I am a parent PF judge, and a practicing attorney with more than 25 years of experience.

I believe a sound debate is about a fair, intelligible and intelligent dialogue. Speed reading off a computer screen or spreading is incompatible with such a process. Fast speakers assume the risk that I could miss some arguments/points/evidence. Additionally, if in my view you've spoken at a fast clip, I will not view unfavorably your opponent failing to respond to an argument that you have advanced.

Do not resort to speech docs. Make your case orally.

I flow arguments and strictly rely on my flowsheet. While I do not take note of points made/unmade in crossfire, I pay careful attention to astute questions and answers. Please bring up crossfire points that you would like me to flow in a subsequent speech. I am persuaded by well-structured, logical and linked arguments that are honestly supported by key pieces of evidence.

In addition to making your case, you must meaningfully engage with your opponents' case. The team advancing a contention must rejoin the issue and tell me why the opposing team's rebuttal/counter/block does not work.

In crossfire, please avoid questions with long preambles.

While, for the most part, I don't get into the weeds with cards and evidence, I may on occasion call for a piece. Teams should feel free to assail each other's evidence during the debate.

Please do not use debate jargon.

I do not like theory and K's. Hew to the topic of the day.

Keep the discourse civil. Incivility in any form will hurt your cause.

Enthusiasm for, intensity, and passion regarding the proposition you are espousing is welcome. Discourtesy or aggression against your opponents is not.

Tactical and strategic thinking in arguing, rebutting, and in crossfire is always delightful.

I appreciate clear analysis of why your contention should win the day in the summary and final focus. Further, the final focus should have all that you would like me to vote on (akin to writing my RFD for me - pros of your case and cons of your opponent's.) Lastly, all arguments and evidence that are in the final focus must have been in the summary and no new arguments in the summary speech - it is a matter of fairness.

Happy debating!

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

Hi, I'm Nolan and I'm a third-year out at UW-Madison studying mechanical engineering and philosophy. I did PF for Scarsdale for four years on the nat circuit.

I will disclose and give oral feedback at the end of the round, just give me time to complete my ballot.

If you're in a rush before your round: Fast is ok, but unclear isn't. Don't be mean. Weigh please; tell me why you win the round.

Also no theory or K's, I am beginning to realize their cancerous spread into PF is inevitable but I will remain as a holdout against it for as long as possible.

Now if you actually care for some reason here are some more in-depth preferences.

- Don't be rude in cross. I understand the distinction between assertiveness and aggressiveness, but aggressiveness will greatly lower your speaks.

- I do not flow author names, I flow card content. If you want to extend something, tell me what the card says too, don't just "Extend McDonald '18"

- In terms of speaker points: I give pretty high speaks, possibly too high. You'll really only go below a 28 if you made a critical error and if that happens, I will tell you. Speaks can be lost for things like misconstruing evidence, being a dick in cross, or not giving me any impacts or weighing. Basically just things that make it more difficult for me to evaluate the round.

- Conversely, I will raise your speaks for things that make the round easier to judge and overall more enjoyable. This includes things like clear speaking, civility in cross, and good weighing.

Things I care about:

• WEIGHING
• Weighing is the most important thing because it tells me what I should care about and why I should vote for you
• Extend your cards through summary
• If you bring up a card in final focus that you haven’t mentioned since your case, I won’t count it
• If you want me to vote on a certain card, please bring it up in FF.
• Please have a cordial round
• Please don’t be petty or aggressive as it won’t make me like you.

Things I don’t care about:

• Speed
• Cross fire
• only important for speaker points for me
• I don’t flow it
• If you want me to care about a point made in cross, please bring it up in the next speech

Other things:

• Time yourself. But don’t abuse the privilege and go way over time.
• Please give me an off-time road-map for Rebuttal, Summary, and FF so I know where to flow
• IMPORTANT: You will get +.5 speaks if you say "cheeseburger" as I will know you read this whole paradigm

Please ask in-round if interested, happy to answer any questions! :)

Engineering grad and IT professional living in DC; I did PF in Virginia 2013-2017 and have been judging debate since 2018.

General:

1. Please pre-flow before round start time. I value keeping things moving along, and starting early if possible, so that the round does not go overtime.

2. I'm fine with speed, if you speak clearly and preferably provide a speech doc.

3a. Time yourself. When you run out of time, finish your sentence gracefully, on a strong note, and stop speaking.

3b. I will also time you. When you run out of time, I will make a hand gesture with my fist, then silently stop taking notes on my flow and wait for you to finish. I will cut you off if you are 30 seconds over time; if I cut you off, it means I didn't listen to anything you said for roughly the last 30 seconds.

4. I don't care if you sit or stand. Do whichever you prefer.

5. If you run K, please hand-hold me a little bit in terms of explaining their structure and why I should vote on them. I like when debaters deconstruct the format/topic/incentive structure of debate, and I've been around long enough to be more and more receptive to those arguments. However I haven't yet judged a K round.

6. I like case/evidence disclosure. It leads to better debates and better evidence ethics. When a team makes a pre-round disclosure of case/evidence or shares a rebuttal doc, I expect that the other team will reciprocate. I expect that you have an evidence doc and can quickly share any evidence the opposing team calls for. If you have not prepared to share your evidence, you should run prep to get your evidence doc together. I want rounds to proceed on schedule and will note it in RFD and speaks if a significant and preventable waste of time occurs in the round.

7. Be nice. It's really important to remember that however well or poorly the round is going, you need to be respectful in the way your treat other participants in the debate. I will not accept debaters who attempt to make their opponents feel less than, even if those debaters are winning on arguments.

PF:

I typically vote on terminal impacts. Use your constructive to state and quantify impacts that I as a human can care about. I care about saving lives, reducing suffering and increasing happiness, in descending order of importance. Provide warrants and evidence for your claims, then extend your claims and impacts through to final focus. In final focus, weigh: tell me *how* you won in terms of the impacts I care about. You should also weigh to help me decide between impacts that are denominated in different units, for instance if one side impacts to poverty and the other side impacts to, idk, life expectancy, your job as debaters is to tell me why one of those is more important to vote on. If you both impact to the same thing, like extinction, make sure you are weighing the unique aspects of your case, like probability, timeframe, and solvency against the other side's case.

1. If you call a card and begin prepping while you wait to receive it, I will run your prep. Calling for evidence is not free prep.

2. Be nice to each other in cross; let the other person finish. Cut them off if they are monopolizing time.

3. If you want me to consider an argument when I vote, extend it all the way through final focus.

LD:

The way I vote in LD is different from how I vote in PF. In the most narrow sense, I vote for whichever team has the best impact on the value-criteron for the value that I buy into in-round.

This means you don't necessarily have to win on your own case's value or your own case's VC. Probably you will find it easier to link your impacts to your own value and VC, but you can also concede to your opponent's value and link into their VC better than they do, or delink your opponent's VC from their value, or show that your case supports a VC that better ties into their value.

Policy:

I have judged novice policy once. I'm aware of the structure of policy debate and various mechanics/techniques that have made their way into LD/PF. You should assume I will need a little bit of hand-holding if the round hinges on theory, topicality or K. If the round doesn't go there and no one instructs me otherwise, I will look to impact calculus by default when voting.

Congress:

I don't judge Congress nearly enough to have an in-depth paradigm, but it happens now and then that I judge Congress, particularly for local tournaments and intramurals. I will typically give POs top-3 if they successfully follow procedure and hold the room together.

Ranking is more based on gut feeling but mainly I'm looking to evaluate: did you speak compellingly like you believe and care about the things you're saying, did you do good research to support your position, and did you take the initiative to speak, particularly when the room otherwise falls silent.

BQ:

I've never judged BQ before and have been researching the format, watching some rounds and bopping around Reddit for the last week or so to understand the rules and norms. Since I'm carrying some experience with other formats in, you should know I will flow all speeches, and only the speeches. I will give a lot of leeway to the debaters to determine the definitions and framing of the round, and expect them to clash over places where those definitions and framings are in conflict, and ultimately I will determine from that clash what definitions and framing I should adopt when signing my ballot.

Excellent debaters speak slowly, clearly and with excellent organization to their presentations.

Speak in plain English and avoid debate speak. Do not "resolve to negate" (no one says that in real life); tell me why I should find that the proposition is wrong or unwise (or the converse).

If you cite to an authority, make it clear what the authority is and why that authority is reliable. For example, it is not: "Higgins 26 says". Rather, it could be: "As former Assistant Secretary of Defense John Higgins said in his Foreign Affairs article of _____."

You do not have a "card". You have evidence or opinions described by a third party source.

Be respectful to each other; do not interrupt during crossfire. If you ask a question, allow the opponent(s) to answer. Refer to public officials by their title and with respect in a way that no one knows your politics. For example, refer to them as President Trump, President Obama and President Biden. Let me reiterate: no one should know your political views from your arguments.

If you say your opponents did not respond to your third contention (debate speak!) then make clear what that contention (better referred to as "point", "reason", "premise" etc.) is. The same holds true if you are addressing one of their points.

It is important that I be able to track the organization and logic flow of your arguments. I do that for the purpose of determining overall persuasiveness, not to create a checklist of everything that must be "covered". If there is a major point that I believe is unpersuasive based upon the totality of the arguments, then not every sub-point or sub-argument needs to be addressed. I am definitely not a fan of spreading, it generally shows weakness. To be clear though, if there is a strong argument that is not rebutted, that will weigh heavily in the determination of the winner.

Saying less but in a clear manner is far more important and effective than saying more in a way that cannot be understood.

Stand erect, and make eye contact with the judge(s) and note their reactions. Read my reactions to see if you are going too fast or speaking too softly. I do not care if you yell at me if that is what it takes for you to be loud enough to be heard -- and understood.

If you would like to e-mail me, use: owen.carragher@clydeco.us.

Most importantly:

HAVE FUN AND LEARN EACH TIME.

Hi all, I am a current senior at Regis HS in NYC and have done PF all four years of high school. I also have some experience in Parliamentary debate.

Judging-wise, I'm mostly non-interventionist, but if something you're saying is blatantly false, well if your opponents so much as say that's dumb, I won't consider the argument.

I am like "truth = tech," they are both about equal to me. Explain every argument so that anyone could understand it; don't just cite some sketchy website you found seven pages into a Google search. Also, if there are conflicting cards, don't just try to shout yours louder, spend extra time breaking down why yours is right. No matter what your argument is be prepared to defend it, I genuinely don't have a preference between logic and cards, so long as you can explain your cards and not just give me numbers. If you can't explain them I will be less inclined to vote for you. Unexplained cards only trump weak logic, so be prepared to defend and explain without relying on only evidence.

Be nice to each other

If you're funny, your speaker points will get a boost, remember at the end of the day this is about having fun.

Have some fun, sarcasm will almost always be accepted as a form of humor. - This line of my paradigm seems to have recently been ignored by debaters. Please don't ignore it. I want to have some fun.

We're here to debate the given resolution. Don't run any arguments that don't directly address it (i.e. no theory).

Ask me anything before or during the round (though no promises I'll answer (see above: "non-interventionist")).

Spreading: I can understand fast speech so you should be fine. However, if I miss an argument or one of your points because of it that is on you.

Off-Time Road Maps: Just don't, I am a senior in high school and I have done debate all four years from novice as a freshman to varsity now, I know what you are going to do and you shouldn't need one. If you do one, I will tank your speaks.

Please try to be early! That way we can start early, and it gives me more time to write an RFD and helpful feedback. (Plus I think we all want to be able to move on quicker, and end earlier than everyone else).

I also will give low-point wins. I think that its a really helpful tool in Public Forum.

Lastly, I believe disclosure is extremely important in Public Forum, so I disclose

(By the way, if you want more in-depth stuff that I don't really want to get into, see Tommy Barone's paradigm. Much more "debatey" than this one and I basically agree with it all.)

And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
Someday

I was walking with my brother
and he wondered what's on my mind
I said, What I believe in my soul
ain't what I see with my eyes
And we can't turn our backs this time

I am a patriot and I love my country
Because my country is all I know
I want to be with my family
people who understand me
I've got nowhere else to go

And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
Someday

If you read all of that, the song, and Tommy Barone's paradigm, let me know and I'll give you +1 speaker points

And I was talking with my sister
she looked so fine
I said, Baby, what's on your mind
She said, I want to run like the lion
released from the cages
Released from the rages
burning in my heart tonight, yeah

And I ain't no Communist and I ain't no Capitalist
And I ain't no Socialist and I ain't no Imperialist
And I ain't no Democrat so I ain't no Republican
I only know one party and it is freedom

I am, I am, I am
I am a patriot and I love my country
Because my county is all I know

And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
Someday

And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
And the river opens for the righteous
I want to run like the lion
Released from the cages
Released from the rages
I said what I believe in my soul
Ain't what I see with my eyes
Someday
Someday
Someday
Someday
Someday

The righteous lion will win

I am a senior at Regis High School who has competed with moderate success in PF.

TLDR: I want a civil, unmuddled, honest, inoffensive, and accessible round with comprehensive weighing, persuasive warranting, and sufficient empirics to bear out the argumentation. Make your best effort to follow through on that wish and you're in good shape (but don't feel compelled to abandon your style in so doing; I will adapt as best I can)!

Basic judging philosophy: I view flow norms of debate as useful and ascribe to them only insofar as they are most paradigmatically conducive to rigorous analysis and thorough argumentative engagement. Debate in whatever fashion you believe best meets those two criteria, but I believe that a warrant-focused debate with lots of good comparative analysis and an overarching narrative does so most effectively (and does not require superfluous speed or overuse of jargon).

Long, non-exhaustive, and entirely unstructured set of preferences:

Warrant warrant warrant. I couldn't care less about your evidence if it's not warranted.

Tell me to call evidence and I will; misconstrue it and you're getting horrible speaks.

Spewing debate jargon isn't a rhetorical technique. If it's misused or excessive it's reductive to the intellectual level of the round and it will guarantee you bad speaks.

Weigh early, often, and in a way that interacts with your opponent's weighing. Saying buzz words like "scope" or "magnitude" isn't really compelling if I don't know how your arguments actually interact.

Collapse on your best offense and build a coherent narrative that adequately frontlines major responses. Beyond being poor strategy that massively dilutes your weighing (I'm not going to think multiple pieces of offense important!), I think it's borderline abusive and torpedoes the overall quality of the round because it creates a super reductive burden on the other side to extend and implicate adequate responses for 2+ arguments.

It's fine to read a lot of responses in rebuttal, but if they're not sufficiently explained/implicated or warrantless, I'm going to have trouble evaluating them even if they make it to the end of the round. In final focus and summary, try to collapse on just a few responses and implicate them well.

I'm truly fine flowing fairly fast PF speech, but I will be very annoyed if you don't enunciate and signpost well in so doing.

If you're going to run a turn, please implicate the overall effect thereof. So many people read a "turn" that actually just recognizes one negative effect of something and concludes that it must therefore be net negative. Effects are almost always multidirectional, so, unless you're implicating why something is net your way, I'm probably going to presume that the net effect is whatever the original offense was, or I'll at least avoid voting on the issue. Regardless, unless the turn is well weighed and impacted, I'm really not inclined to vote for it.

In second rebuttal, ideally frontline everything you're going to go for in the back-half speeches. I think it's problematic to only respond to turns in second rebuttal because that leaves first final focus responding anew, which I think creates an unfavorable time skew. I understand this puts pressure on second rebuttal, but you can deal with that by collapsing early (which I would actually appreciate regardless--it makes the weighing nicer). That being said, I won't regard defense as conceded if not frontlined in second rebuttal, I'll probably just dock speaks (note: turns DO need to be frontlined in second rebuttal).

Both summaries need to have defense, offense, and weighing (definitely with a focus on the latter two).

If you read off of your computer for the entire round from prewritten text, you're getting very low speaks because that isn't what debate is.

If you say something was conceded, it better be conceded. Probably my biggest pet peeve in debate is when people say a very clearly responded-to argument was dropped, and I will definitely drop speaks substantially for doing so.

You will lose the round with awful speaks if you run arguments that are inaccessible or argue in an inaccessible way (theory, Ks, spreading, anything from LD/policy). The only theory I'd even consider evaluating would be in response to a genuinely very abusive in-round strategy (examples include: spreading, second rebuttal disads, absurd response dumping, turn dumping).

I will be so mad if your style of argumentation is about muddling up the round with high volumes of non-responsive information.

I am the weakest possible version of tech over truth. The only time I'll vote on a flagrantly untrue argument is if it's totally conceded. While I think good critical-thinkers should always be able to deal with outrageous arguments, running them wastes a team's time, throws them off, and is rarely intellectually honest.

If you run disads, I literally might just not evaluate them because I think they're so abusive (in second rebuttal, I absolutely won't). If you run a disad and call it a turn, I'll be furious (an M4A example: neg differential pricing is not a turn on aff access).

In general, I tend to think that a super turn-heavy strategy by the first-speaking team fringes on abusive and is really reductive to the intellectual quality of the round, so, while I won't intervene because of it, I will a) have a lower standard for how much frontlining needs to be done in second rebuttal and b) have a higher standard for the quality of the extension/weighing of the turn.

I am a parent judge and a lay judge. Please keep your speaking speed reasonable and be clear.

Junior at Byram Hills in NY.

3 years of PF experience with some LD mixed in.

I will evaluate any argument (progressive, traditional, whatever else) as long as it is properly justified.

Please weigh and don't make me intervene, I really don't want to.

YOU MUST SIGNPOST BEFORE SPEECHES.

To me, logic is as good as carded evidence. Warrant your claims with either: make it make sense.

I'm A-OK with spreading, but I will require you to email me and your opponent your case and anything else you are spreading

Feel free to email zach.g.honig@gmail.com with any questions

Auto 30 speaks if you can tell me the differences between Sukarno and Suharto and their impact on Indonesian politics today at the end of the round

+2 speaks for mentioning either name in a coherent sentence somehow relating to the resolution

Note: if get no weighing in the round, I will flip a coin on camera to see who wins. Aff: heads, Neg: tails

Hey, my name is Wubet. I am a Senior who does pf debate. Please be respectful of each other. Speak clearly, remember to enunciate, and don't spread. If something important is mentioned in cross, bring it up in your speech so I can flow it. Most importantly, make sure to weigh!

Varsity Debater Riverdale Country School

Things I Like:

- Extending your links and cards throughout the round (try to extend your case in all speeches or at least through summary).

- Having a balance between a flow speech (responding to every card/going down the flow) and a logical one (weighing, logic, etc.).

- Having confidence in your arguments and speeches.

Things I Don't Like

- Rudeness: It is good to be confident and persuasive, but it is equally as important to be respectful.

- Going for too many arguments (try to collapse on 1-2 that you feel you have won and focus on those).

- Going over time (try to be within the limit, it's fine to finish your sentence).

- Stealing prep time (be honest with your prep time)

Please let me know before the round if you have any questions.

Hey everyone!

I am a graduate of Fordham University in the Bronx, and am very excited to be judging! I attended Nova High where, senior year, I founded and coached our Lincoln Douglas team, so I have a very extensive, but not completely exhaustive, understanding of LD. I am very well versed in debate events- freshman & sophomore year I competed in congress and junior year in PF. So I'm great at following logic- if you are going to run something tricky I'm totally capable to judge it, just make sure you explain it well.

Clear warrants and weighing mechanisms are extremely important to me. Please give me a means to evaluate what you are arguing. Keep my flow clean. Signpost.

I'm pretty much open to anything you wanna throw at me. With a few limitations of course. If you are at all sexist, racist, homophobic, or rude to your opponent, expect me to call you out and don't expect speaks higher than 25. I'm fine with speed to an extent- if you want to spread that's completely fine, just don't expect me to get every word down. If it's important, you better bring it up in your later speeches. I love to hear out of the box arguments - in high school, I ran a rage fem K - so I love to hear new and progressive ideas.

I'm sure I left out some things here so I'll be posting updates, but feel free to email me with any questions!

-Julia Kennedy

juliakennedy97@gmail.com

For email chains: manna@bxscience.edu

Hii all! I am a pretty standard flow judge.

Warrant + weigh = win. (thank you Tenzin Dadak)

Please don't try to go for everything in the round.

I don't really care about cross, I might not pay attention during it.

Debate is supposed to be fun, enjoy it!

If you have any questions feel free to let me know :)

Ps. If it is the first round of the day I am probably a bit groggy so keep that in mind

I debated for 4 years both varsity LD and PF. I never really liked super tech debates but if you can convince me of an argument that actually make sense and isn't a huge stretch then I will vote for you. If you don't explain it well enough for me to understand then I'm not going to vote for you. You can spread if you actually are saying words and enunciate your taglines.

I'm a lay parent judge so please speak clearly, keep your speed at an acceptable pace. Please don’t speed read.

Weigh your arguments.

Signpost your rebuttal, summary, and final focus.

Have a good debate!

Note to debaters - I'm a PARENT JUDGE, not a debate professional.

A few requests to help me manage this fairly....

- please signpost as you present.

- please be sure to include comparatives.

- please don't include new evidence in Final Summary.

- please don't include new responses in Final Focus.

- please talk at a comprehensible pace. If I can't understand you, I can't give you credit. No spreading, no FedEx commercials.

- please no theory games or "K"s. They will likely confuse/frustrate/annoy me and dramatically lower your chances of winning.

Good luck!

Hey everyone,

I am a Varsity PF debater and have experience with PF debate. A couple of things to keep in mind when debating

You can speak as fast as you want as long as the opponents and I understand it. Also, as a general trend, the faster you go, the less persuasive your reading becomes. That is not to say that you cant read/speak fast, just make sure it doesn't end up hindering your overall case. Time yourselves. Time yourselves and your opponents. Unless you specifically ask me to, I wont keep track of speech and prep time. When reading a card, or rebutting someone's answer, make sure you don't just read the card. Thrown in 1 or 2 sentences of explanation/ why I should believe this card or what their methodology is to come to said conclusion. This is not necessary but it makes your argument more robust and persuasive. Extend your arguments in summary. If it is not extended, I will assume you are dropping that contention.(Optional) If you would like to get an boost on your speaker points and demonstrate that you are actually reading my paradigm, there are 2 options you have. One is making me laugh sometime in the round. I feel like debate is taken too seriously sometimes and a some humor never hurt anyone (obviously don't make crude jokes that offend your opponents), or you can incorporate a verse of the Bible into one of your speeches (not crossfire) to support your argument. Now, if you've read this far, your in luck., You have a great opportunity to earn 30 speaker points for your team. You must explain to me who is Luiz Lula Inácio da Silva and why he was good or bad for his country. This can be explained after the round during the RFD.

If you're reading this it's too late

Reasonable Pace, thought out arguments, and maturity when opposition is speaking.

Hey! I'm one of the captains of PF at Bronx Science. my email: reynoldsk@bxscience.edu

My preferences:

Be respectful to each other. If you are not I will drop you.

I'm a pretty standard flow judge, tech > truth.

I don't care what happens in crossfire as long as it's not offensive or abusive. I will be on my phone in crossfire, so if something important happens, bring it up in an actual speech or I won't know that it happened.

Weigh, pleaseeee! If you don't weigh your arguments it will be very difficult to win.

Obviously evidence is good, but I will always prefer clearly warranted arguments that are cleanly + consistently explained over a bunch of card names being thrown in my face with no explanation and being told it wins you the round. It won't. Warrant your arguments.

2nd rebuttal and 1st summary has to frontline. Any defense on your case that you don't respond to is true for the rest of the round.

For novices: If you have any time left at end of 1st rebuttal, please, PLEASE, do not tell me you are going to "go over your case again." I know your case! Try weighing your case's impacts against theirs instead! Don't reread it to me!

Summary and final focus should be very similar, although I think FF needs to weigh more.

Please please please do everything you can to avoid progressive arguments. I will never automatically drop a team for running theory, but I feel like I do not understand progressive debate enough to evaluate it, and if I am confused in round about your progressive arguments, I will not hesitate to resort to voting on substance. If you do feel like there was such a bad abuse within round that it is absolutely necessary to run, you must make it as clear as possible to me.

Do not spread.

If you want more specifics on how I will vote, go to Ayanava Ganguly's paradigm-- I am too lazy to copy and paste his and he is much more eloquent than I am.

And most of all please make this round fun and not a headache! Any way you can make me laugh is appreciated :)

Hello all,

I will flow. I don't like theory and I don't like turn spam.

Pls don't make my job very difficult. This means saying WHY your argument is better than your opponent's (weighing) and not going for every single contention in your case (collapse). I look forward to judging all of you!

I’m a lay judge with a background in extemp. I’m not going to flow your round, and I value speech clarity, so please don’t speed read.

Hi,

My name is Anna Tang. Ill be your judge today.

i want to let you know im not a lay judge so this is my paradigm ;)))))

Hi! I'm Will, a freshman at Yale. I debated for four years for Bronx Science.

Since BDL assigns me to LD rounds, I'll preface by saying that this isn't an event I have competed in. I do flow, but I also appreciate good rhetoric. As long as you are a competent public speaker, you will get pretty high speaks. If you plan on running any nontraditional arguments, read it under the premise that I likely know nothing about it.

For PF, just debate like you would with a reasonable student judge. Talk pretty and make sense. I would prefer it if you collapse on something reasonable in probability.

I do not take cut cards (I want to see what the author said, not what you manipulated them to say), so just send me a link/pdf with what to control F for. If the debate is in person, I give an automatic 29.5+ if you do a speech without a laptop (the rationale being seldom anyone in the outside world delivers a speech off a screen).

Have fun! It's an exciting activity if you care a little less about results.

I am currently a high-school Senior and I am a Varsity PF Debater.

I am a tech over truth judge, and I will judge by the flow.

I can handle speed for the most part, just make sure you are clear and articulate.

Time yourselves, I will not keep track of prep or speech time unless asked.

Parallelism is important from summary to Final Focus, if it doesn't get extended into summary, don't extend it into final focus, I will not evaluate it.

Don't argument dump during rebuttal. Well explain 1 response rather than drop 5 surface level rebuttals.

Analytical arguments (that are un-carded) will be considered equally to carded arguments unless you tell me why not to.

BE CLEAR WHERE YOU ARE ON THE FLOW. SIGNPOSTING IS CRUCIAL AND WILL IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKER POINTS. (tell me the argument you are responding to before each response.)

Feel free to ask any questions.

Other than that, lets keep it civil and respectful, and Good Luck.