Hi! My name's Baraa Alkhani, I debated in LD for 3 years at Stagg High School and was the 2018 IHSA state champion. I debated traditionally and never went to the NatCircuit. Though, by Illinois standards, I guess you can say I was a bit progressive in that I valued cards and was a bit faster as a debater. Currently I'm a law student at the Illinois College of Law, so I'll be judging much less frequently than when I was an undergrad at UIC.

If you ever need anything, my email is balkhani50@gmail.com

Important Points

- Weigh impacts, don't just extend them. Also if you extend a card/argument without explaining it, then it isn’t a real extension and it won’t count.

- Please don't arbitrarily debate FW. If they're similar, then collapse them or agree on a standard. I don’t like long winded FW debates. Addressing both should take you a MAX of a minute of the beginning of your speech, and not even. Save your time for what really matters. I don't flow FW warrants or definitions, though I will mentally note it.

- I don’t intervene when it comes to the decision, but if your argument is completely baseless, inaccurate, or clearly pulled out of your butt, then don’t be mad when I give you the L. You are an intelligent debater. Don’t misconstrue evidence or run oily logic. Complex philosophy that has no impact calc or relation to the resolution is a no-no too. Be straightforward, rational, and accurate.

- I’m very approachable, so don’t be shy to stop by and ask any questions you may have. Unless they’re medically related, I should be able to help :)

For PF

- Standard flow judge. Nothing really special here.

Motivation

Finally, as I've learned through my experiences, have fun. If I give you the L, it's not the end of the world. Trust me, it doesn't mean I hate you. Rather, it means that you can still learn and improve in your journey as a debater. Same with if you win. Always strive to improve your game, your speaking, and case writing. If you choose to be complacent with how you're doing, you'll never get to the next level where you want to be.

Be respectful, professional, and confident. I'm pretty outgoing so never hesitate to ask me questions or reach out to me at a tournament. If something here hasn't been addressed, then ask me prior to the round :)

I do not like speed, as I prefer to understand the arguments and prefer arguments that address the resolution. Off-topic arguments, except a developed and specific CP are not appreciated. This includes K's and theory. I believe there is a carefully worded resolution for a reason, and prefer arguments that address that. Negatives who ignore the aff case are, I believe, abusive to the spirit of debate. File sharing should take place quickly, so as to not affect prep time. I would rather hear fewer well-developed arguments than a plethora of unlinked and spurious arguments.I am old-school and still flow rounds by hand, although I can use the computer. The flow is just not as complete. I can and will judge all forms; this is my preferences.

I have judged Lincoln Douglas rounds in the past, but I do not have any experience as a debater. I am an attorney, so I can keep up in round, but it is essential that you adequately support any claims that you may bring up, and especially explain philosophy. I prefer a more traditional style of debate (clearer speaking, clean flow, etc.), and I will expect road maps.

My name is Michael Buck and I am a Congressional and World Schools debate coach from Indiana. I have experience coaching Lincoln-Douglas debate. I have been a debate coach since 2015. I also have experience coaching public address speech events.

I am a traditional judge. I look for impacts and how your case connects to the resolution or legislation. I do not like spreading. Persuade me on the merits of your case. I look for classic elements of debate.

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for taking a look at my paradigm! For the sake of clarity, I am listing everything below in bullet points, but please feel free to ask for more info if you need it!

* My name is Charlie Connell and I use she/her pronouns. You are welcome to call me "Charlie" during rounds. Let me know if your name, pronouns, or anything else needs to be changed. We're all about positivity here! :)

* I have participated in debate for nearly 12 years as of 2020. I started debate in 2008.

* I used to do parliamentary debate in middle school and policy debate in high school.

* I have judged and helped to coach LD, Public-Forum, Congress, and World Schools debate.

* I am okay with both philosophical and empirical arguments as long as they link.

* I prefer everyone/every team keep their own prep times, speech times, etc. Technology can be buggy so I feel it's most fair to let everyone time themselves.

* I typically weigh advantages versus disadvantages in any round. Prove to me that your side does the least amount of harm while producing the most benefits.

* Neg team, prove to me that the Aff team's side has little to no benefits. Essentially, is the Aff case worth the trouble of passing it?

* Kritiks are fine as long as you are polite and the evidence clearly supports your claims. K-Affs are still weighed against Neg's arguments if they link, just like any other case type. You'll need to clearly define standards, the resolution's violation of those standards, and your plan-text's solvency. If no clear links are present or the K is not supported by your plan-text, then I usually flow Neg.

* I do not disclose my RFD (written or otherwise) anywhere but the ballot. This is out of respect for all debaters in the round. I do not want the decision of one round to affect your focus in any of your other rounds. I want all debaters, not just my own team, to feel and do their best during competitions! :)

* Please do not be rude to one another (name-calling, mocking one another, excessive interruptions during CX, talking during other people's speeches, etc.). It's the *only* reason I would ever auto-vote for the other team...ever.

We're here to judge the worth of the case and its arguments, not you or the other team. All of you are essential and carrying on a great tradition that will serve you very well as you grow. I really thank you and your partner (if you have one) for all your hard work! Remember that right now, we need to be kind to one another more than ever. As long as all of you do your best, I will do mine! :)

I am a parent judge.

Your speaking speech should be understandable and not act as a detriment to your argument.

Good argumentation is essential to the round.

Hi! I competed in LD and policy in high school, and I've coached PF and LD since 2019. I'm a senior at Stanford studying Public Policy.

I try to insert myself as little as possible into the debate, so be thorough in your responses and weighing. I default to being a tech judge. Solid links are more important to me than extinction-level impacts.

I primarily competed in policy, so CPs and Ks are fine. However, I put a lot of value on the framework debate, and I find it to be really disappointing when framework is ignored in favor of poorly run progressive-style arguments.

You don't have to speak slowly, but just be coherent.

I will not flow any racist, classist, sexist, transphobic, etc. arguments, and your speaker points will be affected, so don't bother with them.

Please be polite. Don't speak over each other, don't make unnecessary digs, and give your opponent the benefit of the doubt where possible. Be welcoming to those who are typically excluded or underrepresented in debate.

I am a parent judge. Please do not speak too fast. I judge based on your argument and how convincing you are. Impacts are important and need to be proven.

DO NOT SPREAD!!! Include refutation within your rebuttal speeches and all following speeches. I LOVE to see clash within a debate round and I believe it adds more to the debate then what is just written down in notes. Introduce Voter Issues in your Summary speech, but if the debate is going well you can introduce your Voter Issues in your Final Focus. Have fun!!

No, I don't care which side you sit on.

As of 2019, 15 years of debate experience as a student (Policy), judge (All events), and coach (PF)

Prefers traditional style debate. Evidence should be used to support arguments, but articulate analysis and explanation of your argument and why it is important is key

Tabula Rasa - I try to stay as neutral as possible on arguments. This means I expect you to explain your arguments and impacts during every round and you cannot assume that I will credit you with information that you did not say or extrapolate your argument/impact for you.

Prefer a well structured narrative carried through the round to a bunch of arguments which are kicked in later speeches - but some strategic collapse is fine

Impacts should be realistic - I am not voting on extinction

I do not like speed and speakers should be articulate. I don't believe in spreading because it destroys the educational value of debate and students' ability to interact in a meaningful way.

Stick to time

Be civil. There is a difference between being confident and condescending.

I almost never make a decision until the final two speeches. Weighing your impacts is important. I will not vote on something you did not say (and continue to say until the end)

Email: jessmhilbrich@gmail.com

I am a parent...basically a lay judge. However, I will flow everything in the round and try to make a decision based on the flow. If you're going too fast I can't/won't flow your arguments. Clarity is very important to me. Clearly state your claims, warrants(proof) and impacts(the "so what").

Stay respectful and don't yell over each other in cross. Evidence is really important to me. No blind assertions and hypotheses please. I prefer you read dates and full sources for everything (no weird acronyms that I won't understand). Keep the round as clear and simple as you can - Highlight key issues, make persuasive arguments, provide specific justifications for your claims and rebut your challenges. Your speakers points are based of confidence, composure, delivery, and style. I may call for cards at the end of the round. I won't disclose.

I have coached Policy debate for 23 years in Indiana, but my "National Circuit" experience is limited. I do not like speed and spread. Philosophically I do not consider these persuasive speaking, rather training to be an auctioneer. If you choose to speed and spread, be aware that I am liable to lose some of your points in the clutter, and that will be your responsibility, not mine. For teams that say "We had to speed to respond to them because they were doing it first" -- if you slow down I will cut you slack in not responding to everything they spew out, assuming it is not a major issue.

I would like to hear a debate about the Resolution. I do not like Affirmative K's that throw the topic in the ditch and go elsewhere. If you do that I will likely be responsive to a framework argument that says the most basic obligation of the Affirmative is to present a topical case that affirms the resolution. Without that the debate often becomes a stream of arguments based on personal experience and anecdote for which the Negative has had no opportunity to prepare, and there is no educational value.

I am somewhat more amenable to Negative K's, but I would like them to have some relation to the topic and the Affirmative Case.

Topicality and Counterplans are of course acceptable. I do have something of a dislike for dropping arguments late in the debate which have previously sucked up much of the time, and I may hold that against a team.

I'm a high impact Tabs judge.

I view debate first and foremost as an educational activity, both in terms of skills and content. Thus, to the extent arguments or strategies detract from the educational value of a debate, they will be disfavored. If you can demonstrate that your opponent's argument or strategy is detrimental in some way to the educational purpose of debate, you may be able to use such theory arguments to undermine the arguments you face and help earn my ballot.

In this vein, I believe that debate is an excellent forum to help students develop persuasive skills for life beyond the limited world of tournament debate. In order to be persuasive, you must effectively communicate your point to your audience. Speed can easily become an impediment to this communication, so learning to speed through arguments is counterproductive to developing communication and persuasive skills which have any use beyond the tournament circuits. Calibrate your speed carefully.

I also approach debate from the perspective of my training as an attorney. Accordingly, each proponent of a claim must meet their burden of proof on their claim before I expect the other side to have the burden of responding to that claim. Make sure you understand and can articulate what it is that you believe both you and your opponent need to prove on each claim so I can decide what standard to apply in evaluating arguments.

Spreading is generally ineffective in earning my ballot to the extent it limits your ability to establish the necessary foundation for having met your burden of proof on each argument. Debating without spreading also forces you to develop your judgment in recognizing and prioritizing your best arguments in the limited time your audience will be paying attention. I would much rather hear three or four solid arguments than twelve skeleton arguments. Learning to present more fully developed arguments better serves the educational purpose of debate and mitigates the need for speeding.

Solid analysis is key to persuasion, and evidence virtually never speaks for itself. Reading long excerpts from an evidence card tells me nothing about how you expect that evidence to apply to the arguments before me in the round. I will not do your analysis for you as that robs you of the opportunity to develop a crucial life skill. Don't shorthand your argumentation by telling me to apply a particular evidence card. Rather, explain how you want me to apply the reasoning or facts from that card to the argument at hand. I'm sure I could make a connection after years of coaching debate and practicing law, but I don't know if that's the connection you would make. I likely don't know you or your skill set. This analysis is the heart of debate, so I need you to demonstrate what connection you see between your evidence card and the case before us before I can evaluate your analysis and its persuasiveness.

'Analytics' is often used as a pejorative in debate, but make sure you understand how such arguments are being applied before dismissing them. The other side doesn't need an evidence card to effectively argue that you have failed to meet the burden of proof on your claim. These 'claim exceeds warrant' attacks do not require outside evidence because they are not making a new claim, they are attempting to show you have not met your burden of proof. Use this to your advantage as setting and meeting your respective burdens of proof is at the heart of debate.

I value creativity, but I also value realism. I want you to develop an understanding of the topics and their relative merits as well as develop the skills to effectively debate the topic. Attempting to engage over the realistic benefits and risks of a given issue goes much further in demonstrating a mature grasp of the topic and fulfillment of the educational purpose of debate than trying to show that everything leads to extinction.

Background: I was an LD debater for four years (2005-2009) and competed at Nationals my junior year. I coached LD for four years at summer camp (Nebraska Debate Institute) and coached policy for the Urban Debate League in St. Louis for two years during college (2009-2011). I coached for West Lafayette Jr/Sr High in Public Forum for two years (Fall 2018-Spring 2020). In between, I earned a PhD from Purdue University (October 2020) in Rhetoric & Composition, specifically in Theory and History.

General: I have judged everything from TOC/circuit rounds to a tournament in the homeschool league, so I am familiar with most styles of debate. However, I skew traditional. I prefer good speaking that doesn't go too fast, good impact weighing, and topicality. World comparisons/analysis in final speeches impress me. For me, the ability to see the larger picture and contextualize all the arguments in the round demonstrates advanced debate skills. This is why I tend to weigh final rebuttal speeches heavily - if you've won that speech, you've won the round.

Do good signposting. Weigh impacts. Tell me what it means that you've won an argument. Cards don't make arguments, debaters do.

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Lincoln Douglas: Please make framework and standards debate important. They are weighing mechanisms that help judges adjudicate and prioritize impacts in the round, and can be strategically used to block out your opponent's arguments. And, simply winning your standard doesn't count as a voting issue; if you win your standard, you must then link your impacts to your standard. If you win your standard, but your opponent links to it better, then your opponent wins the round. FW/standards is also an opportunity to really explore and apply philosophical concepts.

Don't debate framework if you both basically agree on what it is, or have the same FW/standard; that is a waste of time, move to your case arguments.

I hate the overuse of statistical evidence in LD, which has gone from reasonable to overdone, and debaters now feel that their facts speak for themselves, leading to lazy debate where cards simply get asserted over one another. Leave statistical debate to PF and Policy, and not just because they do a better job of it. Your facts do not erase or negate or outweigh substantive and well supported philosophical/theoretical reasoning. Even in PF, competing facts are resolved by impact weighing, strategic linking, and warranting - reason based argumentation, in other words. LD was intended as a debate form to explore the ethical underpinnings of urgent social, economic, or political problems. I want to hear reasoning rooted in concepts of justice, morality, human rights, etc. This is why if your opponent makes even one smart rational argument that dismisses all your statistical evidence (and especially in that last speech, and even if they don't have competing cards), then my vote automatically goes to them.

I have my PhD in Rhetorical Theory & History, and I am particularly versed in continental philosophy, as well as feminist, anti-racist, queer, and postcolonial studies. This means that if you use philosophy incorrectly, or claim that these thinkers say things they don't actually say, or you use their words completely out of context, I'll know. It'll be very hard for me to find you persuasive. Please respect the basic assumptions, arguments, uses, and limits of any philosophy you use. If you have to twist the words of any thinker to fit your arguments, that's bad debating and case writing; I guarantee you there's a thinker out there who fits your case better, so use it as a sign to find someone else if you start twisting cards.

If a round boils down to two circuit debaters, I'll adjust, and judge based on the standards set within that debate subculture (off k, ground/burden argumentation, and theory shells are in play, so I evaluate them best I can). However, if I hear circuit style debate in what is supposed to be a traditional round in a traditional circuit, there better be an really, really excellent reason why. If there isn't, and you're using circuit elements simply to intimidate opponents or appear impressive, that will reflect really poorly on you. I will buy traditional arguments in that setting if they win on reasonable claims against circuit style arguments.

I am ok with kritiks as long as there is sound rational ground to use them. It has to be topical. Kritiks written on, say, a single word in the resolution like the world "the" are terrible, and I will have a hard time voting on it.

I hate a priori arguments. Please don't.

Special Note on Theory Shells Regarding Uploading Cases Online: Please don't run this. I will stop flowing and disregard it, for both sides. It's simply wasting your speech time. There are a dozen immediate reasons why declaring abuse because your opponent didn't make their case open source is a terrible argument. Buck up and debate.

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Public Forum: Impact weighing and warranting are the strongest reasons for dismissing some cards and accepting others. Asserting a competing card against another doesn't automatically resolve the clash between them. Also, make sure your card use has integrity. PF'rs should work within boundaries set by hard facts (or find good ways to dismiss them as flawed). If there are disputes/indicts on cards that are unresolved by the end of the round, I will ask to see those cards.

Cross Fire is NOT extended rebuttal time. Please ask questions. I don't flow Cross Fire, so if something comes up during that time, it's your job to bring it up in the next speech. I don't appreciate rudeness, laughing/smirking at your opponents in general, or assuming they are stupid and proceeding with the debate that way. I don't appreciate constant interruptions. Let your opponents respond to your questions. In general, I value etiquette.

PF was intended as a debate form that prized eloquent speaking and good delivery. Debaters that win their arguments but also are good speakers are much more likely to get my vote. I am very willing to give low-point wins on good speaking.

I don't have a preference either way if you do a rebuttal in the second speech; go with your strengths, and I don't penalize for different debate styles on that point. Just make sure the arguments you want to win make it into the Final Focus.

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Policy: I accept and understand most forms of argumentation in policy. I judge mainly on impact weighing at the end of the round. I don't flow cross-x. If anything comes up that's important, bring it up in your next speech.

I have enjoyed all performance rounds in policy that I've ever seen, and feel reasonably confident in my ability to judge that style. I find performance rounds that criticize systemic injustices, especially in the world of debate, particularly interesting and I'm willing to buy them; counterarguments that simply try to dismiss those types of criticisms/styles as unimportant or non-Topical are not compelling for me. Engage with the claims being put forth, even if they are performative.

If you use "role of the ballot" arguments, please do so because you're sincere about the position you've taken, and not just because you are strategically using this idea to outmaneuver and outweigh your opponent. I'll buy that type of argumentation if it's well done.

Policy: Stock issues judge, this is how I will vote in the round. Advantages and DA's can be run, but not much weight is put on them in the voting. Speed is important, I don't stand brisk speed that is hard to hear, and wont flow if I can't think. Kritiks and counterplans will not be tolerated by me and running one in a round I am judging does not bode well for you.

LD: Value and criterions are a must, slow speed is a need, and explaining all of your arguments is a key importance.

stock issues

I judge based on the flow. Make sure you speak clearly and address all contentions and subpoints when defending and attacking cases. Treat everyone with respect and be kind and courteous during the round.

I am an experienced coach who has coached both speech and debate for the past 25 years.

Policy: Policy Maker judge who is not a fan of game-playing, kritiks, etc. I want to hear a solid debate centered on the resolution. Will vote for Topicality if it is a clear violation.

LD: Values/Criteria are important to the round and should be presented/used accordingly. Evidence (both empirical and hypothetical) should be used as appropriate. LD is a values debate.

PF: Public Forum should not be considered Policy Lite. Solid arguments defending a team's position should be used with specific evidence (not vague references to "sources").

Congress: I like to hear clash from speakers later in the round. Don't restate the same arguments stated by the previous 10 representatives/senators. Speeches should offer clear use of persuasive techniques and logic.