Experience: Three years high school debate (Raymore-Peculiar, Peculiar, Mo.); two years NDT/CEDA (Missouri State University)

Topicality:

I will vote on T if the negative is able to show a clear violation and win the argument. I don't like when teams run a T violation as a time suck but I won't punish a team for doing so, nor will I vote on reverse T. Affs should show they are an example of the resolution.

Ks:

I lean policy more often than not but feel free to run kritiks if that is your style. I am partial to more traditional policy methods of responding to Ks such as turns and if the negative isn't able to respond to a K turn, or ignores it completely, then I'm more likely to lean to the side of the aff.

Speed:

Feel free to go as fast as you want but understand that clarity is more important. Some of the best debaters I've ever seen were slow but they made the most of their time by simply presenting good arguments. Giving me one outstanding argument over a hundred weak arguments is preferred. You won't win any favors with me if you read 20 cards that all say the same thing instead of focusing on the central issue.

Overall, just don't be a jerk. You can make jokes and whatnot but you don't have to be rude. Debate is supposed to be an activity for intellectuals and being a jerk just ruins it. Use your CX time wisely and don't try to hurt feelings.

I am fairly new to the judging game, so reminders if I forget something would be much appreciated!

The only thing I have a hard line on is spreading. Please do not attempt to do that if I am your judge.

I believe debate is a communication event. If I can't keep up with you, you lose.

4 years HS debate

Missouri State '24

Assistant Coach- Springfield Catholic

Pronouns- She/They

Email Chain-

danicolvin2@gmail.com

I will be flowing, even if it doesn't seem like it.

Aff

I prefer for the affirmative to have a dependable topical plan of action. Be ready to tell me why the affirmative matters and have the proper evidence to back that up. Please don't wait till the 2AC to explain the plans actions.

Topicality

Not a fan of unnecessary topicality debates. Although if the affirmative is not topical you should prove it. That being said, please bring it up in a constructive and follow through with it. If you throw it in during a rebuttal I won't vote for it

Neg

I'm really okay with any strategy. Just give me evidence, I won't vote on arguments without solid evidence to back it up.

Pet Peeves

Be kind. There is a difference between debating and arguing, so please be respectful and make this educational. Being rude will not win you the round and I will take off speaker points.

Please give roadmaps, so I can flow your speech correctly.

Don't try and talk over each other during cross.

I don't care about speed- I don't love spreading, but if both teams are comfortable with it I'm good. Just make sure that you're at a pace that everyone can understand.

Don't go over time, there is no 15 second grace.

Bottom Line

I will leave comments on your ballots, I want to help you get better at debate. Don't read to much into what I say.

At the end of the day, debate is meant to be fun and educational. The more you put into it the more you'll get out of it.

PHILOSOPHY: Debate is a valuable educational exercise and should be conducted with mutual respect and regard for the shared goal of learning.

I don't like unnecessarily aggressive or combative arguments. Communicate clearly, stay calm and present with respect.

I am a flow judge, hence I will not consider my personal opinions in the outcome. It is up to you to create a stronger argument than the opposition. The breadth, depth and clarity of your position, along with your logical application of relevant evidence, will tip the balance in your favor.

I value argument over speaking ability, however, if I can't understand you, I can't award points to you. So speak clearly, please. No spreading.

Good logic wins over circuitous, tangential evidence. Make sure your arguments are meaningful.

If you're having tech issues, let me know ASAP. Grace will be given.

POLICY:

I am not opposed to kritiks or theory, however, my preference is for arguments that have practical relevance to the world of policy making.

Don't bring up new arguments in your rebuttals. New evidence is fine, but if you open a brand new point in your rebuttal, it will be ignored.

I prefer direct impacts over terminal impacts.

Try to stay away from nitpicky topicality claims. If you can demonstrate that the opposing team is not following the resolution, okay. But avoid extraneous minutia, and try not to go off the rails.

PUBLIC FORUM:

Since PuF is more of a straightforward pro-con debate style, maybe stay away from counterplans and circuitous arguments.

The goal of PuF is toward an easily comprehensible pro-con argument that is accessible to the general public, hence, speaks are more crucial here. Absolutely no spreading.

LINCOLN DOUGLAS:

I love LD, it's my favorite. Be respectful, be direct, be logic-driven to fortify your claims.

No abusive arguments. No spreading.

Be clear about your values and criteria, apply meaningful evidence, and have fun.

My philosophy is to cover, work and win the flow. Argumentation wins, whether debating topicality or DA you want to win the argument and be more advantageous is the general argumentative space than your opponent. This is an educational event, and ultimately the purpose of the very real discourse had between teams, should be to challenge both teams intellectually and embolden the value of debate.

Rather than judging purely off of the number of arguments an affirmative or negative team can proffer, I will base my judging decisions on the merits of those arguments. Therefore, I value the quality of evidence over the quantity.

I want you to effectively communicate what you are attacking and link your attacks. Give me clear voters in the end. Speed- I can handle a 10 of 10 but prefer a rate of 6-8 of 10. Clarity is most important.

PF: I still think Public Forum should hold to the intended purpose when it was first introduced. Persuasion is key. Speaking fast with lots of arguments and debate jargon is not persuasive and will probably cost you the round. Sound reasoning and logic should be a significant part of the round. Evidence should be used as support but not the only the thing to vote on. Referring to the “Smith 16 card" will not tell me anything. Refer to the argument or contention and the evidence used there.

I am okay with judging anything in round. I firmly believe that debates should be left up to the debaters and what they want to run. If you want to read policy or a new kritik; I am good with anything y'all as debaters want to run. Do not read anything that is homophobic, racist, ableist, or sexiest in round. Debate should be a safe place for everyone. A little bit about me I was a 1A/2N my senior year. I recently graduated from Sac State with a major in Communications and Women's Studies. I am currently applying to Law school and will be attending a law school in fall of 2024. I am currently a policy coach for the Sacramento Urban Debate League, coaching at CKM and West Campus.

Kritikal Affs: I love identity politics affirmatives. They are one of my favorite things to judge and hear at tournaments. I ran an intersectional k aff my senior year. If you run an identity politics affirmative then I am a great judge for you. For high theory k affs I am willing to listen to them I am just not as well adapted in that literature as identity politics. But on the negative, I did run biopower.

Policy Affirmative: Well duh.... I am good at judging a hard-core policy round or a soft-left affirmative. Once again whatever the debaters want to do I am good with judging anything.

Framework: I feel like the question for framework that debaters are asking here is if I am more of a tech or truth kind of judge. I would say its important for debaters to give me judge instruction on how they want to me to judge the round. If you want me to prefer tech or truth you need to tell me that, and also tell me WHY I should prefer tech or truth. The rest of the debate SSD, TVAs etc need to be flushed out and not 100% blipy. But that's pretty much how I feel like with every argument on every flow.

CP/DA: If you want to read 9 off you can.

Theory: I will be honest; I am not the best at evaluating theory arguments. I know what they are, and you can run them in front of me. But if you go for them, judge instruction is a must, and explaining to me how voting for this theory shell works for the debate space etc.

I like being told what to vote for and why. I am lazy to my core. If I have to look at a speech doc at the end of the round I will default to what happened in the round, not on the doc.

On a side note, go follow the Sacramento Urban Debate League on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, I want to be in the email chain. My email is smsj8756@gmail.com thanks!

Background

I am a speech and debate coach at Kickapoo High School. I have been doing speech and debate in some capacity for 11 years. I am versed in Lincoln Douglas and Public Forum mostly, but can keep up in a policy round.

Lincoln-Douglas

You must win the value-value criterion debate in order to win the round. I am a stickler for time management, so make sure you divide your time wisely in each speech to attack each argument with an emphasis on weighing values and value-criterion. I would like Key Voter Issues from both Aff and Neg in their last speeches. I will vote against spreading in an LD round due to auditory processing issues.

Public Forum

I prefer the 1st rebuttal to be fully spent attacking your opponents' case instead of using it to circle back around and re-build. It makes it less confusing. I like clear, offensive voting issues in the final focus.

Policy

I can follow a quick policy round, but warn me beforehand. I prefer analytics over cards and/or explaining why one card is better than another with logic or analytics. No "Refer to author B to cross apply to author C and D." I won't follow that because I don't have a photographic memory for evidence. If you're spreading, make sure to say your taglines very clearly or slow down so I can catch them. Provide a clear roadmap before and during each speech. If you do not tell me where to flow something, I will absolutely NOT flow it or vote on it. I prefer a full document for each speech with each argument typed out. I know that's annoying, but it ensures that I can follow your arguments even if they're fast or confusing because I have trouble with auditory processing. I like out of the box arguments if you have constructed them fully. I'd rather listen to something crazy and mentally engaging than the same old thing. I understand 90% of policy terms, but it is more convincing to me if you can explain them in your own words and explain how they play into the debate. It helps your ethos if I know you know what you're talking about.

Chris Rothgeb

Parkview High School, Springfield, MO

Head Coach

I currently coach the following events: Policy, LD, Public Forum, Congress, Interp (HI, DI, Duo, POI, Storytelling, Prose, Poetry, Duet Acting), USX, IX, OO, Info, Radio Speaking.

Former Assistant and Head Coach at Jefferson City High School, Jefferson City, MO

I debated Policy, LD, and PF in High School. I debated Policy for 2 semesters in college at Missouri State University. I have also judged NFA LD and College Policy/CEDA/NDT.

Policy Debate (below)

In high school and in college, I almost always gave the 1AR.

Role as the judge - I tend to not define what judge I am in a single term. Basically, whatever you present, I will listen to and evaluate that.

Flash Time - When someone is flashing evidence, NO ONE IS PREPPING!! I will count off your own prep time if you are prepping while someone is flashing.

Please provide me with the documents that you flash/email over. This makes my life a little easier and I can be a better judge for you.

If you are unclear, I will yell for you to be clearer. If you continue to be unclear, I will dock speaker points.

I will read evidence if I believe that it is important. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I do not. I will only read the un-underlined portion of evidence if it is brought up in the round and I believe it to be important to decide the outcome of the round. I don't usually do this though.

Topicality - I have voted on T in the past, but that does not mean I like it. If the aff is being blatantly untopical, then T is clearly going to matter. If there is no offense from either side, I will discard T. Make it count.

Theory - Theory debates are so tricky. I was never really exposed to theory until college and it still confuses me today. If you decide to go this route, make it count and explain it well. You do not have to dumb it down, but you need to explain it.

Kritiks - Again, I never debated K in high school. It just wasn't a thing in my circuit. I only did K debates in college because my partners wanted to. I never understood them which made it difficult to convey to the judge. This is important to know. If you do not fully understand your K position, then you cannot explain it that well to me. This presents a problem when it comes down to me making an evaluation of the round. The other thing I find with most K debates is that no one ever tells me the "why" component - or the Impacts. The theory behind the K may be super interesting, but what is the actual application to the round? If you cannot explain this, odds are I will have a hard time making the K matter in my decision.

AFF duties - You must read a plan in the 1AC. This is non-negotiable to me. Waiting until after the 1AC to read a plan is abusive and we just wasted 16 minutes of good speaking time.

Performance debates - I have only ever seen 1 performance debate in my entire career. I didn't vote for it. Not because it wasn't effective, but because they couldn't defend it. Keep that in mind.

Speed - I am "okay" with speed. Most people seem to think that if they read it fast enough, that counts. This is incorrect. If I cannot perceive your words, then I cannot digest the information that you are presenting. BE CLEAR!! Just because you can speak fast, does not mean that I can digest it that fast. I need to be able to understand what is going on in the round in order to make the most accurate decision after the round. On the standard 1-to-9 scale from the NSDA (with 1 being slow and conversational and 9 being rapid and fast), I would go with a 5. If you are speaking and I am not flowing, you are going too fast. I will tell you to be clear, but I will NOT tell you to slow down.

In-round K - I put Language K and Speed K here. Unless the other team is ACTUALLY being abusive, then this should NOT happen. Again, I need impacts.

Abuse - Potential abuse is not a reason to vote someone down. If you feel you were actually at a disadvantage in the round caused by the other team cheating, or what-not, then show that to me.

TL;DR - Impact your arguments.

Have fun with the debate! This is supposed to be fun! So enjoy it! A bad attitude is so easy to see for a judge and it makes me not have fun either. Then we are all sitting there with bad attitudes for an hour and a half. No one wants that.

I really enjoy case and DA debates the best. Impact analysis is always fun to judge. I will listen to all of your arguments - that I can promise you. But you need to make it count.

World Schools (below)

Summer 2022 is my first time judging WSD. All I ask is to be respectful towards each other with POI. Turning down too many points will lose some speaker points. Be sure to carry your arguments from the first speech all the way through (unless you are strategically kicking out of arguments). Make sure you are keeping the big picture in mind. This is a holistic debate -be holistic. 

Missouri State Debater (NDT-CEDA) 2007-2011; Judged NDT - 2011-2014

Greenwood Lab School - Middle and high school coach - 2011- 2023

Crowder College Director of Forensics (NFA-LD and IPDA debate formats) - 2015-2023

Missouri State Tournament Update

I have spent the last decade being around basically every other kind of debate besides NDT. I have judged at primarily regional and end of year national policy tournaments (NSDA and NCFL) for middle/high school and a ton of NFA-LD at the college level.

I have been working with novices and the packet this past month so I have some exposure to the topic (I also debated nukes) but you should assume I need a bit more explanation than the average judge about your argument.

Things I know to be true about myself as a judge:

1) I have a higher threshold for explanation and explaining how arguments interact than others. That is likely supercharged by the fact I haven't been around NDT in a few years. There are arguments that are just understood to mean certain things and I might not know what that is. Defer to explaining WHY winning an argument matters and interacts with the rest of the debate, even if you think it is obvious.

2) I don't have a lot of tolerance for unnecessary hostility and yelling (I am not talking about you being a loud person. You do you. I am talking about this in the context of it being directed towards others) in debates. There are times you need to assert yourself or ask a targeted series of questions, but I would much prefer that not to escalate. There is very little that is made better or more persuasive to me by being overly aggressive, evasive, or hostile.

3) Debate is an educational activity first, competitive second. I will judge the debate that happens in front of me to the best of my ability. Full stop. However, I believe in the educational value of what we learn in debates and will likely defer to the education side of things when in conflict.

4) My debate knowledge base is primarily shaped by NDT norms circa 2007-2012. I know some of those norms have changed. I will do my best to adapt the way the community has.

5) Policy arguments are more comfortable to me and what I know best. I would not consider myself particularly well versed in the nuances of most "K" literature that is read these days. However, with proper explanation and connections, I think I can judge any debate that I am presented with.

There is a ton not covered here. Feel free to ask questions or clarify. As I judge more, I am sure I will have more specific thoughts about specific parts of these debates and will add more.

My name is Jack Trent, and I'm in my 5th year of competitive debate. I currently debate at William Jewell College doing parliamentary debate on the NPDA/NPTE circuit. I come from a policy/puff debate background and have debated against and ran most forms of argumentation and am familiar with the basic structure of these arguments and understand how they should be deployed in round. Be sure to warrant your arguments; don't just spit out as many arguments as you can; make sure you are telling me why these arguments are important. I like to call myself a game theorist judge, so anything can be ran as long as there is evidence behind it

First of all, I am a strong believer in the debate space being a platform for the debaters, and that always takes precedence. You can do whatever you like within the space if you feel that is your best method for expressing yourself.

The subsidiary claim here is that I tend to lean towards truth over tech. I would offer my philosophy as this: The only way to judge a debate on its merits is based on an evaluation of your ability to advance thesis-level claims to control the narrative of argumentation occurring. I don't care about your blippy 5th and 6th links or shallow impacts, impact calculus and link stories are always primarily filtered through the feasibility of the position FIRST. If you aren't putting offense on the flow justifying your method then my default weighing mechanism falls to the links and the internal structure of the position. Who most sufficiently rationalizes a reason to think their opposition is bad, or is invested in inherently problematic systems?

Speed - You do you, I'll keep up but be prepared to defend it just like everything else in the debate.

FW - If you plan on running any non-policy type arguments, you probably need a framework page. Framework for me is the lens through which I filter the rest of the flow. So this means you probably don't want to concede framework in most instances.

Theory - Theory is always the most important argument in the round if brought up. The ability for the debate to progress fairly and equitably is always of the utmost importance. If you are going to argue theory, you need to contextualize and describe the in-round abuse and explain how whatever violation has happened has altered the fair and equitable progression of the round. Impact your argument out so that I can weigh it. This means articulate whatever violation you isolate as being necessarily productive of some sort of problematic logic. I need to know how the violation has harmed your ability to debate. Also make sure that you are running theory right. I need interps, violation, standards, and voters. Please don't just say education and fairness. Those are just words. You should go a bit deeper than that. Lastly, if you just don't know what to do against an argument and fall back on theory (it is usually pretty clear), that's fine, and I will vote for it if you win it, but just don't expect high speaks.

T - Many of my T preferences are similar to theory. Framework is a fair arg against non-t affs, but it probably needs to be your biggest offense otherwise it's hard for me to prioritize it if you don't.

Performance - Do it

K- I read Afropress, Antiblackness, Baudrillard etc. so im good with it just make sure you link to the res/aff and have a clear alt with solvency that you establish in the constructives

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask in round.

In my ideal debate world, the affirmative would read a topical plan and defend the implementation of that plan.  The negative would read disadvantages, counterplans, and case turns/defense.  Topical research is probably my most favorite part of debate, so I would assume that I would have a tendency to reward teams that I see as participating in the same way I view the game.

I get that my ideal debate world isn't everyone's ideal debate world.  I also vote for teams that prefer to run Topicality, Kritiks, or other arguments as their "go to" strategies.  Good critical debaters explain specific links to the affirmative case and spend some time discussing how their argument relates to the impacts that are being claimed by the affirmative team. I also think it helps a lot to have specific analogies or empirical examples to prove how your argument is true/has been true throughout history.

I expect that paperless teams will be professional and efficient about flashing evidence to the other team. It annoys me when teams flash large amounts of evidence they don't intend to read or couldn't possibly read in a speech to the other team and expect them to wade through it.  It should go without saying that I expect that you won't "steal" prep time in the process of flashing, or any other time really.  It also annoys me when teams don't flow just because they are "viewing" the evidence in real time.    

I expect that teams will post their cites to the wiki as soon as the debate is over, and ideally before I give my decision and otherwise participate in information sharing efforts.  

I like to have a copy of speeches flashed to me as well so I can follow along with what everyone else sees in the debate and because I think it makes the decision making process go faster.

The best way to get high speaker points from me is to be clear, be polite, participate fully in your cross-examinations and use them to your advantage to point out flaws in your opponents’ arguments, try hard, and use appropriate humor. 

Ask me questions if this doesnt cover what you need to know or you can't find the answer from someone else that I have judged/coached.  Obviously there will be tons of other things I think about debates that I haven't posted here.  Have fun.