Young,+Pierce

Willamette HS '10 Arizona State University '14

//I'm not going to try to be brief - this paradigm will include both my thoughts on how I evaluate a debate but also nuances/tricks/shortcomings I consistently come across. As a debater I've never been a fan of paradigms that simply say "debate however you like" without much guidance. While I will listen to and vote on anything, I think it's almost impossible for anybody to be a complete blank slate and so I feel as if it will lead to better debates if both teams have an understanding of where I'm coming from when I evaluate their round. Along those same lines, feel free to ask me questions about my paradigm before the round if you need clarification, and obviously any and all questions after I've rendered a decision.//


 * General:** I'll listen and vote on anything. Debate how you prefer to debate. These are just general guidelines to how I tend to view the debate and my ballot - a convincing speech can direct me to vote in another direction, but I find that I still frequently have to fall back on some of my own proclivities as a judge.

In terms of background, I debated parli, LD, and PF in high school. I am in my 4th year of college policy debate, I've been a 2N each year. I try not to neg hack, and I believe my record actually leans a little bit more towards the aff.

Speaks are based off of both speeches and very heavily CX. Clarity in your speeches is a big thing for me, good speeches will have a tight grasp on what is going on in the round and how I should evaluate my ballot in relation to the arguments advanced by the opposing team. You're not winning everything in your rebuttals - using phrases like "even if... then..." can be a way to explain how you can still win the round even if your opponents win some of their arguments. In terms of CX, the most effective cross examinations in front of me set up arguments that are going to be utilized in the next speech and/or specifically deconstruct a claim made in the opposing teams preceding speech... I can't tell you how many times I see a debater eviscerate a link debate or some other page and then it never makes its way into their partner's next speech and is forgotten for the rest of the round. I am not flowing your CX like I would a speech, but I am paying attention - the nature and speed of CX makes it the best time to really get a point across to me that I can point back to, so points scored in CX should definitely come back again in a speech.

Your cards will also impact your speaks and how I evaluate arguments post-round. Your tag is a claim, the parts of the card you read should provide warrants - it is very easy to tell when you're simply power-highlighting the same claim as your tag during a speech... I'm simply not a fan of reading a card you've tagged as "US-Mexico relations key to solve the economy" and the only part of the card you've highlighted is "US-Mexico relations have a significant impact on the economy". Your card should tell me why I should believe the argument you're advancing, it's not simply for validating your claims because somebody else said it. Along those same lines, I reward smart analytics at any point in the debate - this includes not just how arguments relate to one another, but an assessment as to the warrants or methodology of a piece of evidence. We love to talk about how much debate enhances critical thinking skills, use them often instead of just leaning on your pre-scripted blocks.

CX questions like "why didn't the economic crash in 08 lead to extinction???" or "why hasn't capitalism resulted in extinction yet???" and others along those lines are overdone and non-starters (that being said, I've seen even worse answers to these questions). Please stop asking them. If you don't understand why, ask your coaches. Additionally, the timer starts as soon as you begin to ask your first question - don't waste your time asking the other team what cards they did or did not read unless you have no idea... flowing almost always solves the entirety of that conundrum, however, so it would be in your best interest to just keep a good flow and ask questions that actually get you somewhere in the debate.

I tend to be very reactive in rounds, and I'm consistently evaluating where I feel the debate is at and which team is ahead after almost every speech and CX in the round. I have a very expressive face and will react to the things you say in the round, so you can sometimes get a grasp on how I feel about an argument you're making.

My flow is almost completely straight down - this is for your benefit, as I don't have to waste time finding which of your opponent's arguments you are responding to and potentially miss an argument you're making. At times, this will require some reconnecting of arguments against one another post-round... this can be much easier on you, however, if both teams keep a good structure of the debate for themselves. This generally means following the order set by the 2AC. If this doesn't work for you, then do what you gotta do, but a clean flow is beneficial to both teams in the round and the order of your speeches on each page has a lot to do with that.

While offense/defense is a useful explanatory tool, I am not a strict adherent to this paradigm and can be convinced to vote elsewhere. I'll generally default to this evaluation on a CP/DA debate, as it's useful to establish tie breakers.

I tend to default to tech over truth, but being on the side of truth is certainly the more persuasive end to be on, and 1 solid card can beat 5 "meh" cards. In the vein of tech over truth, there does tend to be arguments that might not be line-by-line answers to a position but do get around to a fundamental counter-argument, and I do evaluate those sort of things - keep in mind, just because your flow doesn't have ink next to it doesn't mean that ink elsewhere on the page isn't answering it. Listen to your opponent.

Timer ends when the document is saved to the flash drive or the email is sent to the chain. Paperless teams need to provide non-paperless opponents a viewing laptop or some other means to see their documents (having them read over your shoulder while you speak isn't going to cut it). I don't want to evaluate a challenge for clipping, so please don't do it.

Don't just throw cites at me in rebuttals. Evidence comparison is desirable and heavily rewarded. At the end of the day, this is still a persuasive communication activity that I'm evaluating. The fact that I'm evaluating you based off of speeches you present to me and their persuasive value means that, at the end of the day, my ballot reflects who I was most persuaded towards based on what went down in the round. While I will read evidence after the round and it is an important tool in backing the claims you make in the round, that does not mean my decision is solely beholden to what is in your cards... just because you think you have the most eloquently written study affirming the impact of global warming doesn't mean it's going to win you the round. With that in mind, please try not to belligerently argue with me after my decision. I'm open to having a discussion over my decision and I'm open to hearing what you thought about how an argument played out in the round, but I would prefer it if we did that through a productive discussion, not an adversarial argument between me and you. Like I said, this is still a persuasive communication activity - a loss due to me misunderstanding your argument or explanation of your position can almost always be sourced to how you presented it in the debate. Debate is hard. Let's try not to make it awkward too.


 * Theory:** I find most theory debates to be entirely too shallow, at least on the impact level. The impacts to almost all theoretical arguments are fairness (which is somewhat tied to predictability) and education, and that's most likely the impact your opponent will present in their response to your theory argument. Thus, it's most beneficial for you to compare the relevance of your fairness claims as opposed to what your opponent says is fair about the arguments they want to advance, or why the type of education you are advocating is most beneficial for the round or debate as a whole compared to your opponent's form of education.

In general, most theoretical arguments are reasons to reject the argument and not the team - these sort of things become sticky in a world where it's say, theory on a CP, and that's the argument the negative is going for in the 2NR. Generally speaking, theoretical objections that would typically be reasons to reject the argument shift to becoming reasons to reject the team if the argument is what the team is pursuing in their final rebuttal. This is all complicated by claims of judge conditionality (not standard condo), which I cover on CP's below.

Conditionality - I think conditionality is generally good. Paradoxically, I find that most aff and negative interp/counter-interps on conditionality and how many conditional positions may be read are entirely arbitrary, yet I think that there does come a point in which a certain number of conditional advocacies become less about negative options for testing the aff and more about spreading out the 2AC and finding what they cover the least. I'm still not sure where that line comes from or should be drawn at. You can certainly win that conditionality is bad period, but it will be an uphill battle - I probably need some really clear and proven abuse and what it meant for the round for me to vote on it. This goes the same for performative contradictions good/bad.


 * Case:** Favorite debate to evaluate. In the rounds I've been watching, it seems that 2AC's and 1AR's are becoming shallower and shallower on their explanation of the case pages and then blowing up a much more comprehensible explanation of the arguments in the 2AR. I will try to draw a line, at the very least, on the 1AR's explanations to the 2AR. New 1AR arguments on positions in which the negative did not advance new arguments in the block should be called out by the 2NR and I will likely not evaluate them - obviously depends on a case-by-case basis as to whether or not that explanation is implicit in a 2AC argument.

Good case turns can win the negative the round. I will listen to arguments from the negative as to judge conditionality, so keeping solid case turns alive in the 2NR that might apply to the CP you're also going for is not a waste of time in front of me - obviously you need to win your arguments on judge conditionality and how I should evaluate them, it is certainly possible that I don't buy that argument and you're spinning your wheels on a case turn that applies equally to the CP you're stuck with in my evaluation. Like I said above, tech marginally ahead of truth. I'm okay with grouping positions, but I do find that a ton of debaters will group a set of slightly similar positions and end up failing to answer a small flavor difference in the argument advanced by one of the grouped positions. This is not something you can't come back from, but teams can certainly capitalize on these sorts of mishaps.

In general, I find that many high school affs are failing to and/or are inefficient at extending case pages. 2AC's and 1AR's, while not needing a cite extension for every card in the 1AC, definitely need to extend the thesis of the advantage and what that means for the round. 2AC's which stand up and are simply a line-by-line answer to arguments on case and then blocks to the off-case positions without any broader contextualization of the aff advantages or impacts will be structurally behind the curve, especially if the block calls them out on it. 2A's also tend to fall through this trap door against 1-off teams... if you're hoping for me to weigh the aff versus the K, you should definitely extend at least one advantage from the aff.

Kicking advantages is a strategic choice for the affirmative in many rounds, and I don't think negative theoretical objections to kicking advantages have much weight in front of me (note: this is distinct from kicking the reps of the aff, the 1AC's plan or portions of it, etc.). Obviously you need to cover any offense that might be hanging around on that page, but jettisoning an advantage to buy time for yourself elsewhere or take out another negative position is potentially a very smart strategic move.


 * CP:** I generally believe that functional and textual competition are both good things. Consult CP's are probably bad, I'm willing to vote on both Perm do CP and the Lie Perm against these sorts of arguments. Other specific process CP's can be okay, but they will require a very specific establishment of what the normal means of the plan would mean (and generally evidence as to why that is always/generally the case) versus the delineation that the CP is. Absent this, I think "CP is the normal means of the plan" can beat these types of CP's.

PIC arguments work in front of me. Obviously you need to win a net benefit to your PIC. Aff's should be prepared to defend the entirety of the plan - a really contrived PIC (like "call X country this other name") can probably be beaten by the perm and might justify Perm do the CP. If there is a country name PIC of some sort, I also think the affirmative can question what that does to the process of the plan - most U.S. statutes and treaties specify what they mean when they reference a country or area by a specific name, maybe calling it "Khorasan" instead of "Aghanistan" means that the CP results in a plan that does nothing since U.S. statutes don't recognize it as such outside of the plan/CP..? Debate it out, if you'd like.

Object fiat is probably bad, but you need to win a description of what object fiat is in the context of the CP (IE, this year's college topic asks the aff to restrict the war powers authority of the President, there's a debate to be had as to whether the President themselves is the object of the resolution). International actors can be won in front of me, but aff arguments are still winnable. Evidence on theoretical arguments like object fiat or international actors goes a long way in front of me - I'm definitely more likely to allow in an EU CP if the negative has evidence indicating that there's literature about US vs. EU implementation and that education about those sort of things are good. In that case it's going to take a whole lot from the affirmative to make me think these types of CP's are bad unless the fairness level of the debate is just devastatingly good.

"What you do" vs. "what you justify" is a debate to be had, I don't lean towards one side of the spectrum on that issue (this also applies to T). I also go both ways on things like "CP gets rolled back" - on this type of argument, both teams need a good thesis towards what it means to have "durable fiat" and why or why not both teams should get durable fiat and whether that applies to things like XO or other categories of counterplans or actors.

Most theoretical arguments are reasons to reject the argument and not the team. I can be persuaded in a 2NR to abide by judge conditionality, under which I can kick the CP for you and still evaluate the SQUO versus the aff, but, of course, you need to sufficiently win that argument. If such an argument is not made and you go for the CP in your 2NR, my default evaluation will be plan versus counterplan, not plan versus CP or SQUO. As such, if there is NOT a judge conditionality argument, if an affirmative wins a theoretical reason to reject a certain CP and it is what the 2NR is going for, I do view that as a reason to reject the team. Basically, if you're negative and think that the 2AR might still try to theoretically reject the CP you're going for, it would be a good idea to advance some sort of judge conditionality argument - aff teams, of course, should answer these types of arguments.

Along the lines of O/D paradigm, I find that many 2NR's make the strategic mishap of completely forgetting about the case pages when going for a CP. Unless the aff cold concedes that your CP solves 100% of the aff, the affirmative probably has some solvency deficits they're extending on your CP. If you don't extend any of the case debate, while it may be that the CP solves a good portion of the aff, you've also just conceded that the aff definitely solves all of its advantages... having a judge weigh a CP that might not solve all of the case versus a plan that DOES solve all of the case is not the best position for a negative team to be in.

Affs can beat back CP's with things like politics NB's with smart analytic arguments about why a perm would shield the link (IE, perming the plan and an XO CP makes it look like the Prez proposed the plan and Congress signed off so the prez doesn't spend capital). Add-ons are sorely underutilized at the HS level and perhaps the strongest tool in the box for the aff against CP's. I'm not at all persuaded by affirmative theoretical objections like "Politics NB are arbitrary and bad". Intrinsic perms are probably bad as well. Affirmatives that beat the CP in front of me will have good offensive reasons to prefer the plan over the CP.


 * K:** My paradigm might seem to be more traditional, but I've found myself very comfortable voting on the K in many debates. I tend to enjoy very specific links combined with aggressive impact calculus in the rebuttals - why does VTL o/w an extinction impact? Why are your descriptions of the world true? Should the affirmative get to weigh their impacts against the impacts of the K? Winning these arguments are what it takes to win my ballot. I find that K debates tend to get to be the sloppiest on the flow, so keeping things in line and explaining what argument you're answering helps me a lot here. Negative teams tend to over-respond to theoretical framework arguments and under-respond to the permutation or alt fails arguments - while theoretical framework has it's place (indeed, you need to win how I'm supposed to frame the K in the round), I find that many negative team's failure to respond to the logic of a permutation or arguments about the capacity of the alt to solve the criticism is what ultimately brings me to a decision in the opposite direction of what you're looking for.

The K by itself in your 2NR or even your block probably isn't strategic, unless the thesis of the criticism has a lot of explanatory potential in terms of the 1AC's claims. Most teams that win the K in front of my are also winning a solid amount of case arguments to hedge back how I evaluate the aff in relation to the K.

As stated above, I'm open to the argument of judge conditionality. That being said, if the K is what you're going for in the 2NR there's probably not a ton of benefit to me kicking it for you. I don't advise kicking the alt or asking me to kick the alt - absent an alternative I tend to think of K's as non-UQ DA's to the SQUO. If there's an argument as to why I shouldn't evaluate it that way feel free to throw it at me, but just understand that if you're kicking the alt and still going for the K you might be a little bit behind the curve from the start in front of me.

On the affirmative side of things, I find that most teams mishandle the K. There seems to be a general assumption in the CX of the 1NC by many teams that the K's description of the world is true - instead of focusing on whether the alt can solve the squo, your CX can and should attack the specific truth claims of the K in the 1NC - your 1AC is a description of the way the world is, you should be able to contest whether the Fem IR or Security K's description of how relations operate is true. Absent a massive strategic mishap in the 1NC, most affs are not going to no link out of the K, it would behoove you to focus more on a link turn, perm, impact, or alt debate... just because their card doesn't hyper-specify your 1AC's plan doesn't mean it's not describing the action of the plan. That being said, the more general the link debate becomes to things like the SQUO, I become very receptive to affirmative arguments like a perm solvency double-bind or an alt fails argument.

Floating PIK's are bad, but, for strategic purposes, beneficial to the negative to read in the block - worst case scenario, 1AR reads floating PIK's bad and you kick that portion of the argument in the 2NR. Generally a reason to reject the argument, but as I stated on CP's above, absent a judge conditionality argument, a negative team that goes for the floating PIK and also loses floating PIKs bad will likely lose my ballot. Vague alts is another theoretical argument I think the aff can leverage against the K - in anticipation of this being made, this argument isn't automatically winnable because the negative team can't break down what the alt means in relation to the densely worded thesis of the K to very basic terms, but rather that the negative appears to be explicitly vague: they're not answering your questions, won't give a straight answer as to whether it can result in the aff, etc. Vague alts, for the most part, is a good 2AC starting point that can be morphed into floating PIK's bad if one arises in the block.


 * DA:** Like I said above, I'm willing to vote solely on defensive arguments, such as no-link or a uniqueness takeout. Teams should be willing to make smart analytics against both aff and neg arguments on the DA - CX is really good at establishing positions on the DA. I think the politics DA has become a bit overdone lately and I'm becoming more and more persuaded by the aff in these types of debates... smart & true arguments like "No PC now" or even "Plan doesn't spend capital" can be round winners against these DA's. Massive disconnects between the internal links of the DA can take it out for me... this isn't to say that just because the UQ ev is talking about Congress generally and the link is discussing a smaller caucus that I will reject the DA as incoherent, but something along the lines of the UQ evidence saying democrats being united is key to a bill's passage and the link being strictly that the tea party hates the plan - I feel pretty comfortable saying that even if the link is triggered, nothing happens post-plan. I can be persuaded by an intrinsic perm on politics - I think there are some good offensive reasons why it would be better for debate if our DA's were concerned with the results of the action of the plan as opposed to abstract consequences towards political capital resulting from some contrived notion of what "fiat" entails. Fiat solves/shields the link is winnable. Bottom of the docket can be a winnable position. All of these types of theoretical arguments would need to be incredibly fleshed out in rebuttals for them to get rid of a politics DA, but they're out there and I'm not opposed to them.

I'm not incredibly versed in US-Latin American trade policy, so any specific DA's will need to be clearly explained in rebuttals.

Link controls the direction of the link. For the most part, if an aff team goes for a link turn but I come to the conclusion that the negative team is winning the uniqueness portion of the DA, I still find that link turn evidence can functionally serve as a "no link" argument instead. While I am comfortable doing this during my decision, the aff can set this up for me by explaining this sort of thing in their rebuttal.

I think UQ overwhelms the link gets a bum rap and can be a winning argument in front of me, but I think this is mostly due to its typical deployment as an aff parachute in a 2AR. There's not a magical threshold for me - just because the neg read 10 UQ cards in the block doesn't mean some whimsical "UQ overwhelms the link" bucket is filled up if the UQ cards are very specific to the tentative nature of the direction of the SQUO... however, when negatives read highly specific UQ evidence that has a logical end to it that nothing is really going to change the direction of the SQUO on that issue, it can be strategic to whip this one out (best example would be a politics DA where the neg's UQ evidence indicates that, say, the party in question absolutely has to pass this legislation due to political costs and nothing else matters). Generally, this argument needs to be present in the 1AR, as I don't feel comfortable (absent some massive miscue or concession by the 2NR) pulling the trigger on it brand new in the 2AR. Must be explained well to be voted on, obviously.

Having judged a few high school debates, I find that many affs like to put all of their eggs in one basket, usually a link turn. I give higher speaks to teams that keep as many options on the table available to them on a flow up until rebuttals. With this in mind, unless the only way you can possibly win the round is to win a link turn or the terminal impact of the DA is one of your advantage's impacts, it simply makes strategic sense to include some impact D or other arguments of that nature alongside your UQ/L turn ev you plan on reading. Worst case scenario the 2NR concedes the terminal impact D and you don't have to worry about the DA anymore.

While recency of evidence is a relevant consideration on many arguments within the DA, simply stating "our evidence is newer" isn't enough reason for me to prefer your cards. You need to explain why recency is relevant to the claims that those cards make or whether some sort of event or change in between the date of the opposing team's evidence and yours changes the way I should evaluate this evidence. Same thing with qualifications. Yes, I generally think much more highly of evidence from doctoral candidates as opposed to undergraduate bloggers, but why does it really matter if I'm evaluating a slew of 5-word UQ cards on the DA? I want reasons to prefer your evidence, but you also need to explain to me why those reasons are at all relevant.


 * K Affs / Framework / T:** All winnable. I think there is generally value to a changing topic, and if a K aff is in the //direction of the topic// I become more sympathetic to the aff on the question of framework - conversely, a soft framework that asks that the aff be in the direction of the topic against teams that are either a) rejections of the topic or b) the opposite direction of the topic is a persuasive argument in front of me. Topical version of the plan is a killer negative argument on both framework and T. "No topical version" is probably a switch-side and/or negative argument. Framework can be beaten with impact turns, framework is easily lost if it's simply debated on the theoretical level but very winnable on the substantive level. The terminal impact to most of these debates is in the area of fairness and education, but that doesn't mean that those words by themselves are impacts. If the aff wins that say, the topic is genocide, why do I care whether or not you had a fair round? If the negative wins that your abandonment of the topic kills their ability to respond, what is the relevance of your education claims about whatever you've chosen to talk about in the round? I enjoy good interaction on this impact level of the debate with a clear explanation of these impacts.

You should probably slow down on the T debate, especially when you get to it in the 1NC - you're advancing a lot of theoretical arguments for me to flow that are typically distinct from one another alongside some of the shorter cards in debate, so I don't necessarily get the break I would when you read through the text of the card before moving to flow the next tag. Debaters usually try to go as fast as possible at the top of the 1NC or when moving to a new position, and the slew of arguments advanced on a T/Framework page when delivered at the top of the position can be muddled, especially if clarity is an issue. I prefer T/Framework, then, to hopefully be the 2nd off-case position you read so I at least have a grasp on your speaking style and speed.

In terms of T specifically, I have no real leanings either way. There's more than likely not an RVI on T - if you've got one you think will work then go for it, but I've never heard of one that was persuasive. Reasonability versus competing interpretations is what a lot of these debates are decided on in front of me, so an in-depth discussion about what the current and future applications of these types of "rules" posited goes a long way in these debates.

I like your evidence to be contextualized to the topic or the definition at hand. While, absent the opposing team calling you out, I'll vote on a definition from some small neighborhood association in East Cupcake on what "economic engagement" means, you're probably better off reading contextualized definitions towards what the USFG means when it uses those types of terms, or at least what it meant in the past.

It's not really enough to say "explodes limits" or "topical version of the plan". I need specific examples of affs that could get read under your opponent's definition (and presumably a reason why those would be bad) or a plan text that would have been possible for the affirmative to read that would solve the aff's claims on T/Framework. While T is very much an analytic position, in-depth and specific discussion is what will win or lose these debates for you.