Sam Allen (he/him)
Randolph-Macon College

I am an Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at Randolph-Macon College, where I am also the Director of the Franklin Debating Society. I have been involved with high school and collegiate speech and debate as a participant, coach, and director for the past two decades. My background is primarily in policy debate. I continue to have a pretty good flow and attempt to limit my decision making to the arguments I have heard students make in the debate as they have made them. I do not have have many argumentative proclivities at this point other than a strong desire to hear reasoned claims being supported by evidence and weighed by the students debating. I have not been actively involved in judging or coaching this LD topic this year, so please take care to explain your argument to me as if I am intelligent, but uninformed. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you all for these debates and look forward to judging these rounds. Questions? Please ask!

Mike Bausch

Director of Speech and Debate, Kent Denver

Please include me in email chains; my email is mikebausch@gmail.com.

Thanks for letting me judge your debate. Do what you do best, and I will do my best to adapt to you all. Here are some tips for debating in a way that I find most persuasive:

1. Flow the debate and make complete arguments. I care about line-by-line debating and organization. An argument must have a claim, evidence, and an impact on the debate for me to vote on it. I must understand your reasoning enough to explain to the other team why I voted on it.

2. Be timely and efficient in the round. Nothing impresses me more than students who are prepared and organized. Please conduct the debate efficiently with little dead time. Don’t steal prep.

3. Focus on argument resolution after the first speeches. Impact calculus, developing specific warrants, identifying what to do with drops, answering “so what” questions, making “even if” statements, and comparing arguments (links, solvency, etc) are all great ways to win arguments, rather than just repeat them.

4. Feature judge instruction in the final rebuttals. The best tip I can give you is to go for less distinct issues as the debate develops and to focus on explaining and comparing your best points to your opponent’s arguments more. Begin your final rebuttal by writing my ballot and explicitly saying what you’re winning and why that should win you the debate.

5. Remember that this is a communication activity. Speak clearly, I do not follow along with the speech document and will say “clear” if I can’t understand you. Use your cross-examination time to persuade the judge and prepare for it like a speech.

6. Talk about your evidence more. I think a lot of teams get away with reading poor evidence. Please make evidence comparison (data, warrants, source, or recency) a significant part of the debate. Evidence that is highlighted in complete and coherent sentences is much more persuasive than evidence that is not.

7. Identify specific evidence that you want me read after the debate. I am more likely to read evidence that is discussed and explained during the debate and will use the debater's explanation to guide my reading. I am unlikely to read evidence that I didn't understand when it was initially presented, or to give much credit to warrants that only become clear to me after examining the evidence.

8. Develop persuasive specific links to your desired argument strategy. I think the affirmative should present an advocacy they can defend as topical, and the negative should clash with ideas that the affirmative has committed to defending. I think that the policy consequences and ethical implications of the resolution are both important to consider when debating about the topic. For all strategies, it starts for me with the credibility of the link.

9. Develop and compare your impacts early and often. Impact analysis and comparison is crucial to persuading me to vote for you. In depth explanation is great and even better if that includes clear comparisons to your opponent’s most significant impacts.

10. I prefer clash heavy instead of clash avoidant debates. I am most impressed by teams that demonstrate command of their arguments, who read arguments with strong specific links to the topic, and who come prepared to debate their opponent’s case. I am less impressed with teams that avoid clash by using multiple conditional advocacies, plan vagueness, generic positions without topic nuance, and reading incomplete arguments that lack clear links or solvency advocates.

*Note: Because evidence comparison is a valuable skill, I think all formats of debate benefit from evidence exchange between students in the debate and would prefer if students practiced this norm.

Jamie Cheek 
Weber State 

Updated for 2015-2016

I have been involved with college policy debate for over 10+ years. This is my fifth year coaching at Weber State University.

General Issues: 

1. Impact assessment and comparative analysis of the debate are necessary. I will rarely call for evidence.
2. I think one smart analytical argument can take out several warrantless cards. Also, I am not as involved with the research-side of things anymore, so extra clarification about topic-specific things might be helpful. 
3.I like to keep track of prep time, and I will get cranky about prep stealing. 
4. When the timer goes off, I stop flowing at the first beep.

Specifics: 
Theory – I have few biases about theory. I think all theory is debatable, except probably dispo bad; I will vote every time that dispo is not bad by itself. I’d prefer if you’d just say it’s conditional. If you want to go all in on a theory argument there are a couple things you need to have: 1) a link 2) an impact 3) a justification that is both a reason why you should win but also a reason why what they did is enough to cost them the round. Also, Ben Warner once told me, “Everytime I see someone go all in on theory because they think they have to, they usually didn’t.” So keep that in mind, I think it is sound advice. I also think the phrase "Status quo is always an option" doesn't actually mean anything, just saying conditional. 

Topicality – Everyone always says they love a good T debate; I also fall into that category. I will tell you my default is competing interpretations. The hardest part about T debates is that teams are unwilling to impact their interpretation. This makes it very hard to evaluate, and forces me do that work for them, which I don’t like to do. 

Framework – My whole debate career I was definitely on the side of "Policy Debate Good." However, I am willing, and have voted for, other types of frameworks. I think the most important part of this debate is that there needs to be an interpretation, but also an impact. Not just link arguments or “fairness important,” but what your framework means for my ballot. I think framework debates often boil down to a card war with no analysis as to how I’m supposed to evaluate the round based on the framework that “wins”. Make your framework offense to help you win the round. 

K’s – Here is an area that I am very unfamiliar with. I’m not saying “don’t read the K in front of me.” I’m more saying “I probably don’t know exactly what X author says.” I understand a lot of the strategy involved with this type of debate, it is the more specific nuances that I am probably the weakest at. For example, any high theory K's are going to be a struggle for me, especially if it has complicated terminology that is specific to the lit base. Also, you can read whatever aff you want in front of me, as long as you have a reason to vote affirmative. Talking about the topic is nice, but not required. I also think that impact turns to FW are a reason to vote affirmative.

CP’s – You got them, read them. I think cp’s that result in the plan no matter what are abusive. I think tricky cp’s shouldn’t be too tricky that I don’t get it. I also think at some point during the debate their needs to a be a moment where there is a clear explanation of the CP and how it solves the aff and why it is competitive. Also, for me to revert to the world of the SQ in an instance where the aff wins a permutation, this needs to be clearly set up and articulated by the 2NR.

DA’s – I think there should be more disads in debate. However, as much as I read politix in college, you should not be fooled. I will not be up on the newest scenario, so maybe a little overview in the 2nc would be nice. I also think the impact turn is a bit of a lost art, aff’s should do this more often to disads.

Ryan Cheek

Assistant Director of Forensics

Weber State University

***Updated for Wake 2015***

This is my 12th year in college debate. I would like to be included on your email chain (ryancheek@weber.edu). For me, debate is the intersection of community, paraprofessional training, and gaming. I don’t care what style of debate you prefer. Instead, I’m interested in your ability to defend and advance the advocacies and arguments you find important and/or strategic. I will do my best to adapt to you. That being said, after eight years of judging, I’ve come to realize some of my own quirks and limitations more fully:

1. Clarity of thought is paramount. I often find myself voting for teams that can make complex arguments sound like common sense.
2. I can sometimes be facially expressive and I don’t think my expressions are counter-intuitive. If I give you a confused look, then I’m probably confused. If I give you a skeptical look, then I’m probably skeptical of what you are saying.
3. Debaters that can maintain eye contact and deliver a compelling speech are very impressive to me.
4. On occasion, and particularly in debates with a lot of perms, I will correct you in cross-ex in regards to what the perm texts I recorded you saying are.
5. Good evidence is secondary to what a debater does with it. I really appreciate evidence interrogation in speeches and cross-examination.
6. If there is an “easy” way to vote that is executed and explained well, I’m very likely to take it.
7. I’d prefer to judge the text of the round in front of me rather than what debaters/teams have done outside of that round.
8. I appreciate technical execution and direct refutation over implied argumentation.
9. Well explained meta-framing arguments usually control my ballot, but aren’t a substitute for substantive impact comparison.
10. Less is more. The earlier in a debate that teams collapse down to lower quantities of positions and/or arguments, the more of a chance I have to really latch onto what is going on and make a decent decision.
11. Identifying what I have to resolve behooves you. Most debates are won or lost on a few primary debatable questions. If you are the first to identify and answer those questions thoroughly, you will likely be ahead in my mind.
12. I’m not a fan of two-person speaking. This comes in many forms. Debaters talking over each other in CX, partners prompting each other through extended monologue, performative elements that make it difficult to tell who is giving what speech, teams prepping very loudly with side commentary while the other team’s speech is going on, etc.  Please, one person at a time.
13. I like to keep time. When your timer and my timer are in conflict, mine trumps.
14. Minimizing downtime is important. Go to the bathroom and jump/email the 1AC before the round start time.
15. I don’t want to adjudicate ethical challenges. If I have to do so, then be aware that presumption is on the side of the accused.

Finally, I love debate and the community that it generates. Competition is fun, but is ultimately secondary to the communal nature of what we do. I don’t treat my job as a coach/critic much differently than I do my job as a teaching faculty member. In both spaces, pedagogy is my primary responsibility and I promise to do my best to live up to being the educator you deserve. 

Travis Cram

Director of Debate, Western Washington University

Years Judging: several

Email chain/contact: traviscram@gmail.com

My background is in policy debate, but I have been most involved the past 6 years through developing CARD (https://www.westerndebateunion.org/pnwdebate). I do not often judge debates these days, but every now and then I have the chance. Here are things about my approach that I think are significant:

1. I flow closely, and I think you should too.
2. I work hard to keep an open mind about the issues and arguments that are offered throughout a debate. I believe my purpose is to consider how effective you were at communicatingandarguingrather than evaluating the actual, empirical truth of a statement. At the same time, that purpose often asks me to consider how effective you were in convincing me that your argumentative content istrue or desirable. I will inevitably, as is true for everyone, have to resort to my own filters and experiences in making those assessments. However, I will always work to keep what was said or argued in a debate in focus as I decide and critique.
3. I provide post-round feedback that seeks to provide instruction and lessons for future debates, rather than reporting the (dry) details of how I decided this debate. I thus often discuss better paths taken, or ask you to think about how arguments, evidence, or perspectives interact in a larger sense. If you want more detailed explanations for how I resolved minutiae on the flow, please ask. I find my time is better spent providing future-thinking advice (my training in education tells me it is also in your interest), and so that is how I will couch my feedback.
4. Debate is about communication. It is also about research, advance preparation, and strategy. However, there is not a day I wake up where I am not going to be mostly concerned with the communicative, rhetorical, and argumentative elements of debate. The values and standards of communication may vary based on the format and participants, and I will work to meet participants (and the format) where they are at. However, I hold the expectation that the primary purpose behind debate is to learn how to communicate and argue well, particularly through oral communication.
5. The affirmative has the burden to prove a comprehensive case for change, and everyone has the burden to prove any single individual argument offered by them. The debate should focus on the topic, with the affirmative endorsing it. I do not provide a deeper theory beyond that. It is your debate; I expect you to provide those things. They are known as arguments.

There are a few things that I am increasingly not willing to compromise on. Those are important to know as well:

1. Value people.I believe you should show everyone who participates a basic level of respect even as you work through serious disagreements with them. Everyone has an obligation to promote community, or at the very least not actively undermine it.
2. Value debate, especially at the collegiate level. A considerable amount of resources are constantly expended to create the opportunity for people to debate. Seize and honor the opportunity, regardless of your goal or experience level.

I am happy to answer questions for those who ask in good faith.

Glen Frappier

Gonzaga University

Years Judging College: 24

Updated for 23-24

Rounds Judged on Nukes Topic: ZERO. FREE STRIKE!

If there is an email chain going around with the speech docs please include me. gfrappier@gmail.com.

I appreciate smart, quick and clear debate. If you’re unclear I will let you know once or twice but after that it’s on you.

I prefer argument characterized by depth and substance and generally despise when a laundry list of unwarranted claims is passed off as good argument. The best debates seem to be those where the debaters are doing a lot of comparison of the arguments and evidence. I always thought Ross Smith's lecture on "Extending An Argument" did an excellent job of capturing the essence of the depth I appreciate. If you haven't seen it, you really should google it.

Speaker Points. I find I award speaker points based on the 3 broad categories or content, organization, and delivery. A smart, quick, articulate debater who reads good evidence, makes well reasoned arguments, and effectively manages the flow can expect good points. Flashes of brilliance and displays of exceptional debating are always rewarded. Poor debating, bad evidence, being mean, poor decision-making will all hurt your points. The scale has clear trended up over the last few years and I intend to adapt to those broader trends.

Evidence. This is the lifeblood of a persuasive argument. We all interpret evidence differently so if yours is open to multiple interpretation tell me what your reading of it is and why thats the preferable interpretation. It should be qualified. Evidence from experts in a field with a lifetime of experience thinking, researching, writing and publishing on topic is more persuasive than a blogger with no credentials, or an undergrad working on their degree.

The affirmative should advocate for a topical example of the resolution. I’m open to different interpretations of how plans/advocacy should function, but I tend to believe that a community agreed upon controversy/topic serves as a valuable point of stasis.

Cross Examination is binding. I do my best to pay attention and flow CX. Great CXs payoff in points (and sometimes wins).

Counterplans. There are those I find more of a stretch than others theoretically, but generally tend to err neg on most theory questions.

Critiques. Sure, why not. If you have a link to the aff and an impact then it sounds like you have an argument and i'll listen to it. Still, i don't read much K lit these days and probably will not be familiar with the literature you're relying on for your argument. In those cases its in your interest to slow down and explain.

Note: Philip Johnson-Freyd's philosophy is here. 

Will Gent

Debate Coach, Puget Sound

Background:2 years of college policy debate and 1 year of parli debate at Puget Sound. 4 years of HS policy debate in Oregon. Majored in International Relations.

This is by no means comprehensive. I’ll update as the year goes on and make it more topic-specific. Any questions, just ask.

General: Chances are you’ll be much better off going for what you’re good at in front of me than adapting to whatever it is you think my notion of debate is. Some big picture stuff:

-          Impact comparison. At the end of the day, you need to be telling me what offense you’re winning and why it’s important. Do this through detailed impact comparison and analysis.

-          Arguments must have a claim, a warrant, and an impact.

-          I have high evidence-quality expectations.

-          I’ll try to be expressive while judging. If I can’t understand you, I’ll yell clear a couple of times. The onus, however, is on you; if it looks like I’m not actively flowing, you should increase your clarity.

K’s: Critiques are strategic options and I prefer that they be as topic-specific as possible. While I enjoy the k, you should know that I have a relatively limited exposure to critical literature; if you presume that I’ve read and put a significant amount of thought into your particular critique, we’ll both likely end up feeling disappointed at the end of the debate. For me, the most compelling critiques are those that are accompanied by a wealth of examples and nuanced explanation – I may not have read your author, but if you give me something to latch onto, we’ll both be better off.

Counterplans and Disads: Yes, please. Well-executed, specific CP-DA strategies are an integral part of negative strategy, especially as the year goes on. In particular, I enjoy the politics disad and anything related to IR.

Theory:

-          Slow down.

-           I err neg on almost all theory issues and presume that theory is a reason to reject the argument (exceptions discussed below). This is not to say that I will refuse to vote aff on theory; if condo is your most strategic 2AR option, it would be a fool’s errand to go for anything else. Just know that it might be an uphill battle.

-          Counterplans should be written in a textually-competitive manner. Delay, Consult etc. are likely illegitimate, but you will still need to win the theory debate in order for me to reject these arguments.

-          While I err neg on conditionality, condo is probably more of a reason to reject the team.

T:

-          Slow down.

-          As a 2A who lost on T quite a lot, I likely have a higher threshold than most on topicality. The neg needs to show how the aff’s counter-interp results in ground loss or abuse. This does not mean that there needs to be in-round abuse for me to vote on T.

-           I’ll default to competing interpretations.

-          T is always a voting issue.

-          For the love of god, do not make this debate a spec debate. 

Short Version:

To the best of my ability, I aim to judge according to two principles:

1.You can do what ever you want, within reason, so long as you justify it.

2.Argument comparison happens in the framework provided by the debate, or barring that, the one that would make the debate most coherent.

Things I like include: nuance; creativity; clash; scholarship; humor; kindness.

Things I don’t like: shallowness; stupidity; failure to rejoin; dishonesty; cruelty.

Various Thoughts:

1. Debate is awesome. But, it is only what we all make of it. Generally, the debaters I enjoy most are those who have found a way to make debate meaningful. Some of them do this by raising technical proficiency into an art form; others treat competitive argument as scholarship; some use debate as a location for political resistance; some always make everybody laugh. The point is, that in the best debates everyone walks out of the round and can say, “That was worth it. I got something from that.” I tried to make debate meaningful by finding arguments that were intellectually exciting—it sometimes worked.

3. Knowing a lot about a topic is generally good.

4. Nuance and complexity are good

5. CLASH!

6. Arguments have warrants and impacts. In general, do less claiming and more warranting and you will do better. It’s also good to weigh impacts. I have yet to meet a debater who didn’t need to be reminded of these things on occasion.

7. Examples help. For example, look to this sentence.

8. I was a 2N. I probably lean neg on theory. My gut tells me that the neg gets unlimited conditional counterplans (if they get fiat at all). I will happily vote aff on Condo though, if you win it.  I lost my last debate on Condo.

9. Clash of civ debates are fine, but your ability to win them shouldn’t keep you from learning from how the other side debates. Also, CLASH.

10. Hard work can be good. It isn’t good by necessity. Regardless, more research is generally better.

12. I like technical debate, but will happily respond to implicit argumentation. Frame how techy you want me to be. Otherwise, we might have different ideas about what constitutes a “drop”.

13. It is not possible to be “tabula rasa” in debate nor is it what we want. Judges should still try to avoid intervention.

14. Unless given a good reason why I should think otherwise, what is said in a debate is public record. Once you make an argument everyone gets to know about it.

15. Quality over quantity.  

16. Understanding the importance of uniqueness is the measure of “maturity in the theory of argumentation.”  UQ is essential, but links matter also.   

Games Playing: You are free to change the rules of the game (including changing speech times) with some exceptions

1. I will generally intervene against things that mess with the tournament such as changing speech times so that the round runs over, steeling my ballot, or asking for a double win/extra speaker points.

 2. You don’t get to physically assault your opponents.

 3. The option for rejoinder is important. For example, it is going to be hard to convince me that the 2AR should get to read an entirely new aff if this is a new argument in the 2AR—not impossible to convince me, but hard.  

Policy on “offensive” arguments: People have differing ideas as to what is offensive language/arguments in debate.  The problem is that it is hard to tell what is “offensive” since people will invariably disagree. It is important that debate be a “free speech zone” but it is also important that people feel safe and comfortable in this community. My policy is to not intervene in these situations, and I wont usually even dock your speaks that much if you say something I find revolting. I do reserve the privilege of verbally castigating you when I feel it is warranted.

My main two goals in making my decisions are: “be reasonable” and “do what the debaters tell me to do”.

“Ethical” Issues

I care a lot about approaching debate scholarship in an ethical and honest way.  Please debate with integrity.  Some things are more important than winning.  I apologize about the length of this section, as this is a subject that brings strong emotion for me, but one I also think is very important.

As a debater, there were a few times were I was pretty sure the other team was clipping.  In at least one of those cases, the other team were novices who we were going to beat handily anyways, and who might not have known any better.  It is extremely difficult to prove clipping allegations.  If you have compelling evidence of clipping, share it.  If you have less than compelling evidence of clipping, but think it is happening, you can bring it to me latter in confidence, and I will do my best to 1. Not allow it to influence my judging 2. Investigate.  

Accusations of cheating when none occurred can be very painful (I know).  Be respectful.  Don’t assign a motive of malice when you don’t have evidence of that.  Recognizing that your allegations might be wrong.  

I don’t like the “all or nothing” approach to ethical issues promoted by some judges.  Say you think someone else is reading made up “evidence”.  If that is the case, then it is probably bad, but it should not be considered “unforgivable.”  We should give people the benefit of the doubt.  It might have been a mistake (I have accidentally given cards incorrect citations before).  It might not have been them, since people read cards cut by teammates, by coaches, and from backfiles.

It was also a source of much unhappiness as a debater that I frequently discovered other teams reading cards that were at the very best “strawmen” and felt I couldn’t do anything about it.  I could cut the author saying the opposite thing, but this wouldn’t be very useful since I either had to 1) risk it all (and go for a punishment that made me feel uncomfortable) going for “out of context” or 2) get very little reading a card impacted as “author concludes neg”.  We need a middle option.

Here is what I propose and will default to: challenge other people on these issues, but try to do it with some evidence.  If you succeed, particularly if you can demonstrate a pattern, it will lower the credibility with which I take ALL of the other teams evidence.  On the other hand, if you present many such challenges that turn out to be spurious, it will reflect poorly on you and reduce YOUR credibility.  

Debates about evidence QUALITY and CONTEXT are to be encouraged!  “Out of context” is NOT an “ethical challenge.”  

It is okay, and academically honest, to cite a card where the author concludes the other way “_Author_ in _Year_ summarizes but does not argue _Quote_.” 

Treat the activity with respect.  Integrity is not something to trifle with for strategic benefits 

I don't have a public judge philosophy because this website is not secure. Nothing has otherwise changed, I will try to be as fair as possible and I am open to persuasion on most things. Email me if you have questions.

For all debate events and especially policy debate:

I have coached all the events at the national level and I have been coaching for 20 years. I spent the first 10 of those years coaching college policy debate. I like all forms of argumentation except cheap theory tricks. What I like is less important than what you are good at. I would like to see what you are best at.

There are two things that I despise about how debate has evolved:

1) I despise the emphasis on the speech doc: this is a speaking activity. I value persuasive speaking. I will be flowing on paper and I will not be looking at a speech doc while you talk. I will be looking at you, listening to your voice, and flowing. I also call for very few cards after the round so as to put the emphasis on the round that happened not the one in your coaches' heads. Persuasion matters. Pathos matters. Nuanced Evidence comparison in the round matters. Tactical ability matters. Style matters.

2) I despise the lack of creativity that I observe in the arguments: I am especially bored by the way that jargon flattens our characterization of things to ready made labels so that everyone speaks and thinks the same. My favorite DA debaters I have ever watched have their own singular ways of characterizing impacts and even their 1NC shells have unique structure and emphasize different internal links than the standard form. My favorite Kritik debaters of all time see the connection between the content that they are presenting and the form that they use to communicate. They try to do something new and they take some risks.

One last note: I understand that debates can get heated but when the debate gets personal I get cynical and I wonder why I am still giving time to the activity.

For speech events:

Exaggeration seems fake to me. Realness and subtlety draw me in. When a student puts an emphasis on the ideas and the scholarship of the activity they get extra points from me. Polish and perfection are not everything. I would rather see a speaker with some rough elements of their delivery who is taking a chance to express something of meaning than a perfectly rehearsed speaker delivering a safe speech without a lot of conceptual depth.

Current affiliation: director at Purdue & assistant at Head Royce.

Did you know Purdue is a public University with over 40,000 undergraduate students? Despite our excellent reputation for our engineering and computer science programs, as well as our success in the NCAA basketball tournament, we are in fact a public land-grant university in West Lafayette, IN. Tuition is less at Purdue than it is at Indiana University.

Past affiliations: Weber State, Wake Forest, Loyola Marymount, Idaho State, West Georgia, as well as College Prep, Georgetown Day, Bishop Guertin, Chattahoochee, and many other high school programs.

I love debate. I chose to return to debate after spending a few years working at a consulting firm. I make less money now, but enjoy the work much more. I appreciate your participation in the activity and will do my best to determine a winner, as well as help you improve in the time I spend judging your round.

I will default to flowing on paper. I appreciate efforts to be organized and go line-by-line; I will reward speakers that make flowing easier.

I will not read along with the speech doc. I believe debate should be a persuasive activity. I think following along with the speech doc is a poor practice, and I feel some type of way about it. I would like to be on the doc chain; everybodylovesjim@gmail.com& hrsdebatedocs@gmail.com

If the round has started and there is no timer going, please don’t prep. I’ll kindly ask you to stop prepping if I notice you prepping while no timer is running. I think remote debate may have contributed to lax prep time standards, and I feel some type of way about it.

I’m a fan of multiple flavors of debate. I’m somewhat of a dinosaur at this point, but I still appreciate attempts at innovation. I’ve voted for and against all sorts of arguments. I’ve coached teams on various flavors of arguments. I’m generally agnostic. My best piece of advice for debating in front of me, or any other judge; debate powerfully, make the judge adapt to you.

I love cross ex! It’s generally my favorite part of the round. I usually flow it. I always pay attention to it. If you make gains in cross ex, please leverage those gains in your speeches. I will reward speakers for a well executed cross ex. I prefer you don’t treat prep time as cross ex time, I frequently leave the room during prep time and appreciate these opportunities.

I will reward speakers that focus on clarity over speed. If I ask you to be clear, please make an effort to adjust.

I start the process of deciding who won by establishing the most important issue(s) in the debate and determining who won the core controversies. I ask myself who won the round if both teams win their package of arguments. I frequently write a rough draft of a ballot and then try to argue against that decision to check against overlooking something. I try to edit my many thoughts to keep things more brief in delivering my RFD, particularly when on a panel. Sometimes when I sit I ask to give my RFD last - sometimes this is so I can get a sense of where the other judges are at, sometimes it’s to circumvent judges from editing their decisions when I’m confident in my RFD.

Background:

My name is Zach Tschida and I am currently coaching Policy and Parli debate at Whitman College. Last year I coached at the University of Puget Sound and judged at 31 tournaments (mostly parli tournaments and high school policy tournaments, but I judged at Gonzaga, UNLV and the WNPT). I competed in debate for seven years total throughout high school and college, and I spent four years at UPS competing primarily in parli debate.  I have a year and a half of college policy debating experience.

Disposition and Preferences

My most fundamental belief about debate is that, at least in terms of what arguments ‘should’ be available to each team, access to theory allows debate to be self-correcting.  As a result, I do not believe that any type of argument is inherently prohibited.  Of course, I lean in particular directions on various theoretical issues (to be discussed below).  Since I am uncomfortable with ignoring any argument simply on principle, I think it is incumbent upon each team to present any objection to their opponents’ argument selection.  Because I think theory has the power to correct imbalances in debate, I am always willing to adjust my predispositions to the particular debate.

I am committed to giving equal weight to all types of arguments, but I do particularly enjoy Kritiks and Theory.  I do not wish to encourage you to alter your strategy in favor of my preferences, although I realize this is somewhat inevitable. If you enjoy debating a politics DA, for example, then I would much rather watch that debate because you will likely be able to present your favored arguments in a more nuanced and persuasive manner. 

In terms of speaker points, my range is 27-29.  I prioritize rewarding strategic decisions and clean execution of those strategies.

Specific issues:

Theory

I enjoy theory debates that are well contextualized and thoughtful. 

In terms of CP theory, I think conditionality is good, not really compelled by conditionality bad unless there are more than 2 conditional strategies and the squo – but that doesn’t mean I won’t vote on conditionality bad if you mishandle it.

If your 2NR strategy includes a CP or other advocacy that was originally identified as conditional, I will not evaluate the world of the status quo (I will only consider the CP as your advocacy) – unless I am explicitly told otherwise.

PICs are generally legitimate, but I do find the theory against some subsets of CPs to be pretty compelling.  For example, I am typically persuaded by theory against delay and consult CPs.

Kritiks

In general, I would not say I am ‘well-read’ on all fields of literature, but I would say that I have a decent understanding of most types of kritiks.  I majored in Economics and Political Theory, and consequently I am most familiar with Kritiks related to those fields – but I always enjoy hearing arguments that are novel to me. 

I think K Affs are acceptable and, if deployed well, can provide thoughtful insight specific to the topic.  As I said, nothing is ‘off the table,’ so I do not automatically bind Affirmatives to presenting a topical plan text.

However, because most Kritiks fundamentally argue that we should be responsible for our rhetorical choices, I think this places a reciprocal burden on teams advocating Kritiks to defend their choices.  In this sense, if you read a plan text, I think you are responsible for defending its hypothetical enactment; if you do not read a plan text, I think you are still responsible for defending a stable and well-articulated advocacy.

I debated throughout high school and then at Idaho State University for 5 years. I then coached at Idaho State University for 2 years, Weber for 1, USC for 1, and am currently with Houston.

I am a firm believer that debate is for debaters. I've had my time to make others listen to whatever (and I mean absolutely whatever) I wanted to say, and it's my turn to listen to and evaluate your arguments, whatever they may be. While I'm sure I have my limitations, make me adapt to you instead of the other way around.

I try my damnedest to line up all the arguments on my flow. I am, however, open to alternate flowing styles. I really do prefer when debaters make specific reference of which argument(s) they are answering at a given time regardless of flowing style. I also flow the text of cards.

I prefer not to call for evidence (although I would like to be on your email chain... misslindsayv@gmail.com). This means explain, explain, explain! Tell me what the card says; tell me why I should care and how I should apply it. That being said, I do not think that cards are always better than analytics.

Be prepared to defend all aspects of your argument.

Everything is open to (re)interpretation. For example, some questions that may be relevant to my ballot include: What is the purpose of debate? How does this affect the way that impacts are evaluated? These kinds of top-level framing issues are the most important to me.

This means things like framework and T (fun little-known fact: I've always found topicality in general super interesting--I love the nit-picky semantics of language) can be viable options against K affs. However, you are better off if you have a substantive response to the aff included as well.

I'm still kind of deciding how I feel about how competition functions in method debates. I think the most accurate depiction of what I think about it now is this (and it all obviously depends on what's happening in the debate/on the flow, but in general): I'll probably err that the affirmative on-face gets a permutation to determine if the methods are mutually exclusive, and so that means the best strategy for the negative in this world is to generate their links to the aff's method itself to prove that mutual exclusivity.

I'd really appreciate it if you could warn me in advance if there will be graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

Update for Cal Swing 2014

I am modifying how I evaluate debates to achieve several goals.

The goals are:

1)      Reducing the use of hyperbole to establish impacts.

2)      Increasing the quality of evidence by eliminating highlighting incoherence and increasing the quality of sources.

Teams tend go against these goals to gain a strategic edge. In past rounds I have debated in or judged, I have not felt like the reward for pointing out these flaws in your opponents arguments were as high as committing these same sins yourself. To compensate, I will be much more sympathetic towards arguments that tell me to prefer one team’s arguments because they are in line with these two goals.

These changes in how I evaluate debates will not influence how I give out speaker points. I plan on using the same point range I used from UMKC and UNLV or whatever the tournament suggests I use.

Old:

What I would prefer you would go for in the 2NR (most to least):

DA + Case/Non Generic CP

DA + Generic CP (states, international, conditions, etc.), K

T

Consult, delay, ASPEC, etc.

I sympathize with the aff when they argue that CPs should not have the possibility of fiating the whole affirmative plan. I think CPs that test the immediacy, permanency, or the "resoluteness" of the plan are not good for debate. I lean neg on most other theory questions.

K

On the neg: I am generally unpersuaded by long strings of analytics that are supposed to prove the whole aff totally false. The aff being slightly flawed isn't sufficient reason to vote neg. You need to have offense that your alt can resolve.

I also don't like the evolution in K debate to read a K of every little thing wrong with the aff. Your terror talk K isn't solved by your neolib alt and I don't think the aff needs to answer non-unique DAs.