Contact info: avejacksond@gmail.com

Background: I competed for Okoboji (IA) and was at the TOC '13 in LD. I also debated policy in college the following year. I coached from 2014-2019 for Poly Prep (NY). I rejoined the activity again in 2023 as an assistant debate coach at Johnston (IA) & adjunct LD coach at Lake Highland Prep (FL).

LD

General: Debate rounds are about students so intervention should be minimized. I believe that my role in rounds is to be an educator, however, students should contextualize what that my obligation as a judge is. I default comparative worlds unless told otherwise. Slow down for interps and plan texts. I will say clear as many times as needed. Signpost and add me to your email chain, please.

Pref Shortcut

K: 1

High theory: 1

T/Theory: 2

LARP: 1/2

Tricks: 2/3

K: I really like K debate. I have trouble pulling the trigger on links of omission. Performative offensive should be linked to a method that you can defend. The alt is an advocacy and the neg should defend it as such. Knowing lit beyond tags = higher speaks. Please challenge my view of debate. I like learning in rounds.

Framework: 2013 LD was tricks, theory, and framework debate. I dislike blippy, unwarranted 'offense'. However, I really believe that good, deep phil debate is persuasive and underutilized on most topics. Most framework/phil heavy affs don't dig into literature deep enough to substantively respond to general K links and turns.

LARP: Big fan but don't assume I've read all hyper-specific topic knowledge.

Theory/T: Great, please warrant extensions and signpost. "Converse of their interp" is not a counter-interp.

Disclosure: Not really going to vote on disclosure theory unless you specifically warrant why their specific position should have been disclosed. If they are running a position relatively predictable, it is unlikely I will pull the trigger on disclosure theory.

Speaks: Make some jokes and be chill with your opponent. In-round strategy dictates range. I average 28.3-28.8.

Other thoughts: Plans/CPs should have solvency advocates. Talking over your opponent will harm speaks. Write down interps before extemping theory. When you extend offense, you need to weigh. Card clipping is an auto L25.

PF

I am a flow judge. Offense should be extended in summary and the second rebuttal doesn't necessarily need to frontline what was said in first rebuttal (but in some cases, it definitely helps). Weighing in Summary and FF is key. I'll steal this line from my favorite judge, Thomas Mayes, "My ballot is like a piece of electricity, it takes the path of least resistance." I have a hard time voting on disclosure theory in PF. Have fun and be nice.

I have been a PF coach for 20+ years. To win my ballot you should do the following things.

1. Clearly sign post throughout the round. I do flow but I do not like to spend time looking for the arguments you are addressing.

2. If you have a framework, you need to address it throughout the round. Stating it in the first speech and then not again until final focus will cause me to not weigh it as heavily in the round. I only insert myself into rounds that there is no clear framework or weighing mechanism for the round.

3. I can handle moderate speed as long as you articulate. It is to your benefit that I get all the info I can.

4. I vote on the arguments presented. I will listen to all arguments but you need to make sure they are clearly explained. If I do not understand it I do not vote for it. I will not vote on K in PF

5. Extend arguments not cards. You need to give the argument the card is making just not the author's name when extending.

6. Give me clear voting issues in the final focus. I like to hear why you should win. The focus should be on your case not your opponents.

7. Speaker points are based on how well you present yourself throughout the round. I am a speech and theater teacher and like to see good communication skills. Yelling at me or your opponents is not good communication. Crossfires need to be conducted with civility. You can be civil and still have clash in the round. I rarely give 30’s, those are reserved for truly outstanding persuasive speakers.

**Updated October 2022**

Hi, I'm Ellie (she/her)! I have experience competing and judging in PF and WS. For four years I competed mostly in APDA for Yale. I coached for Blake after my high school graduation. I have judged many rounds over time, but not recently, so be aware of that. 

Feel free to message me for feedback (if I forget you can nudge me), if you have questions about APDA, for moral support, or anything else. I'm happy to help!

Please put debate.ellie@gmail.com and blakedocs@googlegroups.com on the email chain if you make one!

This paradigm is for PF, though some things apply across events (eg: the decorum section).

The Split

Everyone frontlines now. That's nice.

Speed

I can flow speed, but proceed at your own risk. You can "clear" your opponents but do this sparingly. I don't use speech docs to fill in things I could not catch/understand.

Types of arguments

You are the debater and I want you to enjoy debating things that interest you. There are few things I refuse to hear.

Progressive arguments are important. I'll do my best to evaluate them fairly. I am not super well versed in K lit so while I will try and understand whatever you read, there's a risk I just miss something.

I really don't like when teams run squirrelly arguments just to throw off their opponents. Your points may suffer even if I vote for you and my threshold for responses will be lower.

If you're on a topic where people tend to run "advocacies" please prove there's a probability of your advocacy occurring.

I am not amenable to speaks theory.

The only other args I refuse to listen to are linguistic and moral skep – I have yet to hear them in PF, but don't even try lol

Dates

read them lol

Evidence

I very strongly prefer cards > paraphrasing, but it isn't a hard rule. I will punish you for misrepresenting evidence or knowingly reading authors that are fraudulent or very clearly unreliable.

Know where your evidence is. If you can't find it, it's getting kicked. Do not cut cards in round.

Bracketing is bad. No debater math pls.

Summary and Final Focus

Extend defense. Don't go for everything. Args needs to be in summary to be counted in FF. Also, weigh.

~~Decorum~~

Being funny or witty is fine as long as it isn't mean. I am not afraid to tank your speaks if you are rude.

Prep

keep track of it i won't

Misc

sIgNpOsT!!!!!!!!

don't delink your own case to escape turns just frontline them

You can enter the room and flip before I get there (when we're back in person that is).

If you want to take off your jacket/change your shoes/wear pajamas, go ahead!

If you're trying to get perfect speaks, strike me. A lot of my speaks end up in the 27.5-29 range.

I am the current director of speech and debate at the Milwaukee School of Languages.

From 1997-2004, I competed in LD, Congress, Policy, and most speech events in high school and college. Since then, I have coached all events at one time or another.

I will not vote for debaters who physically threaten or verbally abuse their partners or opponents; if you offend your opponent in some way, an authentic apology and reckoning is generally your best option to continue the round.

I would like to be on the email chain (hannanja@milwaukee.k12.wi.us), but only for reference after the round; I will not read along as a substitute for clarity. I will say clear twice if I can't understand you because of enunciation, but then you're probably on your own. If you spread theory blocks/underviews, I can't understand you and I won't be able to flow it.

I will make decisions that are good if:

you explain things to me; you establish a clear standard, role of the ballot, value, or other mechanism and explain to me how I can use that to make my decision; you compare or weigh offense and explain how it is linked to a standard.

I will make decisions that are bad if:

you expect me to do work for you on the flow or among your arguments; you assume I know more than I do.

I will listen to and attempt to flow any speed, but I strongly believe that the faster you go, the less I or any judge will understand. I am reading every week to better understand all sorts of critical theory, but dense stuff delivered at speed is going to be tough for me; ditto for theory/underview/analytic blocks that are a series of two-sentence claims delivered in three second bursts.

I probably will not vote for theory without a clearly explained abuse/harm story and an indication of how the ballot will remedy or prevent that abuse/harm.

I don't think I have any other ideological preferences for argument types or structure; within the constraints listed above, do whatever you'd like and explain to me why it merits my ballot.

PF: if it's in the final focus, it needs to have been in the summary. A complete extension has a link and an impact, preferably with evidence for each. I prefer to make decisions based on clean flow-work; lacking a clean story on the flow, I will occasionally call for evidence to help resolve an issue; I often find myself assessing the 'risk of offense' at the end of rounds based on flow work, evidence quality, consistency of the story between summary and final focus, and the degree of opposition the argument received.

Congress: I care deeply about inclusion and equity, especially in moments where students can have direct influence on which voices are heard. Please work to include everyone in all aspects of procedure and debate.

Any other specifics, please ask.

Speaker Points: I find that a lot of paradigms have speaker point sections that sound like "30 - you're going to win the tournament", and I think that's not helpful (it doesn't really tell the student how to obtain better speaker points) and maybe also actively bad (if you can only get a 30 if the judge thinks you can win the tournament, it means debaters need rep to earn speaker points). So I will try to give you some specific criteria to keep in mind for speaker points in front of me; I'll also probably adjust these criteria and speaker point values over time, and for tournaments that have different speaker point norms.

A top-level speaker (29.5-30) will: demonstrate a strong commitment to explanation, argument comparison, and persuasion; enunciate clearly and consistently; treat their opponent with respect and empathy.

A second-tier speaker (29-29.5) will enunciate clearly and treat their opponent with respect; they will explain arguments well, but generally not do a superior job of comparing/weighing arguments or persuading me of their position's value or truth.

A third-tier speaker (28.5-29) will enunciate clearly and treat their opponent with respect; they will explain their arguments, but may not compare arguments or make an attempt to persuade me.

A fourth-tier speaker (28-28.5) will treat their opponent with respect but may have some clarity issues; they will explain their arguments but could do a better job with the explanation.

A fifth-tier speaker (27.5-28) will not treat their opponent with respect (they may be condescending, or mean, or dismissive, etc) and/or may have clarity issues; they typically do not explain their arguments.

Below a 27.5 would require a confluence of the issues described above.

https://gph.is/2HThgly

I am an assistant coach at The Potomac School, and previously was the Director of Forensics at Des Moines Roosevelt. If you have any questions about Public Forum, Extemp, Congress, or Interp events, come chat! Otherwise you can feel free to email me at: quentinmaxwellh@gmail.com for any questions about events, the activity, or rounds I've judged.

I'm a flow judge that wants to be told how to feel. Ultimately, Public Forum is supposed to be persuasive--a 'winning' flow is not inherently persuasive. My speaker points are generally reflective of how easy I think you make my decisions.

Things to Remember…

0. The Debate Space: R E L A X. Have some fun. Breathe a little. Sit where you want, talk in the direction you want, live your BEST lives in my rounds. I'm not here to tell you what that looks like!

1. Framework: Cost/benefit unless otherwise determined.

2. Extensions: Links and impacts NEED to be in summary to be evaluated in final focus. Please don't just extend through ink--make an attempt to tell me why your arguments are comparatively more important than whatever they're saying.

3. Evidence: If you're bad at paraphrasing and do it anyway, that's a reasonable voter. See section on theory. Tell me what your evidence says and then explain its role in the round. I also prefer authors AND dates. I will not call for evidence unless suggested to in round.

4. Cross: If it's not in a speech it's not on my flow. HOWEVER: I want to pay attention to cross. Give me something to pay attention to. Just because I'm not flowing cross doesn't make it irrelevant--it's up to you to do something with the time.

5. Narrative: Narrow the 2nd half of the round down with how your case presents a cohesive story and 1-2 key answers on your opponents’ case. I like comparative analysis.

6. Theory: If an abuse happens, theory shells are an effective check. I think my role as an educator is to listen to the arguments as presented and make an evaluation based on what is argued.

Disclosure is good for debate. I think paraphrasing is good for public forum, but my opinion doesn't determine how I evaluate the paraphrasing shell. This is just to suggest that no one should feel intimidated by a paraphrasing shell in a round I am judging--make substantive responses in the line-by-line and it's ultimately just another argument I evaluate tabula rasa.

7. Critical positions: I'll evaluate Ks, but if you are speaking for someone else I need a good reason not to cap your speaks at 28.5.

8. Tech >< Truth: Make the arguments you want to make. If they aren't supported with SOME evidence my threshold for evaluating answers to them is, however, low.

9. Sign Post/Road Maps: Please.

**Do NOT give me blippy/underdeveloped extensions/arguments. I don’t know authors of evidence so go beyond that when talking about your evidence/arguments in round. I am not a calculator. Your win is still determined by your ability to persuade me on the importance of the arguments you are winning not just the sheer number of arguments you are winning. This is a communication event so do that with some humor and panache.**

I am the head debate coach at James Madison Memorial HS (2002 - present)
I am the head debate coach at Madison West HS (2014 - present)
I was formerly an assistant at Appleton East (1999-2002)
I competed for 3 years (2 in LD) at Appleton East (1993-1996)

I am a plaintiff's employment/civil rights lawyer in real life. I coach (or coached, depending on the year) every event in both debate and IE, with most of my recent focus on PF, Congress, and Extemp. Politically I'm pretty close to what you'd presume about someone from Madison, WI.

Congress at the bottom.

PF

(For online touraments) Send me case/speech docs at the start please (timscheff@aol.com) email or sharing a google doc is fine, I don't much care if I don't have access to it after the round if you delink me or if you ask me to delete it from my inbox. I have a little trouble picking up finer details in rounds where connections are fuzzy and would rather not have to ask mid round to finish my flow.
(WDCA if a team is uncomfortable sharing up front that's fine, but any called evidence should then be shared).

If your ev is misleading as cut/paraphrased or is cited contrary to the body of the evidence, I get unhappy. If I notice a problem independently there is a chance I will intervene and ignore the ev, even without an argument by your opponent. My first role has to be an educator maintaining academic honesty standards. You could still pick up if there is a path to a ballot elsewhere. If your opponents call it out and it's meaningful I will entertain voting for a theory type argument that justifies a ballot.

I prefer a team that continues to tell a consistent story/advocacy through the round. I do not believe a first speaking team's rebuttal needs to do more than refute the opposition's case and deal with framework issues. The second speaking team ideally should start to rebuild in the rebuttal; I don't hold it to be mandatory but I find it much harder to vote for a team that doesn't absent an incredible summary. What is near mandatory is that if you are going to go for it in the Final Focus, it should probably be extended in the Summary. I will give cross-x enough weight that if your opponents open the door to bringing the argument back in the grand cross, I'll still consider it.

Rate wise going quick is fine but there should be discernible variations in rate and/or tone to still emphasize the important things. If you plan on referring to arguments by author be very sure the citations are clear and articulated well enough for me to get it on my flow.

I'm a fairly staunch proponent of paraphrasing. It's an academically more realistic exercise. It also means you need to have put in the work to understand the source (hopefully) and have to be organized enough to pull it up on demand and show what you've analyzed (or else). A really good quotation used in full (or close to it) is still a great device to use. In my experience as a coach I've run into more evidence ethics, by far, with carded evidence, especially when teams only have a card, or they've done horrible Frankenstein chop-jobs on the evidence, forcing it into the quotation a team wants rather than what the author said. Carded evidence also seems to encourage increases in speed of delivery to get around the fact that an author with no page limit's argument is trying to be crammed into 4 min of speech time. Unless its an accommodation for a debater, if you need to share speech docs before a speech, something's probably gone a bit wrong with the world.
On this vein, I've developed a fairly keen annoyance with judges who outright say "no paraphrasing." It's simply not something any team can reasonably adapt to in the context of a tournament. I'm not sure how much the teams of the judges or coaches taking this position would be pleased with me saying I don't listen to cards or I won't listen to a card unless it's read 100% in full (If you line down anything, I call it invalid). It's the #1 thing where I'm getting tempted to pull the trigger on a reciprocity paradigm.

Exchange of evidence is not optional if it is asked for. I will follow the direction of a tournament on the exchange timing, however, absent knowledge of a specific rule, I will not run prep for either side when a reasonable number of sources are requested. Debaters can prep during this time as you should be able to produce sources in a reasonable amount of time and "not prepping" is a bit of a fiction and/or breaks up the flow of the round.

Citations should include a date when presented if that date will be important to the framing of the issue/solution, though it's not a bad practice to include them anyhow. More important, sources should be by author name if they are academic, or publication if journalistic (with the exception of columnists hired for their expertise). This means "Harvard says" is probably incorrect because it's doubtful the institution has an official position on the policy, similarly an academic journal/law review publishes the work of academics who own their advocacy, not the journal. I will usually ask for sources if during the course of the round the claims appear to be presented inconsistently to me or something doesn't sound right, regardless of a challenge, and if the evidence is not presented accurately, act on it.

Speaker points. Factors lending to increased points: Speaking with inflection to emphasize important things, clear organization, c-x used to create ground and/or focus the clash in the round, and telling a very clear story (or under/over view) that adapts to the actual arguments made. Factors leading to decreased points: unclear speaking, prep time theft (if you say end prep, that doesn't mean end prep and do another 10 seconds), making statements/answering answers in c-x, straw-man-ing opponents arguments, claiming opponent drops when answers were made, and, the fastest way for points to plummet, incivility during c-x. Because speaker points are meaningless in out rounds, the only way I can think of addressing incivility is to simply stop flowing the offending team(s) for the rest of the round.

Finally, I flow as completely as I can, generally in enough detail that I could debate with it. However, I'm continually temped to follow a "judge a team as they are judging yours" versus a "judge a team as you would want yours judged" rule. Particularly at high-stakes tournaments, including the TOC, I've had my teams judged by a judge who makes little or no effort to flow. I can't imagine any team at one of those tournaments happy with that type of experience yet those judges still represent them. I think lay-sourced judges and the adaptation required is a good skill and check on the event, but a minimum training and expectation of norms should be communicated to them with an attempt to comply with them. To a certain degree this problem creates a competitive inequity - other teams face the extreme randomness imposed by a judge who does not track arguments as they are made and answered - yet that judge's team avoids it. I've yet to hit the right confluence of events where I'd actually adopt "untrained lay" as a paradigm, but it may happen sometime. [UPDATE: I've gotten to do a few no-real-flow lay judging rounds this year thanks to the increase in lay judges at online tournaments]. Bottom line, if you are bringing judges that are lay, you should probably be debating as if they are your audience.

CONGRESS
The later in the cycle you speak, the more rebuttal your speech should include. Repeating the same points as a prior speaker is probably not your best use of time.

If you speak on a side, vote on that side if there wasn't an amendment. If you abstain, I should understand why you are abstaining (like a subsequent amendment contrary to your position).

I'm not opposed to hearing friendly questions in c-x as a way to advance your side's position if they are done smartly. If your compatriot handles it well, points to you both. If they fumble it, no harm to you and negative for them. C-x doesn't usually factor heavily into my rankings, often just being a tie breaker for people I see as roughly equal in their performance.

For the love of God, if it's not a scenario/morning hour/etc. where full participation on a single issue is expected, call to question already. With expanded questioning now standard, you don't need to speak on everything to stay on my mind. Late cycle speeches rarely offer something new and it's far more likely you will harm yourself with a late speech than help. If you are speaking on the same side in succession it's almost certain you will harm yourself, and opposing a motion to call to question to allow successive speeches on only one side will also reflect as a non-positive.

A good sponsorship speech, particularly one that clarifies vagueness and lays out solvency vs. vaguely talking about the general issue (because, yeah, we know climate change is bad, what about this bill helps fix it), is the easiest speech for me to score well. You have the power to frame the debate because you are establishing the legislative intent of the bill, sometimes in ways that actually move the debate away from people's initially prepped positions.

In a chamber where no one has wanted to sponsor or first negate a bill, especially given you all were able to set a docket, few things make me want to give a total round loss, than getting no speakers and someone moving for a prep-time recess. This happened in the TOC finals two years ago, on every bill. My top ranks went to the people who accepted the responsibility to the debate and their side to give those early speeches.

4 years debating for Stuy, 4 years coaching for Poly Prep

i flow (unfortunately)

- slow, please

- i don't know how to evaluate k's, theory, etc. (if there is an egregious abuse, i'm down to have a discussion or bring it higher up)

- no patience for cards getting called every five seconds-- just do some warranting :)

pretend i'm lay and have fun. i believe in you.

(30s if you win w/o reading evidence)