Syed,+Sohail

Sohail Syed Director of Debate at Niskayuna High School Former Coaching Assistant at Arthur L. Johnson High School Private Coach for Shawn Tuteja of the Altamont School Debated for Niskayuna High School

__**Conflicts:**__ Niskayuna High School Altamont ST NFA

I vote based on the impact calculus you set up NORMAL-MODERATE speeds (the faster you are, the less likely I got the intricacies of your argument or got it at all and I will no longer try), tell me if you want me to yell clear, but if you are fast and dont slow down, expect to hear me say clear a lot Theory – No bias in terms of what you can run or what theory ought to do in round, however thresholds follow common sense when there is no clear winner in terms of the flow on the theory argument. Critical cases are encouraged, Kritiks not so much - go slower for both, I need to understand arguments (claim/warrant/impact) to vote for them I vote on arguments. If I dont understand how the warrant causes the impact (say if you go too fast), I am not going to vote on it ** I like topical debate and weighing. ** **Pref me an A if you don't rely on speed and are good at comparing impacts and setting up clear impact structures. Strike me or pref me low if you require high levels of speed and intricate theory familiarity.**
 * __Short version:__**

__**Background:**__ I debated for 4 years. I cleared at Yale, Manchester, Bump (Bid), Princeton(Bid), Lex and Harker. I won the Lex RR and was in Semifinals of the Harker RR. I have coached for 3 years in which my debaters cleared at every tournament they attended and have qualified to the TOC. I will be directing Niskayuna Speech and Debate and coaching a few side kids with Alex Castro. I do my best to judge according to this paradigm at the same time I feel that I have yet to judge enough rounds to know definitively what the best paradigm is and what I consider good debate, as such ask me specific questions.


 * __Evaluating the Round:__**
 * Make things clear to me. I need to understand an argument to vote for it and understand how it is responsive. I won’t vote off of things if they are unclear to me. If I don't understand an argument but I know it was made **I will NOT evaluate it**. So make sure I understand your intricate argument or else it won't matter how cleanly it is extended. If i have a sense of the argument and it becomes clearer and I believe the clarification is legitimate and not an extrapolation, I will vote on it but this is to my discretion. An argument is all 3 parts; CLAIM, WARRANT, IMPACT. That being said, re-articulating the warrant in subsequent speeches is not necessary but advised since it adds clarity. So if I flowed Doe '09, you can just answer the answers to Doe, say "extend", and impact/weigh it and you are fine. I think the debate insistence on restating warrants is silly and doesn't serve strategic or educational purposes as far as I can see.
 * I am open to truth testing or any other paradigm. Just justify why it is appropriate. In terms of speaker points, generic skepticism arguments will result in lower speaks.
 * I will cross apply arguments as part of my decision calculus and give credence to one over the other based off of strength of link/evidence and the nuancing debaters do (so make links and weighing very explicit). I would like if you crystallized the round at the end so that I am in line with you in terms of how the round should be evaluated. I will call evidence only to compare the quality of evidence that I have already flowed and there is a lack of comparison on part of the debaters. If you don't want this to happen, make it clear why your evidence is better or more authoritative or I will make the call.
 * Procedular issues come first, but the same does not apply for critical arguments (although it might).
 * In terms of the standards debate, I think that the standards are useful but rarely are able to exclude impacts. Usually the justification for a standard is some general concept like conserving worth or some "utilitarian" foundation, so both sides are usually able to impact. That doesn't mean that they do a good job of doing so.
 * I LOOK TO STRENGTH OF LINK BEFORE OTHER QUALITATIVE WEIGHING OF IMPACTS, SO IF YOU OUTWEIGH BUT YOUR OPPONENT MAKES A CONVINCING ARGUMENT WHY HIS IMPACT IS MORE LIKELY TO BE ACCESSED, I WILL LOOK TO HIS IMPACT UNLESS A GOOD REASON IS GIVEN NOT TO. BY SOL I DONT MEAN SIMPLE PROBABILITY WEIGHING BUT ISSUES OF INTERNAL LINKS (SO A CARD THAT WAS WRITTEN IN DIFFERENT POLITICAL CLIMATE OR IN REF TO ANOTHER COUNTRY VS A CARD THAT IS MORE SPECIFIC) Obviously this can be contested.
 * If you make an empirical claim I know to be false and your opponent calls you out on it I will err on the side I know to be true even if your opponent does not produce a "card" in favor of it. There are very few arguments that this applies to (things like whether an event did or did not happen or if a law does or does not exist, not more controversial or statistical claims). For example, you claim that there are only 2 branches of the federal government and you are called out, you will probably lose the arg. If you produce evidence for your false claim, then your opponent needs to do so or give me a good reason to discount your evidence.
 * No warrant is a warrantless assertion unless it is pointed out where the absence of a warrant is.
 * A new argument is anything that is made later than it could have been. This applies to weighing and impacting. This means both should occur in the NC and 1AR. New developments of weighing are allowed if the are responses to weighing occurring in the previous speech. 2AR weighing will be held to a very intense standard.

__**Delivery:**__
 * As of '11-'12, I do not wan't speed. The upper threshold of what I will listen to is a brisk conversational pace. If you sound like a robot or need to stamp your feet to keep pace or rock back and forth, you are too fast. I will flow what I can catch but will not make any serious effort. Also, you will lose speaker points. Given this arbitrary standard, I will warn you when you are too fast. The exception would be if your opponent forces you to engage in a speedier debate.
 * I prefer debaters who don’t know each other or are at different levels to be polite to each other, so no being dismissive and rude if your opponent is not very good. However, if the debaters are both seasoned debaters then some humor and even heatedness is amusing. Point being don’t do stuff to drive kids out of the activity.
 * I have decided that I will clear yell once, after that, you are on your own. I prefer not to make a decision because I couldn't understand a debater. Why sit around for 50-60 minutes, if I am investing my time in your round then I expect to hear and understand the debate.


 * __Theory:__**
 * My personal opinion of theory (what I voice when I hear stupid arguments) is not very reflective of how I evaluate theory arguments. I expect answers to be well made regardless of how stupid a theory argument is. It may however mean that a good answer to a well warranted stupid argument will probably be given more leniency than a similar quality answer against a theory argument I find merited.*
 * I will evaluate theory solely based off of the arguments made. This means that I do not care what is the accepted norm for a theory argumentation, only your reasoning. If you think theory is an RVI/tool to check abuse/tool to ensure educational value, then that is what theory is, until your opponent gives a better reason why it is not. Given two competing claims that I cannot resolve by the flow alone, I use a common sense approach as to whether the violation is significant enough to merit the penalty. As such drop the argument is more likely as an impact of your theory argument is
 * If theory is delivered extemporaneously and evaluating the theory argumentation required me to look at the theory arguments in detail I will not look to theory if I do not have a sufficiently clear winner. Do not understand this as an invite to muddle theory.
 * If you win a CI, I am open to RVI's. The level of reasoning provided as to why It should be an RVI matters immensely. If the reasoning is weak then a weak answer for why RIV's are illegit will probably suffice. I personally believe that if Theory is run to exclude legitimate arguments (or include ridiculous arguments) as a voting issue, then it ought to be penalized in the same way we would interps that preclude substantive debate as both have dramatic ramifications for the round progression and the ballot. However, I am willing to ignore this bias if a solid argument is presented. It must, however, be as rigorous as the argument it answers.


 * __Critical arguments/K’s:__**
 * Make it clear why the K merits voting for you by setting up a decision calculus. Also make the K clear. Slow down for tags and author cites. In general slow down. The only authors I can say that I am very familiar with are Nietzsche (TGS, TSZ, NCW, and GoM) and Foucault. I have read a bit of other thinkers but not to the degree that would make the wide range of their thought and work easily accessible to me.
 * Also, I am currently in a political/social philosophy class so feel free to use philosophers in that tradition. Maybe i'll be inspired for my next paper, or maybe you'll end up carding a part of my reading.
 * I prefer critical cases as distinct from K’s. They tend to try to be more specific to the topic and bring new interpretations to the forefront.


 * Speaker Points (or whatever the tournament encourages):**
 * 30 - Excellent**
 * 29 - Near Excellent**
 * 28 - Very Good**
 * 27 - Good**
 * 26 - Average**
 * 25 - Rubbish**
 * 24 - Back to novice**
 * 1 - Offensive and rude.**


 * Miscellaneous/Strange Arguments:**
 * I hold CX to be binding. I will auto-drop if you do anything underhanded (excluding strategic decisions). So do not fabricate or misrepresent evidence, do not try to cheat your opponent or doing anything that you wouldn’t want your coach to know about.
 * Quoting an author and arriving at a different conclusion he does is not, imo, cheating or misrepresenting evidence. It is questionable whether you should attribute someone's name to a position they do not entirely hold but I do not see it as full fledged cheating. Do not run theory to that end. I won't vote on it. No matter how "conceded".
 * Feel free to ask me about my decision. Try to stay civil. Even though I can’t change my decision it will help me in the future, especially if I judge you again later and it will help you better appreciate how to get my ballot (if you so choose)
 * Please make sure you have citations. If I ask for them and you don't have them then it will severely effect my inclination to grant you the argument.
 * When I judge PF, I only take notes as I would with a public speaker and persuasion is very important. I treat it as being somewhere between a formal speech, a debate, and a conversation.
 * Oh and finally I take this from my very good friend Anthony Berryhill;


 * __"My job as a judge isn't to decide who I think the better debater is (in general), but instead who did the better debating in the particular round I am judging. i.e. if that means a sophomore beats a TOC semifinalist... if my flow indicates that is how the ballot should go, I'll vote that way without any concern for the political implications or the feelings of others"__**