Adam Testerman - Jewell

TLDR

-If I show preference for a genre of arguments, its not known to me. I wish for folks to read the arguments they find strategic/interesting and try not to worry about my feelings. This could mean, however, that non-topical approaches to debate are more good with me than you'd prefer. Im not begging for framework in response to those positions, but I also feel like I will absolutely vote on framework if you win the position.

-I enjoy quick, technical debates over debates where public presentation is prioritized. Im also open to being persuaded that quick, technical debates are bad/wrong/misguided for any number of reasons. I rarely find arguments suggesting speed is a tool of exclusion compelling, however, I also think speed as a means to avoid substantive engagement is weak in the paint.

-I like procedural arguments, in general. However, I like arguments with clear links and reasonable standards, so too much theory, too fast bums me out. I'm often disappointed when folks go for things like condo in the last speech (an out is an out, I'd just rather see other strats, all things being equal). I often think MG theory makes debates less good.

-Fast rounds are fun, but too fast rounds are a smidge miserable. I wish I could give a clear idea of what too fast means, but thats tough. I feel like if itd be difficult for you to flow your speech, youre too fast. If it sounds like youre reading cards, thats too fast.

-Arguments that rely on subtle tricks and logic games are not necessarily intuitive, for me. I was bad at logic in college and would not describe myself as mathematically inclined. I feel more comfortable with arguments that demonstrate narrative cohesion and substantive engagement.

Background

Hi there!

My background as a competitor involved a couple years reading primarily policy strategies and a couple years reading primarily old-white-man criticisms (Baudrillard, Marx, Lacan, etc). As a coach, my teams have dipped their toes into nearly every kind of argument. I love it all, when it is done well. I can hate it all, when it ain't.

I feel comfortable judging any genre of argument and have no real argument preference beyond the desire to see clash.

General Issues

Debate is the most fun and the most educational when a variety of argumentative styles, people, knowledge bases, and strategies are given room to thrive. I feel lucky to have judged a vast array of different arguments in my judging career. One of my main goals as a judge is to allow teams to run the arguments they feel are most compelling in front of me. Ive picked up teams reading structural indictments of debate about as many times as Ive picked up teams reading policy affirmatives and defending incrementalism.

It is my goal to involve myself in the debate round as little as possible. I have no preference for any particular kind of argument and generally feel that almost every debate issue can be resolved in the round. I will vote for arguments with warrants. I will try my best to synthesize your arguments, but I also believe that to be a central skill of effective debaters.

I will vote for arguments I think are stupid 10 out of 10 times if they are won in the round.

I rely on my flow to decide the round. I attempt to flow performances and I do my best to write down what youre saying as close to verbatim as my fingers allow me. If there is an expectation that I not decide the round based on the way I understand argument interaction on my flow, that should be stated explicitly and it would be a good idea to tell me how I am intended to evaluate the debate round.

Emphasize explanation early dont let your argument make sense for the first time in the LOR or PMR etc.

Points of Order should be called, but I will also do my best to protect new arguments dont be excessive with them though [Ill be vague about what that means, but be an adult]

RVIs have never been good arguments, read them at your own risk.

Theory/Procedurals

I cut my teeth on procedural arguments, and I am still a fan. To vote on a procedural, I need an interpretation explaining how the debate should be evaluated, a violation detailing specifically why the other team does not fit within that interpretation, standards that explain why the interpretation is good, and a voter that outlines why I should vote on the argument. PLEASE read your interpretation/definition slowly and probably repeat it. It is good to have an interpretation that makes some sense.

DAs/Advantages

DAs and Advs. require uniqueness arguments that explain why the situation the affirmative causes is not happening in the status quo. Defensive arguments are useful, but they often serve to make offensive arguments more impactful or serve as risk mitigation, as opposed to terminal takeouts.

I ran politics in a majority of my negative rounds and I coach my teams to read the position as well. So, I will totally vote on politics every time it is won. That being said, Im finding the position to be one my least favorite and least compelling these days. The obscene nature of congress make the position even more laughable than it was in the past [and its always been sketchy at best, without cards (and with?)]. Read the DA if youre a politics team, but there are almost always better arguments out there.

Critiques

Critique debates can be fun to watch, but only when the position is clear at the thesis level. If your shell argues that the K is a prior question or something like that, spend some meaningful time explaining why thats the case instead of shadow extending an argument from the shell. I am familiar with a lot of the literature, but you should argue the position as if I am not. Critiques are totally dope, but only because they have the potential to advance compelling arguments not because they are obtuse.

Framework debates (on the top of critique... i.e.: epistemology comes first) are a waste of time a vast majority of the time. I do not understand why teams spend any substantive amount of time on framework. The question of whether the affirmative methodology/epistemology/whatever vague term you want to use, is good or bad should be determined in the links and impacts of the criticism. I see almost no world where framework matters independent of the rest of the shell. So the only K framework questions that tend to make sense to me are arguments about why it is a prior question. It makes sense that if the critique wins that the affirmative impacts are threat constructions that Im not going to weigh the affirmative impacts against the position. Thats not a framework debate though, thats a question determined by winning the thesis of the position.

Critical affirmatives can be cool, but they also put me in a weird position as a judge sometimes. If your affirmative is positioned to critique DAs, then I still want to see specific applications of those arguments to the DAs. I need to see how the DA demonstrates your argument to be true in some specific way. By that I mean, if the negative outright wins a DA, I would need to see why that would mean the affirmative shouldnt lose early, often, and specifically. The same is true of any set/genre of negative positions.

Performance/Non-Topical Affirmatives/Alternative Approaches to Debate

I tend to not have super strong feelings in favor or in opposition to performance style arguments. Several of the teams I have coached have run non-traditional arguments and I have seen those be incredibly beneficial for the debaters and have a positive effect on education garnered from their rounds. I have also seen people really struggle with performance-style arguments on an interpersonal level, in both advocating their positions and responding to others doing so. I defer to the debaters to wade through the various issues related to alternative approaches to debate.

I will vote for framework as answer to these arguments if the other team wins the position. However, I also think most non-topical affirmatives are written with 5 minutes of impact turns to framework. Affirmatives must explicitly extend those kinds of arguments to answer framework (don't assume I understand how that's happening just by you extending the affirmative) and teams going for framework should not assume the "a priori" nature of theory means I reject the aff out-of-hand.

I tend to think arguments about the collapse of debate due to alternative approaches to debate, are frequently poorly warranted. Which doesn't mean those warrants don't exist... I just need them to be made explicitly. Debate can look like many things, and still be interesting/educational/productive, in my mind. However, I also believe compelling arguments about "topical versions of the affirmative" can be very compelling. If there is a way to read your criticism as a nuanced way to affirm the resolution, you've probably landed close to my ideal version of critically framed affirmatives. Affirmatives seeking to indict structural conditions of debate can also be very compelling, too. I hope to put my personal desires for a particular model/instantiation of debate to the side in any particular round I'm judging.

CPs

In general, the CP/DA debate is probably what I feel most comfortable judging accurately and I think CPs that solve the affirmative are very strategic. There are probably enough arguments on both sides to justify different interpretations of how permutation or CP theory in general should go down, that I dont have strong opinions about many CP related issues.

I tend to think objections to conditionality are rooted in some very valid arguments, however I find myself concluding conditionality is probably more good than bad. That only means the conditionality debate is totally fair game and I probably have voted conditionality bad as many times as I have voted it is good.

Cheater CPs are cool with me, so feel free to deploy delay, conditions, consult, whatever. I tend to think the theory arguments read in answer to those positions are more persuasive than the answers when argued perfectly, but that in no way makes me more predisposed to reject any kind of CP strategy.

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Adeja Powell - SDSU

If you're reading this, that's already a good start. You should continue to do so until there are no words left. I debated in parli for ~5 years at McKendree University, and did 4 years of high school LD before that. My partner and I won the 2020 NPDA. All of these things mostly tell you nothing about my thoughts on debate, but they should tell you that I have quite a lot of them. I'll do my best to keep it brief here.

Before I get into any specifics, I want to avoid what I assume most of your coaches or veteran debaters on your team will tell you about my time as a debater. Was I fond of the K? Yes. More accurately, I was fond of winning and a good chunk of the time, I found the K to be the best way to do so. With that being said, I would by no means describe my career as being a "K debater." I won just as many debates reading a topical policy aff as I did reading a K aff. In the same vein, our neg strat was a one off K just as often as it was a DA/CP combo or sometimes just straight up case turns against the aff. I did it all, and I consider myself to be a judge that can evaluate any kind of debate you put in front of me because, well, I used every tool at my disposable to win debates. I think you should as well. I pride myself on having been an incredibly versatile debater so please, for the love of god, do not high pref me for your "k teams" and low pref me for your "non-K teams" because you think that's the kind of debate I wanna hear/am best positioned to evaluate. I will get tired of hearing Ks every round very quickly, then I'll get annoyed, and then I won't be a good judge for anyone because I'll want to go home. Do not make me want to go home (chances are I already want to by no fault of yours so like, don't pile it on).

Max Groznik recommended I add these quotes from a conversation between the two of us. I dont know why I am, but Im not sure any of this means anything anyway:

Ah, my life is a series of baubles that I must sort. Both real and fabricated for me to have something to do. Cest la vie. - Me, 2020

I think everyone is stupid except for me. It actually makes me care more. Ill steer them in the right direction. - also Me, 2020

In general, I think debate is a technical game and I evaluate it as such. I'm not easily swayed by positions that rely on some other metric that's not a net-benefits paradigm where my role is to weigh impacts and evaluate the arguments on the flow. That being said, I did dabble in this kind of non-traditional debate during my career. I think it's interesting, and I'm all for arguments that lightly poke and push at the limits of parli debate, I'm just not at all sure how I evaluate these arguments as a judge. If that's your thing, my advice is to proceed with caution and keep in mind that at my core, I'm a technical debater and that's where I'm comfortable. If you want me to throw tech out the window in favor of something else, you'll have to be fairly convincing and exceptionally clear on what exactly this means. This in no way means I'm unwilling to listen to a less technical argument. I definitely will, I just don't have a concrete framework for how I evaluate these arguments, so I think it's important that you make this clear for me so that I don't end up making a decision that misses the point entirely.

I also think I should address MG theory here. If you've read Alyson Escalante's philosophy, I pretty much agree 100% with her about the direction this activity is going and what's causing it. The proliferation of nonsense MG theory is definitely up there for me in terms of something that's threatening this activity, and you will be hard pressed to get me to vote on it. The only legitimate MG theory in my mind is CP theory (PiCs bad, multiple actor CPs bad, floating PiCs bad, Delay bad, for the most part) and Condo bad. These are debates that I will listen to, and that for the most part, I don't have a huge bias for voting one way or the other (maybe Condo, but read my later section on that). Any other silly MG theory about passing texts or reading the plan text in 30 seconds or whatever is becoming increasingly annoying to me. I don't even want to listen to these debates, so your speaker points will reflect my annoyance if these are even apart of the MG order. Beyond that, you likely will not get a ballot out of me that even references the MG theory as a part of my decision. My threshold for abuse on these sheets is very high, and absent an incredibly legitimate abuse claim, I will find any small defensive argument possible to make this sheet of paper go away, and your speaker points will suffer the more you press the issue. Please keep this in mind if you have me as a judge.

Read whatever you want on the aff. I truly don't care, and I'll evaluate the debate that happens in front of me. Just a few specifics though:

1. I need texts read twice and slowly.

2. Don't try to be faster than you are. It's probably my biggest pet peeve in this activity. Clarity is just as important as speed, and I won't be nice with your speaker points if your inability to be honest with yourself about your own skills means we all have to suffer through a speech that's unclear.

3. I love a non-topical aff - in theory. In practice, I find myself begging for just one or two arguments that clearly explain why you ought to be non-topical. If I get those, I'll be far more enthusiastic about whatever your k aff is. Also, referencing the topic on your link page and giving a lackluster warrant as to its connection to whatever your k aff is about does not make you "topical" and I will vote on framework 99% of the time in these cases.

As far as negative strats go, I also pretty much think you should do whatever you want, but as for specific thoughts:

1. I assume all negative advocacies are conditional unless specified otherwise. As a person, I think you should say most things with your chest, which would naturally mean I think condo is bad. BUT, as someone that understands how the activity works and would like it to keep working that way, I think condo is good and I don't think there are many scenarios where I would vote for condo bad unless it's an egregious abuse of condo.

2. I love a T debate - in theory. I don't think many judges or debaters really agree on how a T debate ought to be evaluated, which is why most of the time every judge in the room ends up sighing, groaning, and shaking their heads through a T debate and then punishing debaters for committing any number of "sins" that are entirely based on their personal views on T and not some agreed upon community norm. So, here are my thoughts: I think of interps similarly to counterplans. It's a specific text (that defines a certain word in the resolution), with "net-benefits" (or standards) that resolve or cause certain negative or positive impacts (that discuss an effect on debate as an activity). Although the interp usually defines a singular word, it's defining that word in the context of the resolution, not in a vacuum. The violation describes this context. That's typically how words work, alongside other words or groups of words. I evaluate topicality in this way. If you don't win a standard on your interp, then there's not reason for me to vote for it instead defaulting to the PMC (just like there's no reason for me to vote for a counter-plan if it doesn't have a net benefit. I would just vote for the aff). If both interps win a standard, then I need impact weighing to compare offense and determine which interp solves the most. We-meets can be terminal defense, if they sufficiently resolve the offense gone for in the context of the violation. Just like in any other debate, if the defense isn't enough to outweigh the offense gone for in the MO, I can still vote on the offense. For example, if you read defense against one link on the disad but not the other, I can still vote on the offense triggered by the second link. This goes for T as well. These are just my thoughts, but if you keep them in mind, I will not groan through your MO/PMR on T. I think T is fun and more people should go for it.

3. Please...collapse...in the block...

4. Whatever your nonsense k is, please explain it to me as if I did not pay attention in my intro ethics class (I did not). This threshold is much higher for D&G (I just don't get it. I'm sorry).

Finally, I was pretty deep in the anti-blackness literature as a debater, I mostly debated pess, but I also dipped into futurism/nihilism/etc. I mean like, 5 years and lots of books and research and readings by lots of different authors deep. This is a topic area that I have a lot of knowledge on because I did a lot of work to accumulate this knowledge. I like these arguments, and I don't think parli has even scratched the surface of this lit base and the type of arguments that can come from it. That being said, I have zero respect for debaters that think they don't need to do any of this work and that they can formulate an argument based entirely on their own (albeit real and highly valuable) cultural knowledge. This isn't twitter, (although if you're funny and often talk about your cultural experiences as a Black there, I might follow you) but there's a reason tweets have a character limit, this activity does not. Luckily, there are a ton of Black authors that have just as much cultural knowledge, paired with years of academic research and writing that contains well thought out and explained theories regarding the Black experience and anti-Blackness generally. Please give them their clout, read their books/essays, and use them as at least the basis for your argument. Otherwise, you're not engaging in this activity in the way that it's designed to be engaged in and I won't be the judge that rewards you for it.

Also, I have opinions about speaker points. Mainly, that a 30 ought to be virtually unattainable and given only to those that are truly exceptional - not just in a given round, but compared to the rest of the field. I will almost never give one, and my average range is somewhere between a 27.7 and a 29.7. If youre on either side of that range it means you were particularly impressive (either negatively or positively). Judges that give these out like candy or debaters that explicitly ask for them when theyve not given a speech that constitutes a 30 generally tend to make speaker awards not reflective of the actual ranking of debaters at the tournament. Im pretty committed to not contributing to that, so if you receive a 30 from me just know it was well deserved. If you ask for a 30, I probably will not respond nicely with how many speaker points I end up giving you. 30s ought to be earned; and, if the 2020 NPDA is any indication, when people explicitly ask for them and judges give them, people who actually earned their 30s end up not getting rewarded for it.

TLDR; say whatever you want, I'm a good judge for any of it. Condo is good. Books are fun and you should read them. There's someone out there that has spent years researching whatever thought you think you came up with all on your own, I promise.

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Alan Fishman - St. Mary's

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Alex Li - NPDA Hired

TL;DR: Don't be a dick, do whatever you want. I’ll evaluate the flow and I can hang.

Be respectful and don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Off time roadmaps/orders are preferred, don’t thank me before you speak, don’t shake my hand. If disclosure is not the norm I am willing to disclose. Pronouns: he/him/his.

I did policy in high school and NPDA at University of Oregon. My partner Gabe and I won the NPTE in 2022.

Preferences that matter for my decision

1. Debate is a game
2. Hard debate is good debate
3. Lying won't get you very far, interpreting the truth will
4. You will be auto dropped if you defend a bona fide Nazi
5. Terminal no solvency is a voting issue, but takeouts are rarely terminal
6. Nonfalsifiable arguments are probably in bad faith
7. I default to magnitude first sans weighing
8. Spirit of the interp is not real, write a better interp
9. I default to competing interps but do not default to theory is a priori
10. Alts that are lit based are better than alts you made up
11. Topicality violations are not derived from solvency
12. Collapsing is always better than not collapsing
13. For the love of god extend the aff
14. For the love of god answer the aff

Preferences that matter but less for my decision

1. Theory is a cop out - if you're winning theory and substance go for substance
2. I think condo is fine for debate but will vote on theory if won
3. Going for RVIs is usually cowardice
4. Perms are defense, defense is a suboptimal collapse strategy
5. Links of omission are weak
6. Psychoanalysis is grounded in at best tautologies and at worst transphobia, you can win it but please be cautious
7. Decolonization is not a metaphor
8. Nuclear weapons are tools - irrational nukes don't exist
9. Anthropogenic climate change is real as are extinction risks
10. Science is a very useful ideology

HS Parli specific:

Spread if you can; don't spread if you can't. I will protect, but call POOs when you think necessary.

Parli is not a "common knowledge" format simply because of limited prep. A pet peeve of mine is arguments about germaneness with no warrants or impacts. These arguments are winnable, but often have little or nothing to do with the argument it attempts to answer. I will not vote on something "germane" to the topic over something "not germane" to the topic absent an argument on the flow. I evaluate what is germane to the debate; if an impact stems from the action of an advocacy or the resolution (however wacky it might seem), it is probably germane.

Any questions about either my paradigm or my decision email me at skydivingsimians@gmail.com

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Amanda Miskell - Parli at Berkeley

TL;DR

Debate is a game. Run whatever you want, just win it on the flow. Hit me with your new K, some frivolous theory that youre worried other judges wont buy, or literally anything else. Speaks based on execution of strategy.

Background

I'm a recent grad of UC Berkeley who debated in NPDA (tech parli), and now I coach the college team Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley, as well as the high school team at Campolindo HS. My partner Ryan Rashid and I won all three nats in NPDA my junior year, but I have next to no experience outside of parli (just some high school PF and lay LD), so I'm relatively unfamiliar with LD and policy norms. I did and teach pretty much all the stylistic thingsequal amount of case, theory, and Ks. I love writing K links, collapsing to tix/elections DAs, and prepping clever T shells courtesy of shoddy resolutions. (The last one is kind of a joke, but also not really.) Point is, I have no preference for what you read, please just do what you're best at. I'd rather see a good K debate with quality clash than a bad case debate, and vice versa.

General note: My philosophy on debate has been primarily shaped by Trevor Greenan, Brian Yang, Ryan Rashid, and June Dense. Expect a paradigm rather similar to theirs.

Kritiks

- If you're in a hurry you can skip this sectionread whatever K you want lol, I don't pick favorites

- My background in academics and debate leans slightly more toward sociology than pomo. I've taken courses (and written Ks) about critical refugee studies, settler colonialism, anthropocentrism, etc., but have yet to truly grasp more than the barest bones of Bataille, for example. That being said, I definitely have experience with pomoI've read/collapsed to Buddhism, Barad, Foucault, Nietzsche, etc. and competed against Lacan more times than I can count (shout out to the Rice team for that one). So feel free to read pomo if that's your thing, just be a tad gentler with me and don't assume I've read/heard allll the terminology before

- I'm a hoe for really well-warranted links that are specific to the aff and have imbedded DAs/solvency deficits. Also detailed and specific reasons why you solve the aff (if that's an arg you like to go for), either in the impacts or on the alt

- Theses can be helpful for more complex Ks, but def not necessary for your generic cap shell. I often write Ks that draw from multiple lit bases, and for me, a thesis creates a more cohesive story for something that can be kind of frankenstein in nature

Theory

- I love theory. I've been told I have a low threshold for frivolous theory (probably a consequence of too many rounds with Ryan and Brian), but my favorite is topicality, or any other interps that are very specific to the resolution/Aff. If it's clear that your interp had to be written during the 2 minutes before the LOC, that's my jam. Ofc you can read generics too, I'll just be slightly more bored and slightly less impressed

- MO and PMR theory will be an uphill battle with me, the latter most of all because it can't be contested by the other team, which makes my job so very hard, and I am lazy. But if the abuse is truly egregious and didn't occur until the MG/block, or if it's a matter of rhetorical violence, read the new arg and I'll do my best to evaluate it. But please weigh the new shell against the other team's remaining offense

- MG theory is fine, I read it all the time, but I'm also comfortable rejecting it if the Neg wins arguments for why it's bad or in-evaluable

- I don't need proven abuse under competing interps (it's about what your interp justifies, not what you actually did)

- Text vs. spirit of the interp should be debated in-round, and I'll evaluate under whichever is won. If somehow it's relevant but completely unmentioned by either team, I'll default to text over spirit

- I default to competing interpretations, but I'll use reasonability if you win args as to why I should AND if you have a briteline for it, cuz I don't feel like intervening. For example, a briteline (that I think works relatively well) is that I should evaluate whether the aff interp is good or bad based on all the offense-defense arguments read about it, and decide theory based on that, regardless of whether there's a counter-interp text. You could have a different briteline, but either way, explicitly tell me what it is, because "evaluate theory using reasonability" means different things to different people. I would prefer not to treat it as just a gut check, but if you don't define it, that's what I'll assume you mean

- I think theory is an RVI if and only if you tell me that it is, provide warrants, and then win that arg

- I default to drop the arg, although drop the arg sometimes = drop the debater, like for T. But obviously, reading "drop the debater" with even just one uncontested warrant is sufficient for me to change this default

- I didn't do circuit LD, so explain slightly more to me the definitions/implications of buzzwords that aren't as common in parli. The best example I can think of is semantics vs. pragmatics: I NOW know what they both mean, but I did NOT a year ago, and that made it difficult for me to render a decision in favor of blippy semantics first args in NPDI finals. Still read arguments like that if you want, just define and implicate them out, don't assume that I know all the things

Case

- I enjoy niche disads, like a hyper-specific tix scenario, or a biod disad about endangered turtles that live near where the plan happens. These can be hard (or impossible) to find though, depending on the res, so don't sweat

- I also definitely understand the value of tried and tested generics - I read a lot of backlash DAs and consult CPs, and inv con, so it's okay to read that too. Read whatever you think is strategic for the rez

- I enjoy technical CP debate. PICs are fun unless I'm read a shell that tells me otherwise. Same thing for consult CPs, delay CPs, agent CPs, etc.

- Perms on CPs. Make them. Any perm is fine, unless the other team gives me a reason why it's not

- In the absence of explicit magnitude/probability/timeframe/etc. weighing, I default to using only strength of link. In other words, Im more inclined to vote for arguments that are dropped or comparatively under-covered, but you can prevent this by telling me why your impact is high [magnitude/probability/etc.], and why [magnitude/probability/etc.] comes first

- I love clever case strats that exploit a mistake the other team has made, like collapsing to a straight turn or a double turn. Don't be afraid to do something "risky" like that, I can follow along

Everything Else

Here's some miscellaneous beliefs that I have about debate and will utilize by default; however, I'm willing to evaluate otherwise, even in the opposite direction, as long as you give me sufficient reason to in-round:

- I think unconditionality means you *technically* have to defend the advocacy throughout the round, but that could include conceding defense so the sheet doesn't matter anymore

- I believe that perms are a test of competition, not an advocacy

- I'm not game for shadow extensions that aren't at least mentioned in the MG/MO, even if the argument is conceded. In other words, I think the member speeches should have to extend every piece of offense their team intends to collapse to

- I will do my best to protect during the LOR and PMR, but I don't trust myself to catch everything and neither should you, so call points of order please. I'll rule on all of them immediately, to the best of my ability, because you usually need to know my stance for the sake of the rest of the speech

- New weighing is fine in the LOR/PMR, but make sure it's actually weighing, not sequencing or anything else. E.g., saying "fairness is more important than education because debate could survive without education, but not without fairness" is acceptable weighing, but saying "fairness is more important than education because it's the internal link to education and skews the round" is a sequencing argument that should be read before the rebuttal speech

- I think condo's p dope, so run however many off you want, but also I'll drop you if the other team wins a condo bad shell

- I think dispo is condo in a suit, but if you can get a we meet out of it, go off sis. And if you think they might use their dispo status to meet your condo shell, preempt that in the violation please

- Presumption flips neg, unless the neg reads a CP/alt, in which case it flips aff

- I find truth over tech arguments incoherent and self-refuting; truth in debate is only ever arrived at through evaluation of the flow (or judge intervention, which I will not do), so in order to convince me that truth outweighs tech, youd have to win that claim via the tech flowwhich seems to indicate that tech still > truth

- I will drop your ass for racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. rhetoric or behavior

- To pick you up on an IVI, I need reasons why that IVI outweighs all the impacts your opponents are going for

- Tag-teaming is fine, but I'll only flow what the speaker says

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Amy Lin - RIce

Hi! My name is Amy (she/her). I did 4 years of National Circuit high school policy debate at Head-Royce (2013-2017) and 4 years of NPDA/NPTE college parli debate at Rice (2017-2021). During my senior year, my partner Joel and I got 2nd place at the NRR, 3rd place at NPTE, and were in finals of NPDA.

Some quick things:

1. Read whatever you want -- I'll evaluate any argument

2. Tech > truth

3. Spreading is fine, and I'll clear/slow you if needed

4. Read any texts slowly and twice (interps, CP texts, plan texts, K alts, etc.) -- I may ask for a copy at the end of the round if needed

5. I have zero tolerance for racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc., so please be mindful of the arguments you're reading/the things you're saying. I think the most important thing in a debate round is to have fun and to learn something new, so please be nice and respectful to everyone (and this includes using content warnings before speeches with potentially triggering content, as this is a way to make sure that the round is a safe space for everyone involved) :)

Argument specifics:

T/Theory -- These arguments were by far the ones most commonly read by my partner and I when we competed in college, so I really enjoy these types of debates. Feel free to read any interp you want, no matter how frivolous you think it is, because I am open to evaluating any interp. I'm down to evaluate interps read in the PMC, LOC, and MG; my threshold is higher for interps read in the MO and PMR since those speeches are a bit late in the debate, but I'm still happy to evaluate them if the arguments are warranted. I default to competing interps over reasonability and text over spirit (but happy to hear warrants for the opposite).

K -- Feel free to read them on both the Aff and the Neg. On the Aff, my partner and I read Orientalism and Lacan most frequently, and on the Neg, some Ks we read were Edelman, Lacan, Althusser, Baudrillard, Biopower, Hauntology, and Legalism. Importantly, you should not be reading pess arguments if you do not identify as the group in question, i.e. I will drop a team of two non-Black debaters who are reading Afropessism.

DA/CP -- Although we didn't read these as often as we read Ks/T on the Neg by the end of our career, I really enjoy a good DA/CP debate (and we read Politics/Econ fairly frequently earlier on). It's definitely the type of debate I preferred in high school. Make sure your CP shells clearly address competition and net benefits, and if your collapse includes a DA, make sure to do impact weighing (probability, magnitude, timeframe) in the block (and sequencing these weighing mechanisms, e.g. providing warrants why probability > magnitude).

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Andrea Brown - St. Mary's

Parli update for outrounds Open only:

In outrounds, I'm not going to call slow unless asked. If you ask, I will only slow you down once for each speaker unless you specifically ask that I call slow as needed.

Parli

LD Philosophy:

Open specific:

I don't do well with speed over the internet. Your tags and cites need to be read at a slow pace. You can go as fast as you want in your cards but everything else needs to be at least three steps below your normal pace.

I've been out of LD for a while now and am not familiar with the current norms. I will try to go with whatever norms you want although that's always debateable.. If you're going to argue I have to vote on the rules, I would prefer that you give a reason why I should care about rules but I'll vote on it unless the other side argues that differently.

If there's something I missed because of my internet or yours, I will try to let you know at the end of that speech. If there's a preferred norm to handle this, let me know before the round starts when both you are your competitor are present.

Only the bottom paragraph of my parli philosophy applies to LD.

Novices: Assuming you're not super-fast, you'll be fine.

Parli Philosophy

Important: If you want me to prioritize truth over tech, please say this in the first speech. I will listen to arguments against truth over tech, but I will analyze them through a truth framework.

Speed and decision making:

Online debate has killed my interest/energy for speed. In person and online, I'll call slow until you get down to a speed that I'm willing to handle. I'm also cool with speed Ks. I will tank your speaks threshold if you don't slow down for a team that calls slow. In the MO/LOR/PMR you need go at least two steps slower than your top speed and pick the arguments that matter. Stop extending everything. I start my round analysis with the team that has the conceptually clearer rebuttal, see if I think they've won the arguments they claim they have, and then go through the other team's rebuttal. If you don't funnel your arguments through the role of the ballot, I might do that for you, and I've voted teams down for losing under their own role of the ballot.

Random stuff:

I don't need proven abuse to vote on theory but in a close framework debate, I tend to lean towards justice over fairness. I'm usually a flow judge (offense over defense warrants over none) but if that's a bad way of evaluating your arguments, I'm happy to switch to something else just walk me through what you want me to do. I will keep flowing because if I don't, I will forget your arguments/performance/whatever. Love Ks with the exception of some authors (I used to list the authors I didn't like but you doing you is more important than my preferences so that's gone). I've never voted for presumption and if you go for presumption, you're probably already losing. If you tell me to gut check my arguments, I will and my gut will tell me I'm hungry. If you tell me to use my intuition, I will but I will not confine my intuition to one argument so be prepared for those consequences. I fundamentally don't believe contradictions are a thing for the K perm so if you're neg, you need DA(s) to the perm not reasons why it won't work. I'm working on protecting in the rebuttals but only for very big things, if you think it's small but key, call the point of order. Frankly, I would prefer if you didn't trust me and just called it. At the end of a debate day, I am usually exhausted so my capacity to put my decision into words goes way down. If that's you, I'm sorry and you can catch me later and ask me to explain better if you want.

IPDA

My version of adapting to this format is to not flow it. In theory, I might remember big stuff but not minute, flow specific stuff. But in reality, just assume I have a terrible memory. Other than that, I'm not familur enough with the norms of this style to have anything specific to say. You do you.

Will vote you down over (all formats):

I saw something in lila lavender's philosophy and really liked it so I'm adding a version of it. I reserve the right to vote you down for being overtly oppressive. This means if you say racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, Islamophobic, etc stuff, I reserve the right to vote you down. If you do any of those things directly to your competition, I definitely reserve the right to vote you down. However, there's a chance if a competitor does this in a way that outsiders might not realize is violent, non-verbally, or during crosstalk, I won't catch/process it happening during the round so if this is happening in-round, I prefer you pointing that out.

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Arshita Sandhiparthi - NPDA Hired

Hello!

Quick stuff: debate is cool and should be fun and enjoyable for all. Also see these rankings based on my level of knowledge or comfort voting on, from most comfortable to least:

1. Policy/ case debate

2. Kritiks

3. Most theory

4. Non-T Aff

5. Weird theory

None of that is to say that I won't vote on the lower-ranked things, I'll just need more explanation. Also, I'm okay with listening to RVIs but I probably have a high threshold for voting.

Background

I'm a recent graduate from UOP. In my last season I was the top speaker at the 2022 NPDA national tournament, but I have not been involved in any kind of debate since April up to the time of editing this paradigm (11/12/22). That said, I have roughly 8 years of debate experience (mostly high school PF, NPDA, and NFA LD) and feel comfortable listening to most things with the hope that you are comfortable with your strategy and are able to present a good quality debate.

I want to include one of my former coach's paradigms here because he's a big inspiration of mine and I pretty much agree with how he views debate.

"The metaphor of the highway patrol: On top of being a decision making robot, I think part of my job as a judge is refereeing but I try to perform that function like a member of the highway patrol. If you are driving 70 in a 65 and no one calls to complain about your driving making them unsafe I am probably going to let you drive along. If you are going 95 in a 65 and I deem that as a clear and present danger to the drivers you share the road with, I will likely feel obligated to get involved. Most of the time that will probably just result in a warning or fix-it ticket unless something particularly egregious occurs. Drive approximately the speed of traffic and recognize that you share this road with a variety of people with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences that might inform how they approach their travels.

Actual Debate Philosophy Stuff: In an ideal world I believe the Aff should be topical and the Neg should be unconditional. I’m partial to defense and think it can absolutely be terminal. I vote on kritiks as long as I understand them and especially their solvency mechanism and mutual exclusivity. I am not comfortable judging on the basis of your identity or anyone else’s. I am more likely to have your arguments if you go 85% of your top speed. The PMR should be small, the LoR should be preemptive. I will do my best to protect from new arguments in the rebuttals. Most RVI’s are dumb. If the format has rules I take them seriously but assuming neither side cares about those rules I am willing to just let the competitors play. I think you introducing a performance into the round and straying away from “traditional” debate invites me to make my decision on the basis of whether that performance was particularly compelling or cool."

Parli Specific Stuff

Splitting the block. No.

Protecting the rebuttals. I'll try my best but call the POO anyways please.

Tag-teaming.Don't care but I will get annoyed if you are feeding your partner their speech.

Presumption. The neg gets this unless there is a CP/alternative in which case the negative has the burden of proving their advocacy is better than both the aff and the status quo.

MG theory.This is fine and sometimes even cool.

Competing Interps vs Reasonability. I default to competing interps unless I'm compelled to evaluate under a different standard. You don't need proven abuse to win your theory shell unless I'm evaluating under reasonability. And please tell me what reasonability means.

Permutations. Please read them. I don't think these are advocacies, but are tests of whether the CP/alt is competitive with the aff.

 

For other things, you should ask me. My email is arshita.237@gmail.com. Have fun!

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Baker Weilert - Whitman

I re-wrote this paradigm because I realized that my previous one was rather generic, and people likely assume I dont know anything because I debated in Arkansas. Take what you will from the comments below, and dont hesitate to ask for clarification.

Pronouns:

He/Him/His

Positions:

Procedurals/Theory: I am a big fan T/Specs/Theory type arguments, but rarely see teams collapsing to these positions (which I think is a necessary strategic decision to win these types of arguments in front of me). As for types of specs Im less/more sympathetic to: I dont find over-spec or under-spec particularly compelling arguments, although I am willing to listen/vote on them. I do really like topicality (as long as you arent running 5 of them and simply just cross-applying the standards and voters without new articulation of how those standards/voters function in conjunction with your different interpretations). I also think that conditionality is a great/true argument, but only in particular scenarios. I am far more sympathetic to conditionality arguments if there are multiple advocacies that cause the affirmative to double-turn themselves (meaning dont run condo just to run condo, run it because you think there is actually a strategic advantage being leveraged by the other team). I prefer articulated abuse, although I will vote on potential abuse, and I default competing interpretations unless otherwise told.

Kritik: I am fine with critical debate on either side of the resolution, although I prefer the K Aff to be rooted in the substance of the resolutions, that being said, I will listen to any justification as to why you should have access to non-topical versions of the affirmative. The framework should be informed by your methodology (meaning your framework should not just function as a way of excluding other positions, but actually inform how to evaluate your advocacy), your links contextualized to your indictments (some generics are fine, but it should include a breakdown of how the other teams position/mindset perpetuates the system), and an alternative that can actually resolve the harms of the K (meaning there needs to be very clear solvency that articulates how the alternative solves/functions in the real world). I dont think rejection alts get us anywhere in the debate space, unless it is rejection on word choice/language (in which case I think those grievances are better articulated in the form of a procedural) or you clearly explain what that rejection looks like (in which case you should probably just use that explanation as your alternative in the first place). Permutation of the K alternative is perfectly fine, but I think on critical debates I need substantially more work on how the perm functions (especially in a world where the links havent been resolved). I am rather familiar with most of the K literature bases, but still think it is important for debaters to do the work of explaining the method/functionality of the K, and not rely on my previous knowledge of the literature base.

Disadvantages: I like a good DA/CP strategy, with a couple of caveats. The first is that the disadvantage needs to have specific links to the affirmative (generics just dont do it for me), I am far more likely to vote on a unique disadvantage with smaller impacts, than a generic disadvantage with high magnitude impacts (although I will obviously weigh high magnitude impacts if you are winning probability). I have a rather high threshold for politics disadvantages, but if you can tell me which senator/representative will vote for which policy and why, I am far more likely to buy into the scenario (specifics are your friend on ptix).

Counter-Plans: I am fine with almost all types of counterplans (+1, pics, timeframe, etc.) but think they often need to be accompanied by theory arguments justifying their strategic legitimacy. I also think that mutual exclusivity competitiveness should always be preferred over simply having a net benefit/disadvantage that makes the position functionally competitive. I am fine with all types of permutations with justification (again often needs to be accompanied by theory). My threshold on perms are sometimes low, but I think that is because they are often under-covered, so knowing that you should be spending a great deal of time answering/going for the permutation if you want to win/not lose there.

General Notes:

1. Status of arguments: It is your responsibility to ask, and for the other team to answer (dont give them the run-around, and if you arent sure just say dispo).

2. ALL Text/ROB/Thesis should be read twice, and made available for the other team.

3. The order you give at the beginning of your speech is actually important. I flow exclusively on paper, so switching between sheets/having them in the correct order helps me follow along. I completely understand that you have to switch up the flow mid speech sometimes, but you need to clearly signpost where you are (especially if you deviate from the order given).

4. Speed: You can go as fast as you want in front of me, that being said, Im not sure if going fast for the sake of going fast is always the best strategic choice, as your word count probably isnt much higher even if you think you sound faster.

5. I will listen to literally any argument (heady, aliens, personal narrative of a farmer from Wisconsin), doesnt really matter to me, but please dont put me in a situation in which I have to evaluate/endorse advocacies of mass death of people (like genocide good). Also, as far as identity politics go (this maybe should have gone in the K section) I think that debate is a great platform to talk about your own person experiences, but I think its important to note that oppression is often intersectional and is articulated/experienced in different ways. I think forced disclosure of experience/identity in order to interact with your position can be potentially harmful to others, and trigger warnings only work if you give people time to exit the room.

6. DO NOT BE MEAN, I will tank speaks. Totally fine to being witty, and slightly confrontational, but avoid personal attacks, I would much rather listen to you actually debate. Overall I believe debate is a creative space, so feel free to run literally anything you want.

Experience:

4 years policy debate in Kansas, 4 years parliamentary debate at Louisiana Tech University, and Arkansas State University. 2 years Assistant Debate Coach at Arkansas State University. Currently Assistant Director of Debate at Whitman College.

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Blake Faulkner - HC

General: I don't believe in "tabula rasa" because it is a choice to be so, and the choice isn't neutral or "blank." Technically, if I were tabula rasa, I wouldn't need to write a philosophy (so maybe I should claim such out of laziness?). That being said, I try to always defer to how debaters argue in-round, as long as you don't violate the official written rules of NPDA. I don't get to decide how the various conventions work (critiques, topicality, counterplans, disadvantages, etc.), you do, especially since they change gradually over time. Debate is about form, style, or structure of argumentation and the interrelationships of claims and evidence. It is not about content, and I don't give a damn about whether you argue something I agree or disagree with, whether it has a scary label, or a particuarly gnarly party affiliation. Anything goes in terms of content as far as I'm concerned.

I will intervene to keep the official NPDA rules should that be necessary for me to enforce, but short of that I try to give you free reign to tell me a story and define the debate. You'd best give me a standard/counter-standard by which to judge the round, else I will have to supply my own.

Speed: I can usually keep up as long as you aren't doing CEDA or NDT kind of speed. I will let you know if I need you to slow down, and you should expect me to vote elsewhere if you ignore me. Likewise, if you ignore requests to slow down from your opponent, that will not help me vote for you, though I'm open to persuasion either way at that level.

Pet peeve: NPDA is not about research primarily, so please don't make/allow the round to come down to who's "telling the truth," "correct," or "factual" unless you genuinely want the round to come down to a coin toss on my part, to say nothing of unavoidable eye-rolls. I cannot judge the round based upon something that is outside the round. More importantly, I refuse to do so.

bfaulkner@hillsdale.edu

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Brent Nicholson - McK

I am a Debate Coach at McKendree University. We compete primarily in the NPDA and NFA-LD formats of debate. We also host and assist with local high school teams, who focus on NSDA-LD and PF.

Email: banicholsonATmckendreeDOTedu

I have sections dedicated to each format of debate I typically judge and you should read those if you have time. If you dont have time, read the TLDR and ask your specific questions before the round. If you do a format of debate I dont have a section for, read as much as you can and ask as many questions as you want before the round.

TLDR

My goal as a judge is to adapt to the round that debaters have. I do not expect debaters to adapt to me. Instead, I want you to do what you want to do. I try to be a judge that debaters can use as a sounding board for new arguments or different arguments. I feel capable judging pretty much any kind of debate and Ill always do my best to render a fair decision that is representative of the arguments Ive seen in the round. If I am on a panel, feel free to adapt to other judges. I understand that you need to win the majority, not just me, and Im never going to punish you for that. Do what wins the panel and Ill come along for the ride.

I view debate as a game. But I believe games are an important part of our lives and they have real impacts on the people who play them and the contexts they are played in. Games also reflect our world and relationships to it. Debate is not a pro sport. It is not all about winning. Your round should be fun, educational, and equitable for everyone involved. My favorite thing to see in a debate round is people who are passionate about their positions. If you play hard and do your best, I'm going to appreciate you for that.

The quick hits of things I believe that you might want to know before the round:

1.Specificity wins. Most of the time, the debater with the more well-articulated position wins the debate. Get into the details and make comparisons.

2.I like debaters who seek out clash instead of trying to avoid it. Do the hard work and you will be rewarded.

3.I assume negative advocacies are conditional unless stated otherwise. I think conditionally is good. Anything more than two advocacies is probably too much. Two is almost always fine. One conditional advocacy is not at all objectionable to me. Format specific notes below.

4.I love topicality debates. I tend to dislike 1NC theory other than topicality and framework. 2AC theory doesnt appeal to me most of the time, but it is an important check against negative flex, so use it as needed.

5.I dont exclude impact weighing based on sequencing. Sequencing arguments are often a good reason to preference a type of impact, but not to exclude other impacts, so make sure to account for the impacts you attempt to frame out.

6.I will vote on presumption. Debate is an asymmetrical game, and the negative does not have to win offense to win the round. However, I want negative debaters to articulate their presumption triggers for me, not assume I will do the work for them.

7.I think timeframe and probability are more important than magnitude, but no one ever does the work, so I end up voting for extinction impacts because that feels least interventionist.

8.Give your opponents arguments the benefit of the doubt. Theyre probably better than you give them credit for and underestimating them will hurt your own chances of winning.

9.Debates should be accessible. If your opponent (or a judge) asks you to slow down, slow down. Be able to explain your arguments. Be kind. Debate should be a fun learning experience for everyone.

10.In evidence formats, you should be prepared to share that evidence with everyone during the round via speechdrop, email chain, or flash drive.

11.All debate is performative. How you choose to perform matters and is part of the arguments you make. That often doesnt come up, but it can. Dont say hateful things or be rude. I will dock speaker points accordingly.

General

This philosophy is very expansive. That is because I want you to be able to adapt to me as much as you want to adapt. To be totally honest, you can probably just debate how you want and it will be fine I really do want you to do you in rounds. But I also want you to know who I am and how I think about debate so that you can convince me.

Everything is up for debate. For every position I hold about debate, it seems someone has found a corner case. I try to be clear and to stick to my philosophys guidelines as much as possible as a judge. Sometimes, a debater changes how I see debate. Those debaters get very good speaker points. (Speaking of which, my speaker points center around a 28.1 as the average, using tenth points whenever possible).

I flow on a laptop most of the time now. Flowing on paper hurts my hand in faster rounds. If Im flowing on paper for some reason, I might ask you to slow down so that I can flow the debate more accurately. If I dont ask you to slow down, youre fine dont worry about it. I dont number arguments as I flow, so dont expect me to know what your 2b point was without briefly referencing the argument. You should be doing this as part of your extensions anyway.

One specific note about my flowing that I have found impacts my decisions compared to other judges on panels is that I do not believe the pages of a debate are separate. I view rounds holistically and the flow as a representation of the whole. If arguments on separate pages interact with each other, I do not need explicit cross-applications to understand that. For instance, MAD checks on one page of the debate answers generic nuke war on every page of the debate. That work should ideally be done by debaters, but it has come up in RFDs in the past, so I feel required to mention it.

In theory debates, Ive noticed some judges want a counter-interpretation regardless of the rest of the answers. If the strategy in answering theory is impact turns, I do not see a need for a counter-interp most of the time. In a pure, condo bad v condo good debate, for instance, my presumption is condo, so the negative can just read impact turns and impact defense and win against a no condo interp. Basically, if the aff says you cant do that because it is bad and the neg says it is not bad and, in fact, is good I do not think the neg should have to say yes, I can do that (because they already did it). The counter-interp can still help in these debates, as you can use it to frame out some offense, by creating a lower threshold that you still meet (think some condo interps instead of all condo).

I look to texts of interps over spirit of interps. I have rarely seen spirit of the interp clarified in the 1NC and it is often used to pivot the interp away from aff answers or to cover for a bad text. If you contextualize your interp early and then stick to that, that is fine. But dont use spirit of the interp to dodge the 2AC answers.

I start the round with the assumption that theory is a prior question to other evaluations. I will weigh theory then substance unless someone wins an argument to the contrary. Critical affs do not preclude theory in my mind unless a debater wins a compelling reason that it should. I default to evaluating critical arguments in the same layer as the rest of the substantive debate. I am compelled by arguments that procedural issues are a question of judging process (that non-topical affs skew my evaluation of the substance debate or multi-condo skews the speech that answers it, for instance). I am unlikely to let affirmative teams weigh their aff against theory objections to that aff without some good justifications for that.

A topicality interpretation should allow some aff ground. If there is not a topical aff and the aff team points that out, I'm unlikely to vote neg on T. That means you should read a TVA if youre neg (do this anyway). I am open to sketchier T interps if they make sense. For instance, if you say that a phrase in the res means the aff must be effectually topical, I can see myself voting for this argument. Keep in mind, however, that these arguments run the risk of your opponent answering them well and you gaining nothing.

NPDA

Im going to start with the biggest change in my NPDA philosophy. Debates need to slow down. I still think speed is good. If all the debaters are fine with speed, I still like fast debate and want to see throwdowns at top speed. However, analytics with no speech docs are brutal to flow. Too many warrants get dropped. While we have laundry lists of arguments, they are often not dealt with in depth because theyre just hard to keep track of and account for. Our best NPDA debaters could debate at about 80% of their top speeds and maintain argumentative depth through improved efficiency and increased focus on the core issues of rounds, while still making the complex and nuanced arguments we want and getting more of them on each others flows and into each others speeches. Seek out clash!

NPDA is a strange beast. Without carded evidence, uniqueness debates and author says X/no they say Y can be messy. That just means you need to explain a way you want me to evaluate them and, ultimately, why I should believe your interpretation of that authors position or the argument youve made. In yes/no uniqueness questions, explain why you believe yes, not just that someone else does. That means explaining the study or the article reasoning that youre leaning on and applying it to the specifics of the debate. Sometimes it just means you need an even if argument to hedge your bets if you lose those issues. I try to let these things be resolved in round, but sometimes I have to make a judgment call and Ill do my best to refer only to my flow when that happens. But remember, the evidence alone doesnt win evidence debates the warrants and reasoning do the heavy lifting.

Arguments in parliamentary debate require more reasoning and support because there is no printed evidence available to rely on. That means you should not just yoink the taglines out of a file someone open-sourced. You should explain the arguments as they are explained in the texts those files are cut from. Use your own words to make the novel connections to the rounds were in and the topics we discuss. This is a beautiful thing when it happens, and those rounds show the promise that parli has as a productive academic endeavor. We dont just rely on someone else saying it we can make our own arguments and apply what others have said to new scenarios. So, lets do that!

Affirmative teams must affirm the resolution. How you do that is up to you. The resolution should be a springboard for many conversations, but criticizing the res is not a reason to vote affirmative. You can read policy affs, value affs, performance affs, critical affs, and any other aff you can think of as long as it affirms the res. Affs should include an interpretation of the resolution and a weighing mechanism to determine if youve met this burden. That is not often necessary in policy affs (because it happens contextually), but sometimes it helps to clarify. I am not asking the aff to roleplay as oppressors or to abdicate their power to pose questions. Instead, I want the aff team to reframe questions if necessary and to contextualize their offense to the resolution.

Negative teams must answer the affirmative. How you do that is up to you. You should make sure I know what your objections to the aff strategy are and why they are voting issues. That can be T, DAs, Ks, performances, whatever (except spec*). I vote on presumption more than most judges in NPDA. The aff must win offense and affs dont always do that. I think risk of solvency only applies if I know what Im risking. I must be able to understand and explain what an aff does on my ballot to run that risk on their behalf. With all that said, articulate presumption triggers for me. When you extend defense in the MO, explain thats a presumption trigger because.

I can buy arguments that presumption flips aff in counter-advocacy debates, but I dont see that contextualized well and is often just a risk of solvency type claim in the PMR. This argument is most compelling to me in PIC debates, since the aff often gets less (or none) of their 1AC offense to leverage. Absent a specific contextualization about why presumption flips aff in this round (bigger change, PIC, etc.), I tend to err neg on this question, though it rarely comes up.

*On spec: Spec shells must include a clear brightline for a we meet so aff must specify the branch (judicial, legislative, executive) is fine. Spec shells often only serve to protect weak link arguments (which should be improved, rather than shielded by spec) or to create time tradeoffs. They are sometimes useful and good arguments, but that scenario is rare. In the few cases where spec is necessary, ask a question in flex. If that doesnt work, read spec.

Condo: 1 K, 1 CP, and the squo is fine to me. Two Ks is a mess. Two CPs just muddles the case debate and is worse in NPDA because we lack backside rebuttals. Contradictory positions are fine with me (procedurally, at least). MGs should think ahead more and force bad collapses in these debates. Kicking the alt doesnt necessarily make offense on the link/impact of a K go away (though it often does). I am open to judge kicking if the neg describes and justifies an exact set of parameters under which I judge kick. I reserve the right to not judge kick based on my own perception of these arguments. So probably dont try to get me to judge kick, honestly.

I don't think reasonability (as it is frequently explained) is a good weighing mechanism for parli debates. It seems absurd that I should be concerned about the outcomes of future debates with this topic when there will be none or very few and far between.At topic area tournaments, I am more likely to vote on specific topicality. That does not mean that you can't be untopical, it just means you need good answers. Reasonability makes more sense to me at a tournament that repeats resolutions (like NPTE).

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Cam Wade - Mercer

(he/him or they/them pronouns work) My name is Cam Wade, and I am a current master's student at Uchicago. I have three years of experience, managing to win just a few awards here and there. I have a lot of comfortability with any form of argumentation. Regular policy debates, K debates, theory, I'll listen to whatever. That being said, Ks were always my specialty especially anti-blackness arguments. Do with that information what you will. Debate is a site where debaters get to have the kind of debate they would desire to have. I see my role as to merely adjucate who does the better debating. How I come to that conclusion is up to you, stank. By the end of the debate, I need clear reasons why I am voting for you, and clear reasons why I shouldn't vote for the other team. As long as I have those, we're all set. Also, remember, debate can be messy and fun without being violent. If I feel that you are creating a hostile environment for me as a judge or your fellow debaters, I will take appropriate action. Side note, I have ADHD. I can deal with speed, but if I or your opponents ask you to "slow" or "clear," get on that. I can't flow arguments I didn't hear.

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Darren Elliott - KCKCC

Darren Elliott "Chief" --Director of Debate and Forensics Kansas City KS Community College

Director and Head Coach at KCKCC for the past two decades. In that time we have had multiple late elim teams at CEDA Nats, multiple teams qualified to the NDT, 2015 NPDA Parli National Champions, 2016 NFA LD National Champion, mulitple CC National Championships in all formats of Debate and some IE's as well. I appreciate the breadth the activity provides and I enjoy coaching, judging hard working students who value the activity.

*PARLI ADDITION--The Aff should have any plan texts, ROTB, ROTJ, Alts, Etc. written on paper prior to the end of the PMC. The Neg should have any counterplan texts, ROTB, ROTJ, Alts, Etc. written on paper prior to the end of the LOC. Debates are routinely spending 3-5 minutes prior to FLEX time after the first two speeches to manage these issues.

Probably the least interventionist judge you will encounter. Will listen to and fairly consider any argument presented. (Avoid obvious racist and sexist arguments and ad Homs). For an argument to be a round winner you need to win the impact the argument has in relation to the impacts your opponent might be winning and how all of those affect/are affected by the ballot or decision (think framework for the debate). No predispositions against any strategy be it a Disad/CP/Case or K or T/Framework on the Neg or a straight up policy or K Aff. Win what it is you do and win why that matters. I actually appreciate a good Disad/CP/Case Offense debate as much as anything (even though the arguments a number of recent KCKCC debaters might lead one to think otherwise). The beauty of debate is its innovation.

I appreciate in-depth arguments and hard work and reward that with speaker points. A debate that begins in the first couple of speeches at a depth that most debates aspire to be by the last two speeches is a work of art and shows dedication and foresight that should be rewarded. Cross-X as well, in this regard, that shows as good or better of an understanding of your opponents arguments as they do will also be rewarded. Cross-X is a lost art.

Most of all--Have Fun and Good Luck!!

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David Worth - RIce

David Worth – Rice

D.O.F., Rice University

Parli Judging Philosophy

Note: If you read nothing else in this, read the last paragraph.

I’ll judge based on given criteria/framework. I can think in more than one way. This means that the mechanisms for deciding the round are up for debate as far as I’m concerned. My decision is based mostly on how the debaters argue I should decide the round but I will intervene if the round demands it. There are many cases where this might be necessary: If asked to use my ballot politically for example, or if both sides fail to give me a clear mechanism for voting, or if I know something to factually incorrect (if someone is lying). In these cases, I try to stay out of the decision as much as I can but I don’t believe in the idea that any living person is really a blank slate or a sort of argument calculator.

I prefer debates that are related to the topic.

I will not vote for an argument that I don’t understand. If I can’t figure it out from what you’ve said in the round, I can’t vote on it.

I will admit that I am tired of debates that are mostly logic puzzles. I am tired of moving symbols around on paper. Alts and plan texts that are empty phrases don’t do it for me anymore. The novelty of postmodern critique that verges on--or actually takes the leap into--nihilism has worn off. I don’t think there’s much value anymore in affirming what we all know: That things can be deconstructed and that they contain contradictory concepts. It is time for us to move beyond this recognition into something else. Debate can be a game with meaning.

Warrants: I will not vote for assertions that don’t at least have some warrant behind them. You can’t say “algae blooms,” and assume I will fill in the internals and the subsequent impacts for you. You don’t get to just say that some counter-intuitive thing will happen. You need a reason that that lovely regionally based sustainable market will just magically appear after the conveniently bloodless collapse of capitalism. I’m not saying I won’t vote for that. I’m just saying you have to make an argument for why it would happen. NOTE: I need a good warrant for an "Independent Voting Issue" that isn't an implication of a longer argument, procedural, or somehow otherwise developed. Just throwing something in as a “voter” will not get the ballot. I reserve the right to gut-check these. If there is not warrant or if the warrant makes no sense to me, I won't vote on it.

Defense can win, too. That doesn’t mean that a weaker offensive argument with risk can’t outweigh defense, it simply means that just saying, “oh that’s just defense,” won’t make the argument go away for me. Debate is not football. There’s no presumption in the NFL, so that analogy is wrong.

You need to deal with all the line-by-line stuff but should not fail to frame things (do the big picture work) for me as well. It’s pretty rare that I vote on one response but it’s equally rare that I will vote on the most general level of the ideas. In a bind, I will vote for what’s easier to believe and/or more intuitive.

Speed is fine as long as you are clear. There are days when I need you to slow down a tad. I have battled carpal/cubital tunnel off and on for a few years and sometimes my hand just does not work quite as well. I’ll tell you if you need to clear up and/or slow down, but not more than a couple of times. After that, it’s on you.

Please slow down for the alt texts, plans, advocacies, etc., and give me a copy too. If I don’t have it, I can’t vote for it.

Strong Viewpoints: I haven’t yet found "the" issue that I can’t try to see all sides of.

Points of Order: Call them—but judiciously. I’ll probably know whether the argument is new and not calling them does not change their status as new. Also, if you’re clearly winning bigtime don’t call a ridiculous number of them. Just let the other team get out of the round with some dignity. If you don’t, your speaker points will suffer. It’ll be obvious when I think you are calling too many.

If the round is obviously lopsided and you are obliterating the other team then be nice. I will lower your speaker points if you aren’t respectful or if you simply pile it on for the heck of it. If it’s egregious enough, you might even lose the debate.

You don’t need to repeat yourself just to fill time. If you’re finished, then sit down and get us all to lunch, the end of the day, or the next round early.

Theory: I’m not going to weigh in on the great theoretical controversies of the day. Those are up to you to demonstrate in the round. T can be more than one thing depending on the round. I’m not going to tell you what to do. Debate is always in flux. Actually, I’ve learned or at least been encouraged to think differently about theory issues from debaters in rounds far more often than from anyone else. If I had pontificated about The Truth As I Knew It before those rounds, the debaters would have simply argued what I said I liked and I wouldn’t have learned, so it’s in my interest as well as yours for me not to hand you a sushi menu with the items I’d like to see checked off. PICS, Framework, Competing Interp, in-round abuse, etc. are all interpretable in the debate. I will say that I probably most naturally think in terms of competing interpretations, but, again, I can think in more than one way.

My “Debate Background:” I did CEDA/NDT in college. I coached policy for years, and also coached parli from the days of metaphor all the way into the NPTE/NPDA modern era. I have also coached NFA-LD.

Finally, I ask that you consider that everyone in the room has sacrificed something to be there. A lot of resources, time, and effort went in to bringing us all there. Be sure to show some respect for that. I am serious about this and it has come to occupy a significant portion of my thinking about debate these days. In fact, I think it’s time for the in-round bullying to stop. I see too many rounds where one team’s strategy is simply to intimidate the other team. I find it strange that an activity that talks so much about the violence of language often does so in such a needlessly aggressive and violent manner. In some rounds every interaction is barbed. Flex/CX is often just needlessly aggressive and sometimes even useless (when, for example, someone simply refuses to answer questions or just keeps purposely avoiding the question when it’s obvious that they understand the question, opting instead for aggression sometimes verging on ad hominem). I see too many other rounds where everyone is just awful to each other, including the judges afterward. You can be intense and competitive without this. We are now a smaller circuit. It’s strange that we would choose to spend so much time together yet be so horrible to each other.

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Dominic Lesaca - NPDA Hired

TLDR: Speed fine, condo bad, Ks good, topical please, theory good, put me on the email chain: domlesaca@gmail.com

I competed in Parli/LD at the University of the Pacific. I am a first year out so most of my thoughts are still directly impacted by my own time in debate and my views will probably change the more I judge. I know nothing about courts so if it is a SCOTUS topic please break it into little bits that my baby brain will understand. I am annoyed by the amount of back-filling in most MOs and because of that am more willing to accept PMR arguments against MO blowups of blippy LOC tags. The most important thing to know is that I am lazy by nature so whoever gives me simplest route to the ballot will probably win.

Delivery:

I should be able to handle speed just fine so long as you remain clear, and if I have trouble following then I will call "speed" or "clear". Just make sure everyone has access to the round and you will be fine. For online tournaments please just bring down the speed a notch or two, spreading over zoom calls tends to sound like static over the line and that is just annoying.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

Be sure your tags are clear and number your arguments as much as possible as it makes it much easier to flow. That applies to all of the stuff below. DA debate is probably my favorite kind of debate to watch, especially when the scenarios are very specific to the topic and the aff. Offense is great but 100% loses to better warranted defense. I dont have a default preference for certain impacts over another but high magnitude impacts do make the the decision take less thought when teams dont do their own impact comparison.

Theory:

I always enjoyed debating theory. My threshold on T is fairly low, this means I don't need proven abuse but if you do give me proven abuse you basically have my ballot. Spec is mostly just used to waste people's time but if you have reasons why specification is key for ground on the resolution or specific plan then I am on board. Reasonability can mean a lot of things, you should tell me what it means to you so I know how to evaluate it. Any theory about reading the plan in the first X minutes will make me upset, that is a bad argument and you should feel bad for running it. In my mind the team answering theory needs some kind of counter interp, if you just read offense against T or framework without one I will just default to "the only game in town" rule.

Counter Plans:

Parli - Conditional advocacies are bad.

Other events - I am sympathetic to condo bad but have a higher threshold on the condo bad shell but you should justify why it is good/bad in the specific debate format you are in. I will vote for cheater CPs (states, consult, delay), but I am also very willing to vote on theory against them. The neg will be more likely to win these theory arguments if you show me how the CP is an important issue in the topic lit. For delay, the neg will have to win solid probability on their DA to convince me their is a net benefit to the CP. I generally think of perms as a test of competition if you want to make it an advocacy, you need to debate it out in round. In general I believe introducing a negative advocacy also flips presumption to the affirmative.

K's:

Ks are great, I just may need more explanation of what the alt actually does and will be annoyed if the neg refuses to explain the K until the MO. I dont think that Ks need frameworks to be competitive but probably still need to solve or outweigh the aff then. The Alt should provide some mechanism to solve what you are critiquing, if it is just reject I am going to need some specific framing or historical example where rejecting has been successful in fighting what you are critiquing. My wheelhouse has generally been neolib, Agamben, death denialism (not death drive), ableism, and security. Don't be afraid to go outside of those examples but be sure to explain it well for me.

K affs:

Aff Ks are fine but I still prefer you to be topical and actually affirm the resolution. If you negate or just ignore the resolution on the aff then we are gonna have some problems. You don't necessarily have to defend fiat but be sure to defend why your framework provides for equitable debate (I.E. you probably shouldn't force the neg to defend racism as their only ground). Performance Ks can be a bit confusing if not explained well so be sure to tell me how your performance solves and give me framework so I know how to evaluate it.

Evidence:

I think disclosure in evidence based debate is generally good. Please dont be stingy on sharing evidence with your opponents. I follow along with evidence read in round but I will only read it in depth if I am told to or need to resolve an issue. I dont totally disregard good analytics but evidence is generally preferred if possible.

Speaker Points:

I generally start at 29 and then rank down at a difference of about .5 points. If someone does something really interesting or funny I'll put them at a 30. I may alter the scale if you spread out a novice team.

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Gabe Graville - SDSU

He/Him

Please read a trigger warning if you are reading potentially triggering material. This also goes for IE’s. I am more than happy to answer any questions about my paradigm before round.

I graduated from the University of Oregon in 2022. I spent all 4 years there competing in NPDA/NPTE style debate with my partner Alex. We did pretty well for ourselves and won the NPTE in 2022. Prior to that I did Oregon HS debate and a handful of IE’s.

I am very comfortable with faster, more technical forms of debate, however I was never the fastest flower and will certainly call slow and clear if I cannot understand a debater. I am similarly comfortable to more lay forms of debate. Please do what you would like to do in debate as long as it is not openly racist, misogynistic, transphobic, ableist, or violent towards members of the debate space.

I really like disads and kritiks with materially grounded actions as their alternative. Favorite argument is probably the internal link/impact turn. My threshold for theory greatly increases when the interpretation requires the opposing team to perform a specific action in order to meet. For example, actor specification theory requires a team take a particular action (ie specify their actor) in order to meet the interp while PICs bad theory only requires a team to not do something in order to meet the interp.  You can obviously still win spec type arguments in front of me, I will just need a greater link story to justify voting on your impacts. I protect rebuttals but you should still call out new arguments.

While it is the judge’s job to evaluate the arguments given in round it is apparent to me in my experience that judge bias and intervention is inevitable due to indirect, implicit, or missing clash. While I will defer to arguments in the round whenever possible here’s where I will default absent argumentation otherwise.

Magnitude > Probability > Timeframe

Death is probably the biggest impact unless you specifically argue why something else outweighs it

Theory and Kritiks procedurally come before case because they discuss impacts within the debate space. 

Fiat is just imagining that something happens so that the debate can be centered around the consequences of the action of the resolution rather than whether the action would happen in the first place.

Competing Interps > Reasonability

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Gus Garcia - NPDA Hired

Me:

High school debate for 2 years

Did collegiate debate for University of the Pacific

Overview:

•I literally don't care how you choose to make arguments, I'm not a cop so I won't come into the room with any predispositions as to how an argument functions. So long as you make it make sense and the argument is weighed across the round you can do whatever you want.

• Cool with partner communication in any event, as long as you don't become a puppet for your partner (only what the speaker says gets put on the flow)

• Speed? Pls not too fast, I retired from debate and have not kept up + I have nerve damage in my hands now. I will lyk if you are going too fast for me

• If using computer, share cards in email chain gusgarcia5397@gmail.com

• At this point in my life idc if you go with the res or not. Run literally whatever you want

General In-round Judging

I enjoy good clash in round, I know a lot of people say this but I don't want to see "Two ships passing by in the night" as that's just a boring debate to watch. Do a lot of weighing during your speeches and why you are winning the debate and where I should be voting on and you will more than likely have me voting for you if your opponents have neglected to do any of these.

SIGN POST PLEASE I cannot tell you how many otherwise good rounds were ruined by not sign posting and going on the flow. I'm cool with offtime roadmaps and if you need to talk about multiple arguments that are all over the flow I'm okay with that as long as you tell me where you are on the flow.

My general rule is I don't believe in speaker points, so I will give high speaks to everyone in the round, you can um and stutter all you want (I get that nerves are a thing, I won't give you bad speaks for being human or have you not break because of low speaks even tho you had bomb arguments) BUT I will give you low speaks if you are being incredibly rude to your opponents. I may still vote for you because of your arguments, but you will receive low speaks from me. I generally like some light-hearted humor and cleverness in rounds but being a mean person will not leave me with a good impression of you in future rounds. If someone is being mean-spirited towards you put some trust in me to punish them for that. Other than that I tend to give near perfect speaks to everyone in the round. I feel that if you aren't too worried about speaker points then it brings out a more calm and collected side of you in a debate, just be chill and don't sweat the small stuff as long as you get your point across.

I generally do disclose as long as the tournament hasn't specifically prohibited me from doing so, and if the tournament is running on schedule (lmao doubt that) then I will spend some time to feedback if both sides would want that. If not then you are welcome to leave the room immediately after the round.

Some Specifics

Topicality: Love it, holding the aff to the resolution can result in some fun debate, but please don't just run a T for the sake of running a T. I vote more on articulated abuse but potential abuse will also be voted on if articulated right. Some standards I like to see: Education, Brightline and strat/prep skew with evidence of said abuse happening.

The K: I am ok with k's of any type on either AFF or NEG. I ran a K 90% of the time in my senior year of college and am comfy with a lot of lit. The k's I ran most were: cap, fem IR, singularity, Biopolitics, transhumanism, Zapatismo, ecomanagerialism, and D&G

I tend to enjoy a good K round as long as some requirements are met:

• Do not assume that I have read your author, be clear and treat it as if I am a layman when going through your thesis/framework. Please try your best to be educational throughout your debate instead of drowning us in a flurry of words. Actually APPLY your kritik to the round and the mechanisms by which your alt (or whatever) can resolve

• Make sure the alt is explained as to how it solves, rejecting and embracing is cool, but what does that do?

• If aff K, please be ready to respond to Framework with reasons that aren't just relinks to your K.

Speed: Speed in a debate round is a given, I personally love speed and you should not worry about spreading me out of the round, if I feel that you are too fast tho I will say "slow" or "clear" as I have been out of the game and also have nerve damage in my hands now. BE THAT AS IT MAY,IF YOU FEEL EXCLUDED because of a debater being too fast and they have done nothing to fix the situation (eg you've told them to slow down numerous times and they haven't) please run a procedural on that. I am VERY receptive to speed theory when it is warranted. If you purposefully exclude your opponent(s) out of the round with speed then the flow no longer becomes an objective view of the round and you will lose because of this.

Weighing: Idc just make it make sense

Any other questions? Feel free to ask me before the round!

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Jacob Tate - RIce

Hi, I'm Jacob. I was the NPDA (Parli) national champion in 2022 at Rice. In high school I did PF at the national level. By the end of my career, I mostly went straight up on the aff and went for K or theory on the neg.

Cowardice is not a voting issue.

---

PARLI PARADIGM

This has a lot of opinions but I think it's worth articulating that I will vote for anything you win in front of me, even if I don't super like it. We'll just both be happier if you go for something I do like!

1. AFF

Straight Up Aff

I think it is usually a good strategy to write one magnitudinal advantage and one probable advantage with any aff. By the PMR, pick one advantage to collapse to combined with the complementary weighing strategy.

That said, I am more amenable to small, probable, and violence mitigating/reducing affirmatives. Also, econ. I think that impacts happening right now are more probable (Are they more probable than a conceded link chain though? I'm not sure yet) and more resolvable. I also think that status quo violence gives you very good sequencing and net benefits to the perm.

I think I'm pretty forgiving of on-case shadow extensions in the PMR but this is mostly at the warrant level. Tags should be extended in the MG.

Other than that, just answer alt/CP solves the aff and read perms and you're good!

Kritical Aff

I read a fair degree of these in my career and I understand both their strategic and personal value. I also think some of the best positions I've ever seen in parli have been K affs. That said, some of the worst and most vapid positions have also been K affs.

Personally, I think too many K Affs spend too long on why the resolution is bad and not enough explaining what they actually advocate for or what framework they operate under. Let the "res bad" args chill until the neg reads a viable TVA. To that note, I would say that K Affs would do well to go slower and make clear tags.

But y'all don't care about that, y'all care about my takes on K Affs v T. I think that the limited prep and non-disclosure elements of parli make T incredibly convincing in parli. I also think that many K Affs approach truisms which is problematic from a debate standpoint. On the other hand, I think T often does a poor job of exposing brightlines for things like truth testing, procedural fairness, and limits. This is where good K Affs can win. I am less amenable to general impact turns to T (unless the T is honest to god policing) but will vote on them if the Aff wins them.

I think the meat of this debate happens at the TVA, followed by the voters, and then by the standards. Usually, whoever is winning the TVA and method testing will likely win my ballot.

MG Theory

MG theory is simultaneously absolutely necessary for the format and highly abusive. I think it works best the stronger the actual abuse it's checking is. This begs the question of what I think "actual abuse" is. I think that PICs, delay CPs, and object fiat are abusive. I think that un-specced alts, actor CPs, and reading a negative framework are not abusive. I think one condo advocacy is fine, more than one isn't.

In general, I think a really clear MG shell with two or three standards is the best strategy for my ballot. The PMR should collapse to one voter and justify its existence. For the neg, I think you should go hard for one voter and weigh it in the LOR. I also am far more amenable to RVIs on MG theory than anything else since I think MG theory does require some chilling.

To this note, I am actually much more supportive of PMC theory. Read AFC or No Neg Fiat in the PMC and you get a better debate--I'll also give you more leeway on the PMR since the neg had two speeches to answer it.

Misc Aff

I think affirmatives can be conditional but I don't think it's fair for the PMR to kick the aff if prior aff speeches haven't established aff conditionality. Basically, the MG should say "we're condo" or don't kick the aff in front of me.

Aff tricks are funny, go for it.

2. NEG

Straight Up Neg

I am not going to cap, I did not go for this a lot. But I like to think I'm well informed and capable of evaluating it. I'm particularly fond of Econ DAs. I just love Econ tbh and believe it can be weighed supper convincingly.

Not super hot on general Tix but if you're listing specific senators and bills, I get a lot more compelled.

Kritik

I love kritiks. In my time in debate, I read Edelman, Cap, Lacan, Deleuze, and Baudrillard. I consider myself familiar with most lit bases but that doesn't mean I'll backfill whatever the hell a microtexture is for you.

The thing with kritiks is that perms are very convincing. This is why a good kritik either needs to win that it has substantial, specific links to the affirmative (material or rhetorical, depends on what framing you use) which are DAs to the perm or that the kritik can solve the aff (not just the root cause of the aff). The aff needs to win the converse.

I think that framework is necessary but often a wash in rounds. Most generalized "ontology first" or "serial policy failure" warrants won't get you a frameout. However, frameworks can either spike the aff framework or the perm or weigh the impacts of the K higher.

Alts should be explained through solvency. I think that affs currently fail to contest alt solvency for the K. It seems that teams read DAs that are external offense but not actual solvency presses which allows the K to weigh its impacts against the DAs. I will try not to do work for either side on the K alt.

Topicality/Theory

I loved topicality and theory on the neg. I wrote bidirectional interps, I ran spec, I ran must pass texts. I think that theory is super nuanced and complicated and really a question of what we want debate to be. I don't know if I'll like evaluating it as much as I liked running it.

I think collapsing to a couple standards as outweighing or internal linking every other standard is the best path for the block. The same goes for collapsing to a single voter and weighing it against everything. I think MGs often read a bunch of standards but don't link them to voters so negatives can leverage that.

I paradigmatically evaluate We Meets as terminal defense. I think they functionally probably aren't but I think it's bad for debate if I don't treat them as terminal defense. That said, I don't know how I evaluate standards level offense against a We Meet. I think I err towards having to a-priori resolve the violation.

I think textuality always comes first on interpretations. If we are creating a norm, that text is our only stasis point. Poorly written interpretations should lose.

I have no idea what reasonability means. I think it's an upward battle to win anything other than counter-interpretations in front of me. When interpreations are "noncompetitive," I think the negative needs to be winning why an interp perm resolves for the standards of the counterinterpretations because I think it often doesn't. Absent this, I grant the aff implicit competition through the inclusion of the aff.

I'll vote for an RVI if it's warranted but I'm not sympathetic to narratives of "this theory is frivolous."

I have always been open to the idea of weighing a topical aff against theory or topicality but I'm not sure what this would require.

3. MISC

Auto-Drops

If you are non-black, you should not read afropess. And if you read this and think "aw damn, now I can't run pess," reevaluate please.

I think I am less afraid to drop people for actively being dicks to novices. I'll tank speaks first but don't test me.

Norms and Behaviors

Be nice. Operate in good faith and assume others are too, it makes life better.

Passing texts ASAP even when not asked is a good norm for everyone involved.

I will likely not vote on out-of-round behavior, especially if it is non-verifiable. This applies to "call out" Ks but also arguments like disclosure theory.

---

PUBLIC FORUM PARADIGM

TL;DR - Generic college debater flow judge yada yada yada, tech over truth most times, debate intelligently but even moreso debate kindly, please weigh impacts AND links so I don't have to intervene.

---Winning My Ballot---

I vote on how the round gets weighed, so explaining weighing either is critical in this round. Tell me why your impacts matter more, why your link chain comes first, why you can solve their impacts, etc. This doesn't mean to read "framework" which is usually unnecessary, annoying, and/or abusive in PF, it just means to evaluate the round at a higher level than throwing evidence around. This means that I'm a fan of cohesive, organized summaries and final focuses that narrow the round down to what you need to win and win it.

Extend links and impacts. You can't get the impact without the link.

If it's gonna be in the Final Focus, it better be in the Summary. The Summary is the most important speech in the round--if you skip over something in your Summary you're basically saying "this doesn't matter!!" If you mention something in FF that I don't have in Summary, there's a risk I straight drop it, especially if it leads to a time skew for the other team.

I expect the second rebuttal to answer the first rebuttal. If you don't address turns or other attacks, that's conceded to me (unless you can pull off some cross-application magic, but don't bet on it). This is a necessary check to the inherent advantage of the second rebuttal.

Pet Peeves: Saying something is conceded when it's not, extending through ink, reading new contentions as "overviews" in rebuttals, competing evidence without competing claims, impacts without links, links without impacts.

---Evidence---

Veracity in evidence is very important to me. I think everyone in a round has the responsibility to uphold standards in debate, particularly in evidence. I heavily encourage the emailing of speeches during the round and I will add .5 point to a team's speaks if you do. My email is jmt14@rice.edu. If evidence becomes contentious in the round, I will ask for the original evidence. If I find that you're objectively lying about evidence ever, you're going to lose and we might have to go to Tab.

That said, analysis matters too. Maybe more when both sides can just find cards that say the opposite. In terms of competing claims, I prioritize like bad analysis < bad evidence < good evidence + no analysis < bad evidence + good analysis < good evidence + good analysis. It doesn't matter how good your evidence is, throwing it around without explanation/analysis makes it significantly weaker. This is all the more reason not to fake evidence in front of me.

---Presentation---

I'm fine with any speed, including CX-level spreading. Ask your opponents if they're okay with speed. If they're not, don't do it. (Don't be uncomfortable saying you don't want speed. You can be a great debater and just not be accustomed to rapid-fire rebuttals.)

It should go without saying, but Public Forum needs to be an open, accepting space. Language and actions that create an unwelcome environment for certain groups will be punished by the power granted to me by the ballot. By a similar note, I will not judge you by what you wear, your vocal tics, your video background, etc.

Overall, make good arguments and be a nice person. When you come out on the other side of high school debate, you will regret the times you were mean and cherish the times you had fun, competitive rounds.

---"Progressive Argumentation"---

TL;DR - I can vote for any and all progressive arguments. But you better run them well to justify using them in the Public Forum format and I will give your opponents leeway in answers.

I do parliamentary debate at Rice University, so I understand and love progressive arguments. I collapse to A-Spec frequently. However, I think that progressive argumentation has to be done well or it's actively bad for PF debate and the PF debate community. For that reason, I have a high bar for any progressive argumentation to clear. The short duration of PF speeches and most people's slow speaking speed makes this really hard, especially for Ks that have to establish lots of framing questions. You'll have to hard collapse on your progressive argumentation and do a lot of weighing. I will not do work for you, even if I understand what you're trying to get at.

This high standard for progressive args is because I place an incredible value on accessibility to Public Forum debate. I buy the argument that Ks and theory can make PF inaccessible for casual debaters or those who can't afford camp based on my personal experience both in PF and Parli. Running Theory or a K shouldn't give you an auto-win because the other team doesn't have the coaching or resources to engage with it and teams should feel free to make this argument in front of me. This means I will allow teams less versed in progressive debate to argue outside the typical structure or format of shells or Ks and do some work for them to make it "fit" the format. This doesn't mean that accessibility args are an auto-win on theory shells, it just means I evaluate implicit clash (as opposed to most args where I only evaluate explicit clash).

That said, I am open to any form of progressive argumentation that isn't actively violent. I don't take a stance on disclosure or particular kritiks (though I am fond of Deleuze and anything queer) because I think that should be hashed out in round. To be transparent, I am probably much more fond of kritiks since they are my personal favorite argument to run and I think they generate a lot of key education. Nevertheless, just be aware that I'm tech over truth on everything except progressive args in Public Forum because I give more leeway to a team that is making "true" arguments in a less technical manner. Basically, there will be more intervention on progressive args because I believe my duty as a judge is to make debate better which sometimes means checking abusive strategies.

Ask questions before the round! Happy to talk (:

Also ask questions after the round during disclosure or even later! My email is jmt14@rice.edu

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Joe Provencher - UTTyler

The allegory of the cornbread:

Debate is like a delicately constructed thanksgiving dinner. Often, if you take time to make sure you donât serve anyone anything theyâre allergic to, we can all grit it and bear it even if we really didnât want to have marshmallows on our sweet potatoes. Mashed potatoes and gravy are just as good as cranberry relish if you make it right. Remember, If youâve been invited to a thanksgiving dinner you should show up unconditionally unless you have a damn good excuse or your grandma got hit by a reindeer because weâre here to eat around a point of commonality unless your great uncle happens to be super racist. Then donât go to thanksgiving. Iâll eat anything as long as youâre willing to tell me whatâs in it and how to cook it. Remember, you donât prepare stuffing by making stuffing, thatâs not a recipe thatâs a tautology. I eat a lot, Iâm good at eating, and Iâd love to help you learn how to eat and cook too. 


PS: And why thanksgiving? Because youâre other options are Christmas featuring a man way too old to be doing that job asking if youâve been naughty or nice at the hotel lobby, the Easter bunny which is just a man way older than youâd think he is in a suite offering kids his definitely-not-sketchy candy (who maybe arenât really even old enough to be eating all that candy), or Labor Day where everyone realizes they canât wear their hoods and be fashionable at the same time.

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Joel Abraham - RIce

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Josh Vannoy - GCU

Joshua Vannoy - Grand Canyon University

 

Experience: 4 years of NPDA Debate at Concordia University Irvine. 4 years of coaching at GCU, one as ADOD and three as DOD. I competed at the NPTE and NPDA all four years of college. Kevin Calderwood, Bear Saulet, and Amanda Ozaki-Laughon have all been large influences in my debate career.

 

General:

Debate is a game. There are arguments I personally will lean towards, but ultimately you should make the argument you want to make. 

- One question should be answered during each constructive. (Flex can make this semi-optional)

- Partner to partner communication is cool, but if you (the speaker) don't say the words I won't flow it. 

- Be friendly

 

Theory:

Theory ran properly can win my ballot. I would avoid V/A/E/F specs/specs in general, unless the abuse is really clear. All interps should be read slowly twice, or I won't be able to flow it. I do not need articulated abuse. Competing interps is my go unless you have something else. I most likely will not vote for you must disclose arguments.

 

Case:

If your PMC lacks warrants/impacts the ballot should be pretty easy for the Neg. If the entire PMC is dropped, it should be a pretty easy ballot for the Aff. I will not do work for any impacts, if you just say "poverty" without terminalizing the impact, I will not terminalize it for you.

 

Performance:

So I personally enjoyed performative debate, it was fresh and interesting. If you decide to have a performance argument/framework you need a justification and a true performance. If you say performance is key in the FW and then do not "perform" anywhere else then there may be an issue. I will need performance specific Solvency/Impacts if you take this route. In your performance never do harm to yourself or another competitor.

 

The K:

All K's should have a FW, Thesis, Links, Impacts and an Alt with Solvency arguments. If one of these pieces is missing it is going to be difficult for me to evaluate the criticism. Sometimes people skip the thesis, that is ok so long as you describe the thesis somewhere else in the K (Earlier the better). The closer your K is to the topic the easier it is for me to vote for it. Reject alts are ok, but I find ivory tower arguments to be very compelling in these debates. I ran Mark/Symbolism the most but am open to any other type of K. I probably have not read your author so please be very clear on what the Thesis of your argument is; name-dropping means nothing to me unless you explain the idea.

 

Non-topical Affirmatives:

After four years of seeing many non-topical debates as a judge, I have become more open to hearing them without much justification needed to reject the topic. With that being said I am still compelled and convinced by FW if ran effectively on the negative.

 

CP Theory:

Is condo bad? Probably? Having debated under Kevin Calderwood for three years this one of the arguments that stuck with me. If a condo bad shell is run properly and executed well I will probably vote for it. Although I am open to a conditional advocacy (that means one) if you can justify it in responding to condo bad arguments (Multiple conflicting advocacies make it really easy for the aff to win the condo debate).

 

Never run delay.

 

50/States/Consult/Courts need a DA/Net Ben/Justification for doing so.

 

Pics are awesome if done well (Does not mean PICS bad is also not a good argument), and please read all CP texts (Just like All Alt/Plan texts) slowly twice. If you do not provide a written copy for me and I do not hear it well enough to write it down then what I wrote will be what I work with.

 

Permutations:

I am not a fan of the multiple perm trend, 1-2 perms should be enough, I am open to Neg multi perm theory arguments when teams run 3-8 perms. If your perm does not solve links to the DA's/Offense it would probably be better to just respond to those arguments instead of making a perm, considering a perm is just a test of competition.

 

Speaker Points:

I have found that I have a pretty routine pattern of speaker points; I generally give out 26 -29.5 depending on how well the debaters perform. With the 26-27 range being debates that usually are more learning experiences for the debaters, while the 28-29 range is usually for the debaters who do not have as much technical work and have very competitive performances. Jokes and making debate fun is always a safe way to get higher speaks in general. I also have found that the more hyper-masculine an individuals performance is, especially directed towards the other team, the lower my speaker points go for that individual.

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June Dense - NPDA Hired

Experience: Four years of National Circuit and Local Circuit High School LD at Chatfield Senior; four years of College NPDA/NPTE Open Parli for Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley; three years of coaching experience for Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley and Campolindo High School. I use she/they pronouns.

TL;DR: The short version is that I strive to evaluate the round as technically and objectively as possible. Read whatever arguments you want (provided they are not rhetorically violent), win them on the flow, and don't be oppressive/violent. Ks and k affs are great, theory is great, CPs are great, disads are great, case affs are great. Never worry about me auto-rejecting an argument because it's 'blippy' or 'frivolous', just make sure it's sufficiently weighed.

Long version: The following details apply to both parli and LD, and if there's a paradigmatic difference between the two events, I will make note of it.

Philosophy: The principle that guides my judge philosophy is that judge intervention, while inevitable to some degree, is generally bad and should be minimized whenever possible. Paradigms that welcome judge intervention open the door for judges to make decisions (sometimes subconsciously; sometimes explicitly) on arbitrary criteria like presentation and rhetorical appeal. Evaluation of these criteria frequently becomes heavily racialized and gendered, as well as being unfair and uneducational to the debaters in the round, so it should be avoided as much as possible.

Three immediate implications of this:

[1] I default to strength of link to determine the truth value of arguments, warrants, empirics, etc. That means I don't care how "blippy" an argument seems, only whether it is contested; if an argument is conceded, then it has 100% strength of link and therefore is true. I will not intervene on the truth value of arguments, warrants, and empirics, for the reasons explained above (intervening on whether arguments are "true" sets a bad precedent about what the role of the judge is in debate rounds), and because I don't trust myself to know enough about the world to be able to verify the minutia of your arguments.

[2] I generally use paradigms that prioritize 'tech' over 'truth.' To this day, I am still very confused about what 'truth' means as the opposite of 'tech.' How does the judge evaluate a round "truthfully"? Does that just mean the judge intervenes on the truth value of arguments (see point 1)? How does the competitive nature of debate factor in to 'truth' paradigms? If there are some arguments that are not open to debate ('true' arguments), wouldn't the more 'true' side have a massive advantage over the other? As a result, I think tech debate paradigms are more fair and educational, so I default to them.

[3] I use speaker points to reward good strategic calls and execution, rather than performance or rhetorical appeal. I don't like evaluating elements of debaters' in-round performances, such as persuasion, affect, rhetoric, speaking style, etc (again for the reasons above). However, if you are rhetorically violent in round, your speaks will be far lower.

All of the other details of my paradigm stem from these three points.

General:

- I have no preferences about the following: rejecting the resolution, conditionality/multicondo, 'cheater' CPs, PICs, Ks, 'frivolous' theory, etc. I am more than happy to evaluate these strats, but I think your opponents get to at least try reading theory in response.

- Personally, in order of most to least enjoyed, I prefer Ks, then theory, then case/advantages/disadvantages debates. However, my preferences will never factor into my decision, and I am more than comfortable evaluating any of these types of arguments.

- I really enjoy phil debates and wish I got to evaluate them more. They're not common enough in parli for me to write a whole section about them, so I'll include my thoughts here: I evaluate phil as a burden structure other than competing worlds -- if you read phil, make sure to tell me exactly what the burden of each side is and why this is preferable. Since I don't use competing worlds in phil, that means I don't care much about competition, advocacies, etc. I'm very comfortable with most foundational phil (Kant, Hume, Social Contracts, virtue ethics, etc), and I am particularly fond of Hegel and Spinoza. Even though phil debates are fascinating, I think the K frameout is the best answer to phil positions -- it's probably true that concepts like 'logic,' 'reason,' 'progress,' 'truth,' and 'freedom' are rooted in anti-Black european metaphysics that were exported to the rest of the world via settler colonialism.

Delivery/Speaks:

- I'm very comfortable with speed, but I know it can be a barrier to teams as well. I will default to evaluating speed but if your opponent asks your to slow or clear, please listen to them. I also don't think that 'tech' debate is intrinsically tied to speed; it's possible to have a 'tech' debate that is not fast if speed is a barrier to teams. That means a) 'tech' is not a reason why speed is good, and b) speed is not a reason why 'tech' is bad or inaccessible.

- Don't worry about "performing well" in front of me. As previously mentioned, I will not give speaks based on performance.

- I will say clear as much as I need and I won't penalize speaks for clarity.

- I will not lower your speaks for calling points of order/information, so call away!

Policy/Case stuff:

- I default to believing in durable fiat.

- I default to evaluating your advantages through net benefits and util/some other form of consequentialism unless you specify otherwise.

- Specificity is good! I would much rather vote on your super specific investment bubble disad than your generic government spending disad.

Counterplans:

- I like CPs, especially well-constructed/creative advantage CPs.

- From the general section: I have no disposition for or against condo of 'cheater' CPs. Feel free to read them, but assume your opponents get to try reading theory about them.

- I default to evaluating perms as tests of competitions, but I will evaluate them as advocacies if you give me a reason why.

- I prefer arguments about functional competition and competition through net benefits to arguments about textual competition.

- I default to no judge kick, but I will evaluate it if you make the arguments.

Theory:

- I love theory.

- I default to potential abuse over proven abuse, but feel free to do weighing between the two in round.

- I have a relatively low threshold for what counts as abuse on theory. Since I default to potential abuse, I vote for the better norm for debate between the interp and the counter interp. This means I am very comfortable voting on 'frivolous' theory and potential abuse.

- I default to competing interpretations over reasonability. I think it's hard to evaluate reasonability without a brightline for what is considered to be 'reasonable.' I also don't know how to decide what is reasonable without being interventionist (see the judge intervention section).

- I default to dropping the team on theory, but I have no disposition between dropping the team or the argument.

- I default to theory being a priori to the rest of the debate.

- I default to fairness and education not being voters. This means you have to explicitly read fairness and education as voters in order for me to vote on theory; I will not "assume" they are there.

- I have an extremely high threshold for 2AR/PMR theory.

- I have an extremely high threshold for reasons why case impacts (advantages or disadvantages) should come before theory.

- I default to no RVIs. That means you have to make the argument that theory is a reverse voting issue, I won't just assume that it is. However, I love RVIs and think they're underutilized right now in parli.

Kritiks:

- I love Ks and K affs. I see myself as primarily a K debater, judge, and coach.

- I have a good understanding of most foundational critical theory, so don't be afraid of reading your arguments in front of me.

- As a debater, I tend to reject the resolution more than I defend it, but I am perfectly happy evaluating rounds either way. From above: I think you're probably able to reject the resolution, but your opponents probably get to try reading theory against it. For what it's worth, all else held equal, I think I probably err towards the kritik on the question of weighing k impacts vs fairness and education (55-45), but I think the reason why is because teams frequently fail to explain why concepts like 'fairness' and 'education' matter in the context of the framework/impacts of the K, thus losing if the aff frames out the interp. If you can read framework and with this debate, you will probably win my ballot.

- If it's relevant, the Ks I'm most familiar with include Bataille, Queer Theory and subcategories within, DnG, Psychoanalysis/Lacan, Baudrillard/other semiocap positions, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Sett Col, and Buddhism. I'm generally a fan of whatever pomo nonsense you want to throw at me, but don't let that discourage you from going for more materially/structurally oriented positions.

- I default to epistemic modesty over confidence. That means without any in-depth explanation, I'll evaluate your frameout as a reason why your impacts are more probable than your opponents, and why your opponents have a lower probability of solving their impacts. If you want me to evaluate your frameout as terminal defense, or a reason the k is sequentially a prior question to the aff, you need to do the technical extensions of why that is necessarily the case.

- I evaluate the alt like a CP in reference to competition and the perm; if I should evaluate the alt as more of a performance instead, please let me know and explain what this means in the context of the round.

- I default to theory being a priori to the K, but I'm extremely sympathetic to arguments that the K should come first for a litany of reasons.

Other:

- I default to presumption flowing neg unless the neg reads (and goes for) an advocacy other than the status quo, but I want this to be debated out in the round.

- I tend to have a high threshold for what counts as "contradictory" arguments; or at least, I think conditionality probably resolves a large degree of contradictions. So, I'm sympathetic to the argument that contradictions don't matter if you kick out of one half of the contradiction. However, if you're uncondo, you do need to be careful not to double turn yourself (for example, by reading an uncondo cap K and an econ DA).

- I will do my best to protect against new arguments in the rebuttals, but it's always better to call points of order just to be safe. There's always a chance I misevaluate whether an argument is new or not, so play it safe and point it out to me. I won't lower speaks or anything for calling points of order, so there's no perceptual risk.

- I will vote on IVIs, but you need to do the technical work of explaining why this piece of offense functions independently of the rest of the flow. Absent some justification, I will evaluate IVIs as a piece of offense on the layer it was read. If you want me to evaluate it as an a priori voting issue, I need framing that justifies this. This isn't to say that I won't evaluate IVIs, but it means that you need to do the work of explaining why it's a priori.

- (Parli) The LOR doesn't have to extend every word of the MO. I think the LOR can largely do whatever it wants to, as long as it's not new. The LOR can never really lose the round, but it definitely can win it.

- (LD) Please include me in the speech doc or email chain if there is one.

- If you have other questions I haven't answered, please ask me before the round!

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Kaitlyn Gleeson - CUI

Background: I did debate for like 11 years, I debated at Concordia for 4 years, and I was a tech debater for most of those years.

TLDR: I am willing to vote for anything, if you can justify it. I will not do the work for you, I will not fill in personal knowledge to make an argument work. I prefer you go in depth to articulate an argument rather than drop a one-liner and expect me to give it a lot of weight in the debate.

Speed - I was a tech debater and could keep up fairly well, however, I am not as fast as I once was, so I doubt I can keep up with top speed. That being said, I am not afraid to say "slow" if I can't keep up, so don't be afraid to go as fast as you need to.

Policy - I love policy debates. Military policy and economics were some of my favorite topics. If you are "cross-applying" something, actually tell me the warrant and how that warrant applies in the cross application. I am willing to vote for any type of counterplan and in the same way am willing to vote for theory saying those counterplans are bad. See the theory paragraph to know how I weigh theory.

The Kritik - Overall I don't care what kritiks you run. On the neg, make sure they link. On the aff, it is important to note that I view the debate in a series of layers. When it comes to a kritical aff that is topical, I know very well and am willing to listen to both sides of whether policy or kritical is more important on the aff. However, when a non-topical kritical aff and theory are in contention with each other, I see theory as a layer above kriticisms. What this means is that you cannot weigh the "content" of a k aff against a theory until you have won the right to run that aff. This means that for me, substantive impact turns to topicality or other theory must have a theoretical justification to be run in the first place. In K on K debates, those usually get convoluted, but if you are clear and warrant out why your framing and impacts are a prerequisite to the other teams, or perhaps are just more important, then it will make my job easier.

Theory - I think that theory should be warranted. I have run the short-shelled arguments and will listen, but the minimal amount of effort that is put into a short theory will be what I expect your opponent to respond with. Interps should be competitive. Violations should be explained. Standards should have impacts and if the debate becomes a theory debate, explain how they interact with each other and which one matters most and why. On voters, simply saying "fairness and education" is not a terminalized impact and you should explain more. If there are multiple theories on the flow, and you are choosing one theory, explanation and framing arguments that layer the debate for me show higher levels of engagement with the content of debate.

I am open to any questions if there are other inquiries.

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Kiefer Storrer - Whitman

Pronouns:He/Him/His

I care a lot about disasters, fires, floods, and killer bees.

Experience: Competed in 4 years 3A Kansas High School Policy and 4 years Midwest-regional and PKD/NCCFI College Parli. I have a background of coaching LD, Parli, IPDA, the occasional very rare Worlds tournament; but IEs are the real undercurrent of my coaching career. I've coached a Parliamentary National Championship at Phi Rho Pi and PKD, but only rarely have been involved with NPDA-circuit competition. Current ADOD/F at Whitman.

Because metaphors are the cool thing to do these days, I view debate like Professional Wrestling; theatrical spectacle with ambiguous rulesets that are sometimes "broken" to up the entertainment and education factor. National-level rounds are hopefully grandiose back-and-forth engagements where either side, made up of larger-than-life personalities, is winning speech to speech. Please don't have me evaluate a Dusty Finish, I'd like a clear winner, so clash like champions and give your best Impact Calc promo.

TL:DR: Cool with anything, don't advocate for genocide or advocates of genocide. Might be a step behind on my flowing ability ("he's still got it *clapclap clapclapclap*"...hopefully). Again, with the wrestling metaphor; please be kind through the round, but especially before and after. We are a reviving community, and our future is in our hands.

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Kyle Bligen - Whitman

2018 NPDA National Champion

I can judge pretty much anything. Just be clear and have fun.

For additional speaker points, consult the below recipe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***Before you strike me, ask your DoF how many times I beat the teams they coached. Now, rethink your strike and pref me higher.***

IngredientsNutrition

• 1?2 cupbutter
• 2 tablespoonscream cheese
• 1 pintheavy cream
• 1 teaspoongarlic powder
• salt
• black pepper
• 2?3 cup gratedparmesan cheese(preferably fresh)
• 1 lbfettuccine, prepared as directed

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter.
2. When butter is melted, add cream cheese.
3. When the cream cheese is softened, add heavy cream.
4. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
5. Simmer for 15-20 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly.
6. Remove from heat and stir in parmesan.
7. Serve over hot fettucine noodles.

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Kyle Pryor-Landman - SDSU

Hi, I am Kyle Pryor-Landman, my pronouns are he/him, my email is kpryorlandman@sdsu.edu, and I am the Director of Debate at SDSU. I competed in NPDA debate for 3 years, won some tournaments, and got some trophies, and now I coach college and high school parli.

FAQs:

1. What can I run in front of you?: Anything you want. Seriously. IDC.
2. Can I spread?: Sure, just dont be abusive.
3. Can I reject the topic?: Probably! Do you know your own K? (If you cannot give an enthusiastic YES! To this question, think twice)
4. What do you want to see?: In order from most to least enjoyable for me to judge:
1. Topical Aff vs. Disads/CP/T
2. Topical Aff vs. K
3. K aff vs. FW-T
4. K aff vs. K (everyone understands their K)
5. K aff vs K (no one understands their K) (I am the wrong judge to break your new K aff in front of)
5. Will you vote on frivolous theory?: Did you argue it well enough?: If yes, sure. If not, probably no.
6. Do you have a preference for sitting/standing/side of the room?: You do you, Pookie.
7. Do you protect?: I try to, but call your POOs. My flow is messy, admittedly.
8. Will you give me 30 speaks?: If you ask, you get a 20. :)
9. Do you accept bribes?: Officially, no.
10. What about LD?: The same rules apply from parli but give me a little bit more pen time because I am still figuring out how I feel.
11. How do you feel about IPDA?: Poorly. The closer it is to NPDA the less I have to intervene, and the happier I am. Do with that what you will.
12. How do you feel about TPDA? Please reject the topic and spread as fast as you can. The faster we can get TPDA to collapse, the better.
13. Is there anything else I should know about you as a judge?: I like to have fun silly goofy time in debate rounds. I also have carpal tunnel, so my written RFDs are going to be shorter than they used to be. Email me after the tournament if you want more written feedback, but you should also be writing down your oral feedback anyway.
14. If I ask you what your paradigm is before round, what will you say?: This exact sentence: Its on ForensicsTournament if you wanna check it out.

Cowardice is a voting issue. Say it with your chest. - Adeja Powell

TL;DR - Do what you want. I can keep up. Debate is about you, not me. Just make sure I can follow along.

Speaks: 26-30 unless you say a slur or something extra shitty. 30 being the best speech I have heard all year, 26 being you did not include significant portions of the debate, extremely unorganized, and/or no terminalization. < 26: You'll know because I'll tell you.

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Lila Lavender - NPDA Hired

She/Her

Hey yall!! I'm lila, and I have been involved with debate for around 10 years (with 7 years of HS + collegiate competition). I competed in LD for all 4 years of highschool, qualifying to and debating at the TOC my senior year, and competed in NPDA for 3 years in college - the lovely Jessica Jung and I won NPDA nationals in 2019. Have been coaching CX, LD, and Parli for the 6 years to varying degrees. Currently, coaching for both EVHS (Parli and LD) and MVLA (LD)!!

Email Chain: For both LD and Policy I would like to be on an email chain, email is "lilalavender454@gmail.com." If you have any questions or revolutionary criticisms of my paradigm, I would love for you to email me as well!! ^^ To keep my paradigm as short as possible, I have also omitted my thoughts on how I evaluate specific positions (i.e Ks, theory, ADV/DAs, etc). So if you have any questions about that, feel free to email me or find me before prep/the round/etc!!

Quick Pref Sheet:

1 - K

2/3 - LARP

3/4 - Theory (I am good at evaluating theory and went for it all the time when I was competing, vacuous debate just makes me mad).

4/5 - Phil

10 - Tricks (ill just never vote on this).

Paradigm - Short:

• Tech > truth.
• Go as fast as you want, i'll be able to flow it.
• I judge every debate format in the same way: on the flow and based on (in one way or another) which team or debater wins offense that outweighs their opponents.
• I will never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments. For example: capitalism good, neoliberalism good, imperialist war good, fascism good, bourgeois (like US) nationalism, normalizing Israel or Zionism, US white fascist policing good, etc.
• Barring the above, read whatever you want and i'll vote on it if you win it!!

HS Parli Update - 10/3/22

Given events that happened during the 2022 Stephen Stewart finals, I now have a very specific threshold for voting on Speed Bad theory. That threshold being that unless you have disclosed to your opponents that you have an audio-processing disability and/or show me your flows (your lack of ability to flow the arguments being spread), I will not vote on Speed Bad theory. The way this will function on the technical level is that if that threshold is not met, or another threshold which objectively not subjectively proves engagement was not possible (because of speed), I will grant the other team a we-meet on the interp - regardless of what happens on the flow. To be clear, this is not because I don't think that there are legitimate justifications of Speed Bad theory or that teams don't abuse speed in reactionary ways, there are and they do. But rather, it's because this interp has and continues to be used in an actively counterrevolutionary way. I.e., to advance monopoly capitalist and thus imperialist propaganda, and justify blatant male chauvinist harassment. This does not apply to novices.

Paradigm - Long:

Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. I have realized as a result of this, I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when i'm judging - as thats both impossible and opportunism. If you have had me as a judge before, this explicit decision of mine does not change how you understand I evaluate rounds, with one specific exception: I will no longer evaluate and thus ever vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments. Meaning, arguments/positions which defend the bourgeoisie's class dictatorship (monopoly capitalism and thus imperialism), from a right-wing political form. I.e., the politics, ideology, and practice of the right-wing of the bourgeoisie.

Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc. In the context of a debate round, by default this will function through 'drop the argument.' I.e., if you read an advantage or DA that represents the right-wing of the bourgeoisie, I won't evaluate that advantage or DA. If your whole 1AC or 1NC strategy is rightest capitalist-imperialist in nature, I won't evaluate your whole 1AC or 1NC. This only becomes 'drop the debater' if you violently and egregiously defend counterrevolution.

For example, if the arc of your argument is about how Afghanistan can never be self-reliant and is inherently 'full of terrorists' (thus requiring US imperialist rule), you will lose regardless of what happens on the flow. The brightline for what I described above is liberalism. Or in other words, I will still evaluate 'soft left' positions/arguments - those which represent the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie. To be clear, this is not because liberalism is any less counterrevolutionary or less of a weapon of monopoly capitalism than rightism is. Nor is this the modern revisionist nonsense which posits that there is a 'peaceful' wing of the bourgeoisie and thus imperialism.

Rather, it's because it's a practical necessity given debate's class basis. In one way or another, given debate's bourgeois class basis and function as imperialist propaganda, the vast majority of 1ACs/1NCs are liberal in some form; this includes the vast majority of Ks. Thus, if I were to extend this paradigm to correctly also cease evaluating liberal arguments/positions, it would mean either it would be impossible for me to evaluate 99% of rounds or there would be a even higher chance of me getting struck out of the pool. Which in the practical sense is not a decision I can make, because as a result of US monopoly capitalist exploitation, I rely in-part on judging to eat and survive bourgeois class warfare otherwise.

So within that context, as much as I can, I will use my power as a judge to propagate the Maoist line and remove as much of the most explicit reactionary arguments/positions as possible. As Aly put it, "some level of paternalism from those of us who are committed to ensuring the future survival of this activity is necessary." I know that there are going to some individuals who are greatly upset by this paradigm. For the vast majority of you, thats fine, the class antagonism is clear. For the rest of you, whose concerns may be genuine, consider the following.

Every single judge exerts a paradigm that, to differing degrees, will not evaluate particular arguments/positions. Most judges do not explicitly state or justify what that entails, and many judges do explicitly as well - in both positive and negative ways. For example, many judges (correctly) will not vote for openly racist/cissexist/misogynistic/nationally oppressive arguments; it goes without saying, but I won't ever vote for and will drop you for these arguments as well. Or in another way, (incorrectly) debate conservatives refuse to vote for Ks all the time.

The only reason this specific paradigm will seem especially concerning, is because of the bourgeois class nature of debate and thus its' ideological function in service of imperialism. One which is inherently in contradiction to proletarian revolution and human emancipation, and thus antagonistic to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This is demonstrated well by the contradiction that most judges correctly will vote down debaters for being openly racist, yet will vote for positions which endorse the butchering of colonized and nationally oppressed People by US imperialist wars; something ive been guilty of in the past. As always, if you have any questions or good-faith criticisms of anything I mentioned within my paradigm, please don't hesitate to email me - I will always get back to you as soon as I can!! :))

Proletarians of all countries, unite!!

Misc Thoughts:

• Non-Black debaters should not read afro-pess, I will drop you if you do. Read: https://thedrinkinggourd.home.blog/2019/12/29/on-non-black-afropessimism/ Note: don't use this as an opportunistic excuse to not defend or have a line on New Afrikan national liberation, as thats gross and chauvinist.
• I am a transgender woman who has a deeper voice, please take that into account. It's exhausting to see judges and debaters who are unable to resolve this contradiction, either attribute my RFD to men on the panel, or treat me like a man as a result of my voice.
• Cap debaters need to stop reading modern revisionism or 'left' opportunism guising itself as 'Marxism,' and truly grasp what Marxism is. This is a good place to start study wise: https://michaelharrison.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/The-Collected-Works-of-The-Communist-Party-of-Peru-Volume-2-1988-1990.pdf
• It's a real shame that as a result of bourgeois feminism, be that white feminism or cissexist feminism, debaters have abandoned advancing the necessity of women's liberation. The proletarian line on feminism needs to be brought to debate, here is a good place to start study wise: https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/S02-Philosophical-Trends-in-the-Feminist-Movement-9th-Printing.pdf
• For Parli Only - I will NEVER vote for an argument that says "reading Ks is only for rich schools and only rich debaters read Ks." There is a reason why this argument is read 99% of the time by schools and debaters flush with capital, it's because it's a bourgeois lie and distortion of debate history. Particularly one which, among many things, enables and was enabled by white chauvinism in debate. There is a good chance I will drop you for making this argument as well, so either don't read it in front of me or better yet strike me.
• While their are certainly contexts in which trigger warnings are legitimately necessary, i.e in graphic descriptions or displays of counterrevolutionary violence (sexual or otherwise), there are also ways in which trigger warnings are weaponized by bourgeois politics for counterrevolution. I.e., how it's used to obscure or mystify ongoing exploitation and thus oppression, or to protect bourgeois sensibilities. Merely discussing the existence of counterrevolutionary violence DOES NOT require a trigger warning, that is absurd and nothing but liberalism. If this occurs in a round that I am judging you in, I am very receptive to revolutionary criticisms of this liberalism. As Black Like Mao puts it "it is important to steel oneself because real life has no trigger warnings. This is not a call to willfully subject oneself to a constant barrage of horrors, because that is a recipe for depression and all kinds of other nasties, but a reminder that this stuff is happening and if you happen to be in the midst of one of these incidents there is no running away or covering one’s eyes."

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Maya Szafraniec - KCKCC

I debated for 8 years. In college, I debated mostly parli, some LD and Policy, for Saint Marys College of California. My partner and I dropped in octos of NPDA in 2019. I have been coaching debate both at SMC and at KCKCC since then. In college, My debate partner and I mostly read critical arguments. So Im cool with Ks, and a well-written K will make me happy. Make sure you can explain how you link and how your alt solves. I also know my way around a plan debate, so read whatever draws you. Make sure your Aff is inherent, and have a clear, consistent story through uniqueness, links, and impact. Im also down to hear your CP/DA and think condo is probably good. I would be equally happy to vote on a theory or framework argument as long as you tell me how it wins the debate. I can handle speed, just slow down for your alt/plan and interps and dont use it to exclude people, that will make me fussy.

I also reserve the right to vote teams down for being overtly oppressive (saying something racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, ablest, Islamophobic, etc.), generally or directed to competitors.

Bring me a chai and you get block 30s

Overall: Read offence. Use more warrants. Do impact calc, the more work you do for me explaining how you win the better your chances are of winning. Be nice to each other.

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Paula Paez - Dark Horse

Hello! My name is Paula Paez. I competed for both the University of the Pacific and San Joaquin Delta College in Lincoln-Douglas and Parliamentary debate for four years.

I’m comfortable with hearing and voting on almost anything as long as it is structured well, and it is justified. This means I need these arguments to have impacts and have a clear structure to them. Additionally, I would like the final speeches to be focused on explaining how and where I should be signing my ballot. The team that makes this the clearest and the easiest will more likely than not get my vote.

Specific things you should know for Parliamentary debate:
I have a low threshold for theory sheets centered around Condo bad. This doesn’t mean I will reject the team for being conditional, but less work needs to be done by the affirmative in order for me to sign my ballot there, even more so for multi-condo.
I have an even lower threshold for speed theory when there is proven abuse in the round. I believe debate should be accessible for everyone in the round, so if a team is asking you to slow and you are ignoring them then I will probably vote for the other team if they read speed theory.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me before the round. Have fun!

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Sarah Wheeler - NPDA Hired

I'm Sarah, I use they/them pronouns, I did CX for 3.5 years in high school, 2 years in college at JMU doing NDT/CEDA, and then just under 2 years of NPDA at Western Washington University ending as a semifinalist with my partner in 2020. I've been coaching middle school and high school parli for the last 3ish years.

Prefs-

Now that we're back to in-person tournaments, please feel free to ask me any specific questions before the round starts if there's anything I can clarify.

this is still a work in progress

 

On the K-
I'm most familiar with MLM, however I can keep up with and evaluate most everything. I know the framework tricks, if you know how to use them. I have a high threshold for links of omission. I default aff doesn't get to weigh the aff against the K, unless told otherwise. I see role of the ballot arguments as an independent framing claim to frame out offense. I default to perms as tests of competitions, and not as independent advocacies. For K affs-you don't need to have topic harms if your framework has sufficient reasons to reject the res, but from my experience running nontopical affs I find it more strategic if you do have specific justifications to reject the res (I guess that distinction is more relevant for parli).

On theory-
I default to competing interps over reasonability, unless told otherwise. I have kind of a high threshold for reasonability, especially when neg teams have racist/incorrect interpretations of how debate history has occurred in order to justify reactionary positions. If you have me judging parli-I default to drop the debater; and if you have me judging policy/LD-I default to drop the argument. I default to text of the interp. Parli specific: (if no weighing, do I default to LOC or MG theory? I'll come back and answer this). I don't default to fairness and education as voters, if you just read standards, then I don't have a way to externally weigh the work you're doing on that flow. I default theory apriori, but I have a relatively low threshold for arguments to evaluate other layers of the flow first. I default to "we meet" arguments working similarly to link arguments, the negative can still theoretically win risk of a violation, especially under competing interps. For disclosure arguments-I have a very high threshold for voting on this argument in parli, given that it's nearly non-verifiable. For other formats, I think disclosure and the wiki are good norms. In general, admittedly I have a high threshold for voting on t-framework.

General/case stuff-
Case-CPs don't get to kick out of particular planks of their CP in the block, if there are multiple. I default to no judge-kick. Given no work done in the round, uniqueness matters more than impacts. Fiat is durable.

I default to impact weighing in this order if no work is done in the round: probability, magnitude, timeframe.

If I am judging you in an event that you read evidence in the round-if there's card-clipping, it's likely to be an auto-drop. If you misconstrue evidence, I won't intervene but I'll have a low threshold for voting on it if the other team brings it up.

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Sean Nowlan - CUI

I've done Parliamentary, Lincoln-Douglas, and IPDA debate for three years competitively. I've read all manner of kritiks, theory, and case debate, so anything you read in front of me goes as far as kinds of debate are concerned. While I read a lot of kritiks around Settler Colonialism during my Sophomore year, that doesn't mean I want to hear them over and over if the arguments aren't going to be good. I'll highlight the most important no-nos.

THIS IS UPDATED FOR NPDA NATIONALS 2024. BOLDED PORTIONS ARE NEW/CHANGED AS OF 03/13/2024

In General-

• Pessimistic Kritiks:
  
  
• See kritik section, but with specifically pessimistic kritiks. I'm more prone towards voting for actions that build systems or have alternative systems of power rather than just tear them down. I am more prone to vote for optimistic kritiks than pessimistic ones; usually because I've rarely seen a pess kritik where tearing down systems doesn't make things worse for the groups it's trying to protect
  
  
• Speed:
  
  
• I debated fast and against fast debaters. Once you start exceeding 400+ words a minute I won't write down every single minor argument made.
  
  
• If the other team shouts "slow," "clear," or "loud" please do so. Maximize accessibility for everyone. I am receptive to theory if the other team doesn't take reasonable steps to ensure accessibility.

• Theory

• Theory is more than a bunch of taglines, the taglines need explanations to matter. Don't just state a voter or a priori, state why it matters.

• • I default to theory as a priori and weigh on the basis of competing interps unless otherwise told.

• Case Debate

• Love it. It's my favorite kind of debate by far, it's the whole reason I started debate was to argue about politics around the world

• • Quoting Alex Li: Theory is often a copout. If you are winning case and theory, I prefer case, but do whatever is strategic.

• • From monetary policy to Congressional bureaucratic minutiae to the environment, I love all kinds of advantages and disadvantages. I'm not a person predisposed to hating the United States or capitalism

• • If youre going to say a person or policy is bad, you can't just call it right-wing, Republican, or conservative you have to actually explain why it's wrong or the material action a group takes to harm others. Terminalize your impacts.

• • When it comes to case debates, I need warrants, and more often than not I'm constantly asking for people to specify/quantify in any way their impacts

• Kritiks

• Nothing makes me more excited on the kritik than to see links and impacts very contextual to the round/resolution.
• If your alt has no impact, is not competitive, is generic, or is conditional; it makes me much less likely to vote for you on the basis of a kritik.

• • Many kritikal alternatives I hear very easily can be argued to have no solvency or have solvency which actively makes the world worse; dont be afraid to argue against kritikal solvency.

• • There are very good reasons to reasons to reject some topics, but usually I default to affirmatives upholding the resolution. You have to have good links to the topic, claiming that you need to run your affirmative kritik just because there is a structural problem with debate itself usually doesn't balance out against topicality theory in front of me.

• Conditionality and PICs-
• I voted for conditional advocacies and for PICS, and voted against them. There are theoretical reasons for and against both.
• If you collapse to a conditional kritik, your solvency and the necessity of your advocacy are undermined by the fact you are willing to kick it.

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Sean Thai - UOP

I'm open to most stuff.

FOR BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE DEBATE:clarity is important. I will now more aggressively clear. If I do it 3 times, I will not vocalise the fourth and probably stop flowing. I understand and have suffered some of the issues that prevents speed, which provides a tangible competitive benefit, but I believe access prioritising the access of your opponents is more important.

Theory/Framework/Topicality:

I default to competing interpretations, unless reasonability is won hard. Spec is good. What are RVI's? "We meet" your counter-interps.

Policy:

I am most familiar with this type of debate. I almost exclusively went for extinction. I will always use judging criterion and impact framing explicated in the debate, but as a last resort, I will evaluate impacts independently - this isn't to say that I will always vote for high mag/low prob, but that I am more open to these than other judges.

Don't delay. Don't Object. Don't cheato veto. Don't cheat. I have a low threshold.

K's:

I appreciate and think Kritikal arguments have done more good than harm for both the real world and debate; but I do believe that it can and has led to identities and peoples being weaponised, whether they wanted to or not. Beyond that, I believe that K's need to clearly explicate how the alt works, the world post alt, and good links. I'm willing to buy a K that doesn't do any of these, but if these get indicted by procedurals or arguments will be damning. I hate simple reject alt's.

I will try my best to understand your arguments, but please do not assume I know your literature base. I am probably more comfortable with pomo lit than any other lit, but you should still explain the basis of your arguments.

In the same vein, I think interps that are some version of "We can do it in this round" hold zero persuasiveness for my ballot. Not only do they not work as a good precedent for future rounds, but also they just also don't provide meaningful (to me) access to the standards debate.General

Debate:

Condo is good. Multi-condo not so much. Don't try to understand my non-verbals, because I don't understand them. Sometimes I'm very expressive, sometimes I'm not.

Tech = truth

Flex time questions are binding.

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Tierra Smithson - UOP

Hi there! My names Tierra. I competed in LD for 4 years in high school, then did LD and Parli for 4 years at the University of the Pacific. This is my second year coaching for UoP as a graduate assistant coach. Below are some of the things that might help you understand the way I think about debate and how I evaluate certain positions.

Affs:

I think the affirmative should ideally be topical. I think critical affirmatives can be achieved without outright rejecting the topic. For AFFs that decide to forgo this and decide to reject the topic, I need clear explanations for why you are doing so, why it is necessary, etc.

Topicality/Theory:

I understand topicality as how individual words in the resolution ought to be interpreted for the best debate.

The negative should have a clear definition/interpretation, and the affirmative should make sure to make we meet arguments and offer competing definitions/interpretations. For theory, I have a higher threshold for frivolous theory, especially when its used as an exclusionary tool or a time suck, but I am receptive to theory that seems warranted given the nature of the topic i.e. PICs Bad, No PIC on a whole law, condo bad, etc.

This means that I tend to default to competing interpretations over reasonability, even if I think the aff might be good in some way for the debate (ie reasonability). This means that having arguments like why competing interps is bad or why reasonability is good are strategic.

CP/Ks:

CPs or Ks should be unconditional, and I can be persuaded by condo bad arguments. That being said, I still expect these to be warranted out and WEIGHED, which means I dont just auto drop teams that are condo. I also think that when the negative has read either a CP/K, they have the burden of proving why their alternative choice is preferable, and thus for me, presumption would flip Aff.

I like policy debate, and think counterplan-disad debates can be really interesting, but often underutilized. I ran Ks when I competed, but Im probably not deep in the critical literature youre reading. This means you can run your K but if I dont understand how to evaluate it compared to the Aff or reasons why the alternative is preferable, Im likely to be persuaded by the perm (if one is made) and the aff leveraging their advantages. I think perms need to be explained, and Im not a fan of vague perm: do both arguments without any additional explanation of how its possible or what that means.

Speed/Clarity:

I dont think speed should be used to exclude anyone from the round and that you should slow or clear if someone says slow or clear. Im a fast talker, and might be able to keep up, but you at your top speed is probably too fast for me. If you want me to get your arguments, you should slow down a touch and try to punch your tags.

Also for funsies, here is a list of my previous debate partners who probably were better than I was. Do with that information what you will: Arshita Sandhiparthi, Jonathan Reyes, Ravi Prasad, Marlu Reyes.

If you have any questions, dont hesitate to reach out! My email ist_smithson@u.pacific.edu

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Will White - Parli at Berkeley

They/Them

For email chains:

williamewhite275@gmail.com

Background: competed with Parliamentary Debate @ Berkeley. I got 5th place at NPTE with 9th top Speaker and Sems at NPDA as 2nd top speaker. I did NFA-LD as a side hobby lol.

Conflicts:Piedmont, Evergreen/Papaya Valley, DebateDrills, and Campolindo

TL/DR:I will keep my decision focused on arguments made on the flow. I can hang with speed go as fast as you want. Also, I'm cool with frivolous theory. Tech>truth.

Quick pref sheet guide based on what I'm most comfortable with judging. However, I'm happy to evaluate anything and if you get me in the back you should stick to what you're comfortable with since you'll know how to explain it better.

K - 1

Theory - 1

Tricks - 1/2

LARP - 3/4 (I just really dont like most case debate anymore lol)

Phil - 4 (I just haven't judge a whole lot of Phil rounds but they're cool)

General:

- **I will never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments. For example: capitalism good, neoliberalism good, hegemony, good, imperialist war good, fascism good, and bourgeois (like US) nationalism**

- Almost never voting on speed bad

- In uncarded events I think a warrant + empirical example tends to hold more weight to me than just a warrant that justifies something in the abstract.

- I try not to read cards unless told to and you should make it loud and clear what you're asking me to evaluate when you're doing evidence comparison otherwise I either won't grant it to you or I'll read the evidence maybe but I can't guarantee I'll interpret the ev in your favor. That being said Ill probably have opinions and thoughts that might affect my RFD if the evidence is cut unethically bad.

- I can hang with speed but go slower and give me pen time if you're going on to analytics that aren't in the doc and try to number your responses if the analytics you're reading are like a page long *I honestly think just having analytics in the doc is the easiest way to fix this problem though in which case you can go top speed and idc still*

- Dont care about condo but that also means Im down to vote on condo bad

- Extension threshold is kinda high. I dont need you to extend every argument piece one by one but I would say the minimum is an overview of the arguments youre going for, why, and what their technical implication is

- Default to epistemic confidence

- Also, absent any weighing I default to strength of link>magnitude>timeframe

Ks:Back when I competed I read a lot of postmodernism. I read Ableism, Anthro, Bifo, Bataille, Buddhism, Edelman, Set Col and other lit bases rooted in bourgeois non-sense. These days my politics reflect proletarian class struggle under MLM. However, this does not mean Ill hack for revisionist positions by authors like Zizek, Dean, Prashad, or other related authors that might have someone forward incoherent positions about epistemology with some lip service to MLM or Marx more broadly. However, this does mean that when a team forwards the proletarian line that I probably have a much higher threshold for voting on postmodernism.

- I'm down for ROB first claims to frame out offense but I need implications to why that matters otherwise I default to assuming its a sort of thesis claim for your framing

- Absent any sort of layering or specific indicts to fiat and policy-making I think I currently default to the aff getting to weigh the plan vs the alt

- Spikes to perms need substantive framing. For example, I don't know what no perm in a methods debate means or why everything isn't a methods debate, why the perm or 1AC is not performance, or why links are DAs to the perm

- Frame outs are a valid path to the ballot

- I think links of omission are a bit of an uphill battle for my ballot but I will not just ignore the K if only links of omission are read.

- I default to perms being tests of competition not an advocacy unless told otherwise

- Don't need a link to the topic assuming you have framing on why we ought to focus on something else

T/Theory:

- Absent a voting paradigm I default to competing interps. Need a bright line for reasonability otherwise I will hack for competing interps.

- I also default to text of the interp over the spirit of the interp absent any reason to evaluate one over the other.

- Absent framing claims out of the 1AR/2AC I default to T coming before 1AR/2AC theory

- I default to drop the debater until told otherwise

- I have a lower threshold on disclosure theory for evidence debate but can be convinced otherwise but I have a high threshold for it in parli given it would be non-verifiable.

- I view we meets as a link take outs but think that folks can go for a risk of a violation depending on the arguments made

- I probably have a higher threshold for framework. Would prefer a strict collapse to either fairness skews evaluation of the aff or learning about the state being the i/l to aff solvency.

- I default to Theory coming before the K but am pretty receptive to the K coming first/ out weighing.

- Dont care about core generics and such arguments in a vacuum so I need a little more substantive justification for such a claim

- I default to no RVIs unless told otherwise. I understand RVIs as framing claims for theory i.e., if you lose the standards level debate or the we meet you should lose because of reciprocal consequences. That being said I need the warrants for fairness and/or education to justify an RVI not just "oh no they were a time suck" or else Im not picking up your RVI

Case:

- Fiat is durable

- Kicking planks on counter plans is fine

- Default to no judge kick

- Reading your uniqueness in the wrong direction means Im not voting on your advantage/disadvantage

Rebuttals:

- I tend to think in the 2AR/2NR you can do weighing against the positions even if it was not done in the 2AC/1NR but I think reasons why it would function as a link take out would not do it for me

- shadow extensions are new arguments

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