Den (She/They) - dnisecarmna@gmail.com
AmeriCorps Member for Chicago Debates
Coach at Thomas Kelly

Work in debate full-time coaching policy debate (CX) and teaching public forum (PF) to middle schoolers in the Chicagoland area. Routinely, I have topic knowledge working at debate camp(s) throughout the summer. During the season, I accumulate over 60+ rounds judged on the urban debate and national circuit.

Default towards a tech over truth style of judging unless stated otherwise in-round. I will operate on the parameters the debaters assign to me. Good practices in the debate space such as disclosure are non-voting issues. However, if your arguments are descriptive in its explicit/graphic content, please provide a trigger warning pre-round. This includes death good. Let's avoid going to tab at all costs. I will stop the round if the other team deems the environment as uncomfortable.

The non-negotiables

[1] adherence of resolutional discussion either by an advocacy or policy implementation
[2] order of speeches given (1 constructive, 1 rebuttal)
[3] speech and prep times allocated by the tournament

My broader thoughts on debate

Counterplans

Affirmative teams should be able to defend against process counterplans. If your solvency mechanism is strong, you should be able to beat them. Multiplank counterplans and if the negative gets to kick out of individual planks is up for debate. Affirmative teams should be prepared to answer counterplans based on the proposals their 1AC authors write out that's distinct from the plan.
I will need hand-holding on the competition debate. Questions of severance and/or Intrinsicness permutations should not be glossed over. Especially, if the affirmative wants to win perm do the counterplan.

Disadvantages

My only thought is that 'fiat' does not solve the link of the disadvantage, unless it's a rider DA. Explain why links based on trade-offs are theoretically illegitimate.

Kritiks

This is the type of argumentation I spend the most time thinking about. Be consistent on your framework throughout the debate. You must answer the line of thinking "If we win framework, that means..." and how that affects the state of the flow. On the kritik proper, reading long overviews hurts you more than helps you. Hate it when teams respond to an argument and say "that's from the overview above". Make sure to establish the role of the alternative, is it meant to solve material conditions and/or changing the way we think about things is a prerequisite. I will reward teams for early-on link work in the 1NC extrapolating lines from the 1st aff constructive.

Topicality

For the negative to win Topicality, they must [1] provide a model that best adheres to the topic, [2] exclaim why the affirmative fails to meet that model, [3] flesh out why the negative's model of debate is preferable, [4] evaluating the flow through competing interpretations is best. For the affirmative to beat Topicality, they must [1] explain why they meet the negative's model and/or [2] provide a counter-model that's better for the topic, which leads to [3] more educational and fair debates moving forward. [4] Frame the debate through reasonability.

T-USFG

Prefer the debate to be framed similar to topicality (better model of debate). However, teams going for the impact turn(s) are welcome to do so. Affirmative teams running an advocacy statement tend to go for "the negative's model of debate is inherently worse, therefore by default the judge should vote for the affirmative's model". Definitely, the best approach when 1ACs are built to counter FW by embedding claims on the game of debate and how to best approach the topic. However, I have seen my fair share of critical affirmative's that.. could be read on any other topic. Negative teams should emphasize switch side debate. Provide TVA(s) under your model of debate. Explain the affirmative's burden and the negative's role in this game. Convince me that the negative should be the one reading all these different theory of powers against teams defending a policy. If they break structural rules such as going over speech time, call it out. Procedural fairness leads to better education. Don't rely too heavily on portable skills.

K-Affs

If your affirmative is not structured as an impact turn to framework, you're not going to have a fun time. It's not a question of the literature base, it's more so your ability to explain the jargon within it. Make sure to do impact framing work to not lose to the impact turn (cap good, heg good). Lastly, please continue the act of the performance. Teams should *probably* weigh their performance more past the 1AC.

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Hall of Famers / Ppl I Interact with the most...

Kelly Lin, Lisa Gao, Ramon Rodriguez, Jocelyn Aguirre, Juan Chavez, Victoria Yonter, Aasiyah Bhaiji, Abigail Spencer, Jairo

I did 3 years of policy debate at GBN (1999-2002). Currently a social studies teacher at GBN, who has also taught PF/LD. I have coached LD/PF and Speech Impromptu and Extemp. I will need you to slow down and take the time to explain your arguments. Avoid jargon, assume I know nothing about the topic. I'll do my best to make the correct decision, but prefer me at your own risk.

TL;DR:

• Josh, Friess, whatever, but ideally not "judge" (he/him)

• Coach at Avery Coonley, a Chicago-area K-8 school with a middle school program (our more experienced kids often compete in HS JV-ish) and a start-up high school club

• Former national circuit high school policy debater from the mid-1990's, ~20 year break, getting close to fully back up to speed now. I've worked to ensure my speaks are very close to modern national norms despite my age.

• Good for policy args, T, theory, CP's, all that

• That said, less jargon, more explanation on theory is helpful

• I've been told by “K debaters” that I am "not good for the K". (You know who you are… :-) ). I think this approximately half-correct, with some key nuance attached:

• I’m actually quite willing to vote for your arguments, on either side, which is heavily supported by my actual voting record. The primary issue is that I often don’t understand your arguments.

• You can help this dramatically and therefore substantially enhance your odds of winning by:

• Slowing down – like, maybe even way down.

• Using less jargon and instead explaining your arguments in as simple of terms as possible.

• Offering more thorough explanations than you might otherwise.

• Having arguments that are well-organized -- signposted and responsive to the other side.

• Creating and explaining a linear path / logic chain to the ballot that is supported by the flow.

• If you’re unable or unwilling to do the above, while I will do my best to be objective, there’s a reasonable chance my RFD is “I didn’t understand your argument, I’m voting for the other side.” This is true even if you clearly "sound" better.

With all that said, my general approach is to assess the round based solely on the arguments presented by the debaters, with as little intervention by me as possible, and where tech dominates truth. The remainder of this paradigm should be viewed in that light -- that is, it's a heads up on my general perspectives on debate that may or may not be helpful to you, but if we're all doing our jobs well, my perspectives shouldn't really matter and shouldn't enter into the RFD.

The specifics below are really intended to highlight a handful of areas where my own views or capabilities may differ from other judges.

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Flowing / speed / clarity: I flow on paper. Please don't start your speech until you've given a roadmap, and until it's clear that I'm ready.

If you're an experienced high school debater, please know that my ear for speed is maybe only 90% of what it once was. I would suggest going a little bit slower everywhere except the body of cards. (That said, I do pay attention to what is read in the body of cards, and only consider a card to be evidenced to the extent that it is actually read in the round.) You certainly don't need to be at normal-person conversational speed, but taking 10-20% of your speed off may be helpful to you.

It is extremely helpful when debaters include some sort of unambiguous verbal indicator at the end of a card and before the following tag. A very brief pause is a start. A simple and clear "Next" is better. While it may be old-school, and very slightly inefficient, I'm still partial to some sort of number or letter in early constructives, particularly because numbers and letters allow for easier signposting in the line-by-line in later speeches. (Though, I also tend to hate 1-a-b-c, 2-a-b-c, etc., unless the sub-structure is highly related to itself, e.g., CP theory.)

There's an extent to which line-by-line seems to be a lost art, as does flowing. To an extent, I'll try to do the work for you and see if a given argument has in fact been dropped, but the best way to ensure that my flow has you covering everything is to signpost everything, and respond / extend in the order of the original line-by-line, i.e., the 1NC on-case and the 2AC off-case.

Please send speech docs. Ideally, we should be using share.tabroom.com, speechdrop.net, or similar. If for some reason that is not possible, I will provide my email address before the round. In middle school and high school novice, my standard policy is to *not* follow along in the file, and I won't read cards unless I need to do so at the end of the round in order to assess some question of evidence. At the high school JV and Varsity levels, I'm more willing to follow along in the speech doc in order to do my part to adapt to you. But, I still expect clarity, signposting, and modulating speed on tags and cites.

Also, particularly at the high school JV / Varsity levels, I would strongly advise against reeling off multiple blippy analytics in the course of several seconds. If you do so, then if you're lucky, I will get one out of every four arguments on my flow, and it may not be the one you want the most. If there's a round-winning argument that you need me to understand, best to explain it thoroughly rather than assume I will understand the argument based on just a handful of words. This is all the more true if your delivery relies excessively on debate jargon, the more modern forms of which I may not yet be familiar. Please trust that I'm doing my level best, and that I'll be able to follow you when you're explaining things reasonably well.

In the end, if it's not on my flow, I can't assess it as part of the round, even if it's in your doc.

Kritiks: I have no principled opposition to voting on kritiks. This includes kritiks on the Aff. I do think Aff has the burden of proof to win definitively that they do not or should not need to have a topical plan. That is a burden that I have seen overcome, though the more of these rounds I see, the tougher this sell becomes for me. Regardless, in the end this is a question that I'll resolve based on the flow.

I'm arguably not clever enough to understand many kritiks -- I dropped the philosophy major because I couldn't hack it, and became a physics/math major instead -- so persuading me to vote on the basis of a kritik may require a fair bit more explanation than you would typically offer. I will take no shame in telling you that I straight up didn't understand your argument and couldn't vote on it as a result. This most likely occurs if you overly rely on philosophical jargon. If anything, my lack of experience relative to other judges in this particular debate subspace probably provides a natural check on teams reading arguments that they don't understand themselves. I'll posit that if you can't explain your argument in reasonably simple terms, then you probably don't understand it, and shouldn't win on it.

I'll say as well that I've judged a number of K teams that seem to rely heavily on blocks that have been prepared fully in advance, or maybe very slightly tweaked from what's been prepared in advance, with little attempt to actually engage with the other side. First, I find these speeches pretty tough to flow, since they're often extremely dense in content with little attempt to engage with their audience. Second, I happen to think this over-reliance on advance-prepared speeches is rather horrible for the educational value of the activity. It pretty severely undermines the "K debates are better for education" argument, and it also acts as a fairly real-time demonstration of the "link" on "K debates are bad for clash". I'm likely to be highly sympathetic to an opposing side that has any reasonable degree of superior technical execution when K teams engage in this practice.

It might be worth you knowing that K's were not really a thing yet back when I was debating. Or rather, they were just in their infancy (particularly in high school), rarely run, and/or they were uniformly terrible arguments that I don't think are run much anymore (e.g., Normativity, Objectivism, Foucault, Heidegger). Teams argued the theoretical legitimacy of the Kritik, and whether or not they should be evaluated as part of the ballot, but these arguments weren't unified under a notion of "Framework". Alt's definitely weren't a thing, nor were Kritiks on the Aff at the high school level.

Disads: I've quickly grown wary of Neg's erroneously claiming that their disad "turns case". There's a crucial difference between a disad "turning case" (i.e., your disad somehow results in the Aff no longer accessing their own impact, and in fact, causing their own impact) and "outweighing case" (i.e., your disad simply has a shorter timeframe, higher probability, or greater magnitude than the case). I've become increasingly convinced that Neg's are simply asserting -- unwarranted both in fact and in claim -- that their disad "turns case" in the hopes of duping the judge into essentially making the disad a litmus test for the ballot. If your disad legitimately turns the case, then that's awesome -- make the argument. However I think bona fide claims of "turning case" occur far less often than Neg's want us to believe. In the end, this is not much more than a pet peeve, but a pet peeve nonetheless.

CP's: Counterplans need a solvency claim/warrant, but not necessarily a solvency advocate, per se. That is, if the CP's solvency is a logical extension of the Aff's solvency mechanism, no solvency evidence should be required.

Rehighlightings: I am perfectly fine with you summarizing why the other side's evidence doesn't say what they say it says. I do not see a need for rehighlightings to be explicitly "read into the round". Why not? Well, if Side A is reading evidence that is mishighlighted, taken out of context, etc., Side B should have to do as little in-speech work as possible to make the argument. Side B shouldn't need to waste their speech time reading the correct parts of Side A's poorly highlighted evidence. Side B still needs to explain what Side A's evidence actually says, and tell me what I should be looking for in reading the card. In other words, it's insufficient to simply state "their card is mistagged". But, "their card is mistagged; the author is actually saying X,Y,Z; here's why that matters" is generally sufficient. Of course, if Side B is the one who's actually misunderstanding the evidence, or worse, intentionally mischaracterizing it, that's not a great look and is likely to result in lower speaks.

Theory / Ethics / General Behavior: I tend to be more sympathetic to teams launching legitimate, well-reasoned, and thoroughly-explained theory arguments than it seems many more modern judges may be, up to and including "reject the team, not the argument".

When it comes to ethics and general in-round behavior, it seems that many paradigms contain a whole host of info on what judges think debate “should” be, how debaters “should” act, and/or the judge’s perceived level of fairness of certain tactics.

My own paradigm used to contain similar info, but I’ve since removed it. Why? Because I think including such info creates a moral hazard of sorts. Debaters that are predisposed to behave in certain ways or deploy certain tactics will simply not do those things in front of judges that call them out in their paradigms, and then go right back to engaging in those behaviors or deploying those tactics in front of judges that don’t. To the extent that judges view themselves at least in part as guardrails on acceptable behavior and/or tactics, it seems to me that a better approach to rooting out negativity might be to put the onus on debaters to be considerate, ethical, and reasonable in deployment of their strategies and tactics – and then, if they aren’t, to mete out appropriate consequences. I do not feel obligated to state ex-ante that “X behavior is an auto-loss” if reasonable judges would conclude similarly and respond accordingly.

Don't worry: I'm not looking to be arbitrary and unreasonable in exercising judicial discretion, nor am I looking to insert my own opinions when teams engage in behavior that's debatably unfair, but goes uncontested by the other side. Just be thoughtful. It’s great to play hard. But if your tactics are questionably fair or bad for debate, be prepared to defend them, or reconsider their use. If the other side is deploying tactics that are questionably fair or bad for debate, make the argument, up to and including “reject the team”. I will evaluate such arguments and their implications based on the flow.

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With all of that said, I consider myself to be in the midst of getting back up to speed in the modern norms and conventions of our activity, particularly at the high school Varsity level. I'm more than willing to be convinced that I should rethink any and all of the above, whether as part of an in-round debate or out-of-round conversation.

In accordance with guidance from my employer, please upload docs to the file share on Tabroom instead of emailing them to me.

I debated at KU and Blue Valley Southwest, I am currently coaching at Glenbrook North

FW

I am heavily persuaded by arguments about why the affirmative should read a topical plan. One of the main reasons for this is that I am persuaded by a lot of framing arguments which nullify aff offense. The best way to deal with these things is to more directly impact turn common impacts like procedural fairness. Counter interpretations can be useful, but the goal of establishing a new model sometimes exacerbates core neg offense (limits).

K

I'm not great for the K. In most instances this is because I believe the alternative solves the links to the aff or can't solve it's own impacts. This can be resolved by narrowing the scope of the K or strengthening the link explanation (too often negative teams do not explain the links in the context of the permutation). The simpler solution to this is a robust framework press.

T

I really enjoy good T debates. Fairness is the best (and maybe the only) impact. Education is very easily turned by fairness. Evidence quality is important, but only in so far as it improves the predictability/reduces the arbitrariness of the interpretation.

CP

CPs are fun. I generally think that the negative doing non-plan action with the USfg is justified. Everything else is up for debate, but well developed aff arguments are dangerous on other questions.

I generally think conditionality is good. I think the best example of my hesitation with conditionality is multi-plank counter plans which combine later in the debate to become something else entirely.

If in cross x you say the status quo is always an option I will kick the counter plan if no further argumentation is made (you can also obviously just say conditional and clarify that judge kick is an option). If you say conditional and then tell me to kick in the 2NR and there is a 2AR press on the question I will be very uncomfortable and try to resolve the debate some other way. To resolve this, the 2AC should make an argument about judge kick.

Name Chris Gentry

Previous institutional affiliations and role

Appalachian State Debator 4 years, double member parli, experience coaching and judging PF. Policy, Parli

Add me to your email chain chris.gentry.e@Gmail.com

Former Coach Hubbard High School

Former Coach Harker Middle School

Current Chicago Debates Program Manager - 2 years

High school and college debater – graduated college in last 5 years

1.Clarity > speed:Clarity helps everyone, I am happy to listen to you spreading and will happily get most of it, just slow down on the tags so I know where we are if I get lost.

2.Neg positions: Overwhelmingly the biggest issue I see in debate is students poorly linking neg positions. cool your impact scenario is great but your link is weak so I struggle to care.

3. Cross x Don't be rude in cross-x. If your opponent is not answering your questions well in cross-x either they are trying to be obnoxious or you are not asking good questions. Too often, it's the latter.

What is your normal range for speaker points and why? What can earn extra speaker points for a debater? What can cost speaker points for a debater, even if they win the debate?

I give 27.5-30 points, 27.5 being for poor speech, less than 27.5 for abuse. You can lose points for demonstrated abuse in round or poor treatment of partner or opposition. You can gain points through good responses and effective response strategy

Do you say clearer out loud if a debater is unclear? Is there a limit to the number of times you will say clearer if you do? Do you use other non-verbal cues to signal a lack of clarity?

I will say clearer or louder 3 times.

Do you find yourself reading a lot of evidence after the debate?

Not a ton, mostly to confirm accuracy and understanding

Do you evaluate the un-underlined parts of the evidence even if the debaters do not make that an argument?

No, I need the argument to be made for why a thing matters, how it matters, and what it is that matters. I will only read the underlined parts of the evidence if I doubt validity

If you read evidence after a debate, why do you tend to find yourself reading the evidence?

To ensure proper decisions and to confirm accuracy if any cards feel like they are incredible.

What are your predispositions or views on the following:

Topicality.

As long as it is clear and warranted especially on ground loss. I need the impacts to be fully leveled out, and I need there to be solid arguments for fairness impacts.

Theory for the aff versus counterplans and/or kritiks

I definitely prefer critical arguments that are resolution specific versus the generic kritik, however I am fine with the generic kritik as long as you tie it well to your argument and the resolution being debated. I will vote on perm and theory if presented well. That said, I really like critical arguments when they’re not generic and the ideas are clearly articulated. Explain your ideas instead of just throwing terms around. Sure, I may know what the terms mean, but I need to know how you are using them to determine the functionality of the argument. I also think it’s important to not only tell me the importance of (or need for) the interrogation or deconstruction the criticism engages in, but also why should we engage with THIS specific interrogation/deconstruction and what, if anything, it seeks to solve, resolve, change, etc. In other words, don’t drop or omit solvency of the criticism.

Affirmative’s need to read a plan in order to win on the aff:

They don’t need to read a plan but they do need an advocacy that is different than the SQ

Performance teams that use elements other than spoken word (such as songs, dance, poetry, silence) to support their arguments

I find performance-based arguments to struggle on solvency. I find the nature of debate to sometimes be constricting to performance. I am not saying I won't vote for it, I just need you to explain why your performance produces in-round solvency in opposition to the performance of debating/criticizing or advocating for policies

I do think "performance" as critical metaphor can have access to rhetorical solvency, but it's harder for me to access literal solvency. So while I am not biased towards projects or performances so long as they are grounded in some context that is in round, I think they can still be interesting and get a ballot.

What types of debates do you enjoy the most and why?

I enjoy good K v K debates

I enjoy unique critical debates

I also have a large background in policy both in real life and in deate and am happy to handle policy args too

Former UC Lab debater and current Kenwood Academy coach (16-present)

jharduvel [at] cps [dot] edu

The most important things that you can do to get my ballot are:

1. Strategic overviews with judge instruction that explains how to resolve the key issue(s) of the debate
2. Comparative warrant analysis throughout
3. Well-impacted arguments that collapse down to the essentials by the end of the debate

I will do everything I can to resolve the debate based off of my flow rather than by following along with your speech doc or reading evidence.

I will vote on whatever arguments that you wish to make. I'm more familiar with critical literature so if you're planning for a tech-y policy debate, be ready to explain your arguments thoroughly and do some storytelling in your overview.

Slow down enough on analytics that they are clearly flowable. I flow what you say not the speech doc so you need to be intelligible. I believe that there is a threshold you need to meet for me to vote for any given argument. Blippy extensions are going to give me significant pause and even if something is conceded, I need more than "They dropped condo and it's a voting issue for fairness and education!" to vote on it.

Topicality and theory: These debates should include clash, comparative analysis, and impacts just like any other part of the debate. I don't understand how one would evaluate a plan text in a vacuum.

Kritiks: I prefer when debaters are specific on the link and alternative debates, and when they go for arguments like the K turns case or is a DA to case instead of vague impacts. I tend to err that the aff gets to weigh their impacts under most frameworks even if they also have a burden to (for example) justify their methodology to access them.

Counterplans: I am sympathetic to aff theory arguments against PICs, consult CPs, and process CPs. On the permutation debate, I tend to lean neg and assume risk of a link to the net benefit (unless I am told otherwise, of course).

K v. K: Try to keep it as organized as possible and don't skip a strategic overview that explains the interaction of arguments. Links should be specific and contextual to aff. I like these debates the most when warrants are fleshed out, nuanced, and (I'll say it again!) specific with minimal cards.

Clash debates: You don't have to be topical or defend government action but you probably need a link to the topic. Whether you are aff or neg, give me a clear role of the ballot and explanation of your model and its advantages. I evaluate tech over truth but I do believe that debate has significant disparities and that conversations that seek to confront and address that are important.

Speaker Points: I reward judge instruction, line-by-line, comparative impact calculus, clash, creative argumentation, explanation of warrants, and smart analytics. I prefer fewer cards, fewer blocks, and more debating off your flow. I will deduct speaker points for oppressive language or arguments, rudeness, being purposefully evasive or deceitful, excessive interruptions of your partner, and ethical violations. Clipping cards or refusing to provide the other team with access to your cards are serious violations, and I will deduct speaker points accordingly whether the other team points these issues out or not.

Misc procedural things:

1. He/him/his; "DML">"Dustin">>>"judge">>>>>>>>>>"Mr. Meyers-Levy"

2. Debated at Edina HS in Minnesota from 2008-2012, at the University of Michigan from 2012-2017, and currently coach at Michigan and Glenbrook North

3. Evidence sharing procedures:

High school: Speechdrop or the tabroom fileshare are preferred due to the requirements of my employer.
College: Email preferred; please add dustml[at]umich[dot]edu and debatedocs[at]umich[dot]edu (note that this is not the same as the community debatedocs listerv).

4. Nothing here set in stone debate is up to the debaters go for what you want to blah blah blah an argument is a claim and a warrant don't clip cards

5. Speaks usually range from 28.5-29.5. Below 28.5 and there are some notable deficiencies, above 29.5 you're one of the best debaters I've seen all year. I don't really try to compare different debaters across different rounds to give points; I assign them based on a round-by-round basis. I wish I could give ties more often and will do so if the tournament allows. If you ask me for a 30 you'll probably get a 27.

6. If you're breaking something new, you'll send it out before your speech, not after the speech ends or as it's read or whatever. If you don't want to comply with that, your points are capped at 27. If you're so worried that giving the neg team 8/9 extra minutes to look at your new aff will tip the odds against you, it's probably not good enough to win anyway.

7. You will time your own speeches and prep time. I will be so grumpy if I have to keep track of time for you.

8. Each person gives one constructive and one rebuttal. The first person who speaks is the only person I flow (I can make an exception for performances in 1ACs/1NCs). I don’t flow prompting until and unless the assigned speaker says the words that their partner is prompting. Absolutely no audience participation. No touching your opponents or their property without consent. If you need some part of this clarified, I’m probably not the judge for you.

9. I am a mandatory reporter and an employee of both a public university and a public high school. I am not interested in judging debates that may make either of those facts relevant.

10. If you would enthusiastically describe your strategy as "memes" or "trolling," you should strike me.

11. Online debates: If my camera's off, I'm not listening. Get active confirmation before you start speaking, don't ask "is anyone not ready" or say "stop me if you're not ready," especially if you aren't actually listening to/looking at the other participants before you check. If you start speaking and I'm not ready or there, expect abysmal speaker points.

Glenbrooks 2024:

I am going to be pretty militant about timing, partially because 10 minutes of prep cuts into my decision time already, and partially because I'm getting very tired of people being lax about timing. I expect a degree of promptness and put-togetherness from you, and if you can't maintain that, it will likely cut into your speaker points. Conversely, if you are timing yourself and are respectful of my time, I will bump your points. Here are a few things that I am going to try to enforce more diligently than I have in the past:

1. Prep ends when the speech doc has been uploaded to speechdrop/the fileshare.

2. A "marked document" only involves cards that were marked, not cards that were skipped. If you aren't sure whether or not the other team read a card, or an entire off-case argument, you can use your cross-x or prep time to ask about that. Unless you intend to ask cross-x questions about cards that were marked, you may not ask for a marked document before cross-x starts, and you may not delay the start of prep until the document is sent. I am willing to make exceptions for this when a speech is egregious in a way that seems like it might be trying to confuse the other team (e.g. dozens of marked cards, many more cards in the document than were read, etc), but you should ask me if that's okay.

3. I would prefer no bathroom breaks before your speech unless it's an emergency.

4. There is no reason that you should be typing or whispering to your partner while prep is not running or a speech is not happening. If you do, I'll ask one time if you need prep; if you do it again, I'll start docking prep time for you.

Top-level:

When making my decisions, I seek to answer four questions:

1. At what scale should I evaluate impacts, or how do I determine which impact outweighs the others?

2. What is necessary to address those impacts?

3. At what point have those impacts been sufficiently addressed?

4. How certain am I about either side’s answers to the previous three questions?

I don’t expect debaters to answer these questions explicitly or in order, but I do find myself voting for debaters who use that phrasing and these concepts (necessity, sufficiency, certainty, etc) as part of their judge instruction a disproportionate amount. I try to start every RFD with a sentence-ish-long summary of my decision (e.g. "I voted affirmative because I am certain that their impacts are likely without the plan and unlikely with it, which outweighs an uncertain risk of the impacts to the DA even if I am certain about the link"); you may benefit from setting up a sentence or two along those lines for me.

Intervention on my part is inevitable, but I’d like to minimize it if possible and equalize it if not. The way I try to do so is by making an effort to quote or paraphrase the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR in my RFD as much as possible. This means I find myself often voting for teams who a) minimize the amount of debate jargon they use, b) explicitly instruct me what I need in order to be certain that an argument is true, and c) don’t repeat themselves or reread parts of earlier speeches. (The notable exception to c) is quoting your evidence—I appreciate teams who tell me what to look for in their cards, as I’d rather not read evidence if I don’t have to.) I would rather default to new 2AR contextualization of arguments than reject new 2AR explanation and figure out how to evaluate/compare arguments on my own, especially if the 2AR contextualization lines up with how I understand the debate otherwise.

I flow on my computer and I flow straight down. I appreciate debaters who debate in a way that makes that easy to do (clean line-by-line, numbering/subpointing, etc). I’ll make as much room as you want me to for an overview, but I won’t flow it on a separate sheet unless you say pretty please. If it’s not obvious to me at that point why it’s on a separate sheet, you’ll probably lose points.

Consider going a little bit slower. I prefer voting on arguments that I am certain about, and it is much easier to be certain about an argument when I know that I have written down everything that you’ve said.

Presumption always initially goes negative because the affirmative always has the burden of proof. If the affirmative has met their burden of proof against the status quo, and the negative has not met their burden of rejoinder, I vote affirmative.

I am "truth over tech," in the sense that I must always vote for who did the better debating, and I tend to think that a team who drops "grass is green, voting issue" can still have done the better debating despite that concession (and, indeed, may have done the better debating because they did not waste time answering that). I will not vote for something if I cannot explain why it is a reason that one side or the other has done the better debating, even if it is technically conceded by the other team. Obviously, this is not to say that technical concessions do not matter--they're probably the most important part of my decisionmaking process! However, not all technical concessions matter, and the reasons that some technical concessions matter might not be apparent to me. A dropped argument is true, but non-dropped arguments can also be true, and I need you to contextualize how to evaluate and compare those truths.

I appreciate well-thought-out perms with a brief summary of its function/net beneficiality in the 2AC. I get frustrated by teams who shotgun the same four perms on every page, especially when those perms are essentially the same argument (e.g. “perm do both” and “perm do the plan and non-mutually exclusive parts of the alt”) or when the perm is obviously nonsensical (e.g. “perm do the counterplan” against an advantage counterplan that doesn’t try to fiat the aff or against a uniqueness counterplan that bans the plan).

I appreciate when teams read rehighlightings and not insert them, unless you’re rehighlighting a couple words. You will lose speaker points for inserting a bunch of rehighlightings, and I’ll happily ignore them if instructed to by the other team.

I prefer to judge engagement over avoidance. I would rather you beat your opponent at their best than trick them into dropping something. If your plan for victory involves hiding ASPEC in a T shell, or deleting your conditionality block from the 2AC in hopes that they miss it, or using a bunch of buzzwords that you think the other team won't understand but I will, I will be hard-pressed to conclude that you did the “better debating.”

I generally assume good faith on the part of debaters and I'm very reticent to ignore the rest of the debate/arguments being made (especially when not explicitly and extensively instructed to) in order to punish a team for what's often an honest mistake. I am much more willing to vote on these arguments as links/examples of links. Obviously, there are exceptions to this for egregious and/or intentionally problematic behavior, but if your strategy revolves around asking me to vote against a team based on unhighlighted/un-underlined parts of cards, or "gotcha" moments in cross-x, you may want to change your strategy for me.

K affs:

1. Debate is indisputably a game to some degree or another, and it can be other things besides that. It indisputably influences debaters' thought processes and subjectivities to some extent; it is also indisputably not the only influence on those things. I like when teams split the difference and account for debate’s inevitably competitive features rather than asserting it is only one thing or another.

2. I think I am better for K affs than I have been in the past. I am not worse for framework, but I am worse for the amount of work that people seem to do when preparing to go for framework. I am getting really bored by neg teams who recycle blocks without updating them in the context of the round and don’t make an effort to talk about the aff. I think the neg needs to say more than just “the aff’s method is better with a well-prepared opponent” or “non-competitive venues solve the aff’s offense” to meaningfully mitigate the aff's offense. If you are going for framework in front of me, you may want to replace those kinds of quotes in your blocks with specific explanations that reference what the aff says in speeches and cards.

3. I prefer clash impacts to fairness impacts. I vote negative often when aff teams lack explanation for why someone should say "no" to the aff. I find that fairness strategies suffer when the aff pushes on the ballot’s ability to “solve” them; I would rather use my ballot to encourage the aff to argue differently rather than to punish them retroactively. I think fairness-centric framework strategies are vulnerable to aff teams impact turning the neg’s interpretation (conversely, I think counter-interpretation strategies are weak against fairness impacts).

4. I don't think I've ever voted on "if the 1AC couldn't be tested you should presume everything they've said is false"/"don't weigh the aff because we couldn't answer it," and I don't think I ever will.

5. I think non-framework strategies live and die at the level of competition and solvency. When aff teams invest time in unpacking permutations and solvency deficits, and the neg doesn’t advance a theory of competition beyond “no perms in a method debate” (whatever that means), I usually vote aff. When the aff undercovers the perm and/or the alt, I have a high threshold for new explanation and usually think that the 2NR should be the non-framework strategy.

6. I do not care whether or not fiat has a resolutional basis.

Ks on the neg/being aff vs the K:

I am getting really bored by "stat check" affs that respond to every K by brute-forcing a heg or econ impact and reading the same "extinction outweighs, util, consequentialism, nuke war hurts marginalized people too" blocks/cards every debate. That's not to say that these affs are non-viable in front of me, but it is to say that I've often seen teams reading these big-stick affs in ways that seem designed to avoid engaging the substance of the K. If this is your strategy, you should talk about the alternative more, and have a defense of fiat that is not just theoretical.

I care most about link uniqueness and alt solvency. When I vote aff, it's because a) the aff gets access to their impacts, b) those impacts outweigh/turn the K, c) the K links are largely non-unique, and/or d) the neg doesn't have a well-developed alt push. Neg teams that push back on these issues--by a) having well-developed and unique links and impacts with substantive impact calculus in the block and 2NR, including unique turns case args (not just that the plan doesn't solve, but that it actually makes the aff's own impacts more likely), b) having a vision for what the world of the alt looks like that's defensible and ostensibly solves their impacts even if the aff wins a risk of theirs (case defense that's congruent with the K helps), and/or c) has a heavy push on framework that tells me what the alt does/doesn't need to solve--have a higher chance of getting my ballot. Some more specific notes:

1. Upfront, I'm not a huge fan of "post-/non-/more-than/humanism"-style Ks. I find myself more persuaded by most defenses/critical rehabilitations of humanism than I do by critiques of humanism that attempt to reject the category altogether. You can try your best to change my mind, but it may be an uphill battle; this applies far more to high theory/postmodern Ks of humanism (which, full disclosure, I would really rather not hear) than it does to structuralist/identity-based Ks of humanism, though I find myself more persuaded by "new humanist" style arguments a la Fanon, Wynter, etc than full-on rejections of humanism.

2. I think that others should not suffer, that biological death is bad, and that meaning-making and contingent agreement on contextual truths are possible, inevitable, and desirable. If your K disagrees with any of these fundamental premises, I am a bad judge for it.

3. I don't get Ks of linear time. I get Ks of whitewashing, progress narratives, etc. I get the argument that historical events influence the present, and that events in the present can reshape our understanding of the past. I get that some causes have complex effects that aren't immediately recognizable to us and may not be recognizable on any human scale. I just don't get how any of those things are mutually exclusive with, and indeed how they don't also rely on, some understanding of linear time/causality. I think this is because I have a very particular understanding of what "linear time" means/refers to, which is to say that it's hard for me to disassociate that phrase with the basic concept of cause/effect and the progression of time in a measurable, linear fashion. This isn't as firm of a belief as #2; I can certainly imagine one of these args clicking with me eventually. This is just to say that the burden of explanation is much higher and you would likely be better served going for more plan-specific link arguments or maybe just using different terminology/including a brief explanation as to why you're not disagreeing with the basic premise that causes have effects, even if those effects aren't immediately apparent. If you are disagreeing with that premise, you should probably strike me, as it will require far longer than two hours for me to comprehend your argument, let alone agree with it.

4. "Philosophical competition" is not a winning interpretation in front of me. I don't know what it means and no one has ever explained it to me in a coherent and non-arbitrary way.

5. There's a difference between utilitarianism and consequentialism. I'm open to critiques of the former; I have an extremely high burden for critiques of the latter. I'm not sure I can think of a K of consequentialism that I've judged that didn't seem to link to itself to some degree or another.

6. I am a bad judge for Kant. I just don't get it. I have voted for it, but I have also voted against it more than once because I simply did not understand many of the arguments being made.

Policy debates:

1. 95% of my work in college is K-focused, and the other 5% is mostly spot updates. I have done very little policy-focused research so far this season.

For high school, I led a lab this summer, but didn't retain a ton of topic info and have done largely K-focused work since the camp ended. I probably know less than you do about economics.

2. “Link controls uniqueness”/“uniqueness controls the link” arguments will get you far with me. I often find myself wishing that one side or the other had made that argument, because my RFDs often include some variant of it regardless.

3. Apparently T against policy affs is no longer in style. Fortunately, I have a terrible sense of style. In general, I think I'm better for the neg for T than (I guess) a lot of judges; reading through some judge philosophies I find a lot of people who say they don't like judging T or don't think T debates are good, and I strongly disagree with that claim. I'm a 2N at heart, so when it comes down to brass tacks I really don't care about many T impacts/standards except for neg ground (though I can obviously be persuaded otherwise). I care far more about the debates that an interpretation facilitates than I do about the interpretation's source in the abstract--do explanation as to why source quality/predictability influences the quality of debates under the relevant interpretation.

4. I think judge kick makes intuitive sense, but I won't do it unless I'm told to. That said, I also think I have a lower threshold for what constitutes the neg "telling me to" than most. There are some phrases that signify to me that I can default to the status quo by my own choosing; these include, but aren't necessarily limited to, "the status quo is always a logical policy option" and/or "counter-interp: the neg gets X conditional options and the status quo."

5. I enjoy counterplans that compete on resolutional terms quite a bit; I'd rather judge those than counterplans that compete on "should," "substantial," etc.

6. If you think that the affirmative should specify which branch of the United States federal government the plan goes through, you should make that argument as its own separate offcase position. Hiding ASPEC as part of a different T violation is -.1, hiding it on a non-T offcase or case flow is -.3.

7. I see no need for more than 10 off-case positions. Anything over that gets -.5 per new page. If I'm on a panel, I may stop flowing any additional off-case.

8. I would rather judge substance over theory in basically every situation. That said, here are some aff theory arguments that I could be persuaded on pretty easily given a substantive time investment:

--Counterplans should have a solvency advocate ideally matching the specificity of the aff's, but at least with a normative claim about what should happen.

--Multi-actor fiat bad--you can fiat different parts of the USFG do things, and international fiat is defensible, but fiating the federal government and the states, or the US and other countries, is a no-no. (Fiating all fifty states is debatably acceptable, but fiating some permutation of states seems iffy to me.)

--No negative fiat, but not the meme--counterplans should take a positive action, and shouldn't fiat a negative action. It's the distinction between "the USFG should not start a war against Russia" and "the USFG should ban initiation of war against Russia."

--Test case fiat? Having osmosed a rudimentary bit of constitutional law via friends and family in law school, it seems like debate's conception of how the Supreme Court works is... suspect. Not really sure what the implications of that are for the aff or the neg, but I'm pretty sure that most court CPs/mechanisms would get actual lawyers disbarred.

--I think extreme conditionality is nearly indefensible, but I am also finding that I kind of hate judging conditionality debates, especially when I think that the aff has a substantive path to victory.

Glenbrook North- he/him

I don't know what has happened to wiki disclosure but current practices are unacceptable. If you don't have your wiki updated to at least include the round report for all your rounds, your speaker points are capped at 27.5. I'll check when assigning points after I've decided so you have until the end of the round. If you have every card you've read for the year uploaded, the floor for points is 29.

Use the tournament's doc share if it's set-up, speechdrop if it's not.

I won't vote for death good.

If you're taking prep before the other teams speech, it needs to be before they send out the doc. For example, if the aff team wants prep between the 2NC and 1NR, it needs to happen before the 1NR doc gets sent out, so I'd recommend saying you're going to do it before cross-x.

1. Flow and explicitly respond to what the other team says in order. I care a lot about debate being a speaking activity and I would rather not judge you if you disagree. I won't open the speech doc during the debate. I won't look at all the cards after the round, only ones that are needed to resolve something being debated out that are explicitly extended throughout the debate. If I don't have your argument written down on my flow, then you don't get credit for it. As an example, if you read a block of perms, I need to be able to distinguish between the perms in the 2AC to give you credit for them. If you are extending a perm in the 2AR I didn't have written down in the 2AC, I won't vote on it, even if the neg doesn't say this was a new argument. The burden is on you to make sure I am able to flow and understand everything you are saying throughout the debate. If you don't flow (and there are a lot of you out there) you should strike me.

2. Things you can do to improve the likelihood of me understanding you:

a. slow down

b. structure your args using numbers and subpoints

c. explicitly signpost what you are answering and extending

d. alternate analytics and cards

e. use microtags for analytics

f. give me time to flip between flows

g. use emphasis and inflection

3. I think the aff has to be topical.

4. I'm not great at judging the kritik. I'm better at judging kritiks that have links about the outcome of the plan but have an alternative that's a fiated alternative that's incompatible with the world of the plan.

5. You can insert one perm text into the debate. You can insert sections of cards that have been read for reference. You can't insert re-highlightings. I'm not reading parts of cards that were not read in the debate.

6. I flow cross-x but won't guarantee I'll pay attention to questions after cross-x time is up. I also don't think the other team has to indefinitely answer substantive questions once cx time is over.

7.Plans: If you say the plan fiats something in CX, you don't get to say PTIV means something else on T. So for example, if you say "remove judicial exceptions" means the courts, you don't get to say you're not the courts on T. If you say normal means is probably the courts but you're not fiating that, you get to say PTIV but you also risk the neg winning you are Congress for a DA or CP.

8. If your highlighting is incoherent, I'm not going to read unhighlighted parts of the card to figure out what it means.

pasdebate@gmail.com

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General Background:

I debated at Maine East (2016-2020) on the TOC circuit and at the University of Pittsburgh (2020-2023), including the NDT. Currently, I work in the tech industry and am an Assistant Coach for the University of Pittsburgh.

My debate career focused on critical arguments (e.g., Afropessimism, Settler Colonialism, Capitalism). I particularly enjoy judging clash debates, or policy vs. critical. Traditional policy debaters should note my limited experience in policy v policy debates and rank me significantly lower / accordingly on their judging preferences.

If you follow @careerparth on tiktok, I will boost your speaker points.

Key Principles

The most important thing to know: If you make an argument, defend it fully. Do not disavow arguments made by you or your partner in speeches or cross-examination. Instead, defend them passionately and holistically. Embrace the implications of your strategy in all relevant aspects of the debate. Hesitation about your own claims is the quickest way to lose my ballot.

For reference, my judging philosophy aligns with those of Micah Weese, Reed Van Schenck, Calum Matheson, Alex Holguin, & Alex Reznik.

Debate Philosophy

I see my role as a judge as primarily to determine who won the debate but also to facilitate the debaters' learning. Everything can be an impact if you find a way to weigh it against other impacts, this includes procedural fairness. When my ballot is decided on the impact debate, I tend to vote for whoever better explains the material consequence of their impact. Using examples can help to elucidate (the lack of) solvency, establish link stories, make comparative arguments, and help establish your expertise on the topic.

While I have preferences, I will adapt to your argument style. I don't exclude debaters based on their choice of arguments, as long as they avoid racist, sexist, or similarly offensive content.

Speaker points are arbitrary. I tend to give higher speaker points to debaters who show a thorough understanding of the arguments they present. I am especially impressed by debaters who efficiently collapse in the final rebuttals and those who successfully give rebuttals with prep time remaining and/or off the flow.

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Public Forum Debate

I am a flow-centric judge on the condition your arguments are backed with evidence and are logical. My background is in policy debate, but regardless of style, and especially important in PF, I think it's necessary to craft a broad story that connects what the issue is, what your solution is, and why you think you should win the debate.

I like evidence qualification comparisons and "if this, then that" statements when tied together with logical assumptions that can be made. Demonstrating ethos, confidence, and good command of your and your opponent's arguments is also very important in getting my ballot.

I will like listening to you more if you read smart, innovative arguments. Don't be rude, cocky, and/or overly aggressive especially if your debating and arguments can't back up that "talk." Not a good look.

Give an order before your speech and the faster you conclude the debate, the higher your speaker points will be.

Email: ttate@glenbrook225.org

I am back directing after a fairly long hiatus from debate. If I had to highlight the biggest factor that means for you is I am not up on the topic literature as much as a lot of judges. I am directing a large program, judging a lot, and watching A LOT of GBS practice debates. The Tate now is not cutting cards the way the Tate then used to. I also did not teach at camp this past summer. My flow is pretty decent still and I have realized that a lot of arguments have not changed much from 6-8 years ago.

What does that mean to you?

1 - I don't have many preconceived notions entering the debates about which team is having a more successful season or what arguments are the cool/hip thing. That can be good and bad for you. :)

2- I would consider myself a moderate right judge in regards to policy vs. K debates. Here is the thing - I am very liberal in my beliefs and academia, especially in regards to issues of identity. My Masters' thesis was a black women's criticism of mainstream feminist discourse. I will often understand and believe many K arguments in front of me. The question is whether the arguments presented in front of me provides an opportunity for deliberative dialogue between two opposing teams. Convince me of that in round (and many have), you will find me to be more left-leaning in regards to K arguments than people perceive.

3 - I love a good Politics debate that has super recent evidence and an interesting spin to a typical politics story. Of course, I know those are hard to get traction on with this topic and the state of being in Washington DC right now.

4 - I believe coming into the debate that uniqueness drives the direction of the link.

5 - I default Negative coming in to many debates in regards to CP theory and competition issues.

6 - I have a high standard for both evidence and what makes for a complete argument.