Wilczynski,+Sophie

I'm a senior at UT Austin, where I have thus far endured three years of college policy debate. prior to that I attended houston memorial high school, where I endured three years of high school policy debate. If you've ever been to the utnif you've probably seen me around. I worked for katy taylor high school for a period of time in 2014 if that still matters constraint-wise.

after graduating high school and being hired for my first coaching job, which subsequently entailed my initial real foray into judging debates, I thought to myself, "I am a good person. I value my duties as both a judge and an educator." so I proceeded to write an actual judging paradigm/philosophy - not an obnoxiously long one, but an actual paradigm nonetheless, and said paradigm included the general gist of my thoughts on silly, inane things such as theory, counterplans, disads, procedurals, kritiks, and what have you. reasonably pleased with my work, I uploaded it to the wiki. I thought it was a good paradigm. I thought it was an informative paradigm. I thought that debaters who read this paradigm would find it useful when filling out their pref sheets, and utilize it so as to pref me accordingly.

it did not take long for me to realize that I was tragically mistaken in having made any of the aforementioned assumptions. turns out high school debaters don't read this shit - I mean they'll click on my name and give it a cursory skim, see "UT debater" or ctrl+F "kritiks" perhaps, but they do not //understand//. nobody //cares//. and it breaks my heart. so I have taken it upon myself to rewrite this thing that nobody ever actually reads anyway, because I still cling to the delusion that maybe someday, //someday//, it will be of use to a team with an actual vested interest in not pissing off their judges.

here are some things I have regretted telling debaters/including in my paradigm in the past: I debate for UT. I spent most of my career as a 2N going primarily for the k. i'm cool with the k. while all of these things are indeed true, i've found that a lot of high school debaters are misled by this information. "UT debater who mostly went for the k" should not lead you to the conclusion that you can read whatever nonsense you want in front of me. don't get me wrong, if your nonsense is well-executed, we'll be fine.

rather than going down the list of types of arguments and what exactly my respective thoughts are on the matter, I think (nay, hope) that providing a more holistic explanation of how i approach debates from a judging perspective will be more useful.

-call me self-indulgent but I consider myself to be a pretty competent judge. I've judged an awful lot of debates and heard an awful lot of different arguments, so I'm fine with listening to whatever. would I rather deal with a k debate than a super duper policy debate? I dunno. I'll probably have more interesting things to say in an RFD for the former, just given the nature of my own experience in debate, but I can handle either.

-I will not do work for you. if you imply or allude to something, I'll totally know what you're implying or alluding to, i'm not stupid. but that absolutely doesn't mean I'll vote for you. make the arguments you want me to evaluate (this sounds oddly elementary, but you would be surprised). arguments need warrants. this is non-negotiable.

-I value specificity a lot. even if your evidence isn't hyperspecific, that doesn't mean your analysis can't be. particularly in K debates, I often end up caring a lot more about a debater's explanation of an argument than their evidence. even generally speaking, your arguments should be responsive to those made by the other team. kritik the aff not "the system"; read disads to the aff not the topic. generic debates are boring debates.

-personally, I think that affirmatives in debates should do a thing. they should at least pretend to, anyway. if the thing the aff does is related to the topic, that's even better. //**however**,// I understand that not everyone shares these opinions, and //I am okay with that//. I have found that I possess the ability to separate my personal opinions about debate from the way i judge, so if you happen to deviate from this notion stylistically or whatever - for instance, if your aff does not do a thing, or if you aren't about that "debate about the topic" life, that's ultimately fine, //as long as// you can justify that.

-the flip side of that is framework is fair game - at the very least interps along the lines of "it would be cool if you had a method/advocacy" or whatever. I am not super convinced that plan texts/defense of a policy action by the usfg are absolutely necessary. in an ideal world, affs would have answers to framework that are interesting and generate some degree of unique offense.

-case debate is a lost art. I dream of the day when that changes.

-am I fine with speed? yeah. will I be annoyed if you ask me this question before the round and then proceed to deliver all of your speeches mumbling like your damn life depends on it? you bet! clarity matters; I keep a pretty clean flow but if I literally can't understand you I won't have anything to flow, and then nobody will be happy and everybody will be sad.

some more general things not as geared toward actual debate technae:

-if you ever happen to wonder what's going through my mind as a debate happens, safest bet is to look at my face. if i think what you're saying is stupid, you'll likely be able to tell.

-i know people. make fun of them.

-please try your very hardest to not be an asshole. don't interrupt people when they speak. don't be rude. don't say offensive or bigoted shit. if you do happen to say offensive or bigotted shit and are called out on it, for the love of god do not dedicate any portion of your next speech to defending the stupid shit you said. this may also sound unreasonably obvious, but I am including this advice because I have actually seen people do these things, so I'm just trying to cover all my bases here.

I think this covers most relevant matters. If you have bothered to read this far, congratulations, I shall now leave you with the words of two individuals far wiser than I:

"a piece of evidence is only as good as your ability to explain it" -brian mcbride

"reasonability is the last refuge of scoundrels" -The Doctor Richard Garner

specific questions can be directed to sophiewilczynski@gmail.com