Background: Hi I'm Jackson, I'm a first-year policy debater at Trinity University and I've spent my last two years doing policy debate for Wimberley High School

jdelhage@trinity.edu

Overview: Firstly, I'm fine with really any argument. Most of my high school experience was with traditional plan-focused policy debate so that's what I mainly prefer but I've had experience with other types of debate. I prefer almost every kind of affirmative case out there as long it follows a traditional advantage-plan text-solvency approach that defends the resolution. I'm good with almost every neg argument out there. However when going for things such as framework and K's it's important to make it apparent to me what it's about and spend rebuttal time fleshing out these arguments since I can sometimes get lost in K debates. I also really want to see clash in-round between teams instead of just reading a ton of evidence with no real arguing. Impact-Calc is also super important to do in later speeches. Also, A dropped arg is a true arg

Aff: Like I said above, affs that defend the topic with a plan-text are always good with me. I'm not against plan less aff's but if you decide to run them please make an effort to state why the resolution should not be debated and how your affirmative functions.

T: Please hold off on using Topicality unless there's a clear violation on the aff side, I'm not a huge fan of just running it because you can. I tend to side with the Aff on T unless the violation is clear and/or the aff drops it.

DA: Big fan when done right. Emphasize telling me a good DA story and go through each part of the argument and tell me why it's true. Telling me something big and bad is going to happen isn't going to convince me that the aff will cause it.

CP: Clearly state the net-benefit and mutually exclusivity with the aff

K: I don't have a ton of K experience, but just be clear about the thesis of the K and what the alt's function is

Speed: Go as fast as you can handle

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

I'm cool with spreading as long as it's audible. Most theory is cool, just explain the impact. Overall be polite, and make good arguments.

Ruth (they/them)

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

I do policy --- Trinity University '26

Overview:

- I think debate is a game and we’re here to have fun and maybe learn a little

- tech > truth but you need to explain why your arguments matter otherwise I’ll have a hard time voting for them

- dropped arguments are presumed to be true but do yourself a favor and explain what the original warrant was anyway and why it's important

- you'll get good speaks if you have comprehensive, clear overviews at the top of every flow

- your 2AR/2NR should try to write my ballot for me

- obviously, i won’t tolerate behavior that's racist, queerphobic, discriminatory, etc

- please don't assume that i know anything about the current high school topic

- feel free to email me if you have lingering questions after a round – I get overstimulated easily and as a result it's sometimes hard to verbalize the finer points of an RFD

Args:

LD---

Tricks- Strike -- I'm not a good judge for this. You'll probably be disappointed by my ballot if you read it. Policy paradigm applies otherwise.

Policy---

T-

- i really enjoy properly executed T debates, but i've found that frequently debaters lose sight of the bigger picture --- you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but the 2ar/2nr needs to clearly explicate the difference between competing interpretations and what the resulting reasons to prefer are. if i can't articulate by the end of the debate what the differences between your interpretations are, something has gone wrong.

- predictability! TVAs and caselists are very useful here

Theory/Procedurals-

- slow down!!!

- very useful and fun when utilized properly, potentially also incredibly annoying, so do everything in your power to make the flow clean and easily understood, particularly if there are multiple and if you are competing in an event that isn't policy

- disclosure is good, as are new affs

- my burden of proof for condo bad is relatively high. if the neg reads a cp and a k and the aff claims time skew or ground loss or whatever i am not very persuaded and will be sad if you go for condo. i will do my best to evaluate fairly of course but keep this in mind

- misdisclosure is tricky --- you have to really sell that standard debate

DA-

- not a lot to say! I tend to be a little suspicious of the link on politics DAs, but that won’t affect my ballot unless aff brings it up

- rebuttals should have comprehensive impact calc and evidence comparison

CP-

- i love a silly counterplan, but please clearly explain the internal solvency mechanisms because i get confused

- i will judge kick if you ask me to but the aff can also sell me on why i shouldn't

K-

- i spend a lot of my time thinking about various critical positions and these are my favorite debates to judge!

- i've found that a lot of debaters understand their evidence and the overall theory but fail to correctly package those arguments in favor of a high-speed wordball – that makes me sad and makes my flow much worse – be conscientious of individual pieces of offense and how you might leverage those and you will be in a much better spot

- highly-contextualized link debating is the beauty of the K and your sacred duty

- impact debate is vital --- good evidence comparison and calc are vital here too

- i think k affs should be in the direction of the resolution but do what you do best and i will evaluate it

FWK-

- framework is often two ships passing in the night, so get into what competing interpretations mean for your model of debate and clearly explicate the impact

- having a clear ROB is critical --- tell me exactly why i'm voting the way i am

- i'm very sympathetic to the impact-turn style of framework debating