I’m cool with whatever. Run your case however you think it’ll be best.

I’ll vote for who I think wins.

Open to squirrelly cases

More likely to judge on clear and evident lines of logic

Prefer clear voters

If you don’t say it, it doesn’t count

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EMAIL FOR SPEECH DOCS: leigha.debate@gmail.com

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Policy Debater at Moore High School, Moore, OK: 2008-2011

Policy Debater at the University of Oklahoma: 2011-2015

Assistant Policy Debate Coach at Moore High School, Moore, OK: 2012 - 2015; 2018 - 2020

Assistant Coach at University of Central Oklahoma: Dec. 2019 - May 2021

Assistant Coach at Heritage Hall High School, Oklahoma City, OK: Current

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Stylistic:

For virtual debates:

Give me pen-time between arguments - and a second to move from one flow to the next. As one of the last practitioners of paper-debate and as judge who flows on paper, the cleaner and more organized the debate can be on my end, the more satisfying a decision I can give both teams.

I'm okay with observers in debates I judge, if you have affirmative consent from the teams debating. If you observe while recording, I also need to affirmatively consent to you doing so. Just ask me in the chat, that works.

I'll try to record prep time in the chat, if you end up losing your time.

- When the flash drive exits the computer, prep time is over. If using an email chain, verbally announce when you're sending the speech document out, and prep stops.

- I am fine with spreading, but I do want to hear a tag, citation, and the internals of the card. I will yell "clear" if I need.

- Let me know if you're going to have a long overview and I'll flow it on another sheet. My threshold for what I consider a "long" overview is very low, so keep that in mind. Play it safe and tell me to get another sheet, if you're on the fence about if this applies to you.

Argument Execution:

- Analysis needs a claim, a warrant, and an impact. "Extend our argument" is not an extension to me.

- Extending a piece of evidence by name and giving shallow analysis - ie: "Ext. our [blank] card here - means we turn the aff," and moving on. Without some explanation of the how and why that's true within the context of the evidence and the argument it's answering, I'm more reluctant to put in that work for you.

- I value debates where arguments are made with descriptive consistency in warrant extensions and analysis. Being able to trace the development of an argument from its introduction in evidence to the 2NR or 2AR is important to me - keep the key thesis of your argument alive in the debate. The same applies to application of warrants from a piece of evidence.

- It's awesome to see arguments that challenge the aff on a substantive level using nuanced arguments. Specific links are great and encouraged. But, I also reward specific application and contextualization to the aff when using a more generic piece of evidence. Especially in critical debates.

- In rebuttals, especially in the 1AR and 2NR, cleaning up the debate and making larger explanations of strategic, technical decisions or concessions on the flow framing-level is rewarded by me. Consider this me asking you to "write my ballot for me" in the last stages of the debate. I value analysis that not only explains to me the thesis of your advantages, disad, counterplan, or kritik in terms of substance, but also what arguments you are winning and key questions on individual flows you're going for.

Specific Arguments:

I was a critical debater for most of my career but will vote on framework and policy arguments - do what makes you feel comfortable and I will do my best to evaluate the round. I'm just probably not hyper-knowledgable on the truth-claims of the literature for your hot, new Yuan devaluation scenario, so I'll read evidence for my own personal understanding of the debate when needed for a decision. A lot of my experience in debating and coaching critical arguments are in the literature areas of settler colonialism, critical race arguments, queer theory, IR Ks, and other method debates.

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- For those of you in a debate running a critical argument in front of me, this means I have a higher threshold for clarity in explanation and smart, explicit application to either affirmative or negative responses to your argument. A lot of the creativity in critical debate comes from application of specific warrants from your authors to the other team's argument - this is especially true in debates where you may not have a super-specific link argument in the 1NC and in high-theory debates that can devolve into word-salad. This is a basic requirement in you doing work for me in explaining the interaction between your argument and the other team's argument. Speeches that attempt to ground your theory with more concrete examples are good.

Being intentionally opaque about your position in cross-examination makes me roll my eyes a little bit (unless it's fundamental to the theory of your argument, as in some opacity-style method debates). I certainly become a little more sympathetic to the other team's frustrations when there's a sense you might be evasive during the explanation of your argument

- Theory debates are not my favorite, as I feel a lot of debaters can be unclear in their explanation of and the developing a theory argument enough for me to give it much weight inside of the round. I prefer if you give me a heads up during your roadmap to grab an additional sheet for flowing, and give the order with the new sheet with whatever argument the theory concerns. (IE: "The order is T, the dis-ad, and the counterplan with a new sheet of paper.")

Theory shells are easy to bury in a flow by couching it among other arguments and spreading right through - which is a strategy! But, in my style of evaluation and for clarity's sake, I recommend clearly signposting when you're moving onto the theory argument, taking a breath so I can quickly get my clean flow, and then begin the argument. A cleaner flow for me gives you a better chance of winning your argument.

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CX:

I am fine with open CX, to a certain degree. Being rude, mean, and continually speaking over your opponents can lose you speaker points.

Along the same line, speaking for your partner during most of their cross-examination time (whether asking or answering) reflects negatively for speaker points. I understand there is the desire to make sure that your argument is being explained correctly, but it is more persuasive to me if a team is able to have a consistent explanation of their argument between partners.

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If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask me before the round.

Experience:

MS/HS-Crossings: Education, Immigration, Arms Sales, CJR, Water, and NATO

College-OU: Nukes

Coaching: Assistant Coach at Crossings (23-)

Coaches: Kaine Cherry, Jared Demunbrun, Gabby Knight, Dennis Savill, and Lindsey Shook

Email (please include me):

bycxdebate@gmail.com

General notes about me and my ideas:

do what you do best

traditional policy stuff is good - generics exist for a reason - obviously, specificity is better but making the topic generic cp/da work against a core of the topic aff will also make me happy - the way to win these debates is contextualization - if the link is just to the generic topic mechanism without mentioning the aff once I'll be sad

theory is something people need to remember how to do as it's a lost art - do it well and you'll make me very very happy

kritiks that make sense and are well applied to the aff make me happy - kritiks that are generic, generally unspecific, and noncontextualized make me sad - don't be afraid to defend things with the k either - people oftentimes get too floaty and wishy-washy - some k's are just bad though just like some cps and das are bad lol

counterplans and disads can be awesome - see above - but they can also reek to high hell - try to make sure the thing you're reading is competitive, makes some level of cogent sense, and isn't the most contrived idea I've ever heard of

topicality is good and people should go for it - t shouldn't be weaponized against one side of the aisle exclusively but instead should be a strategy that can be deployed in every 1nc - even if that thing is a core of the topic aff that every camp ever cut if you make a t interp that excludes it then feel free to go for it but just be willing to defend it because its probably an asinine interp

k teams should prioritize beating the tva and switch sides debate - that is the key piece of negative defense that takes out most of your offense - dropping it is almost always a death sentence

case neg is also a lost art and the best negative strategies include large amounts of case neg and quality case debating

Oklahoma LD/PF (everything above is for CX):

again do what you do best but just because I'm a policy bro doesn't mean you auto-win if you say something progressive in front of me - if you're better at doing the typical and traditional stuff then do it and win it - obviously, try new things out but just don't expect it to be an auto win

people also seem to have forgotten about offense/defense and impact calculus - p.t.m. is a good thing people and so is doing turns analysis

similar to what I said above but people have seemingly forgotten what solvency is too - make smart solvency arguments and win that that implicates solvency - if someone defends substantial is 25% and reads a US imperialism aff then a smart neg that says "lol that means 75% of the US is still there how does that hurt imperialism" would be reading my mind