Leong,+Andrew

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GENERAL APPROACH: I view judging as an adaptive exercise. This means that I attempt to follow the explicit and implicit expectations of the debaters in any given debate. If a team reads an Iraq affirmative that claims overstretch and civil war advantages, and the negative goes for elections and fast transition turns on the case, I’ll judge as a policymaker even if neither side makes an explicit demand that I do so. Similarly, if the aff claims that its demand that the US withdraw from NATO stands in for a broader struggle against globalization and the negative claims that such particularized struggles prevent broader anti-globalist struggle, I’ll view the debate as a concerned activist, without any explicit demand from either team.======

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FRAMEWORK: I judge many debates where teams seem to have divergent expectations about how I should judge. When debaters do not choose to address these divergent expectations explicitly, I am placed in a difficult position where it is hard for me to understand how to proceed. Explicit statements about "the role of the ballot" or "the role of the judge" are extremely helpful.======

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Describe the divergence between your expectations and the expectations of your opponents. The team with the better descriptive account is usually well ahead in the “prescriptive” debate about what I should do. 2) Express your expectations with passion. Questions about ethics, debate, political theory, the nature of reality, etc. are important to me, and I get frustrated when people appear to be “reading through” the blocks on these questions, or making facile appeals to either “tradition” or “revolution.” Teams that can effectively communicate their vision of debate and their reasons for that vision impress me greatly.======

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TOPICALITY: I am generally unpersuaded by arguments based on "ground" because I believe that the negative always has ground no matter what the affirmative says. Arguments based on predictable and contextually-defined limits are much more persuasive to me. I am not particularly persuaded by the primacy of "dictionary definitions" because lexicographers generate these definitions by collecting examples of frequent contextual usages. The terms "predictablity," "fairness," and "education" do not in themselves have any meaning to me -- a specific account of the significance of these terms is usually required for me to vote negative on T. I am open to arguments about the exclusionary nature of topic construction and topicality provided that the affirmative makes a substantial investment in these arguments from the outset of the debate.======

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COUNTERPLANS: __I think the negative should specify the conditional/unconditional status of the counterplan in the 1NC__ and am sympathetic to 2AC arguments about the loss of cross-ex time incurred by failure to specify. I think that the status quo is generally a logical policy option, but the negative needs to explicitly state that I can default to the status quo for me to exercise that option in my decision. Plan inclusive counterplans or advocacies are generally okay with me, provided that some form of solvency advocate exists and the net benefit is non-trivial.======

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CRITIQUES: I do not believe that the negative is under any obligation to provide a "text" of their alternative. I am generally unpersuaded by critiques (and answers to critiques) that operate at an excessively abstract or general level about "the state" or "realism" or "security" or "patriarchy," etc. Close and specific analysis of the affirmative's relationship to the critique is crucial for both sides. Arguments about the role of the ballot or the role of the judge are particularly important for how I decide critical debates (see above).======

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"NON-TRADITIONAL" ARGUMENTS: If you choose to present arguments from traditions that are considered to be “non-traditional,” I have a few comments. I appreciate teams that strive to communicate with the other team at the same time as they communicate with me. Evasive and obscuritanist cross-ex’s in these situations make me sympathetic to the other team (unless, of course, your evasions and obscurities serve to clarify and illustrate a broader argument). Conversely, I find the negative impulse to pull for the T-stick in these debates to be somewhat reactionary, and not very effective. Just as in a good case debate, effective T-debaters impact their arguments in terms of and in relation to the impacts of the “aff” – e.g. instead of just saying “limits are good,” describe why limitations further the creative process, or serve to break down institutional research advantages, etc. I’ll be really impressed if you challenge a “non-traditional” team on their own ground, or invent your own as you go along.======