McHugh,+Tim

Ask me specific questions in round.

Don't ask questions that don't matter to what you'll do in round. Ex/ don't ask me how I feel speed and then speak slowly.

Don't ask me about my paradigm then go against it. (I nuke speaks for students who do this. I similarly nuke speaks for students who don't clarify a potentially contentious strat with me that I disapprove of, meaning, if you don't ask, I hold you to the same standards. should've read my paradigm...)

Don't ask "What is your paradigm / preferences?" Be specific in your questioning.

Don't ask "What are your experiences in debate?" (that's just a rude question...)

Don't be rude.

I ask that you clarify with me before the round because my thoughts on a variety of positions tend to change, sometimes even over the course of a tournament, and I simply don't have the time to continuously update this that often. For example, I used to consider myself pretty "tab" when it came to the substance debate, but then a debater, after asking me if I was ok with "off-the-wall" positions (to which I replied sure, they generally entertain me), ran a rape good case and, likely because of my response to the 1st debater's question, the opponent decided the smarter strat was to link turn the case and also impact to rape. Since then, I've been significantly less forgiving (zero tolerance) of morally atrocious positions. Similarly, I have a bit of a reputation of hating theory arguments (and T, although to a lesser extent). My students will often just tell people not to run them. That being said, it's not that I hate theory (although I do have a significantly higher threshold compared to many other judges), it's that it's my personal opinion that, in general, the abuse generated by the theory arg is higher than the abuse that it criticizes (seriously? you can't come up with a neg util impact? you shouldn't need to say util is unfair to win the round, because it's not unfair...). If you are capable of winning under your opponent's framework, or they have a poorly justified framework (more often the case than most would admit) and you can just beat it back, I'd rather you did that. That being said, my thoughts on what I consider to be abusive have evolved with debaters' strategies evolving, but my thoughts on whether or not a pair of obviously partial high school students ought to be the ones to determine what is "fair" have pretty much stayed the same. So, in the end, after reading all of this, I suggest you go back up to what was originally posted and follow those instructions.

[censored and expanded at the request of the Stanford Invitational 2013]