My name is Christopher Hachet, and I am an assistant debate coach and judge from Capital University in Columbus Ohio. I competed in debate during high school and was the novice state champion for Indiana in 1982. Then I judged high school debate when I was in college. Working part time with collegiate debate for about five years now and a bit of back story is in order.

I graduated from Taylor University with a bachelors degree in education in 1989 and decided that I did not want to teach. After a short career in commercial sales, I decided that my real passion was working with my hands and building things. Thus I became a master licensed journeyman electrician and refrigeration mechanic. This proved to be a fabulous career choice for me , and I moved up to become a foreman running all sorts of interesting projects from a neurosurgery clinic to a large middle school.

As the economy slowed and my later forties loomed large, I decided that I wanted a change of pace and took a job at Capital in the Facilities department. My father had worked in higher education for most of his adult life, and I felt a strong desire to give back to the field of higher education. Dr Koch was kind enough to also let me assist with the debate team, and I have had a blast driving all over the country with CEDA, IFA LD and NEDA debate as well as various speech events. Your fifties can really be the best decade of your life, and I still love debate 35 years after my last round of actual competition.

My judging philosophy can perhaps be best summed up by a very short analogy. Were you to be at my work bench struggling to make a strait cut in a piece of wood with a hand saw, I would look at the most simple and immediate items to help you be a better sawyer. Your posture, how you clamped the work piece to the bench, and how you held the saw would be much more important than an esoteric discussion about how to set rake and fleem while sharpening a hand saw. In a like manor, I look for debaters to focus on a strong basic ontological understanding of the concepts they are working with, careful argumentation and analysis, and keen cross examination skills.

Follow Ockham's Razor with Ockham's aftershave and we are all set!

In terms of what my actual voting criteria are, there are perhaps 5 different models of looking at a debate and I borrow from all five. They are;

The Stock issues Paradigm;

Topicality seems to be the defacto concern regarding stock issues. Will vote on topicality with a fairly high threshold because I believe in Affirmative presumption and the right of the aff to approach the topic in whichever route they find pertinent. If you are claiming abuse on the Neg side I will be much more sympathetic to your topicality claims if you attempt to clash with the Aff in good faith. Most topicality debates fall down on the neg side in my experience because of inadequate in round work on why I actually should prefer the neg interpretation. Multiple forms of T arguments in the same round are not abusive IMHO but I often find them counter productive.

The Policy making Paradigm;

This most closely resembles how the older hairy guy sitting in front of you as your judge is going to view the next rather intense hour or so of your life. My personal philosophical world view is based in existentialism and realism, and I tend to view the world and judge policy through that lens. Student analysis and reasoning is much more important to me than evidence. Convince me that you understand the policy issues at hand and have done some original critical thinking on the debate resolution. Debate is not a clash of evidence cards, it is a clash of ideas. Bring me yours. I just drove a few hundred miles to hear them.

The Hypothesis testing/Social science paradigm;

I do allow multiple negative positions to be run even if they are contradictory in order to test the resolution and the Aff's interpretation of the resolution. If I grant the Aff presumption in terms of interpretation I also have to grant the neg presumption on how they will answer the Aff. If you disagree with this, please see Tabla Rasa and Game Theory below.

Tabla Rasa;

The driven sands of the Sahara and the emptiness of a blizzard are my models of thought in terms of both link story for things like negative disadvantage claims and aff solvency claims. I am neither Greek nor Tabla Rasa but I think there is much to learn from both schools of thought. If in doubt, spell it out. It would be unethical for me as a judge to to sit in the back of the room and make assumptions about the actual impacts of implantation of Affirmative's policy proposal. Also unwilling to concede anything along the lines of giving agricultural subsides to Bolivian beet farmers causing nuclear winter and extinction without some sort of plausible explanation.

Your approach to how you wish to approach the round is completely up to you. I have no preferred style of presentation.

Game player theory of debate;

Keeping it fair regardless of school being represented or reputation of debater is a top priority for me as a judge. I have a bad habit of voting down good debaters when they get sloppy.

I expect you to be highly focused on the flow of the debate and make arguments that lead to a proper clash of ideas. Several previous debaters would describe me as shameless at dropping a team on a ballot if a key argument is dropped and the other side catches it. You probably don't want to be that person.

Final notes;

Speed is fine...I have only ever had to ask a debater once to slow down. If you are in round and your opponent is speaking too quickly please get my attention by saying "clear" loudly enough for me to hear. I will acknowledge your request and signal the other debater to slow down a bit. If it is obvious a debater is using speed in an abuse way I reserve the right to down vote this as a form of abuse.

I am open to different philosophical approaches in debate. Upvoting or down voting things like Kritiques based upon actual in round work and explanatory power of ideas presented keeps debaters working hard and tournaments interesting. Most of all I enjoy it when people think hard and challenge my own thinking. By no means am I Elijah sent from on high to be the prophet of debate.

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." - Linus Pauling-I prefer that you pull as much forward into the final rebuttal as reasonably possible. If you are winning an argument and do not bring it forward as a voter clearly I will not upvote you on that idea.

Do not be afraid to disagree with me, and I also am open to any questions before or after the round.

I have been involved in debate for about 15 years. I debated for 2 years and have been a coach/judge for about 13 years. When I judge a round, I try to be as tabula rasa as possible. I tend to view the round as a court, where I am an actual judge, and the affirmative and negative are presenting me with a case. It is my job to judge the evidence and arguments as they are presented in the round. I am to assume no outside opinions or evidence which is not presented in the round. Under this theory, any argument can win. I will listen to and vote for any argument in the round, provided that it is well-evidenced and argued. Also, I tend to be a very standard judge, your average judge will probably vote the same way I do. The only thing you need to win is good evidence and impact calculus.

I feel as though debate rules are more like guidelines than a list set in stone. Proper debaters should strive to meet the rules or guidelines in front of them. However, unless there is a clear argument in the debate that the other team is violating important rules, I will not vote a team down for it. I believe it is up to the debaters to point out those rules and explain their importance in the debate. I will vote on properly laid arguments for or against the rules based on how the debaters handle these issues.

I will vote for any argument that a debater places in the debate, if I’m given a good reason to do so. Also, although I do like Topicality, it is a harder argument to win. The negative must really go for it and prove their violations, standards, and the impact it has on the round. Also I don’t like it when someone makes a bunch of Topicality arguments and then drops them with no given reason. Try to use Topicality strategically, and if it needs dropped, explain why and what that means for the round.

In the rebuttals, I expect debaters to give me clear voters and tell me why I vote on these issues. When a person does not give me clear voters, it is up to me to interpret the round and I don’t like doing that. I prefer clear cut reasons to vote for each side. If one person has clear voters and the other does not; the person with the clear voters and impact stories will usually win.

I debated for all 4 years of undergrad, then coached at Central Michigan University for 2 years. I default to "debate is a game", but will go with your framework and consider any position, I am overall a pretty open judge. Tell me how the round should be framed and why.

For procedural arguments including Topicality, I would need standards, as well as impacts. I consider stock issues a priori, but violations need to be explicitly called out.

Tell me what your voters are at the end of the round, or I will prioritize arguments based on what I hear.

I can keep up with what ever speed is comfortable with both debaters.

I'm good with Ks if they are constructed well and have impact. I consider Ks on both ends the same as a traditional case. If you run it on the neg, you need to have alts that actually solve for your harms, similar to a disad/CP.

I value content over delivery.

If you have any specific questions just ask before round.

History: This is my sixth year out from undergrad and my second year judging NFA-LD on the regular. 2 years of CEDA/NDT debating, 2 years of NFA-LD debating. High school; Congress and Mock Trial.

Dear Trans Debaters (and judges): Please feel free to approach me at any time over any medium for any reason. I am happy and honored to give any support you may need. Seriously, do not hesitate or think you are being a bother or a burden. You are important and deserve support.

NOW LETS TALK ABOUT DEBATE

New Thoughts: I feel in the last few years Ive gotten a better idea of where I lean on a few things.

In round: You should generally ignore faces I make, I make them a lot. The one thing you should not ignore is if I make a point to lean back in my chair, cross my arms, and frown at you. I am making it obvious that I am not flowing because you are either a)making a completely brand new argument when you shouldn't be b) repeating yourself or c)being offensive.

KRITIKS: Kritiks to me are about questioning and attacking the assumptions inherent in the 1AC and proving that those assumptions cause policy failure and/or significant harms. Note that this does not mean I think the K needs to solve for the case. In fact, most Kritiks that attempt to do so *usually* have terrible Alternatives. Your evidence probably turns case, takes out solvency, or outweighs on impact on its own. Your alternative should be well supported by your evidence. Reject Alts usually don't. I prefer Ks to be as focused on policy making as possible.I probably won't vote for Ks based on links of omission 99.99% of the time, they put an obscene burden on the aff.

COUNTERPLANS: Counterplans are great for education and fairness in debate. Topical counterplans are BEST for these things. If you run a counterplan, you should probably go for it because they take a lot of time to just not go for in an LD structured round. That said, if you somehow have another viable position, you should be able to kick the counterplan as long as you don't use the affs own answers to it against them ? Thats abusive and the one thing I will vote you down for regardless of how poorly the aff explains the abuse.

THE AFFIRMATIVE: I love both traditional policy affs and kritikal affs. K Affs should keep my K section in mind as it applies to them. You should be topical and you MUST specify an actor within the resolution. Technically its not impossible to get me to vote for an untopical aff, but you should be relevant enough to be able to pretend you're topical, and defending yourself as such, or at least that the educational importance of your aff justifies the deviation from the topic. But it needs to at least incorporate some core aspect of the topic, like bare minimum. If you aren't relevant enough to do that, you shouldn't be running this. If you're not heavily involved in the topic, and/or you are refusing to use the USFG, you are blocking your opponent out of the round. Switch side debate is vital for fairness and education and rejecting the USFG cuz its evil is firmly neg ground. This is a game. Without fair rules it devolves into madness and national tournaments where Affs win 90% of their rounds (lookin at you CEDA (yeah that actually happened)). Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, there is always radical lit discussing these issues within the topic, and that radical lit does not preclude USFG usage/topicality as much as everyone thinks it does.

Ultimately running the same thing every round is only robbing yourself of the educational value of switch side debate and learning about the system we are stuck in right now (valuable knowledge for a radical as well). If your opponent does not want to go for the arguments Ive stated preference for here, or doesn't actually win that debate I will still vote for you. It is very easy though to get me to vote on switch side debate good, fairness k2 debate survival. The fairly low number of statism/reject usfg affs does not justify my intervention on this matter, but I will definitely re-evaluate that position if it starts to crowd out topical traditional affs.

ROLE OF THE BALLOT: Roles of the ballot can be used as a great way to open up debate about priorities and whats important. They can also be used to box the neg out of their fair share of ground. The neg should be able to critic it's productiveness and/or work within it. Forcing the neg to run a counterproposal probably means I hate your FW/Role of the Ballot

TOPICALITY: The best way to get my ballot on topicality is a really good brightline and a really good argument on the lost ground and why you should have it. You MUST talk about fairness and education and the topic as a whole. Refer back to General Theory below. If you are going to run it, you should probably mean it.

GENERAL THEORY/PROCEDURALS: In order to vote for a theory/procedural and treat it as a voter I need a clear description of what they did wrong, a brightline/what they should have done instead, and why it matters. It should detail exactly why it is abusive, and how it effects fair/equitable ground and education in this round and debate as a whole. I am not against voting on potential abuse and in fact, you should probably have some examples of it in your impacts. HOWEVER, it is more of an uphill battle.

If all you say is "its abusive and a voter" with no abuse story and no impact on debate as a whole I will not consider it a voter and you couldn't convince me to vote for it even if they drop it. If you can't make a full procedural for whatever reason, don't be afraid to use the word abusive though. It could still make me more likely to drop the arg if you do it right.

Don't rely on the Da Rules. It will eventually come back to haunt you because the rulebook does not distribute ground fairly and is outdated (#sorrynotsorry). Its also a lazy non argument that doesn't develop your critical thinking skills and will lose you speaks.

FLOWING: My flowing capability is decent. I will write everything you say down, and will *probably* put it in the place you want me to, but you should *definitely* be clear about where that is just to be sure. I do not always (or often) catch citations (ya'll mumble them...I did too tho) so you probably shouldn't use just the cite and assume I know exactly which card you are referring to. Tags/Parts of the argument are preferable.

SPEED: I will understand most of what you say no matter how fast you go, but don't push my mediocre flowing to the brink ESPECIALLY if I am flowing on paper. I can only type/write so fast. If I can not understand you its probably an issue of clarity not speed. If I say CLEAR you need to CLEAR. If that requires you to slow down so be it.
You have the right to ask your opponent to slow down, but do not abuse this. I expect you to be able to keep up with above average conversing speed at bare minimum. If you ask someone to slow down, do not dare go any faster than that.

SPEAKS: There is not a very consistent speaker points range in this community. I am probably a bit of a fairy in this regards. Good oration skills will get you higher speaks. Good clear fast talk will get you higher speaks. Making it easy to flow will get you VERY good speaks. Best way to get good speaks is debate well and show you read this paradigm (or at least skimmed it).

Background: I competed in policy debate for four years in college at the University of Mary Washington. I coached policy debate for seven years, public forum for one year, and LD debate for five years.

Despite my policy background I am committed to the spirit of LD. This means that while you can speak quickly, you should be comprehensible and both debaters should be ok with going fast. I have seen too many debates where a varsity debater unnecessarily spreads out a novice debater.

Topicality is a voting issue. I am unlikely to vote on a reverse voting issue on topicality even if it is dropped. Arguments about why topicality is problematic may be reasons to include your affirmative, but are rarely reasons for you to win the debate. It is probably best in front of me to frame these as expanding the interpretation of what the topic can be, rather than rejecting a topic all together.

The citation rules are so widely disregarded that I would feel uncomfortable enforcing them, especially if there is no conversation between the debaters about reading them prior to the first speech.

Winning topicality or any other theory issue requires more work than winning on a substantive issue. This is to say, if both teams go for substance I have to pick a winner, but if one team goes for theory I can assess that they have not surpassed the burden required to reject the other team. This does not mean that T and theory are unwinnable arguments in front of me. In order to win you should clearly explain your interpretation, explain how the other team has violated it, explain why your interpretation makes for good debates, explain what the opponent does or justifies, and explain why that is bad for debate. This is not code for I do not vote on theory. I will vote on theory.

Negatives should narrow the debate in their second speech. Pick the arguments you are winning and go in-depth. I will give affirmative’s wide latitude in debate where the negative goes for everything in a messy way. Going for T and substance is usually a mistake, unless one or both are such a clear win that you have extra time (this happens rarely).

Presumption goes to the status quo, which means that ties go to the negative (in the world of a counterplan presumption is up for debate). A negative can sometimes make a persuasive case that the affirmative has to prove solvency, which is a separate issue from presumption.

Many debate arguments can be defeated without cards by making smart, warranted, analytical arguments. I wish I saw more of these types of arguments.

I don’t subscribe to an offense defense paradigm; good defense is in many cases enough, especially with theory debates.

I am increasingly willing to intervene in theory debates. Two speeches does not allow for proper theory development and gives both sides the ability to simply block out every speech. Counterplans like consultation and 50 state fiat require a very low threshold to defeat on theory. I am not a fan of conditional counterproposals in LD. Negative arguments like the affirmative doesn’t get permutations are generally nonstarters.

I will vote on kritiks but prefer them specific to the topic and with a hardy dose of explanation about why it relates to the specific claims of the 1AC. I am not a good judge for generic backfile checks with one card that is semi relevant to the topic area. Some additional clarification. Changes to how the round should be evaluated (moving from the question of the desirability of the policy) need to be made explicitly and early and should include substantive justification about why the change excludes or makes undesirable the aff.

Final speeches need to make choices and clearly identify their path to the ballot. One part of this is the order you present ideas in your speech.

Things that will get you lower speaker points/make it hard for you to win.

1. Be rude to the other team.
2. Not answer or be evasive when answering cross ex questions.
3. Be unclear in CX about the status of counter plans
4. Being unable or unwilling to explain your arguments in CX
5. Read unwarranted/unqualified evidence.

One way to get (perhaps unfairly) good speaker points from me is to be entertaining. Many debaters, who were not the best at debate, but nevertheless were pleasant to watch debate, (being funny, speaking passionately, being nice to their opponents) have received speaker points that would typically fall outside of their skill range.

Have fun and be your best you!

2 Years Graduate Assistant @ Pitt.

2 Year Coaching MA @ Wake.

Debated Four Years at Clarion University.

Quick notes

1. Be nice to the people you debate, being rude to them during/after will cost you speaker points and I will judge you as a base creature

2. Love big debates with a bunch of arguments made (Warrants > Cards).

3. Author qualification matters.

4. Love specificity of argumentation and analysis. If deeply theoretical connect it to practice (in-round or normalized experience).

5. I think debaters relying on judges calling for evidence has gotten out of hand. A team will win a micro-argument if they explain the warrants of their evidence albeit they read less/worse evidence. If I call for cards it will be because the area of debate is undecidable based upon the analysis in the round.

6. I'm much more open to framework discussions for critical affirmatives then previously thought.

Rest of it.

Paperless Debate: I'm not really a stickler about prep time as long as people try to progress the debate to the best of their abilities. I understand that issues arrive because technology will be technology but I ask everyone in the room to be as ethical about not stealing prep as possible.

Framework: Without instruction, I will look at it from the view of an informed citizen trying to decipher whether or not the question of the resolution is met by the affirmative or not. If you want me to resolve the debate in another manner I need you to explicitly frame what voting aff/neg means and/or what the ballot represents and WHY that is important. Teams that want me to act more traditionally have the same presumption when telling me why I should actively execlude the performance of alterity.

Theory: I like interesting theoretical arguments; this is usually garnered by teams being specific when it comes to theory. Example, conditionality by itself seems good, multiple worlds without advocacy of a permutation while the status quo always being logical seems bad.

Biases I can think of:

-Multiple conditional Cp’s or alternatives are ok.

-Multiple conditional worlds - combination of Alt’s/Cp’s seems problematic.

-International Fiat – no opinion

-Agent Cp’s – No opinion

-Consult – Dirty/Cheating

-I find arguments for advocating a permutation to be persuasive.

-States Cp: No Opinion

Be topical. Reverse voters aren’t arguments. Substantial matters.

Critiques: Fine. The strength of the link qualifies how much weight I give to the impacts.

Speaker Points - It's all relative - Have fun - do what you love - be funny if you can - be true to yourself and the speaker points will follow.

Much Love,

Swan.