Hello Debaters! 

MANNERS:

Please be respectful towards both me and your opponent. Stand up during speeches. 

I will not hesitate to drop you and tank your speaks if you say anything sexist homophobic or racist. 

SPEED:

Don't go too fast and speak clearly.

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I am fine with DA's,CP's, Underviews, etc. 

MAKE SURE TO EXTEND ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS/CARDS THROUGHOUT ALL SPEECHES. 

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LOOK AT ME DURING YOUR SPEECHES, INCLUDING CX. YOU ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE ME, NOT YOUR OPPONENT. 

Hello! :3

I Maya Fray-Witzer, a 4th year LD debater from Lexington High School (MA). I was competitive for my first 3 years in the activity and now I am a teaching assistant for the novice LD class at my school.

I would classify myself as a more traditional debater (less "tech"/"circuit") than some of my peers, but I will attempt to evaluate any argument.

I love framing.

I'm simply looking for claim - warrant - impact, intelligent argument generation, and a general care for other debaters and the activity.

Have fun, learn lots!

I do PF so I flow, but I'm a mom at heart so be nice. But also weigh! :)

important for 2020:

- i have not judged a debate round since Harvard 2019 so please slow the frick frack down especially when you start and don't expect me to be up-to-date w all the new jazzy tricks and fun things yall have come up with

- the internet is unpredictable and things happen and everyone is stressed out right now about like a trillion billion things so please be kind and understanding w each other thank u

t/l:

- i really dont care about things so despite my personal preferences i still evaluate most arguments as arguments and will vote on them if and when they are won so just do good debate thank

- tricks/friv theory/a priori/skep/racism good/other bullshit is out, Ks and performance stuff/policy is in, philosophy/high theory is eh (it's interesting, i’ll try my best but if I don't understand it then I don't understand it and I won't vote on itttttt), traditional debate is fine

addendum: T is fine i guess. like i am much much much more willing to listen to a T debate than a theory debate

addendum #2: if you can win a ~compelling abuse story on theory then like sure i'll vote for it i guess i have done it a good number of times before

addendum #3: fun fact i have almost a 50-50 voting record on t v k affs so stop reading half-assed k-affs/neg k strats in front of me bc u think i will like them better it is soooooooooooo annoying

-disclosing is good

-email chains are good (minaslee00@gmail.com)

-debate is about education if you just treat it like a game, treat other debaters like your enemies, and treat your arguments like cheap shots at winning, i will be sad and so will you when the round is over

-bc of the above point, i do like answering questions about things you think you could have done differently/other learning opportunities from the round so feel free to ask or to hit me up on facebook/email

-idc who your coach is or who you think you are, if you think i made a bad decision and you and your ~ posse ~ decide to yell at me for the sake of trying to prove me wrong as opposed to trying to understand the decision i will just leave the room lmao

-i don’t really care that much about things and i am usually very tired

-be nice

-i don't care if you sit or stand please stop asking me

-please don’t shake my hand

-please start slow especially in the morning i am so tired spreading is so fast i do not know why people think it is a good idea to scream at me at 40000 wpm at 8 in the morning :(

Quick thoughts because I’m too lazy to write a real paradigm:

0) An introduction: hello I debated for Edgemont LD (2018) and now I go to Princeton where I don’t do debate because hahahahahahahaha. I was coached by Brian Manuel, Rodrigo Paramo, Jack Ave, and was heavily influenced by Aurelia Williams, Chris Randall, Eli Smith, Jacob Koshak, and Sydney Pasquinelli. Put me on the email chain: minaslee00@gmail.com

1) IMPORTANT: I like sass but don’t be mean! I almost quit debate on three separate occasions in my senior year alone. I also almost quit debate after my second tournament ever because I was laughed at for not knowing deontology. People suck. If someone is clearly not as experienced as you and you read 7 off I will give you a 25 and you may also lose! So! Don’t! Be! A! Dick! As much as this activity can suck sometimes there are things I have learned that I wouldn’t have been able to learn anywhere else in high school and I will always, always be grateful for that. Don’t be the reason someone feels like they need to walk away from those opportunities.

1.5) Evidence ethics/other out-of-round issues: a) dont be shady with your evidence b) if you're going to make accusations, then be willing to stake the round on it. i'll stop the round, look at the evidence, and decide the round based on whoever I think is right on the question. but tbh there are so much unnecessary politics and personal/ad-hom attack brought into rounds whenever this happens and they make me uncomfortable and sad and angry please treat debaters like people thank you

2) I'm honestly pretty expressive, just read my face and you'll have a good idea re: how I feel about the round

3) Arguments I read: I mostly read policy-esque arguments with critical impacts and then second half of senior year I said “fuck it” and went really hard for ID politics K debate. I finished out my career reading a performance aff that I also ran as a neg K in outrounds. That being said, if you can explain an argument really well to me I will probably vote for it. Don’t assume just because I was a “K debater” I know all your warrants and I’ll just make the arguments for you when you blip through them. In fact, if you do that and you’re missing warrants I will be EXTRA sad and so will you when you hear my rfd. My favorite neg strat my senior year was one-off K where most of my case arguments were just links to the K so if that tells you anything about how much I enjoy the explanation of complicated critical (or even philosophical) arguments, there ya go

4) JUST BECAUSE I READ AN ARGUMENT DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD READ IT IN FRONT OF MEEeee. Do what you’re good at (for the most part) and if you explain it well to me I’ll probably vote on it. I don’t hate philosophy, I was just never good at it so I never read it in high school. But if you think Kant is a cool guy and you can get me to understand his nonsense, then sure! Go for it! I’m telling you right now though I have no problem just being like “I did not understand this argument so I did not vote on it”

5) EXCEPTIONS: If you read tricks/frivolous theory/a prioris/whatever etc. etc. in front of me I will just pretend I didn’t hear you and not flow it and just doodle some flowers on my flow and also kill your speaks (see: Rebecca Kuang)

6) Flowing and analytics: I’m going to flow what I hear so if I say clear and you don’t slow down or get clear and if I miss 25 of your 30 analytical arguments and any of your post-rounding includes “but it was in the speech doc” I will just shrug my shoulders, pack my stuff up, and go get myself a coffee. NOTE: I’ll say clear/loud/slow twice and then your speaks will probably go down, but I’ll keep saying clear to keep the round going

7) T v K: I know I read a performance aff but tbh I think I’m pretty 50-50 on the T v K aff debate. I am definitely not 50-50 on the K v frivolous theory to answer Ks because people don’t actually know how to answer Ks, and if you try to randomly up-layer to answer a K that you handled poorly, I will be sad and so will you when you see your speaks and probably also the results of the round

8) ON FAIRNESS: I don't really think it's its own voter, i'll vote on it but i usually just evaluate it as an internal link to education which means that i also care about in round abuse more than i care about norm setting by default, but i will listen to arguments to the contrary i suppose

9) More on theory in general: if there's actual abuse then obviously go nuts with theory but in general theory debates really bore me and so if you must run theory I will likely be very lazy in evaluating the debate and if I can find something easy to vote on or a simple reason to default to other flows where there’s more interesting offense, I will probably do so. I was also never particularly good at really detailed theory debates, so my evaluation of intense line-by-line argumentation will probably be shit. Sorry :)

10) disclose lol.