Hammond,+Jeremy

Hammond, Jeremy Updated 10/31/2013

Theory: For the most part I think counterplan theory is a reason to reject the counterplan and not the team. There are exceptions to this rule, but they have to be well articulated. The general exception to this is conditionality. Though I think if the work is done, many other theory arguments can be voting issues.

Topicality: I think that topicality is a valuable argument when it is researched specifically for an affirmative. You can not win on topicality in front of me if you are reading topicality Establish = To Create. But you can win on topicality if you negative infront of me defining things like (which regard to the HS topic) Incentives = only positive. That is not to say that I have any leaning either way on the issue. I think generally the only way to judge topicality debates in competing interpretations, but reasonability is also a fair standard if you are running establish is to create. You must impact T on either side. When topicality debates get too muddled, I find myself voting aff more than negative. Good topicality debates are generally a negative ballot. ((((Update)))) I find myself being more and more reasonable.

DA's: Running DA's in front of me is encouraged. At Michigan State I became a big fan of the politics, elections, and many other DA's that we read, and even ones that other teams read. The Impact Calculus is the highly encouraged, comparing how your impact weighs with regards to other impacts in the round.

Counterplans: I do believe that there should be a limit to what counterplans can fiat, but that limit is up for debate. Counterplans and DA's were my choice strategy, as such, I would rather teams attempt this over reading a kritik, but will judge it either way. Competition for counterplans is also something that is up for debate. Whether Textual, Functional, both can and should be debated when that is in question.

Kritiks: I judge them like DAs. Offense/Defense matters. I mostly don't read the cards because they are all non-sense. I have judged a lot of them.

Performance: I don't mind it, but if your aff you don't get a perm if the debate is about competing methodologies. Framework is winnable, but I would rather the negative engaged the affirmative. If you are going for framework you need case defense.

Paperless Debate: There is is an art to debating paperlessly and some teams are better than others. Things that I think are a must. Every paperless team needs to have a jump drive. Prep ends when you have the file on the jump drive.

Specific Arguments Aspec - to run this argument, you must ask in CX who the agent of the plan is. Only if the aff doesn't give a specific answers should this be in the round. If you do specify your agent, you must debate the merits of an agent counterplan rather than theory. If the negative doesn't ask in CX, 1 answer is sufficient to answer this arg, CX checks.