Johnson,+Dillon

I debated at Coeur d'Alene high school for 3 years and am currently a Sophomore at GU (go zags am I right?)

I was mostly a straight-up debater in high school and while, I've had more K experience in college, I still haven't taken that K turn yet.

As a general rule, I think that you should do what you're best at. You do you and I'll try to evaluate it the best I can based on what is articulated in the round. I also think a rule that would be helpful for debaters reading this is that the team who talks the most about the aff typically wins. However, if you feel like knowing a little bit more about how I evaluate things:

Okay, so this doesn't win or lose debates, but I really think that debaters should try to remain polite. This doesn't mean you should all act like bffls, but I think that screaming matches are a tad over-doing it for debates. I'm fine if you get assertive and I love that calm sass, but don't get ridiculous and aggravated or I'll have to tell you after the round that you're a butthead. Don't make me call you a butthead.
 * Decorum**

This seems super weird, but it's almost like you should just treat everyone equally.

I don't typically see any theory as a reason to reject the team unless it's conditionality. I also don't typically enjoy theory debates because they are spat out as quickly as possible and usually don't make any kind of coherent sense until the last rebuttal, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do right?
 * Theory **

I think T is one of the most strategic debate arguments. This is not to say that I love all T violations. If you have a legitimate violation that isn't something annoying like T - Increase or "without material qualifications" I'll be more than glad to listen to it. I like to think of T as a disad. I think this is the way it's best articulated in round as well. If you can phrase it that way and provide clear links to your impacts of education and fairness, I think you're at a good place with me in the back of the room. I always default to competing interpretations unless otherwise told. Don't tell me T is an RVI. That's just silly.
 * Topicality**

Stuff solving other stuff. What's not to love? I'm not a big fan of your go-to conditions and consult counterplans unless there is good evidence to support it. I'm not against process counterplans, but I think that if your process is super weird, you should explain to me at some point in the debate how the counterplan solves and what the process looks like. Saying "Counterplan solves 100% of case..." is not persuasive if I don't know __how__. Suffiency arguments are persuasive to me.
 * Counterplans**

On the aff, make your solvency deficits clear and impact them. Maybe the counterplan doesn't solve the signal of the plan, but why should I care? You should also make your permutations a little more detailed than "do both" for the entirety of the debate. I get the whole "let's wait until the block extrapolates before we do," but getting ahead on the explanation game on the perm is probably a better route to go anyway. I definitely do not like it when the 1AR extends "the permutation" without naming the specific one and the 2AR gets on a soapbox and describes to me gloriously all the ways this perm solves. Explaining stuff is cool, so let's keep that up.

As I judge more of these debates, I've realized that there is always a glaring lack of explanation in this debate. Discussing the link on an abstract level won't be sufficient. What exactly has the aff done that is so terrible? How does this implicate specific parts of the aff? If these questions aren't answered, there's a strong chance I won't vote for you. The alternative is a must in these debates. What exactly does the alternative do that overcomes the aff's specific no-nos? I pretty strongly believe that you have to win an alternative to resolve the impacts to the K, otherwise, you're probably describing the status quo back to me. Please have some link other than state bad - that isn't specific enough to form a good debates. If your K takes a particularly, identity-based turn, you probably don't want me in the back because there are people who are much more educated on the subject than myself.
 * The K**

On the aff, I think that debaters should always question all parts of the K. "If it sounds like jive, it's probably jive" is a motto I stick to in these debates. A note: please don't assume I've read your author. Saying a cool catch phrase from a K author isn't going to do diddly for me.

I really like disad and case debates. I think they're some of the most in-depth debates that "traditional" teams have. Like everything else, explain the link and internal link before you get to your impact. I should have some form of story that tells me clearly how your disad works. Turns case analysis is always appreciated and extremely persuasive. This does not mean that saying "disad turns and outweighs case" alone is enough to win. That being said, make sure your bases are covered on all the other parts. Having a big nebulous impact means nothing to me if it doesn't relate to the aff at all. I don't really have any preference what disad you read as long as you are able to defend all of it.
 * Disads**

The aff should be able to defend whatever offense they have on the disad, but other than that, I don't have a ton of preferences with what form of offense you take against the DA.

I like case debates a lot. I think this should be 1/2 of the 1NC and a big part of the block. These debates have been fading and that makes me sad because this is where both sides get to show all the in-depth work and stuff they've done. The only problem I have with these debates is that they tend to get really messy in the block. Extend it, explain it, answer the 2AC and read more cards if you want.
 * Case**

I think the 2AC needs to be explanatory enough on case to give me a good story of the advantages, but be concise enough to answer the 1NC without rambling.

**K affs** This is the most nebulous headers because people want to talk about anything, slap a few K buzzwords in it and call it an aff. These affs need to have a well-stated method that can solve for the harms that they discuss. If you tell me that colonialism exists and then play sounds of mudcrabs laughing, I'm going to have no idea what you want from me. An organized, well-stated method debate can be pretty tight, but I believe that affirmatives should have a tie to the resolution and should at least be able to have a resolutional basis for ground. If you're going to get up and read poems and pretend the resolution never happened, you're probably going to be upset when someone reads T/Framework against you. That being said, I think that if you can articulate an interpretation on T that makes debate better and predictable-ish, you can still win these debates.

This is a good starting point for understanding how I view some things, but don't feel afraid to ask me questions before round. If you say Go Zags before the debate I'll bump your speaks by .5