Have fun and learn something! Don't let a single bad debate round ruin your whole career (or even your weekend).

Use speechdrop plz I hate email chains. Here is my email if both teams wish to spite me (that's a joke it's not that big of a deal to me, just a preference): reaganfbusiness@gmail.com

Hi! I'm Rae (they/them) I debated at Colgan for 3 years in PF, and Policy, LD, Congress, and PF for my senior year. I'm going into my second year of debating @ WKU, where I've done moderately well in NFA LD (basically one person policy).

Do not run arguments about death being good in front of me. Do not read explicit material surrounding sexual assault in front of me. You will be dropped and given the lowest speaker points possible if you do this, and I will also probably talk with your coach.

Novice, JV, Lay Debate:

I will often vote for whichever side is better at explaining their arguments if this is the type of debate y’all do.

Focus on collapsing in the back half, rather than trying to keep all your arguments afloat. Your opponent will inevitably sink some of your argumentative battleships-- that’s okay!

Be nice! For some reason, inexperienced people in debate have this weird quirk where they’re way too arrogant? I don’t like it, and it will reflect on your speaker points.

General:

I've voted aff 28/43 (~65%) of the time. I attribute this more to a small sample size than a lingering aff bias, especially considering that I've judged many different kinds of debate.

I like voting for arguments that seem true. Scholarship is important to me, and although I’ll try to keep my decision-making on the flow exclusively, your opponent will have to do very little work if you flood them with bad arguments. In other words, my threshold for voting on bad arguments, (like Ice Age and Multi-T bad theory), is much higher than other arguments. P.S., Politics DAs usually fall into the bad argument camp unless your ev is much better than the norm.

I can evaluate anything, although CP-DA debate is more in my wheelhouse than K debate.

Assume I know nothing about the topic. I’m a big dumb idiot who needs everything (especially acronyms) explained to me. Preferably in the constructives.

Try to keep your own time. I stop flowing after your time runs out, and will call it shortly after. Not making me do that is really cool too, though.

Analytical arguments are so underrated imho. Stop reading cards for no reason when you can explain the same concept faster. It also gives me the feeling that you actually understand your case which makes me want to vote for you. Sometimes you obviously need evidence, but in the cases that you don't, I see no reason to not demonstrate your understanding of the topic. Of course, if your opponents have a good piece of ev to counter your analytic, it probably won’t hold up.

Number your arguments! It makes things easier for you and for me. In that same vein, slow down on tags and analytics (esp. If they weren’t in the doc).

Aff General Stuff:

I don’t require 2AC overviews, you can just go straight into the line-by-line. Although, it still might be a good idea to have them, especially if your case is confusing.

The aff should frankly win way more than it does. Abuse your structural and (usually) topic advantage!

Policy Affs:

I really hate soft left affs 99% of the time. I think they’re too susceptible to the K and probably get solved by a smart counterplan that avoids a net benefit. By all means, go for it, I just find the usual strat of (a) finding one truth claim and (b) riding 9 framing cards to the 2ar to be unpersuasive.

I like stock affs! They’re usually stock because they’re true. I do like aff creativity, though, so don’t be afraid to put something a lil’ wacky in front of me.

Everything else here is pretty standard.

K Affs:

I find T/FW to be pretty convincing. I think K teams have figured out ways to put a lot of ink out on the flow in addition to being more persuasive. However, I think that under closer examination, a lot of the arguments that these teams make are either (a) wrong or (b) misunderstanding the negative’s argument. For instance, saying that you give the neg ground because they can say cap good isn’t a good or persuasive argument imho.

However, I love when teams are creative with their responses to FW, and have it personalized to the story of the aff, rather than just reading blocks you stole from somewhere else. This makes me a lot more empathetic to the aff.

I need a strong reason in the 2AC as to why switch-side debate doesn’t solve all your offense.

Topicality:

Love it! I think that learning the difference in legal terms is incredibly valuable for topic education, and learning how to navigate those differences is a potent portable skill.

I will rarely ever vote on reasonability (as said previously, I’m a big dumb idiot who doesn’t know what’s going on!).

Substantially is qualitative, imho, unless there is a topic-specific interp that intends to define what you say it does.

Aff teams-- try to interact with their arguments ASAP! That means actually responding to them in the 2AC instead of just reading your blocks.

Topicality is never an RVI. Don’t bother reading them.

Theory:

Condo-- I think 2 condo is acceptable, maybe 3 in policy if the topic is really aff biased.

50 State Fiat Bad-- I think this is actually viable, as the aff is usually right that there’s no lit on universal 50 state action. The neg articulating the CP as mismatched inherently probably solves a lot of this, though.

Delay CP-- yeah delay is bad and not key topic ground.

Process CP-- yeah process is bad too.

Consult CP-- consult CPs are super cheating imho.

Disclosure-- YOU SHOULD BE DISCLOSING ALL BROKEN AFFs / NEG POSITIONS ON THE WIKI!!! I hack for this, unless the interp is like something really stupid (i.e., you have to be disclosing for the entire season! -- this is something you literally can’t meet even if you disclose every point after that).

Trigger Warning Theory-- it’s really easy to put a trigger warning if you’re going to read triggering content. Do it!

Pretty much everything else-- Not a fan. I hate the trend in high school LD where people read frivolous theory/trix, I’m not persuaded by it, and you’d be better off reading better arguments.

Counterplans:

As stated before, I think that you get to be conditional, but I’m very sensitive to negative cheating. I think the neg is allowed to get away with murder with some of these counterplans (looking at you, process cp's with no basis in the lit).

I will never vote on a counterplan that had no evidence attached to it when it was first read UNLESS that counterplan uses 1AC ev to solve it (i.e., if the aff's advantages aren't intrinsic). Even then you should be inserting something. Idk why people do this so much in policy, it’s bozo behavior imho.

I don't think I fully understand uniqueness counterplans in the context of agenda DA's. Feel free to run them, just an FYI.

Disadvantages:

Most of these are fake imho, but then again, so are most aff advantages.

I think reading soft-left DAs is one of my least favorite things you could ever do.

I don’t have much to say here, I like DA debate and don’t have any strong opinions about them.

Ks:

I am not well read in most K literature, I’ll be upfront. Explain things slowly, and try not to use your favorite $100 word every other word in a sentence.

I mostly buy the aff arg that they should get to weigh the case against the alt. I think anything else is probably bad, but I’m open to argumentation here.

For every link the neg reads, they have a burden to prove the alt solves those links.

Utopian alts are bad and I’m willing to hear aff theory on it. Tell me how you get to the anti-capitalist paradise, instead.

Vague alts are also not great. I don’t mean vague as in the tag, but that you literally don’t take a concrete action(s) or have any sort of plan. Am willing to hear aff theory on this.

The alt is almost always the weakest part of your K.

K v K debate almost always comes down to the perm, because your ideologies are probably virtually identical. Explaining the perm effectively as well as the methods distinct in these debates is key to my ballot.

The neg K argument that the aff shouldn’t get perms in a method debate is genuinely one of the worst arguments people regularly make imho. You can read it but all the aff has to do on the line-by-line is say “no” and I’ll probably be convinced.

Misc.
Open CX is fine, don't be obnoxious though.

In and outs are fine.

I really prefer speechdrop/file share to email chains, but if we are going to do email chains, hit reply all. A failure to hit reply all on the first try will result in a .5 speaker point reduction.

Be nice, it's almost never that deep.

Efficiency>>>speed. I don’t care how fast you can spread gibberish.