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2024 — NSDA Campus, NY/US

Policy Varsity Paradigm List

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Jared Adam ADL 5 rounds

Jonathan Alston Newark Science 4 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 5:38 PM EST

I am a head coach at Newark Science and have coached there for years. I teach LD during the summer at the Global Debate Symposium. I formerly taught LD at University of North Texas and I previously taught at Stanford's Summer Debate Institute.

The Affirmative must present an inherent problem with the way things are right now. Their advocacy must reasonably solve that problem. The advantages of doing the advocacy must outweigh the disadvantages of following the advocacy. You don't have to have a USFG plan, but you must advocate for something.

This paradigm is for both policy and LD debate. I'm also fine with LD structured with a general framing and arguments that link back to that framing. Though in LD, resolutions are now generally structured so that the Affirmative advocates for something that is different from the status quo.

Speed
Be clear. Be very clear. If you are spreading politics or something that is easy to understand, then just be clear. I can understand very clear debaters at high speeds when what they are saying is easy to understand. Start off slower so I get used to your voice and I'll be fine.

Do not spread dense philosophy. When going quickly with philosophy, super clear tags are especially important. If I have a hard time understanding it at conversational speeds I will not understand it at high speeds. (Don't spread Kant or Foucault.)

Slow down for analytics. If you are comparing or making analytical arguments that I need to understand, slow down for it.

I want to hear the warrants in the evidence. Be clear when reading evidence. I don't read cards after the round if I don't understand them during the round.

Offs
Please don't run more than 5 off in policy or LD. And if you choose 5 off, make them good and necessary. I don't like frivolous arguments. I prefer deep to wide when it comes to Neg strategies.

Theory
Make it make sense. I'll vote on it if it is reasonable. Please tell me how it functions and how I should evaluate it. The most important thing about theory for me is to make it make sense. I am not into frivolous theory. If you like running frivolous theory, I am not the best judge for you.

Evidence
Don't take it out of context. I do ask for cites. Cites should be readily available. Don't cut evidence in an unclear or sloppy manner. Cut evidence ethically. If I read evidence and its been misrepresented, it is highly likely that team will lose.

Argument Development

For LD, please not more than 3 offs. Time constraints make LD rounds with more than three offs incomprehensible to me. Policy has twice as much time and three more speeches to develop arguments. I like debates that advance ideas. The interaction of both side's evidence and arguments should lead to a coherent story.

Speaker Points
30 I learned something from the experience. I really enjoyed the thoughtful debate. I was moved. I give out 30's. It's not an impossible standard. I just consider it an extremely high, but achievable, standard of excellence. I haven't given out at least two years.
29 Excellent
28 Solid
27 Okay

For policy Debate (And LD, because I judge them the same way).
Same as for LD. Make sense. Big picture is important. I can't understand spreading dense philosophy. Don't assume I am already familiar with what you are saying. Explain things to me. Starting in 2013 our LDers have been highly influenced by the growing similarity between policy and LD. We tested the similarity of the activities in 2014 - 2015 by having two of our LDers be the first two students in the history of the Tournament of Champions to qualify in policy and LD in the same year. They did this by only attending three policy tournaments (The Old Scranton Tournament and Emory) on the Oceans topic running Reparations and USFG funding of The Association of Black Scuba Divers.

We are also in the process of building our policy program. Our teams tend to debate the resolution with non-util impacts or engages in methods debates. Don't assume that I am familiar with the specifics of a lit base. Please break things down to me. I need to hear and understand warrants. Make it simple for me. The more simple the story, the more likely that I'll understand it.

I won't outright reject anything unless it is blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic.

Important: Don't curse in front of me. If the curse is an essential part of the textual evidence, I am more lenient. But that would be the exception.

newarksciencedebate@gmail.com

Safiatou Bah Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri February 23, 2024 at 3:17 PM EST

debated in policy in high school

email - safib2026@gmail.com

(I'm only paying attention to what you read this is simply for reference at the end of the round and to make sure emails are sent somewhat promptly)

I do flow cross ex/crossfire but it must be in a speech if you want it voted on. I do believe cross is binding.

Background: I've done policy debate @Brooklyn Tech and I've judged Policy and PF rounds before. I've run afropess, cap k, policy args, a decent amount of theory and have debated nearly every other mainstream arg (haven't hit death good, but I have read a bit). Having said that I'm fine with spreading just be clear, understand that virtual spreading is iffy if there's lag, and respectful of your opposition. I don't care about formal attire and don't take points for wearing sweats. I go by any/all pronouns. If there are blatantly racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic arguments or statements you will lose. also don't try to tell me climate change is real

I'll vote for wtvr. That includes T, DAs (with impacts but hopefully you know that), Ks, Counter Plans, and theory.

Credits to William Cheung for the rest of the this

1) Have a claim, warrant, and impact to every argument. It isn’t an argument absent these three elements, and I will have trouble/not be able to/want to adjudicate what you’ve said.
2) Make sure, on that note to properly explain your positions, don’t make an assumption that I know your DA scenario (perhaps fill me in on the internal work), or K jargon. Maybe i haven't judged that many rounds this topic and don't understand abbreviations right away - help me out.
3) Have comparative analysis of evidence, arguments, and preformative styles as it compares to your own and how I ought to prioritize impacts as it relates to your framing of the round.
4) Be Persuasive, it will go a long way to making me to sign my ballot your way if you can make the round enjoyable, touching, funny, etc – it will also help your speaks.
5) Write the ballot for me in your last speech , tell me how you win. Take risks, and don’t go for everything.

Also, some other things:

1) I will default to competing interpretations on T and extinction unless alternative mechanisms of evaluating the round or alternative impacts are introduced and analyzed.
2) I will avoid looking at evidence, unless there is a dispute over evidence in a round or a debater spins it as part of being persuasive

3) Extend arguments if you want them to be voted on and no new args in the final speeches
4) I am an open minded judge, and respect all “realms” of debate, though of course, I will always already have some bias (I fully admit I am a K debater, although I do usually take FW and T on both sides), I will do my best to mitigate it.

Katie Baughman Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri October 4, 2024 at 9:45 AM CST

Hi guys!!! I’m Katie, I’m a senior in college at Fordham University :) I’ve been involved in debate for about 6 or 7 years now (hs policy, occasionally do college policy/ judge debates)!

my email is kbaughman@fordham.edu for the email chain :)

I am open to all arguments, please run whatever you want! Tech>truth. I’ll vote on the flow.

I am primarily a policy debater, so some high concept K stuff you might have to do more work explaining to me, but I’m interested in hearing about it! :)

Don’t be a bad person please. Harmful behavior=tanked speaks.

I'm good with speed as long as it’s clear. Also good with no speed. Won’t impact speaks either way unless I cannot understand you.

If you’re speeding through blocked out analytics I’d prefer you don’t delete from speech doc before sending to the email chain. If I can’t understand these and they’re not on the doc I can’t flow them.

Open cross is good.

Arguments:

T: Would prefer if affs don’t run untopical policy affs and negs don’t run T against topical affs. I think it’s boring debate. Would need heavy work on the flow (or substantial dropped args) for it to be a voter.

Case: I probably care about solvency more than most people. I’d vote on case turns if they’re dropped or really good. Please defend your case. Please give me framing, I want a reason to pref your impacts.

DAs: Good, standard offense. Please make the link specific to case. Generic DAs like politics, etc are kind of dull.

CPs: CPs are fun. I’ll vote on them. To vote on them I’d really like some time spent on the flow- provide more than just CP text.

K affs: Please be sure to explain arguments fully as I'm less familiar with K affs, but if you want to run one, do it!

Neg v K affs: I'll vote on FW. I’ll also vote on KvK. Generally, try to engage with the aff K advocacy at least a little.

Ks: I like Ks! Generally I’m not super experienced with more specific or obscure Ks so please explain them. I generally prefer Ks with an alt other than rejection (either debate space or some sort of action); if you’re running rejection you need to do a lot of work w link debate. Negs, please have a good answer to the perm. Affs, win the perm. Both sides, win your framework.

Theory: I default to dropping the argument, not the team. Won’t usually vote on theory unless it’s dropped or really important in the round.

LD:

I did a bit of NSDA LD in HS. Less familiar with nat-circuit LD (I’m from MO) but familiar with policy so feel free to run whatever :)

CPs/Ks: Enjoy these! Most of my policy paradigm applies here.

LD theory: Make sure it’s clearly explained as I might not be super familiar, but definitely open to it.

"Tricks"-- I don't understand these that well but they're fun.

V/VC: Generally see V/VC as framing— if you see it differently please make the argument. I want to know why your V and VC matter. You can win without winning V/VC.

Thank you guys so much for reading! I’m really excited about this activity and I hope everyone has fun :)

Sheima Ben-Abdallah Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Matt Cekanor Northview High School 3 rounds

Last changed on Sat September 28, 2024 at 1:55 PM CST

Experience-This will be my sixth year as the head coach at Northview High School. Before moving to Georgia, I coached for 7 years at Marquette High in Milwaukee, WI.

Yes, add me to the email chain. My email is mcekanordebate@gmail.com

*As I have gained more coaching and judging experience, I find that I highly value teams who respect their opponents who might not have the same experience as them. This includes watching how you come across in CX, prep time, and your general comportment towards your opponent. In some local circuits, circuit-style policy debate is dwindling and we all have a responsibility to be respectful of the experience of everyone trying to be involved in policy debate.*

I recommend that you go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles before the debate rather than before a speech.

LD Folks please read the addendum at the end of my paradigm.

Meta-Level Strike Sheet Concerns

1. Debates are rarely won or lost on technical concessions or truth claims alone. In other words, I think the “tech vs. truth” distinction is a little silly. Technical concessions make it more complicated to win a debate, but rarely do they make wins impossible. Keeping your arguments closer to “truer” forms of an argument make it easier to overcome technical concessions because your arguments are easier to identify, and they’re more explicitly supported by your evidence (or at least should be). That being said, using truth alone as a metric of which of y’all to pick up incentivizes intervention and is not how I will evaluate the debate.

2. Evidence quality matters a bunch to me- it’s evidence that you have spent time and effort on your positions, it’s a way to determine the relative truth level of your claims, and it helps overcome some of the time constraints of the activity in a way that allows you to raise the level of complexity of your position in a shorter amount of time. I will read your evidence throughout the debate, especially if it is on a position with which I’m less familiar. I won’t vote on evidence comparison claims unless it becomes a question of the debate raised by either team, but I will think about how your evidence could have been used more effectively by the end of the debate. I enjoy rewarding teams for evidence quality.

3. Every debate could benefit from more comparative work particularly in terms of the relative quality of arguments/the interactions between arguments by the end of the round. Teams should ask "Why?", such as "If I win this argument, WHY is this important?", "If I lose this argument WHY does this matter?". Strategically explaining the implications of winning or losing an argument is the difference between being a middle of the road team and a team advancing to elims.

4. Some expectations for what should be present in arguments that seem to have disappeared in the last few years-

-For me to vote on a single argument, it must have a claim, warrant, impact, and impact comparison.

-A DA is not a full DA until a uniqueness, link, internal link and impact argument is presented.Too many teams are getting away with 2 card DA shells in the 1NC and then reading uniqueness walls in the block. I will generally allow for new 1AR answers.

Similarly, CP's should have a solvency advocate read in the 1NC. I'll be flexible on allowing 1AR arguments in a world where the aff makes an argument about the lack of a solvency advocate.

-Yes, terminal defense exists, however, I do not think that teams take enough advantage of this kind of argument in front of me. I will not always evaluate the round through a lens of offense-defense, but you still need to make arguments as to why I shouldn’t by at least explaining why your argument functions as terminal defense. Again this plays into evidence questions and the relative impacts of arguments claims made above.

Specifics

Case-Debates are won or lost in the case debate. By this, I mean that proving whether or not the aff successfully accesses all, some or none of the case advantages has implications on every flow of the debate and should be a fundamental question of most 2NRs and 2ARs. I think that blocks that are heavy in case defense or impact turns are incredibly advantageous for the neg because they enable you to win any CP (by proving the case defense as a response to the solvency deficit), K (see below) or DA (pretty obvious). I'm also more likely than others to write a presumption ballot or vote neg on inherency arguments. If the status quo solves your aff or you're not a big enough divergence, then you probably need to reconsider your approach to the topic.

Most affs can be divided into two categories: affs with a lot of impacts but poor internal links and affs with very solid internal links but questionable impacts. Acknowledging in which of these two categories the aff you are debating falls should shape how you approach the case debate. I find myself growing increasingly disappointed by negative teams that do not test weak affirmatives. Where's your internal link defense?? I also miss judging impact turn debates, but don't think that spark or wipeout are persuasive arguments. A high level de-dev debate or heg debate, on the other hand, love it.

DA-DAs are questions of probability. Your job as the aff team when debating a DA is to use your defensive arguments to question the probability of the internal links to the DA. Affirmative teams should take more advantage of terminal defense against disads. I'll probably also have a lower threshold for your theory arguments on the disad. Likewise, the neg should use turns case arguments as a reason why your DA calls into question the probability of the aff's internal links. Don't usually find "____ controls the direction of the link" arguments very persuasive. You need to warrant out that claim more if you're going to go for it. Make more rollback-style turns case arguments or more creative turns case arguments to lower the threshold for winning the debate on the disad alone.

CP-CP debates are about the relative weight of a solvency deficit versus the relative weight of the net benefit. The team that is more comparative when discussing the solvency level of these debates usually wins the debate. While, when it is a focus of the debate, I tend to err affirmative on questions of counterplan competiton, I have grown to be more persuaded by a well-executed counterplan strategy even if the counterplan is a process counterplan. The best counterplans have a solvency advocate who is, at least, specific to the topic, and, best, specific to the affirmative. I do not default to judge kicking the counterplan and will be easily persuaded by an affirmative argument about why I should not default to that kind of in-round conditionality. Not a huge fan of the NGA CP and I've voted three out of four times on intrinsic permutations against this counterplan so just be warned. Aff teams should take advantage of presumption arguments against the CP.

K-Used to have a bunch of thoughts spammed here that weren't too easy to navigate pre-round. I've left that section at the bottom of the paradigm for the historical record, but here's the cleaned up version:

What does the ballot do? What is the ballot absolutely incapable of doing? What does the ballot justify? No matter if you are on the aff or the neg, defending the topic or not, these are the kinds of questions that you need to answer by the end of the debate. As so much of K debating has become framework debates on the aff and the neg, I often find myself with a lot of floating pieces of offense that are not attached to a clear explanation of what a vote in either direction can/can't do.

T-Sitting through a bunch of framework debates has made me a better judge for topicality than I used to be. Comparative impact calculus alongside the use of strategic defensive arguments will make it easier for me to vote in a particular direction. Certain interps have a stronger internal link to limits claims and certain affs have better arguments for overlimiting. Being specific about what kind of offense you access, how it comes first, and the relative strength of your internal links in these debates will make it more likely that you win my ballot. I’m not a huge fan of tickytacky topicality claims but, if there’s substantial contestation in the literature, these can be good debates.

Theory- I debated on a team that engaged in a lot of theory debates in high school. There were multiple tournaments where most of our debates boiled down to theory questions, so I would like to think that I am a good judge for theory debates. I think that teams forget that theory debates are structured like a disadvantage. Again, comparative impact calculus is important to win my ballots in these debates. I will say that I tend to err aff on most theory questions. For example, I think that it is probably problematic for there to be more than one conditional advocacy in a round (and that it is equally problematic for your counter interpretation to be dispositionality) and I think that counterplans that compete off of certainty are bad for education and unfair to the aff. The biggest killer in a theory debate is when you just read down your blocks and don’t make specific claims. Debate like your

Notes for the Blue Key RR/Other LD Judging Obligations

Biggest shift for me in judging LD debates is the following: No tricks or intuitively false arguments. I'll vote on dropped arguments, but those arguments need a claim, data, warrant and an impact for me to vote on them. If I can't explain the argument back to you and the implications of that argument on the rest of the debate, I'm not voting for you.

I guess this wasn't clear enough the first time around- I don't flow off the document and your walls of framework and theory analytics are really hard to flow when you don't put any breaks in between them.

Similarly, phil debates are always difficult for me to analyze. I tend to think affirmative's should defend implementation particularly when the resolution specifies an actor. Outside of my general desire to see some debates about implementation, I don't have any kind of background in the phil literature bases and so will have a harder time picturing the implications of you winning specific arguments. If you want me to understand how your argumets interact, you will have to do a lot of explanation.

Theory debates- Yes, I said that I enjoy theory debates in my paradigm above and that is largely still true, but CX theory debates are a lot less technical than LD debates. I also think there are a lot of silly theory arguments in LD and I tend to have a higher threshold for those sorts of arguments. I also don't have much of a reference for norm setting in LD or what the norms actually are. Take that into account if you choose to go for theory and probably don't because I won't award you with high enough speaks for your liking.

K debates- Yes, I enjoy K debates but I tend to think that their LD variant is very shallow. You need to do more specific work in linking to the affirmative and developing the implications of your theory of power claims. While I enjoy good LD debates on the K, I always feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify a ballot in either direction. This is magnified by the limited amount of time that you have to develop your positions.

Old K Paradigm (2020-2022)

After y’all saw the school that I coach, I’m sure this is where you scrolled to first which is fair enough given how long it takes to fill out pref sheets. I will say, if you told me 10 years ago when I began coaching that I’d be coaching a team that primarily reads the K on the aff and on the neg, I probably would have found that absurd because that wasn’t my entry point into the activity so keep that in mind as you work with some of the thoughts below. That being said, I’ve now coached the K at a high level for the past two years which means that I have some semblance of a feeling for a good K debate. If the K is not something that you traditionally go for, you’re better off going for what you’re best at.

The best debates on the K are debates over the explanatory power of the negative’s theory of power relative to the affirmative’s specific example of liberalism, realism, etc. Put another way, the best K debaters are familiar enough with their theory of power AND the affirmative’s specific impact scenarios that they use their theory to explain the dangers of the aff. By the end of the 2NR I should have a very clear idea of what the affirmative does and how your theory explains why doing the affirmative won’t resolve the aff’s impacts or results in a bad thing. This does not necessarily mean that you need to have links to the affirmative’s mechanism (that’s probably a bit high of a research burden), but your link explanations need to be specific to the aff and should be bolstered by specific quotes from 1AC evidence or CX. The specificity of your link explanation should be sufficient to overcome questions of link-uniqueness or I’ll be comfortable voting on “your links only link to the status quo.”

On the flipside, aff teams need to explain why their contingency or specific example of policy action cannot be explained by the negative’s theory of power or that, even if some aspects can be, that the specificity of the aff’s claims justifies voting aff anyway because there’s some offense against the alternative or to the FW ballot. Affirmative teams that use the specificity of the affirmative to generate offense or push back against general link claims will win more debates than those that just default to generic “extinction is irreversible” ballots.

Case Page when going for the K- My biggest pet peeve with the current meta on the K is the role of the case page. Neither the affirmative nor the negative take enough advantage of this page to really stretch out their opponents on this question. For the negative, you need to be challenging the affirmative’s internal links with defense that can bolster some of your thesis level claims. Remember, you are trying to DISPROVE the affirmative’s contingent/specific policy which means that the more specificity you have the better off you will be. This means that just throwing your generic K links onto the case page probably isn’t the move. 9/10 the alternative doesn’t resolve them and you don’t have an explanation of how voting neg resolves the offense. K teams so frequently let policy affs get away with some really poor evidence quality and weak internal links. Please help the community and deter policy teams from reading one bad internal link to their heg aff against your [INSERT THEORY HERE] K. On that note, policy teams, why are you removing your best internal links when debating the K? Your generic framework cards are giving the neg more things to impact turn and your explanation of the internal link level of the aff is lowered when you do that. Read your normal aff against the K and just square up.

Framework debates (with the K on the neg) For better or worse, so much of contemporary K debate is resolved in the framework debate. The contemporary dependence on framework ballots means a couple of things:

1.) Both teams need to do more work here- treat this like a DA and a CP. Compare the relative strength of internal link claims and impact out the terminal impacts. Why does procedural fairness matter? What is the terminal impact to clash? How do we access your skills claims? What does/does not the ballot resolve? To what extent does the ballot resolve those things? The team that usually answers more of these questions usually wins these debates. K teams need to do more to push back against “ballot can solve procedural fairness” claims and aff teams need to do more than just “schools, family, culture, etc.” outweigh subject formation. Many of you all spend more time at debate tournaments or doing debate work than you do at school or doing schoolwork.

2.) I do think it’s possible for the aff to win education claims, but you need to do more comparative impact calculus. What does scenario planning do for subject formation that is more ethical than whatever the impact scenario is to the K? If you can’t explain your education claims at that level, just go for fairness and explain why the ballot can resolve it.

3.) Risk of the link- Explain what winning framework does for how much of a risk of a link that I need to justify a ballot either way. Usually, neg teams will want to say that winning framework means they get a very narrow risk of a link to outweigh. I don’t usually like defaulting to this but affirmative teams very rarely push back on this risk calculus in a world where they lose framework. If you don’t win that you can weigh the aff against the K, aff teams need to think about how they can use their scenarios as offense against the educational claims of the K. This can be done as answers to the link arguments as well, though you’ll probably need to win more pieces of defense elsewhere on the flow to make this viable.

Do I go for the alternative?

I don’t think that you need to go for the alternative if you have a solid enough framework push in the 2NR. However, few things to keep in mind here:

1.) I won’t judge kick the alternative for you unless you explicitly tell me to do it and include a theoretical justification for why that’s possible.

2.) The framework debate should include some arguments about how voting negative resolves the links- i.e. what is the kind of ethical subject position endorsed on the framework page that pushes us towards research projects that avoid the links to the critique? How does this position resolve those links?

3.) Depending on the alternative and the framework interpretation, some of your disads to the alternative will still link to the framework ballot. Smart teams will cross apply these arguments and explain why that complicates voting negative.

K affs (Generic)

Yes, I’m comfortable evaluating debates involving the K on the aff and think that I’ve reached a point where I’m pretty good for either side of this debate. Affirmative teams need to justify an affirmative ballot that beats presumption, especially if you’re defending status quo movements as examples of the aff’s method. Both teams benefit from clarifying early in the round whether or not the affirmative team spills up, whether or not in-round performances specific to this debate resolve any of the affirmative offense, and whatever the accumulation of ballots does or does not do for the aff. Affirmative teams that are not the Louisville project often get away with way too much by just reading a DSRB card and claiming their ballots function the same way. Aff teams should differentiate their ballot claims and negatives should make arguments about the aff’s homogenizing ballot claims. All that being said, like I discussed above, these debates are won and lost on the case page like any other debate. As the K becomes more normalized and standardized to a few specific schools of thought, I have a harder and harder time separating the case and framework pages on generic “we couldn’t truth test your arguments” because I think that shifts a bit too strongly to the negative. That said, I can be persuaded to separate the two if there’s decent time spent in the final rebuttals on this question.

Framework vs. the K Aff

Framework debates are best when both teams spend time comparing the realities of debate in the status quo and the idealized form of debate proposed in model v. model rounds. In that light, both teams need to be thinking about what proposing framework in a status quo where the K is probably going to stick around means for those teams that currently read the K and for those teams that prefer to directly engage the resolution. In a world where the affirmative defends the counter interpretation, the affirmative should have an explanation of what happens when team don’t read an affirmative that meets their model. Most of the counter interpretations are arbitrary or equivalent to “no counter interpretation”, but an interp being arbitrary is just defense that you can still outweigh depending on the offense you’re winning.

In impact turn debates, both teams need to be much clearer about the terminal impacts to their offense while providing an explanation as to why voting in either direction resolves them. After sitting in so many of these debates, I tend to think that the ballot doesn’t do much for either team but that means that teams who have a better explanation of what it means to win the ballot will usually pick up my decision. You can’t just assert that voting negative resolves procedural fairness without warranting that out just like you can’t assert that the aff resolves all forms of violence in debate through a single debate. Both teams need to grapple with how the competitive incentives for debate establish offense for either side. The competitive incentive to read the K is strong and might counteract some of the aff’s access to offense, but the competitive incentives towards framework also have their same issues. Neither sides hands are clean on that question and those that are willing to admit it are usually better off. I have a hard time setting aside clash as an external impact due to the fact that I’m just not sure what the terminal impact is. I like teams that go for clash and think that it usually is an important part of negative strategy vs. the K, but I think this strategy is best when the clash warrants are explained as internal link turns to the aff’s education claims. Some of this has to due with the competitive incentives arguments that I’ve explained above. Both teams need to do more work explaining whether or not fairness or education claims come first. It’s introductory-level impact analysis I find lacking in many of these debates.

Other things to think about-

1.) These debates are at their worst when either team is dependent on blocks. Framework teams should be particularly cautious about this because they’ve had less of these debates over the course of the season, however, K teams are just as bad at just reading their blocks through the 1AR. I will try to draw a clean line between the 1AR and the 2AR and will hold a pretty strict one in debates where the 1AR is just screaming through blocks. Live debating contextualized to this round far outweighs robots with pre-written everything.

2.) I have a hard time pulling the trigger on arguments with “quitting the activity” as a terminal impact. Any evidence on either side of this question is usually anecdotal and that’s not enough to justify a ballot in either direction. There are also a bunch of alternative causes to numbers decline like the lack of coaches, the increased technical rigor of high-level policy debate, budgets, the pandemic, etc. that I think thump most of these impacts for either side. More often than not, the people that are going to stick with debate are already here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to the kinds of harms to the activity/teams as teams on either side of the clash question learn to coexist.

K vs. K Debates (Overview)

I’ll be perfectly honest, unless this is a K vs. Cap debate, these are the debates that I’m least comfortable evaluating because I feel like they end up being some of the messiest and “gooiest” debates possible. That being said, I think that high level K vs. K debates can be some of the most interesting to evaluate if both teams have a clear understanding of the distinctions between their positions, are able to base their theoretical distinctions in specific, grounded examples that demonstrate potential tradeoffs between each position, and can demonstrate mutual exclusivity outside of the artificial boundary of “no permutations in a method debate.” At their best, these debates require teams to meet a high research burden which is something that I like to reward so if your strat is specific or you can explain it in a nuanced way, go for it. That said, I’m not the greatest for teams whose generic position in these debates are to read “post-truth”/pomo arguments against identity positions and I feel uncomfortable resolving competing ontology claims in debates around identity unless they are specific and grounded. I feel like most debates are too time constrained to meaningfully resolve these positions. Similarly, teams that read framework should be cautious about reading conditional critiques with ontology claims- i.e. conditional pessimism with framework. I’m persuaded by theoretical arguments about conditional ontology claims regarding social death and cross apps to framework in these debates.

I won’t default to “no perms in a methods debate”, though I am sympathetic to the theoretical arguments about why affs not grounded in the resolution are too shifty if they are allowed to defend the permutation. What gets me in these debates is that I think that the affirmative will make the “test of competition”-style permutation arguments anyway like “no link” or the aff is a disad/prereq to the alt regardless of whether or not there’s a permutation. I can’t just magically wave a theory wand here and make those kinds of distinctions go away. It lowers the burden way too much for the negative and creates shallow debates. Let’s have a fleshed out theory argument and you can persuade me otherwise. The aff still needs to win access to the permutation, but if you lose the theory argument still make the same kinds of arguments if you had the permutation. Just do the defensive work to thump the links.

Cap vs. K- I get the strategic utility of these debates, but this debate is becoming pretty stale for me. Teams that go for state-good style capitalism arguments need to explain the process of organization, accountability measures, the kind of party leadership, etc. Aff teams should generate offense off of these questions. Teams that defend Dean should have to defend psychoanalysis answers. Teams that defend Escalante should have specific historical examples of dual power working or not in 1917 or in post-Bolshevik organization elsewhere. Aff teams should force Dean teams to defend psycho and force Escalante teams to defend historical examples of dual power. State crackdown arguments should be specific. I fear that state crackdown arguments will apply to both the alternative and the aff and the team that does a better job describing the comparative risk of crackdown ends up winning my argument. Either team should make more of a push about what it means to shift our research practices towards or away from communist organizing. There are so many debates where we have come to the conclusion that the arguments we make in debate don’t spill out or up and, yet, I find debates where we are talking about politically organizing communist parties are still stuck in some universe where we are doing the actual organizing in a debate round. Tell me what a step towards the party means for our research praxis or provide disads to shifting the resource praxis. All the thoughts on the permutation debate are above. I’m less likely to say no permutation in these debates because there is plenty of clash in the literature between, at least, anti-capitalism and postcapitalism that there can be a robust debate even if you don’t have specifics. That being said, the more you can make ground your theory in specific examples the better off you’ll be.

Matt Conway Berkeley Prep 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu July 18, 2024 at 9:05 PM EST

jmu '25

affiliations: berkeley prep (2022-), solon and saint ignatius (2021-22)

mconcon4@gmail.com

bprep-debate@googlegroups.com

tl;dr

tech>truth

I primarily run policy arguments and coach critical ones.

will vote on 0 risk

I have found that aff teams are just not sufficiently extending solvency to any of their advantages, internal links, etc., thus the I find myself having a lower threshold for neg offense

speed is fine (I will only "clear" you once and then ill flow what I can)

call me conway or matt not judge (he/him)

don't be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

clipping = auto L and 0

unlikely to vote on things that happened outside of the round

K Affs/FW

I think K affs should have some relation to the topic and am less persuaded by debate bad arguments. you don't need a c/I to win. I am persuaded by both fairness and clash. the easiest way to my ballot is establishing external offense vs internal link turns and do real impact comparison. presumption isn't gone for as much as it probably should. contextualizing the links to how they specifically destroy the ability of the alt to happen will help you out a lot. don't assume I know any of your lit.

you can win without an alt, however I prefer if you generate UQ from somewhere else rather then going for the k as a linear disad. I think teams spend way to much time on fw, in almost every case the aff gets to weigh the 1ac and the neg gets reps links.

CPs

I like well thought out advantage cps. affs don't utilize their 1ac enough when answering cps. condo is good, multi-plank condo is good. pretty much all other theory is probably a reason to reject the arg.

DAs

The politics DA was most of my high school career. I enjoy complex stories with clear internal link turns to the aff or some form of cirvumvention/a solvency take out. teams who explain how the direction of x shapes the direction of y are much more likely to win a close debate. I will probably not read you ev during the debate, but if the final rebuttals include a DA, please send a card doc.

default to competing interps but its not hard to get me to vote on reasonability. the simpler the definition/the clearer the violation the better.

misc

organization/signposting is important

I enjoy impacts turns/traps/double binds etc.

have fun

Jordan Davis Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Philip DiPiazza Ronald Reagan 3 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 2:35 AM CST

Updated - Fall 2020

Number of years judging: 12

For the email chain: philipdipiazza@gmail.com

I want to be on the email chain, but I am not going to “read-along” during constructives. I may reference particular cards during cross-ex if they are being discussed, and I will probably read cards that are important or being contested in the final rebuttals. But it’s the job of the debaters to explain, contextualize, and impact the warrants in any piece of evidence. I will always try to frame my decision based on the explanations on the flow (or lack thereof).

Like every judge I look for smart, well-reasoned arguments. I’ll admit a certain proclivity for critical argumentation, but it isn’t an exclusive preference (I think there’s something valuable to be said about “policy as performance”). Most of what I have to say can be applied to whatever approach debaters choose to take in the round. Do what you’re good at, and I will do my best to render a careful, well thought-out decision.

I view every speech in the debate as a rhetorical artifact. Teams can generate clash over questions of an argument’s substance, its theoretical legitimacy, or its intrinsic philosophical or ideological commitments.

I think spin control is extremely important in debate rounds and compelling explanations will certainly be rewarded. And while quantity and quality are also not exclusive I would definitely prefer less cards and more story in any given debate as the round progresses. I also like seeing the major issues in the debate compartmentalized and key arguments flagged.

As for the standard array of arguments, there's nothing I can really say that you shouldn't already know. I like strong internal link stories and nuanced impact comparisons. I really don't care for "risk of link means you vote Aff/Neg" arguments on sketchy positions; if I don't get it I'm not voting for it. My standard for competition is that it’s the Negative’s job to prove why rejecting the Aff is necessary which means more than just presenting an alternative or methodology that solves better – I think this is the best way to preserve clash in these kinds of debates. Please be sure to explain your position and its relation to the other arguments in the round.

KRITIK LINKS ARE STILL IMPORTANT. Don’t assume you’ll always have one, and don’t over-rely on extending a “theory of power” at the top of the flow. Both of these are and should be mutually reinforcing. This is especially important for the way I evaluate permutations. Theories of power should also be explained deliberately and with an intent to persuade.

I think the topic is important and I appreciate teams that find new and creative approaches to the resolution, but that doesn’t mean you have to read a plan text or defend the USFG. Framework is debatable (my judging record on this question is probably 50/50). A lot of this depends on the skills of the debaters in the room. This should not come as a surprise, but the people who are better at debating tend to win my framework ballot. Take your arguments to the next level, and you'll be in a much stronger position.

Two other things that are worth noting: 1) I flow on paper…probably doesn’t mean anything, but it might mean something to you. 2) There's a fine line between intensity and rudeness, so please be mindful of this.

Collin Goemmer Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue August 13, 2024 at 8:02 AM CST

Hello I debated for 4 years in High school and have been judging for 7 years, I am in my second year an Assistant Coach at Blanson CTE High School

Debaters: If your opponent clearly is less experienced than you and you exploit that to stroke your ego I will drop your speaks to the lowest number I can and i will down you even if you won the round on the flow and I will contact your coach. Practices like that are unethical and takes away the educational aspect of debate. Also I don't like these progressive things that have been ran at recent tournaments, I have no problem with progressive arguments that are ran well however most of the time they are not done well.

Do not ask me to pre flow you should know your case already, I like big picture or line by line I'll judge the round on either, impact calculus, make sure you weigh for me, I HATE FRIVOLOUS THEORY, and also don't run anything you don't understand. Be respectful and have fun

I want an educational round over a competitive round. If you spread the other team out of the room, are intentionally vague and unwilling to explain your vocab, or are generally rude and dismissive, especially against a novice team, I'm giving you an L and giving you the minimum number of speaks. My view of debate is as an educational activity first and competitive second. Local tournaments are to foster critical thinking skills and create more nuanced, educated high schoolers.

First: this is a communication event it does not matter if I can understand speed DO NOT SPREAD, I cannot flow what I cannot understand and it is not my job to read off of a doc. You can send me the doc, but I will only refer to it if there is a problem with evidence.

Second: be respectful the easiest way to get me to drop your speaks (and you'll likely loose the round too) is if you are being rude

Third:DO NOT MAKE UP SOURCES I will fact check you and I will get in touch with your coach and the tournament director, you CAN use the internet in rounds now

Fourth: Debaters I DO NOT DISCLOSE Do not ask me to disclose and all comments will be on the ballot

Congress Kids: do not wait until the round has started to take splits do that before the round. and I HATE in house recesses to take splits especially when y'all just started. another thing, when y'all take splits and you need to write a speech in round go with the least popular side of the debate as it increases your chances at getting the speech. CLASH IS ESSENTIAL FOR CONGRESS TO BE A DEBATE EVENT!!!!!! When y'all take in house recesses it makes you look unprepared. When you get up to give a speech make sure you are actually adding something to the debate rehashing old arguments does nothing for the debate. When you clash with past arguments make sure you mention specific arguments brought up and the speaker who said it.

Extemp: I like to see a well organized and structured speech. You need a good hook to capture the audiences attention. DO NOT MAKE UP SOURCES I can tell when a source is made up and if I think you are making up a source I will fact check you. I hate being lied to in extemp. MAKE SURE YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION!!! That is the quickest way to get me to drop you in rank if you don't answer the question, you could have excellent analysis but you must answer the question

Interp: I'm not gonna lie this is probably the event I am least equipped to judge, but I like to see good blocking, clear character transitions and distinctions between characters. In POI make sure you have a variety of pieces in your program. Bring the emotion out in your piece, that does not mean you need to scream to convey emotions

OO:I like to listen to a good oratory. I love the speeches where I learn something and maybe make me feel inspired. Speech should have a catchy agd/hook that transitions naturally into your background information. Make sure you have a solution for your problem. When choosing a topic try to make it unique there are several topics that are commonly used so make your speech unique. I like to see acronyms for your solution. Make sure you have a call to action

Info: Informative is a different event from OO so don't give an OO in info. One of the main differences is that in Info you do not offer a solution you offer societal implications. I love to see infos that actually teach me something I didn't know before I came to judge the round, so be creative I love to see unique info visuals and topics

Congress

Policy

Extemp

Conflicts: Blanson CTE, Avalos P-TECH

Lawrence Golden Success Academy HSLA-MANHATTAN 2 rounds

Ethan Greer Sidwell Independent 3 rounds

Last changed on Mon September 2, 2024 at 12:03 PM EST

I debated at Georgetown University for 4 years (2019-2023) and coached there for a year (2023-2024). I'm currently affiliated with Northwestern University.

This paradigm solely contains information on my predispositions and how I'll resolve debates in the absence of contrary instruction. The set of arguments for which I will not vote is vanishingly small.

I like debates where both teams respect each other and demonstrate they have put a lot of time and thought into their arguments, but I am largely agnostic as to the specific form and content that these arguments take. In other words, don't over-adapt.

egreerdebate@gmail.com

Overall Thoughts

-I prefer debates involving arguments about the topic. I think that policy debate should reward research and innovation within the topic area rather than incentivizing teams to recycle generics from year-to-year.

-Effective communication is imperative. Be clear; use numbers, emphasis, and sound bites to differentiate arguments; and focus on telling a cohesive story about why you win the issues that are most important for the debate. Don't be the kind of team that gets annoyed because I didn't think the one-sentence argument made 5 minutes into the final rebuttal was important for my decision.

-I'm not a disciplinarian. I will refuse to evaluate arguments about an opponent's behavior outside the debate. I have a high threshold for voting on procedural questions about an opponent's in-round behavior. Soliciting opportunities to make such arguments (e.g., by asking inflammatory CX questions) is a bad strategy in front of me.

-Ks are fine provided that they clash with core premises of the 1AC. At best, Ks are effective tools for grappling with and challenging the underlying assumptions of taken-for-granted worldviews. At worst, they are cheap shots that teams use to sidestep argumentative engagement.

-I rarely care about terminal impacts. Terminal impact calculus usually begs the question of the other levels of the debate. Relatedly, I consider "extinction outweighs" to be the most overrated argument in debate.

-I give speaker points in a normal distribution with 28.5 at the center.

T (vs. Policy Affs)

-Topicality is a germane criticism. Affirmative teams must take it seriously and answer it like any other argument.

-Community consensus doesn't impact how I view T interps. Popular affs are still subject to the criticism that they are not topical.

-The thing I care about most in T debates is whether an interpretation is well-grounded in topic literature. Given equal debating, the person who is "correct" about what the words mean will usually win. By default, I view limits/ground arguments as a tiebreaker when two interpretations are equally plausible readings of the resolution.

-I haven't taken a grammar class since seventh grade. Please don't throw out random parts of speech with no explanation and expect me to understand.

-Neg teams are better served by speaking in terms of ground rather than limits. I care more about the neg having access to a set of cross-contextual topic generics than the neg having to cut a lot of case negs.

CPs

-Infinite conditionality is good. Persuading me otherwise is an uphill battle.

-Interps like "the neg gets two conditional advocacies" and "we get what we did" don't make sense. Conditionality is a yes/no question.

-I'm heavily aff-leaning on process CPs that do not include a reason why the plan is a bad idea. In other words, if I conclude that the "other issues" perm solves the net benefit, I'm unlikely to be a fan of your CP. If you can present a substantive DA to this perm (i.e., by proving that inclusion of the plan itself is undesirable), then I'm much more likely to vote neg.

-I'm reasonably aff-leaning on theory for CPs that involve fiating non-USFG actors, though I'm much more amenable to the states CP than to other instances of non-USFG fiat.

-I don't judge kick unless the 2NR provides offense for doing so. Debate is about choices, and I won't make yours for you.

DAs

-I won't vote for intrinsicness unless dropped. Answer DAs substantively.

-I don't think anything can be "zero" risk. You're better off talking about risk in relative rather than binary terms.

-I work in electoral politics, so it will be very obvious to me if you extend an elections/politics DA without knowing what you're talking about.

Ks (vs. Policy Affs)

-I have voted for Ks a disproportionate number of the times that they've been in the 2NR in front of me. When I vote neg, it's usually because the neg team invested a lot of time into a framework argument that mooted the aff offense, and the 2AR did not effectively argue that this framework argument was illegitimate.

-That said, I think teams tend to be over-reliant on framework. I would greatly prefer a debate which focuses on the desirability of the 1AC's underlying approach to politics in toto, to a framework debate. Neg teams should present aff-specific link arguments and case turns. Aff teams should present offense in favor of their assumptions.

-I don't find "you link, you lose" and "Ks are cheating" to be intuitively persuasive models of debate, but I will vote for either if executed well in the final rebuttals.

-Aff teams often spend large portions of their speeches making arguments about why the plan is good without investing sufficient time into winning that the plan being good is a relevant question for the debate. Arguments like "extinction outweighs," "perm double bind," and "alt fails" are not super useful when the 2NR is "vote neg because the 1AC as a rhetorical project was unethical." Instead, the 2AR should talk about why I should refuse to evaluate the 1AC solely as a rhetorical project.

-I think it is nearly impossible for the aff to "drop" a "floating PIK" because all aff framework offense is a reason why PIKs are illegitimate. If the aff wins that a plan-focused model of debate is good, then they have adequately answered the PIK because the PIK does not contest the plan's desirability. In contrast, if the neg wins that the plan doesn't matter, then almost all Ks are potentially plan-inclusive.

-Framework determines the threshold for alt solvency. If the desirability of the plan is a relevant consideration to the debate, the neg has a greater burden to produce an alternative approach to the world that would solve the impacts of the aff or solve another set of impacts that outweighs the aff. If the only relevant consideration is the desirability of the aff as a research object/scholarly project, the neg has a greatly reduced burden to explain what the alt means or does; in these instances, I treat "vote neg" as an alternative in itself.

-Fairness matters, but not as an end in itself. Aff teams must defend why fairness is necessary not merely for debate to exist, but for it to be a game worth playing.

K Affs and T/FW

-See the "Ks (vs Policy Affs)" section for thoughts on the fairness debate.

-Critique topicality, not the topic. Flaws in the topic are negative ground and therefore not offense against framework. Arguments such as "nuclear policy is imperialist" are potentially relevant Ks of topical affirmatives, but they are not justifications for reading a non-topical aff.

-I hate arguments that rely on the premise that it's evil to defend or debate about things with which you personally disagree. College students do not have infallible understandings of the world. Debate intrinsically involves confronting the possibility that you could be wrong about your most closely-held beliefs - this is a feature, not a bug, of the activity.

-I prefer it when aff teams defend a specific model of debate. Speak granularly to the role your interp provides for clash/negation. Talk about core points of disagreement under your model and why this disagreement produces better debates.

Tips for Higher Speaker Points

-Read cards where the warrants are highlighted and point out where your opponents have failed to do the same.

-Send docs before ending prep.

-Don't send cards in the body of the email.

-Don't ask flow check questions (including "reasons to reject the team").

-Don't refer to the case pages as "advantage 1" and "advantage 2" when the 1AC provided more descriptive labels, such as "economy advantage."

-Don't read cards written by undergraduates.

-Don't reinsert rehighlighting unless the lines have already been read by the other team.

Rahul Kolla Westwood 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed September 18, 2024 at 12:34 PM CST

Hebron HS '20, UT Dallas '24, 2A for one year, 2N for three, qualified to the TOC, debated for one year in college

Pronouns - He, him, his

Put me on the email chain - rahulk1325 AT gmail DOT com

I prefer K v Policy >= K v K >> Policy v Policy but will judge anything

Name the email chain: [TOURNAMENT NAME] - [AFF TEAM] vs [NEG TEAM] Round X

Stuff:

- Clarity > speed

- Tech > Truth in most instances

- Don't be violent (racism, sexism, genocide good)

- Clipping is bad (L and 0 speaks for the team who does it)

- Reject the arg > reject the team

- I flow on a computer

- Being funny is good - debates can get quite boring sometimes. Just don't be stupid about it.

- I have invested most of my career into exploring critical literature bases and as such am more adept at judging Policy v K rounds and K v K rounds. But I will evaluate anything present in front of me.

Specific stuff:

Kritiks:

- Enjoy these debates.

- I don't care how long your overview is, but technical line-by-line is preferable and very important.

- More specific the link/analysis, the better.

- Familiar with a litany of theory basis, but when making specific analysis, make sure your explanation starts broadly.

- My evaluation begins with the framework portion of the debate - make sure you have a clear articulation of your model of debate and why it is preferable.

- If you read a kritik against a K aff, I will reward specific engagement by holding affirmative teams to a higher standard for permutation explanation.

Topicality:

- I can be convinced to vote for anything in regards to reasonability/competing interps.

- Impact comparison is pretty important.

- Good counter interp ev is very important and will be rewarded.

Counterplans:

- Smart, creative counterplans are appreciated if executed well.

- I lean neg for most counterplan theory except for consult, condo, solvency advocate.

- I need instruction for judge kick.

Disadvantages:

- Good impact comparison makes me happy.

- DA turns case arguments when executed correctly are strategic and beneficial for negative teams.

Misc. Stuff:

Debate is an unique experience - don't take it/yourself too seriously and make sure to have fun.

Be nice! Debate is rapidly losing participation - don't be the reason debaters quit.

Eleanora Lawrence Lexington HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Tue January 16, 2024 at 6:37 AM EST

Sarah Lawrence '25, Caddo Magnet High '21, she/her, yes I want to be on the email chain-- ejarlawrence@gmail.com

Top-Level: I prefer a fast, technical debate and default to evaluating debates as a policymaker, but can be persuaded otherwise. Don't overadapt - debate is a game, and winning your arguments is what matters. I like to reward good evidence, but I won't be reading every card after the round unless it is flagged or a close debate and good evidence is not an excuse for unwarranted debating/little explanation.

T vs policy affs: I don't enjoy close definitions debates. T debates where the interpretation becomes clear only in CX of the 2NC or later will be very hard to reward with my ballot. I understand that good T debates happen (T-LPR on immigration comes to mind) but if the topic doesnt have easily understandable, legally precise definitions based in government literature (CJR comes to mind) I'm going to err towards reasonability more than anyone I know. Plan text in a vaccum probably sucks, but if you can't articulate a clear alternative you probably can't win. Predictability probably outweighs debatability.

T vs K affs: Debate is probably a game, but probably also more than that, and neither team's offense is likely truly reliant on winning this anyway. Fairness is probably an impact, but it is frequently pretty small. Neg teams that clearly explain what the aff's interpretation justifies (ie. internal link debating) and why that's bad are more likely to win my ballot. Aff teams that come up with a counter-interp that attempts to solve for some limits/predictability seem more instinctively reasonable to me than those who try to impact turn things I think are probably good like predictability, but either strategy is fine.

Counterplans/Theory: Theory other than conditionality/perfcon is probably not a voter. On a truth level, I think being neg in a world without massive conditionality and theoretical abuse is impossible on lots of hs topics. Given that, I'm actually fairly familiar with and interested in hearing good condo debating- competing interps means if you have something explainable and not arbitrary (infinite condo, infinite dispo, no condo) and can articulate some standards I won't hack for anyone. Default to judge kick, but can be convinced not to, counterplans should probably be textually and functionally competitive, I'd love to hear a real debate on positional competition but I'm not optimistic.

Disads: Uniqueness matters, and determines offense on the link level, but win the link too. No politics disad is true, but some politics disads are more true than others. These were my favorite arguments to cut and go for, and interesting scenarios that are closer to the truth or strategic will be rewarded with speaks. I'm of the somewhat controversial opinion they make for good education and the less controversial one lots of topics are unworkable for the neg without them, so don't go for intrinsicness/floortime DAs bad theory.

Impact Turns: Nothing much to say here, other than a reassurance I will not check out on something I find unpersuasive in real life (any of the war good debates, spark, wipeout). If you can't beat it, update your blocks.

Impact Framing/Soft Left Impacts: I default to utilitarian consequentialism, and have a strong bias in favor of that as a way to evaluate impacts. If you want to present another way to evaluate impacts, PLEASE tell me what it means for my ballot and how I evaluate it. "Overweight probability" is fine for the 1AC, but by the 1AR I should know if that means I ONLY evaluate probability/disregard probabilities under 1%/don't evaluate magnitudes of infinity. Anything else means you're going to get my super arbitrary and probably fairly utilitarian impulse. I would love if whoever's advocating for ex risks would do the same, but I have a better handle on what your deal means for the ballot, so I don't need as much help. "Util Bad" without an alternative is very unpersuasive - BUT a fleshed out alternative can be very strategic.

K vs Policy Affs: I vote neg most often in these debates when the neg can lose framework but win case takeouts or an impact to the K that outweighs and turns the aff. I vote neg somewhat often in these debates when the aff does a bad job explaining the internal links of their FW interp or answering negative impacts (which is still pretty often). For security type Ks, it seems like some people think they can convince me sweeping IR theories or other impacts are false with all the knowledge of a high schooler. Read a card, or I will assume the aff's 3 cards on China Revisionist/cyber war real are true and the K is false.

Brief tangent ahead: If you think the above statement re: the security K does not apply to you because you have a fun way to get around this by saying "it doesn't matter if the K is false because we shouldn't just use Truth to determine whether statements are good to say", I think you're probably wrong. You're critiquing a theory of how we should evaluate the merits of Saying Stuff (traditionally Truth, for whatever value we can determine it) without providing an alternative. So, provide an alternative way for me to determine the merits of Saying Stuff or you're liable to get my frustration and fairly arbitrary decisionmaking on whether you've met the very high burden required to win this. I've judged like four debates now which revolved around this specific issue and enjoyed evaluating none of them. Aff teams when faced with this should ask a basic question like "how do we determine what statements are good outside of their ability to explain the world" please. First person I see do this will get very good speaker points. TLDR: treat your epistemological debates like util good/bad debates and I will enjoy listening to them. Don't and face the consequences.

K vs K affs: I've now judged a few of these debates, and have found when the aff goes for the perm they're very likely to get my ballot absent basically losing the thesis of the affirmative (which has happened). This means I don't think "the aff doesn't get perms in a method debate" is a nonstarter. Other than that, my background in the literature is not strong, so if your link relies on a nuanced debate in the literature, I'm going to need a lot of explanation.

Miscellaneous: These are unsorted feelings I have about debate somewhere between the preferences expressed above and non-negotiables below.

For online debate: Debaters should endeavor to keep their cameras on for their speeches as much as possible. I find that I'm able to pay much more attention to cx and give better speaker comments. Judging online is hard and staring at four blank screens makes it harder.

I am becoming somewhat annoyed with CX of the 1NC/2AC that starts with "did you read X" or "what cards from the doc did you not read" and will minorly (.1, .2 if it's egregious) reduce your speaks if you do this. I am MORE annoyed if you try to make this happen outside of speech or prep time. 2As, have your 1A flow the 1NC to catch these things. 2Ns, same for your 1Ns. If the speaker is particularly unclear or the doc is particularly disorganized, this goes away.

At my baseline, I think about the world in a more truth over tech way. My judging strategy and process is optimized to eliminate this bias, as I think its not a good way to evaluate debate rounds, but I am not perfect. You have been warned.

I am gay. I am not a good judge for queerness arguments. This isn't a "you read it you lose/i will deck speaks" situation, but you have been warned its a harder sell than anything else mentioned

For LD/PF: I have judged very little of either of these events; I have knowledge of the content of the topic but not any of its conventions. I understand the burden for warranted arguments (especially theory) is lower in LD than in policy - I'm reluctant to make debaters entirely transform their style, so I won't necessarily apply my standard for argument depth, but if the one team argues another has insufficiently extended an argument, I will be very receptive to that.

Non-negotiables:

In high school policy debate, both teams get 8 minutes for constructives, 5 minutes for rebuttals, 3 minutes for CX, and however many minutes of prep time the tournament invitation says. CX is binding. There is one winner and one loser. I will flow. I won't vote on anything that did not occur in the round (personal attacks, prefs, disclosure, etc.). I think a judge's role is to determine who won the debate at hand, not who is a better person outside of it. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I will assist you in going to tab so that they can create a solution, but I don't view that as something that the judge should decide a debate on.

You have to read rehighlightings, you can't just insert them. If I or the other team notice you clipping or engaging in another ethics violation prohibited by tournament rules and it is found to be legitimate, it's an auto-loss and I will give the lowest speaks that I can give.

It'll be hard to offend me but don't say any slurs or engage in harmful behavior against anyone else including racism, sexism, homophobia, intentionally misgendering someone, etc. I see pretty much all arguments as fair game but when that becomes personally harmful for other people, then it's crossed a line. I've thankfully never seen something like this happen in a debate that I've been in but it'd be naive to act like it's never happened. The line for what is and is not personally harmful to someone is obviously very arbitrary but that applies to almost all things in debate, so I think it's fair to say that it is also up to the judge's discretion for when the line has been crossed.

Jake Lee Mamaroneck High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat November 9, 2024 at 11:15 AM EST

Jake Lee (He/Him)

Math Teacher and Director of Debate at Mamaroneck High School

For Email Chain: jakemlee@umich.edu

Also add: mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

A more in-depth view of my judging record: View this Spreadsheet

General:

Tech > Truth, will let the flow dictate what I vote on. Will leave personal biases on things outside. Only exceptions: I will not vote on Death Good (Ligotti style) or anything that is blatant hate speech

I won't vote on arguments that pertain to issues outside a debate round or ad homs

Stop asking for a 30 in rounds.

Hiding ASPEC or other theory arguments = cowardly

No "inserting" rehighlightings. You must read your re-highlighting.

I starting to believe in the Shunta's rule about offcase, but won't enforce it yet. The NEG really does not need more than 6 offcase to win a debate. I believe you can win a policy round with 4 off.

Case/Plan specific strategies with good evidence are substantially better than spamming a ton of incomplete, generic, cheap shot arguments. Those strategies will be rewarded.

Vertical Proliferation of arguments is better than a horizontal proliferation of arguments. You can definitely ask me what this means.

Respect your opponents

I do not reward unclarity. If you are unclear in speeches, I am not sympathetic to "dropped" arguments because the other team could not flow you since you were unclear. I do not look at the doc. Your job is to CLEARLY communicate your arguments, that is the whole point of debate. If you cannot do that, I am not flowing anything or just evaluate it as a totally incomplete argument.

IPR Specific:

T-Subsets should not be your 2NR strategy unless the AFF has MASSIVELY screwed up

The State of Flowing:

The state of flowing is beyond terrible right now, stop looking at the doc and listen to your opponent. I am getting tired of the amount of times debaters just say with full confidence "x argument was DROPPED!" when it was not. CX time has been wasted on arguments that were not read because you assumed it was read because it being on the doc. I am going to start docking speaker points for debaters that are obviously not flowing the speech and only flowing the speech doc.

If you ask the speaker to remove the cards they did not read, I will run prep time, and the speaker has the right to run your prep time down to 0 because it is your job to listen and flow

If you answer arguments that were in the speech doc but not read, I will doc speaker points.

Nethmin Liyanage Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue October 29, 2024 at 2:58 AM PST

tldr do what you do best; i'll only vote for complete arguments that make sense; weighing & judge instruction tip the scales in your favor; disclosure is good; i care about argument engagement and i value flexibility; stay hydrated & be a good person.

she/her

i coach policy debate at damien-st. lucy's

Recently rewritten paradigm, probably best to give it a quick skim!

My strongest belief about argumentation is that argument engagement is good - I don't have a strong preference as to what styles of arguments teams read in front of me, but I'd prefer if both teams engaged with their opponents' arguments; I don't enjoy teams who avoid clash (regardless of the style of argument they are reading). I value ideological flexibility in judges and actively try not to be someone who will exclusively vote on only "policy" or only "k" arguments.

I am good for policy teams that do topic research and aim to not go for process cp backfiles every 2nr. I am also good for k teams that do topic research and answer the aff and go for 2nr arguments that are substantive (not "role of the ballot"). I am bad for ld teams that go for ld-specific things ("tricks"), but am good for ld teams that are well-researched and read policy or k arguments.

More LD-specific notes/thoughts at bottom of paradigm.

Topic Knowledge:

I don't teach at a policy camp in the summer. I am involved in the Damien-St. Lucy's team research, and have vaguely kept up with the camp evidence updates. I generally know what's going on with the topic, but extra handholding when breaking new prep is likely to be beneficial.

email chains:

ld email chains: nethmindebate@gmail.com

policy email chains: damiendebate47@gmail.com and nethmindebate@gmail.com

if you need to contact me directly about rfd questions, accessibility requests, or anything else, please email nethmindebate@gmail.com (please don't email the teamail for these types of requests)!

please include an adult (your coach, chaperone, or even parent) on the email chain if you are emailing me directly -- just a good safety norm to not have direct communications between minors & adults that don't know them!

flowing: it is good and teams should do it

stolen from alderete - if you show me a decent flow, you can get up to 1 extra speaker point. this can only help you - i won't deduct points for an atrocious flow. this is to encourage teams to actually flow:)

Some general notes

Accessibility & content warnings: Email me if there is an accessibility request that I can help facilitate - I always want to do my part to make debates more accessible. I prefer not to judge debates that involve procedurals about accessibility and/or content warnings. I think it is more productive to have a pre-round discussion where both teams request any accommodation(s) necessary for them to engage in an equitable debate. I feel increasingly uncomfortable evaluating debates that come down to accessibility/cw procedurals, especially when the issue could have easily been resolved pre-round.

Speed/clarity – I will say clear up to two times per speech before just doing my best to flow you. I can handle a decent amount of speed. Going slower on analytics is a good idea. You should account for pen time/scroll time.

Online debate -- 1] please record your speeches, if there are tech issues, I'll listen to a recording of the speech, but not a re-do. 2] debate's still about communication - please watch for nonverbals, listen for people saying "clear," etc.

I am aggressively pro-disclosure. Disclosure is one of the elements of debate that is most important for small-school and novice accessibility. If you do not disclose, I will assume that you prefer the exclusionary system where only big schools have access, and I will punish your speaker points accordingly. I am so aggressive about enforcing disclosure with all teams (big and small school) because I believe in the mission of the open evidence project and other similar open source disclosure practices. tldr disclose or lose!

Speaker points:

Speaker points are dependent on strategy, execution, clarity, and overall engagement in the round and are scaled to adapt to the quality/difficulty/prestige of the tournament.

I try to give points as follows:

30: you're a strong contender to win the tournament & this round was genuinely impressive

29.5+: late elims, many moments of good decisionmaking & argumentative understanding, adapted well to in-round pivots

29+: you'll clear for sure, generally good strat & round vision, a few things could've been more refined

28.5+: likely to clear but not guaranteed, there are some key errors that you should fix

28+: even record, probably losing in the 3-2 round

27.5+: winning less than 50% of your rounds, key technical/strategic errors

27+: winning less than 50% of your rounds, multiple notable technical/strategic errors

26+: errors that indicated a fundamental lack of preparation for the rigor/style of this tournament

25-: you did something really bad/offensive/unsafe.

Extra speaks for flowing, being clear, kindness, adaptation, and good disclosure practices.

Minus speaks for discrimination of any sort, bad-faith disclosure practices, rudeness/unkindness, and attempts to avoid engagement/clash.

Opinions on Specific Positions (ctrl+f section):

Case:

I think that negatives that don't engage with the 1ac are putting themselves in a bad position. This is true for both K debates and policy debates.

Extensions should involve warrants, not just tagline extensions - I'm willing to give some amount of leeway for the 1ar/2ar extrapolating a warrant that wasn't the focal point of the 2ac, but I should be able to tell from your extensions what the impact is, what the internal links are, and why you solve.

Planless affs:

I tend to believe that affirmatives need to defend the topic. I think most planless affs can/should be reconfigured as soft left affs. I have voted for affs that don't defend the topic, but it requires superior technical debating from the aff team.

You need to be able to explain what your aff does/why it's good.

I tend to dislike planless affs where the strategy is to make the aff seem like a word salad until after 2ac cx and then give the aff a bunch of new (and not super well-warranted) implications in the 1ar. I tend to be better for planless aff teams when they have a meaningful relationship to the topic, they are straight-up about what they do/don't defend, they use their aff strategically, engage with neg arguments, and make smart 1ar & 2ar decisions with good ballot analysis.

T/framework vs planless affs:

In a 100% evenly debated round, I am likely better for the neg than the aff. However, most of these debates are not evenly debated. Either team/side can win my ballot by doing the better technical debating. This past season, I often voted for a K team that I thought was smart and technical. Specific thoughts on framework below:

The best way for aff teams to win my ballot is to be more technical than the neg team. Seems obvious, but what I'm trying to convey here is that I'm less persuaded by personal/emotional pleas for the ballot and more persuaded by a rigorous and technical defense of why your model of debate is good in this instance or in general. I have historically voted against aff teams that made arguments along the lines of "vote for me or I'll quit debate."

I think that TVAs can be more helpful than teams realize. While having a TVA isn't always necessary, winning a TVA provides substantial defense on many of the aff's exclusion arguments.

I don't have a preference on whether your chosen 2nr is skills or fairness (or something else). I think that both options have strategic value based on the round you're in. Framework teams almost always get better points in front of me when they are able to contextualize their arguments to their opponents' strategy.

I also don't have a preference between the aff going for impact turns or going for a counterinterp. The strategic value of this is dependent on how topical/non-topical your aff is, in my opinion.

Theory:

The less frivolous your theory argument, the better I am for it.

Please weigh! It's not nearly as intuitive to make a decision in theory debates - I can fill in the gaps for why extinction is more impactful than localized war more easily than I can fill in the gaps for why neg flex matters more/less than research burdens.

Topicality (not framework):

I like T debates that have robust and contextualized definitions of the relevant words/phrases/entities in the resolution. Have a clear explanation of what your interpretation is/isn't; examples/caselists are your friend.

Grammar-based topicality arguments: I don't find most of the grammar arguments being made these days to be very intuitive. You should explain/warrant them more than you would in front of a judge who loves those arguments.

Kritiks (neg):

I am absolutely terrible for K teams that don't debate the case. If your idea of a winning strategy is to read a bunch of links that aren't to the consequences of the plan and then also not answer the affirmative at all, I am best at the middle/bottom of your pref sheet. I'm good for K teams that read links to the consequences of the plan, answer the case, and do line-by-line (if the neg block is 13 min of prewritten block soup, that's not line-by-line!)

I vote for K teams often when they are technical and make smart big-picture arguments and demonstrate topic knowledge. I vote against K teams when they do ... not that!

Disads:

Zero risk probably doesn't exist, but very-close-to-zero risk probably does. Teams that answer their opponents' warrants instead of reading generic defense tend to fare better in close rounds. Good evidence tends to matter more in these debates - I'd rather judge a round with 2 great cards + debaters explaining their cards than a round with 10 horrible cards + debaters asking me to interpret their dumpster-quality cards for them.

Counterplans:

I don't have strong ideological biases about theory other than that some amount of condo is probably good. More egregious abuse = easier to persuade me on theory; the issue I usually see in theory debates is a lack of warranting for why the neg's model was uniquely abusive - specific analysis > generic args + no explanation.

No judge kick. Make a choice!

LD-specific section:

-you might think of cx judges in ld as people who despise judging ld and despise you for doing ld. i try to not let this be true about me. all of my issues with ld can be grouped into two general categories: 1) speech times/structure (not your fault, won't penalize you for it), and 2) the tendency to read unwarranted nonsense, such as "tricks," shoes theory, etc (you can avoid reading these args very easily and make me very happy)

-i am a horrid judge for tricks and frivolous theory. please just go for another argument!

-i am okay for phil. i don't have any personal opposition to philosophy-based arguments, i just don't coach/judge these arguments often, so i will need more explanation/hand-holding. many phil debates recently have involved tricks, which has soured me on this argumentative style, but i would be happy to judge a straight-up phil debate:)

-you don't get 1ar add-ons -- there is no 2ac in ld

-i teach at ld camp every summer, so assume i have some idea of community norms, but don't assume i am following trends super closely

Arguments that are simply too bad to be evaluated:

-a team should get the ballot simply for proving that they are not unfair or uneducational

-the ballot should be a referendum on a debater's character, personal life, pref sheet, etc

-the affirmative's theory argument comes before the negative's topicality argument

-some random piece of offense becomes an "independent voter" simply because it is labeled as such

-debates would be better if they were unfair, uneducational, lacked a stasis point, lacked clash, etc

-a debater's moral character is determined by whether they read policy or k arguments

-evidence ethics should be a case neg, as opposed to an opportunity for reasonable preround discussion and an opportunity to correct mistakes [note: i will not vote on ev ethics if you do not have proof you contacted the team beforehand]

-"tricks"

-teams should not be required to disclose on opencaselist

-the debate should be evaluated after any speech that is not the 2ar

-the "role of the ballot" means topicality doesn't matter

Arguments that I am personally skeptical of, but will try to evaluate fairly:

-it would be better for debate if affirmatives did not have a meaningful relationship to the topic

-debate would be better if the negative team was not allowed to read any conditional advocacies

-reading topicality causes violence or discrimination within debate

-"role of the ballot"

-the outcome of a particular debate will change someone's mind or will change the state of debate

-the 5-second aspec argument that was hidden in the 1nc can become a winning 2nr

-the affirmative may not read a plan because of "bare plurals"

if there's anything i didn't mention or you have any questions, feel free to email me! if there's anything i can do to make debate more accessible for you, let me know! i really love debate and i coach because i want to make debate/the community a better place; please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything you need.

Zhane Lloyd Brooklyn Technical High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue February 6, 2024 at 12:29 PM EST

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Yes, include me on the email chain. zhaneclloyd@gmail.com

Brooklyn Tech: 2011 - 2012 (those three novice UDL tournaments apparently count), 2017 - 2021 (coach)
NYU: 2014 - 2018
The New School: 2018-2020 (coach)

***I used to keep my video off for rounds, but I've since learned that it's a mistake for the morale of the debater as well as for confirming whether or not I'm actually in the room. If my camera is off, I am not in the room. Please do not start speaking***

I currently work a full-time job that has nothing to do with debate. I still judge because that full-time job does not pay enough (does any job nowadays?) and I've built community with people that are still very active in debate, so seeing them is nice. It is also means I'm VERY out of touch with what the new norms in debate are. But everything below still applies for the most part.

In case you're pressed for time

1. Do you. Have fun. Don't drop an important argument.

2. If there is an impact in the 2NR/2AR, there's a high chance you've won the debate in front of me. I like going for the easy way out and impacts give me the opportunity to do that. Impact comparisons are good too. NEG - LINKS to those impacts matter. AFF - how you SOLVE those impacts matter. Outside of that context, I'm not sure how I should evaluate.

3. I flow on paper, so please don't be upset if I miss arguments because you're slurring your words or making 17 arguments/minute.

4. Don't assume I know the acronyms or theories you're talking about, even if I do. This is a persuasion activity, so no shortcuts to persuading me.

5. Obviously, I have biases, but I try not to let those biases influence how I decide a round. Usually, if debaters can't accomplish #2, then I'll be forced to. I prefer to go with the flow though.

6. If at the end of the round, you find yourself wanting to ask my opinion on an argument that you thought was a round winner, know that I have one of two answers: I didn't consider it or I didn't hear it. Usually, it's the latter. So try not to make 5 arguments in 20 seconds.

7. There's no such thing as a "good" time to run 5+ off, but I'll especially be annoyed if it's the first or last round of the day. 10+ off guarantees I will not flow and may even stop the round. I'm not the judge for those type of rounds.

8. I've grown increasingly annoyed with non-Black debaters making "helping Black people" as part of their solvency. A lot of you don't know how to do this without either a). sounding patronizing as hell or b). forgetting that "helping Black people" was part of your solvency by the time rebuttals come around (#BackburnerDA). I'm not going to tell you to stop running those arguments, but I strongly recommend you don't have me in the back of the room for them.

**ONLINE DEBATE**: You don't need to yell into your mic. I can hear you fine. In fact, yelling into your mic might make it harder for me to hear you. Which means you may lose. Which is bad. For you.

If you're not so pressed for time

I debated for four years at NYU and ran mostly soft left affs. I think that means I'm a pretty good judge for these types of affs and it also means I'm probably able to tell if there is a genuine want for a discussion about structural violence impacts and the government's ability to solve them or if they're just tacked on because K debaters are scary and it makes the perm easier.

I do think debate is a game, but I also think people should be allowed to modify the "rules" of the game if they're harmful or just straight up unlikeable. I've designed games from time to time, so I like thinking about the implications of declaring debate to be "just" a game or "more than" a game. Now to the important stuff.

Speed: Through a card, I'll tolerate it. Through a tag or analytics, I'll be pretty annoyed. And so will you, because I'll probably miss something important that could cost you the round. When reading a new card, either verbally indicate it ("and" or "next") or change your tone to reflect it.

Planless affs: Even in a game, some people just don't want to defend the government. And that's perfectly okay. But I would like the aff to be relevant to the current topic. Though I do understand that my definition of "relevant" and a K debater's definition of "relevant" may differ ~~greatly~~ slightly, so just prove to me why the aff is a good idea and why the lack of government action is not as relevant/bad/important as the negative's framework makes it seem.

CP: Wasn't really much of a CP debater and I don't really coach teams that run CPs, except the basic novice ones that come in a starter kit. I think they're a fine argument and am willing to vote on them.

DA: You could never go wrong with a good DA. DAs, when run correctly, have a really good, linear story that can be extended in the neg block and could be used to effectively handle aff answers. Feel free to go crazy.

Ks: I can't think of a neg round where I didn't run a K. I've run cap, security, queerness, and Black feminism. But please, do not talk to me as if I know your K. If you're running pomo, I most definitely don't know your K and will need to be talked through it with analogies and examples. If you're running an identity K, I probably do know your K but expect the same from you as I expect from a pomo debater. Cap, security - you get the memo.

T: My favorite neg arg as a senior. I'm always down for a good T debate. I do think that sometimes it's used as a cop-out, but I also think that some affs aren't forwarding any sort of plan or advocacy. Just stating an FYI and a neg can't really argue against that. So T becomes the winning strategy.

Framework: Not exactly the same as T, but I still **like** it. Please just call it framework in front of me. I've heard various names be used to describe it, but they're all just arguments about what should be discussed in the round and how the aff fails to do so.

Theory: Important, but the way debaters speed through their theory shells makes me question just how important it is. Again, slow down when reading theory in front of me so it's actually an option for you at the end of the round.

sim low Georgetown Day School 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat November 9, 2024 at 10:49 AM EST

simdebates@gmail.com for the email chain and any other inquiries

the asian debate collective is a community of debaters across all platforms and skill levels. we offer active programming during the summer that includes academic guest speakers, debate lectures, and drill/practice round opportunities. outside of that, we also offer pre professional/college application assistance and as always, emotional support! if you are interested in joining, email me.

i’m a johns hopkins graduate where i studied public health and Black studies. my academic research focuses on transnational (anti)Asian/American studies.

i was most recently the head policy coach at georgetown day school until 2024. since then, i have taken a million steps back from the activity. i am now a grumpy old person, assume i know nothing about the topic! unlike tim, who is very friendly and a great judge :3

i mostly coached k debate and i am mostly preferred for k and clash rounds. i think i am capable of judging other arguments, but not as well. meaning, the bar for explanations is higher. i am argument-agnostic and will always prefer technical and clear debating. warrants, comprehensive extensions, and explicit argument interaction is key to winning in front of me. i am very comfortable voting on presumption or pretending an argument doesn’t exist if you do not extend it because i will not do it for you.

quirks:

inserting highlighting is not a thing, read it out loud.
you need to extend your interpretation. i cannot believe i have to say this. if you are slaying and winning the line-by-line on that flow it doesn’t matter if there isn’t an interpretation to hinge on.
dropped arguments need to be explicitly flagged and implicated. going “they dropped it” and moving on does not mean anything.

the round starts at start time. 1ac is sent out by then and you start speaking on the dot. the team that delays the start time will be punished through speaker points. rounds take far too long because of dilly dallying and i shall not have it.

tim is my league of legends partner :^)

Emmanual Makinde Stuyvesant High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 5:19 PM EST

Emmanuel Makinde - Add me to the email chain - (emmanuelmakinde18@gmail.com)

i debate at NYU currently

Top-Level

For the sake of all things good in life, cringe, and the activity of debate... call me Manny or Emmanuel, not "judge"

Debate is a space where people come to test their intellectual capacities through a discussion about the reading of the 1AC. I don’t care what your methodology is for accessing that discussion, but you should be able to defend it. I love debate and have a lot of fun, so it is more enjoyable for me to see other debaters having fun.

I can't promise to set aside my biases entirely (I try my best, but I don't think anyone can 100% do this). I do promise to evaluate debates as fairly as I can and give you the most valuable feedback. I'm always going to be open to questions at the end of debate, and don't be afraid to disagree with the RFD. I've experienced a fair share of inexperienced judges, and strive to be as far from that as possible. I default to common sense unless you tell me otherwise.

The nuance between, "The plan is not topical" and "The plan is so obviously, wildly untopical" can make or break debates. Don't mistake this for ad homs, but don't forget that debate is about persuasion as much as it is about research, and argumentation—how you articulate your argument makes a difference. I'll clarify here that tech and truth aren't mutually exclusive, but judge instruction on how to evaluate a certain argument is useful. Here, I'll also insert a link to a certain segment of Juju's lecture that embodies how I feel about tech v. truth. A dropped argument is true to the extent that you explain it.

Spreading is good. Speaking slow is good. Debate ultimately relies on communication. I know how hard it might be for you to grapple with the idea of maybe not spreading incomprehensibly through tags and analytics, but it's just that simple. If I can't hear what you said, it won't get on my flow. Just be self-aware about your spreading. You don't automatically get higher speaks because you spread faster.

Plans Texts

Plan texts are cool. I think a lot of policy AFFs have poor evidence and can be beaten with analytics sometimes. I generally dislike the ones that “The USFG should do the resolution in its [insert plan focus]” plan texts because they are a moving target for me. I will gladly fill in for the neg here and probably err on any theory if there isn’t much contextualization coming out the 2AC. I value the quality of evidence (because it’s really hard to find), but I won’t look at you sideways if your warrants are SLIGHTLY inconsistent with your tag unless the opposing team points it out.

2ACs should integrate extensions on the line by line. 2AC overviews are fine, but I won't flow them as a response to any case arg made by the 1NC. Long 2AC overviews are boring.

Case debates are so underrated. Please do it more

CPs

I love weird, specific, techy CPs. Advantage CPs and PIKs are my favorite. A lot of teams are usually bad at explaining why the perm doesn’t solve beyond a random card in the block or saying “Perm links to NB”. Good analysis is rewarded on the perm debate. Case solvency usually needs more time spent as well.

I don't believe in judge kick lmao sry

DAs

Similar to 1AC's, I think a lot of DA's have terrible link ev. I don't think it's the fault of the card cutters, but rather the topic committee for picking topics with terrible neg ground. I also think generics are generics for a reason - you can win on them if you debate them well. I'm willing to vote aff on any part of the DA that neg loses (i.e. if there's no impact why does it matter, if there's no link why is it relevant, if its not-unique why should I vote neg, it the internal links are cheap why should I grant you risk of impact o/w)

I'm very comfortable with anti-blackness Ks. I'm less comfortable, but still fine with other identity/positionality Ks, DnG, dark Deleuze, Baudrillard, Bataille, and some other pomo Ks, but do not expect me to fill in the lines. In those debates, I will flow cross and value/reward digestible explanations on the line by line.

I'm more attracted to small alternatives/advocacies than big ones. The former is more like "Discourse within this round is good" while the latter is like, "We organize an international communist revolution". I think the bigger ones lose more often to the args that are foundational on the "How do we get there?" questions. With that said, presumption becomes more convincing on the big advocacies than the smaller ones.

Be clear whether or not you're kicking the alt in the 2NR.

I’m not the judge for you if you are not black (especially white) and you want to read anti-blackness. Autoloss 0 speaks. Content > Strategy. It’s the same thing if you read bizcon and cap in the same 1NC. Do not embody perf cons.

K/Performance Affs
I've read several K AFFs the majority of my senior year (and still do in college). Even though I love the K so much, remember that I still value the clash and technical component of debating, so don't just read a 2.5 hr overview and then say "that was the work i did in the overview" in response to line by line. That is not debating. Also, do not come into the debate with the idea that your K just sort of subsumes every conceivable notion of human thought that doesn't directly engage with the body of literature you introduce. There isn't any theory of power that can intricately explain every single other theory of power.

With that said, KvK debates are fun but easily get muddy. Fortunately, there are easy ways for you to get out of the muddiness (specific link contextualization, using the grammars of your opponents, specific quotes, etc.).

I do not appreciate you reading a K Aff as a justification for being rude and disrespectful. A lot of K debaters in general have felt the need to assume this perceived role of K debaters (especially identity K debaters) as just rude and like all French revolution "F the state and F you". No. Your K authors aren't saying to be rude to people, so don't do it. Don't confuse that with being assertive which is excellent.

It should be related to the topic. You cannot just read a K AFF that has nothing to do with the resolution---you will definitely lose on T. I know how tempting it might be given the low prep burden, but even one card or two cards that establish a relationship to the resolution is enough.

I love performance AFFs and respect the debaters who have the courage to do it and make it look so easy. I also don't care if you choose not to read cards; just make it something flowable.

Prefs

On a scale of 1-10, how confident am I to render a ballot on certain debates?

Policy vs. Policy: 8.2

Policy vs. T: 6.3

Policy vs. K: 8

K vs. FW: 7.9

K vs. K: 8.1

K vs. Cap K: 9

K vs. Antiblackness Ks: 9.3

K vs. Pomo Ks: 7.2

Theory

If you go for theory, you should make the framing clear as to how you are going for it/how you want me to evaluate it (i.e., procedural, reason to reject the team, PIK solves case *these are not mutually exclusive, but it helps in terms of impact framing*)

Impact it out, please. It helps to point out in-round abuse. On procedurals, it helps to explain why their model abuses others.

If you feel like there is an ethics violation, I'd rather you make it as an argument than stop the debate unless you feel the ethics violation is making you seriously uncomfortable or unable to continue the debate. Here, I'll insert that homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, sexism, and any other "ism" that expresses deep prejudice towards any specific group warrants 0 speaks and an auto loss. Ad homs are also weird.

More than 3 condo probably isn't good against common AFFs that were alr on the wiki. Disclosure is good.

T/FW

Fairness is an impact if it's an intrinsic good. Otherwise, it's an internal link to education and clash. Predictability controls everything.

v. K Aff: If the 2NR doesn't have a way to prove why you can access the critical lit/discourse of the 1AC (i.e. TVA, SSD) then aff offense on your model becomes so attractive. PIKS, counter-advocacies, and your regular CP + disad debates are smart if deployed correctly.

v. Policy Aff: If you think I'm slightly on edge about whether or not the plan text is topical, good impact debating should mitigate that. If the plan is "obviously" not topical, then that should be clear to me from the 1NC. A single line as to why I should prefer the interp or C/I is necessary.

I believe non-traditional AFFs can be topical because "affirming" the resolution is entirely up to the terms the debaters set on. That means I have a high bar for voting on T against non-trad AFFs (especially ones that don't impact turn the resolution). That doesn't mean if you read non-trad you shouldn't work hard to win your model of debate, but I will not just sort of default to normative ways of affirming the resolution.

Cross

Cross ex is the most interesting time of the debate. It is where debaters actively interact with each other. I don't flow cross, but I pay close attention to and will write down arguments that are made. I've seen entire K links from cross make it into the 2NR.

If you run high theory and can't answer questions about your thesis sufficiently, you will likely lose.

The nuance between assertive and rude are apparent and you lose speaks for the latter.

Misc

Tech -----x--------------- Truth

K ----------x---------- Policy

AT x-------------------- A2

Turns case x-------------------- O/W

Saitama -x----------------------- Goku

Ins and outs are fine.

Some of my favorite current/past debaters & coaches atm: *subject to change* Will Baker, Darrian Carroll, DB, Eu, Tyler Vergho, Raam Tambe, Azja Butler, Iyana Trotman, Maeve Ella, Ryan Cavanaugh, Beau Larsen, Nae Edwards, Greg Zoda, Joe Leeson-Schatz, Aden Barton, Gabriel Chang-Deutsch, John Sharp, Diego (Jay-Z) Flores, Curtis Ortega, Taj Robinson

Public Forum

I've never done PF, but I've judged quite a bit. It's a nice break from all the policy spreading.

A lot of the policy stuff applies.

I prefer speech docs where everything you read is in one document. Google docs is fine, but don't send me like 8 different docs for the first constructive

Off-time road maps are good

+0.1 speaks if you reference any of the following:

Adventure Time

Steven Universe

Vikram Saigal

Maximillian Layden

Kathy Martinez Georgetown Day School 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue October 8, 2024 at 5:04 PM CST

Background: Georgetown University '23 & Northside College Prep '19

Currently coaching for Northside College Prep in Chicago.

For T1: my email is km1585(at)georgetown.edu

I do not share speech documents from rounds I have judged. Please reach out to the teams who debated.

TLDR: You do you. No one can be truly tabula rasa, but I'll do my best. My preferences toward specific arguments only matter in the absence of adequate argumentation.

Be respectful toward one another. I am not afraid to dock speaks for unnecessary ad hominems or things of that nature.

I really like when debaters emphasize important parts of their speeches. This does not mean yelling.

There is no way for me to verify things that happened outside of the debate so I will not vote on them.

If you make any argument about the other team cheating, you need to stake the debate on it. I will end the round there and give 25s + Ls to the offending team. If you make that challenge and are incorrect or cannot prove your claim, you will lose and be granted 25s.

Evidence

Evidence quality matters a lot but only to the extent to which teams makes arguments about it. (Is the author qualified to speak on this issue (not an undergraduate)? Do they have an incentive to misrepresent certain information due to their own biases or otherwise? Is your article peer-reviewed?) However, I won't read cards from the speech doc UNLESS there is an unresolved back-and-forth on the evidence in question. I would highly prefer teams explained what their evidence says rather than asking me to read it afterwards.

Furthermore, explain the implications of qualification/date/etc when comparing. It's not enough to say "our evidence is more recent" without explaining why that matters.

Counterplans

I'm aff leaning on most competition questions - if you have doubts about whether your counterplan is competitive, make sure you are very confident in answering the perm. Conditionality is probably good and I'm generally OK with states (this does not mean you can just say "fiat" when responding to every aff answer). Theory debates on those questions are winnable, but should not be your first resort. Most theory arguments, aside from condo, are reasons to reject the argument not the team.

Disasdvantages

"Turns case" and "turns disad" arguments are usually under-explained, however, I'll reward thoughtful versions of these arguments even if analytical.

Topicality

Try to provide a clear picture of what debates will look like under the various interpretations in the debate. Negative teams will be best served by reading evidence that clearly substantiates their desired limit. Successful affirmative teams will have well thought out arguments about the intrinsic benefits of including their affirmative in the topic.

Kritiks

Specificity is a must, if not in evidence, then in application. I won't hesitate to vote on more generic or tricky arguments if they're dropped, but the bar is higher when the affirmative has a cogent answer. Affirmative teams should be ready with a good defense of what they say and do in the debate. Negative teams will benefit greatly with even a few well-thought-out case arguments.

The K is core neg ground against small affs. I’m unpersuaded by interps that exclude K arguments entirely. That said, I’m not great for FW interps that entirely exclude the plan. I believe neg teams must disprove the desirability of the plan, but not that they must do so solely with references to its narrow, fiated consequences.

I am very familiar with critiques of capitalism and settler colonialism, more so than I am with other genres of the K. Do with that what you will.

Performance/Plan-less/Other Labels

As above, do what you are best at and I will give the attention and thought I would any other argument. That being said, if you want to completely dispense with the plan-focused vision of the topic, you need a very compelling reason for doing so. In topicality/framework debates, clear links and clash at the impact level is most important. Simply saying the negative is denied disadvantages or the affirmative is denied ground is not sufficient. For the affirmative, your aff's solvency mechanism should not be an afterthought. For the negative, be sure to press on the scope of the aff's solvency claims as they are often disconnected from the impact.

Jimi Morales Success Academy HSLA-MANHATTAN 3 rounds

Andrea Moreno ADL 5 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 19, 2024 at 6:43 AM MST

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.

Brendon Morris Lexington HS 5 rounds

Last changed on Mon September 30, 2024 at 7:03 PM EST

Hey, please add me to the email chain crownmonthly@gmail.com.If you really don't want to read this I'm tech > truth, Warranted Card Extension > Card Spam and really only dislike hearing meme arguments which are not intended to win the round.

PF and LD specific stuff at the bottom. All the argument specific stuff still applies to both activities.

How to win in front of me:
Explain to me why I should vote for you and don't make me do work. I've noticed that I take "the path of least resistance" when voting; this means I will make the decision that requires no work from me unless neither team has a ballot which requires zero work from me. You can do this by signposting and roadmapping so that my flow stays as clean as possible. You can also do this by actually flowing the other team and not just their speech doc. Too often debaters will scream for 5 minutes about a dropped perm when the other team answered it with analytics and those were not flown. Please don't be this team.

Online Debate Update
If you know you have connection/tech problems, then please record your speeches so that if you disconnect or experience poor internet the speech does not need to be stopped. Also please go a bit slower than your max speed on analytics because between mic quality and internet quality it can be tough to hear+flow everything if you go the same speed as cards on analytics.

Argumentation...

Theory/Topicality:

By default theory and topicality are voters and come aprior unless there is no offense on the flow. Should be clear what the interpretation, violation, voter, and impact are. I generally love theory debates but like with any judge you have to dedicate the time into it if you would like to win. "Reject the argument solves all their offense" is an unwarranted claim and teams should capitalize on this more. Lastly you don't need to prove in round abuse to win but it REALLY helps and you probably won't win unless you can do this.

Framework:

I feel framework should be argued in almost any debate as I will not do work for a team. Unless the debate is policy aff v da+cp then you should probably be reading framework. I default to utilitarianism and will view myself as a policy maker unless told otherwise. This is not to say I lean toward these arguments (in fact I think util is weak and policy maker framing is weaker than that) but unless I explicitly hear "interpretation", "role of the judge", or "role of the ballot," I have to default to something. Now here I would like to note that Theory, Topicality, and Framework all interact with each other and you as the debater should see these interactions and use them to win. Please view these flows holistically.

DA:

I am comfortable voting on these as I believe every judge is but I beg you (unless it's a politics debate) please do not just read more cards but explain why you're authors disprove thier's. Not much else to say here besides impact calc please.

CP:

For the neg I prefer that you have a solvency advocate. For the aff I think solvency deficits to the CP probably win most in front of me. I'm alright for competition debates if you are good at them. Spreading one liner standards in the 1ar and then exploding on them in the 2ar will make me have a very low threshold for 2nr answers look like. Similar for the 2nr, but I think the 2nr needs to flag the analysis as new and tell me it justifies new 2ar answers.

I am a philosophy and political science major graduate so please read whatever you would like as far as literature goes; I have probably read it or debated it at some point so seriously don't be afraid. Please leave the cards in the file and explain the thought process, while I have voted on poorly run K's before those teams never do get high speaker points. For aff v K perm is probably your best weapon, answer the theory of power especially if there is an ontology claim, and FW which outright excludes the K is probably weaker than a FW which just says the aff gets to weigh their impacts.

K Affs:

Look above for maybe a bit more, but I will always be open to voting and have voted on K affs of all kinds. I tend to think the neg has a difficult time winning policy framework against K affs for two reasons; first they debate framework/topicality most every round and will be better versed, and second framework/topicality tends to get turned rather heavily and costs teams rounds. I'll vote on framework/topicality, for negs running it I think the "role of negation" is particular convincing and I need an offensive reason to vote, but defense on each aff standard/impact is just as important.

Perms:

Perms are a test of competition unless I am told otherwise and 3+ perms is probably abusive but that's for theory.

Judge Intervention:

So I will only intervene if the 2AR makes new arguments I will ignore them as there is no 3NR. Ethics and evidence violations should be handled by tab or tournament procedures.

Speaks:

What gets you good speaks:
- Making it easier for me to flow
- Demonstrate that you are flowing by ear and not off the doc.
- Making things interesting
- Clear spreading
- Complete line by line in the order that the opponents made the arguments
- Productive CX

What hurts your speaks:
- Wasting CX, Speech or Prep Time
- Showing up later than check-in time (I would even vote on a well run theory argument - timeless is important)
- Being really boring
- Being rude

PF Specific

I am much more lenient about dropped arguments than in any other form of debate. Rebuttals should acknowledge each link chain if they want to have answers in the summary. By the end of summary no new arguments should made. 1st and 2nd crossfire are binding speeches, but grand crossfire cannot be used to make new arguments. *these are just my defaults and in round you can argue to have me evaluate differently
If you want me to vote on theory I need a Voting Issue and Impact - also probably best you spend the full of Final Focus on it.
Make clear in final focus which authors have made the arguments you expect me to vote on - not necessary, but will help you win more rounds in front of me.
In out-rounds where you have me and 2 lay judges on the panel I understand you will adapt down. To still be able to judge fairly I will resolve disputes still being had in final focus and assume impacts exist even where there are only internal links if both teams are debating like the impacts exist.
Please share all evidence you plan to read in a speech with me your opponents before you give the speech. I understand it is not the norm in PF, but teams who do this will receive bonus speaker points from me for reading this far and making my life easier.

LD Specific

2AR should extend anything from the 1AR that they want me to vote on. I will try and make decisions using only the content extended into or made in the NR and 2AR.
Don't just read theory because you think I want to hear it. Do read theory because your opponent has done or could do something that triggers in round abuse.
Dropped arguments are true arguments, but my flow dictates what true means for my ballot - say things more than once if you think they could win/lose you the round if they are not flown.

Quick Bio

I did 3 years of policy debate in the RI Urban Debate League. Been judging since 2014. As a debater I typically ran policy affs and went for K's on the neg (Cap and Nietzsche mostly) but I also really enjoyed splitting the block CP/DA for the 2NC and K/Case for the 1NR. Despite all of this I had to have gone for theory in 40% of my rounds, mostly condo bad.

Temitope Ogundare Newark Science 2 rounds

Last changed on Sat November 9, 2024 at 5:08 AM EST

Newark Science + Rutgers-Newark (debated for both)

Apple Valley Email: greenhilldocs.ld@gmail.com

P L E A S E - label email chains with the tournament, round + flight (if relevant), and teams.

Something like "Newark Invitational R5 F2 - Newark Science TO [AFF] v RU-N OT [NEG]" would be great.

Now the stuff you came for: If it matters, I've done basically every debate style (LD/CX in high school. CX, BP, PF, (NFA-)LD, Civic, and Public in college). I don't care much about what you read but there's some stuff at the bottom regarding that "much" part. Just remember, I'm an adult viewing the game, not participating in it. On this, you should enter the debate assuming I don't want to be there (you'll see why in the "Random" section) and that your job is to enter the room, not make me sad, win the debate, probably take some RFD notes, and then leave the debate -- all as efficiently as possible.

General things:

Spreading is fine. Open CX is fine. Flex prep is fine. Inserted rehighlightings are fine. Cards in the body are fine. K affs are fine. F the topic affs are fine. Policy affs are fine. DA 2NRs are fine. CP 2NRs are fine. T/heory is fine. 12 off 1NCs are fine. Trad debate is fine. I really don't have particular gripes with anything but feel free to ask me specifics before round.

Having an impact is good. Doing impact weighing is great. Impact turns are awesome.

Truth over tech until tech overwhelms truth (probably because you were inefficient). Good judge instruction resolves debates 9 times out of 10 though to be honest.
I'm not tabula rasa (no one is) but I do like to make calculated decisions based on the framework of "a win is a win." In all honesty, I've only ever made 2 decisions that weren't based off of the flow and I was honest about why in my decision and to anyone who asked so yeah, Ido like my flows and I think honesty is important in an activity where you need it to grow as a person and debater.

I am offering an ear to listen when debate forgets that it should be creating good (enough) people. Don't be afraid to find and talk to me. BUT while I love a good wellness check, I am NOT a therapist so no trauma dumps because I will only be able to tell you a good ice cream shop to go to with your team.

Random things I feel the need to emphasize...

Please. Please. Please. Do not try to appeal to me as a person. I gave up my soul for a fun-sized Snickers bar years ago. If you say "judge have a soul" or some variation of that, you're speaking to an empty vessel. Anything that might still be left is dedicated to making sure my kids are learning, winning, having fun.

I have a fairly good poker face. I say fairly good because I can't control my laughter, or disgust, so if I get an outrageous message or the round is meant to be funny or whatever, I'll probably crack. This just means please do not use my expressions, laughter, sighs, or whatever else as a measure for how well you're doing or not.

I love this activity. I consistently dedicate my summers to debate/camp (Summer 2024 -- I was only home from for 8 days between May and September and it was because of a family emergency). Please act like you want to be here or just forfeit so I can eat or coach or get sun.

^^ Tangentially related to this, I am okay with if someone/team doesn't want to have a traditional round (like they want the round to be a dialogue or they want to flip a coin to decide the winner). I am not okay with having my time wasted so everyone needs to get on the same page quickly about what my role is, how I should decide/vote, etc. so I can, again, leave as quickly as possible to take a nap or breathe fresh air or laugh with friends.

The below thoughts are my attempt to change the panels I've been on/what I've been adjudicating...

I like to vote for people who read and then can prove it. If you know the literature, then read it. If you don't know the literature, then don't. This sounds like a K thing but some of you don't even know how to go for a counterplan and your speaks would be better served reading a Kant 1NC.
Strategic thinking is good. Sometimes debates have to get a little bit messy to show the judge the whole chess board but as long as you're instructing, it's all good. Don't be afraid! If your speech ends and I'm thinking, "oh man, that was smart" or "that was silly but well executed," that's good and you'll probably be rewarded (even if it means I have to sit through a "they dropped condo" 2AR).
A lot of you believe that you can do tricks. You can't. It's annoying to hear. This is not an invitation to try and do it well in front of me. You're not that guy (general phrase, not a gender question) so I don't want to hear it.
Many of you lack a conception of time and the physical limits of the body. You think your judges aren't tired after judging double flights all day and can blaze at top speed and then that you're justified being upset at decisions. That's silly.

Michael Pulver Success Academy HSLA-MANHATTAN 6 rounds

Last changed on Wed March 6, 2024 at 2:37 PM EST

pulverizer1997@icloud.com to share the evidence

My name is Michael Alexander Pulver. My kids call me Coach MAP but I do not hold you to that standard, as a competitor or fellow coach. In high school I participated in every debate related activity for a small town in East Texas called Athens. My main successes, at that level, were in speech events, Policy, and Lincoln Douglas. Fundamentally, debate is one big joke and, technically, I leveraged that to my advantage as a frame of reference and debate style. My grace and indebted thanks for helping me understand that goes to Nicole Cornish, Jordan Innerarity, and Carver Hodgkiss; without them, I wouldn’t come close to understanding the purpose of speech and debate.

I was lucky enough to pursue a bachelors of science, with Integrative Studies, and compete for the University of North Texas. Parliamentary Debate kicked open the joke, in full-swing, and I got to tour the country in the pursuit of this knowledge. Brian Lain and Louie Petit, along with the incredible alumni of the program, produced content that allowed me to understand this joke from a perspective where I could laugh, and cry, about this “game we play”.

This “game” produces dogs and cats. It’s hard to understand this concept without a full visualization of my philosophy but I’m also certain that the ontological threshold to “understanding” is held within the eye of the beholder. In essence, I was introduced to this concept, within this space, by Jason Jordan, Matthew Gayetsky, and Gabe Murillo. We are simple creatures that, rather simply, have near-zero relationship to ourselves and we reproduce tools in order to filter, with extreme amounts of success, the communication to our “self”. My telos begins at the conception that debate is a space, looking for its time, to break this cycle and we’ve been woefully unsuccessful at stopping this joke from occurring. Side-hustling as a dog trainer opened up synchronicity into my paradigm and vice-versa. Without that realization, I don’t think I could still enjoy coaching, judging, or training. To those three for that help, I am indebted.

At a few moments in time, I did think it was important to write a several page paradigm about my philosophy about "DisAds", "Condo", "CP Theory", etc., etc. but I've discovered we're in a struggle between competitors who are having to "10x" their flows versus institutionalization. I do not see the importance in either. Rather, I defend that debate is a space to have fun and explore. In the time that I judge, I derive purpose from the quality of character and clarity of forensic mapping while producing a decision from what's given. To me, this means I'm not a "tab" or "tech > truth" but rather a "real judge"; and I will agree: "whatever that means?". Though, the more you read through this, and hopefully ask me questions, you will find that I'm simply calling the plays that are given and executing based on the "score" at the end of the debate. Additionally, this means that I weigh topicality in relation to its position on the lemniscate curve where my firmbelief is that it's the extreme finite position; since I know that's your question after reading all this. Brendan Dimmig, Jimi Morales, Cyd-Marie Minier Ciriaco, and Friedrich Hegel are responsible for ingraining this portion and I thank them for simply helping me find this path.

Lastly, I lost a ton of debates in my career. In doing so, I learned more than the wins ever taught me. Without being too "tongue in cheek", Slavoj Žižek taught me how to lose with grace, Sam Cook taught me how to lose on the flow, Will Harper taught me how to lose on framework, Rodrigo Paramo taught me how to lose on character design, and I lost on the "K" to Matt Hernandez, True Head, and Jose Sanchez; without those characters, I'm sure I'd be taking this joke too seriously. To Mom, Dad, and all the cats and dogs out there: you keep me learning and you inspire me to keep going.

TLDR; If you flow well, you understand your prep, and have a fullness to your character-design, you will pick up my ballot.

================================================================================================

FOR Virtual Debates: I find the computer medium does not allow for spreading to be coherent and I won't use the dock as an excuse for that BUT I'm comfortable with all forms of argumentation and I encourage creativity.

Irshad Reza Husain Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Tue November 5, 2024 at 5:00 AM EST

Top-Level

Qualifications: Cleared at 10 collegiate policy debate tournaments, including 17th seed at both the NDT and ADA.

Speaker Points: 28.5 is my median, 28.8 is my mean, it ranges from 27 to 30 and looks like a bell curve leaning slightly to the right.

My mantra is that I try to follow community consensus. I imagine what most people watching the debate would think, and who the community would think wins, and that is how I lean. I dislike sounding like a judge with odd tendencies that deviate from most judges you see. At the end of the day, I am a debater first and foremost, and I just happen to be able to judge because I did debate. I don't like being a nitpicky judge. I will vote on who is clearly winning the debate. My own hot takes or ideological leanings will not influence the debate.

Varsity Elims Update:

If you haven't noticed already, late elimination rounds are often decided by many judges quite differently than other Debates. I strive to adjudicate them the same, and I actually put a higher bar on thorough engagement. I honestly would prefer you answer things on each flowin the order they were delivered, but if you choose to do a big overview, then feel free to do so but respond. I'm good at reading cards so lying will not help against competent opponents.l

I don't think anything is cowardice per se, but I am categorically more likely to vote for the team that is more willing to engage. Block spamming is fine if your blocks actually do line up to their specific arguments in that sequence, but there's lots of things that will inevitably distort my (and honestly - I think other judges too, this is what I think how most seasoned Debate adults subliminally feel when judging high school debates) view of the Debate. Going for no link arguments if there is obviously a link is worse than impact turning the link or trying to make an inevitability argument (uniqueness) and thump some part of the link and win the aff outweighs and/or link turns it to win the aff is, in totality a better strategy. I want offense and I want you to say things and defend them instead of being wish-washy, and I think everyone else does too, they just won't be as blunt about it as I am. This applies to everyone and everything.

Novice -

Analytics: I encourage you to make analytic arguments in novice debates - as an educator, I think it prompts you to think on your feet more and understand how to debate better than just the cards. I feel strongly about this because for novices, your evidence is usually pre-selected, so I'd rather decide based on better debating than quality evidence. You can just understand the world and use that, I really only care about evidence comparison in varsity policy debates. You need to get better at the raw, technical skills for debating and having to respond to analytics helps you for flowing too.

Off-Case: I think spreading your opponent out is worse than just having a couple of positions and being really good at them. I see no reason to ever have more than 5 positions in novice debate.

Critiques: I suppose planless affirmatives can be read in high school novice debate, although I'm personally against it. In my novice year, a planless abolition aff won Michigan in the novice division, so I can't stop it, but I have a very low threshold for negative responses. If you find yourself in a situation against that one random school that decides to put people capable of reading planless affirmatives in novice (instead of varsity, which would be best for their overall educational growth) then you should just allow your debaters to go for state good, or cede the political, or some variant of that. If they understand framework debates, or critiques of capitalism, then I suppose you could try to encourage that to prepare them for varsity, but I recommend them going for state good because ultimately I think that's easier for them to understand on the level of technical execution. If they simply win it as a case turn, I'll vote on it.

----- Novice Neg Notes:

1) Split the Block: Novices always forget the negative has two back to back speeches (2nc and 1nr) and they should have completely separate arguments from one another (but also not contradictory otherwise it's a performative contradiction). Again, they should be totally separate positions, i.e. 2nc takes the counterplan and case, 1nr takes a disadvantage and kicks out of any other argument.

2) Note to 2N's: The 2nr must choose and narrow down. You want either a DA, or a case turn, or you could do a DA with a counterplan, but do not just go for a ton of different random unrelated arguments. Narrow down in the 2nr. If you're all over the place, I will vote aff.

3) Note to 1N's: Your 1nc and 1nr should not need prep time - you should have your 1nc ready before the round, and after you finish asking questions to the 2ac you should immediately start working on the 1nr. I recommend the 2nc takes half of the prep time you have, and the 2nr takes the other half. The 1nr should have at least fifteen minutes to prep this way, and it should be a really good speech because you can take one position and just solidly answer every single argument they put on that one position for a winning 2nr.

----- Novice Aff Notes:

1) Answer every position and try to not drop any flow (as in, any position - you can surely drop parts of a position in novice debate and be fine usually). Think about how much time you need to spend on each one in advance and break it down. That's flow math. Flow math is key to become a great 2A.

2) Note to 2A's: You should put case as the first thing in every affirmative speech. Please do not drop their case turns in your 2ac. Have blocks that respond to each off case position and if you can do at least that, you're good.

3) Note to 1A's: The 1ar only needs a couple good arguments on each flow so just pick and choose and go fast. At minimum, the 1ar must extend your case impact for 5-10 seconds, and solvency for 5-10 seconds. If you don't do at least that, then i will vote neg on presumption.

Varsity - ABC's

Conditionality: Unbiased.

CP Theory: Unbiased.

Critique: The more you talk about the aff, the more likely I will vote for you. Don't drop their answers to your super important things, I get that you can drop stuff but it makes me sad when they have an on-point answer that you pretended to not hear. Collapse down on the offense and close doors for me. For policy teams answering it, you win the round mostly based on good strategic vision, which are often times realizing they have no actual substance against your basic arguments. Use your aff and answer alts, your strategy typically either needs link defense and perm or just really good offense on framework and your aff's impacts not turned or solved by them.

Framework against planless affs: My voting record favors the negative, but good critical teams can feel free to pref me. I will tell you about what I think is a threatening [AKA winnable] T-USFG framework speech: I will vote for whoever is doing the better debating about debate. Less on the cheap shots, more on the impact level. Fairness, clash, education, or skills should be your policy framework 2nr terminal impact. Predictability is your friend to insulate against offense and limits should frame how you describe the iteration of your model over the course of a year. Otherwise, limits are an internal link to the above four impacts. Testing turns case because refinement breeds better advocates is almost necessary to have in your arsenal, and the more you contextualize it to their case overview, the better. The Ballot cannot solve because Debate doesn't shape opinions or some form of a cruel optimism argument usually is an underrated utility in RFD'S because it directly correlates to how I should vote which makes it categorically more significant than almost any other individual technical drop on the flow, but I will say that I prefer presumption style arguments about the ballot over the negative articulating it as a PIK out of the ballot. Their model links back to their own offense because it's not intrinsic to reading plans is understandable to me. You should mitigate their turns to the process of Debating because they fall back on relying on them in some way are the four key components of negative strategy in my opinion. I think Defense wins Debates, the TVA or SSD lets you absorb their DA and Case impacts with your model, and people can say they don't solve their case with generic presumption pushes or particular conceded cards specific to something they have said that their aff relies on. I know the aff will shift but something you have said will probably stick if you are smart and can actually engage with them.

Disadvantages - The 1ar must answer turns case arguments made in the block. Turns case is different based on whether it implicates the actual solvency mechanism itself or presents an additional impact that fits within the aff advantage, but honestly it usually doesn't matter if it's conceded entirely. Evidence quality matters more than quantity, but a balance is ideal and optimal for debating at a high level. Uniqueness frames the link for me but I can be convinced otherwise. My main intuition is that in a lot of situations, uniqueness either is so powerful it overwhelms the link or it loses to thumpers, so exploit that for me if it applies to the specific disadvantage. I think you should frame conceded internal links against the relative probability of aff solvency or your impact defense on their advantage if you have any, or if you are pairing it with a counterplan then frame it as any risk of a link to net benefit combined with sufficiency framing.

Theory - This is apart from CP theory and Conditionality. I often think reject the arg, not the team is a decent response to lots of them, because these ones are categorically less impactful to me. I am also am willing to hear defenses of left field ideas. I think textual competition alone is not too good but in tandem with functional it might be permissible, and a big lit base usually checks abuse.

Final Notes:

Good Strategy: There are many different ways to view Debate which are all "good". i believe there are a lot of different ways to understand what "good" strategy is. I'm honestly tired of having opinions on lots of strategic disagreements between different sectors of the Debate community and I molded my brain so much over the years that I really don't have any strong opinions about which strategies are good, in a sense of what wins Debates. I try to just compare community consensus to my own takes to approach my own potential biases as a judge. I'm mostly just an ideologically motivated person in the real world who tries to be neutral in Debate, rather than someone who is primarily biased within different Debate schools of thought. Just do you.

Tech first makes sense obviously, but truth first isn't just what someone arbitrarily dictates is the truth on a personal level - it's the framing and narrative of the Debate that isn't just about technical coverage. Most of the time though, when it's a simple Debate, Truth = Tech, because they end up being usually the exact same when the winning team goes for dropped arguments that are executed well and become true even when we might not agree on what the capital T Truth is. I flow well enough to know when something is dropped, but good cross-applications can save you. Giving a speech with more persuasive and narrative value, even if you drop a minor blip, is better because well-executed strategy always maximizes your chances of victory.

Don't worry about adjusting your strategy in front of me, unless you double turn yourself, not just multiple contradicting worlds. Debaters are already under enough stress as is at a debate tournament. Just debate well. I can recognize good debaters regardless of what argument you read and how you present yourself, so actually just be yourself and I can give you tips on how to just unlock your true potential based on what you already do, not based on what I want you to do. Just go for the argument that is both the most technically sound decision because of lack of technical coverage, AND the argument that is the most coherent in general against the affirmative you're going for and would be your A-strat against the best team that could be reading that aff.

Defense-Offense, or Offense-Defense it is better known, is intuitive to me because of how I have been coached in college. I divide arguments into Defense and Offense intuitively, but I don't hate if your strategy is more of one than the other. I've seen teams prioritizing the latter in Debates, and give incredibly difficult speeches to fight back against effectively even though sometimes i think they don't collapse down and instead extended way too many different pieces of offense. i've seen teams give largely Defensive speeches that I thought were pretty good too, and they were persuasive because they were directly responsive to the other team's primary arguments and largely controlled the direction of the Debate enough to actually determine the condition for the win. Most people do a mix, which is generally good, but interestingly I thinkdifferent styles are conducive to different ratios of Defense to offense, if that makes sense. But don't overthink it - you should just do what you're already prepared to do.

Jose Rivera Newark Tech High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 10:27 AM EST

Policy Debate

It is the responsibility of the debater to look at the paradigm before the start of each round and ask any clarifying questions. I will evaluate the round under the assumption it has been read regardless if you did it or not. I will not check to see if you read my paradigm, nor will I give warnings of any kind on anything related to my paradigm. If you don't abide by it you will reap what you sow I am tired of debaters ignoring it, and myself in a debate round my patience has officially run out.

1. I hate spreading slow down if you want me to flow your arguments if it is not on my flow, it is not a part of the round. It doesn't matter how well it is explained or extended. At best, depending on the speech, it will be a new argument or analytical argument and will be evaluated from then forth as such. I do want to be part of the email chain, my email is thehitman.310@gmail.com, note that just because I am part of the email chain does not mean I flow everything I read. I only flow what I hear so make sure I can hear your arguments. Beware I will be following along to make sure no one is cutting cards and I will call out teams for cutting cards so be sure to do things correctly. I will drop cards before the team and continued cutting will result in me stopping the round and contacting tab. Additionally, I will not yell clear, and I will not give time signals except to inform you your time is up. I find doing this splits my attention in a way that is unfair to the debater and often distracts debaters when called out. You will have my undivided attention.

2. I hate theory and have only voted on it once (current as of 4/12/22). In particular, I do not like disclosure theory and think it's a bogus argument, as I come from a time when there was no debate wiki; as a result, I am highly biased against this argument and don't advise running it in my round. Also, regardless of the argument, I prefer they be related to the topic. I am just as interested in the topic as I expect debaters to be. On that note, I am willing to listen to just about anything as long as they are well articulated and explained(See 3). I have heard some pretty wild arguments so anything new will be fun to hear. Know in order for me to vote on an argument, there needs to be an impact on it, and I need to know how we arrive at the impact. But I want to know more than A + B = C, I need to know the story of how we arrive at your impact and why they matter. I will not simply vote on a dropped argument unless there is no other way to vote and I need to make a decision, I consider this Judge intervention, and I hate doing this. You, as a debater, should be telling me how to vote I will have to deduct speaker points if I have to do any work for you. Keep this in mind during your rebuttals.

3. At the beginning of each round, I am a blank slate; think of me like a 6 or 7-year-old. Explain arguments to me as such. I only evaluate things said in a round; my own personal knowledge and opinion will not affect me. For example, if someone in a round says the sky is purple, reads evidence the sky is purple, and it goes uncontested, then the sky is purple. I believe this is important because I consider anything else judge's intervention which I am highly opposed to and, again, will result in a speaker point deduction. That being said, I default to a standard policy-making framework at the beginning of each round unless I am told otherwise. This also applies in the context of evidence, your interpretation of the evidence is law unless challenged. Once challenged, I will read the evidence and make a decision based on my understanding of the evidence and how it was challenged, this may result in my decision on an argument flipping, the evidence being disregarded, and/or the ballot being flipped.

4. Be aware I do keep track of Speech times, and Prep, and go solely by my timer. My timer counts down and will only stop when you say stop prep. Once you say "Stop prep" I expect you to be ready to send the file. I do not want to hear I need to copy arguments to a file to send as a part of an email chain. I will run prep for that. It should not take long to send a prepared file through the email chain, and I will wait until all participants receive the file before allowing the following speech to start but do not think you can abuse this I will restart prep if it takes an abnormal amount of time. Also extremely important to note I will not stop my timer for any reason once speech has started for any reason outside of extreme circumstances, and technical difficulties do not count. If you choose to stop your timer to resolve your issue before resuming, know that my time has not stopped and your speech time is being consumed. Also, aside from using your phone as a timer, I expect all debaters to not be on their phones during the round (this includes in between speeches and during prep). I think it is disrespectful to debate as an activity and to your opponent(s), and will deduct speaker points for it. Keeping that in mind, I will not evaluate any argument read off a phone, especially if you have a laptop in the round.

5. In JV and VCX, Cross-X is closed, period. NCX, I will only allow it if you ask. If you don't, it is closed. If you decide to have an open CX anyway, I will deduct speaker points.

6. Last but not least, be respectful to me and to each other, and I would appreciate a good show of sportsmanship at the beginning and end of each round. Any disrespect will result in a speaker point deduction on a per-incident basis. Continued disrespect will result in notifying tournament staff and lower-than-average speaker points. Although I do not expect it will go that far.

E-Debate:

A. Cameras must be on at all times. I will not flow teams with cameras off. Do not be surprised if you lose because I did not flow it you have been warned. I will not be lenient with this as I have been in the past.

B. Prep time will be run until speeches are received in the email chain. DO NOT assume you control the time as mentioned above. I am keeping time and will go by my timer. I WILL start the speech timer if you end prep AND THEN send the speech. I have zero tolerance for this, as teams consistently abuse this to steal prep. You should know how to send an email; it should not take long. If you are having genuine technical issues, let me know as the tournament has Tech Time, I can run that timer instead, otherwise, I will run speech time. DO NOT make light of this I am tired of being ignored as if I am not a part of a debate round.

C. Make sure I'm ready this should be common sense, but for some reason, I have to mention it. If you start a speech before I am ready, I will miss some arguments on my flow, and I will be highly annoyed. Your speaker points will reflect this, and you may lose the round as a result if it was a key argument that I did not flow.

D. Also, spreading on camera is a terrible idea, and I highly advise against it from a technical perspective and my general disdain for spreading. E-Debates are tricky enough with varying devices, internet speeds, and audio equipment affecting the quality of the stream, spreading in my experience is exceptionally disadvantageous, do so at your own risk.

E. REMINDER, I Control speech and prep timers, and speeches DO NOT stop because you are reading the wrong speech or can't find where you are at on a document; once the timer has started, it stays running until speech time is over. I do not know why I have to mention this, but recent judging experiences have told me it must be mentioned.

Lincoln-Douglas

I am very new to judging Lincoln-Douglas Debates. As such, I am relying on the debater to frame the debate for me, particularly in the rebuttal. Arguments should always be responsive to what your opponent is saying if you wish to win them. Explain how your arguments interact, and your line of argumentation means that line of argumentation weighs in your favor. In general, I think all arguments should be filtered through the lens of your values and criterion. That work must be done by the debater, not the judge. Additionally if what you say matches what is on my flow the chances of you winning are high.

I want to be on an email change, I ike to follow along as evidence is being read. My email is thehitman.310@gmail.com

Particularly in rebuttals make sure you are filtering aregumens through Value, Criterion and FW.

David Sanico Georgetown Day School 6 rounds

Last changed on Sun November 3, 2024 at 1:04 PM EST

he/him

please add my email to the chain: dmsanico[at]gmail.com

Note for Michigan HS Tournament 2024:

This is my first tournament judging on this topic, and I know very very little about it. Please be more deliberate in explaining plans, solvency mechanisms, and topicality to me.

Paradigm:

Default

Debate should be centered on the hypothetical world where the United States federal government takes action. I default to a utilitarian calculus and view arguments in an offense/defense paradigm. The average speaker points I give is a 28.4, what I usually give to a top speaker is a 28.9

Topicality

Most topicality debates come down to limits. This means it would be in your best interest to explain the world of your interpretation—what AFFs are topical, what negative arguments are available, etc—and compare this with your opponent’s interpretation. Topicality debates become very messy very fast, which means it is extremely important to provide a clear reasoning for why I should vote for you at the top of the 2NR/2AR.

Counterplans

Conditionality is good. I default to rejecting the argument and not the team, unless told otherwise. Counterplans that result in plan action are questionably competitive. In a world where the 2NR goes for the counterplan, I will not evaluate the status quo unless told to by the negative. The norm is for theory debates to be shallow, which means you should slow down and provide specific examples of abuse if you want to make this a viable option in the rebuttals. The trend towards multi-plank counterplans has hurt clarity of what CPs do to solve the AFF. I think clarity in the 1NC on the counterplan text and a portion of the negative block on the utility of each plank would resolve this. I am also convinced the AFF should be allowed to answer some planks in the 1AR if the 1NC is unintelligible on the text.

Disadvantages

I am willing to vote on a zero percent risk of a link. Vice versa, I am also willing to vote negative on presumption on case if you cannot defend your affirmative leads to more change than the status quo. Issue specific uniqueness is more important than a laundry list of thumpers. Rebuttals should include impact comparison, which decreases the amount of intervention that I need to do at the end of the debate.

Criticisms

If reading a criticism is your main offensive argument on the negative, this means you’ll need to explain more clearly how your particular criticism implicates the affirmative’s impacts. For impact framing, this means explaining how the impacts of the criticism (whether it entails a VTL claim, epistemology, etc.) outweigh or come before the affirmative. The best debaters are able to draw links from affirmative evidence and use empirical examples to show how the affirmative is flawed.

Performance

Debaters should take the time to provide organizational cues [impact debate here, fairness debate here, accessibility debate here, etc.] in order to make your argument more persuasive. My lack of experience and knowledge with/on the literature base is important. I will not often place arguments for you across multiple flows, and have often not treated an argument as a global framing argument [unless explicitly told]. Impact framing and clear analysis help alleviate this barrier. At the end of the debate, I should know how the affirmative's advocacy operates, the impact I am voting for, and how that impact operates against the NEG.

Flowing

I am not the fastest flow and rely heavily on short hand in order to catch up. I am better on debates I am more familiar with because my short hand is better. Either way, debaters should provide organizational cues (i.e. group the link debate, I’ll explain that here). Cues like that give me flow time to better understand the debate and understand your arguments in relation to the rest of the debate.

Extra Notes

I am not a fan of insert our re-highlighting of the evidence. Either make the point in a CX and bring it up in a rebuttal or actually read the new re-highlighting to make your argument.

The debaters that get the best speaker points in front of me are the ones that write my ballot for me in the 2NR/2AR and shape in their speeches how I should evaluate arguments and evidence.

Depth > Breadth

Aashir Sanjrani Westwood 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat September 7, 2024 at 2:27 PM CST

Aashir Sanjrani:

History: Hebron HS '20, TOC qual, UT '24, debated for one year in college

email chain- Aashir.debate@gmail.com

*If there are any residual questions about how I would evaluate an argument more specifically feel free to ask

**PLEASE READ- I always preferred judges to be honest so here's my attempt to do so:

1. I was really only successful in policy. This means I can flow, but I may not be familiar with LD's meta or LD lingo being thrown around- if you have any doubts feel free to ask me before round

2. please take your time to clearly articulate arguments and most importantly make clear implications- I feel judge instruction is severely underutilized by a majority of debaters- rather than being confused about why I viewed an argument a certain way, tell me how to view it and what it means for my decision making.

3. I will try my best to get every argument I hear- but remember, everyone, makes mistakes- it never hurts to repeat something you think is important- doing so only increases the chances that it makes it to your judge's flow and subsequently into my decision

**EDIT for 2024/2025 Season

1. Topic- keep in mind I haven't done any topic research- I'm confident you're familiar with the topic literature so please explain it thoroughly

2. Speed/Spreading- SLOW DOWN for analytics pls- I've noticed some debaters spread analytics, and to be honest I don't flow fast enough to keep up with that- for me specifically I would say analytics should at around 50% your top speed. if you want it on my flow I advise you to articulate it clearly

Paradigm:

"If you want my ballot, this is a simple concept. Tell me 1) what argument you won; 2) why you won it, and 3) why that means you win the round. Repeat."

Most of my debate experience was with Ks, however, I will try to evaluate each argument to my best ability.

------For LD-------

Phil and Tricks- I never really debated these, but it's not like I won't vote for it- I will, however, require more explanation than a judge more familiar with the argument.

Defaults- all of these can be persuaded differently you just need to give me a reason why:

1. No RVI on Theory- IE theory is no risk (Same for T)

2. Competing Interps > Reasonability

3. Default Framing = Util

4. Tech > truth (in all instances except for things like racism good, sexism good, etc)

Please, do not spread analytics at 100%. I doubt I type faster than you speak

Judge Instruction:beyond just telling me what you're winning (and why you're winning it) give me the implication of the argument (IE what that means for my decision)- doing so makes my judging experience much easier and subsequently makes your routes to the ballot a lot more clear

Nargis Suleman Kuwiwi Debate Academy 3 rounds

Last changed on Thu September 5, 2024 at 10:34 AM CST

nargissuleman3@gmail.com

debating at ku '27

this is an activity that takes an insane amount of work, analysis, effort, and creativity. being in this round alone and having to read this paradigm is a testament to the time you have invested in this activity. that being said, i would say that my debate background is largely critical, and i have spent a majority of my time reading/debating antiblackness, afropess, set col, militarism, etc. for me, warranted analysis, properly extended arguments, and clear judge instruction are most definitely the way to get my ballot. know that my background is not the extent of my comfortability with your preferred argumentation.

yes, judge adaptation, but most importantly, read what you are comfortable with in front of me. i have judged and coached a variety of teams with varying styles of debate so i promise whatever you read i gotchu.

k affs

i think that your aff should have at least some connection to the topic, or a thorough reason as to why it shouldn't. if your aff is performative, don't let it get lost after the 1AC, especially if its tied to whatever method you are advocating for. i think that the easiest way to get my ballot is rob/roj. if at the end of the debate i am left feeling confused as to what your relationship to the ballot is, and why your model OR this debate uniquely is significant and outweighs the other impacts in the debate, then it is going to be difficult for me to vote for you in this situation. for fw, competing interpretations are the best way to go. i am largely of the belief that if you have kritiked a set of research practices/models/wording of the topic, you should propose an alternative to those structures. that being said, this may not be the best method for every aff, and i would advocate for this being something you consider as you construct your 1ACs in the first place, because i do also think impact turns are good, but no necessarily for every aff.

fw v k affs

if you are able to discuss why your model of debate is inclusive and allows for multiple points of education to be accessed including the aff's, you are automatically in a good position in these types of debates. i think that clash is always a better impact than fairness, and i find most fairness debates to be quite shallow - but u do u ig. fw makes the debate about models, so defend to me why your model is good/why debate under your model is more desirable, and im voting neg. i think the tva is probably better than ssd arguments. remember the tva doesnt have to solve for the entirety of the aff's impacts, BUT prove that the affs model of debate is accessible while being topical.

k v k affs

i think that these are some of the most exciting debates to judge/participate in, and i really appreciate the increasing creativity in these types of debate. this is a question of competing methods and at the end of the debate i should know why the negs/affs method is preferable and thorough impact calc is crucial. the aff probably gets a permutation here, BUT the net benefit(s) need to be gas and i should believe that without the aff, the disads are triggered. i love link turns in these kinds of debates and think they are super strategic. for the negative, clearly articulating why the aff can't overcome the link and why the aff links to the net benefit, make it very difficult for the aff to win the perm.

policy v k

fw is so insanely important in these debates. most of the time believe that the aff should get to weigh the consequences of the plan against a competitive alternative. the most strategic position for you is LINK TURNNNN and disads to the alt. additionally, permutations are good and i dont think you need to be spam reading 7 of them in the 1AR but a few are strategic. i think that a lot of Ks dont have unique links and links are usually just towards the status quo. dont get caught up in a bunch of jargon and lose the basis of what ur trying to say.

k v policy

link specificity is good. if the alternative isnt able to overcome the links then i think you are put in a difficult position. the fw debate should provide reasons as to why your interpretation of what debates look like are good for both teams in this round/or a good model for debates to operate under. best argumentation to the perm is why the aff links to the net benefit/disads to the permutation obviously. my familiarity with varying Ks are in the o/v of my paradigm. yes you still should take case in the 2NR imo, but obviously not necessary in every debate.

random thoughts

you probably going to lose a debate against a k-aff with no case in the 2NR
do not defend israel as a good or preferable hegemonic power and/or aid to israel in front of me. find somewhere else to defend genocide!
debate is a site of education and idea cultivation. do not ruin that for anyone else with racism, sexism, islamaphobia, transphobia, other -isms etc.
yes read at whatever speed you want but if you start spitting everywhere and acting like u about to take ur last breath....please.
include a soccer reference/joke and i will boost your speaks 0.1-0.3 depending on how hard i laugh.

Eli T. Louis Brooklyn Technical High School 6 rounds

Last changed on Sat November 9, 2024 at 5:31 AM EST

e-mail chain: afroditeoshun@gmail.com

Hey, I’m Eli! Binghamton University (Bing TC)

Personal thoughts (on debate): Debate is a business. To debate is work. Yes, enjoy the activity, but also have a plan for how you interact with this space.

Do what you want, but let me not feel about your arguments how Grace Jones felt about Lady Gaga:

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/grace-jones-on-meeting-lady-gaga-i-just-didnt-feel-a-soul-2015510/

For PF: you can read this paradigm to understand how I engage arguments in general, but the threshold is MUCH lower (except for everything I wrote after the Theory section). Do you, have fun. I don't particularly care.

Speed: If I yell clear twice, I will default to what I’ve heard and understood. So, make sure you emphasize and are clear on what's important. For your sake, not mine.

Policy Affs- I need a clear framework for how I am to evaluate the plan (and round) beyond a reactionary response to the negative. I require a clear link story to the impact(s), and discussion of how the plan secures a resolution to the harms of the 1AC.

Prep out for T. That seems to be a lot of policy teams' weakness when Affirmative.

T/Framework: It's fine. Strategic. And honestly, they're easy outs when judging. HOWEVER, you're not gonna go far if the block is surface level on questions of YOUR wants. Get nuanced and specific. Actually implicate the Affirmative

CPs: I’m pretty neutral on them. Please just remember to have a net benefit (whether it’s internal or a DA).

DAs: Again, also pretty neutral. Just have a very clear and concise link story and impact comparison to justify why the DA outweighs (and/or turns) case. Like, why is it important? Many times I see DAs be ran and I'm just like... 'this feels like a huge FYI and I don't know why I should care (judge instruction)...'

-----

The K-(however it so comes about)

Aff: Be in discussion of the topic. If not, I need instruction as to why I should care. I feel like that's my entire paradigm: why should I care... how should I evaluate the round...?

Neg: Content and form must be aligned. I require strong judge instruction because I refuse to do any more labor than I need to. This applies to Affs as well, but I specified here as the Neg has the burden to rejoin.

POMO: I require an advocacy/alt that could easily be materialized or understood to resolve specified harms. Examples and analogies would be best.

"Identity": Win your Theory of Power and that your method best resolves (as opposed to being an 8/9-minute FYI). I'm familiar with many and live in the intersections of many (Black Fem args have my heart).

-----

Theory: Divert from only reading unspecified shells. Apply it to the actual performances and actions of the opposing team, so that I can evaluate its importance. Clear articulation (and extension) of the abuse story is key.

Any default to antiblackness (yes that includes misogynoir), queer/trans-phobia, ableism, etc- I will drop you and end the round. Auto-loss.

I live for a good ki ki, a roast, a gag. So, gag me and I will give a boost to your speaks.

///

Anything more than 5 off, you're clicking... but you're clicking down

////

I (still) flow on paper.

/////

Add on to previous: I primarily flow from speech. Clarity please.

//////

I vote fast because I am actively thinking about the round. My written RFD will be short, but the verbal RFD will be plentiful. Take notes and ask questions.

///////

I'm a 'let the debaters debate' type of person. In other words: debate is what *you* choose to make of it. My time to be in y'all's position is over. So, you all determine the tone by which y'all engage each other, I just have to submit the ballot by the end.

Point 1 is my boundary and only intervention

////////

I cuss, but only to emphasize certain points. Do not be surprised if I say a curse here or there, it is what it is (not applicable to Nov/JV)

Chris Thiele The Quarry Lane School 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri October 11, 2024 at 6:44 AM PST

Big picture:
- I don't read/flow off the doc.
- no evidence inserting. I read what you read.
- I strongly prefer to let the debaters do the debating, and I'll reward depth (the "author/date + claim + warrant + data + impact" model) over breadth (the "author + claim + impact" model) any day.
- Ideas communicated per minute > words per minute. I'm old, I don't care to do a time trial of flowing half-warrants and playing "connect the dots" for impacts. 3/4 of debaters have terrible online practices, so this empirically applies even more so for online debates.
- I minimize the amount of evidence I read post-round to only evidence that is either (A) up for dispute/interpretation between the teams or (B) required to render a decision (due to lack of clash amongst the debaters). Don't let the evidence do the debating for you.
- I care a lot about data/method and do view risk as "everyone starts from zero and it goes up from there". This primarily lets me discount even conceded claims, apply a semi-laugh test to ridiculous arguments, and find a predictable tiebreaker when both sides hand me a stack of 40 cards.
- I'm fairly flexible in argument strategy, and either ran or coached an extremely wide diversity of arguments. Some highlights: wipeout, foucault k, the cp, regression framework, reg neg cp, consult china, cap k, deleuze k, china nano race, WTO good, indigenous standpoint epistemology, impact turns galore, biz con da, nearly every politics da flavor imaginable, this list goes on and on.
- I am hard to offend (though not impossible) and reward humor.
- You must physically mark cards.
- I think infinite world condo has gotten out of hand. A good rule of thumb as a proxy (taking from Shunta): 4-6 offcase okay, 7 pushing, if you are reading 8 or more, your win percentage and points go down exponentially. Also, I will never judge kick - make a decision in 2NR.
- 1NC args need to be complete, else I will likely buy new answers on the entire sheet. A DA without U or IL isn't complete. A CP without a card likely isn't complete. A K with just a "theory of power" but no links isn't complete. A T arg without a definition card isn't complete. Cards without any warrants/data highlighted (e.g. PF) are not arguments.
- I personally believe in open disclosure practices, and think we should as a community share one single evidence set of all cards previously read in a single easily accessible/searchable database. I am willing to use my ballot to nudge us closer.
-IP topic stuff - I have a law degree and am a tech geek, so anything that absolutely butchers the law will probably stay at zero even if dropped.

Topicality
-I like competing interpretations, the more evidence the better, and clearly delineated and impacted/weighed standards on topicality.
-I'm extremely unlikely to vote for a dropped hidden aspec or similar and extremely likely to tank your points for trying.
-We meet is yes/no question. You don't get to weigh standards and risk of.
-Aff Strategy: counter-interp + offense + weigh + defense or all in on we meet or no case meets = best path to ballot.

Framework against K aff
-in a tie, I vote to exclude. I think "logically" both sides framework arguments are largely empty and circular - the degree of actual fairness loss or education gain is probably statistically insignificant in any particular round. But its a game and you do you.
-I prefer the clash route + TVA. Can vote for fairness only, but harder sell.
-Very tough sell on presumption / zero subject formation args. Degree ballot shapes beliefs/research is between 0 and 1 with neither extreme being true, comparative claims on who shapes more is usually the better debate pivot.
-if have decent k or case strat against k aff, usually much easier path to victory because k affs just seem to know how to answer framework.
-Aff Strategy: Very tough sell for debate bad, personalized ballot pleas, or fairness net-bad. Lots of defense to predict/limits plus aff edu > is a much easier path to win.

Framework against neg K
-I default to (1) yes aff fiat (2) yes links to 1AC speech act (3) yes actual alt / framework isn't an alt (4) no you link you lose.
-Debaters can debate out (1) and (2), can sometimes persuade me to flip on (3), but will pretty much never convince me to flip on (4).

Case Debate
-I enjoy large complex case debates about the topic.
-Depth in explanation and impacting over breadth in coverage. One well explained warrant or card comparison will do far more damage to the 1AR than 3 new cards that likely say same warrant as original card.

Disads
-Intrinsic perms are silly. Normal means arguments less so.

Counterplans
-I think literature should guide both plan solvency deficit and CP competition ground.
-For theory debates (safe to suspect): adv cps = uniqueness cps > plan specific PIC > topic area specific PIC > textual word PIK = domestic agent CP > ban plan then do "plan" cp = certainty CPs = delay CPs > foreign agent CP > plan minus penny PICs > private actor/utopian/other blatant cheating CP
-Much better for perm do cp (with severance justified because of THEORY) than perm other issues (with intrinsicness justified because TEXT/FUNCT COMP english games). I don't really believe in text+funct comp (just eliminates "bad" theory debaters, not actually "bad" counterplans, e.g. replace "should" with "ought").
-perms and theory are tests of competition and not a voter.
-debatable perms are - perm do both, do cp/alt, do plan and part of CP/alt. Probably okay for combo perms against multi-conditional plank cps. Only get 1 inserted perm text per perm flowed.
-Aff strategy: good for logical solvency deficits, solvency advocate theory, and high level theory debating. Won't presume CP solves when CP lacks any supporting literature.

Critiques
-I view Ks as a usually linear disad and the alt as a CP.
-Much better for a traditional alt (vote neg -> subject formation -> spills out) than utopian fiated alts, floating piks, movements alts, or framework is my second alt.
-Link turn case (circumvention) and/or impact turns case (root/prox cause) is very important.
-I naturally am a quantitative poststructuralist. Don't think I've ever willingly voted on an ontology argument or a "zero subject formation" argument. Very open to circumvention oriented link and state contingency link turn args.
-Role of ballot is usually just a fancy term for "didn't do impact calculus".
-No perms for method Ks is the first sign you don't really understand what method is.
-Aff strategy: (impact turn a link + o/w other links + alt fails) = (case spills up + case o/w + link defense + alt fails) > (fiat immediate + case o/w + alt too slow) > (perm double bind) > (ks are cheating).
-perms generally check clearly noncompetitive alt jive, but don't normally work against traditional alts if the neg has any link.

Lincoln Douglas
-no trix, phil, friv theory, offcase spam, or T args written by coaches.
-treat it like a policy round that ends in the 1AR and we'll both be happy.

Public Forum
-no paraphrasing, yes email chain, yes share speech doc prior to speech. In TOC varsity, points capped at 27.5 if violate as minimum penalty.
-if paraphrase, it's not evidence and counts as an analytic, and cards usually beat analytics.
-I think the ideal PF debate is a 2 advantage vs 2 disadvantage semi-slow whole rez policy debate, where the 2nd rebuttal collapses onto 1 and the 1st summary collapses onto 1 as well. Line by line, proper, complete argument extensions, weighing, and card comparisons are a must.
-Good for non-frivilous theory and proper policy style K. TOC level debaters usually good at theory but still atrocious executing the K, so probably don't go for a PF style K in front of me.
-prefer some civility and cross not devolve into lord of the flies.

Kira Tretiak Mamaroneck High School 5 rounds

Last changed on Sat March 2, 2024 at 4:04 PM EST

**LAKELAND: prep time ends when you send out the email or are ready to start your speech! **

Cornell '27, Mamaroneck '23

She/Her

Email: kiraptretiak@gmail.com & mhsdebatedocs@googlegroups.com

!! Limited topic knowledge (include what acronyms stand for in tags & don't assume any knowledge of topic norms) !!

My priority is always making the debate a safe space. If you do not feel comfortable debating your opponent, please let me know before the round starts and I'll talk to Tabroom with you.

Should go without saying but don't be racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, etc. - L + lowest speaks + email to coach. If you have a Title IX allegation against you, strike me. Use content warnings when necessary - both before & during round.

Tech > Truth to the extent that an argument is fully developed and expressed in a logically sound way. For instance, "they dropped T, vote neg" (the novice special) isn't enough to get my ballot even if technically true because it lacks warrants and requires me to do too much work on the neg's behalf.

Read whatever you want. I think reading what you think aligns best with my personal argumentative preferences will probably hurt you more than help you if that strategy is not generally your preferred strategy i.e. read what you feel comfortable reading. I have a lot of respect for policy debate kids because I know how much effort it takes just to be able to attend a tournament!

Misc preferences:

Name the email chain with useful info (tournament, round #, teams)
If you're sending a marked doc, don't take out stuff you didn't read & mark it during the speech - questions about what cards were read go in cross-ex or prep time
For online debate, turn on your camera or lmk if you can't
Don't delete tags
Novices - closed cross-ex
I like jokes but pls be creative if you want to read a joke type argument (no a-z spec) - jokes abt mamaroneck debaters appreciated. If you don't know any, just name drop Jordan Davis (my former partner) or Jake Lee in your speech and I will be amused

Sean Wallace Georgetown Day School 6 rounds

Last changed on Thu July 25, 2024 at 9:35 AM EST

Sidwell '23, Dartmouth '27.

Please put me on the chain - s.k.wallace.09@gmail.com.

Debate should be fun for everyone. If I can help you in any way when it comes to your comfort or safety in the round, let me know.

OV:

1. Not sure how much I will be judging, but I know next to nothing about IPP - my sole contribution to the DDI this year was a 30 minute Kant lecture.

2. I will not open docs until after the debate ends.

3. I am best for teams that, in the 2NR/2AR, tell a cohesive and pretty story about the technical debating that has occurred.

Cards serve as a tiebreaker for technical debating on a particular argument - if I can reach a decision without reading the docs, I will.

Try or die framing is not very persuasive to me. I evaluate relative risk of advantage vs disadvantage. The risk of the advantage linearly decreases with the risk of solvency.

I will almost certainly not reject the team for anything other than conditionality.

Historically, I'm pretty good for the aff on competition/theory vs process. I try my best to overcome this bias but it is certainly one that I have - be warned.

Planless affs:

I think T debates are very fun. I usually vote affirmative either when the negative mishandles something like "unfairness inevitable", or the aff wins sufficient defense to neg debatability offense such that a K of the reading/imposition of T outweighs. I don't think I am great for the aff for "x outweighs debatability" in a vacuum, without any defense.

I am a big fan of 2ACs that hide Ks of T on every flow and blow them up in the 1AR.

I can't imagine a 2AR that convinces me to vote on "they flipped neg to read T and that's bad." It's a logical criticism of a non-topical affirmative.

I generally vote negative when the neg wins a framework argument and a link that outweighs aff link turns.

I really enjoy topic Ks that utilize framework arguments that emphasize the importance of how we do research.

I am very bad for Ks that rely on the logic of cause and effect - if links are non-unique, it makes no sense to attempt to attempt to garner offense from a unique consequence of the plan. For example, "the plan is capitalist, capitalism causes extinction, therefore the plan causes extinction" is nonsensical, but variations on it appear in a shocking amount of 2NRs! Similarly, I don't think I have ever given a decision that included the phrase "the alt solves the case."

"Debaters should presume good-faith engagement by their opponents. If your strategy primarily relies on ad hominems, references to out-of-round events, screenshots, or accusations that could have been resolved by emailing your opponents or their coaches before the round, you should strike me."

Misc:

I have a tendency to talk a lot in the post round for debates that involve theory/philosophy that I am interested in - especially psychoanalysis. If you need to leave or don't want to listen to me, feel free to tell me you need to leave or to hurry up - I won't be offended!

Feel free to ask/email me about debating at Dartmouth/in college.

Sripad Yadagiri Hire 6 rounds

Last changed on Fri September 20, 2024 at 6:48 AM EST

I wont give anyone a 30 because they ask but my ballot IS up for grabs.

He/Him/His

sri pronounced "sh-ree"

Westside '22 | UH debate '26 |

evidence rocks. It's obviously secondary to the content of the speeches, but the evidence that actually says the thing will be rewarded in terms of speaker points and my confidence in a risk of your offense. In incidents I hope to avoid, I will use it to evaluate an evidence ethics argument.

quickest overview of what follows: do what you want and do it well, don’t be evil

ask questions before start time --- i'll try to reach room asap so when I am there get questions to me, especially if anything below is insufficent

add me to the email chain --- yadagirisripad@gmail.com

I will start speaks at 28.5 and go up down from there

The burden of proof comes before the burden of rejoinder

I will not flow off of the doc --- but will prolly follow along to check clipping

Online Debate: cameras dont need to be on, mine will be on if I am ready, you should still ask if I am ready once my camera is on, record only with the consent of everyone in the room

Endangering students through your behavior or arguments you read enforced by an L25

Don't ask what was read in the speech after it's given -- use CX or prep time for this --- this will affect speaker points. Also just flow better, not just a skill issue but indicates that you dont respect your opponents enough to put pen to paper. The exception is in situations with tech issues or unclear portions of a speech

Evidence Ethics: Here is what i think is an issue: clipping, articles inside articles, cards ending in the middle of the paragraph, but usually misrepresenting evidence through heavy bracketing. This is not something I want to end the round on but to ensure the perpetrating debater recuts the evidence into something usable you can stake the round on it.

It is difficult for me to evaluate someone's character from the parameters of a debate round, however, a serious issue with the behavior of a debater will result in me contacting an outside entity. I will intervene if necessary

Insert rehighlightings -- read the rehighlighting if the tag doesnt communicate what the rehighlighting says

SPECIFICS

I have preconceptions that can be changed

a. disclosure is good: steadfast opinion with few exceptions

b. condo is good: will vote on it if dropped

c. judge kick is good

Disadvantages

Good for any DA, I evaluate the core topic DA with just as much enthusiasm as the rider DA.

final speeches should explain which impact comes first. I will weigh risks of squo vs aff unless a cp/case mitigates aff offense.

Counterplans

Impact solvency deficits when aff (e.g. why is a 4 month delay undesirable if the cp solves all of the aff while avoiding a DA/doing whatever silly internal nb thing)

if it avoids smthn flag it and tell me why

I am ok with 20+ condo planks and you can kick out of individual planks

2NC planks and counterplans obviously allowed

Kritiks:

explain your theory of power and how it interact with case clearly. Not a fan of overviews but can deal if i have to.

if the 2NR is FW + Link explain why they dont get to weigh the plan and what they have done that warrants a negative ballot

Otherwise the 2NR must articulate a link that outweighs (maybe turns case) and/or an alternative with a net benefit that outweighs.

Alt doesnt have to be in the 2NR or even the 2NC but without it you are suddenly facing uniqueness issues (absent the framework-y pivot)

K Aff

explain aff impact and solvency clearly.

Your aff should do something, refuse to do something, or impact turn doing something --- if you cannot beat back the presumption push I will vote negative on a risk of offense but i can envision a ballot on just presumption.

framing is important -- what's my job? is there a filter i should apply when deciding?

K v K round: weigh impacts. This is only kind of different than in an aff v da round because sometimes an aff that describes violence in debate and a mechanism that addresses it has to contest the risk of capitalism-induced ecocide from the "localism" link or wtvr. It seems intutive that the negative is contesting the aff at a very different scale but the negative and affirmative must identify the direct implication of the affirmative method at it's determined scale. I think this gets messier when the aff goes from 1ac=big global movment 2AC= in debate materialism 1AR/2AR=discursive intervention in the round. I get the strategic value of having an aff that access all these layers but centralizing on one of these is needed to adjudicate the round coherently. Also perms are up for debate as they are in aff v cp debates, there may be better justifications for the aff NOT getting them in these kind of match ups however.

K v FW: I have no more preconceptions about this debate go for fairness or clash. ~~clash is the go to i think it turns case 9 times out of 10 but explanation of why can be weak sauce, I think fairness is an impact IF debate is just a game.~~ I am good for most aff framework pathways I dont NEED a counterinterp but without it the negative gets to weigh ALL of the value of debate against your impact turn. Without a counterinterp I think just smart bits of defense on limits and ground can go a long way in weighing the impact turn against clash, skills, etc. Neg just needs to win that aff model is bad in a way that outweighs the value of the aff or the impact turn and i think to mitigate both... ssd and TVA!

refer to my CX paradigm where topcality, theory, K, framework, and policy stuff apply

~~strike for tricks~~ update: I will vote on anything that is not morally abhorrent. The note below about phil explains my reluctance for these arguments as well.

bad at evaluating phil debates. I think clarity issues and blippiness in this activity make it hard for me to evaluate phil outside of well understood ethical frameworks.

The closer this debate is to traditional LD the better

Do not read the kritik in PF. If you plan on reading the kritik be conscious of time constraints and ensure you know what you are saying

I am good with theory stuff I think this is strategic and valuable in an event like PF where paraphrasing and refusing to share evidence is still common practice.

Please disclose: Use email chain or speechdrop.net if necessary, not sure if flash drives are still in use but that would be a great alternative if none of the above work.

Defense is not sticky

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