Bourdeau,+Dylan

I have not formally competed, but I have close friends who competed in local and national circuit Lincoln-Douglas Debate and have closely followed them throughout their careers, during which time they carefully explained a number of concepts to me so that I properly understood their exploits. I have been formally trained in Lincoln-Douglas Debate for the past year, and joined UF's Policy Debate team at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, so my understanding of circuit debate is increasing.

Simply put, I vote on good arguments. I have no political or emotional bias, so don't be cautious about reading outlandish or potentially offensive cases. I enjoy sarcasm and cockiness, and will award speaker points for these qualities. I also love semantic a prioris and a prioris in general. My goal as a judge is to make debate a healthy and educational activity, which requires beliefs to be challenged, and possibly feelings to be hurt. I want to encourage people to not hold back reading any case in fear of losing the round because of some arbitrary bias I may have. Debate needs to be a free space for people to say what they want without fear of undue judgement. I judge only according to whose argument is the most logically sound. However, despite my lax attitude on counterintuitive positions and fondness for displays of cockiness and sarcasm, I do draw a line when it comes to maintaining a semblance of common decency, so you will lose speaker points if you abusively swear at, scream at, personally attack, or otherwise appear to bully your opponent, such that a reasonable person could be expected to be affected by your behavior to an extent that it would hinder their ability to effectively continue the round.

Ideologically, I am similar to the likes of Mitchell Buehler and Mark Gorthey, but remember that I have no where near the experience with circuit debate that they do. I consider myself fully qualified to judge any substantive position, such as policy-style or philosophical arguments (I can also handle kritiks perfectly fine as long as they are debated substantively), so would probably be a great judge for more traditional debaters, but I also sincerely enjoy tech debate if delivered at my pace. While I am familiar with technical concepts such as theory debate in broad terms, there is much that I don't understand simply because I have yet to experience it. Thus, if you're in front of me, try to refrain from making it into a super technical debate filled with jargon, and take the time to over-explain your arguments, even if they are substantive. I generally believe I am capable of following what you say, and certainly open-minded enough to vote on those arguments I am less familiar with, but only if you actually take the time and effort to explain them well. I also must inform you that I am not great with spreading. I can probably handle something like 2x conversation speed, or half of your full speed. The simpler your position is, the faster you can get away with reading it. The more technical it is, the slower it should be read.

In spite of my technical limitations, if you are able to adapt to me, I think you will find I am a very capable judge, due to my willingness to vote on any position, and passion for, and ability to assess, logical arguments.