John+Fowle

Hi, I'm John. I debated policy for the New School for 2 1/2 years, from fall of 2010 to fall of 2012. During my debate career I mostly argued kritiks, defended an advocacy rather than a topical plan, and refused to switch sides. Although there is nothing I totally refuse to vote on (so far), I probably vote for the kritik more often than most judges.

I tend to have a very high threshold on T and FW. On T, I default to resonability, and the neg will have to tell a clear abuse story to get my ballot. This means not just clearly identifying what the aff did wrong, but why it's important (with impacts). I tend to value education as a standard very highly in T debates.

On FW, if the 1AC includes a justification for their non-topical advocacy, then it's up to the neg to respond with offense against the aff's methodology and/or reasons to prefer topical affs for educational/political reasons. Arguing that the aff broke the rules, stole the neg's ground, or will always be able to defend that their principles are good is unlikely to get you far.

CP/DA debate: I'm more receptive than most judges to the argument that probability of impacts is at least as important as magnitude. I see very little value in debates where I end up weighing two far-fetched nuke war scenarios against each other. To paraphrase Boston College DoD John Katsulas, if you got up in front of Congress and argued that we must pass comprehensive immigration reform or humanity will go extinct, you would be thrown into a loony bin.

For LD debaters: I have little experience with LD beyond rounds I have judged in it. For the most part, the advice above still applies in an LD round. My only caveat is that, because of my relatively little experience, I am not totally conversant in LD theory jargon.When you make theory arguments, you'd be well-advised to couch them in accessable terms.

Public forum: I get the impression that my policy experience heavily informs my PF judging. I seem to weigh technical interaction of arguments more than most PF judges, and "perceptual dominance" less. In fact, I'm uncomfortable with the concept of voting based on who feels more persuasive, as it only encourages me not to question my biases and to reinforce race/gender/ability privilege. I will do my best to weigh the round based on what you said, not how good you sounded saying it.