Carroll,+Bertrum

I'll be judging on behalf of the Mukwonago High School Debate Team. I've had 3 years of actual debate experience and I've been judging on and off for Mukwonago since 2007. My paradigm will be that of a policy maker; which means that I'll be voting based on whether or not the potential benefits of the plan outweigh any pitfalls that might present themselves along the way. I'd much rather see a debate with a few issues debated thoroughly rather than have both teams do their best to speed through every issue they can.

Topicality - T is definitely a voting issue. However, I also feel that Topicality is potentially a reverse voting issue. What this means to me is that if the negatives bring up topicality and can't prove to me that the affirmative plan is potentially abusive, then I'll vote to affirm the resolution because the negatives are forcing the affirmatives to spend time defending themselves against an argument the negative team doesn't believe in. As I said earlier, I'd rather see a debate in which both sides take their time to fully develop quality arguments, and forcing the affirmative team to waste time on a topicality argument that even the negative team thinks is bogus is abusive. In order to win topicality the negatives need to present a definition that operates in the real world, not just in debate, and need to explain to me why it is that the affirmative team can't topically operate under a real world definition.

Speed - I don't like speed. I understand that in the debate setting you'll be speaking at faster rate a conversational rate, but it detracts from the quality of the debate when your strategy is to read faster than your opponent rather than out debating them.

Counterplans - I love CP, and as a policy making judge I feel they fit perfectly in the debate setting. That said, CPs need to be non-topical as well as competitive. At the end of the day, I'm still voting on the best policy, so if you run a counter plan, it still needs to provide a better policy than the affirmative plan.

K - I'm fairly new to K, though I do have a basic understanding of it. Feel free to run K if you want, but remember that I'm judging from a policy making mindset, so your K needs to be a feasible policy in the real world.

Finally, explain to me why it is that the benefits of the plan outweigh the pitfalls (or the other way around). Treat your rebuttal as your final chance to persuade me to vote for you, don't just road map the debate and tell me that Harms flows neg or the DA flows aff, tell me that the repercussions of voting for the other team are inexcusable.