Last changed on
Thu April 18, 2024 at 8:05 AM PDT
I am a lay parent judge:
Leland ‘24
Team USA '23-'24
2x LD California State Champion and NSDA National Champion 2023
This format is weird, tab is not being the greatest so sick with me. I'm a trad LDer who has been debating in California since 2017, had various accomplishments including state and nats, various invitationals. Email chain (yes) eshanveli@gmail.com. Never been a fan of adapt or die, I'll try to be open to arguments as long as you respect my preferences. Ask questions if needed - I will also flow the round etc, feel free to ask for any specific feedback you want.
I WILL CHANGE BASED ON PANELS- IF ITS A 5 PERSON PANEL AND I'M THE ONLY FLOW(ISH) JUDGE, I'LL JUST EVALUATE LAY
General Paradigm
Tl;dr: no isms, don’t be dumb, have fun because debate is primarily a educational, inclusive activity that people should enjoy. Send docs if spreading and i'll evaluate basically anything that isn't racist, homophobic etc. If you have a card, cut it correctly: citation, highlighting, bold, underline, etc, otherwise I will autodrop.
Friv theory is fine if ur doing it for fun and you make it clear you've talked to your opponent about it before the round (someone please read one of the following i have a checklist im trying to hit: gregorian time K, anime rage K, santa clause cp, ai theory, 6 minute tricks ac)
My spreading comprehension is bad, send a doc, I can't vote for what I don't understand. Spreading should stay in policy but i understand if ur a circuit ld/pf-er who got dealt me as a judge: check with your opponent about spreading and i won't hold it against you. If I put down my pen, I cannot understand what you are saying (in the age of docs it doesn't matter anymore though) but also if you're spreading something leave 15 seconds at the end and summarize slowly in case there's any specific pieces of evidence you want me to note down that i may miss the emphasis of if im flowing off a doc. Tell me the order before your speech regardless of your delivery style (do it in a funny accent and I'll boost your speaks by .5). If your opponent is yelling clear please slow down. If you don’t it won't make me vote against you but I may end up tanking your speaks if it's clear that you're preventing your opponent's comprehension.
Evidence is important but not as important as your defense of it - don't just say “oh, he is from Harvard” give me proper evidence comparison and why a specific piece of evidence is more important than others. Know the methodology of your studies and read multiple credible sources. Ensure your studies are inclusive and well designed, use well qualified authors.
Or don’t lol
Any debater who has befriended me knows that my cards can be a tad bit. . . shady and I will leave it at that. I have cited Buzzfeed and Quora but I never made them the central thesis of my cases and made it clear that the source was not credible. As I said earlier, defending your evidence is important, sometimes more important than the evidence itself. I do not intend to encourage bad evidence ethics, but if you defend your argument better, as a tech judge should, I will vote off of it. If you so choose to walk this path don’t let an indict kill your entire case though that would be hilarious for me as a judge to watch. Note that it tends to be much harder to defend low quality evidence than it does to actually cut a decent study (google scholar exists for a reason)
Argument wise, read my notes on friv theory way up there somewhere.
Note that I am a lay ld debater who is not exposed to many theory type arguments (even though they are a lot of fun). Thus, either lay-ify or don’t read. Or read and pray I understand. A variety of options really. If you want to read the theory, say so before your speech, and if i do not understand what you are reading I will give you a thumbs down while you are speaking. Just like..re explain or send me the doc of the shell/k/T or whatever it is. I have read through a lot of theory but never actually run it if that helps you to understand where I am at with theory.
Quora>>>Tech>>>Truth, but usual notes of no racism, xenophobia, ect. (quora thing is a joke)
I have run some very very untrue arguments ranging from universal child care would lead to nuclear war and open borders would lead to the collapse of the ice cream industry (don’t ask). If you are running a long link chain, low probability argument, be prepared for a very solid defense. If you are running a historically untrue argument I'll evaluate it but be very unhappy (will not tank speaks, but at least try and make it funny). For all that is as valuable as cheese, make sure you signpost. Bring a stop sign with you into round, no questions asked, I ‘ll boost your speaks.
Kritiks are okay, explain the reason for using and why it is better/more necessary than clash specific to this topic. Please explain them well. Aff K’s are okay because I am a lay debater and don’t see the problem with them therefore have no bias against them! T’s are interesting, and tbh i have no clue how the relationship between T’s and K’s work if there is one at all so just T a K or K a T or K a T’d K and i'll just follow along with a smile on my face. (do not TKO though that may be an equity issue).
Abusive arguments are kind of mean but to tell y’all not to run them would be very hypocritical of me. I would prefer if people focused on debating the merits of arguments rather than using abusive definitions to box in an opponent, but if it gets flowed through, it gets flowed through and I can’t help your opponent's. (but also can’t help you if it backfires)
Dropped arguments are, firstly yes, dropped and extended through but it makes me a little bit frustrated to hear debaters just say “they dropped this card.” (totally not because I can never remember my own cards). Please explain the card and its significance even if it's just 3 lines. Referring to previous cards, give me the author, date, and tag/summary of what it says or even just like what it implies as long as I get what you are saying.
Framework wise, Ld very important, scroll to the LD section and read all about my views on the value and value criterion. Other events, I see framework as the lens for how to view the round so read it, defend it, link into it, and explain implications (use the words try or die if it applies!!). Also realistically (not too sure about how policy works) but PF I'm just gonna assume net benefits if y'all don’t give me otherwise. Thus, WEIGHING IS IMPORTANT. I like it when debaters prevent low reversibility, high probability arguments but any mech is fine as long as I get a worlds comparison or a comparison to their weighing and why yours is superior.
Claim warrant impact (uniqueness link impact) is a must. Warranting is very important, I like good solid warrants. Solid impacts that can be defended are good. Just write my ballots for me in your final speech and we should be fine. Be funny and say it like “ i thought the aff did a great job of defending xyz but ultimately the neg had xyz offense that made me vote neg.” (or don’t this is not mandatory)
Analytics are a lost part of debate that I would love to see revitalized. Please make the days of illogical evidence spam and winning off of drops go away, but until it comes, I will cope!
In cross, nothing much. Don’t read evidence, be respectful. Don’t interrupt. It's in your best interest to address the question at hand rather than bounce around it. Also, I have not prepped the topic so simplify the acronyms that may be used.
Here are some judge paradigms I agree with that are much more comprehensive than my own
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Soderquist, Cammie
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Slencsak, Matthew
The events are not organized by preference I swear.
LD
I lied, the events are organized by preference.
A lot of stuff here. First, generally speaking, and then speech by speech!
Framework: Must Must Must Must Must Must. (Must - be obliged to; should (expressing necessity)).
I understand that it is becoming more and more frequent for people to collapse frameworks but I have always appreciated a good framework debate and a debater proving why they win under both frameworks. If you run the same framework, provide me clear links into your framing and why you are achieving it better than your opponent. I am an exclusive framing judge - if the argument you win falls outside the winning framework, I won't evaluate it.
Value, as you should know, is what we are trying to achieve. Do not give me a nonsensical value that skews the debate to one side unless you can read me warrants and defend it well. Read me something that is interesting and well designed to evaluate the debate. Personal preferences of what I read right now are rawlsian justice, practical justice, social progress, and democracy. Morality is a generic set of values with no constant standard that can be personally adapted to each person's preference but if your opponent does not call you out on it I will not either. If you defend it, great, its votable. But really try to be more in depth with your argument development. Util makes me sad but is not a reason for me to vote against you. When you are defending your value my preference for link ins are resolution specificity (except ought for morality) >> implied value >> literature based value. Do note that the opposite is true for criterions.
Criterions: how you intend to achieve your value! Criterions are usually a verb + a principle. For example maximizing societal welfare, minimizing structural violence. Do not read me a generic term as a criterion. You fulfill your criterion based on the arguments in the round. Read me warrants for your evaluation, read me why your criterion is best for your framing. But you don’t need to if the panel is lay.
Arguments: the norm is starting to shift so i am going to split this into two parts.
Circuit: I like trad Ld. That won't change. But I know that its a dying concept so I won't complain. (I ‘ll complain a little, yall too aggressive, chill out and defend the whole res). I feel in terms of argumentation my general paradigm applies. I love a good philosophy case but it needs to be well explained and in depth, especially since not every debater is going to spend hours reading in depth ethical theory. Send a doc, please keep it civil (i ‘ve had bad experiences) and pretend like i ‘m understanding what you're saying. Honestly, I've never flowed a truly fast circuit round before because I have never hit a circuit debater so docs will be your best friend (and mine). Either way i ‘d prefer if yall slow down a bit so I can keep up. Strongly would prefer. But take the style that suits you best. High five to anyone who, after round, teaches me something about circuit that I don't know. There will be a lot of high fives. TL;DR if I'm on your panel in a bubble or bid round, I am so sorry.
Cal Ld: framework is really important. It would be nice to see more debaters who put framework based summaries at the end of each speech, or even at the end of every contention level argument. The more framework the better. If you are in Cal LD this is either one of the few remaining invitationals that we can compete at or this is a district tournament/nationals. In any case this is the event I main and I like it. I believe Cal LD has 3 goals: Communicate, win the philosophy, win the argument. Communication wise, flow speeds are very different from spreading. Flow speeds require you to still be understood to a judge who is not trained to understand spreading. As a debater, I do regularly read multiple pieces of offense on each of the neg contentions in my 1AR and still have a decent 1:30 or 2:00 left on the clock to defend my own case. I guess what i'm saying is a good traditional Ld round should have a high word efficiency without sacrificing word economy while ensuring time management is working out. Run a time split that works best for you and make sure you cover as much as possible without sacrificing your communication skills. Philosophy wise, first of all, in a lay round, just don’t. (especially if i'm the only one with a paradigm longer than a sentence). Second of all, if you are not comfortable with philosophy, don’t. Its easier to defend a case you've written and gotten comfortable with. I have run all types of cases from philosophical to straight argumentation and I know how it feels to lose a round off of an argument you were forced into running by a judge’s paradigm. But if you are running a philosophical argument or a strong framing, as with everything else, warranting. Also refer to the bolded note about me being an exclusivist judge and apply that to where you want. Winning the framework may just win you the round from the philosophical approach. Finally, on argumentation: try and provide multi-tiered responses that discuss links into impacts, impacts themselves, contention level, and/or links into framing. Any combination works as long as you have decent well developed arguments.
1AC- stay organized, speak fluently, and please dont read off of the paper or laptop like a robot.
NC - this too but try and have aff coverage and really attack the core of the aff - im fine with you chasing ink but good, intuitive responses are preferred. If you are reading shells, go shells first.
1AR - i want to see decent coverage and i would prefer if you place more emphasis on the arguments you may ultimately collapse on here but if you feel like defending everything equally go ahead and do so. It would be cool if you have a really solid 1AR that spaces your opponent out of the 2NR. A good rebuttal should both rebuild case and have intuitive argumentation, if you can get 1ar extensions of important evidence on case then collapse on to them that would be great. I tried my best to do this in 2023 nats finals and then absolutely messed up my 2ar
NR - same thing as previous aff speech, just swap the sides. Collapsing is good but should not really be necessary because of the time skew. Give me solid voters, maybe a worlds comparison, etc. Also look at the aff next speech and use similar techniques.
2AR - any framing level analysis, especially try or die, should be extended or reintroduced. Weigh everything under the framing, especially the voters. Collapsed arguments should have stronger links into the actual argument as well as links into the framing. I'm fine with a more generic not line by line 1ar as long as the points you choose to center voters around are interactive with most of the flow.
Worlds
Team USA 23-24. I believe worlds should be accessible and fun to try, and I expect debaters to treat it as such. Any violations of educational norms will result in a loss. Specific to team USA: bring a coach I would love to say hi, and please conduct yourselves well.
Debates should be clash centered and be charitable to your opponents. Be reasonable in your interpretation of the motion, and try to think from a global perspective, don't just debate the topic as though it is US centric.
Style wise, I expect clear and accessible debate, but also intuitive debate. Don't stare at a piece of paper the entire time and try to expand on arguments in clever and intuitive ways. Content wise, make sure you have context for everything you are saying, characterizations make a break a debate. The more specific your arguments, the better, especially when it comes to debates on principles. I come from an LD background, so evaluating principle arguments will be treated like a philosophical debate, and try to keep it as specific as possible, especially if you choose a principle that follows norms from another country. Clear cut examples are a must, and if you have a good one I want to see it in the 1, or as early on in the debate as you possibly can. A good example extended and weighed throughout the debate is priceless. Providing whys is an always, whether it's for an actor on a motion, or a warrant for an argument. Strategy wise, POI's play into your score (1-2 per please). The team should be consistent down the bench in terms of their path to winning the round and be clear about where the most clash is in the round.
The 1's are by far the most important speech in the round. A well developed, polished 1 with clear examples and intuitive argumentation that doesn't rattle off of a paper to me will set your team up for success in the round, and can help you gain footing in the debate very, very quickly. Debate is always comparative: don't prove to me your world is good, prove to me your world is better for the actors in question than the opposing world.
PF
Debate like devesh kodani or ishan dubey or leon huang and you'll be fine. Things aren't sticky please extend. Don't be annoying in the grand cross. Be funny. There is no inbetween. Evidence is good. I'm just too tired to finish this paradigm right now so check this later. Overall do your thing i don't have expectations i'll vote for the person who extends better and weighs better ig
Parli
Just debate like you know how and I will vote based on the flow. Technically parli is a mash of all other debate events so just read all 5 pages.
Policy
debate lay and since it's a long round don't be afraid to get casual/ ask for food and or water if needed.
