Yellin,+Zofia

I debated for four years at Westwood high school. I qualified for the TOC my senior year and was in quarters of the Texas state tournament.

I will not vote on: Sexism, heternorm, racism good etc.

I am not very experienced at judging it would be better for you to debate how you do it best than change to fit how I debate/view debates.

A quick note on calling for lots of evidence. I would much prefer to vote on how YOU characterize the card and compare it to the others in the round. This is true for almost every strategy. I only read evidence if the debaters have raised a question about it that makes it necessary to read the evidence. So if your ev is REALLY good and your opponents sucks you should tell me that because I am not going to sort through evidence that was not contested to determine that on my own. I also will not call for evidence if I can’t understand at least the claim/warrant.

General thoughts on arguments:

Topicality- I really enjoy these debates and will always default to limits more than ground, I just find it more persuasive and less annoying than “we didn’t get a link, which makes you not topical”. Competing interpretations are generally a good thing but I am not opposed to voting on reasonability as long as you tell me WHY you are reasonably topical.

Theory- These debates are fine with me. Impact them well (Fairness, education, competitive equity) and compare them with the other teams impacts A quick note about counterplans think the better argument is usually something along the lines of the cp isn’t competitive rather than X is a voting issue because its unfair.

Disads- Nothing special to say about these besides my view on defensive claims. I find that a lot of judges will discard something as “only being defensive”, I disagree. If you have qualified, evidence from this morning that has a vote count that X legislation won’t pass then why would I vote on something that’s not going to happen? I find defense + case outweighs to be a fine 2ar strat.

Counterplans- As I said above tricky cps are not usually a voting issue as much as they aren’t competitive with the aff.

Kritiks- I enjoy K debates a lot if it’s a good case specific debate. However, I will not be impressed by confusing the other team with jargon and unwarranted shiny arguments. I appear to be a minority in this area but I don’t think its necessary to win alternative solvency. Obviously that requires you to make a lot of framing arguments etc. but “alt doesn’t solve” isn’t as devastating in front of me.

Speaks- I determine speaker points largely on CX execution and how well I can flow you/understand your ev. A quick way to lose speaks is purposefully dodging CX questions or taking a long time to answer. Paperless shenanigans like scrolling ahead, stealing prep etc will lose you speaker points if I notice you doing it.

Enjoy debates and try to make it easy for me to decide!

-- Zofia Yellin Zofiayellin@gmail.com