Uhlig,+Ethan

This is a paradigm for CX debate but it should crossover fairly well to LD if I somehow end up judging it. First, **a quick summary** in case you need to read through this fast, though I'd suggest reading the whole thing if you want to adapt effectively. I am presently a college CX and parliamentary debater for UCF and did policy as well as both progressive and traditional LD in high school. Ks and performance debate are great so long as it's done well. Stock policy arguments like plan/advantage/DA/actual CPs are all cool as well, the more interesting your arguments the better. T is iffy, I vote on it if it's well constructed and you actually convince me there's some abuse going on, but expect to sell me on the fact that T actually matters at all and that it is a voting issue -- if you want to go for T be prepared to spend a lot of time developing it. I am not the world's biggest fan of agent CPs, consult CPs, time CPs, etc. but well-developed arguments for them will win you the ballot, though maybe not a ton of speaker points. I try to be openminded and unbiased on the framework debate but I tend to be sympathetic toward the K-aff's side of things, a well-developed education/decisionmaking/whatever argument will still get you the ballot though. Now onto the full version. In my opinion being a completely tabula rasa, unbiased judge is impossible for me (and probably everyone else too, even the ones who claim they are). Thus, I have done my best in this paradigm to tell you about any biases that I might have, and any things you should be aware of. **General stuff:** Speed is 100% fine, but do not sacrifice clarity for more speed. If you are spreading you should be clear. I will clear you three times in one speech, though I will keep trying to flow afterwards. I do not vote for arguments I can't hear. I suffer from an auditory processing disorder and so if you are worried your spreading is not clear enough, feel free to offer me a digital copy of the speech; I usually have my laptop with me in round. I am big on explanation and analytics, and generally speaking if you look like you know what you're talking about that will go a long way with me. I tend to be more a big-picture judge than a line-by-line judge, and I tend to be unimpressed with technical superiority if your actual argumentation skills are worse. Perfectly even debates that I cannot decide will probably go neg just to correct for aff advantage, I have not actually had this happen to me yet though. I do not vote for certain arguments under any circumstance. These are mostly impact turns to oppression. If you read sexism good, racism good, ableism good, whatever, I will not vote for that argument. I won't vote you down for making it but I will probably lower your speaks (along these lines I prefer anthro inevitable to anthro good, but I don't give anthro this same treatment so make the argument if you want to). I also heavily dock speaks and will consider voting down debaters who make blatant, unapologetic racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. comments. Very aggressive, historically charged slurs that are not being reclaimed will instantly earn you a loss. If this is too PC for you, strike me. **Kritiks:** I was a K debater throughout my entire HS policy career, and college has not been that different. I am probably at least passingly familiar with your argument and how it functions strategically in a debate round. If you are running some cool stuff you happened to find that no one else ever runs that's awesome, but make sure it's well explained and if it's easy to confuse with something else (e.g. a version of anthro that is not biocentrism) make sure to delineate what makes your K different. I read primarily anarchist-influenced Ks, especially Foucault and biopolitics. I have read the literature for most common anarchist-influenced arguments. This is a double-edged sword for you. If you're good at it, I will probably be in love with you by the end of the round. If you handle it poorly it will just make me cringe and probably bias me against you. I am also pretty familiar with anthro, security, necropolitics/Puar, and ableism. Anything other than that I most likely have heard and understand the gist of the argument but I am not intimately familiar with it, so if you're just running Ks you barely understand as a strategic choice those are probably the ones to go for. Speaking of, I do not like debaters who run Ks they barely understand. If you're going to be reading a K, you should have committed to at least learning the arguments enough to give a semblance of knowing what you are doing. I want you to be able to answer questions in CX and analytically extend/defend/explain the K, even if you aren't doing it with 100% fidelity to the original argument in the literature. If you don't know what you're doing, stick to policy arguments in front of me this round, go learn the argument the K makes, and come back next time. Even more than I don't like debaters who don't understand their K very well are debaters who are deliberately obscure with it (I'm looking at you, pomo debaters). You should not be winning rounds because you are better at confusing your opponent, but because you are better at arguing. I will absolutely destroy your speaks if you muddle the debate and don't directly answer questions for the entire round and then suddenly, as if an angel descended on you with divine knowledge of the arguments DnG make in Anti-Oedipus, make clear connections and extensions in your last speech in a way that was obviously done with strategic intent. Not everyone has access to the resources to know every K argument and how it functions in a debate, and debaters like this make policy even more inaccessible than it already is. Yes, making clear arguments about pretty much any K author is possible -- it has been done, I guarantee you. If you believe that you genuinely cannot do this, then do not read that K in front of me. I love interactions between Ks, so answering the K-aff with a K is both totally acceptable and highly encouraged. Last thing here is that I am generally not a fan of the "oppression olympics". While I will consider well-formulated arguments, I do not like it when people do impact calculus with different forms of oppression (e.g. "racism is a bigger issue than transphobia and we solve that"). Root cause arguments are not the same thing, and while I tend to be skeptical of them I will flow and vote for them like any other argument that I don't personally agree with. An example of this is the super common "all oppression is rooted in capitalism because it all comes down to class". **Performance debate/K-affs:** Do your thing. I will flow and vote for it. Be prepared to answer framework, preferably with answers that are interlinked to your aff. You know it's coming so just write blocks. You should probably prep vs cap while you're at it. I expect the aff to leave room for the negative to debate. That is probably the main key to winning the framework debate -- give me a counter-interpretation of the framework and tell me specifically why you are being fair to the negative. If you do not know how to do this, a good example is "it is the role of the aff to discuss the topic" -- if you are limited to discussing the topic the neg still gets access to a bunch of stuff, they just have to get creative. On that note, I default to fairness and education being a priori voters before everything else in a debate round but I am open to hearing you tell me why they are not. You will have an easier time telling me fairness doesn't matter than you will telling me education doesn't matter. I am generally speaking not in the business of judging the quality of your performance, so don't be afraid. I do, however, expect you to care about it, tell me why it's important and why I vote for it. K-affs with a plan not being ready to answer state bad is actually even worse than performance debaters not being ready to answer framework. **Framework:** A good framework argument vs. K-affs is fine and I will vote on it. If the framework debate lays out equally at the end of the day, I will side with the aff, but if you do it better than they defend it you're fine. It's also fine to simultaneously go for a K of the aff along with your framework arg. Generally speaking I like pre-fiat impacts about why traditional policy-style debate is a good thing beyond just grounds + prep. For example, decision-making, portable skills, etc. **Policy stuff:** I am not one of those K debaters who has some personal issue with policy debate. I evalute advantages, DAs, and case debate like pretty much anyone else. I am usually not a fan of card vomit where you just spew out as much evidence as possible and win because you're faster than your opponent. You should be capable of explaining the warrants in your cards, explaining the logic of your extinction scenarios, etc. This is more a speaks thing than a voter thing though. DA links should ideally be reasonably specific. Other than that not much to say. I get bored of hearing elections/PTX DAs, so try to be interesting, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the ballot. Neg wins if the aff violates inherency, cannot demonstrate solvency, or has no impacts left by the end of the round. If the aff has a risk of solvency or some shred of offense left this does not apply. **CPs:** I accept conditionality on CPs so long as there is only one of them. I will almost certainly not vote for condo bad in this situation unless you drop it. If you read two CPs you better be very convincing as to why that's theoretically justified. Same goes for a CP + a K with an alt, or two Ks with alts, for the record. I love really interesting CPs, especially if they're specific to the plan. Agent CPs, time CPs, (undeveloped) consult CPs, etc. are not my favorite things in the world but I will vote for them if they are well run. If you have some plan-specific evidence as to why we need to consult X group/body/thing/whatever, that is a different story. I find that stuff super cool. **Theory:** I default to the following positions. Condo good if squo + one conditional advocacy, condo bad otherwise. Reasonability. CPs can be both extra-T and topical, as long as they are wholly competitive. The aff gets to perm, and make extra-T perms. Perms are a test of competitiveness, you don't get to advocate for them as offense. It's usually OK to perm part of the CP if it includes multiple things and some of them are not competitive (e.g. "Do the plan by executive order also give everyone a puppy). Extra-T is probably not a voter unless it's really bad but if you point out the parts of the aff that are extra-T and are convincing I will not factor those into the aff's offense. These are debatable, but just know that disagreeing with these is an uphill battle. Anything else I'm pretty neutral on. Note that I expect theory to prove an actual abuse claim, the burden is on you to prove to me why I should buy it. This includes if it's dropped. **Topicality:** T is not particularly fun for me and I do not really enjoy voting on it. I especially do not like seeing affs that should be topical lose on random T shells. I expect your grounds/prep arguments to actually make sense -- for instance, if this was the surveillance topic, I would have a hard time believing you were not prepared for an NSA aff even if you found an interp that made it non-topical. T standards that are not grounds/prep and are actually interesting are more likely to make me not bored. If neither of you is going kritikal, don't bother arguing that fairness and/or education is not a voter. Again, I default to reasonability here -- so long as the aff has a common, not-abusive interpretation of the resolution I will probably side with them even if you win the technical arguments as to why your interpretation is better for debate. I am open to aff responses claiming T is irrelevant or unimportant as long as they are well supported, particularly if they answer the standards even if they don't provide a we meet or counter-interp