Richards,+Daniel

=Daniel Richards= I debated 4 years in high school for the College Preparatory School, and debated 4 years at Cal, making it to the elims of the NDT in 2002 and 2003. I am now in my last year at law school. While in college, I ran a lab at the Cal debate camp ([|www.caldebate.com]). However, I am now a couple years removed from the activity. I’ll listen to pretty much any argument, and have voted on everything in the past. I would much prefer that you consider anything I say here an fyi and then debate the way that you are best at debate because it would probably serve you better to do that than over-adapt. I have a feeling that you will find much greater success just convincing me you’re good at what you’re good at, and will find yourself only annoying me if you do something you’re bad at. These have to be explained clearly. If you read a lot of evidence and haven’t referenced a particular part of the 1ac specifically or contextualized at the very least how the impacts and links to the aff interact with the 1ac I would be surprised if you win the debate. It is important to be clear what my position as a judge should be in this debate, and as a result framework is a key issue to be clear on. If you decide to be extremely performative then you have to find a way of communicating to me why I care. I tend to believe policy debate is good, and there should be a defense of the resolution. Typically this means a topical plan with advantages. These do not have to be implementation based but can be ethics / framework around the plan based. If you want to do something crazy and alternative you can, but you'll have to explain why your type of debate is uniquely important, and that the education / whatever of that type of debate supercedes any fairness / predictability / education that could be garnered from the resolution. I am probably not your A judge for that type of debate, but I am willing and have a tendency to punish teams who fail to respond to your position. Conditionality is a good way of accessing neg flex. Dispositionality / pics / counterplans / neg fiat are probably all good things. For a 2A I am rather neg biased on several theory claims. If the negative does not explain why these things are good however then you should punish the negative. It’s their job to make arguments I want to hear. Impact comparisons and framing how to evaluate a disad vs. a solvency deficit / a counterplan are key. A 2ar that only goes for one argument on a disad but does a good job impacting that argument while barely answering or not answering a slue of negative cards which have been “extended” in the 2nr will have a decent chance of winning the debate because a lot of this work should be the debaters jobs to talk about. I will read evidence where I deem it necessary. I have said that I do not know that much about this year’s topic, but even having said that I hate affs that are not topical. If your aff isn’t topical and the negative goes for topicality, be prepared to be very good at explaining why you shouldn’t lose. In round abuse is a plus. If you prove that there is a topical version of an aff, win in round abuse claims, control the competing interpretations / offense defense / reasonability debate and win a good counterinterpretation or some combination of those things, that increases the odds of victory significantly.
 * Background**
 * Overall approach**
 * Kritiks**
 * Alternative Styles**
 * Counterplans**
 * Disads**
 * Topicality**