I have 3 years of PF experience, but it has been a few years. Going fast is fine, do not spread.

I will be flowing most rounds, but if there are specific cards you want me to write down, please mention it.

Framework is important. I will be judging based off framework in almost all circumstances.

I do not judge based off of nor do I flow crossfire, bring it up again in a speech if you wish me to consider it.

Weigh!!

All of your weighing points should be in your final focus (not to say they can't be elsewhere). Tell me why you are winning here, but do not bring up points that have been dropped. It is a final focus not a second rebuttal.

Signposting and explaining the type of argument you are about to read is EXTREMELY important. Of course your arguments are the meat but if it's not packaged properly it all falls apart.

I'm happy to give personal feedback if time allows, let me know after verbal RFD and I'll try to type something up for you in the team slots :)

Feel free to ask any other questions before the round, I only emphasized a few key points here.

Hi! I debated PF for Henry M. Gunn High School for 3 years (Gunn BZ/BB). I am a junior at Northwestern University and I coach for Henry M. Gunn High School.

Generally:

- offense should be in summary and ff

- defense is not necessary in first summary

- you don't have to frontline in second rebuttal (but pls do it)

- you can go fast just don't spread

- if you are going to go fast and the other team wants a speech doc you have to send it before your speech otherwise slow down (if you send it after the other team has to use prep to basically flow ur speech that is not fair)

- i didn't debate theory or k's but if you explain it to me i will vote off of it (pls do not run progressive args on kids that don't know what that is)

- theory: my threshold to evaluate progressive args unless its directed at specific abuse that occurred in the round is really high (don't run it just for an easy win)

- pls weigh (as early as possible)

- if you want me to look at a card tell me to

- i will always presume neg unless you tell me otherwise

- if there's an email chain add me: revareva@gmail.com

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Important:

- if you say something problematic and continue to do so I will drop you and give you 25 speaks

- you can call a TKO in round and if it's correct I'll give you a win and 30s, if you're wrong tho you'll get a loss and 25s

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Trigger Warnings:

- if you are talking about sensitive issues plz read a trigger warning

- i don't think just reading a trigger warning and then starting to speak does anything to protect someone who may be impacted by what you are going to say

- in my opinion what you should do is say your trigger warning and then give everyone your phone number or do something to allow everyone to say yes or no

- this is the only way that people can protect themselves and also not have to publicly explain their emotions or why they are sensitive

- if they say no have another case or a contention you can swap in prepared

Feel free to message me if you have any questions about anything in my paradigm or after the round if you want me to further explain my decision or give advice! You can email me or hit me up on FB!

Hey there! Thanks for checking out my paradigm. Hopefully reading this can help us all have a nice clean round.

A little about me. I debated for 4 years in high school, so I can follow fast speaking or debate terminology. That said, remember that the goal of PF is to give a speech at a level accessible for everyone. Use this as an opportunity to hone your general speechcraft as well as your debate skills. Let's try and keep it simple. It doesn't matter how awesome your words are if they can't be understood by everyone! :)

We all know, or at least should know the rules. In the event that there is a rule infraction, let's calmly discuss it off time. Same with requesting evidence or anything that isn't part of your speech. However, I ask that you refrain from outlining your speech or giving an off-time road map. You are given 2-4 minutes to speak. Not 2-4 minutes and enough time to outline.

That said, I hope you enjoy debate! That's what we're here for. Good luck and have fun!

I am a typical PF judge. No real paradigm since PF is not plan or value driven. I like to see well developed arguments and effective speaking. I will listen to any argument as long as it is reasonable.

I believe that public forum was designed to have a "john or sally doe" off the street come in and be a judge.  That means that speaking clearly is absolutely essential.  If I cannot understand you, I cannot weigh what you say.  I also believe that clarity is important.  Finally, I am a firm believer in decorum, that is, showing respect to your opponent.  In this age of political polarization and uncompromising politics, I believe listening to your opponent and showing a willingness to give credence to your opponents arguments is one of the best lessons of public forum debate.

Howdy! I was a PF debater for Grapevine High School for four years. I've competed on the National Circuit and at TFA State.

For your benefit I've outlined a few paradigms below that would be beneficial for you to follow (although I'm pretty relaxed so if you never read this then that's cool too)

A framework is appreciated. I would like it at the top of your case in constructive but if you need to read it in rebuttal that is fine too. I do frame the round based on how you tell me. If you don't give me a framework I'll fall back to a cost-benefit analysis. If you're going to get into a framework debate make sure you tell me why I should prefer your framework to your opponent's.

I won't extend anything for you so:

if you drop your own argument it won't count against you it just won't count for you either(even if your opponents try to extend it)

extend throughout every speech (if it gets dropped in summary I can't weigh it)

**this does not apply to the 1st speaking team on rebuttal, you do not have to extend your own arguments because the other team hasn't had a chance to refute your arguments yet. Don't waste your time, spend it attacking the opponent's case!**

Summary speeches: I was a 1st speaker so I put a lot of weight on these speeches! I should be able to cast my ballot after hearing both summaries. The most important thing you can do in a summary speech is weigh out the arguments. Tell me why your arguments are better than your opponent's and why your arguments have more weight in the round.

Final Focus: Give me voters. I do not want a line by line speech just tell me the reasons I should be voting for you.

Other Notes:

I do generally give oral critiques at the end of the debate and I will usually disclose so you won't be left hanging

Please please please don't spread. I am fine if you talk fast but keep in mind PF was designed for anyone to be able to walk in and understand you :)

Generally, I give pretty high speaks just speak clearly, persuade me, and be confident.

Be kind. Have fun.

I've been judging various forms of speech and debate events on local, state and national levels since 2013. Head coach of St. John's School since 2020.

I have no event specific expectations on what should happen, I prefer everything to be spelled out in round. I do not like intervening.

Speaker points are a tie-breaker, so I am a bit more conservative with them, but that doesn't mean I'll tank your points unless you're unclear, have frequent speech errors, go over time, or if you're rude. Expect an average 27.5-29.5 range in PF/LD/CX and a range of 68-72 in Worlds and a 3-5 range in Congress. Perfect speaks reserved for those who truly exemplify great public speaking skills. Rudeness can also be a cause for a team losing.

Don't assume I know anything, explain as if you were talking to someone non-specialized in whatever subject matter you're speaking on.

Ask before round any further questions you might have.

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For WSD

I will be following the conventions and norms that asks us to:

• think about these things on a more holistic approach;
• nuance our argumentation and engage on the comparative;
• think that the principle level argumentation is key and that the practical should make sense in approaching the principle;
• not engage on tricky arguments or cherry picked examples;
• debate the heart of the motion and not conditionally proposing or opposing (that we are debating the full resolution);
• reward those that lean into their arguments and side;
• preference thinking about the motions on a global scale when applicable.

Hello!

I debated in Public Forum at Miramonte High School for 2 years.

if you have any questions about my paradigm, don't hesitate to ask me before the round!

- If you are speaking second, please frontline turns in rebuttal. (second summary is too late)

- Defense is sticky in 1st summary unless it was frontlined in second rebuttal

- Extend both warrants and impacts

- Collapse! Don't try to go for everything!

- Please weigh in both summary and FF

- If it's not in summary, don't bring it up in FF because I won't evaluate it

- I am not very experienced with Theory/K debate but, if you run it, I will try to evaluate it as fairly as possible.

- I will call for evidence, 1) if you tell me to or 2) if the evidence is key to my decision

Background:

I am a parent judge who has been judging for around 3 years and consider myself a flay judge. I'm trained as a scientist so logical argument supported by evidence is what I am looking for. I usually read up about the topic beforehand, so I have some knowledge about it.

Preferences:

I am more tech over truth but the argument needs to be believable for an easier win (I am a little more tech than you might imagine)

Please collapse and weigh your arguments against your opponents' arguments (Quality > Quantity)

I flow but I won’t flow if you’re too fast or hard to understand

I vote of the flow but good speaking always helps

I will call for cards usually if they are important for your case in the round. I take evidence very seriously and will drop you if I find it misconstrued.

Theory: I know nothing about theory or how to evaluate it. If you run it there is a high probability that I won't evaluate it.

Don’t be rude or offensive and don’t interrupt during cross or you’ll get dropped

I am a parent judge for Dublin High School. I expect the debaters to self-govern and adherence to time limits.

Speaking Requirements

- Speak very clearly (enunciation) and slowly. Do not speak too fast and emphasize important words, use pauses effectively.

- Speak confidently. If something is important, make sure you make that very clear. Refer to me as judge if you want my attention especially during your speech.

- Give eye contact during every speech.

- I take your body language into consideration.

- Be polite and respectful to me, your opponents and your partner

Content Requirements

- Stay on the topic. I will not vote for you if you go off topic.

- Make your arguments very clear to follow and understand, especially if you are advancing them. If your opponents do not respond, make sure to mention that in your next speech.

- Don't be disorganized. In rebuttal or summary, tell me if you're addressing their case or their refutations in crossfire. Also, give me an off time brief roadmap before the rebuttal, summary, and final focus speeches.

- In final focus, tell me the voter issues (main arguments in today's debate), why you won, why they lost, and why your impact outweighs theirs. The easier you make it for me to know why you won, the more likely you will win.

I am a lay judge. Please do not assume I know any debate jargon. Please explain all abbreviations the first time you use them. Please be on time for your tournament.

I consider myself a tabula rasa judge, and will vote on anything if given a proper rationale and justification. I consider debate a game. That said, I am more familiar with policy arguments then critical ones. I place a high value on analytics and people who actually apply cards and arguments instead of reading large banks of cards with little application or reasoning. Please weigh the round or present me with a framework under which you believe the round should be judged. Do not take tag lines at face value. Challenge evidence and internal links (CX/crossfires are a great opportunity to do this). Nothing is more frustrating then having to weigh cards/links/impacts that aren't really there but are never challenged by an opponent.

Speed is fine, but don't do speed for speed's sake. I believe speed can give people the ability to present many more positions and arguments and ultimately make the round more educational and enjoyable to judge. However, I have seen people spread who could have covered more ground by not spreading and people who become completely unintelligible when they pick up speed. If you aren't clear then I can't understand your arguments. Vary speed, tone, volume, or something else to differentiate between tags and cards, emphasize transitions, present important analysis, signpost, etc. If you are lynch-pinning your entire case on one card or a challenge to one card, it would probably benefit you (and certainly me) to make sure I understand the card completely.

Ks: I have voted on K arguments but make sure you explain the links well and place the argument in the context of the round for me. It is safe to say that these arguments may have a higher bar for me just because of less familiarity than what I have with traditional policy arguments.

Conditionality is fine as long as you can explain what it is accomplishing in a round (a test of competitiveness, etc.). That said, I won't let you kick a DA with a clear turn on it unless your opponent also argued non-uniqueness, no link, or some other reason justifying kicking it.

Be careful with flips and inconsistent arguments. I have seen countless number of teams this year argue link flips and impacts flips against the same DA/Advantage, or go for and win a huge link flip but then separately argue that there will be no impact. Make sure you are telling a consistent story and don't shoot yourself in the foot. Sometimes you can go for too much.

T- I seem to be voting for T frequently as of late, but you need to make a strong argument and devote attention to it throughout the round. If you don't treat it seriously, don't expect me to. You must explain how it is impacting (or not impacting) the current round, as theoretical T arguments have less impact on me.

Be civil and professional. Passion is great, but avoid being mean-spirited.

A little about me:

I competed on the regional GA circuit and national circuit for 5 years in PF, and graduated in '19. I'm now a senior at Brown. This is my second year as the PF coach at Park City HS.

As a judge, I'm pretty chill:

- I'm fine with speed but, wouldmuch preferyou to not spread. If you do, you must email a speech doc.

- I don't flow cross- if something important happens, tell me in a speech or it will not be on my flow.

- Tech>truth. Obv exception is evidence ethics - if you claim that a source says something and it doesn't, I will not look kindly at that argument.

- I won't evaluate OFFENSE that is extended through ink from rebuttal to final focus- if you want me to vote for you on it, extend it through summary.

- Also- I expect the second rebuttal to respond to all of the offense in the round. Let me just add - given that y'all have four minutes, I also expect interaction with the defense read in the first rebuttal, but I'll be more lenient with accepting those responses in summary.

- On intervention - the only time I will intervene is if there is no comparative weighing, or quite honestly, weighing at all. I don't want to ever do this. So if you'd like to win or lose the debate based on the content of the round, weigh.

- additionally, meta-weighing. Especially if you and your opponents are going for different weighing mechanisms, please tell me why I should prefer your weighing mechanism !

- I understand the appeal of progressive debate, and won't automatically down-vote a team that runs it. However, I prefer judging rounds that don't involve frivolous theory. If there has been an egregious offense in the round and/or you feel very passionately about your theory shell, I will judge it. Otherwise, please don't run theory in front of me.

- Unfortunately, I am still not the best at evaluating K's and their place in PF. That's not to say you can't run a K in front of me, but I might not evaluate it in the way you'd like me to.

- For speaks - my range is normally between 27 - 29.7. I don't usually give perfect speaks, or below a 27. But if you are blatantly sexist, homophobic, or racist, that will change.

- On evidence : I'll be a part of email chains in rounds. Please share it with nylacrayton@gmail.com. I might not read every piece of evidence in full, but if you tell me to read something during, or after, the round I will.

- Speech times - I will continue to flow your speech up until ~10 seconds after your time is up. I will stop listening and stop flowing if you continue beyond that time.

• Prep - I keep track of prep in the round, and I am always a bit annoyed when you go over that time. If you prep for more than 30 seconds past your prep time, expect to lose speaks.

- Pre-flowing : please finish before the round starts.

Anyways... if you have any more questions, either ask me before the round or shoot an email to nylacrayton@gmail.com !

Speak slow and clear. Be respectful to your opponents.

Thanks

PF Paradigm at the top, LD at the bottom. I approach the events in a completely different manner. I wouldn't apply what is in the PF paradigm to LD.

PF Paradigm

I am a coach that has been involved with debate for a while. At the most basic level, I will evaluate the impacts students have access to at the end of the round using the weighing/framing mechanisms provided. You should be weighing in the back half of the round. Here are some notes about the details.

-I am listening but not flowing crossfire. While I'm not voting on anything that is said here, I am judging your knowledge of the important args and the topic in general.

-I am not tab. The best description of my judging style is a critic of argument. I want to vote for the best debaters, and to that end, I feel this activity is at its best when students explain warrants. I will vote on consequential drops, but I almost never vote on unwarranted blippy claims, even if they are carded. So for instance, if Smith 20 says "the economy will crash in two months," and that is the end of the story; for the purposes of the round I am not assuming the economy will crash in two months. You need to explain why Smith thinks that and contextualize its importance within the round. If Smith doesn't give a reason you are comfortable explaining, or you don't understand why Smith thinks that, this argument should not effect the RFD. My bar for a warrant that I will accept is very low(often I disagree with the warrant but still accept it), but the bar does exist. Just give me something that makes sense. The top competitors warrant and do all this naturally, so I don't think a lot of adapting should be going on.

-I prefer a brisk but understandable pace in the rebuttal/summary speeches, offense in the FF needs to be clearly extended (preferably weighed) throughout.

-I view debate as a game that teaches essential skills, and will vote for the students that in my opinion win the game. Using offensive arguments or not respecting the dignity of your opponents will lead to you losing the game.

-There is a zero percent chance I will vote on theory. I am ok with paraphrasing but prefer direct quotations. I do not expect disclosure (full text or otherwise).

-There is a zero percent chance I will vote on a non-topical K. There is a zero percent chance I will vote for a K that links into the topic in general. If the K has a strong link into the opponents advocacy, I will consider it, but probably still vote against it.

-Defense is not sticky.

-You should frontline in 2nd Rebuttal.

-Sell terminal defense, I have a higher bar for granting access to the impact then a lot of judges.

-There is no reason for a plan or CP.

-I don't like politics DAs, in policy rounds they work as a net benefit to a CP decently, but as independent offense in PF I think it is poor in general. The only way I'm voting on it is if it the other team severely mishandles it or has no offense I can comfortably vote on.

-If you want to see cards have the names ready and say them immediately after the speech. The 1st speaker for each team should be ready and adept at sending cards. I am not ok with a stream of asking for cards one after the other stretching out the time. The PF round should end in roughly an hour.

LD Paradigm

The PF paradigm above doesn't apply very much here. I debated LD in high school, but that was a long time ago. In LD, I'm resigned to being tab and voting on execution. I will try my best to reward the better debater, so if you can go fast and clear that is good.

I prefer debate on the topic and I view this activity as a game, so my natural inclination is to expect the resolution to grant both sides with ground, although the specifics can be debated. In general, I don't like to vote on blippy drops. I rarely vote for non-topical affs. Framework debate is ok and I will vote for the debater that executes their style the best. I enjoy judging debates with clash, and reward developed arguments which clearly link to the core issues of the resolution. I will vote for Plans, CPs, DAs, Ks, Theory, and framework. You are not winning the round in cross.

I don't have a problem with speed, but if I can't understand what your saying I will not connect the dots for you. A brisk speech that is clean is preferable to a faster pace in which words are mumbled and there are many noticeable stumbles. I keep a detailed flow and if an argument is dropped it matters. I like to hear voters during the final speeches.

I am a parent judge, but I will do my best to take notes and scrutinize to make a well informed decision.

Please try and make the round as clear as possible, I have trouble following spreading. I am not fond of theory, as I don't know how to evaluate it.

Please be respectful of one another.

jedonowho@gmail.com

Extensions need to include warrants - simply saying extend Smith '20 isn't enough, you need to be warranting your arguments in every speech. This is the biggest and easiest thing you can do to win my ballot. Rounds constantly end with "extended" offense on both sides that are essentially absent any warrants in the back half and I end up having to decide who has the closest thing to a warrant which means I have to intervene. Please don't make me intervene - if you actually extend warrants for the offense that you're winning you probably will get my ballot.

Make my job as easy as possible by clearly articulating why you've won the round - write the ballot for me in summary and final focus. Even though I'm flowing and doing my best to pay attention, I'm not infallible and so if the summaries and final focus are just going over a bunch of arguments without clear contextualization of how they relate to the ballot, I'm going to struggle to decide the winner.

Don't do debater math.

You should give content warnings if you're reading any sensitive content in order to make the round as safe a place as possible for all participants.

Don't steal prep or do anything else that makes the round last longer than it needs to be (not pre-flowing beforehand, taking forever to pull up evidence).

Don't go too fast in front of me.

Technical things:

Defense isn't sticky anymore with the 3-minute summary

Second rebuttal needs to frontline.

If you want to concede defense to get out of a turn it needs to be done the speech after the turn is read.

No new weighing in 2nd FF, unless you're responding to weighing from 1st FF.

Quick TLDR - I vote off the flow to the best of my ability. I value quality of argumentation over quantity, please collapse, warrant, and make it OBVIOUS in Sum and FF who is winning (weighing, point out drops, concessions - this is gonna be one of the biggest things I look at). With all that said, come in with your amount of experience, and I will evaluate you fairly. Debate is a weird game, and not everyone has the same access to the tools "normalized." Don't worry, do your best, and know we are all here to learn.

Background: I am a recent graduate from Duchesne Academy, and I have been a second speaker in PF for three years. I debated on the local and national circuits and consider myself to evaluate rounds pretty technically. I also did speech on the local and national circuit, but you defs don't want me judging that.

Basic Judging Philosophy: I vote off of what is warranted, I prefer what is weighed. If you make a well-structured argument, then give me reasons to prefer your warranting over their warrants, and finally do weighing that COMPARES your impact to their impact, and tells me why yours is more important and WHY it's more important. Don't just say a buzzword like "scope" and move on.

Here are some more specific notes

- Jargon and Speed: Honestly, I can handle a fair amount of speed, just please don't spread. Also, its important to make sure you don't exclude your opponents from the round; spreading as a tactic to lose your opponents is really inconsiderate in my opinion. If everyone in the round is cool with jargon, I'm fine with it too.

- Evidence: Love it. Please note that I usually flow ideas, not card names, so feel free to extend your evidence but make sure you extend what the evidence says. Please make sure evidence is exchanged quickly- if it isn't, speaker points will be dropped. Citations are needed, and at a minimum must be an author and a date, but more information is always better. Feel free to go after poor-quality evidence in round, I love a good indict (always exciting).

- Topic Knowledge: (tailored for the Beyond Resolved Tournament) - I am going to be honest, I don't know much about this topic. I will do my best to inform myself on the basics before your round, but you really need to pretend I don't know anything. I can pick info up quick so explain it effectively and you'll be fine. :D

- Rebuttal: Pretty short here. I think 2nd rebuttal should defend case. Disads in first rebuttal are cool. Second rebuttal they are sketchy. Make sure you tell me where you are on the flow, and I reeeaaallly like numbering your responses to things, it makes flowing easier for everyone.

- Summary: This is a hard speech; I have no idea how my partner Danielle did this. I expect you to reiterate and defend your case with warrants AND extend responses on your opponent's case while still weighing. I don't care how you structure it so long as it is logical for me to follow. First summary I will be a little more lenient towards, but you still need the previously mentioned things at a minimum. YOU HAVE TO COLLAPSE IN SUMMARY. Make a few, strong arguments and win them, and you will win my ballot. Weighing should be in second summary.

- Final Focus: Mirror the summary speech, collapse and warrant your few arguments even harder. Don't make new arguments or new weighing metrics, please. Warrant and weigh what you have to work with and you'll be fine.

- Crossfires: I won't be flowing them, I might listen in, but if you get an important concession, mention it in a speech! Debaters are bound to what they say in crossfire, so don't lie. Remember to be kind; I take note of that intensely!

Theory/Kritiks: I am not very well versed in T/K; I wouldn't do it infront of me tbh. Sorryyyy!

Decorum: Please be nice; it shouldn't be hard. I'm not flowing cross, and I frankly don't value it that highly, so please don't turn it into a screaming match - instead, try to get valuable/strategic info out of it. If you are rude, racist, sexist, homophobic, or take another obviously unacceptable actions, I will 100% drop your speaks as low as I can and, depending on the infraction, it will affect my decision. So please, be kind. Debate is stressful, don't make it harder than it has to be.

Speaks: Honestly, the idea that public speaking skills should be valued excludes people from the debate space. I will give speaks solely off the quality of the argumentation you make in your speeches and your ability to signpost so it is easy for me to follow you on the flow. If you are one of those people who are "dominant in cross" and are rude to your opponents, I will drop your speaks (not joking). In short, the best debaters with the best structure will get good speaks, not the best speakers.

I'm a parent judge for Acton Boxborough.

Please talk slow. It is hard to make a decision if I don't know your arguments.

I listen to crossfire in order to scope the strength of your arguments.

Evaluate me as a lay judge.

I was a policy debater in West Texas in the late 90's. Competing and doing well in both UIL and TFA. Afterwards, I spent four years competing in two forms of limited prep debate at the collegiate level (IPDA and Parliamentary)

TWO DIAMOND COACH:

In 17 years of coaching, we have competed and won in Policy, Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas, World Schools and Big Question. We are the only small-school ,from Arkansas, that has been consistent at qualifying for Nationals.

In the past 17 years, we have attended TOC 4 times and NSDA Nats 8 times. We have made it to nationals in everything from Oratory, Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, Big Questions and World Schools debate.

I have judged; 2020 NSDA PF FINALS, 2023 NSDA WSD FINALS, NSDA finals rounds of Individual events, NSDA Nats World Schools Debate, Big Questions Nationals Semi-Finals Round, Lincoln-Douglas.

TOC PF and everything that you can think of on our local circuit.

This activity and its associated community give me life. It has led me from a life of poverty into a prosperous one that allows for a completely different world than I was raised in. I am honored to be judging debaters of your caliber and degree.

My View on debate:

It is my hope that my view on debate is nuanced and takes into account as many viewpoints as possible. Debate is a 'game'. However, this game has the ability to examine and change the status quo. The words we say, the thoughts we use, and the policy that we propose is not only a reflection of real life but often has real-world implications outside of the round. My responsibility as an adjudicator extends past the time we share together. My ballot will carry the ramification of perpetuating or helping to stop the things that are espoused in that round.

I ,therefore, take my job extremely seriously when it comes to the type of argumentation , words used and attitude presented in the rounds that I will sit in front of. It is also a game in the sense that the competitors are present in order to compete. The fact that we are engaged in an intellectual battle doesn't change the fact that every person in the round is trying to win. I have never seen a debater forfeit a round in order to further their own social or political commentary.

If the topics calls for an in-depth discussion of any type of argument that might be considered a "K" that is entirely fine. I caution that these types of arguments should be realistic and genuine. It is a travesty and a mockery of the platform to shoehorn serious social commentary with the sole intent of winning a game.

In terms of the words you choose and the arguments that you make. Please follow this advice that I found on another judge's Paradigm "A non-threatening atmosphere of mutual respect for all participants is a prerequisite to any debating."

Debate should be a free marketplace of ideas but it should also be a marketplace that is open to all humans on this earth. That can't happen with aggressive language that dehumanizes others. Make your point without tearing people down. Getting a W isn't worth losing your moral compass.

This activity is a game of persuasion that is rooted in evidenced based argumentation. I prefer a well warranted argument instead of a squabble over dates/qualification of evidence. [this is not to say qualification don't matter. But you have to prove that the evidence is biased] Don't waste your time arguing specifics when it doesn't matter.

Paradigms:

• Speed is fine. "Spreading" is not. Your breathing shouldn't become markedly different and noticeable because of your rate increase. The pitch of your voice shouldn't also change dramatically because of your delivery. If you are clean, clear and articulate then you are free to go as fast as you wish.
• Don't just extend cards with Author name. "Extend Samson '09". You need to explain why that argument is a good answer to whatever you are extending. For me, debate is more than just lines on a page. Your words matter. Your arguments matter.
• I feel that the first two speeches are solely for setting up the case in favor or opposition to the resolution. If an answer happens to cross-apply as a good answer to their case that is fine. But, I don't expect PF teams to divide their time in the first speeches to offer counter-arguments.
• No new in the 2. Core arguments should be flowing out of the first two constructive speeches. If it isn't covered by your partner in the second constructive or by you in the summary speech then it is dropped. Too little, too late. This isn't football and a Hail Mary will not occur.
• While I view debate as a game....it is more like Quidditch and less like muggle games. (*just because you win the most points doesn't make you the winner. If you catch that golden snitch....you can pull out the win! Don't be afraid to argue impacts as opposed to number of points)
• The affirmative has the burden of proof. It is their job to prove the resolution true. If the debate is a wash this means the default win will go to the negative. (low speak wins included)
• Framework: I will assume CBA unless otherwise stated. You can win framework and then lose the debate under that framework. That should be obvious. Make sure that you explain how and why you win under the framework of the debate.
• PF Plans/ CPs: Simply put. These are against the rule. You are allowed to give a general recommendation but this often delves right into plan territory.
• ATTITUDE: Humor is welcome. Sarcasm and rudeness are not.
• Evidence: Don't miscut evidence. I will call for evidence if (A) a team tells me to do so or (B) I suspect it is miscut.
• Round Evaluation: I am a flow judge. I will judge based on what happens in-round. It is your job to impact out your arguments. Don't just say 'this leads to racism'...TELL ME WHY RACISM IS BAD and what the actual impact is. Don't make me do the work for you. Make sure to weigh the arguments out under the frameworks.
• Shoo fly, you bug me:
• Don't tell me that something is dropped when it isn't. If they simply repeat their assertion in response, that is a different story. But if they have a clear answer and you tell me that they dropped that isn't going to end well for you. Don't extend through ink.
• Rudeness: This isn't a street fight. This is an intellectual exchange and thus should not be a showcase of rude behavior such as: Ad Hominem attacks on your competition, derision of your opponents argument or strategy, Domination of Cross by shouting/ cutting off / talking over your opponents.
• Arguing with me after disclosure. It wont change the ballot.
• Packing your things while I am giving you a critique.

Overall, do your best and have a fantastic time. That is why we are all here. If you have any questions about a ballot feel free to e-mail me at mrgambledhs@gmail.com

I am a parent judge who has only judged twice before, and those were a couple of years ago. I am definitely a "lay" judge. Please keep time yourselves, as it will be hard for me to watch the clock and take notes, though I will do my best. Try to speak at a reasonable pace. If I can't follow it and don't write it down, you are going to have a hard time trying to convince me to vote on it. I generally favor clear, logical, arguments, and you should collapse and extend throughout the round. The more fleshed out and clear your side is, the easier path to the ballot. I am a college professor of American History, so I do have quite a bit of background knowledge on this topic. That being said, you should always warrant and implicate the examples you bring up in round. I am probably not the right judge for theory. Good luck!

Parent judge with 4 years of experience, I do flow the entire round.

If possible, please make it easy for me, collapse or go for a very well explained turn.

I am not a a pro and wont necessarily understand all the jargon and nuance.

My prefs:

1. yes - signpost; off-time roadmaps, extending from SUM to FF;

2. warrants > blips = I will have a hard time voting for poorly explained arguments;

3. no - spreading, anything new in 2nd SUM or FF;

4. Happy to skip grand-X if you are...

5. If K and Theory is read, I will do my best, but no promises that I will do a good job of it.. so swim at your own risk.

you can add me to email chains and case - viettagrinberg@gmail.com

4 year varsity debater from College Prep. Graduated in 2020.

I evaluate the flow first, tech over truth.

I can handle speed - would much rather prefer a slower, clear speech to a faster, garbled speech (esp with the online format)

Terminalize your impacts!

Weigh the debate for me so I don't have to and you don't get mad when I "do it wrong".

Everything that's in Final Focus should have been in summary (unless it's responding to something new from second summary (which also shouldn't happen)

You'll get good speaks from me unless you really mess up.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me before the round

I welcome any questions about my decision after the round.

email: gupta.abhimanyu@gmail.com

Lay Judge

* Speak slowly and clearly. Keep things simple and logical. Don't use debate jargon.

* When you read evidence, please say reasons behind it also (don't just say we have _ card and move on).

* I prefer reason over evidence. I like when teams remind me of their final case arguments but don't spend a whole minute on it - just say it in one or two sentences.

* If you collapse, please say clearly that you are collapsing.

* I don't believe improbable arguments like nuclear war and extinction. A piece of advice is to run smaller impacts for me to believe and vote for it.

* Please be respectful to each other

Thx and have fun.

Hello! My name is Zahra Hassan. I'm a lay judge. Please ignore my PF record; I was having Tabroom issues, so I had to use someone else's record (with their permission).

I commit to being objective. That said, I do not care for persons "eye-rolling," signs of disrespect or use of profanity to make a point. In business, a person showing physical gestures of disrespect will make your path to success more difficult than it needs to be. I am not bothered by a persons speed, flow of how a person presents, speaking challenges or dress. I am familiar with a number topics at these debates and will not give you negative marks if a person misquotes a fact. However, if your opponent picks up on the misquote, then I will give the opponent credit for recognizing it.

Be confident. I really appreciate all the work you do. Be known for your accomplishments and not what you may or may not believe in.

I did PF, Congress, and Extemp at Madison West HS in Wisconsin. Since then I have been debating in college and judging for three years.

PF Paradigm:

If you have any questions or have any problems with my paradigm, please tell me before the round or after the round at heintzzachary@gmail.com. If you want additional feedback or advice, don’t be afraid to email me after the round.

I’m a flow judge but treat me lay for speed. Slow down. Never spread.

I like fewer pieces of quality offense, a strong narrative, and strong weighing in Final Focus.

No entirely new arguments after Rebuttal, no new supporting evidence or entirely new responses after first summary. Cards should only be used when they offer unique expertise, data, or examples to an argument, and I accept and encourage uncarded arguments.

Citation is author, source, date said once and then probably never again.

Don’t use authors, or sources as taglines.

I default to a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis framework. This means you need to provide arguments to prefer your framework over this default and your opponents can defend the default framework. I believe having a default allows for a wide range of arguments and forces debaters to actually engage with their frameworks rather than just try to sneak it in on fiat.

Use realistic impacts with smaller magnitudes and probability weighing over just pretending like everything causes World War 3 or financial crisis.

Please no Debate Theory unless its to address in-round unfair behavior, most especially discrimination. If your opponents, myself, or another judge discriminates against you in-round you should tell your coach and tournament organizers. I may drop you for discriminatory behavior, being excessively rude, or obviously and intentionally lying.

Speaker Points: Unless the tournament offers some sort of scale for judges to use for speaker points, I will award a 28-29 on average and will rarely go below 27 unless you were rude in round.

I am a parent judge.  I am a traditional style judge.  Pretend you are trying to argue this case in front of your non speech/debate teachers. Your case needs to make sense and be logical... no jargon.    

Speed....I can handle a little speed but if you are going so fast that you are tripping over your words... I am not understanding you.  I have NEVER heard or read your case so if you cannot say it fast enough I cannot listen to it.  If you have an important point to make... go slower! Make sure I hear it.

I like voter issues... make sure to provide a concise summary and voter issues in your last speech.  

My thoughts on debate.  It is a fantastic skill to have that will serve you well.  Talker faster than your audience can listen , using words they don't understand, constantly looking down at your computer, and being rude and condescending to your competitor will not typically treat you well in life.  Debate should be teaching and making you use skills that will serve you well long after tournaments are over.  

Our state doesn't do oral critiques or disclose at the end of the debate.  I will be following this same protocol.   

Be prepared, be articulate, be persuasive, be civil.  

I debated for four years at Lexington High School, and am currently not debating in college. I have little to no topic knowledge.

Please add me to the email chain: justinh4033@gmail.com

PF:

- Disclosure is extremely important.

- Debate whatever style you are comfortable with. I'm experienced with speed but do what you are comfortable with. Seriously. I just want a good debate.

Top Level

I'm a firm believer in the strategic aspect of debate. My favorite part of judging a debate is watching what kinds of unique strategies you can have come up with, the research you have done to support it, and how you execute it. I'm pretty open-minded and enjoy pretty much any type of debate, so run whatever you want. I would much rather you run what you're comfortable with, rather than trying to over-adapt to me.

I will not accept any discriminatory behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc). I generally believe that you are good human beings and will be respectful to each other, so don't prove me wrong.

Tech over truth. How well something is debated determines how much truth I assign to it. While the truth level can lower or higher the threshold of tech required to persuade me, I will judge by the flow. A dropped argument is a true argument. That means it must have a claim, warrant, and impact.

Draw comparisons. Explain why your impacts are important outweigh those of your opponent. This also goes for every part of an argument, like uniqueness, the link, etc. Compare evidence and warrants. Draw a distinction between the alt and the perm. Explain how each argument implicates your opponent's arguments and the rest of the debate. The best rebuttals will break down the core issues of the debate and write my ballot for me. Debates that lack comparison make it difficult for me to write a decision, which will probably make one side unhappy every time.

Evidence quality. Evidence is incredibly important, but it can also be trumped by sound, logical arguments. I value good spin of your evidence. That being said, I strongly dislike when people highlight words out of context or jumble together random words to form an argument. So many teams get away with reading bad evidence, but if you don't mention it, it will continue.

T

I default to competing interpretations over reasonability, but this is totally up for debate. Reasonability can definitely be persuasive in the right circumstances. Lots of impact calc needs to be done on both sides, and the internal links to your offense should be clearly explained.

DA

Have good turns case analysis at each level of the disad (link, internal link, impact). Make sure to have good, recent evidence because these debates often come down to evidence quality. I don't have any strong opposition to the politics disad – the internal links may be silly, but it's probably a necessity on this topic and I will evaluate it like a normal disad.

CP

While it is very helpful to have them, CPs do not need carded solvency advocates, especially if they are based on some of the aff's internal links. All CPs need to have a clear net benefit and must be competitive. I would like an explanation of the perm and how it shields the link to the net benefit, and this explanation should be happening early on in the debate. PICs are awesome, especially ones that are specific to the aff.

K

I enjoy a good K debate, as long as there is good analysis and explanation. I will typically allow the aff to weigh their impacts. That being said, what does it really mean to weigh a fiated extinction impact against your epistemology? I believe affs should have a stronger framework push than just "weigh the aff" because most neg framework arguments will implicate this very process of impact calculus. Specificity to the aff is extremely important, but not necessary. However, generic link arguments without sufficient analysis will make me much more receptive to the perm. Don't read super long overviews - put the explanation of the K's thesis there, maybe an impact explanation, but the rest can go on the line-by-line.

Planless Affs

I think fairness is an impact, and probably the most convincing one. However, you still need to explain to me why that matters. Impacts that rely on some spillover to institutions (i.e. Lundberg 10) are unconvincing to me. If you are going for T, you should answer relevant arguments on the case page. I think TVAs are strategic and don't have to be perfect.

The aff should have a mix of offense and defense to defeat framework. Most of the time, the impact turn approach is a lot more convincing than trying to win a counter-interpretation, but this depends on the aff. Leverage your aff against framework – impact turn the aff's model of debate or read disads to it based on the thesis of the aff. Defensive arguments can also mitigate a lot of the risk of the neg accessing their impacts.

Theory

If you're going for theory, in-round abuse is extremely important. I think the only the thing that can rise to the level of a voting issue is conditionality. 3 condo is fine with me; 4+ is pushing it. Counterplan theory objections are much less convincing if you have a good solvency advocate. I will lean neg on agent cps and 50 state fiat because of the lack of great neg ground on this topic. I lean aff on consult cps, word pics, and certain process cps. Unless there is a 2NR argument for it, I will not kick the CP for you.

I prefer teams email me their speech document to amyhu881@gmail.com before the round starts. Please do so asap as it takes a while for the email to arrive and sometimes the first email fail to reach me. It is Ok that you don't send me your speech doc but it will help me to understand your round.

Please time yourself. I wont keep track of the crossfires. Tell me what is the priority to weight and why your impact is bigger.

Keeping your arguments simple and logical. I can easily get lost if you talk too fast or provide me tons of information.

Please be calm and polite. When you getting hostile to your opponent, I will think you lose control because you know you fail the round.

Hi! I debated for 3 years on the circuit for Churchill (MD) and am now a sophomore at Penn.

tl;dr

I haven't seen a PF round in 2+ years and am not updated on the norms/trends, so you should probably treat me as a flay judge.

Here are some key points:

• Please be clear, signpost, and warrant well
• Collapse and weigh comparatively in the second half
• I'm probably worse at flowing than the average flow judge, so don't go too fast or you'll lose me
• Don't extend through ink
• Be nice
• I'm really not a fan of theory/Ks and don't understand them at all, so I'd strongly prefer if you stick to substance and will probably be biased against you if you run it for no reason. Like below, if there's a real violation, just explain it plainly

Feel free to read the rest of my old paradigm if you want, but the above points are the most relevant. If you do all of that I'll try to be generous with speaks. Let me know if you have any questions before round, and have fun!

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I'd consider myself a normal flow judge, so just debate how you like.

General

- I like well-warranted and well-explained arguments. It makes it easier for me to understand and thus vote on.

- Please weigh your arguments comparatively! If you don't weigh (or its not comparative), I will have to do my own weighing, which might not turn out how you like.

- Tech > Truth, but the more ridiculous the argument the lower the threshold I have for acceptable responses to it.

- Collapse pls

- If you want me to vote on it, you should be extending it, not just saying "extend X, extend Y"

Speed

- I kinda suck at flowing, so try not to go tooooo fast. Generally, I can keep up, as long as you remain clear. If I think you're going too fast, I'll say "clear".

In Round

- Don't make new arguments in final focus.

- You should extend arguments that you want me to vote on in summary and final focus.

- Signpost

- I think it's strategic if second rebuttal frontlines responses in first rebuttal (but it's not necessary if you aren't comfortable with it)

- First summary doesn't have to extend defense (unless its frontlined in second rebuttal), but if it's important you should still extend it in summary

- "They don't provide a warrant/the impact isn't contextualized" is a sufficient response for me.

Evidence

- I think paraphrasing is okay, as long as you have a card to back it up.

- I won't call for evidence unless I think it's important to the outcome of the round or unless I am explicitly told to.

Progressive Arguments (K, Theory, etc.)

- I don't think progressive arguments are good for the direction of the PF, and I would discourage you from running one in front of me. With that being said, if you choose to read a progressive argument,

1. You should explain it very well

2. I never had much experience with it in high school, so I will probably make a decision that reflects my lack of knowledge

- If you think there is a real violation in round, I think you should just explain and warrant it like any other argument (paragraph theory), and I will be inclined to vote on it.

Finally,

don't be rude, sexist, abelist, racist, etc.

Good luck and have fun!

FYI - I work for a pharmaceutical company.

I am a LAY judge with 6 years of judging experience and I have judged many tournaments, state and national

Speak slowly and clearly

Be respectful

I am truth > tech

I will evaluate theory and RVI's as long as you explain it to me clearly

I don't vote off of crossfire

I don't require you to extend everything through your speeches

You need to tell me why you are going for one contention over another, otherwise, I will dock you

It's your job to convince me

Don't tell me what to do, convince me how I should weigh

In terms of speaker points, I give between 26-29 speaker points, to get a 30 you have to be exceptionally good.

Hello, I am what you would consider a Lay/Traditional judge.

I will probably not have much topic knowledge, so you need to do the explanations for me. Make it slow, clear, and understandable.

Be respectful to each other during the round.

I will drop speaks for long, awkward, pauses mid speech, lack of organization, and rudeness.

Keep the debate at the substance level and due to our current circumstances I would prefer if I got a copy of the case.

My email is yjdebate@gmail.com.

I was a three year policy debater from South Dakota. I tend to be a policy maker judge, but I will try and vote however I am told to during the round. Some speed is fine, but make sure that you are clear with tags and you may have to slow down if you are explaining complex arguments or theories to me. Please don't be rude towards the other debaters or your partner - debate should be a place where everyone feels welcome.

Policy

I'm cool with any type of arguments being ran, but I prefer DA/CP/case debate versus critical or topicality (unless if they are actually untopical). Open CX is fine, but don't use up all of your partner's time. Make sure to have warranted extensions of your arguments and I appreciate if the debate can be boiled down to why you should win. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me before the round starts.

LD

I am pretty new to LD, but I will do my best to judge any round. To be honest, you will need to spend a little time explaining what some of the arguments are, as I'm not up to date with a lot of the buzzwords used. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me before the round starts.

PF

While I never competed in PF, I have been primarily judging it for the past two years. As for argumentation, y'all can run whatever you'd like, I do not mind. Don't steal prep or go over time with your speech - once you run out of time I stop flowing. Do your best to be fast with your evidence, it can get pretty obnoxious waiting. It's your opponent's right to ask for evidence, and it's on you to provide it without holding up the debate.

Updated 11/2/2021 for The Hebron Standard

Background

Hebron High School, 2016-2020. I did NCX for one year, debated in VPF for ~three years, and have done Congressional Debate once or twice as a filler. I've been judging for a year now.

Quick Notes

If you don't want to read the whole thing because it's five minutes before round, I'm tabula rasa, tech > truth. Give me reasons to believe your arguments and warrant clearly. I'll probably vote for whoever has the more robust and fleshed out arg at the end of the round.

I'll nod at you if I like the way you're taking the round, if I look really unamused with you, that's not a good thing. Humor, when appropriate, scores you big points with me.

Concessions can be as easy as, "we concede the delink, onto our next argument", don't waste time explaining an argument you're not going to focus on.

I don't believe in open cross, the first two crossfires should be one on one only. Mainly because I like to see what individual team members know, strong case and topic knowledge in crossfire is always fun to see. I also don't like flex prep, but if both teams agree to it before the round, it can happen.

Second speaking team has to respond to the first rebuttal (particularly turns) or the arguments are dropped.

If you want to run super technical theory args, I can follow them, but I am not receptive. This is Public Forum, your arguments should be accessible to a layman. Strike me if this is your plan. That being said, there is a place for theory. If there is legitimate in-round abuse with a non-frivolous harm, go for it.

If you read theory against novices I'm dropping you.

If you flip second and proceed to read a weird/substantially non-standard or non-topical framework, I will be very, very receptive to in-round abuse args your opponents make against you. If you want to do this, flip first, flip side or strike me.

I'll usually default util on framework unless I think another one is better for a specific topic. If you provide an alternative framework I'll probably go with it. If you want me to default to the listed framework don't bother reading framework. Default frameworks for specific topics are below.

Novcember Blockchain: Utilitarian

!!! - Virtual Accommodations and Regulations

I don't really know how tournaments are going to go given the prevailing circumstances in the world right now, but there's a few things that I'll probably do differently given the different format.

- You'll probably get high speaks, if whatever service we're using is having problems or if I can't understand what you're saying due to internet lag/poor mic quality I will request your speech doc so I can follow along.

- No need to dress up, really. You're probably at home, don't make yourself uncomfortable for my benefit.

- I can flip a coin on my end, one team can call it.

- Since I'm not available IRL for post-rounding I'll provide an email you can contact me at on the ballot if you have any further questions that come up after the round. Please be specific in your questions. I usually answer general "what could I have done better" things on the ballot.

- Unless tournament regulations specify another method to take, each team will get one 'tech resolution period' (i'm not creative with names) that they can use if someone gets disconnected or there are serious audio problems. Signal in the text chat, and I'll pause the round. You detail the problem to me and try to fix it, debate resumes from the start of the speech with time reset after the issue is fixed. If I find that teams are using this as a tactic to interrupt speeches, I will revoke it. If I find that you're cheating on prep by lying about tech problems, I'm going to be livid. These are already bad circumstances, please just try to be respectful and only ask for a pause during someone's speech if it is absolutely critical. This doesn't apply if I'm on a panel.

PF PARADIGM

- Coin Flip: Do it outside, or in the round. I don't care which. Or, if you can agree on sides/positions, that works too. The faster you chose sides and we can get to what matters, the better.

- Disclosing: I will almost always disclose and give my RFD following the round unless the tournament has specifically prohibited me from doing so. When you leave the room you'll know who won, if I'm not allowed to disclose I'll write as much as I can on the ballot. Feel free to ask questions about my decision. I think it's important for teams to understand why I decided the round the way I did, and having people ask questions is a great way to ensure that I'm doing my job as an evaluator well. I'm also receptive to post rounding, as long as you're respectful about it.

- Crossfire: Being overly aggressive in cross will not affect me, but it will affect your speaker points. Try to be respectful. The first speaking team should always get the first question in all crossfires unless they concede it. Second speaking teams already have massive structural advantages in the round, and I don't think crossfire should be another.

- “Clear”: If your opponent is going too fast, I’m fine if you say clear to get them to slow down. Abusing this will lead to a sharp decline in your speaker points, and possibly a lost round. I will clear you when you're either going too fast, mumbling, or any other circumstance where I can't understand you. If you have a heavy accent/stutter don't worry, I will do my best to accommodate that, but I may require your speech doc to follow along.

How I Evaluate Rounds

- Extremely tech > truth. If you run something, and if your opponents don't challenge it, it flows through and I'll consider it when I vote. I prefer more unique arguments in general, but if your stock argument makes more sense than your opponent's arg that impacts out to nuke war (somehow), that should be really easy for you to dismantle.

- With tech > truth in mind, probability still matters. I'll value an outlandish argument with like zero probability if your opponents don't contest it, but if they can show how their impacts are more probable, they'll win that weighing issue. If you don't want me to weigh that way, give me a reason not to.

- Collapse on arguments! If you don't, it makes for a messy flow and muddles the weighing at the end. You should start collapsing as early as summary. I need a clear voting issue that has been weighed against your opponents' by the end of the round. Extending smaller stuff like turns in conjunction with your main arg is fine, but if you just put a bunch of impacts on my flow without any weighing, I have to do that myself. If my RFD is your Final Focus, and your Final Focus mirrors the summary, you've done your job perfectly.

- I'll call for cards following rounds if a dispute comes up over a particular piece of evidence during the debate, or if I believe one team is misrepresenting a piece of evidence. If I do find out that you've totally misrepresented/fabricated a piece of evidence, I'm giving you a loss, min speaks, talking to your coach, and the tournament organizer. Don't do it.

- In addition, if your opponents ask for a piece of evidence, you must present it in the form they ask for. If they ask for the full article/pdf and you only have access to the cut card form, I will drop that evidence based on their request.

- Underview > Overview for weighing, but you can structure your case however you like.

- I try to give speaker points based on team strategy, and my absolute minimum is a 27 unless you do something especially egregious. (dropping your case w/o any turns to go on, etc.) If your strategy makes sense you shouldn't need to worry about speaks, just debate.

- Extending arguments should be full. I’m way more likely to extend something on my flow that is clearly and well warranted and explained than a blippy “Extend Card Name, Year”. You literally don't have to extend the card author names or dates, extending the warranting and actual argument is way way more important to me.

CONGRESS PARADIGM

I'll judge your congress round like a debate round. Speeches should have clash and references to other speeches, and questions should serve to effectively poke holes, help out someone on the same side of the bill as you, or to set up an argument that you intend to make.

CX / LD PARADIGM

If you see me sitting in the back of your room in a CX or LD round, I kinda sorta know what I'm doing. A little. In all seriousness, I did CX for a year and am familiar with the argumentation involved and how to effectively evaluate a CX round. I do have problems understanding unclear spreading, but if you put me on the email chain / flash / share your docs with me or just make it so I can hear you and slow down on tags there shouldn't be a problem.

I am a parent judge. My day job is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, where I spend most of my time running a research lab exploring the role of non-coding RNAs in gene expression and heredity. I know quite a bit about science, but, alas, not so much about economics or public policy. This means that, unless we are debating a science question, I am not an expert. Additionally, I have never debated myself. For this reason, if you use topic-specific or debate-related jargon/acronyms there is a pretty good chance I will not know what you are talking about. Although I do my best, I am also not a "flow" judge and, therefore, you are not likely to win the round based on debating subtleties or total number of contentions made/refuted. I find that most PF speakers overestimate my ability to follow their arguments. Bludgeoning me with a laundry list of facts, whose relevance I find difficult to ascertain, is probably not going to get my vote. Remember, you have been thinking about this material for a long time... I have been thinking about it for a few minutes to a few hours. If you remember anything from this paradigm remember this...less is often more with me. Organize your arguments clearly and logically and avoid burying me under poorly connected factoids. Spend time explaining the underlying essence of why your central arguments are better than your opponent's central arguments and you will do well. As the old saying goes..... don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Hey! I'm your judge.

Debated for Plano West. I competed a good amount on the national circuit and did fairly well. Ended up qualifying to the TOC my senior year in PF. I also have a bit of LD experience. Currently a junior computer science major at Texas A&M University.

Key Points:

1] HERE IS HOW I EVALUATE EVERY SINGLE ROUND:

Which impact/layer is the most important in the round?

Who is winning offense under it?

If you are winning offense under the most important layer whether that is on ur case or not. You have just won the round.

2] I’m not a perfect judge but I like to think of myself as flow, tab, Tech > Truth.

3] Run anything you want (except death or oppression good, 30 speaker points theory, burden of rejoinder is bad, following speech times bad) as long as it has a claim, warrant, and impact. The more nuanced ur args are, the more warranting I'd like to hear.

4] pls weigh. I'm begging you.

5] If you extend something it must have a warrant.

6] Speed is fine but if you’re gonna go policy fast pls send a speech doc so I can get all ur args down. Err on the side of going as slow as you can while spreading AND ENUNCIATE bc there is a greater chance I will miss something the faster you talk. I'll yell "clear" 3x before I just stop flowing.

7] Judge grilling and post rounding for educational purposes are good. Just know that I will not change my ballot after the round is over and if your questions turn into hateful bashing towards me or your opponents, I will happily tank your speaks.

8] Every offensive argument should be underneath some sort of framing/weighing mechanism I can vote off of (this is primarily for LD). If you just read an apriori that says affirm means to agree and since you agree you win. That's not good enough but I will 110% vote on those arguments if they are supplemented by some sort of weighing or framing argument. To clarify: Why should definitional burdens be the top layer of the debate? If you can answer that question, run whatever you like. As long as you explicitly tell me why the apriori is actually an apriori and comes before everything else.

9] Have fun.

For PF: defense from first rebuttal is sticky unless it is responded to. But needs to extend turns. Second rebuttal should frontline.

For LD: Run whatever you want. However, if you run anything philosophically oriented, please warrant your arguments heavily. I should be able to tell the other team with confidence what I am voting for.

Defaults (you can change ANY of these): presumption and permissibility negate. No RVIs and eval with competing interps on Theory. The default framework is a cost-benefit analysis (For PF).

Speak slowly and clearly so I can understand your arguments; if I don't understand them, I cannot vote for you. Use only realistic arguments.

It's helpful when you frontline and give implications in your speeches. Make sure to weigh in summary and final focus with consistency.

Do not run theory or any type of progressive arguments.

Be respectful to your opponents.

Looking forward to listening to your round!

Updated for Fall 2021:

I'm currently a sophomore at Rice University studying natural sciences. I have roughly 3 years of PF experience from high school.

Some general things to keep in mind:

a. Please be a nice person. I encourage you to debate however you want, but don't cross any lines while doing so or else your speaker points will suffer.

b. Please add me to the email chain or any other evidence-sharing equivalent if it exists. My email is lidaniel355@gmail.com

c. For online debate specifically, I strongly encourage (but don't require) that you keep your camera on for the entirety of the round.

For Public Forum:

a. I'll vote off of the least mitigated narrative that has a clearly extended impact.

b. Please weigh as early as summary, it makes evaluating rounds much easier.

c. Frontlining is necessary in second rebuttal.

d. Anything dropped is conceded for the purposes of the round.

e. Evidence ethics is pretty awful in PF debate. If you think your opponent has egregiously misconstrued an important piece of evidence, you can ask me to call for the evidence during your speeches (I won't entertain these requests if it's after the round or during prep time). I have no problem dropping entire arguments over bad evidence and in extreme cases, I'm not entirely impartial to the idea of directly dropping the team.

f. I think there is merit to many theory arguments, but I would still advise not to read them in front of me because I don't have the background to competently evaluate theory debates. Same goes for basically any other form of "progressive" argumentation.

I debated for Plano West and graduated in 2019.

***Please Preflow!***

Email Chains: I don't have anything against email chains, but you should not be speaking so fast that you need to rely on them for people to understand what you're saying. I want to hear your arguments, not read your word document.

Important things to keep in mind:

1. Speed: Speed is fine as long as you are clear and articulate, double-breath spreading is not.

2. Second rebuttal: You need to frontline all turns. You do not need to frontline defense, although it may be strategic for you to do so.

3. Disads: I will only evaluate disads if they are well-warranted and weighed in rebuttal. Along those same lines, turns must be weighed if you are planning to win the round with it.

3. First summary: You do not need to extend defense if 2nd rebuttal dropped it (defense is sticky).

4. Theory and progressive args: I would avoid running these in front of me. I have very little experience with these types of arguments, so I would not trust me to know how to evaluate them properly. If you still feel compelled to run them, I will try my best to make a good decision, but no promises.

5. Warrants: If your argument is not warranted, I will not vote off of it. I will always pick a warranted analytic over an unwarranted empiric.

6. If something is in final focus, it must be in summary.

7. Extensions: An extension includes a link and an impact. If your link and/or impact are not extended into summary and final focus, I will drop the argument.

8. It really annoys me when teams are moving targets (i.e. defense should not suddenly become a turn in summary/ff, you should not all of a sudden manifest a new impact in summary/ff, and your link should not all of a sudden become something different in summary/ff). If this happens, I will get mad and drop the entire argument, so you're better off just sticking with what you originally said.

9. Weighing: Please weigh (and warrant your weighing!) Set up weighing in summary and terminalize your impacts. If you don't weigh, I will be forced to make my own decision, and you might not be happy with it.

10. If you present a new argument in 2nd ff, I will be annoyed and won't evaluate it.

11. Defaulting: I don't think any team should be able to win off of just defense, and there's no reason neg deserves to over aff. So, I will try really hard not to default neg. That being said, sometimes I don't have a choice, but this should never be your strategy.

12. A little bit of sass in crossfire is fine, but please don't be mean, rude, or condescending.

13. Speaks: 27-30. Speaks will be based mostly off of argumentation, but being easy-to-understand is important too.

Feel free to ask me any questions after round!

Most importantly, have fun!

I am a parent lay judge. I prefer for deeper analysis into arguments, instead of repeating the same basic reasoning over and over throughout a round. I also don't carry any biases within the round over which arguments you run, but there's also a limit to how far you can push the logic of an argument. Going slow so I can follow is also extremely important in the round, and it's probably one of the main things I'm looking for. Comparison of arguments is good, and don't use any jargon, I'm not going to understand it. Crossfires are also something that I pay attention to, so make sure to respond to questions immediately, rather than sit there for a few seconds pondering the answer. Speaker points are also updated throughout the duration of the round, and continuing to speak well with good gestures and posture will also be important.

*TOC* '22 - Helping some kids out, guess I'm back just for this one tournament

Conflicts: Walt Whitman DP and Marist School

Background: Plano West Class of '18, Was affiliated with Hebron ('18-19), Colleyville Heritage ('19-20), The Marist School ('20-21), Worked with debaters from Plano East ('19-21), Coppell ('19-21), Westlake ('19-20), and Walt Whitman ('20-21)

If you're really that curious about anything else check judging record I guess.

My speaks used to average in the mid 27's if that matters

I don't even know why I have to say this, safety is critical to participation, if you make the round unsafe it's a stop the round L0, trip to tab

Top level notes (I.e. Important Stuff):

-I have not been involved in circuit debate since this tournament last year. I have not thought about arguments, I have not done research, I have not coached. My level of competency for fast, technical debates is undoubtedly lower than it used to be

-Arguments and styles that appeal to a lay audience are both good and useful but do not confuse this with the "truth > tech" nonsense. Full link chains are still required and any argument is founded on a warrant. Conceded arguments are 100% true, I don't care how ridiculous you make them out to be. If you think they're non-sensical the burden's on you.

-Speeches are meant to build on top of one another. The role of the rebuttal is to address offense - this means you should be covering turns/disads/etc. in the 2R. No, "sticky defense" is not a thing. What is in summary should be in final focus and vice versa. No new arguments in the second final focus, that's ridiculous.

-You should be weighing. Weighing should be comparative. Weighing is an argument and therefore should be warranted. Weighing should be introduced as. early. as. possible.

-Your backhalf extensions ought to be extensions of the full argument. UQ -> Link -> I. Link -> Impact. Don't forget the warrants or the impact, those are kinda important and tend to be left out more often than not.

-Crossfire does not matter, I do not listen to crossfire, I'm probably writing notes on the ballot. If something important happens in cx bring it up in speech proper

Other Stuff:

-Progressive arguments? Used to be okay with them, now it's a run at your own risk. I probably don't remember much. I was kinda a disclosure and paraphrasing-bad hack but if you win the argument you win the argument. No I will not vote on impact turns that teams should lose for disclosing or cutting cards. Yes you need an offense to win an RVI. Yes you automatically lose if it's competing interps and you don't defend a competing interp. Yes theory is apriori to case.

-Speed? I used to be able to process things pretty quick but I'm old now and out of practice so my brain probably can't handle super speed too well. Go at your own risk.

-Evidence? If I can resolve the round without looking at evidence, I will not call for evidence. I will not call for evidence if the round is difficult to resolve. However, I will call for evidence if I am told to do so and it affects the outcome of the round or if I am told that evidence is misrepresented or miscut. If your evidence ethics are hot steaming garbage that's an easy way to get L20. You've been warned

-Presumption? Used to presume neg, I guess that's still a thing? Convince me otherwise, y'all are debaters.

-Speaks? Speaks for content, I don't care about delivery unless I can't understand you. You get three clears before I put my pen down. If you've disclosed, remind me and I'll bump you.

If you have any other questions please ask. I've undoubtedly forgotten something that's probably important

PF/LD in HS, former UT policy debater (2A/1N).

PSHS '20, UT '24

Conflicts: Plano Senior HS (Plano, TX), Jasper HS (Plano, TX), Clark HS (Plano, TX)

plano.speechdocs@gmail.com (Email for email chain)

Judges who I largely agree with:

Aryan Jasani

Vandan Patel

Pref Sheet for all Events (1 is highest, 5 is lowest)

1 - LARP/theory

2 - K

3 - phil

4 - tricks

5 - K aff, performance

Defaults

Theory - DtA, Reasonability, RVIs*

Presumption/Permissibility flows neg

Policymaking in the absence of a RotB and Utilitarianism in absence of an alternative framework

Note that these are just what I default to in the absence of arguments made for any of these issues, if any arguments are made on these I will obviously evaluate them.

*Check theory section if you do CX Debate

As a general note, my favorite rounds to judge are really solid LARP/theory/K rounds, but don't worry if that's not your strat because I'm fine with anything as long as you do a really good job of it. Good flow-oriented debate will always beat grandstanding and not flow-oriented debate.

TLDR if you are pressed for time: Debated LARP style and a little bit of K. Do your strat and I will do my best to evaluate it.

PF

- +0.5 speaks for disclosure on the NDCA wiki before round with proof

- just because you have a piece of evidence doesn't mean it has a warrant - make sure each card you provide in any speech has sufficient warranting

- second rebuttal should frontline offense in the first rebuttal

- defense isn't sticky in summary

- summary and final should ideally mirror each other

- weigh, weigh, weigh! good weighing will reward you in round

LD/CX

LARP - favorite style of debate. I really like smaller affs and specific case debate. Good weighing in the 2NR/2AR is a good way to get my ballot in a LARP round. Finally, please extend case in the 2AR if you want me to evaluate it at the end of the round. If case was conceded in the 2NR, a small 2AR extension at the top of the 2AR will suffice.

Theory - I prefer more fleshed out arguments rather than blips. I would also like you to go a little slower through analytics and on the interp text/counterinterp text. I will vote on disclosure theory but I think there is a difference between someone not disclosing at all and someone not adhering to every single little interp you have. I also probably won't evaluate disclosure on people who can prove in a verifiable way that their school policy prevents it. Other than that, I don't have any strong preferences on theory but I will say the bar to responding to friv theory is much lower. Good standard weighing and clear abuse stories are easy ways to get my ballot in a theory round. *CX Specific - theory/T are not RVIs, so don't try it.*

T - I only really ask that you have a TVA/caselist with any topicality argument or I will err more on the aff side of topicality. Other than that, anything is fine.

Tricks - I mean, I guess you can but I won't be too thrilled about it. Just delineate them, err on the side of overexplaining the arguments (like don't be blippy) and be up front in CX. I will not vote off condo logic - its a terrible argument (tbf all tricks are terrible but this one just is worse than the rest).

Phil - I'm familiar with Kant, Rawls, Hobbes and virtue ethics at a basic level but assume I don't know your lit and err on the side of overexplaining what the framework is and how the offense links under it.

K - I've only really read cap and security as a debater so assume I don't know your lit so err on the side of overexplaining the theory of power in the 2NR. I really like well done K debates, so please don't forgo the line-by-line for overarching overview answers and shallow explanations of the arguments that regurgitate buzzwords, that will make me sad. Including examples to explain the theory of power and/or alternative are also good. I also like specific links to the 1AC, generic links are fine but specificity will always better your chances of winning and/or getting good speaks.

K affs/performance - I don't really know the ins-and-outs of this style of debate too well because I never really debated in this style, but I will say I tend to lean on the neg side of T-framework just because I ended up on that side in a lot of debates.

I have been a parent judge for the past 3 years. I prefer quality contentions vs quantity. Good content is very important to me as it shows the participants are prepared. Please try to speak clearly so I can judge effectively.

Plano West Senior High School ’19; 4 years of PF, 4 FX/DX

Myself:

I debated four years on the North Texas, Texas, and National circuits in PF and extemp. I did alright. If you want to email any speech docs/have questions about the round, here is my email (jamammen01@gmail.com).

PF Paradigm:

My paradigm is kind of long but there is an abbreviated version below. I don't think it is that different than the standard tab paradigm. Couple key points to bear in mind for those of you scanning 5 minutes before round begins:

I will not buy unwarranted arguments even if the warrants are in previous speeches. This is true for simple claims, citations of evidence, and weighing. If a warrant is properly carried through, then the impacts that subsequently follow from previous speeches will be implicitly carried through. If neither side does the legwork necessary, I will lower my threshold for requisite warranting until I find the argument best warranted. Also weigh, I like that.

1) Tech>Truth, argument conceded = 100% true, no intervention (barring #11) unless you make a morally reprehensible claim

2) The 2nd rebuttal has to cover turns or I consider them dropped. On the flip side if turns are dropped, they act as terminal defense. Also in 2nd rebuttal don't read new offensive overviews it doesn't give the opponent's enough time to respond.

3) Defense is sticky even with a 3-minute summary. i.e. even if defense on case is dropped, it must be responded to for case to be evaluated. Offense evaluated must be in the summary, but an uncontested impact will be implicitly flowed through even when not terminalized if the warrant is read (read the full description below).

4) Crossfire is non-binding in the sense that you can tack extra analysis in the next speech to try and get out of a concession

5) If offense survives 2 speeches untouched (barring case), it's dropped

6) Don't use "risk of offense" unless absolutely necessary

7) Need parallelism in summary/final focus, offensive extensions must be in both speeches

8) All extensions should include a warrant and impact (including turns). Summary must extend full argument

9) Proper weighing and collapsing are crucial to having the best possible round

10) No new args/weighing in second ff

11) If they have an argument straight turned, you cannot kick it

12) No new evidence in second summary unless it is responding to new evidence in the first summary

13) Do not try and shift advocacy after rebuttals

14) Anything you want me to write on my ballot should be in summary and final focus. If your opponents drop an argument or don’t respond to sticky defense, you still have to extend it for me to evaluate it.

15) PF is a debate event, but part of it is speaking. speaks are given on how well you speak (more details below)

Debate is meant to be a fun sport, so win or lose, try to enjoy the round. Have fun!

Whole paradigm below:

Personal Preferences

Preflowing - Preferably already done before you walk into round. I don't mind if you take a few minutes before the round starts but after 5 minutes, we are starting the round.

Coin Flip – Flip outside if you want or in front of me, either one is fine. Just make sure that both teams are in agreement

Sitting/Standing/etc. - If you guys want to sit in all the crossfires then go ahead. I do prefer however that during actual speeches you stand, it just looks more professional that way

Asking Questions after I disclose/RFD - post round discussion is good for the activity, ask away.

Lastly, I’ll always try to disclose my decision and reasoning if permitted to do so, and always feel free to approach me and ask me questions about the round (jamammen01@gmail.com). I firmly believe round feedback is the best way to improve in this event, and I would love to be a contributor to your success.

Too many judges get away not evaluating properly, not paying attention in round, etc. and while people do make mistakes, I think direct discussion between competitors and the judge offers an immediate partial fix. Asking questions ensures that judges are held accountable and requires them to logical defend and stand by their decisions. I do ask that you refrain from making comments if you didn't watch the round.

O Postround me if you want to. I am happy to discuss the round with anyone who watched, regardless if you were competing.

O I'd encourage anybody reading this who disagrees with general postround discussion to read this article which goes in depth about the benefits of post round oral disclosure and why this practice is more beneficial than harmful to the debate space

Spectators - In elims, anyone is allowed to watch. You don't have a choice here, if you're trying to kick people out who want to watch I'm telling them they can stay. In prelims, if both teams can agree to let a spectator watch then they are allowed in. That being said, be reasonable, I will intervene if I feel compelled. I would ask that if you are watching, watch the full round. Do not just flow constructives and leave.

General Evaluation

- Tech>truth. In context of the round, if an argument is conceded, it's 100% true. The boundaries are listed right above. Other than that, I really don't care how stupid or counterfactual the statement is. If you want me to evaluate it differently, tell me.

- I go both ways when it comes to logical analysis v. strong evidence. Do whichever works better for you. Be logical as to what needs to be carded.

- Well warranted argument (carded or not) > carded but unwarranted empiric. In the case both sides do the warranting but it is not clear who is winning, I will likely buy the carded empiric as risk

- Conceding nonuniques/delinks to kick out of turns, etc. are all fine by me. However, if your opponent does something dumb like double turn themselves or read a nonunique with a bunch of turns, I will not automatically get rid of the turn(s). Once it flows through two speeches you've functionally conceded it and I'm not letting you go back and make that argument.

- Reading your own responses to kick an argument your opponents have turned definitively is not a thing. Even if your opponents do not call you out A) you will lose speaker points for doing this, B) I'm not giving you the kick.

- If offense is absent in the round, I will default neg. I believe that I have to have a meaningful reason to pass policy and change the squo.

- I would highly encourage you to point out if defense isn't responsive so I don't miss it. That being said, I try my best to make those judgement calls myself based on my understanding of the arguments being made so I don't require you to make that clarification. A non-offense generating dropped arg that doesn't interact with an offensive extension is meaningless.

- Another thing I hate that's become more common is debaters just saying "this evidence is really specific in saying _____", "you can call for it, it's super good in saying _____", and other similar claims to dodge having to engage with warranting of responses. If you say these things explain why the warrant in it matters and how it interacts with your opponent’s case.

- If neither team weighs or does meta comparison, I will intervene. Preference: Strength of Link > Subsuming Mechanisms > Comparative Weighing > Triple Beam Balance.

Speech Preferences

- Second speaking rebuttal MUST address turns at the very least from first rebuttal or I consider them dropped. I think that both teams have a right to know all responses to their offense so they can go about choosing what to go for in summ/ff in the best possible way. Second speaking team already has a lot of structural advantages and I don't think this should be one of them.

- I need parallelism between summary and final focus. This means all offense, case offense, turns, or whatever you want me to vote off need to be in both speeches. Do not try to shift your advocacy from summary to final focus to avoid defense that wasn't responded to.

- Highly would prefer line by line up until final focus, this should be big picture. This doesn’t mean ignore warrants, implicating impacts, and weighing. I will evaluate line by line final focuses however.

Framing

- If framing is completely uncontested, I don't need you to explicitly extend the framework as long as you're doing the work to link back into it. On the other hand, if framework is contested, you must extend the framework in the speech following a contestation as well as the reasons to prefer (warrants) your framing or I will consider it dropped. If framework flows uncontested through two speeches it is functionally conceded and becomes my framework for evaluation. If framing is not present in the round, the LATEST I am willing to buy any framing analysis is rebuttal. Any time after that, I expect you to do comparative analysis instead.

-I usually default CBA absent framing. Of course, if you present and warrant your own framework this doesn't really matter

Weighing/Collapsing

- Weighing is essential in the second half of the round if you want my ballot. It can even be done in the rebuttal if you feel it is helpful. I believe collapsing is a crucial aspect that allows for better debate, don’t go for everything.

- I think that second final focus shouldn't get access to new weighing unless there has been no effort made previously made in the round in regards to weighing. Weighing should start in summary AT LATEST. Exception is if there is some drastically new argument/implication being made in first final which shouldn’t happen.

- Weighing and meta weighing are arguments. Arguments must be warranted. Warrant your weighing.

- No new terminalization of impacts in final focus (i.e. do not switch from econ collapse leading to job loss to econ collapse leading to poverty)

Extensions

- Extensions should include the warrant and impact, not just the claim and/or impact. Also just saying "extend (author)" is NOT an extension. I don't need you to explicitly extend an impact card if your impact is uncontested but I do need to get the implication of what your impact is somewhere in your speech. When evaluating an argument as a whole I generally reference how I interpreted the argument in the constructive unless distinctions/clarifications have been made later in the round.

- THE SUMMARY MUST EXTEND THE FULL ARG (UNIQ, LINK, Internal Link, Impact) This is especially true for case args or turns. On defense, the warrant and how it interacts/blocks your opponents arg is fine. A 3-minute summary increases my threshold for this extension.

- I advise that even though defense is sticky, extend critical defensive cards in summary and weigh them. I am more inclined to buy it.

- My threshold for extension on a dropped arg is extremely low but even then, I need you to do some minimal warrant/impact extension for me to give you offense

-Even if the opponents don't do a good job implicating offense on a turn (reference above), the turn still functions as terminal defense if extended. Just saying the opponents don't gain offense off of a turn doesn't mean the defensive part of an extended turn magically disappears....

-Turns need to be contextualized in terms of the round or you need to give me the impact for me to vote on it by summary/ff. They don't have to be weighed but it'd probably be better for you if you did. A dropped turn by the other team isn't a free ballot for you until you do the work on some impact analysis or contextualization.

Progressive arguments:

*Under NSDA Rules/Not TFA* - Please run args within the boundaries of NSDA competition rules. If you don't, I can't vote for you even if you win the argument

I don’t like these arguments and am inclined not to vote on them as they should not be very prominent in pf and should not be seen as free wins. I think that the discussions that are created through theory are good, but should be had outside the setting of round. That being said however, if there is a clear violation by your opponents, run theory and I will vote on it. Do not run disclosure theory, you will get dropped.

Speaks/Speed:

TLDR: My range is generally 27-30. Below 27 means you were heavily penalized or said something offensive, 29+ means I thought you did an exceptionally good job. I give all 30s on bubble rounds, anyone with a good record should clear. Speaks should not be the difference in you breaking if you win the bubble round.

- I can handle moderate speed, just don’t spread or you’ll lose me. I will clear if I cannot understand you and if I have to clear multiple times, we're going to have a problem. If I miss something, not my problem. If you think an email chain would be helpful, start one and add me (jamammen01@gmail.com). Good job for reading this long you deserve a reward, creative contention names geet +.5 speaker points .

- General Penalties (This is just a condensed, but not all inclusive, list of speaker point issues listed elsewhere in the paradigm):

1) Taking too long to preflow (.5 for every extra minute after first 5 min)

2) Taking too long pull up evidence

3) Unnecessary clears during opponent speeches (.5 per)

4) Stealing Prep. This is unacceptable, you will be punished heavily if I catch you

5) Severe clarity issues that aren't fixed after consecutive clears

6) Using progressive args to try and get free wins off novices

7) Trying to do anything abusive - read your own responses to turns, reading conditional cps, floating pics, etc.

8) Severe evidence misrepresentation (Trust me you probably won't want to see your speaks if you do this)

-Bonus speaks. I have added more ways to get bonus speaks, whether you utilize them is up to you

1) Reading case off paper (.1 bonus for each partner)

2) Appropriate humor and/or Crossfire power moves (varies)

3) +1 if your laptops are just closed(without misrepresenting evidence)

Evidence:

- I will call for evidence if I am explicitly told to do so or if there is a gap in both warranting and/or card comparison. I will also call if I am just curious.

- I would suggest having cut cards for anything you read available.

- If your evidence is shifty through the round (I.e. what you claim it to say changes notably between speeches), I'm calling for it and dropping it if misrepresented.

- Powertagging: It happens, pretty much everyone does it but it better not be misrepresented.

- "Made up"/ "Can't Find" Evidence Policy: In the case I call for evidence after the round, I may request for the citations and your interp/paraphrase/etc. to look for it myself if you claim you "can't find it", but it will be looked down upon.

o L/20 and probably a report to coaches if you refuse to give me this information when asked because that sends me a strong signal there's something really sketchy about this ev that you don't want me to see.

o If you cannot produce the original card you cited, it is dropped

o If I think what you are citing sounds ridiculous/doesn't exist I will search for it. Low Speaks if I cannot find anything similar to what you cited with the given quotations/interp - I assume it's either severely powertagged or made up.

Round Disclosure:

- I’ll always try to disclose with rfd and critiques after the round. I am also open to disclosing your speaks if you want to know.

-I will still disclose even if I am the only judge on the panel to do so.

- No disclosure policies are dumb as I think these policies encourage bad judging but I will respect them.

Lastly, if you're still slightly/somewhat/very confused on understanding my ideology and position as a judge, I've linked the paradigms of a couple people who have probably had the biggest personal influence on how I view debate and the role of a judge:

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=53914

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=54964

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?search_first=art&search_last=tay

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=84007

Feel free to ask me any other questions before or after the round (jamammen01@gmail.com)

Debate is meant to be a fun sport, so win or lose, try to enjoy the round. Have fun!

LD/CX Paradigm

If you get me as a judge in these events, I AM SO SORRY. My best advice would be to treat the round like a pf one, as this is how I will be evaluating it. This means going a bit slower and keeping theoretical/progressive arguments to a minimum. I will however, evaluate these arguments to the best of my ability if they are presented to me. Again, very sorry.

Extemp Paradigm

IDK if anyone is actually going to be looking at this, but I will write one just in case. I am a very flow judge even in extemp. I believe that what you are saying matters more that how you say it. That being said, this is a speaking event and how you say things matters. (I say like 70% what you say, 30% how you say it). This means not just reading off a bunch of sources like an anchor, give me your analysis on the topic. That is what will boost your rank. In terms of speaking speak clear and confident. Also, I like humor, make me laugh. Any Marvel references are appreciated.

If you say anything super questionable or unreasonable, I will fact check it. If it turns out you were making things up, it will be reflected negatively on the ballot.

Random

Also if the round is super late and you guys don't want to debate (i.e. not bubble round or higher bracket) we can settle the round with a game of smash or poker or smthg...if you guys are good with it.

Lastly, have fun!

I'm a varsity public forum debater at Bronx Science. I'll flow everything and vote off my flow. Logic is more important to me than cards but don't make ~outlandish~ claims that can't be warranted

also weigh and signpost and extend what you care about and you should be good

Director of Policy Debate @ Stanford University; Director of Debate @ Edgemont Jr./Sr. High School

(High School Constraints - Edgemont)

(College Constraints - Kentucky)

Email Chain: brian.manuel@uky.edu

2020-2021 Update: Christmas Edition

Misunderstanding Tech over Truth: Those three words hurt my soul because they've become to only symbolize that a dropped argument is a true argument in most circles; however, it should symbolize that well-done technical debate overcomes the truthful nature of any argument. I want to see you technically execute an argument you've spent time learning and understanding and I'm willing to listen to any argument that shows me this was done. This is significantly different from "I will listen to anything."

Research->Knowledge->Execution: That's the order! I love when students do a lot of column A to make column C easy.

Clarity Trumps: Speed is irrelevant to me. I've been doing debate for a quarter-century and I've judged people at various speeds. The most important part of the debate is clearly communicating ideas to an audience. I speak very fast, so I realize it's inevitable; however, if you're not understood then nothing you do matters. Remember, what you think you said is not always what the other person hears you say.

Policy Debate: What happened to strategies? The trend is to read 3-4 counterplans in the 1nc, rather than debating the case. Fewer off-case positions, with more time invested in debating the case, is usually a more successful strategy to create pressure on 2a's helping you win more ballots.

2020-2021 PF Update: December 21, 2020

I want to see the best version of you debating! As you can tell my opinions on PF have changed dramatically in the past six seasons; however, I still enjoy judging debates when you're trying your best!!

Theory: I'm totally uninterested in PF theory. It's underdeveloped, not well explained, and has no foundational basis in the activity.

Evidence: If the tournament doesn't adhere to a specific set of evidence rules, I will default to NSDA evidence rules. Paraphrasing is allowed unless otherwise prohibited, but must follow the rules.

I will no longer ask for cases or cards before the debate. I do expect that if a piece of evidence or a card doc is requested that it can be produced in a timely manner. To expedite this process, I will allow the other team to prep during the transfer time for a card doc to be sent to the other team unless it's specifically prohibited by the tournament.

Wiki: I don't look at it. My personal preference is that teams would disclose if the other team asks but I am not policing these conversations. I personally believe that understanding the arguments you are debating (if they've been read before) produces better debate; however, am uninterested in listening to a debate about disclosure being good or bad unless something unethical was done during the disclosure process.

2017-2018 PF TOC Update: April 23rd, 2018

As you can see I used to have a very strong leaning towards how evidence needs to be presented during a debate. I've backtracked pretty substantially on this point. Therefore, I won't ask for your case ahead of time. However, I do still prefer evidence that is directly quoted and cited according to the rules of the tournament we are at. I do not like paraphrasing and will only accept paraphrasing as a logical argument to be made in the round and will not credit you for reading a qualified author.

I know a lot about debate, arguments, and the topics you are debating. I have an extremely competitive set of students that are constantly talking about the topic, I tutor students around the world in PF, and I generally like to be educated on the things that students will debate in front of me.

Beyond what I've said above, I'll give you an additional piece of advice: If you would strike Stefan Bauschard or Amisha Mehta then you'd probably want to strike me. I tend to fall somewhere in between where they are at in their philosophies.

Last but not least, I don't intend to steal your cards...we have more than we can use...however if it means you'll throw me up on a Reddit post that can get over 100+ responses then maybe I'll have to start doing it!

**Disregard the section about asking me to conflict you if you feel uncomfortable debating in front of me since I've judged minimally and don't have any experience judging any of the teams in the field more than once therefore, it doesn't apply to you**

2016-2017 Season Update: September 11, 2016

HS Public Forum Update: This is my first year really becoming involved in Public Forum Debate. I have a lot of strong opinions as far as the activity goes. However, my strongest opinion centers on the way that evidence is used, miscited, paraphrased, and taken out of context during debates. Therefore, I will start by requiring that each student give me a copy of their Pro/Con case prior to their speech and also provide me a copy of all qualified sources they'll cite throughout the debate prior to their introduction. I will proactively fact-check all of your citations and quotations, as I feel it is needed. Furthermore, I'd strongly prefer that evidence be directly quoted from the original text or not presented at all. I feel that those are the only two presentable forms of argumentation in debate. I will not accept paraphrased evidence. If it is presented in a debate I will not give it any weight at all. Instead, I will always defer to the team who presented evidence directly quoted from the original citation. I also believe that a debater who references no evidence at all, but rather just makes up arguments based on the knowledge they've gained from reading, is more acceptable than paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing to me is a shortcut for those debaters who are too lazy to directly quote a piece of text because they feel it is either too long or too cumbersome to include in their case. To me, this is laziness and will not be rewarded.

Beyond that, the debate is open for the debaters to interpret. I'd like if debaters focused on internal links, weighing impacts, and instructing me on how to write my ballot during the summary and final focus. Too many debaters allow the judge to make up their mind and intervene with their own personal inclinations without giving them any guidance on how to evaluate competing issues. Work Hard and I'll reward you. Be Lazy and it won't work out for you.

NDT/CEDA Update: I'm getting older and I'm spending increasingly more hours on debate (directing, coaching, and tabulating at the HS and College level) than I used to. I really love the activity of debate, and the argumentative creativity being developed, but I'm slowly starting to grow hatred toward many of the attitudes people are adopting toward one another, which in turn results in me hating the activity a little more each day. I believe the foundational element of this activity is mutual respect amongst competitors and judges. Without this foundational element, the activity is doomed for the future.

As a result, I don't want to be a part of a debate unless the four debaters in the room really want me to be there and feel I will benefit them by judging their debate. I feel debate should be an inclusive environment and each student in the debate should feel comfortable debating in front of the judge assigned to them.

I also don’t want people to think this has to do with any single set of arguments being run. I really enjoy academic debates centered on discussions of the topic and/or resolution. However, I don’t prefer disregarding or disrespectful attitudes toward one another. This includes judges toward students, students toward judges, students toward observers, observers toward students, and most importantly students toward students.

As I grow older my tolerance for listening to disparaging, disregarding, and disrespectful comments from the participants has completely eroded. I'm not going to tolerate it anymore. I got way better things to do with my time than listen to someone talk down to me when I've not done the same to them. I treat everyone with respect and I demand the same in return. I think sometimes debaters, in the heat of competition, forget that even if a judge knows less about their lived/personal experience or hasn’t read as much of their literature as they have; the judges, for the most part, understand how argumentation operates and how debates are evaluated. Too many debaters want to rely on the pref sheet and use it to get judges who will automatically check-in, which is antithetical to debate education. Judges should and do vote for the "worse" or "less true" arguments in rounds when they were debated better. Debate is a performative/communicative activity. It's not about who wrote the best constructive only. It's about how teams clash throughout the debate.

Therefore, as a result, I will allow any person or team to ask me to conflict them if they feel uncomfortable debating in front of me or feel that the current system of judge placement requires them to prefer me since I'm a better fit than the other judge(s). I won't ask you any questions and won't even respond to the request beyond replying "request honored". Upon receiving the request I will go into my tabroom.com account and make sure I conflict you from future events. I feel this way you'll have a better chance at reducing the size of the judge pool and you'll get to remove a judge that you don't feel comfortable debating in front of which will narrow the number of judges available to you and might allow you to get more preferable judges. My email is brian.manuel@uky.edu. Please direct all conflict requests to this email.

2014-2015 Season Update: September 2, 2014 (The gift that keeps on giving!!)

The following are not for the faint of heart!

Some days you just can't get ready in the morning without being bothered. Then you just need to be cheered up and it fails or someone threatens to eat your phone.
However, when it's all said and done you can at least sleep having sweet dreams.

**On a more serious note. Dylan Quigley raised a point on the College Policy Debate Facebook group about what "competition" means when people are judging debates. Therefore, I'll go with this answer "Because this is an emerging debate with no clear consensus, I would encourage judges to let the debaters hash out a theory of competition instead of trying to create one for them. I think in an era where students are taking their power to mold the "world of debate" they debate in it is especially important for us judges to *listen* to their arguments and learn from their theories. No shade towards the original post, I just think it's worthwhile to emphasize the relationship between "new debate" (whatevs that is) and student's ability to create theories of debate on their own instead of choosing a theory that's imposed on them." However, in the absence of these debates happening in the round I will default to a traditional interpretation of "competition." This interpretation says the neg must prove their alternative method/advocacy is better than the affirmative method/advocacy or combination of the affirmatives method/advocacy and all or part of the negatives method/advocacy. Also in these situations, I'll default to a general theory of opportunity cost which includes the negative burden of proving the affirmative undesirable.

2013-2014 Season Update: December 25, 2013 (Yes, it's Christmas...so here are your presents!!)

If you love to debate as much as Sukhi loves these cups, please let it show!!

If you can mimic this stunt, you'll thoroughly impress me and be well rewarded: Sukhi Dance

And you thought you had a sick blog!!

Also, why cut cards when you can have sick Uke skills like these and these!!

To only be shown up by a 2-year-old killing it to Adele

Finally, we need to rock out of 2013 with the Stanford version of the Harlem Shake by Sukhi and KJaggz

2012-2013 Season Update: August 22, 2012

Instead of forcing you to read long diatribes (see below) about my feelings on arguments and debate practices. I will instead generate a list of things I believe about debate and their current practices. You can read this list and I believe you'll be able to adequately figure out where to place me on your preference sheet. If you'd like to read more about my feelings on debate, then continue below the fold! Have a great season.

1. TKO is still in play, and will always be that way!

2. You must win a link to a DA - if you don't talk about it I'm willing to assign it zero risk. Uniqueness doesn't mean there is a risk of a link.

2a. "Issue Specific Uniqueness" IS NOT a utopian answer to all affirmative arguments.

3. You must defend something on the aff - by doing so it also implies you should be able to defend your epistemological assumptions underlying that advocacy.

4. T is about reasonability, not competing interpretations. This doesn't mean every affirmative is reasonably topical.

5. Debate should be hard; it's what makes it fun and keeps us interested.

6. Research is good - it's rewarding, makes you smarter, and improves your arguments.

7. "Steal the entire affirmative" strategies are bad. However, affirmative teams are even worse at calling teams out on it. This means they are still very much in play. Therefore, affirmatives should learn how to defeat them, instead of just believing they'll somehow go away.

8. There are other parts to an argument other than the impact. You should try talking about them, I heard they're pretty cool.

9. Your affirmative should have advantages that are intrinsic to the mechanism you choose to defend with the aff. Refer to #6, it helps solve this dilemma.

10. Have fun and smile! The debaters, judges, and coaches in this activity are your lifelong friends and colleagues. We are all rooting you on to succeed. We all love the activity or we wouldn't be here. If you don't like something, don't hate the player, hate the game!

Clipping/Cross-reading/Mis-marking: I hear that this is coming back. To prosecute cheating, the accusing team needs hard evidence. A time trial is not hard evidence. A recording of the speech must be presented. I will stop the debate, listen to the recording, and compare it to the evidence read. If cheating occurred, the offending debater and their partner will receive zero speaker points and a loss. I'd also encourage them to quit. I consider this offense to be more serious than fabricating evidence. It is an honor system that strikes at the very core of what we do here.

An additional caveat that was discussed with me at a previous tournament - I believe that the status quo is always a logical option for the negative unless it is explicitly stated and agreed to in CX or it's won in a speech.

Newly Updated Philosophy - November 18, 2011

So after talking to Tim Aldrete at USC, he convinced me that I needed more carrots and fewer sticks in my philosophy. Therefore, I have a small carrot for those debaters who wish to invoke it. It's called a T.K.O (Technical Knockout). This basically means that at any point of the debate you believe you've solidly already won the debate, beyond a reasonable doubt, (dropped T argument, double turn, a strategic miscue that is irreparable by the other team) you can invoke a TKO and immediately end the debate. If a team chooses this path and succeeds, I will give them 30 speaker points each and an immediate win. If the team chooses to invoke this but it's unclear you've TKO'd the other team or in fact choose wrong, you obviously will lose and your points will be severely affected. Who dares to take the challenge?

Past Updated Philosophy - September 9, 2010

I am currently the Assistant Coach @ Lakeland/Panas High School, College Prep School, and Harvard Debate. I’m also involved with Research & Marketing for Planet Debate. This topic will be my 14th in competitive debate and 10th as a full-time coach. Debate is my full-time job and I love this activity pretty much more than anything I’ve ever done in my life. I enjoy the competition, the knowledge gained, and the people I’ve come to be friends with, and likewise I really enjoy people who have the same passion I have for this activity.

I last posted an update to my judge philosophy a number of years ago and think it is finally time I revisit it and make some changes.

First, I’ll be the first to admit that I probably haven’t been the best judge the last few years and I think a majority of that has come from pure exhaustion. I’ve been traveling upwards of 20+ weekends a year and am constantly working when I am home. I don’t get much time to re-charge my batteries before I’m off to another tournament. Then while at tournaments I’m usually putting in extremely late nights cutting cards and preparing my teams, which trades off with being adequately awake and tuned in. This year I’ve lessened my travel schedule and plan to be much better rested for debates than I was in previous years.

Second, since my earlier days of coaching/judging, my ideology about debate has changed somewhat. This new ideology will tend to complement hard-working teams and disadvantage lazy teams who try and get by with the same generics being run every debate. Don’t let this frighten you, but rather encourage you to become more involved in developing positions and arguments. When this happens I’m overly delighted and reward you with higher speaker points and more than likely a victory.

I have limited experience judging debate but I really enjoy PF. Please speak at a pace that I will be able to write down and understand your arguments! Honestly, I'm looking for quality over quantity.

PF Judging:

Prefer a more lay approach to a highly technical one, but I'll follow either because ultimately, what I am looking for is for you to present an argument that is fully developed with claims + warrants that can be analyzed & weighed. When I say lay, I really mean a big picture understanding of the round as opposed to strictly line-by-line. Tell me why you are winning the most important argument in the round.

I'll judge the round on what you provide, but please make this a good round by providing effective impacts + warrants that are accurate and reflective of the evidence. Evidence should support your analytical claims, not serve as entire placeholders for argumentation.

Your case is not perfect. Neither is your opponent's case. Provide a weighing mechanism to judge the most important argument(s).

Disclosing is good. You make my round/flow much easier by providing your case beforehand. You can share it with me at aaron.markham@duchesne.org +.5 speaks for doing so.

Use evidence truthfully. If you are abusing the intent or meaning of the author of a piece of evidence, or you cannot provide an accurate card in a reasonable time, I consider that a violation of the overall educational pursuit of this format. I will vote you down.

IE: (less experience here than the debate side, but I do truly love these events and the possibilities they offer...)

Looking for an authentic delivery of a purposeful speech that is meaningful to you. By that, I'm not looking specific speech "checklist/tropes" but a speech that I can connect with through your delivery and overall structure. Your speech should be organized, logical, and purposeful. I should clearly see warrants/citations and be able to follow your argument and impacts in OO, or believe your characters/structure/editing choices in Interp as meaningful and deliberate, or any other mechanism that allows me to see your best abilities as a speaker and performer that can connect with the audience in the same "meaningful and deliberate" manner as you approached your IE.

Love to be on the chain.... sfadebate@gmail.com

LD---TOC---2024

I'm a traditional leaning policy judge – No particular like/dislike for the Value/Criterion or Meta-Ethic/Standard structure for framework just make sure everything is substantially justified, not tons of blippy framework justifications.

Disads — Link extensions should be thorough, not just two words with an author name. I'm a sucker for good uniqueness debates, especially on a topic where things are changing constantly.

Counterplans — Counterplans should be textually and functionally competitive but I'm willing to change my mind if competition evidence is solid. I love impact/nb turns and think they should be utilized more. Not a fan of ‘intrinsic perms’.

Kritiks — I default to letting the aff weigh case but i'm more than willing to change my mind given a good framework/link push from the negative. I’m most familiar with: Cap, Biopolitics, Nietzsche, and Security. I'm fine voting for other lit bases but my threshold is higher especially for IdPol, SetCol, and High Theory. Not a fan of Baudrillard but will vote on it if it is done well.

K Affs — I'm probably 40/60 on T. If a K aff has a well explained thesis and good answers to presumption I am more than willing to vote on it. A trend I see is many negative debaters blankly extending fairness and clash arguments without substantial policymaking/debate good evidence. I default to thinking debate and policymaking are good but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise absent a compelling 2NR.

Topicality — Big fan of good T debates, really dislike bad T debates. I don't like when teams read contradictory interps in the 1NC, you should have good T evidence, and I like a good caselist. Preferably the whole 2NR is T.

Theory — Not a fan of frivolous shells but i'm willing to be convinced on any interp given a good explanation of the abuse story. I default to In-round-abuse, reasonability, and have a high threshold for RVIs.

Phil — As an Ex-Policy Debater, my knowledge here is very limited. I'm willing to vote on it if it's very well warranted and clearly winning on the flow. But in a relatively equal debate I think I will always default to Util.

Tricks — Don't

edited for LD 2022-3

I have not judged a lot of LD recently. I more than likely have not heard the authors you are talking about please make sure you explain them along with your line by line. Long overviews are kind of silly and argumentation on the line by line is a better place for things Overview doesn't mean I will automatically put your overview to it. If you run tricks I am really not your judge. I think they are silly and will probably not vote for them. I have a high threshold for voting on theory arguments either way.

edited for Congress

Speak clearly and passionately. I hate rehash, so if you bring in new evidence and clash you will go farther in the round than having a structured speech halfway to late in debate. I appreciate speakers that keep the judges and audience engaged, so vocal patterns and eye contact matter. The most important thing to me is accurate and well developed arguments and thoughtful questions. For presiding officer: run a tight ship. Be quick, efficient, fair, and keep accurate precedents and recency. This is congressional debate, not congressional speech giving, so having healthy debate and competition is necessary. Being disrespectful in round will get you no where with me, so make sure to respect everyone in the room at all times.

Edited 20-21

Don't ask about speaks you should be more concerned with how to do better in the future. If you ask I will go back and dock your speaks at least 2 points.

Edited for WSD Nats 2020

Examples of your arguments will be infinitely more persuasive than analogies. Please weigh your arguments as it is appropriate. Be nice, there is a difference between arrogance and excellence

Edited for PF 2018-9

I have been judging for 20 years any numerous debate events. Please be clear; the better your internal link chain the better you will do. I am not a big fan of evidence paraphrasing. I would rather hear the authors words not your interpretation of them. Make sure you do more than weighing in the last two speeches. Please make comparison in your arguments and evidence. Dont go for everything. I usually live in an offense defense world there is almost always some risk of a link. Be nice if you dont it will affect your speaks

Edited for 2014-15 Topic
I will listen to just about any debate but if there isnt any articulation of what is happening and what jargon means then I will probably ignore your arguments. You can yell at me but I warned you. I am old and crotchety and I shouldn't have to work that hard.

CXphilosophy = As a preface to the picky stuff, I'd like to make a few more general comments first. To begin with, I will listen to just about any debate there is out there. I enjoy both policy and kritik debates. I find value in both styles of debate, and I am willing to adapt to that style. Second, have fun. If you're bored, I'm probably real bored. So enjoy yourself. Third, I'm ok with fast debates. It would be rare for you to completely lose me, however, you spew 5 minutes of blocks on theorical arguments I wont have the warrants down on paper and it will probably not be good for you when you ask me to vote on it. There is one thing I consider mandatory: Be Clear. As a luxury: try to slow down just a bit on a big analytical debate to give me pen time. Evidence analysis is your job, and it puts me in a weird situation to articulate things for you. I will read evidence after many rounds, just to make sure I know which are the most important so I can prioritize. Too many teams can't dissect the Mead card, but an impact takeout is just that. But please do it all the way- explain why these arguments aren't true or do not explain the current situation. Now the picky stuff:

Affs I prefer affs with plan texts. If you are running a critical aff please make sure I understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Using the jargon of your authors without explaining what you are doing won't help me vote for you.

Topicality and Theory- Although I certainly believe in the value of both and that it has merit, I am frustrated with teams who refuse to go for anything else. To me, Topicality is a check on the fringe, however to win a procedural argument in front of me you need specific in round abuse and I want you to figure out how this translates into me voting for you. Although I feel that scenarios of potential abuse are usually not true, I will vote for it if it is a conceded or hardly argued framework or if you can describe exactly how a topic or debate round would look like under your interpretation and why you have any right to those arguments. I believe in the common law tradition of innocence until proven guilty: My bias is to err Aff on T and Negative on Theory, until persuaded otherwise.

Disads- I think that the link debate is really the most significant. Im usually willing to grant negative teams a risk of an impact should they win a link, but much more demanding linkwise. I think uniqueness is important but Im rarely a stickler for dates, within reason- if the warrants are there that's all you need. Negatives should do their best to provide some story which places the affirmative in the context of their disads. They often get away with overly generic arguments. Im not dissing them- Reading the Ornstein card is sweet- but extrapolate the specifics out of that for the plan, rather than leaving it vague.

Counterplans- The most underrated argument in debate. Many debaters don't know the strategic gold these arguments are. Most affirmatives get stuck making terrible permutations, which is good if you neg. If you are aff in this debate and there is a CP, make a worthwhile permutation, not just "Do Both" That has very little meaning. Solvency debates are tricky. I need the aff team to quantify a solvency deficit and debate the warrants to each actor, the degree and necessity of consultation, etc.

Kritiks- On the aff, taking care of the framework is an obvious must. You just need good defense to the Alternative- other than that, see the disad comments about Link debates. Negatives, I'd like so practical application of the link and alternative articulated. What does it mean to say that the aff is "biopolitical" or "capitalist"? A discussion of the aff's place within those systems is important. Second, some judges are picky about "rethink" alternatives- Im really not provided you can describe a way that it could be implemented. Can only policymakers change? how might social movements form as a result of this? I generally think its false and strategically bad to leave it at "the people in this debate"- find a way to get something changed. I will also admit that at the time being, Im not as well read as I should be. I'm also a teacher so I've had other priorities as far as literature goes. Don't assume I've read the authors you have.

cale@victorybriefs.com or SpeechDrop work

hi! i'm Cale. i've been coaching and judging pf & ld for 8 years. i debated in Texas before that.

general:

- read whatever you like: judging debaters who enjoy what they read is fun. however, keep in mind the coherence of my rfd will scale with your clarity- slow for analytics and tags, send well-organized docs, signpost, and number answers when you can. you'll be much happier with my decision.

- speaks reflect how strategic i found your debating to be. i'll evaluate any style, but admittedly prefer quick, clear debaters that read interesting arguments. (no 30 speaks spike or tko, please)

- i will not 'gut check' or strike an argument just because you've deemed it unwarranted or silly. instead, i encourage you to make an active response- it should be quick to do so if the argument is as underdeveloped as you say.

- extend your arguments. it doesn't have to be exhaustive, but something more than the tag is necessary, even if you think it's conceded.

- keep the round a safe and pleasant place for everyone. i will work hard to give you a thorough decision so long as we can all access the debate and speak about it afterwards without hostility.

- i am not going to use my ballot to make an out-of-round character judgement. if you are concerned your opponent is engaging in genuinely unsafe or violent behavior, a debate decision is not the appropriate means of redress- i will bring it to tab or the relevant party.

ld:

overall- i am best for policy debates, good for theory, worse for phil, and alright for Ks and tricks with some caveats (see below). ultimately, i'd like to judge your preferred strategy, but you will need to be more clear if it's something i'm typically not preffed into the back of. i am only human.

policy- i'll judge kick the counterplan. i lean neg on cp theory claims, and wish the aff would engage in a competition debate rather than read a blippy theory argument, particularly when the 1n is only like 3 off. i am good for your process/consult/intl fiat/etc cp, and, again, wish 1ars would just engage- if you are convinced there is not a discernable net benefit, the argument should be easier to answer. 3 word perms aren't arguments- explain the world of the perm. zero risk exists, and while it is difficult to achieve, it is entirely possible to make an argument's implication so marginal that its functional weight in the round is zero. i really appreciate well-executed impact turn debates, some of my favorite rounds to judge.

theory- no defaults, read w/e you want. always send interps and slow for anything you extemp. far too often in these debates there's no weighing or line by line done on paradigm issues: the 1n reads their theory hedge and vaguely crossapplies it to the 1ac underview, and then all of these arguments just float around in the 1ar and 2n without resolution- please lbl to make judging this tolerable. when going for T, keep in mind i do not actively cut LD prep or mine the wiki, so i don't have a reference point for your caselist or prep-based limits standard- add some explanation.

K- i frequently judge cap arguments, and often judge setcol. external to that, i'm much less experienced- happy to judge it, but i need instruction. please lbl clearly: i find myself most lost in k 2n/2ars when the overview is jargon-heavy and crossapplied everywhere. it is probably useful to know i can count on one hand the number of K v K debates i've been in the back of.

tricks- i often judge truth testing and skep and their associated tricks, but i don't have a deep enough understanding of the argument form to say i'm 10/10 comfortable if you read a nailbomb aff or a bunch of indexicals. in general, delineate in the doc and cross, be super clear abt the collapse strat, and i can vote for these.

phil- i have next to no experience with phil argumentation save for Kant tricks and some pomo (mostly just Baudrillard). need you to slow down and give me extra judge instruction if you're reading anything dense, but happy to learn.

pf:

extend defense the speech after it's answered and be comparative when you're weighing or going for a fw argument. otherwise, read what you think is fun- this includes theory, critical arguments, and other forms less common to PF. two things to add here: 1. don't read an argument just for the sake of it, read it well and 2. i am not amenable to the PF-style 'this argument form is holistically bad' response if we are in the varsity division- engage with substantive responses.

come to round ready to debate (pre-flowed, have docs ready if you're sending them, etc). the only way to frustrate me beyond being rude is to drag out the round by individually calling for a lot of evidence and taking forever to send it.

many PFers spend copious amounts of time impact weighing with multiple mechanisms. more often than not, you are better served reading one simple piece of weighing and investing that time elsewhere- either in more clearly frontlining and extending your case argument, or better implicating a piece of defense or turn on your opponents' case.

Hi

Did PF for 4 years at King High School, now attending Emory University in ATL.

Please add me to the email chain/google doc (I prefer google doc): Khem6th@gmail.com

If both teams agree, I will give 45 seconds of prep time instead of grand cross (taken simultaneously by both teams after summary, does not get added to individual team prep time).

Feel free to postround me, I don't really mind since it makes me a better judge and my decisions more clear. My decision, as written, will not change.

Pretty standard PF flow:

- Warranting is big important – cards shouldn’t do all your work

- Second speaking team should at least frontline turns in rebuttal, I will put less weight on new frontlines made to defense in Second Summary (meaning a blippy response/backline in final by 1st speaking team will be adequate)

- Anything in Final has to be in Summary, except weighing for either team and unresponded defense for 1st speaking team

- I will only vote on things that make it into final focus, I work backwards on my flow

- If there's no ink on the link chain, you can use blips to extend it in final focus, but try to keep it cohesive in summary.

- Please collapse

- Explicit weighing (jargon) and explanations of mechanisms

- I prefer more probable, low severity impacts over less probable, high severity impacts – the best thing you can do is provide historical examples

- Speed: I prefer well-warranted, conversation-paced debate. If you are to go fast, keep in mind that I flow on my computer and can type like max 80wpm when I have text in front of me, so don’t go mad fast else I’ll miss stuff

- I will vote on the easiest path to the ballot

- I do not care about cross, make it fun, anybody can talk if they want to

-"Are you tech over truth?" - to some extent, I will evaluate an argument I know to be false if its not responded to but this doesn't mean that you should skip warranting just cause its on the flow. Like other judges, my threshold for quality of responses goes down the more out-there an argument is.

Progressive arguments:

- General:

I do not have a lot of experience with progressive argumentation (this means probably argue util for a better ballot). If you want me to vote on progressive arguments, please give me explicit explanation of what the link is and good explanation of why the impact comes first. I don’t really like unwarranted “moral duty” arguments but warranted and explained moral weighing is fine.

- Kritiks:

With Kritiks, I have little experience with them as well – if you want me to vote on a Kritik, I need really defined role of the ballot arguments of why my vote makes a structural change. I don’t understand a lot of K lit so please make it as if you were talking to a friend of why something in the system needs to change and less like you’re in front of a well-versed policy debater.

- Theory:

I have a little more experience with theory than general progressive args and Kritiks, but normative arguments need very good Standards and Voters/Impact for me to vote on it – I generally like undisclosed, paraphrased (heathen statement right?) PF but I’m open to good arguments on that or on other norms. Also, I do need you to go slower and present an actual flowable shell.

Evidence Ethics:

Please do not take any longer than a minute to find a piece of evidence, and if you are having technical issues finding a card please just say so.

Evidence should not be misrepresented, whether its cut or paraphrased. I will read evidence as its written, not how its cut or tagged, even if it’s not brought up by your opponents – I think it encourages lazy research practices and abuse of PF rules.

This being said, I likely won't call for a card unless it is a) pivotal in my decision, b) its veracity is contested and important, or c) if both teams read opposing evidence and none gives a warrant of why their's is better

Speaks:

- I think speaks should be based off the pool, so no set rules on scale

- If you make the round fun for me to judge, or if I laugh, you and everybody else in the round will probably get higher speaks

- I don't listen to cross, so do whatever you want really

- I appreciate competitors being nice to each other and friendly, it makes the activity more fun for everyone. This event, though competitive, should support a learning environment with a community so treat your opponents like you would your friends in conversation :)

Misc:

I don't have an onboard camera for my computer, and its a hassle for me to use the usb plugin one. I likely won't have my camera on.

Yall gotta rock with the oral rfd ❗️❗️

I debated for four years at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, Texas and am currently a sophomore* at Duke.

Feel free to ask questions before the round

Just some basic preferences:

-I have a pretty high threshold for extensions. It's not enough just to spend 2 seconds on a frontline; you also need to properly extend the actual argument you're trying to access if you're planning on carrying it through to the end of the round.

-Summary and final focus should mirror each other. It's a lot harder to get my vote when your strategy is different from your partner's in the later speeches.

-Second rebuttal should respond to the offense out of the first.

-You can read quickly if you want to, but I can't guarantee that I'll get all of it. I don't think debate should be all that fast anyways.

-In terms of progressive debate (theory, Ks, etc.): Honestly, I had very little experience with technical debate in high school so I don't think I'd be particularly great at evaluating it, but it's ultimately up to you to decide what you want to do to win the round.

-Please don't call me judge. I hate that. Also, I'm not going to shake your hand.

Be nice to each other, and try to have fun. I REALLY don't like when debaters take rounds too seriously to where they become rude. It's not that deep. I promise.

Hello, I am a parent judge.

Here is my judging philosophy:

I believe that debating is a life long skill, and I want to see some of the attributes I appreciate in the round.

First, speaking with clarity, confidence, and consistent speed. Be dynamic in your speeches, and emphasize major parts. I also appreciate quick thinking, teamwork, research, preparedness. I want to see your team try to lead the debate and be ahead perceptually.

At the end of the round, I believe that focusing on a few arguments is better than reading many arguments. I really appreciate all the hard work! I am excited to judge your round.

Best of luck!

Affiliations: Madison West, Verona Area HS.

PF Paradigm:

12/3/2020 update: My bar for dropping a team for cheating is fairly low. If your opponents are misconstruing evidence and you want to stake the round on it, a useful phrase to know is: "I am making a formal evidence challenge under NSDA rule 7.3.C., for distortion of evidence. We are stopping the round and staking the round's outcome on the result of this formal evidence violation."

No off-time roadmaps. Period. Signpost instead. I will start the clock when you start roadmapping.

Online debate: Before the round starts, there should be a Google Doc (preferred instead of email) with all debaters and judges on it. You should be prepared to add any evidence you read to that Doc in a carded format -- I am receptive to drop-the-argument theory if evidence isn't accessible to your opponents in round.

I time prep meticulously because prep theft is rampant in PF. If a card is requested, teams have 60 seconds to find the card and add it to the file sharing mechanism of the round -- anything beyond that comes out of the prep time of the team that can't find their own evidence. If evidence can't be found, there needs to be an argument made in a speech to drop it (eg. "Drop their argument because they could not share the supporting evidence: we were not given a fair chance to review and dispute its claims."). Discuss and review evidence during cross-x time whenever possible.

If both teams agree to it before the round, and the tournament doesn't explicitly disallow it, I am fine with waiving Grand Cross and granting both teams an additional minute of prep time.

Clash as soon as you are given the opportunity.

• Plans and fiat are educational.

• If it's not in the final focus, it's not going to win you the round.

• I appreciate effective crossfire, and will listen to it, however I don't flow it unless you explicitly tell me to write something down by looking at me and saying "write that down".

• I am inclined to reward good communication with speaker points and a mind more receptive to your arguments.

• Outside of the fact that the 2nd overall speech is expected to just read case (though I'm open to teams rejecting this norm), I expect coverage of both sides of the flow starting with the 2nd rebuttal (4th overall speech). The 1st rebuttal (3rd overall speech) doesn't need to extend case -- they just need to refute the opposing case.

• Exception to the above: Framework. If you're speaking second, don't wait until 15 minutes into the round to tell me your framework. You're obligated to make framework arguments in case.

• I am very likely not the judge you want if you're running a non-canonical PF strategy, like a "kritik".

• I don't give weight to any argument labeled as an "overview". Overviews are heuristic explanations to help me make sense of the round.

If you start your speech by saying "3-2-1", I will say "Blastoff"! "3-2-1" is not necessary!

POLICY (AND SOMETIMES PARLIAMENTARY) DEBATE PARADIGM

NSDA 2021: I have judged ZERO rounds on this topic. The last policy judging I did was at NCFL 2019. I will not know the jargon or meta of this topic.

Judging circuit policy debate is generally an unpleasant experience for me, mainly because of speed. However, lay-oriented CX debate is easily my favorite event.

General Overview:

• Default to Policymaker paradigm. The one major difference is that you should always assume that I am very dumb. Call it the 'stupid President' paradigm.
• You're welcome to run non-traditional positions (K's included) IF you keep them to a conversational pace (We're talking Public Forum slow here) and explain why it means I vote for you.
• I have a mock trial background and I LOVE clever cross-x. However, I do expect closed cross-x: one person per team speaking!
• I don't open speech docs except to review specific pieces of evidence that have been indicted.

Presentation Preferences:

• <230 wpm, non-negotiable. Slow down for taglines, plantexts, and important quotes from the evidence.
• I generally prefer debates I'd be able to show to a school administrator and have them be impressed by the activity rather than offended or scared.
• I am inclined to give bonus speaker points if I see an effort to "read me" as a judge, even if you read me wrong. Cite my paradigm if you need to. Learning to figure out your audience is a crucial life skill. On a related note: if you use the secret word 'whiplash' in your speech, I will give you and your partner 0.3 extra speaker points, since it means you read my philosophy thoroughly. This applies to LD and PF, too.

Argumentation Preferences:

• I like smart counterplans that discuss technical details.
• Theory/K's should be impacted more than just saying "voter for fairness and education".

LD DEBATE PARADIGM

General Overview:

Speed-reading (spreading) is embarrassing. I want to sell school administrators on this activity.

My default stance is to vote based on the "truth" of the resolution, but you can propose alternative frameworks.

I have no K background. For Ks/nontraditional arguments, go slowly and explain thoroughly. Explain either how the K proves/disproves the resolution, or offer a compelling alternative ROTB.

Disclosure theory is exclusionary/bad, but disclosed positions get more leeway on certain T standards.

Presentation Preferences:

• Number your refutations.
• Use cross-ex effectively -- the goal is to get concessions that can be used in speeches.
• Present charismatically, make me want to vote for you as a communicator (though I vote off the flow).

Argumentation Preferences:

• Give me voter issues -- the big ballot stories of the round. Go big picture and frame how I'm supposed to look at issues.
• Philosophical "evidence" means very little to me. A professor from Stanford making a specific analytical claim is functionally the same as you making that argument directly.
• I'm bad at flowing authors and try to get the concepts down in as much detail as possible instead. For philosophical arguments, I generally prefer clearly explained logic over hastily-read cards. However, evidence related to quantitative things should be cited because those studies are highly dependent on precision/accuracy and are backed up empirically.

I did PF in high school and I am now a senior in college, do with that information what you will. Please add mirandahopenutt@gmail.com and maristpublicforum@gmail.com to the email chain. This should be started in the tech time. Please include at least the cases and call the email chain something like "Grapevine Round 1 - Marist VL vs Marist HN."

The basics:

- I hate paraphrasing, please cut cards. I think it's bad for the activity, 9/10 times is misrepresentation, and high schoolers are less informed than the academics they are citing. I won't drop you for paraphrasing, but please make it abundantly clear where you pulled your argument from the text. (If it is clear, you could have saved yourself and everyone else a whole lot of time by just reading the card in the first place)

- I will vote on the most cleanly extended and well weighed argument in the round.

- Respond to first rebuttal in second rebuttal please (your speaker points will reflect whether you did). I will not evaluate new defense in second summary on offense dropped by the second rebuttal.

- Make sure your extensions of arguments are extensions of the entire argument. Saying "extend the Jones '12 turn" in summary is not sufficient for you to go for that turn in final focus, for example.

- I will evaluate theory, k's, etc., but I prefer debates on the topic. This is simply because I feel that I am much better at judging debates on the topic. So, if you choose to read these arguments go for it, but understand that I need you to explain exactly how they should influence my ballot.

hi! I did PF in high school. Here's some things about my judging.

1. Do whatever you want. I suggest you frontline in second rebuttal, but I don't really care. Just don't be racist, sexist, or otherwise problematic.

2. I want to make the debate as accessible and fun as possible. If there's anything you want to try or that you've seen in other rounds or in other people's paradigms that seems fun, we can try it as long as your opponents are okay with it.

3. My knowledge of K lit is very limited. I'm down to judge a K round but act like I don't know anything.

4. Debate is meant to be a communication activity. While I will judge any style of debating, I will give speaker points based on your communication skills. I will only vote for an argument if it’s warrant is clearly extended. It’s your job to make sure I catch everything you want me to flow throughout the round.

5. If you think I made a bad decision or just have questions, please feel free to ask me after the round (just don't be too aggressive). I'd rather have a discussion than have you walking away feeling unsatisfied.

Also please weigh. Please. Feel free to ask me any other questions!

Debate Voting:

I judge based on flow with weightage in rebuttals and how you protect your arguments against opponent rebuttals. I judge unbiased and according to the debate rules.

Speaker Points:

Presentation of constructive pro and con arguments is prepared speech and it establishes base for speaker points. Good presentation of Rebuttal and summary speeches which are not prepared ahead will push speaker points higher.

Judging History:

SCU Dempsey Cronin Invitational 2019 Varsity Public Forum

Stephen Stewart Middle and High School Invitational at Milpitas 2019 Varsity Public Forum

Georgiana Hays Invitational 2019 Varsity Public Forum

Cal Invitational UC Berkeley 2019 Varsity Public Forum

33rd Annual Stanford Invitational 2019 Varsity Public Forum

SCU Dempsey Cronin Invitational 2018 JV Public Forum

32nd Annual Stanford Invitational 2018 JV Public Forum

Middle School Speech and Debate Fall Classic 2017 Public Forum

Stephen Stewart Middle and High School Invitational at Milpitas 2017 Public Forum

Background

***Please add me to the email chain. My email is conradpalor@gmail.com. I flow debater's speech performances and not docs, but may read evidence after speeches.

For LD/CX

General

I try to be as tab as possible and encourage debaters to read the arguments they would like to run and I'm happy to adjudicate the debate as such. With that said, I recognize judge's often have preconceived conceptions of arguments so I've summarized some thoughts below.

DAs

- Fine with most DAs. If reading any politics DAs, I think link specificity to the affirmative is key as opposed to generic Link evidence.

K

- I’m fine with Kritikal affirmatives, however, I am also happy to vote on framework. TVA’s are pretty important to me and should be an integral part of any negative strategy, and, conversely, I think the affirmative should have a clear explanation why there’s no possible topical version of their aff. I generally prefer Affs that are in the direction of the topic, but this will not impact my decision if clear framing arguments are presented otherwise. I also am generally persuaded by the argument that the affirmative should not get a permutation in a methods debate, but am open to arguments otherwise.

CPs

- I’m fine with most counter plans although I am of the belief that the CP should have a solvency advocate

- I default to the belief that counterplans should be both functionally and textually competitive with the AFF.

- I default to perms are test of competition not advocacies

T/Theory

- I feel comfortable evaluating theory debates and default to competing interpretations and drop the debater on theory. I generally want clear explanations of in round abuse as opposed to potential abuse.

- I generally don’t like frivolous theory, but I’m happy to vote on any argument that was not properly answered in the debate.

- I generally think RVIs are bad in most debate forms, but I do acknowledge the unique time constraints of high school LD so I would vote off of this argument if well warranted.

PF

- I take a tabula rasa approach to judging. I try to keep my evaluation exclusively to the flow. I'll pick up the worse argument if it's won on the flow. I recognize a certain degree of judge intervention is inevitable so here is generally how I prioritize arguments in order. In-round weighing of arguments combined with strength of link, conceded arguments, and absent explicit weighing I default to arguments with substantive warranted analysis.

-I strongly encourage debaters to cut cards as opposed to hyperlinking a google doc. Cutting cards encourages good research skills and prevents egregious miscutting of evidence.

-Please extend author last name and year in the back half of the ro und. It makes it difficult to flow if you are not properly extending evidence. With that said, I strongly value evidence comparison

- In-round framing and explanation of arguments are pretty important for me. While I will vote for blippier/less developed arguments if they’re won, I definitely have a higher threshold for winning arguments if I feel that they weren’t sufficiently understandable in first reading, and I'm open to newish responses in summary and final focus to these arguments if I deem they were unintelligible in their first reading

- Please collapse

- Defense should be extended in both summary speeches if you want to go for it in the final focus

- Speak as fast as you want. I will yell clear if I can't flow what you are saying

- Speaker points are mine. I use them to indicate how good I think debaters are in a particular round

Theory and Procedurals

- I feel comfortable evaluating theory debates, and am more than happy to vote on procedural or theory arguments in public forum.

- I default to competing interpretations and drop the team on theory, but I'm open to arguments on both sides.

- I think theory arguments are theoretically legitimate and should play a role in public forum debate. As such, I have a high threshold for voting on "theory bad for public forum debate" arguments.

-You are welcome to ask questions after the round, and I think it's a constructive part of debate. Please note, I will not tolerate disrespect and if you become hostile to the point where you're not seeking constructive feedback I reserve the right to lower speaker points after the round

I like to be a "blank slate" judge. I want both teams to make arguments which are supported with evidence, and weighed and extended well. The cards should make sense, and should have logical impacts: the teams should NOT just be reading out the card but explaining and impacting it as well.

I am a lay judge, and I have little experience judging PF. Make sure to explain your arguments clearly with supporting evidence. Be respectful to your opponents, and have fun!

I did 2 years of circuit debate pretty competitively.

I try to be flow, only two things kinda different about me:

1. Terminal defense exists to infinity. If you never frontline an argument your opponents defensive ink still exists on my flow. Them not extending responses is not an excuse. Extensions of terminal defense are never necessary, just appreciated. You will never win an argument if defense against it is dropped.

2. I care more about warrants than impacts. Weighing an impact is irrelevant at the point that you do not win the links into the impact. If there is clash at the warrant level make sure to weigh links and actually explain to me why your warrant should be preferred to that of your opponents.

I'll evaluate any claim backed up in evidence or logic, run crazy shit, it's fun

I am a lay judge.

I am inexperienced with debate. Please make clear arguments and logically explain the things you say. I'm probably going to side with you more if you are backing your claims with reasoning as opposed to just reading card names.

Also: sign my ballot for me. Explain why you should be winning off of an argument or why it matters in terms a layperson can understand.

In short: make the round clear and understandable and you will probably be winning.

I competed in Public Forum debate for four years.

Pronouns: She/Her

• Tech>>Truth
• Quality >> Quantity
• I prefer that you frontline in second rebuttal and I think it is strategic. At least, respond to any turns.
• Any offense you want me to evaluate must be in summary. I will not evaluate any new extensions/arguments past summary. I prefer that important defense is in summary as well.
• Make sure all of your extensions/arguments are well warranted. I will buy any logical response if it is well-warranted.
• I’m not super familiar with progressive arguments so if you choose to read one, you really need to break down the argument for me and explain why it matters (more than you would normally). I will try my best to evaluate it! Please do not read these arguments if your opponent is clearly uncomfortable with it.
• If I cannot understand something/ it is too fast, I will not evaluate it so be clear. Especially with online debate, I think that going slower is easier to follow.
• Please give me some good comparative weighing otherwise I will have to intervene and I really do not want to do that. Start weighing as early as possible in the round!!
• My speaks are decent (28-30) unless you are offensive/rude.
• I prefer not to call for evidence because I think that it promotes judge intervention. If you really want me to look at evidence, make sure you explicitly tell me to and explain why in speech.
• Feel free to ask me any questions before round!!

I debated for three years in Public Forum at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Massachusetts.

General Stuff:

• I am fine with most speeds. However, I definitely prefer the round to go at a moderate pace and I will not tolerate spreading.

• I like to think that I am tech>truth. That said, there is an inherent tradeoff with my threshold for responses on ridiculous arguments.

• You do not need defense in the first summary unless the second rebuttal frontlines.

• I do not think progressive arguments (Theory, K, Breaking Speech Times/Meta, etc.) belong in PF so I will not judge those types of rounds. On the other hand, if there is some outrageous violation, warrant the issues in a speech and I will probably give some credence to it if it is true. Just don't read like a full-blown shell on me.

• I default Neg but am willing to hear warranted arguments about why I should presume the first speaking team.

Things I Like:

• Although I do not require it, I love it when teams frontline efficiently in the second rebuttal. I think it is strategic to do so and it makes for a better debate.

• I will always prefer smart analytics over unwarranted cards. If you read some nuke war scenario and your opponents question why war has never occurred it is not enough for you to just drop evidence and say it post dates. Interact with the warrants and show me why your side is stronger.

• Weighing is super important for my ballot. If you do not show me why your arguments matter more than your opponents I will not know how to vote and I might make some heinous decisions.

• I also believe that weighing comes in tiers: you need to have a certain amount of probability your impact happens before you access the other layers of weighing like magnitude, timeframe, etc.

• I also love teams who use impact clarity well! Use it correctly, I often see this "weighing" mechanism done poorly.

Things I Do Not Like:

• I do not like second rebuttal offensive overviews or new contentions. I will evaluate the arguments but I will have a super low threshold for responses and your speaks will likely reflect this.

• A lot of teams think that if they frontline case then that just counts as an extension of it. I do not believe this is true. I prefer that there are explicit extensions made and I will not flow through arguments without good extensions.

• If you are blatantly racist, ableist, homophobic, sexist, etc. to either your opponents or within your argumentation, I will hand you an L and tank your speaks. Strike me if that's an issue.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me before the round starts.

Hello,

My name is Archana Rao. I have judged about 3 tournaments and at least about 8 rounds of PF debate so far. I am a lay judge.

I prefer the candidates speak clearly and slowly

I am looking for good data to support the pro and con stances

Good understanding of the stance by both participants and team effort is a big plus

When a team makes an effort to completely understand and then refute the opposition, bonus marks

Have a clear structure to the argument and following through very advantageous

Please give a roadmap before your speeches, and signpost during your speeches so I know where to mark and to flow your speeches.

Overall, structure your speeches in a way where I can easily understand whats going so I can judge your rounds easily.

And most importantly, have fun.

Best of luck,

Archana Rao

Hello! I coached as an assistant 10 years ago under a Double-Diamond Coach and recently returned to coaching again at West High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. You are more than welcome to share your preferred pronouns before round, but only if you are comfortable doing so :)

My main, most important judging philosophy beliefs:

· Please signpost - it makes it much easier to flow.

· I'm not opposed to critical arguments, but keep them accessible to people who aren't terribly familiar with K debate or literature.

· I'll weigh the impact. Make it clear. Traditional mentality but understands progressive.

· I probably won't understand your arguments if you're not consistent with your warranting.

· Offense must be in summary and final focus.

· IN Public Forum or Lincoln Douglas, I PREFER THAT YOU ACTUALLY READ EVIDENCE THAN JUST PARAPHRASING. I guess what I am saying is that it is hard to trust your analysis of the evidence. The rounds have a flavor of Parliamentary Debate. Giving your opponent the entire article and expecting them to extract the authors intent is difficult. Having an actual card is key. If I call for a site, I do not want the article, I want the card. You should only show me the card, or the paragraph that makes your article.

· This is not grounds for teams to think this means run PARAPHRASE Theory as a voter. Proliferation of procedural issues is not what this particular event is designed to do. You can go for it, but probability of me voting for it is low.

· This should go without saying, but ANY racist, homophobic, sexist or hateful comments or arguments will not only hurt your speaker points SEVERELY, you most likely can expect to lose.

· Just because you don’t have a carded response to something your opponent said does not mean you cannot have a decent analytical response. I’ll listen to those analytical responses over any crappy card.

· Please, warrant your responses. Tell me WHY a study concludes something, don’t just give me their results. Good warrants go with good arguments.

How I determine speaker points:

· Not abusing prep time and being ready to debate quickly before round will improve your points.

· Doing weighing, collapsing, and warranting effectively is the best and easiest way to get high speaks with me in the back of the room.

· I won’t be listening to cross ex, so if you are being rude enough to warrant my attention, your speaker points will reflect that.

Other parts of my paradigm that are slightly more technical:

· Theory (for me) in PF is fine. You should only be using this if your opponent does something egregiously unfair and not to fill up time or show me that you did LD/Policy. If you do read theory, you should only be going for that and it’s your burden to prove how your opponent framed you out of the debate.

· Speed is fine. If I can’t understand you, then you should slow down. I am a new hearing aid wearer and ambient noise will make it difficult for me to concentrate on what you are saying if you are speaking too quickly.

· Road maps should be concise, you’re telling me what sheets I should start on, not making arguments.

· Terminal defense does not need to be extended in first summary for it to be in final focus, unless second speaking rebuttal responded to it. I will be more likely to weight defense of it is in both first summary and final focus, but it’s not required.

Email: aas363@cornell.edu

do whatever you want

SAFETY NOTE:

Safety comes first. If the round becomes unsafe for you or your partner and you are not comfortable voicing your concerns in the round, please email or FB message me immediately. I want all debaters to know that I am an adult you can trust in this space. I will do as much as I can to protect you and keep this activity safe for you.

I debated for Bronx Science for (almost) four years, and I'm now at NYU Tisch studying Drama. I'm a technical judge, but lay debate is perfectly fine for me! For more specifics:

For starters, disclose your case and speech docs to me at sarmad@bxscience.edu. I have autism, processing info can be hard, so please send me stuff to make my job easier. Please send your case as soon as you get your pairing.

- First rebuttal can extend into final focus. If something was frontlined, though, I expect to hear defense on it.

- I love probability weighing, and I'm inclined to have a low threshold for responses to high magnitude, low probability impacts.

- I care about truth value, don't run something objectively false and think I'll buy it when it's extended just because I'm tech. Tech > truth as a practice is intellectually dishonest and I think that judges need to stop valuing it.

- Please have a narrative.

- The only progressive stuff I can handle is theory in the case of abuse. You must disclose that you're going to read it.

Keep my flow clean. I shouldn't have to do any work in making a decision. Be organized in your speeches.

- Collapse!!!

- Warrant + Weigh = Win (Ty Tenzin <3)

- I HAVE NO TOLERANCE FOR ARGUMENTS THAT ARE RACIST, ANTISEMITIC, ISLAMOPHOBIC, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC, TRANSPHOBIC, ABLEIST, OR WHITE FEMINIST. RUNNING THESE ARGUMENTS WILL RESULT IN 20 SPEAKS AND AN AUTOMATIC LOSS. DEBATE IS NOT A SPACE FOR THAT TYPE OF BEHAVIOR, NOR SHOULD IT BE.

- I hate America First frameworks, I will drop you or give you low speaks if you run them, with some exceptions.

- I pay attention in cross, but don't flow it.

- I don't look at cards unless you ask me to.

I will always make an effort to give an oral RFD, but will write it down if pressed for time. Feel free to ask questions, but don't argue with me.

I am the head debate coach at James Madison Memorial HS (2002 - present)
I am the head debate coach at Madison West HS (2014 - present)
I was formerly an assistant at Appleton East (1999-2002)
I competed for 3 years (2 in LD) at Appleton East (1993-1996)

I am a plaintiff's employment/civil rights lawyer in real life. I coach (or coached, depending on the year) every event in both debate and IE, with most of my recent focus on PF, Congress, and Extemp. Politically I'm pretty close to what you'd presume about someone from Madison, WI.

Congress at the bottom.

PF

(For online touraments) Send me case/speech docs at the start please (timscheff@aol.com) email or sharing a google doc is fine, I don't much care if I don't have access to it after the round if you delink me or if you ask me to delete it from my inbox. I have a little trouble picking up finer details in rounds where connections are fuzzy and would rather not have to ask mid round to finish my flow.
(WDCA if a team is uncomfortable sharing up front that's fine, but any called evidence should then be shared).

If your ev is misleading as cut/paraphrased or is cited contrary to the body of the evidence, I get unhappy. If I notice a problem independently there is a chance I will intervene and ignore the ev, even without an argument by your opponent. My first role has to be an educator maintaining academic honesty standards. You could still pick up if there is a path to a ballot elsewhere. If your opponents call it out and it's meaningful I will entertain voting for a theory type argument that justifies a ballot.

I prefer a team that continues to tell a consistent story/advocacy through the round. I do not believe a first speaking team's rebuttal needs to do more than refute the opposition's case and deal with framework issues. The second speaking team ideally should start to rebuild in the rebuttal; I don't hold it to be mandatory but I find it much harder to vote for a team that doesn't absent an incredible summary. What is near mandatory is that if you are going to go for it in the Final Focus, it should probably be extended in the Summary. I will give cross-x enough weight that if your opponents open the door to bringing the argument back in the grand cross, I'll still consider it.

Rate wise going quick is fine but there should be discernible variations in rate and/or tone to still emphasize the important things. If you plan on referring to arguments by author be very sure the citations are clear and articulated well enough for me to get it on my flow.

I'm a fairly staunch proponent of paraphrasing. It's an academically more realistic exercise. It also means you need to have put in the work to understand the source (hopefully) and have to be organized enough to pull it up on demand and show what you've analyzed (or else). A really good quotation used in full (or close to it) is still a great device to use. In my experience as a coach I've run into more evidence ethics, by far, with carded evidence, especially when teams only have a card, or they've done horrible Frankenstein chop-jobs on the evidence, forcing it into the quotation a team wants rather than what the author said. Carded evidence also seems to encourage increases in speed of delivery to get around the fact that an author with no page limit's argument is trying to be crammed into 4 min of speech time. Unless its an accommodation for a debater, if you need to share speech docs before a speech, something's probably gone a bit wrong with the world.
On this vein, I've developed a fairly keen annoyance with judges who outright say "no paraphrasing." It's simply not something any team can reasonably adapt to in the context of a tournament. I'm not sure how much the teams of the judges or coaches taking this position would be pleased with me saying I don't listen to cards or I won't listen to a card unless it's read 100% in full (If you line down anything, I call it invalid). It's the #1 thing where I'm getting tempted to pull the trigger on a reciprocity paradigm.

Exchange of evidence is not optional if it is asked for. I will follow the direction of a tournament on the exchange timing, however, absent knowledge of a specific rule, I will not run prep for either side when a reasonable number of sources are requested. Debaters can prep during this time as you should be able to produce sources in a reasonable amount of time and "not prepping" is a bit of a fiction and/or breaks up the flow of the round.

Citations should include a date when presented if that date will be important to the framing of the issue/solution, though it's not a bad practice to include them anyhow. More important, sources should be by author name if they are academic, or publication if journalistic (with the exception of columnists hired for their expertise). This means "Harvard says" is probably incorrect because it's doubtful the institution has an official position on the policy, similarly an academic journal/law review publishes the work of academics who own their advocacy, not the journal. I will usually ask for sources if during the course of the round the claims appear to be presented inconsistently to me or something doesn't sound right, regardless of a challenge, and if the evidence is not presented accurately, act on it.

Speaker points. Factors lending to increased points: Speaking with inflection to emphasize important things, clear organization, c-x used to create ground and/or focus the clash in the round, and telling a very clear story (or under/over view) that adapts to the actual arguments made. Factors leading to decreased points: unclear speaking, prep time theft (if you say end prep, that doesn't mean end prep and do another 10 seconds), making statements/answering answers in c-x, straw-man-ing opponents arguments, claiming opponent drops when answers were made, and, the fastest way for points to plummet, incivility during c-x. Because speaker points are meaningless in out rounds, the only way I can think of addressing incivility is to simply stop flowing the offending team(s) for the rest of the round.

Finally, I flow as completely as I can, generally in enough detail that I could debate with it. However, I'm continually temped to follow a "judge a team as they are judging yours" versus a "judge a team as you would want yours judged" rule. Particularly at high-stakes tournaments, including the TOC, I've had my teams judged by a judge who makes little or no effort to flow. I can't imagine any team at one of those tournaments happy with that type of experience yet those judges still represent them. I think lay-sourced judges and the adaptation required is a good skill and check on the event, but a minimum training and expectation of norms should be communicated to them with an attempt to comply with them. To a certain degree this problem creates a competitive inequity - other teams face the extreme randomness imposed by a judge who does not track arguments as they are made and answered - yet that judge's team avoids it. I've yet to hit the right confluence of events where I'd actually adopt "untrained lay" as a paradigm, but it may happen sometime. [UPDATE: I've gotten to do a few no-real-flow lay judging rounds this year thanks to the increase in lay judges at online tournaments]. Bottom line, if you are bringing judges that are lay, you should probably be debating as if they are your audience.

CONGRESS
The later in the cycle you speak, the more rebuttal your speech should include. Repeating the same points as a prior speaker is probably not your best use of time.

If you speak on a side, vote on that side if there wasn't an amendment. If you abstain, I should understand why you are abstaining (like a subsequent amendment contrary to your position).

I'm not opposed to hearing friendly questions in c-x as a way to advance your side's position if they are done smartly. If your compatriot handles it well, points to you both. If they fumble it, no harm to you and negative for them. C-x doesn't usually factor heavily into my rankings, often just being a tie breaker for people I see as roughly equal in their performance.

For the love of God, if it's not a scenario/morning hour/etc. where full participation on a single issue is expected, call to question already. With expanded questioning now standard, you don't need to speak on everything to stay on my mind. Late cycle speeches rarely offer something new and it's far more likely you will harm yourself with a late speech than help. If you are speaking on the same side in succession it's almost certain you will harm yourself, and opposing a motion to call to question to allow successive speeches on only one side will also reflect as a non-positive.

A good sponsorship speech, particularly one that clarifies vagueness and lays out solvency vs. vaguely talking about the general issue (because, yeah, we know climate change is bad, what about this bill helps fix it), is the easiest speech for me to score well. You have the power to frame the debate because you are establishing the legislative intent of the bill, sometimes in ways that actually move the debate away from people's initially prepped positions.

In a chamber where no one has wanted to sponsor or first negate a bill, especially given you all were able to set a docket, few things make me want to give a total round loss, than getting no speakers and someone moving for a prep-time recess. This happened in the TOC finals two years ago, on every bill. My top ranks went to the people who accepted the responsibility to the debate and their side to give those early speeches.

please put me on the email chain: kateshadman@gmail.com

^^please send docs, don't dump an entire speech into the body of the email

Colleyville Heritage HS (TX) '20: 4 years PF (tfa and nat circuit)

University of Oklahoma '24: 4(ish) years policy

pronouns: she/her/hers

tl;dr (pf)

do whatever you want, i vote on the flow. your barrier to speed is your opponent (if they can’t handle it don’t do it). please warrant and weigh your arg and terminalize your impacts — if you do this you will most likely win. 2nd rebuttal should frontline, if they don’t defense is sticky in 1st summary. if it’s in final it needs to be in summary. have good evidence ethics.

come in pre flowed and send the email chain at the start time

for roadmaps: just tell me which piece of paper to have on top

tl;dr (cx)

my only cx experience is in college, so I'm not as with it as the other college policy debaters

I don't care what you read, I'll listen to pretty much anything. write my ballot for me, I love judge instruction (especially on the K, implicate it to the round plss). I'm biased for a good policy round but don't get me wrong, I love a good K (most familiar with set col, security, and cap). pls label each piece of paper in the 1NC. regardless of the argument, make sure to extend the link (really hard to vote on anything in the 2AR/NR if it's missing) and implicate your args.

come in pre flowed and send the email chain at the start time

for roadmaps: just tell me which piece of paper to have on top

welcome to my paradigm:

*before your speech, pls just tell me what piece of paper to start on and I'll follow you from there (cx: just give me the order of the sheets of paper)

Warrant, Weigh, Win- it's that simple.

- it needs to be on the flow, I need clean extensions and weighing if you want me to vote on it

(please weigh. please, please, please weigh)

- for it to be an extension, I need claim, warrant, and impact

- tell me why/how you're winning and why your argument matters (write my ballot for me)

- terminalize impacts

- please come in pre-flowed and prepared to debate (i want to start the round asap)

- speech doc/email chain should be sent at the start time of the round (or earlier, just not later)

- signpost, I want to write down all of your wonderful arguments (in the right places)

- speed: i don't care how fast you go, know your opponent (if they can't handle the speed -- don't go fast, if they don't have experience flowing off speech docs, this isn't the round for them to learn), if you're going to go sicko mode, give me a doc, otherwise, I flow on paper if I'm not writing stuff down, slow down

pf specific:

- quality > quantity

- tech > truth

- default util

- I don't like calling for ev. you should be doing the ev analysis yourselves, ie. compare the ev between speeches then say it in the speech (I won't vote on it if it's not on the flow)

rebuttal:

- 1st rebuttal shouldn't be doing case extensions (unless it's an ov, fw, or weighing you want flowed on your case), i already got the args from case, it's just repetitive

- 2nd rebuttal: pls frontline offense

summary:

- if 2nd rebuttal frontlines, defense is not sticky

- if 2nd rebuttal doesn't frontline, defense is sticky

- please weigh (pls, pls, pls)

final focus:

- final focus should mirror the summary (if it's not in the summary it shouldn't be in final) (weighing should also be the same)

- PLEASE DON'T GO FOR EVERYTHING, collapse and narrow down the debate

crossfire:

- start whenever y'all are ready, don't wait on me

progressive args (pf)

I would rather not but, do whatever you want, but, it's extremely hard to do the work you need to do within the pf time constraints and the bar doesn't lower just because it's pf. if you are going to do something funky, one of the biggest mistakes I see is not implicating the K (or whatever) to the round, make sure you do work on page comparison otherwise, it's really hard to see how the argument is relevant to the round. tell me how to evaluate the arg in the context of the round.

"progressive args don't belong in pf" isn't a response (unless you have a beautifully curated block on this arg), you need some legitimate ink on the flow

again, I would rather not judge progressive rounds in pf, if you want to, you run the risk of losing the ballot a lot easier than if you debated traditionally

evidence:

don't do anything stupid and don't take forever to pull up evidence, evidence should be cut properly and cited with a working link, if your opponents are doing something bad/sketch with ev make it a voting issue--I am very likely to vote on it (if it's legit)

personal thing about ev- evidence shouldn't be paraphrased when it's introduced into the round, you should be reading from cards, obviously this gets lost in the back half of the round (which is fine)-- if you are going to paraphrase make sure you have the cut cards available and that you are representing them correctly

Current Coach -- Marist School (2020-present)

Former PF Debater -- Marist School (2016-2020)

Current Student at the University of Georgia

Please add maristpublicforum@gmail.com to the email chain

Debate is first and foremost a safe, fun, and educational activity so we should do our best to keep it that way

TL;DR: I am a tech judge and I will vote off my flow. Please do whatever you do best and enjoy the round.

General important stuff:

1) Extend every part of the argument... uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact. A claim without a warrant is not an argument. If you do not extend your argument then I can not vote on it. I really do listen and pay close attention to this so please do. I will vote with no shame against teams that probably would have won if they had just extended their argument fully.

2) I cannot stress enough that fewer well developed arguments will always be better than blips with no argument development or good warrants. I've noticed teams that collapse and more thoroughly explain their arguments tend to win my ballot more often than not against a team that goes for too much.

3) Please weigh your arguments. Explain why your argument is more important than the other teams.

4) My only real pet peeve is wasting time during or before a debate. Please be ready to start the debate on time and don't cause unnecessary delays during it. Preflowing should be done before the debate. When prep time ends you should be ready to start your speech right away. "Pulling up a doc" or something like that for 30 seconds is stealing prep and should be done before you end your prep time.

5) Second rebuttal must answer first rebuttal, defense is not sticky

Other specific stuff:

Argument types:

I don’t care what type of argument you read as long as it is well explained, has warrants, and is weighed (case, k’s, theory... whatever are all fine). You do what you're best at!

Speed:

You can go as fast or slow as you want. I will be good flowing any speed you decide to go. My only caveat if you go fast is to slow a bit down on taglines and still signpost well

Theory:

Any theory arguments need to be real violations that have real impacts. Frivolous theory is unpleasant to judge and will be almost impossible to win in front of me. I believe paraphrasing is bad and disclosure is good. At this point in the activity reading cuts cards and disclosing has become a norm that most teams adhere to which I think makes my threshold for responses to the shell even higher than it has been in the past.

Any theory argument should be read in the speech directly after the violation. For example disclosure theory should be read in constructive, but if a team reads cut cards in case and then paraphrases rebuttal then you read paraphrasing in rebuttal/summary whichever is next.

Speaks:

If you flow on paper and give second half speeches off of that flow a small boost in speaks. I give speaks primarily based on quality of the debating in round. Making good strategic decisions, collapsing, and weighing are all things that can help your speaks. Being nice and not wasting time also help. I do not really care how "good" you sound if you are not making good arguments at the same time. To put this into perspective, when I debated I always felt that winning rounds was more important than sounding good, but with winning generally comes better speaks.

Hello Debaters! I have experience in the debate community judging since 2016! I debated PF at Grovetown High School from 2014-2016, and now teach English at Riverwood High School!

I mostly judge PF:

1. Please speak at a pace where I and the opposing team can understand you.
2. Do not assume that I know all the lingo of the resolved. (ex: random treaties, random signed government documents) Please explain when something has been abbreviated.
3. I do not need an off-time road map. If you need to jot one down on your paper for your organizational purposes, cool, but it has no use to me as I am writing down literally everything you are saying, and do not need the order your speech goes in, unless you are just telling me that you are just explaining that the speech has one purpose (ex Impacts).
4. Please. Look. At. Each. Other. During. Cross. Not. Me. It’s. Weird. You’re arguing and questioning each other. It’s not a speech, It's a time to question each other!!
5. Please take prep time when reading another opponent's evidence.
6. Please do not give me the impact of POVERTY. Debaters usually try to link some huge world problem in the resolve with the impact that poverty is the end all-be-all, and is the worst thing ever. Global poverty is a systemic issue that people cannot help as it is an effect of systemic racism, capitalism, etc. Poverty is the reality of many inside and outside of the debate community, and you never know what someone is carrying into a round with on their back. I have seen this impact so over used and incorrectly used in the past years it has been harmful to me as a judge. This is a complex issue that 14-18 year olds cannot solve, and is usually only given harmful, exacerbated solutions to, therefore I no longer want to hear about it.
7. I will generally base speaker points on rhetorical skill rather than argumentative technicals.
8. Constantly tell me why I should vote for you. In other words, weigh impacts and extend your arguments. Please don't just repeat your contentions for every segment.
9. Debate should be a fun, enjoyable and equitable experience for all parties involved. If I hear students making discriminatory comments towards other teams or arguments discriminating others I will report you to the tournament leader and your coach, and have you pulled from the tournament. You are representing your school, your community, and your family when you are at these events. This is bigger than you.
10. If I close my eyes or look to the side while you are speaking during your speech, I am trying to focus and listen. I have combined type-ADHD, and I am just trying to SUPER FOCUS on the WORDS YOU ARE SAYING!! PF has so much info, I don't wanna miss a second!! Please do not take offense!

11. I prefer not to be included on email chains. If I need to see a piece of evidence that is called into question, I will look at it for myself.

12. Please, use your manners and let each team finish speaking during the crossfire. Let each other finish the question and talking. It's rude to treat your opposing team like that. Use your southern manners Y'all.
13. Give me a second while I am entering a round for the first time to set up everything. I be carrying junk around in my bag.
14. Please extend arguments and impacts in your summary and Final Focus, I understand it can be tempting to summerize your contentions. The other team and I listened to the whole hour plus of debate too, tell me how your contentions still stand and WHY! Give me impacts of those contentions. WHY THEY MATTER!!

15. I disclose after every round because I hate typing. :)

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at storyariel@gmail.com

See you out there! Happy Debating!

Hello!

I am a parent judge. However, I do have extensive knowledge in the business world. I have also judged over 50 rounds of Public Forum debate. I also do flow the main points of the rounds.

Please add samuelsun99@gmail.com to the email chain. This should be started before the speeches. Please include at least the cases and call the email chain like "Stanford Round 1 - Team AB vs. Team BC."

Everything Else is Negotiable, but these aren't:

~No cheating: that means no card clipping, stealing prep, lying about your disclosure, etc.

~Debate is a safe space: I will not tolerate any blatantly offensive arguments. That means no racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

If you are running an argument that is potentially a trigger warning, then you MUST ask the opponents if they are fine with it.

Violations of either are grounds for auto-loss and the lowest speaks I can possibly give you

General Preferences

~Please speak at a slower/normal pace. If I don't understand something, then I won't put it in my decision.

~Please don't read any weird arguments (Theory, K's, etc). It will be much less persuasive if you do so. Furthermore, if you run a non-generic case, then please explain it very well or I will have a hard time keeping track of it.

~Please send me your speech doc (cases) for the round. This will help me understand your case better and recall your key details.

~Please be civil in cross. I don't like aggressiveness. If the worst occurs, then I'll dock your speaks

~I view the round from your overall performance in the round. This includes being professional, taking a short time to pull up your evidence, have well-explained reasons and statistics, and consistently bringing up your points.

~I personally value the truth of an argument over an argument that will probably not occur.

~I will judge this round off a clean slate meaning I will try to not use individual bias to affect my decision.

~I also really like weighing so please do a lot of weighing to convince me more.

~I vote my decision mainly off of summary, final focus, and sometimes cross. If you can not respond to your own case in cross, I might count that in my decision if it is cleanly extended.

In all, be independent/responsible through the debate. I will be keeping time, but I also expect you to keep your own speech and prep time. Just let me know when you start/stop prep and don't go over the time limit, etc. I dislike it when debaters try to steal prep. I trust all of you debaters and good luck in your round!

Importance of Weighing

-Prob>Timeframe

- Timeframe>Pre-req

- Pre-req>mag

---

Specific to September topic.

I'm not very knowledgable about this specific topic.

Good Luck Debaters!

About

• Director @ Coppell
• Assistant Director @ Mean Green Comet
• Debated NDT/CEDA at North Texas
• Please add me to the email chain and/or doc: sykes.tx @ gmail.com

Basics

• This document offers insight to the process I use to make decisions unless directed to do otherwise.
• Clarity is important. I'm also working to adjust my speaker points to keep up with inflation.
• I won't claim to be perfect in this area, but I believe debate has strong potential to build community. Please play nicely with others.
• I view all debate as comparison of competing frameworks. I considered myself a flex debater, and I’m willing to evaluate all arguments.
• I will attempt to minimize intervention in the evaluation of a) the selection of framework and b) the fulfillment of the framework's demands.

Theory/Topicality

• I believe the topic can provide debatable ground, but I don't think that should necessarily be exclusive of other arguments and approaches.
• On questions of framework, USFG, etc. I strongly recommend grounding arguments in academic literature whenever possible. I am particularly interested in how debate shapes agents of change.
• Consistent with my view of competing frameworks, for example, there is no difference in my mind between "competing interpretations" and "abuse." Abuse is a standard for evaluating competing interpretations.

Defaults/Disads

• If the framework for evaluating the debate involves a disad, be aware that I generally determine the direction of uniqueness before the link, and these arguments together speak to the propensity for risk.
• If forced by lack of comparison to default on framework, I will consider time frame, probability, and magnitude of your impacts as part of cost benefit analysis of endorsing the affirmative advocacy.

Counterplans/Counter-advocacy

• I don't believe I have strong predispositions related to counterplan types or theory.

Kritiking

• The division in the community between "kritik people" and "policy people" frustrates me. We should constantly seek more effective arguments. Questions of an academic nature vary from method to application.
• A working definition of "fiat" is "the ability to imagine, for the purposes of debate, the closest possible world to that of the advocacy."

Rebuttals/How to win

• You should either win in your framework and show how it's preferable, or simply win in theirs. This applies to theory debates and impact comparison as much as anything else.
• I find that many debates I judge are heavily influenced by the quality, persuasiveness, and effectiveness of warranted explanation and comparison.

Lincoln Douglas, specifically

• While my background in policy debate leads me to a more progressive perspective toward LD, I have evaluated many traditional debates as well. You do you.
• I am open to theoretical standards in LD that are different than those in CX, but understand that my experience here affects my perception of some issues. For example, I may have a predisposition against RVIs because there are vastly different standards for these arguments across events. I'll do my best to adapt with an open mind.

Public Forum, specifically

• PF should transition to reasonable & common expectations for disclosure, evidence use, and speech doc exchange.
• Email chains and/or speech docs should be used to share evidence before speeches.
• Evidence should be presented in the form of direct quotes and accompanied by a complete citation. If you must paraphrase, direct quotations (fully cited with formatting that reflects paraphrased portions) should be included in the speech doc. If I feel you've abused this expectation (e.g., pasting and underlining an entire article/book/study), I won't be pleased.
• Time spent re-cutting evidence, tracking down URLs, or otherwise conforming to these conventions should be considered prep time.
• Regardless of the way the resolution is written, I think teams should make arguments based on how the status quo affects probability. Uniqueness and inevitability claims, therefore, would greatly benefit the analysis of risk in most of the PF rounds I evaluate.

Congress, specifically

• I have a surprising amount of congress experience, including placing at nats in HS and coaching a TOC champion. That said, I'm not sure I can say a lot here that doesn't likely seem intuitive to most.
• Remain active in the chamber. Move things along. Stay engaged.
• All speech & debate should be rigorous. I'm interested in quality of research and depth of content. If you're one of those kids who makes fun of prep that happened before the round, I'm curious why you're here.
• PO - be efficient, kind, firm, and cover any unfortunate mistakes well. Be aware, though, that mistakes with respect to precedence or procedure can be devastating. Also, speak. I loved to PO, but it's hard for me to imagine winning a big tournament without ever giving a speech.

This is my first time judging a debate tournament. I would like it if you would not speak very fast.

I debated PF for 4 years at Westwood High School and now Attend UT Austin. I am tech over truth. if you prove to me that the sky is made of dogs I’ll believe you.

Email: danieltehrani110@gmail.com

General:

• Go line by line not big picture

Evidence:

• If you paraphrase that is fine. However, if you're falsifying evidence while paraphrasing and it’s a piece of evidence I call for or your opponents tell me to call for, I will drop the argument.

• The same goes for cut cards if you're falsifying that then I will drop the argument.

• I have a high threshold for evidence quality, spend the time to get good evidence

• For online tournaments I want speech docs. That includes your case doc and any speech after that if you read off a doc. It helps me ensure I don't miss an argument that could be pivotal in the round.

Progressive Arguments:

• You can run them if you want but make sure to go slower and ensure that I understand them and why they are being run. I never read progressive arguments in high school so keep this in mind before considering reading something

• If I perceive that you are just reading something to win a round rather than trying to fix an issue either in debate or society then I will just drop the argument and lower your speaks

Speed:

• I’m good with any speed, other than genuine spreading.

Speaks:

• You start with good speaks and good strategy, speaking, and argumentation will bring that up further but sexism, homophobia, racism and other similar issues will earn you a 25

Offs/Dissads/overviews/underviews:

• You can read as many as you want but make sure to keep the Warranting for the argument

Prep Time

• Don’t steal prep

• Keep track of time yourself

Constructive:

• The only thing I’ll say here is to sound alive. Try to not sound bored out of your mind.

Cross:

• Be kind and courteous to your opponents i.e. have basic manners.

• If you’re racist, sexist, homophobic, or any similar thing then you will get the L and 25 speaks. This is really for the whole round not just cross

Rebuttal:

• 1st Rebuttal should respond to their opponents case, introduce any new offs, weighing, overviews etc.

• 2nd Rebuttal should frontline their case and respond to all offense your opponents put on you. You can concede a NU or delink to get out of frontlining an argument.

• 2nd. Rebuttal should respond to all responses or otherwise it is conceded

Summery:

• There is no sticky offense or defense

• Make sure to crystallize

• 1st Summary should frontline the offense you are going for while extending the link chain. 1st summary should also extend and/or frontline all responses that they want to extend. Since there are 3 minutes in summary now make sure to weigh if you don’t the round becomes much more difficult to evaluate

• First summary should interact with defense to the extent that the second rebuttal frontlined (so, if the second rebuttal frontlines, the first summary should interact with that frontlining

• 2nd summary should frontline and/or extend any offense they are going for and explain the link chain. They should also frontline/extend any response they want to extend. Also weigh

• Every argument (that is offense) needs to be explicitly extended (claim, warrant, impact) to be evaluated. For defense, a claim and warrant extension is enough. Extend what you want me to vote on.

Final Focus:

• Summaries and Final Focuses should match in content. Don’t introduce any new responses (like new NU and Delinks) at this point of the round. If you want me to evaluate an argument it must be in both SUMMERY AND FF

• Make sure to extend the claim warrant and impact and weigh for all offense you are extending in the round. Make sure to integrate frontlines to the responses they have made

• Implicate everything and do comparative interaction on the warrant/link/and impact level

I has been judging for a few years, and really enjoy it. I am a senior manager with a large company, and the author of some scientific papers and a book entitled GIS Technology Applications in Environmental and Earth Sciences (ISBN:9781498776059). I have been speaking at many conferences, including the United Nations GIS conference in New York City, October 2013.

I can handle faster than normal conversation speed, if you speak clearly. I don’t like you read your entire speech to me. Doing so will definitely cost you speaker points.

I evaluate teams based on the quality of their arguments, reputable evidences and sound analyses. Please make warranted arguments why I should prefer your cards over your opponent's cards. No new argument should be introduced in the final focus. I usually do my own research on the topic before I judge it, so I have some knowledge about it. But, my personal opinions have absolutely no influence on my judgement of yours, regardless of anything.

Also, I may pay attention to CX, and judge it. If you interrupt your opponent too much, you may lose points. You win by clearly delivering your convincing arguments, credible evidences and good analyses.

I have been coaching debate for 37 years. I am not in the least bit progressive in any way.

My preferences are extremely traditional. I want the round to be slow and conversational; I view LD from the value/criterion approach, and policy arguments like plans, CP's, PICs, etc are out of bounds. I prefer a whole rez approach to the topic, and I expect the topic to be debated. I do not believe in disclosure theory or theory arguments in general. I also do not wish to evaluate or listen to identity politics and post-modern theory. I also do not endorse false norms like "flex-prep", performance, poetry, and "role of the ballot" arguments.

I did not do debate in high school or college.

I have coached speech and debate for 20 years. I focus on speech events, PF, and WSD. I rarely judge LD (some years I have gone the entire year without judging LD), so if I am your judge in LD, please go slowly. I will attempt to evaluate every argument you provide in the round, but your ability to clearly explain the argument dictates whether or not it will actually impact my decision/be the argument that I vote off of in the round. When it comes to theory or other progressive arguments (basically arguments that may not directly link to the resolution) please do not assume that I understand completely how these arguments function in the round. You will need to explain to me why and how you are winning and why these arguments are important. When it comes to explanation, do not take anything for granted. Additionally, if you are speaking too quickly, I will simply put my pen down and say "clear."

In terms of PF, although I am not a fan of labels for judges ("tech," "lay," "flay") I would probably best be described as traditional. I really like it when debaters discuss the resolution and issues related to the resolution, rather than getting "lost in the sauce." What I mean by "lost in the sauce" is that sometimes debaters take on very complex ideas/arguments in PF and the time limits for that event make it very difficult for debaters to fully explain these complex ideas.

Argument selection is a skill. Based on the time restrictions in PF debate, you should focus on the most important arguments in the summary and final focus speeches. I believe that PF rounds function like a funnel. You should only be discussing a few arguments at the end of the round. If you are discussing a lot of arguments, you are probably speaking really quickly, and you are also probably sacrificing thoroughness of explanation. Go slowly and explain completely, please.

In cross, please be nice. Don't talk over one another. I will dock your speaks if you are rude or condescending. Also, every competitor needs to participate in grand cross. I will dock your speaks if one of the speakers does not participate.

For Worlds, I prefer a very organized approach and I believe that teams should be working together and that the speeches should compliment one another. When each student gives a completely unique speech that doesn’t acknowledge previous arguments, I often get confused as to what is most important in the round. I believe that argument selection is very important and that teams should be strategizing to determine which arguments are most important. Please keep your POIs clear and concise.

If you have any questions, please let me know after I provide my RFD. I am here to help you learn.

Pronouns: he/him

I am a first time parent judge. Please speak at a reasonable pace and try and be respectful of everyone.

I recently debated Public Forum at Madison West for three years ending in 2018-19 with experience in 1st and 2nd speaking (but alas, back in the anxious days of the 2 minute summary), and have more limited experience in BQ and Congress. I currently study Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a different sort of argumentative debate, you could say). You can feel free to ask anything about my preferences before a round or to ask for clarification after a decision. I will try to disclose and give some feedback all of the time.

A few guidelines. If you are a less experienced team, doing these things may win you a round against a more experienced team. If you are a more experienced team, doing these things may help you win a round against a less experienced team.

1. Being kind and respectful.

2. Being honest and reasonable. I would greatly prefer you concede a bad point than sketchily try to defend it.

3. Explaining why whatever thing you're talking about matters. Collapsing tends to make this easier. I am a somewhat questionable judge in the sense that I will vote for an argument which is half-dead ahead of one winning on the flow if I understand the importance of the former and don't understand the significance of the latter.

4. Having a narrative. I tend to not flow final focus; instead, I like to listen for narrative. Collapsing tends to make this easier.

5. Asking closed-ended (yes/no, multiple choice) questions in cross and explaining why the responses matter in later speeches. I do not flow cross-ex but I do listen most of the time.

6. Weighing. Please make sure you have extended your impacts cleanly first before going on to weighing.

On a couple of hot topics:

Speed: I like a speed of around 190wpm (note: this is slow for debate), and I particularly like a slow Final Focus.

Theory: I think extra-topical arguments can be important, but they have to be super relevant and explained well, or I will probably vote against them.

Framework: I think too many teams just run stock util. I'm definitely on-board with seeing some well-argued deontological frameworks (I'd be willing to give out straight 30s to a team who extends, weighs, and wins under a clever form of this).

Evidence: I'm fine with paraphrasing as long as you aren't making stuff up. I also think well-warranted points made without a card can work if weighed over conflicting evidence (especially on framework).

Speaker points: 29-30 is memorable, 27-28 is par for the course, 25-26 means I thought you probably just had an off round, and below 25 means I thought you should have been a bit more respectful. If I give you a higher score I mean it as a sincere compliment!

All in all, your result in a round doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of life. Don't stress out too much, and enjoy yourselves!

hey what's poppinnn. i debated PF for colleyville on the yeehaw and ~national~ circuit.

what i think matters:

- tech > truth: if an argument is conceded/lack of responsive defense it manifests with 100% probability.

- second rebuttal should respond to offense from first rebuttal. only giving the first speaking team final focus to frontline is not a bro move

- summary: i don't really have a preference if you go line by line or big picture but make sure to sign post bc i can't draw arrows on my laptop :(

- final focus: just in general new in the 2 not cool. FF should mirror summary so if an argument isn't in summary i won't evaluate it in ff

- defense is sticky

- quality > quantity: i cannot stress how much more effective fleshing out one good argument is vs blippily extending subpoints A-H. this means collapsing and extending your offense (not just frontlining defense) in summary with a clear link story that is well warranted and impacted! (too often forgotten :c)

- theory: i will be straight up, i have like no experience with running/evaluating theory so if you do decide to run it there is a very high chance it won't go too well with me (high barrier for theory). if you wanna run theory just to trip a team up - don't. please.

- weighing: ok. weighing is great when it is done STRATEGICALLY and not just to get the words probability and magnitude on the flow. telling me you outweigh on magnitude bc 900 million people go into poverty is not weighing, it takes two (impacts) to tango. if you have the same impacts....LINK WEIGH!

- evidence: if you're trying to indict/have conflicting evidence please ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ do the evidence comparison and analysis during the round, or else ur leaving it up to me and you may not like the outcome :( oh and if you call for evidence in round pls be speedy

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?search_first=anisha&search_last=navendra

^this is my partners paradigm, it’s way better than mine. i agree with 99% of it. if you see her tell her i said thanks (not tall brown girl) and feel free to ask questions

Name: Mike Wascher

School Affiliation: Lake Highland Prep

Number of Years Judging Public Forum: 10

Number of Years Competing in Public Forum: 0

Number of Years Judging Other Forensic Activities: 15

Number of Years Competing in Other Forensic Activities: 8

If you are a coach, what events do you coach? Public Forum, extemp

What is your current occupation? Debate coach

Please share your opinions or beliefs about how the following play into a debate round:

Speed of Delivery As long as it is clear, speed is not important

Format of Summary Speeches (line by line? big picture?) Turning point in the debate where the debater should take from the line by line the arguments they envision as being the decision points. Whether it is organized by the same order as the line by line or re-cast in voting issues makes no difference.

Role of the Final Focus Tell me what arguments you win, explain why those arguments, when compared to your opponents arguments, means you win the debate. The comparative work is crucial. If the debaters don’t do it the judge has to do it and that is a door debaters should never leave open.

Extension of Arguments into later speeches While I have no autocratic rule, I would imagine that something you plan to go for would be something that is extended throughout the debate. If argument X is a winner it just seems reasonable to me that it should be included in all speeches.

Topicality Sadly, this argument isn’t advanced much because the time it takes to present it is generally critical time lost on case arguments and the trade off is seldom worth. Having said that, I would vote on a T argument.

Plans Specific plans are, by rule, not allowed. Generic ideas about solving problems necessarily discusses policy options. The general idea of those options is the resolution when were have policy topics.

Kritiks If Public Forum is supposed to be debate about how current events are debated in the real world I find little room for theoretical ideas that are not considered by real world policy makers. If, however, the critical argument has specific links to the topic, (and history suggests that few I’ve heard do) it should not be rejected because it is critical.

Flowing/note-taking I flow the key parts of the argument and sometimes flow authors. I find myself noting dates when they seem to be old (and possible dated). I listen to cross fire and sometimes make notes when I heard something worthwhile.

Do you value argument over style? Style over argument? Argument and style equally? I value argument and I especially value warrants (which aren’t tag lines) that explain why your claims are persuasive.

If a team plans to win the debate on an argument, in your opinion does that argument have to be extended in the rebuttal or summary speeches? Not a hard and fast rule with me but I can’t imagine why a winner would be left out.

If a team is second speaking, do you require that the team cover the opponents’ case as well as answers to its opponents’ rebuttal in the rebuttal speech? Also not a hard and fast rule with me but strategically it is probably important you get back to some of your case, unless you plan to win offense on turns on your opponents case.

Do you vote for arguments that are first raised in the grand crossfire or final focus? Never!

If you have anything else you'd like to add to better inform students of your expectations and/or experience, please do so here. The three things I would like to hear more often in Public Forum debates are:

1) Comparative work. Explain why you win the debate not just win some arguments. You can win every argument you discuss but still not have a better story than your opponent. Take the time to explain why the arguments you win form a better story than your opponent’s offering.

2) Warrants. Claims are not persuasive. Why your claim is true, significant, harmful, etc., make for a persuasive argument. The best claim from the most qualified author is generally useless and it is sad when those “Best” authors write warrants and debaters fail to cut that evidence and read it.

3) Paraphrasing. I recognize that the PF world is at this point. I don’t like it. I believe there are ethical issues when one cites three different authors, for example, and none of the three are working on the same argument but rather writing one line that fits in and is found in a google search. I also find it problematic that some think they can summarize a master’s level work in six words. Paraphrasing opens the world to a lot of potential evil. I read a lot on our topics and do not be the person that is misrepresenting an author by a poor paraphrase. It’s as bad as clipping. Given the power to change the world I would mandate we go back to reading evidence but then again I can’t find enough people, maybe even one other person, willing to give me that power. So we will paraphrase but we will properly represent the evidence.

Wei good, no wei bad, frontline turns 2nd rebuttal good, 1st summary defense no sticky, spread bad, if it not in summary it'll be invisible in final focus, i don't fw theory,#abolishgrandcross

If everything is wash I vote for the team that spoke first.

email: colin.x.wei@gmail.com

I will not evaluate any Ks, theory (particularly disclosure theory), or other forms of technical argumentation from Policy/LD that are not common in PF. Not only am I uncomfortable with my ability to seriously evaluate these, I don't think they should exist in an event designed with as low of a barrier of entry as possible. If your opponent is racist, sexist, ableist, etc. tell me and I will intervene as necessary.

I competed in PF and Extemp for Plano West and graduated in 2019.

***Please preflow!***

If you don’t paraphrase and read all cut cards in case, tell me and I will give both speakers +1 speaks. Paraphrasing in rebuttal is fine (unless you misconstrue the evidence!)

If both teams agree, I am willing to turn GCX into three extra minutes of prep for everyone.

Important Stuff:

1. Speaking fast is fine. I can flow spreading but you will receive significant speaker point hits and I will not like you.
2. Defense from 1st rebuttal sticks unless responded to; defense in 2nd rebuttal does not stick.
3. No independent contentions in rebuttal; DAs are fine.
4. I prefer all weighing to be set up in summary at the latest (there's 3 minutes now, use the extra minute for weighing). If you'd like to set up weighing before that, go for it (often strategic!). I will not evaluate new weighing in final focus unless it is the only way to resolve the round. If you don't weigh, I will intervene with a common-sense weighing mechanism (probability or magnitude). I will not presume neg unless there is zero offense in the round.
5. I do not strictly require 2nd rebuttal to respond to offense or defense from 1st rebuttal.
6. carded warrant > uncarded warrant > carded unwarranted empirics. “This is unwarranted” is an acceptable response. Don’t card dump.
7. I am unwilling to evaluate new arguments in 2nd final focus. If your delink suddenly becomes a turn, or your impact suddenly becomes a million times bigger, or your link suddenly has a new "nuance" in 2nd final focus, I will ignore you.
8. I do not think frontlines are sufficient to serve as case extensions. You should extend not only your entire link chain + impact but also the warrants as to why your links/impacts are true.
9. I'll call for evidence if it's important to my decision and 1) someone asks me to or 2) I think it sounds misconstrued.

Speaks: 27 - 30 unless you are rude, condescending, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

If you have any questions, ask before round.

Updated for NYCFL Grand Tournament

I was a public forum debater for Bronx Science for 4 years and am currently taking a gap year before attending Washington University in St. Louis as a psychology and sociology major. I was a relatively flow debater, so I will be a flow judge. I'm not super well-informed on the topic, I haven't judged any tournaments on the topic. I don't really have any argument preferences going into the round--I have familiarized myself with the topic but am by no means an expert. That being said, please don't read untrue arguments -- I'm typically tech > truth however if an argument is blatantly false or VERY improbable I won't vote for it. Obviously, on this topic, a lot of the impacts aren't the most probable (nuclear war, extinction, etc.) but try to make them as convincing as possible by flowing through the warranting to FF instead of just saying "vote for us because we save X lives from preventing an all-out nuclear war.

Speech Specific Preferences:

Rebuttal:

- Don't read offensive "second-cases" in rebuttal -- meaning don't come up and read another contention disguised as an overview

- 2nd rebuttal should read frontlines

Summary:

- Consolidate the round -- WEIGH!!!

- Please don't read new arguments/responses in 2nd summary -- it's a bit abusive for the 1st speaking team

- 1st summary needs to respond to turns read in 2nd rebuttal

- Defense is sticky (meaning defense that isn't responded to by the other team gets flowed through the round). However, if you think that the defense is really important to my decision, I would repeat it in FF so it's fresh in my mind.

Final Focus:

- Give me voter points in final focus, I don't want to have to do a lot of work for you on the flow

- This should be a given, but NO NEW arguments in final focus (unless for some reason you're 1st speaking team and your opponent introduced a new argument/response in 2nd summary

- Yes defense is sticky, but if the defense is important (ex. if your opponents go for that contention) remind me of it in FF

Weighing:

- If you don't tell me why I should vote for you and why your argument is still true even after their rebuttal/summary, I'm going to have a hard time voting for that argument

- PLEASE warrant your weighing -- you shouldn't just be saying "we weigh on scope because we save 900 million lives)

General Preferences:

- Please be well-spoken and respectful, I will lower your speaks if you are rude/talk over each other in crossfire. In the new world of virtual debates, please don't call your partner to talk/prep during other during your opponent's speeches (I only mention it because it's happened in my rounds before). Debate should be a safe and educational space.

- Signpost please and I don't mind if you want to give an off-time roadmap

- I expect extensions to include extensions of the link, warranting, and impact, not just a card name or contention title.

- If you think it's important that I look at a specific piece of evidence, tell me to call for it - don't misrepresent your evidence.

- If conflicting evidence is presented on the same issue and neither team tells me how to evaluate them against each other, which to prefer, etc. I will have to intervene when making my decision and analyze the evidence for myself.

- I'm pretty good on speed but just let me know how fast you plan to be speaking before the round. Anything above 250wpm I generally need a speech doc for.

If there's anything I can do to make the round more accessible just let me know! If you have any questions about my RFD, feel free to email me at alexandraweiss02@gmail.com.

Have fun!

Please speak slowly so I can clearly understand you. Please focus on / reemphasize your main points and rebut other side’s main arguments instead of flooding me with information about everything. Depth than breadth. Sometimes less is more :)

please start an email chain: syadavdebate@gmail.com

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I would call myself a fairly flow judge. "tech > truth" unless the evidence that is being read is very misrepresented.

Anything you want me to vote on must be extended in summary. There's no such this as sticky defense. Frontline in 2nd RB. Frontline, if applicable, and extend in summary.

You do not have to extend case in 1st RB.

I prefer the weighing done for me; as in a bunch of warrants, defense and turns will do nothing for me if they are not contextualized. I expect to hear why I should prefer your side with reference to warrants. I could maybe vote on something left off of FF, but I won't extend something from case/rebuttal to summary UNLESS it makes sense in the round (ie opponent brings it up again). Weighing should be comparative, doesn't help if both teams say they have a high probability without comparing to their opponent.

I do not flow cross-ex (but I do listen). if it's a new argument/warranting in CX, it should be in a speech. Be nice

As for mechanics, I am pretty flexible and should be comfortable with speed (unless it will be very fast/spreading) as long as you are clear. A speech doc will be well appreciated if you are speaking fast. I'm open to theory, as long as it is not frivolous (ex: no shoe theory). Ks and shells are both ok. I default to reasonability. Please note I am not an expert with theory, and again speech docs will help me understand more. (especially in online debate)

Have evidence ready, shouldn't take longer than 1-2 min to find it or send it out. Also, I will take it from your prep if you're prepping when your opponent is getting a card. I know online debate means I can't enforce this too well so honor system.

About paraphrasing: It takes away from the education of the debate, I do hate it, and while I won't drop you (on face) for it, I won't like you any better if you give me 40 one-lined "cards" in case or rebuttal. Plus it just takes away from the round when your opponent has to call for 10 cards because you read them too fast. (Anti) Paraphrasing theory will pretty easily win my ballot if done well.

..............................................................................................................................................

Overall, I try my best to make the right decision (but I'm nowhere near perfect). If you have ANY questions feel free to contact me (syadavno1@gmail.com) or ask me before/after the round. Thank you!

I'm a lay judge

hey everyone! I'm Sanjitha Yedavalli and I did speech & debate (PF and extemp) all 4 years of high school. I had a decently successful career qualifying to nats and the TOC. That being said, I do flow. Here's a couple of specific things.

1. 2nd rebuttal has to frontline

2. PLEASE signpost.

3. Collapse during summaries to make the round cleaner for me. I don't want to hear some really badly extended arguments all the way in final focus.

4. I won't vote off of an argument if the link/warranting isn't cleanly extended through final focus.

5. I try to flow all the card names but I usually just end up flowing the argument only. That being said, don't extend by saying "extend the Smith card", you will need to repeat the actual argument.

6. I'm fine with speed. if you think it's going to be rlly fast, just send me your speech doc before just so we avoid any issues

Speaker points: I generally give pretty high speaks in the 28-30 range. The only reasons I would go any lower is if you are being rude, racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, or any other offensive ism. Also, I will dock speaks if you aggressively post round.

Theory: I will probably never vote off of it because I do not understand it well enough.

Kritiks: I'm not accustomed to the lit. If you read a K, make sure you slow down and simplify it so that I understand it. Clearly explain why this matters and why I should be voting off of it. Also highly unlikely that I will vote off of it.

Structural Violence Frameworks/Args: Don't read structural violence arguments without a clear understanding of the oppression that exists. I do not accept a poor understanding of sensitive issues or shallow thinking when it comes to this. Warranting is key. Do not assume my political views because of my looks. Don't use the oppression of others as a tactic to win a debate round. I will call you out if I sense any bs.

I appreciate humor. Use it to your advantage.

Please make crossfire bearable. I don't want to be falling asleep so use humor or be aggressive (but not too aggressive to the point where you're just being a dick)

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me before the round begins.

If for some reason you need to contact me or want to ask me any additional questions after round, feel free to email me at sanjitha.y@gmail.com

Hi, I am a parent and this is my first time judging.

Please speak slowly and clearly. Do not use debate language or "jargon".

I will be timing, but time yourselves and your opponents as well for both speeches and preparation time.

Do not introduce new arguments in final focus, I will not consider them in my decision.

I did PF for three years, becoming a state champion my senior year. I'm currently a sophomore at Princeton.

Just some general rules

Don't be mean. There's a difference between being aggressive in cross-fire and being mean, don't be mean.

Don't lie or misconstrue your evidence. I'll probably read evidence if you ask me to, and if I feel like you're stretching something then I'll probably call for the card at the end of the round.

About cross-fire: I generally don't flow cross-fire, but if something spicy is mentioned I'll jot it down. If you're witty you'll get some speaker points, but there's a big difference between being witty and being mean. Mean bad, Witty good.

Truth over Tech any day of the week, especially in PF. Something that will really help in clarifying how you win in that regard is by weighing your arguments in the context of magnitude, probability, and time-frame. I loooove impact calculus, really gets me up in the morning. That being said, don't just tell me that your argument is more probable, rather tell me why it is more probable.

I think PF is at its best whenever it is focused. Don't bring up some argument that has been ignored the whole round back up again in final focus. If it really is an important point then bring it up continuously in your speeches.

There's a lot of value in telling me why your evidence is better than your opponents, especially whenever they say opposite things. Also if you have a DOPE piece of evidence tell me why its a goldmine.

Overall I think debate is a fun time where we should learn a lot from. If I walk out of a round and don't learn anything, then there's a problem. If you can provide some unique analysis that provides an impact that makes me really care about the topic, then you've done a fantastic job.

I am a parent judge new to the national circuit. I'd like to see debaters debate in a civil and professional manner demonstrating sound logical reasoning while building a strong case. Please pay attention to your warrants, link chains, and questions you may ask during crossfires. Please speak clearly and do not spread or speak too fast, so I can fully understand you. Please do not use too many technical jargon but treat me as someone who had minimal knowledge on the topic, so please explain your logic and convince me fully why I should vote for you. I am looking forward to seeing you in rounds. I wish you all the best!

I am a parent judge, please be clear and speak slowly for me!

I prefer speakers speaking clearly and not too fast;

The fact and data that speakers quote need to be accurate;

From 2020, I will start speaker points at 27 at the beginning of the round, and then score the rest based on their relative performances.

My son does debate at Seven Lakes HS.

I will write notes/"flow" to the best of my ability.

I'd prefer if speeds were conversation paced as i may not be able to follow debates that are too quick.

New arguments made in the last speeches will not be evaluated.

Please speak with confidence.

Please respect the opponents, judges, and spectators.

I am new to judging, please speak slower than usual.

Short Paradigm:

-I flow

-Tech>Truth

-4 years of PF at American Heritage School, 3 TOC quals

Long Paradigm:

Arguments:

-I'll vote on literally anything that makes sense and isn't blatantly offensive. That includes progressive arguments (Theory/Ks) or counterintuitive substantive arguments (nuclear war good/economic development bad).

-I'll vote on presumption even if you don't tell me to as long as neither team has any offense. I default neg on presumption, but I'm open to arguments regarding defaulting alternatively.

Extensions:

-Defense isn't sticky; I'm not evaluating anything that's not in final.

-Second rebuttal has to respond to all offense; otherwise, it's conceded (I will let some things slide if you're in novice).

-No progressive off-case positions in the second rebuttal unless the other team violates in first rebuttal; DAs are fine.

-First summary doesn't need to extend defense that the second rebuttal concedes. It can go straight to the final.

Speed:

-I can comfortably flow anything ~300 WPM without a speech doc assuming you're clear

-You can spread against anyone even if they are not ok with it but

a. If they are novices, you have to warn them before the round. If they say "speed" and you don't slow down I'll stop flowing.

b. If you have factors preventing you from following speed outside of your control (i.e., a disability), then tell your opponents or me about it (I'll keep this anonymous) and make sure that no one spreads.

c. I'll be receptive to theoretical arguments assuming they are properly structured.

Weighing:

-If it's not comparative, don't bother making it

-If it's fake (i.e., we outweigh on probability because we have a link and they drop defense), don't bother making it

-If you aren't winning your argument, don't bother making it

-If the first final has new weighing, I allow new weighing in the second final; otherwise, don't bother making it

Evidence:

-I will never drop a team for misconstruing evidence, only the argument

-I will only evaluate an evidence dispute if you tell me to call for something AND explain what's wrong with the evidence

Progressive Argumentation:

-Slow down for these, and ideally, I want a speech doc regardless

-I can and will comfortably evaluate theory (T, Disclosure, Paraphrasing, Spec, Condo good/bad, etc.)

-I'm open to more nuanced (DAs on shells, comparing forms of disclosure, etc.) or silly (shoe theory/30 speaks theory) theoretical arguments

-If you read theory or Ks in paragraph form I will disregard your arguments.

-I will vote on tricks (spikes/NIBs/skep triggers/paradoxes)

-I will vote on a K but

a. I have no familiarity with your authors

b. I don't have enough experience to be comfortably evaluating K debates (as in I might screw you and you'll be sad)

Prefs:

-I like sarcastic debaters that make fun of their opponents and their opponents' args. Don't make them too upset though.

-Postrounding is good for debate. If my decision upsets you, feel free to question it and me as a judge. You (or your coach) can be as rude, condescending, and aggressive when post rounding if you're feeling like it, and I won't hold that against you.

- I encourage teams to pursue unconventional strategies like responding to the first constructive in the second constructive. Or reading arguments that take out all offense on both sides and then telling me to vote on presumption.

-Speaks are arbitrary so let me know if you're in a bubble and need high speaks to break

-If your offtime roadmap is too long, then I'll be upset.

Lay judge.
I don't know anything about speech or debate, but I will do my best to be a fair judge.
English is my second language, so please try to ensure that I can understand you.