Hi I’m Will! I did a lot of LD in high school and am only comfortable with traditional debates. I don’t care what arguments you use (as long as they are relevant to the topic), but I appreciate people speaking really slowly and explaining their own reasoning clearly and insightfully. I don’t like it when people spend most of their time reciting cards—most of your speeches should consist of original analysis and contextualization even if you do bring in some quotes from academic papers/articles/books. Although I take notes, I don’t flow and do not care about “dropped” arguments. Address the cruxes of your opponent’s position, but if there are just too many arguments and/or if some of them are silly, I don’t expect you to waste time going through them. My main thing is that if you speak too fast or don’t debate the topic, I won’t vote for you. Feel free to ask questions before the round, and I look forward to hearing you debate!

I have only judged Public Forum twice but I know the basic terminology, have watched multiple videos, and am aware of basic judgecraft. That said, the "Policy" level techniques and details are fussy for me.

Hello,

My name is Sarah Bassil. I have been involved in debate for many years in various capacities as a debater, judge and coach. I have no preferences on the pace of your speaking so long as it is comprehensible. In efforts to be efficient, I have put together a simple list of my judging preferences:

-Roadmaps are greatly encouraged

-Sources should not be from newspapers or journalist. They are inherently bias and therefore weaken your argument.

-Including impacts in the structure of the contentions is most important in a proper case.

-Unless your definitions differ greatly from your opponents, please do not waste both of our time by defining them.

-Please use all of your allocated time, even if it just to read through the subpoints/impacts.

-Respect in the round, especially during cross x/grand cross x, cannot be stressed enough.

-Good public speaking skills starts with being prepared and confident with your case. I highly encourage students to have memorized a least 20% of their case in efforts to ensure they have good/decent eye contact.

Debate is an activity where we learn and grow as students together, so come with a positive attitude. Feel free to ask any questions before/after the round!

Coach for 20 years- judged all events. Important- link of claims back to value structure, moderate speaking pace is very much appreciated. I flow rounds and use the flow to guide my decision but do not drop debaters just for not extending all arguments cleanly. I like to hear logical fallacies called out as much as I like to hear logic employed in a round.

I competed in high school speech and debate all four years back in the 1990s and have been judging Lincoln Douglas and Public Forum debate for the last eight years.

Well reasoned arguments and high quality evidence are more convincing to me than twenty evidence cards- quality not quantity please! Speech and Debate is fundamentally an oral communication event and if I can't understand you your arguments can't persuade me.

Although NSDA rules allow citing sources as "Jones 2020", if I need to weigh competing evidence, knowing that "Jones 2020" is from The Washington Post instead of Wikipedia is important.

If you can't find the evidence in 30 seconds, we will move along- Organization is part of the preparation for this event.

Learning how to organize your thoughts quickly and how to stay cool under pressure/cross examination is a terrific life skill- this is an amazing activity and will help you in your later professional life no matter your high school win-loss record.

Extra speaker points

If you can make a haiku

In final focus

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I will always prefer the team with well-explained arguments over the team with 20 cards.

Feel free to call out sources for being biased.

If a card is called and you can't find it in 30 seconds, the round will move on. Organize your stuff.

I would advise the PF teams (Judged PF debate since last six months) , to be confident and prepared. Please respect the opponents and be open to their view points. You can be assertive and make your view point but not rude and disrespectful. After all, we are having a healthy competition and at the same time learning to enjoy what you are doing and work towards successful debaters.

I am looking for persuasive speakers, energetic and willing to argue with facts and data to back their contentions. Please define your cases clearly and keep your pace of conversation clear and steady. If you wish to make a very important point slow down to get the attention of the opponents and the Judge. I would like to mention that professionalism and courtesy goes a long way. There is no right or wrong answer, the team who delivers the debate well is generally considered the winner.

Start strong and end stronger!!

I'm a lay judge. Please speak slow and tell me which evidence I should prefer.

Speed: I debated all throughout high school so I am fine with speed within reason (i.e. don’t spread)

Cross: Let your opponent answer the question. There is a difference between being aggressive and being rude. I'll take off speaks if I think you've crossed a line.

Rebuttal: If you’re speaking second you don’t have to frontline in rebuttal. You can, but don’t sacrifice making responses to the opponent’s case just to do it. Also, card dumps are less effective than giving a few very logical responses so I would prefer for you to stay away from them if possible.

Summary: I was a first speaker so I think summary is the most important speech in the round. I would strongly prefer that terminal defense is in both summaries, but if it isn’t in the first I will live. Frontlining, however, is not a preference. If you don’t frontline I will flow their responses through and probably drop the argument. This is especially important for turns - if a turn is unresponded to it is offense for the other team and a reason to vote for them. Lastly, you must weigh in summary.

Final Focus: If it isn’t in summary it should not be in final focus. Also, weigh.

Other: I don't flow cross, so if something important happens in cross please bring it up in another speech.

As a communications executive with more than 30 years of experience, I appreciate thoughtful, well-articulated arguments and points of view supported by facts, stories and anecdotes. Help me understand and make me believe what you are saying. I expect students to have robust debates while exhibiting decorum.

I competed in PF at Nova High School in South Florida from 2014 to 2019. I just graduated from Duke University and am finishing up my fourth year coaching PF at Durham Academy.

For Nats 2023, please put me on the email chain- smith.emmat@gmail.com.

How I make decisions-

I tend to vote on the path of least resistance. This is the place on my flow where I need to intervene the least as a judge in order to make a decision. Explicitly identifying your cleanest piece of offense in the round, winning that clean piece of offense, completely extending that clean piece of offense (uniqueness, links AND impacts in BOTH summary and final focus), and then telling me why your cleanest piece of offense is more important than your opponents' cleanest piece of offense is usually an easy way to win my ballot.

General Stuff-

- Do all the good debate things! Do comparative weighing, warrant your weighing, collapse, frontline, etc.

- Please preflow before the round. Holding up the tournament to take 15 min to preflow in the room is really annoying :(

- Warrants and full link chains are important! I can only vote on arguments I understand by the end of the round and won't do the work for you on warrants/links. Please do not assume I know everything just because I've probably judged some rounds on the topic.

- I won't read speech docs, so please don't sacrifice speed for clarity.

- I have a really low threshold and 0 tolerance for being rude, dismissive, condescending, etc. to your opponents. I'm not afraid to drop you for this reason. At the very least, I'll tank your speaks and write you a kindly worded educational ballot about making rounds unnecessarily hostile.

Evidence-

- I personally feel that calling for evidence as a judge is interventionist. I will only do it if 1- someone in the round explicitly tells me to in a speech or 2- reading evidence is literally the only way that I can make a decision (if this happens, it means both teams did a terrible job of clarifying the round and there is no clear offense for me to vote on. Please don't let this happen).

Progressive Stuff-

- I'll vote on Kritiks if they are clearly warranted, well explained, and made accessible to your opponents. (I am admittedly not a fan of K's but will vote on them if I absolutely must.)

- I will also vote on theory that is clearly explained, fleshed out, and well warranted. I believe that theory should ONLY be used to check egregious instances of in-round abuse and reserve the right to drop you for frivolous theory. I won't buy paraphrase or disclosure theory.

- HUGE DISCLAIMER: My biggest pet peeve in PF right now is the use of progressive args to make rounds inaccessible to teams who don't know how to handle them. Reading progressive args against a clearly inexperienced team to get a cheap win is an easy way to auto lose my ballot. ALSO I am really not confident in my abilities to evaluate progressive arguments. If you choose to run them, you take on the risk of me making the wrong decision despite doing my best. Proceed with caution!

- If you plan on reading arguments about sensitive topics, please provide a content warning before the round.

I’m a parent judge for speech and LD. I have judged a couple of times last year and this is my third year judging.

IN LD I am looking for clear but not too fast speeches, sharp questions and responses in cross examinations, and strong rebuttals. I prefer well reasoned and supported arguments. While I don't mind a brisk speed when it is necessary to incorporate a variety of legitimate arguments in case or rebuttal, I will focus on the strength of individual arguments more than the accusation of dropped cards. You also don't have to win every bit of the flow (or pretend to) to win a round for me. You may even honestly concede minor points and cards/warrants. The important thing is to win the main arguments, wherever they happen to occur in the flow. Therefore, your job is to help me weigh what the most essential arguments are towards the end of the round.

For Speech I appreciate varieties in pace and tone of speech, commitment to goal and respect for your fellow participants.

I am a first generation Cuban-American who grew up in rural NC (so my Spanish is weak at best). I competed in speech (poetry and prose interpretation mostly) in both middle and high school. I have had two children compete in debate so I am aware for both formal rules and conventions.

I am a veterinary pathologist with extensive diagnostic and research experience (including covid studies); I also am a huge history buff. So I will probably know if your science or history is wrong / out of context / or misleading. That said, I do not penalize the speaker unless the error is egregious, meaning that a reasonable person would know the speaker is in factual error off the top of their head. Otherwise, I expected the opposing side to point out the error themselves. I do penalize if the opposition misquotes the other sides argument.

Please do not speak so quickly I cannot understand what you are saying.

And good luck!