I firmly believe the judge should not be a part of the debate, therefore I have no paradigm. Your frameworks and arguments will dictate the round. All I ask is that I can understand you.

Pretty obvious stuff

Debate is won through good, well researched arguments, not technical "tricks". Don't claim drops when they didn't happen. Make sure you clash and explain why you won clearly - what did the debate come down to?

I'm not particularly interested in a statistics fight. It is impossible for me to know which statistics are more accurate.

Don't spread. It's not fun, not in the spirit of debate and has zero life skill or educational value.

Hello, I am a parent judge and have been judging policy, LD, PF, some Congress for the past 3 years.

My email id is mythilig@yahoo.com.

2021. LD, PF, Congress I have judged a lot and I am good at all levels.

CX, treat me like a lay judge through detailed technicalities. Spreading is fine if you email me your cases. But, slow down and make tag lines super clear.

The faster you want to speak, the more clearly you will need to speak. I value clarity greatly over speed. Spreading is a tool, but it won't win you the round. I appreciate weighing mechanisms that show how you want me to weigh your evidence over your opponents'. Focus on clarity in Rebuttals, tell clearly me what you want me to put in the ballot.

I will raise my hand or call CLEAR if I am not following and won't call more than twice in a speech - at that point, it will be your loss if I don't follow.

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I only give you lower than a 26 if you are: offensive, rude, racist, or are an unfair debater.

0 speaks for blatant cheating or card-clipping.

Ks: I am not very well versed in the lit for Ks. No jargon. If you are going to go with anything complicated, you must explain it extremely well in order for me to vote off of it.

DAs: I am good with them. Maintain a clear narrative that I can understand and do impact calc.

T: Do not get caught up in jargon. I won't know what you are saying. Be clear and concise about impacts and how I should evaluate T.

Theory: I will vote on theory possibly if it is really well explained

Counterplans: I'm good with counterplans. Explain slowly and well what the counterplan does and how I should evaluate it. Explain how it solves the aff and what the net benefit is. Do this well and you can win a CP

Technical debate: While this is a tech debate, do not lose sight of English and impacts to the people / world because of the technicalities, especially in the 2NR and 2AR.

http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Schmidt%2C+Joshua

I debated policy 4 years for Lake City High School in Coeur d'Alene Idaho (ok, technically I debated 3 years for CdA and then 1 year for Lake City which was a brand new school). I did this in the 90s. Policy debate was different back then.

I did not debate in college and have coached for many years now (PF and LD).

Lincoln Douglas

I value the resolution. I believe Aff has a burden to show the resolution is, generally speaking, a true statement. Neg has the burden to show it is a false statement.

The method by which we typically answer the question of the resolution is the criterion (value-criterion or standard). I should note that I am completely open to other methods of answering the question of the resolution. What most people mis-understand is that these methods must actually address the question and not some other question that you wish we were debating.

When it comes time to decide the round I will do the following: First - I will try and decide which criterion to use as a method for deciding the round. This means that you are extremely well advised to compare and contrast your criterion with your opponents. If both criterions are shown to be not worth using then I will just weigh generic “impacts” broadly defined and largely up to my own personal biases. You don’t want this to happen.

If I happen to choose your opponents criterion then you want to link into it and show how you also win the round under your opponents method of deciding the victor. This is a very good idea and I encourage you to do it.

Second - I will use the best criterion to decide the round. This is where I look at your contentions and impact level arguments and decide how they interact with the criterion I am using. Make sure your impacts are clearly applicable under your criterion.

General Notes: Speed - I can handle some amount of moderate speed that is getting less and less as I get older. I will generally not say “clear” because my main problem with speed is that your argument stops making sense to me, I can understand all the words just not the overall meaning. I wouldn’t say “clear” if you made a poor argument and I won’t say “clear” if you make a poor argument quickly.

Warrants - I highly value warrants that are explained well by the actual debater in rebuttals. Thus, you should extend the reasoning behind each piece of evidence in addition to just mentioning its name and assuming I will do the hard work of applying its logic to the round.

Author names - Refer to arguments themselves and not just “author name and #” and expect that to convince me of anything. I am generally unconvinced that something is true just because somebody got it published somewhere. (see point above about actually understanding and explaining your warrants, especially in rebuttals and especially in how those warrants interact with the argument).

Off Topic Arguments - these are generally a bad idea. I only consider the hypothetical world in which we enact the resolution (for the Aff) or negate the resolution (for the Neg). I do not consider “real world” impacts. That being said, if you have a particular argument that actually addresses the resolution then go for it, just be very sure that it actually answers the hypothetical question of the resolution and doesn’t do something else.

Circular arguments - most value debates come down to circular arguments where somebody will say without value X then value Y is meaningless and then the response will be, but value Y is necessary in order to fully realize value X. Understand that you should respond to these arguments if your opponent makes them because a dropped argument is a true argument. But these are unlikely to actually advance the debate in your favor. On the other hand, very specific arguments about values grounded in the resolution can be extremely convincing to me and are often very strategically wise to make.

Policy Debate

Basically, everything I said above about Lincoln Douglas is still true with a couple of relatively minor exceptions. First - Neg has presumption in policy debate and I will vote Neg if no Aff impacts carry through the round.

Second - I want to reemphasize that I view my role as the judge to compare the hypothetical world in which the Aff implements their plan to the Neg world (SQ or CP). The role of the ballot is to endorse the team that best does that and to explain my thinking about that question. I do not listen to any arguments about other ideas you might have about what the role of the ballot or the judge is in the round. Utilitarianism is not the only method for making this hypothetical comparison and I will listen to moral arguments (and indeed welcome them), but they must be grounded in the hypothetical debate world and not the “real” world.





Old Philosophy (basically the same as above, but I felt that I must have been unclear about a few things so I tried to explain better above).
I feel that debate is a game. Games have goals. The Aff's goal is to show that the resolution is generally a true statement. The Neg's goal is to show that the resolution is generally not true. My job is to evaluate who has accomplished their goal better.

The traditional value/value-criterion is a very efficient way of acheiving your goal; I understand what you are doing and therefore you do not need to spend much time clarifying how this causes you to meet your goal. I am open to other ways of meeting your goal, but make sure you are clearly explaining how your argument impacts the resolution. Also, you are probably being much less clear than you think you are, so explain your argument as clearly as you can and then clarify it more.

Speaking of clarity, talking fast really only works if the idea is simple to explain. For complicated ideas you should slow down (and almost *all* of philosophy is pretty complicated). Remember to explain your criterion particularly well as this is where I look to see exactly how you want me to evaluate the round. You want me to understand this very, very well so don't speed through it.

How I decide between two competing arguments. A good argument does the following: it is clearly explained (yes, this is a theme), it is relevant (i.e. it addresses your goal or it actually addresses the argument you are attacking), it is properly explained why your argument might be true (i.e. it has a warrant). It is important to note that bald assertions are not warrants and that quoting an "expert" who then makes a bald assertion is not particularly persuasive to me and can easily be overturned by your opponent's original analysis.

Arguments that the game of debate is fundamentally unfair are not persuasive to me (nothing in life is fair and much of what is perceived to be unfair in one way is actually tilted the other way).

Finally, I love crystallization. At the end of the debate I like a nice tidy list of things I should vote for you on and clear reasons why you are winning that list (it is also very helpful to weigh the arguments you are winning vs. the arguments your opponent might have won).

- I debated for four years at Unionville High school and competed at some national circuit tournaments, but was largely a traditional debater. I'm not really against circuit style debate, but I probably won't be able to evaluate it as well as you would like.

- I am tech over truth and only judge arguments that are made in the round. I will consider any dropped arguments as true for the round.

- I don't flow cross-ex, but I do pay attention. If you get your opponent to concede something important during cross and then bring it up in a later speech, I will evaluate it.

- I'm not the best with speed, but if you have to spread flash me the doc and I'll try my best to keep up. Once again, I'm not the best with speed, so I will most likely not be able to evaluate the debate as well as you would like if you do decide to spread.

- If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.