Cogan,+Sarah


 * Background **
 * I debated for Hunter College High School from 2011-2015 on the national circuit (focused in the Northeast) and taught at NSD in 2015. I am currently a student at Duke University. In the 2015-2016 season, I judged at Newark and Harvard and coached through Access Debate, but overall I would assess my current involvement in debate as insubstantial. For 2016 onward, don't expect me to have read topic lit. **


 * Short Version:** As a judge, as with most aspects of my life, I strive to be like Danny Li (my teammate and later my coach.) If you think he’s a good judge for you, I can only hope you will think the same of me.

Pet peeve: reading a shell with both fairness and education voters and then doing new weighing between them in the 2.
 * Theory**: I default to competing interps, but I think reasonability (with a justified brightline) is interesting/probably pretty underutilized. I don’t default to drop the arg or debater—if you don’t read an impact to theory, then there’s no impact to theory. I default no RVI’s.

K affs are fine; I have a slight preference for topical affs but I won’t intervene against nontopical affs if you can hold your own. I try not to gutcheck in general, and that holds true for k debates, ie I hold K impacts to the same level that I hold other impacts. K impacts need to link to some justified framework even if you think the impact is intuitively or obviously bad. Miscellaneous but strangely has come up quite a lot: if you read a performance in the AC I think you should at the very least attempt to extend it like you would any other argument. So you don't have to verbatim reread the AC, but summarizing what you said and/or extending a few key lines would be appreciated. Example: AC is Humor k2 challenging islamophobia AC with jokes, 1AR doesn't extend jokes and isn't funny...how can I vote on prefiat offense out of the aff?
 * K’s**: I find most K vs theory debates are at best messy and at worst irresolvable. Try your best to find a more nuanced way to weigh on those debates.


 * Framework**: If you're someone who wants to go for the fw debate, I'd say I'm probably a decent judge to do so in front of. The same five util args everyone always reads doesn't count a fw debate, nor do impact-justified frameworks, but nuanced unrecycled positions are ideal. An NC with fw highjacks is probably pretty strategic. Also, read [|this] article.


 * Speaks and Misc**:
 * I am incredibly expressive when I judge, please look up. I’m a stickler for good signposting and extensions (and if I don’t know where you are, I’ll probably throw my hands up and make a face. So, again, please do look up.) Great strats will be reflected in your speaks. If you’re tricky/abusive not just for the sake of being tricky, but because it’s a good strat and can communicate to me that you’re smart/creative/can think on your feet, then by all means do it.
 * Great CX’s and confidence will win you many speaks from me: I will likely never say someone is // too // dominant in CX, so feel free to go all out.
 * At the end of the day, this is your round, not mine. Don’t try to emulate positions similar to what I ran. If you show mastery in your own style, I will appreciate and reward that talent.
 * If you're a varsity circuit debater hitting someone who is clearly a novice, you have three options. 1) Sit down early. 2) Make the round truly educational for your opponent (being sure to slow down, cut out jargon, etc.) 3) Make the round entertaining for me. It's really up to you which one you want to do. If you somehow can do all three, you'll get a W30 from me, but it's pretty impossible to actually do so.

Good luck and feel free to ask me questions before or after the round!