Boyle,+Ali

I’m Ali Boyle. I graduated from Pine Crest School in 2007 and I now do Parli debate for Johns Hopkins.

I am generally a tabula rasa judge. It really doesn’t matter how fast you speak or what arguments you run. I’ll vote for the person who wins the round according to my flow. I believe that competition is an extremely important element of debate: I’m not going to punish you for running arguments you think are strategic even if they don’t have a greater world impact or represent a larger paradigm.

I feel like when people ask for judge preferences they want this information: 1. How do you feel about speed? I feel good about it. I prefer fast rounds to slow ones. I can flow as fast as you can talk. If I can’t understand what you are saying I will make faces at you until you are coherent.

2. How do you feel about kritiks, weird arguments, plans, CPs, etc? I feel pretty good about these as well. I like interesting topic interpretations. That being said, I have to understand it to vote on it. If you don’t understand what you’re talking about, I will probably be sad and give you low speaks.

3. How do you feel about theory? I feel very good about theory. I view theory as a legitimate strategic tool within debate rounds. I don’t even have a problem with people running theory for “theory’s sake” as long as it has the proper structure. If you run blippy theory arguments without the proper structure I will be sad and give you low speaks.

4. How do you feel about a prioris? I could be convinced to vote on one if it was warranted and made logical sense. I’m not going to vote on a random argument that is labeled as a priori when it does not actually come before the standard.

The only thing of note (maybe) is that you need to warrant your arguments, and you need to extend your warrants. “Extend Khalizad moving on” is not sufficient. If you don’t extend your warrant or your argument doesn’t have a warrant, I don’t vote on the argument.