Barron,+Andrew

I debated at Hendrickson High School in Austin, Texas for four years and now I debate at Baylor University (second year). While in high school, I competed in every circuit (TFA, UIL, NFL, etc.) and qualified for the TOC my senior year.
 * Background**

As a debater, I did everything from read an aff with an 8-minute heg advantage to playing music and talking about Baudrillard.
 * Strategy**

You should debate as if you were writing my ballot --- your 2NR/2AR should have key phrases that I can hang my hat on when voting for you. Before your last speech, analyze all of your potential outs and construct your speech based on what you think is the most likely way I will vote for you.

Every argument you make must have a claim AND a warrant – saying that the impact to your advantage is “faster than the disad” is a claim, you need a reason WHY THAT IS TRUE. This becomes increasingly problematic in debates with multiple interacting parts such as a politics disad – you should make sure when you are extending “X bill will pass” uniqueness claims, you give reasons WHY THAT IS TRUE.

TECH OVER TRUTH --- although some arguments are very silly, if you drop them – they are considered truth. Whether or not reading these arguments will adversely affect your speaker points is up to how well I thought the position was executed. That being said, most of the positions that come to mind when someone says “tech>truth” can easily be answered without evidence.

I am a huge fan of debating the case in-depth regardless of whether you are a policy or critical leaning team. I often times am the most impressed by "K debaters" reading their usual critiques and then actually answering the case with either impact D or implications to the advantages in the context of the critique.

Don't do them. You know what they are. If you are caught doing them and there is evidence of such allegations, you will lose and most likely receive 0 speaker points. If you accuse somebody, stake the round on an ethics challenge and you are incorrect, you will lose.
 * Ethical Violations**


 * Technical Issues**

I won’t take prep time for flashing unless you are taking forever OR I think you are prepping when you are supposed to be flashing. (This may change the more I judge)

I am pretty lenient on emergency situations – if you are having a massive coughing fit, or if your computer/stand breaks, just let me know and I can see what we can do.

You are fine reading any aff you want, regardless of what it defends and why you defend it but I am not one of those judges scared to vote on framework/T because it's "literally genocide". I am pretty objective in these debates but I will say that if you read an aff like this and are involved in a T debate in front of me, being more technical will always help in your favor as opposed to just doing a big overview and having me figure out how it answers each of the negatives internal links/impacts. That being said, when going for framework/T against these types of affirmatives be sure not to ignore the other teams metalevel framing arguments and how the case interacts with your procedural arguments.
 * Critical Affirmatives**

General --- Not a fan but you gotta’ do what you gotta’ do. I think all theory arguments need to have an explicit violation and interpretation of what you think is an acceptable form of that argument. Thus, theory debates for me tend to turn into something similar to a CP/DA debate where your interpretation is an alternate way of debate functioning and your standards are disads to the way the other team has debated. At the end of the debate, I compare the two competing views presented and evaluate the standards or “disads”, each team has given to the other interpretation. Therefore, it is very important for you to do impact calculus about why certain standards more than others (e.g - why limits outweigh ground or neg flex outweighs 2ac time skew).
 * Theory**

I certainly default to rejecting the argument not the team on everything except conditionality (although I can be persuaded otherwise).

See the specific theory arguments below for more details.

Conditionality --- I will try my best to remain objective here but it will be hard to give a winning 2AR on conditionality bad in front of me. This doesn't mean I won't vote on it, obviously go for it if the other team really messes it up (drop it, doesn't extend an interp, doesn't answer critical affirmatives "critiques of condo", etc).

PICs --- PICs were my favorite argument to research in high school and a well-executed, specific PIC will give you excellent speaker points. I think that if there is something in your plan text that is large enough to be counterplan’d out of then it is theoretically legitimate for the negative to do so because you should have a defense of every portion of the plan text you have chosen to read. Word PICs are different on the theory level in the sense that I think it is arguable that just changing words in the plan text is illegitimate uncompetitive, etc.

Counterplans That Compete Based On “Should”/ “Resolved” --- Consult counterplans, Conditions counterplans, QPQ counterplans, etc. are arguments I have absolutely no ideological predisposition concerning. I can very easily be persuaded that they are either theoretically legitimate or cheating.

Floating PIKS --- Although I do this quite often when I debate, I do believe that unless the affirmative misses the argument that the alternative can do the plan it is fairly hard to win the theoretical legitimacy of this argument unless you have substantive evidence supporting some of the theory arguments you are making in support of the alternative doing the plan.


 * Counterplans**

Generic counterplans will make me a little angry unless you have some sort of nuance to them that tricks the affirmative.

As I said above, PICs are one of my favorite arguments to go to when doing negative research against an aff. You should note that there is a huge difference between a generic PIC out of the 1ACs unspecified funding (because that’s probably not competitive) and PIC’ing out of a mechanism specified in the plan text that is not necessary to solve the entirety of the affirmative.

Small, tricky net benefits are always a plus and will not only translate into higher speaker points but put you at a strategic advantage because they can’t generate offense against you.

I have read a critique in every round I have ever debated in for the past five years and have a wide variety of background to critical theory but that doesn't mean you should assume I know your literature base. 2NC overviews are usually redundant on common kritiks like the cap K but are very helpful when reading something out of the ordinary. You should always explain the role of the ballot clearly and impact it in the context of the aff -- what does voting against the 1AC read in the round mean for [insert X ideology]?
 * Kritiks**

For the love of god, please implicate the case - even the most generic of critiques being run can always explain a relationship to the 1AC in the form of a turns case, presumption, alt cause, etc argument. Doing this well definitely boosts speaks.

Floating PIK debates can go both ways but you should be prepared to go for your kritik as an impact turn if you lose the theory debate.

Obviously okay - the more specific the link, the better. Just because your uniqueness evidence is 2 weeks newer than the affirmatives doesn’t make it better - you need to explain what has changed in the political system in the past 2 weeks that make it so only your evidence has correctly characterized the status quo.
 * Disadvantages**

GOOD politics debates are actually quite entertaining for me to judge - I like reading cards and I like rewarding teams that read good cards. That being said, DON’T just extend 15 pieces of uniqueness evidence in the 2NR by the authors name and not give me a reason why “X bill” is going to pass. I could care less if you have 20 cards on an issue that the aff only has 2 on, if their cards are better at extrapolating WHY the current political climate is the way that it is, they will win that issue.

Politics theory arguments are usually too blippy to be a voting issue but if they are well developed, I will definitely vote on them.

Elaborate turns case arguments definitely boost speaker points.