** For Policy Debaters, 2020-2021. My graduate academic background is in comparative criminal justice, meaning that I probably have a lot more content familiarity than a typical judge, albeit not necessarily the debate world version of the literature. I will probably have opinions about some of your sources. Ask if you think this may help or hurt you **

I am a former policy debater and have coached and judged (at least 100 rounds of each) policy, public forum and LD debate. I flow and can whatever speed you want to throw at me, but I'm not impressed by it. I am old enough to remember LD and Public Forum debate in their infancy and what traditional policy debate was.

There are no formal rules in debate; please do not assert so in the round. There are rules about evidence that you should adhere to . . .

Debate is both a competition and an educational activity, and as a judge, I try my best to be fair and to promote debate as much as possible as a learning activity. I know debaters work hard and I try not to spoil that work by inserting myself into the round. As a result, I try as much as possible to let the round be decided by you, the debaters, and not my preferences, knowledge or values as a judge. Concretely this means:

I will not vote based on whether I like or dislike you, notions of debate etiquette or style of debate. If you behave in a way that would be a concern for a good Human Resources director, I will assess it in your speaker points, not the decision for the round.

All debaters have to argue both sides of any topic or resolution; I generally do not like arguments that systematically favor one side (pro or con; aff or neg) over the other.

I think evidence is important, not because evidence makes things magically true, but because it allows me to anchor your claims to some empirical reality. Emphasizing evidence allows me to reward you for doing the learning and work before the round. Both sides have access to the same evidence. This is the easiest way for me to be fair and promote learning as a judge. You should be able to produce any evidence read in your opening speeches within 30 seconds, WIFI willing, and you should be able to produce any source read in any speech within a few minutes.

Evidence is not necessary; you can assume that I am a fairly well-read and knowledgeable person who cares about public policy and public affairs. However, I do not agree with those who think their analytical arguments somehow trump expert analysis and sources. I have watched a lot of debate rounds over a long time in a variety of frameworks, I have yet to see Ciceronian rhetoric or Socratic logic appear. I find that what most take for "analysis" is bowlderized ECON 101 on domestic topics and IR Realism for foreign policy topics; the world is much more complex than this. Policy analysis is operationalized common sense, but there is more than one common sense out there.

I try to decide the round by evaluating two competing RFD presented in the FF or 2AR/2NR. I then use my flow of the round to hypothesis-test the RFD presented to me.

During the round, if one team clearly seems to be winning, what I am thinking about is: "what would the team that is currently losing need to do to win this round?" As a result, I tend to be a squirrel on most elimination round panels.

While I think that there

MAGIC: another way to weigh arguments (Adapted from Yale Psychologist, Robert Abelson, Statistics as Principled Argument), substitute the words "arguments" or "evidence" for "effects" and I think this is a good framework to weigh.

1. Magnitude - How big is the effect? Large effects are more compelling than small ones.
2. Articulation - How specific is it? Precise arguments are more compelling than imprecise ones.
3. Generality - How generally does it apply? More general evidence and arguments are more compelling than less general ones. Claims that would interest a more general audience are more compelling.
4. Interestingness - interesting arguments/evidence are those that "have the potential, through empirical analysis, to change what people believe about an important issue". More interesting arguments are more compelling than less interesting ones.
5. Credibility - Credible claims are more compelling than incredible ones. Debaters must show that the claims made are credible. Claims that contradict previously established ones are less credible

A good summary of common logical errors made in arguments

Rhetological Fallacies:

https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/

I have strong preference for PF debaters who are able to communicate clearly to a general audience. Slow down, enunciate, and avoid excessive debate jargon if you want my ballot! Finally, WEIGH!!!!!!! The more weighing, the higher chance you have of picking up my ballot.

- State your framework clearly

- Substantiate your contention with impact

- Cross-fire  and rebuttals is where I watch very closely. I want to hear the teams trying to challenge and effectively defend.

- Final Focus should be relevant to what happened during the debate

I am a parent judge with over two years of experience. Generally I am lay, but I will be flowing the majority of the time (not crossfires, if a major point is brought up in cross, it should be referenced in the next speech). I would rather you speak with clarity and at a moderate pace. Please do not use jargon or abbreviations without explanation. Additionally, show me a clear link between your warrant and your impact.

I am long-winded, yes. You really won’t understand how I judge policy debates if you don’t skim to/through the “adaptations” heading. After that, you can pick and choose; text search your side (“aff” or “neg”) or jump to the sub-heading for your argument (eg, “topicality” or “politics”) for useful advice.

(copy-pasted from the wikispaces page)

About me

Ben Faber, high school policy debate judge
4 years of national circuit high school policy debate for Lakeland High School in Westchester NY (not Lakeland in FL). I cleared at a few national tournaments, but mostly just had a lot of fun.
I enjoy debaters contacting me to ask questions about the rounds I judged, or hypotheticals:
Email - MetsTrekkie65 @ gmail DOT com (no spaces)
I post(ed) on cross-x.com as meanmedianmode.
I judged ~60 high school rounds each year from 2008 - 2012, mostly in the northeast. Then I got married and had kids.
School Strikes: None, no longer affiliated

My Goal:

I am here to listen to you debate, not to hear myself debate.

• Run the arguments you are good at, not the arguments I want to hear. If you are good at the argument, you will argue over any minor bias against it.

Exception: Code of Behavior (this is common sense)– some things are blatantly objectionable. Acting offensively – denigrating the other team, racist comments etc (in particular, if I hear you using the word 'gay', ‘fag’, ‘queer’… as an adjective meaning 'stupid' or similar), are potentially reasons to stop the round (horrific speaks) and definitely reasons to vote against you. Making arguments that racism is good, sexism is good, heterosexism is good, and similar, are almost certainly reasons to reject you, because your authors and/or your use of them turns my stomach. I’m open to the culture of the room on profanity – if everyone’s cool, I’ll ignore it, but if it bothers the other team, I may vote against you, almost certainly will drop your speaks.

• I want to evaluate the round based on the arguments you make. This means I limit my intervention as I decide the round. When I know the falsity of an argument you make, I only apply that knowledge if the other team points it out.

My Paradigm:

I evaluate arguments. Arguments are a claim and a warrant, and it can be more convincing if there is evidence to show the truth of that warrant. Using old warrants and evidence to make new claims in the rebuttals is cool. It isn’t intervention when I ignore unwarranted claims.

Offense/Defense False

Offense defense is a false dichotomy (for a fuller explanation, a slightly polished version is posted on planet debate). Many analytical defensive arguments are the other team pointing out that you lack a warrant for an implicit claim connecting two arguments (eg, a US econ disad that doesn’t read an internal link between US economy and global economy), or that your evidence doesn’t actually warrant the claim you want it to make. Any such claim can be “absolute” defense, because it means your internal link chain ends before the impact card.

I flow text of cards.

If you speak slow enough, I will write down every word you say. When I have to work to understand what you are saying, it hinders my ability to do this, so I get less written. That impacts how much weight I give to your 2nd rebuttal extensions of the evidence. Yes, that means clarity and grammatical highlighting in the constructive directly influences the strength of your rebuttal. I am tired of calling out “clear” and having no change result, so I’m done with just penalizing speaker points. (Obviously, you can’t clip cards.)

Reading evidence after the round

There are three types of scenarios that result in my calling for evidence: the good, the bad, and the instructive.

Indicts

I am delighted to read cards when teams indict each other’s evidence – everyone should do that more often: for power-tagging, context problems, under-highlighting, lack of qualification, anything you’ve got. If indict claims are true, they represent very good debating. Warranting your understanding of the evidence is best, so that I have guidance in what to look for. My goal in reading evidence is to resolve the in-round dispute over what the text means.

Interventionism

I don't want to read evidence otherwise – especially if the card is “on fire”, because I don’t carry burn creams with me. By reading the evidence, I necessarily have thoughts about the quality of the argument that I would not have had otherwise, and I can’t fully avoid injecting this into the decision (and at any rate, I'm adding to your speech time by reading your evidence at a comprehensible speed). My reading evidence uniquely increases the probability and magnitude of intervention. Sometimes I need to read evidence anyway, but none of these scenarios represents good debating:

• you are discussing critical theory or philosophy that I don’t know, and your explanations aren’t enough to make it clear – this especially happens when K debaters don’t contextualize their buzz-word link claims to the aff.
• round comes down to an argument that you say your so-and-so evidence makes/answers, but don’t explain the warrant for.
• impact (or link, or internal link) calculus is too simplistic and optimistic (assumes you were winning more than you were), and I have to weigh impacts somewhat on my own.

Discussion Purposes

Most of the times I call for evidence, I want to add stuff to the oral critique not directly related to the RFD – strategic or tactical advice, how the round would have looked if you had gone for something else, etc.

Best practices Impact analysis

High-level teams already know this stuff, but younger debaters may not:
Your opponent has generally mitigated your impacts or access to those impacts more than you think they have, and you have generally not mitigated as much of your opponents impacts as you think you have. As such, impact calculus is of course vital. You need to talk about your impact. But what really wins the round is good comparativeimpact analysis. In a close round, the winner tends to be the final rebuttalist who does the better job of 'even if' -ing and/or of interrelating impacts. You talk about your impacts in contrast to your opponent's impacts, and explain why I should prefer yours. And you explain how your impact subsumes/turns their impacts. It helps if you acknowledge that your opponents may win some non-trivial risk of impact.
If someone makes an argument to the contrary, the best argumentation will determine how I evaluate 'timeframe' of impacts. But my default position is that a long timeframe only matters as a limitation on probability, because of the chance for intervening actions. Extinction tomorrow is probably no worse than extinction in 10 years, except in that we may come up with a miracle technology 9 years from now, and will not come up with a miracle technology tonight.

Theory & Frameworks

I think theory is grounded in overarching logical structures. This means I’m itching to reject your political capital link arguments, and it means you need to consider the far-reaching consequences of arguments. For example, a role of the ballot argument changes the kinds of impact arguments that matter in a round.
Many of the warrants people read on theory arguments sound like whining because the other team was strategic (eg, “we lose our spending disad” on topicality, “they steal the aff” on PICs bad). Go for better arguments. On the K, you are in luck - most of the theory args you want to make sound exactly like whining when you phrase them as independent voters, and sound exactly like very strong defense when you phrase them as substantive arguments (eg, “vague alts bad” – no it isn't a VI, but yes they are, they mean the alt that gets implemented will flail weakly and not solve the link). You'll get more mileage out of a cohesive strategy using the latter than out of a kitchen sink strategy using the former.
Cross-x is binding 99.9% of the time. Define your terms at the time you introduce them (eg, dispositionality), or risk getting stuck with my definition of the term. Omissions of this sort, if resulting in competitive advantage, may be construed as deliberate lies when I write out the ballot.

“Dropped” arguments

Dropping an argument means not having an answer; it doesn’t mean failing to say where the answer goes. It is easiest for me if teams do line-by-line debate, because I’m most practiced and comfortable with that (and my flow template is preset to that). But line-by-line is only one methodology for making sure we answer each other’s arguments, and if a team is able to answer arguments without line by line or explicit clash, I respect that. In the case of teams that don’t do line by line, I’m prepared to literally put all of the text from the final rebuttals on a new spreadsheet and line up claims that relate to each other; in any case, I’m prepared to cross-apply thesis-level claims, even if not directly instructed to do so. It’s possible that I won’t understand the interaction between two arguments (I make mistakes sometimes, and you may understand the arguments better than I do since you spent time cutting them), so explicitly pointing it out is best. However, I will never write an RFD of the form "You made the right argument, but you didn't tell me that it answered their argument, so they won"; if the oral critique devolves to that, then you were careless for not pointing out the argument interaction, but also I am sorry for having missed that argument interaction.

Recommended Adaptations

To help you deal with some of the less-than-mainstream ideas I've laid out here, there are a few tips that can maximize your adaptation to my idiosyncrasies with minimal effort:

• When you first make evidence or logic indicts, it helps me if you include “indict”, “missing warrant” (or the like) in the tag of the objection. (In general, this will probably make the argument seem more important to other judges as well.)
• To avoid minced grammar in your highlighting, I am ok with teams using brackets [] to realign grammatical morphemes only (agreement for suffixes, punctuation, verb conjugation, pronouns, etc). Ideally, you would have an original of the evidence available to prove you haven’t made meaning-altering changes.
• (Particularly for kritiks) Even if both a) your link evidence includes a definition of The Buzz Word, and b) the aff is a clear example of that definition, you need to make original analysis as to how the aff engages in The Buzz Word. If not a or b, your original analysis needs to be that much better.

Biases

I think about debate a lot, so I have a lot of opinions, which means a lot of biases. They generally are trivial when I judge, in that they disappear when someone says something about the subject – I list those just so you know I have thought about the matter.
Others are minor biases – I see little enough merit in the refutations of a common argument that I think it may affect the decision in a close round.
A few biases are strong, which may mean I’ve never heard anyone make a contradictory argument that actually makes sense (and so I don’t expect you to overcome it, but please surprise me), or it may mean the argument is so common sensically true that even good debating probably won’t get you free of it.

Fiat

Fiat is a logical construct centered on a statement approximately of the form 'We should assume that any plan can be enacted in the procedural sense, and debate should focus on whether that would be a good or bad occurence, rather than on the details of procedural passage."

• Fiating SCotUS test cases is unpredictable and abusive. SCotUS plans must restrict themselves to fiating the outcome of particular cases that are already in the system. Minor
• The logic of political capital links conflicts with fiat. Strong

Kritiks and Fiat

Fiat is not an event. As such, there is no 'pre-fiat' and no 'post-fiat'. There are just the ethical (or whatever) consequences of affirming something and the tangible consequences of affirming something.

Politics and Fiat

Fiat is not a tiny arbitrary rule. As such, arguments don’t have to directly challenge the enactment of the plan to contravene fiat. The logic of political capital contravenes fiat.
By which I mean, in brief, when you claim “the President must invest political capital to get plan passed”, you necessarily endorse the statement “plan would fail to be enacted if the President had absolutely 0 political capital this weekend.” Fiat contradicts the latter, therefore fiat contradicts the former. (There are a number of threads on cross-x that explore this - I have read them all, and nothing defending political capital has been at all persuasive.)
For the neg: This does not mean you cannot run a politics disad; it does mean you should have links that don't make assumptions about the process by which plan gets passed - this also takes out the focus link almost definitely, and decent odds it guts your horse-trading link, but you can have and spin part/bipart, winner's win, credit/blame cards, for example. It doesn't mean I will ignore your pol cap args because I feel like it; it does mean i will ignore your pol cap args if the other team explains this.
For the aff: this is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card for pol cap links. You may as well use it.

Court Fiat

There is a process by which cases get to be heard in particular courts. For courts that have original jurisdiction over the question at hand, primarily district courts in the USA, new cases get docketed all the time, whenever someone wants to file a lawsuit - just like bills in Congress, so fiating a test case to them is reasonable. However, for higher courts including the Supreme Court of the US, the case is almost always already in the system before the court hears it. I'm not exactly sure where the cutoff is - if the case must be already on the SCotUS docket, or must have already applied for certiorari, but it's quite a stretch to say a SCotUS case could magically pop out of thin air. Unless you can defend the SCotUS having original jurisdiction, the case should at least have been heard and ruled already by the immediately lower court, ie federal appeals or state supreme, as appropriate.

Topicality

I have voted on ASPEC, and I have voted on OSPEC. I'd rather not do so again – no resolutional burden.
I've been thinking about "reasonability" recently. Everyone always complains that 'there is no way to determine what is reasonable', but I think affs could easily correct that by explaining in the 2ac what makes an interpretation reasonable or not. Instead of reading your trite "race to the bottom" paragraph about how competing interpretations is flawed, advance a coherent system for evaluating reasonability. Also, instead of reading your voter defense in the 2ac as 6-word blips, actually make analysis for how these args take out the voting issue claims the negative is advancing. They shouldn't be able to win without demonstrating at least a strong potential for abuse, but affs don't push on voting issues hard enough.

• Reasonability and abuse over competing interpretations: the aff is topical if they meet their own reasonable interpretation, even if they don't meet the neg interpretation, and even if the neg interpretation is more limiting. Trivial
• The proper chain of internal links is: grammar → predictability → limits/ground/other. Occasionally: predictable/contextual definition → predictability → limits/ground. Minor
• Ground is a meaningless standard unless a) you access it from a predictability argument, or b) you are arguing about the uniqueness of all links and/or CPs, or c) it demonstrates bidirectionality of an interpretation. Eg, saying "we lose links to spending disads" is not compelling - it makes the aff strategic, not abusive. Trivial
• A fairness impact outweighs an education impact. Trivial
• Hypothesis testing/whole rez is a bad argument, because counter-warrants mean the neg always wins. Minor

Conditional advocacies

• Presumption shifts aff when the neg goes for an advocacy other than the status quo in the 2nr. Trivial
• One CP or alt, whether conditional, dispositional, or unconditional, is legitimate. Minor
• Multiple conditional advocacies are probably abusive, especially if they're not ideologically consistent. Trivial
• Contradictory conditional advocacies (statism K and heg good D/A; anything where basic, generic affirmative offense against one position can be turned into negative offense on another position) are abusive. Strong.
• The terminal impact of any permutation theory argument is that I ignore the permutation – a permutation is just a no-link argument. Minor.
• Unless otherwise specified AT THE TIME you tell us the status, 'dispositional' means that you can kick the CP/alt unless the aff is making a permutation or a theory arg. A solvency deficit (or flat out 'no solvency') argument is an offensive argument. Kicking the straight-turned CP/alt to go for one or more theory violations is ok. Kicking the straight-turned CP/alt to go for a kritik that you somehow construe as a gateway issue is not ok. Strong.

Counterplans

My threshold for voting on (under-explained) dropped theory args may be somewhat lower than others', I'm not entirely sure. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to be the test case.

• The neg can fiat, as long as it isn't object or utopian fiat. Strong
• It is ok for the negative to run a topical counterplan, including a PIC. Trivial.
• It is ok for the negative to run a Condition/Consult CP. Trivial.
• The structure of Condition/Consult CPs justifies germane intrinsic permutations. Minor.
• It is ok for the negative to run an Agent CP, including multi-actor, international, etc. Trivial.

Alternatives/negative kritiks generally

For both sides:
Questioning the assumptions and perspectives behind decisions is important. It's a very good idea. But debate doesn't always do it well. At heart I am still a 2a. The double-bind perm (“plan plus all non-exclusive parts of the alt: either the alt can solve the marginal link caused by affirming rather than rejecting, or the alt can't solve anyway”) is probably true against any generic K unless it wins framework, and the alt probably amounts to my friends and I hanging out in my basement envisioning peace.
For the neg:
If your K can function with a policy text for the alt, reading that in the 1nc will increase your odds of beating the permutation. Specific links are the name of the game. That means applying the cards you already read to the cards, specific language and representations of the aff, not just reading more cards of your own. The cards you read that criticize nebulous concepts like 'the affirmative's hegemonic discourse' or 'the affirmative's embrace of capitalist ideologies' are not links, they are internal links from buzz words to implications. Before those matter, you have to win that the aff engages in your buzzword actions, and at least some portion of that has to be proven by analytic arguments.
If your K isn't one of the ubiquitous generic ones, it's a craps shoot for whether I know it or not. If not, you'll need to make sure I understand your argument, because I can't vote on it otherwise. This is logical – I won't vote on something if I can't explain what my vote means. Unfortunately, this is an area where there might be a high degree of intervention. Feel free to treat me like a kindergarten student and simplify the argument.
For the aff:
Most of the theory args you want to make against the K sound exactly like whining when you phrase them as independent voters, and sound exactly like very strong defense when you phrase them as normal args. You'll get more mileage out of a cohesive strategy using the latter than out of a kitchen sink strategy using the former.

• The neg has a right to challenge the aff's assumptions. Minor.
• The neg has a right to advocate a non-policy to help show that the aff's assumptions are flawed. Trivial.
• A 2nc/1nr Floating PIC is fair, because it is not an advocacy; it is analogous to a permutation. Trivial.
• It is abusive for the neg to offer a 2nc/1nr Floating PIC as an advocacy. Minor.
• A word PIC with a kritik of the missing word as a net benefit is a legitimate negative strategy. Trivial.
• Alternative vagueness is not a reason to reject the alternative. Minor.
• Alternative vagueness decreases the effectiveness of the alternative. Minor.

Topic specific

(hs 11-12: increase exploration and/or development of space)

• "Exploration/Development requires human presence" is a stupid argument. Minor

This is not a sensible argument, "We meet - we use humans on earth to monitor the activity" combined with "intent to define" indict of the negative card and, yes, a "framer's intent" arg are all that's needed to win this: if the rez meant to limit to human exploration/development, it would say "human exploration and/or development". Say "Observation =/= exploration" and "use =/= development" and so on.

Cross-x:

- Open c/x is fine.
- I am attentive to c/x, and I'm working on flowing it. But I haven't done that before, so it doesn't always get written down in a useful spot. Make the argument in a speech to be sure of it.
- C/x is binding, unless you have a very compelling argument otherwise. Even if you have that compelling argument otherwise, if you didn't let me and your opponents know in advance that c/x wasn't binding, you'll get lower speaks.
- Mike Antonucci has advanced the paradigm of intervening in cross-x to stop unfair practices. I'm confident I meet his idiot criterion, so I'm considering this. It is really annoying when you folks filibuster.

Speaker points:

To the best of my ability, I'll use the framework given by the tournament director if any. Otherwise, speaks are awarded based on argumentation, +/- .5 for delivery. If you make me laugh a lot, you may get +1 for delivery.
27 is average, not particularly impressed in either direction.
30 corresponds to roughly "this round was you at the very top of your game, and you are normally a 99th percentile debater"
29-30 are roughly "performance at or above 90th percentile"
I'll reward you for clever/novel arguments (or use of routine arguments in clever/novel ways), nuanced argumentation, and good analysis. In particular, I enjoy hearing you contest the quality or relevance of evidence. Of course, that means I'm going to read the evidence after the round, so don't make frivolous challenges.

Hello debaters. I look forward to watching and judging your rounds. Rather than try to present a paradigm, I will just offer you some facts about myself and you can reach your own conclusions.

I am a parent of a debater who is now in 11th grade. I have been judging debate tournaments -- first in Parli then in PF -- for a full four seasons. I was never a debater myself; everything I know about debate I learned from watching you all. I now run the team at my son's high school, so I am judging at all the UDLNYC tourneys as well as about four National Circuit tournaments each year.

I am a professor of journalism at Hunter College, so I know well how to identify valid evidence, sound arguments and good writing. But this also means that I really value writing structure and organization; I want to be able to track -- or flow -- your arguments in each speech.

Ok, so I guess I do have some nit-picky preferences: I do not get anything from spreading (it just makes it harder for me to follow) and it bugs me when people give an off-time roadmap, especially since 99 percent of the time the debater does not follow it. If it is important for you to layout your plan (and I would argue it is), make it part of your speech. I also pay attention to the crossfires since I think it reveals a lot about the individual speakers more than the speeches do sometimes.

One thing for certain: I LOVE debate. Hats off to you for taking on all the work it requires.

Put me on the chain: sandrewgilbert@gmail.com

I prefer that teams send cases before constructive and speech docs before rebuttal.

About Me

I competed on the PF national circuit from 2010 to 2012. I coached on and off from 2012 to 2016, when I became the PF coach at Hackley School in NY until June 2019. After being out of debate for 4.5 years, I judged two tournaments in February 2024. I'm not coaching, so don't assume I know anything about the March topic.

Big Picture

I'm tech > truth.

If you want me to vote off your argument, extend the link and impact in summary and FF, and frontline defense. (If there is some muddled defense on your argument, I can resolve that if your weighing is much better and/or the other team's argument is also muddled.)

Give me comparative weighing. Don't just say, "We outweigh on scope." Tell me why you're outweighing the other impact(s). Most teams I vote for are generally doing much more work on the weighing debate, such as responding to the specific reasoning in their opponent's weighing or providing me with metaweighing arguments that compel me to vote for them.

If you say something offensive, I will lower your speaks and might drop you.

Specific Preferences

1. Second rebuttal should cover all turns, and address defense on the argument(s) you go for in summary and FF. If it doesn't cover defense, that's not a deal breaker – just makes it harder for me to vote off.

2. Extend defense in summary and FF. For example, if second rebuttal didn't cover some defense on the argument(s) extended, first summary should extend that defense. Obviously, If second rebuttal didn't frontline an argument, then first summary doesn't need to extend relevant defense.

3. Collapse and weigh in summary and FF. The best teams I've judged typically go for one argument in the second half of the round because collapsing allows them to do thorough line-by-line link and impact extensions, frontline defense, and weigh.

4. Give me the warranting behind your evidence. I do not care if some author says X is true, but I care quite a bit about why X is true. I prefer warrants over unexplained empirics.

5. Do not give me a roadmap – tell me where you're starting and signpost. Make sure you're clear in signposting. I don't want to look all over my flow to figure out where to write.

6. I have some experience judging theory. If you run it, make sure it's actually checking abuse. I'll be less inclined to vote off the shell if you read it because of a relatively minor offense.

7. I've never judged a K. At the very least, it should be topical, and you'll have to accept that I'll determine how to adjudicate it.

8. If you are arguing about how the resolution affects domestic politics (e.g. political capital, elections, Supreme Court, etc.), please have very good warranting as to why your argument is probable. I have a higher threshold for voting on these arguments because I strongly believe that most debate resolutions are unlikely to impact U.S. politics to the extent that you can say specific legislation or electoral results likely do or do not happen. If you do not think you can easily make a persuasive case about why your politics argument is likely, please do not read it or go for it.

Background

- 3 years national circuit PF at American Heritage-Plantation in Florida (2013-2016)

- 2 years policy debate at FSU (2016-2018)

- 2 years coaching PF for Capitol Debate (2017-current)

Paradigm

- Do anything you want to do in terms of argumentation. It is not my job as a judge in a debate community to exclude certain forms of argumentation. There are certain arguments I will heavily discourage: Ks read just to confuse your opponent and get an easy win, theory read to confuse your opponent, anything that is racist, classist, transphobic, xenophobic, sexist, ableist, etc. I will not immediately drop you for trying to confuse your opponent, I might for the latter half. The threshold for trying to confuse your opponents will be if you refuse to answer crossfire questions or give answers that everyone knows aren't legit.

- The most frequently asked questions I get are "can you handle speed?" and "how do you feel about defense in first summary/does the second speaking team need to cover responses in rebuttal?" To the first, if you are spreading to make this event in accessible to your opponents, I will give you no higher than a 20 in speaks. I am fine with spreading, but if either your opponents or I clear you, I expect you to slow down. If your opponents need to clear you 3 or more times, I expect you send them a speech doc (if you had not already done that). To the second, I do not care. It is probably strategic to have defense in first summary/ respond to first rebuttal in second rebuttal, but if you do not do that, I'm not going to say it has magically become a dropped argument.

- K's are cool, theory is cool. You need to know what you are talking about if you read these. You should be able to explain it to your opponents. If you are doing performance stuff give me a reason why. You should be prepared for the "we are doing PF, if you want to do performance why not go back to policy" debate.

- I default to whatever debaters tell me to default to. If you are in a util v structural violence framing debate, you better have reasons to defend your side. I do not default "util is trutil" unless it is won as an argument.

- Sound logic is better than crappy cards.

- The TKO is in play. If you know, you know.

- Speaker points will be reflection of your skill and my scale will remain consistent to reflect that. The average is between a 28.2-28.5. If you are an average debater, or your performance is average in round, that is what you should expect. Do not expect a 30 from me unless the tournament does not do halves.

Any questions:

email- ryleyhartwig@gmail.com

Or you can ask me before the round.

Hi, this is Tianliang’s son.

My dad is your standard lay judge. Don’t assume he knows a lot about the topic.

English is also not his first language, so I recommend you speak slowly and explain things clearly - he really likes listening to politicians talk and audiobooks as well. He isn’t too politically knowledgeable but he knows a lot of stuff about famous people because he listens to so many audiobooks. If you try to act knowledgeable and hnderstanding of the topic, he will be inclined to vote for you.

Most of all, he likes respectful and nice debaters. Do this, and it will help your speaker points a lot.

I am a debate coach in PF, have experience with judging PF and have judged Congress for 1 year. To judge PF I rely on the following guidelines along with my debate experience as an observer, coach, and judge to inform how I strive to judge every debate. Included here, I am sure is info sourced from others. Here is how I judge:

I am not an interventionist, I have seen judges do this, it hurts both sides and has no place in a fair and unbiased tournament. In debate judging I try to keep what I look for simple:

Every argument a debater makes should come down to an impact.

Have a clear statement of the claim that tells me what the argument is.

Provide a warrant, logically explain the reason why the claim is true.

Provide evidence - empirical data that supports the claim and warrant with facts, examples, expert analysis.

Provide impact- positive or negative consequences that explain why the argument is significant to the judges vote.

Debaters are responsible for comparing their evidence and impacts to explain why they have won a particular argument and important to establish which voting issues should have priority in my decision.

I evaluate a team on the quality of arguments made, not on my personal beliefs, nor on issues I think a particular side should have covered.

I write notes throughout the debate, and will use these to assess the bearing of each argument on the truth or falsehood of the assigned resolution. Those debaters demonstrating logical reasoning, maturity of thought, civility and effectiveness of communication earn higher speaker points.

Debaters should use evidence, examples, and analogies for the purpose of illustration. Debaters should use quoted evidence to support their claims; well-chosen, relevant evidence strengthens – but will not replace – arguments.

Simply, the pro should convince me that the resolution should be adopted, and the con should prove that the resolution should be rejected. When deciding I ask, “If I had no prior beliefs about this resolution, would the round as a whole have made me more likely to believe the resolution was true or not true?”

Teams should strive to provide a straightforward perspective on the resolution; I will discount unfair, obscure interpretations that only serve to confuse the opposing team. Clear communication is important. I will weigh arguments to the extent that they are clearly explained, and discount arguments that are too fast, too muddled, or too full of debate jargon to be understood by an intelligent high school student or a well-informed citizen.

I will not penalize a team for failing to understand their opponent’s unclear arguments, but if you find yourself on the receiving end of one, demonstrate you can handle such a strategy with directness & grace. Debaters who use abusive arguments lose points with me. As a guide for what's abusive or not, if it's denying your opponent debating ground or making it impossible to win, it's likely abusive. (e.g., Think topic interpretation that gives an opponent no or little ground)

Speakers should appeal through sound reasoning, succinct organization, credible evidence, and clear delivery. I will use points to provide a mechanism for evaluating the relative quality of debating by each side. I will write constructive suggestions for improvement to the debaters on the ballot. Dishonesty (manufacturing, misrepresenting research sources, and or making claims (false or not) against your opponent regarding same, etc.) will be referred to the tournament directors to address/resolve.

*Last updated 11/7/19*

Background:

Schools Attended: Boca '16, FSU '20

Teams Coaching/Coached: Capitol, Boca

Competitive History: 4 years of PF in high school, 2 years of JV policy and 2 years of NPDA and Civic Debate in college

Public Forum Paradigm:

TL;DR: You do you.

General:

1) Tech > Truth. If you have strong warrants and links and can argue well, I'll vote off of anything. Dropped arguments are presumed true arguments. I'm open to anything as long as you do your job to construct the argument properly.

2) The first speaking team in the round needs to make sure that all offense that you want me to vote on must be in the summary and final focus. Defense in the rebuttal does not need to be extended, I will buy it as long as your opponents don't respond and it is extended in the final focus. The second speaking team needs to respond to turns in rebuttal and extend all offense and defense you want me to vote on in BOTH the summary and the final focus.

3) If you start weighing arguments in rebuttal or summary it will make your arguments a lot more convincing. Easiest way to my ballot is to warrant your weighing and tell me why your arguments are the most important and why they mean you win the round.

4) I don't vote on anything that wasn't brought up in final focus.

Framework:

Frameworks need clear warrants and reasons to prefer. Make sure to contextualize how the framework functions with the rest of the arguments in the round.

Theory:

I will listen to any theory arguments as long as a real abuse is present. Don't just use theory as a cheap way to win, give me strong warrants and label the shell clearly and it will be a voter if the violation is clear. Also, if you're going to ask me to reject the team you better give me a really good reason.

If you are running theory, such as disclosure theory, and you want it to be a voter, you need to bring it up for a fair amount of time.

Kritiks:

I was primarily a K debater when I competed in policy in college, so I am familiar with how they function in round. However, I don't know all the different K lit out there so make sure you can clearly explain and contextualize.

Offense v. Defense:

I find myself voting for a risk of offense more often than I vote on defense. If you have really strong terminal impact defense or link defense, I can still be persuaded to vote neg on presumption.

Weighing:

I hate being in a position where I have to do work to vote for a team. Tell me why your argument is better/more important than your opponents and why that means I should vote for you. Strength of link and/or impact calc is encouraged and appreciated.

Evidence Standard:

I will only call for cards if it is necessary for me to resolve a point of clash or when a team tells me to.

Speaks:

- If I find you offensive/rude I will drop your speaks relative to the severity of the offense.

- I take everything into consideration when giving speaks.

- The easier you make my decision, the more likely you are to get high speaks.

Misc:

- I'm fine with speed, but if you're going to spread send out speech docs.

- Keep your own time.

- I will disclose if the tournament allows me, and feel free to ask me any questions after my RFD.

- I only vote off of things brought up in speeches.

Bottom line: Debate is supposed to be fun! Run what you want just run it well.

If you have any questions email me at joshschulsterdebate@gmail.com or ask me before the round.

I've been debating and coaching teams across the country for a while. Currently coaching Dreyfoos AL (Palm Beach Independent) and Poly Prep.

MAIN STUFF

I will make whichever decision requires the least amount of intervention. I don't like to do work for debaters but in 90% of rounds you leave me no other choice.

Here's how I make decisions

1) Weighing/Framework (Prereqs, then link-ins/short-circuits, then impact comparison i.e. magnitude etc.)

2) Cleanly extended argument across both speeches (summ+FF) that links to FW

3) No unanswered terminal defense extended in other team's second half speeches

I have a very high threshold for extensions, saying the phrase "extend our 1st contention/our impacts" will get you lower speaks and a scowl. You need to re-explain your argument from uniqueness to fiat to impact in order to properly "extend" something in my eyes. I need warrants. This also goes for turns too, don't extend turns without an impact.

Presumption flows neg. If you want me to default to the first speaking team you'll need to make an argument. In that case though you should probably just try to win some offense.

SPEAKING PREFS

I like analytical arguments, not everything needs to be carded to be of value in a round. (Warrants )

Signpost pls. Roadmaps are a waste of time 98% of the time, I only need to know where you're starting.

I love me some good framework. Highly organized speeches are the key to high speaks in front of me. Voter summaries are fresh.

I love T and creative topicality interps. Messing around with definitions and grammar is one of my favorite things to do as a coach.

Try to get on the same page as your opponents as often as possible, agreements make my decision easier and make me respect you more as a debater (earning you higher speaks). Strategic concessions make me happy. The single best way to get good speaks in front of me is to implicate your opponent's rebuttal response(s) or crossfire answers against them in a speech.

Frontlining in second rebuttal is smart but not required. It’s probably a good idea if they read turns.

Reading tons of different weighing mechanisms is a waste of time because 10 seconds of meta-weighing or a link-in OHKOs. When teams fail to meta-weigh or interact arguments I have to intervene, and that makes me sad.

Don’t extend every single thing you read in case.

PROCEDURAL LOGISTICS

My email is devon@victorybriefs.com

I'm not gonna call for cards unless they're contested in the round and I believe that they're necessary for my RFD. I think that everyone else that does this is best case an interventionist judge, and worst case a blatant prep thief.

Skipping grand is cringe. Stop trying to act like you're above the time structure.

Don't say "x was over time, can we strike it?" right after your opponent's speech. I'll only evaluate/disregard ink if you say it was over time during your own speech time. Super annoying to have a mini argument about speech time in between speeches. Track each other’s prep.

Don't say TKO in front of me, no round is ever unwinnable.

PROG STUFF

Theory's fine, usually frivolous in PF. Love RVIs Genuinely believe disclosure is bad for the event and paraphrasing is good, but I certainly won't intervene against any shell you're winning.

I will vote for kritikal args :-)

Just because you're saying the words structural violence in case doesn't mean you're reading a K

Shoutouts to my boo thang, Shamshad Ali #thepartnership

I really like a properly ran cap K. Down with capitalism!!

Feel free to run anything in front of me, but I would ~prefer~ that you not run frivolous theory.

I believe disclosure is very good unless you give me a reason to believe otherwise.

Topical puns in you speech will increase the speaker points you get.

I have previous LD and PF and Policy experience but I was not a tricks debater.

I won't vote on the K if the alt is unclear - same goes for policy advocacies. Clear solvency please.

awelton001@gmail.com for questions

Updated 1/7/2020:

In evaluating a debate round, there is the choice of evaluating strength of the arguments vs evaluating debate techniques. Of course one could argue that better techniques lead to stronger arguments, so they are pretty closely related. However, sometimes good techniques are deployed precisely to disguise a shaky argument. I vote based on strength of arguments as they transpire in the round.

I realize that given modern technology whatever case a team is running, pretty soon it is known to the entire circuit and every team starts running similar arguments. How do you judge when almost all teams on pro (or con) run similar arguments without being prejudiced towards one side? My focus is on how well a team responds and counter responds to opponent's arguments and counter arguments.

The following are some ways you can strengthen your case.

A) Logical link. Establish clear link(s) for your argument that opponent could not effectively overturn. Please note that merely saying there is a link between A and B or A implies B is not enough. It is up to you to establish and explain the strength of the link, based on logic, scientific theory, statistical inference or common sense. Offer clear logical explanation why opponent's links are weak.

B) Evidence. All pieces of evidence are not equal. It is up to you to explain why your evidence is strong and supportive of whatever you claim, and why your opponent' evidence is weak and non-supportive of whatever they claim. Evidence without clear explanation and context is not effective evidence.

C) Impact. You should weight impact whenever possible. I like numbers but will take them with a grain of salt, especially when you refer to large numbers of lives or huge sums of money, until you explain their plausibility. The better you explain how you arrive at the numbers and in general the better you explain the plausibility of your predicted impact, the more favorable your argument would look to me.

D) Abundant words and last words do not win the round by themselves. However, repetition does help me remember things so please feel free to repeat your key points (don't overdo it), especially in Summary and Final Focus.

More info from earlier version:

I have been judging Public Forum debate for a few years. I have a background in economics. Consider me a rigorous lay judge if that makes sense to you. Some general principles I vote on:

1. Soundness of your logic. If your logic is not clear, your evidence is likely not being used correctly.

2. Evidence. We are not talking about laws of nature. Social outcomes are rarely inevitable just because they seem logical, at least not along a predicted path. Good evidence makes their occurrences seem more likely or reasonable. Please cite your evidence clearly: who said what where and when. Explain how the evidence supports your argument.

3. Weighting impacts. To weight impacts, it often seems like you need to compare apples with oranges. It is your job to find criteria that help me compare apples with oranges. As an example, if you convince me we should only care about sweetness and nutrition of these fruits and oranges are both sweeter and more nutritious than apples, then I will accept that oranges are better than apples. Look hard for common characteristics of different impacts.

Style. It is hard for me to appreciate style if your logic is flawed or your evidence is misused. Having said that, doing somethings right will help you get more speaker points:

a. Be polite. Don’t shout. Don’t try to shut the other team down.

b. Keep your time and opponents’ time well.

c. Keep your cool and remain calm.

d. Humor can be a powerful argument…at the right moment.

Doing the opposite of a, b, c will reduce your speaker points.