Agashe,+Akshay

I debated for Newtown High School in CT for 4 years and am now a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Here are some things you should consider when debating in front of me.

a. Please do not make a laundry list of contradictory arguments and then defend your strategy with theory. I will give you 20 speaks. b. If you cant think of a response to an argument, do not blip out “no warrant” or “no impact”. I will ignore these arguments entirely unless I think they are true. You (the other debater) will be able to tell what I think based on if I write them down and my facial expressions, otherwise DO NOT take the time to respond to them separately; just extend the warrant and impact. c. I think empirical indicts are extremely underutilized form of argumentative strategy and will reward those who are able to indict shady evidence. Given the public knowledge that many cards are fabricated, misrepresented, and otherwise poorly warranted in LD debate, these arguments deserve more of a place in rounds. d. PLEASE BE STRATEGIC: If you can win the round by simply extending a comparative advantage out of the AC, dont spend time making shitty defensive answers to the NC. e. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE PREFLOW BEFORE THE ROUND STARTS.
 * 1) **Speed:** I usually debated quickly, but I don't know if people would consider me very fast. I can probably flow at any speed at which you can still maintain enunciation. If you have a high pitched or annoying voice, please don't go fast. I would prefer if each card and author in your case etc. is tagged with a number (e.g Zizek 1,2, etc). If your case does not have numbers prewritten, I will still hold you responsible to tag for me extemporaneously so that I don't get lost.
 * 2) **Theory**: I will vote for theory when there is clear abuse. I hate bad, muddled, and or confusing theory debate which often arises from different conflicting theory arguments i.e. framework based defense vs. shell etc. If such a debate arises, I will be VERY sympathetic to the clearer debater. I, unlike a lot of judges, don't really see anything wrong with RVIs and will vote for them given that they are structurally adequate. I will be extremely sympathetic to turns made in response to bad theory as long as they don't suck.
 * 3) **Critical arguments**: I ran critical arguments when I debated, and as such have no bias towards any particular literature. I think that the vast majority of the debate community runs terrible critical arguments that are incredibly hard to follow, often unnecessarily so. On the other hand judges are unwilling to admit that they do not understand such arguments and further lower the threshold on critical positions and allow these strategies to proliferate simply because they're unwilling to seem “unintelligent”. I will //**never**// vote for anything I fail to understand. Please slow down when you read these positions. I am not a philosophy major, or a genius, and will not be able to comprehend your Arendt evidence at 400 wpm. I do not feel critical arguments need to be answered with critical arguments. Sometimes critical debate is actually irresolvable, e.g. who's ground skepticism was on the 2008 sept/oct topic. If you do not provide me some counter mechanism to evaluate the round, I will intervene. Well structured and interesting critical arguments will land you high speaks.
 * 4) **K's/CPs/offcase etc.**: I will vote for kritiks with extended links and voters. Counterplans need to have a comparative advantage or they are not offensive. Debaters who run contradictory, (either or combinations), of DAs and case positions are being abusive and deserve to have theory run against them. Please do not compose your 7 min NC entirely of a case and multiple offcase. Please actually RESPOND to your opponents case and prove to me you aren't an inane debaterbot reading stuff your coach told you to read.
 * 5) **Prestandards Arguments**: I think some arguments are actually prestandards in that if true, they prevent other arguments from functioning and thus present truth or falsehood. Two second random blips do not constitute arguments deserving of my ballot.
 * 6) **Solvency:** Giving an absolute solvency burden to the AFF is absurd, especially with so many resolutions having little to no empirical basis. Unless given reason to do otherwise, I will evaluate the resolution in terms of comparative worlds rather than as a truth statement. This does not mean that I will reject absolute solvency arguments on face, but rather that my threshold for rejecting these arguments will be rather low. If you have truth testing arguments, give me reasons to reject comparative worlds before presenting them. Don't presume that your world view is inherently true.
 * 7) **Speaks:** I think speaks on the whole are distributed pretty arbitrarily so I will be cautious to adjust my average to that of the tournament at hand. On balance, I will try to average between 27 and 29.
 * 8) **Other:**