Northview' 25

debatebtbc@gmail.com

You can read a policy aff. Or a K aff. Or some weird thing in between that no one has ever seen before. I don't mind and will not insert underlying predispositions on any of these.

Tech>truth to it's highest logical extent. Frustrating when judges don't know how to hold the line or look at the flow objectively---I'll try my best to not be that. I will vote on the mickey mouse fiat k or aspec with no hesitation ONLY IF the other team actually drops it.

Fairness>Clash

I don't understand counterplan competition. Probably never will.

If I look like I don't want to be there, it's not because of you, it's because I was talking to Jerry Chen pre-round.

I will not vote on things that occurred outside the round.

Good luck.

Jerry Chen

Northview '25

debatebtbc@gmail.com

Tech over truth. Take every thought and opinion in this paradigm with a grain of salt because any argument can win given the better debating. That means I will vote on any argument as long as it is on my flow and technically won, including arguments like death good and wipeout. My job as a judge is solely to evaluate the flow objectively and technically, not arbitrarily insert my opinions and let those insertions influence the decision.

Given that, the only things I will refuse to vote on are events that transpired outside of the round. Ad-homs, callouts, and attacks on personal character are not arguments.

Novices

---Less cards; more explanation. Too many novices read files and blocks straight down---I will reward teams that consistently extend previously read evidence before reading new cards and who directly engage in line by line.

---Flow! This is a super important practice and is overlooked in novice debates. Flowing well and using your flow effectively is the biggest difference maker when you're a novice, so take advantage of it.

---Abuse impact calculus. The best novice debates I have judged involved heavy impact weighing from both sides.

---Be efficient. You should know how to send a speech doc, reply all to an email, track prep, and do cross-ex by now.

Overview

---Give judge instruction. The top of your final rebuttals should clearly outline why I should vote for you and what I am voting on.

---"When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate." - Matt Cekanor.

Topicality

---Teams should clearly go for predictability outweighing debatability or vice versa, not go for a combination of both or a middle ground.

---Plan text in a vacuum is fine.

Counterplans

---Judgekick is good.

---You should read solvency advocates in the 1NC unless you're against a new aff.

---Fine for 2NC counterplanning out of add-ons.

---I'm pretty comfortable and probably err neg in competition debates. 2Ns let 2As get away with murder way too much with abusive perms that are clearly illegitimate---draw a line in the sand.

---Answer the net benefit or lose! You do not want to hand the neg a try or die push, especially because your deficits likely will not outweigh 100% risk of a conceded net benefit.

Disadvantages

---Disads must be coherent in the 1NC with clear uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact.

---Turns case is super important, true, and rarely answered correctly by aff teams---take advantage of it. You should also do in-depth impact calculus, especially if you're going for a linear disad without a counterplan.

Kritiks

---I'm a lot better for race-based critiques than postmodern ones. If you are reading the latter, more explanation and less buzzwords would be greatly appreciated.

---Framework interps should moot the plan. Going for the alternative coupled with links to the plan's material implications means you will lose to the perm double bind. I strongly prefer critiques that center around scholarship and discourse as opposed to materiality.

---Links should be in the context of the aff---no generic or uncontextualized links. PLEASE provide quotes or rehighlightings coupled with coherent extrapolation.

---Love tricks, and will quickly vote on one if dropped. However, the threshold for what constitutes an argument still applies. For example, simply asserting 'fiat isn't real' is not an argument with a warrant, and I will not evaluate 2NR extrapolation about presumption even if the aff team dropped it.

---I will not arbitrarily create a middle-ground interpretation---that is up to the debaters to do, although I do not find it very strategic.

Kritikal Affirmatives

---Your aff should be related to the resolution in some way, shape, or form. What this looks like is up to you, but I'm not down for recycled BS.

---Go for impact turns. Counterinterpretation approaches never made sense to me, because any coherent negative team could easily win DAs to your model.

---Fairness is a better impact than clash.

---Arguments like the Heg DA or Cap Good DA never made sense to me. Unless presented with some framing mechanism, I will heavily err aff on a question of reading an aff in one round not ending all of [insert thing that is good].

---Presumption is an arbitrary double standard---the role of the ballot is to determine whether or not the method of the 1AC is a good idea.

Theory

---Above all, slow down. These debates turn into block-spreading competitions at max speed, making them incredibly hard to adjudicate---do us all a favor and just slow down and do line by line.

---Conditionality is probably good, especially against new affs, and is the only theoretical reason to reject the team. Numerical interpretations are incoherent---it's about the practice, not the number.

Misc.

---Tag team cx is fine, I don't care.

---Inserting evidence is great (with summaries of the rehighlighting, of course). Teams that recognize questionably cut evidence and rehighlight on the fly should be rewarded.

Eshkar Kaidar-Heafetz – He/They

Chattahoochee ’23 – Wenatchee Independent KK – UWG ’27

Email chain – esh5.atl.debate@gmail.com

213 Rounds debated, 67 Judged, 2X TOC Qual, 1X NDT Qual

Affiliations – Chattahoochee, Johns Creek, Brookfield East SM, Alpharetta

“K debaters cheat, Policy debaters lie. If you believe both, you should pref me highly. If you believe one of the two, you should pref me in the middle percentile. If you don’t believe either, go do PF” – Josh Harrington

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No one in debate should have to interact with their abuser. If a round is unsafe, please let me know before the round, I will go to tabroom and fight for whatever potential solution I can. This is something that should be taken up with tabroom, your coach, etc. and is not something I would want to have to adjudicate in the middle of a round. If you are someone who treats others like trash, is implicated negatively in a title IX investigation, etc., I should be at the very bottom of your pref sheet.

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Most important notes

Clarity is massive for me. I have a memory loss disorder along with minor hearing problems. This does not mean that I am unable to hear or process the spreading of any given round, but that your persuasive ability majorly goes down when I have to spend more of my time processing figuring our what you’re saying rather than focusing on the quality of your arguments and instruction. I don’t care how fast you’re going; I care how clear you are when going at that speed.

Highlighting in debate right now is maybe one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. Your evidence should still be highlighted to be, generally, grammatically correct and highlighted warrants.

Everything about basic decency that you’ve seen in every other paradigm I believe in. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is unacceptable and will be given a L25, likely combined with an incredibly serious email to your coach.

Evidence ethics – clipping, miscites, cards cut with sentences omitted, cards cut that don’t begin and end at the start and end of paragraphs, changes to words in a card altering the meaning of the evidence are also an L25.

Also, I think highlighting words from the name of the article or book is ridiculous. Don't highlight cites...

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Arguments –

I wholeheartedly believe that I’m good for any argument. My high-school career included a lot of policy debates and even more K debates. My senior year, I exclusively went for disability on the affirmative, and our negative strategy included anything from conditions counterplans to kritiks to impact turns. I was both the 2A and 2N for four years. My college career has just started, but I primarily read queerness on the AFF when 2Aing and on the NEG when 2Ning, but when I was the 1A read a policy aff and when I was the 1N extended almost exclusively topicality or a PIK.

The only major threshold for evaluating if an argument should be read in front of me is if you’re willing to go for it, I dislike throw-away strategies.

Wipeout, spark, death good, whatever are all fine positions. I believe there is a difference between a post-fiat argument that centers around death being good, and a real world threat of violence (i.e., telling a debater to inflict harm upon themselves, threatening harm upon someone, etc.).

Specific arguments –

Disadvantages – I love seeing creative disadvantages or just ones that are articulated very well. My main issue with DA debates nowadays is I tend to see ones where, by the 2NR, many parts of the debate feel incredibly isolated rather than a cohesive story that I can sit down and say I understand. Debaters that are able to clearly articulate and define the link debate beyond just shallow extensions do much better in front of me when they fit that link explanation into the broader story of the AFF/DA.

Counterplans – Some of my favorite debates when the counterplan actually competes. I went for conditions and pics a lot of the time my senior year (probably at least 1/2 of my 2NRs), the sorts of debates for counterplans that I dislike are ones that get incredibly muddled in solvency/impact questions, ESPECIALLY if your evidence is not specific and you’re trying to write a plan text around generic evidence to make it work. I am not the world’s best judge for intense counterplan competition debates, but don’t let that deter you from going for what you want. I think delay is a silly cp.

Topicality – I honestly went through most of high-school HATING topicality debates but have now grown incredibly fond of them. As of my freshman year in college, topicality usually makes up nearly two-thirds of my 1NRs. What I think deters most debaters is a numbers game for interpretations, but I genuinely believe that an incredibly high quality interpretation is far better than a ton of short cards that barely say anything. Give me a solid caselist and view of what would happen for debate under the AFF’s counter-interpretation and do in depth evidence comparison and warrant comparison, because a LOT of topicality debates seem to lack these. Storytelling is so critical and underrated in T debates, I want to clearly imagine the world of the interp/counter interp.

Kritiks – My bread and butter, went for Ks a ton throughout all of high school. I’m familiar with most branches of literature, my weak spots are Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari and Derrida, but I am very well versed in nearly every other branch of lit. I think kritiks probably need aff-specific links (at least articulated/contextualized in the 2NC) and have no particular thought on if I should weigh the consequences of the plan or not. I hold Kritik debates to a much higher standard, because I know what a good K debate should look like and expect you to produce a good K debate.

Kritik Affirmatives – Love them, ran them exclusively both my senior year of H.S. and (as of writing this) freshman year of college. However, I am incredibly skeptical of most K-AFF’s ability to solve their impacts or solve/do anything at all. I am a judge who is completely willing to vote on a 5 minutes of presumption 2NR, because often times these AFFs don’t have a topic link, don’t do anything, etc. My favorite affirmatives are ones that defend actual material strategies, methods, etc. or at least are able to have a position that I feel is sufficient to beat back on SSD/TVA and presumption. I am not going to do the work for you. Last note – most of your authors probably hate each other and I think a lot of affirmatives fail to reconcile that, if you’re going to be reading an affirmative in front of me, the evidence/narrative should be cohesive. I like anything from more traditional K-AFFs to poetry to songs to completely uncarded ones, but understand I have a reasonably high threshold for solvency. For the negative, I love a well-executed KvK debate and will reward a high-quality one, but I am similarly amenable to framework.

Framework – Go for it, I don’t really care what impact you go for. I hate seeing teams over-rely on generic blocks and miss the actual content of AFF offense, so if you want to go for framework, I expect to see you spend time engaging the affirmative’s arguments, actually responding to the content of them, etc. Otherwise, you can see me checking out on something like a counter interp + risk of a DA more easily than I’d like to. I am very skeptical of a lot of KAFF's offense versus framework, you should maximize that.

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Miscellaneous

I am a small-school debater who handled running their program since 2021. If you need any help with your own, reach out to me.

Favs -

Kelly Lin, Allison Lee, Charles Sanderson, Patrick Fox, Avery Wilson, Srikar Satish, Sophia Dal Pra, Rose Larson, Astrid Clough, Jordan Keller, Robin Forsyth, Ash Koh, Geoff and Sarah Lundeen, Lauren Ivey, Kevin Bancroft, Grey Parfenoff, Blaine Montford, Austin Davis

Coach at Alpharetta High School 2006-Present
Coach at Chattahoochee High School 1999-2005
Did not debate in High School or College.

E-mail: asmiley27@gmail.com

General thoughts- I expect debaters to recognize debate as a civil, enjoyable, and educational activity. Anything that debaters do to take away from this in the round could be penalized with lower speaker points. I tend to prefer debates that more accurately take into account the types of considerations that would play into real policymakers' decision making. On all arguments, I prefer more specifics and less generics in terms of argument choice and link arguments.

The resolution has an educational purpose. I prefer debates that take this into account and find ways to interact with the topic in a reasonable way. Everything in this philosophy represents my observations and preferences, but I can be convinced otherwise in the round and will judge the arguments made in the round. I will vote on most arguments, but I am going to be very unlikely to vote on arguments that I consider morally repugnant (spark, wipeout, malthus, cancer good, etc). You should avoid these arguments in front of me.

Identity arguments- I do not generally judge these rounds and was traditionally less open to them. However, the methods and messages of these rounds can provide important skills for questioning norms in society and helping all of us improve in how we interact with society and promote justice. For that reason, I am going to work hard to be far more open to these arguments and their educational benefits. There are two caveats to this that I want you to be aware of. First, I am not prima facie rejecting framework arguments. I will still be willing to vote on framework if I think the other side is winning that their model of debate is overall better. Second, I have not read the amount of literature on this topic that most of you have and I have not traditionally judged these rounds. This means that you should not assume that I know all of the terms of art used in this literature or the acronyms. Please understand that you will need to assist in my in-round education.

K- I have not traditionally been a big fan of kritiks. This does not mean that I will not vote for kritiks, and I have become much more receptive to them over the years. However, this does mean a couple of things for the debaters. First, I do not judge as many critical rounds as other judges. This means that I am less likely to be familiar with the literature, and the debaters need to do a little more work explaining the argument. Second, I may have a little higher threshold on certain arguments. I tend to think that teams do not do a good enough job of explaining how their alternatives solve their kritiks or answering the perms. Generally, I leave too many rounds feeling like neither team had a real discussion or understanding of how the alternative functions in the round or in the real world. I also tend towards a policy framework and allowing the aff to weigh their advantages against the K. However, I will look to the flow to determine these questions. Finally, I do feel that my post-round advice is less useful and educational in K rounds in comparison to other rounds.

T- I generally enjoy good T debates. Be sure to really impact your standards on the T debate. Also, do not confuse most limiting with fair limits. Finally, be sure to explain which standards you think I as the judge should default to and impact your standards.

Theory-I am willing to pull the trigger on theory arguments as a reason to reject the argument. However, outside of conditionality, I rarely vote on theory as a reason to reject the team. If you are going for a theory arg as a reason to reject the team, make sure that you are impacting the argument with reasons that I should reject the team. Too many debaters argue to reject the team without any impact beyond the argument being unfair. Instead, you need to win that it either changed the round in an unacceptable way or allowing it changes all future rounds/research in some unacceptable way. I will also tend to look at theory as a question of competing interpretations. I feel that too many teams only argue why their interpretation is good and fail to argue why the other team’s interpretation is bad. Also, be sure to impact your arguments. I tend towards thinking that topic specific education is often the most important impact in a theory debate. I am unlikely to do that work for you. Given my preference for topic specific education, I do have some bias against generic counterplans such as states and international actor counterplans that I do not think would be considered as options by real policymakers. Finally, I do think that the use of multiple, contradictory neg advocacies has gotten out of hand in a way that makes the round less educational. I generally believe that the neg should be able to run 1 conditional CP and 1 conditional K. I will also treat the CP and the K as operating on different levels in terms of competition. Beyond that, I think that extra conditional and contradictory advocacies put too much of a burden on the aff and limit a more educational discussion on the merits of the arguments.

Disads- I generally tend towards evaluating uniqueness as the most important part of the disad debate. If there are a number of links and link turns read on a disad debate, I will generally default towards the team that is controlling uniqueness unless instructed by the debaters why I should look to the link level first. I also tend towards an offense defense paradigm when considering disads as net benefits to counterplans. I think that the politics disad is a very educational part of debate that has traditionally been my favorite argument to both coach and judge. I will have a very high threshold for voting on politics theory. Finally, teams should make sure that they give impact analysis that accounts for the strong possibility that the risk of the disad has been mitigated and tells me how to evaluate that mitigation in the context of the impacts in round.

Counterplans-I enjoy a good counterplan debate. However, I tend to give the aff a little more leeway against artificially competitive counterplans, such as consult counterplans. I also feel that a number of aff teams need to do more work on impacting their solvency deficits against counterplans. While I think that many popular counterplans (especially states) are uniquely bad for debate, I have not seen teams willing to invest the time into theory to help defeat these counterplans.

Reading cards after the round- I prefer to read as few cards post round as possible. I think that it is up to the debaters to give clear analysis of why to prefer one card over another and to bring up the key warrants in their speeches.

redid this cus i was bored

northview 25/northview bt

debatebtbc@gmail.com

Overview

Biggest Influences: Matt Cekanor, Jerry Chen, Ayush Potdar

Tech>>>>Truth in every instance. The only role of the judge is to vote for the team who did the better debating, not to arbitrarily intervene using predispositions. I.e. I will evaluate any arguments; wipeout, spark, death good, aspec, etc. are all fair game.

"i don't care about death good, wipeout, etc. it's usually not that deep---debate's a game where we don't believe in our arguments. say whatever you want, just be prepared to defend it." - Michael Ross

"Judges who say "I'll vote on anything except [xyz]" don't understand what tech over truth means." - Archan Sen.

Given the above---"When debating ask the question of Why? Technical debating is not just realizing WHAT was dropped but WHY what was dropped matters and how important it is in the context of the rest of the debate. “If you start thinking in these terms and can explain each level of this analysis to me, then you will get closer to winning the round. In general, the more often this happens and the earlier this happens it will be easier for me to understand where you are going with certain arguments. This type of analysis definitely warrants higher speaker points from me and it helps you as a debater eliminate my predispositions from the debate." - Matt Cekanor.

Novices

"Avoid reading too many cards---the novice packet comes with a large set of evidence BUT most of these are not independently sufficient arguments that can be voted on. Avoid the tendency to read the "extend [insert]" block in the file and instead write out analytical extensions to what you have already read in previous speeches.

Example: If you read a 1AC with a warming impact, then subsequent speeches should NOT read another warming card but instead say "Extend [insert] 1AC evidence---it says that warming is exclusively anthropogenic with [insert] timeframe of [insert] years that comes before [insert neg impacts] and outweighs."

Other things that boost speaker points and get you closer to the win:

1. Being well read on your arguments---this means not having to look at your cards during 1AC cx (because you should already know it)
2. Putting in a clear effort---if I notice you're not trying it'll be hard for me to vote for you, debate is highkey a myth but at the end of the day should still be taken seriously.
3. Signposting and being clear---say when you're moving from one offcase to another."

- Aryan Bhattacharya

Topicality

competing interps good. evidence comparison. case lists.

ground > limits in my op. It's just more convincing. But again, you do you---I'll def vote for limits if it's better debated.

CPs

Judgekick unless the aff tells me why I shouldn't. Never made sense to me why I should vote for a world worse than the squo

I'm decent at competition; probably err neg if all else is equal. If perms get super technical or its about theoretical justifications, not as comfortable.

Read solvency advocates in the 1NC for the most part. 20 plank Adv CPs with no solvency advocates are hella abusive, but I probably like it given neg terrorism is cool. But the 1AR also prolly gets new answers.

"Answer the net benefit or lose! You do not want to hand the neg a try or die push, especially because your deficits likely will not outweigh 100% risk of a conceded net benefit." - Jerry Chen

DAs

Sure. Impact calc and case defense. Need uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact throughout the debate. Tell that story in the 2NR.

DA turns the case is underrated.

Kritiks

i run ks on the aff and neg 90% of debates. That being said, if your theory of power is some pomo bs, I'll definitely vote on it but I have little to no background knowledge so explain it well. or dont idrc ill just nuke your speaks.

Good links. ie there must be quotes from 1ac evidence or cross ex, at the minimum.

"Framework interps should moot the plan. Going for the alternative coupled with links to the plan's material implications means you will lose to the perm double bind." - Jerry Chen

Framework goes aff or neg; I will not create my own "middle ground" interp. I will start from framework, given it is called framework, thus is how I evaluate the debate.

K-Affs

read whatever. Have a topic link if you want. topic link makes it easier to beat the TVA but if you don't want one, you do you.

burden of rejoinder still exists. i.e. it is still a debate.

impact turns > c/i. most counterinterps are hella arbitrary and self serving, so unless you have something more nuanced than "topical affs plus us" the ci is probably ass.

T-USFG

fairness >>> everything else. fairness paradox is objectively true---but, as with everything else, it can be out-debated.

Do ballot instruction.

i want to err neg on topicality given how cheaty k affs are getting---but i will certainly evaluate it technically.

Other

Condo is good. Its not 1980 anymore. Go for it if you want and I will evaluate it objectively, but I find "no condo" to be unpersuasive.

Tag team cross is fine.

Card Doc? No.

Inserting evidence is fine.