Constance Gordon -- San Francisco State
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Judging philosophy:
Constance Gordon: an illusive Marxist fashion model. I debated for San Francisco State for four years and currently coach there. Run what you want, what you are good at, what is strategic and what you are excited about. I will listen to it. I also don’t think there is a universal right way to run an argument. I enjoy strategy and creativity. I am here to evaluate what you spend most of your time doing, not to make you feel bad if I disagree with style/content. I will do my best to work as hard as you do. I value smart, warranted, truthful arguments over a six second extension with no historical or well thought out basis. Quality over quantity. Please make your tags full sentences. “Plan key” and “extinction” are silly little tags that I think are funny. Paperless: Have your evidence in order of how you will be reading it. Don’t steal prep. Be efficient and keep the round moving. Framework and T: I’m open to it. I do think the argument that the affirmative must be germane to the topic is more persuasive than ‘you must defend a topical policy option’. I like creative ways to prove that the affirmative’s advocacy is not a political act or that somehow they cannot garner solvency for the impacts they claim. Sometimes these are better form of case debate. Theory: Slow down here please or I won’t catch your blips. I won’t be good with a theoretical throwdown, to be honest. But I do think some things are just silly, like aff conditionality. What’s up with that? Case debate: Moar plz. Critical affirmatives or performance: I am comfortable here. Have a strong defense of your method. It’s great to have a large critical impacts, but let me know what your method does to resolve, deal with, uncover and so on, what you are criticizing, even if it is within the debate space. A role of the ballot is needed, but try and distinguish it from your advocacy/action, etc. Ks: I like strategic k debate. This means the more specificity and flexibility the better. Use the other teams evidence to contextualize your links always. I am also a fan of coupling this with some more specific case work too. Have a role of the ballot. Be clear how your alternative solves the case or why if it doesn’t, what it does instead. If you don’t want to go for the alternative and instead want to go for the larger case turn and/or presumption duo, I am into that too. Counterplans & Disads: Do your thing. That comment about making your tags full sentences applies here too. I am big on internal links. Have them, explain them, tell a story. Spend more time discussing timeframe and probability over magnitude. Note: You can have fun and take debate seriously at the same time. Laugh, be nice to your opponents and your partner, make friends, be smart and make debate what you want it to be.
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