Wilkerson,+John

Debate experience- I started debating in the middle of the 7th grade at Stratford and continued debating for four years at Samford University. In college I qualified for the NDT three times. I have around 20+ rounds on the topic spread across various regional and national tournaments and have cut a pretty good number of cards. Disadvantages: I like disads. Disadvantages that are specific to the case are generally better than the recycled Jackson-Vanick shell that has been run for 5 years with a new uniqueness card. In most debates I judge debaters need to do a better job comparing the strength of the link vs. the link turn in situation where they aren’t mutually exclusive in order to win a larger risk of the D.A. The argument that “the disad turns the case” has become a rhetorical trope that doesn’t have much meaning and in many situations doesn’t make sense. For example, the war in Iraq hasn’t prevented us from giving Aid to Africa, the housing crisis hasn’t prevented aid to Africa etc. For me “disad turns case” without an explanation will get me to write the symbol for D.A turns case and give you a funny look unless you explain it, if you really think its important you might want to read a card on it. Impact assessment is really important to me. I try to rely on the debater’s prioritization of the impacts. Starting the impact calculus earlier than the last two speeches is better as this generally leads to actual debate about the impact calculus. Counterplans: Again specific > generic. I believe that dispo is the middle of the road for most CP’s. Generally on counter plan theory I think that most things are ok. I feel like PICS are legit but can be reduced to absurd levels, punctuation won’t get very far whereas counter planning out of a certain drug etc is clearly a substantive issue. Counterplans that test the A) Africa key warrant or B) the U.S key warrant are going to be fine with me since those are the core questions of the topic. Object fiat is suspect in my view. I don’t think it leads to very good debate and is generally treads on the law remaining thing that people can’t counterplan out. Consult if you must. I don’t really care for it unless you have really super pieces of evidence that say we should consult and even then why not just run a relations D.A? I have voted AFF on consult is abusive twice this year, that 100% when the issue was a major issue in the 2AR. That’s the data interpret as you will. Topicality- I haven’t voted negative on T this year which surprises me because I think there are a lot of non topical cases running around. My default position is that the affirmative is defending a topical plan text and is defending the plan as if it were implemented via fiat. If that’s not how you would like your plan evaluated you should be very clear on that. I don’t think that reading the resolution is topical. If you have a topic plan/advocacy statement feel free to have whatever advantage you want in whatever framework you feel is appropriate. I’m a very hard, perhaps even impossible, sell on claims like “T” = genocide. My default position on T is competing interpretations but I am open to other standards. Kritiks. I think good kritik debates can be very good as well as strategic.. The main problem I have had with those types of debates is that the alternative receives exactly 15 seconds of speech time per speech by the negative and it always “solves 100% of the case and avoids the links and its try or die for the alternative”. I think that alternatives should have texts and at some point the negative should explain how it functions. What does it mean to reject the post colonial subaltern? How would I go about doing that if I were so inclined etc. The same rules apply for “the K turns the case” as the disad turns the case.
 * Judging **** Philosophy- ** ** John ** ** Wilkerson ** ** Stratford ** ** Academy **

A word on new affs. I'm normally not a big fan of multiple counterplans but in round where new affs are broken I have come to almost accept them as inevitable and don't have a strong predisposition against more than one counterplan. Its important that the debaters be very clear on how the interact, esp later in the debate.