Aberman,+Zach

I debated in LD for 4 years at Stoneman Douglas High School on the local, state, and national levels. I dabbled in policy freshman year of college, coached debaters from Douglas, and judged. I graduated in the spring of '11 with a dual BS in Political Science (focus on Legal Institutions and Philosophy)/Economics (Quantitative and Applied Studies) and am currently working as an analyst in downtown Chicago. I intend on pursuing a PhD in the next year or two.

As far as debating goes, I think it is very easy to win my ballot. I do not care what your style is, how fast you go, or what you want me to vote on. It is your round; my purpose is to adjudicate according to the rules you provide. Below, I provide a brief paradigm; if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

EDITS and IMPORTANT COMMENTS: Please don't weigh with strength of link or strength of ink, I think they are meaningless and usually without justification. In remembrance of **Louis Richard Paine III (aka Louis Paine, LPaine, Paine, and the man)**, if you card him in debate rounds you get an automatic 30 speaker points. The same applies to an EFFECTIVE critique of capitalism. Now on with the:


 * Decision Calculus**

I look at what debaters tell me to look at and weigh arguments the way debaters tell me to weigh them. If I am forced to do those things (explicitly, ie without cause), your speaker points will be deducted and I will look pissed off. I will vote on theory first, ceteris paribus.

I enjoy Kritiks (a lot) but I don’t care whether or not you run them. I make no presumption that K’s are a priori or come before the standard; you have to do that work for me. If you and your opponent implicitly assume it comes before the standard, then I will too.

Plans, CP’s, PIC’s, Offcase’s, etc: You can run them, just tell me how you want them to function. I don’t presume to know that… If no rules are determined via theory, I default to voting on who meets a given standard. It would be very nice if, in round, the debaters come to a joint agreement on which standard to use (burden, criteria, violation, etc) and show me how that standard is met. I do not care what the standard is, just that there is one. If:

//A. Multip////le Standards are Given:// Tell me which comes first and why, I hate making these decisions for you.

//B. No standard is given:// The dictionary defines standard as ‘ a reference point against which other things can be evaluated.’ There is always a standard whenever I am making a decision, explicit or implicit. You MUST tell me how to evaluate the round or else I will decide and give both debaters extremely low speaker points.

//C. Competing Standards are Given//: If you keep extending your standard and are unsure which standard is ‘winning’ than just impact back to both and/or weigh.

I will accept concessions received/made as legitimate arguments if, and only if, they are extended/made in rebuttals.
 * Cross-Ex**

Be strategic, be clear. Tell me what you are going for and why. I like line-by-line for the majority of the rebuttal but the last 20-30 sec (or whatever), its nice to get a holistic view of the round. If the round is muddled, take a holistic approach at the end.
 * Rebuttals**

I get bored easily so please don’t go really slow. You can go fast just make sure you are clear. If you are not clear, I will YELL CLEAR. I can flow speed but my recommendation is to only go as fast as you need to go. In other words, if it takes you 3 min to read the AC going really fast, it’s silly to read it that fast. Be efficient…
 * Speed**


 * Evidence/Arguments/Extensions**

When you extend arguments, extend the CLAIM, WARRANT, IMPACT, LINK and WEIGHING MECHANISM.

You MUST have full citations for all of your cards. If you don’t and cannot reproduce the source (if in dispute) than the argument is invalidated. Academic dishonesty is a serious offense and you should be ashamed to lie about your sources. If it’s an egregious **and intentional** violation (ie changing dates to beef up inherency), I will report you to the tournament staff and your coach. Hopefully, this will embarrass you and get you kicked out of the tournament.

I enjoy hearing your analytics especially if you can word arguments better than beefing up your case with long and seemingly pointless cards. I do not prefer cards to analytics nor do I prefer analytics to cards, be strategic. I don’t care for unwarranted blips and if I HAVE to vote on them, I will be cruel when distributing speaks.

EMPIRICS: This is a big one. When you are making an empirical claim, provide empirical evidence. I, however, expect you to know about the empirics if questioned (by your opponent). I do not expect you to be an econometrician or statistician but if your opponent has some of those tools in her toolbox, and you don’t, you will lose the argument. I am very critical about empirics and if competing evidence is given, I expect a clash (not reiteration) of evidence. If you don’t know how to do this, don’t run them until you do. If you do, please employ them.

29’s and 30’s are rare and only go to the debaters that I view were extremely good given the round, arguments run, clarity, etc. 27’s and 28’s are much more common and go to average/pretty good performance. 25’s and 26’s go to poor performances (ie conceding in round). Between 20 and 25: you really had to piss me off, very rare. BELOW 20: You were academically dishonest. I have NEVER given below a 20 but if I do, it will be closer to 0 than 20.
 * Speaks**