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1st and 2nd Year National Championships at Woodward Academy

2018 — Atlanta, GA/US

Lincoln-Douglas Paradigm List

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Tim Alderete The Meadows School

Lucas Bryant West Des Moines Valley HS

Last changed on Fri November 5, 2021 at 1:28 PM CDT

Apple Valley 2021 update - ballot specifically instructs me: "In the novice division, debaters are expected to make arguments that are appropriate for their experience level. Judges should consider only arguments that, in their best judgement, are explained in a way that a first-semester novice could reasonably be expected to understand and effectively engage."

So, I will exclude certain arguments from evaluation for the first time ever. What certain arguments? I'll know it when I see it but as a general guide: easy to understand apriori's and NIBs are fine, but Lacan, insanely dense trick affs, theory shells, most pre-fiat offense, I will ignore. If you have a question about any specific argument don't be afraid to ask, I'll be in round room as early as possible.

Updated - 9/22/2019

Hi, I’m Lucas Bryant, I debated for around 4 years on the national circuit in LD and have dabbled in policy, congress once, and PF like twice.

Email - bryant.lucas1205@gmail.com

General info- primary role is minimizing intervention and be tab, assumptions like the AC is 6 minutes and conceded arguments are true I will enforce probably unless convinced otherwise. Everything is fair game. Also, tech > truth. For lay, I give leeway if neither debater extends but if one does and the other doesn't it's an auto-L for the person who didn't.

Speaks- I use John Staunton's speaks mechanism now. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uiw9hvdy5yl0t1h/Speaker%20Points.pdf?dl=0

Framework- losing influence in the meta which is a shame, determines what offense is / what impacts are/ how to weigh. I default to epistemic confidence, Biggest mistake in framework rounds is just a bunch of conceded preclusion claims with no interaction, I’ll attempt to resolve these by doing work myself which I don’t want to do.

-TJFs: fine and strategic, maybe abusive, idk that's for y'all to settle.

-Triggers/Contingent Standards: abusive but can be funny

-Skep: mixed feelings, seems lazy in terms of debate application, read unique skep args plz. Skep aff’s are always welcome btw.

-Impact justified fwrks: are awful and hurt my feelings, this won’t hurt your speaks or change my evaluation if it's not an issue brought up by the debaters in the round

Theory- I understand theory for it's strategic purpose. I don’t default on any paradigm issue, they should be in round, things like spirit v text of interp obviously don’t matter if no semantic I-meets are made. Also, I’m fine if counter-interp txt is just “I’ll defend the violation” or “converse / inverse of their interp”. I will never “gut check” against theory args. The "frivolous" nature of shells is determined in round.

-Interps: don’t repeat while extending, I got it the first time, just say “extend the interp”. You should flash this / type it out at a minimum. Don’t be too lengthy or too short. Positively / Negatively worded interp as metatheory makes no sense to me - still will vote on it though.

-offensive counter-interps: just read it a new off / meta-theory shell, calling it an offensive counter-interp seems like you’re just trying to get an RVI when you don’t need one to begin with.

-spikes: are great and some are probably a bit necessary depending on the flavor of the aff. I’m totally fine with hearing a 5 min UV with generic pre-empts and your speaks won’t suffer, you do you.

-disclosure: My opinions don’t matter in round, I’ll vote on disclosure happily if you won it but won’t like cap speaks or vote someone down solely for not disclosing if it’s not mentioned in-round.

K’s- where some of the best debates happen, nothing is cooler than an amazing 2nr collapse, but be slightly original please.

-Performance: they’re fine, make it clear whether or not the act of performance is pre-fiat offense for you.

-Literature: not going to list what I’ve read or authors I like, if you have a concern just ask before the round. My familiarity with any lit base has no influence on my decision. If an understandable claim is conceded that has a complex warrant, an absurdly long explanation isnt necessary.

-K’s v/of Framework: probably slightly abusive possibly but eh who cares, I'll default to the ROTB and standard/value criterion being on the same layer - if Kant is evil in it's application (w/o any like Teehan weighing) but it's true in determining what is ethical then that doesn't matter. Preclusion / Hijack claims make sense in this debate.

-“Going Right”: is maybe not as strategic but equally compelling, read theory to not engage if you want too, or even better, do both.

LARP- plans are cool, soft-left aff’s are dominating right now but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good extinction impact. I've done a decent bit of LARPing (reading a burner aff, crazy strategic) but rarely against a larp debater so not sure how I would be at resolving a pure Adv CP v. plan strat. But I've been in these rounds and babe some experience, it probably won't be an issue.

Misc- sit, stand, lay on the floor or levitate, idc as long as I can hear you clearly. Flashing isn’t prep time but if everyone in round wants it to be then it’s up to y’all. Embedded clash doesn’t exist unless made explicit or it’s your opponents lack of signposting / messiness was the cause of why an argument would need to be evaluated with embedded clash. If there's anything I didn't explicitly mention, just ask.

Matt Cekanor Marquette Univ HS

Last changed on Thu January 4, 2024 at 6:02 AM CDT

Experience-This will be my fifth year as the head coach at Northview High School. Before moving to Georgia, I coached for 7 years at Marquette High in Milwaukee, WI.

Yes, add me to the email chain. My email is mcekanordebate@gmail.com

*As I have gained more coaching and judging experience, I find that I highly value teams who respect their opponents who might not have the same experience as them. This includes watching how you come across in CX, prep time, and your general comportment towards your opponent. In some local circuits, circuit-style policy debate is dwindling and we all have a responsibility to be respectful of the experience of everyone trying to be involved in policy debate.*

I recommend that you go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles before the debate rather than before a speech.

LD Folks please read the addendum at the end of my paradigm.

Meta-Level Strike Sheet Concerns

1. Debates are rarely won or lost on technical concessions or truth claims alone. In other words, I think the “tech vs. truth” distinction is a little silly. Technical concessions make it more complicated to win a debate, but rarely do they make wins impossible. Keeping your arguments closer to “truer” forms of an argument make it easier to overcome technical concessions because your arguments are easier to identify, and they’re more explicitly supported by your evidence (or at least should be). That being said, using truth alone as a metric of which of y’all to pick up incentivizes intervention and is not how I will evaluate the debate.

2. Evidence quality matters a bunch to me- it’s evidence that you have spent time and effort on your positions, it’s a way to determine the relative truth level of your claims, and it helps overcome some of the time constraints of the activity in a way that allows you to raise the level of complexity of your position in a shorter amount of time. I will read your evidence throughout the debate, especially if it is on a position with which I’m less familiar. I won’t vote on evidence comparison claims unless it becomes a question of the debate raised by either team, but I will think about how your evidence could have been used more effectively by the end of the debate. I enjoy rewarding teams for evidence quality.

3. Every debate could benefit from more comparative work particularly in terms of the relative quality of arguments/the interactions between arguments by the end of the round. Teams should ask "Why?", such as "If I win this argument, WHY is this important?", "If I lose this argument WHY does this matter?". Strategically explaining the implications of winning or losing an argument is the difference between being a middle of the road team and a team advancing to elims.

4. Some expectations for what should be present in arguments that seem to have disappeared in the last few years-

-For me to vote on a single argument, it must have a claim, warrant, impact, and impact comparison.

-A DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link and impact argument is presented.Too many teams are getting away with 2 card DA shells in the 1NC and then reading uniqueness walls in the block. I will generally allow for new 1AR answers.

Similarly, CP's should have a solvency advocate read in the 1NC. I'll be flexible on allowing 1AR arguments in a world where the aff makes an argument about the lack of a solvency advocate.

-Yes, terminal defense exists, however, I do not think that teams take enough advantage of this kind of argument in front of me. I will not always evaluate the round through a lens of offense-defense, but you still need to make arguments as to why I shouldn’t by at least explaining why your argument functions as terminal defense. Again this plays into evidence questions and the relative impacts of arguments claims made above.

Specifics

Case-Debates are won or lost in the case debate. By this, I mean that proving whether or not the aff successfully accesses all, some or none of the case advantages has implications on every flow of the debate and should be a fundamental question of most 2NRs and 2ARs. I think that blocks that are heavy in case defense or impact turns are incredibly advantageous for the neg because they enable you to win any CP (by proving the case defense as a response to the solvency deficit), K (see below) or DA (pretty obvious). I'm also more likely than others to write a presumption ballot or vote neg on inherency arguments. If the status quo solves your aff or you're not a big enough divergence, then you probably need to reconsider your approach to the topic.

Most affs can be divided into two categories: affs with a lot of impacts but poor internal links and affs with very solid internal links but questionable impacts. Acknowledging in which of these two categories the aff you are debating falls should shape how you approach the case debate. I find myself growing increasingly disappointed by negative teams that do not test weak affirmatives. Where's your internal link defense?? I also miss judging impact turn debates, but don't think that spark or wipeout are persuasive arguments. A high level de-dev debate or heg debate, on the other hand, love it.

DA-DAs are questions of probability. Your job as the aff team when debating a DA is to use your defensive arguments to question the probability of the internal links to the DA. Affirmative teams should take more advantage of terminal defense against disads. I'll probably also have a lower threshold for your theory arguments on the disad. Likewise, the neg should use turns case arguments as a reason why your DA calls into question the probability of the aff's internal links. Don't usually find "____ controls the direction of the link" arguments very persuasive. You need to warrant out that claim more if you're going to go for it. Make more rollback-style turns case arguments or more creative turns case arguments to lower the threshold for winning the debate on the disad alone.

CP-CP debates are about the relative weight of a solvency deficit versus the relative weight of the net benefit. The team that is more comparative when discussing the solvency level of these debates usually wins the debate. While, when it is a focus of the debate, I tend to err affirmative on questions of counterplan competiton, I have grown to be more persuaded by a well-executed counterplan strategy even if the counterplan is a process counterplan. The best counterplans have a solvency advocate who is, at least, specific to the topic, and, best, specific to the affirmative. I do not default to judge kicking the counterplan and will be easily persuaded by an affirmative argument about why I should not default to that kind of in-round conditionality. Not a huge fan of the NGA CP and I've voted three out of four times on intrinsic permutations against this counterplan so just be warned. Aff teams should take advantage of presumption arguments against the CP.

K-Used to have a bunch of thoughts spammed here that weren't too easy to navigate pre-round. I've left that section at the bottom of the paradigm for the historical record, but here's the cleaned up version:

What does the ballot do? What is the ballot absolutely incapable of doing? What does the ballot justify? No matter if you are on the aff or the neg, defending the topic or not, these are the kinds of questions that you need to answer by the end of the debate. As so much of K debating has become framework debates on the aff and the neg, I often find myself with a lot of floating pieces of offense that are not attached to a clear explanation of what a vote in either direction can/can't do.

T-Sitting through a bunch of framework debates has made me a better judge for topicality than I used to be. Comparative impact calculus alongside the use of strategic defensive arguments will make it easier for me to vote in a particular direction. Certain interps have a stronger internal link to limits claims and certain affs have better arguments for overlimiting. Being specific about what kind of offense you access, how it comes first, and the relative strength of your internal links in these debates will make it more likely that you win my ballot. I’m not a huge fan of tickytacky topicality claims but, if there’s substantial contestation in the literature, these can be good debates.

Theory- I debated on a team that engaged in a lot of theory debates in high school. There were multiple tournaments where most of our debates boiled down to theory questions, so I would like to think that I am a good judge for theory debates. I think that teams forget that theory debates are structured like a disadvantage. Again, comparative impact calculus is important to win my ballots in these debates. I will say that I tend to err aff on most theory questions. For example, I think that it is probably problematic for there to be more than one conditional advocacy in a round (and that it is equally problematic for your counter interpretation to be dispositionality) and I think that counterplans that compete off of certainty are bad for education and unfair to the aff. The biggest killer in a theory debate is when you just read down your blocks and don’t make specific claims. Debate like your

Notes for the Blue Key RR/Other LD Judging Obligations

Biggest shift for me in judging LD debates is the following: No tricks or intuitively false arguments. I'll vote on dropped arguments, but those arguments need a claim, data, warrant and an impact for me to vote on them. If I can't explain the argument back to you and the implications of that argument on the rest of the debate, I'm not voting for you.

I guess this wasn't clear enough the first time around- I don't flow off the document and your walls of framework and theory analytics are really hard to flow when you don't put any breaks in between them.

Similarly, phil debates are always difficult for me to analyze. I tend to think affirmative's should defend implementation particularly when the resolution specifies an actor. Outside of my general desire to see some debates about implementation, I don't have any kind of background in the phil literature bases and so will have a harder time picturing the implications of you winning specific arguments. If you want me to understand how your argumets interact, you will have to do a lot of explanation.

Theory debates- Yes, I said that I enjoy theory debates in my paradigm above and that is largely still true, but CX theory debates are a lot less technical than LD debates. I also think there are a lot of silly theory arguments in LD and I tend to have a higher threshold for those sorts of arguments. I also don't have much of a reference for norm setting in LD or what the norms actually are. Take that into account if you choose to go for theory and probably don't because I won't award you with high enough speaks for your liking.

K debates- Yes, I enjoy K debates but I tend to think that their LD variant is very shallow. You need to do more specific work in linking to the affirmative and developing the implications of your theory of power claims. While I enjoy good LD debates on the K, I always feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify a ballot in either direction. This is magnified by the limited amount of time that you have to develop your positions.

Old K Paradigm (2020-2022)

After y’all saw the school that I coach, I’m sure this is where you scrolled to first which is fair enough given how long it takes to fill out pref sheets. I will say, if you told me 10 years ago when I began coaching that I’d be coaching a team that primarily reads the K on the aff and on the neg, I probably would have found that absurd because that wasn’t my entry point into the activity so keep that in mind as you work with some of the thoughts below. That being said, I’ve now coached the K at a high level for the past two years which means that I have some semblance of a feeling for a good K debate. If the K is not something that you traditionally go for, you’re better off going for what you’re best at.

The best debates on the K are debates over the explanatory power of the negative’s theory of power relative to the affirmative’s specific example of liberalism, realism, etc. Put another way, the best K debaters are familiar enough with their theory of power AND the affirmative’s specific impact scenarios that they use their theory to explain the dangers of the aff. By the end of the 2NR I should have a very clear idea of what the affirmative does and how your theory explains why doing the affirmative won’t resolve the aff’s impacts or results in a bad thing. This does not necessarily mean that you need to have links to the affirmative’s mechanism (that’s probably a bit high of a research burden), but your link explanations need to be specific to the aff and should be bolstered by specific quotes from 1AC evidence or CX. The specificity of your link explanation should be sufficient to overcome questions of link-uniqueness or I’ll be comfortable voting on “your links only link to the status quo.”

On the flipside, aff teams need to explain why their contingency or specific example of policy action cannot be explained by the negative’s theory of power or that, even if some aspects can be, that the specificity of the aff’s claims justifies voting aff anyway because there’s some offense against the alternative or to the FW ballot. Affirmative teams that use the specificity of the affirmative to generate offense or push back against general link claims will win more debates than those that just default to generic “extinction is irreversible” ballots.

Case Page when going for the K- My biggest pet peeve with the current meta on the K is the role of the case page. Neither the affirmative nor the negative take enough advantage of this page to really stretch out their opponents on this question. For the negative, you need to be challenging the affirmative’s internal links with defense that can bolster some of your thesis level claims. Remember, you are trying to DISPROVE the affirmative’s contingent/specific policy which means that the more specificity you have the better off you will be. This means that just throwing your generic K links onto the case page probably isn’t the move. 9/10 the alternative doesn’t resolve them and you don’t have an explanation of how voting neg resolves the offense. K teams so frequently let policy affs get away with some really poor evidence quality and weak internal links. Please help the community and deter policy teams from reading one bad internal link to their heg aff against your [INSERT THEORY HERE] K. On that note, policy teams, why are you removing your best internal links when debating the K? Your generic framework cards are giving the neg more things to impact turn and your explanation of the internal link level of the aff is lowered when you do that. Read your normal aff against the K and just square up.

Framework debates (with the K on the neg) For better or worse, so much of contemporary K debate is resolved in the framework debate. The contemporary dependence on framework ballots means a couple of things:

1.) Both teams need to do more work here- treat this like a DA and a CP. Compare the relative strength of internal link claims and impact out the terminal impacts. Why does procedural fairness matter? What is the terminal impact to clash? How do we access your skills claims? What does/does not the ballot resolve? To what extent does the ballot resolve those things? The team that usually answers more of these questions usually wins these debates. K teams need to do more to push back against “ballot can solve procedural fairness” claims and aff teams need to do more than just “schools, family, culture, etc.” outweigh subject formation. Many of you all spend more time at debate tournaments or doing debate work than you do at school or doing schoolwork.

2.) I do think it’s possible for the aff to win education claims, but you need to do more comparative impact calculus. What does scenario planning do for subject formation that is more ethical than whatever the impact scenario is to the K? If you can’t explain your education claims at that level, just go for fairness and explain why the ballot can resolve it.

3.) Risk of the link- Explain what winning framework does for how much of a risk of a link that I need to justify a ballot either way. Usually, neg teams will want to say that winning framework means they get a very narrow risk of a link to outweigh. I don’t usually like defaulting to this but affirmative teams very rarely push back on this risk calculus in a world where they lose framework. If you don’t win that you can weigh the aff against the K, aff teams need to think about how they can use their scenarios as offense against the educational claims of the K. This can be done as answers to the link arguments as well, though you’ll probably need to win more pieces of defense elsewhere on the flow to make this viable.

Do I go for the alternative?

I don’t think that you need to go for the alternative if you have a solid enough framework push in the 2NR. However, few things to keep in mind here:

1.) I won’t judge kick the alternative for you unless you explicitly tell me to do it and include a theoretical justification for why that’s possible.

2.) The framework debate should include some arguments about how voting negative resolves the links- i.e. what is the kind of ethical subject position endorsed on the framework page that pushes us towards research projects that avoid the links to the critique? How does this position resolve those links?

3.) Depending on the alternative and the framework interpretation, some of your disads to the alternative will still link to the framework ballot. Smart teams will cross apply these arguments and explain why that complicates voting negative.

K affs (Generic)

Yes, I’m comfortable evaluating debates involving the K on the aff and think that I’ve reached a point where I’m pretty good for either side of this debate. Affirmative teams need to justify an affirmative ballot that beats presumption, especially if you’re defending status quo movements as examples of the aff’s method. Both teams benefit from clarifying early in the round whether or not the affirmative team spills up, whether or not in-round performances specific to this debate resolve any of the affirmative offense, and whatever the accumulation of ballots does or does not do for the aff. Affirmative teams that are not the Louisville project often get away with way too much by just reading a DSRB card and claiming their ballots function the same way. Aff teams should differentiate their ballot claims and negatives should make arguments about the aff’s homogenizing ballot claims. All that being said, like I discussed above, these debates are won and lost on the case page like any other debate. As the K becomes more normalized and standardized to a few specific schools of thought, I have a harder and harder time separating the case and framework pages on generic “we couldn’t truth test your arguments” because I think that shifts a bit too strongly to the negative. That said, I can be persuaded to separate the two if there’s decent time spent in the final rebuttals on this question.

Framework vs. the K Aff

Framework debates are best when both teams spend time comparing the realities of debate in the status quo and the idealized form of debate proposed in model v. model rounds. In that light, both teams need to be thinking about what proposing framework in a status quo where the K is probably going to stick around means for those teams that currently read the K and for those teams that prefer to directly engage the resolution. In a world where the affirmative defends the counter interpretation, the affirmative should have an explanation of what happens when team don’t read an affirmative that meets their model. Most of the counter interpretations are arbitrary or equivalent to “no counter interpretation”, but an interp being arbitrary is just defense that you can still outweigh depending on the offense you’re winning.

In impact turn debates, both teams need to be much clearer about the terminal impacts to their offense while providing an explanation as to why voting in either direction resolves them. After sitting in so many of these debates, I tend to think that the ballot doesn’t do much for either team but that means that teams who have a better explanation of what it means to win the ballot will usually pick up my decision. You can’t just assert that voting negative resolves procedural fairness without warranting that out just like you can’t assert that the aff resolves all forms of violence in debate through a single debate. Both teams need to grapple with how the competitive incentives for debate establish offense for either side. The competitive incentive to read the K is strong and might counteract some of the aff’s access to offense, but the competitive incentives towards framework also have their same issues. Neither sides hands are clean on that question and those that are willing to admit it are usually better off. I have a hard time setting aside clash as an external impact due to the fact that I’m just not sure what the terminal impact is. I like teams that go for clash and think that it usually is an important part of negative strategy vs. the K, but I think this strategy is best when the clash warrants are explained as internal link turns to the aff’s education claims. Some of this has to due with the competitive incentives arguments that I’ve explained above. Both teams need to do more work explaining whether or not fairness or education claims come first. It’s introductory-level impact analysis I find lacking in many of these debates.

Other things to think about-

1.) These debates are at their worst when either team is dependent on blocks. Framework teams should be particularly cautious about this because they’ve had less of these debates over the course of the season, however, K teams are just as bad at just reading their blocks through the 1AR. I will try to draw a clean line between the 1AR and the 2AR and will hold a pretty strict one in debates where the 1AR is just screaming through blocks. Live debating contextualized to this round far outweighs robots with pre-written everything.

2.) I have a hard time pulling the trigger on arguments with “quitting the activity” as a terminal impact. Any evidence on either side of this question is usually anecdotal and that’s not enough to justify a ballot in either direction. There are also a bunch of alternative causes to numbers decline like the lack of coaches, the increased technical rigor of high-level policy debate, budgets, the pandemic, etc. that I think thump most of these impacts for either side. More often than not, the people that are going to stick with debate are already here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to the kinds of harms to the activity/teams as teams on either side of the clash question learn to coexist.

K vs. K Debates (Overview)

I’ll be perfectly honest, unless this is a K vs. Cap debate, these are the debates that I’m least comfortable evaluating because I feel like they end up being some of the messiest and “gooiest” debates possible. That being said, I think that high level K vs. K debates can be some of the most interesting to evaluate if both teams have a clear understanding of the distinctions between their positions, are able to base their theoretical distinctions in specific, grounded examples that demonstrate potential tradeoffs between each position, and can demonstrate mutual exclusivity outside of the artificial boundary of “no permutations in a method debate.” At their best, these debates require teams to meet a high research burden which is something that I like to reward so if your strat is specific or you can explain it in a nuanced way, go for it. That said, I’m not the greatest for teams whose generic position in these debates are to read “post-truth”/pomo arguments against identity positions and I feel uncomfortable resolving competing ontology claims in debates around identity unless they are specific and grounded. I feel like most debates are too time constrained to meaningfully resolve these positions. Similarly, teams that read framework should be cautious about reading conditional critiques with ontology claims- i.e. conditional pessimism with framework. I’m persuaded by theoretical arguments about conditional ontology claims regarding social death and cross apps to framework in these debates.

I won’t default to “no perms in a methods debate”, though I am sympathetic to the theoretical arguments about why affs not grounded in the resolution are too shifty if they are allowed to defend the permutation. What gets me in these debates is that I think that the affirmative will make the “test of competition”-style permutation arguments anyway like “no link” or the aff is a disad/prereq to the alt regardless of whether or not there’s a permutation. I can’t just magically wave a theory wand here and make those kinds of distinctions go away. It lowers the burden way too much for the negative and creates shallow debates. Let’s have a fleshed out theory argument and you can persuade me otherwise. The aff still needs to win access to the permutation, but if you lose the theory argument still make the same kinds of arguments if you had the permutation. Just do the defensive work to thump the links.

Cap vs. K- I get the strategic utility of these debates, but this debate is becoming pretty stale for me. Teams that go for state-good style capitalism arguments need to explain the process of organization, accountability measures, the kind of party leadership, etc. Aff teams should generate offense off of these questions. Teams that defend Dean should have to defend psychoanalysis answers. Teams that defend Escalante should have specific historical examples of dual power working or not in 1917 or in post-Bolshevik organization elsewhere. Aff teams should force Dean teams to defend psycho and force Escalante teams to defend historical examples of dual power. State crackdown arguments should be specific. I fear that state crackdown arguments will apply to both the alternative and the aff and the team that does a better job describing the comparative risk of crackdown ends up winning my argument. Either team should make more of a push about what it means to shift our research practices towards or away from communist organizing. There are so many debates where we have come to the conclusion that the arguments we make in debate don’t spill out or up and, yet, I find debates where we are talking about politically organizing communist parties are still stuck in some universe where we are doing the actual organizing in a debate round. Tell me what a step towards the party means for our research praxis or provide disads to shifting the resource praxis. All the thoughts on the permutation debate are above. I’m less likely to say no permutation in these debates because there is plenty of clash in the literature between, at least, anti-capitalism and postcapitalism that there can be a robust debate even if you don’t have specifics. That being said, the more you can make ground your theory in specific examples the better off you’ll be.

Betsy Cohen Lake Highland Preparatory

Madi Crowley Lake Highland Preparatory

Tom Evnen Lake Highland Preparatory

Last changed on Wed January 10, 2024 at 5:38 AM EDT

I’m the Executive Director of National Symposium for Debate, as well as the site director for NSD’s Flagship LD camp. I’m also an assistant LD coach for Lake Highland Prep.

I debated circuit LD for 4 years in high school, and I graduated in 2003. For what it’s worth, I cleared twice at TOC, and I was in finals my senior year. Since then, I have actively coached LD on the national circuit. For a period, I was a full time classroom teacher and debate coach. I have also coached individually and worked as an assistant coach for a number of circuit programs. I coach/judge at 8-10 TOC level tournaments per year.

Email for docs: tomevnen@gmail.com

TLDR rankings:
K - 1
Phil - 1
Policy - 2
Theory - 1
Tricks - 2
T vs K aff; K aff vs T - 1 (I’m happy on both sides of these debates, regularly vote both ways in these debates, and coach both ways in these debates)

Longer explanation of rankings:

Re my policy ranking - Feel free to read these arguments in front of me. I vote for them frequently. I’ll admit that I do the least amount of thinking and researching on the policy wing of topics. This probably makes me an OK, but not excellent, judge of policy vs policy rounds. In policy vs something else rounds, the 2 ranking doesn’t affect things much, except see paragraph below.

Re my tricks ranking - Again, feel free to read these arguments in front of me. I vote for them (and against them) frequently. I find well thought out tricks that are integrated with the substance of your phil framework or K interesting. I find a lot of other tricks fairly boring. Again, see paragraph below on adaptation.

Generally speaking, I won’t have any objection to what you read. You are usually better off reading your A strategy in front of me than substantially diverging from that strategy to adapt to me. When relevant, you should tweak your A strategy to recognize that I am also open to and comfortable with the standard maneuvers of debate styles other than yours. For example, if your preference is policy arguments and you are debating a K, you should recognize that I won’t functionally assume you can cross-apply the aff or that extinction outweighs the K, when contested. Similarly, if you are a phil debater, you should recognize that I won’t functionally assume that your phil framework precludes the util tricks (modesty, extinction first, etc.).

Whatever your style, if you have thought carefully about strategic interactions with opposing styles, and you are comfortable winning those debates in front of a judge who does not assume all of your priors, I will be a fine judge for you. If you need a judge who is strictly “in your lane” stylistically, then there will be matchups where I am not your ideal judge.

In terms of my familiarity with arguments: in phil lit, I am well read in analytic and continental philosophy (less so analytic philosophy, except in the area of ethics) and in the groups in between (Hegel and post-Hegelians, for example). In K lit, I’m well read in critical/Marxist theory and high theory, and I’m pretty comfortable (though slightly less well read) with the identity literature. I actively coach debaters on all of the above, as well as on theory, T vs K affs, K affs vs T, and (some) tricks. My debaters read some policy args, and there are scenarios where I encourage that, but I am less involved in coaching those arguments.

Miscellaneous

As a general policy, I don't disclose speaks.

Generally speaking, I'm not very receptive to arguments like "evaluate after the 1n" or "no neg analytics" (you know the genre). I'm fine with these arguments when they are scenario specific, and you can give an explanation why a type of argument needed to be made in a specific speech; obviously those arguments are sometimes true. Otherwise, I don't think these arguments are worth reading in front of me -- I never find myself comfortable making decisions based on sweeping claims that mean debaters generally can't respond to arguments.

Andrew Gong Harvard-Westlake School

Last changed on Mon April 8, 2024 at 1:38 PM PDT

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

Email: andrewgong03@gmail.com

Hi! I'm Andrew, but people also call me gongo. I did LD at Harvard-Westlake, got 18 career bids, and reached finals of the TOC. I graduated in 2021.

Top level:

1. As a senior, I read only big-stick policy positions. This should tell you what types of debates I'm most comfortable judging, but it shouldn't dissuade you from reading your favorite args (exception: tricks).

2. Clarity is very important to me. No, I will not flow from the speech doc, so if I can't hear you, I'll stop flowing and yell clear until you slow down.

3. Online debate - keep a local recording in case you cut out. Keeping your camera on would be ideal, but it's not a requirement.

Non-T Affs:

I'm probably 60/40 biased in favor of T framework against non-T affs. Arguments like truth testing make intuitive sense to me.

I like education more than fairness, but both are fine.

I went for the cap K against non-T affs a lot as well. It's also a good option.

Ks:

I like these more than my argumentative history would imply. I think good K debates are a lot of fun to watch and judge. I've read a lot of Deleuze, a little bit of Baudrillard + settler colonial literature, and I have a good grasp of most other Ks.

Good 2NRs on the K will have specific links that implicate aff solvency, and contain lots of real-world examples on all parts of the flow. Good 2ARs on the K will either have lots of link defense and disads to the alt, or go for framework + extinction outweighs.

I really like impact turns against the K. Heg good and cap good are awesome, provided you go for them correctly.

Arguments couched entirely in terms of you or your opponent's personal identity/out-of-round actions are probably bad.

CP/DA:

I'm sympathetic to 1AR theory and very lenient in competition debates against cheesy process counterplans. However, 1AR theory debates are generally late breaking and annoying - I'll hold the line against 2AR explosions of 1AR blips, especially when there's not much in-round abuse (1 condo/1 pic).

I read ev, good ev is important.

T/theory:

I'm not the best at evaluating either of these arguments - as a debater, I rarely went for either except as last-ditch efforts. This isn't to say that I don't want to vote on them, but I do prefer substantive debates.

I'm definitely better for T than theory. Nebel T is probably wrong, but I'll vote on it (reluctantly) if you win it.

I'll default competing interps, but I'm very persuaded by in-round abuse claims and reasonability. This also means I don't like nonsense theory arguments (e.g. non-resolutional spec shells, shoes theory).

Don't go for an RVI unless you have literally no other choice lol

Philosophy:

Probably biased towards util. Permissibility and presumption triggers, including calculation/aggregation impossible, are ridiculous to me, but I'll vote on them if conceded.

If your opponent reads a nonsense contention, concede their framework and go for turns!

I went for the race/colorblindness K against phil a lot, and I like the argument.

Tricks:

I'll be very sad voting on conceded 1-line blips. The worse an argument is, the lower your bar for answering it. And if I don't understand your argument in the speech it was presented, I'll give your opponent leeway in terms of new answers in the final rebuttal speech.

Brent Huang Hire

Last changed on Sat February 15, 2020 at 4:13 AM EDT

I debated national circuit LD at Starr's Mill High School '12 (GA) and did Policy at Vanderbilt University '16 (TN).

I think I am a standard national circuit LD judge. If you only have experience with local debate, this means that I'm fine with (and proactively prefer) spreading and non-traditional arguments. However, if doing so, I recommend using a email chain, for which my email is brenthu1717@gmail.com.

---------------

LD Paradigm

---------------

My general preference for debate argument types is Framework >= Plan-Focused/Util > Theory >> Kritiks.

Framework

I like philosophy debate a lot, especially analytical ethical philosophy. If you frequently read cards from Singer, Korsgaard, Mackie, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in general, I would probably really enjoy judging you.

- I enjoy cases that are balanced between framework and contention-level offense, e.g., the AC spending half its time justifying an ethical system (utilitarianism, Kant, Hobbes, virtue ethics, divine command, moral skepticism, etc.) and then the rest on offense under that framework.

- I'm extremely opposed to theoretically-justified frameworks/affirmative framework choice. I think these things kill philosophy education, which is the most useful part of debate. If you can't prove that util is objectively true, what's even the point of pretending it's true if we have no reason to believe it?

- I'm not a fan of vague standards like "structural violence" where practically anything commonly considered bad can be considered an impact. Winter and Leighton are the bane of my existence.

- Your impacts need to actually link to an ethical philosophy in the round. Explain to me why I should care about people dying, why human rights exist, and why racism is bad in the context of the round.

Plan-focused/Util

I can enjoy a Plan-focused or whole-resolution util debate just as much, however, and I've done Policy in the past.

- Weighing is wonderful, and probably the point where you will best be able to pick up high speaks.

- Things like author-specific indicts or methodological critiques of particular studies are fantastic. Tell me things like, "This study only has a sample size of n=24" or "The study's authors indicated the following problems with their own study."

- Impact turns are great. I can’t promise it’s always the best idea, but I’ll probably love it if the 1AR is four minutes of “global warming good” or "economic collapse prevents nuclear war."

- Counterplans are a very important neg tool, but I think some of the more abusive ones, like 50 States CP or Consult CP are difficult to defend in terms of making debate a good activity.

- In LD, I'd prefer you just read one unconditional CP.

Theory

- If the AC is super spiky, please number the spikes. This will make it a lot easier for me to flow. If you spout out single-sentence arguments for a full minute, I’ll be more inclined to vote on them if I can clearly tell where one ends and another begins.

- I like clearly articulated theory shells in normal Interpretation-Violations-Standards-Voters format. It makes it much easier to flow compared to paragraph theory.

- I would prefer if you shared pre-written shells in the email chain, even if they're only analytical.

- I default to competing interpretations but am receptive to reasonability if mentioned.

- I like RVIs and will often vote on them, especially for the aff. If you're the aff and you're not sure if you should go for 4 minutes of the RVI in the 1AR, my advice is probably yes.

Kritiks

- Post-fiat Kritiks are fine. I'm not very receptive to pre-fiat Kritiks. If you aren't sure about the distinction, think about whether your alternative negates the resolution. For example, if the resolution is "The US gov should do [x]", and your alternative is "The US gov should not do [x]" or "The US gov should instead do [y]", that's fine. If your alternative is only "People around the world should..." or "The judge should..." or "The debate community should...," I'm probably not going to enjoy it. If the alt doesn't even have an actor and is just to "reject the aff," that's even worse.

- Although I’m generally well-versed with the basic ones like Cap/Security/Fem K, my understanding of the more esoteric ones falls off. Although I will try to evaluate the round as fairly as possible, I haven’t spent much time reading 1970s Continentals, and you can’t assume that I’ll have intimate knowledge of their arguments ahead of time.

- I lean towards the Role of the Ballot being just whoever proves the resolution true or false (offense-defense is also acceptable).

- Fairness definitely matters. Education might matter to some degree. I am very loathe to consider anything else as an independent voter. If your argument is nothing more than "Util justifies slavery, so auto-drop them," I am not likely to be agreeable.

- If your NRs often include the claim, "It's not a link of omission; it's a link of commission," I am probably not the judge for you.

Miscellaneous

- I'm fine with flex prep (asking questions during prep time) if you want it. I think it's a good norm for debate.

- I do not care if you sit or stand.

---------------

Policy Paradigm

---------------

Read the Plan-focused/Util and Kritiks sections of the LD paradigm, but you can ignore most of the rest. Due to my LD background, I am much more willing to vote on philosophical positions. If you want to go for "Don't do the plan because objective morality doesn't exist" or "Pass the plan because that's most in line with Aristotle's notion of virtue," I'm totally fine with that.

Theory

- I still prefer clearly articulated Interpretation-Violation-Standards-Voters theory shells, even in Policy.

- I'm more willing to accept conditional CPs in Policy, although it gets really sketchy with conditional K's, especially if there's performative contradictions.

Miscellaneous

- I'm probably more willing than most Policy judges to consider analytics. I don't think you need a card for every argument you make, and oftentimes just having a warranted argument is sufficient.

---------------

Public Forum Paradigm

---------------

I understand that Public Forum has different end goals than LD or Policy. I will try to evaluate it through the following in contrast to LD or Policy:

- I will not require explicit ethical frameworks. If something sounds bad, like "It kills people" or "It hurts the economy" or "It is unfair," I'll try to evaluate that in some gestalt manner. You can probably expect a little bit of judge intervention might be necessary in the case of mutually exclusive impact frameworks and lack of weighing.

- I will generally keep in mind who is "speaking better." Although this will not change my vote in most cases, if the round is really close I might use that as the determiner.

- If I ask for a card and you can't find it, especially if it has a statistic, I will drop 1 speaker point for poor evidence norms.

Nadia Hussein Hire

Last changed on Fri April 12, 2019 at 12:38 PM EDT

About Me:

I have debated for three years at Georgia State and did a mixture of debate in high school. Now I’m a graduate coach at Wake Forest

I want to be on the email chain; use gsupanther84@gmail.com

General:

Slow down when reading your tag and author, or I won't be able to catch it.

If GSU debate has taught me anything, it's to be extremely open minded to a variety of arguments. If you want to run death good, afropessimism, deterrence das, no period plan flaw, K affs, traditional affs, feminist killjoy etc, go for it. Just be sure to explain why you should win with this argument. ROB will be who debated the best unless I'm given another ROB with reason to perfer it. I'm against judge fill in but will vote down oppressive/offensive language/arguments especially if the other team points it out.

Aff

Do whatever you're best at, stay topical (or be ready to explain why topicality doesn't matter), be organized, and extend your case and why it outweighs throughout. I tend to err aff on framework if they have and defend a plan text, but you have to lock in if you decide to do that, otherwise I'll be persuaded to neg's abuse claims.

I love a good k with a clear link and impact. Your alts have to be clearly explained. I'll buy links of omission but the neg has to defend why the aff can't simply perm. Negs really have to take time in the block to explain why the aff can't perm and why it's net better to do the alt alone. Affs have to explain why they can perm and why the perm is net better than aff alone or why the alt can't solve the case. Don't drop theory args, or I will have to vote the other way.

DAs

I’m good with das but there has to be work done on how it links to the aff, or I will agree with the aff on no link args. If you have a solid Nonunique arg and extend it and I will vote on that. Solid impact calc will seal the deal for me, but if the aff successfully turns the DA or explains why the case outweighs the DA, I will vote on that as well. Long story short the more clash on the DA the better.

CPs

Love a creative CP, but it needs to solve/have a net benefit (DA or a K) along with stealing aff ground; otherwise I will agree with aff's perm and theory args. Aff needs to clearly explain why CP can't solve case, beat the net benefit, and articulate why the perm is best. Don't drop theory or you lose my ballot.

I will vote neg on a T arg if you convince me the violation is clear, the aff's counter interpretation is unreasonable, and the impact is big. I will vote aff if they convince me that their aff is reasonable, counter interpretation is better or equal to the negs, and a benefit to their definition, but aff can chuck topicality and still win if they articulate why being topical doesn't matter or is worse for debate. If the aff locks in and says they're T however, they cannot shift or it's an auto win for the neg.

I lean aff in most cases unless the neg provides me with a clear violation, story, and impact. 2acs have to clearly explain why the aff is fair and/or better. Tech is important when arguing FW but explanation is key when you arguing framework. Truth always better than tech.

cross ex is binding, answer the questions honestly, don't ask why the aff should win during 1ac cross ex or generic questions like that.

Alexa Kathol Hire

Last changed on Thu April 18, 2019 at 9:40 AM EDT

TOC PF Paradigm

Name: Alexa Kathol

School Affiliation: Liberty University

Number of Years Judging Public Forum: 3

Number of Years Competing in Public Forum: 2

Number of Years Judging Other Forensic Activities: 0

Number of Years Competing in Other Forensic Activities: 3

Speed of Delivery: Any is fine as long as you're clear.

Format of Summary Speeches: I like line by line and big picture

Role of the Final Focus: convince me to vote for you

You should extend Arguments into later speeches

For Topicality, Plans, and Kritiks see below

Flowing: I will flow all your speeches matching up answered args

I think Argumentation is important as this is a debate activity but I also appreciate good persuasion. I think both are essential for a winning ballot.

If a team plans to win the debate on an argument, does that argument have to be extended in the rebuttal or summary speeches? YES

If a team is second speaking, do you require that the team cover the opponents’ case as well as answers to its opponents’ rebuttal in the rebuttal speech? In your 1st speech, I understand that you have a prewritten script, but it will gain you extra points to refute some of the main points mentioned in your opponent's first speech. However, I will not penalize you for NOT doing so and you can each refute each other's each side's 2nd speech.

Do you vote for arguments that are first raised in the grand crossfire or final focus? No, if these points have been touched on throughout the round I will evaluate it, but if it's totally out of left field, I won't vote on it since the other side won't get a chance to refute it.

________________________________________

Email- alkatdb8@gmail.com

Experience

- Debated policy 4 years in HS for BVSW

- Debated policy 1 year for Liberty University

- Debated PFD 2 years in HS

Things I like

Generic

- I want to be included on the email chain. Be clear and slow down (especially on tags). If I can’t catch what you’re saying, it won’t get flowed. If I don’t catch the tag, I try to make up a tag based on the warrants of the card you’re reading. But, if I can’t understand what you’re saying in the card it won’t get flowed either

- Explanation is key, especially throughout rebuttals. I am super unfamiliar with this topic and tend to not vote on things that don’t make sense to me.

- Be organized, especially on the flow. Easier flowing gives you an easier win.

- Tell me why I should vote for you. If you leave doors open, both you and I will end up frustrated.

AFF

- I prefer plan texts, but college debate has made me appreciate non-traditional affs. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert by any means on the lit, but I have a general knowledge. That being said, it’s important to me that things are clearly articulated

NEG

- When I’m aff I hate cheating CP’s, when I’m neg, I love them lol. Feel free to run CPs. Just make sure they’re well explained. And try not to be too abusive. But, if the aff doesn’t call you out on your abuse, then more power to ya

- I tend to lean more aff on stupid process or consult CPs, but I appreciate a good PIC

- Even though in the real world PTX disads make less than no sense, I was (and still am) a huge policy hack. Again, explanation is key. Topic DA’s are also encouraged. Disads, in general, are good. Make sure you have a solid link though. I am persuaded by aff’s no link and link turn args

- Impact calc is awesome! I also love turns case/solves case args too. They’re usually dropped by the aff and make it an easy way to vote neg

- I’m most familiar with policy leaning K’s like cap or biopower. But I have (unfortunately) had my runs in’s with just about every K you can imagine. The hardest part to win is the alt. I have never heard a good/meaningful/logical explanation of an alt. I am super persuaded by affs that say vague alts bad. I’ve lost to psychoanalysis and the death K before, so I feel sympathetic towards aff’s answers. That being said though, I usually lean tech over truth, so a dropped argument is a true argument for the most part. You don’t have to be dissuaded from going for a K, just realize I have a high threshold for voting on it.

- On FW, I think that aff should be weighed against the K, so the alt needs to have a clear competitive advantage over the aff.

- I love a good T debate. A lot of teams run it as a time suck, which to me is just a wasted sheet of paper. If an aff is blatantly topical, or if it’s the heart of the topic, there needs to be a good explanation and specific examples why the aff is particularly abusive.

Shruthi Krishnan Greenhill School

Last changed on Thu March 26, 2020 at 2:52 PM CDT

Greenhill '18 Cornell '22

updated 3/26/20 tl;dr:
- I've been away from debate for a bit, so please assume I know nothing about the topic and err on the side of clarity. If you have any questions, please ask!

- I'm most familiar with policy args and Ks, fine with T/theory, less familiar with complex phil, least familiar with tricks. But read what you want and just explain it well.

policy stuff:

- 2NRs that just extend evidence on DAs are much less effective than 2NRs that explain the link story and weigh
- evidence quality is important and debaters should compare evidence

Ks:
- Most important thing to do is explain what the alt does/ world of the alt looks like/ alt solvency
- Specific links are good. It's not enough to just tell me that something is bad, you have to explain how the aff makes things worse or how the alt resolves this thing better

- There needs to be more answers to the perm than "links are DAs"
- I have less experience with "high theory" (Baudrillard, Deleuze, etc) so I'll need more explanation on these Ks.

- The the 2NR story cannot be drastically different from the 1NC/cx.

T/ Theory:
- slow down when reading these, especially on the interp and please weigh
- I'd prefer that you not read theory just for the sake of reading theory. More frivolous interps = lower threshold for responses
- Not super persuaded by RVIs most of the time but am persuaded by reasonability
- You don't have to defend the resolution, but you should do something, or else presumption is pretty persuasive. I will also vote on presumption if you don't explain your solvency mechanism

- disclosure is good, cites plus first and last 5 words are fine

Cheating Allegations:

If a cheating allegation is made, the round is staked on that question. There is a difference between reading theory and making an accusation about someone's academic integrity, and I take these allegations very seriously. If the allegation is proven true, I will give a loss and the lowest speaker points possible. But if the person making the allegation is incorrect, they will get a loss and the lowest speaker points possible.

Josiah Macumber Hire

Last changed on Thu September 23, 2021 at 12:22 PM EDT

Debated for Liberty University.

Current: University of Florida

Yes email chain: josiahmacumber@gmail.com

TLDR: Do not feel the need to adapt to my preferences I will do my best to judge fairly. Be persuasive and tell me why arguments are important. Dropped arguments are true arguments, but you need to still explain them and why they matter.

Speaking Preferences:

Slow down on analytics people can only write/type so fast, so slow down if you want me to flow it all. Same applies for theory arguments.

I do not have a concrete method for assigning speaker points. That being said things that help are: clarity, volume (not a big fan of barely being able to hear someone), cross ex (good questions/good answers), and strategic decisions.

K: Have a specific link to plan action/reps/epistemology makes it a lot easier to win instead of generic state links- those are cool and all, but at least contextualize it. Many times bad link debating is done so that the link explanation could have been read against any affirmative on any topic. Those are bad ways of explaining a link and it should be articulated in context of the round that is being had. That can take a variety of forms such as reading through the other team's evidence and pulling quotes that prove your link argument or the logic of the link. It could also take the form of using the answers that other teams provide in cross ex. Each link should have it's own unique impact and it would behoove you to explain how the link turns the case.

Framing for these debates is essential and direction is key for what to prioritize. It's nice to win the alternative, but I don't think it's necessary. IF you are not going for the alternative make it clear otherwise I will evaluate the perm and whether the alt can overcome the instances of the links.

CP: A good CP and DA combo is a solid option for the 2NR. I also enjoy well thought out PIC's. CP's don't necessarily need evidence, but it is preferred (solvency advocate theory is probably a good arg against this).

Maybe it's just me, but after a team spreads through the planks and card for a CP I am still somewhat unsure what it does. Explanation is important in terms of explaining how it solves and why it is different from the affirmative.

DA: Explain it well and it's interaction with the case. You need to do the analysis of why it outweighs the case or turns it. Do comparative evidence analysis and provide reasons why their evidence is not as warranted or does not really answer the DA and tell me why your evidence is better. That does not mean "our ev post dates by 3 days so it's better", but rather "our evidence analyzes long term trends through X method that provides a predictive claim, and their's is an opinion article".

T: Not really a big T expert, so explanation is key.

Generally I believe that over limiting is better than under limiting due to in depth research providing better education. Provide a coherent view of what the topic would look like without the limit that you set on it versus what the affirmative justifies when you are impacting out the T debate. That could include a case list that they justify that explodes research burdens or specific ground loss. You do not have to win in round abuse. Just impact it out well and you should be good.

Analyze the other teams evidence and make smart args against it. I think that is specifically true in the context of things like T subs (some ev makes claims of what substantial is not, but does not set a standard for what is substantial).

Framework: Strategic and I vote on it. However, I think that there are a few different ways to do it that are less offensive / more strategic. Top level winning that debate is a game probably means that fairness is an impact, but that work needs to be done. If education is the impact you are going for there must be good reasons why policy education is desirable or better than critical education. I think it is less strategic to make arguments like "our education spills over and we can one day do _____ to change the system"... that relies on a notion of spill over from policy education. If that is true, why then does that spillover not apply to the affirmative and their method/epistemology?

Theory: Dropped theory arguments are pretty easy to vote on, so don't drop them. Provide a reason why the abuse outweighs any other possible impact and make it a big deal. Just don't blaze through it and expect to win even if it was dropped.

-Policy AFF's: Tell a coherent story and do good impact calculus. Often times teams forget to do that and it's a super important part of the last rebuttals. If you are reading a hard right AFF I find it is better to just stick with it and go for util/death outweighs. I really do think it's more strategic against the criticism to go hard right.

-K AFF's: I think there is a great value to critical affirmatives. Just be prepared for the framework debate and explain why your model of debate is better or have disads to their model. I find it very helpful when critical affirmative provide examples and have in depth historical knowledge about their theory. In addition, providing examples of things the aff could do or would do helps to materialize some of the theory that can make it easier to grasp especially if it is not a literature base I am familiar with.

I typically find that most teams are not ready to defend the entirety of their aff, so if you are negative against a K aff I think that a well developed PIK argument and some case arguments are rather strategic.

There is no single way to my ballot and there are often a variety of strategies that can work in the debate. Be smart and strategic... I often find that the debates I enjoy the most are guided by bold choices from the debaters.

Be nice to other debaters. That doesn't mean you can't be witty or funny just be respectful of others. I think debate is a great activity to make new friends and to enjoy yourself. There is no need to take yourself and other people too seriously, creating a fun environment to debate in makes debates 100% more enjoyable. Jokes are also appreciated. On second thought... maybe don't.

David McGinnis West Des Moines Valley HS

Schuyler Morales St Pius X Catholic High School None

Jacob Nails Hire

Last changed on Fri January 12, 2024 at 9:31 AM CDT

LD Paradigm

This is the LD paradigm. Do a Ctrl+F search for “Policy Paradigm” or “PF Paradigm” if you’re looking for those. They’re toward the bottom.

I debated LD in high school and policy in college. I coach LD, so I'll be familiar with the resolution.

If there's an email chain, you can assume I want to be on it. No need to ask. My email is: jacobdnails@gmail.com. For online debates, NSDA file share is equally fine.

Summary for Prefs
I've judged 1,000+ LD rounds from novice locals to TOC finals. I don't much care whether your approach to the topic is deeply philosophical, policy-oriented, or traditional. I do care that you debate the topic. Frivolous theory or kritiks that shift the debate to some other proposition are inadvisable.

Yale '21 Update
I've noticed an alarming uptick in cards that are borderline indecipherable based on the highlighted text alone. If the things you're saying aren't forming complete and coherent sentences, I am not going to go read the rest of the un-underlined text and piece it together for you.

Theory/T
Topicality is good. There's not too many other theory arguments I find plausible.

Most counterplan theory is bad and would be better resolved by a "Perm do the counterplan" challenge to competition. Agent "counterplans" are never competitive opportunity costs.

I don’t have strong opinions on most of the nuances of disclosure theory, but I do appreciate good disclosure practices. If you think your wiki exemplifies exceptional disclosure norms (open source, round reports, and cites), point it out before the round starts, and you might get +.1-.2 speaker points.

Tricks
If the strategic value of your argument hinges almost entirely on your opponent missing it, misunderstanding it, or mis-allocating time to it, I would rather not hear it. I am quite willing to give an RFD of “I didn’t flow that,” “I didn’t understand that,” or “I don’t think these words in this order constitute a warranted argument.” I tend not to have the speech document open during the speech, so blitz through spikes at your own risk.

The above notwithstanding, I have no particular objection to voting for arguments with patently false conclusions. I’ve signed ballots for warming good, wipeout, moral skepticism, Pascal’s wager, and even agenda politics. What is important is that you have a well-developed and well-warranted defense of your claims. Rounds where a debater is willing to defend some idiosyncratic position against close scrutiny can be quite enjoyable. Be aware that presumption still lies with the debater on the side of common sense. I do not think tabula rasa judging requires I enter the round agnostic about whether the earth is round, the sky is blue, etc.

Warrant quality matters. Here is a non-exhaustive list of common claims I would not say I have heard a coherent warrant for: permissibility affirms an "ought" statement, the conditional logic spike, aff does not get perms, pretty much anything debaters say using the word “indexicals.”

Kritiks
The negative burden is to negate the topic, not whatever word, claim, assumption, or framework argument you feel like.

Calling something a “voting issue” does not make it a voting issue.

The texts of most alternatives are too vague to vote for. It is not your opponent's burden to spend their cross-ex clarifying your advocacy for you.

Philosophy
I am pretty well-read in analytic philosophy, but the burden is still on you to explain your argument in a way that someone without prior knowledge could follow.

I am not well-read in continental philosophy, but read what you want as long as you can explain it and its relevance to the topic.

You cannot “theoretically justify” specific factual claims that you would like to pretend are true. If you want to argue that it would be educational to make believe util is true rather than actually making arguments for util being true, then you are welcome to make believe that I voted for you. Most “Roles of the Ballot” are just theoretically justified frameworks in disguise.

Cross-ex
CX matters. If you can't or won't explain your arguments, you can't win on those arguments.

Regarding flex prep, using prep time for additional questions is fine; using CX time to prep is not.

LD paradigm ends here.

Policy Paradigm

General
I qualified to the NDT a few times at GSU. I now actively coach LD but judge only a handful of policy rounds per year and likely have minimal topic knowledge.

My email is jacobdnails@gmail.com

Yes, I would like to be on the email chain. No, I don't need a compiled doc at end of round.

Framework

Yes.

Competition/Theory
I have a high threshold for non-resolutional theory. Most cheaty-looking counterplans are questionably competitive, and you're better off challenging them at that level.

Extremely aff leaning versus agent counterplans. I have a hard time imagining what the neg could say to prove that actions by a different agent are ever a relevant opportunity cost.

I don't think there's any specific numerical threshold for how many opportunity costs the neg can introduce, but I'm not a fan of underdeveloped 1NC arguments, and counterplans are among the main culprits.

Not persuaded by 'intrinsicness bad' in any form. If your net benefit can't overcome that objection, it's not a germane opportunity cost. Perms should be fleshed out in the 2AC; please don't list off five perms with zero explanation.

Advantages/DAs
I do find existential risk literature interesting, but I dislike the lazy strategy of reading a card that passingly references nuke war/terrorism/warming and tagging it as "extinction." Terminal impacts short of extinction are fine, but if your strategy relies on establishing an x-risk, you need to do the work to justify that.

Case debate is underrated.

Straight turns are great turns.

Topics DAs >> Politics.

I view inserting re-highlightings as basically a more guided version of "Judge, read that card more closely; it doesn't say what they want it to," rather than new cards in their own right. If the author just happens to also make other arguments that you think are more conducive to your side (e.g. an impact card that later on suggests a counterplan that could solve their impact), you should read that card, not merely insert it.

Kritiks
See section on framework. I'm not a very good judge for anything that could be properly called a kritik; the idea that the neg can win by doing something other than defending a preferable federal government policy is a very hard sell, at least until such time as the topics stop stipulating the United States as the actor.I would much rather hear a generic criticism of settler colonialism that forwards native land restoration as a competitive USFG advocacy than a security kritik with aff-specific links and an alternative that rethinks in-round discourse.

While I'm a fervent believer in plan-focus, I'm not wedded to util/extinction-first/scenario planning/etc as the only approach to policymaking. I'm happy to hear strategies that involve questioning those ethical and epistemological assumptions; they're just not win conditions in their own right.

CX
CX is important and greatly influences my evaluation of arguments. Tag-team CX is fine in moderation.

PF Paradigm

9 November 2018 Update (Peach State Classic @ Carrollton):

While my background is primarily in LD/Policy, I do not have a general expectation that you conform to LD/Policy norms. If I happen to be judging PF, I'd rather see a PF debate.

I have zero tolerance for evidence fabrication. If I ask to see a source you have cited, and you cannot produce it or have not accurately represented it, you will lose the round with low speaker points.

Mihir Rai Greenhill School

Last changed on Wed April 19, 2023 at 12:30 PM CDT

Speechdrop or email works – send docs to mraigreenhill@gmail.com

Debated at Greenhill in LD from 2016-2019 frequently on the national circuit. Have judged here and there since graduating. I love judging debates and will do my best to accurately judge every round.

1. An ideal debate for me determines whether an instance of the resolution is preferable to either the status quo or any alternative. This understanding of debate is similar to how I debated in high school which mainly revolved around policy arguments and some structural kritiks. Since graduating, I have gotten better at judging other types of debates but will always enjoy a policy/K debate. At the end of the day, I feel comfortable judging most debates but probably would prefer not to hear a blippy fw/tricks debate.

2. I will give the negative a fairly large amount of credence in how they choose to attack the aff and am a sucker for unique counterplans. The more tailored a negative strategy is to an aff, the more I will enjoy judging the round. This doesn’t mean generics are bad but doing the work in CX/1NC to engage with the aff will significantly increase your chances of winning.

3. Debates where you outspread your opponent to win off some frivolous theory shell or blippy argument that was undercovered are extremely boring to me. Anything more than 5 off seems to cause debaters to forgot the debating part of the activity. If you’re going to read blippy theory shells or any argument that lacks a clear claim, warrant, and impact; know that the threshold for responses will be very low.

4. Large overviews at the top of speeches that act as replacements to explaining how your arguments interact with your opponents are frankly boring, and indicate to me that you likely don’t know what you’re reading. Take the time to explain more obscure or high theory kritiks and don’t expect me to do the work for you. If I can’t explain it back to you at the end of the round, I will feel very comfortable voting against you.

5. When you’re spreading, slow down on analytics (especially blocks of analytics). I will say clear if I feel like you’re slurring your words. If there are disputes about wordings of advocacy texts, I’ll hold you to whatever is in the doc unless you explicitly slow down and flag it. And if you catch any errors in the plan text, feel free to throw out a bunch of perms or plan text flaws.

6. In general, I like to reward debaters who show me they know what they’re talking about and have thought through the overall round. Making smart 2nr decisions, utilizing CX effectively, and making witty comments will all help you out significantly in front of me (and likely any judge). Do what you believe makes you the best debater and don’t be afraid to do what you think is the right move to win a round. There have been too many times where I have heard a debater tell me they didn’t want to go for an argument because “Greenhill doesn’t like those arguments”. If you are unsure whether or not to go for an argument, ask yourself if there’s a clean claim, warrant, and impact story. Whether that be a spec shell, a weak DA, or a conceded case turn, you do you.

Carly Rieger West Des Moines Valley HS

Last changed on Sat November 7, 2020 at 10:09 AM CDT

email: cr30505@gmail.com - yes, add me to the email chain. please feel free to reach out by email/fb (I'm more likely to respond on fb) if you have questions.

I debated circuit LD at WDM Valley for four years and qualified to the TOC, receiving four bids, during my senior year. I have taught at NSD Flasgship (2018,2019), NSD Philadelphia (2018,2019), and TDC (2019) and I've been coaching LD since graduating in 2018.

tl;dr - it's your round, debate it how you want to.

I will evaluate the round on the flow, everything here explains my defaults but if you make arguments as to why the round should be adjudicated in a particular way I will evaluate debate through your lens. please make the round as clear as possible - weighing is your friend, give clear overviews, justify everything, and explain. tell me the implications of your arguments.

I have the most experience with framework debate, identity K debate, and theory debate.

defaults: (this only matters if no one makes arguments to the contrary)

epistemic confidence
competing interps, no rvis
theory > k > substance
pragmatics > semantics
truth testing > comparing worlds

misc:

I’ll say ‘slow’ or ‘clear’ if necessary.
I am fine with flex prep.
I love a good framework/identity k debate, it makes my heart happy (you will probably get good speaks).
I very much think you need an impact mechanism (a standard text, a ROB, etc.) -- otherwise, i will be left to evaluate impacts as I see fit which probably won't make you happy.
extensions need warrants and impacts, even if you are extending a conceded argument. If you are extending a case that is conceded, it isn't sufficient to say "extend my whole case."
if you are debating a novice or someone who lacks a lot of circuit experience, please make the round educational and inclusive. this does not necessarily mean go full-on traditional (although that's definitely fine), but it does mean don't go full speed and a bunch of offs (your speaks will go way down).
please be ready to debate when you walk into the room – this means pre-flowing during your opponent's prep if you need to and having the AC speech doc ready to send.

theory:

theory violations need to be verifiable. just provide screenshots please! if someone makes an i meet to an unverifiable shell with no verification (i.e. a disclosure shell without screenshots or a coin flip shell that's just word of mouth), i will default to the 'i meet' being true.
feel free to read theory for strategic reasons (i.e. friv theory) or because there’s actual abuse.
if you go for reasonability, please provide a brightline. if you don't provide a brightline, or provide a brightline of gut check, i will probably gut check to competing interps.

Sachin Shah Lake Highland Preparatory

Last changed on Sun September 19, 2021 at 7:23 PM EDT

I debated in Lincoln-Douglas for Lake Highland for 5 years and competed at TOC my junior and senior years.

Add me to the email chain: inventshah (at) gmail (dot) com. Get confirmation from everyone that they are ready before starting.

Jan Feb 2021 Updates:

[1] I won't vote on frivolous disclosure theory (including new affs bad and open source). I won't even flow the argument.

[2] Strong preference for affirmatives that try to be topical. Reading T against a non T aff is likely game over. I will still vote aff if they win the T debate.

[3] Reading incoherent tricks will result in low speaks. This includes dumb aprioris. This does not include well justified "tricks".

[4] Reading positions you clearly had no hand in preparing (such as straight off someone else's wiki) will result in low speaks.

[5] I don't like entirely prewritten rebuttals as it probably means you did not pay attention to your opponent.

[6] If you are aff and reading side bias, make sure it's the correct one. If it is not, I'll be sad. If you are neg, and your opponent read the wrong side bias card, you should probably point this out. If you do not, I'll be more sad.

The rest:

Short version: I will evaluate any type of debate. My evaluative strengths are probably in framework and theory debates. Warrants should be extended in all speeches, even if it’s dropped. Don’t be rude, mean, or offensive.

Warrants: Fancy rhetoric and big words are not substitutes for warrants. Repeating the claim or tag twice also is not a warrant. I want to hear the warrant from you as the debater. Arguments without warrants are claims, as a result, I will not vote on it. Author names are not warrants.

Framework: I have read a lot of philosophy from Kant to Social Practices so read anything. That being said, I will not use my prior knowledge of your framework in my evaluation. Hijacks are underutilized in my opinion. A combo of theoretical and philosophy warrants are cool, but you should weigh which comes first.

Theory: I enjoy these debates when there is lots of weighing and clash. I will vote on any type of shell, but the more frivolous the more I will be persuaded by responses. Theory “tricks” such as evaluate theory after the 2NR or must have a counterinterp can be useful. I don’t care the format you read the shell in, however I need to know the interp, violation, offense, and voters in all speeches to vote on it. In the absence of paradigm issues like drop the debater and fairness, I will not vote on the shell i.e. I don’t default to any paradigm, unless there is a shared assumption by both debaters. I don't like frivolous disclosure shells such as open source and new affs bad.

Topicality: Similar to theory. I like both pragmatics and semantics. Having a TVA and topical cards is good. In my opinion linking T offense under the aff’s framing is underutilized. I like shells that have specific offense against the aff. T doesn’t automatically come before the ROB, you should weigh.

K’s: I am familiar with a wide variety of K literature from identity politics to high theory, so feel free to run your favorite. I like the K v phil interactions a lot. At the end of the debate I should be able to explain (a) why the aff is bad and (b) what the alternative does to resolve the link. Perms are good; they need a text and must be extended clearly. Similar to theory, a ROB doesn’t automatically come before theory or the framework, so you should explain why it comes first.

LARP: I like a well weighed and unique impact situations. You should know the warrants and link chain without relying on your authors as I generally will not read evidence to find a warrant. If there is only 0.00001% risk of the impact, its 0, unless you tell me why I should care about that small portion. Typically empirics come first, but I’ll listen to logical analytics.

Non-topical affirmatives: I will listen to the aff, but I need to know why I should vote aff. I may be swayed by a good topicality shell, however am willing to vote on impact turns to theory. I prefer affirmatives that at least try to be topical.

“Tricks”: They are cool. Dumb tricks like the “Resolved apriori” have a very low threshold for responses. If truth testing is not read, I use framework as the offense filter meaning some tricks won’t matter. You should be honest about tricks when asked in CX. The more sketchy you are the less I will like you.

Speaker points: I don’t disclose speaks. I will try to average around a 28.5 and typically base it on the creativity of your positions and strategy.

Martin Sigalow Lake Highland Preparatory

Last changed on Tue May 24, 2022 at 1:17 PM EDT

Email chain: msigalow61@gmail.com

Conflicts: Lake Highland Preparatory School

Policy at CFL Nationals:

I coached Circuit LD from 2011 until the 2019-2020 School Year and judged very frequently but haven't judged since then (I just graduated law school). My students have done very well. I debated policy for Emory University from 2011-2014 and have a decent knowledge of NDT-level policy debate but my background is in LD. I am not as familiar with the substantive content of many arguments, especially old arguments the community would know but I would not, or new arguments that became popular after my time. In LD, I judged a lot of "clash of civ" debates and am quite comfortable with K debates, although on the team I coached was the guy who did all the topic-relevant plan/disad/T stuff.

Some quick policy debate comments

Almost universally, I am unaware of any particular reputation a team might have. Try not to be too chummy with me or the other judges on any panel to which I might be on. I think that's a form of gatekeeping.
I have not had to flow speed in a bit, so be a little generous, if you can afford to do so.
I don't think permutations need net benefits (I'm not sure if this view is mainstream).
If a component of an affirmative is necessary for the affirmative to solve their advantage, then failure to solve it means the affirmative has not solved their advantage. If instead that component is sufficient, a counterplan that solves that component solves the whole advantage. If it is neither, by the end of the debate it should be clear what role that component plays. I will need less explaining on these points.
Bullying is bad (coaches and competitors). Be nice! Also, talking over people or making fun of their appearance is impermissible.
I have seen a disproportionate number of Emory IW and Michigan AP speeches.

Some general comments for this tournament, including LD-focused biases that may impact how I judge

I am not sure what policy is like at CFL Nationals, but I will be keenly aware of the impact the speed could have in a debate where one team can't flow it and the other team and the judges can. I am not sure to what extent these norms exist in policy.
It is probably much easier to get me to vote on a theory argument like condo bad or process counterplans bad than it would be for policy folks, because theory is treated differently in LD.
If you can convince me an argument is genuinely new, I won't evaluate it.
I don't know the topic or its norms so I would be careful of a T debate.
Women get talked over in debates far too much. If I believe you are contributing to this problem I may penalize you.

The LD rules below may apply, but they disproportionately arise because LD's very low number of speeches necessitates stating preferences like those because of the inability to call out late-breaking decisional stances, so they are probably not as important.

LD:

No new arguments or arguments that are the exact opposites of a previously made argument.
Severely mislabeling arguments is extremely bad.
I will not evaluate the debate at any point before its end.
I default to offense-defense, competing interps, durable fiat, perms test competition, and that the aff defends implementation.

Rylie Slone Little Rock Central

Last changed on Sat February 25, 2023 at 8:25 AM CDT

tl;dr put me on the email chain pls. rylieslone@gmail.com

Introduction:

I debated for three years at Bentonville High School in Arkansas in every style of debate. Graduated in 2017 -- I am very old. I did most of my national-level competition in LD, PF, and Congress, but there is a special place in my heart for CX. Currently a 2L at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Generally, I am open to most styles + arguments. I consider myself to be a strict flow judge so keep track of the line-by-line. Signpost, signpost, signpost (I'll let you do it before you start time but do not abuse this). Tell me what you want me to do! BE ORGANIZED.

Disclaimer: I will listen to most anything. This is your debate. Talk about what you believe in. Be respectful. BUT DO NOT use homophobic, racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, or xenophobic speech. I do not tolerate disrespect. Automatic loss and a swift report to tab if you cross that boundary. My preferences to specifics are listed below:

Speed

Be as fast as you want, but the second I stop flowing know you are unclear. If your spreading is ridiculously unclear, I'm gonna need a copy of the speech. I LOVE speed but am also totally cool without it. Generally speaking, be respectful of the usage of speed and be as clear as you can be.

Kritiks

I'd like to say that I know most of the commonly used Ks but DO NOT assume I know it without explaining it. It's been a little while. Be clear about your link and give me a really solid impact. Make sure the K alt interacts with the affirmative's solvency. (Shouldn't have to say this, but make sure the K isn't abhorrent - see disclaimer)

Topicality

Topicality debate isn't necessary (and imho is kinda boring) but it is procedurally important if it's brought up. Don't just go back and forth reading and rereading definitions. Give me good standards and voters. Tell me why you win it.

Framework

Framing is important. Your framework (or lack thereof) is what I will use to decide the round. If you don't give me a framework, I'll do a generic cost/benefit analysis. If you're utilizing it, the framework should be continued well into the last speech. Don't waste your time on it, but don't undercover it.

Case

I loveeee solid case debate. Don’t assume I will flow your 1AC throughout the round if you aren’t extending it (b/c newsflash: I won't!). Case debate is fundamental in my decision-making for policy-oriented rounds. That being said, please cover offcase positions as well. Just don’t kick your case to the curb in the process.

Evidence

Make sure your evidence is legitimate. I will call for any card that I (or your opponent) deem questionable and value the integrity of said pieces of evidence. Be cautious of this.

Also - I do not flow cross-ex.

All in all, good luck!

I'm going to assume you read this, but if you have any additional questions before the round email me at rylieslone@gmail.com.

Charles Thomasian Marlborough School

Aaron Timmons Greenhill School

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 6:04 AM CDT

Aaron Timmons

Director of Debate – Greenhill School

Coach USA Debate Team

Owner Global Debate Symposium - https://www.gdsdebate.com/

Updated – April 2022

Please put me on the email chain – timmonsa@greenhill.org

Contact me with questions.

General Musings

Debate rounds, and subsequently debate tournaments, are extensions of the classroom. While we all learn from each other, my role is a critic of argument (if I had to pigeonhole myself with a paradigmatic label as a judge). I will evaluate your performance in as objective a method as possible. Unlike many adjudicators claim to be, I am not a blank slate. If I see behaviors or practices that create a bad, unfair, or hostile environment for the extension of the classroom that is the debate round, I will intervene. I WILL do my best to be an objective evaluator of your arguments but the idea that my social location is not a relevant consideration of how I view/decode (even hear) arguments is just not true (nor do it is true for anyone).

I have coached National and/or State Champions in Policy Debate, Lincoln Douglas Debate, and World Schools Debate (in addition to interpretation/speech events). I still actively coach and am involved in the strategy and argument creation of my students who compete for my school. Given demands on my time, I do not cut as many cards as I once did for Policy and Lincoln Douglas. That said, I am more than aware of the arguments and positions being run in both of these format’s week in and week out.

General thoughts on how I decide debates:

1 – Debate is a communication activity – I will flow what you say in speeches as opposed to flowing off of the speech documents (for the events that share documents). If I need to read cards to resolve an issue, I will do so but until ethos and pathos (re)gain status as equal partners with logos in the persuasion triangle, we will continue to have debates decided only on what is “in the speech doc.” Speech > speech doc.

2 – Be mindful of your “maximum rate of efficiency” – aka, you may be trying to go faster than you are capable of speaking in a comprehensible way. The rate of speed Is not a problem in many contemporary debates, the lack of clarity is an increasing concern. Unstructured paragraphs that are slurred together do not allow the pen time necessary to write things down in the detail you think they might. Style and substance are fundamentally inseparable. This does NOT mean you have to be slow; it does mean you need to be clear.

3 – Evidence is important - In my opinion debates/comparisons about the qualifications of authors on competing issues and warrants (particularly empirical ones), are important. Do you this and not only will your points improve, but I am also likely to prefer your argument if the comparisons are done well.

4 – Online Debating – We have had two years to figure this out. My camera will be on. I expect that your camera is on as well unless there is a technical issue that cannot/has not been resolved in our time online. If there is an equity/home issue that necessitates that your camera is off, I understand that and will defer to your desire to it be off if that is the case. A simple, “I would prefer for my camera to be off” will suffice to inform me of your request.

5 – Disclosure is good (on balance) – I feel that debaters/teams should disclose on the wiki. I have been an advocate of disclosure for decades. I am NOT interested in “got you” games regarding disclosure. If a team/school is against disclosure, defend that pedagogical practice in the debate. Either follow basic tenets of community norms related to disclosure (affirmative arguments, negative positions read, etc.) after they have been read in a debate. While I do think things like full source and/or round reports are good educational practices, I am not interested in hearing debates about those issues. ADA issues: If a student needs to have materials formatted in a matter to address issues of accessibility based on documented learning differences, that request should be made promptly to allow reformatting of that material. Preferably, adults from one school should contact the adult representatives of the other schools to deal with school-sanctioned accountability.

6 – Zero risk is a possibility – There is a possibility of zero risks of an advantage or a disadvantage.

7 – My role as a judge - I will do my best to judge the debate that occurred versus the debate that I wish had happened. I see too many judges making decisions based on evaluating and comparing evidence post the debate that was not done by the students.

8 – Debate the case – It is a forgotten art. Your points will increase, and it expands the options for you to win the debate in the final negative rebuttal.

9 – Good “judge instructions” will make my job easier – While I am happy to make my judgments and comparison between competing claims, I feel that students making those comparisons, laying out the order of operations, articulating “even/if” considerations, telling me how to weigh and then CHOOSING in the final rebuttals, will serve debaters well (and reduce frustrations on both our parts0.

10 – Cross-examination matters – Plan and ask solid questions. Good cross-examinations will be rewarded.

Policy Debate

I enjoy policy debate and given my time in the activity I have judged, coached, and seen some amazing students over the years.

A few thoughts on how I view judging policy debate:

Topicality vs Conventional Affs:

Traditional concepts of competing interpretations can be mundane and sometimes result in silly debates. Limiting out one affirmative will not save/protect limits or negative ground. Likewise, reasonability in a vacuum without there being a metric on what that means and how it informs my interpretation vis a vis the resolution lacks nuance as well. Topicality debaters that can frame what the topic should look like based on the topic, and preferably evidence to support that why interpretation makes sense will be rewarded. The next step is saying why a more limiting (juxtaposed to most limiting) topic makes sense helps to frame the way I would think about that version of the topic. A case list of what would be topical under your interpretation would help as would a list of core negative arguments that are excluded if we accept the affirmative interpretation or model of debate.

Topicality/FW vs critical affirmatives:

First – The affirmative needs to do something (and be willing to defend what that is). The negative needs to win that performance is net bad/worse than an alternative (be it the status quo, a counterplan, or a K alternative).

Second – The negative should have access to ground, but they do not get to predetermine what that is. Just because your generic da or counterplan does not apply to the affirmative does not mean the affirmative cannot be tested. The deference for going for topicality/FW versus “k affs’ can be strategic and the best option. Many times, the reality is that many teams not researching to contest the foundational premises of the other side.

Conditionality

Conditionality is good but only in a limited sense. I do not think the negative gets unlimited options (even against a new affirmative). While the negative can have multiple counter plans, the affirmative will get leeway to creatively (re)explain permutations if the negative kicks (or attempts to add) planks to the counterplan(s), the 1ar will get some flexibility to respond to this negative move.

Counterplans and Disads:

Counterplans are your friend. Counterplans need a net benefit (reasons the affirmative is a bad/less than desirable idea. Knowing the difference between an advantage to the counterplan and a real net benefit seems to be a low bar. Process counterplans are harder to defend as competitive and I am sympathetic to affirmative permutations. I have a higher standard for many on permutations as I believe that in the 2AC “perm do the counterplan” and/or “perm do the alternative” do nothing to explain what that world looks like. If the affirmative takes another few moments to explain these arguments, that increases the pressure on the 2nr to be more precise to respond to these arguments.

Disadvantages that are specific to the advocacy of the affirmative will get you high points.

Lincoln Douglas

I have had students succeed at the highest levels of Lincoln Douglas Debate including multiple champions of NSDA, NDCA, the Tournament of Champions, as well as the Texas Forensic Association State Championships.

Theory is debated far too much in Lincoln – Douglas and is debated poorly. I am strongly opposed to that practice. My preference is NOT to hear a bad theory debate. I believe the negative does get some “flex;” it cannot be unlimited. The negative does not need to run more than four off case arguments

Words matter. Arguments that are racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, etc. will not be tolerated.

I am not a fan of random; multiple sentence fragments that claim to “spike” out of all of the other team’s arguments. At its foundation, the debate should be about argument ENGAGEMENT, not evasion.

I do not like skepticism as an argument. It would be in your best interest to not run it in front of me. While interesting in a philosophy class in college, training young advocates to feel that “morality doesn’t exist” etc. is educationally irresponsible.

I do not disclose speaker points. That seems silly to me.

Dropped arguments and the “auto-win” seem silly to me. Just because a debater drops a card does not mean you win the debate. Weighing and embedded clashes are a necessary component of the debate. Good debaters extend their arguments. GREAT debaters do that in addition to explaining the nexus point of the clash between their arguments and that of the opposition and WHY I should prefer their argument. Any argument that says the other side cannot answer your position is fast-tracking to an L (with burnt cheese and marinara on top).

It takes more than a sentence (or in many of the rounds I judge a sentence fragment), to make an argument. If the argument was not clear originally, I will allow the opponent to make new arguments.

Choose. No matter the speech or the argument.

Cross apply much of the policy section as well as the general musings on debate.

World Schools

Have you chaired a WS round before? (required)

Yes. Countless times.

What does chairing a round involve? (required)

How would you describe World Schools Debate to someone else?

World Schools is modeled after parliament having argumentation presented in a way that is conversational, yet argumentatively rigorous. Debates are balanced between motions that are prepared, while some are impromptu. Points of Information (POI’s) are a unique component of the format as speakers can be interrupted by their opponent by them asking a question or making a statement.

What process, if any, do you utilize to take notes in the debate? (required)

I keep a rigorous flow throughout the debate.

When evaluating the round, assuming both principle and practical arguments are advanced through the 3rd and Reply speeches, do you prefer one over the other? Explain.

These should be prioritized and compared by the students in the round. I do not have an ideological preference between principled or practical arguments.

The World Schools Debate format requires the judge to consider both Content and Style as 40% each of the speaker’s overall score, while Strategy is 20%. How do you evaluate a speaker’s strategy? (required)

Strategy (simply put) is how they utilize the content that has been introduced in the debate.

World Schools Debate is supposed to be delivered at a conversational pace. What category would you deduct points in if the speaker were going too fast?

Style.

World Schools Debate does not require evidence/cards to be read in the round. How do you evaluate competing claims if there is no evidence to read?

Students are required to use analysis, examples, and interrogate the claims of the other side then make comparative claims about the superiority of their position.

How do you resolve model quibbles?

Model quibbles are not fully developed arguments if they are only questions that are not fully developed or have an articulated impact.

How do you evaluate models vs. countermodels?

I utilize the approach of comparative worlds to evaluate competing methods for resolving mutual problems/harms. The proposition must defend its model as being comparatively advantageous over a given alternative posed by the opposition. While many feel in World Schools a countermodel must be mutually exclusive. While that certainly is one method of assessing if a countermodel truly ‘forces a choice,” a feel a better stand is that of net benefits. The question should be if it is desirable to do both the propositions model and the opposition countermodel at the same time. If it is possible to do both without any undesirable outcomes, the negative has failed to prove the desirability of their countermodel. The opposition should explain why doing both would be a bad idea. The proposition should advance an argument why doing both is better than adopting the countermodel alone.

Adam Torson Marlborough School

Last changed on Thu April 11, 2024 at 2:46 AM PDT

UPDATED: 4/11/2024

1998-2003: Competed at Fargo South HS (ND)

2003-2004: Assistant Debate Coach, Hopkins High School (MN)

2004-2010: Director of Debate, Hopkins High School (MN)

2010-2012: Assistant Debate Coach, Harvard-Westlake Upper School (CA)

2012-Present: Debate Program Head, Marlborough School (CA)

Email: adam.torson@marlborough.org

Pronouns: he/him/his

General Preferences and Decision Calculus

I no longer handle top speed very well, so it would be better if you went at about 75% of your fastest.

I like substantive and interesting debate. I like to see good strategic choices as long as they do not undermine the substantive component of the debate. I strongly dislike the intentional use of bad arguments to secure a strategic advantage; for example making an incomplete argument just to get it on the flow. I tend to be most impressed by debaters who adopt strategies that are positional, advancing a coherent advocacy rather than a scatter-shot of disconnected arguments, and those debaters are rewarded with higher speaker points.

I view debate resolutions as normative. I default to the assumption that the Affirmative has a burden to advocate a topical change in the status quo, and that the Negative has a burden to defend either the status quo or a competitive counter-plan or kritik alternative. I will vote for the debater with the greatest net risk of offense. Offense is a reason to adopt your advocacy; defense is a reason to doubt your opponent's argument. I virtually never vote on presumption or permissibility, because there is virtually always a risk of offense.

Moral Skepticism is not normative (it does not recommend a course of action), and so I will not vote for an entirely skeptical position. I rarely find that such positions amount to more than weak, skeptical defense that a reasonable decision maker would not find a sufficient reason to continue the status quo rather than enact the plan. Morally skeptical arguments may be relevant in determining the relative weight or significance of an offensive argument compared to other offense in the debate.

Framework

I am skeptical of impact exclusion. Debaters have a high bar to prove that I should categorically disregard an impact which an ordinary decision-maker would regard as relevant. I think that normative ethics are more helpfully and authentically deployed as a mode of argument comparison rather than argument exclusion. I will default to the assumption of a wide framework and epistemic modesty. I do not require a debater to provide or prove a comprehensive moral theory to regard impacts as relevant, though such theories may be a powerful form of impact comparison.

Arguments that deny the wrongness of atrocities like rape, genocide, and slavery, or that deny the badness of suffering or oppression more generally, are a steeply uphill climb in front of me. If a moral theory says that something we all agree is bad is not bad, that is evidence against the plausibility of the theory, not evidence that the bad thing is in fact good.

Theory

I default to evaluating theory as a matter of competing interpretations.

I am skeptical of RVIs in general and on topicality in particular.

I will apply a higher threshold to theory interpretations that do not reflect existing community norms and am particularly unlikely to drop the debater on them. Because your opponent could always have been marginally more fair and because debating irrelevant theory questions is not a good model of debate, I am likely to intervene against theoretical arguments which I deem to be frivolous.

Tricks and Triggers

Your goal should be to win by advancing substantive arguments that would decisively persuade a reasonable decision-maker, rather than on surprises or contrived manipulations of debate conventions. I am unlikely to vote on tricks, triggers, or other hidden arguments, and will apply a low threshold for answering them. You will score more highly and earn more sympathy the more your arguments resemble genuine academic work product.

Counterplan Status, Judge Kick, and Floating PIKs

The affirmative has the obligation to ask about the status of a counterplan or kritik alternative in cross-examination. If they do not, the advocacy may be conditional in the NR.

I default to the view that the Negative has to pick an advocacy to go for in the NR. If you do not explicitly kick a conditional counterplan or kritik alternative, then that is your advocacy. If you lose a permutation read against that advocacy, you lose the debate. I will not kick the advocacy for you and default to the status quo unless you win an argument for judge kick in the debate.

I am open to the argument that a kritik alternative can be a floating PIK, and that it may be explained as such in the NR. However, I will hold any ambiguity about the advocacy of the alternative against the negative. If the articulation of the position in the NC or in CX obfuscates what it does, or if the plain face meaning of the alternative would not allow enacting the Affirmative plan, I am unlikely to grant the alternative the solvency that would come from directly enacting the plan.

Non-Intervention

To the extent possible I will resolve the debate as though I were a reasonable decision-maker considering only the arguments advanced by the debaters in making my decision. On any issues not adequately resolved in this way, I will make reasonable assumptions about the relative persuasiveness of the arguments presented.

Speed

The speed at which you choose to speak will not affect my evaluation of your arguments, save for if that speed impairs your clarity and I cannot understand the argument. I prefer debate at a faster than conversational pace, provided that it is used to develop arguments well and not as a tactic to prevent your opponent from engaging your arguments. There is some speed at which I have a hard time following arguments, but I don't know how to describe it, so I will say "clear," though I prefer not to because the threshold for adequate clarity is very difficult to identify in the middle of a speech and it is hard to apply a standard consistently. For reasons surpassing understanding, most debaters don't respond when I say clear, but I strongly recommend that you do so. Also, when I say clear it means that I didn't understand the last thing you said, so if you want that argument to be evaluated I suggest repeating it. A good benchmark is to feel like you are going at 75% of your top speed; I am likely a significantly better judge at that pace.

Extensions

My threshold for sufficient extensions will vary based on the circumstances, e.g. if an argument has been conceded a somewhat shorter extension is generally appropriate.

Evidence

It is primarily the responsibility of debaters to engage in meaningful evidence comparison and analysis and to red flag evidence ethics issues. However, I will review speech documents and evaluate detailed disputes about evidence raised in the debate. I prefer to be included on an email chain or speech drop that includes the speech documents. If I have a substantial suspicion of an ethics violation (i.e. you have badly misrepresented the author, edited the card so as to blatantly change it's meaning, etc.), I will evaluate the full text of the card (not just the portion that was read in the round) to determine whether it was cut in context, etc.

Speaker Points

I use speaker points to evaluate your performance in relation to the rest of the field in a given round. At tournaments which have a more difficult pool of debaters, the same performance which may be above average on most weekends may well be average at that tournament. I am strongly disinclined to give debaters a score that they specifically ask for in the debate round, because I utilize points to evaluate debaters in relation to the rest of the field who do not have a voice in the round. I elect not to disclose speaker points, save where cases is doing so is necessary to explain the RFD. My range is approximately as follows:

30: Your performance in the round is likely to beat any debater in the field.

29.5: Your performance is substantially better than average - likely to beat most debaters in the field and competitive with students in the top tier.

29: Your performance is above average - likely to beat the majority of debaters in the field but unlikely to beat debaters in the top tier.

28.5: Your performance is approximately average - you are likely to have an equal number of wins and losses at the end of the tournament.

28: Your performance is below average - you are likely to beat the bottom 25% of competitors but unlikely to beat the average debater.

27.5: Your performance is substantially below average - you are competitive among the bottom 25% but likely to lose to other competitors

Below 26: I tend to reserve scores below 25 for penalizing debaters as explained below.

Rude or Unethical Actions

I will severely penalize debaters who are rude, offensive, or otherwise disrespectful during a round. I will severely penalize debaters who distort, miscut, misrepresent, or otherwise utilize evidence unethically.

Card Clipping

A debater has clipped a card when she does not read portions of evidence that are highlighted or bolded in the speech document so as to indicate that they were read, and does not verbally mark the card during the speech. Clipping is an unethical practice because you have misrepresented which arguments you made to your opponent and to me. If I determine that a debater has clipped cards, then that debater will lose.

To determine that clipping has occurred, the accusation needs to be verified by my own sensory observations to a high degree of certainty, a recording that verifies the clipping, or the debaters admission that they have clipped. If you believe that your opponent has clipped, you should raise your concern immediately after the speech in which it was read, and I will proceed to investigate. False accusations of clipping is a serious ethical violation as well. *If you accuse your opponent of clipping and that accusation is disconfirmed by the evidence, you will lose the debate.* You should only make this accusation if you are willing to stake the round on it.

Sometimes debaters speak so unclearly that it constitutes a negligent disregard for the danger of clipping. I am unlikely to drop a debater on this basis alone, but will significantly penalize speaker points and disregard arguments I did not understand. In such cases, it will generally be unreasonable to penalize a debater that has made a reasonable accusation of clipping.

Questions

I am happy to answer any questions on preferences or paradigm before the round. After the round I am happy to answer respectfully posed questions to clarify my reason for decision or offer advice on how to improve (subject to the time constraints of the tournament). Within the limits of reason, you may press points you don't understand or with which you disagree (though I will of course not change the ballot after a decision has been made). I am sympathetic to the fact that debaters are emotionally invested in the outcomes of debate rounds, but this does not justify haranguing judges or otherwise being rude. For that reason, failure to maintain the same level of respectfulness after the round that is generally expected during the round will result in severe penalization of speaker points.

Eshaan Verma The Meadows School

Last changed on Sat February 2, 2019 at 12:13 AM PDT

Eshaan Verma

High School Policy Debate - The Meadows School - 4 years

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE COLLAPSE ON SOMETHING IN THE 2NR, DONT KEEP ARGUING YOUR 5 OFF AND CASE, THIS MAKES ME A VERY UNHAPPY CAMPER.

- I would like to be on the email chain (eshaanverma2@gmail.com) but I will still be flowing by hand most likely and I don't mind spreading as long as I can hear you and the other team can hear you. If I don't hear or understand an argument, it won't go down on my flow which means it won't be considered in my decision. I don't expect teams to answer arguments that I couldn't even flow. So speed and spreading are ok as long as you are clear and concise. Also how much you flow and whether or not you do it doesn't matter to me as long as you are producing good arguments and responding to the arguments of the other team. I will not dock you speaker points if you're not flowing.

Timing

Keep track of your own and other team's speech/prep times. You are not babies, I will not treat you like such so all the timing should be done by you guys.

K's

DO NOT RUN A K IF YOU COULDN'T EXPLAIN IT TO A 10 YEAR OLD. I personally don't prefer K's especially in novice debate. I think they are sometimes too complicated for the teams to explain well enough for me to vote on them. However, if they are formulated and explained well enough, I will vote on them but a good understanding of the K should be expressed by both debaters.

Topicality

I think affs should most definitely be topical so it encourages a fair debate where both teams can prepare. I do think topicality is very important and is a voter issue of great magnitude. I will look at topicality arguments very closely and put them at the top of my considerations when evaluating rounds. However, this doesn't mean if the neg brings up a topicality argument, they automatically win. The neg still has to explain topicality very well to convince me the aff isn't topical and can't just add it on top of a list of 5 other off cases just to bury the aff. The neg also needs to do a good job of proving to me that in the round, the aff not being topical is abusive and why, I will not just assume T is abusive. All aff's are topical to me until the neg proves to me beyond a doubt that they are not topical.

Disads

I will vote on disads if there is a reasonable probability of them happening. I am not part of the 1% club who will vote on a disad if theres a 1% chance of it occuring, I believe in being realistic and not that if little Jimmy doesn't get his education, it can cause nuclear war. Also, negs need to prove a plausible link to the actual case. I don't appreciate it when debaters try to link random generic disads with weak links to the case and this will be reflected in your speaker points. However, this is not me saying that you shouldn't do generic disads, I am okay with them as long as they do have a reasonable link.

Counterplans

I like counterplans as long as they are competitive and mutually exclusive. All too often the neg will bring up a counterplan that can be permuated without severance and that argument just dissolves and wastes everyone's time. So, as far as counterplans go, really really explain to me why your counterplan is better than the actual plan and why I should prefer it.

Case Debate

I think case debate is very important and integral. I don't like it when negs stray away from the case debate because they know they are losing on it. The case debate is the main point of the entire debate and should be argued till at least the 1NR. EXTEND YOUR ARGUMENTS. This is huge in my evaluations. If the other team drops arguments, extend them so I can draw a big line across my flow.

I think CX is very important and should be treated as its own speech. This is where good arguments are set up and important points are clarified. I don't mind feisty CX's as long as they don't stray away from the point and turn into irrelevant arguments. This is my personal favorite part of debate because it shows how good debaters really are at thinking on their feet. I don't mind tag team but the cx's shouldn't be dominated by one debater because this doesn't help the other debater get better. Speaker points are pretty heavily weighted in this area.

Russell Weas Mountain Brook HS

Kevin Wright Northview High School

Last changed on Sun October 2, 2016 at 8:13 AM EDT

I am an old school traditionalist but appreciate and have adapted to the evolution of modern debate.

A strong argument unchallenged pays big dividends. A strong argument, weakly challenged, pays dividends as does a weak yet unchallenged argument.

The presentation of the argument is nearly as important as the quality of the argument. a well developed argument is understandable. I prefer debate to be intelligent, articulate, and persuasive and not a speed-talking amass of statistical evidence. I have to be able to comprehend and flow the internal logic of your arguments. If you are clear, enunciate well, with good diction and voice inflection it helps me understand the key parts of what you are saying.

Evidence is important, but spend time talking about the implications of evidence and making analytical comparisons between arguments. Description of arguments through analogy, examples, testimony, or hypothetical situations is a more persuasive style of debate than just presenting statistics. Commissions of logic fallicies, especially those challenged by the opposition carry weight.

Debaters should take the time to create good cross-examinations. Use them to reveal the fallacies of your opponents' arguments and how their claims appear to run counter to probable impacts or how their silence or ambiguities are cause to vote against their conditional claims. Concluding arguments demonstrate an understanding of what was most important in the debate to that point.

Everyone in the debate should be courteous through-out the debate. Winning arguments are quality arguments, not necessarily plentiful ones.

Show that you are having fun while making clear how your arguments matter and why you should win!

CAREER EXPERIENCE

Extensive instructional experience in the military and as a civilian-as adjunct faculty at Columbus State University and Georgia State University as a professor of Political Science. A former full time SROTC instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Five years service as Senior Army Instructor at Centennial High School, Roswell GA, Hephzibah HS, Augusta, GA and Monarch HS Coconut Creek, FL. Served as a US Army officer 1983-2006 retiring as a lieutenant colonel with two Iraq combat deployments.

EDUCATION

University of Louisville (01/01/1997 - 1 May 2007 Graduate) Louisville, Kentucky Degree: MA - Major: Political Science

United States Military Academy (07/02/1979 - 05/25/1983) West Point, New York Degree: BS - Major: BS International Affairs

Training - Near East and North Africa Regional Seminar (05/26/1995) US State Department Foreign Service Institute intensive seminar to prepare government employees for foreign service in the Middle East.

RELEVANT DEBATE & DRAMA EXPERIENCE

Baldwin City HS, KS 1975-1979 Debate Team. 1978 Kansas State Debate Champion. 1979 4th Place Kansas State Debate Championship

Forensics: Improvisational Duo, Extemporaneous Speaking

Drama: Supporting actor roles 4 years HS theater productions-character actor, impersonations, voices

Julia Wu Lake Highland Preparatory

Last changed on Fri May 29, 2020 at 6:38 PM EDT

Lake Highland Prep ’19

email: wuxjulia@gmail.com

I debated for Lake Highland for five years and went to the TOC my sophomore, junior, and senior year.

Overview:

I don’t really have a preference towards judging any particular type of argument. As a debater, I read a lot of high theory, phil, theory/T, Ks, and sometimes I read tricks. You should read arguments in whatever style you are most comfortable with and I will do my best to evaluate the round. I'll always try to take the route of least intervention when I'm judging. As long as an argument has a claim, warrant, impact, I will vote on it. However, I will drop you for reading anything blatantly racist, misogynistic, ableist, anti-queer, etc.

If you're reading a confusing or dense position, make sure that you explain it well. Don't assume that I'll fill in the blanks for you if you make half-baked arguments just because I read something in that literature base as a debater. Also if you are reading blippy tricks just make sure you slow down enough that I can flow a warrant for all of them.

Misc:

1. I will no longer evaluate "give me a 30" arguments unless you have an exceptionally good reason for why I should give you a 30. I will just give speaks based on how well I think you debated.

2. I will not vote on "evaluate the theory debate after the [insert speech] if the argument is made in the speech mentioned in the spike. For example, I won't vote on "evaluate the theory debate after the 2nr" if it's made in the 2nr. This is because any answer to the spike is technically a theory argument, making it unclear if even evaluating answers to the argument are legitimate. I will also not vote on this argument in any speech absent a clear articulation of what constitutes the theory debate and just generally have a low threshold for responses.

3. If you are debating someone who is obviously a novice or significantly less experienced, try to win in a way that still allows them to engage with the round. Those rounds should not become an opportunity for you to win on cheap shots.

Here are my defaults (I will only use these if there is literally nothing said about these issues by either side):

truth testing (what it means for something to be "true" or "false" can be determined through a rob or framework)
my presumption default works the same as Grant Brown’s: “I default presume negative, unless there is an alternative advocacy (counterplan, kritik) in the 2NR without the choice of the status-quo, in which case I presume affirmative.”
permissibility negates
layers (theory, t, rob) can be weighed against each other

Speaks:

You'll get higher speaks for good strategic decisions, smart args, and knowing your positions well. You'll get lower speaks for being rude or patronizing to your opponent.

Here are some judges that I aspire to be like: Tom Evnen, Becca Traber, Grant Brown, John Staunton, Madi Crowley, and Vishaal Kunta.

If you have any specific questions, email me, facebook message me, or ask me before the round starts and I’ll be happy to answer them!

Lawrence Zhou Hire

Last changed on Tue April 16, 2024 at 12:01 AM CDT

I am currently a policy and PF coach at Taipei American School. My previous affiliations include Fulbright Taiwan, the University of Wyoming, Apple Valley High School, The Harker School, the University of Oklahoma, and Bartlesville High School.

Email for the chain: lwzhou10 at gmail.com

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TOC Public Forum

Put the Public back in Public Forum.

I won't vote for arguments spread, theory, kritiks, or anything unrelated to the truth or falsity of the resolution.

I don't want to hear spreading, kritiks, theory, etc. I find it extremely difficult to vote for arguments that lack resolutional basis (e.g., most theory or procedural arguments, some kritikal arguments, etc.). I find trends to evade debate over the topic to be anathema to my beliefs about what Public Forum debate ought to look like.I care that you debate the topic in a way that reflects serious engagement with the relevant scholarly literature. I would also prefer to judge debates that do not contain references to arcane debate norms or jargon.

Additionally, I expect that your evidence abides by NSDA rules as outlined in the NSDA Evidence Guide. If I find evidence that does not conform to these guidelines, I will minimally disregard that piece of evidence and maximally vote against you.

tl;dr won't blink twice about voting against teams that violate evidence rules or try to make PF sound like policy-lite.

Other Things

Exchanging evidence in a manner consistent with the NSDA's rules on evidence exchange has become a painfully slow process. Please simply set up an email chain or use an online file sharing service in order to quickly facilitate the exchange of relevant evidence. Calling for individual pieces of evidence appears to me as nothing more than prep stealing.

If the Final Focus is all read from the computer, just send me the speech docs before the debate starts to save us some time. I'll also cap your speaks at 28.5.

I do not believe that either team has any obligation to "frontline" in second rebuttal, but my preferences on this are malleable. If "frontlining" is the agreed upon norm, I expect that the second speaking team also devote time to rebuttals in the constructive speeches.

The idea of defense being "sticky" seems illogical to me.

There is also a strong trend towards under-developing arguments in an activity that already operates with compressed speech times. I also strongly dislike the practice of spamming one-line quotes with no context (or warrant) from a dozen sources in a single speech. I will reward teams generously if they invest in a few well-warranted arguments which they spend time meaningfully weighing compared to if they continue to shotgun arguments with little regard for their plausibility or quality.

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Policy

Stolen from Matt Liu: "Feb 2022 update: If your highlighting is incoherent gibberish, you will earn the speaker points of someone who said incoherent gibberish. The more of your highlighting that is incoherent, the more of your speech will be incoherent, and the less points you will earn. To earn speaker points, you must communicate coherent ideas."

I debated for OU back in the day but you shouldn't read too much into that—I wasn't ever particularly good or invested when I was competing. I lean more towards the policy side than the K side and I'm probably going to be unfamiliar with a lot of the ins-and-outs of most kritiks, although I will do my best to fairly evaluate the debate as it happens.

1. I tend to think the role of the aff is to demonstrate that the benefits of a topical plan outweigh its costs and that the role of the neg is to demonstrate that the costs and/or opportunity costs of the aff's plan outweigh its benefits.
2. I find variations of "fairness bad" or "logic/reasoning bad," to be incredibly difficult to win given that I think those are fundamental presuppositions of debate itself. Similarly, I find procedural fairness impacts to be the best 2NRs on T/Framework.
3. Conditionality seems obviously good, but I'm not opposed to a 2AR on condo. Most other theory arguments seem like reasons to reject the argument, not the team. I lean towards reasonability. Most counterplan issues seem best resolved at the level of competition, not theory.
4. Warrant depth is good. Argument comparison is good. Both together—even better.
5. Give judge instruction—tell me how to evaluate the debate.

None of these biases are locked in—in-round debating will be the ultimate determinant of an argument’s legitimacy.

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I've judged over 1000 LD and policy rounds from novice locals to TOC elims. I am not particularly partial to a style in which you debate the topic, e.g. philosophical, kritikal, traditional, etc., but I do care that you debate the topic. Frivolous theory or kritiks that shift the question of the debate start a few steps behind for me.

Ideological stances that might influence prefs:

1. Fairness and logic are good—args to the contrary are self-defeating.
2. The aff should defend the topic; the neg should disprove the aff—I've voted against framework/for Ks a decent amount too but it's just a tougher route to take in front of me.
3. Some tricks are fine, most stretch the definition of what counts as an argument—anything that relies almost entirely on your opponent dropping it probably isn't even worth making in front of me.
4. I think Nebel T is true, but tech > truth.
5. Conditionality is probably bad in LD, but it's not that hard to defend condo good; most other counterplan issues are best resolved at the level of competition, not theory.
6. I'm inclined to think that everything other than conditionality and T should be a reason to reject the arg. Most other theoretical objections aren't particularly persuasive to me.
7. I'm generally against sandbagging both in the 1NC and 1AR. I would rather the 1NC read 1 less off case position in favor of more developed case analysis, impact calc, or fully complete arguments. I would rather the 1AR make 1 less theory argument in favor of actually explaining what the words "perm do both" mean. How much "new-ness" is allowed in the 2NR or 2AR is obviously contextual but the default is that it's determined by how new your opponent was.
8. Ev ethics are important—I'll default to the NSDA Evidence Guide.
9. I'd prefer not to read your cards—I'd rather you explain them to me.

None of these biases are locked in—in-round debating will be the ultimate determinant of an argument’s legitimacy. I'm not sure I have strong opinions about much else. Like most other judges, I like evidence quality, impact calculus, and strategic choices. Like most other judges, I dislike cheating, unclarity, and impropriety.

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Traditional LD

I will NOT hesitate drop anyone who spreads or engages in debate practices that would not be persuasive or understandable to a reasonable person—this is not negotiable. Please do not see my policy background or circuit LD experience as an invitation to make this round uninteresting for everyone involved.

1. Please time yourselves. Using a phone is fine.
2. Yes, off-time roadmaps are good.
3. Offense (why you win) is superior to defense (why you don't lose). I'm much more interested in the former; don't spend so much time on the latter.
4. The criterion/framework is not a voting issue. If you say it is, I'll make a big sad face :(.
5. I prefer more principled and philosophical arguments in debate. If the debate does become a question about the consequences of adopting some policy, I prefer empirical studies and examples over random predictions without evidence.
6. I prefer voting issues to be given as they arise on the flow, not in a discrete section at the end of rebuttal speeches.
7. You do not need to ask me to use your prep time (although I will keep track of time myself).
8. You can read my longer LD paradigm at the bottom for a more detailed view at my decision-making process.
9. You MUST follow the NSDA Evidence Rules (High School Manual here, shorter version here). I care deeply about evidentiary ethics in an academic event and I will not hesitate to punish to the full extent allowed by the rules up to, and including, voting against you.
10. I hate evasion. Direct clash with your opponent's central points is preferred.
11. I will keep a rigorous flow, time all speeches, and not hesitate to enforce those time limits.

Good luck!

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WSD

My debate experience is primarily in LD, policy, and PF. I do not consider myself well-versed in all the intricacies or nuances of WSD strategy and norms. My only strong preference is that want to see well-developed and warranted arguments. I would prefer fewer, better developed arguments over more, less-developed arguments.

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Online Procedural Concerns

1. Follow tournament procedure regarding online competition best practices.
2. Record your speeches locally. If you cut out and don't have a local backup, that's a you problem.
3. Keep your camera on when you speak, I don't care if it's on otherwise. Only exception is if there are tech or internet issues---keeping the camera off for the entirety of the debate otherwise is a good way to lose speaker points.
4. I'll keep my camera off for prep time, but I'll verbally indicate I'm ready before each speech and turn on the camera for your speeches. If you don't hear me say I'm ready and see my camera on, don't start.
5. Yes, I'll say clear and stuff for online rounds.

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1st and 2nd Year National Championships at Woodward Academy

2018 — Atlanta, GA/US

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