Artem Raskin
Constraints: none
Background
4 years of high school parli, 3 years of circuit LD, 3 years of NPDA parli, 1 year of British parli. Political Science major, focus in International Relations. History minor.
Approach to judging
- I am a flow judge. I try to intervene as little as possible. If you run arguments I don’t like, I will be more willing to buy answers which debunk them, but I won’t intervene against them myself. If I can’t vote for either side without intervening, I will go by the path of least intervention.
- Voting issues are crucial. Rebuttals should be used to explain argument interaction, levels of argumentation, and why you are winning these levels, not just to restate PMC/LOC contentions.
- I vote for a team that has offense in the end of the round, defense almost never wins rounds.
- Try to avoid bringing up completely new arguments in the second constructive – this creates a truncated discussion of an argument. I will be sympathetic to PMR turns against new arguments in the block.
- I am not a fan of splitting the block, but I don’t think MOC and LOR should be identical. The LO doesn’t need to extend non-essential defense if the MO already made the responses. I give LOR some leeway on extensions: simply referencing an argument is fine, you don’t need to spend too much time extending MO warrants. In general, LO should briefly extend chief pieces of offense and crucial defense and spend most of the time on big picture argument comparison.
- If an argument is unclear the first time I hear it, I won’t vote on extensions which clear it up.
- Rebuttals are for weighing; weighing is not a new argument. There is, sometimes, weighing which borders on making a new argument – call a Point of Order if you have doubts.
- I do not require a Point of Order to strike a down a new argument. However, in a lot of cases, an argument is borderline new, and in these cases, I will typically give the speaker the benefit of the doubt unless a POO is called.
- I will not vote on blips. The best, though not the only way to ensure your argument isn’t a blip is to structure it.
Argument preferences
- I like positional cases. This means that the Government should have a specific plantext or a thesis. I welcome specification theory on vague plans.
- Set up clear burdens for each side from the start of the round. Establishing control of the framework can be very strategic.
- I am not a fan of trichotomy. I don’t think any resolution *has* to be a value, that’s up to the Government to decide.
- I enjoy listening to structured critical arguments with a clear and realistic alternative made by debaters who have read the philosophy behind them. If one of those elements is missing, I won’t enjoy them.
- I have a high threshold for voting on procedural arguments. If you run topicality as a timesuck when there is no clear abuse, I will be very open to arguments that topicality should be a reverse voting issue. Theory needs to be structured and you need to explain why it is a voter. I tend to buy “reasonable limits” answers to it. If your opponents are just grammatically/logically not topical, don’t bother talking about fairness, jurisdiction voter should suffice.
- I default to Millsian net benefits. I think more specific standards exclude relevant argumentation. Weighing should be done primarily on contention level. Critical and philosophical debates are an exception to this rule.
- Counterplans are very strategic.
Presentation preferences
- Moderate speed is fine if it is used to present more in depth arguments, but blatantly spreading out your opponents is never cool.
- I will flow each position on a different piece of paper. When signposting, indicate clearly when you are moving on to a new position. Tell me in which order I should arrange my papers in a roadmap; roadmaps are not timed.
- I prefer teams to take at least 2 POIs per constructive speech. You should definitely take clarification questions after reading a plantext, or you will open yourself up to various specification arguments.
- I get influenza after every tournament and I blame it on handshakes. No handshakes.
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