Kiernan, (she/her) ☺️

Quick little about me:

• I've been involved in debate in one form or another most of my life, I believe it is such an amazing opportunity and I am so glad you are participating in it!
• I’m a junior at Central High School (class of '26!), and it will be my 3^rd year debating at Central, 6th total.
• I am a coach for Hidden River MS.
• My email is kiernanbaxterkauf@gmail.com if you need it for any reason, I’m always happy to answer questions.

Middle School Judging:

• Middle school debate is for you all to have fun and learn! if you have any questions at any point ask them and I will always try my best to help, debate can be stressful and confusing sometimes and I want as many people as possible to have a good experience, and my job is to facilitate that!! also just like a general rule of thumb, be nice to each other ☺️
• Yes, I am aware MS kids don't really read paradigms--- it's fun to write though!

High School Judging:

• IP-specific: I am a varsity debater on the topic, and I am pretty in-depth on a lot of topic literature. However, please explain your arguments!! I will probably know things like acronyms, etc.
• Please say "counterplan" not "cp" It just doesn't work with my brain. I am serious haha.
• all my middle school stuff applies here, just be nice :)
• The top line is that I am here to watch and judge you all, and whatever you want to run in front of me is perfectly okay. Unless you are running really obscure stuff, you can assume I will know what you are talking about. I am fine with K’s/Kritikal Affirmatives, you need to explain why your performance is important and what that means. I am here to support you all; you do not have to adapt to me.
• speed is fine, I can flow you.
• With that in mind, running racist, homophobic, or sexist arguments is not going to get you far in debates, and you are not going to win this one if that’s the path you choose to go down.
• Everything from the middle school paradigm applies here! Since I am a high school student, I assume that most/all the teams I judge are novices, and I am always here to help! + Final note: Keep in mind that I am a high school student. My opinions may not always be correct, and I am not set in stone on anything, but I know a fair bit about debate, and I am always here to help!!

****TLDR: have fun, be nice, and try your best!****

Head Coach for St. Paul Central(MN) from 2021(water topic)->present

Pronouns are they/she

I would like to be on the email chain @ stpaulcentralcxdebate@gmail.com

Email for questions/contact @ marshall.d.steele@gmail.com

For 24-25 --- Serving as Program Development Fellow at the MNUDL so judging a little less than past years on local circuit

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TLDR for prefs/strikes

I appreciate good judge instructions and am neutral on most arguments. Prob best for KvK debates and fine for everything else. Will regrettably vote on just about anything that isn't you being overtly hostile to your opponents.If you just wanna know my K aff thoughts I will happily vote on em and find those debates very interesting. Be nice and run arguments you like and we'll get along fine. I don't check speech docs until the end of the round so clarity is your friend on blocks. I am mostly a clash judge but will still consider/would like to see good 2R top level conceptualization of the round. I value technical drops and all that fun clash debate stuff, it's just to say that actual persuasive argumentation and analysis are also nice and will boost your speaks.

slow down for dense analytic blocks especially / fw / theory, putting this here as well as below. If you want me to flow every warrant you should probably not be going at the pace and intonation of the body of a card

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Judging Takes:

Tech V Truth: Tech over truth but making overtly illogical arguments at high speed to get the other side to drop them is gonna be worse for your speaks than well-thought-out positions.

Speed/Delivery- Besides the stated above, I always appreciate starting out slower and speeding up, i.e start at 85% and ramp up to full speed.

Kritikal Affs- go for it. I like them. Don't assume I'll automatically understand your lit or import my analysis - the same standard as any policy arg. Probably a better-than-average judge for you if you're running queer theory(though misuse of the term "overkill" is a personal pet peeve).

Topicality - I'm pretty neutral on T. just please don't forget to at minimum say "voter for xyz" and I'm open to hear your interp of the topic.

Counterplans - I think a lot of counterplans really test the limits of tech>truth with the actual text / claimed solvency mechanism. that said if the 2ac doesn't say anything I'll buy it. I don't have many strong opinions on counterplans. default to perms as a test of competition. Am generally not a fan of counterplans with 5+ (functionally contradictory) planks. Judge kick as a default

Kritiks - I like kritiks generally, I think more kritiks should utilize offense about their theory of power to prove why the aff is materially also wrong. I.e, if you're running security and the aff's main impact, is predicated on a tech race that should at minimum be defense to the impact if you're winning a theory of power that precludes tech races as a real scenario.

Theory: I probably won't love watching a debate where both 2Rs are theory but am still down for those debates. Will likely just default to the tech to determine most in round opinion on theory. Condo vs 1 off is probably the exception in that unless the neg literally forgets to answer im gonna have a hard time writing that ballot.

Default to tournament rules on ethics challenges/evidence stuff/anything you're gonna

Feel free to ask questions on anything listed or not listed above, always happy to yap about my debate opinions.

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Random Notes

Plan flaws are awesome and under-utilized

Not a fan of random swearing, if you feel you're argument is more rhetorically powerful with it that's cool but "that's a dumb F***ing question" in cx will get your speaks dropped severely. Just because college debaters over-use it doesn't make it persuasive.

I didn't think I'd ever have to write this but overtly calling your opponents dumb or bad at debate or anything in that nature is a really quick way to 26-land. Yes, this includes when you think you are whispering quietly and are in fact quite loud.

Prep stealing is not epic

how is farm bill still a DA - this was "Unique" when I started debating