Great job in your presentation.

Cabrerajosue680@gmail.com

Clarity vs. Speed

Understanding of the arguments

Organized

Engaging and persuasive communication

Refutation that is relative to the topic 

Teamwork

Tabula Rasa - within reasonable limits (emphasis on reason and logic)

I approach the debate as a clean slate and expect speakers to persuade me on why their position should be voted on while using the files as support. I am comfortable with fast or slow speakers, along with counterplans and disadvantages. This does not mean I appreciate spreading!

Since I tend to focus on speakers arguing their positions, I place a lot of weight on the cross examination, impacts, dropped arguments, and rebuttals. If you get asked a question, do your best to answer it. I live for a good clash! So take your time to flow each others’ ideas in order to effectively prioritize which topics you will address.

FAQ:

Open or closed CX, it’s your choice.

No, I will not disclose speaker points.

I prefer clarity over speed.

Email: Tienloe@dallasisd.org

Feel free to ask questions before the debate!

Most importantly: have fun and be kind!

*If you are reading this before a debate. Stop. Set up your email chain, include me - mgregg@dallasisd.org. I would also like to sit far away, near an outlet. Thank you for respecting me and my space <3

I am currently the Analytics Coordinator and Director of Debate at the Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet High School in Dallas. I am also a teacher - AP Statistics, AP Seminar, Government, and Debate. Short version: I was deeply involved in high school and college debate (as a competitor and coach) a decade ago. I am now a teacher/administrator and work closely with the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance to create curriculum, files, coach support, and more.

This is too lengthy, but better to overdo I suppose...

Background:

-High School: 3 years at Oak Park River Forest HS (IL) - 2005-2007 (TOC)

-College: 4 years at Northwestern University 2007-2011 (top-ten first round, 2 time NDT elims)

-High School coaching during college: Oak Park River Forest HS (2007-2011)

-High School coaching after college: Glenbrook North HS (IL), Niles North High School (IL) (2012-2013), Stephen F. Austin High School (2013-2014)

-High School coaching as a teacher: The Science and Engineering Magnet High School, 2014-2019, The Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet High School, 2019-present (Dallas Urban Debate Alliance)

-I've taught at the Northwestern Debate Institute, the Jayhawk Debate Institute, and the University of Texas National Institute of Forensics. Too old for that now.

Two general things:

1. I will not read along with you. I would like to be on the email chain for after the debate. Keep this in mind as you make decisions about clarity/speed.

2. I value evidence quality very very much. I will vote on no link.

(3.) If this is UIL state, I do abide by UIL rules regarding speed that interferes with communication. If I think that you're doing that, I'll say slow or something once.

While I have been actively coaching and researching the past eight years, I have not participated much in "national circuit" debate. I attend UIL state and NAUDL nationals with my students, but aside from those debates, I do not typically judge high-speed or high-tech debate. I still think that I can flow and understand advanced debates, but if I'm honest with myself I know if I were your age I would be skeptical of that claim. I will say that I try my best, really enjoy judging debates, and get it right more often than I'm wrong.

My experience has mostly been with traditional policy-making debate, but I also debated critical arguments. I tend to default to deciding whether the status quo is better than the aff or a competitive alternative presented by the negative. Pretty open to what the aff, competition, and alternative mean.

I think most people are looking for insight in how a judge resolves debates, so here's some information on that:

-Topicality: T isn't big in DUDA because we have a disclosure system that basically makes it unnecessary. I don't see many T debates, but I tend to default to competing interpretations and think that the neg needs to have pretty good interpretation evidence. Not really willing to vote for a topic that while limited, is not predictable for the aff. I recommend reading fewer interpretation cards - just read your best ones, quality not quantitiy. In the 2NR, it's really helpful if you stick to the 1AR structure/line by line, I know that can't always be done but ideal.

-Ks: I like them. I find them interesting. Much more interesting if you slow down a little, and definitely interested in how you apply your philosophy/thesis to the affirmative, resolution, and policy-making. I'd advise having an alternative (see above). Winning root cause does not mean you win. Tell me the role of the judge/ballot. I also really like arguments about how the K turns/interacts with the case. Evidence - it's fine to have really long cards, but I appreciate tags that preview what's going on, much more so than rhetorically powerful statements or analogies.

-Plans: I prefer them, but I have voted for affs with no plans many times. If you go for framework, I'd advise reading evidence on how the education offered through policy simulation on this particular topic is useful, and comparatively apply that to the education debate.

Speaker points - I really value partner communication and kindness towards your opponents (like a lot a lot). I don't like to read along with you, and I tend to get grouchy when you don't attempt to flow (if your order is "overview, link debate, impact debate, new sheet, underview", rethink that). Please keep the round moving in terms of tech, use people's names/pronouns, and just generally be an enjoyable person to hang out with for two hours. Always time yourself and each other. Not into hand shakes (pre-COVID) but now I'm just not into being near anyone, but do appreciate using your legal-sized copy paper :)

Misc - Ethics challenges means we stop the debate, so make sure you can support your claim/if I were to investigate it that you would be correct. Card clipping, cross-reading, evidence fabrication/misrepresentation are all reasons you lose (the round, speaker points, my respect). Clearly mark your evidence by saying "Mark the card at" or something like that and physically mark your speech doc. Provide a marked copy to me and the competitors immediately after your speech.

Email chain: mgregg@dallasisd.org

Questions? Ask before the debate. Have fun!

I'm a stock issues judge, unless you give me a reason to switch paradigms. I like to think I'm a blank slate, but then I have to have some basis for making a decision, so I default to the stock issues.

I prefer clarity over spreading.

I am not the biggest fan of K's. However, I am a huge fan of T shells and CP's if done properly

I am currently a Law teacher and debate coach at the Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet in Dallas, Texas. I am a former attorney - I even have experience in the fossil fuel industry! I did not compete in debate in high school or college, but I did compete in Mock Trial and Moot Court in college.

I have judged about 10 rounds on the water topic, and am familiar with most of the big cases like fracking, lead, and agricultural runoff. I have attended coach training and have worked with our head coach to learn debate. I lead our novice and JV program.

In debates, I prefer that you speak at a conversational speed, perhaps a little quicker. I value evidence quality over quantity, so please do not just keep reading evidence without contextualizing it to the arguments in the debate.

I am most familiar with policy-style debate, but I am open to learning new things. I would like to be on the speech doc chain - dopitz@dallasisd.org. If you have any questions before the debate, I am happy to answer them. I value partnership communication and general kindness towards others very highly, please make it a pleasant experience for all :)

Hello, I've been judging policy debate since the Fall of 2020 to the present (Spring of 2024). This is my second year serving as head debate coach, and I also have experience in LD and World Schools Debate.

Previously to being a High School AP World History teacher at the School of the Talented and Gifted at Townview in Dallas, I served as an instructor in both the English and the Latin American Latino Studies Departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I incorporated debate into my courses.

As such, my approach to judging could be described as a synthesis between a policy making judge and a tabula rasa judge. When deciding a round I try to put myself into the shoes of a national legislator who must vote for the best policy offered in the debate, focusing on the AFFs plan and the NEGs ability to clash on the feasibility implementing the AFF or the NEGs ability to present a more preferable counter plan. And I like to adopt the posture of a tabula rasa judge because it is unfair for judge's to vote based on their own knowledge of the issues and/or their own politics.

So, I leave it to the debaters to demonstrate gaps in the opponent's plans, contradictions of values, or to extend each others timelines, minimize each others magnitudes, break link chains, impact calculus etc. As such, your rebuttals are key for giving me a path to voting for your plan, so be sure to flow the debate, and give your most strategic clashes for the most important grounds.

And, for me anyway, whatever you say under your timed speech always already enters the record as grounds for the debate, I do not strike out previously made claims if you happen to lose on those grounds later on in the match.

Also, I really appreciate it when students argue in good faith about the resolution as opposed to when students choose to argue about the rules of policy debate instead. I mean, in a way, it makes sense. Students should not introduce new evidence in rebuttals and if something like that occurs, then I am flexible to hearing your claims. But if the entire hour-and-a-half round is about the technicalities of CX policy debate then I feel like we are wasting our time / avoiding the actual topic.

Final note: debaters must use evidence ethically, quoting with integrity to the source. If your evidence gets called into question and it is clear that the evidence says the opposite of what you claim, or does not exist, then this may impact the way that particular argument is evaluated. Please CC me into the round's email chain entitled" Tournament name, Round #, school-1 vs school-2" at: nesandoval@dallasisd.org

I debated at Colleyville Heritage from 1997-2001, and at Dartmouth from 2001-2005.

A few rules:

1. Be Clear - I can't evaluate your positions if I can't understand you. At this stage, clarity is more important than speed.

2. Be Nice - Do not engage in anything approaching overly aggressive or disrespectful behavior. A failure to do will lose you the round.

3. Be Good - I am generally very open minded about most arguments, just explain them and why the arguments you're winning means you win the round.

Kiran

Sita Yerramsetti (sitamly@gmail.com)

The Kinkaid School '16

Harvard College '20

I debated for four years in high school at Kinkaid as both a 2A and a 2N, qualifying to the TOC twice. In high school, I generally read center-left affs (affs with plan texts and structural violence impacts) but also read some big-stick policy affs and critical affs; I went for a wide range of NEG arguments, from topicality to psychoanalysis kritiks to elections disads.

What you should know about how I think about debate:

1. I'm not very familiar with the water topic, which means that you should be extra thorough in your explanations of topic-specific arguments. Do not assume that I know what obscure acronyms stand for - even if you've been using them since camp - or what community consensus is about certain issues (topicality interpretations, etc.).

2. Argumentatively, you should feel free to do what you want, but I am candidly not the best judge for pomo-type kritiks on either the AFF or the NEG - doesn't mean you can't read them, but you will have to put some extra effort into explaining all of your buzzwords and how they relate to the aff and/or the topic.

3. Debates in high school are often won and lost in the framing of the 2NR/2AR. The best debaters can isolate the nexus question of a debate and focus their last speeches on controlling it. "Even if" statements are your best friend: rarely are you winning EVERY part of the debate, and addressing potential weaknesses makes you look smart and makes your strategy stronger.

4. Tech > truth (except for morally reprehensible arguments, which will always lose), but I rarely consider arguments in isolation. If one team points out a technical concession but the other team is controlling the meta-issue of the debate that clearly deals with the dropped argument, the argument wasn't actually dropped. However, you still need to flow and, in some way, answer all relevant arguments, regardless of your style of debate (many of the best K debaters I know are very technically proficient even if they're not flow-centric).

5. Lots of things, including framing and strategic thinking, affect speaker points, but presentation-wise, the following things are the most important:

A) Clarity - Don't try to go too fast; speed < clarity in all instances. I will say "clear" twice if I can't understand you but then will probably just put my pen down and stop flowing. Look up once in a while to make sure I'm understanding you and also see my reactions to your arguments.

B) Cross-x - Treat it like a speech by preparing meaningful questions in advance and approaching it with a strategy. Using cross-x to generate arguments and understandings you can refer to in your speeches will make your speeches more efficient and get you higher speaker points.

C) "Flowability" - Make your speeches as easy for me to flow as possible. Slow down on long blocks of analytics (especially for T and theory) and important parts of the debate you want to make sure I flag; give me pen time between different pieces of paper (I don't flow on my computer); use vocal inflection to indicate when you're moving on from an issue or when you're making a big thesis claim; avoid jumping around the flow.

6. Having great evidence is basically useless if you can't explain it well. In a lot of cases, I'll only read cards to verify claims made by debaters or settle disputes of interpretation, so don't assume I'll fill in your authors' sick warrants for you after the debate based on your tagline extensions. Especially in debates where I will have to read lots of cards (politics, etc.), you would really benefit from doing nuanced evidence comparison.

7. I'm really not a fan of long overviews (obviously, there are exceptions, like kritiks for which you need to explain a lot of complicated terms). If you find yourself saying "that was in the overview" repeatedly or saying "moving on to the line-by-line" after three minutes have elapsed, that's not good. Debates are generally better organized if the content of overviews is simply placed in relevant places on the line-by-line.

8. Don't steal prep, clip cards, be shady with disclosure, or be mean to your partner or your opponents; also, of course, remember to have fun!

If you have any questions, just ask me before the round. Good luck!

The debaters who presented their ideas in a more logical and convincing way play a critical role in determining which team is going to win.