Marcus,+Michael

Pine Crest ‘14 Washington University in St. Louis ‘18

Questions? michaelmarcusdb8@gmail.com

Read whatever you want
 * Short Version:**

My first four years of debate I was a 2a, but my senior year I was a 2n. This caused my ideological beliefs to shift to the middle mostly which means that pretty much everything is up for debate. I have read a variety of arguments in high school all over the ideological spectrum. More of my debates have been policy-centric but I am willing to listen to any argument you want to read. My biggest pet peeve is when teams do not make full arguments. An argument is a claim and a warrant. Absent these two parts I will have a very low threshold for refutation by the other team. I find myself to be mostly tech over truth, but there is a threshold for stupidity IE nonsensical RVIs where I may not stick strictly to the flow. Randomly calling 30 things voting issues and having the other team only say why 29 of them are not does not mean you win if you can’t explain a credible reason why I should reject the team. I am not afraid to read evidence to help guide my decision in lieu of better analysis, but I think framing the debate in a positive way for you is the easiest way you can change how I read the evidence and thus guide the decision in your favor.
 * Long Version:**

I do not lean either way on competing interpretations vs. reasonability, which means that to win the topicality debate the single most important thing you can do is sway me one way or another on this issue. The one thing that is lacking more than anything else in topicality debates are impacts. Fairness is not an impact. Education is not an impact. Things like decision-making and competitive equity are impacts. Please do impact analysis, why your interpretation garners better benefits than theirs. If you read a kritik of T you better be able to explain why their topical version of the aff isn’t able to solve it, otherwise you need to impact this argument very strongly to outweigh the classic topicality impacts.
 * Topicality:**

There are three categories of impacts: Skill, Education, and the Game. Wherever your best impacts lie within these categories needs to be the focal point of offense if you want to win a theory debate in front of me. If you are the one going for the theory violation, you need to debate the flow very technically because I can find myself pulling the trigger on a strong piece of defense by the other team and a small risk of offense. My biggest issue in this kind of debate is that nobody ever tells me which kind of impact, out of the three I listed above, is the most important, and I think the framing of the debate here can easily decide my ballot. Conditionality – 1 conditional is probably fine but a strong 2a on condo can win this debate. 1 CP 1 K is probably the point where I am 50/50 on who should win the condo debate, so I am a little more willing to vote on this issue than other people. Counterplan theory – Counterplans that compete on certainty or immediacy will have a tough time beating perm do the counterplan in front of me. Counterplans that test the agent seem intuitively fine to me but I can be persuaded either way here. I find it hard to believe any counterplan theory will ever be a reason to reject the team. Framework – In regards to debates with race affs, if the negative does not sufficiently answer every piece of affirmative offense I will not have any trouble voting aff, but I will evaluate this debate as fairly as I possibly can. Affs not about race might have a marginally harder time beating framework in front of me, but I maintain the caveat above regarding impacting your arguments.
 * Theory:**

Do impact calculus, and do it beyond the basic timeframe probability magnitude level. Talk about how certain impacts turn each other and the timeframe of the turns case arguments specifically, talk about the issues in the context of being able to resolve the other or eliminating the ability to resolve the other, etc. Teams need to exploit logical internal link chain flaws in disads more, because I feel like most “new and innovative” disads can be defeated by a strong 1nc cross-x. 0 risk of a disad will be nearly impossible absent the dropping of a really strong argument by the neg, with the exception of theory arguments questioning the legitimacy of the disad in debate. I am more receptive to a well-argued intrinsicness push against the politics than most judges, and you can thank Calum Matheson for helping me see the light.
 * Disads:**

My biggest pet peeve in the context of counterplans is that teams treat most of this debate as a yes/no question. Question the magnitude of the solvency deficit and the magnitude of the link to the net benefit and your odds of winning and speaker points will go way up. The neg needs to make it explicitly clear what they want the counterplan to solve and what they don’t in order to make it clear how the net benefit is garnered.
 * Counterplans:**

I feel ok judging these debates but you NEED to explain what your authors say. I don’t care if you read cap and security kritiks or Schlag and D&G kritiks, I will not presume anything about what your kritik means until it is explained preferably in the 1nc but at the very least in the 2nc. The framework debate is essential for determining how I weigh the impacts to the kritik vs. the impacts to the aff. I also need a coherent explanation of the alt if you want it to serve any function in terms of interaction with the aff and not just the impacts to the kritik. I don’t like the proliferation of cheating perms by the aff, there is only one true perm: the aff and any part of the alt that does not necessitate a negative ballot.
 * Kritiks:**

I will operate on a scale of 27-29.5 barring performances way outside my expectations on either side of the scale. My speaker points will be adjusted to the level of the tournament. Your speaker points will be determined by the technical portions of the debate and your persuasiveness IE being funny and having really good cross-x’s. Excessive rudeness will lose you speaker points. Be clear or your speaker points will suffer. I will yell clear twice as a warning. **Cheating will get you a 0 and a loss.**
 * Speaker points:**

You all need to learn how to flow. Show me your flows after the debate. If they are bad I will give you advice and an additional .1 speaker points. If they are good I will give you an additional .3 speaker points. I will not remind you about this in person, so I hope you are reading this.
 * For Novices Only:**