2004-2008: Policy debate with La Costa Canyon High School
2012-2016: Coach for the Bay Area Urban Debate League

Tabla Rasa judge. It is your debate round, so you should do whatever you want. This does not mean that you do not need to justify why you’re running the arguments you run. Disad-counterplan strategies should still be able to defend and explain why a policy framework is best and K, T, or theory strategies should do the same.

On Kritiks, you can’t win without detailed explanations of your link story and precisely how the impact relates to or interacts with case advantages. On framework, I need a clear explanation of the impacts to your standards and why your interpretation makes for a better world of policy debate. You will need to invest a lot of time to convince me that a particular type of argument or impact has no relevance to the round, because I do believe these arguments are exclusionary and wrong.

On theory and topicality, you must again clearly articulate why your interpretation creates a better world for debate. What specific ground do you lose, why is their interpretation or violation unfair, and what specifically happens to education. Briefly mentioned independent voters will not fly; if you want to win here invest significant time. I like cheap shots, but only if they’re well explained and impacted.

Speed is fine as long as you’re clear -- I should be able to tell the difference between your tag and the evidence.

If you like speaker points, make good use out of your cross ex and don’t be rude.

Experience:

I did mostly policy in high school, and am doing policy in college, so I have the most experience with this form of debate. I did a little bit of LD in high school, so I am familiar with the basic concepts, but I am not intimately familiar with it.

Paradigm:

I am okay with speed, but nothing obscene. I'm okay with almost anything that could be run, just make sure you explain it clearly, with every link in the logic chain properly explained.

I love well-done impact calculus. Explaining why your arguments have more bearing on the round, or on the world, and how your opponents don't, is a very winning strategy in my book. Simply assuming the impacts of your arguments, or assuming I know those impacts, doesn't help me evaluate your arguments.

The final speeches should give me a few things to chew on. That is, don't just dump tons of words in my ears and hope I vote for you. Give me a few key, concise, good reasons why you've won.

Policy-Specific:

I like disadvantages, but be sure it actually links to the opponent's case. Additionally, explain the impact story clearly.

I'm a big fan of topicality. However, make the violation clear, and be sure you tell me clearly WHY it's bad that the case is non-topical.

I will vote for kritiks, but I'm not a huge fan of them. The link and perm are big issues for me with kritiks, so be sure to clearly tackle those.

For email chains, my email is: zanehayesemerson@gmail.com

I’m tabula rasa - blank slate. I’ll vote how you persuade me to vote factoring the things you persuade me to factor. I debated in HS and College and am now a practicing lawyer. The activity is so influential and positive for growth - whether research or public speaking or advocacy or competition - so many aspects of debate are huge values to help us be good citizens. And all are debatable in the round!

Good debates will weigh evidence and make distinctions between quality of evidence, likelihood of links and solvency, and magnitude of impacts and advantages. Counterplans and Kritiks also can shake up the formula, tell me how and why (or why not) and I’ll stand open to reason.

Good luck! Feel free to ask me questions about any specifics!

I debated 4 years of policy in high school and 4 years in NPDA parli debate for Washburn.

I can go in lots of different directions but I’m most comfortable being a policymaker. I lie more on the “politician/lawyer” side of debate roleplaying than “academic/activist”. I like hearing substantive debates about ideas and policy consequences more than hearing debate after debate about the same critical/theoretical topics. Not that you can’t run those, this is just my preference.

My only other real preference is that I think debate’s core value should be education. If you run theory arguments or critical arguments, make your standards/voters center education and explain to me how your position is better for education, especially topic-specific education. When I look back on my time in debate, the topic education and research skills are the thing I found indispensable in the long run. We should aim to make this space as enriching as we can.

If you run critical stuff the links are extremely important. Please explain to me why this topic or this aff case in particular is so important to run this exact K against. I’m pretty partial to the perm otherwise. I’m also pretty partial to links being independent disads against the aff, if argued well. I love hearing the topic/aff being very specifically deconstructed on critical grounds.

I’m ok with speed but I think debate should be an activity where we try to enhance and enrich our communication skills, and not end up a mealymouthed double-clutching race to the bottom. If you’re too fast or difficult to understand it has a good chance of significantly costing you.

I try my best to not look at your evidence unless 1) there is a dispute over something with the evidence, like claims of powertagging or false tagging or something, or 2) I miss something and it wasn't your fault, sometimes it happens and if I know you said it and just need to grab it I will. Otherwise I really try to stay out of looking at your docs because this is a communication activity and I want you to make the conscious choice to spend time on your winners and use your own analysis to communicate why your evidence and arguments should win the round!

I like good theory debate, don't like bad theory debate (Duh). A good theory debate would involve teams providing their interpretation of the theoretical issue, warrants to justify that as the superior interpretation and indicts of their opponents interpretation. Bad theory debate almost always lack the third and frequently the first. I have little problem pulling the trigger on a theory debate as long as those implications are clearly identified and explained early in the debate.

I like well-applied evidence. I don't mind sifting through a bunch of cards to decide a debate, but I'd rather not. At that point I am forced to make my own evaluations to the quality or comparative value of evidence that you might not agree with. So help make those comparisons for me. Final rebuttals (or even earlier speeches) that isolate the warrants in their evidence and use that to make comparisons will save me a lot of trouble and you a lot of disappointment if I see things differently.

Style tends to be a matter of taste. I am encouraged about the willingness of teams to expand the stylistics of debate, but remain deeply committed to the core principle of rejoinder. In other words, the ability for critical debate. I welcome performative arguments, but I think you must provide a point for your opponents discourse to engage and respond or, absent that, accept your opponents' attempts to do so.I have some problems with being asked to simply affirm a performance as that seems at cross purposes with the nature of this activity. Other than that, BE NICE! Zero style points for being a jerk.

I'm a pretty flexible judge. Tell me what to do and I'll generally do it. I have a set of assumptions and criteria about how to evaluate a debate that I will fall back to absent instructions from the debaters. If you have any questions about that, just ask before we start. Most importantly, I like impact and issue comparisons in the final rebuttals. Statements like "Even if" or "Regardless of if they win" or "My impacts should always be preferred because" will go far to win my ballot. Too many debates are reduced to trying to stack a bunch of impacts on your side and hope it is enough to outweigh. Don't be that kind of debater, give me a big picture and weigh it out for me.