McKinney,+Claire

Name: Claire McKinney School: The Kinkaid School Event: CX (short LD paradigm at the bottom) Background-- 4 years debating at UT Austin, 11th year assistant coach at Kinkaid, 2 years Program Director for Brooklyn Debate Resource Center (NYUDL), 3 years assistant coach, Thomas Kelly High School, 9 years teaching at the University of Texas National Institute of Forensics (UTNIF)

Philosophy: A caveat- I think I'm kind of bad at writing these things because what becomes important in a debate matters so much on what happens in the debate in question. I'll try to be helpful though. Philosophies require a degree of introspection and consistency that I'm not sure I quite possess.

First, do not make fun of your opponents and don't steal prep. Beyond those things, I love debate and I want everyone to enjoy their experience.

Preparation time ends when you have pushed "save." This is aspirational, because sometimes I forget.

Also, if you would like me to disclose points and my reasons for giving them, just remind me and I will. My points are solely a reflection of my evaluation of the performance I just watched. Also, if you or your coach would appreciate a written RFD, let me know, and I will prepare and email one.

I think defense alone can win a debate; that is, it is possible to win no risk of a disadvantage or no risk of solvency. I vote on presumption and my belief is that if the 2NR contains a counterplan or a kritik alternative (even if they were conditional), presumption shifts affirmative unless the debaters contest this point with a warranted argument.


 * Evidence Evaluation**: I will not read every card you reference in the 2NR and 2AR as a general rule. I only read evidence if a) there is no other way to resolve the debate, b) substantive parts of the debate rested on good evidence comparison, c) I am curious what the evidence actually says and/or d) I think reading the evidence is necessary for making my oral critique better. I am averse to the style of debate where the 2NR and 2AR substitute evidence citations for warrants, but when both teams do this, I default to my subjective interpretation of the quality of evidence. I prefer instead 2NRs and 2ARs that go for less but do more explanation and comparison of warrants. I reward those debates with higher speaker points, but I won't refuse to evaluate the debate just because it is in a style I dislike.

Below are my predispositions. I can be persuaded in the debate to think otherwise. I write the below in order to let you know when I will need to be persuaded.

 * Theory beliefs**: Except for a couple of exceptions, I evaluate theory debates based on a disad-esque paradigm. That is, what is the link, internal, and impact? Is the impact unique? Do the turns outweigh the impact to the theory objection? I also need meta-issues to be debated, such as offense-defense versus reasonability, whether I am evaluating abuse claims or questions concerning what debate ought to look like. When these don't happen, I think I tend to be on the reasonability side of things and I am evaluating what debate ought to look like.

The exception to this is permutation theory, which I will be hard pressed to ever consider anything but a reason to reject the argument, even if the theory is dropped. I realize this is judge intervention because my standard for this debate is so much higher than for other theory debates, but given how perm theory proliferates in a debate and how poorly debated it usually is, I think this is more a rational response to a debate that rarely rises to the level of argumentation.


 * Impact comparison**: Impact comparison in the last two rebuttals is indispensable, but it must also start before then for me to consider things like "magnitude outweighs probability" or refutations to the other team's impact calculus that began in speeches before the final rebuttals. Comparative risk analysis has to take into consideration how much counterplan solvency can be expected or how much solvency of the aff has been mitigated. Not taking this into account usually leads to me inflating the value of defense more than you probably want.

I am open to however you want to make use of the time you have to speak in debate. If you want me to evaluate a debate in a way that integrates a direct evaluation of performativity, methodology, ethics, or knowledge production (or anything else), you must communicate that to me. You also have to demonstrate why you win in either a new framework or a more traditional framework.

My theoretical biases in terms of counterplans are most pronounced against process counterplans, including consultation counterplans.

I like discussions of the **case**, though I'm often stymied in my decisionmaking by the lack of clash or meta-level questions, such as uniqueness or inevitability, for many case arguments.


 * Counterplan perms**: If the aff wins the permutation, I default to thinking that this has proved that the counterplan was not competitive and thus goes away. While contemporary debate considers this "judge kicking," absent another explanation of what happens when the aff wins the perm, allowing "perm shields the link" to mean that the disadvantage goes away as well strikes me as allowing the aff to advocate the perm. I'm not really wedded to this interpretation because I feel like there is a logical inconsistency in how we think about perms/tests of competition/shifts in advocacy. If the aff, in going for the perm, argues that the counterplan doesn't go away, and that winning the perm means that the existence of both options shields the link to the net benefit, without a counter-argument from the neg, I'll vote aff. When no discussion happens, though, the neg gets to lose counterplan competition and still win on a disad that was a net benefit.


 * Politics DA**: I think I have an idiosyncratic interpretation of what it takes to win the politics disad as the negative. I think arguments that deal with either the larger political climate or the meta-theoretical notion of how politics functions are more important than compartmentalized claims of the direction of uniqueness, link, etc. This means that if the affirmative wins these meta issues with no contextualization of how I ought to evaluate things like the direction of uniqueness by the negative, I will find that the politics DA is incoherent. As the negative, you may win some arguments that X will pass, but if your claim is that in order for these things to pass, XY or Z must happen, and the aff proves those impossible, I'm not going to vote for the politics DA. This may be the result of my training as a political science or my desire for logical coherence in arguments. Regardless, understanding my bias in terms of these arguments will help you do what is necessary to win politics on the neg. How to win Politics as the neg: understand the meta-theoretical basis of your argument/wider political climate; explain that to me so that I understand your vision of the political process, and answer any counter-theoretical understandings of political functioning. OR explain to me why these things are irrelevant to issue specific uniqueness or the other first order claims you make.


 * Kritiks**: I think kritiks are a valuable part of debate, and so I think it is a legitimate expectation for teams to respond to the kritik offered. I do not exclude kritikal affs (I don't presume a team has to fiat the plan). But I do think kritikal affs ought to have some relation to the topic and am hard pressed to understand why the aff gets to reject the resolution in most debates.

I do not value framework (vs. neg Ks) debates very highly. Their value, in my eyes, is to get the entire K excluded (which is functionally like going for "no neg fiat" in my mind), get certain links or alternatives excluded (which seems less fruitful than just debating the merits of the alternative or link), being allowed to weigh your impacts (which is a misnomer in most good kritik debates) or protecting yourself against an increasingly abusive shift in the evaluative criteria of the debate (the most strategic use in my mind). Usually, people invest either too much time for their limited goals, or too little time for their grandiose goals.That being said, you usually do need to engage in a framework debate; otherwise, you leave yourself open to a debate that shifts in rules decidedly against the one who is answering the kritik.

I am relatively well-versed in many critical literatures. I say this not to encourage you to go for a kritik, but to signal to teams less familiar with the kritik that some of what you may consider incomprehensible jargon makes sense to me. For the team going for the kritik, do not make jargon your crutch because usually you aren't saying anything or are talking in circles. You still need to be making arguments.

I really dislike the kritik being debated like a disadvantage, or the kritik turning into a vehicle for a variety of tricks that avoid debate (eg, Kappeler-style no fiat claims, multi-verse/reincarnation debates make impacts irrelevant, Floating PICs with no rationale, etc). If you are running a kritik and want good speaker points, win the substance of your link and impact claims, contextualize the politics or ethics of your alternative, and win why they prove the aff is counter-productive.


 * Framework versus non-plan/non-USFG implementation affs**: These debates discourage clash more than any other debates I see. If your impacts to why excluding a particular type of affirmative advocacy are not contextualized vis a vis the aff's claims for inclusion, you will lose these debates. Affs, the less responsive you are to the negative's claims or the more nebulous your cross-ex responses, the more likely I am to vote neg on framework.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Beyond that, I believe a judge is meant to facilitate the debate you want to have, so all this is open to criticism and revision based on what actually happens in your debate. Have fun and I'm glad you're participating in this activity!

Below 26.5 - you have done something offensive in the round 26.5-26.9- The debater either made it structurally impossible for the team to win the debate or had such limited participation that it is difficult to evaluate their contribution. 27-27.4- The debater demonstrated some capacity of argumentation but fails to demonstrate an ability to win the debate through their own strategic initiative 27.5-27.8- Demonstrates some capacity of strategy but little understanding of execution 27.9-28.1- Average 28.2-28.5- Demonstrate strategic vision and execution 28.6-28.9- Excellent execution and displays of intelligent strategic vision. 29-29.4- Excellent execution and displays strategic vision well beyond prepared strategies 29.5-29.7 (I don't think I've ever given above a 29.7)- Near flawless execution, displays of intelligence and excellent strategic vision.
 * Point Scale**:


 * Lincoln-Douglas Paradigm**:

All the above still applies in LD. As is common, because of my policy training, I think I have a higher threshold both for what constitutes an argument and for evaluating theory. I think the shift of Lincoln-Douglas to adopting many of the conventions of policy debate is unfortunate; I genuinely enjoy seeing LD debates that offer me something other than utilitarianism. That being said, when a debate is in the vein of utilitarianism, I will use policy-debate conventions of risk analysis to evaluate your impacts.