Trivedi,+Kris

Kris Trivedi Niles West High School 2014 American University Class of 2018 Constraints: Niles West High School

I have debated for Four years at Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois. I may or may not be super familiar with the topic since I don't debate in college so make sure that you are explaining the nuances of your aff and not just blow over acronyms.

__**A few meta things**__
 * I tend to try and think of myself as a judge who can be convinced of my predispositions as long as you explain why I should be convinced so. I don't think that you need to completely rearrange your strategy to fit what I like or don't like, just do your best to convince me why I should vote on your arguments. I also, view a dropped argument as a true argument, BUT you need to explain why that dropped argument matters in the debate. Just saying "they conceded our impact!" is not enough to win you the round.
 * **DO NOT TRY TO SPEAK FASTER IN ORDER TO SACRIFICE CLARITY!!!!!YOU SHOULD BE MORE CLEAR THAN** **FAST!!!!!** (That being said, I am still okay with speed.)
 * I don't like a throw away strategy in the 1NC, its sort of unstrategic. You should probably try to get a really good cohesive 1NC strategy against the aff before the round starts. A diverse set of strategies at the beginning of the debate will keep me interested and prevent me from tuning you out in the middle of your speech and doing my homework, and it might also give you some good speaker points.
 * YOU MUST DO IMPACT COMPARISON! Not just explain what your impacts are, but explain why yours are better than theirs. You must do IMPACT CALCULUS, even if you hate it like my novice, otherwise I might not vote for you. Normally, whoever solves for killing the most people in the fastest amount of time, will win the debate, but I have been persuaded otherwise.
 * Read each others' evidence... and then compare it! I hate having to read cards after the round and do evidence comparison for you because I feel like it's an unfair level of intervention, but it is something I have to do regularly because of the lack of evidence comparison done within the debate. So far I have only called for cards once, and then I felt really sad about the decision. Don't make me sad. I generally tend to default to better evidence comparison in-round ahead of better quality evidence. Good evidence is important to me, but don't expect to let your evidence do the work. If the other team has done a better job on in-round ev comparison, I'm probably going to be more swayed by that than by the fact that your ev might be a little better.
 * If you engage in any offensive acts (homophobia, racism, sexism, cheating etc.) you will automatically loose the round then and there and you will be awarded the minimum speaker points for that tournament (most likely a 0). There is no room for discussion on that.
 * I try not to be very expressive in a round, but I realize I would probably fail at things like that so if you look at me once in a while, you might be able to tell what I am thinking in the round. Just don't stare at me for the speech. That's just creepy AND you should be flowing and not staring at my face.

Now down to the debate stuff...

**Topicality:** I like T. Like, I really like it. However, I only like it if aren’t just reading blocks back and forth at one another. I view T in a competing interpretations framework, unless the aff is a core of the topic type aff, in which case you can probably win reasonability in front of me. You should outline specific in-round abuse, but it isn’t 100% necessary to win my ballot, potential abuse may still be a voting issue. You should outline arguments you didn’t get because their aff was untopical. Most importantly, you need to explain what the world of the topic looks like under the interpretation or the counter-interpretation and why that is a better world for debate than the other team's interpretation. Impact your arguments. I will NOT vote on your K of T. I believe that you can have a critical affirmative that addresses the topic, thus you should never need to critique T. If you do I will probably hurt you.

**Counterplans:**. I love them, especially case-specific tricky ones and advantage cps, but I also understand the strategic utility of generic cps. For me counterplans are more about competition than theory. While I tend to lean more neg on questions of CP theory, I lean aff on a lot of questions of competition, especially in the cases of CPs that compete on the certainty of the plan, normal means cps, and agent cps. Investing the time to win perm do the cp rather than being intimidated by the large number of mostly terrible arguments the negative makes on it generally pays off for the aff. Additionally, if you tell me I can default to the status quo even if you go for the counterplan, I will do that if the status quo is the best option - but I won't automatically do it, you have to actually say it in your 2NR.


 * Disads: **Disads are the bomb! I LOVE ME MY DISADS! Especially a case specific DA. But my favorite is the politics DA. 80% of the 2NRs in my debates are/were the politics DA and case or a process CP. I am willing to vote aff on damning defensive arguments but not having offense in the 2AR puts you in a difficult position. Disad turns case arguments are also very important and I vote on them often. A dropped disad turns case argument can be devastating to the aff.


 * Kritiks ** :  I'm not going to lie, I'm not a good judge for the K. I consider myself a policymaker unless you tell me otherwise, the implication of that being that if you want me to consider my ballot as something other than advocating a hypothetical policy that would be enacted, you need to explain to me what it is and why that is better than the framework the affirmative is providing. Don’t assume that means I want to hear you read your framework blocks back and forth at one another. That sucks. I have voted on the K, I will vote on the K. I tend to see a lot of aff teams read their same generic K block to every K and lose because they mishandle it. I don’t read K literature for fun. I am not really a bad judge for mainstream Ks like security, cap, fem IR, etc. I am really not a bad judge for most Ks that deal with gender issues or criticisms of international relations theory because I am very well versed in those topics. Beyond that, I am not very well-versed in the literature of your kritik and it will likely be more of an uphill battle. I understand most Ks but that doesn’t mean that throwing out jargon and buzzwords will mean anything to me. If you can explain how the K functions to me as if I was a novice, I would possibly vote on it. Unfortunately, I end up voting on the K more than I'd like because the aff mishandles it.

Your K should ideally:


 * Be a reason why the aff is bad, not just why the status quo is bad. If you’re going to read Cap Bad, give me a reason why the aff’s specific instance of capitalism is bad, not just why the capitalist system is bad. Specific links are beautiful. Links of omission are not a reason to vote neg.
 * Not have a generic alt. I tend to have pretty high standards for alternative solvency. Convince me that the world of the alternative would be better than the world of the plan. Additionally, utopian alternatives are probably not okay, but I can be convinced otherwise.
 * Link to the action of the plan text not a word, although I can be convinced why the word and what that word justifies is bad (i.e. like the Fuck K)

I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why the aff should not be able to weigh their aff against the alt. Also, I can be convinced that framework is a voting issue if a team can prove abuse.

**Non-traditional/K affs:** If you do not defend the hypothetical enactment of a topical plan by the USFG and defend its effects, I am not a good judge for you. I did run a non-traditional Aff on the space topic that did defend enactment of USFG action, but I still think that they are kind of strange. I like to think of myself as a policymaker and not a philosopher, but I can be convinced otherwise. If you can convince me why your type of argument should be included in the debate, I may vote for you, but I feel very strongly that they detract from the truly educational aspect of debate and that it is abusive to the negative. I also am not receptive to critiques of debate. I love debate. I devote egregious amounts of time to it. You probably will have a hard time trying to convince me that it’s bad.

***Note:** If you defend the hypothetical enactment of said topical plan by the USFG and its effects but also read more critical advantages, I'm totally okay with that. Make sure to provide a method for evaluating impacts and explain the interactions between impacts. I have found myself enjoying these types of debates more and more as teams become better at evaluating their critical advantages on an impact level.


 * Speaker Points: ** I give okay speaker points, do the following and you will get good points. The highest points I have given is a 28.9 and the lowest is a 26, although it is very rare that you will get anything lower than a 27 from me. I know how it feels to get really low points, when you feel like you screwed up.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Act like you care. If I feel like you care and you want to be there, whether you're 5-0 or 0-5, that means a lot. If you don't seem like you care or you're not engaged, it'll reflect poorly in your speaker points. I hate having to judge people who don't care going into the round. Plus, if you act like you know you are going to lose, or you act like you don't care before the round, it will give me a bad impression of you and I will nuke your speaker points, and reward the other team with a win.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Be nice to both the other team, and your partner. I hate having to judge people who are dicks to each other. If you are being rude in a round, I will nuke your speaker points and look for an excuse to vote against you. I have done it before.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Be clear! This is a huge problem for me. You can be as fast as you want but make sure your arguments are clear enough for me to flow. If you are unclear and you make an argument that I am unable to flow, it won't go on my flow, and you could lose the debate. I would rather have you slow down slightly and be clearer than you go fast and be unclear. Keep in mind that I, unlike most judges, still flow on paper and not on my computer so being clear is especially important to me! I will try to shout clear every so often but if I keep having to do that, I will: a) stop flowing what you are saying and do my homework or b) nuke your speaker points or c) Perm: Do Both.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Don't cheat! (NO CARD CLIPPING)
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Don't steal prep!
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You can prompt your partner in his/her speech but make sure that the person giving the speech actually says it. That means, if the person giving the speech hasn't said it, its not going on my flow. Also, please try not to prompt your partner too much! I am not saying this because I don't like it, because I know that there are times when you have to jump in to save each other, but as the person giving the speech, it can really get annoying. If you have to turn to your partner, even during CX, and have to tell them to shut up, it's OKAY! I won't eat you, I have done that to my partners before, and they know to back off.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Engage in thoughtful cross-x. That means not being a jerk, not merely reading lines of evidence back and forth to one another, not having the non-cross-xing partner dominate, unless you (as the person getting CX-ed) wants them too. I mean I guess that is okay. CX is usually really boring for me and I end up doing my homework during that time. However, you can find a way to keep me interested during that time. I will put my homework away and start listening to you.


 * Speaker points break down (scroll down to see how to get me to like you) **

29-30: you are flawless. (this is kind of difficult for me to give to people) 28.5-29: You are good but made some flaws, still really good though. (Fairly common for me) 27.5-28.5: Average points, but still good. (Most common for me) 27-27.5: You are getting there, you still need to work better 26-27: Something went wrong and you screwed up and just need to be better, or you don't care 25.9 or lower: You must have done something incredibly wrong here 0: You did something unethical like cheating


 * Paperless Debate:** I am okay with paperless debate since I use my laptop to debate anyway. That being said there are some areas of debate where I am more lenient than other judges. Prep time ends when you are done with your speech and you are in the process of flashing the other team your evidence. Please try to do this in as timely of a matter as possible. If time becomes too excessive, I will start prep time. If you or your partner are still prepping as the speech is being saved, I won't stop the timer. I am of the opinion that, unless you're providing more than one viewing computer, if the other team requests that one of them be able to have the speech document on their computer, I think you should allow them to (i.e. the 1N should get to use the 2NC prep time to prep for their 1NR as well, which is impossible if the 2N is using the viewing computer) - it's not like I can really punish you for not doing this, but I will definitely look upon it disfavorably, which may reflect in your speaker points or things like that. Please try to have a viewing computer or someway where the other team can look at your evidence. I can't emphasize enough something that I mentioned earlier which is absolutely DO NOT STEAL PREP. There is // nothing // that bothers me more when I'm judging than when debaters steal prep. It's a lot easier to do when there's dead time from paperless transfers, so make sure to control yourself or I will yell at you and if I'm annoyed enough, it will reflect in your speaker points.

__** IF YOU WANT ME TO LIKE YOU **__

1. Make as many references to Ice Hockey, or the Chicago Blackhawks as pertinent to the round as possible. 2. Vladimir Putin is my favorite world leader, work something in there 3. Make a joke that pertains to current events (I am a nerd so yeah..) 4. Airplanes...anything about airplanes 5. make references to any of the following TV shows "House of Cards", "The West Wing", "24", "The Blacklist", or "Enlisted"

ALSO IF YOU MAKE A REFERENCE TO THE MOVIE FROZEN AND TIE IT INTO THE DEBATE ROUND IN SOME WAY SHAPE OR FORM I MIGHT BE INCLINED TO GIVE YOU .5 EXTRA SPEAKER POINTS!!! (A good example would be "The aff team needs to learn to be like Elsa and let it go in regards to their advantage)