Third year out from Bronx Science debated all four years and was pretty successful (bids, broke at TOC). I don't know much about very tech argumentation (Ks, theory), but feel free to run them (just explain them well). I am very compelled by comparative and uniqueness weighing and detailed warranting!!! All offense should be responded to in the next speech and turns (esp if ur going for them) should be fully extended with warranting and weighing. I will not vote off blippy extensions.

A little bit about me: I debated at the Bronx High School of Science for 4 years, where I was one of the captains of the PF team and broke at Gold TOC in my junior year. I am now a junior at Princeton University on their debate team as well. I consider myself a relatively flow debater, and so I will also be judging on the flow.

TL; DR

I am a pretty standard flow judge; if you debate well, both in terms of the technical aspect and persuasion aspect, that will make me happy. To take from my partner Tenzin Dadak's paradigm, the only equation you need to know is: Warrant + Weigh = Win

For the email chain and any questions, my email is gangulya@bxscience.edu

Novices, scroll down towards the end, unless you're curious. Here's the long version.

Extended:

The way I evaluate every round is pretty simple- I look to weighing/framing first, and whoever I think is winning the weighing, I look to their arguments first. Then, if I think that there is a plausible risk of offense on that argument, I vote for that team- I don't even look at the other side of the flow. It's that simple, so it should inform you on what to prioritize in the round to get my ballot.

More things to do to secure my ballot:

1. Collapse. Too many times teams spread themselves too thin by trying to argue that they are winning every argument in the round, which makes it even more difficult to just win one; towards the later speeches, please whittle the round down to one or two major pieces of offense/voters for me.

2. Extend offense and frontline in summary and final focus. Pretty simple- if you don't tell me why I should vote for you and why your argument still holds true even after their rebuttal, the likelihood is that I will not vote on it.

3. WARRANT YOUR ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE. Warranting, for me, is the most interesting part of debate because that is where your logical reasoning and understanding of the world comes into play- just asserting a statement to be true or just reading a statistic is nowhere near enough to make me believe your arguments. Please explain the reasoning behind each step of the argument- even though there are massive time constraints in final focus, please still include it in a condensed form.

4. WEIGH. This is probably one of the most under-appreciated aspects of debate, and to become a great debater, you need to be able to compare your arguments to your opponents and explain why yours are more important to consider in the round. Just saying "We outweigh on scope because we affect more people" is not fully fleshed out weighing; you need to give more reasoning and also compare the clashing weighing mechanisms in the round. Weighing makes my job easier, and will probably lead to you being more content with my decision.

Miscellaneous:

1. PROGRESSIVE ARGUMENTATION: Personally, I believe that a lot of progressive argumentation does not have a place in PF, and will always prefer topical arguments over Ks and theory UNLESS there is clear abuse. As for my position on some norms, I lean very strongly paraphrasing good, slightly lean towards disclosure not necessary, lean RVIs good, and default reasonability. I do not know much about this type of debate, so please slow down and explain it thoroughly if you do choose to run it in front of me, and I will treat it as any other argument. Trigger warnings are a necessity, and if I feel as though you are running this just to win an easy ballot against a team that obviously does not know how to respond, I will drop you- progressive argumentation is supposed to correct the flaws that are in this activity, NOT to be weaponized.

2. I base speaker points on your speaking skills and presentation AND on how technically sound you debate. Because of this, if the tournament allows me to, I will give a low-points win. I will start at 28.

3. Please don't be overly aggressive or mean in round; light-hearted humor is wonderful, but be wary of the line where it crosses over from being funny to disrespectful. Oh and also, please don't be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. That will automatically make me drop you- I have no tolerance for people who make the round an unsafe space to debate.

4. I am tech>truth, but not entirely. I will vote on any argument if it is well-warranted and well-executed in round, but as the argument becomes more outlandish, my threshold for a good response goes down and I am more likely to believe simple logical responses.

5. Please don't be egregiously poor with evidence- that just leads to really mucky debates and that would make me sad.

6. Please signpost- tell me which argument you are talking about, where in the argument you are, etc. This just makes it easier for me to flow the round.

7. Speed is fine, but don't go excessively fast (this means no spreading!!!)- if I need you to slow down then I will say "clear".

8. About crossfires- I fall in the category of people who really enjoy listening to cross, but anything important that comes out of cross that you think is necessary for me to take note of has to be put into a speech, else it will not affect my decision.

9. Please make the round enjoyable; then we can all have fun and that would make it a great time. This activity is meant to be both fun and competitive- please try to make it so.

10. ABOUT TURNS: Since everyone is turning to the idea of dumping turns on all arguments without any proper warranting, this section is now warranted. I despise blippy turns, so unless you spend >10 seconds on one turn AND extend an impact on that turn in that same speech OR weigh your turn in that very same speech that you read the turn in, I will think of it as blippy and I will be very sympathetic to the other team's responses. Other team, please point out that they are blowing up a blip. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR SECOND REBUTTAL TURNS. Tread lightly.

FOR NOVICES:

I do not expect too much from y'all; I remember when I was a novice myself I certainly would not oblige to what I have mentioned above. That being said, here is some of the clear stuff that would make the round better and make me happy:

1. Signpost in every speech- this is a good practice generally, and allows you to stay organized and me to understand what you're saying.

2. Give voters in the back half of the round- it is not enough to tell me why the opponents should not win; you need to explain why you win and why I should vote for you.

3. Warrant and Weigh- Give me the reasoning behind your evidence and why your arguments logically are sound, and then compare their importance to those of the opponents.

If y'all got through all of that, then y'all are some real ones. If you want any speaker point boosts, call the pro's contentions as PROtentions (+0.5 speaker points). Thank you for reading this- if you have any specific questions just ask me before the round starts, and I will be happy to answer them. If you want to reach me, my email is gangulya@bxscience.edu

Hi!! Thank you for taking the time to read my paradigm, and I'm super excited to be your judge!

About me: I did PF for four years at Bronx Science and was co-captain my senior year –– that being said, I would honestly describe myself as a flay debater. Assume I know very little about the resolution (because I probably do). I also really don't want to have to judge super tech-heavy rounds, and I am definitely not the person to run a k/progressive argument in front of. I prefer logical, consistent, and heavily-weighed argumentation that is both cogent and nuanced.

Like:

• Warrant + Weigh (and make it actually comparative with your opponents, not just saying "scope" or "timeframe")
• Metaweighing
• Link/offense extensions (through summary and final)
• COLLAPSING.
• Extended turns (w/ weighing!)
• Bringing up concessions from cross

Don't like:

• Rude or offensive behavior in any form
• Bringing up new arguments OR previously dropped arguments in final (especially if speaking second)
• Not weighing
• Reciting the resolution at the top of case
• Not weighing x2

Feel free to ask me anything about my preferences before round!! Email is kawamuraa@bxscience.edu for email chains + questions! :)

Taken from Tommy Barone:

I am a senior at Regis High School who has competed with moderate success (a few bids, a lot of elims) in PF (and infrequently in LD) on the National Circuit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For email chains: manna@bxscience.edu

Hii all! I am a pretty standard flow judge.

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

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

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

Debate is supposed to be fun, enjoy it!

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

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

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

My preferences:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do not spread.

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

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