Fiori,+Nick


 * __ Nicholas Fiori __**
 * Bronx Science/The New School **
 * Director of Policy Debate **
 * Years judging: 10 **

You should feel free to run whatever you want in front of me. I believe that judging is about evaluating the arguments made in the round. I will review my flow and then call for relevant cards. If you think an argument is a round winner it should be in your final rebuttal, don’t assume I will evaluate an argument implicitly extended in a piece of evidence. Extension of specific warrants, not just tags and cites, is highly preferred. I am not the best at flowing author names so make sure evidence is referenced in some other manner as well.

I will try to list my predispositions below. If you believe the debate or an argument should be evaluated differently make that part of the debate and I will adjust my calculus accordingly.

**Framework**: I enter the debate assuming that the affirmative should have a plan or some stable advocacy from which contestation is grounded. I default to whatever framework is presented, explicitly or implicitly, by the affirmative. The negative gets whatever the aff doesn’t do and should argue why the aff is a bad idea and/or present a competing policy option or alternative advocacy. One caveat: I do not assume that the debate round is a forum for activism/social change. If you believe this, or your argument depends on this belief, you should articulate that in the round. As with other pre dispositions this is my starting point not where I will necessarily end up. If you believe the debate should have an alternative framework, the outcome of the debate over that framework will ultimately determine my lens for evaluation. **Topicality**: I will default to evaluate topicality based on competing interpretations if no other lens for evaluation is presented in the debate. I am more inclined to vote on T if there is good evidence read. **Theory**: When logical, my default on theory is that it is a reason to reject the argument not the team. If you think it is a voting issue, say that and give me a good reason. Slow down on individual arguments. Obviously if a theory argument is dropped and it actually applies to something the other team has done in the debate, it will most likely determine the way I vote. However, dropped theory arguments that do not actually respond to something the other team has done in the round will not be given the weight of an automatic voting issue. **Impact Evaluation:** I think offense/defense is mostly inevitable and that the arguments in the debate either fall into that matrix or change how they are evaluated. However, that does not mean I do not believe that a team cannot win zero risk of a scenario. My threshold is relatively high, but I find 100% defense argument increasingly persuasive.

If you disagree with any of my own pre-dispositions, you should make that part of the debate. The above is merely for you to understand where I start from as a judge, not where I end up when I go about deciding the round.