background: madison west '22 | 3yrs circuit pf (broke @ TOC) | he/any | sorindcaldararu [at] gmail [dot] com

tldr: tech + tab. don't cross any moral lines and we'll all have a good time

if anything is unclear in my paradigm, either ask me before the round or default to the paradigm of my brilliant partner, charlie grabois

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debate is like an onion. it has many layers. i evaluate those layers in the following order:

1. safety

safety is the primary consideration. if you do anything that makes the round unsafe or exclusionary, you will lose. period.

2. other pre-fiat

i default to evaluating pre-fiat debate before substance. you can make a theory argument as to why i shouldn't and i could be convinced.

3. evidence ethics

debate is a game. as the adjudicator of the game, i have an inherent right to intervene if you're not following the rules.tl;dr:i will proudly hack for evidence ethics. if you regularly stretch or misrep evidence, you do not want me as a judge.

evidence ethics is the most likely way for me to intervene. i will call for any and all pieces of evidence that sound even slightly sketchy so that i can evaluate their quality. if you cite a piece of evidence and don't send it to me, i will treat it as an analytic. if i find out halfway through the round that one of the teams has misrepresented evidence, i'll keep flowing so that i can give feedback, but i will have already made a decision at that point.

i generally prefer that teams read from cut cards--not because paraphrasing necessarily leads to bad evidence ethics (not true) but because it's easier to catch bad evidence ethics with cut cards. i will not hack either way on paraphrasing theory; paraphrasing as a practice has benefits and harms. that being said, i require you to be sending cut cards when sharing evidence. if you send me a link to an article and tell me to "control-f it" i won't evaluate it.

i will not hesitate to give you 25 speaker points if you power tag and i will take great pleasure in giving you an L20 if i find that you have misrepresented evidence.

4. link chains

your weighing doesn't matter if there is uncontested terminal defense on your links. don't make me do the work - tell my why you're winning your case. you also have to fully extend your link chain for me to evaluate it.

5. weighing

self-explanatory. weigh. if you don't, i will be sad.

misc:

speaks are based on strategy and almost nothing else. absent an explicit scale from the tournament, you won't get below a 28 if your speaking is intelligible and your debating is ethical.

i can handle a normal amount of pf speed, probably, but i've been out of the activity for two years so err on the side of caution. i don't flow author names. there's a point beyond which speed is just dumb and bad, try not to cross it

send speech docs please. this should be a norm. it helps accessibility and helps me figure out if you're lying about what your evidence says.

a lot of debaters -- often male debaters -- have a hard time distinguishing between "being funny" and "being a jerk." i've debated a lot of people who crossed that line. if you can make me laugh, great, but be careful. if you're consistently being rude, i'll be looking for reasons to drop you.

if i can't decide at the end, i'll default to whichever team was more polite.

other than that, anything goes. i will evaluate any argument you run as long as it isn't exclusionary or rhetorically violent.

i have more detailed thoughts on debate here, but i try not to adhere to too many hard-set rules in my judging. it's my job to adapt to you, not the other way around.

Table of Contents: PF, MS Parli, Congress, Policy/LD, BQ

If you remind me, I'll give you my email in round for email chains or feedback.

Coaches: Tim Scheffler, Ben Morris

(Former) PF Partner: Sorin Caldararu

Schools: Madison West '22, Swarthmore College '26 (econ/math), judging for Strath Haven now.

Qualifications: 3 TOC gold bids in PF, doubles at TOC, won Dowling, broke 3x at Wisconsin PF State (made finals once), finals in state Congress twice, almost competed in extemp a couple of times, judged a few MSPDP and BQ rounds, judged a lot of PF rounds.

Varsity PF (JV/Novice/Middle School is Below):

TL;DR: Standard flow judge. Tech over truth but I admire appeals to truth when done well. Proud hack for evidence ethics. Below are some areas where I may deviate from circuit norms.

- Fairness > Education > Winning. Anything you do that is discriminatory will get you dropped and get your speaks tanked. PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE.

- LOCAL CIRCUIT: Disclo and parahrasing theory are not norms, so I'm going to need a pretty high bar of in-round abuse for me to justify a ballot. This is especially the case since local circuits tend to have much more extensive rules, including about evidence ethics, which could cover disclosure and paraphrasing if necessary. It is much easier to make rule changes in the local circuit. Thus, I need to know why the round, not coach meetings in the summer, should be where disclosure is made a norm.

- Now you know the wiki exists: https://opencaselist.com/hspf22. Not disclosing is now your choice. If you don't know what that means, ask me.

- If you're a small school and you're up against a team from a big prep school, I am a judge you want. I debated a lot on the national circuit, but I went to a public school that barely funds its debate program. Unlike a lot of judges who consider themselves "flow," I don't care if you use the same useless circuit buzzwords I use and I'm really not impressed by people that read 5 poorly warranted turns in rebuttal that one of their 15 coaches wrote for them in a prepout.

- If you go to a privileged school, are facing an underprivileged school, and spend the round commodifying the issues of underprivileged schools in an unnuanced disclosure/paraphrasing shell, your speaks will be capped at a 26 and I will be very tempted to drop you for it. If your entire strategy for winning rounds is to weigh extinction impacts over everything else, your speaks will be capped at a 28.5 unless you present some type of interesting nuance in the weighing debate. If I have to flow you off a speech doc, your speaks are capped at 28.5.

- I don't care if you provide an "alternative" in framework/theory debates (you need one in K’s though). I don't think second case ever needs to interact with first case, even in progressive debate.

- I reserve the right to intervene if I dislike your theory. That said, prefiat impacts almost always outweigh postfiat impacts. If prefiat debate is initiated, generally we're not gonna be debating substance. That doesn't make theory abusive – if you hit theory you can win by responding to it.

- Norms that DEFINITELY should be enforced through the ballot: not being ___ist, not misrepresenting evidence, not being rude. Norms that should be enforced through the ballot: disclosure, having cut cards, being able to share evidence efficiently, not stealing prep time, trigger warnings. Norm that should be encouraged through word of mouth but not the ballot: reading cards.

- Weighing should be done early. Don't wait until final focus. Metaweigh, too.

- Frontline in 2nd rebuttal. No sticky defense.

- I don't flow author names.

- Collapse early. To that end, don't read a whole new contention in rebuttal for no reason.

- If I have no offense on the flow, I default to the team that would win if I were a lay judge.

- You can ask me to call for evidence (from your side or your opponents' side) after the round in one of your speeches (or cross-ex if that floats your boat). I will probably not remember. After the round, say "remember when I asked you to look at the Caldararu card?" and I will look at it.

- Don’t misrepresent who wrote your evidence. If the article comes from the opinion section or is an academic study, you cannot cite it solely by institution. The New York Times does not publicly agree or disagree with what Ross Douthat or Bret Stephens writes for them (and I’m sure it would often vehemently disagree, as would I), so citing his op-eds by saying “the New York Times says...” is incorrect. You should say "Douthat of the New York Times says..." or "Douthat says..."

- "If you pronounce “Reuters” as 'rooters' or "nuclear" as 'nook-you-ler' I will be sad." –Sorin Caldararu, my brilliant debate partner.

- I'm going to Swarthmore College (one of the most left-leaning colleges in America), I live in Madison, Wisconsin (one of the most left-leaning cities in America), and my debate coach was a civil rights lawyer. This should give you a sense of my political views.

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JV/Novice/Middle School Paradigm:

I have judged some Middle School Parliamentary rounds before, and I have a lot of experience in novice/JV public forum.

- There are essentially three parts of debating: making arguments, responding to arguments, and weighing arguments (i.e. comparing your arguments and with those of your opponent). Ideally, you should start by mostly making arguments, and by the end you should mostly be weighing arguments that have already been made. You can make that very clear to me by saying things like "now I'm going to respond to my opponent's argument about ______."

- An argument usually has to involve saying something will cause something else. Say we're debating whether the government should create a single-payer healthcare system. If you are on the proposition, saying "healthcare is a right" isn't really an argument. Rather, it's a catchphrase that hints at a different argument: by making healthcare single-payer, the cost doesn't change whether you go to the doctor or not, making people more likely to get care that improves their quality of life and could even save lives. The difference between the first argument and the second is pretty subtle, but it's important for me as a judge: saying "healthcare is a right" doesn't tell me how single-payer gets people healthcare, and it also doesn't tell me who I'm actually helping by voting in favor of single-payer. The second argument answers those questions and puts those answers front and center. And that makes it much easier for me, as a judge, to vote for you.

- To that end, I'm not a fan of new arguments in late speeches. It makes the debate feel like whack-a-mole: a team makes one argument, but once it's rebutted, they present another argument, which then gets rebutted, and so on.

- Generally, I find logic to be more compelling than moral grandstanding. For example, if we're debating if it should be legal to feed kids McDonalds and you argue that it shouldn't because McDonalds is unhealthy, it doesn't help to say stuff like "they're basically stepping over the bodies of dead children" in a speech. It sounds like overkill and makes me not want to vote for you as much.

- Tell me your favorite animal to show me you've read this for an extra speaker point. The WDCA hates fun, so I sadly cannot give you your extra speaker point if you are in Wisconsin.

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Congress:

Short and sweet:

- I probably would rather judge PF. Try to change my mind. (just kidding)

- I was a huge fan of really weird yet hilarious intros, and had one for just about every speech freshman year. It was then squeezed out of me by a combination of tremendous willpower and coaching. (I once said that Saudi Arabia was acting like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes).

- Don’t re-word a speech someone else just gave two minutes ago.

- I shouldn’t be able to tell if you have a background in policy or PF debate. Don’t speak like you would in a PF or policy round.

- If you give a late-cycle speech, you should have something valuable to say. If you don’t have something valuable to say, don’t speak.

- You should vote to call the question, but not if it will prevent someone who needs to speak from speaking. Basically, if you are bored of debating a given bill, call the question. If you believe that calling the question would be a good underhand ploy to prevent somebody from speaking, don't call the question.

- Don’t speak right after someone spoke on your side, unless you absolutely have to (you probably don't have to).

- Don’t use precedence/recency to give the first pro speech if the writer of the bill is in the chamber and wants to speak. I have no idea if writing a bill allows you to give the first pro speech regardless of precedence and recency, but that should be a rule. This should give you an indication of my level of experience with Congress.

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Policy/LD: If I am judging you in policy or LD, I might have a slight bias towards a more PF style of debate. Read my PF paradigm since most things will apply. I find the ideas and concepts in policy and LD interesting and worthwhile even though I'm not inclined to participate in those styles of debate. Just keep it under 300wpm, use PF-level lingo, and keep in mind I can flow spreading but I can't flow it as well as an actual policy or LD debater. I'm probably more down for progressive debate than most PF judges, especially in those events. I know I can be a hard judge to adapt to for circuit policy and LD, so I'll cut you some slack with speed and clear you like 10 times before I stop trying to flow.

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BQ:

I judge BQ exactly like I judge PF, but obviously framework matters more because it's philosophy. Just read the PF section. It all applies.

Hi! I'm Josie. I did PF in high school for four years, as well as some other speech and debate (extemp, mock trial, congress, etc!)

Some primary things to know about my judging style:

I am definitely a flow judge and expect you to carry any arguments you want me to weigh through FF. When extending evidence, PLEASE give me a card name as well as the gist of your argument - don't just say EXTEND SMITH and expect me to know what you're talking about. I will most likely not extend it.

Speeches should cover both sides of the flow starting in second rebuttal. we LOVE clash!! please make relevant responses to your opponent's arguments and do not misconstrue them.

Please signpost! It's so helpful for me and a good habit to get into in general. I don't need you to give me a full off time road map, but please at least tell me where on the flow you're starting at before you speak so I can know where to write.

Weigh your impacts please! Quantified impacts are great but you don't need them to win if you can reasonably tell me why your impacts are stronger otherwise. I understand time can be tight, but just throwing a random number of hypothetical dead people at me in the last 2 seconds of FF is hard to make sense of and kinda strange in general.

Although I judge on the flow, other aspects of the round may factor into my decision.

A pet peeve of mine is people being passive aggressive or rude during debate rounds. do not do this. I may drop you. Let your opponents present their arguments fairly-- do not talk over them in cross or say that they dropped evidence / arguments that they didn't and expect me to believe you (please don't do this if you can help it. it tells me that you're either lying or weren't paying attention, neither of which are good). I don't need you to be super formal, just don't be an jerk its not that hard.

I also expect your arguments to make sense and be true, even if they are extended cleanly. While it's primarily the other team's responsibility to call you out on faulty arguments or evidence, I reserve the right to use my best judgement and may ask to see evidence if your case seems sketchy. It should go without saying, but arguments based on bigotry or conspiracy theories will get u dropped immediately. In general, if your argument is rooted in evidence and you know your sources and reasoning well, it shows and makes it much easier to vote for you. Conversely, it is much harder for me to vote for an argument built on a shaky foundation.

I also love a good crossfire and will be listening attentively to what you say during cross! Please be responsive to the questions you're asked and don't get too heated, it's just embarrassing for you tbh. I won't flow cross unless you explicitly tell me to write something down, but it will heavily influence your speaker points.

TLDR; i will flow, please signpost and weigh your impacts. be nice and don't run sketchy args.

I look forward to judging your round!

Hi! My name is Dom, and I use he/him pronouns - I'm excited to judge your round! I debated in Public Forum for two years during high school. While I'm familiar with high-level PF debate, I haven't been very active in the community lately.

I would briefly describe myself as a "flay" judge who prioritizes truth over technical arguments. Here are a few quick bullet points about how to win my ballot.

- Be Clear (Signpost! Weigh! Avoid Spreading!)

- Be Truthful (Use good evidence! I will call for cards!)

- Be Respectful (Don't interrupt/intimidate! Treat your opponents how you would like to be treated!)

Please, ask any and every question about my preferences you have before the round begins! The more information you have, the more you can understand what goes into my decision-making process.

My email is zappiadominic@gmail.com. Feel free to reach out for any specific feedback or questions!

Thanks for taking the time to read my paradigm! :)