1. I would rather hear the arguments than try to decipher a speed talker.

2. Just because you effectively shut down your opponent via interrupting rather than the strength of your arguments and logic, you will most likely lose the round.

3. Correlation is NOT causation. Just because there's a correlation does not mean you have "proved" anything!

3A. Additionally, you never "prove" anything. Your arguments are logically stronger or weaker.

4. Don't concede anything!!!!!! Ever!!!!! Always spar to win the point. Verbally spar, not physical sparring!

5. You can be considerate of your opponents and still engage in lively debate.

6. I may stop you after your speech to request clarification.

7. Please don't solicit verbal critiques. I will politely decline.

8. You may sit, stand, kneel, cross your legs, or whatever when you speak. Whatever makes you comfortable.

9. Please understand that I have nothing personal against you if you lose the round. I attempt to take notes and do my best every single time. However, I do not walk on water and I can't make the blind see.

Thanks!

Top Level

Former debater (Walter Payton ‘16 and Pitt ‘20) and former coach (Central Catholic high school). No longer actively involved and not familiar with the topic.

luisacusick [at] gmail (put me on the e-mail chain)

I'll do my best to make a decision based solely on the arguments presented in the debate. Your speaker points will benefit from specific and well-researched strategies

Please be kind to your opponents and partner! I am very concerned with the way (esp. national circuit) policy debate trains us to treat other people

Relevant Predispositions

- Condo is good. Counterplan theory depends on the quality of the solvency advocate and my proclivities change from topic to topic
- I default to kicking the counterplan for the neg if they win offense but don't win the counterplan
- Skills and process framework arguments are more persuasive to me than topic education arguments
- I don’t like how little evidence quality matters in policy debates. I wish it were debated more
- It pretty much never makes sense to assign anything 100% risk. Likewise, minimizing an argument's risk to a small enough signal means it's overwhelmed by noise, and that's enough to assign it 0 risk

Kale Fithian—Erie (PA) McDowell Policy Paradigm

Background: I competed in extemp in high school and speech/LD in college in the early to mid 1990s. I never competed in policy debate. I picked up judging after being trained about 20 years ago. I judge 10-15 rounds a year mostly at local tournaments in Western Pennsylvania/Eastern Ohio. I occasionally judge circuit debate and have judged several times at NCFL Grand Nationals.

I would best be described as an experienced traditional judge with some exposure to circuit policy debate. Speed is not something that I am philosophically opposed to but I can probably only handle about 65-70% of the fastest spreading. Clear tags and direction on the flow will help. I will say clear if needed.

I flow on legal pads and don’t access technology during the round. It has to be on my flow for me to vote on it and not just in an email chain.

I am reasonably well versed on current events but do not have any especially specific knowledge of this topic area.

Round Procedure: I will time just in case there is a dispute but otherwise you are welcome to time yourselves. I won’t count any technology time such as flashing information against prep but it is your responsibility to let me know that you have stopped prepping.

Open cross-ex is fine with me but I will not require any questions to be answered during anyone’s prep time.

I am not overly concerned with formality of procedure but I will penalize heavily for clear unsportsmanlike or inappropriate behavior. Treat the activity and your opponents with respect and this should not be an issue.

I will disclose and do a brief reason for decision but I write most of my comments on the physical or computer ballot.

General Philosophy: My goal at the beginning of any round is to be as non-interventionist and tab rasa as possible. It will be the debaters’ job to identify the key issues of the round, argue them and guide me by providing voting issues. If there is a true breakdown of the round or lack of clash I will default to policymaker with an impact calculus as my preferred method of round evaluation.

Specific Arguments:

T—I have a fairly high threshold for T. I will tend to default to a reasonableness argument unless the Neg clearly wins the line by line.

FW—I am always open to either side framing the debate and setting up the importance of the arguments (as noted above in my tab rasa philosophy). I will not vote specifically on FW but if you can show the specific reason your arguments win under a FW I agree with you will most likely win the round if your points truly match the FW. If you can show what specifically you are missing out on if I accept your opponent’s framework that would go a long way.

CP—I am open to CP’s by the neg. If your CP will lead to a better net benefit than the Aff plan then I am going to potentially vote for it as part of the impact calc in the round. Likewise if the Aff plan has better net benefits then the Neg then I would be inclined to vote Aff at least on the plan portion. I am however not opposed to the Aff running T, harms, DA, etc… against a CP.

DA—I will consider both the Aff and Neg running DAs against a plan or counterplan to be fair arguments relating to the effectiveness of those cases. If the DAs outweigh the net benefits of either that can be a key voter in the round.

K—I am fine with Ks being run but it is up to the debater running it to make sure they explain the potential impact/consequences/reasons for the K to be accepted and to show why the topic or case is truly related to the K.

On Case—I am favorable to the Neg being able to attack the Aff case. I am more likely to vote on some sort of harms but will vote stock issues if it is clearly won in argumentation.

Performance Aff/Aff K—I am not very familiar and hold a high threshold here. If this is done it will need to be clearly explained as to why this is clearly better than running a traditional case.

Fiat—I will grant Aff fiat and any non-attacked plan gets full benefits as if it happened (granted harms etc.. could still be argued).

Lincoln Douglas Addendum:

I have been judging Lincoln Douglas for about 20 years and judge about 20-25 rounds each season mostly at local tournaments in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. I have very limited exposure to any sort of circuit Lincoln Douglas but since I judge policy somewhat regularly I am still passingly familiar with the style. However I do not feel spreading or excessive speed should be common in Lincoln Douglas. Fast conversational pace should be the highest pace needed.

For all of the round procedures see above from the policy paradigm. For Lincoln Douglas I still try to be as Tab Rasa as possible and have the students determine the key voting issues in the round. However both my philosophy and judging experience leans heavily towards the traditional LD style. So in a close round I will default to who won the value and potentially criterion clash more heavily than practical applications, policy implications, or solvency. I do flow the main arguments and rebuttals for the debate but I am fine with grouping or big picture arguments and cross-application. However it must be clearly explained why an argument successfully counters multiple opposing views or why a cross-application is valid. I value the argumentation aspect of debate in LD more as I consider it to be a truly separate event from policy.

I was my school's debate coach for five years and have been judging both public forum and Lincoln Douglas debates during that time period.  I am now retired but continue to judge for my former team. 

While I am ok with speed, please do not spread and be careful that you enunciate clearly.  If I can't understand what you are saying, I won't be able to flow your speech and I will be frustrated at the end of the round. 

I do work my way down the flow and prefer that debaters argue in the order of the flow.  I do pay attention to dropped points but only if there is additional commentary on why the drop is important. Organizational skills matter so please go in the order that items were mentioned and try not to bounce around. If a round is close, I do consider voting issues to be a good way to break ties so please leave yourself enough time to include them.

I also expect all competitors to be respectful of each other. I will dock points for outwardly rude or arrogant behavior.

I can’t follow you/hear everything if you don't speak succinctly & enunciate. I prefer evidence for your stance & logical counters to your opponent’s views. I’m mostly conservative BUT I am not afraid to live outside the box!! Find an example of your substantive points and show me it is in use in the real world. I am not in need of 'off time roadmaps' I will listen to what you say.

My paradigm isn't very complicated, but you'll notice that I'm a bit different that your average judge out on circuit these days. I'm pretty old school. At my core I'm a policy maker. I'm not a fan of critical arguments however, if they can be explained as a policy option then go for it. However, if I wanted to judge a round about how great the world would be if we were all just nicer to each other, then I'd be over in the LD pool. I have voted on both critical affs and negative K arguments, but I have a lower tolerance for them. Speaking of LD, I'm going to add on some LD specific stuff at the bottom.

I will never say that I'm a Tab judge. I'm just not. I will not make any excuses for that. I think it's unrealistic to assume anyone comes to a round with no biases. For example, I spent 20 years as a meteorologist. I have a degree in Atmospheric Sciences and was on television for most of that 20 years. SO, I will evaluate ANY warming arguments both for and against with a great degree of scrutiny. If you're going to run climate arguments in one my rounds you had better know your stuff because I will almost guarantee that I know the material much better than you do and I did it for a living and I won't accept half-baked or poorly understood arguments. Just because you can read something doesn't mean I have to accept it as truth especially if I know better, no matter WHAT your opponent says. THAT is the real world.

Politics arguments...understand that you can run them but know this, I am a complete non-believer in the theory of political capital. I don't believe it exists, nor will I ever be convinced that it exists. I do however believe that decisions are made and will be made with political considerations as a key motivator. That however doesn't mean that a president's ability to get something passed is impacted by some immeasurable, unquantifiable power metric that has no threshold where success or failure can be predicted.

Are you getting the idea that I'm a real world kind of judge? Good, because that's me in a nutshell. I love high quality, well researched discussions on what ifs, but they need to be based on real science, realistic scenarios, or at least scenarios with impacts that can be reached with a quality link chain. This year's resolution is EXTREMELY tangible and has so many real world implications that you should treat it as such. If we end up in the weeds talking about garbage that's only important to half a dozen people in a fringe think tank located in the broom closet of a lost downtown community college, then don't waste 90 minutes of my time.

Okay, enough with the I hate stuff. How about what I like. Well constructed arguments with strong links, well thought out analysis and clearly delivered. I like debaters that look like they're having fun. This is verbal gladiatorial games, and that's why we love it. Keep it cordial. Make it light when you can and engage with the judges when it's appropriate. We have to spend a good amount of time in a room together, so let's make the best of it. In the end, one team will win, and one team will lose, but we should all feel like we spent meaningful, entertaining, and educational time together.

With regard to LD since I judge that occasionally, like I said above, I'm a bit old school and that applies here as well. I DO NOT like my LD to be like my policy. They are different events for a reason. I detest progressive LD with a passion because every time I've judged it, it has turned into really poorly done policy debate. I'm a traditional LD judge that enjoys the value clash. I'm sure that will come as a disappointment to many of you, but it is what it is. Spreading in LD is unnecessary. I've been judging policy for nearly 20 years so It's not like I can't handle it. I just don't like it in LD. Just like I mentioned above, if you read it, I like clear analysis. Strategic arguments are worth their weight in gold...and speaker points. Keep it fun. Keep it fair. Keep it entertaining.