o'connell,+mischa

this paradigm was last updated at the beginning of the sept/oct 2013 topic about compulsory voting.

i debated for four years on the local and national circuits for bishop kelley high school in tulsa, oklahoma. i did okay at the toc as a senior and did a decent bit of travelling. i have been coaching during every season since my graduation in 2007 and i've had some students take home some trophies. my accolades are unimportant; just know that i've been doing this for a while now and i'm pretty familiar with this game.


 * fundamentals**

as far as the content of your debate is concerned, i will do my best intervene as little as possible. i consider this to be the foundational premise upon which i judge debates; in theory, i'm pretty sure i'll vote on almost anything. this does not mean i will not vote on any old dropped one-sentence argument; i feel as though my role is primarily to evaluate the relative strength of arguments being made (in a war between crappy spikes, i probably pick the one that has something more strongly resembling a warrant). i'm used to more or less every style that's been stomping around lincoln-douglas debate and i can probably handle most of them.

i believe this is your activity and that those of us who spend our lives coaching or even just give up some weekends to hear some arguments and sign some ballots ought to be there for you and your improvement. this isn't to say that i have some big idea of what's good for you that i'm going to try and teach you; in fact it's quite the opposite. you play this game; you should determine for yourself how you want to play it. i believe that you can and should make it your own, and that it is counter to academic progress and freedom in general for me to spend a whole lot of time telling you what to do. accordingly, most of what you will read from here on out will be primarily expressions of preference rather than any hard and fast rules; ultimately, you should do what you want to do and i'll/you'll be fine.

and, on the whole, i treat debate as a game (in context; remember the realities that . it is a game with many built-in possibilities, opportunities, and responsibilities, but it is one of the only academic exercises in the world where one can speak hypothetically on a subject in a competitive fashion, and accordingly, i think it should be played hard, feverishly, and sometimes even dirty (because there are not many places where we get these chances). i like cleverness, audacity, wit, intuition, style. as a result i would say that, because you are probably going to be most likely to win when you play to your strengths, instead of investing too heavily in figuring out what i really dig, you should debate in whatever way you are most comfortable and confident. but, if you feel like you've got multiple options and styles in your repertoire, then push the limits of the game; fortune favors the bold.

oh, and please: be feisty, be tough, and be smart, but don't be mean. don't be rude. don't make your disagreements personal. don't demean your opponent. don't make people feel targeted. it's a recurring problem in debate and i think the community as a whole would be happier if we treated each other like colleagues or maybe friends instead of enemies. whether or not we like each other, or what others in the community stand for, what we do with our lives, what we aspire to be, WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. let's have each other's backs and keep it respectful.


 * the resolution**

i tend to believe that the resolution is, if not a claim to truth, then at least a sentence which is predicated upon certain alleged facts or states of affairs. that said, i'm not of the belief that specific utilitarian advocacies shouldn't be heard (i.e. your plan or disadvantage); i simply need you to deploy them in a way that establishes why they're relevant to the resolution. in general i'll just assume whatever burden structure the affirmative defends until the negative challenges it; if the affirmative doesn't defend one then i'll leave more or less any avenue of negation that contests the affirmative or the resolution open until some kind of debate happens that says i should do something to the contrary.

performances and pre-fiat arguments are pretty neat, but i'm relatively persuaded by the notion that the topic asks who did the better debating AS AFFIRMATIVE OR NEGATIVE. i've voted on some blatantly non-topical arguments a time or two, but until otherwise very strongly argued, i'm going to assume that you have to be at least a little bit topical.


 * policy-style positions and arguments**

there are many of these that i encourage but there are probably more caveats here than other areas of my paradigm. while i value weighing, research, impact comparison, specificity, and unique case positions about real-world impacts, i just think that there are certain circumstances under which particular policy approaches are not very topical, and at the least probably quite un-strategic. this, of course, depends on what the topic is: arguments in favor of joining a particular international criminal court can be quite reasonably considered within the topic area on the resolution that said the united states should join an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity. however, on this particular resolution, it seems that only certain forms of action-based affirmatives make sense to me. since the topic says that something ought occur generically in a democracy, my intuition is that it seems out of turn to run plans on the affirmative in that the topic becomes something different when set within the borders of a certain country. it also would seem that doing so is functionally useless -- wouldn't your advantages to making everyone vote just be reasons why it's right for everyone to vote? the only situation in which this seems to not apply is a plan that demands that everyone voted FOR SOMEONE -- which seems kind of extra-topical, as well as severely missing the point of the question the topic asks. i don't know why anyone would run a plan on this topic -- why wouldn't you just argue in favor of utilitarianism and talk about why voting does cool stuff?


 * philosophical/meta-ethical/theological arguments**

i encourage these. it is worth noting that since meta-ethical frameworks have become more popular in recent years and that meta-ethical philosophies often address different philosophical conflicts and concerns, some attempt to structure meta-ethical criticisms or specifically how a meta-ethical argument can be used as an evaluative mechanism for other theories/standards would be much appreciated. if the advancement of meta-ethical arguments has been intended to give more structure to debates about the nature of truth and ethics without a priori/burden wars and defense-defense debates, then it should have as a priority the clarification of a way to resolve the debate. (as previously noted, however, i am not principally opposed to a priori/burden wars and defense-defense debates.)


 * kritiks and critical arguments**

i encourage these. it's worth noting that many kritiks which would be otherwise extraordinarily compelling and strategic arguments suffer from a particular set of problems in ld: they lack framework which would establish the priority of the alternative of and the impacts to the kritik, or if they are critical arguments rather than proper kritiks, they lack arguments which establish that the negative has unique access to advantages. so, independent of my preferences, if you're running a kritik, you should probably have some framework to establish that the impacts of the kritik are evaluated to prior to the affirmative's impacts which they could weigh against the kritik, or you should be establishing that not doing the affirmative/the resolution uniquely avoids the impacts to the kritik in a significant way (basically, if you don't have framework, your k should be treated like a counterplan). also, i have noticed that, for some reason, links of omission are getting pretty popular; this is to say, links which are based on the affirmative doesn't do (i.e. you fail to address issue/group of persons x and that ignores the heart of problem y). not only are these links poor from a strategic standpoint (if you are running a k of capitalism whose link is that the affirmative fails to address the relationship between capitalism and domestic violence, and your alternative is to reject the capitalist mindset, the affirmative can simply say that they reject capitalism too and that they just don't talk about every socially embedded problem in their affirmative case, so the affirmative doesn't link and the negative can get equal access to the alternative), they are not compelling in the least and tend to create debates with no clash. so rather than say the affirmative doesn't do something, your kritik will always be more strategic and more enjoyable to judge if you indict something the affirmative has actually said or done. as a rule, the more specific the link, the better. good kritik debaters will repeat lines and phrases verbatim from the affirmative case in order to craft specific links. if you run a kritik with excellent framework and alternatives with specific or precise links to the affirmative, i will be pleased and you may see some high speaker points.


 * speed**

i am fine with a certain degree of speed but some things should be noted here. first, if you're going to make lots of analytic arguments it might behoove you to occasionally slow down a bit and possibly number them; the faster a debate gets based on various things just written around the flow, the more important it is for those things to be signposted. second, tone affects clarity, audibility, and (call me a dinosaur) the persuasive elements of your voice. so the more you intonate -- the more your spread sounds like sentences with rises and falls, even if quick -- the clearer it is (emphasis helps to determine where sentences end and begin, the delineation between thoughts, etc).

also, i don't say clear. i am puzzled as to how this is not akin to calling "warrant" when debaters make underdeveloped claims. i'm not asking you to abandon logical argumentation in favor of slow, down-home persuasion, but debate is a fundamentally communicative activity; you have to communicate with me in order to convince me that you've done the better debating. if you're going too fast (doubtful) or speaking in a way that is unclear to me (much more likely), you should be able to tell by looking at me; i will probably not be writing and giving you a somewhat discomforted or bewildered look.


 * theory**

i believe that there are circumstances in which arguments about what should be expected in a debate round are appropriate. that said, in recent years the tendency to utilize theory arguments inappropriately has become rather widespread -- and for the most part, i don't like it. this isn't to say that i don't evaluate or vote on theory, because this is your game and you have the freedom to advance norms that aren't in the rules if you want. but i think that theory overtaking the discussion of the topic is generally undesirable, and that the current climate of theory debate has put debaters answering theory in some fairly absurd situations. i also have never seen any public discourse on a political, ethical, or epistemic subject where somebody attempted to exclude an opponent's position on the basis that it deprived someone of argumentative ground or made it extremely difficult for them to win -- in fact, outside of debate, people tend to argue against positions mostly on the basis that they believe them to be false (this seems like the proper course of action to me). you don't want your opponent to win arguments, and it's in the nature of argument to align things in your favor -- argument is warlike in certain senses and, as such, i encourage you to be a warrior, in mastery of a powerful arsenal of skills and prepared to defeat any opponent, rather than a zealot or preacher who refuses to engage those believed to be breaking the rules (pacifists don't win wars). but if i really consider myself to not be dogmatic and leaving the activity open to you, i can't exclude or ignore theory arguments in good conscience, so i will listen and evaluate. but i don't like it, and i will note some preferences so you can navigate a theory debate in front of me:

1) if you want me to *vote* on a theory argument it had better be very well justified. theory arguments should exist to supplement and frame debates as opposed to overtaking them. similarly i tend myself to be more receptive towards theory arguments that ask me to exclude positions rather than vote against debaters (though i am still not strongly in favor of such forms of argumentation). 2) given the lack of a consistent language to ld topics and the varying nature of ld topic areas, i tend to presume that debaters don't need to provide a counter-interpretation to justify their strategies in response to theory. ld is designed to allow for a unique amount of exploration on questions of value, framework, and meaning, as well as questions of application and policymaking; i err on the side of academic freedom within the boundaries of the topic, so i would rather you prove to me that a position is unacceptable rather than proving that there may be a better way to do things and that your opponent lacks a counter-interpretation. "WHAT HUH?" it means i'm way more receptive to reasonability than competing interpretations. 3) i think it's legitimate to question what motivations we have for voting on or considering theory arguments. so i'm open to interesting arguments about fairness and education, and arguments that there should be other concerns which structure our theorizing of debates. i don't think "fairness isn't a voter" or "education isn't a voter" are appalling or absurd arguments; i don't think that if you fail to justify why fairness or education precede evaluations of the topic that it's intervention for me to not vote on it (on the contrary; if you fail to explain why i need to consider something other than arguments about the topic, it would be intervention for me to vote on theory and i would be deviating from the instructions of the ballot -- to pick who i think did better debating on the topic).

theory as strategic tool vs. check on abuse: most of the time i just don't like to see theory debates if it can be helped. as a consequence of this i think i'd prefer to see you running theory as a response to some abuse story rather than just a way to nab a ballot while ignoring the topic. i'll vote on theory arguments in response to things that i don't find abusive, but theory is generally counter-intuitive and unattractive to me as a strategy, so i'm going to apply the same stringent standards to theory whether your interpretation is really ridiculous or quite common. on the whole i'd prefer to see fairness, education, or concerns external to the topic used as reasons to prefer an interpretation of how the round should break down rather than a reason someone should lose (and even then, i'm not convinced that these are the only, or even primary, values that ought to affect community decision making). i'll vote on it, but this shouldn't probably be your a-game.


 * offensive/counter-intuitive/weird/squirrely arguments**

be aware that a significant number of people at any tournament where you are debating this topic are affected by some arguments on the topic, and as such, populations and persons who are referred to in your case arguments shouldn't be regarded as a vague "they" because, even if this is a game, we are discussing real human beings that you may be interacting with at the present. some of you may remember a topic in recent years regarding domestic violence, for example; treating domestic violence victims as a disembodied "they" is not only a marker of privilege, it is dangerous, presumptuous, and extremely alienating. just something keep in mind when you choose your words.

like, i'll vote on some weird stuff. and i'll even vote on some very offensive stuff. but i think there's a difference between advancing a counter-intuitive position ("there are no meaningfully justified moral statements") and a knowingly offensive one ("it's okay if there's a nuclear war in the middle east because there are terrorists there"). i would encourage you to avoid the latter. you can probably win without making these sorts of repugnant claims. if you win them, you win them and i'll vote for them (if you can't beat an argument that justifies genocidal violence, you aren't the better debater right now), but, like, i would encourage you to argue something off-the-wall rather than something disgusting.


 * things that will get you on my good side**

1) be human. speak conversationally, even if you're fast. it's really easy to forget that debate is just another thing that happens in the broader spectrum of life. treat your debate like a conversation, except with a certain strategic focus, and i will rather pleased. 2) i think smart framework both clarifies a debate tremendously and shows strategic prowess. as such, good framework arguments will entertain me and warm me up a bit. 3) signposting. over the last few years as debates have become faster and more evidence heavy, i've seen many top level debates utilize minimal analysis and explanation and spewing of random cards. this will frustrate me to no end. i can handle a great deal of speed but i do not enjoy a messy debate, much less an incredibly fast messy debate where i'm not sure what is being referenced by the debaters in rebuttals. maybe even slow down on authors names and take a little breath between cards and i'll be able to tell much more easily where you are when you start making arguments. 4) slow down at least a teensy bit on your theory shells. i don't always want to call for evidence and i think i'm even less likely to call for a theory shell. and if it's just because i couldn't hear you or you were unclear, then i assuredly will not call for it.


 * cross-examination**

"why does this guy have a section about cross-x in his paradigm?"

listen, folks; you only get ONE chance in the entire debate to make your opponent directly answer hard questions. you get ONE chance. don't waste it. every other time you making an extremely powerful observation or argument on what your opponent's doing, they get until their next speech and whatever prep time is in between to find a way to deal with it. cross-examination is a straight up battle of wits; it's the only time the debate can get really confrontational and juicy. don't waste that opportunity! i am not opposed to flex prep if debaters want to do it but on the whole i don't think it's good for your cross-ex skills. flex prep started getting popular during the time i was debating and the more it's been used, it seems that the less people care about using cross-ex to get strategic concessions out of your opponent or really put them in a bind about somewhere they've made a mistake. i cannot stress enough how many debates i've seen where cross-ex completely shifted the apparent momentum of the debate. if you just got hit with a devastating NC, get feisty before the 1AR so that you come into the hardest speech in the debate looking like you're ahead (and if you got some good cross-ex questions out, you probably are ahead strategically).

again, just a preference here. i mean, you can be bad at cross-ex and still win the debate, but i mean, i think its silly to waste this opportunity.


 * "how do i get a 30?"**

during the last few prelims of every tournament i judge, someone asks me this.

it's very hard and it's pretty rare. in my 5+ years of judging and coaching, i think i've given out about 7 30s in total. i am a little bit of a speaker points fairy (i mean, i know how i felt when i got a 24, and it wasn't good), but the 30 is a rare prize that ought to be treated like it's something special.

the truth is that i don't have a horribly succinct and direct answer for you -- speaker points are kind of arbitrary in general, and usually the way i distribute speaker points is based on how impressed i am with you, which is very difficult to quantify or qualify. a lot of people have these tables where it's like "30 = you might win the tournament; 29.5 means i expect you to be in late outrounds; 28 means i think you deserve to clear to elimination debates", but, let's be honest, i can only watch so many debates at a tournament and i'm not miss cleo. how am i supposed to know how good you are compared to all these other debaters i haven't seen at this tournament? even if i know that some competitor who is quite good is here, isn't it kind of messed up for me to walk into every debate thinking "well this kid is the best debater at this tournament, let's take him as the pinnacle and compare"? so i take debates as they come and the degree to which you impress me will be reflected in your speaker points.

all of the things i've previously mentioned in the "get you on my good side" section are probably a good place to start. good decision making in terms of strategy and efficiency will contribute a lot to speaker points. i heavily admire risk-taking when it's well orchestrated, so if you pull off something really crazy with some grace and swag, you're on the right track to getting a 30. even if you don't pull it off but come pretty close, you're moving in the right direction.

what i said above about cross-ex is definitely a critical element of getting great speaker points from me. if your cross-ex didn't back your opponent into a corner at least one good time, it'll be really tough for you to break 29.

having personality goes a long way towards getting good speaker points. put some flavor in the debate. as much as we who judge and coach love this activity, it can become tiresome and boring to watch repetitive debates on the same topic with people who don't let their own qualities shine through. i'm not telling you that you have to be some big showman or performer, but be yourself! make it interesting for me.

being really rude is a good way to not get a 30, or much of anything above 25. i'm usually pretty gentle with speaker points but if you're just not a nice person, i am not going to be inclined to help you out. i think it's kind of a massive shame that we spend a lot of time talking about abusive arguments in really loud, angry, accusatory tones while calling each other cheaters and gloss over the ways in which we as debaters and coaches actually encourage emotionally abusive habits. in situations where you actually might have to use these skills that you learn in debate to engage someone on a subject, you'll find that you lose a lot of ground with people (no matter how right you may think you are) if you treat the people you are speaking to like they are worth less than you. as far as i can tell, i've never actively intervened against someone that i thought was really rude and was winning the debate, but i've been compelled to and i've come really, really close. i've seen some debates where one side was in my estimation verbally abusing their opponent, and i cannot stress enough how much i wish to discourage that from being a part of this community. i don't think we should reward people for committing emotional battery in an academic activity.

on that note, i really love it when somebody who hasn't done anything wrong and is being treated poorly successfully stands up for themselves. if you call your opponent out for not treating you with respect, you can expect me to like you a lot and probably give you good speaks (putting people in check is sometimes the coolest thing you can do).


 * and finally, prelims vs. elimination debates (basically i'm going to tell you how much i really will be upset if you use the fact that there aren't speaker points in outrounds as a way to excuse being mean)**

so this is something that weighs heavily on me, because i know it's true; if you are used to getting to elimination debates at a tournament, you know that you don't have to worry about speaker points in outrounds. if you know you don't have to worry about speaker points, your approach to the debate changes and your primary focus becomes picking up the majority of the ballots. if your primary focus becomes picking up the majority of the ballots rather than one ballot, you end up being a little more okay with upsetting your judges toward the end of getting to the next debate.

and i don't take that personally -- if you've got two hardcore policymaker judges and me in the back of the room, you probably aren't gonna feel like it's in your best interest to kritik theory or run your weirdo skepticism aff. that's fine -- don't make that sacrifice for me, because i'm gonna be able to keep up with the debate. what i'm telling you here isn't that you should try really hard to overadapt in elimination debates. what i am telling you is that you shouldn't take the fact that you can't be punished with speaker point deductions as an excuse to do things that you should probably be punished for.

i really don't like being punitive -- i don't think that's why i'm here and i don't think it should motivate my decisions as a coach/judge/educator. doling out punishment is an incidental fact of what the adults in this community have to do though -- i don't want to tell you that i'm upset with you and that you shouldn't do things and that there are consequences, but sometimes i have a responsibility to do so. and this is maybe one of the only circumstances under which i feel really strongly compelled to intervene (and it hasn't happened yet, but i am very aware that the possibility exists because i have felt like i needed to a few times): if you are really, really mean to your opponent during a paneled outbound, and especially if there's a few people watching the debate that aren't judging or competing, i'm going to get really upset with you. i might not vote against you, but i will probably lecture you after the decision is announced and it might even start to feel a bit like a guilt trip. if you compete at the highest levels of this activity, and you intend to continue to be in debates where people are watching you, seeing what you do as the winning strategy, and wishing to emulate your style and approach because you're getting ballots, then i am EXTREMELY uncomfortable with giving you a ballot after being really rude. that's not what debate is about. we should be encouraging people to engage in level-headed, rational discussions (and yes, sometimes they get emotional and feverish and heated -- and i don't have a problem with that, but i have a BIG problem with you making it personal). some very talented and intelligent people quit debate in high school because their competitors treat them very poorly. and it's a real shame. it's a loss for everyone. in my experience, these students are on the margins in the first place as far as the debate community is concerned; especially at the upper echelons of TOC competition, privilege is rampant. debate can be especially empowering to people who find themselves privy to fewer forms of privilege; the processes dialogue and argument do not care if you are wealthy, penniless, black, white, religious, atheist, female, male, transgendered, or any of the above; it is enabling to anyone with something worth saying, and i would like to live in a world where people are respected independent of the power given to them by their privilege. it's hard enough to get really far in debate without some form of privilege on your side already, and these competitors definitely feel the weight of these pressures stacked against them. please, please, please, please, please don't push these people who are struggling to keep up with something that they're very passionate about resent an activity that can give them so much.

i don't even know if that particular section will ever affect much of what happens in a debate or how i respond. just know that i am passionate about this activity and i will be pretty upset with you if you act a fool.

feel free to ask me questions, even aggressively, after a debate if there's stuff you want to know about my decision, what i thought of your performance, etc. i understand that this matters a lot to you so i won't be upset if you get a little bit passionate in the post-round discussion. just remember, in the immortal words of eric palmer: "respect is a two-way street."

and that's my spiel. on the whole, play the game like it's yours. feel free to ask me anything else. happy 2013-2014 season, K33P L3▲RN1NG, and PLEASE HAVE FUN! most people leave this activity with way more friendships and memories than trophies, and those are going to be more valuable to you in the long-term. try to enjoy yourself and your time here!