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National Speech and Debate Season Opener

2019 — Lexington, KY/US

Public Forum Paradigm List

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Saahit Adabala Hire 8 rounds

Last changed on Sat January 25, 2020 at 6:12 AM CDT

Broad Preferences

For the most part, I debated pretty tech throughout my high school career. I will be able to catch pretty much anything you throw at me. Debating tech does not mean card dumping. I prefer warranting behind claims and will always prove unwarranted analytics over unwarranted cards.

Overall, my judging style is tabula rasa. I will vote off of only what happens in the round.

Big picture weighing is very important

If you want me to evaluate anything at the end of the round it has to be extended through Summary and FF(except for first summmary defense which I mention later)

More Preferences

- no spreading

- I love weighing. Comparative weighing is the easiest way to my ballot. Do the work for me. Start weighing early.

- I also love collapsing. IMO, going die hard on 1 arg is a lot better than 5 blippy args. I just think its smarter debate.

- BE NICE. Should go without saying.(Here is a tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7eXooGBC5U)

- Please have an author with all your cards. If needed, I will call for cards at the end of the round, but I don't want to. Just don't be sketchy, you should have nothing to hide.

- I like flushed out warrants and specific, clear impacts. If I had to choose between the two it would definitely be the warrants. You need to have really well-warranted arguments and your links have to be strong by the end of the round.

- You don't need defense in first summary, but if you think it is necessary to your narrative then please extend it to show me how important it is.

- It's not necessary, but I really really want to see frontlining in second rebuttal.

Even More Preferences

- Dont be afraid to be funny. I know how stressful and long debate tournaments are. We could all use a laugh here and there.

- I like bee arguments

Please ask questions before the round if you have any doubts. I wrote this paradigm while watching Netflix so I may have missed some things. Good luck to all the debaters.

Jill Baisinger Walt Whitman

Last changed on Tue August 27, 2019 at 3:05 PM EDT

I debated four years in high school (Kansas, policy) and college (Kansas State University, Cross-Examination Debate Association) and coached and judged a college team for a year after graduating (Macalester College, Cross-Examination Debate Association). That was a long time ago, though, so you should probably treat me as a lay judge at this point.

Here is what you should know:

· I don't mind speed, but I can't flow like I used to, so you take a risk if you speak very quickly. I will tell you to slow down if I can’t keep up or I can’t understand you.

· Signpost well and often. Tell me exactly where you’re going and what order you’re going to cover things. Be very specific about what arguments you’re answering. Try not to make me jump around the flow because I will miss things.

· Collapse arguments starting in second rebuttal—don’t try to extend everything. (Also, simply saying the word “extend” will not be sufficient.) I was a fairly technical debater and liked that style, but, as I said above, that was a long time ago. I prefer one or two complete, well-developed arguments to multiple arguments with minimal explanation.

· Explain why you win, and tell me exactly why I should vote for you. If I have a lot of arguments but don’t have a clear explanation of what matters and why, it’s much harder for me to make a decision. The sooner you start weighing in round, the easier it is for me to vote for you. Please don’t wait until final focus.

· I’ll accept almost any argument, but explain to me why it matters. Don’t assume I understand its significance, especially if it’s a theory-based argument.

· Please provide full sources. A card from a credible source will have more weight than one from a marginal or unexplained source. If you don’t assess credibility and the relative merits of sources, I will do it on my own.

· I may ask to read evidence, especially if your argument depends on it.

Tyler Barkich Pittsburgh Central Catholic

Matt Bartula Sequoyah High School

Eric Belcik Centerville

Last changed on Sat February 10, 2024 at 3:18 AM EDT

Sup

I did PF for 4 years in high school and this is my 6th year coaching. I also debated a little bit in college as well.. I have coached PF for 6 years and LD for 3.

Per usual, I make an effort to update my paradigm for every ohio state tournament and discuss my general paradigm, current trends in ohio debate (from my view point), and then any specific PF/LD comments.

Generally speaking, my flow is going to be pretty detailed. A lot of my decisions are made heavily on the flow. However, weighing your arguments is really crucial, especially in the scenario where each side has the same # of arguments won. On the concept of extending/frontlining, to me, if you want to win an argument, it needs to be extended/brought up in each speech. Like, if my contention 2 is going to win me this round because it is soooo important, i better hear about it in every speech. At the same time, I don't think you need to extend/reread your blocks to the opponent's case if they do not address them, simply just say they didn't address them. Which brings me to a pretty important concept... "my opponent did not respond to this argument": 1) if you say this, and they did in fact, respond to the argument, that is bad for you. 2) If you say this and they did not respond to the argument at all, it's straightforward and good for you. 3) if you can explain why your opponent's responses miss the mark and do not actually address the argument that you are making - this is really good for you (I feel like people don't take advantage of this enough).

That brings me to my "current trend in debate". Full transparency, I am typically in tab nowadays at tournaments and judge significantly less than I used to. This year specifically, I find that at the end of the round, a lot of the contention level arguments are being won by neither side and are a wash. Here's an example of why this is happening: Team A reads a contention. Team B gives 3 blocks to the contention. Team A will frontline and respond to 2 of those blocks. Team B will only extend the unresponded to block and defend one of the blocks. Then team A will say that they actually responded to all blocks. It becomes a mess. You are probably reading this saying "Oh I would never do that" or "wow why is this guy spending so much time explaining a random scenario". BUT, you all do it! the best debaters are the ones that can address everything on the flow. That does not mean they frontline all 12 responses against their case, but they have the knowledge and understanding of their argument to know which responses matter, which responses can be grouped, which responses can be indicted, and which responses can be ignored. If you want to be the best, prove it on the flow.

LD - I really like a good value/VC debate. But, if they are just the same thing, just have the contention level debate. With that being said, more often than not people just say "our values are the same" when they actually aren't.

PF - I debated PF when summary was 2 minutes. It’s now 3. That changes EVERYTHING. It’s basically an extension of the rebuttal. Like, if I were a PF debater today, I would go full flow the first 3 speeches and then use the final focus to analyze the flow.

Lori Bendall Chagrin Falls HS

Sandy Berkowitz The Blake School

Last changed on Fri January 5, 2024 at 1:47 PM CDT

Revised April 11, 2018

Sandy Berkowitz

The Blake School (Minneapolis, MN), where I teach communication and coach Public Forum, World Schools, Policy, and Congressional Debate. I also coach the USA Development Team and Team USA in World Schools Debate.

I debated policy in high school and college and began coaching in the early 1980s. In addition to the events listed above, I have coached and judged Lincoln Douglas, Extemp, Oratory, Rhetorical Criticism/Great Speeches, Informative, Discussion, and (and to a lesser extent) Interp events, at variety of schools in IL, NY, NC, MN, MI, ME, and CA.

Public Forum

Fundamentally, I believe that PF provides debaters with opportunities to engage and debate key issues of the day before experienced debate and community judges. It is useful and important to understand and adapt to a judge’s preferences. So, for me:

General issues

--The crux of PF is good solid argumentation delivered well. Solid arguments are those that relate to the resolution, are well organized, well warranted, and supported with quality evidence that is explained.

--Good analytical arguments are useful but not normally sufficient. If you make an argument, you bear the responsibility of supporting, explaining, and weighing the argument.

--I flow. But, clarity is your responsibility and is key to a good debate.

Evidence Ethics

--Evidence is critical to building good arguments and that includes warrants. Use academically rigorous and journalistic sources to support your arguments. Offering a laundry list of 5-10 names with few warrants or methodology is not persuasive.

--Proper citation is essential. That does not mean “University X” says. A university did not do the study or write the article. Someone did. Source name and date is required for oral source citation. Providing qualifications orally can definitely enhance the clarity and persuasiveness of your argument. The complete written citation (including source name, date, source, title, access date, url, quals, and page numbers) must be provided when asked in the round.

--Exchange of evidence is mandatory when requested. There is not infinite prep time to find evidence. If it takes you more than a minute to find a card when asked, or all you can provide is a 50 page pdf, then I will disregard it.

--Paraphrasing is not as persuasive as reading cards and using the evidence appropriately to develop and deepen your arguments.

--If you have misconstrued evidence, your entire argument can be disregarded.

--Evaluate your own and your opponents’ evidence as part of your comparative analysis.

Strategic issues

--Extending arguments goes beyond authors and tag lines. Extend and develop the arguments.

--Narrative is key. Debate is inherently persuasive. Connect the arguments and tell a story.

--It is in the best interest of the second speaking team for the rebuttalist to rebuild their case. If the 2nd speaking team does not do that, they likely yield the strategic advantage to the 1st speaking team.

--Avoid Grand becoming yelling match, which is not useful to anyone.

--Clash is critical. It is vital to weigh your arguments, which is best to begin before the final focus. Write the ballot in the final focus.

Delivery and Decorum

--PF, and all debate, is inherently a communication activity. Speed is fine, but clarity is absolutely necessary. If you unclear or blippy, you do so at your own peril.

--Be smart. Be assertive. Be engaging. But, do not be a bully.

--Racist, xenophobic, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other oppressive discourses or examples have no place in debate.

Finally, have fun and enjoy the opportunity for engagement on important questions of the day.

World Schools

Worlds is an exciting debate format that is different from other US debate and speech formats. It is important for you to understand and adapt to the different assumptions and styles of Worlds. Content (the interpretation of the motion [definitions, model, stance], arguments, analysis, and examples), Style (verbal and nonverbal presentation elements), and Strategy (organization, decision making, engagement, and time allocation) all factor in to the decision and should be seen as critical and interrelated areas. Some things to consider:

--As Aristotle noted, we are influenced by both logos and pathos appeals, which you should develop through both examples and analysis. Thus, narratives are critical. Not just a story to “put a face on the motion,” but an overall narrative for your side of the debate.

--Motions are, in most cases, internationally, globally focused and your examples and analysis should reflect that.

--Have multiple, varied, and international examples that are used not only in the first speeches, but are also developed further and added in the second and third speeches to be more persuasive.

--Racist, xenophobic, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other oppressive discourses or examples have no place in debate.

--POIs can be statements or questions and are a key element of engagement during the debate. Questioners should be strategic in what to pose and when. Speakers should purposefully choose to take POIs and smartly respond to them. Typically, speakers will take 1-2 questions per constructive speech, but that is the speaker’s strategic choice.

--Importantly, carry things down the bench. Answer the arguments of the other side. Rebuild and develop your arguments. Engage in comparative analysis.

--Third speeches should focus the debate around clash points or key questions or key issues. Narrow the debate and offer comparative analysis.

--Reply speeches should not include new arguments. But, the speech should build on the third speech (especially in the opp block), identify key voting issues, and explain why your side has won the debate.

Be smart. Be articulate. Be persuasive. Take the opportunity to get to know other teams and debaters.

Policy and LD

I judge mostly PF and World Schools. But, I have continued to judge a smattering of Policy and LD rounds over the last few years. Now that you may be concerned, let me be specific.

Overall, I believe that rounds should be judged based upon the arguments presented.

--Clarity is paramount. Obviously, my pen time is slower than it was, but I do flow well. Roadmaps are good. Sign posting and differentiating arguments is necessary. Watch me. Listen. You will be able to tell if you are going too fast or are unclear. Reasonably clear speed is ok, but clarity is key. For most of my career, I was a college professor of communication; now I teach communication in high school. I strongly believe that debaters should be able to communicate well.

--Do what you do best: policy based or critical affs are fine. But, remember, I do not hear a lot of policy or LD rounds, so explain and be clear. Having said that, my area of research as a comm professor was primarily from a feminist critical rhetorical perspective. In any case, you bear the responsibility to explain and weigh arguments, assumptions, methodology, etc. without a lot of unexplained theory/jargon.

--Please do not get mired in debate theory. Topicality, for example, was around when I debated. But, for other, new or unique theory arguments, do not assume that I have current knowledge of the assumptions or standards of the theory positions. It is your responsibility to explain, apply, and weigh in theory debates. On Framework, please engage the substance of the aff. I strongly prefer you engage the methodology and arguments of the aff, rather than default to framework arguments to avoid that discussion.

--Racist, xenophobic, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other oppressive discourses or examples have no place in debate.

--Last, and importantly, weigh your arguments. It is your job to put the round together for me. Tell a good story, which means incorporating the evidence and arguments into a narrative. And, weigh the issues. If you do not, at least one team will be unhappy with the results if I must intervene.

Finally, I believe that Policy and LD debate is significantly about critical thinking and engagement. Better debaters are those who engage arguments, partners, opponents, and judges critically and civilly. Be polite, smart, and even assertive, but don’t be impolite or a bully. And, have fun since debate should be fun.

Heather Bilson Westridge School

Stacey Bragg Medina Senior HS None

Matthew F Brandstetter Milton Academy

Last changed on Thu April 18, 2024 at 3:02 AM PDT

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE

As a Congressional debate judge, I am listening for fervor, passion, and rhetorical integrity. Students who begin or lapse into reading their speeches will not receive high marks from me - extemporaneous speaking is key here with ideas presented in flavorful tones without the monotone elements that derive from reading a series of sentences. The proficient asking and answering of questions is key to receiving a high score from me. I listewnt to your words and expect clear pronunciation, medium pace, and enlivened debater from you and your peers. Once the session has ended, please accept my 'virtual high five' as a response to your gestures of 'thank you for judging' mantra.

DEBATE

I am primarily a tabula rasa judge, adjudicating arguments as presented in the round. Theoretical arguments are fine as long as they contain the necessary standards and voting issue components. I am not a huge fan of the kritik in PF and tend to reside in that camp that believes such discussions violate the legitimacy of tournament competitions; that being said, I will entertain the argument as well as theoretical counter arguments that speak to its legitimacy, but be forewarned that shifting the discussion to another topic and away from the tournament-listed resolution presents serious questions in my mind as to the respect owed to teams that have done the resolutional research deemed appropriate by the NSDA.

I am adept at flowing but cannot keep up with exceptionally fast-paced speaking and see this practice as minimizing the value of authentic communication. I will do my best but may not render everything on the flow to its fullest potential. Please remember that debate is both an exercise in argumentation as well as a communication enterprise. Recognizing the rationale behind the creation of public forum debate by the NSDA underscores this statement. As a result, I am an advocate for debate as an event that involves the cogent, persuasive communication of ideas. Debaters who can balance argumentation with persuasive appeal will earn high marks from me. Signposting, numbering of arguments, crystallization, and synthesis of important issues are critical practices toward winning my ballot, as are diction, clarity, and succinct argumentation. The rationale that supports an argument or a clear link chain will factor into my decision making paradigm.

RFD is usually based on a weighing calculus - I will look at a priori arguments first before considering other relevant voters in the round. On a side note: I am not fond of debaters engaging with me as I explain a decision; that being said, I am happy to entertain further discussion via email, should a situation warrant. Also, Standing for speeches is my preference.

Christopher Bryant Cranbrook

Brendon Bultman Hire 8 rounds

Bilal Butt Charlotte Latin School

Last changed on Sat March 9, 2024 at 11:03 AM EDT

I am the Director of Speech and Debate at Charlotte Latin School. I coach a full team and have coached all events.

Email Chain: bbutt0817@gmail.com - This is largely for evidence disputes, as I will not flow off the doc.

Currently serve on the Public Forum Topic Wording Committee, and have been since 2018.

----Lincoln Douglas----

1. Judge and Coach mostly Traditional styles.

2. Am ok with speed/spreading but should only be used for depth of coverage really.

3. LARP/Trad/Topical Ks/T > Theory/Tricks/Non-topical Ks

4. The rest is largely similar to PF judging:

----Public Forum-----

- Flow judge, can follow the fastest PF debater but don't use speed unless you have too.**

- I am not a calculator. Your win is still determined by your ability to persuade me on the importance of the arguments you are winning not just the sheer number of arguments you are winning. This is a communication event so do that, with some humor and panache.

- I have a high threshold for theory arguments to be valid in PF. Unless there is in round abuse, I probably won’t vote for a frivolous shell. So I would avoid reading most of the trendy theory arguments in PF.

5 Things to Remember…

1. Sign Post/Road Maps (this does not include “I will be going over my opponent’s case and if time permits I will address our case”)

After constructive speeches, every speech should have organized narratives and each response should either be attacking entire contention level arguments or specific warrants/analysis. Please tell me where to place arguments otherwise they get lost in limbo. If you tell me you are going to do something and then don’t in a speech, I do not like that.

2. Framework

I will evaluate arguments under frameworks that are consistently extended and should be established as early as possible. If there are two frameworks, please decide which I should prefer and why. If neither team provides any, I default evaluate all arguments under a cost/benefit analysis.

3. Extensions

Don’t just extend card authors and tag-lines of arguments, give me the how/why of your warrants and flesh out the importance of why your impacts matter. Summary extensions must be present for Final Focus extension evaluation. Defense extensions to Final Focus ok if you are first speaking team, but you should be discussing the most important issues in every speech which may include early defense extensions.

4. Evidence

Paraphrasing is ok, but you leave your evidence interpretation up to me. Tell me what your evidence says and then explain its role in the round. Make sure to extend evidence in late round speeches.

5. Narrative

Narrow the 2nd half of the round down to the key contention-level impact story or how your strategy presents cohesion and some key answers on your opponents’ contentions/case.

SPEAKER POINT BREAKDOWNS

30: Excellent job, you demonstrate stand-out organizational skills and speaking abilities. Ability to use creative analytical skills and humor to simplify and clarify the round.

29: Very strong ability. Good eloquence, analysis, and organization. A couple minor stumbles or drops.

28: Above average. Good speaking ability. May have made a larger drop or flaw in argumentation but speaking skills compensate. Or, very strong analysis but weaker speaking skills.

27: About average. Ability to function well in the round, however analysis may be lacking. Some errors made.

26: Is struggling to function efficiently within the round. Either lacking speaking skills or analytical skills. May have made a more important error.

25: Having difficulties following the round. May have a hard time filling the time for speeches. Large error.

Below: Extreme difficulty functioning. Very large difficulty filling time or offensive or rude behavior.

***Speaker Points break down borrowed from Mollie Clark.***

Nate Conoly Vestavia Hills HS

Last changed on Thu February 8, 2024 at 3:18 PM CDT

PF:

-Do not spread. On a scale of 1-10 for speed I prefer somewhere around 6-7. I would prefer you to slow down or pause a tad for taglines for my flow. Also if you list 4-5 short points or stats in quick succession, I probably will miss one or two in the middle if you dont slow down.

-Arguments you go for should appear in all speeches. If your offense was not brought up in summary, I will ignore it in FF.

-I do not think cross is binding. It needs to come up in the speech. I do not flow cross, and as a flow judge that makes decisions based on my flow, it won't have much bearing on the round.

-At the least I think 2nd rebuttal needs to address all offense in round. Bonus points for collapsing case and completely frontlining the argument you do go for.

-Please time yourselves. My phone is constantly on low battery, so I'd rather not use it. If you want to keep up with your opponents' prep too to keep them honest then go ahead.

-In terms of some of the more progressive things- I haven't actually heard theory in a PF round but I hear it's a thing now. If your opponent is being abusive about something then sure, let me know, either in a formal shell or informal. Don't run theory just to run it though. Obviously, counterplans and plans are not allowed in PF so just don't.

-pet peeves:

1) Bad or misleading evidence. Unfortunately this is what I am seeing PF become. Paraphrasing has gotten out of control. Your "paraphrased" card better be accurate. If one piece of evidence gets called out for being miscut or misleading, then it will make me call in to question all of your evidence. If you are a debater that runs sketchy and loose evidence, I would pref me very high or strike me.

2) Evidence clash that goes nowhere. If pro has a card that says turtles can breathe through their butt and con has a card saying they cannot and that's all that happens, then I don't know who is right. In the instance of direct evidence clash (or even analytical argumentation clash) tell me why to prioritize your evidence over theirs or your line of thinking over theirs. Otherwise, I will consider the whole thing a wash and find something else to vote on.

3) Not condensing the round when it should be condensed. Most of the time it is not wise to go for every single argument on the flow. Sometimes you need to pick your battles and kick out of others, or risk undercovering everything.

LD:
So first, I primarily judge PF. This means my exposure to certain argument types is limited. I LOVE actually debating the resolution. Huge fan. I'm cool with DAs and CPs. Theory only if your opponent is being overly abusive (so no friv). If you are a K or tricks debater good luck. I know about the progressive things but since I primarily judge PF, my ability to evaluate it is very limited from experience. If you want to go for a K or something, I won't instantly drop you and I will try my best to flow and evaluate it in the round. But you will probably need to tweak it a little, slow down, and explain more how it is winning and why I should vote for it. I come from a traditional circuit, so the more progressive the round gets, the less capable I am of making a qualified decision.

I do not want you to flash your case to me. I want to flow it. If you read to point that it is unflowable then it is your loss. If I don't flow it, I cannot evaluate it and thus, cannot vote on it. Spreading in my opinion is noneducational and antithetical to skills you should be learning from this activity. Sorry, in the real world and your future career, spreading is not an acceptable practice to convince someone and get your point across.

Both:
Please signpost/roadmap- I hate when it is unclear where you are and I get bounced around the flow. Have fun and don't be overly aggressive.

Ann Delahantey DuPont Manual High School None

Elise Dirkes-Jacks Ravenwood HS

Bob Dolan Lake Mary Prep

Last changed on Sat April 15, 2023 at 8:26 AM EDT

CONGRESS PARADIGM IS BELOW THIS PF Paradigm

PF:

ALMOST EVERY ROUND I HAVE JUDGED IN THE LAST 8 YEARS WOULD HAVE BENEFITTED FROM 50% FEWER ARGUMENTS, AND 100% MORE ANALYSIS OF THOSE 50% FEWER ARGUMENTS. A Narrative, a Story carries so much more persuasively through a round than the summary speaker saying "we are going for Contention 2".

I am NOT a fan of speed, nor speed/spread. Please don't make me think I'm in a Policy Round!

I don't need "Off-time roadmaps", I just want to know where you are starting.

Claim/warrant/evidence/impact is NOT a debate cliche; It is an Argumentative necessity! A label and a blip card is not a developed argument!

Unless NUCLEAR WINTER OR NUCLEAR EXTINCTION HAS ALREADY OCCURED, DON'T BOTHER TO IMPACT OUT TO IT.

SAVE K'S FOR POLICY ROUNDS; RUN THEORY AT YOUR OWN RISK- I start from ma place that it is fake and abusive in PF and you are just trying for a cheap win against an unprepared team. I come to judge debates about the topic of the moment.

YOU MIGHT be able to convince me of your sincerity if you can show me that you run it in every round and are President of the local "Advocacy for that Cause" Club.

Don't just tell me that you win an argument, show me WHY you win it and what significance that has in the round.

Please NARROW the debate and WEIGH arguments in Summary and Final Focus. If you want the argument in Final Focus, be sure it was in the summary.

There is a difference between "passionate advocacy" and anger. Audio tape some of your rounds and decide if you are doing one or the other when someone says you are "aggressive".

NSDA evidence rules require authors' last name and THE DATE (minimum) so you must AT LEAST do that if you want me to accept the evidence as "legally presented". If one team notes that the other has not supplied dates, it will then become an actual issue in the round. Speaker points are at stake.

In close rounds I want to be persuaded and I may just LISTEN to both Final Focus speeches, checking off things that are extended on my flow.

I am NOT impressed by smugness, smiling sympathetically at the "stupidity" of your opponent's argument, vigorous head shaking in support of your partner's argument or opposition to your opponents'. Speaker points are DEFINITELY in play here!

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE:

1: The first thing I am looking for in every speech is ORGANIZATION AND CLARITY. 2. The second thing I am looking for is CLASH; references to other speakers & their arguments

3. The third thing I am looking for is ADVOCACY, supported by EVIDENCE

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS A SPEAKING EVENT, NOT A READING EVENT! I WILL NOT GIVE EVEN A "BRILLIANT" SPEECH A "6" IF IT IS READ OFF A PREPARED SHEET/TUCKED INTO THE PAD OR WRITTEN ON THE PAD ITSELF; AND, FOR CERTAIN IF IT IS READ OFF OF A COMPUTER OR TABLET.

I value a good story and humor, but Clarity and Clash are most important.

Questioning and answering factors into overall placement in the Session.

Yes, I will evaluate and include the PO, but it is NOT an automatic advancement to the next level; that has gotten a bit silly.

Min Dong Northview Independent 8 rounds

Jacob Dugger Hire 8 rounds

Marybeth Ehlbeck Marist School

Last changed on Thu March 25, 2021 at 8:50 AM EDT

Hi! My name is Marybeth and I debated in high school and coached/independently drilled with some students in college!

Contact info: mehlbec@emory.edu

Read this, if anything:

Please just have as comfortable of a round as you want, let's all treat each other with respect, empathy, and camaraderie.

Stolen from Malcolm Davis's paradigm: As I get old and grumpy, I am increasingly frustrated with PF's bells and whistles. We are all regular people. You don't need to 'strongly urge an affirmation' or proudly declare what the 'thesis of your case' is or anything, you just need to debate the round and explain what's going on clearly. There needn't be pomp and circumstance in a room where we're talking about ideas for fun on the weekend.

Main Preferences

1. I will vote for an argument (hopefully under a framework [one that is warranted and fairly won] ) if it is warranted, impacted, and weighed against the other args in the around under a default of comparative worlds unless instructed otherwise. Blippy and unwarranted offense will likely produce an audible sigh from me. Exceptions to this rule: the arg is offensive/exclusionary, not in both summary/FF, card is misconstrued/grossly paraphrased.

2. MY HEARING IS NOT THE BEST. please be VERY CLEAR with signposting, extending author names etc.

3. Weighing has to be explicitly comparative and contextualized to your opponent's offense.

4. No off time roadmaps unless you are reading an off.

5. The extension of defense into first summary is not required. It is required if the defense has been frontlined.

Random things due to the cultural decline of public forum:

1. read cards in front of me please, I don't care to hear paraphrased evidence but I will evaluate it when push comes to shove

2.i think disclosure theory in PF is pretty unconvincing/bad strat, although it is a good norm.

3. i would much rather you read theory in paragraph form rather than shell if that's what you're comfortable with and wont look down upon such when I'm evaluating it.

Good luck and have fun!

Amy Feng Potomac Debate Academy None

Kegan Ferguson North Broward Preparatory School

Last changed on Tue February 13, 2024 at 7:05 AM EDT

Put me on the email chain: keganferguson@gmail.com.

Previously ADOD at North Broward Prep for 3 years. Did policy debate at Indiana University and PF/LD/Extemp at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis, IN.

***Policy***

Debate is primarily a competition. Yes it teaches us many skills and influences how we develop as people, but is still a game with a winner and a loser at its core. I believe that central truth produces debate’s best and worst outcomes.

It can result in thorough, well-researched rounds that delve into the nuances of a specific issue. Or it can produce scattershot 12-off strategies that rely on mistakes to have a chance of victory. It can make people view competitors with respect and admiration for their commitment to the activity. Or it can make us view them as our opposition, to be steamrolled and reduced to nothing whenever possible. I’ll evaluate arguments fairly regardless of the strategy used or the way you treat opponents, but will use speaks to reflect what I perceive as the quality of the round. It's not too hard to get high speaks in front of me. Have a clear strategy, execute it well, and make the debate enjoyable for all involved.

No argument is ‘too bad’ to win in front of me. If it’s truly so egregious, it’s the burden of the opposing team to explain why in the debate. I try hard not to intervene and inject personal biases, but I do still have them (listed below) and they influence the decisions I make.

All this being said – I’m an educator at the end of the day, and debate is an activity for students in an academic setting. If you do things to make the debate space feel unsafe for those involved I will intervene.

K AFFs

I prefer critiques to include research about the topic, but it’s not required. Clear impact turns to the core negative standards on framework are vital – spewing nebulous and blippy arguments titled things like ‘Plasticity DA’ to T in the 2ac is terminally unpersuasive. If you’re not contextualizing your impact turns as direct answers to fairness, clash, etc. you’re in a hole from the start. Ideally, you will also present a straightforward and well explained vision of debate and develop reasons why it can preserve a limited argumentative venue.

I’m more persuaded by presumption arguments vs. K affs than most judges. 2AR’s tend to mishandle offensive, cruel optimism-style arguments and get themselves into trouble.

T USFG

You need to explain how the aff’s C/I explodes limits and to what extent, same as you would against a policy affirmative when going for T. What style affirmative does it allow for? Why is it bad for debate, and how bad?

When I vote affirmative it’s usually because of a sequencing claim about dropped case arguments or an unclear response to the aff’s impact turns to framework impacts.

When I vote negative it’s usually because you win fairness is a priori and the only thing the ballot can resolve, that a limited model of debate internal link turns aff impacts through improved research/iterative testing, or that the Aff’s scholarship is included in your model.

Theory

Not a fan of heavy theory debates, but I’ve judged quite a few. Definitely lean neg on conditionality – but willing to vote for it if competently extended and technically won by the affirmative. As a 2a, process counterplans were not my favorite argument in debate, and I tend to lean aff on competition arguments depending on the scope of the topic + CP mechanisms. Still not afraid to vote neg quickly and easily if you’re ahead on the technical aspects in this portion of debate.

Theory debates that rely on me to fill-in arguments where you have just said random technical debate jargon - nonstarter. You should slow down on your theory analytics as well – I often find myself missing nuance when it’s extended by reading blocks as fast as possible.

*** Public Forum Debate ***

I competed in Indiana in high school, and very much understand the frustrations of losing debates on new arguments, evidence spin, ‘I just don’t believe you,’ etc. in front of lay judges. I’ll try my hardest to purely evaluate the debate off of the flow, which means giving equal weight and consideration to arguments that are not traditionally made in Public Forum. I think judges should approach debate with an open mind, and be ready to listen to students who put just as much effort and thought into their non-traditional strategies as other teams have.

Indicating an openness to theoretical and critical arguments does not mean that you should necessarily try reading these arguments in front of me for the first time. I find myself judging very poorly executed strategies in these lanes pretty often, and the speaker points reflect it. Please stick with what you’ve been practicing, as this is the best way to win my ballot. Trying to punk another team on theory if you never go for it will usually not work out well for you.

Competing in policy for 4 years in college has left me with many, somewhat negative, opinions on the pedagogical quality of argumentation in PF. Research is often not presented to me in a clear and digestible way (read: cards), and I’ve been handed a 20+ page PDF as the ‘source’ for an argument too many times to count. Saying ‘nuclear war doesn’t happen, MAD checks that’s Ferguson,’ and then handing me a piece of evidence with 2 minutes of highlighted text will not go your way. I won’t read deep into evidence that has not been explained and warranted during the debate, as I think that leads to pretty sizable judge intervention and more arbitrary decisions than one that remains flow-centric.

I’m a big advocate of disclosure in PF. The best debates are ones where one team has a thoroughly prepared strategies against a case, and the other team really knows the ins and outs of their own contentions. I’m not sympathetic at all to arguments about prep-outs – I’m terminally convinced that they’re good. I’m not convinced by arguments about how they hurt small schools – I competed at a very tiny college program that ONLY survived because of the wiki. I’m not sympathetic to arguments about people ‘stealing research,’ because it’s obviously not ‘stealing’ and lazy debaters that download wiki cases usually get beaten because they don’t know the nuances of the arguments they’re reading. If you disclose on the wiki, you will get a slight speaker bump. If you disclose pre-round, same deal. Note: this does not mean that disclosure theory is an auto-win by any means. You will have to technically execute it and win that disclosure is good during the debate – I won’t copy and paste my paradigm into the ballot.

Nitpicky other thoughts that may be helpful:

· Don’t take forever finding your evidence – especially if it’s in your own case. If it drags on too long (3-4 minutes) I will begin to run prep time. There’s clearly a reasonable window of time in which you can find a piece of evidence you claimed to have literally just read. If you can’t find it, you probably didn’t actually cut/read it.

· Don’t ever go back to your own case in first rebuttal just to ‘build it up some more.’ I will not be flowing if you are not making new arguments, and it’s a complete waste of time to rebuild a case they have not yet answered. There are some exceptions to this if you have framing arguments or whatnot – but 99% of the time you should just be answering your opponent’s case. To me, it reads as a clear sign that someone is a relative beginner in Public Forum when this occurs.

· Second rebuttal should frontline their case.

· Summary should include defensive and dropped arguments, but time should be allocated according to the other teams’ coverage.

· Impact framing arguments that are simply ‘X issue is not discussed enough, so prioritize it’ are not convincing to me in the slightest. You need to have a clear and offensive reason why not prioritizing your impact filter is bad, not just say that it’s important and people never give it notice. Ask yourself this question: what is the impact of your framing being ignored?

· Warrants beat tagline extensions of cards 99% of the time.

None of the above are ‘rules’ for how to go about earning my ballot. You could violate any one of the above and still win, but it’s likely only going to happen if your opponent is making major mistakes. Lastly, I think that topic knowledge wins just as many debates as a cleverly constructed case does. You should try your best to be the most knowledgeable person in the room on any given PF topic, because you’ll usually have what it takes to flexibly respond to unpredicted arguments and embarrass your opponents in cross.

Speaker point scale:

29.5+ - You’re debating like you’re already in the final round, and you deserve top speaker at this tournament.

29-29.5 – Debating like a quarterfinalist.

28.5 – 29 – Solid bubble/doubles team

28-28.5 – Debating like you should be around .500 or slightly below

27.5-28 – Serious room for improvement

Below 27.5 – You were disrespectful to the extreme or cheated. Probably around here if you just give up as well.

Hannah Feuer Hire 8 rounds

Rebekah Fritz Blacksburg

Kevin Gallagher DuPont Manual High School

P.R. Goldstone Wayland High School

Last changed on Sat September 7, 2019 at 5:13 PM EDT

(My son wrote the first part of this based on what he thinks I know about debate)

I'm P.R. Goldstone. If you run stupid arguments then I will roast you in comments about how factually nonsensical they are, but if your opponents don't respond to them, then I will begrudgingly vote for you. (Threshold for responses to these args is very low).

Speed:

I'm about 65% flow and 35% lay, don't go too fast. (I used to be 70-30 until my son found out that I flowed in one color and flowed cross.

Summary/FF:

I need parallelism. Extend any offense in summary that you want me to evaluate at the end of the round.

Crossfire:

Don't be rude. If you make a good point, say it in a speech.

Speaks:

I have a history of giving out a lot of 28.5-29's.

Technical stuff:

I understand turns and will vote off them. If you use an oddly technical term, then remind me what it is. Ex: If you fiat something, say we fiat meaning "we let the resolution pass" I'm more tech over truth but need a lil truth in there.

Stuff P.R. Says:

I am at present a lawyer specializing in complex civil litigation, but my first career was as university researcher and faculty in international relations and national security policy. I have a strong interest, and background, in public policy, foreign and domestic policy analysis, and political history.

I won't vote off things omitted in final focus; if something is not brought forward in summary, it cannot be presented in final focus. Similarly, if a particular piece of proffered evidence seems implausible or unlikely, I will request to see the cite. I would strongly request that debaters weigh in round. Arguments that are clearly weak and made for the purposes of using up opponents' time in rebuttal will be accorded correspondingly little weight. Ideally, the best final focus essentially cogently writes the judge's ballot for him.

I can usually be seen wearing a bow tie, but do not favor participants on the basis of neckwear.

Linda Gu Acton-Boxborough RHS Independent

Mohini Gupta Ravenwood HS None

Richard Haber Chagrin Falls HS

Last changed on Fri April 3, 2020 at 6:26 AM EDT

2019-2020 Season

Richard Haber, Chagrin Falls High School.

rhaber@haberllp.com For any e-mail chains during round (specifically for Virtual Tournaments)

I am a practicing Trial Attorney and have practiced law for nearly 30 years. I also coach of Public Forum and have done so for 8 years. With respect to LD, I assist LD debaters as needed and judge when required though I am admittedly more experienced with Public Forum.

GENERAL COMMENTS:

I can handle a fair amount of speed, but please exercise some common sense with pace. Do not spread. If I am judging (Whether PF or LD) you may assume I am familiar with the topic which will certainly help me follow your argumentation. Nevertheless, I believe the judge should judge as if he/she has no prior knowledge about the topic. Thus, you will win or lose the round based upon what happens in the round. If you advocate a position that I know is not correct based upon my own review of the topic I may note it as an NVI, but it will only impact the round if your opponent calls you on it. I will not intervene in rendering a decision.

As a practicing attorney, I value professionalism. I expect debaters to be professional, respect your opponents and facilitate the exchange of ideas.

PF COMMENTS:

Generally, I decide the round on who persuades me. It is not a question of how many argument you win, but which arguments you win, the impacts of those arguments and how you weigh them. I am a flow judge and will track the round. If you do not respond to a contention of your opponent, you risk losing the argument, and if important in the weight of the round it could result in a loss. However, just because your opponent fails to respond to a contention or sub-contention, does not mean you win the issue. You must still persuade me why it matters.

As a trial lawyer, I think evidence is important, but it is equally important to me to logically extend your evidence. Please explain why your evidence is more important or impactful than the evidence that your opponent inevitably will argue in response. I view Summary as the opportunity to reset the round. Structure the round for me as the judge and tell me what I should be looking for through the rest of the round. It may require you rebut additional points, but in the end, start to focus and weigh the round on the 2 to 3 key issues that I will be voting on.

You should extend your case and arguments throughout the round. If you don't extend, I will assume you are dropping a contention (assuming opponent rebutted). Do not lay in wait until second speaker final focus to extend the argument - though I understand the strategy, I prefer teams debate the issues that matter, rather than prevail on a failure to debate.

To this end, cross-fire is not an opportunity to filibuster. It is intended as an exchange of ideas. Your opponent's response to a well framed question can be far more impactful to me, than refusing to allow them to answer. If they are evasive, I will get it.

You should be careful running theory or kritiks. Though I will not "drop" you for running theory or kritik, I am not a fan of avoiding the clash on the topic.

I will consider arguments raised in grand crossfire if reasonable in the flow of the round because your opponent can respond in grand cross and final focus. I will not consider new evidence or arguments raised in either final focus.

The best speakers may not always win. The team with the best reasoned arguments, offering the greatest reasonably extended impacts will prevail on my ballot.

LD COMMENTS:

Generally, speaking I am not as familiar with (or fond) of progressive debate). I will not automatically vote you down if you offer progressive arguments, but it will require you offer greater explanation why I should accept your arguments/position if it is not embracing the actual subject of the debate.

Because I am a trial lawyer, and because of my PF background, use of evidence, and explanation of evidence, a logical extension of this evidence and warranting about why it connects with your position is always well received. I don't like listing of evidence in PF without explanation, simply citing to evidence without some explanation of its importance does little to advance the ball for me in LD as well. I value strong logical links as much as evidentiary links.

I will flow the round. I will vote off of my flow. I will flow your CX to the extent that you make/establish point in furtherance of your case. Ultimately, I will decide the round on the debater that overall convinces me of their position. Please note, I view debate as an exchange of ideas. Engage your opponent's warrants, while furthering your own. Impacts matter when weighing warrants which may both be true.

I decide based on the most important arguments in the round, so I will not penalize a debater for failing to cover every sketchy claim put out by an opponent. I strongly prefer crystallization and voting issues in NR and 2AR.

GOOD LUCK

Ben Hanson The Blake School

Jeff Harkleroad Hire 8 rounds

Last changed on Fri May 3, 2024 at 8:24 AM EDT

I've been judging Congressional Debate at the TOC since 2011. I'm looking for no rehash & building upon the argumentation. I want to hear you demonstrate true comparative understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the plan presented by the legislation. Don't simply praise or criticize the status quo as if the legislation before you doesn't exist.

L-D Paradigm:

Each LDer should have a value/value criterion that clarifies how their case should be interpreted.

I prefer to evaluate a round by selecting whose V/VC weighs most heavily under their case. Winning this is not in itself a reason for you to win. Tell me what arguments you're winning at the contention level, how they link, and how much they weigh in comparison to other arguments (yours and your opponent's) in the round.

Voting down the flow, if both sides prove framework and there’s not a lot of clash I would move on to the contention level and judge off the flow.

PUBLIC FORUM

SPEED
Don't. I can't deal with speed.

EVIDENCE
Paraphrasing is a horrible practice that I discourage. Additionally, I want to hear evidence dates (year of publication at a minimum) and sources (with author's credential if possible) cited in all evidence.

REBUTTALS
I believe it is the second team's duty to address both sides of the flow in the second team's rebuttal. A second team that neglects to both attack the opposing case and rebuild against the prior rebuttal will have a very difficult time winning my ballot as whichever arguments go unaddressed are essentially conceded.

SUMMARIES
The summaries should be treated as such - summarize the major arguments in the debate. I expect debaters to start to narrow the focus of the round at this point.

FINAL FOCUS
FOCUS is key. I would prefer 2 big arguments over 10 blippy ones that span the length of the flow. If you intend to make an argument in the FF, it should have been well explained, supported with analysis and/or evidence, and extended from its origin point in the debate all the way through the FF.

IMPACTS

I rock with the nuclear war impact, but it's getting a little old, lol. The concept of a nuclear war is too complex and I find that it's been thrown too loosely in the debate space. I know it's cliche, but please don't generate this impact and tell me you win on magnitude and expect that to be a reason for me to give your team an easy ballot. If one of your impacts genuinely leads to an outbreak of a nuclear war, please warrant it well.

INTERPoverall: I pay real close attention to the introduction of each piece, I look for the lens of analysis and the central thesis that will be advanced during the interpretation of literature. When the performance is happening, I'm checking to see if they have dug down deep enough into an understanding of their literature through that intro and have given me a way to contextualize the events that are happening during the performance

POI: I look for clean transitions and characterization (if doing multiple voices).

DI: I look for the small human elements that come from acting. Big and loud gestures are not always the way to convey the point, sometimes something smaller gets the point more powerfully.

HI: I look for clean character transitions, distinct voices, and strong energy in the movements. And of course the humor.

INFO: I'm looking for a well researched speech that has a strong message to deliver. Regardless of the genre of info you're presenting, I think that showing you've been exhaustive with your understanding is a good way to win my ballot. I'm not wow'd by flashy visuals that add little substance, and I'm put off by speeches that misrepresent intellectual concepts, even unintentionally. I like speeches that have a conclusion, and if the end of your speech is "and we still don't know" then I think you might want to reassess the overall direction you are taking.

FX/DX: When I'm evaluating an extemp speech, I'm continually thinking "did they answer the question? or did they answer something that sounded similar?" So keep that in your mind. Are you directly answering the question? When you present information that could be removed without affecting the overall quality of the speech, that is a sign that there wasn't enough research done by the speaker. What I vote on in terms of content are speeches that show a depth of understanding of the topic by evaluating the wider implications that a topic has for the area/region/politics/etc.

Ryley Hartwig Capitol Debate

Last changed on Mon August 26, 2019 at 7:58 PM EDT

Background

- 3 years national circuit PF at American Heritage-Plantation in Florida (2013-2016)

- 2 years policy debate at FSU (2016-2018)

- 2 years coaching PF for Capitol Debate (2017-current)

Paradigm

- Do anything you want to do in terms of argumentation. It is not my job as a judge in a debate community to exclude certain forms of argumentation. There are certain arguments I will heavily discourage: Ks read just to confuse your opponent and get an easy win, theory read to confuse your opponent, anything that is racist, classist, transphobic, xenophobic, sexist, ableist, etc. I will not immediately drop you for trying to confuse your opponent, I might for the latter half. The threshold for trying to confuse your opponents will be if you refuse to answer crossfire questions or give answers that everyone knows aren't legit.

- The most frequently asked questions I get are "can you handle speed?" and "how do you feel about defense in first summary/does the second speaking team need to cover responses in rebuttal?" To the first, if you are spreading to make this event in accessible to your opponents, I will give you no higher than a 20 in speaks. I am fine with spreading, but if either your opponents or I clear you, I expect you to slow down. If your opponents need to clear you 3 or more times, I expect you send them a speech doc (if you had not already done that). To the second, I do not care. It is probably strategic to have defense in first summary/ respond to first rebuttal in second rebuttal, but if you do not do that, I'm not going to say it has magically become a dropped argument.

- K's are cool, theory is cool. You need to know what you are talking about if you read these. You should be able to explain it to your opponents. If you are doing performance stuff give me a reason why. You should be prepared for the "we are doing PF, if you want to do performance why not go back to policy" debate.

- I default to whatever debaters tell me to default to. If you are in a util v structural violence framing debate, you better have reasons to defend your side. I do not default "util is trutil" unless it is won as an argument.

- Sound logic is better than crappy cards.

- The TKO is in play. If you know, you know.

- Speaker points will be reflection of your skill and my scale will remain consistent to reflect that. The average is between a 28.2-28.5. If you are an average debater, or your performance is average in round, that is what you should expect. Do not expect a 30 from me unless the tournament does not do halves.

Any questions:

email- ryleyhartwig@gmail.com

Or you can ask me before the round.

Josie Higgins Hire 8 rounds None

Joe Hu Richard Montgomery HS

Tony Huang Winston Churchill High School

Subba Inta Bridgewater

Stephanie Kahn Laurel School

Gia Karpouzis The Nueva School

Last changed on Sun October 20, 2019 at 5:25 AM PDT

PF & Parli coach for Nueva

- Use your agency to make this safe space and non-hostile to all debaters & judges

- non-interventionist until the point where something aggressively problematic is said (read: problematic: articulating sexist, racist, ableist, classist, queerphobic, anything that is oppressive or entrenches/legitimates structural violence in-round)

- tech over truth

- please time yourselves and your opponent: I don't like numbers and I certainly don't like keeping track of them when y'all use them for prep, if you ask me how much time you have left I most probably won't know

- if you finish your speech and have extra time at the end, please do not take that time to "go over my own case again" - I recommend weighing if you want to finish your speech time, or alternatively, just end your speech early

parli-specific:

- I guess I expect debaters to ask POI's, but I won't punish you for not asking them in your speaker scores

- I give speaker scores based on function, not form (I don't care how fluid you are, I care what it is that you're saying). I think speakers are arbitrary and probably problematic. Tell me to give everyone a 30 and assuming tab allows, I'll do it. That being said, I will never factor in appearance into your speaker points or the ballot. I’m not in the business of policing what debaters wear.

- I do my best to protect the flow, but articulate points of order anyway

- recently I've heard rounds that include two minutes of an "overview/framework" explaining why tech debate/using "technical terms" in debate is bad - I find this irritating, so it would probably be in your best interest to not run that, although it's not an automatic loss for you, it simply irks me

- feel free to ask questions within "protected time" - it's the debater's prerogative whether or not they accept the POI, but I don't mind debaters asking and answering questions within

- I like uniqueness, I like link chains, I like impact scenarios! These things make for substantive, educational debates!

pf-specific:

- I don't call for cards unless you tell me to; telling me "the ev is sketchy" or "i encourage you to call for the card" isn't telling me to call for the card. tell me "call for the card" - picking and choosing cards based on what I believe is credible or not is sus and seems interventionist

- I don't flow cross fire but it works well to serve how much you know the topic. regardless, if you want anything from crossfire on my flow, reference it in-speech.

- I give speaker scores based on function, not form (I don't care how fluid you are, I care what it is that you're saying). I think speaker points are arbitrary and probably problematic. Tell me to give everyone a 30 and assuming tab allows, I'll do it. That being said, I will never factor in appearance into your speaker points or the ballot. I’m not in the business of policing what debaters wear.

- if you want me to evaluate anything in your final focus make sure it's also in your summary, save for of course frontlines by second-speaking teams - continuity is key

- in terms of rebuttal I guess I expect the second speaking team to frontline, but of course this is your debate round and I'm not in charge of any decisions you make

- hello greetings defense is sticky

- please please please please please WEIGH: tell me why the args you win actually matter in terms of scope, prob, mag, strength of link, clarity of impact, yadda yadda

Other than that please ask me questions as you will, I should vote off of whatever you tell me to vote off of given I understand it. If I don't understand it, I'll probably unknowingly furrow my eyebrows as I'm flowing. Blippy extensions may not be enough for me - at the end of the day if you win the round because of x, explain x consistently and cleanly so there's not a chance for me to miss it.

email me at gia.karpouzis@gmail.com with any questions or comments or if you feel otherwise uncomfortable asking in person

Annalisa Keuler Mountain Brook HS

ken kuang Carmel Valley Independent

Ashish Kumar Ravenwood HS None

Sophia Lam Poly Prep Country Day School

Maryann Le Valley Oak

Morgan Leach Marist School

Last changed on Wed January 27, 2021 at 3:14 PM EDT

First, a little about me...

I debated Public Forum for three years in high school at Piedmont Academy and Policy for four years at the University of Georgia.

Yes, put me on the email chain: morganpac15@gmail.com

I expect respect from everyone involved no matter the climate - race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. IF you have something controversial to say, I expect you to back it up and give it a purpose.

Let's talk PF:

Do you expect everything in the final focus to also be in the summary? Not necessarily - every round is different and comes down to different things, but I think having your main points extended in both is important. By the time of the summary and final focus, your winning points should be obvious (this includes your impact calculus).

Do second speaking teams have to respond to the first rebuttal? Yes, if time permits.

Do first speaking teams have to extend defense in the first summary? Defense, yes. New arguments, no.

Do you flow/judge off crossfire? It depends on how the round is going; crossfire can either make or break you, and if it is a close round, crossfire will play a part in the decision.

Do teams have to have more than one contention? No.

Does framework have to be read in the constructives? This is a loaded question - if you think you will need framework, include it in the constructive. AT THE LEAST, framework MUST be apart of the rebuttals. Summary or final focus is too little too late to bring up or heavily impact the framework debate.

Speed is fine, off-time roadmaps are encouraged, do not dominate or take over your partner's crossfire, but if needed, I will allow *some tag-teaming. I don't want you to be a sitting duck, but crossfire is the time where judges can see just how much you really know about your case, evidence, and arguments.

Let's talk Policy:

At the end of the day, the debate will come down to who had the most convincing points and who extended them the best. Clash is key, impact calc is key.

K Arguments: I am fine with K arguments, but do not assume that what you are advocating for is clear to all those who are listening. I need to see why the K outweighs staying on-case and why it is beneficial to debate.

DAs: I love me a good disad. Economy DA, Politics DA, any DA. If you can prove to me why the DA outweighs what the Aff can do, then I am all in it.

Topicality: I am completely fine with T args; I think in the chaos they keep the debate centered. But be warned, if you go for T, it must be won in the round.

CPs: Counterplans are fine IF they are not messy. I have seen, gone against, and read some really complex CPs that just don't pan out in the time permitted. If the explanation is not there in the planks and you struggle to add all you are trying to say, you probably shouldn't do it.

Don't get lost in the complexity of what Policy debate is; no matter the format, all debates come down to what the arguments are, how the evidence withstands, and how the debaters themselves carry the case through.

If anyone has any questions or if I left anything out, don't hesitate to ask :)

Good luck to all, and God bless!

Brandon Lu Livingston HS

Last changed on Sat January 27, 2024 at 4:35 PM EDT

Short:

Debated 4 years PF in HS. 3 years of policy in college. Coached PF for 4 years.

Ridge 2014-201, NYU 2018-202, current MD/PhD student at Michigan

Contact info: Facebook (my name) or email (brandonluxiii@gmail.com). Please add me to the email chain if it exists.

Tech over truth. Policy and K both good. I can flow around 250 wpm without a doc. Favorite kind of debate is clash of civs.

If you don't extend I will vote neg on presumption unless it's LD where I'll vote aff on presumption. It makes me sad to have to say that I've voted on presumption in about 10% of rounds I've judged, although this number seems to be going down.

My name isn't judge, you can say my name if you want my attention.

If it takes you longer than 5 minutes to find a card, it doesn't exist. Very excessive card calling that makes me want to fall asleep: -0.2 speaks per card.

Please time yourselves.

Ask me if you have any questions about my RFD. Sometimes, I'm not the most thorough on the ballot or during my RFD because I'm lazy and forgetful. Postrounding is tolerated, but don't be annoying.

Please contact me if you feel unsafe during round.

Long:

PF Paradigm

I can handle speed but please keep things under 350 words per minute. Slow down on tags and author names and try not to paraphrase evidence if you're actually going to spread. If you go faster, you need to give me a speech doc or I will probably miss anything blippy which is not good. I will shout "clear" if I don't understand what you are saying. If you don't slow down, I won't be able to flow your arguments and you will likely lose.

Going heavy for the line by line is fine, but you must signpost or I will literally have an empty flow and won't know what to do. A good example of not signposting is the 2018 NSDA PF final. With that being said, the final focus should spend at least 30 seconds on the narrative/big picture. 2 minutes of line by line is a bit hard for me to judge and find things to vote off of if done poorly. The reverse is also true- the line by line is very important and should appear in every single speech. Losing the line by line probably makes it harder for me to vote for you. When going for the line by line, you must explain the implications for winning each part of the line by line. This comes from impacting your responses/evidence/analytics. I've seen some teams that aren't extending full arguments in summary and just frontlining responses. Extensions in all speeches need to extend a full argument or I will feel really bad voting on it.

Summary should not be the first time I see responses to case arguments and summary should respond to rebuttal arguments.

I used to say I wanted to see a theory debate about whether 2nd rebuttal should frontline, but no one is willing to do it. If someone does it well, I will give both teams 30 speaks. Meanwhile, I currently default to 2nd rebuttal should frontline everything (yes, defense too. Don't be lazy).

Since summaries are longer now, I think defense should be extended in summary. Any defense you want me to vote off should be in final focus even if they never touch it. I'll significantly dock points if I have to vote on arguments where both sides dropped defense. Turns you want me to vote on must be in summary. NOTHING IS STICKY.

In order for me to vote on arguments, I need to understand them so you need to explain them to me instead of blipping something and complaining that I screwed you by not voting off it. If I don't understand an argument until the middle of my rfd, it's probably on you. If something is important enough for me to vote off, you should spend more than 10 seconds on it in summary and final focus (exceptions are obvious game over moments).

How to win my ballot:

Win a link and impact that can outweigh your opponents' impacts. Weighing is important to keep me from thinking that everything is a wash and vote off presumption. I used to think weighing was really important, but most debates I've judged have not been weighing debates. If you can recognize this and drop weighing, I'll prob reward you with extra speaks. It's very rare that I actually vote off weighing because the most important part of the round is usually the link level.

I will vote off any argument that is properly warranted and impacted. I am truth before tech in terms of evidence and arguments that cause offense to people, but I will evaluate tech first everywhere else. Other arguments I will be truth over tech about will be stated at the top of my paradigm every topic (those are arguments I hate with a passion and will likely never vote off of).

I will only vote off defense if you give me a reason to and I will presume a side if you give me a reason to (normally I presume neg). I will also adapt my paradigm if arguments are made in the round about it (I can and will be lay if you want).

I evaluate framework first, then impacts on the framework, then links to the impacts, then other impacts, then defense. Strength of link is a very important weighing mechanism for me. Teams should use this to differentiate their arguments from their opponents'. If there are no impacts left I will default to the status quo. I highly enjoy voting this way, so if you don't want to lose because of this, you need to not drop terminal defense or your case. I will reward high speaks for a strategy that takes advantage of that if it works.

I will be forced to intervene if the debaters don't give me a way to evaluate the round as stated above. In egregious circumstances, I will flip a coin. I reserve the right to vote off eye contact.

Things I like:

Debating the line by line well.

Good warranting on nonstock arguments. I enjoy hearing unique arguments.

Clash. Opposing arguments need to be responded to.

Good extensions (please don't drop warrants or impacts during extensions. Voting off a nonextended warrant or impact is intervention).

Smart strategies that save time and allow you to win easily will make me award high speaks (laziness is rewarded if you can pull it off, like a 5-second summary if you are clearly winning). Debaters who already won by summary can do nothing for the rest of the round.

A good K that is explained well in the span of a PF round will make me very happy (high speaks 29+). If you read a K with a good link, impact, and alt, I will vote off of it.

Things I dislike: You will be able to tell if I'm annoyed by my expressions and gestures. These probably won't lose you the round but will make me dock speaks.

Case to final focus extensions- I will refuse to evaluate them whatsoever and I will dock speaks.

Excessively long roadmaps- Your order should just be the flows. At most the arguments. Weighing is not a flow

Frivolous theory- I will evaluate it but it's annoying and not nice. The more frivolous your theory is, the less speaks I will give and the lower threshold I give for responses.

Being obnoxious and mean in crossfire.

Double drop theory (Tab won't let me drop both debaters).

Obvious and excessive trolling. Trolling too hard will get you dropped with very low speaks and an angry ballot. Tacit trolling, though, will make a round fun.

Saying game over when it's not or on the wrong part of the flow. You need to be correct when you say it or at least be on the correct part of the flow. Being correct when you say game over will be awarded with higher speaks.

Things I hate:

New arguments in final focus (especially 2nd). If you aren't winning overwhelmingly I will drop you immediately with 26 speaks.

Making up or severely miscutting evidence. I have a habit of calling sketchy cards after round or looking up a sketchy fact.

How I award speaks:

30- One of the best debaters in the tournament, if you don't break you probably got screwed over.

29-29.9- You are a good debater. You go for the correct strategies and make me want to pick you up. I think you will almost definitely break.

28-28.9- You are above average. You do something to make me want to vote for you but you could do better.

27-27.9- You are below average. I think you can still break but probably won't go too far.

26-26.9- You did something to annoy me such as ignore my paradigm.

Below 26- You did something offensive or broke a rule (this includes racism, ableism, and sexism)

30 speaks theory: if you're reading this instead of a K to get 30 speaks in front of me, it won't work. I would much rather see a K of debate if you're trying to be an activist in round.

Miscellaneous things:

Please read dates and author qualifications. I will evaluate date theory. Quals are useful to know.

I will evaluate official evidence challenges. People really should do this more.

Theory- Frivolous theory is boring and annoying but I'll evaluate it. I default to reasonability. This is to prevent extremely frivolous theory. On T, I default to competing interpretations. When making topicality arguments, debaters need standards or net benefits for their interpretation. T and theory should be in shell format because it makes arguing and evaluating it much easier for everyone. Theory and T also need implications. I default to drop the arg for theory and drop the team for T.

If you disclose to your opponents and me before the round, I'll boost your speaks by 0.5. If you're going to send speech docs to me and your opponents, I'll also boost your speaks by another 0.5.

You can request my flow after the round. By doing so, you are releasing me of any liability regarding what's written on it.

If you convince me to change my paradigm after judging you, I will give you 30 speaks.

I won't be annoyed if you postround me, but I will probably complain about it to other people if you say something funny.

If you can make a reference to song I like, I'll boost your speaks. If you make a reference to a song I don't like, I'll dock speaks.

Write down things you did to boost speaks and remind me right when the round ends. If I forget, you can remind me the next time I judge you and I'll give you the extra speaks I owe.

Check out some of my debate experience on https://www.facebook.com/leekedludes/?fref=ts

TL:DR- do whatever you want. I'm tabula rasa enough that if you make the argument for it, I'll evaluate anything, including not at all. You can override my entire paradigm with enough justification. Ask me about what's not on here.

LD Paradigm

Please put me on the email chain. Best with Larp, then K. Bad with tricks/phil.

I'm not familiar with most philosophy. Phil rounds scare me and will make me vote in a way that will make debaters unhappy.

K: I like Ks. I need to know what the alt actually does and if that is explained well, I will easily vote off the K.

K affs: I like these, they make debate interesting.

Tricks: I'll still vote off tricks but I'm pretty bad at evaluating these debates.

Performance: As long as I know what the aff does, I'll be fine. If I don't know what the aff does or says by the end of the 1AC, I'll be a little annoyed.

Theory: I have no problems with frivolous theory. Please slow down for analytics. I can't type as fast as you speak.

I assign speaks the same way as listed on my PF paradigm.

Policy Paradigm

I'm good with any kind of argumentation. I've read policy and k affs and have read a mix of stuff on Neg. Please slow down on tags, interps, and plan texts.

Tech over truth but I like reading evidence so if the evidence is really bad, I might dock speaks. Rehighlightings are fun.

I really like good case debates. A lot of 1ACs do not have very good link stories and can easily be taken out by smart analytics. Cases with tricky advantages that don't have these problems will work well in front of me. If you win with 8 mins of case in the 1NC, I'll give 30 speaks.

DAs: I'm willing to vote on any DA scenario that has uniqueness, link, and impact. Unique case specific DAs will go very well in front of me. I do believe in zero risk and I'm more receptive to defense than most judges (applies to case defense too).

CPs: I'm pretty much ok with any kind of CP. I will evaluate and may vote on CP theory, but I usually lean neg- existence of literature is probably important. CPs must be competitive. I default to judge kicking if it makes my decision easier.

Ks: You must explain your K in a way that I will understand. Don't just keep reading cards in the block- explain the K and how it interacts with the Aff and what the alt does and how it solves. If I understand the way it works, I'm more than willing to vote off it. If you're reading 1 off K, it's probably a good idea to have a decent amount of responses on case that are both critical and policy. I'm the least familiar with high theory so I need more explanations than usual.

K affs: Not really a preference for plan text or no plan text. Good 2ACs need to explain to me why I should vote aff, what my ballot does, and respond to the line by line on the case page (you're obviously more prepared than them for the case debate so don't let it go to waste). Against framework, reading counterinterps that are specific could solve for a lot of their impacts. Presumption arguments are probably a decent response in the 1NC especially if the aff is vague or confusing.

Framework: Reading fw against a K aff works as long as you win the flow. Most of the time, I lean aff on Fw debates, but that's because neg teams think that they can get away with explaining things less than aff teams (tell me specifically why your model is better, examples are probably good). The impacts on framework and the line by line are the most important and I'll vote for whoever wins the tech. I've found that fairness is less important than most debaters think. Limits is probably not an impact. 1NC shells can get out of a lot of impact turn offense by reading a more specific shell instead of T-USFG. The easiest way the negative can win is accessing impacts that turn the case which probably also solve for the impact turns. I've found that I really enjoy clash debates (I've read K affs against framework and gone for framework against K affs).

T: For some reason, I'm a masochist and I like T debates. Teams read reasonability without telling me what it means and I don't know what to do with it.

Condo: Probably a good thing but how it's debated is most important. If the block is light on condo (or theory in general), it's probably a good idea to extend it in the 1AR to see if the 2NR drops it.

Sam Lu Acton-Boxborough RHS Independent

Edith Lui University School

Last changed on Fri September 6, 2019 at 8:32 PM EDT

**I am a tabula rasa judge**

Experience:

Competitive: 4 years HS LD, PF, and Congress

Judging: 3 year of judging in LD

Coaching: Instructor at Classic Debate Camp

Style and Speed - I highly prefer the traditional style of LD, but I can follow progressive most of the time. DO NOT SPREAD. I am able to follow speeds on the faster end of the spectrum, but I really would like to clearly hear and flow your arguments so a speed that is a little bit above conversational would be totally fine. It'll be clear when I cannot flow. Finally, signpost and road map throughout the round as it helps me with following your speech and flowing. THIS APPLIES TO PF TOO! If I can't flow, then it will not go well for you.

Evidence -

LD: I really appreciate and value the use of evidence to aid an argument. However, do not just throw a piece of evidence into the round for the sake of doing so - aka explain it and tell me how it links back to the main argument.

PF: Of course, evidence is a must. However, PLEASE also explain it and impact any card you use. If you just spew a card and don't take the time to explain its relevance to the argument or the round, I will not take the time to consider it.

Framework/Structure -

LD: I will ALWAYS consider the framework debate as I think it is the foundation of LD debate. Make sure your frameworks are clearly and logically explained so that I, and your opponent, can follow. If your case or arguments do not link back to the framework, it is harder for me to buy it.

PF: If you do not implement some sort of mechanism or framework for me to weigh the round off of, I will use a cost/benefit analysis based upon your arguments and rebuttals. Also, tell me why your framework is effective and why I ought to prefer it in the case your opponent brings up a different one.

Please be civil. I do not mind debaters being assertive for the most part unless it goes overboard. You will be safe as long as you are courteous, respectful, polite, etc. Although I will not based the round off of any factors relating to decorum, there may be a penalty in speaker points.

Overall, be nice. I love clean, productive debates filled with evidence, logic, and obvious clash. If you have any questions or clarifications, please ask me before your round.

In addition, to prove that you have actually read this paradigm and that it wasn't a waste of my time and effort, pro should use protentions instead of contentions (nvi, I just want to be entertained).

Mark Mabie BASIS Independent Silicon Valley

Last changed on Thu January 18, 2024 at 11:28 AM PDT

TLDR; I debated parli in high school for 3 years and have been coaching PF, LD, and Parli for the last 9 years since then with state and national champions. I try do be as tabula rasa as possible. Refer to specifics below

Follow the NSDA debate rules for properly formatting your evidence for PF and LD.

If paraphrasing is used in a debate, the debater will be held to the same standard of citation and accuracy as if the entire text of the evidence were read for the purpose of distinguishing between which parts of each piece of evidence are and are not read in a particular round. In all debate events, The written text must be marked to clearly indicate the portions read or paraphrased in the debate. If a student paraphrases from a book, study, or any other source, the specific lines or section from which the paraphrase is taken must be highlighted or otherwise formatted for identification in the round

IMPORTANT REMINDER FOR PF: Burden of proof is on the side which proposes a change. I presume the side of the status quo. The minimum threshold needed for me to evaluate an argument is

1) A terminalized and quantifiable impact
2) A measurable or direct cause and effect from the internal link
3) A topical external link
4) Uniqueness

If you do not have all of these things, you have an incomplete and unproven argument. Voting on incomplete or unproven arguments demands judge intervention. If you don't know what these things mean ask.

Philosophy of Debate:

Debate is an activity to show off the intelligence, hard work, and creativity of students with the ultimate goal of promoting education, sportsmanship, and personal advocacy. Each side in the round must demonstrate why they are the better debater, and thus, why they should receive my vote. This entails all aspects of debate including speaking ability, case rhetoric, in-and-out-of round decorum, and most importantly the overall argumentation of each speaker. Also, remember to have fun too.

I am practically a Tabula Rasa judge. “Tab” judges claim to begin the debate with no assumptions on what is proper to vote on. "Tab" judges expect teams to show why arguments should be voted on, instead of assuming a certain paradigm. Although I will default all theory to upholding education unless otherwise told

Judge preferences: When reading a constructive case or rebutting on the flow, debaters should signpost every argument and every response. You should have voter issues in your last speech. Make my job as a judge easier by telling me verbatim, why I should vote for you.

Depending on the burdens implied within the resolution, I will default neg if I have nothing to vote on. (presumption)

Kritiks. I believe a “K” is an important tool that debater’s should have within their power to use when it is deemed necessary. That being said, I would strongly suggest that you not throw a “K” in a round simply because you think it’s the best way to win the round. It should be used with meaning and genuinity to fight actually oppressive, misogynistic, dehumanizing, and explicitly exploitative arguments made by your opponents. When reading a "K" it will be more beneficial for you to slow down and explain its content rather than read faster to get more lines off. It's pretty crucial that I actually understand what I'm voting on if It's something you're telling me "I'm morally obligated to do." I am open to hearing K's but it has been a year since I judged one so I would be a little rusty.

Most Ks I vote on do a really good job of explaining how their solvency actually changes things outside of the debate space. At the point where you can’t or don't explain how voting on the K makes a tangible difference in the world, there really isn't a difference between pre and post fiat impacts. I implore you to take note of this when running or defending against a K.

Theory is fine. It should have a proper shell and is read intelligibly. Even if no shell is present I may still vote on it.

Speed is generally fine. I am not great with spreading though. If your opponents say “slow down” you probably should. If I can’t understand you I will raise my hands and not attempt to flow.

I will only agree to 30 speaker point theory if it’s warranted with a reason for norms of abuse that is applicable to the debaters in the round. I will not extend it automatically to everyone just because you all agree to it.

Parli specifics:

I give almost no credence on whether or not your warrants or arguments are backed by “cited” evidence. Since this is parliamentary debate, I will most certainly will not be fact-checking in or after round. Do not argue that your opponents do not have evidence, or any argument in this nature because it would be impossible for them to prove anything in this debate.

Due to the nature of parli, to me the judge has an implicit role in the engagement of truth testing in the debate round. Because each side’s warrants are not backed by a hard cited piece of evidence, the realism or actual truth in those arguments must be not only weighed and investigated by the debaters but also the judge. The goal, however, is to reduce the amount of truth testing the judge must do on each side's arguments. The more terminalization, explanation, and warranting each side does, the less intervention the judge might need to do. For example if the negative says our argument is true because the moon is made of cheese and the affirmative says no it's made of space dust and it makes our argument right. I obviously will truth test this argument and not accept the warrant that the moon is made of cheese.

Tag teaming is ok but the person speaking must say the words themself if I am going to flow it. It also hurts speaker points.

Public Forum specifics:

I have no requirement for a 2-2 split. Take whatever rebuttal strategy you think will maximize your chance of winning. However note that offense generated from contentions in your case must be extended in second rebuttal or they are considered dropped. Same goes for first summary.

I will not accept any K in Public Forum. Theory may still be run. Critical impacts and meta weighing is fine. No pre-fiat impacts.

Your offense must be extended through each speech in the debate round for me to vote on it in your final focus. If you forget to extend offense in second rebuttal or in summary, then I will also not allow it in final focus. This means you must ALWAYS extend your own impact cards in second rebuttal and first summary if you want to go for them.

Having voter issues in final focus is one of the easiest ways you can win the round. Tell me verbatim why winning the arguments on the flow means you win the round. Relate it back to the standard.

Lincoln Douglass and Policy:

I am an experienced circuit parliamentary debate coach and am very tabula rasa so basically almost any argument you want to go for is fine. Please note the rest of my paradigm for specifics. If you are going to spread you must flash me everything going to be read.

Email is Markmabie20@gmail.com

Laura McAllister Hire 8 rounds

Chad Meadows Marist School

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 2:52 PM CDT

Chad Meadows (he/him)

chadwickmeadows@gmail.com

If you have interest in college debate, and would be interested in hearing about very expansive scholarship opportunities please contact me. Our program competes in two policy formats and travels to at least 4 tournaments a semester. Most of our nationally competitive students have close to zero cost of attendance because of debate specific financial support.

Debate Experience

College: I’ve been the head argument coach and/or Director of Debate for Western Kentucky University for a little over a decade. WKU primarily competes in NFA-LD, a shorter policy format. This season (2023) we are adding CEDA/NDT tournaments to our schedule.

High School: I’ve been an Assistant Coach, and primarily judge, for the Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia for several years. In this capacity I’ve judged at high school tournaments in both Policy Debate and Public Forum.

Argument Experience/Preferences

I feel comfortable evaluating the range of debates in modern policy debate (no plan affirmatives, policy, and kritik) though I am the most confident in policy rounds. My research interests tend toward more political science/international affairs/economics, though I’ve become well read in some critical areas in tandem with my students’ interests (anti-blackness/afropessimism in particular) in addition I have some cursory knowledge of the standard kritik arguments in debate, but no one would mistake me for a philosophy enthusiast. On the nuclear weapons topic, almost all of my research has been on the policy side.

I have few preferences with regard to content, but view some argumentative trends with skepticism: Counterplans that result in the plan (consult and many process counterplans), Agent counterplans, voting negative any procedural concern that isn’t topicality, reject the team counterplan theory that isn’t conditionality, some versions of politics DAs that rely on defining the process of fiat, arguments that rely on voting against the representations of the affirmative without voting against the result of the plan.

I feel very uncomfortable evaluating events that have happened outside of the debate round, especially in the CEDA/NDT community where I have limited knowledge of the context regarding community trends.

I have little experience evaluating debates with some strategies that would only be acceptable in a 2-person policy debate context - 2ac add-ons, 2nc counterplanning, 2ac intrinsicness tests on DA, etc. I’m not opposed to these strategies, and understand their strategic purpose, but I have limited exposure.

Decision Process

I tend to read more cards following the debate than most. That’s both because I’m curious, and I tend to find that debaters are informing their discussion given the evidence cited in the round, and I understand their arguments better having read the cards myself.

I give less credibility to arguments that appear unsupported by academic literature, even if the in round execution on those arguments is solid. I certainly support creativity and am open to a wide variety of arguments, but my natural disposition sides with excellent debate on arguments that are well represented in the topic literature.

To decide challenging debates I generally use two strategies: 1) write a decision for both sides and determine which reflects the in-round debating as opposed to my own intuition, and 2) list the relevant meta-issues in the round (realism vs liberal internationalism, debate is a game vs. debate should spill out, etc.) and list the supporting arguments each side highlighted for each argument and attempt to make sense of who debated the best on the issues that appear to matter most for resolving the decision.

I try to explain why I sided with the winner on each important issue, and go through each argument extended in the final rebuttal for the losing team and explain why I wasn’t persuaded by that argument.

Public Forum

Baseline expectations: introduce evidence using directly quoted sections of articles not paraphrasing, disclose arguments you plan to read in debates.

Argument preferences: no hard and fast rules, but I prefer debates that most closely resemble the academic and professional controversy posed by the topic. Debate about debate, while important in many contexts, is not the argument I'm most interested in adjudicating.

Style preferences: Argumentation not speaking style will make up the bulk of my decision making and feedback, my reflections on debate are informed by detailed note taking of the speeches, speeches should focus their time on clashing with their opponents' arguments.

Jeffrey Miller Marist School

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 12:25 PM EDT

Jeffrey Miller

Current Coach -- Marist School (2011-present)
Lab Leader -- National Debate Forum (2015-present), Emory University (2016), Dartmouth College (2014-2015), University of Georgia (2012-2015)
Former Coach -- Fayette County (2006-2011), Wheeler (2008-2009)
Former Debater -- Fayette County (2002-2006)

jmill126@gmail.com and maristpublicforum@gmail.com for email chains, please (no google doc sharing and no locked google docs)

Last Updated -- 2/12/2012 for the 2022 Postseason (no major updates, just being more specific on items)

I am a high school teacher who believes in the power that speech and debate provides students. There is not another activity that provides the benefits that this activity does. I am involved in topic wording with the NSDA and argument development and strategy discussion with Marist, so you can expect I am coming into the room as an informed participant about the topic. As your judge, it is my job to give you the best experience possible in that round. I will work as hard in giving you that experience as I expect you are working to win the debate. I think online debate is amazing and would not be bothered if we never returned to in-person competitions again. For online debate to work, everyone should have their cameras on and be cordial with other understanding that there can be technical issues in a round.

What does a good debate look like?

In my opinion, a good debate features two well-researched teams who clash around a central thesis of the topic. Teams can demonstrate this through a variety of ways in a debate such as the use of evidence, smart questioning in cross examination and strategical thinking through the use of casing and rebuttals. In good debates, each speech answers the one that precedes it (with the second constructive being the exception in public forum). Good debates are fun for all those involved including the judge(s).

The best debates are typically smaller in nature as they can resolve key parts of the debate. The proliferation of large constructives have hindered many second halves as they decrease the amount of time students can interact with specific parts of arguments and even worse leaving judges to sort things out themselves and increasing intervention.

What role does theory play in good debates?

I've always said I prefer substance over theory. That being said, I do know theory has its place in debate rounds and I do have strong opinions on many violations. I will do my best to evaluate theory as pragmatically as possible by weighing the offense under each interpretation. For a crash course in my beliefs of theory - disclosure is good, open source is an unnecessary standard for high school public forum teams until a minimum standard of disclosure is established, paraphrasing is bad, round reports is frivolous, content warnings for graphic representations is required, content warnings over non-graphic representations is debatable.

All of this being said, I don't view myself as an autostrike for teams that don't disclose or paraphrase. However, I've judged enough this year to tell you if you are one of those teams and happen to debate someone with thoughts similar to mine, you should be prepared with answers.

How do "progressive" arguments work in good debates?

Like I said above, arguments work best when they are in the context of the critical thesis of the topic. Thus, if you are reading the same cards in your framing contention from the Septober topic that have zero connections to the current topic, I think you are starting a up-hill battle for yourselves. I have not been entirely persuaded with the "pre-fiat" implications I have seen this year - if those pre-fiat implications were contextualized with topic literature, that would be different.

My major gripe with progressive debates this year has been a lack of clash. Saying "structural violence comes first" doesn't automatically mean it does or that you win. These are debatable arguments, please debate them. I am also finding that sometimes the lack of clash isn't a problem of unprepared debaters, but rather there isn't enough time to resolve major issues in the literature. At a minimum, your evidence that is making progressive type claims in the debate should never be paraphrased and should be well warranted. I have found myself struggling to flow framing contentions that include four completely different arguments that should take 1.5 minutes to read that PF debaters are reading in 20-30 seconds (Read: your crisis politics cards should be more than one line).

How should evidence exchange work?

Evidence exchange in public forum is broken. At the beginning of COVID, I found myself thinking cases sent after the speech in order to protect flowing. However, my view on this has shifted. A lot of debates I found myself judging last season had evidence delays after case. At this point, constructives should be sent immediately prior to speeches. (If you paraphrase, you should send your narrative version with the cut cards in order). At this stage in the game, I don't think rebuttal evidence should be emailed before but I imagine that view will shift with time as well. When you send evidence to the email chain, I prefer a cut card with a proper citation and highlighting to indicate what was read. Cards with no formatting or just links are as a good as analytics.

For what its worth, whenever I return to in-person tournaments, I do expect email chains to continue.

What effects speaker points?

I am trying to increase my baseline for points as I've found I'm typically below average. Instead of starting at a 28, I will try to start at a 28.5 for debaters and move accordingly. Argument selection, strategy choices and smart crossfires are the best way to earn more points with me. You're probably not going to get a 30 but have a good debate with smart strategy choices, and you should get a 29+.

This only applies to tournaments that use a 0.1 metric -- tournaments that are using half points are bad.

Richard Moore Perry

Miles Morton The Blake School

Arul Nayagadurai Brentwood High School

Oliver Niu Hire 8 rounds

Matt Novak University School

David Parau Fairmont Prep

Last changed on Sun October 11, 2020 at 5:21 PM EDT

Brief Background: 1 year in policy, 3 years in pf (2 on the national circuit) for BASIS Peoria, now I am debating Policy for USC.

PF Paradigm:

the short version is: tech over truth but winning the tech of an argument doesn't mean I will vote on it unless it is 1) warranted and 2) weighed. Fascist arguments will never get my vote even if you win the tech sorry not sorry but do better.

Speed is fine (I personally prefer fast and technical debate because I think it is more entertaining and intellectually stimulating, however, my principal philosophy about debate is that it should be totally up to the debaters to decide what they want the round to be like as long as it's not problematic*)

I would like to be on the email chain and I do prefer cards/read evidence in case/rebuttal and then implicated in the second half of the round.

Other things:

I don't really bother keeping a poker face so you'll probably be able to guess if I like/dislike and especially if I don't understand something about your argument based on nonverbals.

1. I care far more about a well-warranted and extended link chain (with 3 minute summaries there really is no excuse) than about which misconstrued impact card has the biggest number. On that same note make sure you front-line AND extend by warrant. I am not prejudiced against magnitude weighing (this is more-so an evidence ethics qualm I have- impacts are often misrepresented), just that I like to know exactly what happens and why it happens when I vote for you. Also if your impact evidence is the same as or at least written with your link evidence in mind (the literature, not your case) I will be more inclined to believe the totality of your impact. Basically, make sure the conditions specified in your impact evidence are the conditions you fulfill within your links.

1.1. I do believe that a conceded link chain grants you full access to the argument HOWEVER I think saying that "probability weighing isn't real" doesn't take into account the fact that the authors of the evidence themselves often speak about the probability of their scenario in context (i.e. an author writing about nuclear war probably uses language to indicate that they don't believe it will be an absolute certainty, but rather a possibility, yet when we cut evidence we usually leave that language out.) As such, I do leave a *little* some room for probability comparison if the analysis is smart and compelling. However, you are probably better off leveraging defense on their link chain if you want to prove their story unlikely.

2. 2nd Rebuttal doesn't NEED to the frontline, but it is probably strategic to do so. IF 2nd rebuttal does frontline, 1st summary probably needs to extend any defense that they wish to be evaluated and should obviously frontline offense (even from rebuttal) if 2nd rebuttal doesn't frontline, 1st summary doesn't need to extend defense because it is still untouched.

3. I am tabula rasa on theory as well as any other type of argumentation. The threshold for me voting on a theory argument is twofold 1)you articulate any abuse/violations that the other team has incurred 2) you articulate why your standards for debate are better for the activity. I will probably not vote on your theory args unless you demonstrate in-round abuse. You can read a shell or paragraph, I don't really care, but I think a shell tends to be technically more easy to follow and probably more strategic as well. Ks are fine as well if you know how to debate Ks. I am familiar with K lit so go wild if you want.

More specifics:

Framework/Meta-weighing matters or else I default to util (though I am very easily convinced util is the debate equivalent of #alllivesmatter)

In terms of tech or truth; treat me as you would a very tech judge in the sense that I will flow all of your arguments and grant you access to an impact if you win and extend the link and impact, but that doesn't mean I will vote on a 5 second blippy extension that's not weighed or implicated, even if it's dropped. If you really think your 5 second turn is good enough to win you the round, it's up to you do strategically allocate your time and convince me that it outweighs.

*overtly problematic ____ist argument will get you yeeted; if you as a debater in the round feel as though something said in the round is problematic and for some reason I'm not catching it (whether because my privilege insulates me or for whatever reason) please feel free to speak up, on time or off, because I believe it is essential that we all work to make debate as inclusive as possible.

Les Phillips The Nueva School

Last changed on Wed January 17, 2024 at 3:38 AM PDT

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA PF PARADIGM

I have judged all kinds of debate for decades, beginning with a long career as a circuit policy and LD coach. Speed is fine. I judge on the flow. Dropped arguments carry full weight. At various times I have voted (admittedly, in policy) for smoking tobacco good, Ayn Rand Is Our Savior, Scientology Good, dancing and drumming trumps topicality, and Reagan-leads-to-Communism-and-Communism-is-good. (I disliked all of these positions.)

If an argument is in final focus, it should be in summary; if it's in summary, it should be in rebuttal,. I am very stingy regarding new responses in final focus. Saying something for the first time in grand cross does not legitimize its presence in final focus.

NSDA standards demand dates out loud on all evidence. That is a good standard; you must do that. I am giving up on getting people to indicate qualifications out loud, but I am very concerned about evidence standards in PF (improving, but still not good). I will bristle and register distress if I hear "according to Princeton" as a citation. Know who your authors are; know what their articles say; know their warrants.

Please please terminalize impacts. Do this especially when you are talking about a nebulosity called "The Economy." Economic growth is not intrinsically good; it depends on where the growth goes and who is helped. Sometimes economic growth is very bad. "Increases tensions" is not a terminal impact; what happens after the tensions increase? When I consider which makes the world a better place, I will be looking for prevention of unnecessary death and/or disease, who lifts people out of poverty, who lessens the risk of war, who prevents gross human rights violations. I'm also receptive to well-developed framework arguments that may direct me to some different decision calculus.

Teams don't get to decide that they want to skip grand cross (or any other part of the round).

I am happy to vote on well warranted theory arguments (or well warranted responses). Redundant, blippy theory goo is irritating. I have a fairly high threshold for deciding that an argument is abusive. I am receptive to Kritikal arguments in PF. I will default to NSDA rules re: no plans/counterplans, absent a very compelling reason why I should break those rules.

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA PARLI PARADIGM

I have judged all kinds of debate for decades, beginning with a long career as a circuit policy and LD coach. I have judged parli less than other formats, but my parli judging includes several NPDA tournaments, including two NPDA national tournaments, and most recent NPDI tournaments. Speed is fine, as are all sorts of theoretical, Kritikal, and playfully counterintuitive arguments. I judge on the flow. Dropped arguments carry full weight. I do not default to competing interpretations, though if you win that standard I will go there. Redundant, blippy theory goo is irritating. I have a fairly high threshold for deciding that an argument is abusive. Once upon a time people though I was a topicality hack, and I am still more willing to pull the trigger on that argument than on other theoretical considerations. The texts of advocacies are binding; slow down for these, as necessary.

I will obey tournament/league rules, where applicable. That said, I very much dislike rules that discourage or prohibit reference to evidence.

I was trained in formats where the judge can be counted on to ignore new arguments in late speeches, so I am sometimes annoyed by POOs, especially when they resemble psychological warfare.

Please please terminalize impacts. Do this especially when you are talking about The Economy. "Helps The Economy" is not an impact. Economic growth is not intrinsically good; it depends on where the growth goes and who is helped. Sometimes economic growth is very bad. "Increases tensions" is not a terminal impact; what happens after the tensions increase?

When I operate inside a world of fiat, I consider which team makes the world a better place. I will be looking for prevention of unnecessary death and/or disease, who lifts people out of poverty, who lessens the risk of war, who prevents gross human rights violations. "Fiat is an illusion" is not exactly breaking news; you definitely don't have to debate in that world. I'm receptive to "the role of the ballot is intellectual endorsement of xxx" and other pre/not-fiat world considerations.

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA LD PARADIGM

For years I coached and judged fast circuit LD, but I have not judged LD since 2013, and I have not coached on the current topic at all. Top speed, even if you're clear, may challenge me; lack of clarity will be very unfortunate. I try to be a blank slate (like all judges, I will fail to meet this goal entirely). I like the K, though I get frustrated when I don't know what the alternative is (REJECT is an OK alternative, if that's what you want to do). I have a very high bar for rejecting a debater rather than an argument, and I do not default to competing interpretations; I would like to hear a clear abuse story. I am generally permissive in re counterplan competitiveness and perm legitimacy. RVIs are OK if the abuse is clear, but if you would do just as well to simply tell me why the opponent's argument is garbage, that would be appreciated.

Bryce Piotrowski Lakeville South HS

Last changed on Wed April 17, 2024 at 2:57 AM CDT

Updated 4/17 for the Tournament of Champions

Congrats on qualifying for the TOC! Being at this tournament is a substantial accomplishment on its own, and one that you should be extremely proud of.

Topic thoughts:

Both teams should spend more time explaining the mechanism by which they resolve their impacts. For instance - how does the UNSC prevent conflict? What would the UNSC do absent a veto to resolve x conflict? I think that the team that best explains those internal links has a better shot of winning in front of me. Using past examples of UN intervention (or lack thereof) seems to be important to explain warrants to me.

In short:

Put me on the email chain before I show up. Send speech docs (i.e., Word docs as attachments) before any speech in which you are going to read evidence. Read good evidence. Debate about what you want. I'd strongly prefer it have some relation to the topic. Speed is fine so long as you're clear, slow down/differentiate tags, and clearly signpost arguments. I will not read the document during your speech. Theory is silly and I'd rather vote on anything else. Critical arguments are fine, if grounded in topic lit and you can articulate what voting for you is/does. Debaters should read more lines from fewer pieces of evidence. If you have time, please read everything in my paradigm. It's not that long.

he/him

I've been involved in competitive speech and debate since 2014. I am the Director of Speech and Debate at Seven Lakes High School in Katy, Texas. I competed in PF and Congress in high school and NPDA-style parliamentary debate in college at Minnesota.

I am also a Co-Director of Public Forum Boot Camp (PFBC) in Minnesota. If you do high school PF and you want to talk to me about camp, let me know.

I am conflicted against Seven Lakes (TX), Lakeville North (MN), Lakeville South (MN), Blake (MN), and Vel Phillips Memorial (WI).

Put me on the email chain. Please flip and get fully set up before the round start time. My email is my first name [dot] my last name [at] gmail. Add sevenlakespf@googlegroups.com, sevenlakesld@googlegroups.com, or sevenlakescx@googlegroups.com depending on the event I am judging you in. The subject of the email chain should clearly state the tournament, round number and flight, and team codes/sides of each team. For example: "Gold TOC R1A - Seven Lakes CL 1A v Lakeville North LM 2N".

In general:

Debate is a competitive research activity. The team that can most effectively synthesize their research into a defense of their plan, method, or side of the resolution will win the debate. I would like you to be persuasive, entertaining, kind, and strategic. Feel free to ask clarifying questions before the debate.

How I decide rounds/preferences:

I can judge whatever. I will vote for whatever argument wins on the flow. I want to judge a small but deep debate about the topic.

I've judged or been a part of several thousand debates in various formats over the past decade. I have seen, gone for, and voted for lots of arguments. My preference is that you demonstrate mastery of the topic and a well-thought-out strategy during the round and that you're excited to do debate and engage with your opponents' research. The best rounds consist of rigorous examination and comparison of the most recent and academically legitimate topic literature. I would like to hear you compare many different warrants and examples, and to condense the round as early as possible. Ignoring this preference will likely result in lower speaker points.

I flow, intently and carefully. I will stop flowing when my timer goes off. I will not flow while reading a document, and will only use the email chain or speech doc to look at evidence when instructed to by the competitors or after the round if the interpretation of a piece of evidence is vital to my decision. There is no grace period of any length. I will not vote on an argument I did not flow.

There is not a dichotomy between "truth" and "tech". Obviously, the team that does the better debating will win, and that will be determined by arguments that I've flowed, but you will have a much more difficult time convincing me that objectively bad arguments are true than convincing me that good arguments are true. In other words, an argument's truth often dictates its implication for my ballot because it informs technical skill.

I will not vote for unwarranted arguments, arguments that I cannot explain in my RFD, or arguments I did not flow. I have now given several decisions that were basically: "I am aware this was on the doc. I did not flow it during your speech time." Most PF rounds I judge are decided by mere seconds of argumentation, and most PF teams should probably think harder about how to warrant their links and compare their terminal impacts than they do right now.

Zero risk exists. I probably won't vote on defense or presumption, but I am theoretically willing to.

An average speaker in front of me will get a 28.5.

Critical arguments:

I am a decent judge for critical strategies that are well thought out, related to the topic, and strategically executed. I am happy to vote to reject a team's rhetoric, to critically examine economic and political systems of power, etc. if you explain why those impacts matter. In a PF context, these arguments seem to struggle with not being fleshed out enough because of short speech times but I'm not ideologically opposed to them.

I am not a great judge for strategies that ignore the resolution. I will vote for arguments that reject the topic if there are warrants for why we ought to do that and you win those warrants. But, if evenly debated, relating your strategy to the topic is a good idea.

I am a terrible judge for strategies that rely on in-round "discourse" as offense. I generally do not think that these strategies have an impact or solve the harms with debate they identify. I've voted for these arguments several times, and I still find them unpersuasive - I just found the other team's defense of debate worse.

Theory:

Theory is generally boring and I rarely want to listen to it without it being placed in a specific context based on the current topic.

I am more than qualified to evaluate theory debates and used to go for theory in college quite a bit.

I would strongly prefer not to listen to debates about setting norms. Disclosure is generally good. Paraphrasing is generally bad.

Here is a list of arguments which will be very difficult to win in front of me: violations based on anything that occurred outside of the current debate, frivolous theory or other positions with no bearing on the question posed by the resolution, trigger warning theory, anything categorized as a trick or meant to evade clash, anything that is labeled as an IVI without a warranted implication for the ballot.

I recognize the strategic value of theory and that sometimes, you need to go for it to win a debate. If you decide to do that, you might get very low speaker points, depending on how asinine I think your position is. I will be persuaded by appeals to reasonability and that substantive debate matters more than your position.

Evidence:

Evidence ethics arguments/IVIs/theory/etc. will not be treated as theory - I will ask the team who has introduced the argument about evidence ethics if I should stop the debate and evaluate the challenge to evidence to determine the winner/loser of the round. The same goes for clipping. This is obviously different than reasons to prefer a piece of evidence or other normal weighing claims. I reserve the right to vote against teams that I notice are fabricating evidence during the round even if the other team does not make it a voting issue.

You should read good evidence and disclose case positions after you debate.

I have lots of other thoughts on speech and debate that you can read here if you would like - it encompasses some past paradigms, etc.

Josh Prine The Quarry Lane School

Jaswant Puliady Del Norte Independent

Will Reilley Hire 8 rounds

Jenifer Rodriguez Morristown West HS

Hagan Rose Brentwood High School

Gabe Rusk Fairmont Prep

Last changed on Sat April 20, 2024 at 12:11 AM PDT

TOC:

Evidence and Docs: There was a little confusion about evidence exchange and prep time this morning in the Judges Meeting. PF Tab clarified in an email that page 56/57 PF rules still stand and if Team A calls for Team B's evidence they can get free prep until Team B produces that evidence. When Team A gets that evidence in hand then prep time starts. Please let your judges know they got an email with the clarification. But please just send the evidence ASAP.

Let me stress again... I think it is an intervention to look at speech doc during a speech if you cannot understand the speaker. This incentivizes 2,000 word cases. I will not look at the speech doc until after the speech to read evidence only if it is relevant to a discussion in the round. If I clear you twice it probably means I am not going to be able to effectively flow what you want.

Emails: Please put gabriel.rusk@gmail.com on the email chain as well as fairmontprepdebateteam@gmail.com

Uniqueness: If you are running an argument that is based on some fairly recent dynamic or fluid geopolitical scenario you prob should have UQ updates from this week. Postdates aren't automatic evidence triumphs please still implicate why they matter.

Gabe Rusk

☮️

Background

Debate Experience: TOC Champion PF 2010, 4th at British Parli University National Championships 2014, Oxford Debate Union competitive debater 2015-2016 (won best floor speech), LGBTQIA+ Officer at the Oxford Debate Union.

Wanna come hang with me this summer? Sign up for the Summer Speech & Debate Think Tank at Stanford University.

NSDA PF Topic Committee Member: If you have any ideas, topic areas, or resolutions in mind for next season please send them to my email below.

Coaching Experience: Director of Debate at Fairmont Prep 2018-Current, Senior Instructor and PF Curriculum Director at the Institute for Speech and Debate, La Altamont Lane 2018 TOC, GW 2010-2015. British Parli coach and lecturer for universities including DU, Oxford, and others.

Education: Masters from Oxford University '16 - Dissertation on the history of the First Amendment. Religion and Philosophy BA at DU '14. Other research areas include Buddhism, comparative religion, conlaw, First Amendment law, free speech, freedom of expression, art law, media law, & legal history. AP Macroeconomics Teacher too so don't make econ args up.

2023 Winter Data Update: Importing my Tabroom data I've judged 651 rounds since 2014 with a 53% Pro and 47% Con vote balance. There may be a slight subconscious Aff bias it seems. My guess is that I may subconsciously give more weight to changing the status quo as that's the core motivator of debate but no statistically meaningful issues are present.

Email: gabriel.rusk@gmail.com

Website: I love reading non-fiction, especially features. Check out my free website Rusk Reads for good article recs.

PF Paradigm

Judge Philosophy

I consider myself tech>truth but constantly lament the poor state of evidence ethics, power tagging, clipping, and more. Further, I know stakes can be high in a bubble, bid, or important round but let's still come out of the debate feeling as if it was a positive experience. Life is too short for needless suffering. Please be kind, compassionate, and cordial.

Big Things

What I want to see: I'm empathetic to major technical errors in my ballots. In a perfect world I vote for the team who does best on tech and secondarily on truth. I tend to resolve clash most easily when you give explicit reasons why either a) your evidence is comparatively better but also when you tell me why b) your warranting is comparatively better. Obviously doing both compounds your chances at winning my ballot. I have recently become more sensitive to poor extensions in the back half. Please have UQ where necessary, links, internal links, and impacts. Weighing introduced earlier the better. Weighing is your means to minimize intervention.
Weighing Unlike Things: I need to know how to weigh two comparatively unlike things. If you are weighing some economic impact against a non-economic impact like democracy how do I defer to one over the other? Scope, magnitude, probability etc. I strongly prefer impact debates on the probability/reasonability of impacts over their magnitude and scope. Obviously try to frame impacts using all available tools. I am very amicable to non-trad framing of impacts but you need to extend the warrants and evidence.
Weighing Like Things: Please have warrants and engage comparatively between yourself and your opponent. Obviously methodological and evidentiary comparison is nice too as I mentioned earlier. I love crossfires or speech time where we discuss the warrants behind our cards and why that's another reason to prefer your arg over your opponent.
Don't be a DocBot: I love that you're prepared and have enumerated overviews, blocks, and frontlines. I love heavy evidence and dense debates with a lot of moving parts. But if it sounds like you're just reading a doc without specific or explicit implications to your opponent's contentions you are not contributing anything meaningful to the round. Tell me why your responses interact. If they are reading an arg about the environment and just read an A2 Environment Non-Unique without explaining why your evidence or warranting is better then this debate will suffer.
I'm comfortable if you want to take the debate down kritical, theoretical, and/or pre-fiat based roads. I think framework debates be them pre or post fiat are awesome. Voted on many K's before too. Here be dragons. I will say though, over time I've become increasingly tired of opportunistic, poor quality, and unfleshed out theory in PF. But in the coup of the century, I have been converted to the position that disclosure theory and para theory is a viable path to the ballot if you win your interp. I do have questions I am ruminating on after the summer doxxing of judges and debaters whether certain interps of disc are viable and am interested to see how that can be explored in a theory round. I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. See thoughts below on that. All variables being equal I would prefer post-fiat stock topic-specific rounds but in principle remain as tabula rasa as I can on disc and paraphrasing theory.

Little Things

(New Note for 2024: Speech docs have never intended to serve as an alternative to flowing a speech. They are for exchanging evidence faster and to better scrutinize evidence. Otherwise, you could send a 3000 word case and the speech itself could be as unintelligible as you would like without a harm. As a result there is an infinite regress of words you could send. Thus I will not look at a speech doc during your speech to aid with flowing and will clear you if needed. I will look at docs only when there is evidence comparison, flags, indicts etc but prefer to have it on hand. My speed threshold is very high but please be a bit louder than usual the faster you go. I know there is a trade off with loudness and speed but what can we do).
What needs to be frontlined in second rebuttal? Turns. Not defense unless you have time. If you want offense in the final focus then extend it through the summary.
Defense is not sticky between rebuttal and final focus. Aka if defense is not in summary you can't extend it in final focus. I've flipped on this recently. I've found the debate is hurt by the removal of the defense debate in summary and second final focus can extend whatever random defense it wants or whatever random frontlines to defense. This gives the second speaking teams a disproportionate advantage and makes the debate needlessly more messy.
I will pull cards on two conditions. First, if it becomes a key card in the round and the other team questions the validity of the cut, paraphrasing, or explanation of the card in the round. Second, if the other team never discusses the merits of their opponents card the only time I will ever intervene and call for that evidence is if a reasonable person would know it's facially a lie.
Calling for your opponent's cards. It should not take more than 1 minute to find case cards. Do preflows before the round. Smh y'all.
If you spread that's fine. Just be prepared to adjust if I need to clear or provide speech docs to your opponents to allow for accessibility and accommodation.
My favorite question in cx is: Why? For example, "No I get that's what your evidence says but why?"
Germs are scary. I don't like to shake hands. It's not you! It's me! [Before covid times this was prophetic].
I don't like to time because it slows my flow in fast rounds but please flag overtime responses in speechs and raise your phone. Don't interrupt or use loud timers.

Ramblings on Trigger Warning Theory

Let me explain why I am writing this. This isn't because I'm right and you're wrong. I'm not trying to convince you. Nor should you cite this formally in round to win said round. Rather, a lot of you care so much about debate and theory in particular gets pretty personal fairly quickly that I want to explain why my hesitancy isn't personal to you either. I am not opposing theory as someone who is opposed to change in Public Forum.

- First, I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. My grad school research and longstanding work outside of debate has tracked how queer, civil rights advocates, religious minorities, and political dissidents have been extensively censored over time through structural means. The suppression and elimination of critical race theory and BLM from schools and universities is an extension of this. I have found it very difficult to be tabula rasa on this issue. TW/anonymous opt outs are welcome if you so wish to include them, that is your prerogative, but like I said the lack of one is not a debate I can be fair on. Let me be clear. I do not dismiss that "triggers" are real. I do not deny your lived experience on face nor claim all of you are, or even a a significant number of you, are acting in bad faith. This is always about balancing tests. My entire academic research for over 8 years was about how structural oppressors abuse these frameworks of "sin," "harm," "other," to squash dissidents, silence suffragettes, hose civil rights marchers, and imprison queer people because of the "present danger they presented in their conduct or speech." I also understand that some folks in the literature circles claim there is a double bind. You are opting out of trigger warning debates but you aren't letting me opt out of debates I don't want to have either. First, I will never not listen to or engage in this debate. My discouragement above is rooted in my deep fear that I will let you down because I can't be as fair as I would be on another issue. I tell students all the time tabula rasa is a myth. I still think that. It's a goal we strive for to minimize intervention because we will never eliminate it. Second, I welcome teams to still offer tw and will not penalize you for doing so. Third, discussions on SV, intersectionality, and civil rights are always about trade offs. Maybe times will change but historically more oppression, suppression, and suffering has come from the abuse of the your "speech does me harm" principle than it benefits good faith social justice champions who want to create a safe space and a better place. If you want to discuss this empirical question (because dang there are so many sources and this is an appeal to my authority) I would love to chat about it.

Next, let me explain some specific reasons why I am resistant to TW theory in debate using terms we use in the literature. There is a longstanding historical, philosophical, and queer/critical theory concern on gatekeeper shift. If we begin drawing more and more abstract lines in terms of what content causes enough or certain "harm" that power can and will be co-opted and abused by the equally more powerful. Imagine if you had control over what speech was permitted versus your polar opposite actor in values. Now imagine they, via structural means, could begin to control that power for themselves only. In the last 250 years of the US alone I can prove more instances than not where this gatekeeping power was abused by government and powerful actors alike. I am told since this has changed in the last twenty years with societal movements so should we. I don't think we have changed that significantly. Just this year MAUS, a comic about the Holocaust, was banned in a municipality in Jan 22. Toni Morrison was banned from more than a dozen school districts in 2021 alone. PEN, which is a free press and speech org, tracked more than 125 bills, policies, or resolutions alone this year that banned queer, black, feminist, material be them books, films, or even topics in classrooms, libraries, and universities. Even in some of the bills passed and proposed the language being used is under the guise of causing "discomfort." "Sexuality" and discussions of certain civil rights topics is stricken from lesson plans all together under these frameworks. These trends now and then are alarming.

I also understand this could be minimizing the trauma you relive when a specific topic or graphic description is read in round. I again do not deny your experience on face ever. I just cannot comfortably see that framework co-opted and abused to suppress the mechanisms or values of equality and equity. So are you, Gabe, saying because the other actors steal a tool and abuse that tool it shouldn't be used for our shared common goals? Yes, if the powerful abuse that tool and it does more harm to the arc of history as it bends towards justice than I am going to oppose it. This can be a Heckler's Veto, Assassin's Veto, Poisoning The Well, whatever you want to call it. Even in debate I have seen screenshots of actual men discussing how they would always pick the opt out because they don't want to "debate girls on women issues in front of a girl judge." This is of course likely an incredibly small group but I am tired of seeing queer, feminist, or critical race theory based arguments being punted because of common terms or non-graphic descriptions. Those debates can be so enriching to the community and their absence means we are structurally disadvantaged with real world consequences that I think outweigh the impacts usually levied against this arg. I will defend this line for the powerless and will do so until I die.

All of these above claims are neither syllogisms or encyclopedias of events. I am fallible and so are those arguments. Hence let us debate this but just know my thoughts.

Like in my disclaimer on the other theory shell none of these arguments are truisms just my inner and honest thoughts to help you make strategic decisions in the round.

Brian Sanderfer DuPont Manual High School

Harrison Schlossberg Poly Prep Country Day School

Kate Selig Bromfield HS Independent None

Bob Shurtz Hawken

Last changed on Sun January 7, 2024 at 11:12 AM EDT

PF Paradigm: I am an experienced PF judge and PF coach on the national circuit. I judge primarily on impacts. You need to give a clear link story backed up with logic and evidence. Framework is important. Weighing is very important. It is better to acknowledge that your opponent may be winning a certain argument and explain how the impacts you are winning outweigh than it is to ignore that argument made by your opponent. Don't extend through ink. If your opponent attacks your argument you need to respond to that attack and not just repeat your original argument. I don't mind rapid conversational speed - especially while reading evidence, but no spreading. I will keep a good flow and judge primarily off the flow, but let's keep PF as an event where persuasive speaking style, logic, evidence, and refutation are all important. Also let's keep PF distinct from national circuit LD and national circuit policy -although I will listen to any arguments that you present, in public forum, I find arguments that are directly related to the impacts of the resolution to be the most persuasive. Theory arguments as far as arguing about reasonable burdens for upholding or refuting the resolution are fine, but I don't see any reason for formal theory shells in public forum and the debate should be primarily centered around the resolution.

LD Paradigm: I am an experienced LD judge. I do prefer traditional style LD. I am, however, OK with plans and counter-plans and I am OK with theory arguments concerning analysis of burdens. I am not a fan of Kritiks. I will try to be open to evaluate arguments presented in the round, but I do prefer that the debate be largely about the resolution instead of largely centered on theory. I am OK with fast conversational speed and I am OK with evidence being read a little faster than fast conversational as long as tag lines and analysis are not faster than fast conversational. I do believe that V / VC are required, but I don't believe that the V / VC are voting issues in and of themselves. That is, even if you convince me that your V / VC is superior (more important, better linked to the resolution) than your opponent's V / VC that is not enough for me to vote for you. You still need to prove that your case better upholds your V / VC than your opponent's case does. To win, you may do one of three things: (1) Prove that your V / VC is superior to your opponent's AND that your case better upholds that V / VC than your opponent's case does, OR (2) Accept your opponent's V / VC and prove that your case better upholds their V/VC than their case does. OR (3) Win an "even-if" combination of (1) and (2).

CX Paradigm: I am an experienced LD and PF judge (nationally and locally). I have judged policy debate at a number of tournaments over the years - including the final round of the NSDA national tournament in 2015. However, I am more experienced in PF and LD than I am in policy. I can handle speed significantly faster than the final round of NSDA nationals, but not at super-fast speed. (Evidence can be read fast if you slow down for tag lines and for analysis.) Topicality arguments are fine. I am not a fan of kritiks or critical affs.

Will Silberman Hire

Caleb Smith The Cambridge School

andre swai Montgomery Blair

Last changed on Sun March 17, 2024 at 7:19 PM CDT

Background: Masters student at University Nebraska Lincoln studying Communication Rhetoric with an emphasis on critical theory and film. Former 2021 NFA-LD National Champion, 2019 Missouri State Policy Champion, 2018 NCFL LD Quarterfinalist.

While I will likely vote for almost anything if you have the proper framework to justify it. I am a former critical anti-blackness debater. I believe debate is more than a game and my experience in the activity has obviously informed my love for critical debate. Critical education is a cornerstone of this activity that I love to explore. However, you can read just about anything in front of me but you should know my strengths and weakness as a judge. Don't think reading critical stuff is a auto-win, far from it, I'll hold you to a somewhat higher standard because I know what good K debate looks like and I understand it.

I'm not super well versed in the intricacies of policy argumentation despite my 10 years in this activity. I just ask you to meet me where I'm at. I love a good policy debate whenever the story of the AC is CLEAR and EXTENDED throughout the entirety of the debate. Your AR's shouldn't just be extension and tech, I need overviews and clear articulations of what the AFF does, what it solves and why it matters. Run your heg/econ/war policy AFF, just do it well. If you do run policy, do it well. However, I draw the line at any death/extinction good arguments. It's weird and privileged asf. If you think your opp can be construed as accelerationist or fascist, call it out as so and you will likely win. I'm tired of hearing "all humans need to die". I won't auto-down vote but if your opp impacts out your genocidal rhetoric, you're cooked tbh.

Policy NC's: In order, I prefer K's, Case Turns, DA's, CP's, Topicality, and Theory. I expect the AFF to cover all negative positions unless AR theory says otherwise. I will vote for topicality on policy AFF's but it will be an uphill battle reading framework against a non-T critical AFF. If it feels exclusionary, and the aff wins that it is, good luck.

Test your critical sauce in front of me, I will vote for K's/Critical AFF's them or give in depth feedback on how to improve them. I have a moderate/deep knowledge of most identity/class based critical literature and surface level understanding of po-mo crit lit. Run your critical/non-T AFF if you can win the topicality/methods debate, run the K if you know the actual links to the AFF. Rebuttal articulation is EVERYTHING.

If you're reading a non-T critical AFF, I would like your evidence to be rooted in the topic through the lens of your critical theory . I will be more sympathetic to well-crafted (rare) framework against non-T AFF's that are filled with backfile cards that have been read ad-nauseam in nearly all debate communities since 2000-2010 or even worse, cards that aren't even about the topic or identity. I'm not asking for you to role play the state, that's whack asf, i'm just asking you to innovate. I don't wanna hear the same afropess, be gay do crime and cap K cards that have been circulating in the community for decades. I want you to apply contemporary critical theory to the specific resolution at hand, you don't have to affirm the resolution but please, have to 1/3 or 1/2 or 2/3 of your AFF cards use same language used in the topic. There are scholars of all identities writing about Nuclear War, find them and amplify their voice. Framework is always an uphill battle in front of me but it's much easier when the AFF is not engaging with critical lit rooted in the topic.

K's: You need to clearly articulate why and how the AFF specifically links, and clearly isolate these links in the rebuttals. Explain why the perm isn't possible. Do not read afropess if you're not black. If you read links of omission, you better hope your opponent does not have a good response to why links of omission aren't real because I find those arguments persuasive. Links should be predicated off AFF action, language, impacts, politics, advantages etc.

Theory: Sure, I guess. I don't know much about condo/dispo/presumption, etc., so just try to explain them a little more than you'd usually have to for judges like me. I am less hesitant to vote for theory if it comes from an affluent or white team running frivolous theory interps against marginalized debaters/small schools. I encourage smaller teams to run disclosure theory against their opponents. If you're in policy, I may not be familiar with certain theory arguments.

Speed: I'm comfortable with speed if you go slow on tags and share docs. I flow on my laptop for most debates. Since I flow on my laptop, flash all docs and if you can, analytics too. Extra speaks for flashing analytics.

How to Get My Ballot: Win thesis-level claims and tell me where to vote and why. Exploit concessions (with warrants).

Feel free to email me at andre.j.swai@gmail.com for additional thoughts after the round and questions about college debate.

Ninad Tambe Hamilton Independent

Lee Tawil Hunter College Independent

Last changed on Sat August 10, 2019 at 12:32 PM EDT

Thanks for taking the time to read this paradigm.

Although I'm a parent judge, I've seen enough rounds at this point to have a good handle on flowing your arguments. I take the judging role seriously, and make every effort to reach what I believe is a reasonable decision. Relatedly, I've received bias training and try to judge fairly based on the strength of the arguments made during the round. Also, I have a strong education in finance and economics, so you can assume you don't need to provide me background or definitions if you're making points in that vein.

Here are some of the things I'm looking for in a debate.

-- Logical arguments: If your argument doesn't make sense, I'm going to have a much harder time buying it, or figuring it out.

-- Understand your case. Sometimes I see cases that sound great at first, but as we get deeper into the round, it becomes apparent that the debaters doesn't know the details (it helps if you've done the research).

-- I like crisp rebuttals. Make a really good, logical point that argues against your opponent's contentions. Some rebuttals just don't carry that much weight. A laundry list of weak rebuttals isn't necessarily helpful. Great debaters have studied the issues from all sides and know the logical weaknesses in the mainstream arguments, or even the cards that other debaters may quote. Turns are often effective as well.

-- Clear speaking at a reasonable pace: I'll try to keep up if you're going fast, but you risk having me miss key points. Especially if I'm new to the topic, I'm going to have to both hear and consider what you're arguing.

-- Good decorum during cross: No constant interrupting and please be concise; leave time for both sides.

-- If I'm stuck choosing a side, final focus may help me. If you think you have a powerful argument that you think went uncontested (or poorly contested), or you turned your opponent's arguments, you may want to remind me in final focus.

Lastly, please try to have fun, and good luck!

Katie Tolle Mountain Brook HS

Last changed on Sun June 13, 2021 at 5:17 PM CDT

Experience

Mountain Brook High School Speech and Debate Coach (2018 - Present)

Wheaton North High School Speech (2003-2007)

Wheaton North Public Forum Debater (2006)

As a judge, I want to see debaters that are:

Focused and Organized: The more thoughtful you are about how you present your contentions initially, the easier it for me to judge and for your opponents to interact with your case. Evidence should be succinct and questions during cross should be thoughtful and targeted. A PF round goes incredibly quickly, and it's important that you use each second to your advantage. In particular I appreciate when debaters weigh and discuss impact throughout the round. By the end I want to be sold on why your contentions are stronger and your impacts are more significant. Remember that as I judge I may not have seen all of the evidence that you have, and in Public Forum it is your job to talk to me as if I know nothing about the topic, even if I do.

Prepared: Nothing hurts the quality of a debate more than debaters who do not fully understand the resolution or their opponents’ claims. Good clash can only be built through understanding all facets of the resolution and the evidence available. That being said, citing a piece of evidence is never a substitution for a strong warrant. If you cannot explain your evidence and connect it logically to your argument, then I am less likely to consider it when judging. I do not like calling for evidence. It usually means that you have stopped debating the topic and started debating cards that I have not read.

Professional: Professionalism will not lose you a round with me, but it will absolutely impact the speaker points I award. Being confident and convincing me that you have won your debate is expected. Being rude, disrespectful, or condescending to the judge, your opponents, or your partner is never acceptable. Debate is an enormous undertaking, and every person’s time and commitment should be respected. It is also incredibly difficult to know what your opponents are saying if you do not give them their time to talk, or when you are overly focused on your own case.

Alyssa Turk Oxbridge Academy of the Palm Beaches

Sanjim Uppal Los Altos High School

Roshni Varma Fairmont Prep

Christian Vasquez The Blake School

Last changed on Wed April 24, 2024 at 2:46 PM CDT

Post-Emory thoughts:

Honestly, I think debate is in a relatively good space overall. It's usually this time of year that I find myself pessimistic on a few different tracks, but this year I'm incredibly optimistic. But still, a few thoughts as we're moving into championship season:

Concepts of fiat need a revisiting in PF. No one believes it to be real, and the call back for it to be illusory as an answer to offensive arguments is not adequate. The distinguishment between "pre" and "post" fiat is relatively unneeded and undeveloped, most of this is being mistaken for a debate about topicality really. In fact, the pre/post debate is rooted in a weird space that policy resolved or at least moved past in the 90s. If non topical offense is your game, why not explore some wikis of prominent college teams that are making these arguments?
I cannot stress this enough, the space of post modern argumentation is confusing for me. I can more easily dissect these arguments when constructives are longer than four minutes, but in PF I especially do not have the ability to ascertain as to what the specific advocacy is or why it's good in a competitive setting. I am an idiot and the most I can really talk about my college metaphysics course is a dumb rhyme about Spinoza and Descartes(literally if you are well read on your subject, this should be ample warning as to what I can work through). That being said, criticisms focused on structures of power or the state specifically I can understand and don't need hand holding. Just not anything to do with the French(French speakers like Fanon do not count).
Deep below any feelings I have about specific schools of thought or even behavior in round, I do know that debate as an activity is good. That does not mean I am full force just deciding ballots on ceding the political, but rather I need to hear why alternative methods to approaching the competitive event have distinct advantages. There is a huge gulf between somehow creating a more inclusive space and burning that same space to the ground that no team in PF has even begun to explain how to cross or even conceptually begun to explain why it can be overcome.
RVIs != offense on a theory shell. No RVIs being unanswered does not mean the opponent cannot go for turns or a comparative debate on the interp vs the counter interp
A competing interpretation does not conceptually create another shell.
Teams need to signpost better, I will not read from docs and I truly believe that the practice is making everyone worse at line-by-line debate.

For WKU -

The last policy rounds I was in was around 2015 for context. I do err neg on most theory positions though agent counterplans do phase me. Other than that, the big division when it comes to other arguments I don't really have much of a stance on.

Affs at the end of the day I do believe need to show some semblance of change/beneficial action

Debate is good as a whole

Individual actions I don't think I have jurisdiction to act as judge over.

Who am I?

Assistant Director of Debate, The Blake School MN - 2014 to present

Co-Director, Public Forum Boot Camp(Check our website here) MN - 2021 to present

Assistant Debate Coach, Blaine High School - 2013 to 2014

This year marks my 14th in the activity, which is wild. I end up spending a lot of my time these days thinking not just about how arguments work, but also considering what I want the activity to look like. Personally, I believe that circuit Public Forum is in a transition period much the same that other events have experienced and the position that both judges and coaches play is more important than ever. That being said, I do think both groups need to remember that their years in high school are over now and that their role in the activity, both in and out of round, is as an educator first. If this is anyway controversial to you, I’d kindly ask you to re-examine why you are here.

Yes, this activity is a game, but your behavior and the way in which you participate in it have effects that will outlast your time in it. You should not only treat the people in this activity with the same levels of respect that you would want for yourself, but you should also consider the ways through which you’ve chosen in-round strategies, articulation of those strategies, and how the ways in which you conduct yourself out of round can be thought of as positive or negative. Just because something is easy and might result in competitive success does not make it right.

Prior to the round

Please add my personal email christian.vasquez212@gmail.com and blakedocs@googlegroups.com to the chain. The second one is for organizational purposes and allows me to be able to conduct redos with students and talk about rounds after they happen.

The start time listed on ballots/schedules is when a round should begin, not that everyone should arrive there. I will do my best to arrive prior to that, and I assume competitors will too. Even if I am not there for it, you should feel free to complete the flip and send out an email chain.

The first speaking team should initiate the chain, with the subject line reading some version of “Tournament Name, Round Number - 1st Speaking Team(Aff or Neg) vs 2nd Speaking Team(Aff or neg)” I do not care what you wear(as long as it’s appropriate for school) or if you stand or sit. I have zero qualms about music being played, poetry being read, or non-typical arguments being made.

Non-negotiables

I will be personally timing rounds since plenty of varsity level debaters no longer know how clocks work. There is no grace period, there are no concluding thoughts. When the timer goes off, your speech or question/answer is over. Beyond that, there are a few things I will no longer budge on:

You must read from cut cards the first time evidence is introduced into a round. The experiment with paraphrasing in a debate event was an interesting one, but the activity has shown itself to be unable to self-police what is and what is not academically dishonest representations of evidence. Comparisons to the work researchers and professors do in their professional life I think is laughable. Some of the shoddy evidence work I’ve seen be passed off in this activity would have you fired in those contexts, whereas here it will probably get you in late elimination rounds.
The inability to produce a piece of evidence when asked for it will end the round immediately. Taking more than thirty seconds to produce the evidence is unacceptable as that shows me you didn’t read from it to begin with.
Arguments that are racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. will end the round immediately in an L and as few speaker points as Tab allows me to give out.
Questions about what was and wasn’t read in round that are not claims of clipping are signs of a skill issue and won’t hold up rounds. If you want to ask questions outside of cross, run your own prep. A team saying “cut card here” or whatever to mark the docs they’ve sent you is your sign to do so. If you feel personally slighted by the idea that you should flow better and waste less time in the round, please reconsider your approach to preparing for competitions that require you to do so.
Defense is not “sticky.” If you want something to count in the round, it needs to be included in your team’s prior speech. The idea that a first speaking team can go “Ah, hah! You forgot about our trap card” in the final focus after not extending it in summary is ridiculous and makes a joke out of the event.

Negotiables

These are not set in stone, and have changed over time. Running contrary to me on these positions isn’t a big issue and I can be persuaded in the context of the round.

Tech vs truth

To me, the activity has weirdly defined what “technical” debate is in a way that I believe undermines the value of the activity. Arguments being true if dropped is only as valid as the original construction of the argument. Am I opposed to big stick impacts? Absolutely not, I think they’re worth engaging in and worth making policy decisions around. But, for example, if you cannot answer questions regarding what is the motivation for conflict, who would originally engage in the escalation ladder, or how the decision to launch a nuclear weapon is conducted, your argument was not valid to begin with. Asking me to close my eyes and just check the box after essentially saying “yadda yadda, nuclear winter” is as ridiculous as doing the opposite after hearing “MAD checks” with no explanation.

Teams I think are being rewarded far too often for reading too many contentions in the constructive that are missing internal links. I am more than just sympathetic to the idea that calling this out amounts to terminal defense at this point. If they haven’t formed a coherent argument to begin with, teams shouldn’t be able to masquerade like they have one.

There isn’t a magical number of contentions that is either good or bad to determine whether this is an issue or not. The benefit of being a faster team is the ability to actually get more full arguments out in the round, but that isn’t an advantage if you’re essentially reading two sentences of a card and calling it good.

Theory

In PF debate only, I default to a position of reasonability. I think the theory debates in this activity, as they’ve been happening, are terribly uninteresting and are mostly binary choices.

Is disclosure good? Yes

Is paraphrasing bad? Yes

Distinctions beyond these I don’t think are particularly valuable. Going for cheapshots on specifics I think is an okay starting position for me to say this is a waste of time and not worth voting for. That being said, I feel like a lot of teams do mis-disclose in PF by just throwing up huge unedited blocks of texts in their open source section. Proper disclosure includes the tags that are in case and at least the first and last three words of a card that you’ve read. To say you open source disclose requires highlighting of the words you have actually read in round.

That being said, answers that amount to whining aren’t great. Teams that have PF theory read against them frequently respond in ways that mostly sound like they’re confused/aghast that someone would question their integrity as debaters and at the end of the day that’s not an argument. Teams should do more to articulate what specific calls to do x y or z actually do for the activity, rather than worrying about what they’re feeling. If your coach requires you to do policy “x” then they should give you reasons to defend policy “x.” If you’re consistently losing to arguments about what norms in the activity should look like, that’s a talk you should have with your coach/program advisor about accepting them or creating better answers.

IVIs

These are hands down the worst thing that PF debate has come up with. If something in round arises to the issue of student safety, then I hope(and maybe this is misplaced) that a judge would intervene prior to a debater saying “do something.” If something is just a dumb argument, or a dumb way to have an argument be developed, then it’s either a theory issue or a competitor needs to get better at making an argument against it.

The idea that these one-off sentences somehow protect students or make the activity more aware of issues is insane. Most things I’ve heard called an IVI are misconstruing what a student has said, are a rules violation that need to be determined by tab, or are just an incomplete argument.

Kritiks

Overall, I’m sympathetic to these arguments made in any event, but I think that the PF version of them so far has left me underwhelmed. I am much better for things like cap, security, fem IR, afro-pess and the like than I am for anything coming from a pomo tradition/understanding. Survival strategies focused on identity issues that require voting one way or the other depending on a student’s identification/orientation I think are bad for debate as a competitive activity.

Kritiks should require some sort of link to either the resolution(since PF doesn’t have plans really), or something the aff has done argumentatively or with their rhetoric. The nonexistence of a link means a team has decided to rant for their speech time, and not included a reason why I should care.

Rejection alternatives are okay(Zizek and others were common when I was in debate for context) but teams reliant on “discourse” and other vague notions should probably strike me. If I do not know what voting for a team does, I am uncomfortable to do so and will actively seek out ways to avoid it.

Ramana Viswanathan Acton-Boxborough RHS Independent None

Gabrielle Wexler Morristown East HS

Kaitlyn White Henry Clay High School

Rob J Wilson Fox Chapel Area High School

Last changed on Sat January 20, 2024 at 5:24 AM EDT

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.

Meng Xu Brentwood High School None

Thomas Zhang Dublin Jerome High School

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National Speech and Debate Season Opener

2019 — Lexington, KY/US

Public Forum Paradigm List

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