Ramakrishna,+Vijay

__Background__: I debated for 3 years during high school, two of which were in LD debate. Over the course of the three years, I debated each of the three styles of debate at least one time, so I’m fairly well-versed in some of the more technical stuff of each debate style. I graduated high school in 2010, and graduated from Arizona State University in 2015, majoring in Molecular Biology, with minors in Economics and Business. I did not do college speech and debate, but was actively involved in the AZ judging circuit, and have a cumulative judging experience of 4.5 years (2.5 years LD and 2 years CX). As of right now, I coach S+D at BASIS Mesa.

__Overall__: Extremely Tabula Rasa. I don’t care what you run, even if it’s completely ridiculous. Just debate well, warrant/link/impact, and weigh. Provided you do those things, you have a fair shot of winning.

__Framework__: I’ll buy whatever you want to read as framework just so long as you warrant its use, ie tell me why it should be the framework I use to evaluate the round, and so long as I am able to use the framework you give me to judge the round. I find that many rounds are won and lost in framework, and it is really important for debaters to effectively argue and clearly win this part of the round unless identical frameworks are being used. If a clear framework is not presented, argued for and won by either debater, I’ll probably default to a util calc.

__Warrants/Links/Impacts__: MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE ROUND! I don’t care what you run, so long as you can warrant everything you say. Seriously, you can literally read a case somehow linking the resolutions to alien abductions, and I will buy it, provided you properly warrant it. This does not necessarily mean to read a piece of evidence with every statement you make, but it does mean that every statement you make does have to have some kind of backing, be it analytical or evidence based. I cannot vote for you if you don’t adequately warrant what you say. With this, make sure your links make sense. If I can’t understand your logic, I can’t vote for you. Finally, I need terminal impacts of the things you read. Without them, I have no way of knowing why I should care what you’re reading.

__Extensions:__ This is also really important. I hate doing work for debaters on this one. You are going to have to explicitly tell me what arguments/pieces of evidence to extend, speech to speech. Also, don’t just say, “Extend blah” and move on. Give me the warrants, links, and impacts of what you are extending, so I’ll know how I should be evaluating it.

__Speed__: I’m fine with speed. Just be clear. Three things though: slow down on stuff which might be kind of dense, philosophical type stuff, simply because I really have to be able to understand everything you say, slow down on other things which I need to write down (tags, authors, Value/Value Criterion etc), and don’t start out going extremely quickly. Start out slower, and work your way up to full speed in a few seconds. My ears have to adjust.

__Weighing__: Please do this. I like not having to do work. I like crystallization as well.

__Argument-Type Specific Stuff__ Theory: I will buy theory arguments so long as debaters can provide everything for them as would be needed for any other argument, ie, warrants, impacts etc. Also tell me why I should care, why should theory come before substantive debate. Keep in mind though, that I’m not very well-versed in theory, so you’re going to have to clearly explain each piece of any theory shell to me. Finally, I’m very receptive to most types of responses to theory. Kritiks: I <3 kritiks. Just make sure you are clear, especially if you are reading dense literature, and don’t expect me to automatically understand what you’re saying. Be clear, explain well, and extend well as well. And if you’re going to run a kritik, don’t run it as a case, and then claim your opponent “bites into it.” This is a personal pet peeve of mine. If you’re running it as a case, there isn’t anything your opponent can “bite into.” Personally, I dislike it when debaters hide the fact that they’re actually running a K, but I guess that’s just one of the problems with the AZ circuit. Seriously, if you’re running a K run it as a K. I’ll like you more. A prioris: Not a huge fan of these, but I’ll still vote on them. That said, you’re going to have to warrant these very well, and prove to me conclusively, why you’re a priori should necessarily come first. A lot of debaters like to throw these in with one or two bad warrants as a time suck for their opponent. I have a very low threshold for arguments against this. If you do that, I’m probably not going to buy the argument, unless your opponent completely fails to address it (like literally skips it and never talks about it). Plans/CPs/DAs/Other Policy-Style Stuff: Run them, just make sure you tell me how to evaluate them. I have no qualms aboutthese types of arguments. Also, extend and format correctly, or I’ll get annoyed and probably not evaluate the argument. Performance-Type Stuff: Go ahead and do it, provided you can do it well. Just keep in mind that a bad performance AC/NC will almost certainly come off looking worse than a bad standard AC/NC

__Speaks__: I give speaks based on how well you debated, on how much you entertained me, and on how persuasive you are. This can come from argumentation as well as style. Oh and be polite to your opponent. If you aren’t, you’re probably getting bad speaker points from me. This is supposed to be a fun event, with friendly competition. Keep it one.

Thanks to Avi Arfin, for the basic format of this page