Congress judging paradigm

No canned speeches, please.

Provide evidence/citations for key assertions.

Clash is a good thing, re-hash not so much.

Interesting or novel arguments are always appreciated, especially if they show you've done solid research.

I am a parent judge and therefore request participants to speak clearly and not too fast so that I can flow. I have judged parliamentary debate for 5 years, public forum for 3, and novice LD for 2. I think arguments about the core of the topic make for good debate.

I am a parent judge so please speak slowly (no spreading), have clear and logical arguments, and be respectful of your competitors and your judge.

I don't like excessive speed or Kritik/philosophy arguments.

If you must go for K's/philosophy, it needs to be put in simple terms to make me feel comfortable voting on it.

The debaters must to remember to focus on their impacts, as well as their framework/value criteria as it relates to their impacts. That is where they tell me "where the goal is" and "who reaches it" for the debate. Having the biggest impact doesn't mean anything if it doesn't fulfill the right framework.

If framework is not debated by the neg, I will default to 1AC's Framework.

Email: marinaalan02@gmail.com

Pronouns: she/her ♀️

Email: nalan0815@gmail.com,

Please also include: damiendebate47@gmail.com

I debated policy debate for 3 years in high school 2008-2011 and have judged for 10+ years now.

I REALLY like to see impact calculus - "Even if..." statements are excellent! Remember: magitude⚠️, timeframe⏳️, probability ⚖️. I only ever give high speaker points to those that remember to do this. This should also help you remember to extend your impacts, and compare them with your opponent's as reasons for a judge to prefer your side.

• However, I don't like when both sides keep extending arguments/cards that say opposite things without also giving reasons to prefer one over the other. Tell me how the arguments interact, how they're talking about something different, etc.
• Be sure to extend arguments (especially your T voters) even if they're uncontested - because that gives me material for the reason for decision. If it's going to be in your last speech, it better be in the speech before it (tech > truth here). Otherwise, I give weight to the debater that points it out and runs theory to block it from coming up again or applying.

------------------------- Miscellaneous ----------------------------

Prep and CX: I do not count emailing /flashdriving as prep time unless it takes ~2+ minutes. Tag-team cross-ex is ok as long as both teams agree to it and you're not talking over your partner. Please keep track of your speech and prep time.

Full disclosure: Beyond the basic K's like Cap, Security, Biopow, Fem, etc., I'm not familiar with unique K's, and especially where FrameWork tends to be a mess, you might need a little more explanation on K solvency for me or I might get lost.

I often read along to the 1AC and 1NC to catch card-clipping, even checking the marked copies.

I have been involved in debate for 15 years.  In high school I competed in LD and PF.  In college I competed in NPDA-style parliamentary debate.  As a competitor I rarely ran critical positions and was mostly a procedural/DA/CP debater.  I studied philosophy as an undergrad and rhetoric as a grad student.  I haven't judged rounds for a while so I would probably have a hard time keeping up with full speed spreading but can handle speaking quickly.

 

Overall I believe it is important for debaters to run the arguments they want to run and for judges to approach those arguments on their own terms.  I believe you should run whatever arguments you feel are most important to run (for whatever reason).  But if you wish the maximize the changes of winning my ballot here are some of my biases:

-I believe that critical positions are held to lower argumentative standards than other positions.  Debaters are allowed to get away with frameworks, link stories, and impact scenarios that would never be acceptable on other positions.  I try to hold critical arguments to the same standards of specificity that I hold DAs and CPs to.

-A lot of debaters participate in debate in ways that contradict their critical arguments.  I find this objectionable and think it should be an issue in debate rounds.  If you are going to run a critical argument you should have to perform it as well.

-I am very open to a wide range of CPs.  My default position is that the aff has to defend all parts of plan, and this includes the agent of action and time frame.

-Most debaters do a terrible job of weighing impacts.  Don't just tell me that you are winning on time frame or magnitude, tell me why it is importing you are winning on time frame.  Tell me why that impact weighing criterion is the most important one.  This is a very simple, very important argument most debaters miss.  Telling me why the impact weighing criterion you are winning on is the most important one is the easiest way to get me to vote for you.

-I am a sucker for a good politix argument.

 

Feel free to ask any additional questions if you have me in the back of the room.

I've been coaching and judging for 15+ years. So there isn't much I haven't seen or heard. I'm most persuaded by good debating. Please do not be rude or condescending. Please be clear enough to understand. Use your evidence wisely and whereas big impacts are good, realistic impacts are better. The point of debate, for me, is education and communication. Show me you learned something and that you can communicate in an intelligent, well thought out, cohesive manner. People can write out a hundred paragraphs about what they want but at the end of the day I've coached enough champions to tell you that's what it all boils down to. Most importantly, have fun! Love to see students progress and become the natural born leaders we know you all are! And to give some unsolicited advice from a seasoned coach, don't give up. It's may be cliche but somethings are said over and over for a reason. Keep trying, be consistent and you'll be successful! Good luck everyone!

I am a parent judge who has been judging for a few years. I like debate that focuses on substance. I'm not a fan of technicalities. I will entertain kritiks. But I will be critical of them.

I encourage you to not only respond to your opponents' arguments, but also to weigh those arguments when you make your case for why I should support your position. So I will not necessarily judge against you if you do not flow every argument the opposing team throws up. I will vote against you if you miss a key argument or respond weakly.

Since I want to understand the substance of the debate, avoid spreading and speak clearly. In that same spirit, I dislike when teammates confer while opponents speak. Instead, write each other notes if you want to share an idea; be respectful to the speaker so I can hear them.

I dislike road maps. They usually add nothing. Or, if they are substantive, they should be part of your time. I do not listen to 'off-time' roadmaps or other statements.

I am a parent judge. I appreciate well-spoken and confident debaters. Speak slowly and be logical. Signpost your evidence clearly. Tell me exactly what I'm voting on. Keep your arguments simple. Ask me any further questions about my judging preferences right before the round begins.

I have 8 years of experience judging, coaching, and debating in high school debate (Parli, Pufo, LD, and Policy) and college debate (British Parliamentary Debate).

Racism, sexism, classism, and bigotry in general are never tolerated in round or in argumentation.

Just because I can understand spreading doesn't mean I like it.

You can run kritiks although I expect them to be applied to the round, not as a reason for why the other team can't win or debate

Debates, for me, are about who contributes most to the best possible conversation of truth on any given topic. As such, unfairly framing a team out of the debate so as to make it nearly impossible for the other side to debate, is not allowing for any discussion to occur and is thus failing all roles that both teams have in facilitating a round. You don't need specific debate formulas or theory to explain why that is wrong.

Dropped arguments are not a guaranteed win or validation of the arguments weight or legitimacy.

Evidence, without explanation or analysis, does not necessarily prove or substantiate your claim. Nor is a lack of evidence, with significant analysis, a reason to discount a point.

Being respectful and courteous is 100% of the time, not mutually exclusive to running an argument or winning a round.

Neither strawman responses nor flippant disregard for an argument is considered rebuttal. Responsive argumentation doesn't mean repeating to me the tags of arguments you said respond to their case.

I have judged Varsity Policy, Parli and LD debate rounds and IE rounds for 10 years at both the high school and college tournament level. I competed at San Francisco State University in debate and IEs and went to Nationals twice, and I also competed at North Hollywood High School.

Make it a clean debate. Keep the thinking as linear as possible.

Counterplans should be well thought out – and original. (Plan-Inclusive Counterplans are seriously problematic.)

Speed is not an issue with me as usually I can flow when someone spreads.

I do like theory arguments but not arguments that are way, way out there and have no basis in fact or applicability.

Going offcase with non-traditional arguments is fine as long as such arguments are explained.

Above all, have fun.

Parli

- Don't generally like counterplans, unless there are serious advantages to them. Timeframe counterplans, for example, must be seriously warranted to overcome the diminishment of educational value.

- Do not run multiple advocacies - such as disadvantage to plan WITH a counterplan (unless the CP solves the disad, in which case it's an advantage to CP).

- In case you didn't gather, I am not a fan of policy-style debate conventions in the parliamentary format. I will always pref solid case args over theory or "game-y" debate strat.

- Debate the resolution, clash via argumentation and POIs. POIs very important so that clash points can be explored.

- If you abusively POO, I will down you on poor sportsmanship and diminishment of educational value.

- debate value, policy, and fact rounds appropriately. For example, don't try to argue a fact or value resolution based on net benefits, etc. etc. etc. Fact rounds are "preponderance of evidence" and value rounds must identify a paramount value. I will down you for diminishing educational value of parli by co-opting everything to policy format.

LD - I don't currently coach LD, but did so in the traditional style some years back. Framework is important and the criterion needs to function as a criterion to the value. Like, a measurable, functioning criterion. - My heart sinks when competitors turn LD into a policy round and run net benefits or some other non-value; net benefits, for example, is just an ill-defined placeholder for any number of values within a pragmatic/consequentialist framework. - P.S. Morality is not a value. I see it run all the time to my consternation. Morality denotes no actual value... it rather describes a system of principles to describe right and wrong - it is up to you to actually define those principles. There are many types of morality as it is relative to cultural context: Christian morality, prison morality, etc. etc. etc.

- I don't know much about circuit LD but will always pref traditional debating styles (resolutional analysis, evidence, analysis, clash, weighing) over esoteric theory. I will vote on Ks and theory ONLY if it is in response to serious abuse. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me before the round.

Congress

Not much new here: I look for incisive, insightful analysis of relevant issues. Quality of research matters.

In general, less is more: I'd rather a competitor focus in a single issue and really zero in on the implications/weighing of that rather than superficial coverage of multiple issues.

Stand straight, polished appearance, good projection and vocal nuance. These things are still relevant in a rhetorically-driven debate style such as Congressional Debate.

PF

I'm a traditional-style judge that will vote on the flow (aka "flay judge") - flow leaning. Truth over tech (generally). When saying an author's name and year - slow down ever so slightly and separate it from the rest of the text. Years are important - be sure to include them as PF is intensely time sensitive. Don't spread - I won't flow it.

Speech Requirements:

- 2nd rebuttal does not need to frontline (although it is strategic)

- anything extended in FF also needs to be in summary (no "sticky")

- WEIGH and tell me the story of the round in Final Focus

Things that are important for me:

- Signposting

- Clarity

- evidence integrity - I will check cards if they seem suspect and will vote accordingly (even if other team doesn't call it out)

I do not want you to:

- Spread - I will not flow it nor will I read a document

- read barely-there links to nuke war/extinction

- be rude/condescending/curt in CX

I will vote on Ks and theory ONLY if it is in response to serious abuse. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me before the round.

Include me on your email chain: gurrola.victoria@gmail.com

Background:

I competed in policy debate for Claremont High School from 2006-2010. I enjoyed running K's. I was a volunteer mentor coach and judge for the Bay Area Urban Debate League from 2011-2015. I have a masters in Public Policy from Mills College. I taught first grade for the last three years in Oakland Unified. I've only judged at a few tournaments over the last few years as teaching took up most of my time.

I am fine with speed. However, my ear is not as trained as it used to be. Please slow down for taglines and theory arguments. If I miss something because you were going to fast on a bullet point, it can hurt you. Argument quality over quantity is always better.

I am open to hearing all kinds of debate. Just as happy hearing a k debate as I am a cp/da debate. I do believe that the aff has an obligation to affirm the resolution. I don't think that K affs need to have a plan, but you need to have some connection to the topic. Tell me how the debate should be framed. If you're going to run a K I need to have a clear understanding of how it specifically links to the aff. I am less likely to vote for a generic K with a broad link.

PLEASE do not assume that I have read/am an expert on any of your K arguments. YOU have the obligation of explaining your arguments. If I don't understand your argument then I can't vote for it. I have no issue with voting you down on something that you didn't clearly explain to me. For K debates I've found myself much more compelled in debates where I am told the roll of the ballot/judge. I don't believe that debate exists in a vacuum.

Don't be rude or condescending to your partner, opponents, or me.

(Last Updated 6/10/21)

General (read in addition to specific event):

I debated 4 years of policy in high school. After graduating I participated in 3.5 years of American Parliamentary debate with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am currently the Public Forum Coach at Westridge School and Flintridge Preparatory.

I try to evaluate all arguments fairly. I have no preference between kritical or traditional style arguments. My only reservations when it comes to non-traditional arguments are when they are poorly executed. If you are running a K your link and framework should be clearly outlined. The same goes for theory.

I think the best debate happens when both teams fully grasp each other's contentions. If your opponent can't understand your contention the judge probably can't either. So be clear and transparent.

I also don't do any work on the flow for you. If you want me to vote or extend something tell me to do so and why.

I understand that debate can be competitive and get heated from time to time. That is no reason to be rude to your opponents. Just be respectful and enjoy the debate.

Policy/LD:

I'm definitely a more old school policy debater. I spent my policy career running policy affs, T, politics, and responding to Ks with framework. That being said, please don't alter your strategy heavily because of that. I understand the debate space changes so if you're a K team I'll consider your args just as much as I would consider a standard disad/cp combo or traditional aff. I just might be a bit slower grasping the thesis of your arg so be as clear as you can be.

I am not the biggest fan of conditionality or similar args, but if you feel they are particularly applicable in a round feel free to run them.

I am fine with speed, but it takes me a second to adjust to any given speaker, especially with online and different mics. So start off your speech below your max speed then work up to it over the next few seconds so I can adapt.

You can add me on the email chain (email at the bottom), but I won't evaluate any of it throughout the round as I believe that invites too much opportunity for judge intervention. If a point in the debate really comes down to who's ev is better then I will evaluate it post round before submitting my ballot. Throughout the round give me the warrant for why to prefer your ev.

PF:

I really don't have much patience with evidence exchange. You should have all your evidence cut into cards and easily accessible to send. If it is a matter of slower internet or tech limitations, or your opponent requested a large amount of ev that is fine. However, "looking" for a piece of evidence to send shouldn't take longer than 10-20 sec.

I won't doc you for it, but I'm against paraphrasing in PF. If your ev is solid there shouldn't be much of a difference from using a card vs paraphrasing, so read the card.

I can keep up, but I hate speed in PF. If you really want to spread you should be in policy or LD. PF is supposed to be accessible to everyone, spreading is a barrier to that in PF. Although spreading through a bunch of arguments and then collapsing to whichever the other team misses is a viable strategy I don't think it is substantial or productive debate. I won't drop you because of this, but if your opponents clearly can't keep up or understand I might doc a few speaker points.

I don't want to be on email chains. I feel that invites too many opportunities for judge intervention throughout a debate. Additionally, I don't want debaters going through the round under the assumption that I am reading through all the ev that is exchanged. If there are contradicting pieces of evidence give me the warrant for why to prefer your ev. If a point in the debate REALLY comes down to who's ev is better, then I will ask for the relevant cards post round before making my decision.

I do appreciate collapsing when appropriate, and starting your weighing earlier rather than later in a round.

Feel free to ask me any questions about my paradigm or preferences.

Email: isaacjgutierrez97@gmail.com

I am a lay parent judge. I have judged Policy, LD, and PF at bid tournaments such as at Jack Howe.

Everyone has a bias, but I will keep mine out while I am judging your cases. I can understand your arguments if you explain them well to me. That said, don't run racist, sexist, misogynistic, or homophobic cases if you want to be happy with the outcome of the round. Unless you really like low rankings- who am I to judge... Oh right.

I prefer that you do not spread, as I will award lower speaker points if I can't understand you (remember, lay parent judge). If you absolutely must spread, flash me the doc: buginthepan@gmail.com. Hopefully I'll be able to understand you then.

I am informed on most topics. Though when in doubt, go with extinction.

I am an experienced Public Forum and Policy debater. I competed for 2 years at CSUF before graduating. I've been coaching the Public Forum and Novice Policy team for CSUF from 2015-2019. I'm also the head coach for Assurance Learning Academy - Harbor City.

AFFs: I like traditional and nontraditional affirmatives. I think it keeps everyone on their toes.

Framework: Have an interpretation that allows you to be competitive for both the AFF and NEG. Tell me how you want me to vote.

Counter Plans: I love a good counter plan. But coming up with a good CP comes with great responsibility. Coming up with a CP puts the burden of proof on you to prove why your plan is better. AFF, tell me why I should reject the CP.

Impacts: Make sure all your claims have impacts. This tells me why your argument is important. If there is no impact, then why does your argument matter? Tell me why your impact is more significant than your opponents impact.

If you want my ballot make sure your arguments are consistent across the flow. Tell me why I should vote for you clearly in the 2NR/2AR.

 

I am a lay judge. I have studied Master of Pharmacy, Master of Business Administration (Major in Marketing), MBA (Information System Management). This is my second year judging. I enjoy IE and PF. I do not like circuit stuff. I prefer specific, concise and focused debate. Respect each other and do not interrupt while one person is speaking.  I also prefer reference from well-known journal like Harvard Business Review etc. 

 

I have been in speech and debate for a while and do not have a specific paradigm for debate, other than speed. I understand the need to speak a little faster to get all the information in, but I really do not like spreading. If the goal of debate is education, I do not think spreading is an ethical practice, and to me, it deters the point of educational debate and wanting the audience to learn from it. If you really want to/feel the need to spread, by all means, go for it, but please be aware that this will more than likely affect speaks and my ability to extend arguments on the flow. Other than that, I don't have a specific paradigm, but here are some small reminders:

1. Please make the link between claims and impacts very clear! Please do not assume that I will just "know" how your claim causes the impact.

2. While I will do my best not to let my own thoughts interfere with the round itself, please also remember that I am an individual person with my own thoughts and that I will not buy everything you say unless you back it up.

3. I will extend the impacts of saving lives over economic impacts unless there is a significant reason why economic impacts should come before saving lives.

4. Do your best not to be rude to your opponents, as it takes a lot of energy and resources to attend tournaments, and the last thing we want is for someone to be rude to us at 6 in the morning when we are doing our best to compete. This isn't something I would necessarily give a loss to, but it will be something I look out for and may affect speaks.

Have fun debating! If you have any questions about my paradigm, feel free to ask me before the start of the round.

General Notes

Don't be a bigot. This includes misgendering competitors. You will lose the ballot.

I generally give relatively high speaks due to the subjective nature of speaker points and the issues therein.

Remember to time yourselves and your opponents.

At invitationals, add me to the email chain using crystal.debate.speech@gmail.com .

In all forms of debate, I value logical argumentation and strong analytics supported by credible evidence. Speed, if clear, is fine, as long as it remains at a level that works for all debaters in the round. Out-spreading an opponent kills education.

Policy (and Policy-Style Parli)

I am open to theory arguments and will rarely vote on T , but you need to explain them clearly and thoroughly in the round. I studied critical theory as applied to literature in both undergraduate and graduate school, so I have a strong background in feminist, Marxist, deconstructionist, queer, and psychoanalytic theory. I enjoy a well-executed K, but only run kritiks you know well -- not something you grabbed off the wiki/open ev.

I strive to evaluate the round using the framework agreed upon by the debaters and do not have a particular preference regarding stock issues, policy maker, etc.

LD

Support and bring everything back to your V/VC -- even if you're running a plan (for non-CA LD). Evidence certainly matters but evidence without analytics will do very little for you.

PF

I'll accept theory arguments when necessary to address in-round abuse, but please proceed with caution. I still value Public Forum as a form of debate that can be understood by lay judges, so please don't spread or run a K, and keep the jargon to a minimum.

Speech

In extemp, I want to see your introduction connect clearly with the topic and the rest of the speech (bring it back briefly at the end). Please clearly sign-post your main points and cite your evidence (ideally with more than just "According to the New York Times this year..."). Don't be afraid to use humor -- even if it's a little dark. Most of all, be authentic, engaging, and keep things flowing.

I will give time signals in extemp and impromptu.

In original oratory, original advocacy, & informative speaking, I look for well-crafted speeches delivered with fluency and appropriately varied tones.

If you're competing in an interp event, your intro should make me care about the topic at hand and should, of course, be your original words. Also, if you're competing in oratorical interpretation and the original speech includes cursing, please say the actual words or select a different speech (e.g., AOC's 2020 address to Rep. Yoho in which she quotes his profanity).

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.

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

Overview:

While I believe debate is a game, I also believe that illegitimate arguments exist regardless of whether or not they were successfully argued against. Good strategy is my favorite part of debate — but a good strategy is nothing without good arguments. Make sure that every argument that you make has a reason for you to say it. Impact out your arguments, and convince me that you understand the arguments you are making.

Framework:

I have rarely seen debaters use framework arguments effectively enough to win the round. Thus, I highly encourage debaters to avoid putting all their eggs in this basket unless they know what they are doing. You never really should rely too heavily on framework to win the round. If you are the affirmative, and you establish the value/criterion in a way that clearly negates negative ground, you will not be very convincing to me. Likewise, as the negative, if you offer a counter-value/criterion that clearly negates affirmative ground, same deal. Most importantly, make sure you explain how all your arguments satisfy and reinforce the values you have established in the round.

Contentions/Counter-Contentions/Advantages/Disadvantages:

Have impacts and/or significance. Not just in its content, but in the debate round itself.

Topicality/Theory:

Theory is great if you know how to run it. While I tend to look to competing interpretations, I need to be able to perceive some kind of abuse for me to vote on the theory. If you decide to go for your theory argument, I prefer if you collapse to it. But once again, if you are running a theory position, make sure you know what you are doing.

Critical Arguments:

Kritiks were my favorite arguments to run when I was debating. That is good news and bad news for those of you who choose to run kritikal arguments. The good news is that I will most likely be familiar with your argument — which is also the bad news. If you run a kritik, make sure you run it well. This requires that you yourself fully understand the kritik. If I am not convinced you understand your own kritik, it will be very hard for me to vote for you.

This paradigm of course does not cover everything. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask.

Background

I have no personal speech and debate competition experience. I began judging in early 2014; I have been involved in the community ever since and have attended/judged/run tournaments at a rate of 30 tournaments per year give or take. The onset of online in early 2020 has only pushed that number higher. I began coaching in 2016 starting in Congressional Debate and currently act as my program's Public Forum Coach.

General Expectations of Me (Things for You to Consider)

Consider me "flay" on average, "flow" on a good day. Here is a list of things NOT to expect from me:

1. Don't make assumptions about my knowledge. Do not expect me to know the things you know. Always make the choice to explain things fully.
2. Post-round me if you want, I don't care. If you want to post-round me, I'll sit there and take it. Don't think I'll change my mind though. All things that should influence my decision need to occur in the debate and if I didn’t catch it, that’s too bad.
3. Regarding Disclosures/Decisions. Do not expect me to disclose in prelims unless the tournament explicitly tells me to. I will disclose all elim rounds unless explicitly told not to.
4. Clarity > Speed. I flow on paper, meaning I most likely won't be looking at either competitor/team too often during the round. Please don't take that as a discouraging signal, I'm simply trying to keep up. This also means I flow more slowly than my digital counterparts, so there may be occasions that I miss something if you speak too quickly.
5. Defense is not sticky in PF. Coverage is important in debate; it allows for a sensible narrative to be established over the course of the round. Summary, not Rebuttal, is the setup for Final Focus.

Should other things arise, I will add them to this list at that time.

General Debate Philosophy

I am tech > truth by the slimmest of margins. I am here to identify a winner of a debate, not choose one. Will I fail at this? At times yes. But I believe that the participants in the round should be the sole factors in determining who wins and loses a debate. At its most extreme, I will vote (and have voted) for a competitor/team who lies IF AND ONLY IF those lies are not called out/identified by the opposing competitor/team. If I am to practice tabula rasa, then I must adopt this line of reasoning. Will I identify in my ballot that a lie was told? Absolutely.

Why take this hard line? Because debate is a space where we can practice an open exchange of information. This means it is also a space where we can practice calling out nonsense in a respectful manner. The conversations of the world beyond debate will not be limited by time constraints or speaker order nor will there be an authority or ombudsman to determine what is truth. We must do that on our own. If you hear something false, investigate it. Bring it to my attention. Explain the falsehood. Take the time to set the record straight.

Public Forum / Lincoln Douglas Paradigm

Regarding speaker points:

I judge on the standard tabroom scale. 27.5 is average; 30 is the second coming manifested in speech form; and 20 and under is if you stabbed someone in the round. Everyone starts at a 27.5 and depending on how the round goes, that score will fluctuate. I expect clarity, fluidity, confidence and decorum in all speeches. Being able to convey those facets to me in your speech will boost your score; a lack in any will negatively affect speaker points. I judge harshly: 29+ scores are rare and 30 is a unicorn. DO NOT think you can eschew etiquette and good speaking ability simply due to the rationale that "this is debate and W's and L's are what matter."

Do not yell at your opponent(s) in cross. Avoid eye contact with them during cross as much as possible to keep the debate as civil as it can be. If it helps, look at me; at the very least, I won’t be antagonistic. I understand that debate can get heated and emotional; please utilize the appropriate coping mechanisms to ensure that proper decorum is upheld. Do not leave in the middle of round to go to the bathroom or any other reason outside of emergency, at which point alert me to that emergency.

Structure/Organization:

Please signpost. I cannot stress this enough without using caps and larger font. If you do not signpost or provide some way for me to follow along your case/refutations, I will be lost and you will be in trouble. Not actual trouble, but debate trouble. You know what I mean.

Framework (FW):

In Public Forum, I default to Cost-Benefit Analysis unless a different FW is given. Net-Benefit and Risk-Benefit are also common FWs that I do not require explanation for. Broader FWs, like Lives and Econ, also do not require explanation. Anything else, give me some warranting.

In Lincoln Douglas, I need a Value and Value Criterion (or something equivalent to those two) in order to know how to weigh the round. Without them, I am unable to judge effectively because I have not been told what should be valued as most important. Please engage in Value Debates: FWs are the rules under which you win the debate, so make sure your rules and not your opponent's get used in order to swing the debate in your favor. Otherwise, find methods to win under your opponent's FW.

Do not take this to mean that if you win the FW debate, you win the round. That's the beauty of LD: there is no dominant value or value criterion, but there is persuasive interpretation and application of them.

Should other things arise, I will add them to this list at that time.

Regarding the decision (RFD):

I judge tabula rasa, or as close to it as possible. I walk in with no knowledge of the topic, just the basic learning I have gained through my public school education. I have a wide breadth of common knowledge, so I will not be requiring cards/evidence for things such as the strength of the US military or the percentage of volcanos that exist underwater. For matters that are strictly factual, I will rarely ask for evidence unless it is something I don’t know, in which case it may be presented in round regardless. What this means is that I am pledging to judge ONLY on what I hear in round. As difficult as this is, and as horrible as it feels to give W’s to teams whom I know didn’t deserve it based on my actual knowledge, that is the burden I uphold. This is the way I reduce my involvement in the round and is to me the best way for each team to have the greatest impact over their debate.

A few exceptions to this rule:

• Regarding dropped points and extensions across flow: I flow ONLY what I hear; if points don’t get brought up, I don’t write them. A clear example would be a contention read in Constructive, having it dropped in Summary, and being revived in Final Focus. I will personally drop it should that occur; I will not need to be prompted to do so, although notification will give me a clearer picture on how well each team is paying attention. Therefore, it does not hurt to alert me. The reason why I do this is simple: if a point is important, it should be brought up consistently. If it is not discussed, I can only assume that it simply does not matter.
• Regarding extensions through ink: This phrase means that arguments were flowed through refutations without addressing the refutations or the full scope of the refutations. I imagine it being like words slamming into a brick wall, but one side thinks it's a fence with gaping holes and moves on with life. I will notice if this happens, especially if both sides are signposting. I will be more likely to drop the arguments if this is brought to my attention by your opponents. Never pretend an attack/defense didn't happen. It will not go your way.
• Regarding links/internal links: I need things to just make sense. Make sure things are decently connected. If I’m listening to an argument and all I can think is “What is happening?” then you have lost me. I will just not buy arguments at that point and this position will be further reinforced should an opposing team point out the lack of or poor quality of the link.

I do not flow cross-examination. It is your time for clarification and identifying clash. Should something arise from it, it is your job to bring it up in your/team’s next speech.

Regarding Progressive: I'm not an expert on this. I am a content debate traditionalist who has through necessity picked up some things over time when it comes to progressive tech.

A) On Ks: As long as it's well structured and it's clear to me why I need to prioritize it over case, then I'm good. If not, then I'll judge on case.

B) On CPs: Don't run them in PF. Try not to run them in LD.

C) On theory: I have no idea how to judge this. Don't bother running it on me; I will simply ignore it.

Regarding RFD in Public Forum: I vote on well-defined and appropriately linked impacts. All impacts must be extended across the flow to be considered. If your Summary speaker drops an impact, I’m sorry but I will not consider it if brought up in Final Focus. What can influence which impacts I deem more important is Framework and weighing. I don’t vote off Framework, but it can determine key impacts which can force a decision.

Regarding RFD in Lincoln Douglas: FW is essential to help me determine which impacts weigh more heavily in the round. Once the FW is determined, the voters are how well each side fulfills the FW and various impacts extending from that. This is similar to how I vote in PF, but with greater emphasis on competing FWs.

SPEED:

I am a paper flow judge; I do not flow on computer. I’m a dinosaur that way. This means if you go through points too quickly, there is a higher likelihood that I may miss things in my haste to write them down. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SPREAD OR SPEED READ. I do not care for it as I see it as a disrespectful form of communication, if even a form of communication at all. Nowhere in life, outside of progressive circuit debate and ad disclaimers, have I had to endure spreading. Regardless of its practical application within meta-debate, I believe it possesses little to no value elsewhere. If you see spreading as a means to an end, that end being recognized as a top debater, then you and I have very different perspectives regarding this activity. Communication is the one facet that will be constantly utilized in your life until the day you die. I would hope that one would train their abilities in a manner that best optimizes that skill for everyday use.

Irrational Paradigm

This section is meant for things that simply anger me beyond rational thought. Do not do them.

1. No puns. No pun tagline, no pun arguments, no pun anything. No puns or I drop you.

Should other things arise, I will add them to this list at that time.

 

I like a well organized speaker, those that come into the room late, change their shoes, fix their hair....not so much.  

I appreciate the speaker that makes unusual assessments or provides unique remedies. 

Respecting the opponent while arguing their contention is better than insulting their person. Debate doesn't mean personal attacks free-for-all.

The burden of proof is what is relevant, I evalute all the situations - if you noticed a missed arguement of your opponent don't assume I caught it, point it out.

Spreading? As long as you speak slowly, feel free...ha ha ha

tbd

I debated four years of Policy at Claremont High School (2008-2012), and have been an intermittent assistant coach for all forms of debate since then. While I am comfortable with pretty much whatever styles, forms, or arguments you would like to run, I do not regularly judge each year and may not know all the resolution-specific acronyms or plans or strategies; be mindful of your topic jargon. Speed is not an issue, but only if you are CLEAR. I value good signposting; if I cannot follow your argument, it does not exist on my flow.

I generally prefer Policy strats over K strats. This is not to say I will not vote for K arguments, but my threshold for rendering such a decision is somewhat higher. Please clearly link your arguments and firmly/clearly establish your framework, and we'll all have a good round. This also goes for theory: prove there is substantial in-round abuse that warrants your running a theory argument. Nothing is more dissatisfying than finding out the theory is just a timesuck (especially Topicality). Consequently, I tend to prefer substantive debates over theoretical debates.

Concerning China: I would like to believe that I am better read on China than most debaters and other judges. If you read cards by Gregory Kulacki in my round, know that I likely have the original article and probably know whether you're cherry-picking my father's arguments or not.

Concerning In-Round Protocol: Tag-team CX is fine. I count flashing evidence as both teams' prep time if it takes longer than one minute. I highly value courtesy in- and out-of-round; your perceived skill or victory over your opponents is no warrant for toxic behavior.

Affiliations and History:
Please email (damiendebate47@gmail.com and tjlewis1919@gmail.com) me all of the speeches before you begin.
I am the Director of Debate at Damien High School in La Verne, CA.
I was the Director of Debate for Hebron High School in Carrollton, TX from 2020-2021.
I was an Assistant Coach at Damien from 2017-2020.
I debated on the national circuit for Damien from 2009-2013.
I graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a BA in Critical Theory and Social Justice.
I completed my Master's degree in Social Justice in Higher Education Administration at The University of La Verne.
My academic work involves critical university studies, Georges Bataille, poetics, and post-colonialism.
Author of Suburba(in)e Surrealism (2021).

Yearly Round Numbers:
I try to judge a fair bit each year.
Fiscal Redistribution Round Count: About 40 rounds
I judged 75 rounds or more on the NATO Topic.
I judged over 50 rounds on the Water Topic.
I judged around 40 rounds on the CJR topic.
I judged 30 rounds on the Arms topic (2019-2020)
I judged a bit of LD (32 debates) on the Jan-Feb Topic (nuke disarm) in '19/'20.
I judged around 25 debates on the Immigration topic (2018-2019) on the national circuit.
I judged around 50 rounds on the Education topic (2017-2018) on the national circuit.
LD Protocol:I have a 100% record voting against teams that only read Phil args/Phil v. Policy debates. Adapt or lose.
NDT Protocol: I will rarely have any familiarity with the current college topic and will usually only judge 12-15 rounds pre-NDT.
Please make your T and CP acronyms understandable.

Front Matter Elements:
If you need an accommodation of any kind, please email me before the round starts.
I want everyone to feel safe and able to debate- this is my number one priority as a judge.
I don't run prep time while you email the speech doc. Put the whole speech into one speech doc.
I flow 1AC impact framing, inherency, and solvency straight down on the same page nowadays.
Speed is not an issue for me, but I will ask you to slow down (CLEAR) if you are needlessly sacrificing clarity for quantity--especially if you are reading T or theory arguments.

I will not evaluate evidence identifiable as being produced by software, bots, algorithms etc. Human involvement in the card’s production must be evident unique to the team, individual, and card. This means that evidence you directly take from open source must be re-highlighted at a minimum. You should change the tags and underlining anyways to better fit with your argument’s coherency.

Decision-making:
I privilege technical debating and the flow. I try to get as much down as I possibly can and the little that I miss usually is a result of a lack of clarity on the part of the speaker or because the actual causal chain of the idea does not make consistent sense for me (I usually express this on my face). Your technical skill should make me believe/be able to determine that your argument is the truth. That means warrants. Explain them, impact them, and don't make me fish for them in the un-underlined portion of the six paragraph card that your coach cut for you at a camp you weren't attending. I find myself more and more dissatisfied with debating that operates only on the link claim level. I tend to take a formal, academic approach to the evaluation of ideas, so discussions of source, author intentions and 'true' meaning, and citation are both important to me and something that I hope to see in more debates.

The best debates for me to judge are ones where the last few rebuttals focus on giving me instructions on what the core controversies of the round are, how to evaluate them, and what mode of thinking I should apply to the flow as a history of the round. This means that I'm not going to do things unless you tell me to do them on the flow (judge kick, theory 'traps' etc.). When instructions are not provided or articulated, I will tend to use (what I consider to be) basic, causal logic (i.e. judicial notice) to find connections, contradictions, and gaps/absences. Sometimes this happens on my face--you should be paying attention to the physical impact of the content of your speech act.

I believe in the importance of topicality and theory. No affs are topical until proven otherwise.
Non-impacted theory arguments don't go a long way for me; establish a warranted theory argument that when dropped will make me auto-vote for you. This is not an invitation for arbitrary and non-educational theory arguments being read in front of me, but if you are going to read no neg fiat (for example), then you better understand (and be able to explain to me) the history of the argument and why it is important for the debate and the community.

Reading evidence only happens if you do not make the debate legible and winnable at the level of argument (which is the only reason I would have to defer to evidentiary details).

I find framework to be a boring/unhelpful/poorly debated style of argument on both sides. I want to hear about the ballot-- what is it, what is its role, and what are your warrants for it (especially why your warrants matter!). I want to know what kind of individual you think the judge is (academic, analyst, intellectual etc.). I want to hear about the debate community and the round's relationship within it. These are the most salient questions in a framework debate for me. If you are conducting a performance in the round and/or debate space, you need to have specific, solvable, and demonstrable actions, results, and evidences of success. These are the questions we have to be thinking about in substantial and concrete terms if we are really thinking about them with any authenticity/honesty/care (sorge). I do not think the act of reading FW is necessarily constitutive of a violent act. You can try to convince me of this, but I do start from the position that FW is an argument about what the affirmative should do in the 1AC.

If you are going to go for Fairness, then you need a metric. Not just a caselist, not just a hypothetical ground dispensation, but a functional method to measure the idea of fairness in the round/outside the round i.e. why are the internal components (ground, caselist, etc.) a good representation of a team's burden and what do these components do for individuals/why does that matter. I am not sure what that metric/method is, but my job is not to create it for you. A framework debate that talks about competing theories for how fairness/education should be structured and analyzed will make me very happy i.e. engaging the warrants that constitute ideas of procedural/structural fairness and critical education. Subject formation has really come into vogue as a key element for teams and honestly rare is the debate where people engage the questions meaningfully--keep that in mind if you go for subject formation args in front of me.

In-round Performance and Speaker Points:
An easy way to get better speaker points in front of me is by showing me that you actually understand how the debate is going, the arguments involved, and the path to victory. Every debater has their own style of doing this (humor, time allocation, etc.), but I will not compromise detailed, content-based analysis for the ballot.

I believe that there is a case for in-round violence/damage winning the ballot. Folks need to be considerate of their behavior and language. You should be doing this all of the time anyways.

While I believe that high school students should not be held to a standard of intellectual purity with critical literature, I do expect you to know the body of scholarship that your K revolves around: For example, if you are reading a capitalism K, you should know who Marx, Engels, and Gramsci are; if you are reading a feminism k, you should know what school of feminism (second wave, psychoanalytic, WOC, etc.) your author belongs to. If you try and make things up about the historical aspects/philosophical links of your K, I will reflect my unhappiness in your speaker points and probably not give you much leeway on your link/alt analysis. I will often have a more in-depth discussion with you about the K after the round, so please understand that my post-round comments are designed to be educational and informative, instead of determining your quality/capability as a debater.

I am 100% DONE with teams not showing up on time to disclose. A handful of minutes or so late is different than showing up 3-5 min before the round begins. Punish these folks with disclosure theory and my ears will be open.

CX ends when the timer rings. I will put my fingers in my ears if you do not understand this. I deeply dislike the trend of debaters asking questions about 'did you read X card etc.' in cross-x and I believe this contributes to the decline of flowing skills in debate. While I have not established a metric for how many speaker points an individual will lose each time they say that phrase, know that it is something on my mind. I will not allow questions outside of cross-x outside of core procedural things ('can you give the order again?,' 'everyone ready?' etc.). Asking 'did you read X card' or 'theoretical reasons to reject the team' outside of CX are NOT 'core procedural things.'

Do not read these types of arguments in front of me:
Arguments that directly call an individual's humanity into account
Arguments based in directly insulting your opponents
Arguments that you do not understand

Amuse me.

The best way to win a debate in front of me is to go straight for case. I think neg teams have ample opportunity to win on DAs and CPs. I also think it's entirely possible to win on straight case turns and a DA.

I'm fine with lower level theory args, I think T is necessary in some instances for the neg but not necessary for every round. When it comes to kritiks, I'm familiar with some of the literature and/or the arguments that are commonly run but I'm not the best judge to run these arguments in front of. That being said, I have voted them up but if you're going to run one you'll have to meet me halfway and make sure you're explaining your arguments fully rather than assuming I'll fill in the blanks for you.

The easiest way to tank your speaker points fast is to be rude to your opponents, please maintain a level of respect for one another in the round.

I also have a soft spot in my heart for rebuttals with overviews and clear direction as to where you want me to vote, this is the easiest to reduce intervention when it comes to my vote and raise speaks at the same time.

Email: andrewjlopez120@gmail.com

TL;DR If you run Ks in anything other than LD, you probably want to strike me. If you run performances or non-topical Affs in any debate event, you definitely want to strike me.

Background: Debated for 4 years at Claremont High School (PF, circuit Parli, Congress, and, very briefly, LD). Currently coaching Parli, PF, and LD at my alma mater.

General: I try to be as non-interventionist as possible, so tech > truth. Although I list several argument preferences here, I won’t automatically disregard an argument just because I’m biased against it. If you run it well, I’ve got no problem voting on it. Just know that I’ll be more sympathetic to stock responses against certain arguments.

Evidence: Ev ethics still matter! If I find that you are deliberately fabricating or misrepresenting a piece of evidence, I'll give you the loss and the lowest speaks the tournament will allow. Yes, this applies to ALL debate events. No, I won't wait for your opponent to call you out on it.

Lincoln-Douglas Note: In LD, I maintain the style preferences I list below. On substance, however, I’m far more receptive to Ks and Theory/Topicality. I’m also fine with all LD-specific strats (phil, skep, tricks, etc.).

Style: Keep roadmaps short and off-time. I can’t handle TOC-level speed, but feel free to speak much faster with me than you would with any lay judge. I'll shout "clear" if necessary. If I have to do this more than twice, you lose speaks. Using excessive speed to confuse or exclude your opponents will cost you the round. Racist, sexist, queerphobic, or other bigoted remarks will do the same. If you start shouting at your opponents, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Speaker Points: I reward you for

- signposting THOROUGHLY

- impact and warrant comparisons

- being courteous

- being strategic

- being efficient

- being witty/humorous

Cross-Examination: Cross-ex is binding. PLEASE know when to end a line of questioning. Know when to cut somebody off and how to do it politely. Don’t tag-team and don’t use cross-ex time for prep. If nobody has anything left to say, it’s over. Time to start the prep clock.

Theory/Topicality: I rarely vote on either. I default to reasonability. With theory, I usually buy Drop the Argument, Not the Debater. I believe fairness is the gateway to education. I don't like RVIs, but I detest any strategy that involves regularly running Theory/Topicality as a means of just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. These arguments exist as last-resort checks on in-round abuse. Please keep it that way. Also condo is good; winning Condo Bad in front of me is very difficult.

Kritiks: Unlikely to vote for most, as it's hard to woo me away from a policymaking framework. I will not usually vote for kritiks with "reject the aff" as the only alt; rhetoric/discourse Ks are an exception. I prefer specific kritiks with tight links to the aff and CPs as alts. Performance/Kritikal Affs hurt debate in my opinion, and I'm very sympathetic to arguments against them. If you’re blatantly using Ks to exclude debaters with a more traditional style, you’re going to lose.

Counterplans: Go for it. I love almost all types of counterplans. Consult/study CPs are a notable exception; throw theory at them all day. Aside from that, I am far more receptive to a wider array of CPs than most judges you’ll find. Multi-actor fiat, non-institutional fiat, PICs, delay CPs, and agent/actor CPs are all fine by me. I assume conditionality and reserve the right to "judge kick" unless someone tells me otherwise. If you sever out of the 1AC, you’re going to lose.

Politics Disads: Not a big fan. I think fiat precludes any process-oriented disads (eg political capital), but results-oriented disads are fair game, though I find most high school debaters don’t construct or defend them well.

Impact Calc: Do it early and often. I default to util unless you tell me otherwise. Please weigh on the internal link level too, especially if you're going for the same impacts as your opponents. If neither side does proper impact calc, I’m left to do it for you. So for your sake and mine, please be thorough with warrants and impact calc at every point in the debate.

Other

- Please make copies of your plan text, CP text, T interp, and/or Alt available to your opponents and to me. Saves us all a ton of grief.

- I will not extend your arguments for you, but all you need to do to extend them in my mind is say "extend *insert tagline here*"

- I keep a poker face on and usually look down at my flow the whole time, so don’t stress.

- I’ll disclose at every tournament where it’s allowed. If it’s not allowed, I’ll still give oral critiques after the round, if time permits. Whether I’m giving an RFD or not, don’t be afraid to challenge me on anything I say. We can’t learn if we can’t have a discussion.

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.

When students ask me if I have any judging preferences I tell them yes, "Have as much fun as possible". I mean that. What you are doing here is important but you should never be so serious as to not be having fun, especially in high school activities. There will be far more times in your life to be far more serious.

Second, the only advice I give students on speaking and arguing is that the most important person in the courtroom is not the attorneys, nor their clients nor even the judge. No, the most important person in the courtroom by far is the court reporter, because if the court reporter does not take down on the record every word you say, it was never said. The record speaks for itself. Thus if you speak so fast or do not pause on an important point to let that point sink in, and the judge does not hear it, it was never said. Take breath. Speak clearly and let points be made.

Finally, I judge debate more like a tennis match than a philosophical debate. Meaning I measure points made and rebuttals landed. More like the ideas in boxing of punching, blocking, moving and counter punching. Points are made and rebuttals offered. If a point is made an no rebuttal is offered that is a positive point. I do not weigh the arguments made unless the points and speaker points are equal. To weigh the arguments from the start would be to put my personal bias too much into the mix. I very rarely have to come down to weighing the arguments. Closing arguments by reminding me all of the points made and cleaning up any stray issues, is always a good way to earn points as well. Tell me what you are going to tell me, tell me and then tell me what you told me. Respond to each of the points made by the other side and you will be in good shape.

Remember have fun.

I take a holistic approach to judging debates - the winner will be the person/team that has the most convincing overall presentation. The quality of the reasoning and the evidence used to support contentions carries more weight than the number of contentions. I do flow and will consider the failure to refute or address a significant point to be a basis for giving the win to the other team. A minor point that flows through will rarely be a determinant of the outcome.

You will likely lose if you make unsupported assertions; make up or misrepresent facts; or abuse your opponent or the process. The likelihood of winning are greatly enhanced if you are able to clearly rebut your opponent's voters and emphatically point out why your contentions should prevail.

**UPDATED FOR TOC**

Assistant Coach for Fairmont Preparatory Academy

Education:

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science & Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications from the University of La Verne '18

Debate Experience:

University of La Verne 2014 Performance Scholarship Recipient for Speech & Debate

Competitive collegiate British Parliamentary style debater 2014 - 2018

Attended over 25 tournaments nationally & internationally: The Oxford IV 2017, WUDC Mexico 2018, CMUDE Chile 2018, USUDC Anchorage 2015, USUDC Atlanta 2016, USUDC Stanford 2018, Pan-AmericanUDC Atlanta 2018, etc.

Titles: 2017 U.S. National Debate Championship Winner (BP Debate), Spanish World's Debate Championship 2018 Finalist (CMUDE Chile 2018)

Coaching Experience:

Bonita High School, Fairmont Preparatory Academy, University of La Verne (Spanish BP)

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PF Paradigm 2018-2019 Season:

**UPDATED FOR TOC**

"Prep time for the requesting team will not start until evidence has been handed over to the debater requesting said cards. Teams may prep during this evidence request time, this should encourage teams to have their evidence ready and available to present immediately. Judges should discourage teams from attempting to “game the system” if evidence requests become overly burdensome or create excessive delays in the debate." - TOC rules. [KNOW THE RULES KIDDOS]

EXPLAIN UNIQUENESS. If you can't explain/link out to why something actually changes on the AFF, it's going to put you at a huge disadvantage.

CARDS. CARDS. CARDS. I know this topic isn't the crowd favorite, but this is TOC, you *especially* need to have evidence for what you run. Don't make assertions or say "it just logically makes sense" when someone asks where your evidence is in round. Have a card or you don't get access to your impact.

• I'm a flow judge at heart. I do not like spreading, if you spread: it won't win you any favor in the round and it is better for you to slow down and explain your contentions at a normal pace. Don't read theory.
• If you want offense in the final focus then extend it through the summary; everything said in final focus should have at least been mentioned in summary. Please know the difference between a team dropping a point/not engaging with a contention and a team whose response you simply did not like. Disliking a team's response to your case does not equate dropping or not refuting it.
• I don't flow crossfire but I DO listen and it can factor into my decision sometimes. However: anything super important coming out of crossfire that you want me to flow should be in one of your speeches.
• Productive crossfire: if you spend 3 minutes talking over one another/constantly interrupting/being unnecessarily rude, etc: it's a waste of time for you and will make me annoyed. I lower speaker points for this.
• I enjoy off time roadmaps so I know where you are at on the flow.

• What I want to see: flushed out link chains & arguments that have realistic impacts. I vote for teams that are closest to the truth. Truth > Tech in most circumstances. Exaggerations and half-truths will be factored into my decisions; I defer to the teams with the most realistic and honest impact when there is tie.
• Properly complete/extend your links in summary and final focus

• Weighing mechanisms :) Explain why I should defer to your side: cost benefit analysis, scope, magnitude, probability, etc. I am in huge favor of clearly explained impacts. Pre-empt this in summary, be sure to do this in final focus.
• Comparatively weigh the round. Engage with the other side and their impacts and explain why I still should defer to your side.

• What I do not want to see: 1) abuse or misuse your evidence: I will pull cards if I need to. 2) spreading 3) Unproductive crossfire: allow the other side to speak, be respectful, only interrupt if absolutely necessary. Speaker points will reflect how you treat others in round. 4) Theory. In my opinion, this should only be run if the other side is truly being abusive and you HAVE to thoroughly explain it. 5) Disrespectful Post-Rounding: If you have a question, cool. I am happy to explain my thinking calculus. But do not interrupt me while I am giving an RFD or tell me I'm wrong. You're allowed to disagree, but do so respectfully. :)

ALSO: I have a very serious face when I judge, it is not that I hate you or what you are saying: it is just my face :) If y'all have any questions about anything, feel free to ask before the round!

Lastly: I know it's TOC and y'all have a lot on the line, but don't forget to breathe & enjoy the ride. I know it's corny and cliché, but don't forget to have fun.

I spent 9 years as a debater at the college( Diablo Valley College and CSU Long Beach) and high school ( De La Salle HS, Concord, Ca) levels. I am now in my 10th year of coaching and my 9th year of judging. So I've heard almost every argument out there. I mostly competed in parli and policy, but I did some LD as well. I am ok with Kritiks, Counter Plans, and plans. I like good framework and value debate. I am cool with spreading but articulation is key!!! I am a flow judge so sign posting and organization is important. Please weigh impacts and give me voters. In LD make sure you link to a framework and a value and explain why you win under those guidelines. I prefer a more traditional LD debate and I defiantly prefer truth over tech.

Hi! I'm a parent judge and I take both quality of arguments and speaker clarity into high consideration. I prefer debaters who can clearly articulate their arguments and at the same time create a logically cohesive argument.

 

Im not familiar with progressive arguments such as kritiks, theory and topicality. If you do plan to run them please be extremely clear with your explanations. 

 

Please don't spread as I don't have exprerience judging speed rounds.

Hello!

I'm a former High school Parli and Puff debater and extemp speaker.

Quick notes for judging paradigm:

Quick and clear off time road maps preferred

Please no theory unless you deem it totally necessary and can completely explain it

I can flow fast but not spreading

I will judge off of the flow. Please link back to the w/m and provide clear impacts. The clearer and cleaner the round the more likely the ballot will go in your favor.

Debate History

I have competitive debate experience in both NPDA and British Parliamentary (BP) styles at the Community College and University levels. As a debater, I have passed the break at several tournaments, advanced to finals twice, and took first overall with my partner once. I have judging experience both while on a competitive debate team and, now, as a volunteer (NPDA, BP, LD).

Philosophy

First and foremost, debate is not about being "right," but finding truth. It is a fast-paced, fun, and very expressive activity. Keep your speeches professional and do not make it or take it personally. This is not an activity for people who have thin skin or are not receptive to criticism. Admire those with skills greater than your own and learn from them. Some of my favorite and most memorable rounds are also some of the rounds where I was rhetorically annihilated.

Speak audibly...spreading will get you nowhere. If I cannot understand you, then I cannot give you any credit for your arguments. It's as if they don't exist. Two or three strong points are better than fifty-three weak ones.

Attack the arguments, not the person giving them. Also, don't simply say that an argument is "dumb." Deconstruct it and convince me of that without showing that laziness. This is directed more at the High School debaters.

Be friendly. This is debate, not football. We're here to learn from each other - not be jerks to each other.

ROADMAP!!

RESOLUTION ANALYSIS!!

SIGNPOST!!

POINT - ARGUMENT - EVIDENCE!!

If you're going to combine your refutation and new material...say that at the start.

HAVE FUN!!

Updated for Economic Inequality Topic

Overview

E-Mail Chain: Yes, add me (chris.paredes@gmail.com) & my school mail (damiendebate47@gmail.com). I do not distribute docs to third party requests unless a team has failed to update their wiki.

Experience: Damien 05, Amherst College 09, Emory Law 13L. This will be my seventh year as the Assistant Director at Damien (part-time), and my second year as Director at St. Lucy's Priory (full-time). I consider myself fluent in debate, but my debate preferences (both ideology and mechanics) are influenced by debating in the 00s.

This Year's Topic: I believe that the point of the resolution is to force debaters to learn about a different topic each year. So I think that debaters who develop good topic knowledge -- i.e., debaters who understand economics as a complex field of academic study and can analyze how different policies would affect the economy at different levels -- will have a massive advantage on internal link debating and are better equipped to win my ballot.

Debate: I am open to voting for almost any argument or style so long as I have an idea of how it functions within the round and it is appropriately impacted. Debate is a game. Rules of the game (the length of speeches, the order of the speeches, which side the teams are on, clipping, etc.) are set by the tournament and left to me (and other judges) to enforce. Comparatively, standards of the game (condo, competition, limits of fiat) are determined in round by the debaters. Framework is a debate about whether the resolution should be a rule and/or what that rule looks like. Persuading me to favor your view/interpretation of debate is accomplished by convincing me that it is the method that promotes better debate, either more fair or more pedagogically valuable, compared to your opponent's. My ballot always is awarded to whoever debated better; I will not adjudicate a round based on any issues external to the round, whether that was at camp or a previous round.

I run a planess aff; should I strike you?: As a matter of truth I am predisposed to the neg, but I try to leave bias at the door. I do end up voting aff about half the time. I will hold a planless aff to the same standard as a K alt; I absolutely must have an idea of what the aff (and my ballot) does and how/why that solves for an impact. If you do not explain this to me, I will "hack" out on presumption. Performances (music, poetry, narratives) are non-factors until you contextualize and justify why they are solvency mechanisms for the aff in the debate space.

Evidence and Argumentative Weight: Tech over truth, but it is easier to debate well when using true arguments and better cards. In-speech analysis goes a long way with me; I am much more likely to side with a team that develops and compares warrants vs. a team that extends by tagline/author only. I will read cards as necessary, including explicit prompting, however I read critically. Cards are meaningless without highlighted warrants; you are better off fewer painted cards than multiple under-highlighted cards. Well-explained logical analytics, especially if developed in CX, can beat bad/under-highlighted cards.

Debate Ideologies: I think that judges should reward good debating over ideology, so almost all of my personal preferences can be overcome if you debate better than your opponents. You can limit the chance that I intervene by 1) providing clear judge instruction and 2) justifications for those judge instructions; the 2NR and 2AR are competing pitches trying to sell me a ballot.

Accommodations: Please email me ahead of time if you believe you will need an accommodation that cannot be facilitated in round so that I can work with tab on your issue. Any accommodation that has any potential competitive implications (limiting content or speed, etc.) should be requested either with me CC'd or in my presence so that tournament ombuds mediation can be requested if necessary.

Argument by argument breakdown below.

Topicality

Debating T well is a question of engaging in responsive impact debate. You win my ballot when you are the team that proves their interpretation is best for debate -- usually by proving that you have the best internal links (ground, predictability, legal precision, research burden, etc.) to a terminal impact (fairness and/or education). I love judging a good T round and I will reward teams with the ballot and with good speaker points for well thought-out interpretations (or counter-interps) with nuanced defenses. I would much rather hear a well-articulated 2NR on why I need to enforce a limited vision of the topic than a K with state/omission links or a Frankenstein process CP that results in the aff.

I default to competing interpretations, but reasonability can be compelling to me if properly contextualized. I am more receptive when affs can articulate why their specific counter-interp is reasonable (e.g., "The aff interp only imposes a reasonable additional research burden of two more cases") versus vague generalities ("Good is good enough").

I believe that many resolutions (especially domestic topics) are sufficiently aff-biased or poorly worded that preserving topicality as a viable generic negative strategy is important. I have no problem voting for the neg if I believe that they have done the better debating, even if I think that the aff is/should be topical in a truth sense. I am also a judge who will actually vote on T-Substantial (substantial as in size, not subsets) because I think there should be a mechanism to check small affs.

Fx/Xtra Topicality: I will vote on them independently if they are impacted as independent voters. However, I believe they are internal links to the original violation and standards (i.e. you don't meet if you only meet effectually). The neg is best off introducing Fx/Xtra early with me in the back; I give the 1ARs more leeway to answer new Fx/Xtra extrapolations than I will give the 2AC for undercovering Fx/Xtra.

Framework / T-USFG

For an aff to win framework they must articulate and defend specific reasons why they cannot and do not embed their advocacy into a topical policy as well as reasons why resolutional debate is a bad model. Procedural fairness starts as an impact by default and the aff must prove why it should not be. I can and will vote on education outweighs fairness, or that substantive fairness outweighs procedural fairness, but the aff must win these arguments. The TVA is an education argument and not a fairness argument; affs are not entitled to the best version of the case (policy affs do not get extra-topical solvency mechanisms), so I don't care if the TVA is worse than the planless version from a competitive standpoint.

For the neg, you have the burden of proving either that fairness outweighs the aff's education or that policy-centric debate has better access to education (or a better type of education). I am neutral regarding which impact to go for -- I firmly believe the negative is on the truth side on both -- it will be your execution of these arguments that decides the round. Contextualization and specificity are your friends. If you go with fairness, you should not only articulate specific ground loss in the round, but why neg ground loss under the aff's model is inevitable and uniquely worse. When going for education, deploy arguments for why plan-based debate is a better internal link to positive real world change: debate provides valuable portable skills, debate is training for advocacy outside of debate, etc. Empirical examples of how reform ameliorates harm for the most vulnerable, or how policy-focused debate scales up better than planless debate, are extremely persuasive in front of me.

Procedurals/Theory

I think that debate's largest educational impact is training students in real world advocacy, therefore I believe that the best iteration of debate is one that teaches people in the room something about the topic, including minutiae about process. I have MUCH less aversion to voting on procedurals and theory than most judges. I think the aff has a burden as advocates to defend a specific and coherent implementation strategy of their case and the negative is entitled to test that implementation strategy. I will absolutely pull the trigger on vagueness, plan flaws, or spec arguments as long as there is a coherent story about why the aff is bad for debate and a good answer to why cross doesn't check. Conversely, I will hold negatives to equally high standards to defend why their counterplans make sense and why they should be considered competitive with the aff.

That said, you should treat theory like topicality; there is a bare amount of time and development necessary to make it a viable choice in your last speech. Outside of cold concessions, you are probably not going to persuade me to vote for you absent actual line-by-line refutation that includes a coherent abuse story which would be solved by your interpretation.

Also, if you go for theory... SLOW. DOWN. You have to account for pen/keyboard time; you cannot spread a block of analytics at me like they were a card and expect me to catch everything. I will be very unapologetic in saying I didn't catch parts of the theory debate on my flow because you were spreading too fast.

My defaults that CAN be changed by better debating:

- Condo is good (but should have limitations, esp. to check perf cons and skew).

- PICs, Actor, and Process CPs are all legitimate if they prove competition; a specific solvency advocate proves competitiveness but the lack of specific solvency evidence indicates high risk of a solvency deficit and/or no competition.

- The aff gets normal means or whatever they specify; they are not entitled to all theoretical implementations of the plan (i.e. perm do the CP) due to the lack of specificity.

- The neg is not entitled to intrinsic processes that result in the aff (i.e. ConCon, NGA, League of Democracies).

- Consult CPs and Floating PIKs are bad.

My defaults that are UNLIKELY to change or CANNOT be changed:

- CX is binding.

- Lit checks/justifies (debate is primarily a research and strategic activity).

- OSPEC is never a voter (except fiating something contradictory to ev or a contradiction between different authors).

- "Cheating" is reciprocal (utopian alts justify utopian perms, intrinsic CPs justify intrinsic perms, and so forth).

- Real instances of abuse justify rejecting the team and not just the arg.

- Teams should disclose previously run arguments; breaking new doesn't require disclosure.

- Real world impacts exist (i.e. setting precedents/norms), but specific instances of behavior outside the room/round that are not verifiable are not relevant in this round.

- Condo is not the same thing as severance of the discourse/rhetoric. You can win severance of your reps, but it is not a default entitlement from condo.

- ASPEC is checked by cross. The neg should ask and if the aff answers and doesn't spike, I will not vote on ASPEC. If the aff does not answer, the neg can win by proving abuse. Potential ground loss is abuse.

Kritiks

TL;DR: I would much rather hear a good K than a bad politics disad, so if you have a coherent and contextualized argument for why critical academic scholarship is relevant to the aff, I am fine for you. If you run Ks to avoid doing specific case research and brute force ballots with links of omission or reusing generic criticisms about the state/fiat, I am a bad judge for you. If I'm in the back for a planless aff vs. a K, reconsider your prefs/strategy.

A kritik must be presented as a comprehensible argument in round. To me, that means that a K must not only explain the scholarship and its relevance (links and impacts), but it must function as a coherent call for the ballot (through the alt). A link alone is insufficient without a reason to reject the aff and/or prefer the alt. I do not have any biases or predispositions about what my ballot does or should do, but if you cannot explain your alt and/or how my ballot interacts with the alt then I will have an extremely low threshold for treating the K as a non-unique disad. Alts like "Reject the aff" and "Vote neg" are fine so long as there is a coherent explanation for why I should do that beyond the mere fact the aff links (for example, if the K turns case). If the alt solves back for the implications of the K, whether it is a material alt or a debate space alt, the solvency process should be explained and contrasted with the plan/perm. Links of omission are very uncompelling. Links are not disads to the perm unless you have a (re-)contextualization to why the link implicates perm solvency. Ks can solve the aff, but the mechanism shouldn't be that the world of the alt results in the plan (i.e. floating PIK).

Affs should not be afraid of going for straight impact turns behind a robust framework press to evaluate the aff. I'm more willing than most judges to weigh the impacts vs. labeling your discourse as a link. Being extremely good at historical analysis is the best way to win a link turn or impact turn. I am also particularly receptive to arguments about pragmatism on the perm, especially if you have empirical examples of progress through state reform that relates directly to the impacts.

Against K affs, you should leverage fairness and education offensive as a way to shape the process by which I should evaluate the kritik. I'm more likely to give you "No perms without a plan text" because cheating should be mutual than I am to give it to you because epistemology and pedagogy is important.

Counterplans

I think that research is a core part of debate as an activity, and good counterplan strategy goes hand-in-hand with that. The risk of your net benefit is evaluated inversely proportional to the quality of the counterplan is. Generic PICs are more vulnerable to perms and solvency deficits and carry much higher threshold burden on the net benefit. PICs with specific solvency advocates or highly specific net benefits are devastating and one of the ways that debate rewards research and how debate equalizes aff side bias by rewarding negs who who diligent in research. Agent and process counterplans are similarly better when the neg has a nuanced argument for why one agent/process is better than the aff's for a specific plan.

- Process CPs: I am extremely unfriendly to process counterplans where the process is entirely intrinsic; I have a very low threshold for rejecting them theoretically or granting the aff an intrinsic perm to test opportunity cost. I am extremely friendly to process counterplans that test a distinct implementation method compared to the aff. Intentionally vague plan texts do not give the aff access to all theoretical implementations of the plan (Perm Do the CP). The neg can define normal means for the aff if the aff refuses to, but the neg has an equally high burden to defend the competitiveness of the CP process vs. normal means. There are differences in form and content between legislative statutes, administrative regulations, executive orders, and court cases; I will vote aff on CP flaws if the neg's attempt to hot-swap between these processes produces a structural defect.

I do not judge kick by default, but 2NRs can easily convince me to do so as an extension of condo. Superior solvency for the aff case alone is sufficient reason to vote for the CP in a debate that is purely between hypothetical policies (i.e. the aff has no competition arguments in the 2AR).

I am very likely to err neg on sufficiency framing; the aff absolutely needs either a solvency deficit or arguments about why an appeal to sufficiency framing itself means that the neg cannot capture the ethic of the affirmative (and why that outweighs).

Disadvantages

I value defense more than most judges and am willing to assign minimal ("virtually zero") risk based on defense, especially when quality difference in evidence is high or the disad scenario is painfully artificial. Nuclear war probably outweighs the soft left impact in a vacuum, but not when you are relying on "infinite impact times small risk is still infinity" to mathematically brute force past near zero risk. I can be convinced by good analysis that there is always a risk of a DA in spite of defense.

Misc.

Speaker Point Scale: I feel speaker points are arbitrary and the only way to fix this is standardization. Consequently I will try to follow any provided tournament scale very closely. In the event that there is no tournament scale, I grade speaks on bell curve with 30 being the 99th percentile, 27.5 being as the median 50th percentile, and 25 being the 1st percentile. I'm aggressive at BOTH addition and subtraction from this baseline since bell curves are distributed around the average. Elim teams should be scoring above average by definition. The scale is standardized; national circuit tournaments will have higher averages than local tournaments. Points are rewarded for both style (entertaining, organized, strong ethos) and substance (strategic decisions, quality analysis, obvious mastery of nuance/details). I listen closely to CX and include CX performance in my assessment. Well contextualized humor is the quickest way to get higher speaks in front of me, e.g. make a Thanos snap joke on the Malthus flow.

Delivery and Organization: Your speed should be limited by clarity. I reference the speech doc during the debate to check clipping, not to flow. You should be clear enough that I can flow without needing your speech doc. Additionally, even if I can hear and understand you, I am not going to flow your twenty point theory block perfectly if you spit it out in ten seconds. Proper sign-posted line by line is the bare minimum to get over a 28.5 in speaks. I will only flow straight down as a last resort, so it is important to sign-post the line-by-line, otherwise I will lose some of your arguments while I jump around on my flow and I will dock your speaks. If online please keep in mind that you will, by default, be less clear through Zoom than in person.

Cross-X, Prep, and Tech: Tag-team CX is fine but it's part of your speaker point rating to give and answer most of your own cross. I think that finishing the answer to a final question during prep is fine and simple clarification and non-substantive questions during prep is fine, but prep should not be used as an eight minute time bank of extra cross-ex. I don't charge prep for tech time, but tech is limited to just the emailing or flashing of docs. When you end prep, you should be ready to distribute.

Strategy Points: I will reward good practices in research and preparation. On the aff, plan texts that have specific mandates backed by solvency authors get bonus speaks. I will also reward affs for running disads to negative advocacies (real disads, not solvency deficits masquerading as disads -- Hollow Hope or Court Capital on a courts counterplan is a disad but CP gets circumvented is not). Negative teams with case negs (i.e. hyper-specific counterplans or a nuanced T or procedural objection to the specific aff plan text) will get bonus speaks.

I'm a parent judge.  I expect clear logical arguments presented in a precise, courteous manner.  I do not appreciate the spreading, as it takes away from the actual debating.  Be passionate in your presentation, but do not let your emotions substitute the arguments, evidence and logic.  For the same reason, please, limit the case kritik.  The tournament is a place to debate the resolution, not your personal views and affinities.

*Varsity Speaks: Boost in speaker points when you compliment your partner in-speech - the more fun or earnest, the higher the speaks boost :) I've found this gives some much needed levity in tense rounds.

*Online: Please go slower online. I'll let you know if you cut out. I'll try on my end to be as fair as possible within the limits of keeping the round reasonably on time. If the tournament has a forfeit policy, I'll go by those.

Background: 3 years of college super trad policy (stock issues/T & CPs) & some parli. I coach PF, primarily middle school/novice and a few open. She/her. Docshare >

PF:

Firm on paraphrasing bad. I used to reward teams for the bare minimum of reading cut cards but then debaters would bold-faced lie and I would become the clown emoji in real time. I'm open to hearing arguments that penalize paraphrasing, whether it's treating them as analytics that I shouldn't prefer over your read cards or I should drop the team that paraphrases entirely.

Disclosure is good because evidence ethics in PF are bad, but I probably won't vote for disclosure theory. I'm more likely to reward you in speaks for doing it (ex. sharing speech docs) than punish a team for not.

“Defense is sticky.” No it isn’t.

Ex. Fully frontline whatever you want to go for in second summary in second rebuttal. Same logic as if it's in your final focus, it better be in your partner's summary. I like consistency.

If you take longer than a minute to exchange a card you just read, it starts coming out of your prep. Speech docs make sure this is never an issue, so that's another plug.

Collapsing, grouping, and implicating = good, underrated, easy path to my ballot! Doc botting, blippy responses, no warrants or ev comparison = I'm sad, and you'll be sad at your speaks.

Cleaner debates collapse earlier rather than later.

I'm super into strategic concessions. "It's okay that they win this, because we win here instead and that matters more bc..."

I have a soft spot for framing. I'm most interested when the opposing team links in (ex. team A runs "prioritize extinction," team B replies, "yes, and that's us,"), but I'll definitely listen to "prioritize x instead" args, too. Just warrant, compare, etc.

Other "progressive pf" - I have minimal experience judging it. I'm not saying you can't run these debates or I'm unwilling to listen to them, but I'm saying be aware and slow down if I'm the one evaluating. Update: So far this season, I've voted down trigger warning theory and voted for paraphrasing theory.

I'll accept new weighing in final focus but I don't think it's strategic - you should probably start in summary to increase my chances of voting off of it.

All else fails, I will 1) look at the weighing, then 2), evaluate the line-by-line to see if I give you reasonable access to those impacts to begin with. Your opponents would have to really slip up somewhere to win the weighing but lose the round, but it's not impossible. I get really sad if the line-by-line is so convoluted that I only vote on the weighing - give me a clean place to vote. I'll be happy if you do the extra work to tell me why your weighing mechanism is better than theirs (I should prefer scope over mag because x, etc).

LD:

I’m a better judge for you if you're more trad/LARP. The more "progressive," the more you should either A) strike me if possible, or B) explain it to me slowly and simply - I’m open to hearing it if you’re willing to adjust how you argue it. Send a speech doc and assume I'm not as well-read as you on the topic literature.

All:

If it's before 9am, assume I learned what debate was 10 minutes ago. If it's the last round of the night, assume the same.

Open/varsity - time yourselves. Keep each other honest, but don't be the prep police.

On speed generally - I can do "fast" PF mostly fine, but I prefer slower debates and no spreading.

Content warnings should be read for graphic content. Have an anonymous opt-out.

Have warrants. Compare warrants. Tell me why your args matter/what to do with them.

Don't post-round. Debaters should especially think about who you choose to post-round on a panel when decisions echo one another.

Having a sense of humor and being friendly/accommodating toward your opponents is the easiest way to get good speaks from me. Be kind, have fun, laugh a little (but not at anyone's expense!!), and I'll have no problem giving you top speaks.

If I smile, you did something right. If I nod, I'm following what you say. I will absolutely tilt my head and make a face if you lost me or you're treading on thin ice on believability of whatever you're saying. If I just look generally unhappy - that's just my default face. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Erik Pielstick – Los Osos High School

(Former LD debater, long-time debate judge, Long-time high school debate coach)

Parliamentary Debate Paradigm

Parli is intended to be a limited preparation debate on topics of current events and/or common knowledge. Therefore I would view it as unfair for a team to present a case on either the Government or Opposition side which cannot be refuted by arguments drawn from common knowledge or arguments that one would have been expected to have done at least a minimal amount of research on during prep time if the topic is very specific.

The Government team has the responsibility of presenting a debatable case.

The opposition team needs to respond to the Government case. In most cases I would not accept kritik of the resolution as a response. DEBATE THE RESOLUTION THAT YOU WERE PRESENTED WITH!

Parli should not involve spreading because it is not a prepared event. You can speak quickly (180 - 220 wpm) but you should be clear. Speed should never be used as a strategy in the round. I will not tell you if you are going too fast. If I didn't understand an argument I can't vote on it. It doesn't matter if my inability to understand you is because you are going too fast or just making incoherent arguments at a leisurely pace. It is never my responsibility to tell you during the round that I can't understand your arguments.

Parli is not policy debate and it is not LD. Don't try to make it about reading evidence. I will vote based on the arguments presented in the round, and how effectively those arguments were upheld or refuted. Good refutation can be based on logic and reasoning. Out-think, out-argue, out-debate your opponent. So, yeah, I'm old-school.

Lincoln Douglas Debate Paradigm

I value cleverness, wit, and humor.

That said, your case can be unique and clever, but there is a fine line between clever and ridiculous, and between unique and abusive. I can’t say where that line is, but I know it when I see it.

Affirmative debater should establish a framework that makes sense. Most debaters go with the “value”/“value criterion” format, but it could probably be a cost-benefit debate, or some other standard for me to judge the debate. I want to see clash. The negative debater could establish the debate as a clash of competing values, a clash of criteria for the same value, or a clash over whether affirming or negating best upholds aff value with the neg offering no value of their own.

The affirmative wins by upholding the resolution. The negative wins by proving the resolution to be untrue in a general sense, or by attacking the affirmative's arguments point by point. I generally look to the value or framework first, then to contentions. Arguments must be warranted, but in LD good philosophy can provide a warrant. Respond to everything. I will accept sound logic and reasoning as a response.

I listen well and can keep up aurally with a fast delivery (200wpm), but I have trouble flowing when someone is spreading. If you want me to keep track of your arguments don’t spread. I won’t penalize excessive speed with my ballot unless it is used as a strategy in the round against someone who is not able to keep up. Debate is a communicative activity - both debaters need to be able to understand each other, and I need to be able to understand the debate. No, I will not tell you if you're going too fast. If I didn't understand an argument I can't vote on it. It doesn't matter if my inability to understand you is because you are going too fast or just making incoherent arguments at a leisurely pace. It is never my responsibility to tell you during the round that I can't understand your arguments. Ultimately, I’m old-school. I debated LD in the 80s and I prefer debaters who can win without spreading.

A good cross examination really impresses me. I tend to award high speaks to great cross examinations, cross examination responses may be part of my flow.

I generally don’t like theory arguments, but in rare cases I would vote for a well-reasoned theory or abuse argument. Fairness is a voting issue.

I generally dislike kritiks in LD. A committee of very smart people spent a lot of time and energy writing the resolution. You should debate the resolution.

Also, I HATE policy arguments in LD. LD was created as a value-based alternative to policy debate. The NSDA and CHSSA, still to this day, describe LD as a debate of values and/or questions of justice and morality. CHSSA actually went so far as to make it a violation of the rules to run a plan or counterplan in a CHSSA event. If someone wants to run a plan they should learn to get along better with others, find a partner, and do Policy Debate.

Finish with clear, concise voting issues. Talk me through the flow. Tell me why you win.

Finally, debate is intellectual/verbal combat. Go for the kill. Leave your opponent’s case a smoldering pile of rubble, but be NICE about it. I don’t want any rude, disrespectful behavior, or bad language. Keep me interested, I want to be entertained.

A good debate means both sides have strong, well researched cases with points that are easy to understand and supported with evidence. Debaters are respectful of each other and the spirit of the event.

I judge on framework and flow. The debater that wins will be the one who best defends their case with supported rebuttals and upholds their value through the end of the debate.

Hello! My name is Jonas, I'm currently a coach for Walt Whitman High School. I have 4 years of HS debate experience (mostly Parli with a bit of PF), 4ish years of collegiate debate experience (British Parli and APDA), and 3ish years of coaching and judging experience (Parli, Congress, and PF).

I'll flow all your arguments, just make sure that you explain to me what your argument is, how it's relevant to the debate, and why it's important. If you want me to vote for you, have clear link work and explicit weighing of your impacts. If you tell me that "x" is the most important issue in the round, I will vote on "x." If your opponents tell me that "y" is the most important issue in the round, then you need to tell me why I should vote on "x" instead of "y," or how you can win on both "x" and "y." If you tell me something is the most important issue, I will spend more time trying to find a ballot for you on that clash. If no teams tell me where I should be voting, I will be very sad.

I won't automatically vote on drops. You still have to prove why that arg is round winning and can outweigh wherever your opponents are closest to winning.

I don't have a preference for any specific types of arguments, but please make sure your arguments relate to the round! I'm probably not going to vote for something super high magnitude but also incredibly low probability (as long as there's some pushback on that arg). So if you impact out to nuke war when the topic is about international adoptions, and your opponents say "that's highly unlikely," I probably won't vote there. If you can convince me that there's some degree of probability, then I will vote for it.

Weighing is really important. If your weighing is clear and specific, I'm more likely to vote for you. Your weighing should also be comparative. Tell me how I should weigh your arguments, and be specific about what impact you want me to vote for. Please weigh across your clashes too (if you are winning on one clash, and your opponents are winning on another, explain why you winning your clash is more important than them winning their clash).

I'm fine with speed, but I might drop some args if you are fully spreading.

Unless your k is really good and really applicable, don't run it. Not a huge fan of theory debates.

Always be respectful of your opponents. Debate should be an educational space and I will dock your speaks if you are too mean.

Have fun!

-

Two quick notes for the Feb PF topic:

• I don't want the round to devolve into just a back and forth about the importance of one or two statistics. Barring a glaring issue (i.e. date of the study, funding for authors, skewed methodology), I would much rather you spend your time focused on the logical warrants you can make regarding the original argument, or better yet weighing your impacts. If you hit me with a "EVEN IF you don't doubt the significance x card my opponents have, here's why we still outweigh," I will be quite happy.

• Similarly, I don't want the round devolving into whether or not a certain stat should apply because of confounding variables. I have noticed a lot of teams saying that their opponents' stats shouldn't apply because of x confounding variable, but then don't hold their own stats to the same accountability. Once again, I care more about the logical warranting you can use these cards for, and the weighing you can build off of the impacts.

I have judged public forum debate and IE for three years now and competed for 4 years in a variety of events: public forum, DI, OPP, and TI. I made it to the 2016 National Championship in Salt Lake City, and made it to the 2016 State Tournament on the Claremont High School Team. I am currently Team Captain on the Claremont High School Debate Team as well.

I am a flow judge who pays close attention to dropped arguments but will recognize when they are no longer relevant. Speed is not a huge issue but if I can not understand what you are saying do not expect me to count your arguments. Remember that my experience comes from public forum. Voter issues and thus impacts are extremely important, I want you to explicitly tell me why I need to vote for your side.

Average speaker score given:

27 (+/- depending on the round)

Above all, be respectful to one another.

I am a lay judge and a university history professor. I expect respectful behavior, logical arguments, and please no spreading.

Policy Debater at CSU Fullerton 2 years (2009-11)

High Debate Coach for 3 years (2010-2013)

Debate Judge for 10 years (2010-present)

High School Math and Physics Teacher ( 2018- present)

Email chain: 1680super@gmail.com

Short version: I want to see and hear what you are good at doing. You pick your style and convince me that you know what they are talking about.

Brief recap of what general debater think of me;
A lot of people have pegged me as a certain kind of judge—crazy, in other words. While I may be crazy in the head, I don’t think that I judge rounds in a particularly different way than other judges. I, like other judges, VOTE for which team did the better DEBATING. How I come to this conclusion is much the same as other critics: I allow myself to be PERSUADED by the rhetorical force of one or another team’s ARGUMENT. You need to win an argument and a reason why that argument means that I should vote for you. Feel free to choose whatever type of argument you prefer. Virtually everything in the round is up for debate in front of me. But I will also be hesitant to vote on arguments that fly in the face of reality.

Some fine details;

(1) Kritik: Don’t assume that I have read and/or understood your author. If the argument isn’t in the text of the card, then you need to make sure that it is comprehensible in your analysis or explanation of the card. Also, remember that the evidence is not the argument by itself.

(2)How I flow: I believe in the debate. That is, I flow it, and I believe it occurs. However, I don’t even try to line everything up in the debate—I just flow from the top down on each sheet of paper (Excel spreadsheet). Know your argument and give detail on it, your analysis, spin, and articulation are all important and I follow that as much.

(3)Policy debate is like chess. Debate at a reasonable pace for yourself so that you don’t forget or drop arguments. Clash with the other team, debate is not in a vacuum. Debate with a lack of clash makes it harder to judge because I feel like have to intervention and connect the dot myself. Lastly, like in chess, you can’t win with all your pieces. You will have to lose some pieces, know what you are losing and wining in a sophisticated way.

(4) Value and meaning isn’t implied. You need to frame “Framework” how I view arguments and what I value. Tell me how you want me to see the round and why that is important over the way your opponent views.

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ):

Question: Can I read an aff without a plan?

Answer: Sure but do you really want to have a framework debate over policy implementation?

Question: I hear you’re a K guy and like K, I normally run DisAd and CP so do I need to pull out my K?

Answer. PLEASE DON’T. The worst thing you can do is run an argument that doesn’t fit your style and strengths. If you are a straight up, line by line, politic disad kind of debater then go for it. I don’t vote for the K anymore than I do the DisAd. A good argument with articulation and explanation will do you more than running something that you can’t explain.

Question: Is it true that you never vote on Theory or Topically?

Answer: I did the math, I have voted for theory or topically maybe 2.5% of the time since I started judging, that is like 4 out of 170 rounds. While it’s a hard sell because I lend toward looking at real in round abuse.

glhf

-Primarily a PF coach and judge with experience in all debate events.

-I'm a note/flow judge, although arguments are still weighed on their quality rather than just quantity "pulled through". The earlier and more consistently an argument is made, the more weight it will have if carried to the end of the round.

-This is in addition to weighing arguments on their evidence and impact(s). While I won't insert outside arguments into the round, a weaker argument will still be weighed accordingly even if the opponents don't respond sufficiently (although a team that clearly rebuts bad argument will win the point more strongly).

-Evidence is important, especially the more specific the data or the more counter-intuitive a claim is. I remember citations in round by their content more than the author: so rather than only saying e.g. "our Smith card already refutes that point", be sure to also bring the simple explanation of what the evidence says and how it applies.

-Because topics will often provide contradictory evidence for debaters to use and my ability to investigate authors/credibility/etc in round is limited, it's often the case that the side that offers the best warrant analysis in round can make the difference (explain why your evidence makes more sense).

I did not debate in either high school or college, but began judging when my daughter started high school. I don't have a preference for any particular event, and enjoy judging both debate and IE.

Re: IE - I love almost all of the events (except DI, but I'll judge it if they need me to), and I know what good interpretation looks like. If you're doing Impromptu, be aware that I'll give the higher rankings to kids who literally improvise their speeches to match the topic, and give the bottom rankings to kids who improv their intros and then pull out their same three examples no matter what the topic is, even if the improv isn't as smooth as the rehearsed one.

I love clash in a debate, and value logic and argumentation. I flow rounds, but I am not one of those judges who is all in my own head thinking about what I would say if I were in your shoes. You should convince me that (a) your arguments are stronger and (b) that your opponents dropped parts of your case. Link chains should be well-explained; they're called "link" for a reason.

I've learned to really appreciate topicality debates, but I also like other types of debate as well.

I'm a native New Yorker, born and bred. I think fast, I write fast, and I talk fast. However, let me remind you that I am a lay judge. If you are spreading, I am more likely to offer you an asthma inhaler than to decide that you have won the round.

Finally, I can't stand when people say something like, "I/we can't debate this! This is UNFAIR to our side!" Yes. Yes, you can. You are a debater. Make it so.

I am a lay judge with three years of experience. I judge multiple invitationals each year in southern California. In '17 and '18 I judged at Stanford Invitational, and in '17 I judged at State. I have judged many league tournaments over the years and twice judged CBSR league qualifiers. I judge all events: IE and debate.

Over the years I have learned that, when judging Parli, I prefer a logical, well-organized, well-paced case that builds without falling into the "information dump" trap. I am also suspicious of Parli debaters inventing statistics in round. If I am about to judge a Parli round you're in, please know that running a K is risky. You'll need a very good reason, one that enhances rather than diminishes the value and integrity of the debate. Educational value is paramount; your case needs to respect that, as well as your opponents.

Flow judge who can't deny the power of a good narrative. Journalist by trade so I value organization. Former college debater and former HS debate coach.

Don't spread and don't make excessive evidence calls.

I'm a coach.  Blank slate.  I'm pure flow in all formats.  I'm fine with speed.  Fine with anything pre or post fiat in LD and policy.  Team or debater who wins the flow wins the round.  No intervention.  I will vote on topicality.  I will vote on theory.  I will vote on case.  I will vote on K's.  Depends who better sells that I should prefer their voters.

Hi! I'm Mary. Thanks for reading my paradigm :)

Who are you?

I am an attorney practicing business and employment law in Oregon. (If you are interested in law I'd love to chat!) From 2020-2023 while I went to law school, I was co NFA-LD coach for Lewis & Clark College. I graduated from L&C undergrad in May 2020 and did parli (NPDA) debate there. I also competed in high school for four years, mainly in LD. For the sake of ultimate transparency, I want to make my debate opinions as explicit as possible. I promise to try my best!

What is the tl;dr?

I will listen to any argument that you make and will weigh it how you tell me to. K's are my favorite and topicality is not (though I am down for the silly stuff!) Please make clear extensions. Don't be a jerk. I will absolutely not tolerate discriminatory behavior or post-rounding.

Note for High School:

You do you! I have done or am familiar with every high school event. All of the below would apply in a technical/circuit style debate round. If you are unfamiliar with any of that, don't worry! I will evaluate the round how you tell me to. Feel free to ask me questions. Be kind to each other. Have fun with it!

How do you allocate speaker points?

I really struggled with coming up with a consistent way to give speaks. They are usually arbitrary and reflective of personal biases... SO I usually give high speaks (30 + 29.9). That being said if I don't give you the speaks you wanted, don't read into it, I have no idea how to give speaks in a fair or consistent way. I'm open to any args you want to make about speaks and just let me know if you have any questions.

How do you feel about Speed?

I have not kept up with debate ever since starting my career and need you to go somewhere between your mid and top speed. If it's really important PLEASE slow down. If there is a doc, I can keep up better with faster spreading so please share it with me! I'll slow and/or clear you if I need to.

What about the K?

I love love love performative affs and GOOD k debates. I've almost always read non-topical Ks with some fun (loosely) topical debates mixed in every once in a while. I’m familiar with almost all K lit but please do not assume I know exactly what you are talking about (especially when it comes to D n G bc i simply do not get it.) I am most familiar with futurism arguments and performance affs. Cap is fun! Generic links are so frustrating and so are unclear alts. I love a good explanation of the world post the alt. I'd honestly rather vote for an uncarded link that is specific to the aff and contextualized to the debate than to vote on a generic carded link.

How do you feel about perms?

Love it. Fun stuff. Perms are probably advocacies because everyone treats them like they are.

What if I want to read theory/topicality?

If you read theory or topicality, read a smart interp with a clear violation and standards/voters that make sense. Voters that do not make sense to me include: fairness without a warrant, education without a warrant, and “NFA rules say it’s a voter.”

I prefer proven abuse. I don't think potential abuse has an impact.

I also think the competing interps vs. reasonability debate is SO dumb. "prefer CI bc reasonability leads to judge intervention" and "prefer reasonability bc CI leads to a race to the bottom” are not warrants. If you really want to know how I evaluate theory, it is likely that I will "reasonably" vote for whichever "competing interpretation" is doing the best.

We meets are terminal defense on T.

I wanna read some topical stuff! How does that sound?

Great! Read tons of topical stuff. I do like me a good topical debate! Clearly articulated link chains and impacts will go a long way.

Condo?

Be condo if you want plus I prefer a hard collapse anyway.

Anything else?

Collapse, slow down for important things you really want me to remember, don't forget to do impact calc, and have fun ;)

Please feel free to send/ask me questions! You can reach me at marytalamantez@lclark.edu or send me a message on facebook. Otherwise you can ask before a round!

I was a national HS circuit debater in the 1980s (policy) and did a little coaching at the college level in policy as well. As a parent volunteer the last couple years, I’ve judged most events and genuinely enjoy these rounds . . . so have fun when you’re debating in front of me!  

A few specifics/preferences:  

*    I start out with Tabula Rosa paradigm unless/until I’m persuaded to bring a different model to the debate. I’m open to all sorts of arguments, just make sure that you explain to me why something should be a voter — it’s not enough to win an arcane argument, it needs to make sense to me why it should win you the ballot.  

*    In spite of the above, I’m pre-disposed to treat the “stock issues” (especially Topicality) with reverence.  

*    I’m all about the flow. It’s not only the road map that I use to keep my brain organized throughout the debate, it’s also my record of the debate for post-round decision making. You’ll make things a lot easier on me (and therefore yourself) if you sign-post clearly before your constructives/rebuttals and make sure I stay on the same page with you during each speech.  

*    I’m comfortable with speed and will flow whatever I can hear. But one word of caution: I’m more impressed by smart arguments than I am by quantity of arguments.  

*    I’m old school when it comes to speaker points (let’s just say that 30s were a lot more rare in my day) but I’ll work hard to award them as close as I can to the current points scale. Fastest way to get dinged by me, though, is to be a jerk to other competitors — no matter how good you are. No excuse for rudeness.  

*    I like to call for evidence after rounds, from obscure definitions of terms in the resolution to cards buried in the middle of contentions. Don’t read anything into the stuff I ask to see, sometimes it’s crucial to my RFD and other times I’m just curious about a source citation.  

Last thing to understand about my judging philosophy: I was away from debate for many years, so some of the progressive arguments (e.g., Kritiks) are new to me. I’m open to them, but just be forewarned that you’ll need to explain the theory of your argument and how I should weigh it in the round.  

Competitive debate is awesome and will help you in every aspect of your academics, but it also teaches you skills that will be a competitive advantage for you in your professional careers. Have fun!

I am pretty much a debate judge, I can follow along and flow a debate really well. I understand parli jargon, but I dont like to see it outside of appropriate rounds. I also very much favor structure in debate. If you can make your arguments clear and understandable, then it makes it so much easier for me.

- 4th year judging speech & debate

- I do keep a debate flow.

- If you spread, make sure I can understand you.

P.S. I don't shake hands because I don't want us all getting sick. Please don't take it personally. :)

I don't appreciate spreading.