Marcum,+Mary

I have just concluded my third year as a policy debater at the University of Wyoming. Prior to college, I debated for three years in High School. Throughout my career, I have been all speaker positions, but most often 2A/1N. I have defended normal policy affs with a topical plan/big-stick impacts, I have defended plan-less high-theory affs, and I have also defended ‘middle-of-the road’ affs. On the negative, I have gone for most everything (disads, counter-plans, topicality, kritiks, framework, case). All of this is to say that I enjoy debate and the many arguments it has to offer. I do not think it is my job to let my ideological pre-dispositions get in the way of a round and what the debaters want to do. Thus, do what you are most comfortable with, instruct me on how to frame the round, and I will be happy to listen. I have not judged any rounds on this year’s topic.

Affirmatives: Unless instructed otherwise, I will evaluate a topical plan vs. a competitive policy option. If you choose not to defend a topical action, I prefer that affirmatives are germane to the resolution. In whatever you defend, you must be able to provide reasons for why your affirmative is educational and allow sufficient ground for both teams to compete. If you do not offer these things, I will be sympathetic to negative fairness and topic education claims.

Topicality: Requires focus on fairness and education. I consider topicality a voting issue as it sets the parameters for a team’s ability to fairly compete. If the negative demonstrates that the affirmative is not topical and that this is bad for fairness and education I will be sympathetic and evaluate the debate based on competing interpretations. Similarly, if the affirmative proves that they are reasonably topical and that they provide sufficient, good, and educational ground, then I will be inclined to err aff.

Disads: Love them. If you plan to go for the disad and the squo, it helps greatly if you have disad turns the case advantages forwarded in the block. I think that many negative teams get away with having terrible internal link chains, and that affirmatives can more easily exploit these gaps. I am willing to vote on zero risk if the affirmative has sufficiently disproven the disad.

Counterplans: Counterplans are great. I prefer counterplans that have a solvency advocate for being able to solve the case advantages. Strategically writing counterplan texts/tricky planks is a great way to soak up a lot of case, and I appreciate teams that utilize this. As a 2A, I am sympathetic to (well-executed) theoretical reasons to reject abusive counterplans that steal the entirety of the aff without specific solvency for the aff advantages. Theory on counterplans is a reason to reject the counterplan, not the team.

Kritiks: I am most familiar with cap, fem, exceptionalism, Spanos, Heidegger, Foucault, anthro, Nietzsche. However, just because I am familiar with these arguments/authors does not mean I understand how you intend to deploy them. I am willing to listen to any other criticism, but may need more explanation. Teams need to clearly explain their argument without injecting superfluous K jargon into their speech. I am sympathetic to affirmative teams that argue that many of these criticisms are functionally links of omission, which means negatives need to develop specific links to the aff’s plan and advantages. The more specific the K, the more favorable I will be. Over the course of my career, I have become more familiar with identity-based literature. I think identity and accessibility in the community is something we ought to strive towards. However, these arguments must still provide specific links and be attached to a methodology. Kritiks must be competitive. I will not feel comfortable voting down an affirmative team simply because they spoke first and did not talk about what the negative wanted to talk about. Affirmatives should either forward a framework argument/explain why their case outweighs, or explain why a permutation resolves the K. Affs should focus on why the alternative can’t solve. Negatives do not necessarily need to win their alternative to win the thesis of their K, and that the aff should be rejected.

Theory: I am fine with theory. As a 2A, I think theory can be an extremely important tool for defeating tricky/abusive positions, gaining time trade-offs, and forwarding frameworks for the debate and/or filters for arguments. As a debater who has read several conditional advocacies and process counterplans on the negative, I believe that you can read these positions only insofar as you are able to theoretically justify these choices. I enjoy strategic interpretations and think teams can use this to their advantage. My issue with theory is that many of these debates become greatly muddied by a team reading their blocks (at full-speed) at one another rather than responding to the arguments forwarded. These debates are also greatly diminished by a team failing to forward the warrant that accompanies an argument. For example, if you say ‘conditionality is bad because it kills fairness, and that kills education’, you have not met the threshold of an argument. You must explain why something is unfair/un-educational and impact these arguments out. Most abuse claims can be resolved by rejecting the argument. Conditionality can be a reason to reject the argument or the team (but you need to explain to me which and why).

Card clipping: It is cheating. I will not tolerate it. If a team raises an ethics challenge, they must have a way to prove it (audio/video recording). If a team raises an ethics challenge, I will stop the round. If I find the accused person to have been clipping, I will assign them zero speaker points and a loss. I will award their partner the amount of points I would have otherwise awarded. Because I consider these accusations to have far-reaching consequences, if I find that no clipping occurred, I will assign zero points and a loss to the team that forwarded the accusation.