K's are fine if you explain them well enough. I enjoy debates on CP+DA or T. Theory debates are fine as well.

I debated for 4 years at Maine East.

This is my first tournament I am judging, so I may not know of the specific debate argument types so please specify in your analysis what the argument means and why I should vote on it and how it functions in relation to the plan.

I evaluate the round as a policy-maker, which means I will typically vote for the team that can best create clash in the round as well as show me whether or not the presented plan is necessary or not based off of cost and benefit.

When it comes to arguments such as topicality I will not vote on it unless there is actual on round abuse and not just run as a 'time-suck'. I am not well versed in the kritikal debates so I am less likely to vote on them in the round unless you can explicitly explain the link chain and why I should vote on it.

niles west '19

eliben3@nilesk12.org

Stylistic Comments

* I do not discriminate between policy, kritikal, and performance debating styles. If you have a strategic, well thought-out argument and are able to defend it, I will give it a fair and balanced consideration.

* Please be ready to give your speech when your prep is up. Too much 'grey area' time and I will dock your speaks. Tag team is fine. If you need an accommodation, just ask.

* 2NR and 2AR should summarize the round and why you win; you must give me a framework for how to evaluate the round (and why that framing is good). Much harder for me to vote for you if you don't do that.

* Tell me how to evaluate every argument and every impact. I'm not sure how to compare racial violence to nuclear radiation poisoning, but sometimes that's what I'm left with. I will not assume what you want me to do with your argument.

* I will not make arguments for you or the other team, but I cannot pretend that my opinion is irrelevant. It's important that you balance your tech with persuasion. Part of persuasion is looking at me and speaking to me as a human being at some point in the round. If you are constantly out of breath and stammering, you need to slow down.

Specific Arguments

* Kritiks: I am proficient in race debate (Sexton, Wilderson, Gumms, Afro-pessimism, optimism, futurism), IR theories, feminist theories, intersectional theories/Puar, "high theory" (Baudrillard, Deleuze, Bataille, et cetera). I am most well-versed in Queer theory.

* Theory: Love it, but you must go for it for at least 3 minutes in the 2NR/2AR (preferably all 5) if you want me to seriously consider it. The terms 'education,' 'fairness,' or 'portable skills,' are meaningless unless you tell me what exactly you mean.

* Framework/Topicality: I believe fairness and education are internal links to larger impacts, and are strategically meaningless in and of themselves. It is imperative that you be specific about what exactly is gained or lost as a result of some mechanism of your worldview.

* Concessions: My threshold for voting on conceded arguments is higher than most judges. I must be persuaded by the first time it is introduced in order for me to pull the trigger. "Blowing it up" in later speeches is all new argumentation that the other team is allowed to answer.

* Disads/CPs: Love 'em, but you must explain your advocacy/scenario. As I haven't researched on this topic, I may not know your specific scenario.

* .1% risk: I will not make this argument for you, and you must win it. If you cold concede a legit no-internal link argument, how can you still have 1% risk? Some defense is strong enough to give a scenario 0% risk.

About Me

* I've debated and judged policy for 5 years and parli for 1, mainly in the Chicagoland area.

* While I am relatively versed on most literature you'll want to run, I don't know everything. It's your responsibility to explain your argument and evidence; don't make me look at your cards.

* I flow on my laptop. If you'd like to see them after the round, just let me know!
*Be nice and enjoy the debate! Any questions, I'd be happy to answer! :)

READ THIS: I'm a human, I have emotions, I like to laugh and smile, I do it a lot, If you see me doing it, do not be offended or take it personally, and if you don't like me laughing, tell me :)

-TL;DR, Be BOLD, TAKE RISKS, If it's well thought out, you're unlikely to be punished :)

- Ask me questions, do good debate stuff, be polite :)

-No trigger warnings, if you have them, please tell the other team, if you are worried your aff might have some, ask the other team

-If at any point in the round you feel uncomfortable with the content of the debate or someone's action, tell the other team or person to stop, if that would make it worse, then email me and I'll try to make sure we can have a good educational debate where everyone feels comfortable arguing :)

-I need to be able to justify my decision based on what was said in the round. :)

-I will read cards if you ask politely :)

-I'll vote on pretty much anything B)

-I like people who dress nice :)

-Be nice :D

-If you make a Moana reference, I'll make sure it shows in your speaks :D

-I don't like to time people B)

-stand for cross-x, and face me, or I'll ignore it B)

-He, him :)

AFFs- DO WHAT YOU WANT! I have read every kind of aff, hardline, soft left, and poem. I would like to understand your aff, i understand hearthstone analogies very very well. I evaluate solvency before the impacts unless you give me reason to evaluate as try or die. I like having warrants and multiple ways of solving. I think that affs that read a ton of impacts should lose to solvency takeouts. K affs are more than fine.

DAs- not my favorite argument, you probably shouldn't go for this argument alone unless you're sure it outweighs and turns case. If it's this and consequentialism that's fine against a K aff. I like politics, you just need to do a good job winning a unique link, I'm down to vote on a thumper. ._.

CPs- Process CPs are cheating, Consult CPs are cheating, and plan plus are cheating of course it's up to you to prove that, but that's not hard. I like to see competition, and I like to see solvency. I need perms explained to me, something beyond we can do both, but how would they interact. I'm pretty much down for any other kind of CP that does something else. >.<

Theory- It's so much more convincing when you prove in round abuse. I'm still down to vote for potential abuse and what they justify, but less so. I'm also more likely to reject the arg not the team. B)

T- yeah, why not, just make sure you compare your education and fairness ._.

K- heck yeah <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Debated Maine East H.S. 2009 -2012, Coach/Judge 2012 -

Debate is an educational game where everything in debate is debatable i.e. should I prefer tech over truth, do I need a plan text. Be nice to each other, try your best and have fun. Prefer debates were debaters are challenged to think in new ways. Do not be deterred from going for any argument because of what you read here. I’m open to listening to and voting for any argument even debates about what debate should be i.e. k of debate. Just because I stated that I will listen to / vote on / prefer something does not mean that it is an automatic win. If I do not understand something I will not vote on it.

Has been said in many different ways by many different individuals: debating / coaching for a school without many resources and understanding the experiences of similar schools competing against schools who are well resourced, I tend to be sympathetic to arguments based on inequities in policy debate. I will default to a policy maker but am open to other ways of deciding the ballot. I will go off the flow and will try not to intervene, however I might default to my opinions below (which are not concrete).

I will vote for the least complex way to sign the ballot. Explaining your arguments / ideas and keeping the debate organized by road mapping, sign posting, and line by line are key and will help your speaker points. Other things that are key and help to explain / frame the debate are: overviews with impact clac, turns case/da arguments, framing of arguments and the debate, impacting out arguments, and in-depth analysis of arguments. Likewise, overall analysis and framing of evidence / arguments / warrants / qualifications / the round, is key. “Even if” statements will help with speaker points and to frame an argument. Do not assume that I know an argument, author, or specific terms. Analytics, defensive arguments (even without your own evidence) are able to reduce any argument/evidence to zero risk or close to it. If I do not understand a part of the argument or it is not explained/major gaps in your logic I will be less likely to vote on it, even if it is dropped. Explain to me why you should win the round and what this means for both you and your opponent’s arguments. Speed is ok but need to clear. Do not sacrifice clarity for speed. Emailing speeches does not count as prep time as long as it is reasonable and send it all in one doc. Have cites available after the round. I will vote down teams/dock speaker points for rudeness, racist, sexism, unethical, offensive and unacceptable arguments / behavior.

Look at / debate / answer the actual warrants (or lack thereof) in the cards not what the card is tagged as. Comparing evidence / qualifications with explanations as to whose is better helps me to evaluate an argument (even just reading evidence and pointing out its inconsistency is great (will help your speaker points)) and is something that I find is missing in a lot of debates. If their evidence is bad point it out. I will read evidence if call for or if I believe there is an issue with it.

Cross x – Tag Team is fine if both teams are ok with it. Overtaking your partner’s cross-x might result in lower speaker points. Be sure to carry cross-x into the rest of the debate. If you indicted a piece of evidence or proved that an argument does not work, say so in your speech.

Theory – Just like any other argument dropping theory is not an auto-win. If a part of the theory is not explained well enough or the other team points out that it is not explained or missing, I will be less inclined to vote for it. Will vote on all types of theory, but need to explain the theory, in-round abuse (why what they did was bad), voters, fairness, education, impacts and why I should either reject the argument or the other team. Do not just re-read your blocks. The more specific the theory is to the argument / abuse / voters / round, the better.

Topicality – Overviews help. Tend to lean affirmative (Neg has the burden) unless there is a clear: violation / definition, bright line between topical and untopical, impacts for allowing the affirmative and others like it to be topical and in-round / potential (prefer in-round) abuse. Will default to competing interpretations. Explanation on all parts of the flow are key i.e. definition, bright line, topical version of the affirmative, case lists, reasons to reject the team (in-round and potential abuse), standards, ground, limits, voters, fairness, education, and impacts. Reasonability, clash / lit checks, race to bottom, etc. are able to reduce the chance of voting on topically. Will vote on aspec / other spec arguments however, need to show abuse in-round.

Speaker points – My range is 27.8- 28.5, this does not mean that I will not go above a 28.5. The road to better speaker points is in this philosophy i.e. know your arguments, be clear, do line by line, point out inconsistency in arguments and evidence, extend / explain / compare warrants and or qualifications (or lack thereof), road map, sign post, impact clac, frame the debate and the other things that are listed in the various sections.

Plan text / Counterplan text – Should be written down. Check how they are written. Will vote on plan flaws and counterplans that change the plan text with a net benefit.

Affirmative – Two things are key: good overviews with impact clac and in-depth case analysis.

Counterplan – Use overviews. Make sure that there is a clear net benefit and/or solvency deficit.

Disads/advantages – Good overviews with turns case /da along with impact analysis/clac where opponent’s impacts/arguments are considered. Disad links should be clear and specific to the case. All types of turns (link, impact and straight) are also a good idea.

K–Explain. Have a general idea on the basic k, not a k hack, but will vote on them (including k of debate arguments / debates about what debate should be). The k needs to be specifically explained not just in terms of what the idea of the k is, but what is the framework, link (the more specific and clearer the better), impact and alterative (not only what the alterative does but how its solves the k and plan’s impact (i.e. root cause) and what does the world of the alterative looks like). A good overview of the k and framework helps a lot. The affirmative should always question the alterative.

K affirmatives and framework - Will vote on k affirmative and k of debate arguments / debates about what debate should be. Needs to be a clear role of the ballot and clear reason why your version of debate is better. Totally fine with looking at images, listening to music, narratives, stories and other things. Debates are more interesting when: the neg does not just read framework / k but engages with the affirmative and the affirmative k the negative positions through the lens of the affirmative. Framework and disads to framework have to be explained, show how your interpretation of debate solve or root causes the other side’s impacts, impacted out fairness and education, have analysis to show which style of debate is the best and show why the affirmative or argument should be or not be in debate.

https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Cabbage%2C+Siena

Conor Cameron
ccameron3@cps.edu
he/him/his
Coach, Solorio, 2012 - present

TLDR: Better for CP / DA / impact turn debates

I'll do my best to evaluate arguments as made.  When the way I make sense of a debate differs from the way debaters make sense of a debate, here seem to be some common sources of the disparity:

1) I'm pretty ingrained in the offense defense model.  This means that even if the NB is dumb, if the aff cannot generate a solvency deficit against the CP, and the aff has no offense against the DA, I am highly likely to vote negative.  

Some notes: a) I do not think a solvency deficit needs to be carded; b) more difficult, but I could envision voting on analytic offense against a DA, c) I'm willing to vote on zero risk of the DA, but we'd both benefit from you taking a moment to explain why the offense-defense model is inapplicable in the debate at hand

2) I still think I have a relatively high bar for voting negative on topicality; however, I've tried to begin evaluating this debate more from an offense-defense perspective.  In my mind, this means that if the affirmative does not meet the negative's interpretation, and does not have its own counterinterpretation, it is essentially arguing that any affirmative is topical and is conceding a 100% link to the limits disadvantage.  I'm highly likely to vote negative in such a debate.  

General argument notes:
3) I'm probably more sympathetic to cheaty process counterplans than most.  

4) While I may complain, I do vote on the standard canon of negative kritiks.  Things like cap, security, standard topic kritiks, etc. are fine.  Extra explanation (examples, stories, analogies, etc.) is always appreciated, all the more so the further from my comfort zone you venture.

5) FW vs K Affs: I lean negative.  However, I judge few of these debates.  Both teams would benefit from accepting that I know very little here, slowing down, speaking clearly, and over-explaining (depth, not repetition) things you assume most judges know.  

Other notes
6) I judge because:
a) I still really enjoy debate.
b) Judging is an opportunity to continue to develop my understanding of debate.
c) I am covering my students' judge commitment so that they too can benefit from this activity.

7) Quick reference
Policy---X------------------------------------------K

Tech-----------------------------X-----------------Truth

Read no cards-------X----------------------------Read all the cards

Conditionality good--X----------------------------Conditionality bad

States CP good----X------------------------------States CP bad

Politics DA is a thing-----X------------------------Politics DA not a thing

UQ matters most----------------------X----------Link matters most

Limits----------------------------------X------------Aff ground

Presumption---------------------------------X-----Never votes on presumption

Longer ev--------X---------------------------------More ev

CX about impacts----------------------------X----CX about links and solvency

2/18/2024 update...please read - i am now several years removed from the point when i was actively involved in debate and kept up with the topic. i judge a combined total of around 20 policy/ld debates per season. my exposure to the topic starts and ends with each debate that i judge. my knowledge of the topic on any given season is essentially nonexistent, and my knowledge of post-2018 debate in general is probably diminishing with time. i wouldn't call myself a lay judge by any means, but a few steps above. the safest way to win a debate in front of me is to slow down (not to the point where you aren’t spreading at all, but still a bit more slow than you’d normally speak), and focus on the quality of arguments over quantity. pick a few arguments to explain in depth as opposed to having lots that aren't explained well. line-by-line in the style of "they say...but we say..." will also get you a long way with me...overviews/"embedded clash"...not so much...you can feel free to scrap your pre-written overviews entirely with me. if you want the decision in a debate to come down to the quality of evidence, please make that clear in your speeches because i won't do that on my own (i don't usually open the speech docs anymore, nor do i flow author names/card dates. keeping that in mind, statements like “extend the chikko evidence” with no elaboration whatsoever are meaningless to me, as i won’t have any idea what that specific evidence says without an explanation). i won't vote on arguments that i don't understand, miss because of speed/lack of clarity, etc. - i have voted against teams in the past because they went for arguments that i either couldn’t flow or couldn’t understand, even if they may have “won” those arguments if i’d had them on my flows. attached below is my old paradigm, last updated around mid-2019. it is all still applicable…

my old paradigm:

Happy new year.

Add me to the email chain: dylanchikko@gmail.com

I don't time anything. Not prep time, not speeches, nothing. If no one is timing your speech and I notice in the middle of it, I'll make you stop whenever I think the right amount of time has passed. The same is true for prep time.

I have no opinions on arguments. I know nothing about the topic whatsoever outside of the rounds I judge. I don't do research and don't cut cards. I'll vote for anything as long as it's grounded in basic reality and not blatantly offensive. Speak slightly less quick with me than you usually would. I'm 60/40 better for policy-oriented debating (just because of my background knowledge, not ideological preference). But I'll vote for anything if it's done well. My biggest pet peeve is inefficiency/wasting time. Please direct all complaints to nathanglancy124@gmail.com. I’m sure he’d love to hear them. Have fun and be nice to your opponents/partner/me.

I'm an Assyrian. A big portion of my life/career as an educator consists of addressing and supporting Assyrian student needs. That influences my thoughts on a lot of real-life topics that regularly end up in debates. That's especially true for debates about foreign policy and equity. So do your research and be mindful of that.

Don't say/do anything in front of me that you wouldn't say/do in front of your teacher.

Feel free to ask me before the round if you have questions about anything.

he/him/his

email: jchoe001 at gmail

Notre Dame 2012 - 2016
Northwestern 2016 - 2020

Judging/coaching for: Notre Dame, New Trier
Overall experience: ~100 varsity policy debates judged including a dozen or so elim rounds

ETHS note: ***I've judged a single tournament on the 2019-2020 topic*** so pls try to avoid acronyms and spend a bit more time than usual on t if you want me to understand your arguments (goes for both aff and neg). This also means that I will be reading more cards after the round than usual - this is only bad news for you if 1. your ev is bad, or 2. your ev says something different than what you/the tag says

The information you came here for:

More Policy than K.

Other things:

Topicality

Neg should provide a caselist and impact out their standards (ground is not an impact it's an internal link to terminal, portable impacts like research skills). Likewise, the aff should impact out their offense i.e. overlimiting and reasonability.

I like card-heavy techy T-debates.

Disads

Sure.

Politics DA's are ok. I love it when they're innovative/tricky, but not in the way that people usually define those terms. I don't really like riders, time/focus tradeoff links, and other versions that link off of fiat rather than the substance of the aff

I like reading cards - please have good ev.

Impact calc is my favorite part of disad debate so do that well and you will be rewarded

Counterplans

Anything goes if you can win that your counterplan is legitimate. With that being said, I'm a bit tougher on the neg with counterplan theory than others, so treat the theory debate like a T debate and define your standards, impact it out, explain your model of competition, etc.

I'm often persuaded by sufficiency framing but am not super persuaded by 1% risk of net benefit.

I don't default to judge-kick but I'm more than willing to hear a debate on whether that's a thing I should do.

Kritiks

K debates have been very hit-and-miss in my experience judging. The tend to be either really lackluster or really good. If Ks are your thing and has always been your thing then do your thing don't change anything for me. But also even if you're just experimenting with Ks you can still read it in front of me anyways and I'll make sure to give you lots of feedback. tl;dr not a "k hack"

"Non-traditional" affs

They're fine. They should probably have something to do with the topic but the meaning of that statement is up for debate. I think that k on k debates are fun and should probably include a discussion of whether aff gets perm. If you're neg, don't throw shit at the wall and see what sticks (I don't have a strict criterion for this but I'll know it when I see it).

I don't think framework is a "generic" vs. k affs. I think with the right nuances, it's probably the best substantive argument. Usually I find the impact debate very lacking from the neg, while it is way too heavily focused on by the aff. I think my judging record on framework vs. k aff is about 60/40.

Theory

As a default, I consider conditionality to be the only worthy theory argument to be a voting issue. Doesn't mean I won't vote on other theory arguments - just means that you have to explicitly impact them out more.

I also don't reward gotcha-type theory args that teams extend for 10 seconds every speech. Don't expect me to vote on them.

I don't like performative contradictions but I love perf con debates. I am making this position very explicit in my paradigm to discourage people from reading things like cap k + a politics DA with econ impact and legalism k + agent CP. But this doesn't mean I'll automatically vote aff if the neg reads performatively contradicting positions, it's actually somewhat opposite - affs have a good chance of winning on perf con in front of me but has to actually invest time developing and extending it.

David Coates

Chicago '05; Minnesota Law '14

For e-mail chains (which you should always use to accelerate evidence sharing): coat0018@umn.edu

2023-24 rounds (as of 4/13): 89

Aff winning percentage: .551

("David" or "Mr. Coates" to you. I'll know you haven't bothered to read my paradigm if you call me "judge," which isn't my name).

I will not vote on disclosure theory. I will consider RVIs on disclosure theory based solely on the fact that you introduced it in the first place.

I will not vote on claims predicated on your opponents' rate of delivery and will probably nuke your speaker points if all you can come up with is "fast debate is bad" in response to faster opponents. Explain why their arguments are wrong, but don't waste my time complaining about how you didn't have enough time to answer bad arguments because...oh, wait, you wasted two minutes of a constructive griping about how you didn't like your opponents' speed.

I will not vote on frivolous "arguments" criticizing your opponent's sartorial choices (think "shoe theory" or "formal clothes theory" or "skirt length," which still comes up sometimes), and I will likely catapult your points into the sun for wasting my time and insulting your opponents with such nonsense.

You will probably receive a lecture if you highlight down your evidence to such an extent that it no longer contains grammatical sentences.

Allegations of ethical violations I determine not to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt will result in an automatic loss with the minimum allowable speaker points for the team introducing them.

Allegations of rule violations not supported by the plain text of a rule will make me seriously consider awarding you a loss with no speaker points.

I will actively intervene against new arguments in the last speech of the round, no matter what the debate format. New arguments in the 2AR are the work of the devil and I will not reward you for saving your best arguments for a speech after which they can't be answered. I will entertain claims that new arguments in the 2AR are automatic voting issues for the negative or that they justify a verbal 3NR. Turnabout is fair play.

I will not entertain claims that your opponents should not be allowed to answer your arguments because of personal circumstances beyond their control. Personally abusive language about, or directed at, your opponents will have me looking for reasons to vote against you.

Someone I know has reminded me of this: I will not evaluate any argument suggesting that I must "evaluate the debate after X speech" unless "X speech" is the 2AR. Where do you get off thinking that you can deprive your opponent of speaking time?

I'm okay with slow-walking you through how my decision process works or how I think you can improve your strategic decision making or get better speaker points, but I've no interest, at this point in my career, in relitigating a round I've already decided you've lost. "What would be a better way to make this argument?" will get me actively trying to help you. "Why didn't you vote on this (vague claim)?" will just make me annoyed.

OVERVIEW

I have been an active coach, primarily of policy debate (though I'm now doing active work only on the LD side), since the 2000-01 season (the year of the privacy topic). Across divisions and events, I generally judge between 100 and 120 rounds a year.

My overall approach to debate is extremely substance dominant. I don't really care what substantive arguments you make as long as you clash with your opponents and fulfill your burdens vis-à-vis the resolution. I will not import my own understanding of argumentative substance to bail you out when you're confronting bad substance--if the content of your opponents' arguments is fundamentally false, they should be especially easy for you to answer without any help from me. (Contrary to what some debaters have mistakenly believed in the past, this does not mean that I want to listen to you run wipeout or spark--I'd actually rather hear you throw down on inherency or defend "the value is justice and the criterion is justice"--but merely that I think that debaters who can't think their way through incredibly stupid arguments are ineffective advocates who don't deserve to win).

My general default (and the box I've consistently checked on paradigm forms) is that of a fairly conventional policymaker. Absent other guidance from the teams involved, I will weigh the substantive advantages and disadvantages of a topical plan against those of the status quo or a competitive counterplan. I'm amenable to alternative evaluative frameworks but generally require these to be developed with more depth and clarity than most telegraphic "role of the ballot" claims usually provide.

THOUGHTS APPLICABLE TO ALL DEBATE FORMATS

That said, I do have certain predispositions and opinions about debate practice that may affect how you choose to execute your preferred strategy:

1. I am skeptical to the point of fairly overt hostility toward most non-resolutional theory claims emanating from either side. Aff-initiated debates about counterplan and kritik theory are usually vague, devoid of clash, and nearly impossible to flow. Neg-initiated "framework" "arguments" usually rest on claims that are either unwarranted or totally implicit. I understand that the affirmative should defend a topical plan, but what I don't understand after "A. Our interpretation is that the aff must run a topical plan; B. Standards" is why the aff's plan isn't topical. My voting on either sort of "argument" has historically been quite rare. It's always better for the neg to run T than "framework," and it's usually better for the aff to use theory claims to justify their own creatively abusive practices ("conditional negative fiat justifies intrinsicness permutations, so here are ten intrinsicness permutations") than to "argue" that they're independent voting issues.

1a. That said, I can be merciless toward negatives who choose to advance contradictory conditional "advocacies" in the 1NC should the affirmative choose to call them out. The modern-day tendency to advance a kritik with a categorical link claim together with one or more counterplans which link to the kritik is not one which meets with my approval. There was a time when deliberately double-turning yourself in the 1NC amounted to an automatic loss, but the re-advent of what my late friend Ross Smith would have characterized as "unlimited, illogical conditionality" has unfortunately put an end to this and caused negative win percentages to swell--not because negatives are doing anything intelligent, but because affirmatives aren't calling them out on it. I'll put it this way--I have awarded someone a 30 for going for "contradictory conditional 'advocacies' are illegitimate" in the 2AR.

2. Offensive arguments should have offensive links and impacts. "The 1AC didn't talk about something we think is important, therefore it doesn't solve the root cause of every problem in the world" wouldn't be considered a reason to vote negative if it were presented on the solvency flow, where it belongs, and I fail to understand why you should get extra credit for wasting time developing your partial case defense with less clarity and specificity than an arch-traditional stock issue debater would have. Generic "state bad" links on a negative state action topic are just as bad as straightforward "links" of omission in this respect.

3. Kritik arguments should NOT depend on my importing special understandings of common terms from your authors, with whose viewpoints I am invariably unfamiliar or in disagreement. For example, the OED defines "problematic" as "presenting a problem or difficulty," so while you may think you're presenting round-winning impact analysis when you say "the affirmative is problematic," all I hear is a non-unique observation about how the aff, like everything else in life, involves difficulties of some kind. I am not hostile to critical debates--some of the best debates I've heard involved K on K violence, as it were--but I don't think it's my job to backfill terms of art for you, and I don't think it's fair to your opponents for me to base my decision in these rounds on my understanding of arguments which have been inadequately explained.

3a. I guess we're doing this now...most of the critical literature with which I'm most familiar involves pretty radical anti-statism. You might start by reading "No Treason" and then proceeding to authors like Hayek, Hazlitt, Mises, and Rothbard. I know these are arguments a lot of my colleagues really don't like, but they're internally consistent, so they have that advantage.

3a(1). Section six of "No Treason," the one with which you should really start, is available at the following link: https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf so get off your cans and read it already. It will greatly help you answer arguments based on, inter alia, "the social contract."

3a(2). If you genuinely think that something at the tournament is making you unsafe, you may talk to me about it and I will see if there is a solution. Far be it from me to try to make you unable to compete.

4. The following solely self-referential "defenses" of your deliberate choice to run an aggressively non-topical affirmative are singularly unpersuasive:

a. "Topicality excludes our aff and that's bad because it excludes our aff." This is not an argument. This is just a definition of "topicality." I won't cross-apply your case and then fill in argumentative gaps for you.

b. "There is no topical version of our aff." This is not an answer. This is a performative concession of the violation.

c. "The topic forces us to defend the state and the state is racist/sexist/imperialist/settler colonial/oppressive toward 'bodies in the debate space.'" I'm quite sure that most of your authors would advocate, at least in the interim, reducing fossil fuel consumption, and debates about how that might occur are really interesting to all of us, or at least to me. (You might take a look at this intriguing article about a moratorium on extraction on federal lands: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-oil-industrys-grip-on-public-lands-and-waters-may-be-slowing-progress-toward-energy-independence/

d. "Killing debate is good." Leaving aside the incredible "intellectual" arrogance of this statement, what are you doing here if you believe this to be true? You could overtly "kill debate" more effectively were you to withhold your "contributions" and depress participation numbers, which would have the added benefit of sparing us from having to listen to you.

e. "This is just a wrong forum argument." And? There is, in fact, a FORUM expressly designed to allow you to subject your audience to one-sided speeches about any topic under the sun you "feel" important without having to worry about either making an argument or engaging with an opponent. Last I checked, that FORUM was called "oratory." Try it next time.

f. "The topic selection process is unfair/disenfranchises 'bodies in the debate space.'" In what universe is it more fair for you to get to impose a debate topic on your opponents without consulting them in advance than for you to abide by the results of a topic selection process to which all students were invited to contribute and in which all students were invited to vote?

g. "Fairness is bad." Don't tempt me to vote against you for no reason to show you why fairness is, in fact, good.

5. Many of you are genuinely bad at organizing your speeches. Fix that problem by keeping the following in mind:

a. Off-case flows should be clearly labeled the first time they're introduced. It's needlessly difficult to keep track of what you're trying to do when you expect me to invent names for your arguments for you. I know that some hipster kid "at" some "online debate institute" taught you that it was "cool" to introduce arguments in the 1N with nothing more than "next off" to confuse your opponents, but remember that you're also confusing your audience when you do that, and I, unlike your opponents, have the power to deduct speaker points for poor organization if "next off--Biden disadvantage" is too hard for you to spit out. I'm serious about this.

b. Transitions between individual arguments should be audible. It's not that difficult to throw a "next" in there and it keeps you from sounding like this: "...wreck their economies and set the stage for an era of international confrontation that would make the Cold War look like Woodstock extinction Mead 92 what if the global economy stagnates...." The latter, because it fails to distinguish between the preceding card and subsequent tag, is impossible to flow, and it's not my job to look at your speech document to impose organization with which you couldn't be bothered.

c. Your arguments should line up with those of your opponents. "Embedded clash" flows extremely poorly for me. I will not automatically pluck warrants out of your four-minute-long scripted kritik overview and then apply them for you, nor will I try to figure out what, exactly, a fragment like "yes, link" followed by a minute of unintelligible, undifferentiated boilerplate is supposed to answer.

6. I don't mind speed as long as it's clear and purposeful:

a. Many of you don't project your voices enough to compensate for the poor acoustics of the rooms where debates often take place. I'll help you out by yelling "clearer" or "louder" at you no more than twice if I can't make out what you're saying, but after that you're on your own.

b. There are only two legitimate reasons for speed: Presenting more arguments and presenting more argumentative development. Fast delivery should not be used as a crutch for inefficiency. If you're using speed merely to "signpost" by repeating vast swaths of your opponents' speeches or to read repetitive cards tagged "more evidence," I reserve the right to consider persuasive delivery in how I assign points, meaning that you will suffer deductions you otherwise would not have had you merely trimmed the fat and maintained your maximum sustainable rate.

7: I have a notoriously low tolerance for profanity and will not hesitate to severely dock your points for language I couldn't justify to the host school's teachers, parents, or administrators, any of whom might actually overhear you. When in doubt, keep it clean. Don't jeopardize the activity's image any further by failing to control your language when you have ample alternative fora for profane forms of self-expression.

8: For crying out loud, it is not too hard to respect your opponents' preferred pronouns (and "they" is always okay in policy debate because it's presumed that your opponents agree about their arguments), but I will start vocally correcting you if you start engaging in behavior I've determined is meant to be offensive in this context. You don't have to do that to gain some sort of perceived competitive advantage and being that intentionally alienating doesn't gain you any friends.

9. I guess that younger judges engage in more paradigmatic speaker point disclosure than I have in the past, so here are my thoughts: Historically, the arithmetic mean of my speaker points any given season has averaged out to about 27.9. I think that you merit a 27 if you've successfully used all of your speech time without committing round-losing tactical errors, and your points can move up from there by making gutsy strategic decisions, reading creative arguments, and using your best public speaking skills. Of course, your points can decline for, inter alia, wasting time, insulting your opponents, or using offensive language. I've "awarded" a loss-15 for a false allegation of an ethics violation and a loss-18 for a constructive full of seriously inappropriate invective. Don't make me go there...tackle the arguments in front of you head-on and without fear or favor and I can at least guarantee you that I'll evaluate the content you've presented fairly.

NOTES FOR LINCOLN-DOUGLAS!

PREF SHORTCUT: stock ≈ policy > K > framework > Tricks > Theory

I have historically spent much more time judging policy than LD and my specific topic knowledge is generally restricted to arguments I've helped my LD debaters prepare. In the context of most contemporary LD topics, which mostly encourage recycling arguments which have been floating around in policy debate for decades, this shouldn't affect you very much. With more traditionally phrased LD resolutions ("A just society ought to value X over Y"), this might direct your strategy more toward straight impact comparison than traditional V/C debating.

Also, my specific preferences about how _substantive_ argumentation should be conducted are far less set in stone than they would be in a policy debate. I've voted for everything from traditional value/criterion ACs to policy-style ACs with plan texts to fairly outright critical approaches...and, ab initio, I'm fine with more or less any substantive attempt by the negative to engage whatever form the AC takes, subject to the warnings about what constitutes a link outlined above. (Not talking about something is not a link). Engage your opponent's advocacy and engage the topic and you should be okay.

N.B.: All of the above comments apply only to _substantive_ argumentation. See the section on "theory" in in the overview above if you want to understand what I think about those "arguments," and square it. If winning that something your opponent said is "abusive" is a major part of your strategy, you're going to have to make some adjustments if you want to win in front of me. I can't guarantee that I'll fully understand the basis for your theory claims, and I tend to find theory responses with any degree of articulation more persuasive than the claim that your opponent should lose because of some arguably questionable practice, especially if whatever your opponent said was otherwise substantively responsive. I also tend to find "self-help checks abuse" responses issue-dispositive more often than not. That is to say, if there is something you could have done to prevent the impact to the alleged "abuse," and you failed to do it, any resulting "time skew," "strat skew," or adverse impact on your education is your own fault, and I don't think you should be rewarded with a ballot for helping to create the very condition you're complaining about.

I have voted on theory "arguments" unrelated to topicality in Lincoln-Douglas debates precisely zero times. Do you really think you're going to be the first to persuade me to pull the trigger?

Addendum: To quote my colleague Anthony Berryhill, with whom I paneled the final round of the Isidore Newman Round Robin: " "Tricks debate" isn't debate. Deliberate attempts to hide arguments, mislead your opponent, be unethical, lie...etc. to screw your opponent will be received very poorly. If you need tricks and lying to win, either "git' good" (as the gamers say) or prefer a different judge." I say: I would rather hear you go all-in on spark or counterintuitive internal link turns than be subjected to grandstanding about how your opponent "dropped" some "tricky" half-sentence theory or burden spike. If you think top-loading these sorts of "tricks" in lieu of properly developing substance in the first constructive is a good idea, you will be sorely disappointed with your speaker points and you will probably receive a helpful refresher on how I absolutely will not tolerate aggressive post-rounding. Everyone's value to life increases when you fill the room with your intelligence instead of filling it with your trickery.

AND SPECIFIC NOTES FOR PUBLIC FORUM

NB: After the latest timing disaster, in which a public forum round which was supposed to take 40 minutes took over two hours and wasted the valuable time of the panel, I am seriously considering imposing penalties on teams who make "off-time" requests for evidence or needless requests for original articles or who can't locate a piece of evidence requested by their opponents during crossfire. This type of behavior--which completely disregards the timing norms found in every other debate format--is going to kill this activity because no member of the "public" who has other places to be is interested in judging an event where this type of temporal elongation of rounds takes place.

NB: I actually don't know what "we outweigh on scope" is supposed to mean. I've had drilled into my head that there are four elements to impact calculus: timeframe, probability, magnitude, and hierarchy of values. I'd rather hear developed magnitude comparison (is it worse to cause a lot of damage to very few people or very little damage to a lot of people? This comes up most often in debates about agricultural subsidies of all things) than to hear offsetting, poorly warranted claims about "scope."

NB: In addition to my reflections about improper citation practices infra, I think that evidence should have proper tags. It's really difficult to flow you, or even to follow the travel of your constructive, when you have a bunch of two-sentence cards bleeding into each other without any transitions other than "Larry '21," "Jones '21," and "Anderson '21." I really would rather hear tag-cite-text than whatever you're doing. Thus: "Further, economic decline causes nuclear war. Mead '92" rather than "Mead '92 furthers...".

That said:

1. You should remember that, notwithstanding its pretensions to being for the "public," this is a debate event. Allowing it to degenerate into talking past each other with dueling oratories past the first pro and first con makes it more like a speech event than I would like, and practically forces me to inject my own thoughts on the merits of substantive arguments into my evaluative process. I can't guarantee that you'll like the results of that, so:

2. Ideally, the second pro/second con/summary stage of the debate will be devoted to engaging in substantive clash (per the activity guidelines, whether on the line-by-line or through introduction of competing principles, which one can envision as being somewhat similar to value clash in a traditional LD round if one wants an analogy) and the final foci will be devoted to resolving the substantive clash.

3. Please review the sections on "theory" in the policy and LD philosophies above. I'm not interested in listening to rule-lawyering about how fast your opponents are/whether or not it's "fair"/whether or not it's "public" for them to phrase an argument a certain way. I'm doubly unenthused about listening to theory "debates" where the team advancing the theory claim doesn't understand the basis for it.* These "debates" are painful enough to listen to in policy and LD, but they're even worse to suffer through in PF because there's less speech time during which to resolve them. Unless there's a written rule prohibiting them (e.g., actually advocating specific plan/counterplan texts), I presume that all arguments are theoretically legitimate, and you will be fighting an uphill battle you won't like trying to persuade me otherwise. You're better off sticking to substance (or, better yet, using your opposition's supposedly dubious stance to justify meting out some "abuse" of your own) than getting into a theoretical "debate" you simply won't have enough time to win, especially given my strong presumption against this style of "argumentation."

*I've heard this misunderstanding multiple times from PF debaters who should have known better: "The resolution isn't justified because some policy in the status quo will solve the 'pro' harms" is not, in fact, a counterplan. It's an inherency argument. There is no rule saying the "con" can't redeploy policy stock issues in an appropriately "public" fashion and I know with absolute metaphysical certitude that many of the initial framers of the public forum rules are big fans of this general school of argumentation.

4. If it's in the final focus, it should have been in the summary. I will patrol the second focus for new arguments. If it's in the summary and you want me to consider it in my decision, you'd better mention it in the final focus. It is definitely not my job to draw lines back to arguments for you. Your defense on the case flow is not "sticky," as some of my PF colleagues put it, as far as I'm concerned.

5. While I pay attention to crossfire, I don't flow it. It's not intended to be a period for initiating arguments, so if you want me to consider something that happened in crossfire in my decision, you have to mention it in your side's first subsequent speech.

6. You should cite authors by name. "Princeton" as an institution, doesn't conduct studies of issues that aren't solely internal Princeton matters, so you sound awful when you attribute your study about Security Council reform to "Princeton." "According to Professor Kuziemko of Princeton" (yes, she's a professor at Princeton who wrote the definitive study of the political economy of Security Council veto power) doesn't take much longer to say than "according to Princeton," and has the considerable advantage of accuracy. Also, I have no idea why you restrict this type of "citation" to Ivy League scholars. I've never heard an "according to Fordham" citation from any of you even though Professor Dayal of Fordham is a recognized expert on this issue, suggesting that you're only doing research you can use to lend nonexistent institutional credibility to your cases. Seriously, start citing evidence properly.

7. You all need to improve your time management skills and stop proliferating dead time if you'd like rounds to end at a civilized hour.

a. The extent to which PF debaters talk over the buzzer is unfortunate. When the speech time stops, that means that you stop speaking. "Finishing [your] sentence" does not mean going 45 seconds over time, which happens a lot. I will not flow anything you say after my timer goes off.

b. You people really need to streamline your "off-time" evidence exchanges. These are getting ridiculous and seem mostly like excuses for stealing prep time. I recently had to sit through a pre-crossfire set of requests for evidence which lasted for seven minutes. This is simply unacceptable. If you have your laptops with you, why not borrow a round-acceleration tactic from your sister formats and e-mail your speech documents to one another? Even doing this immediately after a speech would be much more efficient than the awkward fumbling around in which you usually engage.

c. This means that you should card evidence properly and not force your opponents to dig around a 25-page document for the section you've just summarized during unnecessary dead time. Your sister debate formats have had the "directly quoting sources" thing nailed dead to rights for decades. Why can't you do the same? Minimally, you should be able to produce the sections of articles you're purporting to summarize immediately when asked.

d. You don't need to negotiate who gets to question first in crossfire. I shouldn't have to waste precious seconds listening to you ask your opponents' permission to ask a question. It's simple to understand that the first-speaking team should always ask, and the second-speaking team always answer, the first question...and after that, you may dialogue.

e. If you're going to insist on giving an "off-time road map," it should take you no more than five seconds and be repeated no more than zero times. This is PF...do you seriously believe we can't keep track of TWO flows?

Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

Graduated from West Des Moines Valley 2017

Debated for the University of Iowa for a year

My email is Parker.day887@gmail.com - please add me to the email chain and feel free to hit me up with any questions

Clash of Civs:

This is why people read paradigms right?

I'm very experienced with these rounds, but have always debated on the kritikal side of the issue. I'll evaluate any argument that has an impact and a warrant attached to it - from "procedural fairness is a prior question" to "debate is structurally bad".

Thoughts on reading framework against K teams:

- Fairness doesn't seem to be an impact unless you win that a) debate is a game AND b) debate is good

- Impacts and solvency should be comparative to the other team's claims about what my ballot does/means

- Dropping 2AC disadvantages to your interpretation is a quick way to lose

Answering framework with a K aff:

- Utilizing the base of literature your aff comes from >>> generic framework bad args

- Reading impact defense to their standards helps to minimize their substantive offense

- Tell me what the ballot does for you

Believe it or not, I'm not a total K hack in these rounds. My record is split pretty even in framework v K debates and I definitely believe there are good arguments on both sides. For more info, see the framework section below.

How I view the activity:

Nothing in debate is set in stone for me. If you have a reason why you singing, dancing, reading poetry, staying silent, recrafting subjectivity, etc. is good, go for it.

Give me an easy way out.

Dropped arguments are true, dropped claims are not.

Tech > Truth (with some obvious exceptions)

However, if you think that anything that Ayn Rand has ever said is a good argument I'm not who you want in the back. If the only impact you extend is "states' rights" in your final rebuttal, you probably shouldn't pref me.

At this point in my coaching career, I have researched and advised almost exclusively about the theories of Afropessimism, Black Feminism, and Settler Colonialism. Just something to keep in mind.

The K

Very familiar with:

Nietzsche, Afro-Pessimism, Marx, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Queer Pessimism, Bataille, Queer Utopianism, Preciado, Puar, Negarestani, Foucault, Weheliye, Resiliency, and most "high-theory" or "po-mo" arguments

Pretty familiar with:

Settler Colonialism, Psychoanalysis, Cybernetics, Heidegger, Ableism, and Derrida

Not super familiar with: Irigaray, Hyperstition theory, Adorno, Badiou, and most of analytic philosophy

Even though I spend my free time reading critical literature, don't assume that I'll fill in the gaps for you. I have a fairly high standard for explanation of both your theory, the other team's theory, and how they interact.

Framework

Being a 2A who has only ever read K affs, I'm pretty familiar with framework and the different ways that it is deployed in debate. If you are only going to go for procedural fairness as an impact, make sure you flesh out why its an intrinsically good thing for debate/why it isn't just an internal link to education. If you're hitting an aff that links to framework, they've probably thought out a way to apply the theory of the 1AC to the form of debate. Use lots of examples of previous debaters who did good/bad things because of debate to drive your points home.

Just because I don't read framework doesn't mean that I won't vote on it. If anything, I have a high threshold for blatantly untopical affirmatives to explain why they don't have to be topical because that was the burden I had with critical positions.

Policy Stuff

If the K isn't your thing and you find yourself in front of me, you do you. I'm down for whatever as long as its contextual and well-explained.

Earlier in the season I voted multiple times on Trump tax reform good because trickle-down econ (even though that argument is factually incorrect)

Final Thoughts:

- I don't expect any particular decorum from the debaters I'm judging, I enjoy debates when they're sarcastic/aggressive. That being said, please don't be unnecessarily mean to your opponents.

- Have fun. I wouldn't have done high school debate if it wasn't fun for me, so I don't expect you to do things that make it not fun for you.

- If you're going to refer to me, call me Parker instead of "Judge"

- Sit/stand wherever you are the most comfortable

LD debaters:

Don't read 8 theory shells, and if you are going to read 8 theory shells don't spread through them.

You should also flash pre-written theory blocks.

I'll vote on theory, but I'll be sad while I'm doing it.

Debate Experience:

4 Years at Lansing High School

3 Years at University of Nebraska- Single-person policy.

Past Graduate Assistant for the University of Nebraska debate.

Head Coach at Lincoln NorthStar for 3 Years

3L in law school. Education Law and Policy.

My email is dikecolin@gmail.com, please add me to the email chain OR do a speech drop.... tbh I prefer speech drop at this point in my career. It is much simpler.

Few things before I go into specifics:

1. Clipping will lose you the round and any chance you had at getting a speaker award

2. Disclosure is always good and necessary. This does not guarantee you a ballot if you are losing on the standards debate, but it should tell you that I am very sympathetic to the education claims.

3. DO NOT be an ass. You don't look cool and will not be rewarded.

4. If the opposing team drops a DA or something that is obviously a round winner- do not waste my time. Just extend the dropped argument and sit down.

5. Go as fast as you you want. Just make sure that you are CLEAR and you are SIGN POSTING between cards...... see how I accented those with font and you read it in your brain with a different tone..... do that with your voice on tags and dates.

6. Arguments that I will not find appealing-

-Nuclear terrorism.....like who is giving them the nuke...and how are they developing them? Also, I'm just skeptical of underlying assumptions from people reading Islamic terrorism bad.

-Death good

-Wipeout

-Spark

-Bad impact turns (Racism good, Warming good)

7. Things That Annoy Me:
A) Flowing off the speech doc, then answering cards that weren't read, etc
B) Responding to blippy 2ac theory args without a warrant (e.g., "no neg fiat, voting issue") FOR FORTY FIVE SECONDS!!!
C) Reading un-highlighted cards.

---------------------------Crowe Warken (NDT)---------------------------------

If you are from NFA-LD. Do not read this. Its not for you.

I am a new judge to NDT. A few things:

1) Speed: You all do not fall under point 5 above- Go slower on tags (IDC about the speed you go through the card text). You should probably be going 50%-60% speed on T/Theory debates (the same speed you go on tags). Yes, that's annoying, I apologize. Also- perhaps a hot take- I think flashing analytics and T blocks is good. If you pre-wrote it and it is the best version of your argument, you should not be afraid that the other team understands your arg and should not hope to win on dropped args from speed. The purpose of this addendum is that I am very willing to be lenient on you going faster on T/Theory args if they are in the doc and I can refer back to them. I am talking 75% speed max.

2) If your 2NR/2AR is not starting by writing my ballot, you are doing it wrong. That is not to say that this narrows and precludes other offenses on the rest of the flow, but it does frame the first things I look at when making my decision AND helps you clarify what you think your route to the ballot is for me. The alternative is you charging the mound on me for not seeing your obscure route to the ballot which isn't rad.

3) My paradigm for judging is not going to be nearly as refined as your seasoned NDT vet. or your ordinal 1 pref. My RFD is probably not going to flow like an elegant story that wraps up every issue in the debate. As such, please feel free to ask questions after the round and I will always give you the thoughts I have.

***********************************HIGH SCHOOL LD*****************************************

I come from a policy background. Use that to your advantage. If you want to read value/criterion, you need to have specific instructions on how I weigh impacts under the value.

If you are interested in going for a really dense philosophy argument, I am going to be more work as a judge because of my relative newness to LD. Make sure you are impacting out all the claims you are going for. I also am just not a fan of super old philosophers from the 1600s. It seems to be more of a race to obscurity than actually doing "philosophical" debate as debaters indicate.

STOP ASKING IN CX TO "SUM UP YOUR POINTS." It defeats the whole point of CX. This goes for every format, but it is the worst in LD.

I am all for us sharing evidence. You should always be ready to share your evidence with the other team. If you don't, I am very easily persuaded by arguments saying you can't prove the truth or falsity of the other teams arguments.

If you are reading a framing argument that says that there is a specific burden for the aff/neg (we only have to defend one subsidy is bad, the aff has to repeal all subsidies to meet their burden, ect.), then you need to win standards to win this argument.

Speaker points can be increased if you separate the framing debate from the case debate- (put them on their own sheet of paper). I flow debates this way and deeply appreciate when debaters do this because the clash is all in one place.

Please don't reach to saying an argument is abusive if you don't have another answer. Most of the time it isn't abusive, you just haven't thought of an answer yet.

Neg Kritiks in LD need to have more work done in the 1NC than in policy. Just reading the link, impact, and alt in the 1NC creates super late-breaking debates that always favor the neg and creates poor clash because the aff has to respond to 6 minutes of functionally new offense in as 3 minute 2AR. To that end- I think any representations, Role of the ballot/judge, and alt solves the aff arguments should be in the 1NC. Not doing this substantially lowers my willingness to lean neg on theory objectification (Condo, floating piks bad, etc.)

Underviews with theory preempts are fine, but YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN. I have to have time to flow the arguments. I generally believe that any prewritten theory should be 1) Flashed and 2) disclosed.

Please read the rest of this paradigm- the things I think in policy that are explained generally transfer to LD- specifically on the theory stuff.

*************************************Policy Debate********************************************************

**Topicality vs. Plan Text

I feel pretty comfortable adjudicating topicality debates. However, this isn’t permission to blow through your 1NC interp and 2NC blocks as fast as you can. The fastest way to get a decision that you don't like is to poorly sign post between arguments and not give me at least a little pen time. Specifically, slow down on nuanced arguments that intersect multiple standards (Bi-directionality controls ground because.....). My views on T primary revolve around the following:

1. T is always a voter and never a reverse voter!

2. Reasonability is a way to determine the sufficiency of the aff’s counter-interp; not whether or not the aff is “reasonably topical.” Delete the phrase "reasonably topical" from your vocabulary. Too many times in high school debates, 1AR and 2AR’s do a poor job of extending reasonability. Saying “good is good enough” is not an argument. You need to give reasons why reasonability is preferable to competing interpretations.

3. Contextualized interactions between different standards (ie: limits controls the direction of ground, or precision determines the lit base for which a team derives limits offense, etc.) needs the most explanation for me, however I find them very compelling.

**T-USfg

I am ok with this argument vs non-topical affs. Reading it is by no means a silver bullet and sometimes a counter-method goes further, but dont feel like you should or should not read this argument.

As far as defense goes I generally am under the impression that T is a floor not a ceiling and discussions of aff’s internal links can happen via topical versions of the affirmative. TVA and switch side debate are defensive arguments and must be paired with a net benefit to win!

**Theory

I love theory debates. The fact that you can debate about the rules of debate makes it the best game out there. I am ok with almost any theory argument if you have a justification for why it produces good education.

Grain of salt- theory debates require the fastest typing and flowing because it is frequently your own words and has the fewest cards. If you want me to understand, you want to slow down to like 75% so I can get everything on my flow.

Generally, condo is good, and delay CP's are abusive

Fairness is a sliding scale. Even if you think I might err neg on condo in a debate with one conditional advocacy, that default level can be reduced by things like multi-plank conditional CP's, CP's with no solvency advocate, etc.

I am also a big fan of whole res v/ plan text theory args in LD.

**CP

I am a big advocate for nuanced and developed counterplans, and believe it is one of the most strategic ways to subsume aff offense. I default to sufficiency framing until told otherwise. If there is no clear victor in the theory debate I will usually default negative.

I generally think that CP’s should be textually and functionally competitive but feel free to tell me otherwise. I tend to lean negative on theory and think that most objections are reasons to reject the argument not the team.

**DA

I’m a fan. Try to read specific links, because I am of the opinion that generic links are usually punished by link thumpers. The 2NR should do impact calc and make turns case arguments.

I am willing to vote on zero percent risk of a link if you clarify that there is zero percent of a link with a justification.

**K

I am always open to K’s but not very familiar with all of the literature. Please refrain from assuming I know what you’re talking about or using buzz words. “death good” K’s or any other assorted shenanigans are not compelling and is a poor strategy for earning my ballot. I think the K should have specific links to plan action rather than to the status quo or links of omission. I think permutations are very compelling against Ks that are not contextualized to the affirmative’s policy. Alternatives need to be clearly explained. I will not do the work for you. One of my biggest frustrations is that some judges seem to front kids alt solvency because the neg tosses around big words. I am not that type of judge; the negative should be responsible for defending the actualization/implementation of the alt.

K's that I have read and have a good understanding of- Militarism, Securitization, Identity (Queerness, Anti-Blackness, Fem, ect.) Spanos, Pan, Warming Reps, Terror Reps, Adaptations of Heidegger, Anthropocentrism.

K's that I am harder to sell on because my knowledge of the lit base is low: Deluze/Guattari, Spacialization, Semio-Cap,

K's that I just really do not like at all: Baudrillard, Battallie, a lot of abstract post-modern philosophy.

Debated at Blue Valley Southwest High School for 3 years. Local and TOC circuit. Class of 2015. I have judged and worked as an assistant coach for Blue Valley Southwest High School every year since that. If you have any questions just ask. Andiedivelbiss97@gmail.com

Top Level: As a debater I really enjoyed faster, technical debate, but I’m sympathetic to the necessity of adaptation in certain situations. I weigh tech over truth and I generally believe a dropped argument is a true one, but an argument/extension must include a claim and a warrant and an argument isn’t conceded if it’s answered explicitly elsewhere on the flow or in an overview. I view the debate through an offense defense paradigm and am hard pressed to vote for a negative team that doesn’t have any offense. However, I could vote on no risk of a link, especially if there’s dropped defense or an interrogation of author qualifications.

Theory: Except in the case of condo, theory is almost always only a reason to reject the argument or justify otherwise questionable arguments. I generally think conditionality is good.

Topicality: T is never a reverse voting issue. I default to competing interpretations, and generally find reasonability unpersuasive. I think that definitions should be precise. Standards need to be impacted out, and debaters should describe these impacts in terms of what debate would look like for the aff and neg. Precision and limits are the most persuasive impacts to me.

Framework: I think that affs should defend a topical federal government action, but I will try to limit the impact of my bias on my decision. I believe that some predictable stasis point is necessary for debate to be productive. I don’t see 2AC answers that revolve around framework being exclusionary as a persuasive reason for the aff to win the debate.

Counterplans: Counterplans should almost always have solvency. In general my opinions on common counterplans are as follows – PICs are good, 50 state/agent/international/multiplank CPs can go either way, for word PICs and delay and consult counterplans I lean aff but will vote neg if they win technically and am more willing to vote on them if they have specific solvency or ground for competition. Textual and functional competition both have a time and place. I’m willing to judge-kick a counter-plan, but only if told to do so explicitly. However, I have a fairly low threshold for the aff to win that that’s abusive and I shouldn’t do so.

Disads: Impact calculus is extremely important and should begin early and continue through the rebuttals. I think that disad and case can be a winning strategy when doing top-level arguments like turns case. 1AR needs to answer impact calculus but I have a low threshold for answering arguments like “rolls back the case”, that said, I will absolutely vote on them if dropped. I also think time frame is an underutilized method of impact calculus that can make resolving the debate much easier.

Kritiks: I have a fair understanding of most generic Ks (neolib, marx, security) and a limited one for more radical kritiks (baudrillard, deleuze, etc) so you shouldn’t rely too heavily on buzzwords. I have a pretty low threshold for the aff answering K tricks like floating PIKs, but I will vote on them if dropped. I don’t think either the neg or the aff should be entirely mooted and believe the aff should have the ability to weigh their impacts against the K. Finally, I don’t want to have to evaluate two ships passing in the night, so the negative must do aff specific analysis on both link and impact levels.

Speaker points: Please be respectful of your competitors - racist and sexist language will result in extremely low point values. Smart strategy/concessions, impact calc, humor, efficiency, evidence comparison, and technical proficiency will get you more points. If a team wants to challenge another team for clipping they must have audio proof.

Email: dylan.goldberg2@gmail.com

Put me on the email chain.

I debated for four years at Glenbrook South, where my partner and I almost exclusively ran policy centric arguments. While I always vote off the flow, that policy focus is certainly going to influence how I decide debates.

Counterplan and disad debates are the area I feel most comfortable, given that I have the most experience in those areas. For disads, the links is the most important part of the debate, and generally the hardest to win. I'll vote on contrived politics disads, though it's going to be harder to convince me of something that's absurd than a more well thought out topic relevant disad.

Critical debate is an area I feel a lot less comfortable in, though if that's what your good at, just know to explain concepts a little bit more. I'll listen to anything, though if you run a critique I don't understand it will be a lot more difficult for me to decide in favor of it. If you're aff against a K, I generally find impact turns to be more persuasive than link defense, though as always keep that within reason (I will never evaluate racism good).

T vs. Policy aff's: I was never the best T debater, though that doesn't mean I won't evaluate the argument. I find reasonability to be fairly persuasive, though if there's enough limits offense

T vs. Planless aff's: Coming from a policy background, I generally find argument refinement or fairness to be persuasive, but that doesn't mean I won't vote off the flow. If you can't defend why fairness should be a prior question, don't expect my policy bias to change how I vote.

Be nice, be respectful, and have fun. Debate's an amazing activity, enjoy it.

Include me on your email chain: gurrola.victoria@gmail.com

Background:

I competed in policy debate for Claremont High School from 2006-2010. I enjoyed running K's. I was a volunteer mentor coach and judge for the Bay Area Urban Debate League from 2011-2015. I have a masters in Public Policy from Mills College. I taught first grade for the last three years in Oakland Unified. I've only judged at a few tournaments over the last few years as teaching took up most of my time.

I am fine with speed. However, my ear is not as trained as it used to be. Please slow down for taglines and theory arguments. If I miss something because you were going to fast on a bullet point, it can hurt you. Argument quality over quantity is always better.

I am open to hearing all kinds of debate. Just as happy hearing a k debate as I am a cp/da debate. I do believe that the aff has an obligation to affirm the resolution. I don't think that K affs need to have a plan, but you need to have some connection to the topic. Tell me how the debate should be framed. If you're going to run a K I need to have a clear understanding of how it specifically links to the aff. I am less likely to vote for a generic K with a broad link.

PLEASE do not assume that I have read/am an expert on any of your K arguments. YOU have the obligation of explaining your arguments. If I don't understand your argument then I can't vote for it. I have no issue with voting you down on something that you didn't clearly explain to me. For K debates I've found myself much more compelled in debates where I am told the roll of the ballot/judge. I don't believe that debate exists in a vacuum.

Don't be rude or condescending to your partner, opponents, or me.

Matt Harkins

If you have any questions or want to add me to an email chain, I'm at mpharks@gmail.com. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.

I have been coaching at the Naval Academy since October 2016, and before that, I coached Cathedral Prep from 2014-2018. I debated on the national circuit in high school and qualified to the TOC twice, but I didn’t debate in college.

Most of my research and coaching is geared toward the K, but I feel comfortable evaluating a da/cp or da/case debate. I often think that the K is the best way to exploit the weaknesses of the affs that I hear, but that doesn't mean you have to take this route.

When debating in front of me, I'd highly recommend developing the implications to your arguments as soon in the debate as possible. In close debates between technically proficient teams, this is especially important. I appreciate it when a debater is creative and tries to relate to me rather than debating like a computer and into their computer.

Virtual Debate
I'd like to make things as easy as possible for you, and you're welcome to set up your speaking/video/microphone situation in whatever way makes you most comfortable.

On my end, I'm still learning how to adapt to zoom debates. There seems to be a lower ceiling on arguments I can process through zoom. This is especially the case on theory debates. If you could help me out by slowing things down, I'd appreciate it.

Debate doesn't translate directly from in-person to zoom. There are some limits that we haven't yet come to terms with, but there are also some possibilities (screen sharing comes to mind) that could be interesting, and you're welcome to experiment with that in front of me.

2021 College Topic
There's an important distinction between labor antitrust and consumer antitrust. In labor antitrust, independent contractors and labor unions are considered the businesses with whom the government is interested in limiting anticompetitive business practices. From the most straightforward reading of the topic, aff ground doesn't seem to allow for much labor antitrust. This would have been a significant consideration in at least half of the debates that I have judged so far.

Because of my academic and professional background, I've thought a lot about labor antitrust, monopolies, market power, and the suitability of the law as a remedy to these issues. To disclose a personal bias: I think that there are significant limits on the capacity of antitrust. That's not to say that I don't think there are many instances in which changes to antitrust law would be a good idea. Nor do I think that there aren't radical possibilities in antitrust. But its limits have become relevant and convincing in kritik debates in which the aff takes for granted the fundamental radicality of their proposal. I think this topic would be worthwhile if the debate community reckoned with those limits. In other words, Robert Bork was a real-life sicko, but so are most people, albeit in less apparent ways, who think that Amazon would stop being a problem if a judge told them to knock it off.

T
- I'm not in touch with community consensus so you might be able to use that to your advantage.
- I really enjoy a good T debate and don't have any strong inclinations toward fairness or education as the ultimate standard.
- I like definitions that define a word as close in a contexts as possible to the other words of the resolution
- I'm often disappointed by T evidence quality. For this reason, source/Expertise/qualifications debates tend to be pretty important. Just because a judge wrote it in a decision doesn't make it a relevant expert definition. Just because the usfg is defined in a certain way in the Bill Emerson English Language Empowerment Act of 1997, doesn't mean it's the best way to understand usfg for debate.
- Debating in the Pennsylvania has given me a comprehensive understanding of inherency as a procedural argument if you want to go there.

"T" (Framework)
- In the last dozen or so framework rounds that I've judged, the neg has won or lost based on whether they had a compelling claim to significant offense.
- It's frustrating to judge a framework debate wherein framework is deployed as a replacement for debating the case. I get that this is tied in some way to the "ground" and "unpredictability" aspects of the arguments you're advancing, but a failure to contend with fundamental questions posed by the aff can come across more as a sin of the neg.
- For me, framework is most useful as a neg strategy in debates where affs are needlessly obscure or cynical.

Disads
- I evaluate the link first, and I think it's a yes/no question which controls the direction of uniqueness.
- Most of the best answers to politics disads I've seen aren't necessarily carded answers to the U/L/IL/I parts of a disad, but arguments about the nonsensical nature of certain parts of the politics disad as applied to the aff.
- Although I don't cut politics files, I'm extremely aware of what's going on and familiar with who's writing what about Congress and the White House.
- I really like impact turn debates.
- Except in cases where something sophisticated is going on, it's usually a waste of time to read evidence that "warming isn't real" or "warming isn't a pressing issue." Go after the internal link, go after solvency, turn the impact, solve the impact. It's hard to convince me that warming isn't an immediate, urgent, and moral concern, but I'm skeptical that the only thing we need to do is develop the right tech or enter certain climate talks with sufficient leverage.

Counterplans
- I won't kick the counterplan for the negative unless the negative persuades me to do otherwise.
- There's a fine line between creative, technical counterplans and a contrived trick. Avoid the contrived tricks. I enjoy a creative and technical counterplan, but these aren't the kinds of arguments I spend a lot of time thinking about, so you'll do well to simplify your explanation of it as much as possible.

Kritiks
- I’m most familiar with psychoanalysis and Marxism (including left criticism of Marxism, Marxist criticisms of leftism, and Marxist critiques of other Marxisms).
- I spend a lot of time thinking about labor because of my day job.
- I first look at role of the ballot/role of the judge arguments when I'm rendering a decision, so these arguments tend to have a strong effect on the outcome of a debate.
- The perm, which is tied in important ways to the role of the ballot, tends to be the aff's most strategic line of pursuit.
- I'm willing to stop the debate and give someone a loss for using flagrantly inappropriate language.
- I've noticed that, on very many occasions in which a K debate was underdeveloped, I have recommended the second chapter of Wretched of The Earth to both teams.

Theory
- Reject the argument is the default. Spend time on the impact level to convince me to reject the team.
- I heard recently that nobody votes on multiple conditional worlds bad anymore. I guess that means I'd be more willing to entertain this argument than the average judge.
- Against affs which don't read a typical plan text or defend the resolution, I would prefer to hear a nitty-gritty case debate rather than a framework debate. This is a strong preference.
- When debaters unsuccessfully extend framework in front of me, the unsuccess is usually a result of disorganization, a lack of adaptation of pre-written blocks to the specific aff arguments, and my inability to interpret the significance of an abstract debate concept.
- If you go for framework, make sure you clearly implicate the stakes of winning a section of the debate. What I mean by this is that you shouldn't assume we're on the same page about what it means to win, say, that there exists a topical version of the aff, or your limits disad, or the benefits of switch-side debate, or etc. Leave nothing flapping in the wind in the 2nr.

Style
- I enjoy humor a lot.
- Speeches are best when they're persuasive performances; I don't enjoy monotone spreading.
- I like when debaters make smart cross applications from a flow the other team tried to kick out of.
- If the chips are down, flip the table. If, going into the rebuttals, you know you're losing 99% of the debate, see if you can explode that 1% into a win.

Email: Mahnoor.jamal.0@gmail.com
Previous experience: Policy debater for Maine East High School for two years.
Current speech, IPDA, Public Forum, and BP/Worlds debater

Heavily policy-oriented— if you’re going to do any type of K work please speak to me as if I don’t know what’s going on. Avoid buzzwords and jargon unless you will give a proper explanation and the framework/role of the ballot should be clearly defined giving me valid explanations as to why I should prefer your interpretation. Please have developed SPECIFIC links to the plan if you’re running a K on the Neg and your overviews for Ks (be it an affirmative or negative position) should be talked through not spread through. Make me understand—don’t just throw words at me.

TLDR; if it’s a K talk to me like I’m lay. (If you’re novice going for the K you need to properly show you UNDERSTAND the K don’t just read varsity blocks)

Counterplans and Disads are my cup of tea. I will vote aff on theory if it’s against a shifty process or conditions counterplan (I absolutely despise conditions CP). Also, don’t go for condo unless there are specific instances of abuse (like 3 conditional advocacies) and you plan on speaking a whole 5min is your 2AR about it I don’t wanna hear that speech, you don’t wanna give that speech, and your opponent probably will think you're not cool by the end of it.

I value clarity over speed—if you have clear arguments with an in-depth explanation I’ll lean towards you (at least in terms of speaker points) rather than having an abundance of unclear arguments. I also am adjusting to spreading! If you are spreading your analytics, and overviews there is a 99% chance I won't flow them properly.

Please be flowing, try line by line the best you can, avoid card clipping, and just be a decent human being in terms of interactions with one another.
Edit: if you’re varsity and are unclear or spreading EVERYTHING without proper explanation or analysis in your rebuttal Speeches I’m not here for it :))))

If you’re not telling me to switch flows there’s a higher chance (due to my misflowing) the argument will be up in the air I probably won’t evaluate it.

if you’re actually reading this: show me a meme, a cute animal picture, or something weeb related by the end of the round or before it I’ll give you an extra 0.1 speaker point (add it to the email chain!!)

Pronouns: Any (They/He/She/Them/Him/Her)

E-mail: loganedward77@gmail.com - put me on the email chain

Updated in October, 2020.

Experience: 2 years high school debate at Mona Shores High School, 2.5 years college debate at Wayne State University, 1 year coaching at Mona Shores High School, 2 years coaching at Detroit Country Day School, and a long judging history over that time to present, for both high school and college-level debate.

I'll give a short version: I'll listen to just about anything, minus overtly problematic arguments (racism good, sexism/gender discrimination good, fascism good, etc.), which will at best lead to tanked speaker points, at worst an automatic loss (and I lean that way).

I have a fair amount of experience debating both traditional policy and K frameworks but find myself being more entertained in K v K rounds. It's a T/Framework thing, it's boring and I don't trust the government to do anything right. Read more below, I definitely still do like a policy v. policy round, I just hate voting on T.

I expect everyone to be timing themselves. Please don't call me "judge," I don't like most of them IRL. "Logan" is fine.

Virtual Debate: I don't care whether or not your camera is on, regardless of what the tournament rules are saying. If your virtual workspace is anything like mine, it's improvised and ugly. Also, it feels like I'm invading your privacy on some weird level when you're debating from your bedroom. 2020 is weird enough without trying to force you to show me your house. Also, if you're experiencing connection issues, turning the video streaming off can really help. On another topic, CX is kind of tough right now due to talking over one another by accident. I don't really have a solution for it other than trying to stick to the model of whoever's not speaking next asks, the person who just spoke answers. That being said, if you can tag-team effectively virtually then go for it. When the questioner tells you to stop answering, stop answering.

Dropped arguments are usually true arguments (save for the above), you must make the argument early enough in the debate for me to vote on it (outside of theory/common-sense or evidence-based analysis). That being said, I vote on arguments I understand. If I don't understand, that's on you, this is a speech activity.

More probabilistic impacts outweigh bigger magnitude ones for me, on almost every level. Establishing probability is most important to me and I think the overemphasis on existential impacts is making policy debate stale (as well as literally untrue, I have not yet died in a nuclear war).

A lot of the longer version below doesn't really apply in high school debate outside of Open division.

The long version (ask specific questions before the round if anything is unclear):

T/Framework - T needs standards and voters on the neg and counter-standards and -voters on the aff or you probably won't win it. Framework is also fine, but you should do it right (when I didn't go for Cap, I went for framework). You need to have impacts to Framework that you can weigh against the aff (or another off-case argument you can weigh). "Fairness" is not an impact I'm going to vote for. Framework can be defensive if you want to go for the other off, and this is usually the best way to use it in front of me. I don't find skills arguments very convincing at all and I find them very easily turned as the only skills I learned in debate either A. weren't transferable or B. were skills that help the government murder people more effectively (this is definitely more for college and I'll definitely vote on skills args at the high school level). I have a high threshold for this line of argumentation and I'm not ashamed to hold you to that, but I will vote on them if they're mishandled or you've found one of the few I believe (here's a hint: research probably isn't inherently bad). Explain the impacts to the generally accepted ones like fairness (research burden, ground loss, etc.) Probabilistic impacts matter more here too: Does the aff you're running framework against stand a chance of modifying debate culture? What specific fairness/skills loss was there? The most probabilistic impacts happen in-round, in front of my face, and this is how I weigh T. I default to competing interpretations, as do most, but my threshold on reasonability is comparatively low, because for me to vote on competing T interpretations, you're going to have to convince me beyond a doubt that the way they violated the topic was uniquely bad for you debating in this round. That means if you're reading a CP or DA that clearly links, you probably shouldn't run T as I will probably buy the "but their DA links" arg.

The Aff, in general: I was a 2N and when I was double 2s I hated being aff, so I don't have much advice here. Most teams who are aff lose in the 1AR, but the 2AC is close behind. Time allocation is much more important on the aff (which is why I hated being a 2A, I'm slow), so identify which arguments are the biggest threat early on and adjust accordingly. The biggest mistake newer debaters make is forgetting about all that evidence you read in the 1AC, which should have embedded answers to your weak spots.

Policy Affs: Cool. You should probably kick some of it by the end of the debate at the college level, free up some time for that 1AR and 2AR. Left-policy affs are usually weaker than both their policy and K options (standard policy follows the rules better, helping you out in a framework debate, and the K probably solves better), so try not to read them unless you have really good ideas for how to use it.

K affs - Fine by me, be prepared for the framework debate, win the impact turns to framework and I'll vote for you. That being said, I still have to understand. These weird "every theorist ever" affs are kind of getting out of hand (at least at the high school level), but if you can explain it, run it. No plan text or advocacy statement required if the mechanism is clear. If you're going to run a left-policy aff, you'd might as well just run the K version in front of me, I'm good for it. I prefer K v K debates in these rounds because I hate listening to framework/T (it's just boring), use it as leverage and time-skew instead. I also think they're more useful and educational because waxing poetic about how a team broke the rules for 4 speeches is not only extremely boring, it's self-fulfilling and frankly only useful for institutionalized debate (which isn't a real thing IRL). They should probably still be tangential to the topic, but I can be convinced the topic should be ignored in favor of something better.

The Neg, in general: The more specific the strategy to the aff, the better chance you have of winning. General topic links are usually not enough and need some analysis to make them compelling. That's not to say I won't vote on more general links/uniqueness evidence, but that the aff is probably winning your DA/K/CP coming out of the 2AC and you'll need to develop the arguments a lot more in the block.

DAs - fine, run them, explain them, win them. Winning a link (and the internal links) is more important than totally winning the impact. I'll vote on risk, depending on how things are going on the case flow.

Theory - I've become a bit more open to theory but the only theory I find automatically compelling is conditionality bad (and that's if the neg runs too many condo off-case args, "too many" being determined by the skill level). If theory is dropped and is a reason to reject the team, that is super bad for the team that dropped it, keep track of the line-by-line. Best case, I reject the argument, worst case I reject the team (if they've dropped it but you haven't explained it well, I'll probably just reject the arg, be prepared to lose if your 2AR is 5/6 on theory). Theory about generally accepted and common args is probably useless (50 states fiat, neg fiat, limits on aff fiat, etc.), but I'll vote on it if it's explained well and is mishandled by the other team, or you can convince me an actual offense was committed (a long shot). Your theory should have warranted impacts, just like any argument ("They did a bad thing that's bad because...").

CPs - See above for how I feel about conditional advocacies. I can be convinced of most counterplan theory (again, see above). The best PIC/Ks are when no one knows that's what they are until the 2NR, usually that's an immediate neg ballot. PIC theory is usually a wash after you read your blocks at each other. I love a good advantage CP and I hate a bad one.

Ks - I went for the Cap K in almost every 2NR of my college/late high school career. Ks should usually engage something specific about the aff. Specific links are good. However, I don't think you necessarily need them, your general ones probably do the job well enough, paired with explanation. Ks should prove the aff is a uniquely bad idea/influenced by bad ideas and prove the alt can solve the impact. They should prove the perm doesn't work (preferably just being able to cross-apply case offense and prove it still links) and that the impacts outweigh the aff. This means you have to win the framework debate too, unless the K has existential impacts). I'll vote on risk of alt solvency if there's enough defense/risk on the case flow, probably at a lower threshold than most, given the framework debate basically has to be won (unless you kick the alt and go for structural impacts, which means you're probably having a bad time anyway). Fiat is illusory. It just is. Good policy-prone teams know this better than the K team.

More specific thoughts, as I did debate the K:

Cap: Honestly, I have a slightly higher threshold because I went for it so much when I debated. I'm an anti-capitalist in "real life" and familiar with most theoretical arguments contained within and if I think it's a dumb argument (not even in the round, just generally) I might have some bias, but I promise I'll try not to. I love great Cap rounds, though, so, if you're confident in your strategy (and maybe more importantly, theoretical basis), go for it!

Queerness: Read this for maybe a year as well, but wasn't as heavily invested or well-researched. That being said, I am passingly familiar with the field and like the line of argumentation, but it must be explained well, both for my sake and your opponents', as Edelman can be basically incomprehensible at times.

AntiBlackness: I find this and Cap most compelling when talking about debate writ large, which AntiBlackness debaters frequently do (not so much on the Cap side, but you should, debate is classist). I have found the best AntiBlackness rounds I've spectated or watched (or, rarely, was a part of) directly tied their impacts to the round or the topic (governance writ large isn't as good of a link/internal link, but use it anyway). However, I also think that many AntiBlackness debaters have a hard time encountering a Black policy debater, when they really shouldn't. The strategy should NOT be to attack or cast doubt on this debater's Blackness, but the structure of policy debate that incentivizes skewed topics, interpersonal violence, resource skewing, and bad rhetoric. I'm fairly read on the subject of AntiBlackness but, as a white person, I'm always listening closely in these rounds (not to imply I don't otherwise). Also, as a white person, I CANNOT be trusted fully to adjudicate these rounds, which AntiBlackness debaters would do well to keep in mind for all of their white judges. I find alternate root cause arguments fairly unconvincing on most Ks, but this one even more so (although there are TYPES of arguments I can find convincing in this realm, such as the totalizing description of oppression that some AntiBlackness teams make; It's complicated). I (and if "we" were being honest, most white judges and debaters) am usually pretty uncomfortable adjudicating these rounds as I feel whiteness is inherently moderating in these cases. That being said, I think white debaters should be very careful with these arguments (to the point of maybe considering not reading them), ESPECIALLY in reading prewritten tags. Don't call yourself Black or imply that you are a part of the "Black Body" if you are not.

Anthro: I can be convinced, but it's been a running joke to me (and pretty much anyone who isn't a die-hard) for years. I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, so I'm probably more persuadable than most people on this one. Animal death matters and anthropocentrism definitely defines our relationship to the environment, but I'm gonna find it really annoying if you equate animal death to human death, as I feel like this has some... implications. The better impacts here are rooted in environmental destruction, but there are easier ways to that impact.

Ableism: I am very easily convinced that the root cause of ableism is capitalism. Other alt causes could probably convince me too. Always open to hearing your way around that, though.

Beaudrillard/Symbolic Exchange/"The Real": I gotta be honest, this usually isn't helpful without being combined with theory that evaluates an axis of oppression under this theoretical framework. Another point of honesty: Tough to understand, especially being read at Mach 5 in a debate round. Explain yourself well, impact it out, and explain how the alt resolves the impact. The link debate is less important with this type of K (at least to me), but it should still be there.

Rhetoric more generally: Should probably contain a justification for the self-link here, but other than that I can be pretty easily convinced that debate is bad and the rhetoric we use sucks too, read further on for details.

Speaker points - I generally try to think as little as possible about them, as speaker points are subjective and largely useless except for tie-breaking. I am a chronic stutterer, empathize with speaking difficulties, and they obviously won't affect speaks. Doing things like using problematic language, misgendering, stealing prep, being generally rude, etc. will at worst get you dropped (malicious or ignorant use of problematic language or misgendering will get you dropped 100% of the time), and at worst will get you docked speaks. However, I understand mistakes happen, especially in the case of misgendering, and as long as it doesn't become a reoccurring/malicious issue, I won't be very heavy-handed with the docking. Get to know your competitors and asking for pronouns never hurts. The way you earn the most amount of speaker points is good STRATEGIC decision-making. I don't really care about your style, but the way you manage the round. Also, if you're not using all of your prep/speech time, it better be perfect or you'll probably lose speaks for that too.

One caveat, definitely more for college-level - My debate experience has been complex and frankly, frequently negative in university. The community is toxic and often overworks students to the point of serious mental health issues. I am thankful for what I learned and what resources debate gave me, but some of the behavior in this community is inexcusable and leads to the sort of institutional abuse (verbal, emotional, and sexual) that plagues politics, which makes debate a good microcosm for government (which, if it's not clear, I hate). I take extreme issue with anyone that uses institutional power in debate to give themselves or their team an edge and will make that clear if I think you or your team is doing so. Of course, this is an unsolvable problem, as more wealthy schools have inherently better access to resources and, thus, better win rates. I encourage every debater to remember that debate does not happen in a vacuum and to respect your fellow debaters no matter their skill level, style, or status because at the end of the day, your skill level, style, and status are all dependent on luck and environment. I also especially encourage coaches to take this into consideration and help your students understand this, as you are ultimately responsible for not just their careers and health, but everyone else's in this community (especially because it is usually coach ego causing these issues). All of this being said makes me sound like I have a heavy bias against policy debate (versus the K), which I'd like to think I don't, but I may have one. I suppose what this all means for your rounds, besides the obvious decorum I expect, is that I likely have a higher threshold for arguments that assume policy debates, and to some extent government and statehood, are inherently good. I believe some of the skills arguments, but any argument about upward mobility (gross), political understanding good (which "political understanding?"), or literature knowledge (again, what "literature knowledge?") I may chuckle to myself over, but begrudgingly vote for if the other team drops the ball. I think it's pretty proven that most former debaters either become bureaucrats or other government (gross) or debate coaches (due to lack of time to pursue literally anything else in college), which makes me basically not believe most policy debate education arguments. All of that being said, K affs focusing on debate bad still have to win. I know these perspectives in debate are rare, with many viewing policy debate education as being worth power, time, and energy trade-offs, but I've only seen these issues exacerbated in recent years. Policy snobs (myself included) need to either modify the activity to help with these issues or embrace other forms of debate. That likely makes me more malleable to arguments that break "the rules," such as form or content differences, because anything else is debate fascism.

https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Jiao%2C+Jennifer

Brian Kennett Policy Paradigm 2017

btkennett@gmail.com and YES I want to be on the chain.

Who I Am?

Great question! I’m so glad you didn’t ask! No really, I credit who I am to High School and college debate. While I didn’t learn everything from debate, I did learn most of what I think makes me tick. I’m thrilled you are here. That’s where I enter every round. I’m a dad, but I’m not a “dad” judge. Debate paid my way through college and took up most of my time for over 7 years. I love this so much that I volunteered to coach novices despite the fact my kids weren’t yet interested. Hopefully I’m changing their minds. Maybe you can help me? **UPDATE: One of them has fully come around :) ** I pride myself on trying hard to only judge the facts presented and argued in the round while acknowledging there aren't really many true tabula rasa judges in existence. #unicorns

What Do I Care About?

I value good solid argumentation and logic. Period. I will listen and flow almost any argument if you can properly articulate it and support it with evidence. If your opponent can’t convince me it’s not valid and offer evidence to support that position, you will almost certainly win. I am not part of the debate. I will not consider evidence or lack of credibility if not presented. I don’t view that as my role in the room. You won't likely offend me with an argument. You MAY offend me by not properly arguing it.

What Do I NOT Care About?

Look....I'm a former CEDA guy from the Pacific NW. I do not inherently believe that debate should be kept in a box, nor do I believe that there is only one way to do it. I believe that the primary function of the activity (outside of its pure educational value) is to examine issues from multiple perspectives. If you choose to examine the topic through performance, the kritik, or some other means....as long as you do it well, I'm likely game. To that end, I'm VERY unlikely to vote on topicality simply because you tell me there's not a plan text or that they aren't being "fair." Y'all know what you're signing up for. None of this is unexpected. (or rarely is it)

How Do I Feel About Speed?

Here’s the deal…as long as you know what you’re reading, can accurately annunciate, signpost well, and don’t annoy me with trying to read way outside of your capability….you’ll be fine at any speed. I do appreciate email threads. I do occasionally ask for cards if I’m not familiar with something. All I ask….be a communicator. This is, at its core, an argumentation and communication activity. If I stop flowing and give you my best annoyed look….I’d slow down and start communicating. This is especially true in the rebuttals.

What About The K?

See above, but I will say that if you are reading something unique, make sure you understand it and can explain it well. I am not an expert on all of the literature. I have read a bunch, and I hear a lot, but don't assume I (or anyone else) knows what you are trying to say. Do your job in the round.

What Are Your Biggest Pet Peeves?

I'm so glad you asked! I can come across as a little arrogant. All good debaters are. I’m not, however, a tool. It’s a fine line. I get it. But if you are abusive, rude, or generally a jerk. I won’t like you. It will be somewhat hard to overcome. You will be at a distinct disadvantage. Don’t do it. Be nice to each other. Have fun.

Dropped arguments brought up in the 2AR....just don't do it.

Mean People.

Rude People.

I debated for 4 years at Glenbrook South. I am currently a Freshman in college at the University of Illinois. 

Email: mkruger524@gmail.com (I want to be on the chain).

This basically sums it up https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Voss%2C+Jon. Read a plan and you'll like me as a judge. 

Topicality: Not a huge fan of big T debates. I am not super familiar with the topic so unless the violation is blatant or dropped it's a nonstarter. 

Critiques: I won't vote on most critical arguments unless I am thoroughly convinced (this includes speaking in more than just buzzwords). This means forming a coherent link story and having some way in which the alternative can solve the impacts. I've never been a fan of high theory (ie. Baudrillard, Deleuze, etc) just save me the pain and don't read it. That being said I have voted fairly regularly on well explained critiques like capitalism and security. 

Any questions not answered by me or Voss? Just ask me. 

About me

4 years of policy debate on a national level at Wayzata High School. Graduated Wayzata 2017.

Topicality - I love creative, well thought out T arguments.

Generally default to competing interps but could be convinced otherwise. With that said, if you can prove that you are reasonably topical you can probably beat their interp.

Win your impacts and prove why they matter. Don't just rant about how the aff explodes limits or kills ground, but go another level and explain why I should care about that and value those impacts more than the other team's.

With that said, don't forget to win the violation debate - it's like winning the link to a DA.

Case lists matter, both to prove that your interp isn't overlimiting and that your opponent's interp is underlimiting.

DAs -

Make sure you do turns case/turns DA analysis. With that said, winning that your I/L turns theirs isn't end all be all. The impact is a function of the link, so make sure to win the rest of your DA to be able to access turns case.

A lot of DAs are either really generic, have really bad links or are generally incoherent. If you are aff and you see one of these disads, you do not need a lot of cards to beat them. Point out and win the logical inconsistencies within their evidence and that will win you the flow.

CPs -

Generic CPs are fine, but that means you must be prepared to answer very specific aff tailored solvency deficits. A lot of times this proves fatal for the neg.

At the same time, I am more than willing to vote on theory, but I find a lot of times the aff doesn't spend enough time on it to make it a real issue. As with any other argument, if you explain and impact it out well, I will vote on it.

Kritiks on the neg -

I was policy oriented as a debater, but that does not mean that I will not vote for Kritiks.

Don't over rely on overviews and blocks. Contextualize your arguments to the affirmative and explain what the aff does specifically that links to your generic link cards.

Don't rely on jargon and abstraction- I will likely not understand it. Explain your argument in a coherent fashion and how it specifically interacts with the case and you will be rewarded.

no plan affs - I think that there are educational and competitive benefits to defending the resolution. However, if you can prove that the topic shouldn't be defended, I could lean to your favor. I think framework is a topicality argument and nothing more. Explain why your interp is better than theirs and impact out your argument.


General things-

• Frame the round and connect arguments - explain how your best argument(s) interacts with everything else on the flow and explain why you should win because of it. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
• Cross-x matters. That said, it must make it into the speech to count as an argument
• IMPACT out your arguments, and also make sure to explain why your I/L's/impacts turn or access theirs
• Don't rely too much on cards, more on explanation. I will generally only look at cards if you flag them out to me in the round.
• Be nice. Rudeness in cross-x will not be tolerated

I teach math and serve as chair of the math dept at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. I retired from coaching high school at the end of the 2017-2018 school year. I coached Policy and LD (as well as most every speech event) for over 25 years on the local and national circuit. In the spring of 2020, we started a Middle School team at Newman and have been coaching on the middle school level since then.

I judge only a handful of rounds each year. You will need to explain topic specific abbreviations, acronyms, etc. a little more than you would normally. You will also need to go slower than normal, especially for the first 30 sec of each speech so I can adjust to you.

Email chain: gregmalis@newmanschool.org

My philosophy is in three sections. Section 1 applies to both policy and LD. Section 2 is policy-specific. Section 3 is LD-specific.

Section 1: Policy and LD

Speed. Go fast or slow. However, debaters have a tendency to go faster than they are physically capable of going. Regardless of your chosen rate of delivery, it is imperative that you start your first speech at a considerably slower pace than your top speed will be. Judges need time to adjust to a student's pitch, inflection, accent/dialect. I won't read cards after the round to compensate for your lack of clarity, nor will I say "clearer" during your speech. In fact, I will only read cards after the round if there is actual debate on what a specific card may mean. Then, I may read THAT card to assess which debater is correct.

Theory. Theory should not be run for the sake of theory. I overhead another coach at a tournament tell his debaters to "always run theory." This viewpoint sickens me. If there is abuse, argue it. Be prepared to explain WHY your ground is being violated. What reasonable arguments can't be run because of what your opponent did? For example, an aff position that denies you disad or CP ground is only abusive if you are entitled to disad or CP ground. It becomes your burden to explain why you are so entitled. Theory should never be Plan A to win a round unless your opponent's interpretation, framework, or contention-level arguments really do leave you no alternative. I think reasonable people can determine whether the theory position has real merit or is just BS. If I think it's BS, I will give the alleged offender a lot of leeway.

Role of the Ballot. My ballot usually means nothing more than who won the game we were playing while all sitting in the same room. I don't believe I am sending a message to the debate community when I vote, nor do I believe that you are sending a message to the debate community when you speak, when you win, or when you lose. I don't believe that my ballot is a teaching tool even if there's an audience outside of the two debaters. I don't believe my ballot is endorsing a particular philosophy or possible action by some agent implied or explicitly stated in the resolution. Perhaps my ballot is endorsing your strategy if you win my ballot, so I am sending a message to you and your coach by voting for you, but that is about it. If you can persuade me otherwise, you are invited to try. However, if your language or conduct is found to be offensive, I will gladly use my ballot to send a message to you, your coach, and your teammates with a loss and/or fewer speaker points than desired.

Section 2: Policy only (although there are probably things in the LD section below that may interest you)

In general, I expect that Affs read a plan and be topical. K Affs or Performance Affs have a bit of an uphill climb for me to justify why the resolution ought not be debated. If a team chooses this approach, at minimum, they need to advocate some action that solves some problem, and their remedy/method must provide some reasonable negative ground.

I think K's need a solid link and a clear, viable, and competitive alt, but I best understand a negative strategy if consisting of counterplans, disads, case args.

Section 3: LD only (if you are an LDer who likes "policy" arguments in LD, you should read the above section}

Kritiks. In the end, whatever position you take still needs to resolve a conflict inherent (or explicitly stated) within the resolution. Aff's MUST affirm the resolution. Neg's MUST negate it. If your advocacy (personal or fiated action by some agent) does not actually advocate one side of the resolution over the other (as written by the framers), then you'll probably lose.

Topicality. I really do love a good T debate. I just don't hear many of them in LD. A debater will only win a T debate if (1) you read a definition and/or articulate an interpretation of specific words/phrases in the resolution being violated and (2) explain why your interp is better than your opponent's in terms of providing a fair limit - not too broad nor too narrow. I have a strong policy background (former policy debater and long-time policy debate coach). My view of T debates is the same for both.

Presumption. I don't presume aff or neg inherently. I presume the status quo. In some resolutions, it's clear as to who is advocating for change. In that case, I default to holding whoever advocates change in the status quo as having some burden of proof. If neither (or both) is advocating change, then presumption becomes debatable. However, I will work very hard to vote on something other than presumption since it seems like a copout. No debate is truly tied at the end of the game.

Plans vs Whole Res. I leave this up to the debaters to defend or challenge. I am more persuaded by your perspective if it has a resolutional basis. For example, the Sept/Oct 2016 topic has a plural agent, "countries" (which is rare for LD topics). Thus, identifying a single country to do the plan may be more of a topicality argument than a "theory" argument. In resolutions when the agent is more nebulous (e.g., "a just society"), then we're back to a question as what provides for a better debate.

Wayzata '19

American '23

Email: gargi.mansingh@gmail.com

general info

- no arms sale knowledge

- tech>truth

- no t preferences

k affs

- you don't need a tva as long as you can explain why there isn't one

- the aff needs a reason why 1) debate is key and 2) why reading it on the neg doesn't solve

- fairness is an impact but i'm also super open to clash/topic education

things i like

- well-researched advantage counterplans, DA/case debates, thorough case arguments and impact calc, aff-specific PICs, and good evidence

- reading a plan

- k's on the neg

things i don't like

- process cp's

- long overviews and framing pages

- Loic Rocheleau

other thoughts

- i don't mind theory debates but i also think it's a lazy way of debating

- i miss debate so i encourage you to ~have fun~

- ask me if you have question

- small schools/ schools without administrative support have my heart. If you're from the dmv area please email me if you need help

BG:

Currently, I'm a radio news producer and have been for the last two years. Prior to kick-starting my career, I debated in college for 3 years, coached high school debate for 4 years, and competed in high school debate for 4 years.

I'm really up on current events, considering current events are my 9-5 and hobby. However, I love to learn new things and hear compelling and unique arguments.

In college, I competed in parliamentary debate. The best way to describe the event is like policy debate and extemporaneous speaking combined. I coached all forms of debate. And in high school, I did Oregon parliamentary debate and Public Forum.

What I like to see:

I'm a big fan of clash and having a clear flow. If I don't have it down on my paper, I'm less likely to vote for the argument. I'm a bit of a scatterbrain (thank you ADHD) so while I can keep up with a hoppy flow, I would prefer it keep it as clean as possible, for yours and my sake.

I enjoy strong impact and link debate and believe that's usually where the debate comes down to. When judging K debate, I believe framework and the impact debate are most important.

Additionally, I LOVE hearing arguments you wouldn't normally hear or go for. So, that wacky K or questionable disadvantage... free game. Debate isn't just about winning--I believe the fundamental point is learning and getting better at the craft. Try new things out when I'm your judge. I'll give you feedback and let you know how to make the case stronger for your next round.

I'm fine with speed, but will clear you if I have zero idea what you're saying. If I clear you or your opponent does more than twice, I would recommend just slowing down.

Disclaimer: I'm a fan of trigger warnings when talking about sensitive subjects such as sexual assault and suicide. I won't automatically dock you if you don't inform me that you'll be talking about this before the start of the debate, but I probably will have a sour look on my face.

As always, feel free to ask me any specific questions before the round and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

I am currently a freshman at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, double majoring in Social Work and Political Science. As MMU does not have a debate team I currently not debating. So, I am not super familiar to the topic so you probably have to do some extra explaining to me. However, I am familiar with the current political debates on immigration currently and have a basic understanding of how immigration and ICE functions so I do know some things about the topic.

Background

I was a 4-year debater at CR Wash, debated at Nationals my senior year. I was typically a 2A/1N but I have been double 2s. I was more of policy debater for sure. However, I can be down with Ks if explained well. I am okay with speed- I am a speed debater but you HAVE to slow down on analytics and tags so I know you are moving on to a new argument. Sign posting is appreciated. YOU CANNOT JUST SAY EXTEND X! You MUST extend warrants and compare it to their answers! I would like to be added to the email chain my email is 18mmineart@gmail.com Also please call me by my name, not just “judge.”

General

If you are mean in CX will be docked speaker points. If you are mean to your partner you will lose speaker points. I will call you out during my RFD. Please make the debate fun- not just serious and competitive. While being competitive and serious about debate is good you should be having fun and learning first and foremost.

FW/ T/ Theory

If against a K/ K AFF I will lean more towards FW in general. It is hard for me to vote for K framework. As for T. I like it and I will vote on it. If dropped I will tend to value its impacts more than the impacts of the AFF. Also, if you make every mildly sketch thing a voter- it loses validity for me.

Ks

Again, I am more of a policy debater. I generally enjoy them but struggle with high theory Ks unless you explain it super well to me. I am persuaded by more specific alts- not by just rejecting the AFF- you have to give me more of a reason on the link and impact level of the debate.

DAs

I love DAs. As a more policy-oriented debater I run these a lot. To win on just a DA alone I need a cohesive link story, updated uniqueness, and IMPACT CALC that is comparative to the AFF’s impacts. Politics debates are always fun.

CPs

Again, a huge fan of these. Make sure you have a net benefit and it is legitimately competitive. I particularly like advantage CPs. Perms are just a test of competition. I am not a huge fan of pics or arguments similar to them.

Some things about me:

I debated for Niles North from 2015-2019. I'm attending St. Olaf with a double major in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies on a Pre-Law track.

I went to NDI two years in the Sophomore and top policy lab and UMmich 7 week K lab my senior year.

My email is hgniederman@gmail.com.

Please add me to any email chain and email me after round if you have questions.

If you are unclear on any of this paradigm's contents feel free to ask for clarification before round if there is time.

Overall things:

1. If there is any rudeness in the round that makes the debaters or myself uncomfortable I will either dock the speaks of the person or team participating in rudeness or even stop the round/issue a warning.

2. There's a difference between being competitive and cheating. Things like messing with the format of your speech docs to make them difficult to understand, being distracting during the other team's prep or speeches, or cutting people off unnecessarily will make me most likely dock your speaks or just be annoyed.

3. Please don't call me judge, call me Hannah.

4. Please don't shake my hand after round.

5. Making jokes, having strong ethos, being confident, being interesting to listen to and easy to flow will make me impressed and more likely to swing your way when I'm deciding speaks or the round overall. Also please speak loudly.

6. Racism, sexism, misogyny, or another unacceptable language is not tolerated.

7. Please try to refrain from using language that includes slurs, descriptions of sexual assault, or descriptions of suicide. Use warnings/ask for permission before doing this if you think your arguments fall into this category.

8. Flow!!! The only time you don't have to flow is if you are the 1n and it's during the 2nc.

9. Please keep time for your speeches and prep. If you want me to time prep for you I can, but you have to ask.

10. ** For novices ** Debate, especially in novice, is about fun and learning, not about being ruthless. Remember that!!!

How I debated:

In my four years as a debater, I solidly considered myself a flex debater. My range of argumentation went from the topic CP's and DA's of the year to reading an Autoethnography Settler Colonialism aff for part of my senior year. Take all this with a grain of salt however.

Argument Specific Things:

T- I will vote on T if you extend it properly with a good interpretation and a reasonable view of the topic. However, if an aff is clearly topical then don't try to make more work for yourself by going for T. You must define your scope of the topic and impact out your limits arguments in order to have the easiest time winning on T. T is not my favorite thing to watch a round on however. Also if you are incredibly fast, please don't read T args at full speed.

DA- Impact calc and explanations of the world of the DA are incredibly important. I cannot evaluate a DA that is not extended in its entirety (UQ, L, IL, !) and properly weighed against the aff.

Case- I love a solid case debate, especially one that incorporates good line by line. I am a 2A, so I always think aff teams should treat case like their baby and spend a reasonable amount of time extending all necessary parts of their aff in all of their speeches. I cannot vote on impacts that do not have an explanation attached to them (ie. if you say warming is the biggest impact in the round but don't explain how your aff is connected to this, you cannot win that you reasonably solve it). Please put both cards and line by line on case in any 2AC's and 2NC's.

CP's- I'm not a huge fan of PIC's or cheaty counterplans. I'm definitely here for a good CP debate if the neg puts in work. For the aff, focus on explaining the world of the perm and any solvency deficits, plus anything else you deem important.

K's- I love K's and watching/judging/debating in K rounds. I'm open to basically any K if you explain it well enough (especially if it uses lots of not common jargon). Please have a reasonable alt and a good link to the aff. HOWEVER I would warn that I don't vote for death good. I do love identity args and solid topic K's, so keep that in mind if that's your jam.

Hi!

My email is mackenzie.odonnell137@gmail.com. Please add me on your email chains

I’m just out of high school and I did three years of varsity debate. I did circuit debate my last year. I’d prefer if you read plan texts. I appreciate framing in debates if you want me to evaluate something I’m not familiar with. For example, I am not familiar with kritiks on this topic so framing would be appreciated. I think clipping is unfair and I will stop the debate if it is happening. Please be kind and respectful in debates. I evaluate the debate through impact calc but I am willing to listen to the way in which you want to be debating. I evaluate Topicality through competing interpretations — please explain your impacts to topicality sufficiently. I am willing to read some cards if there is confusion at the end of the debate but I should not be in the position to read more than a couple.

Experience—4 years at H.H. Dow High School

I have not been active in debate for two years, and have not done any research on the education topic.  Please do three things to adapt.  1) explain all acronyms or topic specific jargon in depth  2) write my ballot for me in the 2nr/2ar, close all doors, and do extensive impact calculus  3) I can handle speed, but please start each speech at 75% and slowly ramp up, clarity is very important and usually under emphasized in debate.

I am not a great judge for critical argumentation.  If you have me in the back of the room focus on the technical line-by-line as much as possible.  Don’t assume that I know the intricacies of an argument.  Additionally, long overviews will make it harder for me to evaluate arguments.

I am predisposed to think that condo, 50 state fiat, and almost all theoretical arguments are not reasons to reject the team.

Experience: I debated for 4 years at Notre Dame in CA (2011-2015); University of San Francisco (BA in Psychology); JD from UC Davis School of Law (2022). Previously taught 4 classic week labs at University of Michigan Debate Camp.

Update for 2024 TOC: Currently am an attorney and I judge here and there. I judged a few rounds at Long Beach this year, but have not judged rounds since then.

tldr: I'll judge anything but I like policy debates more. Just make warranted arguments and tell me how I should vote and why.

Newest thoughts:

- steal prep and I'm docking points

- don't make your opponent send you a marked doc for just 1-2 marked cards - that is something you should be tracking - I notice this is something teams do and then they just use the time to keep prepping their next speeches

General Notes:

1. I am definitely very, very flow oriented. I flow on paper and care a lot about structure. That being said, to have a full argument you need to make a claim, warrant, and impact. If those things aren't there, I'd rather not do the work for you and reward the team that did.

2. Other than that, you do you. I'm down to listen to anything you want to talk about if you can defend it well.

3. I'm super easy to read. If I'm making faces, it's probably because I am confused or can't understand what you're saying. If I'm nodding, that is generally a good thing.

4. Be good people. There's nothing I hate more than people being unnecessarily rude.

5. There is always a risk of something, but a low risk is almost no risk in my mind when compared to something with a high risk.

6. I'll always prioritize good explanation of things over bad cards. If you don't explain things well and I have to read your evidence and your evidence sucks, you're in a tough spot. That being said, I would rather not call for cards, but if you think that there is a card that I simply need to read, then say so in your speech.

7. Tasteful jokes/puns are always accepted. They can be about anything/anyone (ie Jacob Goldschlag) as long as its funny :)

Topicality: I love topicality debates because they're techy and force debaters to really explain what they are talking about in terms of impacts. That being said, 2nr's/2ar's really need to focus on the impact debate and explain to me why education is an impact or why I should prefer a limited topic over an unlimited one. Reasonability is debatable. I was a 2n in high school and I lean towards a more limited topic, but I'm very easily persuaded otherwise.

K Aff's: I am very convinced by most framework arguments on the negative side. I think that K aff's need to be closer to the resolution than not and I do not think that many of them are. However, this does not mean that I will not vote for a K aff; I just have had trouble understanding the proliferation of Baudrillard and Bataille affs, so if you are aff, you will definitely need to be doing a higher level of experience. I think Cap K's versus these aff's can be very persuasive, but I also think Framework makes a lot of sense if the aff isn't topical. That being said, do you and make smart args. I'm not the most literate in a lot of high-theory literature, so if you want to play that game in front of me, do it BUT explain your theories and I'll catch on quick.Framework: I think that "traditional" framework debates fall prey to a big exclusion DA from the aff. I think we should be able to talk about K affs and that they should be included in the topic - HOWEVER I believe that K aff's do need to prove that they are topical in some way. I lean more towards the neg in framework debates because I do think that many K aff's have little to do with the topic, but there have been so many times when K aff's actually engage the topic in a great way. That being said, on the aff be closer to the resolution and on the neg, explain how your interpretation and model of debate interacts with the aff. Most teams forget that the aff will always try to weigh their impacts against framework, which sucks because it is hard to resolve real world impacts versus theoretical arguments about fairness and education.

Theory: I will most likely lean neg on most theory questions unless a CP is simply very, very abusive, but even those can be defended sometimes :)

Disads: I love disads, specifically the politics DA. Prioritize impact work! Despite my love for DA's, most of them are dumb and you can easily convince me that they are dumb even using analytics and indicting the neg's evidence. However, I still love DA's and wish I got to go for them more in high school. Good politics debates make me happy.

Counterplans: Everything is debatable in terms of theory, so do you. If a CP is very abusive, hopefully the aff says so. If the aff concedes planks of your CP, you should make sure you say that. I think all CP's need a solvency advocate, otherwise it will be hard for the neg to win solvency and potentially theory.

Kritiks: I really like the K when the link debate is specific and I can articulate a SPECIFIC link and reasons why the aff is bad. Fair warning - I am not the most literate in high-theory arguments. This doesn't mean I won't listen to your Baudrillard K's, but it means that I have a very high threshold for SPECIFIC links and also simple explaination of the argument since I will most likely be confused until you explain yourself. The neolib k was my baby in high school and I think it answers everything. Security was Notre Dame's main thing when I was there so go for that too. Teams need to explain what I need to prioritize first, whether that is epistemology, reps, framework, or whatever, just make sure you say so! I don't like overviews and I am a big believe in putting your link and impact work where it makes sense on the line by line because it will always make sense somewhere.

Please put me on the email chain - amyleighsantos@gmail.com

I debated for 3 years at Presentation High School in LD and policy and coached throughout college. I mostly read critical arguments, as well as some policy oriented stuff. I am probably not the best judge for phil/tricks, but that being said, you should read whatever you feel most comfortable with in front of me! I am absolutely fine with speed but I haven’t judged much lately so it would be helpful for me if you start slow. More specifics:

Ks: I really love K debate, as as I mentioned above, that’s what I read most of in high school. However, I will not just vote for you because I like the K, so please make sure you’re explaining the story of the K, putting in the work on the link and framing debates, etc. I also really loved reading K affs (I was big into fem stuff in high school) but make sure you are clearly articulating a reason to vote aff and what the aff actually does. I am looking for an explanation of what your method actually looks like in practice, and why it means I should vote for you.

Policy/LARP: I also really enjoy policy debate! I don’t think there’s really much to say here but I appreciate good evidence comparison, impact weighing, and overviews.

Framework/T: I love a good framework debate, but it's also in your best interest to engage the substance of the aff! I think the more specific your framework/T shell is, the more interesting/strategic

Theory: I don't mind theory but these debates tend to get messy, so try to keep it clean and maybe go a little slower.

Phil/tricks: I am really not a good judge for phil and don't particularly enjoy it, sorry :,(

The easiest way to win in front of me is to really clearly and explicitly explain your position and why you're winning. Collapsing to a few main arguments and explaining them well is always better than having too many arguments that aren't impacted or explained very well.

My favorite part about debate is when students are passionate about what they defend and read positions they care about. Please don't be sexist, racist, ableist, trans/homophobic, etc.

Background: In college I debated on the national circuit for parliamentary debate. I formerly coached collegiate parliamentary and policy debate. I currently serve as the assistant coach for Marquette University High School. I have previously served as the head coach for Ronald Reagan College Prep and an assistant coach for Solorio Academy High School.

E-Mail Chain: Yes. Send to bjs.debate@gmail.com. (Note: asking me if I want to be on the e-mail chain is usually a sign that you didn't read my paradigm before the round. It is right here at the top...)

Quick Philosophy: I strongly favor a policy making philosophy. Ideally the AFF should advocate a policy topical to the resolution, and the NEG should explain why I should reject the specific policy case made by AFF.

Quick Tips:

1. Speak clearly. If I can't understand you, I can't flow you.
2. Do not argue a tagline. Argue the logic and evidence.
3. Maintain clash. Line by line is good.
4. Identify voting issues.
5. Take advantage of the cross examination to force concessions and formulate your arguments.
6. Do not be rude. Be witty. (Wit = speaker point bumps)
7. Have fun.

Longer Philosophy:

- Planless Aff: If the AFF isn't affirming any specific plan, advocacy or course of action, then the status quo doesn't change. Assuming NEG makes that argument, NEG wins on presumption.

- Tech v Truth: I try to prefer tech to truth. Like all judges I attempt to avoid intervention, and a dropped argument is a true argument.

- Links: I do not think enough scrutiny is usually given to link arguments or link chains. I am a big fan of strategies that attack internal links or the link of a disadvantage/K/etc.

- Advantages and Disadvantages: You need to perform an impact calculus. Significance arguments should have fleshed out impact assessments with relative risk analysis supported by evidence. Politics DAs are great.

- Speed: Keep your speed reasonable. While I can handle a speedy round, I think teams who slow down perform better - they understand their round better, and I understand the arguments better. Clarity in the round matters. Make sure you articulate and enunciate your words. Speaking exceptionally quickly to try to read more cards or have more, and less developed arguments, isn't effective (and will hurt your speaks). I will let you know if I have a problem keeping up with (or understanding) you, and I'll give two warnings before I stop flowing. I will not use your cards to fill in what I miss because you are going too quickly (or if I stop flowing because I warned you twice).

If you are doing more than 7 off case arguments, you're not giving enough attention or time to all of the arguments, and you're likely relying on speed. I would far rather have fewer arguments with a deeper dive into the issues than more arguments and cursory explanations with an attempt to win simply by having the other team drop an argument that hasn't been developed much at all. I will weigh how well developed and impacted an argument is that the other team dropped when 8+ off-case are run.

- Cross Examination: I flow CX. Cross examination is an extremely important and undervalued tool in current policy debate. I recommend flowing those developments into your speeches. Do not be elusive in response to questions. A simple "I don't know" is an acceptable response if you do not know the answer. I award higher speaker points for individuals who do not rely on verbal assistance from a partner in asking or answering questions or making speeches.

- Topicality: I will vote on topicality, but my threshold for topicality is rather high. Topicality arguments that are well developed and given time during the 1NC/2NC are more likely to be successful, and the NEG should explain either how the AFF violated a reasonable and fair framework or why NEG's interpretation is better (I enjoy debates about what the proper meaning of a word should be and how that impacts the plan or the debate). If you are going to argue topicality and the AFF asks what a topical plan would look like under your framework for topicality, you need to be able to give an answer. If you cannot provide an example of topicality under your own framework, you have a problem, and your argument is very unlikely to persuade.

- Performance or Meta-Debate: I am not your judge, and you should strike me. My threshold for theory / topicality arguments against performance debate is low.

- Counterplans: I am a huge fan of counterplans, and I strongly look to functional competition. I enjoy a well run process counterplan. Process does matter in the real world and has real policy implications. I am not a fan of consult counterplans, but I have and will vote for them.

- Theory: I am fine with theory arguments and debates. For conditionality, I am fine with multiple CPs and kritiks, but keep your conditionality within reasonable constraints (i.e. six or more worlds is not very reasonable). I default to reject the argument not the team. If I am to reject the team, not the argument, have a very good explanation as to why.

- Kritiks: I am not opposed to a K, but I am only well versed in K literature that is based in law and economics. For almost any other K you're going to need to SLOW DOWN and explain your buzzwords / jargon / concepts. If you don't explain the buzzword / jargon, I'm not searching your cards for what a term means.

I strongly dislike K taglines that are paragraphs. That is not a tagline - it's a mini-speech.

The K needs to link to the specific policy case made and engage with the substance of the Aff's plan. If there is no link to the specific policy or no engagement with the substance of the plan, then there is no reason for me to vote for the K. A successful K will (1) link to the specific policy being argued; and (2) have an alt that (A) is a conditional policy option; (B) competes with the Aff's plan; and (C) you have explained how it functions in the real world. If, at the end of the debate, I am left thinking "So what?" I am going to vote for the Aff if the Aff actually results in change in the status quo that solves for something, when the K does not.

For a K-Aff, the alt in the K-Aff needs to meet the same standards as the alt for any other K - the alt still needs to be topical, create change and solve for some harm.

- Off-Limits Arguments: No argument is out of bounds or off-limits in the debate round. Your team can make any argument it wants. If a team thinks an argument is objectionable or morally wrong, then the burden is on that team to explain why and why I should not vote for it. Merely claiming that something is offensive, immoral or "-ist" isn't enough. Why is it immoral or "-ist"? Why is it unfair or wrong? If your team can't explain why, I won't intervene to do the work for you. Run whatever argument(s) you want.

Note: The above should not be interpreted as carte blanche to engage in ad hominem attacks or other personal attacks in the round. You must be respectful to each other.

- Court or Legal Plans/Arguments: I am a UChicago law grad and a corporate attorney when not judging. I really enjoy listening to plans/counterplans/etc that involve the courts or a legal strategy. That said, I will know if you do not understand how the judicial branch functions, and I will know if your plan/CP actually functions or solves the way that you claim. I will not intervene to vote on these issues if the other team does not call you on it, but my threshold for them to call you on solvency deficits is low.

Name : Lauren Velazquez

Affiliated School: Niles North

Email: Laurenida@gmail.com

General Background:
I debated competitively in high school in the 1990s for Maine East. I participated on the national circuit where counterplans and theory were common.

Director of Debate at Niles North

Laurenida@gmail.com

ME

Experience:

I competed in the 90s, helped around for a few years, took a bit of a break, have been back for about 7 years. My teams compete on the national circuit, I help heavily with my teams’ strategies, and am a lab leader at a University of Michigan. In recent years I have helped coach teams that cleared at the TOC, won state titles and consistently debated in late elim rounds at national tournaments. TL/DR--I am familiar with national circuit debate but I do not closely follow college debate so do not assume that I am attuned to the arguments that are currently cutting edge/new.

What this means for you---I lean tech over truth when it comes to execution, but truth controls the direction of tech, and some debate meta-arguments matter a lot less to me.

I am not ideological towards most arguments, I believe debate structurally is a game, but there are benefits to debate outside of it being just a game, give it your best shot and I will try my best to adapt to you.

The only caveat is do not read any arguments that you think would be inappropriate for me to teach in my classroom, if you are worried it might be inappropriate, you should stop yourself right there.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
When deciding to vote on disadvantages and affirmative advantages, I look for a combination of good story telling and evidence analysis. Strong teams are teams that frame impact calculations for me in their rebuttals (e.g. how do I decide between preventing a war or promoting human rights?). I should hear from teams how their internal links work and how their evidence and analysis refute indictments from their opponents. Affirmatives should have offense against disads (and Negs have offense against case). It is rare, in my mind, for a solvency argument or "non unique" argument to do enough damage to make the case/disad go away completely, at best, relying only on defensive arguments will diminish impacts and risks, but t is up to the teams to conduct a risk analysis telling me how to weigh risk of one scenario versus another.

TOPICALITY

I will vote on topicality if it is given time (more than 15 seconds in the 2NR) in the debate and the negative team is able to articulate the value of topicality as a debate “rule” and demonstrate that the affirmative has violated a clear and reasonable framework set by the negative. If the affirmative offers a counter interpretation, I will need someone to explain to me why their standards and definitions are best. Providing cases that meet your framework is always a good idea. I find the limits debate to be the crux generally of why I would vote for or against T so if you are neg you 100% should be articulating the limits implications of your interpretation.

KRITIKS
Over the years, I have heard and voted on Kritiks, but I do offer a few honest caveats:

*Please dont read "death good"/nihilism/psychoanalysis in front of me. I mean honestly I will consider it but I know I am biased and I HATE nihilism, psychoanalysis debates. I will try to listen with an open mind but I really don't think these arguments are good for the activity or good for pedagogy--they alienate younger debaters who are learning the game and I don't think that genuine discussions of metaphysics lend themselves to speed reading and "voting" on right/wrong. If you run these I will listen and work actively to be open minded but know you are making an uphill battle for yourself running these. If these are your bread and butter args you should pref me low.

I read newspapers daily so I feel confident in my knowledge around global events. I do not regularly read philosophy or theory papers, there is a chance that I am unfamiliar with your argument or the underlying paradigms. I do believe that Kritik evidence is inherently dense and should be read a tad slower and have accompanying argument overviews in negative block. Impact analysis is vital. What is the role of the ballot? How do I evaluate things like discourse against policy implications (DAs etc)

Also, I’m going to need you to go a tad slower if you are busting out a new kritik, as it does take time to process philosophical writings.

If you are doing something that kritiks the overall debate round framework (like being an Aff who doesnt have a plan text), make sure you explain to me the purpose of your framework and why it is competitively fair and educationally valuable.

COUNTERPLANS
I am generally a fan of CPs as a neg strategy. I will vote for counterplans but I am open to theory arguments from the affirmative (PICs bad etc). Counterplans are most persuasive to me when the negative is able to clearly explain the net benifts and how (if at all) the counterplan captures affirmative solvency. For permutations to be convincing offense against CPs, Affs should explain how permutation works and what voting for perm means (does the DA go away, do I automatically vote against neg etc?)

Random

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex and dominating. You are part of a 2 person team for a reason.

Speed is ok as long as you are clear. If you have a ton of analytics in a row or are explaining a new/dense theory, you may want to slow down a little since processing time for flowing analytics or kritkits is a little slower than me just flowing the text of your evidence.

I listen to cross ex. I think teams come up with a lot of good arguments during this time. If you come up with an argument in cross ex-add it to the flow in your speech.

university of chicago '22

new trier '18

put me on the email chain - natalie.c.ye@gmail.com

general things:

-I don't debate in college, and I have not done much research on the topic, so don't expect me to automatically understand all of the jargon, but I am familiar with some of the arguments through general study of IR topics in hs/college

-be respectful, especially to your partner

-argument = claim + warrant + implications

-tech>truth

-if you don't explain your evidence, I won't evaluate it

da:

-love them!!

-specific links are very important

-impact calculus is good, but so are coherent internal link chains

cp:

-not a big fan of process/consult/delay cps

-pics are great when they're specific to the aff

-condo is usually good

k:

-the neg team should defend an alt--I'm not a big fan of neg teams having shifty, incoherent alts, and if I don't understand what the alt specifically does, I will not vote for it

-aff-specific ks or adapting the k to specifically address the aff are always better than the generic "neolib/cap bad" ks

-I don't really understand pomo/high theory ks, but that doesn't mean I won't vote for them if you thoroughly explain any terms/buzzwords

-I'm not the biggest fan of large overviews, and I would much prefer you to answer arguments on the flow rather than saying, "that was in the overview"

t:

-I default to competing interps

-the aff team should defend resolutional action

-planless affs will most likely face an uphill battle for me regarding t/fw --but I will vote for you if you provide a compelling reason for me otherwise

-impact calculus here is also just as important as it is on a da

case:

-attacking internal links > impact defense card dump

I have coached policy at Garfield High School since 2014. I have yet to encounter an argument I'm not OK with in a round; it's really about you and how well you explain your arguments and why they should win you the round. I think it's important to be responsive to the specific arguments in the round - don't just read your prewritten overview and assume it works for every debate. I enjoy both policy and critical arguments and have some background knowledge in theory, but don't assume I know your literature. In my opinion, it's your job to tell me how to vote in the round and why. If you leave it up to me, I tend to buy the argument that moral thinking is a prereq to policy making (but I can be convinced otherwise).

I am generally ok with most speed, but make sure I'm flowing if you're blazing through a bunch of analytics you don't want me to miss.

I don't know what "judge kicking" means - are you asking me to decide your strategy for you? I won't do that. Either go for the argument, or don't.

Personal Bio

I’m a freshman at University of Michigan and used to debate for Isidore Newman.

Add me to the email chain:

shuzheng@umich.edu

General overview:

I am NOT familiar with the 2017-2018 policy debate topic so make sure I UNDERSTAND  what you are talking about. I will listen to and flow whatever you have to say as long as they are appropriate (no racism good or bigoted language).  As a general rule of thumb, I will not vote for anything I do not understand so you need to explain your arguments efficiently and effectively. Make smart arguments. Convince me  why you win the debate in the rebuttals by comparing arguments. (i.e. doing impact calc, evidence comparison, warrant comparison…) For speed, stay moderate. I believe the role of the ballot is to decide who wins the game and the ballot does not send any message to the debate community. I am a very policy-oriented debater so I prefer topical, plan-based affs.

Be respectful to your opponent and have fun :) You should love debate as a community!

K affs:

See general overview. Be very careful if you are a team who runs K aff when I am judging. I will listen to what you have to say but I am more likely to lean on framework in a FW vs K situation.

Topicality:

Topicality can produce some very interesting debates as there are a lot of technical works to be done. Case list is important for me to make a decision in these debates.

Competing interp > reasonability unless you give me a convincing reason why and answers judge intervention.

CPs:

I like counterplans but only if they have good and specific solvency advocates.

DAs:

Probably my favorite neg argument. A specific link can make the debate hard for the aff. Utilitze impact calc effectively if you are going for it in the 2NR.

Ks:

If you love to go for one-off K, I am not the best judge for you. I have had troubles understanding different Ks before. I have close to no experience running them either. You have to tell a clear story about the link. In order for me to vote on it, I have to understand what assumption you are challenging and what is the alt. (i.e. the alt can’t just be to reject the aff plan) 

Theory:

Conditionality is probably good unless you convince me otherwise.

In order to “reject the team”, you have to give me an implication of the violation in the specific round.