Williams,+Norman

Experience:

Debated both LD and policy for 4 years; judged high school LD and policy on the east coast while in college. I am familiar with the resolution.

Summary:

Your offense has to link. Engage with your opponent as much as possible — don’t just try to overwhelm them with a lot of insubstantial arguments. I am unsympathetic to strange or nontopical positions, so frivolous theory and/or “universal link” K’s probably won’t get you anywhere.

General:

It is the debater’s job to point out issues in the round. If you tell me that X is more important than Y, X is more important than Y, unless your opponent contradicts that. I should not have to weigh arguments for you.

1. Speed: Fine. I debated policy, so spreading isn’t a problem. If I can’t understand you, I will stop flowing.

2. Extensions: Depends on the speech. I don’t need to hear the entire card again, but I want to hear the implication of the extension — tell me why your extension is relevant and what it means for your opponent. Sheer quantity of extensions isn’t going to win you the debate.

3. Unwarranted args: Please substantiate your arguments. But it’s your opponent’s job to point out factual errors, not mine. What I believe should be irrelevant to the decision I make.

4. Cards: in my mind, good analysis trumps a card more often than not. Don’t take this to mean I don’t appreciate cards for some types of arguments — if you’re making a point on correlation or statistics, I want to see evidence for it. I also appreciate analytic interaction with cards: logical argument beats a lack of a card. I won’t call for cards under most circumstances.

Phil:

Comfortable with it. Link your offense to your criterion. I know most typical LD frameworks.

Theory:

I have no objections to it. But if you’re going to read theory, it had better be good. I’m very sympathetic to topicality claims. I’m prepared to vote on legitimate abuse, but it’s a high risk/high reward strategy. If your theory comes off as frivolous, and especially if your opponent calls you on that, you’re not getting the ballot.

Ks:

I like Ks, but keep it topical. I don’t like universal links. Your kritik has to be strong and your alt should be specific. Give me reasons to believe that you are solving a topical issue.

Plans/CPs:

Fine, but topicality is a big issue. If your opponent makes a successful argument for why your plan/counterplan is nontopical, it is no longer relevant to the debate and is no longer a voting issue.