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

About me:

· - I debated at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California and am currently a sophomore at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

· -I read a heg aff and consider myself very policy-oriented, but I will to listen to whatever you are prepared to read

· - I will reward debaters who explain their arguments well, engage their opponents’ arguments, and resolve my ballot in the 2ar/2nr with high speaker points

· - Clarity and line by line > pure speed

· -I was a 2A throughout high school I lean aff on most theory questions (specifics are explained below)

Specific preferences-

Topicality: T debates are either the best or worst types of debates, it is up to you in the round to determine which side of this you will fall on. To have a good T debate you must explain what the topic looks like under your interpretation. On the aff generic counter-interps are usually fine, but it is best if you have a counter-interp that is contextual to your aff. I will evaluate T debates similarly to disad debates. Your violation is the link and you must explain an internal link and impact. Simply saying “prefer our interpretation because we limit the topic”, will not win my ballot. Instead, you should tell me how your counter-interp accesses limits/ground and why that outweighs the aff’s offense. I think of reasonability as a question of aff predictability and I will vote on it, but this requires the aff to explain why they are reasonable in the context of the specific debate instead of reading generic blocks through rebuttals.

T vs. K affs: Fairness is an impact. I fundamentally believe that debate is a game and that attaching survival strategies to the ballot is problematic. As a judge, it is not within my jurisdiction to affirm or reject your personal experience. This does not mean that I will always vote against k affs, but if you do read one in front of me you must explain your form of education and know your lit base. Do not assume that I am deep in the lit on your Vampiric Capitalist Princess affirmative, I am not.

Disads: If you do not know why the disad outweighs and/or turns the case then you should not read it. The 2nr/2ar should generally spend the majority of their time on this part of the debate. Additionally, if the 1nc is 7 off and one of those off is a one or two card disad that you then develop in the block then the aff will always get new answers in the 1ar. Neg strategies focused on tricking the other team are silly and show me that you are not confident in your ability to win the debate. The link to the aff should be clear and the 2ac should flag generic/uncontextualized links.

Counterplans/Counterplan theory: Specific counterplans with strategic net benefits show that you have thought about the aff and spent time prepping. These are my favorite types of debates to judge. If theory is your only 2ar choice, then go for it. Word PICs, Commissions CPs, and Consult CPs are probably abusive, but that does not mean I will automatically vote aff if you go for theory. You must explain why the neg has made it impossible for you to debate by reading their abusive CP. I think that specific PIC’s are a good way to test the aff and lead to more in-depth topic education.

Kritiks: To win the K in front of me you should have a robust explanation of the importance of your form of education on the framework debate and/or provide a clear vision of an alternative. The K should also be specifically applied to the affirmative. The K’s I am most familiar with/give 1nr’s on often are security, neolib, and university. Read whatever you want in front of me, just explain it well.

Theory: 2 conditional worlds are probably fine. If they are contradictory and you can point to in-round abuse, then I may be convinced to vote aff. 3 or more conditional worlds are probably abusive. To win on condo it must be the entire 2ar. Simply getting to the condo debate with 20 seconds left and saying “also you could vote aff on condo because they made it impossible for us to debate”, will not win my ballot. Vague alts and utopian alts are reasons to reject the argument, not the team. This section is pretty brief, if you have any specific questions feel free to ask me before the round :)

Impact turns: Go for it. Impact turn debates are great if you understand the lit base and can explain it well. I will vote on even the most absurd impact turns if you win the rest of the debate. That being said, I will not vote on racism good or patriarchy good.

Hi! I'm Raja Archie (my preferred pronouns: she/her/hers)

My email is rrarchie98@gmail.com and I’d love to be added to the email chain

Full Disclosure: This judge is black, disabled, and queer (be mindful of what you say around her and in her rounds)

My rounds are a safe places. Which means you are required to respect preferred pronouns. I encourage you to ask before the round starts and if you don’t get the chance to ask before the round avoid the use of gendered language. Homophobia, discrimination, racism, xenophobia, ableism, transphobia, sexism, and all other awful prejudices in any form is not tolerated in my rounds and I won’t hesitate to vote you down and end the round early if an unsafe environment is created. Just be a nice human :)

My Background: Former Policy and Congressional debate coach for ETHS. Former NatCirc + local circuit congress (1yr) and policy debater (5yrs) for 4yrs at ETHS (c/o 2016). Judging since 2015 and have experience in judging Congress, Policy, and LD.

My Philosophy: I don’t believe in telling debaters how they should debate, or what arguments they should read. As a judge I just decide who did the better debating at the end of the round.

A note for Congressional Debaters: Remember it's Congressional Debate, key word 'debate' that's the one really important aspect that separates this type of debate from a speech event so please please please remember to debate, clash really is critical. Also, try not to obsessively rehash which can be avoided by remembering to review your flow and trying to refute line by line. Lastly, the speakers who stick out to me the most aren't just the ones who sound good or present well they're the ones who can structure a speech and debate well on top of those things.

Important FYI! Please refrain from using gendered language in session, especially if everyone hasn't gone around and introduced themselves along with their preferred pronouns. Fortunately in Congress everyone has a title of either 'Rep. [insert last name]' or 'Sen. [insert last name]' which makes avoiding gendered language like 'she'/'he'/'her'/'miss'/etc. even easier :)

For Policy Debaters

• Read arguments that YOU think are rad. Just do you. If you have a plan text that’s cool..but like also no plan text no problem because framework makes the game work. I'm not going to evaluate problematic or offensive arguments (i.e. ‘racism good’, ‘heteronormativity good’, ‘patriarchy good’, etc.) because that not only requires my brain power as a judge but also emotional labor that I won't be compensated for so just no. Note that problematic or offensive arguments does not mean problematic or offensive execution of an argument. Everyone is ignorant about some thing at some point and I am willing to educate if you’re willing to take an L, respectfully listen to what I have to say, and learn.

• Speaking - When it comes to speaking speed is not an issue I can flow by ear exceptionally well but clarity is a must especially if you want high speaker points from me

• Debaters love to ask me before round, ‘What types of arguments do you like judge?’ So to answer that simply, I like good arguments. What I'm not going to do is list which arguments I read as a debater because I don’t want you to read my paradigm then poorly execute an argument in front of me as a desperate attempt to secure a W. I do understand the importance of prefs though so full disclosure I’m probably not the preferred judge for you if your neg strat doesn’t contain a K

• No matter what types of arguments you read, if I’ve judged you in the past, if I’m cool with your school or coach, what types of teams I’ve coached, what kind of debater I was or what lit I’ve read..I won’t do any of the work for you. That means don’t debate lazily. That means even if it’s the 6th prelim round give it your all still. That means clear breakdowns of arguments (i.e. solid overviews, answering those direct CX questions about your argument’s content, etc.). That also means crystal clear breakdowns of how your side has won the debate within rebuttal speeches is a necessity.

Remember, education comes first always, be kind to one another, spread positive vibes among your fellow debaters, and good luck!

Hey y’all. I’m David and I debated at Newark Science for 4 years on the state, regional, and national level.

College Debate: rundebate@gmail.com

High School Debate:asafuadjayedavid@gmail.com

My influences in debate have been Chris Randall, Jonathan Alston, Aaron Timmons, Christian Quiroz, Carlos Astacio, Willie Johnson, Elijah Smith in addition to a few others.

Conflicts:

-Newark Science

-Rutgers

I coach with DebateDrills- the following URL has our roster, MJP conflict policy,code of conduct, relevant team policies, and harassment/bullying complaint form:https://www.debatedrills.com/club-team-policies/lincoln-douglas-team-policy

Two primary beliefs:

1. Debate is a communicative activity and the power in debate is because the students take control of the discourse. I am an adjudicator but the debate is yours to have. The debate is yours, your speaker points are mine.

2. I am not tabula rasa. Anyone that claims that they have no biases or have the ability to put ALL biases away is probably wrong. I will try to put certain biases away but I will always hold on to some of them. For example, don’t make racist, sexist, transphobic, etc arguments in front of me. Use your judgment on that.

FW

I predict I will spend a majority of my time in these debates. I will be upfront. I do not think debate are made better or worse by the inclusion of a plan based on a predictable stasis point. On a truth level, there are great K debaters and terrible ones, great policy debaters and terrible ones. However, after 6 years of being in these debates, I am more than willing to evaluate any move on FW. My thoughts when going for FW are fairly simple. I think fairness impacts are cleaner but much less comparable. I think education and skills based impacts are easier to weigh and fairly convincing but can be more work than getting the kill on fairness is an intrinsic good. On the other side, I see the CI as a roadblock for the neg to get through and a piece of mitigatory defense but to win the debate in front of me the impact turn is likely your best route. While I dont believe a plan necessarily makes debates better, you will have a difficult time convincing me that anything outside of a topical plan constrained by the resolution will be more limiting and/or predictable. This should tell you that I dont consider those terms to necessarily mean better and in front of me that will largely be the center of the competing models debate.

Kritiks

These are my favorite arguments to hear and were the arguments that I read most of my career. Please DO NOT just read these because you see me in the back of the room. As I mentioned on FW there are terrible K debates and like New Yorkers with pizza I can be a bit of a snob about the K. Please make sure you explain your link story and what your alt does. I feel like these are the areas where K debates often get stuck. I like K weighing which is heavily dependent on framing. I feel like people throw out buzzwords such as antiblackness and expecting me to check off my ballot right there. Explain it or you will lose to heg good. K Lit is diverse. I do not know enough high theory K’s. I only cared enough to read just enough to prove them wrong or find inconsistencies. Please explain things like Deleuze, Derrida, and Heidegger to me in a less esoteric manner than usual.

CPs

CP’s are cool. I love a variety of CP’s but in order to win a CP in my head you need to either solve the entirety of the aff with some net benefit or prove that the net benefit to the CP outweighs the aff. Competition is a thing. I do believe certain counterplans can be egregious but that’s for y’all to debate about. My immediate thoughts absent a coherent argument being made.

1. No judge kick

2. Condo is good. You're probably pushing it at 4 but condo is good

3. Sufficiency framing is true

Tricks

Nah. If you were looking for this part to see whether you can read this. Umm No. Win debates. JK You can try to get me to understand it but I likely won't and won't care to either.

Theory
Just like people think that I love K’s because I came from Newark, people think I hate theory which is far from true. I’m actually a fan of well-constructed shells and actually really enjoyed reading theory myself. I’m not a fan of tricky shells and also don’t really like disclosure theory but I’ll vote on it. Just have an actual abuse story. I won’t even list my defaults because I am so susceptible to having them changed if you make an argument as to why. The one thing I will say is that theory is a procedural. Do with that information what you may.

DA’s

Their fine. I feel like internal link stories are out of control but more power to you. If you feel like you have to read 10 internal links to reach your nuke war scenario and you can win all of them, more power to you. Just make the story make sense. I vote for things that matter and make sense. Zero risk is a thing but its very hard to get to. If someone zeroes the DA, you messed up royally somewhere.

Plans

YAY. Read you nice plans. Be ready to defend them. T debates are fairly exciting especially over mechanism ground. Similar to FW debates, I would like a picture of what debate looks like over a season with this interpretation.

Presumption.

Default neg. Least change from the squo is good. If the neg goes for an alt, it switches to the aff absent a snuff on the case. Arguments change my calculus so if there is a conceded aff presumption arg that's how I'll presume. I'm easy.

LD Specific

Tricks

Nah. If you were looking for this part to see whether you can read this. Umm No. Win debates. JK You can try to get me to understand it but I likely won't and won't care to either.

//shree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Noah Baker – Pine Crest ’15 – Emory ‘19
Email: nbakerdebate@gmail.com
@Yes, I want to be on the evidence chain.

*Note I update my paradigm frequently; whenever I change my mind or feel the need to elaborate/emphasize something, I will make that change on here.*

I will format some of this the way debaters can understand by using a similar "tag and card" structure. This way you can get the main ideas, but still have clarification if necessary. Not all tags have cards. I use the @ symbol to mark any "MUST READ" notes, so be sure to look at those.

_______Short Version_______

I have become increasingly nihilistic about debate. I will reward hard work and the will to win. Read what you want, and I will evaluate it based on the arguments made in the round. Wanna read a plan? Wonderful. You don't? That's cool too. If you make this enjoyable for me and do the better debating, you'll win and get good speaks. Further questions? See below or feel free to ask before the round.

_______Long Version_______

--- Prologue ---

Judging's hard but I'll do my best
As a judge, it is difficult to make the best decision (notice I said "best" and not "right" decision), but I promise I will try my hardest to evaluate the debate in the best and most fair way that I can. Please understand, though, that judges make mistakes. I apologize in advance if you feel I made the wrong decision, however, once I have made my decision, I will not change it.

Always open to respectful discussion and feedback
I am always more than happy to elaborate/answer questions, but only if everyone is being respectful. If you feel that I or another team is being disrespectful, I'd love to know so that I can do right by you and fix it. If you don't feel comfortable speaking up in the moment, please feel free to have your coach contact me.

I've debated, coached, and judged
I debated in high school for four years at Pine Crest under the coaching of Jeremy Hammond. I debated in college for two and a half years at Emory, where I am currently a senior studying business. I have broadly similar thoughts about debate as my past coaches and teammates, as those are the people who I spent the most time discussing this strange activity with. Those people are Jeremy Hammond, James Herndon, Stephen Weil, Jason Sigalos, Saul Forman, and Tanner Lewis. A tip for you would be to look at my old college wiki because that might give you an indication of what I like to hear if that is what I read.

Biases exist but persuasion is more important
There’s no such thing as “Read anything in front of me because I have no biases.” Everyone has biases. However, that does not mean I cannot be persuaded. The more persuasive you are, the less likely my bias may influence my decision.

--- I. General Debate ---

Debate is a game
At its core, policy debate is a game. Yes, there are other valuable aspects that are (arguably) more/less important than winning a game. However, I am making a descriptive, not normative, statement that debate is fundamentally a game. It’s supposed to be fun. @Don’t ruin that by being a jerk. I have and will continue to call people out for this, and I am not afraid to make your speaker points reflect it.

Arguments need warrants - no tech/truth preference
I don’t have a preference on tech over truth. A dropped argument is a true argument if and only if it is warranted/explained (A dropped tag is not an argument.) You don’t always need cards; sometimes analytics get the job done. Of course I prefer warranted cards to warranted analytics.

Clarity over speed
Clarity is more important than speed. Speed is measured by number of arguments a judge can understand, not how many words per minute you can speak.

The 2AR isn't the time to make new args
I have been both a 2A and a 2N so I know how annoying new 2AR arguments can be. I don’t give you much leeway on new arguments. If the argument was in the 2AC, not in the 1AR, and then in the 2AR then I will not evaluate it.

@Don't steal/abuse prep
Use your prep time wisely, but don't steal it. I'm pretty lenient on most things (i.e. technology issues or bathroom breaks), but you and I both know when you're stealing prep. Doing something to get a competitive advantage while not taking prep is cheating. I promise that it’ll be reflected in your speaker points. If it's getting egregious, I will say something.

Presumption toward less change
Presumption goes to less change, not necessarily the neg. I will vote on it, and I will vote on absolute defense. In almost all instances, I don't think presumption can be a net bet benefit to a counterplan because less change isn't a quantifiable benefit between the two.

@Don't cheat - you'll lose
A team caught cheating will be given 0 speaker points and a loss. There are some times where I will follow along with the docs, so I'm definitely willing to vote against you even if the other team doesn't bring up an ethics challenge. If you make a clipping accusation, you need a recording.

@Communication is key
Debate is a communicative activity, and speeches have time limits for a reason. If I don't understand something, it's your fault for not explaining it well. Don't assume I understand something just because you do. If you're pointing things out post-round, it's not going to convince me any differently; you should've said it in the round or explained it better.

Bad evidence makes me grumpy - lying about bad evidence makes me really grumpy
I hate bad evidence a lot. I don't care if you're making it sound pretty and your extrapolation of one word sounds good. If your evidence is garbage then you're going to be in a bad spot. I hate evidence that has random portions across that card painted together to make a sentence so you can read the card a little bit faster. I hate choppy/unnatural highlighting. I hate evidence that only highlights claims. I hate evidence that is cut out of context. I hate evidence that cuts the first and last paragraphs of an entire article. And I really hate when people lie about what their evidence says. I promise you that reading one A/B+ card is just far better than five C cards that make no arguments and just repeat each other.

--- II. Topicality ---

Smart topicality is great - last resort topicality is not
I’m not very familiar with the high school topic, so keep that in mind. I enjoy debates over the meanings of words, so feel free to employ it to your advantage when possible. I don't love last resort topicality arguments because they're usually too generic, artificial, and/or don't make sense. But, I get why you have to go for T when you do.

Offense over defense
You need to have good reasons for why they are not topical and why that’s bad. I’m not going to vote on blippy impacts that you don’t explain. I need to know why they make debate worse or why you make debate better. I think you’re reasonable if you explain why including your aff isn’t enough to trigger the impacts.

Some T args are not winners
I strongly suggest that you don't read/go for any impact about debaters dropping out (and similar variations), A-Spec, or O-Spec. Vagueness arguments are plan/topic dependent, so I'm staying neutral there.

--- III. T-USFG and Framework ---

T-USFG and framework are different
The two are distinct. Framework is an exclusion of their argument type. T-USFG is saying that they can still talk about those arguments, but they need to be topical under the resolution. These things are not interchangeable, so don't try to have any sort of ethos moment where you call one of them by the other name for emphasis.

The topic exists for a reason
There is a topic--that's non-negotiable. Everything else is up for discussion. But we're not going to pretend that there isn't a topic that was chosen. If you're blatantly not related to the topic, it's going to be an uphill battle.

Clash is good - it stems from preparation/the ability to prepare

Switching sides is good

Definitions should match the correct words/phrases/terms of art
"United States federal government" is a phrase. "United States" is not you the people. “Resolved:” is different than “Resolve”. “Resolved:” means to introduce a policy into legal forum. It is definitely not to reduce by mental analysis.

Procedure comes before content
The neg should always make an argument that procedure comes before content and that you can't weigh the case. I am very sympathetic to this. I'll default to this if it is not brought up.

--- IV. Theory: ---

I love theory - don't make them late breaking debates
I find myself becoming more entertained with very technical and interesting theory debates. I do have predispositions on certain things, but if you're willing to go in on something like "No Neg Fiat" then great! I've been waiting for this, especially because nobody is really ready for a great theoretical discussion. That being said, view all of this through the lens that debate is a game. Theory is usually late breaking, so don't pretend to extrapolate on things that you never said.

Conditionality - I lean neg
Having been both a 2A and 2N, I have thought a lot about conditionality. When it comes to all of the random debate-ish arguments people have made about it being good or bad (i.e. info-processing, ideological flexibility, etc.), honestly at the end of the day, conditionality really exists becuase the aff has it so easy and it's the only way to make the 2AC hard enough to get the neg back to a fair shot. I think it's really hard to quanitfy this in context of what the threshold is for how many conditional options allows the neg to make it fair without it becoming too unfair for the 2AC. How I see it is that 2 options is fair for the neg and aff, 3 is probably still fair unless there are other theoretical reasons the things they read were bad (i.e. they contradicted, they didn't have solvency advocates, one of them was a 2NC CP, etc.), and 4 is probably too many for the neg. Note - I will not vote on conditionality if it is a new aff.

Counterplans and alts must be competitive
You must be both textually and functionally competitive. I am definitely willing to vote on a perm that proves that disproves either textual or functional competition. I've been waiting a long time for the 2AR to go for "you must be both textually and functionally competitive, but you're only functionally competitive." Process, International, PICs, and Agent CPs aren’t bad, but they must be competitive. Conditions, Threaten, Consult, Delay are usually dumb, so I tend to lean aff on perm do the counterplan for these.

Object fiat is bad and counterplans should not result in the aff

Judge kick is meh
I default to not judge kicking something, but feel free to convince me otherwise.

2NC counterplans are only for answering add-ons

1NR impacts are never discussed
I'm one of the very few people who is willing to not allow new 1NR impacts to a DA, but you have to tell me why. I think they're definitely legit though if its not external but rather acting as turns case. I'll default to allowing them if nobody says anything.

--- V. Disads and Counterplans ---

Impact Calc is key

I am neutral on the politics DA
I read politics/elections/midterms a lot when I debated. However, the current political climate is strange, so be sure to explain scenarios well. I am definitely willing to vote on smart intrinsicness arguments, but I haven't thought about it in a while. Since judging, nobody has gone for it, but you should.

Link turns need uniqueness

I like counterplans - the more specific, the better
Counterplans can get tricky, of course. I really like when teams read aff/advantage specific counterplans, but make sure to do a good job on solvency/solvency deficit explanation. You always need a net benefit, however, even the tiniest of net benefits can win if the counterplan solves the entirety of the aff.

--- VI. Case Debating ---

Please debate the case
Debating the case is one of the most underutilized things in debate. Do it well and you will get an increase in speaker points. Affs are really dumb most, if not all, of the time. Finding logical holes in the aff is quite easy these days. I am really willing to vote neg on presumption. More and more I find myself wishing I could give the 2NR on why the aff is so dumb and why I should prefer the status quo. I'm still waiting for someone to go for 5 minutes of neg on presumption.

--- VII. Kritiks ---

I have an interesting relationship with Ks
I read Kritiks. I don’t hate them, but I don't love them. The simpler, the better because often times teams don't explain anything about their K and just insert random buzzwords. You'll be in a bad spot if you're being vague and/or don't explain how the aff links and how the alt solves. Seriously, teams just never explain alts or alt solvency, and I can't stand that. If I don't know what the alt is and/or what it does, I'm not going to vote for you.

Util good, extinction outweighs, and death is bad
The death part isn't really negotiable. You can try to persuade me otherwise, but you're most likely not going to.

I lean aff on kritik framework and hate PIKs

--- VIII. Other ---

Auto-Losses include, but are not limited to...
- Arguments about judge prefs
- "Roasts"
- "Rape Good" arguments

Being rude will hurt your speaker points
Shaking your head, scoffing, rolling your eyes, etc. in response to the other team is something that will really hurt your speaker points. These things aren't cheating, but they're going to make find ways to not vote for your. Snarky comments about the other team/school is unacceptable. I've been in debates where personal attacks were made, and I can tell you that if I see this, there will be a significant deduction in speaker points. I don't care if you're doing it to have ethos or pathos. I don't care if it's part of your appeal for me to vote for you just to make them look silly. I will not let it happen. If you make fun of the other team or the other team's school, you will be getting a low-point win if you win, but you probably won't because I really won't want to vote for you.

Don't play music before a round
DO NOT play music before a round. I'm not going to say anything to you, I'm just going to reduce your speaker points. Up to you what you want to do with this information.

Other ways to hurt your speaker points include...
--Offensive Language
--Offensive Arguments
--Taking too long
--Hurting your partner over in cross-x
--Being a jerk

You can increase your speaker points with...
--Smart Arguments
--@Jokes (Debate gets boring. Make them. I won’t deduct speaker points for poorly executed jokes. Don’t make jokes at the other teams expense.)
--Good Cross-X

Paradigm.

Director of Debate at the University of Texas

brendonbankey@gmail.com - please add me to your email chain

***Nukes Topic - NDT Update***

-Apology not accepted. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

-Don't pref me if you spent your NDT prep taking screenshots of your opponents' wikis or social media instead of cutting cards. The ad-homs have continued unabated all season and its pathetic that the community has created a competitive incentive for character attacks. To the coaches, what purpose are you serving convincing young adults that their path to success should include tactics that would be grounds for civil litigation in any other context? Aren't we all supposed to be educators?

-Students who abuse the subject line of the email chain to insinuate that their opponents are members of hate groups are committing harassment and I will vote against them if it occurs in front of me. Touch grass. No-one competing at this tournament is in the klan. Anyone who devotes themselves to winning the Larmon has forfeited their claim to be holier than thou. Get over yourselves.

***Nukes Topic***

General

I would like to see more evidence spin and storytelling. I think impact interaction matters on this topic. Narrate the trip wires that cause your impact to occur. Timeframe/probability matter a lot more to me than magnitude (it all seems pretty bad). I care whether the disad turns the case or vice versa.

Please engage and indict your opponents' evidence. Evidence quality matters. Several of the major topic authors on this topic were also the major topic authors on the 09-10 topic. I will reward debaters who can articulate the distinct warrants and disagreements between the policy wonks. I think this is especially important for kritik debating. Several topic authors are known quantities and fodder for epistemology links.

I think evidence matters when evaluating topicality and counterplan competition. In addition to reading evidence for interps/violations/textual competition, debaters should explain why their definitions should be preferred. I will defer to the negative on T or counterplan competition until the aff counter-defines the words. If the aff covers the definitions, the neg must also explain why its definitions are better for a year's worth of debates. I think "does this definition produce better debates?" is a more important question than "is this the most precise interpretation?".

K Stuff

-The oldies are goodies. Although the content of the nukes policy v k debate has changed over the past forty years, several of the warrants/justifications/conventional thinking continue to be applied on both sides. I am comfortable using old evidence to establish the thesis for a K as long as the 2N is capable at applying the oldies to give a convincing narrative that makes sense in 2023/4. I think framework/impact comparison becomes more convincing when 2Ns can put the aff's claims in context of the evolution in the academic debates that have occurred over the years. The same is true of 2As that can leverage old evidence that answers the K.

-I struggle with the competition for the abolition/nuclearism alts that include all of the plan. If the 2NR includes an alt that includes all of the plan I see myself voting aff even if the link debating is persuasive. I also think links that argue "the aff described the world problematically" are vulnerable to strategic perm debating. I think Ks are more persuasive that indict fiat and question the pedagogical benefit of reinvesting in gaming the ideal nuclear posture.

-This is the 5th topic in 14 years (Nukes 1, War Powers, Exec Authority, Military Presence, Nukes 2) with a viable version of the NFU aff. Affs should have a take in the 2AC (hopefully several) about why it is pedagogically valuable to debate about the nuclear posture.

-I am unlikely to disregard the nukes K because its unfair unless the block or 2NR drop fairness. I am more likely to disregard the K because the alt doesn't solve and the aff convinces me that the links are not unique to the aff.

-Fiat double bind is not a thing. It's never going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.

Debating Non-USFG Affs

-Will vote for T-US but will be bored if the aff claims to lead to disarm. No solvency/presumption + disad seems more viable/entertaining. I think the aff can win that T-US = FG is overlimiting and produces a stale topic.

-I think that competing interpretation debates are fun and will reward teams who invest in the interpretation debating. I don't think the aff's interps have to be the most predictable as long as they can describe what limits the counter-interps impose on the topic and why they provide a desirable division of ground.

-Affs should vet their authors to make sure they don't advocate the TVA. I think "your author says the US should actually do it" requires 1AR pen time. I don't think that the TVA is a counterplan but I do think that the TVA raises a necessary/sufficiency standard for whether shifting the point of stasis away from the resolution is required to solve the Ks of T. I think if the neg wins a TVA is compatible with the 1AC author's claims it substantially deflates the aff's "topic design bad" offense versus T/framework. If the aff introduces Acheson evidence in the 1AC I expect the 2AC/1AR to be able to explain the method comparison between US disarm and Acheson's vision of disarm.

Arguments Regarding Community Norms

-I think that teams are entitled to make non-resolutional procedural arguments related to argument style or the content that a ballot should endorse. Teams can present an interpretation and argue why that interpretation should be preferred. If I vote for those strategies my ballot just means that a team did the better arguing for the purpose of that debate.

-Ad-homs are not arguments. I do not flow ad-homs or use them to evaluate debates. I am an employee of the state of Texas and will never cast my ballot to assign positive or negative value to an undergraduate student's character. It is wholly outside of my jurisdiction to judge any individual's conduct outside of the words they say in a debate after the 1AC has started and before the 2AR has ended. If you believe the conduct of a member of the community is so reprehensible that it must come before evaluating arguments that occur in a debate, I strongly encourage you to pursue a resolution with the relevant NDT/CEDA/ADA committee prior to the start of a NDT/CEDA/ADA sanctioned competition. Those decision-making bodies are designed to evaluate complaints in a professional manner that protects the confidentiality of all parties. As a tournament director, I can attest to the usefulness of these decision-making bodies to carefully navigate sensitive issues concerning interpersonal conflicts between members of the community. I do not see any value in offering competitive incentives for tactically deploying reputation-damaging claims as procedurals.

***March 2022***

I am a clash judge set out to pasture. I am generally in a state of judging ennui because debates are often copies of copies of debates I've seen before. With that said, here's some advice:

1) All debate is role playing. You're lying to yourself if you think it's not. Make it entertaining, don't break character, and refrain from lobbing fallacies at your opponent.

2) I generally vote for the team that A) has a clear narrative throughout the debate and B) does the most to complicate their opponent's narrative. Be convincing. "Extinction outweighs" is an incomplete narrative. Talk about internal links more and use them to make more turns the case/da/k arguments.

A) Cross-examination is my favorite part of the debate. Don't waste the opportunity. If you can't defend your narrative in cx don't expect me to let you make up for it in rebuttals.

B) The 2NR and 2AR should collapse the debate to the most important questions. Boo to final rebuttals that race through the speech without communicating to me the ballot you would like me to write in your favor.

3) I hate your 2NR/2AR blocks. I don't want them. Just answer the previous speech instead and identify what the errors are of the previous speech. If you read them anyway don't be obvious. I flow on a laptop and will know/become irritated if you are rereading a block from a previous speech instead of developing arguments in response to opponent's arguments.

4) I like evidence-based arguments. Debate should be academically rigorous. The 2AC and the 2NC should read cards. Well-evidence arguments are important because they connect students' creative ideas to academic communities pursuing similar questions. Connecting arguments to academic literature is also important because no individual has a complete understanding of the world. If your strategy does not rely on evidence I expect you to be excellent at cross-examination.

A) If your style is not evidence-centered, I still expect students to connect important ideas to a clearly identifiable literature base. A failure to connect your arguments to a clear literature base feels to me like an effort to deprive opponents of link ground and implicitly an expectation that the opponent is responsible for refuting the un-published ideas of student debaters. I don't want to decide those debates.

B) I am very much over students referencing the history of cross-examination debate without reference to evidence. The rush for originality dismisses the rich history of academic work documenting the examples often invoked in competition.

C) Caveat: I don't read a ton of evidence to decide debates. The best debaters will deploy the claims/warrants of their evidence convincingly such that I feel like they know what they're talking about. I flow on the computer. If I have to read your cards during the debate to figure out what you're talking about I'm having a bad time.

D) If you introduce and convincingly deploy an evidence-based argument (tangential to the new topic) that I've never seen before I will likely tune in and reward you with higher points.

5) Debates over competing interpretations (definitional argument) is, without question, the most important skill that cross-examination debates provide. Interpretations/counter-interpretations provide instruction to the judge for how to interpret whether the teams have met their burdens. I'm agnostic about the content of your theory arguments but I'm unlikely to vote for them if there is not enough information to explain to your opponent what I am voting for when providing my reasons for decision.

6) There is some recent grumbling from my fellow old-heads about neg conditionality and judge kick getting out of control. I cosign those concerns. If the aff breathes a claim and warrant about judge kick in each speech starting in the 2AC I will disregard it. 2N's are entitled to their hustle but shouldn't expect my sympathy if the 1AR answers judge kick and the 2AR extends it. For the aff to win on conditionality the 1AR has to be airtight covering the 2NC/1NR.

***Old Paradigm***

Square up. Friday night lights. Fight night. Any given Sunday. Start your engines and may the best debater win.

My bias is that debate is competitive and adversarial, not cooperative. My bias is that debate strategies should be evidence-centric and, at a minimum, rooted in an academic discipline. My bias is that I do not want to consider anything prior to the reading of the 1AC when making my decision. My bias is that I will only flow one speaker in each rebuttal unless it is clearly and compellingly established in the constructives why I should flow both speakers in the same speech.

For me to vote on an argument it must have a claim, warrant, and impact. A claim is an assertion of truth or opinion. A warrant is an analytical connection between data/grounds/evidence and your claim. An impact is the implication of that claim for how I should evaluate the debate.

I think about permutations in a very precise way. I do not think it's the only way to think about them but I am unlikely to be persuaded to think otherwise. I think that a plan specifies a desired outcome. There are a set number of means to achieve the desired outcome. I also think that a counterplan or alternative specifies a desired outcome with a set number of means to achieve that outcome. A permutation asserts that it is theoretically possible for there to be a means of action that satisfies both the outcome of the plan and the counterplan or alternative. A permutation could be expressed as where the set numbers of the aff's and the neg's strategies overlap. Permutations are defense. Rarely do they "solve all their offense." It would behoove affs to know what offense they are "no linking" with the perm and what offense the perm does not resolve. This discussion should ideally begin in the 2AC and it must take place in the 1AR.

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

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

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

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

***Older Paradigm (Still True)***

I judge debates based on execution. My decisions rarely come down to just 2NR v 2AR. They are strongly influenced by how ideas develop in CX, the block, and the 1AR.

The best rebuttals will isolate a unique impact and explain why their opponent's impact is either less important or impossible to resolve. The most persuasive rebuttals, to me, are those that explain how I should evaluate the debate given the available information. This is especially true in debates about debate where neither side agrees on a normative method for evaluation.

I can't stress how irritated I am by students that make sweeping claims about argument styles that they don't usually engage in. Debate is hard and everyone puts in an incredible amount of work. Oftentimes, people don't get credit for their effort. That stinks. That does not mean, however, that other folks' contributions are less valuable than yours because they approach the game differently.

I think there is an important role for philosophical arguments in debate, with caveats. Ks should disprove solvency. I think creatively interpreting the resolution is interesting. Affirmative teams that decide the resolution doesn't matter in advance of the debate and only impact turn their opponent's positions bore me. I would rather affs be deliberately extra-topical than anti-topical. Link arguments should be consistent with framework arguments. The terms used in speeches and tags should reflect the language of the literature base they are meant to represent. Not all Ks of humanism are the same. Not all Ks are Ks of humanism.

I think there is an important role for policy arguments in debate, with caveats. Vague plan writing does not equal strategic plan writing. Impact evidence is often outdated and/or includes multiple alt-causes. I perceive a degree of self-righteousness from debaters that have extensive experience going for T-USFG but have little experience going for T in other situations. I perceive a higher degree of self-righteousness from debaters who preach the merits of research when going for T-USFG while very obviously reading evidence they copy and pasted from other school's open-source documents.

What you should expect of me:

1) I will evaluate the debate and cast a provisional decision about which team did the better debating based on the content of the speeches and the cross-examinations.

2) I will flow your debate in an excel template and save a copy after the debate for scouting purposes.

How I think about debate:

I. The aff's burden is to prove that the 1AC is A) an example of the res and B) a positive departure from the squo. The neg should disprove the 1AC and can win by establishing that the aff is wrong about either A or B. The neg can also win by offering a counter-proposal that competes with and is net beneficial to the 1AC.

II. In order to accomplish A, the aff should be able to:

1) provide an interpretation of the resolution

2) explain how the 1AC meets their interpretation of the resolution

3) demonstrate that their vision of the resolution is superior to the neg’s

III. In the event that the aff argues they do not have to abide by the terms of the resolution, the aff should be able to:

1) provide sound reasoning for why the agreed upon point of stasis fails to address the agreed upon controversy area

2) explain the roles of the aff and the neg in their vision of debate

3) demonstrate that their vision of debate is superior to the neg’s

IV. The aff cannot win by simply flipping the burden of proof and indicting the neg’s interpretation of the resolution.* The aff must at all times defend a contestable proposition. If III (see above) occurs, the neg's burden is not to disprove the solvency and harms of the 1AC (B). Rather, all the neg should have to disprove is that abandoning A is necessary to solve/talk about B. If the neg can demonstrate that the original stasis point can accommodate the harms area then the aff has not proven that abandoning the res must occur.

*Exceptions to IV: language Ks, conditionality bad

Things I enjoy:

· When debaters express a nuanced knowledge of the resolution/controversy area

· Good jokes

· Bold choices

· Exposing specious arguments in C-X

· Solvency debates

· Links to the plan

· Supporting claims with high-quality research

· Final rebuttals that begin with a brief explanation of the key issues in the debate and why they have won given the arguments presented in earlier speeches

· When debaters prioritize answering the question, “What should debate look like?”

· Creative permutations—a perm says that there is a possible world in which both the 1AC and the counter-proposal can occur simultaneously, or that the counter-proposal is an example of how the aff’s proposition could be implemented—the aff should describe the permutation in both rebuttals and explicitly argue what elements of the neg’s strategy it mitigates/solves. Asserting the hypothetical validity of a perm and being intentionally vague until the 2AR does not an aff ballot make.

Things I don’t enjoy:

· When debaters compensate for dropping an argument by asserting that it is new

· When embedded clash becomes an excuse for not flowing

· When debaters make straw person characterizations of argument styles they do not personally engage in

· Trained incapacity

· “Death good”/ “death not real”

· Basic strats

· Recycled strats

· Recycled blocks

· K 1NC shells that I can find in my inbox from previous seasons

· “Procedural fairness”

· Teams that don’t take advantage if/when their opponent impact turns fairness

· Affs that don’t defend a substantial departure from the squo

· Affs that don’t specify the terms of the 1AC/backtrack on the terms of the 1AC for the purpose of permuting the neg’s counter-proposal

· Bad internal links

· C-X belligerence

· Hyperbolic impacts

· Counter-perms (honestly, it’s been 10 years and I still don’t get it)

· Asserting “perm do the counter-proposal” when it’s shamelessly severance

· When great CX moments don’t make it into the speeches

· Failing to capitalize on 2AC/block choices and settling for coin flip decisions

· “Point me to a line in the card where it says…” OR “I just ctrl F’ed that word in the document and it isn’t there”

kbarnstein@alumni.depaul.edu

My background: I'm currently serving as the head coach at Maine East, after many years of serving as an assistant. For much of the past 7 years, I judge an average of 15-20 rounds on the topic. I debated at Maine East HS back in the late 90s & early 00s for four seasons under the tutelage of Wayne Tang. As such, I tend to lean towards a policy making approach that seeks the best policy option. I tend to view topicaliy/theory through a prism of fairness and education. I don't mind listening to debates about what debate should be. I default to viewing the plan as the focus of the debate.

If you are running a K, I like the links to be as specific to the affirmative's advocacy as possible. If your alternative doesn't make sense, that means that the affirmative must be worse than the status quo for you to win your K.

I strongly dislike reading your evidence after the round- I expect the debaters to do that work in the round. If I call for a card, it will typically be to verify that it says what you say it says. I will not give you the benefit of warrants you did not explain, however I may give the other team the benefit of the card not saying what you said it did.

Bill Batterman
Associate Director of Debate — Woodward Academy (2010-present)
Director of Debate — Marquette University High School (2006-2010)
Assistant Debate Coach — Marquette, Appleton East, Nicolet, etc. (2000-2006)
Last Updated 9/17/2021

Twitter version: Debate like an adult. Show me the evidence. Attend to the details. Don't dodge; clash. Great research and informed comparisons win debates.

My promise: I will pay close attention to every debate, carefully and completely scrutinize every argument, and provide honest feedback so that students are continuously challenged to improve as debaters.

Perspective: During the 2010s (my second full decade of judging/coaching debate), I coached and/or judged at 189 tournaments and taught slightly more than 16 months of summer debate institutes. I don't judge as many rounds as I used to — I took an extended sabbatical from judging during the 2020-2021 season — but I still enjoy it and I am looking forward to judging debates again. I am also still coaching as actively as ever. I know a lot about the water resources protection topic.

Pre-round: Please add billbatterman@gmail.com to the email chain. Respect your opponents by sending the same documents to the email chain that you use to deliver your speeches. If you create separate versions of your speech documents (typically by deleting headings and analytical arguments) before sharing them, I will assume that you do not respect your opponents. I like debaters that respect their opponents. I will have my camera on when judging; if it is off, confirm that I'm ready before beginning your speech.

1. I care most about clarity, clash, and argument comparison.

I will be more impressed by students that demonstrate topic knowledge, line-by-line organization skills (supported by careful flowing), and intelligent cross-examinations than by those that rely on superfast speaking, obfuscation, jargon, backfile recycling, and/or tricks. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I'm still not bored by strong fundamental skills and execution of basic, core-of-the-topic arguments.

To impress me, invite clash and show off what you have learned this season. I will want to vote for the team that (a) is more prepared and more knowledgeable about the assigned topic and that (b) better invites clash and provides their opponents with a productive opportunity for an in-depth debate.

Aff cases that lack solvency advocates and claim multiple contrived advantages do not invite a productive debate. Neither do whipsaw/scattershot 1NCs chock-full of incomplete, contradictory, and contrived off-case positions. Debates are best when the aff reads a plan with a high-quality solvency advocate and one or two well-supported advantages and the neg responds with a limited number of complete, consistent, and well-supported positions (including, usually, thorough case answers).

I would unapologetically prefer not to judge debates between students that do not want to invite a productive, clash-heavy debate.

2. I'm a critic of argument, not a blank slate.

My most important "judge preference" is that I value debating: "a direct and sustained confrontation of rival positions through the dialectic of assertion, critique, response and counter-critique" (Gutting 2013). I make decisions based on "the essential quality of debate: upon the strength of arguments" (Balthrop 1989).

Philosophically, I value "debate as argument-judgment" more than "debate as information production" (Cram 2012). That means that I want to hear debates between students that are invested in debating scholarly arguments based on rigorous preparation, expert evidence, deep content knowledge, and strategic thinking. While I will do my best to maintain fidelity to the debate that has taken place when forming my decision, I am more comfortable than most judges with evaluating and scrutinizing students' arguments. I care much more about evidence and argument quality and am far less tolerant of trickery and obfuscation than the median judge. This has two primary implications for students seeking to adapt to my judging:

a. What a card "says" is not as important as what a card proves. When deciding debates, I spend more time on questions like "what argument does this expert make and is the argument right?" than on questions like "what words has this debate team highlighted in this card and have these words been dropped by the other team?." As a critic of argument, I place "greater emphasis upon evaluating quality of argument" and assume "an active role in the debate process on the basis of [my] expertise, or knowledge of practices and standards within the community." Because I emphasize "the giving of reasons as the essential quality of argument, evidence which provides those reasons in support of claims will inevitably receive greater credibility than a number of pieces of evidence, each presenting only the conclusion of someone's reasoning process. It is, in crudest terms, a preference for quality of evidence over quantity" (Balthrop 1989).

b. The burden of proof precedes the burden of rejoinder. As presented, the risk of many advantages and disadvantages is zero because of missing internal links or a lack of grounding for important claims. "I know this argument doesn't make sense, but they dropped it!" will not convince me; reasons will.

When I disagree with other judges about the outcome of a debate, my most common criticism of their decision is that it gives too much credit to bad arguments or arguments that don't make sense. Their most common criticism of my decision is that it is "too interventionist" and that while they agree with my assessment of the arguments/evidence, they think that something else that happened in the debate (often a "technical concession") should be more determinative. I respect many judges that disagree with me in these situations; I'm glad there are both "tech-leaning" and "truth-leaning" judges in our activity. In the vast majority of debates, we come to the same conclusion. But at the margins, this is the major point of disagreement between us — it's much more important than any particular argument or theory preference.

3. I am most persuaded by arguments about the assigned topic.

One of the primary reasons I continue to love coaching debate is that "being a coach is to be enrolled in a continuing graduate course in public policy" (Fleissner 1995). Learning about a new topic area each year enriches my life in profound ways. After 20 years in "The Academy of Debate" (Fleissner 1995), I have developed a deep and enduring belief in the importance of public policy. It matters. This has two practical implications for how I tend to judge debates:

a. Kritiks that demonstrate concern for good policymaking can be very persuasive, but kritiks that ignore the topic or disavow policy analysis entirely will be tough to win. My self-perception is that I am much more receptive to well-developed kritiks than many "policy" judges, but I am as unpersuaded (if not more so) by kritiks that rely on tricks, obfuscation, and conditionality as I am by those styles of policy arguments.

b. I almost always find kritiks of topicality unpersuasive. An unlimited topic would not facilitate the in-depth clash over core-of-the-topic arguments that I most value about debate. The combination of "topical version of the aff" and "argue this kritik on the neg" is difficult to defeat when coupled with a fairness or topic education impact. Topical kritik affirmatives are much more likely to persuade me than kritiks of topicality.

Works Cited
Balthrop 1989 = V. William Balthrop, "The Debate Judge as 'Critic of Argument'," Advanced Debate: Readings in Theory Practice & Teaching (Third Edition).
Cram 2012 = http://cedadebate.org/CAD/index.php/CAD/article/view/295/259
Gutting 2013 = http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/a-great-debate/
Fleissner 1995 = https://the3nr.com/2010/05/20/chain-reaction-the-1995-barkley-forum-coaches-luncheon-keynote-speech/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. keep track of your own time.

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

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

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

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

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

Maggie Berthiaume Woodward Academy

Current Coach — Woodward Academy (2011-present)
Former Coach — Lexington High School (2006-2008), Chattahoochee High School (2008-2011)
College Debater — Dartmouth College (2001-2005)
High School Debater — Blake (1997-2001)
maggiekb@gmail.com for email chains, please.

Meta Comments

1. Please be nice. If you don't want to be kind to others (the other team, your partner, me, the novice flowing the debate in the back of the room), please don’t prefer me.

2. I'm a high school teacher and believe that debates should be something I could enthusiastically show to my students, their families, or my principal. What does that mean? If your high school teachers would find your presentation inappropriate, I am likely to as well.

3. Please be clear. I will call "clear" if I can't understand you, but debate is primarily a communication activity. Do your best to connect on meaningful arguments.

4. Conduct your own CX as much as possible. CX is an important time for judge impression formation, and if one partner does all asking and answering for the team, it is very difficult to evaluate both debaters. Certainly the partner not involved in CX can get involved in an emergency, but that should be brief and rare if both debaters want good points.

5. If you like to be trolly with your speech docs (read on paper to prevent sharing, remove analyticals, etc.), please don't. See "speech documents" below for a longer justification and explanation.

6. I am not willing or able to adjudicate issues that happened outside of the bounds of the debate itself — ex. previous debates, social media issues, etc.

7. In debates involving minors, I am a mandated reporter — as are all judges of debates involving minors!

8. I’ve coached and judged for a long time now, and the reason I keep doing it is that I think debate is valuable. Students who demonstrate that they appreciate the opportunity to debate and are passionate and excited about the issues they are discussing are a joy to watch — they give judges a reason to listen even when we’re sick or tired or judging the 5th debate of the day on the 4th weekend that month. Be that student!

9. "Maggie" (or "Ms. B." if you prefer), not "judge."

What does a good debate look like?

Everyone wants to judge “good debates.” To me, that means two excellently-prepared teams who clash on fundamental issues related to the policy presented by the affirmative. The best debates allow four students to demonstrate that they have researched a topic and know a lot about it — they are debates over issues that experts in the field would understand and appreciate. The worst debates involve obfuscation and tangents. Good debates usually come down to a small number of issues that are well-explained by both sides. The best final rebuttals have clearly explained ballot and a response to the best reason to vote for the opposing team.

I have not decided to implement the Shunta Jordan "no more than 5 off" rule, but I understand why she has it, and I agree with the sentiment. I'm not establishing a specific number, but I would like to encourage negative teams to read fully developed positions in the 1NC (with internal links and solvency advocates as needed). (Here's what she says: "There is no world where the Negative needs to read more than 5 off case arguments. SO if you say 6+, I'm only flowing 5 and you get to choose which you want me to flow.") If you're thinking "nbd, we'll just read the other four DAs on the case," I think you're missing the point. :) It's not about the specific number, it's about the depth of argument.

Do you read evidence?

Yes, in nearly every debate. I will certainly read evidence that is contested by both sides to resolve who is correct in their characterizations. The more you explain your evidence, the more likely I am to read it. For me, the team that tells the better story that seems to incorporate both sets of evidence will almost always win. This means that instead of reading yet another card, you should take the time to explain why the context of the evidence means that your position is better than that of the other team. This is particularly true in close uniqueness and case debates.

Do I have to be topical?

Yes. Affirmatives are certainly welcome to defend the resolution in interesting and creative ways, but that defense should be tied to a topical plan to ensure that both sides have the opportunity to prepare for a topic that is announced in advance. Affirmatives certainly do not need to “role play” or “pretend to be the USFG” to suggest that the USFG should change a policy, however.

I enjoy topicality debates more than the average judge as long as they are detailed and well-researched. Examples of this include “intelligence gathering” on Surveillance, “health care” on Social Services, and “economic engagement” on Latin America. Debaters who do a good job of describing what debates would look like under their interpretation (aff or neg) are likely to win. I've judged several "substantial" debates in recent years that I've greatly enjoyed.

Can I read [X ridiculous counterplan]?

If you have a solvency advocate, by all means. If not, consider a little longer. See: “what does as good debate look like?” above. Affs should not be afraid to go for theory against contrived counterplans that lack a solvency advocate. On the flip side, if the aff is reading non-intrinsic advantages, the "logical" counterplan or one that uses aff solvency evidence for the CP is much appreciated.

What about my generic kritik?

Topic or plan specific critiques are absolutely an important component of “excellently prepared teams who clash on fundamental issues.” Kritiks that can be read in every debate, regardless of the topic or affirmative plan, are usually not.

Given that the aff usually has specific solvency evidence, I think the neg needs to win that the aff makes things worse (not just “doesn’t solve” or “is a mask for X”). Neg – Please spend the time to make specific links to the aff — the best links are often not more evidence but examples from the 1AC or aff evidence.

What about offense/defense?

I do believe there is absolute defense and vote for it often.

Do you take prep for emailing/flashing?

Once the doc is saved, your prep time ends.

I have some questions about speech documents...

One speech document per speech (before the speech). Any additional cards added to the end of the speech should be sent out as soon as feasible.

Teams that remove analytical arguments like permutation texts, counter-interpretations, etc. from their speech documents before sending to the other team should be aware that they are also removing them from the version I will read at the end of the debate — this means that I will be unable to verify the wording of their arguments and will have to rely on the short-hand version on my flow. This rarely if ever benefits the team making those arguments.

Speech documents should be provided to the other team as the speech begins. The only exception to this is a team who debates entirely off paper. Teams should not use paper to circumvent norms of argument-sharing.

I will not consider any evidence that did not include a tag in the document provided to the other team.

LD Addendum

I don't judge LD as much as I used to (I coached it, once upon a time), but I think most of the above applies. If you are going to make reference to norms (theory, side bias, etc.), please explain them. Otherwise, just debate!

PF Addendum

This is very similar to the LD addendum with the caveat that I strongly prefer evidence be presented as cards rather than paraphrasing. I find it incredibly difficult to evaluate the quality of evidence when I have to locate the original source for every issue, and as a result, I am likely to discount that evidence compared to evidence where I can clearly view the surrounding sentence/paragraph/context.

Yes put me on the email chain: Risha[dot]X[dot]Bhattacharjee[at]gmail[dot]com and I prefer this to pocketbox although you do you. I'd appreciate it if after the last corresponding rebuttal each side puts together a doc of all relevant cards and sends it to me even before I ask but no worries if you forget.

Philosophy last updated December 2016 (goal is to include trends I've noticed in my judging and also new opinions I've noticed myself start developing as I judge a lot, although some of these opinions haven't necessarily played out in my judging yet).

General Things 

TLDR: I don't really care what you do. I am most familiar with "policy" arguments and do research in high school and college more on the "policy"-side of things, but I judge a lot of different types of arguments, so my familiarity with those is growing quickly.

My own background: I debated at Coppell High School in Dallas for 4 years and then the University of Texas for 5 years, and am now coaching at Georgia State University and Wayzata High School. This will be my third year of judging college debate and eighth year judging high school debate. I typically judge a LOT of debate rounds every year. I was a 1A/2N for most of college, and most of my 2NRs were counterplan/politics or framework.  I did debate for UT/in D3, so I had my fair share of “K-debates". I found myself personally going a bit more “left” (with a particular interest in arguments about gender) in my last year of debate, but that was more in terms of opinion and not actually argumentative choices, and I still ended my career going for mostly "policy" arguments. I have generally viewed debate as a game, but can understand why others do not see it that way, and am open to alternate views of the activity. 

Top-level: You should do what you do best, and I'll reciprocate by trying my best to approach the debate with an open mind. I really don't care what kind/type of arguments you choose to make. I find that teams have much more success when their judge adaptation involves accounting for specific things a judge might think about a certain argument, instead of just choosing to make a different argument altogether. Do what you do best. The only caveat is you should not say things like "racism/sexism good". 

I think that racism and sexism (and other forms of exclusion) are problems in the debate community, but am uncertain as to what I think is the best way to combat forms of exclusion. I do think that debaters are required by the nature of the activity to contest arguments that their opponents make, and that there is value in that contestation. That being said, I think certain things are uncontestable - like I said above, impact turning a form of exclusion is not going to fly. I also dislike it when people try to dispute claims about debate as an activity being racist, sexist, ableist, etc. At this point, I honestly think it's violent to say a certain form of exclusion does not exist in debate, esp to people whose identity forces them to face that exclusion on a daily basis. That is different than, for example, contesting the claim that requiring a topical plan furthers those forms of exclusion.

I’ll ask to be included in any email chains, but I will not open the speech docs in most situations until the debate is over, because imo reading along lessens the impact that good communication would otherwise have on my decision. 

I generally don’t think it counts as prep when someone is saving a speech doc to a jump drive, etc. 

Pet peeves: “Always already” and “debate space” - i.e. redundancy. 

Card Clipping: Like I said above, I won’t open speech docs before/during a speech. So it’s impossible for me to follow along as a debater is reading. That’s just something to keep in mind if you want to call out another team for clipping cards. So, make sure there’s video if you want to make an accusation. I do think that card-clipping is absolutely unacceptable, and if an accusation is made, I will immediately stop the debate to resolve the dispute. If an individual is determined to have clipped cards, they will receive zero speaker points and the team will get an automatic loss. If it is determined that card-clipping did not occur, then I will assign speaker points based on what has happened in the debate so far, and assign the loss to the team who made the accusation. Purposefully being unclear just to get through a card faster is not much different from clipping cards. Since I obviously cannot decide intent, if you are unclear/it is hard to tell if you read a certain part of a card, I will err on the side of you did not.

I appreciate it when people tell me at the top of their last rebuttals what an RFD for them would look like.

I will not yell clear if I cannot understand you (I think that's just as interventionist as a judge yelling "smarter" and I do not share the same views as Dallas Perkins on that subject). So don't assume I'll let you know if I can't understand you....although the lack of typing should probably tip you off.

On a somewhat similar note, if I look confused, it is probably tech related or possibly just how my face usually looks. I rarely (knowingly) react physically when unconvinced by an argument. 

Asking a team what cards were or were not read in a speech doc is either cross-x time or prep time, unless their speech doc is egregiously terribad (a standard to be somewhat arbitrarily determined by me).

(Please note that this next thing is really not a big deal, I'm just letting you know in case it helps, but I don't expect any one to adapt in any way to this). -I don't really try to line things up from speech-to-speech while flowing. This is really just how things play out because of the kinds of debate I tend to judge. On that note, in almost any possible situation, no matter what you say, I will almost certainly just flow a speech on a specific argument straight down. Just to be clear, I will obviously still separate off case positions and 1ac pages onto separate pages. But if you're like "I'm going to start with the perm and then this thing and then blah" or whatever else, I'll probably ignore you. You can still say it for the purpose of the other team or your partner or out of spite etc., but just know that I will keep flowing straight down because roadmaps seem to be more like New Year's resolutions than actual truth. 

Links are not case arguments. Neither are random framework args. In a K or framework debate, please please please save us all the trouble and just read the links on the same page as the actual arg. I like case arguments but I like being honest about not having specific case args even more. I recognize that there are ways to interact with the aff that do not involve a case debate in the traditional sense. That's fine. What's less fine and substantially more annoying is arbitrarily splitting the K debate (or FW debate) onto two different flows which inevitably become combined in the last rebuttals and create more work for all us.

It is rarely successful in front of me for your only answer to a fully-developed arg by the other team to be that they don't have a card to back it up. By all means point this out if true, but also please substantively answer what is now a fully developed analytic (i.e. still an argument).

Lastly, please be respectful to your partner and your opponents. I don’t like excessively rude people and my speaker points will reflect that. I do enjoy snark if it's intelligent and furthers an argument and isn't just aimed solely at making fun of your opponent. It annoys me when people speak during their opponents' speeches in a way that is loud and/or makes it difficult to hear the speaker (or seems like it would bother the speaker), and is perhaps the only time I audibly intervene during a round (to shush the offender(s)). 

"Policy" vs "Policy"

General:

-High school: I do a TON of high school topic research (along with already having done a ton because of last year's college topic) so generally speaking I know what's up. In the past I've judged a lot of clash and left-left debates in high school, but this year I've found myself judging quite a bit more of policy debates as well. 

-College: I don't judge many policy debates in college, although this year I've judged a few relatively speaking. I've done a fair bit of research on the topic and almost all of it is more "policy" oriented research. I would like to judge some more "policy" debates but whatevs not my job (or desire) to dictate what people say in front of me, and I certainly do not have anything against debate arguments that do not involve both teams agreeing from the get-go that the discussion should be oriented around the results of USFG-enacted restrictions on ghg emissions. 

Topicality: I love a good T debate. Don’t really care what the topicality argument is. If the interpretation is something "silly," then the aff should be able to beat it without help via me giving the interp less weight. That being said, I often think that good explanations of reasonability are often persuasive. The aff will probably lose if they don’t read a counter-interpretation. I also am generally not convinced by most precedence arguments, or arguments about an aff being read all year means that it’s topical. Frankly, I couldn’t care less what the rest of the community thinks about whether or not an aff is topical. Obviously if a precedence arg is conceded I'll evaluate it, but just know that the aff won't have to do much to beat it.
(High school specific: this topic is obviously terribly huge and also lacking good definitions for neg interps - perhaps a useful thing to note about me is that I think of T "definitions" as another standard for a T interp, albeit a rather important one, but I don't think having a definition exactly backing up your interpretation is as absolutely necessary as many seem to think. Sometimes I think the bigger problem with the more obvious or better (in some ways) interps for 'engagement' is their tendency to run into brightline problems).

Theory: I generally default to reject the argument not the team for most theory arguments other than conditionality bad, and have noticed in my judging that it is difficult to convince me otherwise.

Gut-check, I probably think that conditionality is good, 50-state fiat is bad, and international fiat is bad. But I also almost exclusively went for the states counterplan on the energy topic and the Turkey CP on the democracy assistance topic, so I can definitely be convinced by the other side. Trump probably also makes the states counterplan a more important/necessary discussion on the college topic now. Conditionality bad is probably harder to win in front of me, but I'm sure it's doable. Something that is important for me in counterplan competition debates is the question of literature/solvency advocates. The more evidence the neg has about their counterplan in comparison to the aff, the better off they are for the theory debate. That being said, counterplans that result in the aff are probably not competitive. 

Disads: I went for them a lot (especially politics) and enjoy these debates (topic disads>politics obviously). Comparative impact calculus and turns case arguments are always ideal. 

The risk of a disad can sometimes be so low that it should effectively be rendered zero for the purpose of making decisions. The existence of a counterplan in the debate obviously affects this calculus. 

Counterplans: I like them. I like counterplans that are cut from aff articles. I like smart, specific PICs, depending on competition issues and how much evidence there is in context of the aff. See theory blurb above for more details, but would like to reiterate as said above that counterplans that result in the aff are probably not competitive. 

If the 2NR doesn’t say anything, I will not revert to the status quo.

Case debates: Obviously always appreciated. I think that zero risk of an aff can very much be a thing, and something that neg teams are often too hesistant to go for. Sometimes affs just doesn't make sense and/or are lying about what their evidence says. Don't be afraid to call them out. I'm not a huge fan of giving affs leeway just because certain things irl (like Trump's win) make it harder to solve while being topical. A good example for college folks is I also disliked judges giving affs an extra benefit of the doubt on the democracy assistance topic because the affs were all terribad and clearly didn't do anything (as may be fairly obvious, I was a 2N on this topic lol).

Criticisms versus Any Kinds of Args:

Criticisms: I explained my general proclivities above, but, things that are important for winning kritiks in front of me include: reducing the risk of the aff (how you go about doing this is up to you), having a clear explanation of what the alt is, and contextualizing link arguments in terms of the aff. Against race args especially, people seem to love going for some version of "only a risk we're better than the squo" and so it is useful for me as a judge if the contextualized link arguments include either an opportunity cost argument or a reason why that's a bad burden to have to meet (i.e. maybe presumption should stop flipping aff in these instances for whatever reason).

I think that role of the ballot claims are almost always not a real argument. They’re self-serving, arbitrary, and just a fancy way of saying that a certain impact should come first. The only role of the ballot imo is just to vote for the better debating. 

Performance: Most of my general stuff above also address my thoughts on this. Like I said, you do you. I did go for framework a lot in college, and at the beginning, it was because I really "believed" it. At the end of my career, and now, I see a lot of benefits in having a topic, but I also see a lot of reasons for why the way the topic is constructed and the way that debates occur, can be problematic. But just to be clear – when I debated, I viewed debate as a game. But I respect the fact that this isn’t how everyone approaches debate, and can be convinced that as a judge, I should also not view debate as a game. 

"Policy" Affs vs K's

As much as it saddens me to admit, I think (slash hope) we are all aware that I unfortunately do not have the power to actually enact federal government policy if I sign the ballot aff (as cool as that would be). So generally speaking, in front of me, neg teams should stop pointing this out like it's a big deal and if they do, affs should stop being jetti-mind tricked by it. 

I have never found an argument more silly (this is slight hyperbole but it makes me cranky) than the blanket statement that "discourse (or reps or whatever) doesn't shape reality", both because that just seems patently untrue (at least as a blanket claim) and also incredibly ironic to say in a communication activity of all things. There are much more nuanced ways of making a similar argument, i.e. perhaps keep in mind that on the aff you don't have to win that discourse/reps/whatever NEVER affect policymaking.

On a similar note to the above, I find almost all framework debates useless. Aff framework arguments on a theoretical level (we get to weigh our aff bc fairness or education etc) are meh to me - even if you win these arguments, that doesn't resolve the substantive arguments the neg will (hopefully) be making about why their links shape the way the aff's policy happens, which in turn affects the aff's ability to get to the impact they so dearly want to weigh, etc. Also everytime I hear "moots 8/9 minutes of the 1AC" I think "so what?". Seems like if the neg wins a link and an impact and those things moot your 1AC, then you should have picked a better 8/9 minutes of things to say. Much more useful than a theoretical fw debate is answering those link arguments on a substantive level and explaining why your offense still applies even if you don't get to weigh your impacts. Also I will probably never decide the neg doesn't "get" their K unless its a warranted argument made and somehow fully conceded by the other team in all the speeches or something. Tbh I appreciate it when affs don't ever try to forward the argument that the neg shouldn't get their k.
On a similar note, I think aff's often should get access to more of their offense than they realize even if the neg wins their "framework", and are often tricked into thinking otherwise. 

Judge choice is not an argument. Even when technically conceded by the neg team, there are usually 82930281390 other things said by them in the debate that implicitly answer it, and it's a safe bet that I'll do the "work" (is it even work?) for them.

K's vs K Affs

Dear gawd "method debates" are not a thing. Neg teams say "no perms because it's a method debate!" and all I hear is "maybe if we just arbitrarily call what is clearly still a K alt something different, we can jetti-mind trick Risha into thinking we no longer have to actually answer arguments and can, without any real justification, win that affs don't get perms anymore."  This doesn't mean I am just unconvinced by the arg that certain affs should not get permutations - I certainly think there are persuasive, debateable reasons for why affs that choose not to fall under the bounds of the resolution should not - so it just means that "it's a method debate" is not something I consider to be a justification for the claim that affs don't get perms. 

Framework Debates vs K Affs 

I judge a lot of these, so this is the longest section of my philosophy.

Imo non-fairness impacts are better than fairness impacts against affs that talk about various types of oppression in relation to the debaters' own identities - I think it usually hurts to allow these affs to read their impact turns to fairness and thus focus the debate on what was basically the core aff arg to begin with (and thus also likely their best offense). I do find fairness a much better impact against more high theory-ish affs (or ones that talk about oppression but less in relation to debate/personal identity) than the more social justice-y ones but I don't really have many thoughts on fairness as compared to other impacts against the more high theory-ish affs. 

Sort of related to my last point - I don't get this whole procedural vs structural fairness distinction people keep trying to make. Or rather, I get it, but imo it seems like a distinction without a difference, at least how I've heard it explained. Like sure there are different types of fairness and one maybe slightly more controllable than the other but the terminal impact to both (people quit, fun, other args for why ruining the activity matters) seems to be the same so esp when debating an aff talking about a type of oppression esp in relation to debate, the attempt to make a distinction seems not useful and also kind of the point of the impact turns/inevitability arguments the aff usually makes. 

2ARs for K affs against framework rarely have success in front of me if a counter-interp is not extended. I find that solely going for impact turns often devolves into having to defend basically that all clash is bad, and in an activity that (presumably, until proven otherwise really) seems to depend on clash in some form, that usually ends up a difficult position to defend. (This applies less to affs that are an impact turn to debate good from the get go, by which I mean the more high theory-ish affs that say the whole thing is bad, and not other affs that usually critique specific parts of it.)

I've found that people are often bad at explaining why debate is good and useful against high theory affs, esp the ones that explicitly say debate (the whole thing and not just like certain specific aspects) is bad/useless. I spend a great deal of my time doing things related to this activity, and I'd like to think it's not completely a waste, so it shouldn't be hard to convince me that debate has some value, yet I have found myself voting for the argument that it does not in the past. Negs need to make sure they tell me what that value(s) of debate is/could be, etc. when pushed by the aff. Or even just pointing out that while isolating certain values of debate is difficult, the fact that we all clearly spend some time doing the activity means something, etc. 

Truth testing has not been an argument with much success in front of me. By truth testing, I mean what people generally seem to say in front of me, which is some version of: if the aff is unpredictable and the neg wins they could not (or should not) have prepared for it, then since it could not be tested I should assume everything the aff says about the aff is false. Generally speaking when a team spends minutes of each speech explaining an aff and the explanation makes sense to me, I'm not just going to decide that the neg perhaps not having answers means all the plausible/convincing things the aff said are wholesale not true. To me this argument is really no different than saying new affs should also be presumed untrue if the neg isn't ready for one and thus the aff couldn't be tested, and that I think is generally considered to be a not-great arg by most people. I find truth-testing more persuasive when the impact is some version of the argument that it's key to searching for the best method to resist things, like the aff's impact(s). 

In a similar vein to my last point, a counter-interp for affs in these debates should be clearly explained - this means telling me what it is supposed to solve vs not, so this includes making sure it's clear why it doesn't link to your own offense. On a basic level, counter-interp explanations should include a description of the role of the neg in debates and (in most situations) also how you still allow for clash. Neg teams should point out when affs fail to do so, or do so unconvincingly (i.e. explain why the counter-interp doesn't actually solve any of your impacts and/or why it links to their offense). 

It makes zero sense to me when neg teams try to have squirrely interps to try and get out of aff offense when those interps involve basically saying the aff is beholden to meeting certain parts of the resolution but not others (seems to be kind of arbitrary and unpredictable and a great justification for the aff choosing to pick a different part of the resolution to not meet).

Affs should clearly explain the internal link between the neg's intepretation and their impact turns. Notice I said interpretation, and not just explain why *framework* causes the impact turns, i.e. be specific to the neg's interpretation instead of making generalizing claims about framework debates.

There have been many times the aff almost completely concedes the neg's topical version of the aff and it doesn't help the neg in any way. This is not to say that I hate topical versions of the aff lol, and PLEASE affs do not take this to mean you can just not answer them bc I'm sure that now that this is my philosophy, I will vote on a conceded tva the very next time I judge framework, but negs should try to understand the point of the aff a little more. Basically, if your tva and explanation of it against all affs that discuss race issues is the exact same, then it's probably not a great tva, at least for me.

I rarely find it convincing when neg teams try to go for the Lundberg card as a reason for why the aff's interp causes extinction or why the neg's interp solves it, due to having never heard a plausible causal internal link chain between a framework interp and extinction. I'm honestly pretty convinced that I will never hear one. This is like my version of all the philosophies that say something along the lines of "stop saying framework is genocide". Which btw is true but not something I've found necessary to include in my philosophy although I guess I kind of have now. 

Harvard '19

UCLA Law '24

Coaching for Harker at Berkeley 2024

SLOW DOWN AND CLEARLY ENUNCIATE -- I WILL NOT FOLLOW SPEEC DOCS DURING SPEECHES. I CAN'T HEAR GOOD AND I WILL ONLY TELL YOU TO SLOW DOWN TWICE, AFTERWARDS UR ON UR OWN.

TLDR: I am personally more familiar answering the K than reading it. 2NR should tell me if they want me to judge kick, 2AR should tell me if they don't want me to. I did policy debate for eight years and coached it for longer. I have judged LD only a few times -- bear that in mind if you are going to go for some niche LD theory argument.

Online Debate: Plsss get affirmative visual or verbal confirmation from me and your two opponents that they are ready before speaking. I will pause time if there's a tech issue in a speech or CX. Be extra mindful of not interrupting too much during CX.

Debater Comfort and Safety: If anyone in the room is making you feel uncomfortable during, before, or after the debate please let me know and we can figure out together how to proceed. I feel zero qualms kicking out spectators who make students feel uncomfortable or speaking to the appropriate coaches/tab about a safety issue in round. If your opponents ask for accommodations, please honor them. Debate is adversarial but I believe it is still important to be somewhat kind; there is a thin line between "sassy and competitive" (good, fun) and "mean-spirited and cruel" (bad, not fun). We are likely complete strangers, so be mindful of your power and how you may come accross, especially when debating younger students. No explicit threats of violence towards individuals in the room or at the tournament. I'm just trying to judge a debate round, don't put me or your opponents in a weird position, please.

End of Round Speeches: I will default to good evidence comparison in speeches, and will only call for cards to verify your analysis. Forgoing terminal impact defense is less important if you have other defense, such as internal link defense or link defense etc.

Framework You need to have external offense and to extend case defense or answer aff solvency to win this argument in front of me. I judge this like a DA/case debate, which means both the aff and neg team need to compare impact calculus and solvency mechanisms. I do not feel strongly about any set of framework impacts so long as they are well explained. For the aff: I was on the neg side of framework debates more often than not as a debater, so I have thought more about the neg's impacts than your 1AC's most likely. This means you need to do more judge-direction in your speeches. The aff has to clearly explain the 1AC impact and/or offense against framework, why its bigger than the neg's offense, and if relevant, why TVA/SSD cannot solve it.

Ks: Buzzwords do not amount to a persuasive argument. Effectively using the language of your authors is different from saying buzzwords and hoping they do all the explanation. Purposefully confusing the other team isn't an effective strategy if you don't eventually explain it clearly to me. Links and root cause arguments should be clearly articulated, delineated, and contextualized to the affirmative's evidence, language, or plan. Explain what your framework interpretation means for how I decide the debate. I really dislike negative blocks that completely disregard the 2AC order and don't do any line-by-line, unless that style is explicitly related to your arguments (but im still probably not the best for that). I like when aff offense is about the plan text and aff advantages. Reps Ks: I don't feel like perf-con is a deal-breaker BUT you have to do way more work to distinguish the neg's rhetoric from the aff's if you do this and the perm is very winnable.

DAs The politics DA has been bad lately. Maybe you will come up with a smart version of it and I will like it, or maybe your opponent will be really bad at answering, but I will not just assume bad politics cards are better than they actually are just because the debate community really likes the politics DA. Many politics DAs can be defeated by smart analytics and evidence comparison. Intrinsicness/perm on politics doesn't do much for me.

Theory/T I don't have particularly strong feelings one way or the other about the abusiveness of the states cp, XO, courts CP. I think conditionality is probably good, if you go for conditionality bad in the 2AR and execute well I will understand. The executing team should do a good job explaining why I should reject the argument and not the team, and provide a clear counter interpretation. I am more than happy to vote for theory. I'm more aff leaning on Process/Consult CP theory, but this still requires good affirmative execution. Do impact calculus.

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

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

Associate Director of Debate @ KU

Last Updated: Pre-GSU 2016

Quick pre-round notes:

I would prefer speech docs while I judge. Please email them to bricker312@gmail.com.

The affirmative should read and defend a topical example of the resolution and the negative should negate the affirmative's example.

I reward teams that demonstrate a robust knowledge of the topic and literature concerning the topic.

More info:

1. The word "interpretation" matters more to me than some. You must counterdefine words, or you will likely lose. You must meet your theory interpretation, or you will likely lose.
2. The words "voting issue" matter more to me than some. I am not searching for cheap shots, nor do I especially enjoy theory debates. However, I feel that I would be intervening if I applied "reject the argument not the team" to arguments that debaters did not explicitly apply the impact takeout to. That said, proliferation of empty voting issues will not only hurt your speaker points, but can be grouped and pretty easily disposed of by opponents.
3. "Turns the case" matters more to me than some. Is it offense? Does the link to the advantage/fiat outweigh or prevent turning the case? Does it mean the aff doesn't solve? Questions that should be answered by the 1ar.

I believe that debaters work hard, and I will work hard for them. The more debaters can show they have worked hard: good case debates, specific strategies, etc. the more likely it is I will reward debaters with speaker points and higher effort. In the same vain, debaters who make clear that they don’t work outside of debates won’t receive high speaker points.

Argument issues:

Topicality – It is a voting issue and not a reverse voting issue. I have not yet been persuaded by arguments in favor of reasonability; however, the reason for this usually lies with the fact that affirmatives fail to question the conventional wisdom that limits are good.

Kritiks – It will be difficult to convince me that I should completely disregard my conceptions of rationality, pragmatism and my aversion to unnecessary death. As a general rule, I think of Kritiks like a counterplan with net-benefits. The more aff specific the better.

Counterplans – I am up in the air about textual vs. functional competition – they both have their time and place, and are probably not universal rules. The cross-ex answer “for your DAs but not your counterplans” has always made negative sense to me. I understand that there are MANDATES of the plan and EFFECTS of the plan; I find this distinction more understandable than the usual c-x answer.

Rundown of general thoughts about counterplans:

Conditionality – it's feeling like a little bit much at the moment
PICs – Good, especially if they PIC out of a part of the plan
Consult/Condition – Up in the air and context specific. Solvency advocates, aff stances, etc. can change my feelings.
Delay – Aff leaning, but might be more competitive based on the structure of the affirmative, or a cross-ex answer. For example, if the affirmative has an advantage that takes the position the advantage can only be solved if it happens before "X" date, then the counterplan to do it after that date seems competitive.
Word PICs – Aff leaning
Alternate non-USFG actors – Aff leaning


Demeanor issues:

Be respectful of your opponent, partner and judge. All types of discrimination are prohibited. Don’t clip cards, don’t cut cards out of context, etc. Don't misclose.

Finally, our community relies on host tournaments with classroom space - don't steal, defame or destroy it.

Any questions, ask.

Judy Butler: Hired Gun

Affiliations: Too numerous to list

Experience: High School: 29 years; College: 27 years

I will not attempt to characterize what the purpose or value of debate is in this missive; merely how I tend to evaluate the debates I get to judge. I think of myself as a teacher and the debaters as students and strive to treat them with the respect that relationship deserves. I thoroughly enjoy judging debates from almost any theoretical perspective. I also strive to support new ideas, sources of evidence, academic fields and literature entering debate that have traditionally been undervalued.

I like judging debates where the debaters directly address each other's arguments from the jump as opposed to waiting until rebuttals to compare arguments.

I like judging debates where the arguments/positions evolve in relation to one another as opposed to simply in vacuums - I will totally listen to debates about conditionality and don't have attitude about multiple advocacies.

I like judging debates when the debaters show respect for each other, including their partners - contempt for an argument or position is different than contempt for a person.

I like judging theory debates that have depth as opposed to breadth - five or seven words are really not arguments, nor are they flowable. I ten to shy away from voting on theory arguments that require that I "punish" debaters. I prefer theory arguments that are grounded in the effect on the debate process and the value of including or excluding certain argumentative perspectives and practices.

I like judging debaters that focus on comparison and argument evolution rather than repetition and tend to reward both content and style when apportioning speaker points. Specifically, winning your argument is different than answering theirs: saying why you are right AND why they are wrong is the minimum necessary to answer/extend an argument and put yourself in a position to win that argument in the last rebuttals. Ideally, this level of extension could begin in the 1NC and could continue throughout the debate by all the following speeches.

I promise to be riveted to your speeches, your cross-exes, and my flow. I flow what the evidence says, not just your label. I hope that softens the blow when I say that I don't want to be on the email chain - the debate I'm judging is the one I heard and flowed, not the one I read. If I need/want to see something I will ask - but I need you to be clear in the first place. If you want to understand and comprehend the quality extensions I am asking for in real time, clarity when you originally read your evidence is critical.

PS: Your prep time stops running when you have sent the speech - not before

Happy Debating!

Background:

• I debated for Niles West in high school and West Georgia in college.
• BA in Philosophy.
• Currently coaching at Niles West.

Email:

• gershom000@gmail.com

Top level things:

• If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is.
• If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
• Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
• I’m extremely hesitant to vote on arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.
• Absolutely no ties and the first team that asks for one will lose my ballot.
• Soliciting any outside assistance during a round will lose my ballot.

Pet peeves:

• Lack of clarity. Clarity > speed 100% of the time.
• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start.
• Email-sending related failures.
• Dead time.
• Stealing prep.
• Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team.
• Asserting things are dropped when they aren't.
• Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards.
• Marking almost every card in the doc.
• Disappearing after the round.
• Quoting my paradigm in your speeches.
• Sending PDFs instead of Word Docs.

Ethics:

• If you are caught clipping you will receive a loss and the lowest possible points.
• If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted the lowest possible points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted the lowest possible points.
• If you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me.

Cross-x:

• Yes, I’m fine with tag-team cx. But dominating your partner’s cx will result in lower points for both of you.
• Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions, and I will run the timer accordingly.
• If you fail to ask the status of the off, I will be less inclined to vote for condo.
• If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate:

• I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting.

Affirmatives:

• I’m fine with plan or planless affirmatives. However, I believe all affirmatives should advocate for/defend something. What that something entails is up for debate, but I’m hesitant to vote for affirmatives that defend absolutely nothing.

Topicality:

• I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise.
• The most important thing for me in T debates is an in-depth explanation of the types of affs your interp would include/exclude and the impact that the inclusion/exclusion would have on debate.
• 5 second ASPEC shells/the like have become nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans:

• For me counterplans are more about competition than theory. While I tend to lean more neg on questions of CP theory, I lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps.

Disads:

• If you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn, it should go on its own sheet. Failure to do so is super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders.

Kritiks:

• The more specific the link the better. Even if your cards aren’t that specific, applying your evidence to the specifics of the affirmative through nuanced analysis is always preferable to a generic link extension.
• ‘You link you lose’ strategies are not my favorite. I’m willing to vote on them if the other team fails to respond properly, but I’m very sympathetic to aff arguments about it being a bad model for debate.
• I find many framework debates end up being two ships passing in the night. Line by line answers to the other team's framework standards goes a long way in helping win framework in front of me.

Theory:

• Almost all theory arguments are reasons to reject the argument, condo is usually the only exception.
• Conditionality is often good. It can be not. I have found myself to be increasingly aff leaning on extreme conditionality (think many plank cps where all of the planks are conditional + 4-5 more conditional options).
• Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

Framework/T-USfg:

• I find impacts about debatability, clash, and iterative testing to be very persuasive.
• I am not really persuaded by fairness impacts, but will vote on it if mishandled.
• I am not really persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.
• I am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.
• I don't think debate is role-playing.

• If the aff drops SSD or the TVA and the 2NR extends it, I will most likely vote neg.

Some Info about Me:

I was a policy debater throughout high school at Ransom Everglades and went to the TOC my senior year. I'm currently a junior at Princeton University. I'm a member of the Princeton Debate Panel, and am studying public & international affairs.

Very Important:

Debate becomes unpleasant to participate in and judge when the debaters are excessively mean to one another.

In the words of Maggie Berthiaume: "Please be nice. If you can’t be nice to others (the other team, your partner, me, the novice flowing the debate in the back of the room), please don’t prefer me. Ignore this and you will almost certainly not be pleased with your points. There is a fine line between competitive spirit and needless cruelty — know it. Repeatedly and annoyingly interrupting people while they are trying to answer your CX questions will lower your points."

Policy Paradigm:

General:

1) I haven’t judged any rounds on this topic, so it’d be helpful to explain all acronyms and programs that you think are relevant.

2) I will judge by the flow. As a result, doing clear line by line will make it far easier for you to win. That also means that I’m not at all a fan of long overviews. It’s much easier to judge if we all have the same understanding of how arguments fit together, rather than 8-minute-long overviews that I have to put together at the end of the round.

3) I was a 1A/2N so I try to protect the 2NR from unpredictable 2AR maneuvers.

4) Evidence quality is important. The more you explain your evidence in the context of your opponents, the farther ahead you will be. I’ll read cards when they are contested by both sides and if they’re relevant to the large issues of the debate.

No Plan Affs: Debate is a game and the role of the ballot is to vote for the team that did the best debating. Policy-making can be productive. There’s a difference between framework and topicality. Procedural fairness is an extremely important impact and a well-prepared opponent is crucial to fair debates. Specific topical versions of the aff are fantastic and that part of the debate is often the most decisive.

T: Topicality is a debate about what the topic looks like in the world of either team’s interpretations, and that’s how it should be explained. I generally believe that reasonability comes before competing interpretations.

Theory: I don’t think I have any strong pre-dispositions for theory debates, only because I didn’t have many of those debates. I would greatly prefer to watch debates about content rather than just debaters reading pre-prepared theory shells without any real clash.

Disads: They’re good, especially topic disads. Also, politics DAs are cool. They let debaters learn about current events and provide predictable ground.

CP: Huge fan. Generic counterplans are fine, as long as you have specific solvency advocates and clearly articulated net benefits.

Ks: I probably know very little about the literature that your kritiks are based in. That means the burden of explanation is higher and link work is extremely important. I do think that turns case arguments can be effective but I will be sympathetic to the aff’s arguments on the perm and their explanations of why pragmatism and policy-making is important. I am not the correct audience for death good arguments.

LD Paradigm (for the Princeton Classic):

I know very little about LD, but here are some miscellaneous thoughts I have:

1. Theory: I'll start by saying that I sometimes find myself struggling in theory debates, mostly because I don't have lots of experience for what the norms for theory are in LD. I would suggest that if you go for theory, either do so slowly and clearly, or go for substance.

Some theoretical dispositions: explain why fairness and education matter and why it's a reason to reject the team, not the argument. Disclosure is a good thing because it allows for better, more fair debates with more prepared debaters. I will probably default to reasonability. Proving actual abuse is better than potential abuse. Also, RVIs just don't make sense to me.

2. Topicality/Framework: I think affs should be topical and policy-making is good. I will probably understand the basic concepts behind most kritiks, and they should be extremely well explained and impacted out.

3. Policy Style Arguments: These are great.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the round!

The paradigm is split up into things you might want to know before the tournament when doing prefs, and things you might want to know before a round.

Email address for chains and debate-related contact is rcdebate2@gmail.com

For Prefs:

1) Accommodations - I have difficulties with processing auditory information and verbalizing my decisions. I would appreciate some level of accommodation, primarily that y'all go clearer and slower, especially on tags, and signposting/labeling of arguments in the rebuttal speeches. Clear signals of when you are moving on from an argument are also welcome - I flow on my laptop, and often end up flowing upwards of 2/3rds of what you say verbatim pretty much straight down with some attempts at matching up arguments on the flow, but I need some help/signalling from debaters as per when one argument ends and another begins. Please email me at the address above regarding questions about decisions not asked during RFDs or further lines of clarification.

2) Framework - I am not often persuaded by framework/T-USFG negative arguments, so I'm not a safe bet in those rounds. When I do judge those rounds, I am more persuaded by arguments focusing on potential material educational benefits of debate than fairness (fairness is not an impact, as I do not understand why debate is an intrinsic good), but it's still a pretty uphill battle.

3) Experience - did LD in high school, four years of policy in college, and this is my fifth year of coaching and judging as a graduate student assistant. I largely read critical arguments and have judged mostly k-on-k debates and clash rounds, with a few policy rounds thrown in. I was a 2A, and the critical affirmatives I wrote were largely high theory shenanigans related to race, war, and imperialism.

4) Orientation to judging - I consider judging to be a job - I'm in the pool because it's related to obligations tied to my employment. I respect debaters time, effort, and scholarship and try to give feedback that will help refine argumentation and scholarship. Further, I don't have any strong identification as an educator, a blank slate, or a rational policy/decision-maker. This means that, especially in critical rounds, I would appreciate some instruction regarding how I should be viewing/judging the arguments in the debate, but otherwise I'll just default to what's in the next bullet point. I enjoy learning while judging, so new ways to see things or just some fun facts are always appreciated speaker points-wise.

5) How I judge - I see my role in debate as the person that has to be persuaded to press either the affirmative or negative button on tabroom based on what happens in the round. The affirmative should probably make a claim to doing something good, and the negative should say that whatever the aff did is either a) bad or b) doesn't do anything good. I start my decisions with framework/framing arguments - who's told me what the function of the debate should be and how to judge who has done that function better. I then evaluate either a) what's up with the aff in the 2AR based on what can be mobilized from the 1AR - how is it being extended, does it still do stuff, etc. and/or b) what core issue(s) of the debate the 2NR has identified/hinges on.

I often have some idea of b) going in to the 2AR, which entails I generally have some sense of what the aff would need to address to win (i.e. prove their advocacy is still good and 'solves' in some way), which leads to some quick decisions on my part - if my decision takes a while, either I'm trying to figure out how to word my decision properly and/or I'm very confused about what's happening/missed something. I care a lot about good warranting in the last speeches for arguments you're going for, and of course clear judge instruction and weighing. I'm not the most technical judge, but I do care that important arguments are answered although I would like the function of whatever dropped argument is being extended to be explained. You're better off going for a few well explained arguments rather than trying to cover everything.

For this next part, these are largely preferences/tendencies in how I view things based off of my experience with judging, and are subject to change/what happens in rounds.

Before a round:

1) Evidence quality vs analytic argumentation - I like good evidence, and I do not mind when debaters apply evidence in creative contexts, but evidence that you read is not by itself an argument. I often read evidence while it's being read in a speech, in cross-x, or during prep time because of my difficulties with processing auditory information. I don't think you need a card for everything, and also value good extrapolation of warrants, analysis and comparison of authors and citations, and applications of evidence.

I appreciate historical and contemporary examples (and metaphors/analogies), especially when it comes from your evidence, but I also need those examples to be well explained - an example is not in and of itself a warrant, but they're pretty essential for me to understand your argument and find what you're saying persuasive. Examples help concretize your warrants and make your argument something I can understand better - it's okay to kind of treat me like somebody who doesn't easily understand what people are saying, especially when they say it very quickly. Jargon's fine but we might not agree on the meaning of stuff so explain what you actually mean when you can.

2) Presumption - it's real, and if I don't think the 2AR sufficiently defends that the aff is good in some way the chance I end up voting negative at least a bit - also, it's not often that presumption is the best 2NR, it should be paired with some offense. I probably am amenable to presumption arguments because I think case debate is important. You don't have to put stuff directly on case flow, but aff's get away with so many things they shouldn't especially when it comes to how well their internal links are supported by the evidence, and it pains me to watch 2Ns miss some of that stuff.

I start my decisions (in my head) with the question of presumption/what the aff does, so keep that in mind. I tend to let negative alternatives get away with murder (although please don't call random alt related arguments a floating PIC it's really confusing for me) it despite having been a 2A, so watch out for that and point out when they don't haven't extended warrants. I can be persuaded that presumption flips affirmative, but that might just be because I don't entirely understand that phrase.

3) Framework (not T-USFG but for policy aff v k or k v k rounds) - I don't care as much about fairness, but I do think that both policy and critical teams should be forwarding arguments about how debate and arguments works and how I should be judging them. Debate theory arguments supported by actual theoretical arguments (be they critical or not) are valuable. For policy affs, I think of framework as a question of you telling me why talking about a plan might actually lead to the impact being addressed. For the negative, you can do some real damage here - tell me why the aff can't resolve what it's talking about, and what you're doing differently. I'm cool with whatever epistemology/ontology/affect/performance/ethics stuff you want to talk about.

I do think that people can make good arguments for how and why debate 'does things,' because it's a weird community full of some weird repetitions, but it's a question of how you explain that (and if you think debate doesn't 'do anything' you really gotta tell me what that means). Questions of 'spill over' and 'the ballot' are often red herrings for more substantive analysis of how the relationship between debaters, debates, policy debate as a format/medium of speech, the debate community, academic institutions, and 'the real world' works, so less debate jargon and more explanation helps.

4) Links and Perms - I really appreciate a good link argument with a quotation from the affirmative, an example, and an impact. You don't need a card for your links, as good analysis applied to specific parts of the aff will do the trick, but cards can help a ton. I appreciate depth of a link rather than several link arguments.

I don't often care for most 'no perms' debate theory arguments (like method v method means no perms bc advocacy can shift kind of arguments), and in those cases I would be more persuaded by no perms arguments grounded in theories of performance and speech (taken broadly) applied to debate. I'd prefer that the neg wins a substantive link as a DA or some degree of mutual exclusivity/trade-off. It helps me understand the difference between the aff and the neg better when DAs to the perm that are not just link arguments are applied to how the aff has explained the permutation. "Do both" is rarely enough in the 2AC, and by the 1AR I would like to know how the perm works more in depth - framework arguments about debate help here.

5) Overviews - I prefer short overviews that give me a primer on what to expect for the rest of the 9 minutes on the line-by-line + identification/flagging of important arguments (like links, tricks, and turns case stuff), but if you gotta do the long overview go for it, they are fine but a bit difficult to flow - it would be appreciated if you made the lines between the different chunks of argument you're making more clear if that's the case. It's easier for me to flow when debaters slow and then speed up; otherwise I fail to catch certain key warrants. It's also fine if you don't care too much about the flow and do whatever.

6) Theory - both policy and critical arguments rely on theoretical premises, and I'd appreciate when folks are ready to make them explicit. Theory should be a building block in a broader argument, so the arguments you make don't have to use evidence from authors that are 100% theoretically consistent with each other, but you should still be somewhat prepared to defend the political implications, associations, and (mis)uses of the theoretical dispositions your evidence is tied to. Big contradictions between authors and lit bases, however, do matter. I'm sympathetic to arguments about how theory functions in academia/academic community for better or for worse, but it's not necessarily only tied to that context.

Winning big theory thesis claims does not always mean that you win the debate (unless such claims go uncontested, and even then I need a brief explanation for why that matters). Theory is significant as a way of explaining how stuff works and how to engage in stuff, but an advocacy can be good (and a link valid) even if you 'lose' parts of the theory debate. I see theory and praxis as intertwined but sometimes it's worth making the distinction to explain warrants, so focusing on highlighting both (or explaining how they might be one and the same) helps me out when I am making my decisions.

I've coached LASA since 2005. I judge ~120 debates per season on the high school circuit.

If there’s an email chain, please add me: yaosquared@gmail.com.

If you have little time before the debate, here’s all you need to know:do what you do best. I try to be as unbiased as possible and I will defer to your analysis. As long as you are clear, go as fast as you want.

Most judges give appalling decisions. Here's where I will try to be better than them:

• They intervene, even when they claim they won't. Perhaps "tech over truth" doesn't mean what it used to. I will attempt to adjudicate and reach a decision purely on only the words you say. If that's insufficient to reach a decision either way--and it often isn't--I will add the minimum work necessary to come to a decision. The more work I have to do, the wider the range of uncertainty for you and the lower your speaks go.
• They aren't listening carefully. They're mentally checked out, flowing off the speech doc, distracted by social media, or have half their headphones off and are taking selfies during the 1AR. I will attempt to flow every single detail of your speeches. I will probably take notes during CX if I think it could affect my decision. If you worked hard on debate, you deserve a judge who works hard as well.
• They givepoorly-reasoned decisions that rely on gut instincts and ignore arguments made in the 2NR/2AR. I will probably take my sweet time making and writing my decision. I will try to be as thorough and transparent as possible. If I intervene anywhere, I will explain why I had to intervene and how you could've prevented that intervention. If I didn't catch or evaluate an argument, I will explain why you under-explained or failed to extend it. I will try to anticipate your questions and preemptively answer them in my decision.
• They reconstruct the debateand try to find themost creative and convoluted path to a ballot. I guess they're trying to prove they're smart? These decisions are detestable because they take the debate away from the hands of the debaters. If there are multiple paths to victory for both teams, I will take what I think is the shortest path and explain why I think it's the shortest path, and you can influence my decision by explaining why you control the shortest path. But, I'm not going to use my decision to attempt to prove I'm more clever than the participants of the debate.
• If you think the 1AR is a constructive, you should strike me.

Meta Issues:

• I’m not a professional debate coach or even a teacher. I work as a finance analyst in the IT sector and I volunteer as a debate coach on evenings and weekends. I don’t teach at debate camp and my topic knowledge comes primarily from judging debates. My finance background means that,when left to my own devices, I err towards precision, logic, data, and concrete examples. However, I can be convinced otherwise in any particular debate, especially when it’s not challenged by the other team.
• Tech over truth in most instances. I will stick to my flow and minimize intervention as much as possible. I firmly believe that debates should be left to the debaters. I rarely make facial expressions because I don’t want my personal reactions to affect how a debate plays out. I will maintain a flow, even if you ask me not to. However, tech over truth has its limits. An argument must have sufficient explanation for it to matter to me, even if it’s dropped. You need a warrant and impact, not just a claim.
• Evidence comparisonis under-utilized and is very important to me in close debates. I often call for evidence, but I’m much more likely to call for a card if it’s extended by author or cite.
• I don’t judge or coach at the college level, which means I’m usually a year or two behind the latest argument trends that are first broken in college and eventually trickle down to high school.If you’re reading something that’s close to the cutting edge of debate arguments, you’ll need to explain it clearly. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear new arguments. On the contrary, a big reason why I continue coaching debate is because I enjoy listening to and learning about new arguments that challenge my existing ways of thinking.
• Please mark your own cards. No one is marking them for you.
• If I feel that you are deliberately evading answering a question or have straight up lied, and the question is important to the outcome of the debate, I will stop the timer and ask you to answer the question. Example: if you read condo bad, the neg asks in CX whether you read condo bad, and you say no, I’ll ask if you want me to cross-out condo on my flow.

Framework:

• Don't over-adapt to me in these debates. If you are most comfortable going for procedural fairness, do that. If you like going for advocacy skills, you do you. Like any other debate, framework debates hinge onimpact calculus and comparison.
• When I vote neg, it’s usually because the aff team missed the boat on topical version, has made insufficient inroads into the neg’s limits disad, and/or is winning some exclusion disad but is not doing comparative impact calculus against the neg’s offense. The neg win rate goes up if the 2NR can turn or access the aff's primary impact (e.g. clash and argument testing is vital to ethical subject formation).
• When I vote aff, it’s usually because the 2NR is disorganized and goes for too many different impacts, there’s no topical version or other way to access the aff’s offense, and/or concedes an exclusion disad that is then impacted out by the 2AR.
• On balance, I am worse for 2ARs that impact turn framework than 2ARs that have a counter-interp. If left to my own devices, I believe in models and in the ballot's ability to, over the course of time, bring models into existence. I have trouble voting aff if I can't understand what future debates look like under the aff's model.

Topicality:

• Over the years, “tech over truth” has led me to vote neg on some untruthful T violations. If you’re neg and you’ve done a lot of research and are ready to throw down on a very technical and carded T debate, I’m a good judge for you.
• If left to my own devices, predictability > debatability.
• Reasonability is a debate about the aff’s counter-interpretation, not their aff.The size of the link to the limits disad usually determines how sympathetic I amtowards this argument, i.e. if the link is small, then I’m more likely to conclude the aff’s C/I is reasonable even without other aff offense.

Kritiks:

• The kritik teams I've judged that have earned the highest speaker points givehighly organizedandstructuredspeeches, are disciplined in line-by-line debating, andemphasize key momentsin their speeches.
• Just like most judges,the more case-specific your link and the more comprehensive your alternative explanation, the more I’ll be persuaded by your kritik.
• I greatly prefer the 2NC structure where you have a short (or no) overview anddo as much of your explanation on the line-by-line as possible. If your overview is 6 minutes, you make blippy cross-applications on the line-by-line, and then you drop the last three 2AC cards, I’m going to give the 1AR a lot of leeway on extending those concessions, even if they were somewhat implicitly answered in your overview.
• Framework debates on kritiks often don't matter. For example, the neg extends a framework interp about reps, but only goes for links to plan implementation. Before your 2NR/2AR, ask yourself what winning framework gets you/them.
• I’m not a good judge for “role of the ballot” arguments, as I usually find these to be self-serving for the team making them.I’m also not a good judge for “competing methods means the aff doesn’t have a right to a perm”. I think the aff always has a right to a perm, but the question is whether the perm is legitimate and desirable, which is a substantive issue to be debated out, not a gatekeeping issue for me to enforce.
• I’m an OK judge for K “tricks”. A conceded root cause explanation, value to life impact, or “alt solves the aff” claim is effective if it’s sufficiently explained.The floating PIK needs to be clearly made in the 2NCfor me to evaluate it. If your K strategy hinges on hiding a floating PIK and suddenly busting it out in the 2NR, I’m not a good judge for you.

Counterplans:

• Just like most judges, I prefercase-specific over generic counterplans, but we can’t always get what we want.
• I lean neg on PICs. I lean aff on international fiat, 50 state fiat, condition, and consult. These preferences can change based on evidence or lack thereof. For example, if the neg has a state counterplan solvency advocate in the context of the aff, I’m less sympathetic to theory.
• I will not judge kickthe CP unless explicitly told to do so by the 2NR, and it would not take much for the 2AR to persuade me to ignore the 2NR’s instructions on that issue.
• Presumption is in the direction of less change. If left to my own devices, I will probably conclude that most counterplans that are not explicitly PICs are a larger change than the aff.

Disadvantages:

• I’m a sucker for specific and comparative impact calculus. For example, most nuclear war impacts are probably not global nuclear war but some kind of regional scenario. I want to know why your specific regional scenario is faster and/or more probable. Reasonable impact calculus is much more persuasive to me than grandiose impact claims.
• Uniqueness only "controls the direction of the link" if uniqueness can be determined with certainty (e.g. whip count on a bill, a specific interest rate level). On most disads where uniqueness is a probabilistic forecast (e.g. future recession, relations, elections), the uniqueness and link are equally important, which means I won't compartmentalize and decide them separately.
• Zero risk is possiblebut difficult to prove by the aff. However, a miniscule neg risk of the disad is probably background noise.

Theory:

• I actually enjoy listening to a good theory debate, but these seem to be exceedingly rare. I think I can be persuaded that many theoretical objections require punishing the team and not simply rejecting the argument, but substantial work needs to be done on why setting a precedent on that particular issue is important. You're unlikely to win that a single intrinsic permutation is a round-winning voter, even if the other team drops it, unless you are investing significant time in explaining why it should be an independent voting issue.
• I think thatI lean affirmative compared to the rest of the judging community on the legitimacy of counterplans. In my mind, a counterplan that is wholly plan-inclusive (consultation, condition, delay, etc.) is theoretically questionable. The legitimacy of agent counterplans, whether domestic or international, is also contestable. I think the negative has the right to read multiple planks to a counterplan, but reading each plank conditionally is theoretically suspect.

Miscellaneous:

• I usually take a long time to decide, and give lengthy decisions. LASA debaters have benefitted from the generosity of judges, coaches, and lab leaders who used their decisions to teach and trade ideas, not just pick a winner and get a paycheck. Debaters from schools with limited/no coaching, the same schools needed to prevent the decline in policy debate numbers, greatly benefit from judging feedback. I encourage you to ask questions and engage in respectful dialogue with me. However, post-round hostility will be met with hostility. I've been providing free coaching and judging since before you were birthed into the world. If I think you're being rude or condescending to me or your opponents, I will enthusiastically knock you back down to Earth.
• I don't want a card doc. If you send one, I will ignore it. Card docs are an opportunity for debaters to insert cards they didn't read, didn't extend, or re-highlight. They're also an excuse for lazy judges to compensate for a poor flow by reconstructing the debate after the fact. If your debating was disorganized and you need a card doc to return some semblance of organization, I'd rather adjudicate the disorganized debate and then tell you it was disorganized.

Ways to Increase/Decrease Speaker Points:

• Look and sound like you want to be here.Judging can be spirit murder if you're disengaged and disinterested. By contrast, if you're engaged, I'll be more engaged and helpful with feedback.
• Argument resolution minimizes judgeintervention. Most debaters answer opposing positions by staking out the extreme opposite position, which is generally unpersuasive. Instead, take the middle ground. Assume the best out of your opponents' arguments and use "even if" framing.
• I am usually unmoved by aggression, loud volume, rudeness, and other similar posturing. It's both dissuasive and distracting. By contrast,being unusually nice will always be rewarded with higher pointsand never be seen as weakness. This will be especially appreciated if you make the debate as welcoming as possible against less experienced opponents.
• Do not steal prep. Make it obvious that you are not prepping if there's not a timer running.
• Do not be the person who asks for a roadmap one second after the other team stops prep. Chill. I will monitor prep usage, not you. You're not saving us from them starting a speech without giving a roadmap.
• Stop asking for a marked doc when they've only skipped or marked one or two cards.It's much faster to ask where they marked that card, and then mark it on your copy. If you marked/skipped many cards, you should proactively offer to send a new doc before CX.

Here is my email for the email chain:

Williamc0402@gmail.com

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

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

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

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

Also, some other things:

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

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

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

Joshua Clark

Montgomery Bell Academy

University of Michigan - Institute Instructor
Email: jreubenclark10@gmail.com

Past Schools:
Juan Diego Catholic
Notre Dame in Sherman Oaks
Damien

Debating:
Jordan (UT) 96-98
College of Eastern Utah 99
Cal St Fullerton 01-04

Website:
HSImpact.com

Speaker Points
Points will generally stay between 27.5 and 29.9. It generally takes a 28.8 average to clear. I assign points with that in mind. Teams that average 28.8 or higher in a debate mean I thought your points were elimination round-level debates. While it's not an exact science, 29-29.1 means you had a good chance of advancing in elimination rounds, and 29.2+ indicates excellence reserved for quarters+. I'm not stingy with these kinds of points; they have nothing to do with past successes. It has everything to do with your performance in THIS debate.


Etiquette
1. Try to treat each other with mutual respect.

2. Cards and tags should have the same clarity
3. Cards MUST be marked during the speech. Please say, "Mark the card," and please have you OR your partner physically mark the cards in the speech. It is not possible to remember where you've marked your cards after the speech. Saying "mark the card" is the only way to let your judge and competitors know that you do not intend to represent that you've read the entirety of the card. Physically marking the card in the speech is necessary to maintain an accurate account of what you did or didn't read.

Overview
My 25 years in the community have led me to formulate opinions about how the activity should be run. I'm not sharing these with you because I think this is the way you have to debate but because you may get some insight about how to win and earn better speaker points in front of me.

1) Conceded claims without warrants - These aren't complete arguments. A 10-second dropped ASPEC is very unlikely to decide a debate for me. Perm, do the CP without a theoretical justification; it also makes zero sense. Perm - do both needs to be followed by an explanation for how it resolves the link to the net benefit, or it is not an argument.

2) Voting issues are reasons to reject the argument. (Other than conditionality)

3) Debate stays in the round -- Debate is a game of testing ideas and their counterparts. Those ideas presented in the debate will be the sole factor used in determining the winning team. Things said or done outside of this debate round will not be considered when determining a winning team.

4) Your argument doesn't improve by calling it a "DA" -- I'm sure your analytical standard to your framework argument on the K is great, but overstating its importance by labeling it a "DA" isn't accurate. It's a reason to prefer your interpretation.

Topicality vs Conventional Affs: I default to competing interpretations on topicality but can be persuaded by reasonability. Topicality is a voting issue.

Topicality vs Critical Affs: I generally think that policy debate is a good thing and that a team should both have a plan and defend it. Given that, I have no problem voting for "no plan" advocacies or "fiat-less" plans. I will be looking for you to win that your impact turns to topicality/framework outweighs the loss of education/fairness that would be given in a "fiated" plan debate. Affirmative teams struggle with answering the argument that they could advocate most of their aff while defending a topical plan. I also think that teams who stress they are a pre-requisite to topical action have a more difficult time with topical version-type arguments than teams who impact turn standards. If you win that the state is irredeemable at every level, you are much more likely to get me to vote against FW. The K aff teams who have had success in front of me have been very good at generating a good list of arguments that opposing teams could run against them to mitigate the fairness impact of the T/FW argument. This makes the impact turns of a stricter limit much more persuasive to me.

I'm also in the fairness camp as a terminal impact, as opposed to an emphasis on portable skills. I think you can win that T comes before substantive issues.

One note to teams that are neg against an aff that lacks stable advocacy: Make sure you adapt your framework arguments to fit the aff. Don't read..." you must have a plan" if they have a plan. If a team has a plan but doesn't defend fiat, base your ground arguments on that violation.


Counterplans and Disads: The more specific to the aff, the better. There are few things better than a well-researched PIC that just blind sites a team. Objectively, I think counterplans that compete on certainty or immediacy are not legitimate. However, I still coach teams to run these arguments, and I can still evaluate a theory debate about these different counterplans as objectively as possible. Again, the more specific the evidence is to the aff, the more legitimate it will appear.


The K: I was a k debater and a philosophy major in college. I prefer criticisms that are specific to the resolution. If your K links don't discuss poverty and redistribution strategies this year, then it's unlikely to be very persuasive to me.

Impact comparisons usually become the most important part of a kritik, and the excessive link list becomes the least of a team’s problems heading into the 2nr. It would be best if you won that either a) you turn the case and have an external impact or b) you solve the case and have an external impact. Root cause arguments are sound but rarely address the timeframe issue of case impacts. If you are going to win your magnitude comparisons, then you better do a lot to mitigate the case impacts. I also find most framework arguments associated with a K nearly pointless. Most of them are impacted by the K proper and depend on you winning the K to win the framework argument. Before devoting any more time to the framework beyond getting your K evaluated, you should ask yourself and clearly state to me what happens if you win your theory argument. You should craft your "role of the ballot" argument based on the answer to that question. I am willing to listen to sequencing arguments that EXPLAIN why discourse, epistemology, ontology, etc., come first.


Conclusion: I love debate...good luck if I'm judging you, and please feel free to ask any clarifying questions.

To promote disclosure at the high school level, any team that practices near-universal "open source" will be awarded .2 extra per debater if you bring that to my attention before the RFD.

Top Level

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

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

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

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

Relevant Predispositions

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

Do what you want, debate is supposed to be fun!

Cypress Bay High School

Wake Forest University

Baylor University

Good speaks for good debating, great speaks for being funny and/or just great debating.

I'll vote for anything, just turn up. What follows are my existing thoughts/biases on how to win in front of me in policy debates, please scroll to the bottom for LD and PF.

Email: robertofr99@gmail.com

CX Paradigm: NDT Updates 3/29/23

T: I don't hold strong enough opinions about topic wording and plans to stand by in a debate so judge direction on what SHOULD matter is critical. I don't judge many though and because of that I'd say I'm more likely to default to competing interpretations than not. It would have to be a pretty clear case for me to vote on reasonability. End of year thoughts: nothing is AI and everything is nature; T-subsets is mostly valid.

FW: You can go for it. Thoughts: Unlike other judges, I think to win you need to prove your model is strictly better than a model that includes the aff, which means you should probably be able to prove that a solely plan-based model would be better than the mixed status quo.

I default to thinking of these as debates about models and not about interpretations of the wording of the resolution. That means I prefer that the aff have a counter-interp, even if that counter-interp is totally unlimited. What matters is that both teams have a vision of what their model looks like. No counter-interp is also valid and often strategic so feel free to do that too.

I won't say whether fairness is an impact because that depends on what is said and won in any given debate, but what I will say is that proving that debate is a game does not, on its own, strongly imply that fairness is an intrinsic good. Fairness is also a sliding scale, so I expect nuance about the magnitude of the internal link between the violation or the counter-interp and the fairness impact.

I think that FW teams would benefit from incorporating some kind of uniqueness argument or warrant into their skills modules that substantiates why the skills we learn from plan-based debating are valuable in the current political moment. I often find that teams lose debates where they are winning their limits arguments by failing to justify the value of THIS fair game.

K: Do whatever, odds are I've read something you are reading or someone citing else citing the same people as your authors. That means jargon is fine as long as it's used meaningfully. Big words are meant to convey even bigger ideas in less time so using jargon precisely can really elevate the quality of your speech, but on the other hand, just stringing words together without much thought may really hurt your speech. Performance debate is great, all kinds of art can be evidence as long as I can see/hear/flow it (unless there's a reason I shouldn't I'm up for that too, but I won't stop flowing your opponents speeches during the debate even if you ask me to, that is up to them).

CP: I guess this is more about conditionality than anything, I'd rather not have to deal with more than 4 or 5 conditional advocacies or I might actually vote on condo. I think most counter-plans should have solvency advocates, I can't think of an example that wouldn't off the top of my head but I'm hesitant to say I wouldn't be convinced by ANY CP without one.

DAs: I think the spill-over DA is just a bad argument. If you win it you win it but I feel like I have to be upfront about thinking this argument is garbage.

LD Paradigm:

I'm down with anything, except for really outlandish tricks and some frivolous theory. You could still win "Topic auto-affirms/negates because of definitions" in front of me but my bar is as low as "even if that's true we should ignore it and debate a common understanding of the resolution for X, Y, Z reasons" for me to throw away those kinds of arguments. I have a very deep background in critical theory and philosophy so Phil, K debating, and Skep are all fine by me as long as you remember to explain why I should vote for you rather than just exposing on an argument and hoping that will translate to a win. I like evidence, but evidence can be poetry, music, art, memes, etc. as long as it's used to substantiate something and not just presented without argument.

PF Paradigm:

You should read my other paradigms to get an idea of what I think of different types of arguments, this section is mostly dedicated to what I think of PF norms.

I care about evidence more than most PF judges, I don't think you shouldn't be allowed to reference current events to make points but I think having evidence prepared is definitely more convincing than listing off things that I may or may not have heard of to prove a point. I will want to receive any evidence you use in the debate, so that I can evaluate the comparative quality of evidence when deciding things after the debate. I will prefer low quality delivery of high quality arguments over high quality delivery of low quality arguments.

I will not deduct speaker points for superficial things like profanity or dress, I care about rhetoric as a tool of persuasion and information exchange not as a show of pageantry. Be intentional about what you are saying and why are you are saying it, and I will reward you based on the persuasiveness of that delivery.

Please be respectful to your opponents, your partner, and me in debates, and that means being respectful of our time during prep and cross-examination. If people ask to see your evidence, don't make them waste prep time for you to send it to them, they should already have it.

If you have any specific questions about types of arguments in PF or norms, please feel free to ask me. As a general rule, if it exists in policy or LD I'm willing to vote for it but also willing to vote against it on the basis that these arguments are illegitimate in PF, you just have to actually win that.

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

College Prep ‘14
Emory ‘18

Woodward 2018 Note: Really excited to judge the budding minds of debate's future! Please make sure that you speak clearly (even if you sacrifice some speed). You really need evidence about your counterplan in relation to the aff. Its super boring listening to a generic CP/DA with no nuance or specific link/solvency analysis.

I do want to be on the email chains: mollie.fiero@gmail.com

Very few rounds on the Education topic - watch your acronyms/assumed topic knowledge, this is ESPECIALLY TRUE in T debates when its difficult to assess what is "core ground"

Re: Trump -- Durable fiat does not include things your solvency cards say but aren't in your plan text. Understand the executive branch and its power. CX should lay out what is within the scope of the plan and what is up for Trump/his cabinet to decide. I do NOT want to vote on a Trump good politics DA. Don't make me.

1. Be smart, engaging, and nice. Debate in a way that makes you and your coaches proud. Respect your opponents and your partner. Be aware of the gendered and racial implications of the way you speak to/interact with your opponents and partner. Trust that I know what I'm doing, and I'll give you the same courtesy.


2. Flex is good
No insurmountable policy or K bias. I went for T and read a no plan aff at my last tournament. Its good to be a games player, but if one side has an affective argument, or reasons why their argument implicates debate itself those are usually things the other side must at least acknowledge. That being said I am highly literate in 'conservative' policy debate (7+ years of big DA and case debates under my belt) and think those debates are super fun.

AFFS WITHOUT PLANS: You need to have a good explanation (in cx) of - why is this being presented in debate? what is the role of the judge? the negative?

3. Explanation wins debates
Whether it’s the link turn to politics, the K alt, or counterplan solvency, the team with better depth and argument analysis usually wins.

4. Evidence isn’t the end-all be-all
Indicts are great and so is comparison, what I really mean is that true analytics are slayer.

5. I take my task very seriously and will work hard to make the right decision. Even after 4 years of judging high school I'm still learning about myself as a judge, but I am determined to continue to work hard because I respect your time and effort in debates. You and your coaches should be conscious of the way you interact with all judges, but especially (younger) women, queer, and POC judges in post-round interactions.

Finally -- have fun and talk to me if you're interested in Emory debate!

He/him

These are most of the predispositions I have about arguments that I can think of, these are not ironclad as my views on debate are constantly in flux. However, without being instructed otherwise, the below points will likely influence how I evaluate the debate.

Top Level:

-Please add me to the email chain, fifelski@umich.edu and please make the subject something that is easy to search like "NDT 4 - Michigan DM v UCO HS."

-I prefer to flow on paper, but if you would like me to flow on my computer so I can share the flow after the debate, just ask.

-I read along with speech docs and prefer clear, relatively slow, and organized debates. I am still trying to hone flowing in online debate.

-I cannot emphasize enough how important card quality and recency should be in debates, but it requires debaters to frame arguments about that importance.

-If you break a new aff and you don't want to share the docs, I will chalk it up to academic cowardice and presume that the aff is largely a pile of crap.

-Evidence can be inserted if the lines were read in CX, but otherwise this act is insufficient. I will only look at graphs and charts if they are analyzed in the debate.

-I generally think war good arguments are akin to genocide good. I also think dedev is absolute nonsense.

-The past year of my life has been filled with the death of loved ones, please don't remind me of it while I'm judging a debate. I categorically refuse to evaluate any argument that could have the thesis statement of death good or that life is not worth living.

-Affs should be willing to answer cross-x questions about what they'll defend.

Topic thoughts:

-I'm not a fan of this topic, but I don't think "aff ground" arguments make much sense in terms of the topicality debates from fringe affs. The topic is not "adjust nuke policy" so even if "disarming" was a poorly choice word, it doesn't mean you can just get rid of a handful of bombs. Anything else makes the triad portion of the topic irrelevant. It sucks, but the negative should not be punished because the community came to consensus on a topic. Want to fix it? Engage in the thankless work that is crafting the topic.

-Russia is 100% a revisionist power, at war in Europe, and is evil. My thoughts on China are more complex, but I do believe they would take Taiwan if given the chance.

How to sway me:

-More narrativization is better than less

-Ev quality - I think higher quality and recent ev is a necessity. Make arguments about the qualifications of authors, how to evaluate evidence, and describe what events have happened to complicate the reading of their evidence from 2012.

-The 2nr/2ar should spend the first 15-20 seconds explaining how I should vote with judge instruction. If you laid a trap, now is the time to tell me, because I’m probably not going to vote on something that wasn’t flagged as an argument.

-I can flow with the best of them, but I enjoy slower debates so much more.

-More case debate. The 2ac is often too dismissive of case args and the neg often under-utilizes them.

-If reading cards after the debate is required for me to have comprehension of your argument, I’m probably not your judge. I tend to vote on warranted arguments that I have flowed and read cards to evaluate particular warrants that have been called into question. That said, I intend on reading along with speech docs this year.

-I think internal links are the most important parts of an argument; I am more likely to vote for “Asian instability means international coop on warming is impossible” than “nuclear war kills billions” OR “our patriarchy better explains x,y,z” instead of “capitalism causes war.”

-I like when particular arguments are labeled eg) “the youth-voter link” or “the epistemology DA.”

-If you're breaking a new aff/cp, it's probably in your best interest to slow down when making highly nuanced args.

Things I don’t like:

-Generally I think word PICs are bad. Some language obviously needs to be challenged, but if your 1nc strategy involves cntl-f [insert ableist term], I am not the judge for you.

-Overusing offensive language, yelling, being loud during the other team’s speech/prep, and getting into my personal space or the personal space of others will result in fewer speaker points.

-If you think a permutation requires the affirmative to do something they haven’t, you and I have different interpretations of competition theory.

-Old evidence/ blocks that have been circulating in camp files for a decade.

Critical Affs:

-I am probably a better judge for the K than most would suspect. While the sample size is small, I think I vote for critical args around 50% of the time they're the center of the debate.

-A debate has to occur and happen within the speech order/times of the invite; the arguments are made are up to the debaters and I generally enjoy a broad range of arguments, particularly on a topic as dull as this one.

-Too often I think critical affs describe a problem, but don’t explain what voting aff means in the context of that impact.

-Is there a role of the ballot?

-Often I find the “topical version” of the aff argument to be semi-persuasive by the negative, so explain to me the unique benefit of your aff in the form that it is and why switching-sides does not solve that.

-Framework: Explain the topical version of the aff; use your framework impacts to turn/answer the impacts of the 1ac; if you win framework you win the debate because…

Kritiks:

-Links should be contextualized to the aff; saying the aff is capitalist because they use the state is not enough. I'm beginning to think that K's, when read against policy affs, should link to the plan and not just the advantages, I'm not as sold on this as I am my belief on floating pic/ks (95 percent of the time I think floating PIC/Ks aren't arguments worthy of being made, let alone voted on)

-Alternative- what is the framework for evaluating the debate? What does voting for the alternative signify? What should I think of the aff’s truth statements?

-I’m not a fan of high theory Ks, but statistically vote for them a decent percentage of the time.

-When reading the K against K affs, the link should problematize the aff's methodology.

Answering the K:

-Make smart permutation arguments that have explained the net benefits and deal with the negatives disads to the perm.

-You should have a framework for the debate and find ways to dismiss the negative’s alternative.

Disads:

-Overviews that explain the story of the disad are helpful.

-Focus on internal links.

Counterplans:

-I am not a member of the cult of process. Just because you have a random definition of a word from a court in Iowa doesn't mean I think that the counterplan has value. I can be swayed if there are actual cards about the topic and the aff, but otherwise these cps are, as the kids say, mid.

-Your CP should have a solvency advocate that is as descriptive of your mechanism as the affirmative’s solvency advocate is.

Theory/Rules:

-Conditionality is cheating a lot like the Roth test: at some point it’s cheating, otherwise neg flex is good.

-Affs should explain why the negative should lose because of theory, otherwise I’ll just reject the arg.

-I'll likely be unsympathetic to args related to ADA rules, sans things that should actually be rules like clipping.

-I’m generally okay with kicking the CP/Alt for the neg if I’m told to.

sauljhonathanforman@gmail.com

The #1 tip I can give you is that debate is about comparisons - no matter what you're going for, explain why I prefer your stuff even if they win their stuff

1. Cliff Notes

- Not familiar with the topic

- No preference for the number of issues in a debate.

- An argument isn't dropped just bc there's no ink next to it

- Having to choose from non-specific strategies, I prefer politics/case d, a topic t arg, or a topic kritik to process counterplans and kritiks about death and omissions in the 1ac

- I'm going to try to find any way not to vote on cheap shots, so if you're going for "Neg fiat or perms are a voting issue" close all doors

- K frameworks that change the decision from yes/no policy can be won, but even if you win "the role of the ballot is to form ethical subjectivity" you still need to win why the Aff's subjectivity is bad, which sometimes requires beating the case

- Counterplan competition - I generally think of it as textual / functional competition - CPs that contain all of the words in the plan are usually cheating

- The only relevant question for T is the most predictable interpretation

- Neither "uniqueness controls the link" nor "link controls uniqueness" mean anything - they're both uncertain estimates of the future

- I probably won't vote on reasonability

- I like jokes, but I also like taking speaker points from people who make unfunny jokes at other people that make them feel bad

- An argument has both an explanation of its validity (warrant) and of how it alters the way I think about the rest of the debate (impact)

- Critiques - both teams should debate the alternative - even if it's a critical pedagogy or something, explain how that solves both your and the other team's impacts

2. T-USFG

(Note: these are my gut leanings - I'm not emotionally attached to these and could be convinced to vote the other way)

- The Affirmative should defend a topical plan

- That does not mean the Neg gets a free pass - you should still defend why a more limited topic is more important than their offense

- Still do impact calculus - it's even more important here - why is having a limited topic more important than the existence of a general antagonism outside of the debate

- Fairness/predictability is an impact because debate is a competitive activity centered around argument

- Connect your offense to the ballot - if debate is dead and the ballot is structurally exclusionary then I need to understand why an Aff ballot would then resolve that

- I probably won't think it's a reverse voting issue

- Critiques of the topic are not a reason "being topical" is bad

- Critiques of debate as "Truth forming" are not a reason argument is bad

- You don't need a "Topical Version" of the Aff - just that your model of debate preserves their form of education / subjectivity / whatever

3. Speaker points

- Basic scale – 29.2-29.5: one of the top 3 speakers at the tournament; 28.8-29.1: top 10 speakers at the tournament; 28.4-28.7: very good, expect to break; 27.9-28.3: pretty good, shows some competence, but lacking technical skills in other areas; 27.5-27.8: below average, lacking technical ability in more areas than not; 27.0-27.4: poor, doesn’t fully participate in the debate or exhibits one or two moments of comprehension; 26.9 and below: you were offensive – it doesn’t mean you are a bad person, but something you did was deeply unsettling or hurt someone else in the round

email: eforslund@gmail.com

Copied and Pasted from my judge philosophy wiki page.

Recent Bio:

Director of Debate at Pace Academy

15 years judging and coaching high school debate. First at Damien High School then at Greenhill. Generally only judge a handful of college rounds a year.

Zero rounds on the current college topic in 2020.

Coached at the University of Wyoming 2004-2005.

I have decided to incentivize reading strategies that involve talking about the specifics of the affirmative case. Too many high school teams find a terrible agent or process cp and use politics as a crutch. Too many high school teams pull out their old, generic, k's and read them regardless of the aff. As an incentive to get away from this practice I will give any 2N that goes for a case-only strategy an extra point. If this means someone who would have earned a 29 ends up with a 30, then so be it. I would rather encourage a proliferation of higher speaker points, then a proliferation of bad, generic arguments. If you have to ask what a case strategy involves, then you probably aren't going to read one. I'm not talking about reading some case defense and going for a disad, or a counterplan that solves most of the aff. I'm talking about making a majority of the debate a case debate -- and that case debate continuing into the 2NR.

You'll notice "specificity good" throughout my philosophy. I will give higher points to those teams that engage in more specific strategies, then those that go for more generic ones. This doesnt mean that I hate the k -- on the contrary, I wouldn't mind hearing a debate on a k, but it needs to be ABOUT THE AFF. The genero security k doesnt apply to the South Korean Prostitutes aff, the Cap k doesnt apply to the South Korea Off-Shore Balancing aff - and you arent likely to convince me otherwise. But if you have an argument ABOUT the affirmative --especially a specific k that has yet to be read, then you will be rewarded if I am judging you.

I have judged high-level college and high school debates for the last 14 years. That should answer a few questions that you are thinking about asking: yes, speed is fine, no, lack of clarity is not. Yes, reading the k is ok, no, reading a bunch of junk that doesn't apply to the topic, and failing to explain why it does is not.

The single most important piece of information I can give you about me as a judge is that I cut a lot of cards -- you should ALWAYS appeal to my interest in the literature and to protect the integrity of that literature. Specific is ALWAYS better than generic, and smart strategies that are well researched should ALWAYS win out over generic, lazy arguments. Even if you dont win debates where you execute specifics, you will be rewarded.

Although my tendencies in general are much more to the right than the rest of the community, I have voted on the k many times since I started judging, and am generally willing to listen to whatever argument the debaters want to make. Having said that, there are a few caveats:

1. I don't read a lot of critical literature; so using a lot of terms or references that only someone who reads a lot of critical literature would understand isn’t going to get you very far. If I don’t understand your arguments, chances are pretty good you aren’t going to win the debate, no matter how persuasive you sound. This goes for the aff too explain your argument, don’t assume I know what you are talking about.

2. You are much better off reading critical arguments on the negative then on the affirmative. I tend to believe that the affirmative has to defend a position that is at least somewhat predictable, and relates to the topic in a way that makes sense. If they don’t, I am very sympathetic to topicality and framework-type arguments. This doesn’t mean you can’t win a debate with a non-traditional affirmative in front of me, but it does mean that it is going to be much harder, and that you are going to have to take topicality and framework arguments seriously. To me, predictability and fairness are more important than stretching the boundaries of debate, and the topic. If your affirmative defends a predictable interpretation of the topic, you are welcome to read any critical arguments you want to defend that interpretation, with the above stipulations.

3. I would much rather watch a disad/counterplan/case debate than some other alternative.

In general, I love a good politics debate - but - specific counterplans and case arguments are THE BEST strategies. I like to hear new innovative disads, but I have read enough of the literature on this year’s topic that I would be able to follow any deep debate on any of the big generic disads as well.

As far as theory goes, I probably defer negative a bit more in theory debates than affirmative. That probably has to do with the fact that I like very well thought-out negative strategies that utilize PICS and specific disads and case arguments. As such, I would much rather see an affirmative team impact turn the net benefits to a counterplan then to go for theory (although I realize this is not always possible). I really believe that the boundaries of the topic are formed in T debates at the beginning of the year, therefore I am much less willing to vote on a topicality argument against one of the mainstream affirmatives later on in the year than I am at the first few tournaments. I’m not going to outline all of the affs that I think are mainstream, but chances are pretty good if there are more than a few teams across the country reading the affirmative, I’m probably going to err aff in a close T debate.

One last thing, if you really want to get high points in front of me, a deep warming debate is the way to go. I would be willing to wager that I have dug further into the warming literature than just about anybody in the country, and I love to hear warming debates. I realize by this point most teams have very specific strategies to most of the affirmatives on the topic, but if you are wondering what advantage to read, or whether or not to delve into the warming debate on the negative, it would be very rewarding to do so in front of me -- at the very least you will get some feedback that will help you in future debates.

Ok, I lied, one more thing. Ultimately I believe that debate is a game. I believe that debaters should have fun while debating. I realize that certain debates get heated, however do your best not to be mean to your partner, and to the other team. There are very few things I hate more than judging a debate where the teams are jerks to each other. Finally, although I understand the strategic value to impact turning the alternative to kritiks and disads (and would encourage it in most instances), there are a few arguments I am unwilling to listen to those include: sexism good, racism good, genocide good, and rape good. If you are considering reading one of those arguments, don’t. You are just going to piss me off.

He/Him

Minneapolis South/Occasional judging for Minnesota

My email is izakgm [at] gmail.com, add me to the email chain before the round, please and thank you.

Good debating overwhelms anything else on here. I've coached and judged teams of all styles. I will try my best to evaluate the round on your terms and not my own.

do whatever you gotta do for your internet quality. I'd like camera on but if you can't, you can't, and I won't hold it against you and you don't need to explain to me.

IN PERSON DEBATE IS BACK and its time to shed our eDebate norms like "not saying the words that are in the card text while we spread". I will most certainly let you know I'm not getting it. Teams that spread clearly: I see you, I hear you, I honor you, and I am here with you!

How I judge - big picture > minutia.

I appreciate explicit impact comparison, judge instruction, and when the 2nr/2ar starts in a place that helps me resolve the rest of the debate. I don't mean "they dropped my role of the ballot!!!!!!". If you say "extinction outweighs" but don't tell me what it outweighs, I'll just assume you mean its important since you haven't made a comparative claim.

I'm flow centered, but not a fan of cheap shots or punishing small mistakes. I'm not a perfect flow. In fact I am certainly one of the worst flowers on the circuit and yet I use my flow to decide the round. If you want me to evaluate your argument its on you to make sure I write it down. Late breaking and unforeseeable arguments may justify new responses. I do have 2n sympathyTM and will check the 2ar against arguments that weren't in the 1ar. 2nr line drawing or instruction remains helpful.

I think in terms of risks, including zero risk and presumption. Offense/defense works well a lot of the time, but I'm not a cultist. If internal links are missing and the other team points it out without reply, I'm not giving you 1% just for fun.

I think I used to be harder on the 1ar and 2nr. Now I give a bit more leeway if there was sufficient explanation earlier in the debate. I pay close attention to and often flow cross-x if its going somewhere.

I read less evidence than many judges at the end of the round. If your superior evidence quality is not explained, I might miss it. I will not reconstruct the round through the docs afterwards. I won't read along unless I suspect clipping. If you deliver the text of your evidence incomprehensibly fast I will not read the text of it later to figure out what you said. Again, the burden of communication is on you.

I love strategic concessions and rehighlightings. If you are right and you read it in the speech, I will prioritize your analysis. It makes sense to insert things like charts. If its "a stake the round on it" kind of issue, please do not insert a rehighlighting, I need you read it. If its just an FYI about a tertiary issue... go off I guess.

I'm expressive and might intervene vocally to move you off a stale cx direction or motion to move on if you are repeating yourself in the speech. It will be pretty obvious in person if I have stopped flowing because I don't understand what you are saying. My resting face is rather stern, don't take it personally. I'm probably still vibing with you.

FW v K aff - Yes, I will vote either way. It comes down to links and impacts like any other debate and the best teams in these rounds have offense and defense.

Neg teams: I'll be honest, if you say debate is a game more than twice my eyes start to glaze over. Fairness can be an impact but it usually feels like a small one. By this I mean if the aff wins any impact at all it will be more important to me than fairness. If that's your approach you'll need to be playing great defense (lots of ways to do this) or really filtering out aff offense somehow. I say this and yet I think fairness/clash is by far the most strategic version of this argument. Y'all think I didn't notice you just ctrl-f'd your fairness blocks with clash? Ignoring the questions posed by the aff or repeatedly mischaracterizing the aff's claims will likely result in an aff ballot.

Aff teams: I'm open to whatever approach you want to take. I'm personally more interested in strategies built around a counter interpretation even if its not an intuitive (or predictable) one, will vote for impact turns alone and in many cases that is more strategic. Just FYI, I do not know what the symbolic economy is, so if you are the first one to explain it to me then kudos. I think I just learned what a psychoanalytic drive is last month but I still might not understand it. If the TVA is something I'm thinking about during my decision time, even if you dropped it, then you've written or explained your aff poorly. If your model doesn't explain a role for negation, or your aff is so uncontroversial that it doesn't hold up to a basic inherency push, I can see myself voting neg easily.

Ks on the neg - Love these debates. Explanation is vital on both sides. Aff teams that explain their internal links and solvency have the most success against ks in front of me. Aff framework arguments that exclude kritiks entirely will be a tough sell. If the alt is cheating, you can point that out tho ;) I've yet to hear a persuasive explanation for judge choice - I will only vote on benefits of your plan that you explain. Neg teams do well with strong links that implicate the case. You don't always need an alt in the 2nr, but you might be better off defending an imperfect alt instead of just the squo, especially if the 2ar is on to you. Perms are a valuable tool but 90% of aff wins would be on case outweighs whether the perm was present or not.

Policy stuff - Yes. I like internal link and solvency presses. Impact defense can make sense, but "x doesn't cause extinction" might not get your there if the other team has a nuanced impact comparison. I have a loose attachment to the "link first" camp until you tell me otherwise. My time in Minnesota has left me with a love for impact turns, don't care how dumb it seems. If you can't beat stupid... I don't know what to tell you.

I struggled with Judge Kick for a while. I've come around. I still enjoy strategic and narrow 2nrs (i.e. not making me do this). If you explicitly (saying "squo is always an option" in 1nc cx counts) flag this as an option by the end of the block I'm game. I am open to affs that ask me to stick the 2nr to the cp.

Complicated Perm texts can be explained and inserted - they should be written out fully and sent for all to see. Counterplan texts that you don't want to read fully.... No thank you. Be more creative with how its written.

Things it might be helpful to know about me/carrots+sticks/hot takes inspired by OTT

• i understand why no one does this but if the aff team took a stance on something (like an actual explanation of how they solve not solely hedging against agent cps) and the neg fiats through a solvency deficit based in literature and the aff went for theory I might be more likely to vote aff than most. This obviously goes out the window if the aff says the phrase "for the purpose of counterplan competition" at any point in cx.
• some bonus speaker points (maybe .2?) if your neg strategy (policy or k) hinges on tech and not nato. Feels like there is room for das/impact turns in this area and I would like to see them.
• If your wiki is sparse your points are capped at 28.5 - its JV behavior, you get JV points.
• If you can't answer basic CX questions about a position you are asking for an L 27. If you think the round is over and you stop your rebuttal VERY early because you have already won (invoke a TKO correctly), the baseline for your points is 29.5.
• I'm lukewarm for plan text in a vacuum. "Only non-arbitrary" blah blah blzh both teams should just debate about what the aff does. I will require some extra convincing before the 2ar and will heavily protect the 2nr here.
• truly random defaults that have come up more than once in rounds that I want on the record: perms are tests of competition so I will jettison them if they would hurt the aff. you can implicitly answer a "ballot pic" by trying to win the round.

If you still have questions, please feel free to email or ask me before the round!

Old water topic thoughts archive

- Glad I didn't judge enough on this topic to have thoughts. We only heard extinction affs all year because of the bizcon da? Now that's what I call cowardice. Excited for NATO!

Old CJR thoughts archive

- learning about the criminal justice system is nice. If you teach me something about the topic (yes critical knowledge is part of the topic get over yourself) over the course of the debate, boost to your points. If your aff is about cyberattacks strike me, I simply don't care. If your aff is about cyberattacks and you debate the internal link level well enough to convince me that you were actually talking about criminal justice reform,

- i have some professional experience working on police reform. I live in Minneapolis and South high is blocks from where the 3rd precinct burned. My personal belief is ACAB. I feel familiar with many of the practical arguments for and against abolition, so I have a high threshold for link debating. aff teams, feel free to go for "abolition bad" instead of the perm...

- I'd love to be a judge that fully resolved framing first before substance. Unfortunately the quality of debating here is often such that I have to resolve some substance to figure out what to do.

I debated at Emory from 2015-2019, where I also coached for a year. I've since been out of the activity as I've been working on my PhD in political science.

I love debate. Thank you for the opportunity to judge your round.

As a judge, I promise I'll listen to you and flow carefully. That said, I don't have much patience for arguments that demonstrate a lack of serious research, but it is the responsibility of the other team to point that out.

Do what you do best. Still, I would recommend doing the following:

• Make fewer, better arguments.
• Read a topical plan.
• Organize your arguments so they are easy to follow. I do not find run-on paragraphs to be an effective way of communicating, and I will not be reading along in the speech document.

Good luck--and have fun!

A few quick tl;dr notes

1. On T, I will most likely default to competing interpretations. I generally enjoy the argument. I pay attention to the limits issues, and think TVAs are persuasive.

2. I'm fine with K stuff, and enjoy some K v K rounds, but I'm primarily a policy guy. It's not an issue of ideology, but rather familiarity.

3. Conduct matters. Be nice. Be civil. I don't like post-rounding. Treat your opponents with respect. This stuff impacts speaker points.

4. On Ks, I am basically agnostic on how I view alternatives. Some Ks, the alt is essential a CP. Others, it's a methodology. I'm good with either, and default to how the K was presented unless challenged.

5. I'm fine with a lot of technical, process-oriented policy arguments. Creative CPs are fascinating to judge in rounds.

6. I'm a flow/clash judge. Good line by line matters to me.

7. I am basically a tab/flex judge. I don't like being terrible prescriptive in my paradigm because I'd rather hear you do what you do than impose my beliefs on the round. I recognize debaters approach the activity in very different ways, and I appreciate the diversity.

8. You're always free to ask me specific questions in lieu of this paradigm being

More detail - useful to read to get a sense of my background, that often informs my judging

I have 29 years of judging, coaching, and classroom experience. A majority of the rounds I've judged have been policy debate rounds, although I have as many years of LD judging experience as I do policy experience. I have also judged Congress, Public Forum, and all NSDA and Minnesota individual events for a number of years. I am the head coach of Wayzata High School in Minnesota, new this year, and have been coaching at Edina HS in MN for the last 6 years. I've judged at 12 tournaments this year so far, mostly on the national circuit.

I tend not to have too many pre-conceived notions about what should happen in a debate, and am usually quite brief when asked in person about my judging philosophy. I am a flow judge - as such, I am happiest when the line-by-line is clear and am at my unhappiest when the round is muddy and/or there is poor signposting. I like it when in the final speeches, debaters create voting issues. Good debaters verbally write my ballot for me. I would rather have to decide whether the voting issues presented to me in the final rebuttals are valid than have to wade through the issues myself. Most debaters prefer that, too - it leaves less to chance with me. The phrase tab/flex usually sums up my judging approach well - you do you, and I'll evaluated how that works out.

I do pay attention to CX, even if my non-verbals make it seem otherwise. In general, debaters are wise to ignore my non-verbals - I could simply be making faces because of back pain or something like that.

It's been close to 20 years since I've studied philosophy. I like many critical arguments, both on the aff and the neg, so feel free to run your Ks. But I am not be fully in tune with the nuances of several arguments so the communicative burden is on the debaters to ensure their position is well explained. The closer to the core of the topic the K argument is, the easier time you'll have with me. That said, I am an old fashioned policy maker at heart, but that should not be read as a mandate for your argument selection in front of me.

Speed (in and of itself) is fine. If I can't comprehend you, I will give you two verbal warnings, and after that - what makes it to my flow is what is on the official flow of record for the round.

I am not much of an evidence reader, but I do like being on email chains. I believe this is a verbal activity so it's on the debaters to verbally clarify important details in cards. I will read cards carefully when there is an ethical dispute or there is a very specific point that I need clarified.

As far as argument evaluation goes, I'll look at procedurals first, then framework, then substance. I prefer deciding rounds on substance, but I have also voted on theory and T a lot in my time. The more case-specific the arguments (whether it's uniquely case specific or a generic argument thoughtfully tailored to the affirmative) are preferable to completely generic arguments.

That's about all I can think of. Please ask!

Emory 2020

Bronx Science 2016

Read whatever makes you most comfortable within the round

Mostly did K debate in high school, but enjoy all styles of debate

Specifics

Not a giant fan of theory debates

If you're gonna read a K, please try to know what you're saying

DA's and CP debates are very interesting debates

Enjoy T debates

Lean aff in close framework debates, but I think framework can be an effective argument

I don't know much about the topic, so I will need good explanations of certain arguments

Support Roberto Montero https://www.policydb8.com/files/file/38-capitalism-kritik/

Joshua Gonzalez

8th place in US Extemp my first time at NSDA Nationals.

iykyk...

A quick guide to getting good speaker points:

-get to the point, and be clear about it
-"extinction" or "nuclear war" is not a tag
-a well explained, logical, argument trumps an unexplained argument merely extended by it's "card name"
-Ks need alts- i have a low threshold for voting aff when the neg is kicking their alt and going for a framework argument 
-cross x is a speech-i figure it in as a substantial factor in speaker points


Here is an explanation of how I evaluate debates at a meta-level:

While I think there is value in the offense/defense framework for evaluation, for me to vote on offense there has to be substantive risk. Second, quality trumps quantity.

Also, "extinction" is not a tag line. I don't even like tag lines like "causes nuclear war." I need complete sentences, with claims and warrants.

Where does the evidence come from? there are not enough debaters talking about the quality of research their opponents are quoting.

Get to the point. On any given controversy in debate, there are relatively few arguments at play. Get to the core issues quickly. Point out the central logical/argumentative problems with a given position. I am much more compelled by a speaker’s ability to take the 2-3 core problems with their opponent’s position and use those fallacies to answer all of the other team’s advances. It shows you have a grip on the central issue and you understand how that issue is inescapable regardless of your opponent’s answer

Calling for cards: I will do this, but I don’t like to read every card in the debate. If you opponent is making well explained arguments you should be very wary of just saying “extend our smith evidence”.

Theory/topicality:

Arbitrary interpretations are one of the worst trends in debate right now. If your interpretation of debate theory is wholly arbitrary and made up it doesn’t seem very useful for me to uphold it as some new norm and reject the other team.

Conditionality is good, it would take a very decisive aff victory with a very tangible impact (in policy debate). 

While I'm fine with conditionality, I am persuaded by other theoretical objections (multi actor fiat, uniform fiat without a solvency advocate, etc). I also think that a theory argument that combines objections (conditional multi actor CPs) could be a reason to reject the team.

My personal belief is that the negative can only fiat the agent of the resolution, and that competition based off the ‘certainty’ of the plan (consult/conditions) is not productive. This does NOT mean I have an incredibly low threshold in voting aff on agent/actor cps bad, but it does make my threshold lower than most. To win these theory debates on the aff, see above point about cutting to the core 2-3 issues.

On topicality-you need tangible impacts. You’re asking me to drop a team because they made debate too unfair for you. “limits good” is not an impact. “They unlimit the topic by justifying x types of affs that we cannot hope to prepare for” is an impact. There must be a very coherent connection between neg interpretation, violations, and standards in the 2nr.

Counterplans: I spoke above about my theoretical beliefs on counterplans. I think counterplans should be textually and functionally competitive. I am sometimes persuaded that purely functional competition (normal means/process counterplans) should probably not be evaluated. If you’re aff and theory-savvy, don’t be afraid to go for theoretical reasons the process cp goes away.

Floating Pics/Word PICs- I’m great for the aff on these. I believe that every position has theoretical reasons behind it related to education and competitive equity. The aff counterinterpretation of “you can run your K/word K as a K without the CP part” generally solves every pedagogical benefit of those positions-this means the aff just needs to win that competitively these positions are bad for the aff, and it outweighs any ‘educational benefit’ to word/floating pics. I'm persuaded by those arguments, making it an uphill battle for the neg if the aff can explain tangible impacts to the competitive disadvantage the PIC puts them in.

Politics:

The story must matchup. I will vote on such non-offensive arguments like: your uq and link evidence don’t assume the same group of politicians, you have no internal link, passage of that bill is inevitable, Trump has no PC etc. Of course I don’t vote on these in isolation-once again, refer back to my meta-approach to debate-you need to explain why that core defensive argument trumps everything else the neg is saying.


Ks:

I’m generally not compelled by framework as a voter against a Neg K-I think all Ks have a gateway/framing issue that is much easier and more logical for the aff to attack. For example, if the neg reads an epistemology K you are much more likely to win reading a card that says “consequences outweigh epistemology” or “epistemology focus bad” than you are to win that the other team is cheating because of their K. Focus on answering the gateway issue so that you can leverage your aff against the K and get the decision calculus of the debate back in your favor. Subsequently for the neg the issue of ‘framing’ is also very important.

That being said, I don't like Ks that are just framework arguments. Ks should have alternatives that actually resolve link arguments. I'm not going to weigh a K impact against the aff if the K can't resolve it.

In the 2ac, don’t make a bunch of perms you have no hope of winning unless they are conceded. Perm do the alt is not a perm. Make 1 or 2 permutations and EXPLAIN IN THE 2AC how the permutation overcomes neg links/risks of the impact.


Ks are a great example of the “there are only 2-3 arguments” theory I subscribe to. If you’re debating a 1 off team, it’s much better for me if you don’t read 40 cards in the 2ac with as many different caveats as possible. Instead, read a good number of argument but take the time to explain them. What part of the K do they refute? How do these arguments change the calculus of the round? When you do this I put much more pressure on the neg block to get in depth with their explanations, which I find usually helps the aff.

K affs:

T > Framework. Given that most impact turns to T come from pedagogical reasons, you need to prove that your interpretation provides space for the ‘good education’ the aff thinks is key to stop genocide/war/racism/turkeys. Topical version of your aff is compelling, as well as giving other examples of topical action that prove the aff could have accepted the parameters of the resolution and gained the same educational benefits. Then it’s just a matter of proving that competitively the K aff hurts the neg. Also, prove how your competitive equity impacts implicate their education impacts.

Case debate:

These are great. Impact defense is kinda meh unless it's real specific. Solvency and internal link answers are where it's at. Make alt causes great again!

Disadvantages:

It’s all about probability-magnitude is ok but only when you’re discussing it in terms of “our impact causes yours”. Extinction outweighs is trite because by the end of the debate all impacts are extinction or nuclear wars that easily result in another impact in the debate that has been claimed as extinction (nuke war hurts the environment, aff said that causes extinction). Probability is key. Establishing risk is where it’s at. A higher risk trumps a higher magnitude in most instances.

Cross Examination: it’s a speech, I grade it like a speech. Be funny if you can. Base the cross x on core issues in the debate, and base it on quality of evidence and establishing risk/threshold for various arguments.

i deleted lots of old stuff because it was too long, email is below if you want clarification about anything. make your best arguments, compare them with your opponent's arguments, have fun. i debated at homewood - floosmoor and kentucky, so i'm mostly familiar with disad and case versus a big aff or tricky counterplans.

1. email chain please: donaldgrasse93@gmail.com

2. data matters - arguments are not just claims, there needs to be evidence (not necessarily cards) that supports the idea. examples are generally a good start, and they are best when they are applied in context of the debate.

3. i flow cross-x and make most of my decisions based on what was said in the debate. i don't follow along with the speech docs because i think it distracts me from what you are saying in place of what the cards are about. if you want me to look at particular cards, or if you think there is a disconnect between what your opponent is arguing and what their highlighted evidence says, make me aware of that in the speeches/cross-x. i reward good evidence, but first and foremost i want to reward good communication of facts in evidence into a comparative argument.

jeremy.hammond@pinecrest.edu, pinecrestdebatedocs@gmail.com (please put both).

I have experience judging most policy debates that would occur. I have found that there is really only one argument type that I currently won't evaluate which are wipeout based arguments which prioritize saving unknown life to that of saving known life (human/non-human life).

I haven't calculated the percentages but I below are some feelings of where I am in various types of debates.

Policy aff v Core DA - Even

Policy aff v Process CP - 60% for the neg (mostly due to poor affirmative debating rather than argument preference)

Policy aff v K - Probably have voted neg more mostly due to poor affirmative debating or dropped tricks. Side note i'm pretty against the you link you lose style of negative framework, but I have regretfully have voted for it.

Theory v Policy Neg - Probably voted more neg than aff when the aff has a non-sense counter-interpretation (i.e. CI - you get 2 condo). When the aff is just going for condo bad with a more strict counter-interpretation I have voted aff more.

K aff v FW - Probably even to voted aff more (like due to poor negative debating)

K aff v K Neg - Probably judged these the least honestly they don't stick out for me to remember how I voted. I have definitely voted for the Cap K against K affs but I don't know the percentages.

K aff v Policy Neg - (Think State good, Alt Bad, or CP) have judged but can't remember.

I have plenty of more specific thoughts about debate, but mostly those don't play into my decisions. I will add more as the year progresses if something bothers me in a round.

KRHAMRICK@GMAIL.COM

I've been judging debates for a long time. I prefer listening to debates wherein each team presents and executes a well-researched strategy for winning. The ideological flavor of your arguments matters less to me than how you establish clash with your opponents’ arguments. I am open to most anything, understanding that sometimes “you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do” to win the debate.

At the end of the debate, I vote for the team that defends the superior course of action. My ballot constitutes an endorsement of one course relative to another. To win the debate, the affirmative must prove their course is preferable when compared to the status quo or negative alternatives. That being said, I interpret broadly exactly what constitutes a plan/course of action. An alternative is proven a superior course of action when it is net beneficial compared to the entirety of the plan combined with part or parts of the alternative. Simply solving better than the affirmative is not enough: the alternative must force choice. Likewise, claiming a larger advantage than the affirmative is not enough to prove the alternative competitive. A legitimate permutation is defined as the entirety of the "plan" combined with parts or parts of the alternative. Mere avoidance of potential or "unknown" disadvantages, or a link of omission, is insufficient: the negative must read win a link and impact in order to evaluate the relative merits of the plan and the alternative. The 2AC saying something akin to "Perm - do the plan and all noncompetitive parts of the counterplan/alternative" is merely a template for generating permutation ideas, rather than a permutation in and of itself. It's your job to resolve the link, not mine.

I believe there is an inherent value to the topic/resolution, as the topic serves as the jumping off point for the year's discussion. The words of the topic should be examined as a whole. Ultimately, fairness and ground issues determine how strict an interpretation of the topic that I am willing to endorse. The most limiting interpretation of a topic rarely is the best interpretation of a topic for the purposes of our game. The topic is what it is: merely because the negative wishes the topic to be smaller (or the affirmative wishes it bigger, or worded a different way) does not mean that it should be so. An affirmative has to be at its most topical the first time it is run.

I don’t care about any of your SPEC arguments. The affirmative must use the agent specified in the topic wording; subsets are okay. Neither you nor your partner is the United States federal government. The affirmative is stuck with defending the resolutional statement, however I tend to give the affirmative significant leeway as to how they choose to define/defend it. The affirmative is unlikely to persuade me criticisms of advocacy of USFG action should be dismissed as irrelevant to an evaluation of policy efficacy. I believe that switch-side debating is good.

All theory arguments should be contextualized in terms of the topic and the resultant array of affirmative and negative strategies. Reciprocity is a big deal for me, i.e., more negative flex allows for more aff room to maneuver and vice versa). Conditional, topical, and plan inclusive alternatives are presumptively legitimate. A negative strategy reliant on a process counterplan, consultation counterplan, or a vague alternative produces an environment in which in which I am willing to allow greater maneuverability in terms of what I view as legitimate permutations for the affirmative. I’ve long been skeptical of the efficacy of fifty state uniform fiat. Not acting, i.e., the status quo, always remains an option.

Debate itself is up for interrogation within the confines of the round.

I tend to provide a lot of feedback while judging, verbal and otherwise. If you are not clear, I will not attempt to reconstruct what you said. I tend to privilege the cards identified in the last two rebuttals as establishing the critical nexus points of the debate and will read further for clarification and understanding when I feel it necessary. Reading qualifications for your evidence will be rewarded with more speaker points. Reading longer, more warranted evidence will be rewarded with significantly more consideration in the decision process. Clipping cards is cheating and cardclippers should lose.

I value clash and line-by-line debating. Rarely do I find the massive global last rebuttal overview appealing. Having your opponent's speech document doesn't alleviate the need for you to pay attention to what's actually been said in the debate. Flow and, for god's sake, learn how to efficiently save/jump/email/share your speech document. I generally don't follow the speech doc in real time.

"New affs bad" is dumb; don't waste your time or mine. When debating a new aff, the negative gets maximum flexibility.

I believe that both basic civil rights law as well as basic ethics requires that debaters and judges conduct themselves in rounds in a manner that protects the rights of all participants to an environment free of racial/sexual hostility or harassment.

2022 Update- I am not longer actively coaching debate. Please do not assume that I know a lot about the topic, have any idea what some other school's aff is, or have strong feelings about what obscure topic wordings mean. 

Allison.c.harper@gmail.com. - Put me on the chain please. I will not follow along with the doc or read cards I don't think are necessary to make a decision but spelling my first name is annoying and this was buried near the bottom of my philosophy.

Here are a few ways that I think my judging either differs from others or has changed with online debate:

1) I flow and do not open your speech documents during your speeches. That means you need to try to present arguments in a way that is flowable.  Make sure tags are clear. Answer arguments in an order I can follow (such as the order in which they are presented). Add structure and signpost.  Avoid reading giant analytical paragraphs without breaking things up. Avoid jumping around the flow arbitrarily or reading blocks in places where they dont belong.  Doing these things make sure that I not only have a record of what you said, but helps me understand how you think what you are saying applies/responds to your opponents arguments.  When you don't do these things, you increase the odds that I misunderstand what you think you have answered.

2) Make comparisons.  I read less evidence during and after debates than other judges. I start my decisions by looking at my flows, deciding what the key questions are, resolving things that I can, and only then look at evidence.  Make comparisons between your warrants, quality of evidence. Draw out the interactions for me rather than forcing me to do these things for you. I see that as intervention, but the way that many debaters give rebuttals these days sometimes makes it impossible to decide without that intervention. I would much rather let you do the comparing.

3) I am not in the cult of big impacts/try or die. You need to solve for something. Your counterplan needs a net benefit. I can be convinced to vote for low risk, but presumption and zero risk exist. Not everything needs a card. Smart analytics can knock down the risk of some pretty silly arguments.  If the other team does have evidence of sufficient quality, however, a card to the contrary would go a long way.

4) I don’t think I am a bad judge for the k if you debate the k technically, especially on the neg. I am not great for any argument if you are overly relying on an overview to get things done, are speaking in paragraphs without considering flowability, or are addressing components of the debate in ways that ignore the line by line. I am better for specific links and alts that I would be able to explain back to the other team what they do based on the explanation you offered in the round.  I think 90% of the time spent on “framework” when the neg reads a k is a waste of time by both sides. The neg gets links to what the aff said and did. The aff gets to weigh the implementation of the plan. Unless another way of thinking about this is presented and dropped, this is how I end up evaluating the debate anyway. I am less of a fan of critical affirmatives that are not topical, do not relate to the topic in a significant way, etc. In K aff vs framework debates, the aff is helped if I can understand what reasonable ways the negative could anticipate an aff like yours and reasonably respond to it.

5) I would rather you make link arguments to kritiks about assumptions that the other team has made during this debate rather than ask me to evaluate something that happened other debates or outside of debates. Other debates had judges who rendered their own decisions. If there are serious concerns about a debater's out of round behavior, please take that to their coaches or tournament administrators. 

6) Process debates are boring. They might be necessary on some recent topics, but they are so boring on topics where there are great disads. They would be better with some evidence that suggest this process ought to exist/be used, even better if there are cards about the topic or aff. For example, I am far more into con-con about a constitutional/legal question than con-con to withdraw from NATO. But really, wouldn’t it be cool if we picked debate topics that were actual controversies? Wouldn’t it be cool if topics that had some controversy were limited in a way that makes some sense?

7) When you steal prep time, you are stealing my decision time. Please don’t. If you are making changes to your speech doc (deleting analytics, rearranging blocks, combining multiple docs into one, etc) you should have a prep timer running. Sending a doc is fine outside of prep but should be done efficiently, especially if you are debating at the varsity/open level. Refusing to start CX until you have a marked copy is also a big waste of my time unless you are planning to ask questions that are affected by these markings. I have yet to see that happen, so let's get on with it.

8) In online debate, you MUST make an effort to be clearer. NSDA campus makes you sound like a robot eating rocks. What was passable on classrooms.cloud doesn’t cut it on campus. I should be able to understand the body of your evidence, distinguish tags from cards, etc. I do not open speech documents when you are speaking. I need to be able to hear and understand you.

9) It is much harder to pay attention to online debates. This isn’t your fault. It is a feature of the format. I have found cross-ex in particular difficult to follow and keep in focus. People talking at once is really rough online, and I appreciate attempts to limit this by keeping answers reasonable in length and not cutting off reasonable answers. I will do my best in every debate to give you every bit of attention I have, but it would help me if you would forefront cross-ex questions that might matter to your strategy. Asking the other team what they read is cross-ex time.

Old Philosophy- I don't disagree with this:

I think I am a relatively middle of the road judge on most issues. I would rather hear you debate whatever sort of strategy you do well than have you conform to my argumentative preferences. I might have more fun listening to a case/da debate, but if you best strat or skillset is something else, go for it. I might not like an argument, but I will and have voted for arguments I hate if it wins the debate. I do have a pretty strong preference for technical, line by line style debate.

I am open to listening to kritiks by either side, but I am more familiar with policy arguments, so some additional explanation would be helpful, especially on the impact and alternative level. High theory K stuff is the area where I am least well read. I generally think it is better for debate if the aff has a topical plan that is implemented, but I am open to hearing both sides. To be successful at framework debates in front of me, it is helpful to do more than articulate that your movement/project/affirmation is good, but also provide reasons why it is good to be included in debate in the format you choose. I tend to find T version of the aff a pretty persuasive argument when it is able to solve a significant portion of aff offense.

I don’t have solid preferences on most counterplan theory issues, other than that I am not crazy about consultation or conditions cps generally. Most other cp issues are questions of degree not kind (1 conditional cp and a k doesn’t seem so bad, more than that is questionable, 42 is too many, etc) and all up for debate. The above comment about doing what you do well applies here. If theory is your thing and you do it well, ok. If cp cheating with both hands is your style and you can get away with it, swell.

I have no objection to voting on “untrue” arguments, like some of the more out there impact turns. To win on dropped arguments, you still need to do enough work that I could make a coherent decision based on your explanation of the argument. Dropped = true, but you need a claim, warrant, and impact. Such arguments also need to be identifiable in order for dropped = true to apply.

It’s rarely the case that a team wins every argument in the debate, so including relevant and responsive impact assessment is super important. I’d much rather debaters resolve questions like who has presumption in the case of counterplans or what happens to counterplans that might be rendered irrelevant by 2ar choices than leaving those questions to me.

I try my best to avoid reading evidence after a debate and think debaters should take this into account. I tend to only call for evidence if a) there is a debate about what a card says and/or b) it is impossible to resolve an issue without reading the evidence myself. I prefer to let the debaters debate the quality of evidence rather than calling for a bunch of evidence and applying my own interpretations after the fact. I think that is a form of intervening. I also think it is important that you draw out the warrants in your evidence rather than relying on me to piece things together at the end of the debate. As a result, you would be better served explaining, applying, and comparing fewer really important arguments than blipping through a bunch of tag line/author name extensions. I can certainly flow you and I will be paying attention to your speeches, but if the debate comes down to a comparison between arguments articulated in these manners, I tend to reward explanation and analysis. Also, the phrase "insert re-highlighting" is meaningless to someone who isn't reading the docs in real time. Telling me what you think the evidence says is a better use of your time

I like smart, organized debates. I pay a ton of attention and think I flow very well. I tend to be frustrated by debaters who jump around or lack structure. If your debate is headed this direction (through your own doing or that of the other team), often the team that cleans things up usually benefits. This also applies to non-traditional debating styles. If you don’t want to flow, that’s ok, but it is not an excuse to lack any discernible organization. Even if you are doing the embedded clash thing, your arguments shouldn't seem like a pre-scripted set of responses with little to no attempt to engage the specific arguments made by the other team or put them in some sort of order that makes it easier for me to flow and determine if indeed arguments were made, extended dropped, etc.

Please be nice to each other. While debate is a competitive activity, it is not an excuse to be a jerkface. If you are "stealing prep" I am likely to be very cross with you and dock your speaker points. If you are taking unreasonably long amounts of time to jump/email your docs or acquire someone else's docs, I am also not going to be super happy with you. I realize this can sound cranky, but I have been subjected to too many rounds where this has been happening recently.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thoughts on Pf and LD:

Since I occasionally judge these, I thought I should add a section. I have either coached or competed in both events. I still have a strong preference for flow-centric debate in both activities.

-You may speak as quickly or slowly as you would like. Don't make yourself debate faster than you are able to do well just because I can keep up

-You can run whatever arguments you are able to justify (see policy debate section if you have more specific questions)

-Too many debates in these events spend far too much time debating framing questions that are essentially irrelevant to judge decisions. Those frames mean little if you cant win a link. If you and your opponent are trying to access the same impact, this is a sign that you should be debating link strength not impact strength. Your speech time is short. Don't waste it.

-Make useful argument comparisons. It is not helpful if you have a study and your opponent has a study that says the opposite and that is the end of the argument. It is not helpful if everyone's authors are "hacks." With complicated topics, try to understand how your authors arrived at their conclusions and use that to your advantage.

-Stop stealing prep. Seriously. Stop. It is not cute. Asking to see a source is not an opportunity for your partners to keep prepping. If a speech timer or a prep timer isn't going, you should not be writing on your flows or doing anything else that looks like prepping. I see this in a disturbing number of PF rounds. Stop

-Give a useful road map or none at all. Do not add a bunch of commentary. A road map should tell a judge what order to put pieces of flow paper into and nothing more. Save your arguments for your speech time.

-Paraphrasing is bad. Read quotations. Send out ev in carded form ahead of time. If you are a varsity, national circuit level competitor, you should have figure out efficient ways to manage allowing the other team to review your evidence.

Update for Harvard 2021

General background: I debated for 4 years at Paideia, and 4 years at UChicago. I have coached policy debate for 4 years, Parliamentary debate for 2, and have been fairly involved in the debate circuit more broadly for the last 8 years. I do not know the exact argument by argument minutia of the topics but I will give a quick rundown on argument types and how I view debate.

Policy Paradigm:

First, debate is a game. That does not mean I will vote neg on T, it just means that some of the paradigms of the game inform how I view the activity. I have a ton of experience with K arguments and love that debate. If you demonstrate why your version of the game is important I will evaluate it against what the neg says.

Stock arguments: I love the politics disad, almost all types of policy K's (think security, anthro etc.) I am fine with most T arguments but my bar for voting on T is probably high. You have to demonstrate why the aff is abusive, not necessarily whether it is the most predictable, and giving specific examples is more important than doing hand wavy topical version of the aff stuff.

Framework: see "debate is probably a game" stuff.

Counterplan competition: please prove the abuse to me.

"I am a K debater": Love to hear it, I will vote for you if your arguments are engaging, have an impact, and have some weak ability to either solve for that impact or explain why solvency is not important. I will still evaluate your arguments against the neg though, and believe that T functions not only as a referendum on the framework of the debate, but on the arguments of the neg.

PF Paradigm:

Honestly I don't have a ton of experience in PF but please just remember fundamental claim, warrant implication and you will be fine with me. I do like strong evidence!

David Heidt

Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart

davidheidt@gmail.com

Some thoughts about the fiscal redistribution topic:

Having only judged practice debates so far, I like the topic. But it seems harder to be Aff than in a typical year. All three affirmative areas are pretty controversial, and there's deep literature engaging each area on both sides.

All of the thoughts I've posted below are my preferences, not rules that I'll enforce in the debate. Everything is debatable. But my preferences reflect the types of arguments that I find more persuasive.

1. I am unlikely to view multiple conditional worlds favorably. I think the past few years have demonstrated an inverse relationship between the number of CPs in the 1nc and the quality of the debate. The proliferation of terrible process CPs would not have been possible without unlimited negative conditionality. I was more sympathetic to negative strategy concerns last year where there was very little direct clash in the literature. But this topic is a lot different. I don't see a problem with one conditional option. I can maybe be convinced about two, but I like Tim Mahoney's rule that you should only get one. More than two will certainly make the debate worse. The fact that the negative won substantially more debates last year with with no literature support whatsoever suggests there is a serious problem with multiple conditional options.

Does that mean the neg auto-loses if they read three conditional options? No, debating matters - but I'll likely find affirmative impact arguments on theory a lot more persuasive if there is more than one (or maybe two) CPs in the debate.

2. I am not sympathetic about affirmative plan vagueness. Debate is at it's best with two prepared teams, and vagueness is a way to avoid clash and discourage preparation. If your plan is just the resolution, that tells me very little and I will be looking for more details. I am likely to interpret your plan based upon the plan text, highlighted portions of your solvency evidence that say what the plan does, and clarifications in cx. That means both what you say and the highlighted portions of your evidence are fair game for arguments about CP competition, DA links, and topicality. This is within reason - the plan text is still important, and I'm not going to hold the affirmative responsible for a word PIC that's based on a piece of solvency evidence or an offhand remark. And if cx or evidence is ambiguous because the negative team didn't ask the right questions or didn't ask follow up questions, I'm not going to automatically err towards the negative's interpretation either. But if the only way to determine the scope of the plan's mandates is by looking to solvency evidence or listening to clarification in CX, then a CP that PICs out of those clarified mandates is competitive, and a topicality violation that says those clarified mandates aren't topical can't be beaten with "we meet - plan in a vacuum".

How might this play out on this topic? Well, if the negative team asks in CX, "do you mandate a tax increase?", and the affirmative response is "we don't specify", then I think that means the affirmative does not, in fact, mandate a tax increase under any possible interpretation of the plan, that they cannot read addons based on increasing taxes, or say "no link - we increase taxes" to a disadvantage that says the affirmative causes a spending tradeoff. If the affirmative doesn't want to mandate a specific funding mechanism, that might be ok, but that means evidence about normal means of passing bills is relevant for links, and the affirmative can't avoid that evidence by saying the plan fiats out of it. There can be a reasonable debate over what might constitute 'normal means' for funding legislation, but I'm confident that normal means in a GOP-controlled House is not increasing taxes.

On the other hand, if they say "we don't specify our funding mechanism in the plan," but they've highlighted "wealth tax key" warrants in their solvency evidence, then I think this is performative cowardice and honestly I'll believe whatever the negative wants me to believe in that case. Would a wealth tax PIC be competitive in that scenario? Yes, without question. Alternatively, could the negative say "you can't access your solvency evidence because you don't fiat a wealth tax?" Also, yes. As I said, I am unsympathetic to affirmative vagueness, and you can easily avoid this situation just by defending your plan.

Does this apply to the plan's agent? I think this can be an exception - in other words, the affirmative could reasonably say "we're the USFG" if they don't have an agent-based advantage or solvency evidence that explicitly requires one agent. I think there are strong reasons why agent debates are unique. Agent debates in a competitive setting with unlimited fiat grossly misrepresent agent debates in the literature, and requiring the affirmative to specify beyond what their solvency evidence requires puts them in an untenable position. But if the affirmative has an agent-based advantage, then it's unlikely (though empirically not impossible) that I'll think it's ok for them to not defend that agent against an agent CP.

3. I believe that any negative strategy that revolves around "it's hard to be neg so therefore we need to do the 1ac" is not a real strategy. A CP that results in the possibility of doing the entire mandate of the plan is neither legitimate nor competitive. Immediacy and certainty are not the basis of counterplan competition, no matter how many terrible cards are read to assert otherwise. If you think "should" means "immediate" then you'd likely have more success with a 2nr that was "t - should" in front of me than you would with a CP competition argument based on that word. Permutations are tests of competition, and as such, do not have to be topical. "Perms can be extra topical but not nontopical" has no basis in anything. Perms can be any combination of all of the plan and part or all of the CP. But even if they did have to be topical, reading a card that says "increase" = "net increase" is not a competition argument, it's a topicality argument. A single affirmative card defining the "increase" as "doesn't have to be a net increase" beats this CP in its entirety. Even if the negative interpretation of "net increase" is better for debate it does not change what the plan does, and if the aff says they do not fiat a net increase, then they do not fiat a net increase. If you think you have an argument, you need to go for T, not the CP. A topicality argument premised on "you've killed our offsets CP ground" probably isn't a winner, however. The only world I could ever see the offsets CP be competitive in is if the plan began with "without offsetting fiscal redistribution in any manner, the USFG should..."

I was surprised by the number of process CPs turned out at camps this year. This topic has a lot of well-supported ways to directly engage each of the three areas. And most of the camp affs are genuinely bad ideas with a ridiculous amount of negative ground. Even a 1nc that is exclusively an economy DA and case defense is probably capable of winning most debates. I know we just had a year where there were almost no case debates, but NATO was a bad topic with low-quality negative strategies, and I think it's time to step up. This topic is different. And affs are so weak they have to resort to reading dedevelopment as their advantage. I am FAR more likely to vote aff on "it's already hard to be aff, and your theory of competition makes it impossible" on this topic than any other.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to PICs, or even most counterplans. And high quality evidence can help sway my views about both the legitimacy and competitiveness of any CP. But if you're coming to the first tournament banking on the offsets CP or "do the plan if prediction markets say it's good CP", you should probably rethink that choice.

But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe the first set of tournaments will see lots of teams reading small, unpredictable affs that run as far to the margins of the topic as possible. I hope not. The less representative the affirmative is of the topic literature, the more likely it is that I'll find process CPs to be an acceptable response. If you're trying to discourage meaningful clash through your choice of affirmative, then maybe strategies premised on 'clash is bad' are more reasonable.

4. I'm ambivalent on the question of whether fiscal redistribution requires both taxes and transfers. The cards on both sides of this are okay. I'm not convinced by the affirmative that it's too hard to defend a tax, but I'm also not convinced by the negative that taxes are the most important part of negative ground.

5. I'm skeptical of the camp affirmatives that suggest either that Medicare is part of Social Security, or that putting Medicare under Social Security constitutes "expanding" Social Security. I'll approach any debate about this with an open mind, because I've certainly been wrong before. But I am curious about what the 2ac looks like. I can see some opportunity for the aff on the definition of "expanding," but I don't think it's great. Aff cards that confuse Social Security with the Social Security Act or Social Security Administration or international definitions of lower case "social security" miss the mark entirely.

6. Critiques on this topic seem ok. I like critiques that have topic-specific links and show why doing the affirmative is undesirable. I dislike critiques that are dependent on framework for the same reason I dislike process counterplans. Both strategies are cop-outs - they both try to win without actually debating the merits of the affirmative. I find framework arguments that question the truth value of specific affirmative claims far more persuasive than framework arguments that assert that policy-making is the wrong forum.

7. There's a LOT of literature defending policy change from a critical perspective on this topic. I've always been skeptical of planless affirmatives, but they seem especially unwarranted this year. I think debate doesn't function if one side doesn't debate the assigned topic. Debating the topic requires debating the entire topic, including defending a policy change from the federal government. Merely talking about fiscal redistribution in some way doesn't even come close. It's possible to defend policy change from a variety of perspectives on this topic, including some that would critique ways in which the negative traditionally responds to policy proposals.

Having said that, if you're running a planless affirmative and find yourself stuck with me in the back of the room, I still do my best to evaluate all arguments as fairly as a I can. It's a debate round, and not a forum for me to just insert my preferences over the arguments of the debaters themselves. But some arguments will resonate more than others.

Old thoughts

Some thoughts about the NATO topic:

1. Defending the status quo seems very difficult. The topic seems aff-biased without a clear controversy in the literature, without many unique disadvantages, and without even credible impact defense against some arguments. The water topic was more balanced (and it was not balanced at all).

This means I'm more sympathetic to multiple conditional options than I might otherwise would be. I'm also very skeptical of plan vagueness and I'm unlikely to be very receptive towards any aff argument that relies on it.

Having said that, some of the 1ncs I've seen that include 6 conditional options are absurd and I'd be pretty receptive to conditionality in that context, or in a context where the neg says something like hegemony good and the security K in the same debate.

And an aff-biased topic is not a justification for CPs that compete off of certainty. The argument that "it's hard to be negative so therefore we get to do your aff" is pretty silly. I haven't voted on process CP theory very often, but at the same time, it's pretty rare for a 2a to go for it in the 2ar. The neg can win this debate in front of me, but I lean aff on this.

There are also parts of this topic that make it difficult to be aff, especially the consensus requirement of the NAC. So while the status quo is probably difficult to defend, I think the aff is at a disadvantage against strategies that test the consensus requirement.

2. Topicality Article 5 is not an argument. I could be convinced otherwise if someone reads a card that supports the interpretation. I have yet to see a card that comes even close. I think it is confusing that 1ncs waste time on this because a sufficient 2ac is "there is no violation because you have not read evidence that actually supports your interpretation." The minimum threshold would be for the negative to have a card defining "cooperation with NATO" as "requires changing Article 5". That card does not exist, because no one actually believes that.

3. Topicality on this topic seems very weak as a 2nr choice, as long as the affirmative meets basic requirements such as using the DOD and working directly with NATO as opposed to member states. It's not unwinnable because debating matters, but the negative seems to be on the wrong side of just about every argument.

4. Country PICs do not make very much sense to me on this topic. No affirmative cooperates directly with member states, they cooperate with the organization, given that the resolution uses the word 'organization' and not 'member states'. Excluding a country means the NAC would say no, given that the excluded country gets to vote in the NAC. If the country PIC is described as a bilateral CP with each member state, that makes more sense, but then it obviously does not go through NATO and is a completely separate action, not a PIC.

5. Is midterms a winnable disadvantage on the NATO topic? I am very surprised to see negative teams read it, let alone go for it. I can't imagine that there's a single person in the United States that would change their vote or their decision to turn out as a result of the plan. The domestic focus link argument seems completely untenable in light of the fact that our government acts in the area of foreign policy multiple times a day. But I have yet to see a midterms debate, so maybe there's special evidence teams are reading that is somehow omitted from speech docs. It's hard for me to imagine what a persuasive midterms speech on a NATO topic looks like though.

What should you do if you're neg? I think there are some good CPs, some good critiques, and maybe impact turns? NATO bad is likely Russian propaganda, but it's probably a winnable argument.

******

Generally I try to evaluate arguments fairly and based upon the debaters' explanations of arguments, rather than injecting my own opinions. What follows are my opinions regarding several bad practices currently in debate, but just agreeing with me isn't sufficient to win a debate - you actually have to win the arguments relative to what your opponents said. There are some things I'll intervene about - death good, behavior meant to intimidate or harass your opponents, or any other practice that I think is harmful for a high school student classroom setting - but just use some common sense.

Thoughts about critical affs and critiques:

Good debates require two prepared teams. Allowing the affirmative team to not advocate the resolution creates bad debates. There's a disconnect in a frighteningly large number of judging philosophies I've read where judges say their favorite debates are when the negative has a specific strategy against an affirmative, and yet they don't think the affirmative has to defend a plan. This does not seem very well thought out, and the consequence is that the quality of debates in the last few years has declined greatly as judges increasingly reward teams for not engaging the topic.

Fairness is the most important impact. Other judging philosophies that say it's just an internal link are poorly reasoned. In a competitive activity involving two teams, assuring fairness is one of the primary roles of the judge. The fundamental expectation is that judges evaluate the debate fairly; asking them to ignore fairness in that evaluation eliminates the condition that makes debate possible. If every debate came down to whoever the judge liked better, there would be no value to participating in this activity. The ballot doesn't do much other than create a win or a loss, but it can definitely remedy the harms of a fairness violation. The vast majority of other impacts in debate are by definition less important because they never depend upon the ballot to remedy the harm.

Fairness is also an internal link - but it's an internal link to establishing every other impact. Saying fairness is an internal link to other values is like saying nuclear war is an internal link to death impacts. A loss of fairness implies a significant, negative impact on the activity and judges that require a more formal elaboration of the impact are being pedantic.

Arguments along the lines of 'but policy debate is valueless' are a complete nonstarter in a voluntary activity, especially given the existence of multiple alternative forms of speech and debate. Policy debate is valuable to some people, even if you don't personally share those values. If your expectation is that you need a platform to talk about whatever personally matters to you rather than the assigned topic, I encourage you to try out a more effective form of speech activity, such as original oratory. Debate is probably not the right activity for you if the condition of your participation is that you need to avoid debating a prepared opponent.

The phrase "fiat double-bind" demonstrates a complete ignorance about the meaning of fiat, which, unfortunately, appears to be shared by some judges. Fiat is merely the statement that the government should do something, not that they would. The affirmative burden of proof in a debate is solely to demonstrate the government should take a topical action at a particular time. That the government would not actually take that action is not relevant to any judge's decision.

Framework arguments typically made by the negative for critiques are clash-avoidance devices, and therefore are counterproductive to education. There is no merit whatsoever in arguing that the affirmative does not get to weigh their plan. Critiques of representations can be relevant, but only in relation to evaluating the desirability of a policy action. Representations cannot be separated from the plan - the plan is also a part of the affirmative's representations. For example, the argument that apocalyptic representations of insecurity are used to justify militaristic solutions is asinine if the plan includes a representation of a non-militaristic solution. The plan determines the context of representations included to justify it.

Thoughts about topicality:

Limited topics make for better topics. Enormous topics mean that it's much harder to be prepared, and that creates lower quality debates. The best debates are those that involve extensive topic research and preparation from both sides. Large topics undermine preparation and discourage cultivating expertise. Aff creativity and topic innovation are just appeals to avoid genuine debate.

Thoughts about evidence:

Evidence quality matters. A lot of evidence read by teams this year is underlined in such a way that it's out of context, and a lot of evidence is either badly mistagged or very unqualified. On the one hand, I want the other team to say this when it's true. On the other hand, if I'm genuinely shocked at how bad your evidence is, I will probably discount it.

Me

Previous debater at UGA and debated in HS at a small school in GA. 
If you have any other questions, email me at camhen.debate@gmail.com - I would like to be on the email chain. 

- I won't read evidence "inserted into the debate." Debate's a communication activity and it justifies highlighting large parts of other people's ev which you couldn't read in a speech because of time constraints. I also don't know why it isn't the same as inserting a 20 min 1AC into the debate. Just read their re-highlighted ev or make broad indicts about the context of the ev. I think this practice is unethical. 

TLDR : Plans or GTFO

Prep Time ends when the jump drive leaves your computer.

I am very much so tech > truth.

Please Don't:
Be Rude or aggressive towards me, your opponent or your partner
Perform or imitate a sex act of any kind

Talk about suicide

Get naked

Please Do:
Read a plan
Defend a course of action
Defend your consequences
Have a competitive methodology

Case Debate

I like specific case debate. Shows you put in the hard work it takes to research and defeat the aff. I will reward hard work if there is solid Internal link debating. I think case specific disads are also pretty good if well thought out and executed. I like impact turn debates. Cleanly executed ones will usually result in a neg ballot -- messy debates, however, will not.

Topicality

I enjoy T debates, but please give me comparing visions of the topic (case lists are important). I default to competing interpretations but can be convinced otherwise; please put some effort into your reasonability arguments. You are fighting an uphill battle if you're trying to go for T must be a QPQ. 

Theory

Slow down. If you want me to vote on it, you have to give me time to actually write down your arguments. I have a pretty high threshold for condo with 2 or fewer condo options. More than 2 conditional advocacies is probably abusive. 

DA

The link is really important to me. 

I love good politics debate. The 1NR should do solid evidence comparison.

K

Links should be specific and well explained (there's a trend here). Don't get lost in buzzwords - make actual arguments. The aff should probably get to weigh their aff, but if they shouldn't, explain to me why. 

Too many times I see debaters forget about case – it’s still there. 
If you’re aff against the K, don’t forget your aff.  I dislike rejection alts- realistically your aff is a DA to the alt, impact it.

Death is bad. Suffering is bad. 

CP

They're cool. The more germane to the aff/topic they are, the more I will like them. 

Process CP’s are probably bad. I think you need a solvency advocate (with rare exceptions). 

K affs

are fine- you have to have a plan. You should defend that plan. Affs who don't will prob lose to framework. A lot....

NonTraditional Teams
If not defending a plan is your thing, I'm not your judge. I think topical plans are good. I think the aff needs to read a topical plan and defend the action of that topical plan. I also think if you've made the good faith effort to engage, then you should be rewarded. These arguments make more sense on the negative but I am not compelled by arguments that claim: "you didn't talk about it, so you should lose."

James H. Herndon - FORMER Director of Debate - Barkley Forum @ Emory University

[prefer to be called Herndon - pronouns are he/him/his. Email is jamesherndon3]

2020 update:

I left the game because I wanted to spend more time with my family. Wow, did I get that #ThanksCovid My relationship with debate was not conducive to being the father, husband, and member of my community I wanted to be. But, virtual judging is easy enough. So, why not.

What else is different - I don’t do debate research anymore, I do a lot of economic/financial research now, I do a lot of tech/zoom/Webex presentations.

In my experience I find it easier to listen/follow along when I can see people’s faces (that’s not possible for everyone, so it’s not a judgement thing) but if it can be when speaking it may aid my comprehension.

————————

everything from Jan 2019
If I am judging you and you are freaking out about it, believe there is no way I would ever vote for you, or are just generally making assumptions about my world view, then I ask you to keep in mind that the following list are things I think I think. I have been wrong more often than I have been right. I will do my best to evaluate the debate neutrally. I view myself as an adjudicator first, and do my best to neutrally evaluate the arguments as defended in front of me. I will vote for anything

Though, like all educators I have biases, those follow.

These statements are things I believe to be true about my judging. They aren't rules. But, it is better to disclose:

1. Debate is a game. I view all theory arguments through this lens.
2. If I don’t understand it at the end of the round then I am not going to vote on it.
3. The Aff should have to defend a plan or advocacy statement that they can defend is topical.
4. Topic related critical literature should be debated.
5. I will deduct speaker points for rudeness.
6. I will reward good cross-x with speaker points.
7.. I tend to evaluate the strength of the link in tandem with uniqueness – neither exists in a vacuum.
8. Counterplans always switch presumption to the aff.
9. I will NOT kick counterplans for the negative. The 2nr is allowed to present me with a reason to vote for them, that is where the debating ended. If the neg says to kick the cp and the aff doesn’t answer it I will kick it. Absent that, I am not kicking arguments for one team. This applies to all speeches.
10. Dropped doesn’t mean you win. Dropped means that the other team has conceded that the premise of that argument is true. Your job is to explain the significance of that premise for the rest of the debate. This applys to everything.
11. literature shapes the topic. and what you get to do with it.
14. Telling me how to interpret your evidence versus their evidence is what speaker points are made of.
15. There is value to life.

16. I am not qualified to evaluate people in the round for or about things that happen outside of the round. Intentions are important & I give people the benefit of the doubt too often for my own good.

17. I feel like fiating the states + federal government might be a step too far. I haven't heard a great debate on this, but since this is for my biases, thought I'd include it. That being said, state fiat is probably okay if there are solvency cards for what you are doing.

18. limited condo is good. the neg's job is to disprove the aff or win a competitive policy option. That being said, if the aff can prove that conditionality was used in a way that undermined the value or competitive fairness of the debate, it is a voting issue.

19. topicality is under-utilized against policy teams and over-utilized vs K teams.

20. future fiat illegit.

Good luck.

Flow and respond to what the other team says.

I don't have the speech doc open so do things that make it easier for me to flow. Position yourself so I can hear you. Don't speak into your laptop or stand on the opposite side of the room. Don't read typed-out things like they are the text of a card. Slow down and change the intonation of your voice when you're speaking.

If I don't understand something, I will not vote on it even if it is conceded.

Corss-x starts right after the constructive speech ends.

Starting and stopping prep each time you need to use more prep time will cost at least 15 sec.

Very simply, if you have trigger warnings because the topics are more taboo then I am not the judge for you. If you can't explain it to your school administration or parents without them raising concerns then don't run it in front of me. Time and place are important.

Things I will not vote on (AUTO 25 Speaks):

Arguments that suggest students should engage in risky behavior.

Death is good.

Fear of death is bad

Aff's that don't defend the resolution.

Aff's that link to debate in general instead of the resolution.

Judge pref disclosure

Disclosure

Asking me to vote on something that happened before the debate round started.

Asking me to vote on something that happened after the debate round is over.

Vote for a team because they are part of a marginalized group.

Bataille

Baudrillard

Settler Colonialism

Deleuze

Psychoanalysis

ontological argument

epistemological arguments.

In fact, it would be better if you just didn't run a K.

PIC's

Condo CP's

Topical CP's

Consult CP's

conditions CP's

A Critique of Full Text Disclosure

Spreading bad

A Critique of Disclosure

Vote only for women

This list will be ongoing. I will update it to let you know.

So what is left you might ask:

Case debate

Topicality

Da's

CP's that are not listed above.

Other things you might want to know:

1. Da's can have a zero-risk.

2. Aff adv's can have zero risk

3. Solvency can have zero risk

4. Substantial will be important in these types of debates.

5. The neg will get a healthy dose of presumption.

I really would like to listen to a debate about the resolution.

Updates:

PF is different from Policy. PF shouldn't try and be policy. If you try to be policy in a PF then you won't be as successful. You don't need to spread. Few cards are better. Explaining good. Tagline extensions only are bad.

I have been judging lots of PF rounds. And here are some things you should know.

1. I am more truth over tech. I would consider it
2. You might have evid on the world is flat. It doesn't mean it is true. The other team might not have evid on the world is round. I am still going to vote on the world is round, if they say it is round without evid.
3. The more internal links you have to your impact. The less likely it is.
4. Probability is more important than possibility.
5. Having 20 cards with two-sentence each won't get you very far.
6. Cutting evidence out of context is becoming a problem. Don't do that. Seriously, don't do that.
7. The big questions on the topic matter.
8. Common sense arguments are better than stupid arguments with cards.
9. Saying the other team dropped an argument when they didn't will cost you speaker points! I am tired of hearing this and I would suggest you flow.
10. I listen to cross-x. Cross-x is binding.
11. Spreading in PF is not needed. Your time is better spent going for fewer arguments better than lots of arguments poorly. The whole point is to collapse and explain.
12. When the timer goes off, I stop flowing.

Your evidence better match your claim. It is becoming a race to the bottom with evidence. If the evidence does not match your claim then I will not evaluate that argument. simple!

Maybe I am getting old. I like what I like. If you don't want to adapt to this judge then strike me. If you have me and don't feel the need to adapt then you take the risk on what happens at the end of the round, not me.

If you have questions before the round ask me.

UPDATE: 10/27/23---- Be on time! In fact, be early.

Ryan James

Email: ryanjames0116@gmail.com - add me to the email chain

Emory University '21

Debated 4 years at McDonogh ('17)

Top Level:

Do you, I will equally evaluate any argument (unless clearly, intentionally, and/or inherently unethical) as long are you are willing to defend the argument in a passionate and respectful way. I will try to be as objective as possible. My history in non-traditional/performative debate does not mean that I default to these arguments or prefer them over any other type of argument - if you win the debate, you win the debate. I am still familiar with traditional forms of debate but err to the side of more explanation for topic DA contextualization. I love seeing smart/new/strategic arguments. The best way to get a ballot in front of me is for the 2NR/2AR to tell a story stitching together all of the previous moving parts of the debate and paint a picture of what voting for you would look like. This may include a role of the ballot/debate/judge, but not necessary.

K/Performance/Non-traditional Affs & T/Framework:

- I am flexible with alternative ways of viewing the topic. What I have read/believe is true however does not necessarily matter in these debates though because (like I said above) if you win you win. An aff that's not T can still win against T/FW and a T aff can lose on T/FW. It all depends on the debate and what your arguments are.

- I will not prescribe to you how you should read your args - as long as you believe you are making a smart/well-explained/strategic argument, do you and I'll evaluate it.

- FW: Actually talk about the specific aff/and what they do wrong instead of making a generic/uncontextualized "no-plan bad" argument. You can still win these debates but usually not at high-level competition. (T you won't have to worry about this as much)

Kritiks:

- Familiar with race-based Ks (STILL give me the story/theory of the K especially in the context of the aff - not everyone reads the same Ks the same way).

- High-theory Ks will need to include explanation that isn't full of jargon (even if it makes sense to you).

DA/CP:

- DA: Solid link contextualization and impact work (assuming you are winning the basic stuff i.e. uq, i/l chains, etc.) and you'll be good.

- CP: Open to them all, no matter how small/picky or big if you win the flow you win the CP

Speaker Points:

- I evaluate based on what I have seen at your level of debate.

- Generally 28.5 - 29.5 but you will be below or above if you need to learn/practice a lot more and practice or did exceptionally well and made very smart arguments that stitched the debate together, respectively.

CX:

- Open, cool with using prep to prolong CX

- Of course reference if necessary in speech

Misc:

- Speed isn't everything - slower + clear > faster + hear every 5th word; I will also listen and usually flow the parts of the evidence you read/have highlighted

- Clipping: You and partner get L + 0 speaks, W + 30s for opponents, taken up with tab

- Saving the doc, emailing, flashing, that whole process is not prep

**Just a brief update for the high school community on the Inequality topic:

T - Taxes and Transfers - Heavily lean Aff here, but the Neg can win it I guess.

Process CPs - Good luck with these in front of me.

If you feel the need to not take prep before the 2AC or 2NC, good luck with that as well in front of me.

**Updated Summer 2023**

Yes I would like to be on the email chain: jordanshun@gmail.com

I will listen to all arguments, but a couple of caveats:

-This doesn't mean I will understand every element of your argument.

-I have grown extremely irritated with clash debates…take that as you please.

-I am a firm believer that you must read some evidence in debate. If you differ, you might want to move me down the pref sheet.

Note to all: In high school debate, there is no world where the Negative needs to read more than 5 off case arguments. SO if you say 6+, I'm only flowing 5 and you get to choose which you want me to flow.
In college debate, I might allow 6 off case arguments :/

Good luck to all!

I do want to be on the email chains: harvard.debate[at]gmail.com and kviveth [at] gmail.com

Evidence/Debating:

Dropped arguments and spin can be true/good to an extent. I tend to look more holistically at the argument even if it was "dropped".

CX ends after three minutes. You can take more prep time to ask questions, but it won't be "on the record"

"Framework" -

I think some of the most meaningful things I've learned from my decade doing policy debate have come from debating, researching, and preparing arguments that are "not about the topic".

That being said, debate is a competitive activity and the resolution is the only non-arbitrary starting point from which to begin research and preparation. If there were no equal prospect of victory and people were just showing up every weekend to talk about different things, there'd be some engagement, but the incentive to test other people's ideas with a level of rigor and tenacity that we value debate for just wouldn't exist.

The fact that there are a myriad of issues that may or may not be more important than the chosen resolution is certainly an important question we should be asking of ourselves and of the topic selection process, but the topic has already been chosen - that's when limits become important.

In general, I'm much better for aff teams that impact turn topicality / framework than teams that try to engage deeply with counter-interpretations.

Counterplans -

The plan is the focus of the debate and perms don't have to be topical.

If you have evidence that compares your CP to the plan, it's probably legitimate

I have a hard time seeing the neg winning on CPs that compete solely off of certainty and immediacy.

The "always a risk of the CP linking less than the plan" is silly.

You don't need solvency advocates especially for smart and intuitive advantage CPs and 2NC CPs out of addons.

I will kick CPs for the neg if the CP is conditional until told not to by the aff.

Critiques -

Framework is either the most important part of a critique debate or totally irrelevant. It's really helpful to me to elaborate on the what the consequence of either team winning their framework argument is.

In recent years, aff teams have radically underutilized the permutation and alt solvency arguments in favor of impact turns. If that's your strategy I'm all for it! However, given that the worst part of almost every critique is the alternative and lack of actual links this could be a good path for teams to take.

Theory -

Most theory arguments are reasons to reject the argument, not the team.

Conditionality - Neg teams are garbage at defending conditionality and the aff should capitalize.

Literature usually guides theory questions for CP legitimacy - if you have evidence that compares the CP to the plan it's probably legitimate.

Tom Keane
Number of YEARS Judging: 15


With a few glaring exceptions, I attempt to adapt to the debaters rather than forcing the debaters to adapt to me. However, I do have a few predispositions that are nearly set in stone and there are a few other things about how I approach a debate that I think you should know:

Evidence: You only get credit for the parts of the card that you actually read. It doesn’t matter if the unread part of the card provides a great warrant for your claim if you didn’t actually read that part of the card. In my view, a strong analytical argument with a good warrant is a lot better than a short unwarranted card.

The Resolution and Debates About Debate: I firmly believe that the educational benefits of debate are at their highest when there is some degree of predictability regarding what the debate is going to be about. That puts the burden on the affirmative team to defend the resolution or a specific example of a resolutional action. It’s going to be very hard for an affirmative to win my ballot while claiming they don’t have to defend the resolution. However, I do think that issues of style and the types of evidence that we privilege are fine for discussion within the context of a debate about the topic, but that's where that discussion should take place. The negative obviously is going to have much greater leeway to critique the topic or debate itself.

Topicality: I love a good topicality debate, and the affirmative needs to be topical. I lean a bit more towards the view that topicality is a game of competing frameworks for debate. As such, each team would need to articulate how debate on the topic would be better under their interpretation. That being said, I could easily be convinced to view it another way if a team argues it well enough.

Fiat and Constitutionality of Plan/CP Action: This is the other area where my views probably become highly out-of-step with the debate community, and where my approach in-round is not likely to be swayed by the debaters. My view of fiat is that the plan or CP will not be overturned/revoked by the actor that passes it. That means if the plan is done via legislation, Congress won’t undo it, the President won’t revoke an executive order, and the Court won’t overturn its ruling. In my view, fiat does not protect you from having the plan/CP overturned by another branch of government. My approach to fiat is based on two things: (1) How other branches respond to the actions of the others is an important facet of policy making in the real world. In the debate context, I don’t want that discussion limited to the politics DA; and (2) I think my approach creates more ground to oppose the plan/CP. A team can now legitimately argue that the plan/CP doesn’t solve because it would get undone by one of the other branches of government. Whether that would happen is typically up to the other team to prove, but if you run a plan or CP that is blatantly unconstitutional (e.g., a CP to have the President unilaterally modify or abrogate a statute), then I’ll vote on it, with our without evidence, as long as the other team makes the argument. I've done it before, and I have no problem with doing it again. And, just to be clear, do not think you can get away with writing “the Supreme Court will not strike down the counterplan” into the text.

Theory: Theory is one area where I am very unhappy about how things have developed over the last few years, and I completely expect that my views are likely to get me struck by many, but so be it. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the idea of the negative getting conditional or dispositional counterplans, and I probably tend to err a bit towards the affirmative on those issues. But the thing that really bothers me is how multiple conditional counterplans has become a common negative strategy. If your negative strategy hinges upon running multiple conditional counterplans, then I’m probably not the right judge for you.

Disads: I love a good DA, and they're a core part of any negative strategy. But it’s important to tell a link story that is as specific as possible. In general, I’m pretty receptive to strong analytical arguments, and weak generic link stories are particularly susceptible to being carved up by the other team, even if they don’t have a single card. But a more specific link story makes that harder for the affirmative. Also, while it is obviously beneficial to have offensive arguments against a DA, it is not essential. I have no problem assigning no risk to a DA based on pure defense, especially on the link level. A negative team doesn't get rewarded just for having read a weak argument. That means that it is not all about the uniqueness debate in a link vs. link turn scenario, especially in a politics debate.

Kritiks: As a debater, I almost never ran them, but that doesn't mean that I have a problem with them as a judge. So, if you win the argument I'll vote for it. But, there are a few things you might want to know. First, I am not well read on the prevailing K literature of the era, so don't assume I know what your author's thesis is. For example, if I'm going to need to have read the collected works of Zizek to understand your K, you might want to try something else. That means you’re going to have to spend some time explaining the argument and its implications. Second, I am open aff framework arguments against the K, but I’m certainly not going to knee-jerk in favor of them either. Finally, Ks are at their most persuasive when you can provide a coherent link and impact that are specific to the plan. I find generic Ks to be much less persuasive.

Impact Analysis: I cannot overstate how vitally important this is. Don’t just throw out terms like “nuclear war” or “extinction” without telling me how to compare impacts, both in magnitude, likelihood, and timeframe, and how I am to evaluate the impacts when magnitude, likelihood and timeframe don’t all go in the same direction. If you don’t do that, I’ll do it myself, and there’s every chance that you won’t like the decision that I make. Additionally, this is not something that you should be ignoring throughout the debate until the 2NR or 2AR. If you leave all your impact analysis until then, things are not going to go well for you, since those speeches are not the time for new arguments. Also, if you read an impact in the 1AC or the 1NC and never mention it again, don't expect that I'll give any weight to it at the end of the debate. Finally, you should be scrutinizing the other side’s impact evidence. They may say “nuclear war” or “extinction,” but 9 times out of 10 their evidence probably won’t come close to saying that, so point that out!


Other random thoughts:
-You will be punished for stealing prep time, it is cheating. The first violation will result in lost speaker points, further violations will likely result in a loss. 

-I will protect the 2NR against new 2AR arguments, but in any other speech, its the job of the other team to point out new arguments and why those should be rejected (though it won’t take much work)
-It's better to specify your agent.
-Big impact turn throwdowns are always fun (and good for your speaker points too!)
-Don't neglect the case debate. Spending time making solid defensive arguments against the solvency and harms is probably better spent than reading another weak DA in the 1NC.
-Rudeness means that your speaker points will suffer!

New - NDT 24. Welcome to Atlanta!

The only things you really need to know:
1. If you berate, threaten, verbally or physically attack your opponents, I will end the debate and you'll recieve a loss along with the lowest points tabroom will allow me to asign.
2. Don't endorse self-harm.
3. Arguments admissable for adjudication include everything said from when the 1AC timer starts until the 2AR timer ends. Anything else is irrelevant.

Other than that, do what you do best. Technical debating is more likely to result in you winning than anything else.

I am a coach at Emory, Liberal Arts and Science Academy and The Harker School. Other conflicts: Texas, Westwood, St Vincent de Paul, Bakersfield High School

Email Chain: yes, cardstealing@gmail.com

You will receive a speaker point bump if you give your final rebuttal without the use of a laptop. I will give higher points to speeches with errors/pauses/inconsistencies etc. where the speaker debates off their flows than speeches that sound crystal clear and perfect but are delivered without the speaker looking up from their computer screen. If you flow off your laptop I will use my best judgement to assess the extent to which you're delivering arguments in such a way that demonstrates you have flowed the debate.

Ultimately, do what you do best. Giving speeches you're comfortable with is almost certainly a better path to victory than attempting to adapt to any of this stuff below. Debate is extremely hard and requires immense amounts of works. I will try to give you the same level of effort that I know you've put in.

Debate is an activity about persuasion and communication. If I can't understand your argument because what you are saying because you are unclear, haven't explained it, or developed it into a full argument-claim, warrant, impact, it likely won't factor in my decision.

The winner will nearly always be the team able to identify the central question of the debate first and most clearly trace how the development of their argument means they're ahead on that central question.

Virtually nothing you can possibly say or do will offend me [with the new above caveat] if you can't beat a terrible argument you probably deserve to lose.

Framework- Fairness is both an internal link and an impact. Debate is a game but its also so much more. Go for T/answer T the way that makes most sense to you, I'll do my best to evaluate the debate technically.

Counter-plans-

-spamming permutations, particular ones that are intrinsic, without a text and with no explanation isn't a complete argument. [insert perm text fine, insert counter plan text is not fine].

-pretty neg on "if it competes, its legitimate." Aff can win these debates by explaining why theory and competition should be separated and then going for just one in the 2ar. the more muddled you make this, the better it usually is for the neg.

-non-resolutional theory is rarely if ever a reason to reject the team. Generally don't think its a reason to reject the argument either.

-I'm becoming increasingly poor for conditionality bad as a reason to reject the team. This doesn't mean you shouldn't say in the 2ac why its bad but I've yet to see a speech where the 2AR convinced me the debate has been made irredeemably unfair or un-educational due to the status of counter plans. I think its possible I'd be more convinced by the argument that winning condo is bad means that the neg is stuck with all their counter plans and therefore responsible for answering any aff offense to those positions. This can be difficult to execute/annoying to do, but do with that what you will.

Kritiks

-affs usually lose these by forgetting about the case, negs usually lose these when they don't contextualize links to the 1ac. If you're reading a policy aff that clearly links, I'll be pretty confused if you don't go impact turns/case outweighs.

-link specificity is important - I don't think this is necessarily an evidence thing, but an explanation thing - lines from 1AC, examples, specific scenarios are all things that will go a long way

-these are almost always just framework debates these days but debaters often forget to explain the implications winning their interpretation has on the scope of competition. framework is an attempt to assign roles for proof/rejoinder and while many of you implicitly make arguments about this, the more clear you can be about those roles, the better.

-i'm less likely to think "extinction outweighs, 1% risk" is as good as you think it is, most of the time the team reading the K gives up on this because they for some reason think this argument is unbeatable, so it ends up mattering in more rfds than it should

LD -

I have been judging LD for a year now. The policy section all applies here.

Tech over truth but, there's a limit - likely quite bad for tricks - arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete. Dropped arguments are important if you explain how they implicate my decision. Dropped arguments are much less important when you fail to explain the impact/relevance of said argument.

RVIs - no, never, literally don't. 27 ceiling. Scenario: 1ar is 4 minutes of an RVI, nr drops the rvi, I will vote negative within seconds of the timer ending.

Policy/K - both great - see above for details.

Phil - haven't judged much of this yet, this seems interesting and fine, but again, arguments need a claim, warrant and impact to be complete arguments.

Arguments communicated and understood by the judge per minute>>>>words mumbled nearly incomprehensibly per minute.

Unlikely you'll convince me the aff doesn't get to read a plan for topicality reasons. K framework is a separate from this and open to debate, see policy section for details.

PF -

If you read cards they must be sent out via email chain with me attached or through file share prior to the speech. If you reference a piece of evidence that you haven't sent out prior to your speech, fine, but I won't count it as being evidence. You should never take time outside of your prep time to exchange evidence - it should already have been done.

"Paraphrasing" as a substitute for quotation or reading evidence is a bad norm. I won't vote on it as an ethics violation, but I will cap your speaker points at a 27.5.

I realize some of you have started going fast now, if everyone is doing that, fine. However, adapting to the norms of your opponents circuit - i.e. if they're debating slowly and traditionally and you do so as well, will be rewarded with much higher points then if you spread somebody out of the room, which will be awarded with very low points even if you win.

Judge Philosophy

Conflicts: UGA, Emory University, and North Broward

Email: Brianklarmandebate@gmail.com - Yes, put me on the thread. No, I won't open all of the docs during the round and will likely ask for a doc of cards I find relevant at the end.

2024 Updates:

I am not a fully time debate coach. I am working with the UGA & North Broward debate teams part time.

I am someone who believes tech > truth. However, I do not look at cards during debates, so if your arguments are not clear by explanation/flowable tags/very clearly read card text, they are not "tech" that is on my flow. My favorite debates involve strategy (think: creative "cross applications," argument that are "good because the other teams can't read their best answers," etc). I enjoy a good theory debate (conditionality, solvency advocate, perms, politics theory arguments, etc.) and I would prefer that debates have some depth by the end of the negative block.

College - Assume I know things about the topic, but have not cut cards on it in the past year. I have had conversations with debaters/coaches and am very familiar with nuclear strategy. My knowledge of the college topic extends to knowing: assurance, deterrence, IR Ks, military process CPs*, and anything that would have been read on the past college exec power/military presence/alliance topics. I have written many iterations of both ICBMs and NFU affs & negs.

*If you are going for a T argument or process CP, keep in mind that I could not tell you the wording of the resolution off of the top of my head, so any arguments related to grammatical construction of the resolution might require you explaining with another sentence or going a bit slower. I am under the impression that the topic is pretty small and the negative ground is pretty good, so make sure to impact your limits (or "functional limits")/ground arguments

High School - I have had very little interaction with the current topic. I cut a number of cards on UBI in the past, but I know very little about the other parts of the topic. I did not teach at a debate camp. I have judged a handful of rounds and they were almost all on capitalism or race Ks. I am under the impression that the "core" negative arguments are some combination of States, Politics, "Redistribution" PICs, and Ks about the economy; I assume that the "core" affirmative arguments are all related to the economy and inequality.

2021 Post-NDT Updates:

(1) "X Outweighs Y" - If the 2NR/2AR does not start with some version of this (or include this elsewhere), I will almost certainly vote the other way. I don't super care how you say it, but if you are unwilling to say that the impact you will win is more important than the impact the other team will win, things aren't going well.

(2) T & Theory - I seem to like them more than everyone else I judge with. Go for conditionality bad! I don't necessarily think it is true but never seem to hear 2NC or 2NR blocks that have great offense or impact calc. After judging on a slew of panels, I realize that I am more likely to be into technical theory & T arguments then others. I also tend to expect complete arguments in the 1NC/2AC/2NC (theory needs warrants, T needs the necessary defense and offense).

(3) Tech > Truth - I feel like I have said this a number of times, but I realized that I think this more than others (or at least more than people that I judge with). A "bad" disad has high risk until/unless answers are made. This also has made me amenable to voting on some not great disads vs. planless affs just on the basis of 2ACs lacking necessary defense.

(4) T vs. Planless affs - I have found that I tend to vote affirmative when something is conceded or answered completely incorrectly. I tend to vote negative when the negative goes for a limits/fairness impact and responds to every argument on the line by line. I tend to find myself confused about the relevance of all arguments that the content of the resolution is either good or bad. I feel like I find my voting record to be like 50/50, but I haven't done the math.

(5) Decision making process - I tend to read less cards then others who I judge with. Not because I am against reading cards, but because I only read evidence to resolve questions in a debate. If you want me to read cards (which you likely do), make them relevant.

(6) Points - At the NDT, my points were about .1-.2 below everyone else on every panel. I plan on upping my points by .1-.2. That said, I don't give great points.

2020-2021 Updates - Online Judging: Judging online is difficult - a few implications:

(1) Ask if I am in the room / paying attention before you start speaking. Non-negotiable. "Brian, are you ready?" or "Klarman, are you here?" or anything that requires me to respond. I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

(2) Clarity matters more - I don't usually follow along in the doc and I am unlikely to read cards from both teams if one team is significantly clearer. On a related note, organization and numbering can help a lot with clarity because it tells me what arguments to expect.

(3) Technology skills matter - Emails should be sent out on time. If you are taking "no prep" for the 2AC, 1NR, etc. I assume that means the doc is sent and we are ready to go. I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time and makes concentration harder.

(4) Interesting arguments help keep attention and boosts points - I am really trying to flow and get everything down. I flow CX. I line up arguments. I am more aggressive than most about the flow. That being said, staring at the computer for the 3rd or 4th round of the day is very difficult. I will do my best. I find flowing very important because it lets the debaters do the debating instead of me deciding what I like. That said, online it is taking me a little more energy to focus. I've found when I hear arguments that I either haven't judged before, things I haven't blocked out, or even a new explanation, I tend to think the debate is more interesting which helps points & engagement. I really do love debate, so if you are excited, I will be too. On the other side, if this is the 9th time i am hearing the same school read the same block (and this could be Politics, T, Fairness bad, Deterrence or a K) with no emphasis at the same tournament, its hard to focus.

(5) Internet issues - they happen, I get it. They might happen to you, they might happen to me. I've heard best practice is to have some backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules, follow those. Otherwise I will likely just ask tab what to do if this happens. I'm open to other ideas of how to deal with it. Please please please have one (or all) debaters look to make sure the judge hasn't gotten booted from the room.

2020-2021 Updates - Other:

(1) Points - I think my points average around 28.5. I usually don't go under 28 unless something has gone wrong. If you get a 29.3 or 29.4 that is very good. I'm willing to go above that, but mostly when I hear something and am like "wow, that was memorable. I am going to try to tell people who I coach/teach in lab/judge to do things like this in the future."

(2) I often decide debates by (1) determining what I need to decide (2) looking through my flow for if it is resolved and then (3) reading cards if necessary. I'm unlikely to read a card (for the decision) to figure out something that the debaters never made clear. That said, I am happy to talk about some card or look through your evidence to give advice after the debate if you want - I tend to think debate is collaborative and we should all make each other better.

(3) I miss theory debates - this is the thing I have thought the most about, this is how I debated, and I just think its fun. I don't like "pointless" theory, but if you can convince me that something is the debate in the literature and predictable - from process CPs to T arguments to even spec arguments - I'm happy to hear it. That said, if you make your theory argument intentionally blippy ("ASPEC, they didnt, its a voter") I won't care.

I also left my old paradigm up here, but I think it mostly says: I did more "DA/CP/T" stuff than "K" stuff, I am familiar with "K" literature about race/gender/biopower/cultural studies, I like specific strategies, good case debating always impresses me, and I am very particular about the flow.

Old Stuff:

Preferences: I don't really care about what argument you make. I tend to think bad arguments will lose. The debate things I think about the most are counterplans and topicality arguments. That being said, I cut everything and coach everything. I feel like I mostly judge K debates where no one agrees about anything at this point. In those, I generally am familiar with that set of arguments (I am completing my MA in cultural studies, focusing on questions of race & gender) but not how to fit them into a debate. I tend to be very comfortable with how DAs, CPs, T arguments, and case fit into debate, but I tend to do weird research so I might not know what all the technical stuff of the CP is. That also means that the purpose of a K argument (or answer to the purpose) might require more explanation than the purpose of another argument. The things I think you actually need to know about me are below. I tried to lay out what I do in most debates while they are happening and afterwords and be as honest as possible.

Flowing: I will try to flow every argument in the debate. I expect that debaters will be doing the same thing. I could not possibly care less what the speech doc says or if you are "skipping a card" in the doc (that being said, I would like to be on the chain because I like glancing at cards after debates & trying to learn more about the topic/have informed discussions after the debates; also if you are doing some super annoying thing in the doc just to mess with the other team, I will likely be upset at you when I realize that in the post round/give points). When I flow speeches that set up argument structure (1nc on case, 2ac on off case), I will attempt to number the speech and will give higher speaker points to 1ns and 2as who set up that structure themselves (as well as be able to better understand their arguments; the 1nc that makes 4 analytics in a row without numbering is basically unflowable which means when the 2ac drops something I won't care). In subsequent speeches, I will go by the order of those numbers and will attempt to find what you are answering before I flow what you say. This means that if the 2nc starts on 2ac 4, I will mostly likely miss the first few arguments trying to figure out where to flow it (unless they say "2ac 4 - X - here's our answer" which would just be easily flowable but I might be confused about why the 2nc started on 2ac 4). If the 2nc starts on 2ac 1, I will not have an issue flowing. If the negative block (or 1ar) decides that the order is irrelevant, I am likely to be very grumpy; it is hard to vote on technical concessions or other things if the flow gets ruined and it makes it hard to tell a 1ar "you dropped X" when the block does not answer 2ac arguments. In addition to initial numbering, I will be able to better understand later speeches if you give me some idea (probably by number or argument) where the thing you are extending is on my flow. If you would like to only extend an impact turn or thumper or some no internal link argument in the 1ar that is 2ac 9 on my flow but don't tell me that you are starting at 2ac 9, it is going to take me a minute to find it on my flow. If, however, the 1ar goes to a flow and says "2ac 9 - they dropped X - here's what it is and why it matters" I will be able to immediately find it on my flow (it is easier to find numbers than exact arguments on a flow).

CX: I love CX. It is maybe my favorite "speech." I often try to flow it or take some notes at the least. That means you should pick words carefully in CX. I will especially try to write down anything about the advocacy and frameworks for evaluating debates (meaning metrics for thinking about things, which is not always how debate uses the word). CX can be fun even when teams get heated, but when CX is just people yelling at people and it is clear that people are more upset than enjoying things, I tend to lose interest. I like when people answering questions are honest, explain things, etc. I sometimes have the docs open and if we are having a fight about some card, I will look at it. I am not yet entirely comfortable with this, but if I miss the answer to a question, I may re-ask for the answer after the timer (I will do this with things like status or clarification, I don't think I will with other things yet but I might). I am also not comfortable interrupting CX to say things, but if someone is intentionally saying something that isn't true to answer clarification questions or refusing to answer clarification questions I may do so. If I make any definitive judgement about these things, I will try to update my philosophy again.

Look at me: I do not have a good poker face. I'd recommend looking for expression or other gestures. When I cannot flow people, I tend to look very confused. Same when an argument is bad. When I think an argument has already been explained and/or you are saying things that aren't arguments, I tend to sit there with my pen on my paper waiting for you to say something that needs to be flowed.

How I make a decision: At the end of the debate, I try to figure out what arguments are going to decide the debate (there tend to be 1-3), parse those out, and figure out what happens from there. It is generally better if debaters tell me what those things will be either on the line by line or in an overview (this is the only reason I could really imagine having an overview unless it is to explain some super complicated thing). I tend to think the best speeches are the ones that both identify these key points, explain why they win and then what happens if they win those key things. If there is no discussion of key points (either implicit or explicit), it is highly possible that I will try to find a few points that are key and then explain my decision from there (I determined this argument was probably the most important, here's how I evaluated it, here's why it deals with lots of other stuff). Any decision like that just makes me grumpy, especially because it always ends with the judge CX forever about why I decided this way and my answer tends to be "I didn't know how else to decide"

Speaker points: I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I understand this entire speaker point thing. I think my points might be a bit low. I don't plan on just raising them; if you need higher points I get that I might not be the judge for you. At the moment, I don't think that raising points just to raise them is a great idea because it eliminates a lot of range and variation in points that I think signal improvement for debaters and help communicate about the debate. I might revisit this later on if people want. I don't really know what an "average" speech looks like. If I had to try and articulate some made-up scale, it would probably look something like this: if the speech you gave was the best it could have been and/or basically won you the debate, its in the 29.3+ space. If the speech kept things going and helped a bit but not as much as it could, its in the 28.7+ range. If the speech was fine but didn't have much value value, I tend to think its in the 28.2+ range. If the speech wasn't good and didn't help much, it in the 27.5+ area. If the speech is bad, we are in the like 27 or even 26.8+ range. I don't think I've given many points lower than 27 and if I did, something must have gone very wrong. I tend to find most speeches between that 28-29 range. I think I average in the low 28s but I don't really know or care. Only a few speeches have just crushed the debate for me. I tend to have a lot of issue judging debates when I feel that all the speeches were about 28.2s or something and I have to give people different points. I think my default is to make the thing I think the top end or top middle (so if it was 28.2, maybe i'd give 28.3-28 to everyone). That being said, I think I am more willing to use high range in points based on speeches. I am also happy to add points for well used CX, good numbering, clarity of cards and highlighting (like if I can understand all the warrants in the evidence while you are reading), partners who work well together and make each other look good (I think basically every bold move in debate could be characterized by the 2nr/2ar as a big mistake or a big efficiency gain; if you can convince me that the 1ar under-covering the DA was to trick them to go for it, I will likely think the 1ar choice was smart and hence deserves better points, same with other speeches), etc. If people have a better way of doing speaker points, I am happy to talk about it.

Do not: Clip cards, lie, use something out of context, or do anything else unethical. These will result in loss of speaker points or loss of rounds.

Calhoun 2017

University of Pittsburgh 2021

Current School Affiliations - Unionville (2017-)

Put me on the email chain - hku426@gmail.com

1) Everything is debatable. “Either defend it, or don’t say it. Defend everything.”

2) You should frame the debate at the end of the 2NR and 2AR. If you don’t, it will make the debate incredibly frustrating to resolve and inevitably lead to some form of judge intervention.

3) Any specific thoughts I have about debate are my opinions and will not influence the round as much as you think it will. I am a flow-oriented judge so it’s up to you what you do with my time.

4) If you have any questions about college debate or possibly attending the University of Pittsburgh, talk to me after the round

General Gripes about Debate:

First and foremost, stop saying “T not FW.” It’s a waste of your time. Just call it framework because there is no meaningful distinction that you will make that will convince me otherwise.

That being said, framework is incredibly strategic when done correctly and I enjoy being in clash debates. Fairness should be an internal link to education not as an impact in itself. Oftentimes I find explanations of fairness being tautological, however, that does not mean you can’t go for fairness as an impact. This means that your explanation of fairness should be better than usual.

The normative interpretation of fiat is based on a hypothetical implementation of the plan and I default to this interpretation unless told otherwise. Just because this is a normative standard in debate does not mean it should be the sole interpretation of debate.

I am generally unhappy with the trend of teams reading 6/7-minute overviews then leaving 1 minute for the line by line. Engagement is non-negotiable – You have to answer the aff. It is, in fact, harder to answer nuanced criticisms of the aff versus more of your generic K cards so you should take the opportunity to maximize your offense.

Teams should almost never sacrifice their clarity for speed. Being a fast debater means that it should not be the literal speed that matters, but rather the number of arguments clearly communicated to the judge. This is especially true for theory, topicality, and k debates. I don’t have the best hearing so it is in your best interest to slow down.

Background: Debated at Smithville High School, George Mason University, coached at Mason, and now Associate Director at Emory. I want to be on the chains, my email is Kylelastovica@gmail.com

General:

Clarity is key- This is a communication activity. I would prefer slowing down for the purpose of persuasion and ethos than slurring just to throw in that last card you probably do not need.

Tech vs. Truth- This is circumstantial. I generally reward technical concessions and try to hold a firm line on new args in rebuttals. Though, I also think a silly advantage or DA can be demolished with analytics.

CX- Won't allow inserted args that weren't in the speeches. CX ends after 3 minutes. 

Depth over breadth- I prefer a vertical spread, but you do you.

Humor- If you can please do or if you can’t I guess that will be entertaining as well. Peter Susko jokes are a plus (Gotta have something better than just he is short) but any D7, Mason jokes will do. 

Post-Round Doc's- I have increasingly learned that debaters add extra stuff in these that were not clearly extended in the 2AR/2NR. I would prefer this didn't occur since it really turns me off on reading the good cards that were actually extended and debated.  

Topicality:

Thoroughly enjoy these debates. 

Default to competing interps so whatever is the best version of the topic wins. Don't really think reasonability is an arg. 

Lists and examples are key- list of crazy aff's they justify, lists of sufficient aff ground they still have in their respective area, list of neg arg's that are omitted, list of important aff's that are mooted if their interp is chosen, etc. Then the lists need to be impacted, so I can answer the "so what?" question of x argument being excluded or x aff being included.

Do impact comparison i.e. limits vs. aff flex. 

Theory/CP:

Lean neg on most CP theory questions- Condo its good (more than 2 starts getting sketchy but whatev) and anything other than status is a reason to reject the arg. 

Slow down on these blocks. 

Impact comparison is key.

Won't judge kick unless argumentation suggests I should.

Slow down on planks, I shouldn't have to find out what the CP actually does later in the debate.  

DA:

Awesome- Enjoy a good politics or topic DA.

2NC/1NR Impact/Turns case overviews are preferable- 1AR's needs to address these. 

There can be zero percent of a link.

Case:

Details of warrant extrapolation and depth are key. 2AC's tend to be blippy so take advantage.

Presumption is a thing.

Aff’s should choose and break down more in the 1AR. 2AR shouldn't be the first time any impact comparison is done. 

K stuff:

Would rather have you do you’re thing than trying to conform to me.

Insert classic I haven’t read you're stuff so explain at caveman level. Historical/current events examples are very helpful to show application of theory.

Aff's need to watch out for and answer classic K tricks.

Framework- Aff's should be related to the rez in some way. This makes framework a good option for the neg.

I am currently an assistant debate coach with both Montgomery Bell Academy and George Mason University. This is my 15th year in policy debate.

I use he/him pronouns.

Last updated: 1/31/2024

Please put me on the email chain & make me an ev doc at the end of the debate. NJL1994@gmail.com.

Set up and send out the 1AC 10 minutes before the debate begins. Please avoid downtime during debates. If you do both of these things without me needing to say anything (send out the 1AC 10 minutes early + avoid downtime) you'll get higher speaker points.

If I'm judging you online, please slow down a bit and emphasize clarity more than normal.

Top level things:

I think about debate in terms of risk (does the risk of the advantage being true outweigh the risk of the disad being true?). I am willing to vote on presumption, particularly when people say really ridiculous stuff or people's cards are highlighted to say nothing.

I like specificity, nuance, and for you to sound smart. If you sound like you've done research and you know what's going on, I'm likely to give you great points. Being specific, having nuances, and explaining your distinctions is the easiest way to get my ballot.

Judge direction is a lost art. If you win the argument that you're advancing, why should it matter? What does this mean for the debate? What does it mean for your arguments or the other team's arguments? This is the number one easiest way to win my (and really anyone's) ballot in a debate. Direct your judges to think a certain way, because if you don't, your judges are likely to go rogue and decide things that make sense to them but not to you. So impact your arguments and tell me what to do with them. I think it's way more valuable to do that than include one more tiny argument and almost certainly the easiest way to get me to overcome any predispositions.

Decorum is very important to me. If your strategy is to belittle, upset, talk down to, yell at, escalate, curse at, or otherwise be rude or mean to your opponents, then you can expect me to give you terrible speaker points. I also reserve the right to end the debate early if I find the behavior particularly atrocious or potentially threatening to anyone in the room. I am very uninterested in the “I know what you did last summer” strategy or any personal attacks. You certainly don't have to be best friends with your opponents, but I do expect a sense of cordiality when engaging your opponents and their arguments.

"The existence of speech time limits, the assumption that you will not interrupt an opponent's speech intentionally, and the fact that I (and not you) will be signing a ballot that decides a winner and loser is non-negotiable." (taken verbatim from Shree Awsare).

I am incredibly uncomfortable adjudicating things that did not occur in the debate I am watching. Please do not ask me to judge based on something that didn’t happen in the round. I am likely to ignore you.

High school debaters in particular: I have consistently noticed over the past few years of judging that I vote for the team whose arguments I understand. If I cannot connect the dots, I'm not going to vote for you. This goes equally for kritikal and policy debaters. Most of my decisions in high school debates come down to this, and I will tell you that your argument makes no sense in my RFD.

How I decide debates:

First: who solves what?-- does the aff solve its impacts, and (assuming it's in the 2NR) does the negative's competitive advocacy solve its own impacts and/or the aff? In framework debates, this means the first questions I resolve are "does the aff solve itself?" and "does the TVA solve the aff sufficiently?"

Second: Who’s impact is bigger? This is the most important question in the debate. Do impact calculus.

Third: Whatever you have told me matters. Because I have started with solvency & impact calculus questions, everything else is always filtered along those lines (including framework/role of the ballot/role of the judge).

Other misc things:

1. A dropped argument is a true argument but it needs to be a complete argument to begin with or I will likely allow people new answers. For example, this epidemic with high schoolers reading aspec on the bottom of T flows to hide it: if it’s so quick I didn’t catch it in the 1NC, the 1AR gets all the new args they want. Additionally, an argument is not just a claim and a warrant, but a claim, warrant, and reasoning. In other words, your warrant needs to be connected to your claim in order for it to be an argument.

2. I am very flowcentric. Do not ask me to not flow, because I won't listen. Please do line-by-line. If you don't, I'll be frustrated and less likely to buy new extrapolations of arguments. Your speaker points will definitely drop if you don't do line-by-line. I do not like overviews ("overviews are evil"-- one of my labbies; "flowing is good for your health" -- another one of my labbies).

3. Show me that you care. Show me that you know things, that you've done research on this topic, that you want to win, and that debate matters to you. I love this activity and if you also love it I want to know that.

4. Judge kicking makes sense to me but I frequently forget about it, so if you want me to judge kick something you should tell me so in the block/2NR.

5. Cards and highlighting: Teams should get to insert rehighlightings of the other team's cards, but obviously should have to read cards if they're new/haven't been introduced into the debate yet. Two offshoots of this-- 1. You should insert rehighlightings of other team's cards if they suck 2. You should read cards that don't suck.

I do not follow along with speech docs during debates.

Please highlight your ev so it reads as complete sentences. This does not mean that I need you to highlight complete sentences, but if you are brick highlighting, I want to be able to read highlighted portions of your ev as complete sentences—it flows better to me. IE don't skip the letter "a" or the words "in" or "the." Just a random pet peeve.

If you do not have a complete citation or at least a full paragraph from your evidence I will not evaluate what you've said as evidence. Cherrypicked quotes with no context are not evidence.

I tend to not read a lot of cards after the debate unless things are highly technical or I think the debaters aren’t explaining things well. That being said, I’ll likely read at least some cards. Please put together a card doc for me.

6. Debaters parroting their partners: I usually just flow what the partner said. That, obviously, only exists within reason (you don’t get to give a third speech in a debate, but you can interrupt your partner to say something and I will flow it).

7. New 2AR args are bad for debate. I consciously hold the line against them as much as I can. I as a 2N feel as if I got a few decisions where a judge voted aff on an arg that didn't exist until the 2AR and it's the most frustrating. You can expect me to try to trace lines between args in earlier & later speeches. However, if I think the argument they're making is the true argument or a logical extrapolation of something said in the 1AR, I'm more likely to buy it. 2As-- this means if you're gonna do some 2A magic and cheat, you should trick me into thinking that you're not cheating.

Some specifics:

Disads: I’m better for the smart DAs than the silly ones, but I understand the value of bad DAs and will vote for them. I will likely reward you with higher speaker points if I think I understand your story really well and/or you have some cool/unique spin on it. I am fine with logical take outs to DAs that don’t require cards (especially if there’s some logic missing internally in the DA). Don’t just read new cards in the block or 1AR, explain your args (although also read new cards obviously).

I really do not understand how the economy works. I'm sorry. I've really tried to get it, but I just don't. You absolutely can go for econ DAs and/or econ case turns in front of me, but please be extra careful to explain (in lots of detail!) what you're arguing here.

Theory, CPs, and K Alternatives: I put these pieces together because my thoughts on these three args blend together.

Competition is determined off the plantext, not off cross-x, nor off the resolution. PICs & PIKs are only competitive if they PIC/PIK out of something in the plantext. I do not believe that you get to PIC/PIK out of a justification or non-plantext based word. The only way I will ever be convinced otherwise is if the aff allows you to do so.

Condo: It’s good. “They should get one less CP” is an arbitrary interp and makes no sense. The phrase "dispo solves" at the end of your bad 2AC condo block is not an argument and I will not be writing it down on my flow. I will vote on this if it's dropped, but I'm pretty persuaded by neg flex and education-style args.

"Performative Contradictions" is a term of art that has been bastardized to no end by debate. You're either saying the neg has double turned themselves or you're saying conditionality is bad; in my mind, perf con is not even worthy of being written on my flow.

Particular Theory: I’m better for this than most judges (and MUCH more persuaded by it than condo). States theory, international fiat, consult/condition, vague alts, utopian alts, etc—I have gone for all of these and actively coach my debaters to do the same. My predisposition is to reject the arg not the team, but I can be persuaded to reject the team on non-condo theory args (you should introduce the arg as reject the team in the 2AC, not CX, if you want this to be an option).

Theory can be a reason you get to make a cheating perm.

Counterplans/alternatives that use aff evidence as solvency advocates are awesome.

If the CP/alt links less I think it makes sense that I prefer it, but make that arg yourself because I won’t make it for you.

Case: I love love love case debate. You should make logical extrapolations that take out the internal link chains and make me question how the advantage makes sense. The block should read more cards but feel free to make logical case take outs without cards. I don't think you should have to go for impact defense to beat advantages-- uniqueness and internal link take outs are almost always the easier place to attack advantages. I tend to prefer a well-developed take out to the death by a thousand cuts strategy.

Affs-- 2NR that don't do well-developed case debate are generally overwhelmed by your "try or die"/"case outweighs"/"1% chance of solvency" args.

Topicality: I'm getting better for this as a strategy lately than I used to be. I do still generally think that it's about the plantext, but can be persuaded that I should think of the plantext in the context of the 1AC. Topicality is only ever a voter, not a reverse voter. I’m not great for silly/arbitrary T interps (I am very persuaded by the arg that these interps are arbitrary).

Kritiks: I like Ks that care about people and things. I'm optimistic to a fault. I certainly believe that things are still terrible for billions of beings, but it's hard to convince me that everything in the world is so absolutely irredeemable.

Your long overview is actively bad for debate and you will not change my mind.

Make your K interact with the affirmative. I want your links to be about the result of the aff as opposed to just the reading of the aff. Fiat bad links are bad. Your "state is always bad" links are slightly better, but also terrible. Don't just explain your theory of how power works, explain how the action of the aff is bad according to your theory of power.

I think that I am worse for structuralist style kritiks than I used to be for two reasons: 1) I feel more so that I want you to be responding to the action of the aff than I used to 2) I generally study poststructuralism and queer theory. I read a lot of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler.

Grad school has taught me that theory is way more complex than I used to think it was. I will get annoyed if I know that you’re deploying the theory wrong. I'm not good for things like "death good," "meaning doesn't mean anything," or "language is meaningless" because I don't think those are questions even worth asking.

I have read some literature about antiblackness academically and have read a bit more from a debate standpoint. I would not call myself an expert by any means in this literature, but I do understand some of it better than I used to. I am still unwilling to fill in those blanks for you if you are lacking them (ex-- just saying the words "yes antiblackness ontological, natal alienation proves" is not an argument in my mind).

99.99% of the time I will entirely ignore your framework/role of the ballot args when you're going for the K against a topical aff. There's a high chance that I will just stare at you and not flow during your incredibly long and generic 2NC/2NR framework block on your K. I am serious, I may not even waste the ink in my pen flowing this. I do not know how to decide debates unless I'm weighing the merits of the aff against the merits of the K. For example, if the aff is an object of study, then to evaluate that object of study I have to weigh the aff's consequences. You are better off just saying "yes the aff can weigh the plan, we'll just beat it" in front of me. This also means that the role of the ballot/judge is only ever to vote for whoever did the better debating in every round I judge.

“Perms are a negative argument” and “method v method debate means no perms” are both not arguments. Despite judging for however long I have, I still do not know what a "method v method debate" even is or why it's different than every other debate. I will not write these words on my flow.

I also generally do not find the "voting for us gives us more wins/sends us to elims" as a solvency mech persuasive or that "X thing done in the debate is policing/surveillance/violence" (other than actual/physical policing/surveillance/violence) to be persuasive.

Ultimately, I evaluate K debates just like I evaluate policy debates. Technical line by line is key. Explain your args well. Put the debate together. Don't ignore the other side.

2NRs on the K that include case debate (with some level of internal link/impact defense; not just your security K cards on case) are substantially more persuasive to me.

Framework against non-topical affs: you should also read my section on Ks (right above this one) as well.

Framework is a strategy and it makes a lot of sense as a strategy. Just like every other strategy, you should try to tailor it to be as specific to the aff as you possibly can. For example, how does this particular aff make it impossible for you to debate? What does it mean for how debate looks writ-large? What's the valuable topic education we could have had from a topical discussion of this aff in particular? Same basic idea goes for when you’re answering generic aff args—the generic “state always bad” arg is pretty easily beaten by nuanced neg responses in front of me. The more specific you are, the more likely I am to vote for you on framework and the more likely I am to give you good speaks.

Stop reading huge overviews. They’re bad for debate. Your points will suffer. Do line by line. Be a good debater and stop being lazy. The amount of times I have written something like "do line by line" in this paradigm should really tell you something about how I think about debate.

I do not find truth testing/"ignore the aff's args because they're not T" very persuasive. I think it's circular & requires judge intervention.

I do, however, think that fairness/limits/ground is an impact and that it is the most important standard in a T debate.

T and/or framework is not genocide, nor is it ever rape, nor is it a microaggression, nor is it real literal violence against you or anyone else.

I’m a sucker for a good topical version. Teams seem to want to just laundry list potential TVAs and then say "idk, maybe these things let them discuss their theory". I believe that strategy is very easily beaten by a K team having some nuanced response. It makes way more sense to me if the TVA is set up almost like a CP-- it should solve a majority or all of the aff. If you set it up like that and then add the sufficiency framing/"flaws are neg ground" style args I'm WAY more likely to buy what you have to say (this goes along with the whole "I like nuance and specificity and you to sound like you're debating the merits of the aff" motif that I've had throughout my paradigm-- it applies to all debaters).

I oftentimes wonder how non-topical affs solve themselves. The negative should exploit this because I do feel comfortable voting neg on presumption. However, I won’t ever intervene to vote on presumption. That’s an argument that the debaters need to make.

Non-topical affs should have nuance & do line by line as well. Answer the neg’s args, frame the debate, and tell me why your aff in particular could not have been topical. You HAVE to have a defense of your model and not just say that framework is bad or else I will probably vote neg on presumption. The same basic idea applies here as it does everywhere else: the more generic you are, the more likely I am to vote against you.

Garbage/Hidden Stuff/Tricks: Nope. New affs are good, hiding aspec makes you a coward, death is bad, free will exists and I don't care if it doesn't. Make better arguments.

Cross-ex: I am becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with watching how this tends to go down. Unless I am judging a novice debate, questions like "did you read X card" or "where did you mark Y card" are counting as parts of cross-x. I tend to start the timer for cross-ex pretty quickly after speeches end (obviously take a sec to get water if you need to) so pay attention to that.

I pay attention & listen to CX but I do not flow it. Have a presence in CX & make an impact. I am listening.

Speaker points-- I do my best to moderate these based on the tournament I'm at and what division I'm in. That being said, I won’t lie—I am not a point fairy.

I will grant extra speaker points to people who number their arguments and correctly/aptly follow the numbering that has been established in the debate.

Paraphrasing from Shree Awsare-- I will not give you a 30.

29.8-- Top speaker
29.2-29.5-- You really impressed me and I expect you to be deep in the tournament
29-- I think you deserve to clear
28.3-- Not terrible but not super impressive
27.5-- Yikes
I will award the lowest possible points for people who violate the basic human dignities that people should be afforded while debating (e.g., non-black people don't say the N word).

I've also been known to give 20s to people who don't make arguments. I will not be giving you a 30; nobody gives a perfect speech.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the debate begins, or send me an email. I also do seriously invite conversation about the debate after it occurs-- post-rounds are oftentimes the most valuable instantiation of feedback, the best way to get better at debate, and important for improving intellectually. I know that post-rounds sometimes get heated, and I think we all get defensive sometimes when we're being pressed on things we've said (or think we've said) so I will likely consciously try to take deep breaths and relax if I feel myself getting heated during these times. This also means that I may take a second to respond to your questions because I am thinking. I also might take awkward pauses between words-- that's not because I don't think your question is important, I'm just trying to choose my words carefully so I can correctly convey my thoughts. I only post this here because I don't want anyone to feel like they're being attacked or anything for asking questions, and I apologize in advance if anything I say sounds like that.

Ethics Challenge Addendum:

I would strongly discourage ethics challenges in all but the most extreme instances. I don't want to adjudicate them, you don't want to be the team who makes the challenge, etc. If you notice something is wrong, please contact coaches and/or debaters and try to fix the problem rather than making it a challenge in round.

An ethics challenge is not a no-risk option for me. That is, when an ethics challenge is issued, the debate ends. I will clarify that the team issuing the challenge has issued one and then end the debate and adjudicate the challenge. I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward then and there. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances.

An ethics challenge may be issued along one of three lines: either you have accused the other team of clipping cards, of misciting evidence, or of misrepresenting evidence. Nothing else will be considered an ethics challenge for me.

Clipping cards is defined as claiming to have read more or less of the evidence than one actually has. Please note that I do not follow along with evidence as the debate is occurring. Missing a single word/a few words is not enough. I will decide what constitutes enough of the card to be considered clipping.

Misciting evidence is understood as providing the incorrect author and/or date as well as missing the first author, source of publication, and date (at least the year). Please note that putting something like "the New York Times" instead of "Nate Silver" is acceptable for an authorship. Source of publication can be broad (article title, URL, book title). If the article is easily accessible, then it is acceptable. Again, I will determine what constitutes an incomplete or miscited citation if this becomes a relevant question.

I do not consider missing credentials to be unethical but I do consider those pieces of evidence to be incredibly weak.

Misrepresenting evidence is understood as inserting evidence which is missing lines or paragraphs within the parts of the initial article/book being read. So, for example, if you want to read the first and third paragraph from an article, you must leave the second paragraph in the evidence you read in the debate. This means that, for me, ellipses to indicate that parts of the card are missing or stating something like “pages 4-5 omitted” is unethical. Cards need to be full paragraphs.

Providing a single quote from a book or an article is not a card. As such, I will not consider it as you having introduced evidence and it is not unethical for me. However, not providing full paragraph pieces of evidence means your argument is substantially weaker for me (because, again, then you have not read evidence).

I will either decide to vote for the team who issued the challenge or the team who the challenge was issued toward. The debate will not continue for me under any circumstances. Please note that I will take this seriously; an ethics challenge is not something to be debated out in a round.

The speaker points I will give are as follows: 28.6 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I vote for, 28.5 for the 1^st speaker of the team I vote for, 28.4 for the 2^nd speaker of the team I do not vote for, 28.3 for the 1^st speaker of the team I do not vote for. My assumption in the event of an ethics violation is that you made an honest mistake and that you were not intentionally cheating. I do not understand ethics challenges to be the equivalent of academic dishonesty or worthy of any punishment besides my ballot being cast in that particular debate (I do not hold these challenges against you in future rounds nor do I believe that you should be in trouble with your debate coaches or schools).

Please note that what I have written here is designed for varsity debate only; that is, when judging novice and JV debates, I will be more lenient and talk through what's going on with the students and, depending on the situation, allow the debate to continue.

These are thoughts that are still evolving for me as I talk with more people. Please bear with me as I continue to think this out. (Also note that this caveat goes along well with the first statement in this section: I would prefer you not introduce an ethics violation unless it is a serious issue in that particular debate).

Please also note that these rules do not apply to my standards for threatening violence against another debater (physical or otherwise) or hurling slurs at your opponent. I will immediately end the round and give the lowest speaker points that Tab will allow me to in that situation.

Dan Lingel Jesuit College Prep—Dallas

danlingel@gmail.com for email chain purposes

dlingel@jesuitcp.org for school contact

"Be smart. Be strategic. Tell your story. And above all have fun and you shall be rewarded."--the conclusion of my 1990 NDT Judging Philosophy

Updated for 2023-2024 topic
30 years of high school coaching/6 years of college coaching
I will either judge or help in the tabroom at over 20+ tournaments

****read here first*****
I still really love to judge and I enjoy judging quick clear confident comparative passionate advocates that use qualified and structured argument and evidence to prove their victory paths. I expect you to respect the game and the people that are playing it in every moment we are interacting.

***I believe that framing/labeling arguments and paper flowing is crucial to success in debate and maybe life so I will start your speaker points absurdly high and work my way up (look at the data) if you acknowledge and represent these elements: label your arguments (even use numbers and structure) and can demonstrate that you flowed the entire debate and that you used your flow to give your speeches and in particular demonstrate that you used your flow to actually clash with the other teams arguments directly.

Some things that influence my decision making process

1. Debate is first and foremost a persuasive activity that asks both teams to advocate something. Defend an advocacy/method and defend it with evidence and compare your advocacy/method to the advocacy of the other team. I understand that there are many ways to advocate and support your advocacy so be sure that you can defend your choices. I do prefer that the topic is an access point for your advocacy.

2. The negative should always have the option of defending the status quo (in other words, I assume the existence of some conditionality) unless argued otherwise.

3. The net benefits to a counterplan must be a reason to reject the affirmative advocacy (plan, both the plan and counterplan together, and/or the perm) not just be an advantage to the counterplan.

4. I enjoy a good link narrative since it is a critical component of all arguments in the arsenal—everything starts with the link. I think the negative should mention the specifics of the affirmative plan in their link narratives. A good link narrative is a combination of evidence, analytical arguments, and narrative.

5. Be sure to assess the uniqueness of offensive arguments using the arguments in the debate and the status quo. This is an area that is often left for judge intervention and I will.

6. I am not the biggest fan of topicality debates unless the interpretation is grounded by clear evidence and provides a version of the topic that will produce the best debates—those interpretations definitely exist this year. Generally speaking, I can be persuaded by potential for abuse arguments on topicality as they relate to other standards because I think in round abuse can be manufactured by a strategic negative team.

7. I believe that the links to the plan, the impact narratives, the interaction between the alternative and the affirmative harm, and/or the role of the ballot should be discussed more in most kritik debates. The more case and topic specific your kritik the more I enjoy the debate. Too much time is spent on framework in many debates without clear utility or relation to how I should judge the debate.

8. There has been a proliferation of theory arguments and decision rules, which has diluted the value of each. The impact to theory is rarely debating beyond trite phrases and catch words. My default is to reject the argument not the team on theory issues unless it is argued otherwise.

9. Speaker points--If you are not preferring me you are using old data and old perceptions. It is easy to get me to give very high points. Here is the method to my madness on this so do not be deterred just adapt. I award speaker points based on the following: strategic and argumentative decision-making, the challenge presented by the context of the debate, technical proficiency, persuasive personal and argumentative style, your use of the cross examination periods, and the overall enjoyment level of your speeches and the debate. If you devalue the nature of the game or its players or choose not to engage in either asking or answering questions, your speaker points will be impacted. If you turn me into a mere information processor then your points will be impacted. If you choose artificially created efficiency claims instead of making complete and persuasive arguments that relate to an actual victory path then your points will be impacted.

10. I believe in the value of debate as the greatest pedagogical tool on the planet. Reaching the highest levels of debate requires mastery of arguments from many disciplines including communication, argumentation, politics, philosophy, economics, and sociology to name a just a few. The organizational, research, persuasion and critical thinking skills are sought by every would-be admission counselor and employer. Throw in the competitive part and you have one wicked game. I have spent over thirty years playing it at every level and from every angle and I try to make myself a better player everyday and through every interaction I have. I think that you can learn from everyone in the activity how to play the debate game better. The world needs debate and advocates/policymakers more now than at any other point in history. I believe that the debates that we have now can and will influence real people and institutions now and in the future—empirically it has happened. I believe that this passion influences how I coach and judge debates.


Logistical Notes--I prefer an email chain with me included whenever possible. I feel that each team should have accurate and equal access to the evidence that is read in the debate. I have noticed several things that worry me in debates. People have stopped flowing and paying attention to the flow and line-by-line which is really impacting my decision making; people are exchanging more evidence than is actually being read without concern for the other team, people are under highlighting their evidence and "making cards" out of large amounts of text, and the amount of prep time taken exchanging the information is becoming excessive. I reserve the right to request a copy of all things exchanged as verification. If three cards or less are being read in the speech then it is more than ok that the exchange in evidence occur after the speech.

Debated at Emory. Coached at Harvard and Northwestern and Dartmouth.

Put me on your email thread, thanks: ksten52@gmail.com

TL;DR: Be attentive, prepared, and invested. I will do the same in return.

- Judge instruction is the most valuable skill you have and the most important one for you to use. Good judge instruction establishes tenets for judging the situation at hand by declaring what criteria I should care about when making choices.
- More often than not you can understand how I feel about an argument by monitoring my reaction
- My hearing is in the B- to B+ range but it's definitely not an A. Let's aim for a 10% clarity increase.

Clash Debates *Updated in 2020
I care about my flow, following assumptions to their logical conclusions, internal link defense, and answering the arguments the other team is making not the caricature of the argument you assume they're making.

I try to keep my opinions out of my judging in all contexts, but in this context the opinions that I am predisposed to agree with are:
- People shouldn't have to refute the subjective experiences of others.
- Without explaining the causal pathway, an assertion that debate makes us good or bad at something is an incomplete argument.
- Novelty for the sake of itself is silly
- Being told you're wrong isn't the same thing as being told you're bad.
- The debate round is not the same thing as Debate. Endowing the debate round, the single facet of Debate that is engineered to produce dissensus and us-them thinking, with a preeminent role in achieving community good has never made any sense to me.

Kritiks
- Links should have impacts.
- I tend to measure the utility of theories by my understanding of the consequences of adoption. Debate's understanding of consequence is often too narrow. But if you can't explain the material implications of your thing... we will struggle.
- Solving problems is an invaluable skill, but identifying them is a rather cheap one. I find that this belief influences how I think about the K more than any other.

Theory
- I don't think conditionality is that bad... but if saying it is constitutes your cleanest path to victory then do that.
- I’m generally persuaded that if a prepared 2A could have anticipated the CP, the CP belongs in debate.

Disads/Counterplans/Other
- A disad cannot be low risk unless you've substantively demonstrated that's the case with defensive arguments. Describing the nature of conjunctive risk bias is not that.
- People stopped doing good terminal impact calculus at some point? Don't love it. Please fix.
- Making courageous choices and knowing when to cut your losses is one of the hardest debate skills to master. I reward debaters who do it well.

Best of luck.

I don't have a public judge philosophy because this website is not secure. Nothing has otherwise changed, I will try to be as fair as possible and I am open to persuasion on most things. Email me if you have questions.

St. Mark's School of Texas

CXphilosophy = Years judging: 23 as a hs coach another 10 as a college coach
Rounds on this year’s high school topic: 0 (by the time the 2023 season starts I will probably have judged 30 or so debates at camp)
Rounds on this year’s college topic: 0

yes, please add me to the email chain smdebatedocs@gmail.com

update 5-3-23

Clarity - If I yell clearer at you I don't mean slow down 1%. I mean clearly speak all the words in your evidence. Not just your tags - I want to hear and understand your evidence and your opponents shouldn't have to read your speech docs to know what your cards say. If I don't think you are clear be prepared to receive 27 speaker points.

CP/alternative - you get one and only one and you can kick it but you need to choose. If you talk about it in the 2nr then I will decide the debate based on the plan vs the cp/alternative. Yes, you can have more than one plank if you have a solvency advocate for every plank but you can't kick planks.

Solvency advocate - your plan needs one and your cp needs one and I expect you to defend it.

conditionality - don't bother in the 2ac with this argument. I've already limited what the neg can do and I'm happy to be done hearing this debate.

highlight more of your evidence - other than a short time period in 1994 CEDA, evidence quality is at an all time low. I've never seen it this bad in high school.

update 6-21-22

Research over Truth. The best arguments are backed by research. The burden of rejoinder for most analytics is pretty low. The burden of rejoinder for a good card is high. (yes, this applies to your analytic DA's on framework)

Old stuff pre 6-21-11

yes, please send out a card document at the conclusion of the debate. please make sure that the card document accurately represents the cards relevant in the debate i.e. make sure cards that were marked are marked in the document and that cards not read in the debate don't appear in it, etc.



Teachers teach, coaches coach, judges judge.1
Clarity is king.2
I view my role as a judge in the frame of least intervention.3


More and more I'm starting to think that it should all revolve around solvency advocates. While I've probably had some tendencies toward that approach for a few years now it's even more prominent now. If a team is willing to read a plan and they have a card that says their plan is EE or DE with China then we should thank our lucky stars that they are willing to talk about the topic and try to give them a good debate. (I know that's from way back on the china topic but it's still a good example) Having said that if they have a solvency advocate for their CP I think the neg should get a tremendous amount of leeway on theoretically legitimate questions. The test is "Is the cp solvency advocate at least as specific as the aff solvency advocate".

New additions:
Framework: I'm over it. The aff gets to weigh their advantages (fiat) and the neg gets their K. The neg can't win fiat is an illusion but they can win it's a waste of time/bad idea to engage the state OR they can say "Our argument is that in the face of the aff Obama/Congress/Supreme Court/usfg should say 'no, we reject the securitization/racism/imperialism/capitalism/insert k lingo' of this idea the world would be better if we FILL IN WITH YOUR ALTERNATIVE". If you don't understand what I mean then feel free to ask questions about this.
If you say you are ready then say "Oh wait, I need another second." I will probably penalize you 15 seconds of prep. Don't say you are ready and ask me to stop prep time until you are ready.


Virtually everything else in this judging philosophy is about ways you can get better speaker points or some of my subjective biases I think you should be aware of. The reality is that most of my subjective preferences rarely matter in debates because the debates aren’t close enough to make it matter.

Respect others.4
Want good speaker points? Impress me with arguments that prove you have done a substantial amount of research on the topic and that you can make smart arguments.5
New aff’s are intellectual terrorism – you ask for it you got it.6
Topicality is for the unresearched.7
Most theory debates are terrible.8
Evidence is a good thing. Read some cards, preferably some with warrants from people with expertise in the relevant area.9
Excessive arrogance is unacceptable.10
Take ownership of your arguments.11
Post round discussions are good.12
Notes on the use of computers in debate.13

Make complete arguments. "perm do both" and "voting issue fairness and education" are not complete arguments.

]1 While this may seem obvious it bears repeating. What I teach my students and what I coach my students, i.e. what I think about debate and how the game should be played, shouldn’t be relevant when I’m judging two teams that I don’t coach or teach.

2 I've decided that a part of my role as a judge is to ensure that all debaters speak clearly. It is unfair that some debaters are virtually incomprehensible forcing the other team to read over their shoulder or look at every card instead of just being able to flow. So I'm adding a deterrent to the unclear debater. I expect debaters to speak clearly at all times. That doesn't just mean the tags on your cards, it means all the words of your evidence, it means everything. When I say "clearer" what I'm saying is "you are so unclear I have virtually no idea what you are saying so please make a SIGNFICANT, MEANINGFUL change in your delivery". I don't mean make a .001 change. If I have to say clearer a second time you are well on the path to having a cranky judge.

3 As a judge I have two jobs 1) pick one winner in each debate 2) enforce time limits as set by the tournament. To some extent intervention may be inevitable, however, it is my job as a judge to pick a winner based on the arguments made in each debate. That includes being cognizant of my subjective biases and doing my best to keep those preferences from influencing my decision.

4 This should be self evident. See also, footnotes 10, 11 and 13.

5 If your strategy relies on your technical proficiency it probably won’t impress me. If your strategy relies on reading a host of confusing cards that you don’t really understand and you hope that the other team won’t understand them either then you probably won’t impress me. A 1ac with several advantages all with poor internal links probably won’t impress me. A 1nc with a clear coherent method of winning the debate based on good evidence probably will impress me. A 1ac with a solvency advocate and well evidenced advantages probably will impress me. I like it when the aff is kritikal and the neg beats them with a smart go farther left strategy.

6 If you really wanted to have an in depth educational debate you would have disclosed your plan and advantages and given the other team a chance to research it. Break a new aff and your chances of losing on T go up and your chances of winning that anything the neg did was an illegitimate voting issue go way down. Will I be really impressed if, in the face of a new aff, the neg provides a well researched coherent strategy? Yes. Will I understand if, in the face of a new aff, the 1NC is three conditional cp’s and a K? Yes. (For purposes of the fiscal redistribution topic this is out. The neg has a huge number of options and they should be able to figure out a good one before the debate starts - see above)

7 Limits usually wins topicality debates and that is unfortunate. Smart teams should make arguments not only about limits/ground but about the educational value of the topic envisioned by both sides. A narrow topic that excludes some of the core issues that would generate educational research probably isn’t as good as a broader topic that encourages students to research important issues.

8 I generally find theory debates to be the bastion of the weak. Your amazingly good ASPEC debate usually sounds like a 27 to me. Think of it this way…every time you say something besides topicality is a voting issue count on losing half a speaker point. Again, this will not affect who wins debates only speaker points. However, I can be persuaded that illegitimate counterplans have so skewed the playing field that reject the argument not the team is insufficient and they must be voting issues. There are probably a host of counterplans that fall within this category. Three that leap to mind are consult, delay, and states. Two exceptions to this rule to help the negative: If your counterplan is unconditional it will be pretty hard for the aff to convince me it has unfairly skewed the debate. Second, have a true solvency advocate for your counterplan. Just a hint, a card that says states have acted uniformly and another card that says the states have poverty programs doesn’t cut it. You need a card that is as specific as the aff solvency advocate. Of course, if the aff solvency advocate doesn’t really match up to the plan it will probably be difficult for the aff to convince me that the counterplan should be rejected for lack of an advocate.
It would help make theory/topicality debates better if you SLOW DOWN so I can flow your arguments. It’s not necessarily a clarity issue it’s just that it’s very difficult for judges to flow short analytical arguments as fast as you can spit them out.
“Voting issue – fairness and education” usually gets flowed as VI F@E and I presume that means it’s a voting issue if they go for whatever argument you have identified as a VI. If you expect it to be a voting issue if they don’t go for it then you need to give some type of warrant as to why the debate has been skewed by them merely making the argument.

9 One good card is better than three short bad ones. Qualifications should matter but debaters rarely take the time to explain what constitutes qualified evidence and what doesn’t. In front of me that would be time worth spending.

10 Confidence is good. It’s better when it’s backed up with smart arguments and good evidence. If you disrespect your opponents because of some inflated sense of your own importance be prepared for low speaker points.

11 If it sounds like you read the same argument every debate, your coach wrote all your blocks, and you have no idea how your arguments interact with your opponent’s arguments then your speaker points aren’t going to be very good. My argument preferences are way less important than your ability to explain arguments. When in doubt about what arguments to go for choose arguments you understand, you can answer cx questions about, and arguments you will be able to explain in rebuttals.

12 If you have questions about the decision please ask them. Don’t be afraid to ask pointed questions. However, don’t become the debater who always whines about every decision as if they have never lost a debate. Word gets around.

13 I don’t penalize your time to jump/email material to your opponents but I’m a stickler for stolen prep so if I think you are abusing the privilege be prepared to be called out on it. You get ten minutes of “crash” time per debate. If you computer crashes and you need to restart I won’t penalize your prep time. I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes and if you can’t get your computer ready in 10 minutes you are going to have to start anyway. Most other issues related to this are covered under #4.

Affiliation: College- Wake Forest '17, '19 High School- New Trier '13

Please add me to your email chains: jmichaelmanchester [@] gmail.com

This used to be a super long explanation of how I felt about debate, but given how little utility that has for many of you before a debate, here's the short version:

"I never was the smartest debater and I never will be, which means please do not make assumptions about argument understanding. Something could honestly just be over my head, this having happened multiple times in my debate career as a debater."- Lee Quinn hit the nail on the head. Don't assume that I'll know the in's and out's of your argument to the degree that you do. Regardless of argument type, explanation that contains an argument, claim, and warrant is essential.

Top shelf things for everyone:
Clarity- To quote the definition Jarrod Atchison has already beaten into my head: "Speed is the number ideas effectively communicated to the judge that the other team is held accountable to respond to." Slowing down on analytics and differentiating the tag from the rest of the card is a must.

Speaks- make fun of Duke and you'll be in a good place.

People on the right:
Do what you do well. Regardless of what you end up going for make sure you've got the "story" of your argument on lock. How does the aff's change from the squo cause the impact to the DA to be triggered? What affs are included under your interpretation of the topic? These narratives can be easily established in the overview of your DA/CP/T violation and go a long way in making sure I understand your argument as well as you want me to.


I tend to lean aff on most theory issues, though on most questions it isn't too far in the aff's direction (the exception to this is conditionality, I'm definitely in the you get one conditional option camp- that being said most people are bad at going for conditionality so that hasn't translated to any aff ballots on condo in front of me).


People on the left:
Do what you do well. I'll forefront that I'm not nearly as deep in the literature to the left as I am with the right but that doesn't mean I won't be interested in your arguments.

I think you probably should have some relation to the topic, whether that requires defending a normative action be taken by the state or simply discussing the implications of certain aspects of the topic is up for debate. If you're debating FW the question of reformism necessary v. unnecessary is super important.

If you're going for a K win framework and be good to go- though you should know I'll be inclined to let the aff weigh the 1AC if they put up a decent fight on FW.

Read links with clear impacts- just reading a wall of cards that says "the aff does the thing we are k-ing" without explaining how the interacts with the larger questions the alt/impact are getting at isn't super useful.

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

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

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

General Debate Thoughts

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

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

Updated 9-26-2013

Kevin McCaffrey

Assistant Debate Coach Glenbrook North 2014-
Assistant Debate Coach Berkeley Preparatory School 2010-2014
Assistant Debate Coach University of Miami 2007-2009
Assistant Debate Coach Gulliver Preparatory School 2005-2010

I feel strongly about both my role as an impartial adjudicator and as an educator – situations where these roles come into conflict are often where I find that I have intervened. I try to restrain myself from intervening in a debate, but I make mistakes, and sometimes find myself presented with two options which seem comparably interventionary in different ways, often due to underarticulated argumentation. This effort represents a systematic effort to identify the conditions under which I am more or less likely to intervene unconsciously. I try to keep a beginner’s mind and approach every debate round as a new learning opportunity, and I do usually learn at least one new thing every round – this is what I like most about the activity, and I’m at my best when I remember this and at my worst when I forget it.

My default paradigm is that of a policy analyst – arguments which assume a different role (vote no, performance) probably require more effort to communicate this role clearly enough for me to understand and feel comfortable voting for you. I don’t really have a very consistent record voting for or against any particular positions, although identity- and psychology-based arguments are probably the genres I have the least experience with and I’m not a good judge for either.

Rather, I think you’re most interested in the situations in which I’m likely to intervene – and what you can do to prevent it – this has much less to do with what arguments you’re making than it does with how you’re making them:

Make fewer arguments, and explain their nature and implication more thoroughly:

My unconscious mind carries out the overwhelming majority of the grunt work of my decisions – as I listen to a debate, a mental map forms of the debate round as a cohesive whole, and once I lose that map, I don’t usually get it back. This has two primary implications for you: 1) it’s in your interest for me to understand the nuances of an argument when first presented, so that I can see why arguments would be more or less responsive as or before they are made in response 2) debates with a lot of moving parts and conditional outcomes overload my ability to hold the round in my mind at once, and I lose confidence in my ability to effectively adjudicate, having to move argument by argument through each flow after the debate – this increases the chances that I miss an important connection or get stuck on a particular argument by second-guessing my intuition, increasing the chances that I intervene.

I frequently make decisions very quickly, which signals that you have done an effective job communicating and that I feel I understand all relevant arguments in the debate. I don’t believe in reconstructing debates from evidence, and I try to listen to and evaluate evidence as it's being read, so if I am taking a long time to make a decision, it’s probably because I doubt my ability to command the relevant arguments and feel compelled to second-guess my understanding of arguments or their interactions, a signal that you have not done an effective job communicating, or that you have inadvertently constructed an irresolveable decision calculus through failure to commit to a single path to victory.

In short, I make much better decisions when you reduce the size of the debate at every opportunity, when you take strategic approaches to the debate which are characterized by internally consistent logic and assumptions, and when you take time to explain the reasoning behind the strategic decisions you are making, and the meta-context for your arguments. If your approach to debate strategy depends upon overloading the opponent’s technical capabilities, then you will also likely overload my own, and if your arguments aren't broadly compatible with one another, then I may have difficulty processing them when constructing the big picture. I tend to disproportionately reward gutsy all-in strategic decisions. As a side note, I probably won’t kick a counterplan for you if the other team says just about anything in response, you need to make a decision.

Value proof higher than rejoinder:

I am a sucker for a clearly articulated, nuanced story, supported by thorough discussion of why I should believe it, especially when supported by high-quality evidence, even in the face of a diversity of poorly articulated or weak arguments which are only implicitly answered. Some people will refer to this as truth over tech – but it’s more precisely proof over rejoinder – the distinction being that I don’t as often reward people who say things that I believe, but rather reward fully developed arguments over shallowly developed or incomplete arguments. There have been exceptions – a dropped argument is definitely a true argument – but a claim without data and a warrant is not an argument. Similarly, explicit clash and signposting are merely things which help me prevent myself from intervening, not hard requirements. Arguments which clash still clash whether a debater explains it or not, although I would strongly prefer that you take the time to explain it, as I may not understand that they clash or why they clash in the same way that you do.

My tendency to intervene in this context is magnified when encountering unfamiliar arguments, and also when encountering familiar arguments which are misrepresented, intentionally or unintentionally. As an example, I am far more familiar with positivist studies of international relations than I am with post-positivist theorizing, so debaters who can command the distinctions between various schools of IR thought have an inherent advantage, and I am comparably unlikely to understand the nuances of the distinctions between one ethical philosopher and another. I am interested in learning these distinctions, however, and this only means you should err on the side of explaining too much rather than not enough.

A corollary is that I do believe that various arguments can by their nature provide zero risk of a link (yes/no questions, empirically denied), as well as effectively reduce a unique risk to zero by making the risk equivalent to chance or within the margin of error provided by the warrant. I am a sucker for conjunctive/disjunctive probability analysis, although I think assigning numerical probabilities is almost never warranted.

Incomprehensible value systems:

One special note is that I have a moderate presumption against violence, whether physical or verbal or imaginary – luckily for me, this has yet to seriously present itself in a debate I have judged. But I don’t think I have ever ended up voting for a pro-death advocacy, whether because there are more aliens than humans in the universe, or because a thought experiment about extinction could change the way I feel about life, or because it’s the only path to liberation from oppression. While I’d like to think I can evaluate these arguments objectively, I’m not entirely sure that I really can, and if advocating violence is part of your argument, I am probably a bad judge for you, even though I do believe that if you can’t articulate the good reasons that violence and death are bad, then you haven’t adequately prepared and should probably lose.

Email me:

I like the growing practice of emailing flows and debriefing at the end of a day or after a tournament – feel free to email me: kmmccaffrey at gmail dot com. It sometimes takes me a while to fully process what has happened in a debate round and to understand why I voted the way I did, and particularly in rounds with two very technical, skilled opponents, even when I do have a good grasp of what happened and feel confident in my decision, I do not always do a very good job of communicating my reasoning, not having time to write everything out, and I do a much better job of explaining my thinking after letting my decision sit for a few hours. As such, I am very happy to discuss any decision with anyone in person or by email – I genuinely enjoy being challenged – but I am much more capable and comfortable with written communication than verbal.

Updated Sept 5, 2022 

Tracy McFarland

Jesuit College Prep - for a long while; back in the day undergrad debate - Baylor U 

Please use jcpdebate@gmail.com for speech docs. I do want to be in the email chain.
However, I don't check that email a lot while not at tournaments - so if you need to reach me not at a tournament, feel free to email me at tmcfarland@jesuitcp.org

Reason for update - I have updated my judging paradigm not because my fundamental views of debate have changed, really.  BUT , as one of my labbies put it this summer, apparently the detail of my previous paradigm was "scary".  So, I have tried to distill down some of the most important ways I evaluate debate.  

Clash - it's good - which means you need to flow and not script your speeches.  LBL with some clear references to where you're at = good.  Line by line isn't answer the previous speech in order - it's about grounding the debate in the 2ac on off case, 1nc on case.

Dates and "real world" matter - with WMD after 9/11 and immigration during Trump as close rivals, this topic seems one of the most current event influenced debate topics I've experienced.  Obviously I mean this in terms of Russia invasion on Feb 24, 2022 - but I also mean in the sense of Madrid Summitt and new Strategic Concept as it relates to the areas; new president in the US as of 2021 with very different policies about NATO and IR; etc.  You do not need evidence to integrate current events into your argument - you do need an explanation about why dates matter - ie what's happened that the other team's arguments don't assume.  But these arguments can go far in my mind to reduce risk of a DA or an advantage - so you should make these arguments and use as indicts of the other team's evidence as appropriate. . I am persuaded by teams that call out other teams based on their evidence quality, author quals, lack of highlighting (meaning they read little of the evidence

Process CPs and other neg trickeration - it's such a good topic that I would definitely prefer to see topic specific arguments.  This means that there are some process CPs or other debates grounded in the lit that are really good debates; there are some that are not.  Particularly as the season progresses, I would expect a discussion of what normal means is - both on the aff and the neg to justify process-y cps.  

DAs - it's possible to win zero risk that the DA is an opportunity cost to the aff.  

Ks - specific links are good.  You should have a sense on the aff and the neg what FW is going to get you in a debate. 

K affs - should be tied to the topic in some way.  If they aren't, then neg args with topical versions or ways to access the education the K aff offers through the resolution are usually persuasive to me.  If the aff has a K of the topic, that's great offense that negs need to have an answer.  I don't think that debate is just a game.  Its a competitive activity that does shape our political subjectivity.  

T - if you have a good violation and reasons why an aff should be excluded, by all means read it.  If you are just reading it as a "time suck" then, meh, read more substance.  And, an argument that ends in -spec is usually an uphill battle unless it's clever [this cleverness standard does preclude generally a- and o-] 

Impact turns - topic specific one = good; generic ones - more meh 

New affs are good - and don't need to be disclosed before a debate if it's truly the very first time that someone at your school has read the argument.  But new affs may justify theoretically sketchy args by the neg - you can integrate that into the theory debate, you don't need a new affs bad 1nc arg to do that. 

Be nice to each other - it's possible to be competitive without being overly sassy.  

Modality matters - when you are debating in person, remember that people can hear you talk to your partner and you should have a line of sight with the judge.  If you are online, make sure that your camera is on when possible to create some engagement with the judge.  

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

I would like to be on the email chain - my email address is valeriemcintosh1@gmail.com.

A few top level things:

• If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
• If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
• Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
• I'm a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
• I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
• Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
• Email-sending related failures
• Dead time
• Stealing prep
• Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team
• Asserting things are dropped when they aren't
• Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards
• Disappearing after the round

Online debate: My camera will always be on during the debate unless I have stepped away from my computer during prep or while deciding so you should always assume that if my camera is off, I am not there. I added this note because I've had people start speeches without me there.

Ethics: If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points.
*NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me.

Organization: I would strongly prefer that if you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn that it go on its own page - its super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders. Ditto to reading advantage CPs on case - put it on its own sheet, please!

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Translated evidence: I am extremely skeptical of evidence translated by a debater or coach with a vested interest in that evidence being used in a debate. Lots of words or phrases have multiple meanings or potential translations and debaters/coaches have an incentive to choose the ones that make the most debate-friendly argument even if that's a stretch of what is in the original text. It is also completely impossible to verify if words or text was left out, if it is a strawperson, if it is cut out of context, etc. I won't immediately reject it on my own but I would say that I am very amenable to arguments that I should.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate: I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

Topicality: I enjoy judging topicality debates when they are in-depth and nuanced. Limits are an an important question but not the only important question - your limit should be tied to a particular piece of neg ground or a particular type of aff that would be excluded. I often find myself to be more aff leaning than neg leaning in T debates because I am often persuaded by the argument that negative interpretations are arbitrary or not based in predictable literature.

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

Counterplans: I would say that I generally lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps, but obviously am more than willing to vote for them if they are debated better by the negative.

I think that CPs should have to be policy actions. I think this is most fair and reciprocal with what the affirmative does. I think that fiating indefinite personal decisions or actions/non-actions by policymakers that are not enshrined in policy is an unfair abuse of fiat that I do not think the negative should get access to. The CP that has the US declare it will not go to war with China would be theoretically legitimate but the CP to have the president personally decide not to go to war with China would not be. Similarly CPs that fiat a concept or endgoal rather than a policy would also fall under this.

It is the burden of the neg to prove the CP solves rather than the burden of the aff to prove it doesn't. Unless the neg makes an attempt to explain how/why the CP solves (by reading ev, by referencing 1AC ev, by explaining how the CP solves analytically), my assumption is that it doesn’t and it isn’t the aff’s burden to prove it doesn’t. The burden for the neg isn’t that high but I think neg teams are getting away with egregious lack of CP explanation and judges too often put the burden on the aff to prove the CP doesn’t solve rather than the neg to prove it does.

Disads: Uniqueness is a thing that matters for every level of the DA. I am not very sympathetic to politics theory arguments (except in the case of things like rider disads, which I might ban from debate if I got the choice to ban one argument and think are certainly illegitimate misinterpretations of fiat) and am unlikely to ever vote on them unless they're dropped and even then would be hard pressed. I'm incredibly knowledgeable about politics and enjoy it a lot when debated well but really dislike seeing it debated poorly.

Theory: Conditionality is often good. It can be not. Conditionality is the ONLY argument I think is a reason to reject the team, every other argument I think is a reason to reject the argument alone. Tell me what my role is on the theory debate - am I determining in-round abuse or am I setting a precedent for the community?

Kritiks: I've gotten simultaneously more versed in critical literature and much worse for the kritik as a judge over the last few years. Take from that what you will.

Your K should ideally be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If not, you're better off with it primarily being a framework argument.

Yes the aff gets a perm, no it doesn't need a net benefit.

Affs without a plan: I generally go into debates believing that the aff should defend a hypothetical policy enacted by the United States federal government. I think debate is a research game and I struggle with the idea that the ballot can do anything to remedy the impacts that many of these affs describe.

I certainly don't consider myself immovable on that question and my decision will be governed by what happens in any given debate; that being said, I don't like when judges pretend to be fully open to any argument in order to hide their true thoughts and feelings about them and so I would prefer to be honest that these are my predispositions about debate, which, while not determinate of how I judge debates, certainly informs and affects it.

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.

I generally am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.

I don't think debate is roleplaying.

I am uncomfortable making decisions in debates where people have posited that their survival hinges on my ballot.

I am very policy orientated. Open to all arguments including critical but please explain all of your arguments. Also, I am new to the topic so please avoid acronyms.

Put me on your email chain: brentm310@gmail.com

I know this paradigm is does not cover anything, so feel free to ask me any questions you have.

I debated policy/cross-ex debate at Glenbrook South in High school (class of '14) and Wake Forest in College (class of '18). I made mostly traditional policy arguments for the first 7 years of my career, until my senior year at Wake when my style opened up a bit and I ventured into the world of K things (Thanks to Varun Reddy). That said, I'll vote on any argument that wins the debate. I try not to be ideological, but everyone inevitably is.

Y'all should know: I haven't been around debate much since I graduated Wake in 2018. That means I do not know what your topic is. This matters for how you explain things like T. Presume I know nothing, because I don't know anything. If you wanted to write the resolution on the board to help me out a little bit, I would not be upset.

I flow on paper. This means you know I'm not trolling around looking at memes, but it also means you know I'm not writing down every single word. Have convenient taglines for your arguments. Package things well. LBL is a lost art. Massive overviews are ruinous.

FW -- I think this argument is strongest on the negative when read as a movements disad, but no one seems to agree with me on this (except for the folks who debated with me ;)). If you INSIST on going for this as a procedural fairness argument, I need you to know: in my eyes, nothing about not being topical is PER SE procedurally unfair. You can't just read definitions, cry fairness, then explain why fairness comes first. I need you to flesh out what we used to call the "internal link" between your definitions and the concept of fairness. WHY is what they did unfair? Do they have a counterinterp that makes debate bad? Do they not have a counterinterp at all? Is your interp the only fair one? Tell me why. That's all I'm saying.


I love T debates. Go for T.

Benjamin Morbeck

Updated 9-11-2023

I debated 4 years at the University of Rochester (NY) and 2 years at Strath Haven High School (PA).

Add me to the email chain: benmo28@gmail.com

As a debater and a coach, I lived pretty exclusively on the policy side of things. I think my judging history suggests I am an even worse judge for the critique and critical affirmatives than I thought I would be.

I haven't been particularly involved in debate since I graduated; I now work full-time outside of debate (I'm a geologist with the US Geological Survey in California) and that is even more true.

I evaluate the round probabilistically -- comparing the risk that each team accesses their impacts, regardless of whether it is a DA, K or T debate. Good defense is often as important as offense in my decisions, but there is very infrequently "zero risk".

I very rarely dealt with theory and (non-framework) topicality as a debater. I think there are very few situations where negatives would be better served by going for topicality instead of a DA/CP strategy in front of me, and vice versa few situations where you are better off going for theory/condo to answer that nasty counterplan instead of just making solvency deficits or putting offense against the net benefits.

Judge kick makes intuitive sense to me and I'm happy to do it for you, but you need to tell me to do it in the 2NR.

Evidence quality is very important to me. I like to read a lot of evidence as the debate is going on NOT because I like to needlessly intervene but because I think that it makes my decisions more informed. You should use this to your favor by (a) reading good evidence and (b) comparing evidence to impact how I view the evidence that has been read. This also means I am hesitant to vote on, for example, disad stories that are contrived and supported mainly by "spin." If you don't have a single card that describes all of your disad story, I'm probably not interested (though I have a bit of a soft spot for the old school PC-style Agenda DA).

This (hopefully) should only apply to high school debates, but I have a very low tolerance for non-substantive, "trolly" arguments in policy rounds---things like ASPEC, frivolous T arguments, one card or backfile critiques, or even very generic impact turns (e.g. spark). My threshold for affs answering these is incredibly low.

LD specific:

My background is in college and high school policy. I judge LD occasionally but am not familiar with the intricacies of circuit LD. If you read plans/DAs, I'll be a good judge for you. If you are a more traditional/old school LD debater, I'll be able to keep up. Otherwise, you probably don't want me judging your LD round.

I don't think I would ever vote on a theory argument in LD. Generic impact framing arguments (e.g. 'the util debate') don't matter much to me.

I'm not going to look at any analytics you email out. I'll only check the document to look at your evidence. If you are going so fast that I don't hear your analytic arguments with my own ears, then those args aren't going to be on my flow. Sorry. Speed is good, but you need to be comprehensible.

Judge Philosophy – Will Mosley-Jensen

Edited 9-19-12

***Short***

1.            Win an impact. (If you can’t do that, join the band)

2.            Compare that to the impact you think they win.

3.            Compare evidence in steps 1 & 2.

4.            If you are fast repeat steps 1-3. If not focus your efforts on steps 1-2 with a sprinkling of step 3.

5.            Have Fun! Clarity, Humor, and Civility all help your speaker points.

6.            Specificity > Generality

***Long***

General Comments

When making a decision there are three factors that precede other considerations first, the status of direct counter-arguments, has an argument been dropped; second, the quality of evidence supporting an argument, is the evidence superior, average or inconclusive; and third, the correspondence of an argument to reality (or the relative “truth” of an argument).

It is important to note that none of these factors is fixed prior to any given debate, but rather that the debate itself determines them. I should also hope that it is clear that my ordering of these factors represents merely my fallback position if there is no re-ordering argued for in a debate. Some of the factors, such as evidence quality could, and should, be a part of the ways that debaters compare their arguments and establish the relative priority of their argument. If this is not done in a debate, then I will evaluate the debate utilizing the order that I have established.

Specificity is important in all debates. If you say that your disadvantage “turns the case” because Romney will destroy hegemony, then it is probably important to compare this warrant to the affirmative warrant for why they solve for US credibility abroad. The best debates are a comparison of warrants; the worst debates a battle of claims, with most debates falling somewhere in the middle.

Specifics

Topicality debates-

Against Non-traditional (not topical and proud of it) teams

I find that I have a very strong bias that affirmatives should be topical. Most of the reasons that teams advance for why they do not need to fulfill this most central of affirmative burdens pre-suppose several problematic propositions. First, that there is some value that is external to the debate community that can be gained from not affirming the topic. Second, that participation in debate trades-off with other types of activism, rather than occupying a supplementary role. Third, that the value of debate is not intrinsically tied to the identification of a common topic of discussion. Finally and most heinously, that debate is sustainable without the minimum of fairness that is provided by having a shared topic. These assumptions seem to me to be easily answered by a team that is properly prepared.

Against traditional (ostensibly topical) teams

A well-executed topicality argument is one of the most enjoyable debates to judge or watch in my opinion. If it is thoroughly researched and considered by the negative, topicality can represent a strategic tool in a wide variety of debates.

That said, I think that the negative needs to clearly articulate the method of evaluating topicality, and avoid statements in other parts of the debate that question the assumption of the competing interpretations framework. It is not unusual to hear a negative argue that “hard debate is good debate” on conditionality and then extend a topicality argument that is based on some trivial loss of ground.  Affirmative teams should capitalize on such inconsistencies when arguing that their interpretation does not make debate impossible but improves it by creating strategic bottlenecks for the negative.

 Framework debates-

I find that these debates usually come down to what the role of the critic should be. Namely, should the role of the critic be that of an impartial observer that evaluates the relative advantages and disadvantages of government action versus the status quo or a competitive policy option or should the role of the critic be something else? I can be persuaded that this role includes things not traditionally associated with the assumption that I am an impartial observer, but it helps if you provide some specific articulation of the benefits of deviating from the accepted norm. I enjoy policy debates and am sympathetic to a well-argued defense of the educational and fairness benefits of this approach. I will say that most of the time if the affirmative defends a topical plan that is usually enough to facilitate a productive debate, and in that case it is generally wise to question the solvency of the affirmative. In other words, if the affirmative team has read a topical plan text and the crux of your negative framework argument is “they are not policy enough,” I am likely to vote affirmative.

Criticisms

I am pretty firmly rooted in a Western metaphysics of presence and the value of enlightenment rationality. I am also of the mind that adjudicating debates requires assumptions of rationality and so if you want me to adopt a different framework of evaluation it will require some pretty solid reasons on your part. That is not to say I do not enjoy critical debates, there are some fine criticisms that are firmly grounded in modernity. If you are going for a criticism in front of me, it is likely that I have at least a passing familiarity with the foundational literature of your argument (I got my B.A. in philosophy and my M.A in rhetoric) but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go out of your way to explain the specific application to the affirmative. Similarly if you are reading a critical affirmative you should be careful to explain the reasons that your affirmative renders parts, or all, of the negative’s strategy irrelevant. For example if you are arguing that epistemological considerations precede policy considerations you should explain the nature of that relationship.

 Counterplans

In most circumstances when negatives read counterplans that are questionably competitive/legitimate (process, consult, conditioning) I find that aff teams are unwilling to engage in a protracted procedural debate and so become competitive/legitimate by default. Usually going for a permutation is a time intensive process, but can be rewarding if you spend the time to work through the competition theory that purportedly supports the negative’s counterplan. Advancing theory on a counterplan should always include controlling not only the specifics of the theory debate, but also the meta-questions. For example, a robust defense of competing interpretations is generally necessary for the affirmative to win that multiple conditional counterplans are a voting issue. Most affirmative teams tend to simply spot the negative that it is not a question of competing interpretations but rather a question of whether the counterplan makes debate impossible for the affirmative (which almost no counterplans, save fiating the object of the resolution, do).

Speaker Points

Although debate is a competitive activity that doesn’t mean that people can’t be civil with each other. Your comportment during a round can easily affect your speaker points as much as the quality of your arguments. Debate is a fun, rewarding activity and the people that I regard with the most respect are not only great debaters but great people as well.

They/them pronouns

IMPACT CALC WINS DEBATE ROUNDS!

LGBTQ+ rights/litigation attorney during the week, debate coach by weekend.

Coaching/judging CX for about 15 years now, but definitely not a topic expert. Please explain your topic specific jargon. I don't judge a ton on the nat circuit because my work schedule limits my ability to travel, but in general, I'll adapt to your style.

Tech over truth, insofar as it minimizes my own intervention. But that's not an excuse to throw out a bunch of poorly developed/bad quality args. I also find that debaters sometimes lose the forest for the trees- even if you're ahead on tech, you still need to synthesize and explain WHY that matters in the round.

In general, it's your debate, not mine. You can choose to follow my preferences on here if you want to, but never limit your ability to debate based on my personal preferences.

I find that case debate is frequently underdeveloped on the high school level. At the end of the round, I'm basically going to ask myself if the aff is a good idea. As the neg, don't make it harder than it needs to be- tell me why it isn't. As Aff, give me good impact calc and spend time weighing the impacts of case v. off.

T- I have a relatively high standard on T. The standards debate is important and needs to be fleshed out well. I tend to default to reasonability in a world where the standards debate isn't developed or impacted out properly. That being said, if you do the work in the standards debate thoughtfully, you can definitely get my ballot.

Theory- Make it interesting. Super generic theory is lame, and it makes me very sad, especially when you use it to avoid poignant and interesting debate. I really hate rounds that are just people reading blocks at each other instead of actually engaging. That being said, I really appreciate nuanced framework and pre-fiat args, so go for it- tell me all about how fiat is illusory. Tell me all about how policy debate is inherently elitist and how valuing procedural fairness is a bad idea. Or tell me it's a key prereq to structural fairness. Or not. Engage and have critical thought.

Condo is fine, PICS are fine, dispo is silly.

I love good K debate. However, you need to truly know and understand your K and articulate it well. Even if I know your cards, I'm not going to interpret them or argue them for you- that's your job. Good analysis always preferred over bad cards. I'll appreciate it if you do a nice job with the alt debate- make me understand the post alt world and flesh out alt solvency. Perf con matters on a reps focused K.

Framework debates can sometimes really frustrating to judge when they are just block vs. block. If the framework debate is what really matters, engage in it with critical thought and clash, and explain to me your vision for the debate space.

K affs are fine, with some notes. If there's absolutely no potential for clash or when the K aff is just making for really lazy aff debaters, that's sad to me. I don't need a plan, but I appreciate an advocacy statement. I think non-resolutional debate can be really valuable, but I also think that topic education is important, and I hate when either Aff debaters or neg debaters use the K as a way to bypass properly engaging with the topic lit.

Other Notes:

Speed is fine as long as you're clear. I'll tell you if you aren't. I appreciate it if you slow down on your tags, especially super long ones. For the love of all that is holy, if you spread those Lacan tags at me, we will not be friends.

If you are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc., you will absolutely pay for it in your speaks, and we're gonna have a post-round chat.

A good analytic is always better than a bad card.

Be conscious of how you are communicating with your opponents. Give meaningful trigger warnings. Respect pronouns. Be kind. Don't talk over people in cross. Be good humans.

At the end of the day, debate is a game. Have fun and learn stuff.

Please add me to the email chain: mwmunday@gmail.com

Affiliations and History

Director of Debate at Westminster. Debated in college between 2008 and 2012. Actively coaching high school debate since 2008.

Debate Views

I am not the kind of judge who will read every card at the end of the debate. Claims that are highly contested, evidence that is flagged, and other important considerations will of course get my attention. Debaters should do the debating. Quality evidence is still important though. If the opposing team's cards are garbage, it is your responsibility to let that be known. Before reading my preferences about certain arguments, keep in mind that it is in your best interest to do what you do best. My thoughts on arguments are general predispositions and not necessarily absolute.

T – Topicality is important. The affirmative should have a relationship to the topic. How one goes about defending the topic is somewhat open to interpretation. However, my predisposition still leans towards the thought that engaging the topic is a good and productive end. I find myself in Framework debates being persuaded by the team that best articulates why their limit on the topic allows for a season's worth of debate with competitively equitable outcomes for both the aff and the neg.

Disads/Case Debate – While offense is necessary, defense is frequently undervalued. I am willing to assign 0% risk to something if a sufficient defensive argument is made.

Counterplans – Conditionality is generally fine. Functional competition seems more relevant than textual competition. If the affirmative is asked about the specific agent of their plan, they should answer the question. I increasingly think the affirmative allows the negative to get away with questionable uses of negative fiat. Actual solvency advocates and counterplan mechanisms that pass the rational policy option assumption matter to me.

Kritiks – I teach history and economics and I studied public policy and political economy during my doctoral education. This background inherently influences my filter for evaluating K debates. Nonetheless, I do think these are strategic arguments. I evaluate framework in these debates as a sequencing question regarding my resolution of impact claims. Effective permutation debating by the aff is an undervalued strategy.

Theory – A quality theory argument should have a developed warrant/impact. “Reject the argument, not the team” resolves most theory arguments except for conditionality. Clarity benefits both teams when engaging in the substance of theory debates.

Speaker Points

(Scale - Adjective - Description)

29.6-30 - The Best - Everything you could ask for as a judge and more. (Top 5 speaker award)

29-29.5 - Very, Very good - Did everything you could expect as a judge very, very well. (Top 10 speaker award)

28.6-28.9 - Very Good - Did very well as a whole, couple moments of brilliance, but not brilliant throughout.

28.3-28.5 - Good - Better than average. Did most things well. Couple moments of brilliance combined with errors.

28-28.2 - OK - Basic skills, abilities, and expectations met. But, some errors along the way. Very little to separate themselves from others. Clearly prepared, just not clearly ahead of others.

Below 28 - OK, but major errors - Tried hard, but lack some basic skills or didn’t pay close enough attention.

FOR COLLEGE TOURNAMENTS: ukydebate@gmail.com

FOR HS TOURNAMENTS:devanemdebate@gmail.com

My name is Devane (Da-Von) Murphy, and I'm the Associate Director of Debate at the University of Kentucky. My conflicts are Newark Science, Coppell High School, University High School, Rutgers-Newark, Dartmouth College, and the University of Kentucky. I debated 4 years of policy in high school and for some time in college, however, I've coached Lincoln-Douglas as well as Public Forum debaters so I should be good on all fronts. I ran all types of arguments in my career, from Politics to Deleuze and back, and my largest piece of advice to you with me in the back of the room is to run what you are comfortable with. Also, I stole this from Elijah Smith's philosophy

"If you are a policy team, please take into account that most of the "K" judges started by learning the rules of policy debate and competing traditionally. I respect your right to decide what debate means to you, but debate also means something to me and every other judge. Thinking about the form of your argument as something I may not be receptive to is much different from me saying that I don't appreciate the hard work you have done to produce the content"

***Emory LD Edit***

I'm a policy debater in training but I'm not completely oblivious to the different terms and strategies used in LD. That being said, I hate some of the things that are supposed to be "acceptable" in the activity. First, I HATE frivolous Theory debates. I will vote for it if I absolutely have to but I have VERY HIGH threshold and I will not be kind to your speaker points. Second, if your thing is to do whatever a "skeptrigger" is or something along that vein, please STRIKE me. It'd be a waste of your time as I have nothing to offer you educationally. Another argument that I probably will have a hard time evaluating is constitutivism/truth testing. Please compare impacts and tell me why I should vote for you. Other than that, everything else here is applicable. Have fun and if you make me laugh, I'll boost your speaks.

DA's: I like these kinds of debates. My largest criticism is that if you are going to read a DA in front of me, please give some form of impact calculus that helps me to evaluate which argument should be prioritized with my ballot. And I'm not just saying calculus to mean timeframe, probability or magnitude but rather to ask for a comparison between the impacts offered in the round. (just a precursor but this is necessary for all arguments not just DA's)

CP's: I like CP's however for the abusive ones (and yes I'm referring to Consult, Condition, Multi-Plank, Sunset, etc.) Theoretical objections persuade me. I'm not saying don't run these in front of me however if someone runs theory please don't just gloss over it because it will be a reason to reject the argument and if its in the 2NR the team.

K's: I like the K too however that does not mean that I am completely familiar with the lit that you are reading as arguments. The easiest way to persuade me is to have contextualized links to the aff as well as not blazing through the intricate details of your stuff. Not to say I can't flow speed (college debate is kinda fast) I would rather not flow a bunch of high theory which would mean that I won't know what you're talking about. You really don't want me to not know what you're talking about. SERIOUSLY. I will lower your speaker points without hesitation

Framework: I'm usually debating on the K side of this, but I will vote on either side. If the negative is winning and impacting their decision-making impact over the impacts of the aff then I would vote negative. On the flip side, if the aff wins that the interpretation is a targeted method of skewing certain conversations and wins offense to the conversation, I would vote aff. This being said I go by my flow. Also, I'm honestly not too persuaded by fairness as an impact, but the decision-making parts of the argument intrigue me.

K-Affs/Performance: I'm 100% with these. However, they have to be done the right way. I don't wanna hear poetry spread at me at high speeds nor do I want to hear convoluted high theory without much explanation. That being said, I love to watch these kinds of debates and have been a part of a bunch of them.

Theory: I'll vote on it if you're impacting your standards. If you're spreading blocks, probably won't vote for it.

Email: shannonnierman@gmail.com

I debated for Wylie E. Groves High School for four years, debated for 3 years at MSU, and currently coach at Groves.

Topicality: I’m not opposed to voting on T, but rereading T shells is insufficient. There needs to be substantial work on the interpretations debate from both teams, in addition to the standards and voters debate, i.e. education and fairness. As long as the aff is reasonably topical and it is proven so, T is probably not a voter. Also, if you are going for T in the 2NR, go for only T, and do so for all 5 minutes.

Counterplans: Any type of counterplan is fine; however, if it is abusive, do not leave it for me to decide this, make these arguments.

Disads: Any type of DA is fine. A generic link in the 1NC is okay, but I think that throughout the block the evidence should be link specific. When extending the DA in the block, an overview is a must. The first few words I should here on the DA flow is “DA outweighs and turns case for X and Y reasons.”

Kritiks: I will vote on the K, but I often find that in the K rounds people undercover the alternative debate. When getting to this part of the K, explain what the world of the alternative would look like, who does the alternative, if the aff can function in this world, etc. I am well versed in psychoanalytic literature i.e. Zizek and Lacan and I do know the basis of a plethora of other Ks. This being said, I should learn about the argumentation in the round through your explanation and extrapolation of the authors ideas; not use what I know about philosophy and philosophers or what like to read in my free time. Read specific links in the block and refrain from silly links of omission.

Theory: I am not opposed to voting on theory, but it would make my life a lot easier if it didn’t come down to this. This is not because I dislike the theory debate rather I just believe that it is hard to have an actual educational and clear theory debate from each side of the debate. Now, this said, if a theory argument is dropped, i.e. conditionality bad, by all means, go for it!

Performance: An interesting and unique type of debate that should still relate to the resolution. As long as there is substantive and legitimate argumentation through your rapping or dancing and whatever else you can come up with, I am willing to vote on it. Even if you are rapping, I would prefer to have a plan text to start.

*As technology is vital in our life, many of us have switched toward paperless debate. I do not use prep for flashing, because I have also debated both off of paper and paperlessly in debate and I understand that technology can sometimes be your opponent in the round, rather than the other team. I am being a nice and fair judge in doing this, so please do not abuse this by stealing prep, because I will most likely notice and take away that stolen prep.

FAQs: Speed – I’m okay with speed as long as you are clear!
Tag teaming - I’m okay with it as long as it’s not excessive.

Things not to do in rounds I’m judging: go for RVIs, go for everything in the 2NR, and be mean. Believe it or not, there is a distinction between being confident and having ethos vs. being rude and obnoxious when you don’t have the right to be.

From the beginning, I think debaters need to understand that I was never a policy debater myself. I took over a successful team at Caddo when they needed faculty support, and the debaters and alums taught me the activity. Over the next fifteen years I learned enough to teach it to novices and intermediates. I judged actively for about fifteen years, but since bringing a new coach to our school seven years ago, I have not been in many rounds. If you want someone who is going to understand clipped references to acronyms or core camp affs that you think everyone already knows on the NATO topic, I am not that guy. You are going to have to break things down and explain. I am a flow judge, but very rusty.

Now, Caddo has been known as a fairly critical team over the last decade, and I have learned to appreciate those arguments a good bit. As someone who teaches sociology, psychology, and philosophy at my high school, I am sympathetic to many identity arguments, critiques of epistemology, etc. However, I am not going to be down with a lot of jargon-filled blocks on framework—you must explain why I should weigh your project or method against fairness arguments of the policy world. I like the kind of literature discussed in critical rounds, but I have voted for policy affs outweighing a critique in different debates, especially where the aff won the framework and the neg did not.

That being said, I am very comfortable listening to case, disad, counterplan rounds. I think topicality sets important rules of the game & so if you plan to flout those rules, you better have a compelling reason. I certainly value the kind of knowledge and skills that policy debaters learn through the activity.

Ethos matters. We all know how important cross-ex is to establishing a confident position, but don’t be rude. If you can have a really competitive round and still treat your opponent—and your partner!—with respect, then that goes a long way with me on speaker points.

Email chain—yes. nnormand.cmhs@gmail.com

I am not a proficient enough typist to flow on the laptop, but if you signpost your arguments well enough, I should be able to flow a debate at speed. Being able to read the evidence during the speech certainly helps me though.

Do what you do best in front of me, give full explanations of why I should vote for you, and you will be ok. Make blippy arguments that claim you won because of something that was barely in the debate and dropped by the other team—then no matter how pissed you act when “post-rounding” me at the end, you will still have lost.

This is a great activity. Have fun with it & don’t take yourself too seriously, then we all win.

none.

Experience: 4 years of public forum, 4 years of NFA-LD (one-person policy debate), and 2 years of coaching NFA-LD. I haven't coached debate in several years; however, I still occasionally judge.

1/7/2022 update - I understand and am willing to evaluate theory; however, I would prefer to judge a debate about the topic. I firmly believe that debaters should be mostly in control of the round and what is read and I certainly will not punish you for reading theory, but I personally enjoy debates that are centered on the topic.

I am still in the process of formatting my paradigm for the high school circuit, so please excuse its brevity.

I feel that debate should reward hard work. I will call for cards at the end of the round, and my ballot and speaker points will be used to reward the team with a greater quality and quantity of evidence.

I prefer substantive arguments and default to a logical-decision maker paradigm. I am rarely persuaded by theory arguments that are not topicality or shells that do not have real implications for the solvency of the affirmative.

You should engage in evidence and impact comparison. Impact comparison should be a full exploration of the link, internal link, and impact card to produce a full analysis of the probability, timeframe, and magnitude.

Speed is not an issue for me as long as it is reciprocal and not exclusive.

DR. SYDNEY PASQUINELLI

• Director of Debate @ Wayne State University
• Program Director of the Detroit Urban Debate League
• BA- Wayne State University
• MA - Wake Forest University
• PHD - University of Pittsburgh
• she/her
• email chains: wayneCXdocs@gmail.com

Stylistics:

- I like debates with a lot of direct clash and impact calculus.

- I am very flow-oriented, and I often vote on based on "tech over truth." In other words, I like debates where teams debate LBL, and exploit the other team's errors and use technical concessions to get ahead strategically.

- I really dislike tag-teaming in CX, especially when the result is that one person dominates all the CXs.

- I don't usually read along in the speech docs during your speeches, because I like to stay true to the flow.

- I would appreciate if you sent me compiled card docs at the end of the round.

Default Voting Paradigm:

- If the aff is net beneficial to the status quo, I default to voting aff unless the negative wins another framework.

- If the neg wins a substantial risk of a DA, which has an external impact that outweighs and turns the case, the affirmative is probably going to lose my ballot. The 1AR can't drop "turns the case" arguments and expect the 2AR to get new answers.

- If the neg wins a substantial risk of the K, which has an external impact and turns the case, the negative still has to win an alternative or a framework argument (to take care of uniqueness), and beat back the perm.

- The perm which includes all the aff and all or part of the CP/Alt is a legitimate test of competition. If the neg proposes a framework to exclude perms, it has to be very well-justified, because I see the role of the neg is to win a DA to the aff as it was presented.

- Severance perms are not a reason to vote aff - if the aff is abandoning ship, this signals to me a neg ballot.

Topicality / Theory:

- I do not default to competing interpretations on framework or topicality. Winning that AFF could've started the round debating within a net-better "competing model" does not fulfill the role of the negative, which is to disprove the desirability of the aff.

- I think topicality is a question of in-round debatability. If you win that the aff was so unpredictable, vast, conditional and/or a moving target, and thus made it implausible for you to win the debate, then I will vote for T as a procedural issue. (A TVA or a net beneficial model is not a substitute for doing the work to prove their model is undebatable).

- Theory is also a question of in-round debatability. If you win that your opponent did something theoretically objectionable, that made it impossible for you to win this debate, I can see myself voting against your opponent. This includes excessive conditional worlds. I want to reiterate here that competing interpretations don't help in theory debates - procedurals are a yes/no question of in-round abuse.

Debate is a game.

My preference is debate centered around a plan focus style of debate. This is not say that other debate styles should or do not exist, but it is to say, I prefer policy debates, and I enjoy judging policy debate rounds. I will not rule out or prohibit other styles of debate, but I want to be clear, my preference is debates about the plan and competitive policy alternatives.

Counterplans

Well, for starters, they kick ass. I lean heavily neg on counterplan theory questions. Conditionally is generally good, but I think the format and speech times of parli and NFA-LD debate begs the "generally good" question.

If both teams are silent on the question, my presumption will be that counterplans identified as “conditional” mean that status quo is always an option for the judge to consider, even if the counterplan is extended by the 2nr. This presumption can easily be changed if debated by either side.

Counterplans which result in the affirmative, probably, not competitive. I’ve written many of these counterplans, and voted on many of these counterplans many times, so do not think they are off limits

The K

First, see above.

Second, if you are going for the K, please have well developed link args to the plan and an alternative that is competitive. Also, it is a very good idea to explain what the alternative does and how it interacts with the AFF.

Topicality

All about which interp is best for debate.

Glenbrook North- he/him

If you are visibly sick, I reserve the right to forfeit you and leave.

spipkin at gmail. Please set up the chain at least five minutes before start time. I don't check my email very often when I'm not at tournaments.

1. Flow and respond to what the other team says in order.

2. You almost certainly are going too fast for how clear you are.

3. Kritiks on the neg: Probably a bad idea in front of me.

4. K affs: You definitely want to strike me.

5. No inserting anything into the debate besides like charts or graphics (things that can't be read aloud). You don't need to re-read the plan and counterplan text, and you can say perm specific planks, but if you are reading a more complicated perm than that, you should read the text. The litmus test is "insert the perm text."

6. I generally flow cross-x but won't guarantee I'll pay attention to questions after cross-x time is up. I also don't think the other team has to indefinitely answer substantive questions once cx time is over.

7.Plans: If you say you fiat deficit spending in CX, you don't get to say PTIV on T taxes. If you say normal means is probably deficit spending but it could be taxes, you get to say PTIV but you also risk the neg winning you are taxes for a DA or CP. Fiat is limited to the text of what you have in the plan. Implementation specification beyond the text requires evidence and can be contested by the neg.

8. Highlighting should form a coherent sentence. If it's word salad, I'm not going to waste my time trying to parse the meaning.

9. I like counterplans that are germane to the topic. Most of the process counterplans I've seen this year are not that They either can't solve the net benefit or they're not competitive or both.

Niles West '14

UIUC '18

I coach for Niles West debate and have for the past 6 years. I have coached and judged in every level from novice to elimination rounds in varsity divisions. I have also coached and judged on local, regional, and national circuits.

Yes, I would like to be sent speech docs but I will not be flowing off of them --- elipre@d219.org

I debated for three years for Niles West and one year at Michigan State University on the legalization topic. My experience in debate is 50/50 policy and K.

I would like to emphasize that I am totally down for the K as much as I am totally down for a policy debate.

First and foremost: I do not allow my preconceived notions about certain types of arguments affect my decision-making. I view debate as an activity that develops critical thinking and advocacy skills, so do that in whatever way you think is best suited for your situation (granted that it is respectful and not offensive).

Certain arguments:

FYI: dropped arguments are not true arguments --- whoever makes the argument has the burden of proof.

T – love a good T debate. compare interpretations and evidence adequately. the impact level is the most important to me in T debates, and you should be comparing standards/impacts. don't forget the internal link debate. fairness is an impact in and of itself.

DAs – are essential to a good debate I think. impact calc and overviews are important. think we can all agree on that.

Ks and Framework – I love the K, I went for it a lot in high school. they are good for debate *if they answer the affirmative*. Please engage the affirmative. This entails making specific link arguments as well as thorough turns case analysis. I am probably familiar with your literature, however, I will not weigh your buzzwords more than logical aff arguments against your K. If you want my ballot, you need to first and foremost TALK ABOUT THE AFF. Read specific links to the aff’s representations and impacts, not just to the topic in general.

The link debate is crucial – and the aff should recognize if the neg is not doing an adequately specific job explaining their link story. Additionally, you need to make turns case arguments. I will not be compelled by a mere floating pik in the 2NR – that’s cheating. Give me analysis about why the aff reifies its own impacts. Absent this, I usually default to weighing the 1AC heavily against the K.

Relating to framework, I have a high threshold for interpretations that limit out critiques entirely. I would rather see debaters interact with the substance of the criticism than talk shallowly about fairness and predictability (especially if it is a common argument). A lot of the times, framework debates are lazy.

Planless affs: Totally down for them, especially on the criminal justice system reform topic. Perhaps they could be read on the neg, but that does not mean that they should not be read on the aff. This is good news if you are negative going for framework because switch side debate probably solves a lot of aff offense if there is a topical version of the aff. This is also good news for the aff because I can just as likely be persuaded that the reading of your aff in the debate space creates something unique (i.e., whatever you are solving for). A policy action, whether or not it's done by the federal government, should be a priority for the aff to defend. Please just do something that gives the negative a role in the debate. SLOW DOWN on taglines if they are paragraphs.

***

Meta things:

1. Clarity (important for online debate) - I've changed my stance on this since online debate became a thing. Still definitely say words. Sending analytics in speech doc and/or slowing down on analytics 1) helps me which is, in turn, good for you and 2) (at worst) facilitates clash because your opponents can also hear and know what you are saying, which is also good for everyone educationally!

Ideally I would not have to work too hard to hear what you are saying. I am bad at multitasking, so if I’m working too hard I’ll probably miss an argument or two. Please enunciate tag lines especially. If I can’t decipher your answer to an argument, I will consider it dropped.

2. Be respectful – yes, debate is a competitive activity, but it is also an academic thought exercise. I encourage assertiveness and confidence in round, but if you are rude, I will reduce your speaker points. Rudeness includes excessively cutting your opponent off or talking over them in cross-ex, excessively interrupting your partner's speech to prompt them, being unnecessarily snarky towards your opponents, etc. Please just be nice :)

3. Logic - a lot of times, debaters get wrapped up in the technicality of their debates. While tech is important, it shouldn’t come at the expense of doing things like explaining your arguments, pointing out logical flaws in your opponents’ arguments, and telling me how I should evaluate a particular flow in the context of the whole debate. I tend to reward teams that provide consistent, clear, and smart meta-level framing issues – it makes my job 100 times easier, and it minimizes the extent to which I have to intervene to decide the debate. I will not do work for you on an argument even if I am familiar with it – I judge off of my flow exclusively.

4. DO NOT assume that I am following along on the speech doc as you are giving a speech, because I am probably not.

5. Trolly arguments will probably get you low speaks and some eyerolls. Debate is an educational activity. By my standards, "trolly" includes timecube, xenos paradox, turing tests, etc. Y'all are smart people. I think you catch my drift here.

Updated for 2023-2024 Season

Please put me on the speech thread! Thank you.

Email: thelquinn@gmail.com

Titles: Director of Debate at Samford University (AL).

Meta-thoughts:

I’m not the smartest human. You’re maybe/likely smarter than me. Please do not assume I know anything you are talking about. And I would honestly love to learn some new things in a debate about arguments you researched.

Debaters are guilty until proven innocent of clipping cards. I follow along in speech docs. I believe it is judges job to police clipping and it is unfair to make debaters alone check it. I will likely say clear though, it's nothing personal.

I keep a running clock and "read along" with speech docs to prevent clipping. At the end of the round, I find myself most comfortable voting for a team that has the best synthesis between good ethos, good tech/execution, and good evidence. I will not vote on better evidence if the other team out debates you, but I assign a heavy emphasis on quality evidence when evaluating competing arguments, especially offensive positions.

Education/Debate Background:

Wake Forest University: 2011-2015. Top Speaker at ADA Nationals my Junior Year. 2x NDT First-Round Bid at Wake Forest. 2x NDT Octofinalist. 2x Kentucky Round Robin. Dartmouth Round Robin. Pittsburgh Round Robin.

Mountain Brook High School: 2007-2011. 3x TOC Qualifier. 2011 Winner of Emory's Barkley Forum in Policy Debate. Greenhill and Harvard Round Robin. Third Place at NSDA Nationals in 2011. Seventh Place NSDA Nationals 2010. Winner of Woodward JV Nationals.

Policy Thoughts:

Tl;dr: Offense/defense, the algorithm, cards are currency. UQ determines link unless otherwise said. Willing to pull the trigger on T/theory.

Flow: Most debaters should make analytics off their flows, especially in digital debate. Conversely, if you include analytics on your speech doc but I do not find you clear but I recognize where you are on your speech doc, I will not consider them arguments.

Condo: Im largely ok with conditionality. I think the best aff args against conditional are against contradictory conditional options. I do not really like the counter-interp of dispo. Im a much bigger fan of CI is non-contradictory conditional options.

• 3 or less non contradictory conditional options is ok to me
• 2 contra condo is fine
• 3 contradictory condo (including a K) and I am willing to vote on contra condo bad.
• For new affs, I think at most 5 contra condo is permissive. Anymore and I think you risk losing on theory.
• I think negs should take the 2 seconds it takes to have a CI that isn't "what we did." "What we did" is not really a good CI in debates.

CP Theory: If the 2AC straight turns your disad, no amount of theory will justify a 2NC CP out of/around the straight turned DA. 2NC CP's vs addons are different and chill/encouraged. Generic Process/ Conditions/ consult CPs cause me to lean aff on theory/perm, unless you have a good solvency advocate specific to their plan text which can prove its predictable and important for that area of debate. But I’m persuaded that a generic/predictable aff posted on the wiki can win a theory debate/perm do CP against a generic process/ conditions/ consult CPs. This is especially true with any Con Con CP. Con Con is the worst.

I hate judge kick. Do you want me to flow for you too? Maybe compose your speech doc while you're at it? I don't give the affirmative random permutations. Don't make me kick your trash counterplan for you.

T: My "favorite" standards are predictable limits (debatability) and real-world context (literature/education). I think a topicality interp that has both of those standards I will err on. Evidence that is both inclusive and exclusive is the gold standard. I tend to be more moderate with reasonability. I am not in the cult of limits. I err aff if I believe your interpretation is "reasonable" and that the negative did not prove you made debate impossible even if their interpretation is slightly better.

Kritikal Debate. I vote off the flow, which means my opinions on K debate are secondary to my voting. And I was 4-0 for Wake BD last year in some big debates against policy teams, so I'm going to vote for the team that I thought did the better debating (But are you Wake BD?). Im not really opposed to kritiks on the negative that are tied to the plan/resolution or kritikal affirmatives that defend a topical plan of action. I think where I draw the line is that I'm not a good judge for more performance based "affirmatives/negatives" that neither affirm nor negate the plan text/resolution. I lean very heavily neg on FW v non or anti-topical K affs. I think a good topical version of the affirmative is the best argument on FW. The role of the judge is to vote for the team who does the better debating. Debate is an educational game we play on the weekend with friends. I will not evaluate arguments that derive from actions/events out of the debate I am judging. Fairness is an impact and intrinsically good. I do not believe the ballot has material power to change the means of production/structures and thinking it does may even be problematic.

Please do not read global warming good. Global warming is real and will kill us all. And I am particularly persuaded by the argument that introducing these arguments in debate is unethical for spreading propaganda and should be deterred by rejecting the team. I'm way more persuaded by inevitability and alt cause args.

Ravi Raghavan

Lexington High School '17

MIT '21 (Currently debating for Harvard)

Last Updated: January 2018

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

Overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Education Topic

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

Ethics Violations

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

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

T

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

DAs

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

Impact Turns

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

CPs

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

Ks

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

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

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

Planless Affs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case Debate

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

Theory

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

Advantage CPs- Very neg leaning

Substantive PICs- Very neg leaning

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

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

Process CPs- Aff leaning

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

Word PICs- Aff leaning

Object fiat- Very aff leaning

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

This is my twenty sixth year as an active member of the policy debate community. After debating in both high school and college I immediately jumped into coaching high school policy debate. I have been an argument coach, full time debate instructor, program director, and argument coach again for Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami, FL for the past seventeen years.

I become more convinced every year that the switch side nature of policy debate represents one of the most valuable tools to inoculate young people against dogmatism. I also believe the skills developed in policy debate – formulating positions using in depth research that privileges consensus, expertise, and data and the testing of those positions via multiple iterations—enhance students’ ability to think critically.

I am particularly fond of policy debate as the competitive aspect incentivizes students to keep abreast of current events and use that information to formulate opinions regarding how various levels of government should respond to societal needs.

Equipping students with the skills to meaningfully engage political institutions has been incredibly valuable for me. Many of my debate students have been Latina/Latinx. Witnessing them develop an expert ability to navigate institutions, that were by design obfuscated to ensure their exclusion, continues to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I am constantly grateful for that privilege.

I am deeply concerned by the ongoing trend toward clash avoidance. This practice makes debate seem more trivial each year and continues to denigrate our efforts in the eyes of the academics we depend on for funding and support.

Affirmatives continue to lean into vague plan writing and vague explanations of what they will defend. This makes for late breaking and poorly developed debates. I understand why students engage in these practices (the competitive incentive I lauded above) I wish instructors and coaches understood how much more meaningful their contributions would be if they empowered students to embrace clash over gimmicks.

I will be less persuaded by your delivery if you choose to engage in clash avoidance. Actions such as deleting analytics, refusal to specify plans, cps, and K alts, allowing your wiki to atrophy, and proliferating stale competition style and Intrinsicness arguments will result in my awarding fewer speaker points.

Remember your friends’ hot takes and even your young coaches/lab leaders’ hot takes are just that – they are likely not the debates most of your critics want to adjudicate.

If you are not flowing during the debate, it will be difficult to persuade me that you were the most skilled debater in the room.

Be “on deck.” By that I mean be warmed up and ready for your turn at bat. Have your table tote set up, the email thread ready, you pens/paper/timer out, your laptop charged, go to the restroom before the round, fill up your water bottle, etc. I don’t say all this to sound like a mean teacher – in fact I think it would be incredibly ableist to really harp on these things or refuse to let students use the facilities mid-round – but being ready helps the round proceed on time and keeps you in the zone which helps your ability to project a confident winning persona. It also demonstrates a consideration for me, your opponents, your coaches and teammates and the tournament staffs’ time.

Be kind and generous to everyone.

You can likely deduce most of this from the discussion of clash avoidance and why I value debate above.

I would prefer to see a debate wherein the affirmative defends the USFG should increase security cooperation with the NATO over AI, Biotech, and/or cybersecurity.

I would like to see the negative rejoin with hypothetical disadvantages to enacting the plan as well as introducing competing proposals for resolving the harms outlined by the affirmative.

One of the more depressing impacts to enrolling in graduate school has been the constant reminder that in truth impact d is >>> than impact ev. A few years ago, I was increasingly frustrated by teams only extending a DA and impact defense vs. the case – I thought this was responsible for a trend of fewer and fewer affirmatives with intrinsic advantages. I made a big push for spending at least 50% of the time on each case flow vs the internal link of the advantage. My opinion on this point is changing. Getting good at impact defense is tremendously valuable – you are likely examining peer reviewed highly qualified publications and their debunking of well…less than qualified publications.

I find Climate to be one of the most strategic and persuasive impacts in debate (life really). That said, most mechanisms to resolve climate presented in debates are woefully inadequate.

I am not averse to any genre of argument. Every genre has highs and lows. For example, not all kritiks are generic or have cheating alternatives, not all process counterplans are unrelated to the topic, and not all politics disadvantages are missing fundamental components but sometimes they are and you should work to avoid those deficiencies.

The folks with whom I see debate similarly:

Maggie Berthiaume

Dr. Brett Bricker

Anna Dimitrijevic

David Heidt

Fran Swanson

delete

Rowland Hall ’15

Emory University ’19

**updated January 2019** I'm largely unfamiliar with this topic which means I need more of an explanation for terms and acronyms.

Quick version- I debated for four years in high school and I debate in college at Emory. I have a large background in different positions. In high school I was very policy, in college I have killjoy/fem rage on the neg and on the aff sometimes. I have a large background in K literature. I'll try really hard to put aside and pre-concieved notions and just judge the debate. I put T/K stuff on top since I think that's where most people go first. Also, I like clash debates and really can go either way depending on the arguments made so if you envision yourself in some of those, I'd be a good judge.

I like an aggressive debater, but don't speak over people. Don't be rude. I take issues of sexual assault, gender, and racism in debate very seriously. I am someone that you can speak to about it, in and out of round, and who will punish people in a round for making light of or perpetuating any of those things.

Framework (T usfg)- I think sometimes it's strategic, and we definitely read it against Aff's we think are particularly hard to get a link to. I actually love a good framework debate on both sides. Be techy, innovative and thoughtful. I think that fairness is an impact if properly explained, and I think limits are good and it is possible for the usfg to do good things. It will be hard to convince me that every single action the usfg takes is bad, but I am very sympathetic, especially now, to descriptions of why non traditional policy movements are better equipped than the president for making social change. I think that the arguments about why it might be unethical to defend the resolution because of Trump are compelling but should be explained thoroughly. You need to answer things like social death on the framework page to win the general premise that usfg form of debate is good, so watch out for that. The best sort of arguments for the affirmative are about why the form of debate is exclusionary, why traditional rules are exclusive to certain populations.

K aff’s- I think it's probably best to be "somehow" related to the topic. I think that it's easiest to win the framework debate when you explain why your non-traditional affirmative provides an important understanding of the topic that policies can't access. I have read an aff sometimes with very little relationship to the topic and understand why it's compelling and important to sometimes do. Explain to me what I am voting for, why it is important, and especially explain to me why the traditional model of debate doesn't leave space for your theory/performance. I am open to debates about the debate space in general, about problems with people and attitudes in debate, and kritiks of the mode and type of debate we do.

K’s- I like the K. Like I said above, I've done a lot of identity/performance stuff this year. That being said, that doesn't mean that I automatically vote for it. You have to contextualize the k to the aff. If you are going to read a usfg link or "link of omission" I think that it's important to show why the absence of what you are talking about in the 1AC implicates their policy. I don’t need a massive impact overview to know why imperialism is bad, most everything in your 4 min overview can be applied to the flow. Be organized. The worst part about a 1 off debate is that it is so messy and frustrating for everyone involved. If you need to split the k up in the block that's cool, just be clear about it. You need to talk about case if you want to win. For the aff, utilize your impacts. It’s going to be pretty hard to convince me that the aff can’t weigh their impacts at all, so weigh them. Extinction is still a pretty big deal to me, so the neg needs to describe why I should assign something like extinction less weight in comparison to structural violence claims. Permutations are important but explain them. When you know you are hitting a K team, tailor your 1AC to them. You aren’t going to need your heg impact. Focus on systemic ones that might solve the impacts of the k. Defend your method.

DA’s- Impact calc is obviously important. There is zero risk of a link or impact. I've done a lot of work on the politics DA in the past but I'm really not going to appreciate a Trump good DA-- please don't read that in front of me. On the aff, I’m a fan of a robust 2AC with link turns or impact turns. Think about it strategically. I will reward a well thought out politics 2ac with good speaker points.

CP’s- I think most of them are legitimate. Read what you like. As a 2a I liked reading a few add ons and a lot of theory in the 2ac.

Topicality- I'm not a great judge for topicality. I don't like arbitrarily limiting the topic. I understand that sometimes it’s what you’ve got to do. I default to reasonability usually.

Theory- it's fine. Slow down please if you want me to vote for you. condo probably good.
camila.rosa.reed-guevara@emory.edu if you have questions and please put me on the email chain.

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

Updated Pre-Emory 1/9/2020

Email chain please: croark@trinity.edu

Professor and Assistant Director of Debate at Trinity University, Coach at St. Mark's School of Texas

I view my role as judge to be an argument critic and educator above everything else. As part of that, you should be mindful that a healthy attitude towards competition and the pursuit of kindness and respect are important.

Biases are inevitable but I have been in the activity for +10 years and heard, voted, and coached on virtually every argument. I genuinely do as much as possible to suspend my preconceived beliefs and default to explanation/comparison.

Quality > quantity – 1NC’s with a high volume of bad arguments will have a hard ceiling on speaker points & I will generously allow new 1AR arguments.

Speed is the number of winnable arguments you can communicate to your judge. I will usually say “clear” twice before I stop flowing your speech. If you can't flow or comprehend your partner that's a problem. If you don't sign-post I am likely to give-up on flowing your speech.

I try to flow CX so please make reference. CX is about LISTENING and responding – let your opponent finish their answer/question, acknowledge it, and then move to the next point. Be polite if you have to interrupt.

Everyone should give two speeches. I’ll only flow the assigned person during speeches.

Framework --- I’ve voted on all kinds of different impact arguments. Debate has wide-ranging value to folks and I think you should be willing to defend why it’s important to you in any given situation. Defense can be very compelling: Neg teams should win an overarching theory of how their model absorbs/turns the 1ac’s offense with explanations of switch-side or TVA examples that interface well with the aff. The TVA should be a proof of concept, not a CP. Aff teams should win a counter-interp/alternative model of what debate looks like OR terminal offense to the neg’s model of debate. Above everything, you should think strategically and react instead of just reading some dusty, generic blocks.

Name Sara Sanchez
Affiliation: NAUDL
School Strikes: Glenbrook South, Lexington
Last Edited: 1/21/2024, Edited for Emory 2024

General Overview: I default to the least interventionist way to evaluate the round possible. I’ve pretty much voted on anything that you can think of, and likely some things that you can’t. I have not been historically inclined to accept/reject any arguments on-face. That said, the following is true:

Impact calculus and comparison is your friend. I cannot stress this enough. I'm routinely surprised by the number of quality rounds I judge where each team is weighing their impacts but no one is weighing their impacts vis a vis the other team. It is not enough to explain your scenario for solving/avoiding war, explain to me why that matters in the context of the other team's genocide impact.

I would like you to be driving questions of impact calculus and framing. I prefer to be reading your evidence through the lens you have set up in round. You should be telling me what your evidence says and why it matters. This means I probably give a little more weight to spin than some judges, you should be calling out bad evidence that is being mischaracterized if you want me to read it. Obviously, I have (and will) read evidence on questions that have not adequately been fleshed out in round when it’s necessary, but now you are held accountable for my understanding of the card, which may, or may not, have been on the flow. So please, weigh those issues for me, and we’ll all be happy.

Clarity & Organization: This section used to be a note about speed. It was a gentle request that you keep in mind that reading 3 word theory arguments at the same rate as the cards you are reading was obviously silly and difficult to flow. I am now substantially more concerned with clarity in general. I can understand a pretty rapid rate of delivery. I want to hear the words you say. All of them. That includes the words in your cards and the sub-points of your theory block. I think we as a community have let clarity get away from us. I was recently pleasantly surprised by a few debaters who were both incredibly fast and crystal clear at all points in their speeches. I was also saddened that they stood out as anomalous in contrast to many of the debate rounds that I judge. In addition to the clarity with which you deliver your speeches I believe this also is a component of organization in the round. It is functionally impossible to follow your arguments and apply them correctly when all of the debaters in the room abandon the structure of the flow/line-by-line. Embedded clash is fine. Flat out ignoring the order/structure of arguments and answers is not. While my speaker points have always reflected things like clarity & organization I am going to use them more heavily in this regard in an effort to encourage good practices among the debaters in my rounds. If you are not clear, I will ask you to be clear once, if you are not clear after that, your partner should probably keep an eye on me to make sure I look like I’m following you, because if it’s not on my flow, it’s not in the round. If I cannot understand large swaths of your speeches and/or you are jumping all over the flow with no attempt to answer arguments in the order they were made, your points will be low (think less than 27.5 range). If, on the other hand, I can understand almost every word of your speech, and you consistently following the line-by-line structure of the round, your points will be high (think 29-29.5 range) to ensure you have a better chance at clearing if points become an issue. If you have questions about this, please ask before the round.

Clipping: I am disturbed that the number of clipping incidents seems to be on the rise and that there appears to be some confusion as to what constitutes clipping. Card clipping, is failing to read sections of the card without marking audibly during the speech and on the speech doc (or on paper, if you are not paperless). It can be definitively determined by recording the speech and playing it back with the speech doc. It is an ethical violation and if proven will result in zero speaker points for the debater(s) who have clipped cards and the loss. If an accusation occurs I will stop the round, ask for proof, and make a determination about the accusation at that point in the round. That decision will determine who wins the round. I will also make a point to talk to your coach after the round to explain what I believe happened and why. I reserve the right to adjust the policy according to circumstances (i.e. accidental clipping in a novice round is different than clipping in a senior varsity debate).

Please be nice to each other and have fun. I’ve yet to have someone upset me to the point where it has lost them the round, but I will not hesitate to punish people for being rude via speaker points. Debate is a wonderful activity, that I care about a lot, and we don’t all give up our weekends, nights, and a decent portion of our social lives to be verbally abused or to witness said abuse. That said, competitive spirit is fine, flat out rudeness is not. If you need clarification on where the line is, feel free to ask.

Speaker points Apparently I needed to bump these to align with point inflation, so I have. Points probably start at a 27.5-28. Anything over 29.5 is rare, it's been years since I gave a 30. If you get below a 25 it's probably because you did something offensive/unethical in the round, and I'll likely tell you about it before I turn in my ballot.

27.5-28 Average
28.1-28.7 Good, but probably will miss on points or go 3-3
28.8-29.2 Good, chance to go 4-2 and clear low
29.2-29.5 I believe you should get a top 20 speaker award at this tournament
29.5-29.8 You were one of the most exceptional speakers I've heard in years, and should be in the top 5 speakers of this tournament.

What’s above is more important than what is below, as I will default to the round that is given me, however I’ll include a couple of notes on specific positions. The below list is not exhaustive, if you have specific questions, ask.

Topicality/Theory: I’m more than open to these debates, I have no problem pulling the trigger on them. I tend to evaluate these debates in a framework of competing interpretations. You should have an interpretation in these debates, and you should be able to articulate reasons (with examples, evidence, and comparative impacts) that your interpretation is preferable to the other team's. You should be explaining why your arguments matter and what the world of your interpretation looks like (case lists, argument ground). You should not assume that the 3-word blippy jargon we all use now is an argument, because I don't tend to think it is one. If you've done the above things, and you want to go for theory or T, you're probably fine. That said...

Counterplans: I personally tend to error negative on a lot of theoretical CP objections when these aren't adequately debated in round (dispo, PICs, condo, etc.) I'm probably more sympathetic to objections to consult counterplans, or procedural counterplans like delay, sunsets, etc. I love specific counterplans and adore specific PICs, so you have a bit more of an uphill battle on the PICs bad debate. That doesn't mean I won't evaluate PICs/Dispo/Condo bad args, feel free to make/go for them, see the interpretations note above. I am more likely to vote on nuanced theory arguments than generic ones. For example, conditional, consult, counterplans bad is more persuassive than just conditionality bad.

Condo - couple of extra notes: I think that having more than one K and one CP in the round is pushing the limit on conditionality. You would still need to do work here to earn my ballot, but it's definitely viable. I also tend to think that uniform 50 state fiat counterplans that counterplan out of all solvency deficits are not good for debate. The reason for this is that I tend to like solvency advocates for counterplans and there isn't one for those types of CPs. These are both cases where, if sufficient analysis was done, I'd be okay rejecting the team. For the record, I have not voted on either of these yet, because no one has made these args in a compelling enough way, but the potential exits.

The K: I don’t have a problem with it generally. I’ll entertain various frameworks and interpretations of debate, but this isn't where I spend most of my research time. I’m also reticent to vote on “framework” in terms of "there should be no Ks in debate ever." I don't think this line of argumentation is necessary or desirable—it seems to me people should just be able to answer the arguments that are leveled against their case. I tend to believe both sides should get to weigh their impacts. I find framework debates generally lack a decent amount of clash, which is incredibly frustrating for me to adjudicate. Framework debates that center on the question of accurate methodology, bias and substantive education are by far more persuasive.

If you’re running a K in front of me on the negative, specific links and a solid articulation of what the alternative does will help you. Let me know what the world looks like post-plan and why that is different post-alt. Similarly if you're running a K aff, you should explain to me how your action truly shifts mindsets, what the role of the ballot is, etc.

The above noted, I find myself focusing more on policy literature than critical literature these days. My undergrad and graduate work is in political science and international relations, not political theory/philosophy. I tend to be much more familiar with some K authors than others. I've read a decent amount of Foucault, I've read almost nothing Lacanian. In addition to Foucault I am substantially more familiar with Ks centered around IR theory, non-psychoanalytic capitalism and questions of gender and identity. I am less to not at all familiar with psychoanalysis, Nietzsche and Heidegger. I personally lean towards believing realism inevitable type arguments and that floating PIKs are bad (reason to reject the alt). While I do everything possible to objectively evaluate the round that happened, this is probably why I’ve noticed a very slight tilt towards the policy side of things in these rounds.

Affs that don't have topical advocacies: I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I feel as though I've been asked to objectively and neutrally evaluate a set of arguments where the people proffering those arguments in no way practice the same neutrality has always created a lot of tension for how I evaluate these arguments. To that end I offer my full disclosure of my connections to, and beliefs about, this activity. If you would like to attempt to change those biases, you are welcome to try, but the bar for such debates will be high, because I am not neutral on this.

I came back to debate 15 years ago after a brief hiatus working in politics and public policy because I firmly believe there is no stronger or more effective pedagogical tool. I have routinely been impressed by the skills and information this co-curricular activity provides for the participants that practice it. I chose a career in debate at the time because I think that teaching young people how to debate a topic while switching sides and researching policy and philosophy is one of the best things our educational system has to offer. I worked hard for my debaters, in class, after school, on weekends, and during summers because I believe this game, even with its imperfections, is good. It will be difficult for you to get my ballot if your goal for the round is to convince me that 15 years of my life and countless hours of work has been a mistake. I also see problems in this activity in terms of equity and access. There are good reasons my work after directing large debate programs focused on education policy, equity, and now urban debate. If your arguments are criticisms of debate you should take all of that into consideration when trying to win my ballot.

Topic Specific Addendum: I currently work for NAUDL, I run our national tournament, write curriculum for our coaches, attend the topic meeting every August and work on our file set each year. I judge substantially fewer rounds than I used to and have fewer conversations with friends about the direction of the topic. You should assume I'm familiar with debate arguments but you should not assume I'm super up to date on the latest topic specific acronyms or fanciness. This means a little explanation on what the NSDOQPC* is will probably be necessary if you'd like me to understand your aff/da/etc.

*(The NSDOQPC, to the best of my knowledge, is not a real thing. It's merely an example of the type of insane acronyms/topic specific jargon that gets routinely bantered about on most topics)

Additionally, while I haven't had a chance to test this yet, I'm reasonably certain my tolerance for the truly inane has lowered substantially. I now spend my days working on debate in a more education focused environment that is centered on building many strong programs rather than the TOC arms race. I also spend a bunch of my spare time working in politics and on policy and advocacy campaigns that have real world implications. I'm not entirely sure what the implication of this are for you, but if it's the pre-round and you have two strategies to choose from, one of which is asinine and one of which is more substantive, I'd bet that the more substantive one is going to work out a lot better for you.

Finally, it's been a few months since I've flowed a top speed round. I'm pretty sure I'm still fine there, but if you could keep that in mind, and ease into your top speed in speeches, it would be appreciated.

If you have a question I haven't answered here, feel free to ask.

Good luck. :)

LD Specific Business

Most of what is above will apply here below in terms of how I evaluate substance, impacts, etc. However, since I have judged more LD rounds recently it was time for me to clear some of this stuff up.

I spent most of my time at tournaments judging policy debate rounds, however I did teach two LD classes a year for seven years and I judged a large number of practice debates in class during that time. I tried to keep on top of the arguments and developments in LD and likely am familiar with your arguments to some extent.

Theory: The way theory is debated in LD makes my head hurt. A LOT. It is rarely impacted, often put out on the silliest of points and used as a way to avoid substantive discussion of the topic. It has a time and a place. That time and place is the rare instance where your opponent has done something that makes it literally impossible for you to win (teeny area of the topic, frameworks and definitions that cross the border from strategic to definitionally impossible to debate, etc) it is NOT every single round. I would strongly prefer you go for substance over theory. Speaker points will reflect this preference.

Speed: I am fine with speed. I am not fine with paragraph after paragraph of a prioris/theory/continental philosophy read at a top speed with zero regard for clarity whatsoever. I will say clear if you are engaging in the practice above, and I will stop flowing if you don't alter your delivery to a rate I can understand after that. I will only vote on what is on my flow. I may call for evidence after the round, however, I will not call for your theory blocks because I didn't understand them. Slow down, be clear, and enunciate on that stuff for the love of all that is holy, or you will have very little chance of winning my ballot. Also see the clarity note at the top of this post. It will apply to LD as well.

Disclosure: I think it's uniformly good for large and small schools. I think it makes debate better. If you feel you have done a particularly good job disclosing arguments (for example, full case citations, tags, parameters, changes) and you point that out during the round I will likely give you an extra half of a point if I agree.

Prep Time: 2 Notes. First, I like Cross-Examination. I pay attention to it and think it is strategically valuable. You should use your CX time. If you would like to ask more questions beyond CX in prep, that's cool. But please make use of CX. Second, prep time is the time you use to prep, that includes actions like giving your opponent your case or whatnot if you haven't done this in a timely manner. There are no alternate time outs or whatever. If you are reading a case off a laptop, you need to make that case available to your opponent before you start speaking OR immediately thereafter. There will not be a non-prep-time time outs while you all figure this out. That time will come from one of your prep times. In other words, if the culprit is the aff, who has not made a computerized case available to their opponent in a timely manner, then the AFF loses prep time while they get it ready for the neg, and vice versa.


Good luck, and have fun.

Competed: University of Minnesota
Coach (Present): Emporia State University; College Prep
Coached (Past): Augsburg College; Highland Park Senior High (MN)

PUBLIC FORUM

Although my primary background is in policy, I am familiar with the procedures of public forum and spent a season of my high school career competing in the format. Below are my answers to the suggested PF philosophy questions provided by the TOC.

Please share your opinions or beliefs about how the following play into a debate round: Speed of Delivery: Speed is fine so long as clarify doesn't suffer.

Format of Summary Speeches (line by line? big picture?):Both effective line by line and big picture storytelling are important to my ballot.

Role of the Final Focus: Providing a rubric/judge instruction for my ballot

Topicality: Generally these debates are done poorly, it's important to have a comparative metric for evaluating interpretations and a robust discussion of the various impacts to the violation. I do not view topicality in a purely "jurisdictional" way - offense/defense is important.

Plans: Not needed but not automatically disallowed.

Kritiks: Sure although just like any argument, it must be explained, applied, and impacted thoroughly.

Flowing/note-taking: I will flow the entirety of the debate.

Do you value argument over style? Style over argument? Argument and style equally? Quality and depth of argument is the primary thing I will evaluate, but style is not unimportant by any means.

If a team plans to win the debate on an argument, in your opinion does that argument have to be extended in the rebuttal or summary speeches? Yes.

POLICY

"I view my role in the debate not as arbiter of truth, but critic of argument, as such I attempt to divorce myself from relative "truth" values of arguments." - Chris Loghry

I like to see debaters deploying arguments that motivate and interest them.

I don’t call for many cards. This does not mean evidence quality does not matter, or that I don’t call cards often. What it does mean is: the debaters make the arguments, not the cards. I will not view them as placeholders for warranted explanation. Not every argument requires a card to answer.

Framing matters: provide me a macro-level filter through which to view the micro-components of the debate. The debates I find myself most frustrated with are the ones in which the 2NR and the 2AR have respectively delivered me 2NC #2 and 2AC #2 and left me to sort through the pieces. Rebuttalists that present a clear story while closing the right doors will be rewarded.

The more explicit you are with me in terms of my ballot, the better. This mostly goes for presumption and judge conditionality, but also for competing Frameworks/Role of the Ballots. If debaters are not explicit, there becomes no objective standard for me to use as a reference for when and where I infer these arguments.

Have a plan for Cross-X.

Things I like to see in cross-x: Asking precise, critical questions. Giving succinct, impactful answers. Writing down all concessions for utilization in the next speech.

Things I hate to see in cross-x: Ad-homs. Open-ended softballs. Questions that blatantly indicate a lack of flowing. Refusal to answer reasonable questions. Repetition of questions to avoid giving answers. Poorly-timed invocations of false ethos. 4-person shouting matches.

If you are reading critical literature, whether on the Affirmative or Negative, please explain and utilize your method. Make the links turn the case. Have a robust explanation of the alternative. Strive for internal, philosophical consistency. Your authors have particular theories of subjectivity, violence, etc., and I want to thear them; just remember that they all can and SHOULD be ACTIVELY applied broadly to frame many portions of the technical debate.

A speech doc is not a flow substitute.

Debate matters just as much to your opponents as it does to you, even if for different reasons. Be mindful of this and respect your competitors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Debated 4 years Marquette University HS (2001-2004)

Assistant Coach – Marquette University HS (2005-2010)

Head Coach – Marquette University HS (2011-2012)

Assistant Coach – Johns Creek HS (2012-2014)

Head Coach – Johns Creek HS (2014-Current)

Yes, put me on the chain: bencharlesschultz@gmail.com

No, I don’t want a card doc.

Its been a long time since I updated this – this weekend I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned that I have "made it clear I wasn’t interested in voting for the K”. Since I actually love voting for the K, I figured that I had been doing a pretty bad job of getting my truth out there. I’m not sure anyone reads these religiously, or that any paradigm could ever combat word of mouth (good or bad), but when I read through what I had it was clear I needed an update (more so than for the criticism misconception than for the fact that my old paradigm said I thought conditionality was bad – yeesh, not sure what I was thinking when I wrote THAT….)

Four top top shelf things that can effect the entire debate for you, with the most important at the top:

11) Before I’m a debate judge, I’m a teacher and a mandatory reporter. I say this because for years I’ve been more preferred as a critical judge, and I’ve gotten a lot of clash rounds, many of which include personal narratives, some of which contain personal narratives of abuse. If such a narrative is read, I’ll stop the round and bring in the tournament director and they will figure out the way forward.

22) I won’t decide the debate on anything that has happened outside of the round, no matter the quality of evidence entered into the debate space about those events. The round starts when the 1AC begins.

33) If you are going to the bathroom before your speech in the earlier speeches (constructives through 1nr, generally) just make sure the doc is sent before you go. Later speeches where there's no doc if you have prep time I can run that, or I'll take off .4 speaks and allow you to go (probably a weird thing, I know, but I just think its stealing prep even though you don't get to take flows or anything, just that ability to settle yourself and think on the positions is huge)

44) No you definitely cannot use extra cross-ex time as prep, that’s not a thing.

5

55) Finally, some fun. I’m a firm believer in flowing and I don’t see enough people doing it. Since I do think it makes you a better debater, I want to incentivize it. So if you do flow the round, feel free to show me your flows at the end of the debate, and I’ll award up to an extra .3 points for good flows. I reserve the right not to give any points (and if I get shown too many garbage flows maybe I’ll start taking away points for bad ones just so people don’t show me horrible flows, though I’m assuming that won’t happen much), but if you’ve got the round flowed and want to earn extra points, please do! By the way you can’t just show one good flow on, lets say, the argument you were going to take in the 2nc/2nr – I need to see the round mostly taken down to give extra points

Top Shelf:

This is stuff that I think you probably want to know if you’re seeing me in the back

· I am liable probably more than most judges to yell “clear” during speeches – I won’t do it SUPER early in speeches because I think it takes a little while for debaters to settle into their natural speed, and a lot of times I think adrenaline makes people try and go faster and be a little less clear at the start of their speeches than they are later. So I wait a bit, but I will yell it. If it doesn’t get better I’ll yell one more time, then whatever happens is on you in terms of arguments I don’t get and speaker points you don’t get. I’m not going to stop flowing (or at least, I never have before), but I also am not yelling clear frivolously – if I can’t understand you I can’t flow you.

· I don’t flow with the doc open. Generally, I don’t open the doc until later in the round – 2nc prep is pretty generally when I start reading, and I try to only read cards that either are already at the center of the debate, or cards that I can tell based on what happens through the 2ac and the block will become the choke points of the round. The truth of the debate for me is on the flow, and what is said by the debaters, not what is said in their evidence and then not emphasized in the speeches, and I don’t want to let one team reading significantly better evidence than the other on questions that don’t arise in the debate influence the way I see the round in any way, and opening the doc open is more likely than not to predispose me towards one team than another, in addition to, if I’m reading as you go, I’m less likely to dock you points for being comically unclear than if the only way I can get down what I get down is to hear you say it.

Argumentative Stuff

Listen at the end of the day, I will vote for anything. But these are arguments that I have a built in preference against. Please do not change up your entire strategy for me. But if the crux of your strategy is either of these things know that 1 – I probably shouldn’t be at the top of your pref card, and 2 – you can absolutely win, but a tie is more likely to go to the other side. I try and keep an open mind as much as possible (heck I’ve voted for death good multiple times! Though that is an arg that may have more relevance as you approach 15 full years as a public school DoD….) but these args don’t do it for me. I’ll try and give a short explanation of why.

1. I’m not a good judge for theory, most specifically cheap shots, but also stuff seen as more “serious” like conditionality. Its been a long long time since anyone has gone for theory in front of me – the nature of the rounds that I get means there’s not usually a ton of negative positions – which is good because I’m not very sympathetic to it. I generally think that the negative offense, both from the standpoint of fairness and education, is pretty weak in all but the most egregious rounds when it comes to basic stuff like conditionality. Other counterplan theory like no solvency advocate, no international fiat, etc I’m pretty sympathetic to reject the argument not the team. In general, if you’re looking at something like conditionality where the link is linear and each instance increases the possibility of fairness/education impacts, for me you’ve got to be probably very near to, or even within, double digits for me to think the possible harm is insurmountable in round. This has come up before so I want to be really clear here – if its dropped, GO FOR IT, whether alone or (preferably) as an extension in a final rebuttal followed by substance. I for sure will vote for it in a varsity round (in novice rounds, depending on the rest of the round, I may or may not vote on it). Again – this is a bias against an argument that will probably effect the decision in very close rounds.

2. Psychoanalysis based critical literature – I like the criticism, as I mentioned above, just because I think the cards are more fun to read and more likely to make me think about things in a new way than a piece of counterplan solvency or a politics internal link card or whatever. But I have an aversion to psychoanalysis based stuff. The tech vs truth paragraph sums up my feelings on arguments that seem really stupid. Generally when I see critical literature I think there’s at least some truth to it, especially link evidence. But

3. Cheap Shots – same as above – just in general not true, and at variance with what its fun to see in a debate round. There’s nothing better than good smart back and forth with good evidence on both sides. Cheap shots (I’m thinking of truly random stuff like Ontology Spec, Timecube – stuff like that) obviously are none of those things.

4. Finally this one isn’t a hard and fast thing I’m necessarily bad for, but something I’ve noticed over the years that I think teams should know that will effect their argumentative choices in round – I tend to find I’m less good than a lot of judges for fairness as a standalone impact to T-USFG. I feel like even though its never changed that critical teams will contend that they impact turn fairness, or will at least discuss why the specific type of education they provide (or their critique of the type of education debate in the past has provided), it has become more in vogue for judges to kind of set aside that and put sort of a silo around the fairness impact of the topicality debate and look at that in a vacuum. I’ve just never been good at doing that, or understanding why that happens – I’m a pretty good judge still for framework, I think, but youre less likely to win if you go for a fairness impact only on topicality and expect that to carry the day

Specific Round Types:

K Affs vs Framework

Clash rounds are the rounds I’ve gotten by far the most in the last 5-8 years or so, and generally I like them a lot and they consistently keep me interested. For a long time during the first generation of critical affirmatives that critique debate/the resolution I was a pretty reliable vote for the affirmative. Since the negative side of the no plan debate has caught up, I’ve been much more evenly split, and in general I like hearing a good framework press on a critical aff and adjudicating those rounds. I think I like clash rounds because they have what I would consider the perfect balance between amount of evidence (and specificity of evidence) and amount of analysis of said evidence. I think a good clash round is preferable than almost any round because there’s usually good clash on the evidentiary issues and there’s still a decent amount of ev read, but from the block on its usually pure debate with minimal card dumpage. Aside from the preference discussed above for topicality based framework presses to engage the fairness claims of the affirmative more, I do think that I’m more apt than others to vote negative on presumption, or barring that, to conclude that the affirmative just gets no risk of its advantages (shoutout Juliette Salah!). One other warning for affirmatives – one of the advantages that the K affords is that the evidence is usually sufficiently general that cards which are explained one way (or meant to be used one way) earlier in the round can become exactly what the negative doesn’t need/cant have them be in the 2ar. I think in general judges, especially younger judges, are a little biased against holding the line against arguments that are clearly new or cards that are explained in a clearly different way than they were originally explained. Now that I’m old, I have no such hang ups, and so more than a lot of other judges I’ve seen I’m willing to say “this argument that is in the 2ar attached to (X) evidence is not what was in the 1ar, and so it is disallowed”. (As an aside, I think the WORST thing that has happened to, and can happen to, no plan teams is an overreliance on 1ar blocks. I would encourage any teams that have long 1ar blocks to toss them in the trash – if you need to keep some explanations of card warrants close, please do, but ditch the prewritten blocks, commit yourself to the flow, and listen to the flow of the round, and the actual words of the block. The teams that have the most issue with shifting argumentation between the 1ar and the 2ar are the teams that are so obsessed with winning the prep time battle in the final 2 rebuttals that they become over dependent on blocks and aren’t remotely responsive to the nuance of a 13 minute block that is these days more and more frequently 13 minutes of framework in some way shape or form)

K vs K

Seems like its more likely these days to see clash rounds for me, and next up would be policy rounds. I’d actually like to see more K v K rounds (though considering that every K team needs to face framework enough that they know exactly how to debate it, and its probably more likely/easier to win a clash round than a K v K round on the negative, it may be more strategic to just go for framework on the neg if you don’t defend the USFG on the aff), and I’d especially love to see more well-argued race v high theory rounds. Obviously contextualization of very general evidence that likely isn’t going to be totally on point is the name of the game in these rounds, as well as starting storytelling early for both sides – I’d venture to say the team that can start telling the simple, coherent story (using evidence that can generally be a tad prolix so the degree of difficulty for this is high) early will be the team that generally will get the ballot. The same advice about heavy block use, especially being blocked out into the 1ar, given above counts here as well.

Policy v policy Rounds

I love them. A good specific policy round is a thing of beauty. Even a non-specific counterplan/DA round with a good strong block is always great. As the season goes on its comparatively less likely, just based on the rounds I usually get, that I’ll know about specific terminology, especially deeply nuanced counterplan terminology. I honestly believe good debaters, no matter their argumentative preference or what side of the (mostly spurious) right/left divide in debate you’re on, are good CASE debaters. If you are negative and you really want to back up the speaker point Brinks truck, a 5+ minute case press is probably the easiest way to make that happen.

Individual argument preferences

I’ll give two numbers here – THE LEFT ONE about how good I think I am for an argument based on how often I actually have to adjudicate it, and THE RIGHT ONE will be how much I personally enjoy an argument. Again – I’ll vote for anything you say. But more information about a judge is good, and you may as well know exactly what I enjoy hearing before you decide where to rank me. 1 being the highest, 10 being the lowest.

T (classic) --------------------------------------- 5/4

T (USFG/Framework) ------------------------ 1/1

DA ------------------------------------------------ 3/2

CP ------------------------------------------------- 4/2

Criticism ----------------------------------------- 1/2

Policy Aff --------------------------------------- 2/2

K Aff ---------------------------------------------- 1/3

Theory ------------------------------------------- 8/9

Cheap Shots ------------------------------------ 10/10

Post Round:

I feel like I’ve gotten more requests lately to listen to redos people send me. I’m happy to do that and give commentary if folks want – considering I saw the original speech and know the context behind it, it only makes sense that I would know best whether the redo fixes the deficiencies of the original. Shoot me an email and I’m happy to help out!

Any other questions – just ask!

Email chain: zahir.shaikh112@gmail.com

I have read and voted for many different styles of arguments. I appreciate thorough, technical debating, regardless of the content of your argument. Try to understand what issues you're winning, which ones you're behind on, and how that shapes the debate. Explain why winning certain issues frames the debate.

Being confidently wrong isn't a good thing. Debaters who exhibit general lack of awareness of the world or the topic will lose speaker points. I am far more likely to vote for the team that knows what they are talking about.

Edited most recently in Jan 2024. I debated in high school at Greenhill School (2006) in Texas and debated in college at Michigan State (2010). I have been helping coach Greenhill since my graduation. A fair number of the assumptions that one would draw about me being affiliated with those institutions are probably true.

Case Debates – Case debate is underutilized, there are few things that I am more impressed with than beating a team on their own aff. Although, too many teams gloss over the fact that there needs to be uniqueness for neg case turns.

Disads – Defensive arguments are important, and I am willing to assign zero risk of a disad if the affirmative has damning defensive arguments even if the affirmative lacks any offensive arguments. Negatives who rely on there always being a risk of a link will leave me unimpressed. That being said though, I often think that many times a lack of offense does result in a moderate probability of the disad. Affs tend to have issues when they fail to answer turns the case arguments.

CPs – I lean negative on most CP theory issues (more on theory below), although I’m not a fan of the consult cp. I also lean negative on legitimacy of the states CP. This does not mean that affs cannot win theory debates in front of me. Additionally I think some of the arguments that affs make as to why some counterplans are bad, tend to be much better when used as a reason why the permutation is legitimate. Negs should be sure to weigh what happens when there is a solvency deficit to the cp when making their impact calculus arguments. Conversely, affs need to have an impact to their solvency deficits.

Kritiks – Teams must articulate an impact to what happens if they win their framework arguments. I don’t think the negative must have an alternative but I find it hard for the neg to establish uniqueness for their links without one. Affirmatives need to find ways to leverage their aff against the implications of the kritik as well as making sure that they are still able to access their offense if they lose their framework arguments. Negs must also discuss why the aff in particular makes the squo worse. I’m certainly not well versed in much kritik literature so avoiding buzzwords and jargon can help my understanding. If you want me to vote on a kritik, it would benefit you to debate it very much like a CP/DA: turns the case, solves the case, xyz comes first, etc.

Topicality – I tend to view T debates in an offense/defense framework. Its all about competing interpretations, whomever creates the best world for debate should win, issues of abuse are not necessary but can be helpful. That being said, I’m also not a fan of the cult of limits, just going for your interpretation is more limiting will most likely lose to a broader interpretation that is more educational. Also, your K aff's impact turn of T does not amuse me – topicality is a voting issue.

Theory – I lean neg on most theory questions but this is not to be taken to mean that I like to hear your XYZ-Spec argument, your points will go down. Conditionality, or multiple conditional counterplans are both fine. The caveat to this is that I'm not sure if I'm a fan of conditional counterplans with half a dozen planks each independently conditional (ie 2nr could be planks 1-6, or 1-3, or 1&3, etc.). This doesn’t mean I won’t vote aff on theory though, whomever can make their trivial distinctions seem most important will probably win.

Non-traditional affs – I’ve debated at Greenhill and Michigan State, if that doesn’t provide some hint, I’ll break it down some more. The Aff should probably be topical, probably have a plan, and probably also have to defend the effects stemming from the hypothetical enactment of said plan - I've yet to be convinced by a reason as to why any of these things are bad.

General Notes: All of this being said – I will evaluate the arguments made in the round even if they are contrary to my beliefs, this is a guide of what I think and how I will default with a lack of argumentation. I do like being on the email chain of documents but will NEVER be reading the speech doc during the speech – you need to be clear. I’m only going to flow what the person who should be speaking says, if your partner yells out an argument during your speech, you have not made it.

Lincoln-Douglas debate: If possible, I’d basically prefer your LD debate to be policy-esque, I can obviously follow whatever but still have no idea what a criterion is. For some reason when I say this, people seem to think theory args are a good idea....most LD theory args seem to be asinine standards that the other team needs to follow…I will not vote on this, and will probably lower your speaker points. Also, if you intend to win due to a theory argument, you need a reason to reject the team – otherwise the obvious remedy is rejecting the argument.

Hello - I debated for Emory for four years and just graduated.  I have some biases but will try to not let them affect me during the debate.  I also don't read speech docs during the round unless a certain card becomes a huge deal in c/x.  Below is my speaker point scale - I will try to reference this to avoid inconsistent point distribution throughout the year/at any given tournament.

Below 27.5: The speaker has demonstrated a lack of  basic communication. 

27.5-27.9: The speaker demonstrates basic debate competency and argumentation skills. Some areas need substantial improvement.

28.0-28.4: The speaker demonstrates basic argumentation skills and a good grasp on the issues of importance in the debate. Usually shows 1-2 moments of strong strategic insight or macro-level debate vision, but not consistently. 

28.5-28.9: Very solid argumentative skills, grasps the important issues in the debate, demonstrates consistent strategic insight.

29-29.5: Remarkable argumentative skills, understands and synthesizes the key issues in the debate, outstanding use of cross-ex and/or humor.

29.6-29.9: The speaker stands out as exceptionally skilled in all of the above areas. 

I think vagueness is going to be an interesting argument on this topic - I would encourage teams to specify as much as their solvency advocate does to encourage good debates and interesting neg strategies

Counterplans: I think CPs must be both functionally and textually competitive. I think process, consult, and agent counterplans are bad for debate/not competitive

Disadvantages: The link controls the direction of the disadvantage. If the disad turns and outweighs the case, but has no link, I won’t vote for it. Absolute defense is possible.  All of this equally applies for aff advantages

Critiques: Alts are important and not just a K prior question.  Negatives should explain what the alternative does and what it means to vote for the critique.  I can be persuaded to vote for any critique, as long as I understand it

I think that debate is a game that should revolve around a topical plan/action.  I am persuaded more by topicality arguments rather than framework arguments. Topicality is more along the lines of you have to defend the resolution/debating about the resolution is a good thing.  Fairness is an impact in and of itself-but the negative still has to explain why

Seven—Misc:

Presumption goes to less change, not necessarily the negative.

I am very willing to grant absolute defense, especially if I feel an argument is silly.

Smart analytics = good. You don’t need evidence to make an argument.

Evidence v. Debating—if an argument is conceded and explained (or if one team is out-debating another), I won’t look to evidence. If arguments are well contested (at the margins), evidence is very important to me. Better evidence > more evidence. Evidence > spin.

Coach at Alpharetta High School 2006-Present
Coach at Chattahoochee High School 1999-2005
Did not debate in High School or College.

E-mail: asmiley27@gmail.com

General thoughts- I expect debaters to recognize debate as a civil, enjoyable, and educational activity. Anything that debaters do to take away from this in the round could be penalized with lower speaker points. I tend to prefer debates that more accurately take into account the types of considerations that would play into real policymakers' decision making. On all arguments, I prefer more specifics and less generics in terms of argument choice and link arguments.

The resolution has an educational purpose. I prefer debates that take this into account and find ways to interact with the topic in a reasonable way. Everything in this philosophy represents my observations and preferences, but I can be convinced otherwise in the round and will judge the arguments made in the round. I will vote on most arguments, but I am going to be very unlikely to vote on arguments that I consider morally repugnant (spark, wipeout, malthus, cancer good, etc). You should avoid these arguments in front of me.

Identity arguments- I do not generally judge these rounds and was traditionally less open to them. However, the methods and messages of these rounds can provide important skills for questioning norms in society and helping all of us improve in how we interact with society and promote justice. For that reason, I am going to work hard to be far more open to these arguments and their educational benefits. There are two caveats to this that I want you to be aware of. First, I am not prima facie rejecting framework arguments. I will still be willing to vote on framework if I think the other side is winning that their model of debate is overall better. Second, I have not read the amount of literature on this topic that most of you have and I have not traditionally judged these rounds. This means that you should not assume that I know all of the terms of art used in this literature or the acronyms. Please understand that you will need to assist in my in-round education.

K- I have not traditionally been a big fan of kritiks. This does not mean that I will not vote for kritiks, and I have become much more receptive to them over the years. However, this does mean a couple of things for the debaters. First, I do not judge as many critical rounds as other judges. This means that I am less likely to be familiar with the literature, and the debaters need to do a little more work explaining the argument. Second, I may have a little higher threshold on certain arguments. I tend to think that teams do not do a good enough job of explaining how their alternatives solve their kritiks or answering the perms. Generally, I leave too many rounds feeling like neither team had a real discussion or understanding of how the alternative functions in the round or in the real world. I also tend towards a policy framework and allowing the aff to weigh their advantages against the K. However, I will look to the flow to determine these questions. Finally, I do feel that my post-round advice is less useful and educational in K rounds in comparison to other rounds.

T- I generally enjoy good T debates. Be sure to really impact your standards on the T debate. Also, do not confuse most limiting with fair limits. Finally, be sure to explain which standards you think I as the judge should default to and impact your standards.

Theory-I am willing to pull the trigger on theory arguments as a reason to reject the argument. However, outside of conditionality, I rarely vote on theory as a reason to reject the team. If you are going for a theory arg as a reason to reject the team, make sure that you are impacting the argument with reasons that I should reject the team. Too many debaters argue to reject the team without any impact beyond the argument being unfair. Instead, you need to win that it either changed the round in an unacceptable way or allowing it changes all future rounds/research in some unacceptable way. I will also tend to look at theory as a question of competing interpretations. I feel that too many teams only argue why their interpretation is good and fail to argue why the other team’s interpretation is bad. Also, be sure to impact your arguments. I tend towards thinking that topic specific education is often the most important impact in a theory debate. I am unlikely to do that work for you. Given my preference for topic specific education, I do have some bias against generic counterplans such as states and international actor counterplans that I do not think would be considered as options by real policymakers. Finally, I do think that the use of multiple, contradictory neg advocacies has gotten out of hand in a way that makes the round less educational. I generally believe that the neg should be able to run 1 conditional CP and 1 conditional K. I will also treat the CP and the K as operating on different levels in terms of competition. Beyond that, I think that extra conditional and contradictory advocacies put too much of a burden on the aff and limit a more educational discussion on the merits of the arguments.

Disads- I generally tend towards evaluating uniqueness as the most important part of the disad debate. If there are a number of links and link turns read on a disad debate, I will generally default towards the team that is controlling uniqueness unless instructed by the debaters why I should look to the link level first. I also tend towards an offense defense paradigm when considering disads as net benefits to counterplans. I think that the politics disad is a very educational part of debate that has traditionally been my favorite argument to both coach and judge. I will have a very high threshold for voting on politics theory. Finally, teams should make sure that they give impact analysis that accounts for the strong possibility that the risk of the disad has been mitigated and tells me how to evaluate that mitigation in the context of the impacts in round.

Counterplans-I enjoy a good counterplan debate. However, I tend to give the aff a little more leeway against artificially competitive counterplans, such as consult counterplans. I also feel that a number of aff teams need to do more work on impacting their solvency deficits against counterplans. While I think that many popular counterplans (especially states) are uniquely bad for debate, I have not seen teams willing to invest the time into theory to help defeat these counterplans.

Reading cards after the round- I prefer to read as few cards post round as possible. I think that it is up to the debaters to give clear analysis of why to prefer one card over another and to bring up the key warrants in their speeches.

1. You have to have truth

Current Associate Director of Debate at Emory University

Former graduate student coach at University of Georgia, Wake Forest University, University of Florida

Create an email chain for evidence before the debate begins. Put me on it. My email address is lace.stace@gmail.com

Do not trivialize or deny the Holocaust

Online Debates:

Determine if I am in the room before you start a speech. "Becca, are you ready?" or "Becca, are you here?" I will give you a thumbs up or say yes (or I am not in the room and you shouldn't start).

I get that tech issues happen, but unnecessary tech time hurts decision time.

Please have one (or all) debaters look periodically to make sure people haven't gotten booted from the room. The internet can be unreliable. You might get booted from the room. I might get booted from the room. The best practice is to have a backup of yourself speaking in case this occurs. If the tournament has rules about this, follow those.

DA’s:

Is there an overview that requires a new sheet of paper? I hope not

Impact turn debates are fine with me

Counterplans:

What are the key differences between the CP and the plan?

Does the CP solve some of the aff or all of the aff?

Be clear about which DA/s you are claiming as the net benefit/s to your CP

"Solving more" is not a net benefit

I lean neg on international fiat, PICS, & agent CP theory arguments

I am open minded to debates about conditionality & multiple conditional planks theory arguments.

Flowing:

I strongly prefer when debaters make flowing easier for me (ex. debating line by line, signposting, identifying the other team’s argument and making direct answers)

I strongly prefer when debaters answer arguments individually rather than “grouping”

Cross-X:

"What cards did you read?" "What cards did you not read?" "Did you read X off case position?" "Where did you stop in this document?" - those questions count as cross-x time! If a speech ends and you ask these, you should already be starting your timer for cross-x.

Avoid intervening in your partners cross-x time, whether asking or answering. Tag team is for professional wrestling, not debate.

Public forum debate specific thoughts:

I am most comfortable with constructive speeches that organize contentions using this structure: uniqueness, link, and impact.

I am comfortable with the use of speed.

From my experience coaching policy debate, I care a lot about quantity and quality of evidence.

I am suspicious of paraphrased evidence.

I like when the summary and final focus speeches make the debate smaller. If your constructive started with 2 or 3 contentions, by the summary and final focus your team should make a choice of just 1 contention to attempt winning.

Because of my background in policy debate, it takes me out of my comfort zone when the con/neg team speaks first.

PRONOUNS: they/them/theirs

mstekl@stanford.edu -- please put me on the email chain

PhD student @ Stanford, in Modern Thought and Literature

Emory '19 (did not debate; judged on the GA circuit for 4 years)

Bishop Guertin '15 (debated on the national circuit, went to the TOC, etc. etc.)

***UPDATE for Berkeley 2020: This will be my first tournament on the topic. Please do not assume any familiarity with the topic or especially with any topic-specific acronyms. You can spread, but clarity is paramount as always — clarity over speed any day, but today more than ever!***

My favorite judges in high school were jon sharp, Calum Matheson, and Jarrod Atchinson.

In general, you should not change what you do because you have me in the back of the room. As a debater, I tended to be pretty flexible, alternating frequently between "critical" and "policy" positions. This is your space to argue, not mine, so I will vote for the arguments on the flow that yield the path of least intervention. Pure objectivity being impossible, I nonetheless do my best to keep my subjective argumentative preferences out of the picture. That said, I'm not quite a blank slate; for instance, I won't be persuaded by racism/sexism/etc. good, or by any unapologetically discriminatory positions or practices.

I’m pretty well versed in K lit – I study theory at a graduate level, so I should have some degree of familiarity with whatever you choose to read. I'm an especially good judge for any brand of poststructuralism, including those concerned with questions of identity. Obviously, this doesn't mean that you can rely on buzzwords to get out of explaining your argument; it does mean, too, that I'll know if you have no idea what you're talking about. You should have at least a working knowledge of the position you are asking me to vote for, which requires you to do at least some cursory background reading and thinking. Then, bring your knowledge of critical theory to bear on the particulars of the aff, balancing overarching framing questions with specific link and impact analysis.

I'm not convinced that the aff must defend governmental action. Which is only to say that I will not enter the room with any dogmatic biases against plan-less affirmatives. That said, I probably enjoy a good framework debate more than most, and find myself voting for framework as often as I vote against it. Still, I don't think it should be your only strategy against all K affs; I will be more persuaded if you at least make an effort to substantively engage the aff. Of course, particularly obscure affs or those lacking a consistent advocacy will tend to be harder to defend against framework than core, topic-specific K affs.

***UPDATE September 2018: As I've judged more debates, I've become increasingly wary of framework as a default negative strategy against K affs. In my experience, framework very often becomes a lazy cop-out, even an excuse to avoid debating the substance of the aff. I can still be convinced that this is not always the case, and I will continue to evaluate framework debates technically, but it is on framework debaters to prove the value of their strategy.***

I think I tend to prioritize evidence quality less than most judges. Not that good cards aren't important – they're the pillars of your argument – but they can't replace good analysis. Depending on your argumentative genre of choice, it may be better to establish your position through evidence-reading or through your own explanation in the constructives; but in most cases, I'd rather you invest more time in nuanced and specific applications of your argument than read another card. In the final rebuttals, you absolutely shouldn't rely on your cards to do the work for you – extensions should be much more substantive than simple author name-drops. If you can't explain your author's argument, as well as its implications for the debate, I won't explain it for you.

Clear! I'll take clarity over speed any day. You should be comprehensible enough that I can understand the text of your cards. I will not call for cards after the debate if I was unable to understand them when you read them; I only read evidence for the sake of refreshing my memory.

Chill out. While antagonism is inevitable in this competitive forum and may even enhance debates in limited doses, I maintain that debaters too often take aggression to unhealthy extremes. Outside of a small number of "critical" strategies that benefit performatively from hostility, there is no reason to deliberately be an asshole to the other team, or – especially – to your partner (!!seriously!! if I can hear you yelling at your partner during prep time, you're doing something wrong). Jokes can also help ease the tension.

Speaks – Points vary by tournament (i.e. I'll give higher points at Samford than at the NDCA). Generally speaking, I'm a bit of a point fairy. Methods for improving your speaks include innovative, specific strategies and clear logical organization. Humor is the icing on the cake.

30 – Among the best speakers I’ve ever heard: you should be top speaker and win the tournament. A+
29.5-29.9 – Outstanding: expect to be one of the top 5 speakers – you should be able to make it to late elims. A
29-29.4 – Very impressive: a noteworthy performance with quite little room for improvement; you deserve to be among the top 20 speakers. A-
28.6-28.9 – High average: you are in or near the top of your division; with any luck – and, more surely, with just a little more practice – you should be able to break. B/B+
28-28.5 – Average: you're doing well, but still need to iron out some remaining issues with your clarity of speech or of argument. B-
27.5-27.9 – Low average: you have potential, but displayed: a) notable problems with both speaking and argument development, or b) more serious problems in one of the two areas. C/C+
27-27.4 – Below average: your performance was passable, but suffered from critical issues of both style and content. C-
26.5-26.9 – Needs improvement: you spoke poorly, made major strategic mistakes, and likely dropped some important arguments. D
26-26.4 – Needs major improvement: you failed to answer a majority of your opponent’s arguments and made some manner of unforgivable mistake. D-
0-25 – You did something offensive. F

Clipping will result in an immediate loss and the lowest speaks allowed by the tournament. I will follow along with the speech doc and record the debate; if I catch you clipping, I will stop the round you even if your opponent doesn’t call you on it.

This is not, in fact, your CX.

*** Update March 2019: YES TKO PLEASE TKO! Far too many debates drag on painfully long after they (should) have technically ended. For this reason, I am following B. Manuel's paradigm and urging you to invoke "total knock-out" mode if the other team makes an utterly irredeemable mistake – e.g., double turn, dropped T or a K, etc. Of course, you must stake the round on this; if you can pull it off (i.e., if you can satisfactorily extend the dropped/devastating argument while covering all your bases, e.g., answering condo if going for a dropped K...), then you will win the round after your speech and receive 30s. If you are unsuccessful, you lose and get a hard cap of 27.5. ***

Director of Debate at Westminster 2013-2021, lawyer, college and high school debater before that -- but slow it down some if you want your arguments to make it to my flow, which is usually on paper.

It is unlikely that I can flow the tiny details of your pre-written blocks.

I definitely do not know the details of your politics DA or answers, or topicality arguments that were devloped from some obscure 1879 state court ruling - please understand that I am evaluating your argument based on what you say in the round, although I will look at cards if you give me reason to.

Don't assume, and explain well.

Quick thoughts:

1) Make your speeches flowable. I will not be able to flow (and likely will not catch) all the details if you are reading pre-written blocks at top speed with no breaks or changes in inflection. If you're going to read blocks, try to at least pretend you're not reading blocks by having breaks between arguments, emphasizing tags, slowing it down a little on analytics, etc. You are also a lot more likely to hold my attention to details and help me not miss stuff that way. I will reward your speaker points if you do a good job of this.

You would be shocked at how many "good" judges think the same thing about block-reading and the above advice, and how little some judges are flowing, or even catching, of what you think you said.

2) I disagree with approaches that make the personal identity of the debaters in the round relevant to the decision in the debate, especially for high-school-aged students, and I am also not a good judge for these debates because I often do not understand what the judge is being asked to vote for. This does not mean you can't read K arguments or arguments about race or identity, in fact there are many K arguments that I think are true and make a lot of sense, I just don't think a teacher should in the position of ratifying or rejecting the personal identity or experiences of a teenager.

3) "Death good" is a reason to reject the team, and I may auto-vote that way even if the opponent doesn't make the argument.

4) There needs to be a fair stasis point in order to have good debates. Debate is good.

5) Theory: You are really taking your chances if you rely on a sketchy CP that requires winning a lot of theory, because I do not spend a lot of time outside of debate rounds thinking about theory. I can't tell you which way I will come down on a particular theory issue because it usually depends on what is said -- and what I flow -- in that particular round. This applies to T debates and other theory debates too.

6) If it is pretty close between the CP and the aff (or even if it isn't close), you need to give some really clear comparative explanations about why I should choose one over the other -- which you should do for any judge but make sure you do it when I'm judging.

7) I really dislike high theory and post-modernism in debate.

8) Reading cards to decide the debate: For many years I tried to judge without looking at the speech documents during the speeches, but I have recently concluded that is unrealistic because there is an entire additional level of the debate that is happening between the debaters in the speech documents. I don't think it should be that way, but I understand why it is happening. However, if the claims made about a card or set of cards are uncontested by the opponent, I am likely to assume when deciding the debate that the cards say what their reader claimed they say rather than reading both sides' cards or any of the cards.

9) I am not at all deep in the files and evidence especially for most neg arguments, so I am really judging the debate based on what you say and what your cards say as you present them in the round.

9) Links and impact calculus are really, really important, especially in the last rebuttals. However, I think lengthy pre-written overviews are not as good as 2NR/2AR (and prior) explanations based on what actually happened in the particular debate.

Updated 1/28/2024

Quick Q&A:

1. Yes, include me on the doc chain – mrgrtstrong685@gmail.com

2. No, I am not ok with you just putting the card in the text of the email. Even if it’s just one card

3. Idk if the aff has to read a plan. I went for framework and read a plan, so I'm definitely more versed in that side of the debate, but I'm frequently in support of identity-based challenges to framework. I went for framework because it was the best thing I knew how to go for, not because it was objectively the best

4. No, you should not try to read Baudrillard or other post-modern theories against me. (Yes. Against me.) This is not a challenge. It's not a threat, it's a warning, be careful with me. I am admitting insurmountable bias.

5. Yes, you should (please) slow down while debating if you are online. There are glitches in streaming and it’s hard enough to understand you. For a while, I tried following along with the docs when I missed something, but we all know that just leads to more errors. This is your warning: if you are not clear enough to flow I will not try to flow it. I will give two warnings to be clear (and one after your speech in case you didn’t hear me). If you choose to keep doing you, don’t expect to win or for me to know what you said. On the flip side, if you are actively slowing down to make the debate comprehensible, you will be rewarded with a speaker point bump.

6. JESUS CHRIST PLEASE stop trying to debate how you think I want you to. It's never a good look to over-adapt. The only exception is if you want to go for Baudrillard and somehow ended up with me as a judge. Then please over-adapt. I cannot stress enough the importance of adaptation if you are trying to tell me post-modern theory or that death is cool.

7. I don't like to read cards as a default because decision time is 20 minutes assuming there were no delays in the round. If a card is called into question or my BS meter is going off, I will read the card. Absent that, I'm mostly about the flow and ethos. Tell me what warrants in your card you want me to know about. Point out the parts in the other team's evidence that are bad for them. That makes my judging job easier, causes me to read the card, AND gives you a sick speaker point boost.

WARNINGS:

1. I am chronically ill. If you pref me, there is a chance I have a flare up while judging you. This means I will finish the debate with my camera off but am still there. I just want some privacy while sick/you really don't want to see my face if I turn my camera off. If we are in person this may mean a slight delay in the debate. One time and one time only I have gotten so sick in a debate that a bye was given to both teams. So pref me if you want the chance of a free win!
2. I am a blunt judge. When I say that I mean I am autistic and frequently do not know how to convey or perceive tone in the way that other do. If you post-round me, I wont call you out of your name, but I will be very clear about your skills (or lack thereof) in the debate.
3. I also might cry...I'm clinically hypersensitive from CPTSD. Sometimes people assume I have a tone and "match" or "reraise" what they think I'm doing. If I cry and you weren't being a total jerk, don't over-apologize and make the RFD about me, lets just plan on a written RFD in that case.
4. I appreciate trigger warnings about sexual abuse. I will not vote on trigger warning voters because it's impossible to know everyone's trigger and ultimately we are responsible for our own triggers. All debaters who wish to avoid triggers should inform opponents before the round, not center the debate on it. I'd rather use "tech time" for the triggered debater to try to get back to their usual emotional state and try to finish the round if desired.
5. If the behavior of one of the teams crosses the line into what I deem to be inappropriate or highly objectionable behavior I will stop the debate and award a loss to the offending team. Examples of this behavior include but are not limited to sexual harassment/abuse, abusive behavior or threats of violence or instances of overt racism, sexism or oppression based on identity generally.

• This does not include self-expression. I would prefer not to see an erotic performance from high schoolers as an adult, but I am able to do so without sexualizing said debaters. There are limits to this, as you are minors and this is a school activity. Please do not make me have to stop the round because you exposed yourself to the other team, or something similar. If you are in college I still feel like you are a student, but I will honor that you have the right to express yourself without sexualizing you. Please no "flashing" without consent - that is sexual harassment/assault.
• This also does not include a Black debater using the N-word, unless used intentionally to put down another Black debater to the point of distress in the other Black debater.
• When in doubt, don’t make it your goal to traumatize the other team and we will all be fine.
• If you ask a team to say a slur in CX I will interrupt the debate to change course, though I will not auto-vote against you. I don’t think we should encourage people to say slurs to try to prove a point. Find another way, or don’t pref me.

The longer version:

Speaker points:

I've been told you need to average a 29.2 to clear nowadays. Because of that:

-a learning speech will be 28.4-28.7,

-an average speech will be 28.8-29.1,

-a clearing level speech will be 29.2-29.5,

-a top ten speaker will be 29.6-29.9.

I'm not giving 30s. Ya gotta be perfect to get a 30, and Hannah Montana taught me that nobody's perfect.

If you get below a 28.4 you probably severely annoyed me.

If you get below a 28, you were probably a problem in the debate, ethically.

I have yet to give a low point win, to my memory. I generally think winning is a part of speaking well. If you cause your team to lose the debate, you’re likely to get lower points.

Speaker-point factors:

- Did you debate well?

- Were you clear?

- Did you maintain my attention?

- Did you make me laugh, critically think, or gasp?

- Did your arguments or behavior in the debate make me cringe?

- Were you going way to hard in a debate against less experienced debaters and made them feel bad for no reason?

K STUFF:

Planless Clash debates:

-I’ve rarely judged a planless debate where the neg has not gone for framework. In instances where I have, the neg was policy style impact turning a concept of the aff, not going for a K based on a different theory of the world.

-I generally went for framework against planless affirmatives when I debated, and therefore am a bit deeper on the neg side of things. That being said, I also have a standard for what the neg needs to do to make a complete argument.

-I don’t think topicality, or adhering to a resolution, is analogous to rape, slavery, or other atrocities. That doesn't mean arguments about misogynoir, pornotroping, or other arguments of that nature don't work with me. I understand the logic of something being problematic. It's just the oversimplification of theory into false comparisons I take issue with.

-I don’t think that not being topical will cause everyone to quit, lose all ability to navigate existential crises, or other tedious internal link chains. That being said, I love an external impact to framework that defends the politics of government action.

-I would really prefer if people had reasonable arguments on topicality for why or why they don’t need to read a plan, rather than explaining to me their existential impact to voting aff or neg. In the same way that I'm not persuaded the neg will quit or extinction will happen if you don't read a plan, I also don't think extinction will happen if you lose to topicality. Focus instead on the real debate impacts at hand. Though, as said above, I love a good defense of your politics, and if that has a silly extinction impact that's fine.

-I find myself persuaded that the case can not outweigh topicality. Arguments from the case can be used to impact turn topicality, but that is distinct from “case outweighs limits” in my mind. T is a gateway issue. If the neg goes for T, that's what the debate is about. This is why I think many planless 1ACs are best when they have a built-in angle against framework.

-indicts to procedural fairness impacts are persuasive to me.

-modern concrete examples of incrementalism failing or working help a lot

-aff teams need to explain how their counter interpretation solves the neg impacts as well as their impact turns.

-neg teams need to turn the aff impacts and have external offense of their own. Teams frequently do one or the other

Neg K v plans:

-Generally, the alt won’t solve when the aff does a serious push, but the aff will let the neg get away with murder on alt solvency.

-Generally, the alt doing the plan is a reason to reject the alt/team absent a framework debate, which is fine.

-Generally, contradictions justify severance

-Always, the neg is allowed to read Ks

-I'm getting more and more persuaded the neg needs a big push on framework to beat the perm. If the alt is fiated and not mutually exclusive with the plan, there is almost no way to convince me that the perm won't solve. This is not true on topics where the alt impact turns the resolution. You truly can't do both sometimes.

-Framework debates are won by engaging the theory aspect and is pragmatism/action desirable, not just one. Typically the neg spends a bunch of time winning the aff is an unethical method, while the aff is talking about fairness and limits.

-please slow down on framework blocks!

K v K debate:

I tend to find myself thinking of things in terms of causality, so if that’s not your jam you gotta tell me not to think in that way. I have *technically* judged a K v K debate, but I'm pretty sure it was a cap debate that was more impact turn-y than theory of power-y.

I'm interested in seeing debates like this despite my lack of experience.

K stuff in general:

-My degree is in math. While y’all were reading a lot of background lit, I was doing abstract algebra. You might have to break it down a bit. I'm reading a bit more of the stuff y'all debate from in grad school, but it's still safe to eli5. My masters work is mostly on pop culture, hip-hop, and Black Feminist literature. If you want to debate about Megan Thee Stallion, I should be your ordinal one because it is the topic of my thesis.

-I am more persuaded by identity or constructivism than post-modernism. I am the opposite of persuaded by post-modernism.

-I DO NOT recommend reading Baudrillard, Bataille, etc. You might think "but I'm the one that will change her mind;" you aren't. I will be annoyed for having to judge the debate tbh. You have free will to read it if you want, but I have free will to tank your points with ZERO remorse. If this third warning doesn't do it for you, you are responsible for your speaker points. If I was swapped in to judge your debate last minute, I won't tank your speaks. I only clarify because this happened to a team once.

POLICY STUFF:

CPs:

-Tell me if I can (or can’t!) kick it for you. I may or may not remember to if you don’t. I may or may not feel like you are allowed to if you don’t.

-Reading definitions of should means the perm or theory is in tough shape. It's not unwinnable, but I was a 2A… Tricky process counterplans that argue to result in the aff by means of solvency, but are *actually* competitive (more than just should and resolved definitions), game on. If that means you have to define some topic words in an interesting way, I'm fine with that. Also, despite being a classic 2A, I find myself holding the aff to a higher standard sometimes. Maybe it's because I went to MSU, but a lot of times I find myself thinking "this CP obviously doesn't solve. why doesn't the aff just say that or try to cut a card about it???"

-Make the intrinsic perm great again!

-Links to the net benefit is usually a sliding scale. But sometimes links have a certain threshold where it doesn’t matter which links less. Please consider this nuance when debating.

Theory:

-TBH – y’all blaze through theory blocks with no clarity and then get confused when I have no standards written down. These debates are bad. Be more clear. Speak at a flowable pace. Maybe make your own arguments. Idk.

-It is debatable whether an argument is a reason to reject the argument or team.

-2ACs that spend 15-plus seconds on the theory shell will see a lot more mileage and viability for the 2AR. One-sentence blips with no warrants and flow checks will be treated as such.

-impact comparison and turns case are lost arts in theory debates.

DAs:

-Yes, there can be zero DA. No, it’s not as common as you think.

-answer turns case!!!

PF/LD:

I have coached LD and PF for years, but it is hard for me to separate my years of policy debate experience from the way I judge all debates. I was trained for 8 years as a policy debater and continue to coach that format. I have participated in both LD and PF debates a few times in high school, so I’m not a full outsider

LD

I’m not a trickster and I refuse to learn how Kant relates to the topic. Similarly, theory arguments like “abbreviating USFG is too vague” or “You misspelled enforcement and that’s a VI” are silly to me. Plan flaws are better when the aff results in something meaningfully different from what they intend to, not something that an editor would fix. I’m not voting/evaluating until the final speech ends. Period.

Dense phil debates are very hard for me to adjudicate having very little background in them. I default to utilitarianism and am most comfortable judging those debates. Any framework that involves skep triggers is very unlikely to find favor with me.

PF:

Do not pref me if you paraphrase evidence.

Do not pref me if you do not have a copy of your evidence/relevant part of the article AND full-text article for your opponent upon request.

Please stop with the post-speech evidence swap, make an email chain before the debate, and send your evidence ahead of time. If your case includes analytics you don’t want to send, that’s fine, though I think it’s kinda weaksauce to not disclose your arguments. If the argument is good, it should withstand an answer from the opponent.

Second, there is far too much untimed evidence exchange happening in debates. I will want all teams to set up an email chain to exchange cases in their entirety to forego the lost time of asking for specific pieces of evidence. You can add me to the email chain as well and that way after the debate I will not need to ask for evidence. This is not negotiable if I'm your judge - you should not fear your opponents having your evidence. Under no circumstances will there be an untimed exchange of evidence during the debate. Any exchange of evidence that is not part of the email chain will come out of the prep time of the team asking for the evidence. The only exception to this is if one team chooses not to participate in the email thread and the other team does then all time used for evidence exchanges will be taken from the prep time of the team who does NOT email their cases.

Experience

Current Affiliation = Notre Dame HS (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Debates Judged on this topic: about 40 Rounds (UMich Debate Institute)
Prior Experience: Debated policy in HS at Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, CA (1992-1995); Debated NDT/CEDA in college at USC (1995-1999); Assistant debate coach at Cal State Northridge 2003-2005; Assistant debate coach at Glenbrook South HS Spring of 2005; Director of Debate at Glenbrook North HS 2005-2009; Director of Debate at Notre Dame HS Fall of 2009-Present.

General Note

My defaults go into effect when left to my own devices. I will go against most of these defaults if a team technically persuades me to do so in any given debate.

Paperless Rules

If you start taking excessive time to flash your document, I will start instituting that "Prep time ends when the speaker's flash drive is removed from her/his computer."

Major Notes

Topic familiarity

I am familiar with the topic (4 weeks of teaching at Michigan at Classic and involved in argument coaching at Notre Dame).

Delivery

Delivery rate should be governed by your clarity; WARRANTS in the evidence should be clear, not just the tagline.
Clarity is significantly assisted by organization - I flow as technically as possible and try to follow the 1NC structure on-case and 2AC structure off-case through the 1AR. 2NR and the 2AR should have some leeway to restructure the debate in important places to highlight their offense. However, line-by-line should be followed where re-structuring is not necessary.

Ideal 2AR Structure

Offense placed at the top (tell me how I should be framing the debate in the context of what you are winning), then move through the debate in a logical order.

2NR's Make Choices

Good 2NR strategies may be one of the following: (1) Functionally and/or textually competitive counterplan with an internal or external net benefit, (2) K with a good turns case/root cause arguments that are specific to each advantage, (3) Disadvantage with turns case arguments and any necessary case defense, (4) Topicality (make sure to cover any theory arguments that are offense for aff). My least favorite debates to resolve are large impact turn debates, not because I hate impact turns, but because I think that students lose sight of how to resolve and weigh the multiple impact scenarios that get interjected into the debate. Resolving these debates starts with a big picture impact comparison.

Evidence Quality/References

Reference evidence by warrant first and then add "That's [Author]." Warrant and author references are especially important on cards that you want me to read at the end of the debate. Also, evidence should reflect the arguments that you are making in the debate. I understand that resolving a debate requires spin, but that spin should be based in the facts presented in your evidence.

I have been getting copies of speech documents for many debates lately so I can read cards during prep time, etc. However, note that I will pay attention to what is said in the debate as much as possible - I would much rather resolve the debate on what the debaters say, not based on my assessment of the evidence.

Offense-Defense

Safer to go for offense, and then make an "even if" statement explaining offense as a 100% defensive takeout. I will vote on well-resolved defense against CP, DA's and case. This is especially true against process CP's (e.g., going for a well-resolved permutation doesn't require you to prove a net benefit to the permutation since these CP's are very difficult to get a solvency deficit to) and DA's with contrived internal link scenarios. Winning 100% defense does require clear evidence comparison to resolve.

Topicality

I like a well-developed topicality debate. This should include cards to resolve important distinctions. Topical version of the aff and reasonable case lists are persuasive. Reasonability is persuasive when the affirmative has a TRUE "we meet" argument; it seems unnecessary to require the affirmative to have a counter-interpretation when they clearly meet the negative interpretation. Also, discussing standards with impacts as DA's to the counter-interpretation is very useful - definition is the uniqueness, violation is the link, standard is an internal link and education or fairness is the impact.

Counterplans

Word PIC's, process, consult, and condition CP's are all ok. I have voted on theory against these CP's in the past because the teams that argued they were illegit were more technically saavy and made good education arguments about the nature of these CP's. The argument that they destroy topic-specific education is persuasive if you can prove why that is true. Separately, the starting point for answers to the permutation are the distinction(s) between the CP and plan. The starting point for answers to a solvency deficit are the similarities between the warrants of the aff advantage internal links and the CP solvency cards. Counterplans do not have to be both functionally and textually competitive, but it is better if you can make an argument as to why it is both.

Disadvantages

All parts of the DA are important, meaning neither uniqueness nor links are more important than each other (unless otherwise effectively argued). I will vote on conceded or very well-resolved defense against a DA.

Kritiks

Good K debate should have applied links to the affirmative's or negative's language, assumptions, or methodology. This should include specific references to an opponent's cards. The 2NC/1NR should make sure to address all affirmative impacts through defense and/or turns. I think that making 1-2 carded externally impacted K's in the 2NC/1NR is the business of a good 2NC/1NR on the K. Make sure to capitalize on any of these external impacts in the 2NR if they are dropped in the 1AR. A team can go for the case turn arguments absent the alternative. Affirmative protection against a team going for case turns absent the alternative is to make inevitability (non-unique) claims.

Aff Framework

Framework is applied in many ways now and the aff should think through why they are reading parts of their framework before reading it in the 2AC, i.e., is it an independent theoretical voting issue to reject the Alternative or the team based on fairness or education? or is it a defensive indite of focusing on language, representations, methodology, etc.?. Framework impacts should be framed explicitly in the 1AR and 2AR. I am partial to believing that representations and language inform the outcome of policymaking unless given well-warranted cards to respond to those claims (this assumes that negative is reading good cards to say rep's or language inform policymaking).

Neg Framework

Neg framework is particularly persuasive against an affirmative that has an advocacy statement they don't stick to or an aff that doesn't follow the resolution at all. It is difficult for 2N's to have a coherent strategy against these affirmatives and so I am sympathetic to a framework argument that includes a topicality argument and warranted reasons to reject the team for fairness or education. If a K aff has a topical plan, then I think that framework only makes sense as a defensive indite their methodology; however, I think that putting these cards on-case is more effective than putting them on a framework page. Framework is a somewhat necessary tool given the proliferation of affirmatives that are tangentially related to the topic or not topical at all. I can be persuaded that non-topical affs should not get permutations - a couple primary reasons: (1) reciprocity - if aff doesn't have to be topical, then CP's/K's shouldn't need to be competitive and (2) Lack of predictability makes competition impossible and neg needs to be able to test the methodology of the aff.

Theory

I prefer substance, but I do understand the need for theory given I am open to voting on Word PIC's, consult, and condition CP's. If going for theory make sure to impact arguments in an organized manner. There are only two voting issues/impacts: fairness and education. All other arguments are merely internal links to these impacts - please explain how and why you control the best internal links to either of these impacts. If necessary, also explain why fairness outweighs education or vice-versa. If there are a host of defensive arguments that neutralize the fairness or education lost, please highlight these as side constraints on the the violation, then move to your offense.

Classic Battle Defaults

These are attempts to resolve places where I felt like I had to make random decisions in the past and had wished I put something in my judge philosophy to give debaters a fair warning. So here is my fair warning on my defaults and what it takes to overcome those defaults:
(1) Theory v. Topcality - Topcality comes before theory unless the 1AR makes arguments explaining why theory is first and the 2NR doesn't adequately respond and then the 2AR extends and elaborates on why theory is first sufficiently enough to win those arguments.
(2) Do I evaluate the aff v. the squo when the 2NR went for a CP? - No unless EXPLICITLY framed as a possibility in the 2NR. If the 2NR decides to extend the CP as an advocacy (in other words, they are not just extending some part of the CP as a case takeout, etc.), then I evaluate the aff versus the CP. What does this mean? If the aff wins a permutation, then the CP is rejected and the negative loses. I will not use the perm debate as a gateway argument to evaluating the aff vs. the DA. If the 2NR is going for two separate advocacies, then the two separate framings should be EXPLICIT, e.g., possible 2NR framing, "If we win the CP, then you weigh the risk of the net benefit versus the risk of the solvency deficit and, if they win the permutation, you should then just reject the CP and weigh the risk of the DA separately versus the affirmative" (this scenario assumes that the negative declared the CP conditional).
(3) Are Floating PIK's legitimate? No unless the 1AR drops it. If the 1AR drops it, then it is open season on the affirmative. The 2NC/1NR must make the floating PIC explicit with one of the following phrases to give the 1AR a fair chance: "Alternative does not reject the plan," "Plan action doesn't necessitate . Also, 2NC/1NR must distinguish their floating PIK from the permutation; otherwise, affirmatives you should use any floating PIK analysis as a outright concession that the "permutation do both" or "permutation plan plus non-mutually exclusive parts" is TRUE.
(4) Will I vote on theory cheap shots? Yes, but I feel guilty voting for them. HOWEVER, I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A REVERSE VOTING ISSUE EVEN IF IT WAS DROPPED.

Who is a Good Debater

Anna Dimitrijevic, Alex Pappas, Pablo Gannon, Stephanie Spies, Kathy Bowen, Edmund Zagorin, Matt Fisher, Dan Shalmon, Scott Phillips, Tristan Morales, Michael Klinger, Greta Stahl, George Kouros. There are many others - but this is a good list.

Respect

Your Opponents, Your Teammates, Your Coaches, Your Activity.

Extra Notes CP/Perm/Alt Texts

The texts of permutations, counterplans, and alternatives should be clear. I always go back and check the texts of these items if there is a question of a solvency deficit or competition. However, I do feel it is the burden of the opposing team to bring up such an argument for me to vote on it - i.e., unless it is a completely random round, the opposing team needs to make the argument that the text of the CP means there is a significant solvency deficit with the case, or the affirmative is overstating/misconstruing the solvency of a permutation because the text only dictates X, not Y, etc. I will decide that the aff does not get permutations in a debate where the affirmative is not topical.

Technical Focus

I try to follow the flow the best I can - I do double check if 2AR is making arguments that are tied to the 1AR arguments. I think that 2AR's get significant leeway to weigh and frame their impacts once the 2NR has chosen what to go for; however, this does not mean totally new arguments to case arguments, etc. that were presented before the 2NR.

Resolve Arguments

Frame claim in comparison to other team's response, extend important warrants, cite author for evidence, impact argument to ballot - all of these parts are necessary to resolve an argument fully. Since debate is a game of time management, this means going for fewer arguments with more thorough analysis is better than extending myriad of arguments with little analysis.

Disrespect Bad

Complete disrespect toward anyone who is nice; no one ever has enough “credibility” in this community to justify such actions. If there is a disrespectful dynamic in a debate, I ALWAYS applaud (give higher speaker points to) the first person to step down and realize they are being a jerk. Such growth and self-awareness should rewarded.

Fear to Engage Bad

Win or lose, you are ultimately competing to have the best debate possible. Act like it and do not be afraid to engage in the tough debates. You obviously should make strategic choices, but do not runaway from in-depth arguments because you think another team will be better than you on that argument. Work harder and beat them on the argument on which she/he is supposedly an expert. Taking chances to win debates good.

Fun Stuff

And, as Lord Dark Helmet says, “evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb.”

Banecat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywjpbThDpE

*Updated November 2023*

CONTACT INFORMATION

Email: thurt11@gmail.com

LD NOTE

I've been in debate for fifteen years as a competitor, judge, and coach. In that time, I've almost exclusively done policy debate (I think I've judged <10 LD rounds ever). That's to say, judging LD at the Glenbrooks will be a bit different for me.

I don't think you'll need to dramatically adjust how you debate. In fact, I'd prefer to judge you in your best style/approach/form. Relatedly, I don't think I'm particularly ideological, and I'm like not a bus driver or parent who has been dropped into the judge pool. That said, be aware of my still-developing topic knowledge, norms of LD, and theory. I will do my best to resolve the debate before me. That said, folks should know that I'll likely have many idiosyncracies of someone who has basically always been in policy debate.

PF NOTE

Much of what is said about LD is true here too. Some thoughts on evidence that I stole from Greg Achten:

First, I strongly oppose the practice of paraphrasing evidence. If I am your judge I would strongly suggest reading only direct quotations in your speeches. My above stated opposition to the insertion of brackets is also relevant here. Words should never be inserted into or deleted from evidence.

Second, there is far too much untimed evidence exchange happening in debates. I will want all teams to set up an email chain to exchange cases in their entirety to forego the lost time of asking for specific pieces of evidence. You can add me to the email chain as well and that way after the debate I will not need to ask for evidence. This is not negotiable if I'm your judge - you should not fear your opponents having your evidence. Under no circumstances will there be untimed exchange of evidence during the debate. Any exchange of evidence that is not part of the email chain will come out of the prep time of the team asking for the evidence. The only exception to this is if one team chooses not to participate in the email thread and the other team does then all time used for evidence exchanges will be taken from the prep time of the team who does NOT email their cases.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION

I debated for four years at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Go Packers/Brewers/Bucks! In college, I debated for four years at Michigan State University, earning three first-round bids and a semifinals appearance at the NDT.

Currently, I work on the non-debate side of Michigan State, doing education data analysis, program evaluation, and professional development. On the side, I coach for Georgetown University. I still love debate, but it is no longer my day job. Given that, I'm not a content expert on this topic like some of your other judges might be.

More generally, any given debate can get in-depth quickly, so you should be careful with acronyms/intricacies if you think that your strategy is really innovative or requires a deep understanding of your specific mechanism. Teams sometimes get so deep in the weeds researching their business that they forget to provide a basic explanation for the argument's context/history/background. Instead, they jump into the most advanced part of the topic. If something is creative, that's an issue because it's likely the judge's first time hearing it.

Everyone says it and almost no one means it, but I think that you should debate what you care about/what interests you/what you're good at doing. In other words, put me in the "big-tent" camp. All of the stuff below is too long and shouldn't impact your debating (maybe besides the meta issues section). It really is just my thoughts (vs. a standard), and is only included to offer insight into how I see debate.

META ISSUES/ABBREVIATED PHILOSOPHY/STRIKE CARD ESSENTIAL

1. Assuming equal debating (HUGE assumption), I'm *really* bad for the K on the neg/as planless aff. I find myself constantly struggling with questions in decision-time like: Does the neg ACTUALLY have a link to the plan's MECHANISM or even their SPECIFIC representations? What is the alternative? How does that advocacy change the extremely sweeping and entrenched problems identified in the 1NC/2NC impact evidence? If it's so effective, why doesn't it overcome the links to the plan? If the alt is just about scholarship/ethics/some -ology, how does that compare to material suffering outlined by the 1AC? This year, some of these biases are accentuated by the "disarm" and negative state action planks of the topic. On the affirmative, I think there are many creative ways to critically defend the idea of ending nuclear weapons (especially by the "United States" rather than the "United States federal government"). On the negative, I have hitherto been unimpressed with the Ks of "disarm" (like the ACTUAL "We end the nukes and dismantle them because they risk horrific US first use/nukes are bad" disarm) I've seen.

In the end, when I vote negative for Ks or affirmative for planless affs, it's generally because the losing team dropped a techy ballot like ethics first, serial policy failure, or "we're a PIK." Do you, don't overadapt, and feel confident that I approach every debate with the intention of deciding the question of "who did the better debating?" REGARDLESS of the subject of the debate. Relatedly, know that I'm excited to have the chance to evaluate your arguments (even if it's really late and I'd rather not be judging at all in the abstract) basically no matter what you say. Instead, I would take my above biases as things to keep an eye out for from your opponents/come up with novel responses to/overcover/etc.

2. College debate made me more oriented to tech than truth. In my experience as a debater and judge, ignorance of tech resulted in a callous dismissal of arguments as “bad” and increased judge intervention to determine what is “correct” instead of what was debated in the round and executed more effectively. That said, truth is a huge bonus, and being on the right side makes your task of being technically proficient easier because you can let logic/evidence speak a little for you.

3. I care about evidence quality - to an extent. Debate is a communicative activity, and I'm not going to re-read broad swaths of evidence to ensure that your opponents read a card on all their claims. To be clear, I do think that part of my role in judging is comparing evidence *when it's contested and through the lens with which it was challenged.* Put concretely, if your 2NR says "all their evidence is trash and doesn't say anything" or is silent on evidence comparison, I'm not gonna be doing you any favors and looking at the speech doc. I'm certainly not going to be reading un-underlined text in 1AC/1NC cards without explicit direction of what I'm looking for. Instead, if you're like "Their no prolif cards are all before Kishida and only talk about means vs. motive," I'm happy to read a pile of cards, looking to assess their quality on those two grounds. If that sounds time-consuming for your final rebuttals, it is. You should create time by condensing the debate down to the core issues/places of evidentiary disagreement.

4. Every round could use more calculus and comparisons. The most obvious example of this thesis is with impact calc, but I think there is a laundry list of other examples like considering relative risk, quality of evidence, and author qualifications. As a format, any of these comparisons should have a reason why your argument is preferable, a reason why that frame is important, and a reason why your opponent’s argument is poor/viewed through a poor lens. In the context of impact calc, this framework means saying that your impact outweighs on timeframe, that timeframe is important, and that while your opponent’s impact might have a large magnitude, I should ignore that frame of decision-making. Engaging your opponents’ arguments on a deeper level and resolving debates is the easiest way to get good points. Beyond that, making a decision is functionally comparing each team’s stance/evidence quality/technical ability on a few nexus questions, so if you’re doing this work for me you will probably like my decision a lot more.

5. I hold debaters to a high standard for making an argument. Any claim should be supported with a warrant, evidence, and impact on my decision. Use early speeches to get ahead on important questions. For instance, I won’t dismiss something like “Perm do Both,” but I think the argument would be bolstered by a reason why the perm is preferable in the 2AC (i.e. how it interacts with the net benefits) instead of saving those arguments for the 1AR/2AR. By the way, you should consider this point my way out in post-rounds where you're like "but I said X...It was right here!" For me, if something is important enough to win/lose a debate, you should spend a significant amount of time there, connect, and make sure your claim is *completely* and *thoughtfully* warranted.

6. All debates have technical mistakes, but not all technical mistakes are equal or irreversible. Given those assumptions, the best rebuttals recognize flaws and make “even if” statements/explain why losing an argument does not mean they lose the debate. I think debaters fold too often on mistakes. Just because you dropped a theory argument doesn’t mean you cannot cross-apply an argument from another theory argument, politics, or T to win.

7. I'm a bad judge for yes/no arguments like "presumption," "links to the net benefit absolutely," or "zero risk of X." I think the best debaters work in the grey areas.

8. Things people don't do enough:

a) Start with the title for their 1NC off case positions (i.e. first off states)

b) Give links labels (i.e. our "docket crowdout link" or "our bipart link")

c) Explain what their plan actually does - For instance (in college), what nuclear forces do you disarm? Who does it? What is the mechanism? I've decided that if the aff is vague to an egregious extent, I'll be super easy on the negative with DA links and CP competition. Aff vagueness is also a link to circumvention and explains why fiat doesn't solve definitional non-compliance. I will say, I'd rather lacking aff clarity (e.g. when aff's include resolutional language in their plan and say "plan text in a vacuum") be resolved by PICs/topic DAs than by T. I don't think that the negative gets to fully define the plan or have some weird positional competition vision for T even if I think 2As frequently dance around what they do. Punish affs for ambiguity and lazy plan writing for the purposes of T on substance!

d) Call out new arguments - I don't have sympathy if you *wish* you said no impact in the 2AC. There are times that I wish it existed, but there isn't and can't be a 3AC. I will say that for mostly pragmatic reasons, I'm not to the point of reviewing every new 1AR argument. I'll protect the 2NR for the 2AR, but you have to do the work before that.

9. Random (likely to change) topic thoughts:

a) Both sides are likely to get to some risk of Russia and/or China nuke war. The best 2Ns/2As will dehomogenize these impacts based on scenarios for escalation and their internal links.

b) Be careful your UQ CP doesn't overwhelm the link to your DA. Sometimes the neg goes a bit too far. I do love a good UQ CP though!

c) This is a rare topic where I'm less interested in process stuff! Who would've thought?

d) Debated equally, I'm 60/40 that we should include NFU subsets and "disarm" actions that fall short of "elimination/abolition." I get the evidence is good. I'd just abstractly rather have these arguments as affs than PICs/would prefer a bit more than the smallest topic since single payer.

GENERIC DISPOSITIONS

Planless affirmatives – The affirmative would ideally have a plan that defends action by the United States (least important). The affirmative should have a direct tie to the topic. In the context of the college resolution, this means you would have a defense of decreasing nukes/their role (pretty important). The affirmative MUST defend the implementation of said "plan" - whatever it is (MOST important). While I will NOT immediately vote negative on T or “Framework” as a procedural issue, if you don’t defend instrumental implementation of a topical plan *rooted in the resolutional question*, you will be in a tough spot. I’m especially good for T/Framework if the affirmative dodges case turns and debates over the question if nukes are good or bad. In particular, I am persuaded by arguments about why these affirmatives are unpredictable, under-limit the topic, and create a bad heuristic for problem-solving. Short version is that you can do you and there is always a chance I’ll vote for you, but I’m probably not an ordinal one for teams that don’t want to engage the resolutional question.

I do want to say that at tournaments with relaxed prefs, I will do my absolute best to keep an open mind about these assumptions. That shouldn't be read as "Thur says he's open to our planless aff - let's move him up to push down 'policy' people." It should be read as if I come up at one of these tournaments, you might as well do what you're most comfortable with/what you've practiced the most instead of over-adapting.

Critiques—Honestly, just read the first point in the "meta issues" section. I understand neolib/deterrence/security pretty well because they were a big part of my major. If you want to push against my confusion on the K (as a concept), you need to have specific links to the plan’s actions, authors, or representations. Again, trying to be honest, if you're itching to say Baudrillard, Bataille, Deleuze, death good, etc., I'm not your guy. On framework, the affirmative will almost surely be able to weigh their 1AC (unless they totally airball), and I'm pretty hesitant to place reps/scholarship/epistemology before material reality. One other thing - substitute out buzzwords and tags for explanation. Merely saying "libidinal economy" or "structural antagonism" without some evidence and explanation isn't a win condition.

In terms of being affirmative against these arguments, I think that too often teams lose sight of the easy ballots and/or tricks. The 1AR and 2AR need to “un-checklist” those arguments. In terms of disproving the critique, I think I’m pretty good for alternative fails/case outweighs or the permutation with a defense of pragmatism or reformism. Of those 2 - I'm best for "your alt does nothing...we have an aff..."

Case- I’m a huge fan. With that, I think that it’s very helpful for the neg (obviously?). I believe that no matter what argument you plan to go for, (excluding T/theory) case should be in some part of the 2nr. In the context of the critique, you can use case arguments to prove that the threats of the 1AC are flawed or constructed, that there are alternative causes to the affirmative that only the alternative solves, or that the impacts of the affirmative are miniscule and the K outweighs. For CPs, even if you lose a solvency deficit, you can still win because the net benefit outweighs the defended affirmative. Going for case defense to the advantage that you think the CP solves the least forces me to drop you twice as I have to decide the CP doesn’t solve AND that the case impact outweighs your net-benefit. That seems like a pretty good spot to be in.

CP- My favorite ones are specific to the 1AC with case turns as net benefits. Aside from that, I think that I am more inclined than most to vote aff on the perm when there is a trivial/mitigated net benefit vs. a smallish solvency deficit, but in the end I would hope you would tell me what to value first. I had a big section written up on theory, and I decided it's too round-dependent to list out. I still think that more than 2 conditional positions is SUPER risky, functional > textual competition, competition is dictated by mandates and not outcomes (i.e. CPs that are designed to spur follow-on are very strategic), judge kick is good, consult/condition/delay/threaten generally suck, and interpretations matter A LOT.

Topicality- People have started flagging violations based on things not in the plan (solvency lines, advocate considerations, aff tags, 2ac arguments, etc.). This is a bad way to understand T debates. The affirmative defines the plan, positional competition is bad, plan text in a vacuum makes sense, and the way to beat teams that include resolutional language in the plan is on PICs not T.

I default to reasonability, but I can be convinced that Competing Interpretations is a decent model. The negative does not need actual abuse, but they do need to win why their potential abuse is likely as opposed to just theoretical. That is, I'll be less persuaded by a 25-item case list than a really good explanation of a few devastating new affirmatives they allow. If I were to pick only one standard to go for, it would be predictable limits. They shape all pre-round research that guides in-round clash and ensure that debates are dialogues instead of monologues. Finally, as a framing point, I generally think bigger topics = better.

SPEAKER POINTS

They're totally broken...

I'll try to follow the below scale based on where points have been somewhat recently.

29.4 to 29.7 – Speaker Award - 1 to 10

29.2 to 29.3 – Speaker Award - 11 to 25

28.9 to 29.1 – Should break/Have a chance

28.4 to 28.8 – Outside chance at breaking to .500

28 to 28.3 – Not breaking, sub-.500

27 to 27.9 – Keep working

Below 26 – Something said/done warranting a post-round conversation with coaches

Jon Voss

Northside College Prep

I coached high school policy debate full-time for 12 years, National Service through Legal Immigration. I've been around debate, first as a debater and then as a coach, since 02. I sat out Legal Immigration and Arms Sales, but I judged and researched some for the Criminal Justice Reform, the Water Resources, and NATO topics. Debate is not my full-time job – I work in higher education as a program/product manager – so I don't cut a ton of cards, I'm not really up on what teams are reading, I don't know what topicality norms were established over the summer, etc. I can still flow just as well as I used to, which is to say "deficiently."

Yes email chain: jvoss1223 AT gmail DOT com. I don't read along during the debate, I just like it so that I can ensure nobody's clipping cards and also so that I can begin my decision-making process immediately after the debate ends. This is important for how you debate -- using the speech doc instead of your flow as a guide is to your detriment.

-- fiscal redistribution topic - I heard a few debates on it before the season started but (as of the early season tournaments) you should consider my topic knowledge extremely limited, especially as it relates to topicality norms and complex explanations of fringe economic theories. I do have a basic understanding of the academic concepts that undergird the topic, however, and I will be somewhat involved in argument production this year.

-- Almost every debate I've seen so far this year has collapsed into a very-hard-to-resolve "growth good"/"degrowth good" debate. These have been late-breaking and I spent the bulk of my decision time wading through ev that didn't get me any closer to an answer I found satisfactory. In each instance, I was unhappy with amount of intervention and lack of depth involved in my decision. In that regard:

*if there's a winning final rebuttal that does not require you to wade into these waters, give that speech instead. I am willing (and maybe even eager) to grab onto something external and use that as a cudgel to decide that the growth debate was difficult to resolve and vote on <other thing>. I think I would be receptive, too, to arguments about how I should react in a debate that you think might be difficult to resolve, but this is just a hunch.

*you would almost certainly be better-served debating evidence that's already been read instead of reading more cards. This is especially true if the 1ac/1nc/both included a bunch of evidence on this issue...your fourth, "yes mindset shift" card is unlikely to win you the debate (or even the specific argument in question) but debating the issue in greater detail than the other team might.

*debated equally, I'm meaningfully better for the standard defenses of growth, especially as it relates to successfully achieving the changes that would be necessary to create a sustainable model of degrowth.

-- a note on plan texts: say what you mean, mean what you say, and have an advocate that supports it. If the AFF's plan is resolutional word salad, will be unapologetically rooting for NEG exploitation in the way of cplan competition, DA links, and/or presumption-style takeouts. I guess the flip side of this is that I have never heard a persuasive explanation of a way to evaluate topicality arguments outside of the words in the plan text, so as long as the AFF goes for some sort of "we meet" argument, I'm basically unwilling to vote NEG. "The plan text says most or all of the resolution (and another word or three) but their solvency evidence describes something very different," is an extremely persuasive negative line of argument, but I think it's a solvency argument.

-- Rehighlighting - you've gotta read itand explain what you believe to be the implication of whatever portion of their evidence you read. I'm somewhat sympathetic to allowing insertion as a check against (aggressively) declining evidence quality in debate, but debate is first and foremost a communicative activity.

-- I don't need nor want a card doc at the end of the debate. I have everything in my inbox already. I know what cards you did/didn't read because I was flowing. I'm honestly a little skeptical of debaters providing judges a lens through which to evaluate different controversies after the 2AR has ended. And to be frank, most of these debates aren't so close that judgement calls on ev are necessary to determine who won.

-- In favor of fewer, better-developed 1NC arguments. I don't have a specific number that I think is best: I've seen 1NC's that include three totally unwinnable offcase arguments and 1NC's that include six or seven viable ones. But generally I think the law of diminishing marginal returns applies. Burden of proof is a precondition of the requirement that the affirmative answer the argument, and less ev/fewer highlighted words in the name of more offcase positions seems to make it less likely that the neg will fulfill the aforementioned burden of proof.

-- Highlighting, or lack thereof, has completely jumped the shark. Read more words.

-- Clarity, or lack thereof, has been bad for awhile, but online debate really exacerbates the problem. I won't use the speech doc to bail you out. Just speak more slowly. You will debate better. I will understand your argument better. Judges who understand your argument with more clarity than your opponent's argument are likely to side with you.

-- I am generally bad for broad-strokes “framing” arguments that ask the judge to presume that the risk of <> is especially low. Indicts of mini-max risk assessment make sense in the abstract, but it is the affirmative’s responsibility to apply these broad theories to whatever objections the negative has advanced. “The aff said each link exponentially reduces the probability of the DA, and the DA has links, so you lose” is a weak ballot and one that I am unexcited to write.

-- I am generally better for a narrow solution that tackles an instance of oppression than an undefined/murky solution that aims to move the needle further than the pragmatic alternative. Some of this new stuff about philosophical competition and associated negative framework arguments that block the AFF from leveraging the 1ac as offense is wild.

-- I am often way less interested in "impact defense" than "link defense." This is equally true of my thoughts toward negative disadvantages and affirmative advantages. For example, if the aff wins with certainty that they stop a US-China war, I'm highly unlikely to vote neg and place my faith in our ability to the big red telephone at the White House to dampen the conflict. Similarly, if the neg wins that your plan absolutely crashes the economy by disrupting the market or causing some agenda item to fail, I will mostly be unconcerned that there are some other historical explanations for great power wars than "resource scarcity." The higher up the link "chain" you can indict your opponent's argument, the better.

-- Sort of a related point, but I thought it might be good to separate this out. I have found myself mentally exhausted at the end of almost every Zoom debate I've judged. There is something about flicking your eyes across three screens while transcribing an entire debate that's occurring in my headphones that is so much more draining than what debate looked like back in the day. I think this impacts how I judge. I certainly don't have any inclination to spend the decision time reading a bunch of evidence if I can avoid it. I don't think that's laziness (but maybe...) -- I'm just tired of staring at a screen. Anything the 2NR / 2AR can do to help craft a simple path to victory that allows me to minimize the number of "decision tree" questions I need to resolve is highly recommended.

-- Don't clip cards. If you're accusing a team of it, you need to be able to present me with a quality recording to review. Burden of proof lies with the accusing team, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is my standard for conviction. If you advance any sort of ethics challenge, the debate ends and is decided on the grounds of that ethics challenge alone.

-- Yes judge kick unless one team explicitly makes an argument that convinces me to conceive differently of presumption. Speaking of, presumption is "least amount of change" no matter what. This could mean that presumption *still* lies with the neg even if the aff wins the status quo is no longer something the judge can endorse (but only if the CP is less change than the plan).

-- Fairly liberal with the appropriate scope of negative fiat as it relates to counterplans. Fairly aff-leaning regarding counterplan competition, at least in theory -- but evidence matters more than general pleas to protect affirmative competitive equity. I could be convinced otherwise, but my default has always been that the neg advocate must be as good as whatever the aff is working with. This could mean that an “advocate-less” counterplan that presses an internal link is fair game if the aff is unable to prove that they…uh…have an internal link.

-- T-USFG: Debate is no longer my full-time job, so I think I have a little less skin in the game on this issue. I also suspect the Trump presidency and the associated exposure of explicit racism within the United States may have made me a better judge for affirmatives that do not instrumentally defend the topic/federal government action. I'm not sure how much better, though, and I'm probably at best a risky bet for affirmatives hoping to beat a solid 2NR on T-USFG. If you do have me in this type of debate:

**Won't vote on any sort of argument that amounts to, "debate is bad, so we will concede their argument that we destroy debate/make people quit/exclude X population of student, that's good."

**Affirmatives would be well served to prioritize the link between defending a particular state action and broader observations about the flaws of the state.

**Procedural fairness is most important. The ballot can rectify fairness violations much more effectively than it can change anything else, and I am interested in endorsing a vision of debate that is procedurally fair. This is both the single strongest internal link to every other thing debate can do for a studeny and a standalone impact. I am worse for the “portable skills” impacts about information processing, decision-making, etc.

Hays Watson, former head debate coach @ University of Georgia. whwatson@gmail.com. I split my time between political consulting and caretaking for a dying parent. Haven't judged a debate since 2020.

Online debate 411 - Please slow down, speak up, have patience, and make sure that everything (sound/camera/wifi/tech) is on and working properly. I will do my best to judge as I normally do and make the best decision possible while providing helpful feedback.

My primary goal is to evaluate the arguments made in the debate. That being said, I remain a teacher at heart and I'll also offer suggestions for how you can improve. That's why I still write full ballots and send them via email to the teams that I judge.

Here are many of my preferences, simply-stated:

Clarity trumps speed...the best debaters are able to achieve both.

Evidence matters...but not much more than logical, analytical arguments. Many positions (case advantages, politics, etc.) can best be defeated with smart, analytical responses. Use your brain.

Efficiency and explanation both matter - but doing one while sacrificing the other produces bad debate. Explanation seems to lose out quite a bit these days...there is such thing as being "too efficient."

Process questions determine substantive questions. The "who" of action does, in fact, determine the effectiveness of "what" action is being taken.

I prefer that Affirmatives advocate topical action. Specific plans of action are preferable over vague/generic policy suggestions. Yes, that means I still appreciate spec-based args.

I tend to find more persuasive logical/plausible scenarios ("truth") than technical/strategic ones ("tech"). A dropped DA is a dropped DA, but a card saying the economy will collapse tomorrow doesn't make it so.

I reward arguments grounded in the topic literature over arguments based upon non-germane net benefits or advantages. In other words, I'd prefer that you read the deterrence DA and an advantage CP over a made-up counterplan with an artificial internal net-benefit or a crappy politics DA.

Links/internal links are more important (and more interesting) than uniqueness questions. Most debate impacts are silly - not everything causes extinction. Yes, advantages/harms can be linked turned. Yes, impacts can be turned as well.

I'm increasingly frustrated by the relative absence of debates about important theoretical questions. Topicality no longer is seen as a strategic Negative tool. Affirmatives consistently refuse to challenge the theoretical legitimacy of various negative positions (conditionality, politics DAs, kritiks, etc.). Why?

Impact defense alone is an insufficient way to answer an argument. I'm confused as to how case attacks based solely around impact defense have become the "norm." The best argumentative strategies involve mixture of offensive and defensive responses. "No impact" doesn't cut it.

Effective cross-examination is still the most underutilized tool in debate. Poor, un-strategic cross-ex questions (and responses) make me sad.

I can spell 'K' despite my reputation. It's impossible not to acknowledge (albeit begrudgingly) that a well explained and case-specific kritik supported by high-quality evidence is an important strategic tool. Play to your strengths - even its gooey and critical.

I flow. I still flow on paper. It's hard to flow stuff - blippy T args, theory, embedded clash on the case, etc. Keep that in mind, especially if you are debating online.

University of Chicago Law School c/o 2024

Emory University c/o 2021

Edina HS c/o 2017

Put me on the email chain: maggie.edina@gmail.com

**Water Updates**

I haven’t judged any water debates since camp, please keep this in mind.

**LD Updates**

I don't like frivolous theory arguments or philosophy with no application to the debate.

If you're going to posit overarching principles for deciding the debate, you need to apply it to the round.

**Online Debate Updates**

I will keep my camera on during speeches and CX unless I have wifi issues. If I have to turn my camera off to preserve my wifi connection, I apologize in advance.

****

I don't have any strong predispositions about how you should debate and will evaluate whichever arguments you choose present to me. That being said, please tell me how I should evaluate arguments in the final rebuttals so I'm not left to figure things out on my own and read cards without any instruction.

I will reward in-depth research, clash, and evidence comparison. I care about evidence quality and will probably ask you for a card doc after the debate is over.

T-USFG

I generally believe that the aff should defend hypothetical USFG action. Debate is a valuable communicative activity and fiat is a good mechanism for generating clash.

I believe that fairness is an impact. If you are aff, please connect the dots between your offense on t and how you solve it via your method or your aff.

I place a high burden on the affirmative proving an internal link to their impacts on case - if you are negative, please make arguments about this, it is so frustrating to watch neg teams just auto grant the aff solvency.

If you read a planless aff, I am more likely to vote for you if your aff is in the direction of the topic and has clear, impacted reasons why topical action is impossible in the context of your advocacy. I also like clever counter-interpretations on topicality that retain some limits but have an external impact related to your aff.

Topicality

*** CJR UPDATE - the topic is huge and so I sympathize with 2Ns going for T, I will vote for t-enact = congress if you debate it well. ***

If you’re looking for a sign not to go for T-subs in front of me, this is it.

Please don't subject me to a shallow topicality debate. If you would like to go for this argument, do a lot of impact calculus in the 2NR/2AR. It is essential to compare evidence in topicality debates, if you do not I will be forced to make a decision based on how I interpret the evidence myself.

If you are a 2N trying to go for T, consider where your ev comes from and what it says. Is it an arbitrary defense of whatever word you are suggesting the aff violates? Is your evidence only tangentially related to the topic? Does it provide a good metric for predictable limits? If the answer is no, I most likely will not be persuaded. I will not vote for limits for the sake of limits unless the aff drops T.

Theory

Conditionality is probably good, that doesn't mean I cannot be compelled otherwise.

Other CP theory stuff is open for debate, probably only a reason to reject the team.

Ks

If you decide to go for a K in front of me, please explain the relationship between your K and the outcome of the plan. Please explain why links apply to the permutation, not just the aff.

If your entire arg boils down to a k of fiat and your only impact is ressentiment, consider not preffing me.

random

i dislike when teams ask for a marked doc and then it results in 10 minutes of time between preparing the marked doc and the team receiving the marked doc. please don't be this team.

Have fun...

... but don't be a bad person, I will give you low speaker points and will be persuaded by arguments to vote against you if you are

I'm currently a head coach at New Trier Township High School outside of Chicago, IL. I've been at New Trier since 2012. Prior to that I was the director of debate at Cathedral Preparatory School in Erie, PA. I debated at the University of Pittsburgh ('07) and at Cathedral Prep ('03).

Here are some defaults into the way I evaluate arguments. Obviously these are contingent upon the way that arguments are deployed in round. If you win that one of these notions should not be the standard for the debate, I will evaluate it in terms of your argumentation.

*I evaluate the round based on the flow. Technical line by line debating should be prioritized. That's not to say that I'm always a "tech over truth" judge. I'm willing to listen to reasonable extrapolations, smart debating, and bringing in some context. However, I don't think I can interpret exactly how an argument in one place should be applied to another portion of the flow/debate unless the debater does that for me. To me, that injects my understanding of how I would spin one argument to answer another and I don't want to do that.

*Offense/Defense - I'm not sure if I'm getting older or if the quality of evidence is getting worse, but I find myself less persuaded by the idea that there's "always a risk" of any argument. Just because a debater says something does not mean it is true. It is up to the other team to prove that. However, if an argument is claimed to be supported by evidence and the cards do not say what the tags claim or the evidence is terrible, I'm willing to vote on no risk to that argument. Evidence needs to have warrants that support tags/claims.

*I prefer tags that are complete sentences. The proliferation of one word tags makes with massive card text (often without underlining) reduces the academic integrity of the activity.

*Evidence should be highlighted to include warrants for claims. I am more likely to vote on a few cards that have high quality warrants and explained well than I am to vote on several cards that have been highlighted down to the point that an argument cannot be discerned in the evidence.

* Teams are getting away with some real scholarly shenanigans on evidence. I've seen cards that run 6-7 pages long and they are highlighted down to a few sentences. I think it is up to the debaters to exploit this, but I'm less and less impressed by the overall scholarship in the activity.

*Arguments require claims and warrants. A claim without warrant is unlikely to be persuasive.

* A note on plan texts: start defending things. I find that most plans are extraordinarily vague and meaningless. They are "resolutional phrase by X." There's no plan text basis for the fiat claims AFF teams are making. All of the sudden, that becomes some wild extrapolation on how the plan is implemented, what a Court decision would look like, that it is done through some random memo, etc. all in an effort to avoid offense. I've just grown a little tired of it. I'm not saying change your plan because of me, you need to do what you need to do to win the round, but the overall acceptance of plans that do not say anything of substance is trend a frown upon.

*Performance/Non-traditional Affirmative -

I can still be persuaded to vote for an AFF that doesn't defend the topic, but it's become much harder for me. I find myself being increasingly on the side of defending the resolution.

My old paradigm read as follows: I would prefer that the debate is connected to the resolution. My ultimate preference would be for the Affirmative to defend a topical plan action that attempts to resolve a problem with the status quo. I think that this provides an opportunity for students to create harms that are tied to traditional internal link chains or critical argumentation. Teams should feel free to read critical advantages, but I would prefer that they access them through a topical plan action. For example, reading an Affirmative that finds a specific example of where structural violence (based on racism, sexism, heteronormativity, classism, etc.) is being perpetuated and seeks to remedy that can easily win my ballot. Debaters could then argue that the way that we make decisions about what should or should not be done should prioritize their impacts over the negative's. This can facilitate kritiks of DA impacts, decision calculus arguments, obligations to reject certain forms of violence, etc.

Teams who choose not to defend a topical plan action should be very clear in explaining what their advocacy is. The negative should be able to isolate a stasis point in the 1AC so that clash can occur in the debate. This advocacy should be germane to the resolution.

I am not wedded traditional forms of evidence. I feel that teams can use non-traditional forms of evidence as warrants explaining why a particular action should be taken. An Affirmative that prefers to use personal narratives, music, etc. to explain a harm occurring in the status quo and then uses that evidence to justify a remedy would be more than welcome. I tend to have a problem with Affirmative's that stop short of answering the question, "what should we do?" How a team plans to access that is entirely up to them.

*Kritik debates - I like kritik debates provided they are relevant to the Affirmative. Kritiks that are divorced from the 1AC have a harder time winning my ballot. While I do not want to box in the negative's kritik options, examples of kritiks that I would feel no qualms voting for might include criticisms of international relations, economics, state action, harms representations, or power relations. I am less persuaded by criticisms that operate on the margins of the Affirmative's advocacy. I would prefer links based off of the Affirmative plan. Kritiks that I find myself voting against most often include Deleuze, Baudrillard, Bataille, etc.

*Theory - Generally theory is a reason to reject the argument not the team. The exception is conditionality. I find myself less persuaded by conditionality bad debates if there are 2 or less advocacies in the round. That is not to say I haven't voted for the AFF in those debates. I am willing to vote on theory if it is well explained and impacted, but that does not happen often, so I end up defaulting negative. Avoid blips and theory blocks read at an incomprehensible rate.

*CP's CP's that result in the plan (consult, recommendations, etc.) bore me. I would much rather hear an agent CP, PIC, Advantage CP, etc. than a CP that competes off of "certainty" or "immediacy."

*Case - I'd like to see more of it. This goes for negative teams debating against nontraditional Affirmatives as well. You should engage the case as much as possible.

Other things
*If your strategy is extinction good or death good, genocide good, racism good, patriarchy good, etc. please do all of us as favor and strike me. These arguments strike me as being inappropriate for student environments. Imagine a world where a debater's relative recently passed away and that student is confronted with "death good" for 8 minutes of the 1AC. Imagine a family who fled slaughter in another part of the world and came to the United States, only to listen to genocide good. These are things I wouldn't allow in my classroom and I would not permit them in a debate round either. Since I can't actually prevent people from reading them, my only recourse is to use my ballot.

Overall:
1. Offense-defense, but can be persuaded by reasonability in theory debates. I don't believe in "zero risk" or "terminal defense" and don't vote on presumption.

2. Substantive questions are resolved probabilistically--only theoretical questions (e.g. is the perm severance, does the aff meet the interp) are resolved "yes/no," and will be done so with some unease, forced upon me by the logic of debate.

3. Dropped arguments are "true," but this just means the warrants for them are true. Their implication can still be contested. The exception to this is when an argument and its implication are explicitly conceded by the other team for strategic reasons (like when kicking out of a disad). Then both are "true."

Counterplans:
1. Conditionality bad is an uphill battle. I think it's good, and will be more convinced by the negative's arguments. I also don't think the number of advocacies really matters. Unless it was completely dropped, the winning 2AR on condo in front of me is one that explains why the way the negative's arguments were run together limited the ability of the aff to have offense on any sheet of paper.

2. I think of myself as aff-leaning in a lot of counterplan theory debates, but usually find myself giving the neg the counterplan anyway, generally because the aff fails to make the true arguments of why it was bad.

Disads:
1. I don't think I evaluate these differently than anyone else, really. Perhaps the one exception is that I don't believe that the affirmative needs to "win" uniqueness for a link turn to be offense. If uniqueness really shielded a link turn that much, it would also overwhelm the link. In general, I probably give more weight to the link and less weight to uniqueness.

2. On politics, I will probably ignore "intrinsicness" or "fiat solves the link" arguments, unless badly mishandled (like dropped through two speeches). Note: this doesn't apply to riders or horsetrading or other disads that assume voting aff means voting for something beyond the aff plan. Then it's winnable.

Kritiks:
1. I like kritiks, provided two things are true: 1--there is a link. 2--the thesis of the K indicts the truth of the aff. If the K relies on framework to make the aff irrelevant, I start to like it a lot less (role of the ballot = roll of the eyes). I'm similarly annoyed by aff framework arguments against the K. The K itself answers any argument for why policymaking is all that matters (provided there's a link). I feel negative teams should explain why the affirmative advantages rest upon the assumptions they critique, and that the aff should defend those assumptions.

2. I think I'm less technical than some judges in evaluating K debates. Something another judge might care about, like dropping "fiat is illusory," probably matters less to me (fiat is illusory specifically matters 0%). I also won't be as technical in evaluating theory on the perm as I would be in a counterplan debate (e.g. perm do both isn't severance just because the alt said "rejection" somewhere--the perm still includes the aff). The perm debate for me is really just the link turn debate. Generally, unless the aff impact turns the K, the link debate is everything.

3. If it's a critique of "fiat" and not the aff, read something else. If it's not clear from #1, I'm looking at the link first. Please--link work not framework. K debating is case debating.

Nontraditional affirmatives:

Versus T:

1. I'm *slightly* better for the aff now that aff teams are generally impact-turning the neg's model of debate. I almost always voted neg when they instead went for talking about their aff is important and thought their counter-interp somehow solved anything. Of course, there's now only like 3-4 schools that take me and don't read a plan. So I'm spared the debates where it's done particularly poorly.

2. A lot of things can be impacts to T, but fairness is probably best.

3. It would be nice if people read K affs with plans more, but I guess there's always LD. Honestly debating politics and util isn't that hard--bad disads are easier to criticize than fairness and truth.

Versus the K:
1. If it's a team's generic K against K teams, the aff is in pretty great shape here unless they forget to perm. I've yet to see a K aff that wasn't also a critique of cap, etc. If it's an on-point critique of the aff, then that's a beautiful thing only made beautiful because it's so rare. If the neg concedes everything the aff says and argues their methodology is better and no perms, they can probably predict how that's going to go. If the aff doesn't get a perm, there's no reason the neg would have to have a link.

Topicality versus plan affs:
1. I used to enjoy these debates. It seems like I'm voting on T less often than I used to, but I also feel like I'm seeing T debated well less often. I enjoy it when the 2NC takes T and it's well-developed and it feels like a solid option out of the block. What I enjoy less is when it isn't but the 2NR goes for it as a hail mary and the whole debate occurs in the last two speeches.

2. Teams overestimate the importance of "reasonability." Winning reasonability shifts the burden to the negative--it doesn't mean that any risk of defense on means the T sheet of paper is thrown away. It generally only changes who wins in a debate where the aff's counter-interp solves for most of the neg offense but doesn't have good offense against the neg's interp. The reasonability debate does seem slightly more important on CJR given that the neg's interp often doesn't solve for much. But the aff is still better off developing offense in the 1AR.

LD section:
1. I've been judging LD less, but I still have LD students, so my familarity with the topic will be greater than what is reflected in my judging history.

2. Everything in the policy section applies. This includes the part about substantive arguments being resolved probablistically, my dislike of relying on framework to preclude arguments, and not voting on defense or presumption. If this radically affects your ability to read the arguments you like to read, you know what to do.

3. If I haven't judged you or your debaters in a while, I think I vote on theory less often than I did say three years ago (and I might have already been on that side of the spectrum by LD standards, but I'm not sure). I've still never voted on an RVI so that hasn't changed.

4. The 1AR can skip the part of the speech where they "extend offense" and just start with the actual 1AR.

whitakerdebates@gmail.com

Currently working with Alpharetta, previously worked with Chattahoochee. I debated throughout high school, then at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma, and am now a member of U of West Georgia debate.

I’m comfortable with all speeds and styles, especially those regarding the k – I’m most familiar with poststructural + positional criticisms, though you should do whatever it is you do best – you can just as easily win with a plan, theory, framework, etc. If you want to test a sneaky new framework strategy, I'll happily adjudicate your chess match; if you're all about the Death K, well, I've done my fair share of that stuff too. Give me your best args and write my ballot. I privilege tech over truth and frequently vote for arguments that contravene my personal beliefs. I judge k affs frequently but this only thickens my belief that they need some relation to the resolution, even if only neg-neg. I thus also believe that the neg, in turn, needs to prove why either A) the aff links to harder to the k than squo does, or B) why that distinction doesn't matter - i.e. how I can vote without presumption and/or L/UQ or why presumption still goes neg, does not exist, sucks, whatever. I am not, personally, keen on the notion that presumption can flip aff, but am willing to entertain the argument and have voted on it when used to exploit a neg weakness.

I flow on paper, if you care. I'll say clear twice and then stop flowing anything incomprehensible. If you begin a speech in unsettling fashion (e.g. giving an inaccurate roadmap or jumping the gun with 400+wpm), I'll act flustered and require a few effervescently dramatic seconds to get my affairs in order. If I'm otherwise not flowing or I'm on the wrong sheet, it's because either you've created a mental backlog of arguments that I'm flowing in retrospect or I'm repackaging your arguments to make them more palatable to my flow, or both.

Some things that frustrate me: excessive rudeness (toward opponents or judges), offensive strategies (racism inevitable/good, for instance), and clipping (zeroes + L = bad time for you). The advent of digital debate brings with it a new and widespread sense of suspicion, and though I will do my best to catch any and all forms of cheating, I ask that debaters remain vigilant for it as well. Also, and I can’t believe I need to write this, please don’t engage in acts of self-harm to win my ballot (you know who you are). Instead, please demonstrate mastery of persuasion, word economy, and 2nr/2ar prescience – teams that reverse-engineer strategies and execute them methodically speech-by-speech impress me the most – a searing cross-ex is, of course, welcome – entertaining and innovative teams will be rewarded with speaker points.

A few final notes: not a huge fan of process counterplans (but I’ll still vote for them), conditionality is pretty good (as is neg fiat), link uniqueness wins k rounds, and maybe, just maybe, go for presumption.

add me to the email chain: whit211@gmail.com

Do not utter the phrase "plan text in a vacuum" or any other clever euphemism for it. It's not an argument, I won't vote on it, and you'll lose speaker points for advancing it. You should defend your plan, and I should be able to tell what the plan does by reading it.

Inserting things into the debate isn't a thing. If you want me to evaluate evidence, you should read it in the debate.

Cross-ex time is cross-ex time, not prep time. Ask questions or use your prep time, unless the tournament has an official "alt use" time rule.

You should debate line by line. That means case arguments should be responded to in the 1NC order and off case arguments should be responded to in the 2AC order. I continue to grow frustrated with teams that do not flow. If I suspect you are not flowing (I visibly see you not doing it; you answer arguments that were not made in the previous speech but were in the speech doc; you answer arguments in speech doc order instead of speech order), you will receive no higher than a 28. This includes teams that like to "group" the 2ac into sections and just read blocks in the 2NC/1NR. Also, read cards. I don't want to hear a block with no cards. This is a research activity.

Debate the round in a manner that you would like and defend it. I consistently vote for arguments that I don’t agree with and positions that I don’t necessarily think are good for debate. I have some pretty deeply held beliefs about debate, but I’m not so conceited that I think I have it all figured out. I still try to be as objective as possible in deciding rounds. All that being said, the following can be used to determine what I will most likely be persuaded by in close calls:

If I had my druthers, every 2nr would be a counterplan/disad or disad/case.

In the battle between truth and tech, I think I fall slightly on side of truth. That doesn’t mean that you can go around dropping arguments and then point out some fatal flaw in their logic in the 2AR. It does mean that some arguments are so poor as to necessitate only one response, and, as long as we are on the same page about what that argument is, it is ok if the explanation of that argument is shallow for most of the debate. True arguments aren’t always supported by evidence, but it certainly helps.

I think research is the most important aspect of debate. I make an effort to reward teams that work hard and do quality research on the topic, and arguments about preserving and improving topic specific education carry a lot of weight with me. However, it is not enough to read a wreck of good cards and tell me to read them. Teams that have actually worked hard tend to not only read quality evidence, but also execute and explain the arguments in the evidence well. I think there is an under-highlighting epidemic in debates, but I am willing to give debaters who know their evidence well enough to reference unhighlighted portions in the debate some leeway when comparing evidence after the round.

I think the affirmative should have a plan. I think the plan should be topical. I think topicality is a voting issue. I think teams that make a choice to not be topical are actively attempting to exclude the negative team from the debate (not the other way around). If you are not going to read a plan or be topical, you are more likely to persuade me that what you are doing is ‘ok’ if you at least attempt to relate to or talk about the topic. Being a close parallel (advocating something that would result in something similar to the resolution) is much better than being tangentially related or directly opposed to the resolution. I don’t think negative teams go for framework enough. Fairness is an impact, not a internal link. Procedural fairness is a thing and the only real impact to framework. If you go for "policy debate is key to skills and education," you are likely to lose. Winning that procedural fairness outweighs is not a given. You still need to defend against the other team's skills, education and exclusion arguments.

I don’t think making a permutation is ever a reason to reject the affirmative. I don’t believe the affirmative should be allowed to sever any part of the plan, but I believe the affirmative is only responsible for the mandates of the plan. Other extraneous questions, like immediacy and certainty, can be assumed only in the absence of a counterplan that manipulates the answers to those questions. I think there are limited instances when intrinsicness perms can be justified. This usually happens when the perm is technically intrinsic, but is in the same spirit as an action the CP takes This obviously has implications for whether or not I feel some counterplans are ultimately competitive.

Because I think topic literature should drive debates (see above), I feel that both plans and counterplans should have solvency advocates. There is some gray area about what constitutes a solvency advocate, but I don’t think it is an arbitrary issue. Two cards about some obscure aspect of the plan that might not be the most desirable does not a pic make. Also, it doesn’t sit well with me when negative teams manipulate the unlimited power of negative fiat to get around literature based arguments against their counterplan (i.e. – there is a healthy debate about federal uniformity vs state innovation that you should engage if you are reading the states cp). Because I see this action as comparable to an affirmative intrinsicness answer, I am more likely to give the affirmative leeway on those arguments if the negative has a counterplan that fiats out of the best responses.

My personal belief is probably slightly affirmative on many theory questions, but I don’t think I have voted affirmative on a (non-dropped) theory argument in years. Most affirmatives are awful at debating theory. Conditionality is conditionality is conditionality. If you have won that conditionality is good, there is no need make some arbitrary interpretation that what you did in the 1NC is the upper limit of what should be allowed. On a related note, I think affirmatives that make interpretations like ‘one conditional cp is ok’ have not staked out a very strategic position in the debate and have instead ceded their best offense. Appeals to reciprocity make a lot sense to me. ‘Argument, not team’ makes sense for most theory arguments that are unrelated to the disposition of a counterplan or kritik, but I can be persuaded that time investment required for an affirmative team to win theory necessitates that it be a voting issue.

Critical teams that make arguments that are grounded in and specific to the topic are more successful in front of me than those that do not. It is even better if your arguments are highly specific to the affirmative in question. I enjoy it when you paint a picture for me with stories about why the plans harms wouldn’t actually happen or why the plan wouldn’t solve. I like to see critical teams make link arguments based on claims or evidence read by the affirmative. These link arguments don’t always have to be made with evidence, but it is beneficial if you can tie the specific analytical link to an evidence based claim. I think alternative solvency is usually the weakest aspect of the kritik. Affirmatives would be well served to spend cross-x and speech time addressing this issue. ‘Our authors have degrees/work at a think tank’ is not a response to an epistemological indict of your affirmative. Intelligent, well-articulated analytic arguments are often the most persuasive answers to a kritik. 'Fiat' isn't a link. If your only links are 'you read a plan' or 'you use the state,' or if your block consistently has zero cards (or so few that find yourself regularly sending out the 2nc in the body rather than speech doc) then you shouldn't be preffing me.

LD Specific Business:

I am primarily a policy coach with very little LD experience. Have a little patience with me when it comes to LD specific jargon or arguments. It would behoove you to do a little more explanation than you would give to a seasoned adjudicator in the back of the room. I will most likely judge LD rounds in the same way I judge policy rounds. Hopefully my policy philosophy below will give you some insight into how I view debate. I have little tolerance and a high threshold for voting on unwarranted theory arguments. I'm not likely to care that they dropped your 'g' subpoint, if it wasn't very good. RVI's aren't a thing, and I won't vote on them.

Email: lemuel30034@gmail.com

I will listen to most arguments. I have problems with most theory arguments in LD. Topicality is like the death penalty so I proceed with care. I understand policy arguments and kritiks. I flow most of the time. If you have questions about what I think about your arguments you should ask.

I believe debaters should be civil to each other. I would prefer that high school students not use foul language in debates.

I am ok with performance debates. I do believe the teams should engage the topic. If a team chooses not to engage the topic, then I will give the other team leeway to deal with the lack of engagement.

Reverse voting issues do not make sense in most instances.

I am ok with counterplans and disadvantages.

I will vote for the team that makes the most sense at the end of the debate.

Judge Philosophy

Name: Lisa Willoughby

Current Affiliation: Midtown High School formerly Henry W. Grady High School

Conflicts: AUDL teams

Debate Experience: 1 year debating High School 1978-79, Coaching High School 1984-present

How many rounds have you judged in 2012-13: 50, 2013-2014: 45, 2015-2016: 25, 2016-17 15, 2017-2018: 30, 2018-19: 30, 2019-20:10, 2020-21: 40, 2021-2022: 35, 2022-2023:6

send evidence e-mail chain to quaintt@aol.com

I still view my self as a policy maker unless the debaters specify a different role for my ballot. I love impact comparison between disadvantages and advantages, what Rich Edwards used to call Desirability. I don’t mind the politics disad, but I am open to Kritiks of Politics.

I like Counterplans, especially case specific counterplans. I certainly think that some counterplans are arguably illegitimate; for example, I think that some international counterplans are utopian, and arguably claim advantages beyond the reciprocal scope of the affirmative, and are, therefore, unfair. I think that negatives should offer a solvency advocate for all aspects of their counterplan, and that multi-plank cps are problematic. I think that there are several reasons why consultation counterplans, and the States CP could be unfair. I will not vote unilaterally on any of these theoretical objections; the debaters need to demonstrate for me why a particular counterplan would be unfair.

I have a minor in Philosophy, and love good Kritik debate. Sadly, I have seen a lot of bad Kritik debate. I think that K debaters need to have a strong understanding of the K authors that they embrace. I really want to understand the alternative or the role of my ballot. I have no problem with a K Aff, but am certainly willing to vote on Framework/T against a case that does not have at least a clear advocacy statement that I can understand. I am persuadable on "AFF must be USFG."

I like Topicality, Theory and Framework arguments when they are merited. I want to see fair division of ground or discourse that allows both teams a chance to prepare and be ready to engage the arguments.

I prefer substance to theory; go for the theoretical objections when the abuse is real.

As for style, I love good line-by-line debate. I adore evidence comparison, and argument comparison. I am fairly comfortable with speed, but I like clarity. I have discovered that as I get older, I am very comfortable asking the students to "clear." I enjoy humor; I prefer entertaining cross-examinations to belligerent CX. Warrant your claims with evidence or reasoning.

Ultimately, I demand civility: any rhetoric, language, performance or interactions that demean, dehumanize or trivialize fellow debaters, their arguments or judges would be problematic, and I believe, a voting issue.

An occasional interruption of a partner’s speech or deferring to a more expert partner to answer a CX question is not a problem in my view. Generally only one debater at a time should be speaking. Interruptions of partner speeches or CX that makes one partner merely a ventriloquist for the other are extremely problematic.

Clipping cards is cheating. Quoting authors or evidence out of context, or distorting the original meaning of a text or narrative is both intellectually bankrupt and unfair.

There is no such thing as one ideal form or type of debate. I love the clash of ideas and argumentation. That said, I prefer discourse that is educational, and substantive. I want to walk away from a round, as I often do, feeling reassured that the policy makers, educators, and citizens of the future will seek to do a reasonable and ethical job of running the world.

For Lincoln Douglas debates:

I am "old school" and feel most comfortable in a Value/Criterion Framework, but it is your debate to frame. Because I judge policy frequently, I am comfortable with speed but generally find it is needless. Clarity is paramount. Because of the limited time, I find that I typically err AFF on theoretical objections much more than I would in a policy round.

I believe that any argument that an AFF wants to weigh in the 2AR needs to be in the 1AR. I will vote against new 2AR arguments.

I believe that NEG has an obligation to clash with the AFF. For this reason, a counterplan would only be justified in a round when the AFF argues for a plan; otherwise a counterplan is an argument for the AFF. The NEG must force a decision, and for that reason, I am not fond of what used to be called a 'balance neg.'

she/her/hers

La Costa Canyon/Leucadia Independent 2012-2016

Emory University 2016-2019

Yes, I want to be on your email chain: gabi.yamout1@gmail.com

Read into these

• an argument has a claim, warrant, and impact
• line by line is important
• try or die is a bad way to make decisions
• zero risk is possible

Affs:

Do your thing. I prefer affs to have a tie to the topic in some way.

Framework/T-USfg:

Sure. Impact comparison is important. I don't like late-breaking cross applications in these debates.

Kritiks:

I do not read very much high theory/postmodernism literature.

Do good, specific link work, make smart turns case arguments, and use empirical examples to demonstrate your argument.

You are unlikely to convince me that the K should be rejected on face, or that the aff shouldn't get to weigh the implementation of their plan.

Topicality:

Love it. Please please please do impact comparison. Have a clearly articulated vision of what the topic would look like under both interpretations. Reasonability is best articulated as an argument for aff predictability.

You should assume I know little about the HS topic - that means your examples (eg what affirmatives the aff's interp would allow) need to be explained.

Counterplans:

Cool. I like advantage counterplan debates.

Disads:

Love to hear topic DAs, and I like impact turn debates.

Misc:

• I don’t have a strong opinion about conditionality.
• The shorter your overviews, the better your speaks.
• Create as much spin as you can - control the way I look at issues and pieces of evidence.
• Death is bad.
• If a team asks to use prep to ask more cx questions, feel free to say no. And no, you can't use your cx as prep.
• Don't be an asshole.

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

High School: Wooster High School // College: Trinity University // Coach: MBA 2017-2022

----------------

Topicality vs Plans

I find well-executed T debates some of the most fun debates to judge. However, that requires a few things from the neg: a definition grounded in the resolutional wording and context; a clear explanation why your vision of the topic either shifts the state of current debating on the topic to a better place or prevents debate from slipping into a worse place; cards on the offensive portions of the debate. I would also caution neg teams stop making contradictory arguments on other theory portions (think: condo).

As for the aff in these debates—I’m open to whatever offense you want to go for, but you must do impact calculus.

Topicality vs Planless

I lean heavily neg in these debates. When I do vote neg, it is because the aff has not adequately described a link between their impacts, their solvency mechanism, and the ballot. Exclusion impacts need a solution that rests within your model of debate, and that is something you need to prove just as the neg needs to explain why the ballot remedies a loss of fairness or clash.

Neg teams: go for fairness. Skills, clash (alone), and education are more hassle than they’re worth.

CPs

I lean neg on broader theory questions. I don’t think many if any debaters understand functional/textual competition. Permutations are bad for the neg when you’re debating a team that writes them well, but I think that clarity in how the CP operates and what actions it specifically takes is necessary to explaining away perms. I find neg teams are short on explaining what the CP does. I like process CPs, but again, be smart on perms. I am not a fan of fiating in a DA.

DAs

If you’re taking a DA in the 1NR and have all that prep time, please use it to read through the 1AC and find solid, supported turns case arguments. If you do, your life and mine become much easier at the end of the debate.

Kritiks

Neg teams need to have a theory of how the world operates and defend it, use it to extrapolate links, etc. I find that when neg teams are asked a question of, “how do you know [the link] is true?” they usually stare blankly into the distance. I like kritik debates, but find myself being frustrated by a lack of link analysis and application to the aff. I am close to 50/50 on the framework portion of K neg vs aff, but I need good impact analysis as to why I should include more than the plan itself. Link debating for the K should operate more than to get you from aff-to-big impact, it should become solvency answers, reasons to reject the team, case turns, etc.

Aff teams need to defend the truths of the plan. Win framework, win the aff is a good and necessary action. Make sure to answer well-done link debate or you risk losing to small concessions that take out the truths you attempt to defend. I don’t think teams impact turn K’s enough (both thesis level impact turns as well as alternative/method turns). If you win the aff, I will look at you favorably.

Contact Info:
jzuckerman@glenbrook225.org
gbsdebatelovesdocs@gmail.com

Questions/comments:
If you contact me for feedback, please CC your coach in the email or I will not respond.

Current School:
Glenbrook South

Prior Schools:
Glenbrook North, 18-23
Blue Valley Southwest, 10-18
Blue Valley North, 04-10

Greenhill Disclaimer:

–I did not work a camp this summer and thus have little familiarity with topic specific terminology, mechanisms, or the basic t arguments. Please take that into account.

-I spent the past 2-3 years working with students in congressional debate and novice policy.

-Don't assume I know as much as you do about how the economy works.

General Disclaimer:

–Slow down, care about clarity, and have speech docs in a usable format that both teams can use. Manage your own prep and start the debate on time.

–I don’t know anything about non-policy arguments. I err neg on the importance of being topical.

–I am not qualified to judge a debate based on things taking place outside of the round.

–On a scale of evidence versus in round performance, I slightly learn towards the performance.