Shew,+Abbie

Some history: I did college policy for 4 years at UNI. In high school I debated both local and national circuit LD for Okoboji, Iowa.

I see debate as an open-ended activity. I don’t have any preconceived notions of what should happen in a round and I will vote for pretty much anything as long as you tell me why it matters. I will vote on any argument that I think you are winning. However, there are some arguments I understand better than others and there are certainly arguments I like better than others. Judges that claim to be a blank slate are wrong, there is no such thing.

Speaker points are pretty arbitrary, and I will probably give you high speaks as long as you are organized/intelligent/not rude.

If you are racist/sexist/ableist/etc. you will get VERY low speaker points and you will probably lose the round if your opponent calls you on it.

I think most of the things in here are fairly generic, so feel free to email me at abishew@gmail.com if you have any specific questions I can answer. Also you can ask me anything before your round starts if you think that's necessary.

__**Policy Specific Things**__ I don't have a ton of preference to one type of argument or another. While my experience in policy has been mainly K debate, and I would say that though I'm generally familiar with K lit (obviously more so with some literature than others)I like/understand traditional policy type arguments as well.

General tip: I love it when I can basically summarize the 2NR/2AR on my ballot. The best debaters are the ones who can bring the whole debate together in the last rebuttals to tell a clear, concise story.

Clash debates - I judge a lot of them, and the neg often loses, regardless of whether the aff was a K aff or a policy aff. I don't mean to scare you, but if you don't have some kind of framing arguments for why your K/DA/CP matters and the aff wins that they solve the aff I will probably vote for them. A util debate is often necessary in these rounds to give me some framework for decision making. I like your arguments, just tell me how to think about them. I will more than likely default aff unless the neg proves why their impacts are more important or why the squo is a better option.

DA/CP- I don't have any specific thoughts here. CPs should probably solve at least part of the aff or have a really good explanation for why their CP matters/the perm doesn't solve if they don't. K affs can call out DA scenarios for being outrageous. PICs might be cheating, but they also win debates.

T/FW- I actually really like a good T debate, but I don't think they happen all that often. I like debates about definitions and good, specific impact framing about what your interp would mean for debate writ large (especially for FW). Have a topical version of the aff. Show me what you think a debate round should look like, and what kind of rounds your interpretation would set up. You probably won't win "gotta be the state" against most K affs.

Ks- these are my favorite kind of debates to listen to, but that may mean that I have higher standards for voting on them. If you have an alt, talk about why it solves something/outweighs the aff. You should also have specific links that are explained in the context of the aff. If you're just reading generic heg links you found in a backfile I will be much more sympathetic to no link or link turn args. Policy affs can call out alternatives for being outrageous or not doing anything.

K affs - I like them. I think these are often the most creative and real-world way of dealing with topics. You have to have some kind of tie to the topic/resolution though. I am quite sympathetic to the "you didn't say any of the words in the resolution thus you should lose" FW argument. You do NOT have to be the state or defend fiat thought. I also think you need to win some kind of method for solving the aff, and there needs to be an endpoint to that method.

__**LD Specific Things**__ I mostly judge/debate policy so speed is fine. However, if you have a lot of small blippy arguments/spikes please slow down so I can flow them correctly.

Note after judging some LD - there are certain arguments you NEED to slow down on. Speaking fast does not mean that you should go top speed all the time. Read as fast as you can while you're reading cards, but please please please slow down on taglines/frameworks/theory/spikes. Also in general it seems like debaters are getting worse at differentiating between the text of cards and taglines or other arguments, I should know when you are reading a card vs when you are reading something you wrote.

Theory- Honestly I'm not even sure what theory means anymore. It can be a good way to check abuse, but I think think that many theory debates have become reductive and arbitrary. Meta theory is fine, meta meta theory is obnoxious. It seems largely unnecessary to just keep reading more shells when you could be crafty with explanations and extensions of your original args. I will probably have a low threshold for RVIs and I meets if the violation is something super generic. That said, I will absolutely vote for theory if you are winning. Also, please slow down when you're reading your interp, it is essential for me to understand what the interp and violation are to vote on theory.

Skep - I read this a lot in high school, but it has obviously changed since then. Please explain warrants, and please don't do so at 300 words per minute. I like these arguments, and I think they make for very interesting debates but I won't know how to vote for them if I don't understand them so please take time to do so.

Policy-type arguments (Plan, CP, DA, etc)- These types of arguments are usually pretty great. As long as you can prove links and competition, I think these are awesome arguments to go for.

Kritiks/K affs- Cool. I think K debates are very interesting, but your K should probably have an alt. If not, you need to do a good job of explaining the relevance of your K and why I should still vote for you/reject your opponent.

Performance - same thing I said above, anything is fine as long as you can explain an impact.