I am a high school graduate from Technology High School in Newark. I have also debated for a total of 5 years. I’ve debated at many tournaments (Yale, Harvard, Bronx, etc).
I am a Kritikal judge.
if there are any other questions feel free to email me at acostalberto94@gmail.com
Arguments

Framework
You need to make this the most important argument in the round. For me at least. You loss framework, than you have a really high chance of lossing the round (depends on how far you are on the framework flow)

Dropping arguments
Drop them properly. Don’t just stop talking about them. If your opponent does drop this argument then bring it up so you can reap the benefits of their mistake.

Speed
I fine with it. I just ask that you slow down on the tags and the main warrants of the arg. If I can’t hear after I say clear three times I will only flow what I hear.

Theory
I like it and I know about it, but I am not going to do the work for you. Just because you say theory and extend it doesn’t mean that you explained ite. There needs to be a clear explanation on the theory flow what is the abuse that happens in the round and why it is important. Theory for me out ranks all others (not because it is an easy way out) because I feel that this argument are the actual rules of the debate round on what can and can’t be done by each team.

C/X
It is open I don’t flow it, but I do listen to it, and it can change my decision.

2NR/2AR
I flow it, but I mostly like to listen to it. This is the crux of the round. I need you to tell me why you should win (by explaining your arguments in the most detail that you can in the time period) and what arguments that your opponent dropped. (the reason for this is that a lot of teams really don’t do this any more so better to feel safe then sorry).

Jargon
I understand all of the debate jargon (since I did us most of them anyway) just that if there are any new ones that you think that I didn’t hear about then explain it to me.

Affirmatives
Topical affs are great, but I really enjoy hearing a critical debate with a critical affs, but with these kinds aff’s come with great responsibility. There needs to be a lot of in-depth analysis onto why your aff solves for what it solves, how it is a prereq. To the k and other args. A lot of debaters really just read evidence after evidence, i instead like to hear how the aff actually interacts with other arguments what is the actual connection. The critical aff can be the most dangerous weapon in any debate round if used properly. Performance affs are fine just explain the framework in great detail and why I should reject the resolution (if that is the case) in your own words or how you are topical.

Negative

Topicality

This can be a very powerful critical argument if used properly, but not many teams use this argument. I will vote on t if there is clear violation before the round is even finished (unless there is framework or theory). This is an argument that I like but not love like others

Counterplan
This is an argument that is very confusing for me, if you are going to run it explain what the plan does and how it doesn’t steal aff ground (unless theory is involved). If there is a critical counterplan involved explain how it is different from a k. other then that I don’t like counterplans too much, but I would vote on it.

Da
This is really a straightforward argument; I really didn’t see any variations of this argument in my debating career. If there are then I welcome them, but I really don’t have anything else to say about them.

K
Finally to the one argument that all teams want to know about. I love this argument, however I find that a lot of teams really don’t explain this argument in great detail. They just leave the k up in the air for the judge to interpret it in there own way. I know enough about the most common k’s that I can understand them, but again if I need to decide what your k is talking about you may not like what I think. Some of the other arguments that I’m not to familiar with I will listen to but there needs to be more of a keen eye in the explanation for those kinds of arguments.

Hey y'all. My name is James Allan. My email is jpa6644@gmail.com if there's anything here that's not clear. Please put me on the email chain.

Experience:

4 years at Lakeland Central School District, 4 years at Binghamton University, 2 years of grad fellowship at Baylor University, 1 year coaching Desert Vista, third year coaching for the University of Houston.

I received a first round at large bid to the NDT my senior year, the first in binghamton university history.

Previously coached at/conflicted with: Lakeland, Binghamton University, McQueen, various ADL debaters, Baylor University, Desert Vista, University of Houston.

how i make decisions

I used to flow on paper but have transitioned to flowing on my computer. it is still in your best interest to go at about 85% of what others would consider "top speed" in front of me so i can catch more warrants, examples and analysis for your argument.

i like judge instruction, i like well engaged framework debates that tell me how to view how the debate is going down, i like rebuttals that start with "vote (aff/neg) to (explanation of what the aff/neg ballot does/means/signifies) which solves these impacts. these impacts outweigh and turn my opponents' impacts because..." you catch my drift.

i determine the competing thesis-level/key/framing/whatever-you-want-to-call-it questions presented and determine which team sufficiently answered theirs/their opponents' framing questions and work backwards from there.

i generally give more weight to dropped arguments if the impact to the argument is adequately contextualized (you can say i lean towards tech over truth but it's debatable obviously).

randomly how i feel about different arguments

k aff v. framework: debate is cool because you get to actively debate about the rules

i am indifferent about framework as a strategy to negate affs that don't hypothetically defend a topical plan text. in my mind, if negatives don't successfully insulate the framework page from case offense (win a convincing "framework comes first" arg, in other words) or use standards to turn the aff method or impact, i very rarely vote negative in those debates. i like standards that defend the topic, not just topical debate in the abstract. i am pretty sympathetic to the very simple argument "don't maintain fairness, if fair debate produces X bad thing". both teams should point out that the other team is grossly misrepresenting how their model of debate actually doesn't go down the way it is described.

k aff v. k neg: debate is cool because you get to test different explanations of how power is distributed and how it operates

presumption is an underutilized neg argument in these debates and too easily dismissed by affs. how does competition function and why should i care/not care about it? what is your theory of power and how does it differ/overlap with your opponents'? explain, analyze and develop in your constructives but you should be crystallizing your big dense words for me in your rebuttals in terms of impacts and impact comparison. what is your method/theoretical approach/critical approach/alternative and how should i think about "solvency".

policy aff v. policy neg: debate is cool because even seemingly hyperbolic and contrived internal link chains teach the participants about logic processing and decision-making

show me unique, topic research that is specific and interesting. i'm slowly gaining more sympathy for cheaty counterplans. i have a low threshold for voting on presumption or inherency, with smart, warranted analytical arguments even without cards. i like politics disads. i don't like cp's that randomly first strike asian countries. i like T.

policy aff v. k neg: debate is cool because forms of rhetoric and knowledge employed by the debaters is up for debate.

neg teams usually win debates by impact turning the education/worldview/representations/justifications introduced by the affirmative (framework) or by winning that the plan emboldens/worsens/justifies the impact/social system that outweighs and turns the affirmative. i very much make sense of the world of policy aff v. k neg debates in terms of pre/post fiat debates. policy affs should be ready and willing to defend the scholarly underpinnings of their affirmative. i am very susceptible to aff tricks (util, negative state action link turns, alt solvency presses). i am very susceptible to neg tricks (floating pik, framework turns, epistemology indicts, serial policy failure). judge instruction is a necessity in these debates.

random list of great debate minds i have learned from, competed against, was judged by, worked with:

(basically who shaped the way i think about debate to give you a better insight into how i make decisions)

Amber Kelsie, Vida Chiri, Tj Buttgereit, Jeff Yan, Geoff Lundeen, Ben Hagwood, Stefan Bauschard, Carlos Astacio, Willie Johnson, Kevin Clarke, Jesse Smith, Reed Van Schenk, Brianna Thomas, Michael Harrington, Jacob Hegna.

I really like debate

this is my tenth year in the activity and i love participating and learning and teaching in every individual debate. what i am now realizing from the grad student side of things is how much the community is dependent on unrecognized and uncompensated labor from grad students, mostly feminized bodies, people of color, black people and disabled people. be nice to grad students, we are trying our best lmao

//shree

I am a social studies & math teacher who is no longer involved in full-time argument coaching.

I previously served as a DOD at the high school level and as a hired gun for college debate programs. During this time, I had the privilege of working with Baker Award recipients, TOC champions, and NDT First-Round teams; I was very much ‘in the cards.’ Debate used to be everything to me, and I fancied myself as a ‘lifer.’ I held the naïve view that this activity was the pinnacle of critical thinking and unequivocally produced the best and brightest scholars compared to any other curricular or extracurricular pursuit.

My perspective has shifted since I’ve reduced my competitive involvement with the community. Debate has provided me with some incredible mentors, colleagues, and friends that I would trade for nothing. However, several of the practices prevalent in modern policy debate risk making the activity an academically unserious echo chamber. Many in the community have traded in flowing for rehearsing scripts, critical thinking for virtue signaling, adjudication for idol worship, and research for empty posturing. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t guilty of adopting or teaching some of the trendy practices that are rapidly devolving the activity, but I am no longer willing to keep up the charade that what we do here is pedagogically sound.

This ‘get off my lawn’ ethos colors some of my idiosyncrasies if you have me in the back of the room. Here are guidelines to maximize your speaker points and win percentage:

1 – Flow. Number arguments. Answer arguments in the order that they were presented. Minimize overviews.

2 – Actually research. Most of you don’t, and it shows. Know what you are talking about and be able to use the vocabulary of your opponents. Weave theory with examples. Read a book. Being confidently clueless or dodgy in CX is annoying, not compelling.

3 – Please try. Read cards from this year when possible; be on the cutting edge. Say new and interesting things, even if they’re about old or core concepts. Adapt your arguments to make them more ‘you.’ Reading cards from before 2020 or regurgitating my old blocks will bore me.

4 – Emphasize clarity. This applies to both your thoughts and speaking. When I return, my topic knowledge will be superficial, and I will be out of practice with listening to the fastest speakers. Easy-to-transcribe soundbytes, emphasis in sentences, and pen time is a must. I cannot transcribe bots who shotgun 3-word arguments at 400wpm nor wannabe philosopher-activists who speak in delirious, winding paragraphs.

5 – Beautify your speech docs. Inconsistent, poor formatting is an eyesore. So is word salad highlighting without the semblance of sentence structure.

6 – No dumpster fires. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy. I find unnecessarily escalating CX, heckling opponents, zoom insults, authenticity tests, and screenshot insertions uncompelling. I neither have the resources nor interest in launching an investigation about outside behavior, coach indiscretions, or pref sheets.

7 – Don’t proliferate trivial voting issues. I will evaluate a well-evidenced topicality violation; conditionality can be a VI; in-round harassment and slurs are not trivial. However, I have a higher threshold than most with regards to voting issues surrounding an author’s twitter beef, poorly warranted specification arguments, and abominations I classify as ‘LD tricks.’ If you are on the fence about whether your procedural or gateway issue is trivial, it probably is; unless it’s been dropped in multiple speeches, my preferred remedy is to reject the argument, not the team. Depending on how deranged it is, I may just ignore it completely. I strongly prefer substantive debates.

8 – Be well rounded. The divide between ‘policy,’ ‘critical,’ and ‘performance’ debate is artificial. Pick options that are strategic and specific to the arguments your opponents are reading.

9 – Not everything is a ‘DA.’ Topicality standards are not ‘DAs.’ Critique links are not ‘DAs’ and the alternative is not a ‘CP.’ A disadvantage requires, at a minimum, uniqueness, a link, and an impact. Describing your arguments as ‘DAs’ when they are not will do you a disservice, both in terms of your strategy and your speaker points.

10 – I’m old. I won’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. Good debaters can give bad speeches, and the reverse can also be true. Rep has no correlation to the speaker points you will receive. 28.5 is average. 29 is clearing. 29.5 is exceptional. 30 means you’ve restored my belief in the pedagogical value of policy debate.

I spent thirteen seasons solely working in policy. I have spent the last five seasons working in public forum. In addition to coaching and judging, I served as the Tournament Director for the NYCUDL, the Vice President for Policy Debate for the BQCFL, part of tab staff for NYSFLs, NYSDCAs, the New York City Invitational, and the Westchester Invitational, and in the residence halls for DDI.

What this means for PF debaters is that I am very flow-centric and expect good sign posts. If you give me a road map, I expect you to follow it. While I understand that you will not read evidence in-round, I do expect you to clearly cite your evidence and will listen to (and reward) good analysis of evidence throughout the round.

What this means for policy debaters is that I typically spend more time running tournaments than judging in them. My flowing skills are not what they used to be. You need to SLOW DOWN for your tags and authors or else they will not make my flow. You should also SLOW DOWN for the actual claims on any theory or analytic arguments (Treat them like cards!). My flow is sacred to me, if you want me to vote for you, your flow should look like mine. Lay it out for me like I am a three year-old.

As for arguments, I consider myself a stock-issues judge. Those are what I coach my novices, and I still feel they are the best arguments in policy debate. That said, I have voted on all types of arguments and performance styles in debate. If you want me to vote on something that is not a stock issue, you better explain it to me like I am a three year-old. Even if you want me to vote on a stock issue, you should explain it to me like I am a three year-old.

I do not typically ask for (or want to) examine evidence after the round. It is your job to explain it to me. There is no need to add me to an email chain. That said, if there is some contention about what a piece of evidence actually says, you should make a point of that in your speeches.

As for paperless debate in general, I like my rounds to start on time and end on time. If your technical issues are hindering that, I will start running prep. I will do my best to accommodate debaters, but you need to know your tech at least as well as you know your arguments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. keep track of your own time.

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

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

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

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

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

Notes for Princeton Classic: I usually judge policy, although I have experience in both debating and judging PF. I will evaluate PF rounds in a very technical manner - I will not intervene on anyone's behalf, and I believe I should judge you on the merit of your arguments, rather than your speaking skills. That being said, I think that good speaking skills can make an argument more persuasive within the round and on my flow, especially in later speeches. 

Spread if you want to - I'm used to policy, and you probably won't approach that level of speed. Give me an off-time road map before you start your speeches. 

Policy Paradigm:

Strath Haven High School ’16 – three years of policy debate

University of Pennsylvania ’20 – first year of non-policy college debate

*If there is something I haven’t covered in my paradigm, or you don’t have time to read it fully, ask me before the round.

**Yes, I’d like to be on the email chain if there is one. My email is alexander.b138@gmail.com.

Notes on China Topic

I’ve done a fair bit of research on this topic, so I know a few things about the common affirmatives and off-case positions that are floating around. This topic has the potential to be incredibly broad, so there are some affirmatives where T seems extremely convincing.

Yale will be my first tournament officially judging this year, although I have judged some practice debates for Strath Haven over the summer.

Overview

Run the arguments that you are the most comfortable with – I am looking to vote for the team that makes the best strategic arguments and decisions.

Regardless of whether you read an aff that critically examines the topic or a traditional policy aff, clear explanation of exactly what the affirmative does will make it a much cleaner round with the least amount of intervention on my part. The same goes for the negative – if I don’t understand a part of the link story on the K/CP/DA, I will not vote for it.

Be respectful and courteous of the other debaters in the room – do not be overly aggressive during CX. I understand the competitive drive to win the round, but when that drive manifests itself in aggressive actions, you will lose major speaker points.

Quick answers:

·       Open CX is fine

·       I don’t take prep time for flashing

·       Go as fast as you can without sacrificing clarity – I will yell “clear” if I can’t understand you.

Specific Arguments

Topicality: typically undervalued in high school debate. My threshold for voting on T will likely be lower than most judges, providing you can flush out a compelling reason to vote. Don’t throw voters like “education” at me without articulating the reasons why education or fairness are important to the activity, and why I should be voting for them. Also, make sure you understand exactly what the affirmative does if you go for T, and create a nuanced violation by the negative block.

Disadvantages: my most common 2nr in high school was DA and case. These debates are primarily won on the impact level – if you are not spending at least 30 seconds explaining how the DA outweighs/turns case in every speech (and probably more in the 2NR), you’re not creating a compelling framework for me to vote for the DA. Secondarily, make sure you explain how your warrants differ from the other teams – don’t pretend that tagline extensions answer their arguments.

Counterplans: you must have a semi-decent solvency advocate in the 1NC. I know that your condition CPs and process CPs will most likely have very generic advocates, so make sure you explain precisely how they would interact with the affirmative by the 2NC.

Kritiks: When I read Ks, I mostly read Marxism and Baudrillard, so I will be the most familiar with these arguments. I have a good grasp on postmodern theories, critical race theories, and securitization critiques. I do not have a good grasp on psychoanalysis or queer theory, so if that’s your thing, you will have to explain it very clearly.

Critical affirmatives: I have a lot of experience debating against critical affirmatives – just like “traditional” affirmatives, they can be either quite good or quite bad. The best ones have a specific philosophical mechanism that indicates how the affirmative operates, typically in regards to the resolution. The worst ones are a bunch of critical authors thrown together to create absolutely nothing. Make sure you’re reading the former, and you should be good.

The common framework or method arguments are much less persuasive when you are interacting with the topic while reading a critical aff – you are welcome to read an aff that isn’t related to the topic at all, but know that the negative could have several quite persuasive arguments that you should be prepared for.

Theory: go for it, but make sure that you fully commit. Chances are you will not win a round where half your 2AR is condo and half of it is case outweighs vs the DA.

Random Thoughts

I was a 2N in high school, so I will likely be inclined to protect the 2NR by ignoring new 2AR arguments. This does not mean I will reject 2AR spin and cross-application, but the moment that it becomes an unpredictable argument or extension, it won’t be on my flow.

Try to craft off-case strategies that don’t explicitly contradict.

Asking about preferred pronouns before the round seems to be a positive trend in debate. If someone accidentally misgenders another person in the round, please correct that person politely, and if necessary, communicate further with them after the debate.

Overviews should be short and should focus on the impact level on the debate – I believe this applies to DAs and case as well as Ks.

Your speaking style (tone of voice, speed, inflection, etc.) should not matter on my flow, but is undeniably important in your overall persuasiveness as a debater. 

I graduated from Strath Haven (PA) in 2016, and I did two years of policy debate there. I just graduated from Hamilton College, Class of 2020. I majored in Chinese and Russian Studies and did two years of APDA (parliamentary debate).

My email is emmabelanger813@gmail.com - if there's an email chain, I want to be on it! Also feel free to email me with any questions you have, pre-round or post-round.

I am okay with pretty much anything in policy debate. I'm just looking to watch and flow a good debate, so please read arguments you're comfortable with and you understand. There's nothing worse than watching someone struggle to answer questions in CX because their coach wrote their overviews and they don't understand anything they're saying in their speeches.

Spreading is cool, just understand that I'll be trying to flow and if I can't catch what you're saying then obviously I can't flow it. I was used to speed in high school, but keep in mind that I'm not doing policy in college, so my ears might need to warm up to it. I would suggest starting slower and gradually reaching your full speed.

If you don't go to the line-by-line, I'll be incredibly annoyed. I don't know much about the topic so that's where you're going to win/lose the debate. Make sure you warrant your arguments, no tag-line extensions please.

I am likely very unfamiliar with the current topic, but as long as your aff/DA/K/CP/whatever is coherently put together and I can flow it, I shouldn't have any problem understanding it.

Topicality

In order for the neg to win on T, every level needs to be thoroughly explained and impacted. I don't want to hear "extend the voters for fairness and education" - that's not an extension. You need to contextualize the violation to the round and do a good job of extending your impacts, as well as answer every argument from the affirmative.

DAs

I think DAs are the most straightforward of arguments to make against an affirmative, and if you have good evidence and use it to your advantage, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go for the DA and win the round. Turns case args are your best friend in these debates. Aff - please make arguments in your block on every level of the DA if possible, it sets you up incredibly well out of the 2AC.

Kritiks

I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Ks in high school debate. If they're not too complicated, it's obviously fine, but I personally struggle to understand new theory in the span of a single debate round. If you're going to read Baudrillard or Foucault, you'd better understand what you're talking about and be able to explain it and contextualize it to the round. This doesn't mean don't read a K; I'm just saying that I want it to be explained and impacted reasonably well and in an understandable way. If Ks are your thing, read them.

CPs

I like them, just explain and contextualize them. Make sure your solvency advocate actually functions, and try to make your CP as specific to the aff as you can.

K Affs

I feel pretty much the same way about K Affs as I do about Ks, I need a lot of explanation and contextualization throughout the round before I am fully willing to sign my ballot for the aff. Also, please do your best to explain any technical terms you use, especially if you repeat them more than once or twice. I have a lot of experience debating against K affs, but I've only ever really read one, so I'm not that knowledgeable on the arguments you'll be making.

Theory

Honestly, I'm indifferent. If you're going to spread it, however, make sure you emphasize what you want me to flow or it'll be annoying.

Short Version:
-yes email chain: nyu.bs.debate@gmail.com

-if you would like to contact me about something else, the best way to reach me is: bootj093@newschool.edu - please do not use this email for chains I would like to avoid cluttering it every weekend which is why I have a separate one for them

-debated in high school @ Mill Valley (local policy circuit in Kansas) and college @ NYU (CEDA-NDT) for 7 years total - mostly policy arguments in high school, mix of high theory and policy in college

-head LD/policy debate coach at Bronx Science and assistant policy coach at The New School, former assistant for Blue Valley West, Mill Valley, and Mamaroneck

-spin > evidence quality, unless the evidence is completely inconsistent with the spin

-tech > truth as long as the tech has a claim, warrant, and impact

-great for impact turns

-t-framework impacts ranked: topic education > skills > clash/arg refinement > scenario planning > fun > literally any other reason why debate is good > fairness

-I updated the t-fw part of my paradigm recently (under policy, 12/4/23) - if you are anticipating having a framework debate in front of me on either side, I would appreciate it if you skimmed it at least

-don't like to judge kick but if you give me reasons to I might

-personally think condo has gone way too far in recent years and more people should go for it, but I don't presume one way or the other for theory questions

-all kinds of theory, including topicality, framework, and/or "role of the ballot" arguments are about ideal models of debate

-most of the rounds I judge are clash debates, but I've been in policy v policy and k v k both as a debater and judge so I'm down for anything

-for high school policy 23-24: I actually used to work for the Social Security Administration (only for about 7-8 months) and I have two immediate family members who currently work there - so I have a decent amount of prior knowledge about how the agency works internally, processes benefits, the technology it uses, etc. - but not necessarily policy proposals for social security reform

Long Version:

Overview: Debate is for the debaters so do your thing and I'll do my best to provide a fair decision despite any preferences or experiences that I have. I have had the opportunity to judge and participate in debates of several different formats, circuits, and styles in my short career. What I've found is that all forms of debate are valuable in some way, though often for different reasons, whether it be policy, critical, performance, LD, PF, local circuit, national circuit, public debates, etc. Feel free to adapt arguments, but please don't change your style of debate for me. I want to see what you are prepared for, practiced in, and passionate about. Please have fun! Debating is fun for you I hope!

Speaking and Presentation: I don't care about how you look, how you're dressed, how fast or in what manner you speak, where you sit, whether you stand, etc. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable and will help you be the best debater you can be. My one preference for positioning is that you face me during speeches. It makes it easier to hear and also I like to look up a lot while flowing on my laptop. For some panel situations, this can be harder, just try your best and don't worry about it too much.

Speed - I do not like to follow along in the speech doc while you are giving your speech. I like to read cards in prep time, when they are referenced in cx, and while making my decision. I will use it as a backup during a speech if I have to. This is a particular problem in LD, that has been exacerbated by two years of online debate. I expect to be able to hear every word in your speech, yes including the text of cards. I expect to be able to flow tags, analytics, theory interps, or anything else that is not the interior text of a card. This means you can go faster in the text of a card, this does mean you should be unclear while reading the text of a card. This also means you should go slower for things that are not that. This is because even if I can hear and understand something you are saying, that does not necessarily mean that my fingers can move fast enough to get it onto my flow. When you are reading analytics or theory args, you are generally making warranted arguments much faster than if you were reading a card. Therefore, you need to slow down so I can get those warrants on my flow.

Clarity - I'm bad at yelling clear. I try to do it when things are particularly egregious but honestly, I feel bad about throwing a debater off their game in the middle of a speech. I think you can clear or slow your opponent if you are comfortable with it - but not excessively to avoid interruption please - max 2-3 times a speech. If you are unclear with tags or analytics in an earlier speech, I will try to let you know immediately after the speech is over. If you do it in a rebuttal, you are 100% at fault because I know you can do it clearly, but are choosing not to. Focus on efficiency, not speed.

Logistical Stuff: I would like the round to run as on-time as possible. Docs should be ready to be sent when you end prep time. Orders/roadmaps should be given quickly and not changed several times. Marking docs can happen outside of prep time, but it should entail only marking where cards were cut. I would prefer that, at the varsity level, CX or prep time is taken to ask if something was not read or which arguments were read. I think it’s your responsibility to listen to your opponent’s speech to determine what was said and what wasn’t. I don’t take prep or speech time for tech issues - the clock can stop if necessary. Use the bathroom, fill up your water bottle as needed - tournaments generally give plenty of time for a round and so long as the debaters are not taking excessive time to do other things like send docs, I find that these sorts of things aren’t what truly makes the round run behind.

Email chain or speech drop is fine for docs, which should be shared before a speech. I really prefer Word documents if possible, but don't stress about changing your format if you can't figure it out. Unless there is an accommodation request, not officially or anything just an ask before the round, I don't think analytics need to be sent. Advocacy texts, theory interps, and shells should be sent. Cards are sent for the purposes of ethics and examining more closely the research of your opponent. Too many of you have stopped listening to your opponents entirely and I think the rising norm of sending every single word you plan on saying is a big part of it. It also makes you worse debaters because in the instances where your opponent decides to look up from their laptop and make a spontaneous argument, many of you just miss it entirely.

Stop stealing prep time. When prep time is called by either side, you should not be talking to your partner, typing excessively on your computer, or writing things down. My opinion on “flex prep,” or asking questions during prep time, is that you can ask for clarifications, but your opponent doesn’t have to answer more typical cx questions if they don’t want to (it is also time that they are entitled to use to focus on prep), and I don’t consider the answers in prep to have the same weight as in cx. Prep time is not a speech, and I dislike it when a second ultra-pointed cx begins in prep time because you think it makes your opponent look worse. It doesn’t - it makes you look worse.

Speaker Points: I try to adjust based on the strength of the tournament pool/division, but my accuracy can vary depending on how many rounds in the tournament I've already judged.

29.5+ You are one of the top three speakers in the tournament and should be in finals.

29.1-29.4 You are a great speaker who should be in late elims of the tournament.

28.7-29 You are a good speaker who should probably break.

28.4-28.6 You're doing well, but need some more improvement to be prepared for elims.

28-28.3 You need significant improvement before I think you can debate effectively in elims.

<28 You have done something incredibly offensive or committed an ethics violation, which I will detail in written comments and speak with you about in oral feedback.

The three things that affect speaker points the most are speaking clearly/efficiently, cross-x, and making effective choices in the final rebuttals.

If you win the debate without reading from a laptop in the 2NR/2AR your floor for speaks is a 29.

For Policy:

T-Framework: The fw debates I like the most are about the advantages and disadvantages of having debates over a fiated policy implementation of the topic. I would prefer if your interpretation/violation was phrased in terms of what the affirmative should do/have done - I think this trend of crafting an interpretation around negative burdens is silly - i.e. "negatives should not be burdened with the rejoinder of untopical affirmatives." I'm not usually a big fan of neg interpretations that only limit out certain parts of the topic - strategically, they usually seem to just link back to neg offense about limits and predictability absent a more critical strategy. I think of framework through an offense/defense paradigm and in terms of models of debate. My opinion is that you all spend dozens or hundreds of hours doing research, redos, practice, and debates - you should be prepared to defend that the research you do, the debates you have, and how you have those debates are good.

1. Topic-specific arguments are best - i.e. is it a good or bad thing that we are having rounds talking about fiscal redistribution, nuclear weapons, resource extraction, or military presence? How can that prepare people to take what they learn in debate outside of the activity? Why is topic-specific education valuable or harmful in a world of disinformation, an uninformed American public, escalating global crises, climate change, etc.? Don't be silly and read an extinction impact or anything though.

2. Arguments about debate in general are also great - I'm down for a "debate about debate" - the reason that I as a coach and judge invest tons of time into this activity is because I think it is pedagogically valuable - but what that value should look like, what is best to take from it, is in my opinion the crux of framework debates. Should debate be a competitive space or not? What are the implications of imagining a world where government policy gets passed? What should fiat look like or should it be used at all?

I can be convinced that debate should die given better debating from that side. But honestly, this is not my personal belief - the decline of policy debate in terms of participation at the college and high school level makes me very sad actually. I can also be convinced that debate is God's gift to earth and is absolutely perfect, even though I also believe that there are many problems with the activity. There is also a huge sliding scale between these two options.

3. Major defensive arguments and turns are good - technical stuff about framework like ssd, tvas, relative solvency of counter-interps, turns case and turns the disad arguments, uniqueness claims about the current trends of debate, claims about the history of debate, does it shape subjectivity or not - are all things that I think are worth talking about and can be used to make "try or die" or presumption arguments - though they should not be the focal point of your offense. I like when tvas are carded solvency advocates and/or full plan texts.

4. I do not like judging debates about procedural fairness:

A) They are usually very boring. On every topic, the same pre-written blocks, read at each other without any original thought over and over. I dislike other arguments for this reason too - ultra-generic kritiks and process cps - but even with those, they often get topic or aff-specific contextualizations in the block. This does not usually happen with fairness.

B) I often find fairness very unimportant on its own relative to the other key issues of framework - meaning I don't usually think it is offense. I find a lot of these debates to end up pretty tautological - "fairness is an impact because debate is a game and games should have rules or else they'd be unfair," etc. Many teams in front of me will win that fairness is necessary to preserve the game, but never take the next step of explaining to me why preserving the game is good. In that scenario, what "impact" am I really voting on? Even if the other team agrees that the game of debate is good (which a lot of k affs contest anyway), you still have to quantify or qualify how important that is for me to reasonably compare it to the aff's offense - saying "well we all must care about fairness because we're here, they make strategic arguments, etc." - is not sufficient to do that. I usually agree that competitive incentives mean people care about fairness somewhat. But how much and why is that important? I get an answer with nearly every other argument in debate, but hardly ever with fairness. I think a threshold for if something is an impact is that it's weighable.

C) Despite this, fairness can be impacted out into something tangible or I can be convinced that "tangibility" and consequences are not how I should make my decision. My hints are Nebel and Glówczewski.

5. Everyone needs to compare their impacts alongside other defensive claims in the debate and tell me why I should vote for them. Like traditional T, it's an offense/defense, disad/counterplan, model of debate thing for me. For some reason, impact comparison just seems to disappear from debaters' repertoire when debating framework, which is really frustrating for me.

Kritiks: Both sides of these debates often involve a lot of people reading overviews at each other, especially in high school, which can make it hard to evaluate at the end of the round. Have a clear link story and a reason why the alternative resolves those links. Absent an alt, have a framework as to why your impacts matter/why you still win the round. Impacts are negative effects of the status quo, the alternative resolves the status quo, and the links are reasons why the aff prevents the alternative from happening. Perms are a test of the strength of the link. Framework, ROB, and ROJ arguments operate on the same level to me and I think they are responsive to each other. My feelings on impacts here are similar to t-fw.

I still study some French high theory authors in grad school, but from a historical perspective. In my last couple years of college debate I read Baudrillard and DnG-style arguments a lot, some psychoanalysis as well - earlier than that my tastes were a little more questionable and I liked Foucault, Zizek, and Nietzsche a lot, though I more often went for policy arguments - I gave a lot of fw+extinction outweighs 2ARs. A lot of the debates I find most interesting include critical ir or critical security studies arguments. I have also coached many other kinds of kritiks, including all of the above sans Zizek as well as a lot of debaters going for arguments about anti-blackness or feminism. Set col stuff I don't know the theory as well tbh.

Affirmatives: I think all affs should have a clear impact story with a good solvency advocate explaining why the aff resolves the links to those impacts. I really enjoy affs that are creative and outside of what a lot of people are reading, but are still grounded in the resolution. If you can find a clever interpretation of the topic or policy idea that the community hasn't thought of yet, I'll probably bump your speaks a bit.

Disads: Love 'em. Impact framing is very important in debates without a neg advocacy. Turns cases/turns the da is usually much better than timeframe/probability/magnitude. Between two improbable extinction impacts, I default to using timeframe a lot of the time. A lot of disads (especially politics) have pretty bad ev/internal link chains, so try to wow me with 1 good card that you explain well in rebuttals rather than spitting out 10 bad ones. 0 risk of a disad is absolutely a thing, but hard to prove, like presumption.

Counterplans: They should have solvency advocates and a clear story for competition. Exploit generic link chains in affs. My favorites are advantage cps, specific pics, and recuttings of 1AC solvency ev. I like process cps when they are specific to the topic or have good solvency advocates. I will vote on other ones still, but theory and perm do the cp debates may be harder for you. I think some process cps are even very pedagogically valuable and can be highly persuasive with up-to-date, well-cut evidence - consult Japan on relevant topics for instance. But these arguments can potentially be turned by clash and depth over breadth. And neg flex in general can be a very strong argument in policy. I won't judge kick unless you tell me to in the 2NR, and preferably it should have some kind of justification.

Topicality: I default to competing interps and thinking of interps as models of debate. Be clear about what your interp includes and excludes and why that is a good thing. I view topicality like a disad most of the time, and vote for whoever's vision of the topic is best. I find arguments about limits and the effect that interpretations have on research to be the most convincing. I like topicality debates quite a bit.

Theory: Slow down, slow down, slow down. Like T, I think of theory through models of debate and default to competing interps- you should have an interpretation to make your life a little easier if you want to extend it - if you don't, I will assume the most extreme one (i.e. no pics, no condo, etc.). If you don't have a counter-interp in response to a theory argument, you are in a bad position. If your interpretation uses debate jargon like pics, "process" cps, and the like - you should tell me what you mean by those terms at least in rebuttal. Can pics be out of any word said, anything in the plan, anything defended in the solvency advocate or in cx, any concept advocated for, etc.? I think there is often too much confusion over what is meant to be a process cp. The interpretation I like best for "process" is "counterplans that result in the entirety of the plan." I like condo bad arguments, especially against super abusive 1ncs, but the neg gets a ton of time in the block to answer it, so it can be really hard to give a good enough 1ar on it without devoting a lot of time as well - so if you are going to go for it in the 2ar, you need to expand on it and cover block responses in the 1ar. Warrant out reject the argument vs. reject the team.

For LD:

Prefs Shortcut:

1 - LARP, High Theory Ks

2 - Other Ks, Topicality

3 - Phil, Theory that isn't condo or pics bad

4/5/strike - Trad, Tricks

My disclaimer is I try to keep an open mind for any debate - you should always use the arguments/style that you are most prepared with and practiced in. You all seem to really like these shortcuts, so I caved and made one - but these are not necessarily reflective of my like or dislike for any particular argument, instead more of my experience with different kinds, meaning some probably require more explanation for me to "get it." I love when I do though - I'm always happy to learn new things in debate!

Phil Debates: Something I am fairly unfamiliar with, but I've been learning more about over the past 6 months (02/23). I have read, voted for, and coached many things to the contrary, but if you want to know what I truly believe, I basically think most things collapse into some version of consequentialist utilitarianism. If you are to convince me that I should not be a consequentialist, then I need clear instructions for how I should evaluate offense. Utilitarianism I'm used to being a little more skeptical of from k debates, but other criticisms of util from say analytic philosophy I will probably be unfamiliar with.

Trad Debate: By far what I am least familiar with. I don't coach this style and never competed in anything like LD trad debate - I did traditional/lay policy debate a bit in high school - but that is based on something called "stock issues" which is a completely different set of standards than LD's value/value criterion. I struggle in these debates because for me, like "stock issues" do in policy, these terms seem to restrictively categorize arguments and actually do more to obscure their meaning than reveal it. In the trad debates I've seen (not many, to be fair), tons of time was dedicated to clarifying minutiae and defining words that either everyone ended up agreeing on or that didn't factor into the way that I would make my decision. I don't inherently dislike LD trad debate at all, it honestly just makes things more difficult for me to understand because of how I've been trained in policy debate for 11 years. I try my best, but I feel that I have to sort through trad "jargon" to really get at what you all think is important. I would prefer if you compared relative impacts directly rather than told me one is better than the other 100% of the time.

Plans/DAs/CPs: See the part in my policy paradigm. Plans/CP texts should be clearly written and are generally better when in the language of a specific solvency advocate. I think the NC should be a little more developed for DAs than in policy - policy can have some missing internal links because they get the block to make new arguments, but you do not get new args in the NR that are unresponsive to the 1AR - make sure you are making complete arguments that you can extend.

Kritiks: Some stuff in my policy paradigm is probably useful. Look there for K-affs vs. T-fw. I'm most familiar with so-called "high theory" but I have also debated against, judged, and coached many other kinds of kritiks. Like with DAs/CPs, stuff that would generally be later in the debate for policy should be included in the NC, like ROBs/fw args. Kritiks to me are usually consequentialist, they just care about different kinds of consequences - i.e. the consequences of discourse, research practices, and other impacts more proximate than extinction.

ROB/ROJs: In my mind, this is a kind of theory debate. The way I see this deployed in LD most of the time is as a combination of two arguments. First, what we would call in policy "framework" (not what you call fw in LD) - an argument about which "level" I should evaluate the debate on. "Pre-fiat" and "post-fiat" are the terms that you all like to use a lot, but it doesn't necessarily have to be confined to this. I could be convinced for instance that research practices should come before discourse or something else. The second part is generally an impact framing argument - not only that reps should come first, but that a certain kind of reps should be prioritized - i.e. ROB is to vote for whoever best centers a certain kind of knowledge. These are related, but also have separate warrants and implications for the round, so I consider them separately most of the time. I very often can in fact conclude that reps must come first, but that your opponent’s reps are better because of some impact framing argument that they are making elsewhere. Also, ROB and ROJ are indistinct from one another to me, and I don’t see the point in reading both of them in the same debate.

Topicality: You can see some thoughts in the policy sections as well if you're having that kind of T debate about a plan. I personally think some resolutions in LD justify plans and some don't. But I can be convinced that having plans or not having plans is good for debate, which is what is important for me in deciding these debates. The things I care about here are education and fairness, generally more education stuff than fairness. Topicality interpretations are models of the topic that affirmatives should follow to produce the best debates possible. I view T like a DA and vote for whichever model produces the best theoretical version of debate. I care about "pragmatics" - "semantics" matter to me only insofar as they have a pragmatic impact - i.e. topic/definitional precision is important because it means our research is closer to real-world scholarship on the topic. Jurisdiction is a vacuous non-starter. Nebel stuff is kind of interesting, but I generally find it easier just to make an argument about limits. Reasonability is something I almost never vote on - to be “reasonable” I think you have to either meet your opponent’s interp or have a better one.

RVIs: The vast majority of the time these are unnecessary when you all go for them. If you win your theory or topicality interp is better than your opponent's, then you will most likely win the debate, because the opposing team will not have enough offense on substance. I'm less inclined to believe topicality is an RVI. I think it’s an aff burden to prove they are topical and the neg getting to test that is generally a good thing. Other theory makes more sense as an RVI. Sometimes when a negative debater is going for both theory and substance in the NR, the RVI can be more justifiable to go for in the 2AR because of the unique time differences of LD. If they make the decision to fully commit to theory in the NR, however, the RVI is unnecessary - not that I'm ideologically opposed to it, it just doesn't get you anything extra for winning the debate - 5 seconds of "they dropped substance" is easier and the warrants for your c/i's standards are generally much better than the ones for the RVI.

Disclosure Theory: This is not a section that I would ever have to write for policy. I find it unfortunate that I have to write it for LD. Disclosure is good because it allows schools access to knowledge of what their opponents are reading, which in pre-disclosure days was restricted to larger programs that could afford to send scouts to rounds. It also leads to better debates where the participants are more well-prepared. What I would like to happen for disclosure in general is this:
1) previously read arguments on the topic are disclosed to at least the level of cites on the opencaselist wiki,
2) a good faith effort is made by the aff to disclose any arguments including the advocacy/plan, fw, and cards that they plan on reading in the AC that they've read before once the pairing comes out,
3) a good faith effort is made by the neg to disclose any previously read positions, tied to NC arguments on their wiki, that they've gone for in the NR on the current topic (and previous if asked) once they receive disclosure from the aff,
4) all the cites disclosed are accurate and not misrepresentations of what is read,
5) nobody reads disclosure theory!!

This is basically the situation in college policy, but it seems we still have a ways to go for LD. In a few rare instances I've encountered misdisclosure, even teams saying things like "well it doesn't matter that we didn't read the scenario we said we were going to read because they're a k team and it wasn't really going to change their argument anyways." More intentional things like this, or bad disclosure from debaters and programs that really should know better, I don't mind voting on. I really don't like however when disclosure is used to punish debaters for a lack of knowledge or because it is a norm they are not used to. You have to understand, my roots are as a lay debater who didn't know what the wiki was and didn't disclose for a single round in high school. For my first two years, I debated exclusively on paper and physically handed pages to my opponent while debating after reading them to share evidence. For a couple years after that, we "flashed" evidence to each other by tossing around a usb drive - tournaments didn't provide public wifi. I've been in way more non-lay debates since then and have spent much more time doing "progressive" debate than I ever did lay debate, but I'm very sympathetic still to these kinds of debaters.

Especially if a good-faith attempt is made, interps that are excluding debaters based on a few minutes of a violation, a round report from several tournaments ago, or other petty things make me sad to judge. My threshold for reasonability in these debates will be much lower. Having some empathy and clearly communicating with your opponent what you want from them is a much better strategy for achieving better disclosure practices in the community than reading theory as a punitive measure. If you want something for disclosure, ask for it, or you have no standing. Also, if you read a disclosure interp that you yourself do not meet, you have no standing. Open source theory and disclosure of new affs are more debatable than other kinds of disclosure arguments, and like with T and other theory I will vote for whichever interp I determine is better for debate.

Other Theory: I really liked theory when I did policy debate, but that theory is also different from a lot of LD theory. What that means is I mainly know cp theory - condo, pics, process cps, perm competition (i.e. textual vs. functional, perm do the cp), severance/intrinsicness, and other things of that nature. You can see some of my thoughts on these arguments in the policy section. I've also had some experience with spec arguments. Like T, I view theory similarly to a da debate. Interpretations are models of debate that I endorse which describe ideally what all other debates should look like. I almost always view things through competing interps. Like with T, in order to win reasonability I think you need to have a pretty solid I/meet argument. Not having a counter-interp the speech after the interp is introduced is a major mistake that can cost you the round. I decide theory debates by determining which interp produces a model of debate that is "best." I default to primarily caring about education - i.e. depth vs. breadth, argument quality, research quality, etc. but I can be convinced that fairness is a controlling factor for some of these things or should come first. I find myself pretty unconvinced by arguments that I should care about things like NSDA rules, jurisdiction, some quirk of the tournament invitation language, etc.

Tricks: I think I've officially judged one "tricks" round now, and I've been trying to learn as much as I can while coaching my squad. I enjoyed it, though I can't say I understood everything that was happening. I engaged in some amount of trickery in policy debate - paradoxes, wipeout, process cps, kicking out of the aff, obscure theory args, etc. However, what was always key to winning these kinds of debates was having invested time in research, blocks, a2s - the same as I would for any other argument. I need to be able to understand what your reason is for obtaining my ballot. If you want to spread out arguments in the NC, that's fine and expected, but I still expect you to collapse in the NR and explain in depth why I should vote for you. I won't evaluate new arguments in the NR that are not directly responsive to the 1AR. The reason one-line voting issues in the NC don't generally work with me in the back is that they do not have enough warrants to make a convincing NR speech.

Judge adaptation is overrated and leads to worse debates. I’ll do my best to make the most robust decision I can based on the debate you would like to have. I can and will vote for any argument presented - I'm studying Communication, Politics, Philosophy, Economics, National Preparedness and Homeland Security so there's a decent chance I have some academic background in whatever it is you are debating about. In high school, I went for pomo Ks, framework and heg good. In college I went for the cap k, framework, and the Econ DA. My favorite AFFs I wrote were small policy AFFs with disproportionately large impacts; my second favorite had plans and a robust defense of not defending them.

I used to be really devoted to picking a side on framework but have largely given up trying. Instead, I now want to watch teams defend what they said. This is the bare minimum, not a ceiling. I'm incredibly tired of watching teams squirrel out of impact turns they link to and their opponents not calling them out. As long as a debate has meaningful clash, line-by-line, and good attitudes everyone gets a 28.8 minimum.

History
I debated 3 years at Baltimore City College High School. The first year of my high school career I did mainly Policy Debate. The last two years of my Debate career I delved into the Kritik on both sides of the Debate. The majority of my arguments were mostly race theory and arguments about antiblackness.

I mostly debated the k and I love kritiks. I think that a kritical perspective is important for opening the activity to more marginalized experiences. I believe that it can be productive both for the sport and for the community.  

Paradigm
Despite my love for Kritiks and Race arguments, I will admit that I am less biased than most with my orientation. When I watch and Judge debate, I will do my best to listen carefully to the actual arguments being made and will vote on almost anything if you win the debate. I believe that debate should be about even competition that is based on what is said in round and how it effects the outside world. In terms of argumentation I believe in truth and tech almost equally, with truth just weighing slightly higher on the scale. This means that a conceded argument is true, but within context of reason. I do value the flow; and it still has a major impact on my decision.  

I am fine with spreading; just be clear and slow on tags.

For K teams
For K teams, explain arguments and links. If I do not understand why things are the way they are or even how the Alternative solves for things. then I will have more trouble voting you up. Do yourself a favor and impact and explain each claim you make. For those reading Kritiks I believe a genuine belief and representation of the arguments your talking about is important. Also, if your an all white team that reads a race k against poc I will likely not vote on it unless it has a legit (and I mean hardcore legit) link. That being said in any situation, I will try my best to be open minded.

Policy v Ks/plans with critical advantages
For Policy Teams that are on the Aff and are going against such arguments; do not break out k-ish advantages for a super policy Aff. You should just read what you want and the do the neccessary level of argumentation to win against such arguments. If you naturally read policy affs that have a k twist; then that is fine. 

Topicality
In order for me to vote on Topicality; it really needs to be impacted out. There should probably be more to the Standards part of the Debate other than education and Fairness. (Recently that has been the only extension of T that I have heard in debates that I have judged.) If it is education and Fairness you need to answer the questions of "why is the model of debate that you are advocating for producing important? Other questions such as, "what is the type of education you are producing/why is that good?" What is fairness and why does that matter in this Debate especially against the opponents Impacts. These are the the types of questions that need to be answered in addition to answering the other teams arguments in order to get my ballot. Answering these questions are probably not strictly regulated to folks who run T/FW...., but I have found that the explanations to these questions have been severely lacking in the majority of rounds that I've judged with teams who have brought up this argument. This is why I put this explanation here. I will admit; I am more open than I used to be, but I still do not believe that you were forced to run T. However, I will vote on it if the necessary work is done. In terms of articulation I would be interested in hearing a critical spin on Framework argument that talks about why the State focus may be good politically for (whater K is being talked about.) I am good on theory, so if you run it I'm cool. I'm more geared towards social political justice arguments, but whatever.

clarity = speed of delivery. please slow down on tags, texts, interpretations, advocacies, analytical arguments, authors, or any argument you want me to get in detail verbatim on my flow. please keep in mind that your speed will always be faster than my keyboarding skills/flowcabulary. i do not flow off the document and will not backflow arguments from the document

i am a great judge for technical, mechanical line-by-line debate

judge instruction is axiomatic. most judging philosophies say "judge instructions please" because debaters rarely do enough of it and judges are left to decide debates on their own devices which leads to inevitable intervention and at least one unhappy debater. please - judge instructions! yes, go for your arguments, say how they outweigh, sure, magnitude timeframe sure, but tell me what to do with them/everything else at the end of the debate

what you debate is up to you - i do not have a preference for how you stylistically debate or which arguments you choose to read. this is my 20th year in debate and i have been around long enough that i have probably heard, debated, coached, and/or judged almost any/every argument you could say or do within reason. all arguments are fair game within reason - do not be violent, racist, et cetera. i consider myself an incredibly flexible coach that believes debaters get the most out of the activity through a student-centered model of debate where the debater is in the argumentative captain's seat and my job as a debate coach is to coach debaters at what they want to do to the best of my ability

i obviously have preferences - every debate judge does - but i try to keep those out of the decision calculus for deciding who wins the debate. given that, the following might help you out while either filling out your pref sheet or in the pre-round prep:

i am an awesome to great to okay judge for almost all arguments that come from policy debate - disads, counterplans, plans, not plans, performance, kritiks, k affs, theory, topicality, the politics da, conditionality bad, et cetera

i am an okay-ish judge for kant/phil - did a lot of academic research in uni on kant, but often struggle with how ld does kant. if you are going to read a bunch of dense cards about the categorical imperative, you are a-okay. if you are spamming a bunch of paradoxes, i would probably take another judge

i'm getting increasingly better for "tricks". a couple years ago this would have said no tricks, but i find myself increasingly voting on arguments like "role of the ballot spec", random ivis, and such when explained/impacted properly. i will only evaluate the debate after the 2ar

my voting record is historically bad for the neg on "t-usfg/framework/must larp/instrumentally defend the topic" and would advise engaging the affirmative

the aff is 29-0 in front of me over the past 5 years when the nr goes for "t-nebel/whole resolution/cannot specify/no plans"

some judge intricacies:

i will not judge kick unless you explicitly make judge kick an option in your speech

team no risk - there is zero risk that i will win the gold medal in the 100m dash at the 2024 paris olympic games

debaters must speaketh the rehighlighting - you can only re-insert text that has already been read

speaker point floor typically 29.0

i do not have a "poker face" and am unabashedly human

Hey my name is Michael, email: mcasas1289@yahoo.com

Experience; 3 years of High School POLICY debate ( University High School )

PLEASE TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT I AM A POLICY JUDGE WHO JUST BEGAN JUDGING LD

Rutgers University - Newark

EXPLAIN what I should vote for you and make it clear. Once you make your point MOVE ON, please don't repeat yourself.

Organize your arguments. Line-Line is nice too.

Spreading is acceptable but be clear. I will call out clear when you are unclear TWICE. After that, I will just stop writing.

i dont like severance affs

I'm pretty liberal so you can any type of argument as long as you can convince me

Critical Affs are cool, explain why we should start with your point and their impacts. (framing preferred with K Aff's)

All Neg Strats are acceptable but please present them clearly so i know when you're starting a new argument.

Theory is beautiful but make it clear to the judge.

Procedural Fairness over all unless you fail to show me it is.

Tl;dr

Yes, you can read a K AFF, a K, or framework

No, I don’t have very much topic knowledge, so I would appreciate if you could explain background info and abbreviations

Background

Head-Royce ’17 / MIT ’21

Please use an email chain and please put me on the email chain – fionayifeichen@gmail.com.

I debated pretty seriously for four years in high school, qualifying to the TOC twice and breaking at the TOC in my senior year. During this time, I almost exclusively read critical arguments (mostly security, cap, psychoanalysis, Baudrillard, Agamben and sometimes Spanos, Stiegler, death stuff, weird stuff, other stuff). I went to camp every summer, and during camp, I almost exclusively read policy arguments, ranging from heg/econ AFFs to the politics DA to conditions counterplans. However, my experience with a lot of these arguments, especially more topic-specific ones, is relatively limited, and I’d appreciate some extra explanation to compensate for that. I’ll also admit that I have very little experience with judging, but I do spend a lot of time watching rounds and thinking about arguments and will try my hardest to judge rounds as fairly as possible.

General Thoughts

Tech over truth, but with limitations. Technical concessions matter a lot. However, your arguments have to be developed enough in earlier speeches that a reasonably smart opponent & judge can see it becoming a round-changer in a later speech.

The content of your argument matters a lot less than the execution. Read whatever you feel most comfortable with reading. However, a creative, specific, and well-researched NEG strat will always make me feel a lot happier than a highly generic one.

The quality of your evidence matters, but won’t win or lose you a round unless somebody in the round makes this happen. You certainly don’t need evidence to make every single argument. I want to be on the email chain so I can read evidence after the round if need-be, but I’ll try my best not to reconstruct the round according to the evidence. However, if your evidence happens to be good when I read it, that’ll definitely make me feel better about you as a debater.

Cross-ex is binding and I will flow it to make sure you aren’t shifty.

Voting NEG on presumption is a thing. A lot of AFFs don’t do anything.

Topicality

Is cool and I extended it a decent amount, but I have close to no opinion or knowledge right now on how we should define the words in the resolution.

Kritiks

These can be my favorite or least favorite strategies, depending on how you run them. The K should center around the AFF, with specific links & turns case arguments. The NEG block is beautiful because you have the time to explain your arguments with nuance, so use that to your advantage rather than running reductive versions of complex philosophy and repeating the same few overused phrases like “WILL TO TRANSPARENCY” over and over.

When evaluating the round, I’ll start with framework, because this provides the lens through which I should understand every argument. You either have to prove that the implementation of the plan is a bad idea, OR you have to provide me some alternative lens (FW arg) for evaluating the round which shifts the focus of the debate away from the plan itself. A lot of the time, I’ve found that the latter is easier than the former, which is why a substantive framework push is generally quite helpful. Role of the ballot arguments when simply asserted are often self-serving and ultimately useless in evaluating a round, and it bothers me when teams just repeat that they were conceded without any explanation for why they are good.

The alt is generally the weakest part of the kritik. Consequently, you either need a really good alt explanation or you need some other arguments to compensate for a weak alt (e.g. a framework argument that shifts the debate away from a traditional plan v. alt paradigm or a strong kritik turns case argument).

When being AFF, the best strategy is just a robust defense of your AFF. 2ACs are easiest to answer when they’re just a slew of cards that are nearly identical and highly generic. Explain why your AFF is a good idea in the context of the critique (e.g. our epistemology is good) or despite the critique (e.g. even if we can’t perfectly predict threats, we should still act on the predictions of the 1AC).

AFF teams should do more to take advantage of situations where the NEG reads several policy args that are completely inconsistent with their kritiks, because this practice is likely pretty contradictory with any NEG framework arguments about how debate should be about cultivating ethical subjectivities & education.

K AFFs and Framework

K AFFs are fun. Preferably, yours is tied to the resolution, at least a little bit. I don’t think that I have a particularly strong predisposition towards either side of the K AFF v. Framework debate, because I’ve been on both sides multiple times before.

I would prefer to hear a more substantive strategy against K AFFs than framework, but I understand that a lot of K AFFs are shifty and hard to predict, and consequently framework is often the most strategic option. It is, however, possible (and often necessary) for you to read framework in a specific and substantive way. A lot of NEG teams lose on framework because they fail to question the core assumptions of the AFF and also have 0 inroads into the AFF's impacts.

I don’t have a strong opinion on what standards you should run while reading framework on the NEG. Two exceptions: 1) I don't think I've ever heard a super convincing explanation of a decision-making skills impact. 2) Fairness is rarely an impact by itself. A fairness impact ultimately is just saying that debate as an activity is good, but you need some defense of why this activity is good, whether that defense is about specific policy education or about nuanced clash.

I think that the most effective way to win against framework is to use the AFF as an impact turn or disad to framework. Often times, this argument is something generally along the lines of “the act of imposing some set model of debate is violent and leads to our XYZ impacts.”

I don’t think framework is inherently genocide, racist, exclusionary, etc, especially if the NEG has an effective T version or turns case argument. However, exclusion arguments can be really strong when explained in a nuanced fashion. Survival strategy arguments honestly don’t make much sense to me at all given that debate is inherently competitive.

Lastly, K AFFs should probably get perms against kritiks to promote a style of debate where clash always occurs and students can refine their worldviews.

Disads and Counterplans

I don’t know anybody who dislikes disads or counterplans, so I guess I’ll just say that I like them too.

Condo is probably good, especially if you’re just reading 1 counterplan and 1 kritik (or less), but I can be convinced otherwise.

I will not kick a counterplan unless you tell me to.

Theory arguments are often very effective against process counterplans, many of which are not competitive.

Here is my email for the email chain:

Williamc0402@gmail.com

Here is my short biography for you to know who I am:
Hi, my name is William. I finished a PhD in German at NYU. My focus was on literature, critical theory, and to some extent black studies.
As for debate experience, I used to debate for CUNY debate in college for 4 years, reading critical arguments in the Northeast. I won a handful of regional tournaments and broke at CEDA. I also coach for Brooklyn Technical High School (sometimes we sign up at Brooklyn Independent). I have been coaching there for 8 years and have had my debaters make it far in national tournaments as well as qualify for the TOC a bunch. Because I work with Brooklyn Tech (a UDL school), I am also connected to the NYCUDL.

Here is the start of my paradigm:
As everyone else says, rule of thumb: DO WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT
Whether your go-to strat is to throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks, a straight up disad/cp, or a one-off K; I will be more than happy to judge your round…
given that you:

1) Have a claim, warrant, and impact to every argument. It isn’t an argument absent these three elements, and I will have some trouble adjudicating what you’ve said.
2) Properly explain your positions—don’t make an assumption that I know you the abbreviations you use, the specific DA scenario you're going for (perhaps fill me in on the internal link chains), or the K jargon you're using. Help me out!
3) Have comparative analysis of evidence, arguments, and preformative styles between your own positions compared to those of the other team.

4) Frame things— tell me how I should prioritize impacts otherwise I will default to util (see section at the bottom)
5) Be Persuasive, it will go a long way to making me to sign my ballot your way if you can make the round enjoyable, touching, funny, etc – it will also help your speaks.
6) Write the ballot for me in your 2nr/2ar, tell me how you win. Take risks, and don’t go for everything. Prioritize your best offense and tell me why that offense is critical to evaluating the round—force me to evaluate the debate through a prism that has you winning

Also, some other things:

1) I will default to competing interpretations and util unless an alternative mechanisms of evaluating the round are introduced

2) I will default to rejecting the argument not the team unless you tell me otherwise

3) I will avoid looking at evidence unless there is a dispute over evidence in a round or a debater spins it as part of being persuasive
4) I am an open minded judge, and respect all “realms” of debate though my own experience debating and coaching revolves around mostly K debate.

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

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.

Debate is a fun competitive research game. Ask questions if you have them.

Fayetteville HS 2017
Columbia University 2021

Send me speech docs if you want to: petergaber123@gmail.com

I just want you to do what you do best. I went to Michigan 7 week twice -- once in the juniors policy lab and once in the k lab.

"Every debate is a debate about what debate should be about. I'm open to all interpretations of what that statement means." -- Joe Krakoff

Kritikal Arguments
Whether it's on the aff or neg, I really like kritikal arguments -- it's what I did most of high school. That being said, I tend to agree with Kevin Hirn's judge philosophy in regards to framework (you should really go read it). Provide material examples of your method in action or identify how it interacts with debate as an activity (and apply that analysis to the framework flow!!!), even if you don't have a prescriptive model of what the activity should do.

Theory
If there's one thing that Greenstein taught me, it's that theory is one of the most interesting parts of debate. When done well, these are my favorite debates to watch. When done badly, these are my least favorite debates to watch. Do whatever you deem necessary -- condo, no neg fiat, etc.

CPs/Disads
Go for it. Make sure the CPs are actually competitive and (should, most of the time) have a solvency advocate. PERMS: reading 15 perms that all mean essentially the same thing is a really good way to lose speaker points. I think you should have one or two permutations that are strong and well explained in the 2AC (just saying the word "perm" in between two cards is NOT going to cut it). And, as always, please please please make no link args if you want me to vote for the perm.

My email address is fg2644@gmail.com. Please put me on the email chain if that's still a thing! And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to clarify/answer them!

I don't have any real opinions re: debate controversies, so I'll evaluate the debate as you instruct me to. That being said, even conceded claims require warrants/explanations.

My sense is that I'm more open than many judges to claims that aren't necessarily backed up by "carded evidence" read in the debate, but that can be fact-checked on Google and/or make obvious sense. I think you should be rewarded for reading for pleasure and to become an informed person, rather than just focusing on cutting cards.

More important to me than whether you read a plan text is whether you provide a clear path forward/propose a change to be made, and explain how that change would resolve/lessen the harms you've outlined. That being said, I'm an accounting major and my favorite candidate in the 2020 primary is Mayor Pete, so make of that what you will about my politics/openness to radicalism...

I will give the other team a lot of leeway in their responses if I can't comprehend your argument/couldn't explain it back to you (if I can't understand when I have nothing I have to do or think about other than your argument, how can I expect your opponents to get it while they also have to put together speech docs and come up with a coherent response, all while watching the clock to make sure they don't use too much prep time?). I'll make clear facial expressions to show you if I'm not "getting it" so you can adjust your explanation accordingly.

My background: I was always nervous being judged in high school by people I'd never heard of, so if it helps, I debated for 4 years at Niles West and on and off freshman-junior year of college at Wake (more off than on, honestly). I was in the top 5 speakers at the TOC my senior year, but never attended a major tournament later in the year than October in college. Go into the debate comfortable that I can keep up with whatever happens technically, but that it's been quite a while since I've thought much about debate, so my understandings may be "outdated" or out of line with what have since become norms. Because I do not currently debate or do research, my knowledge of the topic (acronyms, community norms about the best t-interp, etc) is limited. You should assume I know no more than any educated person who reads the news.

Elsa Givan

College Preparatory School

Georgetown University

A few quick things:

- I was both a 2A and a 2N in high school. While I read mostly policy affs, I went for the kritik often on the neg, so I’m pretty flexible with argument choices.

- I will work hard to be as objective as possible and evaluate tech over truth unless told otherwise.

- Specificity and effort are rewarded in my book. If it’s clear you’ve done the research and have extensive knowledge of the topic, I will boost your points accordingly.

- Framing the debate is key – the 2NR and 2AR should aim to write my ballot.

- I’d prefer you read enough of your evidence to make a complete argument, so if you’re going to highlight two lines of a card and call it an internal link then it’s probably not worth reading at all. Evidence = claim and warrant (same goes for arguments).

- Please be clear - if you aren’t, I’ll yell it a few times but eventually I will give up. I’m a pretty expressive person so look up every now and then - if I’m obviously frustrated, you should change something.

- Debate is fun – act like it! Be nice and have a good sense of humor.

- Feel free to ask me questions before the debate if I haven’t covered something or you’d like clarification.

Paperless: Prep time ends when the flash drive leaves your computer. If your computer crashes, we’ll stop prep.

Topicality: Topicality needs to be substantively developed for me to vote on it. Please do not be incomprehensibly fast on T in the 2AC, because I will sympathize with the negative if there are missed arguments. Remember to impact your interpretation.

Theory: Theory must be well developed and impacted, like topicality. I am more sympathetic to some theory arguments than others. I never went for conditionality as a 2A and I have a high threshold for this argument – I will vote on it if you win it, but winning it requires substantial time investment in both the 1AR and the 2AR. Other theoretical objections such as international fiat, 50 state fiat, conditions/consult/process theory, etc. are much more persuasive to me.

Case: I really like a good case debate. The 2AC and 1AR need to be clear and warranted on case. I’d prefer if the negative collapsed an extensive case debate from the block into a few winnable arguments in the 2NR instead of going for everything.

Counterplans: I’m a huge fan of a case specific counterplan (especially PICs), so the more specific you get, the better your points/chances will be. Conversely, I’m not a huge fan of process/delay (and consult if it’s hypergeneric) counterplans because I don’t think they’re competitive. I will be persuaded by perm do the CP and theory arguments by the aff. That being said, I was definitely guilty of going for the commission CP and others like it in high school – it’s certainly winnable in front of me, but I’d rather see you go for something more specific.

Disadvantages: I am a strong believer in credible defense. If the aff can point out logical problems with the disad, I will reduce the risk substantially (even if it’s not a carded argument). There can be zero risk of a disad. Clear articulation of the link in the context of the aff is essential. I think that carded arguments about how the disad turns/solves the case are persuasive.

Kritiks: I went for security a lot in high school and I understand it pretty well (same with most other IR-based K’s). Anything beyond that is going to take a high level of explanation and work to get my ballot.

Framework is important and underutilized on both sides - if you can really just lay down a beating on the other team on the framework debate, it will get you so far on every other part of the flow.

For the aff – defend your 1AC! Know who your authors are. Have cards that defend the studies of your authors and the method they used. Know what method they used! Create evaluative mechanisms for how I should evaluate evidence in the policymaking sphere (i.e. default to empirics and studies) and then explain why your evidence meets those mechanisms. I definitely prefer an impact turn debate to a permutation debate, but do what you gotta do.

For the neg - link debate is very important, and contextualizing it within the context of the aff is even more crucial. Question the scholarship of their authors and press them on internal links and logical take-outs in cross-ex – I think the best way to get mileage on the K is to have credible defense against the aff because it proves their epistemology is fundamentally bankrupt.

Critical Affs: Please be very clear about what the role of the ballot is and how I should evaluate the debate. Also, I’m inclined to agree with Brian Manuel that you must defend something, even if you’re not defending the topic. Your position must be debatable. While I will vote on framework, I prefer a case turn debate, a PIC, or a K. Understandably, a specific strategy is not always possible when debating an aff that doesn’t defend the topic, and framework may sometimes be your best option.

University of Michigan 2015-2019

La Costa Canyon HS 2011-2015

Please add jgold717 at gmail dot com to the email chain.

I debated for 8 years and qualified to the NDT 3 times for Michigan. I was an assistant coach for various high schools while I was in college but I am no longer a debate coach, I just judge occasionally. I am currently in my third year of law school at the University of San Diego. Because I am no longer super heavily involved in debate I don't have very much topic knowledge; please err on the side of over-explaining things to me. In my experience judge philosophies are often a reflection of what someone wants you to think they think, not what they actually think, so I will try to keep this short, sweet, and honest.

Top level:

In general I have few preferences on which arguments you read in front of me. I always prefer judging slower debates with warranted presentation, quality evidence, and "truer" arguments than whatever the opposite of that is. I also prefer to see debaters doing what they do best rather than adapting to me. During my time as a debater I mostly read "traditional" policy arguments and thus am most comfortable evaluating these kinds of debates. But, I have read and coached basically every kind of argument that exists and try hard not to bring any predispositions with me.

A few things I would note that are pretty important to me regardless of what kind of argument you are reading:

(1) Impact calc and comparison

(2) Warranted explanations of your arguments as opposed to just tagline-level explanations

(3) Argument quality. I wouldn't consider myself "truth over tech" - I am perfectly willing to vote on "bad" arguments if they are warranted and won, and I am very flow-centric, but I would rather hear well-developed arguments with coherent internal links.

(4) Meta-level strategic interactions between arguments. I find this is increasingly true as decision times have gotten shorter in college debate. This is honestly not my preferred way to judge, as I would of course rather have time to fully consider each argument individually and in the context of the entire debate, but if I only have 20 minutes to determine who did the better debating, this is the most effective way I know how.

(5) Two "rules" - No "inserting this re-highlighting into the debate" - you have to read it (referencing in speech/cx/analytic is sufficient as well). I also will not vote on any arguments about things that occurred outside the debate.

Online debate: If my camera is off I am probably not at my computer so please don't start speaking. I would strongly prefer debaters also leave their cameras on while debate things are happening so I know everyone is present when needed.

Kritiks (neg): I am comfortable with most common kritik arguments, but if yours is particularly esoteric you may need to invest some time in explaining your theory to me. Specific links with embedded impacts/case turns are great. When I vote neg for kritiks it is often because the aff made an error on the framework debate and the neg was able to neutralize a lot of the aff's case offense.

Kritiks (aff)/planless affs: My personal preference is that the aff should defend a topical plan, but of course I try not to bring my biases with me. As with everything, focus on impact calc and comparison. I am perfectly willing to vote on procedural fairness as a prior question if the neg has a warranted explanation as to why I should, but it is not an automatic presumption that I'll always apply. I often vote for the team that explains why their offense has a higher level of explanatory power than their opponent's by explaining the role of the ballot, the judge, debate as a whole, etc. These debates are frequently hard for me to decide because both teams build up their own points of offense well but don't interact with their opponent's offense sufficiently. I urge you to LISTEN carefully to exactly what the other team is saying, flow, think critically about their arguments and how they interact with your own, and then respond. Don't be overly block reliant, and don't give "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" speeches. Focus on a central point of offense that gives me a story to tell in the RFD for why your offense is better than theirs.

Theory/CPs: Unlikely to vote on theory absent something fairly egregious. I think all theory arguments other than conditionality are probably reasons to reject the argument, not the team. I lean neg on conditionality with 1 or 2 conditional options, 3 is borderline, and at 4+ I lean aff (especially if they are contradictory). HOWEVER I do think theory can be VERY convincing against certain kinds of CPs (such as international fiat, delay, multi-actor fiat, some process cps for example) if explained as a reason to reject the argument in the 2ar. Judge kick by default, but persuadable the other way (I was a slow 2a, I get it).

Good luck!

I debated for three years at Strath Haven (PA). I don't debate in college, but I still judge and coach part-time. Please email me at mgyourko@gmail.com if you have any further questions. Also, please feel free to email me if I judged you. I usually take detailed notes on my laptop and am glad to share them with you.

I think my predispositions usually do not end up impacting my decision-making, so take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Do what you do best; I just want to hear a good debate. If you don’t have time to read through this whole thing, the bolded bullet points are what you really need to know:

• I make my decisions based off the flow. Regardless of your argumentative preferences, you will win the round if your arguments beat the other team’s on the flow. Be clear on the line-by-line, and do detailed impact calculus and comparison in the rebuttals. Explain your arguments fully and articulate what a ballot for your team means.
• I believe the affirmative should endorse a topical implementation of the resolution by the USFG, and the neg should respond to the 1AC. Framework is a strong strategy against teams that do not do this. That said, I have voted for affs that don't defend the state and negs that don't link to the 1AC, and this probably won't change any time soon. However, you should strongly consider striking me if your preference is to perform.
• Be clear, and don't spread theory/T. As long as you are somehow signaling when you change cards and actual words are coming out of your mouth, you can read cards as fast as you want. I recommend slowing down slightly on tags, and I implore you to slow down during theory and T.
• My kritikal knowledge base is poor. I have a baseline understanding of the most common kritiks, but the more obscure you get, the less likely I am to know what you're talking about. This is particularly true if you read at a million miles per hour or your K has lots of fancy words in it. This is OK, and I'd even dare to say that I like Ks. But it does mean that in the block you need to very clearly and slowly explain the thesis of your K, why it links to the aff, what the role of the ballot is, and why I should vote for you. 
• The rules of the tournament are not up for debate. One team will win, one team will lose, and speech/prep times are set. Prep doesn’t end until the flash is out of your computer.
• Don’t cheat. Please.

The rest of this is very disorganized. Here is a rambling list of some things I think you should do:

• Disclose your aff and past 2NRs before the round
• Flow the whole round
• Use the wiki to at least some extent
• Be respectful of your opponents, tournament staff, and the space in which you are debating
• Come up with smart, analytic takedowns of their stupid cards or arguments. Evidence is useless if it is misinterpreted or logically incoherent. I am a strong believer in an offense/defense paradigm, but I also believe that in some cases, analytic defensive takeouts can result in 0% risk of a disad/advantage. Moreover, you should go for presumption if the other team’s aff is really, really nonsensical and you’ve pointed that out throughout the debate.
• Not expect me to evaluate new arguments. You can (and should) expand on your previous arguments in the rebuttals, but entirely new arguments (claim-impact pairings) are no good. Also, as a heads up I was an angry 2N, so I really won’t be moved by new 2AR arguments.
• Keep overviews to under 30 seconds. An overview should explain your thesis and do some basic impact framing. You do not need to do it all there, however. Use the rest of the flow; it will make it easier for me to vote for you.
• Extend your interpretation/counter-interpretation when going for/defending against T. Unless their interp is terrible beyond a reasonable doubt, there is usually only risk of offense for the team that extended an interp. I don’t think it is possible to win a T debate on the aff without extending a counter-interp, unless you are 100% sure you meet their interp. Similarly on the neg, it’s not possible to win without extending an interp unless you are 100% sure they don’t meet their own interpretation.
• Make sure your T interps are actually interpretations/definitions. Not everything can be T evidence.
• Not read more than 2 conditional advocacies. My general guidelines: 0 or 1 = good, 2 = maybe, 3 = not good, 4+ = just don't.
• Use all of your CX time. You’re robbing your partner of prep if you don’t. I don’t care if you have to ask for your opponent’s opinion about the weather or Taylor Swift, just use the three minutes.
• Have a non-arbitrary role of the ballot. The community has seen a trend toward equating the question of “What should the role of the ballot be?” with “What is the most important issue that could be confronted in this round?”. While this sometimes works well, many times it does not. Ground your arguments about the role of the ballot in what it means for debate as an activity. Your RoB should be portable and applicable to any round.
• Be as technical and specific as possible. Our democracy is broken because our political discourse is composed of vacuous, vague assertions instead of the deliberation of directed policy questions. Debate is a great place to break from that.
• Not expect me to kick the CP for you unless explicitly told to.
• Remember that fiat is about what the USFG *should* do, not what it would do. Arguments like circumvention, rollback, or "Trump trumps" (apparently this is a thing!) are almost certainly illegitimate.

Debate History: I debated for Towson University & Binghamton University (4 years college).

First and foremost, I will not tell you how to engage in the debate. Whether it be policy or K affirmatives I'm open to debaters showcasing their research in any format they choose. However, I do prefer if debaters orient their affirmative construction towards the resolution. 

When evaluating a debate I tend to weigh the impacts of the affirmative to any disadvantage or impact the negative goes for in the 2NR. Therefore, if the affirmative does not extend case in the 2AR it becomes more difficult for me to evaluate the debate unless you tell me the specific argument I should be voting on otherwise. 

Next, is framework. I evaluate this before anything else in the debate. If you run framework in front of me go for decision making, policy research good, learning about X (insert topic related policy discussion i.e. warming, tech, economy, education, etc.) is good, clash or ground. I do not want to feel as though your framework is exclusionary to alternative debate formats but instead debate about its inherent benefits. 

I also really enjoy case debate. If you are on the negative please have case turns and case specific evidence so that the debate for me is a bit more specific and engaging. 

CP's and DA's are also arguments I evaluate but I need to have a good link for both or it will make it difficult for me to vote for them. 

Please focus more on explanation of evidence and not on the amount of evidence introduced in the debate. 

I tend to keep up on politics and critical literature so don't be afraid of running an argument in front of me. I will always ask for preferred pronouns and do not tolerate racism, white supremacy, anti-blackness, sexism, patriarchy, transphobia and xenophobia. 

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

UPDATE--1/2/24

Commencing old man ranting at clouds:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Addendum--10/15/17

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conor Hogan

La Salle College High School '15

University of Notre Dame '19

Debate Experience: Debated for four years in high school, qualified to the TOC and was in semis of the NDCA my senior year.

General:Read whatever you think you will be able to debate the best in the round. One of my least favorite things as a debater was when judges thought they were more important than the debaters, and said "spreading means you lose" or "I won't even listen to your k." Does this mean you should spew words to the point that I can't understand you and read morally reprehensible arguments? Of course not. It means read whatever arguments you want and Ill listen. I can flow speed and I'll yell clear if you aren't.

Aff: The aff should defend something, as in have some sort of plan or advocacy that the negative is able to clash with. I'm fine with affs that end in extinction and just as fine with affs that end in some sort of structural violence impact. No plan affs will be explained more below.

Neg: Debate the case. I love good and warranted out case debate. Attack their internal links and uniqueness arguments just as much, if not more, than you attack their impact scenarios. Most affirmative advantages are poorly constructed and can be easily picked apart with a bit of decent research and debating.

Topicality: I didn't go for T very much against policy affs, but this was more out of a lack of skill on my own part than a dislike for the argument. I think you clearly need to prove that they explode limits or skew your ground for debate to win the topicality debate. I hate T debates that get into case lists where each team is trying to prove their list includes two or three more/fewer affs than the other team's. Sit more on your internal links and give specific examples rather than trying to rattle off as many affs as you can.

Dis-ads: Yes obviously fine and good. The aff should attack all portions of the disadvantage, especially the internal link. Impact defense is obviously important, but there are usually weaker parts to the DA that can be exposed.

Counterplans: If you're going for a cp in the 2nr and the aff has solvency deficits, please don't tell me about how you get 100 percent risk of solving the case. Instead, explain how the affirmative's solvency deficits are outweighed by your disadvantage. I don't want to be sitting there after the debate trying to sort out how I should weigh two solvency deficits against some risk of a da. If you're going to read a cheating CP be prepared for the theory debate. The aff is 99 percent on the side of truth in these sorts of debates so be prepared to defend why stealing their ground was fair. I am most persuaded by actor cps, advantage cps, and PICs.

Kritiks: The K is also fine. I am much more familiar with Reps Ks or Neolib than I am with Lacan or Baudrillard. That being said I am familiar with almost every K in debate so just explain your argument and how it interacts with the affirmative. I have to be able to thoroughly explain to the affirmative why they lost if I am to vote negative on the K, so the work should be done in the 2nr.  Turns case analysis on the K makes the 2nr so much easier. Framework is usually a wash unless one team drops it, so give the 2nr as if you assume you're going to lose the framework debate (Hint: even if statements).

No Plan Affs and Framework: Anybody who debated me knows that I went for framework a lot against no plan affs, but I think that both sides can win this debate. For the aff, you need to play more defense to help you win. Having offense against the state and normative policy making is obviously necessary, but playing defense against dialogue or limits is just as valuable. I also think most no plan affs defend waaaay too much in terms of an interpretation of the topic. Saying "CI: Direction of the topic" just invites the neg to tee off on limits standards. Having an interpretation that is somehow grounded in your affirmative and how it relates to the topic means that you don't have to defend infinite affirmatives. I also do believe that the aff must have an interpretation so the negative can garner offense against the vision of debate the affirmative promotes, although a straight impact turn route in the 2ar can also be persuasive. For the neg, I am not going to be persuaded by your fairness standards generally. However, I am much more persuaded by using internal links like limits and dialogue to explain how the education you could have accessed in the debate was ruined by the affirmative. Use defense!! Make arguments like topical version of the aff and state redeemable. Allowing the aff to get away with hammering home that the state is irredemable is going to make the 2nr nearly impossible.

Have fun and e-mail me with any questions at chogan5@nd.edu! 

Hi. I debated at Glenbrook North HS in Northbrook for 4 years, 1.5 in policy and 2.5 in LD. I was the LD coach at Loyola Blakefield HS in Baltimore for 3 years followed by being the debate coach for Chicagoland Jewish HS in Deerfield, IL, New Trier HS in Winnetka/Northfield, IL, Bronx Science, Beacon HS in Manhattan, the director of debate at Mamaroneck HS in Mamaroneck, NY and currently the director of debate at South Shore International College Prep in Chicago. I've also worked at multiple debate camps and have been a private coach for multiple debaters. Trust me, I've seen it all.

Last updated 4/9/24. Changed some words and added my judge kick stance.

I'm fine being on email chains but I'm not posting my email publicly. Just ask before the round.

General stuff:

I will vote on any argument, in any weighing mechanism provided. I do not discriminate, I'm find with speed (though sometimes my flowing can be bad), fine with theory, fine with kritiks, whatever you want to do. It's your round, not mine have fun with it.

-Extensions are key! Every extension needs to have the word extend/pull through the flow/or similar wording attached to it. Then it needs to have a warrant for what is being extended, finally the extension needs an impact back to the weighing calculus. If that is the value/value criterion mechanism then it needs to impact back to the VC that is being used for the round. If that is some other mechanism, it needs to be impacted to that weighing mechanism (theory means voters I guess). That weighing mechanism and the warrants for the mechanism should be extended (In a v/vc model the vc should be extended along with the argument). If these things are not done then the arguments will not be evaluated in the same depth and I might not give you credit, or as much credit, for an argument that you may have clearly won on the flow. I guess in simpler terms I have a high threshold for extensions. Also, when extending please extend along with the warrant please compare your arguments to other arguments. The best extensions are not just argument extensions but have comparative weighing along with the arguments.

-Evidence is not inherently preferable for analytics absent some argument for why I should prefer that specific piece of evidence over a generic analytic. Debaters are smart and well researched on the topic (usually) and so should be able to have a command of what is going on equal to/greater than a lot of experts. Trust yourself and talk about why you are correct instead of some rando newspaper writer who has probably done less research than what goes into the typical 1AC.

- WEIGH! One of the things I'm almost always unsure of after a round is which argument to evaluate first. Do I look to the Disad, the spike, the contention 1? Most debate rounds involve multiple arguments that could "come first" and people telling me the order in which to evaluate arguments and which arguments are more important makes my life easier. It also means you'll be more likely to win because the argument that you're saying is most important/comes first is probably also the one that you're winning the most. WEIGH! Seriously WEIGH!

On Non-T affs:

You ought pretend to be topical. Topicality means different things to different people and I think that the topic and what topicality means can change in debate and in different debates. However, the aff should claim that they are talking about the topic. What the topic means to you and how it functions might be different than the "traditional" method and that's fine! How you make that claim or whether that claim is true can be (and should be!) contested in the round.

- Other thing: It has become very clear since 10/7/23 that settler-colonialism justifies mass atrocities. I will vote against it much as I vote against people who say or uphold racist/sexist/homophobic or other harmful ideologies.

- Feel free to come up to me at any tournament and ask me questions about anything, I can't guarantee you a great answer but I can guarantee that I will try to respond.

LD Paradigm:

Things I've noticed about my preferences for debate: (This is just a list of things I like, none of these are necessary to win a round but they do affect my judging)

- I tend to prefer debaters who debated similarly to how I debated. What does this mean? I debated in an old school national circuit LD style. On the aff that meant a very broad criterion with mutually exclusive contentions that I tried to kick out of as much as possible (usually at the end of the 2AR, I had one contention and maybe framework). On the neg, it meant a short NC, no more than 2 minutes, with extensive analytical responses to the aff. While it might not help you win the round, debate has changed a lot, it will help your speaker points.

- I like a 2AR that isn't on the flow. What does this mean? The 2AR should be more of a story speech that merely references the flow. A lot of weighing/crystallizing or time on voting issues.

-I like even/if stories. They tend to make the round clearer and make my life easier.

-LD debaters need to stop saying "we" when referring to themselves. You are a singular human being and not one half of a partnership. If you say "we" while referring to yourself you will lose 0.1 speaker points. I will also interrupt your speeches to ask "who is we?" Be prepared.

-I'm a leftist politically. Property rights arguments and other capitalist arguments are not particularly persuasive to me and I don't like hearing them. That doesn't mean I won't vote on them, it just means if you have something else it's probably a good idea to run it.

-I presume coinflip. That means if I can't find any offense or way to vote I will flip a coin to decide the round. I have done this quite a few times and never want to do it again but I'm not afraid to do it and if I think your round warrants it, a coinflip will happen. (That said the only times I've done it has been in rounds where there have been on offense by either side so as long as offense exists I will not flip a coin).

-I like philosophy, I am a philosophy major. That said I'm not good at flowing it, especially when spread at the beginning of the speech. So if you do read philosophy slow down a little bit so that I can catch your arguments.

-Going off that last point, my major is in continental philosophy; which means I take classes on all those critical authors you've wanted to use in rounds. Kritiks are wonderful! If you know what are you talking about, please run them in front of me. Ks do not need an alt, though it is preferable. Make sure to understand the interactions between your position and the position of what your opponent is running.

- Please start the AC/NC with I affirm/I negate. It doesn't take away from your word economy and it gives me a second to "catch up" and get used to your spreading/debating voice so that I don't miss your first argument. You don't need to re-state the resolution though, that's unnecessary.

-Something most debaters forget is that as a judge I do not look to see what you are reading while you are reading it. I don't read the cards on the email chain until after the round. Therefore, be more specific in signposting then off the Martin card 1..2..3 etc. Don't just say Martin, say what Martin said as well, because I might not have gotten the author name Martin but I got the argument they made. Also, be clear about where Martin is on the flow. If Martin is a contention 1 card, say that she is in contention 1. Virtual/Computer debate note: I do ask to be on the email chain but I don't read the cards on the chain until after the round so this still applies.

- Policy style arguments have started to come more and more into LD and people like running them in front of me. That's fine, I really like them. However, if you are running them you also take on policy-style burdens. For example, if you read a plan then you have to fulfill the 4 criteria of the HITS (if you don't know what that is, you shouldn't be running a plan. Also, considering the last person to lose on significance was Tom Durkin in the 1978 NDT, significance doesn't matter anymore). Most importantly, is that policy has a status quo whereas LD does not. That means that you need to orally give me the dates of evidence! If you're running a DA I need to know that the uniqueness is actually unique, if it's a plan that the inherency is actually inherent etc. Evidence without dates on it means that I won't give you credit for uniqueness or inherency claims that you need in the debate round. If your opponent points out that you didn't read those dates then I will give zero credit for any uniqueness/inherency claim and assume that your evidence is from 1784 and take away any offense that is based off of that plan/DA (I will also give said opponent at least a 29). So make sure to tell me those dates!

- I've recently read A LOT of social movement theory and have also been actively been involved in crafting strategy for a social movement. This has made me significantly more wary of most kritik alternatives. Kritik alts either make no sense, are not realistic, would never be adopted by wide ranging social movements, or are actively harmful to spreading social movements. It won't change how I vote, if the alt is won, but it does mean that common sense arguments against K alts will be considered more important. But if you look at my earlier stuff from Ks you'll see that I don't even think an alt needs to be read, so, you know, think about that risk.

- A priori/pre-standards arguments/other tricky-esque nibs. If you are losing everything else on the flow I need a reason to uniquely prefer your 3 sentences over the rest of the flow. If that does not happen I will find it very hard to vote for you over somebody else who is winning the rest of the round. Not that I won't evaluate the argument at all it will just be weighed against the rest of the round and if someone else is winning the rest of the round I will vote for the person winning the majority of the round. In simpler words if you go for an a priori, go for it hard. I'm not going to buy it simply because it is dropped.

- Metaethics. Basically, meta-ethics cannot be used as a "magic wand" to get out of framework debate. You still need to provide an ethic to meet your meta-ethic. Just saying my meta-ethical util comes before your ethical deont haha! is not enough. Language might be indeterminate but that doesn't mean we default to util (or deont) unless it's justified.

Since everybody asks me about how I evaluate theory here it is:

I don't mind theory, I will vote on it and I will vote on it in cases where I think no actual abuse has occurred or even times where the argument itself is patently non-abusive. But before you rush to pull out your three theory shells, I really don't like voting on it. Moreover, of all the decisions where people have argued with me after the round, 2/3 of them are because of theory. My paradigm seems to be different than other judges so I would say run theory at your risk. Now of course you're asking why is my paradigm different? Simple because I don't default to a monolithic competing interpretations framework, you don't need a counter-interp/RVI/etc. to win theory (though it is helpful and in a case of offense vs. no offense I'm going to default to offense). I'm not as technical on theory as other judges, simply saying my argument is not abusive, drop the argument not the debater, or even talking about reasonability will probably be enough to convince me to not vote on theory. In other words, I default to reasonability, though will be persuaded otherwise. Also, in a round between two equal theory debaters or even a round where both debaters have competent theory blocks, theory turns into a crapshoot (which, by the way, is most theory rounds) so while I will do my best to sort through it that doesn't mean my decision won't be somewhat random.

Also, I guess most LD judges don't evaluate theory this way so I should point this out. If you only go for theory in the NR/2NR or 2AR then the affirmative/negative does not need a RVI to win the theory debate because the only offense at the end of the round is on theory which means that I am merely evaluating who did the better theory debating and not worrying about substance at all. The RVI only comes into play if there is a contestation of substance AND theory at the end of the debate.

Policy Paradigm:

I will vote on any argument, in any weighing mechanism provided. My main philosophy is it's your round not mine so do what you want. I think a lot of how I judge policy is probably transferred from LD so look there for good stuff. One caveat to that, if there is something that seems very specific to LD (like saying "we" for example) do not bring that into a policy context.

Obviously I have some caveats for that:

First and foremost is that LD is most of what I've debated and coached. Though policy kids have this outdated version of what LD is, there is now every argument in policy in LD also with extra stuff too! I am fine with speed etc. Don't worry about that but I'm still a LDer at heart so be prepared. I've been mostly coaching policy since 2018 or so meaning that I've caught on to a lot more of the nuances of policy debate. At this point I coach more policy than LD so this is changing.

The other important take away is that social conventions of what you can and cannot do in LD and policy are slightly different. For example, RVIs in LD are not joke arguments but made in almost any theory round (though I don't like RVIs in policy). LD does not have the concept of overviews in the same way as policy and what is considered "line by line" is very different. I've been able to figure out most of these biases but occasionally I'll mess up. Just be aware.

I default to reasonability on T and theory issues.

I don't know why this has become a thing but apparently people don't say AND or NEXT after finishing cards in the 1AC or 1NC. You still need to do that so that I know when to flow.

I just learned what this term means but apparently I judge kick if that matters to you (and I think I'm understanding the term correctly)

Utilitarianism is moral philosophy that evaluates the morality of actions based on the consequences. This means that small scale/structural violence impacts are utilitarian because we care about the consequence of structural violence. Stop saying these arguments are not utilitarian or answering them as if they are not utilitarian. They are.

I feel the need to fix this huge communication issue in the debate community it will start with my judging philosophy. If you are a debater who say any of the following "Obama is president solves for racism" or "we are moving towards less racism cause of Obama or LBS" and the opposing team reading a racism arg/advantage or colorblindness I will instantly vote you down with 25 points for the debater who said it.

Jumping: Novice please don't but if you must which you all will you have 20 seconds after you call for prep to be stop till I consider it stealing prep and instead of restarting prep I will just measure it by the ticker timer in my head (which you do not want). I suggest that you carry a debate jump drive, viewing computer or the cloud system. For Open debaters I get even more angry with the lack of competence you guys have with being responsible when it comes to jumping files and card. I have a soft warmness for debaters who are mostly paper and may involve me smiling like a boy with a crush don't be alarmed it is just me remembering my old days.

Speaking: I believe that clarity comes before all other ideals of what we often fantasize a good speaker to be, a debater has to be clear so that I spend more time analyzing and processing what is said then trying to comprehend what the hell is being said. This helps in the rebuttals when there is more cross applying of arguments instead of me sitting there trying to ponder what argument reference is being made. Speed is something I can adjust to not my general forte yet if you are clear I can primarily make easier adjustments (look I sound like a damn metronome). I tend to give hints towards the wrongs and rights in the round so I won’t be put off if you stare at me every now and then. Debates should be a game of wit and word that upholds morals of dignity and respect do not be rude and or abrasive please respect me, the other team, your partner and of course yourself

The Flow: My hand writing is atrocious just incredibly horrible for others at least I generally flow tags, authors and major warrants in the world of traditional debate. Outside of that with all the other formats poetry, performance, rap, theatricals and so forth I just try to grasp the majority of the speech incorporating the main idea

The K: yeah I so love the K being from a UDL background and having running the K for a majority of my debate career, yet don't let that be the reason you run the K I believe that a great K debate consist of a in-depth link explanation as well as control of the clash. There should be Impact calculus that does more then tell me what the impact is but a justification for how it functionally shapes the round which draws me to have a complete understanding of the Alt versus the plan and there must be some idea of a solvency mechanism so that the k is just simply not a linear disad forcing me to rethink or reform in the status quo (K= reshape the Squo)

The T debate: First I find it extremely hard to remember in my entire debate career where I cast a ballot for topicality alone yet it is possible to get a T ballot you must have a clear abuse story I will not evaluate T if there is not a clear abuse story. Voters are my best friend and will become a prior if well explained and impacted, yet I do believe education and fairness have extreme value just want to know why.

The D/A: Well I actually find myself voting more on the Disad then the K I just think that the disad debate offers more tools for the neg then the K yet it is the debater who optimize these tools that gain my ballot, link debates should contain at least a specific link as well as a an established Brink generic links are not good enough to win a D/A ballot and any good aff team will destroy a a generic link unless there is some support through a link wall. Impact debates must be more than just nuke war kills all you have to place comparative value to the status quo now and after plan passage. Yet a disad is an easier win with the advantages of solvency deficits and the option of competitive counter plans.

The Counter Plan: Competition is key if there is no proof that the end result is not uniquely different from the aff plan it is less likely to capture my ballot. So C/P solvency and competition is where my voter lies on the C/P flow this involves establishing and controlling the clash on the net benefit. PIC's usually rely on proving that the theoretical value of competition is worth my jurisdiction.

Theory: cross apply T only thing with a theory debate that is different is you must be able to show in where the violation actually happens yet I find theory to be easy outs to traditional clash.

Framework: this is where my jurisdiction truly falls and it is the teams’ job to not only introduce the functioning framework but to uphold and defend that their framework is worth singing my ballot towards. I have no set idea of a framework coming into the round your job is to sell me to one and by any means my job is not to look at what framework sounds good but which is presented in a manner that avoids judges intervention (really just the team that prevents me from doing the bulk of the work if any).

In general: I love a good old debate round with tons of clash and where there is an understanding and display of your own intellect I find it hard to judge a round where there is just a display of how well a team can read and make reference to evidence, usually I hope that ends or is done less coming out of the 1AR. I'm a man who finds pleasure in the arts and execution of organic intellect and can better give my decision and opinion based mainly on how one relates back to competitive debate, if debate for you is a card game then it forces me to have to make decision based off my comprehension of the evidence and trust me that is never a good thing, yet a round where the discussion is what guides my ballot I can vote on who upholds the best discursive actions.

Joshua F. Johnwell (he/him/they/them/queer/josh/whatever you want)

NYU Policy Alumni (2016-2020)
Houston, TX / Nat HS Circuit (4 Years) @ Dawson HS
GDI (Gonzaga) Alum - 4WK, 5WK Scholars, 2WK

Email questions to debatejosh@gmail.com
or just ask before round, preferably. oh & YAS, EMAIL CHAIN ME

Current Affiliations: NYU
Past Affiliations: BL Debate (2020-2021), Success Academy HS (2019-2020), Dawson HS (2012-2016)

I was a policy debater in high school (Glenbrook North) and college (Georgetown) in the 1980s, which means I debated in an era where debaters didn't get to pick judges who they knew agreed with their arguments before the round started.

I have been on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues for the last decade and I have been actively coaching and judging these past four seasons.

I'm a strict tabula rasa judge. Yes, I have my own viewpoints, but I leave them in the hallway and I have voted for and against every type of argument. I'm fine with well-articulated speed. Take CX and the obligation to be polite seriously, because not doing so will affect your points, but please make sure to have fun. Also, please include me on the email chain and include analytics.

Experience: High school LD, PF, Policy judge since 2006; LD, PF, Policy coach since 2008

Pronouns: he, him, his

Updated 11/12/2018: Add me to the chain: jimk907@gmail.com

Generally:

I can handle speed to a point but how well depends on your clarity as a speaker. Please make tags and cites clear. I never flow CX but I will pay attention. Tag team CX is okay. Be 'professional' and polite at all times, especially with me. I enjoy interesting and new kinds of arguments and like a good theory debate. Kritiks on both sides are okay as long as they are clearly explained. I am not always familiar with 'less common' critical literature so make it clear. The implications need to justify the K and the alternative, especially if the alt is simply, "reject the opponent's case" . CPs should be competitive. Topical CPs can be acceptable but I tend to look unfavorably on PICs. I will vote for severance or intrinsicness violations. I flow on paper so signpost and don't bury me.

Debate is a game. Follow the rules and remember, someone will win and someone will lose. Don't take it personally.

LD:

I will expect a value/criterion framework and will tend to weigh the value clash but am open to alternative frameworks if you can justify it. If you give KVI, save them for the end or clearly enumerate them in your speech.

Policy:

I am not a fan of T but you can win it if you give me good reason to vote for it and not just read a shell. If you run a CP I expect to flow the NB separately. If you kick any argument, please do so properly so it is clear what you are doing.

Background (updated 9/29/23)

General - I graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 with majors in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Math/Stats and a minor in Africana Studies. I am currently a student at the Tuck School of Business and in a combined MD-MBA program with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth (class of 2025)

Competitive - 5 years of circuit policy (2009-2014) at Centennial High School (as a part of Capitol Debate, yes they used to do policy mainly believe it or not) being coached by Daryl Burch. 2014 TOC Champion in policy. I debated 4 years of American parliamentary (APDA) and British parliamentary (BP) at Johns Hopkins University (2014-2018).

Coaching - I have not been in any coaching capacity since the start of the 2020-2021 school year (med school will do that to you). I've judged 1 tournament a year for the past 3 years (2020-2023) and have not worked at a summer camp since 2014.

Philosophy (updated 9/29/23)

If there is a chain I want to be on it - mkoo7000@gmail.com

I do NOT open speech docs until the debate ends, speaking clearly is key and if I can't understand you, I will just discount the arguments rather than opening the speech doc.

I have very little clue what the topic is, please assume I don't know common acronyms/terminology related to the topic.

In 90% of rounds, I submit my ballot within 3 minutes of the final speech ending. Here are the major implications:

- Clarity (in speaking, organization, and explanation) is my first priority. The main reason I've realized I submit my decisions quickly is not because the round is lopsided/underwhelming in quality, but because of the degree to which I value communication during the round. The team who communicated their story into my head while I am listening to their speech usually prevails over the team who may have had a warrant that I barely flowed while struggling to keep up with their communication. I will be actively deciding who is currently winning and exactly what I think the other team has to do to undermine that as the round goes on, thus leaving most questions answered in my head as the final speech ends. I concede that there is potential for error in my approach, but I figured that I would rather reward the more persuasive team rather than digging through and examining each and every technicality.

- My substantive preferences are very fluid. I have debated and judged almost every type of substantive arguments at the highest levels of high school competition so my real preference is to do what you think you do best. But as nobody is truly a blank slate, I have some explicit preferences and substantive decision-making quirks clarified below for both LD and policy.

- Cards are only read when their quality/warranting are explicitly contested. The corollary to this is that warranting explained during the speeches will always trump the existence of a card that may answer those warrants in my decision-making process.

- I put a heavier emphasis onto the final rebuttals in my decision-making process.

I am a STICKLER for timeliness during rounds

- Efficient and proactive conduct in evidence exchange and round preparation/conduct will be rewarded with speaker points.

- Flight 2 - I expect the first speech to be sent and ready to spoken, immediately after my RFD from flight 1 ends. I encourage/expect you to set up in the room as soon as the final speech ends (or even before in between speeches) and will not perceive the disturbance as rude.

- For LD especially - specifying which parts of speech docs your opponents did/didn't read requires prep time and is NOT a courtesy I am willing to allow during dead time. Please do not flow off the speech doc and flow the speech proper. However I will be sympathetic to clarifications after unclear speeches.

General Substantive Preferences (all formats)

- Impact comparison/explanation/tangibility is the first thing I sort through when making an RFD.

- Tech>truth - protection must be WARRANTED or probably won't be evaluated.

- If the best arguments are deployed on both sides, I lean neg (55-45) on whether a K aff gets a perm - the best arguments are usually nowhere close to being deployed.

- If you're going to go for the K, you better talk about the case and explain the implications for winning framework in the 2NR.

- I consider framework and the alternative to be 2 sides of the same coin. I think either can make up for a weakness in the other.

- Solvency advocates for CPs will make me neg leaning on theory/competition. If the solvency advocate is in the context of the aff, it will make it very hard to persuade me that the CP is theoretically illegitimate as I think the value of research/education incentivized by these kinds of CPs vastly outweigh any fairness concerns.

- For policy, very neg leaning on conditionality (up to 2), barely aff leaning on 50-state, international, and object fiat, really don't care about anything else.

LD specific preferences

- Please disclose immediately when requested if the pairing is out, EVEN if you are in flight 2. I think pre-round disclosure is educational and think the "30-minutes before the round" standard is arbitrary and silly. Getting me to vote on this is highly unlikely (more on this below) but I will happily reward/punish teams who point out this happened with speaker points (+0.2/-0.2 respectively).

- I am not a fan of theory/tricks/phil arguments. This is primarily due to the incomprehensible speed/clarity at which these arguments are usually deployed. I do not open the speech doc while flowing and will not refer to it to flow warrants I missed. I also find reasonability to be an extremely persuasive argument for most theory/tricks arguments (don't disclose cites, you wore shoes, etc). Arguments this does not apply to are theory arguments common in policy (conditionality bad, aff didn't disclose at ALL, 50-state fiat, PICs bad, international fiat, etc).

- I think the existence of a time skew biased in favor of the neg to be a persuasive argument in LD (take advantage of this in theory debates!!). Due to this, I find myself being more lenient to the 1AR/2AR in terms of tech (ie, not being super strict on dropped args, focusing more on the story than minute tech details). In high level debates, aff teams NEED to collapse in the 2AR to be able to win.

- Conditionality bad much more persuasive to me in LD comparatively to how I view it in policy. 2 or less in policy and 1 or less in LD are usually easily defensible to me.

Ethics/Procedural Challenges
- If you believe the other team is guilty of an ethics violation and I am notified, the debate will end there and I will determine if you are correct. If I notice an ethics violation, I will not stop the round but decide the round based on it after it ends if I believe it was sufficiently egregious. If there is an easy way for me to access speech docs, I will follow along at random moments during the debate.
- Card clipping/cross reading – Any form of misrepresenting the amount of evidence you have read is considered card clipping. It is your opponents’ burden to ask for a marked copy of your speech but it is yours to make sure that is ready IMMEDIATELY. This means if you forget to physically mark during a speech, you better have a crystal clear memory because you will lose if you mis-mark evidence. Audibly marking during a speech is acceptable as long as you explicitly say the words “mark it at ‘x’”. Intention does not matter. I understand if you were ignorant or didn’t mean to but you should have to take the loss to make sure you are MUCH MORE careful in future. Video or audio recordings are a necessity if you want to pose a challenge about card clipping. Anything that is 3 words or less (no more than twice a speech) I am willing to grant as a minor mistake and will drop the accusing team for being petty. Double highlighting is not card clipping, just make sure your opponents know which color you are reading, a simple clarification question can resolve this.
- Evidence fabrication – it is hard to prove this distinctively from evidence that cannot be accessed – if a team is caught fabricating (making it up) evidence they will lose.

Problematic not an ethics violation (these can be persuasive arguments to win my ballot)
- Evidence that cannot be accessed – this is necessary for teams to be able to successfully refute your research. If this is proved, I will ignore the evidence and treat arguments related to it as merely claims in my decisionmaking
- Out of context cards – this will seriously hurt your ethos and your opponents will probably definitively win their competing claim
- Misdisclosure – the only reason why this isn’t above is because there is almost no falsifiable method to prove that a disclosure wasn’t honest – this is probably the most serious of this category and can garner you major leeway in my decision making if you can successfully prove how it has impacted your ability to debate this round.
- If I catch you stealing prep (talking during dead time to your partner about the round, messing around on your computer, etc), I will dock half of your remaining prep time

Long ramble (this is the first draft of my judge policy I wrote when I was a young first year out that I just didn't want to delete because it's fun to keep. Only read this if you're bored or have too much time on your hands, a lot of it is probably outdated)

- The most influential aspect of determining how to pref a relatively new judge was seeing how they debated, talk to people who’ve judged/watched me (if they still remember)before to see what I rolled with in debates.
- I always enjoyed/found much more helpful the longer/thorough judge philosophies so be prepared to read a lot of my thoughts/rants that are coming
- Daryl Burch (coach) is the single biggest influential figure in my development as a debater. Srinidhi Muppalla (partner for 2 years) would probably come second. Go look at their philosophies.
- I was a 2A for 3 years and then a 2N for my senior year – I have read affirmatives all over the spectrum (complete performance, 10 impact policy affs, k affs that defended a plan) – and went for whatever on the neg (at one point my senior year, some team asked me past 2NR’s and I answered: T-economic engagement, give back the land K, black feminism K, asian counteradvocacy, warming good + geoenginnering CP, mexico politics DA, process CP, dedev, afropessimism K, warming good + politics DA, warming good + politics DA, framework)

Top Level Thoughts
- I see debate as an intellectual forum where individuals come to advocate for some course of action – the type of action desired is for the debaters to choose and discuss and for me to evaluate whether it’s a good or bad idea – note, this means you MUST defend SOMETHING (even if it’s nothing)
- Ethos is underrated – most judges know which why they will decide right after the round ends and spend the time after justifying and double checking his/her choice. Your persuasive appeal in every way you conduct yourself throughout the round is a massive factor in this. Know what you’re talking about, but more importantly, sound like you know what you’re talking about and show that you EXPECT to win.
- Speak clearly – if you can’t you should be doing a LOT of drills (trust me I was there too) – Judges who didn’t let me know they couldn’t understand me assuming that was my burden annoyed me to no end – I will be very explicit in letting you know if I can’t understand you – after the second time I call clear, I will not evaluate any cards/arguments I call clear on afterwards – I'll flow the next of your cards if I can understand them, this would be strategic as then the other team is responsible for answering them
- Speed = arguments I THINK the other team is responsible for answering – if it’s not on my flow then it’s not an argument so do your best to make sure it gets there
- I am awful at keeping a straight face while judging – use this to your advantage
- Set in stone – speech times, only one team will win – everything else is up for debate
- An argument is a claim and a warrant – dropped claims are NOT dropped arguments – dropped ARGUMENTS are true and you should avoid dropping ARGUMENTS – my understanding of rejoinder is that claims can sufficiently be answered by claims
- Conceding an opponent’s argument makes it the truest argument in the round – use this to your advantage
- I don’t protect the 2NR unless explicitly asked to – specific brightlines and warranted calls for protections (anytime) will be zealously adhered to
- Being aggressive = good. Being aggressive and wrong = bad. Being mean = worst. Debate should strive to be a safe space. There is a fine line between a politics of discomfort (which can be productive) and being violent toward another individual. This fine line is up to subjective determination by a “know it when I see it” test.
- I do believe that arguments about a debater’s actions/choices outside of the current round do have a place in some forms of debate. My biggest problem is that most of these arguments are non falsifiable and really impossible to prove. I think that it is important to be genuine but do know that debate is also a strategic game where strategy can conflict with genuine advocacy. Once again I’ll employ a subjective “know it when I see it test” and will update my thoughts on this issue as I judge more debates.
- I think all debaters should play an proactive role in doing their own prefs as soon as possible – it is quite the rewarding learning experience that helps you learn your judges
- Cards can undisputedly settle factual questions – analysis (including analysis about cards) settles everything else
- I will only call for a piece of evidence if there is an explicit cite referenced during the explanation of the argument – If I am asking questions like “Can you give me the piece of evidence you think says ‘x’,” then I am either doing annoyed or the debate is way too close for me not to double check.
- Debate's a technical game - do line by line and answer arguments - don't be surprised if I make decisions that seem debatable based upon technical concessions
- Assuming all positions are well prepared and executed close to as well as possible this would probably be my favorite to least favorite 2NR's - DA + case, DA + CP, advantage CP + DA, topic K, any strat with generic impact turns, any strat with politics, any strat with a process CP, generic K, topicality
- Cheap shots will only be voting issues if you give me no other option - what I mean about this is you better go HARD or go home, anything under 1 minute of explanation/warrants/asking for protection will probably be dismissed as a rule of thumb - cheap shots are not good arguments that were dropped, those don't apply to this section, but argument that are sufficiently stupid that they can only be won because they were dropped
- I'm super lenient on paperless rules - as long as you don't take forever and I don't catch you stealing prep you'll be fine - if your computer crashes mid speech just let me know

Framework
- I honestly feel like this section determines a lot about how people pref judges these days
- I will start off by saying that I am a firm believer in ideological reflexivity – people go a long way in trying to understand each other’s arguments and even embrace them instead of crying exclusion/trying to exclude.
- But yes, if you win the tech battle I will vote for framework
- Flipping neg greatly hurts your ability to go for ANY arguments based upon procedural fairness
- Real world examples from the debate community go a long way in proving points in these types of debates – use them to your advantage
- I think debate is most educational when it is about the topic – however I think there are multiple ways to defend the topic
- Arguments about procedural fairness are the most strategic/true in my opinion – however impacting them with just fairness is unpersuasive and you should couch your impacts upon the education (or lack of) from debates with little clash
- It is worth noting that I have stopped running procedural based framework arguments by the end of my senior year – however this was mainly due to the fact that I was very bad at going for framework and instead found much more strategic to engage affirmatives on the substance of their arguments (because I had a genius coach who was very good at thinking of ways to do that)
- If an aff defends a plan I will be EXTREMELY unpersuaded by framework arguments that say the aff can only garner advantages off the instrumental affirmation of the plan

Non-Traditional
- If you know me at all you should know that I am completely fine with these
- CX makes or breaks these debates – yes I do believe that you can garner links/DA’s off of things you say and the way you defend your advocacy even if your evidence says something else
- Always and forever I will prefer that you substantive engage your opponent’s advocacy, you’ll get higher points and the debate will be more educational, fun, and rewarding – however I do understand when there are cases you need to run framework and shiftiness in the way an advocacy is defended can be persuasive to me
- Watch out for contradictions – not only can it make a persuasive theory/substantive argument but I find it devastating when the aff team can concede portions of neg arguments they don’t link to and use it as offense for the other neg arguments
- The permutation is a tricky subject in these debates – I do believe that if the best arguments are made by both sides the negative will probably win that the aff team should not be able to garner a permutation – arguments couched upon opportunity cost and neg ground are the neg pushes I find most persuasive – however the aff arguments I always found persuasive are the substantive benefits that a strategy involving the permutation can accomplish
- Aff teams should have a clear non-arbitrary role of the ballot – these questions can go a long way in framing the debate for both sides
- Evidence can come in many forms whether it be music, personal narratives, poetry, academics, etc – all of it is equally as legit on face so you should not disregard it
- I need to be able to understand your argument – I always had a weakness for understanding high theory based arguments so if that is your mojo just know how to defend it clearly – most rounds you will know your argument the best so you’ll sound good and I’ll know it better than the other team so you should still be fine with running these and picking up my ballot
- Alternative styles of debate is not an excuse for actually debating, do line-by-line, have organized speeches, and answer arguments, I am very flow oriented when judging any type of debate, even if the general thesis of your argument may be superior and all-encompassing, YOU need to be the one to draw connections and explain why the other team's technicalities don't matter

Aff/Case Debate
- Add ons are HELLA underrate - PLEASE utilize them
- 2AC’s and 1AR’s get away with blippy arguments, punish them in the block for them
- K affs with a plan in my opinion were some of the most strategic and fun affs to utilize
- If the neg has an internal link takeout but didn’t answer the terminal impact, that does NOT mean you dropped an impact, logical internal link takeouts can single handidly undermine advantages even without evidence
- Make sure your advantages are reverse casual, many affirmatives fail at this and negative teams should expoit that
- Super specific internal links that get to weird places were always intriguing and show you are a good researcher, they make me happy

Kritik
- Contrary to popular belief, I only went for the K v. a traditional policy aff three times my senior year. I lost 1/3 of those rounds but never lost a round when the 2NR involved a CP/DA/impact turn. Take that how you will

- Explaining a tangible external impact (not only just turns case args, although those are also necessary) is key to winning on the neg, most teams don't do this
- As a debater I’ve always had trouble conceptualizing high theory criticisms, maybe I’m just illiterate but I will have trouble voting for something I can’t explain in my own words
- Don't drop the aff, 90% of K 2NR's that don't directly disprove the aff in some way will probably lose.
- Permutations are pretty strategic, phrase perms as link defense to some of the more totalizing k impacts and defend the speaking of the aff and you should be fine
- Framework and the alt are usually 2 sides of the same coin, please please impact what winning framework means
- I am most familiar with kritiks based in critical race theory, mainstream k’s (neolib, security, cap, etc.) I can also easily understand
- Death good is not a strategic (or true) K in my opinion at all, however there is a BIG difference between death good and fear of death bad

Topicality
- Probably more a fan of competing interpretations
- Reasonability is a reason why the aff could win without offense – It means that the aff is topical to the point that topicality debates should not be preferred over the substantive debate and education that could’ve been had by debating the aff
- Big fan of reject the argument not the team
- I think the T-it's debate on the topic this year is very interesting and could go both ways based on evidence/execution on both sides
- more persuaded by T-miiltary means structures not actions
- effects T is underrated on this topic - try and directly increase exploration/development not some regulation or be prepared to defend that regulation as exploration/development

Disadvantages
- I’m on team link determines the direction of uniqueness
- Politics theory arguments are meh in front of me, I personally never went for them, I just found substantive arguments more strategic
- Short contrived DA’s are strategic but ONLY because aff teams don’t call them out for their bad internal links and only read terminal impact defense to them – fix that and they should go away
- I always loved good impact turn debates, warming good, de-dev, anything
- Turns case arguments are awesome – use them to your advantage and don’t drop them

Counterplans/CP Theory
- Big fan of advantage CP’s – plank them all you want (but kicking planks is probably abusive because every permutation of the diff planks are now another conditional option)
- Solvency advocates go a long way in helping you with theory – I firmly believe that they are good for debate
- I’m an agnostic on the theory of CP’s that compete off of immediacy and certainty
- Agnostic about almost every theory question, more persuaded by the aff on 50 state fiat, international fiat, and object fiat
- Interpretations are good – you should always have one (even if its self serving)
- In my last 3 years of debate, I have NEVER been on a team that went for conditionality for 5 minutes in the 2AR, 2 or less conditional options will be an uphill battle for the aff

Speaker Points
Points are based on two things: content and style. Content is simple, the more your argumentation helps you win a ballot, the better your points. Content includes things like warrant explanation, strategic execution, and strategic vision. Style is as important if not moreso than content. These are all the intangible parts of your debating that garner my respect. This would include organization (very very very VERY important), presence, clarity in delivery, and respect for the activity and your opponents. I also have a horrible sense of humor, by that I mean anything that isn't violently offensive is ok under my book and I'll probably find it funny (this includes awful jokes and bad puns) - take advantage of that

I will shamelessly admit that I was that debater who obsessed over points because I liked to calculate things/wanted to know where in the bracket I was. Ask me afterwards and I’d probably tell you what I gave you

Random bonus like things that would boost your points –
- Successful and badass risks (impact turn an aff for 8 minutes, kicking the case, all-in’s on strategic blunders, etc)
- Making fun of my friends (It has to be funny)
- Make fun of Simon Park or Gabe (It doesn't have to be funny)
- Memes, pokemon references, mainstream anime references, etc
- Leftover speech/prep time (although if you deliver poorly that shows false arrogance which will hurt you more)

3 Years Highschool PFD Debate

3 Years College Policy Debate

(Policy)

1. I'm fine with speed. Obviously if you're forcing it and sound off and you dont see me flowing then you need to slow down (which you and your partner should be observing anyway).

2. You will benefit greatly by slowing down on tag lines and reading plans, and flipping between flows.

(PFD + Policy)

I'm really big on the technical side of debate. That means clearly outlining and discussing the:

1. Impact Calculus

-Timeframe
-Magnitude
-Probability
-How your impacts relate to your opponent's impacts
-How these impacts actually happen, the full story behind them, paint a picture. ELI5

2. Links

-They do X so they link, is not a link.

-I weight links pretty heavily in arguments so I prefer when debates spend time to contextualize the links within the story of the debate

3. Uniqueness

-Usually not an issue but i've been surprised before, often gets assumed

4. Internal Link

-Im very skeptical of you just arriving at extinction. I mainly ran policy arguments so I know how ridiculously easy it is to just fit in 16 extinction scenarios in your constructed speech but I need to see that internal link debate fleshed out.

5. Open to any kritiks/performance but the above bullets apply even more so. I do not like when teams brush over the technical side of debate just because they arent running nuclear war. Arguments are still arguments and logic is still logic.

6. Framework - I lean towards debate being a game. That being said, there are obviously millions of ways to debate within that framework.

Anything else just ask.

Kurtis Lee

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.

David Levin (he/him/his)

Head Coach for St. Luke's School, New Canaan, CT

Email Chain: levind@stlukesct.org

All Formats

be decent to one another (this includes your partner). don't use oppressive rhetoric. put me on the email chain.

Paradigms for PF, PD, and LD below.

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Public Forum

>100 rounds judged in 2022-23. run what you want. cut cards. i'm a good judge for Kritiks. i'm a pretty good judge for theory. this format has so much potential for innovation - don't be afraid to try something different/new.

Note for February 2024 Topic:

Due to the wording of this resolution, the topicality debate could (and probably should) be a comically messy nightmare on both sides... Personally, I can't wait to judge these debates!

I've found that T in PF plays out a little differently than in policy, but I do believe that T should probably be run off-case with an interpretation, violation, standards and voters. If T will be in your final focus, it should take at least 90 of your 120 seconds - remember that it's a procedural argument, so by nature it's a prerequisite to the case debate. A sharp, technical T debate with good warranting will earn high speaks and high praise.

General:

"Progressive debate" debate doesn't mean much to me. I love to evaluate kritik and framework debates. I like evaluating purposeful T and theory rounds (I'd especially like to see more fiat debates). I also like judging a good salt-of-the-earth "normal" round. I don't enjoy evaluating what you might call "tricks", but I'll judge them fairly. I'm not here to tell you what you can't run (outside of oppressive/exclusionary arguments). It's good to interrogate the normative expectations of PF debate, and to have discussions of what forms of exclusion undergird debate, and specifically this format, to begin with. I like this article from Stefan Bauschard a lot.

Housekeeping:

Please pre-flow and create the email chain before the round. Include me on the email chain. Make sure your opponents and I get the card doc (if applicable) prior to starting your speech. Card docs should cut full paragraphs, and include highlighting (see "Evidence"). If you have a shell (T, theory, etc), please send it in the card doc. Let's work together to trim down the time spent on evidence exchanges.

DO NOT send a "locked" document to me or your opponents. This is a competitive equity AND academic integrity concern.

Sit or stand for your speeches. Share the tabletote if only one team has one. No preference for room setup, however, if there is a rocking chair in the room, I reserve claim to it.

Speaking:

Speed/spreading is fine with some exceptions. Arguments presented in shell form (T, theory, etc) should be read more deliberately than case, otherwise I may miss an important warrant. Critical cases don't need to be read slower, but they often benefit from it.

If you have an auditory processing concern, please address it with your opponents rather than me whenever possible. If someone comes to you with an auditory processing concern, accommodate them. Be good to each other.

How I flow:

I flow digitally, and divide my flow by contentions. For contentions with multiple subpoints, just make sure you sign post. I flow warrants and read card docs during crossfire and prep, so don't just extend your author/tag.

I don't judge-extend or judge-kick whenever possible (maybe once in a while in a novice round).

I flow overviews at the top of the first contention. I'd rather flow weighing on the contentions individually, rather than en-masse at the bottom of the speech.

How I evaluate:

A-priori arguments are, as the name implies, evaluated first. Absent an a-priori debate, I go to framing.

Framing should be complementary to your impact/weighing. If framing is not argued, or if both teams drop framing, I default to utilitarianism. Once the framework debate is resolved (if there is one), I move to the contentions.

I like comparative link weighing a lot. Speculative impacts require a bit more work on uniqueness than empiric impacts. I think the status quo can be an impact in itself.

If neither team is able to garner offense, presumption defaults to the side of the resolution which most resembles the status quo. Presumption can be flipped if the status quo is the impact.

Crossfire is binding.

Speaker Points:

My debaters tell me I'm stingy with speaks - I average around a 28.7 for varsity rounds. For a well-executed technical debate, expect something in the 28.8-29.4 realm. Above a 29.5 is reserved for performances that "stick to the ribs", demonstrating both technical mastery and rhetorical salience. Remember that debate is largely a practice in storytelling.

Specific Arguments

Topical "normative" Cases:

Truth is determined by the flow, and I don't judge-extend or kick arguments. Otherwise, do what you do. Turns rock.

Topical "critical" Cases:

Win your framework and role of the ballot. "Role of the judge" feels redundant, but if you make a distinction between my role and my ballot's role, I'll listen.

Again, links and solvency usually the most vulnerable components of the case. K solvency shouldn't be restricted to discourse - but what does the fiat-ed adoption of the critical worldview look like?

Textual alts that suggest specific actions get a little too close to plans/counterplans for comfort - instead, "vote [your side] to endorse/reject [something]", then go win the link.

These rounds are where I can offer my most helpful feedback, whether you're running a K or debating against one.

Non-topical criticisms:

Win your framework. Explain why the criticism is a prerequisite to topical debate, answer the TVA/TVN, and the perm.

Remember that I default presume to the side of the ballot closest to the status quo, whether you're reading a Non-T K or debating against one.

Presumption can be flipped either way. If you do a performance or narrative of some sort, implicate that stylistic choice.

"Off-case" Criticisms:

I'm not quite as fond of these for time constraint reasons (they often result in messy back-halves), so if you read one, do so in 2nd constructive or first rebuttal.

If you're critiquing a specific problematic discourse your opponent advances, consider running it as a short theory shell instead (example: I don't need you to spend 120 seconds dissecting gendered structures of power to claim misgendering is bad - it's pretty straightforward).

Topicality:

I prefer T be read in shell form with an interpretation, violation, standards and voter(s).

I believe that fairness is an internal link to various more objective impacts, rather than an impact itself. If you go for "drop the team" on T, it should be the whole FF.

T against kritiks should center standards for why I should hold the line for the resolution.

Theory:

Strong theory debates should focus on defining best practices for the activity.

"Theory bad" arguments are inherently theory arguments themselves and I'll evaluate them the same way I evaluate other forms of theory.

I prefer competing interpretations, but if the theory is clearly infinitely regressive or needlessly punitive, my threshold for reasonability lowers. This is especially true for theory "tricks".

Disclosure is good; Open-source disclosure is the gold standard; from my experience and observation, disclosure serves to benefit small programs and under-resourced programs; community minimums for disclosure are debatable. Paraphrasing, rather than reading actual evidence, is unethical.

Evidence:

Cut cards are and ethical standard for debate and non-negotiable at the varsity circuit level. Paraphrasing is not an automatic loss, but I will have no basis to trust your analytics absent you producing a marked copy of your evidence.

I have a low threshold for voting for paraphrasing theory against you, absent a performative contradiction from the other team.

Novices should learn to cut cards, but for them this a goal, not an expectation.

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Policy:

I'm a little rusty, but regularly judged policy between 2016 and 2020. K v. K and K v. FW/T rounds were my favorites.

Hello again! It's been a minute! If you have me in a policy round, my most important request is that you help me flow you. I can normally follow at decently quick speeds, but if I "clear" you, it's a request for you to help me catch what you're saying. Sign posting is important and please please read tags and shells more slowly than your internals.

I debated policy in HS and coached/judged for a few years before moving to more PF. That said, policy directly informed the way I coach and evaluate PF. I don't have particularly strong opinions about most arguments, so run what you're good at running. I understand that this is quite vague, so if you're unsure how you'll pref me, or what to run in front of me, just ask.

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Lincoln-Douglas:

Run what you want, but understand that I don't know the norms as well here.

You can likely infer my judging style from the PF and Policy sections above. Any questions, just send an email.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Yes, include me on the email chain. zhaneclloyd@gmail.com

Brooklyn Tech: 2011 - 2012 (those three novice UDL tournaments apparently count), 2017 - 2021 (coach)
NYU: 2014 - 2018
The New School: 2018-2020 (coach)

***I used to keep my video off for rounds, but I've since learned that it's a mistake for the morale of the debater as well as for confirming whether or not I'm actually in the room. If my camera is off, I am not in the room. Please do not start speaking***

I currently work a full-time job that has nothing to do with debate. I still judge because that full-time job does not pay enough (does any job nowadays?) and I've built community with people that are still very active in debate, so seeing them is nice. It is also means I'm VERY out of touch with what the new norms in debate are. But everything below still applies for the most part.

In case you're pressed for time

1. Do you. Have fun. Don't drop an important argument.

2. If there is an impact in the 2NR/2AR, there's a high chance you've won the debate in front of me. I like going for the easy way out and impacts give me the opportunity to do that. Impact comparisons are good too. NEG - LINKS to those impacts matter. AFF - how you SOLVE those impacts matter. Outside of that context, I'm not sure how I should evaluate.

3. I flow on paper, so please don't be upset if I miss arguments because you're slurring your words or making 17 arguments/minute.

4. Don't assume I know the acronyms or theories you're talking about, even if I do. This is a persuasion activity, so no shortcuts to persuading me.

5. Obviously, I have biases, but I try not to let those biases influence how I decide a round. Usually, if debaters can't accomplish #2, then I'll be forced to. I prefer to go with the flow though.

6. If at the end of the round, you find yourself wanting to ask my opinion on an argument that you thought was a round winner, know that I have one of two answers: I didn't consider it or I didn't hear it. Usually, it's the latter. So try not to make 5 arguments in 20 seconds.

7. There's no such thing as a "good" time to run 5+ off, but I'll especially be annoyed if it's the first or last round of the day. 10+ off guarantees I will not flow and may even stop the round. I'm not the judge for those type of rounds.

8. I've grown increasingly annoyed with non-Black debaters making "helping Black people" as part of their solvency. A lot of you don't know how to do this without either a). sounding patronizing as hell or b). forgetting that "helping Black people" was part of your solvency by the time rebuttals come around (#BackburnerDA). I'm not going to tell you to stop running those arguments, but I strongly recommend you don't have me in the back of the room for them.

**ONLINE DEBATE**: You don't need to yell into your mic. I can hear you fine. In fact, yelling into your mic might make it harder for me to hear you. Which means you may lose. Which is bad. For you.

If you're not so pressed for time

I debated for four years at NYU and ran mostly soft left affs. I think that means I'm a pretty good judge for these types of affs and it also means I'm probably able to tell if there is a genuine want for a discussion about structural violence impacts and the government's ability to solve them or if they're just tacked on because K debaters are scary and it makes the perm easier.

I do think debate is a game, but I also think people should be allowed to modify the "rules" of the game if they're harmful or just straight up unlikeable. I've designed games from time to time, so I like thinking about the implications of declaring debate to be "just" a game or "more than" a game. Now to the important stuff.

Speed: Through a card, I'll tolerate it. Through a tag or analytics, I'll be pretty annoyed. And so will you, because I'll probably miss something important that could cost you the round. When reading a new card, either verbally indicate it ("and" or "next") or change your tone to reflect it.

Planless affs: Even in a game, some people just don't want to defend the government. And that's perfectly okay. But I would like the aff to be relevant to the current topic. Though I do understand that my definition of "relevant" and a K debater's definition of "relevant" may differ greatly slightly, so just prove to me why the aff is a good idea and why the lack of government action is not as relevant/bad/important as the negative's framework makes it seem.

CP: Wasn't really much of a CP debater and I don't really coach teams that run CPs, except the basic novice ones that come in a starter kit. I think they're a fine argument and am willing to vote on them.

DA: You could never go wrong with a good DA. DAs, when run correctly, have a really good, linear story that can be extended in the neg block and could be used to effectively handle aff answers. Feel free to go crazy.

Ks: I can't think of a neg round where I didn't run a K. I've run cap, security, queerness, and Black feminism. But please, do not talk to me as if I know your K. If you're running pomo, I most definitely don't know your K and will need to be talked through it with analogies and examples. If you're running an identity K, I probably do know your K but expect the same from you as I expect from a pomo debater. Cap, security - you get the memo.

T: My favorite neg arg as a senior. I'm always down for a good T debate. I do think that sometimes it's used as a cop-out, but I also think that some affs aren't forwarding any sort of plan or advocacy. Just stating an FYI and a neg can't really argue against that. So T becomes the winning strategy.

Framework: Not exactly the same as T, but I still **like** it. Please just call it framework in front of me. I've heard various names be used to describe it, but they're all just arguments about what should be discussed in the round and how the aff fails to do so.

Theory: Important, but the way debaters speed through their theory shells makes me question just how important it is. Again, slow down when reading theory in front of me so it's actually an option for you at the end of the round.

I'm a versatile judge but also keeping in mind that this is policy debate, I intend on voting at least with the barest minimum required:

1. Framework - what's yours, reasons to perfer, why is your opponents f/w undesirable, etc.
2. Impacts - what is the urgency? In round impacts included. If going for theory, what's the terminal impact of that.
3. Risks - what conquenses will be made from an opposing ballot?
4. Solvency - evidence of proof
5. Topicality/Theory - if there are no voters, I will not be voting on the argument. Independent voters need to be impacted out.

K affs have the burden of proof which means even if you don't claim fiat, solvency is still required. Evidence can be used as proof but there's going to be a deeper analysis needed to support your commitment and legitimacy of your advocacy if it is a performative style of debate especially. I still expect clash and line by line. You cannot get caught up in the argument that you refuse or forget to engage in actual debate. If by the end of debate I don't understand the solvency mechanism being used to solve the impacts of the aff and no analysis on reasons to perfer affs f/w I'm probably going to vote on persumption.

Lastly but should've been firstly, after years of debating and over a decade of judging, I have seen an upward trend in bad ethos in debate. Lets keep it respectful. If there are trigger warnings, they need to be addressed before the debate starts.

Open cross-x is fine.

I'm not going to evaluate any questions past cross x but if you want to ask simple questions during your prep during contructives, that's fine.

Hey, I debated at Damien for four years went to the TOC a couple times and now go to USC

Some thoughts:
Aff:
Affirmatives should defend the hypothetical enactment of a topical plan. Middle of the road or big stick, doesn't matter to me. 

Neg:
Read what you want as long as it engages the affirmative in a meaningful manner. This necessarily excludes decontextualized criticisms 
T/Theory:
My default is competing interpretations, but interpretations should be reasonable.

Reject the argument not the team, except for conditionality.

DA:
DA's other than politics are awesome, but I went for politics a fair amount in high school.

CP:
I prefer cp's to compete functionally/textually, but it is possible for a team to persuade me otherwise 
PIC's are awesome.
Advantage CP's are awesome.
International fiat tows a fine line. Could be persuaded it's good or bad.

Process Cp's and consult cp's tow the line even more

K:
I am not biased against these per se but they are by far the hardest argument to execute, absent dropped silver bullets i.e. root cause, ontology first, or floating pik's.
Framework should be impacted.
Links should be responsive to the content of the 1AC.
Impacts should be based off of such links, not the overall knowledge/material/methodological structure you are criticizing. K's should not be an excuse to sidestep conventional impact comparison.
Alternatives should either be explained to solve such links or explained within a framework that makes alternative solvency irrelevant.

Judge:
Explanation over evidence. If you ask me to read a card after the round which has warrants not explained in the debate, those warrants are irrelevant.
Tech and truth. Technical concessions matter, but there can be larger truths which belittle the weight of such concessions. Control framing to control the debate.
Rebuttals. Make choices. Go for what you are ahead on, and explain why what you are ahead on is more important than what you are behind on using even if statements.
Prep time ends after you are done writing the speech.

Debate's a game have fun! 

Wake Forest '21 '23

College email chain: debatedocs, wfudbt@gmail.com

HS email chain: alexmarban99@gmail.com

Evidence quality and execution matter, however, I will default to the debater's explanation of evidence and their spin. Judge instruction is paramount, I defer to the team who has better instructed me on how to evaluate the debate. I read less evidence when deciding unless it's close or there's disagreement over what a card says so spend time making the evidence you've read matter.

You should explain not only why your offense matters but also how it complicates the other side's offense. I care a lot about turns case and case turns DA/K/etc arguments, if only one side has these it'll likely tip the scales in their favor.

Defend your justifications and conclusions, I dislike when teams shy away from clash by not defending core premises of their arguments.

Cross-ex (not cross....) is my favorite speech in debate, use it to your advantage rather than wasting it on flow check questions and integrate relevant moments into your speeches!

Inserting evidence is fine if a complete argument is made and the rehighlighting comes from the other team's card, if it includes other portions not originally read then read it.

Framework

Interpretations establish the model of debate you are advocating so be cognizant and intentional of what you are forwarding. AFFs should have a model of debate with a role for the negative and a vision for what debates look like under their model, instead of solely impact turns. AFFs that solely go for an impact turn with no counter interp need to control the question of ballot solvency like how voting AFF resolves that offense.

Clash and fairness are the most persuasive NEG impacts.

Kritiks

Specificity and engagement for both sides are crucial.

Generally, I would prefer you spend more time on the link, impact, and alt instead of framework. If you want framework to matter resolve arguments thoroughly. Explain the implication of winning your framework and how that should change the way I evaluate other parts of the flow.

Theory

Conditionality is generally good but it can be egregious with multiple conditional planks, amending stuff, counterplanning out of straight turns, etc. 3+ is pushing it for me. Abuse stories should be present in the 1AR, if you are planning on going for it in the 2AR.

I'd prefer teams to say judge kick or object to it.

Topicality

Predictability matters and guides how pre-season research is conducted, evidence with intent to define and exclude usually provides the best interpretations.

Case lists and a vision for the topic should be explained on both sides.

Counterplans

Topic literature guides counterplan legitimacy, if a well-prepared 2A could reasonably expect the counterplan it is probably fine. Specific advocates are important, but given the lack of specific AFF advocates the NEG has a bit more leeway.

Not a fan of multiple plank counterplans without advocates that have no reason they solve the AFF in the 1NC. Once the block explains how they solve or reads cards that advocate the planks, the 1AR gets new responses.

Disads

Make diverse link and turns case arguments, preferably with cards. The nukes topic lends itself to strong comparative evidence, but you must draw out those comparisons when extending evidence in later speeches. Having external offense is ideal.

Case

Unfortunately, debating the case is an underdeveloped skill. Most internal links, solvency, and impacts are terrible, take some time to point out those flaws with evidence and analytics.

LD Notes

Most of the above should apply, please note that I've exclusively only done policy debate so that will filter the way I view and evaluate arguments. I have not done any research on the LD topic.

At the end of most LD debates, I am left with a lack of thorough impact calculus so it would benefit you to do more of that in your final speeches.

I'm very unlikely to vote on tricks, RVIs, etc. The closer your arguments resemble policy-style arguments, the better judge I will be for you.

My paradigm was too long. Here is a good one that should make preffing easier.

“If you can’t beat the argument that genocide is good or that rocks are people, or that rock genocide is good even though they’re people, then you are a bad advocate of your cause and you should lose.” - Calum Matheson

Email for chain: adam.martin707@gmail.com

First: Qualifications

• Competing: St Vincent ‘16, UC Berkeley ‘20

• 3x TOC, 14 bids, coach’s poll, tournament wins, speaker trophies, etc

• Coaching: South Eugene 16-18, Analy 22-23, Sonoma Academy 2023-Present

Second: Argument Preferences

• I try very hard to be a judging robot. I will vote for any argument with a warrant. ASPEC, Process CPs, Death K, Set Col, Time-Cube - they are all as good as the warrant you give.

• I read a kritik on the aff and went for framework on the neg. I truly don’t have any emotional attachment to a particular argument.

• While I don’t have argument preferences, there are things I know more or less about.

• Debate things I know a lot about: Baudrillard, Deleuze, Bifo, Set Col, Queerness, Afropess, Framework debates, really any K

• Life things I know about: Philosophy, politics, tech, mushrooms!

• Debate things I don’t know a lot about: Most topics, competition theory norms, process CPs, general policy tricks. By don’t know “a lot” I just mean I’m not an expert - I still have a pretty solid understanding of all of this, but I generally prefer you explain more on competition shells rather than just reading 30 definitions and expecting me to know the norms of how to interpret them

• My lack of argument preferences applies to theory, meaning I’m more likely to vote for straight up “condo bad” than most judges. Just as I’m willing to listen to any arg, I’m equally willing to hear that an arg is unfair.

Third: Notes on How I Judge

• I flow what you say, not what I read in your doc. For the most part, I do not open speech docs during the round. I will not read your doc to understand something that didn’t make sense in your speech. This means you need to slow down on theory arguments and counterplan texts. I am a techy judge so if I don’t understand the CP because you went too fast, you don’t have a CP.

• Arguments need warrants. I will very quickly vote on 0 risk if you don't say "because" in your arguments and instead just extend author names. I am very strict about this so don't be surprised when my RFD says "you had no reason for this claim".

• Do not try and bring up anything that happened outside of the round. I cannot verify any claim about something external to the round. The only exception is disclosure. I will check the wiki to see if you disclosed if that is relevant to the round.

• Normal means is a thing and you should know how that works. If you write a vague plan text, you don’t get to define what it means. I assume that congress will pass the most likely interpretation of what your plan text says. You do not get to read a generic “federal jobs guarantee” plan text then say it just means bunny daycare jobs on Mars.

• New arguments in rebuttals are becoming the norm. I now hold the line for you in the 2nr and 2ar, but it is up to the 2nr to point out how certain 1ar args were completely new and explain why that means I should reject them. Flagging “no new 1ar args” in the block can help get ahead of this.

• Until an argument is made to the contrary, I think of voting for an advocacy as me signifying that that thing would be a good thing if done, not that the negative or affirmative has actually performed said advocacy.

• I will kick the CP for you if condo is never mentioned or won by the neg and I decide that the aff is a bad idea. This is something I am going to think about a lot but as of now, I will presume judge kick.

• Cross-applications are not new arguments. If the 1ar says reasonability on one T violation, and the 2nr goes for a different one, the 2ar can cross-apply it legitimately. However, this does assume that there was a reason why their c/i is reasonable in the 1ar.

• You can have my flow: I always wished that it wasn't awkward to ask the judge for their flow, so this is me telling you that it is not awkward for you to ask me for mine. I think that reading someone's flow of your speech is incredibly educational and so I will happily send you a copy.

• I may be standing for some or all of your speech. Yeah I know it’s weird, but sitting sucks. I promise I am paying better attention than the half-asleep judge sitting comfortably in their chair.

• Contradictions are only abusive if the negative asserts two opposing truth claims neither of which did the affirmative explicitly defend. This standard usually means it is more strategic to just cross-apply one of their claims to take out the other then spend your time no-linking the first position. To give an example, I do not think that it is abusive for a team to read a death reps K and then read a disad that has death impacts if your affirmative also had death impacts. I just can't conceive of how that could be abusive. There is no functional distinction between '1nc - Death K, DA, Case' and '1nc - Disease Reps K, DA, Case' in terms of abusing the affirmative. However, reading the cap K and then a DA that says the aff hurts cap and cap is good against an aff that is about emission reduction and doesn't mention capitalism is obviously abusive. The negative has made two competing truth claims, neither of which did the affirmative defend. HOWEVER, this rant is just my thoughts, and can be used by either team in the round but it does not mean that I won't vote for con if the neg reads a Death K and an extinction-level DA, I'll still evaluate it like any other round.

• Always send cards in docs, not in the body of the email. Otherwise it's hard for me to steal them.

• You can ask for a marked copy outside of cx, but any question about which arguments were read is cx.

Speaker Points – (I inflate/curve points depending upon the difficulty of the tournament)

To me, speaker points are where I get to reward quality debating. Quality debating means the following: understanding of your argument, clear speaking, smart choices, and kindness. My speaks may surprise you. A team who is less technical but clearly communicates their argument may get a 29.5, while a highly technical team who shadow-extends arguments without warrants may get a 28.5. I heavily punish being mean - there is no reason for it.

- Above 29.5: I will spend tonight crying about how beautifully you debated

- 29.5: I will tell my friends about you

- 29 – 29.5: You should get a top 5 speaker award

- 28.7 – 29: You should probably break

- 28.5 – 28.7: You gave solid speeches

- 28 – 28.5: You are a good debater, some strategic errors

- 27.5 – 28: You are decent, but made many errors

- 27 – 27.5: You made many mistakes, and probably lost the debate for your team

- 26.5 – 27: You made many errors and should end 1-5 or 0-6

- 26 – 26.5: You shouldn’t be in whatever level of debate you are

- Under 26: You were literally incomprehensible or offensive

La Salle College HS:
Policy Debater 2004-2007
Head Coach of Policy Debate, 2012-2016
Head Coach of Speech and Debate, 2016-2023.

As of September 2023, I am no longer actively involved in coaching, but will still judge from time to time.

I have judged debate (mostly policy, but also LD/PF) since 2008. I no longer judge with regularity and while I am fine with speed, etc. I am no longer a judge who does any topic research.

General Debate Thoughts

Policy--------------X------------------------------K
Tech-----------------------------X----------------Truth
Read no cards------------------X-----------------Read all cards
Condo good----X--------------------------Condo bad
States CP good-----------------------X-----------States CP bad
Politics DA is a thing------------X-----------------Politics DA not a thing
Always VTL-X--------------------------------------Sometimes NVTL
UQ matters most--------------------------X------Link matters most
Fairness is a thing----X---------------------------Fairness isn’t an impact
Try or die-------------------------------X----------No risk
Not our Baudrillard-------------------------------X Yes your Baudrillard
Clarity-X--------------------------------------------I’ll just read the docs
Limits--------------------X--------------------------Aff ground
Presumption------X--------------------------------Never votes on presumption
Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev
"Insert this re-highlighting"----------------------X-I only read what you read

• You should do what you do best and do it well – I think I am a good judge in that I will allow the arguments to develop themselves, and take the responsibility of the judge being a educator seriously.
• I will not vote on any argument that makes me uncomfortable as an educator. You should ask yourself, if my teachers/administrators were observing, would I make this same argument?
• Speed is fine, but clarity is important. Most debaters could slow down, get more arguments out, and increase judges comprehension.
• Tech>truth; however, when you have tech and truth on your side, it’s hard to lose.

I debated for College Prep for all four years, graduating in 2017. Long Beach will be my first tournament on the current topic.

Impacts are important!! Make choices and commit to them- you really only need to win one argument in in the 2NR/2AR if you explain why that argument is the most important one in the debate.

I'm fine with speed if you're clear.

DAs- Specificity is important. Have clear impact and link analysis! Other than that these are pretty self-explanatory.

CPs- Counterplans are great, just make sure you clearly articulate your net benefit and how the cp is different from the aff. See the theory section below for notes on CP theory. I don't like to kick counterplans for you-- really the only scenario in which I will do that is if you justify it with a theory arg in the 2NR and the 2AR drops it.

Ks- I was a K debater my junior year and a policy debater my senior year so I don't think I'm biased one way or the other. Be sure to explain your args rather than just saying a few buzzwords & hoping one sticks. You should be explaining the alternative or why the affirmative makes the status quo uniquely worse. 

T- Substantive T debates are interesting. Explain the world of your interpretation rather than just saying “reasonability” and “overlimiting” over and over. Aff, make sure you have offense. I don’t have any pre-dispositions re: competing interpretations v reasonability.

Case Debate- I love case debate and I think it’s often underutilized. If your 2NR has zero case debate, I will be very persuaded by the 2AR’s “case outweighs” args unless you’re going for a PIC. I will definitely vote on presumption if you’re really winning the case debate. Neg should exploit contrived internal links chains (these make for really good cx moments too). Impact turns are cool (both for the aff and the neg).

Theory- Really depends on the individual debates. Process, consult, and 50 states counterplans are probably abusive. Condo is probably good. Please engage in the line-by-line on theory debates rather than just reading blocks your coach wrote in 2007 at top speed. Really.

K Affs- I have both defended a K aff against FW and read FW against a K aff. Both teams should be especially sure to clearly articulate their impacts in FW debates (I find that this often gets lost in these debates both for the aff and the neg). As with a T debate, both teams should be clear to tell me what the world of your interpretation looks like.  What kind of affs would be included? What kind of affs would be excluded? Why is this good/bad?

Please put me on your email chains, and feel free to email me with any questions at elizabethmillerschai@gmail.com.

This is a new tabroom account so please excuse the lack of judging history.

I have participated in PF, LD and Policy within the 8 years of me being in the debate community.

Please email me if you have any questions as I continue to update my paradigm thank you.

H.montague1998@gmail.com

OR - If you have any immediate question for PREFS you can always find me on facebook Heaven Montague

UNDER CONSTRICTION:

Tech or Truth?

I am a technical judge BUT I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY ARGUMENTS THAT MAKE STATEMENTS SUCH AS RACISM GOOD AND ETC.

Roberto Montero, Bronx Science ’16, Binghamton ’20. I debated 4 years in high school and broke at the ToC if that means anything to you.

There are two types of arguments in debate (and their inverses): smart arguments and good arguments. Some arguments happen to be both but most of the time they are neither (thus either a bad argument or a not-so-intelligent argument). A smart argument is well-researched, nuanced, and interesting. Good arguments are strategic and effective at winning debates. For example, the politics disad is a ‘good argument’ in that it wins a lot of debates and can be executed and deployed to perfection in the correct hands. That doesn’t make it a smart argument because every novice can tell you that it doesn’t reflect real politics outside of a basic uniqueness claim (which half the time is cut out of context because news articles aren’t written as conclusive as cards are purported to be). A smart argument isn’t always good however. If you have a critique that you’ve put a grad thesis amount of work into, it might make some interesting observations about the world/aff but may not be the most strategic.

Understanding the distinction between these two types of arguments is a recipe for combining them and developing the most well rounded arguments and a higher quality of debates. However, it isn’t my job to sit behind my laptop and mock the quality of your arguments, rather it is up to you as debaters to develop and articulate your arguments as such. When judging I do my best to let debaters do the debating so regardless of what my opinions/thoughts on your arguments are, as long as they are warranted, impacted and clearly extended throughout the speeches. This is also important for understanding how I judge debates—framing your rebuttals with important technical concessions on the line by line is valuable in making my decision easier and not make me sift through dropped arguments on both sides.

The biggest problem in most debates starts with that whole line by line thing. Teddy Albiniak taught me that one of the ways that high schoolers develop bad habits is through imitating prominent college debaters. The thing that bothers me the most is the reliance on 7/8 minute overviews. While this may be something that works for some very talented college debaters, generally it shouldn’t be a tactic employed by most. There is a place for an overview, and it serves a valuable and strategic function but there is such a thing as excessive. This is one of the biggest tradeoffs with engaging in the line by line in general which is pretty important.

*This last portion, like most of my paradigm, assumes a basic model of debate. This means that if you present an alternative model of debate and a different metric for evaluating arguments I will accept that. To quote Alain Badiou It’s only a principle, it’s not a programme. Debate isn’t standard and that is one of the things that makes it such an enjoyable and valuable activity, so take this with a grain of salt.

The second biggest problem is case debating. ~~Newsflash~~ most affs are bad. Not even most, definitely all of the affirmatives are bad. One of the best way to satisfy judges (and me) is by exploiting that on the case page. The threshold for smart 1nc case analytics is a little high but by the block some smart engagement with the warrants and internal links of the 1ac, especially at a basic, logical level, can only help you in the long run. This is particularly important for me as a judge because I can easily justify pulling the trigger on a presumption/0 risk of the aff type argument if mishandled by the affirmative and well-articulated/nuanced by the negative. This is not to say it’s impossible to be aff or that even that the standard is higher but that you should be prepared to defend the 1ac against larger level solvency questions.

We also need to talk about presumption. It is important, especially versus critical affirmatives. If your aff cannot answer the question of why the ballot is key or implicate it in any sense, you have abdicated my role as an adjudicator. All I can really do is enter a team that is victorious on a ballot, just saying that this is obvious does not mean the issue goes away. Perhaps this contradiction is too much to overcome in 8 minutes of a 1ac, and maybe is a problem with how we construct affirmatives but something persuasive needs to be said that doesn't amount to "You're right nothing we said or do matters but you should vote for us anyways" in 1ac cross-x.

Tl;dr please debate the case. Just do it. Like cigarettes and overviews it’s not cool just because the big kids do it.

As for specific arguments I don’t have much to say on all the ~nuances~ of agent counter plans or the intricacies of politics disad theory. I think the go through every issue thing is cliché and generally just a waste of time. If you have any specific questions about my thoughts on some random thing I’d be happy to answer it but I won’t bother to write down an arbitrary opinion on the 7th subpoint of some condo block from 2006. The only issue worth addressing (and what I’m almost confident is the only thing people look at) is framework.

Framework

The biggest problem with framework is that a lot of 2nr’s seem to forget to extend an impact. And when they do remember to extend an impact it turns out to just be a really bad impact. Although I’m willing to vote on a dropped fairness argument I’m still skeptical that the age old phrase ‘Debate is a game so fairness you broke the rules you lose’ meets the necessary threshold of an argument. If you plan on going for this impact in front of me make sure it is clearly articulated and not the same circular claim without a warrant.

What I think the so called ‘intrinsic’ value of debate is can be loosely understood as clash. The ability for two teams to debate the merits of competing positions seems valuable not only for education but is just plain fun. Not to say that clash is an impact in it of itself because at some level it’s fundamentally inevitable, but it’s a question of what that clash looks like. This should structure how you articulate a framework impact (or answer one for that matter) most likely to get my ballot. If framework is a question of competing models or visions of debate then you just have to prove comparatively that your model produces better debates, skills or education.

The second biggest problem with framework debates is that negative teams let affs get away with too much. If the 2ar gets to stand up and weigh the entirety of the 1ac versus framework it puts you way behind. The easiest way for an affirmative to defeat framework is to complicate and problematize the way they have constructed the world. This means if you win some truth claims about your aff and the way the world operates through your theory or interpretation then it nullifies a lot of their arguments. For example if you read an affirmative that says the global system of capitalism is bad and the 2nr doesn’t answer the case debate, then what do their skills matter if they can only reproduce a system of capital you have critiqued. This, like any good framework rebuttal, requires a lot of framing and contextualizing the line by line through these bigger picture questions.

The best way for negative teams to check back against this is to just reduce the risk of the aff. You can look back up to that whole portion about case debating, it applies to K affs as well. The other necessary piece is a topical version of the aff. Obviously not helpful against an anti-topical aff but in a majority of framework debates a persuasive and nuanced topical version of the aff goes a long way in resolving a lot of their offense. It still requires a larger impact in conjunction because at the end of the day it is still a defensive argument.

Tl;dr don’t waste time, make good arguments, do line by line, debate the case, extend a framework impact, don’t say talks about how.

.

Hey, please add me to the email chain crownmonthly@gmail.com.If you really don't want to read this I'm tech > truth, Warranted Card Extension > Card Spam and really only dislike hearing meme arguments which are not intended to win the round.

PF and LD specific stuff at the bottom. All the argument specific stuff still applies to both activities.

How to win in front of me:
Explain to me why I should vote for you and don't make me do work. I've noticed that I take "the path of least resistance" when voting; this means 9/10 I will make the decision that requires no work from me. You can do this by signposting and roadmapping so that my flow stays as clean as possible. You can also do this by actually flowing the other team and not just their speech doc. Too often debaters will scream for 5 minutes about a dropped perm when the other team answered it with analytics and those were not flown. Please don't be this team.

Online Debate Update

If you know you have connection/tech problems, then please record your speeches so that if you disconnect or experience poor internet the speech does not need to be stopped. Also please go a bit slower than your max speed on analytics because between mic quality and internet quality it can be tough to hear+flow everything if you go the same speed as cards on analytics.

Argumentation...

Theory/Topicality:

By default theory and topicality are voters and come aprior unless there is no offense on the flow. Should be clear what the interpretation, violation, voter, and impact are. I generally love theory debates but like with any judge you have to dedicate the time into it if you would like to win. Lastly you don't need to prove in round abuse to win but it REALLY helps and you probably won't win unless you can do this.

Framework:

I feel framework should be argued in almost any debate as I will not do work for a team. Unless the debate is policy aff v da+cp then you should probably be reading framework. I default to utilitarianism and will view myself as a policy maker unless told otherwise. This is not to say I lean toward these arguments (in fact I think util is weak and policy maker framing is weaker than that) but unless I explicitly hear "interpretation", "role of the judge", or "role of the ballot," I have to default to something. Now here I would like to note that Theory, Topicality, and Framework all interact with each other and you as the debater should see these interactions and use them to win. Please view these flows wholistically.

DA/CP:

I am comfortable voting on these as I believe every judge is but I beg you (unless it's a politics debate) please do not just read more cards but explain why you're authors disprove thier's. Not much else to say here besides impact calc please.

K:

I am a philosophy and political science major graduate so please read whatever you would like as far as literature goes; I have probably read it or debated it at some point so seriously don't be afraid. Now my openness also leaves you with a burden of really understanding the argument you are reading. Please leave the cards and explain the thought process, while I have voted on poorly run K's before those teams never do get high speaker points.

K Affs:

Look above for maybe a bit more, but I will always be open to voting and have voted on K affs of all kinds. I tend to think the neg has a difficult time winning policy framework against K affs for two reasons; first they debate framework/topicality most every round and will be better versed, and second framework/topicality tends to get turned rather heavily and costs teams rounds. With that said I have voted on framework/topicality it just tends to be the only argument the neg goes for in these cases.

Perms:

Perms are a test of competition unless I am told otherwise and 3+ perms is probably abusive but that's for theory.

Judge Intervention:

So I will only intervene if the 2AR makes new arguments I will ignore them as there is no 3NR. Ethics and evidence violations should be handled by tab or tournament procedures.

Speaks:

• What gets you good speaks:
  • Making it easier for me to flow
  • Demonstrate that you are flowing by ear and not off the doc.
  • Making things interesting
  • Clear spreading
  • Productive CX

• What hurts your speaks:
  • Wasting CX, Speech or Prep Time
  • Showing up later than check-in time (I would even vote on a well run theory argument - timeless is important)
  • Being really boring
  • Being rude

PF Specific

• I am much more lenient about dropped arguments than in any other form of debate. Rebuttals should acknowledge each link chain if they want to have answers in the summary. By the end of summary no new arguments should made. 1st and 2nd crossfire are binding speeches, but grand crossfire cannot be used to make new arguments. *these are just my defaults and in round you can argue to have me evaluate differently
• If you want me to vote on theory I need a Voting Issue and Impact - also probably best you spend the full of Final Focus on it.
• Make clear in final focus which authors have made the arguments you expect me to vote on - not necessary, but will help you win more rounds in front of me.
• In out-rounds where you have me and 2 lay judges on the panel I understand you will adapt down. To still be able to judge fairly I will resolve disputes still being had in final focus and assume impacts exist even where there are only internal links if both teams are debating like the impacts exist.
• Please share all evidence you plan to read in a speech with me your opponents before you give the speech. I understand it is not the norm in PF, but teams who do this will receive bonus speaker points from me for reading this far and making my life easier.

LD Specific

• 2AR should extend anything from the 1AR that they want me to vote on. I will try and make decisions using only the content extended into or made in the NR and 2AR.
• Don't just read theory because you think I want to hear it. Do read theory because your opponent has done or could do something that triggers in round abuse.
• Dropped arguments are true arguments, but my flow dictates what true means for my ballot - say things more than once if you think they could win/lose you the round if they are not flown.

Quick Bio

I did 3 years of policy debate in the RI Urban Debate League. Been judging since 2014. As a debater I typically ran policy affs and went for K's on the neg (Cap and Nietzsche mostly) but I also really enjoyed splitting the block CP/DA for the 2NC and K/Case for the 1NR. Despite all of this I had to have gone for theory in 40% of my rounds, mostly condo bad.

I am a coach and teacher at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. I have been involved with debate on the local, regional, and national circuit as a competitor, judge, and coach for more years than I care to put in print.

Non-traditional Debate Warning: If you are looking for a judge that is into non-plan, non-topical K affs, poetry, or other interp affs, I am definitely not the best (or even second best) judge for you. I love a good POI, Oratory, and DI, but I love them in those event categories.

Speed: Once upon a time, I kept a fairly fast and thorough flow. I think that I still keep a good flow, but perhaps not as fast. I am older now (it happens to us all), and my hands hurt a bit more, so I find that I need a little time to warm up to the pace. Another issue concerning speed is that debaters, more often than not, think they are clearer than they actually are. Paperless debate has made this worse. I'll usually try give one "clearer" or "louder" warning per speaker, but after that, either you or your partner had better be paying attention to my facial expressions and whether I’m flowing. I have a terrible poker face, so it will be pretty obvious. If I don’t flow the argument or card text then that argument or card text it is not in the round and I am definitely not going to ask about it. I am inclined to be more impressed with a debater who is clear, efficient, and persuasive who speaks slightly slower than a debater who feels the need to show me their mad spreading skills. In terms of speed and T, theory, and k’s: SLOW DOWN - slow way down (see notes on kritiks). Please read my comments at the end of this page concerning the ever growing negative aspects of paperless debate.

The Role of the Affirmative: I expect the affirmative to advocate the resolution through TOPICAL PLAN action. Yes, the aff must have a plan and it must be clearly stated in the AC. If you want to run a critical aff stating that the resolution is racist, ablest, ageist, or anything else that suggests an unwillingness to affirm the resolution at hand, as written, then I am not going to be a good judge for you. I am possibly willing to listen to a critical aff that advocates the resolution. (Please see my notes on kritiks later). Performance/Project teams will probably find it a challenge to meet my view of the affirmative's role.

Topicality: It’s a voter. I like a good T debate that involves actual evidence and a description of why the aff does not meet the interpretation. The standards debate should include a viable limits argument. Why is the affirmative's interpretation of limits bad for debate? If you are going for ground, make sure you impact why it's a big deal to you in the round, and/or even for debate as a whole. Negative teams who plan to go for topicality should be prepared to go “all in." At best, you could weigh “T” and one other position. You’re unlikely to get much ground or be terribly persuasive if T is one of 3 or 4 positions in the 2NR (And really, why have four positions remaining in the 2NR?). Impact analysis on T is just as important as it is on any other position. Don’t bother to kritik T with me in the room. T is not racist. Do not run RVI’s on T. It is worth noting that a T debate needs to be a bit slower due to its needed explanation, but it does not need to be handled as slowly as a kritik.

Counterplans: Preferably, counterplans are non-topical, which creates a clearer division of ground. Counterplans also need to be clearly competitive. A CP that is basically just steals the plan is probably not competitive and is just stealing ground, but the idea of PICs can be debated in round. Conditional CP’s are probably a bad thing, but the debate as to why must be specific. A clear net benefit is better for competiveness. If going for the CP in the 2NR, the negative does not automatically get the assumption of the Status Quo as the alternative in place of the CP as a voting issue. This choice must be explained in the 2NR. The aff should definitely argue whether the neg can operate in multiple worlds, or must treat the CP as their new advocacy. Note: I find most severance perms abusive. When I have voted on such a perm, it has usually been because the neg mishandled the flow and allowed the aff to get away with it. The neg needs to note that it is the affirmative’s job to advocate their plan, in its entirety, through the 2AR. It is one thing for the Aff to kick an advantage, but it's an entirely different thing to sever part or all of the plan. Affirmatives should not argue that the "neg does not get any fiat." That's ridiculously limiting.

Disadvantages: I’m old school policy, so I like disads. Disads should have a comparable risk to the net benefits of the AC and/or serve as a net benefit to the CP. There should be a significant link debate (offense/defense) and a clear impact calculus. I hate it when teams wait until the 2NR/2AR to finally weigh the impacts. Reading more cards is not weighing an impact; it’s just reading more cards. An impact calculus requires clear analysis. I will put as much effort into weighing the disad risk as a decision calculus as you spend trying to persuade me that the argument is worth the vote.

Kritiks: Despite Newman having a new director that is well known for his love of the K, I have not grown to love kritiks. This is definitely true in terms of non-topical K affs and neg kritiks that probably have little to do with the actual plan. Some teams have become overly reliant upon them (running the same position every single year) and use them to avoid having to debate the topic or debate policies they don’t like. I find that most kritiks have ambiguous implications at best and the alternative (if there is one) is often not an alternative at all. I have found myself voting for some of these arguments, despite my not even understanding the position, because the other team failed to explain clearly why the argument has little bearing in the round or fails to point out the shortcomings of the alt. You should also be aware that I most likely have not read the critical literature you are referencing and citing. I have a rudimentary understanding of philosophy. I was not a philosophy major. I do not plan to go back to graduate school to study philosophy. If you plan to run any critical positions in my presence, you must do the following:

1) Slow Down. Really. Slow. Down. I mean conversational speed slow down

2) Explain your position clearly – no blippy tag lines or argument extensions

3) Have a specific link

4) Have a clear alternative – something more tangible than “being part of the ___ mindset," “avoiding the evils of capitalism,” or "do nothing." Huh??

Despite my personal disposition on the kritiks, the opposing team will still need to say more than “The K is bringing down policy and should go away.”

Performance/Project Debates: I’m still a cost-benefits analysis policy judge at heart. I have not changed my mind on the position that performance/project positions leave little ground for the opposing team. I have no idea how to weigh your performance against the other team’s position (performance or traditional) for the purposes of winning a debate.

Cross Ex: CX is important for fleshing out a strategy and provide clarification of arguments; I generally think that answers in cross ex are binding. I actually listen to cross ex, often take notes and even find it interesting. I also find it not that interesting on many occasions. Tag team CX is okay, but avoid taking it over. Not being able to handle your cross ex will result in lower speaker points. Taking over a partner’s CX will also result in lower speaks. CX starts when the speaker is finished. If you need 30 seconds to “set up” then that will come out of prep.

Role of the Ballot: My ballot determines who wins the round. That is all. If you win, you are (perhaps) one round closer to clearing. If you lose, you are (perhaps) one round closer to not clearing. My ballot does not send a message to the debate community; it is not a teaching tool; it is not an endorsement of a particular action or philosophy.

Theory: Save theory debates for when they really need needed and warranted. Too many debaters are running theory as their “go to” argument. Debating theory as a "default" argument every round cheapens the arguments and makes judges less likely to take them seriously. Do not run any theory arguments against Topicality (see above).

Miscellaneous:

Paperless Debate: Speaking style has simply become worse with paperless debate. Card reading has become choppy, debaters have problems toggling back and forth on the computer, debaters are taking liberties with prep while flashing or emailing speech docs, and instead of flowing the arguments as they are being presented, debaters are back-flowing from flashed material that may or may not have actually made it into the speech. Some judges have resorted to reading the email chain. These are all poor debate practices. Teams are saving paper and tons of money when flying, but debates have become sloppy.

Prep Time: Your prep ends when you have finished loading the flash drive and hand it off to the opposing team. If an email chain is set up, your prep ends when you hit “send.” This means that you are standing up to speak. If you start conversing with your partner, I will continue to run prep and I will probably dock your speaks for stealing prep.

Flowing: Do it. Follow the flow, not the “flashed” cards. Do not mess up my flow!!

Label Arguments: “First off, A-uniqueness” is not a label for my flow. Label each off case – every single one of them. When you move to the case debate, be clear as to where you are and when you are moving on to another advantage, etc. This is also true for the 1A; the AC needs to be crystal clear.

Reading Cards Post Round: I rarely do so. To get me to read a card requires a specific request during your speech and an explanation as to why and what I am looking for exactly. If I am part of the email chain, this does not mean I am automatically going to read cards. If I call for a card without you requesting it or go to the email chain without direction then something was so unclear that I felt I had no choice. This presents an opportunity to intervene, which I do not like doing if I can avoid it.

Card Clipping: It’s cheating. Don’t do it. If an accusation is brought up in the round, I will take it seriously (even stop the round if necessary). If you bring it up as an accusation, you need to be darn certain you are correct. Be clear where you stop reading a card if you do not finish. "Stop card" is probably not clear enough.

As we say in New Orleans, “Be Nice or Leave”. It is fine to be competitive, but have fun. You are competitors in the round, but you should be friends outside of the round. Being a jerk in the round will not lead to friendships and it will definitely hurt your speaker points.

**Updated October 31, 2023

Hello everyone!

My judging history will show that I’ve primarily tabbed at tournaments since the pandemic started. However, I’ve been keeping up with topic discussions across LD, PF, and Policy and am looking forward to judging you all!

I’ve been in the debate world for over a decade now, and have been coaching with Lexington since 2016. Starting this academic year, I also teach Varsity LD and Novice PF at LHS. I was trained in policy debate but have also judged mainly policy and LD since 2016. I also judge PF at some tournaments along with practice debates on every topic.

TLDR: I want you to debate what you’re best at unless it’s offensive or exclusionary. I try to have very limited intervention and rely on framing and weighing in the round to frame my ballot. Telling me how to vote and keeping my flow clean is the fastest way to my ballot. Please have fun and be kind to one another.

Email: debatejn@gmail.com

ONLINE DEBATE NOTES

In an online world, you should reduce your speed to about 75%-80%. It’s difficult for me to say clear in a way that doesn’t totally disrupt your speech and throw you off, so focusing on clarity and efficiency are especially important.

I usually use two monitors, with my flow on the second monitor, so when I’m looking to the side, I’m looking at the flow or my ballot.

MORE IN DEPTH GENERAL NOTES

If your argument isn’t on my flow, I can’t evaluate it. Keeping my flow clean, repeating important points, and being clear can decide the round. I flow by ear and have your speech doc primarily for author names, so make sure your tags/arguments/analytics are clear. I default to tech over truth and debate being a competitive and educational activity. That being said, how I evaluate a debate is up for debate. The threshold for answering arguments without warrants is low, and I don’t find blippy arguments to be particularly persuasive.

LD PARADIGM

In general: Please also look at my policy paradigm for argument specific information! I take my flow seriously but am really not a fan of blippy arguments. I’m fine with speed and theoretical debates. I am not the best judge for affs with tricks. I don’t like when theory is spread through and need it to be well-articulated and impacted. I have a decent philosophy background, but please assume that I do not know and err on over-explaining your lit.

On Framework: In LD, I default to framework as a lens to evaluate impacts in the round. However, I am willing to (and will) evaluate framework as the only impact to the round. Framework debates tend to get really messy, so I ask that you try to go top-down when possible. Please try to collapse arguments when you can and get as much clash on the flow as possible.

A note on fairness as a voter: I am willing to vote on fairness, but I tend to think of fairness as more of an internal link to an impact.

On T: I default to competing interpretations. If you’re going for T, please make sure that you’re weighing your standards against your opponent’s. In evaluating debates, I default to T before theory.

On Theory: I lean towards granting 1AR theory for abusive strats. However, I am not a fan of frivolous theory and would prefer clash on substantive areas of the debate. In general, I do not feel that I can adjudicate something that happened outside of the round.

On RVIs: I think RVIs have morphed into a way of saying "I'm fair but having to prove that I'm being fair means that I should win", which I don't particularly enjoy. If you’re going for an RVI, make sure it’s convincing and reasonable. Further, please make sure that if you’re going for an RVI that you spend sufficient time on it.

On Ks: I think that the NR is a difficult speech - answering the first indicts on a K and then having to collapse and go for the K is tricky. Please make sure that you're using your time effectively - what is the world of the alt and why is my ballot key to resolving the impacts that you outline?

PF PARADIGM

In general: I rely on my flow to decide the round. Keeping my flow clean is the best path to my ballot, so please make sure that your speeches are organized and weigh your arguments against your opponents.

On Paraphrasing: I would also prefer that you do not paraphrase evidence. However, if you must, please slow down on your analytical blocks so that I can effectively flow your arguments - if you read 25 words straight that you want on my flow, I can't type quickly enough to do that, even when I'm a pretty fast typer in general. Please also make sure that you take care to not misrepresent your evidence.

General Comments On LD/Policy Arguments: While I will evaluate the round based on my flow, I want PF to be PF. Please do not feel that you need to adapt to my LD/Policy background when I’m in the back of the room.

On PF Theory: It's a thing, now. I don't particularly love it, but I do judge based off of my flow, so I will vote on it. However, I really, really, really dislike frivolous theory (feel free to look at my LD and Policy paradigms on this subject), so please make sure that if you're reading theory in a round, you are making it relevant to the debate at hand.

POLICY PARADIGM

On Framework: ROBs and ROJs should be extended and explained within the context of the round. Interpretations and framing how I need to evaluate the round are the easiest path to my ballot. Please weigh your standards against your opponent’s and tell me why your model of debate works best. While I will vote on fairness as a voter, I tend to default to it as an internal link to another impact, i.e. education.

One off FW: These rounds tend to get messy. Please slow down for the analytics. The best path to my ballot is creating fewer, well-articulated arguments that directly clash with your opponent’s.

On Theory and T: Make sure you make it a priority if you want me to vote on it. If you’re going for T, it should be the majority of your 2NR. Please have clearly articulated standards and voters. I typically default to competing interpretations, so make sure you clearly articulate why your interpretation is best for debate. In general, I do not feel that I can adjudicate something that happened outside of the round.

On DA/CP: Explain why your evidence outweighs their evidence and please use impact calc.

On K-Affs: Make sure you’re weighing the impacts of your aff against tech stuff the neg articulates. Coming from the 1AC, I need a clear articulation of your solvency mechanism and the role of ballot / judge.

Hitting K-Affs on neg: PLEASE give me clash on the aff flow

On Ks: Make sure that you’re winning framing for these arguments. I really enjoy well-articulated link walls and think that they can take you far. I’m maybe not the best judge for high theory debates, but I have some experience with most authors you will read in most cases and should be able to hold my own if it’s well articulated. I need to understand the world of the alt, how it outweighs case impacts, and what the ballot resolves.

One off Ks: These rounds tend to get very nuanced, especially if it’s a K v K debate. Please have me put framework on another flow and go line by line.

UPDATE CAL 2024

I haven't judged a debate in over three years. I don't really think I have any coherent thoughts on substance of debates anymore but I do think I am more ardent in the belief that it should be about whatever you want it to be as long as you're able to explain it to me.

UC Berkeley 2018

East Kentwood Highschool 2016

Put me on the chain:

michaelobuchi@gmail.com

I like:

warrants, line by line, effort and humor

I don't like:

rudeness

I will hold the line on:

speech times, evidence quality and clipping

drmosbornesq@gmail.com

My judging paradigm has evolved a great deal over time. These days, I have very few set opinions about args. I used to think I had a flawless flow and a magnet mind but now I can't follow each little detail and/or extremely nuanced or shrouded arguments with 101% accuracy like once upon a time. Still pretty good tho lol. And that said, I believe I've come to prioritize debaters' decisions more than ever and try harder than ever to base my decision on what debaters are trying to make happen in the round, and how well they do it, as opposed to how I logically add up what occurred. No judge can totally eliminate their process of sorting things out or their lived personal experience but I try to judge rounds as the debaters tell me to judge them, and with the tools they make available to me. I do think debate is about debaters, so I try to limit my overall judge agency to an extent. But sometimes my experience with traditional policy debate matters and favors a team. Sometimes my lived experience as a brown dude effects my encounter of an argument. These things happen and they are happening with all of your judges whether they admit it or you know it or not. I competed with "traditional policy arguments" (which, frankly, I am unsure still exist #old) but by now I have voted for and coached stupidly-traditional, traditional, mildly-traditional, non-traditional, and anti-traditional arguments in high-stakes rounds for a ton of programs in high school, college, internationally, in different eras, dimensions, all kinds of shi*. If you think your reputation matters in how I see the round, don't pref me. If you or your coaches are used to attacking in the post-round, you're gonna play yourself because I'll either be 101% and crush you or I won't care and I'll just mock you. Debate's a game but we are people so we should treat each other with respect. Self-control is one of the hallmarks of critical thinking and a disciplined intellect; if you cannot make peace with results in a subjective activity, you are simply not an elite debater, imho. Take it or leave it. Good luck to all debaters, seriously -- it's a hell of a thing.

Debated policy for Brooklyn Technical High School (2013-2016) and for Binghamton University (2016-2020). You can add me to the email chain at jpan2541@bths.edu

TLDR been out of debate for a while, have very little familiarity with the topic so please explain acronyms, topic specific knowledge, etc... You can probably run anything (nothing offensive) and I'll evaluate it. While I enjoy K debates more, I'm not particularly against debates about policies as I started out as a non-K debater. I prefer depth over breath and think line-by-line is important. Since debate is now on Zoom, please be very clear using changes in tone, inflection, etc to ensure that I am evaluating the arguments you want me to evaluate.

I'm just going to copy and paste a portion of Lee Thach's paradigm here because it basically summarizes how I evaluate debates:

"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."

Here are some of my other thoughts:

Kritiks: I mostly ran critical arguments including ones about anti-blackness and biopower. I like Ks and when good K debates happen. One thing that has changed for me in terms of Ks is that I want to hear that the K does "something" whatever that "something" is. Whether in round or external to the debate, please explain what that "something" is, why I should evaluate whatever the K does as "something," and how exactly the K does that thing.

FW: I would say that I'm probably 51/49 against framework. I think that it is sometimes valuable to discuss non-traditional affirmatives especially when the affirmative has given me reasons why their AFF is valuable to this year's resolution. I do enjoy framework for certain AFFs that are abusive/irrelevant. That said, my bias can be overcome with good debating (i.e. when standards/violations are super nuanced and when there are clear articulations/comparisons of each side's model of debate and why they're good/bad)

CPs/Piks: I love them. Flex your creativity as much as possible. I can also be convinced why particular CPs/Piks can be abusive.

DAs: I will evaluate all types of DA but just please have uniqueness and be very clear about your internal links. Contrary to popular opinion, I like politics DAs.

Miscellaneous: I like jokes and the like that make debates entertaining and enjoyable so if you can make me laugh I'll probably boost your speaks. Troll debates are cool too but only when the arguments actually apply and can sorta make sense.

boston latin academy '17

smith college '21

email: maryannepas@gmail.com (yes, pls add me to the chain!)

i am a senior in college and have been judging on and off since i graduated high school. i did policy debate, mostly reading k arguments. i have not done any research for this topic so i would really appreciate explanations of topic-specific minutiae & acronyms

TLDR:

do what you do best unless it is offensive. to get my ballot, all you gotta do is tell me how to vote, how to evaluate the round, and explain why you should win. your last speech should be writing a ballot for me. pick the arguments you are winning on the flow and explain/weigh your impacts, and dont drop anything important. please extend warrants, not just tags. i will also probably not do any work for you unless the debate is really close so i would much rather you explain the warrants of a card rather than telling me to read it after the round. most importantly, just have fun with it and be kind to each other.

LD

i have judged a handful of LD rounds, however, i never did LD in high school so I'm really not super familiar with it. as long as you explain your arguments though, I should be able to follow. if you go for theory, i really want to hear in-round impacts or scenarios. if you go for an RVI, make sure that it is reasonable.

Speed

slow down for online debates. please be clear or i will probably not be able to flow you.

K affs

i am absolutely cool with these arguments, and really appreciate well-written k affs. i love judging these debates, however, these affirmatives do require lots of explanation in comparison to regular policy affs -- explain your methods, your authors' arguments, why a rejection of the rez is important...

Ks

explain the alternative and tell me why the k outweighs the aff. i love a good link debate. don't expect me to be familiar with your k lit though, please explain your arguments, especially if you are reading high theory.

Topicality

do impact calc, compare interp evidence, and weigh your interpretation against the other.

Framework

tell me why your model of debate is preferable, why education offered through policy simulation on this topic is good, do impact calc. i appreciate a good TVA.

Theory

i haven't voted on theory a lot, but if you prove in round abuse and impact it well, you're golden.

Flashing

PLEASE keep it short and sweet. If you start taking too long to flash, I will start prep.

Feel free to e-mail me or ask me questions about my paradigm before the round! If you want to know more about how I think about debate, just read Moselle Burke's paradigm

Put me on your email chains: pointer.debate@gmail.com

I am done with trying to use your speech docs to fill in tags. You need to recognize that there is an expectation of clarity, even when we're debating remotely.

Early thoughts on the criminal justice reform topic, or at least K affs on the criminal justice reform topic:

I find myself much less persuaded by the claim to need to read an aff that refuses to directly engage with the topic than in previous years. The argument that you must refuse to engage with the state as a survival strategy/mode of alternative political organization seems to me to be subject to a higher degree of scrutiny when the topic allows you to abolish prisons or police. This leads me to presume much more that affirmatives that rely on the carceral or policing as metaphor, or just say that policing/prisons are a product of modernity and thus modernity must be abolished because the state/civil society are always bad are much more about the strategic advantage to be gained in the debate activity than a discussion of a model of engagement/activism/thinking. I'm predisposed to be persuaded that the aff getting to abolish prisons/police/etc. is probably good enough aff ground. Does this mean that I think teams have to defend the process of implementation in a traditional fashion? Debateable. It does, however, mean that I should think the 1AC should be willing to commit to defending a reform in policing or sentencing. But seriously, this isn't the arms control topic. Prison abolition or eliminating policing is the topical version of the affirmative. I feel like I will hold your inevitable "but reforms are always bad" claims to a higher standard this year.

This likely may cause me to alter my position on the nature of T/Framework as concerns the fairness/model of debate question. I find it far less compelling that a metaphorical interpretation of the topic language, or some pessimism, or a connection to an analogous logic is part of a strategy of activism/critical thinking rather than an attempt to gain advantage in a debate on this topic (as opposed to other topics). My thoughts on this will likely develop more throughout the year.

And if the Baudrillard aff is still your thing, and you refuse to change that on this topic for whatever reason (I have my theories) please reconsider. I've been generous to you in the past, but come on.

Previous random thoughts and rants:

Debate is better when claims come from some form of evidence. This expanding trend of taking the K in the 2NC, not reading any cards (or 1-2 max) and asserting claims like "the state is always bad" and "humanism is always bad" is not really appealing to me. I don't start the debate with a predisposition to think those arguments are already decided, and I don't find your assertion persuasive. You need some evidence to back up those claims. That being said, I'm pretty open to alternative forms of evidence and will do my best to evaluate them, but there has to be something there.

I've been coaching debate for quite a while now, and I've coached teams that run just about everything. I've judged debates about most things as well, so the odds are that you won't be doing anything that I'm not somewhat familiar with. That being said, I find myself less willing than I used to be to unpack your buzzword-laden cryptic statements about continental philosophy or psychoanalytic concepts. If your strategy revolves around obfuscation or deferral, I am not the most sympathetic judge for you. If you are talking about Lacan, I have a higher burden of explanation than you are probably meeting. I also find rejection as an isolated concept to be a generally uncompelling alternative absent some development.

Debate is a game, but it is a game that needs to have some value. Therefore, any good debate practice should be both fair and educational, but the content of such education and the neutrality claims of procedural fairness become internal links, not terminal impacts, once contested. In other words, be able to defend the value of your model of debate, and you'll have a much better chance in front of me when the opponent offers a different model of debate.

Most of you would be better off slowing down, especially on tags and analytics and overviews. Seriously, most of you read them like they're cards, which just makes them unflowable. Typing time and mental processing time are real things that judges need. I know you are just flowing the speech doc, but please don't make me do that too. Be slow enough that you can be clear.

Now to the stuff you actually care about:

Can I read the K? Yes. But please have a better link than the state or civil society. The more germane you are to the topic, the better.

Can I read a K aff? Yes

Does that K aff have to be about the resolution? It should be. I've been persuaded that it doesn't matter in some debates, but I am going to be skeptical about aff claims about that on this topic, see the initial rant above. Questions of process or implementation are generally up for debate.

Will you vote on framework/T against K affs? Yes. However, you probably need to make inroads against the aff's structural fairness claims about the world to have a shot. I am generally more persuaded by engagement/institutions arguments than fairness arguments, but have voted for both. I think the value of fairness in debate often begs a larger question about the value of the model of debate that particular claims to procedural fairness would preserve, and I'm open to hearing that debate. I think debates about the merits of ending mass incarceration, abolishing prisons, or defunding police are much better and more educational debates than debates about the negative struggling to find a link because the aff refuses to defend abolition.

Can I read a "traditional" policy aff and not automatically lose to the K? Yes. I don't think that because you said the word "reform" that the permutation debate is always already over.

Conditionality? It's good. Contradictory conditional advocacies, however, are probably not. Note that a K that links to the CP as well as the plan probably does not meet this threshold of being a contradiction in this sense. Your 3-4 counterplans in the 1NC are probably not complete arguments, and likely haven't made a solvency argument worth comparing to the case, so those might be better arguments than conditionality. Conditionality only allows you to jettison an advocacy statement and default to the status quo or another advocacy, not the series of truth claims made on a page. Losing that conditionality is bad means at a minimum that the 2NR is stuck with the CP. Rejecting the argument makes it de facto conditional, thus rewarding teams for losing conditionality debates.

Theory arguments? Be clear when you present them. Everything other than conditionality bad is probably a reason to reject the argument, not the team.

Judge kick? Not by default. If you make the argument and win it, sure I'll kick the CP for you. Otherwise, you made your choice and I won't default to giving you a second 2NR in my judging.

I like smart, strategic debate and quality evidence. I give pretty clear nonverbals when I can't understand you, either because of clarity or comprehension. I'm not above yelling clear if I have to. Policy teams, your highlighting is bad. K teams, your tags are unflowable.

Despite our best efforts to avoid it, sometimes clash accidentally occurs and a debate breaks out. Be prepared.

Ravi Raghavan

Lexington High School '17

MIT '21 (Currently debating for Harvard)

Last Updated: January 2018

Please put me on the email chain: ravi1998@gmail.com

Overview

Feel free to run whatever you want, as long as it’s appropriate for the debate. I would rather you debate what you’re good at and do it well, rather than adapting to what I want and giving me a poor debate. I like to think that I am pretty ideologically flexible, having defended big stick policy affs, more soft-left affs that advocated for USfg action to solve systemic harms, and planless affs, while my 2NR choices have ranged from T to the politics DA to antiblackness. This year at Lexington, I am coaching a wide range of teams, from a team that reads antiblackness arguments on the aff and the neg, to other teams who defend topical plans and go for DAs/CPs. I think debate is fundamentally a game where any argument can win, as long as you debate it better than your opponents do, so a lot of these thoughts below are just minor predispositions, and I will try to judge as objectively as possible.

Speed- It's fine but don't let it compromise your clarity. As one of my coaches put it, “there’s no point of saying more if the judge can’t understand what you’re saying.” I will say “clear” twice, and after that, if you are still unclear, I will stop flowing. You should see this and substantially decrease your pace in order to get back to an acceptable level of clarity.

Tech over truth, but within limits- I think the best debaters effectively combine these two things, arguing strategically and methodically, but also with rhetorical power. That being said, I will judge by the flow. A dropped argument is a true argument. This means it must have a claim, warrant, and implication. I do expect debaters to do line-by-line, which is a way to earn good speaker points from me. I am a 1A/2N, so I inevitably give leeway to the 1AR on certain things, especially when a position is functionally non-existent in the 1NC and then suddenly develops in the block. However, I also try to protect the 2NR, and can sense when the 2AR is BS-ing.

Evidence is great, but so are logical arguments- Not every argument requires evidentiary support. Illogical claims can be answered with sensible, uncarded arguments. That being said, evidence is awesome, and I place a high value on good evidence quality. I will read cards after the debate, because I think that too many teams get away with bad evidence. Evidence comparison within the round will filter how I read certain pieces of evidence after the round, which will most definitely help the teams that do it.

Inserting rehighlighting- I'd prefer you read the rehighlighting instead of inserting it. I will be lenient about this, in the sense that you don't have to rehighlight the whole card, but just the small portion that you think goes your way.

Aggressiveness is great, being rude is bad- I really like aggressive debaters. Debate is a competitive place, so a slight level of discomfort within the round can not only be strategic, but it can also foster better debating. However, there is a fine line between where this aggression can turn into being rude. If you are going out of your way to make someone's weekend terrible, just for the sake of being a jerk, then I will not be happy. Having said this, very few debaters cross this threshold from productive aggression to needless rudeness. Furthermore, this should go without saying, but any racist, sexist, homophobic, or other oppressive behavior based off an individual's identity will not be tolerated.

Impact stuff out- I will not do work for you. If you make me do work for you, I will not be happy, and speaker points will reflect it. Tell me why I should care about your impact over that of your opponents. Does it happen faster? Is it more probable? Does it affect more people? Impacting things out doesn’t just mean regurgitating how you get to nuclear war.

Paperless- I don’t take prep for flashing unless it’s taking a ridiculous amount of time. However, I would like to see a greater effort among all debaters in the round to lower the amount of "dead time."

I'm bad at keeping a perfectly straight face- Use this to your advantage. If I'm confused about an argument that you're making, I will likely show that. On the other hand, if I like an argument you're making, then you will be able to see that also. I figure that I should try to be less transparent but these reactions will sometimes be inevitable.

Strategy is cool- I appreciate and reward well-researched strategies. In addition, smart and/or bold decisions during the debate that demonstrate unique strategic vision are awesome.

Education Topic

I have done minimal research on the education topic coming into the year, so all of your acronyms and programs that your aff implicates will need to be explained. That being said, I am coaching for Lexington High School this year, so hopefully I can get on board with the jargon sooner rather than later. Err on the side of explanation if in doubt.

Ethics Violations

Card clipping- It seems like the number of card clipping incidents in debate is increasing, and this bothers me. Card clipping is failing to read sections of the card without marking audibly during the speech and on the speech doc (or on paper). It can be definitively determined whether a violation has taken place by recording the speech and playing it back with the speech doc. If an accusation of clipping occurs, I will stop the round, and ask the accusing team whether they would like to stake the round on this claim. If they say no, the round will continue. If they say yes, I will stop the round, and listen to the evidence provided by both teams to make my decision. If the accused team is found to have clipped, it results in an automatic loss, and 0 speaker points for the debater who is found guilty of clipping. If the accused team is found to have not clipped, the accusing team gets a loss and both debaters will receive 0 speaker points.

Stealing prep- Don’t do it. 8 minutes is more than enough anyways. If I catch you stealing prep, I will tell you to stop. After that, I will start to dock speaker points.

T

I default to reasonability over competing interpretations, but this is totally up to the debaters to tell me which way I should evaluate the T debate. It is imperative that lots of impacting happens within these rounds, and there are clear descriptions of each team’s vision of the topic. Tell me what debates under each interpretation would look like, and explain the implication to all of your internal links. Don’t just assert “limits” and “overlimiting” and expect me to randomly pick one of those. I also prefer limits and predictability arguments to ground arguments. This isn't to say that you should avoid making arguments about ground, but just that these arguments shouldn't be the sole justifications for your interp.

DAs

No problems here. I think most people, regardless of their current argumentative preferences started learning how to debate the DA/Case strategy at the beginning of their debate careers. I like the politics DA, because it incentivizes lots of research, and has lots of intricacies, but it sometimes is really crappy and there exist better DAs out there that I'd prefer you read instead of your "one size fits all" politics solution. I don’t like giant DA overviews, but I often think it’s fine to explain why your impact outweighs and turns the case in the overview. Both teams should make a lot of turns case arguments, and answer those of the other team. I do think if you are going for a DA/Case strat, impact calculus is essential, and I find that whichever team does more effective impact calc wins the round. Affs should exploit holes in the internal link chains of DAs.

Impact Turns

I love impact turns. I often find that strats which involve impact turns can be executed brilliantly. I prefer these debates to have meta-level framing rather than just being a giant card-war, but feel free to read a lot of evidence- That is usually what happens in these debates. Just don’t let that get in the way of necessary explanations.

CPs

I’m fine with them, and I think they are very strategic against some affs when you don’t have that many substantive answers to engage the actual case. CPs do need solvency advocates and should have a clearly articulated net benefit. I am probably an easier sell than most judges on the aff arg that the "CP links to the net benefit" unless the neg develops a complete argument about why the CP avoids the net benefit (cards on this really help). Advantage CPs are awesome, especially when they implicate the aff’s ability to solve for one of their advantages. PICs are sweet if they’re actually substantive (I dislike word PICs, but I’ll vote on them if I have to). Other theory concerns will be addressed below.

Ks

I really like a good K debate. I have significantly increased my tendency to go for K arguments and think that I am deep into the literature in certain areas. I’m most comfortable with race theory, but am also great for mainstream Ks like cap or security. I am becoming more familiar with more high theory kritiks. I still think they will take some more explanation than other Ks, but if that's your jam, go for it. Good technical debating on the K is one of the most satisfying things to watch. As I said above, I do not want to have to do work for you. Please, explain your argument- I don’t want you to be hiding behind blocks that your coach wrote for you and then not understand what you’re saying when asked to explain it. I expect link analysis to be contextualized to the 1AC, and a clear impact to the links.

I think the most important part of debating the K is the alternative. Sure, you can identify problems with the aff through the link and impact debate, but I need to know what the hell the alt does to resolve those. I was always happy when teams that went for a K against me kicked the alt in the 2NR, because that just meant that the debate was case advantages against a non-unique DA. If you go for a K, I expect the 2NR to also interact with the case, otherwise I will be very convinced by the inevitable 2AR “case outweighs” claim.

I think meta-level framing is important within these debates, but I also do expect you to do line-by-line. I’m ok with overviews, but I would much rather this explanation be on the line-by-line. In these debates, I always look to the framework debate first, because that tells me how I should evaluate the round. I don't care what framework you run, but I think the aff probably gets to weigh their impacts, unless you win that they don't get to.

Planless Affs

I’ll preface this by saying that I’d guess about 80% of my 2NRs against planless affs have been T-USfg. On the other hand, I have defended multiple planless affs, because there is definitely some strategic aspect to doing so. I also can enjoy listening to planless affs if they actually advocate to do something.

Topicality- I really enjoy listening to these debates. I think T is usually the most strategic argument against affs that don’t defend a plan, so I am a decent judge for the neg in these debates. With that said, however, I am also open to the ideas that the aff brings to the debate about why the resolution or the structure of debate is flawed, and often find that the 2NR fails to extend an external impact. Thus, while my personal belief is that the aff should defend topical government action, I still vote aff in some of these debates.

I was never a fan of the “soft left," institutions framework arguments because the internal links become a lot weaker and the aff can definitely access some of your impacts. I think arguments about defending a topical governmental policy for the sake of engaging a well-prepared opponent are a lot more convincing. Predictable limits arguments are the most convincing as internal links to clash and in-depth research. Procedural fairness is definitely an impact, and one that has consistently been persuasive to me, but you will still have to articulate a good set of internal links and an impact in a non-arbitrary way. I think procedural arguments about the balance of prep and clash are more effective impacts and often serve as internal links to whatever other skills-based impacts you want to go for (Lundberg, Steinberg and Freeley, etc). Arguments like the topical version of the aff and "do it on the neg" are essential chunks of defense and should be made to filter aff offense.

I think that aff teams need to do a better job when answering topicality. From my own personal experience, I have found that aff teams get too drawn up in the exclusionary nature of T, and they try to impact turn everything about it. Although impact turns are absolutely necessary, I think sometimes this detracts from exploiting some internal link issues. I have yet to hear a team contest the terrible internal link between clash and portable skills to stop extinction from climate change. I think that some top-level impact turns and overall impact comparisons are good when answering T, but they should be coupled with arguments that attack shoddy internal links, and prove that you also access some of the benefits of their interpretation. Your counterinterpretation should set at least some kind of limit on the topic. Final note: Please don’t try to go for “we meet” in front of me if your aff is blatantly not topical- Even if you do win that part of the debate, it will make me very sad voting for you, which probably translates to mediocre speaks.

Judge instruction is vital in topicality debates. In a lot of these debates, I am left with large pieces of offense and defense floating around from both sides with no metric for weighing them against each other. Tell me why I should prioritize competitive equity over the cruel optimism DA, or vice-versa. Weighing arguments can only benefit you, since lack of such comparison invites intervention on my part, which may yield a different result than the one you desire.

Other strats- I’m fine with teams who want to engage the aff through a counter-advocacy or a K of their own. I will leave it up to the debaters within the round to tell me why or why not the aff should get a permutation in these types of debates.

Case Debate

Please engage in a case debate regardless of the aff that is being run. It is impressive to me when you can beat the other team on not only your arguments but theirs also. Also, case debates probably create the greatest amount of direct clash within a round when done correctly, which is great. If you can get me to vote neg on presumption or a small bit of offense that outweighs a minimal risk of case, speaker points will generously reflect it. (The same can be said about an aff that reduces the risk of a DA to functionally nothing).

Theory

I default to rejecting the argument on theory for everything except conditionality, unless I am convinced otherwise. Although I do have predispositions, I can easily be persuaded by good technical debating. Here are my predispositions when it comes to theory:

Advantage CPs- Very neg leaning

Substantive PICs- Very neg leaning

Conditionality- Neg leaning (1-2 are definitely good, 3 is ok, 4+ is pushing it)

Agent CPs/International CPs- Aff leaning (It becomes a much different story when the neg has a good solvency advocate)

Process CPs- Aff leaning

50 State CPs- Slightly aff leaning (Uniform 50 state fiat is probably bad.)

Word PICs- Aff leaning

Object fiat- Very aff leaning

Multiplank CPs are fine. Aff teams should clarify whether the neg can add/kick planks otherwise I'm letting the neg do whatever they want.

Judge-Kick- Absent a 2NR argument for judge-kick, I will refrain from doing so.

Final Thoughts

I like when debaters connect with me on a personal level- Feel free to make jokes, whether they be about debaters I know, or funny things that happened in the round. I just ask you to make sure that these don't come at the expense of the other team. References to the Patriots, Celtics, or other sports teams/players are more than welcome.

Some of my favorite judges in high school were Kevin Hirn, Shree Awsare, Malcolm Gordon, Yao Yao Chen, and Michael McCabe. I generally agree with most of their thoughts about debate.

I encourage you to ask questions of, and even disagree with my RFD. I just ask that you give me at least some level of respect, and allow me to articulate how I evaluated certain arguments. I usually take more time than usual to make decisions, because I like to make sure that I evaluated the possible "ways out" for the losing team, and I like to provide a typed up RFD that the individual debaters can see on tabroom following a tournament.

If anything is unclear here, feel free to ask me before the round- I have to admit that I do like to rant about my thoughts on debate, so I will not be bothered at all if you have a question about my paradigm.

Updated for ASU 2021

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

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

Big picture:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Specific Arguments:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In college, my debate style was left of center, but I was trained at Emory which means as much as I lean toward critiques and performance debates as my personal preference, I am equally as qualified to judge straight up policy debates. In debates where the policy framework meets the critical framework I vote for the team with the better argument even if I find the opposing teams position more interesting or entertaining, I can reward that with speaker points.
I don’t have any preconceived ideas about debate theory, so I tend to vote directly on the flow. If you win the theory argument and it has implications that you explain, I’m more than willing to vote there.
I am open to and willing to engage alternative stylistic practices and choices for debates.
I hate reading evidence after a debate because it means that the debaters have been sloppy and inefficient in explaining and defending their arguments. Thus, I only read cards if you have not done your job. That being said, if there is evidence you would like to be a part of my consideration because if I need to read evidence, I will only call for what has been directly referenced by you.
Important things to know about debating in front of me. I like smart asses, in general, but I think too many people cross the line in debate. So be forceful and aggressive, but watch the rudeness factor with the other team. I can be very supportive and will offer suggestions both for improving debate skills, but also in improving arguments, and pointing to interesting directions for more evidence.

CURRENT THINGS WITH JAYE:

I am currently working as an assistant coach to the Newark Science debate team. I am very much indebted to debate for the person that I am today. I find debate (and especially debate rounds) to be very much a part of life. This means that I would encourage everyone to understand that the things you say in a debate round have real implications even outside of the debate round. Fellow debaters and opponents in the past, present, and future are not just obstacles, but are other people whether that is outside or inside civil society. Debate does not allow the things you say to exist in a vacuum, so as a judge, coach, educator, and a petty black man I will not tolerate or evaluate the following ideas (LIKE EVER):

RACISM GOOD/ RACISM DOES NOT EXIST

SOCIAL DEATH GOOD

STOPPING WARMING WILL SOLVE RACISM

(These are the only things that come to mind at the moment, I know and will try and add more, but understand I put these first for a reason.)

BACKGROUND THINGS WITH JAYE:

I’m a proud member of the Eastside debate team senor class of 2014. I am the closest friend with Daniel Mendes (who all of sudden became a celebrity in HS debate) and Chaz Wyche (if you don’t know about him you shouldn’t worry about it to affect my judging.). From my time on the Eastside debate team (Eastside BR) I am a member of the few teams from Newark to ever get a TOC bid (Scranton 2013) in over a decade. All my time in policy debate has been devoted to traveling, and debating in national tournaments all over the country (Scranton, Yale, Georgetown, Emory, U-Penn, NAUDL, etc). During my travels I have had Elijah Smith (CEDA AND NDT 2012 CHAMPION), Chris Randall (CEDA AND NDT NATIONAL 2013 DEBATER, and also Elijah’s partner), and Willie Johnson (CEDA 2013 FINAL ROUND JUDGE) as my coaches and most influential to my success as a debater. I am luck enough to have even judged at the college level of policy debates at tournaments such as Vermont, and West point and look forward to judging the HS level. 

DEBATE THINGS WITH JAYE:

GENERIC THING WITH JAYE:

I’ll try and be quick and painless for the people who are waiting to know how they should pref me. Now I have judged policy, critical, and performance, but I find performance to be the debates I’m truly most comfortable with. If you could not tell by the three coaches I have stated above, I am very familiar with performance rounds and by coincidence I am also a performance debater. I ran an Afro-pessimist critiques in all my national tournaments my senior year (exception Yale and Georgetown: I ran Decolonaility, there is a difference btw). At all the other the tournaments I have read at least 2 Wilderson cards in every speech I’ve given. There are other authors that I read that talk about anti-blackness, but the point is that if you are talking about black people I have probably read the books/articles they came from. Now policy is by no means something I can’t judge. No performance debaters I know have started out running performance arguments, the same is true for me that I had to learn policy debate in order to be the debater I am today so I’ll talk about the specifics of policy first. 

POLICY THINGS WITH JAYE:

TOPICALLY

• AFF

You should pick up on whether the negative will truly go for the argument, and let that choose how you will answer in the 2ac and 1ar. Reasonability is a really strong argument in front of me, but that does not excuse you for dropping any arguments that can be used to make topically important.

• NEG

I do evaluate topically. If you are going for topically you need to go hard people. I will not vote for topically if you don’t hard for me in the block. I need in round abuse, topical versions of the Aff, and voters that are going to be impacted in the round in order for me to take topically as more than a time crew you thought of for the round. If you actually do go for topically in the 2nr (which I would be beyond shock and a little impressed if you do it well) to make me vote on topically you need to go for this argument for the whole five minutes. Topically is a prior question in the round it would only make sense to just go for topically in the 2nr. The way I see topically used now as a time screw for a very minimal infraction of the Affirmative that is probably resolved through reasonability.   

THEORY

• AFF

 The best thing you could do for me would to try and set up theory in cross x. A simple “What is the status of the off case position?” would help me to at least prepare for a theory debate. I also like theory on a separate flow so that needs to be in the order at the beginning of the speech.  That helps me evaluate the separate offense and defense on that debate. Theory like topically needs to have same time spent on it in order for me to vote for this argument. Your tagline will not be enough for me.  

• NEG

It is of the utmost importance for you to set this argument up in cross x for me if you can. Theory should also be on a separate flow, and similar to what I said on the Aff. You need to spend time on his to have me vote on this.  

FRAMEWORK

• AFF

For the Affirmative the framework is really helpful to how I should evaluate. I can guest that a utilitarian framework is the way to evaluate your impacts or you can tell that utilitarianism is the framework, and give some comparative analysis if the negative has their own framework.  A role of the ballot and judge is something you also want in any 2ac because it makes sense.

• NEG

I’m talking about the “Resolved means a USFG topical policy action”. This type of frame is the scorn of my life. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard this argument. I WILL CRINGE EVERY TIME I HEAR THIS ARGUEMNT. I will unfortunately listen to the argument, but no one will like this debate. I believe that you should probably just run the topical version of the plan against whatever Aff you didn’t care to engage with. You can still weight all the education and ground arguments, but we now have a better debate, and I’ll be a lot happier.

AFFFIRMATIVE

All Policy affirmatives NEED TO HAVE A CLEAR LINE BETWEEN THE INTERNAL LINK AND THE IMPACT OF EACH ADVANTAGE. I also need a clear line to the SOLVENCY AND HOW THAT WORKS FOR EACH ADVANTAGE. The Aff should tell a story and have a good flow to it. This means the Aff should not be you trying to read as many cards as you can in the 1ac. The 1ac should be slow on tags to contribute to the idea of telling a story. Even policy Affs can be creative. Don’t be afraid to something other than nuclear war/extinction and have some cool advantage with a framework behind how I should evaluate the advantage. The best example of this I can tell you is probably structural violence advantage that stops something like police brutally, but this will require work. I will be happy to see that effort in a debate round and be sure to recognize you in some way for that work.   (Probably a speaker higher)

DISADVANTAGES

They are ok, but make sure think is a clear link to the Aff. You also need to tell me how to evaluate this impact in round. The answer is YES! I would like a specific impact calculus for the round that compares all the impacts in the round.

COUNTER PLANS

If the counter plan doesn’t make any sense after the permutation then I will probably not vote for the counter plan. It needs to complete. That means a net benefit and a reason why the Aff is a bad idea. I believe that even if the counter plan solves the Aff it does not mean game over. The negative still needs a reason why the Aff is a bad idea on top of the net benefit or I will just vote Aff on the permutation. 

CRITICAL THINGS WITH JAYE:

• AFFIRMATIVE

This for the Affirmative that have a plan text, but have a very philosophical background:

YOUR AWSOME 

• CRITQUE

I LOVE CRITQUES, BUT IF YOU DON”T KNOW THE LITERATURE I WILL NOT LIKE YOU. This simply means if you read a critique you should have picked a book and read. Not just the introduction, but have read the book. You can easily tell an experience K debater from someone who is just beginning. I find that people can earn high speaks here, but with all high speaks they come to those who have a working knowledge of the hell they are talking about. Know Your Stuff. Links need to be as clear as possible. The better the link story, the better the speaker points. The alternative needs to solve the Aff or resolve the essential question posed in the debate. Make sure I know what the world of the alternative looks like. If you say that you end the work I need to know what the process looks like because my ballot will final end the world and I’ll take great pride in that.  

PREFORMANCE THINGS WITH JAYE:

• AFFIRMATIVE

As stated above I’m very comfortable with this argument. Be sure to have some clear connection to the topic. IF YOU RUN THIS ARGUMENT YOU ARE THE REASON WHY THE SUN SHINES (not really tho)

• NEGATIVE

I do believe that the negative can also have performances. These are really trick to deploy in a round sometime, but when done correctly they are one the most powerful arguments in debate. I prefer these debates to happen when the Aff gives there performance, and he neg provides a counter performance/methodology. These argument hold a special place in my heart as this was the only I ran on the negative of my senior. There is nothing special you get from me by reading this argument but that shouldn’t hinder you from reading this argument in front on me anyway.    

END OF THNGS WITH JAYE

First of all +1 for actually reading judging paradigms. You've already started off well.

Add me to the email chain: devon.debate@gmail.com

Experience: I debated for three years in high school at Baltimore City College and now I'm one of their coaches. This is my fifth year judging HS debate.

Paradigm: Just a general overview of how I judge debates: I'm fine with spreading as long as you are clear enough. I will listen to almost anything and as long as it's argued well. A dropped argument is a true argument (within reason). I like competitive spirit but don't be a terrible person. By that I mean you can get fiery in your speeches and cross-ex but personal attacks are not cool unless they are really out of line (i.e. they said something outright offensive: racist, sexist, patriarchal, heteronormative,etc.). I want to see a good debate so run what you're comfortable with and know what you're talking about please.

Specifics: Now I'll talk about a few things that are more specific to argumentative style and my own preferences.

DISCLAIMER: Everything beyond this point is my point of view so you should take it with a grain of salt. I'll always judge a debate based on what happens in the round not based on how I feel about the arguments ran. However I will tell you how I felt after the round.

K: I primarily debated kritically during my debating career so that is naturally what I prefer to hear and I know more about. If you run a K, you can trust that I'll probably have a good idea of what you're talking about unless you are running something really obscure.

I read a lot of Deleuze and Foucault myself so I have a higher threshold for these arguments. I really hate generic answers to these arguments...but they can win the debate if they aren't answered well.

Race, so this is an interesting subject. I have read some of the literature behind most classic race arguments and my team has read(or is currently reading) most of the better kritical race theory arguments so I am used to hearing them and I understand them very well. Thus likewise, I expect them to be run well or you are already starting off from behind in my book. If you are an all white partnership, be careful what you say. I'm not going to vote you down for being wrong but being offensive can affect speaker points. So I will listen, just don't say anything that will make me regret that.

Policy: I wouldn't say that straight up policy is something that I love listening to but I will listen to it. Keep it clean. Keep it understandable. Otherwise I have no issues.

T: I really dislike this argument in 99% of situations. If the other team answers it reasonably I will not vote on it. Read something responsive. T is not responsive. If you plan on winning T it better be the whole 2NR or else I'll give the 2AR a lot of leeway on it unless the 1AR just straight dropped it, but you still need an impact. T alone is not a voter. Also if you go for T, especially against a K Aff there damn sure better be some real impacts. I mean real world impacts. Weighing your "education" against systemic issues is not going to be an easy debate to win in front of me.

Theory: I have nothing for or against theory. Be articulate and make sure I understand all the parts of your argument and why what they're doing is bad.

At the end of the day when I'm judging I really just want to see a good debate so if you give me that you can be sure that I will judge it fairly and unbiased.

Shirley Update

The only topic work I’ve done for Personhood is digging up my old plant ontology files, go slow and tell me your stuff.

If my camera is off I am not present - don’t start.

Short

I've read every kind of aff from straight up heg good to baudrillard, I care way less about what arguments you make than how well you defend them.

I went for the K a lot in high school and still do, but I also love a good policy round, and would much rather you debate to your strengths than to what arguments you think I'll like.

Put me on the email chain, alexsherman99@gmail.com I won't be reading along, unless you read a card that I think is so good I want to recut it for my teams, or if there's a dispute about something that was read.

Long version

I flow on paper. This means that you going slightly slower, and having a clear story will be quite helpful. I'm at the tail-end of year 10 competing and year 5 judging, so this doesn't mean you have to talk to me like I'm a parent judge, but it does mean that if you go full speed through 8 minutes of blocks, to not be surprised when I miss an argument or two. The easy fix to this, for all of you speed demons out there, is to label your arguments with a flowable tag. We already do this with cards, why not do it with our analytics too?

When making my decision. I first write up the most important arguments for both sides. This usually comes down to about 2-3 things, though that may just be because I only judge clash rounds. I then look over my flow, and try to write up an explanation of each, and what it means for both sides. I then compare these, and look for responses that the other team has forwarded. What this means for you, is that it is in your interest to identify what you think the 2-3 most important arguments for either side are, tell me why you're winning them, or why you should still win in the event that you don't win these arguments. If you do not do this, I will still do my best to identify these arguments, but, what I think is important and what you do may not line up, and as a result, our perceptions of the winner may not line up either.

When doing this, I often try as hard as I can to not read evidence. This is because I am very committed to my belief that debate is an activity about communication, and that if you did not effectively communicate an argument to me, it does not matter if you read an amazing card. While I obviously still care about research and evidence quality, I feel that the impulse to read all of the evidence to decide the round makes me more interventionist (which I would like to avoid) and also seems to fall outside of the terms of debate. I.e. outside of teams dropping stuff, if i were to just decide the round based on the cards you read, and not what you said about them, why should I even be sitting there for two hours listening to you? Couldn't you just send me your cards and have me decide at the end whose I thought were better?

This applies less and less if both sides are comparing a piece of evidence, or questioning it's qualifications, or implication, but the "this card is fire, please read it judge" has never been something I have been that inclined to do.

I judge a majority clash debates (around 80% when I last checked) and have found that oftentimes the winners in this debates are the ones who engage with the other side's approach to the world, rather than just explaining why their approach is better. While we obviously should still care about drops, and they are often useful in making decisions in these rounds, I've found that it's useful for both teams to invest a substantial amount of time in looking to where the other team clashed, as much as where they didn't.

I've noticed that I may sound kind of grumpy when giving rfds. This very rarely reflects my distaste at having to judge your round, and more so reflects that I am displeased at having to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

My favorite judges in high school were always the ones who seemed really excited to be there judging my round, and the ones who emphasized voting on what was in the round. I love debate and I know you care about the activity to be giving up your weekends to compete in it, and it would be rude of me if I didn’t put all my effort into making the best decision I can. If you don’t think I’m paying enough attention, go ahead and call me out. Nothing here is set in stone, but, if you don't tell me to change how I'd evaluate any of these, then they're my defaults.

1 Tech Over truth, but to an extent. True arguments require less technical explanation for me to buy what you're selling. Oftentimes when making decisions, I find that I am looking at dropped words on my flow, but am unsure how to piece them together to make a cohesive rfd. It is in your best interest to not only tell me what was dropped, but then tell me what I should think about the drops.

2 Mediocre strategies may win in front of me, but, speaker points will likely suffer. If the 1ar drops aspec that was at the bottom of your t overview, and that’s your a-strat, I’m probably not the judge for you. I prefer debates with either really tricky and nuanced strategies, or teams that are willing to just bet it all on black and go for impact turns. I've found that teams that do a better job articulating how I should evaluate arguments do better in front of me than teams that just wait for me to reconstruct what an argument means for my decision. I'm not smart so if you tell me how arguments implicate the rest of the debate, you'll be in a better spot.

3 Protecting the 2nr. There's nothing worse than giving what you think is a fire 2nr and then watching the judge nod along with an argument you're certain wasn't in the 1ar. 2ars should have a high standard for drawing arguments from the 1ar unless they were clear in the speech. I.E. new 2ar cross applications should be justified in the speech/flagged in the 1ar. If I don’t think I could have seen it coming, I probably will think it’s new.

4 Counterplans: They should compete with the aff. Theory arguments are usually just reasons to reject the counterplan, but this is primarily because most folks are afraid of going all in. If your solvency deficit is mediocre, theory is probably a good way out. You don't need a solvency advocate, but having one definitely makes your job easier. Exploit generic link chains in affs.

Generic pics are awful, and specific pics are one of the fastest ways to get good speaks, but in both cases, pics bad needs to come back with a vengeance. I won't judge kick unless you tell me to in the 2NR.

5 Disads: 2acs with bold strats, i.e. straight turning a disad would increase my value to life, and your speaker points. I am very much in the camp that a disad that isn't a full argument in the 1nc is a terrible strategic decision hint: 1a's pull out your impact turns. Outside of that though, I really do like them, whether you're a plug and chug politics team, or a team with the amazing topic link card that no one else has found.

6 Kritiks I like them, they’re probably my favorite argument. I’m really into high theory, and probably am a good judge for you if you like to run kritiks. I’ve run all kinds of things, mainstream stuff like cap, and apoc rhet, to stuff like dng, baudrillard, and halberstam. Examples, explanation and re-contextualization will be integral to your success. These rounds are often more about controlling the narrative than many others, which makes sense given that the focus of the debate is on whether the assumptions that the other team has forwarded are valid.

You don’t need to have an alt to win, but you should justify why. Your links should be specific to the aff. Obviously this is a sliding scale, and if you're reading a K of realism against an aff from John Mearsheimer, I won't be rolling my eyes wishing you had a card specific to the aff, but, If I can’t tell what aff your debating in your 2nc on the k, we’re both gonna have a bad time.

I was always pretty frustrated after giving a 2nr on the K when the judge was just like. "I know you both read a bunch of stuff on framework, but I couldn't really decide who won so I kinda just picked a middle option that both teams never said" Not only does this seem to heavily favor the affirmative, but also reflects a combination of arguments that was never advocated for by either team. I think the best strategy for the aff is just to have some arguments that presume that they (gasp) have to defend why their representations and scholarship are good. Given that most k's are some kind of argument about how the affirmative's theory of IR justifies violence, it doesn't seem that hard to identify the strain of IR that you have affirmed, and provide a defense of why you think about the world the way you do. If the neg has said debate is about how we craft our subjectivity, and said that the subjectivity they endorse opposes a particular world view, why wouldn't this equally apply to the aff, and the defensive realist subjectivity of the taiwan aff be a reason why you should get to say your impacts still matter.

Generally though, I think that affs need to be doing a lot better job answering k's. Please talk about your aff more and generic backfile cards less. Most cases outweigh the k, and extinction impacts are often pretty persuasive. I really do not want to die, and presume that most people do not want to die either, and one thing that always confused me was when there were debates where that comparison didnt really start until the last two rebuttals.

I also think more affs should just bite the link and impact turn the K. Obvi dont read racism/sexism/ableism good, thats the quickest way to a 25 and an L short of conceding the round, but, every K makes other claims that you can, and probably should consider reading offense against.

Two side thoughts

1. Most people read utterly incoherent theories of international relations. I.E. Ikenberry and Mearsheimer may both think that leadership is good, but are not as buddy buddy as people would like me to believe. Obviously just being like "lmao these cards are a double turn" does not meet the threshold of an argument, but, "the aff de-prioritizes the role of institutions because ___ this means that you should be skeptical of their ability to solve for the liberal international order, which Ikenberry says is cohered through a strong commitment to international institutions" is. The latter will shock and impress me, and put your baseline speaks at a 29.

2. Most people have turned against the "not our x" Sometimes this is fair, because the team is lying to get out of links. But, I don't particularly understand why a team should be punished because their author had a bad idea that they don't defend or talk about in the 1ac or 1nc. Consider if we applied this same standard to policy rounds, and the neg read a politics card from nate silver about a specific seat in the midterms. The affirmative responded with a card that said "nate silver was way off on this one super unrelated prediction" and read a card indicting the method of that poll specifically. Why would the neg be tied to defending the poll that they have not cited, and is not intrinsic to their argument? This doesn't mean that I'm waiting to vote on not our x, but, that I will be pleased if both teams can defend why their argument is or is not distinct from x, by demonstrating a command of the literature base that they are deploying.

7 Topicality: Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really understand ground arguments - if you don't have generics ready to go for core topic areas, or arguments that make debating the aff irrelevant (impact turns, process cp's etc) that seems like a you problem. I get some affs are really small and don't do much, but either they have an absurd impact claim that you can turn or outweigh, or they'd need such a contrived interpretation of the topic to be T that you could just go for limits.

Reasonability has never really made sense to me either, because usually those debates just boil down into the same silly buzzwords that everyone uses. I think reasonability can be an incredibly gnarly argument if it's framed more in the form of an explanation of why offense/defense is bad for topicality debates. Scotty P wrote a really good explanation of what that would look like here https://hsimpact.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/what-is-reasonability/

8 Speaks

Things that will get you good speaks

5 minutes of Antonio in the 2nr (not joking)

9 Clipping- Don’t do it. I’ll be sad, and have to give you a 0

10 No argument too strange- I can be convinced to vote on anything if you do well. T is a rvi, double win theory, normativity k, silence k. If you think you can pull it off, and want to risk a ballot on it go ahead. If you execute it poorly, I'll probably be annoyed, but at the same time, no one ever did anything to radically change debate without taking a lot of risks.

11 Non-traditional affs. I think I’m a pretty good judge for these. I think these affirmatives are unfair, but, don't really know why that's bad (fairness is not an impact). I don’t really think framework is deployed effectively very often, which is unfortunate, because I oftentimes think that many of the claims from framework teams make a lot of intuitive sense. I ended up voting against framework about 60% of the time last year, but I'd attribute that a lot more to what happened in the rounds I judged than to a general predisposition.

For the neg. When I vote neg on T, it's because the negative has successfully done one of two things.

1. Proven that their impact turns the aff's offense.

2. Proven that the aff doesn't solve their offense, and have mitigated the application of case to T in a way beyond the sentence blurb "they don't get to weigh the aff because t is a procedural"

I've found that the topical version of the aff has become less persuasive to me the more clash rounds I've judged. This is not due to the argument being not strategic, but rather, me being left confused about how the topical version resolves offense that the affirmative has deployed, (and a secondary problem of most topical versions of the aff not meeting the standard of being a topical aff in a policy v policy round). The solution to this is easy. Instead of repeating any disad to the topical version doesn't prove it isn't an answer, it just proves neg ground, take some time thinking about the offense that the other team is deploying.

A second problem, is that most people seem to forget they're reading a topicality argument. I have judged almost 30 framework debates this year, and in about 5 of them, I've been clear on how the counterinterpretation solved the aff's disads, and included their affirmative. If the aff read a counterinterp they didn't meet on T-Pearson, or that didn't solve the aff's overlimiting offense why wouldn't you point that out? There's a reason why you're reading interpretations, and why we call framework a topicality argument, you should debate your shell as such.

I've also found that the repetitive "but what do you do?" presumption argument, is wholly unpersuasive. Most affs say they do something, and the neg says, but what do you do, the aff says what they do, and the neg says, yeah, but what do you do? I think this can also be fixed pretty easily, instead of carrying over this, but what do you do argument, make the implied follow on argument, which is something to the effect of, if x structure is so totalizing as their theory says it is, their method is insufficient to resolve it. Think about x as a similar example, which failed for y reason.

All this being said, I'm more than willing to vote on T, as it is obviously a strategic position, and I'm very sympathetic to teams (especially without substantial coaching resources) who would rather prepare to get really good at one argument that would answer all no plan affs, as opposed to specific critiques/disads.

For the aff - Have a clear counterinterp, tight impact turn story, and exploit the weakness of most teams at answering arguments that they are mostly unfamiliar with.

You have to answer disads, even if you dont defend hypothetical implementation of usfg action. This doesn't mean I'm waiting to vote on the aff flips the 2020 election, but rather that if you can think of a nuanced way to articulate a link I wont be a super tough sell on the aff has to defend the consequences of their epistemology. I.e. if an aff says that executive power is bad, I feel like John Yoo would have some things to say about that, even if the aff doesn't implement a policy.

I also really enjoy K vs K debates, as this gives me a break from hearing about what Steinberg and Freely need to tell me about decisionmaking, and allows both sides to engage literature bases that are often not brought into connection with each other. One side note is that I tend to find that the theory of power debate is far less compelling than specific applications. Most folks in the 2nr and 2ar tend to just be like, they dropped our theory of power, game over!!

Questions? Email me at alexsherman99@gmail.com. The longer you wait, the less specific my comments may be, but I have noticed that I recall my thoughts about rounds more than I don't.

elijahjdsmith AT gmail.com

My General Thoughts on Debate

Debate is what you make it. I have an extensive history in circuit policy/ld and college policy debate. I care about education more than fairness, good cards over the quantity of positions, and quality arguments over the number of arguments in a debate.

An argument has a claim, warrant, and impact in a single speech.

The role of the affirmative is to affirm and the role of the negative is to negate the affirmative in an intellectually rigorous manner. However, I would personally like to hear the affirmative say we should do something. I would prefer to hear about an actor outside of the folks reading the 1AC (Nonprofits, governments, the debate community as a whole, etc) do something but that is not a requirement. Most of it sounds good to me.

Please don’t say racist, sexist, ableist things or things that otherwise participate in -isms . Sometimes these are learning moments. Sometimes these are losing moments.

If there was an accessibility, disclosure, or other request made before the debate that you plan to bring up in the debate please inform me before the debate. I would like to evaluate the debate with this information ahead of time. More personal issues/things that someone did last year are difficult for me to understand as relevant to my ballot.

I decide debates by figuring out 1. framing issue 2. offense 3. good defense 4. if the evidence is as good as you say it is 5. deciding which world /side would result in a better outcome (whatever that means for the debate in front of me)

These thoughts are fairly general yet firmly how I think about debate.

My RFDs have been less "little c, little d mattered to my ballot" and "let's talk about the conceptual, big-picture things that both sides missed that will help you win the next debate". If you want the small line-by-line issues to matter as much you have to give them weight in your final speech. That requires time, investment in explanation, and comparative claims.

LD***

Tricks, silly arguments, etc. Please skip. I haven't read your ethics phil but I've voted on it when it makes sense. 4+ off is grounds for a condo debate. K links require longer than 15 seconds to explain.

Public Forum****

If you already know what evidence you are going to read in the debate/speech you have to send a document via email chain or provide the evidence on a google document that is shared with your opponents before the debate. Those cards have to be provided before the speech begins.

You don’t get unlimited prep time to ask for cards before prep time is used. A PF debate can’t take as long as a policy debate. You have 30 seconds to request and there are then 30 seconds to provide the evidence. If you can’t provide it within 30 seconds your prep will run until you do.

The Final Focus should actually be focused. You have to implicate your argument against every other argument in the debate. You can’t do that if you go for 3 or 4 different arguments.

Georgetown Day School '17

Pomona College '21 (not debating)

DAMUS 2020 UPDATE:

I've judged a bit this season, so I'm not a total digital debate novice, but I'm still barely involved with the activity these days. That means I'm not very familiar with new argumentative trends. It also means I'm not as fluent with buzzwords as I once was, and my flowing hand is a little slower than it used to be. If you blaze through your T shell or theory blocks, you do so at your own risk. Clarity, or lack thereof, remains as big an issue as ever, but I'm not going to say "clearer" during a digital speech.

An important note about ethics that I apparently haven't made sufficiently clear: if you want to impugn your opponents' ethical practices, do not do so during a speech. Any and all allegations of improper conduct take priority over the competitive section of the debate, which means they are to be discussed outside of it—that means between speeches. Don't make me stop the debate early unless it's absolutely necessary.

TL;DR:

-K teams tend to prefer me higher than policy teams do.

-I vote against K teams a lot in K vs. policy debates.

-I judge very few policy vs. policy debates.

-The above bullets do not mean I hate policy arguments. You will be at a disadvantage if you avoid going for the arguments you're comfortable with because you think I'll prefer a K.

-While I don't have strong preferences as to the content of the debates I judge, I do have the form preference that debate be an oral activity. So if you want me to vote for something other than an argument that comes out of your mouth or your partner's, you're going to need to do a substantial amount of work using oral argumentation so I know how to weigh it.

Longer/older stuff follows:

Views on the Content of Arguments

Do what you do best. I don't prefer any style of argumentation over any other and strive to be equally unsympathetic to all of them. To be a true tabula rasa is of course impossible, but my biases tend to involve more specific argumentative tactics rather than the types of content debaters read. K teams tend to pref me higher than policy teams do because I read and had success with Ks when I debated and I mostly coach K teams. As a result, I don't judge a lot of policy versus policy debates. In so-called "clash of civilization" debates, I have voted against the K team slightly more than 50% of the time. Maybe this is because familiarity breeds contempt or maybe it's just the way the debates I've judged have happened to turn out. My hope above all else is that no one feels the need to fundamentally alter their strategy because I'm in the back of the room.

How I Evaluate Debates

I previously described my judging as "ruthlessly technical," but I'm increasingly becoming dissatisfied with that model because it's impossible to maintain it to an extent that isn't arbitrary. Ultimately, different people are going to find different claims and warrants more or less persuasive. I would still certainly place myself in the tech over truth camp, but there's a limit. If you make a claim that is self-evidently false and your opponent drops it, I'm not going to vote for it absent explicit and robust justification. Is there an arbitrary element here? Absolutely, but I'd prefer to keep that as clear and out in the open as possible rather than pretend a totally technical approach that is divorced from my own biases is possible. If you tell me "truth over tech," I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea on principle, but it needs to come out early in the debate and you need to explain how it works in a lot of detail or else I just won't know what to do with it. Even if truth comes before tech, I'm not sure how I can know what's true without tech.

I think framework is the most fundamental part of any debate, so it's always the first question I try to resolve when making a decision. It's frustrating to me that both sides often leave framework underdeveloped. Of course, many debates, such as most policy versus policy debates, don't involve explicit framework arguments, but that doesn't mean framework is any less fundamental in those rounds—it just means both sides are in agreement about what that fundamental aspect of the debate looks like.

The nature of debate is that not everything you say will end up on my flow, but if it's not there, I'm not evaluating it. That means effective development, explanation, and time allocation in the final rebuttals are essential to make sure I don't miss the argument you want me to vote on, or to make sure I don't miss your answer to their argument that I want to vote on. Framing in the final rebuttals wins debates when supplemented by good line by line and impact calculus.

Clarity is of paramount importance. I say clearer more than most judges, and I don't think it should be an outlandish request that I be able to understand upwards of 80% of the words you say, including cards. Slowing down a bit on important points is a useful tool for emphasis and is a good way to make sure I actually write down all of the important parts of your argument.

I tend to take a long time to submit my decision because I want to be as thorough as possible. I've realized that this is a losing battle and can result in me doing extra work for both sides, which I do not want to do. So I'm going to try to decide faster from now on and focus more on the framing of the final rebuttals.

On a semi-related note: if I don't understand what the aff does to solve well enough that I can explain it to the neg in my decision, I will vote neg on presumption. This is not at all difficult to avoid, but it's happened in at least one debate I've judged recently. This should really only be an issue with K affs, but since those are what I judge most often I figure it should go in this section anyway.

I determine speaker points in a subjective and arbitrary manner based on factors such as effective organization of arguments, clarity, ethos, and decisively winning portions of the debate. I will not respond to demands that I distribute speaker points any other way. I think speaker point inflation is a problem but I make an effort to keep up with current norms so that debaters don't end up with worse points just because they're unlucky enough to have me as their judge.

Cross Examination

It's a three-minute speech and I flow it. I realize that allowing teams to take prep to extend cross examination seems contrary to this understanding, but since it seems to have become a norm on the national circuit, I'll allow it.

I am not a fan of hyper-aggressive cross examination strategies—that means talking over the other team, repeating mischaracterizations of their answers, laughing at them, etc. This really annoys me and will not help your points.

Topicality/Framework vs. K Aff Thoughts

I enjoy these debates. I've found myself voting for T against K affs more often than I expected to. The main reasons for this are a) the tendency of K teams to be bad at answering standards and case turn tricks (which are almost always disgustingly generic and there's no excuse for not having a case specific answer) and b) the fact that 2ARs like to vomit their offense at me at the top or sprinkled throughout the speech without contextualizing it to the neg's (and often without doing impact calculus). Here are some more specific thoughts on being each side of the T vs. K aff debate:

Going for T

T is an effective argument against K affs when deployed well, and it is sometimes, but probably not always, the neg's best option. I generally find the most important question in T debates to be impact calculus and particularly impact framing, which is especially key for 2NRs on T that go for fairness as an impact rather than as an internal link, since the 2AR will always claim their genocide/value to life/etc. offense outweighs, and I will be inclined to agree unless you have a compelling framing argument about the need for fairness in the context of debate (or, even better, something cleverer that hasn't occurred to me). It's also important that you explain the implications of certain arguments. For example, people like to say that "debate is a game" when going for T. Those four words will not have a particularly large effect on my decision without some explanation. I understand some judges will automatically place fairness before any other offense if you win that debate is a game. I'm not naturally inclined to be one of those judges, but I'm open to being convinced I should become one.

Reading a K Aff Against T

I do not care what kind of aff you read, nor do I care if it is related to the topic, though I can obviously be convinced otherwise in a T debate. If you're debating against T, you're better off impact turning their standards and leveraging the aff against T rather than counter-defining words in the resolution and reading high school papers stripped of their original context as evidence. I do not think that you need to present or defend a different model of debate than the neg, but I need to know what exactly it is I'm voting for when I vote aff if you're not defending a vision of what debate should look like. As always, impact calculus and big picture framing are crucial.

Ethics/Other Unpleasant Things

I would really, really like to avoid ethics challenges in debates I'm judging. If you make one, the round stops and does not continue afterward. I will pull the trigger on clipping and give the person who clipped minimum speaks, but if you make an ethics challenge and I find it to be unwarranted, you will lose and get minimum speaks, and I will harbor a great deal of animosity toward you if I judge you again. If I catch minor clipping (as oxymoronic as that may sound—I mean a few skipped words here and there in a card) I'll give you one warning after your speech. If it doesn't stop, the above applies.

I hate it when debaters personally attack each other. That's a warning. If you fail to heed it, you'll be at a disadvantage. You might even lose the round.

Regarding Post-Rounding

I understand how crucial it is to the functioning of any debate tournament that judges be effective, and I promise that I will do my absolute best to be well-rested and focused anytime I'm tasked with evaluating a round. I hope you will keep this in mind before aggressively post-rounding, which annoys me and does not help you because it will never change my decision and can lead to you missing important parts of my RFD.

If any of the above is objectionable to you, I welcome your strike.

It's cool frfr. I'll judge your round. Don't be a racist or w/e and make your arguments well.

-See Devon Schley's Paradigm, we're basically the same person but I like Afropess less-

Two primary beliefs:

1. Debate is a communicative activity and the power in debate is because the students take control of the discourse. I am an adjudicator but the debate is yours to have. The debate is yours, your speaker points are mine.

2. I am not tabula rasa. Anyone that claims that they have no biases or have the ability to put ALL biases away is probably wrong. I will try to put certain biases away but I will always hold on to some of them. For example, don’t make racist, sexist, transphobic, etc arguments in front of me. Use your judgment on that.

FW

I predict I will spend a majority of my time in these debates. I will be upfront. I do not think debate are made better or worse by the inclusion of a plan based on a predictable stasis point. On a truth level, there are great K debaters and terrible ones, great policy debaters and terrible ones. However, after 6 years of being in these debates, I am more than willing to evaluate any move on FW. My thoughts when going for FW are fairly simple. I think fairness impacts are cleaner but much less comparable. I think education and skills based impacts are easier to weigh and fairly convincing but can be more work than getting the kill on fairness is an intrinsic good. On the other side, I see the CI as a roadblock for the neg to get through and a piece of mitigatory defense but to win the debate in front of me the impact turn is likely your best route. While I dont believe a plan necessarily makes debates better, you will have a difficult time convincing me that anything outside of a topical plan constrained by the resolution will be more limiting and/or predictable. This should tell you that I dont consider those terms to necessarily mean better and in front of me that will largely be the center of the competing models debate.

Kritiks

These are my favorite arguments to hear and were the arguments that I read most of my career. Please DO NOT just read these because you see me in the back of the room. As I mentioned on FW there are terrible K debates and like New Yorkers with pizza I can be a bit of a snob about the K. Please make sure you explain your link story and what your alt does. I feel like these are the areas where K debates often get stuck. I like K weighing which is heavily dependent on framing. I feel like people throw out buzzwords such as antiblackness and expecting me to check off my ballot right there. Explain it or you will lose to heg good. K Lit is diverse. I do not know enough high theory K’s. I only cared enough to read just enough to prove them wrong or find inconsistencies. Please explain things like Deleuze, Derrida, and Heidegger to me in a less esoteric manner than usual.

CPs

CP’s are cool. I love a variety of CP’s but in order to win a CP in my head you need to either solve the entirety of the aff with some net benefit or prove that the net benefit to the CP outweighs the aff. Competition is a thing. I do believe certain counterplans can be egregious but that’s for y’all to debate about. My immediate thoughts absent a coherent argument being made.

1. No judge kick

2. Condo is good. You're probably pushing it at 4 but condo is good

3. Sufficiency framing is true

Tricks

Nah. If you were looking for this part to see whether you can read this. Umm No. Win debates. JK You can try to get me to understand it but I likely won't and won't care to either.

Theory
Just like people think that I love K’s because I came from Newark, people think I hate theory which is far from true. I’m actually a fan of well-constructed shells and actually really enjoyed reading theory myself. I’m not a fan of tricky shells and also don’t really like disclosure theory but I’ll vote on it. Just have an actual abuse story. I won’t even list my defaults because I am so susceptible to having them changed if you make an argument as to why. The one thing I will say is that theory is a procedural. Do with that information what you may.

DA’s

Their fine. I feel like internal link stories are out of control but more power to you. If you feel like you have to read 10 internal links to reach your nuke war scenario and you can win all of them, more power to you. Just make the story make sense. I vote for things that matter and make sense. Zero risk is a thing but its very hard to get to. If someone zeroes the DA, you messed up royally somewhere.

Plans

YAY. Read you nice plans. Be ready to defend them. T debates are fairly exciting especially over mechanism ground. Similar to FW debates, I would like a picture of what debate looks like over a season with this interpretation.

Presumption.

Default neg. Least change from the squo is good. If the neg goes for an alt, it switches to the aff absent a snuff on the case. Arguments change my calculus so if there is a conceded aff presumption arg that's how I'll presume. I'm easy.

LD Specific

Tricks

Nah. If you were looking for this part to see whether you can read this. Umm No. Win debates. JK You can try to get me to understand it but I likely won't and won't care to either.

last updated: january 2020

edgemont class of 2015

binghamton class of 2019

my email is tennisxu@gmail.com -- pls add me to the email chain

tl;dr - do whatever you want. don't be offensive. content is much less important than execution (clear explanation and example debating). line by line is important and makes it a lot easier for me to decide debates

that being said, i have a few random thoughts about debate

- i'm 51/49 against framework (ie i'd vote aff in a tie) but my bias is SUPER easily overcome by good debating. all framework impacts are kinda boring tbh, but the neg needs to do a better job figuring out what the 1ar messed up instead of blindly going for the impact they like the most or they perceive as the best. clearly the claim that decisonmaking skills solve extinction is less convincing than an impact based around competitive equity, but the flow/individual debate should decide the truth claims of those things. what's the point of the 5 new f/w impact / tricks you read in the 2nc if you just never go for them... case defense / solvency presumptiony case arguments are also super valuable -- the aff winning a meta level thesis claim makes it hard for you to weigh offense since the aff can just impact turn things at a terminal level. why do portable skills matter if we just use them to advance imperialism / antiblackness / capitalism?

- 2nc k extensions often suffer from a lack of flow-ability that frustrates me greatly. please try to organize your speech in a constructed manner that revolves around answering the 2ac -- simply saying "go to the link debate" or "go to the impact debate" does not help me in where i should put these things. i will be a much happier camper if you put those things on individual 2ac arguments (ie put the link debate in the perm debate, put the impact debate on some impact defense).

- line by line makes a lot of sense to organize the debate and generally just makes me happy, but i find a lot of the times the more "technical" team will get caught up in extending a bunch of conceded arguments but don't answer an overarching impact outweighs / framing argument the other team advances. even if certain arguments aren't answered, how does that interact with their offense / framing of the debate?

- counterplan theory - very much case-by-case basis - i think that a neg pic that shows that they did their research (cutting 1ac ev, reading lit that directly responds to the 1ac solvency advocate) that is responded to by "pics bad" by the aff is utterly unconvincing - however, reading the most generic counterplan on the rez and saying that we have a card about "surveillance" brings out my inner 2a and leads me to sympathize with the aff

- defense is very good and needs to be used more

- aff needs to put pressure on the block/neg - given the advent of rampant conditionality and other factors, a 2ac that just plays defense on everything the neg says is a ticket to failure - the aff needs to control the direction of the debate using strategically placed 2ac offense (addons, theory arguments, straight turns etc) or the block will run over the aff with new cards and 13 minutes

- haven't judged a debate on this rez so please explain common acronyms and things others might take as granted esp when going for T -- not sure how my time away from the activity has changed my perspectives on potentially common things but ya it's been a little under a year since i've judged a debate

- avid melee player so if you like the game talk to me about mango and ill give you some speaker points. my hands are also getting the work from melee so my ability to flow has definitely decayed -- be cognizant of your speed pls

Put me on the email chain: ayan0376@bths.edu

about me: i debated for brooklyn tech from 2013-2017, qualing to the TOC my senior year. i went for afropess for every 2nr/2ar for 3 years. i am more familiar with K lit but have no predispositions about what debate should look like and will try my best to stick with my flow.

top level stuff:

1) I always default to my flow, however absent a claim, warrant, and impact to every argument-I will have trouble adjudicating.

2) Please properly explain your positions. I find that the best debates are ones with material examples and not reliant on K jargon.

3) The 2nr/2ar should write my ballot and tell me why you win. I find myself increasingly frustrated by defensive 2nr/2ars that are more of an FYI then telling me how I should frame my ballot/prioritize things. I love an easy way out so that means go for theory cheap shots, under covered arguments, etc

4) 7 minute long overviews in the 2NC upset me. You should strike me if you plan on doing that or send me your entire speech doc and not give a 2NC...I will give both partners an auto 30 but drop you.

t vs k affs

Affs should have a clear relationship to the topic-if your aff doesn't mention the words "immigrant", "borders", or "immigration", my threshold for framework is going to be pretty low for the neg to win. I also think a stable advocacy is important for educational debates, if the aff is shifty-you should call them out on it.

For the aff:

1) the aff should impact turn the neg's model of debate and win why normative policy debate is bad for X, Y, Z reason

2) Provide a counter interpretation with net benefits for why your own model of debate is better for in round education or spillover claims. Both teams should be explaining to me what your model of debate looks like: what's the neg's role, what affs are included/excluded, etc

For the neg:

1) I view fairness as an important impact and think every team should enter the round with a 50/50 shot of winning. I can be fairly easily persuaded that K-affs make debate less fair but I find that the neg often times neglect to answer aff arguments about how fairness is bad/unimportant. However fairness arguments that have a clear internal link to topic education, clash, and your model of debate are more persuasive for me.

2) Defend your model of debate. I default to competing interpretations unless you tell me otherwise.

K

I'm pretty familiar with a good portion of contemporary critical literature, however that does not mean that you can get away with not explaining the argument/jargon outside of the literature base it comes from.

If you are reading a K vs a policy aff, it is the burden of the negative to prove the undesirability of the implementation of the plan. The 2NR must extend framework, link, and do impact calc or I will vote aff on presumption if there is no alt extended.

K vs non-traditional affs, again please DO NOT read an overview for 8 minutes with "embedded clash" and never get to the line by line. I will NOT draw any lines for you. Please explain how the aff/neg theories compete and do a lot of framing. I'm skeptical of a permutation in method vs method debate but if the neg doesn't explain how their theory of power is incompatible with the aff/perm theory then it's a really easy aff ballot for the perm. I think the 2NR should have an alt because I generally default to viewing a K vs K debate as a question of competing methods and who has a better orientation towards resolving the impacts presented in the round.

Counterplans/DAs

I'm honestly not great for these debates but a good DA debate with solid links is cool. Have a counterplan text with net benefits. I'm a fan of smart, strategic, and weird CPs.

Name: Jefferey Yan
Affiliations: Stuyvesant High School ’15
Binghamton University '19
Currently working as an assistant coach w/ GMU for 2021-22

Please put me on the chain: jeffereyyan@gmail.com

I debated for 8 years, in HS for Stuyvesant and in college at Binghamton. I read a plan for a majority of my time in HS, and various K arguments on the neg. In college, I read an affirmative about Asian-Americans every year with a variety of flavors and a few about disability. On the neg, we primarily went for K arguments with themes of biopower, capitalism, and resiliency.

Form preferences:

I think line by line is an effective way to both record and evaluate clash that happens in debate. I like to judge debates that are heavily invested in line-by-line refutation because I think it requires the least amount of intervention and the largest amount of me pointing to what you said.

That being said, I think rebuttals require less line-by-line and more framing arguments. The biggest problem for me when evaluating debates is there is often little explanation of how I should treat the rest of debate if you win x argument. In other words, you need to impact your arguments not just on the line by line, but also in the broader context of the debate. The ability to do both in a round is primarily what modulates the speaking points I give.

Argumentative familiarity/thoughts:

Framework/T-USFG: I like to think of framework as an all-or-nothing strategy that can either be utilized effectively and persuasively, or poorly and as an excuse to avoid engagement. My ideal block on FW is where you spend time articulating specific abuse and why it implicates your ability to debate with examples. I think specificity is what makes the difference between framework as a strategy for engagement versus framework as a strategy for ignoring the aff. I think a lot of the delineation here is most apparent in the 2NR and whether or not the neg explicitly acknowledges/goes to the case page.

Generally speaking, I think ties to the topic are good. I think topical versions of the aff are something people need to be going for in the 2NR and are lowkey kind of broken given the time tradeoff vs amount of defense generated ratio. I am unpersuaded by fairness as an intrinsic good or impact in itself, and relying heavily on it in the 2nr is not a great spot to be in. For example, I am relatively easily persuaded by the argument that if a current form of the game produces bad outcomes, then whether it’s fair or not is ultimately a secondary to concern when compared to re-thinking the content of the game itself. I think arguments regarding the quality of clash are the most persuasive to me as they can implicate both fairness and education impact arguments fairly intuitively.

I default to competing interps, but I think that aff teams tend to read awful C/Is without realizing it, mostly because they fail to really think through what their counter-model of debate looks like. I think a strong counter-interp really sets aff FW strategies apart, because being able to access the neg’s offense does a lot for you in terms of explaining the specificity of your own impact turns.

T: Like I said, I have very little topic specific knowledge and am a bit out of the loop in regards to the meta. This means I’m probably more willing to vote on a stupid T argument than other judges. This could be good or bad for you.

DA: I like stories. DAs are opportunities to tell good stories. Not much else to say about this.

CP: I wish people slowed down when reading CP texts because it makes it so god damn hard to flow them. I think judge-kick is stupid. If the debate becomes theoretical, please adhere to some kind of line-by-line format.

K: I am most familiar with structural kritiks. Link specificity makes life good. I think framework is incredibly important for both sides to win to win the debate. I think the neg should defend an alternative most of the time. I think the neg should generally pick and choose one or two specific link arguments in the 2NR.

K but on the aff: These debates are largely framework debates, and the winner of that debate gets to decide what happens with the judge and the ballot. I think it’s important to make clear what the aff advocates early on, because often times these affs have too many moving parts, which gets you into trouble vs link debates/presumption arguments. I think ties to the topic are generally good. I usually really like judging these types of affs.

What I'm looking for follows basically the guidelines set forth in the sepcific event that you are in. Of specific importance outside these guidelines are the following:

• clearly enunciating your speech. Take your time and effectively use your voice
• use of physical characterizations and body language to help tell the story
• creative use of your voice during charazterizations
• using pacing to a purpose
• at the close bring the entire speech together in a delightful manner

2017: I coach k teams and pay rent through /education/ (interestingly the current resolution). also, typically, i coach teams whose 2nr/2ar riff alongside either afro-pessimism or a certain european variation of philosophy.

2016: hi - i am a graduate student studying media theory and cultural studies coaching brooklyn technical high school (brooklyn, ny) and would like to be added to email chains via lzausen @ gmail

for me comprehension is a precondition to understanding. rigorous and textual argumentation, performance, theoretical impact assessment are all aesthetic choices valued highly. use the above words as stylistic assessments for my flow. in my opinion, the judge's roll is to facilitate; best case scenario, you clearly articulate an interpretation of what the round is, and I vote. i coach k teams. but, I hold performative affirmatives to the same degree as state action, and thus all the rhetorical, performative, logical turns are signs of misreading, and are considerably more noticeable to me with the critical team. even if I tend to vote for k / critical argumentation, I will similarly vote for nuanced permutation arguments as the easiest way for affirmative teams against the k - a competitive perm should have a net benefit. but as a judge, I attempt to come into the round with as little pretenses as possible, and if policy-orientation debate is your approach to the resolution I will certainly and easily vote on these types of arguments in the face of a incomprehensible criticism and/or blatant inattentiveness in this game we call policy debate. on this, I find that in-round education is a funnel that both types of debate can accomplish, and I’ve noticed myself more willing to continue these through on the flow.

Include me on the chain: kzimmer2013@gmail.com

Speed/Flow/General Notes:

- Backfile DAs, Ks, or CPs hurt topic education. I value quality arguments over quantity of arguments. Fewer, well-developed arguments will get your farther. Therefore, I don't need gasp-level speed. Spreading is fine-- as long as tags and analytics are clear. Warrant analysis is essential to a good debate *and I need to be able to flow it.

- Debaters must flow. You HAVE to flow. Keeping good flows is the best way of seeing the debate from a judge's perspective. Flows are an essential tool for use in partner communication and in-round decision-making. Both partners MUST FLOW-- and *flow FROM THE SPEAKER, NOT from THE DOC. Do not waste CX time asking which cards the speaker skipped. Do not waste your speech time answering arguments they didn't read. Do not miss the analytical arguments that your opponents included speech but not their doc (either because it was dope and off-the-dome or because they don't have to).

- Keep flows compartmentalized and organized through a line by line. Clean flows make judges most happy and => ^ speaks.

- Look at your judges during speeches and pay attention to whether they are flowing! Your partner can help with this and signal if you perhaps need to slow down, be more clear or just move on.

T/Theory:

- I'm unlikely to go neg on T absent a clear violation and an abuse scenario. If your abuse scenario is underdeveloped, then good clash elsewhere is key to an offensive T debate from the negative. T debates should be framed on both sides, and standards need to be impacted and weighed comparatively.

- I enjoy a good theory debate. They need to be line by line debates, just like any other, and should consist of impacted and responsive standards. Interpretation debates on theory are important.

- The 2NR should only go for one position/world. Multiple, contradicting positions in the 2NR make the judge's decision difficult.

Ks:

- If you run a K, demonstrate that you've read the literature, know your authors and truly understand what you're advocating-- don't wait until the rebuttals to explain the critical theory behind your lx and alts.

- Tagline extensions of 1NC evidence will never win you the K debate. If the neg is not doing in-depth work on the link, the perm will likely solve. Framework, where necessary, should consists of the same aspects as a good theory or T debate.

- I'm unfamiliar with evaluating performance debates but they've won my ballot before. Same rules-- know your stuff.

CX/Speaks:

- Tag-team CX is generally unnecessary. If your partner needs help answering a question, a short interjection is fine. Otherwise, tag-teaming should be avoided.

- Running a K on novice as varsity debaters is unnecessary and will only hurt your speaks. I consider myself a "tabula-rasa," but i will default to policy-maker if you don't provide me with a decisive way to evaluate the round.

What's most key for me?

- Show care and always aid in your opponents' understanding of the arguments and the world of Debate as a whole; be authentic and vulnerable but know your arguments inside and out; do not take this precious activity or space for granted and learn something from every round.