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A. Interpretation: Debaters may not run theory Interpretations they did not write themselves.

B. Violation: This fool wants to find and run a theory file written by others. C. Standards: 1 Academic Integrity: Running an argument you didn't write, and didn't cite is plagiarism. Pure and simple. This has harsh real world consequences and should have similarly harsh consequences in a round-space. College and University diplomas get rescinded based on plagiarism claims. We already require that we cite our evidence a certain way, and students who make up evidence are vilified and forever marked as illegitimate competitors. We should keep the same standards when it comes to theory. 2 Round Participation: Time is an incredibly scare resource during a round, and the more arguments are being made by the debater themselves, the more of an active participant they are in said round. Time spent reading arguments written by others instead of making arguments written by yourself is time spent actively NOT participating in the round. It is intuitive that the amount of round participation is not only linearly related to the amount of education that comes out of it, but it also plays a much bigger role when getting judge feedback, which is when the MOST education happens after a round. This education can only get worse if debaters read arguments they didn't write because that runs the risk that they misunderstood the argument-- leading to a misarticulation of the argument, which leads to a misunderstanding of the argument by the judge, which leads to horrible post-round feedback, which ultimately leads to a very sour look on your coach's face as you try to explain to him why "the judge didn't vote on your Awesome theory thing that I didn't understand...he must not be a good judge" 3 Preserves Debater vs. Debater: Allowing debaters to run arguments they didn't write opens the door to turn the activity into a group of coaches debating each other via proxy. There's no education in a world such as this if you cross apply standard 2 about participation, but also the practice destroys any illusion of fairness left in debate. The better debater is irrelevant, it's all about who has the better coach-- Maybe that's why the ballot asks "who the better debating was done by" instead of "who was the better debater" but in the world of my opponent's interp the ballots might as well come out printed "the debater with the better coaching staff and financial resources is ___". This is entirely unfair to students who operate without a coach or have a coach and want to compete for

themselves. Who cares? Debate is unfair anyways, the point is that the marginal education resultant from reading better arguments that you don't fully understand is FAR outstripped by making slightly less powerful arguments that you yourself came up with, understand, and therefore are able to defend. 4 Preservation of the activity: We can all agree that we need to be able to preserve the ability of debate to exist as an activity--otherwise this discussion over the norms creation that we're having is entirely pointless because it makes no sense to discuss the norms of a nonexistent or future-nonexistent activity. In that being true, we all have a positive obligation to keep debate alive. The perceived education that results from debaters writing their own arguments in the eyes of the parents is what allows their continued participation in the activity and debater participation is what drives the ability of debate to exist and for judges and coaches to get hired. To that end, the judge has a fiduciary obligation to prefer education and my interpretation. 5 Norms creation: Theory creates the core norms for LD debate. We still have no idea what the rules are of LD-- whether or not we should or can run a plan to affirm, how the negative may negate the resolution. Exactly who gets presumption? Is an RVI Legit? Who has the burden of proof? How bad is the time skew really? The groundwork we lay in these years of LD debating will become the accepted norms just as the theory debating that happen in Policy debate the 1970s led to the understanding of Intrinsicness, Stock Issues, Counterplan Net Benefits, Permutations, Fiat, Kritiks, Straight Turns, Double Turns, Strategic Discos, Conditional advocacies, EVEN THE VERY ABCD STRUCTURE OF THE SHELLS WE ARE RUNNING. When creating our core norms, you should always prefer the ones that involve the maximization of individual debater participation and individual educational benefit because to endorse a norm that is less educational when given a choice cements that decision as a norm in the activity, ultimately forcing a race to the bottom. Think about what you are doing here as a judicial precedent and proceed accordingly. The result when analyzed this way is to prefer education, and prefer the interpretation that individuals do their own work. D. Voter: Vote for education. The practices of debaters running interpretations they didn't write gets to the very core of educational activities' goals. Debate is supposed to foster such things as academic integrity and citations. The endorsement of what is functionally plagiarism

must be rejected in this academic setting. It forces a tradeoff of the active participation time of the competitors in a round vs. the time spent in passive non-participation while reading arguments that someone else wrote. You might as well have your coach come up and read your shell for you. There are impacts here that turn the fairness arguments of the other side as well-- in the scenario where debaters read arguments they didn't write, the author of said arguments is the one doing the debating. These people are usually adults, usually coaches and have an inherent advantage over a debater who is writing his/her own args just by having more years of experience in the activity. The education voter comes first for several reasons. 1 It is ostensibly the ONLY tangible real-world impact of a round, that everyone leaves the room having learned SOMETHING. Whereas fairness invariably fails, even when everyone tries to be fair-education does not. 2 Future survival of the activity-- Parents are an overlooked gateway issue in debate. Participants can only do so with parental consent and encouragement, because tournaments often involve funding and other resource requirements. The reason parents endorse and support the activity is because they believe there is a tangible educational benefit to it, so education must come first. These are the same parents that decide to send a student to a different school because of the debate program or pour money into the activity and hire a private coach. The very individuals who fuel and drive the activity don't give 2 shits about fairness. Note that the parental perception argument is critical-- even if my opponent somehow proves that there is no education that comes from debate, you STILL prefer the education voter over fairness because it's the only reason the activity can continue to exist. 3 The norms creation argument is one that is particularly important and should be considered an independent voter by itself. The endorsement of one theory or another at this point is like scratching a message into wet concrete for debaters of many generations into the future to follow. We have an obligation to provide a good message of education and academic integrity. If not, we might as well hit the bong during prep and make it a tradition like the 7th inning stretch because none of this shit matters in a world where education doesn't.

AT: Fairness

Debate is straight up unfair. This is the status quo. It will never be fair. Let's get over it. Unfair inevitable, and Unfair is the way the world works. A few Key points: 1. Some debaters go to public schools while others' parents pay upwards of $30,000 a year to send them to private schools. 2. Some debaters have one coach or no coach, others have a staff of upwards of 5 assistant coaches at their school as well as the college student that mom and dad hired to help cut ev. 3. Some debaters have to work 20 hours a week to help keep food on the table at home. They can only attend a few tournaments a year, and only ones that are local; Other debaters go to a program where literally ZERO percent of the students are facing any type of financial hardship, and yet the school is still the one that finances their airfare, hotel rooms, meals, coaches' fees, judge fees, entry fees, and local transportation/supervision AS WELL AS the liability associated with travelling minors out of their home state on a school sponsored activity. These latter debaters can often be seen complaining about how hard life is for them. You tell me, Fair or Unfair? The point is, the activity works just fine without fairness. It might work better with it, sure, but the consideration is secondary to education if not ENTIRELY moot until we get to the days of a salary cap and revenue sharing like the NBA, (which I can confidently guarantee WE WILL NEVER SIGN A DEBATE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT). Fair is just a place where they judge pigs. Thanks to who wrote this It has helped me in may debates

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