Background: Public Forum debate for three years. Dabbled in Congress for all four.

My preferences are as follows:

1. Weighing: A debate round can have many different arguments/contentions flying around. Unless you weigh them and tell me what's important, I'm not gonna know who to award the win to. Draw your line in the sand, and let me know what you value and how your side of the argument does it better.

2. Extensions: I will not accept one-off arguments that are mentioned once and never brought up again. Mention your argument and your evidence, even if its a surefire win on that particular contention, it won't matter if it is never addressed again.

3. Cross Ex: Cross is one of the few times that you can interact with your opponent, use it wisely. Don't use a bunch of background as a preface for a simple question, it wastes my time and yours. Ask questions, don't just bring up a bunch of info in place of one, cross is not the right place for it, that's what speeches are for. If you have a gotcha moment and have a great response, bring it up in a speech or I won't count it in my decision.

4. Courtesy: If its necessary, I will judge around based off of courtesy alone. Debates can get heated, I get it, but you should attack the arguments, not the person. Acting intentionally rude over the course of the round is the quickest way to get a surefire loss and a complaint to your coach.

5. My bad ears/brain: I have difficulty hearing sometimes, so clear pronunciation would be great. I can only judge things I can hear and understand after all. I'm fine with speaking fast, as long as it doesn't compromise my comprehension of your arguments. So no inaudible spreading, etc...

I'd like to see clean logical debates; keep it civil and respectful. I'd prefer to hear slower and clearer arguments so that I can best understand you.

Pronouns: She/her/hers

Pre-req: I will not vote on any case arguments addressing sexual violence, rape, or suicide/suicidal ideations that were not preceded by a pre-round trigger warning. If, upon hearing this trigger warning, the opponent requests the argument not be made and that request is denied, I'll be very receptive to theory arguments about why I ought to vote against you based on the introduction of that issue.

I believe that problematic arguments are problematic whether the opposing team points them out or not. I believe that this is not a space where any argument can be made. Problematic arguments at minimum impact the people in the round and can impact discourse outside of the round. I want the opposing team to point out problematic arguments and abuse. However, arguments that promote sexism, racism, or other forms of hate will not be persuasive for me and are likely to result in a down ballot.

Style: I am one of those judges who responds very negatively to rudeness, disrespect, and offensive language

Speed: I don't like speed. Learning how to talk fast has no post-debate benefit, so I do not support it as a strategy in an educational debate round. I can follow fast talking, but if you are spreading, then I will put down my pen and stop flowing. If I stop flowing, it probably means I am confused; either because you are going too fast, or I don't understand what you are saying.

Style: I need to have a weighing mechanism in PF debate. I need to know how to decide who won the round, otherwise I will get very frustrated. I do not want to decide using my own metrics, I want YOU to tell me how to judge the round. I will be using this weighing mechanism as I look at my flow to decide who won the round.

I tend to be a flow a judge. By that I mean that I flow and will be following the flow to see who has the strongest arguments at the end of the round.

Evidence This is also very important to me. By that I mean that I need evidence that is clearly cited and explained. Actually READ me your evidence, don't just give me your summary of the evidence. Analytical arguments are great, and I will vote there, but when disagreement is happening about what may or may not be true about the topic, I would like to hear evidence. This should also connect back to your weighing mechanism.

I also like to hear evidence in the rebuttal. If you are responding with an analytical argument to an argument that has evidence, I need you to do the work of explaining to me why your analytical argument is sufficient to off-set the argument with evidence. You can do this by telling me that sense the argument doesn't make sense/has a fallacy, then it doesn't stand even with evidence. Or you can make an analytical argument about the evidence itself. Otherwise, I am likely going to still prefer the argument with evidence.

Please call for evidence in a timely manner. Please use an email chain or the evidence sharing that Tabroom provides. I want to be included on the email chain.

If there is conflict about evidence, I need you to do the work of telling me why I prefer your evidence over your opponent's evidence. Just telling me, "It post dates," is not sufficient. What has changed since that date? Why is your source more reliable? Otherwise, I will just get frustrated.

If your opponent asks for evidence, per the NSDA rules, you need to provide them with the cut card and the full article in a way that allows everyone to see and read the evidence. I expect to be included in any email chain, so I can also see the card that was called for. I also expect this exchange of evidence to happen promptly (less than 30 seconds) when asked.

If there are questions about the validity of the evidence or the way evidence is being used, you are likely to lose my ballot.

On a related note, I do not believe that everything needs to be quantified. Just because numbers cannot or are not put to an impact, does not mean that it cannot be weighed. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to impacts to human beings. I do not find the argument, "we don't know how many people will be impacted," persuasive.

Prep Time: I expect competitors to keep track of their own time. I will also be keeping track of prep time. This will be official time used. If you use all of your prep time before the end of the round, I expect you to start speaking promptly. That means you should take no more than 10 seconds to begin your next speech.

Background: I am a math teacher, so if you are going to throw around math terms and mathematics, you need to be certain that you know what you are talking about and are correct. As an example, there is a difference between exponential, linear, and geometric growth, so make sure you say the right one.

I have debated PF 4 years in high school, 4 years of college PF, 4 years of NPDA/parli in college.

I am not a LD debater, so I have minimal understanding of the theory and technical arguments that exist within LD. You can absolutely still make those arguments, but you need to make sure that you are explaining those terms, otherwise I will be lost and frustrated.

I am happy to give you feedback after the round, if you find me. :)

Joe Rankin

Bettendorf High School

jrankin@bettendorf.k12.ia.us

UPDATED: October 4th, 2022

I'm not sure what happened to my previous Paradigm that was posted, but it appears to have been erased/lost. My apologies as I just learned of this at the Simpson Storm tournament (Sat, Oct 1, 2022) this past weekend.

My name is Joe Rankin and I am the head coach at Bettendorf High School in Bettendorf, IA. I have been the head coach at Bettendorf since the 2005-2006 school year. I primarily coach Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Congressional Debate, and Extemporaneous Speaking...however, I am familiar and have coached all NSDA sanctioned speech/debate events over my time at Bettendorf.

In terms of my coaching paradigm, I'd generally consider these the 'highlights:'

1. I prefer topical debate. The resolution was voted on by coaches and students through the NSDA voting process. That's what I want to hear about.
2. I can generally handle 'speed,' but that doesn't mean I enjoy it. I'd rather help you develop skills that you will actually utilize interacting with other human beings outside of this one particular subset of existence - so I'd much prefer a rate that is more akin to real-world applications.
3. You can make whatever arguments you want to make...but I generally haven't voted on many things associating with theory, kritiks (or however you want to misspell the word critique), or other generally non-topical arguments you make in the round. It takes more work for me to believe those types of arguments are true and not a whole lot of work to make me believe those types of arguments are generally false. So, I wouldn't encourage this type of argumentation in front of me.

I figure that is sufficient for now. If you have any questions, I tend to give you that window before the round begins while setting up to judge. If not, please feel free to ask before the round. The end goal of the round for me is a competitive academic environment that is focused on education. I don't mind answering questions that will help all of us improve moving forward.

Hello! I competed in public forum for 4 years at Kennedy High School (2015-2019).

While I do find debate to be strategy based, I prefer arguments that follow a logical well thought out narrative. I keep a flow, but I prefer truthful and reasoned arguments.

There are a couple of things to do to win my ballot:

1. Have a clear narrative throughout the round. This helps me understand which argument is most important to each team rather than having a ton of random arguments that aren't clashing.

2. Extend claim+warrant+impact

3. Extend the cleanest piece of offense

4. Weigh. It is important that you weigh because if you don't I am forced to choose what I think is important and you lose control over my ballot

Flowing

- Signpost! At the end of the round I evaluate what is on my flow so it is important to be clear where you are making arguments.

- I prefer teams to not just say "extend Smith 19"- you need to explain the evidence and what that is directly responding to

- I can handle fast PF speed, but be aware of how fast I can write- speed is not always an advantage if I am unable to write it on my flow in time (also if you do choose to speak faster than normal do not exclude the other team)

Rebuttal

- I prefer well thought out articulated responses over a bunch of blippy responses (quality>quantity)

- I like carded responses, but don't card drop excessively

- For 1st rebuttal just solely respond to the opponent's case- please don't go back to your case because I just heard it and there are no responses on it yet

- For 2nd rebuttal it is your choice what you do strategically. It would be smart to do some frontlining, but I have no personal preference

Summary

- For first and second summary I would like you to extend responses on your opponent's case in order to extend it to final focus

- within this speech it is important to collapse and make grouped responses

Evidence

- I will call for a card if the other team calls for it and it becomes a point of discussion within the round or it you bring up a specific card that is very important to winning your point

- If it takes you more than 2 minutes to find a card we will have to move on and I will cross that card off the flow

K's/Theory

- I have no experience in LD or Policy so if you choose to run this type of argument you need to dumb it down for me. Personally, I would prefer a traditional contention over this type of argument. I am not a fan of disads read in rebuttal.

Other Things

- pre flow before the round! please don't delay

- I am open for discussion after the round, but please be respectful

- I understand rounds can get heated and I like respectful humor and sassiness, but do not be condescending or rude to your opponents

- Have fun!

First, a little about me. I have been judging public forum debate for about 10 years (does that seem possible). I am pretty straightforward in terms of what I look for in judging a pf round. Do you clearly state what your contentions are? Are the contentions directly related to the question that is being debated (this sounds elemental but I can remember a number of times that teams tried to bring up arguments with no direct link to the resolution.) I am judging public forum (not policy) so you don't have to try and impress me with how fast you can talk. As a matter of fact, excessive speed will work against you on my ballot.

Do you provide good blocks to your opponent's contentions or did you ignore or drop them? Do you make good use of the time you have available or do you leave time "sitting on the table." I do not do the elaborate flows that some judges do. My theory is that the more time you spend writing the less time you spend listening.

All contentions must be backed by evidence. You should always be able to produce your evidence for your opponent or me if it is requested in a reasonable amount of time. Inability to locate evidence will lower your chance of winning the round. Falsifying or misstating evidence will lose you the round.

I listen VERY closely to cross fire rounds. This is really the only unscripted part of the debate and I have seen many a close debate that was won - or lost - due to crossfire.

Finally, be professional in how you handle your round and treat your opponent. Facial expressions while your opponent is debating, rolling of the eyes, arrogance, being condescending etc. do not sit well with me.