Owen,+Harry

Harry Owen – New Trier High School IL 2010-2014 Restrictions – New Trier

Read whatever you want – I would much rather judge a debate where the debaters are comfortable with their arguments than a hastily-thrown-together 1NC with mediocre evidence. I like some arguments better than others, but I won’t hold any arguments to a different standard than others while I’m judging. So yeah, read the K. Read an aff that doesn’t defend the rez. Or read a policy aff or a politics DA – just do what you’re comfortable with. If you do it well, I’ll reward it. I debated for New Trier for three years, on both sides of the policy/critical spectrum.
 * __Short Version__**

I will try my hardest to evaluate rounds as objectively as possible – I like to think I'm tech over truth, and I’ll vote on whatever if you debate it well. Framing the debate is extremely important – I need to understand how to evaluate your arguments in terms of how you go for them holistically, and in terms of how they stack up against the other team. I don’t want to have to intervene, so it’s key for the sake of your speaker points (and not frustrating me) that you tell me how to look at X and explain why your standard of evaluation is better than theirs. I keep a pretty good flow, which means I probably won’t fill in holes for you. Don’t let me do the debating for you after the round or you may be unhappy with the results I’ll try to evaluate every argument in the same way, which means two things: I’ll also admit that I like trolling when it’s done well. That doesn’t mean you read D&G (unless you’re good at it), it means you read blatantly false arguments and debate them better than the other team’s responses. For example, it is clearly not good if Neolib erases cultural difference. But if you say cultural extinction good and debate it well, I’ll be very happy.
 * __Want to know more?__**
 * 1) I won’t refuse to listen to anything and I won’t allow my own presuppositions to hold sway over my decision
 * 2) If you can debate ASPEC really well, you’ll get great speaks. If you debate DA and Case really badly, you’ll get really bad speaks.

What I think of different arguments isn’t all that important, since I don’t want to censor anything and I also don’t want my inherent subjectivity to interfere with my decision. What follows is some of my defaults for different issues, which can be overridden if you debate better than the other team. Theory: Topicality: Criticisms: Note that you’ll get better speaks if you explain the K in the context of the aff specifically
 * More than two condo is pushing it
 * Counterplans that access the entire plan (or that PIC out of non-plan discourse) are not competitive
 * Object fiat and multiple international actor CP’s are pretty clearly unfair
 * Affs that defend the resolution should have to meet limiting words like “substantial” and “increase” – the rest is open to interpretation
 * Affs that don’t defend the resolution should have reasons unique to debate for why their education or whatever outweighs framework standards
 * K’s that compete off of the aff’s failure to remark on something or off of anything the aff doesn’t defend do not compete