Come to University of Houston for LD camp this summer! UH has a great staff, is reasonably priced, and has an excellent staff to student ratio. If you have questions feel free to email me.

Berkeley update not good for strategies that involve upwards of 7+ off case positions.

blakeandrews55@gmail.com email with questions or for email chain purposes.

Head Coach at McNeil.

Short version: Speed is fine and go for whatever type of argument you want( i.e. I don't care if you go for traditional policy arguments versus a K... just debate well) I find debaters do well in front of me that collapse, extend warrants, do impact calc, and give judge instruction when appropriate.

"If you want my ballot, this is really a simple concept. Tell me 1) what argument you won; 2) why you won it; and 3) why that means you win the round. Repeat."

About Me:
B.A. University of Texas at Austin 2015

Head Coach at McNeil High School

Worked at some smaller camps in the past like MGC for LD and UTNIF for LD.

I did LD in HS for a small program in Texas. I cleared at a handful of bid tournaments / TFA State but dropped in early elim rounds. I've coached ld debaters with success at tfa state, some toc success, UIl, and nsda. I've coached a cx team in out rounds of tfa state, qualified to nationals, and elims of uil state. I've been involved in debate for a while and I judge a lot of debates each year. Some local, some nat circuit, some just practice rounds for my team.

Top Level 1. Slow down on tags. I have dysgraphia. I can flow speed but slowing down for tags, plan texts, theory interps etc benefits everyone.

2. Do what you do best. I am probably better for kritiks in general, but if you love going for the politics disad don't let me stop you. My favorite debaters have included k debaters/ teams, but I also generally like how greenhill debates( policy and ld).I strongly prefer line by line debate on the K not long K overviews( blah).

3. Judge instruction is critical, please weigh( probability, time frame, magnitude).

4. Please flesh out solvency deficits when answering counterplans. Aff's should feel less afraid to call out abusive counterplans (no problem voting on process cps, etc, but aff's should be less afraid to go for theory the more abusive the cp gets).Like every other judge I like when debaters read less generic positions and engage in the aff

5. Fine with voting on theory, but the more frivolous the shell the less work goes into answering the argument. Reasonability specifically in LD is under rated.

6. K affs are good with me. Explain why your model of debate is good.

7. I am a horrible judge for tricks in LD. Please strike me

Defaults condo good, drop the arg on theory ( except if you win condo bad, which is drop the team, but hopefully teams go for substance), drop the debater on T. Default to competing interps( reasonability in LD is under rated given the significance of bad theory in LD)

PF specific please no paraphrasing in pf. Speaks will go down. You will get good speaks for reading fully cut cards. Evidence comparison, fleshing out warrants, and impact calc helps me vote for you.

I've been judging various forms of speech and debate events on local, state and national levels since 2013. Head coach of St. John's School since 2020.

I have no event specific expectations on what should happen, I prefer everything to be spelled out in round. I do not like intervening.

Speaker points are a tie-breaker, so I am a bit more conservative with them, but that doesn't mean I'll tank your points unless you're unclear, have frequent speech errors, go over time, or if you're rude. Expect an average 27.5-29.5 range in PF/LD/CX and a range of 68-72 in Worlds and a 3-5 range in Congress. Perfect speaks reserved for those who truly exemplify great public speaking skills. Rudeness can also be a cause for a team losing.

Don't assume I know anything, explain as if you were talking to someone non-specialized in whatever subject matter you're speaking on.

Ask before round any further questions you might have.

-----

For WSD

I will be following the conventions and norms that asks us to:

• think about these things on a more holistic approach;
• nuance our argumentation and engage on the comparative;
• think that the principle level argumentation is key and that the practical should make sense in approaching the principle;
• not engage on tricky arguments or cherry picked examples;
• debate the heart of the motion and not conditionally proposing or opposing (that we are debating the full resolution);
• reward those that lean into their arguments and side;
• preference thinking about the motions on a global scale when applicable.

(she/they)

Who am I?
I am a social studies teacher the assistant debate coach. I mainly judge public forum and believe it is a positive space for open and healthy rhetoric. I hope you agree with my view that public forum is an event for the common person.

I am hard of hearing

I will be using a transcription aid on my phone to follow the round. It is not recording the speech and the transcript is deleted after 24 hours. Please, speak loudly and clearly for me and the transcription.

How I evaluate debate.

Treat me like a lay person who can flow. Use email chains, cut cards rather than paraphrasing, and avoid the use of debate jargon. I want to see clear defense, impacts, and links. I am a social studies teacher, so focus on your ability to use evidence and real-world understanding. I will vote on understanding of the issue, evidence, and explanation.

### Speeches

If you don't talk about it in summary, I'm not evaluating it in final focus.

### Cross

Don't use crossfire as an opportunity to bicker. I don’t pay attention to cross. In my opinion, cross is meant to examine your opponent’s case and clarify any questions. Seeing people using cross just to dunk on the opponent is not useful.

### Spreading

I am new to debate and English is not my first language so I cannot judge spreading - nor do I believe it has a place in *public* forum. I need to understand your argument and your ability to adapt to your audience will be judged.

### Theory

If your opponent does any of the Big Oofs and you read theory about it, I'm inclined to think you're in the right.

I don't want to listen to K debate - I will be honest and admit I do not know enough about debate to evaluate them fairly (except for the aforementioned exception)

Big Oofs

These are things that will make a W or high speaks an uphill battle. If you read theory against any of these (when applicable), I’m inclined to side with you. Avoid at all costs.

1. Misuse Evidence. Know the evidence and cut rather than paraphrase. Use evidence that is relevant, timely, trustworthy, and accurate. Use SpeechDoc or an email chain to keep each other accountable and save time.
2. Be late to round. Especially for Flight 2. I understand the first round of the day, but please try your best to be in your room on time. Punctuality is a skill and impressions are important.
3. Taking too long to ‘get ready’ or holding up the round. Have cards cut, flows setup, and laptops ready to go before the round. Especially if you’re going to be late.
4. Not timing yourself. Self-explanatory.
5. Not using trigger warnings. Debate is better when it’s accessible. Introducing any possibly triggering topics or references without consent is inaccessible.
6. Doing any of the 2023 no-no’s. Homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, racism, ableism, etc. is a one-way free ticket to a 25 speak and an L for the round.

The Respect Amendment

This section was added for minor offensives that rub me the wrong way. No, I will not vote on these. I might dock speaks for not following these - depending on severity.

I want to forward a respectful, fair, and accessible environment for debate. The Big Oofs are a good place to start. But I hope that every debater would…

1. **Respect their partner.** Trust that they know what they’re doing.
2. **Respect their opponent.** Don’t belittle them or talk down to them. Aim to understand and give critiques on their argument, not to one-up them on something small.
3. **Respect the judge.** All judges make mistakes and lousy calls - especially me. We can respectfully disagree, and that’s okay. However, not a single judge has changed their mind because you were a bad sportsperson.

hey i'm (sri) nithya (she/her)

mcneil '23, ut '27

if i'm judging anything but ld, everything down below applies but just ask me for specifics before round

add me on the email chain: nithyachalla05@gmail.com

t/l

i don't really care what you read as long as you explain it well. make sure to signpost otherwise you're going to lose me very easily.

assume i know absolutely nothing about the topic or current politics when debating because i probably won't.

i'll default to substance first unless told otherwise.

i'm fine with speed but if you're unclear i'm not gonna understand what you're saying. don't spew down on a novice or you're getting horrible speaks. if you're debating someone that doesn't spread, just match their speed in the later speeches. if you debate efficiently, you should still be able to win without spewing down.

also refer to me however you feel like i don't care enough to get mad about what you call me in round.

ill give relatively high speaks- to increase your speaks, make me laugh.

for speaks boost throw in a reference to the latest jjk chapters.

pref sheet

1- cp/disad, kritiks

2- phil, theory

3- non t affs, tricks, trad

if you're a trad debater, just debate how you're most comfortable debating.

cp/disad: the type of debate i'm most familiar with. nothing much to say here, just pls impact weigh it will make me happy and don't force me to do that work for you. explain how the cp either solves the aff and the impacts of the da, or just how the cp is just better than the aff and you'll be ahead. link and impact turns are offense on a disad- pls don't concede them.

phil: explain the syllogism of your fw. that's literally it. i'm not exactly the most adept at phil but i can somewhat follow a phil debate. though my phil knowledge is limited, if you can explain it well and explain why it should frame the round and why you're winning under that framework, you win. just err on the side of of overexplaining because otherwise you're gonna lose me. phil i'm most familiar with: butler, levinas, rawls, hobbes, kant, locke.

kritiks: i'm familiar with some of the lit (some id pol, nietzche, baudrillard, psycho, deleuze, glissant, cap, etc.). pls pls pls utilize the rob if you're debating other fws. it'll make me very happy. also explain the world of the alt otherwise idk how i'm supposed to evaluate perms and at to perms. also, utilize the fw of the k--it can win or lose you rounds. k tricks are always appreciated. k 1ars are always one of the harder ones to give so i'll try to give some leeway. also please don't concede extinction ows--i've done this far too many times than i should have and it's definitely not hard to answer.

non t affs: go for it. i barely read these but i've debated enough to understand the strategic value and implications of reading them. try to be creative in your approach in answering these tho bc those rounds are hella interesting.

theory: not my favorite style but do what you want to do. default no rvis, competing interps , dtd, fairness and education are voters. theory imo gets extremely muddled so if you're planning on going for it, just try to explain the abuse story well.

tricks: i'll evaluate them. idk what else i'm supposed to say about this but if you want, go for it i'm not entirely opposed to them. however, pls don't read 50 million paradoxes- you will lose me.

if you have any questions before round, let me know and i can hopefully answer them. also let me know if you want me to do anything to make the round more inclusive for you. don't be a jerk or do anything offensive otherwise you're getting an automatic l25. please dont postround too much i beg.

I am honored to be judging your rounds and look forward to what you all have prepared!!

I have experience on every major circuit in the country in various events. I specialized in extemp, congress, and world schools, but I have experience in and an understanding of every event.

Speech and Debate are the antithesis of complacency, and I expect competitors to represent that by challenging and changing content and arguments throughout the year. Do not get comfortable with the normal. Challenge and change the status quo, and that starts with creativity.

TLDR: Tech>Truth but I have a much lower threshold for blatantly wrong statements.

If you have any questions or advice, simply ask me after the round or email me here: achivakula@gmail.com

LD/CX: I am largely tech over argument, excluding certain situations. I am not opposed to any kritiques or technical arguments, but I am going to weigh and vote off of the arguments and the warrants you provide. I am a strong believer that complicated or convoluted arguments that are conveyed poorly are far worse than a simple arguments conveyed convincingly and strongly. I'm fairly well-read on philosophy, but if you are going to attempt arguments of that vein, you best be prepared to utilize that argument in a rational and pragmatic way.

PF: I want to hear strategic and planned responses that actually signpost where and what the judge and opponents need to pay attention to. Way too many PF rounds become messy, and both sides misconstruing arguments in good or bad faith. If you provide rational impact calculus and extend the right arguments, it will be reflected in my ballot.

Congress: I have spent most of my debate career in congress and extemp, so I know what fluff is and what is real. I do NOT take kindly to excessive theatrics, a lack of clash, and a lack of real content. I also know when your speech is nothing but "rhetoric" versus actual points. I need to see proactive and unique points, especially creativity and risks. As for the PO, I need to see you stand out. All PO's are not created equal, and if you can have a hold over your chamber while being a charming or dynamic competitor, I will thank you and vote you highly. Take risks, don't let this event homogenize into people doing the same thing over and over again.

Extemporaneous Speaking: Performance and presentation matter, and they absolutely will reflect positively on your ranking. However, I see extemp as a mix between speaking and debate. I want to see the content, the link chain, the impact, and the warrants. Tell me why your topic matters, its effects past the direct "what the eye can see", and compare it. Use the skills of persuasion and informing and give me an argument. If you can do that and communicate your point effectively, you are absolutely going to rank highly with me.

World Schools: I absolutely give merit to the content and the arguments here. However, this event gives the opportunity to branch out and address arguments from a much more holistic and broader perspective. Take control of that opportunity. I give a lot of leeway here, but in the end this is world schools. All arguments are fair game for me.

Interp/OO/Info: I follow most of the standard paradigms and norms of the event, and view these events as more so to cater to your preferences than mine. Show me what you got!

My pronouns are they/them/theirs. Please do not call me ma’am. I know it's a southern respect thing but it's icky to me. If you need a title for me, I unironically like being called judge, Judge Contreras is fine, just Contreras works too. My students call me Coach, and that's also fine. Teens, please don't call me El (that's one southernism I stand by!)

Affiliations:

Head Coach and social studies teacher at L.C. Anderson High School in Austin, TX since 2022.

San Marcos High School- I competed all four years in high school, I did extemp, congress, and UIL Policy.

Speech people!!!!

I will not rank a triggering performance first. I just won’t do that. There’s no need for you to vividly reenact violence and suffering at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning (or like, ever). Triggering performances without trigger warnings will have their rank reflect the performance. Use your talent to tell a story, not to exploit pain. Also, normalize giving content and trigger warnings before your performance!! Give people a chance to take care of themselves. If I'm judging your round and another competitor triggers you, you are welcome to quietly get up and walk out during their performance. I will not dock or punish you for this, your mental health is the most important. Please take care of yourself and each other!! I'm in a "you should do a different piece" mindset on this issue and if you can't reenact that narrative without exploiting suffering, something is wrong.

Debate comments (PF, LD, CX, World Schools)

Just disclose. I know LD's norm is sending 30 minutes before round, I think that's a great norm.

In PF, send case docs. Don't be secretive with your cards. Your opponents should not have to disclose a disability in order to get you to send docs. I also think sending a speech doc for rebuttal and summary is a good norm. This is not (necessarily) something I'll down you for but it could be, if you're intentionally being harmful.

I will evaluate anything as long as it's warranted and extended. I won't make arguments for you, tell me why and how you're winning. I'll vote tech over truth unless the truth overwhelms the tech. Sticky defense is so fake, extend your arguments if you want to win them. Unextended = dropped. Proper extensions, tag and cite, claim, warrant, impact!!

Both partners need to participate in grand cross. PF is a partner event! No, you can't skip grand cross. I'm listening to cross and waiting to hear the questions from cross brought into round.

Please do a www.speechdrop.net room, it is a fantastic site, and I will definitely pop in and read cards and cases if you have the speechdrop room set up. Always send case, always send speech docs. I am #notsponsored, just a fan! My email is down below.

Spell out all the abbreviations you use in round. Don’t assume I know what you’re talking about. People know what the UN is, the EU, etc, people may not know BRI, any random trade agreement, etc.

speed: You don't have to go at a conversational pace but nobody should be full-on-spreading in PF. When you're off the doc, you have to go slower. I try not to flow off the doc but I will use it as support if you're faster than I can follow. I'm not in a debate round to read off your case doc, I'm in round to hear YOU. Slow down on taglines, analytics, authors- basically anything you think is vital to my decision.

PF-specific comments:

• I'll vote on anything, not a huge fan of theory, not the best judge to evaluate theory
• i love frameworks! they should be well-developed. blippy frameworks don't win framework debates
• extensions are not just saying "Extend my contention 2", you must extend the card tag/cite and the claim, warrant, and impact! Let me hear the link chain again!!
• speaker points- these national tournaments keep giving me a rubric to use and I'm trying to apply that to all the realms I judge in. Points start at 28 and I adjust from there. Points will only be below a 27 if you did something harmful or rules/norms were horribly broken.
• PFers, please read cards with actual taglines. "furthermore", "and", are not taglines. A tag is the thesis of the card, it is the summary of the content. I've been seeing a lot of that lately- it's lazy and bad practice.

LD-specific:

• I don't judge LD often, not as comfortable with LD speeds but I'll use the doc
• I will evaluate k's, as long as they're well-developed and defended. i know theory is normative in LD and I'll do my best to evaluate it fairly and wisely. probably not the best judge for your theory debates
• consider me pretty lay, generally pretty trad. Read me a standard, read me a value, slow it down!!
• I know this event is generally more technical but again, don't assume I know what you're talking about!! spell out all your abbreviations, provide definitions (especially if you're reading a K), do your best to make the round and the space more accessible!
• pref me slightly better than a lay judge
• I come from pf so arguments such as kritiks and theory will make less sense to me butI’lltry my best to evaluate them

email- theedebatecoach@gmail.com

and

docs.anderson@gmail.com

please <3

This message is specifically for competitors in debate events; I value respect in the round. Please don’t be rude in front of me. It doesn’t make me laugh, it reminds me of uncomfortable/unpleasant rounds where my competitors were rude to me or my partner. That has no business in a debate space, please don’t bring that energy into a round. This goes double for people in privileged positions who make women and gender/racial minorities uncomfortable or unsafe in the debate space. Not only will I chew you out and tank your speaks, but I will also let your coach know about the harmful practices. it's on all of us to make the debate space inclusive and equitable.

TLDR- be nice, be kind, and be self-aware.

Congress comments:

I did congressional debate all four years I competed in high school, I really enjoyed it and love watching a good Congress round. I have a lot of respect for a strong PO and usually reward that with a higher ranking. POs that struggle with precedence, maintaining decorum, and Robert's rules of order will have that reflected in their rank.

Clash, clash, clash! Put the debate into congressional debate.

There's a line between sassy and rude. Tread it carefully.

General comments:

something that I genuinely appreciate in every event is a trigger warning before potentially triggering performances and speeches. controversially, I care about all of your experiences in a round and would like to give everyone an opportunity to opt out. If you’re a spectator or a competitor in a speech room, you deserve the opportunity to step out. If you’re competing in a debate round, you have every right to ask your competitors to read a version of their case that excludes the triggering material. As a judge, I reserve the right to step out/turn off my camera for a moment before you give your performance.

In a debate round, I’d appreciate that triggering material cut out. I don’t think intense/graphic depictions of human suffering add much to your overall case anyway, I’d rather you extend cards in that time or frontline or do anything besides exploit human suffering.

If I correct your pronunciation of a word in my ballot, it’s genuinely to educate you. It’s hard to know how to pronounce a word you’ve never heard aloud, just read (looking at you, Reuters!)

I have a degree in history, with a focus on Latin American history. Keep that in mind when discussing issues focused on Latin America. Feel free to ask me for a reading list to better understand conflicts, revolutions, and government suppression (including US intervention) in Guatemala, Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, and more.

If you are spectating an event and are fully texting in front of me or attempting to talk to/distract a competitor, I’m going to ask you to leave. I will not warn you once, I have a zero-tolerance policy for disrespecting competitors or interfering with competition in that way.

In my 25th year as the head debate coach at Strake Jesuit. Prior to that I worked as a public defender.Persuasion, clarity, and presentation matter to me. I have a workable knowledge on many progressive arguments, but my preference is traditional, topical debate. Because I don't judge much, it is important to speak clearly and articulate the things that you want me to pay close attention to. If you go too fast and don't follow this advice you will lose me. I will not vote off of something that I don't understand. You need to make my path to your ballot clear. I like certain types of theory arguments and will vote off of them if there is a demonstrated abuse (topicality, disclosure, etc.). My firm belief is that you should debate the topic assigned. I also am a big fan of disclosure. I think that it levels the playing field for all involved. Drops matter. Impacting is important. Giving clear reasons why you are winning offense is the easiest way to pick up my ballot.

*For all email chains - email to jcrist1965@gmai.comand strakejesuitpf@mail.strakejesuit.org - include both*

Strake Jesuit '19|University of Houston '23

Email Chain: nacurry23@gmail.com and strakejesuitpf@mail.strakejesuit.org

Questions:nacurry23@gmail.com

Tech>Truth – I’ll vote on anything as long as it’s warranted. Read any arguments you want UNLESS IT IS EXCLUSIONARY IN ANY WAY. I feel like teams don't think I'm being genuine when I say this, but you can literally do whatever you want.

Arguments that I am comfortable with:

Theory, Plans, Counter Plans, Disads, some basic Kritiks (Cap, Militarism, and stuff of the sort), meta-weighing, most framework args that PFers can come up with.

Arguments that I am less familiar with:

High Theory/unnecessarily complicated philosophy, Non-T Affs.

Don't think this means you can't read these arguments in front of me. Just explain them well.

Speaking and Speaker Points

I give speaks based on strategy and I start at a 28.

Go as fast as you want unless you are gonna read paraphrased evidence. Send me a doc if you’re going to do that. Also, slow down on tags and author names.

I will dock your speaks if you take forever to pull up a piece of evidence. To avoid this, START AN EMAIL CHAIN.

You and your partner will get +.3 speaker points if you disclose your broken cases on the wiki before the round. If you don't know how to disclose, facebook message me before the round and I can help.

Summary

Extend your evidence by the author's last name. Some teams read the full author name and institution name but I only flow author last names so if you extend by anything else, I’ll be lost.

EVERY part of your argument should be extended (Uniqueness, Link, Internal Link, Impact, and warrant for each).

If going for link turns, extend the impact; if going for impact turns, extend the link.

Miscellaneous Stuff

open cross is fine

flex prep is fine

I require responses to theory/T in the next speech. ex: if theory is read in the AC i require responses in the NC or it's conceded

Defense that you want to concede should be conceded in the speech immediately following when it was read.

Because of the changes in speech times, defense should be in every speech.

In a util round, please don't treat poverty as a terminal impact. It's only a terminal impact if you are reading an oppression-based framework or something like that.

I don't really care where you speak from. I also don't care what you wear in the round. Do whatever makes you most comfortable.

Feel free to ask me questions about my decision.

do not read tricks or you will probably maybe potentially lose

I competed in PF and WSD for the majority of the time I spent in debate.

PF:

If you spread, please, at least enunciate your words, talking fast and clear, is different than just talking fast. Make sure all your arguments are concise yet well explained, if it comes down to me doing some analysis in order for your side to win the argument, I won't give y'all the round and will make my decision solely based off of what was said in the round. Cross should be used to get valuable information, but also to clarify points in order to make your argument stronger, or theirs weaker, however it should not be a mini-argument in itself over one point, cover multiple arguments, and use the short time efficiently.

WSD:

Don't spread. WSD from my perspective is mostly about the logic behind all your arguments, and hypotheticals, but that also means that the hypotheticals have to be somewhat justifiable. That being said I don't want to hear just blatant facts, and regurgitation of PDFs online. I need to hear some real analysis as to why your argument is inherently better in the context of the motion. Refutation should also be analysis, not blatant countering. Being able to turn arguments is great, and a good tool to display your understanding of an argument in the first place. Also if you are going to use the word principle please know what you are talking about. A principle argument can be a winning argument and the last thing I want to hear in the reply is a principle vs practical analysis and you're just weighing practical arguments against each other.

Good luck to all teams!

Strake Jesuit '19 | UT Austin '23 | SMU Law '26

He/Him/His

Email Chain/Questions: caden.day@utexas.edu

Please start an email chain as early as you can before the round starts. Also, I can absolutely tell when you are stealing prep while "trying to get the email to send" or while "waiting for the email to send." Please don't do that.

TLDR

Tech>Truth. Read anything that isn't exclusionary. Warrant everything (cards, analytics, extensions, etc.). Extend all parts of your arguments (including turns).

Tech>Truth

You can genuinely read anything in front of me as long as it's explained well. I'm most familiar with/primarily read Theory, Plans/CPs, off-case Disads, soft-left Ks, and framework/philosophical arguments. I am less familiar with non-t arguments and tricks. But again, read them if that's your style! I can keep up.

Tricks without warrants will be treated similarly to any other argument without a warrant—they will be given very little credence. So, if you plan on reading tricks, don't just dump them on the flow. Take time to explain the warranting in them.

There is, of course, the obvious exception to my "read anything" policy, which is that I ask you to foster an inclusive and educational environment.

Speaking Style and Speaker Points

I give speaks based on strategy. I start at a 28.

Go as fast as you want unless you are going to read paraphrased evidence. Send me a doc if you’re going to do that. Also, slow down on tags and author names. If, in later speeches, you aren't relying on a doc, dial back the speed a bit so I don't miss anything.

I will dock your speaker points if you take forever to pull up a piece of evidence. To avoid this, START AN EMAIL CHAIN.

You and your partner will get +.3 speaker points if you disclose your broken cases on the wiki before the round. Tell me if you have disclosed your cases because I won't check for you.

Summary/Final Focus

EVERY part of your argument should be extended (Uniqueness, Link, Internal Link, Impact, and warrant for each). Extensions of taglines or claims alone are insufficient. Please please please extend warranting and analysis.

Similarly, if going for link turns, extend the impact that you're co-opting; if going for impact turns, extend the link that you're co-opting.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Defense that you want to concede should be conceded in the speech immediately following when it was read.

Defensive extensions should be in every speech - it is not sticky.

I require responses to theory/T in the next speech. ex: if theory is read in the AC i require responses in the NC or it's conceded.

Any misrepresented evidence that is called to my attention by your opponents will be struck from the flow. In especially egregious cases, I reserve the right to severely dock your speaks or drop you outright.

If you have more specific questions, don't be afraid to ask them before rounds! Similarly, if you have questions about my decision after the round, ask away! It won't impact your speaks or my decision or anything like that. I want you to leave the round with a better understanding of my RFD if you feel confused.

Please include me on the chain: ryandickerson1991@gmail.com

LD--

I take a tabula rasa approach to judging —

I don’t lean towards any style of debate, progressive or traditional. I am willing to judge both styles, kritiks, CPs, DAs, and traditional cases and contentions. Explain it well and if you’re winning the debate you win my ballot. I will come in with a clean slate each round.

Threshold note--If you read a kritik, aff or neg, I will have a higher threshold for explanation for the theory debate, meaning you should clearly walk me through why your model solves. I don't necessarily have a higher threshold for voting for these arguments, I would just prefer more explanation here.

***I am a former policy debater and congressional debater. Speed is fine. Flex prep is fine. Email me with any questions.

Blake '21, UChicago '25

Did PF on the nat circuit for 3 years and I am currently an Assistant Coach for Blake.

Tl;dr:

- Pls run paraphrasing theory: Paraphrasing is awful, evidence is VERY important to me and I am happy to use the ballot to punish bad ethics in round.

- Send speech docs, its better for everyone.

- Strike me if you don't read cut cards/if you paraphrase or don't think evidence is important, you will be happy that you did.

- I flow.

- Tech>truth.

- All kinds of speed are fine, spreading too as long as you are not paraphrasing.

- 2nd rebuttal must frontline, defense isn't sticky, and if I'm something is going to be mentioned on my ballot, it must be in both back half speeches.

- Please weigh.

- I will let your opponents take prep for as long as it takes for you to send your doc or cards without it counting towards their 3 minutes, so send docs pls and send them fast.

- The following people have shaped how I view debate: Ale Perri (hi Ale), Christian Vasquez, Bryce Piotrowski, Darren Chang, and Shane Stafford.

jenebo21@gmail.com AND blakedocs@googlegroups.com -- Put BOTH on the email chain, and feel free to contact me after the round (on Facebook preferably, or email if you must) if you have questions or need anything from me. I am always happy to do what I can after the round to help you out.

General Paradigm:

- I will enforce speech times, prep time, etc with a timer and the ballot (if its like absolutely egregious, taking multiple minutes longer than you are allowed, etc)

- In most PF rounds, roadmaps aren't necessary, just tell me where you are starting and signpost. If there are 8 sheets, then yes, please give a roadmap.

- The Split: 2nd rebuttal must frontline; turns and defense.

- The Back Half: If I am going to vote on it, or if it is going to be apart of my RFD (all offense or defense in the round), it needs to be both in the summary and the final focus. None of this sticky defense nonsense. Weighing needs to start in summary, and final focus should be writing my ballot for me.

- Speed: I can handle all speeds in PF. More often than not, clarity matters more than WPM. I know debaters who speak super fast, and I can understand every word, and I know debaters who don't speak fast but are still super unclear, and vice versa. I will say clear if I cant follow. You can spread IF you are doing it like it is done in policy (spreading long cards, not a bunch of paraphrased garbage, slow down on tags/authors, sending out a speech doc is a must). IF you spread AND paraphrase, however, your chances of winning points of clash immediately plummet.

- Pls send speech docs with cut cards, I will probably ask for them so then I can read cards without having to call for a million different ones, and it shortens the amount of time taken for ev exchange by a million, so just pls send them.

- Weighing: You need to weigh on both the link and impact level, very often the team that weighs will pick up my ballot. I don't hate buzzwords as much as other PF judges, but I do need an explanation. Please start weighing as early as possible, in the rebuttals if you can. Early weighing helps you make strategic decisions and makes my life easier since weighing is what guides my ballot. I will always prefer weighing done earlier and dropped, over late weighing so weigh early and often. The evaluation of the round on my ballot starts and ends with weighing and it controls where I look to vote. I don't need a story or a super clear narrative, but write my ballot for me and make it easy. In line with this, I would highly encourage you to go for less and weigh more.

- Collapse: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE collapse, preferably starting in second rebuttal. This makes all of our lives easier because you don't want to have to spam buzzwords blippily in response to some poorly extended argument, and I don't want to sift through a flow with tons of tags and zero warrants or weighing. Pick an argument to go for, and weigh that argument. That is the easiest way to pick up my ballot. Debate isn't a scoreboard, winning 3 arguments doesn't mean you get my ballot if your opponent only wins 1 argument.

- I cannot believe I have to make this a part of my paradigm, it should be exceedingly obvious, but no delinks or non-uniques on yourself (specifically that delinks the link you read in case or something which makes the opposite argument that you made initially) to get out of turn offense. It makes being first impossible and its just so stupid. I won't evaluate those arguments and your opponents are free to extend those turns. Obviously, you can concede your opponents defense, but you cant read it on yourself, new in second rebuttal.

- If the 1st constructive introduces framework, the 2nd constructive probably should respond to it (or at least make arguments as to why they can respond later). I don't know where i stand on this technically yet, but this is where i am leaning now, arguments can be made either way on this issue in round and i will evaluate them normally, but if the 1st constructive introduces framework and the 2nd constructive drops it, i think its ok for the first rebuttal to call it conceded unless otherwise argued.

- On advocacies/T: This is something that should be resolved in the round and I will eval the flow if this argument is made but my personal thoughts are as follows. Because the neg doesn't get a CP in PF, the aff's advocacy does not block the neg out of ground (basically neither side gets to control the others ground). The aff does the whole aff, the neg can garner DAs off of the aff's advocacy or any interpretation of what the aff could look like, not just what that aff was in that round. An example would be the neg could still read a Russia provocation negative on the NATO topic (Septober 2021) even if the aff does not read a troop deployment advocacy for their advantages. Alternatively, if the neg can get a CP then I suppose the aff can get an advocacy. Either way works - the point being that PF should consider some sort of method to adjudicate this in round.

- Be nice and respectful, but keep it light and casual if you can! Debate is fun, so lets treat it as such.

- I will be quick to drop debaters and arguments that are any -ism, and I won't listen to arguments like racism, sexism, death, patriarchy (etc) good. The space first and foremost needs to be safe to participate in.

- I don't care what you what you wear, where you sit, if you swear (sometimes a few F-bombs can make an exceedingly boring debate just a little less so!), if you do the flip or enter the room before im there, etc.

Evidence:

I like cut cards and quality evidence, I hate paraphrasing. Disclaimer: this is going to seem cranky, but I don't mind well-warranted analytics. I just hate paraphrasing. Ev is always better than an analytic, but if you introduce an arg as an analytic, I won't mind and will evaluate it as such. But if your opponents have evidence, you will likely lose that clash point. Here a few main points on evidence issues:

- Evidence is the backbone of the activity, otherwise it devolves into some really garbage nonsense (I do not value debate as a lying competition). As a result, debates about evidence are very easy ways to pick me up. Arguments about evidence preference are very good in front of me, and I will probably call for cards at the end of the round because most debate evidence is horrifically miscut or paraphrased. Evidence quality is very very important, and I have NO PROBLEM intervening against awful evidence especially in close rounds. Good evidence is important for education and quality of debate, so if you have bad evidence, I am happy to drop you for it to improve the activity and hopefully teach you a lesson. This applies to both if you cut cards or paraphrase, because cutting cards doesn't make you immune to lying about it, so generally cut good cards, and read good evidence.

- Paraphrasing: The single worst wide-spread practice in PF debate today is paraphrasing. Its just so obviously silly. Its bad for the quality of debate, its bad for all of its educational benefits, and its unfair. I hate it so so much. So please cut cards, its not difficult and it makes everyone's lives better. That said, I know that it happens regardless so here are a few things important for the in round if you do paraphrase:

a. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE have a cut card or at least a paragraph, you absolutely need to be able to have this, its a rule now. Your opponents do not need to take prep to sort through your PDFs, and if you cant quickly produce the evidence and where you paraphrased it from, I'm crossing the argument off my flow. I have very little tolerance for long, paraphrased evidence exchanges where you claim to have correctly paraphrased 100 page PDFs and expect your opponents to be able to check against your bad evidence with the allotted prep time.

b. If you paraphrase, you MUST be reading full arguments. 40 authors in 1st rebuttal by spreading tag blips and paraphrasing authors to make it faster is not acceptable and your speaks will tank. Claim, warrant, ev is all required if I am going to vote on it or even flow it.

c. If you misrepresent a card while paraphrasing, not only is that bad in a vacuum, but I will give you the L25. If you realize its badly represented OR you cant find it when asked and you make the arg "just evaluate as an analytic" I will also give an L25 and be in a really bad mood. Its a terrible, terrible argument, so please dont make it. If you introduce the evidence, you have to be able to defend it.

d. Dont be mad at me if you get bad speaks. There is no longer world in which someone who paraphrases, even if they give the perfect speech gets above a 29 in front of me. I used to be more forgiving on this, but no longer.

- Evidence exchange: if the header "paraphrasing" meant you skipped over that part of my paradigm, I will reiterate something that is important regardless of how you introduce the evidence; if you cant produce a card upon being asked for it within a minute or two, at best you get lowest speaks I can give and probably the L too.

- Even if its not theory, arguments that I should prefer cut cards over paraphrased cards at the clash points are going to work in front of me. Please make those arguments, I think they are very true.

- Another thing im shocked i have to put in my paradigm, but you need to cite the author you are reading even if you paraphrase from them, for it to be counted as evidence and not an analytic. if you read something without citing an author, I will flow it as an analytic and if your opponents call for that piece of ev, and you hand it to them without citing it in the round, I am dropping you. Its plagiarism and extremely unethical. This is an educational activity, come on ppl.

Progressive paradigm:

DISLCAIMER: Deep in my bones, I believe that debate is good. It may presently be flawed, but I believe the activity has value and can be transformative. Arguments that say debate is bad, and should be destroyed entirely (often times this is the conclusion of non-topical pess arguments, killjoy, the like) will be evaluated but my biases towards the activity being good WILL impact the decision. Doesn't mean they are unwinnable, but it is probably wildly unstrategic to run them.

I'm receptive to all args, including progressive ones in the debate space, but they have been getting REALLY low quality recently. I worry about the long term impact about some of these really bad versions on the activity. Please, think about the model you are advocating for, think about if its sincerely going to make the space better for the people growing up in it.

- While there are obvious upsides to progressive arguments, I don't appreciate frivolous theory (see below). This does include spikes and tricks, I don't like them, pls don't run them. If the theory is frivolous, and I reserve the right to determine that, I won't vote on it no matter the breakdown of the round.

- I won't vote for auto-30 speaker point arguments

Theory:

- I probably default to competing interps unless told otherwise, but that doesn't really mean much if you read the rest of this paradigm. I am going to evaluate the flow, so if you read theory arguments that I won't intervene against, I am going to evaluate it normally.

- I generally think no-RVIs. The exception to this might be an RVI on IVIs.

- IVIs are really bad for debate. If they are a rules claim, make it a theory shell. Most of the time, they are vague whines that are spammed off in the span of 4 seconds without any explanation. This proliferation is nearly existential for the activity, and it needs to stop.

- I have no problem intervening against frivolous theory (i.e. shoe theory), so if you run theory in front of me, please believe that its actually educational for the activity. Even theory like social distancing or contact info are ones where its hard to win in front of me, and in some contexts I probably won't vote on it. Resolved theory and other nonsense will barely warrant getting flowed for me, I won't vote on them.

- Theory needs to be read in the speech following the violation. Out of round violations should be read in constructive.

- Paraphrasing is bad: I will vote on paraphrasing bad most of the time, as long as theres some offense on the shell. I personally think its good for the debate space and am very predisposed to voting for it. I will NEVER vote on paraphrasing good, I don't care how mad that may make you to hear, I just won't do it. If you introduce cut cards bad or paraphrasing good as a new off (like before a para bad shell) I will instantly drop you. That said, you can win enough defense on a paraphrasing shell to make it not a voter. Paraphrasing theory is the exception to the disclaimers outlined above, I think paraphrasing should be punished in round and am happy to vote on it.

- Disclosure is good: I am less excited to hear it because typically, disclosure rounds are really bad and messy. Open source is good too, I have come around on it, so you can basically run whatever disclosure interp you want. Run it if you think you can win it, but dont be fearful to hear it ran against you in front of me. Respond to it, and I will vote as I would a normal flow.

- Trigger warnings: This theory has been read a lot more recently, I will eval it like a normal shell, but for the record, I think trigger warnings in PF are usually bad, and usually run on arguments that dont need to be trigger warned which just suppresses voices and arguments in the activity. You can go for the theory, but my threshold for responses will be in accordance with that belief typically.

Kritiks/Arguments that people in PF are calling "Kritiks" even when they are not:

- I am all good with kritiks, although im not as experienced with them as I am with other args, but that isnt a reason not to run a K in front of me. I will be able to flow it and vote on it as long as you explain it well.

- Blake 2021 made me think about this a lot, and I think the activity is just going through growing pains that are necessary, but some of these debates were really bad. So please think through all of the arguments you read, so that you can articulate exactly what my ballot does or what specifically I am supposed to be doing. This means implicating responses or arguments onto the FW debate, or the ROTB.

- Also, no one thinks fiat is real (pre/post-fiat is just an inaccurate and irrelevant label), so lets be more specific about how we label arguments or discourse. Make comparisons as to why your discourse or type of education is more important than theirs, this is not done by slapping the label "pre-fiat" onto an argument because NO ONE THINKS ITS REAL. Just get past that label and explain why.

- You also need to do a pretty good amount of work explaining why or how discourse shapes reality, just asserting it does isn't much of a warrant and this debate is always underdeveloped in rounds I am in.

Speaks:

I will probably give around a 27-28 in most rounds. I guess I give lower speaks than most PF judges, so I’ll clarify. 27-28 is middling to me with various degrees within that. 26-27 is bad, not always for ethical reasons. Below a 26 is an ethical issue. If you get above a 29 from me you should be very happy bc I never give speaks that high almost ever.

tech judge

be loud

have fun ill give good feedback trust

pls add tharoon.eswar@gmail.com to the email chain

I've been an educator for the past forty years. The majority of that time has been spent teaching English, drama, and forensics. I have a background in the performance arts with a degree in speech and drama from Missouri State back when it was called Southwest Missouri State University. I am familiar with the mechanics of flowing but have limited practical experience. I do have the benefit of working with a very well-trained group of veteran debaters who've been assisting me as I navigate these new responsibilities. My philosophy when it comes to judging debate is to listen closely, script frantically, and remain objective in my analysis. I am becoming comfortable and confidence in my decisions weighing impact and evidence validity with greater ease.

Skandha Gopinath (he/him)

Flower Mound High School '23, UT Dallas '27

skandha.gopinath@gmail.com

If you have any questions before or after round, feel free to email me.

Background

I am currently a freshman at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a double degree in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. I competed for Flower Mound High School for two years. I mainly competed in Congress, and qualified for TFA State and NSDA Nationals in my senior year. I also have experience with extemp and occasionally competed in PF and WSD.

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All Events

Being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. is an auto L/low rank

Tech > truth

If it's before 9:30 am on a Saturday treat me like a lay

Email me after round if you have questions about your ballot, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible

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Congress

"Congress is a debate event you silly goose (x65)"

-Grant Davis

For speeches

• Good sources with high quality analysis are the most important part of any speech
• Later speeches should have clash
• Rhetoric/style is important, but isn't a substitute for content
• DO NOT BREAK CYCLE. If you get to the point where one side has nothing to say there's no reason to keep the debate going on that bill
• Be prepared to give sponsorships, there's nothing worse than having to take a 5 minute recess before the first speech
• Questioning is important, but don't ask softball/filler questions
• Quality of speeches >>>>>>>>>>> quantity of speeches. Base 2 is not a rule, and precedence exists for a reason
• Making jokes is encouraged, but don't be mean

For PO's

• Don't be afraid to PO if you don't have a lot of experience, I'll be pretty lenient in prelim rounds with the occasional mistake as long as it doesn't seriously impact the flow of the round
• That being said, you aren't guaranteed to break if you preside; you are still being ranked in comparison with everyone else in the room
• Break round PO's should be nearly perfect to be ranked highly
• Making a joke about being more/less efficient than the actual congress = auto 9

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Public Forum

While I did some PF as a debater, my experience with it has mostly been as a judge. Some general things:

• You can go fast as long as you send a doc, but please no spreading. I don't have a hard limit for speed but if I look really sad and I'm not typing you should probably slow down
• Cross is binding but I won't be flowing
• signposting and organization are crucial
• weighing is incredibly important and should start as early in the round as possible
• speaks are mainly based on strategy and clarity

LARP (1)

This is the type of round I'm the most comfortable judging. Nothing groundbreaking here, read Eli Glickman or Amogh Mahambre's paradigms for more info on how I judge these debates. The easiest path to my ballot is to keep the debate organized and cleanly collapse on your best arguments instead of trying to go for everything. Don't be afraid to collapse to a single argument, and if you collapse on a single turn and win the round I'll probably boost your speaks. Also, not everything needs to link into a nuke war extinction scenario.

Tricks/TT (1)

Very fun, please run these

Theory (2)

I think theory is a valuable way to check abuse. I don't love frivolous theory, but I'll still vote on it. I default to reasonability, no RVIs, and DTA, but can be convinced otherwise.

K/Phil (3)

I'm lumping these together since I have very little firsthand experience with either of them in the context of debate. I think they're interesting and am very open to hearing them in round, but be aware that you should probably err on the side of overexplanation.

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World Schools

Some general thoughts:

• Style and content are equally important, neglecting either one won't reflect well on your speaks
• Speakers should be active throughout the round with POIs
• Your most important arguments need to be introduced and implicated early
• This is a team event, all four speeches should feel cohesive
• In general, I don't think the distinction between principle and practical is particularly useful; practical arguments should be grounded in some kind of moral/ethical principle
• On that note, framework debates are fun
• I've never seen someone run any progressive args in WSD, but if you think an argument is well-warranted please feel free to run it

Some speech specific things:

1st Speaker

• Since 1st speech is mainly just reading case it's super important that you remain active with POI's. If you give the reply, even better
• Reading off a script is fine, but using notecards/an outline instead will probably lead to better speaks if done well

2nd Speaker

• Organization is super important. I should know exactly where I should be flowing at all times, so signpost clearly and don't jump around
• You should introduce at most one new substantive here, most of your time needs to be spent on refutation
• Usually a good idea to start weighing here

3rd Speaker

• COLLAPSE, COLLAPSE, COLLAPSE. If both sides try to go for every single argument the debate gets super messy
• Weighing (especially meta-weighing) is also super important, if you don't give me a clear metric for why you're winning, I have zero reason to vote for you
• Seriously, collapse

Reply Speaker

• This speech should essentially just be writing my ballot for me
• New responses/weighing in the reply = lowered speaks
• Any variation on comparing the debate to a chess match and ending the speech with "checkmate" is an auto L and 60 speaks for everyone on the team

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Extemp

I don't have too much to say here, just make sure you have good sources and you manage your time well. Creative agd's that you call back to throughout the speech are also good. Having a sense of humor is great as long as it's used appropriately.

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Policy/LD

If I am judging you in one of these events and you are not a novice, something has gone horribly wrong

See my PF paradigm, most of that stuff applies here. Just PLEASE slow down and err on the side of overexplanation.

Lisa Haddock

TLDR: Please send a copy of your speech to: lisahaddock68@gmail.com

Speed is fine-just be sure to speak clearly.

Tech over truth

Rounds will be evaluated and final decisions made based on flow so don’t drop your arguments.

I’m good with any argument but discrimination of any type will not be tolerated and could result in an automatic loss.

THINGS EXPECTED IN A ROUND:

Please time yourselves as this is for your benefit more than the judge

Off-clock roadmaps are recommended for your benefit; however, please let your opponent and judge know so there is no confusion

When you take prep time, please make sure you are ready to begin once prep time is over

Make sure that cross-ex is used appropriately

PUBLIC FORUM:

Arguments will be evaluated based on how strong they are presented along with the weight of their impacts-this is very important.

Make sure to number and emphasize your arguments

Remember to extend your arguments

Keep rebuttals in a clear line-by-line format

Second rebuttal should focus on responses in rebuttal

During summary, remember to extend defenses and offenses or whatever you feel is most important in the round.

Do not try to take over in crossfire and try to ensure that grand cross is not one-person dominated

Final focus should provide clear weighing ground for judges to determine why either team should win the debate.

Nicole He (she/her)

Debated for Seven Lakes High School for four years on nats circuit

Email: nicolexinyao1@gmail.com, add me to the chain if there is one

General tldr:

I’m tabula rasa in that my brain is empty and I don't know anything about the topic please explain everything. Also try to preflow and start an email chain before round to speed things up, tech>truth, speed is fine just send docs. As long as arguments are explained well and weighed well, I will vote for it.

Preferences:

Trigger warnings are needed for graphic arguments, but only if they're genuinely triggering. I think it's kind of silly to need trigger warnings just because people say the word "sexual assault" or if there are "mentions of gendered violence" because that just silences debaters who are trying to debate about important issues that they care about. If you do want to read tw theory for nongraphic readings of violence though, I will still evaluate it. But again, this doesn't mean trigger warnings aren't important and if something graphic and triggering is read it has to come with an opt-out form. Any violation of this that causes distress in round will most likely not lead to a good ballot for you.

Defense is not sticky. If it matters, you need to extend and implicate it in summary and final. Frontline in second rebuttal, dropped arguments in rebuttal are considered conceded.

If you want the easy win and want to make my life easier please do comparison in every speech you can. Comparative weighing, evidence comparison, and meta-weighing all decrease the chance that I intervene and generally make the round less messy. I usually think that in terms of metaweighing, probability and the whole policy paralysis warrant is weak and confusing, but if it's the only meta-weighing done I will vote on it.

Any bigotry means you're auto-dropped with the lowest speaks possible.

Evidence:

If para or direct quote, have cut evidence ready to send if its called for

Don't lie.

Speaks:

Just be chill, funny, and strategic, and speaks shouldnt be bad for you

Progressive Args:

I've read Ks, SV framework, and theory in high school and they still confuse me so I would much rather just hear a regular debate and probably be a better judge for one too.

If you decide to not listen to me and run these arguments, make sure you have an impact (especially Ks, please don't read one that does not solve anything), and don't just throw jargon at me. Again, if you just explain things well and do the comparison, I'll vote on it.

Please don't read tricks. I won't know what to do with it.

important: please do not read arguments pertaining to human trafficking/sexual violence in front of me. by that, i mean don't dehighlight the cards and replace sexual violence with gendered violence. i cannot hear these arguments. read an alternate.

add me to the email chain - 19sabrina.huang@gmail.com

i debated under cps hp. currently i coach/judge for american heritage broward. i don't think i'm super picky but heres some basic stuff:

you have to send a marked version of the speech doc if you did not get through your whole doc. you must delete the cards you did not read and visibly mark cards that you did not complete reading.

postrounding for clarification questions/feedback is fine. postrounding bc u think u won and ur tryna convince me u shoulda is not. just try to keep it short - i will cut you off at a certain point

william and i were really techy so that's the kind of debate i'm best at judging. but if both teams wanna have a lay round, that's fine too. i'll give feedback based off of how convincing you sound or sum

in general don't be a jerk, esp in cx/crossfire. it's fine to be witty, but if you're being rude your speaks will get tanked. my bar for being a jerk is pretty high tho. either way, cross isn't binding.

generally please dont yell that much, calm down it aint that deep ????

first and foremost, i prioritize the safety of debaters. that means: don't trigger people, use correct pronouns, etc.

that also means i wont evaluate any arguments rooted in bigotry. i will also not evaluate death good. be mature, and good people. also idt u can run pess if both of u arent black. i cannot believe i have to say this, but dont

to quote miguel harvey: "DO NOT PERPETUATE THE TOXIC, PRIVILEGED MALE PF ARCHETYPE. You know *exactly* what I’m talking about, or should. Call that stuff out, and your speaks will automatically go up. If you make the PF space unwelcoming to women or gender minorities, expect L25 and don’t expect me to feel bad about it." i don't think i can word it better.

send all cards before speeches so we reduce prep steal. i do not want evidence sharing to take up 16 minutes of a round (i have seen this happen irl) please spare me

i always presume neg on cx and almost always on pf - but if it's on balance res, i'll presume first bc first summary is hard

we can skip grand if both teams want to idrc about it tbh

if both teams want a lay round thats fine j lmk

on evidence:

i wont drop u if i notice an egregious evidence ethics violation myself but i will do smth if other team points it out/asks me to call for the card at the end of the rd. i will point it out and tank speaks if it is not against official rules usually (unless its rly bad, case by case basis) but if it is against NSDA rules i will auto drop

generally - i dont like para bc i have to comb through ALL ur ev. if you do not know what para means, ask.

i think bracketing can be a slippery slope - id rather u read something that sounds grammatically weird out loud than bracket, bc if you bracket a lot i have to check all ur ev for misconstruction and i dont want to do that.

if you notice clipping and u want to pursue it dont just read a shell - again, it's against nsda rules and needs to be evaluated per the handbook. just stop the round. it would be helpful if you have a recording of the clipping too.

speaks

20 = you did something racist/sexist etc and i'm gonna call tab

25 = minimum baseline for explicit, egregious evidence ethics violations or u were a big jerk

27-27.5 = you did smth horrible (debate wise)

27.6-27.9 = decent amount of stuff to work on

28-28.2 = you're getting there

28.3-28.5 = avg

28.6-28.9 = nice

29-29.3 = good. you might break to elims

29.4-29.7 = i think you should be top speaker

29.8-30 = ur better than me congrats

you start at a 25 if i notice ev that is explicitly against nsda rules - this is not just creative highlighting, this is stuff like added ellipses

+.3 for OS disclo

+.1 round reports

-0.5 for improperly cut cards (no context, no citation, no highlighting, etc)

-1 para or bracketing (-2 if u have both bc addition)

-1 if u have no cards and u j send me a link

also,

defense is not sticky

frontline everything in second rebuttal. do not be blippy and say "group responses 2-5 no warrant" and then move on. ACTUALLY WARRANT EVERYTHING OUT. if you are blippy, i will be very lenient towards the other teams responses.

analytics r cool if u have warrants.

i dont think theres an inherent problem with theory, but theres this trend where teams make hella responses and nobody collapses and it makes the round super messy so that makes me pissed like i dont think we have time to cover every single possible voting issue in 2 mins yk what i mean

anyways if it's frivolous i'll probably give u the stink eye. u can read friv if u reallyyyyy want but depending on how funny/boring it is ill get upset/be less upset. RVIs are silly, i prob won't vote on no RVIs. i don't think you should lose for trying to be fair.

call me interventionist but i think disclo is good and para is bad and i dont see myself voting on the opposite. sorry

i think ks are generally educational and i know how to judge them but i genuinely believe they don't belong in pf j bc the timings weird. if you read one, i won't immediately vote you down. either way aff gets to perm the k. also read an alt. and actual fw. do this well and u wont make me upset

CPs are fine on fiat resolutions (usfg should __) but idrk how this would work on an on balance res. but since these are technically not allowed per nsda rules i will also evaluate CP bad theory or whatever arg u can come up with

no tricks please i dont think i can evaluate them well and ill probs drop you bc idk how they work - run them in front of someone else

go as fast as u want as long as you enunciate. i will yell clear 3x before i stop flowing, dont make me do this

signpost. if you want to spread, you must slow down on tags/cites and then you may speed up on the body of the card. then, when you move onto another contention/card, let me know in some way. pause. say and. i dont care as long as u do smth

stop extending everything through ink, makes the debate really hard to eval and leads to intervention

no new weighing in 2ff. new 1ff weighing will make me upset but idt its the end of the world.

also, time yourselves. if u go too overtime in a speech/start new sentences i will straight up stop flowing

in general, i would rather have a slower round with more warrants than a faster paced round where everything is blippy and messy. make my job easy. do not make me sigh when i am making a decision bc i have to choose between a bunch of unwarranted weighing mechanisms extended through ink. most of you all are trying to be too techy because you think that gives you clout. in order to be techy, you need to know how to debate, otherwise a fast and unwarranted round just leaves me unimpressed, frustrated, and you will not get much out of the round. if u are techy and u do it well thats fine - there is most certainly a difference between a messy good tech round and a messy bad one.

Since I judge a lot more Public Forum now than the other events, my paradigm now reflects more about that activity than the others. I've left some of the LD/Policy stuff in here because I end up judging that at some big tournaments for a round or two. If you have questions, please ask.

NONTRADITIONAL ARGUMENTS: These arguments are less prevalent in PF than they are in other forms. The comments made here still hold true to that philosophy. I'll get into kritiks below because I have some pretty strong feelings about those in both LD and PF. It's probably dealt with below, but you need to demonstrate why your project, poem, rap, music, etc. links to and is relevant to the topic. Theory for theory's sake is not appealing to me. In short, the resolution is there for a reason. Use it. It's better for education, you learn more, and finding relevancy for your particular project within a resolutional framework is a good thing.

THEORY ARGUMENTS IN PF: I was told that I wasn't clear in this part of the paradigm. I thought I was, but I will cede that maybe things are more subtle than they ought to be. Disclosure theory? Not a fan. First, I am old enough that I remember times when debaters went into rounds not knowing what the other team was running. Knowing what others are running can do more for education and being better prepared. Do I think people should put things on the case wiki? Sure. But, punishing some team who doesn't even know what you are talking about is coming from a position of privilege. How has not disclosing hurt the strategy that you would or could have used, or the strategy that you were "forced" to use? If you can demonstrate that abuse, I might consider the argument. Paraphrasing? See the comments on that below. See comments below specific to K arguments in PF.

THEORY: When one defines theory, it must be put into a context. The comments below are dated and speak more to the use of counterplans. If you are in LD, read this because I do think the way that counterplans are used in LD is not "correct." In PF, most of the topics are such that there are comparisons to be made. Policies should be discussed in general terms and not get into specifics that would require a counterplan.

For LD/Policy Counterplan concepts: I consider myself to be a policy maker. The affirmative is making a proposal for change; the negative must demonstrate why the outcome of that adoption may be detrimental or disadvantageous. Counterplans are best when nontopical and competitive. Nontopical means that they are outside of the realm of the affirmative’s interpretation of the resolution (i.e. courts counterplans in response to congressional action are legitimate interpretations of n/t action). Competitive means there must be a net-benefit to the counterplan. Merely avoiding a disadvantage that the affirmative “gets” could be enough but that assumes of course that you also win the disadvantage. I’m not hip deep sometimes in the theory debate and get frustrated when teams choose to get bogged down in that quagmire. If you’re going to run the counterplan conditionally, then defend why it’s OK with some substance. If the affirmative wishes to claim abuse, prove it. What stopped you from adequately defending the case because the counterplan was “kicked” in the block or the 2NR? Don’t whine; defend the position. That being said, I'm not tied to the policy making framework. As you will see below, I will consider most arguments. Not a real big fan of performance, but if you think it's your best strategy, go for it.

TOPIC SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS: I’m not a big “T” hack. Part of the reason for that is that persons sometimes get hung up on the line by line of the argument rather than keeping the “big picture” in mind. Ripping through a violation in 15 seconds with “T is voting issue” tacked on at the bottom doesn’t seem to have much appeal from the beginning. I’m somewhat persuaded by not only what the plan text says but what the plan actually does. Plan text may be topical but if your evidence indicates harm area, solvency, etc. outside of the realm of the topic, I am sympathetic that the practice may be abusive to the negative.

KRITIKS/CRITIQUES: The comments about kritiks below are linked more to policy debate than LD or PF. However, at the risk of being ostracized by many, here is my take on kritiks in PF and maybe LD. They don't belong. Now, before you start making disparaging remarks about age, and I just don't get it, and other less than complimentary things, consider this. Most kritiks are based on some very complex and abstract concepts that require a great deal of explanation. The longest speech in PF is four minutes long. If you can explain such complex concepts in that time frame at a comprehensible speaking rate, then I do admire you. However, the vast majority of debaters don't even come close to accomplishing that task. There are ways you can do that, but look at the section on evidence below. In short, no objection to kritiks; just not in PF. LD comes pretty close to that as well. Hint: You want to argue this stuff, read and quote the actual author. Don't rely on some debate block file that has been handed down through several generations of debaters and the only way you know what the argument says is what someone has told you.

Here's the original of what was written: True confession time here—I was out of the activity when these arguments first came into vogue. I have, however, coached a number of teams who have run kritiks. I’d like to think that advocating a position actually means something. If the manner in which that position is presented is offensive for some reason, or has some implication that some of us aren’t grasping, then we have to examine the implications of that action. With that in mind, as I examine the kritik, I will most likely do so within the framework of the paradigm mentioned above. As a policymaker, I weigh the implications in and outside of the round, just like other arguments. If I accept the world of the kritik, what then? What happens to the affirmative harm and solvency areas? Why can’t I just “rethink” and still adopt the affirmative? Explain the kritik as well. Again, extending line by line responses does little for me unless you impact and weigh against other argumentation in the round. Why must I reject affirmative rhetoric, thoughts, actions, etc.? What is it going to do for me if I do so? If you are arguing framework, how does adopting the particular paradigm, mindset, value system, etc. affect the actions that we are going to choose to take? Yes, the kritik will have an impact on that and I think the team advocating it ought to be held accountable for those particular actions.

EVIDENCE: I like evidence. I hate paraphrasing. Paraphrasing has now become a way for debaters to put a bunch of barely explained arguments on the flow that then get blown up into voting issues later on. If you paraphrase something, you better have the evidence to back it up. I'm not talking about a huge PDF that the other team needs to search to find what you are quoting. The NSDA evidence rule says specifically that you need to provide the specific place in the source you are quoting for the paraphrasing you have used. Check the rule; that's what I and another board member wrote when we proposed that addition to the evidence rule. Quoting the rule back to me doesn't help your cause; I know what it says since I helped write most or all of it. If you like to paraphrase and then take fifteen minutes to find the actual evidence, you don't want me in the back of the room. I will give you a reasonable amount of time and if you don't produce it, I'll give you a choice. Drop the evidence or use your prep time to find it. If your time expires, and you still haven't found it, take your choice as to which evidence rule you have violated. In short, if you paraphrase, you better have the evidence to back it up.

Original text: I like to understand evidence the first time that it is read. Reading evidence in a blinding montone blur will most likely get me to yell “clear” at you. Reading evidence after the round is a check for me. I have found in the latter stages of my career that I am a visual learner and need to see the words on the page as well as hear them. It helps for me to digest what was said. Of course, if I couldn’t understand the evidence to begin with, it’s fairly disappointing for me. I may not ask for it if that is the case. I also like teams that do evidence comparisons. What does your evidence take into account that the other teams evidence does not? Weigh and make that claim and I will read the evidence to see if you indeed have made a good point. SPEECH DOCUMENTS: Given how those documents are currently being used, I will most likely want to be a part of any email exchange. However, I may not look at those electronic documents until the end of the debate to check my flow against what you claim has been read in the round. Debate is an oral activity; let's get back to that.

STYLE: As stated above, if you are not clear, I will tell you so. If I have to tell you more than once, I will give much less weight to the argument than you wish me to do so. I have also found in recent years that I don't hear nearly as well as in the past. You may still go fast, but crank it down just a little bit so that this grumpy old man can still understand the argument. Tag-team CX is okay as long as one partner does not dominate the discussion. I will let you know when that becomes the case. Profanity and rude behavior will not be tolerated. If you wish me to disclose and discuss the argument, you may challenge respectfully and politely. Attempts at making me look ridiculous (which at times is not difficult) to demonstrate your superior intelligence does little to persuade me that I was wrong. My response may very well be “If I’m so stupid, why did you choose to argue things this way?” I do enjoy humor and will laugh at appropriate attempts at it. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Make them specific. Just a question which starts with "Do you have a paradigm?" will most likely be answered with a "yes" with little or no explanation beyond that. You should get the picture from that.

Please weigh (tf, magnitude, scope, reversibility, etc.)

I vote on the team who extends case (uq+link+impact)

has the cleanest case (little to no conceded responses on ur case)

and attacks the opponents case the best

If the round has gotten messy, there’s two opposing claims and both sides haven’t cleared up which claim I should vote on, I’ll vote on turns and weighing.

Hello, I am a parent judge so I will understand many things but do slow down when speaking and make sure I have a clear understanding of the round. Thank you.

Please use content warnings for content related to SA or self-harm.

Hi! I'm Neel (they/them). I debated at Plano East (TX), starting out in circuit PF and debating circuit LD during my senior year. I now attend Michigan (I don't debate for the school) and would say that I'm somewhat removed from debate.

Yes, put me on the chain - gimmeurcards@gmail.com

Be mindful of how rusty I may be - go slower, explain topic jargon, and all that jazz - it'll be tremendously helpful for how confident I am in my decision and your speaks.

Tech > truth, but a combination is ideal. Don't be rude, because I can also decide that not being mean > tech.

I primarily find/found myself in debates that center around policy or kritikal positions both as a debater and a judge. I'm not very confident in my ability to adjudicate very fast and blippy theory/T, phil, or tricks debates. I'd say I'm a 1 for policy, a 1/2 for the kritik (aff or neg), a 3 for theory/T, and a 4/strike for phil or tricks.

For policy -

Impact turns are fine, but I refuse to listen to death good.

Evidence quality is your best friend in front of me.

I'm probably more open to letting CP theory debates unfold than other judges.

Read more than 1 argument on case please.

For the kritik -

I have a soft spot for cool K-affs, but I'm neutral on framework and all of the iterations you can go for.

Your overviews should have a purpose - apply stuff you say to the LBL and contextualize the things you are saying.

I've been in more debates about identity and the "stock" kritiks than pomo stuff - do with that what you will.

Cool case args are my jam (even presumption is cool).

For T/theory -

CIs, no RVIs, DTA for theory. DTD for T.

Huge fan of disclosure but I feel uncomfortable evaluating other violations sourced outside of round.

I'm very mid for frivolous shells.

Be organized and clear please.

For tricks and phil -

Not a great idea - I probably would barely be able to follow along a Philosophy 101 course.

If you want to read these, SLOW DOWN and number stuff.

Evil demons don't force me to vote aff and I only evaluate debates after the 2AR.

I honestly am just uninterested in 95% of this literature base - sorry.

For PF -

Good for all the progressive stuff and PF speed. I will hold you to a higher standard than most progressive PF judges.

Sticky defense is silly. Extend your arguments.

Turns case arguments are the truth. Probability weighing is fake.

Underutilized arguments and strategies are fun - if you can win the presumption debate or the impact turn, go for it.

Hello,

My name is Atul Kapoor. I am a lay judge with a solid amount of judging experience. Please explain your arguments clearly, and speak at a pace with emphasis on quality of your argument rather than quantity. Do not spread and do not overload your speech with debate jargon. I will do my best to judge only off what I am given in the round, so please do the work for me and don't make me have to intervene. Please add me to the email chain at kapoor.atul@gmail.com.

I don't base my judgment on your crossfire, so please don't use it to persuade me. Crossfire is for you to understand your opponent's case and address it in your next speeches. Pretend I'm not listening during crossfire. Make your case in the next speech.

If you're presenting an extinction argument, make sure it's believable. For instance, arguing that affirming or negating healthcare for all could lead to nuclear war and extinction seems far-fetched. If your opponents present an extension argument that seems implausible, address it. It shouldn't only be me thinking it's not plausible.

I assess your speaker points based on clarity, articulation, appropriate speed, and eye contact. Sometimes, I may give low scores.

I will do my best to disclose my decision when I am allowed to, and will leave feedback on the ballot. Above all, remember to have fun and be respectful to your opponents!

Best of luck!

Seven lakes High School '21 | University of Texas at Dallas '24

contact: vedaprasana@gmail.com

she/her

Debate experience:

I mainly participated in PF debate throughout high school at both local and national tournaments

PF:

- I am a standard flow judge who evaluates tech over truth.

- Okay with any arguments along as they are not offensive, racist, homophobic, etc.

- I am fine with speed as long as everyone in the round can clearly hear the arguments. I do not like spreading.

- Evidence: Paraphrasing is fine as long as you don't blatantly misconstrue the evidence. When providing paraphrased evidence please give the specific line that you reference. Evidence ethics are important, call your opponents out for any misconstrued evidence, false claims or any lies.

- Speaker points: Speaker points are awarded based on strategy and obviously how well you speak. As mentioned above, I will dock both speaker points and drop you if you have bad evidence ethics. Moreover, i'll give bonus speaker points if the round is entertaining and respectful. Being rude and loud will only decrease your speaker points so don't do that

- Give a roadmap of the speech beforehand and signpost throughout the speech.

- To extend an argument you must extend the contention name, the name of the cards and more importantly what the card says. You can't just tell me to extend 'x card' without telling me why the card is important to both your argument and the round. Speaking of extensions, the round should flow from your constructive to the final focus. The second rebuttal should respond to all offensive arguments or I consider them as drops. First summary must extend arguments and defense if it's responded to in second rebuttal. I will more than likely be voting on both the cleanest argument.

- Weighing is great, the more you weigh throughout the round the easier it is for me to vote. Please start weighing during rebuttals. New weighing after second summary is too late and I will not evaluate that.

- Any arguments or concessions during Cross must be brought up in speeches.

- If you read a framework, read warrants. The Framework debate must include weighing.

- Final focus should have the same arguments as summary

Email me if you have any questions!

My name is Manish Kumar. I am a parent judge, have debated in my childhood days at school but have no experience in judging high school students so really looking forward to it.

I don’t consider myself savvy on technical details of the debate but will be judging on clear arguments, and being respectful to each other. Please explain your arguments clearly, and speak at a pace that I and other listeners can follow. I am Okay with any arguments as long as they are not offensive, racist, etc. I am fine with speed as long as everyone in the round can clearly hear the arguments.

I am data-driven and appreciate good analytics to back your argument. I will do my best to judge only what I am given in the round and will leave my badge at the door.

I will leave feedback on the ballot. Above all, remember to have fun and be respectful to your opponents!

Email: engineermanish@gmail.com.

Best of luck to all debaters!

I debated throughout high school on the local, state, and national circuit. I have 5 years of experience in Congress, World Schools Debate, and Public Forum. Please feel free to ask me questions before the round begins if you need to clarify anything.

For WSD:

Adhere to the essence of Worlds. Hyper-specific elements from other formats are typically ineffective here. Recognize the unique value of WSD as a distinct event. Stay away from spreading.

Stay aligned with the fundamental nature of the motion. Also, make sure all clashes are relevant to the scope of the debate. As opposition, be very clear when running counter-models. Ensure that they serve a purpose. Please explain them well and utilize them to support your substantive arguments.

Winning every component of the line by line is unnecessary. Maintain a comparative approach throughout the debate, especially in the later stages. Provide comparative analyses and reasons to prefer a proposition or opposition world.

Ultimately, remain focused on the most impactful aspects of your argument. Winning minor details will not win you the round. Be cognizant of the time you spend per idea.

As we approach the latter end of the debate, break it down into 2/3 points of clash. Break down the debate, focusing on key voting issues, resembling my final decision.

Most importantly, treat everyone in the round with respect. Debate is intended to be a constructive activity.

For PF:

Remember to warrant and weigh if you want to win

Your argument needs to be on the flow, with clean extensions and effective weighing for my consideration.

Please weigh your arguments, your argument cannot be taken as seriously if you do not effectively explain the impacts of what you are trying to say.

Do not excessively spread and stay civil during cross-examination.

As you extend your arguments, there should be a claim, warrant, and impact. Explain why and how you're winning and why your argument matters for my decision. Extending arguments is critical as you create a narrative for your side of the debate.

Always treat everyone with respect. We are here to grow from one another.

As a judge, my priority is to evaluate the debaters in front of me as fairly as possible, regardless of personal beliefs. I have experience with LD, PF, and Congress. You may choose Trad or Tech just be reasonable and if you plan on speaking over 250wpm+, you should send a speech doc to ensure all points are evaluated.

I have three absolute rules for round:

1. Do not be condescending /disrespectful to your opponent(s) unless you feel like losing speaks and possibly the round. Passion and energy are great, disrespect is not.

2. Do not misrepresent/power-tag your evidence. You will lose the point and possibly the round, depending on the severity. This includes misusing, statistics.

3. Do not mischaracterize your opponents arguments or actions in round. Ex: insisting they dropped arguments they clearly addressed. You are welcome to tell me when you believe an argument should flow to you, although I may not agree.

I have no bias regarding theory, K's, ect. that don't break tournament rules. However, you should approach the round as if I know nothing about the argument you are running. That being said, if it doesn't make sense, I will not vote on it, you must prove your argument should win you the round. Ex: Saying your opponents shoes are a voter does not make it so.

Some specific information:

On weighing: I do not automatically way in "layers" or give preference to any specific type of argument, you need to prove that your approach takes priority.

Kritiks: Generally acceptable.

Non-T K's: If you are reading a K that is not topical It needs to be excessively relevant to the round. By that I mean that you telling me that I should vote for you because debate is sexist, will not sway me. However, If your opponent called you a sexist term or used sexist language to undermine you, I will absolutely evaluate a Kritik that concludes your opponent is bad for the Debate space. A topical statistic that you find offensive, is not reasonable ground for the K, facts and logic are critical to a meaningful debate.

Topical K's: I am fine with topical Kritiks, however you must prove that you earned the vote. I'm unbiased, so I'm perfectly comfortable evaluating anything you would like to run, Cap, Anthro, Fem, Pess varieties (I have a very high threshold for link and impact evidence here), and whatever else you can think of. As long as I believe you proved it, and you defend it, it is acceptable.

Note: A large volume of illogical evidence will not outweigh well-reasoned logic.

Theory:

Friv: Do not waste my time with shoe theory, formal dress theory, apple-laptop theory, or any other variation, unless both teams decide they just want to have some fun.

General Theory: For theory to carry a round it needs to outweigh the original purpose of debate. If there is a legitimate offence and you are enriching the round or the debate space by reading the shell, go for it, even if I don't love it, I'm willing to vote on it. You will need to do a lot of work to prove that the offense was egregious enough to warrant me dropping substance on the ballot.

CI: Counter-interps always get offense unless the team reading the shell proves that their opponents were theory-baiting, or does significant work to prove that they should get a 0-risk timesuck for whatever reason they choose. If you are willing to win on the shell, you should be ready to lose on it.

Reasonability: If you prove the offence had no effect on the round, and that you have a bright-line to fairness, I will drop the shell.

Plans: Plans are fine if the rules allow them.

Tricks: I think these de-value debate.

Performances: I have no experience with these, but if you prove its a reason to vote, I'll vote on it.

Assistant Debate Coach Dripping Springs High School

2a/1n UH debate 2016-19

email chain- ryanwaynelove@gmail.com

I do not watch the news.

Novices:

I have infinite patience with novices. So just do your best to learn, and have fun; welcome to debate!

Unrelated:

Hegel updates just dropped: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/manuscript-treasure-trove-may-offer-fresh-understanding-of-hegel

Policy: TFA State Update: (Ask me questions! This is an important tournament, I really do not like how hostile some judges can be to debaters. Y'all deserve to be able to ask whatever you want before the round).

Really important: You have got to slow down a bit for me. If you are not clear, you are doing yourself a disservice. The clearer you are, the faster you can go in front of me. The less clear you are means the more you should slow down.

You do you. But please crystallize the debate. I am infinitely more comfortable voting on well explained, well warranted, argument(s) that were explained persuasively, that took up the vast majority of the time in the 2nr/2ar, than I am on voting on a blippy technically conceded argument that was 20 seconds of the 2nr/2ar. This means I prefer deep debates over crucial issues of clash much more than debates where both sides are trying to spread the opponents thin. In debates where debaters take the latter approach rather than the former, I often times find myself seeking to determine the core "truthiness" of an argument. I often times have a different interpretation of "truth" than others. This means that in debates where little weighing is done for me you may not like how I intervene to make a decision. Similarly, if there is a conceded argument I much prefer you explain why that concession matters in the context of the greater debate being had, instead of just saying "this was conceded so vote for it." Most important to me is how you frame the round. If structural violence outweighs make it clear. If ontology is a pre-requisite to topical discussion make it clear, and so on. I do not want to adjudicate a round where both sides "pass each other like two ships in the night." Weigh your arguments, compare evidence, indict the ideas and arguments your opponents put forth.

Many times in conversations with debaters after the round I will be asked "Well what about this argument?" The debater will then go on to give an awesome, nuanced, explanation of that argument. I will then say "If it had been explained like that in rebuttal, I probably would have voted for it." If you expect me to vote on something, make it important in the last rebuttal.

I have not judged much on this topic. So start slower and work your way up to full speed. If I cannot understand you I will say clear.

Slow down in rebuttals. If you are going blazing fast I will miss something and I will not do the work for you on the flow. If you are fast and clear you should be fine. I need a clear impact scenario in the 2nr/2ar. Tell me the story of your impact(s); whether it be nuclear war, limits/ground, education, or settler violence. Be sure to weigh it in comparison with the impact scenario(s) of your opponents. In short, do the work for me, do not make me intervene to reach a decision.

Argument specific stuff:

Topicality-I am not aware of topical norms, so do not be afraid to go for topicality; especially against super vague plan texts.

Kritiks-I am most comfortable judging kritikal debate. As a debater I debated the kritik explicitly. I say this because I think y'all deserve to know that the finer techne of policy throw-downs are not my strong suit. If you read the Kritik I likely have at least some passing familiarity with your arguments. That does not mean I will hack for you. I expect you to explain any argument to me that you expect me to vote on in a clear and intelligible way. If I can not explain to a team why they lost, I will not vote for an argument.

K Aff v. Framework- I am about 50/50 regarding my voting record. Something, something, the duality of being ya know?

Disads- These are fun. The more internal links to get to the impact the more suss I think the arg is, the more likely I am to believe there is very low risk.

Counterplans-If your strat is to read 900 counterplans that do not really compete I am not the judge for you. Counterplans that have a legit net benefit on the other hand...those are nice. That being said, I have a soft spot for words PICS/PIKS.

Misc- Debate is a game. So if your A-strat is to go for that heg advantage, federalism and 50 states, or cap good, then go for it. You do you. Be polite, be friendly, don't waste anyone's time. Speaking honestly, these things are far more likely to influence my mood than whatever arguments you read.

Please use cross-x effectively

Please act like you want to be here.

Please be efficient in setting up the email chain, sharing docs, et cetera.

Please know I am only human. I will work hard. But know I am not perfect.

Last but not least, have fun! Debate is a great place to express yourself and talk about really interesting and pertinent things; enjoy your time in debate because it is quite fleeting!

LD:

This is the event I am least familiar with of all of the ones I have on this page. I would say look at my Policy paradigm and know that I am very comfortable with any policy-esque arguments. What the cool kids call LARP in LD I am told. For anything else judge instruction and weighing of args is going to be critical. As I have also stated in my policy paradigm I am more familiar with Kritikal args than policy ones, but I think for LD I am a good judge to have if you want to read a plan or something.

That being said I do appreciate debaters using their framing IE Value/standard/whatever to help me adjudicate the round. If you win framing you will probably win the debate when I am in the back of the room, as long as you have an impact as to why your framing matters.

Frivolous theory, RVI's, and tricks are going to be a hard sell for me. Legit theory abuse, topicality, or "T-you gotta defend the topic on the aff" are args I am more than willing to vote on.

Phil arguments are cool but do not assume I have any familiarity with your author. If I do not understand something I ain't voting on it.

San Antonio specifics

Unless both parties agree I do not want to see any spreading.

Do not be afraid to be a traditional debater in front of me. Just be sure you can debate against other styles.

Public Forum

Update a la Churchill on the Kritik- I am down like Charlie Brown for the kritik in PF (understatement). However, if you introduce the K in rebuttal I will be willing to evaluate theory args in response.

TLDR: Tech>truth, I keep a rigorous flow, I appreciate good analytics, and I hate theory in PF. I do not care if you sit or stand. If you want to call for a card go for it; BUT PLEASE do this efficiently. Do not try to spread, but going quick is fine.

Long version: I have judged a lot of rounds in Public Forum this year. There are a few things that you need to know to win my ballot:

The teams who have routinely gotten my ballot have done a great job collapsing the debate down to a few key points. After this, they have compared specific warrants, evidence, and analytics and explained why their arguments are better, why their opponents arguments are worse, and why their arguments being better means they win the debate. This may sound easy, however, it is not. Trust your instincts, debate fearlessly, take chances, and do not worry about whatever facial expression I have. I promise you do not have any idea where my thoughts are.

Crossfires: Use this time wisely. Use it to clarify, use it to create ethos, use it to get concessions, use it to make their arguments look bad and yours good. But use it. I think answers given in crossfire are binding in the debate. If you get a big concession use it in your speeches.

Framework(s): I like these debates. Reading a framework IE structural violence or explaining via an observation how the debate should be framed is helpful because it clarifies for me how to evaluate the debate. I like this in debates, it makes things easier for me. If you are reading a framework be sure to extend it in every speech and use it as a lens to explain your impacts in the debate/weigh your impacts against your opponents.

Speed: I think PF should be more accessible to the general public than policy. With that being said I have not seen a team go too fast yet.

Theory: This is silly. Disclosure theory is silly. Do not read it in front of me. Do not read any theory arguments in front of me. I will not vote on them. With that being said arguing that your opponents are not fitting within the bounds of the resolution is a good argument to make if it applies. If you make this argument and have warrants and impacts do not be afraid to go for it in final focus.

Non-traditional stuff: I enjoy creative takes on the topic, unique cases, and smart argumentation. I do think that PF should always revolve around the topic, I also think the topic is broader than most do. That being said avoid jargon. You can make a lot of creative arguments in this event, do so while avoiding weird debate jargon. No this does not contradict the "theory" section above. I will weigh claims about someone not fitting within the bounds of the resolution vs explanations about why a team is satisfying the burden of the resolution. Whoever does the better debating will win this question in the debate.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: I am a firm believer that my role as a judge is to be impartial and adjudicate fairly. I will flow what you say and weigh it in comparison with what your opponent says. Be polite, be friendly, don't waste anyone's time. Speaking honestly, these things are far more likely to influence my mood than whatever arguments you read.

Congress:

I was a finalist at the TOC in this event. This means I am looking for a lot of specific things to rank high on my ballot.

Clash over everything. If you rehash I am not ranking you.

Authors/sponsors: get into the specifics of the Bill: funding, implementation, agent of action, date of implementation. I appreciate a good authorship/sponsorship speech.

1st neg: Lay out the big neg args, also clash the author/sponsor.

Everyone else needs to clash, clash, clash. Specifically reference the Rep's you are refuting, and refute their specific arguments.

Leave debate jargon for other events.

Ask lots of questions. Good questions. No easy questions to help your side out.

This is as much a speaking event as it is a debate event. Do not over-read on your legal pad (do not use anything else to speak off of), fluency breaks/over gesturing/swaying are distracting, and be sure to use intros, transitions, and conclusions effectively.

I loath breaking cycle. If it happens those speaking on whatever side there are speeches on need to crystallize, clash, or make new arguments.

I appreciate decorum, role-playing as congress-people, and politicking.

1 good speech is better than 100 bad ones.

Wear a suit and tie/ power suit. Do not say "at the leisure of everyone above me" that's weird. My criticisms may seem harsh. I promise they are not intended to be mean. I just want to make you better.

Presiding Officer: To rank in my top 3 you need to be perfect. That being said as long as you do not catastrophically mess up precedence or something like that I will rank you top 8 (usually). The less I notice your presence in the round the better.

BOOMER thoughts (WIP):

Outside of policy/LD I think you should dress professionally.

In cross-x you should be looking at the judge not at your opponents. You are trying to convince the judge to vote for you not your opponents.

At the conclusion of a debate you should shake hands with your opponents and say good debate. If you are worried about COVID you can at least say good debate.

You should have your cases/blocks saved to your desktop in case the WIFI is bad. You should also have a flash drive just in case we have to go back to the stone age of debate.

"Is anyone not ready?" is not epic.

"Is everyone ready?" is epic.

The phrases "taking running prep" or "taking 'insert x seconds of prep'" should not exist.

"Taking prep" is all you need.

"Starting on my first word" umm duh that's when the speech starts. Just start after asking if everyone is ready.

GBX 2023

- send constructive and rebuttal docs with cards to both emails before you read them

- set up the chain BEFORE you come into round

- I have done a considerable amount of topic research

- I think open source is a good norm

Westwood '22

Coach for Westwood

Email for email chains (I want to be on it)/questions/anything really: amoghdebatedocs@gmail.com AND westwoodpfdocs@gmail.com

I will flow every speech and be focused on the round. I love the activity and know how much time you put in - you deserve a judge that pays attention and that cares. Go as fast as you want but be clear. More often than not you don't need to read 4 contentions or go as fast are you're going - quality is way more important than quality.

Speaks are a function of strategy (good collapsing, weighing, going for dropped turns and doing it well, etc) and practices (disclosure, cut cards, etc). I do not care what you wear. Speaks will range from 28 to 30 unless you do something unacceptable.

I will research most, if not all, of the topics. So, you can assume I have background knowledge, but if you're reading something super specific explain it and your acronyms.

Smart analytics > bad evidence or paraphrased blips.

If you want a short version - I agree with Akhil Bhale.

Non-negotiables:

- No prep stealing (it's quite obvious)

- Have the cut card for any piece of evidence that you read easily accessible (bare minimum), if your going to send links to large PDFs please strike me.

- I am uninterested in listening to and will not vote for arguments that endorse self-harm or suicide. Spark and other hypothetical impact turns are fine.

- Do not use racist/sexist/misogynistic rhetoric.

- I will "flow" cross-examination and it is binding (it exists for a reason). I hate it when teams don't understand their own arguments and this is the time to make it obvious. Probably won't be a voting issue but could be made into one.

"Preferables" (your speaks will automatically improve but I won't hold it against you unless convinced otherwise by theory etc.) :

- Disclose previously broken positions on the wiki (personally think new Affs/Negs are good but that is a debate to be had)

- Read from cut cards

- Send constructive and rebuttal docs with all the cards before your speech. I will never call for specific evidence after the round. If I think the evidence will decide or influence my decision I will go to speech docs to read it, if it isn't there too bad. Sending evidence after the round is just a way for debaters to send new evidence they didn't read, highlight evidence, cut parts out - I don't want to deal with that. TLDR: It helps both you and the debate if you send docs. I am a sucker for good evidence. If you have some really good evidence make sure I know about it - call it out by name. Again not an excuse for not debating - don't hide behind your evidence.

- Pre-flow before the round.

General:

- Tech > Truth (to an extent) - if an argument is dropped it is considered true but still has to be an argument for you to win on it (ie. it must be extended with uniqueness/link/internal link/impact), new implications or cross applications justify new responses to the specific implication. If you blow up a 2-second rebuttal blip - my threshold for responses won't be very high. More stuff on progressive arguments later.

- Read whatever you want to read - do your own thing. More on specific progressive arguments later.

- Open CX is fine (both people can speak/explain during cross-examination). Flex prep is fine and often good (ask questions during your prep time).

- 2nd rebuttal should collapse and frontline everything on the argument you're going for. Efficiency will be rewarded with good speaks. Defense is not sticky. Most "weighing" is new responses more on that later - at the latest 1st final but that's probably way too late and justifies 2nd final responses which isn't good for you anyway. 0 risk is a thing, but most defense will be evaluated on a probabilistic scale. 1st summary is the last time, I will flow new arguments. (There is a distinction between new arguments and new weighing - be careful.)

- Most substantive questions will be revealed on a probabilistic scale - comparative risk of the arguments. In 99% of debates, both sides will win some offense so comparative weighing and impact calculus can and often decides rounds. Procedural arguments often have to be evaluated on a yes/no basis (does the AFF violate the interp, RVIs or no RVIs, etc.)

- Turns. I love them but they are often done terribly. 99% of link turns need uniqueness to be offensive (ie. If the AFF tells me there is no negotiation in the status quo, and the NEG goes for a link turn about how the AFF makes negotiation worse, I have no idea what the impact to negative negotiation is.) Impact turns are also often interesting debates - if the link is contested (I hope it isn't if you're going for an impact turn) or if your opponents go for a different argument, then extend it clearly. If both teams seem to agree to the link and it just becomes an impact debate, I don't really care about link extensions too much. There are only 2 types of turns. Link turns and impact turns. New DAs and ADVs are often labeled as turns but you won't fool me and don't try - more on that later.

- Weighing. Also something I love but is often done wrong. There are three weighing mechanisms: probability, timeframe, and magnitude. Any other mechanism is either a subset of those three (ie. scope is a subset of magnitude) or isn't a weighing mechanism (ie. clarity of the strength of the link or whatever people like to say.) Unless convinced otherwise (which is easily possible), link weighing/debating > impact weighing. I often find that nuclear war outweighs climate change or poverty outweighs death is irrelevant with good link weighing. I will give examples of link weighing below: at the latest these arguments need to be introduced by 1st summary. Probability link weighing are no-link arguments or "mitigatory defense." Stuff like "it is hard for terrorists to get BMDs because of monetary and technical constraints" is definitely link defense and needs to be in 1st summary at the latest. Probability is a function of how much defense you win on an argument, I will not arbitrarily assign probabilities (ie. say climate change is more probable than nuclear war) - you have to explain to me why that is the case which often is just link defense. Timeframe link weighing can be great. Arguments like the NATO bank at the earliest even if created won't get funding for years etc. Magnitude link weighing is really good and often underused (ie. "scope of solvency"). Solving bitcoin emissions won't solve climate change writ large etc. That being said, I can be convinced that impact weighing comes before link weighing. Arguments like extinction first and Bostrom and viable and can also be good. I hope everyone knows what impact weighing is so not going to go too in-depth on that. Last note - turns case is really, really good and also really, really underutilized in PF. Conflict probably ends negotiations, climate change probably makes war more likely, economic growth probably resolves underlying conditions for crime, etc. These types of arguments can really help you frame a round and establish why your came case comes first. Impact weighing and turns case can come by 1st final by the latest.

- Try or die can be convincing if done well. It is often a great strategy if you are going for an extinction impact and the NEG has conceded uniqueness. This is not an excuse for not frontlining - 0 risk is a thing. Timeframe is a really good weighing mechanism in try or die/extinction first debates and can often implicate probablity.

- Framing debates are also really interesting - extinction first etc. Framing arguments are not a substitute for link debate but a supplement. If you win policy paralysis and the other team wins a very large risk of their extinction scenario, the other team has probably won the round.

"Substance":

- Quality > quantity. Not too many interesting thoughts here. Good weighing and link debating wins rounds - avoiding clash, being shifty, and dumping blips doesn't.

- Empirics aren't arguments but can help your position combined with warrants. If you have good empirics that are specific to the mechanism of the resolution/your argument you're probably in a good spot.

- I could care less about quantified impacts. They are often random predictions by conspiracy theorists or terrible models. Even worse, debater math. I would much rather your impact be economic growth than some math you did with different studies and percentages. Extinction is an impact, recession is an impact, etc - I do not care about your 900 million card.

- Kicking case in reading a new DA/ADV in 2nd rebuttal is a bad idea. You essentially just wasted half of the debate. I will have a very low threshold for responses and encourage theory. This is different from reading 4 minutes of turns (ie. kicking case and just going for prolif good). I am perfectly fine with that, in fact, that would be quite fun.

Below are some thoughts on progressive argumentation. Don't read these arguments to win rounds - it's quite obvious. You disclose for the first time and read disclosure theory, change from full text to open source for 1 tournament to meet your interp, etc. I will still vote for it if you win but your speaks won't be great. Also, don't read progressive arguments just to beat novices - I will give you the worst speaks I possibly can.

Theory:

- I have mixed feelings on disclosing broken interps - could be convinced either way. In general, meta-theory is interesting and under-used.

- Topicality is also interesting. Define words in the resolution. Intent to define and evidence quality is extremely important. Unlike most theory debate, precision, your interpretation, and the evidence matter a lot more to me than the limits/ground debate.

- While I will not "hack" against these arguments be aware it is an uphill battle if you are defending paraphrasing good or disclosure bad. If you win your CI and everything on the flow of course I will still vote for you. If it is a close-round, you know which way I am probably going to vote.

- I default to competing interpretations, no RVIs, spirit of the interp, and drop the debater. I can easily be convinced otherwise. If paradigm issues are dropped/agreed upon they do not need to be extended in every speech. If the debate devolves to just theory under competing interps - I am voting for the better model of debate, I could not care that you won no RVIs (personally, no RVIs doesn't mean you can't win on a counter-interp in my mind)

- Reasonability is a good tool against mis-disclosure (open-source versus full text etc) and frivolous shells. You should still read a counter interp - but explain why the marginal differences in your models of debate are outweighed by substance crowd out etc.

- Read your shell the speech after the violation (if they paraphrase in 2nd rebuttal - feel free to read paraphrasing theory in 1st summary.) Theory after that is fairly late and really hard to have good clash, thus probably will result in intervention but if you think its necessary read it (bad language etc.)

- For some reason, small school counter-interps are quite popular and I get why (I read them myself a few times.) However, I am inclined to believe that arbitrary entry limits are just that arbitrary. Also, a lot of small schools are in big prep groups with a lot of resources, or just don't have a lot of people competing etc.

- Theory is unaccessible is a terrible argument - there are tons of resources out there and if you need more help/advice feel free to email me. It is just like responding to any other argument.

- Theory cards, in most cases, are overrated and are often just written by former debaters and will be evaluated on the same level as any other standard/argument. This is different from topicality interpretations and impact weighing/cards against Ks.

K's:

- "Substantive Ks" like Cap K or Security K are great but probably will just be evaluated as DAs or impact turns. Reading it as a K is often just an excuse to get out of the uniqueness debate, and when your alternative is just rejection, I don't think that gets you very far.

- Non-topical positions are also fine - I am familiar with most of the stuff people read in PF, but if you're reading high-theory or something confusing - slow down and explain it. I won't vote for something I can't explain back to you. This is my one exception to disclosing new Affs/Negs. I strongly believe non-topical positions should be disclosed before the debate to allow for clash.

- I slightly lean towards T/FW against K affs/negs probably because K debate in PF isn't done very well - but can easily be convinced otherwise. K teams should go for impact turns, weigh the K against the shell, and have a good CI that mitigates the limits offense. Do not read a K based on research about x argument and discourse and then make a prepouts bad argument on theory - that doesn't make too much sense. Weighing is really important in these rounds and I find that the theory teams get away with some stuff too easily (answer stuff like fairness is key to participation which comes before your method.)

- I am also down for a method v method debate, or PIKs etc. Conditionality is probably good against a new K aff/neg (ie. fine with T/FW combined with a PIK etc)

- Long pre-written overviews are not as useful as line-by-line and specific weighing.

- Also, please have an actual method. If you say "vote for me because I pointed this out," you probably won't get my ballot.

- Paraphrased Ks are a big no. Non-negotiable.

If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions feel free to email me whenever. I will always disclose unless the tournament explicitly tells me not to. Postrounding is good if it is constructive and educational - but this time, I will have already submitted my ballot and will not be able to change it. Feel free to email me questions after the round as well.

Hello, my name is Suchitra Malepati and I am a parent judge with no experience. Grapevine Classic is my first tournament and I'm so excited to hear you guys in round and see what you can show me! Please have clear arguments, and speak with a fluent tone at which I can understand. I will do my best to judge based on what I know and I am given in the round, so please be cooperative and patient with me. Please add me to the email chain at suchitra.malepati@gmail.com.

When I am permitted to, I will try my best to make my decision available and provide input on the ballot. In the end however, keep in mind to enjoy yourself and show courtesy to your opponents.

Best of luck to you all!

Joshua Martinez (they/them).

Debated for Strake Jesuit for 4 years.

For email chains/questions - JEMartinez.docu@gmail.com

General

don't care what you wear or how you present in round.

speaks start out at 29.5 and move up and down by 0.1 as a scale; however, if you have an ego, I will drastically drop your speaks, passion is nice, being obnoxious isnt.

racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia have no place in debate. you get an L + 20. don’t misgender your opponents if they have pronouns disclosed

ask me questions after round, pick my brain, I encourage it. If you leave round frustrated, ask me about it. Respect me as a person who makes mistakes but stand by your convictions.

Debate is a competition but not a game, this means that how we think about the debate space matters and the knowledge produced from it is important and should be evaluated. epistemological arguments carry a lot of weight with me and I’d like to vote on them, whether they be framework/post or pre-fiat because how we think has material consequences for people. Thus–

The bastardization of evidence is antithetical to actually learning something from the debate space.

I have very little patience for bad debate evidence: if a card is obviously miscut, your opponents are lying about evidence or intentionally misconstrued it. Feel free to stake the round on an evidence challenge, I will vote for them. If you think your evidence isnt cut properly, fix it before round or dont read it.

read content warnings, if you aren’t sure if something requires a content warning, read one anyways.

Background.

I did debate all four years in high school for Strake Jesuit in Public Forum. I did okay, qualified to TOC, qualified to TFA state 3 years, and got to quarters one time.

I have an academic interest in critical theory both inside and outside of college. I loved doing K debate my senior year, and read queer/anti-capitalist/asian k ground with my partner. I am most familiar with Butler, Marx/Engels, Said and basic phil stuff alonside a limited engagement with critical race theory/anti-colonial/imperialist lit that ive picked up here and there.

My exposure to critical args was from reading first, debate second, meaning that I would appreciate more work from debaters in translating everything into the debate space, if you show an actual interest and seem knowledgeable in the lit bases you draw from, I will want to vote for you.

Substance/LARP/Topical Debate (PF/LD)

Tech over Truth.

Good substance rounds are amazing to watch.

Decent Flow Judge, not the best with speed tbh, if you think its going to be a problem then send me a doc, I would really appreciate it, but I don't really think they solve, err on the side of caution. Faster than 250wpms is fine if you slow down for important stuff.

Evidence without implication to the round/specific arguments is meaningless. Slowing down for implications and analytics is very nice.

If you care about the ballot, then please signpost, be safe than sorry. If I get lost, it will take my ~10 seconds to get back on track and I will not be flowing.

I appreciate good strategy sooooo much. I’ll outline what I consider good strategy.

1. Comparative Weighing is an absolute must for me, it should be smartly contextualized in round. Link level, impact level, meta-weighing, policy maker stuff, uniqueness weighing, actor analysis, SOMETHING.

2. Evidence comparisons are a godsend and will break clash for me on the flow. If you have good evidence, lord it over your opponents, it makes the round so much easier to vote on.

3. Easily differentiated warrants and implications for responding to your opponents, using evidence from constructive to frontline, nuanced case offense, and smart extensions that do more than just extend.

4. Overviews are nice, they just get spammed a lot in Public Forum.

I prefer arguments that have a good amount of work on them. My willingness to believe defense is predicated on the strength of the original response, if a 5-second blippy turn is met with a similar 5-second frontline, I buy the frontline. If that very same turn is to be massively blown up in the back-half, I am less likely to buy the defense/turn over the original and well-warranted case offense.

For this reason, concessions aren’t sacred. If a team can cross-ap defense from something very similar to beat-back a “conceded turn” then I am willing to consider it frontlined.

I appreciate voting on strategy and being smart, not doc botting 30 responses from the 600-page exclusive block file compiled from circuit connections.

Ishan Dubey was on my team, his rounds were enjoyable to watch, not just because he was a good tech debater, but because he was strategic, he grouped responses, weighed to beat back timeskews, he framed ballots for the judges. Be like Ishan, I like Ishan.

Additional Information.

• Hidden links are stupid, hiding blips that concede arguments honestly seems ableist.

• Defence is sticky in PF, but not in LD due to speech time differences.

• I don’t know the topic as well as you do, abbreviations for long terms should be explained at least once.

• PLEASE have speech docs prepared and evidence ready, I will doc speaks for holding up the round, not for wifi issues. I hate not being on time. Pre-flow preferably outside of round if you can.

Theory, Kritiks, and Framework Debate

“Progressive” for all the PF people

Tricks arent in the title for a reason, don’t read them

CUT GOOD EVIDENCE FOR THEORY, K’s, AND FRAMEWORK. There is an infinite amount of material to comb through, it exists, and I know it does.

Evidence ethics is incredibly important. Please actually read your evidence, if you point out incredibly lazy K evidence, it will be a place for me to sign my ballot.

Personal Bias

• Queer Pess arguments are extremely poorly understood in the debate space, I have lots of personal gripes against Edelmen. Run at your own risk, ill try to make it not inform my ballot.

• death-good is something I really don’t want to vote for.

Theory

My threshold for responses against theory is directly proportional to how friv I think it is.

Don't attempt to skew your opponents out of the round by reading 5 god awful interps, if you actually care about norms then there should be sufficient time to actually debate them. If this happens, make it a response and I will vote on it.

• I default competing intercepts.

• Will default to no RVI’s unless contested.

• K v. Theory, I default to the K if the theory of power is conceded, either a. Contest the theory of power or b. Weigh the shell against the rotb/ToP and interact in the speech its introduced.

• In Theory v. Theory, please metaweigh, I have a low threshold for voters, I don’t believe not disclosing will collapse the activity. Compare the actual impacts to break clash.

• I wont autodown theory except for:

• I won’t vote on disclosure against identity args

• Content warnings bad

• Any form of counter interp against misgendering/deadnaming

PF: Structure your shells like a normal pf shell: interp, violation, standard, voters, underview

LD: My evalutation of a “god awful interp” is much higher in LD because I am less familiar with the material. I am aware that theory covers more ground than in PF and won’t autodown anything, be sure to implicate and slow down on frontlines/backhalf of the round more than you normally would so I can follow along. Err on the side of caution.

Kritiks

Tldr: overexplain.

I really really want to vote on a K, but I am not a K hack. Please actually know your authors, your advocacy, and what your evidence says. If I think you just stole your k off the wiki with no clue what is says, I will down you. In cross, if you are struggling to answer softball questions like “whats your alt” or “whats capitalism”, I really don’t want to vote for you and have a much much lower threshold for responses.

If you decide to read progressive stuff and your opponents obviously have no clue what to do, DO NOT be abusive. Depending on the severity, will either drop your speaks or down you.

If you don’t know what a K is and your opponents are reading it against you: read their evidence, have them explain their evidence, ask them basic questions, and turn it into a response. I will vote on it if they can’t answer.

Nuanced links for any K is highly recommended. I’ll vote on generic K links but my threshold for responses is lower against them.

K ground questioning knowledge production/epistemology is something i have a real soft spot for if done well. Explain why current IR/militarism/policy-making is flawed with good warrants and your fine.

Please flesh out the Alt and overexplain the material, winning on the flow matter less if I am just completely clueless on what the K actually does. Implicate out to your opponent's case and take the time to explain why it turns case, limits offence, impact filter, etc.

Extend the Alt in every speech and flesh out how and why you have offense in the round. If your getting offense from something else, make that clear and tell me to disregard the alt.

Performative offense is great, ill vote on conceded performative offense if properly explained

I am a big fan of KvK debate.

K ground I know nothing about, if you decide to read, treat me like child

High Phil. Affo Pess/Futurism. Kant. Border K’s. Psychoanalysis.

PF:

Most PF k’s are god awful, read T if your opponents have a really bad K and I will probably vote for you.

You need an alt. Discourse isn’t an alt. The alt is probably the most important part of the K and it needs to be decent for me to vote for you.

Your cards should be long, with actual warranting in your evidence any card with 20 words highlighted is not K evidence.

If you are going to read fem, please please please cut very good fem evidence or just make it framework. Most of the fem k’s on the circuit I have massive problems with for simplifying critical literature and turning them into “vote fem team to center women”.

Read a queer counter k for me and I will have a very very strong preference to vote for you. I love love judith butler, I’ve annotated my copy of Gender Trouble, queer theory is my lifeblood, if you have no clue what any of that is, probably read substance instead.

LD:

Err on the side of caution when you're figuring out what I can evaluate. If you can, read the more basic version of something if you have it.

I like topical k affs. Nontopical k’s I have a harder time understanding.

Pick 2 pieces of offense at most to collapse on.

Go the extra step in extensions/frontlining.

FW [wip]

PF: use good evidence, implicate why your opponent's links/impacts are problematic under your fw.

LD: overexplain, please. I have very little exposure to LD fw.

My name is William Mathison. I'm the coach at Colleyville Heritage High School.

I'm the most familiar with PF and LD.

If you spread make sure to add me to your SpeechDrop or email chain. I can flow directly off of the doc but if I can't understand you while spreading, you'll lose speaker points.

Preferences

1 - CP/DA/Advantages

2 - T, Theory (the good kind)

BE ADVISED. RUNNING A K OR NON-T AFF WILL LIKELY RESULT IN BEING VOTED DOWN.

3 - Kritiks

4 - Non-T Affs, Tricks (if the opponent can't understand them, neither will I), Friv Theory, Performance/Identity K's, Spikes

Timing

10-15 second grace period at the end of the speech if you're in the middle of a sentence. Don't abuse this.

PLEASE USE STOPWATCHES. PLEASE LET ME KEEP TIME AND DO NOT INTERRUPT THE OTHER TEAM WITH AN ALARM OR TELLING ME THEY'RE OVER TIME.

Speaker Points:

30: Perfection

28-29: Great with some notes

26-27: Needs significant work

25: Offensive comments were made

Add me to your email chain! mathison.debate@gmail.com or add me on your speech drop.

I have spent 7 years as a speech & debate coach, and I would say that if you needed to classify me I would likely be considered a "classical style" judge. That being said, this is how I would describe my beliefs for debate...

- Please make certain to link your arguments as I cannot assume your reasoning is valid.

- I will not say no to theory or kritik but will say that I've rarely seen it used well enough to convince me, so I would be careful in using these arguments.

- I am STRONGLY opposed to spreading. I flow fairly well, but I would say QUALITY over QUANTITY, and that if I did not hear you say it, then you didn't say it. As this is a "public speaking event" and as both opponents are supposed to receive equal time and consideration from the judge, I see very little value in flashing cases. Make your arguments during the round please, as I can only judge you on the arguments you make.

- At the end of the day I will be looking at your entire debate and want to feel that you are more "right" in the round. Please make certain to weigh your impacts and provide me with solid voters as to why you have won the debate. I will care much more about your arguments being presented and linked believably, authentically, and logically than being 'ahead" on the offensive flow.

Im Andres i'm a junior at Seven Lakes. 2x TFA qualifier, 1x TOC quallifier, PFBC Student Andrescasas0705@gmail.com the email chain.send speech docs with all cut cards before speech

tech > truth, The first thing i evaluate in the debate is if you are winning the link level debate because if you don't win your argument then you don't win the weighing, if both teams are winning their arguments i then go to the weighing, if there is no weighing i default to the best extended and or biggest arg of the round.

don't be disrespectful

frontline in 2nd rebuttal, defense isn't sticky.

extend uniqueness, link, and impact. - This goes for turns as well, especially if your opponents dont extend their uq and imp for you.

go for less and explain what you go for better.

time ur own prep and speeches

u can go fast if u want, however (Quality > Quantity)

Arguments made in cross are not binding

Manage your own time i won't be timing you guys

progressive Args

I can evaluate but am not fully familiar and will not fully enjoy the round unless explained REALLLYYY well

K's im familair with are Cap, Col, Orientalism, and Fem.

speaks

i'll start at a 28.5 and go up or down based on strategy, politeness, and presentation. (may help to be funny)

overall, have fun! i'll disclose and give feedback, feel free to ask questions about my rfd

Hey all, I'm a first time parent judge with no prior debate judging experience.

I am a parent of a competitor and Im very excited to a hear you guys in this competition. I don't understand too much of technical details or jargons of debate but will be judging on clear arguments, being respectful to each other and not using much filler words. Your arguments should be clear and easy to understand for a layman.

I hope you guys enjoy this competition and journey of debate. Be confident and proud of yourselves for participating in these competitions.

Wish you all the best for your tournaments.

Email: Bhavin.Mody@gmail.com

utd 26'

email: rahulpenumetcha10@gmail.com

NDT x2

Top Level -

The debate should be up to the debaters and I will not intervene - any of my opinions discussed below will not affect my decision-making process if any argument in the debate is made over them.

A lot of this philosophy (and my beliefs in debate) will echo austin kiihnl, kevin hirn, and julian habermann's philosophies'.

There is almost always a risk of any argument, its a question of how the debaters do calc as to which risk matters more

I will vote on any argument that I disagree with or is not true if the argument is won at a technical level (doesn't apply to non-negotiables)

"Evidence quality influences technical debating and I value good evidence highly"

"I have a fairly strong preference for organized, technical debating, and not debating in this way will probably make it a lot harder than you'd like for me to adjudicate the debate." (From Austin)

Notes:

-Analytics need to be used more (esp vs less truthful args)

-I won't judge kick unless told to

-I don't lean a certain way on cp theory but 2ac blippiness means the neg block has a low threshold to meet. I'm better than most for theory to make it into the 1AR but still, every cp theory other than condo is probably a reason to reject the arg

-We meet on T is a yes/no question - generally T debates are my favorite when done well.

-“I will weigh the aff unless convinced otherwise. I enjoy alt debating far, far more than FW. Aff-specific link explanation will be rewarded highly. I am most likely to vote for a K if it uses its critical theory and explanatory power to directly diminish aff solvency rather than try to access a larger impact. If debated like a critical CP, DA, and case push, you will be rewarded.” (From Julian)

-I've spent a decent amount of time reading critical literature with the most time spent on Calvin Warren, Frank Wilderson, Christina Shrape, Arthur Kroker, and Douglas Kellner in that order. This means my threshold for your explanation might inevitably be higher, however aff specific contextualization and the explanation of the theory of power on the line by line should overcome any gap in understanding.

-I have a sweet spot for impact turn debates.

-My evaluation of K affs vs FW is best for the aff when there is either a firm impact turn strategy with some metric to evaluate aff case offense or a counter interp that focuses on establishing an inroads to 2nr offense while solving external impacts. I'm better for the negative when the strategy is either hard right fairness and providing a metric to view aff offense through or a strategy that revolves around clash/fairness and establishing ways FW can solve aff offense via a TVA/SSD. If it matters I've been on the neg side of these debates slightly more than the aff.

Non-negotiables

Do not be racist, sexist, homophobic, or misgender.

CX is binding

I will not vote on anything that did not happen in the round because that is not what a judge ought to do.

If the debate can be made safer, accessible etc. Please let me know.

Hello! I'm Sofia, I debated four years of Public Forum for Blake and I am currently a first year at UChicago.

Please add these to the email chain: saperri@uchicago.edu,blakedocs@googlegroups.com

If you are a novice, scroll down to the bottom of my paradigm to the "for novices" section

HOW I JUDGE:

Tech > Truth. I will be flowing all your speeches and will make my decision based on the flow, with as little intervention as possible. If you want me to vote off something that happened in cross, you must bring it up in a speech. Evidence is super important; please read cut cards, and if your opponents ask you for evidence you must be able to send the fully cut card (not just a URL!) to the email chain. Keep track of your own prep time. In speeches, I'll stop flowing at 5 seconds over if you're finishing a thought but if you start a new response overtime I won't flow it. Don't be unnecessarily rude, I'll tank your speaks. I do love some snark tho; you don’t always have to be nice in debate. Racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism/etc will not be tolerated and will result in an auto L.

Please send speech docs with cut cards before your speech!!!!!

SUBSTANCE DEBATE TAKES I HAVE:

Defense is not sticky – you must extend all defense that you want to matter for my ballot, even if it was conceded, in the first summary. Additionally, second rebuttal has to frontline and objectively, from a strategic standpoint, should frontline before it attacks the opponent's case.

Weighing– make your weighing comparitive and warranted, and you must respond to your opponent's weighing and explain why yours is better. I cannot emphasize this enough. Weighing preferences: Say probability instead of strength of link. Saying you outweigh on probability because the argument was conceded is stupid- think of some real warrants. Outweighing on timeframe isn't just "our impact happens now, theirs happens in 10 years" - you need to implicate this claim, ie the solution to their impact doesn't have to be the aff (intervening actors solve). Tbh, I think metaweighing is stupid 99% of the time- a better strat when trying to win a weighing debate is to match all their mechs/respond to them, and use your extra mechanisms to "break the tie". Weighing should start in 2nd rebuttal and the last place where new weighing is ok is 1st final (already kinda cheeky– don't read 4 new mechs, it has to build off of summary's weighing)

Extensions – Extend uq/link/IL/impact of the argument you are going for. My link/impact extension threshold is relatively low, but warrants do still have to exist. I personally don't think you have to extend case in second rebuttal– extensions should start in the summaries. Additionally, you should never go for both contentions, or both links of one contention, it's a waste of your time. Go for one piece of case offense, and 1-2 pieces of turn offense. Or just go for turns

Framework– Framework is great when done correctly; otherwise, it's a massive waste of everyone's time. For example, DO NOT read cost-benefit analysis framework– framework is meant to frame your opponents out of the debate. Reading the implicit, universal rules of a debate round as your framework is not strategic at all. Additionally, if you are reading SV framework, you should probably make the the warrants for the framework specific to the group you are impacting to (women, indigenous people, etc). Otherwise, you allow the opponent to get away with some very sketchy link-ins which defeats the purpose of framework. PF is having this stupid trend of kids spending 15 seconds reading "fRamEwOrK" that essentially says "SV is bad, vote ___ to break the cycle"– this is not what good framework looks like. There should be several, smart warrants for why your framework is important as well as a clear ROTB with warrants as well.

Evidence comparison– do it. post-date, empirical, meta-study, greater sample size, etc. Please don't make me intervene when there's two competing claims/warrants just sitting there on the flow– evidence comparison is key in these scenarios.

Speed– When done well, I love it. I think it allows for more interesting, technical debates with more clash. However, if you can't spread, DON'T DO IT. I will not flow off your doc. Your speaker points will suffer. You can still win rounds with efficiency + good word economy; please please don't try to go fast if it sacrifices your clarity.

Off-time roadmaps– Most of the time these are goofy. Just tell me where you are starting and sign-post from there. If there are three sheets or more then please tell me the order of the sheets but that’s lowk it

PROGRESSIVE DEBATE TAKES I HAVE:

Theory

I default to competing interps, but essentially I'll just evaluate the flow (not much different than evaling a substance round)

Theory must be read in the speech right after the violation

Out of the shells you could read I will probably be most receptive to paraphrasing and disclosure theory, I have some experience reading these arguments, although not a ton– send the shell to the email chain before you read it. Also stop forgetting to extend drop the debater in the backhalf

PF doesn't seem to understand what an RVI is, so if you want to read a shell know that THIS IS WHAT I CONSIDER AN RVI: All we need to prove is that we don't violate to win this round (ie similar to winning off of defense). HOWEVER, if the responding team concedes no RVIs that DOES NOT MEAN THE SHELL IS CONCEDED. If the responding team wins offense on the shell (ie a counter-interp) they can still win the round. This argument is very simple and I don't understand why there is such confusion surrounding this issue. It's just like a normal round - if you win a turn on your opponent's case, that is a voting issue for you.

Some random preferences that may be useful to you: Don't read a para good counter-interp, I will not vote for frivolous theory, I'm generally skewed towards trigger warnings bad, I think round reports are ultra dumb

EDIT: Theory is done so poorly in PF 99.99% of the time and it's honestly painful to watch/endure sometimes. I cannot promise you your speaks won't be dookie if you read theory. That said, do what you need to do to win, but I would probably advise against reading theory in prelims if I'm your judge.

Kritiks

I have some experience reading and/or debating set col, security, fem, and cap, so those are for sure the three I would feel most confident evaluating. However, just generally run Ks at your own risk with me, I don't know much about most of the lit

Stop running Ks without an alt or reading very goofy alts– please read an actual alt that YOU UNDERSTAND + CAN EXPLAIN. If your opponent asks you "what is the alt" / "how does the alt solve for the harm" / "what is the role of the neg/aff in this debate", and you can't respond without opening your speech doc and word-vomiting policy backfiles, rethink the strat.

Similar to theory debates, I believe K debate extensions should be done off the doc - that’s what I did all throughout my career and I believe it makes things a lot more consistent. If you’re paraphrasing your ROTB and alt differently every speech it could potentially make you a moving target and make your argument a lot more vulnerable to responses. I feel like it also just makes the debate more efficient, especially if the argument is new to you.

IVIs

Literally just no

There are structures and mechanisms in place for you to deal with in-round abuses, DO NOT read a 10 second blip with horrific warranting and expect me to vote on it. Read theory or call a violation with tab

If you are going to read an IVI, I'll feel comfortable voting on any RVIs read against it + evaluate it through reasonability

FOR NOVICES:

TLDR: TO MASSIVELY INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING THIS DEBATE, EXTEND ONE OF YOUR CONTENTIONS AND WEIGH IT. Like 70% of novice rounds are won by simply doing this.

Some things I would like to see in round:

1. Every speech after constructives must answer the speech that came before it. For example, in second rebuttal you must respond to the responses the other team put on your case (as well as respond to their case). Also,
"sticky defense" is not a thing- defense must be extended in first summary for it to matter.

2. Please weigh your arguments! Magnitude, probability, Prerequisite, etc. and give a reason why your argument outweighs. If you just say "we outweigh on magnitude" and move on without comparing the impacts and actually explaining why, I can't really evaluate it. Also, make sure to respond to your opponent's weighing, otherwise I'm forced to intervene.

3. In summary and final focus, extend the links/warrants/impact(s) of the arguments you're going for. If you just say "extend Russia" and don't explain what "Russia" is, I can't vote on it. My link/impact extension threshold is relatively low, but warrants+internal links do still have to exist.

4. Please narrow down the back half of the debate! Y'all should really only be going for one contention from case, and don't try to extend every response from rebuttal in summary/final focus. Choose a couple you think are the strongest and you are winning the most, and explain those+weigh them well. In summary you should probably be collapsing on 2-3 pieces of offense (arguments that give me a reason to vote for you, like case or turns) and in final focus you should probably be collapsing on 1-2.

5. Last speech where new arguments are okay is first final focus, and that's just for new weighing (and it should be building off of summary's weighing, not like 3 completely new mechs)

6. Please signpost, order, and label your arguments!!!

MISCELLANEOUS:

My goddesses: ELIZ and TRONK

stay clippin

Most importantly, don't stress and have fun! You got this :)

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.

Flower Mound High School '23, Debated PF 2 Years, Outrounds of Gold ToC, TFA, and Nats Senior Year

Email for chain: ameysemail@gmail.com

Sending docs before speeches is preferable.

TLDR: Tech>Truth, read fun stuff. Cool with spreading even though I can’t flow it that well, just send a doc. Collapse well, extend clearly, weigh, win. I really like debating and judging theory, defaults are below.

LARP: Basic substance paradigm, check out Eli Glickman, Amogh Mahambare, or William Erard's paradigms for good info. Weighing is really important and lots of teams don’t know how to do it right. Weighing arguments in an intelligent manner will make it easy for you to get my ballot. Organization and signposting are also really important and make it easier for me to vote. DON’T BE SCARED OF COLLAPSING ON A SINGLE ARGUMENT, EVEN A TURN. I really enjoy clean collapsing even if it’s on a turn on your opponents case. If it’s strategic, it’s a really good and fun way to win my vote and I’ll probably boost your speaks too.

Framework: I really enjoy philosophical frameworks and arguments. If you have a unique way of looking at and framing a certain resolution, please go for it. Kant and Util are pretty interesting to me and I have the most knowledge on them, but feel free to run other frameworks as well if you can explain them properly.

Theory: Very open to voting on theory especially regarding disclosure practices. I default to reasonability, no RVIs, and DTA. Give me reasons as to why your opponent has to provide a CI, be dropped for reading a shell, or be dropped for a violation and I’ll vote on them though.

K’s: Little to no experience against or running these, will require a lot of explanation if you want to run complex Kritiks but of course I’m open to voting on them. Probably have the most understanding of Mollow out of any Kritikal argument.

Tricks/TT: No problem with them, but try not to run them in Pf if you don’t have a decent understanding.

Speaks: I’ll mostly separate speaks from the actual debate and award them based on presentational ability, but strategic decisions and good organization also go a long way. I’ll give you a +.5 boost if you shout out a friend that’s quit debate OR Sid Thandassery before your speech.

TOC Conflict List:

Coach for Break Debate: Conflict List---Barrington AC, Carnegie Vanguard LH, Durham SA, Flower Mound AM, Garland LA, L C Anderson LS, L C Anderson NW, Lexington MS, Lynbrook BZ, Lynbrook OM, Monta Vista EY, Oak Ridge AA, Sage Oak Charter AK, Scripps Ranch AS, Southlake Carroll AS, St Agnes EH.

If you're looking for a cost-effective speech/debate camp, come to the UH Honors Debate Workshop (HDW). We have top faculty from across the nation and an intense two-week course for CX, LD, PF, WSD, Congress, and IEs.Can't recommed this enough, truly astounded by the quality of faculty really great value and amazing deals for commuters in houston. Check out the website for more info: https://uh.edu/hdw

Background ---

UH '26

Conflicted against Seven Lakes HS, Barbers Hill HS, and anyone in Break Debate.

Policy debater at the University of Houston 1x NDT qualifier

Coach for Seven Lakes HS and Break Debate

Put me on the email chain --- debatesheff@gmail.com

If I am judging PF also put sevenlakespf@googlegroups.com

Overall perspective ---

Please don't call me judge---Bryce is fine

I will vote on anything. I have done extensive policy and K debate so it is naturally my preferred styles. I am open to other styles of debate and will vote on anything just might be less comfortable.

I hate deadtime in debates. It makes me increasingly frustrated when there isn't a timer running and it seems like no one is doing anything. To minimize this please have the email chain with the speech doc sent AT START TIME. If the email chain is sent at start time (WITH A DOC PF DEBATERS) both teams will get .2 speaks boost.

thoughts---essentially the same for policy and LD.

--- K affs being vague and shifty hurts you more than it helps. I'm very unsympathetic to 2AR pivots that change the way the aff has been explained. Take care to have a coherent story/explanation of your K aff that starts in the 1AC and remains consistent throughout the debate

--- Inserting rehighlightings is fine as long as you explain why it matters in the speech. I usually read ev while making decisions.

--- I'm more convinced by affs that commit to, and defend, an action coming out of the 1ac.

--- Ks should prove the plan is a bad idea.

--- I'm not convinced by CP theory arguments like condo or PICs bad. Private actor fiat, multi-actor fiat, or object fiat definitely have merit.

--- I default to judge kick unless 1ar and 2ar convince me otherwise.

--- I will not adjudicate anything that didn't happen in the round.

--- New affs bad is a bad argument.

--- Qualified authors & solid warrants in your ev are important. Evidence comparison and weighing are also important. In the absence of evidence comparison and weighing, I may make a decision that upsets you. That is fundamentally your fault.

email: justinshim04@gmail.com

washed pf toc debater for westlake (austin, tx)

- will evaluate all non-exclusionary arguments

- tech > truth

• please collapse, but more importantly extend; i have a pretty low threshold for dropping your own case by conceding defense to kick out turns, it can be as simple as "drop X contention, concede Y defense, it delinks, therefore kick Z turns, opponents have no link into offense"

• in summary and ff, for arguments you plan to go with, give a brief line-by-line extension. if its a turn (extend the impacts too).

• i prioritize clean offense, if that means spamming turns and hoping that the opponents will drop them, by all means go all in on turns

• theory > everything else

specifics:

add me to email chain & send cases and speech docs if u read it

- no penalty for nondisclosure/paraphrasing, but i believe theory should be read and i tend to side in favor of disclosure and cut-card.

- analytical responses are good

- round disclosure by request, after ballot is submitted

- imo critical args are on the same level as good framing, unless there are clear out of round implications

- default competing interps

- tricks: i tried them when i did debate, and looking back its pretty cringe, read them at the expense of your dignity

plz call tkos when applicable. if tko succeeds, W30s: fails, L30s.

for ld: plz just read policy/larp

I have experience in PF, Parli, Extempt, and Duo/ longtime judge (mainly PF)

Things to consider at the start of the round:

1. Make sure to clearly state your contentions
2. Speaking fast is okay but do not spread
3. Remember I am flowing please make it easy to follow along throughout the round
4. Make sure your flow is ready before the round
5. Delivery matters!!

Things to consider during the round:

1. Keep up with your own prep time
2. Make sure you utilize your time wisely. Make sure you use all of your time and are refuting as well as rebuilding your case.
3. Please do not spend multiple speeches arguing over one source.
4. Make sure you are extending arguments.
5. My ballot will go to the team that does the best weighing and impacting in the round. You have to be clear as to why you are winning the round. If you do not call something out or respond, I cannot make the argument for you. Remember to actually debate the resolution don't get lost in the round.
6. Be mindful of what you say in the round. The words you use and the arguments you make have implications. Please consider that throughout the round.
7. Do not wait to FF to say that the other team dropped all of your contentions.
8. Do not ask for a source in question for something that is common knowledge. I do count logical arguments and responses.

If doing an email chain please add me - gabri3ll30422@gmail.com

If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

Hi! My name is Jeffrey Song and I did some PF in high school but at the end of the day, I am just a goofy little boy!

he/him/his

Things:

1. No yelling, I have very sensitive ears and I don't want this to devolve into a shouting match. Please be respectful!
2. No racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Will result in auto-down :/
3. Go as fast as you want!
4. Smile :)
5. Saying "nu uh" in cross
6. Low diff rounds :(
7. I <3 larping

The @: jffrsong@gmail.com

Additionally,

1) Guiding Principles and General Beliefs

I firmly believe that debate is a competitive game grounded in important research, critical thinking, and argumentation skills, and that the competitive nature of debate is something to be embraced, not rejected. Debaters who work hard to be the best will have a better chance of winning my ballot: this means both before the round, through thoughtful, in-depth research, during the round, through excellent strategic decision making, and after the round, where I am open to discussions with both teams about how to improve for the future.

I will carefully flow the debate and make a decision based on what I’ve flowed for the team I believe has done the better technical debating. Compared to other judges, I think that I need teams to do more impact comparison and internal link analysis to win an argument that I consider a voting issue. I will do my best to not intervene during my decision: this practically means that I want more in-depth warranting for arguments you think are voting issues.

2) Public Forum

A. General Thoughts

I keep a tight flow and will make decisions primarily based on content and strategy rather than style or presentation. I will give more weight to arguments that are grounded in solid evidence, are excellently warranted when first presented, and fully developed during the back half of the round. In short, I will try to intervene as little as possible, and I am theoretically willing to vote on any argument.

I have no preference on the construction of your cases, but I’ve noticed that cases constructed with cut cards, or those that directly quote evidence, are generally more persuasive than cases constructed via paraphrasing evidence, normally because the paraphrasing sacrifices warrants for additional claims. First crossfire should begin to deal with framing questions and start to center in on the central questions in the debate, setting up the rebuttal.

Second rebuttal should begin to condense the round. I expect that it answers the first rebuttal to enough of an extent that I could reasonably see what you could go for in summary. While there are some cases where the second rebuttal should go for all arguments in the debate, those are rare - generally speaking, I think that the first speaking team comes out ahead when that happens. I find myself voting for teams that more aggressively condense the round more often than teams that go for every single argument, though this is not a hard and fast rule.

Second summary is too late to make new arguments to anything in the first rebuttal speech, including defensive arguments. Obviously, anything that you want me to vote on must be in both the summary and final focus speeches. Similarly, final focus speeches which focus on detailed comparison of a couple of arguments rather than going for many arguments generally win my ballot more often. I generally think that the earlier you begin weighing arguments, the more compelling they are by the end of the round.

If you do not give a significant amount of attention to your evidence's quality, you should consider striking me. The representation and quality of your evidence is very important to me, and ethical violations related to evidence may be a voting issue, even if your opponent does not call you out. In practice, however, I am hesitant to vote against a team if the piece of evidence that I think is questionable was not a) explicitly called out by the other team and b) does not make a substantive difference in my decision. Please make my job easy and call out garbage evidence so that it doesn't feel like I have to intervene to vote against it: though I reserve the right to do so, if I think it's warranted.

B. Critical Arguments

I am amenable to the recent trend of more critical argumentation in PF debate and I will happily vote on well-researched critical strategies in many different forms. That said, I think that these strategies have been executed relatively poorly when I have seen them. Too many teams are relying on arguments which I think are, functionally, “we talked about x group of people or y concept and therefore you should vote for us purely due to our ‘pre-fiat, discourse’ impacts” which I find incredibly unpersuasive. While I think that discussions rooted in critical literature are important and welcome in PF, your initiation of that discussion alone is generally insufficient for me to vote for you. You still need an impact to win the debate, and I will still be weighing your arguments versus your opponents in an offense/defense paradigm to determine the winner of the round. In other words, I do not think that "spreading awareness" or "discourse" is a terminal impact.

If you would like to use the round for a friendly discussion between both teams of some kind of oppression, that's fine. I won't take anything away from your decision to use the space as you see fit. But, my job as a judge is to adjudicate debates and award a winner, loser, and speaker points. If a team concedes the debate, I will select a winner, award speaker points based on the quality of debating done by each side, submit my ballot, and may choose to leave the room. If either team would like to ask me brief questions, as during a normal RFD, I will be happy to entertain those questions, but at this point in Public Forum's evolution, I believe that the time spent on the vast majority of these friendly discussions would be better spent having a debate about the issues raised during these discussions.

C. Theory:

I strongly dislike judging most theory debates in PF, and I would prefer to hear a debate about the topic than a theory debate, but I'm willing to grit my teeth and vote for you if it's warranted. I will evaluate theory debates through an offense-defense paradigm: the same way I would evaluate any other argument. I find theory with a clear violation and abuse story more compelling - it is an uphill battle to get me to vote on purely potential abuse rather than proven abuse if the other team makes a compelling we meet or reasonability argument. I probably think that reasonability arguments are more persuasive than most of my judge peers.

I am only interested in impacts to fairness/access and education filtered through the lens of endorsing a given interpretation. When answering theory, keep in mind that I am exceedingly unlikely to vote on arguments based on the socioeconomic status of one or both teams or arguments that assert that theory "does not belong" in Public Forum.

I personally believe that disclosure on the national circuit is generally good and paraphrasing is generally bad. I will not hack for these arguments, though it will be a severe uphill battle to win “paraphrasing good” in front of me.

For a variety of reasons, I cannot stand judging disclosure theory debates: initiating such a debate will cap your speaker points at 25. I'll still vote on the argument if I think you win the debate, but I find these debates totally mind-numbing, and would rather hear a debate about literally anything else. If you don’t like theory, I recommend disclosing and reading from cut cards or at least representing your evidence well.

D. Pet Peeves

Long off time roadmaps, blippy or unwarranted arguments that are magically expanded in later speeches, "cards" which are a sentence long strung together as a series of claims, aggressive/loud crossfire with a lot of cross talk, grand crossfire generally, dismissing arguments as "improbable" without warranting that argument, taking more than a minute to send evidence.

If you have other questions, please ask before the round either in the room or via an email. I am happy to clarify anything you think is insufficiently explained above.

E. Final Thoughts

Cowardice is a voting issue.

Case debate is a lost art. Spending 4 minutes on case on the LOC = happier Jeffrey. Have I included that like 4 times in my paradigm? Absolutely.

I probably give defensive arguments more weight than the average judge. Compelling terminal defense can play a very significant factor in my decision.

I think teams make too many bad arguments and should spend more time developing better ones. This doesn’t mean don’t go fast – it means spend more time developing better arguments than bad short ones.

I will look to the written text of your advocacy if it becomes relevant for any reason, i.e. a T interp, plan flaw, etc.

The aff can always read a permutation. Obviously, they have to justify how the perm works in the round, but I don't think there are certain types of debates or rounds where the aff can't perm.

Ask me about my AK account

Whoever can say "nuh-uh" in the silliest tone during cross as a response gets extra speaks.

Thank you for reading this goofy little boy's paradigm!

Email chain: andrew.ryan.stubbs@gmail.com

Policy:

I did policy debate in high school and coach policy debate in the Houston Urban Debate League.

Debate how and what you want to debate. With that being said, you have to defend your type of debate if it ends up competing with a different model of debate. It's easier for me to resolve those types of debate if there's nuance or deeper warranting than just "policy debate is entirely bad and turns us into elitist bots" or "K debate is useless... just go to the library and read the philosophy section".

Explicit judge direction is very helpful. I do my best to use what's told to me in the round as the lens to resolve the end of the round.

The better the evidence, the better for everyone. Good evidence comparison will help me resolve disputes easier. Extensions, comparisons, and evidence interaction are only as good as what they're drawing from-- what is highlighted and read. Good cards for counterplans, specific links on disads, solvency advocates... love them.

I like K debates, but my lit base for them is probably not nearly as wide as y'all. Reading great evidence that's explanatory helps and also a deeper overview or more time explaining while extending are good bets.

For theory debates and the standards on topicality, really anything that's heavy on analytics, slow down a bit, warrant out the arguments, and flag what's interacting with what. For theory, I'll default to competing interps, but reasonability with a clear brightline/threshold is something I'm willing to vote on.

The less fully realized an argument hits the flow originally, the more leeway I'm willing to give the later speeches.

PF:

I'm going to vote for the team with the least mitigated link chain into the best weighed impact.

Progressive arguments and speed are fine (differentiate tags and author). I need to know which offense is prioritized and that's not work I can do; it needs to be done by the debaters. I'm receptive to arguments about debate norms and how the way we debate shapes the activity in a positive or negative way.

My three major things are: 1. Warranting is very important. I'm not going to give much weight to an unwarranted claim, especially if there's defense on it. That goes for arguments, frameworks, etc. 2. If it's not on the flow, it can't go on the ballot. I won't do the work extending or impacting your arguments for you. 3. It's not enough to win your argument. I need to know why you winning that argument matters in the bigger context of the round.

Worlds:

Worlds rounds are clash-centered debates on the most reasonable interpretation of the motion.

Style: Clearly present your arguments in an easily understandable way; try not to read cases or arguments word for word from your paper

Content: The more fully realized the argument, the better. Things like giving analysis/incentives for why the actors in your argument behave like you say they do, providing lots of warranting explaining the "why" behind your claims, and providing a diverse, global set of examples will make it much easier for me to vote on your argument.

Strategy: Things that I look for in the strategy part of the round are: is the team consistent down the bench in terms of their path to winning the round, did the team put forward a reasonable interpretation of the motion, did the team correctly identify where the most clash was happening in the round.

Remember to do the comparative. It's not enough that your world is good; it needs to be better than the other team's world.

Send cases and rebuttal docs w cut cards

anbeastdawson@gmail.com

Preflow n flip n everything before round

If you are flight 2 make sure everything is ready before flt 1 ends, i dont like wasting time

If the round ends within 40 mins after the scheduled start time then I will give block 30s

Do something fun

I've read Theory, Ks, and Tricks but read whatever you can explain clearly. Even if I know what argument you are trying to make I won't do any work for you. That being said even if you pull smth I'm not familiar with like a unique K or phil I'll vote off of it if u explain it well.

Speed is fine but hella annoying. If I miss something that's on you. If I were you, I wouldn't because I am bored and generally uninterested

If the round is too unclear for me, i'm not even gonna want to listen to the backhalf when you try to slow it down, im just gonna flip a coin or vote on vibes

Hi! FYO from Blake – did PF for 4 years and Worlds Schools for 3 years

Tldr: tech > truth, weigh, have good evidence.

Put me on the email chain: blakedocs@googlegroups.com

General

If neither teams extend, absent evidence questions, I will presume for the first speaking team – it feels less biased than arbitrarily picking certain skills or behaviors to award.

You can't clear your opponents – they are not obligated to adapt to you. Debaters are free to do whatever they think is most strategic to win the round, whether or not their arguments are comprehensible is up to the judge to decide.

You don't have to ask me to take prep time – just do it plz :/

Things that aren't debatable

Wins + Losses – at the end of the round I will vote for one of the teams.

Speech Times – see NSDA rules

Rebuttal thoughts

Frontline in second rebuttal – if you don't, the first reb is conceded and I will consider any later responses new and won't evaluate.

It seems like some rebuttals like to dump a bunch of blippy and under-warranted analytical responses. If an argument doesn’t have a warrant, I can’t evaluate it – point this out to me and you'll have a much easier job frontlining/backlining.

Defense maybe sticky

Defense isn't sticky if you're using opponent's defense to kick a turn. You can't concede new defense to kick out of turns after your first speech to respond. For example, if someone reads a turn in rebuttal, you frontline it in second rebuttal and it is extended in first summary, you cannot concede defense to kick out of it in second summary. This is true EVEN IF there was defense read that takes out the turn.

Defense isn't sticky if it is poorly responded to but not extended. For example, if someone frontlines their C1 but misses a delink, I won't eval the delink unless it is extended.

Defense is sticky if contention is not addressed at all. If you don’t frontline a contention in second rebuttal, you cannot extend that contention in later speeches, even if the other team doesn’t extend defense to it.

Extensions

Extend Warrants. (saying "Extend the links" doesn't count)

Please collapse the debate in the back half! Ideally, you'll be going for at most 2-3 pieces of offense in summary and 1-2 pieces of offense in final focus

Weighing

Please weigh + answer your opponent's weighing mechs + compare your weighing mechanisms (i.e. metaweighing). I evaluate the weighing debate first, so if you want to pick up my ballot, you should focus your efforts here during the back half.

I won't evaluate new weighing in second final focus, and I generally won't in first final focus. However, I'm a bit more lenient for elaborating on weighing done in first summary in first final focus, just don't read like 3 new weighing mechanisms.

I’ll time speeches. I don’t really care if you go 5-10 seconds over finishing up a response, but I won’t evaluate responses that are started after time is up.

Evidence

Send speech docs. I will boost speaks by .5 for case and rebuttal docs getting sent out.

Please send cut cards! I will cap speaks at 27s if you fail to provide the paragraph that you paraphrase from.

I will only call for evidence a) if I can't vote based on arguments made in round b) someone asks me to call for it. If you paraphrase and the evidence I get is shockingly bad, I will be mad >:(

Progressive arguments

stay clippin

jk don't actually clip – it's against the rules!

I'm going to list my beliefs on theory here, because I think that when it comes to arguments about norm-setting for the activity, my obligation to be "tech" comes second to my obligation to promote education. What this means in practice is that in close theory rounds, I am likely to pick up the team whose practices/behavior aligns with what I believe is good for debate. That said, I'm still willing to listen to theory debates and if the round is an absolute smack down I won't intervene against theory shells I think are unnecessary but not harmful.

paraphrasing is bad. Para good warrants are balls and my threshold for responding to them is quite low.

disclosure is good. OS (tagged and highlighted ev) >>>>>>> full text (no tags or highlights) > first three last three (read OS interps! disclosure nowdays is kinda egregious)

TWs for non-graphic descriptions of violence r bad – the idea that marginalized groups have to ask for permission to talk about oppression, even when their arguments are edited and censored to be non-graphic, is not slay. That said, if you want to run TWs good I will evaluate it and won't intervene against it – again, I'm listing my beliefs here so you're not surprised how my ballot turns out in close/messy rounds.

round reports r unnecessary but I'm willing to eval the theory.

I default to competing interps (risk offense means I'll probably vote on a shell if there's no counter-interp). However, I am sympathetic to reasonability arguments if they are made in round.

Don't push it with theory, I will try my best to be open-minded and not intervene against silly interps (round reports cough cough) but the more you get into the shoes theory, 30 speaker point theory, etc side of things the more likely I am to not evaluate it. Even then, I dislike the trend in the circuit towards weaponizing evidence rules/disclosure practices to punish teams with good practices – to me, there is a qualitative difference between reading disclosure on a team who doesn't disclose and reading open sources on a team who does first three last three. Again, I'm not going to intervene on face if you're reading theory in this vein, just don't go too far down this rabbit hole.

RVIs to para or disco are domeless. I vibe with RVIs: 1) if you're running a ROTB about topical discourse 2) If the theory is obviously friv

I know the very basics of cap and security Ks, if you run anything beyond that make sure to send docs and explain it clearly.

Misc

Time your own prep.

Don't say offensive things! (your classic -isms) If something makes you feel uncomfortable/unsafe in round, please email me or send me a message on Facebook messenger(Elizabeth Terveen)!

People that have informed my thoughts on debate: SOFA and TRONK

Have fun!

I do pf.

Add me to the email chain: aarushi.thatola@gmail.com .

Don't be rude. If you're running anything progressive, just explain it really well and I'll vote on it. Don't forget to extend and explain your arguments. Weighing is very important. If you're spreading, send a doc but there's a chance I'll miss something.

Have fun! :D

Selam, I'm Nahom

** i will auto down any black trauma centered cases (if ur not black) reading stru viol arguments is fine and implicating racism as an impact is great but dont spell out trauma for shock value**

I debated at Hendrickson for my last 2 yrs of highschool

tech>truth (but pls dont abuse this)

Frontline offense in 2nd rebuttal if u wanna go for it (U DONT NEEDA EXTEND IN REBUTTAL)

Defense is sticky

2nd summary frontlining threshold is high, if ur partner doesn't frontline defense in rebuttal that's fine, but that means ur frontlining must be INSANE, 99% of the time I wont accept it.

Preferences: pls dont read trix imma be so lost, theory is fine if theirs a real abuse, disclosure hurts small schools, paraphrase at ur own discretion, but if its abusive then im down to vote of the T

not super familiar with K's but if it makes sense ill be down to vote off it

speeds fine for me, dont ignore judges paradigms that say not too fast. If your opponents ask for a speech doc, give it to them idc how fast ur going, they may need it for personal reasons.

Clash is cool but I have a soft place in my heart for unique args (not squirrely, theirs a difference) also pls weigh like crazy, and implicate everything

Summary is the most important speech in the round, FF is just for show, unless yall messed up in this round, I shud have my decision by summary, provided both sides weigh/frame the round, otherwise one of yall will think im judge screwing

sum other tips

1. be nice in rounds, rip em a new one all u want, but make sure they're giving u the same energy or u just look dum, I like a nice aggressive crossfire, but walk the line between destroying someone's args and destroying their sense of self carefully, bc (from experience) its a dangerous tightrope that you may not want to walk

2. EXTEND WARRANTS, frontlines are not extensions

3. Weighing/Framing OV in rebuttals r super strategic. weigh bc it'll make me happy, and tbh even if ur barely accessing an arg, if u win weighing that says its the most important, U WIN... for the most part (be careful bc this is diff from other PF debaters that prefer cleaner extensions over weighing strats and link ins)

4. Concede the small things to win the narrative, stats don't matter if ur narrative is bomb, evidence debates are boring, which means if u make it an ev debate I will make the standard for good ev rlly rlly high, and if neither of you have offense speaks will tank and I will default to whatever team i want to

4. Pls be funny, humor is ur greatest tool, joking around in cross and making ur opponents look dum is v enjoyable esp when ur opponents r being rlly aggressive.

5. Any isms (sexism, racism, homophobia, etc) = u lose + i tank ur speaks + i tattle to ur coach

6. Don't be buttholes with theory, ill know if ur just tryna win a round rather then effectively create change, and ill hate u for it. Also dont be hypocritical with theory, idc what ur shell says if u didnt disclose at every round ever on the wiki u better not read disclosure later that year (*cough cough* reading disclosure at the TOC for the first time ever), no shot im buying it.

7. Do NOT, and I'll repeat this to make sure this is super clear, DO NOT read structural violence-based arguments without a clear, nuanced and thoughtful understanding of the oppression that exists. I will never accept a poor understanding of sensitive issues or shallow thinking when it comes to this, logic-based warranting is key; for your own sake do not assume my political views/skin color will make me any more attracted to these types of arguments, in fact, I would very much rather prefer you have no understanding of the issues and not read this argument than have a shallow understanding and read these types of arguments. If I sense BS you better believe I will call you out on it.

8. Take risks, ill reward it (collapsing on a turn)

9. Have fuuunsies, debate is a game, winning and losing r aspects of the game, dont take it to seriously, just enjoy urself in the moment and be respectful of one another

if u wanna talk/postround/add me to the chain my email is: tulu.nahom@gmail.com

akkivarre@gmail.com

debate:
i am year 2 PFer @ seven lakes
tech > truth

i care muchhhh more about what you talk about rather than how you say it - but that doesn't mean i don't give any regard at all to your speaking style.

PLEEEASE WEIGH - if you make good enough weighing args i'm willing to vote on solely that

i love clash

IMPLICATE!! - don't just read cards or make statements, i need to know what you mean and why i should care. this is prob the most important thing - i will genuinely not know how to eval the debate unless you extend all your arguments and implicate what you want me to vote on. basically i need warrants. every speech.

speaks
speaks range from 28-30 if you give me good rhetoric throughout the round - auto 30s
if you debate without a computer auto 30s
i love it when you are funny in round - make it entertaining you don't have to be so serious 100% of the time.

overall have fun, debate is supposed to be enjoyable so don't ruin it for yourself or anyone else.

for novices, feel free to ask questions about the topic, the round, your speech, etc. i'd love to give you advice.

if you bring me a coca cola i'll really like you

if you are online and it looks like i am not flowing - I AM I PROMISE I JUST FLOW ON MY LAPTOP

speech:

extemp and impromptu are based on your speaking ability. don't worry sooo much about your sources or your info, lie to me if you have to just make it sound good. i'm a debater i'll believe you if you make it sound like i should.
(don't lie about your sources tho pls practice good evidence ethics)

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:

1. 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?
2. 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).
3. 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.
4. 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
5. A competing interpretation does not conceptually create another shell.
6. 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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

I debated Public Forum 4 years in High school

All I ask is that you speak clearly and at an understandable pace. If I can't hear you I cannot flow your arguments.

I default to weighing the round off of impacts I suggest making time in your speech for impact analysis especially in summary and final those speeches should be used to crystalize your main arguments not try and extend everything thats been said in the round. Use framing like probability, timeframe, and magnitude to your advantage by comparing directly with your opponents impacts and tell me why your arguments are more important.

Make sure you warrant clearly. Impacts don't mean much if you don't have a solid link chain you can defend and is logical.

I also like hearing unique and niche arguments.

Besides that it's your round debate it how you like.

Email: a@austinzhao.us

(Please include me on the email chain if there is one. And it will help me understand your points better if you prefer to send me your case before you start.)

TL;DR: Lay parent judge.

I am a lay parent judge and English is not my native language.

For debate, to reduce your risk of having me vote incorrectly, please speak slowly, clearly, and explain your points logically. No matter how many warrants/evidence you bring up and regardless what sophisticated language you use, at the end of the day if I cannot understand your arguments I cannot vote off them. Therefore, get to the point simply and straightforwardly.

For speaker points, I start at 28 and then adjust from there based on how well you spoke, your confidence, style, and presentation. You get higher if you do all these things well, you get lower if you do not. If you are offensive or rude, I will dock your speaker points.

Enjoy the process, relax, have fun with it :).