Spraker,+Paige

__**Background**__
4 years of policy debate at Centennial High School Freshman debating for Gonzaga University 5-week lab assistant for Geoff Lundeen and Steve Pointer at the GDI

__**Overview**__
I will default to a policy-making paradigm and feel most comfortable judging these sorts of debates. That does not mean that I’m unwilling to listen to critical arguments, it just means that you will not get by throwing out blippy K words and will have to thoroughly develop your position. I come from a high school debate community that discourages personal preferences in favor of judge adaptation, and I find that model to be antithetical to the educational purpose of debate. I will be much happier if you do what you’re best at instead of trying to conform to my proclivities.

__**Miscellaneous**__
- Be fast and be clear. If you are too fast, my face will look disgruntled and you should slow down. I think it is much more important to be clear than fast. I prefer to listen to persuasive, compelling debaters rather than techy robots. I’ve been trained to think that communication is still a very important part of debate, so I will reward a 4-off strategy with much better speaker points than I will a 7-off strategy. - Read case arguments. Debate the case on the level of the internal links, not just the terminal impacts. - I think negative teams get a logical (not contradictory) amount of conditional advocacies. - I don’t think dispositionality “solves your offense.” I would prefer an interpretation in the 2AC that limits the amount of conditional advocacies the negative has access to. - Prep time ends when the flash drive leaves your computer. - Overviews should not be the majority of your speech time. Use them as a tool for efficiency, not for explanation. - Flow the speech, not the speech doc. One negative aspect of paperless debate is the amount of faces that end up buried in a computer. - Be a good person. Don’t say/imply/engage in things that are racist, sexist, ableist, or discriminatory in some other way.

__**Things I Think About Being Aff**__
- I think you should read a plan text. - If you are not going to read a plan text, read an advocacy statement. - If you are not going to read an advocacy statement or will not defend the one that you have read, I will do my very best to evaluate your position but am less experienced with these types of debates, so please make sure you explain any nuances or intricacies. - Reiterated: please read the affirmative you are most comfortable reading, whether this is a performance aff or a heg aff. I will not predispose myself to vote against you one way or another, the debate is about you, not about me. - If you would like to advance a theory argument, you should know that I was a 2N for the entirety of my high school debate career. That being said, I think there are plenty of negative arguments that are unproductive and I can be persuaded to reject teams that read an excessive amount of cheating positions. - I am perfectly willing to assign zero risk to a disad if you have the evidence or spin to support this claim. - You should be able to characterize your permutation as more than “do both.” - I do not think “perm do the counterplan/alternative” is an argument, I think if you know what this claim means you should just characterize it as a reason that the advocacy is the functional equivalent of the affirmative. - Do not forget that you have read a 1AC. All too often, I think that after the 1NC occurs, debaters focus more on responding to off-case positions than utilizing offense that has already been established. - You should not pride yourself on getting through your response to case arguments in the 2AC as fast as you possibly can. Arguments have three components (a claim, a warrant, and an impact), and it seems like this portion of the debate is often the most lacking in that structure. - The phrase “try or die” is not compelling to me. I liken this sentence to “vote aff on presumption” and that is silly when you are debating the case vs. the status quo.

__**Things I Think About Being Neg**__

 * - Topicality**
 * I default to competing interpretations but can be easily persuaded by a thoroughly explained reasonability argument.
 * You should be able to list affirmatives that your interpretation allows or justifies.
 * Discuss your standards as internal links to terminal impacts as you would when debating a disad.
 * Evidence comparison is important to me; predictability is not the only litmus test for the desirability of a given definition.
 * Please do not “group the standards debate” or “go up to the aff’s we meet argument.” Do a line by line and be technical.
 * If you feel as though topicality is genocide, I am not the right judge for you.
 * - Counterplans**
 * I think that negative teams get fiat if there is a solvency advocate that agrees with the counterplan text.
 * I will kick the counterplan if the 2NR establishes a judge choice argument.
 * If the 2NR does not make this argument, I think the 2AR ought to make clear that the negative is stuck with the counterplan.
 * I will reward smart, case specific advantage counterplans more than I will generic agent/process counterplans.
 * I think the following counterplans are cheating and should be theoretically objected to:
 * Process counterplans
 * Consult counterplans
 * Condition counterplans
 * Anything that could be remotely characterized as “plan plus”
 * 50 state fiat (I am very compelled by the argument that there is no literature to generate affirmative traction with)
 * - Disads**
 * They’re great and should be constructed with case specific links in the 1NC.
 * Turns case arguments are necessary in any block overview.
 * Your impact comparison needs to be more than a list about why “you outweigh on magnitude, timeframe and probability.” Be comparative, talk about your internal links just as much as you talk about your terminal impact scenario.
 * “More evidence” (or my personal favorite, “mo ev”) is not a tagline
 * Neither is “extinction”
 * The politics disad:
 * I like this argument
 * I’m not persuaded by “the intrinsicness test,” “fiat solves the link,” or “bottom of the docket,” I think these models of fiat are inconsistent and eliminate negative ground
 * I am unlikely to vote on these “cheap shots”
 * I do, however, think you need to be able to characterize your disad as an opportunity cost to the plan
 * - Kritiks**
 * I will have an easier time understanding and evaluating topic specific kritiks than I will trying to discern your Baudrillard performance.
 * I’m not a fan of the increasing presence of 2ARs that attempt to go for the impact turn and the permutation, the 2NR should preempt this.
 * The impact debate should focus on contextualizing your evidence to the aff’s advantages or mechanism.
 * Be technical. Try to avoid reading your cards and pre-written explanations wherever you please; utilize the 2AC structure.
 * Each permutation requires its own answer.
 * I will be sympathetic to a conditionality argument if your kritik explicitly contradicts one or more of your other off-case positions.
 * Your overview should not be the entirety of the 2NC/1NR.
 * Please invest time thoroughly explaining, not asserting, your link.

I will evaluate the debate that you want to have to the best of my ability. If you have questions, feel free to ask before the round or email me: paigespraker@gmail.com.