Dwyer,+Wes

I debated 3 years in highschool for a few different schools in Texas. I am in my fifth year debating at the University of Texas at Dallas. I have judged over 100 rounds, including at tournaments such as Greenhill, St. Marks, UT, Round Robins, etc. I consider myself to be a decent college debater, and I am fine with a diverse set of arguments, speed, etc.

Specifics-

First- Debate should be a safe space for intellectual creativity. Be kind, be funny, answer the other teams questions in cx. Most importantly, have fun.

T- I evaluate T in an offense/defense paradigm unless told otherwise. I like a good T debate, and clean technical debating on these issues. I can be persuaded that reasonability is a better standard than competing interpretations, but unless the definition is especially silly, I am probably slightly biased to CI. Both teams should be explaining what the topic looks like under their interpretation. I think it extremely unstrategic for affs to counterdefine words with extremely vague definitions like "substantially = a lot" because if the neg wins competing interpretations, you will probably lose.

Kritiks- I am fairly familiar with critical literature, but familiarity with the concepts does not mean that it isnt your job to persuade me. The weakest parts of most Ks are the explanation of the alternatives. To be in good shape you probably want it to solve some of the case, or a meta-level issue. Framework is almost always a reason you get to weigh the case. If you are especially good, it can become a reason to reject the alternative. You cannot make me vote down a team because they read a K. Thats silly. Both teams should be discussing uniqueness more than they usually seem to in K debates. Is extinction inevitable? Is the link? What happens if you lose the alt? These are important questions.

DA/CP- I like them. Impact calc is especially important and is very often determines who will win. Usually each team will win some risk of what they want. The CP more often than not solves some of the case, there is usually some risk of the DA, the aff usually plants some doubt that the CP solves some portion of the case, etc. Close doors and explain how I evaluate these things.

Theory- I tend to err neg on counterplan theory. As a bad 2A however, I recognize the value of theory to win debates. This having been said, you probably want to have a good comparison between the different interpretations of what the debate would look like in your framework. Be sure to tell me if the theory comes before T and why. I like robust debates about the legitimacy of arguments. Word PICs, Floating PIKs, Condo, etc, etc all have their place and time, so if you want to win my ballot on theory, be sure to be making sets of meta level arguments while also contextualizing these in a way that tell me why the round has been negatively effected. I usually think that most theoretical objections are reasons to reject an argument, but can be persuaded otherwise. The exception to this is conditionality. I like smart counter-definitions. Saying that your counte-rdefinition is to get "1 conditional word pic, a conditional K, a conditional consult counterplan, and a conditional 2nc uniqueness counterplan" isnt especially compelling.

Performance/Hippy Stuff- I tend to think that fairness is good. However, I also am receptive to why debate should be a forum for activism, etc. Honestly, I will try to be fair in these debates, but if reading a poem for your aff is your thing, it should give the neg some ground, and be about the topic.

Things like technical drops will be evaluated based on merit. Dropping condo is different than dropping multiple perms bad. .