Chattahoochee HS '21

University Of Kentucky '25

Add me to the chain: jaredaadam@gmail.com

Top:

I will pretty much vote on anything and lack many ideological predispositions with a few exceptions. I try to be as least interventionist as possible so please do judge instruction that explains to me why you have won the debate & the implications of the arguments you are going for.

Send a card doc after the debate has ended. I'll read the cards you think are important, but I tend to think the quality of evidence comes secondary to who did the better debating.

Debate is a communication activity, I will flow what I hear, not what is in the doc.

Theory:

I prefer to judge substantive debates over trivial theory arguments. Anything that isn't conditionality is a reason to reject the argument not the team. I lean NEG on condo, and would only prefer you go for it if either a. the neg severely mishandles it or b. it's the only winning option. I will not vote on blimpy theory arguments that aren't developed or articulated out earlier in the debate.

Non-resolutional theory is a non-starter.

Counterplans:

Judge kick is my default unless told otherwise.

Huge fan of them, I love me some solvency offense & AFF specific counterplans.

I am okay for counterplan competition, but the more egregious the counterplan, the lower the threshold it is to win the CP is illegitimate.

Disads:

Good

I think the interest rates DA is cracked. Though I haven't judge that many debates on this topic, I do not understand why some variation of an econ DA is not the 2NR in every debate.

Kritiks:

The best kritiks are ones with links to the plan. If you want to just rehash some theory about the world, without contextualizing it to the plan, I am not the judge for you.

Topicality:

I would prefer you read & defend a topical plan. Impact turning framework is more persuasive to me than extending a counter interpretation.

Impact Turns:

Good

Misc:

- tech > truth

- Don't sacrifice clarity for speed

• Bigotry will not be tolerated

Maggie Berthiaume Woodward Academy

Current Coach — Woodward Academy (2011-present)
Former Coach — Lexington High School (2006-2008), Chattahoochee High School (2008-2011)
College Debater — Dartmouth College (2001-2005)
High School Debater — Blake (1997-2001)
maggiekb@gmail.com for email chains, please.

Meta Comments

1. Please be nice. If you don't want to be kind to others (the other team, your partner, me, the novice flowing the debate in the back of the room), please don’t prefer me.

2. I'm a high school teacher and believe that debates should be something I could enthusiastically show to my students, their families, or my principal. What does that mean? If your high school teachers would find your presentation inappropriate, I am likely to as well.

3. Please be clear. I will call "clear" if I can't understand you, but debate is primarily a communication activity. Do your best to connect on meaningful arguments.

4. Conduct your own CX as much as possible. CX is an important time for judge impression formation, and if one partner does all asking and answering for the team, it is very difficult to evaluate both debaters. Certainly the partner not involved in CX can get involved in an emergency, but that should be brief and rare if both debaters want good points.

5. If you like to be trolly with your speech docs (read on paper to prevent sharing, remove analyticals, etc.), please don't. See "speech documents" below for a longer justification and explanation.

6. I am not willing or able to adjudicate issues that happened outside of the bounds of the debate itself — ex. previous debates, social media issues, etc.

7. In debates involving minors, I am a mandated reporter — as are all judges of debates involving minors!

8. I’ve coached and judged for a long time now, and the reason I keep doing it is that I think debate is valuable. Students who demonstrate that they appreciate the opportunity to debate and are passionate and excited about the issues they are discussing are a joy to watch — they give judges a reason to listen even when we’re sick or tired or judging the 5th debate of the day on the 4th weekend that month. Be that student!

9. "Maggie" (or "Ms. B." if you prefer), not "judge."

What does a good debate look like?

Everyone wants to judge “good debates.” To me, that means two excellently-prepared teams who clash on fundamental issues related to the policy presented by the affirmative. The best debates allow four students to demonstrate that they have researched a topic and know a lot about it — they are debates over issues that experts in the field would understand and appreciate. The worst debates involve obfuscation and tangents. Good debates usually come down to a small number of issues that are well-explained by both sides. The best final rebuttals have clearly explained ballot and a response to the best reason to vote for the opposing team.

I have not decided to implement the Shunta Jordan "no more than 5 off" rule, but I understand why she has it, and I agree with the sentiment. I'm not establishing a specific number, but I would like to encourage negative teams to read fully developed positions in the 1NC (with internal links and solvency advocates as needed). (Here's what she says: "There is no world where the Negative needs to read more than 5 off case arguments. SO if you say 6+, I'm only flowing 5 and you get to choose which you want me to flow.") If you're thinking "nbd, we'll just read the other four DAs on the case," I think you're missing the point. :) It's not about the specific number, it's about the depth of argument.

Do you read evidence?

Yes, in nearly every debate. I will certainly read evidence that is contested by both sides to resolve who is correct in their characterizations. The more you explain your evidence, the more likely I am to read it. For me, the team that tells the better story that seems to incorporate both sets of evidence will almost always win. This means that instead of reading yet another card, you should take the time to explain why the context of the evidence means that your position is better than that of the other team. This is particularly true in close uniqueness and case debates.

Please read rehighlightings out loud rather than inserting them.

Do I have to be topical?

Yes. Affirmatives are certainly welcome to defend the resolution in interesting and creative ways, but that defense should be tied to a topical plan to ensure that both sides have the opportunity to prepare for a topic that is announced in advance. Affirmatives certainly do not need to “role play” or “pretend to be the USFG” to suggest that the USFG should change a policy, however.

I enjoy topicality debates more than the average judge as long as they are detailed and well-researched. Examples of this include “intelligence gathering” on Surveillance, “health care” on Social Services, and “economic engagement” on Latin America. Debaters who do a good job of describing what debates would look like under their interpretation (aff or neg) are likely to win. I've judged several "substantial" debates in recent years that I've greatly enjoyed.

Can I read [X ridiculous counterplan]?

If you have a solvency advocate, by all means. If not, consider a little longer. See: “what does as good debate look like?” above. Affs should not be afraid to go for theory against contrived counterplans that lack a solvency advocate. On the flip side, if the aff is reading non-intrinsic advantages, the "logical" counterplan or one that uses aff solvency evidence for the CP is much appreciated.

What about my generic kritik?

Topic or plan specific critiques are absolutely an important component of “excellently prepared teams who clash on fundamental issues.” Kritiks that can be read in every debate, regardless of the topic or affirmative plan, are usually not.

Given that the aff usually has specific solvency evidence, I think the neg needs to win that the aff makes things worse (not just “doesn’t solve” or “is a mask for X”). Neg – Please spend the time to make specific links to the aff — the best links are often not more evidence but examples from the 1AC or aff evidence.

What about offense/defense?

I do believe there is absolute defense and vote for it often.

Do you take prep for emailing/flashing?

Once the doc is saved, your prep time ends.

I have some questions about speech documents...

One speech document per speech (before the speech). Any additional cards added to the end of the speech should be sent out as soon as feasible.

Teams that remove analytical arguments like permutation texts, counter-interpretations, etc. from their speech documents before sending to the other team should be aware that they are also removing them from the version I will read at the end of the debate — this means that I will be unable to verify the wording of their arguments and will have to rely on the short-hand version on my flow. This rarely if ever benefits the team making those arguments.

Speech documents should be provided to the other team as the speech begins. The only exception to this is a team who debates entirely off paper. Teams should not use paper to circumvent norms of argument-sharing.

I will not consider any evidence that did not include a tag in the document provided to the other team.

LD Addendum

I don't judge LD as much as I used to (I coached it, once upon a time), but I think most of the above applies. If you are going to make reference to norms (theory, side bias, etc.), please explain them. Otherwise, just debate!

PF Addendum

This is very similar to the LD addendum with the caveat that I strongly prefer evidence be presented as cards rather than paraphrasing. I find it incredibly difficult to evaluate the quality of evidence when I have to locate the original source for every issue, and as a result, I am likely to discount that evidence compared to evidence where I can clearly view the surrounding sentence/paragraph/context.

Adrienne F. Brovero, University of Kentucky

Closing in on 30 years coaching
adri.debate@gmail.com

Please label your email chain subject line with Team names, tourney, round.

Your prep time does not end until you have hit send on the email.

❗Updated 3-27-24 - I am REAL serious about the highlighting thing below - many cards are literally unreadable as highlighted and if I find myself struggling to read your evidence, I will cease to do so.

❗This is a communication activity.❗

Clarity - Cannot emphasize enough how important clarity is, whether online or in-person.

Highlighting - Highlighting has become a disgrace. Highlighting should not result in anti-grammatical shards of arguments. Highlighting should not result in misrepresentation of the author's intent/ideas. Quite frankly, some highlighting is so bad, you would have been better served not reading the evidence. When highlighting, please put yourself in the judge's shoes for a moment and ask yourself if you would feel comfortable deciding a debate based on how you've highlighted that card. If the answer is no, reconsider your highlighting.

SERIOUSLY - LINE-BY-LINE. NUMBER.

If you like to say "I will do the link debate here" - I am probably not the best judge for you. I would prefer you clash with link arguments in each instance they happen, as opposed to all in one place. Same is true for every other component of an argument.

• Qualifications - read them. Debate them.
• Line-by-line involves directly referencing the other team's argument ("Off 2AC #3 - Winners Win, group"), then answering it. "Embedded" clash fails if you bury the clash part so deep I can't find the arg you are answering.
• Overviews - overrated. Kinda hate them. Think they are a poor substitute for debating the arguments where they belong on the line-by-line.

Things that are prep time:

• Any time after the official start time that is not a constructive (9 mins), CX (3 mins), rebuttal (6 mins), or a brief roadmap. Everything else is prep time.
• Putting your speech doc together - including saving doc, setting up email chain, attaching it to the email, etc.
• Asking for cards outside of CX time. ("Oh can you send the card before CX?" - that is either CX or prep time - there is not un-clocked time).
• Setting up your podium/stand.
• Putting your flows in order.
• Finding pens, flows, timers.

Debate like this: http://vimeo.com/5464508

MACRO-ISSUES
Communication: I like it. I appreciate teams that recognize communication failures and try to correct them. If I am not flowing, it usually means communication is breaking down. If I am confused or have missed an argument, I will frequently look up and give you a confused look – you should read this as an indication that the argument, at minimum, needs to be repeated, and may need to be re-explained. I am more than willing to discount a team’s arguments if I didn’t understand or get their arguments on my flow.

Speaker points: Points are influenced by a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: Communication skills, speaking clarity, road-mapping, obnoxiousness, disrespectfulness, theft of prep time, quality of and sufficient participation in 2 cross-examinations and 2 speeches, the quality of the debate, the clarity of your arguments, the sophistication of your strategy, and your execution. I have grown uncomfortable with the amount of profanity used during debates – do not expect high points if you use profanity.

Paperless/Prep Time: Most tournaments have a strict decision time clock, and your un-clocked time cuts into decision time. Most of you would generally prefer the judges has the optimal amount of time to decide. Please be efficient. Prep runs until the email is sent. I will be understanding of tech fails, but not as much negligence or incompetence. Dealing with your laptop’s issues, finding your flows, looking for evidence, figuring out how to operate a timer, setting up stands, etc. – i.e. preparation – all come out of prep time.

Flowing:
• I flow.
• Unless both teams instruct me otherwise, I will flow both teams.
• I evaluate the debate based primarily on what I have flowed.
• I frequently flow CX. I carefully check the 2AR for new arguments, and will not hold the 2NR accountable for unpredictable explanations or cross applications.
• I try to get down some form of tag/cite/text for each card. This doesn’t mean I always do. I make more effort to get the arg than I do the cite or date, so do not expect me to always know what you’re talking about when you solely refer to your “Henry 19” evidence.
• I reward those who make flowing easier by reading in a flowable fashion (road-mapping & signposting, direct refutation/clash, clarity, reasonable pace, emphasis of key words, reading for meaning, no distractions like tapping on the tubs, etc.). If you are fond of saying things like "Now the link debate" or "Group the perm debate" during the constructives, and you do not very transparently embed the clash that follows, do not expect me to follow your arguments or connect dots for you. Nor should you expect spectacular points.

Evidence:
• I appreciate efforts to evaluate and compare claims and evidence in the debate.
• I pay attention to quals and prefer they are actually read in the debate. I am extremely dismayed by the decline in quality of evidence (thank you, Internets) and the lack of teams’ capitalization on questionable sources.
• I don’t like to read evidence if I don’t feel the argument it makes has been communicated to me (e.g. the card was mumbled in the 2AC, or only extended by cite, or accompanied by a warrantless explanation, etc.).
• I also don’t like reading the un-highlighted portions of evidence unless they are specifically challenged by the opposing team.
• I should not have to read the un-highlighted parts to understand your argument – the highlighted portion should be a complete argument and a coherent thought. If you only read a claim, you only have a claim – you don’t get credit for portions of the evidence you don’t reference or read. If you only read a non-grammatical fragment, you are running the risk of me deciding I can’t coherently interpret that as an arg.
• I don’t like anonymous pronouns or referents in evidence like “she says” without an identification of who “she” is – identify “she” in your speech or “she” won’t get much weight in my decision.
• If you hand me evidence to read, please make clear which portions were actually read.

Decision calculus: Procedural determinations usually precede substantive determinations. First, I evaluate fairness questions to determine if actions by either team fundamentally alter the playing field in favor of the aff or neg. Then, I evaluate substantive questions. Typically, the aff must prove their plan is net beneficial over the status quo and/or a counterplan in order to win.

MICRO-ISSUES
Topicality & plan-related issues:
• The aff needs to have a written plan text.
• It should be topical.
• T is a voter. Criticisms of T are RVIs in sheep’s clothing.
• Anti-topical actions are neg ground.
• Have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of how nontraditional advocacies or demands are meaningfully different from plans, other than they are usually either vague and/or non-topical.
• On a related note, I don’t get why calling one’s advocacy a performance or demand renders a team immune from being held responsible for the consequences of their advocacy.
• In relation to plans and permutations, I value specificity over vagueness – specificity is necessary for meaningful debate about policies. However, please do not consider this an invitation to run dumb spec arguments as voting issues – absent a glaring evasiveness/lack of specificity, these are typically more strategic as solvency args.

Critiques/Performance:

Adjudicating critique or performance debates is not my strong suit. Most of these debates take place at a level of abstraction beyond my comprehension. If you have a habit of referring to your arguments by the author’s name (e.g. “Next off – Lacan”), I am not a very good judge for you. I don’t read very much in the advanced political philosophy or performance studies areas. This means, most of the time, I don’t know what the terms used in these debates mean. I am much more the applied politics type, and tend to think pragmatically. This means if you want to go for a critical or performance argument in front of me, you need to explain your arguments in lay-speak, relying less on jargon and author names, and more on warrants, analogies, empirical examples, and specifics in relation to the policy you are critiquing/performing for/against – i.e. persuade me. It also helps to slow it down a notch. Ask yourself how quickly you could flow advanced nuclear physics – not so easy if you aren’t terribly familiar with the field, eh? Well, that’s me in relation to these arguments. Flowing them at a rapid rate hinders my ability to process the arguments. Additionally, make an effort to explain your evidence as I am not nearly as familiar with this literature as you are. Lastly, specifically explain the link and impact in relation to the specific aff you are debating or the status quo policy you are criticizing. Statements like "the critique turns the case” don't help me. As Russ Hubbard put it, in the context of defending his demining aff many years ago, “How does our plan result in more landmines in the ground? Why does the K turn the case?” I need to know why the critique means the plan’s solvency goes awry – in words that link the critique to the actions of the plan. For example: Which part of the harms does the critique indict, with what impact on those harms claims? What would the plan end up doing if the critique turns its solvency? In addition, I find it difficult to resolve philosophical questions and/or make definitive determinations about a team’s motives or intentions in the course of a couple of hours.

I strongly urge you to re-read my thoughts above on “Communication” before debating these arguments in front of me.

Counterplans:

I generally lean negative on CP theory: topical, plan-inclusive, exclusion, conditional, international fiat, agent, etc. Aff teams should take more advantage of situations where the counterplan run is abusive at multiple levels – if the negative has to fend off multiple reasons the CP is abusive, their theory blocks may start to contradict. Both counterplan and permutation texts should be written out. “Do both” is typically meaningless to me – specify how. The status quo could remain a logical option, but growing convinced this should be debated. [NOTE THAT IS A FALL '18 CHANGE - DEBATE IT OUT] Additionally, another shout-out for communication - many theory debates are shallow and blippy - don't be that team. I like theory, but those type of debates give theory a bad name.

Other:

I like DAs. I’m willing to vote on stock issue arguments like inherency or “zero risk of solvency”.

they/she. astrid, not judge.

astridmeadowww@gmail.com – email subject lines should be: “[tournament] round [#] – [aff team] – [neg team]”

ferris 19-21 – CM: arms sales, CJR. west georgia 21-23 – CF: antitrust. CL: legal personhood. gap year(s) 23-?.

conflicts: Chattahoochee high school, North Broward BK, Fox Chapel TR, Brookfield East SM

NDT doubles 2023, TOC participant 2021.

non-negotiables / “rules”

Debates have one winner and one loser. I will evaluate the entire debate. I will award speaker points at my own discretion. High school policy debates have 4 participants, each of whom gives one 8 minute constructive speech and one 5 minute rebuttal speech. High school LD debates have 2 participants and strange speech times, but I will enforce them regardless. Prep time is allotted by the tournament and ends when the document is sent, no earlier. Clipping accusations end the debate and are an issue for tabroom, not me. Safety concerns end the debate and are an issue for tabroom, not me. Please keep your shoes on. If something is not listed here, it is up for contestation.

notes on evidence practices

Everyone must highlight their cards in a way which makes a complete argument while maintaining coherent grammar and the authors intent. Most highlighting has become so atrocious that I will happily evaluate arguments along the lines of “this highlighting is horrible” as either reasons to strike evidence entirely or even vote a certain way. If arguments about highlighting quality are not made, poor highlighting will be reflected in poor speaker points and a frustrated RFD.

You can insert re-highlightings which amount to "they've misrepresented their own argument" or "this isn't actually what the evidence says" as long as you say analytically why this is the case. You must read re-highlightings which make a new argument. For example: alt causes, solvency deficits, disad link concessions, you get the idea.

tl:dr

policy – aff-neg all time voting record: 38-45.

LD – aff-neg all time voting record: 6-11.

Debate is good because it is a lawless, vacuous and sophistic game. Debaters should read whatever they deem the most strategic path to the ballot. No argument is off limits*. Tech over “truth” is absolute. A complete argument consists of a claim, warrant** and implication; incomplete arguments needn’t be answered and will not be evaluated. It is a debaters burden to make an argument before it is their opponents burden to answer it. I will hold the line on this.

*though I won’t immediately end the debate over someone forwarding a controversial or “evil” argument, I am very sympathetic to responses like “this argument is evil, reading it is a reason to reject the team regardless of the rest of the debate” when supplemented by a substantive response to the argument. Be reasonable. Make good arguments.

**some warrants are self-evident/implied. We needn’t have a debate about easily observable & provable phenomena which exist in the status quo. Use your intuition to determine the level of analysis you need to win each argument.

the long version.

Honestly, the rest of this paradigm is largely unimportant ramblings because of my near total ambivalence regarding content, but exists for the sake of optimizing everyone’s pref sheets given the tragic inevitability of pre-existing bias influencing how convincing any given argument is to me. I am imperfect. If something is evenly debated, exceptionally messy, or not debated at all, the following paragraphs are insights to my defaults and tie-breakers.

about me / overarching biases

I am a grumpy trans woman who cares about debate very much, though not for any external reasons like “community” or “skills”. I like debate because it is a space which allows people to be creative and express themselves and their ideas; I love debate because of the way those things are facilitated by and interact with its competitive form. I am a very competitive girl and a “policy” 2N at heart, but I have primarily read critical arguments throughout my career given the size of programs I’ve attended, partner preferences, topics debated, and my more personal research interests.

I think of debate as very similar to music. In the same way there is a very technical, theoretically complex, even mathematical way to go about each, there is also a much more artistic, fluid, and creative way. The best debaters and musicians are able to merge technical understanding and proficiency with an ethos which conveys unique ideas and character, though each school of thought is more than capable of producing something beautiful and revolutionary alone. If this doesn’t make sense to you don’t worry too much, simply do what you’re best at and I will appreciate it.

I’m more sympathetic to accommodations and arguments regarding flowability than a lot of judges. I am a slow writer, I am losing hearing in my right ear, and I flow on paper. I will have the speech document open to minimize my errors, but I will only check it to clarify and elaborate on arguments I’ve already heard. I will not use it to fill gaps and compensate for anyone’s lack of clarity and organization. Please slow down on tags, authors, qualifications, dates, and analytics. If anyone else has a (non-safety) related accommodation request, send an email to me and your opponents before the debate so I have a record of it and can fairly evaluate arguments you may make if said accomodations are not met.

Influences & contemporaries include, but are not limited to: Geoff Lundeen, Sarah Lundeen, Jason Regnier, Adrienne Brovero, Dylan Kirkpatrick, Joe Skoog, Nathan Fleming, Julian Kuffour, Kate Marin, David Sposito, Jordan Keller, Patrick Fox, Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz, Moss McCullough, and Blaine Montford.

on policy throwdowns

The affirmative has the burden of proof and the negative has the burden of rejoinder. For the negative this means, at least, I value case defense more highly than many and, at most, I am more willing to pull the trigger on presumption against poorly constructed affirmatives. For the affirmative this means the same emphasis on defense applies to disadvantages, and I'm very willing to listen to 2AC tricks like intrinsicness tests, weird permutations, and anything else you can think of that amounts to “this argument doesn’t necessarily prove the plan is a bad idea.”

I slightly prefer straight up policy strategies over tricky ones, but that is quickly overridden when the tricks are well executed and provide obvious strategic benefit. I value evidence quality and story both very highly in these debates. The best practice is obviously having both good cards and a good story. Though if lacking one, Debaters can get me to vote for an extremely contrived, improbable internal link chain if they have the evidentiary goods, and I am just as happy to vote for a smart analytic argument against contrived scenarios. Debaters should take time to clarify exactly how I should evaluate analytics vs evidence to minimize the chance of me evaluating these arguments in a way they may not like.

Magnitude times probability is not the only way to do impact calculus, and becomes exceptionally problematic when dealing with extinction because of the potential value of future generations. To resolve this, below a certain probability threshold, I think magnitude ceases to matter almost entirely. Given debate doesn’t deal with percentages, determining the threshold relies more or less on gut checks which are able to leverage the tech over truth paradigm. This means I’m probably better for soft left affirmatives or smaller disadvantages than a lot of policy people assuming both sides are reading comparably good evidence to defend their impact calculus.

I lean slightly affirmative on all theory questions except topicality because I prefer debates which contain less BS and more clash. My like/dislike for an argument is directly proportional to the amount of clash it is capable of producing or mitigating respectively. Impact turns have my heart. If the 2AR is 5 minutes of no neg fiat the floor of the 2A's speaks is a 29. If the 1NC is zero off the floor of both negative debaters speaks is a 29.

on critiques

I hate overviews. Do line-by-line. I’ve been around debate long enough I am familiar with most of this literature.

The most interesting and important things in these debates are competition and framework. If the aff gets to weigh the plan it will outweigh most critiques absent substantial case defense, and if the aff doesn’t get to weigh the plan it will usually lose if the critique is competitive. What exactly makes a critique competitive is up for debate, but consider that permutation debates get really messy absent a theory debate which tells me how I should evaluate the kind of competition created by the link. If the link is to discourse, but the permutation says the alternative doesn’t functionally compete with the plan, I’m not sure how to compare those because they operate on totally different levels. The critique needs to disprove the desirability of the aff. I am probably not voting negative on “the aff is bad because didn’t solve everything ever”, but I am willing to evaluate negative link arguments to basically anything which is present in affirmative speeches, not just the plan.

KvK debates are probably where I’m the worst because of the aforementioned competition point. These debates are messy because the permutation is OP and I’m not sympathetic to “no permutations because it’s too broken” given the obvious aff response is “no permutations is even more broken.” That said, the standard for competition is much lower in these debates and I’m far more down for PIK type arguments than I would be against a policy aff. If you have me in the back for one of these feel free to get super far into the weeds of your literature. I know lots of authors commonly read in debate disagree with each other over small issues, but this usually gets ignored because the scope is so small that it doesn’t work within the usual argumentative strategy of debate. KvK debates are where those disagreements can see the light of competition. Just tell me exactly what it is about the affirmative your criticism disagrees with – be it their theory of power, their entire advocacy, their tactics, the fact they’re reading the aff in debate, author choice, language, or whatever – and cover the rest of your usual bases and I’m down to decide the debate over something which may seem extremely miniscule when compared to the usual scope of disagreement in debate.

Though the above maybe reads like I'm a hater, I promise I'm not. I spent high school reading either Baudrillard or Deleuze on both sides and I spent my only full year of college going for Marxism in every single negative debate against an affirmative with a plan except the two I went for topicality. I still spend my free time reading postmodern philosophy. My current thing is Bataille if anyone cares. The policy debater in me likes when links are more specific to the affirmative and able to re-contextualize advantages in favor of the negative, while the high theory hack in me says the negative can create link arguments from anything they choose, especially if the block is hot and the 2AC is not. The "death" K is OP.

on topicality framework

If you are only ever on side of this debate, I am fine for you, but you should probably pref me below people who will be more biased in your favor. If you are a team who reads a critical affirmative, but wants to maintain the option of going for framework on the negative, you should pref me very highly.

My biases on this question very slightly favor the negative, but the affirmatives preparation advantage in these debates generally offsets those biases because, when evaluating these debates, I care more about specific analysis and world building than anything else. Impact work is framed by the interpretation / counter-interpretation debate. Aff teams should think more about the counter-interpretation (and reasonability). Neg teams should be more willing to punish aff teams that don’t bother trying to mitigate their offense. Everyone should read less blocks and do more line-by-line.

My overarching personal belief regarding this activity is that the only intrinsic, inherent, and terminal impact to debate is debate itself. Thus, I tend to vote for whatever model produces the best debates. When determining the best model, I think of fairness and education as the thesis and antithesis which produce the synthesis of debate. Both are necessary components of the activity, but neither is enough in and of itself to create a model worth defending. Conversely, a model which substantially or entirely lacks one or both is worth criticizing. No model is perfect and there is ample, specific, nuanced ground for both sides in these debates.

That said, debate means something different to each person and it is not my place or within my ability to dictate what each person gets out of this activity or why each person is here, so arguments about community, skills, and other things which I may not personally be here for, but someone else conceivably may be, are still worth making. These arguments are most convincing when articulated as internal links which influence the quality of rounds and least convincing when articulated as ends in and of themselves (though I have voted on & once went for “framework solves extinction”).

Not rehashing any obvious content takes here. Yes switch side and the TVA matter. Yes the aff matters. Yes structural and procedural fairness are different. etc. etc. Framework debates are more or less a "solved" part of the game which now exist more as a formula for teams to execute or a logic problem for judges to solve than anything new or unique. This is why my preference in these debates is for more specific arguments about how a given affirmative on a given topic interacts with the broader models defended over arguments everyone has heard for almost as long as I've been alive. If you would like to talk to me more about my thoughts regarding the meta-theory of strategy games, my email is at the top.

on speaker points

average points given: TBD

I am still working to determine my overall margin of error when compared to the average, but I know I tend to give points on the lower end. So I’m offering opportunities to get free points to offset my tendency to underrate debaters which also make the world a slightly better place.

+.1 for bringing me black coffee before the debate

+.1 for full open-source. tell me after the 2AR.

email me with any questions, job offers, scouting requests, or other inquiries. happy to talk, coach, or judge debate whenever.

he/him Lewis and Clark '21 Western Washington 25'

CX for 6yrs in high school and college

CARD 2yrs and ongoing

General

Please title email chains with this information: "[Tournament][Round #][Your Team Code and School] (aff) vs [Opponent Team Code and School]"

jonathan.dodge.crowley@gmail.com

I have some old fashioned tendencies: I flow on paper, I think lots of theory violations are good reasons to vote, judge kick needs to be in the neg block, and neg teams could probably get a presumption ballot out of me if they have evidence and explain why that kind of ballot is good.

I have the most experience with guerilla debate tactics like process counterplans, complex topicality debates, and kritiks from high-theory and political science perspectives. I am disproportionately good (on both sides) for debates about capitalism, the value of life, and information-based persuasion/politics.

Framework is a good choice in more types of debates than you may think (like against the politics DA) but you need reasons to prefer your concept of fairness and education. Ultimately, it's a question of what debate can do and why that's valuable.

I am serious about equity and inclusion in education. I want debaters to take the time to consider the way they promote positive learning experiences for themselves and their competitors. I'm not a good judge for strategic vitriol. I will not adjudicate out-of-round behavior (like disclosure) but I will absolutely be your advocate with tabroom and other institutions if anyone is putting you in dangerous/harmful situations.

That's what I have to say. I like debate and care deeply about debaters. I don't want to over-promise or get too specific because the debate belongs to you and I'm reserving the right to change my mind and grow. That being said, I am always flattered to answer your questions :^)!

Yay debate!

LD

I've competed in most events but never LD for some reason. I respect the format a lot and I'm excited to hear your arguments. My CX experience means I'll likely be more comfortable with progressive debate. That said, I think values debates are honorable and I'm not necessarily a utilitarian or even a consequentialist. I would recommend taking extra time to explain how the value debate filters how I evaluate (especially the other debater's) arguments.

This format pressures 1ARs like no other and I willingly vote for aff theory in other formats already. Still, I find it hard to respect "reverse voting issues." Try not to go for these arguments. If you must, lay it on thick and prove that it made this 1AR impossible. Even when you're desperate, Conditionality vs T is a much cooler debate.

PuFo

I was a lab leader at SWSDI this summer and I now feel pretty comfortable with PF jargon and culture.

Important notes:

1. The economy is not an impact
2. Use an email chain!!!! "Asking for evidence" is the second worst possible standard for a research-focused event (right behind not sharing citations at all). Use an email chain!! Please at least bring extra copies of your case and evidence on paper.
3. Roadmaps should only include the words "aff" "neg" and "then." I hope you're weighing throughout, but it does not help me organize my flows.

WI have debated 4 years of HS and on my third in college at Gonzaga. I love the 'sport,' and what it does to the community. I give praise to everyone who debates, because it takes a lot of strength to get up there and speak your opinions. I’m a 2n/1a

Updated -- Summer ‘23

Chain? Yes. dawsonnick02 AT gmail DOT com

Please refrain from suicide reps, thanks. If you have questions, ask.

Top level notes is that I was generally a k debater in HS, that being said I am more versed in some areas than others. In college I’ve been a flex team reading both K and policy affs. I think that both some of my favorite arguments and debates are one off k's or one off strats that give args the most amount of clash, shifting the debate in the most fair way(being a small school sucks sometimes). That being said, I try to be a mainly tabu la rasa judge.

The 10 analytics you spread in 2 seconds on theory or otherwise shotgun out is super hard to flow, disperse analytics or actually communicate your argument and we'll be all good. In every other instance speed is not that much of a conern. Please signpost and either say 'and' or 'next' between cards. Strictly flowing off the doc leads to worse debates.

What you probably shouldn't run:

Double win/loss / other rule breaking

Defending suicide alternatives/advocacies(ligotti, schope, others like these are ok) at least give trigger warnings

If you have concerns just don't read the arg.

Theory

T and condo are always voters, and almost never reverse voters. If you drop it you'll lose. Almost every other interpretation is solved by rejecting the argument.

K's

I have a pretty good knowledge on most k lit. That being said, if you have specific questions, you can ask me before round. I'm down to hear whatever you got. Creative K's are epic.

For the Aff specifically. I will judge the aff how to tell me to judge it, and will vote on anything(unless earlier referenced).

We went for a sick werewolves k aff at the NDT in 2023.

Etc.

Rehighlighting need to be read unless it's a single word or similar.

Anything other than policy debate

I'm a blank slate judge that tries to leave all prior knowledge of the topic outside of the room.

I prefer it if debaters spentway more time on comparing the (framework/resolutional analysis/etc) to the other teams. This is, in my opinion the most important part of debate that can shield in or out different teams' offense.

Impact calculus in the later speeches isnecessary to define the most important parts of the round, and if you win it, it should mostly define what my ballot should be solving for.

any other questions feel free to ask me before the round.

Procedural Stuff

Call me Blake or BD instead of Judge, I don't like feeling old

Email chain: blako925@gmail.com

Please also add: jchsdebatedocs@gmail.com

Add both emails, title the chain Tournament Rd # Your Team vs. Other Team ex) Harvard Round 4 Johns Creek XY vs. Northview AM.

1AC should be sent at round start or if I'm late (sorry in advance), as soon as I walk in the room

If you go to the bathroom or fill your waterbottle before your own speech, I'll dock 1 speaker point

Stealing prep = heavily docked speaks. If you want to engage your partner in small talk, just speak normally so everyone knows you're not stealing prep, don't whisper. Eyes should not be wandering on your laptop and hands should not be typing/writing. You can be on your phone.

Clipping is auto-loss and I assign lowest possible speaks. Ethics violation claims = round stoppage, I will decide round on the spot using provided evidence of said violation

Topic Knowledge

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE.

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE

I debated in high school, didn’t debate in college, have never worked at any camp. I currently work an office job. Any and all acronyms should be explained to me. Specific solvency mechanisms should be explained to me. Tricky process CPs should be explained to me. Many K jargon words that I have heard such as ressentiment, fugitivity, or subjectivity should be explained to me.

Spreading

I WRITE SLOW AND MY HAND CRAMPS EASILY. PLEASE SLOW DOWN DURING REBUTTALS

My ears have become un-attuned to debate spreading. Please go 50% speed at the start of your speech before ramping up. I don’t care how fast or unclear you are on the body of cards b/c it is my belief that you will extend that body text in an intelligent manner later on. However, if you spread tags as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If you read analytics as if you are spreading the body of a card, I will not flow them. If I do not flow an argument, you’re not going to win on it. If you are in novice this probably doesn't apply to you.

While judges must do their best to flow debates and adjudicate in an objective matter that rewards the better debater, there is a certain level of debater responsibility to spread at a reasonable speed and clear manner. Judge adaptation is an inevitable skill debaters must learn.

In front of me, adaption should be spreading speed. If you are saying words faster than how fast I can move my pen, I will say SLOW DOWN. If you do not comply, it is your prerogative, and you can roll the dice on whether or not I will write your argument down. I get that your current speed may be OK with NDT finalists or coaches with 20+ years of experience, but I am not those people. Adapt or lose.

No Plan Text & Framework

I am OK with any affirmative whether it be policy, critical, or performance. The problem is that the 2AC often has huge case overviews that are sped through that do not explain to me very well what the aff harms are and how the advocacy statement (or whatever mechanism) solves them. Furthermore, here are some facts about my experience in framework:

• I was the 1N in high school, so I never had to take framework other than reading the 1NC shell since my partner took in the 2NC and 2NR.
• I can count the number of times I debated plan-less affs on one hand.
• As of me updating this paradigm on 01/28/2023 I have judged roughly 15 framework rounds (maybe less).

All the above make framework functionally a coin toss for either side. My understanding of framework is predicated off of what standards you access and if the terminal impacts to those standards prove if your model of debate is better for the world. If you win impact turns against the neg FW interpretation, then you don't need a C/I, but you have to win that the debate is about potential ballot solvency or some other evaluation method. If the neg wins that the round is about proving a better model of debate, then an inherent lack of a C/I means I vote for the better interp no matter how terrible it is. The comparison in my mind is that a teacher asked to choose the better essay submitted by two students must choose Student A if Student B doesn't turn in anything no matter how terrible or offensive Student A's essay is.

Tech vs. Truth

I used to like arguments such as “F & G in federal government aren't capitalized T” or “Period at the end of the plan text or the sentence keeps going T” b/c I felt like these arguments were objectively true. As I continue to judge I think I have moved into a state where I will allow pretty much any argument no matter how much “truth” there is backing it especially since some truth arguments such as the aforementioned ones are pretty troll themselves. There is still my job to provide a safe space for the activity which means I am obligated to vote down morally offensive arguments such as racism good or sexism good. However, I am now more inclined to vote on things like “Warming isn’t real” or “The Earth is flat” with enough warrants. After all, who am I to say that status quo warming isn’t just attributable to heating and cooling cycles of the Earth, and that all satellite imagery of the Earth is faked and that strong gravitational pulls cause us to be redirected back onto flat Earth when we attempt to circle the “globe”. If these arguments are so terrible and untrue, then it really shouldn’t take much effort to disprove them.

Reading Evidence

I err on the side of intervening as little as possible, so I don’t read usually read evidence. Don't ask me for a doc or send me anything afterwards. The only time I ever look at ev is if I am prompted to do so during speech time.

This will reward teams that do the better technical debating on dropped/poorly answered scenarios even if they are substantiated by terrible evidence. So if you read a poorly written federalism DA that has no real uniqueness or even specific link to the aff, but is dropped and extended competently, yes, I will vote for without even glancing at your ev.

That being said, this will also reward teams that realize your ADV/DA/Whatever ev is terrible and point it out. If your T interp is from No Quals Alex, blog writer for ChristianMingle.com, and the other team points it out, you're probably not winning the bigger internal link to legal precision.

Case

I love case debate. Negatives who actually read all of the aff evidence in order to create a heavy case press with rehighlightings, indicts, CX applications, and well backed UQ/Link/Impact frontlines are always refreshing watch. Do this well in front of me and you will for sure be rewarded.

By the 2AR I should know what exactly the plan does and how it can solve the advantages. This obviously doesn't have to be a major component of the 1AR given time constraint, but I think there should at least some explanation in the 2AR. If I don't have at least some idea of what the plan text does and what it does to access the 1AC impacts, then I honestly have no problem voting on presumption that doing nothing is better than doing the aff.

Disads

Similar to above, I think that DA's have to be fully explained with uniqueness, link, and impact. Absent any of these things I will often have serious doubts regarding the cohesive stance that the DA is taking.

Topicality

Don't make debate meta-arguments like "Peninsula XY read this at Glenbrooks so obviously its core of the topic" or "every camp put out this aff so it's predictable". These types of arguments mean nothing to me since I don't know any teams, any camp activities, any tournaments, any coaches, performance of teams at X tournament, etc.

One small annoyance I have at teams that debate in front of me is that they don't debate T like a DA. You need to win what standards you access, how they link into your terminal impacts like education or fairness, and why your chosen impact outweighs the opposing teams.

Counterplan

I have no inherent bias against any counterplan. If a CP has a mechanism that is potentially abusive (international fiat, 50 state fiat, PICs bad) then I just see this as offense for the aff, not an inherent reason why the team or CP should immediately be voted down.

I heavily detest this new meta of "perm shotgunning" at the top of each CP in the 2AC. It is basically unflowable. See "Spreading" above. Do this and I will unironically give you a 28 maximum. Spread the perms between cards or other longer analytical arguments. That or actually include substance behind the perm such as an explanation of the function of the permutation, how it dodges the net benefit, if it has any additional NB, etc.

I think 2NR explanation of what exactly the CP does is important. A good 2N will explain why their CP accesses the internal links or solvency mechanisms of the 1AC, or if you don't, why the CP is able to access the advantages better than the original 1AC methods. Absent that I am highly skeptical of broad "CP solves 100% of case" claims and the aff should punish with specific solvency deficits.

A problem I have been seeing is that affirmatives will read solvency deficits against CP's but not impacting the solvency deficits vs. the net benefit. If the CP doesn't solve ADV 1 then you need to win that ADV 1 outweighs the net benefit.

Judge kick is not my default mindset, neg has say I have to judge kick and also justify why this is OK.

Kritiks

I don't know any K literature other than maybe some security or capitalism stuff. I feel a lot of K overviews include fancy schmancy words that mean nothing to me. If you're gonna go for a K with some nuance, then you're going to need to spend the effort explaining it to me like I am 10 years old.

Theory

If the neg reads more than 1 CP + 1 K you should consider pulling the trigger on conditionality.

I default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told.

Define dispositionality for me if this is going to be part of the interp.

Extra Points

To promote flowing, you can show me your flows at the end of a round and earn up to 1.0 speaker points if they are good. To discourage everyone bombarding me with flows, you can also lose up to a full speaker point if your flows suck.

Bio - Debated for Jesuit 2015-2019, coached on and off there since then

TL;DR – I’m cool with anything as long as it's explained well. Please call me Gio. Use gferrerfalto@gmail.com when putting me on the email chain.

General thoughts

• Be nice to eachother
• High evidence quality, thorough warrant extension, clear clash = good
• Don't read silly stuff

Case

• Please make case matter at the end of the debate

Theory

• Please slow down
• 1 specific theory arg > many generic args

Topicality/Framework

• Please do specific internal link and impact work instead or relying on buzzwords
• Even if debate is a game, we might be able to discuss its nature and goals. Please defend your view on those up front.

Disadvantages

• Please be aff specific when running the DA, especially on turns case args
• Frame arguments in relation to the other teams offense (ex: Link v. Link Turns)

Counterplans

• Solvency advocates should probably be a thing, defend them and point out when the team doesn't have them
• Solvency deficits should have impacts
• Net benefits should be clear and demonstrating why the CP does/doesn't link is important

Kritiks

• Please make framework matter at the end of the debate
• Please articulate link and internal links without relying on clunky jargon or lazy overviews
• Explain how and why I should evaluate the alt a certain way, same for perms

Jack Griffiths (Paradigm Updated Pre-GDI Tournament 2024)
Add to email chain: jack9riff at gmail dot com
My Debate History:
- Debater at Jesuit College Prep in Dallas (2015-2019)
- Part-time coach, card-cutter, and judge for Jesuit (2020-2021)
- Assistant at the Gonzaga Debate Institute (2021)
- Full-time assistant coach during my Alumni Service Corps year at Jesuit (2023-2024)

*NOTE: I have done VERY little work on the IPR topic.

Top-Level Things:
- I don’t have a preference for certain kinds of arguments over others, so run what you want as long as it’s doesn't stigmatize someone or endorse direct harm/death (either to oneself or to someone else).
- Clash and line-by-line are the most important aspects of debate. Thus, you should keep an accurate flow, do proper signposting (“2AC 1—they say x, we say y”), and use your own voice to initiate comparisons (rather than simply reading walls of cards). The more you do these things, the higher your speaker points will be.
- Comparative framing moments (i.e. smart “even if the other team wins x, we still win because y”) are compelling to me, especially in the rebuttals.
- Smaller amounts of well-developed arguments >>> Larger amounts of blippy arguments.
- Tag team CX is technically allowed, but I tend to be more impressed by (and thus give more speaker points to) debaters that can participate in CX on their own.

Theory

Although I've generally unlikely to reject the team, I have pulled the trigger in the past. More often, theory is best used to give yourself more leeway when answering a sketchy argument (e.g. I can probably be convinced that the aff gets some level of perm intrinsicness against a CP with an artificial net benefit). Conditionality is generally good but can become less good with multiple conditional contradictory worlds, an absence of solvency advocates, an abundance of conditional CP planks, etc. SPEC arguments are usually uncompelling to me. News affs are good—I wouldn’t burn 10 seconds in the 1NC by reading your shell.

Be sure to slow down a bit when reading all your compressed analytics. Finding in-round examples of abuse isn't intrinsically necessary but does help you out quite a bit.

Topicality

Topic-specific thoughts: As noted above, I have very little topic knowledge. This should not discourage you from running T, but please make sure to define acronyms and terms of art clearly.

General thoughts:When deciding these rounds, I first decide whether to evaluate the debate through competing interpretations or reasonability (based on which framework I have been persuaded is best based on the debating) before looking deeper into the flow. I default to competing interpretations if not given an alternative (which generally means I end up deciding the debate based on the comparative risks of the two team's standards). I personally find reasonability at its most compelling/least arbitrary when contextualized to a counter-interpretation (i.e. as long as our counter-interpretation is reasonable enough, you should vote affirmative) rather than when presented in an aff-specific way (i.e. we’re a camp aff so we’re topical). If after the debate I decide to evaluate the round through the lens of reasonability, that usually means I should vote aff unless their interp is evidently bad for debate.

I think debaters tend to spend too much time reading cards in these debates that could instead be spent on giving concrete examples for their standards to help me visualize the limits explosion, loss in ground, etc. Teams also should be doing a better job at explaining the terminal impact to these standards (i.e. what does "precision" actually mean and how much does it matter?). Not articulating your impacts will force me to intervene more than I'm usually comfortable with.

K Aff vs T/Framework

I’ve judged a few of these and have voted for both sides. Negative teams are most compelling when they articulate how iterative debates with a resolutional focus produce research skills, engagement through clashing perspectives, and topic-specific knowledge. Affirmative teams are persuasive when they successfully point out limitations of the negative’s model of debate and/or when they argue that the values the negative espouses will be used for detrimental ends absent the affirmative’s method. “Procedural fairness” could be an impact but most teams that have centralized their strategy around it have sounded too tautological to me, so if going for it is your preference then make sure to articulate why fairness is important beyond just saying “debate is a game so fairness must be important.” A K Aff should still have some connection to the resolution/topic area as well as a clearly-signposted advocacy statement. Affirmatives also need to have robust answers to TVAs and switch side debate.

K vs. K

Although I’ve never judged this form of debate, I had a few rounds like these as a debater from the negative side. I think it’s an open discussion whether the affirmative should be able to have a permutation in these debates—the more vague the affirmative’s method is, the more likely I am to defer negative.

Policy Aff vs K

I have three asks for affirmative teams. First, leverage the 1AC, whether in the form of “case outweighs” argument, a disad to the alt, or as an example of why whatever thing the negative criticizes can be good. Second, choose a strategy that synergizes well with the type of affirmative you’re reading. If your 1AC is 8 minutes of heg good, impact turn. If you’re a soft-left aff, link turn by explaining how the solvency of the aff can challenge structures of oppression. Third, prioritize offensive arguments. I’ve seen too many debates where the 2AR spends almost all their time going for the “perm double bind” and overly defensive strategies. Instead, center the debate about why your method is good and makes things better and why the alternative makes things worse.

Negatives should be able to explain their kritiks without heavily reliance on jargon, especially when reading high theory (given my relative unfamiliarity with it). I like it when negatives present detailed link narratives that are specific to the aff, explain how the alternative addresses the proximate causes of the affirmative impacts, and leverage on-case arguments to supplement the kritiks. I like it less when negatives rely on “tricks” (e.g. framework landmines, ontology without impacting it out) or enthymemes (i.e. establishing only part of an argument/dropping a buzzword while expecting me to fill in the blanks for you simply because prevalent K teams make the same argument).

A note on framework: I am personally uncomfortable voting on overly-exclusionary framework interpretations (e.g. "no Ks allowed" or "aff doesn't get to weigh the plan) unless one team is dropping the ball, and so I'm more compelled by nuanced interpretations that leave some room for the other side (e.g. "the aff can weigh their plan but we should still be able to problematize their assumptions"). For similar reasons, I'm not the biggest fan of pure fiat Ks (but if you win them then you do you, I suppose).

Counterplan Debates

Counterplans should have solvency advocates—and if you manage to find a hyper-specific solvency advocate related to the aff, that can make me more open to counterplans that I might otherwise deem sketchy (process, conditions, etc.). Topic/aff-specific PICs are valuable because they reward targeted research, but word/language-related PICs are likely less legitimate unless you have a very compelling reason why they make sense in a given debate. I’m ambivalent about multiplank counterplans, but if you claim planks are independently conditional and/or you lack a unified solvency advocate for all the planks, I’m more likely to side with the aff. I won’t judge kick unless you tell me in the 2NR.

Disadvantage Debates

Disad debates are fun as long as they’re presented with qualified evidence that can reduce the need for too much “spin.” Controlling uniqueness is important. Turns case is most valuable when contextualized specifically to the aff scenarios and when it isn’t reliant on the negative winning full risk of their terminal impact. Risk can be reduced to zero with smart defensive arguments and if the quality of the disad is just that bad, but generally you’ll be in a better spot if you find a source of offense (which can be even something as simple as “case outweighs”).

Case

Although case answers are (sadly) generally underutilized by the negative, they have influenced quite a few of my decisions, so negative teams should feel compelled to make case debating a more crucial part of their strategy in front of me. Internal link and solvency takeouts (both evidenced and analytical) are much more persuasive to me than reading generic impact defense.

Overview:

Y'all know me, still the same O.G. but I been low-key
Hated on by most these nigg@s with no cheese, no deals and no G's
No wheels and no keys, no boats, no snowmobiles, and no skis
Mad at me cause I can finally afford to provide my family with groceries
Got a crib with a studio and it's all full of tracks to add to the wall
Full of plaques, hanging up in the office in back of my house like trophies
Did y'all think I'mma let my dough freeze, ho please
You better bow down on both knees, who you think taught you to smoke trees
Who you think brought you the oldies
Eazy-E's, Ice Cubes, and D.O.C's
The Snoop D-O-double-G's
And the group that said motherduck the police
Gave you a tape full of dope beats
To bump when you stroll through in your hood
And when your album sales wasn't doing too good
Who's the Doctor they told you to go see
Y'all better listen up closely, all you nigg@s that said that I turned pop
Or The Firm flopped, y'all are the reason that Dre ain't been getting no sleep
So duck y'all, all of y'all, if y'all don't like me, blow me
Y'all are gonna keep ducking around with me and turn me back to the old me

Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothing comes out when they move their lips
Just a bunch of gibberish
And motherduckers act like they forgot about Dre

Line-by-line

Semi-retired from the policy debate world few years back, but I am around for 4 years during my daughter’s high school policy debate career. Maybe another 4 after that for my son’s. Maybe even longer if they decide to debate in college. “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in!”

Experienced former circuit debater from the Bay Area. Previous coach in Sacramento for CK McClatchy, Rosemont, Davis Senior, and others. Also coached several Bay Area programs. I am the former Executive Director and founder of the Sacramento Urban Debate League (SUDL). I spent the better part of a decade running SUDL while personally coaching several schools. I've judged a ton of rounds on all levels of policy debate and feel in-depth and informative verbal RFD's are key to debate education.

I will adapt to you rather than you to me. It's not my place as a judge to exclude or marginalize any sort of argument or framework. On the neg, I will vote for K/K + case, T, CP + DA, DA + case, FW/FW + case, performance, theory.... whatever. I personally prefer hearing a good K or theory debate, not that I'm more inclined to vote on those genres of argumentation. I am down for the K, performance, or topical aff. Anything goes with me.

I'm big on organization. Hit the line by line hard. Don't just give me 3 min overviews or read a bunch of cards off the line, then expect me to conveniently find the best place on the flow for you. Do the work for me. I flow on paper OG style, so don't drop arguments. I don't flow off speech docs (neither should you), but put me on the email chain so I can read cards along with you and refer back to them. I can handle any level of speed, but please be as clear and loud as possible.

I will work hard to make the debate accessible and a safe place for you and your arguments. If you have access needs during a debate, wish to inform me of your preferred gender pronoun, or if there is anything you wish to communicate privately, please let me know or send me an email. markcorp2004@msn.com

My judging philosophy is very short for a reason. Its your debate, not mine. Do you. Just stay organized and tell me where and why to vote. Write my ballot for me in your 2NR/2AR.

Zaria Jarman — Woodward Academy ’23 and current debater at Michigan State ’27

Yes, please add me to the email chain: zariajarman@gmail.com

General Comments

1. Please be nice and respect your opponents.

2. Clarity >>>> Speed. If I don’t understand what you’re saying I can not flow it. If your opponents don't understand what is happening I probably don't either. I flow on paper if that makes a difference to you.

3. I will not evaluate out of round issues.
4. *Online debate* — If you feel comfortable, turn on your camera. (If you do not have a camera don’t worry about it)
5. please I have little econ topic knowledge, please do your best to explain to me things like specific taxes and why that matters.
6. My biggest influences in debate are Maggie Berthiaume , Bill Batterman , Sam Wombough feel free to look at their paradigms.

CX

I prefer that you lead/answer your own cross-ex questions, know that tag-teaming is alright but doing it a lot will affect your speaker points.

Topicality

Generally I love a good T debate.

The evidence you read should match the definition you have in the Tag.

Topicality is not a reverse voting issue.

Please don’t forget about the impact…

K-Affs and Kritiks

I am not an expert in Kritik literature, so chances are I have not read your main author or your main authors author. I am more convinced if Kritiks are debated as DAs to the affirmative, but as long as you explain your Kritik and impact it, you will be fine.

I am certainly willing to vote on a K-Aff. I was/am a more policy debater. I prefer K-Affs that are critiques of the resolution rather than "debate is bad". I am more convinced if the impact turn to fairness is coherent.

Counterplans

While I love a 12 plank advantage CP, I think that affirmatives should not be affaird to go for theory when the negative is reading an abusive counterplan. However if the advantages to the aff are not intrinsic the negative should capitalize off of this.

DAs

I love a really good CP/DA Debate. I will vote on absolute defense — sit down on the DA in the 2NR and tell me why the squo is better.

Theory

Affirmative theory is a lot more convincing than Negative theory.

I feel comfy voting for condo if there’s more than 2 conditional off.

For non condo theory arguments I will need slightly more explanation of why its a voting issue.

Biases

1. Racism/Homophobia/Sexism… Any form of discrimination is bad. If you say any of these are good it will be an auto L and auto zero speaks
2. War is probably bad
3. Death/suffering is bad

Random stuff

I am a 1A/2N

I really enjoy debate as an activity so I want everyone to have as much fun as I do

Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Please have fun!!! Don’t waste your weekends :(

Judd D. Kimball, Assistant Coach, University of Mary Washington

Article I. Communication Approach to Debate 
Section 1.01 The following are brief explanation of what I envision when I think of the highest quality debate. These are items that can factor in both positively and negatively for you in my determination of who did the better debating. 
(a) A primary goal should be to present your ideas and arguments in a communicative fashion. What factors influence the effectiveness of your communication? 
(i) Rate of Delivery. You should not present ideas at a rate that interferes with the effectiveness of sharing those ideas with another human being. You must analyze your audience to determine the rate at which they can absorb ideas, and you must evaluate (fairly) your own abilities to speak rapidly which not losing clarity/enunciation or normal tone inflection that signals the beginning and ending of sentences, and is critical to judges understanding concepts and ideas, not just individual words. 
(ii) Clarity/Enunciation. Each word should have a beginning and an ending. Each sound should be pronounced, and not mumbled through. 
(iii) Interpretation/Tonal inflection. It is a personal belief that the way we normally communicate with other people involves a lot of vocal interpretation and tonal inflection. It’s a way to communicate phrases and ideas, rather than just leaving each word hanging out by itself, merely surrounded by other words. With interpretation the audience has an easier time comprehending, understanding the processing the idea, as they don’t have to put the sentence together from the individual words, and then discover the meaning of the phrase or sentence themselves. Interpretation, by my definition, is the attribute of communication that helps provide understanding to the audience of the ideas being presented through the way the ideas are presented. It has been my experience that most debaters are very interpretative speakers when they are not debating from prepared scripts. It is during this time that the communication skills you have honed since you began talking are on display. Yet when it is time to read evidence, or a prepped theory block, they shift communicative gears and start just reading each individual word, rather than presenting ideas for the consideration of the judge. I am very unlikely to read evidence after the debate if it was not read in a comprehensible manner, or the warrants and reasons of the evidence were not discussed as being important ideas. 
(b) A primary focus of your speeches and cross-examination period should be information sharing. This goes beyond your personal motivation to communicate with the judges, and includes a responsibility to present your arguments in a fashion that facilitates your opponent’s comprehension of your position. 
(c) Clash. You should seek to create class in your debates by interacting with not only your opponent’s tag lines, but with the warrants for those claims. In essence, clash is explaining to me why I should prefer/believe your arguments over your opponents. In order to effectively do that, you must be making comparisons that take your opponents argument into account. You must clash. 

Section 1.02 Effective implementation of these points will most likely result in higher speaker points, and a greater understanding of your arguments by me as a judge. That will help you in winning the debate, as I will hold the other team responsible for answering your arguments, and if they fail toy,your superior communication will be a determining factor (as a process) of your victory. 

Article II. Debate Evaluation 
Section 2.01 I recognize objective standards and processes are probably impossible, as the subjective creeps into everything, I just desire and strive for objectivity. 
(a) I have a default judging perspective, which evaluates the net benefits of a policy proposal, and answers the question of whether the government should take a particular course of action. I prefer a framework which strives to include as many voices and perspectives as possible, and provides a framework in which different perspectives can be compared, contrasted and weighed. I like my decision to be grounded in the arguments made in the debate. I strive not to bring in “baggage” with me, though I recognize the final futility of that effort, and I will make every effort to explain my decision by reference what was actually communicated in the debate 
(b) If you wish the debate to be evaluated from an alternate perspective, you will need to provide a well-defined set of criteria for me to apply when evaluating and weighing arguments. The question of controversy needs to be defined, and discussed in order to provide me the necessary framework to avoid subjectively deciding the debate. Now mind you, I don’t mind subjectively deciding a debate, just be prepared to be frustrated by my statement that I can’t explain why I voted for a particular position, just that that was what I wanted to do at that moment of time, or frustrated by the fact that what I voted on wasn’t an argument or part of the debate that you had a chance to answer. That will happen when I find myself stalled out in the decision making, finding no way to decide other than adding in factors that were not included or discussed in the debate. 

Section 2.02 I find questions of autonomous action and personal belief difficult to decide in the context of debate competition. I have found myself perplexed by arguments advanced on the basis of exercising personal autonomy, and then be expected to evaluate them without the inclusion of my opinions, my autonomy, in the process. This is difficult when I find that my personal approach to life contrasts with the approach to individual decision making advocated by one team. If the ballot is my endorsement of your idea, then I would be denying my own autonomous position by being constrained by debate conventions of judging (i.e., you did a better job against the opponents objections, but I wasn’t persuaded to change my personal beliefs). Defining your framework for debate evaluation with this in mind will ease my difficulty. I have been close to taking the action of including my position on the question, in the last few debates I’ve had when this situation arose. Questions of Autonomy and personal belief are difficult questions for me to resolve 

Section 2.03 I will be very resistant to deciding debates where the character of the participants is the foundation for the decision. I do not like to cast judgments on people and their behavior without having gathered as much information as is possible. I do not feel that in the high pressure competition of debate is the best forum for investigating those issues, or in seeking to engage the other individual in a dialogue about their behavior. Am I totally unwilling to decide a debate on such a question? I’m not willing to say that either. But I would have to be convinced that not only was this an egregious act, but that malevolent intent was involved. 

Article III. Other Issues: 
Section 3.01 Topicality I think topicality debates hinge on the question of whose interpretation provides for a better debate topic/experience. If your violation and argumentation does not provide an answer to that question, then figure the answer out. You must also be sure to be complete in your argumentation about why the affirmative violates your interpretation. Do not leave issues of plan interpretation vague, or hinge your argument on a vague cross ex question or answer. Make clear and concise arguments about why the affirmative plan doesn’t meet your interpretation. 

Section 3.02 Counterplans. I’ll evaluate any counterplan presented. I begin from a bias that "net benefits" is the most meaningful competition standard, and perhaps only standard. But you can argue other standards, and you only have to defeat your opponent’s arguments, not mine. As to other theory questions with counterplans, it will depend on who does the best job defending/indicting a particular theoretical practice used in the debate. 

Section 3.03 Kritiks I need to understand what you are saying from the beginning on all arguments, but especially these. Please communicate your ideas to me when you present this type of argument. I won’t go back later and try to figure out what you were arguing about. I need to know what the affirmative does that is bad, and why it is bad enough that I should either vote negative, or not affirmative, or however I should vote. 

Section 3.04 Debating and Evaluating Theory Issues. Theory issues are difficult to evaluate, because they are a yes/no question. If you wish to win a theory objection, you must deal with all of your opponent’s defenses, and provide reasoning explaining why a particular theory position is destructive to quality debate. This is not meant to scare you off of theory debates, just to encourage you to be thorough and complete when discussing this issue. 

Affiliations and History:
Please email (tjlewis1919@gmail.com) me all of the speeches before you begin.
I was Director of Debate at Damien High School in La Verne, CA from 2021-2024.
I was the Director of Debate for Hebron High School in Carrollton, TX from 2020-2021.
I was an Assistant Coach at Damien from 2017-2020.
I debated on the national circuit for Damien from 2009-2013.
I graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a BA in Critical Theory and Social Justice.
I completed my Master's degree in Social Justice in Higher Education Administration at The University of La Verne.
My academic work involves critical university studies, Georges Bataille, poetics, and post-colonialism.
Author of Suburba(in)e Surrealism (2021).

Yearly Round Numbers:
I try to judge a fair bit each year.
Fiscal Redistribution Round Count: About 40 rounds
I judged 75 rounds or more on the NATO Topic.
I judged over 50 rounds on the Water Topic.
I judged around 40 rounds on the CJR topic.
I judged 30 rounds on the Arms topic (2019-2020)
I judged a bit of LD (32 debates) on the Jan-Feb Topic (nuke disarm) in '19/'20.
I judged around 25 debates on the Immigration topic (2018-2019) on the national circuit.
I judged around 50 rounds on the Education topic (2017-2018) on the national circuit.
LD Protocol:I have a 100% record voting against teams that only read Phil args/Phil v. Policy debates. Adapt or lose.
NDT Protocol: I will rarely have any familiarity with the current college topic and will usually only judge 12-15 rounds pre-NDT.
Please make your T and CP acronyms understandable.

Front Matter Elements:
If you need an accommodation of any kind, please email me before the round starts.
I want everyone to feel safe and able to debate- this is my number one priority as a judge.
I don't run prep time while you email the speech doc. Put the whole speech into one speech doc.
I flow 1AC impact framing, inherency, and solvency straight down on the same page nowadays.
Speed is not an issue for me, but I will ask you to slow down (CLEAR) if you are needlessly sacrificing clarity for quantity--especially if you are reading T or theory arguments.

I will not evaluate evidence identifiable as being produced by software, bots, algorithms etc. Human involvement in the card’s production must be evident unique to the team, individual, and card. This means that evidence you directly take from open source must be re-highlighted at a minimum. You should change the tags and underlining anyways to better fit with your argument’s coherency.

Decision-making:
I privilege technical debating and the flow. I try to get as much down as I possibly can and the little that I miss usually is a result of a lack of clarity on the part of the speaker or because the actual causal chain of the idea does not make consistent sense for me (I usually express this on my face). Your technical skill should make me believe/be able to determine that your argument is the truth. That means warrants. Explain them, impact them, and don't make me fish for them in the un-underlined portion of the six paragraph card that your coach cut for you at a camp you weren't attending. I find myself more and more dissatisfied with debating that operates only on the link claim level. I tend to take a formal, academic approach to the evaluation of ideas, so discussions of source, author intentions and 'true' meaning, and citation are both important to me and something that I hope to see in more debates.

The best debates for me to judge are ones where the last few rebuttals focus on giving me instructions on what the core controversies of the round are, how to evaluate them, and what mode of thinking I should apply to the flow as a history of the round. This means that I'm not going to do things unless you tell me to do them on the flow (judge kick, theory 'traps' etc.). When instructions are not provided or articulated, I will tend to use (what I consider to be) basic, causal logic (i.e. judicial notice) to find connections, contradictions, and gaps/absences. Sometimes this happens on my face--you should be paying attention to the physical impact of the content of your speech act.

I believe in the importance of topicality and theory. No affs are topical until proven otherwise.
Non-impacted theory arguments don't go a long way for me; establish a warranted theory argument that when dropped will make me auto-vote for you. This is not an invitation for arbitrary and non-educational theory arguments being read in front of me, but if you are going to read no neg fiat (for example), then you better understand (and be able to explain to me) the history of the argument and why it is important for the debate and the community.

Reading evidence only happens if you do not make the debate legible and winnable at the level of argument (which is the only reason I would have to defer to evidentiary details).

I find framework to be a boring/unhelpful/poorly debated style of argument on both sides. I want to hear about the ballot-- what is it, what is its role, and what are your warrants for it (especially why your warrants matter!). I want to know what kind of individual you think the judge is (academic, analyst, intellectual etc.). I want to hear about the debate community and the round's relationship within it. These are the most salient questions in a framework debate for me. If you are conducting a performance in the round and/or debate space, you need to have specific, solvable, and demonstrable actions, results, and evidences of success. These are the questions we have to be thinking about in substantial and concrete terms if we are really thinking about them with any authenticity/honesty/care (sorge). I do not think the act of reading FW is necessarily constitutive of a violent act. You can try to convince me of this, but I do start from the position that FW is an argument about what the affirmative should do in the 1AC.

If you are going to go for Fairness, then you need a metric. Not just a caselist, not just a hypothetical ground dispensation, but a functional method to measure the idea of fairness in the round/outside the round i.e. why are the internal components (ground, caselist, etc.) a good representation of a team's burden and what do these components do for individuals/why does that matter. I am not sure what that metric/method is, but my job is not to create it for you. A framework debate that talks about competing theories for how fairness/education should be structured and analyzed will make me very happy i.e. engaging the warrants that constitute ideas of procedural/structural fairness and critical education. Subject formation has really come into vogue as a key element for teams and honestly rare is the debate where people engage the questions meaningfully--keep that in mind if you go for subject formation args in front of me.

In-round Performance and Speaker Points:
An easy way to get better speaker points in front of me is by showing me that you actually understand how the debate is going, the arguments involved, and the path to victory. Every debater has their own style of doing this (humor, time allocation, etc.), but I will not compromise detailed, content-based analysis for the ballot.

I believe that there is a case for in-round violence/damage winning the ballot. Folks need to be considerate of their behavior and language. You should be doing this all of the time anyways.

While I believe that high school students should not be held to a standard of intellectual purity with critical literature, I do expect you to know the body of scholarship that your K revolves around: For example, if you are reading a capitalism K, you should know who Marx, Engels, and Gramsci are; if you are reading a feminism k, you should know what school of feminism (second wave, psychoanalytic, WOC, etc.) your author belongs to. If you try and make things up about the historical aspects/philosophical links of your K, I will reflect my unhappiness in your speaker points and probably not give you much leeway on your link/alt analysis. I will often have a more in-depth discussion with you about the K after the round, so please understand that my post-round comments are designed to be educational and informative, instead of determining your quality/capability as a debater.

I am 100% DONE with teams not showing up on time to disclose. A handful of minutes or so late is different than showing up 3-5 min before the round begins. Punish these folks with disclosure theory and my ears will be open.

CX ends when the timer rings. I will put my fingers in my ears if you do not understand this. I deeply dislike the trend of debaters asking questions about 'did you read X card etc.' in cross-x and I believe this contributes to the decline of flowing skills in debate. While I have not established a metric for how many speaker points an individual will lose each time they say that phrase, know that it is something on my mind. I will not allow questions outside of cross-x outside of core procedural things ('can you give the order again?,' 'everyone ready?' etc.). Asking 'did you read X card' or 'theoretical reasons to reject the team' outside of CX are NOT 'core procedural things.'

Do not read these types of arguments in front of me:
Arguments that directly call an individual's humanity into account
Arguments based in directly insulting your opponents
Arguments that you do not understand

Dan Lingel Jesuit College Prep—Dallas

danlingel@gmail.com for email chain purposes

dlingel@jesuitcp.org for school contact

"Be smart. Be strategic. Tell your story. And above all have fun and you shall be rewarded."--the conclusion of my 1990 NDT Judging Philosophy

Updated for 2023-2024 topic
30 years of high school coaching/6 years of college coaching
I will either judge or help in the tabroom at over 20+ tournaments

****read here first*****
I still really love to judge and I enjoy judging quick clear confident comparative passionate advocates that use qualified and structured argument and evidence to prove their victory paths. I expect you to respect the game and the people that are playing it in every moment we are interacting.

***I believe that framing/labeling arguments and paper flowing is crucial to success in debate and maybe life so I will start your speaker points absurdly high and work my way up (look at the data) if you acknowledge and represent these elements: label your arguments (even use numbers and structure) and can demonstrate that you flowed the entire debate and that you used your flow to give your speeches and in particular demonstrate that you used your flow to actually clash with the other teams arguments directly.

Some things that influence my decision making process

1. Debate is first and foremost a persuasive activity that asks both teams to advocate something. Defend an advocacy/method and defend it with evidence and compare your advocacy/method to the advocacy of the other team. I understand that there are many ways to advocate and support your advocacy so be sure that you can defend your choices. I do prefer that the topic is an access point for your advocacy.

2. The negative should always have the option of defending the status quo (in other words, I assume the existence of some conditionality) unless argued otherwise.

3. The net benefits to a counterplan must be a reason to reject the affirmative advocacy (plan, both the plan and counterplan together, and/or the perm) not just be an advantage to the counterplan.

4. I enjoy a good link narrative since it is a critical component of all arguments in the arsenal—everything starts with the link. I think the negative should mention the specifics of the affirmative plan in their link narratives. A good link narrative is a combination of evidence, analytical arguments, and narrative.

5. Be sure to assess the uniqueness of offensive arguments using the arguments in the debate and the status quo. This is an area that is often left for judge intervention and I will.

6. I am not the biggest fan of topicality debates unless the interpretation is grounded by clear evidence and provides a version of the topic that will produce the best debates—those interpretations definitely exist this year. Generally speaking, I can be persuaded by potential for abuse arguments on topicality as they relate to other standards because I think in round abuse can be manufactured by a strategic negative team.

7. I believe that the links to the plan, the impact narratives, the interaction between the alternative and the affirmative harm, and/or the role of the ballot should be discussed more in most kritik debates. The more case and topic specific your kritik the more I enjoy the debate. Too much time is spent on framework in many debates without clear utility or relation to how I should judge the debate.

8. There has been a proliferation of theory arguments and decision rules, which has diluted the value of each. The impact to theory is rarely debating beyond trite phrases and catch words. My default is to reject the argument not the team on theory issues unless it is argued otherwise.

9. Speaker points--If you are not preferring me you are using old data and old perceptions. It is easy to get me to give very high points. Here is the method to my madness on this so do not be deterred just adapt. I award speaker points based on the following: strategic and argumentative decision-making, the challenge presented by the context of the debate, technical proficiency, persuasive personal and argumentative style, your use of the cross examination periods, and the overall enjoyment level of your speeches and the debate. If you devalue the nature of the game or its players or choose not to engage in either asking or answering questions, your speaker points will be impacted. If you turn me into a mere information processor then your points will be impacted. If you choose artificially created efficiency claims instead of making complete and persuasive arguments that relate to an actual victory path then your points will be impacted.

10. I believe in the value of debate as the greatest pedagogical tool on the planet. Reaching the highest levels of debate requires mastery of arguments from many disciplines including communication, argumentation, politics, philosophy, economics, and sociology to name a just a few. The organizational, research, persuasion and critical thinking skills are sought by every would-be admission counselor and employer. Throw in the competitive part and you have one wicked game. I have spent over thirty years playing it at every level and from every angle and I try to make myself a better player everyday and through every interaction I have. I think that you can learn from everyone in the activity how to play the debate game better. The world needs debate and advocates/policymakers more now than at any other point in history. I believe that the debates that we have now can and will influence real people and institutions now and in the future—empirically it has happened. I believe that this passion influences how I coach and judge debates.


Logistical Notes--I prefer an email chain with me included whenever possible. I feel that each team should have accurate and equal access to the evidence that is read in the debate. I have noticed several things that worry me in debates. People have stopped flowing and paying attention to the flow and line-by-line which is really impacting my decision making; people are exchanging more evidence than is actually being read without concern for the other team, people are under highlighting their evidence and "making cards" out of large amounts of text, and the amount of prep time taken exchanging the information is becoming excessive. I reserve the right to request a copy of all things exchanged as verification. If three cards or less are being read in the speech then it is more than ok that the exchange in evidence occur after the speech.

I don't have a public judge philosophy because this website is not secure. Nothing has otherwise changed, I will try to be as fair as possible and I am open to persuasion on most things. Email me if you have questions.

Molly Martin - they/them - mollyam22@gmail.com

Email chain: Always. Please don't use PocketBox or Speech Drop. (Subject Line: Tournament - Round - Aff vs Neg)

Graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. Debated for C.K. McClatchy (14-18) and Gonzaga University (18-22). Mostly read and went for policy affs in college but my research involves critical literature. Regardless of the style of argument you want to make, I care more about an interesting strategy and well-executed decision-making in rebuttals than what type of strategy you choose.

TLDR:

I kind of have one foot out the door with policy debate, so more in-depth explanation will help me keep up with how norms have cemented over the first semester (especially on T debates).

Prioritize clarity over speed. Please avoid starting your speech at max speed - work up to that speed. Slow down more for me on analytics, topicality, theory, and case overviews; annunciation is important.

Tech over truth, for the most part - still gotta tell me why things matter. For example, you need to tell me why dropped arguments matter in my decision-making process.

I look for judge instruction, direct clash, evidence comparison throughout a debate, extension of and reference to warrants (beyond the tag), and clear impact analysis/calculus/comparison to help me decide a debate.

While defense is important (and wins championships), I find that rebuttals that sound or are too defensive miss the boat for me in controlling the debate.

I believe that debaters should want to control the perception of their arguments as much as possible so that judges should not have to read evidence after the debate, and that debaters should attempt to write as much of the judge's ballot as possible. While I will read cards needed, my preference is to vote off your explanations of the evidence over the author's - just don't rely on the card doc to do work for you.

Pet peeves: top-heavy overviews, not timing yourselves, stealing prep, excessive CX interruptions, rudeness to your opponents, teammates, or me. I think respect should be shown from the moment you meet your opponent to the end of the decision.

Content:

Case debate -- do it. The best 1NCs on case have analytics that indict affirmative evidence/solvency claims AND evidence. Follow a consistent format/formula to extend your evidence.

Off-case arguments: Links should directly implicate the affirmative or be contextual to the aff, whether it's on a DA or a kritik. I like 2NC/1NRs with multiple diversified links to the aff, use CX moments, and 2NRs that make choices that best tell the full story of the plan and why it is a bad idea.

Affirmative teams should actively use the aff in responding to off-case positions. I find that high-school debates I judge that go for the kritik often do not talk about the aff nearly as much as you should. Links should be predicated on some consequence to the plan, whether it be epistemic or direct.

Turns case arguments are especially important in front of me. I want to know how impacts in debate interact.

The best extension of kritiks use examples. What can your theory or thesis be applied to?

Explain, in detail, your permutations. The 2AR is too late to start that. I find it helpful when include info about net benefits to the permutation.

K Affs: I like debates with at least a tangential tie to the resolution, but I will still evaluate affs that don't. I do think not being in the direction of the topic makes negative arguments about limits more compelling. Have reasons why your project is key to resolving specific impacts. What does solvency mean to your project and what role does debate have in it?

Framework: I prefer debates over clash and predictable limits or skills and deliberation over debates about fairness. explanation will matter if you're doing down the fairness route.
Use framework as a mechanism to engage with the aff - how can your interpretation speak to and enable debates about what the affirmative is discussing? Have examples of what debate looks like under your topic.

Theory:

I hated judge kick as a debater - I encourage all aff teams to make no judge kick arguments. My preference is that the negative mentions if I can judge kick or not in the block and in the 2NR - I feel it is judge intervention otherwise.

If you are winning theory and you are winning substance, go for substance. If you go for theory do not make me evaluate anything on/about the case.

I will evaluate theory as is debated in the round, and will put aside any preferences I have. Conditionality is not my favorite argument, but will vote on it if debated well/if it is dropped.

Slow down on your theory blocks. A good final rebuttal will break away from pre-written blocks to explain how their interpretation resolves their opponent's offense.

Please feel free to reach out with questions before the round if there is something I didn't include. Happy to talk about debating in college for any high school teams I judge.

put me on the email chain laurenmcblain28@gmail.com

Lincoln Park (CDL) 2016-2020

University of Kentucky 2020-present

don't call me "judge," lauren is fine.

Accessibility

preferrable to reduce speed by about 15%

analytics in the doc are appreciated and will result in a .2 speaker point bump

Policy

No experience on the current topic so don't overrely on acronyms or buzz words

Read whatever you want to read - i'll do my best to evaluate all arguments without bias. I have done all kinds of debate.

Tech > truth (mostly) - I have a lower threshold for silly arguments and think a smart analytic can beat a bad card.

T is good, theory is good, disads are good, counterplans are good, abusive counterplans are good, saying abusive counterplans are bad is good, Ks are good, K affs are good, framework is good. Everything that is not racist/sexist/ableist/and/or homophobic is probably good.except for judge kick - do you want me to tell you what to go for too? no thanks. However, if the block says judge kick and the 1AR does not say no judge kick, i will begrudgingly judge kick. if the first i hear of judge kick is the 2nr - the 2ar just has to say 'no' and i will not judge kick.

my voting record on framework is split 50/50.

im biased towards the aff on fairness - i have a hard time believing the aff makes debates procedurally unfair as long as there is a strong connection to the topic. that being said, i'll still vote for it even if i think it's a little silly. best aff strat --- nuanced counter interp that solves limits and ground or just straight impact turns. best neg strat --- tva + switch side.

K v K debates are cool and you should probably still make a framework argument about how to evaluate the round. i do not care if perms exist or not in a methods debate. convince me.

LD

I AM A VERY BAD JUDGE FOR TRICKS --- READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

PF

get your opponents emails and send your case to them before your speech. if you do not do this, i will make you take prep time for anything that exceeds cross time to send evidence back and forth to each other.

Novice

do line by line, respond to all arguments, and extend all parts of your arguments, split the block on the neg, and narrow down what you go for in the final speeches and you will be golden.

Evidence

Sometimes I follow along, sometimes I don't. I tend to only read the evidence when the debate is close or convoluted. Other than that, I think the debating should be left to the debaters in the room, not authors or coaches who cut the cards.

If you read a great piece of evidence but can't explain the warrants and your opponent reads a mediocre piece of evidence and can, I'm more likely to side with your opponent.

Updated Sept 5, 2022 

Tracy McFarland

Jesuit College Prep - for a long while; back in the day undergrad debate - Baylor U 

Please use jcpdebate@gmail.com for speech docs. I do want to be in the email chain.
However, I don't check that email a lot while not at tournaments - so if you need to reach me not at a tournament, feel free to email me at tmcfarland@jesuitcp.org

Reason for update - I have updated my judging paradigm not because my fundamental views of debate have changed, really.  BUT , as one of my labbies put it this summer, apparently the detail of my previous paradigm was "scary".  So, I have tried to distill down some of the most important ways I evaluate debate.  

Clash - it's good - which means you need to flow and not script your speeches.  LBL with some clear references to where you're at = good.  Line by line isn't answer the previous speech in order - it's about grounding the debate in the 2ac on off case, 1nc on case.

Dates and "real world" matter - with WMD after 9/11 and immigration during Trump as close rivals, this topic seems one of the most current event influenced debate topics I've experienced.  Obviously I mean this in terms of Russia invasion on Feb 24, 2022 - but I also mean in the sense of Madrid Summitt and new Strategic Concept as it relates to the areas; new president in the US as of 2021 with very different policies about NATO and IR; etc.  You do not need evidence to integrate current events into your argument - you do need an explanation about why dates matter - ie what's happened that the other team's arguments don't assume.  But these arguments can go far in my mind to reduce risk of a DA or an advantage - so you should make these arguments and use as indicts of the other team's evidence as appropriate. . I am persuaded by teams that call out other teams based on their evidence quality, author quals, lack of highlighting (meaning they read little of the evidence

Process CPs and other neg trickeration - it's such a good topic that I would definitely prefer to see topic specific arguments.  This means that there are some process CPs or other debates grounded in the lit that are really good debates; there are some that are not.  Particularly as the season progresses, I would expect a discussion of what normal means is - both on the aff and the neg to justify process-y cps.  

DAs - it's possible to win zero risk that the DA is an opportunity cost to the aff.  

Ks - specific links are good.  You should have a sense on the aff and the neg what FW is going to get you in a debate. 

K affs - should be tied to the topic in some way.  If they aren't, then neg args with topical versions or ways to access the education the K aff offers through the resolution are usually persuasive to me.  If the aff has a K of the topic, that's great offense that negs need to have an answer.  I don't think that debate is just a game.  Its a competitive activity that does shape our political subjectivity.  

T - if you have a good violation and reasons why an aff should be excluded, by all means read it.  If you are just reading it as a "time suck" then, meh, read more substance.  And, an argument that ends in -spec is usually an uphill battle unless it's clever [this cleverness standard does preclude generally a- and o-] 

Impact turns - topic specific one = good; generic ones - more meh 

New affs are good - and don't need to be disclosed before a debate if it's truly the very first time that someone at your school has read the argument.  But new affs may justify theoretically sketchy args by the neg - you can integrate that into the theory debate, you don't need a new affs bad 1nc arg to do that. 

Be nice to each other - it's possible to be competitive without being overly sassy.  

Modality matters - when you are debating in person, remember that people can hear you talk to your partner and you should have a line of sight with the judge.  If you are online, make sure that your camera is on when possible to create some engagement with the judge.  

she/her

Woodward Academy '23

Georgetown University '27

Please put me on the email chain: 23cmitchell@woodward.edu

For camp debates: I have no topic knowledge, so please overexplain any jargon/complex topics

*Maggie Berthiaume and Bill Batterman have influenced a lot of my opinions and personal philosophies about debate, so feel free to look at their paradigms as well*

(https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?search_first=maggie&search_last=berthiaume)

(https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?search_first=bill&search_last=batterman)

General:

- Please be nice to opponents! Respect is important...

- Will not tolerate any racism/homophobia/sexism/etc.

- Send analytics!! It's better for you too

- Don't clip

- Clarity > speed (especially for online debate)

- Clash is key in a good debate

- Please have cameras on if possible

- Give road maps before speeches and effectively sign post

- Make sure to effectively kick off-case

- +.1 speaks for jokes in your speeches :), +.2 if you consistently open source (please let me know before RFD)

- for speaks: 28.5 is average, anywhere 29 and above is very good

- Most importantly, HAVE FUN!!!
Case

Case debates are very important and often underutilized. If you are going for a counterplan or kritik, good case debating is essential to win any solvency. Same goes for aff - if you want to win a debate in front of me, good case debating is a must.

DAs

Please do not read any DA's (and any offcase for that matter) that is not winnable coming out of the 1NC. I expect a full shell (uniqueness, SPECIFIC link, and impact) and will not weigh the DA if the shell is not complete. Impact calc is essential for both sides when debating disadvantages - make sure to effectively compare case and DA impacts.

CPs

I will not weigh any CP without a solvency advocate in the 1NC. I love a good CP + DA debate though, especially if it is specific to the aff.

Ks

I have found myself gravitating towards kritiks on the NATO topic, but I am much better for topic related kritiks rather than Baudrillard/Deleuze/etc. If you run a k, please articulate the alternative well or make it clear that you are going for framework/reps based impacts.

Make sure you have specific links to the aff and these links are thoroughly explained! Best way to win a K in front of me is an effective link explanation.

T

Topicality is usually not my favorite position, going for it usually leads to low clash final rebuttals with just blocks. However, I feel like a lot of affs on the NATO topic are extremely untopical so good T interpretations are always welcome.

T vs. K Affs

I think fairness is an external impact and is very persuasive. Make sure you specify blocks with specifics to whatever is happening in the round.

Theory

Condo good (except with 5 or more condo offcase)

Neg does have fiat

PIKs are fine, unless warranted reasons otherwise

Neutral on PICs

Please feel free to ask any questions before or after round! I will happily answer.

https://debate.msu.edu/about-msu-debate/

blaine montford---they/them

blaine, not judge

Kickapoo HS '23, Missouri Revival '23 (ROLL MO), Michigan State '27

email 2 add:

bmntdb8@gmail.com

----

TLDR:

i flow on paper. give me pen time.

clarity + speed > clarity > speed

tech + truth > tech > truth

----

debate nihilist--do whatever makes you happy, comfortable, or what you think would help you win. Debate is a communicative activity, probably, and thus if you can communicate your argument well, there should never be a world in which you would ever need to adapt to me.

currently unhappy about the rise of blatant fascism in the community--if this upsets you or you think it is not an issue strike me. i likely won't be good for you anyway.

i read a lot of critical literature--i'm not well versed in the specifics of your theory, even if i am, no i'm not. i am not an ideologue for k debate. i will vote for whoever presented the better arguments.

irrespective of how you choose to approach the round argumentatively, i will always default to well-explained and warranted arguments over anything else. bonus points if you make me laugh. thus, i really don't care what styles of arguments teams read in front of me, I prefer if both teams engage with their opponents' arguments. I don't enjoy teams who avoid clash. i dislike having to read your evidence to figure out what your arg is trying to say. i do not open docs unless your debate was very close and i need to actually adjudicate something about your ev or something went incredibly wrong and nothing either side said made sense.

----

i prefer k debates that either:

1] contain robust explanations of each team's model and pedagogies in debate and why that is good/preferable to the other or

2] center around questions of which side's praxis is best to resolve certain impacts. what that entails is up to you.

reading an un-contextualized link wall straight down in the block is not good link debating. making a theory of power claim about the world and then saying "The 1AC is complicit in it!" is not good link debating. links of omission can be good if you have a persuasive reason that matters. the cap k link into the k-aff that "the 1AC didn't talk abt capitalism so vote neg" is usually not persuasive, a link, or worth anyone's time to debate. if you read a k please know the literature around it. very tired of hearing people butcher people's work.

I judge k debates like 2004 Jason Regnier.

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i prefer policy debates centralized on da/case strats---not the biggest fan of teams who proliferate counterplans to minimize engagement from the aff. Katsula's ideology is something i can easily get behind, but i won't vote you down if you "break the rules" per se. i subscribe to the cult of negative flexibility [I'll still vote on condo tho] and still understand the strategic value in both approaches. you do you but if adjusting matters see previous. people like Astrid Clough, Jeff Buntin, Kevin McAffery, Will Repko, and Bill Batterman share a lot of debate hot takes I do in this regard.

----

you should disclose. policy teams saying silly voting issues is frustrating and i have a low bar for the other team answering them unless you can explain why it isn't.

don't be racist, a bigot, ableist, or violent to another person in the room. infringing on the safety of your opponents is bad and i will likely have to step in and make it tabs problem.

clipping needs proof and you have to stake the round on it.

don't steal prep. prep ends when the email is sent.

please flow. people who ask "can i get a marked doc/can you list the cards you didn't read?" when the other team clearly marks cards/a low number of cards are marked.

Jack Moore

Affiliation: 4 years at Jesuit Dallas, currently at Trinity University

2N Life

Email: mojack221.goo@gmail.com

Updated: 3/5/24

Round Procedure

- Send out the 1ac before start time, not after. The debate starts at start time.

- Send cards in a doc - not the body of the email

- Prep stops when docs are saved. Deleting Analytics is Prep. Don't send cards in the body of the email. If you do, I will make you take prep to put it in a document and send it.

- Respect your opponents and be nice to each other.

- Inserting Evidence: I'm conditionally fine with it. If it from a different part of the article that the other team hasn't cut, you must read it. If it's highlighting parts of the card that they just didn't underline or highlight, you don't have to read it IF you paraphrase or do the work to explain why the re-highlighting matters. BUT, if it's so important, you may as well read it because that's powerful

- Disclosure: new affs are good. Disclosure ought to happen, but it does not need to happen. Mis-disclosure is the only type of disclosure theory I will vote on and for that to happen I either need to have seen the mis-disclosure, which I probably won't OR both teams need to agree on what happened during CX or something.

- While I won't punish the lack of disclosure, I think generally keeping an updated wiki is good, so tell me if you have one and if you update it before my decision, I'll add a few points. If the wiki is down or some uncontrollable happens where that's not possible, I'll assume good faith.

Online Debates:

- if my camera is not on, I'm not ready

- please slow down.

- I'd encourage cameras to be on the whole debate, but obviously understand that's not always possible

- please get confirmation everyone is ready.

How I Go About Judging Debates

- I take judging very seriously and recognize the hard work you all put into it. Debate is not easy and sometimes it is very difficult to even show up to a tournament, much less debate your best every round. I do my best to keep a positive attitude and facilitate learning. You get my full attention during the debate and in the post round. I appreciated the judges and coaches who helped me grow as a debater by not just deciding the round, but also gave extensive feedback on how to improve. I strive to do the same.

- I'm not very expressive unless you say something absurd. I'm not really grumpy, that's just my face.

- Flowing:

- a) medium: I flow on paper 99% of the time. For me, that means I flow the debate and track it by the line by line. Even if you just speak "straight down" in overview fashion, I will still try to line things up to where I think that goes on the flow. It would benefit you to tell me either directly where you are going on the line by line OR tell me a different way to flow and give me plenty of pen/organization time.

- b) instrument: I prefer pen. G2 .38 or .5. I write a lot so slowing down is good

- Reading Evidence: I don't read evidence during the debate. I do not have the speech docs open during your speeches. I look at cards during prep if they are being disputed.

- Speed: Go for it. Clarity, Organization, and Pen Time are all essential to effective speed.

- Evidence quality > quantity. Part of this includes highlighting sentences/making your cards comprehensible. If I look at cards, I only look at the highlighting you read.

- Decisions: I start with important frames and judge instructions given by the 2nr/ar. I think through different ballots that could be given, exploring all possible victories for each team. I pick the one I think is most supported by the round.

- Trolls: If you've done the work to cut a lot of cards that at least have the illusion of quality and demonstrate how your argument interacts with the other teams in significant ways, I'm fine for you. If it's a terrible back file check or something that anyone could prep in 30 minutes, I'm not your judge and your points will suffer. It also helps if your argument has an impact instead of only trying to trigger presumption.

Fiscal Redistribution Thoughts

-This topic is great and you're lucky you get to debate it.

- single payer not topical

- When all things lead to the economy, differentiation, comparison, and interaction of the internal links is super helpful. Inflation pressures o/w government spending because XYZ warrants for example

- In terms of argument and evidence quality, the capitalism good-bad debate is one sided. If evenly debated, I’m probably going with cap bad.

The rest of the philosophy is mostly me rambling and heavily influenced by the explanation in any given round.

Case:

- It's underutilized - specific internal link and solvency arguments go a long way in front of me. Strategically, a good case press in the block and 2nr makes all substantive arguments better

- Impact turns are fantastic

Topicality:

- I evaluate Topicality like a CP and DA. You ought to do impact calc and have offense and defense to the other team’s stuff.

DA:

- I will vote on defense against a DA. There's probably always a risk, but that doesn't mean I care about such risk

- ev comparison or judge instruction about micro moments in the debate goes a long way for winning individual parts of a DA.

- I like good evidence that contains arguments. You should keep that in mind before going for politics.

- Most politics DAs end up sounding more like the political capital K to me, meaning they lack any specific internal link from an unpopular plan to an agenda item. I really hope the economic inequality topic fixes this issue, but I doubt it.

CP:

- For questionably competitive CPs, clarity on the difference between the aff and the cp, what words if any are being defined, and an organized presentation of why your standard is better are crucial. It would also be helpful to slow down on texts, perms, theory, the usual stuff. Blippy cards and analytics mixed with speed are the enemy of the flow.

- Solvency advocates that compare the CP to topic or plan mechanisms greatly help in winning competition and theory

- I don't judge kick unless instructed to in the 2nr. Debate to me is about choices and persuasion. So unless your choice in the 2nr explicitly includes the fail safe of judge kick, I'm not going to do it for you.

Theory:

- I don't think I lean heavily aff or neg.

- Conditionality is debatable. Quantitative interps don’t make sense to me. Condo is good or bad. Fun fact, dispositionality was originally used because it was in a thesaurus under the word conditionality. This is to say, if your interp is anything under than condo bad, I'm going to need you to unpack the terms for me.

- My default is to reject the argument for all things except conditionality. This shouldn't deter you from going for theory given rejecting a CP usually means the neg has little defense left in a debate.

K:

- Good K debating is good case debating. A good critique would explain why a core component of the 1ac is wrong or bad.

- The link is the most important part of the debate. Be specific, pull 1AC lines, say what you are disagreeing with, give examples, etc. Explain why winning the thesis takes out specific parts of the solvency or internal link chain. More link debating is my number one comment to teams going for the K.

- Framework needs a purpose and that purpose should be communicated to me. Affirmatives often go for arguments about links to the plan or weighing the impact, when the neg agrees. Make sure you explain how your fw arguments explain how I evaluate the link, impact, alt, solvency, whatever. It should be explicit how winning framework changes the debate. I’m more persuaded when framework is explained as impact prioritization.

- Defend things. The neg should have a clear disagreement with the aff. The aff should defend the core assumptions of the aff. If you're reading an aff that defends US hegemony, going for super specific internal literature indicts against a settler colonialism K won't help you. A defense of IR scholarship, realism, impact prioritization, and alt indicts might.

- I don't care for alts.

- Perms against pessimism Ks, absent some specific perm card, have generally been unpersuasive to me.

K affs:

- Go for it. They should have some connection to the topic and some statement of advocacy. If you can read your aff on every topic without changing cards or tags, I’ll enjoy the debate less, but it's your debate, not mine.

- Role of the ballot means nothing to me and often a substitute for judge instruction

- Presumption questions are usually just questions of framework and the value the aff's model provides. Neg teams spend way too much time asking questions about ballot spill up or the debate round changing the world. We all agree fiat illusory is a bad argument in a policy prescription model of debate. Why is it all of the sudden good now? Your time is much better served explaining how the aff's model of debate is counterproductive to its benefits. In other words, answer the should not would question.

- Aff teams should critique presumption in favor of the status quo.

Framework/T USFG

- Framework debates are important because they force us to question fundamental assumptions and norms of the activity. It's about models of debate. Convince me yours is good and theirs is bad.

- I'm open to most impacts to framework. I judge them like most debates where I compare the aff's offense to the neg's offense, defense, and framing arguments from 2nr and 2ar. I have voted for and against all the common impacts for T-USFG/traditional FW (procedural fairness, clash, topic mechanism education, agonistic democracy, advocacy skills, etc).

- I'm not the biggest fan of aff strategy's vs T that exclusively rely on the impact turn. It's a really hard sell that the idea of a topic for debate shouldn't be a thing. I think the impact turns are more persuasive if the neg is exclusively going for fairness or it's a game with no other value. However, if the neg has a coherent defense of clash, negation, or research over a limited topic plus defense against the impact turn, I'm likely to be persuaded by the T strategy.

- The inverse of this is that when the aff has a counter interpretation that defines resolution words in creative ways, I find it very hard for the negative to win much offense. I'm much more persuaded by an argument that says singular interpretation of the topic as mandating simulated federal government policy are unpredictable and bad than I am by the argument we should throw away the topic because it can be read in a singular way.

Speaker Points:

- a bit arbitrary, but I'll start at 28.5 and go up and down based on the round

- factors I consider: smart arguments, strategic choice, and organization are the biggest factors in determining speaker points

Andrea Moreno - She/her

Gonzaga '25 - 2A/1N

Juan Diego Catholic High School '21- 2A/1N

Add me to the email chain: andream060403@gmail.com

TLDR: Happy to flow and listen to all arguments, but I have more research and skills toward critical topics/debates. With that being said, I rely heavily on the flow and vote on arguments that are warranted and clear at the end of the round. Please tell me why you won at the end of the round. Make it clear to me what you want me to vote for in both the 2NR and 2AR *JUDGE INSTRUCTION*. A lot of my decisions will come from that.

Substance:

Affs- I’m good with anything. My experience is running big stick policy affs, soft left affs, or a K aff.

K affs are fun. Personally, I would like it if they had an advocacy statement or plan but anything is cool with me. This doesn't mean I won't vote for framework on the negative.

Read more on case. If you're not winning solvency on the affirmative, I can definitely be persuaded to vote negative on presumption.

Topicality-

Explain the world of your interpretation and how they violate vs. the world of their interpretation and how that impacts debate both in the round, tell me the specific reason you can't read your DA.

Ks-

K teams that do good line-by-line refutation will be rewarded with speaker points more than teams that have 4-minute overviews. Don't assume I know all the big words that you are going to throw at me.

Tell me what the world of the alt looks like.

Make sure the link story actually makes sense.

Disads/CP's

I love a good DA/CP debate. If the CP solves the aff and avoids the net benefit it's pretty easy to vote on it. For the aff give me specific scenarios of the aff that the CP can't solve. I love multiple solvency deficits in the 2ac. If the DA outweighs the aff TELL ME WHY!! Be clear on the impact calc, and why the aff will clearly trigger the impact of the da scenario.

Additional comments-

be nice and have fun!

this is your debate round, not mine, don't let anything on here influence what you read in front of me

if you have any questions before the round just lmk or email me.

Hi, my name is Isabella and I was debater at Woodward Academy.

My email is isabellaorkinemmanuel@gmail.com, and my pronouns are she/her.

Be nice, and don't be mean to opponents. Send out analytics. Remember to speak a little slower since we are online. No clipping cards, and no saying you read a card that you didn't.

Overall, have fun!

drmosbornesq@gmail.com

My judging paradigm has evolved a great deal over time. These days, I have very few set opinions about args. I used to think I had a flawless flow and a magnet mind but now I can't follow each little detail and/or extremely nuanced or shrouded arguments with 101% accuracy like once upon a time. Still pretty good tho lol. And that said, I believe I've come to prioritize debaters' decisions more than ever and try harder than ever to base my decision on what debaters are trying to make happen in the round, and how well they do it, as opposed to how I logically add up what occurred. No judge can totally eliminate their process of sorting things out or their lived personal experience but I try to judge rounds as the debaters tell me to judge them, and with the tools they make available to me. I do think debate is about debaters, so I try to limit my overall judge agency to an extent. But sometimes my experience with traditional policy debate matters and favors a team. Sometimes my lived experience as a brown dude effects my encounter of an argument. These things happen and they are happening with all of your judges whether they admit it or you know it or not. I competed with "traditional policy arguments" (which, frankly, I am unsure still exist #old) but by now I have voted for and coached stupidly-traditional, traditional, mildly-traditional, non-traditional, and anti-traditional arguments in high-stakes rounds for a ton of programs in high school, college, internationally, in different eras, dimensions, all kinds of shi*. If you think your reputation matters in how I see the round, don't pref me. If you or your coaches are used to attacking in the post-round, you're gonna play yourself because I'll either be 101% and crush you or I won't care and I'll just mock you. Debate's a game but we are people so we should treat each other with respect. Self-control is one of the hallmarks of critical thinking and a disciplined intellect; if you cannot make peace with results in a subjective activity, you are simply not an elite debater, imho. Take it or leave it. Good luck to all debaters, seriously -- it's a hell of a thing.

Last edited on 5/27/23 to rewrite the sections on experience, Statement on Racism, and K Affirmatives.

Pronouns: she/they

Experience: I have spent my entire life in the debate community one way or another. That said, I spent five years debating middle school/high school, took a break from debating in undergrad, then came back to judge and coach for a variety of schools.

Statement on Racism (& other Prejudices) in Debate

Debate should encourage students to see themselves as agents capable of acting to create a better world. We will not achieve this vision for our activity so long as we pretend it is in a realm separate from reality. Judges have an ethical obligation to oppose prejudice in round including but by no means limited to: racism, queerphobia, antisemitism, sexism, Islamophobia, ableism, and classism, among others. Debate, as an activity, has its fair share of structural inequities. We, as coaches and judges, need to address these and be congnizant of them in our decisions.

General Philosophy

I see the role of the judge as that of an educator concerned primarily with what teams learn from the experience. Therefore, the most important aspect of being a judge, to me, is to provide good constructive criticism to teams about their arguments and performance, and to promote the educational qualities of debate. When teams are using prep time, I am usually writing speech by speech feedback for my ballots––which I very much hope teams and their judges will read. As a judge, I want you to come out of the round, win or lose, feeling like you learned something worthwhile.

As an educator concerned with what can be learned from the round, I think the quality of arguments are much more important than their quantity, and whenever possible prefer to reward well researched and articulated arguments more than arguments will few warrants that might be read in the hopes of their being dropped. I prefer to decide rounds based upon the meaning of the arguments presented and their clash rather than by concession.

I flow the round based on what I hear, preferring not to use speech documents. For this reason, clarity is more important than speed. For an argument to exist in the round, it needs to be spoken intelligibly. Rounds that are slower typically offer better quality arguments and fewer mistakes.

Argument Specific preferences:

Plan-less critical affirmatives: I am happy to judge and vote on them. K affs are a useful tool for contesting the norms of debate, including those which are the most problematic in the activity. Over time, I have changed my threshold on their topicality. These days, my position is that so long as they are clearly related to the topic, I am happy to consider them topical. When aff teams argue critical affirmatives, I strongly prefer there be a specific solvency mechanism for their interpretation of the role of the ballot. For negative teams arguing against K affs, I have a strong preference for specific case answers. Given that K affs are a fixture of debate and are generally available to find on open evidence and the caselist wiki, prepping to specifically answer them should be possible. While I am unlikely to vote in favor of arguments that would outright eliminate K affs in debate, counter kritiks are a strategy I am amenable to.

Kritiks: At its most fundamental level, a kritik is a critical argument that examines the consequences of the assumptions made in another argument. I love well run kritiks, but for me to decide in favor of a kritik it needs a specific link to the assumptions in the 1AC and a clearly articulated alternative that involves a specific action (as opposed to a vague alt). Experience informs me that K's with generic links and vague alternatives make for bad debate.

Framework: Lately this term seems to have become a synonym for a kind of impact calculus that instead of focusing on magnitude, risk, and time-frame attempts to convince me to discard all impacts but those of the team running this argument. Framework, as I understand it, is a synonym to theory and is about what the rules of debate should be. Why should it be a rule of debate that we should only consider one type of impact? It seems all impacts in debate have already boiled themselves down to extinction.

Topicality: Please slow down so that I can hear all your arguments and flow all their warrants. The quality of your T arguments is much more important to me––especially if you argue about the precedent the round sets––than how many stock voters you can read. I may prefer teams that offer a clear argument on topicality to those that rely on spreading, however tactically advantages the quickly read arguments may be.

Counter plans: The burden of demonstrating solvency is on the negative, especially with PICs. PICs are probably bad for debate. Most of the time they are just a proposal to do the plan but in a more ridiculous way that would likely never happen. So if you are going to run a PIC, make sure to argue that changing whatever aspect of the plan your PIC hinges on is realistically feasible and reasonably advantageous. Otherwise, I will do everything I can to avoid deciding the round on them.

Conditionality: I have no problem with the negative making a couple conditional arguments. That said, I think relying on a large number of conditional arguments to skew the aff typically backfires with the neg being unable to devote enough time to create a strong argument. So, I typically decide conditionality debates with a large number of conditional arguments in favor of the aff, not because they make debate too hard for the aff, but because they make debating well hard for everyone in the round.

For rookie/novice debaters:

If you're reading this, then you're already a step ahead and thinking about the skills you will need to be building for JV and varsity debate. What I want to see most in rookie/novice debates is that teams are flowing and clearly responding to each other.

Background

- Jesuit Dallas '21 - Debated Education, Immigration, Arms Sales, and Criminal Justice Reform (If this matters)

- A&M '25

- 2N/1A - 1 year (Freshman year)

- 2A/1N - 3 years

- Email for email chains and speech docs: joshram2021@gmail.com and jcpdebate@gmail.com (email my personal email for questions about past rounds/general questions; for questions, just give me a couple days to respond)

-- For GDI, just use my personal email

Top Level

- Line By Line matters, clash is key (I will auto number Case args and the 2AC block, if it isn't numbered)

- Please be nice

- My coaches have impacted my view of debate a lot (Tracy McFarland and Dan Lingel), along with my fellow Jesuit Class of 2021 and some alum

- All of these are just my initial views on certain things but obviously my mind can be changed based on who did the better debating

- Evidence comparison is great

- Read your re-highlightings in round unless it doesn't makes sense to do it

- Underviews and overviews that aren't used for judge instruction aren't useful for anyone

- CX is a useful reference to refer to in speeches, I'll try to pay attention

- Short Overviews --X------- Long Overviews

- Explanations X--------- Enthymemes

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

- Don't steal ev and disclosure is good, re-highlighting or recutting a card is different than using a card from another team in a debate (I can help with giving access to pdfs/articles, especially if they're Jesuit cut). Also don't clip

- I will try to read the important ev after the round, especially if you flag it down

- Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions before and after the round

- PLEASE don't read any advocacy advocating for suicide, I will vote you down if you do end up advocating for suicide (There are explicit arguments for that phrase that the authors who use it have, USE THAT EXPLANATION, you are still open to criticisms of that advocacy to begin with). Regardless, I think there are better arguments instead of suicide advocacy.

- Feel free to ask if you need a clarification of my RFD, I sometimes ramble

FOR NOVICES - Novice year really pushed me to want to continue debate so make sure to have fun and ask questions, I'll do my best to explain the argument and what your answer could've been.

FOR ONLINE DEBATE - I'd ideally like everyone's camera to be on during the debate, or at least when you're giving a speech, but I understand if there's technical problems that mean it's not possible. PLEASE start slightly slower, I have good quality headphones now but like if your mic is peaking I'm just not gonna properly process what you're saying

Econ Topic Specific Thoughts/Ramblings

- Rounds Judged: 5

- T over what "financial redistribution" is seems important

- I'm a little new to learning about how some of the econ stuff works so I'm more likely to read the ev when it comes down to some of the nitty gritty tech stuff for it

T/Procedurals

- Majority of my 1NRs were either a DA or T

- Good T debates are really fun to watch and judge, clear up impacts and how your interp best accesses those

- I default to competing interpretations (Reasonability requires you to win some semblance of a we meet or your Counter interp resolving limits)

- Caselists are very very important

- Limits is important but limits for the sake of limits is bad

- Ev should be read in T debates (either interps or what their interp would justify; If you can read a solvency advocate for what their interp would include, that would be very impressive and gives Neg's game on the limits debate), call out interps that aren't related to the topic (PLEASE DON'T JUST CARD DUMP, especially if your interps contradict or aren't in the context of the res, cause the 1AR will be very persuasive to me if they point that out)

- That being said, Interps should probably be in the context of the res, Aff's should either point out it doesn't or draw lines from their interp to prove we meet

- Please make these clean, messy T debates are really easy to cause and make everything harder

- Procedurals should have some relation to the res

- Extra-T and Effects T are both cool, but need thorough explanation (I would know cause some 1NRs I would just say it without like a decent explanation). Will definitely vote on it though (probably Extra more than Effects cause Extra is more justifiable)

DAs

- Specific DAs = perfect

- There can be 0% risk of a DA

- It's very important that DAs have some form of external impact compared to the Aff, please do impact calc that frames the impact stories and their interaction (through like turns case or time frame/probability/magnitude)

- Evidence specificity is important when it comes to DAs

- Politics DAs are potentially alive now, stay within reason, I value recent ev over tech (unless you're spinning the ev harder than Beyblades), I also need you stay coherent with the link story

- Diversify Links and give them some short, flowable labels

CPs

- Sufficiency framing should work for most things except structural violence impacts

- Smart, specific CPs are great combined with specific DAs

- Creative Perms are good

- CPs should be competitive, at least functionally if not both textually and functionally

- Affs should call out shady CPs (i.e. the process of the CP or how the CP would solve the Aff)

- Clear up the technical parts of process CPs as I can get lost in the jargon when it's not explained clearly

- I won't automatically judge kick (I also am adverse to judge kick)

Ks

- A K was in all of my 1NCs except for one round my senior year (the break down is something like 55% Abolition, 35% Cap/Historical Materialism, 5% Security, 5% Settler Biopolitics, and then like 0.1% Borders)

- FW is so underutilized

- I'm still confused with high theory Ks (like pomo type stuff, am familiar with the theories but the more vocab you throw at me the more I'm gonna get lost)(race/identity based stuff I'm super familiar with and am comfortable deciding on as long as it doesn't get messy) but I'll do my best (I've run Cap/Historical Materialism, Borders, Deschooling, Security, Abolition, and Bioptx and debated a plethora)

- Link stories are important and explaining exactly what part of the Aff you are kritiking (your life is so much easier if you impact out links)

- Overviews that require a page or half of my flow are not good and will annoy me, ESPECIALLY if you start doing just all the K work on the other page, cause then what's the point of that initial K flow

- Case debating is very important, I'll give the Aff leeway on weighing the Case vs the K if there's 0 contestation throughout the debate/in the 2NR (i.e. Case impacts, value of debating the Aff on FW, Perm explanation, etc.). Neg's can challenge this by either A) actually implicating case args with the K or B) on the K flow, explaining how it relates to the mechanisms of the 1AC/Aff, if that make sense

- K alts should be explained (i.e. explain how the world of the alt would looks), they are often the weakest parts of the K so please try to explain them in some way that resolves the links and the Aff (I use the language of resolve because the Alt doesn't need to "solve" but like prove how the Alt addresses the bad assumptions of the Aff and the harms that the Aff attempts to address); Also, please don't make your K's just sad tarnished case turns.

- Diversify the Links (either with cards, how they explained the Aff would function, or how the Aff is written), if you read generic evidence, please explain how it relates to the Aff and how the Aff is what the card is talking about (generic links are probably alright if they relate to the Aff in some aspect, i.e. if the card doesn't have x part of the Aff in the card or mentions the Aff in any capacity, the Neg should explain why the card still applies)

K Affs

- Explain what voting for you means and what my vote means in the context of the Aff (I know that I vote for the better debater, at least that is my default understanding of what the ballot means, but what is the advocacy/worldview of the Aff), both sides must explain the importance of the ballot in relation to the Aff (There's a big difference between advocating for a method related to the topic vs pointing out how x thing is racist and that's bad, etc.; Just because I read K Affs doesn't mean I won't vote on presumption if I have no idea why I vote Aff or what the Aff's method is trying to accomplish)

- Please have some form of advocacy, related to the topic, that you can defend throughout the debate (Don't shift it because it confuses me more and probably gives more leverage to T/FW; consistency is key for Aff offense and fighting the zump)

- I'm much more persuaded on Models of Debate discussions paired with turns/offense over straight Impact turns to education and fairness (doesn't mean I won't vote on education and fairness turns, I just happen to be more familiar with these debates over Counter Interps/Models of Debate)

Neg strats

- T/FW - Debate is a game (a very fun game), Fairness is more of an internal link (Like debate is a game but education/portable skills is stuff we actually get out of round, it's the telos), I prefer Clash/Advocacy Skills/External Impacts over the usual Fairness/Education, TVAs are great and almost always a must. Focus on forwarding offense cause these debates can get compartmentalized, contextualize your blocks (please clash with the args instead of reading your blocks, this goes for both teams) (I find many rounds when I was Aff where I got away with a lot of things b/c of the moving parts of offense). I understand the small distinction between T and FW but at the end, it comes down to models of debate (that is gonna be my default unless you make the distinction clearer for me)

- K's - I understand Historical Materialism/Cap the best out of all the K's in K vs K Aff debates. Probably neutral on whether there are Perms in a method debate (ofc depends on the types of methods engaged in), link debate and framing is where I determine whether I should allow a Perm (FW debate too, probably). Please PLEASE contextualize links to the Aff's method or theory's assumptions, it makes the Link clearer and gives the Aff less room for link turns/Perm explanation.

- Other strats - PICs, procedurals, Counter Advocacies etc. are strategic and interesting. I'll listen to them but will probably evaluate them similar to some of the way I view things above. Feel free to ask specifics.

- Case is/can be important for either 2NR you would go for and some of the Case cards should be cross applied if not referenced. 2NRs not getting to Case gives 2ARs way too much room to use the weight of the Aff vs whatever the 2NR was, which I'm sympathetic to because there wasn't an answer to case (super helpful during my Senior year when Case was like barely anything in the 2NR)

Theory

- Theory is pretty cool

- Specific theory = even cooler

- Contextualize it to other arguments run and what happens in the round, this is probably my weakest area to judge a debate on, partly cause if you go too fast, I can't write everything down (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ACTUALLY COMPARE STANDARDS AND INTERPS, it gets frustrating when both teams just rant about what their interp on theory is, without actually clash between the two)

- Ask if there are any specific views that I have on CPs and other things (Condo is dependent on the situation, PICs are good, Word PICS are 50/50 (probably need a good interp on what words you should be able to PIC out of), Multi-plank CPs with more than one solvency advocate aren't good, Dispo is just spicy Condo, Process CPs are meh, Con-Con and NGAs are boooo)

- This is probably my weakest area to judge (ironic for a former 2A), so please please please make sure that you're clear when spreading through your blocks and make sure that you're doing the right work, because I really don't want to do the comparison for you, especially if I wasn't able to get half your standards

Case

- If I didn't have a DA or T, I always took Case in the 1NR, it showcased how important/helpful it is for in depth case debating that relates back to whatever the 2NC took, whether it was a K or DA or CP

- Offense and defense matters, make sure to frame them

- Impact turns that are smart are great (Won't vote on Racism good, Sexism good, etc.; I don't think I understand Death Good well enough to be able to form an opinion, at least the high theory Baudrillard level of it) (PLEASE don't just card dump, I've done this before and it wasn't clean; if it works against a K Aff go for it)

- 2AR/2NR framing/judge instruction is pretty important and very helpful, didn't realize how important it was until I started listening to some of my speeches, there's a big difference between extending your offense and framing offense against each other and giving me words to write in my ballot and give in the RFD

Gonzaga University
Judging Experience: 19 years
Email: jregnier@gmail.com (yes, include me on the email thread)

Big Picture: There is no one right way to debate. We all have our biases and preconceptions, but I try to approach each round as a critic of argumentation and persuasion. Some people will define themselves as being more influenced by either “truth” or “tech.” For me, this is a false binary. Tech matters, but it doesn’t mean that I will focus on the ink on the flow to the detriment of argument interconnections or ignore the big picture of the debate. Truth matters, but pretty much every debate I will decide that both teams win arguments that I don’t necessarily believe to be true. In my view, “argument” falls into a third category that overlaps with tech and truth but is distinct from them. Make your argument more effectively than your opponent and you’ll be in good shape. For me, that means making clear claims, developing warrants for those claims, and explicitly identifying what’s important in the debate, how it’s important, and why. Use logos, ethos, and pathos. Look like you’re winning. Your adaptation to the stylistic/technical comments below is far more important than your adaptation to any particular type of argument.

Comment about debate ethics: By debate ethics, I mean both what has been conventionally called “ethics violations” – like clipping cards, evidence fabrication, etc – as well as the interpersonal dynamics of how we treat one another in debate. I group them together here because they are both areas where somebody has crossed a line and upset the conditions necessary for debate to occur. For me, neither of these things is “debatable” in the sense I used above (“making clear claims, developing warrants…,” looking like you’re winning, etc). If a team is suspected of clipping cards, the debate stops and we do our best to resolve the issue before either ending the debate or moving forward. Similarly, if there is a concern that a team made racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted – or even just excessively mean-spirited or rude remarks – the debate should not continue as normal. I have zero interest in watching a competitive debate in this context about what was said, whether an apology was sincere, the terminal impact of discourse, whether the ballot is an appropriate punishment, etc. In this, I aggressively fall into the “truth over tech” crowd.

What this means for me is that I will try to be attentive to these things happening. I do not believe that a debater has to say something for me to vote on an ethics violation. At the same time, there is a lot of gray area in interpersonal relationships and we all draw our own boundaries.

What this means for you is if you believe one of your ethical lines has been crossed, I need you to point it out *outside of speech time* and not treat it like you would other debate arguments. As we all know, there are different ways of arguing that the other team has said offensive things. An argument that the Aff’s Economy advantage is based in colonial & white supremacist logic seems to fall squarely “within the game” as a debatable position. On the other hand, if a debater refers to another debater with an offensive racial epithet, this seems to pretty clearly transcend the game. There’s a million miles of microaggressions and not-so-micro aggressions in between. My working presumption is generally that if you are debating about it, then you consider it debatable and that I should evaluate it within the context of argumentation, persuasion, and competition. But if you feel that the other team has crossed a line and that I should not continue evaluating the round as I would a regular competitive debate, say something – again, *outside of speech time* – and we will work together to reach an understanding and figure out the best resolution to the situation.

Stylistic/Technical Issues: I am a medium flow. My ear for extremely fast speech is not particularly great, and my handwriting is not particularly fast. Extremely fast debates oriented around the techne of the flow are not my forte. There is a fairly clear inverse relationship between the speed at which you speak and the amount that I get written down on my flow. This greatly rewards debaters who give fewer – but more fully developed and explained – arguments. I will probably not read very many cards at the end of the debate, so don’t rely on your evidence to make your arguments for you. At the same time, I do generally try to attend to the quality of cards and bad cards can definitely undermine your arguments. I categorically do not want to be forced to reconstruct the debate by rereading all of the cards. This means that explanation and prioritization in the final rebuttals weighs more heavily for me than it might for other judges. Attend to the big picture, make direct comparisons showing why your arguments are better than your opponents’, and most important, find the hook that allows you to frame the debate in your favor.

Theory Debates: This is the area where my thinking has evolved the most as I’ve aged. There are many theory issues that I can be persuaded by. However, I will say that many theory debates that I have seen are vacuous. The key question for me is what kind of world is created by each side’s interpretation – is it good for debate or bad for debate. The impacts that I find most persuasive are the ones that are less about whether the other team made debate hard for you and more about what their interpretation does to argumentation and whether that’s an educational and constructive vision of what debate should be. Generally, impacts like “time skew” or “moots the 1AC” are pretty empty to me. But an argument that uniform 50 state fiat is an artificial debate construct that’s not rooted anywhere in the solvency literature and distorts the “fed key” debate so wildly as to make it meaningless is maybe something that I can get behind. A short list of a few of my current theory pet peeves: the States CP, object fiat, vaguely written – and downright misleading – plan texts, and nonsense permutations. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it a pet peeve, I may be growing increasingly persuaded that excessive conditionality is not good for debate.

Critical Stuff / Framework: I regularly vote both ways in framework debates. I evaluate these debates much like I would a debate over the "substance" of the case. Both sides need to play offense to amplify their own impacts while also playing defense against their opponent's impacts. In most cases where I have voted against critical affirmatives, it is because they have done a poor job answering the negative's debatability/fairness impact claims. In most cases where I have voted against traditional policy frameworks, it has been because they have done a poor job defending against the substantive critiques of their approach. My general set of biases on these issues would be as follows: critical (and even no-plan) affirmatives are legitimate, the aff needs to either have a defensible interpretation of how they affirm the topic or they need to full bore impact turn everything, a team must defend the assumptions of their arguments, critiques don't need (and are often better served without) alternatives (but they still need to be clear about what I am actually voting for), debate rounds do not make sense as a forum for social movements and “spill up” claims are vacuous, and most of the evidence used to defend a policy framework does not really apply to policy debate. However, to state the obvious, each of these biases can be overcome by making smart arguments.

Speaker Points: Since Tabroom stopped making speaker points accessible, I honestly don’t really even know what they mean anymore. I try to give them careful consideration, but I admit that often it becomes a gestalt thing. I intend somewhere around 28.7 or 28.8 to be my median. I will occasionally dip into the high 27s for debaters that need significant improvement. Good performances will be in the low 29s. Excellent performances will get into the mid 29s. This was generally close to how things broke down the last time I was actually able to run the numbers on speaker point data.

Here are the things I value in a good speaker. I love debaters that use ethos, logos AND pathos. Technique should be a means of enhancing your arguments, not obfuscating or protecting them. Look like you're winning. Show that you are in control of yourself and your environment. Develop a persona that you can be comfortable with and that shows confidence. Know what you're talking about. Answer your own cross-ex questions. Use an organizational system that works for you, but communicate it and live up to it (if you do the line-by-line, then *do* the line-by-line). Avoid long overviews with content that belongs on the line-by-line. Overviews should have a clear and concise purpose that adds something important to the debate. Be clear, which includes not just articulation & enunciation. It also includes the ability to understand the content of your evidence. If I can't follow what your evidence is saying, it will have as much weight in my decision as the tagline for that evidence would have had as an analytic. Debaters who make well thought out arguments with strong support will out-point debaters who just read a lot of cards every time.

email: avy.renee.hine@gmail.com

i went to centennial and did ld throughout high school- got bids to the toc. now i'm in my fifth year doing policy debate @ gonzaga.

tldr: read what you want. i read policy arguments, but i have a history of being more flex. i like to evaluate policy debates. with that being said, i have a lot of respect for the time put into researching and preparing for each tournament and will evaluate whatever you read with as little bias as i can. i'm pro-technical debating and anti- "big picture" styles of debating unless you are really excellent. i also don't like listening to sloppy spreading- i am a good flow so be as quick as you like, but be clear, emphasize tags, and make sure you make it obvious when you're moving between cards *esp online*. if you cant do that, go slower. dont ask me to give 30s, there wont be a punishment, but i just wont. otherwise, be strategic and have fun!

some argument things!

k-affs & fw teams:

BOTH TEAMS: please don't just read blocks. debate things line by line and actually engage in a discussion of the distinction between the models both teams are defending in the interp debate. if youre able to draw differentials with thoroughly impacted out standards, you'll probs be sitting pretty at the end of the debate. dont forget to do impact comparison.

k- aff teams-- extend, explain, and weigh your offense against the defensive arguments made by the negative. if fw isnt the 2nr, i am not a good judge for the argument that they should lose for reading fw in the 1nc/block unless the neg made some serious blunders on the page/kick out. i appreciate k teams who play defense to negative fw arguments, not just offense throughout the debate-- especially if you're going for the impact turn. i am not super enthusiastic about "dont evaluate competing models just evaluate this round" but im willing to listen if that is the crux of your strategy.

fw teams-- i will vote on procedural fairness, but i think most teams do a better job utilizing it as an internal link. i am sympathetic towards switch side debate arguments. i think something that differentiates me from most fw judges is i dont think that a tva is the most important thing to win bc sometimes there are affs that dont have topical versions. but i do expect a defense of policy education that is specific to why the topic is good. if you aren't winning either a tva or a general defense of policy education, it will be much harder to win your education offense.

ks:

i don't like watching k debates that are predominately embedded clash. keep things organized. if there is going to be a long overview, let me know because i will flow it on a separate piece of paper before getting to the line-by-line stuff.

i usually lean towards letting the affirmative weigh the aff, but taking into account their epistemology/research practice/ontology for links. tell me why the links outweigh/turn the aff or spend ample time on framework explaining why they shouldn't get to weigh it. this requires clash with their interp and direct response to their offense.

debating the alternative v case is fun ! make sure it exists !

da/cps etc.

pretty straightforward for me. check the boxes, use good spin, etc. i am more persuaded by evidence quality than evidence quantity. there are rarely situations where there is 0 risk of a link-- if you have a cp that solves all the aff and a DA with just defense on it, its really hard for the aff to win. but there is always risk that a cp doesnt solve. 2nc da/cps are fair game-- its a constructive! be gamey, but not sloppy. the closer the debate, the more evidence i will read.

2ar/2nrs should tell the story of why they win and not just what they are winning (impact comparison!) take into consideration the other side's story and tell me why that isn't good enough to beat what you're going for. make strategic decisions and write my ballot for me. judge instruction is never looked down on.

t v policy affs:

i enjoy these debates. go slower on the standards.

theory stuff:

i generally think condo is good, but i will obvi vote on it. if you're going to go for it, invest the time and ink. i don't LIKE to judge kick but i will if told to by a 2nr who is winning condo; if its not instructed, i won't do it on my own volition.

default to reject the arg, not the team for everything except condo.

misc:

i love case debate, it is probably my favorite part of a debate to watch and do. do it. regardless of types of arguments you are running. i will vote on presumption but don't just go for presumption because you're losing your off-case arguments. if you are going to go for presumption, it should be a thoroughly developed strategy.

otherwise, be good people & have fun! if you have any questions feel free to email me or ask me before the round (: cheers!

kentucky '25

annastockstill11@gmail.com

- please please format the email chain correctly -- tournament name -- round # -- name (aff) vs name (neg)

POLICY

- do what you want, i genuinely don't care what you run and will listen to every argument within reason

- make my ballot for me -- don't make me have to debate the round for you because i won't -- tell me why i'm voting aff/neg and what i'm voting on

- cx is binding and i will flow it

- i enjoy watching methods debates but am probably a better judge for clash rounds

- the case debate is under-utilized in most debates

- i love impact turns (please nothing offensive though)

- condo is probably good - i can be persuaded otherwise but if it's less than 5 it will be an uphill battle

- i LOVE a good T debate

- "better team usually wins |---x---------------------| the rest of this" -- dave arnett

+0.1 speaks if you can make me laugh

- have fun and if you have any questions, just ask!

PF

coach for ivy bridge academy

- explain your arguments well -- i will never vote on an argument that i don't get a full explanation of

- crossfire is binding and i will flow it

- final focus should be writing my ballot for me -- tell me why i should vote pro/con and what arguments i'm voting for

LD

- i have limited experience judging/coaching LD and will judge it like its a short policy round

- i'm probably better for k or larp rounds

- i'm not sure why teams think that perm double bind is sufficient enough to win a round on

- i do not like voting on egregious theory but i begrudgingly will - that being said if theory/tricks comprise your core strat i will not be pleased

- since LD rounds are pretty short, i prefer when you really commit to one strategy

riley.rosalie@gmail.com ; 7 years of policy debate experience

Debated at the TOC level in high school for 4 years, debated at the University of Wyoming from 2017-2021

Judging 2021-Present (Policy, CARD, sometimes high school policy & LD)

Over the last few years of judging policy and CARD, I find myself being a big picture type judge. While I still believe that a dropped argument is true and I can follow tricky framing arguments on the flow, debaters need to provide clear judge direction in the rebuttals on what those arguments mean and how I should deal with them at the end of the round. I am most persuaded by teams that go for fewer arguments in the rebuttals, spend time impacting/fleshing them out, and telling me how it implicates the rest of the debate.

Impacts need to be fleshed out in the final speeches. I need to know what is triggering the impact, where some war is happening, why it's uniquely coming now, etc. I find myself voting for teams that spend a lot of time in the final rebuttal giving me specific details on their impacts, how they can be avoided, and doing impact comparison with the other team. Same goes for more structural impacts. Use your evidence! The details are there but they need to be brought into your analysis.

Case engagement is one of my favorite aspects of debate. I find the block not spending as much time on case, and it makes the debate a lot closer than it should be. If you read one off vs. a policy aff, reading impact defense, solvency take outs, and evidence indicts to these policy teams will go far in front of me. If you are aff, I am persuaded by teams that know their ev in/out and consistently talk about their aff (thorough impact explanations/comparison, drawing me a picture of what the aff world looks like, talking about the aff on other sheets, etc).

If you want me to vote on a role of the ballot/judge, there needs to be clear weighing and impact extension as to why this plays an important role in the debate. Evidence comparison and indicts are also great weighing mechanisms that I find are underutilized.

For kritiks v. policy affs, I prefer teams that give extensive analysis of their evidence and provide specific examples to contextualize their link with the aff, rather than dumping a bunch of cards or shadow extend arguments. If you read psychoanalysis or other high theory, I am going to need a lot of explanation on some basic concepts so please keep this in mind.

With counterplans, I default to judge kick unless told otherwise.

If you want to have some fun with what you read, I am all for it! I love impact turns including nuclear war good, untraditional styles where you’re playing games instead of debating with speech times, etc. – so long as there is a metric for how I as the judge evaluate the debate I am here for it.

--- LD ---

While I have not competed in LD, I have judged numerous varsity LD rounds from the local to national level. I do not have a preference to a style in which you debate the topic, i.e. philosophical, kritikal, traditional, etc., however, I do care that you debate the topic in some way.

Here are some thoughts that I have about particular arguments but also how I evaluate LD debates:

1. I view the value-criterion as the framing for the debate and typically go to that debate first so I can filter the rest of the debate through this framework. In some debates it matters, others it doesn't (especially if the teams agree on/have similar value-criterions).

2. I am going to take a bit from a former coach's paradigm because I believe this is something I encounter a lot in LD: "too many debaters do not do their evidence justice. You should not expect me to read your evidence after the round and realize it's awesome. You should make sure I know it's awesome while you read it...Debaters who concentrate on persuading the judge, [by thoroughly explaining their evidence and why it matters in the debate], will control the narrative of the round and win my ballot."

3. I do not like when debaters will read/extend a bunch of arguments that do not provide a good warrant or reason why the argument matters. I would rather the 1NC read 1 less off case position in favor of more developed case analysis, impact calc, or fully complete arguments. I would rather the 1ar make 1 less theory argument in favor of actually explaining what the words "perm do both" mean, why the case outweighs, and sinking time in where it matters.

4. Impacting out your arguments and doing impact/evidence comparison in the final rebuttals is very important to me. Tell me why your arguments matters, why they are a priority, and overall why you won the debate. Ships passing in the night or blippy extensions are not advantageous for you.

5. Conditionality is probably bad in LD, but it's not that hard to defend condo good and I think most of these counterplan issues are best resolved at the level of how competitive they are with the aff, not theory. Again, sink time into arguments where you feel confident in going for them and explaining thoroughly in your final rebuttal.

6. I do not discriminate against certain arguments but if you read Kant, I am probably not the judge for you. I have judge a few of these debates and they are pretty confusing to me. If you are a Kant person who gets me as a judge, I need a lot more explanation on some of these buzzwords. I am also convinced that many students who read Kant don't really go for an impact or tell me how it relates back to the resolution so please do these things.

Ria Thakur

Johns Hopkins University '26

Woodward Academy '22

Last Updated: 07/20/2023

Please add me to the email chain: riathakur228@gmail.com

Top Level

Most important thing is to be respectful and have fun. We are all taking valuable time out for this activity, hopefully everyone learns something from the debate. Please send out a speech document — don't intentionally take out any analytical arguments. Flow. Feel free to ask me any questions and/or email me post round.

Online Debate

It is very important to speak slightly slower and more clearly with online debate. I would prefer that you keep your camera on throughout the debate.

Do not worry too much if you have a tech issue — it happens and I know it can be stressful. Don't steal prep.

[Side Note: Your speech starts on your first word. You know that. I know that. So you really do not need to do the whole "Starting in 3...2...1..." countdown or say "Beginning on my first word...". Just go for it. You got this!]

General

Explain your positions well; the better you do so, the more likely you are to win your arguments. Contextualize your arguments to the opponent's position and make sure to cite and extend your evidence with well warranted claims. Do line-by-line and signpost your speech. Don't forget to explain the significance of winning a particular argument—why does that mean you should win the debate? Also, important moments from CX should show up in your speeches.

Please do not read positions such as "death good" in front of me.

Case

Case debating is very important. I can vote on complete defense. Impact turns are fun, but please explain them well.

Kritiks

I am fine with you reading pretty much whatever you want, but I cannot guarantee that I will understand everything. I am particularly not good for high theory debates. I like when kritiks are more topic (or aff) specific.

Contextualize the links to the affirmative. Explain the alternative.

Counterplans

Read what you want. Please have a solvency advocate.

Disadvantages

Good, specific links will take you a long way. I love good impact calculus and turns case arguments. Not the biggest fan of the Politics DA, but can still vote on it.

Miscellaneous

Don't hide ASPEC; put it on its own flow.

If you have good/better evidence on an argument, point it out in your speech (make sure to explain why it is better). I'll make sure to look at it.

New block arguments justify new 1AR answers.

Try not to speak for or over your partner in CX unless they are seriously struggling.

Patrick Waldinger 

Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Miami

Assistant Debate Coach at the Pine Crest School 

10+ years judging 

Yes, please put me on the speech doc: dinger AT gmail

Updated 9.2.14

Here are the two things you care about when you are looking to do the prefs so I’ll get right to them:

1. Conditionality: I think rampant conditionality is destroying the educational aspects of debate slowly but surely. You should not run more than one conditional argument in front of me.

Reading a K without an alternative and claiming it is a “gateway” issue doesn’t count. First, it likely contradicts with your CP, which is a reason that conditionality is both not educational and unfair. Second, there are no arbitrary “gateway” issues – there are the stock issues but methodology, for example, is not one of them the last time I read Steinberg’s book.

I also think there is a big difference between saying the CP is “conditional” versus “the status quo is always an option for the judge”. Conditional implies you can kick it at any time, however, if you choose not to kick it in the 2NR then that was your choice. You are stuck with that world. If the “status quo is always an option” for me, then the negative is saying that I, as the judge, have the option to kick the CP for them. You may think this is a mere semantic difference. That’s fine – but I DON’T. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

The notion that I (or any judge) can just kick the CP for the negative team seems absurd in the vein of extreme judge intervention. Can I make permutation arguments for the aff too? That being said, if the affirmative lets the negative have their cake and eat it too, then I’ll kick CPs left and right. However, it seems extremely silly to let the negative argue that the judge has the ability to kick the CP. In addition, if the negative never explicitly states that I can kick the CP in the 2NR then don’t be surprised when I do not kick it post-round (3NR?).

Finally, I want to note the sad irony when I read judge philosophies of some young coaches. Phrases similar to “conditionality is probably getting out of hand”, while true, show the sad state of affairs where the same people who benefited from the terrible practice of rampant conditionality are the same ones who realize how bad it is when they are on the other side.

2. Kritiks: In many respects going for a kritik is an uphill battle with me as the judge. I don’t read the literature and I’m not well versed in it. I view myself as a policymaker and thus I am interested in pragmatics. That being said, I think it is silly to dismiss entirely philosophical underpinnings of any policy.

Sometimes I really enjoy topic specific kritiks, for example, on the immigration topic I found the idea about whether or not the US should have any limits on migration a fascinating debate. However, kritiks that are not specific to the topic I will view with much more skepticism. In particular, kritiks that have no relation to pragmatic policymaking will have slim chance when I am judging (think Baudrillard).

If you are going for a K, you need to explain why the PLAN is bad. It’s good that you talk about the impact of your kritik but you need to explain why the plan’s assumptions justify that impact. Framing the debate is important and the frame that I am evaluating is surrounding the plan.

I am not a fan of kritiks that are based off of advantages rather than the plan, however, if you run them please don’t contradict yourself. If you say rhetoric is important and then use that same bad rhetoric, it will almost be impossible for you to win. If the 1AC is a speech act then the 1NC is one too.

I believe that the affirmative should defend a plan that is an example of the current high school or CEDA debate resolution. I believe that the affirmative should defend the consequences of their plan as if the United States or United States federal government were to actually enact your proposal.

The remainder:

“Truth over tech”? I mull this over a lot. This issue is probably the area that most judges grapple with, even if they seem confident on which side they take. I err of the side of "truth over tech" but that being said, debate is a game and how you perform matter for the outcome. While it is obviously true that in debate an argument that goes unanswered is considered “true”, that doesn’t mean there doesn’t have to be a logical reason behind the argument to begin with. That being said, I will be sensitive to new 2AR arguments as I think the argument, if logical, should have been in the debate earlier.

Topicality: Topicality is always a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue. I default to reasonability on topicality. It makes no sense to me that I should vote for the best interpretation, when the affirmative’s burden is only to be good. The affirmative would never lose if the negative said there is better solvency evidence the affirmative should have read. That being said, I understand that what “good’ means differs for people but that’s also true for what “better” is: both are subjective. I will vote on competing interpretations if the negative wins that is the best way to frame the debate (usually because the affirmative doesn’t defend reasonability).

The affirmative side has huge presumption on topicality if they can produce contextual evidence to prove their plan is topical. Specific examples of what cases would be/won’t be allowed under an interpretation are important.

People think “topical version of the aff” is the be all end all of topicality, however, it begs the question: is the aff topical? If the aff is topical then just saying “topical version of the aff” means nothing – you have presented A topical version of the aff in which the affirmative plan is also one.

Basically I look at the debate from the perspective of a policy debate coach from a medium sized school: is this something my team should be prepared to debate?

As a side note – often times the shell for topicality is read so quickly that it is very unclear exactly what your interpretation of the topic is. Given that, there are many times going into the block (and sometimes afterwards) that I don’t understand what argument you are making as to why the affirmative is not topical. It will be hard for me to embrace your argument if I don’t know what it is.

Counterplans: It is a lot easier to win that your counterplan is theoretically legitimate if you have a piece of evidence that is specific to the plan. And I mean SPECIFIC to the plan, not “NATO likes to talk about energy stuff” or the “50 states did this thing about energy one time”. Counterplans that include all of the plan are the most theoretically dubious. If your counterplan competes based on fiat, such as certainty or timeframe, that is also theoretically dubious. Agent counterplans and PICS (yes, I believe they are distinct) are in a grey area.  The bottom line: the counterplan should not be treated as some throw away argument – if you are going to read one then you should defend it.

Theory: I already talked a lot about it above but I wanted to mention that the only theoretical arguments that I believe are “voting issues” are conditionality and topicality. The rest are just reasons to reject the argument and/or allow the other side to advocate similar shenanigans. This is true even if the other side drops the argument in a speech.

Other stuff you may care about if you are still reading:

Aspec: If you don’t ask then cross-examination then I’ll assume that it wasn’t critical to your strategy. I understand “pre-round prep” and all but I’m not sure that’s enough of a reason to vote the affirmative down. If the affirmative fails to specify in cross-examination then you may have an argument. I'm not a huge fan of Agent CPs so if this is your reasong to vote against the aff, then you're probably barking up the wrong tree. 

**Addendum to ASPEC for "United States"**: I do think it is important for the aff to specify in cross-ex what "United States" means on the college topic. The nature of disads and solvency arguments (and potentially topicality) depend on what the aff means by "United States". I understand these are similiar arguments made by teams reading ASPEC on USFG but I feel that "United States" is so unique and can mean so many different things that a negative team should be able to know what the affirmative is advocating for. 

Evidence: I put a large emphasis on evidence quality. I read a lot of evidence at the end of the debate. I believe that you have to have evidence that actually says what you claim it says. Not just hint at it. Not just imply it. Not just infer it. You should just read good evidence. Also, you should default to reading more of the evidence in a debate. Not more evidence. More OF THE evidence. Don't give me a fortune cookie and expect me to give the full credit for the card's warrants. Bad, one sentence evidence is a symptom of rampant conditionality and antithetical to good policy making. 

Paperless: I only ask that you don’t take too much time and have integrity with the process, e.g., don’t steal prep, don’t give the other team egregious amounts of evidence you don’t intend to read, maintain your computers and jump drives so they are easy to use and don’t have viruses, etc.

Integrity: Read good arguments, make honest arguments, be nice and don’t cheat. Win because you are better and not because you resort to cheap tricks.

Civility: Be nice. Debate is supposed to be fun. You should be someone that people enjoy debating with and against – win or lose. Bad language is not necessary to convey an argument.

Zachary Watts (call me Zach, please)

Affiliation: Jesuit Dallas

History: Debated at Jesuit Dallas for 3 years in high school and at UT Austin for 4 years, coached at Jesuit Dallas for a year.

Speaker Position: 2A/1N in high school, 2N/1A in college

Email: zeezackattack@gmail.com

Updated 10/19/2023

Note: I haven't been too involved with judging, research, or argument development on this topic (for both college and high school), so I likely won't be super familiar with topic-specific arguments - when you're going for arguments, make sure that you're fully explaining them!

If you need a shorter version because this is right before a debate -

1. be nice to your opponents - debate isn't an activity to make people feel bad.

2. Make sure you're clear - I'm okay with speed, but if I can't understand you I can't flow you.

3. You should feel free to run the arguments that you're used to running and the debate will probably flow better if you do that as opposed to trying to fit my preferences - make sure you're condensing down to the key questions of the debate in the final rebuttals providing impact framing so I can evaluate which impacts I should view first.

Have fun and good luck!

General:

I will try my best to evaluate the debate based upon what I flow, although I am human and have some tendencies/leanings (discussed further below). I will flow the debate to the best of my ability - go as fast as you like, but if I can't understand what you're saying, I can't flow you (if this is the case, I will say clear - if you hear this either slow down or enunciate more (or both)). I will read a piece of evidence at the end of a debate if it is particularly important to my decision and heavily contested or you ask me to read it after the round (and have explained what you think is the problem with the evidence/why it warrants reading it after the round), but I think that the debate should come down to your analysis of the evidence in your speeches and comparative arguments as to why I should prefer your evidence/argument. I don't count flashing as prep - however, if you are obviously prepping after you called to stop, I will start prep and notify you that I'm doing so. If you are cheating (i.e. clipping cards) you will lose the round and get minimal speaker points; if you accuse somebody of cheating and there is not proof that they did so, the same will happen to you (and, in that case, not the team accused of cheating) - debate is supposed to be a fun, educational activity - don't ruin it for other people by trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Speaking:

As stated above, I'm fine with you speaking quickly, just don't sacrifice clarity for speed. Please engage in line-by-line and clash with the other team's arguments (this means doing some comparative analysis between your argument and that of your opponent, not just playing the "they say, we say" game or extending your arguments without referencing those of your opponent). If you could stick to the 1NC order on case and the 2AC order of arguments on off-case, that is very much appreciated. Using CX strategically (i.e. setting up your arguments, fleshing out some of their args to contextualize comparative analysis, pointing out flaws in their evidence, etc, and actually implementing them in your speech (it's okay to take prep to make sure some of the good things from CX make it into your speech)) will definitely earn you points. I will start at 28.5 and add or deduct points from there. Doing the things I said above will earn you more points (more points for executing them well) and not doing them or being rude to the other team will lose you points.

Topicality:

I think that topicality tends to be a bit overused as a time-suck for the 2AC, but don't let that deter you from running it - just an observation. If you're going to run T, you need to clearly articulate what your vision for the topic is, why the aff does not fit in that interpretation, and why the aff not fitting under that interpretation is bad and a reason that your interpretation is good. A lot of this comes down to the standards debate, but really explain why allowing the aff's scholarship being read in the round is bad for debate - why does the aff being outside of your interpretation make debate unfair for the negative team and why is that bad and/or why does the aff's form of scholarship trade off with topic-specific education and why should that come before the aff's form of education? On the aff, you should push back on these questions - you should have a we meet, a counter-interpretation (or at least a counter-interpretation and a reason why their interp is bad for the topic), and a reasonability argument - if I think that the aff fits within a fair interpretation of the topic and doesn't cause the "topic explosion" internal link that the neg is saying you do, I'm very likely to lean aff in that debate (please don't go for only reasonability in the 2AR - at that point, if you don't even have a we meet, it's very difficult for me to determine how you are reasonably topical). Please also be framing the impacts in terms of what the aff justifies (for the neg) or in terms of what it does in the round (for the aff, especially if you're pretty close to the topic) and explain why I should look at the T debate in a specific light (i.e. "in-round abuse" vs. "it's what they justify"). Especially in the rebuttals, please slow down a little bit on T (you don't have to go conversational speed, but please don't sound like you're going as fast as you would reading a piece of evidence) - it's a very technical debate to have and I might not get every warrant if I can't write down the words that you're saying as quickly as you're saying them, which may be frustrating to you if I didn't get something important. There's not a lot of pen time (i.e. times when I can catch up with flowing such as when cards are being read), so slowing down a bit on T would probably be beneficial for you.

Counterplans:

I think that counterplans are extremely useful and strategic for the negative and are often blown off by the aff. Counterplans should be competitive (textually as well as functionally - aff, if you point out that a CP is not functionally competitive, I am pretty likely to lean aff and dismiss the CP - be careful with this, though, as process CPs often have an internal net benefit; you should engage that CP on a theoretical level as well. Use CX to determine what the CP actually does before making the arguments about CP competitiveness), and I think process CPs are usually not theoretically justifiable. I am more likely to view these CPs a legitimate, however, if you have a solvency advocate specific to the aff or can use the aff's solvency evidence to justify the CP (especially if you have a reason why whatever process you do the aff through can't just be tacked onto the aff via a perm). Perms should not sever or be intrinsic, and CPs must demonstrate an opportunity cost with the aff.

Note about CP competition - CPs must be both textually and functionally competitive - that means if you're running a PIC, in order to compete, it must not only functionally do less than the plan, the CP text must also be written in such a way that it does not include all of the plan text.

If you're running a process CP, it must have a net benefit that is a DA to the aff and not simply an advantage to the process the CP has chosen. If it is the case that the process must be done in the context of the affirmative in order to achieve that advantage, then you have established an opportunity cost with the plan. If not, you have not established an opportunity cost with the plan.

DAs:

Neg, run specific links, diversify your impacts across DAs and make sure that the 1NC shell isn't just a case turn. Both sides need to do some impact calculus and tell me why your impacts turn the other team's or just outweigh them. Aff, especially in debates with multiple DAs, make sure your strategy is consistent - don't double-turn yourself across flows.

Politics DAs - I'm not a fan of the politics DA - I'm not saying you can't run it, but I'm more likely to reward smart aff analytics that point out inconsistencies in the uniqueness-link-internal link logic chain of the DA even if you read a lot of evidence highlighted to produce a warrant where none actually exists.

Kritiks:

I don't think that Ks should be excluded from debate, and I think that questioning the philosophical and theoretical basis of the arguments that are run is a good educational exercise that can be enjoyable to watch when it is done well. I think that you should read a specific link to the aff (or at the very least be able to explain why something the aff does is indicted by the link evidence you've read), an impact with a clear internal link to the link argument, and an alternative to solve that. While I think that Ks that impact out the implications of the aff's rhetoric in-round might lower the threshold for alt solvency beyond a rejection of the plan, anything (like the cap K) claiming larger and broader impacts will have to do more work to prove that the alternative is capable of solving that and explaining a reason why the permutation cannot function. For both sides, the FW debate needs to be handled like T in terms of competing interpretations for how I should evaluate the debate and explaining how your interpretation accesses your opponents standards and how your standards outweigh or turn the ones you do not solve. On both sides, you should also be explaining by the rebuttals what the implication of your interpretation is - if I, for example, treat the aff as an object of scholarship, what does that mean in terms of how I evaluate whether or not the aff is a good idea/should be endorsed? I think interpretations should be somewhat generalizable to debate as an activity, not your specific K - I think FW interps along the lines of 'ROB is to do whatever the K is' are too easily characterized by the aff as self-serving and arbitrary metrics for how the debate should be evaluated. Make sure to include turns case analysis in the block in addition to the impact in your 1NC (and remember to extend it in the 2NR!). Affs, you should have a reason that your scholarship should be prioritized, and take advantage of the fact that the weakest part of a K is usually the alt - if you can win reasons why the alt can't solve case or the K, it makes it easier for you to outweigh the K using case. Also, if the link is not specific, you should point that out and use your advantages (if possible) to prove a no link argument or a reason why the perm can solve. While I've become more familiar with the form of some Ks of communication, they're not my favorite and, from what I've seen, usually just become a fiat bad argument. My K literacy is less along the lines of post-modern Ks, so it'll probably take a bit more explanation on those for me to vote on them. I'm not the judge for death good arguments.

K aff v. K debates:

In these debates, it is very important for the negative to distinguish themselves from the aff. I know that sounds obvious, but truly, you need to be very specific about the link - what in specific about the aff are you criticizing (the way they construct the world/explain how violence operates, their solvency mechanism, etc.) and why does that matter - this is particularly true when there's not a whole lot of difference between the aff's and neg's impacts. This can be helped by distinguishing the alternative from the aff in order to resolve whatever link you make. For the aff, use the theoretical grounding that's probably already in your 1AC in order to engage the link debate (it's probably going to be a question of proving that your understanding is correct and good) and (if applicable) make perms. Neg, if you're going to make the argument that the aff shouldn't get perms in a method debate, do a bit of explanation about why (I'm not asking for like a minute on perms bad - maybe a 5 second explanation about testing the affirmative's method is good in debate or about why the two methods are mutually exclusive should be good enough).

Non-Traditional Affs/Framework:

After having many of these debates in college, I've come to enjoy thinking about FW debates from both the aff and the neg side. I think that when you're aff, whether you're running a creative take on the topic or have very little relationship to it, you need to come prepared to defend a model of what debate looks like (or why your unlimited approach to debate is good) and why it's better than switch side debate. I phrase it like this because I think that one of my biggest issues with aff approaches to answering FW is that they rely on winning some exclusion offense (that the content of what is being discussed by the aff/1AC is excluded under the neg's interpretation). I feel like that's often not the case - even if you're right that the neg's interpretation precludes you from running this 1AC when you're aff, it doesn't preclude you from running your critique of the topic as a negative strategy. I think that, if you approach the debate with trying to beat switch side debate in mind, you'll have a much better chance of winning that your model of debate is actually key to your offense. On the negative, I think that one of the most important framing arguments you can utilize to neutralize much of the aff's offense is the argument that debate is ultimately a competitive activity - even if it's educational, the ballot and a presumption that either team could get it if they win the debate incentivizes teams to do specific, in-depth research. I think that this allows you to claim that if you're winning a limits DA or another internal link for why the aff's counter-interpretation/model of debate creates an undue procedural burden on the negative, it means that the education impacts the aff claims to solve don't get debated or researched under the aff's model because there's not an incentive to do so.

Theory:

Theory requires a significant time investment for me to vote on it. I think that most theory arguments (i.e. one of the many reasons a process CP is theoretically objectionable) are reasons to reject an argument not the team; of course, conditionality is a reason to reject the team (if you win the theory debate). Theory arguments should have a clear interpretation, violation, and impact when initiated; the answer should have a counter-interpretation and reasons why that's a better vision of debate. I think that smart counter-interpretations can get out of a lot of theory offense because most theory impacts are based on worst-case scenarios. I think that there is definitely a scale for theory (i.e. I'm much more likely to vote on multiple conditional contradictory worlds than just condo) - while I apparently used to prioritize fairness over education in this calculus, that has decidedly changed. I think that in a condo debate, for example, you're much more likely to convince me that debates are worse quality if the negative gets conditional advocacies than that it is unfair for the negative to get conditional advocacies. Like on topicality, slow down on theory. If this is your victory path, it should be the entirety of your final rebuttal (2AR) - you're going to win or lose on this, and none of the rest of the debate matters when theory is a question of whether the debate should be happening in the first place (although if there are other parts of the debate that the neg has gone for that may be considered a prior question to theory, you need to have arguments for why theory comes first).

Olathe Northwest '22 and current debater at Gonzaga University.

If you have questions about anything, email me at kaelyn.a.w@gmail.com.

General:

I will NEVER vote for ableism/sexism/racism/homophobia good or anything similar, and will vote you down the second I hear it. Do what you're most comfortable with, I would much rather see you perform at your best than try to adapt to me.

Disadvantages:

I think DAs are one of your best take outs on the aff's case. I'm fine with general DAs but if they aren't specific to the case you should have good evidence that clearly outlines the link. I will vote on pretty much any DA impact as long as you compare it to the affs and explain why yours is better and have the evidence to back it up.

Counterplans:

Counterplans should be competitive with the aff. Have a clear understanding of the perms and be able to defend how they are not viable options. If I believe that the CP can be permed I will not vote on it. (if you are aff pointing out logical flaws in the cp is a good way for me to flow it to you). If you are running DAs and a CP together, PLEASE pick a CP that doesn't link to the DAs. As long as you can convince me that the CP is better than the aff I may vote on it.

Topicality:

I fucking love T. IMO the interpretation is an internal link to accessing the impacts of the standards so I most usually default to competing interpretations. I'm sympathetic to fun ways of arguing t such as it being an RVI, so if you understand those args and can defend them I say go for it.

Kritiks:

God I love Kritiks. I frequently run them myself and am familiar with most of the literature behind common ones (Cap, Biopolitics, Critical Disability Studies, etc). I know the general concepts for others like Baudrillard but am not well versed so as a general rule make sure you have clear explanations. Your K should have a clear link to the aff, and I probably won't vote for it if there isn't one. I prefer functional alts, but have no problem with voting for the K as an independent DA if you choose to kick the alt. I find K debates super fun and interesting, so it may be a good choice if you're on the neg.

Framing:

FRAMING. FRAMING. FRAMING. Explain to me why your impact matters!!! This is key for both sides of the debate. If I believe the entirety of the aff and neg arguments because no real clash has taken place then it comes down to whoever has done the better job of showing why their impact is the most important.

Theory:

Don't run it if it's not warranted. I'm not a huge fan of voting on theory, but if the round comes down to it I will vote on it.

Email: womboughsam36@gmail.com

UGA Law '27

Georgia Tech '23 (History and Sociology)

Woodward Academy ’20

Topic Knowledge: I have judged a lot of debates and worked at ENDI this past summer.

Last Substantively Updated: 1/7/24

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Short Version + Novices (est. 45 sec. to read)

"Debate like an adult. Show me the evidence. Attend to the details. Don't dodge, clash. Great research and informed comparisons win debates." — Bill Batterman

Flow.

Be nice.

Be clear.

Have fun!

Time yourselves.

It’s probably not a voting issue.

If you read a plan, defend and clarify it.

Do not request a marked copy in lieu of flowing.

Be an evidenced, well-reasoned critic, not a cynic.

If you stop prep and then re-start prep, take off 10 seconds of prep.

If you don't have your video on in online debate, I will struggle to stay engaged.

An argument must be complete and comprehensible before there is a burden to answer it.

Focus on depth in argument. It's more engaging and is the only reliable way to beat good teams.

Write my ballot for me at the top of your late rebuttals, without using any debate jargon or hyperbole.

"Marking a card" means actually clearly marking that card on your computer (e.g. multiple Enter key pushes).

If you advocate something, at some point in the debate, you need to explain the tangible results of your advocacy without relying on any debate or philosophy jargon.

There has been a significant decline in the quality of speaking since online debate started because debaters became less familiar with speaking directly to the judge and because judges gave more leeway to the absence of clarity due to the computer instrument. Judges should never have to rely on reading along with the speech document in order to flow tags/analytics. If you have no intonation nor emphasis during tags/analytics/rebuttals, you are a bad speaker.

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More Stuff (est. 1:30 min. to read)

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Debate

I really enjoy debate. Debate is the most rewarding activity I have ever done. But debate didn't always feel rewarding while I was doing it. Accordingly, I hope that everybody prioritizes having fun, and then learning and improving.

From Johnnie Stupek's paradigm: "I encourage debaters to adopt speaking practices that make the debate easier for me to flow including: structured line-by-line, clarity when communicating plan or counterplan texts, emphasizing important lines in the body of your evidence, and descriptively labelling off-case positions in the 1NC."

Purging your speech documents of analytics and then rocking through them will be just as likely to "trick" me into not flowing an argument as it will be your opponents.

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Case

I will vote on absolute defense.

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Critiques

Explain; don’t confuse.

It is anti-black for debaters that are not black (team) to present afropessimist arguments. This practice exists because of the anti-blackness or cowardice of some non-black educators in debate. Frank Wilderson III claims that he "grieves over" debate's appropriation of his work (“Staying Ready for Black Study: A Conversation”).

Postmodernism— Debaters often mischaracterize ornamental absolutism in philosophical writings as almost-theological dogmatisms about how the world operates. This is anti-modern, not postmodern. <— I don't know if that paragraph makes any sense.

I've seen a few debates exclusively about personal identity that were extremely distressful for both sides. I think it's really weird when a high school student prompts a rejoinder from their peers to a pure affirmation of their identity. Please don't make me adjudicate it.

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Non-Topical Debates

"No" to aff conditionality. Defend your aff and comparatively weigh offense.

Please stop referencing college debate rounds that you only know about thirdhand.

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Theory

The more conditional advocacies there are in the 1NC, the worse the debate usually is.

I am sympathetic to affirmative complaints about process counterplans and agent counterplans that do nearly all of the affirmative. These counterplans, with the States-multi-plank CP in mind, tend to stagnate negative topic innovation and have single-handedly ruined some topics (Education).

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Extra

I almost always defer to technical debating, but in close debates:

I am a degrowth hack. T: Substantial against a quantifiably small aff is fun.

I am easily convinced that Bostrom-esque "extinction first" is incoherent and can justify repulsive ideologies.

I strongly believe that China is not militarily revisionist. I think Sinophobic scholarship is festering in debate.

With respect to "Catastrophe Good" arguments, "we must die to destroy a particle accelerator that will consume the universe" is less convincing to me than a nihilism or misanthropy argument. I value accurate science.

Lastly, don't purposefully try to fluster the judge if you want quality post-round answers.

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Cheating

In the instance that a team accuses the other of clipping, I will follow the NDCA clipping guidelines (2).

Strawmanning is an ethics violation as per the NSDA guidelines.

(1) https://the3nr.com/2014/08/20/how-to-never-clip-cards-a-guide-for-debaters/

(2) https://static.squarespace.com/static/53416a18e4b0aa2aaadf85e4/t/53665f81e4b03af4b79e088f/1399218049326/clipping.pdf

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More References

https://the3nr.com/2009/11/03/judging-methodologies-how-do-judges-reach-their-decisions/

https://the3nr.com/2016/04/15/an-updated-speaker-point-scale-based-on-2015-2016-results/ (I inflate this).

https://new.debateus.org/to-consult-or-not-to-consult-on-the-theoretical-legitimacy-of-the-consultation-counterplan/

Debater for Georgetown (2024-)

Assistant Coach and Researcher for Banneker/Washington Urban Debate League (2023-)

American University '27 (Public Health)

Woodward Academy '23

Email Chain: jayyoon35@gmail.com

Jay, not judge.

Individuals who have influenced parts of my paradigm:

Maggie Berthiaume

Bill Batterman

Sam Wombough

Zaria Jarman

Jack Hightower

David Trigaux

Liv Birnstad

Top Level

Good luck!

Be nice, have fun, don't clip, and learn something from the round.

Extinction first/extinction good is unethical and never prioritized.

Send analytics.

If I cannot flow an argument, it does not count as one.

If an argument does not have a warrant, it is not an argument.

Clash > Tricks

Truth = Tech

Accessibility

Have a way to share ev if one team is using paper.

Don't read args with graphic descriptions unless everyone in the round is fine with it.

Don't spread if speed is not accessible to your opponents.

Biases

As debate is a persuasive activity, confidence and intelligent arguments are important. While every judge has their own biases, which are subject to change over time, here are some of mine:

Death/suffering is bad

War is bad

Climate change is real and exacerbated daily

Discrimination and violence in any form is bad.

1NC

Hiding ASPEC is bad; therefore the aff is permitted to briefly address it and move on. not auto-neg even if dropped.

Case

I will consider voting on complete defense if there is minimal/no risk of aff solvency.

Case turns are good.

Don't forget about impact framing.

Disadvantages

If the DA is incomplete, it is not an argument. The 1AR gets new answers when the missing part/s are added.

The link is the most important part of the DA. I will not disregard the importance of the UQ and impact despite that.

Politics DAs are structurally flawed and rely upon a flawed model of politics. The aff can easily mitigate the risk by pointing out and emphasizing these flaws. Intrinsic DAs are better for neg ground and clash throughout the round so I might not be the best judge if your 2NRs are mostly politics.

Turns case is useful but it needs to be developed further in the overview/line-by-line.

Impact/Case Turns

I enjoy them, assuming they aren't offensive/morally objectionable. Winning an impact turn will require some defense to mitigate the risk of the case.

Counterplans

States: Don't leave D.C. out of texts or advocacy statements. Uniformity is unrealistic

Have a relevant solvency advocate in the 1NC; if the neg reads a specific solvency advocate in the block (as opposed to the 1NC), the aff gets new answers.

CPs should fiat a specific policy, not an outcome.

Process and Agent CPs: Arguments on the competition flow are likely more persuasive than theory but theory args can complement competition args if warranted out properly.

Critiques

Ks are particularly significant for this year's topic. The Ks I'm most familiar with include degrowth/growth bad (both as a K and DA/impact turn), settler colonialism, capitalism/neoliberalism, and security. Moving toward higher theory literature such as Psychoanalysis or Baudrillard is where I might start to get lost.

I will default to weighing the aff/perm against the alt. Neg teams can read links stemming from the aff's actions , defense of impacts, as well as the mechanism/ representations (without becoming a PIK). I think that PIKs out of the aff’s reps are only competitive if the neg proves that the aff’s reps are bad. If the aff wins their reps are good, I’m much more like to vote aff on a perm.

Explain the links and alt level and distinguish them from a vague and potentially utopian outcome.

K Affs

I have only been negative against critical affs.

Defend the entirety of your 1AC, including your authors and concepts forwarded.

There is a higher threshold for perms when the neg has specific links/the aff has a vaguer advocacy.

Fairness can be an impact depending on how it's argued. Even if not, it is a large internal link to other impacts.

Topicality

Not the best judge for T vs policy affs.

Plan text in a vacuum is a bad argument.

T is not a reverse voting issue.

Procedurals

Likely not a voting issue unless dropped and warranted.

Disclosure is good.

Plans should not be vague to the point where it is undebatable.

Hiding APSEC/theory is a good way to lose speaker points.

Theory

Condo: I'm comfortable voting aff if there are at least two conditional advocacies. It's also the only reason to reject the team unless warranted out in explicit detail. Condo also becomes more persuasive when combined with args like perf con. Make sure to distinguish between conditional (judge kick is not permitted) and the status quo is a logical option (judge kick is permitted) when stating the interp.

Good theory debating requires good line-by-line.

If you still have questions, feel free to ask before the round starts.