Dinser,+Erin

Judge's Name: Dinser, Erin High School Graduation Date: 2004 Judge's e-mail: ejdinser@umich.edu

Affiliation: Dexter High School, Dexter, MI Policy Debate Experience: I debated in high school, left the activity through college and I'm now back in my third year of coaching.

General/Random Things:
 * I made changes! My Christmas/Holiday/whatever gift to the debate world is that I'm trying to be predictable and forthcoming.
 * oh. my. god. don't yell. please. It's not more persuasive, it's obnoxious.
 * Just really, truly **don't make assumptions.** Ask me questions before the round, that's way better than being irate after the round.
 * I don't take prep for jumping, just don't take forever about it.
 * Don't be rude. I don't think you necessarily have to be overly polite, but be respectful of your opponents AND your partner. Everyone gets frustrated sometimes, but that's not an excuse to be a jerk. It can ruin good cross-ex. It is exceptionally rude to pack up during the 2AR, it makes me want to look for ways to drop you.
 * Cross-ex... I'm paying attention and unless you convince me otherwise, it's probably binding. (Like don't explicitly say the alt will never result in the aff in the 1NC c-x and then give a 2NR that's all about the floating pik. If you're going to be sketchy... be sketchy, just not by lying in c-x.)
 * I probably won't call for cards unless the actual content is contested. So make things happen in the round instead of hoping your ev will do the work for you after.
 * Label your off-case in the 1NC when you introduce them, let me know which flow you're going to in the 2AC. Why do I need to tell you this? It's just logical that you would want to be clear.
 * Warrants are good, yo. Explanation is awesome. This is especially true in the last two speeches. It's really helpful to take a second to bring me into your strategic vision for the round, why did you make the choices that you did? Probably because you think arguments are interacting in a certain way. So tell me, and at least then you have a shot that I've looked at the round in the way you think is best for you.

At the end of the round I'm going to look at what is on my flow (I flow well - speed is okay as long as you're relatively clear) and make a decision. I am not going to do work for either team, and when the debate breaks down to the point that I have to, I'm going to be annoyed. If you do not adequately present and extend, in your speech time, everything I need to know to understand your argument, I'm not going to vote for it.

What does that mean? With regards to the following arguments specifically...

K: I think I'll listen to most anything, but the burden is very much on you to make me understand it. And honestly, I say I'll listen to anything because I don't like to be a pre-round interventionist, but Ks with alts that make me say "...so what?" are not my favorite, and you're going to have to do a lot of work to make me want to vote there. I like tangible impacts, and I like K debaters that bring their alt into the same world as the aff impacts, talk about the 1AC, and draw specific examples out of it - sure, your K is generic but make it specific with your analysis. I'll probably make a sad face at you if you're going one-off and are anything less than baller at it. I think arguments like "life is a prerequisite to value to life" are probably just... true and hard to beat, but not impossible. Death and suffering don't seem great to me, there's always someone out there that just fell in love or had a baby or just thinks life is worth living and I probably shouldn't decide they should die. Nailing down that the rethinking or whatever of the alt precludes the aff from ever happening is probably a smart move for the affirmative, or at least that there are tangible impacts that will happen if we bother to take the time to do that. Do not assume you can use jargon as shorthand to a larger idea that I may or may not be familiar with. You're doing yourself a disservice in making that assumption. I also heart the line-by-line, seems like the best way to be objective. Something to keep in mind. But by all means, if the K is your thing, do it.

Theory: I think I have a slightly lower threshold for voting on theory - only insofar as if your theory arg makes sense in this round and you win some sort of impact to it then I'm probably a little more willing than most to vote there. I don't go in with prejudices that make certain theory args easier or harder to win, just make sense. I think there's a lot of reasons debate would be less strategic in the absence of conditionality, but maybe more educational, who knows? Know that defending 1 conditional world is acceptable but their 2 is WAY over the line is probably going to be tricky to isolate offense to which your definition doesn't also link. Potential for abuse could be a viable impact if you win a link that their in round action actually does set a precedent for abuse. It's just important to know // why // I need to reject the team, or the perm, or the arg, etc. or why I don't.

Topicality: It's funny how something that you blazed through at top speed somehow becomes ridiculously important when you decide to slow down in the 2NR and you expect I have a perfect flow of it... I like a good T debate, I'm totally willing to vote here, in fact, I kind of enjoy it, but don't expect the minutia of your argumentation to be on my flow unless you covered T at a reasonable speed. I think T reminds us that debate is a game with indeterminate rules - you get to make them up in the round, I try to divorce myself from truth as much as possible on T, and if you're going for just "c'mon we're core of the topic" please explain why that's creating a better version of the game. Maybe sometimes bending a poorly written resolution creates a better version of the game, win that.

Performance: Judged my first performance aff, discovered I don't know how to depart from being a flow-based judge. I want to be sympathetic to the cause, but if you don't care about the line-by-line and can't win why I SHOULD depart from that, you should probably strike me. It's better for everyone.

I'm fine with CPs, DAs, too. I'm not committed to offense/defense. I've assigned an absurdly low risk to a DA on a well argued no link arg. I don't have an issue with politics, even if it is a bit contrived, though I think politics theory needs to be answered. I think these kind of debates lend themselves to technical expertise and if you can keep a massive card war clean, organized and strategic, it's impressive. These rounds also tend to be very tangible and more fun for me, and I think I don't have a lot of notes here because I'm more comfortable and fewer subconscious biases come into play.

Debate well, be smart and keep the round organized. Good debate is good debate and bad debate is bad debate, regardless of whether you're reading arguments I love or hate. Debate should be an enjoyable experience. It's going to be enjoyable if everyone is running arguments that they understand and can run well. You're supposed to be learning from debate. Oh, and having fun, too.

Experience: - Coach a team - High School debater - Frequently Judge Rounds Judged this topic: 20? as of 10.19 Judge Paradigm: Tabula Rasa Rate of Delivery: 5 Fast Quantity of Arguments: 4 Relatively many Topicality: 2 Moderately often Counterplans: 1 acceptable Generic Disadvantages: 1 acceptable Conditional Negative Positions: 2 usually acceptable Debate Theory Arguments: 2 usually acceptable Kritik arguments: 3 sometimes acceptable Overall judging paradigm:

Ethics Statement: Agree