Blough,+Jon


 * High School**: I debated policy for four years at Birmingham Seaholm High School in Michigan.
 * College**: I am currently a senior at Northwestern University majoring in political science and international studies (with a focus in Asia and International Security) and minoring in Chinese. I debated there for the last three years.


 * Judging Philosophy**: Asking for my "paradigm" will probably lead to me throwing a few puzzled looks at you. Bottom line: **I care more about how you debate than what you debate.** I have preferences for how debates should go (warrants, clash, all that basic stuff), but people looking for a label won't get one. I think debate is primarily an educational activity, but I don't think that affects how I evaluate the round. I think rounds should be fun and I dislike it when people are jerks, but that has no impact on my assessment of who won or lost. You'll get better answers if you ask me more pointed questions, and below will be an attempt to answer the ones I usually get.
 * Topicality**: T debates in high school are usually two interpretations that don't clash. It's called competing interpretations for a reason...compare your standards/voters with the other team's. The more generic you get, the less I'll care. RVIs are silly, Ks of T are a little less silly but not by much.
 * Theory:** Generic theory debates are boring and probably detrimental to the educational value of the activity. People have falsely believed this means I don't vote on theory. Rather, I want theory debate to transcend the simple reading and rereading of the same blocks I've heard for the last 8 years. Start shrinking the theory flow and pointing out how you solve the internal for their abuse and I'll be much happier. Actual abuse I'll vote on, but it rarely happens. My default option is to reject the argument, not the team. You have to make a strong case to convince me otherwise.
 * Critiques:** I ran Ks in high school and college. High school debates usually skip over one element, whether that be framework, the impact, or the alternative. Don't forget these! If "you should vote for a framework of X" lacks a warrant, your argument is falling on deaf ears...I prefer specificity to undefined K-style phrases or buzzwords. I generally feel affs let K teams get away with a lot of characterizations that don't make sense or aren't in their evidence, and in most rounds I find myself asking the aff why they didn't nail down the alternative's structure in CX. Specific K links are always better than generic ones.
 * CP:** Please make a concerted effort to be competitive; a lot of high school CPs are too generic. Consult NATO is not a cure-all when you're hitting a new aff. Feel free to run Consult CPs, Conditions CPs, PICs, multiple condo CPs, etc but be prepared to defend their legitimacy. Aff should make theory arguments but must be prepared to defend something that isn't generic theory.
 * Case:** If you don't go for an advantage in the 2ac, I don't think it's applicable for the rest of the debate. No phantom "we have a genocide advantage!" coming back to haunt us in the 2ar please.
 * Qualifications:** They matter. They are not used often enough. Note the difference between saying "we have specific ev" and "we have ev from this expert, theirs is from a blog".
 * New rebuttal arguments:** If people complain with good reason, new args in the 1nr or 1ar may be disallowed. Just saying "new in the 1ar" won't cut it. Stuff in the 2nr/2ar that is not grounded in previous arguments will be ignored, though I may commend you for the good effort.


 * //Speaker Points//**
 * General pointers** Avoid swearing. Avoid redundancy. Try to say things instead of just purely reading them...sounding like a robot will never help your speaks.
 * 30** A flaw free speech. I think I've given 1 or 2 30s before and those were probably mistakes.
 * 29-29.5** Greatness. Clash, warrants, technicality, clarity, and mad cross-x skills all coming in full force. I need to be sincerely impressed
 * 28-28.5** Pretty good/strong. If you prove your points very well, sound good, have well-warranted application of your evidence, and don't bore me, you have a good shot.
 * 27.5** Shrug. You win your arguments well enough but probably aren't blowing me away with style or technicality. Sometimes you'll make pretty good arguments, sometimes you'll make acceptable ones. If you're making a good speech but aren't framing stuff in the final rebuttals, you will usually end up here. Ditto if you're doing a pretty teched-out K speech but are poor on explaining your impact and alternative (which SO many high school K debates fall victim to).
 * 27** Baseline competency. You made the arguments you had to and presented them in a coherent fashion. This speech would be acceptable in the sense that the Matrix Reloaded is acceptable...yeah, it's nowhere near as good as it could/should be, but I like it enough.
 * 26-26.5** Blah. You may make some decent arguments, but on the whole things (mostly how you demonstrate warrants and how you clash) will be very underwhelming. People who straddle the line between minimal competence and incompetence gets these speaks. Having one or two major flaws in an otherwise "acceptable enough"-level speech knocks a 27 down here. If you dropped a flow or got majorly tooled you can probably find your points here.
 * 24-25.5 -** Yikes. Getting speaks anywhere in this range shows you have minimal understanding of debate concepts or are just wholly incompetent at demonstrating that you have any understanding of them. The difference between a 26 and these speaks is that a 26 just says "poor/consistently underwhelming at debate" while these say "you don't understand debate at all". If you debate like a first-day novice and are not a first-day novice, you'll fall in here. If the neg debaters are doing 26-level speaks and show no understanding of how to divide the block, I'll probably dock that to a 25.5 unless the 2nr somehow shows wild improvement.
 * <24** You have to do something offensive or act like a 5 year-old. I've given a rating this low only once.

//**Paperless**// I will not count transfer time as prep time, but if you take way too long to transfer stuff I will drop your speaks with a passion.