Ryan,+Nick

Nick Ryan Judging Philosophy This is my first year judging debate. I debated for 4 years in High School, and an additional 4 years at the University of Mary Washington. If you have any questions about things that aren’t listed here please ask, I would rather you be sure about my feelings, then deterred from running something because you are afraid I didn’t like it.

General things you should know – Communication – as a debater I always appreciated judges that provided feedback during speeches, and as such I will try to do the same, if I am confused I will indicate it nonverbally, by looking up and looking confused, you should take this as a sign that you should go back to whatever you were trying to explain and explain it again. If I do not understand your arguments and you ignore my feedback indicating such, I am more than willing to discount said arguments.

Speaker points – whatever point scale the tournament is utilizing, whether it be the 30 or 100 point scale, these are things that can and probably will influence your speaker points: clarity, explanations, disrespectfulness to the other team, or your partner, stealing prep time, your use of your speech time (including cx), etc.

Flowing - I will flow every speech, including CX, it enables me to organize the debate better. I may not be the best flow in the world but if you are organized in your speeches, I will get a majority of your arguments down. If you are disorganized on the flow, I cannot be held accountable for cross applying arguments to other areas of the flow that you do not instruct me to apply them to. I prefer good line by line debates instead of top heavy overview debates where you just tell me it’s answered in the overview.

Specifically - Topicality and Plan Flaws– T is always a voter and never a reverse voter (I agree with Adrienne Brovero when she says “’Kritiks’ of T are RVIs in sheep’s clothing. Anti-topical actions are neg ground.”). I strongly believe that all AFFs need to have a written plan text. If you are going to go for Topicality in front of me these things will help me buy into your violation more and will improve your speakerpoints – I would prefer to hear a caselist or a description of what the topic would look like under your interpretation vs their interpretation, a good explanation of the in round vs potential abuse that has/could occur under their interpretation, and why I should care. If you are AFF in a Topicality debate I am willing to listen to the reasonability vs competing interpretations arguments, but you need to have some warranted analysis on this point starting in the 1AR. In addition I do not believe that AFFs can be reasonably topical without a counter interpretation. As far as plan flaws go, I always read the plan text before the debates to look for tiny flaws that I could point out, I am willing to vote on plan flaw means you don’t solve, however if it is merely a matter of grammar (which I am not very good at) then it’s probably not worth your time.

Theory – I loved theory debates as a debater, I went for ASPEC a lot, purely because theory debates interest me. However, two teams just reading blocks back at each other on the theory debate is a good way to kill my happiness with theory. You need to have well warranted and impacted theory arguments that directly refute the other teams arguments if you are going to go for theory in front of me. I was a 2N for most of my college career and as such I am a little more neg friendly on theory then some other people. I ran consultation Counterplans a lot, in addition to PICs. This is not to say that AFFs cannot win these arguments, it just means that’s what I believe. I am generally fine with conditionality (however AFFs can win that it is bad), I also believe that dispo is really just conditionality, because it’s just some arbitrary burden that AFFs can never meet (I don’t care if you say your CP or K is dispo, however I am willing to buy the argument that it is really just conditionality in disguise). The only real theoretical issue I strongly favor the AFF on is object fiat is bad. That being said its open for debate and am willing to vote for whoever wins the argument. I am also willing to buy the argument “reject the argument not the team” so if you want to go for theory in front of me (even if it’s a dropped “cheap shot”) you need to explain to me why I should reject the other team. In addition (just for your reference) when I was AFF, theory was a big part of our 1AR strategy, not just the generic CP theory that you always hear, but non-intrinsic arguments, and politics theory such as “vote no” etc. So I am willing to listen to these arguments and vote for them, and just as willing to vote that they are cheating. (what you do with that info is entirely up to you).

Disads – I love disads. I believe that it is possible to win zero risk of a link, however, I don’t think that happens very often (I went for these arguments a lot on the AFF, and believe that I can figure out when a DA really links or not). I think that AFFs would benefit from questioning the Internal Link story more then they usually do, tons of Disads are missing them in the 1NC shell, and AFFs never point it out. Uniqueness is interesting to me, since a lot of debates focus here, I think that it is nearly impossible to win a 100% non-unique to most disads, especially politics disads. Uniqueness cards also tend to be not very good, I think that it can mitigate a disad, however I don’t think that AFFs can win the debate purely on the non-unique claim, except in very rare occasions.

Counterplans: As I stated in the theory section, I generally lean negative on CP theory, whether the CP is topical, a PIC, PEC, conditional/dispositional, international fiat, agent etc. If AFFs are going to win these theory debates I think there best strategy would be to make a combination of arguments, specifically “conditional consultation CP’s are bad” something that negs are more then likely to just read their conditionality good and consultation good blocks to, which may or may not answer the specific reasons why running them both together is bad. I love good CP debates though, I think that negs probably should have a solvency advocate, but what that means is up for debate (I tend to think I am neg bias on this point, in that on this topic if the neg has a card saying a specific state needs X subsidy for Y reason, that a CP to exclude Z state would have a solvency advocate based on that card). Permutations and CP texts must be written out, I am not going to be happy when I call for the CP and Perm Texts and have the AFF scribbling out Do Both (which I don’t think is an argument, I think AFFs must write the perm so that it can be done). In addition, I may be alone on this point, but absent any clarification in the debate I generally believe that the status quo remains a logical option for the negative at the end of the debate (this means that if I find that the CP doesn’t solve the AFF, I believe I can vote in favor of the Squo and the disad).

Kritiks – I didn’t run a whole lot of these in college, so don’t expect me to be too familiar with the literature. That being said I am willing to listen to them, however you will need to give a lot more warrants and clear explanations to get me to understand your kritik. Here are a few other things that will help you win your kritik, make it specific, the more specific the better, I need lots of Link and impact explanations instead of generic extinction inevitable claims. I need a clear explanation of what the alternative does, how it functions, and how it solves the K. I have also noticed that some K debaters get too overview happy and forget the line by line, that won’t make me happy, I want to hear the explanation on the line by line, overviews are fine however if its half of your speech you are wasting your time. Alt Texts and perms also need to be written out, and clearly articulated. I think that AFFs can and should be able to permute parts of the alternative card, if it says things other than the Alternative text. As far as K AFFs go, they are fine so long as they have a plan, engage the resolution and are topical. Just don’t assume I know what you are talking about.

Non-Traditional/ Performance – If this is the primary way you debate, I’m probably not the best judge for you. I will attempt to be open minded, however I tend to think that debate is generally good. I do think you need to engage the topic in some way. I also tend to believe that if the other team engages you in your style of debate you cannot blow off their arguments, if you do I think it grants them a lot more credibility on framework debate. If you are debating these types of teams, you need to pin them down on what their advocacy is, how it works, how it will solve, and what exactly they do and don’t do. Then argue what they change is bad for whatever reason.