I'm a first year NDT-CEDA debater at Missouri State University. I was a policy and LD debater all four years at Lawrence High School, with experience at both regional and nat circuit levels.
I'd like to be on the email chain, also for any questions: jshew1923@gmail.com
TLDR: You can run pretty much anything in front of me except racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism and etc. good or args that are explicitly racist or problematic. I'll default tech through truth flow unless instructed otherwise. That being said there are some arguments that I hold to different standards of analysis - just tell me how to evaluate the debate and I'll vote.
That being said, I think that you should just have fun and not worry too much about me as a judge. Competition is good, but can easily turn toxic - don't trip over the ballot too much at the expense of ur partner or the other team. We're all people who enjoy and care about the same activity and community, so mutual respect is super key
I really don't enjoy people who are overly aggressive or rude - make your point and move on, and don't be a dick. Other words, no hateration or holleration in my dancery :/
The exception to the above rule is if you give me reasons why being aggressive in round is key - i.e. queer/black/Native rage arguments, pessimism, etc. but if you're running args that have nothing to do with that no need to 360 windmill dunk on your opponent every two seconds
Arg by arg breakdown if interested:
Ks:
I really enjoy K debate. I'm most familiar with lit on Cap, Sett Col, Abolition, Queer Theory, and a smattering of small lit bases about care, cyborgs, etc. That being said, just because a K isn't lit I'm necessarily familiar with doesn't mean you shouldn't run it - just means you might have to give me a solid overview of what the K means, how the alt functions, what my role is, etc. which you should be doing anyways
Alt solvency is way under-covered and aff teams let neg teams get away with murder on this level because they don't want to get cancelled or something - say stuff ab the alt past transition wars lol
The more specific your K is to the topic the more hype I will be about it. I love topic specific alts and link stories, and vastly prefer these debates over a recycled backfile K
Please please please do not make me evaluate an impact turn on the K (for example, don't make me evaluate something like gender binary good) because it will not turn out well for you. That also means if you're neg, DON'T drop an impact turn and force me to make a decision like this. However, impact turns like "cap good" are obviously fine, often strategic, and an exception to this.
Topicality:
I find myself generally pretty comfortable in T debates, as long as both sides do comparison of impacts and there is warranted analysis and line-by-line on every level of the T debate.
I <3 specificity in violations - in round abuse, plan text analysis, gimme all that
I will always prefer a smart analytic specific to the round over fairness and predictability good blocks - please answer their voters, don't just read your own - if not I might make a decision you'll be frustrated with because I'm parsing out both of your 2019 T backfiles lol
I'm open to voting on an RVI if it's impacted out, explained in the context of the round (i.e. why their T shell is specifically bad) and my ballot can resolve it. Otherwise it's just a meme.
Counterplans:
Run them. They should be competitive, solve at least some of the aff, and have a net benefit. Other than that it's really free range. I think it's more convincing for me to have specific warrants to the plan, not just "executive branch good" or something, otherwise I'll prefer their undoubtedly more specific analysis every time. On the aff, give me contextualization on how the perm functions and avoids linking into the net ben. It'll be beneficial for neg teams to explain how the CP accesses the aff's framing so they can't just outweigh you.
Fun PICs are fun - don't go too overboard with like 30 PICs in the 1NC obviously but I love word PICs and making the aff defend all their choices
Disadvantages:
Disadvantages are a very good option in front of me, as with every other judge, as long as you do impact comparison and framing. Generic links to DAs are cool in the 1NC on this topic, but I think in the block you need to either contextualize your generic link to the actions of the affirmative or read a specific link. Similar to CPs, it will be helpful to have an external impact as well as a turns case argument, as it helps generate even if statements that make my decision easier. If you're aff, you should call out terrible politics DAs for being terrible, because they usually are. Also if you want to make an intrinsic perm/logical policymaker argument, I think that's fun - but explain a) why that's true, and b) why that's a good model for debating PTX DAs.
Theory:
I kinda hate when it's clear an argument in the 1NC is not even a 2NR consideration for you - I am not the judge for your 10 off strats. I think condo is good but has been pushed way too far - u are wasting everybody's time by reading stuff purely for time skew. I would much rather judge a 1-5 off debate than vote on a counterplan cuz you can spread fast and they dropped it.
Other than condo, I lean towards rejecting the arg on more specific theory, and you probably should only run it if it's warranted - if you're going for theory in the 2AR, go all in.
Miscellaneous Weird Things:
I would rather listen to a debate on a unique, creative off case position that forces debaters to get off their blocks and do critical thinking than another states CP debate, but those are very cool too. Meaning, run that random ass K
Humor is good - within bounds
You need to do evidence comparison. I think that my role as a judge is to minimize intervention as much as possible, and to evaluate the debate based on the content of the speeches - that means you probably won't get an "I don't think these warrants are good enough" decision or something unless you specifically tell me to read a piece of evidence after the round, and then I'm happy to.
I don't get the minor clipping hate, if you accidentally skip a word I won't immediately vote you down on 0s and tweet about it
I honestly don't understand how my ballot resolves things that happen outside of the round (i.e. problematic screenshots, cancellations, etc) but if you want me to vote on that you just have to explain that aspect to me and I'm theoretically open to it
I'm also very interested in literature about sound and music (cuz audio studies major.) That will probably not have a ton of relevance but in case that's something you're interested in I'm here ig and would love to learn more