Farra,+Adam

Adam Farra Judge Philosophy The University of Michigan (HS: Dexter) Precluded from Judging Notre Dame

Tournaments Judged At: University of Michigan Camp Tournament, The University of Michigan Tournament, Tournament of Champions, and a few local tournaments in Michigan.

Congratulations on making it to the TOC. I know how hard you worked as a debater, so you can expect me to work as hard (or harder) as your judge.

1. I am a young judge: I debated for Dexter High School for 4 years, and debated for the University of Michigan for 4 years.

2. Topicality: I will default to competing interpretations, absent an argument about why I should prefer some alternative framework for evaluating Topicality (e.g. affirmative predictability, “reasonability,” increasing education over a particular subject, etc.). The strongest interpretations in Topicality debates (for me) are ones that a) fairly limit the topic, and b) are contextually grounded. If the topic literature supports your interpretation, and you can spin your interpretation as providing predictable and fair ground for both sides (I think contextual support is a big part of this, too), then you will probably win the debate. In terms of this topic, "Public Health Assistance" is what I have heard the most debates about, but I have no set ideas on what it means.

3. Kritiks: If you are making critical arguments then the rule of thumb should be that the more specific your evidence (and your analysis), the better. I have grown to be less and less of a fan of these arguments as I have aged, and the reason is because I see these arguments deployed primarily to prevent debate rather than to allow it. For example, the negative never wants to debate the alternative or the meat of the links - they always only want to beat the aff on "You dropped 'your epistemology is suspect'! The aff harms are made-up!" or some other nonsense. If you want to have a real debate about paternalistic neocolonialism in Africa, or surveillance and biopolitics, or whatever - then have that debate! - but don't find me sympathetic if the 2NR is all just extending Kritik buzzwords in hopes I check in on "Ethics first means I ignore the aff."

4. Going Farther Left: I don’t find myself to be a warrior in the clash of civilizations. I enjoy critical affirmatives, and I think that all affirmatives should have a critical edge for strategic purposes – but if you do not have a plan text or some sort of stable statement of advocacy/intent then I will have a hard time accepting that your affirmative is fair and predictable.

5. Identity Politics/Minority Participation: I honestly don’t know how I feel about these debates. Competitively, I dreaded having to debate teams that said this all the time. However, my personal experiences make me believe that meaningfully increasing minority participation in debate is important. I accept that different people have different methods to achieve this; however, I am having a hard time accepting that it is the form of debate that must change first, rather than recruitment efforts.

6. DAs: Good “true” defense is probably a better strategy than going for bad offense (you should have offense elsewhere in the debate). I do believe in the "risk assessment" approach to judging DAs - there will probably be a "risk of a link," or a "risk of the impact." However, I differ from the rest of the "risk cult" in that I think a small risk is comparable to zero. There is no meaningful difference to me between 0% risk of a link and 10-15% risk of a link.

7. CPs: You should read David Heidt’s judging philosophy, because he says it far better than I ever could. However, I'll regurgitate some of the things I think are important. "You need a solvency advocate for your CP...a piece of evidence that compares the action of the plan to the action of the CP...your evidence should be reasonably specific."

The exception to this is when the affirmative is contrived nonsense - if it has no solvency advocate and is simply a bunch of random actions (and random evidence) strung together, then the negative probably can convince me to suspend some of my ideas about CP theory.

In more concrete terms, this means the following: I don't like consultation CPs. I don't like utopian, unconstitutional, or obviously ridiculous action CPs. I don't like CPs with multiple actors. I like PICs, but I want the excluded part of the plan to be substantial (not something tiny and stupid). I do think reciprocity is important, so if you can explain to me what the affirmative has done that justifies you crafting your CP in this particular way then I'll be far more sympathetic to you - as opposed to people who simply scream "WE'RE NEGATIVE! WE GET FIAT!"

8. “Style”: Clarity is SO important to me. I sometimes find myself being the only judge on a panel that is yelling “Clear!” to a debater who is CLEARLY slurring the words in the text of a card just so that he/she can make it to the next one. Don't get me wrong - I keep a great flow. Actually, make that AMAZING flow. But, if you are not clear, then I will be impatient and irritated, and will probably punish you for it in some way (your speaker points, or simply ignoring vast swaths of your speech). As for being “mean” – I think some aggression adds spice to the debate, although hurling insults is different than cornering your opponent in CX. I'm not a speaker point fascist, but if you are unclear you can expect some damage.

9. The hardest debates for me to judge are ones where one team has great evidence, but the other team is doing the better spin (with worse evidence). I think most judges struggle with this, but I’m a young judge, so I’m probably having a harder time than most. If you can help me grapple with this issue in your debate, than you’re in a pretty good spot (regardless of which side you’re on).