Van+Seters,+Luke

Bishop Guertin '13 Northeastern University '17 Updated: February 12, 2014

I debated for Bishop Guertin High School for four years and competed nationally. I graduated in 2013 and currently attend Northeastern University where I do not debate. Harvard will be the first tournament I will be judging this year, so my familiarity with the topic is minimal.

Speed: I can flow and am fine with speed, but I haven't debated since January 2013 and don't know the topic's acronyms/jargon so try to be a bit clearer than usual. If I can't understand you I'll say so.

Topicality: Fine. I default to competing interpretations, but can be convinced otherwise. If you're going to go for topicality, please make sure to do extensive comparative analysis. That goes for all arguments, but I want to particularly emphasize it here. There is nothing worse than having two teams simply reiterate their respective interpretations and standards leaving the judge to make sense of whose pre-written blocks are better. I won't vote against you for ignoring parts or all of the resolution if you can justify it.

Impact turns: I like them a lot. I think well researched and evidence backed turns make for a really enjoyable debate.

Disads: Good. Specific links/DAs are much better than generic ones. Make sure to do comparative impact calculus while acknowledging that your defense probably does not take out all of their impacts and their defense probably takes out some of yours.

Counterplans: Great! I think that advantage counterplans are awesome. I also think that a well written PIC can be devastating and that the affirmative should be able to defend every aspect of the plan. Process counterplans can be shady and open to theoretical objections, but I ran them myself so if you can justify it go for it. I also think that agent CPs are legitimate.

Kritiks: I ran a good amount of K's in high school so I'll certainly vote on them, but please make sure to clearly explain the argument. If you haven't done the work to really understand the K yourself, please do not put me in the position of figuring it out for you because it probably won't go well. Also, highly specific K's are sweet.

Theory: I do not like theory very much. I understand its strategic value and I definitely think it has a place in debate, I just think it is a very stale and boring debate. That being said, conditionality is probably good for two options, three and you're pushing it, four or more and it's problematic. I think that most theoretical objections are reject the argument not the team. Also please slow down when reading theory.

Performance: I'm probably not the best judge for you given that I've never done it myself, but I'll certainly still listen to it if that is your thing. Just make sure to clearly articulate the roll of the ballot and do not group together an unnecessary amount of arguments.