Green,+Kieran

Currently a freshman at Tufts University majoring in International Relations with a concentration in International Security Debates I have judged this year: ~15 Debated for 4 years in high school, graduated from City High School

__**Abridged Version** -__

So, I’m going to start out by saying that the one of my pet peeves in high school was when judges would be like “I’ll vote on anything so long as you articulate it well.” Most of the time, those sorts of philosophies were totally useless not really helpful. All that said, I do believe that the tabula rosa model for the debate is probably the best from a pedagogical standpoint. As a result, I will endeavor to approach any given debate with an open mind, but I acknowledge that I do have some standing biases. To use a quote that I blatantly stole borrowed from Michael Antonucci, “ Judging philosophies lie. This document is probably inaccurate in some parts, because judges’ self-perception can never perfectly correspond with their actual behavior. [It] outlines some things I think about debate, but it isn’t a rulebook.”

tl;dr tech>truth, impact theoretical arguments, clever spin is encouraged

__**Specifics**-__ With all that in mind, here are my thoughts on various arguments within debate

__Topicality__: I default to a framework of competing interpretations (no surprises there). I’m generally pretty skeptical about reasonability arguments, mostly because I think that the concept of a “core of the topic” is both contrived and arbitrary. I’m a sucker for a well-impacted topicality argument, mostly because I feel like it’s an area that many teams fail to capitalize on (and please, 2ns, if you’re going to go for T you damn well better have an argument that’s more developed than “wah wah they explode the topic.” Tell me why it matters). Any evidence read should be contextualized, but I’m willing to give a decent amount of leeway to spin.

__Counterplans__: Specificity is ideal. All that said, as a debater I went for abusive conterplans way too often. As a result, I’m probably more sympathetic to generics than most judges are. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I think that a well-researched generic, coupled with well-thought out spin can be extremely compelling. however, I think that most negatives tend to default to a strategy of reading a completely asinine counterplan text and then hiding behind a wall of theory in the block. I enjoy the former. The latter, not so much. I feel like the permutation is the most powerful tool in the affirmative’s arsenal when it comes to dealing with these sorts of counterplans. Generally speaking, I think that affirmatives can use theory as a reason for why the counterplan is not competitive. However, I rarely see it as a reason to drop the team.

__Disadvantages__- This is the bread and butter of debate, and (coupled with either a counterplan or case arguments) is my favorite kind of debate to watch. I’m an IR person at heart, and so I kind of follow current events (especially foreign affairs and politics) with a kind of religious fervor. As a result, I will reward debaters who display an up-to-date and coherent knowledge of current events and use that knowledge to contextualize their arguments.Termin

__Theory generally__: Meh. It’s not that I don’t like theory, it’s that they end up turning into aff block vs. neg block debates which are really boring from a judging perspective. Much like topicality, I believe that theory arguments must have a well-developed impact in order to be considered a “winning argument.” I believe that it’s generally reasonable that the negative get one counterplan and critique. More than that and I become very sympathetic to conditionality arguments

__Critiques/non-traditional teams__- I tend to be more sympathetic towards arguments that deal with themes of social justice (ie, gender, racial, and queer theory) as opposed to more abstract theoretical arguments. All that said, I will never exclude an argument out of hand. I feel like the debate space should be open and safe for any and all forms of argumentation and so I will do my best to make that a reality. I have a decent amount of familiarity with most k lit. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask me before the round.

**__Misc__**.

- Prep ends when your flash drive is out of the computer

-Prioritize word efficiency and clarity over speed. If I cannot understand you I will shout “clear” twice and then (if clarity issues continue) will proceed to stop flowing. You will be able to tell because my hands will no longer be by my computer and I will be glaring at you.

-Card clipping= auto loss and instant zero/lowest possible amount of speaker points

-Aggressiveness and wit are good. Being an asshole is not.

-Racial, sexual, homophobic, etc slurs will result in severely docked speaker points and (in some cases) me signing the ballot for the other team.

-If this helps at all, some of my favorite judges in high school were Travis Henderson, David Gobberdiel, and Ben Hamburger

-I’m generally pretty relaxed within round. Feel free to converse, joke, and above all have fun debating

-In short, meta-level things can be boiled down to two basic points: 1) be excellent to one another. 2) Party on, dudes (and dudettes)