I need to be able to understand what you are saying, so if you are speaking at a rate faster than you can handle and I cannot understand you, it is just as bad as not saying anything and I cannot count those arguments. I also do not appreciate being told what I MUST do in any round. Use good arguments and logic, make sure you adequately address the points brought up by your opponent, and do your best to defend and uphold your own case. Use cross-ex to question, not to debate. Lastly, I like CIVIL debates. Know the difference between passion and unnecessary aggression.

Debate should be an educational and communicative activity. I look for debaters that can discuss the topic with intelligence and honesty. Any attempts to play games with my emotions or my sentiments will get very low marks on the ballot. Debate the topic and do so with integrity, this is my expectation.

Brian Geffre

Shanley High School

Fargo ND

This is my 13th year coaching competitive debate. I like to hear good debate. I want kids to improve and succeed in this activity. When everyone competes better, the whole activity gets better. You having a good round is my goal. If you are a new debater, this is all you need to know. For the more experienced students, read on.

Updates for 2023 season.

Ask me if you do not understand or want clarity on the below.

I won't vote for positions that are overtly harmful or advocate harm.

I am typically a tech judge, as I would like to not intervene in the round. However...

I will not accept claims that are not warranted. It is not my job to blindly accept your arguments when they are incomplete.

If you run phil arguments, I will accept your interpretation of the phil... to an extent. However, if the phil you are arguing is something way of base or you have a gross misunderstanding, I will not accept it. You should have a basic understanding of what the difference principle or categorical imperative or whatever means that actually resembles it. It's not exactly fair to your opponent that you don't know what you are actually running. It leads to too much confusion for your opponent, and I will simply default to your opponents weighing mechanism, or a standard debate weighing mechanism.

Basically, on a truth to tech scale, put me as a 2 for your phil and a 7 for everything else.

If you are going to run a K and do not have all the elements of a K, do not waste your time. I will exercise my roll of the ballot by voting for the trad debater. (If you do not understand the joke I put in the last sentence, that is your sign a K is a bad idea).

General notes

I vote on my flow, and dictate my decision based on the arguments that I am told to vote on in the round.

Asking what your opponent's evidence is does not win you any favors with me. Unless you have a good reason, something you haven't heard before, questioning the source, evidence violations, I find it detracts from the real value of this activity. Please don't do this unless it is integral to advancing your arguments. To be clear, I totally respect and endorse asking to see your opponent's evidence IF necessary. I do not favor or ever vote for arguments based on "my opponent doesn't have evidence" when my flow shows otherwise.

I like impacts. I like links.

You should articulate your arguments clearly because even if I know the content and literature, I will not do the work of filling in the gaps for you.

I prefer students advance arguments. Arguments can and should evolve.

Please tell me what I should write on my ballot. Good chance if you do, I will write it.

Don't yell at me please. I am a person. Ask yourself, would like me to yell at you for 45 minutes? No, you do not. Make a different choice. I will verbally tell you to knock it off.

I call evidence. Please have evidence in round according to the rules. There is a good chance, especially in D1, I am calling it. It doesn't mean you did something wrong, it most likely means there is something I want to confirm. This specifically comes up when you are paraphrasing your evidence, and your paraphrasing changes to the point it doesn't reflect the initial read. I am just trying to be a good judge for you.

PF debate

I am pretty traditional in my sense of what PF should be and look like. I believe in the concept a lay judge should be able to judge the round.

Just because the summary is 3 minutes, doesn't mean it is a 2nd rebuttal. A summary during that time would be cool.

I vote on offense.

LD debate

I strongly advise carrying your framework with you through the round. It weighs heavily for me in voting. Framework is one of the strongest voting areas for me in LD. If you lose it, I am not sure how you win the ballot. I literally vote on values.

Criterion clash isn't a "thing". Stop trying to make criterion clash happen. You clash values, you argue criterions.

I am well read on popular philosophies used in more traditional circuits of LD debate. I prefer phil. heavy rounds.

she/her

I did 4 years of traditional LD in North Dakota and 2 years of APDA at Columbia. Consider me an expert in traditional debate and philosophy and as having a basic working knowledge of circuit debate.

In general, don’t do anything harmful, I will tank your speaks and vote you down. For traditional LD debates, the winner’s offense links to the winning criterion and outweighs their opponent’s offense that links. In circuit debates, I still want some sort of framework/weighing that I can use to evaluate impacts, and I will plug those impacts in accordingly. This can be basically anything, as long as it’s not harmful.

As I become less and less involved with debate, I become less interested in the technical side. I will still evaluate the round based purely on the arguments made, and will try not to intervene in any but the most egregious of cases. Nevertheless, I question the notion that we can or should be a tabula rasa in or out of debate.

In terms of speed, I’m comfortable with anything ~<200, more than that and you should send a doc.

If you are interested in my personal biases, know that I'm generally more sympathetic to ideas that fall under the "identity politics" umbrella. In high school, I ran a lot of Kant so I really like to see deontological arguments done well. I will of course do everything possible to remain impartial in spite of these biases, but they are there.