About me:

I am the congressional debate coach at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, IA.

I graduated in 2023 from East High School in Des Moines, IA.

I competed in Congressional Debate my Junior and Senior year of high school, during this time I was a 1x State Champion, 2x NSDA Nationals Qualifier, 2x State Championship Runner up, and a finalist in multiple National Circuit & TOC tournaments.

I will try my best to give good feedback for speakers and PO's, and will judge anyone (including my own competitors) fairly.

For everyone:

Try your best! Even if you are a novice I can truly appreciate it when people try in a round, you can only improve if you try your best.

Be kind and respectful. I can appreciate aggressive competitors but you should be able to tell the difference between aggressive debate and just being rude.

Most importantly have fun!

Congress:

1st Aff: This is one of 2 speeches that I am okay with not being as extemporaneous as other speeches. However, this is not an excuse to read the speech straight from your laptop or notepad, still try to have good eye contact and don't spend 3 minutes reading verbatim.

1st Neg: This is the other speech I am a little lenient with not being extemporaneous, but this speech needs to have some rebuttal. I expect you to spend most of your speech laying out your case against the bill, but start rebutting the Aff in your speech.

Following Speeches:These should be mostly extemporaneous and should be rebutting the other sides argument. I will always appreciate new information being introduced to the round and do not be afraid to do so. DO NOT be redundant! I will not give you a good speech score if your speech is essentially the same as other competitors.

Questioning: I highly urge you to use Direct Questioning over indirect, it adds so much more to the round and adds a real element to debate over indirect. I like aggressive questioning too, If a speech has a flaw that you can use in questioning to help your side, use it. Use your time wisely and ask good questions.

Presiding:If you can make the round run really smoothly and have little issues with rules or dealing with any issues, I will rank you highly. I PO'd at least 1 round at almost all my senior year tournaments, got really good feedback at national tournaments for PO'ing and can truly can appreciate a good PO. This also means that I will give PO's good feedback, however if you stumble through the round and ask the Parliamentarian for help a lot, this will drop your ranking. If you have any questions about PO'ing outside of round feel free to ask me.

Overall:Use good arguments, use your 3 minutes really well. I really appreciate good speech delivery too, not just good argumentation, so have emotion and do your best. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask me outside of round.

For Congressional Debate, I judge each individual speech on three main categories: organization, arguments, and delivery. I give two speaker points for each category.

For organization, I look for a clear introduction that briefly states your key ideas, clear transitions between those ideas, and a conclusion that restates your key points.

For arguments, I look for the introduction of new arguments or elaborations on arguments that have already been made that bring new information to the argument, refutation of arguments from the opposing side, and evidence to back all of your claims. It is beneficial if you reference your fellow senators by name when elaborating or refuting ideas.

For delivery, I look for eye contact, clarity, and rate.

Though I am not a lay judge, I believe Public Forum debate should be accessible to lay judges. So don't go too fast. Be respectful. And make sure impacts are realistic; it doesn't take much for me to buy an argument that breaks a multi-step link chain. Finally, and most importantly, honesty matters. So make sure you represent your evidence accurately; I will drop teams that misrepresent evidence, and I'm willing to ask that they be disqualified too.