Elson,+John

I've debated for Round Rock HS (small school outside austin), UNT and Trinity.

Philosophy:

If you win the argument, I’ll vote for you on it. If you're in a hurry, here's the top three things you should know:

First, I will flow the entire debate round, no matter what. You can win technical debate bad anyway, but I'll decide the debate based on my flow.

Second, multiple conditional counterplans are not acceptable. You'd better be a theoretical genius if you run them in front of me. And, no, yelling "neg flex" fifteen different ways doesn't count. I'm usually ok with a K and a CP, but I think there are good arguments as to why that's cheating.

Three, I'm fine with K's, but I'm not intimately familiar with them. Slow down a little and explain the basics of the theory behind each of your arguments, and you'll be fine. If you're debating a K, go for the heart of the argument. I like objective truth exists, science is accurate, human nature means laws are necessary, etc. These arguments will get you a lot further than generic impact turns and giant framework debates. I also like longer cards over shorter ones.

And here's the extra stuff:

1. I am fine with every variation of disad and counterplan but I am sympathetic to aff theory arguments. I prefer a few, well explained theory arguments to a 15 point block of four word phrases. If you spend 45 seconds explaining your argument in depth and drop “neg flex, need to kick stuff” at the bottom, I’ll probably vote for you anyway.

2. I think analytical arguments are the heart of debate and, if an argument is logical and well explained, you can occasionally get away with not reading evidence to support it. Analytics transform painfully boring politics debates into something interesting.

3. My judging is strongly informed by the Offense/Defense school of thought, but I am not a strict Offense/Defense judge. It is possible to win a 100% takeout to a disad or have a negligible net benefit to a counterplan. Impact calculus is almost always the majority of my decisions.

4. I judge T based on competing interpretations and I think limits are most important standard. It is possible to convince me to look at T differently, but that's my default. If you don't have a counter interp, you've lost.