School Affiliation: Carrollwood Day School

Judging Event Types: Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum

When I am judging, I will be awarding points based on effectiveness of argument, use of references/sources and clear communication. I look for respectful and thoughtful counter-arguments and sources/references to the opponents' arguments to demonstrate that real listening and understanding of the opponents' arguments occurred.

I welcome any roadmap or outlines to provide a clear walkthrough of what will be presented.

I also look for verbal communication - pitch, tone, and pace (no spreading) and non-verbal communication - eye contact, body language, use of space, hand gestures.

I will provide standard time signals (2 minutes left = 2 fingers, 1 minute left = 1 index finger, 30 seconds = making a "C" shape with one hand, Time Up = Fist) if asked by a debate competitor to do so. If a competitor keeps speaking for ~3-5 seconds after time is up, I will verbally instruct them to stop, as this is abusive to your opponents (this will also result in a .5 speaker-point infraction).

I prohibit any "off-the-clock" rules explanations, road-mapping or argumentation. For example, if a debate competitor wants to clarify that no new arguments can be introduced in rebuttals, they must use their speech time to do this, and NOT the opponent's prep time or their own prep time. This includes any attempt to "clarify" something after the round has ended. I will prohibit this and politely ask the competitor to cease their "off-the-clock" communication. There are speaker point deductions associated with this behavior. The amount of the deduction depends on how egregious the off-the-clock communication is in the context of the round (example: disruptions of an opponent's prep time is seen as a serious violation of this paradigm).

Competitors will be penalized if they negligently cause other competitors to be disrupted (e.g. phone or laptop noises during opponent's speech). Competitors that purposefully disrupt another speaker will be automatically disqualified from winning the round, and will suffer penalization to their scores.

"Spreading" arguments will not result in material point gain if the arguments raised are not fully supported or are presented haphazardly.

I weigh evidence-based argumentation relative to the analytical point debaters are making. This means, neither evidence alone, nor analytical arguments are fully persuasive.

For Policy and Lincoln Douglas events, I prefer the Affirmative to present to my left (Competitors' right) and the Negative to present to my right (Competitors' left). For PFD, Pro to my left, Con to my right.