Jaramillo,+Ricardo

Last updated 1/13/16 History: Policy debater at Greenhill for four years (2011-2015). Current student at Columbia university (no debate).

Preferences: Speed is good but clarity is more important. Framing issues and giving me ways to think about the debate is good. Being disorganized on the flow or in explaining your arguments is bad. Humor, wit, confidence, and pointed questions are good. Over-aggressive mean-ness (particularly if its towards a team that is not as good at debate) is bad.

For the neg-- specific strategies are your friend. A well-researched disad/cp strat against an aff will be rewarded. Or even just going for disad and case if you've got the goods on the case debate. Taking high-paying risks in the 2NR especially in tough debates is a good thing. I'm sympathetic to condition cps or cps that test the certainty of the plan but you have to take theory seriously. If you have evidence about the relevance of your conditions cp in the context of the aff that is particularly damming. For T debates (against traditional affs) be sure to include case lists about what kinds of affs you would allow and explain why you have a __vision__ for debate that is better than the aff's counter interps. For T against non-traditional affs T/framework is definitely an option in front of me but make sure you look good in cx and understand the aff's strategy and arguments.Fairness arguments are persuasive in front of me but so are arguments about advocacy skills and about why learning the policy nuts and bolts of the resolution makes us better equipped to cause social change later on in our lives. On kritiks, I'm not super well versed in the literature for a lot of K's although I obviously am familiar with the more generic ones (like neolib and imperialism). It would help to debate parts of the K like a disad in front of me, particularly if you aren't going for fw as a reason to reject the aff (which, by the way, is a harder argument to win in front of me unless you really dig in on it). If the aff drops a dirty K trick make sure that you don't just say "they dropped it game over" but explain the relevance of the concession and why it takes out the aff or their offense. In general, I like 1NCs that give you varied options in case the 2AC does something rather unexpected. Also, I love the politics disad.

For the Aff -- If you're running a smaller, more complicated aff make sure that the 1AC is set up in an organized manner and that you can clearly and eloquently explain what the aff does in cx and the 2ac -- don't assume that everyone got it perfectly from the 1AC. Against T violations, explain why their interpretation is contrived and why it's bad for debate. "We meet" arguments are your friends. Reasonability is also your friend and is a persuasive argument. Against so-called abusive counterplans make sure that you're reading counter definitions. Tricky and carefully worded permutations are great for you -- please use them as oftentimes they might be your only hope. I like 2ACs that recognizes what is an actual threat and what is a negative time suck. Against kritiks, be sure that you win that you get to weigh the aff (which is a pretty easy argument to win in front of me). Your aff will most likely out-weigh the K -- please spend time doing that analysis. Do not drop the K tricks (like no value to life, root cause, serial policy failure, etc) because those will hurt you (although they aren't impossible to recover from). In the 2AR it helps focus in on fewer arguments and be persuasive. Give me options. Give me some "even if they win this arg, we still win becase __". Give me big picture thinking. If you are running a non-traditional affirmative I'm not sure if I'm a very good judge for you given my policy background. I would say that I'm sympathetic to a lot of claims that are made about why certain forms of knowledge production are a necessary part of topic education and that the negative's interpretation for debate is excessively over-limiting. That being said, I think that you need take fairness arguments seriously and explain why you do not make debate unmanageable for everyone.

For other people's thoughts that I generally agree with check out Eric Forslund's or Sohum Daftary's wiki.