McVey,+Alex

Alex McVey - Assistant Coach, The Blake School. 3rd year PhD Student, UNC, Comm Studies. Debated for Baylor for 5 years, have been coaching/judging at HS level for apx 10 years and college level for apx 5 years.

1. Nobody flows anymore, everyone is way too reliant on speech docs. Nobody follows the order of the flow... they just expect me to flow straight down. I try to flow things where they were in the debate. If you're just reading off your speech doc and not signposting you're probably going to annoy me and cause me to tank your speaks. If you want me to just flow it all straight down, please say so and I'll try my best to follow your lead. 2. You're probably going too fast. **I flow on paper. I need pen time**. You're probably not as clear as you think you are. I'll shout clear... but if I have to do it more than once your speaks will get tanked. I've been watching a lot of debates lately, ESPECIALLY K DEBATES, where debaters who are going too fast are barely making any arguments, they then proceed to slow down and start making lots of well warranted arguments. Make sure your mouth and brain are moving at the same pace. 3. Total CX free for all. This makes me sound way more old-school curmudgeony than I feel, and in theory I don't mind a good open CX, but it seems like nowadays nobody is letting the person who just gave the speech answer CX questions. Usually this becomes an opportunity for males to speak over their female partners, older partners to speak over their younger partners, more experienced partners to speak over less experienced partners, and so on... It's gross and I don't like it. I don't mind the other partner stepping in to clarify something, or answer the occasional question, or ask something that they need asked, but it should generally be the exception rather than the rule.
 * 3 Things that have been annoying me lately that will cause me to tank your speaks:**

I am in grad school studying communication studies, rhetoric, and critical/cultural studies. I have always leaned toward the K side of things, and almost exclusively cut K cards, but have also recently coached very policy oriented teams.

Run what you're good at. Despite my K leaning tendencies, I’m comfortable watching a good straight up debate. I’ve seen a number of debates where the block focused on a kritik that the aff thoroughly covered and left behind what seemed to be a good undercovered disad/cp strat in order to adapt to me as a judge. That would be called overadaptation. Avoid it. I think the policy style debates I have the most trouble in are counterplan debates where the counterplan and its net benefit are poorly explained by both teams. Judge moments of "Look, the CP does this, competes for this reason, and is the best option because..." will help you out a lot with me. If you don’t make clear in your tags or in your 2nc/1nr overview what your competition and solvency story is, you risk me misunderstanding a subtle difference you’re trying to articulate between the plan and the cp.

Theoretical issues: If you can justify it you can do it. Blippy, scatter-shot theory means little, well-developed, well-impacted theory means a lot. If you let people get away with theoretical atrocity, so will I. If you constrain those efforts with well-impacted theory arguments, I’m down to go that route too. Also, nine times out of ten, I flow on paper. Pen time between arguments helps if you’re planning on making theory a winnable issue.

The clash of civilizations: It’s your job to put me in a position, as a judge, a policymaker, an academic, a citizen, a critical thinker, a rhetorical critic, an ally or participant in a movement, just your everyday Mcmc, whatever. I’m down to listen to all sides of the divide.

I have no hard and set rules about whether affs do or don't have to have plans, and am open to hearing all types of affs and all types of framework arguments for/against these affs. Against planless/non-topical affs, I tend to think topicality arguments are generally more persuasive than framework arguments. Or rather, I think a framework argument without a topicality argument probably doesn't have a link. I'm not sure what the link is to most "policy/political action good" type framework arguments if you don't win a T argument that says the focus of the resolution has to be USFG policy. I think all of these debates are just a question of impact comparison. For example, If one team is winning predictability is key to fairness with no defense to their kritiks of framework, and the other team is winning their kritiks of framework but no defense to fairness and predictability, the team that best gives me some impact calculus or to prioritize impact claims will probably win the round. I tend to intuitively disagree with the argument that "no plan = no perm" or that for some reason "method debates" change the nature of competition. I think competititon is almost always a question of the link. For example, reading a policy advocacy against a planless aff doesn't compete unless you win a link that says they preclude policy. I'll certainly vote on this argument if it's not answered, but I just don't buy it.

I tend to be expressive when I judge debates. My nods mean I’m getting it, you’re making intelligible arguments. Nods do not necessarily mean that this strategy is per se winning or you need to go for that flow. Frustrated face could mean I don’t get it, I’m trying really hard because I want to get it, you say something that reminds me of something unrelated, I think there’s a better way to say what you’re trying to say, or a host of other concerns. If you're onto something, but not quite impacting your argument, you'll probably see me give you the "so what?" or "go on..." face. Put some stock in my expressions, but not too much. I tend to err on truth over tech, with a few exceptions. Dropping round-winners/game-changers like the permutation, entire theoretical issues, severence perms good, the floating PIC, T version of the aff/do it on the neg, etc... will be much harder to overcome with embedded clash. That being said, if you DO find yourself having dropped one of these, I'm open to explanations for why you should get new arguments, why something else that was said was actually responsive, etc... It just makes your burden for work on these issues much much more difficult.

I read a lot of evidence, although I found myself doing that less and less as I've grown into my comfort as a judge. Debate rewards good research. I always treated debate as a source for developing my skills as a scholarly researcher. If you've got quality research, be sure to talk about that, and prioritize the cards you want me to read. If you think the other team doesn't explain their evidence well enough to deserve me paying attention to it after the round, make an appeal along those lines. You tell me how I should go about the process of reading evidence after the round, and I'll try to comply as best as I see fit.

Be wary of conflating impacts. I see too many debaters (especially Kritik debaters, but I’ve seen folks on the policy side do this as well) who treat the rebuttals as a race of internal links to the one big impact in the round rather than a competition between two distinct impacts with differential impact calculus. Capitalism is not the same thing as Whiteness is not the same thing as Social Justice is not the same thing as Biopolitics is not the same thing as Fascism is not the same thing as Regional Instability is not the same thing as Nuclear War. Why is your impact distinct? Why does it outweigh? So many of my decisions rely on who did the best 2nr/2ar impact calculus on their specific impacts against the other team's specific impacts.

Be kind to one another. We're all in this together.