NDT/CEDA debater at Iowa (formerly Minnesota), former high school debater at Edina.

he/him

Yes, I want to be on the chain - umnakdebate [at] gmail [dot] com

There's no record of me on the wiki from 2021-23 due to some of the stuff going on last year with fascists on tabroom. If you're interested in reading trans/queer stuff, email me or find me at a tournament and I can send you lit recs, affs I've read in the past, and/or good youtube videos of high quality debates in this corner of the library.

TL;DR - General

I have all the technical debate knowledge necessary to judge the arguments you read.

That said, I likely don't have the topic knowledge, so judge instruction and clarifying meaning of acronyms the first time you read them will go a long way. I will aim to give type of decision that I'd like to hear as a debater, win or lose.

If you are debating in front of me and feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or have another need, please let me know at some point and I will do my best to support you and meet your needs in that moment! Please feel free to email me, say something out loud, write something down and hand it to me, etc.

Exclusionary behavior, when purposeful, will get you an L, lowest possible speaks, and discussion with your coaches; situations are nuanced, but my tolerance for things that make debate unsafe is low.

Debate has a clarity problem. I think this started during the COVD era. In any case, I really recommend that people watch this lecture at some point. I don't want to hear you spreading if you sound like a vacuum cleaner. It will not get you high speaks and I promise you're not going fast enough to make it worth it. I will clear you three times, and then I will put my hands in the air to demonstrate that I am not flowing because I cannot hear you. At that point, it would make more sense for you to slow down significantly so that I can catch something instead of literally nothing.

Policy:

I know that people read paradigms for bias, so here is my background: I am substantially less familiar with policy-style arguments because I have been a one-off K + K aff debater for around five-six years now, both in high school and college debate. That said, I'll do my best to evaluate the tech of the flow and vote for the team who wins it.

Judge instruction is always good - I will flow and follow uncontested judge instruction. This might also mean it could be helpful to keep track of and answer the judge instruction your opponents make if you think their instruction bodes poorly for you winning the debate.

I'd like to think that the Ks I am most well-read on tend to be material and have real-world applications and conclusions. Examples and counterexamples are helpful in these debates and often carry a lot of weight when done well - I will reward good examples with good speaks. I find that pomo-type lit bases are less intuitive for me to understand, which means that examples and thorough, logical explanations can be more important if that's your jam. I often find myself very frustrated in KvK debates when teams read white pomo-y theory against opponents who are trying to engage in a discussion about identity, violence, or material oppression. I find that when they are leveraged in these specific instances, pomo-y kritiks come off as stunningly out of touch and offensive.

I will try my very best to vote on the arguments made on the flow, as all good judges do. Adapt at your own risk, which is to say, probably don't. I'd rather see you do what you do best than see you try to run a K without knowing how.

I am increasingly disturbed by non-black debaters with non-black coaches reading afropessimism as a core strategy. This issue is probably too complex for me to adequately express in a paradigm. One thing that I can convey clearly: I am even more disturbed by non-black debaters with non-black coaches reading afropessimism as a timeskew or throwaway. I'm really ready to start giving 25s every time I see it happen.

Update - Spring 2023:

I've noticed a trend where debaters are worried to be straight-up because there is a competitive edge to being sneaky. So far this has looked like:

• reading a bunch of offcase that you can't explain in CX for timeskew,
• procrastinating on giving an order to not reveal your strategic choices for a few extra seconds
• not opensourcing (when there isn't a good reason - think, personal content)
• or strategically... changing up how you disclose past 2NRs to trick the other team into thinking you'll read something that you have no intention of reading.

In all fairness, I probably used to do most of this stuff too, but it does not make for good and high quality debates. I also fear that some of these things - misdisclosure in particular - may unintentionally come across as kind of mean; it's hurtful to feel like another team is running circles around you and laughing at you while they do it! Please do what you can to make the community better.

Debaters and debates that are high quality are rewarded with high speaks, and not just by me - I suspect that the speaks boost over the course of a tournament will do much more in helping you clear than whatever tiny advantage you get from the other team being slightly more unprepared.

Other ways to boost speaks:

• The best (and most fun) debates I've gotten to judge have been indepth, responsive K v K debates, and I'd be delighted to see more of these.
• Bold strategic choices, executed well. Make final rebuttal choices that don't make things hard for yourself - don't panic and try to answer every piece of line by line if it's not necessary to win the debate.
• Please don't read fully blocked-out rebuttals on/against T-USFG. This is an issue on both sides, but the worst instances are when the 2NR or 2AR is fully blocked out. It's desperately unspecific, I've probably heard your blocks before which will make me grouchy, and nobody's learning anything. Furthermore, if one team reads a final rebuttal that relies on blocks, and the other team uses critical thinking to identify what they need to do to win, the team who didn't use blocks will win the flow almost every time, and consequently win the ballot.

Policy Minnesota Locals:

I'm so glad you're reading my paradigm! Yay! If you let me know that you've read my paradigm at some point before the debate starts, I will give you +0.5 speaker points.

Disclosure things -

If you are from a school who does not currently have a wiki, and you want help setting one up, I will help you set it up after my RFD and give you a 30 for posting cites for the round on it. Now, I will default to coach vetos of this, but in general, I think that disclosure will help improve the quality of and continue to build the well-being of local debate!

Independently, if you are from a school who does currently have a wiki, I will give you +0.5 speaker points for posting cites - you should tell me this after the debate is done, because I will otherwise very likely forget.

Debate content things -

When you extend cards to respond to the other team's cards or analytics, you don't have to remember what the author's name is - "1AC 4" is sufficient to tell me which one it was - but you most certainly do have to... actually extend it, by explaining the arguments that it makes and the warrants. I have noticed a trend where debaters will say things like "they say no solvency, but we do solve - extend all of our solvency cards, moving on". Please don't do this, because I will not grant you work that you didn't do over work that the other team did.

If you are typically a national circuit debater, but you are using local circuit tournaments as a time to "meme" or mess around, this will make me very sad. I fundamentally believe that strengthening quality of debate on the local circuit can set the conditions for a better national circuit with lots of teams from MN competing at high levels. Please contribute to this if you can by respecting local debate. Happy to chat about my thoughts after rounds or at tournaments, because I think that I had a lack of understanding of this concept when I was debating in HS!

LD:

K - 1

LARP - 1

Phil/Tricks/Theory - pref me at your own risk, I guess?

I led lab at NSD philly last summer. I dabble in coaching national-circuit LD.

Nevertheless, while I'm confident in my ability to adjudicate anything that would appear in a policy debate according to community norms, I fear that my decisions in phil or tricks rounds may not follow convention simply because I have no understanding of what convention for those styles is.

If I'm judging you and that's your jam, go for it, but heavy judge instruction and a bit more explanation than normal will go far in making sure that my decision lines up with your intentions on the flow.

If I cannot understand the words coming out of your mouth, I cannot flow them, and thus they will not make it into my decision, which nobody wants. I will not use the speech doc to flow, nor to make up for pieces of a speech that were too unclear to flow in the first place.

If you read critical disabilities studies, awesome. I'm here for it. If you read that absurdly offensive Mollow aff.... I guess, please reach out for lit recommendations. Just don't read that aff in front of me or anyone else. If you don't know what this means, it doesn't apply to you.

PF:

Like LD, I have very limited experience judging PF.

Because I come from a policy background, I will evaluate the debate on the flow, so dropped args = true. Like with LD, I have non-existent knowledge about community norms for judging events that aren't policy.

Send your cards.

I will boost speaks for teams who send their evidence to the email chain before giving your speech without the opponent asking.

For teams who do not send their evidence to the email chain before the speech starts, if the opponent points it out and also sends their own cards to the chain before giving their speeches, I will take speaks away from the non-card-sending team and give them to the card-sending team.

Independent from the above, I will not stand for educational dishonesty (blatant misrepresentation of evidence, et cetera). If this becomes an issue in the debate, the team who committed the violation will receive an L and lowest possible speaks - don't test me on this. If it doesn't come up in the debate, but I notice that it has happened on my own, I don't feel comfortable throwing away the flow of the round, but I will still give that team the lowest possible speaks and take any other action that I deem necessary given the context of the round.

add me to the email chain

nikki.aqui8@gmail.com

Assistant coach for Lawrence high school

debated for 3 years in high school and a year in college.
I am comfortable with spreading, but lets be real its been a few years since I have debated and it may be in your best interest to slow it down for me lol-- I will never clear you

I believe in quality over quantity, reading as many off args as you can is just going to take away from the having a substantial learning opportunity in the round.

Not much else to say other than have FUN !!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOOOO☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

kbarnstein@alumni.depaul.edu

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

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

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

Debated at: College Prep, Wake Forest

Coaching at: George Mason (College Policy), Glenbrook South (HS Policy), & Harker (HS LD & PF)

Coached at: Bronx Science (Policy), College Prep (Policy & PF), Eagle (Policy), Minneapolis South (Policy)

2023 Summer Camps Taught/Judged Debates at: RKS

Accolades: Gonzaga 2022 Champion, ADA Championship 2023 Winner, CEDA 2023 Co-Champion, NDT 2021 Double Octa-finalist, NDT 2022 Octa-finalist, NDT 2023 Quarter finalist

Please add me to the email chain - ask me for my email before the debate begins please

If you are debating at your last tournament and/or I am judging you at one of your last tournaments please let me know - making it through debate is a huge accomplishment and deserves all the speaker points in the world.

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If you read nothing else:

1. I'll make my decision on the flow and will vote on dropped arguments I don't believe. Tech determines what is true given there is a warrant and impact.

2. I like warrants, framing issues, impact calculus, judge instruction, organized flows, and high quality solvency advocates.

3. I do not have the ability to adjudicate disputes about anything outside of the debate nor personal attacks against your opponent.

4. Have fun, but also have respect for everyone in the room. Be cognizant of the space you take up and how you choose to do so.

5. The "easy way out," when executed, is S tier strategy because it means you were able to create, negotiate, and implement win conditions in your favor. I like bold decision-making, and I respect strategic vision.

6. Despite any preferences or hot takes described in this paradigm, I will vote for any argument*** regardless of my personal thoughts on debate

***except for RVI's & violent ideologies / ad homs

Other Relevant Info:

• I genuinely have zero preference for how you choose to debate and/or what the debate ought be, given you're not a jerk about it.
• I'm happy to answer any questions in person//via email - please do not reach out to me via any other medium. I will not respond to you.
• More often than not, I find myself protecting the 2nr from new 2ar arguments that are unjustified and/or not traceable to the 1ar. If something's new in your last rebuttal, justify it or hide it.
• I will probably be following along with you while you're reading evidence. With that said, I have no problem deciding my ballot on clipping if seemingly egregious and/or intentional.
• You can assume I'm familiar with the topic and your arguments, but I am always a fan of clarifying both acronyms and abbreviations.
• Evidence is what the debaters interpret it ought be, as long as they can justify & legitimate the warrants, claims, and expertise introduced into the debate.
• FORFEITS / SICKNESS / ETC: My immediate reaction in all but extreme instances is to contact tabroom. However, I understand situations arise and different administrations operate under different policies. Thus, I want to be clear and transparent about my course of action and personal protocols. If a team decides to debate, despite extenuating circumstances, I will NOT penalize any speaker points nor will I take it upon myself to undermine the energy and efforts demonstrated by debaters. I will adjudicate the debate as normal and attempt, as always, to give advice and thoughts on the debate after I submit my ballot. If a debater has to be a maverick and fly solo, I will contact tabroom and adjudicate the debate as normal. I will not penalize the solo debater nor the debater who is missing for whatever reason. The missing debater will be assigned average points. I am incredibly flexible and believe in debate being accessible - let me know what you need for the round to be a safe space.

POLICY DEBATE

Framework: I will vote on any framework impact, but I should also clarify that the words "fairness" and "education" alone are not impacts - they require explanations and impact calculus for me to evaluate them as such. The best TVAs are carded; re-highlighting 1AC evidence is especially good. Winning a role for the ballot/judge only wins you the debate if you explain to me how & why that is the case. I think it would be wise for the 2NR to respond to the case or at least make an argument as to why you do not need to. I am sympathetic to a 2AR extending their case impacts as net benefits to their model of debate, but that requires a clear internal link explanation as to how they only apply to your interp. Impact calculus is still a thing in Framework debates, which means more than "procedural fairness comes first" or "they dropped the aff so we outweigh," A.K.A. tell me why the model you're advocating for is best for and beyond debate. I don't care what impact(s) either side goes for, and I have zero opinion on what the best AFF strategy vs framework entails. I will vote on whatever, but I really dislike listening to you read your coaches' old blocks with zero innovation or attempt at sounding like yourself.

T: T is an evidentiary argument, which means that definitions and qualifications matter. Caselists and impacted out comparisons of both models of debate are important. Impact calc determines not only speaker points but also the direction I lean post debate. Ground is not an impact - it's an internal link. Explain why the ground you lost was important and why those arguments are valuable to your model of debate. Reasonability is best explained as aff predictability. "Aff ground outweighs" is an underutilized argument that I tend to find very persuasive. To go for reasonability, you need a "we meet."

K Affs: You do you. Plans are never necessary for my ballot. I think the "what do you do" question is silly & often misses the boat, but I also have no problem voting on presumption if there isn't an impact with some sort of solvency claim in the 2ar.

CP: Clearly explain and identify the net benefit and how you solve the aff // what parts of the aff you solve in both the block and 2nr. I'll vote on theory if well executed and/or completely dropped. Slow down when explaining counterplan tricks. Probably good to have a solvency advocate, but I won't be mad if you don't. I'll auto judge kick unless instructed not to. I'm a fan of flagging sufficiency framing and other framing issues in both the block and 2nr -- judge instruction is the quickest way to my ballot.

K: I think overviews should at the very least consist of impact calculus and a general thesis claim of your theory of the world/power/etc and how it applies to the affirmative writ large. If your strategy is less reliant upon winning the line by line, I'm your judge as long as you have a reason why your theory of the world and the arguments you have won mean that the arguments you not answering are not true//are wrong and/or do not matter in terms of the debate and ballot. Links should all have impacts and be pointing out specific instances in the 1ac/2ac/cross-ex/AFF. I default to thinking the perm is a question of methods unless directed otherwise. Overly generic 2ACs should lose more than they do. The most compelling 2nr is one with impact calculus, clear links with impacts, and an explanation as to how the alt solves the links (or a reason why the links take out aff solvency if you choose to kick the alt).

DA: Carded links to the aff and warranted impact calculus are must haves. One great card well explained and extended is better than 6 meh ones. In depth turns case analysis is extremely persuasive -- not only the aff's impacts but also internal links // solvency claims. Politics is a real disad, even if quirky. There is no such thing as zero percent risk of a disad, but I am also not one to apply a specific numerical value to the risk of any argument since I think all impact calculus has to be relative to the AFF-- I primarily default to impact calculus and turns case analysis in close debates to determine whether or not the disad is substantial enough to reward a negative ballot.

Case: Generic impact defense without specificity is not and never will be strategic. In depth case debate is underutilized and underrated. Case debate should include extending 1nc cards with warrants beyond a tagline, evidence comparison, why i should care if you win this argument, and reading more cards. Again, I'll happily vote on presumption in any and all debates.

Theory: I really don't care if conditionality is truthfully good or bad, so go for theory if it makes the most strategic sense. I will vote on cheap shots as long as they are executed correctly. Yes, I think some counterplans/ks are cheaty, but it's not my job to prove they are. If you're not going for 50 States fiat is cheating, I'm assuming you've won the rest of the counterplan flow. Speaker points will not be sapped if you choose to go for theory in the 2nr/2ar given you've made the correct strategic decision.

Misc:

-I do not find arguments about calling in Tabroom to adjudicate disputes helpful nor fruitful as a response to link arguments or performative disads unless there is a tournament-specific or tournament-participation level issue raised.

-Evidence qualifications matter to me. What kinds of qualifications is up to you and determined by the type of evidence presented. Citations ought be thoughtfully constructed.

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LINCOLN DOUGLAS

Most of my thoughts in regards to policy debate apply here. However, I will clarify a few issues unique to LD.

Criterion: I understand criterion to not only be a question of how I evaluate impacts and solvency but also how I evaluate the aff vs the negative in terms of theories of the world/power/etc. This has a few implications: a) You should make specific arguments applying your criterion to your case and opponent's case in explaining why I should prefer yours. b) I like specific indicts to criterions outside of whether or not it can explain your scenarios. Tell me why it's a bad model for debate and/or why the theory itself is bankrupt//unethical//wrong. c) Tell me why you still win even if you lose the framing debate. Criterions don't determine a debate but rather direct how I evaluate the content of the cases -- judge instruction and "even if" statements are your friend.

Trickshots/Theory: I truly dislike one sentence reasons to reject the team that seem and are arbitrary in nature. However, if mishandled by your opponent and/or conceded, I have no problem making any and all decisions based off theory and/or cheapshots given it's there's an impact and warrants extended in the rebuttals.

Form Questions: Before you ask me, yes by all means I can keep up with you and don't mind at all if you want to spread or go fast. All I ask is that you're clear and if making mostly analytical arguments are leaving me some pen time to write down what you're saying. I believe in affirmative disclosure, but won't base my decision or speaker points on it unless that is an argument leveraged by the negative. Final rebuttals should have "voters" but also line by line and/or contestation of your opponent's points in the prior speech. I'm down for whatever argument you want to read and will also not be mad if you prefer to do more traditional LD in front of me.

PUBLIC FORUM

Above points in LD and Policy most likely apply to my thoughts here.

Form Questions: in all speeches you are responsible for responding to your opponent. Thus, I think the first rebuttal // summary // final focus should both extend their arguments and answer their opponents. As the second rebuttal // summary // final focus does the same. I do not think counterplans or kritiks are cheating. Evidentiary standards in PF truly make me sad - if you plan on not sharing the evidence you read until asked and/or will only send links/citations to your piece of evidence instead of the full card, please do not include me on the email chain. I would rather not be a recipient of links to random studies and internet sources that do not tell me explicitly what you read and didn't read. I will not vote you down for being "speedy," but please give me a second or two of pen time between arguments to be able to keep up with you.

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tldr: you do you ... except please note that I do not like RVI's and would prefer to not vote on them.

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

TLDR: Better for CP / DA / impact turn debates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hiyyyyyy! :)

rcav.debate@gmail.com

Any pronouns

Gemini

Updated August 2023

For in person tournaments:

Please wear a mask at all times, including during speeches. I don't want covid.

NOTE:

If you're looking to do college debate feel free to reach out and ask about Iowa debate with the email I have above! I'd love to answer any questions!

TLDR:

I do exclusively K debate, currently at the University of Iowa. I've mostly run trans studies, queer theory, and antiblackness. Yes I can still judge a policy debate. Poorly executed framework/K debates from either side are not fun to watch (notes below on how you can persuade me). Top level instruction is important.

General:

Obviously my job as your judge is to evaluate the round as fairly as possible. However, every judge has their biases, so I'll do my best to explain mine here:

4 years of debate at Northside (Chicago/CDL), 2016-2020. I debated on China, Education, Immigration, and Arms Sales. Currently in my fourth year debating at Iowa - I've debated on Alliances, Antitrust, Personhood and Nukes. I was a lab leader during Summer of 2023 for Fiscal Redistribution so I have a decent understanding of the topic.

Most of my higher-level experience has been with K debate, so that's what I'm most familiar/comfortable with. I've had the most experience with trans studies, queer theory, and antiblackness but I have a basic enough handle on almost anything else you can name. Maybe a little less familiar with obscure pomo theory but I get the basics. Obviously if what you're running is super out there, make sure that you are able to thoroughly explain your theory of power and specific links to the aff (which honestly applies to anything you're running).

Top-level stuff: Although I have thoughts about different arguments in debate, please go for whatever you feel comfortable running. Adaptation can be important, but over adapting and going for something you aren't familiar or comfortable with can often hinder you more than help. It's my job to evaluate the round fairly.

Also I personally think that more than 5ish off is unnecessary and uneducational. I'll probably still flow all of them but be willing to give the aff more slack when it comes to new 1AR extrapolations if the neg is running an obscene number of arguments. This is especially true if you read half-arguments in the 1NC that are blown up in the block - think one card K's that barely have a link/impact/alt.

I'm somewhere in between being 'big picture' and being 'techy'/flow centric, but as a judge will put large emphasis on the former. Telling me how to think about/evaluate arguments and what my role is as a judge will get you far.

Asking for a marked doc means that cards were marked, not that they didn't get to every card in the doc. If you want to ask which cards were read, you need to run cross-x or prep.

Usually I'm not looking at docs when flowing speeches and I flow on paper (this is probably different if it is an online debate because I find it somewhat harder to flow over zoom). I do take notes during cross-x, and think it is often a really important part of debates - referencing significant moments from cross-x is a good practice.

T (not FW/USFG): I tend to find judging these debates quite boring in most instances, but if you think it'll be a strong argument please go for it. If you are talking about super specific acronyms make sure you clarify things that might not be obvious. Also make sure you're still doing impact comparison - it is hard to evaluate a T debate when both sides are extending their own impacts without interaction with the other teams arguments.

CPs/Theory: I actually kind of like a good, cheaty, cleverly crafted counterplan with a good net benefit. Condo is probably good up to a certain point, process CPs are fine as long as there's a net ben.

Random thought that doesn't matter but it's called a "counterplan" not a "CP" this annoys me for no reason lol

K's: Pretty much covered this above, but yeah I like Ks. I think the best ways to beat a K are some combination of framework, a perm, and alt takeouts. As much as I like the K, I'm very willing to vote you down if you don't properly extend links to the aff, alt solvency (unless you've got a reason why you don't need an alt), etc. I generally think that teams that try to read bad preempts affs when they hit "k teams" are hurting themselves more than helping. It's much easier to win going for the big stick impacts youre used to if that's what you do.

F/W v. K Aff: I personally tend to believe that debate should be a space where debaters have the opportunity to performatively explore how different forms of knowledge production and political engagement shape the way they occupy space, which is something that can take many forms. This doesn't mean that I won't vote on framework (especially if the team running the K aff isn't properly answering it), however, it does mean that you should be engaging with the affirmative and giving reasons why debate is better off with a traditional way of engaging the resolution. I think that clash-based impacts to framework are better than education-based impacts to framework because it makes it easier to weigh your standards against the aff. A TVA can be powerful, but you should probably have some sort of solvency advocate that ties the TVA to the ability to engage with knowledge/the debate space in a similar way to the affirmative. i.e. I'm much more likely to vote for a carded TVA than a two-second blip or suggestion of a potential topical aff. That doesn't just mean "the TVA does something vaguely good for X group!", especially if the aff is directly addressing the way that knowledge/discourse shape those policies in the first place.

A general note on K aff's too: I love it when teams do performative things. I've done all kinds of stuff in my aff's, and honestly I think an aff that has less ev but is more performatively interesting is much better than a wall of cards.

K v. K: You do you. I've had many of these debates myself, so I enjoy judging them. Being a 2A for the majority of my time debating, I tend to think that the aff does get a perm, but you could (and should) try to persuade me otherwise.

Ethics Challenges: Since this seems to be happening way more frequently now for some reason, a few notes on what an ethics violation is and what it means:

An ethics challenge refers to something like a miscut piece of evidence, and amounts to stopping the debate. If it is called an ethics violation, the round stops - it is not debated out (unless tab decides otherwise, but if it is up to my discretion I will stop the debate).

Ethics violations are sometimes a necessity in situations of bankrupt research practices, but in my opinion is not a "strategy" for you to be prepped to go for if you think you are losing a debate. Posing such a challenge will result in me contacting tab about appropriate measures - whether that means me making the decision or the tab director depends on the tournament and circumstances. Some examples of ethics violations are internal omissions of evidence, straw mans, etc.

I understand that often times (especially in high school debate) citational or miscutting errors are not intentional or done with malice, and so please note I will not hold it against you personally if such a violation occurs. In the event of this situation, I will award a 28.6/28.5 to the team who wins and a 28.4/28.3 to the team who loses.

Speaks: I try to start at a 28 and add or deduct points from there based on nuance, clarity, etc. I'd say on average my points generally range from 28.6 - 29.2 for teams in the middle to upper range of the tournament.

Good luck, and have fun!

Background:

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

Email:

• gershom000@gmail.com

Top level things:

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

Pet peeves:

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

Ethics:

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

Cross-x:

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

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate:

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

Affirmatives:

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

Topicality:

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

Counterplans:

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

Disads:

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

Kritiks:

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

Theory:

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

Framework/T-USfg:

• I find impacts about debatability, clash, and iterative testing to be very persuasive.
• I am not really persuaded by fairness impacts, but will vote on it if mishandled.
• I am not really persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.
• I am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.
• I don't think debate is role-playing.
• The impact turn strategy can get my ballot, but I would prefer the aff explain what debate would look like under their model. This can be done through a counter-interpretation or other various means.

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

Pronouns - him/he\they
Email(s) - abraham.corrigan@gmail.com, acorrigan1@glenbrook225.org, catspathat@gmail.com

Hello!

Thank you for considering me for your debate adjudication needs! Judging is one of my favorite things & I aspire to be the judge I wanted when I debated, namely one who was flexible and would judge the debate based on arguments made by debaters. To do that, I seek to be familiar with all debate arguments and literature bases such that my own ignorance will not be a barrier to judging the arguments you want to go for. This is an ongoing process and aspiration for me rather than an end point, but in general I would say you should probably pref me.

I'm fun!

Sometimes I even have snacks.

<*Judging Quirks*>

- I have absolutely zero poker face and will make a lot of non verbals. Please do not interpret these as concrete/100% definitive opinions of mine but rather as an expression of my initial attempts to place your argument within the particular context of the other arguments advanced in a debate.

- All arguments are evaluated within their particular context - Especially on the negative, as a debater in high school and college I went for and won a lot of debates on arguments which would be described, in a vacuum, as 'bad.' Sometimes, all you have to say is a turd and your rebuttal speeches will largely be what some of my judges described as 'turd-shinning.' This means (unless something extreme is happening which is unethical or triggering my mandatory reporter status as a public school employee) I generally prefer to let the arguments advanced in the debate dictate my view of what is and what isn't a 'good' argument.

- I am not a 'k' or 'policy' judge. I just like debate.

<*My Debate History*>

I am a 2a. This means, if left to my own devices and not instructed not to look for this, the thing that I will implicitly try to do is identify a way to leave stuff better than we found it.

High School

- I debated at H-F HS, in Illinois, for my first two years of debate where I was coached by creeps.

- My junior & senior year in HS I transfered to Glenbrook South where I was coached most by Tara Tate (now retired from debate), Calum Matheson (now at Pitt), & Ravi Shankar (former NU debater).

My partner and I largely went for agenda politics da & process cps or impact turns. We were a bit k curious, but mostly read what would be described as 'policy' arguments.

College

- I debated in college for 4 years at Gonzaga where I was coached by Glen Frappier (still DoF at GU), Steve Pointer (now [mostly] retired from debate), Jeff Buntin (current DoD at NU), Iz-ak Dunn (currently at ASU), & Charles Olney (now [mostly] retired from debate).

My partner and I largely went for what is now be described as 'soft left' arguments on the affirmative and impact turns and unusual counterplans when we were negative.

Coaching

- After graduating, I coached at Northwestern University for a year. My assignments were largely 2ac answers & stuff related to translating high theory arguments made by other teams into things our less k debaters could understand.

- I then moved to Lexington, Kentucky and coached at the University of Kentucky for two years. My assignments were largely aff & all things 2a & answering k stuff on the negative.

- I then coached/did comm graduate work at Wake Forest for two years.

- I then took a break from debate and worked as a paralegal at a law firm which was focused on civil lawsuits against police, prisons, whistleblower protections as well as doing FOIA requests for Buzzfeed.

- I then came back to debate, did some logistics for UK, then Mrs. Corrigan got the GBS job & the rest is history!

Niles West HS (2014-2018)

Trinity University (2018-2020)

Michigan State University (2020-2023)

Niles North HS (2023-now)

University of Wyoming (2023-now)

Last Updated: September, 2023

put me on the chain: nathanglancy124@gmail.com

email chain or get a 26, I don't really like cards in the body of the email

I have medium amounts of College and HS topic knowledge - fair word of warning not to hurdle acronyms

Speaks: I will reward speaks mostly on the following criteria...

1. How did you impact your team's ability to win?

2. How did you impact my judging? Did something impress me?

3. Mastery of Material - "knowing what's going on" at the highest level

4. Mastery of Tech/Organization - did you cause/fix any unnecessary/avoidable decision time hurdles?

Clarity: I'm starting to care way way more about the clarity of argument communicated earlier for how I assess risk later in the debate. I really feel like rewarding good packaging of arguments, labeling, and organization that guides the judge through what you're saying AND why that matters. I will try and highly prioritize this analysis over reading every card and seeing who did the better research project. However, instructing me to read a portion of a card obviously constitutes a form of argument that I will take into account.

Framework: I almost exclusively went for t-usfg/framework in HS and college, but that doesn't make me care about dropping a policy team. Impact articulation matters for me but far too often I find teams blending concepts such as fairness and clash in incoherent ways. I don't care about the label, but rather the underling explanation and how it is being applied in the debate.

Nate's sliding scales about debate:

Tech/Truth----------------------------X-Facts are Facts & Dropped args are as true as the warrants conceded

Condo-------X----------------------Respect the Aff Peasant (have and will vote on it, clear args in the 1ar key)

Process CP/Normal Means Competition----------------------------X- 100 plank case-specific advantage CP

Super Big CP-----------------X------------Deep Case Debating

Simply saying "Sufficiency Framing"-----------------------------X-Explain why CP solves sufficiently

Ptx Not Intrinsic/ASPEC/No Neg Fiat/Death Good/"Your Version"----------------------------X-No

Fairness=Impact (FW/T-usfg)----------X-------------------Lol What's That

Zero Risk Framing----------X-------------------Any Risk Framing

Perm Double Bind--------------X---------------Haha Silly Policy Hacks

Deb8=Karl Rove----------------------------X-That was one dude

Salad K----------------------------X-Single K Thesis

Economic Growth----------------------------X-( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Misc:

P.S. I will increase speaks from what I would have given by .2 for every minute of prep not used - just specifically tell me the balance of prep your team had remaining.

If you call a CP a "see-pee", you get a 27. Three strikes system.

I care about debate's existence and success. I hope that is reflected in my feedback.

I am fine with open cx. All people should be.

I'm better for the K than you think, but likely need more judge instruction about how to apply X argument. Better for evidence-heavy OR depth-focused debate.

I have not judged a KvK debate yet.

here's a photo collage about my debate thoughts that I made in high school:

Flow

Updated 2023 Pre-Northwestern College Season Opener

Assistant Policy Debate Coach at UT-Dallas and Greenhill

Debated at C.E. Byrd HS in Shreveport, Louisiana (class of ’14). Debated in college policy for Baylor University (2014-2016) and the University of Iowa (2017-2019)

Have coached: Caddo Magnet HS, Hendrickson HS, Little Rock Central HS, Glenbrook South HS, University of Iowa, James Madison University

Email chain should be set up/sent before start time. Sam.gustavson@gmail.com

Top level

Please be respectful of one another. We are all sacrificing our weekends to be here and learn, you can be passionate about your arguments without being mean, rude, condescending, hostile, etc. I’d almost always prefer you convince me that your opponent’s arguments are bad, not that they’re bad people. Chances are, none of us know each other well enough to make that determination.

Please prioritize clarity over speed. This is non negotiable. Everything else you can take with a grain of salt and ultimately do what you are best at, but me being able to understand you comes before anything else.

Debate is hard. People make it harder by making it more complicated than it needs to be. I like debaters who take complex ideas and bring them down to the level of simplicity and common sense. Debate is very niche, and so I think a lot of the time people assume that everyone thinks about things the same way or has the same experience with these ideas. That’s not the case.

Judge instruction, impact framing, comparison of evidence, authors, warrants, etc. or “the art of spin” is the most important thing for telling me how I should decide a debate. Making strategic decisions, explaining the implications of those decisions, and winning that whatever position you’re going for outweighs your opponent’s offense.

One of the things that makes debate truly unique is the research that is required, and so I think it makes sense to reward teams who are clearly going above and beyond in the research they’re producing. Good cards won’t win you the debate, but they certainly help “break ties” on the flow and give off the perception that a team is deep in the literature on their argument. But good evidence is always secondary to what a debater does with it.

I care about cross-x A LOT. It’s the one time in a debate round that debaters are exchanging arguments and ideas back and forth rather than monologuing. USE ALL OF YOUR CX TIME. Ask a diversity of questions, not just the same thing over and over.

Organization is also really important to me. Debaters that do effective line by line, clearly label arguments and author names and use things like subpoints and numbering of arguments to keep an organized record on the flow, and use those subpoints and labels consistently throughout the debate to reference arguments make my life easier and increase your chances of winning.

High School Specific Thoughts

I work full time in college debate and as a result am less familiar with the ins-and-outs of the high school topic. I have a basic understanding of the topic but don’t know every acronym, agency, process cp, or T argument related to fiscal redistribution. Take that into consideration.

If you’re interested in doing policy debate in college, feel free to talk to me about debating at UT-Dallas! I am a full-time assistant coach there. We have scholarships, multiple coaches, and a really fun team culture.

CLARITY OVER SPEED APPLIES DOUBLE TO HIGH SCHOOL

Set up the email chain as soon as you get to the room and do disclosure. If you’re aff, ask for the neg team’s emails and copy and paste mine from the top of my paradigm. Let’s get started on time!

Please keep track of your own prep, cx, and speech time.

Don’t flow off the speech doc, it’s the easiest way to miss something and it’s super obvious. Don’t waste cross-x time asking what the did and didn’t read! Flowing is so important.

Aff thoughts

I don’t care what “style” of aff you read, I just care that it is consistently explained and executed throughout the debate, and that you win offense for why your aff is better than the status quo or the neg’s position. The aff should tell a story, and I should have an idea of exactly what the aff does after the 1AC and 1AC cx.

I like most judges enjoy 2ACs that make strategic choices, smart groupings and cross applications, and effectively and efficiently use the 1AC to beat neg positions in addition to reading new cards.

2ACs and ESPECIALLY 1ARs are getting away with murder in terms of not actually extending the aff.

Pretty aff leaning on a lot of CP theory questions (Process especially, 50 states, agent CPs. With the exception of PICs), but usually think they’re a reason to reject the argument. You can win it’s a reason to reject the team, but my bar for winning the 2ac was irrevocably skewed by the existence of a single 1NC position is pretty high. I don’t really lean one way or the other on condo (ideologically at least, I have no clue what my judge record is in condo debates).

Neg Thoughts - General

I like negative strategies that are well-researched specific responses to the aff. I think case debating is super important and underutilized. Nothing is more persuasive than a negative team who seems to know more about the 1AC than the Aff team does.

I think if I were debating right now I’d prefer going for disad/case in the 2NR rather than going for a CP/DA. I think substance is more fun than theory and a lot of CP debates boil down to competition and theory debates, for what ultimately gets you defense to the aff (in most cases)

The 1NR should be the best speech in the debate, you have so much prep.

The 2NR should make strategic decisions, collapse down, and anticipate 2ar framing and pivots. The block is about proliferating options, the 2NR is about making decisions and closing doors.

Counterplans

Like I said above, prefer aff-specific CPs to generics. Counterplans that only compete on immediacy and certainty and net benefits that don’t say the aff is bad are not my favorite. I definitely prefer Process CP + Politics to Process CP + internal net benefit, because the politics DA disproves the desirability of the plan.

Because of the above thoughts, I am more aff leaning on CP theory in a lot of instances, with the exception of PICs. I think PICs that disprove/reject part of the aff are probably good, and that predicting the seemingly infinite different processes the plan could be done through is a lot harder than predicting the neg saying part of the aff is bad. To me it’s pretty easy for the neg to win that they do not have to prove the entire aff is bad, but like everything else, it’s a debate. You can’t get beat on PICs bad and just expect me to ignore it. I think most aff theory args are a reason to reject the CP

This is not a hot take and applies to any argument, but some helpful things you could do when doing for a CP: Judge instruction, being organized and clearly labeling things.

People say sufficiency framing without doing the work to explain why the risk of the net benefit actually outweighs the risk of the solvency deficit. You have to do some type of risk calculus to set up what is sufficient and how I should evaluate it.

I have no feelings one way or another about judge kick. Win that it’s good or win that it’s bad. To me the 2NR should probably know whether or not the CP is worth extending, but I guess if you want me to figure it out I will. In other words, I’m not theoretically opposed to judge kick, but a lot of the time in practice it becomes an excuse for the 2NR to not make strategic decisions, and I don’t like that.

Counterplans vs K affs are underutilized. Creatively applying CPs in a substantive way to solve or impact turn K affs can be super strategic. Using a CP as an example of a TVA is great but I often see people stop there in terms of making CPs matter in critical debates.

Disads

Comparison is important and not just at the impact level. Telling me what warrants to prioritize on the uniqueness and link debate, rehighlighting evidence, doing organized labeling and line by line, etc. Don’t just extend the different parts of the DA, do comparative work and framing on each part to tell me to tell me why you’re winning it and what matters most in terms of what I evaluate.

Like I said in the neg general section, I usually prefer an aff/topic specific DA to politics, but those concerns can be easily alleviated with good link debating on the politics DA. Your link being specific to the aff/resolution is usually important especially for link uniqueness reasons. I typically like elections more than agenda politics just as a research preference.

Impact Turns

Get in the weeds early in these debates and read a lot of cards. Don’t be afraid to read cards late in the debate either. Teams that get out-carded in these debates early have a tough time getting back in the game.

Recency, specificity, and evidence quality really matter for most every argument, but these debates especially. It’s pretty obvious when one team has updates and the other is reading a backfile

These debates get unorganized in a hurry. Labeling, line by line, using subpoints/numbers, and making clear cross applications are super important

Topicality

I really like T debates vs policy affs. I think creative arguments like extra T and effects T are underutilized or at least often underexplained and that there are affs getting away with fiating a lot of extra-resolutional/non-resolutional things.

Typically default to competing interps, and I’ll be totally transparent here: reasonability is kind of an uphill battle for me. When people go for reasonability with an interp, I almost always understand reasonability as a standard for why the aff’s interp is good. If you’re arguing your interpretation is better because it’s more reasonable, how is that not also an appeal to competing interpretations? And in the other scenario, if you’re going for reasonability with a we meet argument, I feel like a lot of the time it just begs the question of the violation and it’s easy for the neg to frame it as a yes/no question, not something that you can kind of/reasonably meet. Ultimately superior debating supersedes everything. If you win reasonability, you win reasonability. But you are probably better off just winning the we meet or going for a counter-interp

Impact comparison on standards is super important. I don’t have any strong preferences in terms of how I evaluate limits vs precision, aff ground vs neg ground, etc. Those are things you have to win and do the work of framing for me.

For the neg: Case lists, examples of ground lost under the aff’s interp, examples of why the debates under your model over the course of the year, topical versions of the aff, etc. will all help me understand in practice why your interp is better for the year of debate on the topic rather than just in theory.

For the aff: A well-explained we meet and/or counter interpretation, a case list of things you allow and things you don’t, and explanation of what ground the neg gets access to under your interp beyond quickly listing arguments and saying functional limits check, explain the warrant for why your interp preserves that ground and why those debates are good to have. N

Not super persuaded by “we meet – plan text in a vacuum” without much additional explanation. If the aff reads a plan text but then reframes/clarifies what that means in cross-x, in 1ac solvency evidence, or in the 2ac responding to neg positions, I think it’s easy for the neg to win those things outweigh plan text in a vacuum.

Framework

I judge a lot of these debates, and I’m fine with that. I think debating about debate is useful.

Fairness can be and impact or an internal link, just depends on how it’s debated. For it to be an external impact, it needs to not be circular/self-referential, which I think it often is in terms of how teams execute it. “Debate is a game, so it needs to be fair, because games need to be fair, and without fairness we can’t debate” is a circular argument that lacks an impact. To me, the argument becomes more offensive the more teams emphasize the time commitment we all put into debate and why maintaining fairness is important for honoring that time commitment, or explaining why it’s important for participation.

If either side is claiming participation as an impact, you have gotta explain how voting for you/your model would solve it. I think that’s hard to do but I’ve seen it done effectively both with fairness and with K affs doing for access/participation outweighs. The impact is obviously very big, but the internal link is often sketchy and not flushed out, in addition to largely being untrue because things like budget cuts have a lot more to do with who can participate than any particular team reading any particular argument.

I prefer clash as an impact more because I feel like it gets to a bigger impact that is more at the heart of why debate is good and that it often causes the neg to interact with the aff more. Your warrants for why clash turns the aff should be aff specific – same with TVAs. Nothing hurts me worse than ultra-generic framework debating where the argument could apply to literally any K aff. The best way to win your model can account for the aff’s impacts is to use the language of the aff in your explanation of things like clash, Switch-Side, and the TVA.

Affs that have something to do with the topic and can link turn things like topic education and clash are more persuasive to me than affs that try to impact turn every single part of framework. You probably will need to win some defense, because so much of the neg side of framework is defense to the stuff you want to go for.

Having a counter-interpretation really helps me understand how to evaluate offense and defense in these debates. This does not necessarily require the 2AC to redefine words in the resolution, but rather to tell me what the aff’s vision of debate is, what the role is for the aff and neg, and why those debates are good. Even if you are going to impact turn everything, having a counter-interpretation or a model of debate helps me understand what the role of the aff, neg, and the overall role of debate are.

Kritiks

The more aff-specific the better. Links do not necessarily have to be to the plan (it would be nice if they were), but they should implicate the 1ac in specific ways whether it’s their rhetoric, impact scenarios, etc. 2NCs that quote and rehighlight aff evidence, read new cards, proliferate links, and give the 2nr options are good. If you are criticizing/kritiking the aff, you should quote as much of their evidence, indict as many of their authors, and apply your criticism to the aff as much as possible. The most common advice I give 2Ns going for the K is to quote the aff more

Making decisions in the 2NR is still important even when reading the K one-off. You cannot go for every link, framing argument, perm answer, etc. in the 2NR.

The best K 2NRs I’ve ever seen effectively use case to mitigate parts of the aff’s offense. If you give them 100% risk of the aff vs the K, it’s harder to win!

Kicking the alt/going just for links or case turns is not the move in front of me. There are almost always uniqueness problems and I end up usually just voting aff on a risk of case. Whether it’s an alternative or a framework argument, you gotta explain to me how voting neg solves your offense.

I have noticed that in a lot of K debates I find that both the aff and the neg over-invest in framework. I honestly don’t see a scenario where I don’t let the aff weigh the 1AC if they win that fiat is good. I also don’t see a scenario where I vote aff because Kritiks on the neg are unfair. If the neg is making links to the aff, the aff obviously gets to weigh their offense against those link arguments. I really think both sides in most cases would be better served spending time on the link/impact/alt rather than overinvesting time on the framework debate.

I don’t really understand a lot of the form/content distinction stuff people go for because I think that the way arguments about “form” are deployed in debate are usually not actually about the form of anything and almost exclusively refer to disagreements in content

Ethics challenges/Clipping/Out of Round Stuff:

In the case that anyone calls an ethics violation for any reason I reserve the right to defer/go to tab, and then beyond that I can only vote based on my interpretation of events. This used to really only apply to clipping, but I’ve been a part of a bunch of different types of ethics challenges over the years so I’ve decided to update this.

Clipping: Hot take, it’s obviously bad. If I have proof you clipped the round will end and you’ll lose. I don’t follow along in speech docs unless someone starts being unclear, so if your opponent is clipping it’s up to you to notice and get proof. I need a recording if I don’t catch it live, even if we are on a panel and another judge catches it. Without a recording or proof, I’m not pulling the trigger.

Be careful about recording people without their consent, especially minors. Multiple states require two-party consent to record, don’t get yourself in legal trouble over a debate round. On the other hand, if you don’t let me listen to a recording where you’re accused of clipping, I’m probably just going to vote against you for some other reason, I have to be honest.

I don’t vote on out of round stuff, especially stuff I wasn’t there for. For clarification, I suppose there could be exceptions to this and my opinions on it have gone back and forth. The top-level truth of the matter is that I as a debate coach do not have the jurisdiction, training, qualifications, or power to resolve interpersonal disputes by voting for someone or against someone in a debate. If you feel that someone in the round has jeopardized your safety, made you uncomfortable, or anything remotely similar, I will do everything in to advocate for you if I witness any of the following. If I am not a witness, I will make sure that the proper channels are used to address the complaint. But just like my role for my university, I am a mandatory reporter. I do not have the jurisdiction to decide those claims and I will be forced to take them to people above me at the tournament.

This is obviously distinct from criticizing something that someone has said or calling people out for being problematic. I’m saying if something so bad has happened that we have to stop the round, I have to go to the tournament and my bosses and look at my options. For your safety and mine I am required to think about how I’m protected, and my role and qualifications as a coach and educator as it relates to resolving officially lodged complaints of discrimination or harassment.

LD Paradigm:

Tech over truth but asserting that an argument is dropped/conceded is not the same thing as extending a full argument

My debate background is in policy, so I have much more familiarity with policy/LARP and Kritikal debates than I do with phil.

That is not to say you cannot win on philosophy in front of me, but you should try to frame it in language that I will understand. So telling me why your impact outweighs and turns their offense, winning defense to their stuff, doing judge instruction and weighing to tell me what matters and what doesn't.

Clarity is more important than speed. Slow down a bit on counterplan texts, interps, etc. Spreading as fast as you can through theory shells or a million a priori's means there's probably a good chance that I am not going to get everything

A lot of arguments in LD stop at the level of a claim - you can be efficient but you can't just blippily extend claims without warrants and expect to win

Not a huge fan of frivolous theory. I think most theory debates end up being a reason to reject the argument not the team with the exception of condo. But like I said, tech over truth so you can win theory in front of me, it just needs to be well impacted for why it is a reason to drop the debater and why rejecting the argument/practice doesn't solve

Benjamin Hamburger 10/2022

Sure, you can add me to an email chain. benjamin dot hamburger at gmail. So you know, I probably will NOT follow along on your speech doc, though.
For Wisconsin legal purposes, you should consider me tabula rasa. don't make me talk about it too much though because there's no such thing as that.

Information about me:
*I have judged and coached in what would be considered "national-circuit" style Midwestern high school debate since about 1998 as a card-cutting coach, as the primary policy coach, as a head coach, and now as a head coach at Central High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I am also a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the History Department. I am now getting old in debate terms--42 at the time of writing--which means I have old ideas and am grumpy about certain things.

*A Debate History:
1993-1998 Policy debater at Hastings High School, Hastings, NE
1998-1999 Judge/minor card cutter, Hastings Senior High School
1999-2005 Assistant Coach for Policy Debate at Fremont High School, Fremont, NE
2005-2007 Director of Forensics, Iowa City High School, Iowa City, IA
2007-2016 Assistant Varsity Coach, Cedar Rapids Washington High School, Cedar Rapids, IA
2016-Present Director of Debate, La Crosse Central High School, La Crosse, WI

*Academic Info that Might Be Relevant:
B.A. in Political Science (emphases in international relations and political theory) and History, a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
M.A. in Secondary Social Studies Education and History from the University of Iowa.

Argument choice issues:
*Choose your arguments. I try to avoid evaluating rounds based on what I like to hear. Even if I don’t like your argument, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost it, etc. My self-estimation is that I am fairly even on the K vs. Policy question. I believe that both are very interesting and useful styles of debate. Most of the time framework debates aren’t particularly productive, the aff will win that they get to weigh the case, the neg will win that they get some form of an alternative, etc. (hint: if you are serious about winning framework, don’t waste your time on the rest of the debate—prove that you’re serious about it and go for it.)

Disad thoughts:
*One of the areas I am slightly old school. Left to my own devices, I am more likely than many judges to evaluate the risk of a disad as zero if there is a step which has been substantially defeated. I do not particularly prefer offense-defense paradigms, it is my feeling that it is necessary to win your arguments to get a DA. Similarly, I think you need to win a link to generate offense, so without justification I do not default to a uniqueness-focused decision-making process. In spite of these warnings, a justified argument can change those decision-making processes. Generally, though, a good politics debate with developed turns-case analysis is a thing of beauty. Quality of evidence comparison/warrants will always beat number of cards.

*I have increasingly found myself somewhat lost in fast debates about security policy which include multiple interacting internal links--not because I am incapable of understanding them, but because I am not as familiar with these arguments as you all are. On occasion debaters need to slow down and explain some arguments.

K Thoughts:
*My favorite negative strategies are about criticisms that isolate and condemn social injustice or reveal power relations and debate epistemology smartly. I have no problem with generic criticisms like security and the cap k, but to win them or to get decent points requires specific discussion of the 1ac—isolating the links and their implications for evaluating the aff is what makes it awesome. Affs lose lots of K debates largely because they pile up cards rather than planning what the 2ar endgame looks like. Often affs are better served defending their own assumptions than reading argument-specific cards that are not part of a specific strategy. To wit, affs regularly go for permutations or no link arguments when they claim an advantage which impact turns the k while conceding a utopian alternative. Because I am a sucker for well-developed analysis about epistemology/ontology, I don't think as a rule the 2nr needs to go for external case defense, at least if you can give examples of how aff authors have specific problems or biases. Wisconsin teams have proven to think that mindless tech can win you a permutation, this is not generally true--most neg args against one permutation work against all of them.

*I consider myself generally well-read on critical arguments, but that reading maybe stopped being so robust in like 2007 or 2008, and so I'm not as up-to-date on the more recent turns in that literature. I can observe some additional relevant tendencies: I often find myself frustrated in rounds that involve a lot of psychoanalytic arguments (I get the cap bad part of Zizek. That may be about it). I dislike the Nietzsche alternative viscerally. In each of these cases, if this is your only game, I am probably not a good judge for you. I will also explicitly note some critical arguments with which I am well acquainted: I’m fairly well read in Foucault, Heidegger, lots of feminisms, critical international relations business, cap bad, etc. Lots of experience now with Afro-pessimism, Orientalism, at least some entré into queer theory args. I still need someone to convince me that Bataille and Baudrilliard are more smart than confusing.

*I’m probably a decent judge for a T debate. Most of the theoretical issues are up in the air—competing interpretations vs. abuse as a standard, etc. If you concede a competing interpretations arg, though, be aware that you’ll need offense on your interp.

*I can enjoy a good theory debate, but if you actually want to win it you probably need to convince me early on in a debate that you are going to do something other than just read your block at full speed. i have a natural dislike towards theory debates that i see as unnecessary. I'm not the ideal judge if you *plan* on going for theory a lot, but again, i try to evaluate those debates fairly. I will note that I do not have a neg side bias when it comes to counterplan debates--be it issues of conditionality, fiat, or competition issues. Some people see that fact in and of itself as an aff side bias on those theoretical issues, but what it means is that i am more than willing to vote aff because a counterplan is cheating, if you win that debate.
*I have found that I am getting older and more dinosaur-like on counterplan theory: I think I have an aff bias on these issues: multiple counterplans, consult counterplans, and conditionality.

*Non-traditional affs: it seems that I am going to judge my share of clash-of-civs rounds, which is fine. I generally think that negative teams do not work hard enough to generate smart arguments against non-traditional affs, so I start with a slight lean against framework arguments, but a sophisticated execution of those debates are often successful. I will also say that aff teams that make efforts to meet some standard of topicality also will find me more forgiving than teams that do not; I think negs do deserve some degree of a starting point.

Decision-making Process:
*I believe my job as a critic is to evaluate a debate as it occurred, rather than retroactively applying my standards of what debate should look like to your round. I try as hard as I can to stay to this standard, but some intervention is inevitable. Read below in the “self-observed biases” section. I try to remain agnostic about the various frameworks for evaluating debates, so that means that if there is a difference in the round as to how I should evaluate it, you should propose your framework explicitly and defend it. My presumption is that debate should be an educational activity, and it would be hard to shake me of that idea, as I am an educator by trade. However, I am open to debates about what kinds of education debate should bring, and how it does so.

*My decisions are nearly always decided by a close review of the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR, with references to the negative block as necessary. I am not, however, a perfect flow, and you should be aware of that and flag important arguments as such. I believe a part of persuasion is correct emphasis.

*It is fairly uncommon for me to read evidence after a debate--use the evidence yourself, refer to warrants, etc. If you think you have good evidence, you need to show it off. The "in" thing to say is that I reward a team for good research, but the most important part of good research is understanding why your evidence is good, and exercising your ability to explain and use the evidence. I do not plan to do evidence comparison for anyone.

*As regards "offense/defense" distinctions: I understand the importance of offense, but I do not discount the art of defensive argumentation. The fact that the other team does not have a turn does not mean you are winning. I have probably evaluated the risk of a disad or other impact as zero (or close enough to not matter) more than the average judge.

*I generally speaking will not seriously consider any independent issue that is not in your final rebuttal for at least 2 minutes--I do not reward a refusal to put all eggs in one basket. This is particularly true for theory arguments. If you feel that a theoretical issue is strong enough to justify a vote, plan to spend the better part of your final rebuttal on it, or don't expect my ballot on it.

In Round Decorum:
*Not much here--but I absolutely cannot stand when debaters talk audibly during an opponent's speech. Increasingly it is hard for me to follow what a fast speaker is saying anyhow--when you're talking too, I am liable to get angry at you.
*I think most of the time you will tend to get better speaker points if you stand up when you speak. Also, pay attention to where your opponent is and where you are when you cross-ex--it is a speech. Cross-ex's where all the debaters are sitting across the room from one another and staring at their computers is not a good persuasive strategy.
*I will also likely get grumpy at you about your paperless crap, especially when it makes a debate round last 20 minutes longer than it should. Don't worry about that too much. Unless it gets out of hand. If you don't know the difference, watch me, and you'll be able to tell.

Paideia 2019

Michigan 2023

Currently Pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Emory University

Email: harrington.joshua33@gmail.com

TLDR:

Policy debaters lie and K debaters cheat. If you believe both of these, you should pref me in the 1-25 percentile. If you believe only one of these, you should consider how much you disagree with the other then put me somewhere in the 25-50 percentile. If you disagree with both of these, consider preffing someone else. Any and all thoughts in this paradigm are malleable and determined by the debating done in a given round. My ideal tournament is one in which any judge from any program can fairly adjudicate any argument without any prior ideological commitments.

I fully believe that the role of the judge is to consider the arguments presented and do their best to render a decision that best reflects the round presented to them. Throughout my debate career I have seen judges allow personal bias and apathy render meaningless the hours of time and energy that debaters give to this activity that we all have limited time in. Therefore, I will do my best to flow all arguments made, listen to CX’s, render a decision, and give comments that I think will aid you in future debates. With that being said, this paradigm reflects my current thoughts on policy debate and how I render my decisions.

If at any point you read this paradigm and think I am referencing a specific ideological position in an attempt to cement a singular vision of debate, I am not. I find equal flaws and absurd arguments across the ideological spectrum and equally dislike most of the arguments, practices, and trends rewarded in this activity. I have felt this sentiment for a few years now. Despite this reality, the one truth I consistently return to is that I love debate. I love this activity and will do my best as a judge to make this activity a welcoming place to all argumentative styles and positions. If you have any questions or concerns, I encourage you to reach out via email or even come up to me at a tournament and introduce yourself. Far too many of us are strangers and fail to reach out, so know I am more than open to dialogue.

Background:

I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. in philosophy at Emory University and plan to continue coaching alongside. I debated for 8 total years and during that time, I was lucky enough to debate across a range of argumentative styles and strategies. I found value in all argumentative forms but have also developed my own argumentative preferences in doing so. I strongly prefer strategies that open oneself to deliberation and defend controversial positions. I believe the issue of clash and what kinds of education we produce are important ones to explore, as I continue to judge. I believe the difference between a good argument and a bad argument is often about packaging and impact calculus and often vote against teams that poorly articulate concepts and the implications of the arguments presented. Similarly, I often vote against arguments not because they are wrong, but because they have not been packaged in a manner that is responsive and/or implicated enough for me to vote on. Once again, any and all arguments are open for me, but if I cannot articulate the impact of an argument and its implications on the other arguments presented, I am very unlikely to vote on it.

Online Debate:

I encourage you to have face cams on, at least during speeches and CX but understand if you are not comfortable with that or just choose not to. I'm a pretty good flow overall, but if there is a tech issue or the speech becomes unclear, I'll do my best to let that be known.

Case/impact:

I will likely read your 1AC and be annoyed if you claim to do things and solve impacts not supported by your current 1AC construction. Many people claim the 2AR lies, but I believe the lies start as early as 1AC CX. This is not to say that new articulations, warrants, and impacts cannot be accessed throughout the process of debating, but I am annoyed by AFF inconsistency. I do not care what 1AC is read or what 2AR is given, just do your best to maintain consistency.

In terms of engagement with case, your negative strategy should implicate the case page in some way. When I say “implicate”, I mean that in the loosest of definitions possible. This can stem from going for terminal defense all the way to fully mooting the 1AC via framework. Remember, no matter what, at the end of the round, a negative ballot will likely have to answer the question, “what should I do with the 1AC?”

DA’s:

Read any and all of them as you please so long as it is substantiated by evidence. These debates often come down to impact calc and card quality. In case vs DA debates, I find myself often voting aff on try or die. Your impact calculus should anticipate that you are defending the status quo and do your best to overcome that.

CP’s:

I am fine with any counterplan so long as it has a solvency advocate, or as long as I can intuitively understand how the counterplan would function. I am working to become a better judge at in-depth counterplan competition debates, but for now err towards over explaining rather than under explaining. Judge kick seems to be good, however if I am judge kicking a counterplan, I am likely to vote on case outweighs unless sufficient case mitigation.

Theory:

I very much do not want to judge condo debates. I default to three being good, four being up for debate, and five or more being bad. The common rebuttal to this format is “number of condo doesn’t matter/it is about the practice/no clear difference between four and five”. I recognize these arguments even though I believe they are said in bad faith. This is an instance where technical execution can overcome ideology for me. However, in most theory debates (including condo), the aff needs to prove in-round abuse in order to persuade me. With theory arguments besides condo, I am likely to just reject the argument and not the team.

I care very little about negative contradictions at a theoretical level. Performative contradictions are not reasons you get to sever your reps, but they can be reasons that I ought to be skeptical of certain arguments.

Kritiks:

Any and all kritiks are viable options when I am in the back. I believe links should either be in the context of doing the plan, the assumptions around particular impacts, or the failures of a particular understanding the 1AC relies on. I find most one card kritiks incredibly unconvincing. I like kritiks that are not just kritiks of fiat and will give you a speaker points boost for developing your kritik beyond “fiat is bad”. I read and enjoy kritiks that defend a theory of power and apply that theory to the link debate; those were the kritiks that I read as a debater.

Answering Kritiks:

For answering the kritik, I am very good for many of the classical policy argumentative pushes that people use against common kritiks. That includes but is not limited to arguments such as: humanism good, psychoanalysis wrong, state inevitable/good/will crackdown, scenario analysis good etc. When a floating PIK/utopian alt is read, I am likely to be convinced by the permutation and a fairness push on framework. Otherwise, I would highly recommend going for a clash impact over fairness against most kritiks.

Defending your 1AC and implicating the kritik is the most effective and likely path to the ballot. I believe the FW (fairness) + extinction outweighs is a more than viable 2AR to give. That said, 75% of the time debaters do not articulate these arguments in a manner that is responsive to the negative’s kritik. I believe it is bad to only have extinction outweighs and fairness-centric framework in your arsenal because there are instances where clash is more responsive and debating the warrants of the kritik will increase your chances of the ballot. In addition, you should be willing to push NEG team on what they are saying. Pressing on the truth of a theory, the relevance of a link, and the viability of the alternative are all more than viable strategies and far more enjoyable to judge than the “two ships passing in the night” trend of Policy vs K debates we currently have.

K AFF’s:

K AFF’s are likely to be most successful in front of me when they take a stance on the resolution and a defend a theory of power that can be applied to the NEG’s offense. What a theory of power constitutes can be very broad, but I am likely to make you defend the implications and solvency of your 1AC. What it means to solve something likely depends upon your 1AC choice, but I must know what you are trying to do to know whether it is good, worthwhile, or even possible.

My three preferred 2NRs vs K AFFs were the Cap K, Topicality, and Afropessimism. I write this to demonstrate, I believe every AFF is answerable, and sometimes the best answer is Topicality.

Similar to the case section, I am most likely to vote NEG when NEG teams make arguments that meaningfully implicate the case page. I think presumption is a necessary tool that is often poorly deployed. I believe it can supplement most strategies and can be won in 1AC CX by a creative 2N who asks the right questions.

I enjoy topicality debates, both going for it and answering it. Fairness and clash are both impacts that should be explained more than you currently plan on. Most of these debates come down to who best articulates the role of the ballot and its ability to solve both sides’ offense. If you are AFF, I am likely to want an answer to the question, “what is the role for the negative”. Through smart defensive arguments, a counter interp, and/or a large defense of an impact turn, I can be easily convinced to never vote on topicality. On the opposite side, you should use fairness/clash to implicate case impacts and beat logical inconsistencies in most 2AC’s to framework. Different K AFF’s have different strategic strengths and weaknesses; different K AFF’s also produce different discussions and forms of clash (maybe). Recognizing the most strategic deployment of the 1AC in addition to your most strategic articulation of fairness, clash, tva, ssd, etc. will increase your chances of getting my ballot.

For K v K debates, I am increasingly conflicted on my beliefs of whether the AFF gets a perm and whether that perm requires a net benefit. I believe it is possible for 2N’s to craft competitive alternatives that disagree with core parts of the affirmative. At the same time, I recognize the potential fluidity of many K AFF’s and am thus sympathetic to different visions of competition. This analysis must be done and resolved otherwise I will abide by traditional rules of competition and consider whether the alt is mutually exclusive with the AFF. I very much dislike floating PIKs, but depending on the PIK and relevant offense, I can be convinced that PIKs in the 1NC can be good.

Procedurals/Ethics violations/RVI’s:

The only procedural I am likely to vote on is topicality. The vast majority of non-topicality procedurals that I have been exposed to are incredibly arbitrary and lose to a 2AR on “we meet”. If you find an 1AC you feel as though you cannot debate with a substantive strategy, I encourage you to find a topicality violation based in the resolution or find a way to out cheat your opponent.

Similarly, when issues of evidence become potential grounds for the rejection of the team, I am highly likely to strike the card and/or the argument rather than the team. Similar to the condo section, I do not particularly want to judge these debates and very rarely am certain enough that the practice should end the debate and/or be grounds for voting a team down.

Lastly, I am a very poor judge for strategies dependent upon out of round interactions. I believe the competitive aspects of debate makes the conversations incredibly unproductive and conversations outside of round are necessary (when possible) to resolve such disputes.

Misc:

My ideal debater combines the persuasion and ethos of Giorgio Rabbini and Natalie Robinson, the technical skill of Rafael Pierry and Elan Wilson the work ethic of DML, Hana Bisevac, and Pranay Ippagunta, the judging abilities of Corey Fisher, Vida Chiri, Devane Murphy, Shree Awsare, and Taylor Brough and the attitudes of Nate Glancy, Jimin Park, Ariel Gabay, and Ben McGraw. If you are able to display any of these qualities to the level that these debaters have, you have set yourself up to thrive in this activity.

I cannot seem to get my paradigm to format properly on Tabroom, so the brief rundown if below, but here's the full break down for LD and Policy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KwX4hdsnKCzHLYa5dMR_0IoJAkq4SKgy-N-Yud6o8iY/edit?usp=sharing

PGP: they/them/he/him

I don't care what you call me as long as you don't call me broke (jk, I am a teacher so you can also call me that ig)

Email chain: Yes, I do want to be on the email chain (saves time): learnthenouns[at]the-google-owned-one.

Bio (not sure anyone reads these but whatever): I have competed in or coached almost everything and I am currently the head coach at Lincoln East. I’ve spent over half my life in this activity (15 years coaching, 7 years competing). My goal is to be the best judge possible for every debater. As such, please read my feedback as me being invested in your success. Also, if you have any questions at all I would rather you ask them than be confused, so using post-round questions as a chance to clarify your confusion is encouraged (just don't be a jerk please).

Overview for all events

• Debate is both educational and a game. I believe the education comes from ideas engaging with one another and students finding their voice. The "game" element functions as a test of your effectiveness in presenting and defending your personal beliefs and advocacies. Thus, I consider myself a games player as it is a necessary component of the educational experience.

• A major exception: I will not listen to you promote any kind of advocacy that says oppression good or structural violence denial (ie claiming anti-white racism is real). They are an auto-ballot against you regardless of whether your opponent points it out or not.

• I flow tags and internal warrants. I only flow author names if there’s nothing else to write down, so don't just rely on 'surname extensions' with zero warranting to get you through the round. I am more interested in the content of your arguments than the names of the person that you are citing.

• On that note, I want the speech doc so that I can check evidence, but I will almost never flow from it during your speech.

• Speed is fine in everything except congress. I watch NDT rounds for fun, so I can handle it. But I do expect clarity in all events. I will yell "clear" once or twice if you're mumbling, and after that I reduce speaks. Also, slow it down a bit when online, especially if you have a bad mic.
  
  

Policy

In super-brief (or T/L as the cool kids call it), see below for in-depth on different arguments:

• Great for: Ks; T; K affs in the direction of the topic; unique and well-warranted plan affs; soft left affs; framework; performance args; most things that deal with critical lit
• Ok for: blippy/big stick plan text affs; K affs with zero topic links; DAs; valid procedurals (ie vagueness, condo); basic CP debates; Baudrillard
• I would rather not judge(but have definitely still voted for): CP debates that get heavily into CP theory; frivolous theory (ie inherency procedural, arbitrary spec shells, etc); most speed ks (unless they are grounded in something like ableism); orientalist China bashing (see below for a free a2)

• Various things I especially appreciate: clash, debating and extending warrants, in-depth case debate, impacting T properly, an organized flow, prompt pre-round disclosure and open sourcing, creative arguments
• Various things I especially dislike:rudeness, not kicking things properly, mumbling when speed reading, disorganized flows, debaters who show up late to rounds and then ask us to wait while they pre-flow, extending author names or tags instead of warrants and impacts

Other basics:

• I am mostly down for whatever, but I prefer in-depth debate over blippy extensions. I am ultimately a games player though, so you do you.
• I want teams to engage with each other's arguments (including T, framework, and case). Debating off scripted blocks for the whole round isn't really debating.
• I flow internal warrants and tags more often than author names so don’t rely on me knowing what “extend Smith #3 in 2k12” means in the grand scheme of the debate and, similarly, don’t power tag or plan to mumble your way through cards because I’m listening and will call you on it.
• I will evaluate things however they are framed in the round. That said, if there is no explicit framing, then I usually default to believing that real-world impacts are of more importance than imaginary impacts. Real-world impacts can come from policymaking cases and T as much as K debates. However, if you frame it otherwise and win that framing then I will evaluate the round accordingly.
• Weighing your impacts and warranting your solvency throughout the whole round (not just the rebuttals) is a quick way to win my ballot. Otherwise, I vote off the flow/what I’m told to vote for.

A small FYI for 22-23: I have a semi-high threshold to buy arguments that claim that China is seeking to conquer the globe, start wars, or colonize other countries.I have already voted for these types of arguments plenty of times, so it's not a no-win argument. However, do know that I see them as often being fairly orientalist and representing a flawed understanding of IR that pretty openly bites into Western biases.So with that in mind, here's an article that gives context on why these narratives are flawed that you should cut and run in front of me when answering a China-bashing argument.

Argument specifics:

Kritiks/K Affs/performance/ID tix/whatever: I’m a good person to run your critical case in front of. I love K’s/critical/performance/id tix/new debate/most things nontraditional.

• I'm familiar with a lot of the lit and ran a lot of these arguments myself.
• I do notbelieve that the aff needs to act through the USFG to be topical and, in fact, engaging with the res in other ways (personal advocacy, genealogy, micropolitics, deconstruction etc) can be reasonably topical and often can provide better education and personal empowerment.
• For clarity, as long as you are engaging with a general premise or an interpretation of the resolution then I believe the aff can claim reasonable topicality.
• That being said, to be an effective advocate for these things in the real world, you have to be able to justify your method and forum, so framework/T are good neg strats and an important test of the aff.
• I am increasingly persuaded by the argument that if you are going to be expressly nontopical on the aff(as in advocating for something with no relation to the topic and zero attempts to engage the resolution), then you need to be prepared with a reason for not discussing the res.

Trad/policy-maker/stock issues debate:

• Most of the circuits I debated in have leaned much more traditional so I am extremely familiar with both how to win with and how to beat a topical aff strat.
• My top varsity team the last few years have tended to run trad as much or maybe more than critical, but historically I've coached more K teams.
• I'm totally down to judge a topical debate but you shouldn't assume that I already know the nuances of how a specific DA or CP works without a little explanationas our local circuit is K-heavy and I only recently started coaching more trad teams.

Framework and theory:

• I love: debate about the forum, method, role of the judge/ballot, and impact calc. Making the other team justify their method is almost always a good thing.
• I strongly dislike: generic fw, spec shells, K's are cheating args, and most debate theory arguments that ask me to outright dismiss your opponent for some silly reason.
• Real talk, almost none of us are going to be future policymakers (meaning alternative ways of engaging the topic are valuable), and wiki disclosure/pre-round prep checks most abuse.
• In short, I want you to engage with your opponent's case, not be lazy by reading a shell that hasn't been updated since 2010.
• Of course, as with most things though, Iwill vote for it if you justify it and win the flow(you might be sensing a theme here....).

-Topicality: I L-O-V-Ea good T debate. Here are a few specifics to keep in mind:

• By "good" I mean that the neg needs to have a full shell with a clear interp, violation, reasons to prefer/standards and voters.
• Conversely, a good aff response to T would include a we meet, a counter definition, standards and reasons why not to vote on T.
• Since T shells are almost totally analytic, I would also suggest slowing down a bit when reading the shell, especially the violations or we meets.
• I usually consider T to be an a priori issue though I am open to the aff weighing real-world impacts against the voters (kritikal affs, in particular, are good for this though moral imperative arguments work well too).
• Reasonability vs competing interps: absent any debate on the issue I tend to default to reasonability in a K round and competing-interps in a policy round. However, this is a 51/49 issue for me so I would encourage engaging in this debate.
• There does notneed to be demonstrated in-round abuse (unless you provide an argument as to why I should) for me to vote on T but it does help,especially if you're kicking arguments.
• Aff RVI's on T are almost always silly. K's of T are ok though the aff should be prepared to resolve the issue of whether there is a topical version of the aff and why rejecting the argument and not the team does not solve the k.
• One caveat: in a round where the aff openly admits to not trying to defend the resolution, I would urge a bit more caution with T, especiallyof USFG, as I find the turns the aff can generate off of that to be fairly persuasive. See the sections on K's and framework for what I consider to be a more strategic procedural in these situations.
• This is mentioned above but applies here as well,please remember that I do not think an aff must roleplay as the USFG to be topical. Advocating for the resolution can (and should) take many forms. Most of us will never have a direct role in policymaking, but hopefully, most of us will take the opportunity to advocate our beliefs in other types of forums such as activism, academia, and community organizing. Thus, I do not buy that the only real topic-specific education comes from a USFG plan aff.

Counterplans:

• I like the idea of the CP debate but I'm honestly not well versed in it (I probably closed on a CP twice in 7 years of debate).
• Basically,I understand the fundamentals quite well but will admit to lacking some knowledge of the deeper theoretical and 'techy' aspects of the CP.
• So feel free to run them but if you are going to get into super tech-heavy CP debate then be warned that you will need to explain things well or risk losing me.

Speed and delivery:Go for it, just be clear and articulate on the tags, warrants, and analytics if you are planning on going especially fast(might even be worth it to knock the speed down a notch on these things).I also expect a very well-organized flowonce you start to approach top speeds (outline style numbering/lettering can help a bunch....).

Pet peeve: speed=/=clear. "Speed" is for how fast you are going. "Clear" is for mumbling. I can handle pretty fast speeds, I can't handle a lack of clarity.I will usually give you one warning, two if I am feeling generous (or if you request it), and then will start docking speaks. I am also good with you going slow. Though since I can handle very fast speeds, I would suggest you give some impacted out reasons for going slow so as to avoid being spread out of the round.

LD

K debate (pomo or ID tix): 10 out of 10

Performance: 10 out of 10

LARP/plan-focus: 9 out of 10

T/theory: 8.5

Phil (aka trad): 7 out of 10

Tricks: 0 out of 10

These are just preferences though. I have and will vote for anything (even tricks, unfortunately, but my threshold is extremely high)

Speed (for context, conversational is like a 3 or 4 out of 10)

Speed in person: 9/10

Speed online: 6 or 7/10 (depends on mic quality)

How I resolve debates if you do not tell me otherwise:

**Note: this is all assuming that no other debate happens to establish specific burdens or about the importance of any particular level of the debate. In other words, I am willing to rearrange the order I evaluate things in if you win that I should.

-First, the role of the ballot, the role of the judge, and the burdens of each side are up for debate in front of me (and I actually enjoy hearing these debates). I tend to believe that these are a priori considerations (though that is up for debate as well) and thus are my first consideration when evaluating the round.

- Next, I will resolve any procedurals (i.e. topicality, theory shells, etc) that have been raised. I will typically give greater weight to in-depth, comparative analysis and well-developed arguments rather than tagline extensions/shells. If you're going to run one of these, it needs to actually be an argument, not just a sentence or two thrown in at the end of your case (again, no "tricks").

-Absent a ROTB/ROJ or procedural debate I look first to the value/crit/standard, so you should either A) clearly delineate a bright-line and reason to prefer your framework over your opponent's (not just the obnoxious 'mine comes first' debate please) or B) clearly show how your case/impacts/advocacy achieves your opponent's framework better (or both if you want to make me really happy….)

-After framework (or in the absence of a clear way to evaluate the FW) I finally look to impacts. Clear impact analysis and weighing will always get preference over blippy extensions (you might be sensing a theme here).

Competed:

2011-15 – Lawrence Free State, KS, Policy (Space, Transportation, Latin America, Oceans)

2015-17 – JCCC, KS, NDT/CEDA (Military Presence, Climate Change); NFA-LD (Bioprospecting, Southern Command)

2017-20 – Missouri State University, MO, NDT/CEDA (Healthcare, Exec Authority, Space); NFA-LD (Policing, Cybersecurity)

Coached:

2016-17 – Lawrence High School, KS, (China Engagement)

2017-19 – Olathe West High School, KS, (Education, Immigration)

2019-22– Truman High School, MO, (Arm Sales, CJR, Water)

2020-Present– Missouri State University, MO, (MDT Withdrawal, Anti-Trust, Rights/Duties, Nukes); NFA-LD (Climate, Endless Wars)

2022-23- Truman State University, MO, NFA-LD (Elections)

2022-Present - The Pembroke Hill School, MO, (NATO, Economic Inequality).

Contact Info:

Always add: phopsdebate@gmail.com

Also add IF AND ONLY IF at a NDT/CEDA TOURNAMENT: debatedocs@googlegroups.com

If I walk out of the room (or go off-camera), please send the email and I will return very quickly.

Email chains are STRONGLY preferred. Email chains should be labeled correctly.

*Name of Tournament * *Division* *Round #* *Aff Team* vs *Neg Team*

tl;dr:

You do you; I'll flow whatever happens. I tend to like policy arguments more than Kritical arguments. I cannot type fast and flow on paper as a result. Please give me pen time on T, Theory, and long o/v's etc. Do not be a jerk. Debaters work hard, and I try to work as hard as I can while judging. Debaters should debate slower than they typically do.

Evidence Quality X Quantity > Quality > Quantity. Argument Tech + Truth > Tech > Truth. Quals > No Quals.

I try to generate a list of my random thoughts and issues I saw with each speech in the debate. It is not meant to be rude. It is just how I think through comments. If I have not said anything about something it likely means I thought it was good.

Speaker Points:

If you can prove to me you have updated your wiki for the round I am judging before I submit the ballot I will give you the highest speaker points allowed by the tournament. An updated wiki means: 1. A complete round report. 2. Cites for all 1NC off case positions/ the 1AC, and 3. uploaded open source all of the documents you read in the debate inclusive of analytics. If I become aware that you later delete, modify, or otherwise disclose less information after I have submitted my ballot, any future debate in which I judge you will result in the lowest possible speaker points at the tournament.

Online debates:

In "fast" online debates, I found it exceptionally hard to flow those with poor internet connections or bad mics. I also found it a little harder even with ideal mic and internet setups. I think it's reasonable for debates in which a debater(s) is having these issues for everyone in the debate to debate at an appropriate speed for everyone to engage.

Clarity is more important in a digital format than ever before. I feel like it would behoove everyone to be 10% slower than usual. Make sure you have a differentiation between your tag voice and your card body voice.

It would be super cool if everyone put their remaining prep in the chat.

I am super pro the Cams on Mics muted approach in debates. Obvious exceptions for poor internet quality.

People should get in the groove of always sending marked docs post speeches and sending a doc of all relevant cards after the debate.

Disads:

I enjoy politics debates. Reasons why the Disad outweighs and turns the aff, are cool. People should use the squo solves the aff trick with election DA's more.

Counter Plans:

I generally think negatives can and should get to do more. CP's test the intrinsic-ness of the advantages to the plan text. Affirmatives should get better at writing and figuring out plan key warrants. Bad CP's lose because they are bad. It seems legit that 2NC's get UQ and adv cp's to answer 2AC thumpers and add-ons. People should do this more.

Judge kicking the cp seems intuitive to me. Infinite condo seems good, real-world, etc. Non-Condo theory arguments are almost always a reason to reject the argument and not the team. I still expect that the 2AC makes theory arguments and that the neg answers them sufficiently. I think in an evenly matched and debated debate most CP theory arguments go neg.

I am often not a very good judge for CP's that require you to read the definition of "Should" when answering the permutation. Even more so for CP's that compete using internal net benefits. I understand how others think about these arguments, but I am often unimpressed with the quality of the evidence and cards read. Re: CIL CP - come on now.

Kritiks on the Negative:

I like policy debate personally, but that should 0% stop you from doing your thing. I think I like K debates much better than my brain will let me type here. Often, I end up telling teams they should have gone for the K or voted for it. I think this is typical because of affirmative teams’ inability to effectively answer critical arguments

Links of omission are not links. Rejecting the aff is not an alternative, that is what I do when I agree to endorse the alternative. Explain to me what happens to change the world when I endorse your alternative. The aff should probably be allowed to weigh the aff against the K. I think arguments centered on procedural fairness and iterative testing of ideas are compelling. Clash debates with solid defense to the affirmative are significantly more fun to adjudicate than framework debates. Floating pics are probably bad. I think life has value and preserving more of it is probably good.

Kritical Affirmatives vs Framework:

I think the affirmative should be in the direction of the resolution. Reading fw, cap, and the ballot pik against these affs is a good place to be as a policy team. I think topic literacy is important. I think there are more often than not ways to read a topical USfg action and read similar offensive positions. I am increasingly convinced that debate is a game that ultimately inoculates advocacy skills for post-debate use. I generally think that having a procedurally fair and somewhat bounded discussion about a pre-announced, and democratically selected topic helps facilitate that discussion.

Case Debates:

Debates in which the negative engages all parts of the affirmative are significantly more fun to judge than those that do not.

Affirmatives with "soft-left" advantages are often poorly written. You have the worst of both worlds of K and Policy debate. Your policy action means your aff is almost certainly solvable by an advantage CP. Your kritical offense still has to contend with the extinction o/w debate without the benefit of framework arguments. It is even harder to explain when the aff has one "policy" extinction advantage and one "kritical" advantage. Which one of these framing arguments comes first? I have no idea. I have yet to hear a compelling argument why these types of affirmative should exist. Negative teams that exploit these problems will be rewarded.

Topicality/procedurals:

Short blippy procedurals are almost always only a reason to reject the arg and not the team. T (along with all procedurals) is never an RVI.

I am super uninterested in making objective assessments about events that took place outside of/before the debate round that I was not present for. I am not qualified nor empowered to adjudicate debates concerning the moral behavior of debaters beyond the scope of the debate.

Things that are bad, but people continually do:

Have "framing" debates that consist of reading Util good/bad, Prob 1st/not 1st etc. Back and forth at each other and never making arguments about why one position is better than another. I feel like I am often forced to intervene in these debates, and I do not want to do that.

Saying something sexist/homophobic/racist/ableist/transphobic - it will probably make you lose the debate at the worst or tank your speaks at the least.

Steal prep.

Send docs without the analytics you already typed. This does not actually help you. I sometimes like to read along. Some non-neurotypical individuals benefit dramatically by this practice. It wastes your prep, no matter how cool the macro you have programmed is.

Use the wiki for your benefit and not post your own stuff.

Refusing to disclose.

Reading the 1AC off paper when computers are accessible to you. Please just send the doc in the chain.

Doing/saying mean things to your partner or your opponents.

Unnecessarily cursing to be cool.

Some random thoughts I had at the end of my first year judging NDT/CEDA:
1. I love debate. I think it is the best thing that has happened to a lot of people. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to get more people to do it. People should be nicer to others.
2. I was worse at debate than I thought I was. I should have spent WAY more time thinking about impact calc and engaging the other teams’ arguments.
3. I have REALLY bad handwriting and was never clear enough when speaking. People should slow down and be clearer. (Part of this might be because of online debate.)

4. Most debates I’ve judged are really hard to decide. I go to decision time often. I’m trying my best to decide debates in the finite time I have. The number of times Adrienne Brovero has come to my Zoom room is too many. I’m sorry.
5. I type a lot of random thoughts I had during debates and after. I really try to make a clear distinction between the RFD and the advice parts of the post-round. It bothered me a lot when I was a debater that people didn’t do this.

6. I thought this before, but it has become clearer to me that it is not what you do, it is what you justify. Debaters really should be able to say nearly anything they’d like in a debate. It is the opposing team’s job to say you’re wrong. My preferences are above, and I do my best to ignore them. Although I do think it is impossible for that to truly occur.

Disclosure thoughts:

I took this from Chris Roberds who said it much more elegantly than myself.

I have a VERY low threshold on this argument. Having schools disclose their arguments pre-round is important if the activity is going to grow/sustain itself. Having coached almost exclusively at small, underfunded, or new schools, I can say that disclosure (specifically disclosure on the wiki if you are a paperless debater) is a game changer. It allows small schools to compete and makes the activity more inclusive. There are a few specific ways that this influences how ballots will be given from me:

1) I will err negative on the impact level of "disclosure theory" arguments in the debate. If you're reading an aff that was broken at a previous tournament, on a previous day, or by another debater on your team, and it is not on the wiki (assuming you have access to a laptop and the tournament provides wifi), you will likely lose if this theory is read. There are two ways for the aff to "we meet" this in the 2ac - either disclose on the wiki ahead of time or post the full copy of the 1ac in the wiki as a part of your speech. Obviously, some grace will be extended when wifi isn't available or due to other extenuating circumstances. However, arguments like "it's just too much work," "I don't like disclosure," etc. won't get you a ballot.

2) The neg still needs to engage in the rest of the debate. Read other off-case positions and use their "no link" argument as a reason that disclosure is important. Read case cards and when they say they don't apply or they aren't specific enough, use that as a reason for me to see in-round problems. This is not a "cheap shot" win. You are not going to "out-tech" your opponent on disclosure theory. To me, this is a question of truth. Along that line, I probably won't vote on this argument in novice, especially if the aff is reading something that a varsity debater also reads.

3) If you realize your opponent's aff is not on the wiki, you should make every possible attempt before the round to ask them about the aff, see if they will put it on the wiki, etc. Emailing them so you have timestamped evidence of this is a good choice. I understand that, sometimes, one teammate puts all the cases for a squad on the wiki and they may have just put it under a different name. To me, that's a sufficient example of transparency (at least the first time it happens). If the aff says it's a new aff, that means (to me) that the plan text and/ or advantages are different enough that a previous strategy cut against the aff would be irrelevant. This would mean that if you completely change the agent of the plan text or have them do a different action it is new; adding a word like "substantially" or "enforcement through normal means" is not. Likewise, adding a new "econ collapse causes war" card is not different enough; changing from a Russia advantage to a China, kritikal, climate change, etc. type of advantage is. Even if it is new, if you are still reading some of the same solvency cards, I think it is better to disclose your previous versions of the aff at a minimum.

4) At tournaments that don't have wifi, this should be handled by the affirmative handing over a copy of their plan text and relevant 1AC advantages etc. before the round. If thats a local tournament, that means as soon as you get to the room and find your opponent.

5) If you or your opponent honestly comes from a circuit that does not use the wiki (e.g. some UDLs, some local circuits, etc.), I will likely give some leeway. However, a great use of post-round time while I am making a decision is to talk to the opponent about how to upload on the wiki. If the argument is in the round due to a lack of disclosure and the teams make honest efforts to get things on the wiki while I'm finishing up my decision, I'm likely to bump speaks for all 4 speakers by .2 or .5 depending on how the tournament speaks go.

6) There are obviously different "levels" of disclosure that can occur. Many of them are described above as exceptions to a rule. Zero disclosure is always a low-threshold argument for me in nearly every case other than the exceptions above.

That said, I am also willing to vote on "insufficient disclosure" in a few circumstances.

A. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy your wiki should look like this or something very close to it. Full disclosure of information and availability of arguments means everyone is tested at the highest level. Arguments about why the other team does not sufficiently disclose will be welcomed. Your wiki should also look like this if making this argument.

B. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy. Debaters should go to the room immediately after pairings are released to disclose what the aff will be. With obvious exceptions for a short time to consult coaches or if tech problems prevent it. Nothing is worse than being in a high-stress/high-level round and the other team waiting until right before the debate to come to disclose. This is not a cool move. If you are unable to come to the room, you should be checking the wiki for your opponent's email and sending them a message to disclose the aff/past 2NR's or sending your coach/a different debater to do so on your behalf.

C. When an affirmative team discloses what the aff is, they get a few minutes to change minor details (tagline changes, impact card swaps, maybe even an impact scenario). This is double true if there is a judge change. This amount of time varies by how much prep the tournament actually gives. With only 10 minutes between pairings and start time, the aff probably only get 30 seconds to say "ope, actually...." This probably expands to a few minutes when given 30 minutes of prep. Teams certainly shouldn't be given the opportunity to make drastic changes to the aff plan text, advantages etc. a long while after disclosing.

Debate Coach - University of Michigan

Debate Coach - New Trier High School

Michigan State University '13

Brookfield Central High School '09

I would like to be on the email chain - my email address is valeriemcintosh1@gmail.com.

A few top level things:

• If you engage in offensive acts (think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), you will lose automatically and will be awarded whatever the minimum speaker points offered at that particular tournament is. This also includes forwarding the argument that death is good because suffering exists. I will not vote on it.
• If you make it so that the tags in your document maps are not navigable by taking the "tag" format off of them, I will actively dock your speaker points.
• Quality of argument means a lot to me. I am willing to hold my nose and vote for bad arguments if they're better debated but my threshold for answering those bad arguments is pretty low.
• I'm a very expressive judge. Look up at me every once in a while, you will probably be able to tell how I feel about your arguments.
• I don't think that arguments about things that have happened outside of a debate or in previous debates are at all relevant to my decision and I will not evaluate them. I can only be sure of what has happened in this particular debate and anything else is non-falsifiable.

Pet peeves

• The 1AC not being sent out by the time the debate is supposed to start
• Asking if I am ready or saying you'll start if there are no objections, etc. in in-person debates - we're all in the same room, you can tell if we're ready!
• Email-sending related failures
• Dead time
• Stealing prep
• Answering arguments in an order other than the one presented by the other team
• Asserting things are dropped when they aren't
• Asking the other team to send you a marked doc when they marked 1-3 cards
• Asking me if I need a card doc - I will ask you if I want you to start putting a card doc together.
• Disappearing after the round

Online debate: My camera will always be on during the debate unless I have stepped away from my computer during prep or while deciding so you should always assume that if my camera is off, I am not there. I added this note because I've had people start speeches without me there.

Ethics: If you make an ethics challenge in a debate in front of me, you must stake the debate on it. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points. If you are proven to have committed an ethics violation, you will lose and be granted zero speaker points.
*NOTE - if you use sexually explicit language or engage in sexually explicit performances in high school debates, you should strike me. If you think that what you're saying in the debate would not be acceptable to an administrator at a school to hear was said by a high school student to an adult, you should strike me.

Organization: I would strongly prefer that if you're reading a DA that isn't just a case turn that it go on its own page - its super annoying because people end up extending/answering arguments on flows in different orders. Ditto to reading advantage CPs on case - put it on its own sheet, please!

Cross-x: Questions like "what cards did you read?" are cross-x questions. If you don't start the timer before you start asking those questions, I will take whatever time I estimate you took to ask questions before the timer was started out of your prep. If the 1NC responds that "every DA is a NB to every CP" when asked about net benefits in the 1NC even if it makes no sense, I think the 1AR gets a lot of leeway to explain a 2AC "links to the net benefit argument" on any CP as it relates to the DAs.

Translated evidence: I am extremely skeptical of evidence translated by a debater or coach with a vested interest in that evidence being used in a debate. Lots of words or phrases have multiple meanings or potential translations and debaters/coaches have an incentive to choose the ones that make the most debate-friendly argument even if that's a stretch of what is in the original text. It is also completely impossible to verify if words or text was left out, if it is a strawperson, if it is cut out of context, etc. I won't immediately reject it on my own but I would say that I am very amenable to arguments that I should.

Inserting evidence or rehighlightings into the debate: I won't evaluate it unless you actually read the parts that you are inserting into the debate. If it's like a chart or a map or something like that, that's fine, I don't expect you to literally read that, but if you're rehighlighting some of the other team's evidence, you need to actually read the rehighlighting. This can also be accomplished by reading those lines in cross-x and then referencing them in a speech or just making analytics about their card(s) in your speech and then providing a rehighlighting to explain it.

Affirmatives should have a solvency advocate. What that looks like is up for debate. I think debates that stray too far from what a reasonable person would constitute an advocacy for a policy change distort the literature base in ways that make it impossible for the negative to respond to the aff. This is compounded by excruciatingly vague plan texts that enable the aff to "no link" out of what are obvious disads to the affirmative. If your style of debate is built around manipulating and bastardizing literature to create affs that say and defend nothing, I'm probably not the judge for you. I think this vision of debate disincentivizes in-depth negative research. If you refuse to specify what your aff does, I am probably not the judge for you. If you think that saying "a thing is bad" constitutes an aff without saying what your aff does about it, I am a bad judge for you.

Topicality: I enjoy judging topicality debates when they are in-depth and nuanced. Limits are an an important question but not the only important question - your limit should be tied to a particular piece of neg ground or a particular type of aff that would be excluded. I often find myself to be more aff leaning than neg leaning in T debates because I am often persuaded by the argument that negative interpretations are arbitrary or not based in predictable literature.

5 second ASPEC shells/the like that are not a complete argument are mostly nonstarters for me. If I reasonably think the other team could have missed the argument because I didn't think it was a clear argument, I think they probably get new answers. If you drop it twice, that's on you.

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

I think that CPs should have to be policy actions. I think this is most fair and reciprocal with what the affirmative does. I think that fiating indefinite personal decisions or actions/non-actions by policymakers that are not enshrined in policy is an unfair abuse of fiat that I do not think the negative should get access to. For example: the CP to have Trump decide not to withdraw from NAFTA is not legitimate, while the CP to have Trump announce that a policy that he will not withdraw from NAFTA would be. The CP that has the US declare it will not go to war with China would be theoretically legitimate but the CP to have Trump personally decide not to go to war with China would not be.

Disads: I am not very sympathetic to politics theory arguments (except in the case of things like rider disads, which I might ban from debate if I got the choice to ban one argument and think are certainly illegitimate misinterpretations of fiat) and am unlikely to ever vote on them unless they're dropped and even then would be hard pressed. I'm incredibly knowledgeable about politics and enjoy it a lot when debated well but really dislike seeing it debated poorly.

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

Kritiks: I've gotten simultaneously more versed in critical literature and much worse for the kritik as a judge over the last few years. Take from that what you will.

Your K should ideally be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If not, you're better off with it primarily being a framework argument.

Yes the aff gets a perm, no it doesn't need a net benefit.

Affs without a plan: I generally go into debates believing that the aff should defend a hypothetical policy enacted by the United States federal government. I think debate is a research game and I struggle with the idea that the ballot can do anything to remedy the impacts that many of these affs describe.

I certainly don't consider myself immovable on that question and my decision will be governed by what happens in any given debate; that being said, I don't like when judges pretend to be fully open to any argument in order to hide their true thoughts and feelings about them and so I would prefer to be honest that these are my predispositions about debate, which, while not determinate of how I judge debates, certainly informs and affects it.

I would describe myself as a good judge for T-USFG against affs that do not read a plan. I find impacts about debatability, clash, iterative testing and fairness to be very persuasive. I think fairness is an impact in and of itself. I am not very persuaded by impacts about skills/the ability for debate to change the world if we read plans - I think these are not very strategic and easily impact turned by the aff.

I generally am pretty sympathetic to negative presumption arguments because I often think the aff has not forwarded an explanation for what the aff does to resolve the impacts they've described.

I don't think debate is roleplaying.

I am uncomfortable making decisions in debates where people have posited that their survival hinges on my ballot.

Misc procedural things:

1. He/him/his; "DML">"Dustin">>>"judge">>>>>>>>>>"Mr. Meyers-Levy"

2. Debated at Edina HS in Minnesota from 2008-2012, at the University of Michigan from 2012-2017, and currently coach at Michigan and Glenbrook North

3. Please add me to the email chain: dustml[at]umich[dot]edu. College debaters only: please also add debatedocs[at]umich[dot]edu (note that this is not the same as the community debatedocs listerv).

4. Nothing here set in stone debate is up to the debaters go for what you want to blah blah blah argument is a claim and a warrant don't clip cards

5. Speaks usually range from 28.5-29.5. Below 28.5 and there are some notable deficiencies, above 29.5 you're going above and beyond to wow me. I don't really try to compare different debaters across different rounds to give points; I assign them based on a round-by-round basis. I wish I could give ties more often and will do so if the tournament allows. I gave a 30 one time a decade ago because I lost a bet. I doubt it'll ever happen again.

6. If you're breaking something new, you'll send it out before your speech, not after the speech ends or as it's read or whatever. If you don't want to comply with that, your points are capped at 27. If you're so worried that giving the neg team 9 extra minutes to look at your new aff will tip the odds against you, it's probably not good enough to win anyway.

7. I feel like my decision times get shorter and shorter by the tournament. I highly encourage you to think about whether you really need to spend time making the other team send a copy of every card they marked and read or didn't read after their speech.

8. Each person gives one constructive and one rebuttal. The first person who speaks is the only person I flow (I can make an exception for performances in 1ACs/1NCs). I don’t flow prompting until and unless the assigned speaker says the words that their partner is prompting. If you need some part of this clarified, I’m probably not the judge for you.

9. If you would enthusiastically describe your strategy as "memes" or "trolling," you should strike me.

Top-level:

When making my decisions, I seek to answer four questions:

1. At what scale should I evaluate impacts, or how do I determine which impact outweighs the others?

2. What is necessary to address those impacts?

3. At what point have those impacts been sufficiently addressed?

4. How certain am I about either side’s answers to the previous three questions?

I don’t expect debaters to answer these questions explicitly or in order, but I do find myself voting for debaters who use that phrasing and these concepts (necessity, sufficiency, certainty, etc) as part of their judge instruction a disproportionate amount. I try to start every RFD with a sentence-ish-long summary of my decision (e.g. "I voted affirmative because I am certain that their impacts are likely without the plan and unlikely with it, which outweighs an uncertain risk of the impacts to the DA even if I am certain about the link"); you may benefit from setting up a sentence or two along those lines for me.

Intervention on my part is inevitable, but I’d like to minimize it if possible. The way I try to do so is by making an effort to quote or paraphrase the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR in my RFD as much as possible. This means I find myself often voting for teams who a) minimize the amount of debate jargon they use, b) explicitly instruct me what I need in order to be certain that an argument is true, and c) don’t repeat themselves or reread parts of earlier speeches. (The notable exception to c) is quoting your evidence—I appreciate teams who tell me what to look for in their cards, as I’d rather not read evidence if I don’t have to.)

I flow on my computer and I flow straight down. I appreciate debaters who debate in a way that makes that easy to do (clean line-by-line, numbering/subpointing, etc). I’ll make as much room as you want me to for an overview, but I won’t flow it on a separate sheet unless you say pretty please. If it’s not obvious to me at that point why it’s on a separate sheet, you’ll probably lose points.

Consider going a little bit slower. I think debate is easier when you slow down. I like when debaters do it; it makes it easier to flow everything you say. I prefer voting on arguments that I am certain about, and it is much easier to be certain about an argument when I know that I have written down everything that you’ve said.

Presumption always goes negative because the affirmative always has the burden of proof.

I am "truth over tech." I will not vote for something if I cannot explain why it is a reason that one side or the other has done the better debating, even if it is technically conceded by the other team. Obviously, this is not to say that technical concessions do not matter--they're probably the most important part of my decisionmaking process! However, not all technical concessions matter, and the reasons that some technical concessions matter might not be apparent to me. A dropped argument is true, but non-dropped arguments can also be true, and I need you to contextualize how to evaluate and compare those truths.

I appreciate well-thought-out perms with a brief summary of its function/net beneficiality in the 2AC. I get frustrated by teams who shotgun the same four perms on every page, especially when those perms are essentially the same argument (e.g. “perm do both” and “perm do the plan and non-mutually exclusive parts of the alt”) or when the perm is obviously nonsensical (e.g. “perm do the counterplan” against an advantage counterplan that doesn’t try to fiat the aff or against a uniqueness counterplan that bans the plan).

I’d prefer that you read rehighlightings and not insert them, unless you’re rehighlighting a couple words. You will lose speaker points for inserting a bunch of rehighlightings, and I’ll happily ignore them if instructed to by the other team.

I prefer to judge engagement over avoidance. I would rather you beat your opponent at their best than trick them into dropping something. If your plan for victory involves hiding ASPEC in a T shell, or deleting your conditionality block from the 2AC in hopes that they miss it, I will not be happy.

K affs:

1. Debate is indisputably a game to some degree or another, and it can be other things besides that. I like when teams split the difference and account for debate’s inevitably competitive features rather than asserting it is only one thing or another.

2. I think I am better for K affs than I have been in the past. I am not worse for framework, but I am worse for the amount of work that people seem to do when preparing to go for framework. I am getting really bored by neg teams who recycle blocks without updating them in the context of the round and don’t make an effort to talk about the aff. I think the neg needs to say more than just “the aff’s method is better with a well-prepared opponent” or “non-competitive venues solve the aff’s offense” to meaningfully mitigate the aff's offense. If you are going for framework in front of me, you may want to replace those kinds of quotes in your blocks with specific explanations that reference what the aff says in speeches and cards.

3. I prefer clash impacts to fairness impacts. I vote negative often when aff teams lack explanation for why someone should say "no" to the aff. I find that fairness strategies suffer when the aff pushes on the ballot’s ability to “solve” them; I would rather use my ballot to encourage the aff to argue differently rather than to punish them retroactively. I think fairness-centric framework strategies are vulnerable to aff teams impact turning the neg’s interpretation (conversely, I think counter-interpretation strategies are weak against fairness impacts).

4. I don't think I've ever voted on "if the 1AC couldn't be tested you should presume everything they've said is false"/"don't weigh the aff because we couldn't answer it," and I don't think I ever will.

5. I think non-framework strategies live and die at the level of competition and solvency. When aff teams invest time in unpacking permutations and solvency deficits, and the neg doesn’t advance a theory of competition beyond “no perms in a method debate” (whatever that means), I usually vote aff. When the aff undercovers the perm and/or the alt, I have a high threshold for new explanation and usually think that the 2NR should be the non-framework strategy.

6. I do not care whether or not fiat has a resolutional basis.

Ks on the neg/being aff vs the K:

I am getting really bored by "stat check" affs that respond to every K by brute-forcing a heg or econ impact and reading the same "extinction outweighs, util, consequentialism, nuke war hurts marginalized people too" blocks/cards every debate. That's not to say that these affs are non-viable in front of me, but it is to say that I've often seen teams reading these big-stick affs in ways that seem designed to avoid engaging the substance of the K. If this is your strategy, you should talk about the alternative more, and have a defense of fiat that is not just theoretical.

I care most about link uniqueness and alt solvency. When I vote aff, it's because a) the aff gets access to their impacts, b) those impacts outweigh/turn the K, c) the K links are largely non-unique, and/or d) the neg doesn't have a well-developed alt push. Neg teams that push back on these issues--by a) having well-developed and unique links and impacts with substantive impact calculus in the block and 2NR, including unique turns case args (not just that the plan doesn't solve, but that it actually makes the aff's own impacts more likely), b) having a vision for what the world of the alt looks like that's defensible and ostensibly solves their impacts even if the aff wins a risk of theirs (case defense that's congruent with the K helps), and/or c) has a heavy push on framework that tells me what the alt does/doesn't need to solve--have a higher chance of getting my ballot. Some more specific notes:

1. Upfront, I'm not a huge fan of "post-/non-/more-than/humanism"-style Ks. I find myself more persuaded by most defenses/critical rehabilitations of humanism than I do by critiques of humanism that attempt to reject the category altogether. You can try your best to change my mind, but it may be an uphill battle; this applies far more to high theory/postmodern Ks of humanism (which, full disclosure, I would really rather not hear) than it does to structuralist/identity-based Ks of humanism, though I find myself more persuaded by "new humanist" style arguments a la Fanon, Wynter, etc than full-on rejections of humanism.

2. There's a new trend of Ks about debt, debt imperialism, etc. I may not be the best judge for these arguments, simply because of my difficulty with understanding economics on its own terms, let alone in the context of a K. It's not for lack of trying to understand or familiarize myself, I just have tremendous difficulty understanding even basic economic concepts at a fundamental level, and this is seriously amplified when those concepts are being analyzed by relatively complex critical theory. This isn't to say these arguments are unwinnable in front of me (I've voted for them this year and in past years), but you may want to consider something else and/or investing a really large amount of time in explaining the fundamentals of your arguments to me.

3. I also don't really get all these new Ks about quantum physics in IR and stuff. Again, it's me, not you. I was an English major; every time I try to read these articles I get a headache. I'm interested, I promise, and if you can explain it to me I'll be very appreciative! But for transparency's sake, I think it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to both explain the argument to me in a way that I can comprehend AND invest the time necessary to win the debate in your 36 collective minutes of speaking time.

4. I'm quite interested in emerging genres of critical legal theory. I think I would be a good judge for Ks that defend concrete changes to jurisprudence and are willing to debate out the implications of that.

5. I think that others should not suffer, that biological death is bad, and that contingent agreement on truth is possible and a better basis for action than nothing. If your K disagrees with any of these fundamental premises, I am a bad judge for it.

6. I don't get Ks of linear time. I get Ks of whitewashing, progress narratives, etc. I get the argument that historical events influence the present, and that events in the present can reshape our understanding of the past. I get that some causes have complex effects that aren't immediately recognizable to us and may not be recognizable on any human scale. I just don't get how any of those things are mutually exclusive with, and indeed how they don't also rely on, some understanding of linear time/causality. I think this is because I have a very particular understanding of what "linear time" means/refers to, which is to say that it's hard for me to disassociate that phrase with the basic concept of cause/effect and the progression of time in a measurable, linear fashion. This isn't as firm of a belief as #5; I can certainly imagine one of these args clicking with me eventually. This is just to say that the burden of explanation is much higher and you would likely be better served going for more plan-specific link arguments or maybe just using different terminology/including a brief explanation as to why you're not disagreeing with the basic premise that causes have effects, even if those effects aren't immediately apparent. If you are disagreeing with that premise, you should probably strike me, as it will require far longer than two hours for me to comprehend your argument, let alone agree with it.

7. "Philosophical competition" is not a winner in front of me. I don't know what it means and no one has ever explained it to me in a coherent way.

Policy debates:

1. 95% of my work in college is K-focused, and the other 5% is mostly spot updates. I have done very little policy-focused research in the preseason.

For high school, I led a lab this summer, but didn't retain a ton of topic info and have done exclusively K-focused work since the camp ended. I probably know less than you do about economics.

2. “Link controls uniqueness”/“uniqueness controls the link” arguments will get you far with me. I often find myself wishing that one side or the other had made that argument, because my RFDs often include some variant of it regardless.

3. Apparently T against policy affs is no longer in style. Fortunately, I have a terrible sense of style. In general, I think I'm better for the neg for T than (I guess) a lot of judges; reading through some judge philosophies I find a lot of people who say they don't like judging T or don't think T debates are good, and I strongly disagree with that claim. I'm a 2N at heart, so when it comes down to brass tacks I really don't care about many T impacts/standards except for neg ground (though I can obviously be persuaded otherwise). I care far more about the debates that an interpretation facilitates than I do about the interpretation's source in the abstract--do explanation as to why source quality/predictability influences the quality of debates under the relevant interpretation.

4. I think judge kick makes intuitive sense, but I won't do it unless I'm told to. That said, I also think I have a lower threshold for what constitutes the neg "telling me to" than most. There are some phrases that signify to me that I can default to the status quo by my own choosing; these include, but aren't necessarily limited to, "the status quo is always a logical policy option" and/or "counter-interp: the neg gets X conditional options and the status quo."

5. Here are some aff theory arguments that I could be persuaded on pretty easily given a substantive time investment:

--Counterplans should have a solvency advocate ideally matching the specificity of the aff's, but at least with a normative claim about what should happen.

--Multi-actor fiat bad--you can fiat different parts of the USFG do things, and international fiat is defensible, but fiating the federal government and the states, or the US and other countries, is a no-no. (Fiating all fifty states is debatably acceptable, but fiating some permutation of states seems iffy to me.)

--No negative fiat, but not the meme--counterplans should take a positive action, and shouldn't fiat a negative action. It's the distinction between "the USFG should not start a war against Russia" and "the USFG should ban initiation of war against Russia."

--Test case fiat? Having osmosed a rudimentary bit of constitutional law via friends and family in law school, it seems like debate's conception of how the Supreme Court works is... suspect. Not really sure what the implications of that are for the aff or the neg, but I'm pretty sure that most court CPs/mechanisms would get actual lawyers disbarred.

--“…large advantage counterplans with multiple planks, all of which can be kicked, are fairly difficult to defend. Negative teams can fiat as many policies as it takes to solve whatever problems the aff has sought to tackle. It is unreasonable to the point of stupidity to expect the aff to contrive solvency deficits: the plan would literally have to be the only idea in the history of thought capable of solving a given problem. Every additional proposal introduced in the 1nc (in order to increase the chance of solving) can only be discouraged through the potential cost of a disad being read against it. In the old days, this is why counterplan files were hundreds of pages long and had answers to a wide variety of disads. But if you can kick the plank, what incentive does the aff have to even bother researching if the CP is a good idea? If they read a 2AC add-on, the neg gets as many no-risk 2NC counterplans to add to the fray as well (of course, they can also add unrelated 2nc counterplans for fun and profit). If you think you can defend the merit of that strategy vs. a "1 condo cp / 1 condo k" interp, your creative acumen may be too advanced for interscholastic debate; consider more challenging puzzles in emerging fields, as they urgently need your input.” -Kevin "Kevin 'Paul Blart Mall Cop' James" James Hirn

high school = Kansas 2012-2016 (Policy and LD)

undergrad = Emporia State 2016-2020 (Policy)

grad = Kansas State 2020-2022 (Policy Coach)

DO NOT RECORD MY VOICE OR IMAGE AND DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF ME WITHOUT MY WRITTEN CONSENT. It's ridiculous this has to be said.

edited for the youth

Updated 10/26/22

---- Yes, put me on the email chain. Squiddoesdebate@gmail.com

---- Do a sound check before you start your speech. Simply ask if we can all hear you. I will not dock speaks because of audio issues, however, we will do everything we can to fix the audio issue before we proceed.

------------------- SEND YOUR ANALYTICS - if you want me to flow every word, it would behove you to send me every word you have typed. I am not the only one who uses typed analytics. Don't exclude folks from being able to fully participate just because you don't want to share your analytics.

--- the first thirty seconds of the last rebuttal for each side should be what they expect my RFD should be. I like being lazy and I love it when you not only tell me how I need to vote, but also provide deep explanation and extensive warrants for why the debate has ended in such a way to where I have no other choice to vote that way.

----My decision is most influenced by the last two rebuttals than any other speech. I actively flow the entire debate, but the majority of my attention when considering my decision comes down to a flow-based comparison of the last rebuttals. If you plan to bounce from one page to the next in the 2NR/2AR, then please do cross-applications and choose one page to stay on. That will help both of us.

I think debate should be an activity to have discussions. Sometimes these discussions are fun, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are obvious and clear, sometimes they are not. Sometimes that's the point. Regardless, have a discussion and I will listen to it.

I don't like to read evidence after debates. That being said, I will if I have to. If you can make the argument without the evidence, feel free to do so. If I yell "clear", don't trip, just articulate.

--- If I call for evidence or otherwise find myself needing to read evidence, it probably means you did not do a good enough job of explaining the argument and rather relied on author extensions. Please avoid this.

Your speaks start at a 30. Wherever they go from there are up to you. Things that I will drop speaks for include clearly not explaining/engaging the arguments in the round (without a justification for doing so), not explaining or answering CX questions, not articulating more after I clear you. Things that will improve your speaks include being fast, being efficient with your words, being clear while reading evidence, demonstrating comprehensive knowledge of your args by being off your blocks or schooling someone in cross-x, etc. If I significantly hurt your speaks, I will let you know why. Otherwise, you start at 30 and I've only had to go below 26 a handful of times.

----- my range is roughly 28.7-29.5 if you are curious for open and higher for Novice because I love novice debate

Prep time, cross-x, in-between-speeches chats, I'll be listening. All that means- be attentive to what's happening beyond the speeches. If you are making arguments during these times, be sure to make application arguments in the speech times. That's not just a judge preference, it's often devastating.

I like kritikal/performative debate. I did traditional/policy-styled debate. I prefer the previous but won't rule out the latter.

---- ^^ this is less true as I judge more and more high school debate but it is still true for college debate.

Tips;

have fun

slow down when reading the theory / analytics / interps

don't assume I know everything, I know nothing in the grand scheme of things

don't be rude unless you're sure of it

Ask me more if you want to know. Email me. I am down to chat more about my decisions in email if you are willing.

LD--------------

- theory is wild. i don't know as much about it as you think I do

- tell me how to evaluate things, especially in the later speeches because new things are read in every speech and its wild and new to me. tell me what to do.

- I love the k's that are in this activity, keep that up.

Hey, my name is Teddy! I am an assistant coach for Farmington (MN) and I currently debate for the University of Minnesota.

Pronouns: He/They

Topics that I have debated: arms sales, CJR, anti-trust, legal personhood, & nukes; coached: water protection, NATO, & redistribution.

My general view of debate rounds is that debate is a game that tests policy options to solve problems outlined by the resolution of that year--the aff must identify an issue, propose a solution, and then prove that that solution works. The neg must test the strength of that policy, which can be done various ways with multiple positions to make sure the policy is thoroughly tested. I generally default to tech--but can easily be persuaded truth outweighs/comes 1st. Education can spill over (depending on method), debate is a game--but NOT one where “anything goes”--remember to be decent. I have a tendency to view myself as a policy-maker most often, BUT value education highly and can be convinced to switch my evaluation/calculus.

**I worry that my paradigm scares people away from reading Ks in front of me--here are my K-specific thoughts: While I default to a policy-maker if not given a specific-paradigm to follow, I think that the 1AC has the ability to dramatically switch what calculus I use to evaluate the round--it's just up to them to give me a role as the judge & warrant it out. On the neg, I think that the K is a totally reasonable way to prove that the AFF is bad to implement or makes the harms within the squo worse--I prefer Ks that have unique or specific links to the plantext, the assumptions or representations of the aff (including rhetoric), and/or have a way to solve those issues via the alt (or at least prove they don't have to). Framework & theory args that are framed around education are particularly convincing to me.

Additional notes:

If your position requires a TW, don't read it in front of me. Send pre-written blocks/analytics/extensions in the chain for accessibility reasons, especially if you intend to read them one right after the other or really fast. Rhetoric does matter and has an immediate, irreversible impact--please still impact out these arguments in the round, though.

If I am judging a category that isn't Policy/CX: please be patient--I'm still learning. Yes, I'm fine with speed. Please make an email chain. Send out everything you intend to read the first time.

***My email is no longer on my paradigm for personal reasons--iykyk--so just ask for it before round.

Hi :)

General Info:

-I use she/her pronouns

-I want to be on the email chain

-I debated for Millard North High School 2018-2021, I ran both policy and kritical arguments, I have a slightly more than a basic understanding of Bataille, Puar, Preciado, Derrida, most cap arguments, and set col

-I study political science at UNL and currently coach policy at Millard North

- I don't care if you sit, stand, walk, or look at the wall when you speak

- Please be kind.

- if I am judging your LD round- I am fine with any kind of debate- LARP or otherwise- I'll listen to whatever you read in front of me

TLDR:

-Read what you like, debate well and respectfully

Basics:

- I have an extremely high burden for evidence, if you do not have a warranted piece of evidence attached to your argument at the end of the round and your opponent does- I will default to the evidence every single time. this means you need to extend your evidence well- explain your evidence and contextualize it- you can read as many cards as you'd like but if the text of the card doesn't say what you're saying it does I will have trouble buying your argument.

-Tech > truth almost always

-Do not assume I will read your evidence unless you tell me to and why (if you have a fantastic piece of evidence that answers every single argument your opponent is making, tell me how. Don't just tell me to extend it.)

-PLEASE extend author names when you extend a card (not only author name, but please put it in there) but if I don't know what card you're referencing (especially if you have multiple cards that basically say the same thing), I can't evaluate it, and tend to buy responses when it is answered by your opponent.

-POLICY AFF: If you do not garner solvency or do anything due to your case ( performance, etc.), it will be hard for me to vote for you. Defend your solvency or prove you do something.

-I love Kritical arguments, but I need an extremely clear path to solvency to buy your argument.

- Tagteam cross ex is fine

- I frequently give advice for future arguments in my RFD, if you do not want that, let me know, I will not be offended.

- don't steal prep; emailing/flashing is not prep

-condo is not my fav, but I won't outright reject your theory.

-I love a good theory argument; you need to flesh out the impact.

-T is a fun and good time but I need the impact of a nontopical case.

- Speed is fine, read as fast as you want, i'll clear you

-DisAds: I need specific links, but I'm willing to vote on a link of omission if I'm given a reason to.

-Debate is a game, but I don't think cheaters should always lose. Always following the rules of debate takes away the fun. Tell me why cheaters should lose.

-Trigger warnings and generally not okay behavior: if you have a case that involves sensitive material in any form, you should add a trigger warning. If you choose to add a trigger warning, you need another option for a case if the material triggers someone. If you fail to provide another option, you will concede the round. I will not allow you to make this space unsafe for anyone. That being said, if you misgender someone and/or are racist/ sexist/ homophobic /transphobic /general bigotry, I will stop the round, vote you down, and tank your speaks. Quite frankly, I'm tired of extremely rude behavior being allowed in debate, and for debaters to have to fight to be treated with kindness and empathy, I will not submit to the current narrative.

Speaker points:

I generally think speaker points are a terrible way of determining success; my rules are:

30 - I think you should win this tournament

29-29.9- little to no criticism

28-28.9- few strategic issues

27-27.9- more than a few issues or multiple critical errors

26 or lower- you owe someone an apology

I default to 28 for the loser and 28.5 for the winner unless I feel compelled to think about it harder.

Bottom line:

-Do whatever you're comfortable with and do it well. If you don't make an effort to get better, you're wasting everyone's time

she/her

minneapolis south '22

dartmouth '26

annabelledebate@gmail.com

Topic specific:

I do not know anything about this topic! You will have to explain things a bit more than you would like to if I'm judging you at a camp tournament.

I will not evaluate out of round anything - I'm not here to pass moral judgment on the character of any debater.

Top level notes:

I debated for four years at Minneapolis South - policy on the aff and a mix of policy and critical on the negative. I was a 2N through junior year and a 2A senior year. Speed is fine.

T stuff:

I love a good T debate - my favorite T impacts will always and forever be predictability and precision - that being said I will vote on anything if debated well.

Counterplans:

Counterplan/DA debates are my favorite - I think I’m both more willing to vote on perms and more willing to vote on internal net benefits than the average judge so take that how you will

Process counterplans annoy me! I will vote on them but I'll be annoyed about it

Advantage counterplans are awesome - big fan of those debates

DAs:

Politics makes me want to scream but I recognize that it's not your fault - you're going to have to do a lot of explaining about why this specific policy messes up PC or whatever though because this DA probably makes no sense and I don't want to do the work for you

Aff specific DAs are way more fun for me to judge than anything else - always my preference if you have the option

Ks:

I'll completely resolve framework before deciding the rest of the debate.

Contextualize your links to the aff!!! Pull lines, reference specific aff mechanisms, etc...

Every link should have an impact and should be solved by the alternative

Not super well versed in k lit but will do my best

Theory:

I like theory debates - I wouldn't say I'm particularly biased either direction - I'll try to evaluate what happens in the round

ASPEC is dumb - I'm willing to vote on it but you may see steam coming out of my ears if it makes it past the 1NC

cam, they/she, camnofdebate@gmail.com

last time large substance changes were done : nov 2022

if you are a contemporary reading this and i have stolen things from your paradigm, it's because they are good and i will not rehash something already well-written.

bio

- 8 years of cx debate experience and counting

- happily in college debate limbo (transfer student blues)

- lane tech debate captain ('21)

- lane tech debate co-coach (‘22-now)

- went to the toc in hs if that sort of thing has significance to you

- people who have had a significant effect on my debate style and experience: lila lavender, george lee, geo liriano, sam price, uiowa CE, and the entire university west georgia with an emphasis on CL

top level

online debate: please turn your camera on, I hate listening to 4 black boxes - this excludes tech problems, my laptop is also prone to very dramatic tantrums.

don't call me judge, my name will do just fine.

very little offends me. it should be simple for you to prevail if it's so wrong and you're so right.

in my personal career i primarily went for policy aff's and k's or t on the neg. i generally think that good things are good and bad things are bad. i have few stipulations (probably even less than most) on how the "rules" of debate ought to work, if you win the thing that you are running then i will vote on it.

1) an argument is a claim and a reason (at least).

2) evidence supports your argument, evidence is NOT your argument

3) i won't kick arguments for you

4) line by line debating is non-optional

5) tech > truth (this has nuances, you won't read them if i write them...)

5) if you cannot collapse, you are a bad debater

the most significant thing to remember is that i am a human (by most definitions) that does make mistakes (despite my best attempts). i'm generally proficient at flowing, and i will flow the entire round-barring something catastrophic. i've had excellent and extensive conversations with many other college-age judges about this, during which i have concluded the following. my job as a judge is to do my best to fairly adjudicate the round to the best of my ability, which i can assure you that i will do. if you feel the need to hammer me in the post-round, by all means, go for it, but make note that i will respect you as much as you respect me. there are right and wrong decisions in varsity debates, and judges can & do fail to deliver the right ones, which is a regrettable, yet inevitable part of the game; i do my absolute best to avoid this, and i can assure you i have interpreted every argument on the flow to the best of my working ability.

now, much like keryk kuiper outlines, i am a fairly expressive judge. i laugh when things are funny, i do make faces at things, and i have been known to throw flow paper about in a rather dramatic way. you are under no obligation to change strategies based on the way i react to it, and you will win something that i don't "like" as long as you are winning it on the flow. you may, however, choose to alter it. that is your right and your decision. you are also a human with "free will". do as you please - but note that reacting to those things is a crucial part of becoming a better debater - and if your argument is so bad that i look like i’m about to throw up, good luck getting me to hack for you in the rfd.

i believe it goes without saying i would much rather judge a well-executed policy v policy round than a poorly executed k v k round. just because i have a better substantive grasp on a larger body of k lit than an average clash judge does not mean that i think you should pref me higher as a k team. my ideal debate is something you have the best grasp of, and that you are the most excited about. if that happens to be the k, then wonderful, but if it is also a CP you have labored over then i am equally as enthusiastic. all good debate teams do their best to exert themselves on arguments that they think have the most merit - that is what i want to hear.

below are, as the intro would suggest, my many conflicting opinions on debate. do not confuse this with rules for a round. these are just my personal thoughts, and i take pride in my ability to objectively adjudicate whatever presents itself to me.

k things

K's proper: LT PN was explicitly a set col team for many moons, so i am personally most familiar with that set of lit in the context of my own competitive practice. in my time as a coach, i've also worked on plenty of semio-cap/po-mo/ "high theory" based k's. external to debate, i'm fairly well-versed in anti-capitalist and queer theory literature. this is not an excuse to not judge instruct. i have a strong distaste for k teams whose strategy is to confuse the opponent out of ballots with large, and often unnecessary words. i find this practice incredibly disingenuous and i have (unhappily) noticed its presence increase over time. if you rely on obfuscation, the argument is probably quite poor, and you should not be reading it. on a personal note, in working with the lovely lila lavender for quite some time, i have found myself more drawn to k v k debate over time, as i firmly believe it is the most interesting and innovative form that debate can take.

additionally, i do wholeheartedly agree with her analysis of non-colonized and non-black people reading afro-pessimism as a strategy, for more information I have included the same blog link here

https://thedrinkinggourd.home.blog/2019/12/29/on-non-black-afropessimism/

K on the aff: you must be willing to commit. it is far too often that i judge k aff teams that are determined to make their aff more middle-of-the-road/palatable. clever k teams should be able to achieve equilibrium with effective policy teams with the amount of tools at their disposal and yet they seem unwilling to use them. i am far more willing to hear that debate is better with no competition models, debate should be thrown off a cliff, or that debating the resolution has no intrinsic value than your average clash judge. that being said, i have a stronger preference for k affs that defend something material (specific political project) than the average k judge. too many k affs shy away from fiating the alt, but i digress. as far as content goes, the material that i have the most personal familiarity is outlined above. i think lila says it best when they say "If you are going to reject the res, which is totally cool with me, you should make sure to have justifications as to why the res is bad, and why rejecting it on the affirmative is key."

if you are going to perform, and it is significant to you that the performance is flowed a certain way, indicate that.

i will probably not flow your overview if it is longer than 30 seconds.

i will definitely not flow your overview if it requires a separate sheet.

K on the neg: should deal with the case in some way (either moot it entirely on the FW flow/ fiat the alt/ what have you). generating philosophical or research practice based competition is most likely to be persuasive to me - i am of the many that believe beyond game theory, debate is a research practice. one team will win their FW interpretation, as most other standards are arbitrary. same content familiarity applies here. generally, the neg shouldn't be lazy with their links, and the aff should be smarter debating fiat arguments. i prioritize specificity and spin above all else. i also think affs should be smarter (and earlier) on the FW flow.

my favorite part of nick rosenbaum's theory of debate is that "you do not need an alternative if you are winning framework OR if your links are material DA's to the aff's implementation where the squo would be preferable OR if your theory of power overdetermines the aff's potential to be desirable OR if you can think of another reason you don't need an alt." same material praxis alternative preference as k aff's (internal or external to debate). fiating mindset shifts/epistemic reorientations (i have yet to hear a sound description of what that is) is probably abusive and generally not a good argument. i will (and have - dont ask) vote on death good - if you win it.

FW: i generally believe that framework is probably true to some extent, and net good for clash v k affs because reciprocity is good and so on and so forth. as my judging record would indicate, i am neg leaning in K v FW debates, mostly for the reasons outlined in the k aff section of this paradigm. i find tournament and season preparation disparity arguments fairly silly. for the negative, use smart defensive tactics like switch-side debating and TVA's, explain the flaws in the counter-interpretation (unlimited topic, links to aff offense), and produce smart arguments about limits, mechanism education, or clash.

making sure there is fairness in a competition between two teams is one of the judge's main responsibilities. judges are fundamentally expected to evaluate the discussion honestly; forcing them to disregard fairness in that appraisal removes the prerequisite for debate. on the aff, you should impact turn the process of policy debates on the topic - this is distinct from the affs on the topic. if you win that the process of debating the topic is bad, then preserving fairness is futile to the game.

policy things

T: probably makes its way into 75% of my own 1NR’s, competing interps/quality of evidence comes first. do not hinge your strat on some vague cross ex answer, clear and concise arguments only. additionally, both or either team reading blocks through the rebuttals without refuting the other team's arguments in depth is very boring and not something I want to watch.

Theory: See T. I err aff on condo generally and for the sake of transparency thing, most consult/agent counterplans are probably abusive, but don't let that sway you, i will still vote on the flow work (yes i am a strong believer in the debate truth that neg fiat is bad). i'm predisposed to believe exactly what YOU think debate ought to be.

Da's: make sure you do plenty of impact work, and PLEASE articulate why the impact of your DA overwhelms the harms of the aff. Links exist on a spectrum; the "chance of a link" has to be qualified and then incorporated into the risk assessment component of impact calculus. Expert turns case analysis is invaluable. “Any risk” is inane. Below some level of probability, signal should be overwhelmed by noise, or perhaps the opposite effect might occur. Pretending that one can calculate risk precisely is stupid. Are you really sure that the risk of a disad is fifteen percent? Are you sure it’s not, say, twenty? Or maybe ten? Or, God forbid, twenty-five? If you are able to calculate risk with such precision, please quit debate and join the DIA. Your country needs you, citizen. If not, recognize that risks can be roughly calculated in a relative way, but that the application of mathematical models to debate is a (sometimes) useful heuristic, not an independently viable tool for evaluation. - mollison stolen from matheson which has now trickled down to here.

CP's: win the net ben and how you access it, otherwise i will vote on a nice Aff perm. That being said, If a perm is present in the 1ar, I will NOT automatically judge kick the CP if the squo is preferable. In this scenario, the 2nr would need to instruct me as to why I should do this, however I think judge kick goes aff easily in the presence of a perm.I think lots of counterplans that steal much of the aff (interpret that as you wish) are illegitimate and the aff should hammer them. the aff still needs has to win theory regardless of my personal disdain for certain CP's. i do like a well executed tricky PIC though on a NATO topic, i find them widely entertaining. not sure of their legitimacy, but at least i'll be in a good mood.

final notes

have fun, debate should be something you enjoy doing. be nice and cordial to your opponents, that being said don't be afraid to be assertive. don't clip cards. i follow the nsda handbook re: evidence violation, so any of those issues must be resolved through tab. if the tournament is not NSDA sanctioned and i am instructed to make the decision, i will default to my best interpretation of what "good practice" looks like on the current college circuit/"general accepted community norms". all that good stuff

bonus speaks section

+0.1 for open sourcing (let me know, i won't look)

+0.1 for any good joke in a speech (this is at my discretion, good luck)

+0.1 for novices that show me their flows after the round has ended

Please put me on the email chain: eriodd@d219.org.

Experience:

I'm currently an assistant debate coach for Niles North High School. I was the Head Debate Coach at Niles West High School for twelve years and an assistant debate coach at West for one year. I also work at the University of Michigan summer debate camps. I competed in policy debate at the high school level for six years at New Trier. #gotrevs (always already a preclusion...don't worry).

Education:

Master of Education in English-Language Learning & Special Education National Louis University (Expected Winter 2024)
Master of Arts in School Leadership Concordia University-Chicago
Master of Arts in Education Wake Forest University
Juris Doctor Illinois Institute of Technology-Chicago Kent College of Law
Bachelor of Arts University of California, Santa Barbara

Debate arguments:

I will vote on any type of debate argument so long as the team extends it throughout the entire round and explains why it is a voter. Thus, I will pull the trigger on theory, agent specification, and other arguments many judges are unwilling to vote on. Even though I am considered a “politics/counter plan” debater, I will vote on kritiks, but I am told I evaluate kritik debates in a “politics/counter plan” manner (I guess this is not exactly true anymore...and I tend to judge clash debates). I try not to intervene in rounds, and all I ask is that debaters respect each other throughout the competition.

Random comments:

The tournament and those judging you are not at your leisure. Please do your best to start the round promptly at the posted time on the pairing and when I'm ready to go (sometimes I do run a few minutes late to a round, not going to lie). Please do your best to: use prep ethically, attach speech documents quickly, ask to use bathroom at appropriate times (e.g. ideally not right before your or your partner's speech), and contribute to moving the debate along and help keep time. I will give grace to younger debaters on this issue, but varsity debaters should know how to do this effectively. This is an element of how I award speaker points. I'm a huge fan of efficient policy debate rounds. Thanks!

In my opinion, you cannot waive CX and bank it for prep time. Otherwise, the whole concept of cross examination in policy debate is undermined. I will not allow this unless the tournament rules explicitly tell me to do so.

If you use a poem, song, etc. in the 1AC, you should definitely talk about it after the 1AC. Especially against framework. Otherwise, what is the point? Your performative method should make sense as a praxis throughout the debate.

Final thoughts:

Do not post round me. I will lower your speaker points if you or one of your coaches acts disrespectful towards me or the opponents after the round. I have no problem answering any questions about the debate but it will be done in a respectful manner to all stakeholders in the room. If you have any issues with this, please don't pref me. I have seen, heard and experienced way too much disrespectful behavior by a few individuals in the debate community recently where, unfortunately, I feel compelled to include this in my paradigm.

Glenbrook North- he/him

If you are visibly sick, I reserve the right to forfeit you and leave.

1. Flow and respond to what the other team says

2. You almost certainly are going too fast for how clear you are.

3. Kritiks: Probably a bad idea in front of me.

4. Non topical affs: You definitely want to strike me.

5. "Can you send a marked copy" is a reasonable pre-cx request. "Marked copy" means any cards they started reading but didn't finish should be marked. "Marked copy" doesn't mean the team sends a version of the doc that omits cards they skipped entirely.

6. Everything needs to be in one speech doc. Getting everything together in one speech doc is prep.

7. No inserting anything into the debate besides like charts or graphics (things that can't be read aloud). You don't need to re-read the plan and counterplan text, and you can say perm specific planks, but if you are reading a more complicated perm than that, you should read the text. The litmus test is "insert the perm text."

8. Don't swear.

9. I generally flow cross-x but won't guarantee I'll pay attention to questions after cross-x time is up. I also don't think the other team has to indefinitely answer substantive questions once cx time is over.

10. Vague plans are a double-edged sword.

Wayzata High School 2015-2019 (4 years of policy debate, debated on the national circuit)

Concordia College 2019-2020 (1 year of policy debate, 2020 NDT qualifier, program now defunct)

University of Minnesota 2020-Present (college policy debater, 2023 NDT qualifier)

Varsity Policy Coach at Edina High School 2021-Present

I use he/him/his pronouns.

prostc3@gmail.com for email chains - please no SpeechDrop or PocketBox or whatever people are using now.

Top-Level:

The divide between "policy" and "critical" debate is an extremely harmful one - I have participated in both styles and think there is immense value in each and problems with each. This doesn't mean I think I have zero biases, but it does mean I will attempt to hold your arguments to an equal standard regardless of what side of this imaginary line you stand on. Flex debate is the best debate - I consider myself a better judge for teams that describe themselves in that way than exclusively "policy" or "K" teams.

I'm a young judge who doesn't have as much topic knowledge as you, so don't expect me to know everything and don't be surprised if I don't fully understand the intricacies of your tricky arguments.

Please try to be nice to your opponents – debate is so much more enjoyable as an activity when people treat each other with respect – I'm not going to enforce any strict standards of decorum (those usually end up in policing along racialized and gendered lines) but if your strategy is based around trying to intimidate, demean, or bully your opponents or anyone else in the room, please strike me.

Online Debate Notes:

Please don't start out speaking at full speed when debating online - it's going to be a lot easier for me to get what you're saying on my flow if you slow down a little when starting your speech.

I would prefer for debaters to have their cameras on when they are speaking - staring at a bunch of black boxes for hours on end can be quite soul crushing. This isn't a very strong preference though; if you can't/don't want to have your camera on it is perfectly fine and will not change my decision or your speaks whatsoever.

My Quirks (aka some things that you should probably care about if I'm your judge):

Please be clear - this means I should be able to understand every word that you say, including in the texts of cards. This doesn't mean go slow - I love fast debate and can definitely flow it, but I find it extremely dissuasive and honestly quite contrary to the entire purpose of debate as a communication activity when people think that the person who is supposed to be evaluating their speech doesn't need to be able to physically comprehend all of it. I will call clear if I can't understand you, and it would be in your best interest to use vocal variation, emphasis, and make it very clear when you are switching between flows. Don't get psyched out if I call clear - it doesn't mean you're going to lose, it just means you need to speak more clearly.

I'm not a very expressive judge and I intend to keep it that way - I'd rather have you just give your speech than have you try to change it midway through because you interpreted a certain facial expression of mine in a certain way.

Tech > truth - what I consider to be true in the debate is determined by the flow.

I won't vote on arguments that don't meet the very low bar of having a warrant behind them, even if they're dropped.

I don't think you need offense on every flow to win a debate - offense definitely matters, but strong defense pushes, especially on disads and advantages, can win debates singlehandedly.

I won't outright reject arguments just because I think they're dumb - if you win the flow on no neg fiat, then you'll get my ballot.

I will probably take a while to decide if the debate was close at all - I like to type out my RFD before I give it because I have ADHD and my thoughts are usually really disorganized and bouncing all over the place like they're in a pinball machine, so I can give better feedback if I take more time to decide. Normally if I have to give my RFD off the top of my head I sound pretty incoherent, so my long decision times are probably better for you in the end.

I won't vote on things that happened outside of the round or on personal attacks against other debaters - save the beef for Twitter please.

K Affs/Framework (aka is this dude a fascist - spoiler alert: no):

You don't need a plan text to win my ballot - I've voted for and against K affs at about an equal frequency, and I have read aff's the defend a plan and affs that do not.

I like framework - I think it's important and I don't think reading it makes you a fascist, but I don't hack for it.

I find affs teams that don't defend a plan fare much better in front of me when they defend an actual model of debate along with impact turns instead of relying solely on impact turns to framework.

I'm not a great judge for "predictability/stasis/fairness bad" type arguments - turn their model of debate, not the notion of debate in general.

On both sides of the debate, please describe what the division of aff and neg ground would be, what debates would look like under your model, and what a reasonable standard to hold an affirmative to topicality is.

I don't think "wrong forum" arguments are inherently offensive if they're well warranted.

Fairness can be an impact, but honestly I think it takes too much explanation and requires winning so many other things (i.e. how the ballot functions in debate, that debate doesn't shape our subjectivities, that one round doesn't cause any sort of change, how debate being a game should influence how I view the round) that clash and iterative testing impacts are just a better route to take. That doesn't mean arguments about fairness aren't important - it's just that most of the time, fairness is only important in that it's needed to preserve a certain model of debate, which needs to have a terminal impact outside of just fairness for the sake of fairness.

K Things (aka does this dude know what the hell I'm saying - spoiler alert: yes if you're actually explaining it):

Contextualize your links to the aff - having state links or reps links is fine and I don't think your links need to be exclusively to plan action, but please talk about why something the aff actually does causes the impacts that you talk about.

I tend to think that the aff being able to weigh their impacts against the K is a good thing, but can be persuaded otherwise with a robust counter-interpretation.

I have some basic working knowledge of the following literature bases: Edelman/Queer Pess, Settler Colonialism, Empire/Hardt & Negri, Agamben, Biopower, and Cybernetics.

Your K tricks (fiat illusory, serial policy failure, floating piks) need to be more than 3 words in the block for me to vote on them.

Policy Things (aka can this dude keep up with my tricky 8-off strat - spoiler alert: yes):

I like the politics disad even though I acknowledge it probably isn't too realistic.

I love advantage counterplans even though I acknowledge the 10-plank strat is kinda abusive.

Impact out your solvency deficits on counterplans - why does it matter that the counterplan doesn't solve that specific part of the aff?

I'll vote on any counterplan theory arg, but just know that outside of condo I'll probably default to rejecting the argument unless I'm given a reason why I should reject the team. I'm definitely willing to vote on condo bad.

Impact turns are dope, from the common (dedev, heg bad) to the ridiculous (warming good, war on terror good).

T against policy affs is great as long as you weigh your standards.

I'm a big proponent of having specific solvency advocates, for both aff teams and counterplans - they make debate so much better.

I have literally no idea why spark is making a resurgence.

Bonus Things (aka things that will make me smile if you do them in a debate round):

If you do any of the following things, I might give you a speaks boost and I’ll probably like you more:

- Give a rebuttal entirely off the flow without your computer

- Try to be funny, no matter how bad you are at it (everyone is so hard on people that try to be funny but aren’t – have some damn fun for once!)

LD Specific Stuff:

I’ve only debated in policy, but I judged Varsity LD at the Minneapple and Blake and didn't sit once in elims – I think that means I’m pretty decent at judging LD.

Quick Prefs:

LARP: 1, I’m a policy debater duh

K: 2, Decent amount of K experience from policy, probably better for identity/structural Ks than postmodernism stuff

Stock: 2, I'm down for a traditional LD values debate

Theory: 3, I enjoy theory debates but LD theory is kinda out of control tbh

Phil: 3, I’m open to it but I have very little prior knowledge so you gotta explain it well and probably dumb it down a little for me (I don't know the in-depths of Kant or any other moral philosopher)

Tricks: 4, I know literally nothing about how these work in debate and I’ve heard these rounds just become shitshows

Important Stuff:

I’ll vote on anything if you win the flow.

Make sure to slow down a little on theory and framework flows – I've noticed that a lot of LD-ers severely overestimate how fast judges can flow, so spreading through a bunch of analytics with no vocal variation does not bode well for your speaks. Slowing down a little will also make me hate my life substantially less during your underview.

Saying "AC then NC" is not an order if you have multiple offcase positions - label different flows and make sure to signpost often.

Why the hell is everyone saying "we" and "our" - there is only one debater on each side just say "I" and "my".

A couple notes on theory:

1. I default to T being a voter

2. The more actual abuse is involved, the more persuasive the theory argument will be to me

3. If you’re saying that a theory arg isn’t a voter, you must explain to me what it is instead – for example, “condo isn’t a reason to reject the team, just the counterplan” – this goes for T as well if you’re trying to explain why it isn’t a voter

4. RVIs must be warranted for me to vote on them, and they're generally more persuasive against frivolous theory args than legitimate ones

5. I have a higher threshold for voting on dumb or frivolous theory args – litmus test: PICs bad and condo bad are good theory args, wearing shoes bad and “you highlighted in two different colors that's a voter” are dumb theory args

6. I think disclosure and use of the wiki are objectively good, so disclosure theory is fine, but you still gotta win the flow

Speech Specific Stuff:

My experience has almost exclusively been in policy debate (8 years of competition, 4 years of judging, and 2 years of coaching), but I did compete in extemp speaking for a year in high school, so I'm not a total stranger to the formalities of speech generally. However, because of my background in debate, when judging public address events I will almost certainly tend to value the quality of the content of one's speech rather than stylistic aspects when deciding on rankings. This obviously does not mean that presentation is not important; I do value both immensely, but in an activity that relies on the persuasion of an audience, your ability to persuade me of your position will hinge more on what you say than how you say it.

I am honestly not exactly sure how I will end up judging interp events - being in an 8th grade school play is honestly the closest experience I have to them, but from the interp speeches I have seen, I believe that the three factors that will matter most to me are:

• Impact - not of your speech's topic, but how you convey its core message to me
• Poise - if you sound like you know what you're doing, I will probably think that you do
• Understanding - the plot/structure of your speech should be clear, and it will be difficult for me to rank you very high if I am confused about what is happening at any point during your speech

Finally, some things that may matter to other judges but don't to me very much are as follows:

• Dress - your clothing/physical appearance will have zero impact on your rank
• Time - I will keep time, but unless your speech is exceedingly over or under time I won't be bothered
• Bloopers - your visual aid in info falling on the ground, tripping over yourself a little, stuff like that
• Notecards - I don't know what events you are permitted to use them, but they're fine by me

Ashna Rimal

Assistant Coach for Maine East

Add me on the email chain - ashnarimal.debate@gmail.com

TLDR - You can run any non-offensive arg in front of me, if you run it well I'll probably vote you up. I like judging more technical debates (Theory/T/K) over the same old ptx scenario because I find it more interesting. You will probably get higher speaker points from me if your arguments are original, trust me judges do not want to see the exact same debate happen for 5 rounds in a row.

AFF

I like K Affs when they are well explained.

Neg

Counterplans

Explain why it's better than doing the Plan itself and make sure you have a Net Benefit.

If you don't have a net benefit I probably won't vote on the CP.

Answer the Aff arguments well and don't drop any perms.

Running a DA or 2 is usually a good idea, I recommend you do so.

Disads

Disads are fine - I'm not particularly opinionated about them.

I think DA and Case debates are good as long as the DA scenario makes sense and the line by line is properly executed.

Please don't go for a bad ptx scenario that has no internal link.

Kritiks

If you run a K make sure you really explain it to me.

If you wanna go for the K in the 2NR you must have a strong link to the specific aff, or an alt that solves for the K and/or the impacts of the Plan.

Focus on the link debate - winning the link helps you win FW, prove why the perm won't solve, as well as support the impact.

If I don't understand your K I won't vote for it, especially if it's less commonly run. I'm familiar with most of the more generic Ks, but if you pull out a more complex K, you need to understand it and explain it well. I will hold those types of Ks to a higher standard when writing my ballot.

Topicality

To win on T you have to prove that the Aff is not topical and explain why being topical matters.

Don't only say "Fairness and Education" those are just words, you need to explain what that means and why it's important to debate.

TOPICALITY IS A VOTER!

Theory

I'm from Maine East, I like Theory debates and I'll vote on them - but I probably have higher standards for 'good theory debating'.

PICs are probably fine.

Severance Perms are probably bad.

Condo is good to an extent. I probably won't vote on Condo if they run like 1-2 off, but if they run 3 or more conditional advocacies I will lean Aff.

Perf Con is bad if you can prove specific instances of in-round abuse.

Don't expect me to vote on the arg that 1-2 CPs/Ks will Time Skew the 2AC, time skew is inevitable.

Don't expect me to vote on the "Err Neg" arg, yes Aff speaks 1st and last but y'all have the 13 min block.

Potential Abuse is not a voter. (Unless you prove to me otherwise)

In Round Abuse is a voter - If you can prove that they were somehow totally abusive I will vote them down.

THEORY IS A VOTER!

In the end what really matters is how you extend and frame the theory debate. I will most likely vote for the team that better contextualizes their theory arg.

I'll vote on a dropped theory arg as long as it's properly extended.

Speaker Points

Under 26: you did something offensive/cheaty

26-26.9: Below Avg

27-27.5: Avg

27.6-28.5: Above Avg

28.5-29.5: Very Good

Above 29.5: Excellent - I was impressed

If you do something interesting, funny, or out of the box in the round, and I enjoy it, I'll boost your speaks.

General Comments

• I will not vote on an argument I don't understand - It's your job in the round to explain your arguments to me.

• Don't be a jerk in round - Respect your partner, your opponents, and the judge(s).
• Do not clip cards or cheat in any way
• I am fine with tag team CX, but don't take over you partners CX, I will dock speaks for that.
• Clarity is more important than speed - If you are spreading a huge analytics-heavy block at full speed I will not catch more than 60% of what you are saying
• Time your own Prep/CX/Speeches.

• If the other team doesn't make an argument for why I should not Judge Kick, I will most likely roll with it.
• I do not like judge intervention, I will try to avoid, or at least minimize judge intervention as much as possible. I'd much rather vote based on what you all say in the round.
• I am willing to vote for any argument as long as it is not offensive - but you have to win the argument.

Background: 4 years at Baylor University, 1-Time NDT Qualifier. Assistant Coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, 2018-2022, Assistant Coach at Dowling Catholic High School, 2019-Present. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and I work for the Legislative Services Agency in Iowa.

Yes I want to be on the email chain: Sheaffly@gmail.com. Also email me with questions about this paradigm.

Paradigms are difficult to write because there are so many potential audiences. From novice middle schoolers to varsity college debaters, I judge it all. As a result, I want everyone reading this paradigm to realize that it was written mostly in terms of varsity college debates. I think about debate a little differently in high school and a little differently when it comes to novice debates, but I hope this gives you a general idea of how to debate in front of me

== TL;DR ==

Do line-by-line. I do not flow straight down and I do not flow off the speech doc. I am a DA/CP/Case kind of judge. I am bad at understanding kritiks and I am biased towards the topic being good. Be nice.

== Top Level - Flowing ==

It has become clear to me after years of judging that most of my decisions center not around my biases about arguments (which I won’t pretend not to have), but rather around my ability to understand your argument. My ability to understand your argument is directly related to how clean my flow is. Thus, it is in your best interest to make my flow very clean. I used to think I was bad at flowing, but I've come to the conclusion that line-by-line and organized debate has become a lost art. Debaters who learn this art are much more likely to win in front of me.

You are NOT as clear on tags as you think you are. Getting every 4th word of a tag is okay only if every 4th word is the key nouns and verbs. This is never true. So slow down on your tags, I am NOT READING THEM.

I’m not gonna flow everything straight down and then reconstruct the debate afterwards. The 1NC sets the order of the debate on the case, the 2AC sets the order of the debate off case. Abide by that order. Otherwise, I will spend time trying to figure out where to put your argument rather than writing it down and that’s bad for you.

Another tip: Find ways to give me pen time. For example, do not read 4 perms in a row. It’s impossible for me to write down all of those words. Plus, it’s always first and you haven’t even given me time to flip my paper over. And then your next argument is always an analytic about how the CP doesn’t solve and then I can’t write that down either. So stop doing things like that.

== Top Level – Arguments ==

Basic stuff: I love creativity and learning from debate. Make it clear to me how much you know about the arguments you are making. I don’t think this means you have to have cut every card you read, but understanding not just the substance of your argument, but the tricks within them is important.

As I said above, the thing that will be a problem for me is not understanding your argument. Unfortunately, this probably impacts Kritik debaters more than policy debaters, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I am probably a little more truth > tech than most judges. I believe in technical debate, but I also believe that debate is a place where truth is important. I don't care how many cards you have that say something, if the other team asserts it is not true and they are correct, they win the point.

== Top Level - Community Norms ==

1) For online debate, prep time stops when you unmute yourself and say stop prep. A couple of reasons for this. a) I have no way of verifying when you actually stopped prep if you come out and say "we stopped 15 seconds ago" and b) neither do your opponents, which means that you are basically forcing them to steal prep. I don't like it so that's the rule.

2) Debate is a messed-up community already. Don't make it more so. Be nice to each other. Have fun in the debate while you are disagreeing. If you make it seem like you think the other team is stupid during the debate, it's gonna make me grumpy. I love debate and I love watching people do it, but I hate confrontation and I hate it when people get angry about debates that don't matter that much in the long term. Be nice. Please.

3) This is mostly for high schoolers, where I see this issue all the time: If you are going to send a document without your analytics in it, making the version of the doc without the analytics in it IS PREP TIME. You don't get 45 seconds to send the document. Y'all are GenZ, I know you can send an email faster than that. You get 15 seconds before I break in and ask what the deal is. You get 20 seconds before I start prep again.

== Specifics ==

Affirmatives...

...Which Defend the Topic - I enjoy creativity. This includes creative interpretations of topicality. You should also read my thoughts on DAs as they apply to how you construct your advantages. Clear story is good.

...Which Do Not Defend the Topic - I am likely not a great judge for you. I think I may have a reputation as someone who hates these arguments. That reputation is not unearned, I built it up for years. But over time I’ve come to become a lot more accepting of them. There are many of these affirmatives that I think provide valuable debate. The problem I have is that I cannot figure out an interpretation of debate that allows the valuable "K Affs," but limits out the affs that I think are generally created to confuse their way to a win rather than provide actual valuable propositions for debate. I will always think of framework as a debate about what you JUSTIFY, rather than what you DO, and every interpretation I have ever seen in these debates simply lets in too much of the uneducational debates without providing a clear basis for clash.

I realize this sounds like I have been totally brainwashed by framework, and perhaps I have. But I want to be honest about where I'm at. That said, I think the above makes clear that if you have a defensible INTERPRETATION, I am willing to listen to it. You should also look at the section under kritiks, because I think it describes the fact that I need the actual argument of the affirmative to be clear. This generally means that, if your tags are poems, I am not ideologically opposed to that proposition, but you better also have very clear explanation of why you read that poem.

Negative Strategies

Framework: See discussion above. Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Education > procedural fairness > any other impact. “Ks are bad” is a bad argument, “their interpretation makes debate worse and uneducational” is a winnable argument. Topical version of the aff goes a long way with me.

Topicality: Good strategy. Impact, impact, impact. Case lists. Why that case list is bad. Affirmatives, you should talk about your education. I love creative interps of the topic if you defend them. But for the love of god slow down.

Disads: Absolutely. Well constructed DAs are very fun to watch. However, see truth vs. tech above – I have a lower threshold for “zero risk of a [link, impact, internal link] etc.” I love Politics DAs, but they’re all lies. I am up-to-date on the news. If you are not, do not go for the politics DA using updates your coaches cut. You will say things that betray that you don’t know what you’re talking about and it will hurt your speaks. Creative impact calc (outside of just magnitude, timeframe, probability) is the best impact calc.

Counterplans: I'm tired of the negative getting away with murder. I am VERY willing to listen to theory debates about some of these crazy process CPs which compete off of a net benefit or immedicacy/certainty. Theory debates are fun for me but for the love of god slow down. Otherwise, yeah, CPs are fine.

Kritiks: Eh. You can see the discussion above about K affs. I used to be rigidly ideological about hating the K. I am now convinced that the K can make good points. But because I was so against them for so long, I don’t understand them. I still think some Kritiks (here I am thinking mostly of French/German dudes) are basically designed to confuse the other team into losing. Problem is, I can’t tell the difference between those Kritiks and other Kritiks, because all Kritiks confuse me.

Very basic Ks are fine. Realism is bad, heg is bad, capitalism is bad, I get. Get much beyond that and I get lost. It's not that I think you're wrong it's that I have always been uninterested so I never learned what you're talking about. I cannot emphasize enough how little I understand what you're talking about. If this is your thing and I am already your judge, conceptualize your K like a DA/CP strategy and explain it to me like I have never heard it before. Literally, in your 2NC say: "We believe that X is bad. We believe that they do X because of this argument they have made. We believe the alternative solves for X." I cannot stress enough how serious I am that that sentence should be the top of your 2NC and 2NR. I have had this sentence in my judge philosophy for 3 years and this has been the top of the 2NC once (in a JV debate!). I do not know how much clearer I can be. Again, I am not morally opposed to Kritiks (anymore), I just do not understand them and I will not vote for something I do not understand. I believe you need a good link. Yes, the world is terrible, but why is the aff terrible. You also need to make your tags not a paragraph long, I never learned how to flow tags that were that long.

Email - chulho.synn@sduhsd.net.

Overview - 1) I judge all debate events; 2) I agree with the way debate has evolved: progressive debate and Ks, diversity and equity, technique; 3) On technique: a) Speed and speech docs > Slow no docs; b) Open CX; c) Spreading is not a voter; 4) OK with reading less than what's in speech doc, but send updated speech doc afterwards; 5) Clipping IS a voter; 6) Evidence is core for debate; 7) Dropped arguments are conceded but I will evaluate link and impact evidence when weighing; 8) Be nice to one another; 9) I time speeches and CX, and I keep prep time; 10) I disclose, give my RFD after round.

Lincoln-Douglas - 1) I flow; 2) Condo is OK, will not drop debater for running conditional arguments; 3) Disads to CPs are sticky; 4) PICs are OK; 5) T is a voter, a priori jurisdictional issue, best definition and impact of definition on AFF/NEG ground wins; 6) Progressive debate OK; 7) ALT must solve to win K; 8) Plan/CP text matters; 9) CPs must be non-topical, compete/provide NB, and solve the AFF or avoid disads to AFF; 10) Speech doc must match speech.

Policy - 1) I flow; 2) Condo is OK, will not drop team for running conditional arguments; 3) Disads to CPs are sticky; 4) T is a voter, a priori jurisdictional issue, best definition wins; 5) Progressive debate OK; 6) ALT must solve to win K; 7) Plan/CP text matters; 8) CPs must be non-topical, compete/provide NB, and solve the AFF or avoid disads to AFF; 9) Speech doc must match speech; 10) Questions by prepping team during prep OK; 11) I've debated in and judged 1000s of Policy rounds.

Public Forum - 1) I flow; 2) T is not a voter, non-topical warrants/impacts are dropped from impact calculus; 3) Minimize paraphrasing of evidence; I prefer quotes from articles to paraphrased conclusions that overstate an author's claims and downplay the author's own caveats; 4) If paraphrased evidence is challenged, link to article and cut card must be provided to the debater challenging the evidence AND me; 5) Paraphrasing that is counter to the article author's overall conclusions is a voter; at a minimum, the argument and evidence will not be included in weighing; 6) Paraphrasing that is intentionally deceptive or entirely fabricated is a voter; the offending team will lose my ballot, receive 0 speaker points, and will be referred to the tournament director for further sanctions; 7) When asking for evidence during the round, refer to the card by author/date and tagline; do not say "could I see your solvency evidence, the impact card, and the warrant card?"; the latter takes too much time and demonstrates that the team asking for the evidence can't/won't flow; 8) Exception: Crossfire 1 when you can challenge evidence or ask naive questions about evidence, e.g., "Your Moses or Moises 18 card...what's the link?"; 9) Weigh in place (challenge warrants and impact where they appear on the flow); 10) Weigh warrants (number of internal links, probability, timeframe) and impacts (magnitude, min/max limits, scope); 11) 2nd Rebuttal should frontline to maximize the advantage of speaking second; 2nd Rebuttal is not required to frontline; if 2nd Rebuttal does not frontline 2nd Summary must cover ALL of 1st Rebuttal on case, 2nd Final Focus can only use 2nd Summary case answers in their FF speech; 12) Weigh w/o using the word "weigh"; use words that reference the method of comparison, e.g., "our impact happens first", "100% probability because impacts happening now", "More people die every year from extreme climate than a theater nuclear detonation"; 13) No plan or fiat in PF, empirics prove/disprove resolution, e.g., if NATO has been substantially increasing its defense commitments to the Baltic states since 2014 and the Russian annexation of Crimea, then the question of why Russia hasn't attacked since 2014 suggest NATO buildup in the Baltics HAS deterred Russia from attacking; 14) No new link or impact arguments in 2nd Summary, answers to 1st Rebuttal in 2nd Summary OK if 2nd Rebuttal does not frontline.

Updated - 11/17/20

Background: I debated in high school at Minneapolis South and in college at the University of Minnesota '17. I've coached policy debate for 6 years, and am currently the Head Coach of Minneapolis South high school.

If you have any questions about my paradigm/rfd/comments, feel free to email me at: tauringtraxler@gmail.com & also use this to put me on email chains, please and thank you.

I will enforce the tournament rules (speech times/prep/winner and loser, etc.), but the content of the round as well as how I evaluate the content is up to the debaters. Judge instruction is important -- my role is to decide who did the better debating, what determines that is up to you.

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Water Topic Thoughts:

All of this is as of Glenbrooks, and subject to change.

Affs:
1) Extra points if your aff is a big change from the squo - but probably a higher chance of winning if it's not...

T things:
1) Thought T-Cessation was bad at Greenhill - still think it's bad, but haven't seen a good definition and there needs to be a limit to the topic so I'm persuadable on debateability o/w predictability (or anything else you can come up with for why your Neg T-interp sets a good limit)

DAs:
1) Biz Con is a bad DA - sympathetic that there's not good core generics but I'm going to be rolling my eyes during your 2NR

2) Will appreciate creative Ptx DAs

CPs:
1) Nothing really of note on this topic
2) I dislike adv cps with a ton of planks, and con con

Ks:
1) Love 'em, do you

Defaults:
1) Judge kick the alt/cp, unless instructed otherwise
2) Condo is good, but there's a limit (i.e. kicking planks probably bad)
3) 2ar only gets args made in the 1ar, but gets to respond to 2nr spin

Norms:
1) Sending a marked copy does not constitute prep, but requesting a doc where "unread cards are deleted" constitutes prep and will also lower your speaks...just flow the debate

Impact calculas is the most important. At the end of the day how should I weigh solvency deficits, links and impacts. 

Offense-deffense: this is the second most important issue. Realize that winning a bunch of deffensivs arguments at the end of the day will not lead to a win if your opponent has offense against you. 

Nexus question: what is the most important thing to evaluate a debate. 

Prep time starts when cross x ends. 

Name : Lauren Velazquez

Affiliated School: Niles North

Email: Laurenida@gmail.com

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

Director of Debate at Niles North

Laurenida@gmail.com

ME

Experience:

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

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

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

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

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

TOPICALITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random

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

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

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

Updated 1/7/23 for clipping/ethics challenge policy (at bottom)

4 years in Kansas in high school, 4 years at Baylor University, now a grad student and coach at KU and Barstow.

They/She pronouns.

Add me to the email chain please: aewalberg@gmail.com

Top Level

Do what you do best, I will do my best to be unbiased when evaluating arguments. I tend to take a long time making decisions regardless of the round, so don't read into it.

Judge instruction/telling me how to write my ballot is really important, points will be higher and you'll be more likely to win if you put the pieces together in the 2NR/2AR, are honest about the parts of the debate you're winning and losing, actually make decisions about what to go for, etc.

As I continue to judge, I find myself prioritizing tech over truth more and more, exception being when arguments/debates are violent, unsafe, etc. This means that you might think an argument is totally nonsensical, nonresponsive, etc. and I might agree, but you have to make those arguments in a speech in order for me to consider them when making my decision. If you want me to evaluate the debate through a lens other than tech, you should say that and explain what that means/why that mode of evaluation is better.

If you're talking at the same time as someone else, ex. in CX or if prompting your partner, odds are I could not hear or understand what you were saying. This is especially true in the world of online debate.

I think you should probably have to read re-highlighted ev, not just insert it. Open to persuasion but debates where both teams are inserting re-highlightings without analysis or explanation are negative persuasive to me.

I am generally open to whatever arguments you want to run, with the obvious exception to that being arguments that are racist, transphobic, violent, etc. The other exception is wipeout. More critical arguments about death are fine, but I am not particularly interested in listening to or voting on suffering outweighs any potential for pleasure/we are primed to be afraid afraid of death but should die anyway.

I will read along with you in the doc while you are reading cards but I will not read along with the analytics you send, that's not a substitute for clarity or slowing down to give pen time. I also don't generally re-read a ton of evidence at the end of the debate unless told to, your analysis/explanation in round is much more important to me. If I'm in a position at the end of the debate where I have to put things together myself by sorting through a lot of evidence that received very little explanation, neither of us will probably be particularly happy with the decision.

Stealing a line from Ned's philosophy, "I haven’t heard an RFD that went along the lines of 'I really loved how you kept calling me by my first name...'" because this makes me super uncomfy if we don't really know each other.

Online Debate

Slow down, be clearer. Make sure you can hear judges/other people in the round so you don't miss people telling you to pause or repeat an order.

Theory

I will vote on it if you win it, but that probably means you need more than one sentence on it in the 2AC. Slow down on these debates. I lean condo being the only reason to reject the team.

T

Slow down some. Impact it out in the 2NR. Don't forget to explain what winning competing interps or reasonability actually means for you.

DAs and CPs

I don't do a lot of topic research, so it'll be helpful for both of us if you do a little more explanation on topic specific things like link stories/solvency mechanisms/etc.

Good analytics can definitely beat a crappy DA. Winning terminal defense/zero percent risk is possible.

Ks

Explain why winning framework matters for you and how you still win the debate even if you lose framework.

You don't necessarily need a material alt to win if you go for framework.

2ACs should explicitly answer each of the link arguments even if it's just by explaining that it's a link to the status quo, a block that can impact out a dropped link argument well is likely to get my ballot as long as they are somewhat ahead on the framework or impact framing debate.

K Affs

Good. I do think it is possible to vote neg on presumption, so specific analysis about aff solvency or method is important. I find myself voting overwhelmingly aff in debates where the negative concedes the aff in the 2NR, so I strongly recommend extending your best 1 or 2 case arguments regardless of what else you're going for.

Framework

Neg: I think it's about models of debate, if you’re going for framework as a way to exclude entire critical lit bases/structural inequalities/content areas from debate then we are not going to get along.

Explain why fairness, clash, etc. is an impact and how your model accesses the aff's impacts. A well-developed TVA is great. These debates are pretty hard to win in front of me if you fully concede case.

Aff: Explain what debate looks like under your counter interp or counter model of debate or explain why you don't need a counter model. I am not a huge fan of the 2AC strategy of saying as many disads to framework as possible without explaining or warranting any of them out.

Debate Ethics

If I cannot follow along in the evidence as you're reading it due to clarity issues or I can see you're skipping words as I'm following along, I will clear you once. If you continue skipping words or clipping and the other team does not call it out, I will let the debate continue and give feedback for educational purposes but will drop the team clipping. If you're clipping and the other team does call it out and issues an ethics challenge or otherwise ends the debate, I will end the debate, drop the team clipping, and give feedback based on the debate thus far.

If there is an ethics challenge issued and the debate is stopped, the team who is correct (about the clipping, miscut evidence, citation problem, etc.) wins the debate. Arguments about evidence ethics can be made absent an ethics challenge and without stopping the debate; for example, when connected to a citational politics argument. However, if one team says to stop the round because something is an ethics challenge, the round will stop and the team who is correct about the issue will win.

As mentioned above, arguments that are racist, transphobic or queerphobic, sexist, or that otherwise make the debate violent or unsafe will result in a loss and, depending on the situation, stopping the debate.

Overall:
1. Offense-defense, but can be persuaded by reasonability in theory debates. I don't believe in "zero risk" or "terminal defense" and don't vote on presumption.

2. Substantive questions are resolved probabilistically--only theoretical questions (e.g. is the perm severance, does the aff meet the interp) are resolved "yes/no," and will be done so with some unease, forced upon me by the logic of debate.

3. Dropped arguments are "true," but this just means the warrants for them are true. Their implication can still be contested. The exception to this is when an argument and its implication are explicitly conceded by the other team for strategic reasons (like when kicking out of a disad). Then both are "true."

Counterplans:
1. Conditionality bad is an uphill battle. I think it's good, and will be more convinced by the negative's arguments. I also don't think the number of advocacies really matters. Unless it was completely dropped, the winning 2AR on condo in front of me is one that explains why the way the negative's arguments were run together limited the ability of the aff to have offense on any sheet of paper.

2. I think of myself as aff-leaning in a lot of counterplan theory debates, but usually find myself giving the neg the counterplan anyway, generally because the aff fails to make the true arguments of why it was bad.

Disads:
1. I don't think I evaluate these differently than anyone else, really. Perhaps the one exception is that I don't believe that the affirmative needs to "win" uniqueness for a link turn to be offense. If uniqueness really shielded a link turn that much, it would also overwhelm the link. In general, I probably give more weight to the link and less weight to uniqueness.

2. On politics, I will probably ignore "intrinsicness" or "fiat solves the link" arguments, unless badly mishandled (like dropped through two speeches). Note: this doesn't apply to riders or horsetrading or other disads that assume voting aff means voting for something beyond the aff plan. Then it's winnable.

Kritiks:
1. I like kritiks, provided two things are true: 1--there is a link. 2--the thesis of the K indicts the truth of the aff. If the K relies on framework to make the aff irrelevant, I start to like it a lot less (role of the ballot = roll of the eyes). I'm similarly annoyed by aff framework arguments against the K. The K itself answers any argument for why policymaking is all that matters (provided there's a link). I feel negative teams should explain why the affirmative advantages rest upon the assumptions they critique, and that the aff should defend those assumptions.

2. I think I'm less technical than some judges in evaluating K debates. Something another judge might care about, like dropping "fiat is illusory," probably matters less to me (fiat is illusory specifically matters 0%). I also won't be as technical in evaluating theory on the perm as I would be in a counterplan debate (e.g. perm do both isn't severance just because the alt said "rejection" somewhere--the perm still includes the aff). The perm debate for me is really just the link turn debate. Generally, unless the aff impact turns the K, the link debate is everything.

3. If it's a critique of "fiat" and not the aff, read something else. If it's not clear from #1, I'm looking at the link first. Please--link work not framework. K debating is case debating.

Nontraditional affirmatives:

Versus T:

1. I'm *slightly* better for the aff now that aff teams are generally impact-turning the neg's model of debate. I almost always voted neg when they instead went for talking about their aff is important and thought their counter-interp somehow solved anything. Of course, there's now only like 3-4 schools that take me and don't read a plan. So I'm spared the debates where it's done particularly poorly.

2. A lot of things can be impacts to T, but fairness is probably best.

3. It would be nice if people read K affs with plans more, but I guess there's always LD. Honestly debating politics and util isn't that hard--bad disads are easier to criticize than fairness and truth.

Versus the K:
1. If it's a team's generic K against K teams, the aff is in pretty great shape here unless they forget to perm. I've yet to see a K aff that wasn't also a critique of cap, etc. If it's an on-point critique of the aff, then that's a beautiful thing only made beautiful because it's so rare. If the neg concedes everything the aff says and argues their methodology is better and no perms, they can probably predict how that's going to go. If the aff doesn't get a perm, there's no reason the neg would have to have a link.

Topicality versus plan affs:
1. I used to enjoy these debates. It seems like I'm voting on T less often than I used to, but I also feel like I'm seeing T debated well less often. I enjoy it when the 2NC takes T and it's well-developed and it feels like a solid option out of the block. What I enjoy less is when it isn't but the 2NR goes for it as a hail mary and the whole debate occurs in the last two speeches.

2. Teams overestimate the importance of "reasonability." Winning reasonability shifts the burden to the negative--it doesn't mean that any risk of defense on means the T sheet of paper is thrown away. It generally only changes who wins in a debate where the aff's counter-interp solves for most of the neg offense but doesn't have good offense against the neg's interp. The reasonability debate does seem slightly more important on CJR given that the neg's interp often doesn't solve for much. But the aff is still better off developing offense in the 1AR.

LD section:
1. I've been judging LD less, but I still have LD students, so my familarity with the topic will be greater than what is reflected in my judging history.

2. Everything in the policy section applies. This includes the part about substantive arguments being resolved probablistically, my dislike of relying on framework to preclude arguments, and not voting on defense or presumption. If this radically affects your ability to read the arguments you like to read, you know what to do.

3. If I haven't judged you or your debaters in a while, I think I vote on theory less often than I did say three years ago (and I might have already been on that side of the spectrum by LD standards, but I'm not sure). I've still never voted on an RVI so that hasn't changed.

4. The 1AR can skip the part of the speech where they "extend offense" and just start with the actual 1AR.

Rosemount High School (MN)

Debate Experience: 4 years HS policy (1987-1991), 2 years CEDA (1991-1993)
Coaching/Judging Experience: 32 years judging, 18 of these actively coaching
Rosemount 2013-present
Farmington 2018-2020
St. Thomas Academy 1993-2001

Last update: 2022-11-19

--

New 2022-11-19.

Building on evidence highlighting argued below. If the highlighted portion of your evidence is word salad and/or changes the author's intent when read in isolation, I will stop the round and immediately vote on an ethical violation. This means a loss and minimum allowable points to the offending team. National circuit evidence standards are atrocious and need to be changed. This may be quixotic, but so be it.

--

Yes, email chain.

I have changed the email address I use for email chains. The old one will still work, but please use wodarz.debate@gmail.com going forward

New 2021-10-02: Your evidence highlighting should read in grammatically correct sentences when read in isolation. I will consider exceptions on a case-by-case basis (generally, there should be a legitimate argumentative purpose for doing otherwise).

None of the older profile information below is out-of-date, feel free to refer to it for additional information.

I'm definitely an older coach but I like a lot of what K debate has brought to the community. I'm unique among the Rosemount coaching staff in that respect.

I most enjoy judging rounds where the aff and the neg have an underlying agreement on how the round should look. I prefer to judge either policy v policy debates or K v K debates.

Some details:

* I prefer that the negative engage with the affirmative. The better the specificity of link arguments, the more likely the negative is to win their chosen arguments.

* I roughly think of my judging philosophy as "least intervention". My hope is to try to not do any work for debaters, but this is the ideal and rarely occurs in practice. So I generally look at what I would need to do to vote for either team and choose the outcome that requires the least work on my part. I do my best to not interject personal beliefs into the debate, but realize this isn't always possible.

* I don't like most process or actor CPs, but often vote for them. When neg CP lit says a topic should be left to the states, that lit never means "all 50 states act in concert" but instead usually means "states should be free to not do anything". Affs could do a lot with this, but never do.

* I despise politics DAs, but again find myself voting for them. In 30+ years of debating and judging these, I think I've heard one scenario that had any semblance of truth to it. I think negative over-simplification of the political process and the horse-race mentality engendered by these DAs has been bad for debate and bad for society as a whole. But again, I rarely see Affs making the arguments necessary to win these sort of claims.

* I have a debate-level knowledge of most Kritiks. My knowledge of the literature is about 20 years old at this point and I rarely cut cards for my teams. What this means if you're running a K (either aff or neg): assume that I'm a judge who is willing to listen to (and often vote for) what you say, but don't assume any specific knowledge. This is particularly important at the impact level. If I have a warranted and detailed explanation as to why your model of debate is essential,

* In debates between similarly skilled teams, Framework debates usually come down to "is the aff in the direction of the resolution?". If so, I usually vote aff. Otherwise, neg. If you're a policy team, you're probably better off going for even a Cap K in front of me than for Framework.

* Even in person, you're not as clear as you think you are. This is doubly so in online debates. Slow down a little and you'll likely be happier with my decision.

* It's come to my attention that some teams have shied away from going for theory because of what I've written below. If you believe your violation is true, go ahead and go for it. My preference is to decide debates on the issues, but if I can get good clash on a theory or T flow, that's OK too.

* Disclosure theory is exempt from the preceding bullet. If you can win the debate on disclosure theory, there are better arguments you can make that you can also win on.

* If you're a big school on the circuit where I'm judging you, running a "small schools DA" will likely see speaker points reduced.

* I don't like a 6+ off neg strategy. If you're obviously far more skilled than your opponents and still do this, speaker points will suffer. Regardless, I'm probably more likely to vote on condo bad or perf con than most judges (but see everything else I've written on theory)

* I love good topicality debates. I also love creative (but defensible) affirmative interpretations of the topic. I default to "good is good enough"/reasonability for the aff on topicality, but can be persuaded to vote for the competing interps model. Just saying "reasonability invites judge intervention" isn't enough though. Believe it or not, so does competing interps.

==============

Older Profile:

I actively coached from 1993 until 2001 before largely leaving the activity for a dozen years. I got back into coaching in 2013 and have been in the activity since then. My time away from the activity proved to profoundly affect the way I view debates.

I view debate as an educational activity and my primary responsibility as a judge as facilitating that education. It is important to note what this means and what it does not mean. What it does not mean is that I like arguments that impact in "voting issue for reasons of education." Leaving aside the irony of the lack of educational value in those sorts of arguments, I am not saying that I will vote for the "more educational" team, whatever that means. What I do mean is that the round can be a very educational environment and my position is to assist that as best as I can. Argumentatively, I am looking for well-reasoned logical arguments, preferentially with strong evidential support. Counterplans which are contingent on successful consultation of any sort are almost always lacking here. Almost all politics DAs that I've ever heard have this problem as well. You're going to have a much easier time if you run a DA, CP, or a K with a solid literature-based link story.

Theory and Analytics: In-round abuse is more persuasive than potential abuse. I have a large presumption against voting on theory, although I have voted on it. To win on theory, you'll probably need to spend substantial time in the last rebuttal and offer a persuasive story. SLOW DOWN when arguing theory. Give me a tag that I can get on my flow and then explain it. Five consecutive four word responses will likely get the first one or two responses flowed, and the rest missed. If it's not on my flow, I can't vote on it. The explanation is the most important part of the argument.

Topicality: Topicality stems from plan action. Placing the resolution in plan text or looking to solvency do not prove topicality. My default view is that if the affirmative interpretation provides an equitable division of ground and plan meets their interpretation, they will win the argument. Generally speaking, if the negative wins topicality, they win the debate. I have been persuaded to vote contrary to my default views in the past. The negative need not win that their interpretation is best for debate, but it helps.

Non-traditional Affirmatives: I don't insist that the affirmative run a plan but any planless aff better be prepared to explain how they engage the resolution. I'm much more willing to accept a non-traditional interpretation of the terms of the resolution than I am to accept an aff that completely ignores the resolution or runs counter to the direction of the resolution.

Evidence sharing/email chains: As of 2017, I have updated my philosophy on these. I would now like to get all speech docs that are shared. Please add me to any email chain using wodarz.debate@gmail.com. Please note that I will not use the speech doc to help flow your speech.

One notable change for the worse over the last decade is the terrible practices that paperless debating has fostered. I approve of paperless debating in the abstract and in a good deal of its implementation, but teams have taken to receiving a speech doc before the speech as a crutch and flowing and line by line debate have suffered as a result. I'm not happy with the blatant prep time theft that pervades the activity, but I recognize that any gesture that I make will be futile. I will take action in particularly egregious cases by deducting from prep time (or speech time, if no prep remains).

Please ask before rounds for clarification.

Lincoln Douglas Philosophy:

I judge far more policy than LD, but I'm not a stranger to judging or coaching LD. I have no predispositions toward any particular style, so largely you should feel free to do what you're most comfortable with. I will not vote for a policy argument just because I'm predominantly a policy judge, although I will listen to them. Be sure to offer full explanations. LD time formats can be challenging, prioritize explanations over evidence. Anything above that isn't specific to policy will apply in LD as well. Your explanations are the most important part of the debate.

Updated 1/9/2019 to add LD

As a debater: 4 years HS debate in Missouri, 4 years NDT-CEDA debate at the University of Georgia

Since then: coached at the University of Southern California (NDT-CEDA), coached at the University of Wyoming (NDT-CEDA), worked full-time at the Chicago UDL, coached at Solorio HS in the Chicago UDL

Now: Math teacher and debate coach at Von Steuben in the Chicago UDL, lab leader at the Michigan Classic Camp over the summer

College Email Chains: victoriayonter@gmail.com

HS Email Chains, please use: vayonter@cps.edu

General Thoughts:

1. Clarity > speed: Clarity helps everyone. Please slow down for online debate. You should not speak as fast as you did in person. Much like video is transmitted through frames rather than continuous like in real life, sound is transmitted through tiny segments. These segments are not engineered for spreading.

2. Neg positions: I find myself voting more often on the "top part" of any neg position. Explain how the plan causes the DA, how the CP solves the case (and how it works!), and how the K links to the aff and how the world of the alt functions. Similarly, I prefer CPs with solvency advocates (and without a single card they are probably unpredictable). I love when the K or DA turns the case and solves X impact. If you don't explain the link to the case and how you get to the impact, it doesn't matter if you're winning impact calculus.

3. K affs: Despite my tendency to read plans as a debater, if you win the warrants of why it needs to be part of debate/debate topic, then I'll vote on it. As a coach and judge, I read far more critical literature now than I did as a debater. My extensive voting history is on here. Do with that what you will.

4. Warrants: Don't highlight to a point where your card has no warrants. Extend warrants, not just tags. If you keep referring to a specific piece of evidence or say "read this card," I will hold you to what it says, good or bad. Hopefully it makes the claims you tell me it does.

Random Notes:

1. Don't be rude in cross-x. If your opponent is not answering your questions well in cross-x either they are trying to be obnoxious or you are not asking good questions. Too often, it's the latter.

2. Questions about what your opponent read belong in cross-x or prep time. You should be flowing.

3. While we are waiting for speech docs to appear in our inboxes, I will often fill this time with random conversation for 3 reasons:

i. To prevent prep stealing,

ii. To get a baseline of everyone's speaking voice to appropriately assign speaker points and to appropriately yell "clear" (if you have a speech impediment, accent, or other reason for a lack of clarity to my ears, understanding your baseline helps me give fair speaker points),

iii. To make debate rounds less hostile.

High School LD Specific:

Values: I competed in a very traditional form of LD in high school (as well as nearly every speech and debate event that existed back then). I view values and value criterions similarly to framing arguments in policy debate. If you win how I should evaluate the debate and that you do the best job of winning under that interpretation, then I'll happily vote for you.

Ballot Writing: LD speeches are short, but doing a little bit of "ballot writing" (what you want me to say in my reason for decision) would go a long way.

Public Forum Specific:

I strongly believe that Public Forum should be a public forum. This is not the format for spreading or policy debate jargon. My policy background as a judge does not negate the purpose of public forum.