Plunkett,+Brian

Background: I debated LD for 2 years at STA. I am now the LD coach at Roseville.


 * IMPORTANT: If you are going to read a K please read the K section. It's short and it will make both of our lives better. It's so important that I'll reiterate this before round and likely make you read it if you haven't.**

Default Preferences (all can be changed; just tell me to and why in round)

1. Truth-testing. Not a great term but whatever. Relatively easy to persuade me to comparative worlds, but I think it's a mindset better suited for policy.
 * on truth-testing: unless told otherwise, I will assume that the winning criterion is the *only* way to weigh impacts in the round. However, I am sympathetic to cross-framework analyses; i.e. "I have a huge impact to util, he only has a small impact to deont; the criterion debate is too close to decide and since my impact is bigger I should get more offense". But you have to actually tell me to weigh impacts like this.
 * on truth-testing burdens: I theoretically default to assuming that, absent specific qualifiers like "some" or "most", the affirmative burden is to treat the resolution as a categorical statement. However, I'm not sure how applicable this is to actual debate, since the norm seems to be "prove the res true/false on balance". So maybe it doesn't even constitute a preference on my behalf. But, as you can imagine, I don't have much sympathy for claims of abusive burdens--I prefer to analyse the resolution in purely logical terms, ground be damned.

2. Reasonability. Very easy to persuade me to competing interpretations, mostly because I don't care much about theory either way. But I'll vote on it.

3. Concrete frameworks. I am lazy. I like a round to be easy to evaluate. I will vote on Ks, narratives, whatever, but I need to know why I care. Not very easy to convince me to dispense of this preference.

4. Actual abuse. Relatively difficult to persuade me to vote on "justifies future abuse"

5. Voting for the better debater as my role of the ballot. Difficult to persuade me against this. See the K section below for further details.

Things I will give you more speaker points for:

1. A well-run Nietzsche case. His writing is idiosyncratic enough and ambiguous enough that a lot of philosophical schools claim him, but here are some things he's not: 1. a feminist 2. A leftist of *any* variety 3. A classical liberal/libertarian 4. An existentialist. I've seen cases claiming all of these (in life, not debate). You are wrong if you believe he's any of these. Of course, I'll still vote on any of these positions, but such cases are a misappropriation of Nietzsche

2. Virtue ethics cases. There are too few of these

3. Coherentist metaframeworks.

4. Weird cases that amuse me

5. Good presentation

Things I will tank your speaker points for:

1. Being rude to your opponent

2. Stealing prep time. Since I make the call here, make it explicit when you're having flashing issues or whatever, so I don't think you're stealing prep

3. Ks without an ethical (and preferably topical) framework. Some exceptions apply (see below)

Let's talk about the K:

1. It will likely need an ethical framework to compel me to action. I don't care if your impacts are pre-fiat (which, frankly, isn't a concept that makes sense in LD). I am not an activist and I probably have little patience for your politics. If you don't give me an ethical framework and you're asking me to vote for political reasons, I'm probably going to vote you down because I think your politics are stupid and destructive. In order to make me care about your politics, tell me why x [patriarchy, capitalism, whatever] is bad, separate from and prior to your evaluation of what x does. You may link into your opponent's framework.
 * ** Opponents of K debaters: There are two important aspects of my ethical framework requirement for Ks: first, their ethical framework doesn't exist on a separate level from your ethical framework. Their impacts probably do, which is something I reluctantly grant K debate in LD. But winning your framework will allow you to say "collapse the debate back down to post-fiat [urgh] / substance / whatever" and I'll very likely buy it. Second, if they fail to posit an ethical framework, point this out. Their Role of the Ballot probably depends on their ethical framework (see next point) and absent this, I have no reason to care about the K **

2. Your Role of Ballot flows from your ethical framework, especially for "real-world impact" Ks. Else, your Role of the Ballot must break down one of 2 ways:
 * Either you tell me why evaluating your K is a prerequisite for ethical evaluation (e.g. we can't build identity under oppressive epistemic hierarchies and identity is a prereq to moral reasoning, so look to debater who best deconstructs that). This means instead of an ethical framework, you've got a sort of metaethical framework. I'm ok with this. Your RoB will flow from this framework instead.
 * Or you tell me why your RoB is necessary for debate to continue to exist as an activity. This is the only RoB that, absent an ethical framework, I can justify altering my preexisting RoB of voting for the best debater.

3. That last sentence is kind of a lie. I'll still be voting for the better debater. Your K won't actually change my mind, it will just change how I evaluate the better debater.

Strike me if:

1. You love theory. I will vote on it but I have an easy time letting your opponent dismiss it. Fairness is the thing in debate I care about least, probably (structurally; as a voter; in life in general)

2. You want to run a framework-less K. Not such a big deal in LD as of late

3. You speak at top-level speeds and don't want to run things at a medium pace. I don't mind these debates and I can follow super-fast speaking, but I can't write as fast as I listen and often these things become mutually exclusive for me at the upper echelon of speedy debate. And if the whole round isn't reflected on the flow, there can be a loss of precision in my decision-making process. I'd prefer that you be able to talk as fast as you like and have a judge who can flow everything you say. But if you're ok with slowing down a bit I'll be able to keep up.

4. You are especially inclined to Continental thinkers. I have a low threshold for letting your opponent dismissing these argument (although I find Foucault to be more rigorous and less inclined to making sentences that don't mean anything than most Continentals)

Speaks breakdown:

You're probably going to get between a 27 and 28. That range accounts for about 80% of the speaks I give each year. I will give maybe two 30s a year (as of 2014 only one iirc, and it was to a pretty strong aff K), and a handful of 25-26.5 / 28.5-29.5. **The exception to this is bid tournaments, where you will likely receive between a 26.5 and a 27.5.**

At national-circuit tournaments I will round to the nearest tenth; at local-circuit tournaments the nearest half-point.