Khatri,+Nick

Like most judges I will try to evaluate rounds based solely on what happens in them. I will evaluate arguments as objectively as possible, and I don’t think it’s my place to impose my opinion of what constitutes a good argument on debaters.

Of course, that disclaimer doesn’t really tell you anything about how I think about debate or evaluate arguments. In this philosophy I will try to tell you the following things about my judging:

-How much emphasis I place on evidence quality versus “spin”

-How much emphasis I place on the competitive aspect of debate versus the educational aspect

-Whether I hold all arguments to the same threshold

-What my specific biases are

-What my scale for speaker points is


 * Spin Versus Evidence**

Good debating and good evidence are synergistic. Better debaters will be able to cut better cards because they have a better understanding of what their evidence needs to say and can recognize what makes a good card. Debaters who have cut good cards will debate better because they have a greater understanding of those issues and are more familiar with the literature.

The more you know about your arguments and the literature base they come from, the better you will be able to spin your cards. For this reason I don’t think good debating and good evidence are as distinct as some people do, and consequently I think you usually need good evidence to make good arguments.

This doesn’t mean you can win by just having better evidence. I think explanation is very important but usually this means explaining why your evidence is better or answers their evidence. I will evaluate evidence in the context of how it is debated and will try not to credit debaters with arguments made in their cards but not in their speeches, but in close debates I will probably read a lot of cards.


 * Competition Versus Education**

I view debate as first and foremost a competitive game. Education is great, and maybe even the end goal of the activity, but the reason I like debate is because I like the competition and in my role as a judge I am just that: an adjudicator of a competitive game, not an educator.

The reason I’m telling you this isn’t so you can say fairness outweighs education in theory debates. What I prioritize in debate has almost nothing to do with the question of whether unfair practices are justified if they are educational or vice-versa. What it does mean is that I don’t have much of a personal stake in whether you roll people on an argument I consider intellectually bankrupt. This leads nicely into the next section…


 * Do All Arguments Have The Same Threshold?**

Yes. They do. If your 2ac on aspec doesn’t have any offense and the 2nr goes for it you might be on the express train to frown town.


 * Specific Biases**

Being aff is hard. The negative gets away with far too much and too many affirmatives don’t punish them. When I first wrote this section it was just a rant so I changed it to bullet points. These are my opinions on some common and uncommon theoretical issues:

-More than 2 conditional worlds is totally, 100% indefensible.

-Kicking individual planks of a counterplan is bullshit.

-Counterplans that don’t have solvency advocates are illegitimate. A link to a net-benefit does not constitute a solvency advocate. A card that says the process of your counterplan is good but doesn’t mention the aff does not constitute a solvency advocate.

-2nc counterplans to answer add-ons are always legit. 2nc counterplans for any other purpose are never legit.

-Counterplans that “compete” based only on immediacy and/or certainty are not competitive.

-Counterplans that have another actor recommend that the plan be done are not legitimate.

-Counterplans that include both the entire action of the plan and the entire text of the plan are not competitive.

-If the plan says USFG, agent counterplans are not competitive.

-Counterplans that use multiple actors are not legit unless they are multiple parts of the same actor. I think “the 50 states and relevant sub-national actors” can be one actor, however they could also be multiple actors if they do different things.

-If you ask in the cross-x of the 1nc if the alt will ever become a floating pic and they say anything but “no” then you can go for floating pics bad as a reason to reject the team.

-Fiat is good. All you have to say is moots the aff. As long as you say it at some point before the 2ar then you’re good to go.

The one bias that I don’t think I should just bullet point is my opinion on non-traditional affs. I think the affirmative is bound by the topic and must defend that the USFG implement a topical policy. I think non-traditional affs that are about the topic can be interesting and can produce good debates, but if your aff is really relevant to the topic then you should be able to find a topical action you can defend. The further your aff strays from the topic the more likely I am to vote on framework or topicality. Affirmatives that don’t have anything to do with the topic are bad for debate.


 * Speaker Points Scale**

26.5 = Real bad 27 = Bad 27.5 = Average 28 = Good 28.5 = Really good 29 = Amazing 29.5 = Unbelievably good 30 = Your speeches were the best 13 minutes of my life