DeBaun,+Cody

In general Tabula Rasa. My primary concerns in a round are for the successful execution of an argument, which means I want to see the basis of the argument, textual support, specific warrants and concrete explanation of the significance of the argument for your position, your opponent's position, and the ballot. If it becomes an argument within the round, I tend to judge critically a team that doesn't explain and act within the framework they're defending. In the absence of a framework argument or other reasons to view things differently, I default to an offense/defense paradigm.

Specifically

Kritiks I was a K debater myself for a time, and have no problem listening to the argument. I hope it's viewed more as a tip of the cap to the times than my personal perspective when I say that, as far as both kritiks and squirrely, out there arguments go, my only concern when judging an argument is for the skill with which it is executed, crystallized, made to apply to the opponent's position, and leveraged for the ballot. That being said, I get hung up about a few things. I tend to feel like criticism as a type of argument is justified by a mountain of argumentation that has occurred before you entered the round or, in all reality, before you had your first debate round. K debaters often leverage this mountain of ghost evidence for a strategic advantage, be it using the fact that your opponent has no idea what your argument is or five second 'K comes first' or root cause arguments. This can work, I certainly won't just ignore the argument, but I tend to give credence to (and higher speaks to) debaters that can present a nuanced, apt criticism of the underlying presuppositions inherent in the affirmative case (or negative's positions) that everyone in the round understands. Basically, clash over no clash.

Theory Theory arguments are quite possibly the most politicized and scripted arguments in policy debate. This is one area where I make a conscious effort to be as blank slate as possible- I will listen to and keep an open mind to RVI's, a 2NR for jurisdiction, etc. To be clear, this doesn't mean that there aren't strong and weak theory arguments, just that I won't dismiss anything out of hand, and a dropped or mishandled theory argument, regardless of its merit, can be argued for the ballot.