Warma,+Ried

My name is Ried, and I am a 3rd Year Varsity College Policy Debater at Emporia State University. I previously debated for 2 years at Lindenwood University, and have judged many high school debates.

I have done all kinds of debate, as have many debaters. I started out reading traditional policy arguments, moving slowly into more critical literature before deviating to where I am now, as a more non-traditional peformative debater, specifically interested in social location and narrativity. The things you read will likely not go over my head, however don't take that as an excuse to not explain things in front of me. As a general rule, try to explain things in a way that anybody, regardless of education, can understand. If you do that, you will probably be in a good spot.

This paradigm is going to be my attempt to let you all get a glimpse inside my mind, in how I view different arguments, and debate in general. I will try to keep it short as I know that often times there are only certain sections that people care about, but I make no promises. Don't view this as the end all be all of the way you should debate in front of me, as I'd rather watch you debate well than to do something you are uncomfortable with in front of me.


 * Speaker Points:**
 * 27.5 & Down -** You have said something that is violent, or you have been extraordinarily rude or aggressive to the point where the space is no longer safe for either me or other debaters. The lower the speaks, the worse it was. If you just straight up say something extremely racist, sexist, etc to someone else in the room, you will likely receive a 0.
 * 27.6-28.4** - You debated, but the argument didn't make sense either because you didn't explain it well or the things just don't mesh well together. There is work to be done, but don't lose hope!
 * 28.5-29.2** - You gave pretty solid speeches throughout, your arguments made sense, you made smart decisions. There are things to work on, but you did extremely well, you should be proud of yourself.
 * 29.3-29.9** - You absolutely wrecked. You were persuasive, you knew the ins and outs of your arguments, I think you are an extremely good debater, you should probably win the tournament or at least go into late out rounds. You will be competitive in college debate.
 * 30** - You're name is probably LaToya. I don't think I've ever given out a 30 to a debater that I have judged, that's not to say it's impossible. This means I think you could go into a Varsity College Debate tournament and do fairly well.

I don't care if you read a plan text, advocacy statement, Role of the Ballot, Role of the Judge, or just go up and talk for 9 minutes of your 1AC. I will evaluate all of it as equally as I can, as long as you are doing something and making arguments. You should have impacts and you should have in roads to solving them, whatever method you may choose to use. I think a lot of teams don't actually have a way to solve the things they talk about, even if it is through FIAT. I will say that I largely prefer it if you can tell me why what you are doing is good for debate and/or good for the people whom would be affected by policy. I think that it is better to read 5 really good cards that have many warrants that are all read than 40 cards that are word soup, ignoring the vast majority of what your author is saying. This is almost never a voting issue for me. You are likely not going to win a debate because you read FW when you are aff. On the other hand, there are compelling theory arguments that could win you the debate (Condo is the only one that comes to mind, there are more however). If you are going to do it though, go for it. A 2 second line in your 2AC that says "Condo bad and this is a voting issue" is going to make me not want to vote for you nearly as much as a well thought out and explained argument. You still need to answer these arguments though, if you drop it, you drop it.
 * Affirmative Arguments -**
 * Aff FW/Theory -**

Kinda like aff, do you. I don't really care how you choose to go about it as long as its an argument and a reason the aff is bad.
 * Neg Arguments -**

If they don't have a way to defend not being topical, that's a problem. That being said, I don't think that it is completely necessary to talk about the topic as long as you can defend why. There are a lot of debates that do this. If you don't give me a FW for deciding this, I will default to competing interpretations because that's how I was taught, however I am EXTREMELY interested in other ways of viewing debates so feel free to use a different standard. Things I hate on T arguments - "T is a voting issue for education and fairness" without any explanation. "T version of the aff solves" with no T version of the aff. Generally blippy arguments.
 * T -**

I think that often times, FW is a cop out to avoid engaging with an argument. This is not always the case. If you are going to run FW, it will help you to have an external impact and have a very strong I/L to how that happens, as I find often times people just say that not reading a plan destroys debate without a realistic explanation of how that happens. My threshold for answering these arguments is probably lower than most judges, so be aware of that, however I WILL absolutely vote on it. I just think you would be better served to engage with arguments on another level. One exception to this is if you read FW as a net benefit to another argument (like a CP or K or whatever). I think this is good and can help you negate plan-plus type arguments, as you performing debate the way you think it should happen is normally competitive as long as you make it so.
 * FW -**

I dig them, I will vote for them but you have to have a solid link (I don't often find links of omission compelling when you are hitting K affs especially), and a way to resolve the neg (and probably aff) impacts. I find that often times people read Ks without explaining things and then just leave me to try and figure it out. This is really annoying, and you need to make sure that I can explain it back to the other team if you want me to vote on it. This is especially true of higher theory arguments
 * Ks -**

Similar to K's, please have a good description of your scenarios. I find that many CPs or DAs don't have a good link to specific aff methods, which is a problem. If you can explain to me how the aff SPECIFICALLY leads to your impacts, you are in a good spot.
 * CP/DA -**

Everybody steals prep. Please try not to as it annoys me. If it is really obvious, I'm just gonna start taking away 2 seconds of your prep time for every second you steal. If I think you are clipping cards I am going to double check. If I catch you, you are getting double zeros and a loss. If you think the other team is clipping cards, just tell me, but please be sure as this will end the debate and you will either get a loss or a win right there. I will not default to zero speaker points for the accuser or the accusing team.
 * Cheating -**

1) I am a college policy debater, so I can stand a certain amount of speed, but if you are reading so fast that I can't flow your arguments before you move on, that's your own fault. 2) Clarity - I will say "CLEAR" if I can't understand you. If I say Clear twice and you don't fix it, It is your fault when I don't have some arguments you made. 3) If you try to be really tricky and out-tech the other team, you run a pretty high risk of tricking me too, so be careful with this. Tech is not my forte, and I tend to think of things somewhat big picture. 4) Debate is a communication activity, so communication is the most important thing. Please keep this in mind 5) I think I want to be included on email chains/be flashed evidence, it helps to save time after the round and keeps me from getting a different version than the other team. If you don't give them tags or analytics, then you don't give me tags or analytics. My email is: rawme9@gmail.com 6) If you try to post round me, I very well may laugh. At the end of the day, you aren't going to change my decision and probably not my mind. If it's a close debate, you should realize that this is all subjective and it would be decided differently by each judge. That's just the nature of debate. 7) I really appreciate being treated as a person rather than just the Debate Deciding Machine in the back of the room. Don't be afraid to talk to me if you aren't prepping or are waiting for something, it makes my time more enjoyable. 8) I'm gonna keep track of prep and speech times.
 * Other things -**