Momary,+Karina

LD Philosophy

My debate background is almost exclusively in policy debate and I will likely judge LD rounds as though they are one on one policy debates unless otherwise instructed by the debaters. I have a fair amount of policy judging and debating experience but not very much in LD. This means a couple of things:

First, I think a lot of the LD theory arguments I hear about do not qualify as arguments. Theory should be used if there is abuse in the debate and not as a time suck or for purely strategic benefit. If the other team does something that you think is abusive make a theory argument about it, but my threshold for voting on theory will likely be higher than the average national circuit LD judge.

Second, disads and counterplans are great. These kind of debates will be the easiest for me to evaluate.

Third, speed is fine. I did college policy debate for 3 years.

Fourth, many value debates seem unnecessary to me. If there is actual disagreement about what should be considered the biggest impact in the debate then by all means discuss this. But many value debates seem like they are distinctions without differences.

Fifth, kritik arguments are fine but they were not my forte as a debater. If you want to read a K make sure you are clear about the link to the aff and what the alt does as well as explaining any high theory that I may not be familiar with.

Overall I will do my best to decide the debate based on the arguments made in the round. The above statements should not discourage you from running the arguments you want to run, you just need to be informed about my background going in and realize significant explanation may be necessary for some arguments.