McElwain,+James

This is my ninth year involved with debate. I'm affiliated with STA and constrained against SLP and Roosevelt EW.


 * TL;DR**: Generally, I’m interested in debate as an educational space. While I have preference for some arguments, at the end of the day what I am most compelled by is students who are interested in thinking critically, whether it’s about Kant, wonkish policy analysis, or the social itself. If you are passionate about your arguments, I’d love to hear them. One thing I’m not crazy about it strategy absent substance, aka form over content. The game matters, but it doesn’t interest me, and unless you’re capable of explaining why pure tech is more educational than active engagement, I’m probably a bad judge for you.


 * General comments on strategy:**


 * I.** Rhetoric is strategy. Sacrificing all ethos for logos doesn’t seem like a good strategy to me. In this sense, I’m highly persuaded by debaters that impact, weigh, and compare. Debate is about the creation and organization of value, and only comparative debate requires this sort of engagement. Winning by exclusion is not particularly interesting to me, particularly when most LD debaters are incapable of explaining their framework, only extending it.


 * II.** Negative strategy doesn’t impress me unless it substantively engages with the affirmative. Going for theory, framework, c/p is basically just recognizing that the 1AR is a really hard speech—layers are a test for the affirmative and do not reflect that the negative understands anything more interesting than 3 > 1. That is to say, pre-round prep is more interesting than generically exploiting the fact that LD is structured poorly. Feel free to go for this kind of execution, but don’t expect 30s when your opponent bumbles the debate in the 1AR because you made the line by line sufficiently difficult. Big picture weighing is always more persuasive to me.


 * III.** Dropped arguments are only persuasive if they are extended persuasively. Obviously, an argument that isn’t responded to is more likely to be persuasive than and argument that is. However, that doesn’t mean that arguments cannot be implicitly answered back by other arguments on the flow or bigger picture questions. In other words, a dropped argument is not a reason to avoid clash—dropped args must be impacted back to other issues in the round comparatively. Being tech like that doesn’t impress me, it seems lazy.


 * Specific stuff:**


 * Theory:** If theory is your "a" strat, dont pref me. I will obviously vote on real abuse, but you need to sell me your abuse story, not simply extend dropped args. I like topicality, but only on topics where there’s room for a reasonable debate about ground. Introducing multiple theory shells is a bad idea. I’m highly persuaded by drop the arg. Criticism of your method is always competitive with theory and can be weighed against it. Fairness is often poorly explained/justified and I’m much more persuaded by appeals to a developed idea of education, participation, and my jurisdiction as a judge.


 * Policy:** I like policy arguments. You should probably be ready to debate framework if you’re negating. On the other hand, policy affs are best responded to by policy negs—reading phil framework against a policy aff is generally not very compelling to me. Solvency advocates are good. Specious link chains can be really bad in LD. Counterplans are generally really strategic in LD. All of this depends on what the topic is. Spec might be abusive, but it usually isn’t, so I’m fine to hear a contextual example of the resolution if it makes sense—phil negs are more acceptable here.


 * Philosophy:** Analytic phil is fine, but you have to be able to explain it. Blippy syllogisms are not persuasive. I am hesitant to endorse any single ethical framework as correct on the basis of a 45 minute debate round. Weighing between frameworks, either meta-ethically or in terms of methodology/practice is a good thing. I prefer ethical positions that support a coherent worldview. I'm open to skepticism, but not shitty generic skepticism.


 * Kritiks:** I'm not a hack but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you to go for the K. If it’s something you’re genuinely interested in, I’m probably a good judge for you. That being said, there are some caveats. Bad Ks are worse than stock. If you aren’t genuinely interested in the lit you’re reading, don’t run it in front of me. If you didn’t cut the cards yourself, same thing. Backfiles are boring. Topical links are often boring. Obscurity is not a reason to explain your arguments poorly—while I expect your opponent to engage, if you can’t explain the kritik, it’s evidence that you don’t understand it.

language is pretty expressive, so you should be able to tell whether I'm following you or not. Leniency to the 1AR and long cards that are easier to follow. Otherwise, I'm pretty reasonable about speaker points.
 * Speed. ** To be honest, I find a lot of debaters pretty unclear. I don't have a problem with speed, I have a problem with clarity. My handwriting sucks. I really hate unlabeled arguments. If you want to win a 30 in front of me, you need to make it easy for me to flow — i.e. you must number arguments and say tags/authors clearly. I will say clear if requested, but would prefer not to. My body