Gimelstein,+Shelli

I debated for 4 years for Great Neck South in Long Island, New York. During my junior and senior years I competed extensively through the Northeast, breaking at many national circuit tournaments. I'm currently a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania.

In general, you can run whatever you want in front of me. Speed is fine, but I haven't flowed in awhile so PLEASE start out slow. Be very clear and enunciate and avoid being monotone. Always emphasize and slow down for taglines/author names/signposting.

I don't really have any stylistic or paradigmatic preferences and believe you can run any type of case or argument (within reason, i.e. not racist, absurdly offensive, etc.) as long as you can justify it. I love creative, well-researched positions and I especially love great use of strategy, especially when it's clear you thought about and planned for different ways the round could play out.

I default to and am most used to evaluating a round via a value criterion, but you can absolutely run any type of framework as long you tell me how it functions, which arguments you are winning and how they link to it, and why this means you win the round. This means it is extremely important that you resolve the framework/standards debate by telling me why yours is preferable to your opponents, and then impacting arguments and telling me how they function in terms of other arguments in the round.

Accordingly, there are two things you definitely need to do to win my ballot: a) Weigh and compare arguments. The sooner in the round you weigh, the better. Most rounds come down to a bunch of conflicting extensions, and the person who cleans up the round by making sense of all the arguments, delineating offense from defense, and telling me which arguments to prioritize in my decision has a much better chance of winning. You should always weigh your offense (magnitude, timeframe, probability, whatever) AND compare it to your opponent's. I really like risk of link weighing and evidence comparison – most cards are mis-cut, warrant-less assertions, and if you do a good job of pointing this out and showing that your evidence is better, I will be really impressed.

b) Establish a clear order of operations for my evaluation of the round. Always set up "even if" scenarios and give me multiple ways to vote for you; even if your opponent's beating you on some parts of the flow, explain why that doesn't matter. Tell me which arguments come first in my decision calculus and why. Beyond just "crystallizing" your own winning arguments, I want you to tell me how to prioritize the tons of extensions coming out of either side of the flow. This makes it much easier not to have to intervene, and probably gives you a good chance of winning my ballot.

Other things you should know:

Signposting: I'm a fan of it. Structure is key for anything you run – from individual points within a case to specific parts in a disad or theory shell – and will make your life (and mine) much easier. The more you reference where you are on the flow and what specific argument you're responding to, the easier it'll be for me to make a decision and not have to muddle through the round. This will also probably earn you high speaker points.

Bad arguments (a prioris, random off cases, etc.): Please do not make me vote on them. 99.9% of the time they are not true, nor are they real arguments. I will not vote on ANY undeveloped, warrant-less, and/or non-substantive argument - even if your opponent drops it - but especially one that is slipped somewhere in your framework and labelled a priori for whatever reason. I especially dislike it when one sentence blips in the case magically turn into "a priori voting issues" in later speeches.

Theory: I ran it and often hit it, but I'm not the most experienced when it comes to theory and would prefer not to have to vote on it. I'll flow it and in most cases understand it, and will vote on it if you're winning the argument. But I think a lot of theory debates end up being irresolvable and just painful to listen to, and I will be a much happier judge (and you will be much happier with my decision) if you stay away from it. I also think most people tend to run theory as a time suck, an intimidation tactic, or as a crutch when they can't think of substantive answers to their opponent's case. Please don't do this in front of me. Run it if you know what you're doing – there needs to actually be abuse and the implications for my ballot should be VERY clearly articulated.

I do think theory can be a good way to check blatantly abusive strategies, so if your opponent is running 10 a priori arguments or multiple conditional CPs or is lying in CX, I'd definitely be receptive to theory. But as with any argument, I NEED to know how it functions in the round to vote on it. The leeway I grant on responses to a theory shell varies with the depth of analysis and severity of the abuse demonstrated in the theory. Telling me not to look to theory for x reason probably won't suffice. At minimum you should do a good job of explaining why you meet the interpretation for me to disregard theory.

At this point I will not vote on disclosure theory. Don't run it in front of me.

Speaker points: I'll generally start at a 27, and will go up or down depending on if I think you should clear at the tournament, based on your performance in that round. Strategy, creativity, positive demeanor, and charisma/humor will also make your speaker points go up. Rudeness, bad/annoying arguments ("This is LD, not policy!", asserting that something was dropped when it wasn't, contention-level responses to framework, etc.) will make them go down. I'll most likely disclose speaker points if you ask.

If you have any questions, please ask me before the round. Above all, just do what you do best and enjoy the round. Debate has been a really important and amazing part of my life, and I'd truly enjoy judging a round between two people who genuinely love what they're doing. Debate can do a lot for you; don't take it for granted and enjoy the experience.