Fredericks,+Nathan

In LD, I am pretty traditional in that I believe that teams should have a set of standards and contentions. It is highly unlikely you pick up my ballot absent these things even if you turn the other teams standards. If you don't have your own, I don't know what you are debating for even though I know what you are debating against. Theory is okay if and only if you have specific voters as to why something is theoretically objectionable and impact what that means for the debate round. I need a priori voters explained and told why they are important enough to be a priori. I need to know why a burden for which ever team is a burden in the first place. Alternative advocacies are okay but they need to be competitive with the affirmative's option. In this scenario, presumption goes aff. Dispositional/conditional advocacies don't really make sense as there is no status quo to revert to for the negative.

Policy debate wise, I'm pretty open. All doors are open. I like smart arguments. I really dislike the direction things are going now in that debaters tend to only be worried about if the other team is paying attention and not the judge. Please remember who is deciding the round. Signposting or at least giving some kind of indication that you are changing debates arguments is essential to keep the judge with you. I do not give a flashed copy of your speech. Be smart in your speech in this regard. I don't like putting the puzzle together myself as the debaters should do it for me. Good line by line, sign-posted debate is becoming a thing of the past and it makes me sad.

Topicality: T should be debated correctly in that if you are going for it in the 2NR, go for that and nothing else. You need to cover all of your bases. Most dropped arguments tend to lead to negatives not getting my ballot on topicality. Make sure that you are clear on the flow and answering arguments. This is the for the aff and the neg. Make sure to be able to tell specific abuse stories that are specific to the round in question.

Critiques: They are okay, but I tend not to understand how critiques as impact turns are pre-fiat/a priori. You should make sure your alternative solvency can solve for the issues the affirmative discusses and how the alt solves for it specifically.Critique debate should be calling into question the assumptions of the affirmative/negative and how they lead to bad things. The more specific and tangible you can make this for me, the more likely you will get my ballot.

CP: Make sure you have a text and solvency. Make sure you have a specific net benefit. The core issue that I have with most CP is that most of the net benefits read actually link to the CP as much as the plan.

Politics disads tend to be very, very implausible as intrinsic answers to politics debates are severely underutilized. The assumptions they make are simply beyond comprehension. I will vote for them if the debate is fairly clean and the story is clear.

Other DA: Make sure your uniqueness and link evidence are at minimum decent. The more specific the better. While the argument this link is generic is true, that does not mean you do not need to address it with more than that to not functionally drop the DA.

Other things: I am pretty open to performative stuff: narrative, discourse, etc. Justify and do specific impact comparison.