Top Level

Former debater (Walter Payton ‘16 and Pitt ‘20) and former coach (Central Catholic high school). No longer actively involved and not familiar with the topic.

luisacusick [at] gmail (put me on the e-mail chain)

I'll do my best to make a decision based solely on the arguments presented in the debate. Your speaker points will benefit from specific and well-researched strategies

Please be kind to your opponents and partner! I am very concerned with the way (esp. national circuit) policy debate trains us to treat other people

Relevant Predispositions

- Condo is good. Counterplan theory depends on the quality of the solvency advocate and my proclivities change from topic to topic
- I default to kicking the counterplan for the neg if they win offense but don't win the counterplan
- Skills and process framework arguments are more persuasive to me than topic education arguments
- I don’t like how little evidence quality matters in policy debates. I wish it were debated more
- It pretty much never makes sense to assign anything 100% risk. Likewise, minimizing an argument's risk to a small enough signal means it's overwhelmed by noise, and that's enough to assign it 0 risk

yes I want to be on the email chain: junewearden05@gmail.com

Pittsburgh Central Catholic '18

Pitt '22

WARNING: I have only been peripherally engaged with the immigration topic - if you're going to use acronyms / do in-depth law analysis you're going to have to slow down and explain it to me

When I debated in high school I primarily ran soft-left affs, but I don't (think) I have a strong ideological preference. I'm not going to pretend I'm tabula rasa but there are very few arguments I will a priori vote down. (For instance, I'm never going to vote for racism = good)

As long as you can provide me with a coherent explanation of your world-view and how that relates to what is being said in the round you'll be okay.

If you have questions about more specific arguments/positions feel free to ask.

Hey, just wanted to say this is my first time back judging since COVID began, so I don't have any experience on this topic in-round, you could consider me casually knowledgeable about this topic, as it is adjacent to many of my interests, but some details you think may be base topic knowledge I might not have been exposed to yet.

Below is my paradigm from 2020, i doubt my preferences have changed much from then. But I will say that if you try to run politics shells, or international relations scenarios, I will not be able to help myself from simply just believing your authors are getting paid to talk out their asses. I genuinely don't think accurate predictions can be made in those realms in this current context, so as a judge I will very begrudgingly listen and look visibly upset if you put me through these arguments. You're gambling on me if you choose to run an argument like that, im not just gonna give you want cause you happen to have a card from this morning or whatever.

I will not shake your hand after the round. I mean no disrespect but y'all keep getting me sick. Just think about how many hands you've shaken by round 5, and how many hands your opponents have shaken. Its unsettling. (Yes this part is unedited from 2020, i was right that we are all disgusting)

I debated throughout high school and have been judging since (four years). I studied History and Philosophy of Science, and Sociology at Pitt. I've competed in and judged national break rounds. I'm experienced in running and evaluating traditional or critical arguments. Feel safe to run whatever arguments and frameworks you wish, but I am not without some preferences.

I would prefer to see unique arguments in the round, things like politics disads or the states counterplan are run in the same exact way so often it becomes horrible to sit through and often ends the same. However, I would strongly prefer you running your generics that you know well over poorly running something you aren't used to. On a similar point, in the past I've seen a lot of rounds ruined by trying to run four or five off case arguments at a sub-par level. I would much rather see a directed, thought-out, and well-debated round, and I think it would serve you best strategically as well. At the end of the day, you know your files and many of your opponents better than I do.

The arguments I have a bias towards are low magnitude - high probability affs that address structural violence and I typically prefer those frameworks and how they affect the debate. K's are probably going to win impact and link debates on me a little more than some other judges because I find a lot of their claims to be true, thus I think one of the best ways to defend against them is on the framework flow, an alt debate, or having a critical edge of your own. But again, stick with what you know, these are debates you could easily lose through inexperience.

EMAIL: nickpweb@gmail.com