Abbas,+Daniel

I debated four year in high school at Maine East (IL), a year at UT-Dallas, and a couple more years at the University of Oklahoma in college. I have 10+ years of experience in this activity.

Debate’s an activity for the debaters. I will judge how you tell me to. It’s not my job to tell you what to run. Like almost every other judge, I have biases, but if you do the better debating, those biases will become irrelevant. I see debate as a game, but also as a community and academic space that we can have valuable discussions in.

**Engage and compare** – lots of teams just do “extend extend extend” without engaging the other team’s arguments. The first step is always important, but the second step needs to be there. Tell me why your arguments are good/important, and then why the other team’s arguments are not. Tell me reasons to prefer your evidence/arguments. Tell me what comes first. Tell me how and why and why not to evaluate arguments.

**Kritiks** – the more specific, the better. Please tailor your links to the 1AC. Generic “state bad judge” and “economic engagement with Latin America is neoliberal” debates aren’t fun, but they can be if application to the 1AC is done. They should have a clear, well-explained advocacy. Impact calculus should be done. I will default to the aff being able to weigh their 1AC unless told otherwise. Affs should question and attack the alternative.

**Counterplans/DAs –** I don’t automatically err to offense/defense. I will if I’m told to. I do believe there is such a thing as ‘no risk of a link’ and smart analytic arguments can easily beat DAs/net benefits. Don’t be blippy with solvency deficits and don’t assume I’ll know the intricacies of the aff – please do a good job explaining why the CP isn’t sufficient to solve the aff. Tell me why the risk of a net benefit outweighs a solvency deficit (or the other way around). CPs should probably have a solvency advocate.

**Topicality –** impact everything, both sides. What standard comes before what? Why are they important?

**Theory –** if you have to do it, do it. We’ve all been in that position before. I have some biases on what is (dispo, specific PICS, one conditional advocacy) and isn’t (consult, delay, 50-state fiat, multiple conditional advocacies) legitimate, but again, if you out-debate the other team, it’s a winnable position. Counter-interpretations that solve the other team’s offense are awesome. Like topicality, impact everything.

**Paperless –** prep time ends when the flash drive is ejected.

**Speaker points** – [27.9-28.4] is my normal range for an average quality debate. If you’ve exceeded that, you did something to deserve it. If you’ve gone below that, you did things that leave room for improvement.

**Things that Grind my Gears –** 1. Stealing prep – don’t do it – don’t type away while someone is getting ready to speak, don’t take forever to get ready to speak, and there shouldn’t be a need to give a roadmap more than twice, pay attention. 2. Mark your cards! I’ve been resistant to call for documents during the debates to follow along, but debaters not marking where they’ve finished cards might have me change my mind on this. You’re not going to remember everywhere you stopped. Saying “stopped at X” during your speech is not sufficient (or efficient), leave a mark where you stopped. Be adamant on getting a marked copy of the speech. 3. Clipping – don’t do it – you’ll get zero speaker points and an auto-loss. Don’t say you read stuff that you didn’t. 4. Bad highlighting – do not under-highlight. Point out when the other team has done this.

**Other Random Stuff –** 1. Dropped arguments are true arguments. But this depends on the argument. There’s a difference between dropping arguments like “extinction inevitable” or “DA turns case” and “no neg fiat.” 2. Debate author qualifications and tell me why those matter. 3. Don’t sacrifice clarity for speed. 4. There’s a difference between being aggressive and being rude – no need to call people or arguments stupid or dumb. Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, or a jerk.