Last changed on
Sat January 11, 2020 at 2:40 AM PDT
I debated public forum for 4 years at Gonzaga Prep. I currently coach Public Forum and have judged Public Forum and LD.
Please cover the flow and dropping a significant contention will make it hard for you to win. If your opponent dropped an argument don't say, "they dropped it" emphasize why it matters and why that alone should allow you to win. With that being said in your own case if a contention is not working leave it alone and do not waste your time on it.
Anything short of spreading I should be ok with. If you go too fast I will yell at you to go slower and simply adjust and you will be fine.
I appreciate good plans and counter plans when done effective. In Public Forum I will rarely vote against someone's use of a "Point of advocacy" unless it is clearly over the top. Put simply saying something is a counter plan and leaving at that will almost never win that point for you.
Do not be afraid to use other tricky framework or tricky arguments because I love those when done effectively. It is not enough to simply say your opponents framework is abusive but rather explain why. I like both statistical and the use of logic in a case. When these are put together effectively that to me is the best case.
Aggression in CX will never hurt you as long as you're not over the top and rude.
Debate should have emotion and nothing is worst than having to sit through bland speech after bland speech. Debate like you believe what you are talking about.
Voters: Voters will almost always decide the round for me. I love debaters who crystalize the round throughout. The last speech should be primarily focused on giving good voters. THE BIGGEST THING I LOOK FOR IS ROUND CRYSTALLIZATION!
Please do not ask me if you can time yourselves. You are welcome to and I do not care.
Speaker points are stupid and arbitrary but typically I stick to the following scale. Most good debates will fall into the 27-29 category.
30: Best Speaker at tourney
28-29: Very Good
27: Good
24-26 Decent
Below 24: Major things to work on for the level of competition you are in
