Kennedy,+Sean

Debate Experience: 4 years at Shawnee Mission East HS in Kansas 3 years (currently debating) at the University of Kansas. I coach for SME still and was a lab leader this summer at the JEDI debate camp, so I have a working knowledge of the topic, though my research on it has not been extensive. Rounds Judged: 40+

__Meta-philosophy__- I generally begin my decisions by evaluating framing issues that I can use as criterion for judging the debate, and I begin this process by first examining the ideas that both teams appear to be agreeing upon, and then use those to analyze the framing issues that each team is contesting. I strongly believe that the debate should happen within the time parameters of the debate (because it minimizes intervention on my part and encourages rhetorical clarity/excellence on the part of debaters), and thus I organize framing issues largely based upon the degree of emphasis and focus placed upon them within the debate. Thus, if your most important argument is that global warming outweighs nuclear war, then you need to weave that into your impact comparison and make it a focus of the debate, rather than just making the argument once and moving on. As a corollary, I tend to reward debaters who explain their strategic decisions to me in the 1ar/2nr/2ar- if there's a reason why you're getting to the perm with 15 seconds left that shouldn't leave me biting my nails and wondering if you're going to get there, then say that at the top of the debate or make it explicit at some point. Doing that lets me know that you know what's going on in the debate, and that what might seem like errors on your part are actually just good strategy. Absent you making those decisions clear, I'm left to make my own, sketchier inferences of your general motivations and view of the debate, which makes sorting the debate out difficult.

I prefer not to sort out entire debates simply by reading evidence, and I will read the evidence through the lens established within the debate. I place a very high premium on the spin that debaters use in explaining their evidence, and I prefer a mediocre to fairly poor piece of evidence with good spin to a good piece of evidence that is poorly deployed. That means you should be concerned with applying your evidence relative to the other team's, not just extending it in a vacuum. On questions of logic or value I am willing to default to analytical argument over evidence if the analytical arguments are at least as good as the other team's evidence, while on questions of fact I tend to default to evidence to resolve issues.

While I evaluate debates in terms of offense/defense, I do believe that 100% terminal defense is possible, and I'm willing to vote on a 100% solvency takeout or a 0% risk of a link. In order for that to occur there has to be a piece of defense that is terminal and a) is conceded repeatedly by the other team or b) is logically unanswerable by the other team's position. Risk of a link/solvency doesn't make much sense to me if they've pointed out a logical flaw in your argument that you have no real answer to. Absent that rare situation, I find that in most debates both teams have offense and defense to each other's offense, so it's your job to explain even if scenarios that should lead me to privilege your offense over the other teams. Following what I've said above about framing issues, this should be something that you do explicitly and that makes it clear that you understand what the debate is actually about. If you merely try to win every argument on every sheet of paper it will make my decision much more difficult since it gives me no way to prioritize each of your victories/defeats on each piece of paper relative to any other.

Finally, I think that a dropped/conceded argument is a true argument. This means that you should beware of the double turn. I think that with the proliferation of conditionality, the double turn is an underutilized strategy- if you believe that you can concede one of their arguments to prove that their other offensive arguments link only to them, then you should take that opportunity in front of me, because I don't believe that a team can make arguments against arguments of their own if the other team has conceded them. However, the priority that I give to x or y dropped argument can be diminished if you extend a, b, or c argument that you've been extending throughout the debate that implicates the dropped argument. Even if dropped arguments are true, that doesn't mean that they leave the greater field of the debate- they can still be implicated by other points of contention within the debate. Please note, a dropped argument is a warrant and a claim, not just a claim, and when extending a dropped argument extending both warrant and claim will make my giving you credit for the argument and understanding what that credit means much easier.

__Topicality__- I enjoy a good T debate- it's important that you do two things- (a) explain the violation to me so that it's clear what their aff does, versus what the aff should do (b) explain the impacts in terms of the wider impact on education that debating that vision of the topic would have. I tend to default to competing interpretations on topicality unless the interpretation seems exceptionally arbitrary.

__Counterplans__- I generally believe that counterplans have to be both functionally and textually competitive, although I can be persuaded away from this position. That means that I am not generally a fan of Consult or Condition counterplans, since I don't believe they meet that standard. However, I believe it's important to let the debaters resolve these issues, and I try pretty hard not to let any biases I might have get in the way of teams reading whichever counterplans they like. I do have a particularly hard time with word PICs: I don't understand how the permutation doesn't solve most of the these counterplans, and I find that the linguistic theory supporting their impact arguments is poor, and more likely nonexistent. I can even be persuaded in some circumstances to vote against these counterplans on terminal defense alone. Once again, though, despite my dislike for these counterplans I prefer to let the debaters resolve these issues and I'll put my biases aside if word PICs are your strategy. In debates where a counterplan is part of the 2nr, I generally begin with the question of counterplan solvency, and then compare the solvency deficit impact to the net benefit impact. If I should evaluate something differently in these debates the burden is on you to explain an alternative paradigm.

__Kritiks__- Kritiks are a style of argument that I am particularly familiar with, and I have at least passing knowledge of the literature base for most of the popular kritiks read in high school right now. However, that doesn't mean that I prefer to judge kritik debates, nor does it mean that I'm willing to forgo the technical aspects of the debate simply because I've read the same books you have. I am not particularly persuaded by kritiks that focus on one or two particular representations within the 1ac, and I generally think the best kritiks focus upon an important premise of the aff's solvency mechanism or the topic mechanism, for example social services or, for a medicare aff, the healthcare system. I also prefer method kritiks to other styles of kritik, although by no means is that preference exclusive of "DA-and-counterplan-style" kritiks or "scrambler" kritiks. I think that the central issue of kritik debates is usually whether or not the case outweighs the kritik- that means that issues like alt solvency and role of the ballot are especially important in my decision, should be points of emphasis. Often I find that the technical terms of debate don't seem to transfer as well in kritik debates, so you should explain what they mean in terms of your alt/aff- is engaging in a particular ethical paradigm, for example, more important than evaluating the solvency of the aff? Are your impacts at the level of the policy imagination of the aff, or do they exist at the level of my analytic for evaluating the debate and the most ethical judge decision? These are examples of questions you probably need to resolve to guarantee you win kritik debates. I also find that good link and alt explanation are hard to come by- if you can explain these things in the specific instance of the 1ac, you're going to be in really good shape, given that most teams' answers are probably not relevant to your kritik.

__Framework__- I am not a fan of framework arguments. You have almost no chance of proving to me that the neg kritik/aff kritical aff should not be allowed within debate. I think that position shuts down discussion and is frankly not a bit persuasive to me. This doesn't mean I'll kill your speaks if your read them, or that I'm guaranteed to vote against you, but I don't like your odds given that I think the team defending more argumentative inclusion is usually on the right side. Outside of that, framework debates to me are usually the debate about the debate, and they set the table for what link, impact, and alt arguments all mean. That means that if you're winning offense on a framework debate, then you should explain what winning that debate gets in terms of the debate as a whole. Doing that will make it alot easier for me to sort out the role of framework within the debate. If the K aff has a plan than you probably shouldn't go for FW- I don't see how having impact args outside of util is "extra topical", and I don't think it's implied by the resolution. For K teams that don't have a plan, or are clearly untopical, I can be persuaded relatively easily that you should defend the topic, and that having an advocacy text is a good thing. If you're going to go for those arguments, treat that debate more like an impact debate about the importance of the topic/advocacy texts, and less a theory debate, since I tend to believe the former is what is going on in regardless of if you stylistically present your argument like a topic/clash good DA or a traditional theory argument.

__Disads__- DAs are relatively straightforward. I evaluate risk of link and risk of impact, and then weigh that against the aff case. I think that spin is generally more important than quality of evidence, as I've said above, although it's probably true that your spin will be alot more persuasive if your evidence is better. Given that, tell a story with your disad that explains away their best evidence, and you're in pretty good shape.

__Theory__- Generally I think conditionality is ok, and certainly that alternatives are worse. Beware, however, that if you double turn yourself conditionality won't get you out of the problem. It's not a question of whether or not you're "going for it", it's a question of whether or not you've made logically opposite claims that allow them to concede one, to use the other as offense against you. If you avoid that, you're fine because I generally think condo bad is unpersuasive. Given that, other theory args are probably a reason to reject the arg, not the team.