I come from a parliamentary debate background (high school & college) and have judged at PF tournaments sporadically for the past 6 years. The most important thing to me is weighing: tell me the most important point in the round and why it is the most important, not just why you won it.

Please explain terms (assume I don't know what something means) and avoid jargon!

To begin with my background, I am a long time debate alumni, founder and president of my high school team as well as the last president of the CUNY Debate Society. I've been teaching debate for years. I've judged nearly everything under the sun in my near decade of experience, including PF, Parli (Parli in several forms), LD, Speech, Congress, Policy, and probably more. That being said, my "judging preferences" are rooted in my first and true love, parliamentary debate. For those of you who have done parliamentary, world's debate, and/or APDA/BP, you'll know parli debate emphasizes logical linkages far more than I'd argue it's more popular counterpart, PF, does. Accordingly, as do I. If you'd like that winning ballot from me, I cannot stress this enough: reason out your warrants and your impacts, and for the love of all that is good in this world, please please please weigh your arguments. This does NOT mean forego all else things, especially as they are emphasized in whichever format I am judging your round for (e.g. if this is a public forum round, of course you should use good, solid, well-cited evidence and it will dock you points if you don't have them). But the logic behind your arguments should also be sound and well developed (as in you should be able to explain them and how they clash with your opponents' arguments at length without citing more sources unnecessarily) and you are almost guaranteed to win your round if you are the only team weighing in the round. More likely that not, I will NOT drop your speaks for how you speak or your presentation (your content will always be 10000% more important to me than the presentation and I know a lot of us come from different backgrounds which means there is no "one-way" to be a good presenter. Make the effort though; I'll know if you're not making the effort). Also, on a lighter and semi-joking note, please don't spread unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary. I can keep up, but I definitely will not want to.

E.j.chen256@gmail.com

I was an APDA (college parliamentary) debater from 2014-18. Between 2016 and 2022, I coached PF, LD, Congress, Extemp, and some other speech events.

I was formerly a 4 year PF debater at Stuyvesant High School, a 4 year PF coach for Hunter High School, a 4 year APDA/BP debater in college, and the Director of NSD PF for 3 years. 3 things to note:

1. I don’t need defense in first summary if 2nd rebuttal didn’t answer it and you extend it in final focus, but I do need defense in 2nd summary if you intend for that response to factor into my decision. All offense must be in both summary and final focus.

2. I give relatively low average speaker points, as I will award an average PF speech a 28.

3. Do not be afraid to grill me after the round if you think I have made a mistake in evaluating the round in any way. It will not sway me but it might teach you something and i really don’t mind at all.

Max F. Neuman (he or they pronouns). If both teams want to use an email chain, please add maxfneuman [at] gmail.com

Competitive and Coaching Experience:

4 years of PF, almost entirely on the New York City Urban Debate League, at Bard High School Early College Manhattan.

1 year of APDA at CUNY, 3 years at Columbia.

Former PF coach at High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies, Midwood High School, and Bard High School Early College Manhattan. Current APDA coach at Temple.

Listened to that NPR podcast about college policy and thought it was cool.

Paradigm:

When I'm judging a round, I really want to avoid intervening ie; involving my own thoughts or doing your work in achieving the ballot. It leads to unpredictable decisions that are unfair to everybody. To prevent judge intervention, speak high, and win, here are a few tips:

• Enjoy yourself! Debate should be fun.

• Be inclusive! Respect your competitors. If speaking about an event or group, especially one that you are not part of, only make arguments you would make if the room were full of members of that group.

• If you need to make a potentially triggering argument, please give a content warning.

• I will not deviate from tab policy, speech times, or the speaker scale. Everything else is up for debate.

Everything below this point is stuff I am flexible on, but will default to absent other argumentation.

• I am a lazy judge. I do not want to intervene or do the work to prove why arguments are true or why they matter. Please be explicit about what the voting issues should be.

• Before anyone says a word, I assume that my job as the judge is to determine if the resolution is a true or false statement, and I assume that neg has won on presumption. As soon as a debater says anything, these starting positions go out the window and the role/destination of the ballot is up for debate.

• I've been consistently involved in debate since 2013, but you definitely know the current topic and the format's evolving norms better than I do. Author names don't mean much to me, so explain what cards say. If you want to make an abuse or theory call, or even do something non-traditional like a K, I'm amenable to it if it's adequately warranted and weighed in a way that's accessible to a broad audience that isn't steeped in debate pedagogy. If something is warranted well and not responded to at all, I'll consider it true, no matter how outlandish.

• Weigh and condense. Going for the whole flow at any point after second crossfire reduces the round to a whirlwind of blips, often with very little analysis about what should sway the ballot. Impact calculus is hard to master, but entirely worth it.

• I don't care about or even know how to consciously evaluate presentation things like what you wear, the sound of your voice, rhetoric, whether you sit or stand, or that sort of thing.

• Speed is fine when coupled with clarity. If you're especially fast (like 300 words per minute or more), start slow so I can get up to speed. If I can't flow you at all, I'll say "clear" up to three times

• Explaining how something works or happens is so much better than citing a source or quantifying a conclusion. Maybe it's because I've seen so many bad debaters win rounds on evidence challenges or because I'm a parliamentary debater, but I value explanation on par with evidence.

• If some offense is in first constructive or rebuttal and then never gets brought up during the round, I'm fine with a final focus/PMR/LOR/2AR/2NR weighing it to win, although the weighing needs to be stronger than "they dropped it so it's true." I will pick up a team that says "they dropped it so it's true, and we weigh it so it matters" if the weighing actually happens.

• You don't have to extend all defense in a summary/rebuttal if you've already touched an argument; you do have to respond if the other side is going for it and engaging with your refutation. If something was in the round before, regardless of whether it was in summary or second constructive, it can be in final focus and on the ballot if you mention it explicitly. I will enforce the prohibition on totally new argumentation (in all cases except the first-speaking team answering totally new content in the second team's summary) in final focus.

• I probably won't flow crossfire because I don't think I can do so with nearly as much accuracy as the speeches. If something important happened in crossfire, mention it in a speech to be sure it's in the round.

• I am begrudgingly okay with calling cards. It would be better if everyone could avoid this by not lying about evidence (your own or your opponents'). If there has been a question of validity or a direct and unresolved clash of cards during the round, I'll probably want to see the original source after the round. If you have a citation and a card, it's okay with me if you have to pull an original source off the internet when asked. Any other internet use is super duper prohibited. If the entire round comes down to a fact claim that nobody can resolve like "Russia has 15 nuclear submarines" when the brightline for impact access is 15, I'm amenable to arguments that I should google the number, and I'll default to just resolving the next most important issue in the round if it's deadlocked around an unresolvable fact claim.

If you want my flow, it's all yours! Send me an email at maxfneuman [at] gmail.com to ask for the flow or if you have any questions, preferably on the same weekend as your round in front of me. I'll probably delete flows/forget details about rounds after that. Please add me to the email chain at the same email address.

I am a sophomore at Barnard and compete with the Columbia Parli Team. I competed in PF for four years at Sidwell Friends School. I'll flow and can handle moderate speed, but prefer for there to be clear signposting, especially in early speeches, in order to best understand your arguments. The best argumentation should include extensions of your arguments (with convincing responses to rebuttals from the opposing side) and thoughtful weighing.

Weigh your impacts please

I did PF for three years at Jesuit High School in New Orleans, and I am now in my second year of parliamentary debate at Fordham University. I graduated in 2017, but I am fairly new to judging high school debate.

Public Forum:

I can handle some speed, but at the end of the day I did PF in high school and not LD/CX, so I am probably not prepared to judge spreading.

I will pay attention in cross-fire, but I will not be flowing. If you want to make sure that I consider an idea from cross-fire, bring it up in one of your speeches. As always, make sure to extend your arguments and to weigh them clearly.

IMPORTANT THING: EVIDENCE ETHICS

By the end of my PF career, I noticed a worrying trend of teams misconstruing evidence. In fact, I think that the structure of Public Forum may incentivize misconstruing evidence because opponents have very little prep-time to analyze your cards and realize they are misconstrued at all. If one team calls into question the legitimacy of the other's evidence, I will ask to take a look at the card (and preferably the whole PDF) after the round. Please have an honest debate.

Please don't make me think I'm in a policy round.