Nensey,+Zoheb

About me: I debated for four years at Miami (FL), took a year off to coach for the Chief at KCKCC, and then returned to school to coach at Florida State. I'm mostly out of the community now as I finished grad school, moved to Washington DC, and work full time for DC government. I do coach a high school team at Oakton (VA) HS, so I'm not totally out of it, but I don't really cut a ton of cards.

Most of this stuff is oriented towards the college community and such, but if you're in high school hopefully you still find it useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask or email me at zoheb.nensey@gmail.com. You can also find my judging record on the tabroom website here.

Update for 2013-14: Being out of the community has a lot of effect on the way you think about and remember debate. I don't think that anyone was happier than I was to see Emporia State win the NDT and CEDA last year. But I must confess that I am ill-equipped to handle the sort of the debates that this community is facing. I am sympathetic to many of the issues that plague our community, but at the same time I have not have had as much as time as I would have liked to reflect on the recent debates on the role of speaker points, judge placement, and so on and so forth. I'm not afraid of these sort of discussions or debates happening in rounds that I judge. But in my particular case it will likely need to be incredibly well explained as well as somewhat simplified for me to try and understand what's going on. I hate voting against arguments simply because I don't understand them, but I've been forced into a position several times where I've had to do that. And I feel terrible for it. If you think this might be a concern for you, I ask you not to pref me. I will always work my hardest to adjudicate a debate for anyone that I'm placed in a round with, but sometimes it's not enough.

UPDATE FOR ADA 2012:

Over the course of the year, I've judged a lot of clash of civilization debates. I never felt particularly comfortable in these debates in the past, as many of you may have noticed based on either being judged by me or by reading the section of my philosophy on Ks. What this means for you: if you think you're going to end up in a lot of this sort of debate, please avoid preffing me. On the flip side, if you do end up preffing me, I'd highly encourage you to engage the affirmative and get on their level. One of the most enjoyable rounds I've judged this year was finals at the D6 tournament. West Georgia DF decided to engage Louisville VW on their aff, slow it down, and explain things to me. and it was beautiful, and enjoyable, and something I'd judge over and over again.

My feelings on various topics:

Theory

I always read theory in debates as an answer if I didn't have anything else. My past experience has been, though, unless its a really egregious violation, I'm not likely to vote on theory. If you're reading more than one counterplan or alternative, AND they conflict, that's a pretty sure way to get get me to pull the trigger on theory. If, however, they don't conflict then I see no real problem with multiple conditional positions.

T

I like T. I've won debates on T. I think that affs should have a clear link to the topic. For me, its always been a question of competing interpretations. I do think a lot of critical affs can still be run with a topical plan. That's not to say I won't vote for an affirmative that doesn't have a plan text - I've done it before - but you have to have a really good reason why doing your plan through a personal advocacy rather is a better idea then having the USFG doing the plan. On a side note, I've never really bought that T is genocidal, so save yourself the time when answering T and don't make that argument.

CPs

I think that counterplans are a necessary part of any debate. I'm fine with most counterplans, with the one major exception being consult counterplans. I don't like consult counterplans because it seems that most of the time the net benefit is pretty artificial and stems entirely off of the counterplan's action, rather than any direct link to the plan.

These debates always seem to be pretty heavy on theory, so when you're debating the theory part of these debates slow it down a little and explain things out, because if you're blippy on the line by line I won't be able to catch everything you write down.

DAs

Nothing's better than a good disad. I'm pretty fair game with almost any disad.

Ks

I like the K, but I'm not especially familiar with it. I was a political science major/premed in undergrad and now I'm working on a masters in communication studies (with a focus on international communication), and as a result I have never had much opportunity to read a lot of philosophical literature. So if you're going to run the K, make sure you explain quite clearly to me the thesis of your K, how it relates to the affirmative, and how your alternative solves the links. I'm willing to vote on it, because I think epistemological considerations play an important role in rounds, but slow down and explain it to me. If you're getting a blank stare from me, chances are I'm not getting it. Make sure you contextualize your link evidence with what the affirmative does or what the affirmative assumes is true.

Also, if you're going to read framework as an answer to the K, let me know...I generally like to flow framework separately (otherwise my flow gets very cluttered.)

UPDATE After Navy: Certain teams read my judge philosophy and read framework separately. Most all of the critical debates I judged were well explained and comprehensive. Thank you, all of you. But there's more to this. After judging a lot of rounds between critical and performance teams against more policy-oriented teams, I've found that I really don't like these debates very much. I'm very flexible and I vote for both sides of the policy-critical spectrum, but it takes me a really long time to wade through and make sense all of the arguments, and while it hasn't happened yet, I'm always worried that there's something I'll miss on the flow.

Offense/Defense

Offense is good --> having lots of it at the end of a debate makes me happy. In the case that the other team has lots of offense too, I need a clear explanation why your offense is more important than theirs, because otherwise you're opening the door for a lot of judge interventionism. I don't like intervening, but if I have to intervene I will.

Defense is good too --> I think you can win on an argument purely on defense. If you have some really good evidence that takes out their link or takes out the uniqueness to their disad, by all means, read it and use it to its fullest extent. I need there to be more than just a risk of a link to vote an argument. If you're negative, make sure your link is as concrete as you can possibly make it.

Miscellaneous

Be nice to the other team and to your partner. I once had a partner who was blatantly rude, and it cost us debates and caused a lot of bad feelings. Rudeness will hurt your speaks.

If you don't know the answer to a question in CX, it's far better to say I don't know or look to your partner to answer it than to stand there blankly or try and dodge the question.

I'm fine with tag-team CX.

Jokes about the Florida State Seminoles (even though I go there), the Florida Gators, and the Ohio State Buckeyes will be rewarded with a laugh and a slight increase in speaker points.

Humor in general will be rewarded with increases in speaker points.

Speaker Points Scale

30 - you're the best debater I've ever seen, and your execution was flawless. I don't think I've ever given a 30, but if someone were to get it they would probably also be in late outrounds at the NDT/TOC.

29 - 29.9 - You're one of the best debaters at the tournament (in your division.)

28 - 28.9 - You're good, You'll probably clear.

27 - 27.9 - You're an okay debater, you need some work, you didn't drop anything major.

26 - 26.9 - You dropped at least one or more important arguments that lost you the round.

25 - 25.9 - This is reserved for people who were either so atrocious that they answered nothing (an unlikely scenario, no matter the division), or were exceptionally rude to one or more people in the debate.

At the end of the day, do what you do best. If you can run and explain a K really well, then run it. If your pleasure is politics disads, go for it. I've voted against my personal preferences before, and I'll do it again. I'll work hard in deciding the round for you because I know you work hard to prepare. So do your best, keep it civil, and have fun.