Heizelman,+John

I debated for four years for Strake Jesuit in Houston, Texas on both the local and national circuits and graduated in 2012.

Basically, you can do whatever you want. I will make a decision based on the arguments made in round. I will not exclude any arguments, regardless of how idiotic or commonly-understood-as-offensive they are.

Speed: I’m not very good at flowing, and I’m only going to get worse without practice. If you go too fast, you’re only going to hurt yourself, and I won’t feel bad about not getting everything down. I will say clear no more than twice per speech. After that, I will stop flowing and do my best to indicate that I have stopped and if I resume (assuming you fix your clarity issues). With that, if you're debating someone, I've said clear twice, and you notice that I have stopped flowing your opponent's speech, I will absolutely evaluate the argument that "if you didn't flow it, it wasn't made," but don't rely on this. Only when an obvious instance of unclarity takes place and I have NO idea what's being said, will I give weight to "if you didn't flow it, don't evaluate it." But it has happened, and I have no doubt it will happen again.

CX: I find CX to be very important. I’m fine with asking questions during prep or extending CX into prep time, but there is no using CX time for prep.

Speaks: Although what I said about not voicing my personal opinions through who I vote for, I will use my biases to form the basis of how many speaks you get. This includes presentation style, the kinds of arguments you make, strategic choices, etc. But don’t be afraid to run arguments you don't think I'll like. I won’t drop speaks for running util even though I think it’s silly or up them for running Aquinas. I am compelled by smart debaters that show an understanding of what you’re talking about regardless of what you’re talking about. I care more about the style in which you are debating than the topics about which you are debating.

Theory/topicality: I will try to not impose my views on the round, so the way I “default” shouldn’t affect the way you debate theory or topicality. Warrant all of your arguments, including internal links, voters, and paradigm, and you’ll be fine. I’m fine with RVIs. Unconventional ways of responding to theory or topicality are also acceptable.

Now, a few quirks:

1. I think it is the obligation of the person making the responses to an argument to demonstrate that it is responsive, not the obligation of the person responding to responses to show they are non-responsive. If you read a huge block of text, tell me intermittently how it engages with the person’s case. Same applies to long analytic rants (which I am rather fond of).

2. I will only call for evidence if there is a dispute over what it says. “Call for it, there’s no/a warrant” does not count as a dispute.

3. If at all possible, please share laptops or paper copies instead of flashing. If you have to flash stuff, please make it as quick as possible so as to not waste time. I trust the debaters to work this out in a reasonable fashion where they can read the others' positions but still not make the round take 2 hours.