Last changed on
Fri October 19, 2018 at 9:52 AM CDT
I debated at Bettendorf for 4 years in Public Forum Debate. The things I look for in a round are clashing of warrants and impact weighing. In other words, I don't like card dumping, I want the debaters to interact with each others arguments and explain through logic/reasoning why their warrant is more sufficient. With impact weighing, I strongly stress that teams do an impact analysis and explain why their impacts should be weighed more, this will greatly help me decide the round and not try to weigh impacts on my own.
I give speaker points based on a combination of speaking style, strategy, and how well you debate. My average is around the 27/28 range, with very good speakers receiving a 29/30 score, and poor speakers receiving a 25/26 score. I will almost never give below a 25 unless a competitor does not attempt a speech.
Here's a couple pet peeves I have for you to keep in mind. I hate competitors talking extremely fast in PF debate. I don't mind if you talk quickly, but if it is so fast that I can't keep up with what you're saying, you are going too fast. A good rule of thumb is don't talk like LD circuit debaters. This is not the point of PF debate; you should try to be convincing and use persuasion skills to help win a round, not just have 10 warrants and then extend the one your opponent didn't have time to respond to. I also HATE card dumping. If you just say extend [card name here] and move on, that is not sufficient enough, you have to explain what the card says and weigh its impact. If you card dump, I will not without explaining the warrant AND impact, I will not weigh it in the round.
I also prefer the Summary and Final Focus to be a similar format. I will say I look at the summary very closely because it is where you should collapse on a few main arguments. I also would really urge teams to make sure that if they bring up an argument in the Final Focus, they should also make that argument in the summary.
I do generally disclose unless the round is extremely close and I need more time to go over my flow and come up with a decision. I also do like giving general comments and explaining why I voted for what team in the round.