Ren,+Frank

I graduated from Lexington in 2007 after four years of high school debate at the nationally competitive level. I do not debate in college though I have coached and judged for Lexington at numerous regional and national tournaments, as well as help run the tab room at the Lexington Winter Invitational. As a Lex graduate I'm pretty open to any arguments, though there are some silly arguments that are particularly hard to win - e.g., severance means you vote Neg (instead of just rejecting the perm).

I like big picture ideas, so I like overviews that are clear in impact calculus. I think impact calculus, regardless of what argument you are talking about, is particularly important. Additionally, the team that makes it easiest for me to evaluate the relative weights of their evidence, whether by critiquing the other side's authors, by delineating why their warrants are better, or whatever other method, will most likely win the round.

I was a mainly a policy-centric debater, though this does not mean I know nothing about critical arguments. I will evaluate critical plans and negative criticisms, but be aware that I think that teams which do defend these critical impacts face an uphill battle when confronted with magnitude + timeframe scenarios. This is not to say that I would not vote on any of these critical arguments: a well-debated suffering/starvation/racism/whatever bad impact with great analysis will trump a less well-reasoned "body-count" scenario any day.

I am an economics major in college: you better know your economics before you run the Cap K or De-Dev.

If you are a performance team rolling some kind of performance strategy, I am not the judge for you.

Topicality and theory are not my favorite arguments but I will vote for them if they are well argued and demonstrate actual in-round ramifications. As an example, definitely consider multiple worlds theory as a backburner strategy if the Neg reads two counterplans and a kritik in the 1NC. As stated before, do not expect to win on severance perms are a voting issue, framework is a voting issue, etc. Instead, try to find the middle ground that maintains reasonable stances while advancing your position in the round. Don't be afraid to go for theory if you believe there are actual in-round ramifications.

I haven't judged too many rounds on this topic so if you are going to use acronyms or rez-specific slang, make sure you explain what you're talking about, maybe by referring to the acronym in its full name in cross-x.