Yang,+Mingshi

I think the debate should be about the debaters/arguments as much as possible, and about what I personally think as little as possible. I debated for three years in high school, and I'm currently a freshman at MIT. My partner and I used to run arguments that ranged from politics to the neolib K to this performance aff we ran once. Basically, I will vote on whatever you tell me to vote on as long as your arguments are well-developed and warranted. You should know that I have very little knowledge on non-military exploration of oceans, but I do go to a somewhat sciencey college so I'll try to keep up as best as I can. I don't believe in pulling cards after the round, so don't tell me to call for cards. If you think your evidence is "on fire" then explain how. It's never enough to only talk about how great your arguments are. I would very much like it if you told me why I should prefer your arguments in context of the other team's. The last rebuttal speeches should contain a substantial overview that includes impact calc and voting issues. **if you like reading, here is some more specific information:** T - I really like watching T debates, but I don't think RVIs are legit. I don't have a stance on reasonability v. competing interpretations. CPs - case-specific counterplans that have relevant net benefits are the bomb!! If you pulled out the "china cp" from the back of your expando and you're reading it with a sketchy relations disad, then I'll be very bored. DAs - impact-calc is the most important thing you can do to win the disad. It's never enough to overwhelm the other team with quantity of evidence if there is never any evidence comparison, (especially on politics). I don't really like theory on politics, but if you must bring up logical policymaker or whatever, then fine. Ks - my favorite kritik is probably the cap k, followed closely by security. If you are going to run a K, I expect you to give ample background info/context. I won't vote on the perm alone, so definitely address the link/impact debates. Also, if you read pre-written overviews on the K, of which half the words are probably made up by your K author, I'll probably stop paying attention. I'm perfectly down to listen to critical debate, but if you're going to hijack the aff and completely ignore their 1ac, you're going to have to convince me why your "in round discourse" is important. FW - I love framework, which definitely comes before the K, and if the aff puts enough offense on this flow, then I think FW is a perfectly valid reason to vote down the neg. FW is a really cool way to flesh out the educational purpose of debate/whether this round was actually fair/etc. etc. RVIs on FW are pretty legit. Performance - whatever rocks your boat, I guess. If you want to do a funky rap or play a fun song or dance, then go for it. I think that using performance to convey your arguments can be very effective when done in a serious, well-prepared manner. Theory - pretty valid if you follow up your generic shell with specific, in-round warrants. Speaker points - I'll give points between 27 and 30, but I think speaker points are super relative and not very good at indicating how good the debate/your speeches were, so I like to err on the side of giving you more points. It's really important on a pathos level to connect with your judge, so I'd really like it if you didn't stare at your computer the whole time. Please make jokes if you can! CX - did someone say smack down?? You know you did a good job in CX if your opponent gets so intimidated that they break down in tears and have to forfeit the round, (or if they take prep time to ask/answer a question). I don't think there's a such thing as being too mean in CX, as long as you don't make ad hominum attacks.