Abell,+Nathan

I debated in LD for four years at Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas debating consistently on the local, state, and national levels. I've taught at UNT, VBI, and the Championship Group. I've coached at St. Louis Park in MN, and am coaching this year at SFA Austin. I'm in my second year at the University of Texas at Austin in Government, Philosophy and Gender Studies.

The resolution is a truth statement that the affirmative should prove true and the negative not true. What that means, whether those are the burdens, and what that means for other arguments is open to debate. My presupposition is just of a generally truth testing paradigm, where what "truth" means is up for discussion.

Beyond that, here are some more specific issues:

Prestandard/Prima facie/A priori: These are totally cool, just understand that the threshold for justifying them will be fairly high. I don’t have a bias against them, but if there isn’t a very clear reason why they come before the standard I’ll just ignore them. Also, I'm inclined to think that most pre standard arguments are just using a standard that you think is logically prior to the one called the criterion, so clarifying that is a good idea.

Theory: I am not a judge that thinks that T is automatically a voter or that fairness is a critical constraint on substance. You should explain why thats true. If you can do so in a creative way, I'll like it. Please don't read a five second blip that says fairness is key to everything else, since thats probably not enough.

Critical Arguments/K’s: I love critical arguments, and they are by far the most likely to get you good speaks. Well developed critical cases are incredibly enjoyable to see, and the more creative you can get while still staying topical and substantive, the better, and I don’t have any personal biases against any particular philosophical position. The caveats are the usual: if you did not write it and thus probably don’t understand it, don’t expect above a 20, or usually a win, and if you are being deliberately confusing in your explanation, the same applies. This is not to say I hold these arguments to a lesser standard of proof. Critical arguments are going to be held to the same standard of proof as other arguments, I just personally like them more.

Speed: I have no personal bias against speed, and went extremely fast (or so I was told) when I debated. The only issue, however, is that I just straight up am not that good at flowing. So, go as fast as you want, and I’ll probably be ok, but flowing at the fastest levels can get hard.

Speaks/Random other things: I’m already realizing that I’m incredibly harsh with speaks, and will try to average a 27 but will probably average lower. I basically don’t care about presentation, and speaks are based on the quality of argumentation, and the decision strictly on the flow. One thing that will guarantee high speaks is if you run a position, that is WELL JUSTIFIED, that I have not heard before on the topic. Usually those positions are critical in nature, but obviously don’t have to be, I just like creativity.

Instances in which I'll Proactively Intervene (aka dont do them): First, if you make up evidence/do something otherwise dishonest, I’ll just drop you. That doesn’t mean I really care if you ellipsis the hell out of evidence or whatever, just if you lie about it. Second, if you lie in CX. Third, if you say something sexist, racist, homophobic, extremely rude, whatever. I know there is some debate about whether or not something like that deserves a loss or not, but as of now I think it does. So just to be safe, don’t do it.

NOTE FOR TOC '09: I think that most of this paradigm is intended for debaters that are worse than those that will be reading it for this May. What that means is you should not read my paradigm as a prohibition on good theory debate (unless its in place of other good forms of debate), or good stock debate, or good any debate. For the TOC, in front of me, you should do primarily what you are good at, and it'll be comparatively better than trying to alter something for me. Also, in the hopes that this might help, there are certain judges that I'm pretty sure, from my own observation and from others commentary, that I judge similarly to. Some of the most similar judges, to me, who will be at the TOC this year are Ryan Graham, Kris Wright, Eric Melin, and Tom Evnen. That does NOT mean that we always judge identically, or even that they would agree with my assessment, but that is the general school I'm associated with.

Any specific questions now or at the tournament, please just ask: abell.nathan@gmail.comOh, by the way, I am judging for SFA Austin James Monaco at the tournament, and am striking myself from Madeline Vuong, Catherine Tarsney, Andrew Waks, Shivani Vohra and Devin Race, for various reasons you can ask me about if you care.