Murray,+Jason

First, it should be noted that I try my best to vote based on the strength of the arguments made in the debate rather than my personal predispositions. So while I may express preferences for certain types of arguments, this does not mean that I will not listen to or try to judge fairly when teams run arguments that I do not like as much. I will tolerate more or less any kind of argument.

What I will not tolerate, though, is debaters being rude and mean to each other, or patently offensive, in debate rounds. I think that one of the things that makes debate a great activity is that it is a welcoming community that seeks to be inviting and dissociate people's arguments from their character. I ask that debaters be respectful to one another, and I am more than willing to give low speaker points to people who debate well if they are overly aggressive or offensive.

I place a real emphasis on clarity of speech and argument, because I think that debate is a communicative activity. If I can't flow one of your arguments because I cannot understand it, I will give a lot of leeway to the other team if they mishandle it or even drop it. You can speak as fast as you want, but please try not to sacrifice comprehensibility, because I sort of think that if I didn't understand your argument the first time, I shouldn't expect the other team to, either. I also tend to emphasize well-explained, well-warranted logical arguments over evidence quality. I try not to read too many cards when deciding debates because I feel like debate should be more about the way that the teams debate their evidence, draw out their warrants and explain their arguments rather than just the quality of the evidence. I am more than willing to vote on a well articulated analytical argument, and responding to a good argument by just saying that you have evidence and the other side does not is unlikely to be persuasive to me. Of course, if your evidence is better than theirs, that will play a significant role in my decision, but it won't compensate if the other team has superior execution.

I've listed my positions on some specific issues below, but please remember that while I have certain predispositions about how I view topicality, theory, etc, I can most certainly be persuaded to vote the other way.

__**Counterplans**__ I like most types of counterplans. I lean negative on a lot of counterplan theory issues. Regarding conditionality, I lean negative pretty strongly and I think there's even a pretty good argument that the negative gets multiple counterplans, or new counterplans in the 2NC to answer affirmative addons and such. I think the negative gets PICS, and I am especially keen on well-researched PICS with specific net benefits. I don't particularly like generic process counterplans (consult CPs, veto CPs, generic agent CPs etc) and in the absence of a good argument by the negative about how those counterplans are germane to the affirmative or to the topic, I think the affirmative has a pretty good argument that they are theoretically illegitimate.

__**DAs**__ I love all kinds of DAs, just make sure they are coherent in their application to the aff. I am not one to say that there's "always a risk" of the negative's DA, I am willing to assign a zero percent risk to a DA that doesn't make sense if the affirmative is good at exploiting its weakness.

__**K**__ I would prefer to judge a DA/case or DA/counterplan debate than a K debate, but of course that doesn't mean that I won't listen to it and try to judge it fairly. I am not as well versed in the critical literature as many judges, so it is incumbent upon you not to simply drop names and complex terms in the hopes that I will understand, but also to articulate what your concepts mean, and how they apply to the affirmative. If you try to debate your K like a DA and read lots of cards with short tags in the block, the chances that I will be able to, or have the desire to, piece your argument together for you is fairly low. A well-executed K is great, but make sure that you give a clear explanation of what the link is and what your framework or alternative arguments are and how they function vis-a-vis the aff.

__**T**__ I really think the aff has to have a topical plan text. Less traditional affirmatives have a higher burden in front of me to explain what their interpretation is, why that is good for debate and what the role of the negative is in a world where the affirmative doesn't have to defend the topic. I generally find K's of topicality unpersuasive. As far as other T arguments, I generally think that the aff is ok as long as their interpretation is reasonable, but I'm more than willing to take a competing interpretations paradigm if the neg wins that part of the debate. I'd prefer to judge a debate over substance rather than T, but by all means, go for T if you're winning it.

I think that mostly covers it, feel free to ask if you have any questions I haven't covered.