Forbes,+Christopher

Christopher Forbes CUNY Debate 2009 - Present Bronx Law Debate 2001-2004

Judge Philosophy

Comparative analysis is a must. Claim. Warrant. Impact.

Comparative analysis is going one step further than extending an argument. Make clash with your opponents statements. If someone says yes, do not simply say no. Say no. Say why no. Say why not yes. Take a journey from your first speech to your last being predictive of the turns and bobby traps along the way. At the end make sure to look back and relate your strategy of success to the tools that you possess (cards, in round elements, dropped arguments). If your arguments/cards are really good, then let me know why. Do not simple extend and move on. Use warrants from those cards to answer each other.

I like claims. Claims go a long way. I will weigh claims. However, when a team makes claims and warrants, than it becomes hard to weigh claims alone. Sometimes, a claim and warrant are not enough. Sometimes, teams make claims, warrants, and impacts. This is surely a winning strategy. < Plan causes war through proliferation. Proliferation leads to regional instability. Instability leads to nuke war; death and such. > This is a meta example of what should take place between almost every argument. Your claim/warrant/impact should compete with each other constantly.

In the end, if both teams do the right thing it can come down to who has the right piece of evidence on the right debate or the better understanding of the whole debate. Be smart with your strategy. Have fun.

For particular arguments:
 * Theory** is cool, but I find it hard to vote on theory alone. I can choose not to weigh that argument, but I find it difficult to vote a team down on a minute of theory in the 2 N/AR... This is true for mostly all positions.
 * Counterplans** are usually very strategic and thus a good strategy. Very friendly to CP's, but would like to see offense that the case bites as well as a DA.
 * Disads** are not enough usually. If I am forced to weigh a case vs a DA you will probably not like what happens. Keeping that in mind have some offense on each other.
 * Kritiks** are very fun and very educational. I do like to here Kritiks and feel that I hold people to a lower threshold on the disad explanation of a kritik (link, impact). Work on your offense generation (links) and your alternative, and read a sweet impact. If your only links are statism try to make it entertaining.
 * Topicality** I will evaluate the best interpretation.