I debated Lincoln Douglas in my high school forensics team about 10 years ago and have judged periodically the past few years. I prefer relatively traditional style of debate, but won't mind if you run something more non-conventional. Speed is fine as long as you are understandable and you are doing it for a purpose that makes sense. Ultimately, you must show me how your value structure is what we must look to and how your side better upholds that value. When using cards to further your arguments, please have make your claim, warrant and impact explicit. Please remember to be courteous and professional to each other.

I am a new judge. I don’t want speed, and no theory. I’m not familiar with complicated philosophies, and make sure and tell me exactly why you won the round.

Coach since 2014

For the most part,you'll be looking at this paradigm because I'll be your LD judge. cross-apply these comments to PF as applicable and to policy if/when I get recruited to judge policy.

Speed and Decorum:

Send me your case. This should go without saying, but let me know that you've actually sent me your case. I won't look for your case unless you tell me to look. Speechdrop.net or tabroom share is probably best rather than email.

I don't care if you sit/stand. Really, I don't. Just generally try to remain in the room. I won't be shaking hands.

Please time your speeches and prep time. I may not keep accurate time of this since my attention is to the content of your speeches. Flex prep is fine if all debaters in the round agree.

Debate:

I do not prefer theory. I'm usually left feeling that most debaters let it overcomplicate their arguments or worse. Some may even allow it to further make debate inaccessible (especially to those who are likely already crowded out of this forum in some other way). Please don't run it unless there you see literally NO OTHER WAY to respond to your opponent's arguments. Even then, I may not evaluate it the way you want or expect. If you planning to run dense or tricky theory, you should find a different judge.

You have an absolute obligation to articulate your arguments. Even if I’m familiar with the literature or whatever that you might be referencing I *try* to avoid filling in any gaps.

Signposting = GOOD! Flipping back and forth from AFF flow to NEG flow then back to AFF Flow to NEG Flow....BAD.... VERY, VERY, VERY BAD!

Tricks = no. Thanks.

I will not vote for arguments that are ableist, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. This should go without saying, but for the sake of anyone who needs to see it in writing, there you go.

Above all, strive to make sense. I do not prefer any “style” of debate or any particular kind of argument over another. Regardless of what you run, if your case relies on me to connect the dots for you or if it is a literal mess of crappily cut and equally crappily organized evidence sans warrants, you will probably be sad at the end of the round.

I have done Lincoln Douglas debate for 4 years in high school, both circuit and traditional, with a scatter of PF and some European formats. I debated for Penn State for years competing in NFA-LD. I have also done BP and NPDA Parli, so I'm fairly well versed in different interpretations of debate.

There is no argument I won't vote for on face, excluding outright racism and bigotry. Give me a reason to vote for it and I will. You must extend your arguments through the last speech for me to vote on it. In the absences of an extension in the last speech, I will vote on your opponent's extension. I'm okay with spreading but will call clear if it becomes a problem; if you're opponent is not okay with it, don't do it.

Impact calculus wins rounds. Please do it.

Address the value debate, LD is not PF.

For LD: I am well versed in in most contemporary philosophers that relate to political or social theory. I'll vote on top half over bottom half of the case if you give me an articulated argument on why.

For PF: The event is pretty clear cut. I like clean extensions and strong impact calculus. I prefer collapsing down to main arguments over hitting every argument. I keep a keen eye on new arguments in the final focuses so I'll try my hardest not to vote on them. I don't flow cross, bring it up in your speech.

Other positions: Topicality is a voting issue for me; I'm not insanely well versed on kirtikal authors so try to explain the work.

What used to exist in this text box was a principled stand on my beliefs about what debate ought and ought not to be, what good argumentation looks like, and how the value of this activity as an educational exercise is of paramount importance. Then, after fourteen years involved in debate, I finally learned - debaters will do what they want regardless of my paradigm. So now, rather than list the intricacies of how to win my ballot, I have finally reached a position where I grudgingly accept the fact that debate has changed - I'm not sure for the better - but it's changed nonetheless. As a result, I am open to nearly any and all forms of argumentation, but I will die on the following three hills:

1) Do not spread. Seriously, don't do it. I refuse to move off the concept of debate as an educational activity which develops the rhetorical skills of students. At no point in your life will you need to employ the skill of cramming as many words as possible into a scarce amount of time in order to obfuscate the truth and confuse your listener - unless of course you plan to run for a major elected office. The day I judge a tournament and run into spreading in every single round is the day I leave the speech and debate world forever.

2) The round is won on the strength of your arguments as opposed to the strength of your evidence. Anyone can find any information out there to confirm a perspective. I will not vote for you because your evidence is three months more recent or because your survey sampled ten more people than your opponent's. Please don't get bogged down in the evidence clash - it's boring.

3) Give me specific reasons to vote for you. Literally number them. At the end of a round, judges are expected to render a quick decision with reasons for that decision and turn that reasoning over to Tab to keep the proverbial trains moving. It's a lot easier to do my job when you isolate the key issues in a round and explain why you've won them. Crystallize the debate down to its most essential elements and narrow my view of the round to what matters.

Other than that - it's 2020. In a weird year, feel free to run some weird arguments.

Judge affiliated with Southern Lehigh

General Approach

The most important thing to keep in mind is I only judge a handful of circuit L-D tournaments each year, and I do not read up on debate-specific literature. Still, I competed in L-D for 3 years while in high school. What I'm trying to say is that I'm at the very least familiar with L-D, but I'm not always up on the latest trends and theory. If you run a particular framework or case structure, chances are, I do not know how I'm "supposed" to judge it. In general, you can run anything and I will listen to your argumentation, but your argumentation must explain and justify exactly why I should accept/reject whatever you're talking about.

Now, that in no way means I'll blindly accept an argument I know to be false. I will only judge you based on the arguments presented in round, but I am able to reason about what you're saying, and sometimes I'm already familiar with your warrants. I try to be as fair as possible about this: you're free to creatively interpret or extrapolate from your warrants, but I will not accept a blatant misinterpretation. Sometimes these misinterpretations happen by accident, and this is very unfortunate because the debater will go the entire round without realizing that they're wasting time arguing an interpretation of a warrant I've already rejected. To put it simply, I'm saying that I'll quickly accept interpretations of warrants I believe to be correct, but I'm very slow to accept ones I believe to be incorrect.

Specifics

Resolutionality - I believe strongly in interpreting the resolution the way it was meant to be interpreted. I am not persuaded by arguments that abuse dictionary definitions to push narrow interpretations of the resolution. I also believe that the judge's role is to accept or reject the resolution based on the arguments provided. In general, all arguments should be directly linked back through to the resolution.

Extensions - I evaluate the round based on the impacts and voters that still stand at the end of the round, not based on how many points are extended. To extend an argument, you must at a minimum restate the argument (not just its signpost, although you should signpost too) and restate the impact of the argument. Whether or not you actually say the word "extend" is irrelevant to me.

Drops and Turns - I'll accept that an opponent "drops" an argument if they fail to address it. However, any drops you call out must be impacted. A "turn" is when an opponent's arguments contain a contradiction, either implicitly or explicitly. Turns must be impacted just like drops. Please, please do not call something a "turn" just because you feel you have a strong rebuttal to it or something along those lines.

Framework - You do not need a V/VC, but you do need to tell me at some point how I'm supposed to weigh the round. You need to do this early on so that your opponent has time to rebut your weighing mechanism. Winning the framework debate does not on its own win you the round or give you an advantage, because the framework is nothing but a way to weigh the rest of the arguments made.

Speed - I prefer a slower read, but am capable of keeping up with significant speed. However, if you cannot speak quickly without tripping over your words, I highly recommend that you slow down. The faster you speak, the more clear you need to be. If I can't follow your logic because you stuttered your way through all of your signposts and impacts, then tough cookies.

Misc. Stuff

Signposting and Cards - Please, do not use the tags of your cards as signposts for your arguments; warrants can have implications beyond the original contention they're linked to, and arguments do not fall simply because the warrant is challenged. Therefore, please use actual signposts as your primary method of organizing your speeches.

Oral Critiques/Disclosure - Unless the tournament specifically tells judges otherwise, I am willing disclose the winner of a round. If asked to give an oral critique, I will only address style issues. This means that I tend to give very unhelpful oral critiques and I usually sound like I'm nitpicking.

Evidence - I will not read your evidence before, during, or after the round, unless someone claims evidence was falsified. You are of course free to share evidence amongst yourselves, but I do not require it.

Timing - If your timer makes a loud, obnoxious sound when time is up, do not use it to time your opponent.

Experience

Debated 4 years in HS from 2007-2011 (LD [3 years] PF [1 years]) on the circuit.

Preferences

Speaking

I judge several tournaments a year, but am largely removed from the event otherwise. This makes egregious spreading inadvisable. I will say clear once if you are unintelligible, however after that point you are on your own and my retention of your arguments may suffer. Please enunciate card names. I can't stress this enough.

Philosophy / Arguments

Ultimately, i'm going to judge you on the flow. The years have made me slightly more traditional, but i'm still very open to non-traditional cases. Plans, CP's, disads, are all kosher with me. Careful with the more critical material, and if you do run it make sure it is explained well. I tend to have a higher bar of expectations for those who run kritiks, so bear that in mind. I believe theory is necessary to counter abuse, however, if you run it make sure it's well explained and necessary. I'm largely unsympathetic to debaters who employ it offensively.

Technique

Most often, the more technically proficient debater will win my ballot. Make sure your extensions are clear (author names, internal warrants). Give me a standard, link and impact to that standard, and give me weighing analysis for competing offense.

Misc. Preferences

I'm not going to decide the round on whether you sit or stand, or what you're wearing. Do what makes you most comfortable and will produce the best round. Flex prep is more than okay with me. It is expected that you will time yourself. I will keep time for prep, and that's it.

I am the Director of Forensics and head LD coach at Cary Academy. I would describe myself as a neo-traditionalist. I follow a traditional approach to LD with some notable exceptions. I am a typical traditionalist in that I prefer a debate centered on a common sense, reasonable, good faith interpretation of the resolution; and I believe speakers should emphasize effective communication and practice the habits of fine public speaking during the debate. I differ from many traditionalists in that I am not a fan of the value premise and criterion, and that I do not believe that LD arguments have to be based on broad philosophical concepts, but rather should be as specific to the particular resolution as possible. If you want to win my ballot you should focus on developing a clear position and showing how it is superior to the position put forth by your opponent. You should not attempt to make more arguments than your opponent can respond to so that you can extend them in rebuttal. In my opinion most rounds are not resolved by appeals to authority. The original analysis and synthesis of the debater is vastly more important to me than cards. For further insight on my views please consult these following articles I have written for the Rostrum:

http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/ld%20Pellicciotta0202.pdf,

https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/Luong%20RJ%20PresumptionNov'00.pdf

http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Schmidt%2C+Joshua

I debated policy 4 years for Lake City High School in Coeur d'Alene Idaho (ok, technically I debated 3 years for CdA and then 1 year for Lake City which was a brand new school). I did this in the 90s. Policy debate was different back then.

I did not debate in college and have coached for many years now (PF and LD).

Lincoln Douglas

I value the resolution. I believe Aff has a burden to show the resolution is, generally speaking, a true statement. Neg has the burden to show it is a false statement.

The method by which we typically answer the question of the resolution is the criterion (value-criterion or standard). I should note that I am completely open to other methods of answering the question of the resolution. What most people mis-understand is that these methods must actually address the question and not some other question that you wish we were debating.

When it comes time to decide the round I will do the following: First - I will try and decide which criterion to use as a method for deciding the round. This means that you are extremely well advised to compare and contrast your criterion with your opponents. If both criterions are shown to be not worth using then I will just weigh generic “impacts” broadly defined and largely up to my own personal biases. You don’t want this to happen.

If I happen to choose your opponents criterion then you want to link into it and show how you also win the round under your opponents method of deciding the victor. This is a very good idea and I encourage you to do it.

Second - I will use the best criterion to decide the round. This is where I look at your contentions and impact level arguments and decide how they interact with the criterion I am using. Make sure your impacts are clearly applicable under your criterion.

General Notes: Speed - I can handle some amount of moderate speed that is getting less and less as I get older. I will generally not say “clear” because my main problem with speed is that your argument stops making sense to me, I can understand all the words just not the overall meaning. I wouldn’t say “clear” if you made a poor argument and I won’t say “clear” if you make a poor argument quickly.

Warrants - I highly value warrants that are explained well by the actual debater in rebuttals. Thus, you should extend the reasoning behind each piece of evidence in addition to just mentioning its name and assuming I will do the hard work of applying its logic to the round.

Author names - Refer to arguments themselves and not just “author name and #” and expect that to convince me of anything. I am generally unconvinced that something is true just because somebody got it published somewhere. (see point above about actually understanding and explaining your warrants, especially in rebuttals and especially in how those warrants interact with the argument).

Off Topic Arguments - these are generally a bad idea. I only consider the hypothetical world in which we enact the resolution (for the Aff) or negate the resolution (for the Neg). I do not consider “real world” impacts. That being said, if you have a particular argument that actually addresses the resolution then go for it, just be very sure that it actually answers the hypothetical question of the resolution and doesn’t do something else.

Circular arguments - most value debates come down to circular arguments where somebody will say without value X then value Y is meaningless and then the response will be, but value Y is necessary in order to fully realize value X. Understand that you should respond to these arguments if your opponent makes them because a dropped argument is a true argument. But these are unlikely to actually advance the debate in your favor. On the other hand, very specific arguments about values grounded in the resolution can be extremely convincing to me and are often very strategically wise to make.

Policy Debate

Basically, everything I said above about Lincoln Douglas is still true with a couple of relatively minor exceptions. First - Neg has presumption in policy debate and I will vote Neg if no Aff impacts carry through the round.

Second - I want to reemphasize that I view my role as the judge to compare the hypothetical world in which the Aff implements their plan to the Neg world (SQ or CP). The role of the ballot is to endorse the team that best does that and to explain my thinking about that question. I do not listen to any arguments about other ideas you might have about what the role of the ballot or the judge is in the round. Utilitarianism is not the only method for making this hypothetical comparison and I will listen to moral arguments (and indeed welcome them), but they must be grounded in the hypothetical debate world and not the “real” world.





Old Philosophy (basically the same as above, but I felt that I must have been unclear about a few things so I tried to explain better above).
I feel that debate is a game. Games have goals. The Aff's goal is to show that the resolution is generally a true statement. The Neg's goal is to show that the resolution is generally not true. My job is to evaluate who has accomplished their goal better.

The traditional value/value-criterion is a very efficient way of acheiving your goal; I understand what you are doing and therefore you do not need to spend much time clarifying how this causes you to meet your goal. I am open to other ways of meeting your goal, but make sure you are clearly explaining how your argument impacts the resolution. Also, you are probably being much less clear than you think you are, so explain your argument as clearly as you can and then clarify it more.

Speaking of clarity, talking fast really only works if the idea is simple to explain. For complicated ideas you should slow down (and almost *all* of philosophy is pretty complicated). Remember to explain your criterion particularly well as this is where I look to see exactly how you want me to evaluate the round. You want me to understand this very, very well so don't speed through it.

How I decide between two competing arguments. A good argument does the following: it is clearly explained (yes, this is a theme), it is relevant (i.e. it addresses your goal or it actually addresses the argument you are attacking), it is properly explained why your argument might be true (i.e. it has a warrant). It is important to note that bald assertions are not warrants and that quoting an "expert" who then makes a bald assertion is not particularly persuasive to me and can easily be overturned by your opponent's original analysis.

Arguments that the game of debate is fundamentally unfair are not persuasive to me (nothing in life is fair and much of what is perceived to be unfair in one way is actually tilted the other way).

Finally, I love crystallization. At the end of the debate I like a nice tidy list of things I should vote for you on and clear reasons why you are winning that list (it is also very helpful to weigh the arguments you are winning vs. the arguments your opponent might have won).

I am a parent judge who competed in Speech in high school. This is my second year judging LD. While I appreciate progressive cases, I tend to be more of a traditionalist. I consciously make an effort to leave any opinions at the door and make my decisions based on evidence. Debators that demonstrate well thought out cases, good communication skills and solid evidence cards tend to get my vote.

LD debater for Ridge High School for 2008-2012. Have judged across CX, LD, PF.

Speed: I judge sporadically, so keep that in mind when spreading - clarity is important regardless of the speed. I will yell "clear" twice, after that it is up to you to determine if I am flowing.

Casing: No preference in the type of argumentation (K, Theory, LARP, stock) you run in front of me, however, if you are running something that skews away from the stock, please spend the time to explain the argument, interactions of the argument on the flow, impact, and weighing.

Theory: If no justification, I assume competing interpretations. However I am open to whatever framework that is justified in round (e.g., reasonability, RVI). Just be clear on how you want the ballot to function.

Feel free to ask specific questions before the round - I tend to find that more fruitful.