans- I think consultation and conditions are more cheating, than not cheating, but up for debate. I think conditionality can get out of hand. When conditionality does get out of hand it should be capitalized by the affirmative as justification to do equally shady/cheating things and/or be a justification to vote against a team, again up for debate.

Kritiks- I enjoy Kritiks. Be aware of my threshold for being able to explain to the other team why they lost. This means it is always safer to assume I’ve never read your literature base and have no idea what you are talking about. The best way to ensure that I’m understanding your argument is to explain them with a situations that will exemplify your theory AND to apply those situations and theories to the affirmative.

Framework- I will evaluate framework in an offense defense paradigm. Solely impacting or impact turning framework will rarely win you the debate. You will need offense & defense to win framework debates in front of me. Its an issue that I believe should be debated out and the impact calculus on the framework debate should determine who I vote for. When aff I believe that framework is a non starter. Defending the assumptions of the affirmative is a much more persuasive argument. For the negative, a lot of the discussion will revovle around the topical version of the aff and/or why doing it on the neg is best and solves all the affirmatives offense. I don't generally feel as though framework should be THE option against critical teams.

Framework on the negative for me is also can have and act like a counter advocacy that the problems isolated by the affirmative can be helped by engaging the state. Topical version help prove how engaging the state can create better and meaningful changes in the world. There should also be historical and/or carded explanations as to why engaging the state can help with the problems of the 1ac.

One other caveat about framework. I do not believe that affirmatives must provide a counter interpretation. The affirmative has not forwarded a way to debate in the 1ac, therefore it is the burden of the negative to explain their version of debate and why it's good. This allows affs to just impact turn framework as presumption has flipped in this instance.

With that said, framework is the last pure debate. I very rarely see the better team not win. It's been too hashed out for many if any gotcha moments

Taylor, W. James “JT”

Kansas State University, ADOD
# of years coaching/judging: 27+
jtedebate@gmail.com

*I was also mostly absent from CEDA/NDT last year (or two) so don't assume I am familiar all the different K arguments (newer) or the depth of your lit base.

*I am so over this nukes topic. I am bored with the same NFU advantages and the newer ones with sketchy or no internal links. If you haven't received your topic education by this point you have failed in other ways.

*I probably care very little about what you have to say in the context of my role. Whatever it is---probably an important issue. However, I slip into "I don't care" mode when this oh so important discourse is said at me instead of to me. Are you trying to convince me? Am I just a note taker? If the latter, then don't get mad when I don't care. Are you giving me a reason to care?

*Take the national tournaments seriously. You might be here to have fun, but a lot of other people have worked very hard all year to succeed at these tournaments.

Other tips:

-I am not a robot. Just because you said it does not make it meaningful. Spitting out a string of theory claims without warrants or application is a good example.

-STOP BEING PETTY: You might think your arguments are the center of the universe, but c'mon. There is a really good chance I just don't care about your rando K or think it is generally irrelevant to the world outside of debates. Too many debaters overstate the importance of their claims, fake being deeply offended for purposes of hyping up a link argument, think their type of education is the only acceptable form, deny/ignore the validity of debates about scholarship, or assume that debate is separate from the "real world". Advocating a policy is not the same as role playing as the gov't. If you are role playing you are doing it wrong.

-Don't forget about T vs. Policy Affs.

-DEPTH OVER BREADTH.

-ENGAGE THE 1AC: I think teams should always engage the 1AC. Even if you are a one-off K team or you mostly take a more performative approach, there is no reason you can’t address the issues, logic, and general claims of the 1AC (denying their logic is not "playing their game"). Even if you don’t have evidence, you should still make smart arguments. Just reading links on case is not engaging the case. Be smart and make logical arguments against the Aff. that fit within your conceptual framework. I think being educated on the issues of the topic is the true "education" we get out of "topic education". In the end, there should be a detailed engagement/application in the link debate. CONTEXTUALIZE your links to the specificity of the Aff.

-Role of the Ballot/judge – The vast majority of these claims are self-referential and add nothing to debate: “Whoever best does what we said.” Just like policy framework claims, these function with the same intent to exclude. However, some truly act not as a veiled framework but as instructional in terms of judging, the meaning of the ballot and the function of my decision. I do not think the ballot inherently means anything beyond a recording of data. Humans infuse meaning to things like the ballot. Be VERY clear as to what you mean by these

-Perm Sloppiness - I think a lot of block debates get sloppy/lazy on the perm. I think the Aff. should have to explain how the perm resolves the links. I also think the Neg. should have to explain why the perm does not resolve those links (don't just say so). Just saying: "All the perms link" is lazy and not an argument. On the flip side, why does the perm solve?

-Method Debates: You need to actually do your method, not just prove it WOULD/COULD be a good idea. Historical Materialism comes to mind...Very few teams actually advance that alternate version of history. If you want a method debate, you actually have to perform the method or it is like I'm grading a paper---boring.

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.

Updated: 9/20/19

I am a former coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I debated for four years as an undergrad at James Madison University. This is my second-year judging.

she/her

Yes I would like to be on the email chain: scthies1996@gmail.com

General Thoughts:

A complete argument makes a claim that is supported by detailed warrants and has an impact. If you are not completing your argument, I will not be voting on it.

Generally, I’ll lean tech>truth. That being said, a conceded argument is only true when the entire argument – claim, warrant, impact – is extended. That doesn’t mean you have to invest lots of time there, but saying “it was dropped!” is not enough for me.

I’m rather offense/defense oriented, although I think I could be persuaded to vote on presumption with a lot of investment in that argument during the debate. I will stick to what I have on the flow, so you can win tech-y line-by-line with me, or you can win that over-arching arguments effect other parts of the debate. Whatever the case is, you’re gonna need at least one very good piece of offense to win my ballot.

Judge instructions are super important, especially in the final rebuttals. You should be telling me how the pieces of the debate fit together, and why that means you win. This includes impact calc and how I should evaluate impacts. Do this and you’ve won my ballot, and basically written my RFD for me.

Good analytic arguments can beat trash cards any day.

The more specific a permutation is on a CP or K, the better chance you have of winning it; explain the perm in the context of your plan or aff and give examples of how it could work. I’m a sucker for smart and well-thought-out perms, but that also means I have a pretty high standard of analysis required to vote on one.

If you really want me to read a specific piece of evidence, you should flag that to me in the debate. I think reading all the round's evidence after the debate and re-interpreting the args through warrants that were never actually made is a terrible form of judge intervention. I will rely on the debater’s own explanation of their evidence. It is the other team’s responsibility to point out mis-characterizations or contested points in their opponents’ evidence. If the comparison and analysis on opposing interpretations of a card is comparable on both sides, then I will read the evidence and make my decision from there.

It will likely benefit you to slow down in front of me; I have hearing damage and will very likely miss your 10 second analytic argument.

Specific Notes on Positions:

Topicality/Framework – I love T debates; I was in mostly T debates while I was an undergrad and defended it on both sides. Affs should have a relationship to the topic. What that relationship looks like is up for debate. Affs with plans are cool and should be able to defend why their plan is good and fits within the topic. More teams should read T against cheating policy/plan affs! Affs without plans are cool and should be able to defend why their approach to debate is good and fits within the topic.

Is fairness an impact? Is education an impact? What should I prioritize, and why? That’s all debatable, you tell me!

TVA’s are necessary if you want to win, and if there’s no TVA to the aff you should be explicit about why. I view TVA’s a lot like CP’s that solve the offense on T from the aff and has a net benefit (ie. the DA’s you have to their interp).

Impact comparison wins T debates! Uniqueness matters in T debate! To quote Lindsey Shook, “inevitability and uniqueness matter in debates about the impacts to topicality and I take those questions seriously and find they are often where decisions begin for me.”

I think the distinction made between framework and T is arbitrary, so your “framework” argument should still tell me what part of the resolution the aff violates. Stating that the aff doesn’t have a plan and should therefore lose is not an explanation of how they failed to fulfill the standard set by the resolution and will not be a winning argument in front of me.

T debates get so messy so quick, so kiss your overviews goodbye! Do your work on the line-by-line. If you can clean up my flow in a messy round you will get bonus speaker points for being fantastic!

DAs – I have not watched any policy debates on this topic. I like DA debates and am fine if you want to read one, but I probably have not have seen your DA before; keep that in mind when you're trying to explain it to me. Politics DAs annoy me but I can vote for them. I will just be sad about it.

CPs – I think this is where debaters should do more work in front of me. I won’t be familiar with your specific advantage CP or 100000 plank CP, so it’s really important to clearly explain the mechanism or I will be totally lost. Judge direction is critical here, tell me how I should view the CP, how it resolves the aff and net benefit, and how the pieces fit together in the entire debate.

CPs should be textually and functionally competitive and should have a solvency advocate.

Ks/Advocacies – I am probably familiar with most of the lit, but I will certainly not fill in gaps of explanation for you. A full explanation of your theory/method and how it resolves/solves/disproves/excludes weighing the aff is key to my ballot.

Stop reading 5-minute overviews! Stop reading overviews period! A lot of the stuff in an overview actually answers arguments on the line-by-line, so please make my flow happy and keep them together.

I’m not really of the “you link you lose” mentality; K debaters should explain how their alt resolves the link to the aff or give me a reason to evaluate the round otherwise. Also, Ks still have impacts – talk about them (especially the aff).

Specificity is pretty important to me with the K. Generic state bad K links are just as boring and unpersuasive as generic 2AC realism/consequences answers. Argument interaction and evidence comparison are underutilized by teams answering and going for the K.

Theory – I do not have strong ideological biases around common theory arguments, so these are winnable in front of me if it is actually impacted properly. I do think multi-plank CPs are rude, but I would still vote for one.

Throw out your trash blocks and have a conversation about what you think good, competitive and robust debates should look like and why. Be responsive to the other teams warrants – that means actually listening and not copy-pasting your block. Please slow down speeding through your pre-written answers!!

If theory is something you want me to vote on, you will have to make a significant time investment in it; I have a pretty high standard for debaters to beat “reject the arg not the team”. If you want to use theory/in-round abuse/other theoretical shit the other team did as a reason why you get to do something theoretically sketchy, you're probably a smart debater.

Speaker Points – I’m still developing a method for assigning speaker points. I will try to follow the outline below as closely as possible, but it will be my general guide based on what I think the community norms are.

26.9 or lower: Something bad happened!

27-27.5: Major structural mistakes were made in-round and/or debaters were generally rude/unpleasant.

27.6-28.6: Average to above average understanding of the arguments and round. Some minor mistakes were made and/or debaters had trouble putting the entire round together.

28.7-29.2: Speeches were great, few errors were made, and/or the debaters deserve to be in out-rounds.

29-29.2: This team should be in late out-rounds or win the tournament.

29.3-30: One of the best speeches I have ever seen.

Other things that influence speaks include: clarity, (good) use of humor or wit, knowledge and mastery of history or examples pertaining to ones argument, stealing prep, interrupting speeches, dominating ones partner during their speeches or crossex, and overall command of crossex, and taking 1000000 years to send an email or continue with a debate.

I will try to adjust speaks for the division I’m in - so I will not have the same standard for a 28.5 speech in varsity that I would for a 28.5 speech in novice.

Please email me with any other inquires not addressed above.

Refer to arguments/cards by their ideas/tags, not exclusively the author names.

Add me to the chain: thoma.austin@gmail.com

I've noticed that as a judge I tend to close my eyes while I'm thinking. Some debaters have assumed that I was sleeping during their speeches. I assure you that this is not the case.

Fifth year judging college debate. Director of Debate at Wyoming. Previously coached for Cornell. Judged and coached high school in the past.

Philosophy:

I do not reject any argument on its face. Everything I say here is preliminary - these ideas can be changed by arguments in-round. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I do have predispositions that will influence my decisions - as we all do. I will try to highlight critical points here, but will clarify anything at tournaments or via email - contact me at thoma.austin@gmail.com. This is not an exhaustive list, nor is it in any particular order.

It takes an awful lot for me to call for cards. If you aren't explaining it, it doesn't really matter. The arguments you make about the cards are more important than the evidence itself.

One good argument is better than lots of bad arguments. I have noticed that my theory threshold is not as low as it once was, but I believe that it is still lower than average. Theory debates are my favorite, but only if teams engage instead of just reading blocks.

My presumption is neg - aff should propose a change from the status quo.

Aff should be in the direction of the topic. This is a fairly ambiguous concept, but I feel like you'll know it when it happens. Does your aff want more executive control? If so, I probably won't be predisposed to vote for it, but I can be convinced otherwise.

Engaging "the system" (political, social, whatever power structure you want to talk about) is productive (perhaps with negative consequences).

Rhetoric choices matter - and come before evaluation of plan action.

Aff severence of 1AC rhetoric / assumptions is illegitimate.

Conditionality on neg is good for debate.

Condo does not let you no link rhetoric/reps arguments.

2NR condo is illegitimate.

Fiat is good for debate.

Performative argumentation is good for debate.

Fairness is of at least as much importance as education in the context of debate.

Narratives - personal or otherwise - need to be applied to broader, more generalized arguments to make sense in the context of the round.

"100% no link" is real and possible, but difficult.

Politics DAs are pretty silly.

Debate rounds are not particularly good forums for starting social change.

"Traditional policy" framework is a legitimate strategy better served with fewer arguments that are better developed than a multitude of arguments that are less developed. To get my ballot here, I suggest focusing on skills development.

Preferences:

Try to refer to arguments/cards by their ideas/tags, not exclusively the author names. I rarely write all of these down. This is obviously less true when attacking cites or comparing evidence, but it is certainly true in extensions. "Extend the Johnson evidence" doesn't do much for me.

Prep stops when you tell me it stops. Prep starts when speeches end. Don't prep during evidence flashing/emailing. I will punish it.

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