Klemz,+Aaron

Aaron Klemz Century College 10th Year Judging NDT/CEDA

Good luck to all of you as you compete! I’m happy to address any questions you have before the debate about my style as a critic.
 * Overview**: I’ve been through many phases in my career as a critic. I am pretty flexible on a lot of issues. I am not dogmatic about the form or substance of debates beyond the time limits. I can judge a //pretty// fast debate, but I prefer debaters that are clear. It will be obvious to you if I think that you are unclear.
 * Theory**: I prefer macro-debates on theory, and dislike it when the micro-debate prevails. For example, I find conditionality/dispo debates that become uncompared lists of reasons for or against conditionality to be virtually unevaluable. It’s my experience that the values that underlie nearly every theory or topicality argument are competitive equity and/or educational value. Debaters that focus on that and compare competing theory arguments are much more likely to win my ballot.
 * K**: I prefer more concrete kritiks, but I don’t require any particular format. When I say I prefer concrete k’s, I mean that I enjoy critical debates that are explained in the context of the particular affirmative far more than those that remain at a general “the squo sucks and you’re like the squo” level. I am suspicious of undefined floating PIC’s. I enjoy nontraditional projects that demonstrate thought and make an argument that is demonstrably relevant to the debate. Most frequently, when I vote for a k, I find myself drawn to arguments that serve as case turns, and less frequently to “alternatives,” since they are often ill-defined and not as well developed as they should be.
 * T**: I generally feel the same way about this as I do about other theory arguments. I can be persuaded to vote for nontraditional affs on what I think of as “impact turns” to the reasons to prefer and voting issues, but I generally believe that T is a voting issue by default.
 * Mode of Evaluation**: Generally, I ask myself “which team’s project has the most value?” This accommodates “traditional” and “nontraditional” approaches. If the neg straight impact turns a policy aff, then their project is more valuable. It’s totally fair game for a neg to go for T and argue that the affs project is less valuable than their project of maintaining the topic as a limit. If this overarching statement scares you, then you need to think about it for a second. All I’m looking for is a way of accommodating increasingly diverse strategies on the aff and neg under a useable framework. It does mean that you need to be aware of the assumptions of your arguments and to be willing and able to defend them. I am usually not persuaded by __simple__ appeals to tradition or definition. That doesn’t mean that “traditional” is bad. It usually has been done that way for a reason, and I expect you to be able to articulate and defend your reasons.
 * One more note**: If you think that you cannot win a “policy” approach in front of me, you are wrong. If you think by doing something “crazy” in front of me you will automatically win, you are wrong. I’m looking for clever and thoughtful debate, and that takes many diverse forms and does not live in any camp in terms of style. My favorite debates involve sustained and detailed clash, humor and style, and strategic choices.