Connell,+Paul

Connell, Paul Former Cherry Creek High School Policy Debater University of Chicago Student

I am a fourth year student at the University of Chicago. I'm majoring in both Economics and Russian Literature. I debated in high school for four years at Cherry Creek High School in Colorado. Since graduating I have judged a couple tournaments a year. I like mountain climbing and my favorite movie is "Closely Watched Trains." I'm not going to give any more personal background because ideally it should not enter into my decision making process: I try to be as tabula rasa as possible. However, I do have some pet peeves with heavy-handed treatment of economic issues: if you are going to go for a spending DA, I need you to convincingly (if it's possible) explain the uniqueness and brink. Also, the Federal Reserve, inflation, the US debt market (T-Bills and T-Bonds) and its consumers (especially China and the UK) should all be mentioned.

General Judging Philosophy:

I will vote for anything, but this doesn't mean that I have a preference for non-conventional arguments. If you don't give me a framework, I will default to policy maker. Also, courtesy is very important to me, so please be considerate members of the other team.

Case Argumentation:

I am not a huge fan of the "offense/defense" dichotomy - especially when it discourages intelligent on case debate. Saying, "their arguments are all defense, vote on risk of harms" is not an appropriate way to defend your case. In such a round I would be very amenable to giving the ballot to a Neg team that asked me to vote on Stock Issues.

Also, I love specificity. If the Aff has very specific solvency, that's great (generally I find O-Spec a hard argument to win, but will listen to it if there is a compelling abuse story). If the Neg has specific solvency/harms turns, that's even better. If all of this specific evidence clashes and is discussed in detail, I will be ecstatic, there will be high speaker points, and everyone will go home happy. Please note that I'm not trying to discourage off-case arguments: good counter-plans can point out shortcomings in the case's solvency, DAs/Net Benefits/etc. likewise can be solid case turns, and so on.

Procedurals/T:

While I am not rabidly opposed to running Topicality, theory, or other procedurals, I think that debate about cases tends to be more interesting and encourage better discussions. That said, I ran T almost every round of high school, and will listen to whatever you have to say, just please make sure you have a good reason. I won't vote on a dropped "voter" if I don't think there is any abuse. But if there is clear abuse and the the team makes a good case for it, this will be the first place I look.

Kritiks:

As with any other negative strategy, I will vote on it, but I need you to tell me what framework I'm using to asses the round. Also, don't assume I am familiar with the arguments you are making - I need to hear the warrants in your cards and I need to understand how it works as a reason to reject the Affirmative.

DAs/CPs:

Yes.

A few final notes:

Moderate-fast speed is fine if you're clear (on card text as well as tags). Because I haven't debated for so long, some of your top speeds may be too much for me to handle, but I'll do my best to keep up. I will tell you if I don't understand what you are saying. I like fast rounds to be competitive - if one team clearly cannot keep up I would rather hear a slow round where there is a good amount of clash. I'll still vote for the team that wins, but it might affect your speaker points.