Sadowski,+Peter

I debated at OPRF for 4 years in high-school and am currently a senior at UMKC, where I have debated for 4 years.

Content-wise, I am indifferent: do what you do best. I am reasonably familiar with disad-counterplan strategies and most varieties of critical argumentation. I can also be persuaded on case turns.

However, I do have some basic standards for what constitutes a complete and persuasive argument.

First, an argument must include a claim, a warrant, and an impact. If one of these things is missing, or gets developed very late in the debate, it will be very difficult to persuade me to vote for that particular argument.

Second, argumentation includes ethos (credibility), pathos (emotional appeal), and logos (logic/structure). If debaters tell me that I ought to prefer pathos over logos or visa versa (or any other ‘role of the judge’), I will evaluate the debate in the manner that has been laid out for me. Ethos is a different matter and will be reflected in your speaker points, but can also affect how I evaluate arguments.

Third, evidence and qualifications are important: simply explaining your argument and why it is right is not sufficient, rather you must contest the quality and content of evidence or argument your opponents are making.

Finally, all arguments must pass the make sense test or I will not vote for them. ---

Theory: Excepting conditionality, I default to reject the argument, not the team. I need pen time on theory debates so do not blaze through them, but I prefer a few well-reasoned arguments for a theoretical objection/defense than a wall of one-sentence throwaways. I am decidedly neg-leaning on conditionality except in particularly egregious cases.

Topicality: I am not very familiar with the topic so explain terminology to me. I generally default to competing interpretations unless the aff provides a robust defense of reasonability or if the T interpretation seems particularly arbitrary. I am not the right judge if you want to go for specification arguments, as I think there are only a few necessary aff answers to resolve most of them.

Counterplans: If the CP text is complicated, please slow down so that I know what is going on. The more artificially competitive the counterplan, the less I will like it.

Disads: Don’t just mechanically explain each component of the DA, tell me a story. Explain how the different factors interact and use your story to insulate yourself from the affirmative’s best offense. Impact calculus is key to both prove that the DA outweighs the case and turns each advantage the aff goes for.

Critiques: I am familiar with all kinds of critical literature, but this does not mean you can skimp on explanation.

Framework is likely not a reason to reject the K and it is only a reason to evaluate the affirmative insofar as the content of the framework argument offers a defense of the epistemological, ontological, or other components that the negative is criticizing. On the flip-side, an explicitly ‘no-fiat’ interpretation on the negative-side seems a bit excessive: just explain substantive reasons why ‘x’ issue should come first in my evaluation and why that means the aff does not get the weigh their case.

Affirmatives most frequently win against the K because they have a short term reasonably probable and high magnitude impact that the action of the plan is more likely to solve than the alternative. Negative teams most frequently win because they present an alternative framework and role of the ballot such that the impacts to the aff should not be evaluated, or by proving that the affirmative’s assumptions make their advantages worse.

Critical Affs: I tend to think these should be tied to the topic or have a compelling defense of their particular criticism of the debate community in the context of framework.