Parker,+Emily

** Em Parker **  ** A little background: ** I graduated from Chico State in May, where I debated for 3 years and studied International Relations. I am currently working as an assistant coach for ASU and Phoenix Country Day School. Given that I am a new judge, you should take everything here with a grain of salt – I will likely have to update it regularly as my approach to judging changes. As a debater, I ran almost exclusively heg & politics & framework & the like; HOWEVER – that does not mean that I am automatically predisposed to vote against different kinds of arguments. The drawback here is that I am significantly less familiar with the literature, particularly "high theory" literature, although my interest in it has grown over time.

** That being said, I will address important questions here, as they arise: ** CPs - I really love specific CP's that make a concerted/evidenced attempt to subsume some specific aspect of the aff. Like, if you go and cut one of your opponent's solvency articles and made a CP out of it, I'm gonna think that you're at least relatively badass. Disads - I love them. Just know that if your disad is not on the "side of truth," or whatever, you should be really working to win that page if you should go for it. I'm not going to discount arguments that I don't think are "true" and I will not fabricate arguments that I think you or your opponent should make, but if you're going to go for politics when we all KNOW there's no way that thing's passing then you should really be doing a little extra work to make sure I can comfortably vote for you. Framework & Topicality – These are/should be questions of what we should do when we enter a debate round, why that version of the activity is a good one, and how your methodology is the most effective/productive. If you are able to answer those questions, you’re in a good position. I will not on face reject a non-topical affirmative, but for goodness’ sakes, please have an answer to topical version of the aff. Topicality requires deep and warranted explanation. I believe that the affirmative should defend a topical plan action taken by the “USFG,” however, I do not think this is the ONLY thing that the affirmative can or “should” necessarily be held to doing. If the affirmative chooses NOT to defend the implementation of a topical plan, they must also explain to me how voting aff achieves something in the context of your arguments (i.e. an explicit explanation of how my ballot will do anything besides signify the winner and loser to the tabroom). If a negative team reads topicality or framework against a non-topical affirmative, there MUST BE SOME ENGAGEMENT of the affirmative’s argument in order for me to justify voting neg… I believe that topicality is an a-priori issue and comes first in almost every instance, and I absolutely do not think that reading topicality is wrong or EVER a reason to vote against the negative (unless it’s explicitly offensive, of course); however, if the affirmative is making arguments about why their ethics precede topicality or something of the like, the negative will not be able to win simply BECAUSE they ran topicality.

** Other things that are still quite important: ** For better or worse, I am NOT going to call for a bunch of evidence after the round unless it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. My reasoning for this is simply that, given my inexperience judging, I want to avoid getting in the habit of potentially recreating different aspects of the debate in my mind. If a piece/pieces of evidence are serious points of contention in the debate and/or will have significant bearing on my decision, then I may call for them, but as of now that will be limited. If you want me to call for something you should make a big deal about it/why it would be important for me to do so in your speeches. I really enjoy a hefty & comparative case debate in the block. If you are rude to your opponent in cross ex, I will be so distracted by your attitude that I will probably not want to listen to your answers or give you good speaker points. People who make smart arguments & are KIND to their partner/opponents will get really good speaker points... as far as I am concerned, that's all speaker points really signify. If you want to flag an argument as important (place emphasis on it, ask me to call for it, or if it’s something you’re going to be asking me about after the round) then you should do so explicitly. If you don’t articulate something clearly, I may not evaluate it clearly. Prep time ends when you take your flash drive out of the computer. I will probably be lenient for novices or during paperless blunders but if I get the feeling that something shady is happening I will start prep.

I have recently learned that I think Wipe Out is a very frustrating argument.

** Updated 10/29/2013 **