Stokes,+Andrew

Experience: Policy debate for 3 years in high school and 2 years in college (Whitman College). Four-time policy instructor at the Whitman National Debate Institute. Former research assistant for Whitman. Former high school policy coach.

Philosophy: Ultimately, I will judge the debate under whichever framework is demonstrated to be best: competing policy options, discursive/rhetorical choices, theory/topicality, or something else. I'm open to any and all arguments, provided they are advanced well. At the end of the day, explaining why you win the debate will benefit you. That aside, here are a few specific thoughts:

- Critiques - I'm open to them and at least vaguely familiar with a variety of critical literature bases.

- Counterplans - I like 'em. I expect CPs (and K alts, and perms) to have a stable text, as the plan does.

- Theory/Topicality - I'm fine with these arguments and will vote on them if they're won. However, one disclaimer: I've been out of debate for a couple years and haven't given much recent though to the intricacies of debate theory. If you're going to go for theory/T in the 2N/AR, make sure your arguments have been well-developed throughout the debate and don't just assume that I'm going to follow every tiny nuance if it's not explained. In general, I'm hesitant to do much work reconstructing arguments that are not clearly explained throughout the debate.

- Evidence - I like good evidence a lot. I dislike bad evidence just as much.

- Oceans topic - I've only judged ~10 debates on this topic, but I did debate an Oceans topic in HS and an Energy topic in college. I'm familiar with a lot of the literature/arguments here, but if you're going for some sort of hyper-topic-specific argument, it would be a good idea to make sure you explain it well as I'm not familiar with every argument out there this year. As mentioned before, if you don't explain your argument well don't expect me to do the work to figure it out.

- Arguments I like or don't like: * I vastly prefer topic-specific arguments to generics. Do some work, don't just read last year's consult CP. * While I will vote for a technically-untrue argument if it's won, I prefer arguments that are actually supported by literature/reality to arguments that are cobbled together with out-of-context or out-of-date evidence.

- Paperless - I will get very grumpy very quickly if it appears you're stealing prep in the guise of jumping evidence/having technical difficulties. And for gods sake, flow the other team's speech, don't just assume everything they are going to say is on a jump drive.

Any other questions, feel free to ask pre-round.