McGough,+David

David McGough

I debated for four years at Greenhill; the first two were in policy, the last two were in LD. During the past two summers I have been an instructor at VBI and UNT, but during the school year I remain fairly isolated from debate (read: don't expect me to be already well-versed in the topic literature).


 * Speed:** I'm fine with it. However, if you're reading a dense kritik that is difficult for someone unfamiliar with the argument to understand, you should be aware that reading it exceedingly fast makes it also exceedingly difficult for me to follow along. If I don't know what an argument is, I won't be voting on it. That's a reason why if you're going to take this strategy anyway, you should be very clear and non-evasive in CX.


 * Decision calculus:** I will default to a value/value-criterion model if no other decision calculus is offered (and justified). This is not to say I have any sort of bias towards the value/value-criterion model; in fact, I find that it can actually hinder a lot of good debate. However, if you want to offer a different calculus, I expect you to do the work to justify why it's a preferable model. If you want to go the value/value-criterion model route, //be sure to resolve the standards debate//. I don't care if you want to accept their standard, link to it, and outweigh. I don't care if you want to win your standard and claim that they have no links to it. But do something, because if you both extend your value-criterions without any comparison, the only way for me to choose one is to intervene. I know this sounds very novice-debate, but I still see it in varisty enough to warrant a mention in my philosophy.


 * Impact weighing:** Do it. I think it is impossible to determine a winner when there's offence on both sides that isn't weighed. If you don't compare them for me, I will do it for you (see above) -- and then you lose all right to complain about how I decided to compare the impacts. I don't have any preference for any of the weighing vectors (magnitude, timeframe, probability, reversability, etc.) but I do believe that it's pointless to only touch on one of them without a look at the others. If you don't understand what I mean, consider a black hole in a binary star system being flinged across the universe after its paired star explodes. The magnitude of the impact if it came in our direction would be infinite (or 100% or total, I don't care what metric you want to use). But the probability is almost zero, and the timeframe is indeterminate. So I want you to compare more than one vector and explain why I should prefer your impact -- simply claiming it has an infinite magnitude isn't persuasive to me.


 * Warranting:** This is a disclaimer that I am not going to vote on any argument just because it's dropped. If at the bottom of your case you have "and default neg because aff speaks last" and it gets dropped, don't expect me to consider that an argument.


 * Theory:** Having debated policy for two years, I've obviously been exposed to it. I also ran topicality a few times as well as counterplan theory, but I was not excessively into theory by any stretch of the imagination. So expect me to be at least conversant with theory terms, but that's not to say I particularly enjoy that type of debate. I find that a lot of theoretical arguments are very poorly warranted since there seems to be a lower threshold for what constitutes a "theory argument." Be aware that this is not the case for me; I expect you to justify everything up to and including the voter. I will not vote on theory just because you said "theory is a voter for competitive equity" -- you need to do more work than that. Also be careful not to have potentially conflicting standards in your theory shell without a way to arbitrate between them, because if you don't resolve them I will be forced (as above) to do that for you (or just reject the entire theory debate altogether -- an option I don't have when you fail to resolve the value-criterion debate).

With all of that being said, I think it's really up to you to determine how I view the round. I will listen to you if you have good arguments for why I should view the round in a certain way or even why I should go against the philosophy I've outlined above.