Santos,Catalina

I debated for four years in high school at Carrollton School in Miami. I am finishing up my second year of college debate at Harvard. I haven’t judged any rounds on this year’s high school debate topic – so it might be to your advantage to invest a little more time on explanations – especially on topicality. 
 * General **: I think debate is about argumentation and persuasion. I’ll read evidence if necessary to decide the round but prefer if teams flesh out solid warrants for their arguments in their speeches rather than rely on their evidence at the end of the round. I am most familiar with disads/cps and topicality debates. I don’t have strong biases and can be persuaded to vote for most arguments as long as they are well explained. Arguments that are “dropped” but answered by other arguments or meta arguments in the debate are not in fact “dropped”. Debaters who are unnecessarily mean will lose speaker points – be nice!!
 * Topicality **: My default is that topicality is a voting issue and competing interpretations are good. For the negative to win its important to control thewe meet debate but it’s also necessary to impact why the aff’s interpretation hurts education and how it hinders the development of the topic. For the affirmative to win it is not necessary (although very helpful) to meet the negative’s interpretation; I am persuaded by disads to the negative’s interpretation /or counter interpretations that solve most of the impact to the negative’s interpretation (education/limits).
 * Disads: ** Always explain the link. Diversity of links is very helpful for the negative. For the aff, in so far as its possible contest the link (and as much of the rest of the disad as you can) as much as possible. Impact calculus is important and should start early on in the debate especially da vs. advantages and vice versa.
 * Counterplans: **Counterplans are great as long as they actually compete with the words of plan text presented in the round. It is always important for the negative to include a quick explanation of the cp solvency mechanism, and why the net benefits don’t link. It is also important to make arguments about why the net benefit outweighs any solvency deficits. For the affirmative, permutations are always a good idea especially if it’s questionable how competitive the counterplan is with the plan. Permutations don’t have to be net beneficial. I find arguments about why net benefits link to the counterplan, or why permutations solve links to the net benefits very persuasive. Always make warranted solvency deficit arguments!
 * Framework **: Framework is important in so far as it provides a justification for how I should evaluate the debate. It’ll take work to get me to vote on framework as a reason to exclude a negative’s critique, so focus on impacting how winning framework should instead frame my decision calculus. I would probably be more easily persuaded to vote on framework as a reason to exclude a critical affirmative if there is no plan text. That being said the most exclusionary framework is not the most persuasive, critical arguments have an important place in debate: negatives trying to exclude a critical aff/ or aff’s trying to exclude a critical alternative should couch their framework justifications in terms of why the absence of a policy or stable solvency mechanism makes the substance of the debate irrelevant/difficult to compare rather than focusing on excluding ks themselves. Affirmatives trying to justify a critical affirmative or negatives going for a K should make arguments about why assumptions/language/methodology matter in it of themselves and why they cannot be separated from “policy solvency mechanisms”. If you are going for framework it might be helpful to make arguments as to why your interpretation includes the best parts of the other team’s framework, and what happens to the debate if you lose framework.
 * Ks: ** These are probably the debates that I know the least about. The aff arguments I find most important are attacking the alternative and permutations. Affs should always question the alternative’s ability to solve the aff. It is also to their advantage to be ahead in describing what a world of a permutation looks like vs. a world of the alternative. Similarly neg teams should try to solve, or turn as much of the affirmative as possible. Given my lack of familiarity with many critiques it might be especially important to make impact calculus arguments and comparisons between the ks impacts and the aff’s impacts/advantages.
 * Theory: ** I err neg on theory, Conditionality is good. So are PICS, neg fiat etc. Consult counterplans are legitimate. Some aff theory arguments are winnable as long as they are well developed and responsive to whatever interpretation the negative presents in the round.