Hasan,+Arif

Judge Paradigm: Policy up top, LD at the bottom. __**Policy**__


 * My history**: I debated 4 years of Policy Debate at Bloomington Jefferson High School in Minnesota and 5 years of Varsity Policy for the University of Minnesota. I'm also an assistant coach at Bloomington Jefferson.


 * Long story short**: I’m a college policy debater who judges and has judged for 5 years.

Three things not up for discussion: temporal elongation of the round (not time limits, per se, but no way to have the round go longer than intended), speaker points (They are my call), and win/loss paradigm. There will be a team who loses and a team who wins, end of discussion. I love funny debates and I love fun debates. Please do both. I freaking love funny. I am very easily amused and will laugh much more easily than many people. However, trying to be funny and failing is probably worse. I'm a big football nut, so sports references will go a long way, too. So will gaming references.
 * General**: Unlike many judges I’ve seen, I seem to judge a lot like I debate, so if that tells you anything, that might help you out. Organization: 1. Evaluation framework, 2. Specific Issues, 3. Biases and Prefs—go here for a quick and dirty summary of “what I want”

1st: Do procedurals matter/are they important (this is only an issue in rounds where one team will claim that their critical claims/topic education/etc come before T/Theory)? 2nd: Which is most important (T v. Theory)? 3rd: In the order of importance, do the teams meet their procedural burdens and should I vote on them (as solvency takeouts or outright voters)? 4th: Which framework do I evaluate the rest of the round in? 5th: under that framework, who best provides a comparative advantage (Is the aff communication strategy/proposed plan/hip hop best under the framework?)? 6th: Presumption. Flows neg unless there is a Kritik or Counterplan. If I forgot something, then make sure you bring up whatever reason you think you should win outside of these steps. My defaults are: Procedurals and T matter, Voters need to be extended for me to vote on theory/T, and I evaluate the round in a policy framework.
 * How I evaluate the round**: I evaluate on a step-by-step scale:


 * Topic Familiarity**: I am in a fairly unique situation in that I did not start coaching until mid-November. That means I didn't teach at an institute or get very much exposure to this year's topic. You might have to explain things to me a bit more if your case/disad/whatever is just a little bit esoteric. I may not understand many of the common acronyms. That said, I'm also not dumb.


 * Speed**: I can flow your speed. If I can’t flow your clarity, I will say so twice. Then I will stop flowing.


 * Theory/Cheap Shots**: I do tend to make the distinction between the two in my head, but debaters don’t so I won’t here. I am a bit harder of a sell on traditional theory args, but not because I won’t vote on them. I prefer comparative analysis on theoretical claims (our standard is better because..., overlimiting is better than underlimiting because..., etc.) and line-by-line in the 2AC/2NC on the theory args.

That being said, if no one does it, I will default to either one of two things: a. Preserving debate is good and the standard that does that best wins, or if I can’t see a clear evaluation there, b. Education is the most important standard.


 * Topicality**: I don’t know how certain judges seem to evaluate thresholds on T, but I don’t know my relative threshold. I’ve voted on neg T against cases that I personally think are topical and voted aff on T for cases that I personally don’t think are topical in the slightest. In order to win T, the affirmative must either prove that they are on-face topical given the violation, provide a superior interpretation that they meet, or prove that Topicality doesn’t matter (They are reasonable, it’s an RVI, T=genocide, not a voter, etc.).

I prefer affs with topical plans over affs that are clearly not topical and do their best to defend it in a topical world, but it does not matter if the aff is just better on the T debate.


 * Kritiks**: Given that I default policymaker, I think the team in question needs to provide a context for how I decide the round. Which framework do I use to evaluate the round, and why is it better than any potential competing frameworks the other team comes up with? Here, I have the same requirements and tendencies as I do a theory debate: I assume that debate is a good activity and I want a standard to evaluate theory (education/fairness/rules, etc.) or why your claims are above such considerations (our education is more important than your conception of fairness, etc.). I have no problem with negatives using their kritik as both a K of the aff and a K of framework, if it fits and the impacts make sense. Also, a good kritik has implications in most any framework and the team running the kritik should articulate that (maybe in an “even if we lose the framework we win because…”)

I have read, coached, or judged structural, poststructural, postmodern, rhetoric, lacanian, continental, french, postcolonial, etc. arguments. If your kritik is relatively well-known, I should be fine.

Overviews: Good, if slow. Impact Analysis: Sorely lacking. Key.

Specific links are good. Read the affirmative cards and grab lines from aff speeches to utilize as links.


 * Performance**: I probably will enjoy the performance and may even be moved by it, but many times I struggle to evaluate the performance within the context of a debate round. I need to know how to evaluate the debate in order to carry out that burden or I WILL INTERVENE. And it might not be pretty. I prefer policy debate, but only because that makes me comfortable. If it is meant to be uncomfortable for me, explain why it was necessary.

It may be an uphill battle to engage in performance, but I have voted for performances more than I have voted against them, I think. The team not performing still has to do work to convince me that the performance is bad (for debate), but not as much as the performing team. Performance debates are likely where I am to apply my biases more than anywhere else, so be careful.


 * My Biases and Preferences:**

When reading offcase or a new off, label the fucking flow. I am serious about it. I want to know what you call the position. “The DA” is bad. “The politics DA” is better. “Obama Good” is even better. “LOS good” is probably best. It lets me synthesize the position into something I understand way before you read the cards and allows me to relax a little. Because labeling invokes visceral judge reactions, it allows the judge to construct the story way before you do and maybe even better than you will. It is close to cheating, so you should do it.

I don’t think that there are any judges without certain argument preferences or biases, but many say they don’t have any. I think it’s a better strategy to acknowledge the biases that I recognize and try to minimize them and hope for the best rather than ignore them and assume they went away. I can be convinced away from these biases very easily (not personally, but within the context of the debate) during the round, especially on theory.

On theory: the negative has fiat. The negative has international counterplans. The negative does not have private actor fiat. The negative has as many worlds as they want and conditionality is OK. The kritik can contradict other positions so long as the two are not run together in the last rebuttals OR the justification for both at once is present in the debate.

On Kritiks: I bias towards kritiks having policy implications and bias against complication. Clarity on the link and the impact story can only help, and unfortunately many teams can’t run pomo clearly. This does not mean I don’t vote on crazy or stupid shit, but it makes it harder, especially if the other team tells me that the shit is crazy or stupid.

On Disads: They should link. Specific links are good, as always. Aff can win on defense if they make a compelling enough extension of case, but don’t rely on it. Aff should have offense on every flow. There should be offense on every flow. There should be some goddamn offense on every flow.

Counterplans: Consults are shady, but can be OK. The more specific the lit, the better. On alt. agent counterplans, cards on the specifics of solvency might be required. If I hear a “Judge should eval. CP’s on a case-by-case basis” arg, then I will evaluate based on the specific application it has to the case. And many times that means the neg loses, sadly enough. PICS are good.

__**LD:**__

Background: I debated policy debate four years in high school at Bloomington Jefferson, 2 years policy in college at Minnesota and have coached 2 years novice policy and 2 years JV/Varsity LD at Bloomington Jefferson. We were starting to see success in our LD program before it was terminated.

Obviously, speed is fine with me—clarity is less of a problem in LD then in policy, but I will let you know if I think you are being unclear with only two warnings. After that, I will put my pen down or stop typing on my laptop as the case may be.

I’ve worked with many frameworks in LD: Value/Criterion, Straight refutation, Res Truth, Kritiks, etc. but I find that I’ll probably need a bit more explanation of the function of your particular framework than normal if it’s not V/C, Straight Ref, or Res Truth (as those are the easiest to understand, even if they might not be the best for a round). In particular do impact analysis both to:


 * 1) Why your framework is preferable (with a clear, logical and hopefully concise explanation of what it is), and
 * 2) How your strategy interacts within the framework (if there are multiple fwks to potentially evaluate, you’d do your best to hedge your bets and impact your strategy to all of the frameworks).

If no one tells me what the fwk is or how to evaluate it within the context of decision-making, I will do my best to make up the one that seems most appropriate to the round that happened in front of me. I refuse to believe that the result of that decision is in any way my fault. It will probably be unfair, but only because both debaters might have deserved to lose instead of just one. D-Calcs are the easiest things in the world to do, and can take 15 seconds.

In terms of being avant-garde or sneaky or whatever, I think I’ve already indicated that I’m fine with how you approach debate (7 off; 6/7 minute K; Theory, etc) but I want it to be justified. Especially articulate how the K interacts with my ballot. What do I do if the Negative engages in hegemonic binary discourse? Tell him or her that she’s wrong?

T: Fine, do it. Remember, I’m used to a policy structure, so I might think of it in terms of Interp, Violation, Stds, and Voters. Neg losing any of those is neg losing T. I think that in LD, because the debate tends to be about the resolution overall, the negative should take more care in explaining the violation than in a policy round (where I’ve seen perfectly acceptable violations running at about 4 words).

Theory: Sure. But you should explain why the theory is a reason to reject your opponent—I’ll default to eliminating the violable offense from the flow if the voter is not articulated (which might be all you need, if you really want it). Comparative theory claims are hard to come by (X o/w Y because…) so doing this will probably ensure a significantly higher likelihood of winning. That being said, I find it hard to hard good speaker points to a win on theory (not that I won’t do it). Pointswise, it’s an uphill battle.

I should disclose that I will let the aff get away with more blippy args than the neg because I perceive an unfair time burden for the Aff. But I hate blippy arguments.

Finally, I should indicate that I am far far far more likely to be impressed with good LD than with good policy. It’s not because I have a bias, but it’s because I can anticipate tricks and traps in policy and know most of them. In LD, this is not true and I will likely not see them coming. So do them, because it will probably look cleverer than it actually is to me. And that shit gets you points. They might require a tad more explanation than you’re used to but not much.

That being said, I think there’s a distinction between tricks and cheap shots. You should figure it out. I had a reputation in Minnesota for loving cheap shots as a debater and I still have one as a judge. This isn’t entirely fair because it is a positive feedback loop—people run cheap shots and go for them because I vote for them. I vote for them because people always go for them and many times win. I like “good” “substantive” debate, I really do. But not enough people give me many chances. So I don’t give them many speaker points.