Info: Competed in PF Debate at James Madison Memorial High School for four years. Graduated in 2019. Student at University of Minnesota- Twin Cities.

Overall Argument: Make sure you build a clear and consistent narrative in the round. Don't forget the big picture.

Case Reading: I don't prefer people speaking too fast. However, if you have to, make sure you make sense. If you don't, I won't be able to write it down.

Rebuttals: For first rebuttals, only refute your opponents, and introduce a framework if you want. Only bring up your case if you are cross-applying. Repeating your case without giving the opposition an opportunity to respond is a waste of time. For second rebuttals, make sure you leave enough time to respond to opponents' rebuttal, because it would be hard for me to vote for a team that doesn't properly respond to their opponents until the 3rd to last speech.

Cross X: I won't flow it. If discussions from cross x are not brought up in later speeches, they will not be written on my flow.

Summary and FF: Arguments not present in summary will be considered dropped, even if brought up in FF.

Extensions: I need at least the warrant and impact to be extended every time an argument is brought up. You can't just extend the citation in your later speeches. If the warrant and the impact are not mentioned, I will not flow.

Evidence: Have the name, source, and date when citing evidence. It would make it easier for everyone in the round

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.

Heyyyy I'm Vaish. I've been exposed to Wisconsin Circuit and Nat Circuit through high school for LD and Congress and PF. I'm not picky about much, but these points are worth mentioning. It's not a lot and I'll probably say it again pre-round anyway.

If you are rude, I'll give you some leeway at first because sure debate can get like that, but if it becomes excessive I will drop you in speaks and eventually the round. That much attitude shouldn't belong in debate.

Spreading gets annoying. This is debate, not a swine auction. If it gets to the point I start to have trouble understanding you, you will get "clear"s and it'll be just as irritating to you as to me.

If you run K's and Theory, it has to be done exceptionally well for me to vote for you, because I think if they are done worse they're entertaining at best.

I will time cross-X and prep if virtual, because things get rough if I don't. I don't flow cross-X, I feel personally that it's not my responsibility. If you want me to write down something mid-cross, tell me to. In PF especially, keep cross-X clean and understandable.

Virtual debate is tough. If you call a card during prep, the other team has a reasonable amount of time to send it over. After that, I'm lapping the stopwatch and pulling out of their time instead. Here's a hint for this to not happen. Keep all your evidence on a doc, cut in an ethical way. Do that please.

Give me a roadmap off time. Don't give me a roadmap spanning to the end of all time. Keep it brief.

Have Fun!

BACKGROUND/BASICS

I competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate from 2017-2020 at Verona Area High School. I was a traditional debater, so please make your arguments straightforward, cover the flow, and speak at a level at which I can clearly understand you. I can accept non traditional arguments as long as you explain them to me and why they matter. I will vote for whoever gives me a good enough reason to do so, so please set aside time for voter issues at the end of your last speech! And lastly, don’t be a jerk to me or your opponent or your speaker points will reflect my feelings on your attitude.

email: connorolson111@gmail.com

SPECIFICS

- As long as you intend to actively engage in debate, and the subject matter does not include provocative/offensive content, I'm generally pretty loose on whatever you want to argue. This doesn't mean I'll vote for whatever, but feel free to say weird stuff if you think it'll help you win.

- Try to follow standard debate courtesies:

- Thank your opponent (and judge ) at the end of the round.

- Overly aggressive cross-ex will not be flowed, but I will tell you to chill out if you get out of line. Debate is supposed to be both fun and educational, and a cross-ex that borderlines on verbal harassment doesn't accomplish either of these goals.

- If your opponent asks you for a card, I'll give you a minute or two, but beyond that is excessive. If you can't provide it, then I can't flow it. If you need more time than what I've spelled out, I'll inform you that I will start your Tech time.

VIRTUAL DEBATE

- Please slow down a little, it's harder to track speed virtually compared to in-person.

- I would prefer your camera to be on (it helps with clarity) but if you feel more comfortable with it off, feel free to do so, but understand that this means you have to be a little more conscientious of your verbal delivery.

- Evidence chains, if both debaters request them before the round, should be setup within a few minutes of the Zoom call. Debate rounds lag behind schedule already, so do everyone a favor and have your email on hand and your files ready to share if needed.

- I will not judge you based on your internet connectivity, setting/environment, or attire, but do your best to be professional.

- If I suspect any cheating to be occurring, I have to report it, so please don't do anything suspicious (it saves everyone a lot of time).

CRITIQUE POLICY

I am required to fill out my ballot online and submit that before I can disclose any information about the round to either competitor.

I will do my best to finish submitting my ballot within 5 minutes of the round, but that is not a guarantee. Messy rounds take longer to figure out, so make my job easier by following the flow, numbering arguments/rebuttals, and clearly explaining impact and any voter issues you have.

I will ask both debaters if they would like an oral critique, and if wanted, I will do so briefly. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, but again be respectful of everyone's time (i.e. don't argue with me about my Reason For Decision, it will not help you).

Thank you for reading my paradigm, and I look forward to judging you this round.

(If you want an extra speaker point to show you read the paradigm, ask me how my day is going)

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.

Anton Shircel

Coaching:
Assistant coach/judge for Sheboygan South from 2004-2006
Assistant/Head coach Neenah from 2006-2010
Assistant coach Waukesha South 2012-2014
Head Coach Sheboygan North High School 2014-Present

High School Experience:
Policy debater at Sheboygan South for four years (1998-2002)
Debated Novice, JV, Varsity 4, and VSS
Participated in Forensics, Mock Trial, and Student Congress

Public Forum Philosophy: Traditional
Speed: This format is geared towards having citizen judges. Speed should reflect a quick-paced conversation. Clarity and enunciation is paramount in understanding the arguments. I shouldn't need to follow a transcript of your speech to understand what you are saying.

Framework: This is a key point that needs to be made in the first speeches. The pro/con need to show the framework of how they achieve a win for the round. This needs to be clearly stated and then proven in their contentions. A lack of framework shows a lack of focus. If for some reason that there isn't a framework, my default one would be a basic Utilitarian framework.

Off Case Arguments: I am not a fan of kritiks, theory, and other off-case arguments in a public forum round. Look, I am not going to write it off on my own. The opposition still needs to address it. However, it will not take much beyond a basic abuse argument for me to cross it off the flow.

Role of Summary & Final Focus: At this point, the arguments have been stated. Each side should be weighing the different positions and showing why they are ahead on the flow. The summary is also the point where there should be strategic choices made on collapsing or kicking contentions/arguments.

Policy Debate Philosophy: Policy Maker
Speed: My preferred rate of speed is about medium to medium-high. I don't mind a faster round, however I ask that tags be slowed down to indicate a change in cards/arguments. Related to that, I tend to prefer fewer/well-constructed arguments to a melee of short/under-developed arguments. As far as open-cross examination, I am not against it. However, both sides must be okay with the situation.

Topicality: I am not the biggest fan of topicality. There must be a clear violation of the affirmative for me to consider voting. I like a structured t debate with clear standards, etc. and competing definitions. I see topicality as an a priori issue that I vote on first in the round.

Counterplans: I think counterplans are a great negative strategy. There needs to be a clear Counterplan Text and some sort of competitiveness. I am not the biggest fan of topical counterplans. Perms need to be explicit as well so that there is no vagueness.

Kritiks: I am a fan of kritks, but the negs need to make sure they understand them. It looks bad if the neg stumbles/contradicts themselves in the cross-examinations. Also, I need a clear alternative/world view from the negatives if they hope to have me vote on it at the end of the round. Again, perms need to be clear and explicit and show that competitiveness does not exist.

Theory: Theory is not the end-all of the rounds for me. I tend to look at rounds as real-world. Some theory would be needed at times such as perms/topicality but should only be used as support to an argument and not as an argument itself.

Lincoln Douglas Philosophy: Traditional
Speed: My preferred rate of speed is about medium to medium-high. I don't mind a faster round, however I ask that tags be slowed down to indicate a change in cards/arguments. Related to that, I tend to prefer fewer/well-constructed arguments to a melee of short/under-developed arguments.

Whole Res Vs. Plan Specific Cases: I prefer whole resolution debates. If I wanted a plan-specific case, I would be judging policy.

Counterplans: See my thoughts on plan-specific cases above. The same holds true for negative positions that go plan-specific.

Theory: It should be an essential aspect of your position. However, I do not enjoy when it falls into the theory of debate itself.

Debate Experience: Graduated HS 2018; 3 years of PF debate for James Madison Memorial High School. Now at Emory

1) Clean extensions - This means responding to every response on your relevant offense in summary. Extend your warrants and impacts fully eg: If you say the tagline or a card name - I will not flow it for you; you must explain the argument behind the tagline or card name.

2) Weighing- Weighing is the first thing I evaluate at the end of the round. Tell me where I should vote. Logic matters.

3) Summaries and Final Focus - You can extend defense directly from first rebuttal to first final focus unless the second speaking team goes back to case in second rebuttal. All offense must be in summary and final focus.

Those three things are the most important and applicable to every debate round.

4) Speed. If you want to speak fast, make sure you're good at speaking fast. If I can't understand you, it can't make it to my flow. That said, speed rarely is a problem.

5) Second Rebuttal. Second Rebuttal doesn't have to go back to case. However, I think its strategic for you to do so. If first rebuttal puts a turn on your case, however, make sure you address this in second rebuttal.

6) Dropped Arguments: Arguments are dropped after you ignore it in summary. Please collapse strategically. If you don't respond to turns on a dropped argument, your opponents can extend them. Kicking contentions/subpoints is okay as long as you do it correctly.

7) Evidence. All evidence must have author and source. eg: "Vovata of Harvard University" rather than "Vovata" or "Harvard University". I will call for evidence if either your opponent wants me to or if its extended in two different ways. Obviously, you may call for evidence from your opponents etc. but if you do I expect to hear about it in speech.

8) Dates: I think if you have time you can put dates in your case/rebuttal. If you don't, you can open up yourself to date theory. For people running date theory - tell me why it puts you in a structural disadvantage in context to the topic. Don't just cite "NSDA Rules"

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!

Debate Experience: Graduated 2017; 4 years of PF debate(mainly circuit) for James Madison Memorial High School - Did ok

1) Clean extensions - This means responding to every response on your relevant offense in summary. Extend your warrants and impacts fully eg: If you say the tagline or a card name - I will not flow it for you; you must explain the argument behind the tagline or card name.

2) Weighing- Weighing is the first thing I evaluate at the end of the round. Tell me where I should vote

3) Summaries and Final Focus - You can extend defense directly from first rebuttal to first final focus unless the second speaking team goes back to case in second rebuttal. All offense must be in summary and final focus.

Those three things are the most important and applicable to every debate round.

4) Speed. I'm fine with speed. I will tell you to slow down if you go fast enough for me to not be able to flow.

5) Theory/K's. I'm good with Theory and K's. You should probably not be fast with Theory arguments in front of me because it gives me less time to understand the argument.

6) Plans/CP's. I can accept plans/cp's if either your opponents don't call you out on the plan/cp or you give me a convincing reason why your particular plan/cp should be allowed in the realm of PF. For people responding to plan/cp's, saying its a plan/cp works but it would be appreciated if you implicated out why plan/cp's are bad in PF past the "its against the rules".

6) Second Rebuttal. Second Rebuttal doesn't have to go back to case. I think its strategic for you to do so. As a former first speaker whose partner didn't go back to case, summaries were often unnecessarily hard. I wish he made better choices in debate and life.

7) Dropped Arguments: Arguments are dropped after you ignore it in summary. Please collapse strategically. If you don't respond to turns on a dropped argument, your opponents can extend them. Kicking contentions/subpoints are okay as long as you do it correctly.

8) Evidence. All evidence must have author and source. eg: "Vovata of Harvard University" rather than "Vovata" or "Harvard University". I will call for evidence if either your opponent wants me to or if its extended in two different ways.

9) Dates: I think if you have time you can put dates in your case/rebuttal. If you don't, you can open up yourself to date theory. For people running date theory - tell me why it puts you in a structural disadvantage in context to the topic. Don't just cite "NSDA Rules"

10) Speaker Points: I hate the speaker point system so I give >29's to almost everyone. I also generally try to give first speakers more speaker points. Don't be rude/make up new stuff in second final focus and you should be fine.

11) Off-time road maps. I like off-time road maps. You can get pretty specific with them before your speeches.

For LD (updated 11/8/2018)

The general gist of my LD paradigm is similar to my PF paradigm. However, I will not try to impose my activity(PF) on yours. That means that any aspect of my paradigm is always up for negotiation and I'll try to keep an open mind on any argument that you guys bring to the table. Please ask if you have any specific questions about an argument or an argument type.