Affiliation: Woods Cross High School, Weber Mountain Debate, Westminster College

Background: I’ve competed in a fairly traditional LD circuit throughout high school, qualifying and attending Nationals in 2015. Through Weber Mountain Debate I developed access to more progressive styles which I began integrating into my own debate style before I graduated high school. My personal debate style tends to be traditionally formatted and presented with progressive twists. I believe that no matter how unbiased one wants to be as a judge, one’s political beliefs tend to still make an impact so in the interest of full disclosure here are my general political beliefs: I consider myself a libertarian- I tend to view most issues on a freedom vs coercion paradigm. I'm more free market on economic issues: Adam Smith, Hayek, Friedman. However, I’m majoring in economics at Westminster University and am very comfortable working with different political and economic ideologies. Ultimately, a good argument is a good argument.

Value/Criterion/Framework: Overall, this is a very important part of the round to me. I see debate as being fought on two fronts: The framework and the individual contentions. The more you connect them the stronger your case will be. I like to hear a connection between your value/criterion/framework for each individual argument.

LD: I was taught that Value/Criterion are an essential part of LD debate. However, as long as you still engage with that part in the debate with appropriate clash I won’t have any issues as a judge; if it's not already part of your case. I’ve seen a lot of differing interpretations of the meaning of value/criterion so here’s mine: value- a moral principle or action that should be pursued to benefit society and is supported by your case, value criterion/criterion- how the value is measured or how we know the value is achieved. If you’re interpretations differs from mine please let me know. I prefer if you don’t drop your own value/criterion but if you end up adopting your opponent’s value/criterion and support it better than your opponents you can still win this part of the debate.

PF: I appreciate the use of a framework though I don't consider it absolutely necessary, but if your opponent has one you need to engage in that part of the debate. Again, please connect your weighting mechanism to each of your contentions.

Topicality/Theory: If there is a clear violation of the debate space or the relevance of the argument I’m okay with theory and topicality arguments. However, I find that the VAST majority of this type of arguments distract from the crux of the debate and just waste time. Use with caution

Kritiks: Again, If there is a clear moral violation imposed by the resolution/ your opponent, not just a theoretical or slippery slope, you can run it. Make sure your impacts are significantly probable and the alternative actually solves for the negative impacts.   

Speaking/Presentation: Aside from LD, I’ve regularly competed in Foreign Extemp, including top in the state so I really appreciate good speaking and, as such, I like eye contact during your constructive- don’t just hide behind your laptop. If you’re running a progressive case don’t use excessive jargon, debate should be accessible to non-debaters; plus, if I don't understand what you're saying, I'll probably just tune out. I’m okay with some speed as long as you slow down for tags. If I say ‘clear’ more than three times and you don’t slow down I will make significant deductions to your speaker points. I consider myself a flow based judge and I'm very rigorous during the round. If I don't write something down, chances are it means one of a couple things: I don't think what you're saying is important, you're being redundant or I can't understand you. If you don't give me good voters, and sometimes even if you do, I'll look to my flow to decide the round.

Likes: roadmap/signposting, Clash, Logic over sources, Impacts, Voters, Economic arguments, engaging CX, some snark, camaraderie between opponents- just have fun with it ;)

Dislikes: incomprehensible spewing, source battles, only reading cards, personal attacks against opponent, hostile arguments (ableism, racism, etc), non-unique impacts/arguments, dropping arguments