Haas,+Nathaniel

UPDATED FOR LONG BEACH 2016

Background -4 years HS policy, 2 years college policy @ University of Southern California -Rounds on the topic: 7

Conflicts -Notre Dame HS

I've been away from debate for just under two years (law school will do that to you) but have started judging again this season. You should read what you want, and I will do my very best to evaluate it. I don't believe projecting my personal views on debate onto the debaters is a useful educational tool for debaters who want to discuss what they are interested in. I want to watch a good debate, and I think the following things are necessary for that to happen, in descending order of importance:

1. You should be explicit in your last rebuttal about reasons to vote for you. This means detailed comparison on two levels: evidence and impacts. If the debate is about how I should evaluate certain arguments, you should be good about contesting both a) the order in which the implications of arguments should be evaluated and b) how to evaluate the implications of arguments that are similar.

2. I will restrict my personal opinions on argument style to the following: if you are affirmative, and do not want to have a discussion that is **in any way** related to the resolution, you should not pref me. If you are negative, and feel that I should vote for you for for reasons other than why what the affirmative said was bad, you should not pref me, or have spectacular answers to the permutation. I just think that the resolution is a necessary starting point.

3. I think that reading cards after rounds is a practice that, while helpful when there is a discrepancy over what the card actually says, is over utilized. A conceded argument is not an auto-win if you fail to coherently extend it. Evidence debates usually are which piece is better. Thus, you should be referencing the warrants in your evidence, explaining why they are better than the warrants in the other teams evidence, and then telling me the implication of preferring one piece of evidence over another. You should convince me that your evidence is better, so I don't have to read the evidence and do that comparison for myself. If I have to do the comparison for myself, than what was the point of your speech?

4. Debate is about communicating, and communicating well. I'm a visual sort of judge, so the more that you attempt to inject ethos, make jokes, have fun, and engage me in the debate, the more likely I am to think your arguments are persuasive. On your end, I only have one request: do not, under any circumstances, be rude to the other team.


 * Arguments (Translation: general ramblings about arguments that I'm sure are consistent with 90% of the philosophies you have read).**

T: Good test of the aff, and certainly strategic. That said, please don't go for cheap-shot T arguments unless they are seriously mishandled. There is a line between strategic arguments and dumb ones. Dumb arguments that end in -spec are deplorable.

Disads: The more specific, the better. Avoid pushing me a shitload of awful Politics cards after the debate. I won't be pleased. That said, the 2NR needs to invest a substantial amount of time in either the CP or the turns case debate, since you probably won't win an enormous risk of the disad. I think that the 2AR is allowed to do a substantial bit of impact work, so you need to hedge against that.

Counterplans: There are not enough teams willing to shove all-in on "This CP is stupid and abusive." I have yet to see it done successfully in my short judging life, so major kudos will go to the first team to do this. If you aren't willing to advance smart arguments for why your CP is legit, you're in trouble.

K: Explain them well. I'm not a philosophy hack. I'm also not a rock, so the odds are that you can teach me enough in your 2NC overview to vote for you. Ironically, most K debates don't come down to my understanding of the argument, since someone inevitable drops something like the roll of the ballot, but in close debates I'm sure this will matter a bit more.