City Classic Test
2016 — IA/US
Policy Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HideThis version of my paradigm is a total rewrite of my previous paradigm, an archived version can be found here. This rewrite does not represent a change in opinions but updating for clarity and structure.
i. Affiliations
Iowa City West High School (2011-2017, 2023-present): Assistant Coach/Judge 2014 until 2024, Head Coach since. I also debated for 3 years for ICW in high school starting in 2011.
Hawken School, OH (2021-2022): Judge
ii. About
I have been doing policy debate since 2011 and that is the format I am most familiar with and actually coach. However, I also have judged just about every other debate/speech format*. I would like to be added to the email chain: lang901@gmail.com and iowacitywestdebatedocs@gmail.com. I have both a BA in political science and a J.D. as well as a license to practice law in 2 states (Iowa and Ohio [Inactive]).** I am fairly tabula rasa and have voted in the past on the entire range of arguments. I have hopefully organized this in a readable manner. Let me know if you have any questions if not.
I. OVERVIEW
Do what you want to do. Do it well and I will probably vote for you. Esoteric Ks will require a bit more explanation but I will do my best to meet you in the middle. Tech over Truth but the truth is pretty persuasive. Generally, unless instructed otherwise, I will vote on based on the path of least resistance. This means the less I have to resolve in your favor, the more likely I am to vote for you. I will judge the debate you had in front of me. I will not intervene/insert my own opinions/knowledge unless absolutely necessary as tab will get mad at me if I take an hour to make a decision. I may comment on things in the RFD/oral critique after the round but generally unless noted, it didn't affect the outcome.
This is technically a nitpick but I'm going to put it here anyway.Citations to legal texts/court opinions have a very specific format. It's not hard to learn. Please use it in your cites when relevant, especially this year as the topic is incredibly legal-technicalities oriented. I will give you bonus points if I notice that your cites are in the correct format.
II. Line by Line(With very few caveats, this section is mostly advisory. Do not overadapt. If it's not clear to you what's advisory and what isn't, feel free to ask before the round)
a. Disadvantages- They exist. You should read them if you want. Subject to the caveat in supra note 2, I don't really have any ideological hang ups about disadvantages. I would like them to be specific but I recognize that that's not always possible. Try to have real links to an actual affirmative, not just the entire concept of the year's topic.
b. Counterplans- I will vote off the counterplan text said out loud during the debate. You should have an actual solvency advocate for your counterplan. Counterplans without a solvency advocate are just a sentence and I will judge them accordingly. If the aff doesn't point this out, I won't vote you down but that means this is something aff's should be on the lookout for.
c. Kritiks- I am familiar with core kritiks (e.g. Cap, Security, SetCol, etc. [Basically, if it's regularly being put out by camps year after year, I am down to clown]). I am also familiar with ableism kritiks and a lot of the literature in that area. You shouldn't run into any problems running those in front of me. Virilio notwithstanding, if your K is named after a specific person, I am more than likely unfamiliar with it. I will try to meet you where you are but there are definitely ways you can make that easier (i.e. slowing down, clarity, avoiding jargon). In those instances, err on the side of over-explanation.
d. T- I don't particularly love the tactical deployment of T arguments. I'm not advocating RVIs or anything but keep that in mind while crafting your 1NC. I will evaluate the T debate on the basis you tell me to (i.e. Competing Interp vs. Reasonability). The interp and violation debates are just as important as the standards/impact debate on T***.
e. FW- I separate FW from T only really because I learned them separately as a debater. While I generally think having a stable locus for the debate is good and that locus should be the resolution, I am sympathetic to many anti-FW arguments. If you are an anti-FW team, please try to have an interpretation of the debate round that is more than just "vote for us". I roll my eyes a bit when I see "The Role of the Ballot/Judge is to vote for the team that does [object of the k]" in a speech doc. At that point, just come out and say the ROB/J is to vote for you. That is at least a bit more honest.
f. Theory-
(1). 3+ is where condo gets bad and you have to ask for judge kick.
(2.)Judge kick is also probably bad, I'm not interested in doing historical revisionism to your 2NR. If you go for a counterplan, I'm judging the counterplan.
(3). If debatevision had not met an untimely end (RIP), I would link a decade-old Georgetown Debate Institute(?) lecture here about why international fiat is bad. But you'll just have to take my word for it.
(4). I have a high-ish bar for reject the team theory. If you want me to do so, it better be 3+ minutes of the 2xR. I am much more lenient on RtA framing and if used tactically, could have the same effect as RtT (i.e. rejecting the counterplan the 2NR went for).
g. Cross-Ex- This gets its own section because it's a critical part of the debate. Avoid clarification questions about cards read. These should be eliminated by flowing the actual speech rather than just writing down everything in the speech doc. Cross-ex is about establishing links and forwarding your arguments. Do that instead of asking questions you should already know the answer to. Also, if you're not going maverick, CX time is time for questions. If you don't have questions, then either prep time or the next speech starts. (I don't even have a high bar for what counts as "a question". Just one person in the partnership has to be doing something resembling CX).
III. Debate Senior Citizen Yells at Clouds (you can largely skip this section if you have limited pre-round prep time)
(I've been in and out of the community over the past 13 years so these are my extraneous thoughts about norms that have developed in the past decade.)
a. Why are cards highlighted so badly now? If you're card consists of 5 sentences, composed a word at a time, across 25 paragraphs, not only is that bordering on academic dishonesty which your points may suffer from, it also makes for substantially worse cards. If you're doing it for time reasons, I would suggest either getting faster or reading less.
b. Speaking of reading less, I do not like neg strategies that involve 5+ off in the 1NC. If you stand up for the 1NC and a number greater than 10 is in your order, I will be annoyed. I will still vote for you but regardless of my feelings on the strategy, I think these strategies place you well behind the starting line in a debate. These strats lead to 1 or more of the following situations: your cards are dangerously under-highlighted, your arguments are dangerously blippy, or you have to reach the upper thresholds of speed and human comprehension but unfortunately I don't type that fast. The first two create a scenario where the debate is incredibly anti-educational. The third creates a situation where you are incredibly unhappy with me at the end of the debate as I only caught, generously, 40% of your arguments. Policy debate should be education first, competition second. But neither of those goals are accomplished in 5+ off strats. Additionally, spending a minute kicking positions at the top of the 2NC is not compelling on a base ethos level.
c. I don't have many hangups on the presentation level of debating. Dress however you want, speak how you want, sit or stand. However one presentation thing I think is good is facing the judge during CX. Facing your opponent during CX is bad on an ethos level, especially if you end up facing entirely away from the judge. I will try to take a central spot in the room to facilitate this as easily as possible.
d. Impact/evidence comparison should happen early and often. Necessary judge intervention happens almost exclusively in scenarios where evidence and especially impact comparison starts in the 2xR. Late breaking debates result in neither you, your points, nor me being happy with the result of that round.
IV. Endnotes
*Note 1: I also coached World Schools but WS apparently hates the concept of explaining how a judge thinks to debaters so this document wouldn't be super relevant to WS and thus WS isn't relevant to this document.
**Note 2: With this in mind, if you're going to go for a really technical argument in either of those areas be sure you really, really know what you're doing. If you don't, and it will be clear if you don't, I will likely be incredibly annoyed for the entirety of the debate. The place this will be the biggest issue is evidence. I read cards and I have noticed a significant uptick in egregious Tag/Card mismatch. This goes beyond powertagging and borders on straight up dishonesty. In these cases, I have no issue basing my decision on what the card actually says rather than a debater's misrepresentation. For the sake of your speaker points and an efficient RFD after the round, heed this warning. Also, with this in mind, if I start going on a tangent in my RFD about some legal concept and you have somewhere to be, feel free to get me to wrap it up.
***Note 3: This year's topic is worded terribly and thus lot of the interp cards I've seen coming out of camp files this year (2024-2025) are downright bad. A random out of context paragraph from the Supreme Court of Montana in a case not about IPR, interpreting part of a statute unrelated to IPR, is not where definitions should come from. There is no intent to define and also not even how courts look to defining things. Affs can and should use this to their advantage.
I debated for Iowa City West High for 4 years graduating in 2016. I was a policy/Cap debater for all four of those years. I am going to be a good judge for policy and a bad one for kritikal arguments.
Put me on the email chain:daleev01@luther.edu
T – I’m fine with this. Please explain why your interp better than your opponents and what the impacts are on the flow.
DA’s – These are also cool. Links need to be specific to the aff, I don’t really know the technical terms for this topic so you probably need to talk in a little more layman’s terms for me.
K’s – I have very little knowledge of Identity and Postmodern K’s. You will need to do allot of explanation on these to win, and to explain it without jargon. I would like to see specific links to the aff, and aff specific answers to the K. I tend to dislike K Affs, and tend to buy common framework arguments made against them, I feel that you should read a plan text/advocacy statement/ect. that is topical. The long and short is that I am not going to be a good K judge
CP’s – This are fine as well. A well executed counterplan is one of my favorite debates.
Case – a good case debate is the best debate that can be had. In-depth work with cards on both side and good analytics were, and remain my favorite part of debate.
http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Henderson%2C+Travis
1. Conflicts [as of 10/04/2020]
- No Univ of Chicago Lab
- No Iowa City
2. Short Version
- tech over truth
- strong analytics/analysis can beat carded evidence
- prioritize your impacts
- have fun!
3. Pandemic Social Distancing Related Technology Notes
- Please slow down 5-10%. Emphasize your warrants. Without a microphone stem, your quality fluctuates. Keep in mind that I still flow on paper.
- Please get explicit visual or audio confirmation from everyone in the debate before beginning your speech. I may use a thumbs up to indicate I am ready.
- If my camera is off, unless I explicitly have told you otherwise, assume I'm not at the computer.
- If the current speaker has significant tech problems, I'll try to interrupt your speech and mark the last argument and timestamp.
4. Some Detail
I've been meaning to do this for a while, but have not really had the time. My hope is that I end up judging better debates as a result of this updated philosophy. I am now changing to a more linear philosophy, it is my hope that you read this in its entirety before choosing where to place me on the pref sheet. I debated for four years at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the south Chicago suburbs from 2007-2011. During that time I debated, Sub-Saharan Africa, Alternative Energy, Social services and substantial reductions in Military presence.
Nearing a decade ago, during would would have been the h.s. space topic. I started at the University of Northern Iowa, Where I debated NDT/CEDA Middle East/North Africa while judging a few debate rounds across the midwest. After my freshman year I transferred to the University of Iowa, where I started coaching at Iowa City High School. This year, I will continue to coach the City High Debate team.
Framing, Issue choice and impact calculus are in my opinion the most important aspects of argumentation, and you should make sure they are components in your speeches. Late rebuttals that lack this analysis are severely.
I preference tech over truth. Your in round performance is far more important to me, as it is what I hear. I greatly attempt to preference the speaking portion of the debate. Increasingly, I've found that my reading evidence is not necessarily an aspect of close debates, but rather results from poor argument explanation and clarification. The majority of 'close rounds' that I've judged fall into the category of closeness by lack of explanation. In some limited instances, I may call for evidence in order to satisfy my intellectual fascination with the activity. Anything other than that--which I will usually express during the RFD--probably falls upon inadequate explanation and should be treated as such.
I feel my role as a judge is split evenly between policymaker and 'referee' in that when called to resolve an issue of fairness. I will prioritize that first. Addressing inequities in side balance, ability to prepare and generate offense is something may at times find slightly more important than substance. In short, I consider myself a good judge for theory, THAT BEING SAID, rarely do I find theory debates resolved in a manner that satisfies my liking - I feel theoretical arguments should be challenged tantamount to their substance based counterparts. Simply reading the block isn't enough. Though I was a 2A[≈ High power LED current, peak 2.7 A] in high school I have since found myself sliding towards the negative on theoretical questions. I can be convinced, however, to limit the scope of negative offense quite easily, so long as the arguments are well explained and adjudicated.
I consider reasonability better than competing interpretations, with the caveat that I will vote on the best interpretation presented. But topicality questions shouldn't be a major concern if the team has answered.
I have a long and complicated relationship with the K. I have a level of familiarity with the mainstream literature, so go ahead and read Capitalism or Neolib. Less familiar arguments will require more depth/better explanation.