Skoglund,+Mark

Updated 10/3/17. I debated for four years at Olathe South High School, did not debate in college, and am currently an assistant coach at Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, KS. I am in my ninth year of coaching.


 * TL;DR**: I generally don't care what your ballot-winning strategy is as long as you can justify it. I default policymaker, otherwise argue your preferred paradigm and framework.

Recently I've altered my view on disclosure theory in high school debates. While I have voted for it in the past and will continue to evaluate my stance, I think that this argument is too often rolled out by one team with significant resources against a team without those resources, and I'm getting really tired of writing RFDs that I think are detrimental to the activity. To me, this deepens the resource divide between programs, and causes those with fewer resources to decrease their participation in higher levels of debate. The divide between programs with resources and those with fewer is already substantial. In short, when it comes to disclosure theory, I do not believe that the benefit of a slightly more in-depth debate is more beneficial than the harm that is caused by forcing a team without access to resources to disclose, for example, to a wall of assistant coaches ready to write frontlines for their team. In order to prevent my decisions from ever needing to evaluate the comparative access to resources between schools, I will not vote for disclosure theory, even if this requires intervention. This is not citeable for other dissimilar positions (e.g., education is not necessarily always outweighed by fairness). To be clear, I am not saying that I oppose assistant coaches helping students prep nor do I think disclosure is inherently bad, but I do think that utilizing the ballot to enforce disclosure in high school has significant consequences.
 * NEW (9/2017): Disclosure theory **: tl;dr: don't run it. Disclose if you want.


 * Default assumptions**: (//These control unless argued otherwise//) - The affirmative has a non-severable duty to advocate something resolutional and that advocacy must be clear and stable. The goal of the negative is to prove that the affirmative's advocacy is undesirable, worse than a competitive alternative, or theoretically invalid. I default to evaluating all non-theory argumentation on a single plane, unless a non-exploitative framework interpretation wins that I should do something different. I default to rejecting arguments over rejecting teams where applicable. I lean strongly in favor of tech over truth (dropped arguments are true) but there’s probably an upper limit to that somewhere unreasonable. You do have to do the work articulating why a dropped argument matters, of course (claim, warrant, and implication).


 * Speed**: I appreciate if you slow down slightly for tags, but otherwise don’t mind speed. I will say “clear” until I give up on you. Slow down for T/theory or for gigantic tags.


 * DAs/Counterplans**: More specific links help with probability calculus, but I have no problem with generics. I don’t perceive leaning aff or neg on CP theory and I appreciate creative theory. I will not consider judge-kicking CPs unless neg specifically argues I should - saying "squo is always an option" isn't enough.


 * Kritiks**: It is easier to win my ballot if you have a defensible alternative. I think role of the ballot is just impact calculus. I lean in favor of arguments that claim "reject the aff" alts don't solve, other than for discourse Ks. An alternative is not necessary to win my ballot but it is generally an easier path strategically, and you should do the relevant analysis either way.


 * Theory**: I think theory is frequently underdeveloped. Do the work needed to win. Reading your PICs good frontline after they read their PICs bad frontline gives me a debate where I'm unlikely to be able to vote; you should have non-embedded clash on a theory flow.

1) I do think there is such a thing as terminal defense/zero risk of an impact. 2) I don't want to call for cards after the round. I'll do it if necessary, but don't tell me to do it - do the work in a speech. 3) I value good strategic decisions and understand drastic decisions when you find yourself in a tight spot. 4) I am not a fan of too much embedded clash. Relying heavily on embedded clash requires the judge to draw connections and comparisons for you, which requires some level of judge intervention that I would rather avoid. This is not necessarily the same as grouping arguments, of course. 5) Outside of the 2AR, I will assume no arguments are new unless specifically identified and argued accordingly. The 2AR is my responsibility to check, but it’s still helpful for the 2NR to preempt appropriately.
 * Miscellaneous**:

Of course, feel free to ask me questions.