Novicoff,+Zach

__**Debate history:**__

Four years at Blue Valley Southwest

Freshman year at Indiana Universty

Currently attend Northwestern University

__**Generic**__:

In the words of my college debate coach, debate how you debate, do whatever you're most comfortable with regardless of the judge.

1. Quality spin can overcome quality evidence if the debaters don't rise to the threshold, that being said, if I call for a card and it's written by Steve Bannon I may be inclined to do more work for the other team

2. Argument interaction is important and should be directly stated, I won't assume that an argument from the overview interacts with a card on case unless told otherwise

3. Tech determines truth, I think weird impact turns and bad DAs are viable if carded, that being said, the threshold for answering E.T Ecoterrorists will be significantly lower than an actual argument

4. I've only been on the policy side of clash debates, I've been in enough of these debates (especially inner squad) to be more sympathetic to anti-topical/non-topical affs but my knowledge of the literature will be little to none

5. Conditionality is a useful tool for the neg, the threshold for answering Condo bad with under 3 advocacies will be lower with me in the back of the room 6. PET PEEVE: Don't say "they conceded this" over and over again please, if the other team dropped something, flag it, extend that argument, and move on. I've judged too many rounds where teams yell about the other person "cold conceding something" when it was clearly answered and wasn't flowed properly. **DA:**

Some variation of a DA was in the majority of my 1nrs in college and i'm more than comfortable evaluating any variation. There should be a strong push to warrant out turns case beyond "war is bad for the economy," as well as a conducive strategy that doesn't require 2nr extrapolations of three words in the block. I think that the best DAs are tricky and don't rely on reading 10 UQ cards in the 1NR to make it viable (elections DAs ten months early), but I don't have a bias against contrived scenarios as long as work is put in to make it a viable option.

**__Topicality:__**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Preface, I have judged two rounds on the high school education topic and have done little to zero topic reading. Take that into consideration.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I prescribe to the school of thought that limits are universally good. I evaluate topicality on an offense/defense paradigm and think that reasonability writ large is just a bad form of impact defense, that being said the Education topic is wonky and I can be persuaded to think differently. Topicality should be a question of competing models, in-round abuse is far less persuasive argument that normally results in the neg whining about not getting a link to a bad topic DA.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">__**Kritiks:**__

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The majority of my debate career has been spent answering every variation of a kritik and only going for policy Ks (marx, neolib, security, and eco-managerialism, if we were feeling wild). I have no bias against Ks but think that explanation should be the crux of the block for me as a judge, I have probably not read your literature and strongly do not consider buzz words to be arguments sans direct application. I'm more sympathetic to alts function as a counterplan given my policy background. I default to assigning some value to life but have been persuaded to vote otherwise, that being said, i'm not a judge you want in the back of the room if the debate is K vs. K and about competing methods within the debate space.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**__Critical Affs:__**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Critical affs play an important part in the debate community and its growth, that being said, it needs to make an argument. A piece of poetry should be used as offense in a direct way. I've also gone for framework against most K affs i've debated, meaning that I will understand the negs arguments on a deeper level than the critical theory, which creates a bias that should be apparent before the round. I will do my best to understand and flow any argument made, but be aware that this is not a genre of debate that i'm well versed in, and as such, I might miss an argument that you thought a buzz word explained in the overview.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">__**Counterplans:**__

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Counterplans should be both textually and functionally competitive with a clear net-benefit. That being said, I've also gone for every version of a cheating counterplan imaginable and enjoy the debates they create. I think that condition, delay, and process counterplans are viable but theoretically difficult to justify. If you're not prepared to counterdefine words in the resolution as an answer to the permutation, please don't read cheating counterplans in front of me. I believe that PICs can be useful but also incoherent. A PIC that does a certain educational program except for in one school in the middle of Toledo, Ohio probably isn't good for debate and I'll be more sympathetic to theory.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">__**Theory:**__

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I have odd thoughts on theory compared to most people in the college communitiy. Don't drop theory args regardless of how meaningless they are, my partner and I won sems of CFL on "no neg fiat." I'm very sympathetic to 1ar extrapolation on a short 2ac theory arg, given that the block has ample time to answer. However, if you're going for "no neg fiat, rez says "should" not "shouldn't", expect your speaker points to suffer. Cross-X of the 2ac should always ask for theoretical reasons to reject the negative team, if you don't ask that three second question, I won't feel badly for dropping you on a blippy theory arg that was conceded.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Any questions email zacharynovicoff2020@northwestern.edu