Background & Experience: 

4 years of hs parli (circuit and lay, 2x toc champ), some HS policy (circuit), some college NPDA 

General Philosophy:

I am okay with listening to any argument any you should choose to run, provided that you lay out the argument clearly and tells me why it wins you the ballot.

I view high school debate as both a competitive activity for the sake of competition and an arena for students to enrich their education by becoming better thinkers and learning more about the world. As such, I will remove myself from the round as much as humanly possible, and base my decision on my best objective evaluation of the arguments made. I flow very carefully. I will not get in your way, so do what you want argumentatively and you can expect me to evaluate it. 

My debate style is pretty diverse — I have a good footing in running and hitting normative topical positions, kritiks, theory, and anything in between. My default layering of the round is that theory comes before the kritik and the kritik comes before case, but, in round, tell me what arguments you want to come first (regardless of if it is the same as my default) as I will not do that work for you. 

Weighing is very important to me, so do a good amount of work analyzing the impacts throughout the round, and especially at the end, in the rebuttals. Tell me what impacts matter the most, why they matter the most, and why they win you the round, regardless of the position you’re banking your strategy on.  

Spreading:

I'm chill with spreading. I will get down your arguments on my flow and will reward higher speaker points to spreading that is exceptionally clear, easy to follow, and/or engaging to listen to. Pointers: 

(1) Slow down for taglines, texts, when you switch to a different sheet of paper or argument, and other important parts of your position as you deem fit. 

(2) Try not to slur or be repetitive. Spreading is only strategic if you can do it efficiently and clearly.

(3) Be considerate to your opponents. If they are not familiar with spreading, then try to be inclusive of them. Give them texts, answer their POIs, and try to be accommodating of their requests if they have any. It really sucks to get spread out of a round -- doesn't mean you should not spread, just means you should try to be a good sport about it. 

Kritiks:

Go for it. I dig it. I ran kritiks quite a bit, and enjoy watching a good kritikal round. I am familiar with most of the authors that debaters commonly cite, like Marx, Nietzsche, Agamben, Foucault, Baudrillard, Wilderson, and the rest of the gang. I’m also chill with performances. If you can surprise me with a kritik that isn’t so common, I’ll be happy and give you props, but explain it well. Regardless of whether or not I know the literature, I will not do work for you filling in arguments, explanations or warrants. Pointers: 

(1) Links. Please, run links that interact very specifically with the affirmative position. A few safe generic links are okay, but don’t bank entirely on them. If you can’t come up with any specific links, that means one of two things: one, you aren’t familiar enough with your kritik, or, two, the kritik doesn’t apply well. Both are not good positions to be in. 

(2) Alt & Alt-Solvency. Explain what your alternative does and how it solves for the impacts you outlined in the rest of your K. 

(3) I think framing on the K is pretty important, so don’t skate over that part and assume I’ll just give you reasons why the K comes first. Tell me through what lens I should evaluate the round and why. Again, I will not do work for you on the K. 

KRITIKAL AFFIRMATIVES: 

I ran K-Affs a few times and have hit them plenty of times. I’m okay with them. Just make sure justify them well, as you should with any kritikal position. 

Theory:

I also dig theory. I ran theory quite a bit, from your standard shells to some more out-there shells. Although I view theory as a way to check against real abuse, I’ll listen to and vote for any shell if you win the flow. Pointers: 

(1) I default to competing interpretations. 

(2) Be very clear and specific with your interpretations. I will take interpretations literally, meaning, if the other team manages to find a lawyer-esque way to meet your interpretation and its logically valid, I will not give much credence to a backtrack along the lines of “well, you know what we meant.” 

(3) Ground is the most important standard to me, as it is kind of an umbrella for all fairness-related standards. However, you should still weigh your standards if you want to win the theory debate. 

(4) I will not do work for you on the evaluation of the theory. If you want theory to come first, tell me that and tell me why. 

(5) I have a lower threshold to voting on RVI's than most judges, but still have a pretty high threshold. You'd have to do a lot of pretty compelling work on the RVI to use it to get the ballot.

Straight Up Case Debate:

I very much enjoy a well-informed and thought out, normative, topical debate. Well constructed, intrinsic advantages and disadvantages, impact framing from the get-go, and smart strategies increase your chances of getting my ballot. Brink scenarios are almost always more compelling than linear advantages/disadvantages, and try to get your arguments to go in the right direction from uniqueness to links to impacts. 

I’m okay with CPs that change implementation methods, conditionality, dispositionality, and PICs. 

Presentation: 

Even flow debate, at its core, is a persuasive activity. Treat it as such. Don’t completely brush off presentation — a confident portrayal of an argument makes it much more appealing to a judge.  

I am okay with tag-teaming, just don’t go overboard about it. 

Other Key Points: 

(1) I like gutsy strategic moves. However, don’t just make a gutsy move for the sake of making a gutsy move, because while I will be amused and pleased, I will not vote for you if it doesn’t win you the round. 

(2) Add some personality, and be yourself. You’re real people speaking to real people — rounds that feel like that are more engaging to watch and partake in, in my opinion.

(3) If you kick something, kick it properly by extending defense. I won’t shadow kick for you if the other team calls you out on the shadow kick.

(4) Be good people. It'd be nice to see the debate community try to spread some love. 

I debated parli for 2.5 years at Irvine Valley and had intermittent experience in BP and IPDA during that time. 

As of this semester I coach Campolindo HS's parli team and am a member of UC Berkeley's parli team, although my schedule rarely allows me to compete for Cal. 

I have judged policy, parli, ld, public forum, congress, BP, and a plethora of IE's, and privately tutored speech students.

Overall:

I will not protect against new arguments in the rebuttals unless it is clear--after a few pts of order--that the speaker is trying to be sneaky. I expect that if your opponent asks for a text of the plan/cp/alt/perm(s), it will be provided. I can flow speed to a reasonable extent, but will dock speaks/not be able to evaluate your arguments if you are so fast that you're unclear. Please answer at least one question per speech if asked. Tag-teaming is fine.

Case debate:

AFF--Please make warranted and impacted arguments. I don't like voting on any remotely slippery scenarios and very much enjoy interrogative link debate. I am not keen on intrinsic permutations, otherwise perms are fine as tests of competition. I am also fine with unconventional affs so long as I am given a clear way to evaluate your performance and the other team is given a clear way to engage the aff/compete for the ballot. I will not vote on an RVI.

NEG--I believe theory precedes all other arguments in the round and will vote on it with a proven violation. I do not need articualated abuse to vote on theory. I am fine with DAs and CPs (including PICs). I do not like politics DAs because the links are usually awful. 

Trichot:

Please always debate policy. 

K:

I am fine with k affs and neg k's. I am not a k debater myself but will vote on one. However, I have a very high threshold for buying the efficacy of the alternative, and I view k debates as a comparison between the alternative and the plan. Please try to include specific links

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have before the round! Best of luck! 

Updated Feb 13, 2023

Experience

I debated in high school at Katy Taylor from 2011-2015 and in college I debated for UC Berkeley from 2015-2016.

I coached College Preparatory and BAUDL from 2016-2018 and with the NYUDL from 2019-2020.

I read a lot of Baudrillard back in the day and decently versed in most kritikal literature. I have also coached policy teams and love a good policy round.

Topicality / Theory / Affirmatives that do not fiat government action

Debate is an educational activity where participants engage each other to expand their knowledge on a topic and develop their argumentative skills. So I would rather see debates about the topic than a debate about debate unless it is absolutely neccessary.

Here's a little guide:

1. Don't go for conditionality theory just because the other team undercovered it.
2. Don't go for framework just because that's the only argument you prepared to read against an aff disclosed months ago.
3. Don't go for T just because the affirmative read a bad counter-interpretation.

Feel free to ask for clarification before the round via email or in person

Email
alattar.zaki@gmail.com

Overview: 

I vote on the flow and rarely intervene.

Background:

I have experience as a debater and a debate educator. I am debate with the UC Berkeley APDA team. I have taught Parli at the Stanford National Forensic Institute and I currently coach the Berkeley High School team. 

Basics:

I pretty much will always vote on the flow and generally just want to see a good, clean round. I care about organization. I think it is very important to warrant and impact arguments. I also think it is important for you to pay attention to the judging criteria/standard, it isn't there to look pretty. 

I try to as tablua rosa as possible. That said, if you are being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc there's a pretty good chance I will not vote for you. That also means that if your opponents say something racist/sexist/homophobic/etc and you call them out and remind me that the role of the ballot is to punish those things there is a very strong chance I'd side with you. 

Theory:

I don't love it but I will vote on it. I'm certainly no theory expert but I won't be confused if you say you have a T Shell or a K, etc. If you are running slimy theory I am less likely to be sympathetic to you, I care about debate and think there is a place for theory but that place is not when you just don't know what the topic is about. 

Speaking Preferences:

I can probably handle your speed but if I tell you to slow down and you don't it will be your fault if I miss your arguments. Also, do not spread out your opponents. It is unlikely that that would be reflected in my decision but it will be in speaker points. 

POI/POO/RVI:

Ask POIs but, as with all things, don't be an asshole. I will flow new arguments in the rebuttals until you call them out so do Point of Order. I am sympathetic to the RVI if it is done well.

I have debated Parli for 4 years -- 2 years novice, 1 year jv, and 1 year varsity. Mind you, that one year of varsity I was pretty damn good.

In terms of speed, I don't want any fast speed and I also don't wany any speed bad theory. I can flow most speeds. Also make sure you're not talking too slow, or I'll get bored and stop paying attention. Also don't put too much annoying emotion into your speech or your speaks will get docked.

In terms of Neg Ks, I think most of them are pretty BS except for CLS, Bhuddism, and Taoism. Read me some good Taoist literature, and make it link hard, and you're probably gauranteed the win (just because the other team probably can't respond to it and I will buy every word you say).

For Critical Affs, throw anything at me except security-bad, surveillance-bad, or heg-bad related arguments, just because I've interned at the Department of Defense and the NSA, and I'll have a hard time believing anythign you say.

On theory, I'm okay with theory, but I don't like topicalities. Like, don't run your standard T or Extra-T with me, come up with some creative theory and I'll really dig it (like, Interp: The PMC should debate in Hindi). That being said, I buy RVIs 1000%. If you run bad theory, you will loose if the other team runs an RVI. Even if you run good theory, you will loose if the other team wins the RVI. Also, I HATE the voters of Fairness and Education. Debate isn't fair and honestly people will still debate even if it isn't educational. It's probably not educational anyway. Honestly, debate is a goddamn waste of time. The only real voters I'll buy are ones like violence, exclusion, etc.

In terms of Advantages: for every single advantage, the aff MUST prove uniqueness, solvency, and impacts for each advantage. If they don't, then it'll be unlikely I put much weight into their arguments and it'll be an easy neg win(unless the neg screws the pooch too). Also, I'm good with severance and intrinsic perms, and I've run those plenty of times, so if you're going to give theory against those, please please run it well or you're fighting an uphill battle. That being said, I also want to see preemptive theory from the MG if you're going to run severance or intrinsic. For CPs, I'm good with PICs but you need to run pre-emptive pic-good or else the MO will have an uphill battle.

For POOs, I don't like them. I'll allow 2 POOs per rebuttal otherwise it's -30 speaks for the team calling the POO. They're rude and I think they're inefficient and dumb. I don't mind new arguments in the LOR, but in the PMR they can be annoying, but I'll sometimes let them slide.

Also, be prepared to debate the minute you enter the round. I won't answer any questions, and for every question you try to ask you'll get -3 Speaker points. Also, don't shake my hand or say hi before your speech, or that's -10 speaker points. I'm not kidding.

Background: I am a parli debater at Santa Rosa Junior College. I have been doing debate for about 6 months now, and am fairly familiar with most policy arguments.

Speed: Do not go super fast in front of me, as I would rather be able to follow all of your arguments than have to guess what you said.

Framework: I prefer a policy paradigm under net benefits because this is when I find debaters are most explanative and don’t just throw around a bunch of philosophy jargon. If you are going to operate under a different framework, assume I don’t have a background in what you’re saying.

Partner communication: Fine, just don’t puppet your partner.

Impacts: Please tell me how your impacts operate with one another, don’t just make the debate two ships flying in the night. I need interaction between arguments in order for me to evaluate them effectively.

N/A

I competed in LD for Brophy College Prep (AZ) for four years on both the local and national circuit and graduated in 2015. I now coach parli at Prospect High School and am on the parli team at Santa Clara.

Abridged version
I will view the round in terms of an offense/defense paradigm unless persuaded to do otherwise. Obviously, you need offense to win, but I think good defense can do a lot to mitigate mediocre or shoddy offense. Speed is fine as long as you’re not using it to exclude your opponent. I am open to almost any type of argument (although not all arguments are created equal). Please just provide some type of weighing mechanism. I won’t automatically vote on something that’s dropped if you can’t explain why it matters. I will try my best to be objective and not intervene, but I admit I am not a debate judging robot, and like all judges, I have opinions and biases. 

Debate is a game, but it also has great educational value, and I really dislike when debaters try to obfuscate the round/trick their opponents/avoid actual clash because I feel that this undermines the potential for interesting, intelligent discussion. I like it when debaters are courteous, logical and reasonable.

Also, please don’t shake my hand.

Here’s some more on my specific preferences/biases.

Extensions: Extensions should have a claim, warrant and impact. Please signpost clearly so I don’t miss your argument.

Theory/T: Both are fine, for strategy and for checking abuse. I’ll be sympathetic to reasonable responses against blatantly frivolous theory. I’d prefer theory be in shell form, but paragraph theory is okay as long as it’s clear. I default to reasonability and drop the argument, but can easily be persuaded otherwise.

Kritiks: Are fine. However, I’ll hold you to a higher standard of proof on the link story if your K seems canned. It’s one thing to write a K before the tournament and use your prep time coming up with specific links to the topic, and it’s another to just run the same generic cap bad links every round. If your links are generic, I’ll be more accepting of generic responses to them.

Points of Order: Not a huge fan. If there’s an argument that’s actually new, fine, but I flow quite well and it’s highly unlikely that I will not notice a new argument, in which case I’ll disregard it anyway and your opponents will be wasting their time. More often than not points of order just sound like whining.

Presumption: I will vote on any offense I can or anything remotely resembling offense. If the round is actually irresolvable I will flip a coin.

Presentation: I’m kind of old school. This doesn’t mean I want you to act like you’re giving an oratory or thank everyone profusely at the beginning of every speech. I’m fine with speed but still project, be clear, and at least make occasional eye contact because debate is still about convincing actual people to vote for you. I won’t vote on presentation but it may affect your speaks, or at least my subconscious impression of you. FDR stood when he spoke.

Things I will not vote on: NFL/NSDA rules, arguments that are blatantly racist, sexist, classist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, claustrophobic, arachnophobic, and/or objectively repugnant (e.g. impact turns to genocide, “Nickelback good”), opening quotes

Things that will hurt your speaks (and make me sad, and possibly make me look for ways to drop you)

1. Using speed to exclude your opponent
2. Being rude in CX (or at any point)
3. Calling your opponent’s arguments “stupid,” “dumb,” “terrible” etc.
4. Using a lot of complicated jargon that your opponent clearly doesn’t understand and refusing to clarify your arguments to them
5. Saying things that are blatantly racist, sexist, classist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.
6. Using tricks to beat an inexperienced debater
7. Arguing with me after the round

Other random things I like that may help your speaks

1. Coming up with clever responses to surprising or confusing positions on your feet
2. An overview at the start of the PMR/LOR that clearly tells me how to evaluate the round
3. Good weighing
4. Effective, well-timed uses of humor and/or puns
5. Explaining complex philosophy in a way anyone could understand
6. Running Kant properly
7. Asking strategic POIs

Good luck, have fun. Please ask before the round if you have any more specific questions. And please don’t shake my hand.

Assistant Debate coach at Grapevine HS, TX
Coaching since 2010 - primarily LD, Congress, Public Forum
Competed in LD as a high school student

Speed: You can speak at the pace that you prefer, but I will yell clear if you're going too fast.

Evidence: Full citations, with a clear explanation of your evidence. Please signpost.

Flex prep: I don't like it.

Theory: Not my favorite, but I have voted on it and at times it was quite relevant to the round.

Philosophy: If it is really esoteric, make sure you explain the importance of it. Personally, I like hearing Philosophy in LD rounds.

Crystallization: The last speech should be purely crystallization (no line by line). Make sure you're weighing and tell me why you won the round.

Value: I weigh value and criterion clash HEAVILY in the debate round.

Hello! My name is Michael Dittmer and I have 4 years of HS LD experience and 2 years of NPDA experience in college. I am currently an LD and Parli coach for Evergreen Valley High School.

A couple notes on my paradigm:

1. I debated for Cal parli and understand tech arguments and am fine with speed. However, I was not the fastest nor most technically advanced debater on the college NPDA circuit, so please accord a little slowing down and explanation in case you're running a complicated position or are telling me how to evaluate certain args, especially in rebuttals. I'm a few years out so if you need to explain to me what functional vs. text comp, competing interps vs. reasonability, etc. please do since I always appreciate the clarity.

2. Generally, the most important thing is having clear, supported, and impacted arguments. I will default to a policy making/net benefits paradigm but am totally fine being told how to evaluate otherwise (e.g. K's, ROB, etc.).

3. I otherwise don't have a whole lot of preferences regarding certain paradigmatic issues, eg related to evaluating theory, K's, etc. Regarding theory I will default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise. I'm open to reasonability but probably will err on little more on comparing interps. Theory/procedural needs to be justified as a priori in order to be treated as such. Most importantly, please slow down and clearly read interpretations and violations-both for the sake of me and also in fairness to your opponents.

4. I understand RVIs and metatheory are becoming more a thing these days, but I generally have a pretty high bar for voting for RVIs or arguments that criticize the act of running theory (e.g. in the 1AR) unless abuse is strongly demonstrated.

Feel free to ask questions before round if you see something not listed here. Good luck!

Background:

I participated in Parliamentary Debate throughout my four years of high school at Valley Christian. I was the president of Valley Christian's Speech and Debate team my senior year of high school and placed in finals at multiple tournaments. I have competed in over 75 rounds of debate and have served as a judge in multiple novice, JV, and Open divisions of tournaments. 

Judging Preferences:

I am a flow judge and I prefer that each contention is taglined and clear. Clear speaking and well weighed impacts will give you the advantage in the round. Keep theory to a minimum. Impact Calculus is crucial for my ability to weigh the round. Tabula Rasa. I tend to weigh rounds holistically so focus on argumentation rather than terminology/technicalities. 

Speed:

Don't spread.

Quick Summary - Run whatever you want, be clear. It's your round, take advantage of it! Flow judge, give me articulated arguments. Kritiks are appreciated, warrants are awesome and taglines are not enough. The squo is more scarier now than ever - tell me whatever I can do to make debate a welcome space for you.

Background -

NPDA Debate - 3 years - Enough tournaments and practice to be very familiar with pretty much anything you can throw at me in the debate space.

Judging for 3 1/2 years - judged parli, policy and LD a lot (and I.E.s but whateverrr)

Approach to Judging -

-I am pretty tabula rasa, within reason. I default to reasonability inmost debates unless there is framework that asks me to change my perspective.

-I like high-probability, systemic impacts first and foremost. Give me real warrants and evidence and ANALYSIS I can weigh and you'll find my ballot favorable. I will vote on any framing though.

-I am a flow judge. I always walk the path of least intervention and won't extend or make arguments for you. Give me voters to refer to and it'll make my life easier. I'm really serious about this.

-I love anything kritikal, but it isn't necessary. I like topical and non-topical affs, but be careful with ID tix and other super generic non-topical advocacies. I like straight-up policy cases with advantages and DA's and the like. I like contentions with good framework articulated. Essentially, you can do anything if you do it well and make it easy for me to follow.

-I need articulated impacts, and arguments in general. Taglines are not enough. Explain to me the directionality and extent of your impacts.

-I don't like arguments dropped in member speeches to be suddenly voters in rebuttals AKA shadow extensions but people need to point of order it for me to not evaluate it.

-Let me know if there's anything I can do to make the debate space more inclusive for you. If you have any needs or preferences, I'm happy to help.

Argument Prefs -

Framework - I will evaluate the round as you want me to as long as you win framework. I do default to net benes/util, but am totally open to other ways of viewing the round.

Spec -I think spec arguments are rough to win, but I'm open to them. Give me solid standards and proven ground loss and I might pick you up on it.

Topicality - I don't like time-suck T's, and I think that a lot of T arguments don't actually really impact the debate except to inhibit clash. I have a medium threshold for T. You need articulated ground loss usually. However, if you drop it, or any a-priori arguments, you're going to lose the debate. Just be careful.

CPs - Always a great idea. I think CP's are super underused and really effective. I like PIC debates and if you run a CP, you just need to be careful about mutual exclusivity. I don't have a problem with condo CPs.

RVI's - I will vote on them, but only for a good reason i.e. rhetoric in the procedural/DA/whatever, timesuck arguments that are fully fleshed out, etc. Just like all other arguments, if it's blippy I probably won't vote on it and your time is probably better spent elsewhere.

Perms - Always go for the perm. I think the Opp has to really win the perm doesn't function to have a good shot in the round because it is often one of the easiest places to vote.

Kritiks - I like K's! I don't have a ton of background knowledge on some kritiks but have run a lot of Nietzsche, some D&G, Baud, Wilderson, but not enough of any lit other than Nietzsche that I feel confident with, so you need to explain it to me thoroughly. Any form, whether it's performance, rhetoric or otherwise, I am totally cool with. Be careful of overly-generic links.

Performance Prefs -

-I personally can handle speed as long as it's clear, but if your opponents clear or slow you, I expect you accommodate them. Additionally, attempting to spread opponents out of the round will destroy your speaks.

-I couldn't care less if you sit or stand - it's your space, make yourself comfortable

-Partner communication is fine, verbally or through notes, as long as you aren't puppeting. I will only flow what the designated speaker says.

-I don't have an issue with sass or playfulness, but don't be mean to your opponents or partner. There's a fine-line between the two and if you have trouble walking it, I'd be nice to be safe.

-Use your time as you wish, but try not to be too repetitive.

-I don't think you need to yell or be overly angry to try to project confidence. At the same time, you do you.

-If you are being sexist, racist or generally a jerk, your speaks will absolutely reflect that. You don't need to tread on eggshells, but don't be a misogynist, racist person.

Aff: It’s hard to sell me on the “if we have even a 1% chance of solving” narrative, instead I prefer for Aff to stand firmly behind a strong advocacy. I would always prefer a straight-up Affirmative plan to a squirrely, technically-still-upholds-the-motion case. If you choose to be squirrely, I’ll listen to you, but will be extra-receptive to Neg burden presses and topicality arguments.

Neg: I don’t think Neg’s burden (by default, but you can change my mind) includes anything more than proving why Aff’s plan is a bad idea, and so it’s entirely possible for a negative team to win just off refutation and disadvantages they thought up in the moment. That said, I want Neg to show me what they did in prep time. Make me believe you put some thought into this round before you walked in the door, or I tend to lean Aff.

Impacts: I much prefer a reasonable, well-linked impact to a blown-out-of-proportion one. Just because you technically can link your argument to nuclear war or dehumanization of masses of people doesn’t mean it is in your best interest to do so. 

Kritiks: You are welcome to run them, and I will be receptive to them. However, anti-K arguments don’t require a shell, and I always prefer for both teams to still engage on the case if a kritik is run.

An Unpopular Opinion: I believe that the place of parliamentary debate is to instill public speaking skills and the ability to think on one’s feet. I like convincing speakers, who tell stories and explain evidence as though they read it more than 20 minutes ago. I like to pretend that you all believe in the arguments you make. But, Thomas Jefferson put it nicely: “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend,” and as a judge, I certainly won’t use personal beliefs as a reason to vote you down.

I've been involved in competitive forensics for nearly nine years now. I did national circuit LD in high school and then parli with a tournament or two of policy for the University of Oregon from 2012-2015. I've coached high school policy for nearly five years. 

I've been exposed to and deployed pretty much every type of strategy, so my preference is that you go with the types of arguments that you are most comfortable with/think are most strategic rather than trying to cater to me. That said, I am predisposed on certain issues and will try my best to lay those out for you.

UPDATE October '16: My threshold for explanation on any argument has gone up significantly after the rounds that I have judged this past year. I am far more inclined to reward a team that understands their authors and can distill them into concise theses than one that simply relies on overly pomo-generated tag lines. My biggest frustration with most critical debates I have judged is that many teams assume that I will draw certain connections for you or that I will perfectly understand every nuance of every tag line and how it applies to your strategy without any further explanation. One of the most telling signs of a skilled debater in any forum is the ability to synthesize and explain complex positions in any field of study to someone who has never encountered that argument before. Doing this well in your debates will boost your speaker points and your competitive success. 

Critical Debate: I'm a big fan of the K, whether that be on Aff or Neg. Topic specific links tend to be more effective than more general approaches. I've read a fair amount of K lit, but the burden is on you to make sure that you clearly explain whichever theorist you're using. Simply restating the contents of a card isn't the same thing as understanding what the evidence says and actually explaining it. To give you a model of the critical arguments I deployed throughout my debate career, I ran Marx most often, and also occasionally dabbled in culture jamming, security, Deleuze and Orientalism. Read whichever argument you want, and explain it well, we'll be golden. 

On the flipside, I'm very receptive to framework and T as a response to critical Affs. If you are side-stepping the topic entirely, you should have a well-thought out defense of why there can be no topical version of the Aff that discusses your issues in the context of the topic. 

Straight-Up Debate: I honestly probably prefer evaluating a high level straight up debate to a critical debate. That's not to say that I feel more comfortable evaluating one or the other, I just tend to think that nuanced policy debates are more educational and more interesting to judge. Most of the time I find that the internal link stories on disads are quite contrived and neglected. The more realistic your internal link scenario, the more success you'll have with your disad. Regarding counterplans I think most of these theoretical issues are up to you in the debate, I tend to think PICs and functional competition are legit but am also receptive to theory arguments to the contrary. 

Misc: You won't be too fast for me, as long as you're clear. That said, I appreciate variation in speaking pace (slowing down on tags/authors, emphasizing certain arguments). That doesn't mean slow down, it just means break out of the monotone drone that quite often becomes the norm. I don't care if you stand/sit/tag-team/etc. I tend to be pretty expressive in round, because I feel that you should know what I think of your arguments during the debate versus only knowing what I think during the RFD when you can no longer make strategic changes. 

Most importantly, debate to your strengths. I'll be happy adjudicating any debate in which both teams are deploying their best strategies and making smart arguments. 

I like straight forward topical debate, but if your K or theory has a strong link to the case, I'd definitely vote on it. Make sure at the end of your cases I know exactly why I should be voting for you. Just lay it out for me. And as far as impact framing goes, make sure to seriaouly defend your links to  things  like nuclear war and faster global warming. Otherwise, dropping extinction level impacts doesn't really do much!

Firoz Gill

Background:
4 years of high school parli, 1 year of NPDA parli

Default paradigm:
- I am a flow judge.
- I default to comparative worlds and net benefits.

Flowing:
- If I don't understand an argument the first time I hear it, I won't flow it / vote for it

- Voter issues are crucial. Weighing arguments is super important to me. Otherwise, I may have to weigh things myself.

Presentation:
- Most debaters think they can spread, but very few can. Unless you are absolutely certain in your ability to remain crystal clear at high speeds, don’t go over 300 words per minute. Every time I yell “clear!” your speaker points suffer.
- Slow down A LOT on argument taglines, author names, theory interpretations, case theses, K alternatives, plantexts, and CP texts. For the latter three, you should have copies of the text ready for your opponent and the judge.
- I prefer cards to have author qualifications and year read aloud.
- Eye contact doesn't matter, but voice modulation does.
- If you said everything you needed to say, don't ramble to fill up speech time, just sit down.
- Example of a bad NC roadmap: "First, I'll read my NC in which I argue that justice doesn't exist, then an off-case which will be a topicality on "ought", and finally I'll prove why the affirmative case is wrong."
The function of a roadmap is to help me put the pages of my flow in order; any information that doesn't do that is superfluous. An off-case is anything that's not on the affirmative case. NC stands for "negative constructive," not "negative case."
Example of a good NC roadmap: "2 off, AC."
- I will typically give an oral RFD.

Argumentation preferences:
- All arguments should have warrants. I will not vote on blips.
- An empirical warrant can appeal to common knowledge, but cards trump common knowledge.
- An analytical warrant does not require a card. A quote from a philosopher may contain a warrant, but simply the fact that some philosopher agrees with you does not constitute a warrant – that’s the “appeal to authority” fallacy. I hold up analytical warrants made by carded philosophers to the same level of scrutiny as analytical warrants made by debaters.
- I like positional cases.
- Weird stuff is great if you can pull it off.
- Critical/discourse cases are fine, but slow down on confusing parts. Specific alternatives with solid solvency are a plus. I tend to buy intuitive answers to Ks.
- Theory is fine if they're actually abusive, but don't overuse it. I tend to buy "reasonable limits" answers to it. I'll vote on RVIs (high threshold). I think theory is a type of a discourse argument (Fairness K or Education K), with violation as the link, standards as the impact, interpretation as the alternative, and voters as the framework. The implication is that theory can be weighed against other discourse arguments. Also, most theory debates are boring (Prefer not to have theory debate).

- The value/criterion model is often abused to exclude relevant argumentation. I think that debate rounds which are more practical are better off with a generic standard without a criterion (as a parli debater, I am used to net benefits) and with impacts weighed out primarily on the contention level; the more philosophical debates should just have the philosophical framework as the standard. I will use net benefits unless you give me good reasons to prefer another standard.
- I won't vote any type of argument down right away, so if you feel confident you can win it, run it, and have fun.

I love good Neg. strategy and think multiple positions (T, CP, K) is a great way to strategize. Also, I love great CPs (especially PICs). I think they're pretty real world and test the Aff plan fully. I am fine with conditional stuff as well. As Aff. make sure you ask if things are conditional or not.

If possible try not to exlclude the other team by spreading. Also, if you do spread through a CP, T, or K it would be helpful for you to give the other team a copy in order for them to better follow along.

I think the Aff. Should limit the resolution in a way that’s beneficial to them. (I’m fine with some Extra T).

Jake Glendenning Judge Philosophy

Hey. I’m Jake. I debated four and a half years of NPDA/NPTE style debate. 2.5 at Irvine Valley College and 2 at UC Berkeley. As a general principle, you’re best off debating in the way you’re most accustomed or will have the most fun. I was a part of this activity because it was fun and I enjoyed it, and encourage others to do the same. I will insert myself into your round as little as possible.

Quick Hits

• I almost always defended the resolution as a debater, though not necessarily fiat. This means that I am not intimately familiar with arguments justifying the rejection of the resolution, so if that is a strategy you’re going for, you should probably err on the side of caution and explain your arguments in depth.
• As a debater I debated about half critical and half policy. I’m a fan of a good, nuanced politics disadvantage, as well as a well-researched, well-warranted K. I find post-modernism, post-structuralism, and existential type positions to be the most philosophically interesting when run well. I’m relatively familiar with Baudrillard, Foucault, Nietzsche, Deleuze (and his work with Guattari to a lesser extent), Hardt+Negri, and Butler. I find more sociologically-based K literature (race, gender, colonialism, ability) persuasive, but not as much fun to explore on a philosophical level. I think Agamben’s philosophy is generally bad, but I understand its strategic utility in debate. I feel similarly about a lot of marxist authors, though I also enjoy some, so take that for what you will.
• I default to my flow. I adhere to it whenever possible, and don’t intuitively know how to evaluate arguments that ask me to do otherwise, so please be very clear if you are going to go this direction with the debate.
• My degree is in Political Science and I did most of my research in Comparative Politics and International Economics, for whatever that’s worth. I’m also a bit of a current events hack.
• On speed, if you don’t know the other team’s comfortability with speed, ask. I liked debating fast, but that doesn’t mean everyone does and I don’t much care for the use of speed to beat less experienced teams. 
  -I value creativity quite a bit. If I haven’t seen it before and it makes me think a lot, it’s likely to get higher speaker points than the same consult counterplan/cap shell I’ve run and seen 100 times.

Disads

-Disads are great. I like nuanced, well researched disads. Politics, relations, whatever. Have specific links to the plan and all that. 
-When you kick them, please extend actual arguments, and not just “the defense”

Case debate

-It’s great!
-For my flow’s sake, please let me know if you have a separate sheet of case defense/case turns. I usually referred to this as a “dump” as a debater.

Counterplans

-Counterplans are also awesome. 
-I have no real disposition for or against condo (and think I may be the only person Kevin Calderwood has coached with that in their philosophy), but found that I won more going unconditional as a debater. I probably had a bit more fun going condo though, so you do you. Just win the arguments. 
-I really don’t have any dispositions against “cheater” counterplans, but found them very easy to beat as a debater. Feel free to run delay, veto cheto, conditions, consult, whatever, but theoretically justify it, and be prepared to not get very high speaker points if it's not creative/interesting.

T

• I default to competing interpretations, but am fine evaluating theoretical questions through different frameworks if the arguments are made.
• RVIs are an uphill battle in front of me. This is probably the issue where I have the hardest time staying objective. You’re going to have to really sell it if you want me to vote on an RVI.

Other Theory

• I’ve always enjoyed that the rules of debate are debateable. I think if you can demonstrate how ground loss took place, it’s going to be easier to win.
• I have seen beautiful, nuanced, specific uses of spec arguments and shamefully bad, vague, and slapdash ones. The former will get you higher speaks.
• On disclosure theory, I ran this argument quite a bit, and am fine voting on it. My interpretation was usually “If the affirmative chooses not to defend the resolution using fiat, they should notify the negative with no less than 10 minutes left in prep-time if the negative asked them to before prep” and I never ran into any of the contrived hypotheticals that opponents of disclosure theory bring up every time the issue recirculates on facebook or net-bens.

The K

• I very much enjoy the K debate. I have at least a shallow understanding of most K lit I’ve heard of. I find warrants very persuasive, especially in the K debate, and find that they can often help resolve difficult questions in K debates that devolve to claim v claim issues.
• I don’t think many teams actually explain how their alt solves their K a lot of the time. It’s more often than not just a bunch of perm preempts, and maybe a claim without a warrant. I’d appreciate it if you really articulated how your alt solves.
• I don’t think a K needs an alt in a “methods debate” or when the aff is a K, depending on what kind of specific framework the aff roles with.
• I think if there is an alt in a “methods debate” it makes intuitive sense that the aff maybe shouldn’t have a perm, so I’m generally receptive to that argument as long as it's well articulated.
  -On K affs, I value being creative within the confines of the resolution very much. A topical, non-fiat K aff would be preferable to rejection/deference of the resolution. I also find it really cool when a team can come up with creative definitions of words in the resolution to make an performance or identity based positions topical.

Note - Below is my H.S. philosophy. I go into much more detail about my opinions specific to college NPDA here: https://www.net-benefits.net/t/jake-glendenning-judging-philosophy/12965

Experience Debating/Judging:

I am a recent graduate from UC Berkeley. I competed in NPDA/NPTE style parliamentary debate for about 4 years and have done NFA: LD for two of those. I’ve coached high school parli extensively, but have also coached individuals competing in PuFo, VCX, VLD. I’ve also judged all these events at several tournaments. It’s worth noting that the type of debate I compete in now is more similar in a many ways to Team Policy than Parli on the high school level.

As a general overview, I have different opinions on different types of arguments based on the activity. For example, since the 1AR in LD is only 4 minutes, I’m generally a bit more lenient on theory against counterplans/criticisms or condo bad, in regard to my default threashold for abuse. Also, I view debate as a game to be won. I try to intervene as little as possible, but having judged and competed in countless rounds at this point I acknowledge that a certain degree of judge intervention is probably inevitable. I was a relatively gamey debater for a large portion of my career. I was known to often run multiple conditional strategies and strategic procedural arguments, but think the best debates are the least complicated and most clear. For this reason, higher speaker points usually go to debaters who are confident enough in their strategy and abilities to deploy as few tricks as possible.

Speaker Points

I can generally be a bit of a speaks fairy, especially when teams read creative positions in front of me. These can be a particularly interesting K or a politics scenario with a nuanced link story. I enjoy originality. I tend to give slightly higher speaks in LD and CX than in parli. My average is about 28.5 for the former two and 27.5-28 for the latter.

Speed

I can probably flow you at whatever speed you're going, and if I can't I'll let you know during the speech by yelling "slow" if you are too fast and "clear" if you are being unclear. I think it's a great general rule to always ask your opponents how they feel about speed if you plan on going fast (or even brisk, as people have very different interpretations on what "fast" is).  If you go fast to exclude your opponent, I will tank you speaks. You should be confident enough in your ability to debate that you don't need to rely on out-gaming your opponent. Debates where only 1 team and the judge understand what is happening are never fun for anyone and can be detrimental to the activity. 

General thoughts on arguments

DAs - Yep. Run them. I love a good, nuanced DA with a lot of warrants. Impact Calc is dope. It’s easier to win when you do it.

CPs - Hell yeah. any and all types so long as you can justify them on a theoretical level. In general I err neg on CP theory on Agent CPs and Consult CPs. I err aff on process and floating pics. Make sure you slow down when reading your text. I also wouldn’t mind a copy.

Kritiks - I’m a big fan of critiques. Run them. Get fancy with them. Ks with very specific links will win me over more than Ks that sound identical every round. I’m receptive to arguments that the aff gets to leverage its case under many K frameworks.

K Affs - I enjoy a good K aff, but enjoy topical K affs much more than untopical K affs. I don’t think defending the implementation by a government actor is necessary to be topical. Feel free to affirm the res and defend your reps. I will vote and have voted on untopical/reject-the-res type affirmatives, but don’t generally care for them very much.

Topicality/Theory - Run it. Run it strategically. I was once told by a good friend of mine that crafting a good interp is an art form and I find that statement more true every day. I will reward good interps with high speaker points. Also, the way to win theory is to do good weighing analysis on the standard level.

Parli-specific stuff

-I don't like it when partners prep between speeches. This seems to be a huge problem in H.S. parli and I will drop speaks if you're strategizing with your partner before your own speech. 

Given the nature of this activity, I think there is intrinsic value in public speaking ability and persuasion and will use speaker points to reflect how good of a public speaker you are. I will still try my best to not inject my previously-attained knowledge into the round, which means I will adhere to the flow very closely when making my decision. 

LD-Specific stuff

I haven’t judged LD in a little while and haven’t coached it in even longer, so I likely won’t be very deep in the lit on positions being run, especially the more nuanced frameworks. Speaking of frameworks, I’m much more familiar and receptive to util, but if you have particularly interesting deont arguments, or are just more confident in the deont debate, feel free to run your positions, just slow down a bit on your tags and spend more time than you think you need to in the rebuttals.

Policy-Specific Stuff

If you're going to be paperless you should have 3 computers and a usb drive that is easy to use and navigate for the other team. I don't count jumping files as prep-time, but please don't take forever with it. Regarding the substance of the debate, I really don't like it when half your speech is reading a scripted overview. I like debaters who think in-round. Speaker points will reflect this. Theory interps, CP texts, and Alt texts should be read slowly and have as few planks as possible.

Feel free to ask me specifics before the round.

tldr; I'm open to pretty much whatever, and would much rather you debate how you want than have you try to adapt to my preferences! A lot of my paradigm is pretty technical/jargon-heavy, so please feel free to ask me any questions you have before the round.

Background

I came from a high school parli background, but most of my relevant experience is from the last 7 years with the Parli at Berkeley NPDA team. I competed on-and-off for 3 years before exclusively coaching for the last few years, leading the team to 6 national championships as a student-run program. As a debater I was probably most comfortable with the kritikal debate, but I’ve had a good amount of exposure to most everything in my time coaching the team; I've become a huge fan of theory in particular in the last few years. A lot of my understanding of debate has come from working with the Cal Parli team, so I tend to err more flow-centric in my round evaluations; that being said, I really appreciate innovative/novel arguments, and did a good amount of performance-based debating as a competitor. I’m generally open to just about any argument, as long as there’s good clash.

General issues

• In-round framing and explanation of arguments are pretty important for me. While I will vote for blippier/less developed arguments if they’re won, I definitely have a higher threshold for winning arguments if I feel that they weren’t sufficiently understandable in first reading, and will be more open to new-ish responses in rebuttals as necessary. Also worth noting, I tend to have a lower threshold for accepting framing arguments in the PMR.

• The LOR’s a tricky speech. For complicated rounds, I enjoy it as a way to break down the layers of the debate and explain any win conditions for the negative. I don’t need arguments to be made in the LOR to vote on them, however, so I generally think preemption of the PMR is a safer bet. I've grown pretty used to flowing the LOR on one sheet, but if you strongly prefer to go line-by-line I’d rather have you do that than throw off your speech for the sake of adapting.

• I have no preferences on conditionality. Perfectly fine with however many conditional advocacies, but also more than happy to vote on condo bad if it’s read well.

• Please read advocacy/interp texts slowly/twice. Written texts are always nice.

• I will do my best to protect against new arguments in the rebuttals, but it’s always better to call the POO just to be safe.

• I’m open to alternate/less-flow-centric methods of evaluating the round, but I have a very hard time understanding what these alternate methods can be. So, please just try to be as clear as possible if you ask me to evaluate the round in some distinct way. To clarify, please give me a clear explanation of how I determine whether to vote aff/neg at the end of the round, and in what ways your alternative paradigm differs from or augments traditional flow-centric models.

• I evaluate shadow-extensions as new arguments. What this means for me is that any arguments that a team wants to win on/leverage in either the PMR or LOR must be extended in the MG/MO to be considered. I'll grant offense to and vote on positions that are blanket extended ("extend the impacts, the advantage is conceded", etc.), but if you want to cross-apply or otherwise leverage a specific argument against other arguments in the round, I do need an explicit extension of that argument.

Framework

• I think the framework debate is often one of the most undeveloped parts of the K debate, and love seeing interesting/well-developed/tricksy frameworks. I understand the framework debate as a question of the best pedagogical model for debate; ie: what type of debate generates the best education/portable skills/proximal benefits, and how can I use my ballot to incentivize this ideal model of debate?

• This means that I'm probably more favorable for frame-out strategies than most other judges, because I think of different frameworks as establishing competing rulesets for how I evaluate the round, each of which establishes a distinct layer in the debate that filters offense in its own unique way. For example, framework that tells me I should evaluate post-fiat implications of policy actions vs a framework that tells me I should evaluate the best epistemic model seem to establish two very different worlds/layers in the round; one in which I evaluate the aff and neg advocacies as policy actions and engage in policy simulation, and one in which I evaluate these advocacies as either explicit or implicit defenses of specific ways of producing knowledge. I don't think the aff plan being able to solve extinction as a post-fiat implication of the plan is something that can be leveraged under an epistemology framework that tells me post-fiat policy discussions are useless and uneducational, unless the aff rearticulates why the epistemic approach of the aff's plan (the type of knowledge production the plan implicitly endorses) is able to incentivize methods of problem-solving that would on their own resolve extinction.

• As much as I'm down to vote on frameouts and sequencing claims, please do the work implicating out how a specific sequencing/framing claim affects my evaluation of the round and which offense it does or does not filter out. I’m not very likely to vote on a dropped sequencing claim or independent voter argument if there isn’t interaction done with the rest of the arguments in the round; ie, why does this sequencing claim take out the other specific layers that have been initiated in the round.

• I'm very open to voting on presumption, although very rarely will I grant terminal defense from just case arguments alone (no links, impact defense, etc.). I'm much more likely to evaluate presumption claims for arguments that definitionally deny the potential to garner offense (skep triggers, for example). I default to presumption flowing negative unless a counter-advocacy is gone for in the block, in which case I'll err aff. But please just make the arguments either way, I would much rather the debaters decide this for me.

Theory/Procedurals

• I generally feel very comfortable evaluating the theory debate, and am more than happy to vote on procedurals/topicality/framework/etc. I’m perfectly fine with frivolous theory. Please just make sure to provide a clear/stable interp text.

• I don't think of theory as a check against abuse in the traditional sense. I'm open to arguments that I should only vote on proven/articulated abuse, or that theory should only be used to check actively unfair/uneducational practices. However, I default to evaluating theory as a question of the best model of debate for maximizing fairness and education, which I evaluate through an offense/defense model the same way I would compare a plan and counterplan/SQO. Absent arguments otherwise, I evaluate interpretations as a model of debate defended in all hypothetical rounds, rather than as a way to callout a rule violation within one specific debate.

• I will vote on paragraph theory (theory arguments read as an independent voting issue without an explicit interpretation), but need these arguments to be well developed with a clear impact, link story (why does the other team trigger this procedural impact), and justification for why dropping the team solves this impact. Absent a clear drop the debater implication on paragraph theory, I'll generally err towards it being drop the argument.

• I default to competing interpretations and drop the team on theory, absent other arguments. Competing interpretations for me means that I evaluate the theory layer through a risk of offense model, and I will evaluate potential abuse. I don’t think this necessarily means the other team needs to provide a counter-interpretation (unless in-round argumentation tells me they do), although I think it definitely makes adjudication easier to provide one.

• I have a hard time evaluating reasonability without a brightline. I don’t know how I should interpret what makes an argument reasonable or not absent a specific explanation of what that should mean without being interventionist, and so absent a brightline I’ll usually just end up evaluating through competing interpretations regardless.

• I don't mind voting on RVIs, so long as they're warranted and have an actual impact that is weighed against/compared with the other theory impacts in the round. Similar to my position on IVIs: I'm fine with voting for them, but I don't think the tag "voting issue" actually accomplishes anything in terms of impact sequencing or comparison; tell me why this procedural impact uplayers other procedural arguments like the initial theory being read, and why dropping the team is key to resolve the impact of the RVI.

Advantage/DA

• Uniqueness determines the direction of the link (absent explanation otherwise), so please make sure you’re reading uniqueness in the right direction. Basically: I'm unlikely to vote on linear advantages/disadvantages even if you're winning a link, unless it's literally the only offense left in the round or it's explicitly weighed against other offense in the round, so do the work to explain to me why your worldview (whether it's an advocacy or the SQO) is able to resolve or at least sidestep the impact you're going for in a way that creates a significant comparative differential between the aff and neg worldviews.

• I have a pretty high threshold for terminal defense, and will more often than not assume there’s at least some risk of offense, so don’t rely on just reading defensive arguments.

• Perfectly fine with generic advantages/disads, and I’m generally a fan of the politics DA. That being said, specific and substantial case debates are great as well.

• I default to fiat being durable.

CP

• Please give me specific texts.

• Fine with cheater CPs, but also more than happy to vote on CP theory.

• I default that perms are tests of competition and not advocacies.

• I default to functional or net benefits frameworks for evaluating competition. I generally won’t evaluate competition via textuality absent arguments in the round telling me why I should.

K

• I really enjoy the K debate, and this was probably where I had the most fun as a debater. I have a pretty good understanding of most foundational critical literature, especially postmodern theory (particularly Foucault/Deleuze&Guatarri/Derrida). Some debates that I have particularly familiarity with: queer theory, orientalism, anthro/deep eco/ooo, buddhism/daoism, kritikal approaches to spatiality and temporality, structural vs micropolitical analysis, semiotics. That being said, please make the thesis-level of your criticism as clear as possible; I'm open to voting on anything, and am very willing to do the work to understand your position if you provide explanation in-round.

• I’m perfectly happy to vote on kritikal affirmatives, but I will also gladly vote on framework-t. On that note, I’m also happy to vote on impact turns to fairness/education, but will probably default to evaluating the fairness level first absent other argumentation. I find myself voting for skews eval implications of fairness a lot in particular, so long as you do good sequencing work.

• Same with CPs, I default to perms being a test of competition and not an advocacy. I’m also fine with severance perms, but am also open to theoretical arguments against them; just make them in-round, and be sure to provide a clear voter/impact.

• I default to evaluating the link debate via strength of link, but please do the comparative analysis for me. Open to other evaluative methods, just be clear in-round.

• I have a decent understanding of performance theory and am happy to vote on performance arguments, but I need a good explanation of how I should evaluate performative elements of the round in comparison to other arguments on the flow.

• Regarding identity/narrative based arguments, I think they can be very important in debate, and they’ve been very significant/valuable to people on the Cal Parli team who have run them in the past. That being said, I also understand that they can be difficult and oftentimes triggering for people in-round, and I have a very hard time resolving this. I’ll usually defer to viewing debate as a competitive activity and will do my best to evaluate these arguments within the context of the framing arguments made in the round, so please just do your best to make the evaluative method for the round as clear as possible, to justify your specific performance/engagement on the line-by-line of the round, and to explain to me your position's specific relationship to the ballot.

Other random thoughts:

• I pretty strongly disagree with most paradigmatic approaches that frame the judge's role as one of preserving particular norms/outlining best practices for how debate ought to occur, and I don't think it's up to the judge to paternalistically interfere in how a round ought to be evaluated. This is in part because I don't trust judges to be the arbiters of which arguments are or are not pedagogically valuable, given the extensive structural biases in this activity; and the tendency of coaches and judges to abuse their positions of power in order to deny student agency. I also think that debaters ought to be able to decide the purpose of this activity for themselves-while I think debate is important as a place to develop revolutionary praxis/build critical thinking skills/research public policy, I also think it's important to leave space for debaters to approach debate as a game and an escape from structural harms they experience outside of the activity. Flow-centric models seem to allow for debaters to resolve this on their own, by outlining for me what the function of debate ought to be on the flow, and how that should shape how I assign my ballot (more thoughts on this at the top of the "Framework" section in my paradigm).

• What the above implicates out to is: I try to keep my evaluation of the round as flow-centric as possible. This means that I’ll try to limit my involvement in the round as much as possible, and I’ll pick up the "worse argument" if it’s won on the flow. That being said, I recognize that there’s a certain degree of intervention that’s inevitable in at least some portion of rounds, and in those cases my aim is to be able to find the least interventionist justification within the round for my decision. For me, this means prioritizing (roughly in this order): conceded arguments (so long as the argument has at least an analytic justification and has been explained in terms of how it implicates my evaluation of the round), arguments with warranted/substantive analysis, arguments with in-round weighing/framing, arguments with implicit clash/framing, and, worst case, the arguments I can better understand the interactions of.

June 4th 2020 NFA-LD Update:

I'm mostly new to NFA-LD LD so feel free to ask me questions. I competed for a year as a freshman (moon energy topic), mainly on the Northern California circuit, although I wasn't particularly competitive. I don't have a ton of familiarity with the current topic, besides the last week or so of research. Most of the paradigm below applies, but here's some specific thoughts that could apply to NFA-LD.

• I don't think I know the format well enough to know which paradigmatic questions to outline here explicitly. As a general rule of thumb, please just be explicit about how you want me to evaluate the round, and give me reasons to prefer that mechanism (ie whether I should read cards or only evaluate extensions as made in-round, what the implication of a stock issues framework should be, whether/how much to flow cross-ex, etc.). I have very few preferences myself, so long as the round burdens are made explicit for me.

• All of the above being said, I'll probably err towards reading speech docs (Zoom is difficult, and this keeps my flow a lot cleaner), I will evaluate CX analysis although I may not flow it, and I'll only hold the line on stock issues framing if explicitly requested. If you want to know how I default on any other issues, please just ask! Also, no particular issues with speed, although I may tank speaks if you spread out an opponent unnecessarily.
  
  
• I don't have as much experience flowing with cards; I have been practicing, and don't think this should be much of an issue, but maybe something to be aware of. Clearer signposting between cards might not be a bad call if you want to play it safe.
  
  
• I'm a very big fan of procedural and kritikal debate in NPDA, and don't see that changing for NFALD, so feel free to run whatever in front of me. Fine with evaluating non-topical affs, but also very comfortable voting on T, especially with a good fairness collapse.

Overview: I prefer debate rounds where people are able to prove not just their point, but why their point matters. I will look in large part at flow to determine how the debate went, but good framing will be enough to sway me.

Preferred Styles: As far as style goes, I will avoid penalizing adequate speakers (though if your speaking is weak enough to harm your arguments, it may have a small effect on the outcome and I will point it out), and will avoid rewarding exceptional speakers (though similarly, I will lavish you with praise afterwards). In my opinion, your speaking points come less from how eloquent you are and more how convincing you are, as does your win.

Background: I was the President and VP of my high school debate team at La Jolla High for Sophomore and Junior year respectively. Primarily competed in Parli on the debate side, and OO, OA, and Impromptu on the speaking side. I am a member of the Berkeley Debate Society.

Arguments: I will enter tabula rasa in the sense that I understand it, which is to say that I will mark someone down for having bad facts that I can easily identify (if it is essential to the argument), but will not bring in my own biases and politics. I will also not give extra consideration to certain ways of weighing things over others if the point is not argued. Please avoid using terminology that is essentially hate speech or arguments that betray a similar sentiment.

As far as the structure of arguments goes, be aware that an argument where I am not given some reason why it matters will be meaningless to me. Weighing is important, and providing impacts is important, and you should be able to do both effectively.

Rebuttal: Engage arguments in good faith. I encourage you to attack the premises of someone's argument, such as how it's implemented, or what impact it has, etc. but avoid misrepresenting the other side's arguments to suit your aims and avoid attacks that are more condescending than substantive.

Theory and Definitions: I will get lost if you use theory terminology, but I will entertain arguments here. Realize that if I don't understand how your argument works, I will not be able to consider it. If definitions become an issue, I am fine with debate on the issue, but please restrict yourselves from making the entire debate about it.

POIs: My number one rule with POIs is that you can't be annoying with them. If it's for clarification or pointing out a flaw, then that's great and you should do it. If it's to make a statement, then I will frown on it. If there are a lot of POIs, or you attempt to be disruptive while making them, I will dock you points.

Questions: If you want clarification on an issue before the round starts, then I'd be happy to answer. I would also be happy to talk about the round afterwards to try and help people out in whatever way I can. Good luck!

I have four years of high school debate experience doing the Karl Popper format. This is my first year doing parliamentary format. I would categorize myself as a policymaker judge. 

Most important items if you have limited reading time:

PREF CHEAT SHEET (what I am a good judge for)--strategy-focused case debate, legitimated theory/topicality, resolutional/tightly linked Ks > project Ks > rhetoric-focused case debate > friv theory > other Ks not mentioned >>> the policy K shell you found on the wiki and didn't adapt to your event > phil > tricks

IN-PERSON POST-COVID: I live with people who are vulnerable to Covid-19. I do wish people would be respectful of that, but ya know. You do you.

ONLINE DEBATE: My internet quality has trouble with spreading, so if I'm adjudicating you at an online tournament and you plan to spread, please make sure we work out a signal so I can let you know if you're cutting out. NSDA Campus stability is usually slightly better than Zoom stability. You probably won't see me on Zoom because that consistently causes my audio to cut out.

Be good to each other (but you don't need to shake my hand or use speech time to thank me--I'm here because I want to be).

I will never, ever answer any variations on the question, "Do you have any preferences we should know about?" right before round, because I want the tournament to run on time, so be specific with what you want to know if something is missing here.

PREP THEFT: I hate it so much. If it takes you >30 sec to find a piece of evidence, I'm starting your prep timer. Share speech docs before the round. Reading someone's evidence AND any time you take to ask questions about it (not including time they use to answer) counts as prep. If you take more than your allotted prep time, I will decrease your speaks by one point for every 10 seconds until I get to the tournament points floor, after which you will get the L. No LD or PF round should take over 60 minutes.

***

Background

I'm currently DOF for the MVLA school district (2015-present) and Parli Director at Nueva (new this year!). My role at this point is predominantly administrative, and most of my direct coaching interactions are with novice, elementary, and middle school students, so it takes a few months for new metas and terminologies to get to me in non-parli events. PF/LD should assume I have limited contact with the topic even if it's late in the cycle. I have eight years of personal competition experience in CHSSA parliamentary debate and impromptu speaking in high school and NPDA in college, albeit for relatively casual/non-circuit teams. My own high school experience was at a small school, so I tend to be sympathetic to arguments about resource-based exclusion. A current student asked me if I was a progressive or traditional debater in high school, which wasn't vocab on my radar at that time (or, honestly, a split that really existed in HS parli in those years). I did definitively come up in the time when "This House would not go gently into that good night" was a totally normal, one-in-every-four-rounds kind of resolution. Do with that what you will.

Approach to judging

-The framework and how it is leveraged to include/exclude impacts is absolutely the most important part of the round.

-It's impossible to be a true "blank slate" judge. I will never add arguments to the flow for you or throw out arguments that I don’t like, but I do have a low tolerance for buying into blatant falsehoods, and I fully acknowledge that everyone has different, somewhat arbitrary thresholds for "buying" certain arguments. I tend to be skeptical of generic K solvency/insufficiently unique Ks.

-My personal experience with circuit LD, circuit policy, Congress, and interp speech events is minimal.

-I am emphatically NOT a games/tricks/whatever-we're-calling-it-these-days judge. Debate is an educational activity that takes place in a communal context, not a game that can be separated from sociocultural influences. Students who have public speaking abilities have unique responsibilities that constrain how they should and should not argue. I will not hesitate to penalize speaker points for rhetoric that reifies oppressive ideologies.

Speaker point ranges

Sorry, I am the exact opposite of a points fairy. I will do my best to follow point floors and ceilings issued by each tournament. 30s are reserved for a speech that is literally the best one I have seen to date. Anything above a 29 is extremely rare. I will strongly advocate to tab to allow me to go below the tournament point floor in cases of overt cruelty, physical aggression, or extremely disrespectful address toward anyone in the round.

Argument preferences

Evaluation order/methods: These are defaults. If I am presented with a different framework for assessment by either team, I will use that framework instead. In cases of a “tie” or total wash, I vote neg unless there is a textual neg advocacy flowed through, in which case I vote aff. I vote on prefiat before postfiat, with the order being K theory/framework questions, pre-fiat K implications, other theory (T, etc), post-fiat. I default to net benefits both prefiat and postfiat. I generally assume the judge is allowed to evaluate anything that happens in the round as part of the decision, which sometimes includes rhetorical artifacts about out-of-round behavior. Evaluation skews are probably a wash in a round where more than one is presented, and I assume I can evaluate the round better than a coinflip in the majority of cases.

Impacts: Have them. Terminalize them. Weigh them. I assume that death and dehumanization are the only truly terminal impacts unless you tell me otherwise. "Economy goes up" is meaningless to me without elaboration as to how it impacts actual people.

Counterplans: Pretty down for whatever here. If you want to have a solid plan/CP debate in LD or PF, far be it from me to stop you. Plan/CP debate is just a method of framing, and if we all agree to do it that way and understand the implications, it's fine.

Theory/Topicality: You need to format your theory shells in a manner that gives me a way to vote on them (ie, they possess some kind of pre- or post-fiat impact). I will listen to any kind of theory argument, but I genuinely don't enjoy theory as a strategic tool. I err neg on theory (or rather, I err toward voting to maintain my sense of "real-world" fairness/education). I will vote on RVIs in cases of genuine critical turns on theory where the PMR collapses to the turn or cases of clearly demonstrated time skew (not the possibility of skew).

Kritiks/"Progressive" Argumentation: I have a lot of feelings, so here's the rapid-fire/bullet-point version: I don't buy into the idea that Ks are inherently elitist, but I think they can be read/performed in elitist ways. I strongly believe in the K as a tool of resistance and much less so as a purely strategic choice when not tightly linked to the resolution or a specific in-round act by the opposing team. I am open to most Ks as long as they are clearly linked and/or disclosed within the first 2-3 minutes of prep. Affirmatives have a higher burden for linking to the resolution, or clearly disclosing if not. If you're not in policy, you probably shouldn't just be reading policy files. Write Ks that fit the norms of your event. If you want to read them in front of me, you shouldn’t just drop names of cards, as I am not conversant at a high level with most of the lit. Please don’t use your K to troll. Please do signpost your K. On framework, I err toward evaluating prefiat arguments first but am willing to weigh discursive implications of postfiat arguments against them. The framework debate is so underrated. If you are facing a K in front of me, you need to put in a good-faith effort to engage with it. Truly I will give you a ton of credit for a cautious and thorough line-by-line even if you don't know all that much about K structural elements. Ks that weaponize identities of students in the round and ask me to use the ballot to endorse some personal narrative or element of your identity, in my in-round and judging experience, have been 15% liberatory and 85% deeply upsetting for everyone in the round. Please don't feel compelled to out yourself to get my vote. Finally, I am pretty sure it's only possible for me to performatively embrace/reject something once, so if your alt is straight "vote to reject/embrace X," you're going to need some arguments about what repeatedly embracing/rejecting does for me. I have seen VERY few alts that don't boil down to "vote to reject/embrace X."

"New" Arguments: Anything that could count as a block/position/contention, in addition to evidence (examples, analytics, analogies, cites) not previously articulated will be considered "new" if they come out in the last speech for either side UNLESS they are made in response to a clear line of clash that has continued throughout the round. I'll consider shadow extensions from the constructives that were not extended or contended in intervening speeches new as well. The only exception to this rule is for the 2N in LD, which I give substantial leeway to make points that would otherwise be considered "new." I will generally protect against new arguments to the best of my ability, but call the POI if the round is fast/complex. Voters, crystallization, impact calculus and framing are fine.

Presentation preferences

Formatting: I will follow any method of formatting as long as it is signposted, but I am most conversant with advantage/disadvantage uniqueness/link/impact format. Paragraph theory is both confusing to your opponent AND to me. Please include some kind of framing or weighing mechanism in the first speech and impact calculus, comparative weighing, or some kind of crystallization/voters in the final speeches, as that is the cleanest way for me to make a decision on the flow.

Extensions: I do like for you to strategically extend points you want to go for that the opponent has dropped. Especially in partner events, this is a good way to telegraph that you and your partner are strategically and narratively aligned. Restating your original point is not a response to a rebuttal and won't be treated as an answer unless you explain how the extension specifically interacts with the opponent's response. The point will be considered dropped if you don't engage with the substance of the counterargument.

Tag-teaming: It's fine but I won’t flow anything your partner says during your speech--you will need to fully repeat it. If it happens repeatedly, especially in a way that interrupts the flow of the speech, it may impact the speaker points of the current speaker.

Questions/Cross-ex: I will stop flowing, but CX is binding. I stop time for Points of Order (and NPDL - Points of Clarification) in parli, and you must take them unless tournament rules explicitly forbid them. Don't let them take more than 30 seconds total. I really don't enjoy when Parli debaters default to yelling "POI" without trying to get the speaker's attention in a less disruptive way first and will probably dock speaker points about it.

Speed: I tolerate spreading but don't love it. If your opponent has a high level of difficulty with your speed and makes the impacted argument that you are excluding them, I will be open to voting on that. If I cannot follow your speed, I will stop writing and put my pen down (or stop typing) and stare at you really awkwardly. I drop off precipitously in my flowing functionality above the 275 wpm zone (in person--online, you should go slower to account for internet cutouts).

Speech Docs/Card Calling: Conceptually they make me tired, but I generally want to be on chains because I think sharing docs increases the likelihood of debaters trying to leverage extremely specific case references. If you're in the type of round where evidence needs to be shared, I prefer you share all of it prior to the round beginning so we can waste as little time as possible between speeches. If I didn't hear something in the round/it confused me enough that I need to read the card, you probably didn't do a good enough job talking about it or selling it to me to deserve the win, but I'll call for cards if everyone collapses to main points that hinge on me reading them. If someone makes a claim of card misuse/misrepresentation, I'll ask for the card/speech doc as warranted by the situation and then escalate to the tournament officials if needed.

Miscellaneous: If your opponent asks for a written text of your plan/CP/K thesis/theory interp, you are expected to provide it as expeditiously as possible (e.g. in partner formats, your partner should write it down and pass it while you continue talking).

Background

I debated parli for four years in high school for both Livermore High School and Mountain View/Los Altos. For two of these years I was active on the NorCal high school circuit. I am continuing debate with Santa Clara University. I am a Computer Science and Engineering student so please don't lie about tech.

Approach to judging

I am not a tabula rasa judge, but I am not going to do work for you or throw out arguments I do not like. Simply I am more likely to buy certain arguments and less likely to buy others.

I come to debate seeing some of the split in the community as a competitor. I believe that debate is both a game and an educational activity. Debate does not occur in a vacuum, and as public speakers or future policy makers, debaters have a responsibility to not use rhetoric upholding racist, sexist, etc ideologies. I will average speaker points based on the tournament average, but will save 30s for exceptional speeches.

Argument preferences

Counterplans: Counterplans are great, but the neg should explain how it competes coming out of the 1NC. Permutations are legitimate, but they are a test of the advocacy, if the aff advocates for the perm, I view that as severance. Kicking CPs is fine as are multiple CPs or advocacies, although I am open to the theory arguments against them as well.

Evaluation order/methods: Framework and arguments may change my evaluation order, but this is the default.. In a tie, I vote neg unless the neg has a CP or other advocacy flowed through at the end of the round, in which case I vote aff. I vote on prefiat before postfiat, and default to net benefits for both..

Impacts: Have impacts and terminalize them. Don’t worry about getting to nuke war unless you have a good linkstory. Dehumanization is important, and discussion of systemic impacts is encouraged. I also like the environment and technology, so impacts based around that may earn you higher speaker points.

Kritiks: I am happy to listen to most kritiks, aff or neg. Kritiks requiring spreading your opponents out of the round are difficult for me to accept and I am more likely to vote on speed theory than many judges in the circuit. If your opponents call slow or clear, slow and/or clear, DO NOT just ignore it. If you are going run a K, make sure you clearly explain how it functions and the literature. I am not conversant at a high level in most literature, and even if I am, it will make the round clearer and more educational for everyone involved. Signpost your K and keep it clear and organized. Also be prepared to give your opponents a copy of the alt text if they ask. I tend to evaluate prefiat arguments first on framework, but I am willing to weigh discursive implications of the postfiat arguments/case against them. I do expect that those facing a K will put in good effort to engage with the K, even if they are looking for me to vote other places on the flow, so argue more than just framework or theory (unless you’re being spread out, in which case that is more acceptable). I am also more willing to weigh generic arguments against the K, but make sure to explain how they interact with this K in particular.

Also stealing something from Julie Herman in how I deal with K alts to encourage more variety and better Ks:

I am trying something new here. I am pretty sure it's only possible for me to performatively embrace/reject something once, so if your alt is straight "vote to reject/embrace X," you're going to need some arguments about what repeatedly embracing/rejecting does.

Theory/Topicality: If you want me to vote for theory, you need to make sure to give it impacts/voters. If you want it to do something else in the round, explain how it should function in the round. I will listen to any kind of theory argument, but please don’t use theory just to beat a less technically skilled debater. Theory has a place both as a strategy and to maintain fairness, but don’t overuse it. I err towards voting to maintain fairness and education, and default to competing interpretations on theory. I will vote on RVIs but not commonly, so make sure you have good reasons for it (ie critical turns or clear times skew).

Presentation preferences

Formatting: I can follow any formatting, but I prefer advantage/disadvantage for policy rounds. I can follow best if you signpost and have a clear structure. Impact calculus and an overview in the final round make my job the easiest.

Tag-teaming: I am fine with tag-teaming, though I will only flow what the current speaker says. If it takes over, it may impact speaker points.

Questions: Points of information are good. Use them strategically to either get the opponents onto another topic or clarify the case or debate. Points of Order stop time, with the side calling the point of order gettting to make their case, then the side defending getting to respond. There shouldn’t be back and forth in this time. I will make a ruling and then time will start again.

Respectfulness: Be respectful! Rhetoric is important and I am very open to voting on issues about speech in round if one side is hostile/offensive towards an oppressed group. I will buy rhetoric turns and rhetoric can undermine your case. I will penalize speaker points for hostile or offensive speech acts regardless of your opponent's’ responses.

Speed: I can follow moderate speeds, but may penalize speaker points if your speed interferes with comprehension. Be respectful of your opponent. If they have a high level of difficulty following your speed and make an impacted argument about it in round, I am open to voting on it. You can decrease the chance of me doing this by slowing/clearing if they yell SLOW or CLEAR. If you repeatedly ignore these requests, I will punish your speaker points. I will call slow or clear if I cannot understand you, but will do this a maximum of 3 times, after that I will just put my pen down and stop flowing if you’re going too fast.

Other: I expect you to provide a written copy of a plan/CP/K thesis/K alt/Interpretation to the opponent if asked, you may want to write it out ahead of time. Any team should be able to call “text” during your speech and you should get them a copy by their speech, but preferably asap. Please read these parts or your speech twice and slow down a little if you are going at any sort of speed.

If you have any questions about my paradigm, feel free to ask before the round.

PARLI:

THE SHORT VERSION: Avoid speed and jargon, and in rebuttal, focus on fewer arguments and develop them rather than trying to win everything. Connect your arguments to the resolution, and where appropriate, to the standard for judging the round, and definitions of key terms. No tag team. No offtime roadmaps/thank yous. Take at least one or two POIs, and don't make that POO unless it's clear cut and important. Unreceptive to kritiks. Raise topicality if the case is legitimately outside the resolution, but do so briefly and simply, explaining the interpretation and violation then moving on. Please run other theory arguments only when necessary to protect the fairness/safety of the space, not just because they're fun or to gain a strategic advantage.

THE LONGER VERSION: I am the debate coach for Berkeley High School. I've been involved in debate (all kinds) for longer than I care to admit, and parli almost the whole time. I am now a practicing lawyer.

1. I tend to focus on where the analysis is, rather than where the drops are.

2. I dislike excessive speed (that is, faster than you would talk outside of a debate round) and jargon (any term that would be unintelligible to a non-debater). Employing either of these will hurt your chances of winning, maybe by a lot.

3. Please, please, please focus on a few key issues in rebuttal and really develop them, rather than trying to cover everything, and saying little about each point. If you don't spend much (or any) time on your key offense, you're in trouble.

4. No tag teaming. It's not your turn to speak.

5. Please don't say "Try or die." It's trite and overused. When you say "try or die," I hear "we don't have any good responses to their analysis that our plan won't solve the problem." Use your time instead to explain your causation arguments more clearly, or the lack of offense on the other side.

6. Topicality is a necessary rule and voting issue, but the cottage industry of theory that has blossomed around it is not only unnecessary but also a huge drag on substantive debate. Do not spend more than 30-90 seconds of any speech on topicality unless the round genuinely presents the most complex topicality question you've ever encountered, or unless you genuinely can't clash on any other argument in the round. If you're challenging their plan/arguments as non-topical, just explain what the Gov team is supposed to prove ("the interpretation") and why they do or don't prove it ("violation/no violation"). If you're challenging their definition, tell me their definition, the "real" definition, why yours is better, and why it matters. That's it. I don't want to hear arguments about the consequences of the violation. If the Gov doesn't affirm the resolution, they lose. If they do, I'll probably ignore topicality unless the Opp interpretation is farfetched and/or they violate the above 30-90 second rule, in which case I'll consider voting against them to deter similar topicality arguments in the future ("RVI"). But again, I will make this call based on the quality of the interpretation and violation arguments; don't waste your speech time with RVI theory. In the interest of candor and your ability to adapt, I've never heard an argument for competing interpretations that I found persuasive, so trying to convince me is not a good use of your time.

7. Please take at least one or two points of information.

8. I'm pretty loose on counterplans as long as a good debate can still be had, and I'm okay with kicking them. I have a pretty low threshold for rejecting plan inclusive counterplans, though, since they usually seem like attempts to avoid having a substantive debate.

9. Kritiks: I am generally unreceptive to them. You can use your speech time however you like, but I have a very strong default to judging the round based on arguments for and against the resolution, which you will have to persuade me to abandon. The fact that you have better K debate skills than your opponent does not inherently validate your stated justification for running the K.

10. Shadow extensions. If an argument is on my flow and unresponded to, it's yours until rebuttals. I don't need it to be extended in every speech if the other side is ignoring it. I'm also not deeply troubled by new responses in LOR that should have been made in MO, because I don't see the harm to the other team. (But I still encourage you to say it in MO when in doubt.)

11. Random things I will not penalize you for ignoring, but I will appreciate if you do read and consider:
a. You don't mean it when you say "Time starts on my first word." That was 12-17 years ago. And even if you're talking about the present, literally, "Time" was your first word. Unless you had an offtime roadmap.
b. It is wrong for me to vote mid-round, so please don't ask me to do it. In fact, I'd prefer you didn't call for the ballot at all. Just make good arguments for your side.
c. "Empirics" doesn't mean what you think it means. Neither does "Solvency."

LD/PUFO:

No plans or counterplans, please. If you run one, I will probably drop you. I prefer traditional-style LD value debate.

POLICY DEBATE

I don't judge policy debate much, but when I do, none of the above applies. I'll judge it based exclusively on the flow, and try to be as tabula rasa as I can.

2017 Parli Update: lol I did Parli at Cal. Policy, K's, performances, speed, etc it's all good.

-----------------------------

2013:

I debated circuit LD for Mountain View High School, graduating in 2013. I am conflicted with Mountain View and Los Altos High School.

The following is a pretty concise, hastily put-together version of my paradigm, so if you have any questions at all, I encourage you to ask me questions prior to your round.

First and foremost, please debate how you are comfortable debating. A good debate is a good debate, whether it’s theory, larp or on the standards level. I do not aim to impose my debate views on you.

Speed is fine, but I was never the best flower, so PLEASE slow down on tag lines and card names. Reading tags at conversational speed will make me love you. I will yell “clear” or “slow” if needed.

I default to truth-testing, but will evaluate the debate with what ever paradigm is won. I don’t mind a deviation from the value criteria model of evaluating arguments, but I need some sort of link to the ballot (whether it be an a priori, K, theory or something else.)

For theory, I default to competing interpretations. If you run reasonability, please give me a threshold on what is reasonable. I will vote on frivolous theory and understand its strategic value, but if you can win without it, I'd prefer if you did so.

In general, I am open to most kinds of arguments, so long as they have a claim, warrant and impact. I debated the standards a lot in high school, so if you want to run metaethics/epistemology/ontology/etc arguments, I'm probably a good judge for that.

I try to gage speaker points on how much each debater contributed to creating a debate that I actually want to watch. If I'm cringing because you don't understand your case or are making key drops, you probably won't get high speaks. Taking risks and making clever responses will get you high speaker points. Also being nice kind of works too.

About me:

-On the Debate Society of Berkeley

-I have debated and judged the following debate styles: LD, Congress, Parliamentary, Public Forum, and Policy.

How I judge:

-I like debaters who have clear communication, good evidence and examples, and are civil during rounds. I tend to vote on who is doing the best job overall, rather than small technicalities or dropped arguments that don't focus on the main idea of the resolution.

-Tabula Rasa, for the debate itself but not TR on the debate about the debate...T's and K's

What I like to see:

-Clash is central to BOTH sides.

-Link your ads/disads to impacts, then bring everything to the framework arena.

-Give and take POI's

-Last speech should be reserved for key points and voter issues. 

**Important notes for the abstract side (not framework but in the context of T's, K's, CP's, etc). This is where TR withers away...

-Counter-plans: Prefer that neg stick with SQ but hey CP's are fun too. Warning: I will be sympathetic to the aff, if CP isn't fair, Aff should go for a short T shell or perm it and move on.

-Only use theories and kritiks if you absolutely must! Not going to win the round with these alone. 

1. Theory: I don't like generic T shells. Only use them if you feel compelled enough to annoy me, unfairness is a good reason. Though, if you're actually a good debater then you don't need to hide behind a theory shell...
2. Kritiks: These arguments need to be explained in the context of the AFF. If the links are generic and not contextualized, the perm is an easily compelling argument. Debates composed of mostly buzzwords and shallow explanation are painful. When AFF, answer all the K tricks, because if explained well they are very compelling. Specific analysis is more important than cards.

-If you spread, I can only write down so much... Also, I am a sucker for speed K's.

Experience: I debated in high school, doing British Parlimentary and Public Forum Debate. I also do APDA since I joined the debate society of UC Berkeley.

Basics: I would love to vote for the team with a good framing. It will be brilliant if you can structure your speech clearly and strageticlally. Your need to show me the link between your argument and the motion, the relation between your story and your arguments. Please do tell me why your argument matters to the motion and do tell me why your arguments matter more than those of your opponents. If you let me weigh all the arguments on my own, I can't guarantee that your argument will have large impact to me.(Well, to me, swallowing five boxes of shampoon certainly doesn't damage a person as much as a hard CS exam does.) 

Strategy: Do take POIs at the right time and avoid taking too many of them. Please do point out if something your opponents say is False because the default value of your statements will be set to True. (If your opponent says that aliens will overtake this planet tomorrow, please tell me that it's not possible. Otherwise I have to belive it and prepare a spaceship for escaping the planet.) Also, I value teamwork. Cooperate with each other and never contradict your own arguments.

Theory: I really don't like theories! Please don't use theories in your debate. 

Speaking preferrences: I would really appreciate it if you have a clear structure, some easy-to-understand arguments (Avoid lecturing me about Nietzsche's view of life, I find it complicated and depressing.), and a not-so-loud voice with clear utterance. (Am I asking too much?) And really, do respect your opponents, avoid profanity.

Final Remark: Debate is about having fun and I really don't want to end this judging philosophy with all kinds of ways you could lose a debate or the standards you need to achieve. Enjoy yourself, otherwise, what's the point?

*SPEED AND CLARITY

To ensure that your arguments are flowed, please notice when I shout clear or slow. Also, it's been a while since I've debated, so I'm probably not great for spreading.

*KRITIQUES

I'm usually down for Ks. I realise, however, that I tend to be a little biased against most biopower, cap, and sometimes race Ks. If I don't like a K, the problem is usually with the alt. This said, please try to refrain from endorsing a very generic, one-size fits all alt or try to put more ink on explaining it.

*RESPECT

Debators who are rude and impatient to their partners or opponents risk a markdown for speaker points. Yet worse — when you are rude, you invite risks that I may subconsciously pay more attention to arguments you've dropped and underestimate your stronger ones. This could be unfair for you, so please be strategic — not just with arguments, but behaviour too. I suppose that, as is with any form of conversation, being amiable is usually a good idea if you wish others to agree with you.

Background:

My name is Jessica Jung. I won NPDA in 2018-2019 with my partner, Lila Lavender as a hybrid team (the first all transwomen national champion team yay!!) I also did NPDA Parli for four years in college for UC Berkeley where I competed on and off. I was mostly a kritikal debater personally but I dabbled in case and theory every so often. I generally believe that debate is a game and should be treated like one. This means that I am content agnostic (for the most part and with a few exceptions such as instances of violence in the round) and that I see debate from a more technical standpoint. Technical debate was what I learned at Cal and is what I am most familiar with and thus, that tends to affect my judging. That being said, one of my goals in debate when I competed was to turn debate into a spectacle (whether that was good or not has yet to be seen) but as such, I am very open to new arguments, new types of debate and pushing the envelope for what NPDA parli is or could be. That being said, anything that is new takes some getting used to so don't be surprised if I find these cool new novel arguments difficult to evaluate.

A few personal requests:

1. Please read trigger warnings or content warnings before discussing any topics related to sexual violence. Please do so before the round and not at the top of the PMC so that if I or anyone else in the room needs to take a second, or abstain from the debate, there is a moment to exercise some amount of personal privilege.

2. Do not misgender your opponents, intentional or otherwise. I would generally recommend defaulting to "they" if you do not know someone's pronouns and to use "my opponents" in the round as I find using people's first names in the round to be kind of uncomfortable.

3. I would prefer you do not give me a "shout out" or refer to my personal history during your speech or during debates. Not sure exactly how to phrase it but I find it uncomfortable for debaters to refer to me via first name or reference my debate history in the round. Before or after is fine, we can make small talk etc but please just don't be weird about it during the round.

4. Please debate however makes you the most comfortable, I have zero preferences whether you sit or stand, what you wear etc as long as you're respectful of your opponents and your partner.

TL;DR fine with theory, K’s, case, explain your arguments with warrants and explicit implications, will default to tech evaluation on the flow, don’t be bad to your opponents

Evaluative Framework:

- I'm comfortable with case, theory, K's etc. I'm fairly content agnostic in this regard.

- I'm fairly comfortable with speed but if I call clear or slow, please heed these requests, otherwise I will just miss things on the flow because I can't write fast enough.

- I evaluate the debate based on the flow, which generally means I will vote in whatever way minimizes my intervention in the round. I think that some amount of judge intervention is inevitable but I will still aim to make decisions with the least amount of intervention possible.

- I stole this from Trevor Greenan but we got a similar debate education so this should be totally justifiable: I vote in this order:
1. conceded arguments
2. arguments with warrants and substantive analysis
3. arguments with in-round weighing/framing
4. arguments with implicit clash/framing
5. arguments I am more familiar with

- In round articulation of arguments is very important. Even if conceded arguments have certain potential implications for the round, unless those implications are made explicit or within the original reading of the argument, I am unwilling to grant you those implications as that feels interventionist. This generally means you should be more explicit than not. This applies to: concessions, extensions, impacts, weighing etc.

- I generally don't like voting on blippy arguments or underdeveloped arguments especially if these arguments are just claims with no warrants or impacts. I have a high threshold for these types of arguments and am also willing to grant late responses if the original argument or its explanation was unclear or massively underdeveloped.

- I do not grant shadow extensions, or at the very least, treat them as new arguments. This means that arguments not extended by the MG cannot be leveraged in the PMR, arguments not extended by the MO cannot be leveraged in the LOR etc. While grouped/blanket extensions are fine, for example if an entire advantage/DA is dropped or extending a section of the flow like all the impacts, but for the most part if you want anything specific from these extensions you should do them in the MG/MO. This also includes new cross applications from extended arguments onto other sheets/layers of the debate as these cross-apps should have been done by the MG/MO.

- I protect against new arguments but you should call Point of Orders just in case as I am not perfect and can/may miss things.

- I have a high threshold for voting on presumption and presumption is a portion of debate I may not be the most comfortable on. I'm still willing to evaluate the layer, just don't assume that I'm following your presumption collapse 100%.

- I don't mind conditionality. That being said, my preference is towards less wide, more tall/deep debates but whatever floats your boat.

Argument Specifics:

Theory:

- have a stable and clear interp text
- read theory arguments with explicit voters
- if not explicitly articulated, I will default to drop the argument
- I default to competing interpretations
- read brightlines for reasonability
- generally friv T is fine by me but I'll be honest and say I don't find friv theory debates to be all that interesting
- I might have a lower threshold for voting on RVI's than other judges on the circuit but I am still generally unwilling to pull the trigger on them unless they're substantively developed, even if its conceded (see the point about implications/explanations above)
- if standards are not articulated in substantively different ways or are not given different implications (like terminalizing out to fairness or education) then I am unwilling to auto-vote on a conceded standard if the other similar standards have answers to them or if the other team has some amount of mitigation.

Ks:

- sequencing arguments such as prior questions or root cause claims need to be warranted and substantively explained as well as interacted with the other portions of the debate
- clear links please, not links of omission, try and make them specific to the 1ac
- I evaluate links via strength of link. comparative work on the links done by the debaters would make me really happy! be sure to weigh relinks and links against each other
- rejecting the resolution in front of me is fine as long as you defend and justify your choice
- I believe that I can follow along with most K arguments you read in front of me but don't assume I'm intimately familiar with the literature
- do not assume that because I did mostly kritikal debate in college that I am exclusively a K hack, if anything I am likely to expect a lot from K debates and may have higher evaluative thresholds for K's because that's what I am most familiar with. that being said, I love kritiks so feel free to run them in front of me.
- I evaluate permutations as a test of competition and not advocacies unless told otherwise. I also prefer to have explicit perm texts and I'm talking like "permutation: do both" as a fine example of an explicit text. Just saying the plan and the alt are not mutually exclusive does not count as a perm argument.
- I'll evaluate/vote on severance permutations if there is substantive explanation and if there's no argument why severance is bad/unfair.

Case/CPs

- not sure if there's really such a thing as terminal defense but am still willing to buy these arguments
- prefer less generic case arguments than not (who doesn't really) but am still fine with your generic advantages and DAs.
- more specific and warranted the better
- CPs need to stable texts
- I evaluate permutations as a test of competition and not advocacies unless told otherwise. I also prefer to have explicit perm texts and I'm talking like "permutation: do both" as a fine example of an explicit text. Just saying the plan and the CP are not mutually exclusive does not count as a perm argument.
- PICs/cheater CP's are fine with me but so is PICs bad and CP theory

I did two years of circuit LD at Miramonte High School and graduated in 2015. I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2019 after doing four years of NPDA parliamentary debate.

I have no desire to impose my own views upon the debate round. In deciding the round, I will strive to be as objective as possible. Some people have noted that objectivity can be difficult, but this has never seemed like a reason that judges shouldn't strive to be objective. I, overwhelmingly, prefer that you debate in the style that you are most comfortable with and believe that you are best at. I would prefer a good K or util debate to a bad theory or framework debate anyday. That's the short version--here are some specifics if you're interested.

May 28th 2020 NFA-LD Update:

I'm new to NFA-LD LD so feel free to ask me questions. Most of the paradigm below applies, but here's some specific thoughts that could apply to NFA-LD.

1. Cards v. Spin: I tend to err that spin and analysis trump evidence quality in the abstract. Intuitively, a card is only as good as its extension. However, I will listen to framing arguments that indicate judges should prioritize debate's value as a research activity and prefer cards to spin.

GGI 2019 Parli-Specific Update:

While I will generally vote for any strategy, I would like to discuss my thoughts on some common debates. These thoughts constitute views about argument interaction that should not make a difference in most debates.

• K affs versus T: Assuming the best arguments are made, I err affirmative 60-40 in these debates (The best arguments are rarely made.) However, I tend to believe that impact turns constitute a suboptimal route to beating topicality. I differ from some judges because I believe that neg impact framing on T (procedural fairness first, debate as a question of process, not product) tends to beat aff impact framing. However, I err aff on the legitimacy of K affs because I'm skeptical of the neg's link to that framing. Does T uniquely ensure procedural fairness? Thus, to win my ballot, teams reading K affs must take care to respond to the neg's specific impact framing. They cannot merely read parallel arguments.
• Conditionality: I lean strongly that the negative gets 1 conditional advocacy. 2 is up for debate and three is pushing it. Objections to conditionality should be framed around the type of negative advocacies and the amount of aff flex. For example, perhaps 2 conditional advantage counterplans is permissible, but not 2 conditional PICs.

Past Paradigm:

Also:

• Absent weighing on any particular layer, I default to weighing based on strength of link.
• I probably won't cover everything so feel free to ask me questions.
• Taken from Ben Koh because this makes sense: "If I sit and you are the winner (that is, the other 2 judges voted for you), and would like to ask me extensive questions, I will ask that you let the other RFDs be given and then let the opponent leave before asking me more questions. I'm fine answering questions, but just to be fair the other people in the room should be allowed to leave."

Delivery and speaks:

• Fine with speed.
• I'm not the greatest at flowing, so try to be clear about where an argument was made.
• High speaks for good strategic choices and innovative arguments. I will say clear as much as necessary and I won't penalize speaks for clarity.

Frameworks:

• I default to being epistemically conservative, but will accept arguments for epistemic modesty if they are advanced and won.
• I am willing to support any framework given that it is won on the flow.
• I'm willing to vote for permissibility or presumption triggers. However, there must be some implicit or explicit defense of a truth-testing paradigm. The argument must also be clear the first time that it is read. If the argument is advanced for the first time in the 1AR and I think that it is new, I will allow new 2NR responses.
• Many framework debates are difficult to adjudicate because debaters fail to weigh between different metastandards on the framework debate. For example, if util meets actor-specificity better, but Kantianism is derived from a superior metaethic, is the actor-specificity argument or the metaethic more important?

Theory and T:

• I default to no RVI, drop the argument on most theory and drop the debater on T, competing interpretations, and fairness and education not being voters. Most of these defaults rarely matter because debaters make arguments.
• I don't think that competing interps means anything besides a risk of offense model for the adjudication of theory. That means, for example, that debaters need to justify why their opponent must have an explicit counter-interpretation in the first speech.
• I, paradigmatically, won't vote on 2AR theory.
• I'm willing to vote on metatheory. I probably err slightly in favor of the metatheory bad arguments such as infinite regress.
• I'm willing to vote on disclosure theory.
• Fine with frivolous theory.

Utilz:

• I default to believing in durable fiat.
• Debaters should work on pointing out missing internal links in most extinction scenarios.
• I default that perms are tests of competition and not advocacies.
• I probably err aff on issues of counter-plan competition.
• Err towards the view that uniqueness controls the direction of the link. However, I'm willing to accept arguments about why the link is more important.
• I will evaluate 1ar add-ons and 2nr counter-plans against these add-ons. This is irrelevant in most debates.

K's:

• There are many different kinds of kritikal argumentation so feel free to ask questions in round.
• I'm unsure whether I should default to role of the ballot arguments coming before ethical frameworks. I personally believe that ethical arguments engage important assumptions made by many ROB arguments. However, community consensus is that ROB's come first so I will usually stick with that assumption if no argument is made either way.
• I default to fairness impacts coming before theory, but I'm willing to evaluate arguments to the contrary.
• I don't have strong objections to non-topical positions. However, I believe debaters should probably engage in practices like disclosure that improve the theoretical legitimacy of their practices.
• Willing to vote on Kritikal RVI's/impact turns to theory.
• I'm willing to listen to arguments that there shouldn't be perms in method debates. However, I find these arguments not very persuasive.

Note for HS Parli:

Everything above applies. Except for the stuff about prep time. The only parli specific issue is that I will listen to theory arguments that it is permissible to split the block. Feel free to ask me any questions

Experience Debating:

• High School Parli Debate in NorCal (2010-2014)
• NPTE/NPDA (2014-2017)

Experience Judging & Coaching:

• 5 years of judging and coaching high school Parli Debate
• 2 years of judging NPTE/NPDA/NFA-LD

Critical AFF

• I have voted on Critical AFFs before but it's pretty rare
• If you do not clearly link into the case to show you are being topical, it becomes very difficult for me to vote for you

K

• If you just state your role of the ballot and do not give me a reason to prefer, there is high probability I will not use your role of the ballot
• If your ALT is very abstract, please tell me what it means in the real world or how it functions

Perms

· I don’t like to vote for the AFF because on perms. I feel like I am weaseling out of a real decision by voting on the perm when the debate is very competitive

· It comes down to who really owns it. If you are a good NEG and preemptively make your plan is mutually exclusive, you should be fine

· If you’re going to run “perm, do the plan and CP excluding for the mutually exclusive parts”, please tell me what the mutually exclusive parts are

Spreading

• I will not guarantee I will get everything on the flow. Depending on how fast and how well you enunciate I will miss 10%-20% of what you say on my flow

Misc.

• I appreciate strong link stories that are probable. If you give me vague link story with strong magnitude that’s cool but I have an internal bias that values probability over magnitude. Not saying you can't persuade me in round to value magnitude over probability, but if no one says anything my internal bias will be the default setting

I am not familiar with speed. Please notice when I shout "clear" or "slow", or I may cease to take note of your arguments. And keep in mind that I am less likely to vote for theory and kritiques. You might be better off running straight-up policy arguments.

Please add me on your email chains: jjkim96@gmail.com

THINGS TO KNOW WHILE FILLING OUT PREF SHEETS:

My background in debate:
2011-2014: Policy @ Lexington High School (Lexington, MA)
2015-2016: Policy @ UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
2015-2020: Policy/LD/PF Coach @ The Harker School (San Jose, CA)
2020-Present: Not coaching, currently in grad school for Security Studies @ Georgetown University

I had the privilege of being debating under, debating with, and helping coach top-tier talents at top-tier teams that got to see much of the national circuit. I've been out of debate for a bit but I'm still deep in the security and policy literature.

My affinity for arguments, in order:
Disclaimer: the difference between 1 and 5 is far narrower than the difference between 5 and 6.

1) Policy/LARP (DAs, CPs, Impact turns, etc.)
2) IR Ks (Security, Fem IR), Marxist Ks (Cap, Neolib, Materialism, etc.)
3) Identity-based args (Pessimism, SetCol)
4) Postmodern Ks (Baudrillard, Bataille, Psychoanalysis, etc. - Deleuze is a 6)
5) T/Theory (notable exception: T vs Non-topical affs, which is a 2)

---[I'll happily judge and vote for everything above this line - everything below, I have a harder time following along]---

6) Modernist Ks (Nietzsche, Heidegger)
7) Phil
8) Frivolous theory/tricks

Reasons to pref me high:
- Your evidence is high-quality
- You are confident in your ability to extend and expand on your high-quality evidence
- You have multiple strategies for a given round (and you can go for any of them)
- You have one strategy that you know you are incredibly good at AND can explain it to someone who's not as familiar with it

Reasons to pref me low:
- You rely on a number of other factors that have little to do with the quality of your evidence and arguments (spreading out debaters, intimidating/shaming opponents, betting on opponents to drop something) to win the round
- You are significantly more knowledgeable in your literature than I am AND you feel that the judge should do a lot of work for you if the opponent drops some foundational theory about your lit base (do you read source lit for Ks? If so, you may be here)

THINGS TO KNOW FOR THE PEOPLE I AM JUDGING

This section is deliberately short.
If you'd like to know my background knowledge regarding and/or willingness to vote for any argument without tipping your hand to your opponent or have any concerns about the round re: safety/comfort, please send me an email or ask to speak to me privately before the round. I'll happily answer any questions you have to the best of my abilities. Seriously, email me; It’s a zero-risk option for you.

Here are some questions I’ve been asked before:
"My opponent has a history of clipping; how do you go about verifying and punishing it?"
”What were your favorite args to go for in high school/college?”
"Do you vote for RVIs on T?"
"How familiar are you with semiocapitalism?"
"What are your thoughts re: fairness as an independent impact to Framework?"
"My opponent has a history of making me uncomfortable in round. Could you keep that in mind as this debate occurs?

Other thoughts:
- I don't assume the worst of debaters when it comes to slips in language. That said, the bar is a lot lower if you misgender/misprofile people.
- Presumption is a non-starter in front of me. The likelihood of one side having zero risk of offense is low, but the likelihood of both sides having zero risk is impossible. Win your offense.
- Accusations of cheating (e.g. clipping, evidence ethics) are not theory violations. The round ends immediately and I decide on the spot.

PARLI PARADIGM FOR NPDI 2016:

I have judged high school parli before but sparingly. I do not understand how the event is conventionally judged or interpreted. I compete for Berkeley's APDA team and I did Public Forum debate in high school. I am competent at flowing although I cannot flow policy speed or the speed of the fastest circuit LD; if you ask me to do so I will say "clear" if you go too quickly, but without prompting I will remain silent.

I am open to all kinds of arguments; to me, an argument is a claim and a warrant (i.e. a reason why the claim is true). I default to an offense-defense paradigm, so if you want me to evaluate the round in a way other than that tell me to do so and warrant why I should do so. If the round is evaluated under an offense-defense paradigm it is of paramount importance that you weigh your arguments and warrant why they are more significant than your opponents' impacts, otherwise I will be deciding without a good justification for either side. I am unfamiliar with Ks in parli but I am open to them (if you explain them well) and I am predisposed to enjoy arguments that deploy an unconventional strategy.

I am not in favor of violent argumentation. I will not vote for racist, sexist, homophobic, or other oppressive arguments, and I might intervene against teams making them. Examples include "women like it rough," "there are no racist laws since the Civil Rights Act," "illegal immigrants do not deserve constitutional protections" and the like. A surefire way to ensure that I vote against a team making an oppressive argument is to say: "As a judge you have an ethical obligation to vote against arguments like these because they exact violence on people that you are supposed to protect in this space." Usually I'll try to do that work on my own, but a reminder never hurts.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

PUBLIC FORUM PARADIGM:

TLDR: I am a flow judge who will try to give helpful feedback.

How I Make My Decision

I will vote largely based on the final two speeches. I prefer to only vote on arguments whose warrant and impact are in both the summary and the final focus. However, there are two exceptions to this rule. First, both teams may extend defensive responses from the rebuttal to the final focus, however, I greatly prefer them to be in the summary and I am more likely to feel that they are new if they are extended from second rebuttal to second final focus. Second, the first final focus can make some new responses to new arguments made in the second summary but be reasonable about it.

Weigh as much as possible. I flow weighing arguments, and you can and should reference them as cleanly extended weighing analysis if your opponents do not respond to weighing in rebuttal or summary. Try to beyond using weighing buzz words such as magnitude/probability/timeframe and instead really tell me why the resolution is still true or false even if your opponents win all of their arguments.

Argumentation

I try and fail to come into each round as a blank slate, meaning that I try to disregard my biases.

I am in favor of unconventional argumentation. As a debater I frequently made arguments about nuclear war and extinction. I am happy to vote for big (albeit unrealistic) impacts as long as there is a solid link chain. I will vote for any type of argument, including critiques, performances, plans, theory, etc. However, my experience with evaluating these kinds of arguments is limited, so they must be articulated and weighed clearly.

I am probably comfortable with most speeds that will be reached in a Public Forum round, but if you are going too fast I will try to let you know. However, if you go slower I am on balance more likely to vote for you. Jargon is good as it usually helps me understand what kind of argument are making, but please try to sound like a human rather than a jargon machine. If it stops being helpful my expression will let you know.

I am not in favor of violent argumentation. I will not vote for racist, sexist, homophobic, or other oppressive arguments, and I might intervene against teams making them. Examples include "women like it rough," "there are no racist laws since the Civil Rights Act," "illegal immigrants do not deserve constitutional protections" and the like. A surefire way to ensure that I vote against a team making an oppressive argument is to say: "As a judge you have an ethical obligation to vote against arguments like these because they exact violence on people that you are supposed to protect in this space." Usually I'll try to do that work on my own, but a reminder never hurts.

Evidence

Evidence ethics in Public Forum are awful. If your opponents are lying about evidence tell me, and they will lose because of it.

During the round evidence should be exchanged quickly and often. Evidence will be exchanged off of prep time, but the team reading the evidence will need to take prep to do so unless they read it during a speech or crossfire. If a team does not have a piece of evidence available I will disregard it. I will call for evidence after the round in four scenarios.

First, if during the round a debater tells me to look at specific evidence I will ask to see it. If the evidence is misrepresented I will reevaluate the argument that the evidence relates to as though it had never been read, which likely means that I will no longer be comfortable voting on that argument.

Second, if you cite a piece of evidence that I have read and it is blatantly misrepresented I'll want to see it to see who has the correct interpretation. For example, if a debater reports the wrong date for an event for which I know the correct date, provided that the date matters for the argument and the argument is made a voting issue, I'll need to see the source. In this case, do not be tempted to falsify the date on the evidence, I will google it to make sure that what you gives me matches the actual evidence.

Third, I'll call for a piece of evidence if it's obviously false. For instance, I might want to read evidence that states that during the round global nuclear war broke out and everyone outside of the room is dead.

Fourth, if there is a "tie" I will ask for evidence from both teams. (This occurs when neither team weighs any of their arguments, extends clean offense, or has an obviously bigger impact.) If either team has misrepresented evidence pertaining to their key arguments I will vote against them. If each team has a similar quality of evidence I will intervene in the best way I can.

Although this is thorough it does not mean that I often call for evidence; on the contrary, I set strict guidelines so that I do not call for evidence when it is unreasonable to do so, reducing the probability that I intervene. 

Speaker Points

I will reward debaters for clarity, kindness, humor, tech skill, strategy, teamwork, persuasion, topic knowledge, and genius. Here is my scale: 30 - You were amazing, I will remember your performance long after the round, you should teach other students how to do debate right. 29 - You were great, I was impressed by your performance, but not overwhelmed. 28 - You were good, but there is room for improvement. 27- There is a lot of room for improvement. 26 - You were not so good. 25 and below - You said something offensive.  

My Background

I competed in Public Forum for Evanston Township High School, mainly on the national circuit, and I graduated in 2015.

If you have any additional questions feel free to ask. If you have an issue with my decision also please feel free to communicate with me about that after the round.

Debate Background:

Currently debating at the open level in NPDA parli for Diablo Valley College.

Philosophy:

I'm a tabula rasa/flow judge. Honestly I think debate should be a space where teams run arguments they like. The judges who frustrate me the most as a competitor are the ones who let their views on how debate should be decide winners and losers. This is your round and I want you to enjoy it. Don't worry too much about my personal preferences (stock issues and T) when it comes to making your arguments, I'll vote where you tell me to.

I'm comfortable with almost any argument or theory. Just please use structure so I can actually follow what you're saying. Clash is pretty cool. The only argument I'm not 100% with is the Aff K, so if you choose to run that please follow a shell. 

If you have any specific questions to ask please feel free to do so.

I’m a student at UC Berkeley. I debated LD for Saratoga for four years both on the local and national circuits. 

Edit (1/17/16): 
If your opponent is going slow, please do not spread. Debate needs to be an inclusive and safe space.

Debate is your space to make arguments that you are passionate about, I will vote for literally anything you have prepared for the tournament. Being completely tabula rasa is impossible, so here are a few things you might want to know about my background in debate. 

Speed: I was never the best at flowing and I have been out of the activity for a while which means I have not heard someone talk really fast in a while. That being said, feel free to go fast- I will call clear or slow if necessary. Best solution is probably to start slow and gradually speed up. 

Theory/T: I default to competing interpretations and drop the debater. I also default that you need an RVI to win off theory (I’m not sure if offensively worded counterinterps are still a thing). I’m fine with paragraph theory in AC as long as I can actually understand what it means before the 1AR. If I didn’t flow a small spike from the AC I will reevaluate it as a new 1AR shell. 

Kritiks: If you are a k debater by all means go ahead and read your k. I am not too familiar with the literature, so some sort of summary after each card/somewhere to help me understand the premise of the arguments would help a lot. In terms of debate in general, all arguments should link to some sort of decisions calculus which tells me how to vote. 

Speaks: Speaks are based on your strategic choices and how nice/respectful you were in round.

TLDR: Speed fine, condo bad, Ks good, topical please, theory good, put me on the email chain: domlesaca@gmail.com

I competed in Parli/LD at the University of the Pacific. I am a first year out so most of my thoughts are still directly impacted by my own time in debate and my views will probably change the more I judge. I know nothing about courts so if it is a SCOTUS topic please break it into little bits that my baby brain will understand. I am annoyed by the amount of back-filling in most MOs and because of that am more willing to accept PMR arguments against MO blowups of blippy LOC tags. The most important thing to know is that I am lazy by nature so whoever gives me simplest route to the ballot will probably win.

Delivery:

I should be able to handle speed just fine so long as you remain clear, and if I have trouble following then I will call "speed" or "clear". Just make sure everyone has access to the round and you will be fine. For online tournaments please just bring down the speed a notch or two, spreading over zoom calls tends to sound like static over the line and that is just annoying.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

Be sure your tags are clear and number your arguments as much as possible as it makes it much easier to flow. That applies to all of the stuff below. DA debate is probably my favorite kind of debate to watch, especially when the scenarios are very specific to the topic and the aff. Offense is great but 100% loses to better warranted defense. I dont have a default preference for certain impacts over another but high magnitude impacts do make the the decision take less thought when teams dont do their own impact comparison.

Theory:

I always enjoyed debating theory. My threshold on T is fairly low, this means I don't need proven abuse but if you do give me proven abuse you basically have my ballot. Spec is mostly just used to waste people's time but if you have reasons why specification is key for ground on the resolution or specific plan then I am on board. Reasonability can mean a lot of things, you should tell me what it means to you so I know how to evaluate it. Any theory about reading the plan in the first X minutes will make me upset, that is a bad argument and you should feel bad for running it. In my mind the team answering theory needs some kind of counter interp, if you just read offense against T or framework without one I will just default to "the only game in town" rule.

Counter Plans:

Parli - Conditional advocacies are bad.

Other events - I am sympathetic to condo bad but have a higher threshold on the condo bad shell but you should justify why it is good/bad in the specific debate format you are in. I will vote for cheater CPs (states, consult, delay), but I am also very willing to vote on theory against them. The neg will be more likely to win these theory arguments if you show me how the CP is an important issue in the topic lit. For delay, the neg will have to win solid probability on their DA to convince me their is a net benefit to the CP. I generally think of perms as a test of competition if you want to make it an advocacy, you need to debate it out in round. In general I believe introducing a negative advocacy also flips presumption to the affirmative.

K's:

Ks are great, I just may need more explanation of what the alt actually does and will be annoyed if the neg refuses to explain the K until the MO. I dont think that Ks need frameworks to be competitive but probably still need to solve or outweigh the aff then. The Alt should provide some mechanism to solve what you are critiquing, if it is just reject I am going to need some specific framing or historical example where rejecting has been successful in fighting what you are critiquing. My wheelhouse has generally been neolib, Agamben, death denialism (not death drive), ableism, and security. Don't be afraid to go outside of those examples but be sure to explain it well for me.

K affs:

Aff Ks are fine but I still prefer you to be topical and actually affirm the resolution. If you negate or just ignore the resolution on the aff then we are gonna have some problems. You don't necessarily have to defend fiat but be sure to defend why your framework provides for equitable debate (I.E. you probably shouldn't force the neg to defend racism as their only ground). Performance Ks can be a bit confusing if not explained well so be sure to tell me how your performance solves and give me framework so I know how to evaluate it.

Evidence:

I think disclosure in evidence based debate is generally good. Please dont be stingy on sharing evidence with your opponents. I follow along with evidence read in round but I will only read it in depth if I am told to or need to resolve an issue. I dont totally disregard good analytics but evidence is generally preferred if possible.

Speaker Points:

I generally start at 29 and then rank down at a difference of about .5 points. If someone does something really interesting or funny I'll put them at a 30. I may alter the scale if you spread out a novice team.

1. The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, and long COVID destroys lives. I will be wearing a mask, and I beg you to do the same if you are in a room where I am judging—both to protect all of us from the continuing pandemic, and because I am particularly at risk due to my own health conditions. I will try to have high-quality masks available to share; if you don't have a mask, I will assume that you were unable to access one, and will not ask further questions beyond a quick request. However, I will have trouble believing critical debate arguments that come from people who are not masked, because it seems to represent a lack of interest in pursuing true community care and justice. I don't know how that fits into a meaningful line-by-line evaluation, but I know that I will be unable to stop myself from being distracted from the round. If that causes issues for you, of course, don't pref me highly!
2. You should be aware that I am still recovering from a series of concussions that mean my ability to follow rapid arguments may be limited. I will tell you if I need you to slow or speak more clearly. Fine with all types of argumentation still, it's just a speed issue. That means I may also need extra time moving between arguments/papers.
3. For a dictionary of terms used in my paradigm (or otherwise common in parli), click here. I recently edited this paradigm to better reflect my current thoughts on debate (mainly the essay on pedagogy, but some other minor alterations throughout), so you may want to look through if you haven't in a while.
4. Take care, all. Tough times.

TL;DR: Call the Point of Order, use weighing and framing throughout, make logical, warranted arguments and don't exclude people from the round. It's your round, so do with it what you will. I won't shake your hands, but sending you lots of good luck and vibes for good rounds through the ether!

Background and Trivia

I did high school parli, then NPDA, APDA, BP, and NFA-LD in college; I've coached parli at Mountain View-Los Altos since 2016. My opinions on debate have perhaps been most shaped by partners—James Gooler-Rogers, Steven Herman, various Stanford folks—as well as my former students and/or fellow coaches at MVLA—particularly William Zeng, Shirley Cheng, Riley Shahar, Alden O'Rafferty, and Luke DiMartino. More recent people who *may* evaluate similarly to me include Henry Shi, Keira Chatwin, Rhea Jain,Renée Diop, and Maya Yung.

I've squirreled (was the 1 of a 2-1 decision) twice—once was in 2016 with two parent judges who either voted on style or didn't explain their decisions (it's been a while! I can't quite remember); the other was at NorCal Champs 2021, I believe because I tend to be fairly strict about granting credence to claims only if they are sufficiently warranted logically, and my brightline for evaluation differed from the brightlines of the other judges for determining that. There was one more time at a recent tournament, but I have forgotten it, sorry!

Most Important

• An argument is a claim, a warrant, and an implication; blips without meaning won't win you the round. Please, if you do nothing else, justify your arguments: every claim should have a warrant, and every claim should have an impact. The questions I've ended up asking myself (and the debaters) in nearly every round I've judged over the past ~7 years are: Why do I care about that? What is the implication of that? How do these arguments interact? Save us all some heartache and answer those questions yourself during prep time and before your rebuttal speeches.

• In other words—If there is no justification for a claim, the claim does not exist, or at best is downgraded to barely there. I think the most clear distinction between my way of evaluating arguments/avoiding intervention and some other judges' style of doing so is that I default to assuming nothing is true, and require justification to believe anything, whereas some judges default to assuming that every claim is true unless it is disproven.

• Debate should be respectful, educational, and kind. This means I am not the judge you want for spreading a kritik or theory against someone unfamiliar with that. Be good to each other.

• Fine with kritiks, theory, and any counterplans, and fine to arguments against them as well. I don't think arguments automatically must be prioritized over other arguments (via layers), i.e. you need to explain and warrant why theory should be evaluated prior to a kritik for it to do so. If I have to make these decisions myself, in the absence of arguments, you may not like what I come up with! Generally, I think that I probably have to understand something like an epistemological claim (pre-fiat arguments) before I can evaluate a policy debate, but that might not always be the case depending on specific arguments made in round.

• I don't care if you say the specific jargon words mentioned here: just make logical arguments and I'll translate them. If you say theory should be evaluated before case because we need to determine the rules first, but forget/don't know the words "a priori", congrats, the flow will say "a priori".

• Speaking during your partner's speech is fine, so long as the current speaker repeats anything said—I will only flow the current speaker. If you frequently interrupt your partner without being asked (puppeting), I will dock your speaks enough to make a difference for seeding.

• Content warnings are good (link).

• Call the Point of Order.

Pedagogy, or, why are we here? (UPDATED: 3/20/2024)

Debate can be a game, and a fun one at that, but it is not just a game to me—debate is a locus of interrogation, and a place where dominant ideologies can be held up and challenged. At its best, debate is a place where we can learn to speak, advocate, and grow as critical thinkers, participants in political processes, or members of movements organizing towards justice. Some debaters become policymakers, but every debater becomes a member of a society full of structural violence with the capacity to contribute to, or work against, the structures that enable harm.

With that in mind, a few notes (or, sorry, an essay) to consider the pedagogical nature of this space. Within the round, I will not tolerate —phobias, —isms, or misgendering/deadnaming in any debate space that I am a part of. If these things happen, I will dramatically reduce your speaks, and we will talk about it after round, or I will reach out to a coach. I will never vote on arguments that are implicitly harmful (e.g. eugenicist, racist, transphobic) and there is no amount of warranting that can convince me to do so. I am aware that some judges on this circuit intervene against technical arguments like criticism (kritiks) or theory because they believe that technical teams exclude non-technical teams from competition. I believe that technical arguments are a form of inclusion that allow people who have historically been marginalized in debate settings and beyond to engage in rounds in ways that non-technical debate prevents. This means that while I am happy to hear a "lay" round of policy discussion or a values- or principles-based debate, I will always deeply value technical debate education and critical arguments.

However, I know that technical debate can be intimidating: one of the only remaining videos of my debating is NPDI finals, 2014 (ten years ago, can you believe it?)—in which I argued shakily against a kritik at the fastest speed I could and almost fainted after. I learned what kritiks were just two days before that round. For the rest of my high school debate career, I learned about kritiks to beat them, because technical arguments intimidated me. Then, I went to a community college to compete in NPDA, and learned that kritiks are not something to be feared, but just another argument to engage with—one which can provide us with even greater education about the world that we live in and the ways that it harms people, than repeating the same tired arguments about minor reforms that can attempt to solve some minute portion of structural problems.

As someone who works in policy now, I think that the skills we learn from policy rounds are invaluable, but flawed. Uniqueness-link-impact structures are the way that policy analysis works in real life, too, as they correlate to harms, solvency, and implications. Analysis more common in APDA and BP, like incentives or actor analysis, is also pedagogically useful for policy. However, these structures are outdated: working in policy now, I know that one of the most important things we can learn to do is incorporate analysis of racial and other forms of equity into every step of our policy analysis, because the absence of this affirmative effort results in the same inequity and injustice that is embedded in every stage of our political and social systems.

I do not care if that analysis takes the form of structured criticism (kritik), framing arguments, or more unstructured principled argumentation, but I hope that anyone who happens to read this considers ways to incorporate analysis of racial, class, gender, ability, and other inequities into their rounds.

Finally—as a coach who views this activity as a pedagogical one, the most important thing to me is that debaters enter rounds willing to engage with arguments, and exit them having learned something about another perspective on an issue. I am still here to judge and coach, after all these years, because I enjoy being a part of the process of helping people learn how to effectively use their voices in meaningful ways by understanding what is persuasive and what is not.

So, please—be open-minded. If you fear kritiks because they confuse you, let that turn you to curiosity instead of hate. Recognize that kritiks are often a tool by which those of us who are marginalized by this community can, for a few moments, reclaim space, find belonging, and learn about ourselves and others. Ask yourself deeply why it is that you are unwilling to question the structures that govern debate and the world. Do you benefit from them? Do we all? Can't we all learn to think about them too?

Simultaneously, debate's educational value relies on inclusivity—if you run kritiks alongside theory and tricks at top speed on teams that are not comfortable with these things, what are you running the kritik for? How is that an effective form of education? Why do that, when you could simply run a kritik at an understandable speed? In other words—if you read kritiks exclusively to win, and intend to do so by confusing your opponents, I will be a very sad judge at the end of the round (and sad judges are more likely to see more paths to voting against you, of course).

As a whole, then, I am a strange hybrid product of my peculiar debate education. I believe that the best form of parli is somewhere between APDA Motions and national circuit NPDA. This means the rounds I value most are conversational-fast, full of logic without blipped/unsupported claims, use theory arguments when needed to check abuse, do clear weighing and comparative analysis through the traditional policymaker's tools of probability, timeframe, and magnitude, and use relevant critical/kritikal analysis with or without the structure of traditional criticism.

Case

• Rebuttals should primarily consist of weighing between arguments. This does not mean methodically evaluating each argument through probability, timeframe, AND magnitude, but telling a comprehensive story as to how your arguments win the round.

• Adaptation to the round, the judge, and the specific arguments at hand is key to good debate. Don't run cases when they don't apply.

• (UPDATED 11/4/21) I tend to be cautious about the probability of scenarios. This means that I prefer to not intervene or insert my own assumptions about how your link chains connect—if they are not clear, or if they do not connect clearly, I may end up disregarding your arguments. I tend to have a higher threshold on this than most judges on this circuit, courtesy of my APDA/BP roots, so please do not leave gaps!

• Default weighing is silly on principle: I'm not likely to vote for a high-magnitude scenario that has zero chance of happening unless you have specific framing arguments on why I should do so, but if you make the arguments, I'll vote on them. Risk calculus is probability x magnitude mediated by timeframe, so just do good analysis.

• Presumption flows the direction of least change. This means that I presume neg if there is no CP, and aff if there is. I am certainly open to arguments about how presumption should go — it's your round — but I will only presume if I really, truly have to (and if the presumption claims are actually warranted). If you don't have warrants or don't sufficiently compare impacts, I'll spend 5 minutes looking for the winner and, failing that, vote on presumption.

• Fine with perms that add new things (intrinsic) or remove parts of your case (severance) if you can defend them. If you can't, you'll lose– that's how debate works.

• I love deep case debates. In NPDA I enjoyed reading single position cases, whether a kritik read alone or a disadvantage or advantage. These debates are some of the most educational, and will often result in high speaks. I am also a bif fan of critical framing on ads/disads.

• Your cases should tell a story— isolated uniqueness points do not a disadvantage make. Understand the thesis and narrative of any argument you read.

Theory (UPDATED 11/4/21)

• I default to competing interpretations—In theory rounds, I prefer to evaluate the argument by determining which side has the best interpretation of what debate should be, based on the offense and defense within the standards debate.

• I am open to the argument that I should be reasonable instead, but I believe that reasonability requires a clear brightline (e.g. must win every standard); otherwise, I will interpret reasonability to mean "what Sierra thinks is reasonable" and intervene wholeheartedly.

• I view we meets as something like terminal defense against an interpretation—I think that if I am evaluating based on proven abuse, and the interpretation is met by the opposing team, there is no harm done/no fairness and education lost and thus theory goes away. However, if I am evaluating based on potential abuse, I think that the we meet might not matter? (As you can see, I'm currently conflicted on how to evaluate this—if you want to make arguments that even if the interp is met theory is still a question of which team has the better interpretation for debate as a whole (e.g. based solely on potential abuse), I'm open to that too!

• Weighing and internal link analysis are the most important part of theory debates—I do not want to intervene to decide which standards I believe are more important than which counterstandards, etc. Please don't make me!

• Your interpretation should be concise and well-phrased—and well-adapted to the round at hand. In other words, as someone who wrote a university thesis on literary analysis, interp flaws are a big deal to me.

• No need for articulated abuse—if your opponents skew you out of your prep time, do what you can to make up new arguments in round, and go hard for theory. Being able to throw out an entire case and figure out a new strategy in the 1NC? Brilliant. High speaks.

• (UPDATED 5/6/22) Frivolous theory is technically fine, because it's your round, but I won't be thrilled, you know? It gets boring. However—I am very open to theory arguments based on pointing out flaws in a plan text. Plan flaws, like interp flaws, are a big deal to me.

• The trend of constant uplayering seems tedious to me. I would much rather watch a standards debate between two interesting interpretations than a more meta shell without engagement. Your round, but just saying.

Kritiks + Tech

General:

• Kritiks are great when well-run. To keep them that way, please run arguments you personally understand or are seriously trying to understand, rather than shells that you borrowed frantically from elder teammates because you saw your judge is down for them.

• Originality: I most highly value/will give the highest speaks for original criticism—in other words, kritiks that combine theories in a reasonable way or produce new types of knowledge, particularly in ways that are not often represented in parli.

• Rejecting the res (UPDATED 10/9/2021): I tend to think the resolution is the "epicenter of predictability" or whatever the argument is these days. Generally safer to affirm the resolution in a kritikal manner than to reject the resolution outright, unless the resolution itself is flawed, or you have solid indicts of framework prepared. However, if you're ready for it, go for it. Good K vs K debates are my favorite type of debate entirely.

• Exclusion: Don't exclude. Take the damn POIs. Don't be offensive.

• On identity (UPDATED 10/15/2020): All criticism is tied in some way to identity, whether because we make arguments based on the understanding of the world that our subject position allows us, or because our arguments explicitly reference our experiences. I used to ask debaters to not make arguments based on their identities: this is a position that I now believe is impossible. What we should not do, though, is make assumptions about other people's identities—do not assume that someone responding to a K does not have their own ties to that criticism, and do not assume that someone running a K roots it, nor does not root it, in their identity. We are each of us the product of both visible and invisible experiences—please don't impose your assumptions on others. I will not police your choices; just be mindful of the fraught nature of the debate space.

Literature familiarity: In the interest of providing more info for people who don't know me:

• Relatively high familiarity (have studied relatively intensively; familiar with a range of authors, articles, and books): queer theory, disability theory, Marxism and a variety of its derivatives, critical legal theory (e.g. "human rights"), decolonization and "post" colonial studies

• Medium familiarity (have read at least a few foundational books/articles): Afrofuturism, securitization, settler-colonialism, Deleuze & Guattari, orientalism, biopower, security, anti-neoliberalism, transfeminism, basics of psychoanalysis from Freud

• I will be sad and/or disappointed if you read this: most postmodern things that are hard to understand, Lacan, Nietzsche, Baudrillard, any theory rooted in racism, anything that is trans exclusionary.

• I'm still not sure what I think of including a list of authors I'm familiar with, but I think on balance that it is preferable to make this explicit rather than having it in my head and having some teams on the circuit be aware of my interests when other teams are unaware. Don't ever assume someone knows your specific theory or author. Familiarity does not mean I'll vote for it.

Tricksy things

• Conditionality: debates that have collapsed out of arguments you aren't going to win are good debates. If it hurts your ability to participate in the round, run theory.

• Speed: Don’t spread your opponents out of the round. Period. If your opponents ask you to clear or slow, please do so or risk substantial speaker point losses. I've actually found I have difficulty following fast rounds online; I think I'm reasonably comfortable at top high school speeds but maybe not top college speeds. Often the problem is coherency/clarity and people not slowing between arguments—if you aren't coherent and organized, that's your problem.

• On philosophical tricks: I'll be honest: I don't understand many of the philosophical arguments/tricks that are likely to be at this tournament (dammit Jim, I was an English major not a philosophy major!) I will reiterate with this in mind, then, that I will not vote for your blips without warrants, and will not vote for arguments I don't understand. Convince me at the level of your novices.

Points of Order

• I will protect against new information to the best of my ability, but you should call the Point of Order if it's on the edge. If I'm on the edge as to whether something is new, I'll wait for the Point of Order to avoid intervening. After ~2 POOs, I'll just be extremely cautious for the rest of the speech.

Speaker Points (Updated 11/3/18)

25-26: Offensive, disrespecting partner/other debaters, etc.
26-27: Just not quite a sufficient speech— missing a lot of the necessary components.
27-28: Some missing fundamentals (eg poorly chosen/structured arguments, unclear logic chains).
28-28.5: Average— not very strategic, but has the basics down. Around top half of the field.
28.5-29: Decent warranting, sufficient impact calculus, perhaps lacking strategy. Deserve to break.
29-29.5: Clearly warranted arguments, weighable impacts, good strategy, deserve to break to late elims.
29.5-29.8: Very good strategic choices + logical analysis, wrote my ballot for me, deserve a speaker award.
29.9-30: Basically flawless. You deserve to win the tournament, top speaker, TOC, etc (have never given; have known every TOC top speaker for years; can't think of a round where I would ever give this to any of them)

I don't care if you talk pretty, stutter, or have long terrified pauses in your speech: I vote on the arguments.

This paradigm is long. I prefer to err on the side of over-explaining, because short paradigms privilege those who have previous exposure to a given judge, or a given format. I encourage other judges, NPDA and APDA and BP alike, to do the same.

http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Maganahalli%2C+Ayush

Updated January 2024

Debate is the best game ever invented and we are all lucky to play it.

My name is Mat Marr and I am the Director of Forensics for Able2Shine and manager of the BASIS Fremont team.

Background: I debated policy in high school for three years including nationals. I qualified for nationals all four years in Foreign Extemp. I switched to LD my senior year and qualified for Tournament of Champions after a strong season on the national circuit. In college my partner and I broke at Parli nationals as freshmen. (Summary, I was decent at debate 20 years ago, but not the best, and I have some experience with all the styles but from judging and coaching in recent years and I am enjoying how debate is evolving.)

I try to be a pure flow judge. I don't flow CX.

Make sure you tell me where to record your arguments and use numbering, so I can track them. Be clear and direct in your refutations to your opponents arguments.

I have no strong biases for or against certain arguments (as a judge). That also means I do not assume impacts, such as topicality being a voter, unless argued in round. Tell me why your arguments are superior in reasoning and/or evidence.

I am fine with speed within reason but think its tactical value is limited.

Most importantly remember what a privilege it is to be able to spend our time debating and treat each other with respect. Thus, please be polite, inclusive and friendly and make the most of the opportunity to debate the important issues in a safe and supportive environment.

Good skill and have fun.

Specific event notes:

Parli- Please take a few questions in each constructive speech.

ToC Parli- I will not protect against new arguments in rebuttal if you choose not to use your point of order. I will vote for any well-argued position but generally enjoy topic specific policy debates.

Public Forum- Feel free to answer rebuttal as the second speech.

I am happy to discuss flows after rounds, find me and we can talk.

For email chains feel free to use my email : AshlandDebateTeam@gmail.com

Background:

I have completed in original oratory and was a member of the National Forensics League throughout all four years of high school. I have judged in at least seven tournaments spanning across Novice, Junior Varsity, and Varsity divisons. 

Judging Preferences:
As a former debater and speaker myself, I do recall and understand the rules and theories behind Parliamentary Debate. I am well versed in current events and am a flow judge. Clear speaking, taglined contentions, and weighed impacts will always benefit you in a round. 

UPDATE CAL 2024

I haven't judged a debate in over three years. I don't really think I have any coherent thoughts on substance of debates anymore but I do think I am more ardent in the belief that it should be about whatever you want it to be as long as you're able to explain it to me.

UC Berkeley 2018

East Kentwood Highschool 2016

Put me on the chain:

michaelobuchi@gmail.com

I like:

warrants, line by line, effort and humor

I don't like:

rudeness

I will hold the line on:

speech times, evidence quality and clipping

Went to Fairmont Prep, did circuit PF for 4 years

*****DO NOT ASK FOR TIME BEFORE ROUND TO PRE-FLOW!*****

Public Forum Paradigm

1. Tech over Truth

I will buy any argument. If you have the cards for it I will evaluate it, and even if I do not believe it I will vote on it if you win it. 

2. Intervention

My goal is to never intervene in the round. This includes on evidence. If your opponent's evidence is false or misconstrued, and you do not tell me I will count the evidence in the round- even if I call for the evidence and can clearly see it is misconstrued.

3. Summary extension

If you want me to evaluate anything in the final focus you must extend it in the summary. 

4. Framing

Absent any other framing arguments, I will default to util. Additionally, I am open to non-traditional framing arguments, not a fan of them, but you can read them. You will, however, have to have substantial warranting on why I should use your non-util framing.

5. Narrow the final focus

It would be in your best interest to narrow the 2nd half of the round down to one key contention-level impact story and 1-2 key turns on your opponents’ case, and then spend most of your time doing impact comparisons on those issues.  If you just extend everything, you leave it up to me to evaluate the relative important of each of your arguments.  That is not good for you because I like crazy stuff.

6. Theory

I will vote on theory arguments if they are done well meaning you must have an actual impact of the abuse. Simply is saying this harms education/fairness is not sufficient, you must explain how it harms education/fairness and why education/fairness matters. I default to competing-interpretations (I am willing to use reasonability if you explain why), and I default to condo good (unless you prove otherwise). You also need to explain why theory comes first.

7. Arguments in Crossfire

If you want me to evaluate an argument or card, it needs to be in a speech.  Just mentioning it in CF is not sufficient. However, you can refer to what was said in CF in the next speech. 

8. Evidence availability

If you read any evidence, have the card available to hand over. Constructives should have their cards ready to hand over, in order, (probably even in the same document) because you know someone is going to ask for them. And having a bunch of PDF’s that you have to Command-F is not having your cards available. That is just lazy debating, and I will doc speaks if you just have PDFs and do not card your evidence. I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE that teams provide evidence when requested on one laptop on one document, in any other format you are wasting their prep. If you provide all the cards from your speech to your opponent right after or before your speech without being asked I will boost your speaks by 1.5 points.

9. Evidence citations

You should probably read the citations according to whatever the NSDA says, but I’m not likely to vote on any irregularities. If you get up and make an argument along the lines of "my opponent doesn't have date of access in their cards, you should drop them." I will drop something, not the team, more likely your speaks. 

10. Indicts are not argument

I hate indict debates that overpower actually debating real argument. Indicting a card is just making the argument less believable, not actually beating it. Their indicted evidence outweighs your non-existence evidence or logic. 

11. Observers

If someone wants to watch they can watch, and they can flow. You are probably thinking "Nick, that is so unfair they are going to give away my flow to other teams." News flash. The team you are debating has your flow, and they are going to give it away. Furthermore, if your case is so weak that someone having your flow will decimate your chances of winning, you probably were going to lose anyways. Just remember this is Public Forum- you can not deny the public from the forum.

If you have any further question feel free to ask. 

If you are reading this, that means I'm judging you. The important thing to know is that you can do whatever you want as long as its cool and you are having fun. Also, I'll probably get lost in your kritik if you don't make it simple enough. That doesn't mean I won't vote for it, just that I want to be able to understand it before I vote on it. Also this is the first tournament I've judged in a year and a half


With topicality, I prefer proven abuse over potential, but that doesn't mean I won't vote on T if its far enough out there, but don't try and run "T:The" cause you aren't going to win that, and I am going to be frustrated. My threshold for T normally lies with the education voter.

With kritiks, I'm probably not the most well read judge, but I've read enough to understand the basic kritiks if you feel like that is the ground you have been given in the round (cap, imperialism, etc. Just please don't run deluze) I do my best to understand what you are telling me in round, but please break it down for me. I'm not going to be the most well read judge, so don't expect me to understand what you mean when you say the trees are fascist

Disads, go for it. Give me the weirdest most plausible story you can think of. I'm willing to vote on either probability or magnitude with probably a minor bias towards probability, however if you are both going for the same thing, time frame and reversibility are good tie breakers.

Counter plans: Condo isn't to bad, but don't run 3 counterplans with no expansion in the first neg speech and expect to win the condo debate

Memes? I fucking love memes and I fully appreciate the strategy of using memes in round

Quals: Debated for 3 years, coaching/judging for 2 years. And a year and a half of working in sales

Parli Philosophy:

I debated for the University of the Pacific. NPTE attendance: 4. #2 in the nation two years in a row.

I've been out of debate for almost 3 years now so I'm not as great as flowing as I used to be. Be clear.

I love theory but apparently people are forgetting to put voters on them so don't make that mistake please and thank you.

I need impact calc in the rebuttals: Why should I prioritize your arguments? Probability, magnitude, timeframe
Humor is great, be funny. Jokes are good. Just not offensive ones, that's not okay at all.

Do what you want have fun I'm here to type the things you say.

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA PF PARADIGM

I have judged all kinds of debate for decades, beginning with a long career as a circuit policy and LD coach. Speed is fine. I judge on the flow. Dropped arguments carry full weight. At various times I have voted (admittedly, in policy) for smoking tobacco good, Ayn Rand Is Our Savior, Scientology Good, dancing and drumming trumps topicality, and Reagan-leads-to-Communism-and-Communism-is-good. (I disliked all of these positions.)

If an argument is in final focus, it should be in summary; if it's in summary, it should be in rebuttal,. I am very stingy regarding new responses in final focus. Saying something for the first time in grand cross does not legitimize its presence in final focus.

NSDA standards demand dates out loud on all evidence. That is a good standard; you must do that. I am giving up on getting people to indicate qualifications out loud, but I am very concerned about evidence standards in PF (improving, but still not good). I will bristle and register distress if I hear "according to Princeton" as a citation. Know who your authors are; know what their articles say; know their warrants.

Please please terminalize impacts. Do this especially when you are talking about a nebulosity called "The Economy." Economic growth is not intrinsically good; it depends on where the growth goes and who is helped. Sometimes economic growth is very bad. "Increases tensions" is not a terminal impact; what happens after the tensions increase? When I consider which makes the world a better place, I will be looking for prevention of unnecessary death and/or disease, who lifts people out of poverty, who lessens the risk of war, who prevents gross human rights violations. I'm also receptive to well-developed framework arguments that may direct me to some different decision calculus.

Teams don't get to decide that they want to skip grand cross (or any other part of the round).

I am happy to vote on well warranted theory arguments (or well warranted responses). Redundant, blippy theory goo is irritating. I have a fairly high threshold for deciding that an argument is abusive. I am receptive to Kritikal arguments in PF. I will default to NSDA rules re: no plans/counterplans, absent a very compelling reason why I should break those rules.

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA PARLI PARADIGM

I have judged all kinds of debate for decades, beginning with a long career as a circuit policy and LD coach. I have judged parli less than other formats, but my parli judging includes several NPDA tournaments, including two NPDA national tournaments, and most recent NPDI tournaments. Speed is fine, as are all sorts of theoretical, Kritikal, and playfully counterintuitive arguments. I judge on the flow. Dropped arguments carry full weight. I do not default to competing interpretations, though if you win that standard I will go there. Redundant, blippy theory goo is irritating. I have a fairly high threshold for deciding that an argument is abusive. Once upon a time people though I was a topicality hack, and I am still more willing to pull the trigger on that argument than on other theoretical considerations. The texts of advocacies are binding; slow down for these, as necessary.

I will obey tournament/league rules, where applicable. That said, I very much dislike rules that discourage or prohibit reference to evidence.

I was trained in formats where the judge can be counted on to ignore new arguments in late speeches, so I am sometimes annoyed by POOs, especially when they resemble psychological warfare.

Please please terminalize impacts. Do this especially when you are talking about The Economy. "Helps The Economy" is not an impact. Economic growth is not intrinsically good; it depends on where the growth goes and who is helped. Sometimes economic growth is very bad. "Increases tensions" is not a terminal impact; what happens after the tensions increase?

When I operate inside a world of fiat, I consider which team makes the world a better place. I will be looking for prevention of unnecessary death and/or disease, who lifts people out of poverty, who lessens the risk of war, who prevents gross human rights violations. "Fiat is an illusion" is not exactly breaking news; you definitely don't have to debate in that world. I'm receptive to "the role of the ballot is intellectual endorsement of xxx" and other pre/not-fiat world considerations.

LES PHILLIPS NUEVA LD PARADIGM

For years I coached and judged fast circuit LD, but I have not judged LD since 2013, and I have not coached on the current topic at all. Top speed, even if you're clear, may challenge me; lack of clarity will be very unfortunate. I try to be a blank slate (like all judges, I will fail to meet this goal entirely). I like the K, though I get frustrated when I don't know what the alternative is (REJECT is an OK alternative, if that's what you want to do). I have a very high bar for rejecting a debater rather than an argument, and I do not default to competing interpretations; I would like to hear a clear abuse story. I am generally permissive in re counterplan competitiveness and perm legitimacy. RVIs are OK if the abuse is clear, but if you would do just as well to simply tell me why the opponent's argument is garbage, that would be appreciated.

Judging Philosophy

  General Notes  

* I did parli debate for 5 years in college and this is my 1st year out

* Be organized

* Don't say anything rude, racist, sexist, classist, or homophobic

* Speed theory is a thing for me ( this doesn't mean you have to go slow in front of me, go as fast as you want, but if they run speed theory respond to it as needed )

* This is your round/game so run whatever you want as fast as you want, while still being clear ( with some exceptions/caveats )

* I might make facial expressions, I might not, either way don't read too much into them except for the SUPER obvious non-verbal expressions.  

* Don't lie/make things up

  Traditional Debate  

* All plan/counterplan texts should be read twice

* I will default to Net Bens/consequentialism unless otherwise specified

* Have actual impacts, don't say: Nuclear war bad, specify what that looks like through the lenses of TF, probability, and magnitude

* Be sure to tag where you're at etc...

* You can be Condo with Counterplans( or ALTs ), but know that I am more likely to favor being unconditional/non-dispositional

  Theory Debate  

* All interps should be read twice

* I've been known to vote on RVIs ( If you don't know what it is don't worry about it )

  Kritik Debate  

* If you're advanced enough to run the K, do so in a clear/organized fashion

* I am VERY predisposed AGAINST Identity politics K's ( Queer, Anti-Blackness, Fem, some variations on performance ), this is not to say I will not vote on them, but that if they are run in front of me that you should do so VERY carefully and do not do so in a way that belittles/berates/traumatizes others, or ONLY leverages personal experience.  This is not to potentially exclude individuality from the round but to prevent the militirzation of agency to the potential detriment/harm of others.  

* Links should be contextualized, and not SUPER generic

* ROB and ALT text should be read twice

He/him/his

My email is jrogers31395@gmail.com if you have questions, or if I'm judging Policy/LD/PF

On general argumentation:

I have a fairly nihilistic approach to impact calculus, but assume that death is bad.

Analyzed evidence > evidence > reasoning > claims.

On delivery:

Talk as fast as needed. "Slow" means slow down; "clear" means enunciate more.

If you exclude others, they can argue that you should lose for it.

I reserve the right to drop you if you're an asshole.

On Theory:

I default to reasonability, and would much rather judge either substantive policy or critical debate -- don't choose not to run theory if you actually feel like the other team is being abusive. I understand the strategic utility/necessity of theory, and have run/voted for a few garbagey theory shells before.

The aff should probably be topical, but if you don't want to be, just justify why that should be allowed.

On Kritiks:

I enjoy good Kritik vs policy or K vs K debate -- I personally have the greatest degree of familiarity with Marxist anti-capitalist stuff, and I've got a decent working knowledge of most of the popular kritikal lit bases I've seen recently.

If you can't clearly connect the theory/structure you critique to material harm and present an alternative that can solve it, I don't know why I should vote for you.

For carded debate:

Please slow and emphasize the author, date, and tag - it makes extensions much cleaner if I actually know what cards you're talking about

I only call for cards if the other team says you're lying/powertagging, or if one card becomes the fulcrum for most/all terminal offense in the round.

Experience: Open NPDA and NFA LD I competed at NPTE last year judged college tournaments

I’m open to any argument. This is your time and your space so feel free to run whatever you’d like. I’m fine with speed unless you’re being exclusionary. Spreading should be a tool used to enhance debates not drive others out of the activity. Please be respectful of your fellow competitors. I love a good theory debate and Kritikal arguments are my favorite arguments but please don’t be discouraged to run a good DA CP. There are few things in this world as beautiful as a flawlessly executed PIC. That being said, everything is debatable. Think PICS are abusive? convince me and your competitors why.

Background

I did policy debate in high school, coached HS parli for Campolindo when I was in college, and now I haven't done any debate in a while.

The rest of this paradigm is from several years ago, when I was more active. I don't think much has changed in the way I'll assess a round, but I'm probably less familiar with trendy arguments than I used to be.

***

Paradigm

• I would consider myself a fairly standard flow judge.
• I can handle speed. I will tell you in-round to clear/slow down as needed.
• I will listen to most every argument and most every impact.
• Walk me through my decisionmaking process. Linearly, how do I get to where I vote?
• Be competitive, but be friendly.

Ramblings

Here are a lot of opinions/things I default to. All of these will be overridden by arguments made in round. That should make this list fairly useless.

Rituals, disclosure

• Don’t thank anyone, dress up, or stand up on my behalf. Debate however you will debate best.
• Off-time roadmaps are coolio.
• Please don’t shake my hand.
• Be friendly. Win your rounds, be strategically aggressive, posture… but at the end of the day, debate is a good place for mutual enthusiasm, support, and respect. If you make someone feel unwelcome, it’ll be reflected on my ballot.
• I have yet to encounter a scenario in which I do not vote one way or the other.
• If a tournament schedule allows it, I’m comfortable giving feedback after the round. I will probably not disclose my decision unless it’s specifically encouraged by the tournament organizers.

Aff disclosure

I think disclosure is pretty cool. I’m willing to vote neg on disclosure theory if the argument is made well (see: Theory).

General strategy

• I never heard of “trichot” in Policy, but I want a debate with a concrete advocacy (political or kritikal) whenever possible.
• No matter what, please read specific links.
• I’m fine voting for a non-topical aff if you win the theoretical debate.
• Use POIs strategically to throw off a speaker. If you’re a speaker, taking POIs is typically a good strategic call.
• Very specific arguments are almost always good!
• For speaker points, I prefer debaters who debate well to those who win. These two are not necessarily linked, but debating well is important for debate as a whole and I hope we all try to do it.

Theory

• Go ahead, read the theory everyone tells you is annoying! I’m down with multiple topicality, spec shells, etc. Just do it well, please.
• Potential offense on theory is not nearly as valuable as specifically articulated misuse of the debate. e.g. if neg reads conditional positions but doesn’t kick anything, why do I care that the arguments were conditional?
• Conditionality
• I tend to think conditionality is good.
• • Use conditionality to highlight the most important negative arguments; don’t use it to waste time.
  • Before kicking a conditional position, resolve offense and extend defense to mitigate it as much as possible.
• Dispositionality: I don’t think this differs substantially from conditionality. I don’t think dispositionality’s disclosure answers “condo bad” arguments, so calling your arg dispo isn’t a get-out-of-theory-free card.

Counterplans

• Absent an articulated framework, I default to evaluate the counterplan like a mutual exclusivity disadvantage.
• Counterplans should be textually or functionally competitive. Net benefits are typically uncompelling.
• If you compete via net benefits, those net benefits should be rock solid versus the perm.
• Here are some counterplans I like:
  • Short delay
  • Word PICs
• Here are some counterplans I don’t like:
• • Long delay
  • Consult
• Permutations
• • Give me a perm text––”do the plan and all non-competitive parts” doesn’t count.
  • I’m friendly to theory that says multiple blippy permutations are bad.
  • Permutations are never, ever advocacies. Giving a rebuttal advocating the perm world as anything but a response to the CP is a bad habit and a good way to get dropped on theory.

Kritiks

• Read specific links. My threshold is pretty high for generic state/cap links.
• Avoid identity args that aren’t specific to your identity.
• I hesitate to vote on performative contradiction. Exception: representations kritiks, discourse links, kritiks with pre-fiat implications.
• I’m plenty open to “cap good,” “heg good,” “realism is real,” etc.
• Framework
• • I want to feel comfortable with my vote, and a good discussion on framework achieves that. I will gladly ignore parts of the debate if there’s a sound theoretical reason to do so.
  • Reading a K? Read framework! Feel free to try to moot the aff by whatever method you like.
  • Answering a K? Read framework! Feel free to try to moot the K by whatever method you like.
• Lit I love
• • Poststructuralism: biopower and its derivatives, Foucauldian sex/gender theory, Foucauldian ableism, Derrida…
  • Representations: security, terror talk, ableism…
  • Orientalism.
  • In general, epistemology kritiks are up my alley.
• Lit I kind of know
• • Baudrillard
  • Afropessimism
  • Lacanian psychoanalysis
• Lit I’m not super familiar with
• • Identity args
  • Nietsche
  • Schizoanalysis
  • Obscure/technical ontology args
  • Very happy to listen to/vote on all of the above, just give me a good explanation of terms of art as they come up so I don’t accidentally vote wrong. It’s on whoever reads the kritik to make sure I understand.

Hello all!

I'm Victoria--yes, like Victoria Woodhull who was the first woman to run for president. I did four years of parli in high school and I did 2 years of parli at Santa Rosa Junior College. My partner and I were the #1 NPTE ranked community college team in the nation in 2016.

TL;DR: I prefer case debate and original arguments over excessively technical and block-based debates. I will evaluate your K but heavily prefer that you engage in the topic, especially if you are on the aff. Counterplans should probably not be heavily abusive, and unconditional. I try to be tab as possible, but I won't hesitate to intervene if an obscenely bigoted and/or offensive argument is made (racism good, etc).

Case debate: I love a good case debate. I am a fan of politics DAs but generally do not like business confidence as much. Most of all, I prefer offense that is specific to the resolution. I prefer the contemporary debate structure (Advantages and Disadvantages) to the classical stock issues style. Solid impact weighing/framing can easily win you an otherwise close round.

Theory: I believe that theory is a tool to correct for and deter real in-round abuse, not simply a strategic tool. I believe that drop the debater vs drop the team and reasonability vs competing interps should be debated out in round. I am probably biased towards condo being bad but will still not vote on condo bad if you win the flow. I believe that PICs good vs bad, and other CP theory, should be debated in round.

Kritiks: I am a fan of pomo and structural Ks but I always want you to thoroughly explain your arguments, perhaps with a thesis section. I am most fond of Marx and fem, but no matter what just explain the K as if I have never heard it before. Please either be topical or have specific justification for rejecting the topic.

Speed / Speaker Points: I prefer solid word economy over excessively fast debates, but I can probably keep up with your speed. Don’t exclude other teams from the debate with your speed, it will cost you speaker points and I am open to theory/kritikal arguments against it.

Background:

-3 years of high school circuit LD.

-Working on Computer Science and Philosophy double major at UC Berkeley.

Speaks:

-Surprise me in a good way.

-Goes without saying, but clarity, good arguments, and strategy are all good for speaks.

-If you’re funny, I’ll increase your speaks.

-Signpost well, so I know which arguments respond to which arguments.

Literature:

-I like to think that I’m well read on current events.

-It’s been a long time since I’ve last debated, but I might still remember a lot of moral philosophy, so feel free to run interesting ethical frameworks, even though this is Parli. –

-I’m personally not very well read in and not a big fan of postmodernist kritikal literature but if you can explain them clearly and give me a decent ballot story and why I should believe it, then I’ll vote on that. If you give me obscurantist bullshit I’ll lower your speaks and if I don’t understand your argument, I’ll disregard it.

-I’m very well read in Marxist literature, Soviet history, and modern Chinese history. If by the very very slim chance that its topical and you’re into those subjects as well, that might help you.

Kritiks:

-If it’s well-explained and you can articulate a clear framework explaining why I should vote on it, then go ahead.

Theory:

-I default to reasonability and drop the argument.

- Again, if it’s well-explained and you can articulate a clear framework explaining why I should vote on it, then go ahead.

Speed:

-This is parli so I really don’t think speed will be an issue unless you have a naturally superhumanly fast speaking rate.

How I vote:

-Give me a big-picture ballot story articulation explaining how arguments interact with each other and with the ballot, so I don’t have to intervene.

-I will default to as few personal biases as possible. I’ll consider almost any argument, as long as you clearly articulate the claim, why the claim is true, and why that claim matters in round. That being said, I might stop the round if you use arguments that are patently offensive. Hopefully that won’t happen.

-I default to choosing the best framework on the highest priority level, and then seeing which side gave me the better ballot story about how they win under that framework. Your job to tell me which priority to arrange the different levels of debate: substance, critical, theory, etc. If the debate is too messy to evaluate on the highest priority level, then I will go down a level and so on. But each time I do that, you lose speaks.

Parli debate Alum from Prospect High School. Three years of high school debate experience. Now a junior at UC Santa Cruz majoring in psychology.

Conflicts: Prospect High School and Ashland High School

Speed: I enjoy fast paced debates but have a low threshold for spreading. Please do not use speed to skew your opponents out of the round. If your opponents feel the need to call a well warranted “slow” or “clear” more than 4-5 times in any given speech, it will cost you speaker points but will not lose you the round.

Theory: I am open to theory debates, but use it sparingly.

Kritikal: If you are going to run a K, the links better be case/topic specific. I have a low threshold for canned Kritiks that teams run round after round. I am not familiar with most K lit, but so long as you explain your thesis, I will vote on it.

Performance: I am okay with tag-teaming, but I will only flow what the current speaker says.

     My name is Jackson St. Amant. I am currently in my second year of engineering studies at SRJC. I have four years of high school debate experience but am not debating in college. I competed mainly in parli, but also dabbled (with moderate success) in events such as extemp, impromptu, and PF. 

     I'm a strong believer in the notion that parliamentary debate is meant to be a kind-hearted and educational event. I have a decent understanding of debate theory, but believe it should only be used as an educational device. Being clever for the sake of being clever, or to steal prep, is not okay with me. That being said, I will respond well to a team who uses theory in a way that attempts to restore/provide education to the debate rather than detract from it. If you speak too fast for me to understand you or properly take notes, you're only hurting yourself.  

     I will, without fail, vote on the judging criteria/standard that is agreed upon by both teams. If an issue of standard appears to still be unresolved by the end of the round, I will impose my own standard. Other than that, I will never intervene. I think the most time should be spent on building the theoretical basis for your argument, supporting it with credible evidence, and explaining the significance. If you choose to spend the bulk of your time on something else, I need a good explanation.    

     POI's should be respectful. Always. Rebuttals should stay away from summarizing or trying to add new material, instead they should be used to show me where/why to vote for you.  

     That's all I can think of. If you have any specific questions about my judging style that I didn't go over, feel free to ask me before or between rounds. Best of luck to all!

Former high school debater a long time ago.  (Think 1970's, big hair, polyester).  This season I have been judging Parli at a variety of tournaments (all levels) as well as some IE events.   I'm getting more used to the terms and jargon, but I like clearly laid out arguments.   

Experience: College NPDA (4 years) and NFA-LD (1 year)

TL;DR: I prefer case, theory, and K's that are sociological in nature, but I also value strategic decisions and seeing debaters use their relative strengths to win the round. I also significantly prefer flow-based debate.

General: I view debate as a game to be played and won. Tell me what weighing mechanism to use when evaluating who should win, debate which weighing mechanism is better, and tell me why you win within that weighing mechanism. Also, more structure and signposting is ALWAYS better. I default to evaluating the round through the technical components of the flow unless told to do otherwise. In my career, I mostly debated Buddhism, set col, cap, heg, spec, and case (not much of a specialty).

Policy Debate: Run anything you want (politics, PICs, business confidence, anything). I prefer the contemporary debate structure (Advantages and Disadvantages) to the classical stock issues style. Solid impact weighing/framing can easily win you an otherwise close round. I really enjoy a good heg debate. I know literally nothing about science so explain if necessary.

Theory: I am good with anything. Potential vs proven abuse should be debated out in-round. I probably have a lower threshold than most on theory. I enjoy theory that many would consider "frivolous" but I also won't actively try to hack for T. I am probably biased towards condo being good but will still vote on condo bad if you win the flow.

Kritik: Fine with not upholding the res, also down for voting on framework. I think that your kritik should also win the line-by-line, unless you make arguments otherwise (I have a very high threshold for rejecting the flow). Very familiar with cap/Marx but down for cap good. Don't know much about pomo so if that's your thing then explain thoroughly.

Speed / Speaker Points: I have no problem with speed, but be clear and maintain solid word economy. Don’t exclude other teams from the debate with your speed, it will cost you speaker points and I am open to theory/kritikal arguments against it. Otherwise, go as fast as you want. I award speaker points based on the quality and strategic utility of arguments made rather than on persuasiveness.

Cal debate 13-17, coached for Cal 18-22, currently coaching Houston.

I'm online for Georgetown but expect to judge in person at Texas and the NDT. Online, please slow down a bit and record your speeches in case there are connection issues.

Debate is for debaters; I'll vote for no-plan Affs, Ks, and even conditionality bad. Of course, arguments that attack opponents as people, wipeout*, spark, and "new Affs bad" will never be considered.

Default is judge kick. This can be reversed but requires ink before the 2AR.

I take judge instruction very seriously.

I have a very high bar for ethics challenges and will presume good faith error by the accused.

*Saying another value matters more than extinction is perfectly fine.

I debated Policy Debate for two years at Maine Township High School South in the metropolitan Chicago area. In my senior year, my partner and I won Third Place in the state of Illinois, in the NFL Policy Debate State Championship Tournament that year. I work in the electronics industry, and I assist in debate coaching at Irvington High School in Fremont, CA. This is my fifth year judging Policy, Parliamentary, and Lincoln-Douglas debates.

I am a flow judge; I definitely prioritize depth of analysis over spread.

I prioritize four key debate criteria:

(1) Clarity.
Clarity of presentation, clarity of logic applied to the debate. Clear articulation and enunciation are paramount for intelligibility and comprehensibility.

(2) Depth of Analysis.
Analyze the logical foundation of the arguments: strengthen the foundations of your team's arguments, challenge the foundations and assumptions of your opponents' arguments. In Policy debate: argue harm, significance, inherency, and advantages/disadvantages.

(3) Show Impact.
Show why your arguments are the most important for the debate resolution, and why your arguments are more important than your opponents' arguments. Show why your evidence and references are more logically substantiated and thorough than your opponents'. Prioritize your arguments, and rank your arguments in order of importance. In rebuttals, rank the most important arguments in the debate as a whole; show why your arguments are more important and impactful.

(4) Clash.
Directly address the opposing team's arguments. Show why your arguments are superior to your opponents' arguments.

Additional Notes -- other debate strategies and methodologies are fine: frameworks, counterplans, topicality, etc. Make sure that these arguments are important and impactful to the resolution, with strong analytical reasoning, and with evidential support where applicable. I think frameworks are good and map to real-world professional decision-making.

Kritiks that directly relate to the resolution are fine: for example, philosophy of law applied to the resolution, philosophy of reason applied to the resolution. But please note: I am highly suspect of Case Ks, having judged some Case Ks where it seemed the students were just yelling about stuff.

I have been coaching Parli, NFALD, and IPDA for several years, before that I competed in all three, so I've seen a lot. Mostly a flow judge.

Historical references make me happy because history provides a framework from which discussions can grow. Misuse of historical warrants makes me sad because bad faith arguments are the death of civilized society.

I definitely prefer case debate. Those who are careful about choosing their ground will find it fairly easy to win my ballot.

I sometimes vote on theory if I think that the AFF has questionable topicality, but it's always important to consider the time tradeoffs, because everyone will get confused if the whole debate is just theoretical.

I occasionally vote on a K, but only if you make it CLEAR and explain the theories plainly, for the judges AND your opponents. Respect is the key word here. I’m not a fan of abusive frameworks that are designed to box the other team out of the debate, so I'll probably look for a way to weigh case directly against the K because I believe that's the most functional way to view debate.

Evidence blocks are good because some facts work well together and this increases the efficiency of listing warrants... But canned arguments in Parli make me sad because there's an event for that and it's called LD. Having a favorite argument is not the same as having a canned argument, it's all about when and how you use it.

I basically never vote on RVIs, they're infinitely regressive and boring to hear.

This is a sport for talking; part of my job as a judge is to provide a theoretically level playing field which adheres to the rules of the event.

So... Tabula Rasa, but I'm still a debate coach doing the writing on that blank slate.

Former Parli and IE competitor. I prefer real-world application. I am okay with Ts, not a fan of Ks unless they are done well. Overviews and impact calculus would be great. Please be respectful and flush out each part of your argument with sufficient evidence.

FOR GGI 2021

I haven't heard or flowed speed in a while, and also haven't been super involved in debate lately, so I will probably have trouble flowing top-speed. Content preferences are generally unchanged, with the exception that I now know even less about both current events and critical literature. My general inclination as a judge is to take whatever is said in-round at face value (e.g. I won't fact check warrants or scrutinize textually flawed interps unless told to do so).

Most of the below paradigm was written when I was still a competitor. Looking back, I've found that the actual process I use when judging rounds is frankly very intuition-based and not always the most technical, especially when it comes to warrants and POIs. At the end of the day, I think debate is just competitive storytelling. And personally, I prefer Ancient Aliens to C-SPAN.

OLD PARADIGM (mostly still applies)

TL;DR: Go nuts (but please don't be rude/horrible to your opponents).

The round is yours. I prefer a well-executed strategy more than anything else. For some background, I competed in NPDA at Berkeley for three years (graduated in 2020). As a competitor, the arguments I most commonly collapsed to were Theory, Buddhism, Anthro, Politics, and Dedev.

Here are some general thoughts/preferences:

Case/Disads: I love to see good case debate. I'm not particularly well versed in what's going on in the world, so if the case debate is getting messy then some top-level overviews and explanation are probably helpful. I don't care if you read generics. I like good politics debates.

Counterplans: I have no preferences on issues like conditionality, PICs, delay, consult, negative fiat, etc.. I'll vote for it if I think you're winning it, and I'll vote for them if I think they're winning a theoretical objection. By default, I assume negative advocacies are conditional.

Kritiks: If you're reading something complicated, overviews/explanation are super appreciated. Words like ontology, epistemology, etc. don't mean that much to me in a vacuum, so it's good to read implications to arguments when extending them. K affs are fine, I don't have much attachment to the topic (although I'm happy to vote on framework-T too if won).

Theory: I think it can be a strategic tool in addition to a check on abuse. I default to competing interpretations and drop the team. Will evaluate an RVI if you read a justification. Proven abuse is unnecessary, but you can make arguments why it should be necessary and I'll listen to them. If reasonability doesn't have a brightline or some explanation of what it means to be reasonable, then I'll just disregard it.

Presumption/tricks: I believe in terminal defense. By default, I think presumption goes neg. In general, I don't mind voting on tricksy arguments as long as they're sufficiently explained when gone for.

Point of orders: Feel free to call them. I'll try and protect, but I think they're still good to call just in case I'm missing something. I will also try to protect from shadow-extensions.

Out-of-round stuff: I'm pretty sympathetic towards arguments calling for content/trigger warnings before the round.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask before the round starts.