Imas,+Daniel

I debated for 4 years on the national and local circuits for Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD. I qualified twice for the TOC and reached semis in 2011. I am now an assistant coach for Strake Jesuit in Houston, TX.

Disclaimer: I haven't judged in about 6 months and didn't teach at camps this summer, so you will likely have to go slower in front of me if you want me to catch everything (I won't vote on arguments I don't hear or understand the first time they're made). Also, I haven't thought about a lot of my judging preferences in a while, so while I would still probably agree with my opinions below, no guarantees that I will be following it verbatim.

Update: I really don't like the way that theory is now being used in practically every round. While I'll still vote for it if won, if theory is run without any meaningful abuse, I'll definitely drop speaks. If you can articulate a good abuse scenario under reasonability, you will likely be rewarded with higher speaks, since I think that's a lot more impressive than trying to win under competing interpretations. Also, please don't use my name in examples. It makes me and probably your opponent uncomfortable. If you read things off of the computer, it is your responsibility to make it available for your opponent - if this means you want to flash it over to them, then that is your prep time. Paperless debate has caused way too much prep-stealing lately.

General: There are no arguments that I will reject on face besides those that lack a warrant or are new. Although I debated mostly framework, I enjoy many different kinds of debate including evidence-heavy util debates.

Speed: I am fine flowing high speed rounds, since I will generally be flowing on my laptop. I will shout clear until I can understand you or slow down in the rare instance that you are too fast for me to flow. If you choose to ignore me, it will probably hurt you in the end because I won't vote on arguments that I don't have flowed or whose function isn't clear from the first time they're made or applied, so very blippy arguments will generally not get you far in front of me.

Confusing/Dense Philosophical Positions: I am well-read in the debate canon and some analytic philosophy, but I am not at all well-read in continental philosophy. If I don't understand an argument the first time that it is read, I won't vote on it, so run confusing positions at your own risk and please slow down while reading them. If you are misinterpreting a certain author's claims in your position, which happens a lot in framework debates, and I know, I may disregard the argument or drop speaks, depending on the situation. That said, if you run an innovative, strategic framework, I will likely reward you with speaks. Also, explain what a link back to the framework is as early as possible if it isn't incredibly obvious. Otherwise, you leave it up to my discretion when your opponent reads a bunch of turns and you claim they don't link to judge whether or not I believe they actually do or don't. If you run AFC (as in ethical framework, not the ability to run a plan or prefer definitions, for example), I will still vote on it, but will dock your speaks.

Theory: I love good theory debates. I default to reasonability with a threshold consisting of abuse proven through the standards (i.e. the abuse must have occurred in round, but any proven abuse is sufficient to trigger the voter). I default to drop the argument, not the debater. Slow down for the interpretation, violation, and counter-interpretation in theory debates. For analytics on theory, make the warrant incredibly clear, as fast theory debates are hard to flow. I am sympathetic to RVIs, but I will evaluate them like any other argument. I will be fairly strict with violations for theory debates under competing interpretations (unless the violation is so obviously contextualized by the standards/violation and it is a small semantic distinction), so if you run a prioris bad and your opponent hasn't run any a prioris, I won't vote on the shell even if it is dropped. This loosens up, however, when there is arguably a violation. I am also sympathetic to debaters who have to wade through a dump of stupid "I meets" and will hold them to a lower threshold in answering those arguments when it is clear that there is a violation. This also applies to the millions of theory blips that debaters often throw out to give the affirmative an impossible 2AR. I'm not the judge to run disclosure theory, flip theory, or other out-of-round theory arguments in front of - they will result in low speaks and lower threshold for responses. Also, as a side note, I don't think that winning that your counter-interpretation is better is sufficient to vote for you unless you justify why it is or they violate it (and, no, "the aff must allow the neg to do X" type counter-interpretations don't count as a violation - there must be offense to that plank of the interpretation).

Presumption: I will try my best not to presume at the end of a round because I think there is generally a risk of offense.

Case Structure: I'm fine with any case structure. I won't use impact-justified standards to exclude offense i.e. if your standard is minimizing terrorism which appeals to a greater utilitarian calculus, I won't exclude impacts that link to that calculus.

Evidence: I will call for evidence if necessary i.e. if the internal warrants are contested and would affect my decision or if told to by the debaters to call for the evidence. I will also call for evidence if there is no comparison done in-round between 2 pieces of offense to avoid presuming - the way you avoid this is by doing that comparison in-round. For evidence that I am sure is miscut, depending on the egregiousness of the violation, I will at least disregard the piece of evidence in question and drop speaks/the debater if I believe the violation to be especially bad. I don't think you need evidence for every claim made in round, especially if it's common sense.

Extensions: I expect each debater to have full extensions of warrants for arguments that they are going for. Extensions can be more brief if the argument is conceded, but should re-articulate the gist of the warrant. They should be more elaborate when the argument is contested. I will likely give the affirmative leeway in certain situations in terms of extensions because of the massive LD side bias.

Embedded Clash: I will be lenient in terms of embedded clash if it is obvious that both debaters are addressing very similar arguments on different parts of the flow, even if that isn't explicitly pointed out. This will obviously matter less depending on how clear it is that the arguments interact.

CX: I think this is almost always the most interesting part of a debate round. I think CX is an entirely lost art and I strongly prefer that you take your 3 minutes of CX. I don't mind if questions continue into prep time and I think that you should, if asked during prep, answer questions. A good CX will increase your speaker points and a bad one will hurt them. That said, please make concessions in CX clear, as it is hard to remember back if there was, for example, a concession of a violation on theory and inevitably one debater will feel robbed if it ends up being unclear whether or not there was a violation.

2AR Responses to New NR Positions: I will gut-check and do argument comparison for the negative in the case that they run a new position (for example, if there is a new theory violation in the 1AR) because otherwise the affirmative would win every round there was new NR offense. The 2AR should thus be directly responsive to the claims made by the NR or I will decide the NR arguments are better. That said, I won't reject new 2AR offense if it was not possible to have made the argument before (i.e. an RVI on an NR theory shell), but I will hold the argument to a higher standard in terms of warranting it.

Speaks: My speaker point scale will be based on how strategic you were in the round and how interesting I found your arguments. I will try to average around a 27.5.