Ferenc,+Tom

Name: Tom Ferenc Affiliation: Northwestern, St. Mark’s School Strikes: St. Mark’s CX Philosophy: Disads/General—I’m more about the link than the uniqueness. However, I think that the aff can get really far with impact uniqueness/link uniqueness takeouts (especially against very generic link and impact claims). The more specific and nuanced your link claims are, the better. In addition to impact calculus (which consist of primarily magnitude/impact interactions) in overviews, I am a strong proponent of risk & link calculus, for example comparing an action which causes escalating deficits and collapses the economy vs an action which increases US-canadian relations, which are important to the economy. Compare the amount of the link (and thus) you can win/solve.

Topicality—Having good topicality evidence is probably the most persuasive way to win the argument, especially on the negative. Its important (for both sides) to establish the framework for evaluating T. Generally, I think there’s a much higher burden on the neg to win on T, but most affs run into problems when they concede the offense/defense framework of competing interpretations and fail to have defense to the neg’s impacts.

The K—I’m pretty familiar with most critical literature, and I have no problem judging kritik debates. Generally, I enjoy K debates, but beware that bad kritik debate is much worse than bad policy debate. Yet again, establishing a framework for how to evaluate impacts is vital—note, however this does not mean I want to hear 5 minutes of “fiat good.”

CPs and theory—I think that counterplans and PICs are vital negative tools, and that conditionality is probably not devastating to aff strategy. That being said, I am still a fine judge for theory debates and can be persuaded otherwise. Impact comparisons and frameworks are critical in these debates, much like on T.