Bosch,+Keegan

My personal competitive experience is mainly in IEs, though I have competed nationally in debate events and coached LD, Policy, and IE students. My debate background is primarily policy.

Although I have a number of preferences regarding debate, none of these are set in stone “rules.” One of the great things about debate is that it is open-ended, and the creative nature of the activity is what has allowed it to become what it is today, so if you have something creative cut, I would be the judge to bring it out for! I love judging new ideas and non-traditional arguments.

In all forms of debate, my primary concern as a judge is to remove as much subjectivity as possible. In the interest of this goal, I vote almost exclusively off of the flow. This is not to say, however, that I will blindly flow your arguments without thought. Ex: if your opponent drops an interpretation in their T flow, that does not mean you can define the word to mean whatever you want. Facts and logic must still precede argumentative practices.

To the same end, I really appreciate debaters who give clear overviews in the final speeches (2ar, 2nr in policy or nr in LD.) I want to be explicitly walked through the round so far, and told step-by-step what arguments I should prioritize and why. If you make it easy for me to vote for you, you will be happy with the vote.

I believe Kritikal argumentation is a vital cornerstone of inclusive debate practice, and I generally consider the K to be a priori. However, as with everything, if you can provide me with a solid argument why the K is bad and you debate on that flow better than your opponent, I will still vote against the K. It's not about what I believe, it's about who is the better debater in that round.

I really mean it when I say: no argument is wrong in my eyes. As long as you are supporting your arguments with strong evidence and you are debating well, I will not vote against you simply because I disagree with your logic. If your opponent doesn't disprove it analytically, I will not vote against it simply because of preference.

SPEAKER POINTS: This is not my own words; it was shared with me by a teammate and I believe in the system as a method of removing subjectivity in scoring. (Updated as of 11:22 AM on 12/12/2015.)

27.3 or less-Something offensive occured or something went terribly wrong 27.3-27.7- You didn't fill speech times, didn't flow, didn't look up from your laptop, mumbled, were unclear, or generally debated poorly 27.7-28.2- You are an average debater in your division who based on this rounds performance probably shouldn't clear but didn't do anything wrong per se... 28.2-28.5- Based on this rounds perofrmance you might clear at the bottom. 28.5-28.9- You probably should clear in the middle/bottom based on this rounds performance. Same rules as above on moving in to this bracket from above or below. 28.9-29.3- You probably should clear in the middle/top based on this rounds performance. Same rules as above on moving in to this bracket from above or below. 29.3-29.7- You probably should clear at the top based on this rounds performance. Same rules as above on moving in to this bracket from below. (You can also be moved in to this bracket from an above or below point bracket by debating someone in this bracket and performing well or debating someone in the lower point bracket and performing poorly. Or you can move up in brackets by doing stuff that was compelling in the round, such as reading arguements I liked, made me think, were technically proficient, or generally did something interesting.)

In general, I have no hard and set rules to my paradigm, and I will vote for anybody who debates better, no matter what techniques are used to do so. If you can justify why the argument is best, I will vote for it. ** __WHAT YOU ARE MOST COMFORTABLE AND CLEAN DEBATING WITH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT I LIKE.__ ** If you have any questions, coaches and students can contact me at boschkaa@uni.edu