Diamond,+Joel

A little background info, I am a senior at Wake Forest and I have had minimal prior experience with the topic outside of writing a few camp files during the summer. I enjoy congenial debates between opponents who respect themselves and their opponents. Good debates have strong elements of persuasion, passion, strategy, and high quality evidence. If you are going for a very topic specific strategy that relies on a small literature distinction to generate CP competition you need to be explicit in your speeches and CX about what those kind of distinctions are or what certain terms mean, just in case I don't know what they are. I lean slightly towards the big picture > tech side of the spectrum on close debates, but that does not mean that I will only vote for what I think is the right side of the debate. It does mean, however, that I can be persuaded that a better argument with smart explanation outweighs a lesser argument even if it has more cards. I do not like intervening and try to be as objective as possible, but recognizing that certain positions have more/less argument credibility is important for how I evaluate their weight at the end of the round. Ultimately, I take pride in working hard to judge debates because it is something I enjoy doing and you should put even more energy into winning my ballot.

Flexibility is important: I enjoy both policy and critical debates as an important part of any good negative strategy, but if you want to read your Schopenhauer or Baudrillard kritik I am probably not your best judge. Turns case, root cause, or impact framework arguments like reps, epistemology, morality etc. first arguments are important and the aff must engage these questions of the debate. Framework or methodology based arguments can be a compelling reason for me to vote for or against either side, given proper execution.

Theory: I don't like voting on cheap shots if the other team is winning the substance of a debate and tend to agree that most theory arguments are a reason to reject the argument not the team; however, a well developed multiple conditional worlds argument that has good warrants for why the neg made the debate impossible for the aff by reading a PIC, an Agent CP, and/or an Offsets CP (for example) is persuasive to me if executed properly. Process CP's are probably not legitimate, PIC's are more debatable

Topicality: I tend to err on the side of reasonability, but I can be persuaded otherwise. If I vote on T, cards that make clear distinctions between topic literature and an explanation of how the world of the aff's interpretation of the topic has a caselist that is worse for debate are most important. K's of T are only effective, in my opinion, if used to turn the neg's fairness or education standards.

DA / Case or DA / CP are both good strategies, turns case arguments are very effective but comparing the difference between the aff's internal links and the risk of the DA turning case is probably the biggest part of the debate for me. I am most persuaded by smart analytical arguments, but if you don't have offense against a DA you need to have good impact calculus for weighing CP solvency deficits or win a strong argument for why there is zero risk of a DA.