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Langley Intramural

2023 — Mclean, VA/US

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Varun Bazaz Hire

Connor Chun Hire

Last changed on Mon May 27, 2024 at 4:55 PM EDT

Langley '26 | PF for two years

Add me to the email chain: chunconnor@gmail.com (he/him)

While I come from the incredibly lay Virginia circuit, I have a decent amount of experience on the natcirc. I dislike much of the local debate. Why is cutting cards banned? Why are summary speeches still two minutes?? Is it really impossible to find any judge who at least has some idea of what debate is??? It should be pretty obvious which circuit I prefer...

Hard Prefs

Stolen from my friend Tobin- There are not enough people yelling clear or requiring their students be clear. Yes kids today don’t flow because they just look at the speech document- but guess why they do that? Because no one can understand what the other team is saying [...] even when I say “clear” people totally ignore it.

Here is what it means when a judge says “clear”: I cannot understand what you are saying, therefore I cannot count any of the arguments you are making. Without arguments you will probably lose.

What kids hear: “LOUDER” “1% slower please” “Can you enunciate for like 5 seconds and then go back to mumbling?”

That being said, there are a few (pretty obvious) things that are absolutely set in stone, so you should definitely read this if you want a quick summary of my preferences. These are more lenient in novice/jv rounds (excluding respect)

1. Be respectful. Any bigotry or blatant rudeness will get you a quick L20.

2. Speed is fine- be coherent. I hold a high value in clarity because realistically if I can't understand you, I can't flow your arguments. Send a doc if you're going fast, but even then I prefer not to use it.

3. Obviously keep track of your own time. I will also be timing and stop flowing once the timer hits zero, give or take 3~ish seconds.

4. Evidence exchanges have a tendency to take way too long. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to grab a card your speaks will suffer. I'd prefer it if you sent cut cards before speeches or at the very least before constructive.

5. Theory is fine, but I shouldn't be trusted to evaluate K's very well.

Other Stuff

Top level I default util, but have ran lots of SV and Extinction framing. Reading carded frameworks in first summary is iffy and reading it in second summary is way too late unless you're responding to your opponents' framing. Pre-fiat "discourse" arguments aren't the most persuasive.

Make my job easy by explaining your clear path to the ballot. Collapse on your case, collapse on their case. Debate is quality > quantity so rather than going for five unweighed turns it makes way more sense to go for one with good weighing and a strong link chain.

If an argument is dropped in the next speech, it's conceded, and if an argument is not extended, it's not there.

Weigh. Lots of round come down to whoever is winning weighing. Do lots of it, but have good warranting and explanations if you want it to be a voter. Probability weighing is just another way of explaining why you are winning your link and is often just new defense in the summary speeches. If you go up in summary and say "we ow on probability because their argument about nuclear war is stopped by MAD," that's new defense I won't vote on.

If I look confused I probably am.

Miles Gu Hire

Sahil Gubbi Hire

Shaun Jones Hire

Last changed on Sun July 21, 2024 at 6:07 AM EDT

Basis Independent McLean '24, UC Irvine '28 |PF| shaunjones247@gmail.com (he/him)

About Me: Debated for 3 years locally as Basis Independent McLean Z[J] and 1 year nationally as Basis Independent McLean [J]R. I was ok at both. Now I go to UC Irvine where I'm double majoring in Political Science and Mechanical Engineering.

Quick excerpt about the local VA circuit from my good friend (and the guy who ended my debate career) Connor Chun:

"I dislike much of the local debate. Why is cutting cards banned? Why are summary speeches still two minutes?? Is it really impossible to find any judge who at least has some idea of what debate is??? It should be pretty obvious which circuit I prefer..."

**-----NOTE FOR NSD CAMP TOURNAMENT-----**

Epsilon/ThetaCANNOT initiate theory on Lamba/Kappa kids. Otherwise everything else still applies.

TLDR:Typical Tech > Truth judge. Good with speed, please send doc. Not great with progressive argumentation (I ran theory twice in my career) so please slow down and warrant in the backhalf. Anything bigoted gets a calm L20 and a report to tab. Disclosure good, paraphrasing bad. Debate is a game, yall should be enjoying yourselves and having fun. Please just refer to me as Shaun, not judge. Please tell me if there is anything I can do to accommodate you in your round!

Not a fan of the oldheads who proclaim "PF is not policy-lite!!!" and "Put the Public back in Public Forum!!!" . To say that an entire event is getting ruined because people are innovating away from your personal debate style of the mid to late 20th century is... incredibly self-centered... to say the least.

Prefs Sheet:

1 - Substance

2 - Theory / Topical K's

3 - Non - T K's

4 - Tricks (I find them abusive but theyre kinda funny)

Strike - Phil, High Theory (Its not that i dont like them, its that I have no idea how to properly evaluate them)

Stuff specific to the local Virginia Circuit (WACFL): Disclosure isn't a norm, I won't vote off of it. I would be inclined to drop you if you read disclosure against teams that you know don't have an opencaselist. Substance only unless both teams agree to do a prog round. I'm also not allowed to disclose rfd after round - you'll have to wait in anxiety.Please set up an email chain though; WACFL rounds run super late because it takes years for teams to call for individual cards, so setting up an email chain before round will make things much smoother.

Content Warnings:

Please provide content warnings if you are about to discuss sensitive topics (sexual violence, self-harm) in the form of an anonymous opt out form. If you don't do this and read distressing content I will drop your speaks to the lowest.

Prep Time:

pls track your own prep time, i'm too lazy. i trust u wont lie to me. Flex prep is fine.

Evidence:

Warranted Analytics > Unwarranted Cards

Add me on the email chain. If youre going fast send a carded doc so I can follow along and so that we don't waste time calling for evidence. If you don't send a carded doc before the speech please at least send one afterwards - be wary that I'm gonna let the other team steal prep in this case. I have an extremely low bar when it comes to responses that indict evidence from Medium. If your case has evidence from Medium it better a) be from a real human being and b) have sufficient warranting for what you're reading in case.

I don't really care about clipping unless its super egregious e.g. a team deliberately highlights a part of the card that has a major implication/impact, doesnt read it, doesnt mark the doc, then collapses on that arg using that highlighted part in the extension. Other than that, I'm not gonna drop a team because they forgot to rehighlight cards after cutting down case.

I'm probably not a great judge for evidence challenges. To win one you would have to prove that a) a team deliberately cut a card to completely misrepresent what its saying and/or b) fabricated evidence. Doing either of these things is quite difficult, so you're better off just pointing out their horrible evidence ethics and it casts alot of doubt on them on my end.

Speeches:

Please signpost. I'm good with speed and I'll clear you if needed. I stop flowing 5 seconds over time.

Cross:
Nothing said in cross goes on my flow unless it's brought forward into subsequent speeches. Be assertive, but not overly aggressive. A good cross will benefit your speaks, even if you lose the round overall. If everyone is in agreement we can skip grand for 1 min of extra prep. Open cross is fine if that's your preference, just make sure to ask the other team first.

2nd rebuttal has to frontline: If you don't frontline at all you've basically lost the round and the other team can call a TKO after 1st summary if they play their cards right. Generated offense in 2nd rebuttal has to be in the form of turns and not just new DA's. No new framing in 2nd rebuttal. If it was that important to you it shouldve been in constructive.

Summary:

No new evidence. (Unless its to frontline your own case in first summary)

Defense isn't sticky. Please extend defense in every speech; you can't forget to extend a piece of defense in summary and do a ritual in final focus to summon it again. I won't flow it. I should be able to draw a line from the 2AC to the 2AR.

Extensions don't have to be perfect. As long as you extend uniqueness, link chain, and impact, ur good. If I don't hear an extension ur doomed lowkey. U should also collapse in summary, its a good idea. This also applies to turns: you have to extend UQ, the Link turn itself, and an impact or else I can only eval it as defense.

A note about turns:

Don't extend UQ? I would be hesitant to vote on it. Why? Reading your own UQ and extending a turn means that all I have to do is vote on a risk of your impact happening. Don't extend the turn itself? Self-explanatory. Don't extend an impact? I can't evaluate it as offense absent some implications that affect diff areas of case. I'm ok with impact turns like dedev, spark and wipeout but im not ok with death good.

Weighing is very very very important. I like seeing direct comparisons between impact scenarios and links. This means that the weighing has to be comparative. Weighing is not "we cause a nuclear war" and nothing else. I want to hear "We outweigh on timeframe because our impact triggers instantly while theirs takes x years" - that's a direct comparison. If teams present different weighing mechanisms, please meta-weigh. If neither side meta-weighs I default to timeframe + magnitude.

My personal thoughts on probability weighing: The only probability weighing that I will buy is off an implication of a non-unique, saying that the link did trigger at some point but the impact never happened. If the other team can't frontline this properly and you do probability weighing, I'd buy it as long as its actually comparative to your case. The probability weighing that I would never buy is the blippy, unwarranted, new in 1st final weighing that just says "nuclear war has never actually happened before yap yap yap we outweigh" - thats just new defense you never read in rebuttal. Debate is a simulation - even if the argument is space col, if its conceded it has 100% probability and if weighed properly I will vote on it.

Final Focus:

Final should mirror summary. If the 2AR makes new responses not present in the 1AR then the 2NR can make frontlines that wouldve been in the 1NR had they never went new in first final. I'd also be inclined to give them a 5 second grace period bc they have to frontline something new. I will try to protect 1st Final Focus - meaning that I will be heavily scrutinizing 2nd final to make sure everything said there was actually in summary.

Framing

I like a good framing debate. I won't accept "Other team has to respond in their constructive" or "Other teams can't read link ins to the framing" absent warranting as underviews or general responses. Youre just avoiding clash at that point. Grow up. Nuclear war doesn't link into SV framing from a technical or truth perspective. This won't factor into my decision because that would be intervening but I will a) have a very low bar for responses against it and b) would not like voting off of it. I also don't buy prefiat weighing off of a discourse argument - I really don't get how you deserve a ballot for simply talking about an issue regardless of the postfiat outcome.

Theory:

I'll evaluate disclo, trigger warning and paraphrase. Disclosure is good, paraphrasing is bad. I won't hack for these positions tho. If theres no offense from either side I err to those positions. Don't run theory on people who are obviously novices ('obviously' means their record is on the entries page and its all PF-Novice division). If you're in varsity anything is fair game. I don't care if you don't know how to respond to theory, "theory is dumb" and "we dont know how to respond" are not responses at all.

I default to reasonability because i can't just make up an interp if im not competing in the round so PLEASE if you're arguing against disclo/paraphrase/trigger warning you HAVE to give me a counter interp or else i err against you. Personally, I err against friv theory so if you want me to vote on a friv shell just read a CI. Just read a counter interp, it greatly increases your chances of winning.

I (might) pursue law in the future, so spirit of the interp is not something I'm gonna buy. What the interp says is whats being debated, you can't change that. Make sure your interps are as specific as possible so noone can exploit them.

If you are from a large school (>5 unique entries on your school's disclo page) and read small schools in response to the shell I'm tanking your speaks even if you win the argument. (My school has had 1 national circuit team ever and we still disclosed every single round we did that year - even locals). Just disclose, its not that hard.

IVI's are weird but if you read one and win it ill eval it.

K's:

I'm fine with them. Just make sure to send a doc so I can follow along. Never ran them when I competed so please warrant things out for me to understand. I will vote for things I'm ideologically opposed to (like cap good) if the warranting is sufficient. Just win the flow. Don't run Afropess if you're not black, don't run Fem Rage if you're not female - identifying. Doing either of those is kinda weird.

Presumption:

I generally presume aff, if the neg cant prove why doing the aff is bad then I see no reason why we shouldnt at least try doing the aff.

Speaks:

I generally give high speaks (28 - 29.5 range), but it's not too hard to get a 30 from me. Just have a good strategy (like going for turns, innovative weighing I like) and you'll be guaranteed high speaks. If you go all in on a turn and it works in your favor you're guaranteed a 29.5 at minimum.

Postrounding:

You can, and should, postround me. Postrounding helps me as a judge improve in the future, and gives you, the competitor, a better understanding of how I voted and how to handle similar situations in the future rounds.

Fun Stuff:

If both teams agree, we can do a lay round and everyone gets 30s. Will vote off of vibes.

Any reference to the English football club Tottenham Hotspur that makes me laugh will be +0.25 speaks (COYS!)

If you truly believe that a team has no possible path to the ballot after a summary speech, you can call a TKO. If you're right, everyone in the round gets 30s. If you're wrong, its an L25 for you.

Good luck, have fun, and do your best!

Amy Key Hire

Vishwa Reddy Rakasi Hire

Ben Rask Hire

Last changed on Sat July 6, 2024 at 4:10 PM EDT

add me to the email chain: brask225@gmail.com

tech > truth

3 yrs of pf on nat cir (so far)

general:

keep offtime roadmaps short

theory is good, but you have to send a doc. im not good at evaluating k's so its probably safer not to read them on me, ill try my best if u do tho

send a doc if you are going to spread, but im not going to flow off it - if i have to say clear more than twice ill stop flowing

if an argument isn't responded to in the next speech it's conceded, with the exception of second constructive unless first constructive gives a warrant otherwise (this means second rebuttal has to frontline everything or its conceded)

analytics are good if they have warrants; simply saying "they don't read evidence" isn't a sufficient frontline; warranted ev > warranted analytic > unwarranted ev > unwarranted analytic

speaks start at 28.5 and go up or down for how well you do what i ask in my paradigm

if you are going to concede defense to kick out of a turn, you have to say explicitly what responses you are conceding and how it takes out their turn -- doesn't have to be more than 5 seconds AND it has to come in the speech after the defense was read

i don't really care about cross, but it is binding so if they concede something bring it up in your speech. pls be nice; if you are excessively rude in cross your speaks will tank.

evidence:

pls have cut cards and read paraphrasing theory

set up an email chain before round ; if you take more than a minute to find one piece of evidence, your speaks will tank

likewise, don't call for an unnecessary amount of evidence; if i think you're stealing prep while calling for evidence, ill dock your speaks a lot

to avoid all this, if you send all the cards you read before your constructive and rebuttal ill give you +0.5 speaks

backhalf:

please collapse

if you want it to be on my ballot it has to be extended with a warrant in summary and final

defense isn't sticky

extend all parts of an argument (uniqueness, link, internal link, impact) in the backhalf, theory shells must be extended in rebuttal

if you go for a link turn, extend the impact. if you go for an impact turn, extend the link.

pls weigh, metaweigh, and respond to their weighing so i know what to vote for, otherwise i dont know how to evaluate the round

new weighing in first final is okay but not ideal and the threshold for responding is very low

Ahaan Shah Hire

Arman Syed Hire

tobin wilson Hire

Last changed on Mon April 22, 2024 at 10:26 AM EDT

safety>tech>truth

TLDR

I flow, i can evaluate tech, prog, k's, wtv. I've ran topical and non-topical k's, friv, etc. still though I pref substance

make it easy to evaluate---give me comparative weighing and collapse on good arguments not many arguments (not saying don't go for more than one arg or smth just quality over quantity)

bigotry is an L20

be fast I don't want to be sitting in the back for 2 minutes waiting for an ev exchange to happen

prefs

spreading send speech docs, if you're going to do the same gargling marbles pf spreading most kids do TELL ME WHEN YOU'RE GOING OFF THE DOC OR MARK IT IN THE DOC

no new args in back half, please collapse

explicate kicks---no judge kick and you have to tell me how conceding a piece of defense kicks smth

weighing prefs

as a general matter first thing I look for is a pre req with timeframe, you should do good analysis on these things as always. but i'll look to wtv weighing mech you tell me to look at first

probability is normally fake, if you have the same impact and have good comparatives go for it but i don't just buy "this argument is not probable so you shouldn't vote for it." that's just link defense. only time you could go for probability and make some sense would be if your arg is conceded and there is ink on theirs but my threshold for responding to weighing like that is low.

i deeply dislike intervening actors weighing the way most people do it in pf (eg timeframe first cus longer impacts have more intervening actors or sv first cus nobody looks to sv). it’s not something you can’t win off of, nor do i think it’s a fundamentally bad way to weigh. rather, the issue is how high schoolers do it by just saying “oh there’s intervening actors so their problem gets solved” with no explanation of the mechanics. it’s basically a form of defense that for some reason we have allowed to be argued without any explanation or warranting—do better

Prog

I can eval theory

don't read disclo or other theory on kids who don't know how to answer it that's just sad

threshold for good answers to theory is pretty low

for k's I can generally eval k's, i'm familiar with some lit but assume I'm not.

I mainly flow/watch and read decisions from NDT/CEDA K rounds, all that really means is that my standards for k is going to be pretty high and that a lot of the crap k debate that goes on in pf isn't something I want to judge. if you're going to read a k you should have a genuine good understanding of how to do it.

you should have good alts and have solvency cards unless you have a reason why it's uneeded and you read it in round

tell me how to eval the k vs k or policy or wtv, eg "weigh the impacts of the plan against the k"

DO THE LINE BY LINE THIS GOES FOR BOTH SIDES

when it comes to non-topical i'm good to evaluate them but when answering t-fw:

I enjoy creative counterinterps

you should do the work to answer whether procedural or structural issues come first

I enjoy creative T and I really hope you have a good idea what you're doing when going for T

update for k debates: I do not want to sit in the back listening to a two minute overview and blippy crossapps and implications, i will have a high threshold for contextual explanations.

other prefs

pre-fiat "discourse" is silly, you don't get the ballot just for bringing up a certain problem especially if you're losing the rest of the flow. why am I voting for the neg who read a fw when the aff proved they're policy is better than the neg for those groups?

i presume first

extend whatever you're going for, this rlly shouldn't have to be said...

feel free to postround

dml good paradigm

good reads: https://the3nr.com/2012/10/16/kids-today-2/#more-2747

"1 good card >X bad ones if X is ANY NUMBER EVER."

https://the3nr.com/2011/11/28/kids-today-part-deux/

https://the3nr.com/2012/10/08/common-mistakes/

"Pay attention for your partner. Make sure they don’t drop things, answer arguments in the speech doc that weren’t read etc"

if you remind your partner of something during their speech it's not a matter for how I eval your speaks, I think it's a normal that should be in PF more

some thoughts (will add on as time goes on):

reflexive fiat is interesting, go for it if you want and i’ll do my best to evaluate it

I will evaluate topical k’s even when there’s a perfcon. eg: reading sec k after reading a bunch of escalation scenarios. why? the role of the neg is essentially to test the policies of the aff. if there is an alt when i vote neg on the k i’m not endorsing the neg but rather, if they’re winning the k, i’m endorsing the alt which solves securitization or wins them enough offense under the fw and it at least proves that the aff is bad. impacts of the k do not become non unique as that would mean that every impact of the k is non unique no matter what (which is an argument you of course can make but a perfcon will not be evaluated as defense by me unless you do a lot of work). subject to change depending on rounds ofc but just be warned if you don’t have perfcon stuff prepped you will have to do more work.

MSPDP

Tech > truth

Anything goes. I don't care about truth value, the only thing that matters is how an argument is handled within the debate. Extend everything, if it is not in the third speech I will not vote off it, even if it could have won you the round.

Pace: Speed is fine, talk as fast as you want but I need to be able to understand it. Also if you decide to do what is basically an original oratory speech or some emotional speech instead of a debate speech, then I seriously don't care. I only care about your substance, it might help your speaker points, but it will not be able to win you the debate.

Order: order doesn't really matter, I'll assume offense defense weighing for the rebuttal and third speech, but I'll only flow like that if you don't read out an order at the start of your speech, otherwise just say how you are going to do the order and I'll flow that.

Strat: If something get's dropped by another team it is cold conceded, you can kick args, any type of prog strategies you want to use are fine. I'm more accustomed to tech debate debate so you will get more speaker points for jargon and such that speeds up the pace of the debate.

Frameworks: Only read a framework if it actually does something, if you just say I frame this debate around (the resolution almost word for word) or anything along those lines I will deduct speaker points. Your framework should be a way to pre-emptively weigh this debate for me, not just a way to isolate where the impacts of your arguments will be. If you are going to limit the debate to a specific place or thing, then you need to provide a reason why. Don't just say "we frame this debate around the United States," tell me why I should prefer the debate to be weighed around the united states and not globally.

Presumption: I will generally presume neg just based off aff burden, but if presume aff warrants are read I will evaluate those.

Aileen Wu Hire

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Langley Intramural

2023 — Mclean, VA/US

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