I am a PF parent judge from Stuyvesant High School and a scientist by trade. In general, reading your case quickly is not a problem for me. Although, spreading or failure to articulate will cause me to miss portions of your argument and will not count in my decision.  Please, slow down and emphasize the points that should have the highest weight.  In rebuttal, I expect a specific response to each subpoint of each contention.  In summary you must extend your contentions -- with your evidence -- and give me your weighing mechanism for the round.  It is your job to question your opponent’s evidence.  Explain to me why I should prefer your evidence over theirs.  Being able to quantify arguments and accurately and correctly use statistics will be more persuasive to me than some other judges.  Any evidence that you reference should be readily available.  45 seconds will be given to produce your evidence you’re your opponents ask for it or I will consider it to not exist.   I generally sit back during cross; if you think you have gained something during cross, you or your partner must reiterate it during a subsequent speech.  Write my ballot for in final focus.

LD Debate Judge Paradigm. (Sometimes I judge PF, too.)

Updated for Jan/Feb 2013!

Preferences:

1. TYPES OF ARGS: I will listen to and consider any type of argument, no matter how unorthodox or unusual, so long as it:

a. Respects the format of LD (time limited one-on-one debate related to the bi-monthly topic.)
b. Is not intentionally rude, offensive, or without any easily recognizable redeeming educational/social value*.

If, however, the argument you make is:

a. Trivial, without rigor, or poorly thought through, and dealt with as such by your opponent;
b. Neither topical or LD-theoretical*;
and/or
c. Never justified via warrant/impact/link*...

I am not likely to vote off of it.

*Narratives may fit these categories. Please do not ever read a case that describes graphic crime in front of me. Medical stuff is totally fine. (Review: Domestic violence narrative? bad. Describing MDRTB? fine.)

I like very observant, insightful cases and refutation that presents not just an advocacy, but a carefully constructed world-view. I believe values/standards analysis are important, but I leave it up to the debaters to decide how they wish to handle them. I believe there must be something to which you link and impact back to, however, so that I can sign my ballot one way or the other. I will frequently comment on the quality of arguments made, both in-case and in-round, but I will only vote off material which is actively "in play" in the round. So:

2.STRAT: Establish your position/advocacy. Link. Impact. Weigh extensively. Tell me why I should vote for you. If you do not tell me what to do with a given point "x", I will not vote off it unless there is literally nothing else for me to vote off of. Do not assume that I will auto extend drops, or that I will impact/link/weigh cross applications for you. It's your job to tell me why you win. If something is important to my ballot, please tell me so, and spend time on it.

3. I have never-not-once-ever decided a round on PRESUMPTION, even though I came close once.There's always something better to vote on, even if it's skills. I do try to advance the better debater. 99.6% of the time that's also the winning debater.

4. SPEED is absolutely fine so long as you enunciate card author names. If you're unclear, I will pipe up and tell you so. I use "CLEAR!" as an all-purpose shout of existential angst, though, so it could mean you're stumbling, gasping, too high pitched, or mumbling. If I call clear, you should probably err on the side of repeating a sentence, as I don't/can't shout and flow at the same time. If I tell you you're too high pitched or squeaky, please don't take offense. I took two semesters of graduate speech pathology classes at Columbia. I am as equally annoyed by high pitched female voices as I am annoyed by high pitched male voices. Speaking too loudly at too high a pitch, especially if you're dehydrated, can permanently damage your vocal cords.

5. REGARDING THEORY: I gut check, but I have voted off theory a few times this year, and I am becoming more sympathetic towards well-structured theory. I think our community is slowly settling into a reasonable use of theory following two or three years of really cruddy shells and confusing rounds. The following represents my views on mediocre or bad theory:
98% of the time when people run theory, I find that there is no actual abuse. I dislike people who run theory counter-interps when they easily could have run an "I meet." To me, this constitutes THEORY BAITING. Baiting theory is an ocelot thing to do. Please just win on substance if you can meet the interp! I am sympathetic to "I meet." I am not very sympathetic to ground arguments, unless you explain to me why the only ground left to you is really, really ridiculous. I do think NIBS are for pens, not cases, but I will entertain multiple burdens that equally constrain both debaters. I will gut-check, but if you ask me to gut-check, I will also call cases and read everything super carefully. I am also a super cranky person when I have to read cases before signing a ballot, so invoke my own personal opinion at your own risk. I will accept and evaluate both "drop the debater/RVI" and "drop the argument" debates, but I prefer "drop the argument" and will default to that if you either don't give me a voter or forget to extend it. All that having been said, if you feel you HAVE to run theory against someone or something, go ahead and do it.

On the other hand, I love a good T debate and will happy listen to you guys bat definitions back and forth. Bad T debate is highly discouraged. If you don't know the difference, look up the structure of T shells online.

6. Other thoughts: I might be embroidering ("sewing") during your prep or cx. Ignore this. Busy hands = quiet mind. Try it sometime.

Please don't say, "Aracelis, I've read your paradigm, and you don't like to hear X," during a round. It creeps me out, it probably creeps your opponent out, and it's just... well, creepy.If you want to talk about my paradigm, do it before the round.

I love topic lit. I read large amounts of topic lit to help my team. If you lie about topic lit, I will know, and I'll be unhappy, even if it won't effect my vote. On the other hand, a deep command of topic lit is always impressive, so demonstrating technical mastery + deep understanding is the ideal way to earn yourself higher speaks.

7. Speaks: I don't hand out 30s often. Don't be offended. My typical range is 27.5-29.5. I will go lower for bad behavior. Solid rounds usually earn a 28 or 28.5 tie. Someone who is obviously better can expect a 29. At 29.5 and 30, you're showing me superior time allocation, amazing strategic organization, deep knowledge of the topic, and the sort of transcendent explanation of Truth that causes me to feel like your speech has contributed something to society. You should shoot for that goal, but not be disappointed if you fall short. Annoying, pathological, or just plain old weird vocal/inhalation habits will get you docked speaks unless I can detect that whatever you're doing is wholly involuntary (lisping, r/l/w issues, spasmodic dysphonia, post-infectious laryngitis...) I have a pretty good ear for the difference between voluntary/weird stuff you picked up at camp.

LAST BUT NEVER LEAST,

Please don't be an ocelot. The word "Ocelot" also has limited assonance with a word that describes mean people. In the literal sense, an Ocelot is a small predatory cat. In the metaphorical sense, an Ocelot is what you shouldn't be. Win without being small, predatory, and catty.
And, have fun and make friends. :D

I am currently the Director of Debate at Collegiate School, where I have now coached for three years. Evidently I'm doing something right, because the people at Big Lex awarded me the Michael Bacon Coaching Award this year (2013) Previously, I coached for half a season at Brooklyn Technical High School. I have also previously judged for Bronx High School of Science (but who hasn't?) and as an independently hired judge at various round-robins and tournaments. I taught at a camp for three summers: '04, '05, and '06, and I debated on Long Island/locally in the Northeast for three years: '00-01 to '02-'03. 

Tabroom.com is mostly my fault. Therefore I'm out of the active coaching game, but occasionally will stick myself on a pref sheet as a free strike so I can judge in an emergency.

My history in the activity includes competing in parliamentary debate and extemp, coaching and judging a lot of extemp, PF, LD and some other IEs, policy and congress along the way. I've coached both champs and people who are lucky to win rounds, and respect both. I coached at Milton Academy, Newton South HS and Lexington HS in that order.

All: Racist, ableist, sexist, trans- or homophobic, or other directly exclusionary language and conduct is an auto-loss. Debate the debates, not the debater. I will apply my own standards/judgment, it's the only way I can enforce it.

Policy & LD: I'm not active but do regularly watch debates. I'm OK with your speed but not topic specific jargon. Be slower for tags and author names. If you're losing me I'll say clear a couple times, but eventually will give up flowing and you won't like what happens next. I won't lean on the docs to catch up and have zero shame in saying "I didn't get it so I didn't vote for it." If I don't understand it until the 2N/2AR I consider it new in the 2.

LD: I did a lot of LD in the late 90s until the mid 2000s, then mostly stopped, then started again at Lex and coached them for about eight years. So I'm comfy with both older-school framework debates and the LARP/policy arguments my kids mostly ran.

My threshold on theory tends to be high; dumb theory debates are part of why I stopped coaching LD. I wrote an article that people still card about how theory should be relegated to actual norm creation instead of tactical wins -- though if you card me as an attempt to flatter instead of actually understanding the point, I will probably be cross.

I also dislike debates about out of round conduct or issues. I can't judge based on anything that I did not see, such as disclosure theory, pre-round shenanigans, or "he said last debate that he'd do X and he didn't." I also will take a dim view towards post-rounding that crosses from questions into a 3AR/3NR and will adjust points to reflect that.

Don't tell me that the tab room won't let me do that. I can always do that.

K: I am sympathetic to K debate and its aims, and will frequently vote for it if it makes sense in the round, but Ks get no more gimme wins from me than any other argument. If it doesn't link or I don't get the impact or the alt sounds like we're supposed to stop all the world's troubles by singing campfire songs you'll probably lose.

I take a dim view on the type of K or identity debates that demand disclosure of identity from anyone in the room. I'm part of the LGBTQ spectrum, and when I was competing, I could not disclose that without risk to myself. I therefore flinch reflexively if you seem to demand to know anyone's place on various identity spectrums as the price of winning a debate. A place in debate should not be at the cost of their privacy.

That said, if you put your own identity in the round you therefore risk your identity being debated. Don't try to run a K and then call no tag-backs if someone tries to answer your stuff with your stuff.

Policy: I have less background in your activity than I do in LD. So I know the general outlines fine, as the events have converged, but I'm definitely going to need you to slow down just a titch especially if you're running the type of policy args that haven't crossed as much into LD, like T debates or specific theory/condo stuff. I'm very much not a fan of the politics debate and will have a very low threshold on no-link args, since I tend to believe politics almost never links anyway.

Also see the K section under LD.

PF: I mostly enjoy PF rounds and coached it as my only debate event for about 4 years at Newton South. I don't sneer at it like a lot of coaches from the LD/Policyverse might. However, there are a few things I really dislike that proliferate in PF.

1) Evidence shenanigans between speeches. Have your evidence ready for your opponent to read/review immediately. Your partner can create a doc while you speak, for crying out loud. If you fumble around with it and can't get your act together, you'll see your speaks dropping.

2) Evidence shenanigans during speeches. Look, PF speeches are short. I get it. But ultimately the decisions as to whether you're abusing evidence are mine to make and I will make them. Don't fabricate, make up, or infer things your evidence doesn't say because I will read and check anything that sounds suspicious to me, or your opponents call out. This includes PF Math™: taking numbers out of your ev and combining them in ways the author did not. I read a lot of news so the likelihood I know when you're making it up is rather high.

3) Good God most crossfires, especially the free-for-all at the end, make me want to stab my ears out. Here's where I import prejudices from LD and policy more than anything: cross is about setting up arguments and confirming things, not trying to corner and AHA! your opponents or sneaking in a third contention. Set up arguments, don't make them. If you try to extend something out of cross, that's not going to go well for you. If you are an obnoxious talking-show nitwit, that's REALLY not going to go well for you.

4) If you're playing the game of "Look How Circuit I Can Be Mr Policy/LD Judge!" and your opponent has zero idea of what's going on, I'm not impressed. Debate is engagement, and giving your opponent no chance to engage by design is pretty much an auto-loss in my book. That does not mean you should shy away from creative arguments. It means you must explain them so that everyone in the room can be expected to understand and engage with them as long as they're trying to.