I am a History and Geography teacher at Lied STEM Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I have been judging as a favor for a former student and have really come to love seeing young people speak! Congress is the event that I am most familiar with. I have no problem judging 3 or 4 rounds at a tournament...I know, I'm crazy, right??!!

As someone who has no previous experience with Speech and Debate events, I have developed my own way of judging events through the eyes of the uninitiated.

Since Congress is what I do best, this is what I like to see:

-Please try not to just read off your pad or computer. Anyone can read well, but reading well is not the same as speaking well. Give your speech to the chamber and not to your screen/paper. Competitors who just read their speeches will lose points with me.

-Be conscious of your volume and your enunciation. I need to be able to understand what your saying in order to judge your fairly. Don't yell! That will make me not want to listen. Study the pronunciation of words before giving your speech. Nothing says you don't understand a topic more than when you mispronounce things!

-Make your speech more conversational, rather than technical. Explain things in ways that are easy to understand. Don't assume that I am going to understand your acronyms.

-Make your speech unique. Don't rehash the same things that other speakers have said. The whole point of a debate is to argue the legislation, not to just hit copy and paste.

-Don't be afraid to put your personality into your speech. It's OK sometimes to smile!

-Don't be insulting and rude. That will lose you points. I have no problem with aggressive questioning, but don't let it get personal.

-Good cross-x questions get my attention. Don't ask fluff questions. Ask something relevant.

-Be active. Don't just sit and practice your speech to yourself. Pay attention to what is going on in the chamber. Participate in the experience!

Feel free to ask me questions!

Lay judge. I don't want to hear the debaters spewing at 300 words per minute, I prefer a slightly faster than conversational pace. No, I do not want to be part of an email chain. No, I do not like the recent trend in LD of kritiks and theory and other policy jargon. I like a strong value and criterion debate with both debaters using persuasive speaking skills.

About me:

I am currently a freshman at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, continuing my education at the University of Nevada Reno in 2019. I am polysci major and I hope to go to law school for public international law. I did four years of Speech and Debate at Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas from 2014-2018. I did three years of policy debate, and one year of LD my senior year taking 3rd in the state. I went to Nationals in 2017 for World Schools Debate and again in 2018 as the Golden Desert world schools debate captain. I am pretty informed and up to date on current events but I am definitely no expert. I am also pretty familiar with American government, policy, and relations with respect to current American politics.

Paradigm:

Like I said before, I did four years of debate in HS so I am a flow judge I guess, but I fw a quality traditional debate style. I will basically keep track of the entire round(especially tags) on the flow. Speed is totally okay as long as you can articulate well. IF YOU ARE GOING TO SPREAD, include me in an email chain (deonrileyjr@gmail.com) I do wanna see some quality debate on the logic or the position of being on the Affirmative/Negative. If you're trying to just have a good time, have fun, but don't waste anyone's time. I'm pretty much fine with all types of argument; (i.e. kritiks, topicality, plans, disdads, theory, etc.) however, I have a slight indisposition for them so take that how you will. The more "progressive" or postulatory you become, the more critical I am inclined to be. Therefore you will lose points/ground in the debate if your arguments do not logically make sense or are false. With that being said, I don't have to know or be familiar with the arguments (ex: the kritik) you use beforehand for you to have a well executed kritik. If I don't feel educated after you read your kritik, than you didn't do your job in trying to run that kritik or any argument.

Good ways to get voted up/higher speaks (: really good impact calc, ROTB (AFF/NEG world visualization), accurately applied and explained political philosophy, SIGNPOSTING PLS

Good ways to get voted down/low speaks ): Racist, discriminatory, hateful, or exclusive, homophobic or phobic language of any kind. False information(I might fact check you). sloppy and unorganized debate--> Nobody likes a debater who goes from Cont3 subc and then back to Cont1 suba. Messy, unclear, and poorly executed arguments.

If you have any other specific questions, you can ask me before the round starts. If you wanna follow me, ask me after the round and I'll plug the insta or twitter haha.