Basic Information
I coach on theDebateDrills Club Team- please clickhereto access incident reporting forms, roster, and info regarding MJP’s and conflicts.
Debated Freshman-Junior year doing Policy debate and Senior year switched to LD, this shapes lots of my views on debate. After graduating I have been coaching for the past few years, coaching over a dozen bids and multiple deep TOC runs primarily coaching Policy and K.
email chain: Jacksonh428@gmail.com
Last update- Bronx 2022
This paradigm primarily applies to high level debates and Elims. if you are a younger debater don’t change your strategy for me I am here to provide feedback on whatever your style of debate. If you are in an Elim or frequently Make it to elims this paradigm should outline my full thoughts on debate for your prefing needs.
Important notes about my philosophy regarding debate you should read before having me as a judge

If your strat relies on highly contextualized clash debate I am the correct judge for you, Whether you debate critical or policy I will be able to evaluate the debate from a very neutral and knowledge stance. If your strat relies on spreading out your opponent or going for small blips on flows I am not the judge for you.
I will be more impressed by students that demonstrate topic knowledge, line-by-line organization skills (supported by careful flowing), and intelligent cross-examinations than by those that rely on superfast speaking, obfuscation, jargon, backfile recycling, and/or tricks.- Bill Batterman
I have become a lot more ideological open to philosophy style arguments in the past year that being said, I have not worked within any of the literature bases for a substantive amount of time. Philosophy that is purely read to integrate trix will never win my ballot in a round. But I am open to well developed philosophy strategies. Because I have not judged these styles of debate for any amount of time you will need to make sure explanations are very clear and robust regarding how to evaluate your arguments. I am going to be more biased towards util which means it is going to require vast more explanation to overcome than the inverse.
It is really hard for me to vote on terminal defense, I will almost always vote on risk of offense.
I strongly Dislike Nebel and versus core affs that have been read a lot am very very hesitant to vote on it, this largely comes from the majority of my debate career being in policy but is a bias I hold.
I Will not vote on evaluate the debate at any point but after the 2AR.
If you are asking for a marked doc you need to run prep, I dont know why people are not flowing by ear anymore


Specific Arguments

Critical debate-

My standard for critical debate is college policy which entirely skews what a good K round is and lowers the argumentative burden to beat LD K affs. If you are reading affs that are innovative in some sense that shows you have really engaged within the literature I will be a great judge for this. I am starting to get upset at the level of recycling that is occurring within the LD K aff world. An additional point of gripe I am starting to have is combining theories of power that are entirely distinct into one affirmative or kritik, The most absolutely frustrating part about this is that when you do this versus a debater who is unaware of this contradiction justifiably given it not being a required aspect of the topic it becomes impossible for me to evaluate given there not being an arguement I will likely dock .5-1 speaks for theory of power contradictions. All of this being said if you read a K aff you have to understand that you should show extreme levels of mastery.
T Framework falls under this discussion point. This is one of my favorite types of debate to watch and even as someone who read tons of K affs, Against K affs T was always my number one strategy. I think that most shells that are being read now days are very bad and generic. Good Framework debates need to have clash starting in the 1NC, Pulling lines from cards and referencing the 1AC is crucial to avoiding large 2AR spins. I believe that Fairness is a terminal impact but can be convinced otherwise, and believe that Going for fairness is probably a better strat versus Pomo and non Id-Pol K's and In round skills are better versus Id-pol. Teams that go for one standard in the 2NR with lots of impact weighing and comparison are going to win my ballot. I will shield the 2NR from more 2AR spin that most judges I believe. I really dislike the K aff meta of going for Impact turns or one dropped arg on framework in the 2AR and believe strongly that if you can beat back the framework flow you can also beat back the cap flow.
All of this holds true reading a K on the negative with a few specific points to be had. First is that I believe that links should be contextual to the aff. This does not mean the links need to be predicated on the action of the plan, but if you are going to read reps links based on extinction or nuclear war I expect to see lines that are pulled from evidence and past speeches to build every link. If you are reading the same blocks every round when you read a Kritik I am not the judge for you but If you engage at a substantive level truly clashing with the aff whether that be on plan action or representations you will not only likely win more debates in front of me but you will definitely get higher speaker points. I also think in LD specifically framework is extremely underutilized by the negative, you can make lots of strategic decisions on the framework debate that implicate the rest of the debate and 2NRs that centralize around framework are usually my favorite, and should be a staple for any K debater given the current debate meta of every K 2AR being extinction o/w framework. Why does framework only need to be area you have to hedge back upon and not make that shift early in the 2NR given you anticipate a 2AR on Extinction o/w.

Policy Debate

I am a very good for any type of policy debate given you have read the important notes about my overall debate philosophy. Reading bad arguments is always going to lead to a major loss of speaks for me. Da's with no substantive internal links are my biggest pet peeve right now within policy debate. The first point of research past the link should be internal link. I find a lot of value in politics da debates, the college meta of uniqueness dumping is really enjoyable for some reason to me, the hyper contextualization required for evidence contextualization is unmatched in this style of debate. I feel that in most types of debate evidence comparison is really declining but politics requires you to put thought into evidence comparison.
Counterplans that have robust solvency mechanisms will gain you a lot of speaks process counterplans that don't just consult are amazing, counterplans that have thought put into them are always going to be better than a counterplan that is used over and over. A counterplan that solves all of case such as a process counterplan should be its own 2nr, I don't think its smart to go for anything on case, if you choose to go for defense, a 2ar can spend like 10 seconds making superficial responses and then make the arg, we win the cp risk of aff means you vote aff. Obviously if you are reading an advantage counterplan that doesn't solve the whole aff you should have offense on the advantage not solved.

Theory/T

Theory should only be used as a last resort, If a team is reading 2 or less condo It will be nearly impossible for me to vote on condo bad. I am fine for debates such as Pics Bad, Process Cps bad, Consult Bad. Do not plan on blowing up a 5-10 second shell in the 2ar for this, It should be a flushed out shell as I will draw lines from the 1ar to the 2ar. Theory that I am extremely unlikely to vote on include; Spec shells, Nebel. Theory that I will not vote on; Any clothes or clothing related theory, Friv theory.(The gut check for this is would you read this argument in from of a college policy judge if you wouldn't don't read it In front of me)
Topicality that is grounded in actual literature based definitions are good. Shells such as Nebel, Leslie, and other extremely semantic based interps are not going to win in front of me. Examples of T arguments I am absolutely willing to vote on with 0 bias; T Medical Necessary(SepOct 22),T Lethal Autonomous Weapons(JF 2021), Most policy style interps if you look at the college wiki minus T SUBSTANTIAL. While I am harsh towards Theory in LD debate I think T is a great avenue for the negative to contest the aff and utilize time tradeoffs. I do not think that this should be done with generics or things such as Nebel.
OPEN SOURCE IS AMAZING- I read it two off versus K teams my senior year with Cap or impact turns. I Think its just a very good model for debate and for that reason I am Extremely likely to vote on open source. The burden though is full open source, I don't really care if you have round reports of cites. I am only good for full open source or open source after 30 minutes for missed rounds or missed tournaments.

PrefsPolicy/K with clash-1Policy/k with no clash-4Phil/Tricks- Strike
Speaks- I rarely give below 28 speaks but rarely give higher than 29.2. Very good strategy execution and a very well thought out strategy combined will lead to the highest speaks.
Thoughts I’ve had about debate in 22 season- read if bored or want to know more about my judging style

The person I have learned and look up to the most in regards to judging is Bill Batterman if for some reason you do want to read his paradigm I agree with every aspect of it. The only note I would add is I am 10000% more charitable to critical arguments and hold the same threshold as policy arguments to them and my thoughts on Critical debate are outlined above.
Pessimism K’s have gone rampant, college policy only reads afropess, set col, and to a much smaller extent queer pess. Your job is to find out why college policy only reads a select few.
Speaker points are super inflated right now, teams getting 30s every other round.