Hi! I debated for 7 years, 4 of which I spent competing in public forum on the national circuit. I coach for Notre Dame San Jose in NorCal and coached a private team to its #3 ranking in the US. (I'm also a proud ISD staffer! Let me know if you have any questions. :)

I am flow. Regardless, I believe the best arguments are true arguments. They tend to have real evidence.

General

If you want to win the round, do these things:

1. Be respectful. Be nice to your partner and your opponents.

2. Be consistent. The arguments you talk about in summary MUST BE the arguments you talk about in final focus.

3. Warrant things. Debating without warrants is the equivalent of Monty Python's Argument Clinic. You need to tell me WHY I should believe your response to the other team's case (and vise versa). Basically, just tack on a "because" explanation to all your evidence.

*Warrants on evidence must be in every speech. Yes, that includes summary.

4. Weigh. Tell me why your arguments are the most important. To weigh properly, you MUST COMPARE your point to their point.

5. Signpost. Tell me what argument you are going to talk about before you start talking about it. Numbering your responses and points will help.

6. Clear! Tell the other team if they are talking too fast for you to understand. Loudly say "clear!"

Evidence

I will call for evidence if it is contested or if I am curious. If I discover evidence you lied about, I will evaluate the round as if it didn't exist. Also, I will probably ask for more of your evidence. :)

Asking Questions Post Round

I am happy to explain to you why you won or lost. Ask as many questions as you want, but don't be aggressive.

Pre-flows

Please do not delay the round with your pre-flowing. If you've debated your case before, just tear off the part of your old flow with your case on it and reuse that.

Read this if you talk fast:

*I don't flow spreading.

The round will be more pleasant if you talk slowly. If I'm judging you in the last round of the day, chances are I'm super tired and will not be as effective at flowing super fast talking. But, if you talk quickly, do these things:

1. Have clear diction

2. Do not read a million arguments. I will miss them in my notes and then you will be very sad. Also, the "spray and pray" method usually indicates that you don't have warrants. Warrants take up time, so if you are trying to get through things quickly to overwhelm your opponent, you are likely skipping essential warrants.

3. Don't use speed as a tactic to overwhelm the other team-that's not educational. If you go through an argument too quickly and it's hard to understand, I will have a very low threshold of what counts as a sufficient response.

4. Don't forget warrants. (Hey-wait a sec-that's in the paradigm three times!!! Maybe it's important. :)

Kudos for reading the entire paradigm! Tell me the typos you found so I can fix them. Have a great round!

I am the Director of Speech and Debate at Charlotte Latin School. I coach a full team and have coached all events.

Email Chain: bbutt0817@gmail.com - This is largely for evidence disputes, as I will not flow off the doc.

Currently serve on the Public Forum Topic Wording Committee, and have been since 2018.

----Lincoln Douglas----

1. Judge and Coach mostly Traditional styles.

2. Am ok with speed/spreading but should only be used for depth of coverage really.

3. LARP/Trad/Topical Ks/T > Theory/Tricks/Non-topical Ks

4. The rest is largely similar to PF judging:

----Public Forum-----

- Flow judge, can follow the fastest PF debater but don't use speed unless you have too.**

- I am not a calculator. Your win is still determined by your ability to persuade me on the importance of the arguments you are winning not just the sheer number of arguments you are winning. This is a communication event so do that, with some humor and panache.

- I have a high threshold for theory arguments to be valid in PF. Unless there is in round abuse, I probably won’t vote for a frivolous shell. So I would avoid reading most of the trendy theory arguments in PF.

5 Things to Remember…

1. Sign Post/Road Maps (this does not include “I will be going over my opponent’s case and if time permits I will address our case”)

After constructive speeches, every speech should have organized narratives and each response should either be attacking entire contention level arguments or specific warrants/analysis. Please tell me where to place arguments otherwise they get lost in limbo. If you tell me you are going to do something and then don’t in a speech, I do not like that.

2. Framework

I will evaluate arguments under frameworks that are consistently extended and should be established as early as possible. If there are two frameworks, please decide which I should prefer and why. If neither team provides any, I default evaluate all arguments under a cost/benefit analysis.

3. Extensions

Don’t just extend card authors and tag-lines of arguments, give me the how/why of your warrants and flesh out the importance of why your impacts matter. Summary extensions must be present for Final Focus extension evaluation. Defense extensions to Final Focus ok if you are first speaking team, but you should be discussing the most important issues in every speech which may include early defense extensions.

4. Evidence

Paraphrasing is ok, but you leave your evidence interpretation up to me. Tell me what your evidence says and then explain its role in the round. Make sure to extend evidence in late round speeches.

5. Narrative

Narrow the 2nd half of the round down to the key contention-level impact story or how your strategy presents cohesion and some key answers on your opponents’ contentions/case.

SPEAKER POINT BREAKDOWNS

30: Excellent job, you demonstrate stand-out organizational skills and speaking abilities. Ability to use creative analytical skills and humor to simplify and clarify the round.

29: Very strong ability. Good eloquence, analysis, and organization. A couple minor stumbles or drops.

28: Above average. Good speaking ability. May have made a larger drop or flaw in argumentation but speaking skills compensate. Or, very strong analysis but weaker speaking skills.

27: About average. Ability to function well in the round, however analysis may be lacking. Some errors made.

26: Is struggling to function efficiently within the round. Either lacking speaking skills or analytical skills. May have made a more important error.

25: Having difficulties following the round. May have a hard time filling the time for speeches. Large error.

Below: Extreme difficulty functioning. Very large difficulty filling time or offensive or rude behavior.

***Speaker Points break down borrowed from Mollie Clark.***

Hi, I did Public Forum debate for four years at Chagrin Falls High School in Cleveland Ohio.

*This paradigm is inspired by the iconic Albert Manfredi

Some things I like:

Warrants and lines of logic over evidence that is unwarranted

Weighing, start earlier and weigh alot

Front-lining in Second Rebuttal. You don't have to do this but I think it is a good idea

Narratives

Collapsing ***** 3 min summary does not mean go for more, just COLLAPSE BETTER *****

Some things I don't like:

Miscut Evidence. I am fine with paraphrasing but please make sure its an accurate representation of the evidence (I reserve the right to drop you if it is seriously misrepresented)

Blippy Arguments that are not weighed, warranted, or implicated

Spreading

Theory / Ks unless there is a serious issue or abuse in the topic or the round. You should probably strike me if this is your thing.

Any bigoted argument I will immediately drop you no questions asked.

I was a PF debater for Chagrin Falls High School in Cleveland, OH, for four years.

Things I like:

- Well-warranted, well-explained arguments. Tech and truth are not mutually exclusive. Logical warranting >>>>> a card dump. Cards/evidence give credence to what you're saying, but your argument should make sense without cards, too.

- Narrative & Contextualization. Explain how your argument fits into the broader picture.

- Weighing! When I say "weigh," I do not mean that you have to read a 7-pronged weighing mechanism with a bunch of buzzwords like 'magnitude' and 'scope'. Just tell me why what you're saying is important.

- Collapsing: 3 minute summary does not mean that you now have time to go for everything. In the words of Bob Dolan, "50% fewer arguments, 100% more analysis."

- Being nice

Things I don't like:

- Crazy speed

- Theory, kritiks, tricks, etc. Please don't read disclosure theory to me.

- Card dumps

- Blippy argumentation: The less-warranted your argument, the lower the threshold for responding to it. I will not be persuaded by teams who read 50 turns in rebuttal and then collapse on the ONE turn that their opponents missed.

- Rudeness. If you are disrespectful to your opponents, I will drop you, regardless of the state of the flow.

If you have any questions at all, or if there is any jargon in the above paradigm that you don't understand, please ask for clarification!!

background:

hi! my name is Amelia (she/her) and I am a student at the University of Florida. I competed in PF as 1st speaker for 4 years on the Central Florida circuit with some success placing at nat circuit tournaments and qualifying to CFL nats, NSDA nats, FL states, and TOC. My strongest belief is that debate should be fun, educational, and accessible so try to have a good time and relax (you've got this!)

speaking:

I am fine with speed, but please try to avoid spreading. If you are going to read abnormally fast, be prepared to send a speech doc and verify that it's okay with your opponents first. Speaks typically range from 27-29.5.

general:

-I REALLY like to see actual analysis and warranting. Anyone can be prepped out by their team and just read off cards, it takes a debater to be able to break down evidence and explain the WHY and the nuances behind it. I am a firm believer that "cards don't win rounds, warrants do" so keep that in mind.

-racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, or discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated and I will automatically drop you and give you low speaks.

-I will call for cards if there is debate about misconstruing, so if you are going to paraphrase (which I am fine with) just stay true to the text.

-I flow everything except for cross, so if you would like cross to be acknowledged on the flow, bring it up in your next speech.

what I like to see (not mandatory to win my ballot, just preferences):

-weighing in rebuttal

-narratives that flow from speech to speech

-consistency and communication between partners (summary and ff should go hand in hand)

-frontlining in second rebuttal

-collapsing in summary

-warranting!!

what I am not a huge fan of:

-cardstacking: I am a huge proponent of quality > quantity, so I do not like a bunch of blippy rebuttal arguments stack on top of each other with little to no analysis

-rude spectators: your spectators need to be respectful of your opponents, meaning they are quiet and not disruptive. I will ask them to leave otherwise.

-theory is not my favorite because it was relatively new to PF when I competed and I do not have a large grasp on it. I am fine if you run it, however, just explain it logically and do not assume that I understand what you are talking about.

-try not to get too heated with your opponents. Remember that you will never convince your opponents, instead you are trying to convince your judge. I know things get heated sometimes, which is fine because I understand how passionate you are (I was like that too) but keep your focus on the judge.

my email is ameliapackham1@gmail.com for any email chains or if you would like additional feedback after you see/hear my RFD

Good luck and please feel free to ask questions before round! I will disclose if the tournament allows it and I try to give comprehensive written feedback as well :) Regardless if you win or lose, I hope you will learn something from the round. My strongest growth occurred after my losses, so please take everything with a grain of salt and do not set your worth on the result. Debate is an activity that requires you to put yourself out there and I know the dedication that all of you have put towards this activity is tremendous. You should already feel proud of yourselves for all of the work and time you have put into this activity (I know that I am proud of you!)

TOC:

Evidence and Docs: There was a little confusion about evidence exchange and prep time this morning in the Judges Meeting. PF Tab clarified in an email that page 56/57 PF rules still stand and if Team A calls for Team B's evidence they can get free prep until Team B produces that evidence. When Team A gets that evidence in hand then prep time starts. Please let your judges know they got an email with the clarification. But please just send the evidence ASAP.

Let me stress again... I think it is an intervention to look at speech doc during a speech if you cannot understand the speaker. This incentivizes 2,000 word cases. I will not look at the speech doc until after the speech to read evidence only if it is relevant to a discussion in the round. If I clear you twice it probably means I am not going to be able to effectively flow what you want.

Emails: Please put gabriel.rusk@gmail.com on the email chain as well as fairmontprepdebateteam@gmail.com

Uniqueness: If you are running an argument that is based on some fairly recent dynamic or fluid geopolitical scenario you prob should have UQ updates from this week. Postdates aren't automatic evidence triumphs please still implicate why they matter.

Gabe Rusk

☮️

Background

Debate Experience: TOC Champion PF 2010, 4th at British Parli University National Championships 2014, Oxford Debate Union competitive debater 2015-2016 (won best floor speech), LGBTQIA+ Officer at the Oxford Debate Union.

Wanna come hang with me this summer? Sign up for the Summer Speech & Debate Think Tank at Stanford University.

NSDA PF Topic Committee Member: If you have any ideas, topic areas, or resolutions in mind for next season please send them to my email below.

Coaching Experience: Director of Debate at Fairmont Prep 2018-Current, Senior Instructor and PF Curriculum Director at the Institute for Speech and Debate, La Altamont Lane 2018 TOC, GW 2010-2015. British Parli coach and lecturer for universities including DU, Oxford, and others.

Education: Masters from Oxford University '16 - Dissertation on the history of the First Amendment. Religion and Philosophy BA at DU '14. Other research areas include Buddhism, comparative religion, conlaw, First Amendment law, free speech, freedom of expression, art law, media law, & legal history. AP Macroeconomics Teacher too so don't make econ args up.

2023 Winter Data Update: Importing my Tabroom data I've judged 651 rounds since 2014 with a 53% Pro and 47% Con vote balance. There may be a slight subconscious Aff bias it seems. My guess is that I may subconsciously give more weight to changing the status quo as that's the core motivator of debate but no statistically meaningful issues are present.

Email: gabriel.rusk@gmail.com

Website: I love reading non-fiction, especially features. Check out my free website Rusk Reads for good article recs.

PF Paradigm

Judge Philosophy

I consider myself tech>truth but constantly lament the poor state of evidence ethics, power tagging, clipping, and more. Further, I know stakes can be high in a bubble, bid, or important round but let's still come out of the debate feeling as if it was a positive experience. Life is too short for needless suffering. Please be kind, compassionate, and cordial.

Big Things

• What I want to see: I'm empathetic to major technical errors in my ballots. In a perfect world I vote for the team who does best on tech and secondarily on truth. I tend to resolve clash most easily when you give explicit reasons why either a) your evidence is comparatively better but also when you tell me why b) your warranting is comparatively better. Obviously doing both compounds your chances at winning my ballot. I have recently become more sensitive to poor extensions in the back half. Please have UQ where necessary, links, internal links, and impacts. Weighing introduced earlier the better. Weighing is your means to minimize intervention.

• Weighing Unlike Things: I need to know how to weigh two comparatively unlike things. If you are weighing some economic impact against a non-economic impact like democracy how do I defer to one over the other? Scope, magnitude, probability etc. I strongly prefer impact debates on the probability/reasonability of impacts over their magnitude and scope. Obviously try to frame impacts using all available tools. I am very amicable to non-trad framing of impacts but you need to extend the warrants and evidence.

• Weighing Like Things: Please have warrants and engage comparatively between yourself and your opponent. Obviously methodological and evidentiary comparison is nice too as I mentioned earlier. I love crossfires or speech time where we discuss the warrants behind our cards and why that's another reason to prefer your arg over your opponent.

• Don't be a DocBot: I love that you're prepared and have enumerated overviews, blocks, and frontlines. I love heavy evidence and dense debates with a lot of moving parts. But if it sounds like you're just reading a doc without specific or explicit implications to your opponent's contentions you are not contributing anything meaningful to the round. Tell me why your responses interact. If they are reading an arg about the environment and just read an A2 Environment Non-Unique without explaining why your evidence or warranting is better then this debate will suffer.

• I'm comfortable if you want to take the debate down kritical, theoretical, and/or pre-fiat based roads. I think framework debates be them pre or post fiat are awesome. Voted on many K's before too. Here be dragons. I will say though, over time I've become increasingly tired of opportunistic, poor quality, and unfleshed out theory in PF. But in the coup of the century, I have been converted to the position that disclosure theory and para theory is a viable path to the ballot if you win your interp. I do have questions I am ruminating on after the summer doxxing of judges and debaters whether certain interps of disc are viable and am interested to see how that can be explored in a theory round. I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. See thoughts below on that. All variables being equal I would prefer post-fiat stock topic-specific rounds but in principle remain as tabula rasa as I can on disc and paraphrasing theory.

Little Things

• (New Note for 2024: Speech docs have never intended to serve as an alternative to flowing a speech. They are for exchanging evidence faster and to better scrutinize evidence. Otherwise, you could send a 3000 word case and the speech itself could be as unintelligible as you would like without a harm. As a result there is an infinite regress of words you could send. Thus I will not look at a speech doc during your speech to aid with flowing and will clear you if needed. I will look at docs only when there is evidence comparison, flags, indicts etc but prefer to have it on hand. My speed threshold is very high but please be a bit louder than usual the faster you go. I know there is a trade off with loudness and speed but what can we do).

• What needs to be frontlined in second rebuttal? Turns. Not defense unless you have time. If you want offense in the final focus then extend it through the summary.

• Defense is not sticky between rebuttal and final focus. Aka if defense is not in summary you can't extend it in final focus. I've flipped on this recently. I've found the debate is hurt by the removal of the defense debate in summary and second final focus can extend whatever random defense it wants or whatever random frontlines to defense. This gives the second speaking teams a disproportionate advantage and makes the debate needlessly more messy.

• I will pull cards on two conditions. First, if it becomes a key card in the round and the other team questions the validity of the cut, paraphrasing, or explanation of the card in the round. Second, if the other team never discusses the merits of their opponents card the only time I will ever intervene and call for that evidence is if a reasonable person would know it's facially a lie.

• Calling for your opponent's cards. It should not take more than 1 minute to find case cards. Do preflows before the round. Smh y'all.

• If you spread that's fine. Just be prepared to adjust if I need to clear or provide speech docs to your opponents to allow for accessibility and accommodation.

• My favorite question in cx is: Why? For example, "No I get that's what your evidence says but why?"

• Germs are scary. I don't like to shake hands. It's not you! It's me! [Before covid times this was prophetic].

• I don't like to time because it slows my flow in fast rounds but please flag overtime responses in speechs and raise your phone. Don't interrupt or use loud timers.

Ramblings on Trigger Warning Theory

Let me explain why I am writing this. This isn't because I'm right and you're wrong. I'm not trying to convince you. Nor should you cite this formally in round to win said round. Rather, a lot of you care so much about debate and theory in particular gets pretty personal fairly quickly that I want to explain why my hesitancy isn't personal to you either. I am not opposing theory as someone who is opposed to change in Public Forum.

- First, I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. My grad school research and longstanding work outside of debate has tracked how queer, civil rights advocates, religious minorities, and political dissidents have been extensively censored over time through structural means. The suppression and elimination of critical race theory and BLM from schools and universities is an extension of this. I have found it very difficult to be tabula rasa on this issue. TW/anonymous opt outs are welcome if you so wish to include them, that is your prerogative, but like I said the lack of one is not a debate I can be fair on. Let me be clear. I do not dismiss that "triggers" are real. I do not deny your lived experience on face nor claim all of you are, or even a a significant number of you, are acting in bad faith. This is always about balancing tests. My entire academic research for over 8 years was about how structural oppressors abuse these frameworks of "sin," "harm," "other," to squash dissidents, silence suffragettes, hose civil rights marchers, and imprison queer people because of the "present danger they presented in their conduct or speech." I also understand that some folks in the literature circles claim there is a double bind. You are opting out of trigger warning debates but you aren't letting me opt out of debates I don't want to have either. First, I will never not listen to or engage in this debate. My discouragement above is rooted in my deep fear that I will let you down because I can't be as fair as I would be on another issue. I tell students all the time tabula rasa is a myth. I still think that. It's a goal we strive for to minimize intervention because we will never eliminate it. Second, I welcome teams to still offer tw and will not penalize you for doing so. Third, discussions on SV, intersectionality, and civil rights are always about trade offs. Maybe times will change but historically more oppression, suppression, and suffering has come from the abuse of the your "speech does me harm" principle than it benefits good faith social justice champions who want to create a safe space and a better place. If you want to discuss this empirical question (because dang there are so many sources and this is an appeal to my authority) I would love to chat about it.

Next, let me explain some specific reasons why I am resistant to TW theory in debate using terms we use in the literature. There is a longstanding historical, philosophical, and queer/critical theory concern on gatekeeper shift. If we begin drawing more and more abstract lines in terms of what content causes enough or certain "harm" that power can and will be co-opted and abused by the equally more powerful. Imagine if you had control over what speech was permitted versus your polar opposite actor in values. Now imagine they, via structural means, could begin to control that power for themselves only. In the last 250 years of the US alone I can prove more instances than not where this gatekeeping power was abused by government and powerful actors alike. I am told since this has changed in the last twenty years with societal movements so should we. I don't think we have changed that significantly. Just this year MAUS, a comic about the Holocaust, was banned in a municipality in Jan 22. Toni Morrison was banned from more than a dozen school districts in 2021 alone. PEN, which is a free press and speech org, tracked more than 125 bills, policies, or resolutions alone this year that banned queer, black, feminist, material be them books, films, or even topics in classrooms, libraries, and universities. Even in some of the bills passed and proposed the language being used is under the guise of causing "discomfort." "Sexuality" and discussions of certain civil rights topics is stricken from lesson plans all together under these frameworks. These trends now and then are alarming.

I also understand this could be minimizing the trauma you relive when a specific topic or graphic description is read in round. I again do not deny your experience on face ever. I just cannot comfortably see that framework co-opted and abused to suppress the mechanisms or values of equality and equity. So are you, Gabe, saying because the other actors steal a tool and abuse that tool it shouldn't be used for our shared common goals? Yes, if the powerful abuse that tool and it does more harm to the arc of history as it bends towards justice than I am going to oppose it. This can be a Heckler's Veto, Assassin's Veto, Poisoning The Well, whatever you want to call it. Even in debate I have seen screenshots of actual men discussing how they would always pick the opt out because they don't want to "debate girls on women issues in front of a girl judge." This is of course likely an incredibly small group but I am tired of seeing queer, feminist, or critical race theory based arguments being punted because of common terms or non-graphic descriptions. Those debates can be so enriching to the community and their absence means we are structurally disadvantaged with real world consequences that I think outweigh the impacts usually levied against this arg. I will defend this line for the powerless and will do so until I die.

All of these above claims are neither syllogisms or encyclopedias of events. I am fallible and so are those arguments. Hence let us debate this but just know my thoughts.

Like in my disclaimer on the other theory shell none of these arguments are truisms just my inner and honest thoughts to help you make strategic decisions in the round.