I am a parent judge and vote based on VC and how well you defend any counter arguments. Clarity is better than speed. Please give me your voters in your final speech and weigh.

bye!

*Updated for Polar Bear 2021.

Intro

Debated for Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in LD for 4 years, mostly running k's on the national circuit during my varsity years.

Email me at jeffreyhuangdragon@gmail.com if you wanna send me speech docs

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me over Facebook messenger, I go by Jerfy Huang

In terms of debate, I really enjoy unique and interesting arguments that break away from the norm, and I will tend to award higher speaker points depending on how much I enjoyed the debate. Overall, although I think that both framework and contention level debates are important, more often than not debates will break down into arguments on the contention level anyways, so in the cases that they do, please try to make as many well warranted arguments and extensions as possible. As a judge, I can only evaluate arguments that have been extended in your final speech, which means that you must not only respond to your opponents arguments but also reiterate your own in both claim and warrant in every speech in order to win your arguments and the round as a whole. Bonus points if you're able to win the framework debate and link back/weigh your arguments under the framework. If you have any questions about the how the round went, want any feedback about what you can do better, or just want to know more about debate as a whole, feel free to ask before or after the round and ask away.

As always, please do not be rude to your opponents, especially if you are a someone that's more experienced than your opponent. Please don't spread in the novice division, and only ask for consent first with your opponent if you're debating in varsity.

National circuit stuff below (ignore if you are debating at a local tournament and aren't debating progressively)

Basic stuff

Don't be rude. any racist/sexist/ableist etc. args and/or inappropriate behavior will be punished accordingly.

Tech over truth. Its like reading the fine print of a contract: its on you if you miss any of it. However if there's an arg over what a card says word for word or any issue related to such matters I will call for evidence and pass judgement.

Please disclose, disclosure debates are frivolous.

Speaks

Since speaks are usually inflated, I give them as follows:

30 = I think you'll win the tournament

29 = I think you'll do well in elims

28 = I think you'll go positive/break

27 = average

26 = going negative

25 = you screwed up horribly

K's

Kritiks have always been my favorite argument, with phil being the next best thing, because I've always loved the spirit of the kritik and creating a separate and distinct space apart from theory and policy. HOWEVER, there are 2 things that I despise about the current practice of running critical arguments in the LD community:

1) running a kritik purely as an argument that you've recycled from past topics

2) being inconsiderate of your situation/circumstances and/or contradicting the kritik

Kritiks should be read like a good story: I should be enjoying it in round instead of zoning out to the same cards I've heard countless times, and when I evaluate it at the end of the round I should be able to understand what its purpose was and how its made debate a better place.

Also, concise overviews at the beginning of speeches and explanations of how the K functions and how it applies to your opponent are key to successfully convincing me to vote for the K, especially with denser lit, since otherwise you're probably doing a bad job of showing me why it even matters for me or the debate. This means that you should have convincing arguments as to why the ROB matters first and foremost for the round, and how you're doing the better job at upholding that standard with the body of the K.

Bonus points if you're running Nietzsche and actually know what you're doing.

THEORY/T

A lot of my qualms about K's actually cross apply here. I'm fine with theory, and I truly believe that they have an important role in shaping the debate space, but at the same time so much generic shells gets read that it makes me question why the person even wants to debate.

Make sure you make clear how all parts of the shell link together: slow down on interps, read an ACTUAL violation instead of just the opposite of your interp, standards should actually prove why and how SPECIFICALLY YOUR OPPONENT is abusive, and voters should tell me why the shell matters.

On disclosure, be considerate of who you're hitting and the circumstances, if your opponent is clearly a novice or they disclosed 20 mins before the round instead of 30, don't just run disclosure for the sake of putting more ink of the flow. Maybe actually debating the topic would be a nice change of pace eh?

POLICY/LARP

Literally just do your thing, make sure you weigh and all that stuff, imo its as basic as it gets.

If you're LARPing make sure your arguments make sense and that you know the policy like the back of your hand, don't just make up some facts or spend half of CX scrolling through your case saying "i think [some random author] says it somewhere in the case"

Also please try to read unique and fully flushed out arguments, I don't want to listen to the same heg DA 6 times in a row

If you're hitting LARP, reading good evidence is great, case turns/plan flaw are greater

PHIL

Next best thing after K, just make sure to know/explain your lit and actually have logical warrants in cards. I'll know if something's off and I'll call for cards appropriately

TRICKS

Not too familiar, just a meme in my books, don't run these unless you're trying to be funny or if you're confident enough that you can explain how I should evaluate them