Judge Philosophies
Alexandra Smith - Tourn Judges
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Anu Lal - Brooks Debate
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Ari Moore - ModernBrain
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Briana Bao - ModernBrain
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Casey Zhang - ModernBrain
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Cecilia Alali - ModernBrain
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Chris Flowers - Alter Ethos
update: toc 23'
Email chain: chris@alterethosdebate.com
TLDR
Debaters ought to determine the procedural limits and educational value of each topic by defending their interpretations in the round. I ought to vote for the team that does the best job of that in the debate.
I mostly care about warranting arguments and engaging with opponent's through analysis and impact comparison. The team that does the better job justifying my vote at the end of the debate will win.
Debaters should not do any of the following:
Clip cards
Steal prep
Ignore reasonable things like showing up on time and maintaining speech times and speaking order.
Disregard reasonable personal request of their opponents. If you dont wish to comply with opponent requests, you ought to have a good reason why.
Misgender folks
Say or do racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or ableist things.
Read pessimism args from identities they don't identify as.
Argumentative Preferences
WARRANTS & EXPLANATIONS over blippiness.
Education > Fairness
Breadth = Depth ---> both are important please make warrants here.
Ks dont need to win an alt to win.
Reasonable disclosure practices should be followed.
Analytic > Low quality evidence
Specific Stuff
Theory
Disclosing before the round is a reasonable thing to do. That being said, I come in with a slight bias against theory arguments in LD. Lots of frivolity in this space right now.
To adapt for this bias teams can read theory that actually has the potential to improve debates or read shells that will have clear and significant violations. Running theory as an exploit of tech judges makes debates less enjoyable for me and I am inclined to vote against them at the smallest of responses. Affirmative teams should feel comfortable reading fewer spikes and more substance.
t/framework
Neg teams ought to engage with plan free or non-topical affirmatives. Affirmative teams should advocate for some departure from the status quo within the context of the topic. The more an aff is steeped in topic literature, the less likely I am to vote against it as a procedural issues, so strong topic links are crucial. I generally think education is a more important element of debate than fairness and that an inability to prepare against an argument doesn't inherently mean that argument is unfair.
Topicality
I default to reasonability because I think it incentivizes innovative research by the aff and expands the limits of the topic in a good way.
Perf Con.
I'm good with multiple worlds but think perf cons make for less enjoyable debates and I am inclined to vote against 1NC's that read cap and the econ da in the same speech.
Counter Plans
If you have a solvency advocate, its legit.
PICs are generally good because they force the affirmative to more deeply examine their advocacy, I want them to be excluding something substantial and to have a solvency advocate of some kind.
Conditionality
Neg definitely gets to be conditional. Limited conditionality is the most reasonable interp.
DA's
I like topic DA's, and find most politics and econ based internal links implausible. But, I won't vote against them on face, I let your opponent make those arguments.
Presumption
Neg walks in with presumption. Neg teams should still make presumption analysis in the round though.
*If I haven't mentioned it here, ask me. It has been a minute since I've judged.
Eric Toothaker - SMS
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Evan Yao - ModernBrain
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Jaden Hong - ModernBrain
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Jianbo Song - ModernBrain
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Jing Zhao - ModernBrain
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Jing Wei Li - ModernBrain
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Jolene Zjou - ModernBrain
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Kaori Dadgostar-Shimazaki - Velasquez Academy
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Karon Petty - Tourn Judges
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Lauren Velasquez-Galvez - Velasquez Academy
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Lee Thach - CL
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Rajyalakshmi Nimmagadda - Brooks Debate
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Richard Kung - ModernBrain
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Rye Ooommen - ModernBrain
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Sara Davis - SMS
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Sophia Cox - SMS
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Subramaniam Kandaswamy - Brooks Debate
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Veronica Galvez - Velasquez Academy
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Vidya Balasubramanian - ModernBrain
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Vivian Mei - ModernBrain
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Xiangpeng Jing - ModernBrain
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Ying Luo - ModernBrain
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YuQiao Shao - ModernBrain
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Zihan Li - ModernBrain
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