Manley,+Robbie

Affiliations: Head-Royce School, Brown University

I did policy debate on the national circuit for four years of high school


 * General Practices**

You do you – I would much prefer for a team to debate in the way that they are most comfortable with than attempt to hastily restructure their approach around what they think I will find most convincing. What follows is intended to give a general sense of how I think about debate walking into the room, but I’m very open to other approaches. If you want to guide the way I evaluate an argument or the round, put it in a speech. Almost everything is open for debate. Do not assume that I will be more inclined to vote for the types of arguments I made in high school.

I love smart analytic arguments – I tend to favor what I think is the stronger warrant, regardless of whether it comes from a card or your head. This makes warrant comparison very important to winning specific parts of the flow. If you think your carded arguments should have more weight than their analytics, tell my why the author qualifications are relevant and important to the question at hand. Avoid using jargon as a substitute for providing a warrant.

I’m not the fastest writer – debaters have a tendency to go very fast through long, dense tags and technical, structured theory blocks. In front of me, it’s worth slowing down a bit to make sure I catch it all and get it down on paper. On a related note, clarity is important – I’ll say “clear” if I can’t understand what you’re saying, but I’ll only give it two or three tries.

Structuring and sign-posting your speech is extremely important – if I can’t line up your argument with the one its responding to, it will probably get lost in some forgotten corner of my paper. This also means avoid overviews if at all possible.

I’m often expressive when I’m writing – if I’m nodding, it probably means I think what you’re saying is interesting or smart.

I would prefer not to call for cards – I will do my best to only do so when there is a dispute over a particular piece of evidence. Otherwise, it is up to the debaters to do the work of explaining and contextualizing their evidence.

I haven’t been super active in high-school debate this year, so I don’t know a ton about the topic or common topic debates.


 * Specifics**


 * Disads** – I tend to view every argument as a disad. Regardless of the DA, it’s important to do the work to make it specific – the more you can explain the link and impact in the context of the affirmative, the better. In debates that come down to a disad, impact comparison and framing is essential.


 * Counterplans** – Great, but be prepared to theoretically defend whatever you do. I don’t have a strong set of predispositions about specific theory args. I default to rejecting the argument instead of the team.


 * Topicality** – Well done topicality debates are some of my favorites. These are much more about careful thinking and in depth explanation rather than a barrage of evidence.


 * Critiques** – I am familiar with most commonly read critical literature. This is a double-edged sword – while I will most likely be familiar with the argument you are making, I will probably also have higher expectations for explanation. Specificity is essential in critique debates – link and case turn arguments should be specific to the affirmative and explained in detail. I generally don’t think critiques have to have alternatives.


 * Framework** – I spent a lot of my debate career in framework debates. In general, I am not especially receptive to arguments that attempt to exclude entire styles or approaches from debate. If you want to make a framework argument persuasive to me, it should be about the types and depth of education and experience possible in one world of debate versus another, instead of about things like limits and predictability. Framework debates often come down to competing internal links to a limited set of impacts, but teams leave the clash up to the judge – do the link comparison and turn work yourself and you will probably be happy with the outcome.


 * Affirmatives** – I am much more in the “discussion of the topic” camp than the “topical discussion” one. I think affirmative flexibility is mostly good, but can go too far. Regardless of whether or not there is a traditional plan text, I think affirmatives should have a strong and clearly articulated relationship to the topic. The more estranged from the topic the affirmative feels, the more open I will be to more traditional framework arguments about limits.