Shah,+Priten

contact@pritenhshah.com
 * __ Email: __**

**__Affiliation:__** Lakeland District Debate Team

**__Normal Bio:__** I am a New York resident, and attend Harvard University as a member of the Class of 2018, likely pursuing a joint concentration in Sociology and Government. I am the CEO of [|Pain, Passion, and Pursuit Inc]., a socially conscious company which publishes [|college admissions content], along with other projects. Through P3, I started [|United 4 Social Change] to provide a medium for writers to express their views on various topics of importance and to help spur social change using journalism. I am also the Founder and Executive Director of the [|Teach to Learn Foundation], which aims to increase educational opportunities for the underprivileged through the use of technology.

**__Debate Bio:__** I am currently working for the Lakeland District Debate Team. I coached and judged for them all of last year, and will be doing so again this year. I debated for four years for the Lakeland District Debate Team. I debated over 250 rounds in those four years. I have judged around 100 rounds in the past 5 years. I debated on the national circuit. I attended SDI during my freshmen summer, SNFI my sophomore summer, and Harvard Workshops my last summer. Stefan Bauschard and Brian Manuel coached me in high school.

**__If this is the only things you read:__**

I view the debate round as a classroom. This means:
 * You must keep the room we are debating in clean. I will not disclose my RFD until all trash has been picked up, and all furniture returned.
 * If I see you violating a tournament rule regarding classrooms (no unplugging, no sitting on teacher desks, etc), you will have forfeited the round.
 * I expect a high level of respect towards everyone in the round
 * I hope to teach you something, but also to learn something myself
 * I expect and hope for a safe learning environment for everyone, especially when I have control over the situation. You should not feel pressured to do anything you are not comfortable doing in front of me. This doesn't mean you don't have to "do debate," but it does mean that you should feel free to "do you" in debate. Please let me know of anything that would make the debate space more accessible for you, either before, during, or even after the round.

**__Argumentation:__** I am open to any type of argumentation; I value the "how" you debate a lot more than the "what". A debate of nuances is MUCH more fun for me to judge.

**__How I Evaluate Debates:__** I rarely call for cards in a debate. I believe it is your job to provide me with the warrants from the card in your speech, not for me to hunt for them. If you do not do comparative analysis, you are leaving too much open for me to do in my head. I have a high threshold for proper argumentation and highly favor teams that do proper analysis/extensions. I tend to evaluate each part of the flow in one direction or the other, then look at how that interacts with the whole argument, and then with other arguments. My Yes/No method of evaluating parts of the flow means that I tend to differ highly towards an offense/defense paradigm, but I do believe in 100% defense. I immensely respect the research aspect of the activity, and believe that time spent finding/reading/extending a few good cards, is much more valuable than a "see what sticks" method.

**__Presumption:__** Presumption goes towards the neg if they are advocating for the squo (err on the side of no change), and aff if the neg is advocating for any change (err on the side of the resolution).

**__Ethics:__** My behavioral expectations are similar to those in a classroom.
 * No obscene/foul language.
 * No harassment/bullying.
 * Plagiarism is an automatic loss.
 * Clipping means the round stops, clipping speaker gets 0. Other speakers assigned points based on round thus far.

**__My Flow:__** I flow on my laptop in a spreadsheet. I find that I get much more written down that way. I am OCD about my flow, so I reward speaker points to teams that actually go line-by-line, and answer each argument, and tell me where on the flow they are. This means that if you are a highly technical debater, you should be fine in front of me.

**__Random:__**
 * High threshold for evidence/arguments (especially solvency advocates, link cards, and definitions)
 * Not a judge for cheap shots
 * High threshold for most theory arguments
 * I love technical line-by-line debate
 * Prep ends when flash drive leaves computer
 * Open cross-x (tag team is fine)

**__Spectrum:__** I'm more comfortable in a "traditional" round, which includes most Kritiks. I am way less familiar with "non-traditional" debates. I have found myself to be a lot more open to listening to any and all arguments during rounds, than I think I am, so don't let that affect your choices in the round.

**__Speaker Point Scale:__** 27.5=C+ 28=B- 28.5=B+ 29= A- 29.5= A+  30=A++