Atia,+Zaki

zaki.atia@gmail.com Lexington High School Class of 2014 University of St Andrews Class of 2018
 * Zaki Atia**

My name is Zaki Atia and I have 4 years of high school policy debate experience as an alumn from Lexington High School. I attended the TOC my senior year with my dashing, rambunctious partner Kevin Xie. I am currently a freshman at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, which unfortunately does not have a huge policy debate circuit. Rather than spew words as fast I can at the top of my lungs, I now eat haggis and engage in much slower, yet very lively debates at the local pub. Still, I really enjoy and appreciate everything the activity has done for me even if I can longer be the active participant I once was. I hope to give back to the community by occosionally judging at tournaments whenever I'm available. That being said, I may be a bit rusty when it comes to spreading, especially if you're an incoherent speaker, so try to be as clear as possible. This will not only give more weight to your arguments as I will actually be able to flow them, but it will also grant you higher speaker points. Also, I won't have much topic specific knowledge so please bear with me and explain any technical terms to the best of your ability.

As a 2N during high school, I frequently went for the politics DA but also on many occasions I went for the K. This should give you an idea of my argumentative preferences: I'm partial to just about anything as long as it's debated well. I will admit though that I'm a relatively liberal individual so critical arguments tend to spark my intellectual curiosity. You could say that I view the United States as an evil, interventionist empire in a way. Don't let that deter you from going for any other types of argument, however. I'll get into specifics in the next section:

I like them, DA+case debates can often promote a lot of clash if done the right way. Topic-specific DAs that are contextualized to the aff are preferable to generics such as the politics DA. Generally speaking, I think the link controls the direction of uniqueness and the link is the most important component. Good impact calc and turns case analysis is also welcome, and essential to win.
 * DAs-**

The best type of CPs are well-researched CPs that either use or address the aff's solvency advocate. These may be in the form of very specific PICs or advantage CPs. Agent-CPs, process-CPs, consult-CPs and any other generics really don't produce as much clash and are much less interesting to judge but you can still win on them.
 * CPs-**

As I mentioned earlier, I went for the K a lot in high school. I enjoy reading the literature and I probably know the most when it comes to security, capitalism/neoliberalism, colonialism, or psychoanalysis-based criticisms. That being said, what I don't like in K debates is when the negative just deploys tricks like floatng-PIKs rather than promote debates full of substance. If you're going for the K in front of me, make sure you expose your knowledge of the particular author you're advocating and contextualize your argument and link to the affirmative. This will put you in a very good spot.
 * Ks-**

Honestly I have much less experience debating these types of affirmatives but I still can enjoy judging them. A rule of thumb to do well in these debates is to make it obvious what you're advocating for and clarify the role of the ballot so I don't just have to guess. I may not be too familiar with some of the more bizarre K-affs so just make sure to explain your advocacy well if you want to win.
 * Non-traditional affirmatives-**

Condo debates will be more compelling for me if there's 2 or more conditional advocacies. Focus on well-articulated arguments with understandable analogies is preferable to spewing your theory blocks incoherently. Also an explanation of in-round abuse can help a lot. I'm also receptive when it comes to theory against generic CPs. Generally speaking, education comes before fairness.
 * Condo/Theory-**

Since I don't have much topic knowledge these debates may be a bit difficult for me to evaluate, but if you make a good case for why an aff is outside the confines of the topic and is anti-educational you'll have a decent chance. Pick one or two main standards to spend your time on and explain why those standards should be a priority over the affirmative's.
 * T-**

Please be funny, charming, and engaging if you want high speaker points. If you make jokes in front of me, and troll the other team in a light-hearted manner, I will love you. Please don't take yourself too seriously. Also, keep in mind that I don’t like inflated egos. A brief anecdote; Arjun Krishan got to the finals of St Marks. Ever since then, he hasn’t been the same. __**Don’t be Arjun.**__
 * Other things to note-**

I will do my best to be the least interventionist judge possible and above all else promote an educational discussion during the RFD.

Good luck.