Mitchell,+Byron

I debated for four years at Elkins High School and a year and a half at Kentucky. I judged this year at the ohio valley tournament.

I like to let debaters make their arguments and try to stick to the flow. I usually resolve topicality in terms of competing interpretations but can be persuaded otherwise. Pretty much anything is up for debate.

Disads - Like to hear these debates, please make impact comparisons to make my job easier.

Counterplans - I tend to lean pretty negative on counterplan theory issues. If abuse is shown and you win your arguments i can be persuaded to vote against a team on conditionality but usually theory is rejection of the argument.

Kritiks - Probably not the best idea. But if that's your thing, you must win your framework arguments. Also clearly explain your arguments and how they relate with the affirmative case.

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions and Good Luck!

L-D Debate I'm fine with speed as long as I can understand you and I'll yell "clear" if I can't.

I can't think of any argument I've heard that I would be unwilling to vote for if it was won in the round so I'll vote on pretty much anything. I'm happy to listen to whatever weird or counter-intuitive positions you want to run.

When making a decision I try to minimize intervention. I think that it's interventionist to ignore arguments that I consider to be unwarranted unless I'm asked to do so, so make sure to point out your opponents' lack of warrants. I also think it's interventionist to give more weight to the arguments that I agree with or consider to be more developed unless told to do so make sure you explicitly compare your arguments to your opponents'-- I'm perfectly willing to vote on a one sentence unintuitive blip over a carded, more reasonable, developed argument if there's weighing analysis telling me to do so.

I won't vote on new offense in the 2AR. When there's new weighing in both the NR and the 2AR, I'll prefer the NR weighing unless it's answered since the 2AR has an opportunity to answer it.

I'll evaluate the round based on who proved the resolution true or false unless I'm told to do something else. Thus, if you want to run theory or performative impacts or whatever, you need to argue that I should evaluate those first. In other words, give voters. I don't presume aff or neg unless told to; if there's no offense at the end of the round or the offense washes, I'll try to do as little work as possible to make offense to vote for.

I'm generally impressed by responsive and thorough spreads, risky strategies like kicking the AC and going for turns off the NC, effective use of impact/weighing analysis to show that all/many of your arguments logically come before your opponents' (I love "a priori's" when they're run well), and new, interesting arguments that I've neither thought of nor heard before.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask