Zaman,+Shadman

EXPERIENCE: I competed in Lincoln Douglas Debate for Sacred Heart High School in Kingston, MA from 2004-2008. I have both competed and judged at various local, regional, national tournaments.

THE ESSENTIALS:

1. I do not like mean, rude, loud and obnoxious people. Even if you are the better debater, being disrespectful to me or your opponent will be reflected in your speaker points.

2. I do not mind speed, but I do not enjoy listening to people who cannot enunciate. Speed is an asset for those who are capable of using it effectively (or those who can maintain clarity when speaking quickly). It will adversely affect your speaker points and possibly whether I vote for you or not if I cannot understand what you are saying.

3. I find that 99% of "pre-standards" arguments are unwarranted and unreasonable. If you're picking a case to run in front of me, avoid the one that relies on pre-standard/a-priori arguments. To be completely transparent, I will look for any and every reason to not vote for pre-standard arguments.

4. I am not fond of theory debate. I find that it takes away from debating the resolution. You may run theory if you believe that there is abuse, just remember that I will be holding you to an incredibly high burden of proof. If the abuse is incredibly clear (e.g. your opponent is running multiple contradictory positions), feel free to run theory. Include voters so that I can make my decision on it. However, if you find that theory is not something you are interested in doing, you can still make arguments that identify the abuse and ask me to reject it. I do not need a complicated shell. So long as you're making the argument and it is reasonable, I will vote for it. That being said, I prefer not to decide the round on theory. Make sure to go for offense that links to the resolution. Doing so will reflect positively in your speaker points.

5. I believe the criterion is the most effective way of filtering arguments within the round. That being said, it would be in your best interest for you to identify what the criterion I should be using to make my decision is by your last speech. Whether your opponent concedes to your criterion or not, I will reward the debater that does a better job defending their standard, gives me reasons to prefer it and uses it to tell me which arguments I should care about.

6. Persuasion matters. I enjoy watching debaters who believe in their arguments and can make me believe in them too. The flow matters, but being persuasive can often counterbalance mistakes made in the technical aspects of the round. Make me care about what you're saying.

SOME SPECIFICS:

EXTENSIONS

I will vote for the debater that does a better job extending their arguments. Extensions are not a restatement of the claim. Doing this will result in me giving you low speaker points. I want to see you re-explain the argument, answer their responses or describe why they are non-responsive given the warrants in your argument, expound upon the impact, and tell me why it is a big deal. Finally, I want to know why I should care about this argument and what it means for the rest of the arguments in the round. Doing all of these things will very likely be rewarded with high speaks and my ballot.

EVIDENCE

I love evidence. I enjoy watching debaters that understand their evidence and know how to use it to win rounds. I prefer evidentiary warrants to analytical ones and believe that the debater with the better evidence should win the round (so long as they're doing most other things correctly as well). As a caveat, mis-representing authors or evidence will be penalized heavily. I will re-read evidence at the end of the round if necessary, so make sure you have full citations and the full text of your cards.

CRITICAL POSITIONS

If you choose to run something complicated, it had better be explained clearly. I don't enjoy watching debaters run positions that fail to link to real world impacts. Run these positions at your own risk as I will be sympathetic to the debater that calls out simple logical fallacies and can outweigh with real world impacts. I hold these types of positions to a higher standard only because I very rarely (if ever) see someone run a critical position well, not because of any sort of prejudice against or disinterest in critical thought.

CRYSTALLIZATION

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">There had better be voting issues at the end of the round. I will reward the debater that does the better job telling me which arguments matter, how they interact with your opponents arguments (e.g. do they outweigh them? do they preclude them? do they turn them?) and how it links to the criterion. When weighing make sure to explain how you outweigh in terms of your standard; don't just throw out a buzzword like "magnitude" and "probability". For example, if your standard is preserving checks on state power, weighing on probability would explain how you are more likely to preserve checks.

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">As a final note: DO NOT RUN MULTIPLE CONTRADICTORY POSITIONS IN FRONT OF ME. I WILL DROP YOU.

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">If you have any questions feel free to ask me before the round. Otherwise, good luck and have fun!