Troyer,+Sam

Sam Troyer Loyola High School ‘18 Policy TOC 2015-16 stroyer00@gmail.com

Hello! My name is Sam Troyer, and I was a debater for Loyola High School. I competed in Policy for 3 years before the unfortunate loss of the program, and then competed in LD.

This paradigm should be read as a description of my most basic theories of how a good debate should go. First, don’t use extensive buzz words. I will not be happy. Know the difference between buzz words and jargon, especially you K debaters [1]. Second, I will not read evidence unless specifically told otherwise. I am not going to do the work for you, and if you question me after the round, you will not be happy. Third, I have only done LD for 0.3 years. Don’t expect me to be well versed in Phil/Tricks/other stupid LD stuff. Fourth, open source is a good practice, and leads to better, more productive debates. Fifth, I am not going to intervene, but I will use my own judgement [2] to decide the threshold of an arguments winnability. This means that Solvency Advocate Theory has a very low response threshold (aka 1. Drop the Argument 2. We have a solvency advocate, 3. Reasonability 4. This is BAD), while other well-developed arguments like a good T shell will need carded responses and multiple analytic arguments. Sixth, an argument is a Claim, Warrant, Impact, Data. Data can be excluded, but anything less should be called out as not an argument.

DISADS: Fantastic arguments, when they are done well. I think that evidence quality is important, but I can also be persuaded by a Politics card dump. This is all dependent on the quality of argumentation done by the opponent. Cards with warrants will almost always trump analytics with warrants, no matter how hard you try. However, if you can give me some DAMN good analysis (aka 1. Their author is just about as qualified as I am 2. There is no warrant in this piece of evidence, just a string of claims which doesn’t trump my specific warranted analytics that are more descriptive of both logic and the status quo 3. Their evidence is from Xyear which is not descriptive of Xevent), I might be persuaded otherwise. If you rightfully point out that their evidence is garbage, and you have at least semi good evidence/analytics, then I will be inclined to vote for you.

Link uniqueness is important if they don’t read specific links. If they read a link that is generic/mechanism based/topic based/status quo based, link uniqueness is a vital component of your Affirmative strategy.

COUNTERPLANS: First, some preconceptions. Condo is good [3] (the more the merrier, although that stops being true at around 3-4 off, depending on the round), PICs are good, solvency advocates are necessary, Fiat is good (international fiat and multi-actor fiat is good, but international multi-actor fiat is probably bad), consult and agent counterplans are probably good, but I can be swayed.

I love counterplans. They are one of the most innovative parts of debate, and can really make a round special. Advantage counterplans (specifically Warming advantage counterplans) are my favorite, followed by PICs, followed by agent counterplans, followed by consult counterplans.

I think that most counterplans should have solvency advocates. However, that isn’t necessarily true. My favorite debates are ones specific to the Aff, and if that means you have read their evidence and created a text based on their Aff’s solvency advocate, no need to re-read it if they have already read that section (you should still do it anyways because it feels really good). While I also don’t think that you need a solvency advocate for every counterplan, if your text strays away from objective truth at all, you probably need one. Else, I will not stop the Aff from destroying you on it.

KRITIKS: I think that they should be allowed.

That being said, I don’t like them when they are debated poorly. Spewing words that I don’t know at me at 400 WPM during a 7-minute overview will not be productive. I will also give you GARBAGE speaks, no matter how fast and clear you were. If you have any question on what good K debate is, watch S. Eugene LS, Little Rock Central WW, or GDS BS.

While I can probably keep up with you when you are talking about your Kritik, I am probably not the one that should be evaluating your round. There are way better K judges out there, and to be completely honest with you I am not very knowledgeable about the arguments.

Kritikal arguments that talk about Aff solvency are often very bad and very generic. Unless it is specific to the mechanism of the Aff, try not to read it in front of me. I will give the Aff a lot of leeway when it comes to specific solvency mechanisms v Ks.

TOPICALITY: My favorite. You should read it a lot if that is your cup of tea. My “preconceptions” do not intervene here because you should be doing that debate yourself.

FRAMEWORK: Great debate if executed correctly. I love good framework debate, but hate bad ones. If you go for the right arguments, you will be rewarded. If you go for the wrong ones, well…

RANDOM STUFF: Presumption is a decent argument. Terminal defense is a thing. I will probably never give a 30. I will try not to intervene. Policy debate is good!

RANDOM LD THINGS IF I HAVE TO: I do not think that Phil education is important. I also don’t think that most things that are standard in LD are very good, including disclosure practices. I don’t think that Tricks are good. Spikes are bad. RVIs on any argument are bad, and you should feel bad.

That being said, I will still vote on any of those arguments. I just won’t be very happy if you pref me highly, and most likely will default the other way in a close debate. If you read an RVI, especially on T, you will get -1 points, making the maximum amount of points you can earn a 29. Seriously, there are way better arguments. You have been warned.

SPEAKER POINTS: I operate on a simplified 27-30 scale, meaning that speaker points are still decided on a 0-30 spectrum, but each 0.1 increment indicates a change in whole number on the 0-30 scale. This doesn’t really matter though. I most likely will not give you below a 27, unless you are atrocious. Here is a pretty good scale.

27.0-27.5: ☹ 27.6-27.9: Significant mistakes made, unclear spreading, low amounts of strategic thinking. 28.0-28.3: Mistakes made, OK spreading, moderate amount of strategic thinking. 28.4-28.8: Mistakes made, pretty good spreading, good strategic thinking. 28.9-29.1: Few mistakes made, good spreading, excellent strategic thinking. 29.2-29.4: Best debater in the pool. 29.5-29.7: Best debater in the country during their best performance. 29.8-30: I guarantee you do not fit this category.

[1] I don’t mind judging good K debates. In fact, S. Eugene LS is one of my favorite teams to watch. However, if what you are saying is simply word soup, then there is a good chance that I won’t be able to effectively resolve the round. [2] Unless given a warranted reason to believe that it isn’t as bad as I think it is. [3] This is only in the counterplans section because often debaters can get fucky with their counterplan conditionality. That, and the only time people really read condo is to get rid of a counterplan.