Thisler,+Troy

=I'm Troy Thisler. My pronouns are he/him/his! It's nice to meet you!=

I've debated for four years in Lincoln Douglas at Fort Lauderdale High School in Florida. I currently attend at Northwestern University (Go 'Cats!). I kinda sorta coach/help out FLHS.

If it means anything... I'm black...

__**Glenbrooks Specific Update**__: Outside of that one episode of How to Get Away with Murder, I know virtually nothing about jury nullification.
During my high school debate career I have, reached elimination rounds at Harvard, The Crestian Classic/Tradition three times, The Florida Blue Key three times, the Florida State Tournament twice as well as the bid round at Bronx. I qualified to NFL Nationals as a junior. I was top speaker at the Crestian Tradition, and the Florida Blue Key as well as getting the bid at the Crestian Tradition. I also competed at the Crestian Tradition Round Robin.

I also have experience as a lab leader at the University of North Texas's Mean Green Workshops.

=__** TL;DR Version for All Events **__=

I never was that good of a flower, so the blip strategy that a lot of the debaters on the circuit have developed doesn't really work for me. I usually don't flow the blips, and if I do, I don't really feel that their weight is that strong in the first place. If I don't understand the argument because of your lack of clarity or because you really suck at explaining complex arguments, I will have a very high threshold for voting on it, even if it was "cold dropped conceded" throughout the round.

I'm a lot more well versed in critical race literature than most other arguments. (To give you an idea, I mostly ran intersectionality Ks my junior year and hip hop affs my senior year). This does __**NOT**__ mean you pull out your Afro-pessimism K in front of me and call it a day.

Oh and for speaks.

For LD:
This is the event that I'm most familiar with.

__**The "if you're reading this 5 minutes before the round" version:**__ Running excessive amounts of theoretical spikes, blips, full theory shells without the violations, ect. will not get you more than 29 speaks in front of me. __They're tacky and make me sad__. If you're going to be breaking that "new sweet race aff/neg" just because I'm judging you, don't. Do what you're best at unless it involves being really sketch in the 1AR/2AR/NR. If that's your game then please switch it up. Theory debates are icky, but if it needs to happen I'll gladly give you good speaks for it if it's well warranted, but sadly, I've probably been in those theory debates so it would be pretty boring to adjudicate. What would interest me would be topical discussions that I haven't heard of before (considering that's why they change the topic every two months it kinda makes sense), or just good race K debate. Oh, and DISCOURSE IS IMPORTANT. PLEASE DON'T EMBRACE RACIST/SEXIST/HOMOPHOBIC/OTHER TERRIBLE THINGS. I WILL NOT HESITATE TO GIVE YOU 10 SPEAKS AND WILL CONVINCE YOUR OTHER JUDGES TO DO SO AS WELL.

__**General:**__
 * The Longer Version**
 * I usually give 4 minutes of prep unless the tournament says otherwise or unless you want me to use another amount of time (but in the words of Bon Qui Qui "Don't get crazy").
 * I am fine with flex prep in which the debaters can ask clarification questions in flex prep, but I won't pay attention to questions or answers that occur during here so if you want to get a sort of concession get that in the 3 minutes of CX. What I won't let is a debater shortening his CX time or prep time to use as speech time (it's unconventional, but it's been tried before).
 * Drinking water and eating are ok, but don't do that during CX. It's rude to take a big swig of water in between answering your opponents question.
 * Don't mess up the room. Moving desks and stuff is fine, but move stuff back to where you found it at the end of the round. We are guests at the tournaments, not owners.
 * DISCLOSURE IS BAE. Even if you're uncomfortable disclosing on the wiki, disclosing to your opponent with a paper copy of your case, flashing it, or emailing it to your opponent is pretty cool. If you're seriously worried about them stealing your case then you should have printed a paper copy of it, or give them access to your computer during the round so they can't look over the case (that's why they have viewing computers! [but if you're like me, a broke student, then go with paper]).
 * Aggression and sass is cool, but too a point (fun fact: you're never going to be sassier than John Sims or Chetan Hertzig(aka the Beyonce figures in the LD community) . If you're being perceptually dominant, that's cool. If you're making your opponent cry, that's not cool. For womxn debaters patriarchy has established a norm where womxn are supposed to be submissive, but you can totes go claws out and be more hyper-aggressive in front of me than in front of other judges. For all debaters: this is supposed to be a safe, fun, intellectually stimulating debate space. Please, don't ruin that.
 * This isn't specific to the debate round but more specific to your time in this very enriching community known as "Forensics (gotta include the interpers, CXers, and PFers, they're people too). In the words of Beena Cook, "Leave the debate space better than when you found it". I've found a new home away from home, friends, and so much knowledge here that it would mean a lot to me (and a lot of people) if you as an individual could make this place more open to more people. A lot of people want to win, but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice what it means to be a good person in pursuit of that goal. Sorry about the long message, but it's something that's pretty personal/important to me.

Now back to the actual things relating debate.

__**Theory:**__ This is an argument that a lot of debaters rely on unnecessarily. I've never been the best theory debater so some of the more nuanced "meta-theory" arguments (ex. A Interpretation: all theoretical interpretations must be positively worded." I'm not familiar with and I'm so not going to understand it. Theory shells should have 3-5 parts, Interpretations, Violations, (Reasons to prefer / [standards and voters] / Implications). Different people do their shells differently, but it needs to have a clear and slowly read interpretation and violation. Paragraph theory isn't something I'm to familiar with, so having it in shell form is pretty cool. I default competing interpretations, but can be changed. I also will vote off an offensive counter-interpretation, but that awkward "If I win terminal defense to their interpretation I win MWAHAHAHA!" would take me way too much time to effectively convince me to adopt that paradigm. I also don't really like too many spikes in the AC (like, more than a minutes worth is too excessive). If you're going to have spikes/theoretical pre-empts in the AC then please keep them lengthy instead of blippy. __If I don't flow a blip then then said blip doesn't exist.__ I won't have much of a problem with presumption arguments, which way permissibility goes (except I usually evaluate that by the wording of the resolution and changing that would be an uphill battle), and if the neg has to defend the converse of the resolution. __Affirmative Framework Choice is incredibly tacky, as well as the lesser known Affirmative Ethics choice__. Don't make it a thing.

__**Disadvantages and Counterplans:**__ They're fun, they're cool. The better the link story the more happy I am as an individual. Uniqueness is pretty important as well as the implication of it. I'm ok with one conditional advocacy on the neg, but like 7 conditional PICs are pretty revolting. People have pretty [not so bueno] link stories, so if you have a good link story I'll really be happy. Cool counterplans are pretty cool, and they can compete through the text or through net benefits.

The fun stuff! I'm really more familiar with kritiks that are more race based and/or coloniality based. Feminism is pretty gucci too, but two arguments that I really haven't seen in LD that I would really be stoked to see are Queer Theory arguments (outside of that recycled Edelman K) or Quare arguments (fun fact: E. Patrick Johnson teaches at Northwestern University along with Charles Mills). I'm of the belief that there will almost always be good race arguments on both sides of most LD resolutions. Sadly, most race debates occur within a small number of schools and seems to be frowned upon in most debate circles in the US. Oh well, as for non-race based kritiks, I'm not as familiar with the literature, so really explaining your arguments warrants well and thoroughly will get you pretty good speaks. I don't believe in __and despise__ the whole "Make the K really confusing in the 1NC and then it becomes magically clear in the NR!". That won't make me like you and that will make you not like me after you see your speaks. I should be able to follow the basic premises and warrants of the argument, but it can be more clear after the first speech. My reading comprehension sucks (courtesy of years of winging it well) and the random buzzwords being thrown around won't help me understand the argument. The alternatives are usually the weakest part of the K, so making them pretty strong is great, but random things like "traverse the fantasy" and "deconstruct the ideological barriers regarding our epistemic uncertainty surrounding marijuana" doesn't mean much to me.
 * __Kritiks:__**