Hi I'm Ben

I participated in Public Forum Debate at Hackley for 4 years. I am now a junior at the University of Chicago. In general, I am a flow judge and you should treat me as one. If any of this is unclear or if you have any other questions, please ask me. I am happy to answer any specific questions about my preferences. Please read my paradigm so you can ask me specific questions though.

Above all, have fun. Debate is supposed to be fun. Make me enjoy watching the round. Make jokes. Put a smile on. I promise whether you do well or poorly you will still be happy if you genuinely enjoy debate, so enjoy debate.

For those of you who don't have much time or want a simple version of my paradigm the most important things know are:

-don't misrepresent evidence

-implicate your responses to your opponent's case

-defense is sticky (so you don't need to extend defense they don't respond to)

-Summary and Final Focus must be about the same content

-tell me where you want me to flow your responses (signpost)

-Weigh!!!! Weigh in comparison to your opponents weighing

-Collapse on one argument

Specific Preferences:

1. In second rebuttal, ideally all offense from the other side in the round should be covered. This means you should respond to their case, and any turns and disadvantages they put on your case in first rebuttal.

2. I like to hear weighing in rebuttal, it makes my life easier and the quality of debate higher.

3. I can handle speed, but a disclaimer: the faster you go, the higher the chance that I misunderstand what you are saying. Be reasonable with speed.

4. Please read the dates on any evidence you read.

5. If you misrepresent your evidence with paraphrasing intentionally, your speaks will suffer. Be warned.

6. I'll evaluate theory and k's but I won't like it. They don't really belong in Public Forum, but if you win them, I'll vote off of them.

7. Card dumping is great, but if you don't implicate your cards to their case I'm not going to evaluate them. This also means you have to warrant your cards.

8. Defense is sticky. If defense isn't responded to, you don't need to extend it.

9. Offense is not sticky. If you want me to evaluate offense, it must be in summary and final focus, and if you speak 2nd, in one of your first two speeches.

10. I will put my pen on the table during cross. If you think I am not paying attention during cross, it is because I am not paying attention. Cross is for the debaters to clarify stuff with each other, not to bring up new points or to grandstand for the judge.

11. That being said, don't be super rude or you will lose speaks. I am okay with wittiness/humor, I even appreciate it, but make sure you don't yell at your opponents or explicitly make fun of them, it is bad for the activity of debate and I will take away speaks.

12. Please signpost. If you don't tell me where on the flow you want me to write what you are saying, I will decide, and you might not like that. Even worse, if I can't figure out where to put it, I will just ignore it. You definitely won't like that.

13. Tech>Truth. I will evaluate the round entirely based on what's on my flow. I am not going to intervene. You tell me how to vote and why that means I vote for you, and I will evaluate the round.

14. Please weigh in summary and final focus. Not only that, comparatively weigh. This means you take your weighing and your opponents weighing and you explain why I should prefer your weighing in comparison with their weighing.

15. Collapse. If you go for your whole case, I am going to be really sad and the quality of the debate is just going to be worse. It also will make your weighing and extensions less clear.

16. Speaks: I think speaks are stupid and subjective and they don't promote the activity of debate, they promote the activity of public speaking. Thus, most of the way I am going to evaluate speaks is round strategy, vision, and cohesiveness in a team. Here is how that looks:

30- You collapsed on the right thing, and you weighed it with your opponent's case innovatively. All of the opponent's offense was responded to completely. You frontlined everything you went for. Final Focus built on, but was about the same content as summary. Both partners were on the same page the whole round.

29- You collapsed on the right thing, and you weighed it adequately with your opponent's case. You responded all of your opponent's offense, but you may have mishandled it somewhat. You frontlined everything you went for, but maybe it was a little rushed or done not well enough. Final Focus and Summary were about the same content. Both partners seemed pretty cohesive throughout the round.

28- You collapsed, but perhaps not on the right thing, and your weighing was not comparative. You may have dropped a turn, or a part of your opponent's case, but you at least weighed. You did not necessarily frontline all of your opponent's defense on what you went for, but the frontlining done was good. Final Focus felt a little bit disjointed from Summary, but they still were in the big picture covering the same thing. The partners seemed to be presenting slightly different worldviews at least, and may have interrupted each other in Grand Cross.

27-You probably went for everything, and your weighing was poor or nonexistent. Your defense was mishandled and you didn't respond to significant parts of your opponent's offense. There was nearly no frontlining even attempted, and the frontlining attempted was poor and didn't apply. Final Focus brought up new stuff and felt completely different than what was going on in Summary. The partners seemed very disjointed and probably interrupted each other in grand cross.

26 (This is nearly impossible to do)-You didn't even try to extend any offense and your speeches turned into just yelling nonsense at the wall. Defense? What's that? We don't need to talk about what our opponents said. Partners seemed to be close to a fistfight during prep time.

auto 26 (If you got a 26 this probably happened)- intentional misrepresentation of evidence or complete disrespect for the other team is a one way trip to a 26.

17. If you ask me to call for evidence, I will call for it after the round if my decision is contingent on it.

18. Extensions need to extend the warrant, link, and impact of an argument, and also frontline after you extend.

19. Oh yeah pls don't be racist, sexist, homophobic or any one of those kinda things i will give you lowest speaks possible!!! Don't be that guy or gal pls!

20. Trigger warnings and content warnings seem ideal when appropriate

I'm KC (They/Them) (email kc.caswell@germantownacademy.org). I debated and judged extensively in college in British Parliamentary-style debate and am familiar with traditional LD and PF. I prefer traditional rounds.

I prefer a round in which:

• Debaters address the central question(s) asked by the topic.
• The contentions are clearly linked to the framework.
• Is thoroughly comparative: Please weigh your arguments clearly against the arguments of your opponents.
• K's are explained at a level accessible for the average reasonable listener. If running a K, please make sure your link is very clear and that the K is clearly incompatible with the opposing case.
• Please don't spread—I vote based on my flow, and for now, I have a hard time flowing spreading.
• If an argument is unresponded to and also relevant to the debate, I will count it as true, although not an automatic win.

I'm a high school debater that has participated in parli as both a judge and a debater for over seven years.

I think that the most important things in a debate are reasoning and impact - evidence can help supplement a point but only if you explain it well. In general, while both are important, I tend to focus more on logic and understanding of the motion than on the use of a lot of statistics. Impact is also really valuable, as I have no reason to believe that anything is important unless you tell me it is.

I go into every debate as if I know nothing - if there is a flaw in a case that isn't pointed out, I will accept it. This means that refutation and direct clash is very important.

I really like POIs, but I am also very critical of debaters who use them to distract or disrupt. POIs should help set up or supplement your point, not just take up other speakers' time. Quality over quantity.

Overall, I think the best debaters are the ones who genuinely love debate for the process and have fun doing it, so remember not to take anything too seriously :)

I'm a coach with experience in public forum debate, parliamentary debate, and extemporaneous debates. Some general notes:

ALL STYLES

- Arguments only matter if they extend across the flow. If you raise a contention in the first speech, then drop it for the bulk of the round, I won't count it.

- I'm generally quite literal with frameworks. You tell me something is important, it will show up on your ballot as part of your reason for decision. An extra speaker point to both debaters on any team who successfully uses frameworks OTHER than utilitarianism or net benefits.

- Impacting your contentions matter, but your links (i.e. how you connect steps of your contention together) matter more. Don't foresake one for the other.

- I'm not impressed by use of hyper-specific debate jargon. Use of jargon that I don't understand OR replacing actual refutation with jargon will result in deduction of speaker points. Assuming I'm a lay judge will serve you well.

- I do not find roadmaps useful. If you need to do it to keep yourself organized, that's fine, but I will probably disregard them.

- Definitional debaters are normally not useful or compelling unless they have a high impact outside of the debate itself. I have almost never awarded a round on the argument that a definition is "tight" or unfair to one side, but have rewarded rounds based on substantial definition debates that have practical or philosophical impacts. (E.g. debates over the nature of justice.)

- I rarely vote in favor of kritiks. I find it's rare that the issues raised in kritiks are impactful enough that they justify derailing the debate as traditionally presented. Their impacts often require judge intervention into the round that is independent of actual arguments being made, which I do not feel comfortable with. If you wish to make a kritik, you should make it with the assumption that you're likely to lose the round and that that is worth it for you.

- There are no silver bullets in debate. These are general guidelines, but following these will not guarantee you a win and should not be treated as such.

FOR PUBLIC FORUM

- Quoting cards will not win you debates; how you explain your cards matters.

- I'm more impressed by speakers who speak using their own words and paraphrasing of evidence rather than quoting from pre-written cases.

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE

- POIs strongly encouraged. Debaters who refuse to take any POIs (especially if multiple are offered) will find their speaker points severely docked.

- It's hard to win on the OPP block. GOV teams who start weighing arguments in the MG and lay out a clear framework for why they're winning the round are more likely to win. In addition, GOV teams who call dropped args by their opponents will go far.

EXTEMPORANEOUS DEBATE

- BEWARE THE HALF AFF! A lot of CDA teams spend their round encouraging me that they are actually just like their opponents only without the bad stuff. This won't win you rounds with me. The debate has given you a side; stick to it!

I am the president of the Williams College Debating Union. This is my 9th year of competitive debate. (3 years APDA, 4 years PF, 3 years Worlds) I was a captain at the Trinity school in NYC and attended TOC twice.

I can handle speed, but for the sake of everyone's sanity, CLEARER is better than faster.

I am not tech over truth, but I can only evaluate what is brought up in round. So, while I am more likely to vote for what is true, you must convince me what the truth is or tech can absolutely win.

Don't misquote your cards. I won't call for them unless there is extreme disagreement over their content (which I would prefer not to happen), but I will if necessary.

Comparative weighing please. I will only vote off of what has been comparatively weighed, preferably earlier than FF.

Extend both evidence AND warrants for your contentions. Preference for warrants is cut for time. Not just the tagline. Same goes for responses.

Defense is sticky.

Please be friendly to each other, and if not friendly then at least civil. I will be very hesitant to vote for you if you are obnoxious. Debate is supposed to be fun and that is difficult when people aren't nice to one another. If not, I will drop your speaks.

If you make a hand motion at any point during the round that I have never seen before, I will increase your speaks by 1 point. (This only works once per round; I will not infinitely increase your speaks if you spend all of cross doing the macarena).

No theory.

Yay debate!

Go slow. Be clear. Be nice.

If you would like more, I have written detailed paradigms for each style I judge:

PF paradigm

Parli paradigm

Middle school paradigm

Hi! I'm Zach and I debated for Hackley. For context, I debated technically but spoke slowly and (somewhat) persuasively.

For the email chain, my email address is: zyusaf@students.hackleyschool.org

For NSD, DO NOT read theory on anyone lower than your lab level. If you do, it's auto L 20s.

Here are some of my preferences:

1. Have a good narrative. This does not only have to be in the constructive speech. When collapsing on defense or weighing, the best way to get my ballot is to collapse on what will advance your story.

2. Please weigh! It helps to resolve the debate when both teams win their cases. This is not only weighing offensive arguments, but also doing comparative analysis as to, say, why your defense is better than their link/case argument. Weighing helps resolve clash all over the flow.

3. Frontline all offense and defense on the argument that you are going for in second rebuttal. If you don't, then I'll cut your speaks a bit and first summary doesn't have to extend defense.

4. I will 100% vote on any well-warranted argument if it's clean, even if it seems wacky.

5. Collapse in summary! Don't go for too much -- I really prefer when teams go for less and give more comparative analysis or in-depth frontlining.

6. You can read progressive arguments but I don't know much about them, so just make sure to explain them really well and I'll vote for you.

7. Warrants > Evidence.

Good luck!!

Hi! I'm Zara (she/her) and I debated Public Forum for four years at Hackley School and am a current freshman at Tufts University.

I coach with DebateDrills- the following URL has our roster, MJP conflict policy,code of conduct, relevant team policies, and harassment/bullying complaint form:https://www.debatedrills.com/club-team-policies/lincoln-douglas-team-policy

Please include me on the email chain zarayusaf05@gmail.com

Progressive Argumentation:

You can read progressive arguments but I don't know much about them, so just make sure to explain them really well. I don't like frivolous theory, but will evaluate theory if there is actual abuse in the round.

Speed:

Send a speech doc if you speak over 250 wpm.

General:

Have a good narrative. I think the best rounds are when debaters carry a narrative throughout a round and collapse on what will advance their story.

Please weigh!! Weighing is super important and is the first thing I look to when evaluating a round. I like weighing that is comparative and falls within your narrative.

Please read a content warning/send an opt out form if you plan to read potentially harmful/triggering content.

Frontline all offense and defense on the argument that you are going for in second rebuttal.

Warrants > Evidence.

Please preflow before round!!

Please be nice to your opponents and to me - we are here to have fun and learn :)