Sawyer,+Nathaniel

Glenbrook North High School – 2013 Emory University – 2017

While I have tons of thoughts on many issues that all shape the way I view debates, I don't dare pretend like my personal opinions are of any more or less value than anybody else’s so all I've done is write up some sentences of thoughts for a few subsections of debate. Feel free to skip around to what you're interested in and if you have any additional questions about my personal thoughts than is written on this page, feel free to ask me before the round or email me at sawyer.nathaniel@gmail.com


 * __Overarching philosophy__** – debate is a game – it has incredible educational value but is a game nonetheless. Whatever it is you do within the bounds of that game is totally up to you and I’ll be as objective as possible in evaluating whatever it may be. I don’t think my job is to tell you what // I // prefer to hear or what // I // think about a particular argument because who am I to say what constitutes a “bad” or a “good” argument. Instead, my job is to give you my utmost attention for the debate round and, as objectively as possible, evaluate whatever argument you’ve presented.

Put more simply: whatever specifics follow in this judge philosophy, __don’t conform to me.__ Just "do you."

Importantly, however, the way you __speak__ your arguments, the way you __present yourself,__ the way you __interact with your partner and your opponents,__ etc., all affect your debating in the round. I’m not at all hesitant to punish you if you debate like you don’t want to be there or are demeaning towards your partner and/or opponents. But I’m also not at all hesitant to reward you a great deal for carrying yourself with class, sincerity, and enjoying the debate. Demonstration of skill in things that go beyond the “line by line” like overall strategy, speaking style, how you conduct yourself, and your interactions with your partner and your opponents, all factor into how I see the debate. I'm not a robot, and I don't believe I should be given that debate is a game of persuasion.

I won’t just call for the cards and reconstruct the debate for myself. I hated when judges did that because I always felt that that was one of the easiest ways for even good judges to end up intervening on one team's behalf. Good evidence matters, but if you control the spin and the //debating// of the evidence, that will matter far more for my ballot than just reading a bunch of cards to hand to me at the end of the debate.

__**Some specifics**__ – once again reiterating that these are just my //personal thoughts// and all of the following can //easily be changed// in a round if you just //debate better// (which is how you win debate rounds to begin with…)

__**Topicality**__ – it’s not a “lazy” way to debate. It’s a super important aspect of being both aff and neg and I love topicality, perhaps as a result of Alex Pappas’ influence on me when I was a younger debater. Reasonability is an aff predictability argument. Explaining it as such is valuable. Explaining it as a “come on, we’re not //that// egregiously not topical” doesn’t really constitute an argument. Impact comparison is super important. Aff teams should pay attention to what is actually in the 1NC topicality shell that neg teams read. If a neg team slips in a second violation, an extra-topicality standard, or something else, you better answer it and not just pull your generic “AT: Topicality – X” block without thinking twice.

__**Case Debate**__ – is under-utilized by neg teams. I would love to see some neg teams just analytically tear apart the incoherence that underpins most 1AC’s. A good case extension isn’t just a slew of more impact defense cards. It actually makes arguments, extends warrants, and answers 2AC arguments.

__**Disads**__ – awesome. Politics is likely silly but is an easy way for negative teams to out-debate and out-card aff teams. Thus, aff teams will go a lot farther by just picking apart the logic of the disad using analytics to point out incoherent assertions. This would be a much strategy than trying to read a slew of bad "won’t pass" cards. I’m also not at all averse to voting on politics theory arguments either and they’re not “stupid” if the negative response doesn’t expand beyond “the politics disad is key to neg ground and research skills” – impact comparison is obviously important – please please please utilize this. Impacting arguments goes beyond just impact calculus though – impacting things in terms of relative risk you need to win on other parts of the flow if "X argument" is true is super helpful

__**Advantage CP’s**__ – my favorite argument when executed well. In-depth internal link comparison and multiple layers of solving a particular portion of the aff is an awesome way to play defense to a poorly written 1AC. Making //comparative// arguments about why the CP solves the aff's internal links and impacts better is an awesome way to put pressure on the 1AR and guarantee your CP solves. Link turning advantages in conjunction with a smart Adv CP is also a great way to really contextualize the internal link comparison to an impact. If you want to actually solve the case in any way, politics should almost never be a net benefit to your advantage CP. Aff teams should actually read and pay attention to CP texts. Aff teams would benefit from trying to crystallize their impact as a bit more distinct and specific to their internal link than negative teams might make it out to be. Flushing out your own internal link and comparing it to the CP's mechanism is the best way to beat these CP's.

__**PIC's**__ – are awesome. “Normal means” PICs that don’t compete off of the mandate but off of the effect of the plan are almost certainly not competitive. That being said, if it’s in your plan, you’d best be ready to defend it.

__**Process CP’s**__ – honestly no preferences one way or another. Perhaps despite preconceived thoughts about GBN, I typically refused to read consult CP’s and condition CP’s because I didn’t think they were fair or legitimate most of the time. That being said, aff teams are particularly bad at answering these CP’s though and I don’t think it’s “cheating” for neg teams to exploit the asymmetric advantage of going for these strategies. That’s just good strategy by the neg, in my opinion. Having a solvency advocate or something close to it helps the neg a lot on theory debates. I also think that’s a strong aff counterinterp on any process CP theory debate. Best way to beat most process CP’s for the aff is a smart permutation that goes beyond the standard “perm do the CP” and “perm do both.” Neg teams are particularly bad at answering more nuanced perms.

__**Kritiks**__ – I love a good kritik debate, but it doesn’t often happen in high school. Bad kritik debates are a headache for everyone involved. The most important advice I can give if you’re going for the kritik in front of me is you need to __actually explain your arguments.__ Buzzwords and sweeping assertions substantially lowers the aff’s burden of responding to the block’s extension of a kritik when you don’t explain an argument to begin with. Aff teams should target the alternative’s ability to do anything and not feel afraid to call out the negative team on not explaining anything in conjunction to their own arguments to answer the kritik.

__**Kritik affs**__ – if you can engage the aff, that’s awesome. If you have to go for framework, that’s okay too.


 * __Theory/conditionality__** – I always drew a personal line at two conditional advocacies. I am a 2N so maybe that makes me lean a little more neg on conditionality if it’s reasonable but I think that’s because most aff teams normally don’t generate any real story of abuse. If you’re aff, two suggestions for me personally. One, come up with an actual abuse story that’s better than “they kicked the CP that we spent lots of 2AC time answering” – make sure you implicate whatever happened in the debate with how conditionality affected the rest of the debate as well to make it an actual voting issue. Two, present an alternative for me other than making it solely a reason to vote aff. In other words, tell me that if you win the condo debate, “reject the argument” in this context means they should get stuck with the CP and then impact that remedy in the context of you still winning the debate

In regards to judge-kick or defaulting to the status quo – I __won’t__ kick the CP for you unless you tell me explicitly to do so. 2NR can bring this up for the first time and it’s fine, but 2AR gets a chance to respond. If you don’t want to let the aff respond, then say it in CX or the block when you’re answering condo in which case it’s either the 2AC or 1AR’s burden to answer it and the 2AR can’t bring it up again.

All theory arguments are hard to win as voting issues I think unless debated really well – so either debate it really well or follow the same suggestion as noted above for conditionality – provide me with an “alternative remedy” to remedy the issue and then go from there.


 * __Speaker Points__** – In high school, I hated when judges refused to reward good debates with good points. As a result, I'm probably prone towards giving better points but that's subject to change for better or worse – here's how that will happen:

Sad face things you can do to lower your speaker points: arrogance, being mean to your opponents, putting down your partner or “tooling” your partner, clarity issues, presenting yourself in the debate in a manner that me feel like you don’t care or want to be there, not actually giving teams a chance to answer your CX questions before cutting them off rudely (unless actually pressed for time in which case you should say “sorry, I’m running out of time, can I ask this other question please?”)

Things that you can do to increase your speaker points: have fun, actually answer case arguments in the 2AC or actually punish 2AC’s that don’t properly answer case arguments in the block, 2AC and 1AR terrorism through strategic concessions, cross-applications, and knowing how to //choose// arguments, even if that means giving credit to your opponents when credit is due, case-specific strategies even if it’s just an advantage CP with a disad to the aff, smart and strategic CX’s that are //referenced in the debate//, calling bluffs on bad 1NC positions, “speaking” cards rather than “reading” cards (that means using rhetorical strategies of argument delivery and persuasion even when reading evidence). If you look like you’re having a ball, your speaks will reflect it. Don’t be afraid to make jokes, even if they suck. Just make sure they’re not jokes at anybody’s expense.