Shepherd,+Kevin

I debated four years for Westlake High School in Austin, Tx. I'm now at Northwestern University in Illinois.

Generally I look at the resolution as a truth statement with the burden of proof on the affirmative. If there is no offense left on the affirmative side of the flow (or turning on the negative), it is not hard to persuade me to default negate, but I will at least ostensibly not do this until the negative takes the ten necessary seconds to explain why this is a good idea. If at the end of the day there is both a lack of offense and no analysis regarding what i should do in this situation, then i'll intervene and give you both bad speaks. Hopefully it won't come to this, but just for clarification:

Intervention: In circumstances where there is no weighing of voters, a muddled standard debate, no offense anywhere, no reason to default negate, no prestandards, etc etc, I will be forced to evaluate arguments based off of the strength of extensions made in the round. This means, in the event of my intervention, I will prioritize arguments that were better explained, impacted, and weighed.

the order in which i evaluate specific types of arguments goes like this: theory, overviews/critiques/anything that comes pre-standard (for a reason that is EXTENDED)/regular, standard-linked argumentation.

Theory: unless there is really, really blatant abuse going on, i generally don't like seeing theory based arguments. If you absolutely must use one, spend more time than you necessarily think you should on the reason why i should vote on this particular piece of theory, because i honestly just don't like to. If this voter is not explicitly extended at the end of the round, i will happily call the entire theory debate a wash.

Pre-standard stuff: this sort of argument is fine, and i'll deal with them as you tell me to. Although i like these arguments much much more than theory arguments, you need to make sure to tell me in every speech you make why this argument supersedes standard debate, or else i will throw it out.

Standard debates: make me happy. when they're done right, anyway. Weigh them, tell why one precludes another, tell why one is just a straight up bad idea, kick yours and go for theirs, whatever. So long as you're doing something with the standards debate i'll reward with speaker points or something. a note on extending the standard: i will not extend anything that has any ink left next to it. so if he nine-points your criterion or burden or whatever mechanism you're using to weigh arguments, you're going to need to either deal one by one or group (with a justification for why this grouping makes sense, of course) or else you're not going to be getting any offense. By the same token if you're the sort of guy who likes to nine-point a standard then it'd better damn well take your entire speech to do it, because i don't count "1. no brite line 2. no warrant 3. the standard is vague" blips as arguments.

Weighing: Competing offense must be weighed, preferably in terms of a standard that is still alive on the flow. If two sides are extending their stories through one another...yeah, just don't do that. please. Standards need to be weighed too, and pre-standards arguments, and really everything you're going to ever have me vote on needs to be at some point compared to and prioritized over other arguments in the round. do this right and you get speaks. lots of them.

Drops: are great, but when you're extending one make sure you briefly extend the warrant along with the claim or else it's not getting you anywhere. IE if your AC contention 2 is untouched by the NC and your AR just says "extend the dropped c2 now i have offense look yay," i don't consider it new for the NR to tell me that there was no extended reason that it's true.

speed: i won't vote on arguments i don't understand (hint: this also applies to really complex/trendy/silly arguments explained with highly technical rhetoric from authors i haven't read...). also, i have not practiced flowing in a couple of months. i can move briskly, but if you are at a pace that could legitimately be considered a spread i might not be able to follow the more complex arguments you're making. at least slow down for signposting and i might give you the benefit of the doubt.

in sum: signpost, extend warrants, and weigh. and please try to have fun with it, because presumably that's why you're in a debate round in the first place.