Gazmararian,+Alex

=**Alex Gazmararian**=

Paideia '15 Emory '19

Last Updated: 2/15/2015

I care passionately about this activity. Please treat debate and your fellow debaters with respect. Debate is an educational game. Your job is to prove to me that your arguments are better than the other team; this involves giving warranted analysis and in-depth debating, rather than surface level debate where one tries to outspread the other team and hope they drop a blip of an argument and blow it up in the last speech.
 * Overview**

I've had over 66 debates on this topic. This is my sixth year debating and my third year judging.

Ask me questions before the round starts if it isn't answered in this philosophy. Feel free to email me with questions: agazmararian@gmail.com

It is your job to be flowable, not mine. I believe that speed reading is an effective tool, but speed should be measured by number of arguments effectively conveyed to the judge rather than number of cards read. If I'm not flowing, assume that you're unclear or you're making a new argument.
 * Stylistic Preferences**


 * Topic Preferences**
 * Most Politics disads on this topic are terrible. If the affirmative is smart in contesting them, they should be fine.
 * I don't think that permutations have to be topical, but a severance argument makes sense for military counter-plans.
 * Development affirmatives should modify the ocean or a part of the ocean in some way. This means that affirmatives such as floating SMRs are probably not topical.
 * Energy and other development cases are probably topical even if done through leases, permits, etc.
 * It will be hard to persuade me that the ocean excludes components such as the sea-floor or the continental shelf.


 * Argument/Debate Preferences **
 * I prefer substance and truth of arguments.
 * Intelligent non-carded evidence beats silly carded evidence.
 * The link matters substantially more than the impact.
 * Depth > shallow debate.
 * Critiques are persuasive when you explain the link well; specificity of the criticism is key for me.
 * Just because Harvard BS or Caddo say that "death is good" and/or "not real" doesn't mean that you should too.
 * I prefer logical and limited conditionality than unrestrained classic conditionality.
 * Advantage CPs are fantastic. Process/50-state/etc CPs are probably bad.
 * Contradictions hurt the legitimacy of your arguments.

29.7-30.0 - one of the best performances I am likely to hear for a long time. 29.4-29.6 - a fantastic performance and I think that you should be top speaker at the tournament. 29.0-29.3 - an excellent performance and you should place in the top-ten at the tournament. 28.0-28.9 - a good performance and you should be in contention for a speaker award. 27.5-27.9 - an average performance. 27.0-27.4 - a below average performance. 26.0-26.9 - a well bellow average performance. Someone who needs to work a lot in order to be competitive. Below 26.0 - You offended me in some way.
 * Speaker ** **Points**

Clipping cards = 0 points and automatic loss. It is your responsibility to mark cards and provide a marked copy to the other team immediately after the speech. I won't take prep for this.