Top Level

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

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

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

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

Relevant Predispositions

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

Kale Fithian—Erie (PA) McDowell Policy Paradigm

Background: I competed in extemp in high school and speech/LD in college in the early to mid 1990s. I never competed in policy debate. I picked up judging after being trained about 20 years ago. I judge 10-15 rounds a year mostly at local tournaments in Western Pennsylvania/Eastern Ohio. I occasionally judge circuit debate and have judged several times at NCFL Grand Nationals.

I would best be described as an experienced traditional judge with some exposure to circuit policy debate. Speed is not something that I am philosophically opposed to but I can probably only handle about 65-70% of the fastest spreading. Clear tags and direction on the flow will help. I will say clear if needed.

I flow on legal pads and don’t access technology during the round. It has to be on my flow for me to vote on it and not just in an email chain.

I am reasonably well versed on current events but do not have any especially specific knowledge of this topic area.

Round Procedure: I will time just in case there is a dispute but otherwise you are welcome to time yourselves. I won’t count any technology time such as flashing information against prep but it is your responsibility to let me know that you have stopped prepping.

Open cross-ex is fine with me but I will not require any questions to be answered during anyone’s prep time.

I am not overly concerned with formality of procedure but I will penalize heavily for clear unsportsmanlike or inappropriate behavior. Treat the activity and your opponents with respect and this should not be an issue.

I will disclose and do a brief reason for decision but I write most of my comments on the physical or computer ballot.

General Philosophy: My goal at the beginning of any round is to be as non-interventionist and tab rasa as possible. It will be the debaters’ job to identify the key issues of the round, argue them and guide me by providing voting issues. If there is a true breakdown of the round or lack of clash I will default to policymaker with an impact calculus as my preferred method of round evaluation.

Specific Arguments:

T—I have a fairly high threshold for T. I will tend to default to a reasonableness argument unless the Neg clearly wins the line by line.

FW—I am always open to either side framing the debate and setting up the importance of the arguments (as noted above in my tab rasa philosophy). I will not vote specifically on FW but if you can show the specific reason your arguments win under a FW I agree with you will most likely win the round if your points truly match the FW. If you can show what specifically you are missing out on if I accept your opponent’s framework that would go a long way.

CP—I am open to CP’s by the neg. If your CP will lead to a better net benefit than the Aff plan then I am going to potentially vote for it as part of the impact calc in the round. Likewise if the Aff plan has better net benefits then the Neg then I would be inclined to vote Aff at least on the plan portion. I am however not opposed to the Aff running T, harms, DA, etc… against a CP.

DA—I will consider both the Aff and Neg running DAs against a plan or counterplan to be fair arguments relating to the effectiveness of those cases. If the DAs outweigh the net benefits of either that can be a key voter in the round.

K—I am fine with Ks being run but it is up to the debater running it to make sure they explain the potential impact/consequences/reasons for the K to be accepted and to show why the topic or case is truly related to the K.

On Case—I am favorable to the Neg being able to attack the Aff case. I am more likely to vote on some sort of harms but will vote stock issues if it is clearly won in argumentation.

Performance Aff/Aff K—I am not very familiar and hold a high threshold here. If this is done it will need to be clearly explained as to why this is clearly better than running a traditional case.

Fiat—I will grant Aff fiat and any non-attacked plan gets full benefits as if it happened (granted harms etc.. could still be argued).

Lincoln Douglas Addendum:

I have been judging Lincoln Douglas for about 20 years and judge about 20-25 rounds each season mostly at local tournaments in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. I have very limited exposure to any sort of circuit Lincoln Douglas but since I judge policy somewhat regularly I am still passingly familiar with the style. However I do not feel spreading or excessive speed should be common in Lincoln Douglas. Fast conversational pace should be the highest pace needed.

For all of the round procedures see above from the policy paradigm. For Lincoln Douglas I still try to be as Tab Rasa as possible and have the students determine the key voting issues in the round. However both my philosophy and judging experience leans heavily towards the traditional LD style. So in a close round I will default to who won the value and potentially criterion clash more heavily than practical applications, policy implications, or solvency. I do flow the main arguments and rebuttals for the debate but I am fine with grouping or big picture arguments and cross-application. However it must be clearly explained why an argument successfully counters multiple opposing views or why a cross-application is valid. I value the argumentation aspect of debate in LD more as I consider it to be a truly separate event from policy.

You can e-mail me at ian.kimbrell.debate@gmail.com.

I coached for Saint Ignatius High School for 10 years in the 90s. I coached for Case Western Reserve University from 1995-2006. I started coaching again in 2016. The teams I coached were 75% policy and 25% Kritik debaters. I am fine with any type of argument, but I tend to enjoy fast, evidence intensive, traditional policy debates that collapse down well to a few clear reasons for me to prefer.

I do my best not to interject my opinions or perspectives into the decisions. I like being told how to sign the ballot and will try to pick either the 2NRs or 2ARs interpretation of the round. I like the analysis of warrants. The clash between competing warrants makes for the best debate.

Bravado is encouraged as long as it is done within the confines of fun, friendliness, and fairness.

DAs: Analysis of the evidence, comparison of evidence, and clear articulation of uniqueness, link, and impact are important to me.

TOPICALITY: I like topicality debates but rarely see them. I look to compare two competing interpretations. I probably have a lower threshold than most for having to justify it as a voting issue.

KRITIKs: They are fine. I treat them like any other argument. The more specific the link evidence and link story is to the affirmative, the more engaged I will be. Multiple links are exponentially more persuasive. Permutations need to be clearly explained. I am open to K is bad arguments. I am not deep into all of the literature.

COUNTER PLANS: Counter Plans are fine. Permutations need to be clearly explained. Solvency for counter plans matter.

FRAMEWORK: Clarity on Framework is helpful early on in the debate.

I have a bias towards new/odd arguments. Especially creative DAs and Counterplans. If you are looking to test something out, I may be a good judge to try it on. I'll make sure I give you all the feedback you need.

The most important thing to know about me is that while I would like to be included in the email chain, I will not read evidence during the round. I believe it risks too much judge bias even from the most experienced judges. I will read evidence at the end of the round if things are close or if the one of the debaters convinces me I need to look at one or two key pieces of evidence. Ultimately, I will vote on my flow. This means a minimum level of speaking articulation, clarity, and general ease of flowing does matter. If I can not understand a speaker I will verbally give a warning or two with no penalty.

Updated 11/13/20

TLDR: Do whatever. I haven't been super active the last few years so everything below is probably less relevant now. Make things easy for me and tell me why you're winning in your last speech.

OLD PARADIGM

Debate Experience: I debated for four years in high school reading mostly soft left affs and the cap k, qualifying to the TOC my senior year. I haven't judged a ton on this topic so make sure you explain topicality/ other stuff you might assume I'd know.

Debaters that have influenced me the most: Anthony Ogbuli, Rishi Chebrolu. Check out their paradigms.

Sparknotes Version: Do what you want. This is my first year judging so I don't really know what I like/dislike yet and this paradigm will probably change. Coming from a small school I probably have more respect for a well executed generic than the average judge. Cool with k's, no-plan affs, I really just want to see what you do best. Impact calc can completely turn debates around in the 1ar onward.

Non-policy affs: This was the section that mattered to me most when I was debating. I probably have a slight (52-48) aff bias on the framework question. That said it's still a super winnable argument and was in 95% of my neg blocks in these debates. Negs should use topical version of the aff arguments to neutralize large portions of aff offense. I'm definitely more persuaded by arguments about the educational value of a limited resolution grounded in switch side debate than "policy education good" arguments. Aff teams should challenge neg internal links to neg impacts cause they're usually super poorly articulated. Fairness is an internal link not an impact.

Kritiks: LINKS LINKS LINKS. Especially against non-policy affs if you can give me something better than "they talk about race and that's not class sooo..." you will be rewarded. Find the parts of the aff that you're actually disagreeing with and highlight that for me. References to specific pieces of their evidence/rhetoric are dope. Links are also the best answer to the perm. Dropped turns case arguments from policy affs are pretty devestating. On both sides you should assume you're winning less of the framework debate than you think. Couch these arguments so that even if you don't win your interpretation you can still garner offense on whatever else you have. I went for neolib probably 75% or more of rounds my sophomore year on so I'm pretty familiar with that but please don't read that just for me. Besides cap I'm most familiar with policy and race based kritiks. Not very well read on or experienced with high theory so if that's your thing make sure you clearly break that down for me. Writing the ballot at the top of the 2nr is absolutely necessary for kritiks.

Topicality: I have a burning passion for well executed topicality arguments. A well put together t argument in the block can completely mess up a 1ar's debate. These debates are usually won or lost on the limits question for me. I default to competing interps cause reasonability is rarely explained well.

Disads: Not a lot to say here. Impact calculus is the most important and least well done aspect of disad/case debates from my experience. Big fan of analytical takeouts to obviously stupid links.

CPs: Despite being a 2n I find myself leaning aff on most theory questions. I think aff teams let the neg get away with a stunning amount so feel free to not only run but go for theory. Negs should be prepared to defend why stealing aff ground was justified if pressed on it but no one seems to do that so it probably doesn't matter. Weighing solvency deficits against the risk of the da at the end of the round is not fun so please make that easy for me.

Case Debates: Underutilized. A lot of big stick policy affs have laughable internal links and I'd love to see you go after them in cross-x or with analytics.

Email me at wjmccarthy7@gmail.com with any other questions.

It's been a number of years since I've been active in the debate community. Just run what you're good at and tell me why you won at the end.

I competed for four years in high school and coached for six years after that. On aff, I generally ran something mildly critical, and on neg I ran the Cap K just about every round.

Make my life easy and write my ballot for me in the rebuttals.