Please add me to the email chain using rane.baldwin@gmail.com .

I debated policy for 4 years in high school in Kansas, coached PF for 2 years in Iowa during college, and then coached policy for a couple years in Boston. l now work for an urban debate league on the east coast. This means that I watch a lot of TOC circuit rounds but judge infrequently.

I will listen to anything and enjoy K's, although my knowledge of the lit itself is limited and you thus need to be explicit. I am tabula rasa, but arguments that are highly racist/sexist/cissexist/islamaphobic, etc will be devastating to your speaker points and potentially harm my ability to evaluate the technical aspects of the round. In other words, please don't tell me that immigrants are terrorists. I will be super annoyed with you.

My threshold for arguments with impacts like fairness and education is quite high and I will expect you to articulate your warrants thoroughly. I need to know what you mean by "critical pedagogy" and why specifically you are better for debate than your opponents.

Please articulate and do not speak faster than you can do so clearly. I'm okay with speed and spreading but am not comfortable judging extremely fast debates. I may ask you to slow down.

hey, you found my paradigm. good job.

rnix@bostondebate.org

Policy Debate Coach for 3 years at Edward M Kennedy (MA), now working for the Boston Debate League. I'm familiar with the resolution and most of the common policy Affs this year. I'm familiar with the more common K and Theory arguments, but if you're running a theory-heavy kritikal aff, do a little bit extra to make sure I understand your argument. I believe my role as the judge is to help both teams improve their arguments and learn from the round.

I go blank slate as best as possible, but I will vote down offensive arguments, and I will explain myself fully in my feedback if that is the reason why I voted you down. I will vote on anything, including K, T, Theory, FW.

Please extend your positions throughout the debate, if you drop an entire position in a speech, even if you bring it back later, I will vote on fairness/violation issues (but only if the other team actually explains the nature of the violation and why I should care that there was a violation in the round, I will do my best not to intervene). Violations won't lose you the debate, but they may cause me not to consider some of your arguments.

I will only ask to see evidence if there has been a direct challenge by the opposing team to it's content or validity.

Impact analysis is the debate round. Convince me why your impacts within your framework are best and why you best achieve your framework and you'll win the round. If one side drops framework, I will assume whatever framework the other team gives me. You need to do the work to weigh the most important arguments at the end of the round. It's safe to assume that if an argument was run and extended throughout the debate that I will at least minimally weigh it in my decision calc, so ultimately you need to explain to me why the summation of your impacts outweighs those of the other team.

I'm pretty good with speed, but volume is important, as long as you're loud enough we'll be all set. There is something to be said for emphasizing your most important points by extending them throughout the round and changing your tone when you present them. Otherwise I will assume everything you're saying has equal weight, which may not benefit you in the round.

Organization is important. Tell me which flow you're on and tell me when you move to something new. If you're giving a line-by-line, let me know, otherwise I'm going to flow everything straight down as an over/underview. I won't do the work for you on the flow.

boston latin academy '17

smith college '21

email: maryannepas@gmail.com (yes, pls add me to the chain!)

i am a senior in college and have been judging on and off since i graduated high school. i did policy debate, mostly reading k arguments. i have not done any research for this topic so i would really appreciate explanations of topic-specific minutiae & acronyms

TLDR:

do what you do best unless it is offensive. to get my ballot, all you gotta do is tell me how to vote, how to evaluate the round, and explain why you should win. your last speech should be writing a ballot for me. pick the arguments you are winning on the flow and explain/weigh your impacts, and dont drop anything important. please extend warrants, not just tags. i will also probably not do any work for you unless the debate is really close so i would much rather you explain the warrants of a card rather than telling me to read it after the round. most importantly, just have fun with it and be kind to each other.

LD

i have judged a handful of LD rounds, however, i never did LD in high school so I'm really not super familiar with it. as long as you explain your arguments though, I should be able to follow. if you go for theory, i really want to hear in-round impacts or scenarios. if you go for an RVI, make sure that it is reasonable.

Speed

slow down for online debates. please be clear or i will probably not be able to flow you.

K affs

i am absolutely cool with these arguments, and really appreciate well-written k affs. i love judging these debates, however, these affirmatives do require lots of explanation in comparison to regular policy affs -- explain your methods, your authors' arguments, why a rejection of the rez is important...

Ks

explain the alternative and tell me why the k outweighs the aff. i love a good link debate. don't expect me to be familiar with your k lit though, please explain your arguments, especially if you are reading high theory.

Topicality

do impact calc, compare interp evidence, and weigh your interpretation against the other.

Framework

tell me why your model of debate is preferable, why education offered through policy simulation on this topic is good, do impact calc. i appreciate a good TVA.

Theory

i haven't voted on theory a lot, but if you prove in round abuse and impact it well, you're golden.

Flashing

PLEASE keep it short and sweet. If you start taking too long to flash, I will start prep.

Feel free to e-mail me or ask me questions about my paradigm before the round! If you want to know more about how I think about debate, just read Moselle Burke's paradigm