Dayal,+Anish

TL;DR You do you and be good at it.

Disclaimer: Not really involved in debate much anymore so don't know much about the topic - be sure to explain relevant info.

Background Info: The Westminster Schools Class of 2016 Speaking Position: I am regularly a 2A. I have been a 2N.

General things:  1. Flowing is important - don't just use speech docs  2. Clarity> speed but both is gr8 - I’ll say clear but I might give up after a while. If I can't flow you, I will give the other team leeway on dropped arguments.  3. Slow down on important args or things like theory  4. Respect pl0x  5. Don’t steal prep  6. Line-by-line pls  7. Cross-ex is important - I will listen  8. Reading evidence is also important and you should strive to read every card in the round if possible - don't make me call for cards tho, evidence comparison = higher speaks. 9. Never ever ever say death good, racism good, patriarchy good, or some variation of impact turn - you will lose.

General: I default to tech over truth on most questions. A dropped argument is mostly a true argument. If it's incredibly illogical, then the other team can come back from it by making smart cross-applications and usually dropped arguments aren't always devastating (unless of course you drop a devastating argument). The 2nr/2ar shouldn't just point out "x" argument is dropped but explain how that implicates the meta-level framing of a large issue. I am not strictly "policy" or K but I have the most experience with policy-oriented arguments but I will listen to anything that is not morally reprehensible (e.g. racism good, sexism good, etc.)

Case: Case defense should be in the 2nr if you're going for a disad without a CP. The 2ar shouldn't freak out about the neg dropping an impact to their advantage when the neg is destroying them on internal link defense to that advantage. Cards are important in case debates - attack the AFF's weak points and read a ton of cards with different warrants to beat those weak portions of advantages. Strategies oriented around a devastating attack of the case will win high speaker points.

Advantage CP: The advantage CP and impact turned other advantage strat is fantastic if executed well. That being said, most advantage CPs are massive multiplank CPs and the AFF should try and read disads to individual planks (also make sure you ask them if they can kick planks, if they say yes condo is very viable). In terms of solvency deficits, the AFF has to impact the solvency deficit and tell me why it matters. Nebulous solvency deficits with no impacts are annoying and make me do more work than I like to. If they are not impacted, then good neg framing is persuasive.I am not as willing to vote on dropped perms if they are totally incoherent and make zero sense. If they are dropped and the 1ar/2ar explain them in a somewhat logical sense then I will vote for them. I will not kick the counterplan for the 2nr unless I am told to do so by the negative team and after they win that judge kick is theoretically legitimate.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Cheating CP: I have gone for these in the past a decent amount. They are susceptible to theory and the perm, however a very teched out neg response can often win these debates. But then again, I am AFF leaning when theory/perm is debated well. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> legit: Researched Plan Inclusive Counterplan with a solvency advocate, advantage CP's (be reasonable with number of planks), some agent CP <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">idk: international, other agent CP, specific process, no solvency advocate <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Lol nah: consult, conditions, states, dumb process CP, Word PIC <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Aff teams, don't be afraid to go for theory if they are stealing your whole damn aff - chances are I will be sympathetic. Keep in mind this is stuff that I think just because I am a 2a, these predispositions will not affect my decision whatsover.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">DA: dope. Politics probs not intrinsic tbh - point out the illogicality of PC internal links, but I can get down with it. There can be zero risk of a neg/aff team's offense - seriously in all my years I have no idea what on earth "1% risk" really means. Why on earth should I automatically vote for you if there is 1% risk you are right, that sounds pretty improbable to me and who gets to arbitrarily assign risk to impacts anyway?? As Calum Matheson states " I believe in terminal defense - Any risk is inane. Below some level of probability, the effect identiﬁed should be overwhelmed by random noise, or perhaps the opposite effect might occur. The exact calculation of risk is similarly hilarious. Are you really sure that the risk of a disad is ﬁfteen percent? Are you sure its not, say, twenty? Or maybe ten? Or,God forbid, twenty-ﬁve? If you are able to calculate risk with such precision, please quit debate and join the DIA. Your country needs you, citizen" Impact calculus is important but don't get too carried away with impact analysis if you are getting crushed on internal link/uq defense. If the neg concedes the uniq debate on politics, the aff just has to explain to me why that means there is no longer a risk of the disad, and that should be sufficient for me. That being said, the aff has many options to drastically reduce the risk of a DA. If the aff solves the impact to the disad, and the negative doesnt explain to me why the disad means thats not true, whether that be from timeframe analysis, or telling me that it is an internal link turn to the case, it will substantially mitigate the risk of the DA. Pick and choose your arguments carefully.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Impact/internal link turns: I have gone for this strategy a lot. Stim bad, Heg bad, CO2 Ag good, Water Wars good, Multilat bad, Prolif good, WTO collapse good, IPR bad, Dedev, etc. A well executed impact turn is a great way to get awesome speaks in front of me. A poorly executed impact turn debate is a good way to get terrible speaks from me. If you are going for a dumb impact turn, like radiation good/china war good/wipeout, your going to have to spend a LOT of time here and do some extremely good explanation.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Kritik: These debates are fine but if you don't think you can execute well on the K, then don't do it. If you aren't good at these debates then I would prefer to listen to any other strategy. I know the generics (security, neolib, legalism, etc.) but if you are reading something else be sure to slow down and explain coherently instead of using tons of jargon. The one exception is I don't like Baudrillard or death good Ks or other high-theory philosophy because reading that is not how I spend my free time (in the words of Abby Schirmer - that shit cray). I SERIOUSLY WILL NOT VOTE FOR DEATH GOOD. I will hold the neg to a high threshold of explanation when going for the K, so don't just assume i understand how your alternatives solves everything just because you tell me it does.This being said, if the aff undercovers/messes up a kritik, and drops K tricks I will vote here (but if you are bad at explaining/extending the K then you will receive low points). K debates tend to be really good or really bad.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Topicality: Disclaimer - I am probably not the greatest judge for a super intense high-tech T debate. That being said, if you win the flow, I will vote for you. YOU MUST SLOW DOWN HERE. When you are spewing out your pre-written overviews as fast as possible it is literally not humanly possible to get down everything as a judge so don't whine to me after the round about missing your j subpoint in your underview. Be topical. The neg should do extensive interpretation extension, and explain why your interp is relatively better than theirs. In order to vote on T, i need to have an explanation of the negs impacts, just saying "the aff explodes limits, that kills fairness" is not sufficient. You should provide me specific examples of how the aff's interpretation explodes limits, and explain why limits explosion is bad, or if your going for ground, why the ground you lose is good ground. I default to competing interpretations, and have learned that many aff teams answer T terribly. As the affirmative, you better have offense on T, unless you are going for the we meet/reasonability strategy. If you are going for we meet, you should probably extend reasonability or I'll vote on minute/contrived distinctions that the neg extends. The neg will have to clearly explain the link to their impacts on T if they want to win them. If its not abundantly clear from the above, i judge T debates in the exact same way i judge disads (i.e. offense-defense by default, unless somebody in the round tells me not to).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">K AFF: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">No plan: be ready for a framework debate and be technical here; don't just try to win on pathos appeal alone (but you definitely need alot of pathos appeal). You should have a coherent answer to "no topical version of your AFF" and the limits arguments, plus the litany of other framework arguments. I am NEG leaning on framework but can be convinced otherwise (note: I have gone for framework every time I debated a no-plan AFF except maybe once or twice? but I have also read a no plan AFF before so...) But I also have voted for a K aff vs FW. I think the most persuasive args for the aff are probably accessibility style DA's to the neg's interpretation. Fairness is obviously an impact - as Dheidt recently said "what bigger impact is there at a debate tournament than no debate?!?!?!" I am more persuaded by procedural fairness and limits based offense rather than rando decision making stuff that probably isn't inherent to policy debate, institutional decisionmaking might be a different story but you gotta explain it well. I don't fux with flux - nuff said. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Has plan: defend the plan (don't be shifty or youre gonna have a bad time). have very well thought out structural violence o/w extinction/util answers, reduce the probability of the DAs because most are dumb; I find myself way more susceptible to voting AFF in these debates when the AFF is winning alot of the Sunstein-type probability arguments, no war args, and kritiks of DAs like (predictions K/complexity, specific kritiks of the DA's impacts like Pan, etc)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Theory: I love a good theory debate. Default to rejecting the arg not the team for almost everything but condo and maybe an extremely good warrant for rejecting the team with some abusive CP. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Condo: More than 2 is probably illegitimate. 2 and under are probably legitimate (can be convinced otherwise). I prefer debates which treat conditionality as a debate argument, i.e. set up your link, your impacts, and do comparative impact calc as to why your impact to why condo is bad outweighs their reasons why conditionality is good. 1 condo = voting issue is an uphill battle (unless you drop this). <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Severance/Intrinsicness: Severance/Intrinsic perms are a reason to reject the argument not the team. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> RVIs: not going to vote on "reading T is a voting issue" or something dumb like that - intrinsicness is a whole other question tho ;) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Politics theory: debate this out in round and whoever makes a more persuasive case wins I will not automatically vote on a terrible theory arg, do not be devastated if you drop something, if you missed it chances are I probs did too because it wasn't really an argument in the 2ac - make smart cross-applications and I will we lenient.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Speaker Points: I will assign speaker points on a scale that is relative to the skill level of the pool that I am judging in. This means that a 29 I give out in novice means you were very good for the novice division but maybe a 27.9 debater at a varsity octos-bid tournament. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Scale: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">29.5 - 30: very hard to get, one of the best speeches I will see all year - You must include all of the tricks >:-) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">29.3 - 29.5: who I think should be in contention for a top five speaker award in their division <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">29.0 - 29.3: who I think should be in contention for a top 10 speaker award in their division <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">28.5 - 29: good solid debating - didn't make many technical mistakes, showed strategic vision, probably should advance to elimination rounds in their division <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">28.0 - 28.5 : average/good debating - you were good for your division but made some big technical mistakes or showed mediocre strategic vision <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">27.5 - 28.0: your debating was overall below average - you had weird speaking habits, made large technical mistakes and showed weak strategic vision - work to remedy those issues and you will become a great debater! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 27.0 - 27.5: your debating was mediocre - there were large glaring technical mistakes that you should work on your flowing to fix, research more and develop better strategic sense <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">26.5 - 27.0: you dropped a lot of arguments and don't show much interest in the activity below <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">26.5 - this is reserved for debaters who have done something to make me mad (including cheating, being rude to the other team, or making me cry - i am a very emotional person) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">S/O to my boi Colin Basco for a lot of this stuff Refer to debate geniuses listed above for other stuff I will most-definitely agree with.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> PS I like jokes :3 - preferably about funny pop culture, pokemon, Westminster debaters (specifically Harrison Hall and squirrel-boi kong)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">PSS If you bring me bubble tea, I will give you 1.2 extra speaker points. I don't understand why 30 is a cap on speaks, what would tab even try to do if I give you a 31? Probably nothing.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">PSSS order is passionfruit/mango green tea with lychee/mango jellies (or if not available, some kind of fruit tea - NO milk tea)