As a judge, I am personally very big on delivery and the style in which the presentation is done. I am a strong believer that a passionate, engaging form of delivery is crucial for any successful speech. I like to see active participation and I also like when competitors avoid direct-reading like the plague!
I’ve been judging both speech and congress for over 5 years and can say that the experience has been great!

Congress:

Clarity is very important. I need to be able to understand your arguments step by step, guide me through the analysis of them. Delivery and passion are also a central part of Congress -- just be authentic. Always be respectful in speeches and questioning.

My Email: isaacappelbaum404@gmail.com

Origin Story:

Hi! I'm Isaac. I am a rising junior at George Washington University in D.C. and I competed in Congressional Debate for four years as a student at Pennsbury High School in Pennsylvania. I competed extensively on the national circuit, obtaining 11 bids to the TOC and I was lucky enough to place/final at tournaments like Harvard, Princeton, Sunvite, Blue Key, Barkley Forum (Emory), Durham, UPenn, and Villiger.

Now that I've given some of my background as a competitor I can discuss what that means in terms of what I like to see as a judge. In my opinion, this can best be summarized like this;

Congress:

stick to 2 points

don't speak too fast

try to get to 2:50-3 minutes

arguments flow in linear way and flow broad to narrow with a terminalized impact (human beings should be your impact)

use refutation after 1st cycle

I like well 2 well developed arguments over 3 poorly constructed ones

Stick to legislation what does the legislation do

LD:

Don't spread

cite good sources

present links clearly

PF:

Don’t spread (speak so quickly I can’t understand you)

use good sources (try not to use news articles, stick to research)

arguments flow in linear fashion (I should be able to see where you go from point A to point B to point C)

give me a human reason to vote for your side (this means establish the human impact why the issue directly impacts a human person)

no theory please (stick to arguing the facts, data, and information of the issues at hand in the motion)

Please sign post arguments (tell me that you are about to make a big point before you do)! I need this for flowing purposes

Congress:

Clear points including cited evidence.

Want to see advancement of the bill.

Your speech should stand up to questioning.

My predominant preference is coherence -- explanations/justifications must be logically sound and understandably explained for any average listener.

Claims must be substantiated with either quantification or qualification from credible sources, followed with accurate and logical analysis.

Delivery is imperative -- speaking at a digestible pace with vocal variation and emotional articulation. Posture, presentation, hand gestures, and expressions all play a role as well.

Overall, I like to hear someone who is natural and conversational but still informative and understandable.

Having adjudicated a handful of congress speech debate competitions as a parent judge, here are a few factors I generally consider for evaluating participants:

* content and delivery (equal weightage)

* thoughtfully laid out and well researched arguments with strong analysis

* refutations in every speech after the first affirmative

* participation in CrossX and raise valid logical questions to challenge opposing arguments and strengthening their own argument.

Good luck and thank you for your time and effort!

For Congressional Debate, my primary focus is on logical arguments that are well-constructed with quality evidence to support your claims. I appreciate rhetoric and impacts, but I will discount scores if these replace analysis and evidence. Refutations are essential to a strong score but require more than just a claim – give me the analysis and back it up with evidence.

I highly respect constitutional arguments and discount for affirmations of an unconstitutional bill.

It is essential to me that competitors remain in the role of a congressperson, showing respect to the chamber and following proper parliamentary procedure. I encourage everyone to remember to address their colleagues with the proper honorarium (Representative/Senator) at all times, and to avoid using Mr./Ms. personal titles as they both assume gender identity and may be considered dismissive at times.

I respect competitors who are active in the chamber and strongly disagree with the trend of some competitors to press for a base-2 model. Finally, while our U.S. congresspeople may lack persuasive speaking skills, I highly value presentation skills in congressional debate.

As a parliamentarian, I value a presiding officer who is, of course, familiar with both Roberts Rules and the rules set forth by the tournament. However, I do not mind if the PO asks questions to confirm procedures or tournament preferences. The PO should always strive to run a fast and fair chamber to allow everyone opportunities to speak. I prefer to remain as quiet as possible giving the PO the control of the chamber. I will intervene only if the PO makes an incorrect ruling that will impact the results of the session, makes an error in precedence/recency (though I will certainly give the chamber a chance to catch this first), or to insure fairness to everyone in the chamber. I encourage the PO to take charge of the chamber, to rule motions dilatory when appropriate, and to remind the congresspeople of proper procedures when needed. However, I do believe these corrections can be done with respect and kindness.

Though I strive to allow the chamber to function without my input, I will step in if I suspect there is bullying in play, or if I sense discrimination within the chamber, either intentional or unintentional. I support the NSDA's position that every student deserves a caring and welcoming environment—one that is committed to conditions of fairness, fosters inclusion, affirms identity, celebrates lived experiences, and protects from harassment and discrimination.

I prefer clear, coherent introductions to bills and to arguments. Rhetorical openings are fine, but not at the expense of the bill or the framework of the argument.

Please do not approach the bill or the floor ironically - debaters who argue in favor of things like genocide or dictatorship to be cute will be dropped. Clash honestly and with detailed flow. Be awake and aware of the debate; rehash is the Devil.

Kathleen Bogen

I am parent of a congressional debater at American Heritage in Boca/Delray Florida. I have judged local, regional and national tournaments. I judge primarily IE and Congressional Debate.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE

I like a good speaker and refutation is important. No spreading.
I prefer that debaters be strong in their conviction but not be abusive in their treatment of others.

I DO NOT SHAKE HANDS AT THE END OF A ROUND

PUBLIC FORUM
I like the original intention of this event that it should be a debate that would take place in a public setting and would have ideas and delivery that any person off the street could understand. To this end, I don't want you to be a policy debater. While I do want structure to what you are saying and evidence to support your ideas, it is the PUBLIC approach that I prefer. Are you clear? Do your points make logical sense? Are you able to persuade me that your side is the side that is best for our current population?

I DO NOT SHAKE HANDS AT THE END OF A ROUND

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.

My name is Gabrielle Cabeza and I am a junior at UPenn. I competed on the national circuit in Congressional Debate during high school. I believe that Congressional Debate is a beautiful hybrid of substantive debate and eloquent speaking. As such, I look for very strong argumentation with solid warrants and strong impacts as well as strong performance through pacing, tonal variation, and emotion. Be professional, courteous, and argumentative without being overly aggressive.

Speak pretty, be smart, take names.

Hi, y’all! I’m Santiago.

I competed for Clements HS in Congressional Debate and Extemporaneous Speaking from 2017 to 2020, and now I judge from time to time. I won't list out my qualifications, but I did pretty well in both events during my debate career, so I know what I'm doing.

In general, my judging for Congress is based 64% on flow and 36% on speech. I know both of those terms mean different things depending on who you ask, so I’ll try to explain what I’m looking for in each.

**2020-2021 edit: Now that tournaments will be predominantly over Zoom, my flow-speech split has changed from 64-36 to 80-20. Basically, everything that I'm about to say about how I judge off the flow will be amplified for online tournaments.**

--Flow--

Overview

My bottom line for judging content is that I want you to engage substantially with the way the debate is progressing. This means a couple of things.

First, don't rehash. I tend to pay pretty close attention to the substance of the round, so I have a pretty good ear for speakers that just regurgitate previous talking points without any new insight. I want you to engage with key voting issues, but you have to add MEANINGFUL analysis to what's been said.

Second, don't be super niche. I like creative arguments as much as the next person, but they still need to relate to the stock issues of the debate. Don't bring up the agrarian sector of West Africa in a debate over UNCLOS unless you have an excellent link into what everyone else is talking about.

Last thing: I really like arguments that get into the nitty-gritty of the debate (root cause analyses, solvency analysis, unique frameworks, etc). If you're able to substantially change how the topic area is understood by everyone else, I'll probably up you.

Argumentation

As far as individual argumentation and structure goes, I’m down for basically anything so long as it’s coherent. I expect your arguments to be well-warranted and organized (taglines and sign-posting helps a lot for this), but beyond that you can run whatever structures you really want so long as they're intuitive.

When it comes to actually evaluating your arguments, I tend to be as tabula rasa as possible. I obviously can’t get rid of all of my personal biases, but I’m willing to buy basically any argument if it’s warranted and presented well enough.

All of that having been said, my personal top priority is narrative. If you have impeccable argumentation with some really spot-on analysis, that's great. But if you're able to fit it into the broader scope of the debate and tell me a story with your speech, you'll place high on my ballot.

Clash

After the Sponsorship, every speech should have clash. The later you are in the cycle, the higher the expectation that you have proper engagement with the rest of the chamber. Warrant-level refutation is the standard for me; don't just name drop speakers. Evidence indicts in cases of genuine abuse on the part of the author or the speaker are also greatly appreciated. I'm also usually down for half-refs; they're generally pretty refreshing, but don't waste your time refuting arguments that don't matter to the debate.

Running crystals is a "high risk, high reward" scenario for me. That's because I rarely ever hear a good crystal; 90% of the time, crystals are either incoherent, unjustified, rehash, or some combination of those three. That having been said, because of how difficult they are to pull off, I will highly reward successful crystals if I hear them.

--Speech--

Baselines

Honestly, the quality of your speaking only really needs to meet a minimum baseline for me to rank you. Your fluency has to be good enough to where you’re not stumbling over every other word, your vocal fluctuations need to be varied enough to where I don’t get bored hearing your speech, and you need to sound professional and like you actually want to be here. So long as you’re a competent speaker, I won’t have a problem with ranking you pretty well.

Stylistic Choices

If it’s a high-level round where everybody has good content, then what will personally make you stand out to me is your style as a speaker. To me, having a “style” means having a clear vision of what type of debater you want to be. If you’re the type of debater who likes to be more light-hearted, then crack plenty of jokes. If you instead like to wreck people on the flow, then roast everybody in the room. Even if I'm not super receptive towards your particular style, I'll be much more inclined to rank you highly if I see you as a genuine personality than if you were just generically good.

Cross Examination

I put this under the “speech” aspect because I hardly ever evaluate cross-examination as part of my content analysis. The only way in which I’d penalize you content-wise for this is if you made a huge concession during cross. Otherwise, it’s pretty straight-forward for me. Don’t talk over each other, don’t constantly interrupt the other person, keep your questions and answers concise, and try to maintain your perceptual dominance. I don’t usually take cross into account when writing my ballot, so if you follow these guidelines, we should have no problems.

--Presiding--

General Takes

My paradigm for POs is pretty simple. Unless literally all of the speakers in the round are mediocre, I’m very rarely going to ever give the PO my 1. That’s just a matter of principle; I believe that, while a PO is crucial for maintaining decorum and efficiency in a round, Congress is first and foremost about collective advocacy and debate, so I’ll naturally be prioritizing speakers.

That having been said, I still recognize the importance and risk of presiding, so at the beginning of every round POs will always start off as my 3. Whether or not you stay there depends entirely on how many mistakes you make and how efficient you are. I will be keeping track of precedence and recency, and while I won’t call you out for any mistakes that you make, I will make note of them. If you make no mistakes and are especially efficient, I’ll have no problem bumping you up to my 2.

Presiding Specifics

A firm understanding of parliamentary procedure (how many votes needed to pass a given motion, discretion given to tournament-specific rules, etc.) is a necessity. Otherwise, I prefer POs to be background noise at best; cut down on the semantics, speak as little as possible, and be quick and to the point when you do address the chamber. That said, do be accommodating of everyone; if you're going too fast for the rest of the chamber to keep up, I will deduct from your overall rank.

--Miscellaneous--

Quality vs. Quantity

I'll generally evaluate you based on your average performance across your speeches, meaning quality and consistency is more important than quantity. That having been said, I expect you to take any and all opportunities to speak unless it puts you at a perceived strategic disadvantage, in which case I won't hold it against you.

As far as general activity goes, I'll only really take your overall round presence into consideration if you were egregiously lacking (inactive during questioning, passed on opportunities to speak, etc); otherwise, I'll first and foremost be evaluating you based on your speeches. Just be reasonably active during the round, and we'll have no issues.

Decorum

You’re not high schoolers; you’re legislators. I don’t want to hear the 50th joke about how “when I joined Congress 20 years ago at the tender age of -3”, because it was barely funny the first time. Don’t make jokes about horrible stuff happening in real life, don’t bring up baseless rhetoric about dying children or recent tragedies, and don’t be tasteless in the things you say in and out of round.

Also, I highly evaluate fairness in round. If you and a group of other competitors are rigging the docket beforehand without accommodating for the rest of the chamber, I will drop you to the bottom of my ballot. If you’re trying to edge somebody out of giving a speech by ending debate early, I will drop you to the bottom of my ballot. As a PO, if you’re purposefully picking speakers based off of who you know or like the most, I will drop you to the bottom of my ballot. I don’t play around with these types of things.

In general, my Paradigm includes strong arguments that shows inherency to why you made that claim. You must have well-constructed and organized speeches, with strong evidence to back up any claims that you make. You must also be able to present your argument well with a strong speech. I look for debaters who are able to properly convey their argument while being articulate. You should be able to convince me that the claim that you make regarding the bill is solvent and overall show why that side is the side to support.

I look for eye contact -- or in the digital world not reading exclusively from notes. Be prepared and make your best arguments in a thoughtful and clear manner. Make sure to have support for the points you make. Be able to defend your positions on rebuttal. Show confidence when speaking.

About me:

Hi! I'm a very experienced parliamentarian.

My rankings as a parliamentarian tend to be pretty spot-on for the top three to five students in my prelim chambers before varying a little bit going down from there, as they should.

Try not to overthink where I rank you. I would say to focus on the feedback; I've been a part of the Congressional Debate community as a competitor, judge, and coach for over a decade now, so I certainly have some thoughts on how I think you can improve.

Prelims:

We are all aware that teammates share prep, students are using AI, and some unscrupulous coaches prep their students out. That is why I have found that I actually judge more heavily off of delivery in prelims. I'm always listening to your arguments and taking note of strong and weak ones, but I'm not exactly flowing the round like it's PF; I'm just trying to give each of you a paragraph of feedback for each speech. Here is a non-exhaustive list of things I will try to evaluate over the course of nine or so hours as your parliamentarian:

Content:

☐ Good arguments & avoid rehash

☐ Full (with the date) citations & high-quality sources

☐ Signposting your arguments/clear taglines

☐ Ability to refute

☐ Ability to crystalize

☐ Strong analysis

☐ Strong questioning

☐ Strong introductions

☐ Strong conclusions (that relate to your intro and last for longer than 5 seconds)

☐ Rhetoric & humor

☐ Appeals to pathos

Delivery:

☐ Effective hand gestures

☐ Eye contact (especially during your introduction)

☐ Volume/presence

☐ Passion, not aggression

☐ Vocal variation (tone & volume & speed)

☐ Fluency of speech

☐ Walking on points

☐ Conversational pace

☐ Ends on time/time management (this is a BIG pet peeve of mine; try to end at 3:00 please)

Style:

☐ Leadership/influence in the chamber

☐ In-round strategy (overcoming bad pre-set recency, getting a third speech in without losing the respect of your peers)

☐ Decorum

☐ Use of a legal pad or non-technological equivalent (this is part of the role-play)

☐ Maintaining the role-play (if you are a senator, that means you're pretending to be at least 30 years old)

Elimination rounds:

I'll be honest, I only occasionally judge elimination rounds because I am usually conflicted out of all of them except for at the largest tournaments (think Harvard or NSDA House quarters). However, I do watch them all the time as a spectator.

What I am really looking for in semis (or quarters) are students who have not only mastered the fundamentals, but also find a way to stand out in a room where everyone is pretty decent at speaking.

Specifically, the key things I am really looking for when I judge an elimination round are:

☐ Outstanding intros & conclusions

☐ Clear signposting & structure

☐ Authentic rhetoric & pathos

☐ Advanced argumentation & synthesis

☐ Conversational pace & stellar eye contact

☐ Strong time management throughout a speech (3:00 is the target; if both of your speeches are 3:10, that looks comparatively weak)

A note on presiding:

If you're going to be a presiding officer while competing in Congressional Debate, be a great one. Above all, time your fellow competitors accurately. If you mistime or misgavel your colleagues, I consider that to be a critical failure. Pay attention to your timer and if you make a mistake, be honest about it and come clean. I also don't like it when POs lie about speech times (saying a speech that is 3:13 is 3:10).

POs should demonstrate authority and leadership through problem-solving, managing the chamber when conflict and confusion arises.

I keep a close eye to see if a PO appears to have read the tournament-specific rules.

I highly value word economy. The more you speak as a PO, the more time you are wasting.

Dockets and agendas are not the same thing. The words are not interchangeable.

If no one wants to preside and you are genuinely taking one for the team, I will obviously recognize that and try to help you out if I'm your parli.

Finally:

Remember why we are all here: Speech and Debate is an educational activity. This is about you becoming the best, most capable version of yourself (and using those talents to make the world a better place). Five years from now, the confidence, talent, and knowledge you cultivate through this activity will be useful to you, every single day. The plaques and trophies will either still be on display at your old school or sitting in a box at home somewhere, out of sight and out of mind.

Email chain please: columbus.debate.team@gmail.com

PF:

PLEASE DO NOT PARAPHRASE YOUR CASE OR MISCUT EVIDENCE

PF/LD

1. CLARITY IS KEY!! That applies to speech, organization, signposting, etc.

2. Please warrant your claims and evidence once brought up, not later in the round or next speech (see point 1)

3. Speed is fine, I only judge what I can flow however, so I cannot say I am going to get everything down if you are spreading. I definitely prefer slower more traditional rounds. With that said, if you want to spread make sure your opponent is okay with it. You shouldn't spread/speed in PF, it's in the rules and norms of the event. It is called PUBLIC forum for a reason.

4. I studied philosophy during my time in university. Please do not throw out theory or K's without having done the necessary background research to really know what you are talking about. The round will be messy because of it, which takes us back to point 1 on clarity.

WORLD SCHOOLS:

1. Slow down, this isn't policy. You not only need to argue effectively, you need to persuade.

2. Principled arguments > specific examples and evidence. Not to say you shouldn't have specific evidence, but often the more philosophical grounds of reasoning get left out in favor of, basically, carded evidence

3. New arguments in the back half of the debate are unadvisable and don't allow the other side enough time to have a developed response.

4. Keep your eye aware for POI's, if you see one but are choosing to ignore it, indicate verbally or with a hand motion.

Congress:

General Round Preferences:

- Don’t re-hash.

- Try to bring up new impacts or points of view into the debate.

- If you’re going to crystallize, make sure you aren’t just repeating args.

- Remember, Congress isn’t a speech event, you can actually refute and debate.

- Tie in your args back to the U.S. if the topic is foreign policy. Tie in your impacts to the constituents if domestic. Why should we care about the aff/neg? how does this impact the people in the end?

Refutation:

- Have substance, don't just repeat what others have said and claim they are wrong. Prove why they are wrong and how this affects the round.

- If you can give a good analysis on how your arg turns the other side's impacts, you're going to be ranked higher.

Timing:

- I know it's hard to pace yourself but don't speak too fast. Congress is a combination of eloquent speaking and argumentation.

• I can tell when you're running out of time and trying to squeeze one last argument into your speech. I don't particularly like this because it reduces the quality of your speech and leaves it unfinished.

I stg if there's no claim, warrant, data in each point.

About Me:

I'm a 6th year Speech and Debate Coach. I prefer you speak at a conversational speed always. Slightly above is also good, but try not to spread, especially in PF (Super Fast Rebuttals/Summaries are pretty cringe and hard to flow).

I don’t mind different forms of argumentation in LD. Ks, Plans, Counterplans, etc are all ok in my book. Not a fan of progressive cases in PF, but I will still listen to them.

Not a fan of Theory-shells in Debate at all. Unless there was a CLEAR AND OBVIOUS violation in the round, do not run it.

Please utilize off time roadmaps.

Keep track of your own time. Just let me know when you run prep is all.

Signpost so I can follow on the flow. If I miss an argument because you pull a House of Pain and "Jump Around" without signposting, that is on you.

I will always vote in favor of the side with better quality arguments and better comparative analysis of the biggest impacts in the round, not the side that is necessarily "winning the most arguments."

At this point I would consider myself a flow judge (though not SUPER technical), and I value tech over truth more often than not.

More "techy" stuff:

Frameworks should always be extended. If your opponent doesn't respond to it in 1st or 2nd rebuttal, it needs to be extended into 2nd rebuttal or 1st Summary in order for me to evaluate the arguments under that framework. Teams who speak 1st do not necessarily need to extend their FW into their 1st rebuttal, but should provide some context or clarification as to why the framework is necessary for the round (can be included in an overview). If there are 2 frameworks presented, please explain why I need to prefer yours over the opponent. If no explanation is provided or extended, I will default to my own evaluation methods (typically cost/benefit analysis)

I like when teams focus summaries on extending offense and weighing, more specifically explain to me why your impacts matter more than your opponent’s. Don’t just say “(Impact card) means we outweigh on scope,” then move on to the next point. I love details and contextualization, and will always favor quality weighing over quantity.

Please collapse. Please. It helps to provide focus in the round rather than bouncing around on 20 different arguments. It just makes my life as a judge much easier.

Use FF to crystalize and highlight the most important points of contention and clash that you believe are winning you the round (things like offense and turns that go unresponded to, for example). Explain to my why I should vote for you, not why I should not vote for the other side. Voter Issues are always a good thing, and can possibly win you the round in a close debate.

LD Stuff:

If your plan is to spread, and I cant follow on the flow and miss things, that is on you. LD's purpose was intended to separate itself from Policy tactics and allow argumentation that anyone off the streets can follow. Call me a traditionalist or whatever, but spreading just to stack arguments is not educational and hurts the activity. You cant convince me otherwise so dont try.

Im perfectly OK with any kind of case, but my preference is this order: Traditional>K>Disads/Plans/CPs>Theory (only run if there is perceived actual abuse in round, dont run frivolous stuff)

Not super knowledgeable on all the nuances of LD, but I do enjoy philosophical debates and am vaguely familiar with contemporary stuff.

Add me on the email chain: josemdenisjr@gmail.com

Background: I graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School (IA) in 2016 and compete dfor the George Mason University Forensics Team until May 2020. During high school I competed in Extemp, OO, Public Forum, Congress, World Schools, even Interp a couple times. I prioritized Extemp 1st, Public Forum 2nd.

For Public Forum:

1) Speed/arguments: I am comfortable with decent amounts of speed, but don't sacrifice clarity and enunciation. If your speed causes you to fail to communicate an argument clearly enough for me to weigh or understand it, that's on you. I will flow arguments and details to the best of my ability, just remember not everybody's perfect. As such, I prefer arguments and warrants being fully fleshed out and explained throughout the entire round.

2) Rebuttals: I don't believe the 1st team's rebuttal has an obligation to respond to anything except the opposition's case. I do believe the 2nd team's rebuttal should begin to respond to the 1st team's rebuttal, but I won't consider rebuttal arguments dropped if untouched.

3) Sources: I am historically bad with understanding the pronunciations/spellings of names, so PLEASE enunciate names of authors clearly. Don't just extend cards, extend explanations.

4) Time: Keep your own prep time, hold each other accountable.

5) Speaker points: I choose points based on unclear speaking/argumentation, rudeness, fabricating evidence, quality of the round, etc.

6) Have fun!

I coach speech and perviously coached debate at Eagan High School and am the librarian/media specialist there.

I enjoy debate, so I look forward to hearing your round!

In general you may want to know this about me:
I want to hear you debate about the resolution/legislation at hand. Theory is very rarely needed. I like to hear real world impacts, and I want to understand how your arguments will impact the lives of people. I have little interest in unique/trick/squirrel/non-topical arguments. Weighing is important...so give me a clear way to weigh a round. Delivery is important, so speak well and avoid speed at all costs. Speaking of speaking, there have been five times when I've given a 30 in my life, and the lowest end I've given was 10. In all situations the speaker points were earned. My typical range is 26-29. I rarely disclose and there will be no orals after the round. Finally and most importantly, have fun and debate with class.

Specifically, in terms of congressional debate: I'm probably going to vote for the best legislator. You should speak well...but not have canned speeches. You should show me you can speak in a variety of positions (author legislation, introduce arguments, refute arguments, and weigh/crystalize the round). You should advance your arguments through questions. You should use motions to advance/end debate when appropriate. You should play the role of a congressperson with the decorum it deserves. You are always on...even during recess. You should be a good person (don't be a jerk).

In terms of public forum: I'm probably going to vote for the team that does the best job of explaining the big picture of what happens in the pro and/or con world. Real world impacts are important. Weighing is important.

In terms of LD: I'm old school. I would gladly judge a value debate. I would gladly judge a round in which the criterions are debated.

In terms of policy: Good luck. Use everything written here to adapt your approach to me. I might not be the best judge for your typical approach. I do not want to have to vote on presumption.

Good luck!

Heyoo and Howdy, Its Jomi,

I have been Competing, Coaching, and Judging for going on 8 years now and I'm 21 so that says a lot about my wild amount of commitment I have towards this activity.

Mainly competed and coached extemp and congress so that is where my best critiques would come from since those are the events that I know the most about, however, I am proficient in knowing PF and LD since I have judged tons of elimination rounds for those events and have friends in the events so they teach me the game.

I would say no matter the event it always comes down to three solid principles for me

Logic without evidence

Quality of evidence

Speaking and execution of rhetoric

Logic without evidence meaning how solid on a logic understands deductive or inductive reasoning is the argument, to the point that at the least from a basic philosophical level can I consider that argument valid but not being true because that would require evidence.

Quality of evidence is what sets an argument to being a good argument because if your evidence is timely, relevant, and flows within the speech or case then that sets you apart from the round. Good evidence balances arguments, Bad Evidence breaks arguments

Speaking and execution of Rhetoric meaning simply how well are you conveying your speech and case in your delivery, even in Policy debate, if you want the judge to hear something import and round defining then you slow down and say it with conviction. How well do your voice and your inflections convey your narrative especially on the impact analysis which to me is the most important parts of arguments especially;y on a human level is to be important

Most of all, be respectful and courteous to your judges and especially to your opponents because if you are rude, condescending, sexist, racist, you know the deal if it's bad and I catch it, expect the worst result from me and expect for me to back it up. So just be a respectful person and we will be all good.

Congress: I care about what you say way more than how you say it, and to that effect, I care about seeing three things above anything else.

1. Quantified and substantiated evidence. Here's my basic framework of evidence philosophy.

- Good arguments are based on facts.

- Opinions are not facts. Therefore...

- Good arguments are not based on opinions.

Analysis, opinions, and theories are not facts and are therefore not evidence. In reality, there are only two kinds of evidence that prove things.

- Quantification: Numbers and statistics

- Substantiation: Unquantifiable things that are objectively true (laws in effect, historical examples, statements from foreign leaders, etc)

If you see me write (q/s) on a ballot, that means the evidence wasn't properly quantified or substantiated, which means your argument wasn't properly supported.

2. Net offense. I need to know why your side is right, not just why the other side is wrong. Strong refutation is obviously great and usually is the difference between a good debater and a great one, but it can't be the only thing in your speech. At some point during your speech, whether they're new impacts or you're extending old ones to weigh, I need to hear you advocate for benefits on aff and harms on neg.

3. Humanized impacts. When you argue benefits and harms, I need you to show me how the legislation helps or harms people, which means I need to hear you say the word people, or some derivative of it (Americans, workers, families, etc). Great impacts will paint me a picture of the real person the legislation hurts or helps.

Otherwise, I'm open to all sorts of styles and formats of debate.

PF: Quantification is key. Many warrants in PF rely on expert opinions, but opinions are not evidence; I need quantified and/or substantiated proof of the claims you are making. I'm a util judge on face; I will evaluate on the cost-benefit analysis of all things considered if not given a framework to follow, but I am open to evaluating off of a specified framework. Weighing for me is key- a good team should be able to right my RFD for me. Impacts need to be humanized; I need to know why your claims matter to individuals, not just broad concepts like democracy, economy, or hegemony. Any of those broader impacts can be linked back to the individual, but you have to connect back to people or that impact doesn't stand for me. Also, please don't run completely defensive points in constructive- that's what rebuttal is for. If you run progressive arguments on me (K's, theory, etc.), I will drop you. Don't run topicality as a T-shell, just run it as a regular response.

LD: I have limited experience with LD and cannot handle spreading. I can deal with speed within a reasonable degree, but I'm not afraid to say 'clear' if I can't understand you. If I can't understand you, I can't reasonably say you've won the round. If you run progressive arguments on me (K's, theory, etc.), I will drop you. Don't run topicality as a T-shell, just run it as a regular response. Pro should introduce benefits, con should introduce harms.

Extemp: Impacts should come back to the individual; don't just impact to broad topics, tell me why what you're saying is important to people. I want to see quantified and substantiated evidence- not just expert opinions or pure analysis, but proof of what you're saying.

DP: Have fun.

Former military intelligence specialist. Political activist.

Competed nationally in Congressional debate

Also competed in:

Public Forum

Extemp

Policy

Hello!

My name is Daniel Gamboa, Cypress Bay alumni and have competed in the S&D circuit for 5 years. I'm originally an Extemporaneous Speaker, Informative competitor, and part of the Manatee District 2017 World Schools Debate Semifinalist team. I have experience in preparation and case structure in Public Forum through relationships across the circuit and my old team as well as fundamental grasps of Policy through sustained exposure to the event and relationships spanning several college team members.

Policy paradigm: I have no quarrels with spreading, as long as both teams come to a mutual understanding that if there is any attempt to be sly and push arguments that were not extended will come with being voted down on the presumption of not upholding integrity. Kritiques while expansive are okay with me as long as the team can provide enough ground to continue the argumentation and provide solutions or minimum change in the status quo that can derive more benefit than harm. I will take K debates, Trad debates, and anything in between and beyond and provide an open mind for whatever the debaters can argue.

PF paradigm: Extensions of arguments goes the same as with policy, if there is any argument not properly extended that can be proven on flow that you are pushing, I will vote down on basis of integrity. I will not take disrespect for opponents in any way, insults or derogatory remarks in regards to solutions, argumentation or directly to the persons will not go over well. Speed is of no issue as long as I can understand where in the argument you are. I have no preference for style or rhetoric as long as the logic behind arguments and rebuttals are sound. I will judge based on whatever voting criterion is presented by either side as long as the reasoning and importance of that point is established.

Congress Judge-I want to hear evidence in your speech. Your opinion does not usually impact the speech very much. Try to address issues brought up by other members of the chamber. Try to avoid rehashing positions unless you are giving very late speeches. I am fairly hard on the PO. I expect them to know the procedures and pay attention. Slowing the chamber down a bit to avoid mistakes is better than going quickly and making errors that get called out.

Speech Events-I am not a speech judge normally. I will fill in for OO, Info, and Extemporaneous Rounds as needed. Anything beyond these speech events, I have not judged or have less than 3 rounds total in my life. I will look towards the piece as a whole. A typical selection that is POI, HI, DI, or Duo/Duet will mean very little to me as I really do not have the background to judge if a piece is a great standard. As such, I will be looking for pieces that make me feel like the performance was a selection or segment of the real life situation that is unfolding. I have watched a few pieces performed that were so real, the actor could have been the author of the selection.

As a former congressional debater, I've been in your shoes. When judging, I take the unpredictability of congressional debate into account but expect the best debaters to remain unphased by the chamber's unanticipated direction. I have listed the key aspects that make or break a debater in my ranks.

1) Refutation. I do not rank debaters (with the exception of sponsorship/authorships) unless they have complete refutations. This means you fully reiterate the previous speaker's argument and offer a clear counterpoint from either a logical or evidentiary basis. Even the first negation speaker is expected to have some level of refutation. By the fourth speaker in the round, refutation should be deeply embedded in a speech. Namedropping does not count as refutation. If you do not fully explain the links in your refutation argument then it was not a complete refutation.

2) Extension. If a previous speaker has acknowledged an argument already and you are choosing to expand upon it, you need to mention that previous speaker. If you do not recognize previous speakers for their arguments, I will assume you weren't paying attention or you are attempting to rehash. Extensions done well are impressive. Ignoring previous speakers to seem original or giving the same point twice is not.

3) Logical argumentation. It goes without saying but make good arguments. Consider the context of your contention and the scope of its impacts. I have no qualm ranking a debater who makes great arguments that I personally don't believe in. I will not rank a debater who has a poorly designed argument, even if I love the idea.

4) Engagement. One expectation of congressional debaters is engagement with the room. When refuting or extending upon previous speakers you should make eye contact and face them. During questioning do not give a miniature version of your speech or ask questions completely unrelated. You need to show me that you are engaged in their argument and how it relates to the scope of the whole round. Being passionate in questioning is great, so long as you are allowing the speaker to answer. I understand this is challenging with an online format, but I will still expect debaters to be engaging to the extent it is possible.

5) Speaking style. I don't have a strong preference for jokes versus serious speakers. I do, however, care that you are expressing yourself (while role-playing a member of congress) in your speech. Have passion and be genuinely invested in your arguments. If you are a funny person, crack a joke, in a respectful manner. If not, totally fine as well. I'm not judging you on your personality but no one likes a boor.

6) Moving the chamber along. If the bill is ready to move to previous question and there are five more speakers who will continue what is already stale rehash, it is not insensitive to call for the motion. Unless you are very intentionally screwing over an individual debater, I will not hold calling motions (whether they pass or not) against you.

7) For POs: Run the room. POs, I expect that you keep order in the chamber. Debaters cannot have group conversations unless they are in a recess; don't let them start negotiating sides in the round between speeches. As long as you are being fair, sticking to procedure, and reminding the chamber if they are not, I will reward your sacrifice to preside. I care quite a bit about following proper procedure so if you don’t actually know how to PO don’t expect me to rank you as a PO.

8) Flipping/recess. If you flip sides to save the round and need a recess, I'm totally for it. Adaptability is crucial for a debater. I've been in that position before and understand the pressure. For recesses in general, figuring out splits and avoiding this situation is ideal, but I know that it isn't always realistic. I'd prefer to take the recess and have a debater flip than prematurely move a bill to previous question when there is still valid debate to be had.

9) Have fun! I did congressional debate for four years (and keep coaching now) because I love it! Tournaments are stressful but they are also great places to make friends from around the country and voice your opinions on real-world issues. It isn't hard to tell which debaters love to be in round, even if they are stressed, and which are terrified. I encourage all of my students to let go of the tension and let the moment of their speech absorb them. You are always performing better than you think and I swear judges are not out to get you. Debaters who let loose and have fun are the ones who break to out rounds and feel good about their performance! I love judging because you are all such talented individuals and being part of your competitive experience brings me so much joy.

10) During rounds, I will write detailed feedback on your ballots. That being said, if you ever want more feedback or have questions at the end of a round, I am happy to talk. Just let me know and we can chat about the round and your performance.

Best of Luck! Sorry for the long paradigm but I know I always wished judges were explicit with what they wanted!

Hello

I have been judging for the last 3 years mostly congress. I am a parent judge

What I like are good facts and figures. How you can reach out and convince novice/common people with your speech matters most to me. Be yourself and give your best with your own style.

As someone who has competed in numerous public speaking events, most notably Congressional Debate, I typically favor those competitors who have a solid grasp on their style, have comprehensive research, fluidly weave in refutations throughout their speeches, and have a mature understanding of the topic at hand.

I usually mark down competitors who forgo using rhetoric as a means of persuasion; however, I also think that impact-based speeches lack substance. It's imperative to find a middle ground between the two in order to craft an effective speech.

As a parliamentarian, I want to see the chamber run fairly and efficiently by the Presiding Officer. The chamber should consistently maintain decorum and be active. I highly discourage one-sided debate especially at tournaments that allow internet access.

Most importantly, I enjoy hearing speakers who are passionate and are having fun:)

JUDGE PARADIGM

School Affiliations: Dougherty Valley High School, CA

Judging/Event Types: I've only judged Congress and I am a parent to two seasoned Congressional debaters.

How many years have you been judging?: 6 years

What sorts of things help you to make a decision at the end of the debate?: Behave professionally and courteously, clear delivery, and breaking down arguments are essential.

Do you take a lot of notes or flow the debate?: No

How do you judge cross-examination? Ask thoughtful questions

she/they

I debated for West Orange High School for 4 years in PF (& a little Congress). Let's be real, none of us really care about my competitive record. You can look it up on the NSDA website if you want specifics.

Crucial stuff first, then event specific stuff further down. If you still have questions after reading my paradigm, please do not hesitate to ask! And ALWAYS feel free to reach out with any further questions - my email is niamh.harrop@gmail.com :)

And, of course, don't be racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, classist, etc!

EVIDENCE: This is at the top of my paradigm because it is the most important issue for me. If you are found to be falsifying/misrepresenting evidence, you can expect to lose the round. I will not call for evidence unless told to do so, as I believe that to be a form of judge intervention. That doesn't mean tell me to call for every single card, but if you believe something to be misrepresented, tell me to call for it and I'll do so at the end of the round.

Evidence calls should not take forever. If you take more than two minutes to find a card, I'm going to assume you don't have it and will likely drop your speaks. Once three minutes have elapsed, I'm going to ask that you drop the card and move on. If you provide a cut card and the opponent subsequently asks for a PDF, I'll give you a little more time to pull it up and locate the cited portion.

Also, the NSDA allows you to make a formal challenge against evidence, which will end the round at the point you issue the formal protest and defer judgment on the evidence to me. If you are right and the evidence is falsified, you win, but if I don't believe it has been misrepresented, you will lose. I believe evidence challenges like these are a fantastic tool when used correctly, and if you truly believe that your opponent is violating the evidence standards in a crucial way, I encourage you to utilise this tool.

JUDGING STYLE: Tabula rasa in terms of the topic. I like clear, easy-to-understand extensions - nothing blippy, no extensions through ink, just pure warranted extensions. If you want me to consider an arg, make sure it's in your final speech.

SPEED: I'm fine with speed, but I hate spreading. I think it's ableist and prevents newer/less funded programs from breaking into the top tiers of debate. Nine times out of ten I will vote against it. Complain about it if you want, I'm just trying to caution you.

If you choose to spread, I'm not going to stop you, but I do ask that you add me to the email chain (niamh.harrop@gmail.com) before the round begins, and please send me any cards that you spread in later speeches. Also understand it is going to be much harder for me to follow logic/warranting that you spread but don't include in the email chain. I can do the whole "clear" thing if you like, but chances are I'd be saying it a good amount. I will happily evaluate everything that is read into round if I can follow and comprehend it. However, there may be something you read into round that I miss because of spreading, and by choosing to spread, you accept and understand that this may occur.

PF: I tend to give a little bit of leeway with going over time. I'll flow until about 4:10 in the constructive, for example, but once you hit 4:15, I'm putting my pen down and I'm done paying attention. If your opponents go over time, don't call it out, bc I promise I'm not flowing or considering it. Call it free prep :)

I don't typically flow author names in the constructive. If you prefer to refer to your cards by author name in sum/FF, it helps me if you extend the warrant into rebuttal/sum as well.

Given that you now have three minutes for a summary, I'm a little harsher on what strategic choices are made in the summary speeches for both teams (I only had two minutes and yes I'm just a tad bit salty). I'm not going to vote on terminal defence so it's cool to leave that out of later speeches.

CONGRESS:

I know a lot of Congress competitors don't read paradigms. I can always tell when people don't read mine, and I don't really hold it against anyone in rankings or anything. My paradigm is here to help you understand how to best impress me and earn a high ranking.

I evaluate speaking style as much as I evaluate argumentation. Rehash sucks, we all know it, and after 3-4 people making the same arguments on each side, it's probably about time for something spicy and new. I'm more inclined to rank those with fresher argumentation.

I rank the PO about half the times I judge, and it comes down to a fair and efficient chamber. If you can run things smoothly, fairly, and painlessly, please consider POing.

If there's one thing I can't stand in Congress, it's the constant fight to be the one to "run the chamber" by calling for every motion. IMO it doesn't project the dominance you think it does; I couldn't care less who motions to move to previous questioning. I see this a lot more on the local circuit, but yeah, I'm not a fan.

Related to that is the issue of "politics" and gaming the chamber so that your competitors don't get to speak. In that regard, fair game. I view Student Congress as a mirror of the US Congress; if they set an example and you follow it, I can't fault you for that. That being said, don't allow the push to prevent people from speaking to descend into a mess and waste time (i.e., if you take up 3 minutes arguing over whether we should move to previous questioning, you've prolonged the discussion enough to prevent their speech). If this kind of filibustering occurs, I will probably be harsher in my rankings on the people who filibustered, and will be kinder in my rankings to the competitor who was unable to speak.

2023-24 will constitute my 31st year judging intercollegiate debate.

General comments about my judging:

1) When forced to choose, evidence-based argumentation informed by an understanding of current events is preferred to eloquent prose devoid of substance.

2) Argumentation that directly engages opponents' positions, especially strategic choices that clearly acknowledge and account for the strengths of an opponents' claims while exploiting their weaknesses is considered the highest form of debate.

3) In terms of delivery style, confidence is not measured by volume, aptitude is not proven by aggressiveness, and eye contact is always appreciated.

4) Competitors who know how to employ "Even If" statements ("Even if my opponent is correct about ______, they still lose the debate because ________") are more successful than those who assume, and speak as if, they have won all the arguments.

5) I flow, or at least try to. I don't give up on that exercise because debaters share a speech document.

Specific thoughts about judging the 2023-24 CEDA-NDT resolution:

1. Debating nuclear weapons is a relative waste of our collective intellect, and an unfortunate reminder at the shallow and superficial manner by which our community chooses what topic we will spend an entire year researching, learning about, and engaging in a contestation of contrasting perspectives. US nuclear weapons policy is neither the most salient policy issue, nor even the most pressing foreign policy issue. Sadly, our community is too narrow-minded and scared to use our powers of debate to focus our energy on other areas of public policy that would be much better for college-aged scholars to delve into.
2. My thoughts expressed above do not mean I automatically support Affirmative teams who strategically choose to talk about some other topic, regardless of how passionately they feel about it. Debate is still debate, and if you can't explain how your decision to affirm something beyond the reasonably-expected "topical ground" is both educational AND fairly debatable, then in my opinion you're not any better than the folks who are stuck in the time loop of debating NFU.
3. Especially at the start of the year, don't assume we know the acronyms and specialized vocabulary you're using. My responsibility as a judge is to give the teams my full attention and effort as an adjudicator during the round - I am not required to show up to the debate already having expert-level familiarity with whatever literature base the debaters have been immersed for the last few months - whether that be nuclear weapons policy or any other body of literature.

Final Comment:

Over the last six years, I have become heavily involved in debate outside of the US, having taught both teachers and students, high school and university level, in Africa, east Asia, and the Caribbean. One consequence of my international experience is that a lot of the ontological claims debaters in the US make about the activity (e.g., "Debate is ______" or "Debate must ________" or "________ (people) can only debate like _________" ) ring very hollow to me and reflect a naive ethnocentrism about which too many folks in the US are oblivious.

I am a former congressional debater so I have 2 things and 2 things only. Be respectful and do not re-hash. Do those things and you will be golden.

Thanks for your hard work. I appreciate the opportunity to judge what you will do today. How I grade should not discourage you from working harder and pursuing your goals. Winning or losing here, as cliché as it may sound, will not determine your chances of being a "better" (whatever that means) citizen of the world. I am not perfect and neither are you. Have fun. I am going to have fun, hope you also will.

Now, if you are reading a speech, I can tell and anyone can tell that you are doing so. This is a speech and debate competition, so speak and debate - don't just regurgitate. It takes away your credibility and ability to persuade, and if you just read, you will be marked down.

Generally, people listen to us if we add value, and not essentially repeat someone's argument with a minor variation. Try not be a what I and some would call a "parrot".

Don't be shy about bringing your own angle, your point of view about a topic. It may not be the consensus, but if it adds diversity to the discussion, it certainly adds value to the debate and everyone benefits. Think about the title of the radio show "All Things Considered".

So, how do I see you adding value?

1. Were you consistent in your line of reasoning?

2. Did you use "good" logic?

3. Did you take your source's information and weigh in if it carries credibility? Have you taken into account the source's objectivity? Is there a weakness or strength when taking that objectivity into account?

Keep in mind that "pathos", "logos" and "ethos", in no particular order, are of supreme importance.

Good luck. Remember that what you do here is valued, even if you are not in first place.

Sincerely,

Jacques Kaiser

I am a debate coach at Little Rock Central. Please put both on the email chain: jkieklak@gmail.com; lrchdebatedocs@gmail.com

General

You do you. Let it rip. Seriously. A judge does not exist without the debaters, and I view my role as a public servant necessary only to resolve arguments in a round to help empower young people to engage in meaningful discourse. I believe that it is important for me to be honest about the specific things I believe about common debate arguments, but also I find it more important to ensure I am prepared for debaters to persuade me away from those beliefs/biases. Specifically, I believe that my role is to listen, flow, and weigh the arguments offered in the round how I am persuaded to weigh them by each team. I will listen to and evaluate any argument. It is unacceptable to do anything that is: ableist, anti-feminist, anti-queer, racist, or violent.

I think debates have the lowest access to education when the judge must intervene. I can intervene as little as possible if you:

1) Weigh your impacts and your opponents' access to risk/impacts in the debate. One team probably is not most persuasive/ahead of the other team on every single argument. That needs to be viewed as a strength rather than a point of anxiety in the round. Do not be afraid to explain why you don't actually need to win certain arguments/impacts in lieu of "going for" the most persuasive arguments that resolve the most persuasive/riskiest impacts.

2) Actively listen and use your time wisely. Debaters miss each other when distracted/not flowing or listening. This seems to make these teams more prone to missing/mishandling arguments by saying things like, "'x' disad, they dropped it. Extend ____ it means ____;" yet, in reality, the other team actually answered the argument through embedded clash in the overview or answered it in a way that is unorthodox but also still responsive/persuasive.

3) Compare evidence and continuously cite/extend your warrants in your explanations/refutation/overall argumentation. Responses in cross that cite an individual warrant or interrogate their opponents' warrants are good ethos builders and are just in general more persuasive, same in speeches.

Policy Affirmatives

Go for it. Your pathway to solving a significant harm that is inherent to the status quo with some advantageous, topical plan action is entirely up to you. There are persuasive arguments about why it is good to discuss hypothetical plan implementation. I do not have specific preferences about this, but I am specifically not persuaded when a 2a pivot undercovers/drops the framework debate in an attempt to weigh case/extend portions of case that aren't relevant unless the aff wins framework. I have not noticed any specific thresholds about neg strats against policy affs.

Kritikal Affirmatives

Go for it. Your pathway/relationship to the resolution is entirely up to you. I think it’s important for any kritikal affirmative (including embedded critiques of debate) to wins its method and theory of power, and be able to defend that the method and advocacy ameliorates some impactful harm. I think it’s important for kritkal affirmatives (when asked) to be able to articulate how the negative side could engage with them; explain the role of the negative in the debate as it comes up, and, if applicable, win framework or a methods debate. I don't track any specific preferences. Note: Almost all time that I am using to write arguments and coach students is to prepare for heg/policy debates; I understand if you prefer someone in the back of the room that spends a majority of their time either writing kritikal arguments or coaching kritikal debate.

Framework

This is all up to how it develops in round. I figure that this often starts as a question of what is good for debate through considerations of education, fairness, and/or how a method leads to an acquisition/development of portable skills. It doesn't have to start or end in any particular place. The internal link and impact are up to you. If the framework debate becomes a question of fairness, then it's up to you to tell me what kind of fairness I should prioritize and why your method does or does not access it/preserve it/improve it. I vote for and against framework, and I haven't tracked any specific preferences or noticed anything in framework debate that particularly persuades me.

Off

Overall, I think that most neg strats benefit from quality over quantity. I find strategies that are specific to an aff are particularly persuasive (beyond just specific to the overall resolution, but also specific to the affirmative and specific cites/authors/ev). In general, I feel pretty middle of the road when it comes to thresholds. I value organization and utilization of turns, weighing impacts, and answering arguments effectively in overviews/l-b-l.

Other Specifics and Thresholds, Theory

• Perms: Be ready to explain how the perm works (more than repeating "it's perm do 'X'"). Why does the perm resolve the impacts? Why doesn't the perm link to a disad?

• T: Normal threshold if the topicality impacts are about the implications for future debates/in-round standards. High threshold for affs being too specific and being bad for debate because neg doesn't have case debate. If I am in your LD pool and you read Nebel, then you're giving me time to answer my texts, update a list of luxury items I one day hope to acquire, or simply anything to remind myself that your bare plurals argument isn't 'prolific.'

• Case Debate: I am particularly persuaded by effective case debate so far this year on the redistribution topic. Case debate seems underutilized from an "find an easy way to the ballot" perspective.

• Disclosure is generally good, and also it's ok to break a new aff as long as the aff is straight up in doing so. There are right and wrong ways to break new. Debates about this persuade me most when located in questions about education.

• Limited conditionality feels right, but really I am most interested in how these theory arguments develop in round and who wins them based on the fairness/education debate and tech.

• Please do not drop condo or some other well-extended/warranted theory argument on either side of the debate. Also, choosing not to engage and rely on the ethos of extending the aff is not a persuasive way to handle 2NRs all in on theory.

TOC Requested Update for Congress (April 2023)

General

Be your best self. My ranks reflect who I believe did the best debating in the round (and in all prelims when I parli).

The best debaters are the ones that offer a speech that is appropriately contextualized into the debate the body is having about a motion. For sponsors/first negs, this means the introduction of framing and appropriate impacts so that the aff/neg speakers can build/extend specific impact scenarios that outweigh the opposing side's impacts. Speeches 3-10 or 3-12 (depending on the round) should be focused on introducing/weighing impacts (based on where you are in the round and where your side is on impact weighing) and refutations (with use of framing) on a warrant/impact level. I value structured refutations like turns, disadvantages, presumption, PICs (amendments), no solvency/risk, etc. The final two speeches should crystallize the round by offering a clear picture as to why the aff/neg speakers have been most persuasive and why the motion should carry or fail.

The round should feel like a debate in that each speaker shall introduce, refute, and/or weigh the core of the affirmative and negative arguments to persuade all other speakers on how they should vote on a pending motion.

Other TOC Requested Congress Specifics/Randoms

• Arguments are claim, warrant, impact/justification and data when necessary. Speeches with arguments lacking one or more of these will not ever be rewarded highly, no matter how eloquent the speech. It is always almost more persuasive to provide data to support a warrant.

• Impacts should be specific and never implied.

• Presiding officers should ensure as many speeches as possible. The best presiding officers are direct, succinct, courteous, organized, and transparent. Presiding officers shall always be considered for ranks, but ineffective presiding is the quickest way to a rank 9 (or lower).

• More floor debaters are experimenting with parliamentary procedure. Love it, but debaters will be penalized for misapplications of the tournament's bylaws and whichever parliamentary guide is the back up.

• Nothing is worse in floor debate than repetition, which is different than extending/weighing.

• Decorum should reflect effective communication. Effective communication in debate often includes an assertive tone, but read: folx should always treat each other with dignity and respect.

Arkansas Debate

Woo Pig. I am not here to force you to capitulate a paradigm that you find in someway oppressive to what your coach is teaching you to do. I will drop you for clipping/cheating, and I do not reward (and will rank low in congress) bad/no arguments even if they sound as rhetorically smooth as Terry Rose and Gary Klaff singing "Oh, Arkansas."

Do not exhibit racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/discriminatory attitudes or behavior. You will be immediately dropped.

Be aggressive but do not be rude. If you are a toxic debater you will be dropped.

If you start lagging during your speaking time, I will try my best to judge you based on your performance given when your internet connection was stable.

Congress:

I value content over performance. Clearly structure your arguments so that they are understandable. Provide strong links and warrants to back up your contentions. Expand your impacts. I really do value the technicality of a bill, such as the bureaucracy behind it and the constitutionality of it. I try to be a blank-slate judge, but if you state something completely incorrect or extremely misleading, I will mark you down. If you are not the first speaker of the round, you should mention or respond to the other debaters in the round. Answer your questions clearly and ask good ones. Refrain from asking yes or no questions. Cut your competitors off if they are dodging the question. I really appreciate good cross-ex.

For performance, speak at a normal speed. Make your pronunciation and enunciation as clear and accurate as possible. Your body language should aid your performance, not distract from it. Be passionate. Try using different tones to create a better performance instead of just altering between aggressive and informative. I do value content over performance, but Congress still leans pretty heavily on the latter. If you present amazing arguments but stumble every two words and sound exactly like the rest of the chamber, I am not gonna give you a high rank.

A PO should be fast, fair, and efficient. You should make procedures understandable and maintain control of the chamber. If a debate becomes very repetitive, try to move the chamber onto the next piece of legislation. Make sure to know the procedures. If I notice that you continuously give speeches and questions to the competitors from your school, I will drop you.

Policy, LD, Public Forum, Parli:

Run whatever arguments you want. Theory, K, or anything that makes a compelling case for your side. I do not care about what kind of arguments you are running, because I judge based on flow. Provide solid warrants, tight links, and strong impacts and you will win. If you spread, you have to be extremely good at it. I expect clear enunciation and good fluency, or else just go at the normal talking pace, cause if I do not catch what you say, it will not be on my flow.

Speech:

Performances should match what is expected from the event. Be passionate about the issues you are talking about OO, and make me laugh if you are in DI. But in general, make sure you are varying between tones; do not just stay at one for 10 minutes, it will get boring and the lines you need to highlight will be lost. In your speech is argumentative/informative, then the content will be just as important. Make compelling arguments, use respectable sources and link them together well, and sprinkle in good rhetoric.

PS:

Just a pet peeve of mine, but if you are debating foreign policy, for the love of god do not cite examples from other regions as evidence that something will succeed/fail in this particular area. Respect the massive geopolitical and economic differences between each country and region, even if they are close together. Do not point to Libya and tell me a similar program is gonna succeed in West Africa, no no no, just no.

Email: notwyattlayland@gmail.com

Background

University of Reno, Nevada 2023
He/Him/His

Speech Paradigm (Also applies to all debate)

Please do your best to speak loudly, steadily, and fluently. I am sympathetic to fluency breaks caused by stress or general nervousness, so if you need a second to collect your thoughts I will not reprimand you. Besides that, I value organization and conciseness--I want to feel like you've put thought into what you're saying, why you're saying it, and even how you say it

Congress Paradigm

+ Unless I indicate otherwise, assume I'm always ready. I typically write down my comments during the cross-ex period, and by the time the period has elapsed I'm pretty much done and ready to listen to the next speech. I also keep my own time of all speeches and write down the times on your ballots for future reference

+ Roleplaying GOOD. Refer to your opponents as Representatives/Senators. I'm not one of those judges, however, who ranks competitors if they "act like legislators" by helping set the docket or resolve procedural conflicts. Just don't speak out of order and don't attempt to step over the PO or Parli

+ RHETORIC. I enjoy unique rhetoric and purposeful speaking, so please go beyond the forensic grain when delivering your speeches. If you REALLY want to rock my ballot, a strong hook or extended metaphor in your speech and altogether sturdy rhetoric will expedite your path to a higher rank. Hearing debate jargon in this event (e.g., "contention", "block", etc.) tends to be a pet peeve of mine, so best rely on standard words and phrases

+ Maximum points for sophisticated, structured speeches. On GOD. If you warrant your claims and support them with reliable evidence, and on top of that impact your arguments to a broader context, and do all of this without filler or awkward digressions that interrupt the focus of your speech, I will rank you. Plus I want to hear your speech provide at least two distinct contentions (ik I said no debate jargon but whatever) so that your arguments don't blend into one-another

+ CLASH ON REBUTTAL SPEECHES. After the second or third cycle of speeches I expect that you spend your time speaking off the cuff and refuting/crystalizing the speakers before you. If you're called up late to deliver a speech and decide to NOT adapt to the situation and instead read off a constructive speech, you will fall in ranks. Even if you're not the best extemporaneous speaker, it still shows that you're engaged with the debate and want to make an impression

+ INTERNALIZE YOUR IMPACTS. I listen to impacts above all else, and to that end I expect your arguments will always point directly to a basis in reality. If you can make the room understand what it's like to be part of the population this legislation impacts most, you're not just giving a good argument, you're giving a great speech

+ For the Presiding Officer (PO): I will always rank the PO unless if they do something contemptible that specifically urges that I do otherwise (e.g., flagrantly violating procedural rules, favoring some competitors over others, unwarranted or nasty remarks towards others, etc.). Besides that, if you go fast, make little to no mistakes, and treat your fellow competitors equally and impartially, I will guaranteed rank you in the top 3

Public Forum Paradigm

+ Truth > Tech. I weigh on a framework of benefits and harms--fewer vague appeals to common sense, the better

+ Clearly warrant, cite, and explain evidence--no speculation or over-generalizations

+ SIGNPOST. If you could signpost where you are in your rebuttal (E.g., "Starting with my case", "Moving onto my opponent's case", etc.), that would be great

+ Separate rebuttals of your opponent’s case and your case if possible. Jumping around makes it difficult to follow your args

+ Please don't interrupt during cross-ex. Moreover, I would prefer to see strong and even engagement across the board during questioning, but don't abuse your platform to give shallow or overly long answers

Lincoln Douglas Paradigm

+ My paradigm for PF carries over to LD, ESPECIALLY truth > tech. Instead of benefits and harms, however, I expect you to take a step back and focus on the moral admissibility (or the lack thereof, if you're on neg) of the resolution under your framework. Unless if the affirmative puts forward a plantext I'm less inclined to go for policy or post-fiat negs

+ Value/Value criterion debate all the way. Standards are fine as long as the presumptive value is morality (it should be anyway). Not gonna lie, I almost exclusively pay attention to criterion because they address real-world implications, so please focus your framework debate around that. If you and your opponent have similar criterions, you should just cut to the chase and explain why your case works better under that framework

+ I already said my PF paradigm carries over, but please, I BEG you: clearly cite, warrant, and explain evidence in your speeches, and do not rely on appeals to common sense in your arguments

Policy & Tech Debate Paradigm

+ For prefs: The more trad you are, the higher you should pref me

+ My emphasis is typically on stock issues, which almost always defaults to my primary voter.

+ I am cautiously open to technical negative strategies as long as they are A) relevant to the substance offensive and B) realistic in the sense that they authentically reflect prima facie obligations in debate

+ I have a high threshold for Kritiks based mostly on alt solvency & impact calc

+ If your CP is not competitive I will hate you, and if you PIC I might just die

+ Assuming the interpretation and violation are accurate, I only ever listen to voters on T or Theory and expect the debate to revolve around those factors, so good luck convincing me on competing interps

One last, super important thing for my master debaters

Regardless of events, I will feel more compelled to vote for you (or, and especially if you're in Congress, rank you high) if you demonstrate effective extemporaneous speaking in your speeches. Just have fun!

Dougherty Valley '19

The Ohio State University '23

Add me to the email Chain: lee.8871@osu.edu

he/they

If you are comfortable, please email me a speech doc before each speech. It makes judging so much easier especially on zoom :)

-----------------

FOR yale,

haven't judged in lowkey a minute, be kind. Haven't judged on the topic either so i'm not too familiar with the literature, cards, etc. If there is a problem, make it clear, if an argument doesn't make sense, tell me why.

------------------

I competed nationally in PF and Extemp in HS, did a bit of Congress and LD as well.

I am tabula Rasa, and I'll vote on anything.
I try really hard to be non-interventional, but with more and more debaters reading scripts instead of cards, etc. I've grown the habit of calling for cards to confirm statements made by debaters.

In general:

I like warranted arguments. In fact, I would buy a strong Warranted and logical argument over an argument backed my evidence any day. Although I'll vote on anything, this is just how I evaluate it. I really enjoy impact calculus and would like to see that starting to be set up in Summary and maybe even in rebuttal. Just be really clear and extend your links cleanly.

I believe that 2nd Rebuttal should frontline, at least that's what I always did. I think it is a better competitive choice for 2nd Speaking team. At least touch the major offensive points of the case.

I am open to any critical argument and theory; however, I HATE frivolous theory. While I Think debate is a game, I do believe that public forum was an event made to be accessible to all as LD and policy became more progressive. That being said, go for it but proceed at your own caution.

Go as fast as you want, I'll tell you if you're going too fast. but for zoom, go slower.

Speaks depends on my mood. I won't ever go lower than a 27 for national rounds unless you give me a reason to tho.

Wear what you want, I just care about what you say (although I will include feedback for future lay rounds)

MY PARADIGM is also very similar to Saad Jamals:)

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=70840

Don't be afraid to ask Questions before the round because I know this Paradigm is short, but don't overcomplicate it!

I will generally prioritize flowing the round, and the least number of arguments dropped wins on balance. However, I will always take weighing into account, especially if the net number of arguments still holding water weigh less than the opposing side, for instance.

Speaking is also important, but insolvent arguments usually cannot be hidden by a great speech in my view. If the flow and respective argument weights become so ambiguous such that there is no clear winner, I will rely on lay appeal as my final contingency to break the tie. Meaning, if one team spoke with more polish and fluency, they can win.

I’m super excited to be here, and just want everyone to be the best version of themselves!

I am a first time judge so talk slow and be understandable.

A former coach of mine, Chase Williams, has developed a paradigm that he uses that I have always used for PF as well. It is as follows:

Paradigm

You can ask me specific questions if you have them...but my paradigm is pretty simple - answer these three questions in the round - and answer them better than your opponent, and you're going to win my ballot:

1. Where am I voting?

2. How can I vote for you there?

3. Why am I voting there and not somewhere else?

I'm not going to do work for you. Don't try to go for everything. Make sure you weigh. Both sides are going to be winning some sort of argument - you're going to need to tell me why what you're winning is more important and enough to win my ballot.

If you are racist, homophobic, nativist, sexist, or pretty much any version of "ist" in the round - I will drop you. There's no place for any of that in debate.

I won't vote for theory. Don't try it - it has no place in PF. Also, I am skeptical of critical arguments. If they link to the resolution, I'll listen - but I don't think pre-fiat is something that belongs in PF. If you plan on running arguments like that, it might be worth asking me more about my belief first - or striking me.

I am observant of everyone from the moment I enter. Your participation and presence in the chamber or room are vital to making sure a good, orderly debate can be held. As such, I try to keep track of all questions asked during cross examination and your overall participation in chamber affairs. (dockets, motions, etc.)

First and foremost, respect for your opponents and fellow debaters is paramount.

When it comes to making arguments, I care about your logic making and support for your logic. A good argument rests only on the claims that you make; weak support will not sustain aggressive claims. I’d really like your arguments to have impact as they relate to the topic. Spend most of your time supporting your biggest claims. Refutation is important but do not come up with arguments that were never made.

For Congress:

Making a good speech does include a good overall presentation. Not reading directly from your notes, eye contact, and a steady pace will go a long way. A good speech will not harp too much on the emotional pull and will focus more on hard data.

I have spent 7 years as a speech & debate coach, and I would say that if you needed to classify me I would likely be considered a "classical style" judge. That being said, this is how I would describe my beliefs for debate...

- Please make certain to link your arguments as I cannot assume your reasoning is valid.

- I will not say no to theory or kritik but will say that I've rarely seen it used well enough to convince me, so I would be careful in using these arguments.

- I am STRONGLY opposed to spreading. I flow fairly well, but I would say QUALITY over QUANTITY, and that if I did not hear you say it, then you didn't say it. As this is a "public speaking event" and as both opponents are supposed to receive equal time and consideration from the judge, I see very little value in flashing cases. Make your arguments during the round please, as I can only judge you on the arguments you make.

- At the end of the day I will be looking at your entire debate and want to feel that you are more "right" in the round. Please make certain to weigh your impacts and provide me with solid voters as to why you have won the debate. I will care much more about your arguments being presented and linked believably, authentically, and logically than being 'ahead" on the offensive flow.

I judge mostly speech and congress.

If I'm judging debate, make sure to slow down and clearly explain your arguments. I don't like speed or technical terms.

ABOUT ME -

I have been judging in Speech Events (HI, DI, DUO, EXT, OO), Debate Events (LD, PF, Policy) and Congressional Debate since 2018.

I enjoy judging Congressional Debates where I can see many debaters debate on numerous topics in the student chamber.

I favor to give points and rank high upon following skills even though congressional leaders need to be successful in passing legislation.

- Assertiveness – Standing up for one’s beliefs and being able to confidently take charge of difficult situations, making tough decisions despite opposition. In a politically charged environment where everyone is vying for their opinion to be heard, being assertive is key.

- Building Alliances – Earning trust and respect from others and taking the time to build effective working relationships with individuals.

- Commitment - Passionately and enthusiastically demonstrating a dedication to the causes and beliefs you espouse.

- Conflict Resolution - Effectively resolving misunderstandings, disagreements, and disputes with other individuals. Directly addressing issues with others in a non-threatening manner. Being willing to compromise in order to maintain effective working relationships.

- Influence - Using a variety of persuasion tactics, interpersonal skills, and communication and presentation strategies to convince others to make decisions that are mutually beneficial to all parties involved.

- Presentation Skills - Using effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills to clearly deliver information to a variety of audiences. Being confident and comfortable when speaking in front of groups. Making presentations that are clear, engaging and impactful.

JUDGING HISTORY-

- Barkley Forum for High Schools 1/29 - 1/31/2021

- Sunvite 2021

- Cavalier Invitational at Durham Academy 1/16 - 1/18/2021

- Florida Sunshine District Tournament 12/5

- FGCCFL December Tournament

- Glenbrooks Speech and Debate Tournament 11/21 - 11/23/2020

- FGCCFL November Tournament

- Florida Blue Key 2020 10/30 -11/1 Congress Debate

- Duke Invitational 2020 9/19 -9/20 Congressional Debate

- National Speech and Debate Season Opener Hosted by UK 2020 9/12 -9/14 Congressional Debate

- FGCCFL Grand Finals 2020 2/28 -2/29 Congress Debate

- FGCCFL February All Events 2020 2/8 IE & Congress Debate

- FGCCFL January All Events 2020 1/18 -1/18 IE & Congress Debate

- Florida Sunshine District Tournament 2019 12/14 -3/28 Congress Debate

- The Sunvitational 2020 1/10 -1/12 Congress Debate

- FGCCFL December All Events 2019 12/7 IE & Congress Debate

- Barkley Forum for High Schools 2020 1/24 -1/26

- Congressional Debate FGCCFL September All Events 2019 9/28 -9/28 IE & Congress Debate

- Florida Blue Key 2019 11/1 -11/3 Congress Debate

- Yale Invitational 2019 9/13 -9/15 Speech

- FGCCFL Grand Finals 2019 2/22 -2/23 Lincoln-Douglas

- Barkley Forum for High Schools 2019 1/25 -1/27

- Congressional Debate Florida Sunshine District Tournament 2018 12/8 -3/9

- Congressional Debate FGCCFL November All Events 2018 11/17 -11/17 IE and Congress Debate

- FGCCFL October All Events 2018 10/13 -10/13 Lincoln-Douglas

- FGCCFL September All Events 2018 9/22 -9/22 Public Forum Yale Invitational 2018 9/14 -9/16 Varsity Public Forum

BACKGROUND

Undergraduate:

- MBBS, University of Medicine, Yangon, Myanmar.

Post graduate:

- MPH, London School of Hyigene and Tropical Medicine, University London, UK

- MSc. Computer Science, Western Illinois University

- Post Doc Medical Informatics Fellowship, Health Science Technology, Harvard-MIT

I have judged debate since 2001. From 2014-2021 I coached Public Forum and Speech events. I retired after 8 years as the Co-Director of Speech and Debate at Cary Academy in North Carolina in 2021.

DEBATE: In debate (LD/PF) I look for clear claims, evidence and links to logical, clear impacts showing contextual analysis. I flow each round and look for you to bring your arguments through the round, tell me the clash and how I should weigh.

I judge as if this activity is preparing you for the real world. I won't flow what I have to work too hard to follow or translate (read speed). Asking for evidence for common sense issues won't count either. You can use flow jargon, but tell me why. You want me to flow across the round? cross apply? for instance, tell me why. Don't exaggerate your evidence. Finally - I'm not here to show you how smart or clever I am by pretending to understand some sesquipedalian or sophomoric arguments (see what I did there?)- that means. 1.) do a kritik and you are going to lose because you failed to acknowledge that ideas can conflict and are worthy of discussion; 2.) "the tech over truthers" and other silly judging paradigms don't make you a more articulate conveyor of ideas once you have to "adult". I will know the topic, but judge like a lay judge. Convince me. Have fun and enjoy the activity!

CONGRESS: Well researched unique takes on a resolution are important. Simple stock arguments and analysis is easy. I look for you to look deeper into the consequences/outcome of passage. Don't rehash, not only is it boring but it suggests you needed to listen more closely. Refutation of previous speeches shows careful analysis in the moment and it shows you have more than the case you wrote the night before (even if you did :)). Presentation is also important. I don't like BS for the sake of being a good presenter but a balance of solid research, thoughtful analysis, ambitious and relevant refutation from a persuasive speaker will get high marks!

I am looking for a balance between quality of the speech itself and your delivery.

For the speech:

-Creativity- please bring your own personality into these speeches--begin with an interesting hook, use metaphors, and make your argument engaging

- Clear reasoning and argumentation--show Claim Vs Warrant Vs Impact

-Organization-sign post when possible and with your conclusion, highlight your key contentions

- Demonstrate research! Show that you have investigated this topic so that you can speak authoritatively and show clear evidence

- Be polite and demonstrate respect when addressesing the other competitors--don't be rude or condescending

-Context--I like to see that you are listening to other speakers, so you gain points with me by referencing previous arguments to build your case as well as rebutting previous arguments to strengthen your case

On Delivery:

- Speed for the sake of speed is big no. If your audience can't follow what you're saying, the impact of your speech is lost.

- Speak with energy and passion that shows your engagement with the topic.

-Show good eye-contact

- Speak clearly with a confident volume and avoid filler words

Have fun! Enjoy the process and really engage as a creative participant.

When judging any style of debate or speech I need the competitors to have strong annunciation and a good pace. If you are speeding through your content I cannot properly judge the round.

In terms of LD, make sure you are properly defining your Value and Value Criterion, you are keeping your framework up throughout the debate, and you are directly refuting your opponent's arguments. 

Although I judge heavily on speaking style, at the end of the day whoever wins on the flow wins on the ballot. 

I am looking for clear speeches with refutations. No REHASH. Eye contact and fluency is important. Strong argumentation and good use of evidence.

This is my 3rd year as a parent debate judge.

I appreciate careful and reasonably-paced speaking, good evidence and knowledge of your sources. Make eye contact with me and convince me with good evidence and a carefully made argument.

I reward speakers - w/ higher points - who make a presentation effort - (eye contact, slowing down on impact work, grouping & weighing in final speeches vs. a line by line) but will give high speaks to other kinds of debaters too.

Do not talk over your opponent. Follow up questions can be useful, but be courteous to your opponents' need to question you. Discourtesy will result in deducted speaker points.

Congress:

My experience is being a parent of a Congressional debater. My ranking system is based predominantly on content, and I will be flowing clash on both sides. That being said, I value clash significantly, and is a factor that I take into account when ranking (Don't worry if you are giving the first few speeches; I understand that clash isn't possible in the beginning). Overall participation is key, and I will be paying attention to the most detailed questions in cross-examination. Parliamentary procedure is not much of an issue for me. I couldn't care less about it, and not everyone is familiar with all procedure, so I won't rank off of it. Although I value content in the speech, I still look at the basic requirements of delivery. All I am looking for is that you enunciate and project, while remaining confident and limiting speaking speed to a normal or just above normal pace.

Just to be sure, please don't use language or actions that are disrespectful to others in the round.

Most importantly, HAVE FUN

I may seem like I am not paying attention but I am listening. I am not very good at small talk so if you have a question just ask me.

To the point:

I am very much a progressive traditionalist when it comes to Public Forum.

What does that mean?

Yes, I believe that parents should be 100% comfortable judging public forum debate at all levels. It is your job as a debater to adapt and NOT the other way around.

Fast talking is fine. Don’t spread. Creative Arguments, I am listening. You are not actually topical, but you are in the direction of the topic, YES, I am still listening.

FRAMING IS THE BEST PART OF PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE. How your team frames the round should be strategic and work in your team’s advantage. A team should only concede framework if they actually believe that they can win the debate under the other team’s framework. Otherwise, defend your framework. If they call you out for “abusive framework” tell me why it’s not and why I should still be voting under it.

While it’s not mandatory, if you are speaking second you should address your opponent’s rebuttal. I don’t expect you to split your time in some specific way, but at the end of the day a speech did happen just moments before yours and you kind of need to engage with it. (Translated: Must respond to your opponent’s case and defend your own)

Rebuttals: cover their case in the context of yours. cross applications are going to be key to get me to sign the ballot in your favor.

I do not flow cross, but I am listening and PRAYING that all the cool things that take place during this time find a place in speeches. Otherwise, all the sweating, panting, and exchanging of evidence was pointless.

BOTTOM LINE:

If it isn't in Rebuttal, it can't be in Summary. If it isn't in Summary, you can't go for it in Final Focus.

Oh ya, I am bad at speaker points.

As it relates to LD -

Fast talking is acceptable but I cannot deal with spreading for extended periods of time, flow, and be objective. My mind drifts whenever people speak to me in the same cadence for extended periods of time.

Spreading: My brain can’t handle it which is why I generally avoid judging TOC Circuit Varsity LD debates. I do this because I agree that spreading is a skill and I understand that since you are on the circuit you would probably like to have the opportunity to do so. However, if you get the wonderful privilege of having me judge you, I will expect you to do a few things to enhance my involvement in the round. I ask that you not practice spreading in front of me.

“I hear everything when in sensory overload. But it’s not as if I can hear what is being said; rather it is just many, many sounds, unfiltered and loud. It feels like sounds are coming at me from every direction. Lights from all directions also seem to glare in my eyes. Sensory overload is horrible.” — Laura Seil Ruszczyk

I evaluate the framework first. I prefer debates that are topical. That said, I think on most of the resolutions for LD there are lots of topical discussions debaters can engage about race and identity matters.

If they say they are in the direction of the topic and clearly articulate how they are, I would probably agree that they are probably pretty topical. However, I do think T is a real argument.

I prefer students to use cx for questions and answer exchanges, not for extra prep.

My credentials/experience: I've competed all across the nation and was a member of the Anderson Speech and Debate Team for four years. I'm a past competitor from Texas, in my time as a debater I double state finaled, Won tournaments such as UF's Blue Key, and placed at several notable Tournaments including NSDA Nationals (senate 6th), University of Texas (7th), Winston Churchill(3rd), UIL Texas (6a 5th) etc.

I prefer technical argumentation, remember it is Congressional "debate" not Congressional oratory. On the other side I do like to hear well prepared rhetoric and seamless transitions with strong buzz words, however canned rhetoric is something that will get you a lessened rank from me. Your speech should be altered depending on when you give it in the round so always be cognizant of that fact and fill your role within the round for either affirmation or negation. I like to hear speakers that stand out whether that be through a unique speech structure or an interesting introduction or even conclusion. I also think that vocal variation is key to being successful in this event and ought to be a top priority for speakers within the round, especially considering the current online format of tournaments. Beyond that it is always important to have solid body language which includes sitting up straight and looking directly at the computer/judge and also using proper hand gestures to get your points across effectively. Lastly I think that the most important thing in any Congressional Debate round is to be completely respectful to all other competitors while remembering to have fun.

kschwab@pinescharter.net

I've been coaching and teaching Debate (as well as the AICE courses Global Perspectives & Thinking Skills) for the past 14 years.

For LD/PF/Policy

Even though I have experience on the circuit and enjoy different types of cases, I am not a buyer of the belief that the technical should rule because sometimes format is not as important as content & understanding what you are running. I would consider myself a truth over tech although it will come to the clash provided not my own opinion on the truth. I will stick to the flow unless someone gives me a good reason to vote for them that is true and benefits the debate/educational event. I believe that kritiks, theory, LARP, etc... are all beneficial to learning and play into strategy, so I will vote in favor of anything IF you are able to prove the link is logically clear and strong enough in regards to what your opponent says is the reason for why I should not accept.

I do NOT have a preference for framework/cases - I've heard almost every kind by now and all types have won and lost my vote. Extinction impacts bore me without link work done, so I'd appreciate you at least have some linked harm impacts before extinction level even if final impact is extinction.

I can handle speed (even spreading) pretty well by now - if there is an issue with understanding or hearing I will say "clear" and will also check cards at the end for anything I missed...but please keep in mind that there are certain aspects in a construction that maintains well with speed and other areas that don't (i.e. - if you need me to understand how a philosophy or theory applies then allow me to absorb each part before rushing to the next because those are building block arguments, so missing one part can make the whole thing fall).

Congress:

This is a role playing event - I would like you to act better than our current congress :) I'm big on arguments... not on summation evidence (the kind that is just a quote that someone said the same thing as your claim). I like you to talk to us...be charming or intelligent or both if you really want my top scores. I love this event because when it's good it's so good. Have fun, be smart, and don't leave the chamber during session unless an emergency - there are plenty of breaks and I appreciate when students that don't take extra ones.

Debated Congress and PF in high school. A few things:

1. Respect is a must. "Zingers" and one liners are fun, but not at the expense of a good debate or your opponent.

2. Cross-fire is apart of the debate. I do not want new arguments in cross, but please use your questions productively. Attack weak analysis, set up weighing, issue burdens etc.

3. Clarity is important but speaking style is not. Being a good orator is nice, but being a good orator comes in many shapes and forms. For example, stuttering, having a quiet voice, or having an accent that is different than mine will not be causes for lower speaker points or bad marks on clarity. Slurred/lazy words, failure to enunciate, unorganized speeches and reading with no emotions or passion will.

4. Signpost.

5. If your opponents logic is dubious, point it out (even if briefly). I will not count a weak argument against them if you do not tell me to. This makes it fair so that you are debating each other rather than me simply putting my own opinions or thoughts into if an argument good or not.

6. Have cards ready. This is a personal pet peeve. Do not delay the round because your sources are not organized.

Have fun. I enjoy judging because of how much you all enjoy debating.

I am an experienced coach and judge. I have competed, coached and judged in all areas of speech & debate.

I am a 'tabula rasa' judge, which for me means that I will listen to any reasonable argument. I am always interested in hearing creative approaches to any resolution. However, I fully support the format, style and philosophy of each debate and speech event.

I am not adverse to rapid speaking, because debate time is limited. BUT I will not condone 'spreading' as a tactic. If you insist you win because the opponent did not address all of your issues, I may or may not accept your premise.

Evidence is primary to any good argument. You should be able to coherently present your evidence with citation in every instance. Referencing 'cards' in a case is ambiguous, since I will not have your case in front of me.

In all Cross Ex portions, LISTEN to your opponent. Address their concerns and their rationale for opposing you. Be civil and understand they have as much a right to be here as you do.

I will not make your case for you. I may be very familiar with the resolution, strategy and line of reasoning you are using, but I will not assume you even know what you are talking about. You have to know your case and be able to defend it.

In Congress, competitors must listen to the line of argument and offer unique and relevant arguments. Repeating points or delivering a prepared speech that does not advance the debate is poor practice and means you do not know the bill. Logic and analysis are fine, but a warrantless argument will not have a very big impact.

I do not rank POs particularly high. A competent PO will score near the middle of a typical Congress round.

In Extemp, I want to learn new things, hear unique ideas and understand my world better.

In LD, I am neither a traditionalist or progressive; I want to hear a values-based argument founded on a good philosophical framework. Values are precursors to behaviors, so there is no solving of problems or plans of action.

I've been judging for over 8 years, primarily in Congressional debate. Here are some things I watch out for:

- Delivery: Body language, eye contact, voice modulation, confidence

- Clarity: Are your arguments and impacts broken down in an easy to understand and logical manner

- Content: Are you bringing unique insights to the table and furthering the debate, or simply rehashing what has already been discussed.

- Creativity: Give me a reason to rank you higher by using beautiful rhetoric or witty humor

Congress - Argument is well-organized, points are clearly developed and supported by a variety of credible sources, evidence is analyzed, compelling language, smooth transition between points, movements are purposeful and signal a new point, easy to follow your argument, introduction and conclusion are clearly connected, purpose is established throughout your argument. Responds to questions with confidence and clarity, responds to previous speakers' points to either refute or affirm with new arguments and evidence, speaks clearly, is active in questioning throughout the round

Have been an assistant coach for several years and has recently taken on the responsibility of head coach, has been active in speech and debate since 2009, have judged numerous local tournaments, invitational tournaments, and national tournaments.

Completed the National Speech and Debate Association Adjudicating Speech and Debate course.

Last update September 2023 in an attempt to majorly condense down to what you actually want to know.

Yes email chain (I like Speechdrop or Tabroom Share even better but will defer to what y'all want) - eskoglund@gmail.com

POLICY DEBATE

Background

Olathe South 2001, 1 year at KU

Head coach, Olathe Northwest HS, Kansas (assistant 2006-2016, head 2016-present)

90%+ of my judging is on a local circuit with varying norms for speed, argumentation, etc.

1) My most confident decisions happen in policymaker-framed rounds. I will do my best to follow you to other places where the debate takes us.

2) If your aff doesn't advocate a topical plan text, the burden is on you to ensure that I understand your advocacy and framework. If you don't make at least an attempt to relate to the resolution, it's going to be very hard for you.

3) I flow what I hear but I will follow speech docs to watch for clipping. Egregious clipping will lead me to decide the round even if a formal challenge is not filed.

4) Whether you've got a plan, an advocacy statement, or whatever - much of the work coming out of camps is so vague as to be pointless. You don't need a six plank plan or a minute of clarification, but a plan should be more than the resolution plus a three word mission statement. I will err neg on most questions of links and/or theory when affirmatives ignore this.

5) I don't judge kick unless given explicit instruction to that effect. Conditional 2NRs are gross.

6) Flow the debate, not the speech doc.

7) Anytime you're saying words you want on my flow, those need to not be at 400 wpm please.

8) On T, I primarily look for a competing interpretation framework. "Reasonability" to me just means that I can find more than one interpretation acceptable, not that you don't have to meet an interp. My understanding of T is more "old school" than a lot of the rest of arguments; a T debate that talks a lot about offense/defense and not a lot about interpretations/violations is less likely to be something I comprehend in the way you want.

9) Long pre-written overviews in rebuttals are neither helpful nor persuasive.

10) I will not lie to your coach about the argumentation that is presented in the round. I will not tolerate the debate space being used to bully, insult, or harass fellow competitors. I will not evaluate personal disputes between debaters.

11) I think disclosure probably ought to be reciprocal. If you mined the aff's case from the wiki then I certainly hope you are disclosing negative positions. My expectations for disclosure are dependent on the division and tournament, and can be subject to theory which is argued in the round. DCI debaters in Kansas should be participating in robust disclosure, at a minimum after arguments have been presented in any round of a tournament.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE

First and foremost, this is a debate event. Any speech after the authorship/sponsorship speech should be making direct, meaningful reference to prior speakers in the debate. Simply repeating or rehashing old points is not an effective use of your, or my, time. Several speeches in a row on the same side is almost always bad debate, so you should be prepared to speak on both sides of most legislation.

The fastest path to standing out in most chambers is to make it clear that you're debating the actual content of the legislation, not just some vague idea of the title. Could I get your speech by just Googling a couple of words in the topic, or have you actually gotten into the specific components of the legislation before you?

I come from the policy debate planet originally but that doesn't mean I want you to speed. We have different events for a reason.

Role playing is generally good, particularly if we're at a circuit or national tournament where your constituents might be different from others in your chamber.

I notice and appreciate effective presiding officers who know the rules and work efficiently, and will rank you highly if your performance is exemplary.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE

Speed is fine but I will not clear you (see longer discussion in policy below). I come from a fairly traditional LD circuit, so while I can understand policy type argumentation, my decision calculus may be a bit unpredictable if you just make this a 1 on 1 CX round with too-short speech times.

I am watching for clipping and will directly intervene against you if you clip cards in a way that I judge to be egregious, even if the issue is not raised in the round.

My default way of evaluating an LD round is to compare the impacts presented by both sides through the lens of each side's value and criterion, if presented. If you want me to do something different please run a clear role of the ballot or framework argument and proactively defend why your approach is predictable enough to create fair debate.

Your last 1-2 minutes, at least, should be spent on the big picture writing my reason for decision. Typically the debater who does this more clearly and effectively will win my ballot.

PUBLIC FORUM

Clash is super important to all forms of debate and is most often lacking in PF. You need to be comparing arguments and helping me weigh impacts.

Pointing at evidence is not incorporating it into the round. If you don't actually read evidence I won't give it any more weight than if you had just asserted the claim yourself. Smaller quotations are fine, but the practice of "this is true and we say this from Source X, Source Y, and the Source Z study" is anti-educational.

Assistant Speech and Debate Coach for 11 years.

POLICY:

Please put me on the email chain: mark.skoglund AT gmail.com.

Overall: Tab, default policymaker and policy impact work is generally the most predictable path to my ballot. Tech over truth for the most part though there’s a line somewhere. I often take speech docs to check clipping but I try to not use speech docs for the decision unless there’s no other option. In general I am not a fan of embedded clash; do the work in the round.

Racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic/ableist rhetoric will lose my ballot.

I will not vote on disclosure theory. I believe that enforcing disclosure with the ballot ends up favoring schools with resources against those without, rather than enforcing any sort of equal playing field. I also will not evaluate “which school has more resources” so I avoid voting on this argument entirely.

Speed: Fine with me, though I don’t judge as much as I used to so help me out on tags. Also if you speed through your theory block at the same rate as card text it’s not likely all going to end up on my flow.

Topicality: Default competing interps. I don’t think I have a particularly high threshold for T, though teams often do one of two things that are bad ideas:

1. Read a “precision bad” block against a “precision good” block and assume embedded clash.

2. Not focusing enough on which interp has better access to the standard and spending all the time on which standard is best.

Other Theory: I’m not likely to vote on blippy theory; do work if you want to win my ballot. Your strategy should not be to read 8 two-line theory arguments hoping the other team drops one.

Disads: I don't care if they're generic, but specific links assist in probability calculus.

Counterplans: If you’re not running a CP you’re probably making a strategic mistake with me. I lean Aff on delay CPs bad and to a lesser extent on consults bad, but I won’t do the work for you of course. I will not judge kick CPs unless clearly told to consider it by a team with justification, and the other team loses the debate re: the legitimacy of judge-kicking.

Kritiks: I’m fine with Ks, though you’ll be far more familiar with the lit base than I am, so help me out. In particular, if you’re going for the alt and I don’t understand what it is well enough, I can’t vote for it. “Reject the aff” is generally a weak alt unless it’s a discourse K or otherwise uniquely justified, but it wins often enough anyway.

Discourse/Reps Ks sidenote: I vote for discourse Ks fairly often when a team has said something exclusionary and do believe there is value in rejecting teams to correct that action in future. That said, there’s plenty of debate that can be had in this area.

***

Congressional Debate -

Experience: I have been coaching this event since 2007. My primary experience is with NSDA.

-Bigotry of any kind is not tolerated.

-Early foundational speeches can be just as important as later responsive speeches.

-When possible, direct clash is important. A late speech on legislation that does not cite/respond to anyone else is almost never very strong.

-When responding to/citing others, try to make it productive. An offhand mention just to prove you're following the debate is fine but doesn't do much to advance the debate forward; work in a response or distinguish someone else's point.

-If you are retreading ground someone else covered, you should clearly distinguish your analysis. Simply repeating past claims indicates someone is either not tracking the debate or is not well-researched and is penalized.

-Crystallization speeches are good when done well but you need to be adding value, typically at the impact weighing/framework level.

-Extending questioning periods is almost never productive (certainly not as productive as the speech we may have been able to have) and if the same competitor is repeatedly making that motion, the ranks may reflect that.

-Being a good, professional, and organized presiding officer is rewarded.

-I believe it is critically important for judges to consider whether a criticism would apply equally regardless of gender. For one obvious example, women are often penalized for the same focused aggression that men are rewarded for. The primary way to combat this is judges being conscious of implicit bias, and I try to ensure that I am fairly applying criticism.

Hi, I'm Isaac, I competed congress for three years and extemp for one year at Evanston Township High School. I'm currently taking a gap year working for an environmental organization in Missoula, Montana.

I was a national finalist in 2019. In the 2019-20 season, I accumulated 6 bids, including two top 6 finishes on the national circuit. So yeah, I'm a debate judge, and no, great fluency and pretty rhetoric will not win you rounds with me :)

Online, almost everyone has good fluency, especially in outrounds. To compensate for this, I'd say my paradigm is 85% argumentation and 15% speaking, although I do appreciate folks using good vocal variation to highlight the most important parts of their argument.

Y'all also gotta impact, omfg. In my experience as a judge this year and competitor at the end of last year, people use their computers as teleprompters to conclude arguments with flowery lines of rhetoric, rehearsed with perfect inflection. That is not debate! That is not engaging in the round! Don't give me cute rhetoric if you can't back it up with a human/ecological/real impact.

Finally, everyone, ESPECIALLY MALE DEBATERS need to read this HuffPost article about sexism, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and a lack of accountability in high school debate. Just because you don't see sexual assault and harassment in debate doesn't mean it's not there. Not having the tools to recognize it is the first step in being complicit.

Good luck y'all, be the best you can be. And remember, it ain't that deep.

I have been judging Debate for 7 years. Coaching for 4. So consider me new-ish/old-ish.

Flow

I consider myself a “semi-flow” judge. Watch your speed, if you are too fast I won’t bother to write. Makes the decision a lot more challenging, for you. Make contentions and sub contentions clear.

Evidence

Include at the minimum the year of the evidence in your case. Paraphrasing is okay, but please do not misrepresent the evidence. If your opponent calls for a card it should say what you say it does. Further, if they call for a card, you should be able to find it quickly. It is your evidence, isn’t it?

Summary and Final Focus

Be clear in why you “won”. Make the voting issues clear and concise. If something important isn't in the summary, I'm not voting on it in final focus. Also, weighing is probably a good idea as well.

Cross

I will not be judging cross so if it's important bring it up in your speech. Speak up for yourself in cross. Do NOT take over the questioning it should be a back and forth.

Aggressive Debate does NOT equal Obnoxious Debate

Be aggressive, but not obnoxious. Be firm in your contentions and the entire case have passion in your voice but don’t be mean or rude. Do not roll your eyes at, talk down to, be rude to, or personally attack your opponent.

Prep TIME

USE IT ALL!

tl;dr I've been coaching since 2011 and can handle any way you want to speak and debate. I encourage and support creativity as long as you follow the rules of the tournament, your league or the NSDA.

*************************************

Please hit the “Do Not Disturb” option on your phones and other devices during the round so that your speeches are not disturbed by alarms for calls from your family and Slack notifications from your coach. I wear headphones and your timer going off sounds really loud.

Please "pre-flow" your cases before the round start time. Tournaments want us to start on time.

I don't disclose after rounds unless the tournament requires it. I weigh everything up to the last word of the last speech. So that means I can't start deciding until the end of the debate round, which means I need time to think and write after the round is done so I can turn the ballot in on time.

I don't like when multiple debate teams from a school use the same constructive. Write your own speeches please.

Ask me if I'm ready before you start speaking. I don't want to miss anything you say because I'm still writing notes. Actually ask me - please don't robotically ask "Judge ready? Opponent ready?" then start speaking before receiving an answer.

If the tournament or your league has a rule that judges may only consider arguments spoken about in the last speeches, then I will respect and follow that. If there is no rule saying that, then I will consider ALL arguments given at any point in the round. If you made a great point 20 minutes before the end of the round, then I'm still going to remember it even if you didn't repeat it 5 minutes before the end of the round. Techniques your coaches teach you (like to extend your arguments into the the last speeches) are not rules, they're just best practices.

Congress

I give high points/ranks to competitors who speak well and argue well. If your speech is as good as those in extemp, I will rank you highly. At a certain point in the year, everyone doing Congress is at about the same level for their argumentation skills because everyone is using the same formula for each speech. Therefore, having high-level presentation skills is what separates the top 6 from the bottom 6 for me.

I am biased against speeches that, after the first few, don't rebut or support previous arguments. As a Congress coach, I've seen the student thought process: "Goshdangit I spent all that time before the tournament writing this sponsorship speech and I'm gonna goshdarn give it." Well...ignoring the other speakers and giving a speech that just repeats the arguments of previous speakers does NOT help you get higher scores from me.

Policy

Policy is rare in the 2 states where I've judged, so I haven’t judged it much. The more of your speeches I understand, the more likely you are to win. I don’t read cases or evidence that you share - I judge based only on what you say so that there is no confusion about what was said vs what was written. I don’t mind spreading as long as you’re understandable, but I’m not a perfect flow-er so I’m going to miss some things and will depend on you to tell me what you think is important after the first constructives. I judge based on who was more persuasive as opposed to who covered more points - this usually means if you have some squirrelly argument I will ignore it and go with the arguments that makes more real-world sense. Speaking of squirrelly arguments - I am so sorry but "everything leads to nuclear war" is hack. We were saying the same thing in the 80’s and it feels played out. If it makes sense that something might lead to nuclear war, like militarization of the Arctic, then I’ll accept it. But when you try to say something like more laptop manufacturing in Malaysia or the military playing Fall Guys on Twitch will lead to nuclear war, you’re going to have to work REALLY HARD to get me to give that any credence. I do not turn my brain off during rounds - there's no such thing as tabula rasa.

Lincoln-Douglas

My LD preferences are pretty much the same as Policy above. There’s not a lot of progressive in my area, so I don’t know all the jargon. I don’t care if you do progressive or traditional, as long as I understand what you’re talking about. The more of your speeches I understand, the more likely you are to win.

Public Forum

The more of your speeches I understand, the more likely you are to win.

SPEECH/IE PREFERENCES

No forensbots. If you are giving us a speech that you've polished so much that it shines, make sure your eyes aren't dead. If this is literally the 50th round you've performed this piece, practice it with a friend and tell her to tell you truthfully if you look like a soulless automaton.

My entire life is spent watching young people speak. I notice everything: swaying back and forth; shifting foot to foot; grabbing the bottom of your blazer; pacing too much; purposeless, repetitive gestures. I was once in a national circuit final round in which I ranked a speaker 7 because she kept smacking her lips every other sentence. The other 2 judges didn't notice and each ranked her first. There is nothing wrong with any individual movement or tic, but if you repeat that movement too often, I will see it and tell you. Watch videos of yourself to notice and reduce your own unnoticed habits.

Please don't make fake changes of position. The purpose of changing positions is so that different parts of the audience can see you better. In front of a camera, this means you have ZERO need to change position. Stay centered in the frame just like a news reporter. Please don't do the golden triangle in front of a camera - people whose job is in front of a camera in real life don't do this. In-person in a normal classroom at a tournament, change position based on the people in the room. Don't go over there and talk to a fake audience if no one is actually sitting over there. Adjust your position changes to the actual people in the room you're in. Changing positions during your speech's transitions is WHEN you do it, NOT WHY.

Events I have judged but not enough to have preferences for:

BQ, Extemp Debate, original spoken word, duo improv, radio speaking, broadcast announcing, pro/con challenge, and world schools.

Events I haven’t judged:

Parliamentary, Mock Trial

My experience

High school coach and classroom Public Speaking teacher from 2011-2018, then 2021 to present. Have coached/taught: PF, LD, Congress, and all Speech events. Have coached students to TOC, NCFL and NSDA in PF, OO and POI. Have coached students to state championships for PF, LD, Congress, OO, POI, Extemp and Humorous.

Teacher since 2003.

Teaching private public speaking lessons to adults since 2019.

I judged at nearly a hundred online tournaments during the first 2 years of the pandemic. Online platforms I've judged on so far: Zoom, NSDA Campus, Accelevents, Classrooms.cloud, HopIn and Yaatly.

I've completed the NSDA/NFHS online judge training including the cultural competency section.

I know how to be a Parliamentarian for Student Congress.

I know how to be an Extemp proctor.

In high school I did policy and prose/poetry.

I speak Spanish and Portuguese.

My pronouns are he/him/his.

My primary coaching event is Congressional Debate. Don't freak out, I prefer the debate portion of the event as my high school background is in PF/LD.

For CD: I’ll always consider a balance of presentation, argumentation, and refutation. If you happen to drop the ball on one of those traits during a speech, it won’t ruin your rank on my ballot. I look for consistency across the board and most importantly: What is your speech doing for the debate? Speaking of which, pay attention to the round. If you're the third speaker in the row on the same side, your speech isn't doing anything for the debate. I definitely reward kids who will switch kids or speak before their ideal time for the sake of the debate, even if it's not the best speech in the world.

For both PF/LD: As long as you're clear/do the work for me, I have no preference for/against what you run/do in the round. I'll vote off of what you give me. With that, I really stress the latter portion of that paradigm, "I'll vote off of what you give me". I refuse to intervene on the flow, so if you're not doing the work for me, I'm gonna end up voting on the tiniest, ickiest place that I should not be voting off of. Please don't make me do that. Respect the flow and its links.

PF specific: I love theory. I don't prefer theory in PF, but again I'll vote off of where the round ends up...it'd be cool if it didn't head in that direction as a good majority of the time you can still engage in/ win the debate without it.

I don't time roadmaps, take a breather and get yourself together.

Speed isn't an issue for me in either event.

Avoid flex prep.

I prefer googledocs to email for evidence sharing (brittanystanchik@gmail.com).

For PF: Speaks capped at 27.5 if you don't read cut cards (with tags) and send speech docs via email chain prior to your speech of cards to be read (in constructives, rebuttal, summary, or any speech where you have a new card to read). I'm done with paraphrasing and pf rounds taking almost as long as my policy rounds to complete. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that do read cut cards and do send speech docs via email chain prior to speech. In elims, since I can't give points, it will be a overall tiebreaker.

For Policy: Speaks capped at 28 if I don't understand each and every word you say while spreading (including cards read). I will not follow along on the speech doc, I will not read cards after the debate (unless contested or required to render a decision), and, thus, I will not reconstruct the debate for you but will just go off my flow. I can handle speed, but I need clarity not a speechdoc to understand warrants. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that are completely flowable. I'd say about 85% of debaters have been able to meet this paradigm.

I'd also mostly focus on the style section and bold parts of other sections.

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2018 update: College policy debaters should look to who I judged at my last college judging spree (69th National Debate Tournament in Iowa) to get a feeling of who will and will not pref me. I also like Buntin's new judge philosophy (agree roughly 90%).

It's Fall 2015. I judge all types of debate, from policy-v-policy to non-policy-v-non-policy. I think what separates me as a judge is style, not substance.

I debated for Texas for 5 years (2003-2008), 4 years in Texas during high school (1999-2003). I was twice a top 20 speaker at the NDT. I've coached on and off for highschool and college teams during that time and since. I've ran or coached an extremely wide diversity of arguments. Some favorite memories include "china is evil and that outweighs the security k", to "human extinction is good", to "predictions must specify strong data", to "let's consult the chinese, china is awesome", to "housing discrimination based on race causes school segregation based on race", to "factory farms are biopolitical murder", to “free trade good performance”, to "let's reg. neg. the plan to make businesses confident", to “CO2 fertilization, SO2 Screw, or Ice Age DAs”, to "let the Makah whale", etc. Basically, I've been around.

After it was pointed out that I don't do a great job delineating debatable versus non-debatable preferences, I've decided to style-code bold all parts of my philosophy that are not up for debate. Everything else is merely a preference, and can be debated.

Style/Big Picture:

• I strongly prefer to let the debaters do the debating, and I'll reward depth (the "author+claim + warrant + data+impact" model) over breadth (the "author+claim + impact" model) any day.

• When evaluating probabilistic predictions, I start from the assumption everyone begins at 0%, and you persuade me to increase that number (w/ claims + warrants + data). Rarely do teams get me past 5%. A conceeded claim (or even claim + another claim disguised as the warrant) will not start at 100%, but remains at 0%.

• Combining those first two essential stylistic criteria means, in practice, many times I discount entirely even conceded, well impacted claims because the debaters failed to provide a warrant and/or data to support their claim. It's analogous to failing a basic "laugh" test. I may not be perfect at this rubric yet, but I still think it's better than the alternative (e.g. rebuttals filled with 20+ uses of the word “conceded” and a stack of 60 cards).

• I'll try to minimize the amount of evidence I read to only evidence that is either (A) up for dispute/interpretation between the teams or (B) required to render a decision (due to lack of clash amongst the debaters). In short: don't let the evidence do the debating for you.

• Humor is also well rewarded, and it is hard (but not impossible) to offend me.

• I'd also strongly prefer if teams would slow down 15-20% so that I can hear and understand every word you say (including cards read). While I won't explicitly punish you if you don't, it does go a mile to have me already understand the evidence while you're debating so I don't have to sort through it at the end (especially since I likely won't call for that card anyway).

• Defense can win a debate (there is such as thing as a 100% no link), but offense helps more times than not.

• I'm a big believer in open disclosure practices, and would vote on reasoned arguments about poor disclosure practices. In the perfect world, everything would be open-source (including highlighting and analytics, including 2NR/2AR blocks), and all teams would ultimately share one evidence set. You could cut new evidence, but once read, everyone would have it. We're nowhere near that world. Some performance teams think a few half-citations work when it makes up at best 45 seconds of a 9 minute speech. Some policy teams think offering cards without highlighting for only the first constructive works. I don't think either model works, and would be happy to vote to encourage more open disclosure practices. It's hard to be angry that the other side doesn't engage you when, pre-round, you didn't offer them anything to engage.

• You (or your partner) must physically mark cards if you do not finish them. Orally saying "mark here" (and expecting your opponents or the judge to do it for you) doesn't count. After your speech (and before cross-ex), you should resend a marked copy to the other team. If pointed out by the other team, failure to do means you must mark prior to cross-ex. I will count it as prep time times two to deter sloppy debate.

• By default, I will not “follow along” and read evidence during a debate. I find that it incentivizes unclear and shallow debates. However, I realize that some people are better visual than auditory learners and I would classify myself as strongly visual. If both teams would prefer and communicate to me that preference before the round, I will “follow along” and read evidence during the debate speeches, cross-exs, and maybe even prep.

Topicality:

• I like competing interpretations, the more evidence the better, and clearly delineated and impacted/weighed standards on topicality.

• Abuse makes it all the better, but is not required (doesn't unpredictability inherently abuse?).

• Treat it like a disad, and go from there. In my opinion, topicality is a dying art, so I'll be sure to reward debaters that show talent.

• For the aff – think offense/defense and weigh the standards you're winning against what you're losing rather than say "at least we're reasonable". You'll sound way better.

Framework:

• The exception to the above is the "framework debate". I find it to be an uphill battle for the neg in these debates (usually because that's the only thing the aff has blocked out for 5 minutes, and they debate it 3 out of 4 aff rounds).

• If you want to win framework in front of me, spent time delineating your interpretation of debate in a way that doesn't make it seem arbitrary. For example "they're not policy debate" begs the question what exactly policy debate is. I'm not Justice Steward, and this isn't pornography. I don't know when I've seen it. I'm old school in that I conceptualize framework along “predictability”; "topic education", “policymaking education”, and “aff education” (topical version, switch sides, etc) lines.

• “We're in the direction of the topic” or “we discuss the topic rather than a topical discussion” is a pretty laughable counter-interpretation.

• For the aff, "we agree with the neg's interp of framework but still get to weigh our case" borders on incomprehensible if the framework is the least bit not arbitrary.

Case Debate

• Depth in explanation over breadth in coverage. One well explained warrant will do more damage to the 1AR than 5 cards that say the same claim.

• Well-developed impact calculus must begin no later than the 1AR for the Aff and Negative Block for the Neg.

• I enjoy large indepth case debates. I was 2A who wrote my own community unique affs usually with only 1 advantage and no external add-ons. These type of debates, if properly researched and executed, can be quite fun for all parties.

Disads

• Intrinsic perms are silly. Normal means arguments are less so.

• From an offense/defense paradigm, conceded uniqueness can control the direction of the link. Conceded links can control the direction of uniqueness. The in round application of "why" is important.

• A story / spin is usually more important (and harder for the 1AR to deal with) than 5 cards that say the same thing.

Counterplan Competition:

• I generally prefer functionally competitive counterplans with solvency advocates delineating the counterplan versus the plan (or close) (as opposed to the counterplan versus the topic), but a good case for textual competition can be made with a language K netbenefit.

• Conditionality (1 CP, SQ, and 1 K) is a fact of life, and anything less is the negative feeling sorry for you (or themselves). However, I do not like 2NR conditionality (i.e., “judge kick”) ever. Make a decision.

• Perms and theory always remain a test of competition (and not a voter) until proven otherwise by the negative by argument (see above), a near impossible standard for arguments that don't interfere substantially with other parts of the debate (e.g. conditionality).

• Perm "do the aff" is not a perm. Debatable perms are "do both" and "do cp/alt"(and "do aff and part of the CP" for multi-plank CPs). Others are usually intrinsic.

Critiques:

• I think of the critique as a (usually linear) disad and the alt as a cp.

• Be sure to clearly impact your critique in the context of what it means/does to the aff case (does the alt solve it, does the critique turn it, make harms inevitable, does it disprove their solvency). Latch on to an external impact (be it "ethics", or biopower causes super-viruses), and weigh it against case.

• Use your alternative to either "fiat uniqueness" or create a rubric by which I don't evaluate uniqueness, and to solve case in other ways.

• I will say upfront the two types of critique routes I find least persuasive are simplistic versions of "economics", "science", and "militarism" bad (mostly because I have an econ degree and am part of an extensive military family). While good critiques exist out there of both, most of what debaters use are not that, so plan accordingly.

• For the aff, figure out how to solve your case absent fiat (education about aff good?), and weigh it against the alternative, which you should reduce to as close as the status quo as possible. Make uniqueness indicts to control the direction of link, and question the timeframe/inevitability/plausability of their impacts.

• Perms generally check clearly uncompetitive alternative jive, but don't work too well against "vote neg". A good link turn generally does way more than “perm solves the link”.

• Aff Framework doesn't ever make the critique disappear, it just changes how I evaluate/weigh the alternative.

• Role of the Ballot - I vote for the team that did the better debating. What is "better" is based on my stylistic criteria. End of story. Don't let "Role of the Ballot" be used as an excuse to avoid impact calculus.

Performance (the other critique):

• Empirically, I do judge these debate and end up about 50-50 on them. I neither bandwagon around nor discount the validity of arguments critical of the pedagogy of debate. I'll let you make the case or defense (preferably with data). The team that usually wins my ballot is the team that made an effort to intelligently clash with the other team (whether it's aff or neg) and meet my stylistic criteria. To me, it's just another form of debate.

• However, I do have some trouble in some of these debates in that I feel most of what is said is usually non-falsifiable, a little too personal for comfort, and devolves 2 out of 3 times into a chest-beating contest with competition limited to some archaic version of "plan-plan". I do recognize that this isn't always the case, but if you find yourselves banking on "the counterplan/critique doesn't solve" because "you did it first", or "it's not genuine", or "their skin is white"; you're already on the path to a loss.

• If you are debating performance teams, the two main takeaways are that you'll probably lose framework unless you win topical version, and I hate judging "X" identity outweighs "Y" identity debates. I suggest, empirically, a critique of their identity politics coupled with some specific case cards is more likely to get my ballot than a strategy based around "Framework" and the "Rev". Not saying it's the only way, just offering some empirical observations of how I vote.

I am a current engineer at Ordr Inc. I've judged for Dougherty Valley High School in multiple events, including Extemp, PuFo, and forms of prep speech for about 5 years.

I'm usually most interested in how well speakers respond to arguments and effectively communicate their ideas in a way that's easy to understand and that makes logical sense. The flow of debate is extremely important, and I will be docking points for rehash. Clothing and appearance do not influence my decisions too greatly, just be sure to remain respectful and composed throughout the round, and well as before and after. Make sure your warrants and evidence are solid and that you explain them effectively. Know your facts, express them properly, and you're good to go.

I debated in the late 90's. I believe in the Value Premise and Criterion. I think there should be clash. Rounds should be in a conversational speed. If I am yelling clear, I am missing an argument. I will stop flowing. I am not a blank slate judge nor will I drop someone for dropping an unreasonable argument. The last speeches are for providing voters and writing my ballot. If there is no connection back to the VP/ your position, I feel there is no ground for me to vote. I do not vote for Kritiks. I do believe a discussion with a debater about the round is ok. I think understanding points of view helps with communicating your cases in later rounds. I will not switch my decision.

I consider these questions when evaluating students for Congress: 1. Do the speech arguments make sense? Do you have two pieces of evidence (preferably with an article title, RECENT date, and author name/organization)? Do you provide an analysis for these pieces of evidence? Do your arguments have an impact that affects PEOPLE (this is the most important!)? 2. Speakers should speak well, but remember that this is a debate. I say logical arguments should ALWAYS go before speaking ability. 3. Your questions towards other students should prove a point. Questions should be about flaws in others' arguments. They should be related to the argument of the person they are asking. They should not be random. When judging the students' answers to others' questions, I will ask myself if your answers make sense. I should find myself impressed with your knowledge on the topic. 4. POs should be fair (they should try their best to give everyone a speech), professional, and good at what they do. POs will rank good if they do a good job :) Good luck and have fun!