Yu,+Cyndia

A bit about me: I debated four years on and off in high school (Corona del Sol, AZ). I wasn't amazing, but I wasn't god awful (or so I like to think). I don't debate in college (as of 2014-2015 I am a junior). That being said, I spent the majority of my senior year and the latter part of my junior year doing a lot of scouting and general work for Corona del Sol PG (Nitin and Sumeet), so I have seen a lot of very good rounds and I know what good debate looks like. I also mentor and judge for the Boston Urban Debate League, so I am staying involved with the lingo/crowd, but I can't promise familiarity with your acronyms.

I was taught to debate by Canyon Brimhall, so I highly recommend checking out his wiki because I generally agree with him on things.

A few notes: 1. I'm slightly OCD when it comes to neatness of my flow. I'll do my best to make a fair decision even if you screw up my flow, but be warned that your speaks will be docked accordingly. I'm fine with speed, but it'd be great if you could differentiate tags/cards and be super clear when you're switching flows.

2. I didn't debate paperless, but I assume the etiquette is pretty standard by now. Prep ends when the flash drive leaves the computer, and when people are pulling the speeches up on their computers I expect all hands up and no prep to occur. Don't steal prep. Don't be obnoxious about technical issues. Seriously though, it should take like 2 seconds to save a speech onto a flashdrive.

I also think it has increasingly been evident that people flow off of speech docs rather than by listening. This is probably my second greatest pet peeve in debate (see below for the first) because I expend a lot of mental energy on keeping my flows organized and you are being lazy. You should flow. Really.

3. I'm fine with almost any argument. Specifically, A. Topicality: Unless proven otherwise, the affirmative should defend a topical 1AC and provide a counterinterpretation. Potential abuse isn't really a voter unless you can persuade me otherwise. If you want to win T in front of me, you'll need to do a lot of comparative and warranted analysis, not read your blocks at lightning speed. Like anything else, the winner of the T flow is the winner of impact calculus. I tend to think fairness outweighs education, but you can convince me of the contrary. T is not an RVI.

B. Disads: Awesome. Politics is fine with me. With politics debates I'd like to see evidence or at least some compelling analysis for the uniqueness of the plan/plans like these. I'm highly skeptical of links that are literally, "Doing ANYTHING besides X is catastrophic." Likewise with things like spending. A smart analytic outweighs a crappy card if I get warranted analysis as to why the card sucks. I am a fan of disad turns case arguments, and I don't see them nearly as often as I'd like. I usually think link controls direction of uniqueness, but I'm easily persuaded otherwise. It is possible to win a disad on terminal defense, but you can't just say "terminal defense".

C. Counterplans: I'd like to see a solvency advocate, but I think that's a bit idealistic. I'm dubious of arguments that are artificially competitive, and I'm highly sympathetic to affs that kick their plans and go for perms in those instances. I think some PICs are valid; I'll vote on a case by case basis depending on how successfully the theory is debated. I can be persuaded that anything is legit, but if you don't give me the warrants then you're leaving yourself vulnerable to my own personal whims and fancies. I have been told that I have some unconventional predispositions in this regard, so I really do recommend covering your bases.

D. Kritiks: I'm vaguely familiar with kritikal literature, but you'll have to make things explicit for me. This is probably a good exercise for you, too, because if you can't explain it to me then you probably don't understand it very well yourself and shouldn't be running it. I don't usually deal with philosophical literature these days (No, really. I'm in physics, I don't usually even deal with words), and if you can't give me a short synopsis of your K without relying on canned phrases or words that end in "ism" and "ology" then you most likely have no idea what you're talking about. I was privileged enough to watch a huge number of rounds with Sumeet on the K, so I do have a high threshold for what good K debate looks like. Explain what your alternative does or why you don't need one. Don't just drop buzzwords, because few things annoy me more in debate than kids just saying big words and extending cards that they don't understand. Prove to me that you know what you're running and I'll like you. By the end of the round I want to see a clearly articulated story with lots of case specificity on the link, the impact (especially compared to the case impacts), and the alternative solvency/failures of the perm. Framework debates should have clash, not extensions of prewritten blocks. Why is your interpretation good? What does debate look like under your interpretation and why is that better than what the other team has suggested? For affirmatives, I think I usually have granted the K at least the risk of a link, so you need a huge amount on the perm/alt debate if the 2NR goes for it.

E. Performance/Project: I've seen quite a few performance teams and judged a few of them now. Performance teams need to be very explicit on what their advocacy/plan is or why they don't need one, the impacts that has on the debate space, and how they access that solvency. Not only am I looking for why your vision of debate is good, but how exactly do you go about producing that change? What is my role as a judge, and why is voting for you specifically key (this goes especially for the teams seeking to spread awareness, because what precludes me from becoming aware and voting for the other team?)?

F. Framework: I've realized that I now need to include a separate section on this given the progress of the debate community, and I have yet to decide whether I think this shift is a good or bad thing. It's certainly interesting, but I think badly done kritikal aff/performance rounds are even more painful to watch than badly done policy rounds, and I'm getting tired of high-speed poorly-explained little-clash framework debates. Affirmatives: By engaging in debate, you agree to debate, not spike out of every link, and I will not be afraid to vote you down on abuse if you don't grant the other team any traction. I encourage you to think very carefully about why you care about this issue, why you think it merits specifically in-round attention, and what you hope everyone in the round will get in the end. If you don't defend a topical plan, why are you necessarily fair? I tend to think fairness--whether real or perceived or transient or illusory or flawed--is probably important, but that might not necessarily be the most important thing in the round, nor do I think "fairness" (or for that matter, "ground", "education", "predictability", "topicality", etc.) means very much without context.

I don't usually think affs should be included/excluded on-face, and I am not very persuaded by interpretations that are very clearly serving only the round being debated. Why is your interpretation of what debate as an entire activity should look like necessarily good? I am more inclined to vote neg if they can successfully prove topical version of the affirmative, but I also do think that there are impacts to framing/language that can justify not defending a plan and that there can be a functional difference between plan text and personal advocacy--why does that distinction matter, and why does it mean your advocacy should be included in the debate space? Performance affs should have 1AC's that preempt framework, because you're obviously going to hit it in nearly every round. It won't lose you the round, but it will hurt your ethos if your 2AC framework block is bad, because that reflects generally poor aff preparation. 2NR/2AR need to have // and usually lack // clearly explained terminal impacts and impact comparison. I happen to think Atchinson and Panetta's backlash cards are fantastic, and I'd love to hear you convince me otherwise.

G. Other: Go slower on theory if you want me to actually flow. Placing things in the context of this specific argument/round is a good idea. 2AR/2NR should make the round very abundantly clear for me. Write my ballot for me! Tell me exactly what I should be voting on and present me a clear, coherent story of the round. Specs should usually be just to justify certain arguments and they're annoying to flow. Case debate is so underutilized and such an easy way for a negative team to win--if you win on case you'll make me very happy (this goes for both teams). I tend to think two conditional advocacies are probably permissible, less so if they're contradictory. I will look at a card if you ask me to, but it will reflect poorly on you if it doesn't say what you claim it does--I flow warrants when I can, so just because I don't call for a card doesn't mean I think it's irrelevant.

This is a side note and not that important, but as I've mentioned, I'm a science major and I hold empirical evidence based on scientific models in high esteem. This rarely if ever is a problem, but if it comes down to a "is or isn't warming a real thing?!" I defer to the scientific consensus, which tends to believe that warming is real and probably human exacerbated. I don't hold any biases regarding whether or not humans can solve the warming, where the brink is, or the long-term impact of warming.

4. Tag team is fine, but you shouldn't let your partner dominate (ie both partners should know what they're talking about). Cross-ex is binding. This is a great place to demonstrate that you know what you're talking about/prove that your opponent doesn't. Be strategic. Don't be rude.

5. I generally give 8 minutes prep prior to the start of a round for the aff to disclose. Unless you're breaking an aff, I do think it's rude not to disclose. Please help keep things running on time. No one likes to stay until ungodly hours because teams won't hurry up and start rounds on time. Likewise, I'll do my best to make my decision quickly, disclose, and give a bit of feedback.

6. Have fun! I think debate is a lot of fun and I enjoy it--that's why I continue to judge. Don't make it unfun for yourself, your opponents, or anyone else. This includes but isn't limited to: bullying, excessive intimidation, being rude, ad hominem attacks, arguing decisions, stealing prep, card clipping, etc.

7. **Bottom line: The team that gets my ballot is the team that wins the impact comparison. I feel like this is kind of obvious, but sometimes teams get so caught up in technicalities they miss the bigger picture. Tell me why your impact outweighs, don't just say so. Do comparative analysis versus your opponent's impact. I'll adopt any framework you tell me to, otherwise I'll default my personal opinions. Generally, if you don't spell things out for me, don't whine when you're not happy with my personal intervention.**


 * I think debate in general has been moving towards more obfuscatory buzzwords being thrown at each other with little explanation or impact. If you cannot explain what you are doing and why I should care in words a six year old can understand, please stop running the argument.** This isn't to say that you need to use Simple Wikipedia English in round, but it is extremely extremely obvious when people do/don't know what they're talking about.

8. Speaker points: More speaks for clarity, efficiency, good analysis in the right places, impact calc, good cross-ex, and injecting your own personality into your speeches. Less for rudeness, inefficient use of prep/speech time, poor time allocation, ad homs, and messiness of flows. Please don't be offensive; I'm not afraid to stop the round if necessary. If you're funny, by all means go ahead and dazzle me with your wit and charm, but please don't force it. I'm easily amused though, so go ahead and try your corny puns.

9. Remember to clean up after the round!