I have judged lots of DC-area tournaments and about half a dozen national circuit tournaments over the past two years after more than two decades away from competitive debate.

Here's what I would want to know about me if I were you:

1. I am open to - and have voted for - just about every kind of strategy, even though my default position is still that affs should defend a topical proposal for action. If you don't read a plan you need to explain the role of the ballot.

2. My assumption (in the absence of argument to the contrary) is that the neg has to defend whatever they do or advocate as functionally competitive/net beneficial. This means that answering a permutation by just saying, "severs their reps" and moving on is not going to be very persuasive to me.

3. I presume that debate is an educational game and that competitive fairness is an impact unless someone suggests an alternative way of looking at what we're doing.

4. You need to be able to explain and defend the claims and warrants in your evidence. If the other team points out that your evidence does not actually say what you represent it as saying, I am willing to assign the argument zero weight/probability.

5. The electronic exchange of speech files is not an excuse for being incomprehensible. I also appreciate it when arguments and cards have short, clear labels.

6. Please be nice (or at least polite) to each other. I don't like watching debates where debaters are cocky, condescending, or rude, and I will punish this kind of behavior harshly via speaker points.

Preferred pronouns: She/her

What's good, my name is Renee and I am in my third year of undergraduate studies at UVA! I debated policy for all four years in high school on a really small team, and became as involved as I could be. Even though debate is not a huge part of my life anymore (my major is in computer engineering), I would be more than happy to talk to you about what good steps to take to improve your debate skills!!

There are a few things that I will mention about my paradigm and other such shenanigans:

How I decide the round

(1) Solvency is of utmost importance to me. I will first and foremost determine if the aff can solve its own impacts (which is the basis of presumption), and if the neg can solve its impacts (potentially including the aff's impacts). If you lose on solvency, you lose the round.

(2) Impact calculus matters a lot to me as well. Outline for me why I should care more about your impacts than your opponents' impacts. This does not directly translate to the impact of the biggest magnitude, but rather the one that has been articulated best - interpret that as you will. For instance, if one team is screaming extinction through all four speeches with no real support of that, while the other team proves the more accessible impact of loss of fairness/pedagogical value/value of human life, I will be much more inclined to vote for the latter. If you decide to go for T/theory/framework, I will expect impact calculus from you as well.

How I decide speaker points

(1) Clarity is simply a must; it is not even a reason to give high speaker points, it is just a precursor to all the reasons that are. Pathos, logos, and ethos are all incredibly important to keep in mind (logos is expected, ethos gives you a boost, and pathos gives you an extra boost on top of that).

(2) I will give you a 28.5-29.5 if you really blow me away with your arguments! If I give you above a 27.5 then you impressed me; otherwise, there is definitely room for improvement

(3) Matters that would cause me to deduct points significantly: Ad hominem attacks, interrupting your opponents and being just plain rude, using racial slurs, xenophobic language and the like, etc. I dedicated much of my time in debate to preserving mutual respect, fairness, and pedagogical value in academic spaces, so much so that I crafted a few K Affs out of that. This really matters to me. Be kind and respectful to each other, and exhibit good sportsmanship. If you impact turn something such that you end up arguing something along the lines of "racism is good" or "Islamophobia is good," etc, even though this does not directly relate to speaker points it will be impossible to win that sort of argument in front of me.

Your case

(1) On a scale of one to very kritikal, my team in high school was very kritikal. On one hand, that means that I love well-structured kritiks and am very open to hearing new and unconventional arguments in the debate space. Bring them on! On the other hand, that means that I have high standards for how well you articulate the arguments of your kritik. Too many times I have seen teams regurgitate the newest and hottest kritik cards from Open Evidence without any idea what they are saying. This will make me cringe at best and be very unhappy with you at worst (and trust me, you will get grilled & killed during cross-x). Tl;dr - explain any high-level theory and philosophy in front of me assuming that I know nothing!

(2) While still on the topic of Ks, I have put together and run quite a few K Affs during my debate career. As a 2A/1N, I really enjoy a creative and meaningful K Aff! With that said, here are my expectations:

- Be prepared to answer Topicality very, very, very well. For me, if neg can prove that you are completely atopical, there is a good chance that you will lose. After all, why have the resolution change every year if aff can always run the same exact case? Framework should be the most basic argument base that you are prepared to answer, so I will hold you to high standards

Your presentation of your case

(1) Please speak as clearly as you can. I understand that you have a lot to get out in the few minutes allotted to you, but clarity should never ever ever be sacrificed for speed in my book. I would much rather have you make three very concise arguments than a hundred muddled ones. If you are not being very clear, I will shout "clear" to let you know. If you continue being unclear after a few times of my shouting clear, I will just let you continue to be unclear, but will stop flowing the parts of your speech that I don't understand. Also, I will be flowing the entire round, because that is how I keep track of what is going on. If you see me not flowing an important argument that you are making, there is a good chance that it is because you are not being clear enough.

(2) I'm pretty awful at shielding my emotions from my face. If I am very confused by what you are saying, trust me when I say that my confusion will be written all over my face, so use my quirky facial expressions to your advantage to figure out where you may need to explain more. If you see me nodding and smiling, there's a good chance that I am understanding you and think you are making a good argument.

(3) It is of utmost importance to me that you mean what you say and that the data that you summarize actually supports the arguments that you are making. Examples of how this is commonly misused include when teams attach the words "extinction" or "nuclear winter" or "economic collapse" to the tag of some random card, or make any other claim where the actual evidence is a (very) far stretch. As such, don't be surprised if I ask teams to show me their actual cards before I make my decision. Obviously, if I examine your evidence and find that you have not been truthful in how you have presented your case, I will feel much more like voting you down.

(4) I expect students to flash their evidence to each other BEFORE the speech is read. If anything new and unexpected comes up during a speech, please be quick in flashing that evidence to the other team as well.

(5) I believe that the 2NR and 2AR should tell a story of the debate round and lay out the decision calculus for me - tell me plainly based on the flow of the round why you merit a win. Please please please do NOT read new evidence in the 2NR and 2AR - honestly, I will not flow it. The evidence is coming too late in the round for any sort of rebuttal anyways, so on the basis of fairness to the other team I will not consider 2NR/2AR cards in my decision. If you bring up any sort of new argument in the 2NR and the 2AR brings up fairness claims, I will agree with them.

(6) Please go line-by-line when you can. It helps me tremendously with my flow and will help make me like you more as a debater. Overviews are welcomed so long as they do not take up most of the time; they should be clear, concise, and to the point.

Annoying little things about me (in case nothing above was annoying enough)

(1) My understanding of economics is quite bad, to be blunt. If your case involves discussing the 14.9% of some stock that will plunge by 3.6% versus the 72.3% of some other stock that will rise by 32.1%, which will raise the overall profits of some company by 37% and will cause 82.9% of llamas to flee from Peru, please know that ALL of that will go completely over my head unless you explain those arguments in plain English.

(2) Similar things can be said about my understanding of politics. While there are obviously big-name politicians that I recognize and know about, please don't assume that I will immediately react to a supposed disadvantage of Senator Somebody stepping down or Congressman John Doe becoming an incumbent, or Company X lobbying something new. The best thing is to not even assume that I know anything about politics and explain these sorts of arguments as you would to a middle schooler - this way, your arguments will not get stuck in my mind. I will not ask for clarification on these sorts of arguments, so if I am confused at the beginning I will stay confused all the way through decision time!

Finally, feel free to email me at rlm4mx@virginia.edu with any questions you may have about this paradigm

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

A couple of things:

1. If you're not nice to other people, and I see, in or out of round, I will take off speaker points. Debate is a extracurricular activity that everyone should enjoy. Please make this an activity a pleasant place to be.

2. Background: I debated policy for four years in high school at the regional and national level. I've run or hit a ton of diverse arguments, so I know a little of everything on a basic level. Spreading is okay if you're clear (if you don't slow down by the third time I tell you to be "clear", I will put down my pen and take a nap.)

3. I don't care what you're running as long as you explain it to me well. I can go traditional or non-traditional, but prefer more traditional arguments just because I spent so much time in traditional. Line-by-line by the 2NR/2AR of as many arguments as you can cover is never enough to win the debate. You have to show me what I am weighing and why I should weigh it your way.

4. Open cross ex until someone starts hogging all the time & prep time stops when you say so (within reasonable limits.)

5. Please.......signpost........................and roadmap.................I'm begging

6. I strongly believe that the true value of debate is learning from the debate and taking away skills that will serve you outside of debate. That being said, if you show me your flows and they're a.) mostly complete, b.) legible, and c.) have notes on it after rfd/advice is given, I will add an additional 0.5 to your speaker points.

7. I also believe that what you say in debate can face consequences. Debate is not a bubble in which you can say whatever you want and can get away with it because "discourse means nothing". If you run "racism good", "sexism good", or any type of "oppression good" args, take it that your team will lose and both speakers will get 25 speaker points.