Carlson,+Clay

I am currently a coach at Edina High School and a JV/Novice coach for the University of Minnesota. My paradigm generally boils down to "debate is a game and I'll vote for whoever wins it". I am good with fairly technical debates, enjoy it when a final rebuttal is succinct and highlights my easy ways out of the round at the top, and value clash and line-by-line debating fairly highly. I have no strong bias against any individual debate position (see part 7 before running positions generally considered strange in front of me) assuming the debaters do a good job of debating said position. I have below listed a more specific set of my beliefs on individual positions that might answer some questions you have, if not you can obviously ask me before the round.

1. Topicality- I do evaluate T on a fairly truth-based paradigm. I am generally aff leaning when the affirmative is reading a blatantly topical aff and the negative goes for something like T-substantial. That said, if the aff is questionably topical or blatantly untopical I might be a good judge for you to go for T in front of because I value the technical side of the debate so highly. Affs that do something that might not be obviously core of the topic, or that are purposely untopical and attempt to out-card the other team on topicality annoy me, and I am more prone to vote neg on T in those instances. That said, I do usually default to an offense-defense paradigm unless convinced otherwise, and believe that the standards debate is where 95% of the T debate should be done, and not arguing about whose interpretation is better. T debates are won on standards, not on whose interpretation card is more qualified.

2. Theory- I am more tech leaning on the theory debate, although that only goes to a certain point. Most judges are not huge fans of voting for theory, and I'm not an exception to the rule. Just because the other team doesn't explicitly answer "Dispo Solves" on the condo debate doesn't mean you are going to get an automatic negative ballot. If you want me to vote on theory, as a general rule, you should probably have a pretty good in-round abuse story, or it should be dropped. Alternately, a very good explanation of why the world of their interpretation is bad may suffice. I don't necessarily need in-round abuse (it does sort of sound stupid to say abuse, but whatever) but it does make it easier for me to vote and I won't need as in-depth discussion of your standards and who accesses things like fairness and education better. As a very wise judge once said, I am not responsible for flowing your 40 point theory block at your top spreading speed. It is also important to note that I hold extrapolation on theory to a high standard, if you read a tiny condo block in the 2AC, shadow extend it in the 1AR, and then somehow spend 5 minutes on it in the 2AR I am unlikely to allow it, or more likely to allow the 2NR's "new" answers. I don't want this to scare you from going for theory in rounds that involve something that is reasonably theoretically objectionable. The more specific the theory debate, the better. I'm more likely to vote on "no solvency advocate theory" than conditionality. Or on conditionality if they read 4 conditional advocacies instead of 2.

3. Disads- Aff specific is good, but I realize that isn't always possible. I have no proclivities for or against them, they are a part of debate. I do enjoy a well thought out disad + counterplan, or disad + case debate. I appreciate offensive kickouts of disads when possible and generally seem to award speaker points to teams who do so, possibly simply due to the positive perception of the skill of the team that it leaves me with. 4. Counterplans- Kind of covered under theory, I don't start out thinking that any of them are completely cheating (although if you go for the "the" pic I may think slightly less favorably of said position at the end of the round). I think that most CPs, whether they be PICs or process cps are strategic, and the theoretical justifications should be debated along with substantive strategies. That said, I do seem to follow debate community views of which CPs are more unfair/cheating, I just don't think that I think they are as unfair in general as seems to be thought. Sometimes conditions counterplans are strategic, you just need to be better than the aff at justifying why it should be allowed.

5. Kritiks- I like to think that I am fairly comfortable with at least the base level of a lot of kritikal analysis in policy debate. I do find myself voting for kritiks fairly often just because affirmative teams seem to be defaulting to non-specific answers to most kritiks, which I find sad considering that specific answers to a non-aff-specific kritik are fairly devastating. I think that negative teams should try to make their kritik as specific to the affirmative as possible, and definitely read case specific links, and explanation of specific parts of their case that link and in-depth analysis generally lead to higher speaker points. I find that negatives almost always need to spend more time on the alternative debate to convince me that the alternative is able to resolve the harms that they isolate than they usually do, and reward teams that explain their alternatives to a comprehensible degree. I also have noticed a trend of teams reading kritikal arguments, not answering certain aff arguments because they think they don't have to, and losing on them (See Part 6). I expect negatives to either answer all the affirmative arguments, or at the very least explain to my why they don't have to. I evaluate dropped arguments as true, and as I am probably not as deeply versed in the literature of the kritik you are running as you are, you should tell me why I don't have to at the very least if you don't want to receive an RFD you find confusing at the end of the round.

6. Performance/Kritikal Affs- Fairly comfortable/fine with these but I usually default to requiring good line-by-line debate in these rounds too unless I'm given a reason to think otherwise. This means that you should make sure you answer all of the other team's arguments or at least tell me why you don't have to instead of assuming that I believe that you don't have to just as much as you do. I find it hard to vote for teams based on their personal narratives and whatnot if they don't answer the line-by-line without a good explanation of why they shouldn't have to answer the negative's (or affirmative's) specific arguments. If you think that you do those things as a performance team, I might be a good judge for you, as I am usually willing to give out fairly high speaker points to teams who do the above things well.

7. Silly/Wacky Arguments- Basically you just have to win them to win the round, although I do have a proclivity to dislike arguments that you win just because the other team wasn't prepared for or hadn't heard of it. Those kinds of arguments might include: Gregorian Calendar, Nonsensical Kritiks (unless explained in a good way to make them not-nonsensical), Ashtar, ASPEC (any spec really), etc.

8. Speaking- I am good with speed, but value clarity very highly. I will say clear once during your speech, and if you do not improve I will begin docking speaker points. I am also not responsible for flowing your arguments unless I actually hear them, I will not call evidence to find out what the arguments you made were, just to find out how well substantiated they are. Debate is a persuasion activity, if you do not talk clearly I will neither hear nor be persuaded by your argument.

9. Flashing/Emailing- I don't take prep for flashing or emailing as a general rule with 2 caveats: 1. If one of the teams is debating on paper I will take prep for the other team flashing/emailing so as not to disadvantage the paper team, 2. If your flashing takes an excessive amount of time (generally over a minute) I will begin to take it out of your prep time. One last thing, please do impact comparison and calculus at the end of the round and tell a story about what your world looks like when I vote for you or let me know what I'm voting for. If I end the round with an extinction scenario on each side and no comparison I will be forced to call the evidence and do the analysis for you to pick a winner, and I would much rather not intervene in your round. Debate well and have fun.