Weber,+Mara

Affiliations: Northwestern University ’15 (3 yrs debating), Wooster High School ‘10 (4 yrs debating) Rounds Judged on the Topic: ~20 (as of October 2014)

I will potentially vote on any well-developed argument. It is the job of both teams to frame the debate, i.e. tell me what should be evaluated first, why, and how you access that but the other team does not. Impact all of your arguments by connecting them to the bigger picture. In-speech evidence comparison is key; explain why the other team’s ev is bad and yours is good based on warrants, qualifications, etc. It is highly unlikely that I will call for ev absent a well-articulated disputation of a team’s portrayal of the ev in round.

If debaters don’t frame certain issues for me, here are my defaults (from which I can certainly be dissuaded in any given round) and some preferences:

Topicality – Evaluated in the framework of competing interpretations. Standards should be impacted and also compared in relative terms (e.g. does education outweigh fairness). RVIs are dumb. Counterplans – I won’t kick a CP for the neg if I’m not told to do so. Theory – Make sure your interp is clear. Impact theory like you would any other argument that you expect me to vote on. Kritiks – I’m well-versed in critical lit, but you must explain why the K is (un)important in the context of debate. Both sides should clarify what the role of the judge is in evaluating the debate, which meta-issue outweighs, etc.

Saying “new arg” isn’t sufficient – you also need to give a reason why new args are bad. I don’t take prep for jumping/emailing speech docs, but don’t dawdle. Dropped args aren’t necessarily true, especially if implicitly answered elsewhere in the debate. Risk can be reduced functionally to (near) zero. Overly hostile CX is fun for no one!