Kim,+Andrew

Hello all, my name is Andrew Kim, and I have debate for 4 years during my high school career. I do have a good amount of judging experience even after I graduated high school, and I feel like I know enough to be a reasonable and intelligent judge. I am aware of the resolution and what type of affirmatives people will be running, but please follow everyone's advice and treat me like a monkey and explain exactly which argument works with which and how that is good/bad.

Before I go into detail about my stances on specific arguments, I have been informed about a disturbing trend of card clipping in policy debate. I do not know whether or not this is still an issue, but I feel like I should mention it regardless. I do not tolerate card clipping of any kind, and I regard it as a blatant act of cheating and great disrespect to both the judge and the debaters. If I do catch you clipping cards, I will write the ballot after that speech and vote you down and give 0s for speaker points. This is not negotiable, as card clipping is rather obvious, and if I catch you doing it, then it is so blatant even I can notice. Conversely, if you notice that your opponents are indeed clipping cards, please be more respectful than they are by pointing it out at cross examination calmly and indicate to me where they have clipped their cards. If the boot fits, then the debate is over, and whichever team that clipped cards will lose the debate.

I enjoy cross examination very much, and I do tend to take it into account when giving out speaker points. This doesn't mean that cross examination is the be-all-end-all. However, if cross examination turns out to be a mess, I might be less generous in speaker points. The biggest peeve I have in terms of cross examination is all four debaters somehow being involved. I think cross examination should involve only two speakers, and if their partners have anything to say, they should quietly relay it to those who are engaged in cross examination. Also please refrain from screaming at each other, since it gets hard to listen to what's going on, what the question is, and if it is being answered at all.

In terms of counter plans and disadvantages, I am pretty much open to all of them. I don't have a love or hate spectrum on these two particular arguments. As long as they are debated correctly (as in, the counter plan can solve the plan and the affirmative is linked to a disadvantage with a proper impact) I will vote for the negative. The affirmative should answer these arguments (please). Prove that the counter plan cannot solve the affirmative, and that the affirmative doesn't link to the disadvantage etc etc the usual fair.

Kritiks are not my strong suit. I was never a philosopher, and I confess that I have not engaged much in that particular part of policy debate. This does not mean that I will not vote on the Kritik though. As long as the negative really explains well what the kritik is, what the alternative accomplishes, and the impacts of the kritik, I will have no problem for voting on it. However if the debate gets muddled in jargon, or the debate is not clear it will take me much more time to understand and thus vote on it. Also I believe framework is an important debate and if you should bring it up, it should be well debated and clearly explained.

Topicality is a valid argument. The affirmative should not drop it. The negative should have proper impacts to a topicality violation if it is going to be a 2NR strategy. Even if there is a violation, if there is no impact to those violations, I will have a hard time voting on topicality.

In terms of clarity, I will tell you to be clear in the middle of your speech. If you do not get clearer by the third time I yell "clear" in the middle of your speech, I will tank your speaker points and judge solely on what I can understand out of you. Please be clearer in arguments rather than spewing incoherent sentences at me and expect me to understand. Even if you read a lot of cards, it doesn't mean much if I cannot understand what the cards are saying.

If you have any other questions or wish for me to clarify on some other things, please don't hesitate to ask me before the debate starts and I will answer to my greatest ability.

Thank you!