Prabhu,+Anirudh

Bellarmine ‘16 Stanford ‘20

The most recent version of this philosophy will be on Tabroom.

Most of what I know about debate comes from Debnil Sur. If I articulated something poorly here, you can probably check his philosophy for a better articulation. I’m basically a more K version of him (ironically, thanks to him). To quote Debnil, “tech >>>>>>>>> truth.” That’s pretty much all you need to know. General Experience: I debated at Bellarmine in San Jose, CA. I was double 2’s my junior/senior year but am a 2A at heart. I travelled on the national circuit my junior and senior year reading a planless aff and primarily kritikal strategies on the neg. At tournaments like state/NFL’s, I almost exclusively read policy strategies (my most common 2NR at NFL’s my senior year was the terror DA). I qualled to the TOC my senior year and went far at NFL’s my junior and senior year. I currently coach at Bellarmine. I’m debating as a 2A at Stanford. Topic Experience: I’ve been exposed to the China topic through coaching but haven’t judged any rounds on it. I am fairly well-versed on Chinese history and politics, but please explain your acronyms. Deciding Rounds: (from Debnil) “Tech matters far more than truth. Write my ballot: have strong ethos in the rebuttals, use rhetoric to your advantage (eye contact, expression), and make it clear what issues matter. I particularly reward debaters with those three skills with ballots and speaker points. I will start at what each team said mattered the most and progress from there.” I prefer final rebuttals that have substantial overviews to frame the debate (substantial does not mean inefficient). Smart analytics can take out silly internal links. I will protect the 2NR if explicitly asked to - as mkoo puts it, “specific brightlines and warranted calls for protections (anytime) will be zealously adhered to,” but 2N’s shouldn’t assume I’m going to totally disregard new 2AR impact analysis. I’ll probably ask for speech docs. I generally believe that in-round explanation is more important than evidence quality, but I will read cards if I need to decide a time-sensitive issue, if debaters ask me to with warranted explanation, or if it’s difficult for me to decide without the cards. I’m probably going to flow on my laptop. Speaker Points: As a new judge, this is going to be difficult. I’ll try my best to follow this scale. 29+: Will reach later elims 28.7-29: Clearing low 28.4-28.6: Somewhere between “middle of the tournament” and clearing low <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">28-28.3: Middle to bottom half of the tournament <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">27.3-27.9: Bottom quartile of the tournament <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"><27.3: Not quite ready for this division. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Be clear including on card text. Cheating means you will get the lowest possible points. You need a recording to prove clipping. If you mark a card, say where you’re marking it, actually mark it, and offer a marked copy before CX. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Flashing isn’t prep but don’t take forever. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Nontraditional Affs: My main aff my junior and senior year was a planless aff. That being said, I also went for framework my senior year. I don’t have a particular bias to either side - there are good and bad arguments on both sides, and arguments I might consider “bad” (like dogmatism) can easily be viable if executed well. Affs should make smart defensive arguments against standards with silly internal links. One good piece of aff offense and a lot of defense can often beat framework. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">For negative teams reading framework - read it the best way you know how. You don’t have to engage the case, but if you choose to invest time into it, make it something more substantive than a bunch of generic case cards. If you’re reading biopolitics defense cards about Agamben against a Foucault aff, and you don’t know the difference between the two, you’re better off just investing more time on framework. That being said, don’t concede thesis claims of the aff that apply really well to framework. Impact comparison is very important - if the aff’s model makes it substantially harder for the neg to engage but the neg’s speech act was problematic, which way do I vote? Make sure to warrant internal links - I’ve seen lots of neg teams just assume that all K affs make engagement impossible to their detriment. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">For negative teams reading kritiks - don’t let the aff get away with an unclear articulation of the perm, force them to clearly articulate what it means and how it functions. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">I default to giving the aff a perm but am open to competition theory arguments. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">T: I default to competing interps. The articulation of reasonability that will persuade me is that the substance crowdout generated by T debates outweighs the difference between the two interps. Note that reasonability is about the interps, not the aff. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Link comparison and impact comparison are the key in rebuttals. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Make your impact claims as specific as possible, and make sure to demonstrate knowledge of the topic in these debates. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">The neg doesn’t have to win in-round abuse, the T debate is about interpretations. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Theory: (from Debnil) “Other than conditionality, default that violations are a reason to reject the argument not the team. To reject the team, provide well-warranted analysis of how it irreversibly damaged the rest of the debate, with examples of alternate, in-round strategies that would have otherwise been read. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">T comes before other theory. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">These debates will be judged purely on in-round tech, but going for theory in a non-egregious situation will earn lower speaker points than defending your aff.” <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">CP: The more theoretically illegitimate your CP is, the more uphill the theory debate is. That being said, if you can defend them well, feel free to reading cheating counterplans. As Debnil puts it, “Literature proving a substantive difference between the plan and the counterplan will strongly help your case. I honestly can’t see myself finding a well-researched, case specific counterplan with a solvency advocate illegitimate.” <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Presumption goes to less change - debate what this means in round. Otherwise, it goes aff in the event of an advocacy. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Decide in-round whether I should kick the CP. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">K: I’m fairly well-versed in most common K’s in debate. K’s I read my junior and senior year include (in order of decreasing familiarity, note that this isn’t an exhaustive list) - security, Foucault, Afropessimism, anthro, psychoanalysis, settler colonialism, Baudrillard. If you have questions about a specific lit base, feel free to email me. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">One common reason affs lose these debates is by being too defensive. Don’t be afraid to impact turn the K if it’s something like security or neolib. Think about how your heg advantage interacts with a settlerism K. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">I prefer small overviews, but if big overviews is your style and you can do it well, then feel free to - but as Albert Li says in his philosophy, “don’t lie to me about how long your goddamn overview is.” Fun fact: I once gave a 2NC that was almost all overview (don’t try doing that). <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Albert has some key pieces of advice for negative teams that I agree with - “RECOGNIZE WHEN IT’S A HORRIBLE IDEA TO KICK THE ALT,” “Shower me with links – quote their evidence and cross-ex.” <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">When reading K’s against kritikal affs, the more quotations from the 1AC, specific contextualization to the story of the affirmative and negative, and similar 1AC-focused debating that occurs, the more likely you are to win. Crystallize the points of clash between your theories as applied to the 1AC, as opposed to giving me a philosophy/literature/critical studies lecture <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">DA: Case-specific disads are obviously good. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Generics are fine. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">There is such thing as zero risk. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Make sure that turns case arguments actually are turns case arguments.

<span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">Email ani dot prabhu98 at gmail dot com if you have questions