Awsare,+Shree

=Shree Awsare=

Experience: 4 years at Monta Vista High School (2003-2007), 4 years at Columbia University (2007-2011). I was an assistant coach at Fordham University (2011), and am currently coaching at James Madison University (2011-) and Thomas Jefferson High School (2012-).

**General Outlook on Debate**
- **__Do what you're good at__**. I'm not a blank canvas, but my proclivities about debate change as a result of specific things that I see or am compelled by within particular debates. As a result, I don't have a huge distaste towards particular genres of argument--I am much more interested in how you execute your position(s).

- **__Strategy > Truth__**. Stupid arguments like "counterinterp: only our case is topical," OSPEC, word PICs, time cube, and the lizard people are not encouraged, but I am firmly on the boat that if you can't beat a stupid argument, you don't deserve to win. Whether or not reading these arguments will adversely affect your speaker points is up to how well I thought the position was executed.

- **__In-Round Persuasion/Spin > "Read this evidence after the round"__**. Evidence quality may become important in close debates but is a secondary concern to persuasion within the debate; cards don't make arguments, debaters make arguments. I generally read evidence after debates, but I won't evaluate warrants that are in your cards or make judgments about evidence quality unless they were fleshed out adequately in the constructives/rebuttals. I can be compelled by a well-warranted and well-impacted analytic over a poorly extended series of carded claims.

- **__High risk strategies can lead to high rewards__**. I have empirically rewarded gutsy 2NR/2AR strategic choices with very high speaker points. If you think that a small set of arguments will unquestionably win you the debate (for example, a damning concession) and you close all of the doors properly, I will happily vote for you. You will get substantially higher speaker points for a concise, to-the-point speech made in 3 minutes than a speech where you rant and rave needlessly until the timer beeps.

- **__Assume that I have not read your literature base__**. You should not expect me to know every acronym or all the latest developments in your DA scenario, nor should you assume that I understand all of the jargon in your K. Err on the side of (at least) briefly explaining a concept before jumping into the intricacies of your argument.

- **__You can convince me to pull the trigger on terminal defense or presumption__**. I can be compelled that there is 0% risk of solvency to an affirmative case, or that there is no internal link within a DA, or that a K aff doesn't meet its role of the ballot and should lose on presumption. "There's a 1% chance that we're good for the world" is not a sufficient justification unless you provide a reason for why the opposing team's defensive argument is false or simply mitigates your claim (rather than taking it out terminally).

- **__I will strongly resist "judge-kicking" a CP or a K alternative in favor of the squo for the neg if they have lost in the world of the CP/K.__** The neg can explicitly make a framing argument justifying this practice, but there is a strong likelihood that if the aff answers it to a barely adequate capacity, I won't be compelled to "judge-kick" a world the neg has chosen to defend as an option in the 2NR.

- **__Prep time and Speech time-outs__**. Prep ends when your flash drive LEAVES the computer.

**Specific Arguments**
__**Topicality**__. I default to competing interpretations absent a different way of adjudication. I enjoy these debates when they provide a robust, comparative perspective of your vision of how the topic and/or debates should function. This requires an explicit list of what specific cases and/or practices your interpretation permits/disallows and why this is beneficial for the activity. As for "Kritiks of T": I tend not to view these as RVIs, but as counter-standards that privilege an alternate debate curriculum that's (arguably) better than traditional conceptions. Negatives that plan on defending T against these criticisms should not only maintain that the 1AC does not meet what they view as fair and educational debate, but also need to impact why a fair/educational debate is good and why the negative's alternate curriculum is worse in comparison.


 * __Theory__**. I feel that I am more willing than other judges to pull the trigger on theory if the aff does a good job on it. Similar to T debates, the best theory debates requires a robust interpretation and an explicit list of specific practices (that happened in this particular debate or otherwise) that your interpretation permits or disallows and why this is beneficial for the activity. I will default to "reject the argument, not the team" unless given a reason otherwise. I've been known to vote on cheapshots, but these require fulfilling a minimal standard of execution (a fully warranted and impacted explanation of your cheapshot, and closing the doors on any cross-applications the aff can make from other flows). Stylistically speaking, slowing down in these debates will help me put more ink on your side of the flow--otherwise I may miss a part of your argument that you find important. Additionally, a well-thought out interpretation and 3 warranted arguments regarding why a particular practice in debate is bad is significantly stronger than a blippy, generic re-hashing of a 10-point block.

__**Straight-up Strategies**__. My favorite straight-up strategies often involved one or more of the following: an advantage counterplan, topic specific DA(s), and a solid amount of time allocated to case turns/defense. I am open to hear and evaluate more generic arguments like politics, dip cap, delay counterplans, and process counterplans if that is your forte (in high school, Consult Russia was my jam), and you should obviously go for what you are winning.

__**K and Performance Strategies**__. I can enjoy them, but I don't enjoy them so much that I hack for them without a basic standard of explanation and refutation. I am a philosophy major and spent a significant chunk of my college debate career debating a non-topical K aff and Nietzschean positions on the neg. As a coach, I've worked with a large variety of teams--some defend "heg good" round after round, others are more middle-of-the-road, and some read the K "one off." I will be very impressed if you command significant knowledge about the theory at hand and are able to apply them to the case through examples from popular culture or empirical/historical situations. On the other hand, if you fail to explain basic theoretical ideas within the scope of the K or fail to engage particular points of contention presented by the affirmative, I will be unimpressed.

Similarly, when debating against a K or performative strategy, I am more interested in arguments (analytics and cards) that substantively engage the K while defending your theorization of politics. The K's "greatest hits" are useful but at some point, you are going to have to answer their "K turns the case" and other tricks they may have by using your affirmative.

**Speaks**
Largely subjective, but I will generally stick to what's outlined below (in the open division). Things that may influence speaker points include (but are not limited to): clarity, stealing prep, being excessively mean, humor, the strength of your CX

< 25 (< 50): You really got on my nerves and you deserve an equally obnoxious number on the 0-25 part of the scale 25 (50): You showed up but didn't really make an argument past the 1AC/1NC, and didn't ever acknowledge the fact that there were opponents making arguments in your speech 26 (60): You showed up and made some claims (mostly without warrants) that occasionally clashed with your opponents 27 (70): You made a variety of claims in the debate (some backed up with warrants) but had a variety of severe strategic mishaps and/or failed to impact your claims 28 (80): You made a variety of claims in the debate (most of them backed up with warrants), but you were occasionally playing with fire and had questionable strategic maneuvers 28.5 (85): You are solid. Your claims are backed up with warrants and you have a strategic vision that you are attempting to accomplish. 29-29.9 (90-99): You've done everything needed for a 28.5, but you sounded really, really good while you were doing it. This probably includes: you had excellent ethos/pathos, you were incredibly clear, you were hilarious (or if you aren't funny, you somehow connected with me as a judge and made me want to care), and your strategic vision was executed nearly flawlessly. 30: Life changed.