Fletcher,+Brandon

California State University Long Beach
I’m generally a debate nihilist in that I believe you can make debate whatever you want; this is your space and round to do with what you will. I want you to do what you are best at, whether it is politics, performance, hyper specific DAs, critical affs without a plan or a straight up normal affirmative. That said, no one is 100% objective in evaluating a debate round and I have my quirks as much as anyone else, so here are general things that I do to evaluate debate rounds.


 * When comparing evidence, I only look at evidence explicitly flagged by the 2AR and 2NR. If you want me to evaluate a card in my decision, you should tell me to read said card.
 * Prep time ends when the flash drive exits your computer. I used to be more relaxed about this, but the amount of wasted time and prep abuse that happens has caused me to become more of a fascist about this.
 * I only evaluate arguments that are made in the constructives and extended in the rebuttals, i.e. if the Aff has an econ and hegemony advantage and the 1AR only extends hegemony, I wont let the 2AR suddenly shadow extend the econ advantage. If you want an argument as a strategic option, extend it in the block and the 1AR.
 * Be clear when you are reading the tagline and author, whether that means changing the volume of your voice, going different speeds for the card and tag or yelling next/and/numbering your arguments, doesn't matter as long as I know that you've transitioned . Other than that, go as fast as you feel comfortable going.
 * Collapse sooner rather than later; this doesn’t mean I will drop you if you don’t because this is more of a preference, but generally speaking if you are going into the 2NR with a DA/CP, Topicality, Kritik and case turns, you probably haven’t gone in depth enough to win the arguments you will end up going for.
 * If you want to win theory, read your interpretation slower and repeat it twice, because if you're going for theory its probably best that there is no confusion about your interpretation. Also use each speech to compare standards instead of just reading your 10 point block and expecting me to do comparative analysis for you.
 * Impact calculus wins debate rounds. I leave it up to you to compare the probability, timeframe, magnitude and reversibility of impacts and tell me which ones to prefer and why. If neither team does that work, I am forced to do it myself and I may evaluate them differently than you think I should. The more work and explanation you do, the less I have to do.
 * Don't take my lack of expression to mean that I dislike you in the debate round. I don't have too many verbal or non-verbal expressions in the debate round and when I do, its usually me laughing at a joke that only makes sense to me, so don't take it too seriously. If I start making happy or angry faces, its because you are either doing something really awesome or something really bad, because me making faces is rare.

If these are not deal breakers and you want more specifics, read below. If anything is not covered or if you are confused, feel free to ask me before the round.

By default I evaluate a topical plan versus the status quo or competitive policy option or competitive alternative advocacy. If you want me to change this, explicitly tell me how you want me to view the debate round. Should I preference impacts related to ontology first, is the ballot a tool for liberation of the oppressed, should systemic impacts be prioritized over flashpoint impacts? If you are not doing traditional impact calculus and want to frame your impacts in a certain way, explicitly tell me to do so.
 * Approach to Judging:**

Each argument needs to have a minimum threshold of coherence and explanation and I am fully comfortable disregarding an argument that is blippy and nonsensical. For example, claiming you win on timeframe is not an argument. Claiming you win on timeframe because economic collapse and ensuing great power wars happen before global warming destroys the environment is an argument. Warrants, explanation and going in depth on issues will make me a happy person with high speaker points.

A strong, well warranted DA with a good link to the affirmative, paired with some strong case turns, is a beautiful thing. While I’m not against generic DAs (if argued well, those can also be beautiful), I think that the more specific your link evidence the better off you will be. This is also true for politics debates, I think the more specific and less reliant you are on generic political capital links, the more likely you are to win my ballot. Be prepared to defend all aspects of your DA though, if you lose the uniqueness, link, internal link or the impact, you will probably lose the debate.
 * Disadvantages:**

I think everything is theoretically up for debate and I will not automatically reject anyone for any type of strategy that they would like to read. For example, I think its possible to win that 5 contradicting conditional counterplans and paired with 5 contradicting DAs, but note that just because it’s possible to win that its theoretically legitimate does not mean that it will be easy to do so. If you want to debate the theoretical merits of a CP, alternative, framework or even the behavior of the debaters in the debate round (if someone refuses to take questions in cross-x, you are probably entitled to argue that’s not cool).
 * Theory:**

As for predispositions, I generally think conditionality is fine to a point. I think if two teams are equally matched, I will probably side with the negative getting access to one conditional alternative, conditional counterplan and the status quo in a given debate. I think that most counterplans are theoretically fine but veto-cheato and delay will start to make me upset (though like I said, I wont immediately drop you, in some instances I think its utterly hilarious to drop a top ranked team on veto-cheato if you are prepped out and ready for that debate and they are not).

I have a strong love of critical arguments and I think that they are important to check the assumptions and justifications that we all carry with us into a debate round. Generally speaking, the more nuanced and specific your kritik is to the plan or affirmative you are criticizing, the more likely I am to vote for the argument. Note that this works against you though, because a generic and really bad version of Cap is probably not an argument I am going to find to be as persuasive and unless you have some good permutation cards, the affirmative is probably going to win. Then again, if you are really good at that debate you can probably get away with a very generic kritik if it’s deployed effectively in front of me. Again this comes down to what you are good at, if you are really good at reading the kritik, no matter what it is, you should probably read it in front of me.
 * Kritiks:**

As for framing the kritik, I think that unless you want me to weigh the alternative against the case directly, you need to read some sort of interpretation or framing argument about epistemology, ontology, etc. I also think you should be able to defend the theoretical legitimacy of the alternative as an advocacy and that just because I am predisposed to the alternative being a legitimate advocacy, that does not mean that an Aff team that’s really good at framework can’t or wont win, because if you cant defend it, you will probably lose the debate.

As for critical affs, the more topic specific the better; you should either have a defense of why you are topical or why topicality does not matter in the context of this specific debate round or why topicality is generally bad. Again not saying you cant read it, but you should have a defense of the theoretical legitimacy of your affirmative like any other argument in the debate.

Most of this is already covered in the theory section, but here I think it’s important to note here that I default to competing interpretations, until told otherwise to do so. I think that each team should have an interpretation of what the topic or what debate should look like (i.e. the negative gets access to one unconditional advocacy or the status quo). Its then up to the debaters to tell me why their interpretation is best for debate or why one should be prioritized over the other.
 * Topicality/Procedurals:**

Now would be a good time to talk about specification. A lot of judges have a deep burning hatred for spec debates and in most instances I would agree with that, although in some instances I think that specification may be critical to negative ground. I think in instances where there is no normal means or if you want to argue that normal means debates are bad, feel free read spec if that is your thang.

I evaluate substance over style and you should feel free to go as fast as you want, but note that I would prefer you being clearer to being faster. I know that sounds vague, so as a rule of thumb start off as fast you want and I will call clear or to slow down if there is an issue.
 * Speaks/Speed:**

I think that speaker points are where I get to offer my personal opinion in how I felt about the debate and various debaters. As a default I start my speaker points at 27.5, and they will either go up or down depending on the behavior of the debaters in the round (i.e. if you don’t collapse I will give you lower speaks and if you have a really gutsy collapse I will give you higher) I do give 30s when there is an exceptional debater who deserves it and I bottom out at 25.

The only exception to this is if either team starts become rude, arrogant or starts to read blatantly offensive arguments I will drop kick your speaker points. If you want to know my barometer for an offensive argument, if start reading things like rape good, genocide good, racism good or something similar I will probably dislike your arguments.