Koo+Michael

Affiliation – Centennial, McDonogh, Atholton, Reservoir, River Hill, Capitol Debate (and any other schools from it)


 * TD;LR **

I'm a nerd


 * Actual Philosophy ** - Most of this will be just notes (in incomplete sentences) about my thoughts on debate.

- I debated for Centennial (Capitol Debate) for 5 years in high school and will not be debating at John’s Hopkins (class of 2018). - The most influential aspect of determining how to pref a relatively new judge was seeing how he/she debated, talk to people who’ve judged/watched me before to see what I rolled with in debates. - I always enjoyed/found much more helpful the longer/thorough judge philosophies so be prepared to read a lot of my thoughts/rants that are coming - Daryl Burch (coach) is the single biggest influential figure in my development as a debater. Srinidhi Muppalla (partner for 2 years) would probably come second. Go look at their philosophies. - I was a 2A for 3 years and then a 2N for my senior year – I have read affirmatives all over the spectrum (complete performance, 10 impact policy affs, k affs that defended a plan) – and went for whatever on the neg (at one point my senior year, some team asked me past 2NR’s and I answered: T-economic engagement, give back the land K, black feminism K, asian counteradvocacy, warming good + geoenginnering CP, mexico politics DA, process CP, dedev, afropessimism K, warming good + politics DA, warming good + politics DA, framework)
 * Background **

- I see debate as an intellectual forum where individuals come to advocate for some course of action – the type of action desired is for the debaters to choose and discuss and for me to evaluate whether it’s a good or bad idea – note, this means you MUST defend SOMETHING (even if it’s nothing) - Ethos is underrated – most judges know which why they will decide right after the round ends and spend the time after justifying and double checking his/her choice. Your persuasive appeal in every way you conduct yourself throughout the round is a massive factor in this. Know what you’re talking about, but more importantly, sound like you know what you’re talking about and show that you EXPECT to win. - Speak clearly – if you can’t you should be doing a LOT of drills (trust me I was there too) – Judges who didn’t let me know they couldn’t understand me assuming that was my burden annoyed me to no end – I will be very explicit in letting you know if I can’t understand you – after the second time I call clear, I will not evaluate any cards/arguments I call clear on afterwards - Speed = arguments I THINK the other team is responsible for answering – if it’s not on my flow then it’s not an argument so do your best to make sure it gets there - I am awful at keeping a straight face while judging, I’ll also probably be staring at you – use this to your advantage - Set in stone – speech times, only one team will win – everything else is up for debate - An argument is a claim and a warrant – dropped claims are NOT dropped arguments – dropped ARGUMENTS are true and you should avoid dropping ARGUMENTS – my understanding of rejoinder is that claims can sufficiently be answered by claims - Conceding an opponent’s argument makes it the truest argument in the round – use this to your advantage - I don’t protect the 2NR unless explicitly asked to – specific brightlines and warranted calls for protections (anytime) will be zealously adhered to - Being aggressive = good. Being aggressive and wrong = bad. Being mean = worst. Debate should strive to be a safe space. There is a fine line between a politics of discomfort (which can be productive) and being violent toward another individual. This fine line is up to subjective determination by a “know it when I see it” test. - I do believe that arguments about a debater’s actions/choices outside of the current round do have a place in some forms of debate. My biggest problem is that most of these arguments are non falsifiable and really impossible to prove. I think that it is important to be genuine but do know that debate is also a strategic game where strategy can conflict with genuine advocacy. Once again I’ll employ a subjective “know it when I see it test” and will update my thoughts on this issue as I judge more debates. - I think all debaters should play an proactive role in doing their own prefs as soon as possible – it is quite the rewarding learning experience that helps you learn your judges - Cards can undisputedly settle factual questions – analysis (including analysis about cards) settles everything else - I will only call for a piece of evidence if there is an explicit cite referenced during the explanation of the argument – If I am asking questions like “Can you give me the piece of evidence you think says ‘x’,” then I am either doing annoyed or the debate is way too close for me not to double check.
 * Top Level Thoughts **

- If you believe the other team is guilty of an ethics violation and I am notified, the debate will end there and I will determine if you are correct. If I notice an ethics violation, I will not stop the round but decide the round based on it after it ends. - Card clipping/cross reading – Any form of misrepresenting the amount of evidence you have read is considered card clipping. It is your opponents’ burden to ask for a marked copy of your speech but it is yours to make sure that is ready IMMEDIATELY. This means if you forget to physically mark during a speech, you better have a crystal clear memory because you will lose if you mis-mark evidence. Audibly marking during a speech is acceptable as long as you explicitly say the words “mark it at ‘x’”. Intention does not matter. I understand if you were ignorant or didn’t mean to but you should have to take the loss to make sure you are MUCH MORE careful in future. Video or audio recordings are a necessity if you want to pose a challenge about card clipping. Anything that is 3 words or less (one to two times a speech) I am willing to grant as a minor mistake. Double highlighting is not card clipping, just make sure your opponents know which color you are reading. - Evidence fabrication – it is hard to prove this distinctively from evidence that cannot be accessed – if a team is caught fabricating (making it up) evidence they will lose.
 * Ethics/Procedural Challenges **

- Evidence that cannot be accessed – this is necessary for teams to be able to successfully refute your research. If this is proved, I will ignore the evidence and treat arguments related to it as merely claims in my decisionmaking - Out of context cards – this will seriously hurt your ethos and your opponents will probably definitively win their competing claim - Misdisclosure – the only reason why this isn’t above is because there is almost no falsifiable method to prove that a disclosure wasn’t honest – this is probably the most serious of this category and can garner you major leeway in my decision making if you can successfully prove how it has impacted your ability to debate this round.
 * Problematic not an ethics violation (these can be persuasive arguments to win my ballot) **

- I honestly feel like this section determines a lot about how people pref judges these days - I will start off by saying that I am a firm believer in ideological reflexivity – people go a long way in trying to understand each other’s arguments and even embrace them instead of crying exclusion/trying to exclude. - But yes, if you win the tech battle I will vote for framework - Flipping neg greatly hurts your ability to go for ANY arguments based upon procedural fairness - Real world examples from the debate community go a long way in proving points in these types of debates – use them to your advantage - I think debate is most educational when it is about the topic – however I think there are multiple ways to defend the topic - Arguments about procedural fairness are the most strategic/true in my opinion – however impacting them with just fairness is unpersuasive and you should couch your impacts upon the education (or lack of) from debates with little clash - It is worth noting that I have stopped running procedural based framework arguments by the end of my senior year – however this was mainly due to the fact that I was very bad at going for framework and instead found much more strategic to engage affirmatives on the substance of their arguments (because I had a genius coach who was very good at thinking of ways to do that) - If an aff defends a plan I will be EXTREMELY unpersuaded by framework arguments that say the aff can only garner advantages off the instrumental affirmation of the plan
 * Framework **

- If you know me at all you should know that I am completely fine with these - CX makes or breaks these debates – yes I do believe that you can garner links/DA’s off of things you say and the way you defend your advocacy even if your evidence says something else - Always and forever I will prefer that you substantive engage your opponent’s advocacy, you’ll get higher points and the debate will be more educational, fun, and rewarding – however I do understand when there are cases you need to run framework and shiftiness in the way an advocacy is defended can be persuasive to me - Watch out for contradictions – not only can it make a persuasive theory/substantive argument but I find it devastating when the aff team can concede portions of neg arguments they don’t link to and use it as offense for the other neg arguments - The permutation is a tricky subject in these debates – I do believe that if the best arguments are made by both sides the negative will probably win that the aff team should not be able to garner a permutation – arguments couched upon opportunity cost and neg ground are the neg pushes I find most persuasive – however the aff arguments I always found persuasive are the substantive benefits that a strategy involving the permutation can accomplish - Aff teams should have a clear non-arbitrary role of the ballot – these questions can go a long way in framing the debate for both sides - Evidence can come in many forms whether it be music, personal narratives, poetry, academics, etc – all of it is equally as legit on face so you should not disregard it - I need to be able to understand your argument – I always had a weakness for understanding high theory based arguments so if that is your mojo just know how to defend it clearly – most rounds you will know your argument the best so you’ll sound good and I’ll know it better than the other team so you should still be fine with running these and picking up my ballot
 * Non-Traditional **

- 2AC’s and 1AR’s get away with blippy arguments, punish them in the block for them - K affs with a plan in my opinion were some of the most strategic and fun affs to utilize - If the neg has an internal link takeout but didn’t answer the terminal impact, that does NOT mean you dropped an impact, logical internal link takeouts can single handidly undermine advantages even without evidence - Super specific internal links that get to weird places were always intriguing and show you are a good researcher, they make me happy
 * Aff/Case Debate **

- Contrary to popular belief, I only went for the K v. a policy aff TWICE my senior year - As a debater I’ve always had trouble conceptualizing high theory criticisms, maybe I’m just illiterate but I will have trouble voting for something I can’t explain in my own words - My 2AR’s always revolved around proving why the aff was true and why the permutation was the best option because of it – phrase perms as link defense to some of the more totalizing k impacts and defend the speaking of the aff and you should be fine - Framework and the alt are usually 2 sides of the same coin - I am most familiar with kritiks based in critical race theory, mainstream k’s (neolib, security, cap, etc.) I can also easily understand - Death good is not a strategic (or true) K in my opinion at all, however there is a BIG difference between death good and fear of death bad
 * Kritik **

- Probably more a fan of competing interpretations - Reasonability is a reason why the aff could win without offense – It means that the aff is topical to the point that topicality debates should not be preferred over the substantive debate and education that could’ve been had by debating the aff - Big fan of reject the argument not the team
 * Topicality **

- They’re good, what else is there to say? - I’m probably in camp link determines the direction of uniqueness - Politics theory arguments are meh in front of me, I personally never went for them, I just found substantive arguments more strategic - Short contrived DA’s are strategic but ONLY because aff teams don’t call them out for their bad internal links and only read terminal impact defense to them – fix that and they should go away - I always loved good impact turn debates, warming good, de-dev, anything - Turns case arguments are awesome – use them to your advantage and don’t drop them
 * Disadvantages **

- Big fan of advantage CP’s – plank them all you want (but kicking planks is probably abusive) - Solvency advocates go a long way in helping you with theory – I firmly believe that they are good for debate - I’m an agnostic on the theory of CP’s that compete off of immediacy and certainty - Agnostic about almost every theory question, more persuaded by the aff on 50 state fiat, international fiat, and object fiat - Interpretations are good – you should always have one (even if its self serving) - In my last 3 years of debate, I have NEVER been on a team that went for conditionality for 5 minutes in the 2AR, 2 or less conditional options will be an uphill battle for the aff
 * Counterplans/CP Theory **

I will shamelessly admit that I was that debater who obsessed over points because I liked to calculate things/wanted to know where in the bracket I was. Ask me afterwards and I’d probably tell you what I gave you (don’t even think about arguing about it).
 * Speaker Point Bonuses **

Things that would boost your points – - Successful and badass risks (impact turn an aff for 8 minutes, kicking the case, all-in’s on strategic blunders, etc) - Making fun of my friends (It has to be funny) - Breaking bad, walking dead, or pokemon references - Leftover speech/prep time (although if you deliver poorly that shows false arrogance which will hurt you more) - Organization (make my flow happy) - Numbered lists of warrants