Marcu,+James

I am a flow judge. I will only evaluate what is given in the round by the debaters and will not engage in any sort of judge intervention. Having said that, the 'paradigm' that follows is really more of a list of arguments that I find persuasive. I will not resort to any of them if the debaters themselves do not make them. The most important thing in any argument is warrants. To win a flow you must have warrants. If you do analysis of your warrants vs. their warrants, I will love you. Also, I think a lot of the time policy debaters forget that debate is about persuasiveness. Don't misunderstand, I love national style debate. What I mean is that I am not going to like your argument just because you have a piece of evidence. It is up to you to persuade me through argumentation that I should like it. This is often where bad arguments fall apart is that teams have a hard time persuading judges. I won't discount anything from the start, but the more ridiculous the argument the more difficult it will be to persuade.

T--As far as topicality goes, I belleive that it is strongly overused and has no place as a 'Core' neg argument. I have a very high threshold for T, but if you can prove abuse or it is clearly not topical I will vote. Reasonability strikes me as the better of the two options. I hate voting down a team because they answered T poorly, but I will if I have to. Having said that, if you are a T team, here is what you need to do to win. First, win competing interps. You need to have good offense on the flow and win the line by line. Second, I need an abuse story. An abuse story consists of what you can't do and //why that matters.// If the story is you can't run a DA, I need to know why that specific DA is so important. Third, I need a case list of GOOD aff cases under your interpretation. I don't care how much time you spend on it (this applies to theory as well). If the answers were said I will evaluate.

Procedurals--This includes spec arguments and thos other misc. procedural type arguments. Seriously, you probably won't win on it. I think that a procedural is only a voting issue if you can prove some kind of IN ROUND abuse. I don't mean, wah! boo hoo! we cant run our favorite strat. I mean real abuse. Absent that you are left in a very weak position.

Theory--Don't spread it. It is hard to understand you regularly, let alone when almost everything you say is a point. Stay clear, and whatever theory argument you make I am good with. I tend to lean neg on condo, but I am definetely not pre determined. If affirmative wins that flow, I will give it to them. Dispositionality strikes me as functionaly the same as condo. Also, unlike most judges, I will vote on T as an RVI. You have to win the flow though. As far as potential abuse goes, I find it a very weak position. The way I see it, if they had actually harmed you then you wouldn't be running POTENTIAL abuse. Oh, and I think debates on if intrinsicness is legitimate (to solve a DA, not a CP) are fun. I'll listen.

DA's--All is good here. I have no bias for or against them. I'll buy it if you sell it to me.

Politics--Same as DA's, though I tend to go for no I/L args for these. Im so tired of politics disads that skip internal links.

CP's--I don't think that a CP has to solve case, just that it has to be net beneficial. Severance perms are a hard argument to win on though. I don't like actor or consult CP's, but again I stress that I will only vote against them if the Aff wins that I should. Once again, if you make an argument I'll listen. I have nothing in particular to add to this section.

Kritiks--I will understand almost anything that you run. I'll vote on anything you bring up, no matter how wacky it is, as long as you win the flow. Make sure that you really explain your arguments though. Floating PIK's/PIC's are going to have a hard time winning the round. I will almost always vote Aff on that theory flow. As far as perms go, I think that the Aff has a very good chance of finding a perm that they can work with, so you should probably go for it. A lot of K perm answers I find a little fishy, and often they do a horrible job fleshing out warrants. Do better on that. Also, if you run a K, don't use a link that can't be proved. What I mean by that could be something like their intentions. Something that can't be really backed up. Make your links something that you can prove.

Framework--I will go either way on this. If you want to run it, then win the flow and I'll evaluate with your framework no matter what it is. Keep in mind though that the wackier the framework you present the easier it is for the other team to take the flow. If you hit a framework that you think is abusive, say so!

Crazy Stuff--Personally, I love to be involved with debates that use this stuff. Consult Ashtar and the like are always fun, but I love to see new stuff. Timecube is not cool though, just saying. Im all about warrants and I doubt you can give me any here to vote on. Assuming you could though, and you won the flow, I guess I'd have to vote for you. Honestly, it becomes increasingly difficult to win a vote the crazier you get, but it is never impossible. Every argument is winnable in my book, so long as you take the flow. If you want to run something crazy, I am probably one of the better judges to do it with.

Other--

Evidence vs. Analytics--Honestly, warrants are what matter to me. I follow the old-time approach that an argument is nothing without good warrants (sorry Mead). This means that I will easily vote for a good analytical against an ok or bad card. Evidence is only there to make a point; it does not automatically outweigh an analytical.

Offence/Defense Paradigm--If neg says to use it and Aff doesn't reply, I will. However, I think that defensive arguments can and do have a place and a no I/L argument or a no link argument are good ground to get rid of a DA. If it came down to plan vs. states and the politcs DA had only a no I/L arg on it, the neg would probably say "Offence/Defense...always a risk...vote neg". However, if the aff said something to the effect of "I/L is slayer...no real DA...no warrant as to why its a reason to vote..." I would most likely vote Aff.

Presumption--I default to neg with squo and aff when neg has an advocacy. My reasoning is, if the neg could win on a tie with the aff, plan plus CPs would always win, because even with a perm its just the same. The aff would always have to have specific offence to the artificail NB of the CP. My views on presumption are still being hammered out though (for instance, add ons might check the previous argument). I can easily be persuaded to least change. Any way you tell me to view preumption has a chance.

CX--Tagteam is fine. Keep in mind though that it will effect your speaker points if only one person speaks. Other things that will get you docked speaker points BIG TIME or just annoy me and make me less likely to vote for you: --Being Shady --Not answering a question --Asking questions to answer a question --Asking the other team questions when its not your CX --Playing dumb like you don't get the question --Over elaborating --"Make that argument and we'll answer it". Its cross ex. Answer the damn question now. --If its a yes or no question, answer either yes or no. Thats it. Yes or no. Nothing else. If you feel like you forced into a corner, say that in a speech if they use your answer. --Wasting time by over elaborating or dodging a question.