Russell,+Charles

I am Charles Russell and have been involved with debate for 7 years now. I debated for 3 years with Mukwonago highschool, 2 of which were at varsity level in the policy field. After i finished highschool i began to judge rounds as availible, meaning every other weekend for the first 2 years and then a bit less frequently in the last couple of years.

I, like my old high school debate coach, have a more old-school policy style judging philosophy. Simply put in round you should view me as the ultimate power, the president. Obama doesn't exist in my rounds, last year Bush didn't exist. You are trying to convince me that this is the best policy for the United States. Of course this isn't all that the round will be about so i have provided some additional information on what i would like to see in my rounds below.

Speed: What i want to see here is very simple, clearly spoken arguments with depth to them. If you think that speaking fast is all there is to a good debate you would be wrong in my eyes. Often in my rounds the faster speaking team will lose because they lack any sort of clarity of speech or they don't put any substantial weight on any issues, instead focusing on filling my flow with as many issues as they can so in the end they can just rattle off a list of points the other side missed. The best thing to do is speak at a rate that you don't have to question yourself about and give your arguments some weight and depth. If you think you need to ask me if you are to fast then don't speak so quickly, slow down and breath once in a while. If you go to fast your argument isn't on the flow and it never happened in the round.

Topicality: In round i don't mind seeing a bit of T. It can be understandable at times because there are cases that are outside of the bounds of the resolution. If you run a topicality argument as the negative you have to prove to me that there is abuse in the round, not that there is the potential for the abuse to happen. I'm not going to vote for a case that sends peanut farmers to the moon to bring money back to earth to pay everyone receiving money from any sort of social service...It doesn't make sense. If you are going to argue T make sure that there is a violation and that you can explain where the violation is. Don't bother to give me any voters either, i give you your voters, abuse and jurisdiction.

CP: I like to see a good CP, make sure you are non-topical and competitive though. Give me whatever CP you can think of and i will give it consideration, as the "President" i am looking for multiple viewpoints and multiple possibilities for improvement. On the other hand you can't just present a CP then say you are better, i want to see attacks on the plan...DA's, solvency issues, ect. Give me something to think about.

Kritiks/Critiques: Honestly i'm not a big fan. Most of the K i see is completely out of whack. It doesn't pertain to the real world and the alternative is something that isn't possible outside of the world of debate. If you want to run K, feel free so long as it is real world and there is an actual workable alternative. Beyond that make sure that you can explain your argument as well, most times i see K it is just read out and the debater can't understand a word of what they just said... They just know that the file was given to them to read in certain circumstances. If in doubt, just don't run it.

Advantages/ DA's: I want this debate to be in the real world. Don't tell me that Jim crossing the road is going to cause nuclear war. Give me something like Russia's potential negative reaction to an expanding american army being the cause of war. If everything leads to nuclear war then i'm likely to start dropping your DA's. The same applies to the Aff.

Theory: one word, Don't. I want to see argument on the resolution, not on the practice of debate itself.

All that i really have left to say is have fun and make sure you put enough emphasis on anything that you feel is of importance.