Pasi,+Lexi

I competed in LD for two years, and qualified to nationals twice. If I was to sum up my philosophy as simply as possible, it would be this: give me a reasonable framework, then show me why your arguments carry weight under that framework. It’s up to you to tell me how I should evaluate the round. If you’re not applying your framework correctly, I’m probably going to be left with a bunch of superficial and disjoint arguments to wade through at the end of the round. Please don’t do that to me.

I’ll consider any argument, so long as it’s well supported. Feel free to use whatever theory, Ks, strategies, etc, that you want. That being said, don’t use them just to use them. I do enjoy a good **K** debate, but I probably won’t be very happy if you make me sit through a bad K. If you have to run that stock K you’ve been running every tournament for the past few years, that’s fine, but please make it a good one. And more than anything, understand your own arguments. I really shouldn’t have to say this, but unfortunately, I do.
 * Judging philosophy summary:**

Know when to use **theory**. The way I see it, theory should be used to maintain the integrity of the debate, not destroy it. If your “theory” is mostly just exploiting meaningless semantic loopholes, it’s probably best not to waste time running it. But it you’re using it to try to preserve competitive fairness in the round, but all means go for it. Just don’t rest your whole case on it.

Feel free to run **counterplans** and **dis-ads**. In my experience, these can be super effective. Just make sure you also tell me how it fits into the round in general. What kind of weight does it carry in context?


 * Speed** is fine. I’ll shout clear until it becomes obvious that you’re not listening to me.

In judging, I try to be as tabula rasa as I possibly can. But it would be disingenuous to say that I don’t prefer some styles of argumentation over others. I’ll consider everything you throw at me. That being said, I love a logically constructed, sufficiently generalized, a priori argument. Anecdotes, empirical support, etc, are all fine, but they have their limits. I’m fine with the crazy postmodern stuff, but you will have to be able to make a strong case for it. If you’re able to combine the armchair logic with empirical evidence or whatever have you, you should be in pretty good shape.