Emory '25
St. Mark's School of Texas '21
Put me on the email chain please dyangerdebater@gmail.com AND smdebatedocs@gmail.com
I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE I HAVE ZERO TOPIC KNOWLEDGE
tl;dr
You do you—debate should be for the debaters.
Dropped arguments are true, but only as true as the words in the dropped argument.
Don't cheat.
Online Debate things—I would strongly prefer for everyone's cameras to be on although I will not force you to do this unless the tournament rules say so. You will greatly benefit by slowing down 20% from your in-person speed and speaking less than 3 feet away from your microphone. If my camera is off, just assume I am not at my computer.
Apart from that, there are only 2 things that are really important in here:
1. This paradigm is far from perfect; I'm still learning as a judge and debater.
2. Tell me why I should vote for you, and I will try my best to do so.
You should read and employ whatever strategies you feel most comfortable with. No matter your argumentation style, organization, impact calculus, and judge instruction matter the most to me. If an argument is bad, beat it by explaining why it is bad, not just asserting that it is bad. 80% of the things past this point reflect my (constantly shifting) ideological leanings when I'm left to my own devices.
Affirmatives that do not defend hypothetical resolutional action—Adding this section at the top because I get asked a lot about it and it's probably what you're here for anyways. Rest assured, I am far from an auto-ballot for either side. I will flow everything I can from every speech made and determine a winner and a loser based on said flow while removing my personal biases as much as possible. Admittedly, I feel that I have moved more and more into the "fairness outweighs everything else" camp throughout my career. HOWEVER, at the same time, I feel that the more I believe in fairness as an impact, the more I realize that my bar/threshold for voting on an accurate articulation and application of fairness has increased.
To quote Collin Roark: "Lots of different folks do debate for different valuable reasons." I think that it is good to have active discussions and arguments about why this activity is so worthwhile to begin with.
Topicality—I dig deep T debates and think about this argument often. Assume that I have zero topic knowledge; I'm more likely to vote for the side that explains and impacts out their vision of the topic better.
Counterplans—a well-researched, specific counterplan can be a deadly opportunity cost to the affirmative. Too bad they're an endangered species. What happened to theory? I'm probably better than most for conditionality bad (sorry, fellow 2Ns).
Disadvantages—Read a complete shell. Turns case is usually important. Do impact calculus, please.
Kritiks—I have no qualms with these arguments despite my argumentative background. If you want to maximize your chances of winning this argument in front of me, skip the long rebuttal overviews, do some impact calculus, read links about the actual implementation of the plan, and assume I know nothing about your K when explaining things.
Nevermind. There are a few more non-negotiables:
How to L: asking for speaks, death good because life is suffering, racism/sexism/homophobia or anything along those lines. I get to decide when this happens.
Things that make me happy:
Intelligence.
Smart cross-applications/in-round pivots.
Clever plan/counterplan flaw arguments.
Something innovative.
Finally, have fun! So many speeches sound irritated or jaded or irrationally angry about something. Don't run from arguments. Clash. Reinvent. Improve. Learn. If you actively demonstrate your love for this activity, I promise I will work hard to reciprocate it.