I judge mainly based on the following three criteria:

1.) argumentation/debate: bringing up new arguments and addressing other debaters in the chamber

2.) participation: speaking and questioning frequently

3.) speeches: evidence and justification for arguments

1. I am generally predisposed to teams that feel like they are attempting to persuade me, the judge, vs. exclusively their opponent. Many debates get too deeply into the weeds and fail to provide some kind of clear, overarching narrative — similarly, individual arguments are too often under warranted, with no analysis, and without a clear resolution of existing clash. Debate, to me, feels the most valuable and enjoyable when the skills demonstrated seem transferable / relevant to real-life argumentation and discourse — this means accurately tagged arguments that are developed throughout the round and rebuttals that show clear engagement with the content of opponent’s arguments. I prefer summaries that are not pseudo-rebuttals and that clearly explicate the narrative of the team while also providing offensively-minded voters and substantive weighing.

2. Evidence / in-round ethics are both extremely important to me. If at any point it becomes clear that a team is mis-representing, mis-labeling or otherwise abusing evidence, there will be a severe reduction in speaker points. I am also open to dropping the team if it seems like it’s given them an unfair competitive advantage. Because of all this, I am generally against paraphrasing unless the paraphrased content absolutely adheres to the content of the original source.

3. In-round civility is extremely important to me. Teams that are overly aggressive in crossfire, steal prep, go well over on time, or take forever when pulling up evidence will have reduced speaker points. Teams that cross over from rudeness into racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc… will be dropped (this includes arguments that contain racist, sexist, etc...warranting)

4. I understand the necessity for speed and heavily truncated argumentation in some rounds but generally have an overwhelming preference for a conversational pace and clear analysis. As such, I dislike the use of debate jargon and overuse of debate community patter (“A couple problems here” “This evidence is really, really clear!” “Recognize -”).

5. I will do my best to vote strictly off the flow but even within that paradigm it’s impossible to remain absolutely divorced from some degree of subjective decision-making over the course of a round. Thus, as with any judge, whether explicitly stated or not, I’m going to be heavily predisposed to the arguments that make coherent sense to me, starting from the constructive. Too many rebuttals and cases feel like ransom notes in which two or three words from thousands of evidence sources have been copy and pasted together to form something borderline incoherent. To put it another way — I’m not against surprising or novel argumentation but if something seems fake, it’ll feel weaker to me in a round. That being said, I want to limit judge intervention as much as possible and will do everything possible to not incorporate things external to what’s been argued in the round.

The best debates I’ve seen always seem to leave both debaters feeling like they’ve had fun. I’m confident that fulfilling these five preferences will lead to a strong round more often than not. Thank you!

Addition: I’m open to Ks and other kinds of experimental debate. I haven’t had a lot of experience judging them and the ones I’ve seen have generally been deeply unconvincing but I’m not against them at all

Eagan High School, Public Forum Coach (2018-Present), National Debate Forum (2016-2019), Theodore Roosevelt High School, Public Forum Coach (2014-2018)
She/Her Pronouns
Also technically my name is now Mollie Clark Ahsan but it's a pain to change on tabroom :)
Always add me to your email chain - mollie.clark.mc@gmail.com

Flowing
I consider myself a flow judge HOWEVER the narrative of your advocacy is hugely important. If you are organized, clean, clear and extending good argumentation well, you will do well. One thing that I find particularly valuable is having a strong and clear advocacy and a narrative on the flow. This narrative will help you shape responses and create a comparative world that will let you break down and weigh the round in the Final Focus. I really dislike blippy arguments so try to condense the round (kick out of stuff you don't go for) and make sure you use your time efficiently.

Extensions
Good and clean warrant and impact extensions are what will most likely win you the round. Extensions are the backbones of debate, a high-level debater should be able to allocate time and extend their offense and defense effectively. Defense is NOT sticky— defense that is unextended is dropped. Similarly, offense (including your link chain and impact) that is unextended is dropped.

Evidence
Ethical use and cutting of evidence is incredibly important to me, while debate may be viewed as a game it takes place in the real world with real implications. It matters that we accurately represent what's happening in the world around us. Please follow all pertinent tournament rules and regulations - violations are grounds for a low-point-win or a loss. Rules for NSDA tournaments can be found at https://www.speechanddebate.org/high-school-unified-manual/.

Speed, Speaking, & Unconventional Issues
- I can flow next to everything in PF but that does not mean that it's always strategically smart. Your priority should be to be clear. Make sure you enunciate so that your opponent can understand you, efficiency and eloquence in later speeches will define your speaks.
- Please be polite and civil and it is everyone’s responsibility to de-escalate the situation as much as possible when it grows too extreme. I really dislike yelling and super-aggressive crossfire in particular. Understand your privileges and use that to respect and empower others.
- Trigger/content warnings are appreciated when relevant.
- Theory and K debate are not my favorite, but I'll hear you out and evaluate it in the round. But talking to folks I'm pretty convinced that I'd enjoy a round with a performance K! So please consider this an invitation (though note that I really only want to see it if you're really passionate about it and truly believe in it).
- If push comes to shove I'm technically tech>truth with the caveat that I believe strongly that debate has real-world implications. So I reserve some discretion to deal with arguments that are outrageous or harmful in a more traditional PF way.

Speaker Point Breakdown
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. Eloquent, good analysis, and strong 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.

David Coates

Chicago '05; Minnesota Law '14

For e-mail chains (which you should always use to accelerate evidence sharing): coat0018@umn.edu

2023-24 rounds (as of 4/13): 89

Aff winning percentage: .551

("David" or "Mr. Coates" to you. I'll know you haven't bothered to read my paradigm if you call me "judge," which isn't my name).

I will not vote on disclosure theory. I will consider RVIs on disclosure theory based solely on the fact that you introduced it in the first place.

I will not vote on claims predicated on your opponents' rate of delivery and will probably nuke your speaker points if all you can come up with is "fast debate is bad" in response to faster opponents. Explain why their arguments are wrong, but don't waste my time complaining about how you didn't have enough time to answer bad arguments because...oh, wait, you wasted two minutes of a constructive griping about how you didn't like your opponents' speed.

I will not vote on frivolous "arguments" criticizing your opponent's sartorial choices (think "shoe theory" or "formal clothes theory" or "skirt length," which still comes up sometimes), and I will likely catapult your points into the sun for wasting my time and insulting your opponents with such nonsense.

You will probably receive a lecture if you highlight down your evidence to such an extent that it no longer contains grammatical sentences.

Allegations of ethical violations I determine not to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt will result in an automatic loss with the minimum allowable speaker points for the team introducing them.

Allegations of rule violations not supported by the plain text of a rule will make me seriously consider awarding you a loss with no speaker points.

I will actively intervene against new arguments in the last speech of the round, no matter what the debate format. New arguments in the 2AR are the work of the devil and I will not reward you for saving your best arguments for a speech after which they can't be answered. I will entertain claims that new arguments in the 2AR are automatic voting issues for the negative or that they justify a verbal 3NR. Turnabout is fair play.

I will not entertain claims that your opponents should not be allowed to answer your arguments because of personal circumstances beyond their control. Personally abusive language about, or directed at, your opponents will have me looking for reasons to vote against you.

Someone I know has reminded me of this: I will not evaluate any argument suggesting that I must "evaluate the debate after X speech" unless "X speech" is the 2AR. Where do you get off thinking that you can deprive your opponent of speaking time?

I'm okay with slow-walking you through how my decision process works or how I think you can improve your strategic decision making or get better speaker points, but I've no interest, at this point in my career, in relitigating a round I've already decided you've lost. "What would be a better way to make this argument?" will get me actively trying to help you. "Why didn't you vote on this (vague claim)?" will just make me annoyed.

OVERVIEW

I have been an active coach, primarily of policy debate (though I'm now doing active work only on the LD side), since the 2000-01 season (the year of the privacy topic). Across divisions and events, I generally judge between 100 and 120 rounds a year.

My overall approach to debate is extremely substance dominant. I don't really care what substantive arguments you make as long as you clash with your opponents and fulfill your burdens vis-à-vis the resolution. I will not import my own understanding of argumentative substance to bail you out when you're confronting bad substance--if the content of your opponents' arguments is fundamentally false, they should be especially easy for you to answer without any help from me. (Contrary to what some debaters have mistakenly believed in the past, this does not mean that I want to listen to you run wipeout or spark--I'd actually rather hear you throw down on inherency or defend "the value is justice and the criterion is justice"--but merely that I think that debaters who can't think their way through incredibly stupid arguments are ineffective advocates who don't deserve to win).

My general default (and the box I've consistently checked on paradigm forms) is that of a fairly conventional policymaker. Absent other guidance from the teams involved, I will weigh the substantive advantages and disadvantages of a topical plan against those of the status quo or a competitive counterplan. I'm amenable to alternative evaluative frameworks but generally require these to be developed with more depth and clarity than most telegraphic "role of the ballot" claims usually provide.

THOUGHTS APPLICABLE TO ALL DEBATE FORMATS

That said, I do have certain predispositions and opinions about debate practice that may affect how you choose to execute your preferred strategy:

1. I am skeptical to the point of fairly overt hostility toward most non-resolutional theory claims emanating from either side. Aff-initiated debates about counterplan and kritik theory are usually vague, devoid of clash, and nearly impossible to flow. Neg-initiated "framework" "arguments" usually rest on claims that are either unwarranted or totally implicit. I understand that the affirmative should defend a topical plan, but what I don't understand after "A. Our interpretation is that the aff must run a topical plan; B. Standards" is why the aff's plan isn't topical. My voting on either sort of "argument" has historically been quite rare. It's always better for the neg to run T than "framework," and it's usually better for the aff to use theory claims to justify their own creatively abusive practices ("conditional negative fiat justifies intrinsicness permutations, so here are ten intrinsicness permutations") than to "argue" that they're independent voting issues.

1a. That said, I can be merciless toward negatives who choose to advance contradictory conditional "advocacies" in the 1NC should the affirmative choose to call them out. The modern-day tendency to advance a kritik with a categorical link claim together with one or more counterplans which link to the kritik is not one which meets with my approval. There was a time when deliberately double-turning yourself in the 1NC amounted to an automatic loss, but the re-advent of what my late friend Ross Smith would have characterized as "unlimited, illogical conditionality" has unfortunately put an end to this and caused negative win percentages to swell--not because negatives are doing anything intelligent, but because affirmatives aren't calling them out on it. I'll put it this way--I have awarded someone a 30 for going for "contradictory conditional 'advocacies' are illegitimate" in the 2AR.

2. Offensive arguments should have offensive links and impacts. "The 1AC didn't talk about something we think is important, therefore it doesn't solve the root cause of every problem in the world" wouldn't be considered a reason to vote negative if it were presented on the solvency flow, where it belongs, and I fail to understand why you should get extra credit for wasting time developing your partial case defense with less clarity and specificity than an arch-traditional stock issue debater would have. Generic "state bad" links on a negative state action topic are just as bad as straightforward "links" of omission in this respect.

3. Kritik arguments should NOT depend on my importing special understandings of common terms from your authors, with whose viewpoints I am invariably unfamiliar or in disagreement. For example, the OED defines "problematic" as "presenting a problem or difficulty," so while you may think you're presenting round-winning impact analysis when you say "the affirmative is problematic," all I hear is a non-unique observation about how the aff, like everything else in life, involves difficulties of some kind. I am not hostile to critical debates--some of the best debates I've heard involved K on K violence, as it were--but I don't think it's my job to backfill terms of art for you, and I don't think it's fair to your opponents for me to base my decision in these rounds on my understanding of arguments which have been inadequately explained.

3a. I guess we're doing this now...most of the critical literature with which I'm most familiar involves pretty radical anti-statism. You might start by reading "No Treason" and then proceeding to authors like Hayek, Hazlitt, Mises, and Rothbard. I know these are arguments a lot of my colleagues really don't like, but they're internally consistent, so they have that advantage.

3a(1). Section six of "No Treason," the one with which you should really start, is available at the following link: https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf so get off your cans and read it already. It will greatly help you answer arguments based on, inter alia, "the social contract."

3a(2). If you genuinely think that something at the tournament is making you unsafe, you may talk to me about it and I will see if there is a solution. Far be it from me to try to make you unable to compete.

4. The following solely self-referential "defenses" of your deliberate choice to run an aggressively non-topical affirmative are singularly unpersuasive:

a. "Topicality excludes our aff and that's bad because it excludes our aff." This is not an argument. This is just a definition of "topicality." I won't cross-apply your case and then fill in argumentative gaps for you.

b. "There is no topical version of our aff." This is not an answer. This is a performative concession of the violation.

c. "The topic forces us to defend the state and the state is racist/sexist/imperialist/settler colonial/oppressive toward 'bodies in the debate space.'" I'm quite sure that most of your authors would advocate, at least in the interim, reducing fossil fuel consumption, and debates about how that might occur are really interesting to all of us, or at least to me. (You might take a look at this intriguing article about a moratorium on extraction on federal lands: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-oil-industrys-grip-on-public-lands-and-waters-may-be-slowing-progress-toward-energy-independence/

d. "Killing debate is good." Leaving aside the incredible "intellectual" arrogance of this statement, what are you doing here if you believe this to be true? You could overtly "kill debate" more effectively were you to withhold your "contributions" and depress participation numbers, which would have the added benefit of sparing us from having to listen to you.

e. "This is just a wrong forum argument." And? There is, in fact, a FORUM expressly designed to allow you to subject your audience to one-sided speeches about any topic under the sun you "feel" important without having to worry about either making an argument or engaging with an opponent. Last I checked, that FORUM was called "oratory." Try it next time.

f. "The topic selection process is unfair/disenfranchises 'bodies in the debate space.'" In what universe is it more fair for you to get to impose a debate topic on your opponents without consulting them in advance than for you to abide by the results of a topic selection process to which all students were invited to contribute and in which all students were invited to vote?

g. "Fairness is bad." Don't tempt me to vote against you for no reason to show you why fairness is, in fact, good.

5. Many of you are genuinely bad at organizing your speeches. Fix that problem by keeping the following in mind:

a. Off-case flows should be clearly labeled the first time they're introduced. It's needlessly difficult to keep track of what you're trying to do when you expect me to invent names for your arguments for you. I know that some hipster kid "at" some "online debate institute" taught you that it was "cool" to introduce arguments in the 1N with nothing more than "next off" to confuse your opponents, but remember that you're also confusing your audience when you do that, and I, unlike your opponents, have the power to deduct speaker points for poor organization if "next off--Biden disadvantage" is too hard for you to spit out. I'm serious about this.

b. Transitions between individual arguments should be audible. It's not that difficult to throw a "next" in there and it keeps you from sounding like this: "...wreck their economies and set the stage for an era of international confrontation that would make the Cold War look like Woodstock extinction Mead 92 what if the global economy stagnates...." The latter, because it fails to distinguish between the preceding card and subsequent tag, is impossible to flow, and it's not my job to look at your speech document to impose organization with which you couldn't be bothered.

c. Your arguments should line up with those of your opponents. "Embedded clash" flows extremely poorly for me. I will not automatically pluck warrants out of your four-minute-long scripted kritik overview and then apply them for you, nor will I try to figure out what, exactly, a fragment like "yes, link" followed by a minute of unintelligible, undifferentiated boilerplate is supposed to answer.

6. I don't mind speed as long as it's clear and purposeful:

a. Many of you don't project your voices enough to compensate for the poor acoustics of the rooms where debates often take place. I'll help you out by yelling "clearer" or "louder" at you no more than twice if I can't make out what you're saying, but after that you're on your own.

b. There are only two legitimate reasons for speed: Presenting more arguments and presenting more argumentative development. Fast delivery should not be used as a crutch for inefficiency. If you're using speed merely to "signpost" by repeating vast swaths of your opponents' speeches or to read repetitive cards tagged "more evidence," I reserve the right to consider persuasive delivery in how I assign points, meaning that you will suffer deductions you otherwise would not have had you merely trimmed the fat and maintained your maximum sustainable rate.

7: I have a notoriously low tolerance for profanity and will not hesitate to severely dock your points for language I couldn't justify to the host school's teachers, parents, or administrators, any of whom might actually overhear you. When in doubt, keep it clean. Don't jeopardize the activity's image any further by failing to control your language when you have ample alternative fora for profane forms of self-expression.

8: For crying out loud, it is not too hard to respect your opponents' preferred pronouns (and "they" is always okay in policy debate because it's presumed that your opponents agree about their arguments), but I will start vocally correcting you if you start engaging in behavior I've determined is meant to be offensive in this context. You don't have to do that to gain some sort of perceived competitive advantage and being that intentionally alienating doesn't gain you any friends.

9. I guess that younger judges engage in more paradigmatic speaker point disclosure than I have in the past, so here are my thoughts: Historically, the arithmetic mean of my speaker points any given season has averaged out to about 27.9. I think that you merit a 27 if you've successfully used all of your speech time without committing round-losing tactical errors, and your points can move up from there by making gutsy strategic decisions, reading creative arguments, and using your best public speaking skills. Of course, your points can decline for, inter alia, wasting time, insulting your opponents, or using offensive language. I've "awarded" a loss-15 for a false allegation of an ethics violation and a loss-18 for a constructive full of seriously inappropriate invective. Don't make me go there...tackle the arguments in front of you head-on and without fear or favor and I can at least guarantee you that I'll evaluate the content you've presented fairly.

NOTES FOR LINCOLN-DOUGLAS!

PREF SHORTCUT: stock ≈ policy > K > framework > Tricks > Theory

I have historically spent much more time judging policy than LD and my specific topic knowledge is generally restricted to arguments I've helped my LD debaters prepare. In the context of most contemporary LD topics, which mostly encourage recycling arguments which have been floating around in policy debate for decades, this shouldn't affect you very much. With more traditionally phrased LD resolutions ("A just society ought to value X over Y"), this might direct your strategy more toward straight impact comparison than traditional V/C debating.

Also, my specific preferences about how _substantive_ argumentation should be conducted are far less set in stone than they would be in a policy debate. I've voted for everything from traditional value/criterion ACs to policy-style ACs with plan texts to fairly outright critical approaches...and, ab initio, I'm fine with more or less any substantive attempt by the negative to engage whatever form the AC takes, subject to the warnings about what constitutes a link outlined above. (Not talking about something is not a link). Engage your opponent's advocacy and engage the topic and you should be okay.

N.B.: All of the above comments apply only to _substantive_ argumentation. See the section on "theory" in in the overview above if you want to understand what I think about those "arguments," and square it. If winning that something your opponent said is "abusive" is a major part of your strategy, you're going to have to make some adjustments if you want to win in front of me. I can't guarantee that I'll fully understand the basis for your theory claims, and I tend to find theory responses with any degree of articulation more persuasive than the claim that your opponent should lose because of some arguably questionable practice, especially if whatever your opponent said was otherwise substantively responsive. I also tend to find "self-help checks abuse" responses issue-dispositive more often than not. That is to say, if there is something you could have done to prevent the impact to the alleged "abuse," and you failed to do it, any resulting "time skew," "strat skew," or adverse impact on your education is your own fault, and I don't think you should be rewarded with a ballot for helping to create the very condition you're complaining about.

I have voted on theory "arguments" unrelated to topicality in Lincoln-Douglas debates precisely zero times. Do you really think you're going to be the first to persuade me to pull the trigger?

Addendum: To quote my colleague Anthony Berryhill, with whom I paneled the final round of the Isidore Newman Round Robin: " "Tricks debate" isn't debate. Deliberate attempts to hide arguments, mislead your opponent, be unethical, lie...etc. to screw your opponent will be received very poorly. If you need tricks and lying to win, either "git' good" (as the gamers say) or prefer a different judge." I say: I would rather hear you go all-in on spark or counterintuitive internal link turns than be subjected to grandstanding about how your opponent "dropped" some "tricky" half-sentence theory or burden spike. If you think top-loading these sorts of "tricks" in lieu of properly developing substance in the first constructive is a good idea, you will be sorely disappointed with your speaker points and you will probably receive a helpful refresher on how I absolutely will not tolerate aggressive post-rounding. Everyone's value to life increases when you fill the room with your intelligence instead of filling it with your trickery.

AND SPECIFIC NOTES FOR PUBLIC FORUM

NB: After the latest timing disaster, in which a public forum round which was supposed to take 40 minutes took over two hours and wasted the valuable time of the panel, I am seriously considering imposing penalties on teams who make "off-time" requests for evidence or needless requests for original articles or who can't locate a piece of evidence requested by their opponents during crossfire. This type of behavior--which completely disregards the timing norms found in every other debate format--is going to kill this activity because no member of the "public" who has other places to be is interested in judging an event where this type of temporal elongation of rounds takes place.

NB: I actually don't know what "we outweigh on scope" is supposed to mean. I've had drilled into my head that there are four elements to impact calculus: timeframe, probability, magnitude, and hierarchy of values. I'd rather hear developed magnitude comparison (is it worse to cause a lot of damage to very few people or very little damage to a lot of people? This comes up most often in debates about agricultural subsidies of all things) than to hear offsetting, poorly warranted claims about "scope."

NB: In addition to my reflections about improper citation practices infra, I think that evidence should have proper tags. It's really difficult to flow you, or even to follow the travel of your constructive, when you have a bunch of two-sentence cards bleeding into each other without any transitions other than "Larry '21," "Jones '21," and "Anderson '21." I really would rather hear tag-cite-text than whatever you're doing. Thus: "Further, economic decline causes nuclear war. Mead '92" rather than "Mead '92 furthers...".

That said:

1. You should remember that, notwithstanding its pretensions to being for the "public," this is a debate event. Allowing it to degenerate into talking past each other with dueling oratories past the first pro and first con makes it more like a speech event than I would like, and practically forces me to inject my own thoughts on the merits of substantive arguments into my evaluative process. I can't guarantee that you'll like the results of that, so:

2. Ideally, the second pro/second con/summary stage of the debate will be devoted to engaging in substantive clash (per the activity guidelines, whether on the line-by-line or through introduction of competing principles, which one can envision as being somewhat similar to value clash in a traditional LD round if one wants an analogy) and the final foci will be devoted to resolving the substantive clash.

3. Please review the sections on "theory" in the policy and LD philosophies above. I'm not interested in listening to rule-lawyering about how fast your opponents are/whether or not it's "fair"/whether or not it's "public" for them to phrase an argument a certain way. I'm doubly unenthused about listening to theory "debates" where the team advancing the theory claim doesn't understand the basis for it.* These "debates" are painful enough to listen to in policy and LD, but they're even worse to suffer through in PF because there's less speech time during which to resolve them. Unless there's a written rule prohibiting them (e.g., actually advocating specific plan/counterplan texts), I presume that all arguments are theoretically legitimate, and you will be fighting an uphill battle you won't like trying to persuade me otherwise. You're better off sticking to substance (or, better yet, using your opposition's supposedly dubious stance to justify meting out some "abuse" of your own) than getting into a theoretical "debate" you simply won't have enough time to win, especially given my strong presumption against this style of "argumentation."

*I've heard this misunderstanding multiple times from PF debaters who should have known better: "The resolution isn't justified because some policy in the status quo will solve the 'pro' harms" is not, in fact, a counterplan. It's an inherency argument. There is no rule saying the "con" can't redeploy policy stock issues in an appropriately "public" fashion and I know with absolute metaphysical certitude that many of the initial framers of the public forum rules are big fans of this general school of argumentation.

4. If it's in the final focus, it should have been in the summary. I will patrol the second focus for new arguments. If it's in the summary and you want me to consider it in my decision, you'd better mention it in the final focus. It is definitely not my job to draw lines back to arguments for you. Your defense on the case flow is not "sticky," as some of my PF colleagues put it, as far as I'm concerned.

5. While I pay attention to crossfire, I don't flow it. It's not intended to be a period for initiating arguments, so if you want me to consider something that happened in crossfire in my decision, you have to mention it in your side's first subsequent speech.

6. You should cite authors by name. "Princeton" as an institution, doesn't conduct studies of issues that aren't solely internal Princeton matters, so you sound awful when you attribute your study about Security Council reform to "Princeton." "According to Professor Kuziemko of Princeton" (yes, she's a professor at Princeton who wrote the definitive study of the political economy of Security Council veto power) doesn't take much longer to say than "according to Princeton," and has the considerable advantage of accuracy. Also, I have no idea why you restrict this type of "citation" to Ivy League scholars. I've never heard an "according to Fordham" citation from any of you even though Professor Dayal of Fordham is a recognized expert on this issue, suggesting that you're only doing research you can use to lend nonexistent institutional credibility to your cases. Seriously, start citing evidence properly.

7. You all need to improve your time management skills and stop proliferating dead time if you'd like rounds to end at a civilized hour.

a. The extent to which PF debaters talk over the buzzer is unfortunate. When the speech time stops, that means that you stop speaking. "Finishing [your] sentence" does not mean going 45 seconds over time, which happens a lot. I will not flow anything you say after my timer goes off.

b. You people really need to streamline your "off-time" evidence exchanges. These are getting ridiculous and seem mostly like excuses for stealing prep time. I recently had to sit through a pre-crossfire set of requests for evidence which lasted for seven minutes. This is simply unacceptable. If you have your laptops with you, why not borrow a round-acceleration tactic from your sister formats and e-mail your speech documents to one another? Even doing this immediately after a speech would be much more efficient than the awkward fumbling around in which you usually engage.

c. This means that you should card evidence properly and not force your opponents to dig around a 25-page document for the section you've just summarized during unnecessary dead time. Your sister debate formats have had the "directly quoting sources" thing nailed dead to rights for decades. Why can't you do the same? Minimally, you should be able to produce the sections of articles you're purporting to summarize immediately when asked.

d. You don't need to negotiate who gets to question first in crossfire. I shouldn't have to waste precious seconds listening to you ask your opponents' permission to ask a question. It's simple to understand that the first-speaking team should always ask, and the second-speaking team always answer, the first question...and after that, you may dialogue.

e. If you're going to insist on giving an "off-time road map," it should take you no more than five seconds and be repeated no more than zero times. This is PF...do you seriously believe we can't keep track of TWO flows?

Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

Hello!

I’m Jack (he/him). As a student I competed for Moorhead High School and I have been judging for Moorhead Debate and Speech since 2019. The main thing about my judging is I do not like fluff points. To win the round, a team will need to do more than just flow more points through to the end than their opponent. I heavily favor the strength of arguments over the number of points made or the number of words said, so firing off points without adding real substance will not get you far. I am completely willing to decide rounds based on 1 or 2 points that I believe are the strongest, so it would help to prioritize the opponent's arguments early on. Lastly, I do not take impacts at face value. Even if it goes through with no response you should explain how exactly your argument carries the impact to convince me that it’s stronger than the opps.

As a side note, while I will not directly weigh poor conduct into my decision, keep in mind that you are trying to get me to agree with you, and it's easier to do that when you follow debate conduct expectations.

email: entzi003@umn.edu

Firstly, I learned most about debate from my coach Bryce Piotrowski. His opinions have shaped much of what I believe about debate and his paradigm can be found here.

Currently an assistant coach at Lakeville High School. I competed for them for 4 years and most competed in public forum on the national and local circuit.

Add me to the chain kentandrew957@gmail.com

Update for the Golden Desert Tournament this weekend:

I would encourage the debaters to send full constructive and rebuttal documents because of the biggest waste of time I have found in pf comes from calling for evidence. This makes the round much more efficient and overall a better use of the debate space then waiting for evidence that could have been all sent at once. Moreover, I think that the rounds in which include full documents of shared evidence allows for more clash and more educational debates in general.

Tech> truth if you need to contact me for any accommodations(kentandrew957@gmail.com)

** As long as national circuit tournaments continue to be online I expect that debaters are sending me at MINIMUM their constructives, but if you send all speech docs throughout the round that's completely acceptable too.

I will drop unethical evidence ethics. This is one of my biggest pet peeves are teams that read paraphrased evidence and think it's fine, then they either can't send a card or they will send me a link which I don't want to read. Just read cut evidence please!!

Speed:

I can handle basically anything. If you plan on spreading just don't. However, if this is your only strategy then anything over 250 wpm send me your doc.

Rebuttal:

For second rebuttal please please please front line offensive arguments at least. I would prefer collapsing. Moreover, I would prefer if you do not read an entire offensive overview in your second or first rebuttal that is a contention long because it is not strategic and will make me sad.

Summary and final focus:

They should mirror each other. Anything that is extended from summary is expected to be in final focus. Also, please oh god please weigh in these speeches. PReferably in both of them because it makes my job as the judge much much easier.

Speaker points:

My average will probs for most rounds be 29. I think that speaker points are honestly quite subjective and stupid. However, the more strategic your choices you make throughout the round the higher or lower it will go.

Theory/ Progressive arguments

I don't have that much experience with it at all. If you plan on running something that is not topical you should plan on not doing that.

I will not evaluate trix or any frivolous theory. I.E. I want the violation to actually be legitimate enough for me to actually want to vote off of. This would include disclosure(more info below) and paraphrase would def recommend to check back against abusive evidence ethics.

K's I think are really interesting to listen to, however, my experience with these arguments are very limited and don't have a ton of knowledge. This means that the more philo the arg is, the more likely I'm not going to know what is going on. As long as you explain the argument slowly, I should be fine.

Along with this I would encourage you to to disclose your cases on either the Wiki or email to your opponents. The reason why I enjoy it is because it seems as though the norm of PF is to run wack cases and have the opponents not have blocks to it. I think just overall disclosure makes for better debates and more educational ones.

Miscellaneous:

Have fun. You can wear whatever I literally don't care. I will give you 20's and L for any arguments that are exclusive to anyone in the round or outside of it.

I think that flex prep is pretty groovy, so if everyone is OK with this than lets do it.

Hello, I am a fourth year parent judge with lots of experience on the MN local circuit. Here are the main things I care about. Outside of these, feel free to use your creativity and discretion to sway me towards your arguments.

**IF YOU RUN NUCLEAR WAR ON STUDENT LOAN DEBT I’M NOT VOTING FOR YOU**

• Mind your speed - this is not a speed reading competition. It is hard to keep up with your ideas if all my focus is spent trying to keep up with the words. Moreover, if I don’t understand what you say, it’s hard to give you points!
• Truth over tech. I value well though-out analytics equally as much as empirics.
• Keep it respectful during round. Disrespecting the other team or mean behavior will not be tolerated.
• I take notes throughout the round, including cross. So don’t worry if I’m scribbling away when you are speaking. I’m listening.
• Regardless of the validity or logic of an argument/contention (or lack thereof), I will buy it if the other side does not challenge it.
• I do not buy any theories, Ks, or any sort of technical tricks used in round. I expect you to debate the resolution.

Finally, while impact is obviously important, I am almost never swayed by the prospect of all of us dying in 2030 because of global warming, nor do I expect us all to die of nuclear strike at the drop of a hat. Nuanced arguments are more valuable as they are more real-world.

Good luck, and feel free to ask me for feedback at the end of the round if you want it :)

I have been judging debate in MN regularly since at least 2004. I judge at invitationals, Sections, NatQuals, and State. I started judging LD debate, but as PF has grown in MN, I now judge mostly PF debate. I also started coaching PF in 2017.

When judging debate I want you, the debaters, to prove to me why you should win my ballot. I listen for explanations as to WHY your contention is stronger or your evidence more reliable than the opponents' contention/evidence. Just claiming that your evidence/arguments are better does not win my ballot. In other words, I expect there to be clash and clear reasoning.

I listen carefully to the evidence entered in to the debate to make sure it matches the tag you have given it. If a card is called by the other team, it better have a complete source cite and show the quoted material either highlighted or underlined with the rest of the words there. The team providing the card should be able to do so expeditiously. I expect that author, source, and date will be presented. Author qualifications are very helpful, especially when a team wants to convince me their evidence is stronger than the opponents. The first time the ev is presented, it needs to be the author’s words, in context, and NOT paraphrased. Later paraphrased references in the round, of course, is a different story.

The affirmative summary speech is the last time new arguments should be entered in the debate.

If arguments are dropped in summaries, they are dropped from my flow.

When time expires for a speech, I stop flowing.

I expect that debaters should understand their case and their arguments well enough that they can explain them clearly and concisely. If a debater cannot respond effectively to case questions in Cross Fire, that does not bode well.

I expect debaters to show respect for each other and for the judge. Rude behavior will result in low speaker points.

PF and LD are separate debate events, but I don't think my view as a judge changes much between the two activities. I want to hear the resolution debated. If one side basically avoids the resolution and the other side spends some time answering those arguments PLUS supporting their case on the resolution, I will likely lean towards the side that is more resolutional. In other words, if one side chooses to run something that does not include looking at the pros and cons of the actual resolution, and chooses to ignore the resolution for the majority of the debate, that choice probably won't bode well for that team.

I only give oral critiques and disclose when required to in out-rounds. I promise I will give a thorough RFD on my ballot.

I am a parent judge with five years of experience. I have judged Congressional Debate, Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas, Big Questions, various speech events, and World Schools Debate.

I do not think a fast speed has any place in Debate. Further, if something does not make it onto my flow because of your speaking speed, it is as if you never said it.

I like order and organization - signposting, roadmaps, great rhetoric, and stellar advocacy, which includes clash.

Logic and analysis can only go so far; more often than not, evidence is necessary and should be cited with Last Name and Date (and other information if it will help me weigh the relevance).

Impact. Impact. Impact. Weighing is important. 

I dislike disclosing in rounds. I like time to mill over my flow without the pressure of making a quick decision.

WSD (Nats)

Be polite and respectful, especially with POIs.

I try to follow the WSD judging guidelines. You're a team for a reason; try to be integrated with your roles on your team so that your side is memorable and consistent while rebutting the other side. Don't be three completely separate speakers.

Content - Examples are great where appropriate, but be reasonable and don't oversell or exaggerate - that will hurt you more than just being honest with reasonable examples/models. While I like numbers and stats as evidence,  they should be easy to follow, clearly supportive of the argument(s), and NOT so many that the judge (me) loses track of their meaning and impact. Remember, a reasonable argument presented well with no statistics will win over excessive statistics.

Style - In addition to the usual things associated with style (stance, body language, gestures, fluency of speech, eye contact), I am impressed by a few other points. 

The well-placed pause is underutilized. It can be very dramatic. It can draw attention to an important point. It can evoke emotion. This can be additionally effective if the speaker has a good level of energy and passion. Whereas, a pause made by a slow and monotone speaker will go unnoticed. 

Have fun, smile (force it if you have to!). I want to feel like you want to be there, that this topic is important to you - that your model "brings you joy" -therefore, you merely want to share that joy; enlighten your opponents, don't beat them down. Draw me into your passion and excitement about the topic and in particular your side's argument/model (or passion against the prop's model).

Strategy - To me, responding to opponents, pivoting, yet maintaining your arguments (assuming they are well developed), is a good sign of strong strategy. Remember the standard for reasonableness (for models and burden). You will definitely lose points if you try to argue the "exception should swallow the rule." Of course, time management is also reflective of good strategy. Roadmap/signposts are good, as well as recapping/summary, but DON'T be redundant just to fill time; that will bore me.

POIs - Again, be polite both in raising and addressing POIs. Done well, POI's can help both your style and strategy scores, but please make very clear and concise questions or statements.

Start with the basics -

Stand up!

Look at your judge, not your opponent!

Treat your opponent with respect!

PF: Impacts and weighing!!! Obviously this is pretty standard, if you want to win you need good impacts and you need to weigh them against your opponents. I really appreciate explanation and context, one card which claims to save (insert whatever number) lives is generally not as effective as explaining how the resolution leads to those live being lost (supported with evidence of course). I do my best to only judge based upon what debaters say in round, please identify voter issues and weigh them in speech, don't make me disentangle those at the end.

LD: I first assess the value debate, then I assess which criterion best upholds the winning value. From there I look at which impacts/voter issues apply to the winning criterion and weigh their merit under that criterion. I do my best to base considerations only on what is said by the debaters in round, so make sure that you weigh impacts in your speeches.

Framework - I love the framework debate. In LD framework debate is incredibly important. Direct clash on the criterion or value is best, but even if the framework has been collapsed or agreed to, I need to hear how you are linking into it and outweighing in every speech.

Values: my pet peeve -Why would you include a value in your case if you never say anything about it past constructive? There is plenty of debate to be done on the value level, but it just never seems to happen. If you include a value and it is different from your opponents, argue about it, or concede to theirs and link in, whatever you do don't just forget about it entirely for the rest of the round.

Other Stuff:

Speed - I have never heard a debater on the Minnesota circuit who spoke too fast for me to process. I have heard many debaters who spoke so fast they could no longer enunciate clearly, don't be like them. I will not yell clear or anything like that, if I really can't keep up I will drop my pen.

Progressive stuff - K's, Theory, etc. - I don't know any of this jargon and I generally steer clear of progressive debate. I am happy to vote on anything so long as it makes sense and relates to the debate. If you truly believe in the validity of your K, give it a shot, but make sure to explain it fully and clearly.

Off-time roadmaps: Why? Please don't, just signpost as you speak.

LD judge:

On Speed, your welcome to spread your evidence however, I would prefer you slow the rate of speed for the actual articulation of your argument.

-A participant can likely sway me to their persuasion with strong empirical evidence. While more recent generally is stronger, but depending upon the topic, some evidence/data can be older if tied to a relevant argument.

I prefer qualitative supporting contentions that link to your philosophical framework. I prefer traditional LD.

-I prefer debate rounds that are on the actual resolution...you may note when you feel the opponent is abusive and will be considered...but if your entire argument shifts to become non-topical (aka theory or kritiks)...it will be tough for you to win the round.

PF Judge:

All of the above applies.

My favorite type of PF round is when the competitors argue the pros and cons of the policy proposal imbedded in the resolution.

You can reach on your impacts, but the more practical go further with me in most cases.

Last update: December 2022; a few clarifications, a few additions based on things that have come up recently, removed bullets that were specific to virtual debates (long may they remain unnecessary)

Debate Background and General Info:

I did PF for four years in high school (I graduated in 2014). I consider myself a flow judge, but I will still drop for offensive or inappropriate behavior or rules/ethics violations even if you "win" on the flow. Details on my preferences below, I'm also happy to answer questions before the round.

Details

1. Frontlining: In most rounds you should probably be spending at least a minute on your side of the flow if you are giving the second rebuttal, but I'm willing to be a little more generous in how I flow a "response" given the time constraint (e.g. I would view saying "cross-apply Card XYZ from my response to their C2" without the full level of analysis/impact as a full response, assuming you did actually give a full response to their C2). A good rebuttal that covers the entire flow will be rewarded with higher speaker points.

2. I like to see the round start to condense in Summary, but I understand that in some rounds you need to cover at least part of the flow line-by-line. I leave it up to your strategic discretion how to balance those two approaches; similar to above I will reward you with higher speaker points if you can effectively respond to key points made in the rebuttals but also start to crystallize the round.

3. I like creative arguments, I don't like non-resolutional arguments (and I won't vote for non-topical arguments). If you aren't sure how I would categorize the argument you are planning to run I'm happy to answer questions before the round.

4. If you are giving me "voters" still tell me where you are on the flow.

5. You should be responding to the specific warrants within your opponent's contentions, not just to the taglines.

6. Signpost. Extend arguments fully. Weigh. Impact. Don't be rude.

7. I'll assume CBA if neither side has an alternative framework. Don't introduce a new framework out of nowhere late in the round.

8. I don't flow CX, so you should mention important points in your next speech. I am still paying attention though, so don't lie and say something was said in crossfire that wasn't.

9. I'm really not a fan of offensive overviews in the first rebuttal that don't relate to anything said in the constructives. I'll still flow it, I might even vote on it, but you will probably get lower speaker points if you're doing this.

10. My default speaker point score is 27; I will move up or down from that based on if you impress or disappoint me relative to my expectations for the tournament/pool (i.e. a Novice 29 is not equivalent to a Varsity 29).

11. I don't usually have an issue with speed in PF, so unless you are an outlier you are probably fine. That being said, if your entire speech consists of blippy, one-sentence cards I am probably going to miss some of them if you are going fast.

12. I hate evidence exchanges that take forever. At a minimum you should be able to show them the card immediately because you just read it. I get it might take a minute to pull up the article, but part of your prep should be organizing your evidence in a way that makes it easy to find in round. We shouldn't be sitting around for 5 minutes waiting for you to find something.

13. If you are doing an email chain, I'd like to be on it, BUT I will probably only look at it if there is a question raised in the round as to what a card actually says. I don't view the email chain as a substitute for a clear flow, and I don't want to spend a ton of time reading through your cards if I don't have to.

Personal Pet Peeves: (I won't drop you for doing something on this list. But if you want a 30 these are some things to avoid):

1. I seem to judge a lot of teams that are rolling their eyes or openly scoffing at things their opponents say. Don't do this. Maybe their argument really is bad, but that's my job to decide, not yours. I will dock your speaks if you do this.

2. Spending significant time in all speeches and crossfires on a framework debate and then using an unrelated framework (or no framework at all) to weigh the round in FF.

3. Yelling. I've really never understood why people think this is necessary.

4. Having one mega-contention with a bunch of unrelated subpoints. If your subpoints don't relate to each other they should be separate contentions.

5. Saying "Partner ready?" before you start your speech. If you are stopping prep it's assumed your partner is ready.

6. Talking to or passing notes to your partner during speeches and/or solo crossfires. You have prep time for a reason, you should make sure you are on the same page before you start speaking.

7. Speeches that go over time, especially in Varsity. I will stop flowing once time is up, so trying to squeeze in one more card when you are 10 seconds over isn't going to help you and I will dock speaks for this.

I am a head debate coach at East Ridge High School in Minnesota with 10 years of debate under my belt and 15+ years of speech coaching / judging experience as well. I love both activities, and I love seeing creative / unique approaches to them. I've sent several students to Nationals in both speech and debate categories for the past several years.

In 'real life' I'm an intellectual property attorney. I love good arguments in all types of debate. But I will NOT make logic jumps for you. You need to do the legwork and lay out the argument for me, step by step. I LOVE legal arguments, but most of all I love a good Story. Frame your arguments for me. Make the impacts CLEAR. (e.g. in PF / LD - WEIGH them.) Tell me how and why to write my ballot for you and I probably will!

Voting Values
I vote on topicality in any type of debate that I judge. If your arguments are non-topical, and you get called on it, they will be struck from my flow. Everyone got the same resolution / bills, that's what I want to hear arguments about.

I am NOT a fan of Kritiks - you got the resolution ahead of time. Debate it.

SPEED

THIS IS A COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY. Your goal is to effectively communicate your arguments to me. If you are talking too fast to be intelligible, you are not effectively communicating.

If you make my hand cramp taking notes, I'll be crabby. I am a visual person and my notes are how I will judge the round. If I miss an argument because you were talking at light speed, that's your fault, not mine! :)

Attitude / Aggressiveness

100%, above all, you are human beings and citizens of the world. I expect you to act like it. I HATE rudeness or offensive behavior in any debate format. Be kind, be inclusive. By all means, be aggressive, but don't be rude.

Public Forum: I am a huge framework fan. You have the evidence, frame the story for me. If you give me a framework and explain why, under that framework, your evidence means I vote for you, I will. Don't make me do summersaults to get to a decision. If only one team gives me a framework, that's what I'll use.

Re: Summary / FF - I expect the debate to condense in the summary / final focus - and I expect you to condense the story accordingly. Look for places to cross-apply. I do need arguments to extend through every speech to vote for them - but I do not expect you to reiterate all evidence / analysis. Summarizing and weighing is fine for me.
WEIGH arguments for me. Especially if we're talking apples and oranges - are we comparing money to lives? Is there a Risk-Magnitude question I should be considering?

Re: new arguments in GC/FF - I won't weigh new ARGUMENTS, but I will consider new EVIDENCE / extensions.

Re: Argument / Style - I'm here to weigh your arguments. Style is only important to the extent you are understandable.

I generally don't buy nuclear war arguments. I don't believe any rational actor gets to nuclear war. I'll give you nuclear miscalc or accident, but it's a HIGH burden to convince me two heads of state will launch multiple warheads on purpose.

Lincoln-Douglas: If you give me a V/C pairing, I expect you to tie your arguments back to them. If your arguments don't tie back to your own V/C, I won't understand their purpose. This is a values debate. Justify the value that you choose, and then explain why your points best support your value.

Congress: This is debate. Beautiful speeches, alone, belong in Speech categories. I expect to see that you can speak well, but I am not thrilled to listen to the same argument presented three times. I expect to see clash, I expect to see good Q&A. I love good rebuttal / crystallization speeches.

I DO rank successful POs - without good POs, there is no good Congressional Debate. If you PO well in front of me, you will be ranked well.

World Schools: This actually is my favorite form of debate. I want to see respectful debate, good use of POIs, and organized content. I've judge WSD at Nationals for the last several years and I do adhere to the WSD norms. Please do not give me "regular debate" speed - I want understandable, clear speeches.

**Any mention of nuke war on the student loan topic is an automatic L for me. If both teams bring it up I'll flip a coin and we can end the round early.**

As a student I competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Mountain View High School (Bend, OR). I stayed on to help coach/judge for a year, and now am assisting with Public Forum at Saint Paul Academy and Summit School.

Paradigms of mine:

1. Clarity over speed - economy of language that allows you to be concise while still making your points will go further in my book than reading something as fast as you can.

2. Logic and reasoning - from the very beginning with your case itself, you should be defining and defending the connections (with evidence) between affirming or negating the resolution and the argument you are making. If the links themselves are weak, it matters less to me how significant your impacts are (ie don't drone on about how detrimental (blank) is if you haven't established that your position leads to/worsens/mitigates/prevents that thing).

3. Engage with your opponents' arguments - Name the pieces you both agree on and use shared stances to then dig deeper on areas of clash, trying to persuade the judge why a similar argument works more in your favor than in your opponents. This should mean that the longer the round goes on, speeches feel more and more representative of engagement happening in the round (and less canned or pre-prepared).

4. Use CX strategically! It is of course important to ask for clarification when necessary, but I love to see a strategic set of questions that feels purposeful and can then be referenced later in the round.

5. As in frisbee, the #1 rule of debate should be "spirit of the game" - be respectful of yourselves, each other, your judge, and have fun!

Speed is fine (but must be crystal clear for high speaks), jargon is fine. Whatever you put on the flow I will evaluate but prefer evidence to analytics.

I have judged for 10+years on the local Minnesota circuit and competed in LD before that. My knowledge of specific higher level national circuit strategies is limited as I haven't judged many national circuit rounds but I am confident that I can follow as long as you keep the round clear.

Please add me to any email chains: alsmit6512@gmail.com

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask before the round.

The Blake School (Minneapolis, MN) I am the director of debate where I teach communication and coach Public Forum and World Schools. I also coach the USA Development Team and Team USA in World Schools Debate.

Public Forum

Some aspects that are critical for me

1) Be nice and respectful. Try to not talk over people. Share time in crossfire periods. Words matter, think about what you say about other people. Attack their arguments and not the people you debate.

2) Arguments must be extended in each speech. This idea of "sticky defense" and not answering arguments in the second rebuttal doesn't understand how debate works. A debater can only make strategic choices about their speech if they base it on what was said in the speech previous to them.

3) Read evidence. I don't accept paraphrasing -- this is an oral activity. If you are quoting an authority, then quote the authority. A debater should not have to play "wack a mole" to find the evidence you are using poorly. Read a tag and then quote the card, that allows your opponent to figure out if you are accurately quoting the author or over-claiming the evidence.

4) Have your evidence ready. If an opponent asks for a piece of evidence you should be able to produce it in about 60 seconds. At two minutes or so, I'm going to just say the evidence doesn't count in the round because you can't produce it. If I say the card doesn't count then the card doesn't count in the round. If you say you can't produce the card then you risk losing. That is called fabrication to cite evidence and then not be able to produce it. If I ask for a card after the round and you can't produce it, again you risk losing the round. Good evidence practices are critical if this format is to rely on citing authorities.

5) I tend to be a policymaker. If there is no offense against trying a new policy then I suggest we try the new policy as it can't hurt to try. Offense is important for both sides.

6) Use voting issues format in summary and final focus. Learn that this allows a clear story and weighing. A voting issue format includes links, impacts, and weighing and provides clarity to just "our case/their case". You are still doing the voting issues on "their flow" or "our flow".

7) Lead with labels/arguments and NOT authors. Number your arguments. For example, 1) Turn UBI increases wage negotiation -- Jones in 2019 states "quote"

8) Racist, xenophobic, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other oppressive discourses or examples have no place in debate.

Enjoy the debate and learn from this activity, it is a great one.

I competed in debate for three years in high school (one year of classic and two of PF), and have been coaching PF since 2013 in Minnesota. I have intermittently coached classic, and formally starting spending more time coaching it in 2023.

I value clear argumentation and the development of a strong narrative around the resolution. The strongest debaters have clear claims, warrants, and impacts that relate to a larger idea, and they are able to communicate them through all speeches.

I highly value citations and evidence ethics. I do not like paraphrasing evidence. Evidence read in the round should accurately represent the conclusions of the author.

I don't like speed.

I often find that jargon is used as a short-cut to ideas, but those ideas are never clearly developed, so the arguments get lost in the round. I highly value clear argumentation, which means jargon should be used sparingly. Clear tags will help your arguments more on my flow.

PF: It is necessary to rebuild your case in 2nd rebuttal. Summary speeches are goofy now that they are three minutes. Either line-by-line or voters is fine, but within the line-by-line you should be starting to weigh and show the interaction of ideas in a "big picture" way. If you want me to vote on an issue in final focus, it should also be extended in summary. Extension doesn't mean a name and year only, you must communicate the idea.

I will flow, of course, but the ideas need to be clear for them to mean anything on the flow.

Please no theory or Ks.

Generally speaking, I really appreciate clear analysis, don't like blippiness (fast, short, poorly developed arguments that have limited warranting), and don't like paraphrased evidence. Treat one another with respect and civility. Feel free to ask me any questions if you have them.

Post-Emory thoughts:

Honestly, I think debate is in a relatively good space overall. It's usually this time of year that I find myself pessimistic on a few different tracks, but this year I'm incredibly optimistic. But still, a few thoughts as we're moving into championship season:

1. Concepts of fiat need a revisiting in PF. No one believes it to be real, and the call back for it to be illusory as an answer to offensive arguments is not adequate. The distinguishment between "pre" and "post" fiat is relatively unneeded and undeveloped, most of this is being mistaken for a debate about topicality really. In fact, the pre/post debate is rooted in a weird space that policy resolved or at least moved past in the 90s. If non topical offense is your game, why not explore some wikis of prominent college teams that are making these arguments?
2. I cannot stress this enough, the space of post modern argumentation is confusing for me. I can more easily dissect these arguments when constructives are longer than four minutes, but in PF I especially do not have the ability to ascertain as to what the specific advocacy is or why it's good in a competitive setting. I am an idiot and the most I can really talk about my college metaphysics course is a dumb rhyme about Spinoza and Descartes(literally if you are well read on your subject, this should be ample warning as to what I can work through). That being said, criticisms focused on structures of power or the state specifically I can understand and don't need hand holding. Just not anything to do with the French(French speakers like Fanon do not count).
3. Deep below any feelings I have about specific schools of thought or even behavior in round, I do know that debate as an activity is good. That does not mean I am full force just deciding ballots on ceding the political, but rather I need to hear why alternative methods to approaching the competitive event have distinct advantages. There is a huge gulf between somehow creating a more inclusive space and burning that same space to the ground that no team in PF has even begun to explain how to cross or even conceptually begun to explain why it can be overcome.
4. RVIs != offense on a theory shell. No RVIs being unanswered does not mean the opponent cannot go for turns or a comparative debate on the interp vs the counter interp
5. A competing interpretation does not conceptually create another shell.
6. Teams need to signpost better, I will not read from docs and I truly believe that the practice is making everyone worse at line-by-line debate.

For WKU -

The last policy rounds I was in was around 2015 for context. I do err neg on most theory positions though agent counterplans do phase me. Other than that, the big division when it comes to other arguments I don't really have much of a stance on.

Affs at the end of the day I do believe need to show some semblance of change/beneficial action

Debate is good as a whole

Individual actions I don't think I have jurisdiction to act as judge over.

Who am I?

Assistant Director of Debate, The Blake School MN - 2014 to present

Co-Director, Public Forum Boot Camp(Check our website here) MN - 2021 to present

Assistant Debate Coach, Blaine High School - 2013 to 2014

This year marks my 14th in the activity, which is wild. I end up spending a lot of my time these days thinking not just about how arguments work, but also considering what I want the activity to look like. Personally, I believe that circuit Public Forum is in a transition period much the same that other events have experienced and the position that both judges and coaches play is more important than ever. That being said, I do think both groups need to remember that their years in high school are over now and that their role in the activity, both in and out of round, is as an educator first. If this is anyway controversial to you, I’d kindly ask you to re-examine why you are here.

Yes, this activity is a game, but your behavior and the way in which you participate in it have effects that will outlast your time in it. You should not only treat the people in this activity with the same levels of respect that you would want for yourself, but you should also consider the ways through which you’ve chosen in-round strategies, articulation of those strategies, and how the ways in which you conduct yourself out of round can be thought of as positive or negative. Just because something is easy and might result in competitive success does not make it right.

Prior to the round

Please add my personal email christian.vasquez212@gmail.com and blakedocs@googlegroups.com to the chain. The second one is for organizational purposes and allows me to be able to conduct redos with students and talk about rounds after they happen.

The start time listed on ballots/schedules is when a round should begin, not that everyone should arrive there. I will do my best to arrive prior to that, and I assume competitors will too. Even if I am not there for it, you should feel free to complete the flip and send out an email chain.

The first speaking team should initiate the chain, with the subject line reading some version of “Tournament Name, Round Number - 1st Speaking Team(Aff or Neg) vs 2nd Speaking Team(Aff or neg)” I do not care what you wear(as long as it’s appropriate for school) or if you stand or sit. I have zero qualms about music being played, poetry being read, or non-typical arguments being made.

Non-negotiables

I will be personally timing rounds since plenty of varsity level debaters no longer know how clocks work. There is no grace period, there are no concluding thoughts. When the timer goes off, your speech or question/answer is over. Beyond that, there are a few things I will no longer budge on:

1. You must read from cut cards the first time evidence is introduced into a round. The experiment with paraphrasing in a debate event was an interesting one, but the activity has shown itself to be unable to self-police what is and what is not academically dishonest representations of evidence. Comparisons to the work researchers and professors do in their professional life I think is laughable. Some of the shoddy evidence work I’ve seen be passed off in this activity would have you fired in those contexts, whereas here it will probably get you in late elimination rounds.

2. The inability to produce a piece of evidence when asked for it will end the round immediately. Taking more than thirty seconds to produce the evidence is unacceptable as that shows me you didn’t read from it to begin with.

3. Arguments that are racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. will end the round immediately in an L and as few speaker points as Tab allows me to give out.

4. Questions about what was and wasn’t read in round that are not claims of clipping are signs of a skill issue and won’t hold up rounds. If you want to ask questions outside of cross, run your own prep. A team saying “cut card here” or whatever to mark the docs they’ve sent you is your sign to do so. If you feel personally slighted by the idea that you should flow better and waste less time in the round, please reconsider your approach to preparing for competitions that require you to do so.

5. Defense is not “sticky.” If you want something to count in the round, it needs to be included in your team’s prior speech. The idea that a first speaking team can go “Ah, hah! You forgot about our trap card” in the final focus after not extending it in summary is ridiculous and makes a joke out of the event.

Negotiables

These are not set in stone, and have changed over time. Running contrary to me on these positions isn’t a big issue and I can be persuaded in the context of the round.

Tech vs truth

To me, the activity has weirdly defined what “technical” debate is in a way that I believe undermines the value of the activity. Arguments being true if dropped is only as valid as the original construction of the argument. Am I opposed to big stick impacts? Absolutely not, I think they’re worth engaging in and worth making policy decisions around. But, for example, if you cannot answer questions regarding what is the motivation for conflict, who would originally engage in the escalation ladder, or how the decision to launch a nuclear weapon is conducted, your argument was not valid to begin with. Asking me to close my eyes and just check the box after essentially saying “yadda yadda, nuclear winter” is as ridiculous as doing the opposite after hearing “MAD checks” with no explanation.

Teams I think are being rewarded far too often for reading too many contentions in the constructive that are missing internal links. I am more than just sympathetic to the idea that calling this out amounts to terminal defense at this point. If they haven’t formed a coherent argument to begin with, teams shouldn’t be able to masquerade like they have one.

There isn’t a magical number of contentions that is either good or bad to determine whether this is an issue or not. The benefit of being a faster team is the ability to actually get more full arguments out in the round, but that isn’t an advantage if you’re essentially reading two sentences of a card and calling it good.

Theory

In PF debate only, I default to a position of reasonability. I think the theory debates in this activity, as they’ve been happening, are terribly uninteresting and are mostly binary choices.

Is disclosure good? Yes

Is paraphrasing bad? Yes

Distinctions beyond these I don’t think are particularly valuable. Going for cheapshots on specifics I think is an okay starting position for me to say this is a waste of time and not worth voting for. That being said, I feel like a lot of teams do mis-disclose in PF by just throwing up huge unedited blocks of texts in their open source section. Proper disclosure includes the tags that are in case and at least the first and last three words of a card that you’ve read. To say you open source disclose requires highlighting of the words you have actually read in round.

That being said, answers that amount to whining aren’t great. Teams that have PF theory read against them frequently respond in ways that mostly sound like they’re confused/aghast that someone would question their integrity as debaters and at the end of the day that’s not an argument. Teams should do more to articulate what specific calls to do x y or z actually do for the activity, rather than worrying about what they’re feeling. If your coach requires you to do policy “x” then they should give you reasons to defend policy “x.” If you’re consistently losing to arguments about what norms in the activity should look like, that’s a talk you should have with your coach/program advisor about accepting them or creating better answers.

IVIs

These are hands down the worst thing that PF debate has come up with. If something in round arises to the issue of student safety, then I hope(and maybe this is misplaced) that a judge would intervene prior to a debater saying “do something.” If something is just a dumb argument, or a dumb way to have an argument be developed, then it’s either a theory issue or a competitor needs to get better at making an argument against it.

The idea that these one-off sentences somehow protect students or make the activity more aware of issues is insane. Most things I’ve heard called an IVI are misconstruing what a student has said, are a rules violation that need to be determined by tab, or are just an incomplete argument.

Kritiks

Overall, I’m sympathetic to these arguments made in any event, but I think that the PF version of them so far has left me underwhelmed. I am much better for things like cap, security, fem IR, afro-pess and the like than I am for anything coming from a pomo tradition/understanding. Survival strategies focused on identity issues that require voting one way or the other depending on a student’s identification/orientation I think are bad for debate as a competitive activity.

Kritiks should require some sort of link to either the resolution(since PF doesn’t have plans really), or something the aff has done argumentatively or with their rhetoric. The nonexistence of a link means a team has decided to rant for their speech time, and not included a reason why I should care.

Rejection alternatives are okay(Zizek and others were common when I was in debate for context) but teams reliant on “discourse” and other vague notions should probably strike me. If I do not know what voting for a team does, I am uncomfortable to do so and will actively seek out ways to avoid it.

Debate: Make your contentions obvious, don't spread, and don't be an offensive/abusive idiot. I believe that theory (especially disclosure theory) is counterproductive to the debate community and if you run it you will lose my ballot.

Please send your case to my email so that I can pre-flow the round: sasha.warbritton@ephsspeech.org

Speech: If you are not memorized, I will always rank you below someone who has done the work of memorization. In PA, I am looking for well-structured speeches with a good balance of analysis and evidence. Performance quality matters with tone, hand gestures and overall confidence, and while jokes are fun, they are not necessary to win my round. In Interp, I am looking for well defined characters, clear blocking, and a speaker who is fully immersed in their performance.

Feel free to ask any specific questions you may have before and/or after the round :)

Experience:

I debated PF in high school and was a Policy debater at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I have been judging and coaching debate for a while, and currently coach at St. Paul Academy.

Public Forum Paradigm:

My paradigm isn't anything ground breaking (I mainly like to see debaters have fun and try their best), but here are a few guidelines:

- I love it when teams have a thesis and consistent story that they link back to and articulate throughout the round: what do we get out of a vote for the Aff? For the Neg?

- Speed: I don't care for speed in PF - it typically results in unclear speaking and blippy arguments, which are both bad.

- Links are very important. If you try to gain access to an impact, but lack strong links, it is very hard to vote for you. If you and your opponent have arguments with direct clash, comparing the links/warrants is the best way to come out ahead.

- Both teams will have impacts. If you want me to vote for you, weigh your arguments!!

- Smart analytics can beat cards.

- Jargon is not a substitute for making a complete argument.

- "Off-time road maps" are unnecessary in pf. I should be able to tell what you are talking about during your speech.

- CX: I like cx and think its underutilized in pf! I appreciate when debaters ask good questions and set up the arguments they are going to make, and especially like it when good points made in cx are applied/referenced in speeches.

- Framework: Make sure you address it if it comes up, and make sure you explain it if you are running it. Often times in PF, the proposed framework is actually more of a weighing mechanism and works fine for both teams, so it's okay to agree to it. Other times, framework is used as a cheap way to gain an unwarranted advantage, which should be called out.

- Extension: Complete extension requires warranted explanation of an argument, not just author names.

- Final Focus: Your final focus should basically write my ballot for me - tell me what I am voting on and why. If it doesn't show up in the summary, I am not going to weigh it in the final focus.

- Calling for evidence: First, consider whether whatever you are hoping to gain from calling for a card can be resolved with a good crossx question (i.e. do you really need to call the card?). If you do call a card, know exactly what you are asking for and ask for it right after the speech or at the top of CX so that the partner not participating in CX can pull the ev (i.e. don't waste time/use card requests as a way to steal prep). Lastly - I find it weird when people call for cards and then don't bring it up in their speeches - what was the point? TLDR: Be efficient, ethical, and smart about calling for cards.

In conclusion:

Please make complete, intelligent arguments. Please be respectful. Please remember to have fun!!!

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Policy Paradigm:

Add me to the chain! welbo009@umn.edu

Clarity is important. I tend to do better at flowing slower teams, but only because most super-fast teams are v unclear. I don't want to have to look at the docs to understand what's going on. I won't say "clear" - if I'm not flowing, its a pretty good indicator that I can't understand you.

Ev quality and highlighting are important (I will check specific ev if I think it is important to the round or if you tell me to, but ev comparison should be done by debaters in round - I want to avoid judge intervention).

Impact calc is important. I do not think you have to have an extinction impact to win the round, but answer them if you are going for something else.

I'm open to pretty much any type argument, but I don't like when arguments are presented in such a way that only a subject matter expert/someone deep in the lit can understand it.

Smart analytics can beat cards.

In conclusion:

Please make complete, intelligent arguments. Please be respectful. Please remember to have fun!!!

Experience

One year of policy, three years of public forum as a debater. This will be my eighth year as a judge, mainly for public forum.

Definitions/Framework

Don't take too long here outside of your case, unless the resolution deems it necessary. For a straightforward resolution, a framework will not have a significant impact on how I judge a round. I'll listen, but it is very rare that the framework will win you the round by itself. Same with definitions. Unless the resolution is vague and definitions are required, they won't have much effect on the round.

Argumentation

Case Speakers - Not much to say about a pre-written speech except to use all of your time and read through your speech enough times that my round doesn't sound like the first time you are seeing the case.

Rebuttal - First, don't restate your case. Your partner just read it, I don't need to hear it again. Second, make sure to signpost. I can usually follow where your arguments should go, but the more I'm focusing on where to flow your point, the less I'm focusing on the actual point.

Crossfire - Similar to the framework, a round usually isn't won or lost in crossfire. I typically use this time to take a break from flowing and begin to process the various points that have been made in the round. Questions posed by debaters can help clarify points, but don't often turn things around too much. However, if you do discover something big that could change the course of the round, make sure to follow it up in your next speeches. As I rarely flow crossfire, a significant point could be lost if not expanded upon later. Be polite to one another, don't interrupt your opponents and try to ask more in depth questions than "What was your first point?".

Summary/Final Focus - Start to condense the round into the main points that you think will be the most important. I will flow either way, but if one team starts to focus on the main voters while the other just gives a second rebuttal speech, weighing the round can be a little difficult. Be specific in your main voters. Tell me which points are important, why they are more important than your opponents, and how much weight I should give them.

Delivery

Speed - With my one year of policy and relatively young ears, speed isn't too much of an issue. I can still flow just about anything, but I do recommend that you slow down a hair when reading your points and subpoints. My shorthand does get shorter the faster you go, so the likelihood that I can't read my flow or miss a key factor of your point goes up as speed increases. Similarly, don't attempt speed just to throw more arguments at the wall to see what sticks. I prefer good points versus a deluge that allows you to say "my opponent didn't respond to ___" at the end of the round.

Additional Notes

Public Forum is not Policy. - I don't want to hear K's or DA's, and depending on the resolution, teams need to be very careful that the case they are presenting does not fall into the realm of plan/counterplan. The only holdover I will take from policy is topicality. If a case very blatantly does not comply with the resolution, I will hear the argument and weigh it accordingly. However, be warned. If it is not obviously outside of the confines of the resolution and you are trying to pull one over on me for a quick win, it implies that you do not have enough legitimate arguments to defeat their case.

Be Professional - This just kind of applies in general. I have yet to personally decide a round based on a debater's attitude or how they treated their opponents, and as long as both sides exude proper decorum, I hope I won't have to.

Timer - For a speech, when the timer goes off, I will listen to the end of a sentence, but will stop listening and will not flow whatever comes next. During crossfire, if the timer goes off during a question, I will allow the opponent to answer the question, but there will be no follow-up and crossfire is over as soon as the answer has concluded.

Roadmaps - I'm fine with roadmaps if they are necessary. But if your roadmap is "I'm going to go down our flow and then down my opponent's flow', no need to make a big deal out of it.

Questions

Feel free to email me at wilsontj@sio.midco.net before or after the round if you have any questions.