Stevens,+Maddy


 * I may be listed under Maddie Fizit Stevens or Maddie Stevens, but SURPRISE IT'S ME **

TL;DR: I'm not a great theory/t judge and have very specific expectations for these arguments (see below), I think DAs should be as reasonable/realistic as possible, but that extinction is usually a no-risk freebie that you should take advantage of (so do both), I really love ks- cap, discourse, ableism, decol, etc, but I'm not going to know your pomo stuff like the back of my hand so please take it easy on me (basically anything that is v philosophical and uses words that I won't know unless I just read the book) so I'll need explanation aside from the repetition of buzzwords (you can ask me before round about my knowledge of your specific authors so you'll know what degree to explain things). Speed should be fine. Ask for triggers before the round starts. Don't be #TheWorst. I feel like knowing who I am as a person is very important to understand how I judge and why I do some of the things that I do, so we're gonna have a little crash course. A v important thing to know about me is that **I have aspergers.** Debate wise, that means I take ableism really seriously and will always love to hear a good ableism discussion. In terms of how that affects other things, it means that sometimes eye contact is really uncomfortable for me, so I may not look at you during an RFD or during speeches. Sometimes the acoustics of a room will really bother me, which may affect how well I will understand you if you are quick or very loud. It also means that it takes me a little while longer to give you a very articulate RFD. **With very close rounds, I often make a list of 'round facts', things which have definitively been lost or conceded, and then connect the dots to determine how these facts interact and what that means for the round- you will probably hear me scribbling furiously when this happens.**
 * Updated 11/16 for Glenbrooks- updates are bolded and have asterisks (the formatting is wonky in some places sorry- control F update)! Special Glenbrooks Offer: +.3 speaks if you doodle something and give it to me, especially holiday related images or ones which depict how this round makes you feel. **
 * Foreword: **

ALSO please read my paradigm carefully, I have some probably unpopular opinions about some arguments people make and I really do not want to have to explain that the reason you lost is because you went for something I have already articulated I do not understand or find acceptable.

when i say ask for triggers/give a content warning i am being super serious some conversations are really hard to have and there should never be a point where someone cries because they weren't prepared to have to debate their identity or have their experiences brought up in a round. if you are reading something which you even /think/ could trigger or upset someone, confirm before the round that the conversation is okay, and your approach is okay. tell people what you are running and how you plan on that playing out in the round, ie if youre running something about disability and usually have a role of the ballot where people engage in methods debate let your opponents know that bc nothing would be worse than you forcing a disabled person to debate the correctness or worthiness of disability discussions. additionally, just because i am okay listening to a position does not mean your opponent is, and vice versa, the discussion of safety is applicable to both parties* As a clarification on triggers, there's a difference between having a case about, say, intimate partner violence and having a case that goes in detail/uses a narrative about IPV. If you have evidence that has like very graphic/detailed description of anything potentially triggering, that's something to give a heads up about. I generally assume that people don't have extremely triggering content in evidence just because to assume the opposite would mean veto'ing a vast majority of cases; when I tell you that I'm okay with hearing about x, I'm banking on the assumption that you aren't going to make me listen to a vivid description of rape/assault/what have you.

UPDATE: Topic specific stuff: Developmental assistance -this will be my first circuit tournament all year, and most definitely my first tournament on this topic; as such, I don't have super strong opinions on anything just yet. -If you have an aff that has a really interesting definition of developmental assistance I am so down to judge it, please hit me with it. -idk in general don't do weird racist things where your representations are out of touch and terrible

Speed- Fine with it. I will repeatedly yell clear if I can’t understand you. I may ask you to flash me what you're reading just to be on the safe side/assume I want in on email chains. It’s msteve884@gmail.com.
 * General Paradigm: **

**Update: Theory is slowly growing on me, but I’m very particular about shells (thanks @jason yang)**
 * Your theory checklist in front of me: **
 * 1) 1. 1. **1.** **Specific interps- I don’t mean, restate the resolution and the month and the tournament in your generic plans bad interp; I want theory that engages specific abuse and articulates the abuse story well.**
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">2. 2. **2.** **No one needs more than three standards. Honestly two is what makes the most sense to me, since they all get repetitive and cease to be unique or meaningful, but hey.**
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">3. 3. **3.** **If you’re devoting time to theory, I want well warranted standards and voters. Why does your standard matter? How have they violated it and how much? What is the effect on the ballot from that violation? Spell it out!**
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">4. 4. **4.** **If theory is a quick off, condense it- don’t read a whole slew of standards and voters- especially since everyone has education/fairness impacts memorized- I don’t need a card for fairness or education or to articulate why limits matter. And I don’t need 6 things to flow and have you waste speech time on.**
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">5. 5. **5.** **Again, cards in shells= overrated, don’t read to me telling me you’re missing out on spending time with your wife and kids.**
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">6. 6. **6.** **If your tricks are so well hidden that I don’t catch them, that’s just unlucky for you.**
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Biggest takeaway is that I hate generic interps because they produce boring rounds, I want good interaction between standards, and I need to be able to flow what you’re saying- that means rapid fire blips aren’t cool. I default reasonability, convince me otherwise if you want. **

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">T- I am very susceptible to arguments of why ks come before t. I think t can be really interesting (like, what IS a medical procedure?? we just don't know!!), but y'alls obsession with grammar is painful, so I'll be less eager to hear "this colon has x implication). Most of the time, t will not be the place where I sign my ballot. UPDATE: I, me, Maddy Stevens, voted off of T in January- it was a truly remarkable, once in a lifetime event :')

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ks- yes pls. I understand stuff like cap and ableism, not so much DnG and whatever you kids are doing these days (if you're going to read Heidegger or other authors whose work I would have to have read several times pre-round in order to understand, you're going to need to do more work explaining that to me than you would "x is ableist and ableism is bad") <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a sidenote, I don’t really think discourse k’s need much of an alt aside from reject. UPDATE: I love K’s but I also get really burnt out with them; if you read a role of the ballot in front of me, you better be prepared to explain what it means in the debate community or world at large, and how you can perform it- if it doesn’t come up in round, I’ll likely ask after I’ve made my decision because IT’S IMPORTANT. Y’all can’t hide behind Giroux forever and pat yourselves on the back for being intellectuals and revolutionaries. This ESPECIALLY goes for pre-fiat conversations about the debate community; I don’t want to hear that things need to get better, I want to know how you’re setting forth to MAKE them better.


 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">UPDATE: policy args- I think CPs are hella fun and I really like rounds which include them. I think DAs are usually pretty bad unless you're going to articulate them through an oppression lens rather than some outrageous extinction scenario. ***I’ve been won over to terminal impacts, but I’d still prefer that you include systemic ones as well rather than relying solely on extinction/low probability outcomes. @Willie Johnson convinced me that it’s always good to have extinction on the table as a fallback so go wild.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">speaks- I will probably start you off at thirty speaks, this will fluctuate as you anger me or make me happy. Problematic discourse will lose you speaks, as will extended pauses, abundant filler words, clarity issues, etc. You can gain those points back by making good arguments, strategic moves, speaking better the next speech, being funny, etc. After saying clear twice I will throw paper balls at you each time you an unclear. Also don't call me by name in round excessively pls it makes me feel too included/involved and I cringe.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">philosophy heavy rounds- Probably the only philosopher I ever got really acquainted with was Rawls, if your case is 4 minutes of deontology or ethics of care or something, I'm most likely not a great judge for you because where things don't make sense I will try to fill in gaps on my own and def misconstrue the argument. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLEASE WEIGH BETWEEN LAYERS. ALSO JUST WEIGH IN GENERAL.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">General stuff: Things I hate to listen to <span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">UPDATE: *For personal reasons, I’m leery of pessimism arguments. Usually I only see this for queer pess, but I just don’t want to anymore. I especially don’t want to see any suicide alts- __you will get zero speaks.__

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">- Ableism is a huge nono for me. Even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, your opponent might, and I definitely will. So, calling something “dumb” “crazy” “lame” “stupid” etc will definitely hurt your speaks (less so if your opponent doesn’t say anything about it, moreso if they call you). A good standard: If you’re using a word which describes disability or impairment to ridicule something, don’t. Another tip: If something can be used as a synonym for the word ret*rded, don’t say it. (Instead of calling something stupid or whatever, say it ‘doesn’t make sense’ or ‘isn’t valid’ or is ‘ridiculous’, etc etc. Go to autistichoya.com for more alternatives if you want) (Also "stupid" absolutely is ableist, I don't care if you see in the dictionary that it means "in a stupor", in the same way that the f slur is also defined as burning sticks or cigarettes, the word "stupid" has multiple definitions and you are 99% definitely not using it to describe someone "in a stupor", so don't pull this)

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">-Same goes for racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc. NEVER dismiss any oppression because of util calc or any other factor (this is not to say “don’t run util”, this is to say “don’t make me relive the time someone told me gay people don’t matter because there are more str8s”). Stop co opting one form of oppression by saying ‘oh, racism isn’t really the problem!!! We gotta solve cap first lmao!!!’ I reserve the right to be offended by your discourse and/or proposal, and though it won’t probably be a voting issue unless your opponent makes it one (unless you just bite the bullet and go rape good!!!! Racism good!!!! Those, and things in that vein, are auto drops for me), my displeasure will show in speaks (even if I’m the only one who noticed/cared).

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">-Arguments that are like “I hate debate because it’s boring so instead of discussing this topic which might be super important to other people in this round, lets do x (like tell jokes all round)!” If you think debate is boring, don’t do it. If you want to tell jokes, do it out of round or be a friggin standup, I don’t care. This is distinct from critiquing the debate space for exclusion, those arguments have purpose aside from being a super edgy le troll lololol w0w!!! If you want to run stuff in front of me that says ‘this norm is bad let’s do y instead’, more power to you. If you want to goof off and make light of something that is important, save it for someone else. I will not vote you up for being bored and ridiculous.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">*UPDATE: DISCLOSURE- for the love of lorde will yall prepped big schools who are prepped TF out stop reading disclosure against kids who literally don't know the wiki exists/don't have the access and experience w circuit norms you do?? I'm all for disclosure and I think it's a good norm but stop penalizing kids for not being able to be as engaged as you! **

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I like positions that make me think, things that indict systems of power and privilege, things that make me interrogate my assumptions. I like rounds that have respectful interactions (IE you don’t tell your opponents that they “don’t understand English” or anything like that) while still being fast paced and fun. I’m a simple judge of simple means, if anything is unclear or seems unfair, talk to me before round and I’ll consider an exception (if you have a rEALLY good PAS aff, for instance, that is absolutely not ableist then argue with me to run it, I like seeing those advocacy skills put to good use).