Experience:

Hello everyone! My name is Marley Anthony and I attend Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. I was a debater throughout high school, and now I judge. I have judged many debate rounds, and as a former debater, I try my hardest to be as helpful as possible. That said, I like to leave specific feedback in the comment sections so please read those carefully. I also like to leave a thorough RFD so do not overlook it. Please ask all logistical questions about my judging style before the round starts. I am open to MOST stylistic choices (i.e., speed, frameworks, formatting, etc.) I am not a parent nor a lay judge so I am more open to faster-paced speaking styles. Again, please ask me, and don't hesitate if you have any relevant questions about the round before it starts.

Conduct:

While I have rarely experienced this, I would be remiss if I didn't state that I have a no-tolerance policy for any and all (overtly) rude behavior (i.e., blatant yelling, name-calling, excessive sarcasm, etc). Debate is supposed to be a lucrative enjoyable experience to help you grow both personally and academically. As a former debater, I understand that at times rounds can get stressful, but I encourage all of you to be respectful and operate under the golden rule. I will be making slight to severe speaker point deductions to reflect the above behavior(s) if applicable to the round.

Please be respectful and considerate of everyone's time and efforts.

Tracking & Flow:

Please keep in mind that I like to flow all speeches except for crossfire, so please be mindful of your statements. If for whatever reason you misspoke, you must get creative in regards to how you get back on track. Again, I flow everything except for crosses so please be intentional with any and all speeches.

Thank you, and good luck!

Previously involved in my high school debate team doing Public Forum

Currently on my university’s (Penn State) speech & debate team

I flow and am paying attention to everything!

I like giving verbal feedback if time allows. Everything will be written in the ballot nonetheless.

Middle School Debate Coaching Experience/No High School

Yes email chain:kiharakimani61@gmail.com

About me:

I am a proud Kenyan who grew up arguing over anything and everything until I discovered debate and the amazing and diverse individuals within it. I have been participating in, judging, and training debates for the last 3 years. Away from that, I alongside my debate club committee have organized a number of tournaments over the years. I am widely experienced in different formats of debates across different circuits in the world. I enjoy free thinkers, adaptable minds, and a keen sense of detail, and all this for me is part of the characteristics needed to be a good debater. Finally, I love dogs, and that about sums it up.

Judging Rubric :

1. Clarity: At this point what I want you to tell me is what the debate is about, and in doing so provide strong reasons and evidence as well as what your claim should be evaluated on. For example, it would help a lot if you could compile a short history of facts, characteristics, and effects of the subject in matter or create a probable future in regards to calculated eventualities from your claims.

2. Mechanization: This for me is how well you arrange your points to fully bring out your case with enough matter to stand against the opponent's case as well as proving a good basis as to why your case stands out over all others. I consider team dynamic as part of this in that, a well-worked-out presentation from you and your partner should incorporate a united front with no contradiction, as well as strong supportive extensions that solidify your case in addition to tearing down your opponents.

3. Weighing: The most important thing at this point is to completely prove the other team wrong, most responses in debates only mitigate the other team's arguments rather than prove their whole case wrong. This can be avoided by simply taking down your opponent's case through either doing of the two. First, supporting your own case, or secondly, exposing the opponents' case or claim. Both of these factors share similar metrics in regards to how you present the case. For example, If You can show how the opponent's best-case scenario is flawed through metrics (such as a case of urgency, what affects more people etc.) and provide reasonable evidence as to why there is a high likelihood of conviction from me. You can as well defend your own claim by showing how your average to the worst point is better than the opponent's best point and with proper metrics with evidence solidify your cases (Remember you can you two or more metrics co-dependently to enforce your case that be careful to emphasize on the correlation).

4. Engagement: At this point, I will be looking out for how well you are able to respond and object to your opponent, I want to see a clear confrontation between both sides. That said, no watering down of opponent points without reasonable claims or completely assuming the other side, in short, I want you to address the other team's case wholesomely.

5. Structure: I honestly think that if the first 4 criteria are met the structure naturally follows, in light of this just make sure to keep it simple but detailed, make sure that all participants can clearly understand you and you'd be in my good books. If you had an outline of your presentation that would definitely bump it up a notch.

6. Conduct: Simply put, we are all here to learn, grow and empower each other, and with that said I will not be taking any slander at all in regards to ethnicity, culture, sexuality, or stereotypes. You shall respect your fellow participants and any violation of this will result in repercussions and a report to the organizers. With that cleared up, my number 1 rule is, 'Take a breathe and let's have fun with it.'

• tech>truth
• frontline in 2nd rebuttal pls!!!
• always weigh in summary and final focus
• timestamp for better flow coverage
• I love kritiks and theory but not in middle school pls!
• defense isnt sticky
• I like offtime roadmaps - not particularly needed if the speech is really simple but if there is a lot of back and forth then pls do that

abt me: current pf debater @ the Potomac school, competes nationally and locally

good luck all!!!

add me to the email chain: sleifer@potomacschool.org

Hey! I’m Tristan (he/him). I'm a Freshman, and this is my first year in PF at The Potomac School! (Potomac ML)

Add me to the email chain: tmankovsky@potomacschool.org

—TD;LR—

• Tech > Truth
• Don't make me intervene, weigh, etc.
• Email chains
• Speed is ok to an extent; please be clear (enunciate, etc - i can manage 250+)
• Send all hate mail and postround advocacy to zijia.mo@gmail.com

—GENERAL NOTES—

• Setup the email chain before round starts, 30 minutes before is preferable

• Send case docs/rebuttal docs in the email chain BEFORE you start your speech (if your not spreading I will just call for individual pieces of evidence as I see necessary)

• Please label email chains so they're easy to organize. Ex. "Outreach R1 - [your team code] vs. [opponent team code]"
• no cheating pls - I will drop you obviously
• Disclosure good, para good on LAY

—QUICK PREFS LIST—

• I love substance! I can generally understand most arguments pretty easily, and will most likely have debated the topic (feel free to ask beforehand though)
• I'm fine with Theory (generally I think that disclosure is good, and paraphrasing is fine to an extent); If you don't know whether to run Theory with me as your judge or not, lean to substance - i've rarely judged/debated it.
• Unlike my Partner, i'm not great with K's - would not recommend you reading this on me
• Don't read prog on novices - if you do I'll play Brawl Stars for the whole round, give you L20s (or the lowest possible), and your opponents W30s. (However, if they are in the "varsity" division, then go ham ????)
• In terms of spreading, go ahead, but BE CLEAR - I hold a high value in clarity because realistically if I can't understand you, I can't flow your arguments. Send a doc if you're going fast, but even then I prefer not to use it.
• Signposting is necessary - it's how I know where you are on the flow and makes my job at evaluating the round a lot more clear

—HOW I EVALUATE THE ROUND—

• I first look to the link debate, this is the most important part for me. For me to buy your link, it needs to be extended properly and you should have good evidence for it. I don't care if your opponents concedes 3 contentions, if you don't extend the argument and the link, I'm not gonna buy it (I NEED WARRANTS!)
• Then I look to the weighing debate. Meta-weighing WRITES MY BALLOT FOR ME. Please remember that "we outweigh on scope and magnitude" needs a warrant. Give me reasons on why I should prefer your argument, and extend turns, pre-reqs in summary and FF.You should also make your weighing comparative! If you don't weigh, I'll have to intervene, and if you don't like the decision, womp womp :(
• I'll also look to case specifically. Extend and collapse. Also kick out of turns cleanly. In summary and FF, if you extend a delink and a turn, then the argument is a wash for me cause I'll assume the delink is true. If you're gonna extend defense, pick and choose wisely
• Speaks are decided by a couple of factors: strategy, extensions/backhalf, narrative, appeal, clarity (just general speaking stuff). Be nice, I'll doc your speaks if your mean
• I always presume neg. i think the whole "presume aff because of recency bias", or "presume 1st speaker because it's harder & bias" is stupid. if neither side has offense, I presume that the status quo is good.
• Probability and Strength of Link weighing is REAL - I will evaluate it, as long as it has GOOD WARRANTING and CARDED PIECES OF EVIDENCE. (I have a very high threshold for this)

—GENERAL NOTES—

1. Flow judge. I'm paying attention to the round, I will probably be flowing on paper (paper > computer)

2. Tech > Truth

3. Speed is fine as long as you’re clear. If you are going to spread, you must send a speech doc, slow down on the tags, and be clear. If you’re unclear and I miss something, that’s on you

4. Do not be exclusive/discriminatory or __ist or else I will dock speaks/drop you. Don’t be a jerk and be polite and respectful. Debate is just debate, your life does not depend on winning a round, so please chill

5. You must read trigger warnings and/or provide an opt-out form if your case contains sensitive content. I do think there’s a difference between actually triggering and just uncomfortable, but it depends on the argument. You should always read a TW regardless, always make the debate space safe and accessible

6. Always extend and warrant your arguments properly. Quality > quantity

7. Signpost and please COLLAPSE, don’t spread yourself thin because you want to “generate more offense.” You are better off collapsing to one argument and spending more time weighing that argument than trying to extend three

8. WEIGH PLEASE. I love good weighing and meta-weighing, it makes the best debates and my job as a judge easier. I would hate if I have to judge intervene because no one weighed the debate.

9. New weighing in 1st FF is fine. No new weighing in 2nd FF pleaseeeee

10. Regardless of lay/flow/tech debate, narrative always matters. I need to understand your argument before I can vote on it, if I don't get it then that's on you. I'm not going to hack for a side because you are more flow or put down more responses in rebuttal. Write my ballot for me: extend, weigh, tell me why it matters

11. Anything in final focus should be in summary. I won't evaluate any new responses AT ALL

12. I consider anything dropped in 2nd rebuttal to be conceded. I don’t think defense is sticky. If you want me to evaluate something then you need to extend it!!!!!!!

13. I stop flowing 3 seconds after the speech time ends -- I think time management is important!!

14. If both teams agree you can skip grand cross for flex prep (1 minute)

15. No 30 speaks theory lol

16. I don’t flow cross, but I’ll (somewhat) listen. Always be polite and have fun, don’t scream or get mad, just be chill

—EVIDENCE—

• Evidence Ethics: if you have an issue about your opponent's evidence you must BRING IT UP IN ROUND. If not, I will not evaluate any abuse of evidence. If you aren’t sure what the exact procedures for evidence citing/evidence abuse are, please read the NSDA evidence rules. Please note that evidence indicts are different than calling stop on a round for abusive/misconstrued evidence. If there is real abuse and you think its worth it, than you do you. But I also pay attention to evidence and most likely will catch on if a team is presenting misconstrued evidence. Read more at:https://www.speechanddebate.org/wp-content/uploads/Debate-Evidence-Guide.pdf

• I hate bad evidence ethics - pls just be ethical

• Share evidence through email chains only, this applies to online and in-person debate

• All evidence should be CUT CARDS. If you don’t have the cut card, you need to at least have the link, the part in the article you cited from, and be able to pull up the accurate link address immediately. If you can't pull up the evidence when asked within ~1 minute (im flexible for computer issues), then I will cross it off my flow. You should always be prepared to show your evidence

• I will only call for specific evidence if I’m told to and/or I feel like its a need to decide the round

• You should always be RUNNING PREP when you are looking at your opponent’s evidence - I hate it when your stealing prep. However, I don't think that you need to run prep when your compiling a speech doc & sending it.

Huge thanks to Vivian Zhu, I copied most of my paradigm from her!

Updated 1/20/24

Georgetown '24

I did policy debate for 4 years in high school to moderate success, and debated at Georgetown for a couple years.

Add me to the email chain - medeirosb2002@gmail.com

Do what you do and do it well and you will be fine.

DISCLAIMER FOR LD DEBATERS:

- You can read whatever you want and I will adjudicate the debate to the best of my abilities, but I don't have that much experience judging LD, and I have practically no experience judging phil debates and LD theory debates.

Things that are non-negotiable:

- Blatant racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia is an auto loss, and I will give you the lowest speaks possible.

Some things to keep in mind:

- I typically ascribe to the belief that speech times and the structure of the debate are not flexible, but I guess I'm open to being persuaded otherwise here.

- I do not typically feel comfortable making decisions based on issues that occurred outside of the debate round (with exceptions for things like disclosure theory).

- Presumption flips negative by default.

- Beyond the above, my only strong disposition is the negative team gets to do pretty much whatever. I can probably be convinced otherwise. That said, I've included a list of miscellaneous dispositions loosely organized by argument.

Risk Calculus:

- Tech > Truth.

- Frame the debate however you want, but do it well and explain why it matters.

- Author qualifications matter. Debate is a research activity, and debaters should do good research.

- Spark is a terrible argument. This isn't really "risk calculus," but I felt the need to say this and wasn't sure where else I could.

Theory:

- Conditionality is good (usually).

- All theory arguments other than conditionality are (usually) a reason to reject the argument.

- Another disclaimer for LD debaters: I don't really end up judging a lot of friv theory debates, and I'm not sure I know how to judge these debates, but I recognize that LD and policy are pretty different so I'll do my best to put my own biases aside in these kinds of debates.

Topicality v Plans:

- Limits are awesome, but only if they are precise.

- I default to competing interpretations. Reasonability is not an argument if it is not coupled with a reasonable counter-interpretation.

Disadvantages:

- Topic disadvantages are great.

- The disadvantage should probably turn the case.

Counterplans:

- Counterplans should be functionally and textually competitive.

- Process counterplans and consult counterplans probably do not compete.

- Word PICs probably do not compete.

- I will judge kick the counterplan unless I am told not to.

Kritiks/Planless Affs:

- Fairness is an impact.

- I am fine with any and all genres of kritikal literature. That said, I don't have an extensive background with every field of critical literature that debaters like to talk about, so I may not understand what you're saying unless you go out of your way to explain it.

- In K v K debates, make the interactions between different theories of power very clear. I will happily adjudicate these debates, but am likely to end up a little confused.

About me

4 years policy debate Rufus King Highschool

3 years student congress Rufus King Highschool

3 Central Michigan University NFA-LD debate team

General things

I'm a tabula rasa judge which means blank slate. What this means is that I don't have any biases to argument

i'm good with speed, spreading

put me on the email chain asiakaye12@gmail.com

always give a ROB I will not do work for you tell me how I should be voting never drop framework even if you meet under your opponents framework say that.

tech over truth

keep flows clean, always give a rode map

use all your time for speeches and cx

Aff stuff

make sure you know your AFF love K aff's i'm very familiar with critical aff's you have to win your affirmative case to win the round. know the warrants in the 1ac you should know your case. judges can tell if you don't understand or passionate about your case I like all affs not against arguments. don't drop your aff make sure in each speech your giving warrants tell me how I should frame the round

Neg stuff

kritiks

love love kritiks ran them a lot in high school don't assume I know what your talking about don't leave me doing work for you at the end of the debate, the impact, alt, the link should be clear during your speech. the alt needs to be explained and compared to the world of the affirmative give evidence on why the alt solves better than the aff case. make sure the link chain is clear and you give a ROB

Topicality

Don't really like topicality I feel debate would be more useful talking about important topics not arguing on the rules of debate. will still vote on it if its dropped and extended

Counterplans

neg needs to prove the counterplan solves the case better than the aff plan. you should always have a net ben

PF

make sure to keep the flow clean and answer each argument, make sure to use your evidence and make it clear to the judge where the evidence is getting pulled from.

A few ground rules:

1. Spreading: Shouldn't need to spread to much, if you really need to, speak clearly.
2. New Points: Other than frontlining, you should not bring up any new arguments in or after second summary. I will drop these points, so you are just taking up time which could be used for other parts of your speech.
3. Cross: Be kind, don't shout or loose your composure. Being calm and poised is more important than shouting over your opponents
4. General Tips: Make your link chain easy to understand, focus on extending and collapsing later in the round. Tell me what point should be prioritized and then tell me why and how you win. And remember to weigh! I need to know what your impacts are and why they win you the round.

monkey watch round monkey takes notes monkey votes on extensions and weighing banana stick to wall so defence sticky.

Background: I have been judging and training for the past five and a half years. I have debated and judged multiple debate tournaments across continents. I studied Computer Science as my university degree and spend most of my free time judging, debating, eating, and traveling.

Judging criteria:

1. Clarity: The claim must be proven with strong reasoning and evidence. The second level of proving the truth of your claim is by responding to rebuttals of your proof of claim from the opposing team. This is important because the other team can attack a logical gap in the truth of your argument and without sufficient response, the likelihood of your claim being true is diminished. This means that your impacts are unlikely to occur because the claim has been proven to be false which, in turn, reduces your chances to win the debate.

2. Mechanizations: It's also important to give reasons why your claim or counterclaim is true. This is done by showing why your claim is the most important in the debate. So don't just state claims and rebuttals by explaining why it's important. This will improve the quality of the debate by having your claim tag along with mechanization.

3. Weighing: This means one should take the best-case scenario of the opposing side and give a comparative analysis with the case provided. Most responses in debates only tackle the other team's arguments and do not necessarily prove them to be completely false. The importance of weighing You can use different metrics to weigh in your arguments such as which one has a higher sense of urgency, affects more people, has long-term impacts, and many others to prove your arguments is more important.

4. Structure: It is important to present your speeches in a clear and simple way. Having a clear and simple structure helps your case. Note that this also entails having a detailed analysis. This makes it easier for panelists and the team to understand your arguments. This is done by having a linear flow (carefully explaining your arguments in a systematic manner from point A to B to C) and having clear comparatives in your speech.

5. Synergy: How you and your partner build your case is important. This is done by having solid support and extensions to support arguments mentioned by your partner. Ensure you do not sound contradictory or have a different speech from your partner. Ensure you have a coherent and supporting speech.

Lastly, respect your opponents. During the debate, do not use any derogatory or insulting language. I encourage you to use your imagination and have fun while learning and engaging with new individuals in the world of debate. Best wishes!