Lucy+Zhu

I debated at GBN for 4 years and now at Georgetown.

I hate it when judges refuse to vote on certain arguments, which means I’ll try to be open to all args, but there are definitely args I’m more likely to be persuaded by and better at evaluating.

I like policy debate—affs should have a plan text and I prefer to decide between the plan and the status quo or competitive alternative. The more aff-specific a strategy, the better. Dropped arguments are only true if impacted/warranted.

Case/DA/CPs: are great. I love PICS, including those out of words and of the certainty of the plan. Comparative impact calc is a necessity. A dropped advantage has the same weight as a dropped DA. Politics DAs might be my favorite thing in debate, but they are kind of ridiculous. A good CX against a dumb scenario goes a long way. Politics DAs are also a great place to show off your knowledge of current events and Congress, which I would reward with generous speaks.

Critiques: These should be explained well. I think they’re dumb most of the time but affs don’t do a good enough job of calling them out on their BS too often. There should be a clear impact to the framework debate. As with most things, I’d much rather hear a specific, well thought out critique than a generic one that makes clear how little work you’ve done on the topic.

Theory: Not my favorite thing. Unless explicitly otherwise told, I tend to think that I should reject the argument/theory and not the team. This is true for Extra-T (reject extratopcial parts of the aff), 2AC clarifications/spec arguments, PICs/illegit counterplans and illegit perms. Conditionality, PICs, topical CPs, agent/states CPs are probably good/ok. Consult, condition, and international actor CPs are questionable, but more legit if you have good solvency advocate evidence (a card that says Luxembourg has implemented an alternative energy policy is NOT good solvency evidence). Prob not ok: private, object, utopian, multi-actor fiat. Slow down in rebuttals and do comparison.

Topicality: is just like every other argument in debate. Compare impacts.