I competed in team policy debate in high school and have prior experience judging team policy debate.

I judge based on which arguments are best presented and supported, both with sound reasoning and supportive evidence. Main arguments must be brought up early in the debate round so both sides have sufficient time to address them. I consider dropped arguments to be conceded arguments. You don't have to win every argument to win the round. Focus on the arguments you think are sufficient for winning the round.

Be confident, pursuasive, polite, and truthful. Look at the judge as much as possible. ! am sensitive to rudeness and dodging questions.

I will not read any materials or evidence unless I initiate the request.

I'm an independent debate coach in Shenzhen and Huizhou, before that I debated and coached policy in USA at high school and university level. This philosophy is intended for PF tournaments in China and to guide students to do well in general.

Overall, I'm looking for balanced debate performances that emphasize great public speaking, confidence, logical arguments, proficient use of evidence, and persuasive weighing.

In the constructive speech, make sure that the titles and warrants to your contentions are read clearly.

In the rebuttal speech, try to generate offense and don't forget to cross-apply relevant data/warrants from your constructive speech.

In the summary speech, make choices. Don't just summarize the debate. Start with an overview that crystallizes the debate by identifying the key clashes or important issues. Start the weighing process. Why is the clash that you are winning important? Then, move on to the line-by-line. Defend the contentions that you intend to win the debate on by rebutting the opponent's rebuttals. Remember, the final focus is built on the summary speech, so it's worth taking prep time to align with the second speaker's strategy.

In the final focus, crystalize the debate. This would sound something like this: "The benefits of the UMT clearly outweigh the harms because confronting inequality has a far greater impact than a small reduction in business investment; it's also the right thing to do." Then weigh the debate using criteria like timeframe, magnitude, scope, probability, ethics, and turns. Finally, extend some of your key data points or warrants and rebut the most pressing points from your opponent.

In crossfire, have a goal. In the first crossfire, a good goal would be to prove to the judge that a few of the premises of your case are true. e.g. inequality is a serious problem, the exit tax stops capital flight, etc. In the second crossfire, it's a good idea to try to prove that some key elements of the opponent's case are wrong. You can do this by showing a contradiction or disputing facts. In the grand crossfire, it's time to focus on the clashes. Show that you're winning them and which one is most important. In terms of style, I prefer that you let each other answer, that you don't ask too long of questions or answer for too long, and that you don't waste too much time asking for evidence. Write questions before cross-fire starts.

Overall, I'll hold debaters accountable for what's on the flow. If you don't extend something, you won't get credit for it. And, when you extend something, I expect a warrant and impact to come with it. Get in the habit of saying 'because', 'for example', and 'this is important because'.

Have fun, and try to have a growth mindset. I'll give you feedback, and I hope that you approach it with an open-mind. That being said, I do believe that "pull beats push". In other words, you know what you want feedback on and you shouldn't be afraid to ask. Consider asking questions like: "How could I have persuaded you that x = y?" or "Why didn't you find x point important to your decision?". General questions like "How can I improve?" are less effective than specific questions about the debate or your performance.

If you have any further questions that the ballot or post-round discussion didn't answer, feel free to contact me on

WeChat: m123farmer

I am a "Tabla Rasa," or blank slate, with little to no knowledge of your groups' ideas or issues surrounding your debate. I have emptied my cup of knowledge with you and your team being responsible to filling it with new ideas that can and will be shape my world. As far as I am concerned, there is not truth, no knowledge and it will be up to you to enlightened me to understand the world you are trying to shape.

I will be looking at arguments from both perspectives and consider the points of views, with the team that has the strongest well-supported statements, and defense, to the their ideas receiving my vote.

I will judge how well you are able to convince me with your stance and able to provide evidence that strongly supports your beliefs'. Statements and ideas that have weak support or base will easily crumble, so stay strong and true to what you believe and remember to have considered the opposing team ideas without showing support to their ideals (discrediting them).

Showing your effectiveness to synthesize information through valid and well-supported arguments will gain my vote. You cannot simply have summarized ideas that show limitations to research and/or arguments. Providing an understanding to the topic through detailed explanations and connections of supporting documents/materials will also give you some needed points.

Keep in mind, that the key to this debate is to persuade me to support you. Do not get caught up with ideas that make you want to simply poke your opponents, but rather consider their views and how you can easily discredit them through a persuasive discourse.

Remember to community your ideas with clarity, flow with teammates and keeping strong to your stance! Good Luck teams!!

Edward Luo

2nd Place Team at the 2020 TOC

Speed Preferences: Talking fast is acceptable, but I may not catch everything so I recommend slowing down to emphasize your key points (or use tone and volume/other methods to emphasize).

I like to see debaters weigh during Summary and Final Focus. I will ultimately make my decision based on whichever side successfully convinces me that their impacts have better links and outweigh the other team's impacts.

I will never make arguments for either side (or assume you imply certain meanings), so even if you think that the opponent has said a ridiculous argument that is obviously wrong, you should still make a brief effort to rebut it.

I generally favor teams with strong evidence. If one side logically or anecdotally explains how A leads to B, but the other team provides statistics showing the opposite, I will usually side with the team with the statistics (Unless the first team can prove to me how those statistics do not contradict their claim).

If your opponent gives evidence that seems false, ask for an evidence check or provide evidence that shows the opposite.

Congressional Debate

I care most about the round being educational and safe.

I will score speeches according to their responsiveness to the debate happening in the round. Introducing new arguments in the back half of the debate can be productive but only if it is contextualized within the debate that has come before it. Every speech after the sponsorship should be responsive.

When referring to previous speakers, please do so specifically and respectfully. Vaguely misrepresented claims aren't productive. Show me that you are flowing the round and understand what's happening in the debate.

Demonstrating knowledge of, and participation in, parliamentary procedure is a necessity to get on my ballot. Presiding officers will not receive a default rank if their leadership of the round is subpar but I will evaluate their contributions to the debate with equal weight to those who introduce keystone arguments or central rebuttals. I will assign a score per hour and consider accordingly.

In a presiding officer, I value proficiency and collegiality. Full disclosure, I have not judged an online congress tournament before and I'm not entirely certain of the best practices and standards with setting initial precedence. I will seek guidance on this.

Public Forum Debate

I care most about the round being educational and safe. Ultimately, I'm going to sign my ballot for the team with the least mitigated link chain into the best weighed impact.

I’m fairly tab, so feel free to read anything but be prepared to justify why you’re winning that argument and ultimately why that argument matters in the greater context of the round.

Defense sticks for the first speaking team until it's frontlined; it needs to be extended in FF, though. I don't care what 2nd rebuttal does, only that defense is extended the speech after it's frontlined.

Offense needs to appear in both the summary and the FF for me to evaluate it. Offense is more than just a card tag or author name - warranting is very important.

I don’t want to read evidence and more importantly you don’t want me to read evidence. My interpretation may not match yours and that preempts any muddiness in the round.

Please. Please don’t lie to me in your FF - “unresponded to” is almost never the case and is generally synonymous with “unextended.” Do the work. I won’t do it for you.

Hello， I have been a judge for NSDA China for four years. When I judge, I like to evaluate the debate based on...

My paradigm is simple. I do not want to get bogged down in students telling me how debates should be judged based on a competitor's knowledge of hypertechnical jargon and concepts, or details known only to the most traveled and experienced of Public Forum debaters. There is a reason why Public Forum exists outside of Policy Debate and is why Public Forum has a larger tent and is more open to outsiders without extensive debate experience. A debate where too much time is spent on minute theories, details, or arguments of definitions is not interesting to me. Instead, competitors should focus on practical implications of the topic at hand, weighing the impacts of their contentions versus their opponent's contentions in a logical manner. 

I prefer civil discourse during Crossfire. I discourage students from raising voices, cutting off competitors in the middle of their answer, denying students a chance to answer, or throwing personal jabs or name-calling during CX. Allow your opponent to explain themselves. 

Last, while I am okay with the occasional evidence check (allowing a team to evaluate the value or context of a quote taken from an opponent's piece of evidence), I will not "throw out" an entire case because of a mis-paraphrased or deliberately (or accidentally) misapplied statistic or quote. That said, please merely state that you believe the evidence as applied by your opponent is "misleading," "misrepresented" or "non-circumstantial" and move on. I will consider it in my judgment but will not make my judgement strictly based on this find. Many competitors who are new to debate may not have completely understood the context of the quote, while more experienced debaters are still middle or high schoolers and may not have mastered the usage of accurate paraphrasing and annotation skills as of yet. I do appreciate teams holding the other one accountable for honesty, though, and am for the concept of the evidence check as a useful inquiry tool.