Setser,+David

David Setser LD - Alta High School

I did LD in high school for three years at Alta High School, and attended Silver and Black twice, Berkeley once, and won State my senior year. I've judged on the Utah circuit most weekends since 2009, including Silver and Black. From here on out, the first sentence of each paragraph covers everything important. Everything else is just further clarification if you'd like it. I am willing to change my paradigm for that particular round if given good enough reasons to do so in the in-round argumentation (criticism of speed for example). If you're not LD, just skip to the bottom.

Whenever possible, I will vote on what the debaters tell me to and buy any argument unless it's refuted in-round. I'll do my very best not to intervene on anything, with the one exception of abuse in the 2AR, since the negative never has a chance to call the aff on it. If you want to know my thought process, this is generally how it goes: First, if there are any complete voting issues given in the round (as described below), I will vote for them immediately unless they've been thoroughly rebutted. If there are no complete voters or it's too muddled for a decision there, I'll look at any arguments that debaters label voting issues with some kind of justification for why they're voters. If there are no justified voting issues or none at all or if the justified voters are a wash, I'll decide which framework I'm using (or sometimes both), and weigh offense under that framework, looking to arguments labeled as voters first. Dropped arguments often make one of these steps an easy win. In 2 years of constant judging, I've yet to see a round that was so lacking in offense or so even that I had to even consider presumption, so it's highly unlikely that it'll be an issue.

The most important thing about picking up my ballot is to give good, complete voting issues. If I don't hear the word "voter," you're doing it wrong. If you just drop the word "voter," it's better than nothing, but you're still doing it wrong. Give me clear, complete voting issues. That means tell me what the argument is and where it is on the flow, why you won that argument in the round, and why it's a voting issue. If you don't give me all three parts, all the word "voter" does is point me to an argument. I still have to try to figure out the arguments myself if you don't do this, and you shouldn't want that. Do the work for me so you know the work will be done.

I'm fine with speed, so long as you're clear and you slow down for anything important. If I'm going to hear it again in a later speech, that means it's important and you need to slow down so it gets on my flow. Also, consider the pacing of your arguments. If you have four arguments I need to flow, it doesn't matter how slow you speak if they come to fast overall. Have argumentation I don't need to flow after each argument

I'll accept any argument structure whether it's traditional value/criterion, a kritik, or whatever, so long as it's a good argument and you know what you're doing with it.

On theory: while your opponent will still have to rebut the theory, if you're running bad theory, it's really easy to convince me not to buy it. Basically, if you don't sincerely think that your theory argument is true (as in, it's actually unfair, reduces education, etc.), then it's bad theory. If you're running it as a strategy, then it's probably bad theory. You can pick me up on an RVI, but make sure you're not also just doing bad theory.

Make sure your voters are offensive arguments. "Vote neg because aff does X" is not a real voter. "I won the value/criterion debate" is not a real voter. Tell me why voting aff/neg fulfills the framework (value/criterion) I've accepted in the round. The framework is important, but all it does is tell me how I evaluate the round, not who wins.

I have a slight preference for good progressive LD over traditional LD, but I do generally hold progressive debaters to a higher standard. Bad or mediocre progressive debate is much worse than bad or mediocre traditional debate. Besides, if you're not good enough to do traditional well, you shouldn't be using the progressive strategies, as they tend to be more complicated and advanced. They also tend to be completely misused more often than the traditional case.

I'm more generous than most with speaks. 30 = I'm impressed, 29 = you're good, 28 = nothing stands out, 27 = there were significant problems. For the most part, I mostly just care about how clearly you present and explain your arguments; I don't expect an oratory. I'm especially generous with speaks when I'm dropping good debaters I hope will advance, since dropping good debaters sucks enough without screwing them on speaks, too.

Computers are fine (no internet, of course), sitting during your speeches/cross ex is fine, and I leave things like flex prep or questions during prep up to the debaters in the round.

Policy:

If I end up judging policy, many of the same things apply. I will try to vote on what debaters tell me to. I'm good with speed as long as you're clear and you slow down enough for tag lines. I expect complete voting issues. The last even more important if you're policy because because I don't know policy well enough that you should rely on my knowledge of how policy works, but I will follow your arguments if you explain how it works through good voters. If you want more explanations on that, see the above paragraphs.

PF:

See the third paragraph above about complete voting issues.